Hey, can I talk to you for a second? Over 25 years ago on September 29th, 1998, we watched a brainy girl with curly hair drop everything. To follow a guy, she only kind of knew to college. And so began Felicity.
My name is Greg Rundberg. Though you may know me better as Sean Blumberg, the inventor of smoothies and director of docu-ventory. I'm still trying to get that released. I'm teaming up with my Felicity wife, Mandy Foreman, and the ringer's Julia Lipman to revisit our favorite moments from our favorite show and talk to the people who helped shape it.
Listen now to Dear Felicity on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sean Fennissi. I'm Amanda Davens. And this is the BigQuery Conversation show about 1977.
CR is here, and we are drafting again. This week, we are going back to a time for some of us. We're born back to 1977 to draft the very best movies. But Chris Ryan.
I was. You were born in the U-97. This year, the day after close encounters came out. Is that true?
Yeah. That's beautiful. So this is a bit of a tribute to you. Thanks.
How did you come into it doing that? This is going to be a bit like your funeral, I think, the way that we talk about this. Oh, good. Yeah.
I've always wanted to attend my own funeral. This is a challenging one. I'm just making my own death so I can do it. And then stay to the bed.
Bobby, talk to us part out. So when you post this episode, we can tell everyone. Chris has passed on. He went to Dentaly.
He walked outside. He was hit by a motorcycle. He's no longer with us. RIPCR.
MI5 killed me for spreading false trolls info. CR killed Prince Charles. King Charles. Yeah, he's the king.
I promoted. How do you feel about King Charles's death? You know, I'm still trying to get to the bottom of it. Well, everyone else is focused on Photoshop.
And I'm trying to source these rumors. Yeah. How are you doing that? All your various sources?
Yelling it all of you. While you are texting me weird memes about St. Pat, I mean, the memes were funny. It would have been quite something if Charles died on St.
Pat. The Irish were so happy for it. It was so funny. It was like, they're really good memes.
But as I told you guys, you both made me aware of this false rumor while I was watching the final scene of looking for Mr. Goodbar in preparation for this podcast. So I mean, no spoilers right now anyway. And maybe we'll talk about the ending of looking for Mr.
Goodbar at the other time. But if you know, then you know the very strange 10 minutes that I went through. Yeah. And also, I just, you know, we have lost all integrity in our gossip reporting, as I said to you guys last night.
Like there is, we just need to check our sources more. You know, people have gone off the deep end. So it's very entertaining for me, though, because I do not care about the royal family or know anything about it. So when something like this is happening, I was like, this is great.
I don't care if it's true or not. All I know is the Irish are posting very hard right now. Yeah. And there's also wearing a light blue shirt.
So she looks like Michael Keaton from Spotlight. And she's demanding that we triple confirm everything. Does he have a heartbeat? Does the king have a heartbeat?
It's just like, have we looked at the BBC Twitter logo ourselves to see what color it is, you know? What color would they turn it? Well, they said it. They would turn it black.
And that all passes? Yeah. That was about all the absolutely bad shit preparations that were in place for Queen Elizabeth's event. When you said you knew that I just pressed delete.
I was like, I'm good. I don't need to click on that. It was pretty popular. But anyway, it's like the law of the call in the email.
In the protocol, it says the Twitter avatar will change to black. But it says no, but there is I'm sure there actually is a provision for that now. But all the BBC presenters have to switch wearing all black. That's like the first tell, even before they're officially allowed to announce it.
They're like special playlists for the radio, where they're like special songs. If you hear it, you know the king is dead or whatever. When I die, I want Chris to get on the picture feed and just sing aabemeria. I'll just publish that.
It'll be like just a live episode. It'll be the last episode. That's what I would. What do you want your avatar changed to when you pass away?
What should we do? How do we change your avatar threads? You want it to be Barbie. You want it to be in person?
In person? Yeah, as Barbie. Yeah, thanks so much. 1977.
Yeah. So this was a little bit of a homework draft. How'd you feel? Stressed, as you know, because I texted you all the time about various questions about eligibility, availability.
How do you read these work? How blue rays work? You know it came through really, really hard. Because I do read hard media.
