The Comic Book Movie Death Rattle and ‘Supergirl.’ Plus: ‘Jackass: Best and Last’ Goes Out With a Bang.

I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the Big Picture 8 Conversation Show about two new movies, both signifying the end of something beautiful and painful. The first is Supergirl, the first superhero comic book movie. In nearly a calendar year, and the second feature from James Gunn's DC Studios. The second is Jackass, best and last. It is allegedly the final installment in the decade-spanning five-film self-harm extravaganza, which Chris Ryan's going to join us to discuss, thankfully. But first, let's get into some movie news right after this. This is the way. Hi, I'm Jon Favreau. We are launching the all-new Star Wars, the Amanda Lauren and Grogu official podcast. I'm sorry, I can't focus at the moment. We're going behind the scenes. With the cast and crew sharing stories from the set, creative insights, and a few surprises from across the galaxy. I think he's earned a little snack. Watch and listen to Star Wars, the Mandalorian and Grogu official podcast. Now streaming on Disney Plus or wherever you get your podcasts. And catch Star Wars, the Mandalorian and Grogu now streaming on Disney Plus. Terms apply. Every game day, you show up for your team. Now, it's your time. We go big! We go big! We go big! Ask your prescriber about WeGoV, some maglutide injection 2.4 milligrams, a GLP-1. Call 1-833-4-WEGOV or visit WeGoV.com to view the medication guide and to learn more about WeGoV. Why wait? We go big! We go big! We go big! We go big! We go big! We go big! We go big! We go big! We go big! We're going to go big! I don't really know how all of that works, but it does remind me a little bit of the state of the Mets roster where we've just got a lot of guys who are making a lot of money and we just need other teams to just take those guys away from us forever. And so I don't have to think about them anymore. And one of the only ways you can get people to do that is to pay down some of the some of the salaries. And this might be a similar situation where to get this movie off the books. Right. You might just have to pay down some of that budget. That seems incredibly likely. I assume that anyone who does take this movie will get a discount, as Matt Bellamy put it on his episode. I've just been Googling the various investors in Mubi and Neon. Famously Sequoia Capital. Exactly. Which is a major investor or not a major investor. No one sent me the, you know, deal sheets in AI, in open AI specifically. So that's tricky. Yep. And then I'm looking because Neon recently got an infusion of capital. Well, reportedly through Department M, which is a production company. But where their money is rooted is unknown specifically. And that's the thing. Like you said, all of these places are compromised in one way or another. You know, if we're being really honest, every movie studio forever has been compromised by where their money comes from. You know, the great wealth that engenders artistic opportunity very rarely comes from, you know, charitable organizations. That's not how this works. Paramount, a Gulf and Western company. Like we all know. Yeah. This one is extremely challenging because it's the subject matter of the film is rooted in the origins of the money. And so, you know, it's just, it's a fascinating story, a fascinating test case. In addition to the fact that it's a, you know, director who we really like. And so we really want to see the movie. And so. And who needs to win? He does need to win. I mean, that's not really fair. Challengers was like two years ago. But if you're only as good as your last. Yeah. Well, yeah. Queer and After the Hunt. Neither went over super. Super well. So we'll see what happens. We'll keep checking in on this. Sense and Sensibility. Yep. The new retelling of the famed novel. It's not a, it's a, not a retelling. It's just the latest adaptation. Reboot. Yeah. It's a reboot. It's a prequel. It's just like, Austin is like Shakespeare. People are just doing interpretations of the core text over and over again. Trailer came out. Yeah. You say what? Well, this we saw, in Vegas at CinemaCon. I just have to claim like a personal, what's it called in golf where you take a penalty or you take a. A mulligan. A mulligan. Okay. Yeah. You have to take a mulligan on the film. Yeah. Or I don't know. I don't know if that's the right sports comparison, but I'm too close. I'm too close to the 95 version, which is not to say that anyone can't do this. Let's use Chris Ryan's golf game as a way to portal into this metaphor. Everyone was hoping for when we talked about a Jane Austen adaptation. Chris lines himself up on the first tee of the golf course. Yes. He pulls out driver. He looks down the fairway. Yeah. He gets his mind clear. He bees the ball. Takes a big old whack. Yes. First swing of the day. Shanks it far right, right into a tree. Okay. Hits the tree, bounces all the way back at him. In the parlance of golf, he can take a mulligan. Okay. He takes the second shot. He pipes one right down the fairway and he's off and running and he's going to have the game of his life, the round of his life. Okay. So is that what you're saying you're going to do here? I think that my opinion probably shouldn't count. Oh, wow. What a joy to hear that out loud. I am just in this one case. And maybe you could learn from me as we talk about all the rest of the world of cinema, which is catered to your interest. No, thanks. But this I am too close to the Emma Thompson 1995. I've seen it too many times. I have like it's my comfort film. I put it on when we had to stay up until had to. But the can ticketing system was such that with time zones, we needed to stay up until midnight a lot of nights in order to be able to get tickets, which for me at my phase of life is difficult. Put on some sensibility one night just to hang out. So and that was the 1995. version. So I don't know how to respond to this. I can't respond to this. I would say that Daisy Edgar Jones does not bring the same things to cinema that Emma Thompson does to me. But Emma Thompson's version was also an adaptation. So I'm not trying to keep people away from this. I just have one truth. And that truth is Ang Lee's 1995 Sense and Sensibility. Okay. Thank you. This new version is directed by Georgia Oakley. As you mentioned, Daisy Edgar Jones, George Mackay, Katrina Balfe, Frank Delaney. Good cast. We'll see. Yeah. What if I love it a lot more than the Ang Lee version? Then what happens? We'll cross that bridge when we get there. Okay. Timothee Chalamet and Selena Gomez are going to star in an animated alien movie. Okay. Cool. I don't know. Get that check. Of all the ways that Timothee Chalamet has been getting checks in the last three months, I have fewer problems with this. We need to get some of the Timothee Chalamet money to Mitchell Robinson to keep the Knicks together next season. Do you think we can make that happen? So that's a tension? That's an issue. Yeah. He's a free agent. We need Mitch back. And who's the problem there? Is it Dolan? The problem is the collective bargaining agreement of the National Basketball Association, which if you exceed the second apron, enter the second apron financially, there's dramatic penalties involved. And we're trying to avoid that. Okay. Trying to maintain flexibility. What are the. What are the penalties? You go into the dunk tank. Okay. No, you're disallowed from making certain kinds of. Have you ever been in a dunk tank? No. No. I have thrown a ball at a target and put someone in a dunk tank, but I've never sat in the chair. We should figure out a way to bring a dunk tank into the big picture in 2027. That's one of my goals. Will you sit? Sure. Okay. I like water. Let's put a pin in that. This movie is coming from Illumination. Okay. Timmy, it's coming in April 2027. Okay. Which is very soon. Yes. And this will come on the heels of his Oscar win for Dune Part 3, no? Yeah. Right? Totally. One month later. Who is best actor right now? It's June? Is it June right now? Are we recording for June or July? Where am I? We don't know. No, this is the June 26th episode. It's June. Okay. So we're at that six-month mark. All right. Who's best? I mean, it's Ryan Gosling and Project Hail Mary. I mean, nomination. Yes. Is there anyone else on the board? And it's Sebastian Stan from Fjord. I think that's in play. Yeah. That seems possible. Not a lot else that we've seen out there. Do we think that Jeremy Strong is going to run in best actor or supporting? Feels like supporting. Feels like the A story is Jeremy Allen White, Mikey Madison in Social Reckoning. Okay. And then obviously, of course, Jeremy Allen White is the large hut. Yeah. Road to the hut. Yeah. Yeah. Rod of the hut. Rod of the hut. Right. Stinky. Stinky. Yeah. Well, he. But, you know, also jacked. Did you see The Bear season four yet? It's out? Yeah. It came out yesterday in full. No. And also, they made a new season of The Agency starring Michael Fassbender. Yes. Yes. And they dumped