The Top 10 Underseen and Overlooked Movies of 2025. Plus: ‘Is This Thing On?,’ ‘Ella McCay,’ and Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.

Summary

The Big Picture | The Top 10 Underseen and Overlooked Movies of 2025

Hosts: Sean Fennessey (SF), Amanda Dobbins (AD)
Date: December 22, 2025
Episode Theme:
Sean and Amanda review two of the most unusual new releases of 2025—Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On? and James L. Brooks's Ella McKay—before sharing their top five overlooked and underseen movies of the year. They discuss trends in character-driven films, the challenges of mid-budget cinema, and highlight the best forgotten gems of 2025.

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1. Overview of the Episode’s Main Theme

This episode is dedicated to exploring films that have flown under the radar in 2025. Before unveiling their Top 5 overlooked picks, Sean and Amanda evaluate two major new releases by prominent filmmakers: Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On? and James L. Brooks’s Ella McKay. They reflect on how these movies fit into broader trends in Hollywood—particularly the struggle to get adult-oriented, character-driven movies made—and what happens when star power or legacy talent doesn’t necessarily result in top-notch cinema.

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2. Key Discussion Points and Insights

Tom Cruise’s “Digger” Teaser and Festival Speculation ([01:08–04:16])

• Brief chat on the teaser trailer for Digger, Tom Cruise’s new movie with Alejandro G. Iñárritu.
• Amanda nervous about the “comedy” branding:

  "Anytime the movie poster has to have an explanatory blurb that proclaims itself a comedy... that's when you know it's not obvious." – AD (01:38)

• Sean likes the Saul Bass-inspired design; both discuss predicting its festival path: Venice, Cannes, or both.
• Notable ensemble cast and technical crew, including “Chivo” as cinematographer.

Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On? ([04:17–23:44])

Plot and Context:

• Bradley Cooper’s third film, described as “intimate” and a significant pivot from the ambitious Maestro.
• Will Arnett stars as a divorced finance worker discovering stand-up comedy as self-discovery.

Critical Takeaways

• Amanda’s harsh summary:

  "This is loser behavior is what this movie is... all of the characters and the choices made are losers." – AD (06:13)

• They debate the film’s intentions—favor, experiment, or self-indulgence by Cooper?
• Discuss how the “hyper-intimate” filmmaking (extreme closeups, proximity) was more irritating than affecting, especially for Sean who had to watch from the front row.
• Amanda on the lack of stakes:

  "My instinct after having to spend two hours with these people... was just grow up, you know?" – AD (09:30)

• Both agree the script doesn’t deliver enough tension, drama, or insight into modern divorce—divorce as “mundane and annoying and stakesless.”
• Laura Dern’s volleyball subplot: Sean says it’s “very odd”; Amanda jokes Laura Dern “does not read volleyball.”
• The comedy aspect fails—the film’s stand-up scenes aren’t funny enough to sell the premise.

  "It does make sense dramatically... but the other comedians... are kind of funny, but there's not a lot of laughs." – SF (15:09)

• Amanda:

  "If I were a person even going to open mic night at the Comedy Cellar and this is what showed up, I would ask for my money back." (16:12)

• Amanda and Sean single out Will Arnett’s performance as the movie’s highlight.
• Sean wishes Cooper would “go beast mode” on his next project after what he calls a “misstep.”

James L. Brooks’s Ella McKay ([23:46–45:28])

Plot and Set-up:

• James L. Brooks’s first film in 15 years—about a driven young woman (Emma Mackie) who becomes the governor of an unnamed New England state, balancing family and political challenges.
• Stellar supporting cast including Jamie Lee Curtis, Albert Brooks, Woody Harrelson, and Ayo Edebiri.

Critique and Analysis:

• Both hosts, Brooks fans, are deeply disappointed.

  "Absolute disaster." – AD (25:08)

• Sean identifies Brooks’s signature character type—ambitious, stymied women—but says modern execution is disastrous:

  "It feels like people took laughing gas before they started making it... The tone, the joke writing, the performance style, the editing, it's so misshapen all over the place." (29:13)

• Amanda points out the “unspecific sitcom quality” of the dialogue, which “undermines” the political drama.
• The film’s “microstakes”—her key political victory is a local children’s dental initiative called “Tooth Tutors.”

  "They're just screaming tooth tutors in a way that is cutesy and gimmicky. And it is also... not the Pentagon Papers." – AD (30:58)

• Performance and tone issues: wild scene choices, “gas leak cinema,” and miscasting, e.g. Jack Lowden’s American accent.
• The plot resolves with the heroine resigning after a petty scandal and running a legal aid center; much effort over “loser behavior” and bittersweet achievements.
• Amanda’s withering comparison:

  "This reminded me deeply of The Intern. Another late career movie made by a true hero... that is just about how a millennial woman must be personally and professionally humiliated..." (39:45)

• Sean laments the sad state of getting these types of movies made:

  “The only way to make a movie like this successful now is to pretend like it's actually not as bad as it actually is and lift it up with memes.” (44:00)

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3. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On festival positioning for “Digger”:

  • “You don't want to self identify the genre on the poster.” – SF (02:01)

• Amanda on Is This Thing On?:

  • “This is loser behavior is what this movie is. That’s my review.” (06:13)
  • “My instinct to having to spend two hours with these people very close up in their faces… was just grow up, you know.” (09:30)
  • “If I were a person even going to open mic night at the Comedy Cellar and this is what showed up, I would ask for my money back.” (16:12)

• On Ella McKay:

  • “Absolute disaster.” – AD (25:08)
  • “It feels like people took laughing gas before they started making it… The tone, the joke writing, the performance style, the editing, it’s so misshapen all over the place.” – SF (29:13)
  • “They're just screaming tooth tutors… in a way that is like cutesy and gimmicky… not the Pentagon Papers.” – AD (30:58)
  • “This reminded me deeply of The Intern. Another late career movie made by a true hero of mine that is just about how a millennial woman must be personally and professionally humiliated…” – AD (39:45)

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4. Timestamps for Important Segments

| Time | Segment | |----------|------------------------------------------------| | 01:08 | “Digger” teaser review and festival talk | | 04:16 | Is This Thing On? setup & plot | | 06:13 | Amanda’s first reaction: “loser behavior” | | 08:23 | Sean on the film’s style problems | | 09:30 | Amanda: “grow up” reaction to the characters | | 15:09 | Comedy and stand-up scenes critique | | 16:12 | Amanda dissatisfied with the comedy | | 22:09 | “After Sun” and “Under Pressure” musical cue | | 23:44 | Ella McKay intro and James L. Brooks talk | | 25:08 | Amanda: “Absolute disaster” | | 29:13 | Sean on tone and editing | | 30:58 | “Tooth Tutors” and low stakes | | 39:45 | Amanda’s The Intern comparison | | 44:00 | Sean on the state of mid-budget movie making |

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5. Top 10 Underseen & Overlooked Movies of 2025 ([46:39–end])

Sean and Amanda alternate their Top 5 picks each (not ranked jointly). They explain why each film deserves a wider audience, what makes it special, and share the brief plot or stylistic notes.

Amanda’s Picks

1. Jane Austen Wrecked My Life ([68:54])

   • Netflix original, self-aware romantic triangle about a writer’s retreat; “very funny and self-contained.”

2. Megadoc ([65:33])

   • Documentary about the making of Coppola’s Megalopolis; “amazing access… if you’re interested in how films are made, it’s really good.”

3. The Wedding Banquet ([60:25])

   • Andrew Ahn’s gentle remake of the Ang Lee film, with a strong cast (Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone) and a soft-touch portrayal of IVF and fake marriages for citizenship.

4. Ojai ([54:49])

   • Sundance indie about a couple’s tense first weekend away. Amanda loves Molly Gordon’s comic intensity.

5. Eternity ([48:50])

   • High concept rom-com about choosing which dead spouse to spend eternity with; fun performances, especially Callum Turner.

Sean’s Picks

1. Volcano Zadora ([70:46])

   • Intimate, strange buddy film about two men on an ill-fated pact, by independent director Joel Petrykis.

2. The Things You Kill ([67:18])

   • Turkish-Canadian thriller, moody and Lynchian, about grief and revenge with a surreal edge.

3. Influencers ([63:20])

   • Shudder original, slick and stylish thriller about social media, left/right influencer wars, and AI, directed by Curtis David Harder.

4. Urchin ([58:03])

   • Harris Dickinson’s directorial debut, a raw depiction of homelessness and addiction with an unexpected cosmic twist.

