Is ‘Red One’ the Worst Movie of the Year? Plus: ‘A Real Pain’ With Jesse Eisenberg!

‘Red One’

Red One 2024

Jake Kasdan's big Amazon tentpole, written by Fast & Furious hand Chris Morgan: Santa (J.K. Simmons) is kidnapped and his head of security (Dwayne Johnson) is paired with a cynical tracker (Chris Evans) to get him back. Sean and Joanna both saw it with a drink and still couldn't answer the only question that mattered: who is this for? Too sweary and violent for kids, too juvenile for adults. Johnson plays it like a war drama, Evans misses the needle between dirtbag and likable, and only Kristofer Hivju's Krampus and a barely-used Bonnie Hunt seem to know what movie they're in.

Does the Hollywood Christmas movie still exist?

Elf 2003

Sean's pick for the last title to really enter the canon, the one you watch at five and keep forever.

Love Actually 2003

The other 2003 movie he'd put in the canon, though as a rom-com it doesn't reach kids the same way, and it has that body-double subplot.

The Santa Clause 1994

The model Red One seemed to want and miss: a crowd-pleaser aimed squarely at kids five years younger than them.

Home Alone 1990

The 90s Christmas-movie boom whose tail Red One is still chasing.

Miracle on 34th Street 1947

The old-Hollywood Christmas they grew up rerunning once a year and loving because it felt special.

It's a Wonderful Life 1946

Same canon: decades-old movies rerun on network TV, back when scarcity made them feel special.

The Holiday 2006

Sean thinks it's half a good movie (the Kate Winslet and Jack Black video-store half) and a failure otherwise. People watch it every year anyway.

Hot Frosty 2024

The Netflix Lacey Chabert movie where she falls for a snowman, Sean's exhibit for how disposable the genre has gotten now that Netflix and Hallmark pump out a dozen-plus a year.

‘A Real Pain’

A Real Pain 2024

Jesse Eisenberg's second feature as director: cousins David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) take a Holocaust-heritage tour of Poland to honor their late grandmother. Sean's favorite kind of sad dramedy (Billy Wilder, Hal Ashby, Woody Allen tonality) and a rare cousins two-hander. Joanna found it deliberately agitating, better in the thinking-about than the watching; Culkin is essentially in his Succession register, and the dinner-scene push-in is one of the tensest things she's sat through. The movie ends where Benji began.

The Best Supporting Actor raceSean's rundown of the field

Gladiator II 2024

Denzel Washington as Macrinus, the best part of the movie and, unlike Culkin, not just doing Denzel things. Sean can see a third career Oscar.

The Brutalist 2024

Guy Pearce, likely one of Sean's favorite performances of the year: the argument that a decades-long chameleon who's never won deserves it more than Culkin doing Culkin.

Anora 2024

Yura Borisov, supporting acting done right: Sean Baker's cutaways to his face set up the final act. Real supporting, unlike Culkin's category fraud.

Sing Sing 2024

Clarence Maclin, playing a version of himself; both loved it and think the strong real-life narrative could push him into the front-runners.

Conclave 2024

Stanley Tucci, a good performance that maybe lacks the one big scene to carry him.

September 5 2024

John Magaro (really the lead) and Peter Sarsgaard, both campaigning in supporting.

The Room Next Door 2024

John Turturro, one okay, overwritten scene that the betting markets somehow rate highly. Sean and Joanna are both confused by it.

The Apprentice 2024

Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn: if any Succession actor gets in, Sean argues it should be the one who's never the same twice.

A Different Man 2024

Adam Pearson, a movie Sean liked but hasn't had much chance to talk about beyond having Sebastian Stan on.

The Piano Lesson 2024

Ray Fisher was the big surprise for Sean, who didn't know Cyborg had it in him; due another crack.

Challengers 2024

Josh O'Connor, slight category fraud but the best part of the movie; the pair formally apologize for skipping it on Friday.

Wicked 2024

Jonathan Bailey, exactly what he needs to be, but Sean doesn't see the nomination happening.

A Complete Unknown 2024

Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, the showy historical transformation the Academy tends to reward.

The Fire Inside 2024

Brian Tyree Henry, in the Jennifer Lawrence movie once called Red, White and Blue, so forgotten Joanna couldn't produce the new title.

Nosferatu 2024

Bill Skarsgård, the monster performance Sean would most like to see honored, the kind they never do.

Five favorite two-handers one list each, worst-to-best on air

Picked by Joanna Robinson

Swiss Army Man 2016

No. 5: a clear-as-day two-hander she's rewatched a bunch.

Picked by Joanna Robinson

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 1969

No. 4: the obvious one, and it has to be there.

