The Summer Movie Mailbag

24:40that doesn't know what the Cinerama Dome is, that doesn't want it to reopen. So in that respect, I have to celebrate this. I think we also have to be cautious about what it's going to end up becoming. Yeah. Okay. You want to talk about the Lou Gehrig biopic really quickly? You know. Sick. Is this good? Well, I don't know. I'm really, I'm so interested. Which part of, what do we know about? Well, Richard Linklater is directing a biopic of the legendary New York Yankee slugger Lou Gehrig starring Glenn Powell. The screenplay is written by Simon Rich. This is for Universal. It's a studio movie. This was announced yesterday.

25:14Yeah. All people I like, I'm a Mets fan, not a Yankees fan, but Lou Gehrig's life is completely fascinating. He's, you know, the iron horse, one of the best baseball players of all time, someone who played a massive consecutive game streak, slugger who came in behind Babe Ruth, an absolutely beloved iconic figure who died very young because he's probably the first public person who was identified as being diagnosed with ALS. And it was called, and it's called Lou Gehrig's disease. and there is a movie about his life called I think Pride of the Yankees is it Pride of the Yankees I believe that's correct Pride of the Yankees starring Gary Cooper and it's a good movie I saw it probably when I was a teenager it's a bit of a stiff 1940s you know sincere portrait of this man but Rick Linklater and Simon Rich making this movie kind of fascinates me because they never come at anything head on.

26:12So like, is there like sort of like side door entrance to a sports movie, like a period piece sports biopic about a person who is generally revered? You know, if you were like, they're making Babe Ruth, I'd be like, oh, I see. They're going to do like an irreverent take on Babe Ruth because Babe Ruth was kind of a he was kind of a transgressive figure, you know? He liked women and wine, you know? He was, Lou Gehrig is, he's the stuff dreams are made of. You know, he's like, he's all American. But what this movie presupposes is maybe he's not. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Glenn Powell playing a baseball player.

26:49Yeah. Great. Glenn Powell back with Richard Linklater. Great. Richard Linklater working with Simon Rich. Great by me. Universal has good taste in this stuff and handles movies well. Yep. Like, I agree. I'm fine. I'm fine. Try it. I think it's more like people try. Nine out of 10 times. If you give me this much information about a movie, I'm like, I think I know what this is going to be. This one, I don't know. I don't know. And that's exciting. Okay. Is it? I mean, you are not expressing it as excitement. You like to know everything at all times. I do. That's what you're... Well, I love baseball.

27:20I just love baseball. Even now? Well, yeah, of course. I have a lot to think about now with the Mets. I've got these young outfielders who I adore. You know, we've got Zach Thornton on the rise. Things are happening. Jack, right? Things are happening. Things are happening. Thank you. Okay. We're doing a baseball movie draft later this year. You know that, right? Yeah, I do. How do you feel about that? I love baseball movies. Yeah, baseball movies are the best. I like baseball. We've had to turn it out after the World Cup. We were kind of like... Too much sports. Too much sports. Well, just too much plopping our children in front of the TV.

27:49And also, we got to save the rest of that for the plane flights later this summer. Understood. So, we have had to resist the urge to put the Phillies on at 4.30 every day. How are the Phillies doing? Good? Bad? I know you guys don't care. Maybe 12 games over 500, something like that. They're doing a whole lot better than the Mets, who also fired their manager in season. Now they are very thickly in the wild card race, whereas we will be trading all of our best players. Oh, good. Okay, so it's that time of the summer where you—so we've gone through, this is catastrophe. My life is over. I can never believe in anything again.

28:21And then we're getting to the point in the summer where it's like, oh, there's a glimmer of hope. Maybe playoffs. Maybe they're going to happen. And then you're rearranging your New York Film Festival trip. No, not for the Mets. Not for the Mets. Oh, the Phillies. The Phillies are good. The Phillies are in good shape. They're almost certainly going to make the playoffs. The Mets are completely flawed. I'm saying that's actually a jinx them. And then they'll forget how to hit like they do every October. Their lineup is deeply flawed. Their lineup is deeply flawed. But they're an intriguing team with three very strong front line starting pitchers.

28:47So they're going to the playoffs. Days of Thunder 2. It's happening at Paramount with Tom Cruise. Maybe. Directed by Jonathan Levine. Unusual choice. Not a bad choice. Jonathan Levine who I think most people came to see with the wackness who I had on the show for gosh what was the Amy Schumer Goldie Hawn comedy Snatched Snatched thank you very much lovely guy he directed Mr. Irrelevant the forthcoming John Tuggle story for Paramount sounds like maybe that's how he got in the mix here Days of Thunder 2 do we need that? okay so you assume we just had F1 you assume that Nicole Kidman the 23-year-old neurologist from the original Days of Thunder will have moved on.

29:32Now she's a 68-year-old neurologist. She's a neurologist, right? Is she a psychiatrist? I'm still recovering from... I would like to formally apologize, most of all to myself, but to everyone else who listened all the way through the Diane Keaton Hall of Fame. Thank you, number one. Who the fuck apologizes to themselves? And number two, for misidentifying Sam Shepard's character in Baby Boom as a pediatrician when he is, in fact, a veterinarian. I was wrong. I'm correcting it now. And I'm going to do better in the future. Okay, thanks for that. But so is she a neurologist? I don't have to do that again.

30:13Neurologist. Do you know where Cole Trickle is from? Do you know where he was born and raised? Do you have any idea? Neurosurgeon. Neurosurgeon, sure. Okay, sure. I believe that. Do you know where Cole Trickle is from? Long Island? No, Eagle Rock, California. Well, that doesn't make any sense at all. It's just a fact. Watch the film. Any other movie news come across your transom? So he's just doing F1? Is this what he's doing? I don't know. I'm not done talking about this. Who do you want to be the young buck coming up behind him? Glenn Powell. Okay. You know? Okay. I mean, we saw that movie. Sure, and I loved it.

30:46Do you think Cruise goes into the Robert Duvall role where he's the old coach? I have to be honest. All I remember about Days of Thunder is driving and that Nicole Kidman is an absurdly young neuro doctor who I've now confirmed as a neurosurgeon. Let's do some math right now. OK, so Robert Duvall. Yeah. Who played the inspirational coach in that film, which came out in 1990. Duvall was born in 1931, which means he was 59 when that movie came out. Is that correct? Am I doing my math right? I think I am. I wasn't listening to the numbers. And how old is Tom Cruise? 64. So Tom Cruise is five years older than Robert Duvall was when he was the coach in Days of Thunder.

31:28And in the film, when I was 12 and I saw Days of Thunder, and you were like, how old is the coach? I would have been like 87. Probably the oldest man who's ever lived. And Cruise is five years older than him. And Cruise is almost certainly not going to be the coach. He's going to be in the car. And he's going to have the love interest. What a time. No. What a time. No way. Yeah, of course he is. You think so? Excuse me. Have you not lived through the 20 most recent years of Tom Cruise's work? We're getting... But Digger, though, he's playing old. Yeah, but Digger. But Digger, though. Okay. Anything else you want to say about Days of Thunder 2?

32:07Why is this one... Why this one? It's just because of F1, I guess. I think it's success, yeah. Yeah, people like cars going fast. And Days of Thunder is Bruckheimer, and I'm sure that that's part of the machine, right? Yeah, it was never my cruise movie, but sure. You know, it's not mine either. It is Tony Scott, who I love, but it's not my favorite Tony Scott. I think it's kind of a bad script. All right. Any other thoughts before we get to this mailbag? No? Do you want to say anything about Leo season before we do it? No, I was trying to think. I was honestly, that silence was me trying to remember whether we've done Leo season yet.

32:41We'll get to it in the mailbag. All right, Jack Sanders, you and Lucas Kavanaugh have scoured these emails. Any general takeaways from the emails before you ask these questions? Honestly, a strong batch. Oh, nice. Major thank you to Lucas Kavanaugh who sifted through 600 emails in a day. These questions were good. I honestly think the strength of these questions kind of represents the we're so back vibes that are going on right now. Nice. I like that. That's how I feel. So the first question, and there's a couple of these, is basically a combination of 100 people's different questions is, people are asking about IMAX.

33:18Many listeners commented on the online discourse surrounding the format differences, the difficulty to secure IMAX 70mm tickets, and the lack of true IMAX projectors. One listener even noted that their friends chose not to see the film because they couldn't get IMAX 70mm tickets because the marketing told them that they needed to see it on the biggest screen possible. Now that audiences have become aware of this new kind of moviegoing experience, what do you think the future of IMAX looks like? Well, the company is up for sale. So I feel like this matters. Yeah. You know, there's only a thousand screens in America that support this format.

