Sean Fennesee

I'm Sean Fennesee.

Amanda Davis

I'm Amanda Davis and this is the

Sean Fennesee

Big Picture 8 conversation show about toys and friendship. On today's show, we are talking about two new releases, Toy Story 5 and the Death of Robin Hood, as well as ranking all five Toy Story movies. And we're recommending the best cinematic Robin Hoods. But first, let's talk about some movie news right after this. This episode is brought to you by the Autograph Journey credit card from Wells Fargo. The Autograph Journey credit card from Wells Fargo is built for travel. You can earn rewards wherever you book your favorite hotel site your go to airline and more. You get five times points with hotels, four times with airlines, three times on restaurants and other travel, and one point on other purchases. Whether it's a big vacation or a quick getaway from booking your stay to that first meal when you arrive, you're turning your trips into rewards with the Autograph Journey credit card from Wells Fargo. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com autographjourney Terms apply.

Amanda Davis

So good, so good, so good.

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Sean Fennesee

Okay, Amanda, disaster strikes. Luca Guadagnino Island. This is some fascinating news to take apart this morning.

Amanda Davis

Is it? I mean, it's not good for those of us who are looking forward to this film and or have this in our movie auction for 2026.

Sean Fennesee

You have it in your movie?

Amanda Davis

Of course I have artificial. Listen, I ride for my guy, okay? So even when he comes out and he's like top Gun, Maverick is terrible.

Sean Fennesee

You know, I was hoping to address that here as well. So Luca Guadal's new film artificial, which is a sort of biopic, a social network style biopic of Sam Altman, the co founder of OpenAI, is no longer going to be released by Amazon MGM. They are offloading the movie. To whom we do not know yet. This is a movie that we originally speculated would be a fall 2026 release. A couple months ago somebody was telling us that the movie's not coming out this year.

Amanda Davis

Yeah, well, it wasn't in the Cinemacon Amazon presentation and that's when I got a little nervous.

Sean Fennesee

Yes. And so now it has been made clear that presumably in part because of an OpenAI partnership, though that's not been clarified. Amazon doesn't feel it's the right studio to release this movie which stars Andrew Garfield as Sam Altman. Hmm. Certainly a sus corporate situation here.

Amanda Davis

Absolutely. I mean, that. That is kind of my top line reaction. This is also from the studio that yes. Brought you Project Hail Mary, but also brought you Melania. So. And it does seem like these decisions are being made at a. At a corporate partnership. Synergistic Jeff Bezos and. And various other Silicon Valley people calling each other level rather than at a creative level.

Sean Fennesee

Yes.

Amanda Davis

So I don't worry about this as much in terms of the quality of the movie. I worry about this in terms of tech overlords who know nothing about art, once again being in charge of creative decisions and not making good ones or making ones that suit themselves rather than artistic or ideological integrity.

Sean Fennesee

I agree with you about that. Matt Bellamy broke the story in his reporting. He got a quote that noted that Amazon hopes to work with Luca Guadaginho again. I don't know if that's going to happen anytime soon, especially in the aftermath after the Hunt. Not performing very well. This is an interesting one because this does happen sometimes, I believe. Focus previously had the rights to make Paper Tiger, James Gray's forthcoming new movie. I thought immediately of the Bike Riders, which was a film that was originally with Fox and then they offloaded it to Focus. So this does happen. It's very rarely as politically charged as something like this. And so now I feel like it puts an interesting gloss on the film in general because does it create like a new expectation for what kind of movie we think this is going to be?

Amanda Davis

Yeah, now you think it's going to be like a real truth to power, searing indictment of the evils of this AI chapter of Silicon Valley Social Network 2 situation. And we don't know if that's going to be true. Matt Bellamy's reporting also said that the script, which was written by Simon Rich, got a little darker, or that the final product was maybe not as cheeky or whimsical as. As what Amazon thought that they were greenlighting, which.

Sean Fennesee

And Simon's writing style is obviously very humorous. But you could see that even as the news has evolved in the 12 months since this film was greenlit, our relationship to AI and companies like OpenAI has changed a lot.

Amanda Davis

And Sam Altman himself has become more of a character and a mouthpiece for a certain type of thinking about this technology and also about the way that Silicon Valley interacts with our lives.

Sean Fennesee

And also OpenAI and its relationship to the White House and the current presidential administration. So this is a really, I mean, it's a fascinating movie business story. I'm still looking forward to this film, of course, but I don't know. I mean, I think it's unlikely that we'll see it this year. It's going to take a little while. You know, Jack and I were just talking about the fact that you've got a whole new marketing campaign that's going to have to be established and you have a brand new company figuring out how to sell the movie. Now, do you sell against this movie they didn't want you to see?

Amanda Davis

I do think that it opens up a possibility for the right distributor now. Now who is that and who doesn't have somebody like pulling their pocket strings in a way that they are going to be able to take this on and market it as like the anti OpenAI, anti Sam Altman. Let's, I mean, let's go through it. It doesn't really seem like Paramount, Warner Brothers, certainly not would be in that mix. Netflix really doubt it.

Sean Fennesee

I don't see that.

Amanda Davis

Let's see. So Disney. No way.

Sean Fennesee

Definitely not.

Amanda Davis

I mean, not that they would take this on anyway.

Sean Fennesee

I mean, Sony already has the social reckoning, so that's already in a similar vein. I don't think it's an A24 movie. It seems a little bit more glossy than that.

Amanda Davis

Yeah, I do think so. They're, you know, widening a little bit and they have had recent successes now of both, you know, the hide the ball. This isn't what you think this is. But also the, you know, that this is so taboo that we don't know if we can release it with the drama and. Very true. It paid out for them. So they can at least do it in terms of corporate structure for now.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah.

Amanda Davis

Now if they're trying to get bought, then they don't want, you know, that. Then that becomes a whole other issue.

Sean Fennesee

The thing is, is that all of these companies, in ways that are both big and small, are, are, if not fully invested, are keeping their, their eye on the AI evolution within this industry. And so whether or not infuriating one of these potential partners or potentially, I mean, it's possible that Sam Altman is just the bill gates of AI and that 30 years from now he is going to be seen as one of the most important technological innovator entrepreneurs in recent American history. It's also possible that he flames out dramatically and we never hear from him again. And this becomes the first chapter in his downfall. Probably not. So I don't know. It's interesting. I mean, Neon also, I think is probably worth considering. I guess Mubi is worth considering as well, just in terms of companies that are capitalized that could pay for a big movie like this. Because that's the other thing is like Yura Borisov's in the film. Monica Barbaro is in the film. It's got a solid cast, it's got a young and interesting cast. It definitely seems like it could be marketable.

Amanda Davis

And you've got Andrew Garfield, king of the Internet. This is a quote unquote buzzy subject. And I think there's absolutely an audience and a way to sell it. You just have to be able to. You have to have the independent money to be able to finance that. And I don't know who does.

Sean Fennesee

What a strange five years for Luca. You know, you got the cannibal romance with Timmy, which was good. I enjoyed that movie, but did make a lot of noise because of COVID You've got the success of Challengers, you've got the after the Hunt fiasco.

Amanda Davis

Didn't work.

Sean Fennesee

And now this movie. It's been really interesting for one of our guys. Well, I hope to see the film. Me too. I mean, it's possible that nobody buys it and then what do you do?

Amanda Davis

Can we buy it?

Sean Fennesee

Yeah, I think I bought 52 bucks. I was going to say, let's talk

Amanda Davis

to our finance structures and incentive opportunities.

Sean Fennesee

How will we distribute it? Via this channel?

Amanda Davis

Yeah, just in my house.

Sean Fennesee

You know, technically it would be a Netflix release. In that case, Spotify's first ever streaming show.

Amanda Davis

Well, speaking of AI or not. Let's keep moving.

Sean Fennesee

Let's keep moving. Curry Barker's next film lands at Universal. Blumhouse. Atomic Monster. Would you look at that eight figure deal. I don't know what the film is about. Maybe it's about Sam Altman. Maybe it's a prequel.

Amanda Davis

That would be great. We didn't say Universal and Focus, but it doesn't really see it.

Sean Fennesee

I guess we could see Focus. That's not out of the realm of possibility.

Amanda Davis

They don't really lean into controversy. Historically, that's true.

Sean Fennesee

You know, the idea of speaking of Curry Barker being one of their Oscar campaigns this year is interesting. It actually makes the likelihood of Focus swooping in and grabbing an artificial a lot less likely. Because I was thinking about what are their Oscar prospects focus this year? And they've got the Sense and Sensibility reboot.

Amanda Davis

Is it a reboot?

Sean Fennesee

What's the word?

Amanda Davis

We're gonna use the newest interpretation.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah, yeah.

Amanda Davis

I mean, it's like. It's like Shakespeare. There's not as much catalog there.

Sean Fennesee

But it's a Legacyquel.

Amanda Davis

No, it's not a sequel. It's just the newest version.

Sean Fennesee

It's a prequel.

Amanda Davis

No, it's not, because it's the same thing that's happening in real time. Have you read this?

Sean Fennesee

Is it a reimagining?

Amanda Davis

Have you read the Emma Thompson Diaries yet?

Sean Fennesee

I haven't read it.

Amanda Davis

Will you read them yet?

Sean Fennesee

It's not on my list.

Amanda Davis

It's right there on this.

Sean Fennesee

I'm happy to let it stay there. So they've got the Sense and Sensibility film. They've got Robert Eggers Werewolf, which, you know, obviously I'm looking forward to that film. Looking forward to a wolf just tearing flesh off of a human. Is that an Oscar movie? I don't know. Maybe.

Amanda Davis

We say that every year and then, you know, it hits late December. Box office is pretty big. You weirdos kind of get in the mix and you're just like 14 Oscar nominations. Are we sure?

Sean Fennesee

Well, I think what's possible is that they look at it and even if it isn't quite what Nosferatu was, which this, like, classical Gothic romance they might make up for, I mean, it was.

Amanda Davis

It was. It was.

Sean Fennesee

Think of the last shot of Nosferatu. Anyway, maybe they'll make up for it by not acknowledging that film in the Best Picture race. But that's not like a super strong slate of potential Best Picture nominees. So maybe they look at a movie like artificial and say, hey, this could be an option. Or maybe they say, hey, we had the best year ever with Obsession. Why make trouble?

Amanda Davis

Right.

Sean Fennesee

Why make trouble with artificial?

Amanda Davis

Well, but then also just. Does what Universal is pushing in a larger academy sense, affect what? Well, no, I know. That's what I'm saying. So, like, are we. How's the budgeting working?

Sean Fennesee

As far as I know, they're separate. Separate but related. I do think that a lot of the weight will go towards the Odyssey.

Amanda Davis

I do as well.

Sean Fennesee

Anyway, looking forward to Curry's next film. So that sounds like he's got his next nine films planned.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

It must be nice. I don't know what I'm doing tomorrow.

Amanda Davis

That's really not true.

Sean Fennesee

What am I doing tomorrow? Tomorrow we have soccer practice.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

That's all I got on the slate. But it is Father's Day weekend, and so I'll do whatever.

