Hey, it's Liz Kelly and welcome to the Ring Your Podcast Network. We hope the Ring Your Can Provide You Entertainment and Companion Ship during this time, so as always, feel free to check out theringer.com where we're still covering the latest in sports, pop culture, tech, and media, and the Ring Yours YouTube channel can provide endless amounts of entertainment. You can find that at youtube.com slash the Ring Your. I'm Sean Fennese.
I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the big picture a conversation show about whatever is inside the mailbag, we're on day seven of quarantine. Amanda, how are you holding up? I'm doing okay.
Again, I think relatively you and I are very fortunate and we're able to work from home and my loved ones are okay and I'm trying to remember that and I hope everyone listening is doing okay doing the best they can and that this provides some silly distraction. Yes, we're well positioned not just to thrive in this atmosphere but to watch more and to recommend more so we have a mega mailbag here. Hopefully we'll be able to provide you with some recommendations to kill time while we're forced to kill time. Before we get into the mailbag though, our old friend, Cats, the movie Cats is back in the news and it's not good.
It started with the Razzies on Monday where Cats swept the Razzies. I try to not acknowledge the Razzies generally. I don't think awards for things that suck are a good idea. I don't want to celebrate things that suck.
But then there was a scurrilous rumor that there was a quote, butthole cut of Cats. It was somewhere in the world. I feel really horrible just having said that out loud but apparently there is a there was I don't this is an unconfirmed rumor that a person in the CGI house was asked to return to the editing suite to erase all of the cat anuses from Cats. There's a hashtag released the butthole cut.
A lot of people think this is really funny. I don't think this is very funny. Amanda, do you think it's funny? No, not at all.
Like, do you ever have those moments of realization where you're just like, I'm not among my people. Like, we just have different interests, different senses of humor, different ways that we want to spend our time. I feel this really deeply about this. But I also felt this way about Cats.
People had a lot of fun with the trailer for Cats. And who am I to yuck? Anyone else is fun, especially in these moments. If it brings you joy, that's great.
But I didn't enjoy the trailer. And then you and I went to see Cats, which was just a one of the worst movie going experiences of 2019 for either of us. I did have our friend Gilbert Cruz, who was on his podcast and who's the culture editor of The New York Times was one of the many people who finally sought out Cats this week. And he texted me and he was like, everyone kept saying it was just a musical of Cats saying what kind of Cats they are.
And I thought that you were joking. But no, it's just a musical about people saying what kind of Cats there are. I just don't get it. I'll never get it.
Yeah, I don't revel in garbage. I think some people think there's something fun about communally sharing garbage. But that's not something that I'm interested in. Along with Gilbert, Seth Rogen clearly discovered the movie this week and had a long and very popular tweet thread about it.
I thought Seth's observations were really on point and accurate and reflected a lot of what we talked about. And we're sort of unsparing about the fact that this movie is very stupid and does not make sense. And I hate that it is back at the forefront of the culture. Universal very wisely made this movie available more quickly so that they could feast on folks at home, perhaps sitting with their cats, having an opportunity to watch Cats.
I would advise you to not watch Cats. And hopefully this will be the last time the movie ever comes up in the history of this podcast. I agree with that. It's just not for me.
And if you're having fun with it, I guess that's great. But please don't tell me about it. The end. It's slightly more serious news before we get to the mailbag.
The Cannes International Film Festival was postponed today. And that is probably the last big domino in the major global film market to fall. And it's a huge deal. Canada's not been postponed previously.
And it was obviously the site last year of movies like Parasite, which went on to invest in the picture. And it's probably the most famous historical film festival in the world. And it's postponement is confirmation of the fact that the movie universe has completely been changed by COVID-19. I mean, I assume you're not surprised by this news.
No, it's one of those really unfortunate situations where it seemed inevitable. And I think there was a lot of anxiety specifically around people with films in the festival and people trying to cover the festival of what would happen and how best to go about it. And with the understanding that it at least would not be happening at the time it was scheduled to. So it's not surprising, but it just it really is.
It's disappointing for everyone who had a film there, for everyone who was going to be participating either as a journalist or working there or selling films there. And it's just another reminder that there's a very long tail here. For sure. And one of the, you know, this is pretty low on the list of emotional priorities right now, but Canada is really a stage setter for what the rest of the world, what the rest of the year in international cinema is going to look like.
There are still films that premiere at last year's Cannes Film Festival that we haven't seen yet. And you know, it really sets up a lot of the conversation that you and I have in the following week at really into award season. And I'm personally just kind of fascinated to see how that stuff shifts. The fact that, you know, once upon a time in Paris, I made their world premieres at Cannes last year and really kicked off the conversation, I think for the most meaningful movies of the year from that point forward.
So without a moment like that, I'm not totally sure what a word season is like on a lot of other other shows we're talking about, the sports schedule and how games have been postponed to be the NBA season will be canceled. And if that happens, how do we regard this season? Again, this is not super important, but it is important to this show. And what kind of a show we make going forward is totally going to be affected by the fact that there just will not be new films shown to the world until, I don't know, it feels like at the earliest July at this point.
That's true. Although, you know, and this is not a big deal at all. There was the first July delay today. I'm really sad to say that minions the rise of grew will no longer be released in July.
I have to be honest, I was bombed. I mean, we're trying to make a podcast. I'm trying to make jokes. Even my bits are being canceled now.
And it's just, damn it, it's what I felt when I saw that news. But it's, you know, it's obviously that's a blow to universal and everyone's been working on it. It was interesting that the reason they delayed it was because they wouldn't be able to finish production on it was the reason given. So that's another you think about all of the movies where production has been halted and things that haven't yet been delayed from a release perspective, maybe delayed down the road.
It seems like everything is just kind of being pushed back a few months. So I think you're right. Once things do start getting rescheduled, I mean, that'll be exciting. That'll be good news at least that, you know, movies are going to be released again, but there will be a real domino effect.
