The Big Picture · Discussion · Awards · Interview
November 5, 2019/ 104 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
Sean and Amanda on The Irishman and Netflix's standoff with theater owners, a weekend of expensive misfires, the Best Supporting Actor field, then Antonio Banderas on Pain and Glory.
33 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 Irishman and the theatrical-window standoffthe movie, and the fight over how you'll see it
Scorsese's three-and-a-half-hour Frank Sheeran epic. Both were braced for the runtime and both were floored; the last 90 minutes and the de-aging carry the conversation. Netflix opened it in eight theaters after exhibitors balked at a 45-day window.
The reference point they keep pushing against: the prime-of-life, cocaine-energy gangster movie The Irishman deliberately is not.
Fithian's false parallel: a Scorsese gangster picture that grossed ~$300M and won Best Picture. Sean's point is there was no Netflix in 2006 and no studio would fund The Irishman today.
A noisy weekend of expensive misfiresthe box office, mostly bad
David Michôd's Henry V retelling with Timothée Chalamet and a scene-stealing Robert Pattinson. Hit Netflix this weekend; real horses, real catapults, didn't land.
$185M, Linda Hamilton and Schwarzenegger back, ~$29M domestic. Fine, not good enough: the kind of thing you'd rather rewatch T2 than see.
Edward Norton's 22-year passion project, made $3.6M. Moves the Jonathan Lethem novel to the 1950s and turns it into a Robert Moses story; the second half, once it leaves the book, is the good part.
Down-the-middle Tubman biopic with Cynthia Erivo, ~$12M. The counterexample: a movie that found its audience. Focus's second straight $10M+ opener after Downton Abbey.
Held up with The Lighthouse as the future: specific, strange, sold to the people who want it. Already past $7M for Neon.
"Fucking batshit," per Amanda: an A24 movie that is emphatically not for her, which is the point of the model.
Stock up, stock downthe streaming rundown
Classical nature doc narrated by Chiwetel Ejiofor, the lone film in Apple TV+'s launch. May contend for Best Documentary; fits Apple's family-friendly posture.
Anthony Mackie and Samuel L. Jackson; opens December 6 before Apple TV+. A test of whether Apple chases prestige the way Netflix does.
Disney+'s original-movie play, the opposite of the awards strategy, launching alongside The Mandalorian.
The Best Supporting Actor fieldthe big race, ten deep
Antonio Banderasin conversation
Almodóvar directing Banderas as a version of himself: hair, apartment, paintings copied exactly. Post-heart-attack, Banderas came to it "from zero" and let the director's own emotion feed the performance.
The early Almodóvar film that caused a literal scandal at San Sebastián: audiences split between wanting to kill them and cheering.
One of the provocative, daring 80s films that made him and Pedro the enfants terribles of Spanish cinema.
Revisited the night before the interview; the Berlin trip where Pedro signed a photo on the Wall with "The Mambo Kings play very sad songs," his goodbye slap about Banderas leaving for America.
First explicit homosexuality in a Spanish film; his character also kills someone, and only the kiss caused an uproar. Banderas on the hypocrisy of that.
The Best Foreign Film nomination that first brought the Almodóvar company to Los Angeles.
His first American film, learned phonetically for Arne Glimcher after faking his way through a London meeting in almost no English.
Where Tom Hanks told him to stop apologizing for the accent: "all we want is to understand you."
The 2011 reunion after 22 years apart: a reflection on creation dressed as a psychological thriller. He arrived guarded and full of American technique, and it strained the shoot.
The role that folded his voice into American consciousness, Hollywood calling him just to use it.
Sean says the accent works for the character; Banderas found himself luxuriating in it.
Also mentioned raised along the way
Scorsese, in passing Raging BullSilenceThe Last Temptation of ChristHugoThe Last WaltzThe Age of InnocenceChimes at MidnightRolling Thunder Revue
The Netflix Oscar slate Marriage StoryThe Two PopesRomaGreen BookEl Camino
Weekend comps Outlaw KingBraveheartGemini ManTerminator 2: Judgment DayChinatownDownton AbbeyBohemian RhapsodyJoker
Oscar-season chatter The FarewellUsThe AeronautsWild Rose
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV Game of ThronesHis Dark MaterialsThe CrownThe Morning ShowHouse of CardsThe MandalorianThe Falcon and the Winter SoldierConfederate
Podcasts The Book of Basketball 2.0The RewatchablesThe WatchRinger Dish
Books The Power BrokerTo Kill a MockingbirdMotherless Brooklyn (novel)
Stage HairA Chorus Line