5. Unbecoming a Guinea Fowl ([53:21])

   • Zambian family drama from Rungano Nyoni, “funny, unusual, and disorienting,” available on HBO Max.

Honorable Mention:

• The Plague ([47:46]) – Not officially on the list but recommended.

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6. Episode Tone and Closing

Throughout, Sean and Amanda’s tone is casual, irreverent, and deeply film-literate. They don’t hold back criticisms of failed “prestige” projects (Is This Thing On?, Ella McKay), lamenting the current state of adult, character-driven moviemaking and expressing the need to champion lesser-known gems.

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7. Conclusion

The episode serves both as an autopsy for two high-profile misfires and as a lively celebration of overlooked films. If you’re looking for the best movies you might have missed in 2025, Amanda and Sean’s picks offer an eclectic, international, and personal set of viewing recommendations.

Transcript

[A]

I'm Sean Fantasy.

[B]

I'm Amanda Davis and this is the.

[A]

Big picture 8 conversation about some weird and wild movies. Today on the show, we will dig into two of the more strange new releases of 2025. I'm referring to Bradley Cooper's Is this Thing On? And James l. Brooks's Ella McKay, his first new film in 15 years. We'll also shed some light on some smaller films from this year by sharing our top five most underseen and overlooked movies. We're also gonna talk about Tom Cruise's next film, which just got a teaser. We'll do it all next.

[B]

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

[A]

Okay. It's Digger time. Tom Cruise's Digger. Yeah, Digger is the character that he's playing in the new film by Alejandro Gonzalez inarritu, coming out October 2, 2026 from Warner Brothers. Yes, we saw a teaser trailer of Tom shot from behind dancing to a Gorillaz song. Oh, green world.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What'd you think?

[B]

Oh, brother.

[A]

You're nervous.

[B]

Yeah, of course I am.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I mean, this looks like Tropic Thunder reheated, Like, with Inaritu thinking that he's funny. It's a bad sign. Anytime the movie poster has to have an explanatory blurb that proclaims itself a comedy because that's when you know it's not obvious.

[A]

Yeah, that's a really good note. You don't want to self identify the genre on the poster. So the poster of Digger does in fact say a comedy of catastrophic proportions.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I really like the poster. Very clearly, Saul Bass inspired poster looks like Anatomy of a Murder or Billy Wilder's 1, 2, 3. That orange palette is really, really nice. I thought it was fine.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I thought it was fine. I'm not like. No, yeah. It's Tom Cruise finally breaking free of the franchise Shackles after several years of not making any movies that are outside of that space. So I'm into that Inari too, you know.

[B]

Yeah. This has the. The release date has Venice written all over it.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Wow. Dang. Just.

[B]

Just floating that for you.

[A]

For me?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What about for you?

[B]

Well, I'm just. I'm just circling it.

[A]

You want me to go to Venice this year? Next year?

[B]

Last year you talked about it, or I guess this year.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You discussed.

[A]

Yeah, you know what? It all shook out. I didn't think the Telluride slate was that great. And then I look back on the Venice slate, and I'm like, yeah, that's true. What did I miss?

[B]

The answer is that we should go to Cannes.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, you're right about that.

[B]

I mean, maybe this would be Cannes possible, and then they could sit on it for a while.

[A]

Certainly possible.

[B]

Okay, we'll see.

[A]

You know, this film also stars Jesse Plemons, Sandra Hooler, Riz Ahmed, Sophie Wilde, Emma d', Arcy, Robert John Burke, Burn Gorman, Michael Stuhlbarg, John Goodman. I got any movie with Bern Gorman, Michael Stuhlbarg, and John Goodman. That's like. It's hard to make a bad movie with those three guys. I'm just putting that out there.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Chivo shot it.

[B]

Listen, there are always a lot of very talented people on both Tom Cruise films and Inaritu films. We'll see.

[A]

Okay, so you're not. You won't watch this film. Just confirming here.

[B]

I will go to any European film festival that shows it.

[A]

You know, this is an interesting slot where this movie is October 2nd. It's actually the A Star Is Born Venom slot. And we're about to talk about the legacy of A Star Is Born and Bradley Cooper here.

[B]

They sure are.

[A]

We're gonna pivot into Is this thing on now? This is the new movie co written and directed by Bradley Cooper, his third feature film after A Star Is Born in Maestro, it stars Will Arnett, Laura Dern, Bradley Cooper, Andra Day, Amy Sedaris, Sean Hayes, Christine Ebersol, and Kieran Hines. The story is thus. After many years together, Alex and Tess have reached an amicable end to their marriage, thus beginning the awkward stage of figuring out how to live separately while raising two boys and maintaining their friendships. Alex discovers a new hobby and in the process, learns more about himself and his relationship. Mm. Bradley Cooper has been a bit of a totem of this show.

[B]

That's true.

[A]

Some might say an icon. Certainly someone we love to talk about.

[B]

That's true. We started really cooking with the show right around the time of A Star Is Born, and both loved that film. And, you know, I think the ringer in general was like, really out on the barricades for A Star Is Born before the other people got it.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And I think we're maybe still waiting for some other people to get it, but I stand by that. And then, you know, Bradley Cooper still acts while directing. He's certainly a presence in the Philadelphia sports world.

[A]

Rocket raccoon.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

The little guy in Dungeons and Dragons. Honor among thieves. Given some good performances.

[B]

Yeah, he's around, he's present. Somebody is always thanking him at an awards show.

[A]

It's true. Multi time Academy Award nominee never won.

[B]

Yes. And so we have been, you know, podcasting along with him, you know, and now here we all are once again.

[A]

So the first question that I want to ask you, I usually ask, what did you think of this movie?

[B]

Right.

[A]

This time I'm gonna ask you, why did Bradley Cooper make this movie? What is this movie?

[B]

This is loser behavior is what this movie is. That's my review is that like this is top to bottom loser behavior, which is different than saying that it's distinctly bad. I don't know if it's totally bad, but I think all of the characters and the choices made are losers. So. And I just. And I don't identify with it in any way and was very irritated by it. I don't. I mean, Bradley Cooper is. If he's divorced, he's not divorced in this way after like a long time, you know, a 20 year marriage and two children.

[A]

And the star, Will Arnett is. Yes, the star Will Arnett is divorced. And you can feel him bringing, I'm sure, some of his personal experience to it. And he's a co writer on the.

[B]

Film as well, I was gonna say.

[A]

And it is in fact based on a person's true life story. A man who worked in finance and who discovered standup comedy. That's the hobby that I was alluding to. And who used standup comedy to kind of figure out his place in the world, which is, you know, a little bit of a groaner. No disrespect to that man's actual life, but the premise itself is a little bit eye rolly.

[B]

Yeah. Again, loser behavior. But the answer to the question, why did Bradley Cooper want to make this? Is that it really just does feel like he's doing a solid for a friend.

[A]

It's possible. Obviously, willarenette and Bradley Cooper are friends. It feels to me like a very conscious, purposeful, kind of like slowdown. After the mania of Maestro, which is a movie that I thought was ultimately successful but very flawed, had really high highs. I still am somewhat conflicted about it because as many people said, it's not really a very good movie about Leonard Bernstein, but it's a really interesting cinematic exploration for him. He's really challenging himself to do some big stuff. This is a huge pullback. This is a hyper, intimate. I don't know, somewhere in that Woody Allen, Paul Mazursky mold of intimate character drama with some funny moments and very sincere, but also dopey at times, but with, like, none of the stick to it. Iveness to make the movie as sour as I think it should be. If it really wants to impact you.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Has a softness on it that I don't think really does it any favors. I think this is a movie that has some good performances, has some interesting ideas that are not totally realized. I absolutely hated the way that this movie looked and felt like the filmmaking style kind of made me sick. And it's weird because I really like Cooper as a director. I think he's got real panache. And I think he's really interested in a kind of classical filmmaking that is exciting. And this is like an experiment that he decided on and had to stick to. Which is hyper intimate. Right on the shoulders or the backs of his actors.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Intense, extreme close ups. You know, I will say I also had to sit in the front row at my screening of this movie. And so that made it even more challenging how close the camera was to everything that was transpiring, whether it's Will Arnett on stage doing a comedy routine or Laura Dern in crisis in her car. The forced intimacy of the movie made it very uncomfortable, but not in the exciting way that I was hoping for.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Just slightly irritating to be watching.

[B]

I completely agree. My instinct to having to spend two hours with these people very close up in their faces as they worked through these problems was just grow up, you know, Like, I. It does want to bring you, like, intensely into what's going on with them, but what's going on with them is pretty, like, mundane and annoying and stakesless and.

