The Triumph of ‘The Odyssey,’ and the Christopher Nolan Movie Rankings

19:47Sean Fennessey:Chris, I'm glad you're here for this news too. Okay. Amanda, no disrespect to you, but this is, this is, this is CR space. Edward Berger, Matt Damon confirmed that he and Edward Berger have been working hard on a, on a born, a newborn film. Not a reboot, not a new trilogy or anything, just another movie that he wants to make sense in the Bourne story. How do you feel about that? The final Jason Bourne movie was quite poor. The titular Jason Bourne. Obviously, I'm very vocal about my love for the Bourne legacy. The other rumor that kind of is pairing with this is the one about Zendaya possibly being looked at to take over the franchise at some point.

20:27And the idea of what, I don't know if these are two separate strands of development and whether or not the obvious next logical move would be Damon going to save a younger spy and then bring them along in this Jason Bourne world. But Edward Berger is about as good of a choice as you could possibly make for this. And if he's not going to do Bond, he might as well do this. That's my take. Agree. You've just completely erased me from my love of the Bourne franchise and the country house. and the haircutting. Oh my God. Yeah. Come on. That's so hot. Is that your favorite one? The first one? Yeah.

21:02Sean Fennessey:Yeah. Yeah. And the second one has more, has Joan Allen, which we know is important to you. It has more Joan Allen and has some great Thailand stuff. Sure. Second one is Supremacy. Yeah. And then Ultimatum is three, which is a little bit wonky, right? Yeah. Supremacy is pretty sick. When it ends in Moscow, right? Yeah. One and two are good. Yeah. It's weird because there have now been four of these movies and Four, five. Five of these movies, right? Three, Jason Bourne and Bourne Legacy. And a show. Cutstone. Five movies and a show is a lot for this story. Is Bourne Robert Ludlam? It is. What's your take on Ludlam?

21:41Sean Fennessey:I honestly have not read any Ludlam. Shocking. You know, Amanda is no longer reading male writers. I don't know if you've read that. That's not a no longer thing. She made an announcement that she'd read enough men for her lifetime. That was just a statement of what has been happening, a reflection of unplanned choices. Who will be the next man story you read? I'll tell you what it's going to be, because there's been a lot of talk about birthdays coming up. Yeah. And, you know, I turn 49, so it's not that big, but for 50. Yeah. What I think I'm going to do is have many men that I know gather. And Amanda is the only person in the audience, so we'll have, like, maybe the Disney concert hall.

22:20and all the men get on stage and we each read a story from John Cheever's collected short stories because it combines men and short stories, which are two of my favorite things. Listen, as long as it's not short stories. MJ Lenderman will play interstitial music. I like MJ Lenderman!

22:41Okay.

22:43Sean Fennessey:White Propeller is kind of a great name for a Cheever story now that I think about it. They're all called White Propeller. Okay. Speaking of the female voice in fiction, why don't you break this one down for us? Sure. Well, Chris and I were already talking about this. This was also covered on The Watch. Rachel Cusk's next novel is apparently a thinly veiled book about Natalie Portman. And what is it sourced from? From her life. They're friends. So they're friends, and did she seek permission? Well, she didn't tell us that. We don't know. This broke yesterday. This broke over the weekend. You make it sound like it's like a new Iran deal.

23:23Sean Fennessey:The news broke on Sunday afternoon. A Rachel Cusk novel. I had more text conversations about Rachel Cusk. Rachel Cusk. Rachel Cusk. And I am team Rachel Cusk. That's my novel about Rachel Cusk. Her book about Natalie Portman that I did about the Odyssey. So, listen, the streets that care about this are alive. And I just, I have, it is real. People have read it. It is, it's happening. You're not a big Portman gal. Well, that's true. you know I love Long Island Forever Long Island Forever man I'm interested I thought she was great in May December I'm interested to see what this novel yeah and how it comes out like how did she participate did she know she was participating do you say to Rachel Cusk write an auto fiction novel about me and it's okay if it's unflattering like let me pitch you an idea uh huh you thinly veiled novel of Bill Simmons who says no No, I do.

24:18I say no. First of all, I don't think I can write a novel. I'm supposed to write something that's like 5 ,000 words coming up, but I'm like, I don't know if I got it in me. Wow. Yeah. What is it? Liner notes for some friends who are putting their work out on a box set. Oh, that's so nice. But I was like, that's daunting. And they gave you the word count of 5 ,000? They were like, we have to fill out this booklet. Okay. We have to, you know. You can't fill it out with drawings? I asked about that. I was like, can we just do a really long Q &A? regardless, I will not do that. I would never write a thinly veiled novel about Bill Simmons.

24:52Sean Fennessey:Okay, who would you like to write a thinly veiled novel about? You. Yeah, that'd be a good book. Who would you write a thinly veiled novel about? Chris Nolan, pretty clearly. Speaking of, let's make a transition to The Odyssey. The Odyssey is a massive, massive, massive success. Just a fucking bat flip. Just an incredible success. We did it. $264.1 million worldwide gross. It made$140 million overseas. It made$125 million in America over the weekend, in North America, I should say. This is the biggest debut since The Dark Knight Rises when Chris saw it four times in two days. It's the third largest opening of the year, though the two other films that opened in front of it this year are Toy Story 5 and the Super Mario Bros.

25:37Sean Fennessey:Galaxy movie. This is a three-hour R-rated movie that absolutely dominated not just the film conversation, but I think a much more general conversation around the country, even around the world. Save the World Cup final match. I think this is just about the biggest match. I think they went hand in hand of being like we have two really exciting things to consume and talk about and think about and get mad about and get happy about. I saw a tweet this morning that tickets for the Odyssey at the BFI IMAX in London are fully sold out from now until September 10th. So there's a long runway here for this movie, give or take a Spider-Man movie.

26:15Sean Fennessey:to dominate movies for the next six weeks, which is totally fascinating. Seeing it again tomorrow, and my wife was like, why? You just saw it? And I was like, I just want to have the experience of seeing this this way as many times as I want or can. Because, you know, it'll be like five years or whatever until it gets back into a re-release. And this is really special. I mean, regardless of whether or not every part of the movie works for you, I think the experience of seeing it the way it's meant to be seen is really cool if you can manage to do it. What do you think about the reaction to it thus far?

26:47Aside from people behaving badly online, which is always the way, and we don't have to acknowledge it, it's really exciting. And I, you know, I said earlier about the Comic-Con of it all and it feeling like this, you know, the fan culture and the gentle insanity around a cultural product has, you know, been moved to something much closer to high art, in my opinion, than anything that's been released in the Marvel franchise in the last 15 years. And that's really exciting. You know, I think it's incredibly cool that Chris Nolan has turned nerding out about film stocks and projection to be a pop cultural thing.

27:33I think if you can't see the entirety of the helmet, it's fine. Me too. I agree. You guys are going to be okay, you know? I agree. Maybe we should just like borrow some helmets and wear them once and then you can see them. But what that indicates is that he has turned it into both a cultural phenomenon and as your tweets and the box office indicates like a box office, a financial phenomenon, which then means that the corporations that make movies will pay attention because they think that it's another way to make money. And like real movies filmed on film in real places, being a financially lucrative enterprise is just all you could want in life because that's the kind of movies I want to see.

28:21Sean Fennessey:Yeah, I completely agree. Echo all your sentiments. I love all the like apocryphal but fun anecdotes of people refusing to leave, you know, like they're at Lincoln Center and they're just like, you're going to have to call the cops. I want to watch it again, you know? It's funny. So my wife Eileen acquired a 6 a.m. ticket this morning on Monday morning to see it on 70 and IMAX at CityWalk. And she kind of like sat in the app and was refreshing to like try to find a ticket because she wanted to see it in this format. But you know, truth be told, Eileen doesn't care about the format and she's not going to really be able to tell the significant difference in terms of watching it.

28:56Sean Fennessey:So she just changed her mind. And then on Friday, just grabbed an 11 a.m. ticket to go see it in a Dolby room in Burbank. And she loved it. And it's like, it's going to play in any movie theater, you know? It might not be exactly the experience that you want to have in the exact perfect way that you want to have it as intended by the director. But this has been true of movies for years. What actually broke me of this fever in some ways was Tenet. Like, you guys watched Tenet in a smoky haze at a drive-in. I watched it on, I think on a computer the first time I watched it. It fucking rocks. We just screened it in Toronto.

29:28It rocks. Like, these movies will play everywhere, no matter like even if you're like I want to be able to see the full height of these uh of these characters like you're you're going to be okay. Eileen also said something interesting Saturday about the experience of hunting for the 6 a.m city walk ticket and sitting in the app and she said at some point I was just looking for the adrenaline of actually getting this thing that everybody wanted it was sort of whether it's like a labubu or a ticket to the 70 millimeter or IMAX at CityWalk. And I was just like, wow, that's awesome. That's an amazing feat of marketing.

30:06And I think that normally I would be cynical about that in terms of it making corporations money. But in this case, if it incentivizes more people to want to see film and movie studios to make film, then good job, everybody. It's uncanny.

30:24Sean Fennessey:The thing I love about it that is sort of related to the point that you're making about films like this being successful and going into the culture is. So Eileen went to that screening on 11 a.m. on Friday, and they gave out posters. So she came home with an Odyssey poster. And then, of course, when my daughter got home from camp, we showed her the poster, and it's the image of the Lagastronians facing down Odysseus' fleet. And Alice was just like, what is that? And then that took us back to the Dallaire's Book of Greek Myths that Amanda got her for her birthday, whatever, a year or two ago. And now we just spent the whole weekend reading the Greek myths and listening to myth podcasts together.

31:01Sean Fennessey:And now she's all into it and she wants to hear about Artemis and Athena. So I'm like, this is kind of cool that this went back into the culture this way. And when you start reading those myths again, I'm reminded of like, well, everything is based on this. Every story is based on these stories. And all of these names, you know, the way that many screenwriters tend to use the names of the gods and the figures from those stories to represent like corporations over time, like how they all are kind of these kind of reclamations of power over history. And it's just because this guy was like, I'm going to make this a movie.

