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Sean Fennessy
I'm Sean Fennessy.
Amanda Dobbins
I'm Amanda Dobbins.
Sean Fennessy
And this is the Big Picture, a conversation show about two new movies, both signifying the end of something beautiful and painful. The first is Supergirl, the first super 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 gonna join us to discuss, thankfully. But first, let's get into some movie news. Right after this.
Amanda Dobbins
I see you.
Sean Fennessy
Fire and Ash is now streaming on Disney. It's the film critics are calling the best Avatar yet. A true and completely jaw dropping.
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This is the only pure thing in this world.
Sean Fennessy
Return to Pandora on Disney. It will be an adventure for the whole fam. And watch the Oscar winning phenomenon at home.
Amanda Dobbins
This is sick.
Sean Fennessy
Avatar, Fire and Ash now streaming on Disney. Rated PG 13.
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This summer, serve up the cookout classics. Oscar Mayer hot dogs and Heinz mustard.
Amanda Dobbins
Grill up a dog, add classic yellow
Sean Fennessy
mustard or loaded Chicago style.
Amanda Dobbins
We all know it's not a cookout
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without Oscar Mayer and Heinz.
Sean Fennessy
We've been pre taping some episodes and so a lot of news has been transpiring. Do you feel ready to break down each and every component of this news?
Amanda Dobbins
Most of it, yes.
Sean Fennessy
Okay, let's start with the debut. This is one of the only movies that we did not mention when we had our little side text chain about potential Oscar contenders last week. We didn't know the title of the movie. We didn't know when it was gonna come out. But it has been on the slate for a 24 for a long time. It's Jesse Eisenberg's new movie as writer director. He has also written the words and music to this alleged musical. Sort of a musical. It stars Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti. We have a trailer, you know, as I recall. Yeah, Jesse's previous film. Not your favorite movie of that year.
Amanda Dobbins
That's not fair. I liked it and I even liked Kieran Culkin's performance.
Sean Fennessy
Oscar winning.
Amanda Dobbins
And once we decided in like July that he was gonna be the Oscar winner, I think it was actually a Telluride, but it was at least six months in advance and he steamrolled through the season. I just, I didn't think it reached that level. And I was also annoyed with the lack of interrogation of that decision. But I like Jesse Eisenberg. I liked the movie.
Sean Fennessy
Okay, cool.
Amanda Dobbins
I like everyone involved with this movie. Julianne Moore. Paul Giamatti nervous about singing. You know, that's a blanket situation for me. I don't like it when people sing.
Sean Fennessy
You know, Paul Giamatti doesn't have an Oscar.
Amanda Dobbins
That's true. Because you and I denied him one for the holdovers.
Sean Fennessy
It was us personally that wasn't. I claim no responsibility for that. You know, I do like Jesse's last movie quite a bit. This movie looks interesting. You know, there's a very famous episode of the Simpsons in which Marge joins a local theater production of I believe, a Streetcar Named Desire. I think the name of the episode is A Streetcar Named Marge. And this movie's plot looks eerily similar to that episode of the show in which Julianne Moore plays a middle aged woman who discovers her soul and creativity in a local theatrical playhouse. And that's funny because, you know, obsession was also inspired by a Simpsons episode. And I feel like this is gonna keep happening. The Simpsons, the well runs deep.
Amanda Dobbins
We have all come of age. People who grew up with the Simpsons both like interpreting and regurgitating old culture and then inspiring new culture, are now being given, like, small to medium sized budgets.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, yeah. So this looks like a nicely mounted film.
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Sure.
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah. So I'm looking forward to that. It's coming this fall and I suspect will be at some of the film festivals. This feels like a Telluride movie to me. Does it not?
Amanda Dobbins
Absolutely.
Sean Fennessy
Okay, that's just a guess that's exciting
Amanda Dobbins
for you in the mountains. Some musical singing, Julianne Moore hanging out. Julianne Moore seated like fourth row, third row at the Knicks games.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, well, a longtime Knicks fan.
Amanda Dobbins
Exactly. But once again, there were certain individuals who will not be named who displaced her to the third or fourth row. But she was there with dignity and with purpose.
Sean Fennessy
But what we really respect about her is in 2017, when things were bad, bad, bad, she was in the front, first row with her husband in like game 48 against the Hornets. And, you know, she was showing out, so she earned this title as well.
Amanda Dobbins
So I'm a little mad that she didn't get courtside for the moments of actual glory, but, you know, let's get
Sean Fennessy
her courtside at the Academy Awards. That's what I say. Okay, next thing. Artificial status status check. This is a film that does not have a distributor. It has a director, it has a cast, it has a completed scenario.
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
Sean Fennessy
It's a movie about Sam Altman. We talked about it last week. As of June 21, Netflix A24 and Focus reportedly passed. Mubi is reportedly pursuing and Neon is also possibly circling. Is this movie going to come out? Gut check.
Amanda Dobbins
I. Yes, yes.
Sean Fennessy
Not a very confident response.
Amanda Dobbins
I mean, they're releasing the Looney Tunes movie now, right?
Sean Fennessy
Yes, they are Coyote versus Acme.
Amanda Dobbins
But they never released Batgirl, right?
Sean Fennessy
Batgirl, yes. Was deleted from the hard drive.
Amanda Dobbins
So I'm trying to think of other recent instances now. Those were both like tax justification, quote unquote, tax justification.
Sean Fennessy
I believe that's the case for Warner
Amanda Dobbins
Brothers of that it was cheaper to do a write off given their various debt restructuring. Who can even know what's going on at Warner Brothers? Which is something we will discuss later in this episode. But so this is different because this is, this is content. And as we discussed, I don't remember at this point when that episode was
Sean Fennessy
last week, several years ago.
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, it's really about who doesn't. Who is not compromised enough by big tech money to take this on. And we, we went through the list and we knew that, you know, Netflix, Disney, Warner Brothers, Paramount, whatever's going on there, we're never going to compete. We didn't think that Universal would be in the mix because they don't take on this type of controversy. A24, we had some wobblings about then. Would you like to move to the next.
Sean Fennessy
Just amazingly well timed information that Google invested $75 million into A24 and it's to develop AI powered filmmaking tools. Now this, they went to great pains to communicate that this was separate and distinct from their film library and their film content. And this would not be a generative AI filmmaking structure. However, you know, there's optics here about that and people seem a little bit mad.
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
Sean Fennessy
Anytime AI is associated with the film business or any creative arts, people are going to get mad. And this kind of association, in addition to, you know, Thrive Capital being a major Investor.
Amanda Dobbins
Exactly.