Amanda Davis

You'll be watching golf.

Sean Fennesee

Yep. More news. Wagner Mora in talks to Play the main villain in the Ocean's prequel, which is starring and directed by Bradley Cooper alongside Margot Robbie. This is a tricky one.

Amanda Davis

Is it?

Sean Fennesee

Well, are you fired up?

Amanda Davis

I just. I have. I feel no complications. I say, okay, okay. I say there's a lot of shenanigans going on in the world. And I generally like, if don't totally understand the choices of Bradley Cooper directing career. And I like Ocean's movies. I like Margot Robbie, I like Wagner Mora. I'll watch it. I. I don't. I don't need to complicate this. It's not one of these. Why is Bradley Cooper spending 20, 20 years of his career doing blue alien stuff? You know, I, I don't. Wagner Mora can dip in, dip out. Doing some artistic stuff on the side.

Sean Fennesee

Crush Avatar 4 if he wanted to step in on that. If he followed up Ocean's 10 or whatever it's going to be called with. With Avatar 4. Yeah, that would be. Fire is actually starred in it as well.

Amanda Davis

This would be nine oceans.

Sean Fennesee

Nine.

Amanda Davis

Well, they had oceans eight, because there were eight of them. But then I guess this would be oceans 3, oceans 2.

Sean Fennesee

What about just the ocean?

Amanda Davis

Oh, beautiful. Okay.

Sean Fennesee

Or ocean.

Amanda Davis

Oceans. I was going to say. What about the oceans?

Sean Fennesee

The oceans, yeah, There we go.

Amanda Davis

Okay.

Sean Fennesee

That's it. I like it. Do you think that Margot Robbie and Bradley Cooper biochemically would create George Clooney? Cause they're meant to be Danny Ocean's parents in the film.

Amanda Davis

Right.

Sean Fennesee

So just from a cause, you know, that's a lot of Italian going on with Clooney. Right? There's a lot of.

Amanda Davis

Yeah, but I'm thinking through.

Sean Fennesee

Listen, Beautiful skin tones.

Amanda Davis

They can do a lot with eyebrows right now, you know, so.

Sean Fennesee

With eyebrows.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

Okay. What can they do?

Amanda Davis

Oh, my gosh. There's so much laminating filling it. I never touched my eyebrows and they look nice. Congratulations to you. Yeah. There's a. But in terms of, you know. Cause that's one of Clooney's signatures. So.

Sean Fennesee

His eyebrows.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

Okay.

Amanda Davis

And you don't really see a genetic.

Sean Fennesee

A link.

Amanda Davis

Link between Margot Robbie and Bradley Cooper, but you could achieve the Clooney thing with, you know, with modern technology.

Sean Fennesee

Do you think it's just that there's a kind of like a unified hotness amongst the three of them that we're like, okay, sure, sure. They would make Clooney.

Amanda Davis

That's fine. And also, like the voice probably because Margot Robbie, you know, has this slightly lower voice.

Sean Fennesee

The voice. Did the vocal tone of a mother inform the Vocal tone of a son.

Amanda Davis

I don't know.

Sean Fennesee

As a mother of a boy's voice,

Amanda Davis

not as best I can tell. There was just a lot of squeaking at my house this morning, which I guess many listeners of this podcast will say is right on. But. And that's why you guys don't have podcasts, and that's why you're getting blocked. But just distinction. A distinctive voice.

Sean Fennesee

I see. I'll tell you one thing, I love the sound of a woman's voice.

Amanda Davis

Great. Okay.

Sean Fennesee

Okay. More news. Daniel Kaluuya is re teaming with Shaka King, who is the director of Judas and the Black Messiah, for a film called the Parlay, which is a great name for a movie. I just want to say this is going to Amazon, mgm. So apparently it's not about Sam Altman. Teyana Taylor circling to star as well. And I believe it was six months ago where we were wondering, what the hell's going on with Shaka King? Why has he not been able to make a movie since Judas and the Black Messiah, which is a movie that you and I and Chris Ryan all really, really, really loved on this show. And that kind of came out in that sliding door period of COVID and it did get a best Picture nomination and it did win Kaluuya an Academy Award, but it was kind of in an awkward period of time. So I'm very excited about this. And it sounds like it's a crime thriller. It sounds like it's an original script, and I'm pumped. Dana Kaluya actually has a bunch of stuff planned right now, like in the offing soon. I was reading about one movie that he has coming called Hotel Hotel. Hotel Hotel, which is written and directed by Michael Shanks, who made Together Together, the Alison Brie and Dave Franco thriller from last year. That sounded kind of interesting. The hotel film. He had something else. He's producing an adaptation of Barney Barney the Purple Dinosaur.

Sponsor/Advertisement Voice

Right.

Amanda Davis

But that's been in the works for a while. Right.

Sean Fennesee

There's one other large. I don't know what the next. He's got one other big project coming. And Kaluuya, he's pretty choosy. He takes his time with his projects. He only made like 5 movies in the last 10 years. I guess he's also writing a spider punk movie. He plays the British punk Spider man in the Spider Verse films.

Amanda Davis

Okay.

Sean Fennesee

I don't know what the other movie is. I wish I could remember his.

Amanda Davis

I just googled it, but it's not.

Sean Fennesee

Okay. Coming up. Love, Kaluuya looking forward to seeing him more. Charles Melton is in talks to join Matt Damon in the secret Daniels event. Pick from Universal, Charles Melton. Did you watch Beef Season 2?

Amanda Davis

Of course not. Did you?

Sean Fennesee

I'm in the middle of it.

Amanda Davis

Okay.

Sean Fennesee

I'm kind of enjoying it, so.

Amanda Davis

Because Widow's Bay is over and so now that's pretty much it.

Sean Fennesee

You nailed it.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

We can kind of do one show at a time. Eileen and I, we're onto Beef Season 2. Terrific cast. Melton, Cailee Spaeny, Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan. I know a lot of your people.

Amanda Davis

I enjoy these people. I don't know how to watch TV. It's done for me. Zach tried to watch a TV show while he was on day two of surgery recovery and then turned to me 40 minutes and it was just like, I just don't know how to watch it. Was it Matlock?

Sean Fennesee

What show is that?

Amanda Davis

No, it was a spinoff of For All Mankind that Chris and Andy.

Sean Fennesee

Oh, Star City.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

No, he didn't. He couldn't get into it.

Amanda Davis

But it's not that it was bad. It's just that it's tv. It's not our language.

Sean Fennesee

Okay. Yeah. I mean, look, Chris is very persuasive. I do want to watch Star City, but who can find the time?

Amanda Davis

I don't have time.

Sean Fennesee

I'm busy watching in search of Darkness 1990-1994, which is a six hour compilation of people talking about all of the horror films that were released in those four years. That's what I'm doing. I'm slowly chipping away at that.

Amanda Davis

That's beautiful.

Sean Fennesee

Thank you. Last story. Wow.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

Speaking of Bradley Cooper. So Sean Penn has written and plans to direct a film about January 6. The film, I guess, is seen through the eyes of a police officer who was there on the day of the insurrection at the Capitol. Sean Penn wants Bradley Cooper to star in the film as the police officer. Warner Brothers is gonna make this movie. You say What?

Amanda Davis

American Sniper 2. The Plastic Baby returns.

Sean Fennesee

Oh, wow.

Amanda Davis

Do you remember?

Sean Fennesee

Maybe it's the plastic baby all grown up.

Amanda Davis

So then it's a plastic Q shaman or whatever.

Sean Fennesee

That first, like a Pinocchio situation where he's become a real boy. They just, they couldn't get her baby Q shaman.

Amanda Davis

Damn.

Sean Fennesee

Who's gonna play Q shaman?

Amanda Davis

I really had to, like, pull from the reaches of my brain. Can I tell you that on a text Shame.

Sean Fennesee

Chris Ryan's suggested that Tracy Letts, to Tracy Letts his face, play Q shaman.

Amanda Davis

That sounds wonderful. Why Am I not on that text chain?

Sean Fennesee

Well, there's a lot of other things going on there that you don't want to be a part of, you know?

Amanda Davis

All right. It's the plastic text chain.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah.

Amanda Davis

Okay. Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

Makes it sound insidious. It's not insidious. It's just dorky.

Sponsor/Advertisement Voice

This is.

Sean Fennesee

This sounds deranged. And it sounds like a real, like, let's get this under the line before the Paramount merger closes. Like, this doesn't sound like a Paramount movie to me.

Amanda Davis

Yeah, this doesn't sound like anyone's paying attention.

Sean Fennesee

No, no, no. Lot of movie news, lot going on. Yeah. Why do you think that is? The business is booming. The business is hot.

Amanda Davis

I think everybody wants a piece of it. Everyone wants to put out their press releases. There's a lot of movie news and that. Like, people had meetings and issued press releases, so we'll see how much of this actually happens.

Sean Fennesee

Should we start doing press releases based on conversations we have about future episodes?

Amanda Davis

That is what this podcast is called.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sean and Amanda are strongly considering a Robin Williams hall of Fame in July. Can we get that out? Can we alert our pr? Okay, let's talk about the Death of Robin Hood first. We'll do Toy Story 5 second. So the Death of Robin Hood is the new movie, an original written by Michael Sarnoski. It is inspired by Robin Hood's death, which is an anonymous poem. Did you revisit this poem?

Amanda Davis

No.

Sean Fennesee

Have you ever read it?

Amanda Davis

No. I think I'm learning right now that Robin Hood. The whole legend. Oh, Robin Hood's death is a poem, not the legend of Robin Hood. No, because I have a book about the. Yeah. Didn't you give Knox for Christmas? Yeah. Which is very nice. So we have some original texts of the. Of Robin Hood, the. The mythology. I'm not a scholar.

Sean Fennesee

Nor am I. It's quite a. Quite a. An odd folk tale, the history of it, its origins. I tried to study up on it a little bit for this conversation, to try to understand it a little bit better. This new film, which stars Hugh Jackman, Jodie Comer, Bill Skarsgard, Murray Bartlett, and Noah Julie, is set in 1247, and the story is as follows. Grappling with his violent past, Robin Hood finds himself gravely injured after a battle that he thought would be his last. He soon gets a chance at salvation when he meets a mysterious woman and a young girl. Now, Sarnoski, who is the director of Pig and A Quiet Place, Day one, two movies, I liked quite a bit.

Amanda Davis

Same.

Sean Fennesee

What did you think of the death of Robin Hood.

Amanda Davis

Right? At the potluck last night, I was talking to a friend who called A Quiet Place, Day one, Quiet time zero, zero. Which is the funniest. Whatever.

Sean Fennesee

That's what I say to my daughter when she's not behaving.

Amanda Davis

Quiet time 00. And then I immediately thought of the last shot of A Quiet Place, part one, and the needle drop, which is really quite cringy, in my opinion.

Sean Fennesee

I remember this.

Amanda Davis

It's Lupita, like, plugging her iPhone back in.

Sean Fennesee

I remember that.

Amanda Davis

And it's Nina Simone's Feeling Good. And then it cuts to black.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah.