31:34Sean Fennessey:This should be a movie. It should be a movie at this scale. And now we can return to understanding what stories can represent. So I find that to be a wonderful kind of after effect. But CR, you know, I don't know. Have you gone on the record at length about your feelings about the movie yet? No, I mean, I talked with you a little bit about it on Bill's show last week, but it had yet to be like officially released. So we were pretty circumspect with talking about any specifics from the film. I'll just say also one of the cool things just as I'm getting into it has been, I think people understand when all the cast members who are doing their promotional duties and like they are so on book about like, this is what we did to make this movie.

32:14This is like what it meant to us to make this movie. And this is like how much everybody kind of gave to this movie. it's rare that like people people will say that about like making a harlan coben show it's rare that you're like oh yeah i can tell yeah i can i can watch matt damon age you know yes if you're inside the horse and you're like it was these guys it was filling with water and nolan and hoita are in there with them it feels that way and he is the he is really like the only game in town when it comes to like, it's going to feel the way it feels for these characters. You're going to feel like you were on this beach.

32:54You're going to feel like you were on this mountain. You're going to feel like the Cyclops is that tall. And it's a gift that I don't even know how many filmmakers really have it, but it is a really astonishing thing to see. And especially the way it's sort of projected on IMAX 70.

33:09Sean Fennessey:There's a really compelling making of featurette that is available on Peacock right now that you can watch called The Making of the Odyssey. And it, you know, there's a lot of interviews with all the cast members and it's, you know, it was clearly made during the production of the film. Matt Damon looks tired. He looks very, very tired in his interviews and he's giving it his all and he's been on the major charm offensive of all time the last six months and especially this month. The best is like the juxtaposition of him with Pattinson who spent the entire time in a castle eating and he's just like, you guys seemed so tired when you got here.

33:43He's like, I was at the hotel bar by myself.

33:47Sean Fennessey:It's very true. Okay, Chris, maybe Amanda and I can ping pong off of you as you go through some of your takeaways. What are the things that you wanted to talk about? First of all, I thought your podcast last week was fantastic. One of the things that obviously leapt out at me was when Amanda was talking about how Inception begins and the idea of this recurring imagery that shows up throughout Nolan's body of work, but also these themes that show up throughout his body of work. And the Odyssey being not only like this incredible adaptation of one of the central stories of Western civilization, but also like a skeleton key that unlocks this director that I think different people have different hurdles to get over at different points in his filmography.

34:30So maybe you're not a Batman guy or a comic book person, or maybe you find some of the temporal games he plays with storytelling to be a bit frustrating. Tenet may be inscrutable to you. Inception may seem silly or whatever. But I think this movie can play as like the first movie and the last movie in a Nolan retrospective. and the entire thing makes real, real sense that in a way that even though with Oppenheimer having the incredible awards run and some of his films being regarded in the way that they are, I think now it's like, okay, like this 25 years of this guy, let's really look at what he wants to say about being a person, how we tell stories and how we see things on screen in a way that I think is like pretty amazing and I was trying to think of like any comp like in a director's career where like at this point, we talked about this a little bit on Wednesday where like their 10th, 11th movie and they make a movie that then makes all the rest of their work kind of come into focus in a different way.

35:31Sean Fennessey:I think it's probably Kurosawa is the only one because I think he's the only filmmaker who has deftly managed the scale and scope of his storytelling with the hyper-personal. And, you know, Ron was an inspiration for this movie and the idea of a great king coming back to power. But it's a short list. Yeah. I mean, it's a short list. And I think the names that we reach for, like Kubrick or Hitchcock or even Cecil B. DeMille or Spielberg, they're not an even match, I find, with kind of what Nolan is interested in. You keep saying the personal. I was wondering how you feel about this too because I find Nolan's films to be a little impersonal, but I find them to be very much about consequences on the world at large.

36:16Sean Fennessey:You know, like he's very good to me about these were the stakes. And if we fail, everything goes belly up. What do you think? Well, I mean, they are great men movies, which we have talked about and in my case, occasionally ridiculed. And I was thinking about this morning. Let's see, this morning I rewatched Interstellar and part of Prestige. And I can't remember what else. But this idea that he is taking on the fate of the world through one person is, I think, both the scale that you're talking about and the personal. And I do sense an identification with the main characters or the person who is trying to keep everything together, whether it's to save the world or to get back to the family or all of the above.

37:06So in that sense, they do feel personal or at least, you know, identified to me. But I don't find that I'm reading them for biographical clues necessarily of, oh, this is this person supposed to be, you know, your producing partner. And I, you know, I do think that they all have something to do with the act of making movies. And how could they not when you spend your life doing this? And they are all about storytelling and taking on like great works and often like commanding a large group of people. But I don't read them as, you know, pure stand in for like, this is just about me and how hard it is to make a movie.

37:49I don't think they're even as close as, like, I would say a Spielberg movie is to both biography for sure, but also what is it to be a filmmaker? Yeah, and I guess he doesn't really have the, like, hallmarks of child of divorce or I was making films when I was eight, you know, in my backyard. So this has always been my lens through which I view life.

38:11Sean Fennessey:He hasn't, like, allowed himself to be narrativized in that way. I drink tea and I'm a good dad and, like, these are the things that interest me. but I thought it was interesting when you read interviews with some of the cast members and Lupita Nyong 'o and John Leguizamo spoke about like this incredibly vulnerable conversation that they had when they did their like vibes interview with Nolan when he's like okay I'm gonna bring you we're gonna hang out for a couple hours talk then you can read the script and then we'll kind of go from there and they both talked about like you know obviously like this personal connection that he has to the story but beyond that like his his anxieties and all these things that he expressed to them.

38:49And I think you can start to see that obviously come out in the kinds of stories he's interested in, but also the way his, maybe his feelings have changed from, say, Interstellar, where you see a group of people coming together to save the world because science can do that, to what he has to say about the world maybe with Oppenheimer and the Odyssey. And whether or not he feels a little bit darker about like our prospects in the future.

39:20Sean Fennessey:I definitely think he does. I do think since The Dark Knight, maybe even before that, but probably since The Dark Knight, he has always been a little bit more of like an elevated political literate filmmaker where he's kind of drawing like historical illusions, you know, like using a tale of two cities to do Dark Knight Rises, you know, stuff like that. And you could critique him for ducking the smoke of saying what he means with his chest. chest and be like he won't ever put his finger on it and say this is what I meant by this and maybe that's kind of what is Batman activating all cell phones as surveillance devices about you know like FISA I don't know but like you know it's I think in this film specifically there are some sometimes even heavy handed like hey this is about what's happening today you know that I thought was really actually like I think pretty provocative pretty amazing to take that swing.

40:18As brave as anything he does visually is like some of the inversions that he makes on what we traditionally understand as this story.

40:26Sean Fennessey:Well, one of the things that I think is kind of an inversion of what he used to do is I found that he used to explain plot in a lot of his kind of long soliloquies from characters, and now he explains theme. And there is like a pretty big difference there. The whole explication at the very end of the Odyssey before the final showdown, that conversation, I guess, between Odysseus and Penelope is him kind of being like, here's why I made this movie. And here's what I think this story is really about to me. And that's really interesting to me. It might be a little bit too direct and on the nose for your most sophisticated filmgoer, but I found it to be very effective.

41:03Sean Fennessey:And I didn't mind it becoming, I didn't mind the theme becoming literalized. I think I, because I saw it as this kind of attempt to fuse these two people who've been apart for a long time. And it was him essentially explaining to this person that he's been apart from, spoilers for the Odyssey, by the way, that I had to be away this long because this is something that I did and this is something I'm responsible for. And because I'm responsible for it, I participated in the end of a kind of civilization. And in order to kind of get back, I need to get this off my chest. And I also am happy to explain to the audience, like, what this filmmaker means by this movie.

41:40Sean Fennessey:Do you know what I'm saying when I say that? Yes. I mean, a couple things there. He's able to do that in The Odyssey because unlike most of his other movies, he doesn't have to spend that much time explaining the plot of The Odyssey because we all know. And it is also it's very basic, right? It is just this person needs to get home. And then the emphasis on why he can't get home or where he's been or what he's experienced, you know, can be shifted according to the adaptation. So I think you're right. And it does mean then that he has more room to be literal about the themes. But that speech is paired with an absolutely incredible set piece.

42:20And it's the second time you see the sacking of Troy from a totally different perspective. And I think there still is the grand visual element that I felt was really accomplished in turn of. It wasn't just they were setting things on fire and dudes were fighting each other. It was very moving. And I felt communicated those themes through the actions. So for me, I'm kind of like, if you just want to make room for showing that like revisionist Troy scene with some obvious, not even that obvious, like I do think that that and the siren speech are two cases where he is writing the themes and what he feels in pretty explicit voiceover in the voice of Odysseus.

43:02But the writing's really good, which is not what we always say about Christopher Nolan dialogue.

43:07Sean Fennessey:But it's also, it's preceded by a moment that you would explain to a person. If you haven't seen your wife in 20 years, of course you would tell her what happened. If you experienced something that no one else on that ship experienced by hearing the song, of course someone would say, what did it sound like? So to me, that's like a great way to set up that expositional style that he usually writes through. Yes. There's also, it's interesting to hear you pair the writing with this sort of grandiosity of the visual set pieces that he's able to produce. Because I found myself more often than not with Nolan thinking about the movies and what they had to say rather than remembering what they looked like.

43:49And obviously there are these incredibly Hall of Fame sequences in his filmography, like the Black Hole and Interstellar and, you know, Oppenheimer's Trinity Test. And you can go on and on. Every movie has something where you're like, what the fuck did he just pull off? But that's not what I think about Tenet. What I think about Tenet is like, I'll either try and solve it or I'll try and figure out why he made the movie the way he did and what the movie is about actually. and I kind of feel that way about the Odyssey. The things that I've been thinking about while I was blown away by so much of it are all like the turn with the sea people and what that's about because that's a Nolan authorial addition to the canonical text.