Sean Fennessy
In AI and.
Amanda Dobbins
And also in A24. It was 2024, I believe.
Sean Fennessy
Yes. So, you know, all of those relationships, I think make all that a little bit dicey. And so, yeah, I mean, Luca, he might just find himself without a chair in this game of musical chairs. It's possible. This does happen. Sometimes these movies just go away and you know, it does.
Amanda Dobbins
But it does also seem like such an opportunity for some upstart or someone. You have Luca, you have Andrew Garfield, those are big names. You have that. This is a very negative movie about Sam Altman at AI at a time where there are many people who seem ready to receive that.
Chris Ryan
Yeah.
Amanda Dobbins
And now you have the controversy of, as we said, the Movie they don't want you to see.
Chris Ryan
Yeah.
Amanda Dobbins
So the question is if there is anyone left related to the movies or anyone left in a distribution capacity who is untouched by. And not just AI really, but really tech at this point. Because big tech has put so much of its money into like making AI happen. And yes, that was a mean girls fetch reference. So I don't know. I mean, it would be really fun if someone gets creative. It does feel a little bit like we're gonna make someone livestream it, like Rob Mahoney on his Instagram, but I don't know. I would crowdfund for that.
Sean Fennessy
It's tricky because it's obviously an expensive movie. It's a big budget Hollywood drama. You know, it's not a small indie. And so 10 or 15 years ago, this sort of thing, when this sort of thing would happen, movies could more quickly find homes. Because in addition to the fact that I think some of the kind of like shingles inside of the majors were more adventurous in terms of the kind of movies that they would put out, there were some more small companies, small, small distributors that would be able to take on a movie like this. Ketchup Entertainment is taking on Coyote versus Acne. You know that there's. It's a very thin pool. Even a bunch of the new studios, you know, Ro K Black Bear, a bunch of the distributors who kind of emerged in the last 12 months, it's proved a little challenging for them to really gain a foothold. And so taking on tens of millions of dollars investment in a movie like this, I mean, I'm sure Amazon will eat some of the production cost to give the movie away. I don't really know how all of that necessarily 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.
Amanda Dobbins
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.
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Sure.
Sean Fennessy
Famously Sequoia Capital.
Amanda Dobbins
Exactly. Which is a major investor or not a major investor. No one sent me the deal sheets quite a bit in AI in OpenAI, specifically. So that's tricky.
Sean Fennessy
Yep.
Amanda Dobbins
And then I'm looking because NEON recently got an infusion of capital that was
Sean Fennessy
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.
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
Sean Fennessy
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 is Paramount, a
Amanda Dobbins
Gulf and Western company. But we all know.
Sean Fennessy
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. And in addition to the fact that it's a director who we really like, and so we really wanna see the movie, and so.
Amanda Dobbins
And who needs a win.
Sean Fennessy
He does need a win.
Amanda Dobbins
I mean, that's not really fair. Challengers was like, two years ago, but if you're only as good as your last.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, well, queer. And after the hunt, neither went over super well. So we'll see what happens. We'll keep checking in on this sense and sensibility, the new retelling of the famed novel.
Amanda Dobbins
It's not a retelling.
Sean Fennessy
It's just the latest new adaptation.
Amanda Dobbins
Latest adaptation?
Sean Fennessy
Reboot. Yeah, it's a reboot. It's a prequel.
Amanda Dobbins
It's just like Austin is like Shakespeare. People are just doing interpretations of the cortex over and over again.
Sean Fennessy
Trailer came out. Yeah. You say what?
Amanda Dobbins
Well, this we saw in. 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.
Sean Fennessy
A mulligan?
Amanda Dobbins
A mulligan.
Sean Fennessy
Okay.
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
Sean Fennessy
You have to take a mulligan on the film.
Chris Ryan
Yeah.
Amanda Dobbins
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.
Sean Fennessy
Let's use Chris Ryan's golf game as a way to portal into this metaphor.
Amanda Dobbins
You're saying that's what everyone was hoping for when we talked about a Jane Austen adaptation.
Sean Fennessy
Chris lines himself up on the first tee of the golf course.
Amanda Dobbins
Yes.
Sean Fennessy
He pulls out driver. He looks down the fairway.
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
Sean Fennessy
He gets his Mind clear. He B's the ball, takes a big old whack.
Amanda Dobbins
Yes.
Sean Fennessy
First swing of the day. Shanks it far right, right into a tree.
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
Sean Fennessy
Hits the tree, bounces all the way back at him. In the parlance of golf, he can take a mulligan. That first shot doesn't count. He takes the second shot, he pipes one right down the fairway, and he's off and running. And he's gonna have the game of his life. The round of his life.
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
Sean Fennessy
So is that what you're saying you're gonna do here?
Amanda Dobbins
I think that my opinion probably shouldn't count.
Sean Fennessy
Oh.
Amanda Dobbins
Like I think that I am.
Sean Fennessy
What a joy to hear that out loud.
Amanda Dobbins
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 interests.
Sean Fennessy
No, thanks.
Amanda Dobbins
But this one's catered to mine. And I'm too close. I am too close to the Emma Thompson 1995. I've seen it too many times. I have. I like. It's my comfort film. I put it on when we had to stay up until. Had to. But the Cannes 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 Sense and Sensibility one night just to. 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.
Sean Fennessy
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.
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
Sean Fennessy
What if I love it a lot more than the Ang Lee version? Then. Then what happens?
Amanda Dobbins
I will cross that bridge when we get there. Okay.
Sean Fennessy
Timothee Chalamet and Selena Gomez are going to star in an animated alien movie.
Amanda Dobbins
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.
Sean Fennessy
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?
Amanda Dobbins
So that's attention.
Sean Fennessy
That's a.
Amanda Dobbins
That's an issue?
Sean Fennessy
Yeah.
Chris Ryan
Yeah.
Sean Fennessy
He's a free agent. We need Mitch back.
Amanda Dobbins
And who is the. Who's the problem there? Is it Dolan?
Sean Fennessy
The problem is the collective bargaining agreement of the National Basketball Association. Okay. Which if you exceed the second apron, enter the second apron. Financially, there's dramatic penalties involved, and we're trying to avoid that.
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
Sean Fennessy
Trying to maintain flexibility. You go into the dunk tank.
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
Sean Fennessy
No, you're disallowed from making certain kinds of dunk take. 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.
Amanda Dobbins
We should figure out a way to bring a dunk take into the big picture in 2027. That's one of my goals.
Sean Fennessy
Will you sit?
Amanda Dobbins
Sure.
Sean Fennessy
Okay.