[A]

Well, it didn't have to be, but it does turn out to be, you know, like, I don't want to spoil the movie for people who haven't seen it because it's just come out. But, you know, like, when it concludes, you're like, what did we even. What did we learn? That, like, you gotta find something for yourself that makes you happy. Like, no shit. Yeah.

[B]

Seriously. I mean, I was thinking about driving on the way in. Like, we are two children of divorce and we are scholars in the divorce movie genre. I think many of our favorite movies are about. Are either told from the perspective of the child of divorce or they Are written by the. They are told from, I guess, the perspective where they are, at least about one of the parents. But the parents experience a tremendous amount of guilt and often, like, punishment and are really put through the wringer. Forgive me for the pun, for going through this divorce like they've made a mistake. They fucked up. And it's cataclysmic, and it aligns with, I guess, our experience of being kids, of divorce. And also the characters are taking some responsibility. No one's taking any responsibility in this.

[A]

Well, I don't even really know what happened. It's a classic divorce of two people who just kind of fell out of love and had enough fights that they realized they shouldn't be together. There's not a big, dramatic cheating incident that there isn't something that they're trying to show us. Like, I think a more modern version of divorce where it's like, two people who were really in love and kind of drifted and, you know, having children can be very challenging and hard on a relationship. You know, there's something sincere.

[B]

Has a volleyball career that just went.

[A]

Away, but seemingly 20 years ago.

[B]

Sorry. I just saw Jack's face be like, what's going on? Yes.

[A]

Have you seen this film? Yeah, no, I was supposed to. And then we had Clint Bentley come in for Train Dreams, and he was like, what are you doing tonight, sir? And I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go see Is this thing on? He's like, actually, you're gonna come see Train Dreams at the Arrow. And then I never, never got to it.

[B]

That's really nice. I'm better off a better film. Good job, Clint Bentley.

[A]

I don't mean to get too in the weeds about some of this stuff, but Laura Dern's volleyball career, and Laura Dern is like, she in her late 50s.

[B]

Like, she just is also not coded as a volleyball player. Like, I brought Jack into this because his face of total confusion of, like, what is she supposed to be?

[A]

An active volleyball player?

[B]

She's a former. She's a retired.

[A]

She's a. She had a stellar career as a volleyball player, presumably collegiately and maybe even in the Olympics. But, you know, if we're. If we're tracking Laura Dern's life, like, she's got two kids under 10.

[B]

No, no, they're 10.

[A]

They're 10.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

They're 10 year old. I think they turn 11 because we see one of the birthday parties, okay.

[A]

And she's, like, thinking about going back to coaching volleyball, and she's, like, an icon in the space, which of course there is like, first of all, volleyball in general, fantastic sport. I played it all through high school, women's volleyball. Genuinely great spectator sport. It's no disrespect to volleyball. I fucking love volleyball.

[B]

Yeah, it's not.

[A]

But as a plot point in the movie, it's very odd. It's not introduced until an hour in.

[B]

All respect to Laura Dern. Just one of the great American actors. Very cool. And, you know, is a spry 59. I did not bump on the ages of her children at all. And I didn't bump on the age of. I just was like, Laura Dern does not read volleyball. You know, and there is a. To me, she does not read volleyball.

[A]

There's a very famous image that is created in this film of her from behind getting ready to strike a volleyball. What position would you have played if you would you have been a hitter? Would you have been a setter? Would you play back row, play defense? Like, what would you have done?

[B]

So do the setters have to be the tallest?

[A]

No, the hitters are usually the tallest.

[B]

The hitters are the tallest. Yeah, but setters are second. So I would probably be a setter. Right?

[A]

I was a setter.

[B]

I'm like mid, you know, I'm on the taller side for women, but I'm not six feet tall, so.

[A]

Good to know.

[B]

But then I couldn't have done that because, you know, that jams your fingers. And then I need to have soft hands. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

You have to have soft hands.

[B]

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[A]

Now let's talk about the comedy. Part of it is so confusing.

[B]

It seems very confusing.

[A]

The movie attempts to kind of just like turn the car around mid movie and be like, but what about the woman's perspective? And you're like, you didn't really invest me in this at all through the first hour of the movie. The first hour of the movie is really about Will Arnett. Again, I'll say Will Arnett. I think one of the funniest people alive. Joe Bluth, maybe my favorite TV character of the century. Very few actors can make me laugh as hard as he does. Watch him on Conan doing bits about Jason Bateman. Nothing funnier in the world. I really like Will Arnett. I feel something very sincere coming from him in this movie. You can tell he's trying to get through some stuff. There's a weird thing though, where it's a movie about stand up comedy and understandably it's an amateur who has no experience.

[B]

Right. But it's the that thing you do problem.

[A]

That's the thing. The jokes are not funny. He's not that funny in this part. It does make sense dramatically for him to be not that funny or that seasoned. But the other comedians who, some of whom are professional and very successful comedians, are kind of funny, but there's not a lot of laughs. We saw this in a movie 40 years ago. Tom Hanks and Sally Field made Punchline, another dramedy about the world of standup comedy that isn't that funny. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip had the same exact problem where it was like, this is a show that's kind of about snl, but it's not as funny as snl. Do you buy it? This is dangerous stuff, man. This can sink a movie when that stuff doesn't work. And you know, we were talking, we were talking to Chris Ryan and he saw this and he liked the comedy stuff. He liked the standup stuff, which takes place at the Comedy Cellar in New York. I couldn't get into it. I just couldn't get invested in it. I didn't. I was. I'm kind of baffled by the whole movie.

[B]

I sat there thinking, if I were a person even going to open mic night at the Comedy Cellar and this is what showed up. I would ask for my money back. I'm just like the. The comedy seller. 5 bucks 15 was.

[A]

I think the rate used to be 5 bucks when I was in New York.

[B]

Yeah, but still, that's a legendary. That's like a hallowed place. And I'm like, this guy just gets to wander a place.

[A]

It seems so easy for him to just get up there.

[B]

Like, how did that happen?

[A]

There is also a thing in the movie where it's just like, it sure seems like every woman wants to fuck Will Arnett in this movie. And I'm like, what's going on here? This is fairly unexamined.

[B]

There are like a lot of shots of. I mean, his dad bought is like a recurring bit in his comedy but there are just like more shots of his so called biceps than I personally needed to see. I'm not there on my aging journey. No. I thought that it's like a serious actor playing the emotions. He's pretty good. He's pretty good. And there's, there's one, I would argue.

[A]

That'S the best part of the movie is his performance as this guy going through this thing.

[B]

There's one moment with the kid's socks which again, like, logistically I wasn't sure why they weren't there, but he had their socks. But I felt something in that moment that was good, sad filmmaking. Everything else was confusing.

[A]

Let's talk about Bradley Cooper's performance.

[B]

Well, that I enjoyed. I think Bradley Cooper's an amazing director of himself.

[A]

I agree with that. He has done a curious thing in the movie, which is a movie with low stakes and a kind of confused narrative structure. And he shows up every 32 minutes to be the funniest person on screen for five minutes and then disappear again.

[B]

And also so handsome.

[A]

Yes. He's got long hair and a beard and a mustache at a certain point.

[B]

And he's.

[A]

He's an actor who is close friends with Will Arnett. What does Will Arnett's character do?

[B]

We don't know. That's another thing.

[A]

He works in finance, I think is the idea.

[B]

But you never really. You see him in a suit, right. And he keeps talking about some job and the mortgage that he's paying for this house. Cause they live in, you know, somewhere on Metro North. He gets an apartment at the city, presumably in Connecticut.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, money is never really discussed, but everything's fine.

[A]

But they're old friends, Cooper and Arnett's characters. And Cooper's character is married to Andrew Day. And they're part of this crew of people who've been hanging out and spending time together for years. And they're at that stage of their lives. You know, we're getting to that stage of our lives where like, you know, maybe some marriages aren't working out or, you know, people are confronting like what happens when my kids get older and where am I in my life and am I happy. All that stuff I think is rich. And you know, this Movie and Ellen McKay are fascinating examples of things that we want at the movies that represent a kind of movie that no longer really gets made. Unless you have a really powerful force like a Bradley Cooper or a Jim Brooks to get a movie like this made. But just because the movie like this exists doesn't automatically make it good. It is a careful what you wish for conundrum, because with the wrong script or just like the wrong. I feel like if you made this movie in 2023 or in 2026, maybe you'd get, like, a slightly different stew. You'd get a better outcome. Like, you just make one choice a little bit differently, or you wait for the script to simmer a little longer so you pivot away from something that wasn't working. Like, it just feels like it wasn't. The cake wasn't ready to come out of the oven is how this movie feels to me.