44:35And... What do you think it's about? I mean, I think it's honestly about... I mean, on a superficial and perhaps headline-grabbing way, I think it's somewhat a commentary about the tendency for right-wing movements to villainize mysterious foreigners from coming onto their shores when in fact the real poison lies within them. And I don't know if he would agree with that, but I don't think it's an accident that there is a huge faction of the English right-wing that calls people arriving across the channel boat people and that we have to stop the boats and that we need to like militarize the borders of England.

45:16And obviously Nolan has English roots. We hear that a lot here, you know, like it's...

45:22Sean Fennessey:And there's two different moments in the movie. The one when they first take that first island and they pillage that town and there's the man who's speaking in a foreign language on his knees being held by Himesh Patel's character. And he's trying to explain to them like, no, no, we're Greek soldiers from Ithaca. You know, we're not the sea people. But it's also, this is the cool thing about his storytelling style, which I think some people sometimes find a bit clever, and this time I thought worked beautifully, is I can't wait to see this movie again. Thinking about that very scene, it reads entirely differently when you know the end of the film and what happened to Troy.

46:00Hamish Patel seems almost more threatening coming up on the shore and being like...

46:04Sean Fennessey:They're the marauders. Yeah, of course. And also the interactions between Odysseus and his crew read differently when you know that these people just sacked and destroyed a city and did probably much, much worse. This is what we talked about with casting Damon, where it's like with Damon, so inherently likable, they're like, but Odysseus is kind of a bastard, you know, like he does a lot of things in the story of the Odyssey that is, you know, regrettable at best. Right. And Nolan adds the regret, you know, and that's not to say that some of these themes are not in the text. So the Greek word for Zeus's law is xenia, which is also where you get xenophobia.

46:44So it's very basic in this fear of strangers and how do you treat someone else. Yeah. And all they taught me in school was xenia over and over and over again. And I only put it together like last week. But so there is at least the societal idea within Homer's text, or at least the translations I've read, but that Odysseus even comes to the realization that he did something wrong, that we were the people from the sea, that we have created this other world. That is entirely Nolan's edition.

47:16Sean Fennessey:Yeah, we were talking on Bill's show about he's kind of like the Tony Soprano, the originating Tony Soprano, or Walter White or something, the flawed protagonist. But he does give him, he gives him more sympathy, really, by the end of this movie. You know, this movie kind of gives you a satisfying ending of this guy not only returns home to his wife, but he sails on and is free to pursue, I don't know. Civilization rising again. Or at least relaxation in Boca Raton. You know, like whatever it is he's going to. And honoring his men. Honoring his men. Sailing to the West. Sailing to the West. Yes.

47:50Sean Fennessey:Which is, of course, not how his story ends. For those of you who want to read further in the Greek myths, some interesting fates for Odysseus as well. We can talk about that when The Odyssey 2 comes out. What other things, Chris? What else jumped out to you? I loved it being a story told as stories being told. So Odysseus is working through his memory with Calypso on and off that lotus, you know? Yeah. Yeah. The first Promethizine. Yeah, exactly. Menelaus telling Telemachus about his father. You know, like this idea that many of the things that we're seeing are actually being told to a character by another character or about a character who's not present.

48:32I would love to go back and analyze the reliability of narrators at various moments, but it definitely, I think it made also a lot of sense of like why he cast the people he cast in this movie. Because when you think about Leguizamo and Bernthal, they have a kind of oratory skill that's like, hey, man, come over here. I'm going to tell you about this thing that happened in our neighborhood. And it's awesome. And if you were ever going to confess everything to anyone, it would probably be Charlize Theron on a beach. as she prepared a beautiful squid dish. Still don't know why he left that beach.

49:09Sean Fennessey:So you would spend seven years on that beach. And also just beyond the stories, how much of what happens in the movie is because of people's fears and that they articulate. So Cersei talking about, he's like, did my men attack you? And she was like, not yet. And the kind of paranoia that's starting to develop in the kingdom and in these islands and everything that's happening in Ithaca being like, we got to do something because something bad is going to happen and we can't just keep looming here. You know, like we have to create a new seat of power because otherwise, like whether it's the sea people or the suitors, it's going to break soon.

49:45And this place won't function without that. So just the idea of not doing a, here's one of the most notable heroes in all of history. Let's just follow him. Like, let's not complicate this. let's John Ford him and watch him.

50:01Sean Fennessey:It's funny though, because the movie does complicate the story so much because of the way that it's structured through time and pairing it opposite Telemachus' journey through trying to find out the truth of his father. So even though, I think you're completely right that this is such a simple story that doesn't need over-explication, but it keeps becoming this story of storytelling because he has once again shattered a pocket watch on the floor. That's the image I think of whenever I think of a Christopher Nolan movie. The top is still spinning. Yeah. I just meant that people are familiar with, you know, the basic storytelling points as opposed to, you know, Interstellar having to explain all of physics like five times and then being like, but actually in this universe, this is how the physics work.

50:43The other thing is that, but that fracture and the stories within stories and people telling things is also in the text. And so much of what we learn is from either, you know, a traveler's tale or Odysseus, you know, posing as someone else or telling Randos who actually did let him into his home. So I was just still stunned going back and rereading the Emily Wilson translation after seeing this movie of just how Nolan the original is, which like, you know, and he's a very smart and accomplished director. So maybe he knew that. It's like not an accident that he picked this, but a lot of it's really there.

51:19I don't know if this is real but did you see over the weekend that Emily Wilson was like I have some notes about this movie it was real she was like settle down with the dog stuff

51:32Sean Fennessey:there were some issues with Argus which was I think she basically described it as just like a cheap ploy for audiences that everybody loves a dog in a movie what were her other notes her notes were interesting to me and seemingly fair although she strikes me as a wildly unsympathetic storyteller in general Like she, there's like a kind of directness in her translation that I find very fascinating. And, you know, he softens the text a little bit, even though this is one of the most savage stories ever told. It does feel... I don't think her Odysseus is very sympathetic. Agreed. And I, you know, again, that's her interpretation of the text and I can't read the original.

52:13But there is a lot more reading into his motivations and just feeling in Christopher Nolan's than there is in hers.

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53:22Sean Fennessey:This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail-biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with the big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life. with great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tremphaya offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start.

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54:30Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tremfaya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit TremfayaRadio.com. I wanted to ask you guys, you know, one of the, I mean, first of all, some of the memes coming out of this movie are just top notch. Between that and Argentina, like, you know, going like this, you know, like, it's just been an incredible weekend of content. but I thought one of the most fascinating debates, like legitimately, like it's rare that this happens, but a conversation that was taking place online that I thought was really cool was to what extent modern audiences would be able to comprehend some of what now would be an anachronistic kind of behavior on the part of any of the characters.

55:21So, you know, like... The idea of a woman having agency? No, but you guys talked about like the Cyclops scene being different than it is in the text because in the text there's obviously there's the I am nobody or no man. Yeah. But it's also like he just can't fucking resist being like I'm I'm Laertes his kid, by the way. It does a real like like Ben Affleck in the town like 155 Bunker Hill. Come by anytime. But there is some bravado in Odysseus.

55:53Sean Fennessey:I mean, as a warrior and as a schematic thinker, he's always kind of like plotting a scheme that will make him seem even smarter than everyone else. Yes. But he likes to tempt the fates, you know? He likes to poke the Cyclops, literally. And I think that there's like, where the line of how Nolan writes the character versus where Damon plays the character and everything that we bring to a Damon performance versus what maybe is in the script text. Like this rendition of the sirens, you're like, you cocky asshole. You think you're the only one who can hear the song? It's so good. And even just like the glimmer of mischief on Damon's face as he's like, tie me up.

56:31He's like, no, no, no, just don't let me go. Yeah, we'll be good. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, you know, you're like, this is the guy being like, this shit is easy for me.

56:40Sean Fennessey:The thing that struck me on the second watch was how a lot of the culture war stuff was actually right. And it was like wonderfully right. Like every choice that Nolan made in that respect where he was like, I will cast Elliot Page as the bravest person in this film. I will put Lupita front and center and I will scar her face and she still will be the most beautiful person in this film. Like the fact that he is, I don't know if he's making a statement, but he's, there's. I will have Chapel Roan perform. So much Chapel Roan going to my house this weekend. I already told Amanda. Chapel Roan and James Blake on the remix with Travis Scott.

57:22Sean Fennessey:You could see it. You could see it. I will make Travis Scott the bard, you know. I will give Travis Scott the first line in the honesty. I mean, these are all, they're kind of light troll jobs, but they're also full of intent. you know your choices he made choices and there's something wonderful about that and the idea I think that the other thing I enjoyed this weekend was sure there were some bad actors online but most people were like damn that movie was good or they were big mad about the helmets you know also bullshit you know it's a movie come up with a new idea make something look different no no no I meant that they couldn't see them not that there was listen yeah of course that they didn't they didn't have the exact clothes you know yeah Agamemnon you know he had that shit on that's what they say about Agamemnon I'll throw out a couple of like notes of like dissent about the movie please do okay I am not sure that he is a great action director I was I left I found the John Wick scene with the suitors a bit flat a bit silly I don't know if that's how it happened I can't remember if like it's like Dad wait and then it's like pick up the sword get the shield I mean it's great it's a great dramatic scene for that Pattinson character but I all these sort of like faceless suitors getting got by him and I think that might have been where like the IMAX camera ironically it doesn't work well in these kinds of close up battle scenes especially after you've been outside and it's such large spaces for the whole thing and it just didn't feel as well thought through as every other sequence in the movie felt.

59:03Sean Fennessey:I really liked it, but I do think it is an inevitable letdown after the lead up to Penelope's challenge, which I think is like, please, is the most predictable thing. And if you've read it, you know it, but still, it's like the plucking of the bow was, it's just, it's such a satisfying movie moment. Yeah. And that was like the college basketball coach was like, let's go! It was just awesome. So, so because But I kind of wanted some of the fight that was commensurate with plucking the bow, you know? Yeah. Suplexing guys. I think you asked the right question, which is like, is there actually limitation to what you can accomplish with this machinery that you're carrying around?