Amanda Davis

Also remember how they didn't have the fentanyl locked up, like, at all?

Sean Fennesee

Yeah, that I. That I.

Amanda Davis

That's kind of what stayed with me. It was thrilling. Rolling.

Sean Fennesee

It was not.

Amanda Davis

Not moving. I saw this film last night with a large glass of Kim Crawford. I opted for the nine ounce. Thank you to everyone at Regal Paseo. And it was okay. I like everybody involved. I think that this is a fine movie about having regrets at the end of your life and a not really a Robin Hood movie at all.

Sean Fennesee

Right. I agree with that.

Amanda Davis

So that is sort of my. If you want to watch Hugh Jackman be violent and grapple with his choices in a medieval setting, two thumbs up.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah, I think if you want to see that, you should just watch Logan. Yeah, that's my.

Amanda Davis

Well, but that's not a medieval setting, so maybe. Maybe you're really into. Maybe you want Game of Thrones minus the magic and dragons.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah, Yeah, I think. Well, Game of Thrones is not set in a real timeline on Earth.

Amanda Davis

Well, Bill Simmons and I disagree.

Sean Fennesee

Okay, you guys can hold that. I was not a big fan of this film. I was a little disappointed by this one. I think. I don't fully understand why it exists now.

Amanda Davis

I mean, I agree with you completely.

Sean Fennesee

I'm not an expert on the Robin Hood tale, but I've seen almost all the iconic films. I've seen all the iconic films. I watched the 1922 version yesterday, and Robin Hood is, of course, robbed from the rich and steal from the poor and is considered a sort of underdog bandit, fighting on behalf of the Saxons against the evil Prince John and faithful to King Richard and battling the Sheriff of Nottingham. And this movie obviously dispenses with all of that. None of that is really a part of this story. This is very much about an older man who has done a lot of terrible things, as you said, feeling regret and feeling a kind of pain, you know, it seems like the overarching conceit of the story is maybe distrust the myth. You know, that there is something about stories that we tell each other and why we tell them and why we kind of change details and redefine how people are remembered over time, which I understand as a conceit 1000%.

Amanda Davis

But the film does not engage with the myth in any way, shape or form. It starts at the very, very end, and, I mean, it has some gnarly battle scenes, but it doesn't engage in the mythology, the myth, or the ideology of Robin Hood in any way. It doesn't give you any sense of his life and backstory beyond him just saying, actually, my name is Robin Hood a few times. You don't. To dispel the myth, you have to, if not portray it, then at least communicate it. And the film does not at all.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah, if the name of the movie was the Death of Steve McGillicuddy and Hugh Jackman said, hello, young squire. My name is Steve McGillicuddy, we'd just be like, this is a weird movie about a really angry old man who keeps killing people and has some regrets at the end of his life. And you could have maybe swapped in any number of different. You could have said, this is about King Arthur or Merlin or any number of kind of sacred folkloric figures and had a similar point. But I'm not sure if that point is super well told. The movie's very well made, and it gives a kind of like in the mud, in the dirt vision of this time in history, which I think is probably more period accurate than, say, the Michael Curtiz film from 1938, which is Technicolor and beautiful and so colorful and swashbuckling like that isn't really probably what that period of time looked like. But I'm not sure if that necessarily makes it any more valuable. And I found the film to have a very odd shape where it is extremely intense and violent and savage in the first 30 minutes. And then it really downshifts for the next hour and 15 minutes. And it's very slow and methodical and very contemplative. And so it just kind of feels a little lumpen to me. I don't know. I was surprised. I was hoping to love this because I think Starnovsky's super talented, but this one was not really for me.

Amanda Davis

Yeah, to me, it's all the flaw is in the concept or. And then it just wasn't really pinned down what was happening here. Because I agree with you, the the opening 30 minutes, the filmmaking is very gnarly. And I was kind of pissed at you when I was watching it because I was like, oh, I don't really enjoy this. Is this what it's going to be the whole time? Which is an achievement. And it's that you're grossed out and freaked out by it. And then I like Jodie Comer very much. Hugh Jackman is fine. Listen, I thought all the scenery was very beautiful.

Sean Fennesee

It's well shot. It looks nice.

Amanda Davis

So it's not.

Sean Fennesee

It's Pat Scola who did Sing Sing Lurker, really good cinematographer.

Amanda Davis

It's just a real why issue.

Sean Fennesee

I feel very similarly and it's kind of interesting. That Jackman, who, as you know, I love, he's really got two gears. One gear is, I'm putting on a show.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

And the consummate tux with tails, handsome man of the stage, which. He kind of moves around that Persona in different ways, from hosting the Oscars to the Greatest Showman, to even movies like Australia, where he's kind of like an adventuring, smiling figure.

Amanda Davis

Right.

Sean Fennesee

To Wolverine and this. And Prisoners and the sort of like the anguished, angry, violent kind of ID of the male. And I just feel like a lot of what he's doing here, he's just done before and done in better movies. I mean, Prisoners and Logan are just better movies. They're just more interesting movies. So I don't know. I was kind of like, why, man? Why'd you want this, Hugh?

Amanda Davis

I don't know. Maybe he wanted to be Robin Hood. I guess it is appealing. He wants to be Robin Hood. Well, sure, but he thought he was Robin Hood. You know, he thought he was being, you know, the correct, corrective Robin Hood.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah. Well, what do you think makes a good Robin Hood?

Amanda Davis

Charisma? Just being the myth. I mean, this is. This is the other thing about the. This project, which is to dismantle the idea of Robin Hood, which is nobody wants the real Robin Hood. Or I don't. Anyway, you want just what's on the label. Stealing from the rich, giving to the poor. You want the hot fox from Disney, which is how so many of us were introduced to it. But it's like it's a concept. There's a reason that Robin Hood has become a shorthand for just like an against authority view of the world and. Or like a trading platform that I do not endorse. But that's right, I forgot about that.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah.

Amanda Davis

But, like, it is. Nobody really cares what's going on in the in the.

Sean Fennesee

What is your trading platform of choice?

Amanda Davis

My trading platform. It's called the real Real.

Sean Fennesee

Okay. So I'm still on ebay.

Amanda Davis

How much time do you spend on ebay?

Sean Fennesee

Thanks for asking. About once every other day. Oh, but checking out what's on there. What's on there?

Amanda Davis

Blur. Yeah, it's only Blu Rays because that is that, that's your marketplace. Like the.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah, Blu Rays and ancient artifacts. Like the Tesseract. Looking for that? Just checking in to see if they have the Tesseract there. I see how much it is.

Amanda Davis

I do do some vintage shopping on ebay and that's where the true heads go. But, you know, it's a, it's a person to person, like a vendor to consumer thinks. So you can't do returns.

Sean Fennesee

Okay.

Amanda Davis

You know you can't. You have to be really sure. As opposed to something like the Real

Sean Fennesee

real, where this is also true of, of, of Robinhood, the trading app, by the way, just so you know, you can't really do returns and be like, whoops, shouldn't have bought that.

Amanda Davis

But you don't need to do a return on a Blu Ray usually.

Sean Fennesee

How do you know?

Amanda Davis

Do you. How often have you returned a Blu Ray? How often have you returned a Blu Ray?

Sean Fennesee

It's happened.

Amanda Davis

What? Tell me how often.

Sean Fennesee

I mean, I buy a lot of Blu Rays.

Amanda Davis

Well, sure. I.

Sean Fennesee

One out of every 100. One out of every 1,000.

Amanda Davis

You get one and it' functioning. And so you say, send me another.

Sean Fennesee

I start crying immediately. I start stamping my feet like a child. And then I, I, I can't drive because I'm so upset. And I make my wife drive me to, to the post office.

Amanda Davis

Okay.

Sean Fennesee

And I say, fix this. And then they fix it.

Amanda Davis

I just. Okay, you don't want to have an honest conversation with me about the real real right now?

Sean Fennesee

I don't. I don't.

Amanda Davis

Okay.

Sean Fennesee

But I want you to have as many conversations about it with yourself as you possibly can.

Amanda Davis

I do. Don't worry about. So, no, but Robin Hood, you want the figurehead. You don't want. You want just the person who embodies the idea. You don't want a real man.

Sean Fennesee

Well, I would or I don't.

Amanda Davis

I don't care about his grandparents. I'm sorry.

Sean Fennesee

Forgive me for making this so movie nerdy, but I think Batman is an interesting thing to compare him to because filmmakers are famous for reinterpreting Batman. But there are certain things about Batman that you can't change. Right. You can't change the iconography of the costume. You can tweak it, but you can't change. You can't have a Batman who doesn't have the bat ears. If you do that, the audience and the movie studio is gonna be like, this is not Batman.

Amanda Davis

Right.

Sean Fennesee

You know, and so this Robin Hood doesn't wear the Robin Hood hat with the feather. And you know, there's no. The bow and arrow is not used in quite the same way. So once you strip the character of some of those core things that give us that emotional association with the character. I don't know, it does lose something.

Amanda Davis

Well, it's, you know, it's non licensed ip. Right. There's.

Sean Fennesee

Well, it's in the public domain.

Amanda Davis

Well, exactly, but so there is no one controlling the use of the name, the image, whether or not it has the bat ears. How many things you're allowed to sell.

Sean Fennesee

Is Batman going in the public domain soon? I think he is.

Amanda Davis

Okay.

Sean Fennesee

Mickey Mouse is in the public domain.

Amanda Davis

So what will you do?

Sean Fennesee

Make my own Batman film.

Amanda Davis

Okay. Beautiful.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah. It will be called Will it be

Amanda Davis

done before or after Batman 2? The Batman 2.

Sean Fennesee

That's a really good. What if I just made the Batman 2. But I, I played Batman.

Amanda Davis

Okay.

Sean Fennesee

I'm playing Batman and the Joker.

Amanda Davis

Sure.

Sean Fennesee

And Bane.

Amanda Davis

Great.

Sean Fennesee

And.

Amanda Davis

Well, no, Chris is playing Bane. Right.

Sean Fennesee

Chris is playing Bane. I'm playing Ra's al Ghul and also Talia al Ghul.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

And I'm playing Poison Ivy.

Amanda Davis

Great.

Sean Fennesee

And Harley Quinn.

Amanda Davis

Beautiful.

Sean Fennesee

I'm playing Clayface.

Amanda Davis

Okay. Wow. You got the rights to that. So it's Clayface in the public domain though.

Sean Fennesee

No, I don't believe so.

Amanda Davis

Yeah. Are there any of the rest of these characters and that.

Sean Fennesee

So that's gonna be a while for some of those villains.

Amanda Davis

Yeah. So you just, you just have Batman.

Sean Fennesee

I'm also playing Commissioner Gordon.

Amanda Davis

Okay.

Sean Fennesee

I'm playing. Playing Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl.

Amanda Davis

Okay. I didn't know that. His daughter.

Sean Fennesee

Mr. Freeze.

Amanda Davis

His daughter Alicia Silverstone as his daughter.

Sean Fennesee

I don't know if that's canon in the Schumacher film.

Amanda Davis

Okay.

