The fall movie season is being shaped by a few dominant trends: the overwhelming success of prestige films like *The Odyssey* and *Spider-Man: No Way Home*, which have redefined box office dynamics and set the stage for major Oscar contention. *Coyote vs. Acme*, though a modest financial success, has gained a cult following as a visually inventive, adult-oriented comedy rooted in classic Looney Tunes humor, appealing more to older audiences than young children. A wave of new releases, including *Whale Fall*, *Elsinore*, and *Resident Evil: Raccoon City*, are generating excitement due to their unique premises and strong casting. Notably, *The Further Misadventures of Cliff Booth*—a Brad Pitt film directed by David Fincher and written by Quentin Tarantino—remains shrouded in mystery due to minimal marketing and unusual release strategy, adding intrigue. Meanwhile, *Verity*, a Colleen Hoover adaptation with a supernatural edge, and *Primetime*, a Robert Pattinson-led thriller, are drawing attention for their bold storytelling. The season also reflects a broader industry shift, with studios prioritizing high-profile, festival-ready prestige films over diverse or genre-driven content, while smaller, independent releases offer compelling alternatives. As the fall film festivals approach, audiences are tuning in to a season defined by both commercial dominance and artistic ambition.
I'm Sean Fennessy.
I'm Amanda Dobbins.
And this is the Big Picture Conversation show about the fall movie season.
Today on the show, we're delivering our official fall movie preview.
We're just days away from visiting a pair of fall film festivals.
So before we've seen it all, we're going to share with you the movies we can't wait to see,
the ones we have seen and highly recommend, and a few wild predictions.
Plus, we'll break down some movie news right after this.
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Okay, Dobbins.
Hey, big dog.
6 p.m. flight.
Let's go.
So you're, we're eight hours away.
Yeah, well, I'm eight hours from an 18-hour travel day, but yes.
Thank you for podcasting today.
We appreciate that.
Did you get out to the movie theater this weekend?
I did.
You did?
I did.
I saw Coyote vs. Acme.
No kidding.
With my two children.
I'm going to be really real with you.
I saw 45 minutes of Coyote vs. Acme before my younger son was like too scary mama outside.
Again, he's not quite two.
It was 100 degrees.
We had a cold hit the family.
Like a lot of situations, I was solo parenting.
So we hit the La Cunada 8.
Knox sat in the seat, loved it.
Oh, good.
And I was charmed.
And then I had to go.
I had to go outside with Cy.
Was Knox able to stay or did he also have to leave?
At some point, he did have to leave.
Again, he was also sick.
But we, so I'm not a total expert, but I was there.
There were more people than I expected.
This was like a 4 p.m., I think, on a Thursday showing or Friday.
And way more adults than I expected.
Right.
So I want to talk about that.
So Coyote vs. Acme was the, I guess, the big movie, the big new movie at the box office.
We did an episode about dog stars last week, which bombed terribly at the box office.
And we can talk about that momentarily.
We're talking about the Carhartt, though.
They sure are.
Coyote vs. Acme has been in the news for three years now.
In 2023, the film was dumped by Warner Brothers and, I guess, David Zaslav as a tax write-off.
And there was a lot of social media outrage about this.
And Ketchup Entertainment swooped in and acquired the film for reportedly $50 million.
And all these years later, the movie, which has become a real cause celeb online, comes out.
And it did $15.5 million.
$15.5 million at the box office.
Okay.
Which is okay.
It's not bad.
It's not great.
But it's great that the movie got to be released.
Yes.
I did see it a couple of, like, maybe a month ago.
And I watched it with Alice.
And I thought it was interesting because it did strike me as something that I have been talking about a lot on the show over the years, which is, like, it did feel a little bit more like a movie for me than a movie for her.
Yes.
And I certainly fell in love with Looney Tunes when I was her age.
And Looney Tunes are kind of a primal thing.
Of course.
They're sort of the Ur-minions, right?
Yes, exactly.
And so I was a little bit befuddled by the movie.
Sure.
But that might have just been the circumstances under which we saw it.
So a crucial distinction is that Looney Tunes are, in large part, visual humor.
And I knew that I had made not, like, a miscalculation, but I knew that I had a different understanding of what we were getting into when Wile E. Coyote's jokes were all words written on a sign.
Right.
So I'm sitting there wrestling a two-year-old.
Again, you know, I wasn't the ideal moviegoer at this situation, and thanks to everyone at the La Cunada 8.
But I'm, like, wrestling a two-year-old and leaning over to a four-year-old to read the signs so that he can understand the joke.
And I was like, oh, okay.
So not a this-level kids movie.
I think that's right.
I think it's, like, for somewhere between 8 to 12 is a more appropriate age where you can read and you get the visual cues.
Right.
Pre-existing relationship with Looney Tunes.
But also, you might be interested in a legal comedy, because this is truly a legal comedy.
That's the other thing I was—
And that's cool.
And look, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, one of my favorite movies of all time.
So the integration of live action and animated, I think, is really, really artfully done in this movie.
Sure.
And I do love the Looney Tunes, but the Looney Tunes don't hold a lot of—they certainly don't hold as much, I don't know, interest, I think, generally speaking, for younger kids now than they did, say, 20 years ago or 50 years ago.
Does that—
Does that seem accurate to you?
Yeah.
I mean, I wouldn't say that there are any—there's, like, no branded merchandise available.
Right.
I wonder if that's disallowed because of the way that this film was acquired and who owns the Looney Tunes brand.
Right.
But also, I think in the way that you just—my children do know who Mickey Mouse is, but they don't really know any of the Looney Tunes.
Yeah.
And they also know who Paw Patrol is, which is just real tough, but—because those billboards are everywhere.
Yeah.
The dino movie.
Yeah.
We've managed to avoid that.
Knox can recognize it, but I just explained to him that we don't have Paw Patrol on the big picture, so—and we do not.
Well, it's been a fact.
Yeah.
I did hear from a mutual friend of ours that they really enjoyed the Paw Patrol movie.
Okay.
And I'll tell you about that off mic.
I think this is a really interesting—it's obviously a fascinating business story.
The movie itself, I think, is cool and was kind of destined to be a cult object as soon as Warner Brothers shook it off.
I do think it's—it is a little bit, once again, like a reckoning with—
with people who are trying to kind of reprocess the things that they loved when they were young and make it mainstream for younger people.
I think my five-year-old and your four-year-old are just a little bit below the cutoff line of interest.
But I have heard plenty of people say that their seven- and eight-year-olds really, really had a fun time with it.
And movies like this also can be, like, gateways to more grown-up adult stuff.
This might be the first courtroom that—or certainly one of the first, you know, conference room tables across which there is a deposition, you know?
No, there's a courtroom.
Yeah, there's a courtroom.
But I was thinking specifically of John Cena going nose-to-nose with Will Forte.
You know, just a fascinating artifact to me.
And a movie that I would say I soft recommend.
It did come in second place at the box office to Spider-Man Brand New Day, which is in its fifth weekend.
Still at number one.
Yeah.
It made $22 million.
It's not quite going to get to a billion.
It is probably going to get past—
I'm not pointing to you personally.
No.
But I was—it was, like, something I was curious about.
I was, like, could a film domestically get to a billion dollars?
That's something that's never happened before.
And it doesn't look like it, but that's fine.
The Odyssey came in third place this weekend with $14 million.
It's been seven, eight weeks since The Odyssey came out.
It's made $560 million in America.
Okay.
That's good.
That's not as much as Oppenheimer made, if I recall?
No, it is.
It is.
Yeah.
Oh, okay.
No, Oppenheimer made, like, $9.80.
I think this is going to make $1.8 billion worldwide.
Okay, good.
So that's a lot.
Oh, that's good.
I mean, it's very good.
Yeah.
Spider-Man and The Odyssey represent, like, 60% of the box office this summer, maybe more.
Maybe it's 80% of the box office.
Any thoughts?
I think we knew that that was coming, and that's okay.
The Spider-Man thing did take me by surprise.
I knew it would be big.
I never would have guessed second biggest movie of all time, third biggest movie of all time.
I guess I wouldn't have.
have either just because I don't really sit there with my charts as much as you do.
I do like a chart.
You and the boys on News and Deals.
Yeah.
Hello?
I'm still not on that.
You don't want to be on that.
I don't want to be on it.
You don't.
You don't want to be excluded.
I hear reports.
You know, I'm like the News and Deals therapist.
It's like you all come to me individually with your complaints, your questions, your
thoughts, and that's fine.
News and Deals is a text chain with some friends of ours, mutual friends of ours, that is primarily
about physical media.
Yeah, which I don't.
Strongly held movie opinions.
I don't care about.
Anyway, if I'd actually thought about it for three seconds, I mean, No Way Home was absolutely
like a rocket ship.
And we at the same time were like, wow, didn't really see this coming.
And is this going to get a Best Picture nomination?
And we should have seen that coming.
I mean, it's Spider-Man.
People really like Spider-Man and young people really like Spider-Man.
So, you know, I don't think that I could have predicted the historical stats.
But that Oppenheimer and Brand New Day were going to be the two tentpoles of this.
summer. I mean, we organized our vacation schedule around that. We had some idea.
You're right. We sure did do that. And thank you to my wife for being understanding about that.
Thank you to my in-laws.
Yeah. I think if you would have asked me to guess, I would have said that movie will make
$1.7 billion or $1.8 billion, not $2.5 or whatever it's going to end up at. And it sounds like maybe
not a big deal if you're not a movie podcaster, but that's a wide chasm. That's a big gap. I mean,
making it one of the biggest movies of all time is fascinating. And again, like, I don't think we
can say, well, that's just, that was a blip. No Way Home at the time, I felt certain that it would
be really popular despite COVID because they were doing something that had really never been done
before with bringing the previous iterations of those characters all together. This was just
a Spider-Man movie. I mean, it introduced an X-Man, an X-Woman, but aside from that, it was,
you know, villains and MJ and Peter and, you know, emotional trauma set against New York City.
A good version of it. But anyway, I remain fascinated by it. The only other movie,
which I assume you did not see or take your children to that was a note this weekend to me
is Buddy. So Buddy is a new horror movie, independently released horror movie from
Casper Kelly, who made Too Many Cooks. And the movie is sort of like a melange of Barney the
Dinosaur and Pee-wee's Playhouse, but if it were a horror movie. Well, you know, as if the originals
aren't. Well, there's something about it. I mean, it's a horror movie. There's something unnerving and creepy about the originals. Pee-wee's Playhouse, I adore and was
raised on. Was it? Barney was a little bit after my time. Is it Daniel Kaluuya who's making a Barney
movie, but for grownups, but you know, you have to imagine. Although I wonder, will that happen?