that all in one shot as well, just like The Bear. I don't know. I haven't seen any TV in six months, but I'm going to get into it. All right. Turn it back around. Let's come back to binging streaming TV because that's related to some of what I want to talk about with Supergirl. You know who best actor is. Sure. Yeah. Here we go. It's Tom Cruise. That's right. We segued ourself. Digger footage was released this week, as was a clip reel of some highlights from Tom Cruise's career, which was then, I'm sure, very organically shared by several dozen notable people on social media, including our boy Glenn Powell, J.J. Abrams, Michael Mann noted how excited he is about the film Digger online. Okay. Obviously, just watching Tom Cruise be entertaining in a clip reel. That's just something I like. I can't pretend I don't want to just watch highlights of Tom maniacally smiling and delivering dialogue. I love that. There's very little Digger in this compilation that was circulated. It's a three and a half minute video. It was maybe 20 seconds of Digger. You think they're hiding this for some reason? The Digger footage? Yeah. Because the film's coming out in three months. I'm. I don't know if hiding is what I would. I'm sure that they have a very carefully calibrated release schedule of when they think they want to put this stuff out. And because, as we know from the poster, Digger is a comedy. Yeah, it is. It includes some of the jokes. We've seen footage from Digger. Yes. They did show it to us at CinemaCon. A big extended trailer we saw. So with a trailer for a comedy, you end up putting a lot of the jokes and the setup in the comedy. So maybe they think they can just. Just sell Tom Cruise instead of having to sell this movie. I mean, I think that's probably wise. I think that's what they're doing, yeah. So do they need to put it out that soon? I don't think so. It's really interesting because, you know, I liked what we saw. And I'm not. As you know, not the biggest scenery 2 fan. Been really cold on him for the last 15 years. I do think that there's a lot of, like, straining in the marketing and everything around it. But I love a strange, lovey and over-the-top satire that has big scale and a big performance. I'm into that, I'm into the idea of this movie. they're not really, as you say, selling the movie. There's plenty of time. A trailer can come out in three days and, you know, we can dispense with this conversation. But I found it interesting that they were basically like, also, there's a movie coming out. Like, you love Tom Cruise, and that's the most important part of this marketing campaign. Well, I mean, I think it's savvy because of the footage we saw, what I responded to most was Tom Cruise doing Tom Cruise stuff. And I'm a little more nervous about the Ina Ritu of it all, even in what we saw, because sure, in concept, you know, a big concept, big-ish budget, apocalyptic comedy. I'm interested, but, you know, who's doing it? But the other half of it is who is doing it as Tom Cruise? And yeah, I, you know, lit up as soon as he was on the screen because he is a movie star to us. So they guess, marketing-wise, they know what they're doing. It's so funny because, you know, in that clip reel, too, there's plenty. A movie is that don't really have a lot of cultural weight, you know, like Rock of Ages is featured in that clip reel. Like, that's not a movie anybody really cares about and is not one that's, you know, he gives an amusing performance in that movie, but it's a blip in his career. So it's interesting the way that they kind of pick and chose how to highlight his magnetism as a movie star. You know, obviously, we'll be very digger forward in the month of October. So we'll circle back. Film Academy. Mm-hmm. The Ampus invited 529 new members. Okay. Including some of your goats, Jacob Elordi, for example. The Safdies, my boy Zach Kreger, whose Barbarian was announced on 4K Steelbook. What? Congratulations. We did it. Disney somehow decided that this would be a good idea. Thank you to them. Tiana Taylor invited, Jenna Ortega, Josh O'Connor, John Bernthal. I was going to say John Bernthal. Many other people invited. You know, yet another year in which hundreds more people are joining the Academy, and we're getting, I think we're over 11,000 now, and a lot of young people added to the mix here. Some names that I was surprised were not previously in the mix. And so we'll see how that affects voting for Tom Cruise in nine months. I'm excited for Josh O'Connor. Yeah, sure. He needs a win. I would love, hey, hey, that's mean. I agree that people didn't, were not. As kind to him as they should have been. It was the role. He wasn't supported. Yeah, he wasn't supported. And he was wonderful on the press tour. So love to know how much of his time. I would love to see his voting process. They should, they should open up his ballot and just follow him around. And then he's gardening and then being like, I guess I'll watch this short film. He strikes me as a man with very good taste. Amazing taste, but also like maybe not fluent with this, like the streaming interface. Oh, interesting. You think of him as like kind of an older gentleman. He doesn't know what TikTok is, or he didn't for many years. But neither do I. I mean, what does that mean? Right. No, but I think he literally like didn't know what TikTok was. Someone asked him, will you do a TikTok with me? And he said, I don't know what that is. That must be such a great way to be alive. I completely agree. And he's got great clothes and a little earring. I'm going to start fantasizing about that. Okay. One last piece of news. The Blair Witch movie reboot lands a 2027 release. Now, this new movie, which features, producers and stars from the original film and will be associated with the original film in some ways, but has a completely new filmmaker. I know it's been in the works for a long time, but it feels very responsive to the moment in horror that we are having with a young filmmaker with a lot of YouTube experience and using, leveraging some history to make something new. And also trying to recreate a generational phenomenon in the horror genre. You know, watching Backrooms, I think many of us thought, okay, so this, this is Blair Witch for young people. And I, Blair Witch was Blair Witch for me, and it was very powerful. You cannot reheat a souffle, but, you know, try and make some money. It's a tall order because, you know, they've tried with this, this movie before. Adam Wingard had a remake or sort of like a reboot circa 2017, I think. Obviously, Blair Witch 2, Book of Shadows went down in the annals of terrible movie sequels. But the original Blair Witch, there's something special and there's still a chemical association with the feeling of that movie. So I look forward to seeing what they do with it. That is coming out next fall, I want to say. Speaking of chemical associations, would you like to talk about Supergirl? I'd love to. Can I, can I please foreground this conversation in a blanket statement? Wonderful. Yes, go ahead. It's not directed at you. It's directed to the listeners at home. Sure. Um, the sweeping declarations that I am perhaps too fond of making, um, are going to come with like context. I know that the Spider-Man movie comes out in one month. And I know that Avengers Doomsday comes out in December. And that in all likelihood, those movies will be very big. I look forward to both of them. Spider-Man more than Avengers, but I honestly look forward to the Avengers movies. I do think that, this conversation that we're about to have though, is in part about something ending. It doesn't mean it's the end of superhero movies or comic book movies, but the era in which they basically dominated our adult lives feels like it's wrapped up. And it doesn't mean that something new can't start. It doesn't mean that there won't be movies like this again. There will be, there'll be a lot of movies like this because movies like this can make a lot of money, especially if they're done well. But I felt like a, like a certainty, like a calm, actually, when this movie ended, where I was like, all right, the ability to do this specific thing, which we will get into in one second, I promise you, does feel now ended. And I'm trying to be sort of measured and dramatic at the same time when I say this, because I've spent a lot of time talking about these movies for the last 10 years. And you've watched me twist myself in knots about their relevance, their power, their loss of power, you know, what they mean to me, what they mean to me, what they mean to me, what they mean to the box office, what they mean to creativity, how movie stars were sidelined for years playing with these projects, what it meant for generations of filmmakers who got shuttled into these stories. You've heard it all from me. You know, you've, you've mostly sat patiently. Sometimes you've whinged about it. Sometimes you've enjoyed it. I've seen all the movies. I've been sort of on the other half of that conversation. And I, I think