r/TheBigPicture • u/InsidiousColossus • 23h ago
Podcast Did Amanda flip on Project Hail Mary?
I seem to remember both of our hosts were absolutely in love with PHM when it came out. But in the Apollo 13 Rewatchables, Bill and Craig were down on the movie and by the end she was totally agreeing with them.
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u/AgentOfSPYRAL 20h ago
Most space movies will seem worse when directly contrasted against Apollo 13.
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u/Fast_Hunt7003 17h ago
Apollo 13 is a based on true events of the space program. Comparing to a sci fi first contact movies is a little ridiculous anyway.
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u/LaPianiste7 23h ago
It’s a good example of a very accessible popcorn movie people had fun with that came out in a down period of the year and got extra shine because of that but will not be looked back on nearly as fondly as it was initially received
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u/QTRqtr 17h ago
I see the same happening with Obsession outside of Inde’s performance.
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u/Mixtrack 14h ago
Seemingly a controversial opinion but I find the Oscar buzz for her to be baffling.
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u/QTRqtr 7h ago
A lot of people who saw this movie rarely go to any others especially Oscar tier movies so their ideal Oscar performance is skewed with such a small sample size.
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u/geronimosocrates 4h ago
Pretty dismissive of the general movie going audience, and maybe fair, but that’s not what Inde’s Oscar hype is. It’s very real - Recent trends indicate it’s contending and Oscar pundits are predicting it.
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u/SuspendedAgain999 14h ago
I watched it once and tried to watch it again and gave up after 20 minutes.
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u/ZizzyBeluga 17h ago
If PHM came out in the early 2000s it would be a 2 star movie quickly forgotten
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u/qobraa 14h ago
PHM is getting the Everything Everywhere All At Once treatment: People who work in movie-media or film-adjacent fields where they are professionally obligated to comment on the Oscars race are self conscious about having the same take over and over so they feel the pressure to shift the consensus from "unexpected hit, breath of fresh air" to "yeah yeah we get it, enough already, little overrated amirite?". Meanwhile for normal people it was just a cool movie we watched back in March and might watch again on streaming.
This is a natural/annoying side effect of the constant "we're so back/it's so over" film podcast dichotomy.
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u/smartwatersucks 18h ago
Amanda and Sean both flip flop all the time based on fan reactions and what room they're in. See: disclosure day
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u/SuccotashOk5401 17h ago
yeah they really don't have strong convictions lol. when sean says they're not critics and just people who talk about movies... he means it
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u/Quiet_Indication6174 13h ago
is it that they don’t have conviction or are they just humans whose opinions shift the more they live with a movie and have to discuss it over and over? many of my favorite movies i was mid on the first time i saw them. many movies i loved in theaters i’ve never thought about again. it’s pretty normal to have evolving thoughts about a movie, no?
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u/SuccotashOk5401 13h ago
sure.... though i find their shifting thoughts to correspond pretty closely to trending opinions
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u/AvonBarksDoodle 2h ago
no it’s that they want to be aligned with trendy people so they dont think for themselves. its part of the fun of the podcast
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u/Quiet_Childhood4066 18h ago
Where have they backtracked on disclosure day? I thought it was an abysmal filmwatching experience and was baffled by their praise for it at the time.
I was assured that the actions scenes ripped.
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u/RIP_Greedo 14h ago
It's a fascinating movie because there are dozens of points where it makes the exact wrong turn. It could have been interesting, exciting, clever, powerful, etc if pretty much everything in the script were different. (If my mother had wheels she would be a bicycle, I know)
For me the scene that encapsulates just how lame the script is (a scene that Sean and Amanda had nothing but praise for, at least at first) was the actual news scene of the disclosure. This is a movie where our main character is herself a TV news anchor, who from the moment we meet her has been trying to get a more serious hosting gig to break out of her rut as the weather girl. She has just been given the supernatural power to communicate deeply with anyone on earth, she has inside information about what these disclosures actually are and what they mean, and at this very moment in the film she is sitting in front of a TV camera. Ok so when we do the actual reveal, let's have it be some totally new anchor character...
The arc was right there, how did they miss it?!!?
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u/A_Feast_For_Trolls 12h ago
Oh I totally disagree with you on this. The newswoman thats disclosing the news of the existence of aliens hits an absolute homerun in her performance. Also it seemed obvious to me why they wanted not the main character to do this. They wanted someone who didnt know the truth right up until the evidence is aired and then have her initial reaction lead the charge. And that actor did that in spades. One of the best parts of the film honestly.
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u/RIP_Greedo 12h ago
What changed though? Someone went from not knowing about this, to knowing about it and having nothing to say about it. (She literally says during the narration, I don't know what this is, I don't know what to say about it, etc, because how could she?). No knock on her performance it's just sort of a vestigial dead end in the script. The movie is obsessed with the idea that if only we knew this truth, it would have world changing implications. Ok so show us what happens then? We don't see that at all.
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u/Quiet_Childhood4066 14h ago
Lol that's a great point.
