Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Sixth Annual Blank Check Awards with Joe Reid

Episode Date: March 28, 2021

Griffin and David welcome back Joe Reid for the 6th annual Blankie Awards Ceremony for Excellence in Films. Together they present their own personal nominations and winners for the upcoming 93rd Academy Awards. This roundtable discussion looks at all the major categories, as well as, references deep cut cinema you may have missed. Check out Joe Reid's podcast This Had Oscar Buzz! Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check What a wonderful night for Blank, blankies, blankies. Who will win? Oh, you know, we got five bloods. Five bloods.

You got to make, make, make about the script you got to write. I got it. Minare. Oh. Minare. Oh. What? Give me just one night.

Oh. In Miami. Marini. Oh, no. night oh in miami ma renee ma renee with the black bottom anywhere you tenant that's the way you need it anywhere you tenant listen i i didn't watch most of these fucking movies he still got it he still got it that's what i'm saying i i would say that uh uh to say i'm at my wits end uh would be false i probably reached my wits end like three months ago and i'm not look behind you yeah past past that point in in november i was very confident i wrote down all these movies and i looked up song titles that felt like I could work them in and then I just I never did the work no you didn't

watch him so that's your very crystal 2011 kind of a place I also just didn't look up the song lyrics for most of these here here's an example of something I did I wrote nomadland equals no man's land billy joel i don't know how that fucking song yeah i don't know how that song okay i never even i never even listened to that song i mean you know you could have but you didn't have to personal responsibility you know it's the name of the game this year right everyone's gotta just take care of themselves yeah i mean look i, I thought at some point in November, oh, it would be funny to do a parody song for the father

based around Alan Sherman's Hello Mudda, Hello Fada. Yeah, yes, yeah. And that's exactly how far I got. You could do First Cow to the tune of Last Dance if you were feeling very disco-y. Griffin, the Hello Fada, Hello Mudda thing, exactly how far i got you could do first cow to the tune of last dance yeah i mean i feel very discolored the hello father hello mother thing that is something that billy crystal would have 100 there's no there's no overlap there you and billy crystal are a perfect circle yes then diagram yes yes yeah here's the other notes i wrote down news of the world part of your world works for me news of the world right okay uh soul

crank that soldier boy that one I think maybe could use a second look I just want to say oh you think that one could use a second? I think that one could use a pop I feel like there's a lot of songs with like Soul already in the title That like I get like you want to like Go a little further a field of like soul man Or something like that I wrote alts that my alt was or soul man by Sam and Dave

But that felt a little That's easy You don't want to be lazy about this You want to, you know. I'm a soul, comma, man would probably be that. Right. I'm a soul, man. In a cat now.

One night Miami. Give me just one night 98 degrees. Or Miami Will Smith. Or waiting for tonight Jennifer. Look, these were written in a more optimistic time. Wait, do you mean give me just one night parentheses una noche by 98 degrees? Because that would have been a flex

as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, that was the thought at the time. Look, this is the 2021 Blankey Award Ceremony for Excellence in Films in 2020. Thank you for finally using the full title, by the way.

We never do it. And also January of 2021 and also February of 2021 if we're going by the Oscars, which I don't think we are, but that's fine. I'm not, but, you know, to each their own. But I mean, but also both of you guys are inarguably going to be, I would imagine, including movies that technically did not come out until 2021. Right? Sure. But I feel like that's the case every year, right? Where, like, there's always a few movies that, like, qualify under the gun at the end of the year and then release on their own time.

I just feel like this year is a slightly more extreme example. this year is a slightly more extreme example um i will say i've been spiraling all week for any number of reasons but something about the uh the marking a year since the last blankie awards which was one of the last in-person records we ever did yeah having to now commemorate pretty much a full year of not having movie going culture uh a year that has made me realize how much movie-going is part of my love of dumb movies. Yeah. I found this challenging, and I'll tell you in a moment what I decided to do to frame this in a way that my brain could handle.

