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24:15Sean Fennessey:And they, they were at the peak of their fame 25 years before Michael was at the peak of his fame. And so I think it's actually an interesting test of like Gen X millennial culture versus boomer culture. That the Beatles are representative of something that we really feel like has, has moved on. And the Beatles are eternal to us. Let's, let's call the booth. You guys care about the Beatles? I do. Okay, Lucas. Lucas, that was a shrug. Okay. All right. Well, we'll talk about that later. I'm fascinated. You know, there's not very many people left for whom this sort of thing can be done. Prince is one of them.

24:50Sean Fennessey:I think the late Dolly Parton now is maybe somebody who you may see a life story film pretty soon. Madonna, but it's not going to happen, it seems like. Madonna, but maybe after she's a little older, perhaps. You know, I'm sure there's more that are not coming immediately to mind. We've still not seen the Kurt Cobain movie. That's something that could happen. Last Days by Gus Van Sant notwithstanding. So, you know, there's maybe a few more opportunities for this from the 20th century musical icons, but this one was probably always going to be the biggest, and it turns out it was the biggest. Okay, Young Filmmakers.

25:26Sean Fennessey:Now, Obsessions' Curry Barker and Backrooms' Kane Parsons are the two figureheads of this movement. Obsessions box office going over it is shocking to me. It is shocking. That far exceeds the brand new day shock, the Odyssey shock, the Michael Jackson shock. It doesn't mean it's as much money as those three movies. But the amount of money that this movie made, this may never happen again in the history of movies. It's made$512 million. Domestically, it's made$263 million. It costs$750 ,000. It features zero famous people. It's just a good horror movie. It's a good horror movie. It's got a very memorable, very impressive breakout performance from Indy Navarretti.

26:16Sean Fennessey:I think it's a clever script. It's got some good moments. I'm a fan of the movie. I'm not denigrating the movie at all. How did this happen? I don't know. You posed this question like I'm going to be able to answer what happened. I mean, I also really liked the movie. And I did go, I went after the first weekend when it was like, it did really well. And it was clear that it was going to be a thing. And I wanted to be able to talk about Backrooms, which was, you know, the more cinephily tipped movie in conversation together because they were released so close to each other. And I will say, you know, I went and my record with horror is improving, but till kind of spotty.

26:55Sean Fennessey:And I got it. And I think that there is something kind of, I mean, it is broad and I understand that it uses all of the horror tropes and many romantic comedy tropes. So it's something that is familiar to the audience. But every once in a while, something just hits the spot of recognizable, but still a little surprising, but not too provocative to turn people off. And it just got in the zone. and then it becomes a word of mouth thing and the phenomenon of it, right? And it's just like, oh, everyone's seen Obsession. I should also go see Obsession. Yeah, I mean, going up weekend over weekend a few times was mind-blowing.

27:35Sean Fennessey:There was a very memorable Wednesday on its fourth week of release where it made like$7 million in one day. And I was like, what the fuck is this? And I think it's all the things that you described. I think that it is both satisfying in a traditional way, but also feels like a new voice. Feels like it's hitting some of the genre tropes that you expect, but also I think has some really pretty cleverly crafted contemporary ideas about dating, sex, loneliness, friendship, all of these things that we kind of put in a bundle together when we start to generalize about generations that are younger than us.

28:11Sean Fennessey:But it does feel like that generation that is younger than us was like, well, yeah, this is getting some things right. And it's made by a 26-year-old. and that 26-year-old does seem to have tapped into his own personal feelings, which are then an extension of a generation of feelings. But I also think 50-year-olds enjoyed the movie. I heard Tom Pelissero, one of the new Ringer NFL podcast hosts, say that on his flight to Australia for today's Rams 49ers game... They're playing in Australia? He watched Obsession, I know. If we want to go down that rabbit hole, I think it's fucking stupid. So stupid.

28:43Sean Fennessey:So unfair to the players. I mean, but why? I mean, I understand. Yeah, yeah. Listen, I understand how it all works. I hate it. I think it's totally unfair to those teams. That seems really silly. I'd still like to go to Australia. Nothing against Australia. No, I would love to go to Australia. I love Australia. I love the idea of Australia, at least. I'd like to go in our winter there, Summer. Yes, same. Maybe we'll make that happen after the X-Men episode. Okay, but that'll be our summer. So then we have to hang on. Okay. so then December 2028 we'll do our last episode from and then we'll go straight to Australia you don't want to do the last episode in Australia maybe maybe so okay maybe so if anybody in Australia would like to welcome us please let us know that'll be for two years from now um Curry Barker has another movie coming up I thought this new movie Anything But Ghosts was gonna come out in the spring and now I'm starting to wonder if they're gonna wait a little while to oh try to distance from the film and this film I think is more Sort of a pure comedy, pure horror comedy, as opposed to Obsession, which is pure horror with some very funny moments.

29:49But I'm interested.

29:52Sean Fennessey:Aaron Paul is in the film. Bryce Dallas Howard's in the film. And as are Curry and his partner, Cooper Tomlinson. I'm open. This movie was an acquisition. Focus bought this out of the Toronto International Film Festival. For 15 million. What a buy. Obsession. Yeah. Not anything but ghosts. No, not anything but ghosts. yeah is that the greatest acquisition ever I mean probably from a number sense I think so unbelievable god damn okay backrooms yeah made 394 million dollars made almost 200 million dollars here in the states yes four of the 10 highest grossing A24 movies have been released in the past 16 months they said they were going to do it and now they're doing it pretty crazy I'm happy for them.

30:44Sean Fennessey:Is this repeatable at all for Backrooms? Will Kane Parsons be a part of the movie-going firmament for the next 25 years? Well, in some ways, Backrooms was IP for a generation that is not us, right? And I think much of the response, and certainly the hype, was because there is an entire generation of children who have watched the entire YouTube series and knew all the lore and were living up to it. And, you know, I think far be it for me to speak for the youth, but they had mixed feelings about how this installment lived up to their understanding of the lore, which is, you know, being a fan. Welcome, kids.

31:24Sean Fennessey:This is how it works. You're going to be disappointed for the rest of your life. But there is also, you know, it is a franchise in its own way. So and I think he obviously has such a built in audience from YouTube that clearly followed him to this. And I don't think are going to give up on his next. So I don't know if it's going to be a 400 million dollar film the next one, but I think it will be successful. I agree with you. I think arguably even an even bigger winner than Cain Parsons and the makers of Backrooms is all of the people who will be rewarded. Yeah. As online creators for trying to make the next Backrooms.

32:02Sean Fennessey:There's so many deals going around right now in Hollywood from production companies and studios trying to find the next Kane or trying to find the next Curry that what it feels like to me is the post-grunge alternative music gold rush. When all of these bands in the 1990s got signed to major labels and they all were expected to have the next Jeremy or the next Smells Like Teen Spirit and none of them could conjure it or they could have one hit and then they found themselves in massive debt or part of this kind of buzz-bend nostalgia. a, you know, remainder. And there's going to be 30 movies in the next two years that are going to attempt to recreate this.

32:42Sean Fennessey:And one or two are going to hit and everything else. And some of them might be really good, but they're going to get cast aside. And I think this is like a generational turnover, not just in terms of how old the people are, but in terms of the style of movie, the tone of movie that you're going to get. How many more liminal space films will we get now? What expectations do we have for the audience to kind of encounter and engage with storytelling like this? Like there's going to be so many after effects of this that I'm so interested to see, but could be like painful or pretty dull for us as movie watchers.

33:11Yeah.

33:11Sean Fennessey:And I mean, there were smaller but still notable successes this year of YouTube creators kind of even jumping the studio system and going directly in theaters and making a lot of money. And, you know, I didn't see most of those because that seems like none of my business, frankly. But it is enough of a business for some people and for the theaters to, you know, make space and incentivize it a bit. So, yeah, I think you're right. I mean, in some ways, that's just the history of art and capital being entwined, which is that you get one hit and then you get 40 copycats. No doubt. We've seen it in every genre across the world.

33:50Sean Fennessey:But yeah, I'm going to learn a lot about YouTube in the next years. Or maybe I won't. It's arguable that Mark Fishback, that Iron Lung, his film, is actually the most astonishing story from this kind of ream of YouTube content creator turned filmmakers. Because, you know, he's a little older and he's been on YouTube a longer period of time and has a bigger fan base in that space. However, he independently distributed his movie. He self-distributed his movie, which made over$50 million and was based on a video game. But even still, self-distribution? Like that's a whole other – that's from the 1960s.

34:29Sean Fennessey:That's something that just does not happen. And the only reason that that happened is because of the demand from his fans who insisted that they put his movie on their screens. So, again, like I see all of those things kind of together. There's the amazing digital circus. There's a couple of other examples of this. one of the most interesting ones is that we haven't talked about and I haven't seen yet is the just the filmed version of Hadestown the musical right which did gangbusters over the late summer and was supposed to be a one-week release where they filmed I think three performances of that that musical and it did so well that they extended a second week and then extended a third week and I think it crossed like 40 million dollars that's another thing where it's just like fans demanding something and getting it coyote versus acne is the same thing fans were just like, Warner Brothers tried to kill this movie.

35:14Sean Fennessey:We don't accept that. We're making a loud, noisy online campaign. Ketchup picks up the movie. That movie's going to make$50 million, maybe more. I mean, it is great news that what fans are demanding is please show it in a movie theater. And I don't think that five years ago in 2021 that we would have expected that at all. It seemed like it was completely dead. And it does, you know, this transition is a little bit more of it's a it's a concert model like a tour model or an amusement park model or something where you're not you're not seeing this demand for every single of the hundreds of movies that are released every year but on the other hand theaters are at least back in the conversation i agree and it is kind of limited limited engagement eventization yeah you know and it feels a little bit maybe more like the arrows tour model where you've got something that has a three or four week window that will appear in theaters and that's the only time you can see it and race out to go and then that will drive box office.

36:13Sean Fennessey:But if that's something that can work, they should pursue more of it. You know, some of it is strategy, some of it isn't. And then there's also like a plenty of, I guess we'd call quote unquote smaller titles that just did like good business. Like The Invite, The Sheep Detectives, like those movies just did good business. Like they justified their existence and also made people happy and are memorable movies. So stuff like that working in addition to a couple more blockbusters that we'll talk about here I find very encouraging. Two huge Disney movies this year. Huge. Both of which I think we would have predicted were going to be big.

36:44Sean Fennessey:Would you have predicted that The Devil Wears Prada 2 would have made $700 million worldwide? I mean, I don't think I did in the box office game that we did. And I was protecting my heart a little bit. But once the rollout and the tour started, again, this is another correction to our theory of like, it's only new young people now you know they were they were doing photo calls for two months yes with that movie and you know Meryl in Matty Blasey Chanel like all over the world and so it was very very traditional that movie is filled with easter eggs to the original it really was reheating something that was big 20 years ago but because it's such an underserved market and by that I mean women who like to have fun.

37:31Sean Fennessey:It worked out. I think you couldn't do it. I'm sure they'll try to do Devil Wears Pride of Three. And I wonder if that will do as well. Well, it's funny because I paired this film with Toy Story 5. And Toy Story 5 did, I would say, almost exactly. This is one of the few films where I was like, I know what this is. I know this is going to be a billion dollar movie. Toy Story always works. I liked it a lot. You didn't like it so much. But it has They have a formula in place, and those characters are kind of in the Spider-Man zone of just like Woody and Buzz and Jesse. These are my friends. It was a Jesse movie.

38:08Sean Fennessey:Please support women. I think that Pixar has done something really interesting with their sequels where they've taken more time between them than any other studio normally would. And we'll talk about that when we get into some of the losers of the summer. But Toy Story 5, I think, is seven years after Toy Story 4. And I think Toy Story 4 is like seven years after Toy Story 3. So there's gaps in time. There were a big gap between Incredibles and Incredibles 2. You know, like movies like that, that then Inside Out and Inside Out 2 had a huge gap between them. And so you had a generation of fans that came in to fill that space.

38:44Sean Fennessey:Devil Wears Proud 2 is the same thing. Came out 20 years ago. Two generations of movie fans and a lot of female movie fans claimed that movie. and then they waited just long enough that it was exciting to see these characters together on screen again. And I wonder if rather than going back 80 years or 60 years for Get Smart, maybe the 2000s are the thing that should be pilfered for new IP? Yes, though, I mean, even the 2000s, you sort of, there weren't that many original things. Well, that was when things started to shift, right? Exactly, so it's like, you know, we didn't know how good we had it, but also they've, they are reanimating most of the things from 2002 to 2009 that we, or 2008, I should say when.

39:32Yeah.

39:32Sean Fennessey:I mean, there have been obviously some examples of this, like Avatar coming back was an example of bringing back a 2000s era movie and, and reigniting it. I mean, they're going to try to bring back pirates of the Caribbean. That's an example of something that hasn't been a new one in a long time. Johnny Depp, I guess is back. We're going to have to have a whole Johnny Depp conversation when Ebenezer comes out in November. What are some other, I mean, Shrek is coming back. That's a 2000s thing. Like this, maybe I put my finger on what I think is like, this is actually the new nostalgia that the studios are playing with.

40:01Sean Fennessey:And I'm not a rocket scientist or anything, but I'm just putting this together at this exact moment. I mean, Harry Potter's coming back to HBO. That's another 2000s thing. The Da Vinci Code is coming back to television. That's another 2000s thing. Well, Robert Langdon, okay? Yes. They're not remaking the Da Vinci Code. No, it's a different Robert Langdon who Tom Hanks plays him in the movies. And I had some Da Vinci Code complaints that I wanted to make, but I can't remember what they are now. I'm looking at the highest grossing movies of the 2000s right now. It's Morgan Spector who's going to be Robert Langdon, right?

40:36Sean Fennessey:It's Morgan Spector. That's correct. That's great stuff. Any other thoughts on Toy Story 5? It was not that great, but I'm glad that you liked it. That wasn't what I was looking for. it's the third highest grossing Pixar movie ever behind Incredibles 2 and Inside Out 2. Do you think that Toy Story 5 is bringing in new fans? Or, you know, is it all five-year-olds like Alice who had seen Toy Story 1 through 4 ahead of time? New fans? Like, is it their first Toy Story movie? Yeah. I'm sure it was a lot of kids' first movie in the theater. Okay. Or first Toy Story movie in the theater. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

41:14Sean Fennessey:But probably not anybody who's like, I'm going to start with Toy Story 5. That would be kind of confusing. It would. They would think that Jesse was the most important character in the entire universe, which, you know, through some people's eyes, she is. You know, Lucas reminds me that you did guess almost exactly right for the domestic gross of the Devil Wears Prada 2. Well, you know. Almost exactly. You guessed$210 million and made$220 million. That's pretty good. Thank you. Sometimes, you know, I have a very specific area of expertise. Yes. But I got it. Yeah, you're like, um. How are things a coach?

41:49Sean Fennessey:Big losers this summer. Uh-huh. Disney live action. Yeah, and all of us who had to sit in the theater and watch it. I mean, Moana was absolutely terrible. I can't believe how bad it was. And it made$315 million worldwide, which for this movie is a tremendous disappointment because this is one of the most valuable properties that the studio has. And Moana 2 was a billion-dollar movie less than two years ago. Obviously, this movie came way too soon after Moana 2. The Rock is in a bit of a tailspin as a commercial movie star right now. I hate these movies. I'm so sick of them. I'm so sick of having to think about them.

42:25Sean Fennessey:There is a Tangled one that is, I guess, going into production right now. Tangled, one of my daughter's favorite movies. One of my little sister Grace's favorite movies, at least when she was a kid. A movie that I like, that I think is very good. Is Mandy Moore involved in the remake? Well, she's not the star. I don't know if she's going to be participating in any way. She's a little too young now to play Rapunzel. Oh, that's right, because it's live action. Yes, it's live action Rapunzel. So Mandy Moore is a mom in her 40s. God bless her.

42:50Sean Fennessey:Disney live action. Will they be making these five years from now? Well, haven't they released their schedules for five years from now? I don't think there's more than two. And also what's left? I think only a Lilo and Stitch sequel. Okay. Tangled. I don't even know if there's anything else on the slate at the moment. I mean, also what's left for them to live action? Sword in the Stone. Okay. Robin Hood. Yeah. we have a million live action Robert Hoods and I don't want any of them I can't wait to talk to you about the uprising cannot wait to talk to you about the uprising we're good there's quite the rescuers the rescuers down under isn't that the fox and the hound isn't that an animal movie yeah these are all animals did you see the new Corrieta movie look back no I wasn't at the Venice Film Festival how dare you but they were screening it no I haven't seen it you know you haven't so without so this is a live action of an anime as well yeah Yeah, yeah.