59:45Sean Fennessey:Because you can't be as elegant when you're carrying a gigantic camera and trying to shoot action this way. So, I don't know. He's had some thrilling sequences in the past. I mean, the bank robbery in Dark Knight, the hallway fight in Inception. He's shot incredible action sequences before, but I do think that the mechanics of the way that he makes movies now maybe complicates this a little bit. I think I also have to be honest and say that sometimes what happens is Nolan will gesture at great violence, but not show it. No blood. Never blood. And I think that's appropriate in the case of, say, who Athena is being represented as in the movie.

1:00:23The Zendaya character's death. Obviously, you're not going to behead Zendaya. in this movie and have everybody just be like, oh, okay.

1:00:31Sean Fennessey:Ty West's The Odyssey. Yeah, but like there is, well, Kurosawa would do it. He would. He would do it. He did it a little bit more in Oppenheimer, just in the shot of this skin peeling off. But that was like as far as he was willing to go. It's a good example of like, is he averting his eyes or is he making a concession to the idea that a mass audience is going to see this and they do not want to watch arterial blood spraying all over the place. I don't think it's that. This is, we're in the time of obsession, you know, like people like Gore. I don't think it's that. I think, I think he's a dim year British filmmaker, you know, I think he is like, I don't show everything, basically, that that's what it boils down.

1:01:10Sean Fennessey:There's like a kind of class component to it, not class, wealth class, just like a classiness. And I don't want this movie to be casualties of war, but like they take the beach and he's just like, and we did terrible things. And I'm like, well, you get to have a little bit both ways when you don't show the terrible things. I mean, think of Dunkirk versus Saving Private Ryan. You know, like in Dunkirk, bodies are being blown off the beaches, but you never see a limb fly in the same way. A limb doesn't land on somebody's head and then leak out blood onto somebody's face. So it's a different style filmmaking.

1:01:35So basically, like, my reason I brought that up is because the last fight scene, Odysseus versus the suitors winds up feeling very Batman-y to me. You don't like that.

1:01:46Sean Fennessey:You'd prefer he has superpowers? I think I've had my fill of that. More of a Superman guy? I think it should just look more like The Raid 2. You think they should bring Gareth Evans in just for Nolan's fight scenes? So it's funny you should mention that because people are probably at this point are like, shut the fuck up. But I wouldn't be mad if he gets all of this stuff right. You know, he's like, I got my script. I got all this stuff. And then at the last second, he was like, Peter Morgan, would you like to just take a pass? Yeah, sure. And just like spruce the dialogue up a little bit. Like, he's got a lot of weight to carry through a lot of narrative.

1:02:20You know, everybody's got to basically, Agamemnon is using this as a pretext because of trade routes that he wants to save and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's so fast. But dude, play a solo every once in a while. Like, get on the sax. Let somebody say something kind of. Like, I think the height of beauty in this movie is Odysseus' description of what the Siren song sounded like. I mean, absolutely transcendent. but I would just I didn't expect that from a Nolan movie I was just like whoa what's happening I agree I found it incredibly moving I find myself more often than not in Nolan movies extracting cool dialogue out of what might be fortune cookies well sure and doing it in a Bane voice you're waiting on a train you don't know where it's going to take you and you're like fuck yeah dude that's good but maybe it's nonsense and maybe Bane is complete nonsense

1:03:11Sean Fennessey:I mean this kind of ties into my general feelings about him now, which is I just think he's a much more mature filmmaker and a much more mature writer, and I think the things he's interested in are bigger and deeper than the kind of cool ideas that he was very famed for in the early stage of his career. PTA, why don't you take a pass on Killer Flower Moon? You know what I mean? I mean, he said that he called his brother Jonathan to talk to him about this. That's not the guy I wanted to call. Yeah, ever. He did talk about that, though, and how he brought some things to it, and apparently Jonathan is the one who is even more into the myths and the histories.

1:03:41Sean Fennessey:I believe Delos was the name of the corporation in Westworld, which is, of course, a critical part of the Greek myths. So, yeah, I... I mean, look, nobody has been more critical than me of this exact thing. Look, this is more, listen, I've really come around. Let's get Peter Morgan back in the paint, you know? I'm open to it. What's he doing right now? They're making a prequel, I think. Are they really? Yeah, like for The Crown, but you know. Can they make that? The King's Speech? No, that's, yeah. Also, that happens in season one of The Crown, but that's fine. That's too bad. Not the actual speech, but yeah.

1:04:15This would be post-Victoria, pre-Elizabeth. Who was that?

1:04:21Sean Fennessey:King Jim? It was George and Edward. There was an Edward and a George, I think. King Ronald? Was he ever a guy? King Jimothy? Don't act like that's stolen valor on your part. You didn't know Jimothy was before this podcast. If you don't sell every joke I make, you're not on the show anymore. Have they checked Jimothy? What's going on with him? We're probably going to enter a Flacco situation with Jimothy where there's now people going to Seattle to protect Jimothy but also document him. But what if it's like a milkshake duck Jimothy situation? Oh my god, I just watched a video of him moving. I only looked at pictures.

1:04:56Jimothy is a deformed raccoon that people are really concerned. Is that the preferred nomad? A spinal condition. Yeah, he does. Based on what? What do you mean? Are you a raccoonologist? What are you talking about? Wait, was the first reference to Jimothy on this podcast or was it before? No, it wasn't. I'm sorry. I only learned about Jimothy before recording. While gossiping.

1:05:21we were doing so well making such a serious episode uh i have a couple more notes of not concerned but just like you brought it up topics it did the gen lame cutting style which is honestly probably the most significant director editor partnership nolan and since corsese and schumacher i mean you could you could argue um yeah i mean

1:05:46Sean Fennessey:Soderbergh and Mary Bernard which is who is him and also his director photographer Peter Andrews which is him Joel and Ethan Coen and Roderick Janes who is them the feeling you get knowing like watching movies that she didn't cut versus movies that she did cut it's like an evolution in his style that I think is very significant I would say literally Quentin and Sally Menke is very similar like whoa I've not and another filmmaker who really messes with time especially Especially in those early movies where he's like, where are we in the story? Oh, we're here. And that feeling of like, when you get to the end, for me, the last couple of Oppenheimer movies where you're like, wow, this fully paid off.

1:06:26Sean Fennessey:Like that really, really satisfied feeling of every choice that you made led to something. And it wasn't just a tease of a bigger idea. It was about completing an idea. So I'm with you on that. And I love it. I, in my mind, was thinking about some of the sequences in the movie and if they had been given more room to breathe or if they had had more of a build-up. This is where you get into that movie would be four hours. Maybe this movie could have been a trilogy. We kind of tipped towards that last week as well. Sirens, Sola and Cryptus, Lystragonians especially, which I think is kind of almost devoid of context in the the movie it's like another bad island they go to it is some of that i'm sure is just like i have a runtime because my imax projectors can't show more than three hours is that the deal or what is it like no no i i think it was more just like how do we make this um legible for the audiences basically you know that as it may there's a couple of sequences that i was like in i would have liked to have like built up to this had it and then celebrated it for a minute you know like and taking a breath.

1:07:35Sean Fennessey:Just not you. No, just I'll ask you both this question. I'm not necessarily advocating for this, but if he had announced that he was doing this as an Infinity War endgame thing where it was part one and part two and it was two two and a half hour movies. Liked it? Not liked it? Would you have balked at it without even seeing them? I always think constraints are good, you know, and I mean, and I think that's part of the reason that the Jen Lame metronome that he is so helpful to him. So I think once you expand it to five hours like you know I'm sure there would be a lot more spectacle but I think that's also room for a lot more dialogue that isn't as polished as the siren scene you know like part of I think what is so powerful about both of those sequences is that like it happens and you've been waiting your whole life to know what the sound of the sirens really is and you know it's everything that you can't have anymore and then it's out you're just like damn my last takeaway is the Hades scene is like one of the sickest things I've ever seen yeah it's just so awesome You've been to Iceland?

1:08:33No.

1:08:36Sean Fennessey:Shout out to James Raymar. Yeah. I mean, he was an Oppenheimer. This is another person that he is recurring with. He keeps recurring with all of these actors. You know, it could have been Tom Berenger, alas. I love that scene. To me, that might be the best work that Ludwig Orensen does in the movie. We were listening to that in the car with my daughter over the weekend. and it's so atonal and strange and experimental and so different from the bronze gongs and the sort of the harmony and musicality of the woodwind instruments on the score that like it feels like Trent Reznor made it. Like it's very strange.

1:09:17Are you prepared for the possibility that your daughter is going to be in like fourth grade and is like, I like Jean Dielman and Ornette Coleman?

1:09:24Sean Fennessey:No, no. Because like she's still into all the basic kid stuff. Okay. You know, she's like, I need to watch Tangled, you know? Like that's the best movie ever made. So she's normal, but she's getting some undergirding of taste. I love it. That's what we're going for. Those were my huge big takeaways. Those were my big takeaways. Anything that you've thought about since we last spoke? I've thought about the characterization of Odysseus because I did go back and do more Emily Wilson. And I think it's interesting to me that I think in any other Nolan movie I would have given and have given the extra sympathy and the great manningness of a character who textually, you know, gets up to some questionable stuff.

1:10:10It totally works for me. And I don't know whether that's just because I get swept up in everything else that's going on. I don't know whether that's because I think he does more with the other characters in the story to kind of to balance it out. and he's, you know, Odysseus is not totally heroic. Maybe it's just that it's Matt Damon. When we talk about the other Nolan movies, I think casting really goes a long way in terms of whether I respond or I don't. So I think that's interesting. I also just, it's big year for puppets and shout out puppets.