Picked by Joanna Robinson

Road to Morocco 1942

No. 3: a Mallory Rubin-style franchise smuggle for the whole Bob Hope / Bing Crosby Road series; Morocco is the best one, if you can look past what's dated.

Picked by Joanna Robinson

The Banshees of Inisherin 2022

No. 2: the movie she's thought about most in the last several years, even with Barry Keoghan and Kerry Condon in support.

Picked by Joanna Robinson

Withnail & I 1987

No. 1: Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann; the best version of the antique/stolid pairing, and a good companion to A Real Pain.

Picked by Sean Fennessey

The Nice Guys 2016

No. 5: Gosling and Crowe; the best movie he's ever seen on a plane, and maybe one of the last of its kind.

Picked by Sean Fennessey

Thelma & Louise 1991

No. 4: Sarandon and Davis; friendship as loyalty and tentativeness, the supporting men kept small.

Picked by Sean Fennessey

Sweet Smell of Success 1957

No. 3: Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster, two men who hate each other; the poster hangs over his desk at home.

Picked by Sean Fennessey

Paper Moon 1973

No. 2: Ryan and Tatum O'Neal, con man and kid, just reissued in 4K by Criterion.

Picked by Sean Fennessey

The Lighthouse 2019

No. 1: Pattinson and Dafoe; he walked out genuinely nauseous and thinks about it all the time.

Jesse Eisenberg on ‘A Real Pain’

Jesse Eisenberg on

A Real Pain 2024

Started as a story about two friends visiting a supposed radical who'd sold out to a tourism company in Mongolia; it stalled until a banner ad for 'Auschwitz Tours (with lunch)' turned the friends into cousins and gave the angst a backdrop. Cousins, not siblings, because a dead grandmother lets the pair choose whether to keep existing as a pair.

Jesse Eisenberg on

When You Finish Saving the World 2022

His first feature. Sean was the rare interviewer who'd actually seen it. Same interest in characters searching for meaning while stymied by their own self-indulgence.

Jesse Eisenberg on

The End of the Tour 2015

The two-hander he consciously worked to avoid echoing (down to both his characters being named David), while borrowing its trick of keeping the tour in the background as metaphor.

Jesse Eisenberg on

Never Rarely Sometimes Always 2020

Eliza Hittman's film, the last thing that shocked him; adoration followed by 'do I have that in me?' He reached out, became friends, and is helping get her next movie made.

Jesse Eisenberg on

Now You See Me 2013

The one time he engineered a persona: a confident, arrogant guy who's the opposite of him. He'd just finished the third one, his favorite sets to stand on.

Also mentioned raised along the way

The Rock and Chris Evans, in passing Zero EffectThe Fast and the FuriousJumanji: Welcome to the JungleJurassic WorldCaptain America: The First AvengerSnowpiercerSunshineKnives OutDeadpool & WolverineGhostedPain HustlersPain & GainThe RundownJungle CruiseHobbs & ShawMoanaThe Smashing MachineGallipoli

At the Alamo, and the release window VertigoOnce Upon a Time in HollywoodUncut GemsFord v FerrariMarriage StoryHarrietJudyHereticMoana 2

Other Christmas movies in passing White ChristmasHoliday InnJingle All the WayA Christmas StoryJulie & JuliaThe Night BeforeThe Best Man HolidayHappiest SeasonPaddington 2Wish

In the three-time-Oscar-winner trivia game On Golden PondThe Lion in WinterGuess Who's Coming to DinnerMorning GloryGaslightAnastasiaMurder on the Orient ExpressThree Billboards Outside Ebbing, MissouriNomadlandWomen TalkingTransformers: Age of Extinction

Supporting-actor talk, in passing L.A. ConfidentialThe Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the DesertMementoLove HurtsThe Fall GuyEverything Everywhere All at OnceZombielandLittle Miss SunshineCODA

Other two-handers debated Everything Is IlluminatedRoger DodgerKiss Kiss Bang BangIron Man 3Master and Commander: The Far Side of the WorldCollateralMiseryBefore SunriseBringing Up BabyMagnoliaEyes Wide ShutTropic ThunderRock of AgesInterview with the VampireThe Last SamuraiVanilla SkyLions for LambsKnight and DayMan on FireThe EqualizerThe Equalizer 2The Equalizer 3Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

In the Jesse Eisenberg interview Louder Than BombsNow You See Me 2Now You See Me 3AdventurelandHome Alone

Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads

TV Agatha All AlongThe PenguinDune: ProphecyBuffy the Vampire SlayerSuccessionFleishman Is in TroubleMasters of SexSay Nothing

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