Yeah, we might get a period where we have just an overwhelming number of new films that come in front of us every single week. Sometimes we have those weeks like those stars born venom weekends where you're like, oh, my God, there's two hugely significant movies. How are we going to cover this on the show in a way that serves the audiences of those movies? You know, we had talked about on our most anticipated movies of the year list episode earlier this year that this was the first soft Christmas we were going to have in a while.
And now all of a sudden, I don't think we're going to have such a soft Christmas. I think a lot of stuff is going to get pushed into November and December. So on the one hand, I look forward to having a lot to talk about. On the other hand, you know, for everybody, like you said, who worked on a film who was submitting to the Cannes Film Festival to, you know, the international audience of admirers and the jury and everybody who partakes in that festival and to all the the minions and group fans, you know, we're going to state of disrepair here.
Should we go to the mailbag? What do you think? Let's do it. Bobby Wagner.
You're here to help us walk through the mailbag. Let's read the first question. I am. And this first question, this is a little bit of a ringer bias, but it helps to be the person who actually sent this tweet.
Now this comes from our social media member David Lara. He says, if you're only if you're allowed to only watch one director's filmography for the rest of your life, who would it be? This was the easiest question for me to answer. And I answered it very quickly.
Oh, OK, fine. Well, that makes for a great mailbag. Good job. Podcasting, Sean.
Everyone's thinking I want to be with you. All right. What's your answer? Go ahead.
I said, I said, Quentin, you know, OK, I think I love the movies of Quentin know, and I think that's a terrible choice. So let me talk to you because all right. Quentin, you know, one of the great filmmakers of all time. So David, I think this is a great question.
You got it. Let's work through this. The first thing that you have to think about. How are you loving me?
Well, you're on the mission right now. Podcasts. This is a talk to me on a mission. OK, so the first thing you have to think about.
So it's one director for the rest of your life. So you really have to make a volume pick here, right? You need to pick a filmmaker with like with many, many, many films, someone who is doing one a year, someone who's not precious, because otherwise, you're just going to be watching the same 10 films. If you're Sean and you picked Quentin Tarantino.
Nine. He's made nine nine nine nine five if you're if we're including four rooms. Nine point five movies for the rest of your life. Great job, dummy.
So in terms of volume, the two of the top of my head, I mean, listen, they're really boring. I'm going to pick as obviously Soderberg because he just made a tremendous number of films. There is like a variety of type of film, even if he does have a specific vision and style, but I actually think that you don't want to pick anyone to a tourist because well, a tourist in the like specific vision sense, because then you're kind of watching the same movie over and over again, applied to different things. So Soderberg is actually not my pick.
I think honestly, in terms of just like a ton of movies, rewatchability and like the variety of experience, you probably need to pick like Spielberg because you're just getting a lot of different stuff. And you also have to keep in mind you're revisiting these movies. It's not just like the first time obviously Tarantino movies are rewatchable, but there is something that needs to be quite say accessible. And I guess I'm doing this in the lens of you're watching these at home.
Like maybe if you have the giant theater experience and it's just you alone for the rest of your life that it changes. But for me, I think you want something that you can watch at home, which is like a Spielberg, like a blockbuster, but you know, with some precise technical know-how. But I also think so I think what Spielberg, but I really honestly, if I were doing my honest answer right now and again, this is like of the moment I was influenced by Sam Esmel and our conversation. And I think I would pick Rob Reiner.
Wow. Yeah. Well, let me just tell you that I think your picks are horrible and if you're going to criticize me, I'm going to criticize you. To me, it's not about variants or variables.
It's about what gives me the most pure because it's what we give me the most pure pleasure. You know, we've been talking in the last couple of weeks about how movies are salvation and a South from from trying times. And if I could only have 9.5 movies, that's probably the 9.5 movies of Quentin Hill, Rob Reiner directed North. North is a piece of shit.
He directed a lot of pieces of shit. I had a great birthday party at North. That is a true story. I think it was my 11th birthday and we had a really nice time.
And also, if you pick Reiner, then you're not just getting Rob Reiner. You're also getting the North African experience with when Harry Metz Ali and you're getting here and working with a few good men. He's working with a lot of different people and a lot of different actors. And you know, you get a final tap and you do it's like, I think and it's comforting.
Again, for me, it is also those are the movies that I would want to spend the most time with. And then when I'm really bored, I can watch the bucket list. I mean, that's fine. The Spielberg movies, I find to be not rewatchable the older I get and the more hardened and more cynical I get.
And I find his put on of empathy and hope and aspiration to be kind of funny. That's just me. OK. Well, you're also the person who's just been seeking out the most anxiety provoking movies and an anxious time to deal with your stuff.
So, you know, you and your nine hours, nine movies can be alone on an island for the rest of your life together. Well, you can enjoy your time watching Rob Reiner's LBJ bio picks during Woody Harrelson. I'm sure that will be time well spent. Speechless.
I got her. Bobby, what's the next question? I do a bunch of a party. OK, first of all, why are you crushing my 11 year old birthday party right now?
I don't understand what's the need. Why that's necessary. Second of all, Sean and I both have summer birthdays. My birthday's in August and it's really hot.
So you can't like there are only so many things that you could do in Atlanta in the summer. I had several pool parties. We went to a Braves game once, but at some point, you know, my love of cinema and Rob Reiner just kicked in. OK, fair.
I'm sorry. I didn't mean to crush your 11 year old self. Next question. I also had I had an 11 year old birthday party.
I moved here as well. It was the movie Robin Hood Men and Tights directed by Mel Brooks who was a fucking icon. And I had a great time. It's a good pizza afterwards.
No, no, I didn't go alone, Bobby. I went with my my coterie of close friends. My father escorted us and then we had some several pepperoni pizzas afterwards. Hell of a day.
Hell of a birthday. I was more of a rollerblading roller rink kind of birthday guy, but that's just me. OK, next question is from William. What are your favorite feel good movies for those of us looking to de-stress a bit?
What did you go with your Amanda? Well, I'm with the catalog of Rob Reiner. Yeah, I do feel like these are all my picks. So I'm going to try to ration them out.