That's what we're calling you. Do you know what it also came through pretty well? Google? So you were just firing up illegal streams on YouTube.
They're not that illegal. I mean, nobody took them down. I don't think the rights holders were profiting from these. Sorry, John Cassidy.
Did you do a lot of research for this episode? Because this is an interesting year. I had to do a lot of research so that there's 15 or so movies where I'm just like, that's just committed to the memory banks. That one's in the mind palace already.
It's got its own room. And then there was somewhere I'm like, what happened in Julia? I had to go back and just be reaffirmed stuff that I had seen. Check out stuff that I hadn't ever checked out before.
And just, yeah, refresh my memory about something. But it wasn't that labor intensive. In addition to it being your birth year, I thought this would be a fun one because it would be a little bit of a project. There are these, I would say, 10 movies that are consecrated, great films.
And this is the time when the New Hollywood is in full swing. This is when the movie studios are like, absolutely, we will entrust millions of dollars to this eccentric artist to make an exciting movie. But we're also like right at the doorstep of the end of the New Hollywood. So you see this big shift.
And of course, this is the year of Star Wars. This is the first Star Wars films released in 1977. The question I wanted to ask you both before we start to get into the nuts and bolts of this movie year is, is Star Wars the most significant thing that happened in 1977? Like outside of Jim Carter getting it?
I mean, Jimi Carter was inaugurated into the office. But was Jimi not former former former? Okay, so if Jimi Carter's presidency less relevant than Star Wars beginning? I'm literally opening the Wikipedia page for 1977.
You did not give us a word. I'm not a lot of what else happened. Okay. Let's see.
Let's not decide the fact that obviously there were violent conflicts around the world. There were complicated moments. There were significant deaths. I'm not trying to draw an equivalency between Star Wars and those things in particular.
But when you look at the scope of kind of social cultural events, it feels like it's pretty far and away the most significant thing, right? Shakira was born in 1970. Shakira. Okay.
I'm just reading about some treaties about the Panama Canal were signed. I don't know. Wikipedia could do a better job like surfacing the major headlines. You and Shakira.
And Michael Fassbender. How does that make you feel? I mean, I think that we, me and Michael Fassbender and Shakira all have our own qualities. I think into our 47th year.
Where are the crossovers for you guys? Where do you meet? Hit mobility. Yeah, I feel like Star Wars is the big enchilada.
I feel like this is really the big enchilada. It's definitely the most significant cinematic thing that happened this year, even though there were some absolutely incredible films that I think probably warrant deeper discussion. Then Star Wars, albeit, I should say, I've seen Star Wars more than any movie from this year, obviously. Do you think that Star Wars is more significant than the release of Fleetwood next rumors?
Oh, interesting. I mean, that should actually be the headline for this movie. Surely, sure. Personally?
No, we put on rumors this weekend. Again, the jocks. Yeah, not as a big rumors fan. But what is your favorite song on rumors?
I have no idea off the top of my head. It's really not a huge leo neck person. First of all, I like Tusk better and second of all, Star Wars is much bigger than rumors. Okay, wow.
You both just absolutely did not. You introduced rumors as a topic on this podcast and we're like, I'm... It's a hugely successful album. It's a generational classic.
It's just not a huge leo neck. I have nothing against them. It's just not really in my... I also enjoy Tusk, but that's a real kid's video.
I feel very firmly like that is a boomer text that I'm not interested in because of the way that it got turned around during the playing presidency. Yeah, the Clinton campaign. So you can just skip, don't stop. It's track four.
Go your own way in the chain. They're all part of this moment when... Don't say anything. I get it back your own way.
It's okay. It's just not my thing. Another personal. I don't know.
Dreams? That's an okay pick. Okay. Do you think Star Wars is more important than punk rock?
Well, that's hard, right? Because that's a movement. That's not an event. It's not a single thing.
I think they're in direct opposition to one another. Yeah. I like them both. You don't think that Han Solo is kind of like...
Inside Me Lips Two movements. The movement of Lucas and the movement of McLaren. Yeah. I like them both.
Well, McLaren and Lucas probably would have a lot to say to each other. I don't know if Johnny Rotten would necessarily have a lot to say to George Lucas. What do you think that combo would be like? He'd probably be into Han, I think.
