Blank Check with Griffin & David - Critical Darlings: Marty Supreme And The Precursor Circuit with Griffin Newman

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

This week, we’re only slightly hung over from last night’s New York Film Critics Circle Awards! Griffin Newman joins the pod to discuss the event, where, among dry-run Oscar speeches from Amy Madigan, Rose Byrne, and Wagner Moura, we saw Ethan Hawke fall into a fountain beneath a towering Buddhist deity. Then we turn to the precursor circuit, where Marty Supreme’s momentum has cemented Timothée Chalamet as a frontrunner for Best Actor. We get into how he’s played the campaign circuit so far, and why Timmy and Marty are well positioned for the Oscars, despite not resembling the usual Oscar fare. Finally, we dive into Marty Supreme spoilers, before closing out with both an award and an in memoriam for the week. Subscribe to Richard's newsletter, Premiere Party, and read Alison's work at Vulture. Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook!  Buy some real nerdy merch Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Critical Darlings, a conversation about the award season conversation. One contender at a time. Please welcome to this stage, your hosts, Richard Lawson and Allison Wilmore. Well, thank you, Marie, for that lovely introduction. Hello Allison And I also want to thank Producer Ben

Thank you for being here Our very special guest Papa of the podcast Griffin Newman Of the Blank Check podcast I'd like to thank my reps and God Oh yeah of course In that order

As always I'm wearing sunglasses right now Because I have Well I want to do a hangover check Because we were all four of us At the New York Film Critics Circle awards dinner last night, which can be a boozy affair if you want it to be. No pressure.

There was an official afterparty this year at the town nightclub, which was sort of surreal. So how are we all doing? Obviously, I have my sunglasses on, so you know how I'm doing. Yeah. I'm doing better than I would have thought. Good. I feel like I was pretty restrained. I did not indulge in too many of the themed cocktails that we always have every year.

If I had legs, I would kick you zoo. Yes. A few small beers, which I think was just Bedello. This is the problem. I ordered the few small beers. which did turn out to just be three Medellos served to me at once. So they're like the little ones. There's a little one.

But it still adds up to you more than like a regular beer. Yeah. And also it gets you in a different headspace to be served three drinks simultaneously and know like this is my future. I have this ahead of me. It's a beer flight. It's a beer flight. It was a beer flight of a very similar flavor. I'm in that tricky zone where the question isn't how hung over am I.

It is, am I still drunk? I don't know if the system even resellable. set when I slept. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't a lot of sleep for me. Yeah.

So the party's still going strong. Oh, good. I'm glad to hear it. Ben, it was your first time. What did you think? Yeah. It was fun.

Yeah, we had quite a table, you and I. Yeah, we were very close to the stage. We were like up shock noses, basically. Yeah. We were very close to Ethan Hawk walking into the fountain by accident. Yes. Which was a lot.

We almost got splashed. Do you want to describe the, what the Tao looks like? So Tao downtown, which is on 9th Avenue in like 16th Street. The main, the main dining room is this huge cavernous space and at the kind of at back like you know the the end of the room is this huge statue of a religious figure of a thousand armed canon yeah there you

go thank you but what a lot of people don't know if they're a little further back is that that that that statue is in a fountain like almost like a coy pond and it's right where the stages where these actors and filmmakers are taking their awards and the people presenting the awards to them are all crammed in there And if you make one false step, which Ethan Hawke sadly did, after introducing Rose Byrne for Best Actress and it was a lovely introduction, he was walking her off stage and just walked right into the fountain. It's something that I thought about happening so much because once you see the setup, you cannot help but have this thought of like someone just like toppling head first into the fountain. So I'm glad that it was Ethan if it was going to be someone. He handled it.

Yes, and he laughed it off and made a joke about killing a guppy or something. Something like that. Yeah. You know, and it seemed in high spirits anyway. So if someone was going to step in the fountain, it was the best possible way for it to happen. I was at Allison's table, very graciously. Seed extended to me. And we were in the back.

So there was a kind of a clamor of what just happened. The reaction to Hawk falling was more alarming than anything we could see. Right. We just saw that they kind of disappeared out of view. And everyone was like, oh, no. I'm okay. I'm okay. Yeah, well, he could, because he could have, I think he had his hand on her arm.

He could have taken them both down. He could have. And then we'd be Carrie Big at Tavern on the Green in season four. That's what was interesting was. And there was some sex in the city crossover last night. Yeah, there was a lot. It was from our distance, it was like, did she fall and he caught her? Yes, that's what I assumed.

Yes. I think he was making room for her because the stairs are so narrow. And he didn't realize that there was no more stage left and then just ended up stepping into the fountain. and then both feet went in because he was balancing himself and I think he was pretty embarrassed and then I saw him later carrying his shoes with a public

he and a publicist like made their way to the exit. How many years have the two of you been in the New York film critic circle? Forever. A decade. Yeah, at least a decade. I don't remember when.

The decade for me because I was and I went once before I was in the group so I think this was my tenth time. Yeah, I went a few times before I was in the group. before it was at Tao even when it was at some other

random places like this place on the flatter It used to be at the Sunset Tower and then I got all... It was all bad. Yeah, and and... But yeah, it's been at Tao for a long time now which has been a kind of great

weird spot for it. So in nearly a decade of Tao is that the first time talent has fallen into the fountain. Yes, people have almost fallen down before because also getting up onto that stage which is not a real stage. It's a big, it's a European level

of like safety standard. Yeah. Like it's not, you know, know, like, there's no ramp. It's not, it's not very, like, compliance, let's say. Sure. But Tao downtown, just to kind of paint a picture for the listeners. It is in a basement. Sure is. And it looks like a set from the end of the Golden Child. It looks like you watch an 80s movie and you're like, how did they build something this thing? Or like Kate Capshaw is going to be singing on stage and then a big thing. It has some Temple of Doom vibe. Or like a John Wicks at piece. True. But you cannot believe that it is a restaurant that is operating.

People eat there. On a nightly basis. It feels like it only exists to test Ethan Hawks agility. But the podium is so small compared to how massive the space is. And it is such a like a skill challenge of mobile dexterity. Yeah. I wonder what other sort of events they do. I was when I was checking my coat at the beginning of the evening, the woman like handing me the ticket for the coat

said, have fun tonight. And her coworker was like, have fun. what's happening? And I was like, oh, I don't know that the Tao staff is like really prepped for like this kind of event, which is fine. But that's the question. I'm like, is it like this every night? Is this indistinguishable to you from like a lunch on Tuesday? Yeah, like, well, in my head, Tao is otherwise a place where you go to take like your slightly loopy, uh, but still kind of like fun aunt for like a, uh, a birthday night out maybe, you know? And like, then you, you end up getting like way too drunk and then having a fight outside. And

and then everyone takes separate cabs. I was obsessed with Mars 2112, the dearly departed theme restaurant. Incredible place, yeah. Second only to Ninja, really. Ninja was incredible, but Ninja was more elevated. Mars was meant...

There was a magician that went around at Ninja. Anyway. I was trying to tell a kid about Ninja the restaurant and they were convinced I was lying. They were like, this is not a funny. I kind of thought people were lying. I thought when people told me about it, I was like, come on.

I think about all the time when if you go into Ninja and they were like going to see you, the guy would say like, please follow closely. and then vault off down a path and you'd have to be like, where did they go? Sorry, what is Ninja? Ninja was a restaurant in Soho, I want to say? It was down.

Tribeca, yeah, it was downtown. And you'd go downstairs and the place was like nearly pitch dark and you were served by ninjas. And you'd be like, are they going to bring bread to the table? And then a guy would like appear from the shadows and like slam bread down on the table and then like cut it with a sword. And then when they had the menu,

they like unrolled a scroll across your table. And then there was a magician coming around It was very culturally sensitive It was beautiful, yeah It was a tasteful tribute to I wish they should just Tau should just add that feature For the for the dinner

Because it would add There's plenty of theatrics anyway But I was going to say Mars 2112 was a similarly Like giant cavernous space In a basement in New York City That was so bizarrely themed And I went a lot

When the first year of it Operation when it was packed all the time Many photos of Bill Clinton Rubbing shoulders with costumed Martians. And then I remember when it was about to close, I took my little sister, who was much younger, because I was like, you should experience this.

And it felt so weird to eat there as the only table. You know, you're like, this is a space that is only meant to be absolutely packed. Yeah. Because otherwise, yeah. It's like you're on real Mars. Right, right. And I'm like, if you bring your Lupi on to towel for, like, brunch,

is it always packed? It's a good question. Ethan Hawke always there. Seems likely. Yeah. Yeah. But the winners, of course, had been announced in advance. Yeah, yeah. So the New York Film Critics Circle dinner ends up being an early stage of people auditioning to a certain extent.

We've talked about this. It can be. Yeah. Auditioning how well they fit as a winner. How much people like their speeches. How well they work the room. Yeah. Yeah.

And I thought that, like, you know, our winners, so we had like Roseburn won best actress for, if I had legs. Vagermora won best actress. for secret agent, one battle, one best picture, Jafar Banaki, one best director for which is an accident. So some of those people, I think, are like certainly in the Oscar hunt. But I don't know, Alison, you and I were talking, and I think that of the evening in terms of like, okay, who all of a sudden has juice this season

that maybe we didn't think did a couple weeks ago, I feel like Wagner Mora is like really kind of rushing up into that like almost guaranteed five of best nominees. I guess that when I saw, I mean, I saw that film at Cannes forever ago. I thought it was a great film, but it was never one where I was like, this is definitely an Oscar contender. And yet it seems to be cementing a place for itself, not just in the international race, but like in the larger conversation. Like it is like verging on the one of the international films that could break into like the main pack of best picture. I mean, the question this year isn't which is going to be the international film that breaks in the best picture.

It's how many of them are going to happen. And which isn't going to get in. You know, like, it's almost a question of like, of that. And I love that. And I also think that in Secret Agent's case, like, the fact that, you know, a certain government recently kidnapped a certain South American political leader in a country that's pretty much right next to Brazil, or close to Brazil anyway, like that added sort of political elements of like, you know, secret agents about 1970s in Brazil, but like there

are a lot of parallels to today. and Wagner more like touched on that during his speech last night like there's a new relevance to that movie that I think only benefits it well and also I think there's a certain enviousness of you know what happened with their

you know fashy president and what where he is now which was also brought up in the speech but I would also I would like to bring up a new rubric at this point because I feel like this we're entering the phase in which we're going to have new awards given out by different groups like

basically every week. Yeah. This rubric is, how real are these awards? And I feel like there are two halves of this, right? Oh, it's a good question. Yes. One half you have, like, the, who is, like, voting on these awards, right? Like, what is the body deciding these awards? And on the other half, you have, like, the ceremony itself, if there is one,

and how, like, kind of legitimately awards-y it is. And we can start with this. And obviously, this is an organization. We're both part of, so it's incredibly real. and very meaningful. Well, it's old. It's old. It's old.