Amanda Dobbins
I like water.
Sean Fennessy
Let's put a pin in that. This movie's coming from Illumination. Okay, Timmy? It's coming in April 2027, which is very soon.
Amanda Dobbins
Yes.
Sean Fennessy
And this will come on the heels of his Oscar win for Dune Part three. No. Yeah, right.
Amanda Dobbins
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?
Sean Fennessy
We don't know. No, this is the June 26th episode. It's June. So we're at that six month mark.
Amanda Dobbins
Who's best?
Sean Fennessy
I mean, it's Ryan Gosling in Project Hail Mary.
Amanda Dobbins
I mean, nomination. Yes. Is there anyone else on the board? And it's Sebastian Stan from Fjord.
Sean Fennessy
I think that's in play. That seems in play.
Amanda Dobbins
Possible.
Sean Fennessy
Not a lot else that we've seen out there.
Amanda Dobbins
Do we think that Jeremy Strong is going to run in best actor or supporting?
Sean Fennessy
Feels like supporting. It feels like the A story is Jeremy Allen White and Mikey Madison in Social Reckoning.
Amanda Dobbins
Okay. And then obviously, of course, Jeremy Allen White is the large hut.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah. Rota. The Hutt.
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah. RA to the Hutt. RA to the Hutt.
Advertisement Voice
Right.
Amanda Dobbins
Stinky.
Sean Fennessy
Stinky. Yeah. Well, he. But, you know, also jacked. Did you see The Bear Season 4 yet?
Amanda Dobbins
It's out.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, it came out yesterday. In full.
Amanda Dobbins
No. And also they made a new season of the Agency starring Michael Fassbender.
Sean Fennessy
Yes. And they dumped that all in one shot as well. Just like the Bear.
Amanda Dobbins
I don't know. I haven't seen any TV in six months, but I'm gonna get into it. All right, turn it back around.
Sean Fennessy
Let's come back to binging streaming tv. Because that's related to some of what I want to talk about. You know who best actor is.
Amanda Dobbins
Sure. It's. Yeah, here we go.
Sean Fennessy
It's Tom Cruise.
Amanda Dobbins
That's right.
Sean Fennessy
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 3 1/2 minute video, maybe 20 seconds of digger. Do you think they're hiding this for
Amanda Dobbins
some reason, the Digger footage?
Sean Fennessy
Yeah. Cause the film's coming out in three months.
Amanda Dobbins
I'm. I don't know if hiding is what I would use. 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.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah.
Amanda Dobbins
It includes some of the jokes we've seen. We've seen footage from Diggers. They did show it to us at
Sean Fennessy
Cinema Comics, the big extended trailer we saw.
Amanda Dobbins
So with a trailer for a comedy, you end up putting a lot of the jokes and the setup in the comedy. So I. Maybe they think they can just sell Tom Cruise instead of having to sell this movie. I mean, I think that's probably why
Sean Fennessy
that's what they're doing. Yeah.
Amanda Dobbins
So do they need to put it out that soon? I don't think so.
Sean Fennessy
It's really interesting because, you know, I liked what we saw and I'm not, as you know, not the biggest Ina ritu fan. Been really cold on him for the last 15 years. I do think that there's a lot of straining in the marketing and everything around it, but I love a strangeloveian, over the top satire that has big scale and a big performance. I'm into that. I'm into the idea of this movie. And they're not really, as you say, selling the movie. There's plenty of time. A trailer can come out in three days and 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.
Amanda Dobbins
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 eenery too 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 I lit up as soon as he was on the screen because he is a movie stardust. So they, big guess marketing wise, they know what they're doing.
Sean Fennessy
It's so funny. Cause in that clip reel too, there's plenty of movies that don't really have a lot of cultural weight. Rock of Ages is featured in that clip reel. 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 AMPU, invited 529 new members, including some of your goats. Jacob Elordi, for example, the Safdies. My boy Zach Kreger, whose barbarian was announced on 4K Steelbook.
Chris Ryan
What?
Amanda Dobbins
Congratulations.
Sean Fennessy
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.
Amanda Dobbins
I was going to say John Bernthal.
Sean Fennessy
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 it 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.
Amanda Dobbins
I'm excited for Josh o'. Connor.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, sure. He needs to.
Amanda Dobbins
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.
Advertisement Voice
It's.
Amanda Dobbins
It was the role.
Sean Fennessy
He wasn't supported.
Amanda Dobbins
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.
Sean Fennessy
He strikes me as a man with
Amanda Dobbins
very good taste, amazing taste, but also, like, maybe not fluent with this, like, the streaming interface.
Sean Fennessy
Oh, interesting. You think of him as, like, kind of an older gentleman.
Amanda Dobbins
He doesn't know what TikTok is, or he didn't for many years, but neither
Sean Fennessy
do I. I mean, what does that mean, right?
Amanda Dobbins
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.
Sean Fennessy
That must be such a great way to be alive.
Amanda Dobbins
I completely agree. And he's got great clothes and a little earring.
Sean Fennessy
I'm into 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 has been in the works for a long time, but it feels very responsive, sure 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
Amanda Dobbins
trying to recreate a generational phenomenon in the horror genre. You know, watching backrooms, I think many of us thought, okay, so this is Blair Witch for young people. Yes, and 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.
Sean Fennessy
It's a tall order because, you know, they've tried with 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?
Amanda Dobbins
I'd love to.
Sean Fennessy
Can I please foreground this conversation in a blanket statement?
Amanda Dobbins
Wonderful. Yes, go ahead.
Sean Fennessy
It's not directed at you. It's directed to the listeners at home.
Chris Ryan
Sure.
Sean Fennessy
The sweeping declarations that I am perhaps too fond of making are going to come with 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, 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 mostly sat patiently. Sometimes you've whinged about it, sometimes you've enjoyed it.
Amanda Dobbins
I've seen all the movies. I've been sort of on the other half of that conversation, and 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, 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 gonna 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. And to me, this is a little bit of the undoing of the superhero fan culture or the mainstreaming of that, the throttle that, that has on the way we consume and talk about entertainment.
Sean Fennessy
That's it.
Amanda Dobbins
And to be totally fair, to be totally clear, I have always objected way more to the fandomification of movies and our universe than I have to the movies themselves. Some of them are not very good and some of them I enjoyed. Like, I can turn my brain off and be stupid and watch people fly around. So 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, the discourse and, and the people yelling and, and many of those so called fans. Sharing their opinions. And you guys can do that.