33:55There's only 41 that support 70 millimeter in this format. I think it represented something like, was it 40 % of ticket sales over the opening weekend? So it's obviously pretty critical to the future of the industry. And yet, anytime you talk to someone, they say that building new projectors for iMac 70 or building more screens is incredibly pricey and hard to come by. And I think for people like me and you, we're like, well, what do you mean? There's demand. Why can't you just make more? But you also made that salient point about real estate. Yeah. And movie theaters don't exactly have a tremendous amount of cash on hand right now.

34:36And so having the money to build it, plus then renegotiating, you know, in Los Angeles and in New York and places with very vibrant movie cultures, it's probably easier to justify like the extra space and also, you know, finding the space. But, you know, malls are, are malls dead? Are malls coming back? I can't really tell these days, you know? LA is an illusion because everything is still normal. It's like, it's not normal, but like there are a lot of malls here. Yeah. It's like malls are dead, but also Addicted is the only, you know, clothing store in the world for anyone under 30. That's coming for you.

35:13I don't know what that is. It's literally right next to the Americana movie theater. It's like the new, well, it's the new Brandy Melville, which also still exists, but it's the new like wet seal, you know, type situation. You don't know what wet seal was? No idea what you're talking about. It's where teenagers buy cheap trashy clothing. They sell Blu-rays there? Okay. I don't know what the answer to this is. I think that they got to build more screens. But I also think if you live in, I don't know, like I don't want to disrespect any kind of smaller city or larger town in America, but let's just say Boise, Idaho, for example.

35:53I'm sure there's a wonderful movie going culture there. But if it's February, 2029, and there's not a big movie on the slate, and you're trying to force a dumpuary title onto IMAX, and that's a space that could be very valuable, but you're not getting the most bang for your buck out of that real estate investment, it throws into question, like, what is the purpose of it? It's easy to say at the time of, you know, The Odyssey or Dune Part 3, like, every movie theater should have five IMAX screens. But that's not the reality. Like, you and I go to Regal Paseo all the time. Whenever I go there, it's empty.

36:24So, you know, and I love Regal Paseo, and I'm very grateful to have a movie theater like that. But it's a tough business. And it's only at times of great success and great desire when we get questions like this. And I understand that if you want these things to get built, go to the movies more. Go to the movies in the downtime. Don't just go to the three movies a year that you hear you have to see. Why isn't there a culture of rep IMAX screenings? That's interesting. Maybe just because there's not enough to support. I saw someone, I'm not sure if this is actually true, but I think that there is an IMAX in Chattanooga that is was built in a museum for like planetarium and nature documentary purposes was it in the aquarium the Chattanooga aquarium must be at the aquarium yeah so that aquarium is just screening the odyssey they just turned that movie theater into and you know we have um at the natural history museum here in Los Angeles there's an IMAX screen and it only screens these shorter films you could start move turning those over if you can get those aquariums to agree to because I'm sure financially it's the better move to be selling out the entire population of the greater Chattanooga area who wants to see the Odyssey in its proper format.

37:30But it's going to take a little bit of cleverness, I think, to expand the palette. I already told you the Dolby thing with Burbank. And I think that will keep happening too. We're like, we'll see what Infinity Vision does. I was going to say, yeah, Disney's trying it as well. My understanding is that Infinity Vision is effectively just Dolby. And those rooms will be all allocated to Avengers And so that's an example of premium formats that are not like IMAX is, you know, one company and it's branded and Christopher Nolan has developed a real relationship with them and developed entire technologies to be able to use his particular cameras.

38:05But this is the Odyssey is a pretty specific example. Yeah. And I think the larger point is about more premium format, like nicer places to see movies, which also costs a lot of money. It does. it makes it more expensive to go to the movies so I don't know what is the future of IMAX I hope if they get sold I hope it's to a good company not a bad company you know I don't know if I can be more direct than that okay what's next Jack where are you guys out on aquariums real quick love agreed Chattanooga Aquarium was a big field trip that's a big southern like locale you know an attraction that we would go to and also my family lived near Chattanooga so listen Ruby Falls if you know you know I'm going on vacation to see my family on Long Island, and we will be going to the aquarium when we go back to Long Island.

38:55So, yeah, I'm very, very pro-aquarium. The aquarium in Long Beach here is wonderful. It's a great way to spend time. Okay, what's next? Next question comes from Kathy. Why do you think there's so much negativity around Avengers Doomsday, but still so much excitement about Spider-Man Brand New Day? If Marvel is cooked in Sean's words, wouldn't that affect Spider-Man? Do you think it's the fact that the Spider-Man movies are narrowly focused on one protagonist while Doomsday seems to include every character from the past 15 years? I think there's a variety of ways to attack this question. No, I think, you know, sort of a leading question there, though it was phrased in the form of a question.

39:32Thank you, Kathy. But yes. Well, Spider-Man is like Batman. And also Spider-Man. Spider-Man is like Batman. Every time you make a Spider-Man movie, people are going to be interested. And the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies are pretty good. I like them a lot. He's good at Spider-Man. Also, Spider-Man is a kid. Not anymore in this movie, which is a little bit tricky. We'll see how that goes. Yeah, but there is just an inherent interest for children in, oh, look, it's another kid. He does bridge a gap. He's an introductory character in a lot of ways. Totally. So he's kind of eternal. And Batman is kind of the same, I think, for like angsty boys, you know, when you're getting into your teenage years or your young adult, you know, your adolescent years.

40:08Batman is also like, he's the flip side of the coin of the Spider-Man hero archetype. So I think of them as very similar and I think those kinds of movies are always going to work. Doomsday is one of those things where it's being eventized in a way that it's not a common comic book movie. It's an event style movie. Look, there's also a lot of positivity about Doomsday. There are a lot of people who are very excited about Doomsday. When I said that Marvel is cooked, I meant creatively. I meant the movie doesn't look very good and it feels creatively bankrupt, which is what we discussed on the show.

40:37It's going to sell a lot of tickets. Yeah. Whether or not it's going to have— In Infinity Vision. Will it have any cultural capital? Like, will it get beyond the hardcore, the serious fandom? That's what we're going to find out. I'll see it. Yeah, I'm going to see it for sure. Not only that, I look forward to seeing it. I might. Can we make this? Oh, this would be so fun. So you know how every year around the holidays I propose doing, you know, like, what's a title that we can have the big pick holiday party? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Go to the movies with lots of booze. Yeah. can it be Avengers Doomsday I know you have to pay attention we have to do a podcast about it we have to do like two podcasts about it we have to do two I guess we do have to do two I know but it's the same day as Dune I know and I really don't know what we're going to do about that just from a pure programming perspective and it's also December 18th that is like school is out you know so that's a real issue they're coming with us our kids are invited to the big picture holiday party at the Regal Paseo um I I I Jack what are we gonna do with that are we gonna do two separate episodes four hour mega episode that's gonna require not actually I do I do think I do think the thing that makes sense is split it into two episodes so when Barbenheimer happened we did a Barbenheimer episode where we talked about both movies and the experience of both movies and that was fun and then the next week we did a standalone Oppenheimer episode and a standalone Barbie episode.

42:11Yeah. I think that makes sense, but it also feels unsatisfying because I think what people want when they come out of a movie, not to program the show live on the show or whatever. I think that is probably the right strategy in terms of episodes. I think we got to tinker with the release schedule. Yeah. And I think we just got to do everything as soon as possible and put it up. Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Yeah. And then it's Christmas because that's the other thing about this that is sort of weird is that then people like disappear, well, we hope to disappear off the face of the earth. we'll be working that Monday and Tuesday there's so many movies I'm always working you know we will be working that following Monday and Tuesday but it is an insanely busy time yeah we'll figure it out we'll figure it out it'll all work out fine everything's gonna go great this show will definitely exist this is such a great plan thank you so much to the Disney and Warner Brothers corporations for everything that you do for us in the movie going community it's very positive tell you what jacked up about Dune Bar 3 same show it to me now very much want to see inject it into my veins the next question is also a combination of many questions.

43:11People like this Chris Nolan guy. Many listeners are comparing him to Kubrick and they're asking... I bet they are. Can we expect him to complete his Great Man trilogy in his next film? Will he adapt another famous, unadaptable text? Can he go any bigger? Will he make a horror movie? What is next for him? A Great Man trilogy? What is 13-a-G? That's what we have. I think it'll be, yeah, 14-a-G? I don't know I don't know what he's going to do Do you feel angst about it? No Did you get the impression that these people are worried for Christopher Nolan That they feel stress about What he's going to do next?