No. Sure. Because of Buddy. Buddy, which I also did see, which I thought was had a very, very
like sharply drawn and entertaining first two thirds. And then I thought kind of overstayed
its welcome a little bit in the third act, but it was a cool movie. It made almost six
million dollars at the box office over the weekend on like a thousand screens, which is
honestly a huge success for a movie like this. I just think it's cool. And I just want to know.
That's great. Yeah. People didn't want to see a Lordy and his dog. I mean, it almost made as much
money as the dog. I know. The dog stars made eight million dollars. It made 19 million dollars
worldwide. This is a hundred million dollar post-apocalyptic thriller from the man who made
Alien. Sort of a thriller. Right. Sure. Yeah. More of a chiller. Yeah. More of a Ridley and chiller.
What does this mean? The dog star struggles here. Anything? Ridley's making Treasure Island next.
Yeah. I mean, I guess this is like a notable box office failure for Ridley, but it's it's not like
anyone's taken his last three to four movies hugely seriously. It's true. So I, you know,
he'll keep going because as you mentioned, Scott Free is such like a giant production and he is
kind of his own universe and keep can keep funding stuff.
Does it mean that the or is it another reminder that the reinforcement or the support for old
school movies starring movie stars made by people who were big in the 90s? No one really cares
anymore. Yeah. That's yeah. That took a little hit. Yeah. It took a little hit. Yeah. Zendaya,
Tom Holland. OK. Yeah. Jacob Elordi, Margaret Qualley. Yeah. Maybe not quite there yet.
Be interesting to see how they react in terms of their careers. I was just watching a film that
was starring in this fall just last night that we can talk about when we get back from the fall
festivals. OK. Any other any other news and notes for you? You mentioned X-Men. We didn't really
check in on that. OK. Oh, well, let's talk about that because X-Men, I guess we have to keep the
podcast going till May 2028 now. Yes. But then now we've agreed to extend. Sure. But, you know,
over the weekend, it was announced that Anne Hathaway would be joining Tom Cruise and Days
of Thunder 2. Of course. This is the big news. So now it's June 2028.
June 2028 that we have to keep podcasting. We honestly like need a, you know, one of the
countdown boards here where it's just June, you know, 28 and we just keep revising it.
One of the wonderful things about movie fan is even when it comes to a movie like Days of Thunder,
I don't really have much of a relationship at all to the original Days of Thunder. I don't
think it's that great. It's not one of my Tom Cruise movies. Yeah. Not one of my Tony Scott
movies. A lot of people love it. That's cool. It's being, you know, rebooted for a reason.
But, you know, I love Anne Hathaway. I know. I do, too. And I love her going after the brass ring while she can.
She's having a huge summer and she's like, I'm cashing my chips in right now. Attach me to your
mega franchise, Jerry Bruckheimer. I think it's a smart idea. Nicole Kidman not available,
apparently. What do you think happened there? Well, so she's playing a neuroscientist, right?
She what she did in the original. She did or a neurosurgeon, neurosurgeon. That's right.
So 24 year old neurosurgeon. Yeah, I think probably. I don't know. Don't you think her brain is like
neurosurgeon's brain is like frozen somewhere in science doing something else? So you think the
character is just unavailable? She'll be dead in the film. Her character will be dead. I think
they won't talk anymore. Interesting. Yeah. Tom Cruise, you think he will be the man behind the
wheel, the primary engine, so to speak, of the movie? Or will there be a baton pass? Will there
be a Miles Teller who's involved? And he'll be the the Newman? Yeah. Or who's in Days of Thunder?
Not Newman. Days of Thunder is Robert Duvall. Duvall. Right. And Newman is Color of Money.
I think that he will be driving because he's Tom Cruise and he can't help it. And, you know,
Pitt did F1. And so now he has to also get in the wheel. And I'm sure he'll be at
NASCAR events for like 45 years. NASCAR versus F1. What are your thoughts?
I did. The people are driving fast. I really honestly, I don't.
Scintillating commentary. I do in general like movies where things go fast.
That is a vein of action movie that speaks to me.
But there's usually like, except for the case of F1, a narrative built around it.
And I don't really understand what's going on with F1 and NASCAR. I didn't watch the Netflix show.
I know everyone who watched the show, it's been narrativized. It does also seem like the F1
culture, which people, Juliette Lipman, for example, is a huge fan. And she's like,
I think this would speak to you. But it has sort of a Vegas feel to it that doesn't speak to me.
So I, you know, I know people love it. I wish them well.
I feel like it's really more about Monaco and places like that, right?
Those are destinations you enjoy.
You know, I've never been to Monaco.
Okay.
You better get working on that.
I guess so.
Yeah. Days of Thunder 2, which is going to be directed by Jonathan Levine, a filmmaker who
doesn't have a ton of experience making movies like this, like big action,
ten-poly films. So it'll be interesting to see how that tracks over. But
happy for Hathaway.
Yeah.
She's crushing it. She's got another movie coming out in
one month.
One month? Will it be mentioned here on our fall movie preview?
Oh, I forgot to put that on there.
Yeah.
Oh, well, spoiler alert for our list.
All right. I know what I'm going to do then. Okay. Look at that.
Whoa.
Well.
Whoa.
Well.
Well, we may need to circle back to that title that was just deleted.
Okay. Well, let's talk about the fall.
Okay.
So it's been a very top-heavy first eight months of the year in terms of big ticket releases.
And certainly when it comes to the prestige awards,
season, this is high time. And yet the Odyssey has already come out and taken over movie culture.
I think it's reasonable to assume that the Odyssey is going to get somewhere between 11
and 14 Oscar nominations. And I think it is the heavy betting favorite right now to win Best
Picture.
Absolutely.
So this is kind of unusual because I guess we did have this with Oppenheimer a few years ago.
But by that point, Christopher Nolan had never not gotten over the hump yet
with the Academy Awards. And now there does feel like a bit of a foregone conclusion just
in terms of that specific component of the next six to seven months of what movies are people going
to see, what are they interested in, and what is sort of like the primacy of movie culture.
It doesn't mean that there's not a lot of really interesting stuff coming out. And I'm very excited
not just to go to Telluride, but to kind of map out this year. It feels a little bit smaller,
though, than it does most years. Like you've been mentioning the Thanksgiving opening. And many
people have pointed out to us that, Grant,
Deft Auto 6 comes out November 20th.
Right.
And that that legitimately will take over a huge portion of like pop cultural hive mind.
I think that's very smart to people who noted that to us.
And certainly box office.
Yeah.
People will be staying home and not going out.
And it does seem to your point about The Odyssey that the studios, people programming for Oscars,
et cetera, have decided, okay, so The Odyssey is the big budget prestige Oscars movie. We don't
have to, we don't really have to compete in that vein. And so,
if we're going to be going for dollars, which we are the rest of the time,
we're going with franchises and we're like, what is the new meet the Fockers called?
Focker-in-Law.
Focker-in-Law, which is also, I believe, scheduled for Thanksgiving and is just,
you know, pure like family counter-programming. And honestly, it looks mildly funny to me.
Yeah. I'm sure it'll be entertaining.
So, yeah, so that The Odyssey has kind of cleared
the board in terms of people trying to compete in the heavyweight.
Yeah. Most of what we've done,
in terms of what we're talking about, is not quite December releases. It's more the sort of
September, October, November stuff. And we'll have plenty of time to talk about that. But
obviously, we do have Dune Part 3, which is one of those large franchises that you're talking about,
which is also has, is also an Oscar contender. That's an unusual circumstance where,
in all likelihood, given the fact that it's won some awards in recent years,
has been nominated for Best Picture. That one we'll think about. And we did a Project Hail Mary,
which I think is similarly a kind of a big tent movie that a lot of people want to go see. And so,
if you take those three movies,
It's like, wow, we've got three pretty mainstream movies that are
serious best picture contenders. So how did you think about five movies you can't wait to see?
Just pure primal emotion? Yeah, instinct. I just opened the dock up on my phone and started
writing. It's rare that I get an empty slate, right? Where you have handed me the outline
without claiming things first. I'll tell you what, I was thrilled to see that you filled it in when
you did. Okay. I was like, I thought Amanda was solo parenting and busy and she was in the dock
on a Saturday. No, I think you'll notice. And that also, I think someone was in my lap listening to
the Elmo song while that happened. Listen, we're doing the best that we can. What's the Elmo song?
Sing it for us. The Elmo song. No, that's Elmo's slide. This is the song. Elmo song. Yeah. And
then it's Big Bird's song and Snuffy's song. Yeah. I just had like a Cruz Madeline moment there.
Totally. But just for three years ago when I was watching Sesame Street. And then the next song
on the This is Elmo playlist.
This is Elmo's slide. Step to the left or whatever. You know, we've been getting into is
in my house is Charlie XCX. That's what that's what my daughter wants to listen to. Party for
you. That's her favorite song. Okay. We listened to it eight times in a row yesterday. So she could
dance. Where is she on music, fashion, film? Not quite there. A little too hard rock, I would say.
Oh, interesting. We don't want heavy guitars. Well, yeah, but it's sort of like a faint rock
music is a faint. Yeah, I know. I know what she means. I think like Chapel and Kate Bush and
Bjork. Oh, interesting.
And Carolyn Polachek. Like those things, those vibes are kind of like, she's getting into that.
Hayley Williams. Do you play Brat for her or is that too grown up? It's a little like,
I don't want cocaine references kind of entering her orbit. But yeah, Party for You. Just it was
an absolute recital. That's really exciting. Anyhow, why were we talking about that? Oh, Elmo.
Elmo and just how you're making a list. Yeah. But I think you'll notice that I only filled,
I filled out the top five and then everything else I came back for later.
Okay. Because, you know, life comes at you fast. Do you want to go first or do you want me to go
first? You have a great one. You go first. Because I like, I co-sign your whole list.
Thank you. I co-sign most of your list. Wow, that's great.