Sean Fennessy
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 gonna, and, and I think they will very under, understandably say, well, there have always been bad comic book movies. It's not, this isn't fault, it's more just a moment of kind of finality. And let's use it to get into the movie because then we can kind of circle back to some of the grandiloquent theorizing around it. 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 from House of the Dragon, as Supergirl, Matias Schoenaerts, Eve Ridley, Emily Beachum, David Krumholtz, David Corn Sweat 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.
Amanda Dobbins
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.
Sean Fennessy
Lobo. Lobo is in the movie. Here's the story. Kara Zor El, AKA Supergirl, joins forces with an unlikely companion on an interstellar 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. This is an attempt by the James Gunn DC universe to not just add a layer to the Superman story that he started last year with his version of that film, but to build a bench, you know, 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 need 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 with.
Amanda Dobbins
Right. And we will physically get them back to the main stage and the main characters so that they can join the team.
Sean Fennessy
Yes, this is a very tropey adventure story structure and it's very unsuccessful. It's unsuccessful for a variety of reasons. Let's identify some of them. I can give you two fire away.
Amanda Dobbins
Well, I mean, I think there are two problems. And one, you've identified that it is so tropey and formulaic, while also unspecific. And so the places, the villains, the side heroes who are actually secretly the main heroes come out of nowhere, have no backstory, have no development. 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? And 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 practical, technical, filmmaking level. Hot garbage.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, it's really not good.
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, like, looks very bad. Very groany script. There was a music cue where I almost, you know, slid under my seat. 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 creatively and technically empty.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, it's the brownest movie of the year. It takes place on a series of nondescript desert ish planets. We don't really have a sense of the geography of the story, and we know it's intergalactic in some way, but we don't really feel like we know how far from Earth Kara is or why. You know, she's. She's. It's her birthday week. The film takes place during her birthday week.
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
Sean Fennessy
You know, I think she probably acts the way that you act during your week. You know, just getting shithoused, going to bars.
Amanda Dobbins
And we know it's her birthday week because of the elegant expositional storytelling of David Corenswet as Superman. Fate FaceTiming her or Zoom calling her. I'm not really sure what the technology is on unnamed planet.
Sean Fennessy
Video phone, sure.
Amanda Dobbins
Video phoning. And honestly, they didn't even. They just. They put him in like a Sears photodrop to videophone her. They didn't even, like, make it at his home.
Sean Fennessy
I don't know where he is.
Chris Ryan
So confused.
Amanda Dobbins
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.
Sean Fennessy
Yes. Kal El is Kara's cousin. And I guess they're close. Kara was some years behind Superman in her arrival to Earth. They weren't classmates in arriving to Earth 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 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 X Y, 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 series about Supergirl. It's somewhat in keeping with that characterization. It's just. And people rave about that series. I haven't read it, but it's a movie we've seen, you know, we've seen this over and over again and done better. And so 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 can 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 could just kind of feel people 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.
Amanda Dobbins
I would say one part press screening. Two parts press screening with also a baby.
Sean Fennessy
Two parts fan screening.
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. Two parts fan screening with. Plus a baby.
Sean Fennessy
Yes.
Amanda Dobbins
Who was not interested in the movie.
Chris Ryan
No.
Sean Fennessy
The baby needed to be walked around in a stroller during the screening. That was a choice.
Amanda Dobbins
Going back and forth. Listen, sometimes parents do need. 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 I got yelled at by a trivia person. But anyway, yeah, there was trivia.
Sean Fennessy
A lot of people wearing Supergirl T shirts.
Amanda Dobbins
Yes. So 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.
Sean Fennessy
There are battle sequences in which Supergirl and Lobo and Ruthie emerge victorious. Ruthie, Eve, Ridley's character, who is the. Who plays a young woman who has witnessed her parents be murdered by Krem, who is Matias Schoenaarts villain figure.
Amanda Dobbins
We have also witnessed that.
Sean Fennessy
We witness it as well, in a flashback.
Amanda Dobbins
And her brother.
Sean Fennessy
And her brother. And she is seeking revenge on him. Simultaneously, Krem has also shot a poison dart into Krypto Supergirl's dog's neck, threatening his life.
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
Sean Fennessy
And so while Ruthie seeks vengeance for her family's death, Supergirl is seeking an antidote for the poison dart. I guess that's a plot of a movie. You know, it's real thin gruel relative to Superman, which I thought was real good. Like, I really enjoyed it.
Amanda Dobbins
I was very charmed by it. And so you chose to go to the bathroom in an inopportune moment.
Sean Fennessy
Dead.
Amanda Dobbins
Which is. Listen, life happens. But you went to the bathroom during the five minutes of the film. When David Corenswet meets Supergirl and shows up as Superman and he's there in person, it is Supergirl, Kara, arriving on Earth, and that kind of like ice winter palace that we saw in Superman,
Sean Fennessy
the Fortress of Solitude.
Amanda Dobbins
Yes. And because she has just come from Kryptonite.
Sean Fennessy
Krypton.
Amanda Dobbins
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, who has grown up and is. Is an all American boy as much as he is, you know, an alien with super powers.
Sean Fennessy
Yes.
Amanda Dobbins
So. But anyway, so she's there, silent, and it's David Corenswet 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.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah.
Amanda Dobbins
And it's really unfortunate that the best scene in the movie, Supergirl, is a movie in which Supergirl does not speak.
Sean Fennessy
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, 6 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. And her performance style is kind of interesting and does feel a little bit unpolished where she is doing. She has kind of like, Gosh, it's almost like all the characters from Heather's became one person. You know, where it's like a little biting, but then a little soft.
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
Sean Fennessy
And you can never really figure out when she's gonna decide to be one or the other. 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.
Amanda Dobbins
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 pull off because you are trying to communicate this sarcastic, spiky, unlikable person. But also you have to be the hero of the movie.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah.
Amanda Dobbins
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 times. Also, presumably, she's just on a green screen for large swaths of this.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah. The other thing is, like, this is a Craig Gillespie movie, for better or worse. And 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. 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 it for a really long time. Martin Scorsese probably does it better than anybody. Craig Gillespie also apes a lot of stuff for Martin Scorsese. 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 never really puts us in a place where we feel like a deeper sense of understanding of what the world is. And in a world like this, which is just like junk Trader Mad Max, Fury Road, like low, low, low grade Fury Road, it's not elevating anything. It's not making us feel differently about the story that he's trying to tell. And so 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 in theory he'll be able to handle this hundred million dollar superhero movie, but it's just boring. One, this is a lame complaint, but not finding a woman to direct Supergirl is just weird. It's 2026.