43:41Sean Fennessey:And once again, we just need to stop doing this. Yeah, I've heard that. This is, that movie in particular really made me. Well, I heard it's very faithful. Yes. And so I think the people who love the anime love it, but there is just a real energy difference in the beautiful animation and then putting real people in. And to me, it felt like I was watching a Lexus commercial when it was just real, it was so saccharine. Wow. And I did not get it at all. I will be starring in a live action remake of Ponyo as Ponyo. Pretty excited. Speaking of kids and animation, Minions and Monsters.

44:22Sean Fennessey:It's a hit in my house. I don't know what else to say. It's funny to say this movie made$518 million worldwide and it's a disaster. Because it's obviously not a disaster. By all accounting standards, it is not a success. And it did not do what they wanted. Well, but by all accounting standards, it is a success, except when you put it in the context of the entire franchise. Like the movie, I think, costs like$85 million to make, which is not that much. They made a profit on this movie. It's just that every other Despicable Me movie makes like$900 million. Yeah. And this made 518. And it was a movie that was clearly made for 40-year-old moms who love movie history and not for seven-year-olds.

45:01Sean Fennessey:We love it. We own it. Yeah, I'm happy for you. And we watch it all the time. We watch all the Despicable Me stuff. Oh, you own it. You bought it digitally. Yes. I see. Not a 4K. I don't have a 4K player yet. So everyone being like, are you going to get the, well, the Marie Antoinette. And also because Knox wants to watch his ET 4K. And he came home and he was like, mama, we need a new CD player. So... We got to have a sit down with him. We'll see. I mean, so many ideas going on in Knox's head right now. You guys would have quite a convention. Yeah, we got to catch up really soon. And speaking of kids, the Mandalorian era of Star Wars.

45:39Sean Fennessey:I've been thinking about this, not just that the Mandalorian and Grogu was not a financial success, which it was not. It was a pretty radical underperformance relative to all Star Wars movies. But I feel like this actually puts a pin in a period in history with Star Wars. Because in 2019, we had the final J.J. Abrams film in the Rey trilogy. Yes, which you were incredibly normal about. Well, it sucked, right? It sucked. And also the way that they wrapped it up was offensive. Even I can get in on that. Everybody knows it was terrible. And there's a variety of reasons why it was terrible. It was rushed.

46:14Sean Fennessey:They chose the wrong path for the story. The CGI was bad. There's so many. Didn't kill Chewie. So many things. You know, yeah. Or what was it? Not nevertheless. She persisted. What was it? Somehow Palpatine returned. Yeah. Somehow Palpatine returned. Many terrible things about it. But that same year was the year that The Mandalorian launched on TV in 2019. and those first two seasons of The Mandalorian, I thought were stellar. I thought they were really cool and they were a path forward for Star Wars and they've since dead-ended. I noticed that as I was looking this up last night that there hasn't been a new Star Wars TV property that has launched since the end of 2024 when Skeleton Crew came out.

46:55Sean Fennessey:And this movie comes out, it's basically four TV episodes clung together. I don't know if we're ever going to have another Mandalorian season, probably, but maybe not. And now Starfighter comes next year. And that's kind of reset the table. And I'm kind of wondering if after we get Ahsoka Season 2, all that stuff is like that's from over there from the past. This is no longer a TV business. Right. Maybe we'll continue with our animated series because they seem to work well. There was a Darth Maul series that did well, I guess. But I didn't watch it. But we're going to get back to eventizing movies.

47:29Sean Fennessey:Yes. Starting with Starfighter. And then we're going to go to the next trilogy that's been rumored, which, you know, I think will involve past and present figures. Right. I mean, I think just the wild underperformance of Mandalorian and Grogu cemented to everyone. Like the TV shows devalued what we're doing here. And people can tell the difference between TV shows and movies. Yes. And aren't going to accept one in the other space. Unless you're my two-year-old who this morning turned on the TV and said, Mandalorian Grogu. Okay. He's never seen it. We didn't turn it on. It can be a little scary for him.

48:02No screens before school in my house.

48:05Sean Fennessey:No screens before. Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course. We've never turned the TV on in the morning. But he tried, you know? Yeah. After school, sometimes, not usually. Yeah. We're more of a weekend TV household at this point. I mean, listen, the licensing, the figurines worked. Like I'm still thinking about the two toddler meltdown that occurred in JFK over a Lego Mandalorian, a Grogu Lego figurine. A Lego. A Lego. I'm innovating here. I mean, it was like a physical brawl. I was so embarrassed. Get ready for 10 more years of that as somebody with a younger brother. Yeah, but we're in the airport. That means nothing.

48:45Sean Fennessey:The number of times I yelled, do you want to go to airport jail? No. Nothing. Location is irrelevant. Only place worse than airport jail is casino jail. As somebody who's, I've not been inside, I've not been behind bars in casino jail, but I've been to casino jail. I mean, I think Eagles jail is the lowest rung. Oh, yes. Sure. Well put. Yes. That is the final rung of hell. I have not visited Eagles jail or had to bail anyone out of it yet. I would never go to that stadium. Never in my life. Another loser, Supergirl and Wow that was so bad It was really bad With Supergirl I think is tier 2 superhero movies When you're not on the A team It's clear that it's going to be a lot harder to find success This movie only made $126 million worldwide That's an epic bomb I mean it was a bomb of an experience I haven't thought about it But it really really stuck Can I ask you something was that Florence Pugh Marvel movie this year or last year No that was last year Okay.

49:43Sean Fennessey:Because I've just been like, where's Florence? Thunderbolts? Yes. Well, I mean, she's going to... She's going to be in Dune. I know. No, but she's dominating Dune's Day because she's also in the Avengers. Right, right, right, right. So is that going to be the single biggest box office day for any movie star in movie history? Because she will be in both Dune Part 3 and Avengers Doomsday. And then she's also... She's Yelena. She's a big part of that movie, I think. Okay. And then she's also in East of Eden. And East of Eden on Netflix, which I heard is good and I would like to watch. I would as well.

50:13Sean Fennessey:But I just, I couldn't, I thought she had disappeared forever. And Thunderbolts is a similar, they, you know, they tried to launch B-List Avengers. They did. Avengers, Dark Avengers? Dark Avengers. Okay. New Avengers? Sure. The New Avengers, I believe. New Avengers, yeah. That was a really smart idea to just have two names for a movie with an asterisk. I thought it was kind of fun. Okay. I think Marvel should have more fun. What do you think is, what's Dark Big Pick? maybe that's the third chair episode where it's just all the third chairs fighting and posing with their superpowers more specifically Supergirl is emblematic of the major lack of success of Warner Brothers last year I think Warner Brothers accounted for about 25 % of the box office over summer 2025 this year they account for 5 % not good things are not going well Mike and Pam writing hi Mike and Pam not having in his grade a year.

51:06Sean Fennessey:And that's before you take into account everything that's happening to Warner Brothers ownership, which, good luck to everyone, I guess. I'm not addressing that issue. Yeah, I was going to say, like, good luck to everyone except the people that we don't wish luck to. I think Warner Brothers will be fine because they do have Cat in the Hat, they have Dune Part 3, they have some movies coming out this fall, they have Digger, of course, we'll see if that performs. They have some movies that have a chance to be bigger, but very bad summer for them. The last thing I wanted to mention to you quickly before we go into the game results, Masters of the Universe obviously was a bomb.

51:33Sean Fennessey:It only made$113 million worldwide. We talked about my deep, emotional, complex relationship and problems and love for all of that. It's a huge streaming hit. It's one of the biggest streaming movies in the history of Amazon. It debuted to over one billion minutes watched, which is one of those fake stats, but I think is notable because it was basically putting it at the top of the charts when it came out. Now, that does make sense. And to your point about Mandalorian and Grogu, I think there's something to this too, which is that Masters of the Universe and He-Man is a TV property. It was a TV show.

52:03but a lot of people have now seen this movie and that is actually when you get right down to it

52:08Sean Fennessey:what matters the most is who sees the movies and I'm trying to figure out is there a world where it makes sense for masters of the universe to have a sequel that is streaming only and is that coherent in a way that the movie and movie theaters wasn't which is kind of a rejection of everything that we normally say about movies you know what I mean sort of but I don't know if people have seen it is the only thing that matters if it's not making money. Well, it's keeping people engaged on the prime video service. Sure. Which works for Amazon, which is also, but you know, for Amazon, for Apple, and I guess for Netflix, sort of, these are just loss leaders and that's okay.

52:47Sean Fennessey:But that's not true for Universal and Warner Brothers and all of, and A24 and all of the people who make the movies that need theaters and need people going to theaters. So I guess that's great for Amazon. But if Amazon just then makes direct, keeps and mostly keeps making direct to Prime streaming videos of poor quality that people do their laundry to, that's a type of movie that's definitely a lane. But I don't know if that's great for certainly the quality of movies and maybe not for the health of the business and everything else that we were talking about long term. I know. I think I'm speaking just specifically about this franchise.

53:28Sean Fennessey:Like, is there a world where, and we've talked about this many times over the years, where films that get proper marketing budgets always perform better at home. Like, films that get theatrical release because they get stronger marketing and commercial representation. And then there's just more awareness of them and they feel more real. So Masters of the Universe, even though nobody went, it's the classic example of I'll wait for streaming and then people did and then they watched it on streaming. But then does that set up a franchise that doesn't need theatrical anymore because they already got that marketing push and now this is like a revived IP that has a value to the service?

54:03Sean Fennessey:I'm just going to say yes, I think it is, which is unusual. There's not a lot of examples of this where you could be like, if they can get Nicholas Galatson and Camila Mendes and Idris Elba back together again, like they could just make another one of these movies. I bet they can. If they spend enough money, I'll bet they can. I just thought that was interesting as a takeaway from a movie that would otherwise be discarded as a total failure. Yeah. Well, I mean, the rules for Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and the companies that make movies as an add-on to what their actual business is are very different than the movies for movie studios.

54:40Sean Fennessey:No doubt about it. And the rules for movie studios. Did you read about the Apple Fold phone? Yeah. Yeah, I read text about it. Remember those? I know, but then I didn't see a demo. But like, maybe I'm interested. Am I interested? Well, it'll be smaller. Also, what movie recently was someone using? It's set in the future and someone's using a full... No, it's a fold phone, but it seems to have all of the optionality of a smartphone. I don't know what movie you're talking about. Disclosure Day? No, I don't think so. That is just the segue with the alien. I can't remember. I'm not opposed to it. Are you opposed to it?

55:17Sean Fennessey:No. I thought it was interesting. Okay. And I was like, Apple, you got me again. You mentioned something that seems obvious. You developed it. You built it. And now I'm like,$2 ,000 seems reasonable. So then... Which is fucking crazy. Oh, it's$2 ,000? Yeah, that's... Oh, okay. That is the MSRP. Oh, okay. So then what does it matter, though, what their, you know, what their movie strategy is for the next... It doesn't. They can do whatever they want. Yeah. My advice would be to make good films. Same. Okay, the movie game. We predict the box office and Metacritic scores, and we have a very elaborate point system.

55:51Sean Fennessey:Lucas Cavanaugh has helpfully tallied them. A couple of quick highlights for you. Okay. We hit on a couple of films. We missed on a couple of films. Our misses were pretty bad. Obsession is the most interesting one to me because I guessed$42 million, and I thought that that was a pretty generous guess. Yeah. And you guessed$15 million, which was the price of acquisition for the film, out of TIFF and it made 263. Backrooms, we guessed 67 and 16 respectively. It made 198. The Odyssey, we guessed 412 and 350 respectively. It made 589. Toy Story 5, we guessed 401 and 503. It made 480. That was pretty good.

56:31Sean Fennessey:Spider-Man Brand New Day, I guessed 527. You guessed 580. It made 923. Yeah. Bonkers. You want to hear your misses? I'm aware of them but go ahead Billie Eilish hit me hard and soft the tour parentheses live in 3D yeah I guessed 42 million you guessed 160 million well listen we were just talking about the Ares tour and the Taylor Swift of it all and all I hear about Billie Eilish so important Billie Eilish she deserves all the Oscars over Dua Lipa Billie Eilish Billie Eilish okay where were they we'll get to Dua Lipa later in this podcast this movie made 9.9 million dollars we say A, as a rule on this show that Big Jim does not miss, as the co-director of this film, Big Jim missed.

57:17Sean Fennessey:He really did. He missed. For the first time ever, he missed. Where were the young people? I don't know. I don't know. Power Ballad. I guessed 26 million. You guessed 16 million. Yeah. It made 2.6 million. I mean, I was being nice with 16 million. That's dark. Mandalorian Grogu. I guessed 275 million because I was nervous about how things were going. You guessed 421 and I made 178. Well, I was wrong. You were wrong. Minions and Monsters. So were you. I was. So was Disney. They were. Minions and Monsters, I guessed 352. You guessed 350. we were so close and it made about half that 183 million dollars that's okay Supergirl I guessed 159 you guessed 190 it made 72 jackass best and last heartbreaking here I guessed 81 million dollars way way overshot I mean it was yeah it was a clip reel it was a clip reel you guessed 60 million it made 18 million dollars and Moana this is probably the most dramatic miss of the whole thing I guessed 412 you guessed 410 we were so close in our guesses it made 126 I don't know if this is just an anomaly or if it augurs something new about the Disney live action thing.

58:23Sean Fennessey:It's very interesting to me. One Night Only. Mm-hmm. I guessed 76 million. Yeah. You guessed 38 million. It only made 11.5 million. I'll share my thoughts on One Night Only shortly. Yeah. I also had this in my movie Fantasy League. Yeah. And it really fucked me. I'm sorry about that. Yeah, it's tough. Super Troopers 3, I guessed 48 million. Okay. You guessed 22 million. It made 7 million. Okay. Tough one. fun fact for disclosure day yes I guessed a 74 Metacritic score yeah and 121 million dollars for the gross okay it had a 74 Metacritic score and 117 million dollars for the gross okay that's just fucking perfect come on isn't that amazing it's so good it's so good for our brand to nail that movie the way that I nailed that movie and I nailed that movie the way that I nailed it mmhmm I'm happy for you yeah so then let's let's go to the final and then I'd like to do just like a little bit of reflection okay the final score yeah I had 166 points total you had 153 points yes so you win I'm the victor congratulations thank you this was a tough summer to predict do you do you feel a sense of accomplishment no that you won do you feel a sense of accomplishment I love to play games with my friends okay that's nice yeah what accomplishment what do I get I don't know you make such a big deal about it.

59:45Sean Fennessey:You talk so much about box office. I'm just like, you know, will you, you won't leave this studio with a spring in your step? Well, it's one of the only art forms where there's a public accounting of success, which is something I find interesting. Yes. And we can trust it because it is correlated to the stock price and the industry that is contingent upon it in movie theaters. So I do talk about it a lot because I think it speaks specifically to what is working and what is not working in the business and art form that we care so much about. Right. So the game is just really a sign that I'm by no means a box office expert, nor are you.

1:00:19Sean Fennessey:I'm just somebody who's really interested in how it works and the history of it. The Disclosure Day thing is too funny. That's good. It's incredible. Let me ask you a question. If there were stakes, if we brought back the previously discussed Amanda reorganizes your physical media, Oh, yeah. I never got to do that. That's still on the table. Yeah, that's still on the table. And we never did the screening of a... a movie that I don't want to watch. Yeah, we can do both of those things in 2029 when the show wraps. From Australia? Yeah. Did we say that the reorganization needs to happen on camera?

1:00:51Sean Fennessey:We didn't say that, right? Yeah. I'm saying it. I'm saying it. Yeah, what's the fun of doing it? I don't want any cameras in my house. Well, I'll just wear a GoPro. I don't want any cameras in my house. And then narrate it. You'll find that it's the ADU. Well, that's a part of my house. Is it not a part of my house? It's a garage. Oh my gosh. Okay, let's talk about some new movies. Okay. We'll do this pretty quickly. Yeah. I saw The Uprising last night. Okay. You haven't seen it, right? No, I haven't. New film from Paul Greengrass, who is really one of the most successful directors of the 21st century.

1:01:21Sean Fennessey:Directed two Bourne movies. He directed United 93, Captain Phillips, Sunday Bloody Sunday, a number of very, very good films. This new movie stars Andrew Garfield, Jamie Bell, Stephen Delane, Tom Hollander, Cosmo Jarvis, Thomas and Mackenzie, Johnny Lee Miller, Woody Norman, Catherine Waterston. Big cast. Really good cast. It is about the Peasant Revolt of 1831, where after the plague sweeps across Europe, kills half the population, King Richard II and the oligarchs, they impose this tax on the common people. What plague was in the 20s? 1820 Plague European. No, it's not 1820. It's 1380s. Okay, all right.

1:01:59Sean Fennessey:Sorry, that's a typo. Okay, great. It's 1381. Excuse me. Listen. No, there was no plague in the 1820s. after this tax is imposed upon the people there there's an uprising and a revolt among commoners who stormed the gates in England the first hour of this movie was electric electric and I thought I was gonna like have to rebuild the episode to be like we have to start with the uprising because it was Paul Greengrass doing shaky cam digital photography Bourne style action but in the 1300s with Andrew Garfield and Cosmo Jarvis destroying people. And I was so into it and so locked in. And Garfield was doing the action sequences?