And I did some old musicals, which to me are always very comforting. Obviously, the obvious ones were singing the rain, American and Paris, a funny face. Really recommend the old guys and dolls, which I had a real connection to when I was young and by by birdie and then romantic comedies for me or also the number one. So I know I've talked about a lot of them, but three that I haven't talked about that much and maybe we can talk about them at a later date if people actually like them.
Morning Glory, starring Rachel McAdams and Patrick Wilson and also Diane Keaton and Harrison Ford. It's complicated, which is an anti-myers movie with Meryl Streep and my best friends wedding, which I have done a rewatchables on, but I recommend that episode. But that's it. The early musical, The Wizard of Oz, which I've talked about and how much I love that movie and how important it is to me.
I think you could put that on through any experience in your life and it will make you feel better, even though it is arguably one of the most stressful movies ever made. If you think about the premise of The Wizard of Oz, it is actually a very upsetting film, but ultimately it will make you happy. A couple of other ones, speaking of movies we've done rewatchables on, I think The Big Lebowski. I think The Big Lebowski from the ages of 18 to 30 or so was the most comfort food I had.
It's probably the movie I've watched the most times without having to think about, without having to analyze, just letting it wash over me. And then two movies that you don't have to think about and probably shouldn't, but that I always, always, always love watching, which are turning like almost 25 years old, I think, are Billy Madison and Tommy Boy, which we don't really talk about the kind of like bro comedies of the era that's usually reserved for the rewatchable space, but I'm not better than that. I fucking love Tommy Boy. And the idea that Tommy Boy is turning 25 is horrifying to me, but also very, very, it's sort of sweet.
We're all aging. Is Tommy Boy a fat guy in a little coat? It sure is. Yeah, that's classic.
Very special film. Bobby, have you seen Tommy Boy? I have not. And also, I'm turning 24 in like two weeks.
So, wow, what the fuck? Bobby, I just, I'm going to need you to take it down a notch in terms of making us feel terrible. Okay. This is, this is, yeah.
I just, okay. Next question. Next question. Small businesses are closing left and right to the coronavirus.
Do you think we'll get to the point of seeing movie studios, either large, like Disney or Smolik neon shutting down or permanently shifting if the theaters after it may close? I don't think so. I certainly don't think shutting down. I mean, I think production is obviously paused around the entire industry.
You know, it's possible that some very, very small studios may not be able to hack it if this extends for three, six, nine, 12 months. But the big studios are, you know, they're experimenting. We talked about earlier this week, Amanda. You know, we talked about what Universal is doing since we last recorded Sony, decided to put Bloodshot on streaming services or on VOD rental services starting on Tuesday.
So there's going to be some changes, the permanent shift, I don't know. It's tough. Like, I think in a long term sense, that's exactly what you're going to see. But I don't think it's going to happen permanently anytime soon.
What do you think? I would agree with that. You know, I think there's also a difference between something being totally closed versus people having to scale back their production, scale back their staffs, kind of maybe like corporate rearrangement, things getting acquired. It does seem like the current arrangement will change.
But beyond that, we can't really say at this point. I think that the one thing that we know is going to change is that the theaters are going to struggle. And this might long term result in more theaters closing. And I think we'll talk about that a little bit more in the episode and sort of what you can do to support them.
But if there are fewer theaters, there's fewer power, there's a lesser power in the theater lobby, which means that the relationship that the studios have to the theaters does change some of that windowing stuff that we talked about in the last episode. It might shorten the period of time when you can see a movie in a theater versus seeing it at home. And the other knock on effect is something that we've talked about too, which is it just might mean that the only movies that make sense to the major studios long term before the theatrical experience are 10 polls are James Bond and Marvel and Mission Impossible and the thrillers and the romantic comedies and the classical period dramas that we talk about on the show all the time that we love might just start to, they'll certainly be the first ones that continue to recede to streaming VOD and other platforms. Which was already starting to happen.
And it just might be an acceleration or maybe just a starker divide between what is a quote theater movie and what is a streaming movie. Bobby, what's next? A asks, what's your thought process when you hate a movie, but most other critics seem to love it. Do you feel the need to revisit it again?
I'm curious for your thoughts here, man, because I think you sometimes feel a little bit more vociferously than I do. I do think that hate is a strong word. I would say there are few movies that I hate. Yeah, I agree with that.
I think there are a lot of movies that I don't really have the time for. And I think I get frustrated with groups being more than I get frustrated with an actual movie. Right. So that actually makes me wonder like the purpose of the question is the question, how do we feel after we learn that people love the movie that we hated?
Because if that's the case, I try not to be defensive. I try to understand what people loved about something. I do like to go back and revisit the movie if it's in the Oscar race or really noisy in the culture. Or even if it just feels like tomorrow is sort of an as if it feels like a pebble in my shoe.
Like I haven't maybe I didn't get it or maybe I missed something important in it. Or maybe I just was in a bad mood the day that I saw it. I've been thinking about this a lot with respect to some of the Oscar stuff that we've talked about where we get very sweeping about Oscar results that we hate. I definitely do.
And Green Book in particular has been on my mind lately because our relationship to Green Book was kind of unusual. Like we both saw it. We both liked it. We both said that was an entertaining movie.
Yeah. I probably wasn't thinking very hard about the ramifications of a movie like that. I also didn't know anything about the personal stories in the movie. So then I feel like we spent three months kind of relitigating with ourselves how we ought to feel about it.
And we got frustrated with Academy members who weren't doing the same thing that we were doing. And I don't know if we kind of like went through the looking glass there, you know, and we were like thinking about it too much. What do you think about that proposition? The other thing that we were doing with Green Book is that we were both trying to make sense of the information that we were getting about, you know, both the history of the characters and the family.
And also, you know, some things that we probably didn't consider the first time around. But also we were trying to make sense of the fact that like in an Oscar sense, it was up against Roma. And Roma is just a better movie than Green Book. And so sometimes specifically about the Oscars, it's not that we dislike the movie as much as we hate that a better movie is losing.
Like I think that was especially with 1917 this year. You know, I went to 1917. I was like, Hey, that looks like one shot. Good job, guys.