It's old. It's old. It's old as old as old. There are, of the many critic groups out there. It is 90-something years old. Yeah, it's the oldest, and it is one of the big, depending on how you define it, like, three or four. Yes. Film Critics Association, none of us.

Right, right. I'm pretty sure. But, yeah, like, you know, you have the New York Film Critics Circle. You have the Los Angeles one. Yeah. And then you have National Society. National Society. And if you want to count it, National Board of Review, which is like,

a more mysterious body that we can talk about next week. I like the mysterious bodies because I think that mysterious body is like oftentimes what makes one question

how real an award ceremony is. You know, like the Critics Choice Awards happened this past weekend. I know maybe a couple people who are in the Critics Choice Association, but given how many critics I know,

I know far too, like fewer critics in that group that I thought I would. You know, like I'm not in it. Sure. I'm not either. To, like, just close off the New York film critics. Like, we're, what, like, maybe 40-ish members.

I should have actually looked up ahead of time. Yeah, it's low 40s, I think. But, like, you know, many of whom work for just, like, a big publication, some of them are freelance. But, like, it's a fairly compact group of people. Yeah. The membership is public. The voting is done. A secret.

A secret, but is announced as it goes. Yeah. And then the ceremony is, like, a real one that the winners mostly show up to. I think that the publicists do it. a good job of explaining to winners who are not familiar with our little shindig, that it actually is, like, prestigious and meaningful. And it has a history. People know it very well. But it is not televised also. For now. For now. So I would say, like, on the scale of realness, it's fairly real. Barry Weiss is interested in getting it for CBS, but we'll see. We could have captured

that Ethan Hawke stepping on, like, and done it from different angles every place. But yeah, like, let's say the Critics Choice Association. Yeah. Which, uh, those Critic Choice Awards which happened, as you pointed out, this week as well. They're about 30 years old. Yes. The televised ceremony is way younger than that. I'm pretty sure. And the televised ceremony is like on, I think I have like Hulu Live TV.

I think I watched it on E. Entertainment. Yes, yes. That's right. And it's a kind of janky affair. I was told last night that it's actually in an airplane hangar at the small Santa Monica airport, they apparently close a runway. So apparently it's an operational airport. They close a runway during the Critic Choice Awards to do this award show. But you can see where they've hung some, like, you know, high school theater black velvet curtains and put some Christmas

lights on it. Like, you know. I mean, what I love is just that every year it goes viral for the food. Because, you know. Kind of fire festival-esque dinners. Yes, exactly. I think there was a year or two ago, they had, like, pizza in a bag. Yes. Yes. You know, and this year they had, um, what was, basically, yes. Basically, like when you are taking a cross-country flight and, uh, you're like so hungry and you're like, can I pay $14 to

get the snack plate, which is like, you know, a cluster of grapes and like three cheese cubes and a cracker. You say plate, let's be honest, it's usually a box. It's a box. It's a box. I think this was basically a box. Like it looked like a box that had been emptied out. And that's what they served. And do you know what? Like, it's fine. Most people are not going to these things to eat. But, like the visual of Leonardo DiCaprio sitting in front of like one of these snack plates, like not touching it is like very wonderful. He couldn't even afford comfort plus.

Like it's embarrassing. You're like a legroom. It is what is interesting about the psychology of the larger award season, right? You say the National Border Review, which is the somewhat mysterious group, but for many decades, their defining feature was that they were the first thing announced. So there was some importance put on it, not that it has any overlap, with any other major voting bodies just because they were the first people to publish here are who we've chosen. Here's our top 10. Here are our acting. It starts to coalesce around

certain picks, right? You go, maybe that person has more juice than we thought. In other cases, their National Border Review things where it's like, Will Forte won best supporting actor for Nebraska. Everyone goes, I guess he's a contender, received no other noms for the rest of the season. You know, Tim Burton won best director for Sweeney Todd. I mean, sometimes they're just off. And much like the Golden Globes, you go, like, who are these people and what is their impact or influence? But you see certain names written out in text and you go, huh, how does that look and how does that feel as a winner, right? And the critic's choice word, similarly, because it is televised, you have a larger number of people watching someone like Amy Madigan, get to the

stage and go, huh, how does this feel? You know, you're sort of like using the feature in the app to see the piece of furniture in your home, you're flashing forward to how will history look upon this as a winner? And part of it is, you know, the speech they give when they're up there, but part of it too is just sort of seeing them dressed fancy on some kind of stage. Does this feel right? Does this feel like this would be a good moment at the big show? And it's funny that like all these early, like the New York Film Critics Circle is part of this, like these earlier awards things, like the precursors they're called. You know, it used to be there was sort of a gentleman's agreement that like yes and national board of review is first new york film critics is like right

after then golden globe nominations come out yeah and that's the sort of order of things and then the gotham awards came in and we're like ah ah we're going to be first and then in recent years the critics choice association has been like okay all of you guys do that first but we're the first televised and then this year the gothams were streaming on well they were they were broadcast on actually like I think 55 like local affiliates Oh really? Around the country And then you could stream it on YouTube

I think And so now can you really say That the Critics Choice Awards Are the first televised If the Gothams is doing it So what is TV anymore The Oscars are going to YouTube So this year

This is the first televised ceremony Of the year because it's a new year So not of the season And I you do have to kind of I think going back to your question Alice and then sort of try to parse out like okay Which of these though

are actually meaningful, just in general, or have any sort of predictive power. And I think it's actually more, it's in aggregate. It's like, if you can step back and be like, well, Amy Madigan gave a great speech at New York Film Critics Circle, which only people in the room saw. She also gave a nice, humble, genuine speech

at Critics' Choice Awards with many more people saw. So just that combined, I'm like, okay, she really has the juice. I will say earlier yesterday, in the morning there was a 10.30 a.m. screening of weapons, a guild screening with our friend Esther Zuckerman doing a Q&A with Amy Madigan afterwards. And the feeling of everyone in that room, and I heard many people say that out loud after the Q&A, she's winning, right? There was this feeling of this campaign feels like it's making sense. Yes. A, they're sort of a like, as we look back on the year, does weapons need to get something? Right, right. We all love this movie. This

performance made such a cultural impact. Best supporting actresses felt very kind of odd and cloudy. And there was sort of a kind of default assumptions. I feel like even when the movie came out, people were like, but it's summer. Is this really going to be able to stay in the Oscar conversation? How often do they go for genre stuff like this? And it just feels like she's stealthily getting stronger and stronger and stronger. And I think, you know, she made two non-televised speeches in New York City yesterday, basically, where it just felt like in the room pretty good. Yeah. She's also, she has a good story, right?

She does. This incredible actress who's been, like, working for such a long time, has done amazing, like, just amazing work that has felt underappreciated forever. Yes. I think that's a huge part of it. I think there's an interesting Oscar narrative, which is not considered that often, right? There are the, this person is so overdue. we're finally going to break the curse

to give you the kind of inevitable Oscar, right? There's the sort of like... Like when they finally gave it to Alicia Vakander and it was like, oh my God, where have we been? We can all relax. Yeah, for like two years ago. Yes. There's the sort of like Ki-Hi-Quan, Brennan Fraser,

both in the same year comeback performance. To make a wish. Sorry, but that's what it felt. With Fraser, that's what it felt like. Yeah. But some sort of comeback, some reinvention, right? And then there are people like Amy Madigan. where you're like, huh, she has always been good.

You know, where people step back, she never fully disappeared. There were points in time where she was more visible when she was in larger films. But suddenly the right performance at the right moment and the right season, people go like, yeah, you know, maybe we do. Just give it to her now. Is there also something maybe to her transformation? I could not have picked her out out of a crowd yesterday. You know, seeing her as Aunt Gladys and then she steps up and she's, you know, beautiful woman. Does that, I don't know, is that...

I think that's part of it. Yeah, I do think also it helps that. That is just like a kind of really standout, you know, like catchy supporting performance. Whereas a lot of the other supporting performances this year, well, very good in supporting actress are like part of like a larger ensemble. So like the narrative of like who is going to be the person, you know, like in this movie who is like the supporting kind of like presumptive like supporting kind of nominee, I think has made it trickier for like a lot of like great. turns, I think, like, to get that surefire traction. Whereas, like, there is no question in weapons. Like, this is, like, a real standout supporting performance, you know, and it has gotten

that kind of traction, yeah. David, this episode of Blank Check is brought to you by Square, and it's hip to be a square. It's hip to be a square. Don't get defensive. Okay. Some of my favorite murderers have told me that it's hip to be a square. I speak of Patrick Bainman, of course. There are certain businesses that make the neighborhood, the neighborhood, Griffin.

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when those businesses thrive the whole neighborhood thrives money spent in the neighborhood stays in the neighborhood so take this ad as an excuse to go support your favorite local spot and have yourself a day in the neighborhood a beautiful day in the neighborhood a beautiful day in the neighborhood a beautiful day Mary L. Heller. I was going to say Mr. Rogers. And look, also, obviously, very often, you go to see a comedy show, you go to a concert, you go to see off-Broadway theater, you're going to be dealing with some Square right there. When we do live shows, we use Square to sell our merchandise. Square makes these businesses a lot easier to run. Absolutely. It makes it. We use Square. Yeah. That's what I just said. It makes it so easy for us as a small business to be able to sell merch. We use that at our recent art show.

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You'll be happy you did. See you in the neighborhood. If Madigan is, I think, pretty far out ahead right now, in second place is Tiana Taylor, who's so incredible in one battle after another. The problem is she leaves the movie, whereas Amy Madigan shows up in the movie toward the end. So your last impression is of her,

whereas by the time one battle ends, you haven't seen Tiana Taylor, who's, again, amazing in the movie. movie, you haven't seen her on screen for about 90 minutes. This is a great conversation topic, and one, I've pinned to all of our various planning docs. It's something I want to make sure is talked about at some point within the season. This feels like a good opportunity.