This is, of course, Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's usually a podcast about'm David. It's usually a podcast about filmography. It's directed to massive success early on in their career and they're given a series of blank checks to make it over crazy passion projects

they want and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby, but once a year we get to pick the winners much like Siskel and Ebert wearing tuxes in Disney World and asking people to applaud for how good their taste is. Next year, let's wear tuxes in Disney World and asking people to applaud for how good their taste is.

Next year, let's wear tuxes. Let's wear tuxes next year. I think that's the mistake we've been making. Now, both of you work as film critics. Yeah. David, definitely. Me? I write about movies sometimes.

David Sims, of course, co-host of this podcast. Our dear friend Joe Reed, a.k.a. Reading Rain Joe. I was hoping you'd say that. Is joining us for the fifth consecutive Lanky Awards. Is this the fifth or the sixth? It's the sixth. It's the sixth. Yeah.

Wait, this is the sixth? Yeah. Wow. Because this is starting our seventh year? Exactly. Exactly. That's the thing. It is starting our seventh year? Exactly. Exactly. That's the thing. It's starting our seventh year.

The day we're recording this is the day after the sixth anniversary of our first episode being released. Correct. Happy anniversary, guys. A fine six years, if I do say so. A fine six years, if I do say so. Now, look, this is a silly thing of fun and games where we just get to have a nice time picking the things that we like. Right. Yes.

But I was looking at many things and one of them was my list of movies. Well, iPhone note that I keep every year when I transitioned out of keeping a text edit note right sure um i i watched 40 some odd new release films in 2020 which is not bad far and away the smallest number i've probably watched since mid single digits right right um i truly i mean i dragged my dad to see a movie almost every single weekend, you know? Yeah. And including things I rented on VHS and whatever in the 90s. I truly don't know the last time I watched this few new release movies. Obviously, the things I had to watch for this podcast dominated my movie watching.

Sure. Along with things I had to watch for other people's podcasts and stuff. my movie watching, along with things I had to watch for other people's podcasts and stuff. And also just me re-watching and comfort watching shit and watching a lot more TV than I usually do. I think largely because every time

there was a real movie, quote-unquote, that was available to stream at home, it depressed me that my option was now watching at home. That that's how you'd have to see it. You talked about this. I talked about this a lot. But I bring this up now because I avoided watching so many of the

Oscar-y movies for as long as I could because I was just so bummed out by this reality. And then the second note is I just felt like I couldn't handle most of them. In one way or another, it's like it demands too much focus for me. It's dealing with a subject

matter that i am just not at a mental strength to deal with or what have you that i had this list that was like a mishmash of like the couple of oscar movies i watched and a bunch of weird shit that i'm now upping to awards level because it's what i watched to get me through the year and then it felt odd that i was even including the three or four Oscar movies I did watch and excluding the 10 to 12 that I did watch that I just decided, here's my blank keywords for the year. I'm not nominating anything that was nominated for an Academy Award. It's all out.

It's all fucking out. Working without a net. Yeah. Here's my question. And this is just out of interest. What are the Oscar movies that you're kicking off the ballot? That's what I'm just just out of pure interest. Like, what are the few you saw?

Yes. Almost everything. I mean, there's so many things I like. I watched Mank, but I watched it probably in like five installments. I watched Mank the way most people watch the Snyder Cut. Right. And I found it never really pulled me in but i don't i can't judge whether that's an objective issue with the movie or my opinion of it or anything i could not fucking deal with nomadland i cannot believe that is the best picture front runner there is no movie

that touches on all the things that i'm already fucking freaking out about that society has revealed in in this last year in terms of our priorities and lack thereof in how we fucking throw people out uh like what else i don't know i i mean it's just like so many of them i just i just didn't even uh try you know or watched half of or watch in a bad form. And I just was like, you know what? I'm only including the fucking things that reached out and grabbed me from the small pool of the things I happen to watch, which is like comfort food getting elevated and the few movies that cut through for me that I was able to handle. Here's my question. Another question.

Yeah. The Five Bloods, which is a movie I know you liked. And we'll get into this as we're going to start categories in a second. But that got nominated for one Oscar. Best score. Does that kick it off your ballot? No. I decided if...