Amanda Dobbins
I mean, I wanted to talk about this because you invoked gagadot 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 fun movie 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 not good and not well handled and that's a real bummer. And I think that says something larger about the machines. And also it's depressing.
Sean Fennessy
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 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 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 that movie was directed by two filmmakers, one of whom was a woman. Is a woman. But I think I'm not trying to be some progressive saber rattling about how women need to direct more of these movies. It's more just like for the perspective of the story, why is a middle aged British guy directing this movie? It's very strange.
Amanda Dobbins
I mean, and that was not my argument either, that only a woman could have made those good. It's just that this is an entire, not even subculture of movies now, but like the dominant culture of movies. And they just have not figured out how to make 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.
Sean Fennessy
This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Upsizing to a large popcorn. Smart move. Staying for the post credit sequence.
Chris Ryan
Smart move.
Sean Fennessy
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 Farm's 19,000 local agents. Bundling. Just another way to save. With a 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. Ana Nogueira did write the screenplay for this movie, but there's a moment in the movie where Kara has been felled by Krem with kryptonite. And the only way that she's saved before he cuts her head off is that Lobo shows up out of nowhere and it's a real. Like, we're in the Supergirl movie. We can't. We shouldn't. Just having Lobo save her 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 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, but they feel like an elevation of that thing. So, you know, 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 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 of movie stuff going on. And the projections for this movie are 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 him with an inception 6 out of 10, you know, and it's just like from an influencer. That's tough.
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
Sean Fennessy
So 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 have been drawing the comparisons to the big budget musicals and to the westerns in the mid 20th century a lot where those were really the dominant forms, dominant genre forms in the movies for about 30 years, 35 years. And they kind of expired. And when they expired, the new Hollywood filled the vacuum, or they broke it and they filled the vacuum. And I do see this in a somewhat similar context. I don't know if you think about it in that same way.
Chris Ryan
Sure.
Amanda Dobbins
In terms of. It is a. A genre that, like, came to prominence at one point in time and that we've just been making tons of them and interpolating other genres into the genre. And it's really a framework. So.
Chris Ryan
Yeah.
Amanda Dobbins
And certainly it's been dominant. To me, the, 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 then the fans also doing their work to keep it up. And, you know, it was a group effort and fascinating from both an economic and cultural perspective. And I think what has weirded me out so much about fandom culture is just how much it felt just like a gross capitalistic exchange. Right. You know, and all of these people were just doing the work for, 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 going to pretend that this is working and it's cyclical. It's not working.
Sean Fennessy
It will be back when Spider man comes out. Like it's going to come back.
Amanda Dobbins
And it will absolutely be there for Avengers because we were there in the room at Cinemacon, which many longtime Cinemacon attendees said to us, like, that was very strange. It feels like they brought a lot of fans into the room. Cinemacon didn't used to be like this, but they had to, you know, fanification of the industry event. So it'll definitely be a thing.
Sean Fennessy
There's a very naughty 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.
Amanda Dobbins
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 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 show it to people who are going to post positive things.
Sean Fennessy
No doubt about it. The fact that it didn't seemingly didn't work on this one is fascinating, but this was true. I saw Masters of the Universe last month and it was the same thing. I was at a fan screening. Me and Rob Mahoney and Steve Allman were at a fan screening. And that is how it goes now, because that is effectively all that is left in that space. Now, here's the thing. I agree with what you said that there was a very transactional quality to the rise of fandom influencer culture. But I do think that it was born out of sincerity. 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. Like, 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.
Amanda Dobbins
Also, because there is this very strict version of fandom and sticking to the canon and what can or cannot be included, that always gets toxic. 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.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah.
Amanda Dobbins
And like, you know, because we live in capitalism that can't exist on its own, then it just has to keep getting bigger and bigger and more people have to like be brought along for the ride because we always have to keep growing forever.
Sean Fennessy
That's right.
Amanda Dobbins
But it's, 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 a 24 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. And that's not new. But this superhero era proved that it can make you like a lot of money. The problem is that no money's ever enough.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah. And I think the up until the right trajectory of all this stuff obviously ultimately soiled it. And it always kind of ruins all genre exploitation from the studio side, I think. Something that I've heard frequently from people who do like these movies but know what's been going on for the last five years, which was brought on by Covid streaming, but most specifically that Marvel in particular had this 12 year project 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.
Amanda Dobbins
Right?
Sean Fennessy
And then they kept going. 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 like. And I don't blame them for keeping going. But if they'd stopped, I mean, and the thing that I hear from the people is if you'd stopped, yes, 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.
Amanda Dobbins
But more, more, more, you know, I mean, and that's what it is. It's. That's the problem with TV as a medium. Yeah, that's a. 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.
Sean Fennessy
It's true.
Amanda Dobbins
But you know, but you're right, that, that run. Even though someone had to some. By someone, I mean, Chris Ryan had to explain to me why people were cheering when Captain America got the hammer. It's like that just looks like a hammer.
Sean Fennessy
It is just a hammer.
Amanda Dobbins
But it's not powerful.
Sean Fennessy
Of course it's powerful.
Amanda Dobbins
What's it made of?
Sean Fennessy
North mythological tool called Mjolnir.
Amanda Dobbins
What is it made of? Which elements?
Sean Fennessy
Cadmium.
Amanda Dobbins
I was. No, I was trying to remember. What's the xenon? No, no, no, no, no. What's the Wolverine one? Adamantium.
Sean Fennessy
It's not made of adamantium. He's from Asgard.
Amanda Dobbins
But you got.
Sean Fennessy
Adamantium is an earthbound that, you know. True. Yeah, fair point.
Amanda Dobbins
Have you been to Asgard?
Sean Fennessy
No, haven't.
Amanda Dobbins
Do they have mines there? Like, what's going on?
Sean Fennessy
A wonderful question. Yeah, I feel like we should get you in the, in the writing rooms of some of these films because you're asking those salient questions.
Amanda Dobbins
Anyway. I. 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 movies 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.
Sean Fennessy
That's right.
Amanda Dobbins
And they were thrilled and they were jazzed and it worked. And then they kept going.
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Amanda Dobbins
so good, so good.
Chris Ryan
So good.
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Sean Fennessy
That's why you rack and you know. These movies shifting, they're not ending. I'm gonna repeat this like Fantastic Four First Steps, which I did not think was successful, still made $500 million. 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 gonna keep happening and doing well. But they're making way for Minecraft. They're making way for another kind of movie that is gonna start doing this. And Obsession in backrooms is kind of baked into this as well. And this sort of demand for something new that is originating from something that younger people feel like they have more ownership of. And now what has happened is 25 years in, these are not the movies that belong to Gen Alpha. This is 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. Robert Downey Jr. Is he in his 60s? These guys are getting old.