that I care or not even that I, I mean, I do care less, but I'm less interested in the subject matter, which gives me more distance, I think, than you have to talk about it, which just makes me, you know, a different perspective than yours. But I agree with you. I, you know, it, it honestly, it just feels like I have to spend less time on this and that makes me happy. But there was a time when doing this job, it was so central to the culture of movies and to the culture around movies, uh, which are symbiotic, but different things. That I just had to consume it and know about it. And at this point, and with this movie, we went to the screening, we had a drink, like then we went home, we're going to podcast about it. And then we never have to talk about it again. And they live within their container, which I think is a healthy way to consume entertainment. Um, and to me, this is a little bit of the undoing of the superhero fan. Culture or the, the mainstreaming of that, the throttle that that has on the way we consume and talk about entertainment. And, and, and to be totally fair, not to be totally clear. I have always objected way more to the fandom of vacation of movies and our universe than I have to the movies themselves. Some of them are not very good. And, and, and some of them I enjoyed, like I can turn my brain off and be stupid and watch people fly around. So, um, yes, I'm happy. And I'm happy to hear you say that, but this isn't like a victory dance. And I, I can hear you anticipating all of the discourse and the, and the people yelling and many of those so-called fans, um, sharing their opinions. And you guys can do that. Well, they've been in a, in a defensive crouch for two, two or three years because they feel it's slipping through their fingers. And they're going to, and, and I think they will very under understandably say, well, there've always been bad comic book movies. It's not, this isn't really Supergirl's fault. It's more just a moment of kind of finality. And let's use it to get into the movie. Cause then we can kind of circle back to some of the grand eloquent theorizing around it. Um, this movie is directed by Craig Gillespie, who has directed many movies over the last 20 years, including Dumb Money, Cruella with Emma Stone, the Oscar winning I, Tonya, Lars and the Real Girl. It stars Millie Alcock, probably best known for House of the, from House of the Dragon as Supergirl, Matthias Schonartz, Eve Ridley, Emily Beecham, David Krumholtz, David Cornsweat returning as Superman and Jason Momoa, who returns to the DC universe, not as Aquaman, but as Lobo, who is a character that you now know about. Um, no, I've known about him for some time because you and Chris have said Lobo for about a year and a half. And so when he showed up on the screen, I had a real once upon a time in Hollywood moment, just being like Lobo, Lobo, Lobo is in the movie. Uh, here's the story. Kara's Kara Zor-El, AKA Supergirl, joins forces with an unlikely companion on an intercontinental stellar journey of vengeance and justice when an unexpected adversary strikes too close to home if that sounds vague it's because the movie is very vague um this is an attempt by the james gunn dc universe to not just um add a layer to the superman story that he started last year with his version of that film um but to build a bench you know to to tell more stories with new characters in this world and it's a very old-fashioned version of that it feels like a marvel movie from 2014 where you've got a new character who maybe was teased in a previous film but we didn't really learn much about them and we to send them on an adventure and in the course of that adventure we will learn a lot about what happened to them and why they are the way that they are and why they are on a mission to ultimately become heroic they are reluctant at first but they will eventually get on board right and we will physically get them back to the main stage and the main characters so that they can join the team yes this is a very tropey adventure story structure and it's very unsuccessful it's unsuccessful for a variety of reasons let's let's identify some of them i can give you two fire away well i mean i think there are two problems and one you've identified that it is so tropey and formulaic um while also unspecific and so the the places the villains the the side heroes who are actually secretly the main heroes come out of nowhere have no backstory have no development um and so you're just not invested in in either supergirl or in any of these people it's it's it just doesn't do the fundamental thing of making you invested in the story or it didn't do that for me maybe maybe some people will but i you know i'm coming in as a blank slate don't know a lot about supergirl i think i turned to you about 20 minutes in and i said what's her damage um and i i think for these movies to be successful as movies they do have to separate themselves from the homework and the lore and be able to create like a basic on-ramp for you to be invested in the stakes and this just doesn't really do that it's not that interesting and then it is also just on a a practical technical filmmaking level hot garbage yeah it's really not yeah like looks very bad very groany script there was a music cue where i almost you know slid under my seat and but also like a music cue that is supposed to communicate to you a sense of triumph and all the themes of the movie so i would say it's both uh creatively and technically uh empty yeah it it's a it's the brownest movie of the year um it takes place on a series of nondescript desertish planets we don't really have a sense of the geography of the story we know it's intergalactic in some way but we don't really feel like we know how far from earth cara is or why you know she's she's it's her birthday week the film takes place during her birthday week right you know i think she probably acts the way that you act during your you know just getting shithoused going to bars and we know it's her birthday week because of the elegant extravagance of the movie and i think it's a really good movie and i think it's a really good expositional storytelling of david cord sweat as superman facetiming her or zoom calling her i'm not really sure what the technology is on unnamed planet video phone sure video phoning and honestly they didn't even they just they put him on like a sears photo drop to video phone her they didn't even like make it at his home it's i don't know where he is so confused i mean maybe maybe he has zoom backgrounds on his version of skype but he's just like hey it's your birthday happy birthday yes uh cal l is is car's cousin and um i guess they're close car was some some years behind superman and her arrival to earth um they weren't classmates um in arriving to earth to to realize their superpowers together and she's you know she is a little bit less interested in following the kind of dopey sincere but very powerful mission that superman has and right one of the problems with the movie is that like i think james gunn really got superman superman is like a hyper sincere boy scout and i think that that could be a very powerful tool in telling a story and what's not that interesting to me is a character who's like oh so over it and burnt out and you know like sarcastic like gen xc like oh god okay guys i guess i'll go kick your ass now and we've seen that many times in superhero movies before and this is just like it just feels and the thing is is like it's not again not supergirl's fault like this is kind of based on woman of tomorrow a tom king uh series about supergirl it's it's somewhat in keeping with that characterization it's just and and people rave about that that series i haven't read it but i just it's a movie we've seen you know we've seen this over and over again and done better and so it it looking the way that it looks and it having this really rickety foundation where it feels like the movie's been kind of chopped up and you could feel the places where the edits are moving quick and we're trying to get to the next stage of the story because we don't have enough material to make this stage of the story coherent enough and you know you could just kind of feel people in in the in the screening squirming in their chairs a little bit and that was notable for us at our screening because that was a captive audience that we saw the movie with it was one part press screening one part fan screening i would say one part press screening two parts press screening with also a two parts fan screening yes two parts fan screening with um plus a baby yes who was not interested in the movie no the baby needed to be walked around in a stroller during the screening that was that was a choice going back and forth listen sometimes parents do need this it's hard to see movies when you have a baby i don't blame the parents for that i do have some questions for warner brothers and and i got yelled at by a trivia person but anyway yeah there was trivia a lot of people wearing supergirl