Sean Fennesee

I can't remember. I can't even remember who plays Commissioner Gordon in the Schumacher film. I'm also playing the Penguin.

Amanda Davis

Again, what's the legal status of these characters? You only have Batman.

Sean Fennesee

You know, you know, I'm playing the Riddler. I got a riddle.

Amanda Davis

Okay.

Sean Fennesee

Who else am I playing? I'm trying to think of some other Batman characters and I can't remember a

Amanda Davis

one man show coming to the end. Bird.

Sean Fennesee

That sounds good.

Amanda Davis

That sounds great. I'd See it.

Sean Fennesee

Thank you. Thanks for your support, Batman. I would like to see the death of Batman because, you know, they killed Batman or they broke Batman's back and Batman went away. In the 90s, when I was collecting comic books, Bane broke his back. That inspired the film the Dark Knight Rises.

Amanda Davis

They killed James Bond.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah. Spoiler alert for. What's that film called? No Time to Die.

Amanda Davis

Yes. Which came out in 2022. And they're also going to bring him back to life, so it's fine.

Sean Fennesee

It's too bad. Robin Hood. I don't know. I haven't read all the texts.

Amanda Davis

Okay. Which texts have you read?

Sean Fennesee

None of them, I think. Have you read the text? I mean, I gave your son the book.

Amanda Davis

Yeah. We did start it. Thank you for thinking that. He's at a middle school reading level, which he's not quite. Well, no.

Sean Fennesee

You are, though.

Amanda Davis

I am.

Sean Fennesee

So you can read to him.

Amanda Davis

I would. I did. We. We did actually start reading it, and I wouldn't say that his attention held for that one yet. And there was also a lot of, like, spoketh, you know, which.

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Yes.

Sean Fennesee

Old English.

Amanda Davis

He's not there yet. Well, I don't know if it's old English. Did you have to do Beowulf in Old English?

Sean Fennesee

I did.

Amanda Davis

So did we.

Sean Fennesee

I did.

Amanda Davis

Do you guys have to. Did you guys have to do that at school?

Sean Fennesee

I never did Beowulf Lucas. I did not.

Amanda Davis

Okay. Not at all. Not even in modern English.

Sean Fennesee

Negative.

Amanda Davis

Okay. Yeah. Well, we'll talk about education and how it's declined in the following segment.

Sean Fennesee

Wow. We certainly will. It sounds like the 1370s is when Robin Hood first kicked up.

Amanda Davis

Okay.

Sean Fennesee

In the alliterative poem Piers Plowman, this is what I read, and there was a quotation that later became a common proverb that many men speak of Robin Hood and never shot his bow. And then the earliest surviving text is 15th century Robin Hood and the Monk, which I assume is a reference to Friar Tuck, or that's sort of where the Friar Tuck figure came from. Typically seen as a contemporary supporter of the late 12th century King, King Richard the Lionheart. You're a Lionheart gal, right?

Amanda Davis

Yeah. I mean, who's gonna be King John? What a herb.

Sean Fennesee

That sucks.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

Fuck him. Tale's been told many times. There's a lot of films, the films. There's not a lot of great ones.

Amanda Davis

No.

Sean Fennesee

I'd never seen the 1922 film until I looked at it yesterday. It's on Tubi, directed by Alan Duan, one of the early pioneers of filmmaking it stars Douglas Fairbanks, one of the great silent screen stars. It's pretty interesting. It's over two hours silent film that features, I think a lot of the. It establishes these cinematic tropes of Robin Hood. So when you go back and if you look at the 1938 version starring Errol Flynn, directed by Michael Curtiz, I think it's one of the last movies he makes before Casablanca. You can see that movie riffing on the 22 Robin Hood. You can see in the 73 animated Robin Hood that you were referencing the Disney classic, that movie is pulling from the Curtiz version. If you look at Robin and Marian, which is a Richard Lester movie with Sean Connery that came out in 76, Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn, that movie is kind of riffing on the Curtiz version as well. If you look at Robin Hood starring Patrick Bergen in 91, or Prince of Thieves, which also came out in 91, starring Kevin Costner, those movies are trying to kind of keep the framework. Right. Green jumpsuit, rob from the rich.

Amanda Davis

Sure.

Sean Fennesee

Steal from the rich, give to the poor bow and arrow. Maid Marian battling the sheriff.

Amanda Davis

Things are unsettled in the Middle Ages.

Sean Fennesee

Yes. There's a lot of the Saxons are feeling rebellious, but they don't have a leader to inspire them.

Amanda Davis

This is the second time you said Saxons.

Sean Fennesee

It's a huge thing in the Adventures of Robin.

Amanda Davis

Yeah, I know, but I just like

Sean Fennesee

Errol Flynn says the word Saxon like 300 times and you know, they deserve to be free in the face of Prince John. Prince John played magnificently by Claude Rains in that film. I must say, what a shitheel he was. And we just talked about Robin Hood men in tights. We did the Mel Brooks film, which is clearly riffing on Prince of Thieves, among other things, including this ancient myth. And so I feel like this more or less 55 year history between the Curtiz film and Robin Hood men in tights, this kind of forms for two or three moviegoing generations our idea of what Robin Hood is not just what Robin Hood is on the page, but just generally what Robin Hood is.

Amanda Davis

Right. The basic our understanding.

Sean Fennesee

And I think you're right to point out that the Disney film kind of codifies it at a very young age. And you know, it's been 33 years since men in tights. It's been 35 years since the Kevin Costner film, which famously features the worst accent in the history of movies. But it wasn't a huge hit and is an entertaining enough blockbuster, though very flawed. And since then we've had two major US releases. One, Ridley Scott did his version of it in 2010 where he tries to like, it's almost like Avengers ifying Robin Hood, you know, where like all the Avengers characters in the Avengers movies, like, are not as bright and shiny. They're all wearing like black leather.

Amanda Davis

Right.

Sean Fennesee

And it is like a more stripped down, more serious.

Amanda Davis

We're getting down to business here.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah. And like a bare knuckle.

Amanda Davis

It's not all fun and games and playing. What's the shuttlecock in the.

Sean Fennesee

Badminton.

Amanda Davis

Badminton. That's what they play in Robin Hood, the little kids. And then Maid Marian comes back.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah, it's Robin Hood Gladiator. That's the idea of that movie. And then in 2018, Taron Edgerton played Robin Hood in another adaptation, which I thought was very unsuccessful. And there have been a lot of other. Many countries around the world have done their adaptations of these movies. But I would argue this is actually not a very impressive history relative to Shakespearean adaptation, for example. Or what's another story like this that you think of that feels in the same vein of like a long time folk tale that we've seen a lot of different iterations of.

Amanda Davis

Well, until you said a lot of different iterations of which we have in its own way. But I've been thinking a lot about the Odyssey because I'm trying my best. I don't know if I'm gonna get through the whole text of the Odyssey. I'm reading the Emily Wilson translation before the Christopher Nolan adaptation. And also it has a great introduction which is just kind of like putting me through the paces of college again. And there's a lot about how this is a. This was a common, like an oral tradition, as we know, that was eventually written down in one way by, you know, there are lots of authorship questions, Homer quote, unquote. But was it many people? Was it pulled together different excerpts? Was it one person who speaks and another person who writes?

Sean Fennesee

Anyway, was it Time magazine's Joe Klein?

Amanda Davis

Yeah, it was. It's good. That was a good one. I liked it. So. But anyway, like a story, a framework of a story that has been handed down for years and years and years and years and then reinterpreted, put in different situations. In the case of the Odyssey, you know, just like a man trying to get home becomes the backbone of many, many different types of stories. And in that case, you know, until we see Christopher Nolan's the Odyssey, which is. Seems to be like incredibly faithful and is set in the time and is using the same Names as the characters. It's not an inspiration. It is. They are just making the Odyssey.

Sean Fennesee

Yes.

Amanda Davis

Feels like a proper adaptation which is kind of what has their Robin Hood strategy has been. And I think that's a challenge. And I think if you're not someone at Christopher Nolan or you know, Michael Curtiz level, then you run into trouble. And using mythology as inspiration rather than literal text tends to work better with stories of this kind. I mean, Shakespeare is the same way where there have been a lot of very bad literal adaptations of Shakespeare. And then you know, many great. Oh, it's you know, the Taming of the Shrew, but actually, you know, in a 90s workplace or whatever.

Sean Fennesee

Right, right, yeah, like oh, right, that was good.

Amanda Davis

Yeah, that was not good. But I remember that.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah, there are a lot of versions of this. I'm forgetting the ones that were at the tip of my tongue. But you know, a lot of the Hans Christian Andersen stories are like this where you see these reimaginings. Disney has done this for years and years of taking these kind of like sacred and ancient stories and filing them down. I mean horror does this all the time. This is Dracula, this is Frankenstein.

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Sean Fennesee

These like, they become these foundational ideas that you can iterate upon. But if you stray too far from what makes us feel safe about the concept.

Amanda Davis

Right.

Sean Fennesee

You feel like a little like you violated something.

Amanda Davis

Right? Well, I mean it's how much are you using it as story guidance or inspiration and how much are you using it as ip? Right. Because as soon as you and all of these are, they're trying to use free IP and Robin Hood is in the title. And so when you hear Robin Hood or you hear Batman or you hear Dracula, you know, you expect to see certain things. But then that sets in a whole level of expectations that you have to execute against and it gets trickier.

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Sean Fennesee

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Amanda Davis

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Sean Fennesee

this one. This one is tough. Robin Hood. I don't. I feel like it's maybe just dead ip, you know, I think sometimes maybe it can come back in some way.

Amanda Davis

Well, I think he is dead. According to the latest text, the Death of Robin Hood.

Sean Fennesee

You think everyone will now acknowledge his death? Yes, he'll stay dead. You don't think they'll revive him like Tony Stark? Is Tony Stark gonna get revived, do you think?

Amanda Davis

I don't know. People were screaming too loud for me to really catch on to the granular details of what we saw at Cinematicon.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah, I still haven't released that trailer.

Amanda Davis

Okay.

Sean Fennesee

What do you think's going on there for Avengers Doomsday?

Amanda Davis

Your guess is as Good as mine. I don't understand why it's going up against Dune 3. I don't understand the Infinity Vision. I don't know what's going on. I'm confused. And I was not impressed by the presentation.

Sean Fennesee

Okay, thanks for weighing in. Speaking of Disney, Toy Story 5. Yeah, this should be an interesting conversation. Directed by Andrew Stanton. It is co written by Stanton and Kenna Harris. Stanton has been involved, as I understand it, in every single Toy Story film to one extent or another. He also famously worked on Finding Nemo and Wally and is one of the icons of Pixar history. Whole gang is back for this movie, including Tom Hanks as Woody, Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear. Joan Cusack is back as Jesse. It's sort of Jesse's movie, this film. Some new additions to the cast including Greta Lee who plays Lily or Lily Pad, a device. Conan o' Brien as Smarty Pants, which was a real toy, the sort of like toilet paper roll toy as I recall. I think it's inspired by a real toy. Craig Robinson is Atlas and Shelby Ribara is Snappy. These are three new toys that are introduced in another home that we visit. Here's the story. After Woody left Bonnie to stay with Bo Peep and help help abandoned toys find owners. This is at the end of Toy Story 4. Jesse becomes the leader of Bonnie's room with Buzz lightyear as her second in command. A now 8 year old Bonnie has become enamored with her new favorite plaything, a frog like tablet named Lily Paddle. Causing a crisis among traditional toys and prompting Buzz to call on Woody to return. What did you think of Toy Story 5?