1:10:47Sean Fennessey:Could Ryan Gosling have done this part? No. Could Ben Affleck have done it? Different movie, but yes. It would have been a much different movie. Can he do period? he has but can he he could do I think he could do this but it would be different Leonardo DiCaprio I had this conversation with Bill yesterday he baited you right into it and again created a bunch of fake categories to rate whether or not he was better he was like tomorrow we're going to talk about Damon versus Leo and I thought we were going to be like is Bill going to debut Leo should have been Odysseus and instead it was kind of like let's look at the entire body of work and I guess who wins I was thinking more along the lines of like Fassbender.

1:11:33Yeah, that's a very different movie. That's no feelings at all.

1:11:38Sean Fennessey:He codes rage and discontent. That's don't come home, big guy. That's right.

1:11:48The two that are

1:11:49Sean Fennessey:the two that are the most interesting to me in the context, actually the three that are most interesting to me in the context of the Nolanography is Cillian Murphy, who I think is inherently sympathetic and quite sad as a performer. Tom Hardy, who is violent and rageful and mumbly. But you'd be out there on the ocean and he'd decide he had a different voice for this part of the movie. Yeah, that would be strange. And the one to me that is really, really, really interesting is Christian Bale. And is this a better movie? It's a different movie. Is it a better movie with Christian Bale? It's a ridiculous question to ask, but we're podcasting.

1:12:29Sean Fennessey:I'm fascinated by it because he has the physical presence. He has the age. He could play young and play old. He can play a warrior. He can play a very intelligent trickster figure. And he just frankly is like maybe one of the two or three best actors of his generation, pretty widely accepted. I don't know that this... I love what wound up happening with the vernacular of this movie. and people speaking in this colloquial American and saying 10 years on this fucking beach and, you know, the way that Himesh Patel and him interact, feeling like a war movie that was made two years ago about Desert Storm or Vietnam, and there's no difference.

1:13:14Bale, God, he would have been good. But it would have been different. I don't think it would be hopeful in any way, in addition to there would be less sympathy, though I think Christian Bale can bring a little, but I think that Nolan gets away with 90 % of the ending up to the last two lines because you believe in Damon and his essential goodness and you really believe that that person would come back and feel regret and shame and have introspection. And I think Bale would have all of those things, but I don't know whether he would turn it into even the possibility of civilization rising again.

1:13:52Sean Fennessey:Yeah, he's not as inherently a romantic figure. It's just an interesting thing because he's, you know, he's gotten great performances at a lot of leading men over the years. And it's so funny to me that he chose the first Damon leading part in one of his movies to be this guy. Yeah, I think it's been interesting to hear the reactions to some of the central performances. I think especially Holland, who I guess is very good to unremarkable to me in this movie. but that's exactly what he's supposed to be. So... I think if he had been allowed to speak in his native accent, I wouldn't have blanched at it as much.

1:14:30Sean Fennessey:But to me, I was just like... The R's are hard for him. Yeah. I was a little just thrown off every time he was speaking. It is true. When he comes back and he enters the hall again, it doesn't have to speak, but he just looks like, you know, the golden boy returned home. And I feel everything I'm supposed to feel of his casting in that moment. And then he speaks in his American accent again. Yeah. Do you think you could take Logan Marshall Green one-on-one? I think there's a real reason why they saddled Logan Marshall Green with Spurs. First of all, also, can I just say my favorite two, the Terror Twins, Logan Marshall Green and Mia Goth.

1:15:04Yeah. I'd love to party with them.

1:15:05Sean Fennessey:You know who else I really enjoyed who we didn't mention on the first episode was Corey Hawkins. Yeah. Who was, you know, playing sidekick to Antinous. And just a lot of actors who really command the screen in this movie in such a great way. There's been a lot of talk of Leguizamo, who I think is amazing. and I think probably is going to get an Oscar campaign for him because he's somebody who's never really been recognized before and has done a lot of things like this where you're like, oh, John Leguizamo's in that? And you're like, oh, of course, John Leguizamo, he feasts on roles like this. I also really liked the guy who's kind of like third on the boat next to Odysseus and Himesh Patel.

1:15:38Yeah, what's that guy's name? And the guy who's the one who intended, he feeds John David Washington. He's torturing John David Washington. He plays the Ukrainian. Trains are coming. Right, right, right. He's been in a million things, but is a great heavy.

1:15:48Sean Fennessey:Okay, so we're talking about Andrew Howard, who plays, is it Polites? Polites? I don't remember everybody's name. How do you pronounce the name? I don't know. I don't speak Greek. And who was, in fact, the driver in Tenet. Yeah. Feels like he's been in 104 Guy Ritchie movies, perhaps has been in none. Yeah, he's great. Okay, let's talk just a little bit more about Nolan before ranking these movies. so I've been talking about how I see him differently the last few movies and I have a different relationship to his movies has your relationship changed? Probably I think because he's moved away from the the Jonathan sci-fi and we have more movies in the you know in a row in the back half of his career that are not just mind bent total mind bending they have mind bending elements but they are more in the real world and more real actors doing real things and I respond to that but probably not in terms of my assessment of like his competence or even what he does that I respond positively or negatively to I think I have been pretty consistent in what works and what does not work what about for you I'm a fan so it's like I I don't think I if you would ask me in 2008 with Dark Knight I think I probably thought of him as like the best in class when it comes to IP adaptation stuff and there is like a weird sliding door where Man of Steel is like this giant hit the Zack Snyder Superman movie and Nolan is overseeing like a DC cinematic universe and that might change the course of modern movie history.

1:17:30I don't know

1:17:31Sean Fennessey:if he ever would have done that and I mean that's honestly a strike against Nolan that his decision for the Superman movie was to choose Zack Snyder. That's not cool. Like that movie sucks. I think that movie is evil. So, yeah. That's funny. Do you not agree? I haven't watched it in a very long time, but I'm not going to get mad at him for executive producing it. I'm not mad. I'm just saying it's a strike against him. Don't put in the newspaper that I'm mad. I would say that there's something bittersweet about this because he has told everyone now that he is going to take three years off, that this movie took everything out of him.

1:18:09And selfishly, I want more. Like, I want the best filmmakers to be prolific. And I know how hard this is, although I'm still trying to wrap my mind around doing this in Oppenheimer in the course of three years. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. But this definitely feels like an end of a phase, an end of an era for him. I've been wondering that. Do you think that's true? I mean, what else could be bigger? What else can you do at this point? where has he not filmed?

1:18:38Sean Fennessey:The joke online this weekend was Moby Dick. That that is, there have been adaptations of Moby Dick, but none that really rise. I think he wants to take a break from the water. Yeah. I wouldn't blame him. I mean, Moby Dick is kind of half unadaptable because so much of it is about like, you know, sailing strategies around that time. But there's few people who can take on movies of this magnitude. What I'm kind of hoping for personally is that there is a generation of directors who see a movie like this and want to attempt it and can convince studios to attempt it. That we don't just reserve a movie like this to the two or three living people who we know can make a movie like this.

1:19:20Sean Fennessey:Yeah. And that there are a few more chances taken. Because so much of the CGI rot that we've gotten over the years with movies is because people don't trust people to make stuff like this practically. Yeah, and I get it because some of my favorite movies are things like Lost City of Z or Babylon where you're like... if you were a studio hood you could be like I fucking tried you can't blame me nobody went to see this it's true they're not easy to make and they're not easy to pull off and they don't always work even in our epic movie drafts that we had a lot of the greatest movies ever made and then we're just like rooting around in the bargain bin for a third biblical epic that anyone wants to talk about you mentioned some of those forebearers do you think in 50 years or 100 years, he will be studied as one of the great critical filmmakers in the evolution of the art form.

1:20:11Sean Fennessey:This is assuming there are still movies at that time. Certainly, at least from a sociological and technical point of view. The IMAX camera of it all alone and what that has kind of introduced in terms of everyone getting freaky with their division and being like X, Y, Z, you know, I think will at least be worth like one day on a syllabus. Right. But the films themselves, also the role that he played in the superhero movement, which is, you know, part of 21st century cinema at this point and box office wise, I think Oscars wise at this point, I think he already has more Oscars than Hitchcock and Kubrick.

1:20:58Sean Fennessey:He does. Yeah. so damn well Hitchcock has zero competitive and Kubrick has one for visual effects so I think you have to look at it in a larger context than just like he's a great director and he's in his prime he's also I think like a a long for the movie business and is is like his his sort of stepping into the void after covid to like bring theatrical experiences back and his last few films he held the fucking line on that yeah like i personally will forever be grateful to him for being that person who was just like this movie's going in fucking theaters i don't care yeah and i think imagining a future for movies that doesn't feel like forgive me like but what if it was more ai or what if it was like we've rendered this world inside of a new cool software engine like imagining a way to keep being like there's a person this is the real world i'm gonna shoot it and it's going to make you feel something, I think is like a really invaluable contribution, maybe even a bigger one than any one film that he's made.

1:22:01Sean Fennessey:Just as a counterpoint to the question earlier, is it possible that this is the end of an era not just for him, but for movies, that this actually will be the last movie that is like that because of the incursion of this new technology that more and more people are signing up to participate with? I mean, that's Ben Damon's talking point, right? that he said, you know, I took this as my last chance, maybe just because of where he is in his career and he's not going to do physical stuff at this level probably forever. Though, you know, I believe and we've made a lot of advancements in, you know, body hacking.

1:22:33Sure, HGH, that's right. And he went gluten-free, he said. Did he? So, yeah, he said that on the New York Times cooking interview. Couldn't be me.

1:22:39Sean Fennessey:He did a New York Times cooking interview? With Tom Holland, they made pizza. Oh, I saw that. Yeah, the pizza kitchen. Yeah. I think that's corny, but whatever. Come make pizza with me. You know, this is a movie podcast. what would you put on your pizza what would I put on my pizza right yeah gosh you don't make the pizza Eileen does Eileen makes the pizza high protein cottage cheese you don't like mushrooms don't tell him about that I like mushrooms you left all the mushrooms on that pasta little bacon on there sometimes you know some fontina like you ate the pasta out of the mushrooms okay but that was just like it's like any kind of bolognese like there's just the bolognese to pasta ratio is often off I don't want to and eat a bowl of ground beef at the end of my pasta.