t-shirts so it was a it was a home crowd and it was pretty much silent there was no laughter and definitely no cheering at moments of triumph possibly because there aren't really any moments of triumph and there are battle sequences in which supergirl and and lobo and and and ruthie emerge victorious ruthie eve ridley's character who is the who plays a um young woman who has witnessed her parents be murdered by creme who is matthias schonartz's villain figure we have also witnessed that we witness it as well in a flashback and her brother and her brother and her brother and her brother and she is seeking revenge on him um simultaneously creme has also shot a poison dart into crypto supergirl's dog's neck threatening his life yeah and so while ruthie seeks vengeance for her family's death uh supergirl is seeking an antidote for the poison dart i guess that's a plot of a movie i you know it's just a real thin gruel relative to even superman which i thought was real good like i really enjoyed it i was very charmed by it and so you um chose to go to the bathroom at an inopportune moment which is and listen life happens but you went to the bathroom during the five minutes of the film when david core and sweat um meets supergirl and shows up as superman and he's there in person it is supergirl cara arriving on earth and that kind of like ice winter palace that we saw in superman the fortress of solitude yes and because she has just come from kryptonite krypton krypton right kryptonite is the element since she has just come from krypton she does not speak english and and this scene actually just does really give her the only character development that i responded to which is that you know unlike superman she was born somewhere else she had a life somewhere else so she's been put at this place she can't communicate she doesn't know anyone as opposed to superman and she's like i don't know what to do i don't know what to do i don't know who has grown up and is is an all-american boy as much as he is uh you know an alien with superpowers yes so but anyway so she's there silent and it's david core and sweat acting and speaking to her in english and talking to her and welcoming her and doing all his superman stuff and the movie just comes alive he's really good as superman yeah and it's really unfortunate that the best scene in the movie supergirl is a movie in which supergirl does not speak yeah and i don't think that it's really the fault of millie alcock and i do understand why she was cast in this part as a kind of subversion of the like you know gal gadot like six foot tall amazonian like beautiful long sweeping hair like there's clearly a decision to kind of upend that expectation of what a female superhero should be um and her performance style is like kind of interesting and does feel a little bit unpolished i don't think that's a good thing i don't think that's where she is doing she has kind of like gosh it's almost like all the characters from heathers became one person you know and where it's like a little biting but then a little soft yeah and and you can never really figure out when when she's going to decide to be one or the other um i just don't think that the script serves her very well no i don't think the way the film is shot serves her very well i think that she is she is checked out from the movie which is probably 80 a performance choice and in the script, but also thus hard to um pull off because you are trying to communicate this sarcastic spiky unlikable person but also you have to be the hero of the movie yeah um so i don't think the script serves her and then i did sort of wonder if maybe she became aware of the mess that was swirling around her at all time also presumably she's just on a green screen for large swaths of this yeah the other thing is like this is a craig gillespie movie for better or worse and i i think it's more usually for worse and he's got a lot of stylistic habits that feel borrowed from better filmmakers and especially trying to deploy them in a movie like this is very obvious and uninteresting um james gunn is somebody who uses needle drops really effectively he has kind of made one of his signature components as a filmmaker is having these kind of counteracting needle drops he didn't invent that a lot of filmmakers have been doing for a really long time martin scorsese probably does it better than anybody craig gillespie also apes a lot of stuff for martin scorsese um he tends to use slow motion he tends to use these really diagrammatic camera movements where there's a real like oh wow quality that you're supposed to have while watching them but they feel they're very rarely rooted in intention they're just moves like if you watch cruella it's the same thing there's a lot of flashy stuff going on in cruella but it never really psychologizes the characters it really puts us in a place where we feel like a deeper sense of understanding of uh what the world is and in a world like this which is just like junk trader mad max fury road like like low low low grade fury road um it's not elevating anything it's not making us feel differently about the story that he's trying to tell and so you know you can see why somebody like this gets this job right he's like a safe pair of hands he's run a lot of big movie productions in the past and so you know in theory he'll be able to handle this hundred million dollar superhero movie but it's just boring like one this is a lame complaint but like not finding a woman to direct supergirl is just weird like it's just it's 2026 like what i mean i wanted to talk about this because you you know invoked gaga dot and and wonder woman but i was thinking through all of the standalone movies about a woman superhero and across both marvel and dc with the exception of the first wonder woman which i was really delighted by even though one movie um and looks good and at least until the end and all of the slop and is definitely helped by the chris pine supporting performance but fizzy all of the standalone girl movies are are not good and not well handled and that's a real bummer and i think that says something larger about the the machines and also yeah i and it's it's depressing i think i think black widow is not bad i think it has some things about it that are cool i didn't see it on a big screen and so i it's a little it's harder to judge that one particularly the movie that this movie reminded me a lot of is captain marvel the original captain marvel movie with brie larson and and i can almost feel them millie alcock and brie larson giving somewhat similar performances where they almost don't know what movie they're in and you know that movie was directed by two filmmakers one of whom was a woman um is a woman but it's you know it's i think i'm not trying to be some like progressive saber rattling about how like women need to direct more of these movies it's more just like for the perspective of the story well yeah it's like a middle-aged british guy directing this movie it's very strange but i mean and and that was not like my argument either that only a woman could have made those good it's just that that this is an entire not even subculture of movies now but an entire like the dominant culture of movies and they just have not figured out how to make a movie that's not good enough to make a movie that's not successful like women characters both yeah both by male or female directors you know it's it's an industry issue not any individual director this episode is brought to you by state farm upsizing to a large popcorn smart move staying for the post-credit sequence smart move finding ways to be financially savvy very smart move maybe the smartest especially when you choose to bundle home and auto with help from one of state farms 19 000 local agents bundling just another way to survive with the personal price plan like a good neighbor state farm is there prices are based on rating plans that vary by state coverage options are selected by the customer availability amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state i think there's also you can see other components a woman anna nogara did did write the screenplay for this movie but like there's a moment in the movie where cara has been felled by creme with kryptonite and the only way that she's saved cuts her head off is that lobo shows up out of nowhere and it's a real like we're in the super girl movie we can't we shouldn't having just having lobo save her and at the climactic moment of the movie just feels like real retrograde stuff that i felt like we were past and i feel like james gunn especially like knows better than he's really smart about this stuff part of the reason why the guardians movies are so good is because they feel kind of new they feel like iterative of something from the past they feel like an elevation of that thing so you know when when i'm making these proclamations at the top of the episode and trying to put context around them it's because movies like this keep happening you know we keep getting