The Big Picture · Discussion · Interview
February 7, 2025/ 128 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
A February love-movie episode. Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins watch the Fantastic Four and Jurassic World: Rebirth trailers, review the month's new releases (Companion, You're Cordially Invited, Love Me, Heart Eyes), then build a taxonomy of "garbage love": genre movies that bolt a romance onto sci-fi, action, or horror to get women into the theater. Sean closes with an interview with Companion writer-director Drew Hancock.
34 films across 4 segments.
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.
Coming Attractionstwo summer trailers
Sean's birthday movie, and he's worried. Matt Shakman's retro-futuristic, unclear-timeline take (Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach as the Thing) looked to him like prestige TV with a Marvel budget: flat, single-shot, low on pizzazz. Galactus is glimpsed at the end. The two prior versions, by Tim Story and Josh Trank, were both big misses.
The seventh Jurassic World, from Gareth Edwards (Rogue One, The Creator), gifted with CGI but shakier with story. Scarlett Johansson stars because Jurassic Park is her favorite blockbuster, with Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, and Rupert Friend. Amanda took notes on line readings; the water-dinosaur set piece just reminded them of Godzilla Minus One.
The February Releasesthis month's love movies
Drew Hancock's debut (produced by Zach Cregger's Barbarian team). A tidy 90-minute genre movie with Sophie Thatcher and Jack Quaid. The first-act reveal, spoiled by the marketing, is that Thatcher's character is a companion robot. Both hosts clocked it on the car ride. Sean loved it: clever, funny about its product-design specifics, entertaining first and thematic second, with one later reveal he wouldn't spoil.
Nicholas Stoller's Prime Video comedy with Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon as parents whose families double-book an island for competing weddings. The pieces are all good on paper: director, stars, gags (the Garden & Gun bit, Islands in the Stream). None of it rises; feels like two scripts smushed together, and the central romance has no chemistry. Deeply mediocre, but Sean didn't hate it.
Sam and Andy Zuchero's post-apocalyptic two-hander: Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun voice a buoy and a satellite who learn to be human from leftover social media. Both hosts found it irritating: only 40 minutes of the real actors, an animated-YouTuber stretch, and a social-media 'treatise' less profound than the clips it uses. Amanda flagged it as sexist. Sean saw it a year earlier at Sundance.
Josh Ruben's Valentine's slasher with Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding as coworkers a killer mistakes for lovers. A perfectly adequate holiday slasher with a rom-com streak and knives to the head; Sean thought it was pretty good. Jordana Brewster and Now-and-Then's Devon Sawa show up.
The Top 10 Garbage Love Moviesgenre romance in three flavors: sci-fi, action, horror
Sci-fi. Andrew Niccol's time-as-currency thriller, Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried. Same author as Gattaca, opposite result: 'In Time stinks.' In the pile.
Sci-fi. Matt Damon and Emily Blunt dodge the hat-wearing agents of Fate itself. Middling: peak-Damon and firmly in the garbage.
Sci-fi. Richard Curtis time-travel weepie, Domhnall Gleeson and Rachel McAdams. Amanda wept, then was mad about it. In.
Sci-fi. Rachel McAdams, again, opposite a time traveler. In.
Sci-fi. Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence on a starship, the greenhouse, the nasty wake-her-up twist. A hot script with two people with no chemistry: 'one of the worst movies ever made,' was Amanda's first thought. In.
Curtis-adjacent. Amanda cries every time and calls it a crime against humanity. Too discussed to leave off.
'I am a woman staring at a man.' One of the best rom-coms of all time, per Amanda; a Curtis touchstone the garbage riffs on.
The rom-com/sci-fi test case. Amanda floated it; Sean ruled it too good (Groundhog Day logic) and out of the pile.
The tiebreaker rule: rom-com first, sci-fi second, so its primary genre is romance and it graduates out of garbage.
Sci-fi. Steve Carell and Keira Knightley at the apocalypse. Not good, and not much of a hit either.
Sci-fi. Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, Jake Johnson and a time-travel ad: the movie that got Colin Trevorrow the Jurassic World gig.
Action. Right on the edge, a little garbagey, but fun. The winking stunt-romance mode.
Action. A terrible movie, but too rom-com to qualify, so it's out.
Action. Straight-to-Amazon rom-com with elements; a decent streaming version. Passed on the final list. Shout-out Lenny Kravitz.
Action. Amanda's best call: janky, goofy premise, big stars, but genuinely entertaining, and people showed up. In.
Action. Trying to do exactly this, and 'stinks.' Sean won't even list it.
Action. The nuclear-family version of the mode. Also stinks, more about the family than the love, but it's iterating on the idea.
Garbage, but not garbage love: too cold. Sean's revisit (for the Zemeckis episode) revealed some quality. Filed under garbage World War II, a future subcategory.
The template the action-romances keep xeroxing, just swap Danny Glover for a blonde lady.
Horror. Sean will only defend the original Catherine Hardwicke movie as actually good, the one caveat in the saga.
Horror. The most garbage love of all: the wedding, the honeymoon, the CGI-goblin baby Renesmee, the needle drops (Bon Iver on the soundtrack). Peak of the pile.
Horror. Nicholas Hoult and Teresa Palmer zombie romance. Maybe a little too good for garbage.
Horror. A genuinely good film that's inherently garbage by genre: two teens finding themselves, and they're cannibals. Mark Rylance is deeply creepy.
Horror. Daisy Edgar-Jones and a very amusing Sebastian Stan cannibal. Pretty fun; Sean saw it at Sundance.
Horror. The late Jeff Baena's early-A24 zombie romance: Aubrey Plaza comes back from the dead to confront a boyfriend who's moved on. A Sean favorite.
Horror. Jesse Eisenberg and Emma Stone, comedy first and horror second, but a romance underneath.
Horror. More garbage than the first, and the better fit. Sean would happily rewatch it.
In conversation
The writer-director on 20 years of PA gigs, Channel 101, and journeyman writing (Blue Mountain State) before a pandemic script became his debut. The full logline arrived day one; his instinct to make the robot the villain flipped when he realized the most human character could be the robot: Iris as a metaphor for a woman leaving a toxic relationship, Josh's side as 'what if your phone looked like a person.' Written as a spec engineered to get made (one location, first-act twist), it drew five producers in a week; Zach Cregger nearly directed before handing it back. Last great things: Oddity and William Friedkin's memoir.
Also mentioned raised along the way
In the trailers Rogue OneThe CreatorGodzilla Minus OneGodzilla vs. KongMarriage StoryGhost WorldThe BrutalistFantastic Four
Around the reviews Love HurtsBarbarianRaising ArizonaThe TerminatorHereticThe BoogeymanForgetting Sarah MarshallBrosScare MeWerewolves WithinNow and ThenCasperFinal DestinationScreamFast FiveThe SubstanceWill & HarperOpus
Too good to qualify GattacaVanilla SkyMr. & Mrs. SmithNobodyAtomic BlondeJohn WickThe Imitation GameSolarisCasablanca
Drew Hancock's touchstones Pulp FictionMagnoliaBeing John MalkovichThe MatrixMy Beautiful LaundretteA Boy and His DogBiker BoyzM3GANJawsDon't Worry DarlingOddityThe French ConnectionWeaponsEx Machina
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV SeveranceThe Morning ShowYellowjacketsThe BoysOutlanderGame of ThronesWandaVisionRunawaysAre You Afraid of the Dark?Blue Mountain StateI Didn't Do ItGirl vs. Monster
Web / YouTube Yacht Rock
Ads Uber EatsPricelineThe UPS StoreRed BullMeUndiesBombas60 Songs That Explain the '90s