43:53I didn't sense anxiety But I think just people are like What is it? What is next? Anticipation He's on the generational heater He's now doing the thing He's about to enter a six month Oscar campaign for this movie. It has, I think, a very strong chance to do pretty much what Oppenheimer did and that will interrupt some of his creative process. He usually takes about three years between movies and Universal has already dated July 20th, 2029. They haven't said this is untitled Christopher Nolan event film, but you can rest assured that's what that will be if the movie's ready. And so, yeah, we'll see.

44:31What should he do? I would love if he did a standard issue horror movie. I don't mean like a slasher, something with a little bit of elevation to it. But I think it'd be cool to see him just the same way he's trying on classical biopic, Swords and Sandals epic, space exploration, a movie about magic. Like there's all these kind of like micro genres. Spy movie. Spy movie. He keeps dipping his toes in all of these really fun subgenres that we love to watch and talk about on the show. So horror movie would be a good one. And it would certainly be, as he talked about going to see Obsession with his kids, like resonant with the times.

45:04You know, then it's like horror really made it when the biggest director in the universe is like time for my horror movie. There's some downside to that. There's some like, I knew I liked this band before they were famous energy to that. Yeah, but you guys are already in that space. That's the horror fan reaction to Obsession was I had this on vinyl, you know? It was, not for me, but it was. But it was. I really liked it. But yeah, I get what you're saying. I don't know. Is there something you'd want him to take a try at? Sense and Sensibility remake? Yeah, from the perspective of Mr. Willoughby.

45:38That would be great. You don't get that reference because you don't remember. Oh, I've only seen it one time. Yeah. But I like that, a retelling from a man's perspective. Sure, yeah. That's what we're missing. Can I just say, the Kubrick comparison, I get what people are going for. I know that he makes these kind of big scale movies that really make you feel and think about the world or whatever, but they could not be more different. They really could not be. Stanley Kubrick was obsessed with sexuality and power and psychology. And he was really interested in what's on the outskirts of society and the human mind.

46:17Christopher Nolan is like a nice British guy with a good family. You know, he's not, he doesn't, he didn't show. And he believes civilization will rise again. Maybe, yeah, maybe. Like we didn't get to see Calypso fuck Odysseus. You know what I mean? Like that was not on the menu for the Odyssey. They're not the same. Like go watch Eyes Wide Shut. Can we go to the Dick's question now? Yes. Give me two seconds. Vamp for me. Okay. Thank you. This is related. I think it's the very last question. It's a very good question. I'm sorry if you were saving it for the kicker. No, I got it right here. So this question comes from, I believe it's pronounced Strati.

46:51There's a lot of people complaining about the historical accuracy of the Odyssey. And while I don't really care for that discourse as a Greek American, The one complaint I do have on historical accuracy is the lack of penises. There were two scenes specifically that could have featured a penis or multiple penises. The naked Cyclops scene or when Cersei turns the pigs back into men. So my question is, why didn't I see a penis? This question was definitely written in from Mallory Rubin. Strati would like to see the Cyclops hanged on. Well, yeah. Listen, I'm with Strati. I appreciate the historical context and the interest.

47:29And I think I broadly agree, though those are not the dicks I would want to see. You know, that's like, I mean, sure. Maybe the Cyclops doesn't have a traditional human dick. You know, we don't know. We don't know what's up with the Cyclopses. You think that's where the other eye is? Well, it's, I mean, it's unspecified in the text, at least in the Emily Wilson translation. That's right. And so I don't know what's up with Cyclops anatomy. Okay. I would imagine that the Greek soldier's anatomy is doing pretty well. And I would have been open to that. I think she makes some good points. What if Menelaus just dropped trial mid-story?

48:08Good work. I mean, you know, Agamemnon is bathed, but you're not in the bath. It's all from behind, which I thought actually was excellent. He's nude on a bed and he's felled by Clytemnestra whilst nude, I think. You know, as previously noted, Pattinson's skirts, pretty short, swinging in the breeze. There's some opportunity. I mean, let's just say that Nolan was like, we're going to do it. We're going to show it all. And just Matt Damon, IMAX 70, verticalized, unsheathes his sword for the whole world to see. Are we like, well, this film is great. Like, that's exactly what we needed in this movie.

48:50I mean, you know, in most cases, the missing dick is more integral to the text of the film, you know, like, right. And it's all about missing that. And there's also about there's an imbalance between the nudity, like female nudity and male nudity in a movie. There's not really that much female nudity either in this movie. Well, there's a shot of Charlize Theron with mesh from behind. She looks amazing. I think she has something under the mesh. The women on the island during the Siren Song are nude, but it's a very far away. The hair is covering. It's tasteful. It's very tasteful. And it's only they're seated, you know?

49:29Yeah. So it's more of a... Have you ever sat like that nude, like upon a rock? No, it's way too like paint me like one of your French girls, you know? Type thing. Have you ever been painted? Why? Yeah, there's a childhood portrait of me. You don't know about this? This is the most... I can't believe that... Incredible lore drop. Like I had to sit for a portrait. Is it like in the style of Caravaggio? Like what happened? No, but it's in the style of like a weird portrait hall. And it's in my dad's home. I'll try to get a picture. You and I were raised very differently. We were raised very differently.

50:04And my memory of this was just my mother being like, Amanda, sit still. Amanda, what's wrong with you? And I was like, I'm five. This sucks. Anyway. I'm trying to imagine my parents saying, we want you to be painted that's just that never came up I guarantee listen that's I'm not saying it was a great choice but you asked the question and I had an answer and I had to do portrait hands like my hands had to be like this one hand over the other it all makes sense now it doesn't make any sense at all but here I am let's just get back to dicks for a second let's get back to dicks did the Trojan horse have a dick I don't think so no I don't think so Well, it's rearing up.

50:49Yeah, sure. And it's not there. It's sort of a Barbie situation. I don't know that anatomical correctness was an issue for that construction, right? That was a gift. But so you're saying that it's not the erasure. It's not Nolan's erasure. It's historically accurate that there is no dick on the wooden horse. I don't know. I don't know. They put dicks on all their other art. Emily Wilson is on Derek Thompson's Plain English this week. Do you think that Derek asked that searing question? Well. Where was the Trojan horse's dick? Did it have a dick? Yeah. Did it? I don't know. Okay. These are life's great mysteries.

51:27I gotta say, wonderful question. That's T-wall for Amanda, what you just did. Okay, next question. Next question comes from Nick. In honor of counter-programming, do you think The Invite will be a major player at the Academy Awards? It has stellar reviews, an awards-friendly cast, and the minor 34 % drop in its second weekend of wide release indicates strong word of mouth. Could we see a quartet of acting nominations or wild in the director race? Or is it more likely to just be in contention for screenplay, if even that? We did a whole episode about this movie and we didn't talk about this. We did not talk about whether or not this film has awards chances.

52:05Why not? Because you forgot to ask? I just forgot. Okay. Because it's a movie directed by a woman? Yeah. Could be. Though a movie I like quite a bit. I think the answer is yes to all of this. Why did you text me on Tuesday being like, what's up with... You just sent me a screenshot of a Letterboxd list. Someone online posted a screenshot of 10 films that they're predicting are going to be the Best Picture nominees. Okay. Obviously, we're not going to start doing the Best Picture Power Rankings in July. But we'll do it in September. From the Lido. The 10 movies that were shared I thought were interesting because it was some very obvious ones, right?

52:43It's like The Odyssey and Project Hail Mary are almost certainly going to be nominated for Best Picture. I'll be stunned if neither of those movies are nominated for Best Picture. And then we talked about Wild Horse 9, Digger. You know, there's a lot of – those are filmmakers whose films have been nominated for Best Picture before. It's reasonable to assume that. Dune Part 3, there's a lot of assumption that that's a movie that it's the conclusion of a big trilogy. The first two are nominated. Fjord won the Palme d 'Or. Reasonable to assume that. and then look at the other movies that were on the list that I sent you and it was Behemoth which seems possible though not necessarily likely depending on the reception Obsession which is a big box office hit it's kind of more like in the weapons mold and The Invite Yeah The Invite is a movie that could very easily be nudged out if there's a bunch of international films that we haven't heard about coming in the festivals this year some surprises that emerge late breaking like The Brutalist or something like that might come along that we didn't know was going to be released but the invite seems like a very obvious like screenplay and one performance kind of thing you know like you could see like you know maybe Olivia or Norton get nominated adapted screenplay gets nominated and that's it or there's a world where you know actors love it Olivia Wilde is like a great ambassador for the film so you could see her doing FYC stuff for eight months and really selling it and you know she was so great when she came on the show to talk about how she made the movie.