Amanda Dobbins
But he's got a lot of tinctures and stuff.
Sean Fennessy
He looks amazing.
Amanda Dobbins
Dome in Malibu.
Sean Fennessy
He's a beautiful man, and I love him.
Amanda Dobbins
You're saying that Infinity Vision is going to be the most beautiful format we've ever seen.
Sean Fennessy
There's something very Trump coded about Infinity Vision, of course. Yeah. Very, 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 911 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. I really believe that there's something to that that wasn't gonna 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 in 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 athwart history, and I say no mas. You know, and so there's all the. 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 ideological minefields. It's not really like. It doesn't change the fact Supergirl is just a bland, forgettable superhero movie.
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, it's not good. That's the other problem. It's just not good. They didn't do it well. And that. And there have been a series of five, 10 years. What was the last very good superhero movie?
Sean Fennessy
I liked Thunderbolts.
Amanda Dobbins
It was. Yes. I Guess it cleared the bar of. If you. You had a good time watching it, it wasn't bad.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, I liked that. I liked the Batman.
Amanda Dobbins
Don't remember that.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, I liked, you know, some things about Dr. Strange in the multiverse of madness. We're getting into that. Like, there's stuff I enjoyed about it, Right. But what has happened is that there's more stuff like, like Thor, God of Love and Thunder, where you're just like, well, this just stinks. Like, this is just terrible. There are more and more movies that are like this, that are like Supergirl, you know, that are like Kraven the Hunter, where you're like, this just stinks.
Amanda Dobbins
Right.
Sean Fennessy
Like, it's just terrible and is gonna be forgotten instantaneously. And there's been a much higher preponderance of those.
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah. And I wouldn't overlook that. That just like when things are quite bad, people check out.
Sean Fennessy
You're right.
Amanda Dobbins
And when there's nothing to hang onto, then you don't and you find new audiences.
Sean Fennessy
Let me ask you an unanswerable question. 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. Didn't happen.
Amanda Dobbins
Oh, it didn't happen. I was like, if you didn't have Covid, then why would you need to stream at all?
Sean Fennessy
They were gonna 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 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?
Amanda Dobbins
Are you divesting creative and technological and filmmaking resources to the streaming show still?
Sean Fennessy
You are then.
Amanda Dobbins
That's. Then, no, because I do honestly think that there was always going to be a downslope because you finish Endgame and 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.
Sean Fennessy
I should ask her if she's gonna see this movie.
Amanda Dobbins
But I. I do think that some of it is just that, like, they're all quite bad and. And it is because they're using lesser source 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.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, there's a resource constraint going on now. Yeah, for sure.
Amanda Dobbins
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.
Sean Fennessy
You know, that was a. That was a big, big problem for them. They clearly made some major mistakes by putting too much of the necessary understanding in the streaming series, which people just clearly were not engaging with at certain point.
Amanda Dobbins
And it's a numbers thing, right. Just of. 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 just being 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.
Sean Fennessy
No, no. And people want to work because they feel a sense of purpose. I won't take that away from them.
Amanda Dobbins
I don't either.
Sean Fennessy
To me, it's not about the individual people at Marvel or DC or 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, ah, you know, Thoroughly Modern Millie. It made some money, it got some Oscar nominations. You know, these things are. 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. 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 on top.
Amanda Dobbins
Oh, you're so welcome.
Sean Fennessy
Two, 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 freakouts in 23, 24, 22,
Amanda Dobbins
you're kind of put those.
Sean Fennessy
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.
Amanda Dobbins
So we need, like, you know, some sort of, like, bell or, you know, sage situation. Like some sort of thing here. Like a ceremony to, like, set you free, you know?
Sean Fennessy
Yeah.
Amanda Dobbins
They're sending forth. Congratulations.
Sean Fennessy
Thank you. I feel whole again.
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
Sean Fennessy
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.
Amanda Dobbins
Okay.
Sean Fennessy
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. Anything else you want to say as we close the book?
Amanda Dobbins
It's been a great ride. I loved every minute of it.
Sean Fennessy
I'm sure you did. Okay, let's bring in CR and talk now about the end of something else. Jackass Best and last. Okay. CR has appeared magically. Hello.
Chris Ryan
Hi.
Sean Fennessy
You showed up like a. Like a bull.
Chris Ryan
I did.
Sean Fennessy
In a ring to gore.
Chris Ryan
You guys.
Sean Fennessy
You're gonna. You're gonna take us out with your takes. We just spent an hour plus doing an emotional rending of superhero garments about Supergirl.
Chris Ryan
What's Kara. She didn't.
Amanda Dobbins
I think you'll find it's Kara.
Chris Ryan
Kara.
Sean Fennessy
Kara. She did not rise to the occasion, so to speak. You will, though, as we talk about Jackass Best and less. Okay. Weird movie, this 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.
Amanda Dobbins
No, it's definitely not a movie. But we had fun.
Sean Fennessy
We had a lot of fun. The three of us saw it together last night. This is the fifth installment in the Jackass film series. Although there have also been the Bad Grandpa. Bad Grandpa. Dirty Grandpa.
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
Chris Ryan
And then there was. Because 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 in their 50s, they're like, what we can do is experiment with poo, but we can't really get thrown out of moving vehicles anymore.
Sean Fennessy
That's right. The movie, which is probably 40% new stunts and gags and 60% retrospective celebration of some of their greatest works 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 Os, 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 Jackass movies Now, Chris and I certainly have at least once and maybe even twice. But it was very fun to see the movie with you too, because you dug it. You were having a grand old time.
Amanda Dobbins
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. Yeah, but we were talking on the way out that I guess we haven't podcasted about Jackass. But Jackass 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 grows every day and it does often remind me of Jackass. 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 poops that you see over the course of Jackass Best.
Sean Fennessy
This is the most scatological of the Jackass movies.
Amanda Dobbins
And many of them saying something. Many of them are quite gross. But there was one where some of them. I was judging the texture based on what I dealt with earlier throughout the day, and I was like, this seems fine. And then I was like, oh, I never thought about using crunchy peanut butter in that way. But yes. Yeah, that's. That's exactly right. Yeah, but see, you don't know. Also, Zach's still only one arm, so I am changing all the dirty diapers in my house.
Sean Fennessy
Okay, let's try to break up the Jackass 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 rocket.
Chris Ryan
I don't understand that. In this new film, a man has to walk on a balance beyond while A shock collar is attached to his penis.