captain america brave new world we keep getting lousy movies and this is a lousy movie it's not good and it's supposed to be a big summer tentpole and we're coming off this wonderful 12 weeks right of movie stuff going on and the projections for this movie are yeah going down and down and down the word of mouth is very bad there's been some very funny posts of reviews from influencers who are like even i cannot tell you that this is good and they hit them with an inception six out of ten you know and it's like from from an influencer that's that's that's tough um yeah so i you know i've been trying to process and think about what all this was i wrote about it in the newsletter this morning i'm curious what you think it means i i have been drawing the comparisons to the big budget musicals into the westerns in the you know mid 20th century a lot where those were really the dominant forms dominant genre forms in the movies yeah about 30 years 35 years and they kind of expired and when they expired the new hollywood filled the vacuum where they broke it and they filled the vacuum yeah and i do see this in a somewhat similar context i don't know if you think about it in that same way i sure in terms of it is a a genre that like came to prominence at one point in time and they we've just been making tons of them and interpolating other genres into the genre and it's really a framework so yeah and certainly it's been dominant to me that you know the the influencers the influencers leaving you is kind of it is very important because for a while superheroes and the superhero genre were too big to fail but that required a participation of everyone of the studios throwing all of the money at it and the fans also doing their work to keep it up and you know it like it was a group effort and fascinating from like a both an economic and cultural perspective and i think what has like weirded me out so much about fandom culture is just um how much it felt just like a gross capitalistic exchange right you know and all of these people were just like i don't know i don't just doing the work for um for these companies and accepting less and now that pact is broken which you know i'm i'm happy about but it does seem like what happened is they lost the fans or they lost that magic agreement of we're all just we're going towards the same cause and we're all gonna pretend that this is working and it's cyclical like it's not working it will be back when spider-man comes out like it's gonna come back and it will absolutely be there for avengers because we were there in the room at cinema con which many longtime cinema con attendees said to us like that was that was very strange it feels like they brought a lot of fans into the room cinema con didn't used to be like this but they had to you know fan of you know fanification of the industry event um so it'll it'll definitely be a thing there's a very conversation to be had too about sort of like what is the media and what is the responsibility of somebody who has a platform to talk about things and so on and so forth we don't have to unpack all of those things um and also like it's not an accident that we the press were also at an influencer and fan screening because who warner brothers or who any studio decides to show their movie to ahead of time and for what reason it's their right to decide but it is more valuable for them at this point to to show it to people who are going to post positive things no no doubt about it um the fact that it didn't seemingly didn't work on this one is is is fascinating but you know this was true i saw masters of the universe last month and it was the same thing i was you know i was at a fan screening me and and rob mahoney and steve allman were at a fan screening um and that's cute that is how it goes now um that that is because that is effectively all that is left in that space now here's the thing like i i agree with what you said that there there was a very transactional quality to the rise of fandom influencer culture but i do think that it was born out of sincerity i do think and i and i think that as negative as i have been about this stuff for the last six years If you listen to the show before 2020, you'll hear a person who's frequently like, this is so fun, and I loved this, and I was never in that cohort of fandom influencer, but I understand if you're 27 right now, and you were nine when Iron Man came out, and you grew up loving those movies, and you watched The Dark Knight Happen, you watched the Raimi Spider-Man trilogy, you watched how James Mangold kind of screwed up Wolverine and then fixed it with Logan. You watched movies like even Superman last year. I think a lot of the fandom is sincere and hard-earned, and it did eventually become this thing about access and lore, and it became a really kind of like overheated engine. And ownership also, because there is this very strict version of fandom and sticking to the canon and what can or cannot be included. Mm-hmm. But no, I think you're totally right, and, you know, this is why it wasn't all bad, and it was both a very smart, creative, and certainly financial decision to take something that, like, a lot of people love and are really passionate about, and then give them what they want, and for the most part, do it well. Yeah. And, like, you know, because we live in capitalism, that can't exist on its own. Yeah. Then it just has to keep going. We're getting bigger and bigger, and more people have to, like, be brought along for the ride because we always have to keep growing forever. That's right. But it's smart, and it's also influenced, you know, many other movie companies. Like, we have, we've got Nolan Bros now, we've got A24 Bros, we have Barbenheimer, we have, like, the eventization and the, as you call it, the hyper-niche, you know, ification of pop culture where what you do is you find a passionate fan base, and then you try to serve things. Colleen Hoover, same thing. Mm-hmm. And that's not new, but the superhero era proved that it can make you, like, a lot of money. Totally. The problem is, is that, like, no money's ever enough. Yeah, and I think the up-and-to-the-right trajectory of all this stuff obviously ultimately soiled it, and it always kind of ruins all genre exploitation from the studio side. Yeah. I think something that I've heard frequently from people who do like these movies but know what's been going on. Mm-hmm. Which was brought on by COVID, streaming, but most specifically that they, that Marvel in particular, had this 12-year project. Right. To get a story told, the Infinity Saga. It wasn't always as perfectly mapped out as it might have seemed at times. It changed a lot. You should read Joanna Robinson's great book about the MCU, which details some of the stops and starts along the way. But they finished a story. They did a thing that had never really been done before, a serialization of moviegoing. That is wildly commercially successful, sometimes artistically successful, and no doubt generation-defining. And they did it. And it worked. And even irony-poisoned dicks like me were like, oh, my God, this is so fun. And then they kept going. Yes, that's it. And you know why they kept going? They've got shareholder interests, and they're part of a massive corporation, and they've got their livelihood. And I don't blame them for keeping going, but if they'd stopped, and the thing that I hear from the people, is if you'd stopped, you would have been Irving Thalberg. It would have been like, this is one of the greatest achievements in American commercial artistic history. And now we're like, well, fuck these movies. But more, more, more. You know? I mean, that's what it is. That's the problem with TV as a medium. It's a problem with many things and not just artistic endeavors, which is, you know, no one ever knows when to stop or market forces will not allow you to stop. It's true, but, you know. But you're right that that run, even though it's a movie, it's a movie. Someone had to, by someone, I mean Chris Ryan, had to explain to me why people were cheering when Captain America got the hammer. I was like, that just looks like a hammer. It is just a hammer. But it's not powerful? Of course it's powerful. What's it made of? It's a North mythological tool called Mjolnir. What is it made of? Which element? Cadmium? I was, no, I was trying to remember what's the. Xenon? No, no, no, no, no. What's the Wolverine one? Adamantium. It's not made of adamantium. Okay. He's from Asgard. But you got. Adamantium is an earthbound. That you know. True. Yeah. Fair point. Have you been to Asgard? No, I haven't been. Do they have mines there? Like, what's going on? A wonderful question. Yeah. I feel like we should get you in the writing rooms to some of these films, because you're asking those salient questions. Anyway, it didn't mean to me what it meant to a lot of people who were on that project and who were from that original fan base. And not even from that original fan base, because you've talked a lot about how your little sister, she's like, she really, really grew up with those. And that is a defining movie-going event for her. So, that stretch through Endgame did create a whole world and did bring a lot of people to the movies and train them to watch movies in a very specific way. That's right. And they were thrilled. And they were jazzed. And it worked. 