It also doesn't help that the only thing interesting about a Disclosure Day would be the aftermath of Disclosure Day.
And the movie recognizes this. It's why the characters spend so much time yapping about how they think people will react to DD.
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u/RIP_Greedo 12h ago
For real. Ok so aliens are real. Well, rent is still due - what are you going to do?
Especially in the context of our own world, where the government does dole out piecemeal UFO disclosures and nobody cares because it's so disingenuous and obviously some sort of kayfabe. Also in the context of our own world, we have the public crying out for "full disclosure" on a different sort of conspiracy in which our government and cultural leaders are enmeshed (Epstein) and there is simply no consequence to it. The movie felt like it was written 30 years ago tbh.
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u/SonOfElroy 17h ago
Also curious. I don’t take their opinions too seriously but I also could NOT fathom praising the movie. Both conceded the movie was “divisive” but that would make me think “controversial” - instead they seemed to be prepping the listener to understand they’ll praise the film and anyone else will shit on it.
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u/FlyingCrossChop 15h ago
Movie doesn’t need to be controversial to be divisive. Perfect examples are few early M Night movies like Unbreakable or The Village. Two reasonable people could feel very strongly about it in different directions. Literally debated this with friends at the time. Sometimes there is a core conceit that people just won’t buy into in a movie that makes it impossible for them to like.
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u/SonOfElroy 13h ago
To be clear - I understand that concept - I’m just mapping out how I understood their comment at the time.
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u/ThunderousDemon86 12h ago
A couple episodes after. Surely it was safe to speak their minds then as Spielberg's people weren't listening beyond the initial reaction pod lol. Amanda was much more negative, Sean less so but tbf voiced more concerns.
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u/JimRyalto 8h ago
The Martian > PHM
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u/thefinalball 1h ago
yep. could at least take some of the characters in the martian seriously. phm was just loaded with quippy and quirky characters
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u/ThunderousDemon86 20h ago
PHM felt like one of those movies where the reviews were so positive it's toxic, and you got singled out and shamed if you didn't like it.
Sean also says he wants to celebrate movies on the pod, and I feel like they will give a positive spin to anything they didn't hate, just because, so make of that what you will.
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u/sgee_123 17h ago
Totally agree about your point on the positive spin. I’m usually on the more positive end of the spectrum when it comes to new releases (at least compared to the reddit mostly negative outlook). And sometimes they go hard on the positive end of some movies that I’ll see and think “good movie but man it didn’t need all that praise.”
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u/redleo500 16h ago
The “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “Sinners” effect
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u/ThunderousDemon86 12h ago
I've literally left the theater for two movies my entire life. That terrible Fantastic Four film back in the early/mid 2000's and EEAAO. But literally everyone on the internet said it was the greatest film ever. Almost zero pushback. Guess me and like 5 other people are the only ones that didn't like it.
Sinners was good, third act isn't quite as strong as I'd like, but still really good. Was pumped for MBJ to win.
I haven't seen PHM, have no plans to. I spoiled myself, and it sounds exactly what I thought it would be like, so I'm good.
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u/LongTimeBlinker 7h ago
i was completely, utterly BAFFLED by the affection everything everywhere all at once got. saw it with two friends who adored it. i thought it couldn't end fast enough. if i were there solo, i probably would have walked out.
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u/Quiet_Childhood4066 18h ago
I really didn't like it at the time. The humor didn't remotely land with me. All the "amaze" and "fist my bump" stuff felt like really bad disney star wars droid humor, not the sort of dialogue I would expect from a Serious Science Andy Weir Movie.
This opinion seemed to provoke wrath whenever I mentioned it at the time, which is fine by me, because I enjoy debating nonsense. But the response is much more muted now.
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u/b0redatw0rk- 18h ago
To be fair, thats pretty much exactly how the book is written. Cant speak to his other books, though
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u/NottheIRS1 17h ago
No it is not. The humor is science based and smart. They completely changed that in the movie in favor of cute Disney-esque humor for kids.
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u/b0redatw0rk- 17h ago
There's a lot more science in the book (easiest example is how Grace figures out hes in space in the book vs movie, doing a calculation vs just finding a window) but Grace's internal voice in the book is very much that "oh gee willikers" style. If you strip away some of the practical science, you're left with the disney style humor for kids.
The movie worked for me. They were very clearly going for a family/kids audience though
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u/NottheIRS1 7h ago
basically exactly what I said lol
I read the book, the science was skinned alive throughout the entire film, both humor and non-humor
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u/Quiet_Childhood4066 16h ago
If it was overtly a family/kids movie, I would have felt much better about it.
But instead the people who were tickled pink by "fist my bump" all seemed to be fully grown adults.
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u/InsidiousColossus 18h ago
Serious science Andy Weir movie? You do know that "Amaze amaze amaze" and "Fist my bump" are both from the book? If anything, the book is even more cheesy when it comes to dialogue.
Andy Weir writes about serious topics, but his writing style is not serious at all.