1:02:46Sean Fennessey:And he is, this movie's superpower, because he's such a brilliant actor. And I just believe everything he does. I just think he's the best. And I thought he was great in this. He plays a character named Plowman, because he is the common person. And he is just, he's but a Plowman. Much like yourself. That's right, exactly. I'm an avatar for the peasants. And... I really was really, really enjoying it. And I found it very credible and very fast moving. The pace, the moment from like, okay, something terrible. Like this poor person has encountered attacks in this big huddle of people. And they are just rejecting it instantaneously.

1:03:22Sean Fennessey:And that is leading to various groups from around England finding each other from various townships. And connecting and storming England. Two things happen. Once the bigger groups start to come together, tremendous amount of one of your least favorite things. CGI overhead shots of big crowds and castles that looked so bad. In a movie that looked so good. It was like, it was like so up close and with great production design and they fucking ruined it by doing that. The crowd thing is a true epidemic. I have not seen one example of a CGI crowd that works. It's so bad. Get it out of your movie. If it's in your treatment, write another scene.

1:04:02Sean Fennessey:I don't think they needed it. There is no company that has mastered the digital crowd. It doesn't exist. It's so bad because, you know, I understand why they did it because they're trying to call back to these films from the 60s and 70s where they could have put 3 ,000, 5 ,000 extras in a scene and they can't afford to do it anymore, right? It's too expensive. It's too hard structurally. I understand why it happened. But because of the way that Greengrass makes movies, he's so good at everything being right in your face. We don't even need the scale to feel the effect of the story. So I felt that was a huge, huge error in the movie and it really pulled me right out of a movie I was loving.

1:04:36Sean Fennessey:And then secondarily, I think there were some just huge third act problems with how they communicated the ultimate results. The Robin Hood thing I think is overstated. Okay. There is, you can certainly read it that way without spoiling anything. But he doesn't say, my name is Robin. He does not say, I'm a cartoon fox and I'm here to romance you, Maid Marian. He doesn't do Robin Hood and Little John walking through the forest? No, there's no Little John, there's no Friar Tuck, there's no Maid Marian. Is he stealing from the rich and giving to the poor? Not exactly. Okay. it's not really like that because Robin Hood Robin Hood is not a real person right he's a legend but there are components of this story that have some reflections of Robin Hood okay man there was some good stuff in it you know Greengrass is super talented and he's singular he has a real style that is his own style that I really respect and I will always go see a movie like this over whatever IP garbage like 10 out of 10 times I think there's a lot to recommend about the movie but it bummed me out and it kind of lost the thread yeah I just wanted to get that off my chest.

1:05:34Sean Fennessey:Let's talk about Hope. Yes. So this is the second biggest movie of the weekend, I would say, behind the movie we'll talk about on Monday, Practical Magic 2. Hope is the new South Korean sci-fi action extravaganza from Na Hongjin. It's Na Hongjin's first movie in like 10 years. It has a fascinating cast. Hwang Jun-min, Zo In-sung, who I just saw in Possible Love, Jung Ho-yeon, and then Taylor Russell, Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender Yes in very interesting parts now we did talk about this movie when we saw it at the Cannes Film Festival Yes we were at the premiere we were at the premiere the logline of the movie is a police chief and a police woman and a group of hunters try to track down and kill a mysterious creature that's laying waste to a Korean village now the film takes place in what looks like already a post-apocalyptic South Korean village it looks like there's already been pestilence or some sort of plague or just a general kind of degradation of society.

1:06:35Sean Fennessey:And the first hour of the movie, we spend a lot of time in this world and we just follow along with a handful of characters who are, we know something is wrong, but we don't know what it is. And that sequence of the movie is some of the best stuff I've seen in a movie this year. It is, it's almost an hour chase sequence where you can't see what is, you know, what they're running from. Yes. And then, as you said, it shows you the whole world and how this world has broken down, and you're just following a group of survivors who are trying to use the rules of the world that they know very well to not be caught by this thing.

1:07:18Sean Fennessey:And it's, you know, it's very implied. You don't see the monster. And it goes on for like an hour. When we saw it at the premiere, when the sequence finally ended, the entire theater broke into applause. Yes. Because it really is so, it announces itself in such an exciting way. And the power of suggestion is very effective. And then. And then something really terrible happens. And it really changes, I think, a lot of people's relationships to the movie and mine as well. I will generally recommend this movie because I think it's a lot of fun. Yeah. However, the creatures that the characters are trying to escape from start to appear in the movie.

1:07:57Sean Fennessey:One in particular in the end of that first act. And the CGI is terrible. And this is the most expensive South Korean movie ever made. And it's the biggest scale movie ever made. And it's a movie that aspires to Spielberg, Cameron, Michael Bay, Peter Jackson. It's in that lineage of a ragtag group of people fighting a big bad that requires CGI. but the CGI is so bad that the movie at times feels laughable after feeling so profoundly exciting. Do you agree with me about this? Yes. It's incredibly silly to the point that when we saw it in Cannes everyone walked and said okay so the CGI isn't finished?

1:08:35Sean Fennessey:Like that they're still working on all this? The other twist in that CGI and there are mild spoilers here but you know you watch this first 45 50 minutes it's so thrilling and you do also know that at some point alicia vikander and michael fassbender and taylor russell are going to show up in the movie and so you're you're like very much almost it's it's not quite first person shooter vibes but you're you're very much on the ride with these people and in the back of your head you're thinking okay and then the world's going to expand and we're going to see what's going on And, you know, how are you bringing Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender and Taylor Russell into this?

1:09:17Sean Fennessey:Are they like scientists? What's going on? And it sets up like the expectation of this sweeping, really exciting, you know, action drama. And again, spoiler alert, they're the aliens. So and they're just in terrible CGI. And if you like squint really hard, once you realize it, you're like, oh, that is my those are Michael Fassbender's eyes, sort of. I get it. And so it's the crushing realization both that these are, the silly bugs are all you're going to get and also that that's all you're going to get from the movie, that it's not going any further than this world. Right. And or this particular village.

1:09:59Sean Fennessey:Now I'll say I found the CGI and the utilization of those characters to be not very strong. I do think it sort of redeems itself at the end of the film because there was another chase sequence on a highway that is again, that features a car and a horse and the creatures. It is again like mind blowing, practical filmmaking with what is happening on the car and the horse. Like I genuinely, as somebody who really admires those like big train set kinds of movies and what it takes to accomplish that stuff, I think it is like world-class action. It's just that the frame of the story is so dumb at this point and you're so taken out of it by the CGI by the utilization of those actors, that this movie is such a crazy mixed bag.

1:10:45Sean Fennessey:Like, it's totally worth going to the movies to see it with a little bit of lowered expectations, and then you'll have a fun time, I think. I mean, that's the other thing is that we did see it, and it was in competition at Cannes. We, like, got dressed up. You were in your tux again for, like, the world premiere, and we were sort of jockeying for these tickets because there was, you know, kind of buzz the week before. Like, oh, maybe that's the Pondor. Pondor, yeah, exactly. Not very respected. He's made, like, serial killer movies, and some supernatural dramas. Right. And so on the one hand, it's hilarious and amazing and a great pick that this was in competition.

1:11:20Sean Fennessey:It can. It was a fun night. I love it. It's very fun, but we were expecting something very different. And I think for the person who's just going to the movies on the weekend in September and you want a very fun creature movie, you'll really like it. I agree. I think it's pretty much effective as that. It is two hours and 40 minutes. That's true. That's long. It's really long. It's really long. And it's also just setting up the next one. You're just like, oh. Yeah. And it seems like it's done well overseas, but maybe not, has not been. I actually don't, I don't want to comment on the box office because I'm not totally sure what it is.

1:11:54Sean Fennessey:But a fascinating experiment. And I think it's cool that Neon is putting it like on 1 ,500 screens or something and encouraging. To me, this is like completely the product of the incredible success of a movie like Parasite that a film like this can and should play in the U.S. at scale. Yeah. Even though it has some flaws. I do think it's a lot of fun. Yeah. Did you watch Mayday? I sure did. I watched it on the plane. Okay, so I'm actually really glad you did because I need you to help me with this one. Let's be honest. I watched it on the plane on the way home. Okay. 24-hour travel day. Did I sleep through part of it?

1:12:26Sean Fennessey:I did. Okay. But I was back up. I saw the ending. I checked through the boxes, but I have to be very honest. This is, again, this is a street to Apple film starring Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh that is somehow like an even more jingoistic parody of Top Gun? You nailed it. I don't understand. So it's from John Francis Daly and Jonathan Goldstein who made Game Night and the most recent Dungeons & Dragons film. Movies I like. Game Night, one of the great underrated comedies of the last 25 years. This one, I don't really get it. So when a U.S. Navy pilot on a top secret mission during the Cold War gets trapped behind enemy lines.

1:13:07Sean Fennessey:His only chance of survival is to form an alliance with an eccentric ex-KGB agent. So Reynolds is the pilot. Branagh is the ex-KGB agent. Nobody loves doing a bizarre European Russian accent like Kenneth Branagh. The key here is that the Branagh character is obsessed with American culture and has also has some regrets about his time spent in the KGB. So he is willing to help this pilot who has crash landed.

1:13:32Sean Fennessey:Why? Really, really tough. Why? I noted that one of the companies, production companies is Skydance. Yeah. So, you know, planes, Top Gun. And Top Gun is like explicit. Literally in the movie. Yes, exactly. It's not just, oh, this is a lot like Top Gun. Like they do actually make callbacks to the movie and that, and Kenneth Branagh's character loves the movie. And, you know, there are lots of goose references. So I'm sure that has something to do with it. I was quite taken aback by the mismatch of tone between earnest American exceptionalism and Ryan Gosling. Excuse me. And I'm sorry, Ryan. They'll watch it.

1:14:17Sean Fennessey:Tells you a lot about where Ryan Gosling is at that you would ever consider. And Ryan Reynolds is jokey, sarcastic, quirky, but he's also trying to be a CIA. I'm sorry. He's a Navy SEAL, I guess. He's in the Navy. He's just a Navy pilot. He's a Navy pilot. And so he's both trying to be sarcastic, but also communicate to you that he believes in America, which he says a lot. And I kept being like, wait, so is this Ernest? I couldn't figure out what the hell the point of this movie was like why did anybody want to make this movie I don't know I mean I try to not I try to not do that with movies but like I genuinely was like so we're like glossing like glazing 80s Top Gun culture there's a little bit of you know listen I like Hunt for Red October I like 2010 Salt unlike Jack and Lucas over there but people like spy thrillers yeah and so maybe you want to make a spy thriller that's a little lighter, but...

1:15:22Sean Fennessey:I mean, maybe if it was a different actor, I'd have a slightly different perspective on it, but everything with Reynolds is inherently kind of jokey. Yeah. Right? Because his acting tone is very jokey. His character is in very dangerous circumstances here, but there's always that kind of slight smarm that comes with a lot of his roles. Branagh is having fun and, like, whatever he's doing in the action sequences or the fight sequences is pretty fun. It's not an unwatchable movie or anything, but I think the actual, like, Like, this is a big-scale, expensive film that went straight to streaming with one of the 10 biggest movie stars in the world.

1:15:54Sean Fennessey:Like, what is this? I don't know. Once again, I do not know. And I don't know why Apple needs to do this because they're going to get, you know,$4 ,000 of our dollars for their little flip phones. That's true. Yeah. But, I mean— Damn, I got to start saving. This is a tough break for me. To your point, I don't know if you need a flip phone. It seems like the phone that you have is working just fine. Why isn't this movie in movie theaters then? It's got big action. It's got notable people? Because they don't need it. What does they don't need it mean? I don't know. I don't know why Apple and Amazon are making movies.

1:16:24Sean Fennessey:Like, I really don't. Well, I welcome more movies. Sure, but not these. Yeah, okay. All right, well, let's talk about another movie that I'm completely mystified by. Yeah, sure. I caught up with One Night Only. Now, you and Juliet did a great episode of the show. I did not listen to the One Night Only section of that episode because I didn't want any of the movies spoiled for me. I knew I would watch it at some point. As I said, I had this in my movie fantasy league. I had some interest in it. When it came out, I was out of town, so I watched it on VOD last night. Structured by Will Glock, best known probably for anyone but you at this point.

1:16:52Sean Fennessey:Yeah. And an EZA. Screenplay by Travis Braun. It stars Monica Barbaro, Callum Turner, Maya Hawke, Molly Ringwald, LeVar Burton. And as many people know, this is the rom-com about the one night only that you can have premarital sex in America. Yeah, it's the sex purge. The sex purge.

1:17:11Sean Fennessey:I thought this was horrible. It's really horrible. Did you laugh? Not even a little bit. Not even a little bit. So that's the thing, is that Juliet and I both laughed a lot. I think that this movie just does not work. I think it's an insurmountable premise, and it does not surmount it. Okay, here's my major issue, and I thought about it with respect to the episode that you guys did. This is a sex comedy, not a rom-com, but it's pretending like it's a rom-com. Yes. There's a huge difference between those two kinds of movies. Correct. But it's also a sex movie without sex, and they took all the sex out.

1:17:45Sean Fennessey:That's my point. I mean, I saw Will Gluck gave interviews afterwards being like, well, the tests and the children don't want sex. Hey, boys, the most overblown thing of all time. So fucking annoying. You don't want that. Your generation doesn't want to like to fuck. Yeah. I mean, there's sex in anyone but you. Everyone be safe, but good job. Like anyone but you will. Gluck made it a huge hit. There's a shower scene in the fucking movie. I remember. How is the takeaway in the sex comedy not to have any sex? I have absolutely no idea. It's just mystifying. This is straight up like absolute malpractice at every level.

1:18:20Sean Fennessey:I mean, can we just go into this? This is a movie about how people can't have sex because the federal government has outlawed sex. Premarital sex. Premarital sex and implanted chips into everybody's body. Yes, yes. And then they're just like, yeah, let's go. You know, let's make some jokes about where to get a condom. Yeah. I was kind of like, I, you know. I agree. The premise is completely unexplored. It's pure science fiction. I don't need that movie to be like a chilling rebuttal of fascism. I don't want it to be The Handmaid's Tale. And I stopped watching The Handmaid's Tale because, you know, I don't watch five seasons of anything, but also not a great hang.

1:19:02Sean Fennessey:But there just is something about it. I mean, The Sex Purge is a great elevator pitch and like a funny thing. Yes. And you would have thought that they would have been able to market more with it. But I don't know if there's a good version of this movie. Like, I don't know if it actually is a possible, a premise that you can carry out. I think you might be right. I think I was also distracted by just the like wave of Gen Z young millennial signifiers to the audience to tell you like how cool this movie is. It's like multiple King Princess songs. King Princess plays one of the friends in the movie.

1:19:36Sean Fennessey:You've got Julia Fox. You've got Maya Hawke. You've got Daniel Craig's daughter at one point. Yeah. You've got Z-Way and Estee Heim as the bouncers at the club. Like you've got all the... Nicholas Braun is there for five seconds. Nicholas Braun, all the needle drops. Like everything in the movie is so like, hey, you know about this young person? Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. The needle drops were at least better than... Normally the needle drops in these movies are just the most terrible. I just thought they sounded like... It's like not even Sara Bareilles. They sounded like all the needle drops in the dating shows on Netflix that Eileen likes to watch.

1:20:11Sean Fennessey:where I'm just like the most banal like light fizzy pop. Only You is a great song. Take it back. Well that's an old song. That's the Yazoo song. I know. Yeah. That song is good. That's great. Monica Barbera wonderful singer. I would throw it all away for her today. Of course. She's stunning. She's so stunning. And a good actor. And you know the other thing I thought a lot about When Harry Met Sally while I was watching this movie because I was like When Harry Met Sally obviously one of the probably the single greatest movie of this kind ever made. Agreed. That movie looks so good. The way it's shot The production design, the costumes, the vibe of that movie is magical.

1:20:45Sean Fennessey:The score. The music, yes. Everything about that movie, you've got that great Nora Ephron script, you've got Rob Reiner right in his zone, and perfect performances from those two leads. Now, it's unfair to hold a movie like this to the absolute platinum standard of a certain kind of genre, but it's not as though what's accomplished in When Harry Met Sally is impossible. It just requires more time, effort, money, and thought. Sean, I say this on every single episode, every single time we talk about romantic comedies. They just, they won't spend the time and money on it. This looks like a shitty streaming service show.