You think so? Or he'd be into Greedo. Would you watch Johnny Rotten and George Lucas Actors on Actors? You know what would be good?
Yes. I would watch that. I think Star Wars is probably the thing that happened, at least in American culture and then eventually we'll watch. When you guys went back and watch some of this stuff where you just like...
Did you find that the medium was recognizable to what you were watching today? What were the things that like left out at you just by immersing yourself in 1977 films that you're like, God, this is so much different from 90% of what I watch today. I think the pace is significantly different in every movie and the expectations of the pace. Even in Star Wars, the pace is very different from a contemporary Star Wars movie, which feels like people are just hopping from planet to planet now as opposed to the way that the first film works.
It feels very studied and professional, which is interesting because I think in Hollywood at the time there was this sense that there was this chaotic young cohort of filmmaker arriving on the scene. But when I made the list of the people who made movies, there were four big debuts of this year. David Lynch with a racer head, really sat out with the duelists, Ron Howard's first movie, Norman Grand Theft Auto and Terry Gilliam's Jabber Walkie. But then when you look at the filmmakers who made movies that year, and I made a little list here, you've got Scorsese, Friedkin, Agnes Varda, Louis Bonwell, Clint Eastwood, Robert Altman, Peter Weir, Sam Peck and Pa, John Waters, Joan McLint's Silver, Paul Der Hoven, Mario Bava, Ingmar Bergman, Sidney Lumet, Fred Zinniman, two movies from Robert Aldrich, John Frankenheimer, Don Seagull, Sidney Pollock, two movies from Herbert Ross, Stanley Kramer, two movies from Michael Schultz, and Robert Benton.
At the time it might have seemed like this was a young group of people, you're standing crangers notwithstanding, but now what we think of these people are like, these are legends. Right. These are some of the most hallowed filmmakers of all time. The movies were not in the hands of chaos agents.
They were in the hands of developing geniuses or at worst, like steady hands, you know, like a Robert Benton would just be a steady hand in Hollywood for another 30 years. So it doesn't feel like maybe as daring as it had been explained to me when I was 18 or 19. And maybe that's just the product of what some of these movies are that hit this year as opposed to the year before. It doesn't mean the movies aren't good.
Many of them are. The ones that are the most celebrated from this year are not necessarily the ones that we remember to. That's been kind of interesting looking at where my gaps are and maybe like what was represented by the Oscars or the box office. It's very weird, Oscars year.
And we do have an Oscars category. And so I guess it's not. Star Wars was nominated. This is your Annie Hall wins Best Picture with Yalman's Best Director to keep wins Best Actress.
So the rest of the nominee is if you're looking for like a peripheral entrant in that category, it gets strange pretty quickly. And so I wound up spending, I had to do more catch up generally on this year just because, you know, I don't know, I had not seen as many of them. So you start and you go down a list like, all right, well, I'll try this Oscar one and I'm like, what, you know, what's going on here? And in some ways, as we know, the Oscars are always going to Oscar and they Oscar in 1977 as they did this year where they got some truly remarkable films and they got a bunch of quote unquote respectable costume dramas.
You know, but that's okay. But so it is, there is this mix of, I guess this is probably true for most years. The world changing totally landmark movies and then their regular stuff, you know, like the, and some of the regular stuff is good and we recognize it in like a slightly different form than we did and some of it is just, you know, another mess. That's true of any movie draft year that we do.
It's just that most of them we live through. You pick up like the throwaways just by virtue of doing a person who watches 2003 and it's like, I watched so many of these just in the course of my life. This is a little bit more like every movie beyond like three of them are like, you have to go back and look for it. You know, yeah, I think one of the reasons why this year resonated for me is it's a big moment in the history of genre.
Like it's a West Craven year. It's a David Cronenberg year. It's like those, a lot of those filmmakers are at the outset of their career. I think the year before is or the year later is a salt and pre-sink 13.
It's like that generation of Carpenter, Craven, Toby, who were Cronenberg. All those guys are all sort of coming up at the same time. It also feels like kind of a transitional year. This is coincidental, but I thought it was interesting that 77 is the year that Elvis, Groucho Marx, Bing Crosby, Howard Hawks and Charlie Chaplin all died in this year.