Like a little bit, you're okay with. Yeah. I'm fine with a little bit. A little bit. But that's... Those are my rules. I get it, though. Like it is there was a there was a, you know, a twinge of bummer to watching all of these movies at home. Every, you know, almost everything you'd rather watch in a theater for whatever reason. reason i i think i part of it is also because like at the end of the year with oscar time i being a you know one of those cretins who gets screeners i'm more used to just sort of like

binging shit on screeners at the end of the year because that's how i got to get it done so it was less of a change for me to just be like well i'm just gonna watch whatever's on netflix and what's on you know hulu and then i have had a few transcendent at home viewing experiences this year but it is a few yeah it's my opinion on this you're gonna hear that reflected in my top five movies of the year and then i have five other movies yeah because i'm looking at my top 10 and two three four four of them are movies I saw at home. Six of them are not. And then others in my top sort of 25-ish are movies.

Yeah, it's mostly movies that I did not see at home. Or if I did see them at home, I just, you know, you have that thing where you're kind of like, well, I know how much this would have hit me. you have to do the sort of like yeah the value add you know like you know even if you're like you know what i zoned out a little bit during this but i know in the give give this thing its best circumstances it would have it would have worked even better for me maybe it can someday soon look yeah right i also found that like the eight movies i saw in theaters that were released in 2020 before theater shut down happened to make a big appearance

in multiple categories unsurprisingly those movies have lingered with me a little bit more perhaps they're getting a big theatrical bump uh You know, you guys had the benefit of getting to see a lot of these movies at festivals projected properly. Right. So a lot of the things that ended up playing big at the end of the year. I also felt like things I watched earlier in the pandemic have hit harder for me and lingered harder for me versus now when I just like can't handle anything anymore. And I'm so depressed because like when I was watching shit go straight to Hulu and Netflix and VOD and whatever in May, I'd be like, OK, but Winter Theater is going to be back to normal September, you know, and then to just have it be like, no, this is the full

year just depressed me to no end. But I just felt like if I'm gonna nominate Eurovision In as many categories as I'm prepared to I don't want to have to Constantly explain to people why 18 movies are left off In those categories I don't think you need to explain

At all These are Griff's picks It's been a year It's been a year Capital A, capital y year yes yes um i do think this year's oscar nominations if you just kind of like print them out on a piece of paper and you look at them you're like oh these are all right oh they they did an okay job they've nominated actually pretty good stuff yeah right but at the same time i think this whole season

has been a huge bummer the fact that that the Oscars are still a month away. Insane. Yeah. Like, I'm like, what are we talking about anymore? Like, what is that? I know why they made the decision they made. I get why they did it. And I can't quibble with it, especially because when they made that decision, they were still holding out hope that like at some point we're going to be able to release the studio movies of the year yes oh west side story we'll we'll we'll

make some room yeah like that's not till the end of december surely by the end of december because they made this decision in like june or whatever right my my i think their strategy was theaters will essentially return to normal by like September. Right. And then you're going to have the backlog of all the blockbusters that need to come out. Right. That's going to take up the space that would have been year end award shit. Only the movies that have commercial crossover potential like Dune and West Side Story will open then.

And then everything else is just going to open January and February. And that's just going to be the time shifted award season because fucking Wonder Woman and Ghostbusters Afterlife and whatever had to like rule the multiplexes of the fall. And instead, everything sucks. Everything's bad. What's wild about this, though, is so like this will be the latest Oscar ceremony beyond like whatever, like maybe those first few that weren't even held in the spring like those first few oscars or whatever that like encompassed two years at a time or whatever but this will be the latest into april that it's been pretty much since they set the oscar timeline but yeah it's not by much like the oscars used to be in april kind of a lot and

i'm just and it's so funny to think about that now. And it's just like that, I mean, whatever, like media was very different. We were less saturated by things, whatever, but it just does seem endless. It just does seem. Yes. Yes. That we're still a full month away as we record this episode from the Oscars is mind boggling. And also next year's Oscars are going to be weird because it's going to feel odd discounting like the first three months of the year entirely, even though movies from the first three months of the year usually don't make much of an impact. Always get discounted.