54:09And it's a movie that gets six or seven nominations. And then it's like, well, Woody Allen style, thoughtful, fun, entertaining adult movies are back this year too. And so if you had to guess which direction it goes, which one do you think it will take? Right now, it seems to me like the invite is a yes in Best Picture. And I think if it gets Best Picture, it's because it has actor support and people like the writing and people are rooting for Olivia Wilde And I do think that Nick's point of like of counterprogramming that it like it is a smaller movie in, you know, one well-designed location with four people talking, which is very different than most of the other movies that are going to be on the slate.

54:52Certainly the Odyssey and Pride of Tell Mary. So I think probably I think it's going to be on the radar and everyone likes it. I haven't met anyone who's like, this stinks. I agree. the problem is is not enough people have seen it it hasn't quite done as well as I expected it to at the box office Nick's right that it went down a very low number which bodes well it added screens and went down a very low number and I think it's got really good word of mouth but it's the kind of movie that like you really don't want to see show up on VOD in a week like you really want it to stay on 2 ,000 screens for four or five weeks to let it kind of keep getting discovered but I do also think that it'll play incredibly well on awards season on the screener apps you're right all of those people are great campaigners.

55:39And so the people who don't see it now will check it out around voting. I just think it can stay. Yeah, there's one other thing that I think helps it, which is that Olivia Wilde is in Behemoth, Penelope Cruz is in La Bola Negra. They're also just going to be around a bunch with other movies throughout the season, so that benefits it as well. We'll see. I would love it because it's wonderful. This episode is brought to you by Nas Energy. Every ounce of dirt, sweat, and gears, every checkered flag and trophy raised every lap, every race, every hard-fought place. They're all jammed inside every can of NOS Energy.

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57:21Terms apply. One of my favorite movies of the year. What's the next question, Jack? Next question is also a combination of multiple questions and this was by far the most asked question. What is your interpretation of Zendaya's role as Athena in the Odyssey? Apologies to the listeners for not including all of your wonderful theories. Good question. And I don't know if we actually specifically dove into this. Yeah. But there are obviously multiple ways to read what that character represents. Yeah. One being, is she just a manifestation of Odysseus's guilt, regret, his, you know, kind of angst about the decision that he's made both to leave his family and then also to kind of leave Agamemnon and take this other route and also his decision to participate in war and lead a war.

58:06The other is a more literal interpretation, which is that she's Athena. She's the goddess Athena, and she appears to him the way that the goddesses and gods appear to the people who lived at this time in Greece and around the world if they believe. Because there are no other gods or goddesses in the movie, the former theory is the one that I think most people are accepting, as this is my interpretation of what this, what Zendaya represents to the movie. Is there another reading that I'm missing or another way you think about it? I don't think so. I mean, I think she's the conscience and responsibility for the Odysseus character.

58:46And, you know, it is, again, sorry to be like, I reread half of the Odyssey, you know, in translation. But one of Emily Wilson's main criticisms was the lack of representation of the gods in the film because they are so present in the poem, but they also, like, they make the decisions. And so it almost becomes, you know, there is a different interpretation of free will and fate in the poem than in Nolan's movie. I enjoy Nolan's interpretation because, again, this is an interpretation, and also we are modern audiences. um but so i think that instead of it's it's deft to use the god the goddess character who is in the original text you know making a lot of things happen to then be the echo and the um sort of inner monologue almost it's also you know it's just it is a practical way of expressing some of an internal character's thoughts out loud because he doesn't have anyone else to really talk to, you know, because it's a movie and you got to say things.

59:58But so I thought it was very smart to adjust the character into the person on his shoulder, his running monologue, I think his regrets. And also, like, in a lot of ways, she is sort of the personification of Zeus's law. of the way that Odysseus thinks he's supposed to live his life. And then that is used so dramatically and beautifully, I think, in that final scene where it is her. She's not, we don't actually see her being beheaded, but that it's the Athena statue that you've betrayed this idea, this way of living, this code. And I think, kind of to continue that point, one other additional component that I see with it is that the gods and goddesses are actually just manifest in humanity.

1:00:47And so they're not these figures sitting on mountains throwing thunderbolts, but that like they are the kind of the stability or the cohesion of society. And that like by breaking that law that you're describing, like you're going against humanity in a profound way. And so him seeing her as the innocent woman who was beheaded at this time of war and equating her with Athena, who is, you know, the goddess of multiple things, but wisdom, one of them, also strategic warfare. Like, so she is sort of like, she is almost literally his conscience in terms of what Odysseus represents to us as a figure in the world.

1:01:27So I thought it was a really, really cool and smart way to do it. But, you know, Richard Brody, the New Yorker critic, also criticized the film for removing the gods from the telling of the story. And some people, it reminded me a little bit of something. I mean, it's very different. It's very different. It reminded me of our conversation about Wuthering Heights where I was really hard on that movie because I was like, this is not Wuthering Heights. And, you know, to me, I think what it ultimately means is it's not about the adaptation specifically. It's what you do with it. It's if you change it and you make it coherent.

1:01:55And I can understand why you would make those changes to make it more modern, to your point, or something else. I think Wuthering Heights is trying to do a similar thing. It's trying to create like a more modern template for sexuality. But that one didn't make sense to me. It didn't work. I didn't really understand why the things that were taken out of that story were taken out. Whereas in this one, I feel like I can really see and understand the logic of it. And I like it. Is there a chance to make a cool movie where Zeus is throwing thunderbolts and Poseidon rises from the sea? Sure. Yeah. It's hard to do that well with CGI.

1:02:24I think it would turn out like Masters of the Universe, but that's okay. You might be right. Yeah. Next question. next question comes from Justin is the Odyssey in the top five of best picture winner follow ups I mean, Coppola did Godfather Part II in the conversation in the same year, two years after The Godfather. Yeah. I don't think that will be topped. That's true. But they're asking top five. So the other ones, the first one that came to my mind was Talented Mr. Ripley after English Patient. Good one. Good one. You've got Shutter Island after The Departed. I think neither of those are Martin Scorsese's best films, but that's how the cookie crumbles.

1:03:04Two films I love. Lucas pointed out Lawrence of Arabia after Bridge on the River Kwai which is probably that's if anyone is going to upend Coppola it would be that and I should correct the record he is the one time I believe I believe the one time this has happened where a filmmaker went back to back with two films winning Best Picture and Best Director it was Lean for Lawrence of Arabia and Bridge on the River Kwai okay

1:03:30I don't know it might be yeah I think we're like a little still a little apprehensive to be like Like, is this Chris Nolan's best movie? I'd like to see it again before I start getting comfortable with that. I've got it at three right now. Well, I'm not going to Chattanooga anytime soon. But if I did, I would happily watch the film. I wonder if they, are they doing any like programming with it in Chattanooga? I mean, this is a tale of the sea. We are the people, you are the people from the sea. So like, do the stingrays like show up? What else is going on? This might be complete hearsay. Like I'm reflecting off of a tweet.

1:04:04that I saw. It's not hearsay. I looked it up. You looked it up? It's true, yes. Well, that's producing. I love that they did that. And it is, it's the Tennessee Aquarium. In Chattanooga. The Chattanooga. Well, yeah, that's the Tennessee. Oh, yeah, there it is. I mean, the first, I'm looking at their site. They are also showing BBC Earth, Wild Asia, Life at Extremes 3D, and Ocean Dreams 3D. But then you've got the Odyssey and IMAX and the Coral Sea from the filmmakers who brought you Turtle Odyssey. Turtle Odyssey. Yeah. That's about turtles going home. Yeah. Maybe they should be showing that right now.

1:04:40I'm not going to tell the Tennessee Aquarium how to do their job. I feel like they know what they're doing. Yeah. They're getting that Odyssey money. I don't know. We could probably go down the list of every single person that's one best director and say, well, this movie was better than this movie or that movie wasn't better than that movie. But this is Best Picture. Best Picture, yeah.

1:04:58I don't know. I'd probably have to go back to the 1930s and 40s, really give it some thought. I mean, you know, if we'd ever seen the real Magnificent Ambersons after Citizen Kane. Sure, yeah. You know? Wait, Citizen Kane didn't win Best Picture, though. That's right. So it doesn't work. God damn it. I mean, that's what makes it interesting about Best Picture is that Best Picture... The wrong movie wins all the time. Yeah, exactly. That's true. What was Peter Farrelly's film after Green Book? What was that called? Next question. Combination of multiple questions. Yeah. Tom Holland. Mm-hmm. Telemachus has been one of the most divisive performances in the Odyssey.