And in their own way, they all kind of represent older modes of Hollywood, you know, this integration of musical artists making the transition to cinema, the silent cinema moving into sound cinema, the Howard Hawks, like as a landmark figure who kind of like hopped across the genre. And working within the confines of the studio system, even in Chaplin's case of setting up United Artists, I mean, still making things for like a corporate benefactor and understanding like the relationship you have to establish their Hawks is obviously like the best example of it. It's interesting to kind of talk about their passing with this. A lot of the people you mentioned as emergent filmmakers for you can really Scott to some extent, but especially like Terry Gilliam who are like constantly banging their head against like the note process and the corporate overlords that are funding their films.
Yeah, trying to break the paradigm. No question about it. 1977, who were your parents? My mom was a teacher and my dad was a newspaper journalist.
What was your dad's beaded? The year you were born? I think in 77 he was still like a metro columnist. So I think he went from crime reporter to a metro columnist to film critic, if I remember the trajectory correctly.
What was the energy of his visa? Like there's too much trash on the streets. I think he was a lot of satirical writing about the mayor of Philadelphia. It was a man named Frank Rizzo.
Oh, of course. Yeah. Had a listener of the show suggest on social media that Bradley Cooper should do the Frank Rizzo bio pick as his next move, which I thought was a bit of an inspired idea. Yes, I think that would be a good idea.
Figures prominently in the corrections. Does he not? Frank Rizzo? Yeah.
He does some novel, the corrections. What was your dad's take on Rocky taking over the city? Was it right around the city? Yeah, I mean, I don't know about Rocky and Spire the life of Chris Ryan.
At the time, I don't know. I remember going to see Rocky for with him and him getting in an argument with a guy that he thought was speaking too loudly in the audience. Wow. I'm not sure if I'm going to be a little tired.
I'm not sure if I'm tired. I'm tired of the Rocky franchise. Because I was like, my dad's going to get killed by a man. Was that guy cheering for Drogo?
Like what was going on? He was just like really like basically like we're watching Sports Center. Like this is happening. And my dad was like, well, you shut the fuck up.
I have to take those on this. And he was like, I'll pound your head in. You know, like, yeah. That's, I mean, that's a very similar energy you bring to the theater.
No, I'm very respectful. We went to Immaculate on Friday and you were just beating guys up in the aisles. You were just like, get out of my way. I got to get closer to Sid.
Yeah. Like six forty five seven. It's because there was a note that at seven fifteen I would be giving away the will cause. Okay.
And you guys didn't want to miss the chance to sit as close to Sydney as possible. That's not what happens. Okay. We saw her.
We love horror. Right. I know. That's all Sydney.
She was there. She was selling the film, working hard to sell the film. Interesting film. We'll discuss it later this week on the pot.
What were your parents up to in 77, you know? Not really. I think my mom, I don't know whether she was a lawyer yet or still doing law school. And my dad was probably a lawyer at this point.
My mom was a chemist before she became a lawyer. So I don't really know the timeline. She's like Jeremy Renner in a rival. Yeah, that's true.
That's exactly what I think of my website. I don't know. My parents were up to. They were a Deccot.
I think this was his first year on the force. So he was probably a super cool guy then. It's really nice people. Probably just living right.
Helping. Helping. Yeah, definitely helping. Yeah.
I was still five years off. You were having years off seven years off. Yeah. I think it was a good time in America.
It seemed like it was about to be a bad time. It's Carter presidency. Didn't quickly we wanted it to go. Yeah.
But then Reagan came and cleaned it off. Right. Shining in America. Right.
Well, I get to fill with giant fucking cars. And I could understand it now. It's just like, plugging it in and out. You know.
Is that what you do? No. No. I drove baby troll.
No me. Is that like, I got my new car. I was just like, I need a bigger tank. So you wanted Carter out because of how he handled that situation.
I was really more conservative politics at the time. You were. You wanted politics as local. Yeah.