[B]

Yeah, it's. It's just a movie about a dad finding himself, and it's. But dressed up in the clothing of a divorce movie and, you know, a. Another, like, a performer movie. And how is, like, a man who is in the arts going to reconcile his personal life and his professional life, which has been the theme of Bradley Cooper's other two movies as well.

[A]

It's true.

[B]

But it's really just like. I don't know. Is. Can. Can this man be happy?

[A]

Why is Peyton Manning in the film?

[B]

I laughed a lot because they introduced him from a distance. And you're like, wait a second. Is that Peyton Manning? Is that Peyton Manning? And then Laura Dern is on a date with Peyton Manning and almost maybe go to sleep with Peyton Manning. That's. That's really funny. That is the.

[A]

Does he play himself? No, he plays Laird, a former volleyball colleague. Now we are cooking.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

He's maybe in charge of the national team.

[A]

And the incident that they find themselves in where Laura Dern's character goes to a comedy club with Laird after their dinner, which is turning into a date in real time because we learned that they're both divorced. And then they stumble upon seeing Will Arnett's character performing comedy. And that comedy is very much about his marriage and about his wife. And some things are uttered that are hurtful to her in that exchange. But everything that happens after that, where Laird disappears, Laura Dern's character confronts Will Arnett's character, and then that leads to, like, a kind of tentative reunion between them and, like, heat, like, a chemistry I didn't buy at all. I was like, this is complete fantasy. Like, I have no idea what they're trying to communicate with this. So it's like, is the idea that you should publicly humiliate your wife in front of her so then she'll want to sleep with you again? What is the movie. What is the movie trying to tell us about that?

[B]

I Have no idea. And the way. The way where those characters end up is that she rediscovers her love of volleyball and she, like, finds a purpose and she's coaching. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Because the Olympics are going to be here in two years.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Okay. And then he has, like, rediscovered himself and his happiness because he stands up on stage in the Comedy Cellar and makes fun of his family for. For laughs. And then that means that they can be happy together to the strains of Under Pressure as performed by their children. Okay, listen, listen.

[A]

So listen. No, this is. This is important because, you know, this is not. This is not an Aftersun podcast. Right. We don't love the movie After Sun. We just did the 2022 draft. People pulling their hair out, crying in the street. Why did you guys not talk about Aftersun? It's just not a movie that Amanda and I love. Clearly Chris doesn't love it either. He didn't bring it up. But after Son used the acapella of Under Pressure already in the movie. It's like, it is the most powerful thing in that movie is the use of that music in those club scenes. And then at the conclusion of the movie. And this movie does the exact same thing three years later. You can't use that musical cue three years after. After Son. What are you doing, Bradley Cooper?

[B]

It's just. It's also the. Just most creaking. Obviously the kids are practicing it for 90 minutes of the two hour movie and you're just like, okay, so I know exactly how you're gonna end this. But at one point, Laura Dern's character says, that performance isn't for, like, for so many months from now. And I'm like, oh, great. Okay, so you're just gonna set up the dumb. I don't know, I guess the family turns out okay, so it's not loser behavior. You know, you gotta do what you gotta do. But maybe I don't need to be a part of it.

[A]

This. This conversation feels like Sam Jackson shooting Robert De Niro and Jackie Brown. Or I'm like, what happened to you, man? Your ass used to be beautiful. Like, this is a real misstep for. For Coop. I need him to bounce back. I need like a crazy three hour massive period piece for the next film. I need something. I need him to reach back and to just go beast mode on whatever it is he's getting into soon. Because this wasn't it.

[B]

No.

[A]

Ellen McKay.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Ella McKay is written and directed by James L. Brooks, a television and movie legend. This is his seventh film as director. It's his first film in 15 years since how do youo Know, which was a debacle. It stars Emma Mackie, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jack Loudon, Kumail Nanjiani, Ayo Edebiri, Spike Fern, Julie Kavanagh, Rebecca Hall, Albert Brooks and Woody Harrelson. The log line that I pulled from the Internet is as follows. At 34 years old, Ella McKay becomes the governor of the state she was born and raised in. However, navigating relationships with her husband, father and brother may just be her biggest challenge yet. Yeah, so.

[B]

This. I would love for this to be a zag for us. Right. You know, like, you and I are both invested in the work of Jim Brooks.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

In many of the actors in this film, in the idea of, you know, late career, big swings, masterpieces.

[A]

Let this octogenarian cook.

[B]

Yeah, we like. We really and original movies about feelings.

[A]

And centered on women, strong women.

[B]

And so I would love for us to be able to reclaim this. Absolutely cannot. Like just absolute disaster.

[A]

It really is a disaster. It pains me to say that.

[B]

Really, it's really very dire.

[A]

Yes. I was a bit mortified watching the movie and there are components of the movie that I found appealing or at least worthy of discussion.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I don't want to dismiss it entirely. The movie is about a young woman who is very type A and very dedicated to her vision of the world and uses her career to further what she believes to be the right way to live and the right way to create a better society.

[B]

Right.

[A]

She eventually becomes the lieutenant governor in the state she was born and raised in, which I think we can safely assume is Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine. Some. Some.

[B]

It feels New Englandy. It's never named. Which is.

[A]

It's never named purposefully, one presumes, but becomes quite obvious.

[B]

And the. I was chuckling at the state you were born and raised in because when she's promoted to governor, Ella calls her aunt, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, who says, the now mortal eyed Ella, you are going to become the governor of this state you were born and raised in. And in a sentence right, there is. Is. Is everything that's wrong with this movie.

[A]

It is. Which is that there's like a tremendous amount of specificity in all the wrong places and a total lack of specificity in the important places.

[B]

Yes. And also rampant miscasting.

[A]

Very true. I'm a fan of Emma Mackie. I think she's trying really hard in this movie to meet the moment and she's really carrying on her back the ghosts of Deborah Winger and Holly Hunter and Helen Hunt, Mary Tyler Moore. And who was the actress who played Rhoda? Her name escapes me. The incredibly strong, complicated, at times difficult women that James L. Brooks is best known for. You know, Aurora from Terms of endearment, Shirley MacLaine's character. These ferociously idealistic but also sometimes quite sour figures that deeply capable, outwardly and.

[B]

Professionally and personally, like, they're never dependent on a man, which is like amazing, and especially in the 70s and 80s, pretty groundbreaking. And so, you know, men coming in and out of their life, they're not like, you know, sexless people, but they're trying to figure things out for themselves and they've figured out what they want to project out into the world and they're trying to reconcile it within themselves and with the people around them.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which was, you know, a more progressive idea in the 70s and 80s than it is now.

[A]

Well, it's also interesting in the movie Ella McKay, because it's a movie about politics, Right? It's a movie about politics with a kind of Obama era optimism that confronts like, the bureaucracy and bitterness that tends to define career politicians. Albert Brooks plays this longtime governor, Bill, beloved governor, but Governor Bill of a small state, presumably in New England, who has been elevated to a cabinet position in the White House. And so he's leaving and Ella will be filling in his place. And she's clearly like the architect of a lot of his policy over the previous decade. She's a real like, go getter type who probably came right out of college and joined up with this campaign and rose through the ranks and was his chief of staff and did all this work. And so she believes that rather than maneuver and manipulate the way that a politician does, she can kind of blunt force her way to change in the world. And she finds out that just like she can't always do that with her personal life, she can't do it in the real world. So when I say that, there's stuff about it that I like as an idea that's a good idea for a movie, and I kind of admire that. Brooks wants to make a movie about this where it's like, it's not unlike one battle after another where it's like, we fucked up and now I'm Governor Bill. And Ellen McKay wants to come along and kind of fix things and improve the world. And her father was a real asshole and she's entitled to not forgive him. And that the only people in her life who she can really trust are women and these strong older women so all of those ideas, I think are sound. The movie, it feels like people took laughing gas before they started making it. Like, it is bizarre. The tone, the joke writing, the performance style, the editing, it's so misshapen all over the place.