1:05:37Many people wrote and said they really enjoyed the performance. Others found him incredibly miscast. Were any of those people his mom? But performance aside, where does he go from here? How do you see his career playing out over the next decade or so? Take chances, man. You've already made four Spider-Man movies, two Avengers movies. You're in the Odyssey. just go the path of Pattinson. Work with someone who seems exciting to you and isn't a sure thing and has done a smaller movie that is really interesting. Use your clout for good. That's the story of every great movie star. Use your clout for good.

1:06:12But do you think he's capable? Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. Don't go the path of Pattinson because you have to find your path. Okay, go the path of Tom Cruise. Yes, that's better. And work with Cameron Crowe and Paul Thomas Anderson. Agree. And you can balance it. You know, like you can also still work with Ed Zwick. You can still work. You can work with like crafts people who are really good filmmakers who are trying to make commercial enterprises and make with audacious filmmakers who have really personal stories to tell. I mean, it's not that's not hard. He's not 14 years old. He's like 30 years old.

1:06:47Like this isn't I know he tried to make a couple of serious movies and they didn't go so well. But I think that the filmmakers that he chose to work with are maybe not as elevated as who someone like Pattinson or frankly, the person you should really talk to. and I'm sure he has at length is Matt Damon. Matt Damon is the best at this. Matt Damon takes a lot of chances. He makes a lot of movies. He's made a hundred movies. Some of them work, some of them don't. He's also made 10 movies that you and I will watch for the rest of our lives. So, Are you yelling at me? I don't know. I just like, I didn't do it.

1:07:14Because everybody is so precious about Tom Holland because he's their beautiful little Spider-Man. I'm like, guys, get over it. He's got to make more good movies. It's just a fact. I'm not mad at you. I'm not mad at him. Directed at them. Yeah, to rank at the camera. Straight to camera. Also, this question doesn't have a name on it. Show yourselves. Yeah. Is it Tom Holland's mom who asked this question? Asking for advice on the career of this incredibly successful man who's married to Zendaya? He's going to be fine. Okay, I'm done. He's also really good at golf. Yeah. Yeah. And a tribute to him.

1:07:49A great athlete. Selling non-alcoholic beer. Is that a fact? Indeed it is. Yeah, I read he's sober in Zach's piece. That's great. Yeah. I applaud that as well. Make a good movie for fuck's sake. Surprised I really got to you. His next question is... Because people who are mad that we criticize the performance, I'm like, he's fine. Are people mad? Yeah, because they're like, that's my beautiful spider boy.

1:08:15Okay. Put it in the newspaper that they're mad. Yeah, okay, I will. we still didn't get my newspaper prop I'm sorry when did you ask for this I want a newspaper that I think I says like I'm mad or Sean's mad so I can hold up the newspaper you know and we have in fact put it in the newspaper that Sean is mad I think this is an idea you came up with by yourself I think so but I'll have Lucas write it down we'll get on that I promised that I theorized this once on a podcast I did also briefly think about getting a gavel for this episode. I think that's a good idea. No. But. No to what? Well, to answer people's questions.

1:08:58Barry Lyndon. Yes or no? No. That's very you. Okay. What's next, Jack? Next question comes from Danielle. Hey, Big Pic Gang. Every year, my friends and I host a screening of Dunkirk and get absolutely hammered. We're talking, taking shots whenever a plane gets downed, famous people come on the screen, and when people actually talk. We also started an annual conclave screening. where we all dress as cardinals and elect a new pope. We're looking for inspiration on a new screening to add to the rotation. If you could host an unhinged movie-themed watch party or create a movie-watching tradition, what would you do?

1:09:32Danielle, where is my invitation? This is a real Pixar-didn't-happen situation. Like, you're hosting a conclave party? How many people are there? Are we talking dozens of cardinals? What's the movie where the Catholics are voting? It's still my favorite thing that's happened on Big Picture this year. No, that was Charles. Charles, that's right. That was very funny. I don't know if you can top Conclave Party. Yeah, it's really good. That's really funny and elite. And honestly, this is inspiring. This is what our fandom is doing. I salute to you, Danielle. You're crushing it. You know, I think Babylon is durational.

1:10:11And there's a lot of opportunities to get really fucking drunk during it. And imagine the costumes. Yeah. I think there's a lot of opportunity there. So I was, my first instinct was that Tar is too solemn a movie in order to suggest, but you guys are taking shots when planes go down in Dunkirk. So, you know, this is not the most respectful way to honor levity to the situation. Listen, Dunkirk, number one. So I'm with you, Danielle. Some people sail west to honor fallen soldiers. Some do. Some do shots. But so, Tar, it seems like you guys could sort of do like a Bradley Cooper maestro, you know, conducting competition.

1:10:52Well, no, no, no. But Tar is better outfits, right? Like, everybody comes in their blazers. Everyone does their best Lydia Tar. Okay. I'm Petra's father. I know, but maestro. You know, cucumber salad. I'm reining it in. You know, you can see that being a moment. Sure, both double feature, right? Double feature, Tar and maestro. There you go. And behemoth. Is there a lot of conducting in that? I presume. I mean, I saw some because there were no words in the trailer. Well, yeah. You're really mad about this trailer. I did. I did. It made me concerned. I think you're just mad because it's not going to Venice.

1:11:24Okay. No. Next question. Well, I would say one, regretting you. Watch that movie. Absolutely blitzed. Amazing time. Regretting you. Yes. The 2025 motion picture starring. A Colleen Hoover festival is a really, really good idea. And then also, I don't know your guys' opinion on this movie, but a classic would obviously be, if nobody's ever seen it, The Room. Where do you stand on the room? I've done it. I get it. it was, it was, it was fun. Yeah. You know, I had this, I threw the spoons. I was a part of that. What I like is the ingenuity in this, you know, like the room was not made for that, but then it has become its own Rocky horror picture like thing, which is awesome.

1:12:02Community is important. I literally agree with that. I don't know. I don't know if you're being ironic, but I actually agree with what you said. I don't know what I agree with it too, But also, I don't think anyone should ever say the word community in that way. So, I mean, it's very like HR email about what's going on at work this week. I got to tell you, I do feel that you are in an era of your life where you're really engaged in your community. Like you're really trying to build your community in a really sincere way. Do you mean that online or in the world? In the world. I mean, online, sure.

1:12:38Yes, we're always doing that, right? That's kind of a modern condition. but in your life I feel like you're accumulating new friends and you're like really putting yourself out there yeah I'm living out loud I'm done having children good for you and so I'm going outside I'm making friends I'm doing hobbies yeah that's great you can have it all thank you so much that's so beautiful so that's important but what I like about this Amanda doesn't like being told what she is which is something that I love to do unless I'm told that I'm a Leo and then is now the time when we read the AI description of Leo season.

1:13:11It's Leo season. This is a Leo podcast. We are both Leos, which is the least surprising news to ever be announced for like the 50th time on this podcast. We're Leos. We're Leos. So are Ben and Sandy, our patron saints over there. Ben, August's birthday? Ben Affleck? Yeah. He's a later Leo, I think. What does that mean, transitively? Are there other qualities? I haven't looked into it because I'm August 1, so then my interest ends. Do you want to read the description? No, no, you have it. I'm Googling Ben Affleck's birthday to make sure. Oh, he's the 15th. Interesting. Of August. Yeah. Late in the game.

1:13:43Yeah. Leo's are born between July 23rd, July 22nd and August 22nd. And they are bold, charismatic and big hearted fire signs of the Zodiac. We sure are. Ruled by the sun, they are natural born leaders who love the spotlight. They are known for being incredibly generous, loyal and creative, but can sometimes struggle with being stubborn or attention seeking. Yeah. Also. Who does that sound like? We read this to Jack because Jack does not know about the Leos. I think that that's good. You shouldn't really. Yeah, Jack's a Scorpio. And you shouldn't know too much about zodiac signs that are not your own.

1:14:23But we did read it to him. And then he said, oh, that does actually sound exactly like you guys. And we were both saying that we have both been told our whole lives that we are deeply Leo. Just like to add in here a little sprinkle of excitement. not only is it Leo's season, but this is the Leo's emerald year. And this is for Chris Ryan. This is, he mocked us in the van in Toronto. But now I'm giving him the information. So Jupiter is in one of our houses or something. And this means, sorry, Susan Miller's website has a lot of ads. So it's the good fortune planet and it entered Leo for the first time in 12 years.

1:15:04so we will increasingly find ourselves at the right place at the right time okay is that place the screening of Spider-Man brand new day on Monday I hope so I forgot about that is that at the I'll be there which one is it which theater I'll tell you off mic okay great you said that people can't come whatever the deck is firmly stacked in our favor Chris Ryan who is also a Scorpio like Jack so make the coming period even more special vow not to take a passive role but an active one fueled by your my vision of all we hope to accomplish both personally and professionally. This is my active vow right here in minute 80 million of this podcast.