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This episode is brought to you by Panda Express. Telling someone you love them, it isn't always easy, but showing them through food, sometimes that's better than words, especially when that food is good. Walk cooked at Panda Express, a Joe House favorite. Pick from delicious classics like orange chicken, honey walnut shrimp, kung pao chicken, and black pepper sirloin steak. Perfect for when you're watching the team you love or eating with the person you love. Have you eaten yet? Click or tap the banner to order or visit a Panda Express near you. And, you know, these movies shifting, they're not ending. I'm going to repeat this. Like, Fantastic Four First Steps, which I did not think was successful, still made $500 million. You know, Spider-Man will clear a billion. Doomsday will clear a billion. There'll be other stuff next year. I'm not even sure what it is that is coming after this. But this stuff's going to keep happening and doing well. But they're making way for Minecraft. You know, they're making way for another kind of movie that is going to start doing this. And Obsession in Back Rooms is kind of baked into this as well. And this sort of, like, demand for. There's something new that is originating from something that feel, like, that younger people feel like they have more ownership of. And now what has happened is, you know, 25 years in, these are not the movies that belong to Gen Alpha. Yeah. This is, like, my thing and maybe Gen Z's thing. But it's not for 10-year-olds anymore. And so there's something kind of fascinating about Doomsday coming around and being this. I compared it in the newsletter to How the West Was Won, the 1962 kind of mega Western that featured. Lots of very familiar but aging Western stars in this film that is directed by three different people in this beautiful format. But it's, like, a slow, rickety old Western. Doomsday might end up looking like that. You know, Robert Downey Jr., has he in his 60s? Like. I mean. These guys are getting old. But he's got a lot of tinctures and stuff. I mean, he looks amazing. In his geodesic dome in Malibu. He's a beautiful man and I love his work. You're saying that Infinity Vision is going to be the most beautiful format we've ever seen? There's something very Trump-coded about Infinity Vision. Of course! Yeah. Very, like, Trump coin, crypto. Yeah. The whole thing. I'm really, really interested in this stuff. Not just because of my adolescent interest in comic books, but because it does hit that meeting point of how I think the movie business, more than any other artistic business, is a very public thing. It's a very analyzable thing. And you can look at what's inside of the movies and see what was going on in the real world. I wrote about how. I genuinely think that the rise of superhero movie culture was attuned to a post-9-11 world where we had good guys and we had bad guys. We had terrorists and we had the American way. And movies about superheroes could be dichotomous in that way. Like, I really believe that there's something to that. That wasn't going to last. We've cycled through multiple political presidential administrations over time. We've seen the rise of totally different political movements. And one of the reasons why I think this has stopped. Being as relevant as it is, is that people every day fight online about truth, justice, and the American way. And we don't need avatars to do that. And whether they're on the left or the right or in the middle, they are the ones who are like, Today, I stand to thwart history. And I say, no mas. I find all this stuff in the stew to be really fascinating. But that's all. It's all external. It's all being in the. theological minefields, It's not really like, it doesn't change the fact Supergirl is just a bland, forgettable superhero movie. Yeah. It's not good. That's the other problem. It's just not good. They didn't do it well. No, they didn't do it well. There have been a series of five, ten years. What was the last very good superhero movie? I liked Thunderbolts. It was, yes. I guess it cleared the bar of if you had a good time watching it. It wasn't bad. Yeah. I liked that. I liked the Batman. Don't remember that. Yeah. I liked, you know, some things about Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. We're getting into that, like, there's stuff I enjoyed about it. But what has happened is that there's more stuff like Thor, God of Love and Thunder, where you're just like, well, this just stinks. Like, this is just terrible. Like, there are more and more movies that are like this, that are like Supergirl, you know, that are like Craving the Hunter, where you're like, this just stinks. Right. Like, it's just terrible and it's going to be forgotten instantaneously. And there's been a much higher preponderance of those. Yeah. And I wouldn't overlook that. That just like when things are quite bad, people check out. You're right. And when there's nothing to hang on to, then you don't and you find new audiences. Let me ask you an unanswerable question. Okay. In the parlance of the rewatchables. If COVID didn't happen. And if the only way to really get Marvel storytelling was through streaming shows. Wait. Didn't happen. Oh, it didn't happen. Okay. I was like, if you didn't have COVID, then why would you need to stream at all? They did. They did. They did. They were going to make the streaming shows regardless. But they became the primacy of Marvel for like 18 months because Black Widow went straight to VOD and the other movies basically had to take a pause. And they couldn't launch new heroes like Shang-Chi. They failed to kind of effectively. Right. Do that in the imagination of the fans. So if the pandemic doesn't happen, is any of this different? Does this have a longer shelf life? Are you divesting creative and technological and filmmaking resources to the streaming shows still? You are. Then that's, then no. Because I do honestly think that there was always going to be a downslope because you finish Endgame. And you know, when you find. When you find an ending, stick to your ending. And of course, they weren't going to do that. And also just, you know, as you said, there are cycles. People get interested in new things. People grow up. Your sister's a grown up now. You know, it's like, you know, life moves on. I should ask her if she's going to see this movie. But I do think that some of it is just like they're all quite bad. And it is because they're using less resource material. They're more the effects and the number of people who can work on the effects and how much they're being paid. And it's just. Yeah, there's a resource constraint going on now. Yeah, for sure. So I think that as long as that continues. And also if the streaming shows exist, then in this web that they've created, everyone, all the shows and the movies and everything still have to speak to each other and you become it's always sunny guy, you know, that was a that was a big, big problem for them. Yeah, they clearly made some major mistakes by putting too much of the necessary understanding in the streaming series, which people just. Clearly, we're not engaging with at a certain point. And it's a numbers thing, right? Just if the more you try to do, the more that can go wrong. I mean, I always think of the Matt Damon on Bill Simmons podcast has been like making a movie is really hard and everything can go wrong at any time. And so you multiply that and you add in all these streaming shows and all of these things. I just the numbers are against them, which is fine because they have billions of dollars from the other stuff. So they could have just retired. But I guess they don't like the beach. No, no. And people want to work because they feel a sense of purpose. I don't I won't take that away from them. I don't either. To me, it's not about the individual people at Marvel or D.C. or even even the movie studios per se. It's much more structural. Like there was no way they were ever going to be able to turn the faucet off the same way that they didn't turn the faucet off on Thoroughly Modern Millie in 1967, even though it was like, you know, Thoroughly Modern Millie. It made some money. It got some Oscar nominations. You know, these things are they're sustainable. They're systemic. They're not individuated. And so it's the same way. I'm like Supergirl. Yeah, they kind of fucked it up. They fucked it up. Well, you know, it happens, but it does. It will augur change in the business pretty meaningfully over the next 10 years in a way that I find interesting. Hey, two things that I want to say to you. One, appreciate you hanging with me on superhero movies for 10 