Amanda Davis

You want me to go first?

Sean Fennesee

You always go first.

Amanda Davis

Would you like to go first? This is your time. Go ahead.

Sean Fennesee

I thought this movie was beautiful. I loved it so much. I had the best time at this movie.

Amanda Davis

That's nice.

Sean Fennesee

Do I think it has flaws? Sure, yeah. I don't give a fuck about the flaws. I was so happy to be back with my friends and I was so happy to watch my daughter watch this movie. And I thought this was a fascinating movie about female friendship. And I'm not afraid to say it.

Amanda Davis

I agree with that. Okay, here's what I say for children. I think that this is a great and important movie with lessons about friendship and creativity and technology. And I also think, you know, the voice performances, the characterization, there are several kind of dream or imagination sequences in this movie that are wonderful. Like it is like funny and creative. And the Toy Story universe is a. As a parent who saw this by herself at 2pm and as a thinking adult, there's some nonsensical and also some deeply craven stuff in the construction of the morals of this movie that I think will go over kids heads and doesn't matter, but that I alone watching was a little irked by.

Sean Fennesee

It's kind of. It's probably a good thing that you and I viewed this in different ways. I saw this with, with Eileen and Alice. Eileen and I of course love the Toy Story franchise, have grown up on the Toy Story franchise. We were 12 years old when the first film came out. You know, I had very fond place in my heart for this. In some ways this is not a typical Toy Story movie because Woody and Buzz are to some extent more sidelined than they are in other films. It's kind of, it's sort of evolving past them. In some ways they're still important to the third act of the movie and being a part of the big save that always happens in one of these films. But like I said, this is really Jesse's movie. It's really, not to put too fine a point on it, but it's really a movie about girls. And even though Bonnie was in the last film, I wouldn't say that this is a movie franchise that has focused on the story of girls as much. It started with Andy. A lot of the heroes are male. Even some of the female figures that are introduced into it like bo peep or Mrs. Potato head never really had a center on that. And so for me to see it and for me to also be in a period in my life where my daughter is figuring out how to make friends and kind of like what that means to make friends and what are gonna be established in long running friendships and what are friendships that are more transient? And if you're a little bit eccentric, how do some people receive your eccentricity socially? Which is something I think even adults still think about.

Amanda Davis

Of course.

Sean Fennesee

As someone who was just at a large gathering with our families yesterday and I was like, which of these parents wanna talk to me and who do I wanna talk to? I found the movie to be really warm and really thoughtful and considerate about all those things. I think I'll probably agree with a lot of the notes that you have about some of the plot complications and confusions and the sort of corner cutting. I think there's some corner cutting in the movie to get the story rolling in certain places. And I'm also really glad that you circled that. Those moments of sort of imagination that the movie which they've Done versions of this before, but it does it really well in this movie, which is when kids are playing with toys, when Bonnie is playing with her toys, and we see her vision of what's happening in the world of her mind with these characters. And it's much more elevated and gorgeous. And it has a different animation style. That stuff to me is like top shelf animated movie storytelling. I loved two major sequences that did that. So, yeah, I had a really, really great time with the movie. I really liked it. But I want to hear some of your mom alone viewing.

Amanda Davis

Well, let's talk about the female friendship and the way it uses the Bonnie character. And then there's a new character, Blaze, and they're positioned against kind of all the other kids in the universe who both are glued to their screens. Like, you know, the people in. You know, I thought of Wally, but there's also some ready player one to it.

Sean Fennesee

Definitely.

Amanda Davis

And then they're all real assholes.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah. I think the insinuation there is if you're locked into your screen.

Amanda Davis

Right. And there's also a little bit of insinuation of that, like, because they are the screen and the social media, the lily pad in this case is what is organizing their communication and their relationship. That that method of. Or that vessel of friendship kind of sullies it and brings out the worst in people, which I think is very true.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah.

Amanda Davis

But I do think you're speaking of shortcuts, that there is sort of the. The bad tech equals bad people. Simplification is just a little lazy.

Sean Fennesee

Right.

Amanda Davis

And they're.

Sean Fennesee

These girls haven't found the real world yet. So they don't know. They don't know the wonders that can be described.

Amanda Davis

There have been mean girls since the beginning of time. And they organize in packs and they prey upon the, you know, the more creative or just the. The people who don't conform. And in this case, she's not conforming to technology. But it almost like simplifies what I think is a complex thing between young people where they're just. And girls in particular are really mean. And they pick out the people who are, quote, unquote, different.

Sean Fennesee

No, I know. So the backbone of the story is that this young girl, Bonnie, has some struggles making friends. There's a very poignant moment early in the film where she is playing with her dolls and a group of neighbor kids see her and they see her playing with these analog toys and she has a moment where she tries to engage them with one of the toys and they laugh at her.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

And that sends her into a kind of an emotional tailspin about, why don't I have friends? And she learns that, you know, some of her other friends from dance class all have these screens. And so her parents get her a screen.

Amanda Davis

She doesn't learn that. Her parents learn it. Respond to this. She goes in to her parents and she says, like, why don't I have any friends? And they, like good, engaged parents, you know, freak out, give her hugs, you're so special, etc. And then immediately panic. Buy an iPad. It's called a Lily Pad in this context, which. Who can blame them? It's 1000% relatable.

Sean Fennesee

It is. I know, I know. I want to have a screen time conversation with you eventually, maybe. Let's wait until we get through the movie. So this. This iPad is a. Is a portal to. To community and then negativity, which is, frankly, what a lot of screens are in general for us as well, for adults as well. And she connects with these girls from her dance class, and she's invited over for a sleepover. But it becomes very clear early on that, one, these kids are only engaged in what's happening on their screens even when they're together in person. And two, that there is a kind of, like, competitiveness to the experience where, one, they're always playing games, and two, if you're not speaking on their level about living inside of this world, that you're gonna feel alienated. And Bonnie is the least experienced in this space and quickly becomes alienated. And she's trapped between this feeling of wanting to play with her toys and wanting to have friends and be on her Lily Pad, you know, because it's a Toy Story movie. The Lily Pad, of course, has a mind of its own and is its own character. I thought Greta Lee's performance was very good and very funny.

Amanda Davis

Very good. It's written very well. The clip of, you know, Jesse saying, you were even listening, and the Lily Pad saying, I'm always listening, and then playing it and translating it into Spanish and everything. Very funny. You know, this movie understands all of its subjects very well. And in trying to simplify it for kids, I do think just kind of skips over some things or over oversimplifies.

Sean Fennesee

It does the looming specter. The sort of HAL 9000 quality of LilyPad is very, very funny in the movie and effective. It is a very powerful device, though, in the film. That's one thing, is that it's capable of doing a lot of things that I would imagine were I to give my child an iPad, which is not something that I have done yet. It would certainly not be connected to the Internet, at least not at first.

Amanda Davis

So, I mean, the concept of parental controls or parental settings does not exist. It doesn't come up in this universe. And the kids are just doing whatever they want. And then the toys are also doing whatever they want. Because at some point the toys, in an effort to help Bonnie make friends and to you right wrongs and, you know, connect people who should be friends in real life. The toys jailbreak the Lily pad and various other devices and invite parents to random addresses. And there's just. And there's a level of scam and Internet, like, not. What's the opposite Internet danger. That is completely unexamined and unbelievable in this movie.

Sean Fennesee

I can't argue at that point. There's definitely some stuff where you're like, I wouldn't go to that person's house if I got a message on my daughter's iPad that I should come to that house. That's not enough to go on a long drive to a stranger's home on a horse ranch. Now, I will say one of the things I really like about the movie is that the iPad, the Lily Pad character is contrasted with another young girl, this Blaze character that you're talking about, who is a horse girl who's living on a ranch and who is really in the real world. She is really like, she is still a kid who plays with her toys. She's a little older than Bonnie, maybe a year or so older than Bonnie. And she, they're, they're kindred spirits. They're like minded. They don't know each other, they haven't met. But we're meant to see this connection. And Blaze is like also kind of longing for connection and friendship, but also feels like maybe a little more confidence in liking the things that she likes. She has this huge collection of horse dolls and she kind of like she had. She identifies as a person that is comfortable in this world and she somehow comes upon ownership of Jesse and Bullseye Blaze.

Amanda Davis

So Blaze lives at Jesse's first kid's old home, which we see in flashback.

Sean Fennesee

Yes.

Amanda Davis

And Jesse has Blaze's address, the address of her first kid's home, the horse ranch written on the inside of her boot. So she is returned by some really old people along with the horse. Forgive me, I've forgotten the horse's name.

Sean Fennesee

Bullseye.

Amanda Davis

Bullseye, along with Bullseye to the original ranch, which is where Blaze lives in. Because Blaze also, you know, understands the power of childhood, immediately takes these friends in Plays with them, makes these toys her own. She's not above toys like the other mean girls. Blaze also does get dumped unceremoniously. Unceremoniously by a Lily Pad. By a friend who's just like, lol, I'm not coming over. And that's all you get again, some of the characterization here.

Sean Fennesee

That's me canceling plans. Sorry I can't come. Lol.

Amanda Davis

Haha. I mean it is true, but. So then Blaze and Bonnie are connected via the toys and the Internet by their love of. Of playing.

Sean Fennesee

Yes, their sense of wonder. One of my favorite revelations in the movie is when Woody and Buzz. Woody eventually returns home. He's called back by Buzz because they need to team up the old gang. And when they realize that the Siri like apparatus within Lily Pad, in which Lily Pad has to do everything that they ask it if it uses direct address, is extremely funny. But using that tool that allows them to connect Bonnie and Blaze allows for a friendship. Allows for the potential of a friendship at least. I don't know. I thought the movie was really, really sensitive and thoughtful about this. Now, couple things about this one. My daughter's about to be five. Yours turned four this year, your oldest. We haven't gotten to this point that these characters are in. So our relationship, even with what we let our kids do with screens or even kind of what the nature of friendship. And I'm obviously very attuned now to female friendship. And my daughter has this really expanding world of friends. And every day I hear about a new person and I can't tell if this person is my daughter's favorite person on earth or somebody she started talking to yesterday. But I feel like a real sensitivity towards it. My wife feels a real sensitivity towards it too. And you just want your kid to be happy. You just want your kid to feel accepted and connected. And I think I have not seen a lot of movies that do this, this well, that really allow Bonnie to be sad in the way that she's sad. That let you sit inside of Blaze's sadness when that friend breaks a plan. And so this is kind of like disclosure day for me where I'm like, I'm willing to overlook some of the jankiness of the plotting because I felt very moved by what the movie really has on its mind. And in an effort to get there, it kind of has to elide some natural logic. But I'm also, I'm very open to the criticism.

