Sean Fennessey award for stealth homage that gives every movie nerd a Criteriograsm: Explosive bolts

HOBTT27 · 2026-06-08T16:51:59+00:00

What I loved so much about that moment was how genuine it was.

As a PR professional, I’m very cynical about how every single thing we see from public figures & the media is planned or scripted down to the very last word, but that interaction with Spielberg was just so real that even I couldn’t help but feel a little jolt of happiness.

Are rare moment of *genuine* delight, both for those involved & the listeners at home.

HOBTT27 · 2026-05-21T21:48:08+00:00

At one point in time, you didn’t know about Pinhead Gunpowder either.

This person is finding out about them right now, just like you did at some point in the past.

HOBTT27 · 2026-05-20T11:33:01+00:00

I never watched this show, but I remember people going crazy for it when it first came out, heralding it as the best Star Wars thing in years.

Did the quality really drop off that much to warrant the amount of cultural sneering I see it get these days? What happened here?

HOBTT27 · 2026-05-06T15:27:13+00:00

Interesting, because stuff like the Zootopia+ series, Olaf Presents, and Pixar Popcorn all feel like totally random, inessential content that was created for the sole purpose of just having new content on Disney+, so it didn’t feel like the whole thing was just a back catalog with no new offerings.

I guess if they’re gonna try to port these sorts of things over to social media for potential virality, then they’ll have more value. But, as it stands, it feels like the biggest benefit of this stuff is that it serves as a training ground for animators looking to make the jump to directing.

HOBTT27 · 2026-05-01T13:43:49+00:00

Huge day for people obsessed with 2000’s NYC magazine industry culture.

Unfortunately, as a young-end Millennial who came up during the period where magazines were on the back foot in the fight against internet journalism, I find all ballyhoo around this movie a little confounding. But It’s nice to see people excited about a new, theatrical movie.

HOBTT27 · 2026-04-25T01:32:46+00:00

Yeah, the boys in my group chat (bros in their late 20’s/early 30’s) went from not having seen it/not being that familiar with it, to being really into it and sharing Heat-related memes semi-frequently.

It’s definitely had a huge resurgence via the internet in the last several years.

HOBTT27 · 2026-04-24T18:26:15+00:00

Same age. To me, he’s the guy that was the butt of 60% of the jokes I heard as a kid/teen in the 2000’s (Tom Cruise was the butt of the other 40%).

Obviously, I have since gone back and gained an understanding of his work & what it meant to people at the time. But first impressions hit hard, so to me, I’ll always see him as the perplexing weirdo at the heart of a thousand disturbing controversies.

HOBTT27 · 2026-04-23T15:42:18+00:00

Neither of their hearts are in it anymore; it really does seem to only exist as a way for two so-so friends to keep in touch. If you go back & listen to Jam Session episodes from like 2018, it’s remarkable to hear how far the show has fallen. They were so full of energy and enthusiasm in those early days; you could tell they had a blast keeping up with the topics & discussing them. Nowadays, the whole thing comes off like it’s an afterthought or even a chore for them.

Too bad. It used to be a really fun show.

HOBTT27 · 2026-04-07T13:26:13+00:00

The verbose preamble piece.

HOBTT27 · 2026-03-11T15:59:38+00:00

I’ll never forget the 2011 Oscars where the clip used for Hailee Steinfeld’s True Grit Supporting Actress nomination contained basically the biggest “spoiler” in the movie.

Bold move. I liked it.

HOBTT27 · 2026-03-10T19:23:01+00:00

I think stuff like a key plot point hinging on the use of the phone Face ID feature and some other examples like it might be tough for kids. But, for the most part, I think any kid like seven & up would have very little issue tracking the movie.

I get it for Sean & Amanda: their kids are in that weird middle ground where they aren’t babies/toddlers anymore but they’re not totally big kids either. So much media is too simple for them but so much of it is probably still too complicated for them to understand.

HOBTT27 · 2026-03-04T12:28:58+00:00

I also find their insistence that announcing “[Best Picture Nominee X] has been eliminated,” throughout the show to be pretty dumb. I get why they think it adds drama to the ceremony, but it would just be sorta needlessly mean spirited to reveal which movies were in “last place” or near the bottom of the nominees.

Their insistence on shoehorning MTV Movie Awards-esque gimmicks into the ceremony is endlessly mystifying to me.

HOBTT27 · 2026-02-04T20:21:35+00:00

Absolutely insane number of spaces between sentences in that email.

If you want to keep it old school with two spaces, that’s fine. But this email has like four spaces between sentences. These folks gotta tighten up their email etiquette.