1:23:20Okay. And so the same went for this mushroom bolognese that I had. I had lovely mushrooms with the rigatoni. Okay. We are recording this. I just feel like I've gotten put on blast for this mushroom thing. Anyway, so I think, you know, Damon has said this. I took this in part because this was the last time I would ever get to do this. And that is a referendum on his career, but also the way that movies are made now. I'm just hopeful that the bonanza that is this movie and the bonanza in comparison with whatever sad eventer shit is going on.

1:23:54Sean Fennessey:Dune Part 3 though is similar to this. Totally. It's similar. It has a lot more visual effects work because it's science fiction, but shot in real places on real landscapes in a way that feels like it's part of some natural world. Yeah, exactly. I think that it's like, maybe we won't be able to tell what this movie means for 15 years, and we can reconvene then. The three of us? Yeah, and just be like, did we see a wave of filmmakers? Would you want to do that? Sure. Well, I'll be... You'll be 64. So I'll be right. Yeah, when I'm 60. Give me a bold watch. And you can say thanks for the bottom. See our last step.

1:24:28Yeah. Will you retire? I want to see where Bill goes. I want to see how Bill does senior. Because you'll follow him anywhere

1:24:37Sean Fennessey:or because you just want to know how to chart the path. What's the appetite for an old version, like a really old version of me being like, ah, you know, this succession reboot didn't work for me. I'm 74. for what's the absolute oldest age you want to be while recording a podcast is there video there is video okay they're not going to take video away at this point i don't think that's on the table like the charlotte rampling of video podcast that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me thank you what do you mean just like just showing hot like nothing else here makes sense but i still look good uh sure yeah if i can look like charlotte rambling, then, you know, age has no limit.

1:25:20Sean Fennessey:Good to know. What about you, man? This is it. This is the last episode for me. I'm done. I just want to get to the Odyssey. Now I'm done. You want to rank the movies? Sure. Now, I suggested should there be two separate rankings here? Yeah. Which is what? Should there be my weird scale and then you guys? But Amanda says she wants to have some friction here. But I also think that this is, we're not, you know, at odds. this is a collective we're not a nod as we are advocating or are we doing three separate rankings no we're doing it together okay great so I don't have to have like my preordinated list no no no we're doing it together and what he wanted to do is that we would team up because we have similar tastes and then he'd do his he'd be some pretty clear trash inceptions in terms of I'm not gonna trash anything I don't think anything here is worth trashing I think this is a very interesting filmography I think there are ups and downs mostly ups both financially critically all those things you know I think most people will look at following an insomnia as 13 and 12 in some order I want to just check in with you about that I rewatched most of it last night okay honestly I had a pretty good time it's pretty good it's pretty good I mean I agree you know if you're gonna put it at the lowest it's because it is not a screenplay by Nolan and it is like the least Nolany.

1:26:45Sean Fennessey:It's such a studio job. Yeah, you can't use it as a text to explain every other movie. But like the action sequences are pretty good. Very good Robin Williams performance. I think it's pretty good. I mean, I remember seeing this in theaters because I love Memento and I was like, okay, cool. We got one of these guys and he is not what I thought. Like he has turned into something I never would have imagined after watching that movie. After watching Insomnia, I was like, okay, so he's going to be like James Foley or something, you know, like really good kind of genre, like down and dirty. Yeah, yeah.

1:27:15Sean Fennessey:And he has obviously elevated beyond that. It's so wild because like if you watch like, you know, if you're in that era and you're going up up until 2010, if you'd been like next Christopher Nolan is going to do James Bond or he's going to revive Indiana Jones or we're going to give him this. I kind of would have believed you. Like it wasn't like now I'm like, you know, like I have like literally no concept of what he could make next. But there was a safe pair of hands-ness to him back then. Yeah. I think it was just that I was like, okay, he's a noir crime director because following Memento and Insomnia are all just crime movies in different ways.

1:27:50Sean Fennessey:One's a serial killer movie. You know, one's a con man movie. One's a memory murder movie. But it's weird because like following is very remedial. It's got a really great idea. It's made for a very small amount of money, clearly over a long period of time as like a de facto student film. but there are a lot of jokes about this now but like it's all in there. Right. Like all the stuff that interests him and the way that he plays with time and the way that he removes or conceals information and then shows it to you in a shocking way. There's a man named Cobb in the film. There's a Batman sticker on one of the doors.

1:28:26Sean Fennessey:Like all the stuff is in there. You know, breaking and entering, slipping away, a blonde, poorly written female character. All of his... Stand in. Men who look and speak like Christopher Nolan. Very much. So all of it suited men, by the way. So it's all kind of in there. It's pretty nifty as a first micro-budgeted feature. Would you still put it at 16? Well, I guess it's more like, is Insomnia just a better movie, even if following is a more critical film for him? So how do you see it? I think I just enjoy watching Al Pacino, so I would have Insomnia higher than The Following. I think Pacino and Robin Williams are kind of like, and that's where he starts to like really start to move into like, I can kind of identify something in someone that people like, and I'm going to emphasize it.

1:29:19Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:29:21Sean Fennessey:What do you think? I really like more Tierney. So we can put following 13. Insomnia 12. Yeah. I tell you what, if I was asked to sit down right now, I personally would rather watch Insomnia than Batman Begins. I know that's crazy. I'm not saying it's better, but just in terms of like what kind of movie watching experience I want to have. Maybe that's because there are two other Batman movies I would much rather watch. It is nuts how much more I watch Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises. And I just rarely am ever firing up Batman Begins. And part of it is because of the origin myth of Bruce Wayne stuff where I'm just like, I just feel like I've experienced this so many times.

1:29:58But did you feel that way in 2005? you know what I thought in 2005 was in some ways what I thought with Oppenheimer or with Odyssey was just like he's moving a little too fast like there's not it goes from going to find Ra's al Ghul to back to Gotham to you know like it's very fleet of foot but yeah like I am not a huge Batman Begins guy I was and remain absolutely terrified by the Scarecrow in a way that I think speaks well of the movie that is an achievement that I basically don't want to watch it because I just can't see that on screen. I think it's a good call. He's a good villain. So that recommends it.

1:30:43And I think I would probably rather watch any of the Batman movies more than the really hardcore sci-fi stuff. But that's just Amanda.

1:30:51Sean Fennessey:Yeah, that's the issue is I have Inception somewhat low. You have Interstellar somewhat low.

1:30:59Sean Fennessey:I would rather watch Inception and Stellar even if they're not my favorites over Batman Begins. It's why I'm kind of throwing it out there this early. I think you could put it at 11. Yeah, I don't have a problem with it. It's not bad. I don't mean to communicate that it's bad. It doesn't have a villain the way that the other two do. And I think the counterweight of having... Liam Neeson's good, but it doesn't have Joker or Bane. I mean, it has a rare Katie Holmes performance from this era. What do you think of that, Rachel? Well, I think it was better for everyone when Maggie Gyllenhaal showed up.

1:31:33Maybe not better for Katie Holmes, but she's a street style star now, so.

1:31:37Sean Fennessey:Is that what she is? Katie Holmes? Yeah, I mean, she's also, you know, making and directing films. Have you seen them? No, I don't think the new one with Joshua Jackson has been released yet. Wow. But I'll see it. what is the choice that Bruce that Batman has to make at the end of Dark Knight is it you can either either Rachel blows up save Rachel or Harvey Dent alright and explain to me again what happens he chooses Harvey Dent but he thinks he's choosing Rachel and Joker flipped it on him yeah I don't know it was spoiled for me yeah by us just now no no no where's Rachel okay Batman begins at 11 what do you got at 10?

1:32:22Sean Fennessey:Well, this is where it gets a little hard. I think this is, to me, this is where it gets a little hard. Are you guys going to say that you think Memento belongs here? No. Are you going to say that you think Inception belongs here? If it were my list, Inception comes in around here. I think Inception's a superior film than Memento. I do as well. I completely understand. Okay. Again, this is why I offered the opportunity to have separate lists. Well, listen, we're talking about it together. So if Inception is a no, would you like to offer something else? Would you like us to offer a counter? Sure.

1:32:57Please offer a counter. Why have I taken the role of like couples therapist? Because you want to do it together. Yeah, that's exactly right.

1:33:03Sean Fennessey:Yeah, you want to do it together. Broker this peace between Chris and I. I just want to heal. I want this guy back. Chris and I. What do you mean? From Toronto. Oh, my God. From the van ride. We've been having such a good time today. I agree. I agree. We've been talking cusk. I just want to make sure that it's okay. Chicken. Yeah. remembering the good times. Third item. I have a solution here for us. Okay. So we're trying to decide, like, does Inception go at 10? Yeah. Does Memento go at 10? What if we put Dark Knight Rises at 10? Oh, okay. I think that's right. That's big of you? Now, Dark Knight Rises, you're the number one defender.

1:33:37No, I am a Bane apologist. I think Dark Knight Rises is often quite silly.

1:33:43Sean Fennessey:Yeah, it is. It is. It's actually kind of amazing how bad it is at times relative to where he's at in his career at this time. But it's like a really good number 10. I think number 10 is the right place to put it. And then we can say, but honestly, it goes hard when it goes hard. It basically saves us from having to be like hurt anybody's feelings. Because I love Bane as much as anybody else in his character universe. Okay. But the movie itself is, in fact, sometimes kind of bad, I think. It's kind of weird. I mean, it's... It's also so long. And this came out after Interstellar. Yes. Isn't that so strange?

1:34:22It did?

1:34:23Sean Fennessey:Yeah. No, it didn't. Dark Knight Rises is 2012, Interstellar is 2014. It came out after Inception. Sorry, after Inception. He made Inception in between Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises. Thank you. You know, it's kind of fascinating to think that a movie that has as much plot incoherence as Dark Knight Rises is from the same filmmaker as Interstellar, who's like visually commanding the screen in such a profound way. Okay. I'm good with that. I have to be like a little bit of a jellyfish now. Like you guys have to kind of tell me where you want to go. Okay. From nine through six. Is that what you imagine a jellyfish experience is like?