Amanda Davis

Did Alice respond to it? Did she understand like why those girls were being mean and not really because

Sean Fennesee

she doesn't have a screen. So she, I think she didn't really, like, see that. That can, like.

Amanda Davis

But she didn't. But the, the basic mean girl stuff.

Sean Fennesee

Oh, no, she knows about that.

Amanda Davis

Yeah, well, sure, yeah, they all do. But like, did she, did she understand that those were the mean girls and that it's more like did that connect with her?

Sean Fennesee

I think she was touched by seeing Bonnie and Blaze eventually find a way to make a connection. You know, I think the film's final 30 minutes, as with all of these Toy Story movies, you know, whether it is a manipulative, manipulative formula or a hard earned slice of imaginative storytelling, you can say it's both. The Pixar brand at this point. But there's a moment where Jesse has a realization when she discovers something about the impact of.

Amanda Davis

That was silly. But yes.

Sean Fennesee

Oh, my God. I was. You were crying, bawling. I was so moved by that. I loved that. I know. I won't spoil it for listeners.

Amanda Davis

I thought it was pretty unearned just because it was another character.

Sean Fennesee

It's, you know, I know, but the whole point of these movies is like, these toys are having existential crises about their value in the world because the kids discard them. Right? So that's, that's like something we've seen happen to Woody. It's something we've seen happen to Buzz over the years, I think giving Jesse her chance to also be a character who has this existential doubt about her value of being passed down and discarded over time. So I really liked that. And then I think Alice got it. I think she understood. I mean, I think it's a little bit less psychological at 4 and 5 around, like, am I valued? Am I accepted? What do I like and what do my friends like? Yeah, we have been talking with her a little bit about that recently, about sort of like, what are the kinds of people that you're interested in and drawn to and why do you like them? And that's like a very new concept for all of us. But I thought the movie was pretty sophisticated about that. But we also. Alice doesn't have an iPad. In fact, I don't know if she's ever held an iPad other than on a plane. She's not allowed to watch TV during the week. We're pretty stringent now. We may not be stringent like any year. It was definitely a holdover of like, don't let your kids watch TV until they're three. And like, we've kind of tried to follow some of those Guidelines. I'm not saying we're right or wrong. Everybody's point of view on this is different. We also only have one kid. I think when you have two kids or five kids or whatever, it's like it's a lot harder to manage these things. So I try to be not judgmental about this at all. But.

Amanda Davis

And also the movie is also conflating a lot of screen things. It's not just that, like there is a screen. It's not an iPad. It's not, you know, there's social media, there's the Internet aspect of it. There's a lot of gaming, There's a lot of. We don't actually see her watching a TV show or a movie.

Sean Fennesee

It's true. The irony while watching a movie.

Amanda Davis

Yeah. So it's not just that it's like a literal technological screen. It's what's happening on it. And it to me was geared much more towards social media like, and interactive behaviors and like life lived on a screen as opposed to entertainment, which, you

Sean Fennesee

know, I heard Andy Greenwald talking about this with his daughters on the Watch recently because they went to go see the last Digital Circus because his younger daughter is really interested in that YouTube series and his older daughter was not interested in it. But like, that's a thing where you reach a certain age and you are allowed access to a device.

Amanda Davis

Right.

Sean Fennesee

And it can kind of change your world. I mean, it can change how you want to spend all your time. And I think it's persuasive. I think the plotting is a little rickety of the story. But I think the idea is on point, which is if you let kids into this world, it can take over and it can make you a little meaner, it can make you a little bit more callous.

Amanda Davis

1,000%. I think the overall message and moral and. And also just the basic idea that the more a child, the more time a child spends on these like programs and then these types of screen life that are as absorbing, that are meant to take you away from the actual world, that you lose the ability to connect in the real world.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah.

Amanda Davis

And to. Whether it's playing with toys or talking to someone or like having a sense of imagination. You know, they. The animation style of Bonnie's eyes when she's looking at the screen is. Is very smart and perceptive and communicates the way your brain and just like sense of focus.

Sean Fennesee

Yes.

Amanda Davis

Adjusts with these programs. So. Or, you know, the games or whatever. So I think it's a hundred percent right. It is like Again, it's oversimplified and I think that it's not really, it's, you know, it's not all or nothing for anyone. And they, they do. There are many shots where toys are beholding the entire neighborhood and every window is lit up with a child staring at its screen all the time. And listen like kids are looking at screens. I left the house this morning and my, my two sons and husband were watching the US Open because our, our nanny is sick and he has one arm and like what's life? So if you looked at inside through our window, it would also be lit up the same way.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah, I do feel like there is. People may disagree with me, but I do feel like there is a delineation between watching television and watching a screen because that even though they're watching, that's still a communal event. And the individualization of staring at a screen I do see as different. Maybe it's a thin difference, maybe it's not all that meaningful, but watching sports with people is social.

Amanda Davis

I mean, I agree. I also think there's a major difference between watching movies and watching television, which, you know, she, the person who doesn't know how to watch television would say. But there's something about like the episodic watch, especially in the streaming era and we know that everything is engineered more, more. Okay, here's another one. Watch another one. Watch another one that's training to your brain in a different way as opposed to sitting down and watching a story. So the movie doesn't get into all of that. Does it need to for a seven year old to understand that, you know, it's probably better to go outside and play with your toys or your friends then stare at a screen all the time? No. So it does, it doesn't matter. I had some, I had some issues with the second and third act and the resolution and the way it incorporated the way the film tries to have it both ways. Specifically introduces three kind of mid tier devices. The Conan toy is, it's a toilet paper toy. It's a battery operated potty training toy. Did you use one of these?

Sean Fennesee

I did not.

Amanda Davis

We did not either. But it will be familiar to any parent or aunt or uncle or anyone of the. Just a very loud toy that won't shut up. We've got a vacuum that I just, I don't know how you turn it off.

Sean Fennesee

We don't have very many of those

Amanda Davis

in our house and we have so many trucks and you know, we've got a tractor, we've got a recycling truck.

Sean Fennesee

We have a Barbie plane.

Amanda Davis

Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, my sons go to your house and immediately turn on the Barbie plane. We have. And there are some toys that don't turn on. And Psy, who's not even two, will bring it over and hand it to you and just say on, on, on. Because he wants it to make noise like all the other toys.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah.

Amanda Davis

So, you know, but that's already. That's an example of. That is a. A tiny child who doesn't have a full vocabulary but understands that there are some. Some toys that have lights and sound and they're more interesting to him than the other toys. Yes. Then there's a digital. A kid's digital camera.

Sean Fennesee

This is something, by the way, that really started around our youth where this kind of digitized toy was really first starting to hit and has obviously become now more derriger.

Amanda Davis

Right. And so there's a kid's digital camera, which is a thing.

Sean Fennesee

Snappy.

Amanda Davis

Yes. Yes, snappy. And then what is the third one?

Sean Fennesee

It's an atlas.

Amanda Davis

Oh, sure.

Sean Fennesee

And is it a hippo's mouth? I think it's a hippo's mouth that operates as an atlas and can tell you, like, locations.

Amanda Davis

Well, that's creepy. From a basic GPS location situation, which, you know, it's sort of.

Sean Fennesee

I assume they're all based in real toys.

Amanda Davis

Stranger danger, like a little bit.

Sean Fennesee

But then these devices are all also communicating with Lily Pad. There is, like, there's some step skipping going on in terms of how these devices would be connected.

Amanda Davis

Well, you know, the fact that the toilet training paper, like toilet paper roll, can communicate with Lily Pad makes no sense and is also an indictment of, like, you know, the smart app home systems that we have. I don't need my air conditioner to talk to the Internet. You know, I just don't. I know you have it and I disabled mine. I. No, thank you.

Sean Fennesee

But it's really more of a. Just all of the climate stuff in our home is all connected. The house came that way. I don't know. I didn't. I didn't install that.

Amanda Davis

But, you know, it's like the dishwasher is now also.

Sean Fennesee

We don't have that. Ye.

Amanda Davis

Yeah. Like our. Our washer dryer got a new one a few years ago, and you could hook it up to the Internet. Why would I need to do that? But also, presumably with my children and their toys, with the right tools could hook it up to Lily Pad and then invite strangers over to our house to communicate with toys, which is a real thing that Happens unexamined. Anyway, so these devices are lying forgotten in a hall drawer, and they haven't been charged in a while, which is very apt and funny. And they get reanimated by Jesse in order to try.

Sean Fennesee

She charges them.

Amanda Davis

She charges them because she wants them to help her get home. And so then they become invested in this goal of reuniting Blaze and Bonnie and helping them come find friendship. And so it's like, oh, actually, the smart toys can be used for good. And then Lily Pad has like a real sudden out of nowhere existential nightmare, right? And just shuts herself down and tries to give herself away.

Sean Fennesee

I don't know. I thought this was pure sci fi. I enjoyed it. You know, it's like when the AI becomes conscious and realizes that it too is fallible and it kind of melts. That is kind of. In 2001. We talked about this with Spielberg.

Amanda Davis

No, I know, but we all know that that's not actually what. That's.

Sean Fennesee

No. Well, also, toys are not real, Amanda. So this is a film.

Amanda Davis

But this is. This is a movie made by an animation company that was founded by a tech company that is engineering all the plots so that the toys and the devices can team up together and act for good in support of this child. And so the devices help. And this leads to the final. Spoiler alert.

Sean Fennesee

I knew you were not going to enjoy this part. Yeah.

Amanda Davis

Okay, first of all, there are like 45 buzz lightyears. There's like a. And that creeped me out. Just, there were a lot of them.

Sean Fennesee

Series of Buzz Lightyears clearly in a shipping container. Crash land somewhere. And they all come online.

Amanda Davis

Sure.

Sean Fennesee

And they all need to find Star Command.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

And so they team up together and they travel and they find the mainland. They find themselves entrenched in this Bonnie Blaze union effort.

Amanda Davis

But it just. A lot of Buzz Lightyears all at once is, like, pretty creepy to me.

Sean Fennesee

I think it's on purpose.

Amanda Davis

Yeah. So good job. And then they get Lily Pad back. Everybody's syncing up, charging, sharing data, locations. You know, it's a. It's a free communication universe. And the final thing they have to do in order to get Bonnie and Blaze together is that they got to scan a QR code so that Buzz can get a app update. An iOS update.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah.

Amanda Davis

And that is when I almost walked out of the theater.

Sean Fennesee

Okay.

Amanda Davis

Because I just hinging all of this around an iOS update, a software update being essential to our human life is both existentially depressing and also the most ridiculous propaganda from These fucking companies that just need to make us update less. Like, I can't. I can't be updating all the time. Fucking figure it out. Get stuff right at the beginning so I don't have to update every five minutes, you sloppy idiots. The end.

Sean Fennesee

So what I'm hearing here is you don't like updates.

Amanda Davis

I hate updates.

Sean Fennesee

I don't understand. Why is this. Why is this controversial?

