Of course, today, does anyone really think there can ever again be theaters like the original Cinematek?

I do.

You know, I actually think it is starting, to be honest.

And by way of example, she told me about a newish screening room run by a hip fashion brand that on the surface couldn't seem less Langlois-esque, but which deploys some very Langlois practices.

There's this movie theater here in Los Angeles called Braindead.

And they like every night they just program whatever they want to.

Like it could be, you know, some sort of Polish sexual fairy tale, or it can be a French silent movie from the 60s.

When they show trailers for movies, half the times the trailers don't even have English on them or subtitles.

Mm.

And so it's just a reminder like with Lucius Malfoy is slowly realizing that loyalty doesn't count here at all.

I have a question for you, though.

I mean, do you feel like in this death scene that we're looking at, that this is one of the few times in the film we even get to see Alan Rickman play Snape with no mask on?

Mm.

And that's what I cling to, especially as a film critic.

Because when I think of Harry Potter, I think of the actors who came out of it.

These great British and Irish actors like Harry Melling, who's suddenly becoming such an interesting actor.

Mm-hmm.

The dragon makes it to the top of the building.

The dragon has been enslaved.

The dragon has, uh, been tortured with noises.

The dragon sits just on the edge of the building before they fly off, and it goes [exhales] and it takes in the fresh air.

I love that moment because, gosh, we were even talking about this with, with Dobby.

Tell us about the bridge.

Uh, yeah.

[laughs]

...

this movie is kind of a tonal mess.

You know, it starts off in the Spielbergian drama way of this family really fretting about finances, fretting over whether or not they should get a divorce quietly.

Anne Hathaway is playing a, a housewife who is really frustrated, taking out her, um, her sadness at her marriage in writing novels that are very thinly-veiled, uh, tragedies about their life, and then suddenly there's a dino attack.

The one thing I will say to this movie's credit is there's a lot of dinosaur attacks.

A lot of people get their heads chomped, and then this family runs around and screams.

Tell us about this mix.

You're right.

You know, I think if there is really an overall theme in this installment in particular, I kinda feel like Dobby's death and this funeral that they're preparing for almost echoes all the way back to, like, the ritual of the beginning of having a wedding.

[laughs]

And for that I will admit a thing that I sometimes feel a little embarrassed about.

I held on to the theory for the longest time that the Harry Potter series would end with the revelation that Harry Potter was fine, but actually Neville Longbottom was the chosen one-

Mm-hmm.

Like, I love anything that gets kids in movies, but the Harry Potter franchise particularly, like, it had that real interesting synergy of ambition, smarts, ensemble, the greatest British actors on the planet.

You have to be in here.

If you're a great British actor and you're not in this series, humiliating.

Call your agent.

What happened? I thought we went to be going back to Grimmauld Place.

We were, we were.

Sh.

What do you think of my assessment?

I mean, I think that's true.

As fast as it goes by, I never do love that scene in Sullivan's Travels where suddenly like the bus that they're on goes haywire and everyone's running around and the cook is like upside down.

I think I've in general almost never been a pratfall person.

Except when there are emotional stakes to it.

Like I like it when Henry Fonda falls in The Lady Eve.

Did you hurt yourself? No, I'm fine.

Like, how do you make these, you know? I mean, is he an influential filmmaker or just, is he just like some sort of freakishly talented unicorn that we were lucky to get as long as we had him, you know?

She's just sad and drinking."

[laughs] I mean, because of that cameo at the end of Superman, I've actually been looking forward to this movie for a year.

I even put it on my anticipated movies of the summer, 'cause that's how great that cameo was.

You know, I like Henry Cavill.

I like his Superman.

It was fine.

It was cute.

Uh, Amy, tell us about the Unspooled podcast and anywhere else our listeners can get more of you.

Yeah.

[laughs] Now we should say there is a producer out there who doesn't like that this is how Hollywood is run, and he's British, his name is David Puttnam.

He's known because he made movies like Chariots of Fire, and he had this reputation in Hollywood as a guy who had a better way of doing this than Hollywood has been run.

He's like, "I don't like expensive movies.

I think we should be making more lower budget movies.

I think movie stars shouldn't have this much power." I agree with a lot of what he was saying back then.

And this guy becomes the head of Columbia Pictures in the middle of the, of the Ishtar shoot.

Oh, yeah

And then, you know, what's up with this very unusual adaptation?

Yeah, I mean, I tend to have fantastic fennel feelings.

I'm a big fennel fan, a fennel-philiac.

Is that where we're going now? I'm going to create as many ways of saying I like fennel, typically, as possible.

Because I have been in her trenches.

I've been in the moors with her, really supporting films like Saltburn and Promising Young Woman, because I like that she's a person who takes... gigantic ambitious swings and doesn't mind making a couple enemies along the way um and i think that she you know the knock on fennel is like yes she is a woman from england who comes from privilege and class and went to all the posh schools that she is making fun of in a film like salt burn but i think that she can make fun of class and snobbery and prestige and pedigree with an insider's point of view so i welcome that i'm like she knows these people bring them in i don't have anything to say about them like I went to Catholic school in Texas.

How am I going to make fun of people in Salt Burn? So I really support Fennell doing what she does.

And I think that if it's a one-off, this kind of captures that vibe very much.

But what about you? Did you fall into Bigelow's trap that she set?

I mean, the first third of this movie worked a lot when I'm getting introduced to the entire setup, meeting my favorite actors, I think, among the cast, which would be Anthony Ramos.

He's the commander of the fort, the military base, where they're first noticing that the missile is coming in.

He's the guy who shows up for work yelling at everybody about the potato chips on their desk and is suddenly like, oh, we have to get serious.

Anthony Ramos just has such a approachable human being, huggable face that I always want to spend as much time in a movie with him as possible.

And then Rebecca Ferguson also, you know, back in the office at the White House Situation Room kind of being like, I am the captain in charge.

And what are we doing? And then everybody gets on this gigantic Zoom call that then we spend the rest of the movie leaping around to go inside everybody's screens.

So I think it's a really interesting and provocative film, but you do have to watch it in the right way.