[B]

It's really goofy. And so those basic ideas are also the ideas that, you know, undergird Mary Tyler Moore and certainly broadcast News and. But the tone is Leslie Knope and Parks and Rec.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

And in a way, and because it is this like small town, unnamed vibe, there is a like, you know, unspecific sitcom quality to the way they're all speaking to each other that undermines a lot of the situations. And then the stakes are both really big. But in the sense that she's like a young woman, like trying to figure out the world and make the world a better place. But it's also, you know, it's like her ultimate downfall is like a four figure bribery scandal, like by her dumb husband and like the local news reporter. It's not even like Axios or something. You know, it is like really very. She works so hard for like an incredibly admirable, like we need like child health bills in this country now more than ever. But like, they just yell tooth tutors a lot to talk about it, which again is good. Like teach children how to take care of their teeth. And she's got a lot of statistics about it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Um, but they're just screaming tooth tutors in a way that is like cutesy and gimmicky. And it is also, you know, not the Pentagon Papers. So it's, it's a real, it's silly. And then the interpretation of, of the script and this is, is not played as silly. It's played very sincerely. It is and it's quite confusing. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Like an action blockbuster. The holidays move quick, but with prime fast. Free delivery means those last minute gifts arrive right when you need them. Last year, while watching Singin in the Rain with my son, I realized a pair of tap shoes would be a perfect Christmas gift. And I had them under the tree for him on Christmas Day. Prime's fast shipping is always there for you during the holidays, especially when it's last minute and just can't wait. Last minute holiday magic. It's on Prime. Head to Amazon.comprime to shop now.

[A]

Brooks is a tricky character because I feel like Terms of Endearment and Broadcast News are for their times Perfect movies. I like broadcast news more. That's one of my favorite movies of all Time, I think a total classic.

[B]

One of the great movies. Yeah.

[A]

Terms of Endearment, very effective melodrama. You know, Terms of Endearment, based on a Larry McMurtry novel. Broadcast news is not based on anything, but Susan Zarinsky, the CBS News producer, was a critical component, and the Holly Hunter character is based on her. It's interesting to think about that and then the other films that Brooks has made. As Good as It Gets was a very big movie in its time, but I don't feel like it has as strong a reputation as it did. I'll Do Anything was famously kind of a flame out, where it started out as a musical, and then it tested so poorly that they took all the songs out of it. And then Spanglish is a movie, as I mentioned on the Sandler Pod, that I really don't like. And how do youo Know is considered kind of a true disaster. And so this guy who has given the world Mary Tyler Moore and the Simpsons and the Tracy Ullman show and Taxi and these great movies, he has a reputation earned of greatness. But there's no denying that there is just a total lack of clarity of what this movie is even supposed to be. You point out the performances. I think you're right on. There's a sequence in the movie that I found utterly confounding between Spike Fern and Iowa Debris. Spike Fern plays the emotionally stunted poor brother of Ella McKay.

[B]

And he is agoraphobic until proven otherwise.

[A]

Yes. And he has to work up the temerity to go visit his ex girlfriend, whom he broke up with under confused circumstances, and then recompel her to get back together. The scene, I felt like I was on mushrooms. I was like, what is one? Spike Fern's performance style. He made a choice, right? It's like that is a character choice that he made to talk that way, to communicate that way. I didn't like it. I didn't think it worked. Your mileage may vary on that. It's very specific.

[B]

I had more problems with Ella McKay's expository dialogue in the scene at which I texted you during the film. You're still using your math to advise people on sports betting. Great job, everyone.

[A]

Yeah, that's really good.

[B]

I was the only person in the theater, by the way, so I was allowed to text.

[A]

There are a lot of lines of dialogue, of expositional information delivery that are not good throughout the movie. But Vulture described this film as gas leak cinema. And I think that's very accurate because there are times where you're in a scene in the movie, and you're like, what's wrong here? Is everyone okay? Why is this, like, this? Woody Harrelson giving a very strange performance as a desperate dad who cheated on his wife, played by Rebecca hall earlier in Ella's life. And then Rebecca Hall's character passes away, and he becomes this kind of itinerary.

[B]

For, like, five minutes.

[A]

That death is very weird. I don't. But then comes back into her life later on just as she's being named governor because he needs to reconcile with her and he needs forgiveness from her so that he can maintain a relationship with a woman who is really into healing. But that storyline, like, never resolves itself, and he's just like a gnat in her ear throughout the movie. And you don't know if you're supposed to think Woody Harrelson's funny or tragic. I found all that incredibly confusing. Camille Nanjani, like, wasted in a weird part as a state trooper who is.

[B]

A bodyguard who wants to preserve the budget of the state and thus doesn't want overtime.

[A]

I was shocked by that. Who would care. Who would care about overtime budgets? We need to protect the sanctity of the overtime budget. He knows because he spent time with her, and that's something she would care about. Like, I got it. I got the point that they were making more of a.

[B]

But again, it's like the details just don't. Are not aligned in any way with reality and. Or what they're trying to communicate in the movie.

[A]

It feels very. To use your phrase from earlier, small stakes, low stakes. And the other thing is that, as you pointed out to me when you were watching the movie, the movie just literalizes the trauma thing in such a dumb way.

[B]

So it does two things, which is. And this is not Julie Kavner's fault, but. So Julie Kavner starts the film as the narrator.

[A]

She introduces herself as the narrator, and.

[B]

You hear her before you see her. So you're like, oh, okay, Marge Simpson is narrating this movie. And then her opening narration uses the word trauma at least three and maybe four times quite literally.

[A]

Ella looks up trauma in the dictionary.

[B]

I forgot about that when explaining. It was unbelievable, dude.

[A]

That's that.

[B]

I mean, it was so, so, so bad. And there was like. And that's part of, like, the half me too plot. Like, this is a movie that is trying, you know, it read a 2011 or I guess 2018 New York Times op ed page headlines only. And then was like, let's write something quote, unquote to the moment. Tough, Tough stuff. Can I tell you what movie this reminded me of?

[A]

Tell me.

[B]

I mean, this was my particular spiral. So the movie concludes. Spoiler Alert for Ella McKay. Jack Louden, an actor I love is her dumb American husband.

[A]

He's been done no favors in this film.

[B]

That's really, really upsetting.

[A]

Also a very bad performance.

[B]

Yeah, well, sure. Again, there are just some people who shouldn't be American. You know, we all know what the accent is, and I think that we. We just have to be honest about the capabilities of accent coaches in this day and age. Anyway, she. Jack Louden. I don't. I honestly don't really understand why he's mad at her. And so he bribes. He accepts a bribe from a reporter.

[A]

He does. He's going to be the first husband of the state. And he's a person who has supported his wife through all of her amb. And she has gotten to the mountaintop, and she neglects to thank him in her, you know, inauguration speech. And he feels cast aside. He wants to be a special, important guy and not just the inheritor of a pizza parlor company.

[B]

Right. But he's also very stupid. So.

[A]

He's very stupid.

[B]

He accepts a bribe from a local reporter who's found out that they. A married couple, had sex.

[A]

He provides a bribe.

[B]

Oh, he provides a bribe.

[A]

He writes a check to a reporter.

[B]

Okay. That's right. Okay.

[A]

Which, of course, the reporter would never cash because the reporter is trying to ensnare him in a scandal. But, like, that's the dumbest plot point I've ever heard.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What politician's husband is writing a personal check to a reporter? It's just dumb writing. It's really bad writing. So Jim Brooks is a fucking legend. I'm an idiot podcasting.

[B]

I don't understand it either. It's very upsetting. And so. So that puts Ella's career as the. As the governor in doubt. And so she negotiates with the state legislature, who are portrayed as the most powerful people on God's earth, to just also like a belief in local government that I have long since abandoned in this film.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

So she negotiates in her aunt's bar that she will resign and not run again for office if they put the child health bill through and they include the tooth tutors. So in the end, the resolution of this is that Ella McKay gets to be governor for three days and her work is done, but she gets no credit for it. She's. And she doesn't have any of her family left except for Maybe her brother because he's agreed to leave the house. This reminded me deeply of the Intern. Another late career movie made by a true hero of mine that is just about how a millennial woman must be personally and professionally humiliated in order to. I don't know what, what am I supposed to take from this? It's just like you, you can only have it all if you don't have anything. And you, you have yourself. Great. Thanks so much, everyone.

[A]

These are challenging lessons from some of our finest filmmakers. Yeah, you can only be a good divorced father if you do stand up comedy. And you can only be a capable governor of a small state in New England if you are publicly embarrassed.