The importance in where your real estate in a movie is for a supporting performer, that I feel like very often it is easier for someone to score with a smaller part towards the end, because it's about the immediate feelings as you're walking out of the movie. movie and weapons builds to her yes you know you have your couple of jump scare moments but I think she really doesn't have a line of dialogue until the last three minutes she's the answer to all the movie's questions right and it's so satisfying when she shows up and you're like ah okay it's a witch and the movie basically rests on the success or failure of her yeah right it's all building to if this doesn't work they fired they fired

Vikander after two days on set but is if if this performance if if this performance doesn't work, the movie's going to unravel. Yeah. And not only did it not happen, but people really kind of sparked. It's DeiS X, Madigan. I mean, she's kind of read, because I don't love that movie, and I think a lot of, why I don't love it is because I think that it feels very, like, made up and sort of random. Like, he's kind of just like, it's a witch.

But she justifies that. Yes. You know, she's like, okay, I know that you, this is sort of just like, you had to come up with an ending, and here it is. I'm going to sell it for you. Yeah. And it works. Well, I think it's also, she.

She is very frightening at first, and then she's very funny. You know, she's, like, sinister, but, like, very funny in the end. And I think the ability to emerge first as this, like, kind of, like, terrifying specter, like, pop-up specter, and then to be, to kind of cohere into this, like, much funnier and then kind of campier. Dimensionalized. Yeah. And it's also, it's, the more she shows, the more questions you have, it's an interesting performance in that it does, feel very specific and considered, but there are still mysteries within it that I think

helped the movie retain some power. Tiana Taylor, the first wave of responses, as critics saw it, a couple weeks before it got wide release, I was seeing everyone just go like, well, I guess Tiana Taylor is winning. There was this presumptuous thing, right? And I remember being surprised when I saw the movie that the first 30 minutes are basically owned by her. But it almost feels like an extended prologue, and then she disappears. And she is fantastic in it.

I think the saving grace only in terms of speaking in awards campaign language is that the movie circles back to her as an idea at the end of the film. Well, she looms over everything. It's Sean Penn's obsession with her that, like, drives the whole plot. But I also think she comes before anyone who has not seen one battle after another, yet she comes back. back into the film in voiceover at the very end, which I do think kind of pins you back. Pins her back in your brain a bit.

But I have felt this whole time that she was the assumed frontrunner that that was going to be a vulnerability to her perhaps. Yeah. Yeah. And it is, it's what you said. It's the difference between a character leaving a movie and a character appearing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, you have examples from the past.

You know, is it Beatrice Strait from Network who won a sporting actress Oscar? She has one scene, one monologue in the middle of the movie, and then is never seen before or after, those days, I think, are, I think that would be really hard, especially when you have a lot of supporting performances, or wins that are actually kind of co-leads. Judd Hirsch and Fableman's was that kind of nomination. That's right. Yeah, that was a good nomination for that reason.

And he got a slot that was sort of assumed to be Paul Danos, who is bordering on a lead in that movie. You know, I think it still can happen. But the monkey they were running in lead. That was the issue. That was, yeah. I think it's rare that it happens these days and the elements need to really align. And I think a lot of it, as you said, is sort of a category fraud issue, not to throw the big ominous words around. But I think William Hurt is kind of another one, but that was towards the end of the movie and also is now like 20 years ago.

but like Alan Arkin winning for Little Miss Sunshine a very surprising win because he was competing against all these little girls in this beauty pageant and it was like why is this old man whatever and his dance was very risque oh it was yeah but that's a movie spoilers for 20 year old little Miss Sunshine in which he dies in the first act and I remember seeing it in theaters and going God he's so good in this

it would kind of be cool if this was like an overdue Alan Arkin anointment moment and when he died at the 30 or 40 minute mark I was like whatever goes that campaign that's over and then Eddie Murphy showed up and they were like oh well clearly he's going to win for Dreamgirls and that was kind of the narrative all season and then Norbit came out

I think sometimes these things can betray their own logic of how they often operate and Herschel Ali and Moonlight is another one where it's a little similar Tiana Taylor where it's like he's going to own the first chapter of this movie and then he is gone

and his absence continues to echo but you have to make a really, really strong impression to be the person that people walk out of the movie thinking about when there's been an hour plus of the movie after your exit. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, yes. I also think like I would love to see more weird or smaller like supporting actors. Hard agree. I kind of almost want them to come up with a third tier. Yeah. Like lead. either co-lead or supporting lead

and then, like, bit part or whatever. Special appearance. Special appearance, exactly. Like, we were talking about Secret Agent. There is an actress in that, whose name I'm not remembering, but her character is Dona Sebastian. She's this wonderful old lady.

She's incredible, but she's only in, like, a couple scenes. I don't know that she would qualify as, like, a viable supporting run, but it's like, but there should be awards for that kind of turn, you know? Yeah. Or, like, my colleague, Bilga has been talking up Matthew Lillard in Life of Chalk a lot.

And incredible one scene performance. Like, an astonishing one scene performance. He's one of the few good things in that movie. But, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but yeah, we don't really have a space for that, I guess. No, I don't give it to. Well, maybe with the Oscars on YouTube, where they're not caring about runtime. Yeah.

We could just add a third. I mean, two more acting wins. I think we have, like, 20 more categories. Regina Hall. I love her performance so much in one battle after another, but it is by design of very small performance, a largely silent performance. She's around for a lot of the movie. But she doesn't get a big Oscar moment.

And I think the work she's doing is so important. I think it's like important to the movie working. But it is kind of yeoman's work. And it feels silly to even like present her into the conversation at some times where you're like, well, Tiana Taylor has like 40 minutes of being a whirling dervish that sets the entire movie into action. And Regina Hall is just kind of like floating throughout. Her big moment is like one in which she is.

kind of reacting with like tears, right? Like in this moment of kind of like crushing understanding of her own like inability to kind of like keep going. I love her. She is one of my favorite working actors. I think she is like long overdue for like a full kind of moment. New York Phone Critics Circle gave her best actress

for support the girls years ago, which I think started this kind of second wave of have we been undervaluing this person for decades? You know what I loved about that by the way? Yeah. Because in my mind I was like, that's such a cool win, which it was. She's going to be so surprised and, like, it's going to be so great.

When she showed up to accept the award, she was gracious and lovely, whatever, but she was also kind of like, yeah, thank you. Yeah, like about time. Yeah, yeah, and that was nice. Yeah, but I think I saw the movie and said to my friend, she's so good in that. And it's to the movie's credit that it doesn't give her the big monologue that could so easily win her an Oscar. You're like, there's a version of that character that has a more. more explosive moment and it would just need to be one basically sustained for 30 seconds for her to be a serious contender and i think it makes the performance and the film more powerful

to avoid that but also it probably has cost her being in the race well it would be funny if she did have that moment and then it was a question of like how do we campaign tiana and regina because they're trying to figure that out with benicio del toro and sean pen on the supporting actor side where, you know, the prevailing wisdom since September was like, well, Sean Penn is definitely getting nominated, could win. I mean, the scuttlebutt from L.A., Kyle Buchanan, other people out there are like, oh, no, Sean Penn is everyone's best supporting actor choice. And then Benicio de Toro wins at New York Film Critics. He won at National Society of Film Critics. Like, he's kind of showing up more and more and giving a lovely speech, I thought, at New York. And it's like, wait, so now they have to kind of

juggle those two campaigns, but not, you know, slight one or favor the other. And it would be, I would love to see them to have to do that with supporting actress. But I mean, here's, you're, you're reminding me now, uh, Critics Choice Awards, uh, gave awards, lead awards to Jesse Buckley and Timothy Shalameh, who are basically considered the front runners. Yeah. Buckley is many laps ahead of her competitors. Yes. I think Chalemae is maybe one. Well, but I also is Buckley still as far ahead of her competitors at this point, you know? Like, I feel like a lot of people may be presuming that she was going to be like the shoe in for when we get to the biggest award. Well, she keeps interrupting stage performances and then that ends. It's getting on people's nerves. You know,

she's jostling and yelling. I mean, at the, the morning we're recording us, we're a couple hours away from the SAG nominations getting announced. Yeah. Actor Awards? I'm sorry, the actor awards. The actors. Be respectful. Griffin. And that is always such an interesting bellwether because it's the first time you're getting major nominations from people who also will vote for the Oscars. Yes. And from actors, as opposed to, like, right, so far, it's been a lot of people

who are, like, outside of the industry mostly. Well, horrible, wretched, gremlin journalist. Yes, exactly. Emerging from our archives. Let's be clear. SAG after, especially post-emerger is a very, very large union. TikTokers are in there. TikTokers are in there.

During after, I believe. Weathermen are in there. You know, it's a varied organization. But there is some overlap and because the union is so big You basically get an email telling you you're part of the nomcom the nominating committee this year as if it is jury duty If you do it you're out of the pool for like another seven 10 years you can get out of it by saying you're racist Right, but it's it's a pretty small number who get the call every year and then you have to watch everything prove you've watched everything or as much of everything as you can, you get to nominate, and then the rest of the union votes

for the final awards. Have you done this? I did it once, yeah. Yeah, and I have a friend who's been on it this year. It's interesting, I mean, because I think the names in the nomcom are made public or at least accessible to the distributors and the publicists. So they can court you. They can.

They can. Now, I got it called to do it in 2020. 21, which is just about the worst year. Yeah. I was not getting the cocktail party perks. No, no one was flying you to Hawaii for a special screening. Correct. But you got the vaccine earlier.

Yes. Yeah. That was the benefit of it. So it's interesting because in some ways it's very indicative. There are always some real weird left turn nominees, I think, from SAG. And a lot of that is the nominating committee is chosen early in the season. It feels like sometimes they will latch on to an earlier contender whose narrative has maybe already collapsed. They're the last remnant of an abandoned campaign.

But it does start to, I don't know, show some more support. And actors are the largest voting body within the academy. So even if it's just sort of like, here's a snapshot of the psychology of actors and what they're liking as a general group, it does start to show strength not just for certain performance. but certain movies. Amy Madigan, one supporting actress at the critic's choice, we're saying she's now possibly quite probably the frontrunner. Jacob Allorty, one best supporting actor for Frankenstein, which he has been in that, he's probably getting nominated, right? He seems like a pretty strong so I did the Ankleur pundits thing for our friend Kitty Rich, and I did not have Allerty in my best supporting actor five, and now I'm like, wait, why didn't I have that? Frankenstein

was on all the Oscar short lists. it clearly is a contender in a way that I refuse to believe after seeing the movie but I think also like he like four acting awards and he's really he is good he is but he's much easier

it's like it's a safer nomination than say Oscar Isaac who I think you can argue I would argue is like miscast in that role yeah oh yeah you know so like he's still floating around as well but a lordy I think everyone can get behind to be like this is a good performance it's interesting because even I feel like

the first reactions to the movie playing at festivals were pretty mixed and disappointed, right? But the takeaway was, like, a Lordy is really goodness. And it almost felt like maybe this ends up

being a weird loan nomination. You know, his work in a film that doesn't quite work. You know, is this a Stanley Tucci? He's Holly Hunter in the firm. Lovely Bones. You know, whatever. To date, Stanley Tucci's only Oscar nomination

is for playing a pedophile murderer in The Lovely Bones. Right, right. It collapsed. A movie that Ryan Gosselin gained weight for and then got fired from us. Yes. And then I was fat and unemployed as his quote.