So these are five movies we just can't wait to see. Yeah. And I tried to think about this for
the most part as movies where I feel like I don't really know a lot. And the other thing is that
I've seen a couple of really big ticket releases that I'm embargoed from talking about. I know
that's obnoxious, but I just can't. I can't wait to see them. I can't
credibly say I can't wait to see something I've already seen. I know. I was wondering about this
because I know you do this and you do a lot of pre-screening. I do. And this is what's called
where for, sorry to be annoying and insidery, but for critics, they will show movies that are
going to premiere at the festivals before the festivals in case you can't get to the festival
or because it can be hectic to see as many movies as you want to see at the festival.
There's one other reason too, which is that they're trying to lock down schedules for talent
very early in advance. So if you like a movie and you want to have someone on a show like this.
You want dibs. You want to say like, we definitely want to do this. And so sometimes some studios
will show movies to me like that. And I think most of the movies I've seen, we'll be able to
talk about literally a week from now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But so they won't be discussed today from
my perspective. Right. But I mean, I was just thinking about, and you pre-screen mostly to
book talent. I understand that. But otherwise I was like, wow, this really seems like a hassle
to be pre-screening everything because then you can't talk about it. And then you're like the
asshole who's like, well, I've seen all of these things. I know. I try to be honest about that
experience because I think it is kind of interesting how it all works. Yeah.
Sure. But it is an obnoxious to be like, well, I can't tell you. And I apologize for that. Yeah.
Okay. My first movie is Whale Fall, which we walked out of CinemaCon in April seeing a five
minute clip of the film, which is written and directed by Brian Duffield and adapted from a
very popular novel by Daniel Krauss about a man played by Austin Abrams who is swallowed by a
whale. And they showed us the footage of him being swallowed by the whale. And it was very. He was about to be swallowed by the whale. So they did not spoil any of the exciting questions.
I read the log line. Sure. The log line is guy gets swallowed by whale. Yeah. But we don't know
what happens inside the whale. We have no idea. He doesn't actually make it into the last five
minutes of the movie. He doesn't make it into the whale's esophagus. He does not. So which
apparently has like 36 chambers. So I'm looking forward to see. And Shaolin. I am really excited
for this. I know plenty of people have a lot of questions. I know plenty of people have watched the trailer since it has been released. The two
trailers since they've been released. And we're like, nope, can't do that. That's too upsetting.
That's too intense. That's too. I don't know. I don't know. Are people concerned about being
swallowed by whales? Is that a fear that people have? I guess it evokes fear in them. Okay. Have
you been scuba diving? Have we talked about this? No. I wouldn't do it. I am not really
interested. No, scuba. Yes. As you know. As Hank Azaria once said in Along Came Polly, scuba?
As you know, I love swimming in the ocean, but I want to stay on the surface. I respect
the power of the ocean. We don't know very much about the ocean. I don't have a James Cameron
thing where I want to be in a boat driving around. I mean, we all know what happens there. What about
a submersible? Well, yeah, that's what I'm saying. I don't want to be in a submersible. Okay. I. I don't either. That's terrifying. Listen, and there's. I mean, we don't know anything about
all the creatures down there. We don't know how far it goes. Fucking whales. Yeah. Listen, no,
but there are things we haven't even discovered. Oh, yeah, you're right. Yeah, wait until your
son is like, can we watch a video about jellyfish? Well, I don't have a son.
I know, but he's going to come over and be like, hey, Sean, can I teach you about jellyfish?
God, I hope a kid doesn't show up at my door like 30 years later and say, hey, dad, it's me.
I. Jellyfish are upsetting. Very upsetting. What film did we just see with. Oh,
the Amazon Prime horror film, The Devil's Mouth. Okay. Starring Lana Condor. Okay.
And there's just a. And. Is it a man o' war? No, it's not a man o' war, but it's a school
of jellyfish. I don't know how you would describe them that attack. Catherine Newton, the actress
Catherine Newton. Okay. Very violently when she's swimming in Thailand after jumping off a boat.
Anyhow, Whale Fall, to me, looks fun. Now, it's interesting that Josh Brolin is apparently
playing the same character he played in The Dog Stars in Whale Fall. Sure, yes. He's sort of like
hard-bitten, masculine man, survivalist figure. It's unclear, maybe he plays Austin Abrams' father
and he taught him to dive. Yeah, because we have to have. Right, sure, because there needs to be
a trauma and, you know, like something that you're. The reason that you're being eaten by a whale and
what you have to learn. Yes.
Once you're inside the whale. Yes. Along with how does gravity work inside a whale? We don't know
yet. We're going to find out when we see the film. I'm very much looking forward to it. It is. It's in a sweet spot. I think it'll be really fun. And we were both very stressed out and also a
little bit like, ah, when we saw the trailer. So, and also, I mean, it's a great bit. I love a bit,
you know? It is a good bit. We need some more bits. The film is called Whale Fall. Sure.
Number five for you. Yeah. Going the other direction here, Making Marie Antoinette,
it says in the title. Right on the label. It was filmed on the set of Marie Antoinette,
my favorite Sofia Coppola movie, which we'll be celebrating its 20th anniversary this fall.
There are a lot of events. Most of this film was directed and filmed by Sofia's late mother,
Elena Coppola, who also, of course, directed Hearts of Darkness, the making of documentary
about apocalypse now. That is one of the greats. Sofia Coppola finished the film after her mother's
passing. So, you know, Elena Coppola is a great. was a great filmmaker and also a great writer and a great chronicler of what it means to make films
and also to be a woman in the orbit of making films. So, I'm very excited about her perspective
on this movie. And I'm here for all Marie Antoinette content. Do you know, is it entirely
like cinema verite, observing the scene? Is there any look back component to it where people are
talking about the experience? You don't know? I don't know. Okay. Interesting.
That doesn't totally seem like. It would seem more like. Sofia's. And you would think it would be more like Hearts of Darkness, right? Where it's sort of like
all in the moment. But I would also be curious to hear Schwarzman and Dunst and Coppola and Sofia
and all those people talking now, too, about what the movie means and how it was received and how
it's, you know, been back in the culture. They announced today that they're also,
if you happen to be at Versailles in the next six months, there is like. Just in case. Just in case.
You're popping on by.
If you're nearby. I don't know if you're in Paris.
You've been to Versailles?
I did. I went on a really bad date to Versailles. Do you know this story?
Were you setting me up for this one?
Okay.
Wait, maybe I do, but I've forgotten.
Yeah. So when I was like this summer that I was studying in Paris, I don't know, I was single,
and I ended up going on a date with a German guy to Versailles. And the thing about going on a date
to Versailles from Paris is that like you have to take a long train. I mean, it's an hour, but still,
it's going to a second location with a hippie. But instead, it's a German man. And then you're
stuck at Versailles.
German guy? What was that like?
He was tall.
But so then you're stuck there and you're like, oh, I don't want to be here on this date anymore
with you. But like, you're just in a garden in Versailles and you got to get back. And you know,
the French with their lines. And then you're still like taking the train back.
Could you tell immediately from the train ride that it was a bust?
Yeah, I think so. But I was also 19. So like, what did I know about anything?
How did you meet?
At a bar, I think.
You met in a bar?
Sure. Yeah.
And you said, let's go to Versailles.
Yeah. I mean, listen.
What a strange life you've led.
That's interesting.
Anyway, but they're doing like an
exhibit there about the movie and Petit Trianon, which was the, you know, is the country home that
Marie Antoinette built where the last part of the movie. You've seen the film. It was on our 25 for
25 list.
I didn't know the name of the country home.
Okay. I mean, country also just means it's like in a different garden in Versailles. Anyway,
there will be a lot. They are making an event of this anniversary, as they should. But so maybe,
maybe there's a retrospective element to it, but I don't know. We'll see.
Is that film playing
Venice? No, which is annoying. It's playing at the New York Film Festival.
Sheesh.
Listen, you know, I would love to be there, but I'm a mom, you know?
That's it.
You're just a mom.
I'm a mom.
I got to be here for Sai's first week of school.
That's right.
That's right.
I'm just going to be in fucking shambles for that one.
He's going to be so loud.
I will be able to hear him screaming at me from preschool when I am back home.
Okay.
Let's go to my next one.
Number four is yet another movie that I don't know very much about, which is Elsinore, which
I feel fairly confident will be at one of these film festivals that I'll be attending
in the near future.
It is a new film starring Andrew Scott and Olivia Colman.
It is directed by a man named Simon Stone, who does not have a ton of film credits, is
best known, I think, for his theater and television work.
He did do a movie in 2021 called The Dig that I saw that it was just fine.
Oh, that's the Carey Mulligan Ralph Fiennes archaeology.
Yeah, you saw that, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Not bad.
In my wheelhouse.
Certainly.
The film is about, it feels like in many ways a kind of spiritual follow-up to Hamnet because
it's about an actor based on a real-life actor named Ian Charleston, Charleston, excuse me,
who portrayed Hamlet at the National Theater while he was seriously ill from AIDS.
And Hamlet and all of its heavy meaning colliding with Andrew Scott's seriousness and skill
as an actor.
I think it's very interesting.
This is one of those movies that, like, I've had a couple people whisper in my ear and be
like, Andrew Scott.
Nomination incoming.
Andrew Scott, Andrew Scott.
I mean, wonderful.
Who I love, who we love.
Yeah, who's wonderful, who's a great actor, who's been in amazing things, who is one of
the great awards season contenders.
Yes.
I mean, let's just get him on the party circuit.
Well, just a great hang as a person.
Very stylish, but very thoughtful and sweet.
He was on the show a few years ago and for all of us strangers, it was wonderful.
And he's amazing in Ripley, the Ripley television series.
So he's just such a terrific actor.
He was great in Blue Moon last year.
And so I'm very much looking forward to that one.
That's probably the most kind of like downbeat reserved film that I have on my list.
But I wanted to have one because I do think that that is kind of the essence of this season
is there you'll find a lot more historical dramas.
You'll find a lot more sensitive portrayals of struggling artists.
And that is that's certainly a signature of Telluride.
That kind of a film is really prized there.
And so.
Who knows if it'll be there?
If I had to guess, I'd say it will be.
But we shall see.
And that's a focus movie that is coming out later this year.
Well, fingers crossed for you.
Thank you.
And for the mountains.
OK, what's next for you?
A movie I'm seeing in 36 hours.
Wow.
I got my ticket, Inc.