[B]

Right. And don't have a job anymore. Well, that's not true. Then she starts legal aid. But then, oh, my God, that was, I forgot how this, that's okay. So really admirable. She starts like a nonprofit to support housing and to, to prevent evictions. And so they're like, they're like in the call center, Kumail Nadiani's character is now working for the call center instead of the state. And they're like manning the phones and like a really important call comes through and they're like, oh, my God, I knew it. I knew that we did it. And so they like hand her the piece of paper and you expect like, Ella's gonna be governor again or something. And she's like, everyone, I'd like to announce I just got the news. We have saved 8,342 people from, you know, houselessness this year. And I was like, that's awesome. That is more than I have done. And it's a real problem here in Los Angeles and, and like elsewhere in the world. But also it's such a specific number. It's like in this, it's, it's like when they're waiting to hit a million users in the social network. But it's like, like, you know, we've, we've had like the, you know, fundraising tally on a thing, and we hit like 8492. What are you talking about?

[A]

I, I, I think, I think this, there's real sincerity in this point of view, which is very valid, that the change is not going to come on a macro level, it's going to come on a micro level. And I believe in that. And I think James Brooks's heart is in the right place. I think the idea that it's actually people who have to fix the world and they have to work really hard and they have to be Comfortable being hated and being annoying is very real. And in 2027, we're going to start to feel that, because the only people that are going to be able to rise up in terms of what's happening in this country right now are people who are willing to be really annoying about it. I think it's, again, an interesting idea. Like, I'm on board with where he's going, but to your point about the specificity of that number and just the general oddity of tone, I think a lot about the ending of Broadcast News, which is like, such an elegant emotional quagmire that character is placed in even there.

[B]

Saved by, like, the. The impulses of Jim Brooks, like, saved by the. What happened on set. Because they filmed a different ending.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And so. And an alternate ending that they were trying that famously was ruined by a cameraman. And so they, you know, they were, like, forced into this ending, which, you know, is maybe telling in its own way of, like, sometimes there are impulses.

[A]

That, yeah, the door is swinging. Right, and it can go the other way sometimes. And I. This one is just. It's just all wrong. And I think it'd be funny to try to reclaim it. And I know a lot of critics and podcasters are doing that. And, you know, the Ellen McKay meme with the, you know, fixing the heel is a thing. And people are having a lot of fun with this movie, but to me, it's a much more sad story about the complete kind of desecration of these kinds of movies for moviegoers. The fact that the only way to make a movie like this successful now is. Is to pretend like it's actually not as bad as it actually is and lift it up with memes when, like, what we do need, to me, ultimately, is what Jim Brooks has otherwise been doing, is he. He's been a producer for other filmmakers, and he has supported other filmmakers in the last 30 years. You know, he produced Jerry Maguire. He produced big for Penny Marshall. He produced Kelly Freeman Craig's movies, you know, most recently Are youe There, God? It's Me, Margaret. That's a great act. We need more Kelly Freeman Craigs making movies like this. Like, that's actually the thing that's gonna get these movies going. And that requires studio executives not being fucking cowards. This is, you know, one rumor, one theory is that this movie exists so that Fox Disney could get another Simpsons movie that James L. Brooks said, I'll give you another Simpsons movie, which is happening, I guess, in 2027, if you let me make my movie, Ellen McKay.

[B]

That's sad. I mean, maybe you'll like the Simpsons movie, so that'll be sad.

[A]

I think the first Simpsons movie is really funny and the Simpsons completely changed my life and my point of view on comedy and writing and satire and the American family. So I thank James L. Brooks for all of his works. Ellen McKay is a no go.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn ads. The best B2B marketing gets wasted on the wrong people. So when you want to reach the right professionals, use LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals and 130 million decision makers. And that's where it stands apart from other ad buys. You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company role, seniority, skills, company revenue. So you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience. It's why LinkedIn Ads generates the highest B2B return on ad spend of all online ad networks. Seriously, all of them. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com TheBigPicture Terms and Conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by Coca Cola.

[B]

From the first time you turn on your Christmas lights till the last present is placed under the tree, the holiday.

[A]

Season is packed with iconic moments.

[B]

But with every exciting minute spoken for, it can feel like they're flying by faster than Santa's sleigh.

[A]

This Christmas, cherish them all with crisp, refreshing Coca Cola.

[B]

Hissing, clinking, gulping and ahhing your way through the most exciting moments the season has to offer.

[A]

That's a gift in and of itself.

[B]

Enjoy a Coca Cola refresh.

[A]

Your holidays underseen and overlooked. Yeah, you were not able to participate in this last year. You were on leave.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

We talk about a lot of movies on the show over the course of the year, stuff slips through the cracks.

[B]

It does.

[A]

It doesn't get attention. Gets a brief mention after a festival maybe. And we don't circle back to it. So we've put five together. How was this exercise for you?

[B]

I found my groove for a second. I was like, we've been talking about a lot of films and we see films at volume, but I not quite at the volume that you do. So I think most of my picks have come up in passing. There's also a genre element to most of them that I decided to run towards my interests. Not that, you know, cinema often does.

[A]

But in this case, I haven't looked at your List.

[B]

Yeah. In this case, I collected a few. So in the end, it was rewarding.

[A]

Okay. There are still some 20, 25 movies that are just now coming out that we're not gonna get a chance to talk about, at least until we come back in January.

[B]

Right. So I kept those off the board.

[A]

Yeah. I wanted to cite the Plague before we Talk, which opens on Christmas, which is a film that played at Cannes earlier this year. It's written and directed by Charlie Pollinger. It's about a bunch of boys at a water polo camp and is a very upsetting body horror movie. This would be a tough one for you to watch as the mother of two young boys and being a little worried about where their lives are going and whether they'll be the bully or the bullier. Yeah, the bullied or the bully.

[B]

I mean, neither's a good option.

[A]

It's a fascinating movie. Everett Blunk gives an incredible performance as this kid Ben in the movie. Joel Edgerson's in the movie as the coach at the camp. And the sound design and the score of this movie is remarkable. I just wanted to put it out there for people. It's coming out on Christmas. Check it out. It's the sort of thing that would be on this list if it had, like, an August release date, but it's coming out later this year. Okay, so let's start. You want to go first?

[B]

Sure. My Number five is a film that we briefly discussed and that is currently still in theaters. Though if they're smart, they will get it out on some sort of VOD platform soon. Because I do think at home for people interested in a romantic comedy, that eternity would pass the smell test. Now, you had some unkind things to say. Here's what I will say about eternity.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

It is, I guess it's a high concept romantic comedy. If you haven't seen Defending youg Life. And if you have seen Defending youg Life, it is just a sort of remake of Defending youg Life.

[A]

It stars as well as A Matter of Life and Death.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It's like A matter of Life and Death and Defending youg Life smashed together in one movie.

[B]

And it stars Elizabeth Olsen as.

[A]

Old.

[B]

Woman who dies and finds herself in the afterlife. And the way the afterlife works is that you have to pick one eternity, like one really awesome place where you're spending the rest of your life and her two husbands are both waiting there to spend the rest of her life, her eternity with her. And so she has to pick which husband she wants to spend eternity with and her Two husbands are played by Miles Teller, who plays the person she spent most of her life with, her second husband, who she spent 35 years worth. And then Callum Turner, who was her husband, who died in the war. And then it specified the Korean War. And there are a bunch of jokes about that which I thought were pretty funny.

[A]

Why are there no movies about the Korean War?

[B]

Yeah, this, you know, I think this movie works better in the setup than in the final hour, as most high concept things do. I think this film has a profound understanding of Callum Turner's appeal.

[A]

I was gonna say it's not hard to know why you enjoyed the film.

[B]

But I was like, wow, they really get it. And I think that there are a lot of people who really get it and it's funny. There are supporting performances by David, Joe Randolph and John Early. My favorite. Um, and, you know, like, I have thought about different moments and not just all of the Callum Turner being hot moments, though. It's like really, really funny how this is just a movie about how Colum Turner's hot. Like, we're all really happy for Dua Lipa, but it, you know, whether it is like the. The life museum that she goes through, which you know, is like Ben recreated movies over time, but it's another reference point. Or a Dean Martin holiday song came on the other day and I laughed at the Dean Martin Miles Teller.

[A]

That part is funny, the Dean Martin part.

[B]

Miles Teller is really good in this as the other guy.

[A]

He is. It's a very weird part for him to have taken on. He is definitely taking on the other guy part. He's the Albert Brooks to William Hurt in Broadcast News. Yeah. And, you know, miles teller is 6ft tall, very handsome in the star of Top Gun Maverick. So for him to be playing like the schlubbier guy is kind of cool that he made that choice. I think he's the best part of the movie. Elizabeth Olsen's trying. I don't really think that character is very well written. I get what you like. I get what you like. I'm not gonna.

