The Big Picture · Discussion · Interview
December 17, 2019/ 101 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
Sean and Amanda, joined by the Ringer's Bryan Curtis, on two films that reenact real journalists, 'Bombshell' and 'Richard Jewell', and the liberties each takes. Then the Oscar shortlists, the Best Director gender gap, and Sean's interview with 'Bombshell' director Jay Roach.
75 films across 8 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.
When the media meets the movieswith Bryan Curtis of The Press Box
Clint Eastwood's account of the security guard wrongly suspected in the 1996 Centennial Park bombing. The panel's objection is the reporter Kathy Scruggs, played by Olivia Wilde as trading sex with an FBI agent for the tip: a real, non-famous, and dead journalist depicted that way with no source. Paul Walter Hauser as Jewell and Kathy Bates as his mother draw the praise.
Jay Roach's Fox News film, written by 'Big Short' co-writer Charles Randolph. Charlize Theron's Megyn Kelly, Nicole Kidman's Gretchen Carlson, and Margot Robbie's composite producer against John Lithgow's Roger Ailes. Amanda's hesitation: it makes Kelly the hero of a story that isn't hers.
Cited as the version where a media movie works out well.
The other benchmark for journalism done right on screen.
Written and directed by Billy Ray, who also wrote 'Richard Jewell' (one of the more realistic films about the business, which the hosts find ironic).
Eastwood's true-story hit; the comp for a conservative audience that 'Richard Jewell' never found.
Eastwood's take on a Sam Dolnick New York Times story, part of his run of lone-figure-versus-the-machine films.
Bryan's fear going in: that you can't see past the actors playing people you know. Bombshell is the awards-season comp.
Named by accident while reaching for 'Vice.'
Randolph co-wrote it; Bombshell shares its many-narrators, near-satirical approach.
Hark: movies need better namesAmanda argues for movie SEO
Held up as a title that already is the keyword.
Should have leaned on its predecessor's name, per Amanda.
'No one knows what that is': the pitch is a Robert Moses angle or 'a mystery, and Edward Norton's in it.'
Stock up, stock down
Broke A24's opening per-screen record: $105,000 on five screens in two and a half days.
Bombed; a Malick film that didn't work for either host, and why they haven't covered it.
Sean's favorite Malick, a return he's planning before year's end.
The International Feature shortlistten films; Parasite is the presumed winner
Czech Republic.
Estonia; unseen by the hosts, hard to track down.
France.
Hungary.
North Macedonia; also on the documentary shortlist.
Poland.
Russia.
Senegal.
South Korea; Amanda bets dinner it wins.
Spain; Almodóvar.
The Documentary Feature shortlistfifteen films, plus the music docs that got passed over
Amanda's pick to win and one of her favorite films of the year.
Nanfu Wang's film; Amazon is expected to push it hard.
Among the music docs snubbed.
Snubbed.
Snubbed.
Snubbed.
The song and effects shortlists
'Glasgow' is the one original-song entry Sean will defend.
Home of 'Catchy Song'; Sean wants T-Pain at the Oscars over it.
Taylor Swift's song went unnominated, read as no Cats at the ceremony.
Visual-effects shortlist; part of a heavily Disney field.
Best Director and the gender gapon Greta Gerwig's likely snub and how we grade directing
Gerwig's adaptation; the hosts argue it does everything a Scorsese or Bong film does, on a 150-year-old novel about girls, and gets read differently for it.
Amanda's contrast: the three-and-a-half-hour mob movie nobody questions the need for.
The flashy, technical war movie that reads as 'serious' directing.
Lulu Wang's domestic drama, in the conversation.
Lorene Scafaria's film, also in the conversation.
Gerwig's first nomination; Little Women is described as much bigger.
Lina Wertmüller, one of the few women ever nominated for directing.
Jane Campion, the same.
Jay Roach on 'Bombshell'
Roach on valorizing complicated people: he framed it around a competent woman being harassed as a universal issue. On Theron's transformation, she injured her vocal cords chasing Kelly's voice, and Kazuhiro Tsuji did the makeup. The elevator-sequence score is a cappella women's voices, including his wife Susanna Hoffs and Petra Haden.
His last-great-thing pick: Waititi sneaks up on you, beautifully composed.
Where Kazuhiro Tsuji transformed Gary Oldman into Churchill; the reference point for Lithgow's Ailes makeup.
Roach's comp for the layered menace of Lithgow's Roger Ailes.
Also mentioned raised along the way
In passing The Sound of Music
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV The O'Reilly FactorMindhunterBarryThe CrownThe Mandalorian
Podcasts The Press Box
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