1:21:16Sean Fennessey:I don't understand it. And the other thing - At least they filmed in New York. Listen, yeah, this is important. Yeah. This is really important. Yeah. Callum Turner, I don't know. I don't think so. I don't think so. You saw The Running, right? Sure. The Running. I don't think so, Amanda. Listen, he's not going to get Bond, it sounds like, which is tough. He's got Dua Lipa, so that's good for him. listen he one thing that Juliet and I identified which I do think is true is that he has the really good rom-com reaction face when she's singing and they cut to him I'll give you that and he's smiling at her and you know I found myself in that moment being like you know so and that's something that you just can't replicate and it does they have chemistry I disagree so a little bit she has chemistry with a telephone pole she's so great yeah she's wonderful and he is pretty cute I listen had notes on the accent, which was pretty tough.

1:22:10Sean Fennessey:Another issue. The running is not bond worthy. Uh-huh. And, you know, why isn't he just British? I mean, then they have to get into like immigration status and the biochips and all sorts of stuff, which is, again, you don't want to get it. Listen, you should listen. We really got, I have a lot of questions about how this all works. Okay, I'll go back and listen to it, yeah. It's like, how are they tracking that you're using a condom? You know, which is a point. Good point. Like, what is that censor about? Like, there's just nothing going, no information on masturbation, no information on handjobs.

1:22:40Sean Fennessey:Is masturbation allowed? We don't know. When they're at the police office, which I thought was the single worst scene in the movie. Pretty rough. And like, you know, clearly noted and people being like, you need to acknowledge this, which like you do, but it just feels added onto the script. Anyway, on the background, there's a sign of, you know, illustrations of acts that are allowed. So oral sex is depicted. That's out. Nothing about handjobs. Okay. I don't understand. So you would just be given handies every day? I mean, it's just like, are people doing that? You know, why is everyone not getting married immediately?

1:23:17Sean Fennessey:We don't like explore what's going on with divorce. I was going to say it. Overrated. Handies. It's just not. I think that that's true. But listen, like, aren't you trying to survive? You know, like, come on. Let's be real. Callum Turner is getting a handjob every day. Well, sure. But also, like, think about the reverse for a second. You're just, you're cutting out like a whole. That's true. So, but they don't specify that. People are not ready at 7 p.m. when the alarm goes off. You know, they're still hanging out. And I'm like, why aren't you just at home counting down, trying to maximize the amount of time?

1:23:51Sean Fennessey:Agreed. Good note. Very good note. Again, like, why aren't we marrying and then getting divorced? One question I had, maybe you brought this up. Yeah. If you get married, can you cheat with other people? Again, we talked about that. It's not specified. But that seems like a... Exactly. Because you've got your marriage certificate? Sure. But, you know, the... Because then you just marry a friend and then just go gallivant. Totally. Yeah. And so the condom thing suggests that there is like the biosensor element has like some DNA elements to it, which again, is just really upsetting. It's practically Blade Runner.

1:24:25Sean Fennessey:But so nothing is explored that I like want to know about. This is like, you know how Bill has said for years there should be like the sports consulting firm that he has for Hollywood? Like, this is our business, you know? A thousand percent. You want to integrate rom-coms and science fiction into a movie? This is the duo that can help you. Like, we should have gotten a phone call to walk through some of these ideas. What a misfire. Crazy. Yeah, it really, really doesn't work. I didn't have a bad time watching it. I'm happy. I know you don't get a lot of these movies. Listen, I like it. You know, they're cute also.

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1:26:32Sean Fennessey:Evening. Buyer's remorse. Buy a new car? I'll be moving in. Let's get started. Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana. You what? Yeah, great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it. So there's no... No, no buyer's remorse. More like buyer's rejoice? I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it. Buyers rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our seven-day return policy at Carvana.com. Idiots. I can't believe you watched Idiots. How about you? Did you watch it on the plane? I did. Okay. So this is the new movie from Macon Blair, wrote and directed.

1:27:09Sean Fennessey:It stars Dave Franco, O'Shea Jackson, Mason, is it Thames or Thames? I don't know. I believe it's Thames. Thames. I believe it. Okay. Kiernan Shipka, Nicholas Braun, recurring, and Peter Dinklage. It's about two rock-bottom drivers transporting a wealthy teen to rehab, but their simple job spirals into a chaotic journey of drugs, danger, and crime as their passenger derails their plans. What did you think of this one? I wanted it to be funnier. Me too. I thought it was... I expected it to be less of a movie and more of a comedy, given the people involved, specifically, I had a great trailer, too.

1:27:39Sean Fennessey:And Dave Franco. Did you see the trailer? It was a very funny trailer, so I think it sold me hard on it, being what you're describing. And also, like, once you're doing Midnight Run, you know, So those are big shoes to fill. But so it wasn't as funny. And I didn't think like the performances of those two people who I think are hilarious were as funny. I agree. It was more of a movie than I think. You know, it's not that it doesn't work. It's just trying to be something different than I thought it was going to be. Yeah. I think it's really actually ultimately more of the last detail than it is Midnight Run because of the like transporting someone.

1:28:16Sean Fennessey:against their will to some extent. And yeah, I really wanted this to be a little bit better too. It's got a couple of really funny moments. There's some funny reveals, but it didn't totally click. This was a Sundance movie that was originally called Shitheads and they renamed it. I had a question for you. Yeah. Do you think that movies should have, it should be okay for movies to have expletives in the title? I'm okay with it, but then you can't even curse on Instagram still. So what are we doing? What do you mean you can't curse on Instagram? Don't you have to bleep it out? You don't have to, but typically the algorithm takes it down more.

1:28:51I have no idea.

1:28:52Sean Fennessey:We live in May Days America, you know? May Days America. You're absolutely right. And I won't argue with you. Okay. Did I talk at you about Buddy? I don't think so. I don't remember it. You know what it is? Well, I know that people have taken their children to it thinking it's a children's movie. And that would be a huge mistake. Yeah, I read that they were mad, you know? Well, it's a testimony to the very successful marketing campaign of this movie. This movie is now turning out to be, I think, in that conversation, not at the same box office level, but in that same conversation with Backrooms, with Obsession, with the Markiplier movie, like where independent horror with a really strong hook can do really, really well.

1:29:42Sean Fennessey:I guess you could say Terrifier kind of laid some of the groundwork for this. Buddy is basically, what if a Barney the Dinosaur-esque children's giant puppet host was actually deranged, malevolent, etc., etc. Right, right, right, right. We did talk about this a little bit because we talked about the Barney movie that Daniel Kaluuya is allegedly going to make at some point, which seems to me would be the same thing. I'm just going to bring this movie up again to you because I mentioned Casper Kelly, who made Too Many Cooks and made the Adult Swim Yule Log movies, which were both really, really funny and really clever.

1:30:19Sean Fennessey:And these kind of postmodern explorations of old, you know, 80s and 90s pop culture. This is the same thing. This is like in his wheelhouse. He didn't, I guess I didn't originally write this movie, but rewrote it. Kristen Malati is in the movie. Delaney Quinn, the young actress, is in the movie. And then there's a lot of famous people who do voices, Patton Oswalt, Michael Shannon, Topher Grace, Keegan-Michael Key.

1:30:42Sean Fennessey:The first half of the movie where it's just we're inside the world of Buddy, we're like inside the show. They basically recreated the show as Buddy, this orange unicorn. It's becoming – one kid doesn't want to do the things that Buddy wants to do. Okay. And this kid – Right on. He's an outsider. he's a rebel and he's like I don't want to read today buddy I don't want to go do this activity today buddy and he keeps going off to the side and this sort of breaks something in buddy's psychology and he cracks it's a great idea and the first 40 minutes when he loses it when it like kind of shatters everything and he kills this kid oh okay yeah we don't see the murder but it's very clear what's happened okay all of that stuff inside of the show fantastic perfectly executed, recreating a show from 1994, like when we were kids, when this stuff was on TV.

1:31:39Sean Fennessey:Every time we're in the world of the puppets, and the movie is not just Barney. It has a lot of Pee-wee's Playhouse in it, which is a movie that I, a TV show that I really love. I thought all that stuff is really smart. The movie's success though is really cool because they never released the full trailer. They only released a series of teasers. The teasers are these like very unnerving little segments from the show. And so much so that my, I was looking at YouTube on my phone and my daughter came over and looked over my shoulder as she often does when I'm looking at my phone. Yeah. And she saw me flip past the buddy, one of the buddy teasers.

1:32:11Sean Fennessey:And she said, I want to watch that. Yeah. And we did watch it. Oh, no. Now it was 30 seconds. Nothing actually bad happened in it. But what it had was ambient malevolent terror, sound design. Okay. An insinuation of violence, nothing depicted. But it was almost like this was her first exposure to hardcore, real scary shit. And was she terrified? Didn't clock it at all. Yeah. I think Knox would be the same way. Clocked nothing. Nothing was wrong. Like, they don't have the language. Yeah. I remember this. The first year that we took the kids trick-or-treating, and we went by all the houses that have, like, all the gory setups and, like, the plastic, you know, claws coming out of the grid.

1:32:59Sean Fennessey:and all these sorts of things. And they didn't know that it was scary. And so they just, and so they didn't know. I think Knox was like, ooh, look at that red, you know, because he was learning colors. But it's so interesting what we think is scary versus what they respond to. And they haven't learned the language of like grown up terror yet. It's like you have to get old enough to be scared of something. Yeah. Which is, I just thought was notable because this movie is using a five-year-old sensibility to make something scary, but five-year-olds don't quite know that this should be scary. Yeah.

1:33:32Sean Fennessey:Anyway, let's talk about the rivals of Amzaya King. Okay. One of the craziest movies of the year. All I knew that Matthew McConaughey was, that's all I knew about the movie. Yes. Was Matthew McConaughey. So this is the new movie from Andrew Patterson, his first since The Vast of Night, which we've talked about a bunch on the show recently. I think I mentioned it during the Twilight Zone episode. And it stars McConaughey and Angelina Looking Glass, Scott Shepard, Rob Morgan, Tony Ravalori, Kurt Russell. The logline of the movie, if you haven't seen it because it came out last month, deep within the backwoods of rural Oklahoma, charismatic and musically gifted Amzaya King herds a bluegrass band of misfits while overseeing the premier honeymaking operation in town.

1:34:12Sean Fennessey:When his estranged foster daughter unexpectedly returns, Amzaya leaps at the possibility to reconnect and create a family business. What did you think of this? Because you texted me when you saw it. I don't even know if I responded because I knew we would eventually discuss it on the show. Yeah. I think you said that you were kind of into it for the first half. Loved the first half. I think I did too. Though, again, I did not know that I was going to a film in which Matthew McConaughey makes, like, tends to bees, keeps bees, is a beekeeper in the non-Statham sense, and plays in a, like, praise band.

1:34:54Sean Fennessey:which is really what's going on and that's all he does. The movie stops three different times to just basically do a bluegrass music video in which Matthew McConaughey performs with a series of actors, Owen Teague and many other people. And it's a choice. It's aggressive. I enjoyed it. I was intrigued by it. And really for an hour, it is just Honey and him doing his accent and like being, you know. I think it's kind of like slapstick gross out humor a little bit yes the opening sequence is very funny there's also a sequence when they have to get rid of bees at a school which is incredibly funny and he's very engaging and then it turns into a completely different revenge movie yeah it's a real the second half of the movie something dramatic happens and it turns into more of a thriller revenge movie where the film sort of refocuses to the Angelina Lookingglass character who is McConaughey's foster daughter.

1:35:58Sean Fennessey:And I don't know that I've ever really seen a choice like that to basically just topple the movie and turn it into a completely different kind of a movie. And for me, the second half of the movie is just not successful. And it starts to really drag. You start to wonder why you're there. You don't feel invested in the revenge plot. And it really just dropped the rope. I was bummed out yeah the first half is set pieces and it goes beyond goofy but there is kind of like a joyous slapstick as you said anarchy to what's going on paired with like real sincerity in the performances and in the things that they're talking about but once it has to take on capitalism I didn't really know what was going on also we have bees in the wall again I keep meaning to tell you this there are more bees on the wall what's so hot yeah well they've been there for a long time and it's sort of so there's a room in our house where bees took up residence and they were swarming more outside that time so first Zach had to be an amateur beekeeper then we had to come have the hive removed this time they're staying inside also do you remember the time when we had bees in a different part of the house, but then they just died and disappeared.

1:37:18Sean Fennessey:I don't remember the second time now. They were coming into our room and then dying. And by the time the beekeeper could come, they had moved on. So something's going on with bees in my house. It's a sensitive subject right now. Do you think you are being haunted, Amityville horror style? No, I don't. Are you sure? Swarms of bees do freak me out. I never watched the video that the beekeeper sent us of the hive that they removed from our house. We sent it to Chris and Phoebe immediately. You're afraid of bees? Well, there's something about the visual aspect of... The hive. The hive and all of them together.

1:37:54Sean Fennessey:What's the phobia of too many small things? I don't know. That kind of underlines a lot of horror design, actually. It's fairly common, but I definitely have that. So I don't like looking at it. Too many small... Like a... Trypophobia. Trypophobia. Okay, like an army of ants. Yes. Don't like that. But it can also be like a lot of the skin grafted. for me to remember. Grafton diseases and all this sort of... For Halloween season, yeah. Like a lot of the gross out stuff, I think speaks to... Which I think like that's... Half of people find that very scary and I'm one of them. So I don't like that.

1:38:26Sean Fennessey:Okay. I don't want to be stung by a bee or a swarm of bees. No, no one does. I mean, listen, like I'm, you know, generation my girl, but I don't think I'm being haunted now. It doesn't feel like a supernatural element. It just seems like they, you know, now I got these bees I got to deal with. Instead, I just don't go in the room of the house, which is not really useful because that's where my desk is. Oh, you don't work, so it's okay. That's tough about the bees. Sorry about that. All I can hear is Nick Cage screaming, the bees! So I was like a little uncomfortable during the second half of it because I was like, oh God, now I got these bees I got to deal with, you know?

1:39:03Sean Fennessey:Wow. You're a regular old Anxia King with all these bees. Did you see The Wrong Girls? No. Okay, then we don't need to talk about it. Okay. We'll talk about it after you've seen it. This is the new movie from Dylan Meyer stars Kristen Stewart yes worth discussing okay not sure if it's worth recommending any other closing thoughts except you've asked me to see it so I will well and Dylan Meyer is Kristen Stewart's wife that's correct yeah so I mean I love stories like this yes and there's much to discuss yeah that's cool I'll see it I just I don't know if you heard but I've been in Italy I have heard you know I feel like I'm really good at going to see a lot of movies it's one of my skills and there's still a ton of movies that I haven't seen.

1:39:42Sean Fennessey:Like for this episode, I was hoping to have seen Insidious out of the further, which was actually also a pretty solid hit at the end of the summer. I was hoping that you were going to see Finding Emily, which I don't think you've seen yet, right? No. And I was even at the, at Century City, seeing a not very good movie while one of the Emily screenings was happening for Finding Emily, where they did a stunt where only Emily's were. Yeah. Yes. What movie did we see? I don't remember. Okay. An August film of summer now. I'm sure we podcasted about it. Fall 2, Dead Point. Did you ever see Fall? Fall 1?

1:40:19Sean Fennessey:This is the one where they climb the pole and then can you climb Jacob Elordi and yada yada. So no, I never saw it, but it lives on in my mind. I like the original Fall. By Any Means, the Mark Wahlberg, Yaya Abdul-Batine film featuring Diane Warren's upcoming Oscar nominated original song, By Any Means. I haven't seen that. I'd like to see it. I meant to watch the two Angel Studios films. Sure. Young Washington and the Brink of War. I have famously seen Young Washington. You have. The Brink of War. Should we do a Reagan-Gorbachev whole podcast? Oh, that one I was kind of interested. You're intrigued.

1:40:55Sean Fennessey:Jeff Daniels? I mean, it looked terrible. It's probably terrible. You know? And it probably, I mean, it's probably Mayday Corps, but... Yeah, but like with no action. I mean, so Daniels is Reagan. Jared Harris is Gorbachev. J.K. Simmons is George Schultz. Back in the news. after the Elizabeth Holmes recurrence. Don't tell me anymore. Guys, like I sent some emails this morning. Do you know who this is Nancy Reagan? Tell me. Hope Davis. I did know that because I saw the trailer. Listen, I'm glad people are getting work. Pretty good. Pretty good. I'm going to watch The Brink of War and I'm going to watch it.

1:41:28Sean Fennessey:I still need to see the Angel Studios film Drummer Boy. That's not out yet. Or The Drummer, which has The Drummer Boy soundtrack. Isn't that a Christmas celebration movie? Well, it's really, it's just about someone who drums like in the regiment. In the Revolutionary War. Yeah. So I don't know whether this particular battle was fought at Christmas. Is it because you see your son in that character? Noted drummer, your son? It's because they did the Grey's Anatomy version of the drummer boy for the trailer. Oh. Yeah, I see. I laughed out loud. Like a mournful pop cover of Little Drummer Boy? Yes.