[B]

She's Joy Randolph in the afterlife convention, drinking a lot of wine. There are funny moments. It's well observed. I do think that the understanding of the Callum Turner of it all and everyone else is making jokes about it. And if you want to spend time with Miles Teller being charming also in a grumpy way, I liked it. I think it's a good at home experience.

[A]

It's kind of like it doesn't land.

[B]

The plane, it doesn't land the plane. That's fine.

[A]

But it is kind of like if, in defending your life, Albert Brooks in In Purgatory needed to choose between Meryl Streep and Heather Locklear.

[B]

You know, it's like, yes, but like. Like, that's fine. Let's have more movies like that. That's what I'm saying. I would like to honor the setup because that's powerful.

[A]

I gotcha. I didn't love it. But I do think that, similarly, we do need these films.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

And you're right that. You're definitely right that at home, this would do very well at Christmas. You know, you could see people cozying up around the fire watching this movie. Okay, that's a good pick. I like it. Your picks are very pop, in a good way. That will make for a good discussion. I'm not sure if my picks are going to make for very good discussion, but I do want to put them on people's radars, and I tried to pick a mix of stuff that was both available to stream and on vod. Eternity is not on VOD yet. Or it is.

[B]

No, it's still in theaters.

[A]

It's still in theaters. Okay.

[B]

It's at the Regal Paseo. You want to go after this?

[A]

I've already seen it at the Regal Paseo, so I'm good. My number five is Unbecoming a Guinea Fowl, which is Rangano Nyoni's second feature film, which came out via a 24 earlier this year, but a very limited release. It was a 2024 festival film. She's a Zambian filmmaker. It's a very unusual movie about a woman who comes across the dead body of her uncle in the street at the very beginning of the movie and sets off this kind of, like, perplexing series of familial interactions and cultural curiosities around her. Journey stars actress Susan Chardy, who's amazing in this movie. There's, like, a very specific, overt reference to Missy Elliott in the Super Duper Fly video at the very beginning of the film. That kind of, like, grounds you in the oddity of the movie. Beautiful cinematography and colors and music in this movie, and it's just kind of transfixing. Like, I haven't really talked about very much African cinema here. It's a very rare African film to get distribution in the United States from a major studio. It's a real portal into this world, but also not alienating. It's very, very funny and very unusual and very disorienting at times. It's on hbo Max right now, if people want to check it out. And I hope that Nyoni gets to make more movies because she has some real flair. Okay.

[B]

Number four, just veering way in the opposite direction. This is Ojai.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which I believe you saw with your sister Grace when she was in town.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So this was a Sundance film directed by Sophie Brooks and co written by Brooks and Molly Gordon, who stars in it along with Logan Lerman. And it's about a young couple who go on their first weekend away together and then learn some things about themselves and their relationship to each other and then try to rectify that. I'm team Molly Gordon and I think she's wonderful. She's wonderful and really funny. And there's a scene in this film when she's asked to tell the Logan Lerman character about her childhood and is just running around, like, talking. And it's very funny and very funny.

[A]

Did you relate to this character?

[B]

Yeah. Of course you did.

[A]

Yeah. I think this movie's very bad. However, I do think I love Molly Gordon. I love watching Molly Gordon.

[B]

It's also. And then her friend is Geraldine Vismanian, who's also amazing. So when they're on, it's. I mean, I don't. If you're watching it as a movie about a relationship, is it self recrimination, the movie?

[A]

Is it Molly Gordon being like, sorry, I'm so such a pain in the ass? Is it like, are we meant to be empathetic towards her? Is it. Yeah, we are. Okay.

[B]

I think so. I think that she does.

[A]

She does some very violent and uncomfortable things to this Logan Lerman character in the film.

[B]

Well, sometimes you deserve that. You know, if you're dating around, listening. They've been dating for four months and they've had a conversation.

[A]

What have you done to Zach?

[B]

Not using protection?

[A]

What have you done to my friend Zach?

[B]

Having.

[A]

It's.

[B]

It's totally respectful, but it's just like every once in a while you gotta, like, call people and get them aligned in line.

[A]

In line.

[B]

Especially where sexual health is involved.

[A]

Yeah, for sure.

[B]

So I. No, I thought this was funny. I mean, it like, again, like all things, like the setup and the first 30 minutes are very funny, and then, you know, things kind of peter out. But I. I was rooting for her.

[A]

And, you know, you got this mama don't. Molly Gordon addition.

[B]

Like, don't go on a weekend vacation with someone when if you're not clear on the. Is this something on the parameters of your relationship?

[A]

Is that something that a boy Will do. Will he be like, let's go on a weekend vacation and be romantic together?

[B]

So it's, you know, a crucial plot point in Bridget Jones diary, of course. But I. I do think at this age and at this budget level, it's uncommon. It is particularly delusional.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Normally they wouldn't commit to 48 hours.

[A]

Or, you know, sort of what I'm saying.

[B]

Yeah, sure.

[A]

That seem. It's strained credulity.

[B]

Right. But. So I think the response then also perhaps strains credulity or is a proportionate response to the act involved a fair point.

[A]

You know, Fair point. Maybe it does. Yeah. It undergirds the premise.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Number four, speaking of your boyfriends.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Is Urchin. Urchin is available to rent on VOD right now. It is the directorial debut of Harris Dickinson, who is a very accomplished, tall, handsome actor who clearly wants to be Mike Lee. This new movie is about a guy named Mike who is sleeping on the streets of London and who's trying to get his life together, trying to get his substance abuse under control, trying to escape the very gnarly fate of his life. The movie is somewhat conventional in the way that it explores those aspects of his story. You see him kind of receding back into bad habits and getting a job and losing a job and getting into a relationship and then messing up that relationship. And some of that stuff feels very familiar. Some of it does feel like Mike Lee's Naked, the David Thewlis movie. The movie takes a really interesting kind of cosmic turn near the end that is really exciting and I think augurs well for where Harris Dickinson's going as a director. I thought halfway through the movie, I was like, this is a little bit more straightforward than I want it to be. Despite the fact that Frank Delane, who's the plays the Mike character is phenomenal in this movie. He definitely could have been on our performances list. Really hyper committed. I really, really liked his work in the movie. But the final 10 minutes or so when we start to feel him kind of like exiting the normal plane of existence is hopefully a sign of things to come for Harris Dickinson. So people should check this out. It's a cool movie. Imperfect, but very interesting. How do you feel about Harris making this leap? Will he take himself off screen to. To make these films?

[B]

No, he's going to be in four Beatles films, so it's going to be okay. You know, he's doing.

[A]

Who's he playing again?

[B]

He's John Lennon.

[A]

Is that good casting?

[B]

We. We talked about. And then I believe Paul Mescal is Paul.

[A]

Paul McCartney.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I can see it.

[A]

Is John Lennon attractive?

[B]

Well, I think that the glasses and the hair can kind of. You can bring Harris to where Lennon was.

[A]

I see.

[B]

And there was a magnetism to him, you know, so you can't deny that he played Len.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

All right.

[A]

Okay, number three for you.

[B]

The Wedding Banquet.

[A]

I haven't seen this.

[B]

Well, it's streaming on Paramount plus, I believe. Let's make sure that that's the right one. Wedding Banquet, Paramount plus. Yes, it is. So this is a remake of the Angley movie the Wedding bank and it's directed by Andrew Ahn, who did Fire island. And it's co written with an and James Seamus who wrote the Wedding.

[A]

That's right, the original.

[B]

And so it follows. It's a similar setup but it's in the US now. And so it's a gay couple and a lesbian couple who are. You know, the gay couple wants to get married, but one of the men is concerned he won't be accepted by his family and then also will be cut off. And then the women couple are trying to. The woman couple are trying to have a baby and they're doing ivf, but they're running out of money because it's quite expensive and it's not going well. So they two of the. One of the men and one of the women decide to do like a. And there's also some immigration status involved. So they decide to do like a fake marriage in order to get the money, pay for the IVF and get locked citizenship down. And then obviously like the plan gets like pretty messy. This is. And that makes it sound like a lot more farcical than it is. What I liked about this movie was that it was pretty much like, you know, it plays everything softly and it has a great cast. It's Bowen Yang, but Lily Gladstone and Kelly Marie Tran and Yunya Jungkook, you remember from Minari.

[A]

That's right. Academy Award winner.

[B]

So it's an outrageous plot, but everyone is soft pedaling it. Actors I like a lot. I thought this was like a pretty good soft touch portrayal of ivf, which you know, can. It's like not a. It's not about it. It's just like a thing that happens and it's hard for the people, which I appreciate. You know, it's just like maybe a good lesson in general. We don't need to make things like about stuff, just the plot point. Yeah, it can. You can portray a thing and how it affects people and that communicates it.