And but the idea that it would win over parasite or one time in Hollywood was so frustrating. So sometimes in the Oscars thing, again, I think that's a version of group thing that is really, really frustrating. This question to me is interesting. And to respect number one, like, hate, again, is such a specific word.
And if I really hate a movie, like that is a very strong reaction. And I usually go back to look at it because it's doing something right to make me react that much. And I, and if I like honestly hate it instead of being like, and it's not for me, I do try to engage with it and figure out what it is about the piece of art that I am responding to, even if it's negative. The other interesting one is like, the interesting question is that specifies critics.
And you know, as with any other group, there are critics who are more, you know, critics have personal tastes and biases and knowledge bases and just like everybody else. And so there are some critics that I lean towards more than others. I'm not going to name them. That's just like anybody else in life.
So in that case, if every other critic that I love thinks something is great, I usually do think I'm wrong. And I try to go to figure out like what I missed. But if it's just just like a bunch of people on the internet yelling, in this case, as in all other cases, I try to ignore it. Yeah, there are some people who are, there are some critics who are fun to disagree with.
I think Richard Brody has started at Stake Up This Territory at the New Yorker as a kind of like, blithely unaware contrarian. You know, he posits his opinions about films in such a such a direct and definitive way that it almost seems as if he is the only person that he has ever talked to. And there's something amusing about that. He's obviously hugely informed and a sophisticated film goer and a really gifted critic.
But he regularly writes pieces that I'm like, this is just complete nonsense. And it forces you to confront the concept of intentionality and what a filmmaker was going for versus what somebody takes away from a film. This actually came up recently with Brody where when John Krasinski was doing press before a quiet place to was postponed, he was asked about Brody's supposition that a quiet place was essentially an allegory about Red State America and the way that the sort of like the middle of the country had kind of incilenced and that the Trump election was sort of a backlash to that sensation that people felt like the rest of the country had moved on from them and that they'd been shushed. And while that was a provocative piece that Brody wrote, John Krasinski was just flatly, it was like, no, that was not my intention and that was not what I was going for.
Not that I don't know Richard Brody's name was used in that question. It was posed to him, but it clearly came from what he wrote about the movie, his reading of the movie. And I like to read criticism that forces me to think about broader ideas about movies and I personally apply my own specific ideas about the world to movies, whether the artist intends it or not. But I find it more fun to disagree than it is to get angry about how much I hate what someone else said or what someone else made.
So I try to avoid that in general. The other thing too is the more people you meet who make movies, the more empathy you have for how hard it is to make a movie. And there's just no denying that. And a lot of film critics to their credit try to put a lot of distance between them and filmmakers.
But I know some filmmakers, I interview filmmakers all the time, these people are mostly trying to do something good. No one goes in even with the most cynical intention to make a Marvel movie, they're still trying their best to make something that people really like. So I try to keep that at the forefront of my mind when I'm responding to a movie. The only thing I would add to that, if a movie is not for you, it's really okay.
Trust me. I've had a lot of movies I've had to see for this podcast and other blogs that are not for me. And that's okay. And the hope is that you learn something from it and then you can go find something that is for you.
And also that hopefully they'll keep making different types of movie for the many different types of people out there in the world. There's one exception here and that is cats, which is garbage. Yeah, no, don't make any more cats, please. What's next?
I purposefully left out all cats questions. You guys are welcome. Mike asks, is it me or does streaming a movie not feel as exciting as streaming a TV show? I will answer this one.
I agree with you entirely, Mike. It might just be me. I think my husband and I are just really bad at watching TV shows. We've tried to watch three in the next, in the last week, and we finish one and we turn to each other and we're like, do we watch another?
And then we just don't? And I think some of that, it has nothing to do with the TV shows, which is why I don't want to name them. But there is something about, I guess I don't agree with Mike. It's opposite because I just can't sit there for more than two hours.
I have a lot of thoughts about this. I'm obviously much more avid TV watcher than you are. I think my greatest regret personally on a very low level basis around the coronavirus crisis is that I don't have a great couch in my house because if I had a great couch, I would just be spending more time watching things for consecutive hours. And I'm like, couch is just not that comfortable.
So I'm dealing with it as best as I can. Nevertheless, I think I like to watch television shows on a weekly basis. I don't like to binge. I've never really liked to binge TV shows.
I do watch a lot of shows and right now, there are a lot of active shows that I love. For example, Curb Your Enthusiasm is on right now, Better Call Saul is on right now. I'm watching our pal, Annie Greenwell's Briar Patch right now. Top Chef starts tonight.
There's actually a bunch of shows that I've had, and of course, Survivor, which is the show of the moment, at least to the ringer for many of us. So given that all those shows are active, I have a scheduled-based relationship to television. And most of those shows require watching them within the first 24 hours or they were released, but it can be up on the conversation around them and one of them spoiled for me. So I do get excited to watch shows, but I do not get excited to watch eight consecutive hours of Stranger Things when it comes out.
I actually just don't like doing that at all anyhow. And I feel like a lot of the streaming services have noticed that there are a lot of people like me, and they're starting to change the way that they release their patterns for shows because the consumption may not be as high as it used to be around the binge model. The binge model made sense when there was a backlog of an iconic show like Breaking Bad. It doesn't make as much sense when the show that you're putting out into the world with 10 episodes readily available just isn't very good.
And so I'm sensing that those things are changing. So I don't think that shows coming out as exciting necessarily, but I think it has a kind of like schedule-based utility. Streaming movies are not exciting or just not exciting. Now I'm finding a way to get excited about being able to watch Emma for $20, like a psychopath.
Like I'm trying to get amped up to have an early experience on a movie because I do like to see things as soon as possible. But I didn't feel that way about Spencer Confidential. And I think that it's ultimately just a case by case basis where do you really love the thing and are you anticipating it or do you not care that much? You know, if Vince Gilligan was creating a new TV show and he was going to drop 10 episodes all in one shot, I'd probably watch it right away.
Then again, Matthew Weiner created a new TV show and they put up every single episode on Amazon and then watch it. So I don't even know. Like TV is really challenging. And there's a reason we don't spend too much time on this show because you and I are not really a part of the current streaming television wave, I think.