1:42:03Sean Fennessey:Okay. Interesting. Great. Hey, great chat. Great to have you back. everything good thanks so much yeah doing great what are we doing next week again oh we got to talk about Practical Magic 2 and can we also add Oasis Don't Look Back in Anger to it yes because Yassi will be on the episode and I'm seeing it tomorrow okay that's very exciting that we will do Practical Magic 2 we'll talk about Sandy I want to talk about Sandy I want to talk about oh Sandra Bullock yes I was like Hurricane Sandy no no Sandra Bullock I want to talk about because I wanted to do a Hall of Fame and then I was looking at the filmography and I'm like Hall of Fame yeah It's been a long time.

1:42:41Sean Fennessey:What I want to do is try to revive Movie Star Playbook because what I want is Sandy's 60s to be amazing. Yeah. But we haven't seen Practical Magic 2 so maybe they already are. Okay, let's go now to my conversation with Ben David Grabinski about Abel Ferrara.

1:42:59Sean Fennessey:Okay, Ben David Grabinski is back on the show. Not promoting a film. I'm not? I'm not here to talk about Whale Fall? Well, if you'd like to. No, I haven't seen it yet. I just think we should talk about the science of it so Brian can hear this later and text me and go, what the fuck? There's a lot of time for us to talk about the science of willfall, and we will on this podcast, I promise you. We're talking about a different kind of science today, a different kind of scientist. So by this time, when this is airing, folks will be able to see the Abel Ferrara collection that I helped to co-curate on the Criterion channel, which is, of course, one of the, I say, the very best streaming service, in my opinion.

1:43:35Sean Fennessey:and I pitched them over a year ago an idea to show as many of the films of Abel Ferrara as we possibly can and to talk about why his work is special and why it's meaningful to me. And in recent months, I learned that you, like me, are an Abel super fan and you've seen a great many of his films. Have you seen every film? No. I did watch 19 of them in the last two weeks without having a criterion curation thing. So now it's like my end of year stats on Letterboxd are going to be a little fucked where it's like your number one actor is some obscure guy who's in like 12 Able movies. Yeah, it'll be James Russo, Chris Walken.

1:44:13No, the guy who's in, who's like the police chief in King of New York and Bad Lieutenant.

1:44:20Sean Fennessey:Oh, Victor Argo? Yeah, he right now is my number one actor of 2026. Sure, yeah. And I can't be the only one. But, you know, now it probably would have been easier if they'd been on there. I mean, the thing we'll probably get into is there's a few of them that really need a good physical release. And then there's some that have incredible ones already. Yeah, I mean, I can talk about my experience of seeing Abel's movies through that perspective, maybe, because I tried to acquire a physical copy of as many of his movies as I possibly could to do this project. And the first movie of his that I saw was King of New York.

1:44:53Sean Fennessey:I tell this story in the Criterion Channel video that I made. But in 1994, I got obsessed with Biggie and Ready to Die. And on The What with Method Man, And he calls himself the Black Frank White. And I thought to myself, who is the White Frank White? What does this mean? And so went seeking that out. I hadn't seen King of New York. I probably had heard Quentin Tarantino referencing Abel and referencing those string of late 80s and early 90s movies that he had made. But I was 12 years old, so it was not super easy to track down some of this stuff. But I did track down King of New York, and I saw Bad Lieutenant shortly thereafter.

1:45:25Sean Fennessey:And I got very interested in his movies as a big gangster movie fan and as a New Yorker and as a hip-hop fan and as somebody who is interested in, you know, New York cinematic history. So, fell in love with those movies and I've had like an up and down experience with him, I think like so many other people have, where he is a bit of a shapeshifter and is constantly evolving his style. The last 25 years, he's gone through some really interesting evolutions and transgressive moves. His earliest work is the really like at the absolute outer edge of exploitation. His first movie is a porno. He makes a proper slasher inspired by Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

1:46:02Sean Fennessey:He makes a rape revenge movie. And then he kind of slowly starts to pivot into more mainstream fare. What about for you? Like when did you get exposed to him and what makes you connected to him? You know, there's like the guys who you grew up with that I like my favorite New York filmmakers and favorite like crime filmmakers that I was obsessed with. And I somehow had just missed most of his things. I was aware of King of New York because you'd hear other directors, you like talking about it. And, you know, you kind of, I knew who he was, but I didn't really get into any of them. And he's one of the rare people of like one of my favorite directors who I got into like as an adult, like most of the stuff that really I'm passionate about, you know, it was like you're 15, 16, 17, and you rented that thing and it changed your life.

1:46:49this is like when draft house films put out miss 45 um more than 10 years ago um i'd seen the trailer like jason eisner had cut and i'm like that looks really interesting so i cold bought the blu-ray and it just melted my brain and then you just start going down a rabbit hole and if you watch his movies out of order, it's insane because there's very clear kind of eras or sections of his filmography where like he's doing a certain type of thing genre wise or a certain budget level or has the same department heads where the style evolves and everything changes where when I went back this way, I was kind of watching in order.

1:47:38I started trying to pick up some of the later ones I'd missed. Because I saw zeros and ones in theaters, and I'm a huge fan of that, but also just because I think it's the closest we've gotten to Metal Gear Solid 2 in a movie. I got it on iTunes and then saw that it was playing in a small theater on Beverly, so I went with some friends, including Joe Bigas, who I'm going to mention, because some of his movies feel very able. So I saw it in a theater because I'm like, well, I need to see it with a crowd. I need to see it on a big screen. no one was there. And, you know, and Zeros and Ones has like three out of 10 on IMDb or something.

1:48:15And a lot of people act like it's bad. And I watched it again this morning and I'm like, I don't know, man, I think every movie should be like this. But, you know, I think he's so interesting as a personality. He's so interesting from like a craft perspective and a thematic perspective. And because there's not a lot of directors who like from beginning to end, Like if you watch Driller Killer and then Zeros and Ones back to back or Tommaso and, you know, Miss 45, just drastically different stuff. Also, he has his New York era and then he has that classic New York move of like they move out of New York and then they're no longer making New York movies, which is still odd.

1:48:59I mean, we'll probably get into it. But when you watch stuff like The Blackout, you're like, why are you in Miami? What is going on here, April? Like this feels like this is almost disconcerting to not have that environment. It feels like it is so much part of his storytelling.

1:49:12Sean Fennessey:Yeah, and those are the movies that I first fell in love with was those New York movies. And I saw stuff as I got a little older in college, like China Girl or like The Addiction, where it still seemed like he was working in the New York Register. And those movies have a very specific feel, a very specific vibe. They're melancholy movies. They're kind of doom-laden movies. they feel operatic they're often quite beautifully photographed they're not that stylistically transgressive but the content feels very dangerous his move to Europe I think dramatically changes maybe not like his internal register of what makes a good story but it does change the look and feel of the movies a lot and it's also he did it I think at the same time he got sober after you know spending decades on all kinds of stuff as we both We both listened to his book.

1:50:04Yes. I'm not even a big audiobook guy, but I've listened to his book 1.5 times now. I don't mean 1.5 times speed. I mean, I listened to the whole thing and went back and listened to a bunch of the chapters because it is like being at 1.30 a.m. at a bar and a guy telling you a story where you're like, I was going to leave, but just please keep talking. This is riveting. And hearing it in his own voice, it just feels insane. I mean, the fact that that came out at the same time as like your collection curated thing. I think it's really great if someone gets into him now because you can both get access to like the wide range of his movies, but also get his mostly seemingly uncensored hot take on his entire life.

1:50:50But also I highly recommend his audio commentaries too, which are a little bit, they're a lot.

1:50:57Sean Fennessey:Well, he's also not, he's clearly very proud of his career and his work, but he, when he feels something isn't up to his standard or he didn't enjoy an experience, he's very frank about that. And some of the movies that we might revere a lot, he maybe doesn't hold in his high esteem. It was kind of interesting to try to navigate. It's kind of like, what is the proper Abel canon? You know, like what is the best way to highlight what he's so great at? And then contrast that to how he thinks about it. Because in the book, which is called Scene, and I think if you've watched five or six movies in the collection, it's worth just listening to it all the way through or reading it, of course.

1:51:31Sean Fennessey:But listening to it, you can hear his voice. He turned 75 this year. He lived pretty hard. He speaks very openly about not just his drinking and casual drug use, but being addicted to heroin for years and the many people around him and their use of heroin and the fact that he's working for decades through this addiction. and he made a movie called The Addiction about vampires that is a very thinly veiled allegory for becoming addicted to a substance. And it's amazing how much work he did given the way that he was living. It's kind of extraordinary. And sometimes when it feels like a movie is right on the brink of falling apart, maybe you have more empathy or at least more understanding of why, like a movie like The Blackout, which feels so emotionally chaotic and so like my life is falling apart and I don't know what to do, doesn't it feel like it's ripped completely from the headlines of his own life?

1:52:27I mean, the blackout, I would say, you know, going back through all these and watching some for the first time, that is one of the darkest movies I've ever seen. And I, you know, I love a lot of movies that are like, you know, just pure misery. But that movie is so bleak and the level of like guilt and shame that is like put into that character as like the worst case scenario version of finding out who you were in those like lost times from your life feels very pointed. And there's just a level of it that it's, because he can put you in the point of view of a character so well. And you feel like you're on the journey with that guy who is having the worst time more than almost any movie character has ever.

1:53:22I mean, like, do we care about spoilers?

1:53:24Sean Fennessey:No, I think we should just talk openly about the man's work. You know, it's a movie about a guy who is now sober, and if he had just stayed in New York and stayed sober, he'd be fine, but he just can't let it go, and he wants to know what happened, and he wants to know some things, and then finds out that he did unforgivable stuff. And he could have spent the rest of his life like the end of Old Boy with the guy who's like erased all the things and he can just live at peace. But this guy chose to find out and then he gets yelled at by Dennis Hopper in full Frank Booth mode for like 10 minutes.

1:53:59Who literally shows him what he's done. Yes. And he's almost like, you fucking idiot. You could have just made peace with this but now I'm showing you on camera what you did. That movie is such a bad hang in a way that I both loved, but also, you know, I think Abel must have been having a hard time.

1:54:20Sean Fennessey:I think you can say that about almost every movie. You know, three different times he made films about filmmakers. Dangerous Game is a scene from the perspective of a filmmaker played by Harvey Keitel. The Blackout, Matthew Modine plays the filmmaker, and Tommaso is also about a filmmaker. And, you know, I think it's safe to say there's a lot of autobiography in those movies, but I think there's a lot of autobiography in things like King of New York and Bad Lieutenant and should probably say the name of Nicholas St. John who's his co-writer who is his writer or co-writer on 10 different movies probably the most significant collaborator of what's seen as like his glory period wildly different scripts and so many of them are like truly brilliant an incredible writer amazing characterization incredible dialogue writer and you know I think many of Abel's best known and best loved movies are written by St.

1:55:06Sean Fennessey:John and he's also somebody who really shied from the spotlight and wasn't interviewed very often. And so a lot of these ideas, these themes, these kinds of figures who recur, we, like I ascribe to Abel, but I think a lot of them are just as much St. John. One of the themes that I kept circling back to when I was writing about this and thinking about it for the curation was just the trapped man, you know, which is a very kind of like noir-ish 40s and 50s concept. But in all of Ferrara's movies, the trapped men are trapped because of circumstances that they put themselves in. like they're aspiring to a certain kind of power or success and in doing so they keep building all these booby traps around them and they fall into them and you can see that in bad lieutenant you can see that in king of new york you just described a version of it in the blackout it goes on and on and on the funeral is defined by this sometimes the lead is a woman and in that case that power dynamic shifts a little bit if it's miss 45 or if it's the addiction it feels like more like something has been put upon the woman.

1:56:07Sean Fennessey:But when it's a man, there's a lot of like, this is all your fault. That feels very personally subjective. Not to be too glib or jokey, but how much do you think Tommaso was inspired by This Is 40? Because it's very much like, okay, I'm going to have the husband is me, but then I'm going to put in my wife and kids and, you know, make something very personal. I think that would be one of the oddest double features ever. Like, you know, someone's like Paul Rudd is me and the other guy's like, well, Willem Dafoe is me. And there's a different level of energy to that. But it is the same cinematic approach to telling a personal movie.

1:56:53I, you know, it just, it's a kind of a coincidence, but also knowing the personal relationship between Abel and Willem makes that even more complicated. But, you know, he has a lot of recurring collaborations with actors that really pay off and their performances are very different, like multiple walk-ins, multiple Willem Defoe. And then, you know, there's guys who he's worked with a million times and that's, you know, just another way that his stuff feels varied. And also like repetition of themes is working with the same people and kind of working through the same demons and stuff.

1:57:29Sean Fennessey:Yeah, Keitel too. Keitel recurring another actor who feels like he could be volcanic at any moment and there's a lot going on underneath the surface. You know, he's like Stanley Kubrick in KRS-One. He's a product of the Bronx and his father was a bookie and seemed to spend a lot of time in bars. And he talks about this a bit in the book about being surrounded by a life of crime, not necessarily participating in it, but being proximate to it. And then in that proximity, trying to raise money and live a life in the arts while still retaining the hard edge that he's grown up around. And you can feel that.

1:58:06Sean Fennessey:And so there's this interesting tension in the early part of his career. I don't know how much of the early stuff you looked at, but once you get past the exploitation movies, when he starts kind of getting like Hollywood training, where he makes Cat Chaser, which really doesn't go well for him. It's an Elmore Leonard adaptation. that he's not really happy with, starring Peter Weller. And that film doesn't really work or come together. And then he makes China Girl and The Gladiator, which is a TV movie, and he works on the two-episode premiere of Crime Story. And he directs that TV pilot. And you can see that shift that you're talking about where the movies get a lot shinier.

1:58:46Sean Fennessey:There's a lot more neon and chrome in the frame. There's a lot more money on screen. doesn't feel like a bunch of guys who just got together and made something a little bit depraved. And it's funny that he kind of picks up all those tools and gets kind of drawn into the system a bit, but then doesn't get addicted to that over time. Eventually he dispenses with a lot of the vagaries of Michael Mann-style filmmaking, which I think is so interesting because a lot of times once you get exposed to that level of work, it's hard to discover a new path. I don't know how much you think about his style at that time.

1:59:20I mean, I'm pretty obsessed with it because I think there's a real, like, there's two kind of sliding doors moments with his career. And you look at, so after Bad Lieutenant, he gets brought to Warner Brothers to make Body Snatchers, which I think is maybe the most underrated genre movie of the 90s. I think it is fucking beautiful because, like, his career for a little bit is tied to the same thing with Boyan Bozelli. So that's a guy who shot China Girl, King of New York, and Body Snatchers, which I think are all gorgeous movies. But Body Snatchers is such, to me, it's one of the most interesting scale-ups from a director ever.

2:00:07Going from his auteur, smaller stuff, he's doing five, six million dollar movies, to making a gigantic undertaking. Like, you know, it's the thing I love about body snatchers is you get to see them like blow shit up and have huge sets and scale and tons of extras. And it is so well executed. But because as he gets into in his book, you know, it tested like a 46 out of 100 and the studio hated it. He, I think he just got so burned by the experience. And also, he said in the book, there's like a memo saying that Warner Brothers had like no more New York auteurs. But you look at that movie and it's like, Boyan shoots it and it is one of the most beautiful movies of the 90s, in my opinion.

2:00:53And he clearly was comfortable in that large scale world. Whereas Abel is not the kind of guy who wants to go to a test screening and get feedback and he wants to, you know, take everybody's notes. And either you can function in that world or you can't. and I think because you go and it's like something like The Addiction he makes a bunch of movies like as cheaply as possible so he can have as much control as possible where it's clear that control matters more to him but as like a fan of his work I like really wish we got a couple more body snatchers even though he clearly was I think it seems like almost that process made him more miserable than any of his other like real life misery in a way

2:01:38Sean Fennessey:yeah I've always wondered why he didn't try to get And, you know, for lack of a better phrase, why he wasn't able to get his Goodfellas made. But Carlito's Way, like he was going to do. That's the thing. Those are the two things to me is like, what if he hadn't been fired from Carlito's Way? And what if Body Snatchers had done well? Body Snatchers you kind of understand too because one, he's never made a movie of that scope before. It's a third time remake. And so he's got some kind of misgivings about getting into this, what we didn't know would be called IP world. It's a relentlessly bleak franchise and story idea, so it was never going to test well regardless.

2:02:16Sean Fennessey:If the Kaufman film or the Don Siegel film tested in the 70s and 50s, those films were not going to test well because they end so brutally. But being on a military base in Texas, he's just so fish out of water. Like he's doing the kind of thing he's never done before. He's working with a lot of great artists and he's got great perspective. But it's clear that there's some discomfort. And I wonder if he was able to make something like Carlito's Way in the early 90s, if that trajectory really goes in a different direction. Because he then kind of pretty quickly pivots back to New York by doing The Addiction and The Funeral after that.