The Danny Boyle drama that we've been talking about a lot.
Another biographical drama and maybe not downbeat necessarily, but this is about Rupert Murdoch.
And when Rupert Murdoch bought the Sun newspaper in the UK and kind of his invasion of Fleet Street,
it stars Guy Pearce, Jack O'Connell, Claire Foy.
I'm just jazzed a little.
This is a little bit that I love movies about newspapers.
I love movies starring Jack O'Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy.
And and I'm excited.
This will be the first movie that I see at Venice.
It's the opening night of the Venice Film Festival.
But listen, I'm the trailer, the poster that looks like there's some energy to it.
I'm excited.
I'm really excited about this, too.
I think, you know, I think one of Boyle's great movies is Steve Jobs.
And so I'm hopeful that it kind of has that same energy where there.
He brings that kinetic energy in his filmmaking style to a story that in other hands would be like flat and dull.
But like the way that he moves the camera, the way that his films are cut, the way that he uses music in his movies.
You know, we've never had I've never had Danny Boyle on the show.
We praised his work over the years.
We did go in a little bit of a downturn with yesterday.
Yeah, I was like, you know, I wasn't going to ask him to come on for a movie that I don't like very much.
But I do.
I think he's got he's got an extraordinary.
Great career.
He could do a whole episode about his his amazing run of films.
We should.
I look forward to that movie, too.
Hopefully I'll be able to see it soon as well.
My next film is is an interesting one to me.
It's Resident Evil, which, of course, is a movie I've had circled on the calendar for a year going back to when right around this time, I guess I had Zach Kreger on the pod to talk about weapons.
And he was saying that he was doing this.
It was officially happening.
He was adapting the Resident Evil video game of which there have already been, I think, seven film adaptations, largely with Paul W.S.
Anderson.
Emile Jovovich, married couple who made those movies.
And there was a Raccoon City film spinoff like five years ago.
You know, they're kind of schlocky sci fi action horror movies.
Sometimes you say things and I just like nod my head.
But like Raccoon City, what's I mean, what's happening?
Raccoon City.
Here's the whole wiki for it.
You know, this is I mean, I believe you, but it's like it's a fictional city in the Midwestern United States that appears in the Resident Evil series of survival horror video games.
People think that I complain and bemoan all of the stuff.
That you say and that I do have to learn.
But like, I just let so many things fly right by, you know?
Sure.
Well, I mean, there are millions and millions of Resident Evil fans.
This one is not that obscure.
No, I don't think I just Raccoon City.
Yes, of course.
Absolutely.
I am jacked for this movie for obvious reasons.
I love Craigers movies.
I love the trailers for the movies.
This is the second Austin Abrams film on my list so far.
Yeah.
It seems like it's relatively modestly scaled, if that makes sense.
That it's from.
From the perspective of one character, feels like it's over one crazy night when the zombie apocalypse is starting.
And I'm sure it'll be very violent and gross, as the Resident Evil games are.
But honestly, just to continue to speak from my personal perspective, one of the things I really like about it is I just don't know anything.
I haven't seen it.
I haven't talked to anybody who's seen it.
I don't know it.
I don't know when it's screening.
I don't know anything about it.
It might be one of those movies where it's like, maybe you see it the day before it comes out.
Okay.
And there's something kind of exciting about it being screened.
It's kept away from me, you know?
Yeah, getting to be a kid again.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Well, you want what you can't have.
I know.
Well, that's true.
And you can have most things now.
But stuff like this.
This is such a, like, box and blockbuster, I wish my parents would let me rent kind of movie.
And I was just talking to somebody this morning about that feeling of, like, the illicit material that is still mainstream.
Yeah.
This is a great version of that.
So I'm very much anticipating this movie.
And as more time goes by, the more I think that it's going to be a really big hit.
I'm not quite sure how big that means, but it feels like.
Yeah.
Anybody who's in this world of horror is like, have you seen it?
Have you seen it?
What's going on with this?
So I look forward to it.
My number three is my version of this for you.
Yes, it is.
Which is, you know, the moms can have fun too.
Verity.
The latest Colleen Hoover adaptation, directed by Michael Showalter, our girl Anne Hathaway,
my girl Dakota Johnson, our guy Josh Hartnett.
Yep.
This looks like the highest level trash.
And if they can really lean into both the high level and the trash, then I will have
a delightful time.
Is this film, does it have a supernatural element or is that a psych out?
I don't know.
And I don't want to know.
I just want to go see the movie.
Okay.
We were given copies of the books at CinemaCon.
Yeah.
Don't know where my copy is.
Well, I don't know either because a very nice listener and friend, maybe.
Did you bring it all the way home though?
I think so.
Anyway, as we were waiting.
Walking out with the books, a very nice listener and now internet friend was like,
you're going to hate this book.
Don't read it.
So I didn't.
So I don't know.
I'm just going to watch the movie.
Interesting.
And did you read any of the other Hoover books before doing pods?
I did.
I've read snippets of It Ends With Us.
Okay.
To kind of understand what was going on.
But what's the Jay Franco, Alison Williams one called, Regretting You?
Yes.
Nope.
Dave Franco.
What?
Dave Franco.
Dave Franco.
You said Jay Franco?
Yes.
Okay.
Who's James Franco?
I don't know.
I was thinking about James Franco was on my Cannes flight.
So I'm just excited about who's going to be on my Venice flight tonight.
James Franco was on your Cannes flight?
Yeah.
He was like out at Cannes.
Remember?
He was trying to come back.
His front ears?
You did see him at premieres because he was just there everywhere gladheading, being like,
I'm James Franco and I'm back.
He's back.
Am I back?
I don't know whether he's back.
One thing in Verity's favor is it's written by Nick Antosca, who is mostly a TV show runner
who created this great show, Channel Zero, that I really, really like.
He worked on Cape Fear, which people did not like.
I didn't see that show.
But that's part of why I ask how real is the supernatural versus the thriller component?
And is that something that is in Colleen Hoover's back?
You know?
Can she do a spooky ghost story in addition to some erotically charged trauma?
Dark romance?
Yeah.
Or drama?
I don't know.
We'll find out.
Michael Showalter?
He makes movies.
He's made quite a few.
Yeah.
He makes a very specific kind of movie.
What kind of movie now?
The adapted from a literary sensation.
But often told from the perspective of a woman.
Yes.
You know?
Yeah.
Starring.
You know, women's pictures is what they called them in the 1950s.
Did you see Oh, What Fun?
I didn't.
The Christmas special starring Michelle Pfeiffer, I believe.
You thought?
Among others.
I did watch most of it.
Yes.
Michelle Pfeiffer.
A lot of wallpaper is my review.
Wallpaper.
Once again, you're really plumbing the depths.
With these reviews today.
But, you know, Eyes of Tammy Faye.
Yeah.
Spoiler alert was not from the perspective of a woman about a gay couple.
And one half of that couple gets very sick based on a true story.
The Idea of You, which I actually loved.
Which I think.
You loved?
Well, they just let Hathaway cook in that one.
Yeah, they did.
No, it's just.
To me, this was the.
That movie is the beginning of the run.
Where she's like, it's my time now.
I totally agree.
I'm 40 and it's my time now.
I agree.
And I liked it.
it I love she looked great in
everything and the line where he
like I've always wanted to go to Glendale.
Funny.
That was funny.
You don't like Nicholas Galitzin.
I don't really think he has it.
And I still haven't seen Masters of the Universe.
Maybe I'll watch it on a plane
because I got some alerts that it's streaming now.
Send me a photo of you watching it.
Just send me a selfie.
I need to know what your face looks like.
I thought at CinemaCon,
when they made him ask everyone to raise their swords up
and say the little tagline,
what is it?
I have the power!
Right.
And he looked pretty sheepish,
but he did it anyway.
And I felt for him in that moment.
But that was the first time that I had,
you know, I was like,
oh, this is cute.
He's trying.
Technically, it's by the power of Greyskull.
I have the power,
which is a little redundant.
He says power two times in a row.
What does Greyskull do?
So that's Jared Leto in the movie?
No, that's Skeletor.
Greyskull is sort of like the castle
and also imbues him with some powers.
It allows him to transform into He-Man.
He's Adam.
Okay.
You know, he transforms into He-Man.
Sure.
He looks just like Adam.
You know, page boy haircut,
huge muscles,
kind of changes his costume.
He's in one of those like,
I don't know, whatever.
Yeah.
Verity.
Yeah, we'll see.
We're doing a whole episode about Verity.
Is that a good idea?
Yeah, we're going to have a great time.
I think that's going to be a remote episode.
So maybe it'll be some unhinged energy.
Oh, because you're. I'll probably be in New York when this happens.
Yeah, and that'll be wild.
I will be at home listening to the ice cream to me
from preschool.
That's exactly right.
That's sad.
Okay, my number two is a film that has a title.
It did not have a title for a very long time.
And I'll tell you what,
this is a movie I also don't know very much about.
It's called The Further Misadventures of Cliff Booth.
It's coming only to IMAX screens,
not other movie theaters.
So I guess it's only like 500, 300?
I'm not even sure how many IMAX screens
there are in America.
And Netflix is releasing it.
It's directed by David Fincher.
Yeah.
The screenplay is by Quentin Tarantino.
It stars Brad Pitt.
I learned over the weekend that Peter Weller is in the film
because I saw a video on Instagram.
I have him talking about how he appears in the film
as Cliff Booth's father.
Okay.
Spoiler alert.
We saw a one-minute teaser trailer
during the Super Bowl.
Yes.
That teaser trailer was not officially posted online
by Netflix.
Since then,
it's been more or less radio silent.
We learned there were some reshoots on the movie
that I guess took place over the summer.
Yeah.
And that's it.
This is one of the least marketed movies
starring Brad Pitt
based on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
that you could ever have.
Now, I'm sure there's some purposeful
reason for withholding some of this stuff.
And it is about to be September, October.
Netflix historically doesn't market their movies
as aggressively as a Warner Brothers or a Sony would.
But this is a real curiosity thing now
where I'm like,
what is this movie going to be?
I have no idea.
The reshoots news broke while I was on vacation.
And so we talked a little bit about it.
And at first,
you know,
the obvious outlook not good.
And then the more we talked about it,
well,
like many movies have reshoots
and it's still on track for the November release.
And, you know,
we were confused that it's not in any festivals for a while.