Yeah, I agree with that. I do think some of it is just that TV or at least TV 20 years ago was distinct from movies and that it was something that was made to be watching your home. And movies were made to be watched on a big screen and TV was meant to be watched like on your couch with your family every single week. And I find old TV much easier to watch right now than new TV because there is in the same way that movies are kind of especially streaming movies are blurring towards like, how can you watch this on your screen?
I find that a lot of made for streaming TV is like blurring towards towards movies where there's just kind of this like a Morpheus streaming product that is just a post its primary goal is to keep you there for 10 hours. And I can't do that at all. So maybe I'll just like start watching old sitcoms from the 80s and then I'll become the world's greatest TV watcher. How about that?
Sounds good. I encourage you to explore whatever you need to during this complicated time. Bobby, what's next? David asks, what do you think is the best way if there is any to support the traditional theater experience during this outbreak?
In a practical sense, no, but there are a couple of things that I think people can do. A few days ago, Karina Longworth, the host of you must remember this noted that if you want to literally supply cash to movie theaters, you can buy gift cards. Just buy gift cards to the theaters that you like. Those are going to still be available for purchase online.
Likewise, I recently subscribed to a season pass at Alamo Draft House, which is a place I like to go see movies where I think for three months at a time for $30, you can get unlimited movies every month on limited, you know, sit down screenings. Now obviously Alamo Draft House is different from a lot of other movie theaters in that a lot of their price point is made up in concessions, which are really more full menu items. There's a full bar at every Alamo Draft House. But if you sign up for a seasonal pass, that's a way to, you know, potentially put some money in the pockets of theater owners.
You know, today, I mean, I'm not sure if you've seen this yet, but Kino now was announced, which is the fascinating proposition from the people at Kino Lorber, which is an independent film distributor. They are launching essentially an equivalent theatrical streaming service where you can pay $12 for Baccarau, a movie that we have not talked about, a really fascinating, fun, Brazilian genre grindhouse mashup movie. And you wait $12 for it and you can delineate which theater you want the proceeds of that money to go to, aside from Kino. So I think, you know, theaters will have to opt into the Kino now experience and you have to be a subscriber to Kino streaming service, which I know is asking a lot of people to really kind of drill down that far.
But if you want to see Baccarau and you didn't get a chance to see it when it was in theaters for basically a week, there's a chance to see it for $12 in your house right now and to support the Jacob Burns film center or whatever other independent movie house was going to show it. So I think that was kind of a beautiful thing. And then one last thing that I did want to mention is some folks created a GoFundMe for the cinema worker solidarity fund, which is a way to support the people who work in movie theaters and who obviously do not make huge salaries and those jobs were largely furloughed or laid off. And essentially by donating $3,000, you know, if the goals reach above $3,000 that essentially accounts for more than a dozen workers at $15 an hour for the month, I think they've already raised something like $70,000 for this GoFundMe.
So if you're looking to do something decent for people who work hard in movie theaters that you love going to, I think that's a really good place to put your money. Anywhere else Amanda that you've thought about with respect to supporting this experience? I'm glad you mentioned the GoFundMe because I wanted to talk about that as well. I didn't want to ask you in terms of buying the guest cards or buying the season passes or the year-long passes.
If you have a limited budget, is it should someone be going to a local theater and independent theater? Like, is if that money's going to a chain kind of, how do you best think that people should be allocating to the extent that they can? It's a good question. I mean, I think it depends on location.
You know, I don't want to be too city-centric. It's easy to say you should support small art house theaters, but not every town and city in this country has small art house theaters. So if all you have is an AMC or a Regal, maybe the best way to do that is to support those chains. I mean, I think those chains are going to be able to withstand the blow a lot more significantly.
They have so many more locations than virtually every other movie company in the United States right now. But I don't know. I mean, like, if I were on Long Island right now, I would be finding ways to give money to the Cinemart Center in Huntington. That was a place that was super important to me as a kid that introduced me to a lot of old movies and a lot of independent movies.
It totally shaped the way that I saw movies as a teenager. And it's still going. And they also have a seasonal past program. And I think if you live on Long Island and you frequent that movie theater, kick some money their way if you can afford it.
If you can, of course, that's understandable. These are frivolous concerns relative to medical concerns and people staying safe and who knows what kind of hospital bills people are going to deal with in the near future. But if movies are as important to you as they are to us, then find a small way to kick in. All right, next question.
This comes from Matt. He asks, what movie from your childhood to do rewatch over and over but now realize is a completely absurd and horrible film in the eyes of most? And then he adds the caveat yet you still have a nostalgic impression of very important parenthetical at the end there. Well, I'm very curious about your response to this, Amanda.
Well, so I was trying to think I don't really think I was put in front of that many of nerd movies. That's just wasn't my parents' style. I mean, Mary Poppins is a great example. But we talked about that last year.
Like, Mary Poppins is about like that banking industry. But you know, I just watched Supercalifragilistic a billion times. But you know, I don't think that's the most fun answer. So instead of being an answer to a movie that I just watched a million times and then never thought about ever again or never talked about ever again, are you familiar with the film?
Big Girls Don't Cry They Get Even? Did you ever see this movie? Has there ever been a more Amanda Dobbins title for film in the world? I'm familiar with the movie.
I don't remember much about it at all though. So I don't really either accept that Jenny Lewis was in it. And also Griffin Dunn is in it and David Strathorne, which I realized that this was like how I met David Strathorne was in this movie. So it's a 1992 movie directed by Joan McLean Silver.
And it's basically about a family of divorce. It's kind of like the mom and the dad have remarried. So it's like a Brady bunch, but mean, they don't get along. They're not happy.
And then the main girl is named Laura and she like runs away somehow. And then they're all at camp. And Jenny Lewis plays like the mean rich older stepsister or something. And then hijinks into it.
And that's literally all I remember about it. That there's a very long PETA plot played and I have to tell you that I do not remember much of this, except that they're at camp and they all hate each other. I must have watched this movie though, 40 times before the age of 10. And then it's like it never existed.