2:02:51Sean Fennessey:So he still hasn't gotten that out of his system. And you'd think a movie studio would know in the aftermath of Scorsese's kind of roaring comeback in the 90s that, and 1990, that very famous year of King of New York, Miller's Crossing, Goodfellas, and The Godfather Part III, all coming out in the same year. and this kind of gangster revival that's happening in the American cinema. And he doesn't really get to take advantage of it. Like, he doesn't get his$25 million movie starring, you know, I don't know, Chris Walken and Billy Baldwin or something. But, like, it feels like that should have happened.

2:03:26Yeah, but he also, you know, he says in his book that he got fired from Carlito's way because they thought he stole a bottle of wine from a table, a can that belonged to the studio head. And he tells a bunch of stories without trying to make himself look better, where it sort of feels like in that system, I don't really know if anyone would know what to do with him. You know, it sounds like he was just uncomfortable even staying at the Chateau Marmont and living the life of luxury while making a large-scale movie. Just feels like it was not good for his temperament. And the interesting thing is also as he gets older, he sort of has less incident and less violence in his movies and less of kind of – he doesn't gravitate as much to things that are like the fun pulp side of these things.

2:04:15It's true. Like in the Alive doc, Alive in France, which is a doc that I think is going to be on your thing. It's part of the collection, yeah. where he did showing his films in Europe and then also did a concert of a bunch of music and at a Q &A someone says are you ever going to make a movie like King of New York again and he basically said he's over making movies about killers and that's cool and as an artist I totally respect that but you know not wanting to make movies that have a little bit more of a propulsive energy and an edge and like a thrill to them kind of makes his stuff feel even smaller.

2:04:57But I do think Zeroes and Ones is very thrilling, and that's about soldiers and people dying and terrorism and all this stuff. But he does get way more internal.

2:05:06Sean Fennessey:Yeah, I mean, all of his movies are so personal and passionate, so it's inevitable that he's, at a certain point, especially when he's not living in New York, not thinking about that way of life. And he's getting further and further away from his youth and things he remembers seeing. And he's kind of plunging into the movies. but all the movies I find to be completely anguished. There's just like, you know, one of the, I think one of his most challenging movies is Welcome to New York. Man, I am, I just need to vent about that one for a minute is that on iTunes, it says, Welcome to New York, two hours and five minutes.

2:05:42I buy it. I hit play. About an hour into it, I realized the running time is an hour and 48 And then mid-movie, I realized I was watching the edited version of Welcome to New York, which I think you can provide some context where people don't know what this movie is. You know, it's a movie about a very terrible incident involving a very rich person who came to America and went on trial and basically got away with it because of money. Yes. Allegedly, I don't want to get sued.

2:06:14Sean Fennessey:It's inspired by, though it is not a docudrama, of an incident involving Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who is the head of the International Monetary Fund, a very wealthy man who reportedly had some intense habits. And the film portrays this character, played by Gerard Depardieu, raping a woman who works in a hotel where he's staying in New York. And he goes on trial and he eventually gets off. And it's a movie about how power operates and vaingloriousness. And, you know, it's a hard, tough movie. But the two-hour and five-minute version is not the one that you saw. And the one that I saw, there's like some ambiguity.

2:06:55And they didn't just remove the rape scene. It's like 17 minutes shorter or something like that. And they removed just a lot of dialogue scenes because it was the result of that guy suing the financier. So, they got rid of all kinds of, like, I was basically going through a list of everything that was there, and I was like, this is a completely different movie when you remove this stuff, where it seems like it doesn't have a strong POV on this person. whereas the original cut feels like an indictment. It's just like, look at evil. And the cut now that's supposed to be more palatable is actually like, yeah, he's a bad guy, but is he that bad or did this really happen or is it this?

2:07:42I mean, it's a gross mistreatment

2:07:44Sean Fennessey:of Farrar's perspective on the story. So the good news is the uncut version is in the collection. So you can watch the two hour and five minute version, which has, I think, some meaningful context to what you're describing. But you know, it's interesting that that's a movie that is not about a killer per se, but it is about a similar kind of power-hungry devil-may-care, literally, figure. And it's like the kind of person that keeps getting drawn back to and back to. Some of his characters, there's like an interesting moral relativism that happens across a lot of his movies. In King of New York...

2:08:17Sean Fennessey:Which is his best movie. I still, it's still my absolute favorite. Yeah, it's a masterpiece. And I just think it's a masterpiece. Completely agree. You know, it's kind of a Robin Hood movie. It's a movie that is told from the perspective of a crime kingpin who's come out of prison and is reclaiming his corner, so to speak. And, you know, it's unclear how actually generous or change-making he is in New York City in his attempts to kind of funnel some of this illicit money to hospitals for children in the South Bronx. Frank did nothing wrong. Yeah. I mean, he's a great guy. Jimmy Jump, great guy.

2:08:46I think the cops suck. Whatever. If you hate cops,

2:08:50Sean Fennessey:you should definitely watch Abel Farrar movies. There are a lot of very unpleasant police officers in these movies. But like, it's interesting that the way that he can kind of shift the perspective on who the bad guy is in the movie pretty seamlessly. That movie is so singular and fucking incredible. In the book, if someone takes a shot every time I say in the book on this, they're going to die. But in his book, Abel says he got the idea from he saw the Terminator and then sat down. And he's like, well, I'm going to make my version of the Terminator. and he wrote King of New York. How perfect is that?

2:09:24But it makes sense because it's a relentless machine. So I watched King of New York and I had a couple scathing hot takes. I know this isn't Rewatchables, but I had some really strong opinions and I was like, you know what? I'm going to listen to the King of New York Rewatchables so I don't repeat stuff. And somehow, almost everything Quentin said about it was like what I was... I have a few very strong takes on the movie, which is I think it's perfect, but also like an hour too short. And then you got into that. and that I think it's really Lawrence Fishburne's movie and it was just like I was getting like okay well of course Quentin had said everything that I want to say about this.

2:09:58If people haven't heard that episode

2:09:59Sean Fennessey:we did an episode with Quentin Tarantino in 2019 one of three episodes actually and he chose this movie which was extraordinary. I could not have been more pumped. How was that to do that? Can we just take a moment to talk about what was it like doing a rewatch when was Quentin talking about King of New York? For me it was wonderful. You know Bill and I had never talked about that movie and Bill's on that episode and but Bill loves Fishburne. And I knew that he liked the movie. That's all that I knew. I knew he had seen it and he liked it and he wanted to be on that episode with us. And the way that we did it was like, I was on one with Chris and Quentin, Chris and Bill were on one with Quentin and I was on one with Bill with Quentin.

2:10:36Sean Fennessey:So, you know, we didn't really strategize or talk very much, but if you've ever met Quentin, you know, he's like one of the great talkers about movies in the history of time. And so he came in locked and loaded. He shared with us one of the more incredible Lawrence Fishburne lore drops you'll ever hear. Oh, man. I mean, we should talk about James Russo, though. Yeah. Because, like, these are sort of the same discussions. So James Russo, who played the Frank Stallone part in Beverly Hills Cop. Mm-hmm. Like, so Beverly Hills Cop was a Stallone movie. I'm sure everyone already knows this. And it was cast around him.

2:11:08And when he dropped out, the only other part that had to be recast was Mikey, who's his friend who gets murdered and gets the plot going. And that was supposed to be Frank Stallone. And then that was... And then that was like James Russo's like big thing. He's in this gigantic cultural movie. He shows up, he's the heart of the movie, and he's gone. Then he's in China Girl, which he's really, really good at. Yes, he plays the older brother, Albie. And he was supposed to be the Laurence Fishburne part. King of New York, I think, is 60 % as good that way. And I mean, no disrespect to James Russo.

2:11:44it's that what Lawrence Fishburne is doing in that movie, the entire movie almost like, he's like gravity. The movie just gets pulled around him and the specificity of his performance. And I think the first scene with him and Walken in King of New York is maybe my favorite scene in any movie.

2:12:01Sean Fennessey:When Walken has just come out of prison and he's in the hotel. Is he in the Plaza Hotel? He's in the Plaza Hotel. And we met Lawrence Fishburne where he shows up at a place and he kills a bunch of drug dealers and seems very scary. we don't know if he's the antagonist of the movie we don't know his relationship to Frank and he arrives in his hotel room and they have a they have a simmering 25 seconds where it feels like there's going to be an all a shootout an all out and every line in the scene is gold it's just like it feels like a western and are these guys going to shoot each other and then it leads to dancing and then just everyone being like so kind of fun and funny and joyous and then like one of the best lines of movie history where he's like why didn't you visit me when I was inside and you're like oh the rest of this movie there's going to be this unspoken tension between them and then the third act you know you're going to realize he's been mad at him this whole time and then he just has a one sentence explanation for why he didn't go which is like profound which is he's like what does he say who wants to see you in a cage man I'm blowing it by doing all this build up and getting the line wrong but it's like he's like Like, you just didn't want to see him in a cage.

2:13:13You didn't want to see someone who he admired and thought was like this larger-than-life personality in that environment. But the movie doesn't want you to either. It's like the movie skips just to his comeback. Like, you don't have to live in all of that misery. He's just like a bullet train when he gets out. He's just like, I gotta be king again, you know? And I think they have some of the most amazing chemistry in any movie of this type. And it's just so specific. Part of what's so good about the movie,

2:13:42Sean Fennessey:and I honestly can't recall if we even discussed this with Quentin, is it's a movie about Frank, and it's a movie about ambition and desire. And New York at a very specific moment in time, there's that amazing moment early in the film when he's walking through the restaurant and being greeted and having his ring kissed by the hoi polloi and also this sort of elevated class of New York. But it's really a movie, I think, about brotherhood on two sides. It is about Frank and his gang, and it is about the cops. And he spends a lot of time where we go to one of the cops' weddings and we see Toast given.

2:14:14Sean Fennessey:We see Caruso and Snipes and their bond. And we see these kind of like, again, a kind of a mimic of China Girl that it is like jets and sharks. You know, it's these kind of two warring gangs that are at each other's throats and won't stop until we reach a kind of doom that is, you know, story structure as old as time. But he has a kind of poetry to it that makes it so wonderful. I it's so beautifully shot like Boyan's lighting in that movie is it is stunning but it is I think I don't think there's a better looking crime movie of the 90s at all I think it is in the 4k of it is awesome but it is just the everything about that movie there's so much mood the lighting is just, it's just such a phenomenally executed movie.

2:15:07But also there's a playfulness to Walken and Lawrence Fishburne in it that makes all of the darkness, it offsets it more than a lot of his movies don't have that. Like, cause if you compare Walken in this versus Walken in the funeral or the addiction, I mean this in the most complimentary way possible, very bad hang, those people, like you would never want to be in the same room as them. No, Frank is a charisma machine. Yeah, and he's just likable. And it's a thing that he doesn't usually do, you know? It's like, it's somehow, it's just very interesting to me is because it has all of his normal things, but also the casting is so key.

2:15:50And I think, because just going back to the thing of Russo passing and Fishburne coming in, is so much of movies and so much of careers is casting. Because that movie was almost James Remar. It was almost some other people. Also, think about how Walk-In, Almost a Bad Lieutenant, completely different movie. And so much of your career is based on if an actor says yes or no, or if your gut says an actor's right and you find out if you're right or wrong, how much it changes tone, how much it changes how palatable your movie is. Like, because there's a lot of movies he made that if they had something like that Walk-In performance and Fishburne performance in it, it just makes it more accessible.

2:16:31Because like Chris Penn in The Funeral is one of the toughest performances I've ever seen. I somehow, I watched The Funeral last week or the week before. I had just seen Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer at Lincoln Center. And I think Chris Penn in The Funeral freaks me out more than Rooker does in that movie. There is a darkness to that performance and that character that is both brilliant, but also is misery, you know? And that's so interesting to me. Weirdly, I think it's two movies that have more kind of an upbeat energy to them, and this is going to sound insane, is like Miss 45. I think Miss 45 is once you get past the initial things, which are really fucked up, it's kind of a pretty upbeat thing.

2:17:22Sean Fennessey:It's an exultant romp about getting revenge. Yeah, and it's fun. It's very playful. And he's not usually a playful guy. And it's very interesting when he goes into that mode because his usual operating principle is like paranoia and guilt and shame, which is part of why Body Snatchers works so well to me because it is a paranoid thriller. and he is so good at tapping into that and conveying that with performances. But when you watch 19 of his movies in a couple weeks, you really notice how much different the energy of King of New York is, even though all kinds of fucked up stuff happens. But it has just, there's like a level of fun to it that is just really interesting as a counterpoint to all the violence and all the fucked up stuff.

2:18:14Sean Fennessey:Yeah, I think A State of Contradiction is something that defines all of his work because he's a director who's in touch with street culture, artistic movements, hip-hop, opera, religious history, gangster movies. He's a high-low artist. He turns B-movies into an aesthetic paradise. That's his whole thing. And even as he kind of degrades and erodes a lot of his stylistic greatness in the latter half of his career, he's still kind of breaking the form and rebuilding it. Like we talked about The Blackout, which is a movie that seems to be taking place like 35 % on VHS. Like DV or – I don't even know.

2:18:54Just like the late 90s. That early digital video. It almost feels like someone's dad's home video camera shooting. And then Hopper calls people vidiots. Yes, yes. And theater, which I know we both love. Yes. And gives big speeches about how video is the future. and I don't think that stuff looks great but I think that he was on to something because he uses it more in later movies and it is very aesthetically interesting yes and beautiful like just hitting a broken record on zeros and ones but that's Sean Price Williams and I wish they did more movies like that because it has like a half Inland Empire half collateral view the ugly beautiful DV yeah yeah and then not to jump around too much but in Tommaso he is giving a speech at a meeting and it's a heartbreaking emotional scene where he's talking about the first time he went to rehab he's in an AA meeting and he's talking about making a movie Miami and I'm just like is this about the blackout and then he talks about the movie and it's not really but it does line up a little bit but the it's interesting that to me it feels like he makes a bunch of scrappy movies to try to get more resources to make bigger movies and then reaches a level where he has all kinds of resources and decides he doesn't care about that at all anymore.

2:20:20And he starts to care less and care less and care less because it feels like he wanted to prove himself that he could be this visually accomplished filmmaker. And then it just feels like he just wants to hang out with Kelsch, his like favorite DP, the guy he's known forever and just, you know, just get, just make sure they capture the performances and move on. Raise enough money to make a movie, you know?

2:20:45Sean Fennessey:I mean, there's something really, so 23 feature films, eight documentaries, a TV movie, a TV pilot, episodes of series television, short films, music videos. He makes Nine Lives of a Wet Pussycat, his first film, which is a porno. Mm-hmm. And one of the great, one of the reasons why I wanted to do this and I was excited that Criterion wanted to do it is because, you know, as you said, so many of these movies, because they're all made independently, give or take four or five of them, are hard to find or hard to watch. Or maybe you can rent them, but you can't own them. Or they're only available on DVD.

2:21:21Sean Fennessey:Or they're, you know, like movies like Mary, like Mary is not a part of the collection. That movie is hard to find. Yeah, I mean, I had a few that I literally could not find. And at the last second, some people were like, okay, I have a copy. And I'm like, well, that's a little late. But that's the, it's fascinating how much, his stuff is either very available in the best transfer possible or impossible to get. It's like there's almost an excessive level of care put into some of the releases of his movies. And then it's like, why isn't there even a decent Blu-ray of the funeral? Like a China Girl 4K would be incredible.

2:22:01I mean, that was a movie I watched for the first time during this that blew me away the most. I have a French Blu-ray of China Girl. I watched it on, I think I just bought it on iTunes. And I know that some people have been trying to get it and put it out and had some problems. And that's one it's like, clearly, it's like the production designer of like Eternal Sunshine and like all these crazy things. And then it's the, it's like the costume designer of like the Coen brothers and Natural Born Killers and stuff. and it just feels like that movie people haven't even seen how good it could look but the Bad Lieutenant 4K is beautiful like I could not believe how good that looked because I got all the ones that were Miss 45 looks incredible Body Snatchers the release is lights out that's the one I still don't have well at least you have something to look forward to

2:22:53Sean Fennessey:I do how rare in life yeah it's interesting because I think this is pretty common amongst a lot of filmmakers who toggled between independent and studio work in the 80s and 90s, which is it feels like their filmographies are sort of incomplete in terms of scholarship because some things are harder to find than others or you're not able to see it in the way that it had hoped to be seen. And for Abel, you know, like we said before, he's got mixed feelings about his work too, you know? And there's some things that he's confused why people would want to even see the movies. And there's other things where he feels like a brighter light should be shined upon certain films.