1:15:44I'm going to make this Leo season and this Emerald Year work for me. That's inspiring. You do whatever you want, but not honestly until August because the moon is somewhere else right now. I kind of checked out like five minutes ago. Scorpio, how crazy for Scorpio It was you, Jack Sanders, my wife, and Chris Ryan, all Scorpios. Your three favorite people on planet Earth. Three essential people to my existence. That's fascinating. And then obviously my twin over here. Just amazing. Okay, what's next? Next question comes from James. Because this is the summer movie mailbag, he asks, what will be the best movie of the summer?

1:16:20And he noted, and why will it be Tony? Man, I love Tony. I know you haven't seen Tony yet. We'll be talking about Tony on the show. I don't know if it's the best movie of the summer. It's pretty up there for me. Matt Johnson's new movie, Portrait of Anthony Bourdain at a very young age. It's kind of shrunk down a long period of time in his life into a very short summer. So yeah, we'll get into that then. I don't know. I mean, The Invite, The Odyssey. Yeah, it's been good. It's been good. We're going to talk on Monday. We'll talk about a bunch of movies that we missed over the summer. I don't know if many of those movies will make the best movies of the summer list.

1:16:56Yeah, I'm thinking through. and most of them are poor to quite poor. Yes. We'll also go through the summer movie game and figure out I think we got some stuff wrong. Okay. You feel good about that? Was it us or was it Hollywood? Good point. Way to turn it back on them. Thank you. It's Leo season. It's never a problem. It's our Emerald year. I don't know. Jack, what's the best movie this summer? Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. Oh, right. That's coming out too. That's also a really great movie. We'll also talk about that movie on this podcast. Yeah, August has got some heaters. I saw another movie that's coming out in August that I'm not allowed to talk about that I also really liked.

1:17:31Oh. Is it the one that I'm excited about? Yeah. I'd like to see that. Yeah. But I will be on vacation. It's fine. I'll see it at some point. So yeah, August will be sneaky good. I do think Odyssey is going to have to hold down the fort for the next two weeks though. What's the next question? Next question comes from Mike. It's been a big year for Mr. Phenasy and I've got to know what's his fuck marry kill between going to the Cannes Film Festival, interviewing Steven Spielberg, and the New York Knicks winning the NBA championship. I mean, we all know he's going to kill Can. He is going to kill Can.

1:18:03Now, under different circumstances, I wouldn't kill Can. Okay. Because Can, we just had better lineups. You know, we just didn't get a great lineup. No, it's not about that. It's that between interviewing Spielberg and, yeah, winning the NBA championship, like, you don't care about Can. And that's fine. It's in third place. I wouldn't want to. That's fine. I wouldn't kill any of these things. I'd like to go back to the Cannes Film Festival at some point in my life. I know you'd like to go back in 10 months.

1:18:35I don't know. I think it's probably fuck Spielberg and marry the Knicks. Really? Because I'm in a long-term relationship with the Knicks. Okay. And you're not in a long-term relationship. I just met Steven Spielberg. You're saying it's probably fuck Spielberg. It's just really good. Is there a better way to answer that question? No, it was perfect. If there is, you should tell me. What do you think? Well, in terms of, you know, immediate joy versus lasting, I mean, the Knicks championship, will that euphoria last a lifetime? Can it last a lifetime? That's sort of like the end of romantic comedy.

1:19:16You don't want to know. I think you're describing marriage. Well, no, that's why you should fuck it. And then you can... No. Yeah. No, the opposite. All right. You know? Okay. Marriage is wonderful. I love being married, but. Yeah. You know, it's a parabola of experiences. Right. It goes up and down. The Knicks will go down and go back up again. I'll never go back to the moment, any of the moments hanging out with Steven Spielberg. That was truly magical. Okay. That was very, very special. But you know what? You got to be careful trying to recreate a one-night stand. Dangerous stuff. Okay. Take it from me, the 43-year-old married man.

1:19:51I was going to say. I was just like, I'm not commenting. I'm moving on. I had the same thought. The next question comes from David. Since we just did a Sean FMK, this one's for Amanda. Yeah. Amanda, if at the beginning of your marriage, you and Zach discussed taking a cruise. Okay. But then your husband gets lost at sea for 10 years, comes back with an open air boat with no privacy and says, let's sail west. Are you sailing west with him? Okay, these are great questions. So I'm just going to say right now, for my purposes, the cruise at the beginning is a big red flag. You know, like that's an issue.

1:20:31I like I would like to go on a yacht and can at some point, but then I want to get back off the yacht. I don't want to be stuck at sea, even with like the giant yachts or whatever. I, you know, I like the land. I like being able to move around. You haven't been on a cruise before, right? I have been on a cruise. What was it? Well, you've heard the story about the ex-boyfriend who— Oh, yeah. Yeah, and I had to go on a cruise with his family, and then we were dating for another year, and then we missed the boat, or almost missed the boat. Let's do FMK with all your ex-boyfriends.

1:21:08Okay, so the cruise there was a sign. But to answer the second point of your question, and I would pose this to you as well. I think this would be an interesting talking off point. Okay. I would be, I don't know if I would let Zach go to the Trojan War. I would be so fucking pissed. As like a leader in an Odysseus type role or as a grunt? Like, does it matter? Even as an Odysseus type guy. You guys have moved to Canada? What would be the move there? I mean, basically, I would just be like, no, you can't just go do random shit and like not come back. That's not what I agreed to. That's not how this is working.

1:21:47That's actually the exact style of English that Nolan used in his script, interestingly. No, you can't just go do shit. I don't think you'd have much say. I think honor was an incredible, Zeus's law was an incredible component here. You know, if you're sort of fealty to Agamemnon, that might supersede, hey, my wife said I can't. Right? I mean, sure, but I didn't say. I wouldn't want to go to work. They didn't say that I was back in ancient Greece. True. You know? True. What kind of cruise would you consider? Well, I was going to talk about First Man. This is like when in First Man, is she Janet Armstrong?

1:22:27Did I just make that up? Sounds right. When Ms. Armstrong. Yeah, Ms. please. Janet. Yeah. It's just really fucking pissed at him. She's just like, why the fuck do you have to go to the moon? What's wrong with you? We have problems down here. Yeah. And like, she's right. And that's a great movie. Her name was Janet. Yeah. Oh. Sick pull from me. Well done. Also, First Man at La La Land didn't win Best Picture, famously. But First Man is the follow-up to that, right? Yeah. Neil and Janet got divorced, just FYI. Yeah, but that's because he went to the moon anyway. Yeah, a bunch of boys. Because he was like, I'm not going to, you know, and then they like stared at each other through the glass.

1:23:03God, we got to go back to First Man. It's great. What a film. Anyway. God damn it. So, the open air boat. We should do First Man at one of our screenings. That would be great. Yeah, they'll never pick it. First, it's a bigger splash, and then it's first man, you know? Yeah, bigger splash. Bigger splash is a new money ball. I know. It's tough. That's what it's... I know. You were right about that. What a great summer movie. It is. We're talking about something nobody understands.

1:23:30So he... We wouldn't even need to get to the point where it's an open-air boat with no privacy, and let's sail west, because I would already be pissed about the 10 years away. I agree that I have some questions about where they're sleeping on the open air boat. But again, I don't really want to go on a cruise. It's a very odd question that someone's asked you. I really like that people are spending their time thinking about what you and your husband would do in the event that you went on a cruise. Well, I think it's a question about how the Odyssey is a portrait of a marriage, but not a modern marriage.

1:24:08Fair point. Okay, what's the next question? This next question is fun. It comes from Dennis from New Zealand. With Dune Messiah and Avengers Doomsday currently slated to open on the same day, is this the closest movies have come to recreating the Kanye West versus 50 Cent Graduation Curtis Showdown? Back then, the conventional wisdom was that 50 was the bigger commercial force, but Kanye won both the sales battle and the cultural argument, making a shift in what mainstream audiences wanted. Could Dune win, or is Marvel still too much of a cultural juggernaut?

1:24:43I don't think Dune can win. Just from a purely box office perspective. The Dune movies are not nearly as big as the Avengers movies. And so I think if that's... It will win our hearts. If that's the way to think about it, I don't think that's going to work out. From a prestige, awards, Metacritic score perspective, almost certainly Dune Part 3 is going to do better. And look, I think you can just bank on this. critics are going to have their knives out for doomsday it's a blood-in-the-water moment bunch of marvel movies haven't worked consecutively everybody nobody has to worry about being like oh wow what an achievement that they told the story over 10 years all that stuff's over so in that respect the movie is almost certainly not going to be received as well but i mean i think the avengers movie is going to make a billion dollars i just think it's going to be massive so but the way comparing it to the kanye and 50 experience is really interesting i mean i was in the thick of covering this at Vibe when this was happening.