But now that Frankenstein seems to have so much heat around it as a movie in general, he feels even stronger as a contender. No idea if that's like a one-off and he will continue to just be a gracious nominee for the rest of the season and not win any other awards. But it does remind you that when you get into this time of year, right before SAG kind of kicks the next phase into gear, I would say, has been very front-loaded with the opinions of critics. and certain contenders start to get a lot stronger, right? Rose Byrne Moore gets a lot stronger. Vagnamore gets a lot stronger. Benicio starts to become a consensus pick. But there are certain movies like Hamnit that just it feels like...

They just lie in wait. Truly. Until it's time. Truly. Jesse Buckley has been having a lot of nice downtime. And now is about to spend three months giving acceptance speech. Well, I remember last, was it last year, right? Or no, two years ago when Oppenheimer was, you know,

sort of, it came out in the summertime, and then it kind of went quiet for a bit. And then, you know, New York Film Critics Circle gave it a number of awards, but the big question was like Robert Downey Jr. And during all the Critics Awards season in December, January, he wasn't showing up. He wasn't winning supporting actor. I don't remember who we gave it to, but like whatever. But do you remember who was starting to stack up the most? Who was who? I don't remember. Charles Melton. Charles, Charlestown for May December. and that was he was a critic's favorite

you know everyone was like he is incredible and then what ended up happening was Charles Melton didn't get nominated and then obviously Danny Jr. won and the word from L.A. was like yeah idiots he had won that award back in July like there was no question he didn't have to campaign he didn't need to be

at the New York Film Critics Circle dinner it doesn't matter I would say also like you know there's this whole world and I don't want to like make this seem like it is too much of, like, a way of, like, getting to, like, you know, glad hand with someone at a party or shake. But, like, obviously, like, him showing up at an event and, like, people getting to talk to him as someone who has been, like, you know, they have watched in movies forever and have, like, a long personal history with. And he can be really charming at parties. Like, I think that that makes a difference, too, you know?

Like, if you're doing Charles Meltdown where, you're, like, making this first bid for, like, being, I am a serious actor. I am capable of more things. Like, you are bringing a lot less kind of. valuable history with you than someone like Robert Downey Jr. who, you know, people want to, like, want to salute in this way. Right. I think there's another part of it too, which is, you know, for the Oscars,

the nominations are done by branch. People nominate in their... From trolls? Yes. Oh, okay. He does all of them? All of them. Your favorite troll? The grumpy troll. Yeah, yeah. Um, but it means that, you know,

there's, the, the cinematography picks are coming from cinematographers who have a real understanding of what makes work stand out. But then when you get to the final votes, everyone votes in every category, right? And sometimes I think especially with actors, in the acting categories, what comes into play is how many projects those people have done, how many voting members they have worked with, and their opinion of them, right? Yeah, for sure.

Not in like a sort of cronyism way, but someone like Jamie Lee Curtis, who was not seen as strong of a contender, you're like, here's someone who for 40 years just has a really good reputation in the industry. And you're a sound guy and you're like, you know who's a class act? Jamie Lee Curtis. I worked with her like twice, 20 years ago and I always really liked her. And man, she has put in good work, you know? And I do think beyond, sometimes you will hear people say, like, they got to give it to Robert Dyn Jr. Look at how much money he has made for the industry. if that's what they're rewarding. And I don't think that psychology comes into it that much. I do think a lot of it comes into who did I like working with and who was difficult. Well, it's why Sylvester Stallone, the rumor is you didn't win supporting actor for Creed, even though he was the frontrunner going into that night. And then Mark Rylance, who granted, you know, not a lot of people had worked with, but they were

like, he was great in that movie and also we were not voting for Salone. Stallone was winning every single award up until that point, until you let crew members vote. And suddenly, Stallone collapses on Oscar. I mean, Stallone was some of the most famous urban legends attached to him regarding his bad behavior with crew. But that's the clearest example of that, I feel like in recent memory. The more you guys talk about this, the more this just feels like you're talking about the Iowa caucuses or something. Like the order of things, the way that people are jockeying for order, and then the way that's, the way that's, the actors have to glad hand and how they appear in, you know, around other people, it,

it really makes sense why they call it a campaign. Yeah. Well, I mean, also to Griffin's point, like, we do kind of come at this from the outside in. So you start with a lot of critics groups and a lot of people who, like, watch a lot of movies but are not part of the industry. And then we get closer and closer. It winnows down and then it widens again.

Yes, but it is, you know, like ultimately you have different types of awards and you have the people who like kind of comment on on film. until we ultimately get the entire industry. We are gathered here today to talk a bit about Marty Supreme. But I think it's great to bring up campaigning because Timothy Shalome, who did win at Critics' Choice Awards this past weekend, has he reinvented campaigning or is he just doing old school campaigning with a different kind of skin on it? Like, yeah, I have, I don't know what he's doing, but it seems to be working this year. So I have, I will say, I think that we're looking at him at this point of transition. Yeah.

And I think the Critics Choice Award speech, which we can talk about is like this tipping point. But I do think what he has been doing like previous to this, this almost avant-garde, but also like incredibly like, I don't know, like game to do anything promotional campaign has been in service of like promoting the film first, right? Method marketing. And I think that's a great distinct. distinction to make is that Salome from what November through Christmas was not awards campaigning he was promoting a movie

and there's a difference. And he has been very good at it in this incredibly weird way from going on Drewski right like doing that like doing pre-auditions for Drewski's video including it's still like lodged in my head the moment where someone like vogue's up to him

and then blows him a kiss and he catches it and says received that was Alicia McKinner. Yeah that was She's so talented. He very clearly understands the internet in a way that isn't just generational. I think he has a... He's a famous Twitter lurker. Yes.

But a kind of supernatural understanding of that ecosystem and what catches on, right? And I think you can tell the difference between he is driving these moments versus someone being told you have to go on chicken shop date. You have to go on hot ones, right? Right. The things he's picking are clearly things he's identified, things he likes, understands how he would mesh well in this world. Yeah. And I think, you know, there's been a two-prong Timmy narrative this year, right? He almost wins last year as sort of the feeling. And I think the feeling is also should have won. Yes. You know, we talked about it. We've talked about it off mic, but like, it was the moment that Adrian Brody threw his gum to Harvey Weinstein's ex-wife. Immediate buyer's remarks. You could see in the audience the Academy being like, God damn it, we voted for the wrong one.

And also like this again, this guy again. And then he gets up and makes a 20 minutes speed. And it's also like vaguely offensive at points that it was just like, it was just like a mistake just sort of made manifest. Yes. And I, yeah. Frisch, I don't know if you know this, but Adrian Brody still holds the record for the youngest best actor winner ever. 29. If Shalomey had beaten Adrian Brody last year for a complete unknown, he would have claimed the record.

By a couple months. Yeah. If Chalemay wins this year for Marty Supreme, he will be four months older than Adrian Brody was, I believe. Yeah, it's three or four months. Isn't it weird that women get to win best actress at like age four? Yes, sure, yes, yes. It's a much discussed thing of, you have to age into. Well, Cher was three when she shot Moonstruck and then four when she worked.

The amount of best lead actress winners under the age of 30 versus love. Literally one time it has happened in Best Lead Actor, and he was, like, 29 and nine months. But this is the great question about Timothy Salomey as an, you know, his first nomination was, God, I mean, like eight years ago, right, for, call me by your name, and then hadn't shown up again until complete unknown. But the thinking about him has been for the better part of a decade, like, obviously the industry likes him. He's a great actor. He's cute. He's charming. he can open movies, it turns out, like his movies make money, be they, you know, a role doll musical or a biopic about a thing, you know, whatever.

For such a specific unconventional type, he found his two tent poles where he was perfectly cast and they appealed to different audiences and suddenly you're like, this guy is doomed. He's like, Paul At Trades and Willy Wonka, he's got like two kind of iconic characters that he can return to that can help sort of like hand the hammock of his smaller person. action lead and this kind of like real theater kiddie like uh right as well he's the titular boy and beautiful boy you know like you know but like the but the thing about hanging over him is that like well the academy does not give oscars best actor oscars to young men they want to make you wait the rubric being the you know the the straight old men in the academy they vote for the woman they want to sleep with and the man they want to be and none they don't want to be a 28 year old pipsqueak you know they you know they think they view him as a threat and before adrian brodie the youngest best act record was held by Richard Dreyfus, who won, I think, at 31 or 32, but looked about

150. He was like the most middle-aged man from like 20 on, where by the time he won it was like, he's been around for like six decades. I will love to say, though,

like shout out to how good Adrian Brody is in that movie that despite how incredibly annoying he is. Yes, it was undeniable. It was undeniable. Like you just, they were like,

no, we got to give it to him. And then, yes, immediately he goes up is like, remember how annoying I am. But Chalemay, I would say, had a really difficult challenge ahead of him. Going into this season, you have that energy of, do we already regret not giving it to you last year? So now we're looking for an opportunity to possibly give it to you again, right?

Here is what is possibly the most expensive film A24 has ever made. It's not an obviously commercial project. He's staking his whole movie star persona on it. This can't just be, well, I do Dune over here. but I want this to win an Oscar. He needs this to connect commercially. And part of that is everything he's learned from Wonka and Dune and Oscar campaigning and just generally being a poster to figure out how to make this movie feel like an event to young people

to have this play like a mainstream blockbuster film, which it has done up until this. That was mission A. And then immediately after Mission B, which maybe I don't know how much he cares about it, but like was, okay, now we're switching into awards mode. So it was very interesting at the critic's choice. I thought he would be doing the goofy theatrics, the kind of arch internety, whatever. And instead, he shows up, yes, in a pinstripe, double-breasted suit that was, you know, calling back to the 1950s era of the film and his pants were a little baggy. But for the most, yeah, it wasn't orange.