2:23:31Sean Fennessey:But, you know, I was trying to think about him in relationship to his peers. And it's like, on the one hand, you know, there's a very clear Scorsese, Spike, Sidney Lumet, you know, New York City filmmaker parallel, right? Where there are movies made on the streets of New York about the kind of hard-bitten soul of New York, about the kind of fun and vivacity. And the, you know, his movies are very diverse, especially the New York films. Like they're very, show a lot of different parts of the different communities of the city. But then there's also a part of his movies that are like Paul Schrader or Michael Hanukkah or Catherine Briot, like that are just like tough, dark movies about how people are ultimately bad.

2:24:14Sean Fennessey:And it's an interesting thing for a person who's like kind of had a lot of transformation spiritually to, you know, raised, raised Catholic and then pivots to Buddhism in the second half of his life. And you can see, like in Tommaso, I feel like we're watching a guy literally wrestle with God. That's the whole idea of the movie is him trying to come to grip with his demons, which feel like they're encroaching upon him in real time. And it's a fascinating thing for somebody to be so frank about their own worldview. Yeah, it's, you know, as someone who's not Catholic, I may be wrong about this, but I would think to me that Bad Lieutenant is like one of the most Catholic movies ever made.

2:24:58It really, the fact that that guy in his own weird way, his like journey to forgiveness and, you know, like his Catholic upbringing is when he first, he's so dismissive of it at first. And by the end, that's almost more important than living. you know and it is it's a really really fascinating movie that is really brilliant and also somehow based on a song that Abel did you know when you get to that at the end it's a little bit like because I think he sings a song in the end credits it's a little bit like the end of Big Trouble in Little China when suddenly it's like it's a very specific thing where the director sings at the end actually it's funny because I just watched The Insidious that Patrick Wilson directed and it ends with him singing a song Red Door?

2:25:47Yeah. Yeah. And I had watched both of those like close to each other. And it was just one of those things where it's like more movies should have a director singing a song at the end.

2:25:56Sean Fennessey:It'd be something for you to look into. You know, I think, I don't think I want to do that. But I do think, I also like at the end of RRR where suddenly like just the director's dancing and like pointing at the audience at the end. And he's doing like his victory lap. That's another thing I think is important. Most movies should have a director dancing at the end. But not me. Someone else should be. I always think of Bad Lieutenant as like a companion to Last Temptation of Christ. And they feel like very similar kinds of movies to me where you can, you really can't tell. Well, I'll tell you what I wrote down about Bad Lieutenant when I was preparing for this.

2:26:26Sean Fennessey:Because I am a frequently devastated Mets fan with a cop father. And so Bad Lieutenant really holds a special place in my heart that no one could make a man as insane as Keitel's character is in the movie like the New York Mets. and the film opens with iconic WFN radio host Chris Madduck Russo arguing with a caller about the Mets before cutting to Keitel, stumbling out of his queen's home to drive his two sons to school. This is immensely relatable content to me. It's funny because my concept of New York sports is because I've been living in New York for almost two years now. I'd say being a bandwagon Knicks fan has been one of the most wonderful things that ever happened to me.

2:27:07And I, the idea that -

2:27:09Sean Fennessey:Rock my real king of New York Jalen Brunson t-shirt today. Well, my concept of New York sports is that strangers on the street basically want to high five you and will just say Nixon five all the time. And sports only brings people happiness. And I'm like, it is. But my concept of sports is being a Suns fan for 30 years and just thinking that life is pain and it's never going to work out. And I wish that they never almost got it because now every time they don't do well, I get mad. you know I had to you know get airdropped into a fandom and like uh everyone being so excited uh for how all that went it's funny because I you know I listened to the episode where you were talking about it and like you know you could feel the catharsis for everybody but for me it was just like it feels like I got to do that and then spend you know a million days in a row watching world cup games and I'm just like I'm like New York's a city where sports are just great yeah I tell you what, that has not been the case for at least a certain strain of us, right?

2:28:10But my concept of New York sports from movies is, you know... This. Yeah.

2:28:15Sean Fennessey:I mean, there's the Yankees and the New York Jets side of New York sports fandom and the Mets side. One of the things that I always thought was really funny about this movie is it's apparently set during a dramatic Mets playoff comeback. And in real life in 1992, the Mets finished 72-90. They're one of the most disappointing Mets teams in franchise history. And they're in the midst of a real dry spell after having some success in the 80s. And so the whole movie kind of already feels like this abject fever dream, this kind of like power fantasia that collapses into this doom rot in this guy's life.

2:28:51Sean Fennessey:And the idea of matching like the lie of Mets success against that is so fascinating and it cutting out of him. We've talked about a bunch of deep cuts already. I'm wondering if there's any movies we haven't mentioned that you really like and want to give some time to. We haven't talked about New Rose Hotel. I mean, you want to talk about that? I mean, you know, do we have enough hours to talk about New Rose Hotel? That movie, this comes immediately after The Blackout, 1998. It's so, it's a really, really interesting movie because it's a movie made right after a lot of his collaborators had sort of gone away from him to a point where it's even like, because it's not Nicky, Schooley D's doing the score instead of his normal guy.

2:29:33Joe Delia, yeah. Which we gotta get into. But, and that movie is very, it's fascinating because it's one of those things where Preston had the rights to it and they tried to make it like a Schwarzenegger, like an Arnold action movie for a while and had no luck. And then finally, it was one of those things where like he just has to make a movie. And it was like a seven-page William Gibson short story. and that movie is just all mood. It's all vibes. It is a just like on the, he did an intro for the recent release, The Vinegar Syndrome. Cinematograph. I hope Justin's not listening. I'm like, I can't pronounce your boutique label name, but he starts it out by saying movies are a 90 minute dream and that is the energy of that movie.

2:30:26It is not really a narrative, although it is.

2:30:30Sean Fennessey:There's a plot, but it's sort of unrealized in a lot of ways, very purposely, because he's stretching out a seven-page story idea about these kind of cyber extraction terrorist-style figures attempting to remove a Japanese guy from the center of power and bring him to another center of power. And it's Willem Dafoe, him working with Willem Dafoe for the first time. Yeah. And I think, is it the last time with Walken? I believe it's the last time with Walken. It's also got a lot of Paul Schrader energy with Willem Dafoe writing in notepads. But it also feels like it has that notorious thing to or Mission Impossible to, you know, falling in love with someone who is also you're using them to seduce or romance or whatever, a target.

2:31:18And that's right. It's a lot of kind of...

2:31:21Sean Fennessey:Ozzy Argento is the seductor. In the book, he really gets into... There's a lot going on in the real life of the making of that. Yes. And because it's like a real life tortured love triangle. Which is just insane. I mean, it's just insane. And it's so interesting how frank he is about a lot of those experiences. And the fact that it made them even better friends for it. also that Abel thought you could fly to Japan out of LaGuardia. I was like, buddy, that really shows how many drugs you're on at the time when someone said, oh yeah, I'm going to LaGuardia because I'm flying to Japan. I can't do that.

2:31:58It'd be like flying to Japan out of Burbank, really. You just, you know, the little gullible. Yeah, yeah. To say the least. But that movie...

2:32:06Sean Fennessey:I think he was under the influence at this time too, you know, and there's something very under the influence about New Rose Hotel. It's another movie that feels like it's made entirely with surveillance cameras. Like it doesn't even really feel like it's a movie. Once you get past the kind of opening passages when they're in the club, everything else that you're seeing feels kind of illicit and behind closed doors. And there's also kind of a looseness between Defoe and Walken and circumspect about what they're talking about and how they're talking about it. And you can see that they have this real bond between them.

2:32:35Sean Fennessey:And I'm watching the movie and I'm like, oh, in this scene, it feels like Defoe is representing Ferrara. And then in this scene, it feels like Walken is representing Ferrara. And is he talking to Nicholas St. John? Is he talking to Joe Delia? Is he talking to all these longtime collaborators? But he's also doing like the dramatic version of Nirvana, the band, the show, when you re-see scenes, but they're different when you cut to a flashback. Yes. Not done as like a comedic setup and payoff. It's like you'll see a scene between Defoe and Walken, and then they'll flash back to it, and it's a different take.

2:33:03And in the first time you saw the scene, there's like resentment. And then the second time, there isn't. And it's played completely differently. Yes. Which makes the whole thing, it makes, because it's nonlinear. And also when you cut back to things, it's like, wait, did I remember that wrong? Like, there's a different energy to this. But also just like, the school of music is really good. And I was watching like a featurette about that where he was talking about like, it was like his concept of the future. But then Rxmas, is what it was called? Yeah. He did great music in that and original songs.

2:33:41but when I was watching Rxmas I started to get really distracted because I somehow had not realized even though I like Schooly D a lot that he did the Aqua Teen Hunger Force main theme absolutely did and then now every time I was hearing a Schooly D song as I was watching more of these movies I'm just like that's the Aqua Teen guy like there that was just like this well there was that

2:34:02Sean Fennessey:extraordinary scene in King of New York oh my god which said to his song set to Am I Black Enough for You which is one of those Great songs. He's a gangster at Pioneer, Schooly D. And, you know, you can just see that Abel has like an emotional connectivity to his music. But he's alive in France. Schooly's supposed to be there. And he kind of slips through the cracks and doesn't show up and isn't there to perform. And like, it seems like that's pretty consistent with his relationship with him over the years. Where like he thinks he's going to get him on something and then he doesn't. And he's working with this kind of loose confederation of complicated artists all the time trying to get them to go together.

2:34:40One of the most interesting things about music in his movies is, in a way that I don't think there's a comp, is he has so many movies where he clearly just didn't have money for music, or he has money to get one big song, and then the rest they have to write. Like when you watch China Girl, it's like they have Walk This Way, and you're like, holy shit, that is a big song. And it's like, yeah, but we are now out of money, so I need my collaborators to make sound-alike songs. and he has so many movies where he clearly had a song in there and then they had nothing in the budget later. So then he has one of his collaborators do a song like it.

2:35:13Yes. But he'll have a movie that has like a gigantic song, you know, but then every other song in it is like a little bit more low rent. And the balance of that is like China Girl, when Walk This Way kicked in, I was like, whoa, how the fuck did they get this song? But then it's frustrating because it's clear they weren't playing that on set because the dancing they're doing is not in rhythm to that song. But it's a perfect song for like that time period. But when you listen to interviews with him or like read stuff, it's always like him complaining saying, yeah, we ran out of money for music.

2:35:51So at the last minute we had to do blah, blah, blah. Because Schooley D didn't want his songs in King of New York and he said no a bunch. And then he finished the movie with those songs in there without his permission and then screened it for him and apparently told him, hey, if you want me to remove these, it's going to be a huge pain in the ass. And that was the start of their collaboration was him being like, fine, you can put my songs in your movie. And then he had several movies where he was writing music for Joe Delia while Joe Delia was the composer. And then when they had, you know, were butting heads, then he did the score for a couple of them.

2:36:26Sean Fennessey:Well, I mean, part of the reason why Walk This Way is in that film is because Russell Simmons is a figure who keeps dumping money into Abel for our movies. Yeah, like The Addiction. Yeah. And they have this long-standing relationship and Russell Simmons at the time was like a revered New York entrepreneur and now his reputation has pretty dramatically changed after some rough accusations over the recent years. But like, he's another one of those people that Abel would go to and say, can you get me a quarter of a million dollars to dump into a movie like The Addiction? And there's a real like by hook or by crook quality to the making of so many of these movies that is really fascinating.

2:37:04Sean Fennessey:I like the Joe Delia, Schooley D balance because to me, they're like the kind of competing sounds of New York too. They're sort of like the blues rock and synthesizer, new wave, you know, no wave post-punk energy that he brings to movies. And then Schooley's like really classical NYC East Coast hip hop. And not a lot of the New York filmmakers at that time could do both. Like you think of Scorsese and you think of the Rolling Stones, you think of Spike and you think of Public Enemy. Very rarely do the Twain meet. And I love him as this kind of meeting point of these two ethics of New York. But it's the same way that his movies are so different is he has a wide sort of, his taste is complicated and covers multiple genres.

2:37:50You know, because like the music for Miss 45, I think is one of my favorite scores ever, especially like the music in The Final Party is just lights out. And it is so different from the music in King of New York, just drastically, which is so different from the music in Body Snatchers. But he clearly has these things he's passionate about that are kind of idiosyncratic because, like, The Addiction has so much hip-hop in it and King of New York does. And then he has other movies that are so far in the other direction. And then, like, you watch Bad Lieutenant and it has, like, all more vintage tracks, but then it ends with his song in the end credits, which is a completely different energy.

2:38:30Yes. And somehow it all mixes together because it is, I think this is either interesting or the most obvious thing I could ever say is like, the best movies are like a reflection of like the passion and interest of the director. And it's like, you can feel, he's like, I fucking love this song, man. And this feels right. And I fucking love this song. And this feels right. Even though like, I can't imagine other director mixing those together, but they work because you can tell he's like energized by it. We talked about this

2:38:59Sean Fennessey:with you picking songs for your movie when you were on the show last time and you were just like, this is something that just matters to me and you can sense that. It's specificity, right? And it's like you're understanding someone's point of view and the specificity of the choice. But this, to circle back to a previous thing, I think the difference between me and Abel is like I really like scale and it's really important to me to get money for music and that to him is clearly very secondary. Like I, because I maybe spent 11 months trying to get all the music for my first movie because I didn't have a lot of money.

2:39:31And then even on my last one, you're doing your best to not have compromises. But I have to start from a point of, I like scale and I like blowing shit up and I like production value. To me, that is enjoyable and it makes me feel like I'm getting my money's worth watching a movie. But with Abel, it's like the further he got into his movies, he becomes clear that it's like what he has to say is more important than formalism. You know, it's like, and he's still like, The Addiction is a beautiful movie, but it's not like China Girl that has like, you know, a lot of lighting of these New York streets and stuff.

2:40:09It's very scrappy, but beautiful. But it also gives it like an energy, you know, where the kind of scaled down thing also feels like actors must enjoy it. And he talks about like, he's like Clint Eastwood, where like a lot of things he only wants to do one or two takes which is crazy when you see some of these performances you're like that was just right out of the gate that wasn't like take 12

2:40:31Sean Fennessey:he talks about I think the take in The Addiction when Chris Walken first meets Lily Taylor's character is one take and he gives that long speech and he's a very dramatic gestural performance that's top five vampire movies of all time for me The Addiction it's an amazing film it's fucking so good dude yeah and it's interesting too because you talked a lot about Boyan Bozzelli and the beauty that he brings to a lot of the movies and these complicated lighting rigs and they're clearly much more kind of upscale productions but Ken Kelsch is basically shooting handheld black and white in The Addiction and it's among his most beautiful films.

2:41:04I mean I think the Boyan stuff to me is like my personal preference but the Kelsch on Bad Lieutenant and The Addiction is undeniable especially like Arrow has a release of both of those and they just look crazy good and I saw The Addiction at Midnight at Nighthawk a couple months ago, and it is such a good midnight movie. The movies have nothing in common, but I think two of my favorite midnight movies are Near Dark and that, which are wildly different vampire movies. But there's something about vampire movies and that kind of thing where it's like being kind of sleepy while watching it makes you feel, it's like the right energy.

2:41:45There's something about the addiction you should sort of be watching a little bit later than you plan on staying up. And, you know, also he has so many movies that are like under 90 minutes. Yes. Which is crazy. But that's going back again.

2:42:00Sean Fennessey:That was wonderful for doing all the catch up though. You know, to just kind of plow through a lot of these movies and be able to like really dig in to as many of them as possible. It's interesting because almost every movie he's made feels like it is the right length or maybe just overstays its welcome a little bit. Except King of New York, I can't get over the fact that it does. I think there could have easily been a three-hour version of that movie. That would have been incredible. Because it does feel a little bit like it's a speed run. Because it's like, you meet the cops. Well, now the cops are going dark because they've had it with him.

2:42:35But you're almost like, well, I want all the steps in between. Like, I want to see him scale up his structure. I want to see, like, more power he gains. I want to see, like, conflict in the organization. It's like the movie is both perfect and also I greedily want more.

2:42:49Sean Fennessey:I think some of that is that we are conditioned to expect that Coppola has The Godfather, Scorsese has Goodfellas, Lumet has Prince of the City, these kind of like expansive, extensive, magisterial New York crime operas. And it's a movie that feels like it's operating on the same level, but it's whatever, an hour and 58 minutes. You know, it's not, it's just not as long. But it has maybe the most propulsive pacing of any movie I've ever seen. I'm not saying like editorially, like it is rapidly cut. It's just the movie just moves from seeing he's like, I'm out. I'm going to do this thing. But that also reflects like his drive character wise because he's like impatient to get to the top again.

2:43:33But it's, you know, it's interesting because like he gets all of his movies end up being sort of that length. the one movie that I don't know if he was ever going to figure out in that regard where like I think it is amazing like I gave it like five stars or whatever but Dangerous Game also is clearly like both too long and way too short and very shaggy but you know it is what it is it's like you know the the rumors are as you know I think we talked before about this is like that at both at one point he just was like I think I've shot enough and hadn't shot everything but just like wrapped and then also in post apparently like just lopped off like a 20 minute section just randomly.