Do you vote? Primers. I do remember when Wilson got became mayor who was the, I don't know if he was the direct successor to Rizzo, but he was a turning point in Philadelphia. Was he inspired by Star Wars?
No. Do you guys want to ask me what I think about 19? 77 films and what I noticed? Yeah, of course.
Oh, you didn't get to answer? No, it's okay. I was just going to jump in. Yeah, I was just going to say we got carried away because we were talking about how a man, his mom is the basis for Jeremy Redder and Redder and Redder and Redder and Redder.
Did you guys notice like a pure vibrancy and realism to these films that still almost is like bizarre to watch this compared to like anyone but you know, like where there's like more than three people in the background and you know. Yeah. Realism. Yeah.
Like almost documentary style because it's all happening on location and real sets and stuff. I mean, I just, you know, I don't think I saw a bra in like my 45 movies or whatever they saw. I'm not sure I'm going to clean in her film. Not any of them.
I guess maybe in Julia because that's a period. Dainty was the goat of that though. I mean, it's just amazing. It was just that was the time and also they, you know, no one cared.
They were like, let's, this is what we're all doing right now. Do you think George Burns wore a bra for God? No. I've been thinking a lot about titling and how maybe we should stop doing like the blank draft and just have it be like, Dainty did his goaded for not wearing bras.
You think the episodes would perform better if we did that? I'm willing to try it. Ronald Rayden cleaned up this country. I'm not sure we would be attracting the audience for seeking.
That would be the episode title. The box office is interesting. Of course, Star Wars is the biggest film of the year. The movie called Smoky and the Bandit.
Not so far behind. Kind of far behind. It was the biggest movie star in the world. Is it Burke?
I think so. I think Eastwood Newman Reynolds. Some combination. Eastwood Newman Reynolds.
That makes sense. You know, this is the year of Saturday Night Fever. Right. It's a trivolta.
A seven. Yeah. You know, on the horizon here. I think that's about, I mean, Connery, you know, like a handful of guys like that are filming Kirby the car to be a movie star at the time.
I would. I would. Well, that's IP. Nobody's like tried to do a traumatic reimagining.
Well, it was with the. Well, I think it was for her and for everybody else. And so that was the problem. Herbie Colin fully loaded.
I think it was called. Do you guys watch Irish Wish? You know, I fired it up. Yeah.
I started watching it. I mean, you know, Long Island Redhead. Yeah. This is just a rich text for me.
I googled it when I fired it up as I was watching the first 10 minutes and then I read a story that said it was filled with mega coding. That was in vulture. Yeah. What in the world?
And then I turned it off. Not for that specific reason, but. Oh, you know, it's like that. No, no, because I was like, we need to go back to Reagan.
That's what I was saying. You know, I was like, this isn't my party. Right. Did you watch Irish Wish?
No, okay. I didn't. But I read a lot of blog posts about it. And what'd you learn?
That it's like crypto fascist, but everyone really enjoyed it, even though it doesn't seem like anyone was in the same room at the same time as it was filmed. Yeah. Did you celebrate? Do you have a metric?
No, actually, interesting. Oh, it's notable. Yeah, classic British bullshit. And did you celebrate?
You'd be like, I'm not Irish is you keep that. That's not happening. You're not Irish. You don't.
You're not. You knelt at the feet of the king. I watched it happen. You said, thank God Charlie's here.
I will praise the forevermore. Right? That's what you said. 1977.
I guess I didn't mention that there's a Spielberg movie this year. Maybe not the most significant speed. He did. But one of.
Is this like the confirmation you think for him? So this is like his most personal film up to a point, right? So he's done Jaws. What else is he done by this point?
Dual is before that. Sugarline expresses before that. His fashioning of like certain personal psychological and narrative like obsessions with divorce parents, with searching for rebuilding the home, with looking to the stars to kind of find that replacement for maybe spiritualities is very evident. I think it's a pretty significant movie.
It's also incredible. Do you like closing counters? I do. I watch it.
I rewatched it. No. It's really different than like. I know.
I mean, Terrigar is yelling like so much and that's a tough edit. I feel that Michelle Williams is a cable man. Because they like her talk too much is all you're saying? No, I'm just kind of like this is, you know, I.