1:34:55Sean Fennessey:Well, don't get too close to me or I'll sting you. But otherwise, I want you to have, we can have a safe distance. A brokered piece. Okay. Your understanding of the ocean is always evolving. I'm from Long Island. I've always been, I've been surrounded by the ocean my entire life. And you refuse to visit it. I love the ocean. I hate the sand. This is a long-standing take. If we can remove the sand from the beach. I have said this to him every single time. And he's like, did you know? I haven't been. No one would take us on a yacht and can next year. It's a real Anakin Skywalker, I hate sand situation.

1:35:27Sean Fennessey:I just don't like sand. Okay. I don't like what it does. You know, I don't love the sun. Yeah. But I get it. Yeah, it's constitutional. I get it. We could get you some hats. If we could have an overcast hot day in the ocean, that's the best. An overcast hot day in the ocean. Yeah. that's what like they have when the worst of the worst is happening in the Odyssey yeah and this is the man who wants to put Inception at number nine okay you gotta have a strong point of view on things that's how we get through life have you revisited when's the last time you watched Inception I watched it during COVID okay that's not that recent anymore that's true 21 maybe you can like check my logs I'll pass never say that to me again literally or I have to admit if I had a diary would you read my diary no yes no my texting with you until I write the novel about you and then I will use it as you know that's right I probably text you 8 % less now because I used to be like did you see this and now I know I could just look at your letterbox but that seems so impersonal you know what just come on over to my house ask me a question face to face like a man come to your house at 11.45pm and be like, have you seen the horror movie The Passenger?

1:36:44Sean Fennessey:I think that movie is just called Passenger. Sorry. The Passenger is an Antonio movie. Did you see Passenger? I didn't see Passenger. Was it any good? There's some good stuff in it. Yeah. Classic. Two and a half stars. Sure. Okay, look. Are you always giving stars? No, I only do hearts or no hearts. Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah. Well, you just threw out a star rating there. I know, that's like the general like review of people are giving it on Letterboxd. Okay. Look, I think Inception is better than Memento. It's fine if you don't. do you think his Inception is better than The Prestige? Because The Prestige is a cult of Nolan fandom that I appreciate from afar, but do not subscribe to.

1:37:20Yeah, I appreciate it until those people try to say that it's better than Inception. It's like, Prestige is very good. It also just has a lot of your stuff. You know, it has Hugh Jackman and magic. So those are just two things that really speak to you. Right, you know, again, we're getting to some black licorice issues for me. Prestige is really good, but don't be the guy that's like Nolan eh but you know what's really good the prestige I've heard and I'm okay any Nolan list

1:37:47Sean Fennessey:Bowie as Nikola Tesla okay I mean come on yeah he was cast yeah that's in the film it's in the text Heinz Ward who's in Dark Knight Rises I mean we could just go through Heinz Ward is a piece of shit fuck him oh that's right AMC beef yeah god damn it stole what could have been a beautiful is that what they call those Yeah, it is. Yeah. Gotta bring those back. You think that'd be good for the NFL? Yeah. Start severely injuring men on the field? I think the pro forma move here would be to do some combination of that. To do Memento 9, The Prestige at 8, and then run through the... Figure out the classics from there.

1:38:27Sean Fennessey:I love that. I love that. Now, that's not what I want, but I will do it for the sake of getting through this podcast. I'm okay with it. I think that this is a filmmaker that for... Because he's so popular and because he has been popular for a very long time and because he has raised now two generations of filmgoers, you're just going to get a lot of variance in what people value. The Batman trilogy is amazing. Dark Knight trilogy is incredible. It's not a huge... It's not a grower for me. I think I like it and I admire it, but it's not going to pierce... I'm not going to have Dark Knight in my top four.

1:39:02People might.

1:39:04Sean Fennessey:I do. I think I do. I do. It's interesting that he keeps stacking movies that I'm putting over The Dark Knight now as time goes on, which is really exciting. I think The Dark Knight, it's not quite an innovation, but what I like about it is that it's him taking great tools from older movies and applying it to a new kind of movie that is very popular at the time and making those pieces fit together. Can I make a very strange suggestion? Yes. Is that while we're doing this list from the bottom up, should we now reverse and go from the top down? is it is it better for us to now from the second half of the list should actually be like let's let's have the number one conversation i'm i'm should we do our own i'm giving you guys a lot of room to move to me because to me i think oppenheimer and the odyssey are his best movies i think they're his best films so i you know i'm not sure i most people i don't think feel that way and sure there maybe there's some recency bias but i've talked a little bit about the things that he's doing now that I am connecting to more.

1:40:03May I ask you a follow-up?

1:40:05Sean Fennessey:I would love it if you did. Is Dunkirk in the top three? No. Okay. I'm with him on Dunkirk. Dunkirk's number one for me. Dunkirk is top three for me. And I think we all know how I feel about the third hour of Oppenheimer and Interstellar. So we're going to have to start making some real... some group choices. Interstellar, I think, is very good. but it's never been a personal favorite of mine. There's some of the sickest craft you'll ever see in a movie in Interstellar but I find the plot to be very sentimental. And it goes on and on and on. There's a beautiful, beautiful passage of Interstellar if you put it at seven.

1:40:44I think it's okay. I also, the McConaughey of it when I was, because I rewatched it again to try to give it a fair shot and I know it means a lot to a lot of people, especially people younger than us, you know, who kind of, who saw it at the right moment in their career. McConaughey is doing too much. for me uh and it like tips it over too far into the sentimentality that you were referencing yeah

1:41:06Sean Fennessey:um and that's the movie to me that is more though about my life spent making movies without my family and then as the as we go on and those themes recur it's more like well my family can come with me now to any movie i make because i'm chris nolan right but that's almost like him remembering making the dark knight or the prestige or something um and being away from a newborn you want to put interstellar it's so hard because like you guys are gonna have to give me more if we're putting stuff you know like memento and interstellar to me are are better than inception you know they're they're so let's do uh which one do you like more memento or interstellar i like memento but i don't think that's not a common feeling interstellar Inception Memento.

1:41:53Is that too high for Memento for you? Because that would put Memento at five. Yeah, that's going to be too high for her. No, I like Memento. It's the best of the To me, Memento is like

1:42:02Sean Fennessey:a 1940s Warner Brothers movie in reverse. Like, it's a really, really sharp crime movie. I'm pro Memento. Memento is, you know, the subhead of the prestige of people being like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Remember before Nolan, you know, sold out and he made Memento. I get it. This is my version of coming to meet you halfway. You know what I mean? Okay. Well, okay. we'll follow along with your move so you number one for you would be Dunkirk when you say top three like literally what would it be if you were making your own individual list because I'll roll with you guys on this if it's that high for you I think I don't know whether I have Dark Knight or Odyssey at number one but I would go with number one because and I and then let's see so I mean my top four is Odyssey, Dunkirk Tenet and Dark Knight and I know that Oppenheimer has to be in the top four because blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

1:42:54So,

1:42:55Sean Fennessey:that's fine. Would you put Oppenheimer in your top four? If you wouldn't, then we're going to end up putting it at something like four or five because then it'll be just me. I go Dunkirk, Inception, Odyssey,

1:43:11Tenet, Dark Knight, Oppenheimer, I think. I think I also have Inception. I would tie Inception and Oppenheimer. He's so mad.

1:43:23Sean Fennessey:I'm not mad. This is just a chaotic act. I don't even know where I am with myself right now. I know that I'm not helping. I know I've brought the spirit of discussion and then I'm just discussing. Normally, I have to be the decision maker. You know, normally I have not. In your life, you mean? In my life. Yeah, and I have to be very clear. We are working on behalf of Dom Cobb, but then I think also Sean and I are working on behalf of men like Robert Downey Jr. I think my rankings right now are from one to five are Oppenheimer one, Dark Knight two, Odyssey three, Memento four, and Tenet five. Dunkirk is six for you.

1:44:04Sean Fennessey:And Dunkirk is six. Because Dunkirk, I just always thought that the structure was a little too cute for its own sake because it doesn't really match chronologically. You think it's cute that all those men were stranded on the shore. I didn't say the events on the beaches of Dunkirk were cute. It's cute when they were just practicing for the Trojan horse. When Barry Keegan gets kicked down the stairs. Yeah. No, I didn't say that. And they're like, Peter!

1:44:32Sean Fennessey:You guys hash it out. You guys figure it out. Where do you want to go? So Dunkirk's your number one and yours is number six? And I'm in the... Well, we're nowhere. So I guess if we... Then we meet where Amanda is. This is like the third hour of Oppenheimer. No, no, no. I would give you Dunkirk at two, but I can't, I don't think I can do it at one. Like I can give you Dunkirk at two, but I can't give it at one. Your number one is The Odyssey? Or Oppenheimer. And your number one is The Odyssey? And The Odyssey could be number one in six months. Or I could do Dark Knight. Or I could do... Dark Knight is not his best movie.

1:44:59Okay, all right. Okay, that's fine. The first hour and a half is. And also, so here's the thing. The first an hour and a half of Dark Knight, electric. First two hours of Oppenheimer. Transcendent. Trinity test? Check. Like, absolutely. And then it keeps going. And then all the men are around rooms and they're just like, you know, having flashbacks to two seconds ago. Like, does the treaty say this?

1:45:20Sean Fennessey:Watch the last 10 minutes of Oppenheimer this morning. Sure. Yeah. It's up on his face. And he's like, what did I do? Yeah. My genius. When Alden Ehrerich is like, boom, gotcha to Downey. Yeah. Some senator named John F. Kennedy. No, not that part. No, no, no. And he's explaining to Downey that, of course, those two men were not having a conversation about him. They were having a conversation about more important things. And then we cut to the Tom Conte, Killian Murphy scene, which is an amazing way to end a movie. and my big hangups on a bunch of these movies is like these endings don't work the endings of the last two movies work so well to me remember when Rami Malek had a clipboard oh yeah yeah he was working on that project with the other scientists in Chicago and then he was there in the room being like it was you Mr.