2:44:12Well you know it's a

2:44:13Sean Fennessey:film that was written around Madonna. It's supposed to be framed around Madonna's character and you can see that he does not have a ton of interest in that character and he pivots the story pretty dramatically to Harvey Keitel's character who's a filmmaker and it's you know that's a recurring interest as well about this kind of guy whose life is falling apart around him and it makes sense you know it makes sense and it seemed like Madonna did not have the best time and did not enjoy the movie. It's never been one of my favorites of his. It does feel, it feels like it's been revised in real time.

2:44:43Sean Fennessey:And it does not have any of the propulsion of the movies from this era. It is purposefully kind of like a little sullen and a little dank. But it does kind of lead the way, I think, to the Blackout and New Rose Hotel era where it feels like formally he's a little bit less interested in, he's more interested in mood than he is in style. The performance that I really want to talk about from one of his movies is, so I watched Fear City. Sure. We haven't talked about that yet. So it's an interesting movie because it's both awesome, but it also sort of feels like several other people could have directed it, which I don't feel like with his other movies.

2:45:19But when Billy Dee Williams shows up in that movie, it is like one of the biggest injections of energy to a movie I've ever seen. And I'm like, okay, now we're great. And then he'll just leave for a long time and then come back. And I think I'd misunderstood the premise as I thought the premise was going to be Billy Dee and it's Berenger, right? I thought that the two of them were going to like kind of team up to solve this. I was like in my head backseat directing. I'm like, this is the best premise ever. The cop who wants to stop these people. Like this would be a buddy thing and they hate each other, but they need each other.

2:45:50And the two of them are going to find this serial killer. And then it didn't become that. And then I found out afterwards, I think Billy Dee was only in it because like a studio obligation. It's like he had to do. It's like Ed Norton in Italian Job or The Score or whatever the fuck. One of those movies where he's like, you contractually have to be. and he's like, I will show up and be a movie star for like these four scenes. But I, the interesting thing when you do this with a filmmaker is being like, what actors didn't come back when they were like cooking? Like, I really wish there was more Dennis Farina and Abel.

2:46:21Like also just because I realized recently, like someone's asking like, who are my five favorite actors were? And I realized, I think Dennis Farina is probably up there. And in terms of, there's very rare that there's an actor who somehow is in so many important movies and so fucking great. Because it's like the fact that he's like, you know, in wildly different performances. But I mean, you're out of sight last night. You just screened out of sight. Two of my favorite performances in movie history are Don Cheadle and him in that movie. I think every second they're on screen, they are just like, I'm going to steal this movie and then you can let everyone else do their thing.

2:47:00And he's so, it's small, but he's just... one of the most underrated actors ever, even though he's, it's not that he's underrated, but I just wish he was in more of these movies. Yeah, I mean,

2:47:11Sean Fennessey:he's an all-time great character actor. I think in those 90s films, in Get Shorty, in Snatch, in Crime Story, which basically plays like a movie now, the first two episodes, in Thief, even in the brief moments that he's in there, he seems like a real person, you know, and he has a ton of charisma, but I've always said this, like growing up around a lot of cops he just seemed like a cop and he was a cop and it was always funny when he'd play villains in movies versus playing playing the cop but yeah I agree that they could have made some more beautiful music together that's you know it's like I wish Billy Dee had come back I wish he had more stuff with Lawrence Fishburne like that's that's one of those things where you get kind of greedy when you're decided like to go deep dive on a filmmaker is when you're like oh man I wish there was more movies these guys did But the other thing I want to talk about was one of the comparable filmmakers to me, especially in his early days, was Larry Cohen, who I'm a huge fan of.

2:48:14And I was having a weird epiphany that a lot of his stuff feels like it's half Larry Cohen, half Safdies. And they have kind of picked up the mantle in a lot of ways, which is why it was so exciting to have him show up in Marty Supreme. I mean, how did you feel when you're watching that movie and he just showed up? Wasn't that like, it's like, I felt like someone just did that for me.

2:48:36Sean Fennessey:Well, you may recall he's in Daddy Long Legs. Yes, yes. For like a hot minute. But being in this movie and that significant of a part. Also, I watched that movie twice before I realized that that was Penn. Like, Penn Jillette. Yeah, yeah. He was the guy in that. The angry house owner, yeah. But there's something really, I like that passing the torch sort of thing. Totally. I mean, you know, Criterion asked me to talk about Abel's influence and how it lives on. It obviously lives on in Josh and Benny's movies, especially Josh. And I asked Josh just to like tell me a little bit off the record about what he thinks about Abel's work, you know.

2:49:14Sean Fennessey:And the one thing he did say is he's one of the most romantic people I've ever met, which I thought was an interesting way to frame him. You know, he's somebody who kind of like falls in love and is very passionate. And you were saying his passions are kind of suffused through the movies. And on screen or in interviews or even in his own book, he can be a little grouchy. He's very frank. He's lived hard. But he makes these movies about these people in deep emotional throes. You know, like that is the whole premise. Like if you look at Tommaso or Pasolini or even in Fear City, which I think is a very flawed movie, but it's an interesting movie.

2:49:54Sean Fennessey:you're right that it never sets up that diptych between him and Billy Dee it focuses more on Tom Berringer's character who is this kind of little punch drunk boxer who's got PTSD from killing someone in the ring and he's trying to solve this serial killer story a kung fu serial killer who is murdering strippers it's very like Refn Origins at times totally totally yeah and it's it's a grimy exploitation movie in a lot of ways and Behringer's like okay a little miscast but it's again another movie that's about a person who's just like haunted by the past can't get away and thinks if he pulls off one final act of good then he can free himself from his pain and he comes back to that over and over again the thing that we need to talk about from Fear City though that's more important to me is there's a song in it called Method to Your Badness that's fucking I'm so sick.

2:50:52Yeah, yeah. Just, you know, there's nothing better than that. And so, what was it? I watched so many of these in quick succession. Another thing I wanted to bring up just about music was that I, the lead singer of New York Dolls. David Johansson. Yeah, did. I think it was China Girl. There's a couple songs that he sang. And I was like looking up the songs because I was, you know, doing my own dumb obsession stuff to figure out like who was performing and which ones were written by his composer and which ones were songs they licensed. And I saw that and I looked him up and I never knew what he looked like.

2:51:27And I have never felt dumber than realizing that the guy from Scrooged is the singer of New York Dolls. And I'd always... And Buster Poindexter, the hot, hot, hot guy. He's also that guy. I'd always been like, who is that guy in Scrooged that had such an idiosyncratic performance that has never really been in anything else? and I never once bothered to Google it. And like, that was the weirdest thing from watching China Girls realizing that the Ghost of Christmas past or present, whichever one he is, I think it's past, is him.

2:52:00Sean Fennessey:And... Have you seen Personality Crisis? The documentary that, sort of a performance documentary that Scorsese made about him? I think if I had, I would have known he was the guy from Scrooge. It's relatively recently it came out in 2022. It's pretty interesting. It's weird because I've listened to them forever but I've never seen an intro footage and then I started going down a rabbit hole and that stuff and that's also a really interesting thing is when um uh musicians get repurposed as performers based on their larger than life personality either on talk shows or on just you know going to dinner parties with all these people and them knowing each other um like the thing i wanted to say earlier it's that uh i'm kind of fascinated by movies that all stuart gordon almost did because stuart gordon was the director of body snatchers and then was replaced and he was the director of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

2:52:49And there's that sliding doors thing of like, that's like what it was like with him on Carlito's Way, which is like, there's these in-between stages of these large scale studio movies where that were almost a movie by like these smaller scale auteurs.

2:53:05Sean Fennessey:And is the story there that Pacino's manager pursued Ferrara after seeing King of New York? Is that Pacino had seen King of New York and wanted to meet him in Fishburne. And then they put him on there. And then David Koepp got brought on to do a rewrite, not involving Abel or Pacino, just involving the studio. Then Bad Lieutenant came out. Abel sort of made a few poor choices and was replaced. And it's funny too, because as much as I'd really like to see that, I am weirdly very, very ride or die in Carlito's way. I used to think that Carlito's Way was merely good. And I've reached a point where it's one of my favorite De Palmas and he's one of my favorite directors.

2:53:48I think it is, even though people like it, I think it's genuinely a great movie. And I'm really fascinated by that. I'd love to see Abel's version, but, you know, that worked out. Yeah. I wish it was a way to get both.

2:54:02Sean Fennessey:It's more like what would have happened to Abel's career if he was able to make that movie. Maybe nothing, maybe nothing changes. I wish that it took, he made like two or three big movies before he got burned out instead of just making one big one. But he clearly was never going to reach a point where he was that comfortable in that world. Yeah. Give me your five favorites. You know, so I'd say King of New York is like by far is my favorite. I think it's fucking just one of the great movies. But when I was going back and re-watching these, Miss 45 is pretty close to the top. Like, if you catch me on a certain day, I might say it's my favorite.

2:54:47Like, King of New York is a better movie, but I think Miss 45 is like one of the most interesting, exciting, specific movies of that type I've ever seen. Her performance in that movie, I can't believe we've gone this whole time without talking about her, is I will never forget the experience of seeing that and being like, who is this person? This is like a silent movie star. This is one of the best performances I've ever seen. Whatever happened to her? Googling her and going, oh, okay, shit.

2:55:17Sean Fennessey:Abel writes beautifully about her and about the struggles that she had. She's listed, you know, she's, Idita's the co-writer of Bad Lieutenant and appears in that film. It's the only other film of his that she appeared in. Yeah, and she was also in a Larry Cohen movie. Yes, special effects. But I think that the combination of her performance the specificity of that movie the score how tight it is it is one of the great it's like i like the death wish movies uh especially three um but this is like so much better than every death wish movie ever made i think that it is like the most pure distilled like terrible thing happens to a person now this person is just becoming a vigilante and the fact that she doesn't speak and then until when she screams at the end.

2:56:07I mean, the movie is, also, it is such a level up in execution from Driller Killer, which is, I think, a really, really interesting movie, you know, because it's like his dirtbag era. And it's also part of that legacy of a lot of people being like, oh, horror movies make money. I will make a horror movie. He literally watched

2:56:28Sean Fennessey:Texas Chainsaw Massacre and was like, how can I do one of these and kind of elevate myself out of the inability to make a movie? But he, it's funny because I think a lot of times like execs view almost porn and horror as interchangeable because they view it as a profitable thing that they don't respect and he went through that cycle of making a porn film because well that's the only thing I can make that I can get money for okay well horror I can make and that evolution through that but I think just driller killer is so interesting and scrappy and awesome but miss 45 is like a tour shit like it's just got such a vision, such an interesting tone.

2:57:05And I just think it's one of the great performances. So, like, I'd say those are the top two. I have Miss 45 and King of New York on my list as well. And then Body Snatchers, you're not going to meet someone who is more going to bat. Like, if I have anything I can say in this podcast is that everyone has to give Body Snatchers a shot. And then the other one, which is not in my top five, but I think everyone should watch China Girl. I thought it was so interesting. And the fact that it is really about having a shitty boss more than it's anything else. Like the entire movie is about the pain of middle management, where it's like two different warring gangs because it's his version of West Side Story or Romeo and Juliet.

2:57:50I think it's an incredible movie. But also, it is really about how all of our conflict, all of our personal issues and our anger can really just be that our boss doesn't give a fuck about us they don't care about what we want and we will never profit in the same way like it's like there's something so interesting about how that was the way into that movie because he's like there's something he just threw out as a lark saying i want to make my rome and juliet with like you know little italy and chinatown but it ends up just being about the frustration of these guys who'd like are just like Like, why the fuck?

2:58:27Our boss does not pay attention to us. We don't get invited to his dinner parties. Like, what's going on here? The fact that that is the point of view of that movie I thought was so interesting. But, okay, so I would go. King of New York, Miss 45, Body Snatchers, The Addiction. We've gone over it, I think, is just such a great fucking movie, man. Like, it's so interesting. I wish that every artsy director made one horror movie or more. But there's something about someone who has a strong point of view and a specificity of vision working in that genre that almost always pays off. Like I've said it a million times, but like I wish P.T.

2:59:08made a full-on horror movie so bad. Like when he's doing his shining stuff in There Will Be Blood, it just feels like I want, just make a haunted house movie, man. Just like spend six months doing that. Like I, you know, I wish Quentin would just make a slasher movie like he always talks about, even though Death Proof is one. But when he's doing genre, like Body Snatchers and The Addiction are both working at such a high level because he cares so much. Like, I'm a big horror guy, but there's a lot of horror directors who've made horror movies I love that don't really feel like they are really all about cinema.

2:59:43You know, like they are just about horror. And I think when you have someone who's like that making a vampire movie, it's just fucking the best. so that's four did I only do four four is good I you know I can't my number five would be zeros and ones alright okay

2:59:57Sean Fennessey:that's great I would throw throw Tommaso on my list as well as kind of that to me is like the late period masterpiece I think Pasolini is really interesting and Welcome to New York is hugely accomplished and powerful but Tommaso is the one that I like the most that feels the most personal that feels the most complex unresolved really scary upsetting ending New Rose Hotel would also be on my list as would Bad Lieutenant. So, you know. Bad Lieutenant would be my five. I can't be too much of a stinker. I love zeros and ones, but Bad Lieutenant's undeniable. And what you're saying is like that 90s period is so unmatched.

3:00:31Sean Fennessey:But he's still, I mean, he's still working, still form-breaking. I think he's trying to get a movie made right now. I mean, you know, I will go to bat for a lot of his, you know, movies past, like, the legacy era. And I think a lot of them are super interesting and absolutely should be watched. There's just like, You know, it's like, you know, you have a band where they have the really interesting albums that you love and you could talk about for hours. But you're also like, on a desert island, I would bring the other one. And that's sort of how I feel about those. Totally, totally agree with you.

3:01:04Hey, thank you for doing this with me. Hey, man. It was a really good time. It's like it's a very, there's nothing like I was already reading his book and going down a rabbit hole of these things. So I was really glad you gave me an excuse to be obsessive and then have people write weird comments on my litter box reviews being like, why are you watching all these movies? Are you going on big picture? Big picture when? Yeah. That, you know, I assumed I would come back to talk about Beekeeper 2, the bequel. Like, you know, we could do three hours on that. The door is open.

3:01:33Sean Fennessey:Did I tell you that I saw the trailer for it in April? I mean, I. Pretty fucking good. when I saw The Beekeeper, and I talked about it on Hitmakers podcast, I saw it opening night. Me and a bunch of my friends went to Burbank 16. And we had such a good time that when it ended, I was in the lobby, and someone walked up to me and said, hey, congratulations. And I said, what do you mean? They're like, that's your movie, right? And I was like, no. They're like, what was going on with you guys? Why are you talking about this? We were having such a good time watching it opening night. It's that LA thing where you're like, oh, those people must have worked on it.

3:02:03Why would they like this movie so much? But I walked out of it and my only complaint was, why didn't he unleash bees? Why didn't he use bees? And I've heard a rumor that he uses bees this time. No spoilers.

3:02:16Sean Fennessey:No spoilers. Hey, I just wanted to say thank you to Aliza and Curtis and Kim and all of the fine folks at the Criterion channel who helped this project get out into the world. I hope people are watching it and interested in it. It's like some of it is the least is like the easiest sell of all time. King of New York is such an easy movie to sell. If you haven't seen it, it's so magical. And some of the movies are a little bit more challenging, but absolutely worth your time. And thank you to Abel Ferrara for just having such a profound, deep, and interesting body of work that gave us a chance to chat.

3:02:47It was definitely worth it, even though it was difficult for me to watch them. So the fact that they have the ease of use, that they can just log into the Criterion channel, and they're all just sitting there, and you can click on them, they probably haven't even a better time than I did.

3:02:59Sean Fennessey:Yeah, and I'm sorry for that short number of movies. you know the funeral is not in this package mary is not in this package i watch the funeral on youtube i i have a i have an old dvd of the funeral which is one of the only ways to watch it on physical media i mean gogo tales is a movie we didn't talk about but it's not in this package i could not track that one down a single hardest movie of his to find right now hopefully one day somebody will excavate it but um there's a whole host of movies there you can check out right now Thank you.

3:03:31Sean Fennessey:Okay, thanks to Ben David. Thank you to the god, Abel Ferrara. Thanks to Jack Sanders, our producer, for his work on today's episode. Thanks to Lucas Kavanaugh for his production support. As I said, Practical Magic 2, Oasis, Don't Look Back in Anger. Yes. Yasi Salik on the podcast again. What else? What are you bringing? What are you bringing to the table? Come on. Hit me. Will we get some great news over the weekend? Something dynamite to talk about? I hope so. I hope so, too. We'll see you then.

3:04:14Thank you.