Oh, you feel there's a correlation between those two? Yeah. Okay. But, um, it's a real, I mean, it's one of the singular COD movies where it's like why did my dad abandon me to go explore the spaceships?
Right. And then friends watch your foes. Like, I'll tell you why. So you're saying you don't like closing counters.
No, I do like it. I think and it is like undeniably the skeleton key, but you know, it's kind of interesting. Like I assumed that at some point we will talk about Annie Hall or maybe we won't, but we should. It's another movie where I have consumed all of the movies influenced by whether it's close encounters and like, you know, both in terms of Spielberg's later work, but everyone else who's like trying to do Spielberg and everyone else who's trying to do Woody Allen.
And just because of when I come to it, I sort of like the things that were influenced more than the original from the time I respond to it a little bit more. It's like, and so this time, close encounters, you know, you cannot watch it and like see every single shot of someone looking up in the sky and wonder and being like, Oh, there it is. Like that's the shot. No, and like that's not to take away from it, but it's there's there.
I didn't respond to it as much as I thought it would. So are you, this is why you like endgame more than Star Wars too, because like you've endgame is like, well, you were alive. And so that's like, you're more fully. Yeah, exactly.
And I understood all of it. Right. So good. I kind of think when I was showing close encounters, probably pretty young.
I think that their close encounters, like the lifespan of the close encounters thing is you see it probably when you're pretty young and you're like, I kind of think I'm supposed to really like this, but I don't know understand really what's happening. And then you see it maybe like more in college and you're like, holy shit. I think it's, I think it's a gateway or a doorway movie for a kind of meditative science fiction that you get more interested in when you're in college and it gives you some of that. It still also has these incredible moments of like a spaceship arriving and the thrill and the kind of violence in the desert of like the wind blowing and you know, there's still like an energy and excitement that Spielberg excels at.
But it's like quiet and still and sad at times and a little bit insane in the way that watching Dreyfus's character home slowly loses mind. So it's an unusual thing to see at the young age. I mean, we're coming at this from a completely different perspective from somebody who is 65 and watched these movies in real time and movie theaters and probably had a different feeling about it. You know, you mentioned the Oscars, Amanda.
There's a couple of movies that are, you know, really dominant Oscar movies this year. The one that is probably the most remembered but least seen is the goodbye girl because that's the movie for Richard Dreyfus, one best actor. And there's that great story where the Oscars where he's, you know, gets into the elevator after he's one of his Academy work and he's going downstairs and Jack just looks at him and says, that you're happy I didn't make a picture this year, which is like one of the best Oscar stories of all time. But even beyond the goodbye girl, which is a pretty good movie and interesting.
I think also source text for a lot of movies that you're a particular fond of. There's two big movies that were both nominated for Best Picture that year, Julia and The Turning Point, which are almost lost to time. I mean, I don't know if Julia is. Julia was definitely on in my house growing up.
My mom loves that movie. That's 40 years ago. And it's hard to see. It's not streaming.
It's not streaming. But the turning point is just like not around. The turning point, Amanda had to buy a $70 DVD to get a $56 dollar DVD just to get her hands on it. And then I watched.
Yeah, my donation to the Sean fantasy to the museum of Sean. Oh, so you bought a $56 dollar DVD and gave it to Sean? Yeah, but I did also expensive. So we're doing the work.
I see no issue here. So I have never seen turning point. I watched like 10 minutes of clips on YouTube and I was like, and Frank Roth seems to be turned up in this one. Yes, she has turned the plane both are.
And they don't need to be in the film. So that's what's interesting about it. I mean, I think we should talk about them both now because maybe someone will draft Julia. I've actually never seen Julia.
That's the one kind of big one from this year that I have never seen. That's a Fred Zenimine movie. Of course, also an old Hollywood hand, you know, or behind you in a number of other movies. Depending on how things shake out, I might have to draft one.
I might have to draft one. Yeah. So I don't want to try it out then, but then maybe we'll get back to it. Amanda and I had a pretty thoughtful spirit of disagreement about Julia's how dramatic it was yesterday.
Yeah, that's true. So, you know, maybe we'll just draft it to talk about it. Okay. Jane Fonda, very beautiful.
