The Big Picture · Discussion · Interview
November 5, 2021/ 82 min/ Sean Fennessey · Joanna Robinson
Sean Fennessey and Joanna Robinson dissect why Eternals misfires and ask whether Marvel is too big to fail, then Sean talks to Joanna Hogg about The Souvenir Part II.
19 films across 2 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.
‘Eternals’ and whether Marvel is too big to failwith Joanna Robinson
Ten new immortals, millennia of history, tones shifting the whole way through. Skilled people, bungled execution — the rare MCU film that feels like it got away from them. Zhao's naturalist eye buried under mediocre CGI demon dogs; the story holds its cards too close for too long.
The counter-example: a riskier cosmic bet that paid off because it stayed a found-family character story instead of skipping around in time.
The most Kirby-coded MCU film — big electric colors, gonzo space. Proof world-hopping works when you're already invested in the characters.
Zhao's Oscar winner; the naturalism that made hiring her make sense, and that Marvel then glopped CGI over.
Robinson's example of a recent MCU film that landed — villain included.
The 'designed by committee' precedent: Boden and Fleck handed the acting on Earth while Marvel made everything else. Still a coherent film; this one isn't.
The last time a star seized the edit — Edward Norton — before Zhao's insistence on her own cut. Feige's most censorious comment ever came out of it.
Norton reportedly took this edit over too; director Tony Kaye wanted his name off it.
The series finale Marvel has been working past ever since — the 'okay, now what' problem.
The go-to example of a film bogged down by the burden of setting up what comes next.
Keoghan's idiosyncratic, mumbly register carries straight over into his Eternals performance.
Robinson's parallel horror — its living-John-Lennon coda struck her the way the film's Hiroshima beat struck Sean.
The Souvenir Part II
The second half of Hogg's autobiographical diptych — Julie reconstructing the film she just lived through. A Russian doll of a self, in a different musical key from Part I.
Part I; Hogg made the decision not to read any response to it before shooting Part II.
The Ulrike Ottinger film she saw at the Scala in London before film school that made her want to direct.
Her last-great pick — Michael Mann's film as the ultimate LA portrait, ambitious in a way she'd love to attempt but doubts she could.
Ulu Grosbard's Dustin Hoffman film, just out on Blu-ray; she calls the performances phenomenal.
Also mentioned raised along the way
In passing Ant-ManDoctor StrangeBlack WidowIron ManIron Man 2ThorDuneJungle CruiseThe BatmanThe Matrix ResurrectionsKing Richard2001: A Space Odyssey
Marvel's slate ahead Fantastic FourBlack Panther: Wakanda ForeverThor: Love and ThunderDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of MadnessThe MarvelsBlade
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV Falcon and the Winter SoldierWandaVisionHawkeyeMs. MarvelMoon KnightShe-HulkLostThe SopranosSuccessionCurb Your EnthusiasmMarvel Studios: Assembled
Ads Boar's HeadWhite Claw