The Big Picture · Discussion
May 29, 2019/ 58 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
A grab-bag episode: why Booksmart tanked against Aladdin over Memorial Day, what Cannes signaled about the 2019-20 Oscar race, the year's crop of political documentaries, and Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir.
62 films across 5 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.
The 'Booksmart' box-office post-mortemand the internet hype cycle it set off
Olivia Wilde's teen comedy, opened wide on 2,000 screens over Memorial Day and made a fraction of what the hosts hoped. They pin the flop on distribution (a bad wide-release call by Annapurna/MGM), not on feminism or cinema dying, and flag the film's blind spot: it's about rich West Side kids with no class anxiety.
The live-action Will Smith genie remake that outgrossed Booksmart by roughly 20x the same weekend. The hosts call the two a false binary: a magazine versus a novel.
The comp Booksmart chased, down to the same narrative shape. Sean's verdict: two clear, direct words for a title, and a dark core Booksmart lacks, plus we're past the Apatow studio-comedy moment.
Sean's model for how it should have gone: a 100% score blown up by one critic, but platformed slowly from a handful of theaters to build word of mouth, not dumped wide.
Annapurna's only prior wide release, Kathryn Bigelow's follow-up to Zero Dark Thirty. It didn't work, evidence the company doesn't know how to do wide.
Held up as the teen movie that was conscious of class and pecking order, the thing Booksmart leaves out.
Bigelow's film that Detroit followed.
The Annapurna prestige side: great if you're a fan, less so if you're a theater owner counting returns.
Another small, well-liked movie with young stars swallowed by the big release calendar, same conversation, different week.
Cited to rebut the 'nothing since Bridesmaids' narrative: a Universal release that worked because Universal knows how to release movies.
The perpetual benchmark dragged out whenever a female-led comedy needs a savior narrative.
Example of consumer-choice-as-identity marketing done successfully.
Another film that leaned into 'your ticket is a statement.'
Invoked for the 'people want stories that end happily' thesis.
Recalled for the troll controversy around it.
Part of the Memorial Day wall Booksmart ran into.
The market-dominating tentpole small films can't compete with for attention.
One of the two movies Sean's 16-year-old sister was actually stoked for. Booksmart wasn't on her radar.
The other one.
Cited as a mid-tier movie fighting for the same airspace as Booksmart.
One of the handful of tentpoles that don't need the podcast's help.
Same list of self-sustaining giants.
Cannes and the early Oscar fieldwhat the festival certified
Bong Joon-ho's Palme d'Or winner, the first for a Korean filmmaker. Tabbed for October via Neon; the hosts expect a wide push.
Tarantino's Brad Pitt/Leonardo DiCaprio/Margot Robbie film, set in 1969 LA. The Cannes press conference (a question about how little dialogue Robbie's Sharon Tate has) kicked off a two-month discourse Sean calls 'Booksmart times a million.'
Terrence Malick's WWII film, deemed a return to form. Fox Searchlight paid ~$10M, the one signal Sean trusts that it's an awards play; the reviews' 'transcendent, deeply searching' language makes him nervous it's three hours where little happens.
Robert Eggers' black-and-white, square-format two-hander with Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe as lighthouse keepers: period-specific, flatulent, and Amanda's favorite meme fodder of the episode.
Céline Sciamma's prize winner; the hosts expect a Best International Feature run.
Mati Diop's Cannes acquisition, also pegged as an international-feature contender.
Abdellatif Kechiche's 212-minute follow-up that is, per the hosts, largely about butts.
Part one, from Venice 2017.
Kechiche's better-known film, cited as the reference point for his interest in the body.
Sean's way into Bong. He loves it.
Part of the case that Bong is plainly a genius.
Same.
Same.
Source of the famous Antonio Banderas knuckle-biting gif. Banderas took Best Actor at Cannes for the Almodóvar film and jet-streamed into the Oscar conversation.
Eggers' debut, invoked for The Lighthouse.
The Malick film Sean defends in the 'even his lesser films have chunks I dug' argument.
Fox Searchlight's awards pedigree: last year's rollout.
More Searchlight campaign history.
Same.
An Oscar movie that premiered at Cannes the prior year; you can count on a handful.
The previous year's Palme d'Or winner.
Sean's lone exception to 'no Oscar movie has been released yet': a weak Best Actress year could get Lupita Nyong'o in.
The new political documentariesand where docs are landing now
David Modigliani's HBO doc on Beto O'Rourke's 2017-18 Senate run; Sean saw it at South by Southwest and interviewed the director. Not appearing in theaters, the recurring problem.
The Netflix doc following AOC and three other women running for Congress in the same midterm.
The Steve Bannon portrait, one of the few in this wave to get a theatrical release, and it hasn't done well.
By far the box-office champ of the Sundance 2019 crop, and a beautiful-looking film.
A family leaves the city to farm organically: dogs, pigs, moments of true terror. Amanda thought it might be HGTV; it's a real movie, and it's earned over a million dollars.
The Mr. Rogers doc, part of last year's 'docs are booming' theatrical story.
Same wave of theatrical doc events.
Same.
This year's docs that popped landed on HBO/streaming rather than in theaters.
Same: a two-to-nine-day conversation piece on Netflix, not a theatrical event.
Another Sundance 2019 title with dim box office.
Same list.
Sean rates it very good.
'The Souvenir'Joanna Hogg's autobiographical drama
Both hosts saw it and were floored. Set in 1980s London, it unfolds slowly and elliptically around a young film student (Honor Swinton Byrne, Tilda Swinton's daughter, in her first role) and an opaque relationship. A24 release, with Scorsese as an executive producer. Watch it knowing as little as possible.
Hogg's prior feature, about two married artists in mid-life: Sean's high recommendation as a way in.
The other Cannes premiere with Tilda Swinton, here a katana-wielding mortician, part of her year of 'bits' the naturalistic Souvenir is antithetical to.
'Rocketman' and the Oscar teasecoming Friday on the show
The Elton John biopic with Taron Egerton and Richard Madden, premiered at Cannes. Sean floats a serious-Oscar-movie case (Egerton and John both on charm offensives) while doubting it can be a box-office hit. Full review promised Friday.
The comparison Rocketman is chasing and, Amanda argues, can't repeat: an unrepeatable $800M situation.
Also mentioned raised along the way
In passing The Batman
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV ChernobylBig Little LiesWhat We Do in the ShadowsLeaving Neverland
Ads Big Little Live (Big Little Lies after-show promo)Talk the Thrones