It's a very unusual collection of best picture nominees. It's Annie Hollis, you said one, the goodbye girl, Julia Star Wars in the turning point. And when we go through the movies that we're going to end up drafting, you're going to be like, how are none of those movies nominated? Because of how we think of them now.
And I'm just going to be one example. Yeah. But there quite a few more of this we'll get to. Should we just draft?
Should we start? Yeah. Okay. So if this is your first draft, we draft from six categories.
We each get a pick in each category. The categories are drama, action thriller or horror, comedy, blockbuster. The threshold for blockbuster is 25 million. There are 19 films that are eligible.
Oscar nominee and wild card. Now we need a draft order to which we go to our producer, Bobby Wacker. Got the hat back. Got some travel tiles.
We're going back to the original for this. This feels like an important draft order. Yeah. Going first.
Chris Ryan. Oh, fuck. You know what you want. I don't.
I mean, the draft is over now, but that's just awesome fun. I'm in a good second. Okay. Interesting.
Okay, Chris. God damn it. I didn't want to pick first. I mean, I know, but all right.
Well, because I feel like this isn't representative of like, I'm going to take Star Wars and I'm going to take it in Oscars. Okay. Yeah. You don't want to say anything about Star Wars.
Should we just move on? I think it's kind of interesting that it was nominated for Best Picture in 1977, that it was recognized as this important thing. Here's an apocryphal story is that my mother says she always says that she was pregnant with me and maybe when this came out. And that the moment where they like when they got into the movie theater, they could only sit like really close up to the screen.
Like that was the last seat. Well, she claims that like it was her and my dad and then like the destroyer flies overhead chasing the rebel ship and that they both looked each other and they were just like, well, that's you never seen that before. Like this is changes like that. This will change everything.
I think that that idea that my mom and dad were just like, that Bellini at the time. I don't know. You told that story several times. So I think that idea with me like as Star Wars is playing, but you know, where your parents sophisticated consumers would say about Star Wars other than I still think.
That was me and Max with Dune one, by the way. Oh my God. Yeah. And then and then I'm actually so loud that he started like moving around and he was.
Are you a bit of a judge? I mean, we'll see, you know? Shai-hulu. I would have made some different choices.
Is not. At least on Elgai. You know what? We are kind of like the still guard gunny of the gosh.
I like it. I mean, who's gurnian who still guards really the question? I agree. Okay.
I'm the zealot. Okay. I mean, I think it's the only pick. Yeah.
You're obviously great films to come. I think we're going to be fine. I'm going to be mad if like a couple of like if because I have to sit through you guys know, like I'm losing my like true cortex. You are going to.
That's just quite sweet. It's frustrating. It's tricky when there's what was another I mean, 94 was kind of like this or the poll fiction or a couple of years we had where we're like, obviously this one. Yeah.
I showed the speaking of not I showed him part of Star Wars because I was like, I have to be with it and he's really into this book with a rocket ship right now. Okay. So I was like, hey, no, you want to watch a rocket ship? Yes.
And so he sat down and we watched the scroll and he just came and he was transfected like motionless just staring at the screen and every like 10 seconds would be like rocket ship rocket ship. Because he identified space. But then did you say? No.
And then it's just like, I went to destroy your came and then it's the rocket ship showed up. He was like, this is scary. Go by. And like ran out of it.
But then we've been playing the music and he likes to be there. Yeah. There are YouTube montages or you know, clip packages of just baby Oda. Oh, that I could show him.
I'm going to look. I'm going to leave that to Phoebe. Okay. Yeah.
Phoebe and ask him can write that to Phoebe Oda. You still went on Grogu? I actually am not in on a manual or anywhere. You're at Grogu.
I think is a cute little guy. Oh, I don't know how old he is now at this point. You think they should find a way to put him into like heat to what do you do? What are you trying to do?
You should please share. Let's see. Okay. Amanda, you've got the second overall pick.
I'm trying. I don't really know what my strategy is here because I don't know. I don't know. There aren't that many that I think that you guys are going to take and I doubt that you would even take this but because Blackbuster is sort of a tight category.