Sean Fennessy
So that, to me, falls in the second category, which is dick pain. Dick pain is a category of Jackass stunts. There is as low grade as a robot just hits you in the nuts
Chris Ryan
or just nut taps. Like, lots of guys doing dicks.
Sean Fennessy
A lot of taps throughout the entirety of this franchise. And then the third is Shit Vomitus. 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 number. The glee of watching another man get hit in the face and then his group of friends laughing at him. That, to me, is when Jackass is at its very best.
Amanda Dobbins
I would like to add to a subcategory of that, where a hit that sends someone flying into the air.
Sean Fennessy
Yes.
Amanda Dobbins
So it's really like when someone takes flight.
Chris Ryan
I think you and I are Knoxville original.
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah, of course we are.
Chris Ryan
I want to see him strapped to the back of a rocket. I want him. See him with a bull. We are.
Amanda Dobbins
We've.
Chris Ryan
I don't think anybody's ever seen the footage that opens this movie. Is that right?
Sean Fennessy
That is crazy.
Amanda Dobbins
So insane.
Chris Ryan
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 for me for, like, just pure nudity. Running up to guys and being like, here's my penis, or we'll just go for it. Yeah.
Sean Fennessy
Not something you've done.
Chris Ryan
Things that I'm pulling out of or putting into my bum.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah.
Amanda Dobbins
That, to me, there was in terms of, like, penis. And I understand that testicles are different than penis.
Sean Fennessy
Oh, good.
Amanda Dobbins
But there was some ball. Listen.
Chris Ryan
No, the bad grandpa.
Amanda Dobbins
Like, I know about penises in one way, but also, like, I'm having to learn about them in new ways.
Sean Fennessy
Well, I mean, enumerate them. What are the ways in which you know about them?
Amanda Dobbins
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 to young kids about their penis.
Sean Fennessy
It's the exploration of the male body.
Amanda Dobbins
Right. But you guys, I think, laughed the most of anything, if I recall, at the. A stunt involving just, like, very, very, like, elongated anatomy. Like, I don't want to spoil anymore. And that physically being on display. And that was when you were.
Sean Fennessy
Look at him go.
Amanda Dobbins
And you're losing your mind. That was the most giggling that I saw.
Chris Ryan
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 guerrilla filmmaking.
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
Chris Ryan
And I have to say, I mean, obviously, Knoxville, in the course of this film, has several emotional moments realizing that he can no longer do this. And, you know, I think not Unlike Mission Impossible 4, they never really truly turned the franchise over to a new generation. And YouTube sort of market corrected for a lot of the prank stuff. But the guerrilla 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 Jonze 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
Sean Fennessy
times by a contraption that is a wheel of spinning shoes. Yeah, I felt a little sad during that sequence, seeing Spike. It's the only time Spike is really on screen. You hear his voice a couple of times through some of the retrospective stuff, but he hasn't made a movie in over 10 years. And that was one of my guys 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 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 anarchy punks. And 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 no longer with us. So there's a little bit of a teardrop in the film, too. But they do actually kind of get the band back together for one specific stunt in the movie, which is maybe like, the funniest idea, if not the funniest execution, about the Dark Room with the snakes, which I enjoyed. And it was nice seeing Bam be very scared of snakes, because actually, as you noted on the 2010 movie drafts, incredible content Yes. I was surprised they didn't take us back to that moment.
Chris Ryan
Me, too. They describe it, but, yeah, I mean, I really enjoy the sequences where, like, Jackass is happening out in the wild. There's one that I think has been pretty big on YouTube, so I'm not hoping. I'm not spoiling anything, but where Brad Pitt gets abducted outside of Pink's Hot Dogs. What era Brad Pitt is that?
Amanda Dobbins
That's 01. It's like, summer 01. So he has the Rusty Ocean's Eleven haircut and vibe.
Sean Fennessy
Just post, like, Fight Club.
Chris Ryan
That's so fucking cool.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah, that was a great. But wasn't that stunt on the show?
Amanda Dobbins
It was like, I see. You know, I knew about. And that's sort of. I mean, that is how Jackass comes into, like, Amanda's pop cultural orbit and is more of a frame of mind than me having every single stunt memorized. But I remember them abducting Brad Pitt.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah. It was interesting to see how they picked and chose what their most iconic moments were, or what were the launchpads for discussions between Knoxville and Jeff Tremaine, the longtime director and producer of the series, and Steve O. And, you know, the kind of the godfathers of the thing and the. I think, the fairly uneasy integration of the new class of people, which I think they struggled with in Jackass Forever, too, where it was like, it's cool to watch, you know, Zach Holmes or Jasper do stuff. And I really enjoyed watching Jasper get rammed by a Ram for 20 minutes in the movie.
Amanda Dobbins
That was one of my favorites.
Chris Ryan
Rachel has nothing.
Sean Fennessy
But Rachel doesn't do. She doesn't get anything to do.
Amanda Dobbins
I related. She just wander around in the back.
Sean Fennessy
Yeah. Not ideal.
Amanda Dobbins
They don't even let her be in the grocery cart.
Chris Ryan
Yeah.
Sean Fennessy
Let her get rammed by her. A ram, for Christ's sake. But I just. I like watching Knoxville get throttled. Like, that's just. There's a primal quality to this series where when he. Like, when he gets gored, which we saw, you know, it's from a previous film. But when he gets gored and he gets hit once, and then they're like, we gotta do take two. That sequence of filmmaking, I was like, something is alive here.
Chris Ryan
And he gets knocked out. And everybody is like, that's why he's Knoxville. And that is the thing that I guess.
Amanda Dobbins
And then he's put in the, like, literally an ambulance doing, like, Tricky Dick figures.
Sean Fennessy
I like that bull didn't like magic.
Chris Ryan
It's. It's funny. It's like, obviously, it's like, if you had invented Facebook, you would have invented Facebook. Like, this was. Is 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. I'm jumping through a plate 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. I think that this is like an appropriate place to end it, you know?
Amanda Dobbins
Yeah.
Sean Fennessy
Do you think it is the ending?
Amanda Dobbins
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 gonna be. So, like, will they be able to get away with all of this stuff?
Sean Fennessy
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 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, it is his art. And the films have made this very smart association with Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin and the history of kind of physical comedy.
Chris Ryan
It opens with basically a big dance number. This film does. Yeah.
Sean Fennessy
So that is sort of Jamiroquai inspired the sliding rooms. And so it's weird to have big feelings around Jackass that are not hilarity. But this was true when Chris and I did the Jackass Forever conversation too. There's no other movie that gets me just moving around as much in my seat, reacting so profoundly. It's pure cinema in that way.
