The Avengers 2012
The literal origin story of the show: Sean and Amanda both wound up at a press screening of it, then a Brooklyn bar afterward. Sean calls it the closest thing the podcast has to a founding myth.
The Big Picture · Discussion
An Everything-but-Movies Mailbag
October 25, 2024/ 95 min/ Sean Fennessy · Amanda Dobbins
With Amanda about to go on leave, Sean pitched an episode that never mentions movies. Everyone broke the rule anyway. A banked mailbag (producer Bobby Wagner reads the questions) on the NL MVP race, the Sean-and-Amanda origin story, email etiquette, death-row meals, toddler logic, cocktails, and whether you'd fight one horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses. The films slip in anyway.
21 films across 1 segment.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
The MailbagSean and Amanda, with Bobby Wagner reading listener questions
What's Your Number? 2011
The Anna Faris comedy (also with Chris Evans) whose press screening is where Amanda and her now-husband Zach Baron officially met.
Anora 2024
Cited as proof the new stuff is harder to come by than the old: they'd just done an episode on it and Sean loved having a recent movie he was genuinely jazzed about.
Nickel Boys 2024
One of the fall titles Sean points to as feeling unlike anything he'd seen, after a summer where every movie was a three-star.
Alien: Romulus 2024
Brought up on the Industry question: David Jonsson was one of the best parts of it, evidence he can carry a bigger film career.
Back to Black 2024
Marisa Abela's Amy Winehouse biopic, which Sean says didn't work out (though not through any fault of hers) while arguing she looks like a movie star.
Conclave 2024
Releasing the day this episode airs. Amanda can't wait to see it as a civilian: a highbrow-dumb movie, fancy actors in fancy clothes, lifted from an airport novel.
The Substance 2024
Surfaces during a retinol tangent. Amanda says it speaks to ideas Sean's interested in; she's only unsure about the execution, and can't believe he still hasn't seen it.
Devil 2010
Sean's reference for the stuck-in-an-elevator question: the M. Night Shyamalan-produced movie about eight people trapped in an elevator, one of whom is the devil.
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi 2016
Sean's evidence for picking Michael Bay to make a January 6th movie: not Bay's best, and you can feel him straining to have something to say about a thing there's nothing to say about.
Sully 2016
Named as the case where Clint Eastwood's 'I understand this better than everyone' instinct lands. Sean would rather watch prime Clint's version of the January 6th movie.
Richard Jewell 2019
Cited as a brave act and proof Eastwood cares about journalism, even when Sean doesn't love the man's politics.
Juror #2 2024
Eastwood's new one, a week out at the time. Sean nearly calls it 'the rural juror'; both figure it could be good.
Ambulance 2022
The Bay movie Sean adores. He goes on a tear defending Bay against a Hollywood that abandoned him, demanding they hand him G.I. Joe and the Ninja Turtles on top of Transformers.
Father of the Bride 1991
The last movie that made Amanda cry: she rewatched the Steve Martin version while pregnant during the Steve Martin episode and things, she says, got out of hand.
Armageddon 1998
The film that made Amanda cry the most, factually: she saw it at 15 and didn't recover for several days.
The Lion King 1994
Sean's childhood gut-punch (they did Mufasa like that?). Meanwhile his daughter is Team Scar.
Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 2024
Bobby says he sobbed through the whole final act, undone as much by the sheer incomprehensibility of it as anything. Nobody's sure what happened to the Venice screening of Chapter 2.
Sing Sing 2024
One of the few 2024 releases that got Sean: maybe not crying, but emotionally affected.
You Should Have Left 2020
Comes up on the bad-interactions question: the David Koepp horror movie with Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried, released during COVID. Koepp came on the show and, Sean says, was needlessly prickly, so he won't be invited back, though Sean still expects to like Koepp's work.
Coco 2017
The film that made Bobby cry the most, no contest. He didn't see it until he was an adult working at The Ringer; it got him good.
Also mentioned raised along the way
In passing Spider-Man: No Way HomeHundreds of BeaversSpirit: Stallion of the CimarronRoundersTransformersG.I. Joe: The Rise of CobraTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV IndustryThe Morning ShowEuphoriaBeverly Hills, 90210Parks and RecreationSay Nothing (adaptation)
Podcasts The RewatchablesThe Press BoxJam Session (JMO)Blank CheckHow Did This Get Made?SpooledThe New York Times Book Review podcast
Books The SnakeheadSay NothingEmpire of PainCreation LakeDeath at the Sign of the RookSelling SexyThe Vanity Fair DiariesFreedomThe Corrections
Ads TruthlessZazzleSam's ClubMint MobileAthletic Brewing