We had joked that it was basketball mesh, you know. And then gave this kind of halting, genuine grateful speech. And it was like, oh, so he wasn't planning on doing. the braggadocious Marty Supreme thing the whole season he was just getting the movie sold It was the interesting question

of how will he handle that pivot how gracefully will he pivot and will people hold against him the campaign to sell the movie to audiences

making him feel less serious and I think he made the movie a hit and now he like in one speech is like got it That was to sell the movie.

Now you're a real guy. And also, like, now I'm talking to you guys. Like, I'm not just talking to the public, including, like, much younger audience. You're not going to throw your gun. Now I'm the humble young man. You know, Eddie Redmayne, I've said this on a zillion podcast in the past, but, like, I was with Great Kitty Rich,

the year of The Theory of Everything. And we went to a New York Times, for whatever reason, hosted a party for that movie, like early in the season. It was probably September, like right after Tiff, Toronto. And we watched Eddie Redmay. who no one knew the fuck that was. I mean, unless you'd seen Savage Grace,

which, of course, I had at IFC, but most people hadn't. He was sort of an unknown, and I watched this guy, this young guy. He was pretty young. He was one of the youngest, too. Shake everyone's hand, kind of do the, like,

but like in a very polite, Etonian, British way, charm everyone in the room. And he had to do that for four months or five months to win that award, but he did. And I don't think that Chalema is going to do that exactly, but he does know how to Leo DiCaprio style,

flipped a switch into humble young man meeting his elders and his idols and saying, gee, thanks for letting me into the club. We'll also say this. Everyone, I think, in Hollywood is aware that they're kind of hanging the future on Timothy Chalemite, right? Like, if there's anyone who is going to be, like, an actual A-list leading man, something that, like, has started to seem like maybe is done, right? Like, in terms of, like, being able to open a movie,

in terms of having that kind of recognition with younger people, He is your guy, right? And so I think... The Glenn Powell faction tried their candidate. It didn't really work. But whereas I think also with him, all that he needs to do, he cannot be like, you should give this to me because of that. But like to allow that to be part of his narrative,

I think without, like, bothering people about it. He's the dope fan, you know, and they just... He has to be humble about that. I mean, that's also, like, the role he plays in every movie also. So, like, yeah, he is the princeling. And this is... I think also, like, this is an even better narrative in fitting in for that.

that than say like being playing you know the biopic like the standard like give me an oscar i mean because this this film and this performance feel metatextual yes it's it's kind of a right movie to give him an oscar for because it is fully exploring what his thing is yes you know and and kind of owning it and i think that the brodie win is such an outlier you know there's the fascinating stat that in that year he's up against four previous winners and he sort of

after being seen as like lucky to be nominated the whole season became a default like do we need to give Jack Nicholson a third

Daniel Day Lewis a second yet Michael Kane a third Nicholas Cage a second or here's this guy who gave an undeniable performance in a film

that really surged late within that season and he did have kind of that reputation of very humble hardworking actor's actor in his 20s and also had this weird like he was in thin red line

but all of his dialogue was cut out this guy can't catch a break but everyone is like if you work with him he's got the goods right Chalamay is in a whole different sphere where he has to handle the pressure of being a guy that the industry rests on commercially while also seeming serious enough

as an artist right that he could be rewarded so young and you comp him to like Cruz and Decapreo. I was going to say Cruz in particular, yeah, yeah. Who were also guys who had that kind of thing and the Academy made DeCaprio wait quite a while and is still making Cruz wait. And they really made him wait. I mean, it felt very pointed. They were like, hold on, kid.

You can't have everything yet. Not too fast. You're dominating too hard, right? But both of those guys for how great they are at selling their movies and how much power they carry were from the playbook of, the more famous you are, the more mysterious you. the more mysterious you need to be. You know, you choose your words very carefully. You choose your appearances very carefully.

Your power is just standing somewhere. You need to keep a wall of unknowability. And Chalemay is like sharing the drafts folder with us, you know? Yeah. Because he understands it's a different world. It's a different landscape. If he wins, it does feel like there's a giant shift happening, not just within the academy, but like within the industry of what we expect out of our major kind of.

industry-carrying movie started. Yeah, and I also, I am curious about how much the industry will register that what Chalameh has been doing right now when he, like, does videos where he's stalking around Times Square with, like, a bunch of guys in, you know, orange ping-pong heads. That is actually our equivalent of, like, Tom Cruise flying to every country to Gladhand with fans, you know? Like, this is what that is now.

Like, it is the equivalent. It looks a lot weirder, but, like, it's the same thing. You are putting in the work. It's the equivalent of Leo taking out ads that say consider photos of her. Yeah, in the big jacket. Can we run down some of his shenanigans? Yeah. Like, what's he been up to?

And then how is that, what's the shift been? Yeah. Well, he did a basketball event with Adam Sandler in L.A. The weekend of the Governor's Award. So everyone was in town and there was sort of eyes on that. Yes. He did the podcast you talked about with the Boging. Yeah.

Yeah. He has done a few, he did like a kind of fake Zoom video where he was like pitching kind of cringy ideas. It was like cringe comedy, basically. It was a marketing meeting with the 8-2014 that I think was key to the whole campaign. And he very bravely was like, I know that this could be clipped out of context and people

will actually think that I'm being this bunch of an asshole, but that's okay. It was treated as if it was a leaked video, but it was clearly constructed, written or at least deliberately improvised sort of meta piece of him strategizing about how they need to sell the movie that set the tone for the whole thing

and also like laid bare his ambitions of I'm going to do everything I can to make young people give a shit about this film, you know, because it matters. And DiCaprio, I heard a fascinating stat about, you know, when one battle after another got greenlit at $120, 30, $40 million budget. And people were saying, that's insane. A Paul Thomas Anderson movie has never worldwide made half of that. How is he getting this jump up, right? the pocket watchers who like to act like their executives online

right it's not your money why do you care right putting aside the fact that he deserves this as an artist that we want should celebrate that he's getting to paint his Sistine chaplain or whatever people were saying like where does the math add up on this and what I heard was that

a big part of the reasoning was the comp they studied was that I think it's 90 or 95% of the time when Leonardo DiCaprio has made a movie with the director that is their highest grossing film. And it is their highest grossing film by a mile, right? And in fact, if they have other films that are close, they're usually the films in the afterglow of the Leo movie

that elevated them and that he would do this. He would pick someone who was a great artist but wasn't necessarily commercial or mainstream and his power that he would sort of apply to it and the importance of if DiCaprio is making a movie, it means something. This guy doesn't make wanton career decisions. he's choosing everything very carefully

a power that Cruz had for so long it becomes transformative right and I think what Chalamee really wanted to test is here's a movie that doesn't have Dune, Wonka Bob Dylan attached to it right his three... Wait no they're all in the movie I forgot I'm sorry yeah they are all in

at the cameo rolls yeah but it doesn't have any sort of other name that you can point to those were his commercial breakthroughs up until this point in time and he wants to be the guy who can say if I decide I'm making a movie with Josh Safdi Josh Shafti's budget is about to multiply by four

because now people assume that I can help make this movie crossover into the mainstream. And this was like a seven year plan because Josh Safdi and Salome met during the call me by your name year because Safty had a movie that year was it. I think it's the good time year. Yeah, it was good time.

And they talked then and I mean, I don't know the actual history, but the sort of understanding is that, like, Josh Sapti basically was like, all right, kids, start learning how to play ping pong. Yeah. And then we're eventually going to make this movie. And then it just so happened that Chalamee, maybe Saffty kind of saw this in a prophetic way, became a movie star enough to get this grand ambition funded. And he's also, Saffty has talked about just, like, seeing him. I think there was some, it was like a New York film, like, a festival event or something where he was, like, so kind of wound up. He, like, fell off his chair, like, doing a Q&A. And he was just like, this is.

is, like, there's that kid, like, he's going to be the guy. And I think also understood a quality about Shalameh, about, like, this kind of the cockiness, but also the, like, wanting greatness so badly that just kind of, like, informs this movie. As you said, like, this is a movie about Timothy Shalamie. The cockiness that is, you know, you got to give it to him, well-founded. Yeah. Because there is talent behind it. That's true of Timothy.

That's true of Marty Supreme. Right. Um, you know, there's a part of me. I rewatched the movie, uh, recently. Uh, had seen it back in October at New York Film Festival. Um, and, and appreciated the craft, but didn't connect to it maybe. And I still sort of feel that way about it. But like, I was, you know, watching it recently. I was like, wow, this is, it is, again, a new version of how to campaign for these things that like, Salome in this movie is not playing anyone heroic. He is playing a real asshole. Yeah. You know, and I just, I think it's very interesting that on top of everything else we've talked about in. in terms of what Chalemay is doing, is that he's also selling a movie that is long, difficult, abrasive. Almost irritating by design. Yeah, by, exactly, loud.

The movie and the performance. Yeah, no, it is aggressive towards the audience, which is one of the things I really like about it. And if he manages to win in March, that is a real magic trick because, like, that's the kind of movie that is supposed to really turn, you know, the blue hairs in the academy completely off.

So can I throw out a theory that's been starting to coalesce for me? Hit me. Uh, you talk about the Mel, right, a concept of, you know, we look at the Academy as this golden thing, but really it's largely decided by guys named Mel in their mansions in like Malibu, you know, um, uh, old Jews who had a credit 45 years ago, you know. They directed three of the Police Academy movies, but not the ones you think of. Yeah. Right. And I think, you know, the Academy has made major efforts and major strides to not just divert. diversify their membership, but get their membership a lot younger. Getting into the academy used to be a kind of gold watch for a career unless you were an absolute titan within your field.

Otherwise, you basically only get kissed in after you turn like 60, right? Yeah. And it was a real thing. And they've been reaching out to not just diversify, but go people in different genres, different spaces, different styles, different ages. Different countries. Right. And it has changed the kind of things that we now consider.

could be Oscar worthy, you know, because the narrow line of what kind of movie hits the median taste is no longer as clear. But I think for a lot of time, a lot of our lifetimes in tracking the Oscars, what we considered Oscar bait was, you know, 90s, 2000s, slightly into 2010s, kind of prestige film that feels like a throwback and elevation of. of a kind of 50s or 60s. There's a modern tweak on it, but it is the same. Ernest studio drama. Because the people making the decisions are people who think that that was the best the industry ever was. They want the movie like the English patient that reminds them, oh, Dr. Chivago. That was a picture, right?