Right, right, right, right, right, right. But it's odd to just be like, well, the beginning of this year was truly and purely just the Oscar movies. Yeah. Right. Right. From the previous year's qualifications. Shall we dive in, boys? Let's do it.

Let's dive in, Griffin. We usually start with supporting a support. Which support should we do? Let's do supporting actress first because I got to make a game time decision on the fifth position for supporting actor. Um, that's fair. Supporting actress. We are here to announce our picks for best supporting actress in the movies of 2020. Whatever.

Yes. I don't know why I'm doing all this wind up. I'll just do mine first. I feel like I'm actually close to. Yeah, I'm three out of five with the Oscars on this one. 2020 whatever yes i don't know why i'm doing all this wind up uh i'll just do mine first i feel like i'm actually close to yeah i'm three out of five with the oscars on this one okay which is not going to be true with a lot of them probably but whatever so i have maria bakalova from borat subsequent movie film uh amanda seyfried from ming yun yu z Jung from Minari and then I have Candice Bergen

from Let Them All Talk and Gina Rodriguez from Kajillionaire I want to say that this is the hardest category for me this year there's not a lot of performances I really love in this category this year I love these performances

and I this has been the category where year. I love these performances. And this has been the category where I most have just kind of like swapped in names and been like, does that look right? I don't know. Does that look right? Those are my nominees. I have a lot of really strong runners up

and I'll wait till everybody does theirs before I maybe talk about those a little bit. Yeah, you go next though, Jack. Okay. So mine are, now it's funny because the list I have in front of me is not in alphabetical order. So I'm alphabetizing on the fly. So if I screw it up, listeners, make sure you let me hear about it.

A flex, a flex. Jane Adams in She Dies Tomorrow. Shireen Alvarez in St. Francis. Candice Bergen in Let Them All Talk. Amanda Seyfried in Manc and Yeon Yoo Jung in Minari. Can I just say, I'm really happy about what's about to happen.

Oh, good. I'm sure I know know but go ahead yeah i suspect i i think i think anyone can predict it if anything the only surprising element is that i'm the one going last with what's about to happen right okay right right uh whereas i think most people predicted i'd be leading the charge exactly um right i do uh uh want to say um uh similarly to what you guys are talking about, this was a category where like, I landed on a five I felt good about,

but I had very few alts. I really also, yeah. Right. In the beginning of the year, I just start my iPhone, note, and anytime I see a performance that jumps out to me, I put it on the list,

even if I think it's probably not going to survive a year later. Right? Yep. And I mentioned that because this first pick is going to have you flummoxed, but when I saw this in a theater in the first two months of the year, I went, yeah, that's the first thing I saw that could qualify, and I did not see five other performances that I felt could push it out since then.

Now I gotta know. Ready? You're going to be flummoxed by this. Okay, okay. Best Supporting Actress. Miranda Otto in Downhill. know you're gonna be flummoxed by this okay okay best supporting actress miranda otto in downhill she was one of my runners up she's so funny she's so funny in that movie i love her in that movie and one of the only elements that argues for force majeure being remade in the first place because it feels like someone doing something fundamentally different and interesting i love

her in that movie i'm so glad you made that pick. Here's my only problem with that pick, Griffin. Yeah. I'm seeing here that Downhill was released 400 years ago, so I don't really know

what you're talking about. I truly am going just off the notes app here. I will tell you from memory the same thing. Yeah, okay. Toni Collette, I'm thinking of ending things.

Talia Ryder, never rarely, sometimes, okay. Toni Collette, I'm thinking of ending things. Talia Ryder, never rarely, sometimes, always. Yeah, that would be my runner-up. Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Birds of Prey. Nice. And Candace LeBron, James Bergen. Let them all talk, James, Bergen, let them all talk score in fucking buckets. Yep. That's the right call that she's the one for all of us.

She's the one. I'm doing moves. In terms of alts, there were some some stretches. There are some things like like Kajillionaire is one I actually tried to cram in where I'm like, I feel like I could watch that and enjoy that. And I probably would get a good couple acting nominations out of that. And I resent myself for prioritizing trying to watch Nomadland. I think a Jillian air might have fucked you up. I'm going to be honest with you.