Were you fancy yourself a big girl that didn't cry? Well, I think that the main girl I remember having a really bad attitude. So I think that I definitely related to that. And I also remember thinking I think that I knew about Jenny Lewis because this is the same time as She Beverly Hills.
And so I was kind of aware of her and I was wearing industry Beverly Hills. And I thought these, I also remember them being kind of caustic to each other. And it wasn't like this any family everyone was trying to one up each other. And I thought that was kind of funny even then that's obviously the type of movies that I like now.
So also a great movie title. You know, Joan McLint Silver is one of the like lost key female filmmakers of in American history, really. I mean, she's made a few movies that people may have heard of. I think Crossing Delancy is probably her most well-known, well-respected movie, but she made a couple movies in the 70s.
She really seems a winner and between the lines that are good. And I think she seems a winner was on Criterion a couple of months ago. She's a really good, really good filmmaker of like, like light drama, soft drama. I feel like Big Girls is not, does not reflect like the rest of her filmography.
But that's a good pick. I can't promise I'll return to it. I'd like to return to the movie that I picked just to make sure that I'm right about how not right it is. It's called Just One of the Guys.
Are you familiar with Just One of the Guys? No, I have no idea what that is. Bob, have you heard of this film? No.
Okay. This movie was on HBO every day for five years. And I probably watched 80 to 90% of the screenings on HBO. This movie came out 1985.
It's a coming-of-age teen comedy drama starring Joyce Heiser and Clayton Ronner, directed by a woman as well, Lisa Golly. And it's essentially a modern day remake of Twelfth Night, which makes it sound a lot more sophisticated than it is. It, you know, unloads to get into whether a movie is problematic or not, but this movie is got a lot of really weird stuff going on with gender identity. And I remember it being a resident movie for me, frankly, because the star of the movie takes her top off in the movie.
And when I was 12, I was like, holy shit. But if you revisit this movie, which is essentially about a young woman who is, I think, a senior in high school and is not given the opportunities to excel at the school newspaper in the way that she would like to. So she decides to transfer to a different high school, change her gender, and try to infiltrate a school and show the world that being a man is easier than being a woman. And so, you know, loosely, Twelfth Night.
But the choices that the characters make are just really bizarre. This is a really, really bizarre movie that I suspect a lot of people who listen to this show have seen as many times as I have. And I still have a soft spot for it. I'd watch it right now if I could find it, but it's not easy to find these days.
Nothing for you guys. You've not seen it. You got no feelings. Sounds like she's the man with Amanda Bynes.
Fantastic. Yes. She's featuring early Channing Tatum. It also sounds like Never Been Kissed.
But instead of that's about popularity instead of gender. Also Never Been Kissed, which we had to do for 1999's Rewatchable. The most speechless. I can't believe that movie ever got made in terms of the problematic choices made.
I mean, she's 25, goes back to high school, and then everyone's rooting for her to get together with her teacher. Like that's the movie. I don't know what to say. Not ideal.
High school movie in general, just a lot of problems. A whole lot of problems. Okay. Next question.
This comes from Lucia. Book recommendations for someone who wants to read more about film history and or film theory. I wrote down like 30 titles. What do we do here?
Yeah. First of all, I was going to say I think this probably could be a don't episode. Like we could almost do a book club. Number two, I know that you have like 80 million books and you know, please restrain yourselves.
You don't you only need nine movies for the rest of your life because you'll just have all these books and you'll just read them for us. That's exactly right. I'll give three. I have five, but I'll I'm sure that they're overlapping.
Let's straight off. You do one and then I'll do one. Well, I mean, I'm sure that you and I both have adventures in the screen trade. But I didn't even write it down.
Why? It's like number one to read. Because I was just writing down things off the top of my head and I talked about that book. I've written about Goldman.
I mean, you know, the fact that you love it too is a good sign that it's really for anybody who cares about movies. Yes, because it explains how movies work, but in a way that it's the things that you and I and basically everyone in the Ring of the Universe want to know about in a lot of ways. It's like if you want to understand why everyone within the Ring of the Ring of the Universe thinks the way that they do about movies like this. I think this is a really influential book for a lot of us.
No doubt. No doubt. It's also it's like a great inside baseball guide. Like nobody before him had ever written about what actually happens in the process of making a movie and writing a movie like he did.
And he I don't know. He just unlocked a kind of familiarity. Also, and when he passed away a couple years ago, I wrote about this. I mean, just literally the tone of his memoristic writing style is everywhere in the culture now.
And he didn't necessarily invent that, but he was so you could really feel him on the page like your smart friend. And I responded to that so profoundly the first time I read that book. So I would recommend like pretty much all of his books, even his more odd books. But that one is definitely that's the that's the signature.
Right. Okay. What's yours? If you want something a little bit more wonky in the vein of adventures in the screen trade, I would recommend in the blink of an eye, which is a book by Walter Murch, who's a film editor and sound effects designer who, you know, worked with Francis Wordkopel and George Lucas a lot in the 70s.
And in the blink of an eye, I believe it's published in the 80s. And it's sort of like one of the most sophisticated but approachable looks at film editing and what goes into making movies that is not in the vein of like Elliot Kazan or Sydney LeMett talking about directing, which is one part technical but mostly like philosophical mumbo jumbo about how to collaborate with people. Murch's book is about choices that are made and images and why we see movies the way that we see them and how our brain responds to them. But it's not a pointy headed science book.
It's actually like an entertaining and accessible book that I would highly recommend to people. What about you? What's next? So I'm going to do the really Amanda pick on this one, which is a you'll never eat lunch in this you'll never eat lunch in this time again by joya Phillips.
And joya Phillips was a producer. The 70s, she produced the sting, taxi driver, closing counters of the third kind among many others. And she later wrote a memoir about her time in Hollywood and also struggles with substance abuse and and other issues. And it is a very detailed and raw memoir.
I find it uncomfortable to read it times and I really thrive on these sorts of tell all situations. So that's something but it just she was there for so much of it and she does have a specific no holds bar style that is a different perspective than you're going to get from a lot of people who are maybe still within industry and still trying to burnish their legend as it were. Yeah, it's a great one. It's like it's really gossipy and really diaristic.