And the things that have happened the last 30 years, I'm trying to ignore. And there are aberrations and their exceptions. Did Dr. Chavago ever have an English patient? He must have. And if he didn't, we should look in. to that grounds of discrimination. Or we have a movie. Dr. Chavago meets the English patient.

Versus the English patient. Yeah. I saw Marty Supreme with my father. You happened to be sitting directly behind the two of us. I saw Marty Supreme with you and your father. Yes. And my father was vibrating the entire phone. My father is 72 years old. Is that right?

Yes. Three. He's vibrating the entire movie, laughing hysterical. the second directed by Josh Saffty shows up on screen he grabs me by both shoulders leans in and goes Griffin that is one of my ten favorite movies of all time all right so it works on the Mel's kind of this is my take right I was like in that moment I clocked for the first time

my dad is kind of a Mel and what we think of as a New York Mel he's a New York Mel but what we think of as a Mel has changed because the Mel is now people who think the best it ever was was the New Hollywood Seventhias Yeah, you're right. It's Popeye Doyle. Very much from that. You know?

Yeah, this is a movie very much of that. It's like, you look at that era and Midnight Cowboy and you're like, these are... Scuzzy, scumbag kind of stuff. Abraised movie. Challenging main characters. Unconventional leading man, playing unlikable dudes, you know? Yeah. Also, like, a lot, I mean, this movie gives so much of this.

There's just so much, like, kind of texture in terms of like, just outrageous characters, right? This movie is, if there were a bit part Oscar, this movie would, like, be all of the, uh, the five nominations would be from this movie. You look at the 70s as a decade in acting nominations, and there are so many cool, bit-part nominations. Beyond Beatrice Strait winning, you have like Jane Alexander, the incredible one-scene performance.

Well, no, but also in all the president's men. Right, yes, yeah, yeah. Where she has one scene, her character doesn't even have a name. She's librarian. And Sylvia Miles and Midnight Cowboy, you know. And there's a kind of like, Like, we're circling back around to that was now the golden age that people want to be reminded of, the oldest members of the academy. And that was a tougher time and a more challenging time in film where those movies crossed over and became mainstream in a way that Marty Supreme is kind of becoming now.

And it's griminess as an asset then. Absolutely. So I think this notion of, well, this doesn't really smell like an Oscar contender. It's like, no, you have to chart what was 50 years ago now. Whereas like Hamnet, which is made by a filmmaker who is, you know, has been regarded in the past, with past films as like the picture of a certain kind of modernity. You know, the writer is like using non-professional actors and so is Nomadland. And now Hamnet arrives and it's this, from a certain vantage point is this lumbering, old-fashioned, muddling thing. Yeah, modern style on a very kind of classic Hollywood weed.

That Marty and one battle to an extent can bounce off of and be like, well, I mean, come on. And look, one battles in this exact same conversation, you know? Yeah. Even sinners to a degree, like, these are, the movies that are pushing through, you know, are, like, is sinners an analog for the exorcist, you know? That's interesting, yeah. I think also this is a particular year just, like, looking over the people who are in the race still. Like, this is a real year for, like, abrasive performances or performances that are not necessarily, characters who you would describe as likable, you know,

like that really are challenging. Frankenstein. No, he's likeable. I mean, the monster is very likable. Like, he has a lot of pathos. Dr. Frankstein, I have some issues. Yeah, he's basically like an in-cell. Did you know that actually Frankenstein is the real monster?

Oh, there we go. The turn in that movie where all of a sudden, Victor hates this creation, based on really no behavior is crazy to me. It's like build to that. Like it is a classic. He should love him at first and then hate it. Is there a missing real movie? Well, where you're like. It just feels like

there's 10 minutes that clearly is holding it hostage. Needs to happen. You must cast me again. It's just also like it is funny when you're like he's just like a parent who's like, why isn't my kid better at soccer? Like it's just really like you're not just like getting it together quickly enough monster. This is a question. Like a

Lordy and Benicio are both giving very sympathetic performances, right? Yeah. I think Alorti is playing that role with such pathos that even if you dislike that movie, you're sort of giving him even more credit for like, oh, and you had to put up with the indignity of this film as well. And if you love the movie, you're like, look at how much suffering was imposed upon this

character in universe, right? Right. And that is like a kind of conventional, easy to root for Oscar performance. And Benicio is just, everyone circles back to, it just, it feels good. It feels good spending time with this guy. It has a few small beers. Yeah, yeah. But also he's so heroic.

Can't we have more people like this in the world? Sure. Well, yeah, but is that the divide this year? The lead performances are like Rose Byrne doing this like, I think incredible, but like really deliberately abrasive and computational performance. And if I had like, kick you. I mean, if she sticks around like Emma Stone, the kind of like journey that character takes in Begonia or Amanda Seyde and Testament of Anne Lee, like a really kind of like,

amazing but like alien performance right like one that does not offer you a toehold really to be like I you're like I can kind of like appreciate what this character is going to you I do not be like I also relate to me right I mean Amy Madigan is literally a supernatural horror villain with layers and Tiana Taylor is the whole movie hinges on is this a good person right you know in so many ways I mean like it's it's not as much in the race but like Tessa Thompson and Heda that character is like incredible, you know, like this, like... You meet her when she's holding a pistol and gazing down at servants with a sort of like

leering grin. Yeah, and she just like kind of tortures people for fun, like socially. Yeah, yeah, and an incredible performance. Is there something to the politics of these movies, I think, especially Marty in one battle, that feel like confronting maybe all of these terrible people in our politics

in our lives that won't go away. Well, I think Marty, it's also it is interesting because he is simultaneously And I think in his own head, he is an underdog. Like his, I mean, like, he is like a Jewish-American man, like in the post-world war. Like, you know, like, he sees himself. Like, when he says, like, I'm Hitler's worst nightmare, he's like, not joking about that. Even if also he exists outside of the direct kind of contact with, you know, like the Holocaust that his friend and kind of ping pong partner, you know, has in that kind of like honey, the flashback with the honey was like so kind of evocative and so also distant.

from Marty's actual experiences. So he is like simultaneously this, he sees himself as the underdog and yet he is also like this kind of emblem of like cocky American exceptionalism, right? Like of win at all costs, anything is worth it to kind of prove greatness. I think he's both, right?

Like he contains both at the same time. All right, we're going to get into some Marty Supreme spoiler territory. So if you have not seen the movie, go watch the movie. It's very short and then come back and listen to the rest of this episode. My grand theory of the movie is that Marty is, even though it's set in the 1950s, Marty is really a creature of the 1980s. Sure, sure.

He's like, he has this number of speeches about how he's going to do whatever. He's going to do. He doesn't consider anything else. And it made me think of a quote from Carl Rove in, This is why we have been. In the run-up to the Iraq War, he says, and you can hear Marty Mouser say this. When we act, we create our own reality,

and while you're studying that reality, judiciously, as you will, will act again, creating other new realities which you can study too. And that's how things will sort out, where history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do. Like, that sounds like a Marty line.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it really does. And it just feels like the way that he just, like, goes to Japan, this humiliated nation and sort of dominates them in the face of this one of the actual

one of the actual heroic characters in the movie, the Japanese ping pong player who's played so wonderfully. Great performance, yeah. I don't know. There's something to me about something sour about that whole thing

even though it's triumphant for the character. Oh yeah, I think it absolutely is but yeah, like that ending even I mean what I love about it is that he is so committed to this idea to need to win and prove himself and to, like, redeem, in his eyes, redeem himself, even though he's ignoring the context with which that match takes place beyond just, like, the fact that it's not meaningful in his kind of, like, professional,

like, chase, right? It doesn't get in anything. Yeah, it doesn't get in anything. He loses money, actually. He gets stranded potentially, with no way back in, like, halfway around the world, to prove himself in this. In front of the audience of crying Japanese people. There's a very strong argument that he ends his entire.

professional ping pong career in that moment that he cares so much about winning a symbolic victory that's symbolic really only to him only for him with like zero impact and I love the moment of him falling to his knees and crying like he just won the Olympics right right in front of a crowd of like a few like hooting like American servicemen and everyone else just like devastated and you're like you've alienated everyone you've ever spoken to and this was your final straw and do we then see the the closing so again spoiler the closing shot or series of shots of the movie are, you know, this baby in the maternity

old-fashioned maternity ward where he's behind glass and Marty, you know, having just kind of arrived from Japan through the secure route, you know, kind of makes up with his girlfriend. Let's also acknowledge his love interest who is married to another man, is pregnant

and he has spent the entire film denying parenting. Yeah, exactly. That can't even possibly be there. And that's why that Moripovich cameo is incredible. It was so well-timed. Um, no, but like he's, so I don't know, I guess from an interpretation of like, he knows he's destroyed his career. He's, he's just kind of gotten this sort of Pyrrhic victory, uh, in Japan. Is he then kind of gazing at his son, his newborn son and being like, well, I have advanced our cause this far and now it's up to you to do, you know, is it like a generational kind of thing or? I am fascinated by how wildly disparate that takes and interpretations on the ending. are, that I have seen. I had a very specific takeaway from it, which I'll get into, but I have seen people so

confidently argue specifically and intentionally it should only be read this way, and I can't believe anyone would think otherwise. And I think there's an interesting kind of, it's almost a Kulashv effect. As much as Shalemi is giving a very specific performance in that moment, there's something really hard to read of why is he crying while looking at this baby something has unlocked

in him but it says a lot more about the audience member what they perceive that to be I certainly think certain people who perhaps want this movie to have a happy ending and really want their characters to be

redeemable have read it as and at this moment he sees the child something bigger than himself and he grows up And he's crying because in this one moment he has gained complete emotional maturity and intelligence. And it's been humbled in the right way. Or achieved the right thing.

Yes. I've seen people both say that as a testament to the movie's power. It builds to this beautiful ending that actually really makes you feel something. And people also accusing the movie of being insincere in trying to elicit that emotion. I see the ending more as

for the first time in his life he is face to face with something bigger than himself. and he cannot process what is happening. I don't think he is having a coherent emotional thought. It's part of what I think Timmy does so well. Timmy, who's one of our best on-screen criers. Yeah.

And you look at the difference. From the beginning. Truly. Yeah. But like, you know, calling by your name is sustained end credits just kind of slowly, quietly. Me at the Eccles Theater at Sundance, yelling at people who were trying to walk past me being like, the movie's still happening. Look at those tears. But he's doing like a real kind of like contorted Julianne.