I did think that it was going to be at Venice
because Netflix historically has a big presence at Venice
and Inc. is being released by Netflix.
It was acquired.
So I don't,
something,
it's strange.
It's not,
it's unusual.
Basically,
we don't really know what's going on here.
And it also doesn't follow the pattern of either
a classical prestige release,
which you would expect from the three names
that you just mentioned.
And based on the pedigree of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Exactly.
And it also doesn't follow,
I guess it's closer to a Netflix release,
but what Netflix is doing with it is kind of new
and not in the Netflix playbook.
Yeah.
It slid into the spot that Narnia was holding
when Narnia got pushed back to February,
which is interesting.
I'm a little bit perplexed on how to,
to cover the movie
because I think it's going to be a hot ticket
when it's made available amongst a certain kind of,
you know,
movie crazy person.
And I presume it will do like decent business
on a very small number of screens.
I don't know if Netflix will have to report that business,
but I don't know if like,
will enough people be seeing it
that we should just be talking spoilers and all
about the sequel to one of our favorite movies
of the last 10 years.
I mean that,
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,
I hold in like the highest esteem.
I think that is absolute top tier,
Terrence.
I know.
There was a real argument in 25 for 25
of whether it would be Inglourious Bastards
or Once Upon a Time.
I love Once Upon a Time.
And like a truly magical experience
seeing it at the Cinerama Dome on your birthday
and then going to Franken,
no,
Musso and Franks.
I know.
Honestly,
one of my favorite days in living in LA.
And then didn't you like leave for Europe that night?
I did.
Yes.
That was just a great,
great time.
You know what?
That's a good memory.
That's living hobbies life
and I support you.
Thank you.
Thank you for that.
No,
I'm,
I'm excited.
I'm excited to see it.
I am too.
It's just interesting.
My opinion is that we should just cover it
and,
you know,
people can.
Come what may.
Well,
and then if,
if you're not able to see it in IMAX,
then you can come listen to the episode
after the fact.
I think we're all adults.
Will it be a month after it's IMAX release
that it'll be on the service?
I guess they want it to be available for Christmas,
I presume.
Yeah.
Anyhow,
it's another kind of unusual outlier scenario
in these modern times.
And I'm close,
tracking very closely
how Netflix releases their films.
Yeah.
We have the long window for La Bola Negra.
We have the full release
for Narnia,
for The Magician's Nephew,
which I've read.
Yeah.
And I'll be able to bring
a really scholarly perspective on the film.
We have like the full release in February.
And then.
I think it's smart.
I think it's a good time to release it.
You think it's a good time to release it?
I just,
listen,
I just,
I'm nervous.
I know you're nervous.
I'm nervous.
I'm just like,
none of this,
none of the signs point towards something
that I am,
I feel.
I just mean from a business perspective.
Sure.
There's going to be a nice,
nice little runway there in February.
That's completely true.
I am just worried about the quality of the film.
Yeah.
We shall see.
Okay.
Okay.
Number two for you.
Primetime.
Yeah.
Seeing it Saturday night,
baby.
Yeah.
I'm jealous of this one.
I'm going to the premiere.
I'm so excited.
So this is a Lance Oppenheim film
about to catch a predator.
And Robert Pattinson plays Chris Hansen.
And it looks weird and upsetting and interesting.
And I believe in Robert Pattinson.
I will follow him to the ends of the earth.
He's already got another meme just off the trailer.
I know.
It's unbelievable.
So very excited about this.
I am too.
I really hope I'm going to see this soon.
Yeah.
But I don't know if I am.
Okay.
And that's okay.
Mm-hmm.
And I'll make it through.
That movie,
if you had to guess,
Yeah.
will that be Pattinson's real shot
at an Academy Award recognition this year?
Not a win per se,
but just the nomination.
Well, we haven't seen Dune 3 yet,
but he is also playing a villain.
So you have to assume
that the villain in the Odyssey
versus the villain in Dune 3
are going to kind of cancel each other out
in terms of voting allotment.
I still absolutely love the drama,
but I think that it is going to be forgotten
in the awards race,
both because A24 will have other places
to spend its time and money in pushing things.
And also, I guess it was controversial enough
or edgelordy enough,
I should say,
that it's not going to. I think The Invite is going to take its place.
And I also really, really like The Invite.
But The Invite is another A24 movie
that is provocative,
but it's sex instead of,
you know, spoiler alert,
school shootings.
I think it's also middle-aged and not 29.
Totally.
And there's a difference there?
Yeah.
So I love both movies.
I think the drama is wonderful.
Probably still one of my favorite movies of the year.
But I don't think he'll make it in for that.
So by process of elimination,
yes, primetime.
Will be interesting.
He really is. He's in Rare Rare right now,
where there's this. I think he has both artistic bona fides
and a fandom,
but he's not bound by his fandom.
No.
You know, obviously he's still making Batman
and that was a very smart move
and that's coming next.
But I don't know.
Taking on these parts,
I really respect it.
I think it's great.
My number one is Dick.
I just want to see it.
You know, I just. I want to know.
You know what's interesting?
I mean, I do want to know,
but the question of,
do I want to see it
is really, really interesting.
I was like, I don't. Do I want to see it?
I mean, I want to like it.
Like, I really want to like it.
I do too.
I love a strange,
lovey and kind of,
you know, satirical,
big top movie.
I love a big, bold acting performance.
I love Tom Cruise as a movie star.
And especially,
as an actor.
I do.
I agree with all of this,
but I mean,
this is what's been interesting
about this movie
from the beginning
and from the first poster.
Just like, I. I want it to be good.
I want Tom Cruise to be back.
I want interesting,
you know, movies.
And I just. There's something about it
where I'm like,
I don't know if I just actually
want to sit through it.
I do want to sit through it,
but there is something
that's warning signally
that's putting me off
the experience of it.
Which is prejudging a movie,
which I shouldn't do.
On the flip side,
my expectations are
probably lower
than they normally would be
for Tom Cruise's
great return
to non-franchise acting.
So,
in that sense,
maybe my mind
is just going to be blown.
It's possible,
and sometimes that can be
very beneficial
going into a movie.
I think this also,
you know,
most of the movies
on my list
are not really
festival films.
And I think
there is something to me
actually intriguing
about withholding
a movie from those spaces
and saying like, "Well, we think this is more commercial
commercial but it's also from an auteur and it's more high-minded like that blend is kind of my
sweet spot in terms of taste i'm not an inaritu person yeah i was gonna say when it's paul thomas
anderson that is very much your spot but when it's inaritu i don't know and it does feel like
it's warner brothers again so they had success with that playbook and they've been burned by
festivals recently in the past see joker folia yeah though you haven't which though yeah though
i haven't um so it does feel like they're trying to run the uh one battle playbook and a little
bit which is smart business we'll see how many days before the movie is released do you think
we'll see it that's a great question i mean have tickets gone on sale yet have you bought us
special tickets yet i bought us tickets to see um uh practical magic 2 oh fun because i don't know
if we're going to be back in time to screen that
you
just the heads up for the team there we may need to record that on a thursday evening okay um
but otherwise i land wednesday night and then i'm gonna be like sorry can't do bedtime tonight
do you land wednesday night yeah so we might be able to get you out before bedtime okay uh
zack's i'm it's too bad i'm getting divorced but that's okay maybe i'll just do the practical
magic 2 episode by myself i know i want to i i've thought more about their cinema con presentation
than really anything any live experience
just being kooky for an hour on stage like in power suits it was only 15 minutes but it did
feel like an hour and i found it so aspirational i want what they have yeah in every way are you
sandy or nick well i think i'm sandy don't you hair or just because of your essence well and
the dry demeanor you know i'm not but we don't really have a sandy and nick energy you know
so i certainly don't have nicole kidman energy i don't think anyone would claim that i do
i certainly don't have her posture the interview that she gave i think it was to british vogue where
she's like dinner at 1 30 then you go out clubbing at one i wear a wig i wear glasses i just need to
be around people it feeds me i want to go clubbing with nicole kidman at yam i'm available i cannot
relate to something less than that i truly don't understand what she's talking about
all right what's number one for you artificial luca i'll never quit you um even when you malign
top gun maverick which you know i saw that and you know smart people can disagree i've heard
yeah two wildly divergent points of view on this movie okay i'm not going to give anything away
other than to say one group of people told me that it plays as a laugh out loud comedy okay
and the other group of people told me it plays as one of the bleakest films they've seen in a long
time okay now it's possible that both of those things can coexist this is also a review of
rachel cusk's the life of m are you reading that i read it oh and that's what you're doing right now
that's how you feel i mean it could be read either way and and and and in my opinion neither adds up
to a positive experience okay uh so i hope that's not the case what is artificial about uh this is
luca guadagnino's simon rich penned a biopic something we don't know of sam alton and the the
rise of ai so uh it stars andrew garfield it was supposed to be released by amazon it is no longer
being released by amazon it is no longer being released by amazon it is no longer being released
by amazon for reasons that you can read rumors about on the internet and was reacquired by neon
i was hoping it was going to be at venice i still think that would be cool instead luca guadagnino
has like a eight hour i'm not exaggerating bernardo bertolucci documentary which i'm not
going to be able to see um and i i ride for luca and you know i would prefer to see artificial to
the social reckoning at this point about the social reckoning
second trailer was a little better okay and it did have me thinking maybe not a car crash okay good
good so that's positive you're just you're very you're very open-hearted to the world i want to
have a great fall okay i want to have a great you're setting your intention yes yeah what i
don't want is to be like oh the odyssey just like dunked on everything this year i want to have a
spirited season of movie going same i'm i'm ready i'm ready for some good movies it did feel like
after the odyssey we spent a lot of time watching
interesting movies and movies that i liked but movies that were placed after the odyssey because
people knew that they weren't gonna they didn't deserve a whole episode of the big picture how
about that i don't think that's what they thought about it but sure well um okay what about some
honorable mentions okay uh do you in part three yeah i mean no doubt no i'm not not much to say
everything i've seen i've loved yeah the the opening that we saw dynamite i'm a fan do you
want it you want to trade or you want to yeah i'm excited about um a couple of fall movies the debut
which i feel pretty confident is going to be a tell your ride just based on all the delineations
around it with other fall film festivals jesse eisenberg's new film it's also a musical that
is also about the staging of a musical at a local community theater um about uh a woman who is
attempting to i guess break into the world of musical theater acting at a later stage in her
life played by julianne moore and the cantankerous director um of this community theater
played by paul giamatti a lot of my favorites kind of in a circle 824 movie um and so i'm pumped
about that i'm also pumped about misty green which is another 824 movie that is chris rock's
next film as a director though i don't know if he's in the film but um it's a movie about a
struggling actress who like had her had her moment in the sun and maybe it didn't all totally come
together for her she's played by rosalind eleazar who's an actress i'm not super familiar with
though has some bigger credits but the supporting cast is great adam driver daniel kaluuya anna
kendrick topher grace another movie that like i just don't really know anything about other than