The way that book opens with like her headed to the Academy Awards completely coked out of her mind is fascinating. I mean, I'm kind of surprised that it was never made into a movie, right? It wasn't. Not that I'm or if it was I'm not aware of it.
It's it seems hard because she just she burns all of the bridges. It's not a flattering portrait of anyone in a book, including her to be fair. But you can imagine people being like, yeah, we'd like to make this movie now. Maybe with 30 years distance, somebody would have considered it.
But I guess you're right. My next recommendation, if you're looking to get into film history, I think that the most the least understood parts of film history, which are obvious because of how time moves are the filmmakers of the 30s and 40s. And I think a great way to learn about them is to check out Peter back down a bit his book Who The Devil Made It, which is a series of sort of interview profiles with not just hugely important filmmakers like Howard Hawks and John Ford, but also slightly lesser lights like Raoul Walsh, where people who were just making these immensely popular movies during the boom time of movies. And I was thinking about this a lot because there was some data point that like north of 80% of all Americans went to one movie a week during the 20s and 40s.
It was the primary source of entertainment. And that number is so much lower now, obviously, and probably getting lower still as time goes on, not just because of coronavirus, but because of all this home entertainment that we've been talking about on the show recently. But these people were the equivalent of Charles Dickens, in a way. And some of them have these huge massive reputations.
But most of them don't. And Bogdanovitch before he was the director of The Last Picture Show and What's Up Doc and some of my favorite movies ever made was a journalist. He was a journalist for Esquire and he had this very savvy way of getting very close to people like Orson Welles, to people like John Ford building friendships with them, building professional acquaintances with them, and then telling their stories and helping movie lovers understand the sort of daisy chain of influence over time. And if you saw something in a true phone movie and then saw something in a Bogdanovitch movie, then it was connected to something that happened in a Hitchcock movie or in a Raoul Walsh movie.
So this is a pretty big doorstopper book and it's got profiles of over a dozen filmmakers, but it's really, really gets well written too. Bogdanovitch is a great screenwriter, but he's also just generally was a good film journalist of his time. And I don't think that that's a book that has a big reputation right now. So that is my next pick.
I have one last pick for this podcast anyway. Go for it. Mine is one that I actually have not read and fall. It's on my to-do list, but my husband read it recently and was kind of like passing me passages to read to him.
And it seemed very fascinating, also relevant to certain of my interests. So it's Notes on the Making of Apocalypse Now, which is written by Eleanor Coppola, wife of Francis Ford. And my husband was passing me the parts that are about baby so fia Coppola, which are really fascinating. And definitely maybe you want to read more.
But you know, his review of it was that it's both a portrait of movie making and a portrait of a marriage. And I always find those like really, you want to know what's going on and she has an extremely unique perspective, but there is also this complicated emotional dimension to it as well. And obviously, Eleanor Coppola is also a filmmaker in her own right. And I think it's like both dishy and also unique original reporting that absolutely no one else would have.
So I'm looking forward to reading it. I've actually never read that. So I'll have to check it out too. I have watched quite a bit of documentary about the struggles of making apocalypse now, but not entirely from Eleanor's perspective.
One last recommendation for me very quickly. I was talking about Richard Brody and the idea of the relationship that you build with the film critic. I think an interesting relationship for people who were trying to get into film history to try to build with Paul and Cale, who in the 70s and 80s was really the film critic of her time. And who, you know, is so influential on the film critics who have dominated the 90s and the O's because they were all reading her.
If you talk to Wesley Morris, if you talk to Amy Nicholson, if you talk to A.O. Scott, some of these very well-read, well-known film voices, they are their palettes, as they've been called. They are Kaleites. And I think for keeps is probably a good place to start that feature some of her most essential reviews.
You may find that you disagree with her vehemently about the way that she characters. She has a very kind of, you know, a very sexual and almost masculine relationship to movies. She really likes action. She likes viscera.
She likes speed. She likes violence. She likes a pure sense of style with meaning behind it. And she, I think she's a good example of somebody who can be influential even if you don't want to or know how to mimic her.
I always like reading her writing on a movie if I've revisited it after a long period of time, especially more minor stuff. Like to go back and look at a review of hers from the late 60s of like the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming is a great way to get teleported back into the mind state of the country and what a critic, how a critic could see a movie and not just accept the kind of bullshit AFI supported, you know, falsely prestigious reputation that a movie gathers over time. So I would definitely recommend for keeps and a bunch of her other collections are worth it as well. Let's go to the next question to keep things moving.
Yeah. So the next question is from Daniel. I'm gonna amend it a little bit actually. Daniel asked, can you each draft five people you think will win an Oscar in the next five years?
I'm gonna, why don't we do two each? Maybe a director and an actor? I feel like that makes more sense. Sure.
Amanda, you want to go? I prepared five, but that's fine. I prepared five as well. We'll let's just quickly go ahead and explain ourselves.
Okay, Greta Gurbike, Amy Adams, who's number one one. I think Paul Thompson will win one, but for screenplay just to specify what is that? What's that face? It's just said.
Yeah, it is. I'm not saying that that's what I would warn. I'm just being realistic. Michelle Williams and Sam Jackson.
Oh, that's a good one. That's really good. I was, I made a list of older actors who I thought might get like in its time award. Among them, Woody Harrelson, Ethan Hawke, Ed Norton, Michael Keaton, and Hugh Jackman, I feel like are all entering a kind of like, when will we recognize this person for all they have contributed?
But Sam Jackson is older and even better choice. That's a great call. Thank you. Some other folks, I think Saoirse Ronan will get it before Glen Close or Nepenning, which is rough, but...
I had her on an early list and took her off because I kind of, I love Saoirse. I think Saoirse deserves an Oscar, but I feel like she missed like the quote Anjanae window, you know? They normally give it for your first two movies or your first two nominations or else you got to wait like 60 years. I think she's 25 years old.