Moore-esque, pained cry, where you can tell that he is surprised and embarrassed that this is coming out of him and he can't stop it, right? And I don't think he knows how to process what's happening. Other than that, there is now a child in front of him that he in this moment now accepts some ownership for, and the rest of his life is defined by this, right? I think if you want to believe that this is the moment that he goes, fuck, okay, I got a child to support, I got to get a real job, I got to clean up my. act, I got to become, you know, maybe more of a Mr. Wonderful, you know, or he will be

defined by, this is bigger than me, I can't handle this, I'm running, right? Right. Like his own father is sort of absent, right? Never even mentioned, right? We never hear what, where he became of him. Or is he going to tell himself that he's a good father, but really his head is always in five other places trying to get a new thing? You don't know, and I don't think he knows.

But I have also seen people so confidently, not just one. I was fascinated once I saw it to see if it was isolated. And I've seen it pop up in so many places. People who are adamant that the reason he's crying at the end of the movie is because the baby looks so much like Emery Cohen that in that moment he is recognizing it is not. What? And I saw one person say that. What? And then I saw obviously.

All babies look like Emery Cohen. Yeah, that's true. My exact one. He has a strong baby quality. he does. And he's got a shaved head in this movie. But it's so funny that people are like, of course that's the ending. And here are the moments of foreshadowing leading up to that. Oh, they're like Easter egging it. I bring this up just to say there's something in that ending and it's unreadable. Yeah. Quality. Despite everyone watching it and very strongly feeling something. Yes. Whether they're accepting that or rejecting. And awards wise, that's a great asset. Great. Because it's, it sends people out of the theater, voters out of the theater, being like,

Well, something significant happened at the end, and that's up to them to determine what that something was. You're kind of seeing what you want to see. If you like the movie, it is the culmination of everything that worked about the film for you up until that point. And if you dislike the movie, that is the thing you point to and go, here's my proof that this movie isn't sincere. And it's just enough ambiguity where enough voters who would care about such things are like, but he was humanized at the end. That was, yeah, yeah. I feel like if somewhat, and I've talked to so many people who have struggled with. him as a character just because he is so kind of like chaotic and self-centered and so like bent on this vision that no one else shares and no one else cares about but I think that if you give it gives just enough that if you want to latch on to it to be like here's this moment of redemption here's this moment of change this is actually not just this kind of like wild indescribable romp but a story about someone coming of age that you can put that on there and settle with that and it's much more comfortable yeah I mean my my feeling is that

He is a character who treats everything like a game and a hustle, right? The stakes never really feel real for him. The only stakes that matter to him are his sense of self, his ego, his reputation. But otherwise, he just kind of like Tasmania devils around with impunity, right? And I just think that moment captures the first time he is up against something bigger than himself. It's also what I think the film is about at large. As you were saying, this very specific cultural moment. moment of young second generation Jews in America who have a kind of reverse

survivors guilt, which he verbalizes. I mean, it's made into explicit text in the movie that, you know, I didn't have to serve in the war. I was a little too young for that. My family planted their roots here, so I wasn't in one of the countries where I was getting hauled off, right? And now we've defeated the bad guys. Who can fucking stop me?

everyone else suffered in order for me to feel empowered in this moment. I get to have fun. And you talking about Bennett feeling very tied to the 80s, Josh Safdey's been talking about in interviews, that the 80s felt like the first time there was a palpable nostalgia culture, and it was going back to the 50s. That there's a tying of those two errors.

But there's not any movies about, like, Michael J. Fox movies about that. I mean, he's like, literally, one of the defining movies of the decade is textually about that. Marty. But there's something there, right? And these are the people, for better or worse, and I'd say largely worse, our world is still kind of largely run by Marti's, right? They go legit or they don't.

But either way, that attitude, that spirit of this is sort of the first generation that's going to let people have an adolescence fuck around. There's disposable pop culture. There's processed foods. You know, and growing up is a choice. You get to decide whether or not you want to do it. And that final moment of him seeing the baby is him realizing that the choice exists. I don't think he makes a choice in that moment.

That's my personal interpretation. It is more him being emotionally overcome by, holy shit, this is the first thing that is actually real. This is the first thing I have to, I cannot deny, has real world consequences that is partially because of And it's why you couldn't tell that story about really any other sport, you know, or it would have to be equal or lesser because like ping pong is sort of. And, you know, that's even a derisive term I learned watching that movie, you know. But like it's it's so sidelined in American culture that like his dream has to be built around this, you know, sort of useless, ephemeral thing, you know. Right, right. This guy is hustling so hard, but part of his hustle is, I'm the Michael. Jordan of ping pong and I see the future and ping pong's as big as basketball. And he's wrong. And we know he's wrong. He's impurely

wrong. We live in the present and we know it will never be taken as seriously as it was in that moment, not even more seriously. And then pickleball. That's the peak, right? So everything he's doing is in the name of something that has a very very low ceiling. And like

Blackberry was one of my favorite movies of the decade and I think it's another movie that beautifully uses that films more fact based that you know they're on the Titanic that they're doomed that everything these characters are fighting for is going to butt up against

the outcome that we've all lived through none of us have a blackberry anymore everything they do every symbolic war they think they're fighting ultimately is irrelevant because the iPhone will exist and table tennis will never become a mainstream sport in America or really anywhere I guess yeah

no that was the peak and I think that's part of it and I think you know there's certainly as much as the film is about Shalame, it's also, I think, a major piece of self-reflection by Josh Saffty. I know this is a big part of your read of the movie. Yeah. And I think to some degree, it being something as kind of silly as table tennis is important

because it's kind of a guy looking back at how seriously he took the stakes of I'm a filmmaker and I'm intense in my 20s, right? And that he's sort of looking back and going like, Jesus, fucking, what was I on about? This is a thing that a lot of male, straight male filmmakers do, and I don't begrudge them that, but like sometimes I get a little bit like, you know, like watching Interstellar and you're like, Jesus, Chris, just spend time with your kids if you feel so guilty about being away shooting movies all the time. I know that shooting the movies is what, you know, gives them a good life and you can pay for college and all that stuff. Yeah, but other things could also be for college. And I kind of felt a little bit about that with Marty Supreme at that ending. I mean, my sort of first read of the thing, it was like, like, Safty almost apologizing to his young children for, like, being away, making his movies or whatever.

And I'm like, just shoot an Accura commercial, like, and then be home more often. Can I throw out some timeline stuff, real world timeline stuff that I find interesting? So he talked about, in a lot of ways, the movie is about the years of him trying to get Uncut Gems off the ground. Uncut Gems was the project that they wanted to make. that then got interrupted by heaven knows what it was too big of a jump up in scale and budget so they had to make a smaller film

to show that they could do it good time is the midpoint film they wanted Sandler forever they couldn't get him for years they developed a version of it that was Jonah Hill other versions of it they finally They finally get Sandler for a time yeah

they finally get Sandler the movie comes out at the end of 2019 it is at the time the highest grossing film that A24's releases the first A24 movie to cross $50 million

domestic. It's like you won. It doesn't get any Oscars. It doesn't get any nominations. But it's sort of immediately treated as the egregious snub in many areas. And solidified the A24 sort of branding. Like this is the kind of movie we make.

Right. And sort of like the Academy isn't cool enough to give it to uncut gems. An absolute triumph for everything that he spent 10 years investing in the importance of pursuing. Right. I so steadfastly believe this is the movie I have to make

and he talks about the movie comes out all of that happens he feels nothing and he goes what the what the what was all of this for and then pandemic he doesn't make a film for six years and the world stops

and stops him at a moment where he's also in a place of self-reflection and then he gets married and has two children quick succession so the movie isn't I'm apologizing this is my read no no no you're You're right. For not spending time with my kids.

It is a movie about a guy having kids and then being like, what was all of that? And it's very much a film that's in conversation with the films, the previous films he made with his brother. It's not like it's a radical departure. But I think there is the gains self-awareness and self-reflection. And then also the larger kind of historical and cultural context he can put on it by making it a period piece and looking back to, his father, his grandfather's generation, and understanding the lineage of the Jewish-American experience and the sort of feeling of needing to be a perpetual underdog, but being told that you have to achieve great things. Yeah. Well, I will say also, for me, that ending just,

it does not work unless you understand it as both like this incredibly sincere reaction from that character, but also that the next day he could be either a deeply committed father or knocking on the door of, like, the table tennis association wanting back in. Like, I think that both of those things have to be as likely. And never seen either of them ever again. Right, right. Even though five minutes earlier, he goes, I'm here, I'm staying. I'm never going to leave yourself.

And I think the thing is, like, what is so real about that moment for me is that people do have these incredible sincere emotional epiphanies and then don't change, you know? Like, they don't necessarily become a better father. They don't become, they can weep over their child and then not be present. And the tenuousness, like, I think that, you know, I'm someone who, like, at a certain point in Quentin Tarantino's career I was like can you just do something sincere like like I guess Beatrix kiddo crying on the floor of the bathroom like at the end of Kill Bill 2 I was like okay we're and then then there's a little inglorious bastards and then it sort of goes away again

and and so I liked in Marty Supreme that like there are moments where Safty is like showing a slightly softer side there's that beautiful shot of Gwyneth Paltrow back to the state the audience on Broadway smiling when they applaud and being like, I love this. But then he undercuts that a few scenes later with her weeping because she got terrible reviews or whatever. Yeah. You know, so he's not going to let it last too long. So I think to your point, Alison, like, yeah, it's totally believable that he has this genuine cathartic moment viewing this child through the glass, but the child stays behind that glass for him and he just kind of bails. Yeah. But versus everything else he's been up against in the movie up until that point in time,

If he bails, he is defined by being an absentee father for the rest of his life. You know, whether or not he wants to actively be a father and that's what's changed to him. It's a sign to him now. That is his identity and how he handles it becomes almost his defining attribute as a man. Yeah. Yeah. I think also it's worth mentioning Daddy Longlegs, which is the Saffty Brothers movie that they made starring Ronnie Bronsstein, who is the, you know, kind of like now, now the third Saffty maybe. He's still giving his speech at the New York Public Circle.

It was a verbose speech the two of them gave. Those guys like to talk. That movie is about their childhood. Is Ronald Bronstein playing a character very closely modeled on their father? Yes. And he was just like both like a loving and incredibly chaotic destabilizing presence. You know, someone who is just like bringing that chaos like marks their movies. Like you're like, oh, this was the source.

Like, you know, like someone who kind of like chases things on whims like kind of can be incredibly fun and can be like a kind of someone you're like, oh, he should not be in charge of kids. Like, and I think there is also a version of Marty where you're like, this, is that the person I'm going to be? Is that the parent I'm going to be? Someone who is like loving, but like loving does not mean that you are. And incredibly hands-on dysfunctional father. Yes, exactly. And someone who never quite figures it out. Yes.