years. Oh, you're so welcome to. I promise to not make the Spider-Man episode this. And I promise to not really do this anymore about this genre because I feel a sense of finality the same way that like all my box office freak outs in 23, 24, 22. I put those to bed and I'm putting this larger concern to bed. I feel I've written through my idea, too. And I'm like, I figured it out. I figured out how I feel about it. We need like, you know, some sort of like bell or, you know, see like situation, like some sort of thing here, like a ceremony to like set you free, you know? Yeah. Let's release the demon. Ascending forth. Congratulations. Thank you. I feel whole again. Yeah. And now, and now, you know, I can enjoy Deadpool 4 and not have to worry about it. You know, like there'll be plenty of more stuff for me to like. Okay. Spider-Verse movie. You know, those are my favorite movies. Spider-Verse movies. They're good. They're very good. Yeah. Okay. I think I, and anything else you want to say as we close the book? It's been a great ride. I loved every minute of it. I'm sure you did. Okay. Let's bring in CR and talk now about the end of something else. Jack-ass best and last. Okay. CR has appeared magically. Hello. Hi. You showed up like a, like a bull. I did. In a ring. To gore you guys. You're going to, you're going to take us out with your takes. We just spent an hour plus doing an emotional rending of superhero garments about Supergirl. What's a Cara? She didn't. I think you'll find it's Cara. Cara. Cara. She did not rise to the occasion, so to speak. You will, though, as we talk about Jack-ass best and last. Okay. Weird movie. Yeah. First movie. Easily one of the best times I've had at the movies this year. I'm not sure that that makes it a movie. No. No, it's definitely not a movie, but we had fun. We had a lot of fun. The three of us saw it together last night. This is the fifth installment in the Jack-ass film series, although there have also been the bad grandpa, bad grandpa, dirty grandpa. Yeah. And then there was like, cause a couple of them, and I would put this in the category as many people have noted, is this is a 0.5. It's like a degree, just a clip show, some greatest hits. Some, some very poo forward stunts, which I think is probably where those guys have wound up where like at in their fifties, they're like, what we can do is experiment with poo, but we can't really get, you know, thrown out of moving vehicles anymore. That's right. The movie, which is probably 40% new stunts and gags and 60% retrospective celebration of some of their greatest works. Um, and where they're at now is that they have to downshift physically into what they're allowed to do, able to do to survive, especially Knoxville, Steve-O, um, Danger Aaron, Chris Pontius, Dave Englund, the guys who've been around for the majority of these movies. Now, I'm not sure if we've ever podcasted about the Jack-ass movies. Now, Chris and I certainly have at least once and maybe even twice. Um, but it was, it was very fun to see the movie with you too, because you were, you, you dug it. You were having a grand old time, but it was funny to see when we laughed and sometimes and I think I laughed at different things than the two of you did. And then I also laughed when you guys really lost it, but I wasn't laughing at the movie as much. I was laughing at you. Um, but we were talking on the way out that I guess we haven't podcasted about Jack-ass, but Jack-ass is very important to my life because I live with three men and I do feel like there are some things that I don't understand that's happening in my house and it like grows every day. And it does often remind me of Jack-ass. And I feel like it has been a skeleton key to understanding the primal urges and relationships of the people that I cohabitate with and also predictive of what's to come. But there is something, you know, this is a very poop forward movie as is my life on a day-to-day basis at home. So there's something cyclical about it in a way. And there was one, I mean, there are many different types of, um, poops that you see over the course of, uh, Jack-ass. This is the most scatological of the Jack-ass movies. And, and, and many of them are really saying something. Many of them are, are quite gross, but the, but there was one where I was, some of them, I was like judging the texture based on like what I dealt with, you know, earlier throughout the day. And I was like, Oh, this seems fine. And then I was like, Oh, I never thought about using crunchy peanut butter in that way. But yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. But see, like, you don't know. Also, Zach's still only one arm. So I am changing all the dirty diapers in my house. Okay. Let's try to break up the Jack-ass experience into three distinct strata, phylum, whatever you want to call it. There is pure pain. There is a giant hand smacks you in the face. There is, you launch yourself to a rocket and you fly off into the ocean. I don't want to say that in this new film, uh, a man has to walk on a balance beam while a shock collar is attached to his penis. So that to me falls in the second category, which is dick pain. Dick pain. Oh, okay. Is a category of jackass. Yes, there is. There is as low grade as a robot. Just hits you in the nuts. Or just nut taps. Like lots of guys doing nut taps. A lot of taps throughout the entirety of this franchise. And then the third is shit, vomitous, you know, smell anxiety. Like this, like we're exposing you to a bodily orifice that will make you ill in one way or another. Now, number one is my favorite. The glee of watching another man get hit in the face and then his group of friends laughing at him. Yeah. That to me is when Jack says it's very best. I would like to add to it like a subcategory of that where like a hit that sends someone flying into the air. So it's really like when someone takes flight. I think you and I are Knoxville originalists. Yeah, of course. I want to see him strapped to the back of a rocket. I want to see him with a bull. I don't think anybody's ever seen the footage that opens this movie. Is that right? That was crazy. So insane. Which is so fucking nuts. I don't even want to spoil it. I am. I go Knoxville. And then probably like I would say Steve and Pontius, while I respect what they are capable of, are like a little lower down the power ranking. Yeah. For me, for like just pure nudity, running up to guys and being like, here's my penis or go for it. Yeah. Not something you've done. Things that I'm pulling out of or putting into my bum. Yeah. That to me. There was. In terms of like penis. And I guess I understand that testicles are different than penis. Oh, good. But there was some ball. Listen. No, the bad grandpa. Like I know about penises in one way, but also like I'm having to learn about them in new ways. Well, I mean, enumerate them. What are the ways in which you know about them? I'm not Mallory. So. But so I found Jackass instructive in that way, as you also try to like, I don't know how to teach two young kids about their penis. See, it's the exploration. Of the male body. Right. But you guys, I think, laughed the most of anything, if I recall, at the stunt involving just like very, very like elongated anatomy. I like I don't want to spoil anymore. And that physically being on display. And that was when you were like, you're losing your mind. That was the most giggling that I saw. I it had also the element of Jackass that I think that they've probably lost as their celebrity. Has grown, which is their ability to go gorilla filmmaking. Yeah. And I have to say, I mean, obviously, Knoxville in the course of this film has several emotional moments, say, realizing that he can no longer do this. And, you know, I think not unlike Mission Impossible for they never really, truly turn the franchise over to a new generation. Sure. And YouTube sort of market corrected for a lot of the prank stuff, but the gorilla filmmaking side of this and the moment where I found myself getting very emotional is towards the end of the film. There's a multifaceted. Stunt that they do, and they go to the control room and Spike Jones is there and I was like, I can't believe that this is one of our great filmmakers, like one of the greatest filmmakers of our lifetimes and the thing that gives him the most joy is still the thing that gives me the most joy, which is seeing Dave kicked in the nuts 50 times by a contraption that is a wheel of spinning shoes. Yeah, I there's I felt a little sad during that sequence seeing Spike is the only time Spike is really on screen voice a couple of times. Through some of the retrospective stuff, but he hasn't made a movie in over 10 years and he was that was one of my guys, you know, going all the way back to the music videos and obviously he is a critical part of this because he comes out of the skate culture and skate videos that all these guys are born out of and they all all these guys have this interesting thing now where especially that first generation of jackasses