the trailer it's playing a tiff not at any of the festivals that we're going to um but i i am
intrigued by that one what's what's another one for you behemoth exclamation point i'm excited
i would be more excited were it playing at venice the fact that it's in at new york instead and the
trailer without dialogue just you know i'm i'm protecting my heart on that one you want to hear
tony gilroy's words i do that's why we go to the movies yeah pedro pascal olivia wilde yeah will
arnett who am i forgetting i don't know yeah he plays a a cellist in a i guess with a
complicated professional career sure who plays at least we know on film
scores and one of the ava victor oh ava victor yeah i love ava victor yeah um
who plays on film scores and we know that gilroy
yes signed up nine different composers to write music that is then like you know implemented into
the story of the movie which is very cool should be very cool yeah um i had artificial on my list
as well yeah we share in the next movie which is other mommy that's right uh you know show it to me
this is the jump scare trailer of the year for many people who saw the odyssey this is the this
ran before the odyssey for many many people i got um angry text messages from friends of mine who
went to see the odyssey and then were terrified by this to which i said oh i thought it was funny
which i think just shows real gross on the part of amanda dobbins i couldn't agree more very happy
to hear that you're in that state um jessica chastain plays a mommy and then there's another
mommy that may be some sort of uh phantasmagorical representation of a demon
sure that takes on the form of a child's mother yeah you know the memes write themselves sure
we've we've all been there you know the thumbnail for the other mommy episode should just be you
and like a slightly paled version of you don't put me in it right would you say so that sounds
good okay um you know what else i'm looking forward to tell me street fighter it was the
best of the video game presentations that we saw in my at cinema con it might be really stupid
but i don't care this is the one where i'm gonna like i'm gonna give myself a break i think also
there is something about like being what you are and being the best version of what you are
yes so if it's a very stupid adaptation of a of a video game but like as well done stupid that's
okay that's yeah i really had my heart broken by mortal kombat 2 which i had been told would be
like the realization of what you truly wanted from a mortal kombat movie and it wasn't yeah
and what i want from this movie is just like a series of big fights just like recreate the
of being in a match while playing the game okay and based on what i saw also my noah centineo stock
going going way up oh i you're you're holding it still he's in union county the will poulter movie
he plays his brother in that movie he's gives a great performance very small part but great
performance he was in warfare really good in warfare and he's playing ken ken he's playing
ken in this movie who is one of the key street fighter characters but not crossover from the
i would imagine he's inspired by that ken because in the game he has blonde hair
okay has kind of you know chiseled and his job is beach that's kind of his energy honestly um
so i'm looking forward to that and that was also my job for the month of august
for a couple weeks yeah you came back um and then possible love which you're about to see as well i
think i sure am and you have your tickets to that as well i do yeah which is lee chong dong's new
film his first movie since burning which is like eight years ago now um that netflix is going to
Netflix has that is hotly tipped for a very big award season run and seems like it's one of the
only non-can foreign language films international
features that is really running hard in that race yeah okay so we'll get into the movies we've
already seen and recommend right after this this episode is presented by state farm you know the
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we've danced around stuff we haven't seen but we have seen a lot you know and yeah if you haven't
listened to our can coverage especially like we have some some movies that we can recommend
um
and also some stuff that i've seen that i feel comfortable telling people that they should see
and try to put on their radar as well why don't you start us off since i started last time we've
talked a bit about paper tiger but we're getting back into paper tiger season which is james gray's
latest movie starring miles teller adam driver scarlett johansson it i believe is the opening
night of the new york film festival um and is a wonderful movie from a filmmaker we like very much
starring one of the generation's great actors in
adam driver and like the best miles teller performance in years um a couple just absolutely
electric set pieces um i you know it is it's a very james gray movie yes and i mean that as a
positive um so i we both we were at the premiere we loved it excited for more people to see it
yeah i really liked it a lot too it's um it's interesting i did this conversation with james
for the little odessa criterion collection disc and i was like oh my god i'm gonna watch this movie
and in that conversation you know that film and this film and the yards and we own the night
all have this very kind of loose formulation of two brothers who kind of find themselves
entrenched in a world of crime in some way right and loss of trust and family dynamics and what it
means to be in a family and new york in the 1970s 80s and 90s and huge the kind of looming influence
of coppola and scorsese on these movies and a lot of other filmmakers as well and what he said
i would encourage people to seek it out especially at the end of that conversation about
his own personal experiences and why he keeps kind of writing through this dynamic i'd never
heard him say before i've talked to him so many times about this kind of thing and he never really
enunciated it in quite that way and so it actually deepened my appreciation for this movie yeah more
after we saw it you also went as soon as the lights one you know started in paper tiger you
turned to me and you were like this is just this is my family this is where we grew up you know so
i mean it was my grandmother's yeah
you know like my family's from astoria my dad was a cop there's a cop like there's just a lot of like
you know cross-pollinating personal experiences i wouldn't say that's like the reason that i like
it but i will say that he nailed that stuff which is not surprising because he's so good at period
um that's a great one uh my mine is um my first one is the only living pickpocket in new york
which i really really liked uh that is written and directed by no segan who people will mostly
know as an actor he's in sort of like ryan johnson's company of actors he always plays
kind of a funny side character in every all of ryan's movies and i know that they're friends
and he directed a couple movies prior to this but this is totally different than anything else he's
done it's also a new york movie it's also a movie about the world of crime um john turturro
plays a an aging analog pickpocket in a contemporary new york world trying to continue
to survive while caring for a wife who's become ill and is non-responsive and also just trying to
make ends meet and it's a real relic kind of man out of time portrait of a guy who's kind of lost
connection to most of the things around him but it's got steve buscemi it's got giancarlo esposito
um and it's just kind of like an old dog new york movie really really well told really tight like
85 minutes perfect character study huge platform for turturro who's another one of those people
who people are just like how does this person not have an oscar you know you love him in
everything sure he was also very present throughout the next run this year so it would be it would be
quite a a capper on the year i mean i don't know if there's a better podcast this year than the
old man in the three episode with him and landry shamit about how they were like lost father and
son that's some of the great content of 2026 um but i really really liked this movie a lot and i
think it's probably about to hit the fall festival circuit it premiered at sundance um i didn't see
it there it wasn't part of the virtual screening program but i dug this a lot and i think people
will like it too sony pictures classics has it and it'll be
in the discussion for the next couple months got it what's next fjord the palm door winner which um
is definitely going to be in the award season this star sebastian stan and the the queen the
reigning queen of can ramada ryan's va uh and is about a romanian man married to a norwegian woman
and they move back to norway uh for family reasons and then uh the something happens in their family
and how their family and their community and the state handle all of these things are
investigated and portrayed in sometimes excruciating detail it's as you have said
over and over again a political football people will be arguing about it people are arguing about
it as soon as we walked out of the premiere in can um but i have found myself thinking about it
often over and over as you negotiate small
small things either with a child or with an administration or um you know seeing something
on the internet uh it is about parenting and family life and the decisions that you make as
much as it is about scandinavia though it is really about scandinavia so i sweet spot for you
yeah um i liked i thought this was an upsetting and very successful movie and i'm sure the
movie will be terrible at some point but it's gonna happen see it early yeah and then log off
yeah i think that's a good note yeah but i think this will also be an oscar conversation i agree um
it's interesting i guess i mean i guess it's going to be an international film i wonder if
norway will submit it because it's not necessarily always the kindest portrayal of norway um but
christian monju you know long considered a master had already won the palm before but this is
it's certainly more of a mainstream kind of movie i think it will be compared to anatomy of a fall
a lot because it has a legal component and it's also um very divisive and very careful about what
it reveals about the incidents in the movie that are discussed in the movie and there are people i
really respect who are really sharp movie minds who hate this movie okay i loved it i thought it
was probably my favorite movie i can but i do like a movie that kind of makes you
itchy rip up your ideas and think about how you feel about the world and what like what
systems should be in place and why and i agree with what you said that like being a parent
and being somebody who's kind of like in this phase where you're sort of like engaging your
family into a new era of responsibility and also who is responsible for your children and how
is fascinating to me so how do you engage with the with the wider world and how does it engage
with you and your family and suddenly you're responsible for another person and you're
another person who doesn't know any of that yeah and how are you interpreting it so i i i liked the
provocation i liked being poked by this movie but i know that some people won't it's a great it's a
it will be a great discussion topic for us on the show um my number two is the history of concrete
which i also loved which comes out in a month which is john wilson's feature film debut he had
a tv show how to with john wilson for a couple of years on hbo and this is a movie that is what it
says it is it is literally the history of concrete
the material the building material which is some of the oldest stuff in the world
and that sounds boring and it isn't boring because it's john wilson
Because it's John Wilson.
So John Wilson who sort of narrates his work and has this exploratory, verite, kind of unusually and humorously edited documentary filmmaking style.
This movie goes to more emotional places than I ever could have imagined.
And like a cohort of creative people in this generation that is like Tim Robinson and Conor O'Malley and Nathan Fielder and maybe the Safdie brothers are in there.
And there's like this kind of loose collective of comedy people who are very insightful about the way that the world is really working right under the surface.
And this is just really good.
Like really entertaining and really good.
And John will come on the show later this fall to talk about it.
But I just want to get it on people's radar because it's a smaller film that also premiered at Sundance.
Okay, what's your number one?
Club Kid, which is probably my favorite film that I saw at Cannes.
And is slated.
It's slated for a November release by A24.
This is written and directed by Jordan Firstman.
And it's really a coming of age movie about a club kid, an aging club kid who through a series of unfortunate events acquires a son or has a son.
And then acquires a son, learns that he has a son and his son comes into his life.
It's sort of baby boom but with a lot of drugs.