Amanda Davis

Why. Why are updates controversial? Yeah, why do we have to do it every five minutes? Sonos is asking me to update every single day. Spotify shuts down my laptop once a week to give engineering updates that I don't need as I. What I need is an Internet connection and my mind.

Sean Fennesee

Okay, we got it. We got to get you a Knicks championship in your life. You got to let go of this.

Amanda Davis

The updates. This doesn't drive you. Absolutely. How often are you updating all of your apps?

Sean Fennesee

As soon as they pop up.

Amanda Davis

Are you opening app store every day and being like, sure, update.

Sean Fennesee

I think I have everything set on auto update.

Amanda Davis

You're letting them control your phone?

Sean Fennesee

Yeah, sure. They're controlling everything already.

Amanda Davis

Why? This is. I mean, this is cookies all over the world.

Sean Fennesee

What do you think you're in. Do you think you're in charge of anything? Sure. Surely you jest.

Amanda Davis

You're. Why are you letting them get into your phone and update everything?

Sean Fennesee

You're buying clothes on the Internet every day. They have everything they'll ever need. They have your face. They have your sizing. They have your credit card. They have your ID numbers.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

You put your Social Security number in when you're flying on a plane. It's over. You lost.

Amanda Davis

Do the airlines have my Social Security number?

Sean Fennesee

Certain that they do.

Amanda Davis

I don't. I mean, I'm sure that they do, but not because of me.

Sponsor/Advertisement Voice

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

You know who has all of your personal and private information? Donald Trump.

Amanda Davis

I know, but still, what are we fighting on here? I don't. I just.

Sean Fennesee

From the Buzz Lightyear app.

Amanda Davis

It'll be. It's not an idea. It's not. I know they have everything. That's fine. And I know that AI is trained on us.

Sean Fennesee

CIA is listening to this episode.

Amanda Davis

I know. And I guess making notes on it. Them not very well. I think you guys should be using

Sean Fennesee

your taste to overthrow a nation right now.

Amanda Davis

We are accepting their checks. No, we're not. So here's my thing is that I just. It's so frequent. It's so annoying. I really just need them to handle their business. This is part of my, like, I Don't like. I don't like. Process. I don't like. Why don't you figure it out and get it right and then you can ask for my time and attention. Okay? That's what I have.

Sean Fennesee

And so because of that, Buzz Lightyear developing the ability to fly.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

Due to an app update made you want to leave the theater.

Sponsor/Advertisement Voice

It is.

Amanda Davis

It's the justification of. It is centering your entire movie around the justification of fucking updates every five minutes.

Sean Fennesee

Also saw it that way, but I understand what you're saying.

Amanda Davis

So this is a movie about playing with toys. So shouldn't the children be helping him fly?

Sponsor/Advertisement Voice

Perhaps.

Amanda Davis

There you go.

Sean Fennesee

Perhaps. I think we do eventually get there in the story. I do think we eventually see that the purpose of toys is to be a portal to imagination, is to be able to. It's true, you know, access a part of your mind and a part of your true self. Listen, I was a toy kid. It will come as no surprise. I love toys. I try to give my daughter toys because I.

Amanda Davis

Top five toys.

Sean Fennesee

Top five toys. Jesus fucking Christ.

Amanda Davis

Well, it's like, what speaks to you? And did you have, like a special?

Sean Fennesee

I mean, I had a Batmobile. That was awesome.

Amanda Davis

Yeah, of course.

Sean Fennesee

That was truly awesome. Here's what I collected. He Man. Star wars figures from Kenner. GI Joe, of course. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I had WWF wrestlers. Posable wrestlers. That's probably my core.

Amanda Davis

Okay. And did you have one special?

Sean Fennesee

I was a he, man. Kid. I was a he.

Amanda Davis

I know, but, like. But did you have. I mean, like, not even lovie.

Sean Fennesee

I didn't have, like a stuffed animal or.

Amanda Davis

I didn't know.

Sean Fennesee

I didn't have that. I didn't have my one.

Amanda Davis

You didn't have a Jesse?

Sean Fennesee

No. Did you?

Amanda Davis

No, of course not.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah. My wife still has the. Her teddy bear that she grew up with.

Amanda Davis

And Nox has sort of like a blanket. That is his thing. He's Linus coded. But Psy has Leo, you know, and, like, I had to import.

Sean Fennesee

Well, this is a real thing. I think that's part of why this franchise is so good. This is real.

Amanda Davis

I get it.

Sean Fennesee

This is an actual thing that as now that we are child rearers, like, we know that this is something. This is a rite of passage that you develop a relationship with a physical object, and that thing gives you a sense of peace, grace, creativity, you know? This franchise has also always been a little bit of trying to have it both ways. Where on the one hand, you've got Woody and Buzz, these created characters who are not based on anything real. But then you also, like, Barbie has appeared in this franchise. You know, Mr. Potato Head is a real toy. There are real toy. Etch A Sketch, for example, is a real toy that was part of this franchise. So it has always been trying to walk the line between the kind of branded content component of toy purchase and then also these original characters that they now own and can sell you over and over again.

Amanda Davis

Branded.

Sean Fennesee

Yes, I really liked it. Sounds like you're a little bit more mixed. I understand your notes are fair.

Amanda Davis

I also, I don't know that I'm gonna take my son to see it.

Sean Fennesee

Oh, sheesh.

Amanda Davis

Really? Just from a time perspective, you think

Sean Fennesee

this is better than Minions and Monsters? This isn't better than Minions and Monsters?

Amanda Davis

I. I guess it is, but I had way more fun at and at Minions and Monsters.

Sean Fennesee

That's like, it's my type of. That's like the two genders of movie taste right there.

Amanda Davis

It's my type of comedy. I mean, I thought this was like charming and insightful.

Sean Fennesee

Toy Story 5 is not that funny.

Amanda Davis

Funny.

Sean Fennesee

It's not very. It's very, very emotional and it's not very funny. You're right.

Amanda Davis

You know, do I prefer movie references to tech references? Yes, I do. That's just one woman's opinion.

Sean Fennesee

Okay, well, we'll come back to Minions and Monsters when it's released before we talk about the Toy Story franchise. Yeah, Pixar now. So we spoke about Hoppers earlier this year. It's coming just under $400 million, which is low on the Pixar end, but for an original animated movie is pretty good. It's the highest grossing Pixar original since Coco, which is almost 10 years ago. Inside Out 2, Toy Story 4 and Incredibles 2 are the billion dollar movies in the last 10 years. This movie is clearly going to be a billion dollar movie. It does feel like. My sense of things right now is that Pixar is kind of where Marvel was like five or six years ago. You know, where it was like the big brands are still very big and will continue to be big. And if Marvel put out a Captain America movie starring Chris Evans, it would make $800 million.

Amanda Davis

Right.

Sean Fennesee

But if they try to tweak it or change it or launch something new, there are much. They're much bigger challenges. Fantastic Four, Thunderbolts, Shang Chi, Black Widow. Those movies are not as big as what Avengers Doomsday is going to be. Does that make Sense? Or Guardians 3 is.

Amanda Davis

Well, it's, you know, they have their established IP now. And they did manage to create real IP themselves.

Sean Fennesee

A bunch of things. I mean, they've got a bunch of them they can go back to.

Amanda Davis

But we're in the threes and fours and Toy Story Fives now. And that is what makes money just as it does, you know, superhero movies, really, anywhere else at the box office.

Sean Fennesee

It's true. There's not a lot of great movies that are the fifth installment of a franchise. I have always intended to do an episode the best Fours, fives and sixes.

Amanda Davis

Okay.

Sean Fennesee

I was just having a conversation yesterday with somebody about the Friday the 13th franchise.

Amanda Davis

Got it.

Sean Fennesee

And how I think 4, 5, and 6 in that franchise is quite good. It's very uncommon.

Amanda Davis

If you're rebooting a franchise, I don't think that counts. That counts.

Sean Fennesee

I think it's more like just the linear. I think just the linear execution of a franchise. Like even Fast Five. Well, that has been. That was cited, actually, when we were talking. The Fast5 would be one of the. You know, I'm not as big on the Fast Five as you, but I acknowledge that it is, like, the best in that franchise. And that's unusual for that to happen. It would just be a good episode one day, I think. Yeah. But this is pretty good. And then Gato, which has a teaser now, is coming in the spring, and that's an original. That's more like Hopper's. And then Incredibles 3 is the film that follows that in 2028, which is not directed by Brad Bird. It's directed by Peter Sohn, who directed Elemental and the Good Dinosaur. Brad Bird's new movie is coming from Netflix later this year, which is called Raygun, which I believe is a film he started developing at Pixar and is like his. It's an animated noir film. It's like a detective movie.

Amanda Davis

Okay.

Sean Fennesee

That is supposed to be terrific. It was like one of the. Considered one of the best unmade scripts in Hollywood for a really long time. But he's not directing Incredibles 3, which is quite fascinating.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

So, yeah, Pixar, I don't know if they can make Hoppers and Gato, if they keep making those, if they don't stop.

Amanda Davis

And also if they can reach, like, a middle tier of success. Yeah, right.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah. I think you'd probably want to be more like five, six hundred million dollars for movies like that, but Hoppers did pretty good.

Amanda Davis

And it's like, we do have a Hopper's

Sean Fennesee

beaver.

Amanda Davis

Beaver. Thank you. Sorry. I was Walrus, Hedgehog. I was doing a lot of Tea things. Yeah. Beaver in our home that. I think that my mom brought that. I don't know if she knew that it was Hoppers related. It was just cute. So in terms of toys and franchise ability, but I don't really know whether you're gonna get a Hoppers 2.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah. The thing I was thinking about related to this is we were at Disney in the spring. Disneyland, I should say. And we went on Radiator Springs for the first time. The Cars ride.

Amanda Davis

Oh, okay.

Sean Fennesee

And great ride. And, you know, there's a whole Cars land there. Like, they have developed an entire area of the theme park that is dedicated to cars. And Cars is one of the most successful franchises that they have. Will there ever be a Hopper's Land? You know, will there ever be even a Coco Land? Like, that's the thing that is related to all this is because.

Amanda Davis

Right. So they're not starting new universes, new ip.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah.

Amanda Davis

They don't have it yet.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah. I don't know. Maybe they will. We'll see. Maybe Gateau will be the start of a massive Cat land, but probably not.

Amanda Davis

Okay.

Sean Fennesee

Box office for this movie.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

Looks like it's going to do pretty Darn good. Did $17.5 million in previews as we're recording on Friday morning.

Amanda Davis

I saw it yesterday and was with a bunch of families.

Sean Fennesee

Big crowd. Yeah. It looks like it may make as much as $180 million this weekend, which makes it on track for being one of the biggest movies of the year.

Amanda Davis

Yeah. Well, Disney needs the money, as we

Sean Fennesee

know, so they're going to be okay. I think they're going to be just fine. I feel like Oscars. It's in play.

Amanda Davis

Sure. You know, they like the Toy Story franchise. I mean, the performances are great. The animation itself is great. I'm open to it. Nice picture, if you want. I mean, you and I were doing our lists the other day, and it's a. It's an interesting year.