[A]

I don't know if you noticed that while we're recording, it was announced that Bowen Yang is leaving Saturday night.

[B]

It was actually. Yeah. It was in the middle of the.

[A]

Season, after eight seasons, while being definitely one of the most notable cast members. That's kind of odd.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, he's. Hasn't he sat out some performances or some hosts as well? I think it's been a. It's been a fluctuating relationship as I understand it. Anyway, I'm a fan of him. He's pretty good. And that's, I would say, like the women are the performances to remember, but I liked it.

[A]

Okay, great. Call number three for me just came out.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I. I should have interviewed the filmmaker. This movie is written, directed, produced and edited by this person, Curtis David Harder. It's called Influencers. It's a sequel. There was a movie in 2023 called Influencer. It was a thriller on shudder about a young influencer, a woman who is stalked and eventually meets a grisly end at the hands of a dangerous woman played by the actress Cassandra Nod, who is incredible. In the original Influencer, Influencers continues the story. Another character from the film is trying to find the Cassandra Nod character, CW and bring her to justice. The movie is kind of globe trotting at this point. This one takes place in southern France. These are really stylish, really slick, smart movies about the Internet and how the Internet works. There's like an AI component to this one that is, I think, pretty clever. And these movies are made. This movie's been made pretty cheaply and really sharply. And it's like it does eventually become a violent thriller, but there has a little bit of John Le Carre spycraft going on in it that is pretty nifty and at this scale for effectively a straight to shutter movie. I thought it was really impressive. And I think Harder is a really good filmmaker. So I want to give it a little shout because I feel like it's maybe not getting enough attention.

[B]

This movie is pro.

[A]

I know.

[B]

Like you.

[A]

No, but it is. It is a. It has a. It's a really funny movie about like right wing influencers versus left wing influencers, lifestyle influencers versus people who are just trying to have fun but capturing their lives on social media. Like, that's me. It's pretty.

[B]

I'm just having fun.

[A]

Many people are saying you're just having fun, not trying to get free yogurt. You would never do that. You would never attempt to acquire yogurt.

[B]

I'm really grateful I'm still eating that yogurt. Thank you, Painterland Sisters.

[A]

Jack, is this okay? Of course. It's all great.

[B]

Jack got some yogurt.

[A]

That's great. Congrats on your yogurt, Jack. Happy for you, bro. Thank you. Thanks, man. What's number two for you?

[B]

Megadoc.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which we've talked a little bit about. But I thought on this episode, especially after the James L. Brooks streaming now.

[A]

On the Criterion Channel. There you go.

[B]

So this is Mike Figgis's portrait of the making of Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis, which I saw at the Venice Film Festival and has amazing access. And the further we get down the road of. Of Francis Ford Coppola, but also of these beloved filmmakers hanging on, chasing their dreams to the very, very end past 80. It's very specific to Coppola in a lot of ways, and what animates him and what makes him one of the great American filmmakers. And also what explains all of the completely inexplicable things that have happened in the back half of his career. Again, like incredible access. I'll just still think about the request from Natalie Emanuel's agent that she not be filmed eating. Just really, really special stuff. But it is also a movie about someone who has been dreaming of something his whole life, and specifically about making a movie and waiting for the technology to catch up to this vision in your head and can it. And can the vision in your head be realized? And how that actually happened or didn't happen in Coppola's case, and in the case of Megalopolis, is, I think, fascinating. Again, really helped me understand Megalopolis. But if. If you are listening to this podcast and you're interested in how films are made, it's just. It's really good.

[A]

Totally agree. I like this movie a lot. It's a great shout. The next film I'm going to recommend is another movie that I. That we talked about on the show. I saw it out of Sundance. It's called the Things yous Kill. It's now available to be rented on vod. I thought there was a chance we would be talking about it a little bit more, and maybe you would have to see it because it was Canada's submission for international feature at the Academy Awards. It was not selected.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

It's a film about a Turkish university professor teaching in the United States, and his mother dies. And she dies under suspicious circumstances. And it drives him kind of crazy. And as he's grieving, he hires this gardener to enact revenge on the people who he feels may or may not be responsible for his mother's death. This is like a very chaotic, violent, scary, disorienting thriller. I think I probably used somewhat regrettably, the word Lynchian to describe it back in January when I saw it at Sundance. But it does have those elements of what is really happening. What is the dream state, what is the mania of a person in the face of crisis. Really, really strong filmmaking from Ali Reza Khatami, the writer and director. Eakin Koch's performance as the star as Ali is really, really good. And this is like a bit of a. It's just a. It's a gem. It's a really, really good, small independent feature that had a, you know, had a festival premiere and seemed like maybe it was destined for bigger things. And then these movies just kind of come and go sometimes. So the things you kill is my number two. Okay, number one.

[B]

Joanna briefly mentioned this on our performances of the year, but it's Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, which is now streaming on Netflix. Have you, have you seen this yet?

[A]

I have not seen it yet.

[B]

Well, I just absolutely loved this. And not just because Jane Austen is in the title. It is. It is a romantic comedy, I guess, an intellectual romantic comedy, but it's your pretty classic love triangle. There's a French woman who is stylish enough that I, you know, was being like, I guess I need to get bangs now or a sweater. So you need that element. She's a writer and then she goes to the Jane Austen writers residency and she meets someone there and then someone else from her life comes back and then she's also. So she's trying to decide between them, but she also has writer's block. And as much of it is about her trying to be an artist or a writer, as it is about which of these knuckleheads is gonna figure it out. I thought it was very funny and it like, small is unfair, but self contained in a great way and very charming. So if you're looking for something to stream. There you go.

[A]

You think Eileen would like it?

[B]

I don't know. Where is Eileen on Jane Austen?

[A]

Doesn't seem to care that much. But I wouldn't say dislikes, you know.

[B]

Then maybe she wouldn't like it. But I do think that there in the way that Jane Austen is like the bones of so many of our romantic comedies, you know, I think she appreciates many of the hallmarks. She does there is like they recreate like a period style ball at some point, but not in The Sense and Sensibility. We've done a week's worth of night shoots to make this real. It's like the people at the residency are doing it for shits and giggles.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So there's some knowingness to it.

[A]

Okay. It's convenient that it's streaming on Netflix.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

My number one is available to rent right now for 99 cents on Amazon Prime.

[B]

Okay. Wow.

[A]

It's called Volcano Zadora, which means tire repair shop.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I think in Spanish. I don't. Don't, don't, don't, don't. Fact check me on that one. Okay. This is a very strange movie. It is the latest movie from a guy named Joel Petrykis, who is a vigorously independent filmmaker who makes unusual, intimate indie movies shot on film. It's about two guys who go into the forest to follow through on a very fucked up pact that they make with each other. One of the guys is set for a potential prison sentence. The other guy is in a state of crisis in his life. But the movie is just like kind of a hang. Just these two dumb guys talking at each other for the first hour before the events of the movie get a little bit more complicated. Interesting movie about male friendship.

[B]

We've had several of those this year.

[A]

Yeah, it gets very gnarly near the end. There's some intense stuff that happens in the back half. It's also very funny. And there's nobody making movies quite like Joel Petroikis. And your mileage will definitely vary on whether or not you enjoy the movie, but if you can get your head around what it is he's trying to accomplish, I think it's very singular, very beautiful. You know, guys, you're going through it. Men are going through it in 2025.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know dads. This is a dad movie as well. Dads are going through it. Dads are having a hard time because they want to be good fathers.

[B]

Right.

[A]

They want to be successful men. They want to not go to prison.

[B]

Right. They are trying to figure out how to have it all.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

It's hard.

[A]

So whether you're in and james.org says you cannot. Yes, you'll be Woody Harrelson and you will not be forgiven by your daughter. That is where we land. So that's it. That's our list. How are you feeling? Two more episodes to go this year.

[B]

Two more episodes to record. How many episodes left for people to listen to?

[A]

16 more. So this will be the first 30 episode months.

[B]

No, I'm counting. Okay, so this. Okay. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 4 more episodes in this calendar year.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then another one. So five before we come back from the break.

[A]

That's right. You think that's the perfect amount?

[B]

I mean, I hope people listen. We're working pretty hard.

[A]

We are working very hard. So thanks to Jack Sanders, our producer, for his work on this episode. The next episode is about Marty supreme, which is a really, really good movie.

[B]

It's really, really good. Please go see it.

[A]

Yes. We'll be talking about it in depth, and we'll see you then.