And no Sam Shepard.
Though, Diego Calvo.
The Sam Shepard character does borrow a bit of Sam's energy.
Yeah, he does.
This is a fun, warm, I guess provocative in the sense that there is sex and club culture and drugs references throughout.
But really like a pretty traditional and beautiful movie that I was just won over immediately.
And I saw it in a later screening at Cannes.
With a bunch of like young French people as best I could tell.
It was kind of like an adjunct screening where I think young people in the area show up and just hope to be able to get in and see a movie.
And except for the Balthazar joke, everything landed with them as well.
Which I think, which was a good sign for something that is emotional and comedy.
And specific in that it is yet another great New York movie but also hoping to be universal.
And it.
Does seem like it worked.
Yeah, you know, I hadn't seen Tony when I first saw this.
Yeah.
But they're kind of an interesting match.
And there's something about the using like a frictive outsider's perspective and putting them into what ultimately is a kind of warm 90s style movie.
Like it has a little, you know, Club Kid has a little bit of Barry Levinson in it.
You know, like a little bit of that like traditional or like Penny Marshall or something.
You know, where there's like, there's a real sweetness at the core of it, but it's not saccharine.
To me, it like is Kramer versus Kramer, but the new version.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a little funnier than that movie for sure.
But.
Yeah.
But I know what you mean.
And yeah, it's an interesting one.
I hope, I hope people go out to see that movie.
I do too.
It's very, very sweet.
My number one is All of a Sudden, which is Raiska Hamaguchi's new film, which we talked about in our episode as well.
Which is a three and a half hour epic about a woman played by Virginia Fira working in an elder care facility.
Effectively.
Managing an elder care facility.
And you might think that that sounds boring, but it is one of the most sophisticated, deep feeling movies of the year.
It's not the most commercial thing in the universe.
It's going to be challenging to get people to watch this movie, but I think it really rewards your attention and your care.
Tao Akamoto is also fantastic in this movie.
You know, Hamaguchi is kind of obsessed with how people work.
Yeah.
And this is a movie about how people work.
And kind of what you need to get your head out of the sand sometimes.
And sometimes having your head in the sand can be helpful.
And I'm loathe to spoil too much more of it, but this is also coming out on Thanksgiving.
You think it will be a big box office hit?
Yeah.
And then everyone will buy their own whiteboard.
And, I mean, the whiteboard at Thanksgiving dinner.
We should be playing that lecture for everybody.
You know?
I think that the world could be healed by playing the whiteboard lecture before every Thanksgiving dinner.
Yeah.
In America.
I'll leave that to you.
Okay.
I'm going to go on my own little tour and just re-perform it for people.
And then you'll perform songs from the debut.
I think I could hack it in musical theater.
I think I have the presence.
You have never been in a musical.
Never.
Show us something now.
No.
Maybe one day.
What would your audition song be?
Would it be Sondheim?
Would it be?
Well, I love that.
I love that moment in Lady Bird when she sings Everybody Says Don't, which I think is such a. And Harry Gordini, who I think originated that.
That's my timbre.
That's my tone.
Okay.
You know?
Yeah.
That's not Saoirse Ronan's tone.
So it's very funny that she sang that song.
I don't know what would be on my audition song.
I just had a flashback to it.
I visited my best friend, Stephanie, over vacation.
This was on my trips.
And she was putting one of her children to bed.
And I just heard like the very clear tones of On My Own.
From Les Miserables, like across the room.
She comes out and I was like, so I have some questions.
And she was like, yes, that's one child's bedtime song.
None of the other children want it.
But one child really wants. Yeah.
She really gave it her all.
Incredible.
You know, I saw some live theater this weekend.
Oh.
A Saturday night.
Really?
Yeah.
I went to a small play that was directed by Eileen and I, our friend Kate, who's a playwright.
Oh, wow.
That's so cool.
Yeah.
It was called. Congratulations, Kate.
I'm sorry I missed it.
It was a play at a theater in North Hollywood.
Two amazing performances in the middle of it.
It was a great time.
I missed the theater.
It's the only thing about New York that I'm like, I just wish I had this.
Because I would just be there every weekend.
It's one of my favorite things to do.
L.A., there's plenty of live theater.
Not as much.
Not often as good.
Okay.
Let's talk about the September Oscars.
This is the thing I made up this weekend.
Okay.
This is five nominations that you guarantee from films that have already been released.
Yeah.
And I've also asked you for one wild prediction.
Now, this would be hard.
It would be harder in 2015 or 2005.
But this thing is happening now.
Where you get a lot of early movies.
And it's not just one.
It's like three or four or sometimes even five movies that might be dominant Oscar movies.
You did fill this out first and you chose five different movies.
I did.
So, I also tried to do that.
Did you pull it off?
I did.
But I was running. And we have some overlap in the movies.
But I did find. I found myself sort of running out of guaranteed varietals, right?
Because The Odyssey is guaranteed up and down the board.
And there are several movies that are represented multiple times here.
But I got there.
I got to five.
Some of these are incredibly obvious.
Some of them are slightly risky.
But I feel confident about mine.
Okay.
I'll start.
Mine is obviously Best Picture of the Odyssey.
It will be nominated.
Mm-hmm.
If you had to say right now, is it going to win?
Yeah.
I think so.
Yeah.
We don't know anything, but. Right.
But especially once you consider preferential balloting, I don't know what's going to come
and take all of its votes.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Nothing else is as unanimous.
It would have to be something smaller, perhaps?
I mean, I did, on my travels, start meeting civilians, family members, friends.
We're like, eh, didn't really like it that much.
Sure.
Of course.
Didn't care about it.
You know.
So, we'll be in that phase.
But I think they've cleverly timed it.
So, that'll be September through November.
And then, come December, we'll reclaim it.
You know.
Emily Wilson's working on a new translation, so she's busy.
Did you see this?
Of the Odyssey?
Yes.
She's redoing her translation.
She's removing some of this.
Because, did you read in the introduction?
She set, like, a very specific length to the poem.
Yes, I did.
And it's some other constraints to replicate, like, with the original Homer.
And so, then she did the Iliad without those constraints.
And so, now she's going to redo the Odyssey without those constraints.
Or, because she's so. She saw an opportunity and is seizing it.
Listen, they don't pay academics that much.
So, I'm. I'm not going to make a snide comment.
I'm not going to say anything.
And one of my nominations here is in direct response to Emily Wilson, who I still think
is one of the world's great shit posters.
Okay.
What's your first one?
Best Supporting Actor, Edward Norton, The Invite.
You think this is going to happen?
I do.
The Academy loves Edward Norton.
Yeah.
Okay?
He was. Don't forget that he was lightly implicated in the affair of. Who was the woman that had the surprise nomination because Gwyneth Paltrow had a party for her.
The star of 2Leslie?
Yes.
Andrea Risborough.
Thank you.
Yeah.
But he was also a part of that.
He's connected in the Academy.
He's beloved.
This is an amazing performance.
I think The Invite is going to be very present.
Fascinating group of people here.
Yeah.
That are on the long list for this race.
I do think you're right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
There's two really interesting contenders in that category.
Go ahead.
Coleman, Domingo, and Michael.
Ah.
Okay.
We'll come back to that.
Yeah.
And Jeremy Strong in The Social Reckoning.
Yes.
There's a couple of obvious ones, right?
There's like Giamatti.
Everybody loves Giamatti.
He's never gone over the hump.
He didn't win for the holdovers.
He'll run hard in that race.
Sam Rockwell in Wild Horse Nine.
Yeah.
He's won in this category.
He's returning to reunite with the filmmaker for which he won.
Sure.
He dances.
Yes.
He's. I love this.
dancing he's very charming guy
Pierce in Ink. Another guy who
has been nominated many times but has not won
or has nominated a couple times.
Norton, yeah. I mean, he's due
in my opinion. I would say well overdue.
A thousand percent. Okay, that's a good one.
My number four is easy, straightforward.
Spider-Man Brand New Day is getting at least
one nomination for best
visual effects. Okay. And some
of the best stuff in this movie is the
swinging through the city. Yeah, he looks great. The way
that they did it in this where it's sort of like more of a
catch and release strategy
instead of like the clean
line soaring. Yeah. Love the
choice. Thought it looked beautiful. Felt more
like how I imagined Spider-Man
would move through Manhattan. How much
time do you spend imagining?
Six to eight hours a week.
Would you want to be Spider-Man?
Is that of all the superheroes? Is that who you'd pick?
Yes. Okay.
Who do you want to be?
Well, I mean, I haven't done that
much research. I guess Batman, you know?
I thought you were Squirrel Girl. That was
something that you assigned to me. That was
not. Van did. Van did. Van
assigned that to you. Yeah, and he wants to be
third chair. I don't know about that. Okay.
What's your next
pick? Speaking of Emily Wilson, best score
Ludwig Gorenson for The Odyssey.
I agree with you. I like the drums.
Could it win? Yeah.
That was me drumming. Would that be
three or four?
So that's
Sinners
and Oppenheimer
and did he win
for Black Panther? He did.
Sick. Good for him. Four?
Who's got four?
Who's got four? Well, how many does John Williams
have? He has like 18.
He has less than that.
I guess he's gonna. Maybe he has 18
nominations. He has like 50 nominations,
but how many wins does he have? John Williams
Oscars. One, two, three, four.
He's got four wins. Only four?
Wait, no. I'm looking at the wrong thing. I was gonna say.
Am I looking at the wrong thing? That seems. No, I'm not.
So he has a win for best score for
Fiddler on the Roof. Okay.
He won for Jaws. Okay. He won
for Star Wars. He won for E.T. Perhaps
you've heard of them. That's four. He won for
Schindler's List. Five. Five.
He has five wins.
Well. Isn't Ludwig Ornson like
40? Yeah,
but this is also. How old was
John Williams in 1994, which is the last time
he won? Very good question. Because
they kind of. They're just like, wow, you're one of the
greats and now we don't have to give you anymore,
which I think is rude. John Williams
was 62
in 1994. Okay. Well. So
Ludwig, you know, he's ahead of the
curve here if he wins. Yeah. Well, he attached
himself to Ryan Coogler
and Christopher Nolan. That was smart.
He didn't attach himself to them. I mean,
they collaborated. They worked together.