I'm aware of that, but she's also been nominated four times. I wrote Richard Linklater down. He's a function as the as the PTA choice, the somebody who you know has an incredible filmography that people really admire, but has not been recognized yet. I don't know when that will be hopefully not for the 10 years long, merrily we go a long project that he's embarking upon with Beanie Feldstein.
One other person, I Ted Sarandos. I just feel like the Netflix best picture win is coming in the next five years, and that seems like somebody who is going to be hosting a trophy on stage. If we're ongoing interested in the streaming movie conversation and where things first start as opposed to where they finish, Netflix is at the front of the line on that conversation. What's next?
All right. This next one comes from Saul. He says, I want to use this time to get into horror, I've seen all the A24 prestige ones and some classics like the Shining. Where is a good place to start if I'm trying to get into the horror genre?
Should I take it away, man? That was a sick Saul. I have no idea. I so I'll do a quick 10 pack for anybody who's trying to get into horror movies.
Obviously, there are horror movies from the 30s and 40s that are fun and are obviously hugely influential. You could start with Dracula, Bride of Frankenstein, all those. That's not what I'm going to focus on because I don't think that those movies have too much to say about what horror is right now. But in the 60s, basically horror starts to change significantly.
These are the movies that I think you should start with. Psycho, The Haunting, Night of the Living Dead, Rosemary's Baby, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist, Carrie, The Shining, Halloween, and as a kind of quirky bonus Dario Argento Suspiria. That's 10 movies. Most of them are classics.
They all are a functionally indifferent subgenres of horror. Most of them are made by high, high, high level thinkers about horror movies. And almost everybody who decides to make horror movies has been influenced by these movies in particular. That's the 10 pack.
How does that sound? Will you start on any of those? I have to be 100% honest. I started reading some of the next questions in the document.
I'm like, I clicked back in. You did put the Shining on the list, even though Saul said that he's already seen the Shining. Saul's just looking for some new movies, Sean. Jesus.
But I'm sure that everything else he said was great. Sorry, Saul. Okay, I'm sorry. I did my best.
What's next? This comes from Boo. They asked with the high fidelity series being received so well in Hulu, what are some other movies you would like to see made into a series? I want to answer this because I did watch high fidelity.
I said I was bad at TV, but we watched all of high fidelity. I guess I'm good at 30 minutes. So here was my thing about high fidelity. I liked all of the parts of the show that had nothing to do with the movie High Fidelity.
Any time that they were really trying to do High Fidelity, which is a movie that I like a lot, even though it kind of gives me PTSD from being a person who dated people in Brooklyn. I think that there was something about trying to do the homage of it. The show felt too indebted. When the show actually worked when it just let these people that you liked hang out with each other.
It was a TV show. So I guess this is not answering Boo's question at all because I'm just like, don't remake shows. Don't remake movies. Just make shows with people you want to hang out with.
But yeah, that's my answer. It's none. Well, it will come as no surprise that I completely disagree with everything that you just said. One, I thought that High Fidelity did work well when it was trying to wink at the movie.
Maybe that's just because I really liked the movie and I appreciated what they were trying to do with it. And I agree that the other stuff that they did that was outside of the boundaries of the Rob character in the original movie and in them, Nick Hornby book, that stuff worked well too. But I kind of appreciated the the active homage to it. Fargo worked really well as a series too.
And it just took kind of a general tone to apply to an anthology work. But I feel like I actually have a good answer here. I think that catching me if you can would be an amazing serialized television show because every week you could treat it like a fugitive. Every week there'd be a new grift and the Leo character would get close to being captured and he'd find a way to wriggle out of things.
And you get a kind of opportunity to create almost like a slightly more inventive procedural around his character, Frank Abigail. And I love that movie. It's an easy movie to rewatch because I like him getting into different situations. You get new settings in every episode, you get new kind of female counterparts in every episode, you get to cast two very interesting actors as the FBI agent and as the grifter.
So I'm going with Catch Me If You Can. That's interesting. Have there ever been a procedural high show where they do, you know, it's a different job every single time? ABC tried to do one a couple years ago with Peter Krousa and Meeray, and I can't remember the name of it now, but they were like, they were both con people and they were dancing in the market.
Yeah. Yes. And they were kind of, they were conning other people, but also conning each other. But even there, I don't know that they had like a different job every week because that was called a catch.
Yes, because that's my only concern would be like, at some point, when you'd be like, okay, do you need to catch him now? I mean, yeah, maybe you just set out to do two seasons and then at the end, he gets caught, you know, it doesn't have to run for 10 years. I just think that the, if you get a good writing staff, you can get a good show at that. What's the next question?
Next question, Oscar's question, Riley asks, will the Oscars need to amend eligibility rules if theaters remain closed for an extended period of time? Maybe we touched on this a little bit at the top of the show. I don't know. I don't think it's going to get there, but I also don't know anything, you know, so to speculate on it is challenging.
It's a really like shrug emoji kind of question, right? Amanda? Yeah, there's no way of knowing. I think at this moment, anyway, there's just no way of knowing.
It's worth pointing out that, you know, every year, all of the Oscar movies that actually end up being nominated are released from like September to December. And we always bemo in the fact that nobody remembers the movies that were released in February and March. So in the sense, if everything gets pushed, then maybe you just have a concentrated Oscar season. But again, who can really know?
Also, as Riley points out, this isn't, there hasn't even been like a get-out style movie this year where we're like, well, this is going to compete. I mean, there's been nothing and there wasn't really going to be anything through April that was going to qualify as meaningfully in the race, at least as far as I could tell. So, you know, that's, that's cool comfort probably given the circumstances, but in all likelihood, it's just going to be, you know, business as usual with September to December being the key time. What's next?
This next one is from Nick. He says as a 23 year old who has just gotten just gotten really into movies, but only started a few years ago, I've seen very few of the classics. What are the five to 10 essential movies that I need to watch? I mean, I made 10, I chose one movie from each decade for Nick to check out.
If you have any crossover here, I'll be curious to see. You know, somewhat, somewhat predictable, but not entirely predictable. Here we go. 1930s, it happened one night.