Sean Fennesee

Funky year.

Amanda Davis

Yeah. But we always. We always say that in June.

Sean Fennesee

We do. We do.

Amanda Davis

Because it's always lopsided. And there are always a couple things that we don't see coming. And there are also always a couple things that we've already seen that we don't expect to go as far as it did.

Sean Fennesee

You're absolutely right.

Amanda Davis

I mean, Is this your F1? You want to do it right now?

Sean Fennesee

Nope.

Amanda Davis

Okay.

Sean Fennesee

I don't think it is.

Amanda Davis

Okay.

Sean Fennesee

I don't know what. I don't know what this year's F1 is.

Amanda Davis

Yeah, well, you didn't know what it was last year either. Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

Okay. The Toy Story movie rankings. Tricky one here.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

One of the complicated components of this is many people who love this franchise Love Toy Story 2. Toy Story 2 has never been one of my number ones.

Amanda Davis

Yeah, so your number ones are 1 and 3.

Sean Fennesee

1 and 3, I think are the best.

Amanda Davis

Okay. And then you were very moved by five. Big five.

Sean Fennesee

Can I give you my gut ranking right now?

Amanda Davis

Yeah, because that's what we'll go with. I'm just gonna. I'm gonna be a sidekick and a sounding board.

Sean Fennesee

Okay. That's kind of you. But I want your input. I seek your input. I would go Toy story, Toy Story 3.

Amanda Davis

So you're going from one to five right now?

Sean Fennesee

Yes, from one to five. Toy Story from 1995, the original Toy Story 3 at number two, which is a masterpiece.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

I think It's Toy Story 2 here, followed by Toy Story 5, followed by Toy Story 4. Now, I was very high on Toy Story 4 when I saw it. I think it is among the more controversial.

Amanda Davis

Okay.

Sean Fennesee

It's not one that people love. I don't know what the vibe is going to be on Toy Story 5. I know. I cherish what Griffin Newman thinks of the Toy Story franchise. This is his favorite franchise, and I know he liked this movie, which makes me think that the Die Hards will get and be on board with five. And even just seeing Duke Caboom for like one minute, which is the Keanu Reeves motorcycle character in this movie, I was like, oh, yeah, four's cool. Maybe not as memorable as I thought it was going to be. Obviously, Forky is an icon. We didn't really get enough forky and knifey in this movie, in my opinion. In the new one, they had a

Amanda Davis

couple good one liners.

Sean Fennesee

They did. I thought they might be a bigger part of this.

Amanda Davis

Well, I mean, this is the thing that pretty much everyone but Jesse and Lily Pad are sidelines.

Sean Fennesee

You're right.

Amanda Davis

Even. Even Buzz and Woody, really? Woody, who's just kind of out on the road saving people jokes at his.

Sean Fennesee

At his expense.

Amanda Davis

I mean, those are funny. Somebody needs a brown marker and, you know, listen, it's hard for all of us.

Sean Fennesee

Well, it had me thinking about how many people who had voiced characters from the 1995 film have passed away. You know, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Doris Roberts. Like, is John Ratzenberger still with us? I don't know. Wallace Shawn is still alive, mercifully to voice rex. But that's 31 years ago when this movie came out. Which is so crazy. But my instinct is to say toy story. Toy Story 3, Toy Story 2, Toy Story 5, Toy Story 4.

Amanda Davis

If it was your personal ranking, would you flip 5 and 2?

Sean Fennesee

I got to rewatch 2. Okay. Last time we did this, I was really. I was yelled at by the masses about my misunderstanding of two, and I'm open to that.

Amanda Davis

And you didn't revisit it as a result of that.

Sean Fennesee

And you know a huge part of it. This is all very personal. I was still young enough to watch Toy Story when it came out, even though I was 12, and really get invested in it and love it and be blown away by the animation style, which was so different and new. In 99, I was watching the Matrix.

Amanda Davis

Right.

Sean Fennesee

I was just in a different place in my life. I was just. I was very interested in a certain kind of movie, and it was in Toy Story 2. So I don't. I'm sure I saw it that year, but it didn't quite make the emotional connection. Whereas if you were seven, you were

Amanda Davis

more of a mean girl on the Lily Pad than a Bonnie at that point.

Sean Fennesee

No, I wasn't trying to take anything away.

Amanda Davis

You play with toys?

Sean Fennesee

No, I'm not that kind of person. I want people to be happy. Unless it's you. I forgot. There's one other thing we didn't mention.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

Taylor Swift.

Amanda Davis

Oh, yeah. I left the theater.

Sean Fennesee

You didn't stay for the song?

Amanda Davis

No, I had to go. We had the potluck. Listen, I have a life. I'm a parent to kids. And also, it's tacked on.

Sean Fennesee

You know, the song is tacked on. Can I be honest? Thought it was good.

Amanda Davis

Great. You're really soft.

Sean Fennesee

Well, it's not about my moral opposition to Taylor Swift. It's about art.

Amanda Davis

Is that what it is?

Sean Fennesee

And if art is good, and it's obviously. I think it's a collaboration with Randy Newman, who is, of course, an icon to me. And we're in a month. We're in a month in which both John Williams and Randy Newman have new musical scores. This is still happening. These men. Now, if it were politics, I would say get out of office. But if they're in the room conducting musicians, I say, stay forever.

Amanda Davis

It's the year of Sean. And you accept.

Sean Fennesee

That's just wonderful to see.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

Taylor Swift. Yeah, sure.

Amanda Davis

The other day, there was a terrible playlist in our office that featured her song from Cats.

Sean Fennesee

Oh, sure.

Amanda Davis

Do you remember this?

Sean Fennesee

I do, yeah.

Amanda Davis

Not my favorite of her songs.

Sean Fennesee

No. It's atrocious. The Toy Story 5 song is called. I knew it. I knew you. Okay, Maybe I'll listen to it on the way home. Maybe I'll zag on Taylor. Maybe it's a Taylor era for me now.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

The day she gets married.

Amanda Davis

Yeah. You're gonna be at msg.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah. Maybe I'll be the officiant. Should I marry Taylor?

Amanda Davis

Yeah, I think that's in line.

Sean Fennesee

Did that person get paid for that job?

Amanda Davis

I don't know how it works when you're Taylor Swift. I don't believe that they're actually getting married at Madison Square Garden. That's my personal take.

Sean Fennesee

Okay. Where do you think they're getting married?

Amanda Davis

I think. I don't know. I.

Sean Fennesee

But I like in financial field, probably.

Amanda Davis

Yeah. I think because she's been so good to the Philly community.

Sean Fennesee

That's right. You know, I mean, home of Jason Kelsey. And he'll be the best man, presumably.

Amanda Davis

I think so. But I, I. Maybe they'll use MSG as a staging venue. That's something that Juliette Lippman heard. Or as like a. As a staging point or like a gathering point.

Sean Fennesee

And then everyone will walk to the canyon of heroes.

Amanda Davis

I think everyone's.

Sean Fennesee

In the aftermath of New Year's, everyone's asked.

Amanda Davis

I think maybe everyone's asked to make their way to Madison Square Garden because there's a lot of entrances, exits, there's a lot of privacy. And then they'll be taken to the location from Madison Square Garden via hovercraft.

Sean Fennesee

What are you talking about?

Amanda Davis

I don't know. I. Listen, this is not what I do. First of all, I'm not a party planner, not a wedding planner. I am a party planner, and I throw great parties that would never happen at Madison Square Garden because I believe in windows number two. I.

Sean Fennesee

That's the Mecca, I'll have you know. And it is the home of the champion. New York.

Amanda Davis

I think that's a wonderful place to win a championship.

Sean Fennesee

Yeah.

Amanda Davis

I don't think didn't win there.

Sean Fennesee

We won in San Antonio.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

That's it.

Amanda Davis

Yeah. That's tough. I don't think that I would not choose to get married in a place without windows. Just. That's just me.

Sean Fennesee

Ironic, because there was not a single window at the venue where you got married.

Amanda Davis

It was outside.

Sean Fennesee

That's right. Not a single window to be seen. Yeah. Taylor Swift. Yeah. Maybe it's time.

Amanda Davis

Okay.

Sean Fennesee

Maybe it's time.

Amanda Davis

This is a really exciting year for you.

Sean Fennesee

I'm just. I feel great.

Amanda Davis

Yeah. Good.

Sean Fennesee

Everything is going great. Toy Story 5 crying like a baby. I saw it 12 hours after the Knicks one. That was the other thing to consider.

Amanda Davis

All right.

Sean Fennesee

You know, it was Sunday morning. I was in the best state I've ever been in in my life. So maybe you should consider that when you go see the film. Listeners of this show. My bad. If it's not good, I don't really know. I could have watched the worst slop of all time and been, like, interesting ideas here. Really, like the thematic elements that they were after in this film. Okay, I think we're done.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

You feel done?

Amanda Davis

Sure.

Sean Fennesee

Okay. Usa. Will they win today?

Amanda Davis

I don't know. Our friend Connor was like, do you guys wanna come watch in an Australian bar? And I was like, I don't really think that.

Sean Fennesee

Risky.

Amanda Davis

That's the energy. I can bring my two sons into Risk.

Sean Fennesee

Although they kind of have Aussie Mad Men. Sure.

Amanda Davis

But I just, you know, they're ready to fight at the drop of a hat, so we can't put them in a situation like that.

Sean Fennesee

It's true. Okay, well, this was emotionally valuable. Thanks for making this time. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Thanks to Lucas Kavanaugh for his production support. Next week, we're drafting again. It's been a minute since we've had a draft. We recorded the 1976 draft roughly three years ago. So we're doing our first.

Amanda Davis

That was a long time ago.

Sean Fennesee

We're doing our first ever redraft. We're redrafting from the year 2010, which was the very first movie draft that we ever did on this show. But this time, we're doing it with the whole gang, the big team. It's every June. I know you don't know this, but I know this. Every June we do a mega movie draft.

Amanda Davis

I do know that.

Sean Fennesee

Okay, you do know that.

Amanda Davis

Yeah. And so last year, I absolutely crushed with the perfect. Was it 2000. Right. And I had Bring It On. Virgin Suicides, Coyote Ugly, Center Stage. One more. I mean, it was legendary.

Sean Fennesee

There are literally threes of women at home shaking their heads and saying, yes, Amanda, I heard.

Amanda Davis

I heard from more than three people.

Sean Fennesee

Okay, so Rob Mahoney.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

Joanna Robinson. Mallory Rubin. Van Lathan. Cr. Me and you.

Amanda Davis

Yeah.

Sean Fennesee

2010.

Amanda Davis

Is there gonna be a table? I meant to ask you this. And we'll just do it live. So is it table? I just need to know what pants and shoes to wear.

Sean Fennesee

There's gonna be table. I believe you will be sitting directly in the middle of said table.

Amanda Davis

Okay, good. Like Jesus himself. At the Last Supper.

Sean Fennesee

I'll be off screen the whole time. Thanks for listening. Enjoy Toy Story 5. We'll see you next week.

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