The Big Picture · Discussion · Review
August 5, 2024/ 86 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins open with a Comic-Con-and-box-office catch-up after Sean's vacation, run through the fall festival slate and the glut of coming musical biopics, then review M. Night Shyamalan's 'Trap,' with Josh Hartnett as a serial killer cornered at a pop concert.
14 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.
The week in moviesComic-Con and the box office
Marvel timed its Comic-Con news to the opening, which is around $820 million and climbing. Sean joked the Midnight Boys deserve a back-end check for all the coverage; Amanda maintains she was neutral-to-negative on it and owes Marvel no apology, Jamie Lee Curtis notwithstanding.
Sean flags the number he didn't see coming: about $1.5 billion in six weeks, already the 10th-highest-grossing movie ever unadjusted and still in theaters. Both agree it was fine, but it spans the age range from six-year-olds to their parents.
Sean's example of a film whose box office fascinates him more than the sure things: he can't remember what happened in it (the one with Blue), but knows it made a fortune. Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali are in the next one.
The Robert Downey Jr. return-to-Marvel-as-Dr.-Doom news prompts a detour. Amanda calls RDJ's Oscar-winning turn an incomprehensible third hour and doesn't buy the 'return to real acting' narrative; Sean is fine with him hamming it up for the fans. Josh Hartnett is also in it, as the tallest man in America.
The fall previewfestivals, biopics, and a Dylan crisis
Pulled from Venice's competition slate; it'll still premiere there, but Warner Bros. has no idea when it'll actually distribute the movie. Amanda, pregnant and not attending, mock-laments missing Venice.
Brady Corbet's three-hour, independently financed film shot in 70mm. Amanda is 'deeply allergic' to Corbet after hating Vox Lux; Sean is at minimum intrigued by the cast: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Jonathan Hyde. A very Venice movie.
Edward Berger's thriller about the selection of the next pope. Sean thinks it's near-certain to land at Telluride, which doesn't announce its lineup in advance.
Malcolm Washington's directorial debut (Denzel's son), an adaptation of the August Wilson play starring Samuel L. Jackson, floated as a possible awards contender alongside Netflix's Emilia Pérez play.
Ron Howard's film with Sydney Sweeney and Ana de Armas, which as of recording has no U.S. distribution. Sean notes Howard will spend the fall fielding Hillbilly Elegy questions and wouldn't want to be promoting anything right now.
The Robbie Williams biopic from Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman), with speculation it's actually quite good: Williams plays himself in later life while a younger actor carries the addiction years. Amanda nods along at Williams's UK-sized fame; both find a Paramount film going to Telluride notable.
James Mangold's mid-'60s Bob Dylan biopic, and Amanda's stated 'crisis.' She thinks the trailer's New York is too clean and glorious for a poor kid from Minnesota; Sean, a self-described comfortable-but-not-obsessive Dylan fan, is more relaxed. Amanda once took an undergrad Dylan course and published a paper she can no longer locate. Both dread the inevitable writing-of-the-song scene.
Jason Reitman's film about the first-ever SNL broadcast, confirmed a 2024 release. Sean, who ran an SNL theme week at Grantland and has read dozens of books on the show, calls it catnip and a starter kit for a future 35-Under-35 list of young actors; Amanda is mixed on Reitman's oeuvre but game.
Part one from Jon M. Chu. Sean notes Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo have been everywhere in Paris in costume; the Universal synergy machine is 'making it work, but they're also working.'
‘Trap’Sean Fennessey, Amanda Dobbins
M. Night Shyamalan's 15th feature, shot by Guadagnino/Apichatpong regular Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, with Josh Hartnett as Cooper, a serial killer who takes his daughter (Ariel Donoghue) to a Lady Raven pop concert that turns out to be an FBI trap built to catch him, a premise the trailer and an in-film employee both give away in the first 10 minutes. Both hosts had a great time; Sean pegs it three-out-of-five like most latter-day Shyamalan but says he's always glad he went, and reads it as a sentimental treatise on the pull between striving and parenting (here, striving is getting away with murder). Hartnett's stilted early performance is a deliberate goofy-dad-with-psycho-eyes bit that Sean thought went from bad to amazing; Hayley Mills plays a profiler for one Parent Trap joke, in her first U.S. production since 1966. Shyamalan casts his own daughter Saleka as Lady Raven and gives himself a larger role than usual, with Alison Pill as the wife whose suspicion is the real twist. Sean kept thinking Hitchcock (Suspicion, Shadow of a Doubt, Notorious) and calls it a weirdly empathetic portrait you root for; both concede it's ridiculous (the limo, the bike-cuff escape) and that it's fine to take it apart and still love it. Sean rates it the best of the Split/Old/Knock at the Cabin run.
Also mentioned raised along the way
Comic-Con and the MCU Avengers: DoomsdaySr.
The fall festival slate QueerThe Room Next DoorMariaJoker: Folie à DeuxBabygirlNightbitchThe Fire InsideThe Wild RobotWe Live in TimeNickel BoysBlitzEmilia PérezThe EndPiece by PieceGladiator IIHereMary Queen of ScotsVox LuxHillbilly Elegy
The musical-biopic glut ElvisRocketmanBohemian RhapsodyRespectBack to BlackWalk the Line
Shyamalan's filmography The Sixth SenseUnbreakableSignsThe VillageThe Last AirbenderAfter EarthThe VisitSplitOldKnock at the Cabin
Hitchcock, on Sean's mind North by NorthwestSuspicionShadow of a DoubtNotoriousPsycho
Josh Hartnett, before and after The Virgin SuicidesPearl Harbor40 Days and 40 Nights30 Days of NightWicker ParkLucky Number SlevinWrath of ManOperation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre
‘Trap’ touchstones Black SundaySe7enSchindler's ListThe Parent TrapThe Trouble with Angels
In passing AvatarThe Greatest ShowmanLa La LandThe WatchersSpeak No Evil
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV Secret InvasionAnd Just Like That…Sex and the CityThe BearThe NewsroomThe Twilight Zone
Podcasts Somebody's Gotta Win
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