Well, he's very talented and I think. I like this, you know, that there was. This nomination
is for sure happening. I like the challenge
of this, which was that you can't use
any modern instruments. You can only use
instruments that were available in the
time of the Bronze Age. That was just the cool
prompt that Nolan gave him and
just kind of an interesting cinematic idea. And
I like that he responded to it. And I enjoyed
learning about the various instruments that were played
on this score. So that's a cool one. Number
three, best cinematography, Greg Fraser
for Project Hail Mary.
Project Hail Mary, I'm curious to see how
it nets out. It seems like there's some. a little bit of doubt now, maybe, that we're like
it's been six months since it came out.
Is that like Gosling blowback? Because
he's just. He's Bam Bam?
From me, but in general
I don't think from the Academy. I think it's more like
just how
big a player is it going to be? Is Gosling
really contending for actor? Oh, yeah.
I'm not sure about that. You know, is it definitely like
are Lord Miller contending for director?
Three months ago, I think you would have said they were very clearly
contending because it's a
very conceived movie. You know, like the decision
to shoot everything practically the way that they did and
it's totally their
perspective and sort of point of view as filmmakers.
Like if it really feels like them.
And so, but now
that we're getting into the moment where it's like we just listed
20 movies that people got to go see before
the fall, like will it have the same
register? I'll do that. I do
have it in best picture because I think with
10 nominations, I think
that there will be room for it. I don't have Lord and Miller
in best director
because that's not a numbers
you know, that doesn't make sense numbers wise, but also
I director always
gets so crowded
and the more international the
Academy becomes, the more international
directors
that are included. So I don't
I don't know. I could
probably like
six. Yeah, that's
I mean, you know, you're going to get sound. You're going to get
yeah, how much how many did
cinematography get up to
11? How many did you get? Score is very
good. Fury Road, I think, got like
10 or 11. So it could it could be
one of those.
Yeah, I guess what the
other thing that I'm thinking about is
some of it depends on what shakes out with
Dune Part 3 and how many
big ticket movies the category
can withstand. Like last
year, we had Sinners.
We had F1.
That was really it for
really big movies like One Battle and
Frankenstein are kind of on another tier
there. Yeah. And so
the idea of Project Hail Mary and the
Odyssey and Dune Part 3 all getting in is
really interesting. I mean, it's very rare for a number
of event films to get in all
in the same year. So maybe that's where some of the doubt is coming
from. But I like that you're putting it
out there. So that's one of your predictions. So
another prediction for me.
Best original song, Toy Story 5, Taylor Swift.
I knew it. I knew you. I think you should
sing this for us now. I don't know the words.
I still have never heard it. I'm on the record.
I like it. Yeah.
It's just an incredible. I think this was
like one week before she got married at Madison
Square Garden that you were like, now I'm in on Taylor Swift.
I didn't say that. Yeah. I said, I like that
song. I enjoyed
the song and I love the software updates
and tablets.
No. I didn't say that.
I need a new tablet.
You do? I haven't gotten an iPad in like
10 years. I should probably get a new one.
Yeah. We're the
we resurrected like a hand-me-down,
a tiny one from one
of the grandparents. That's
so old that you can only
you can't use any of the new apps, but you
can use Apple TV so that we
just have to. Okay. We had to buy everything
for the
plane ride. Anyway.
What Apple TV shows is Knox watching right now?
Is he watching Cape Fear?
Is he caught up?
He once opened the Apple TV and I
guess like a silo was on it and
he was so afraid. Masks are very
scary to him. I see. So he
saw it and he. He'll want to avoid onslaught.
He ran away from the
TV. Was like, who was
that person? Good to
know. I'm really glad to
about your late breaking Swiftiedom.
Congratulations.
Okay.
What's your
Oh, okay. Best actress in you never ready
obsession. Nice. Yeah. Do you think it's gonna happen?
I do. Okay. I think it's
a good story. I don't know whether obsessions
gonna happen in Best Picture, but
everybody likes a breakout
star. Everybody likes the
woman in a horror movie who goes for
it. Everybody Academy
voters like an ingenue still
and this is a
way to give obsession
it's due, which you
kind of have to. It's the movie story of the
year in a lot of ways. I think this will be its only nomination.
I don't know about
only, but I think that
I'm not sure about
Best Picture, but I'm pretty
sure that, you know, and it's the
Amy Madigan and weapons playbook.
So I
think it'll happen.
I think so, too.
I'm not totally sure. Well, you don't
have to have fun. Maybe competing
against her will be my last pick, which is Olivia
Wilde for Best Actress in The Invite. Yeah.
Which feels maybe not locked in stone, but
I feel like she's having such a strong
year and has more to come with Behemoth
and they're going to find a way to honor. And I don't
know if she's going to be able to get into director. Yeah.
So this would be a way to acknowledge how great she is
in that movie. That would be exciting.
Yeah, she's good. I really like that movie. I do think
it'll be in Best Picture, but the
Invite. Yeah. I hope so. That would
be cool. Wild prediction time. Yeah.
Best Actress
Emily Blunt, Disclosure Day.
I would want for it to happen.
Well, you said wild prediction. Also,
she is so liked.
She's great at
campaigning for Oscars
and for movies.
So I believe she'll get back on
the trail. If they nominated
her for Oppenheimer, come on.
I understand that there was like a big trade, but she
had nothing to do with that. She's wonderful in
this film.
Yeah. I feel like the mood
is not super strong on Disclosure Day, but
I like the prediction. I would agree with that.
But again, it's August. We have a lot
of time. The Oscars are not until
March 10th?
14th? 15th. 15th. Great.
The Ides of March.
What a stupid decision. Whatever.
Is it the 15th? I think it's 15th.
It is six months away.
More than six months away.
March 14th. Sorry.
Okay. Well.
You know, we
go up and down with these things. We get tired of
people. We bring people back. Just
think about it. My wild
prediction is that Michael could get in a best picture.
Yeah.
This is the F1 argument?
Yeah. Yeah.
Which is a lot of people have seen this movie.
It's made a billion dollars. They love
it. Yeah. And
we didn't. But
it's a huge industry
success. Michael Jackson
a more complicated figure than some other music
music biopics figures that we've seen in recent
times. But that
particular part of his history is completely
elided in the movie. Yeah.
And it is a great spectacle
with great music. And
Jafar Jackson, people really like his performance.
And so I
could be wrong. A lot of this is determined
by the movies that we're going to see from
this episode. But
I feel like it could go down.
I think it's totally possible.
I
you know, I've
have been listening to a lot of the music of Michael Jackson since I saw this
movie so i guess its purpose was served and will continue to be served it's not it's not a movie
yeah i mean it was released sure it was released and it made a large sum of money i'm i'm interested
to see what what is increasingly a more i don't know about progressive academy but certainly a
more diverse academy more international academy and one that is willing to honor you know a
slightly more thoughtful and complex version of world cinema right does with a movie like this
how does this fit in with the project hill mary and odyssey and dune three but do you think there's
room for four blockbusters i i don't but who knows you know i mean who also who knows what
happens with dune part three okay one assumes that we're looking at not the lord of the rings
narrative but at least the like we got to acknowledge this film's great
but i don't know we'll see amanda did you share your number one prediction
oh no no i didn't sure um diane warren's got another song everybody diane warren has written
the title for by any means the film starring mark walberg and yaya abdul-matin the second
listen she's she's she's trying she's gonna do her best she's well connected in a nonsense category
could have could definitely happen yeah could definitely she released it you know she like
did her single she's on the campaign once again so
can she win no i don't think she's gonna win for this one but i think you said nomination not wins
so i played to the letter of the law you did it right that's it any other closing thoughts before
you get on a plane i'm excited venetia i look forward to telling you as well um that pretty
much does it thank you
thanks to our producer jack sanders for his work on today's episode thanks to lucas kavanaugh for
his production support later this week chris ryan and i are discussing onslaught and building the
black and chrome action pack we'll explain what that means when we get there you sort of explained
it at the end of last week's podcast and i wasn't listening okay so i'm good but i will listen to
this have a great trip thanks bye
you
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Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Coyote vs. Acme, a long-awaited Looney Tunes film, earned $15.5 million at the box office and is seen as a cult favorite despite being a niche, visually driven legal comedy targeting older audiences.
The success of Spider-Man
A range of upcoming films—including Whale Fall, Elsinore, Resident Evil
Summary:
The fall movie season is being shaped by a few dominant trends: the overwhelming success of prestige films like *The Odyssey* and *Spider-Man: No Way Home*, which have redefined box office dynamics and set the stage for major Oscar contention. *Coyote vs. Acme*, though a modest financial success, has gained a cult following as a visually inventive, adult-oriented comedy rooted in classic Looney Tunes humor, appealing more to older audiences than young children.
A wave of new releases, including *Whale Fall*, *Elsinore*, and *Resident Evil: Raccoon City*, are generating excitement due to their unique premises and strong casting. Notably, *The Further Misadventures of Cliff Booth*—a Brad Pitt film directed by David Fincher and written by Quentin Tarantino—remains shrouded in mystery due to minimal marketing and unusual release strategy, adding intrigue. Meanwhile, *Verity*, a Colleen Hoover adaptation with a supernatural edge, and *Primetime*, a Robert Pattinson-led thriller, are drawing attention for their bold storytelling.
The season also reflects a broader industry shift, with studios prioritizing high-profile, festival-ready prestige films over diverse or genre-driven content, while smaller, independent releases offer compelling alternatives. As the fall film festivals approach, audiences are tuning in to a season defined by both commercial dominance and artistic ambition.
FAQs
The movie earned $15.5 million at the box office, which is considered modest but notable given its long development and online popularity.
The film became a cult favorite due to its long delay in release, social media backlash over Warner Bros.' initial decision to dump it, and its unique blend of Looney Tunes humor and legal comedy.
The movie is best suited for viewers aged 8 to 12 with a pre-existing connection to Looney Tunes, as younger children may not fully understand the visual humor and references.
The Odyssey has taken over movie culture and is expected to receive numerous Oscar nominations, with many predicting it will win Best Picture, shifting the focus of the fall season.
Key releases include Dune Part 3, The Focker-in-Law, and the highly anticipated 'Whale Fall' and 'Verity' films, which are expected to dominate the fall season.
The film is a mysterious, visually striking story about a man swallowed by a whale, with a strong emotional core and a mix of adventure and survival, featuring Austin Abrams and Josh Brolin.
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