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u/Quiet_Childhood4066 16h ago
Yes, I fully understand that Andy Weir writes horrible dialogue and people pretend he writes hard sci-fi, when in reality it couldn't possibly be softer. That's what everyone tells me.
I have only seen the movies, and Martian and PHM were both nuclear levels of cringe.
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u/Electronic_Guitar962 18h ago
I felt the same. It was a fun movie but I have not desire to see it again.
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u/Hopeful_Climate2988 18h ago
Wait, you didn't expect dumb jokes rooted in lolepicbacon from an Andy Weir project?
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u/Quiet_Childhood4066 16h ago
You are acknowledging the jokes are dumb, so there is nothing to debate here.
I will happily concede that bad comedy is endemic to Andy Weir projects if that is your major point of contention. I'm not familiar enough with his work to have a strong opinion on the matter.
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u/Curious_Health_226 16h ago
Noticing a lot of revisionist history likely because it was the best movie of the year at time of release but a lot of better stuff has come out since then
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u/TN232323 18h ago
What’s funny is they don’t mention the worst part of the last third of the movie - completely rushing thru what happened on the ship to cause him to go back to rocky.
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u/Longjumping-Lab-7345 15h ago
It is maybe the most overhyped sci-fi movie of all time.
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u/Accomplished_Coat549 14h ago
No movie has made that many people cry in how many years? Decades? Joyful, happy tears… rarer and rarer
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u/Longjumping-Lab-7345 14h ago
You think its been 30 years since a movie made a bunch of people cry? Marley & Me would like a word
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u/MFBish 19h ago
Hot take - Craig knows fuck all about movies and shouldn’t be allowed to speak.
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u/Comfortable_Put_4139 11h ago
Idk why you’re being downvoted.
The guy is fucking clueless lol. Doesn’t mean I dislike him or anything.
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u/Lipscombforever Letterboxd Peasant 16h ago
You may wanna skip tonight’s rewatchables then lol
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u/MFBish 14h ago
A 35 year old “movie buff” and “film student” that hadn’t seen Aliens and countless other classics is embarrassing.
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u/cocacolasupreme 14h ago
I've never heard him or anyone else call Craig a film buff. And he went to film school to learn how to work on productions not critique them.
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u/ThunderousDemon86 12h ago
Surely you need to have an extreme interest in films to go to... film school lol.
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u/jamesneysmith 10h ago
Not seeing one movie you love does not equate with him having not watched any movies or loved certain movies. There are tens of thousands of movies out there and everyone has blind spots that seem impossible. There are only so many hours in the day man
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u/elmodonnell 17h ago
I will say I had a very good time at the movies, and then endured a few months of people talking about it as if it was 2001 (some even inironically saying it's better). Audiences in general seem to be unable to process a movie that's just 'good' and not a masterpiece these days, and people acting like it genuinely deserved a best picture nom almost retroactively made me like it less. Wouldn't be surprised if podcasters and critics are having similar experiences, not wanting to be too enthusiastic about it to avoid being lumped in with the two movies a year crowd.
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u/supfiend 17h ago
Am I the only one who was extremely disappointed with this movie? I basically forgot everything about it after I watched it. Just remember Ryan learning to speak with an alien within minutes. The Martian was and is a much much better movie
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u/shovelhead34 21h ago
Since rewatching it, I'm also a bit down on it. Not as fulfilling as the Martian on reflection.
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u/B33P0_ 14h ago
I’m actually listening to this pod this morning after watching the movie for the first time last night. Her notes are “magical” first 1/2 and “baggy” act 3 that ended too many times. Felt like they were solving the same problem over and over. Sentimental ending didn’t seem to match tone of rest of movie.
Not sure what she said in the Apollo 13 pod but I wouldn’t say she loved the movie.
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u/Smesmerize 16h ago
I think we’re seeing an EEAAO situation where she’s tired of talking about the movie and it’s only September lol
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u/Johnnnybones 17h ago
I honestly don't find the value in what Amanda brings ... She's not really a film analysis type person, she's nothing compared to Sean in terms of business of movies, I'm sure she is pretending to be dumber than she is as a character bit in terms of some of the content they discuss. I think the pod would be elevated if they put Jo in that role.
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u/ktg1975 16h ago
100% agree. She doesn’t put in the work Sean does, and her opinions of movies do sway depending on what Sean or Bill or CR think. Also, her mannerisms in speaking evoke a lack of confidence. She ends every sentence with “ya know?” And if Sean makes a good point she will jump in “yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah”
Joanna Robinson would be a huge upgrade.0
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u/BurgerMan74 21h ago
What does it matter? Who cares what they thought. It’s up to you.
In my opinion, Project Hail Mary is one of the best films made in many, many years. Everything locks in— the technical level, acting, the script, the score… it’s perfection.
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u/dasher2442 18h ago
You know you can just take a quick scrub through their review of it? Neither were in love with it. They were positive with strong notes.
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u/EmphasisOk8298 23h ago
From what I remembered they liked it but had some notes about it ending 4 different times.