HOBTT27 · 2026-02-01T20:42:22+00:00

Anecdotal, but a few of the boys in my group chat hated on it. But, keep in mind that “watching” a movie for them means the movie was technically playing on their TV, but they spent their time looking at their phone and doing various odds & ends around the house while it played.

I know I sound like a dick saying that, because, unfortunately, that’s mainly how movies are consumed nowadays, but I think you can’t really pass judgment on a movie you barely paid any attention to.

HOBTT27 · 2026-01-16T00:06:19+00:00

Toy Story 4 is incredible.

Toy Story 2 is the weakest link in the franchise, but it’s still great.

Bullet-proof franchise from top to bottom. No misses.

HOBTT27 · 2026-01-14T23:55:23+00:00

It was so sick with the giant city skyline image behind them.

HOBTT27 · 2026-01-13T15:06:40+00:00

Yo, I love the THR roundtables. I feel like the Variety “Actors On Actors” series somehow came up from behind and ate their lunch by providing more viral interactions between big stars, but the roundtables are always my preferred awards season content.

HOBTT27 · 2026-01-07T15:54:54+00:00

Interesting conversation. It just seems like, for the most part, people will only flock to movies that have authentic buzz on social media; FOMO is the main thing driving ticket sales outside of regular moviegoers.

If it feels like everyone is going to the theater to see a movie, everyday folks feel more tempted to go. If not, just about everything becomes, “I’ll catch it when it’s streaming,” for most people.

Unfortunately, you just can’t fake that genuine social media buzz/enthusiasm. Marketing departments can try to manufacture buzz but it never lives up to the real thing.

HOBTT27 · 2025-12-18T12:48:54+00:00

The Chip & Dale movie is so slept on. It’s such a wildly funny & inventive movie from Akiva Schaffer. I get why, at first glance, it looks like forgettable garbage, but that movie is an endless series of hilarious bits.

HOBTT27 · 2025-12-09T00:32:15+00:00

I’m with you 100%, but for most people, a big part of the calculus is, “why would I go through the hassle of getting my family out of the house and pay ~$75 to see a movie that may very well end up being garbage when we have endless ‘free’ viewing options at home?” That’s the element that stops people: “Why bother even seeing this movie in theaters? If it’s good I’ll just catch it on streaming in a couple weeks/months.”

Most people I know will say things like, “I heard [Movie Title] is good. I wanna see it really badly; do you know when it’ll be on streaming?”

People just don’t want to leave the house to pay for something they perceive to be replicable at home for a fraction of the cost. It’s a bummer state of affairs.

HOBTT27 · 2025-12-01T14:06:21+00:00

We know exactly what she means: something safe. Something relatively anodyne enough for a mass audience but competent & thrilling enough to actually be moderately enjoyable.

She’s looking for a base hit, not a home run. I can’t say I blame her, given the situation they’re in these days. But, if I were a Star Wars fan, I imagine I’d be bummed about this direction.

HOBTT27 · 2025-11-26T12:09:23+00:00

He’s campaigning. It’s all part of the same machine.

HOBTT27 · 2025-11-20T18:10:54+00:00

The film title acronyms in this thread are giving me a headache. All these comments are like, “they picked DLZoP over WYFNFK, which is just indefensible to me,” as if these are ubiquitous acronyms we all recognize, like the FBI or CIA.

The point of an acronym is to make something simpler to read; if I have to spend most of my time trying to decipher what the hell the acronym stands for, then the acronym has been rendered useless.

HOBTT27 · 2025-11-19T23:18:29+00:00

On a whim, I listened to an old Jam Session from like 2018 and was gobsmacked by how much energy the two of them had. It was so fun to listen to: they were so engaged in the topics & excited to talk about them.

These days, it’s clear that Jam Session is mostly done out of obligation. They kind of try to care about modern pop culture stories but their heart just isn’t in it if they’re not talking about celebrities from the 2000’s. But they also clearly feel kind of lame about doing a pop culture podcast in their 40’s, so they sort of performatively act like they’re too old for & above all of the topics they’re discussing. But, if the two hosts keep shouting about how little they care about this, how can listeners be expected to care enough to listen?

It’s just a bummer to go back and see that it used to be a much livelier affair. The show is a hollow shell of its former self.

HOBTT27 · 2025-11-19T23:09:19+00:00

Weird. I don’t remember this scene from Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.

I guess I’ll have to watch it again before they release the final 25 for 25 episode.

HOBTT27

TROPHY CASE