The Big Picture · Discussion · Review · Awards · Interview
October 7, 2019/ 102 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins · Chris Ryan
Sean, Amanda, and Chris Ryan sort through the Joker backlash-to-the-backlash and Martin Scorsese's Marvel comments, run down the Best Actor race, then Sean talks movies and dog ownership with Shea Serrano about his new book.
34 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 'Joker' AftermathVenice win, backlash, a $93.5 million opening
Won the Golden Lion at Venice, then went through a full backlash-to-the-backlash cycle before opening to $93.5 million, an October record, with no violent incidents at screenings. The panel thinks the first two-thirds are claustrophobic and confused but the last half hour works, and that it's less a comic book movie than a very well-marketed one.
Martin Scorsese vs. Marvelhis Empire magazine comments on comic book movies
Scorsese was on the press trail for this when he told Empire that Marvel movies are 'not cinema,' calling them 'theme parks' rather than films about human beings. James Gunn fired back on Twitter; Samuel L. Jackson shrugged it off. The panel mostly sides with Scorsese while granting Marvel movies their own value.
Pain and GloryPedro Almodóvar's autofiction, and the case for Antonio Banderas
Almodóvar's roman à clef, with Banderas playing a version of the director. Amanda calls it a quiet, withdrawn physical performance, the opposite of Joaquin Phoenix's, and thinks it could put Banderas in the Best Actor conversation for the first time in a career mostly spent as an American action star.
Steven Soderbergh's Panama Papers movie, also playing in a single L.A. theater that week and headed to Netflix. Sean and Amanda liked it more than the reviews suggested.
The Best Actor Racewho's in it, who gets squeezed out
In conversationhis new book, 'Movies and Other Things'
One of three tough-guys-and-their-dogs movies in the book's opening chapter.
Tom Hardy's Bob Saginowski and his dog Rocco, the second leg of that chapter.
The chapter Serrano says was locked in from day one and never at risk of being cut, unlike six or seven others.
Added after the book was already turned in: he watched it on vacation, emailed his editor that night, and turned in the chapter with art two days later.
The Regina George cafeteria-table chapter, his personal favorite in the book.
One of his two best movies of the year, alongside Booksmart.
He likes the phone-interrogation joke and thinks Jennifer Lopez deserves the Oscar attention Selena never got her.
He hadn't caught it yet and wasn't sure it had played San Antonio.
Fun, but he doesn't count it as a real Fast and Furious movie without Dom in it.
Calls it a genre masterpiece and the high bar the franchise has struggled to clear since.
Fine overall, though he could've done without the scene where Charlize Theron's character shoots a mother in front of her baby.
Also mentioned raised along the way
In passing A Star Is BornVenomKing of ComedyTaxi DriverThe MasterWalk the LineThe Last Temptation of ChristKill Bill: Vol. 1Enter the DragonJawsGuardians of the GalaxyJustice LeagueHugoGoodfellasMean StreetsSerpicoNosferatuAvengers: Endgame
Banderas and Almodóvar's back catalog Law of DesireMatadorTie Me Up! Tie Me Down!Women on the Verge of a Nervous BreakdownDesperadoBallistic: Ecks vs. Sever
Also named Carlito's WayMoulin Rouge
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV Peaky Blinders
Books Movies and Other ThingsBasketball and Other ThingsThe Rap Year BookThe Ego Trip Book of Rap Lists
Specials Freak
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