1:25:41This was like the biggest deal in the universe if you were covering music. And we didn't necessarily know it at the time but right before Kanye was more critically acclaimed but 50 was on top commercially at that point. Kanye had only put out two records and Curtis was like when it became clear that it was over for 50. There's not a I'm looking at the track list right now. There's not There's no jams on, you know, it's not a terrible album, but it's like it is the it is officially the fall off for 50 as a musician. And so I don't know if you could really compare them in the same in that way either.

1:26:20Like, is this Denis Villeneuve elevating, you know, is he has he not yet made my dark twisted fantasy? You know, like, has he not yet made his 80 weights and heartbreak? You know, like, I don't know. And likewise, is Marvel really like going to be starring on power in like a few years on stars? Like, you know, in terms of just following 50s trajectory, it's a really interesting comparison. There have been other days like this in the movies that I thought of almost immediately when I saw this question, though. Like, the funniest one since the show has been around was when Venom and A Star Is Born came out on the same day, which I think was, was it October 5th, 2018?

1:26:57I think that's what the date was. Something like that. Which, that was actually when the show, I was like, I know exactly what this podcast is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, this is both, these two things, this is everything. You know, like big, glossy, starry Hollywood remake with the actors we love, Gaga, and then Tom Hardy jumping in a tank in a restaurant to play with lobsters. Like this is cinema to me. But before that, I think we've talked about The Dark Knight and Mamma Mia on the same day, right? Maybe when we talked about Mamma Mia on the pod, did we talk about the fact that they came out on the same day?

1:27:27I don't remember what we talked about. And two smash hits. Yeah. Have you seen Mamma Mia 2 yet? Not yet. Yeah. I do own it on 4K. Oh, congratulations. I figured Allison will watch it at some point. Not yet. Toy Story and Casino opened on the same day. Okay. Who's 50 and who's Kanye in the Toy Story Casino Showdown? Well, I can't say that Casino is 50 because many, many listeners were so mad that we didn't put Casino in the Scorsese Hall of Fame. Did we not? I don't remember that. I think we ultimately didn't. And that was probably me. And then the men were mad. Casino's good. It's fantastic. I love it.

1:28:05Okay. Did you? I think this is right. Ghostbusters and Gremlins opened on the same day and this is the closest I could come to figuring out Dune Avengers where I'm like these movies are aimed at the exact same audience. They're the exact same kind of movie. Fun, scary comedy. Just weird that that would happen. I think that's right. And then Scarface in terms of endearment also came out on the same day in 1983. I think Moonstruck and Broadcast News came out on the same day speaking of very specific. audiences. Same audiences. And also two masterpieces. It's interesting when that happens. Same weekend at least?

1:28:42Yeah, this sort of stuff happens more frequently now when you've got a bunch of movies all coming out on like Christmas Day. But the historical comps are interesting. I don't know. You know what? I still like 50 Cent's music. Not afraid to say it. When Just a Little Bit came on at French Pilates with like five minutes to go. I was like, I have ascended into heaven. This is my life. That's one of your jams. This is your life. I mean, but do you expect to hear 50 Cent like at French Pilates when the woman is like, allez, les fies. You know, one more lunch. In Paris this happened? Yeah. Wow, that's great for you.

1:29:19I know. That song was produced by Scott Storch. You remember the Scott Storch era? Me too. Pretty cool. The Massacre by 50 Cent. Do you own that, Jack? I do not. Have you heard it? I have. I do not own any physical music. music. Because you feel all music should be free? I bought a couple of record players and never bought a record player and once that happened I was like I need to ban myself from doing this. Okay. We got just a little bit dropped from Amanda. That's incredible. Let's do two more questions. Thank you to Paris Pilates. Thank you. This next question I believe comes from Alistair.

1:29:54Alistair, I apologize if I'm mispronouncing. How would the Odyssey have gone different if Odysseus' crew were minions? Would his journey have gone better or worse?

1:30:06I think it would have been more lighthearted, you know, which then I don't know whether he would come to the same conclusions about his role in the, you know, moral universe. Though the minions, the arc of the minions universe does bend towards justice. And they do ultimately. Does it? Yeah. They learn that they want to be a force for good, not evil. Or they kind of get tricked into being a force for good rather than evil. Okay. Usually by various accidents where they go splat and you laugh a lot. Love the minions. I think, honestly, the minions and Cersei would be a very funny sequence that I would enjoy.

1:30:46That'd be great. That's a great idea. There's a lot of comedy here. The minions going one by one into Charybdis. You know, just where we're like, ah! Listen, I'm available for ideas. Always and forever. Would you leave the big picture to go work for Illumination? No. Well, in under... Well? I was like, oh! Listen, I'd love to do some partnerships. You know, no one asks. Okay, good to know. Me, Dua Lipa, and the Minions. Magical things can happen. Why did Dua Lipa get involved in this? Because Pierre Coffin did an interview with Reese, guy with the movie camera. And he talks about how he uses Dua Lipa songs.

1:31:28Like, Dua Lipa is part of Minionese. Oh, I see. Seek it. Seek it out. I see. Yeah. Got it. Okay. You got your own thing going on. Living in this. We have a different algorithm. We can actually do two more now. Okay. Next question comes from Mahir. Hey, Sean and Amanda. I've been a big fan since 2020. Thanks so much for what you do. Letterboxd going on sale worries me. They have quietly become one of the few independent qualitative data sets that can help fill some of the information gap that exists in our post-streaming world. Are either of you worried about what a letterbox sale would mean for the industry?

1:32:09Or do you think I put too much importance on what the app has become? I just want to point something out about Mihir's question that I found interesting because it's not the same concern that I've heard from other people about this. He's saying it's a qualitative data set and it's an information gap filler. And that's how he values it. which is interesting because there was a piece that a person named Stephen Fellows wrote on Substack this week that I shared about the numbers. Really, really interesting dive into what's happened to the website, the numbers, which is a box office tracking website that you and I have both used many times over the years.

1:32:43It has been very helpful to me for coming up with show ideas and organizing stuff for episodes. And it was an independently owned and operated website. And it has been scraped aggressively by AI bots over recent years. and is kind of like threatening to pull the site down from within with all the scraping that it's doing. And so they're rebuilding the site and they hope to relaunch the site. I encourage people to check out this piece. But to me, this question that Mahir is asking kind of recalls that, that it's almost like he thinks of or she thinks of this letterbox as like a utility, you know, like a space full of information as opposed to the relationship that some other people have to it, which is like it's a community space.

1:33:24It's a space to get connected or it's a recommendation. engine or it's a place to get jokes off or what, however you think of Flutterbox, which of course I love and have been using also since 2020. Um, my reaction to the news about the sale is I just hope that they sell it to somebody who knows how great it is and preserves what's special about it and helps to make it even greater. And anybody who has a terrible idea of what it is and wants to ruin it, I hope doesn't participate in the acquisition. That's, I, it's really not more complicated than that. I think, what do you think about the idea of a movie studio trying to buy it?

1:33:57Don't feel great about it. It's a little complicated. Because even the most well-intentioned executives at movie studios, many of whom like really love movies and want to do stuff, we give them a hard time on this podcast because we give all executives a hard time. But like, these are a lot of people who like movies. But if you own it and pay a lot of money for it, then you can't not turn it into a financial tool for you, which would then mean that it is a tool at the expense of the other movies. And I think what is wonderful about Letterboxd is that it is like the gathering place, whether you're coming to it for data or whether you're coming to it for reviews or to get like a truly unfiltered non-Rotten Tomatoes nonsense check on what people who care about movies actually think about movies.

1:34:46It's incredibly valuable. And if it only speaks to a certain sliver of the movies or if a studio is putting, you know, some sort of pressure on it, even benevolent pressure, I think it compromises it. And people will be able to tell, right? And people are always very skeptical about corporate acquisitions. We've been more witness to a corporate acquisition in our careers. It's a very complicated thing. I think one thing I've always loved about Letterboxd is that it does have a kind of homemade analog feel, even though it's a pretty slick app, it just it doesn't feel overly complicated and noisy.

1:35:22Right. And so that's another thing that, you know, in an effort to escalate whatever it will become over time, you still want it to have that like pop in, open the app, log the movie, bounce out. It's intuitive and it feels very separate from the Silicon Valley grow, grow, grow algorithm, notification, you know, everything. Because it's it just is its own world. It's not trying desperately to like create some, you know, conquer all the other universes. And it did that very organically. So I think I would also worry about like a giant Silicon Valley purchase for the same reason. I mean, we come to this in all roads of life in capitalism anyway, where it's just like you're just hoping for the most like benevolent money possible.