are skate and surf punks and they're not like ideological punks. They're they're anarchy punks and it's like it was a very particular flavor of dude that I certainly knew they're very prevalent in California and the mischief and the sense of glee that I always felt like Knoxville and Steve-O and then the other component is Bam and Bam Margera is featured in this movie and he's had a lot of troubles over the last 10 years and Ryan Dunn is featured in this movie. He's had a lot of trouble over the last 10 years and Ryan Dunn is featured in this movie. It's more of a frame of mind than me having every single stunt memorized, but I remember them abducting Brad Pitt. Yeah, it was interesting to see how they picked and chose what their most iconic moments were or what were the launch pads for discussions between Knoxville and Jeff Tremaine, the longtime director and producer of the series and Steve-O and, you know, kind of the godfathers of the thing. And I think the fairly uneasy integration of the new class of people, which I think they struggled with in Jackass Forever 2, where it was like, it's cool to watch. It's funny. It's like, obviously, it's like if you had invented Facebook, you would have invented Facebook. Like, this has been done like other prank shows. There are other fear, like Fear Factor. There are things on YouTube you can watch of people being like, I'm jumping through a play glass window, you know, whatever. These guys are kind of stars. And it is really weird to be in my late 40s, a little bit younger than these guys, having watched them for most of my life, like half of my life. And seeing a little bit of the toll it takes on them, you know, and I think that this is like an appropriate place to end it, you know? Yeah. Do you think it is the ending? I mean, no. Who can say? I did wonder, you know, this is a Paramount film and a Paramount franchise, though conceived over previous owners. And you start to wonder how risk averse or not the new ownership is going to be. Yeah. So, like, will they be able to get away with all of this stuff? I don't know. It's a really interesting question. And it dovetails with, I think, a lot of that Knoxville's emotionality around the movie. Like, he's done interviews over the last couple of years where he's talked about how he's basically been told, like, you cannot get another bull-oriented concussion. Like, your life will be in jeopardy if you keep doing this to yourself. And he's really sad about it. And he has this, like, really complex relationship to being punished on screen and knowing that it's kind of his calling. Like, it is his art. And the films have made this. It has made this very smart association with Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin and the history of kind of physical comedy. It opens with basically a dance, a big dance number, this film does. Yeah, so. That is sort of Jamiroquai-inspired. Yeah. The sliding rooms. And so it's weird to have, like, big feelings around Jackass that are not hilarity. But this was true when Chris and I did the Jackass Forever conversation, too. I don't, there's no other movie that gets me just moving around. There's no other movie that gets me just moving around as much in my seat, you know? Yeah. Reacting so profoundly. It's pure cinema. It really, in that way. It is pure cinema. It is, like, cover my eyes, crying with laughter, like, wanting sequences to go on forever, wanting sequences to be over in one second. Yes. And I do love these things. And I'm not joking. It captures something about, like, the male urge. Dudes, yeah. That I don't understand and don't have, but have never seen so clearly articulated. I'm grateful for the work. And then also, I mean, this one, one of the final stunts is, the premise is based around colonoscopy prep. Yeah. So we are all of an age, you know? Yeah. And then we're recognizing that and seeing it and so are the people on the screen and, you know, life comes at you fast and it's horrible. I hope this isn't a HIPAA violation. Yeah. Chris and I have both had colonoscopies this year. And the prep is the worst part. It's awful. I had to do it for a different surgery recently. Like, I'm traumatized by that drink. The drink is the worst thing I've ever had in my entire life. And you just, like, when you see the. them chugging it you're like oh my god i can't believe this is oh and there's something so ingenious though at being at colonoscopy age which many of those guys are being like let's just do a gag built around this you know there's something yeah something very real and honest even though the gag they do is let's play twister like you know all the stuff that i love about early jackass is why they can't make any more jackass because this this show it airs i i don't remember seeing the box before i don't remember it either and so they basically put knoxville in a cardboard box and throw him down the stairs and he's like i i herniated two discs i'm like yeah they said they couldn't sat on his wallet weirdly for like six months and had like crippling back pain imagine throwing you down the stairs but they said they weren't allowed to air it because it was too replicable too replicable and that people could figure out a box and tape yourself in it at home but it is like the origins of the show are so wonderfully adolescent in that way where that is the kind of thing you would do when you're 11 years old well that's what he's gonna miss he's gonna miss having a reason to get together with these guys and come up with stupid shit and get paid for it i know it's a wonderful thing i think it should be celebrated it is not really a movie and yet like it didn't really matter i had a great time it was 90 minutes long i was happy to actually be watching the retrospective stuff and to be reminded of it and to be seeing it in a room with a lot of other people laughing and it kind of i feel like normally i'd be pretty cynical about this to be like this is a cash-in or whatever but i'm like these guys might die so if this is the best they could do it's fine by me it's also just like you know exactly what you're getting when you're going to these movies so like there's nobody in the theater who's like oh i can't believe i'm being subjected to this he's like you knew what it was you know what it is yeah enjoy it or don't watch it it was like a family reunion it was like this slideshow projected at a family reunion well put any any closing thoughts uh do you want uh jackass new blood like do you do you think paramount will leave this alone i don't think they'll leave it alone because money is money right but whether it will ever get back to i know there's something specifically about when knoxville like tasers somebody and then starts giggling when they're in extreme pain that like you cannot replicate like they can't there's never going to be that specific feeling of of anarchy and mania they also have to have like a certain brat i mean like they talk about how when they brought on the new people they would talk about what they're scared of and tremaine's like i can't believe this guy's just telling me everything he's scared of i'm definitely just gonna have him put in all of these situations and he does you know um i don't i i i well we always have like the previous tv seasons and in the movies so and also you can come to my house that could come to your house maybe that's where the next season is happening running around jackass six the dobbins baron household uh okay well cr fortunately you're sticking around because you're doing another episode with us uh thanks to our producer jack sanders for his work on this episode thanks to lucas kavanaugh for his production support next week i think we're gonna have three episodes and then you're not sure if we're gonna have three this is the magic of podcasting and i'm not gonna even tease what it might be it'll be a solo pod by me direct to camera i stand with supergirl see you then you this episode is brought to you by whole foods who has your back to school eats sorted wow we're going back to school already they've got your fast and easy breakfast covered with frozen waffles and pancakes lunch boxes are looking tasty with organic seedless grapes and baby carrots and essentials like cheese sticks then for dinner you can build your own meal choose from a variety of entrees like chicken scalpini and two sides and it's all good too whole foods has banned more than 300 food ingredients store-wide shop back to school must-haves at whole foods market in-store or online tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college that's why she shops at bj's wholesale club saving up to 25 off grocery store prices beef jerky microwave meals laundry pods even they can't screw up have you met my kids and with bj's gas she gets there for less they call me the road warrior this is your home road warrior mom home of the save join for just 20 at bjs.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months open soon limited time offer new members only bj MJ's, home of the save.