Chris Ryan
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. And I do love these things.
Amanda Dobbins
And I'm not joking. It captures something about, like, the male urge, like, 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 of the final stunts is. The premise is based around colonoscopy prep. So we are all of an age, you know, and. And that we're recognizing that and seeing it, and so are the people on the screen. And, you know, life comes at you fast and is horrible.
Sean Fennessy
I hope this isn't a HIPAA violation, but Chris and I have both had colonoscopies this year, and the prep is awful.
Amanda Dobbins
I had to do it for a different surgery recently.
Sean Fennessy
Like, it's horrible.
Amanda Dobbins
I'm traumatized by that drink. The drink is the worst thing I've ever had in my entire life.
Chris Ryan
When you see them chugging it, you're like, oh, my God, I can't believe this is.
Sean Fennessy
And there's so gross. 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. Something very real and honest, even though the gag they do is. Let's put a twister.
Chris Ryan
But I think, 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.
Sean Fennessy
I don't remember it either.
Chris Ryan
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. And I'm like, yeah.
Amanda Dobbins
They said they couldn't.
Chris Ryan
Sat on his wallet, weirdly, for, like, six months and had, like, crippling back pain. Imagine throwing you down the stairs.
Amanda Dobbins
But they said they weren't allowed to air it because it was too replicable.
Chris Ryan
Oh, too replicable.
Amanda Dobbins
And that people could figure out a box and take yourself in it at home.
Sean Fennessy
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 with your friends.
Chris Ryan
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.
Sean Fennessy
I know. It's a wonderful thing. I think it should be celebrated. It is not really a movie, and yet 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. I'd 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.
Chris Ryan
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. It's like, you knew what it was. You know what it is. Enjoy it or don't watch it.
Amanda Dobbins
It was like a family reunion. It was like this slideshow projected at a family reunion.
Sean Fennessy
Well put. Any. Any closing thoughts?
Chris Ryan
Do you want Jackass New Blood? Like, do you. Do you think Paramount will leave this alone?
Sean Fennessy
I don't think they'll leave it alone because money is money, right? But whether it will ever get back to. I don't 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 gonna be that specific feeling of. Of anarchy and mania.
Chris Ryan
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 going to have him put in all of these situations. And he does. You know, I don't know. I, I. We always have, like, the previous TV seasons and in the movies, so.
Amanda Dobbins
And also, you can come to my house.
Chris Ryan
That could come to your house.
Sean Fennessy
Maybe that's where the next V man is, happening around Jackass 6, the Dobbins Baron House. Okay, well, cr, fortunately, you're sticking around because you're doing another episode with us. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders for his work on this episode. Thanks to Lucas Kavanagh for his production support. Next week, I think we're gonna have three episodes.
Amanda Dobbins
But you're not sure. This is the magic of podcasting, and
Sean Fennessy
I'm not gonna even tease what it might be.
Chris Ryan
It'll be a solo pod by me, direct to camera. I stand with Supergirl.
Sean Fennessy
See you then. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block. Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it, ready to make anything online make sense. There's no place like Chrome. Check responses, setup required, compatibility and availability varies.
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Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins (with a late-arriving Chris Ryan) gather to discuss a pivotal moment in movie culture, focusing on two films symbolizing “the end of something beautiful and painful”: Supergirl, the latest DC superhero entry, and Jackass: Best and Last, the purported finale of the iconic self-harm slapstick series. What emerges is an extended, searching reflection on generational change, the waning dominance of comic book movies, the bittersweet nature of enduring pop culture phenomena, and how both movies and audiences move forward. The episode is rich in industry insight, affectionate banter, and a blend of nostalgia and critique.
“The Simpsons, the well runs deep.” (03:43–03:52)
“People who grew up with The Simpsons … are now being given, like, small to medium sized budgets.” (03:52–04:05)
“Who is not compromised enough by big tech money to take this on?” (06:26)
“All of these relationships … make all that a little bit dicey.” (07:38)
“I can't respond to this. … I have one truth, and that truth is Ang Lee’s 1995 Sense and Sensibility. Okay, thank you.” (14:47)
“The era in which [superhero movies] basically dominated our adult lives feels like it’s wrapped up. … it does feel now ended.” (24:42–26:32)
“I have always objected way more to the fandomification of movies and our universe than I have to the movies themselves.” (27:54)
“They've been in a defensive crouch for two, three years because they feel it's slipping through their fingers.” (28:35)
“It is so tropey and formulaic, while also unspecific.” (31:06 — Amanda)
“It just doesn't do the fundamental thing of making you invested in the story or... It didn't do that for me.” (31:30 — Amanda) “It's the brownest movie of the year.” (32:46 — Sean)
“Not finding a woman to direct Supergirl is just weird. … It's 2026.” (41:58)
“This is an entire, not even subculture of movies now, but like the dominant culture of movies. And they just have not figured out how to make successful, like, women characters … it's an industry issue.” (43:29)
“I do see this in a somewhat similar context. … it was a group effort [across fans, studios, influencers].” (46:00–47:53)
“Superheroes and the superhero genre were too big to fail, but that required a participation of everyone.... Now that pact is broken.” (47:54–48:10)
“If you’re 27 right now, and you were nine when Iron Man came out … I think a lot of the fandom is sincere and hard earned.” (49:10)
“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.” (54:34)
“We've got Nolan Bros. now, we've got A24 bros. … the eventization and the, as you call it, hyper-niche-ification of pop culture.” (51:23)
“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.” (65:11)
“It's been a great ride. I loved every minute of it.” (65:54)
“Easily one of the best times I've had at the movies this year. I'm not sure that makes it a movie.”
“It has been a skeleton key to understanding the primal urges and relationships of the people that I cohabitate with.” (68:01–68:09)
“It is pure cinema. It is like, cover my eyes crying with laughter, like, wanting sequences to go on forever … and I do love these things.” (79:12)
“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. … there's never gonna be that specific feeling of anarchy and mania.” (82:04)
“It was like a family reunion. … like this slideshow projected at a family reunion.” (81:50)
“The era in which [superhero movies] basically dominated our adult lives feels like it’s wrapped up.” — Sean Fennessey (24:42)
“It's creatively and technically empty.” — Amanda Dobbins (32:19)
“That pact is broken, which, you know, I'm … happy about. But it does seem like … they lost the fans or they lost that magic agreement.” — Amanda Dobbins (47:54)
“It is pure cinema. … cover my eyes crying with laughter, like, wanting sequences to go on forever, wanting sequences to be over in one second.” — Chris Ryan (79:12)