1:36:03And most of the times the money isn't benevolent. But I'm hopeful that there is someone who just has a lot of cash and gets it. Same. The same applies for the three of us. What's next? This next question comes from Bobby, and I don't think Wagner, unless he has not kept me posted on some serious life updates. You know, we heard from Wags this week, so maybe it is Bobby. My wife is currently pregnant with our first child. Bob, if you didn't lead with that. Hopefully that's not Wags, because I would have needed to know that not on mic. and we recently learned that it will be a girl. What would you consider to be the classics of girl dad cinema and perhaps some underrated or lesser known films in the genre?

1:36:47I wrote down a bunch of movies off the top of my head this morning. Let's plug Adam Neiman's book right now before Adam Neiman is writing an entire book centered around this subject and examination of this subject probably both in a in a slightly skeptical you know in an academically rigorous way. It's called Dauteur Theory which is really smart. so pre-order that when that's available Adam sent us that pre-order link and also congratulations to Bobby this Bobby whoever he is yeah and his wife who I hope is feeling well I can't recommend something more than having a daughter you know it's like check out Paul Thomas Anderson movies have a daughter like that's it that's the those are my two recommendations to all people you know as I was making a list of movies and when Adam's book is published I'm sure we'll do an entire entire Girl Dad movie episode and we can talk about all the films that he sees as fitting the bill.

1:37:42But many of the movies I wrote down are your movies. Movies that you love. Yeah. Because you know what? I've been the daughter of a father my whole life. There it is. And do you think that's why these movies speak to you? I'm sure there's part of it. Yeah. I mean, I think some of it is also that they don't make that many mom-daughter movies. So in terms of... And why is that? So in terms of parenting movies, like movies about dealing with a parent, this is the... this is the relationship that's been explored. Yeah, that is interesting. Yeah. There is something special about the relationship. I don't know what it is, but I'm living through it.

1:38:19Off the top of my head. Yeah, I mean, number one is just absolutely stolen valor. You know, first Jimethy, now somewhere by Sofia Coppola. You've been out here. First of all, Rob Mahoney has taken it from me in just the one draft. Nothing is being taken from you. But also... This is a collective project. even when he took it for me you're like it's fine yeah but it's a girl dad movie I mean it is it's a beautiful movie it's very much in the exact strain is Sofia Coppola of course the product of a girl dad relationship Trap yeah Trap what happens there was another question we didn't get to about like what movies are going to be reclaimed Trap but we don't need to reclaim it because we were there Logan The Wolverine movie?

1:39:06Yeah. I've seen that. I saw that at the Regal Paseo when it was in Arclight with Phoebe Riley. Wouldn't you say that that's a girl dad movie? I honestly don't remember. Not literally, but figuratively. X-23. Oh, sure. The young girl. Yeah. Daphne Keene. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think so. Great. Liam Neeson's Taken. Sure. The canonical text. I mean, one battle after another, of course, last year grabbed the belt. Yeah. I thought of Clueless. That's nice. I mean, she has a dad. I love their relationship in that movie. It is very funny. Yeah. And I feel like she really gets what's special about her daughter.

1:39:38He really gets. Dan Hedaya's character really gets. He like, he's yelling at her sometimes. Yeah. But like, he knows that she's got the juice. Everywhere in LA takes 20 minutes. That's right. I mean, Father of the Bride, of course. I mean, this is the one forever and ever. This is just. You seen it recently? I haven't. Just an absolutely magical movie. Did we do Nancy Meyers before the Nancy Meyers episode before Alice was born? Because that was the last time I watched it. I don't remember because October 9th, 2020. Yes, we did. It was before. Okay. I'll get back to it. To Kill a Mockingbird? Sure.

1:40:17Atticus and Scout? Yeah. Okay. Poor Things? Who's, oh, sure. More of like Girl Frankenstein, you know? But that is That's a dad thing. Willem Dafoe, that's dad. Sure. Have you seen The Nice Guys recently? Did you see that CR just did a conversation with Shane Black about The Nice Guys? I did. I have not. I guess I've watched it in the last 10 years. Gosling plays a wonderful girl dad in the movie. Yeah. His young daughter. He's trying to find a killer and trying to save her. You know, After Son is the one that most people will point to. I also thought of We Live in Time. Yeah. which is a movie that affected me greatly um after something I like but don't love I think the same for you um but we've been told we are canonical monsters for feeling that way it's okay we live in time I just it's too it's too raw and it came out right once I was born and it's a very simple perhaps sentimental movie that I thought was very effective yeah it got me no um sentimental value an incredible girl that movie Complicated one.

1:41:27Yeah. How do you feel about The Descendants? I'm sure we've talked about it before. It's been a while since we had reason to discuss Clooney. Haven't seen it in several years. I remember liking it at the time. Me too. I probably rewatched it for The Holdovers. I almost said The Hangover. Okay. Different experience. Or is it? Or was it? Arrested Development as a theme. you know it's traditionally understood to be like the best that Clooney's ever been besides Michael Clayton in like actual acting and he is good I haven't seen it in forever I didn't rewatch it for any of those episodes I didn't rewatch it for the Clooney Hall of Fame I didn't rewatch it for Holdovers I didn't rewatch it for any of that I should revisit it I remember liking it as well Shailene Woodley I feel like that was her big breakthrough yeah I don't know I'll throw out one Moneyball oh yeah of course of course I'm sure there's a million more.

1:42:21We're just... We're just... Social reckoning? You know Aaron Sorkin's going to get it in there somewhere. Wow. I don't know whether Mark Zuckerberg has any daughters. I don't know whether he identifies as a girl dad. Should we get him on the show? Yeah. From feed me to the big picture? Would you be interested... That'll go really well. Would you be interested in him doing a live rebuttal to the social reckoning? Um... No. No. He has an entire platform available. What is it? What's it called? Do you use Meta products? Yeah. You do? I do. Yeah. Even though they're breaking a lot more easily these days.

1:43:06Do you have the headset? No, I just use Instagram. I tried it when it was the Apple whatever. Yeah. The Vision Pro. Yeah. That didn't really take off. No. It was really heavy. I kind of enjoyed it. I didn't like it very much. That was also, I think I was pregnant and nauseous and then it was just like, seems like a bad idea. Yeah, you know, not as bad as going to 40X while pregnant, which is also a thing that I did. That was actually a bad idea. And sat on the floor. Should we go to 40X again? My back is healed. Well, I'm curious about 40X The Odyssey. I've seen some clips. It looks too intense for me.

1:43:42Okay. I think I want to do it. Do you want to do a 40X Odyssey? Should I do it for my birthday? Your actual birthday Like on hungover No I don't think hungover that you should go I'm looking into some probiotics For the party That you take before drinking Probiotics Is that something people do now? Yes Before consuming alcohol they take probiotics And a trusted friend She said that it helps at least with the hangover A trusted friend I don't know whether she wants me I don't know whether she wants me to give away her pull quotes for free on this podcast. I don't know whether she wants to be credited with it, but I was, yeah, I'm going to try it.

1:44:25What does a probiotic do? A probiotic works with your gut. Right, I get that. But what does it accomplish before drinking? Like it makes you less hungover? Yes, that's the point. I don't know whether it works yet, but I'm willing to think about it. Isn't the hangover more about dehydration and not about your stomach? I don't, maybe it's affecting how your body absorbs the alcohol or how your body processes the alcohol. I don't know. What if I don't get drunk on my birthday? Listen, it's your birthday, you know? No, I like to be in control. I've heard that. Okay. This was good. Jack, you feel good about this?

1:45:01This was honestly one of my favorite mailbags in recent memory. Okay, good. Great. Me too. Thanks to the listeners. Leo season, you know? Leo season is here. Yeah. Thank you for the great questions. 600 questions. That's really kind of everybody. Thanks to Jack Sanders. Thanks to Lucas Cavanaugh for going through those questions, helping us out. As I mentioned, we're going through 10 movies we missed. Will there be anything else fun happening on Monday in the news? Like, what do you think? Will someone die? Will someone get married? That's fun. Will someone be born? Someone dying? No, that's not fun.

1:45:30Okay. It's notable. I pull strings to get Jimothy on the show. Wow. Jimothy, third chair? Could you imagine? When was the last time? Well, I guess you only get a rabies shot if you're bit by wildlife, right? So we should need to have that. We would need to have that on hand. Let's get you bit this weekend. That sounds perfect. All right. We'll see you next week.