I mean, it's not there actually 20 and if I had to, I could draft Ricky Friday, starting to be faster. But you could do that with your second overall pick. I'm not going to do that. I am going to take, I guess this is weird, but I would really like to take Saturday Night Fever in Blackbuster.
Great. The Travolta is the emerging star of this year, but it is of course important that the next year he is in Greece, which is to me like really, that was one of my first movie experiences. We didn't have it. My friend Trish knew about it.
We were only allowed to watch it at like a certain age. And so like Travolta and Travolta dancing and Travolta pelvis is very important to me. Early, Travolta and Swayze, you know, that's, you learn a lot. And so I think I saw at least the dance portions of this very, very early.
And the rest of it, obviously really wild and just, you know, a lot of sexual assault. But also the opening sequence of him, you know, going down like through New York in a lot of ways, like 70s New York is that to me even more than like taxi driver or anything in terms of cinematic representation. And it's just a huge hit. Like a sensation.
A massive thing. I've spent a lot of time with that. So I know whether you were going to pick it or not. I don't know.
I love the movie. In our first season of Music Box, we produced a movie called Mr. Saturday Night, which is Robert's. Stig Wood, who was the Australian impresario who managed the Bee Gees and was responsible for pulling Saturday Night Fever together as a project.
And it's a very interesting doc of people. I haven't seen it because it basically operates in the back half as a making up Saturday Night Fever. So if you like that movie, it's a really great movie. It's a fascinating story.
I mean, John Daddum wasn't supposed to be the filmmaker behind it. It's written by Norman Wechsler, who many people think is the best screenwriter of the 1970s. A very eccentric guy, but a guy who wrote a lot of really good movies, including Joe and Sir Pico. Who was supposed to direct Saturday Night Fever?
I want to say it was Adelson immediately after Rocky. The Rocky sent him off the stratosphere. Yeah. And Adelson had also directed Joe, which he did with Wechsler.
So, sliding doors moment there. And then also just casting Travolta out of Mokkamakkotter and the fascination of that. Anyway, a remarkable document. It's a movie that young audiences, if they watch it now, are going to be like, this is problematic.
What the fuck? But it's also not a dishonest representation of a certain kind of lifestyle in the out of boroughs of New York amongst Italian Americans. And I don't know if it's necessarily celery. I mean, it's not Travolta dancing is magnificent, but these guys are losers.
And even the last Dance Competition that is rigged, it's obvious that it's right. But I mean, yeah, some tough stuff. That's what it is though. When a movie like this gets into the culture, it becomes misinterpreted or redefined about what it is.
Like this is of course the disco movie, but the intention of the movie originally was a carbon drama from the guy who wrote Joe. It was not meant to be this kind of pop culture artifact, but it has become a good movie. Good pick. I was not expecting to take that pick.
I feel like I have to go category centric here and still get movies I like because you're right that blockbuster and Oscar are a little trickier than I would like them to be. Do I double screw you or just screw you one way is really the tricky thing here because there's two that are big for both of us. Keep in mind that this is the Chris Ryan Memorial 1977 draft. Right.
But it really wouldn't be a tribute to me unless you tried to screw me. I guess that's true. Well, that's true. It is how you show your life.
There's lots of stuff on the list. I want you to pick the movies that you want to pick. And it's okay if you know it. See, be careful though, because when he's generous, it actually like it bites back.
Yeah. How do you feel bad about it? So I, you know, go ahead. You can pick that.
I think I know what you're going to pick. Go ahead and pick it. I got to take at least one of the two. And block was wrote.
I'll take the list and counters to the third. Oh, that's this is me giving a break. It's me taking this. I thought because this category gets a little hairy.
I'm probably just fully giving it the draft by taking this back. Even though this is one of the most significant movies in the 1970s. We already kind of had our conversation about it. But I think it's major stuff.
I didn't revisit it. So I don't have like any fresh insights, but I like it quite a bit. It's encouraging that a movie like this would be a big hit. And some of it's a shirt's an alien movie, but it is this meditative drama family drama.
In Oscar, I mean, I have six or I'm sorry, Chris. That's on my letter box for right. Is it on your letter box for? How is your letter box experience going?