1:46:00President or whatever I don't know what was happening do you know it's a sick scene in Oppenheimer is when Casey Affleck is like that's so good it's so good

1:46:09Sean Fennessey:yeah he's like his what do you say he killed Russians with his bare hands yeah It's good shit. There's a lot of really good stuff in Alphabama. Should we move Prestige down to nine and Memento back up since we've been speaking so glowingly of it lately? Because right now Memento's at nine Prestige. Maybe just flip Memento to eight and Prestige to nine. Okay. Okay. Just as a salve for me. Then I will give you Inception at six. I know apparently it is more and more of a like. You're saying it's number two for you and it's top five for you. So then that's not fair. Well, hold on. I'm just going to make a separate note with my top five.

1:46:42This is going really well. for the sake for the sake of of

1:46:46Sean Fennessey:dark a unified theory of Christopher Nolan let's make Inception 5 okay because most people will want to see it in that space and you guys both really like it I'm okay with it at 5 I would put Interstellar at 7 if I had to okay that would be my choice I don't think we could put your number one movie at 6 though that's not fair what's your number one oh Oppenheimer oh yeah because we have all these other so I think Tenet? I think Tenet goes at six. You know what? I think if we had Tenet in the top three, people would be like... And not that I care. It's not about that. It's about what is just. Tenet at six, Inception at five.

1:47:24Sean Fennessey:I think this is right. And then this means that Oppenheimer is probably going to four here. Based on your takes. I think Dunkirk's better than Oppenheimer. I do too. So what's left here? And then it's Odyssey. I don't feel that at all. It's crazy. well we're missing what are we missing we're like 98 out of 100 Odyssey, Dunkirk and the Dark Knight it's actually quite fascinating to me when we depart in that kind of way we depart in that kind of way all the time I think the reason why I love Dunkirk is because everything with Dunkirk is what he is showing you rather than what he is telling you and I think in Oppenheimer it's a lot more of the reverse even though obviously incredible spectacle but like it's a lot more of like and we had no idea what power we had unleashed and like in Dunkirk it's like you think that's not important?

1:48:11Sean Fennessey:it's survival to not speak that into the truth of the world no but I think Dunkirk is like I really liked it when he said it in The Odyssey you know a third of Dunkirk is silent you know or there's no dialogue you know yeah okay so you want Dunkirk at what? three but then that means Dark Knight is going to two and Odyssey is going to one which is recency bias this is a mess well fine then change something this is a mess this is Deakins all over again do you want to put Dark Knight at four Dunkirk at three Oppenheimer I mean nobody wants Oppenheimer at one but you I'm not and I'm not pushing for it I'm fine with Oppenheimer at four I don't think I mean I agree that it's too soon it's too soon for the Odyssey to be number one even though I do think that it is my number one and he said Dark Knight no chance so he's only allowing Dunkirk to go to number one that's the argument that he is making.

1:49:07Sean Fennessey:Now, you are, of course, a guest of this show and a crucial member of this team and community. So I respect your point of view, but you have to show a little bit more flexibility. I'm being flexible. You have to tell us what's another film that could be number one that isn't Dunkirk? And you're saying there isn't one. No, I didn't say that. I said Dunkirk is my favorite Christopher Nolan movie. I didn't say it has to be at number one. But what should be a number one that isn't Dunkirk. I think that the Odyssey being number one is a little bit cringe. I agree. We all agree with that. We all agree.

1:49:43But we do have to find other solutions, you know? We gotta find the problem. Do you live your life

1:49:48Sean Fennessey:worrying about appearing to be cringe? No. You don't. You don't. I agree. I just mean like I meant more like let's be bigger than that. No, I'm never cringe but I do witness it everywhere that I go.

1:50:03I worry about other people being cringe all the time.

1:50:06Sean Fennessey:I just got the name of my novel about you on the board which is called I'm Never Cringe a satirical novel. Because cringe is all about self-confidence, you know? And I've got it. But like other people, all those moms at the pool on Friday, that was the definition of cringe. Like Jimmy Fee, I don't think they made it to the podcast. Well, I know, but now I found the word that I was looking for. They weren't mean, they were just really cringe in their own ways. Alright. And they were not confident. Amanda recently pulling lore from off mic into hour three of pods on mic? Because it's hour three.

1:50:41And much like a Christopher Nolan film, I don't remember where I am.

1:50:44Sean Fennessey:Okay. Well, there's just no good solution here. Okay, so we're not doing Odyssey at number one because we all agree. What about The Dark Knight? No. Chris is not doing that. Chris says no. I mean, this is how we wound up with Oppenheimer on 25 for 25, which I still feel frustrated about because there are many other movies made in this century that are better than Oppenheimer. It's very, very good. Well, maybe now I'm coming around to the idea that The Odyssey should be number one just to stiff arm Dark Knight out and to make sure that like The Odyssey is perhaps his greatest cinematic achievement.

1:51:16Dark Knight's biggest commercial success to date. How about that? Tenet number one. Zag.

1:51:25Sean Fennessey:Even I can't make that case. Okay. Yeah. We tried in Toronto. Everyone was like, play golf club. Yeah, exactly. They're like, you sure, guys? We wish you brought Inception. Yeah.

1:51:37Sean Fennessey:I don't know what to say. What do you think of this list? What else can we move up? What else can we move up? The inevitable solution to this is that you guys will get to have Dunkirk at number one, and then everything else slides down the spot. And that gets to be the way that this gets solved. And Dunkirk would be your personal six. It would. And it would be your three. And that's by no means bad. It would be my three or my two. It's very good. consider this my early 50th birthday present to you 16 months in advance I would do Dunkirk 1 Oppenheimer 2 I like that I'm okay with Oppenheimer at 2 I like that now you're helping me out that's what I appreciate because we get our way but also Sean I think that's great and is Dark Knight going to 3 and Odyssey at 4 Or is Odyssey going to 3 and Dark Knight to 4?

1:52:34I think Odyssey 3, Dark Knight 4, personally. I think I probably...

1:52:38Sean Fennessey:That gets closer to how I feel about his career. Okay. I think that's it. I gotta rewatch Dunkirk. Dunkirk 1, Oppenheimer 2, Odyssey 3, Dark Knight 4, Inception 5, Tenet 6, Interstellar 7. The Interstellar boys are gonna cry. Listen, they shouldn't listen to this podcast anymore. where if you expect us to ever let Interstellar fully into our hearts, that's cool. I think it's pretty, I think it's good. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm happy for everyone. I'm not cringed to cry. And there are, does it make you cry? I feel nothing when I watch Interstellar. I mean, I'm like, ooh, you know, space. I'm into it.

1:53:22Sean Fennessey:Is it elevated at all because it's early Timothee Chalamet? No, I mean, I'm happy for him, but I kind of forget that he's in it. Is that a Hans movie? or is that it's a Hans movie yeah Hans blacks out with that black when they go into the black hole do you think you could be friends with a theoretical physicist sure I can be friends with almost anybody I've noticed that about you that is nice one of your superpowers could you sure I'm a curious person okay I'm assuming he's a good hang or she's a good hang absolutely not I don't have a lot of physics is just where I check out I appreciate all the work that they've done in making our planes fly and you know other stuff okay other stuff such as i was not i my mind doesn't work that way so shall i read this this lineup i don't know if this is amazing or terrible well it doesn't have to be it's not locked yet i think it is okay i think it's good you guys gotta give me one next time that's how i feel about this we gave you one no you got Dunkirk at number one.

1:54:29Sean Fennessey:So you got to give me one next time. What's next time when we do the PTA ranking? We have to let you say what? Well, last time we did that, I told Amanda to stand down. I got this. Yeah, it's true. I was just there to haze him when he put Boogie Nights at number three. And I was like, you're not being true to yourself. You know, you're betraying your own principles. You know what might be number one now is Magnolia. Yeah, you've entered that phase of your life. It's really good. I've re-watched you twice in the last two years. It's so fucking good. Yeah. And it's so free. I agree. And insane. God.

1:54:59Sean Fennessey:All right. Anyway. Number 13, Following. Number 12, Insomnia. Number 11, Batman Begins. Number 10, The Dark Knight Rises. Number 9, The Prestige. Number 8, Memento. Number 7, Interstellar. Number 6, Tenet. Number 5, Inception. Number 4, The Dark Knight. Number 3, The Odyssey. Number 2, Oppenheimer. And number 1, Dunkirk. This is kind of like everybody gets what they want, but nobody gets what they want situation. That's what compromises. It sure is. If only the United Nations knew how to cook like we do. we'd be in a much better place. We wouldn't have to make the Odyssey. Put us in charge. That's true.

1:55:32Yeah. We are the civilization that rose again.

1:55:35Sean Fennessey:If there were to be something we could literally be in charge of. The Oscars. On a national, global level? He doesn't care. I care. The three of us. But that's where the best ideas come from, you know? Someone who's totally checked out on something? He just, he brings, you know, the magic sprinkle. We'll make sure all of the important stuff happens. And then Chris is like, okay. And then what if Timothy runs through? okay thanks to our producer Jack Sanders for his work on today's episode thanks to Lucas Cavanaugh for his production support thank you to Chris Ryan my pleasure for playing along with another silly game I thought this was great I'm so glad it's nice it's nice to be back it was a good discussion yeah was it good well I just think these movies bring out the absolute best of this show I just think when something is serious and big but a lot of fun and everyone is watching it it is my favorite time to be making this podcast so I appreciate you guys doing the same and everybody listening along later this week.

1:56:29Sean Fennessey:We are doing a mailbag. BigPickMailbag at gmail.com Send your emails in the form of a question. Send questions. That's it. Just think of it this way. Jack has to work on this. He has to sift through emails. He is taking out time from his day to bring the best questions to us. If you waste his time with long disquisitions on CR's hat choices, then you're wasting our time. Don't waste it. We'll see you later this week.

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