The Big Picture · Discussion · Interview
April 6, 2021/ 85 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
Sean and Amanda ask whether 'Godzilla vs. Kong' really brought theaters back, size up a sleepy SAG-to-Oscars race, then bring in L.A. Times critic Justin Chang to walk through Wong Kar-Wai's filmography for the Criterion box set.
16 films across 3 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.
Are Movie Theaters Back?Godzilla vs. Kong and the dual-release future
3,000 theaters, $48.5 million domestic over Easter weekend and an A CinemaScore (A+ from under-18s). Sean and Amanda call it deeply, deeply stupid in the best way, a movie whose title tells you exactly what you're getting, and one worth seeing on a big screen even though it played day-and-date on HBO Max. It's the test case for whether dual release is the future, and for whether Sam Esmail was right to champion it.
Universal's Bob Odenkirk 'Taken'-style action movie, released in theaters and doing fine but not booming, about $12 million. Amanda's example of the middle-tier earner that used to reliably fill a January slot and may not survive in theaters anymore.
The SAG Awards and a Sleepy Oscar RaceThree weeks out
Won the SAG ensemble; Aaron Sorkin, beloved by the Academy. Sean flags it as a plausible Green Book-style Best Picture upset, an accessible film that softens a hard chapter of history, even though he and Amanda were only lukewarm on it.
The 800-pound gorilla of the season, not even SAG-ensemble nominated because it leans on Frances McDormand and non-professionals. Framed as a sign of where the new Academy's taste is headed: quieter, more artful movies with room to breathe.
Carey Mulligan's vehicle. After Viola Davis's surprise SAG win, Amanda thinks Mulligan won't win Best Actress, and is fine with it because she doesn't love this 'iffy' movie.
The counterfactual: a Minari win here would have signaled a more interesting, harder-to-predict counterbalance than the Nomadland-vs.-Chicago 7 axis the race settled into.
The World of Wong Kar-WaiWith Justin Chang, on the Criterion set
The debut, a gangster love story indebted to 'Mean Streets' and still mostly linear. A hit that emboldened him; caught up with late, and Justin loves its cheesy, perfect Sandy Lam cover of 'Take My Breath Away.'
The stylistic departure and a flop at the time, hard to see for years. The young-person's film that opens the loose trilogy; the first place Justin heard his own Shanghainese dialect on screen. Amanda was blown away seeing it last.
Justin's favorite Wong and favorite film, period: two genres smashed together, shot on the fly in a few weeks, the gateway drug's gateway drug. Tarantino championed it via his Rolling Thunder label in 1995. Home to the Faye Wong 'Dreams' apartment montage and 'California Dreamin'.'
The wuxia outlier, famously recut; one of only a few Wong films left out of the Criterion box (alongside its Redux).
Grew out of a discarded third 'Chungking' story. Sean's pick for where NOT to start, the most cynical and alienating, but the motorcycle finale set to the Flying Pickets' 'Only You' floored him on rewatch.
Justin's first Wong, seen as a teenager: the only gay romance, the most emotionally corrosive, an argument movie shot in Buenos Aires with Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung. The Iguazu Falls image and the Caetano Veloso cue that 'Moonlight' later borrowed.
The consensus masterpiece and Amanda's entry point via Sofia Coppola. Shot partly by Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping-bing, its Cambodia ending grabbed to hit a Cannes deadline. No. 25 on the 2012 Sight & Sound poll. Yumeji's Theme is the needle drop.
The epically dragged-out spiritual sequel to 'In the Mood for Love,' where Maggie Cheung becomes a shadow and Tony Leung a cad. Justin's favorite performance in all of Wong: Zhang Ziyi reacting to the transactional money scene.
The English-language one and, for Justin, 'the one stinker of the bunch,' Wong repeating gestures in a new context and hitting a dead end. Left out of the Criterion set.
His kung-fu film, shot by Philippe Le Sourd, with a train-station sequence Sean rates among the best martial-arts scenes ever. Suffered the Harvey Weinstein U.S. recut; the occasion for Justin's 2013 interview and its balcony cigarette.
Also mentioned raised along the way
Coming to theaters DuneTop Gun: Maverick
SAG-ensemble history ParasiteBlack PantherThree Billboards Outside Ebbing, MissouriHidden FiguresSpotlightGreen Book
Wong's touchstones and echoes BreathlessMean StreetsAmerican GraffitiCasablancaThe Umbrellas of CherbourgLost in TranslationMoonlightAmélieCode 46Roma
In passing Zack Snyder's Justice LeagueShang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten RingsThe Empty Man
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV The MandalorianWandaVisionThe Falcon and the Winter SoldierTed LassoThe BureauMad MenBreaking BadGame of Thrones
Games FIFA World Cup Launch Edition
Ads CarvanaBoar's HeadNetflixStarbucksRecipe Club