Right. Or there's a version of him that just goes fucking corporate. Like it's what's interesting for me to consider. And that moment is just something has broken in him and how he rebuilds is to be determined. I think it's credit to Chalemay's performance that. that he could have just played this role as a straight con man. Because what Marty does is

he cons constantly, but he does play it with that sincerity to the point where you can empathize with him and it makes that last moment possible. Exactly. And cynically enough, you know, to bring it back to a word stuff like that is what I think

is the crucial selling factor, you know? And I think that I think there's a ton of humanity in Sandler's performance and uncut gems. but I think the academy as it existed then the pump was not primed enough for for that to be and also it was a little too irredeemable he gets shot in the head at the end

whereas this is like the next evolution of a Safdian protagonist and there's just enough of that Chalamay sort of warmth underneath it to sell it. The thing that makes it for me, the thing that sells it for me as a performance are those moments where he it's not just that it's the hustle

it's like also where the hustle is sort of working but he can't help but push it further and he pushes it into chaos and like that is weirdly the most humanizing moment because it's not just that he's always in pursuit of his goals it's also like he courts being like let's see what'll happen

he got the necklace that was going to take him to Japan but then he had to go hook up with her in the park It's almost the key moment of the movie for me if you just say thank you for the necklace and walk away or like when they they've like hustled the guys in New Jersey and they're celebrating and then and the guys find them and instead of just like

whining up the window and driving away he's like let me I want to talk to them And you're like, what would you possibly accept just to see if you could talk your way out of it? Yeah. I think there's something interesting, you're bringing up here, Richard, which is, and we saw this last year with Anora. Yeah. People who have no history with the academy and suddenly culture catches up to them. Right.

Right. Like, absolutely uncut gems felt too bracing, too odd, too extreme for the Oscars in 2019. And in the six years since then, Saffty has become shorthand for a type of thing. It is used in pitch meetings and loglines. It is a vaguely commercial term that you can use to describe an energy. And now it's like, well, of course this is in the Oscar conversation. I find it interesting that Josh seems to be directly on the bubble for Best Director. Yeah.

But it does feel pretty set in like five, six other categories. And I think it's going to be really telling whether he gets in there. and that's a full acceptance of this is part of the firmament of what Hollywood represents now or if it's still one step too edgy in a way where like Scorsese doesn't get a director nomination for taxi drivers. Spielberg doesn't get a director nomination for Jaws.

We acknowledge that you are the future and your movie has changed things. But a little of what we're talking about with younger male actors, hold your role. We're not ready to anoint you yet. But I remember watching the trailer for Marty Supreme that I guess must have come out late summer of last year. And not, I had read the logline.

It was about a hustling ping pong player in the mid-century. Grappolytra shows up. Timmy has a little, you know, mustache or whatever. And thinking it was going to be another little Scuzz Bucket movie from, you know, this very talented director. And then the trailer dropped, and it was like, oh, no, he's going for big, sweeping, Americana. And that is part of a narrative of, like, a director who's been on those sort of indie fringes. inching toward the mainstream saying, no, now I have this big grand vision

with lots of background extras and budget and all that. And the academy in the past has really embraced that. Especially when the elements line up and that leveling up from the artist is concurrent with the culture catching up to their thing. We're ready to see you go big. We weren't quite ready for you before. We're sorry, here we are, you have our attention.

and if you can pull off that kind of like step, major step up the ladder, it is the kind of thing that the academy tends to like fall over themselves. And the tragedy is if somehow we could rejigger the timeline and uncut gems was the Marty Supreme follow-up, Sandler absolutely gets nominated for it. No question. He probably wins.

Yeah. I also think it's interesting that going into the season, even basically looking at it like a year ago, right? January 2025, it was like, okay, well, we majorly keep our eyes on Chalamee in the ping pong movie and DiCaprio and PTA. Those feel like if they're not serious contenders, something's gone horribly awry. But going back to sort of Wagner Moore, suddenly seeming really, really strong in the best actor category. Jeremy Allen White in Springsteen.

But that hasn't come out yet. Dwayne Johnson in The Smashing Machine. George Clooney and Jay Kelly. I feel like I'm even forgetting a couple of. others there was like a sense of we're not going to have room to fit all these guys well the conversation automatic lock nominees the conversation all the way up to like the first premiere at Venice of any of these movies was like best actor this year is stacked yes Oscar Isaac you know all this people and then it was like just people fell by the wayside left and right that you're like

it is an odd kind of unsubtle category in which you have you know blue moon a movie that you were bemoaning to me in September it's a shame that in a just world, he'd be in the Oscar conversation, no one's going to see this thing. And you're like, Ethan Hawke feels about as locked as he could possibly be. Wagner feels about as locked as he could possibly be. A lot of these, in a cool world this guy would get in, those are the guys who are on solid footing. And a lot of the like assumed industry favor and obvious kind of Oscar appealing role, big project things have just flatlined. And Chalemay and DiCaprio are the two that are like.

straddling it somehow. It's commercial, it's big, it's America, but it's also edgy. The performances are weirder than you would expect. And not that like, and it's and then you compare it to like George Clooney and Jay Kelly, and it's this, I mean, not to be too dramatic

about that movie, but almost this like hideous object because you're like, this is what Noah Baumback was building toward, this goopy, sentimental Hollywood glitzy reflection on itself. Totally unconvincing. Yeah. Yeah, and it seems so out of step, even though just six months ago on paper, it seemed like, yeah, sure, of course. Well, I think also, I don't know, maybe we're at this moment where I certainly feel conscious of this, and I wonder how many people in the industry do too, where to be like, you have to have a lot of kind of interesting friction to like have any staying power out there.

You know, like, you can't just be, here's the formula for like a kind of prestige movie, a movie that we celebrate as important. and all of that because like those things come and go like those things It's why Hamnet is having trouble like like when I say having trouble I mean like

in the court of online opinion you know like people are really hammering that movie from different directions I think it's pretty impervious to that because the Academy doesn't really pay attention to internet discourse but I think that it's because it doesn't have

the traction that these other movies have where they are like yeah we have problematic elements we're prickly we're weird but that gives us a foothold in this whereas Hamnet is just this kind of smooth perfect, you know, object that is sort of designed to win awards and that feels kind of

like anathema to the system right now. Yeah, we're looking for something else. Even though one battle felt anointed earlier than most Oscar contenders or most eventual best picture winners, right? And everyone's just assuming

we've been on a walk of inevitability. It will be nine months of, yep, absolutely, we all know where this is going. It is a movie that is still generated think pieces. It is a movie that people are still debating. Even though there's like a kind of insane overwhelming consensus, a

unifying of like most people coming to the center and being like, this is just an important object, right? And an important career and all of that. It is still a movie that you can't totally figure out. And I, nor is another film

that much like Marty Supreme had an ending that people read wildly different ways. And I I think that movie doesn't win Best Picture without that ending because that ending was a thing that people couldn't stop chewing on

and these seasons get so exhausting that you need a reason to keep thinking about a movie rather than just going like I guess I did like that back in September All right well Griffin thank you for being here my first great

we come back any time I mean you're our boss so yeah you're kind of you're here anyway yeah yeah but we want to end each episode with either a sort of like, you know, goodbye to something in a memoriam for something that, a campaign that has failed, or or a winner, we'd like to be celebratory

as well. Allison, do you have a candidate for either of those categories? Yeah, I would like to present an award for Ethereal Glow to Wagner Mora's white suit that he wore at the New Film Critics Center. Yeah, look it up on Getty Images, folks, because the pictures are out there.

It's just like, it was like an all white suit, black shoes, but he just really like under the light, it was like he just like had this like, yes, he was attracting light to himself. And he gave a great speech. It was like, it was very heartfelt, but it was also very kind of like sincere and felt unpracticed

and felt, uh, he was talking about like the direct translation of obrigato and how it means to be indebted. And, uh, it was a lovely speech that made me really think like as watching him also there be like kind of ethereal and incredibly handsome. Yeah. Yeah.

Be like, oh, you are the guy that Timmy has to be. Like, like, you are the one who could challenge him. And I want that speech. I'm sure people filmed it. I want it to go out into the internet. Because the Brazilians, they know what to do with that. They'll make sure people see it. Yeah, they're ready to go. Yeah. But I was like, that could be it.

Like, he could be the guy. If it's not to me, the upset would be him. Yeah. Yeah. I would say my in memoriam this week, going back to Critics Choice Awards, is RIP, my hope that Frankenstein wouldn't be part of this awards conversation in a meaningful way. Six feet under. But you know, the funny thing is, I say that and yet when a Lordy won a critic's choice

and he gave a very gracious speech he is apparently a genius, did you know this? He's like very, very smart, Jacob Lurdy and he's really into film like specifically film. I was like, you know what, that actually would be kind of fun because like Del Toro and Sean Penn already have three Oscars between

them, you know, that's kind of boring like here would be a first timer. So weirdly, I'm putting my hope that Frankenstein would not be a thing that I have to deal with for months more to rest. But I'm also saying, you know what?

Allorty I could deal with. And big year for allorty between Frankenstein and Avatar Fire and Ash. I mean, I know he's not in it but he is in a V.

Yeah. Yeah. Very tall. Very tall. Well, his, no, his parents are. He was born here. Yeah, second generation.

He spent summers there. Sort of like J.D. Vance in Appalachia. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's how they put him in the Avatar tank to get him into the Frankenstein.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. It saved them a lot of money. It was a tribute to his heritage, really. I like that. Cool. All right, well, thank you again, Griffin, for being here. My pleasure.

So excited by this whole project. I cannot wait to get back into bed. Oh, yeah, right, exactly. By the way, before we go, I wanted to thank Joe Bowen for the wonderful art you see behind us. The great Joe Bowen. So great. And to announce that next week, I called it, I think, a round, perfect shiny object. just about a half an hour ago.

We're going to talk about Hamnet, and I think we're going to sort of focus on, in some ways, the topic of backlash, because I think of any of these best picture contenders, Hamnet is the one suffering that the most, and we'll get into Y next week. Critical Darling's is a blank check production, an association with Vulture,

hosted by Alison Wilder, and Richard Lawson, produced by Benjamin Frisch, executive produced by Griffin Newman and Neil Janowitz. Video production and distribution by Anne Victoria Clark, Wolfgang Ruth, and Jennifer Jean.