I haven't seen it yet. It's on my list. It has that Miranda July thing where an hour in she's like this movie's actually about how we're all afraid of dying and i'm like okay miranda look i mean fuck yeah i'm about to put the charlie coffin movie in almost every single category it's not like i didn't nominate some movies that fucked me up but yeah there's a specific type of fuck me up that i could handle yeah it's possible that it would click with you in a really nice way it's just also possible it might have you know uh freaked you out i have no idea it's the amiranda july thing

where you're kind of like whoa you know where she dies tomorrow i knew i couldn't handle oh no i like i'm almost regretful that i watched it because it like really really fucked me up but it's good like it's really good it sounds so in my wheelhouse i would love to go fucking submit myself to seeing that in a theater where i can fully focus on it wait till you're constitutionally uh able to yeah yeah right but jane adams jane adams is an actress who like doesn't always work for me she does a very specific kind of thing that sometimes it's a little much for me, but it was perfect in this. So I really, really liked her in that. Griff, two of yours were on my runner-up list. I had both Miranda Otto and Toni Collette on my runner-up. I feel so vindicated. I sort of tweeted yesterday because I was going through and I knew they weren't going

to make it. And I was like, there are four actresses who give very specific kind of like, very like almost out there performances and movies that i didn't really love it was those two s.e davis and the true history of the kelly gang and valerie mahaffey and french exit and i was just like well all four of these women are like doing fantastic work here's my thing about downhill if you didn't know that movie was an adaptation of one of the most like consequential and original movies of the decade, that movie would be straight up good. You would. Yeah, I agree.

That movie was just like, you know, hey, here's this like kind of like dramedy with Will Ferrell and Julia Louis, you know, and they're coming apart and it's, you know, and you watch it and you're like, shit, this is well acted. Yes. This is, you know, kind of spare. Miranda Otto, you know know comes in and throws heat for 10 minutes like i like this yeah it's it's i i i can't separate it from the movie it's being you know you can't make me you can't but if i could i think i would really like downhill instead i thought it was okay but of a bit of of an odd thing to exist. It's one of those things where it's like, oh, that would be fascinating as a broad comedy with two movie stars based on nothing. Right. Versus in 2020, like, you know, maybe not 1978, but like in 2020.

Right. That's the thing. It feels more like what qualified as a broad comedy in the early 70s where people were like, man, what if comedies made you sad? Yeah, right. Right. Didn't have a lot of jokes. Yeah, exactly. I just remember walking out of downhill at the AMC Kips Bay. No idea how good I had it. Oh, yeah.

I saw that thing at the Grove in L.A. And I was just like, I'm always my happiest when I'm at the Grove in L.A. I'm I'm basic as hell, but that's me. And again, yeah, I had no idea how good I had it. Right. This couple walking out was just like, well, it like wasn't really that funny, but it also wasn't really that serious. It was just kind of like real life. And I'm like, I would be citing all of that as a positive were it not based off Force Majeure, which is the issue. But she's really good.

And I also just think she's the glimpse of the best version of an American Force Majeure, which is owning its lane as being more of a broad performative character comedy. Right. Dialed higher, which is what it should be. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, i've said it we said it on this part the big problem with that movie and i like will ferrell and i like him trying things like this is that i believe that will ferrell would run away from an right absolutely yes i can't get shocked by that yeah you expect that to happen there's nothing shocking about it which means that if will ferrell is will ferrell at the beginning of the movie, by the end of the movie, he needs to go bigger than he's ever gone in his entire life. He needs to be like nuclear explosion Will Ferrell.

And obviously the movie is not interested in that. It's funny how much we're talking about downhill. Yeah, it is. But that's fine. You know, so Griff, I'm assuming you put Bakalova in lead, which is fine, obviously. Or is Borat not allowed because borat actually scored yeah major nominations it was a tweener for me but i will say bakalova i feel very strongly is a lead performance and she would have been my lead winner i think that is the second best

performance i've seen all year but i and and look i am all for her being in supporting uh i don't think she possibly nominated and lead i think she's gonna win i predicted this to you i put it on the record gonna put on the record on this record um but uh i i just decided it was it was too validated for me to nominate even if i did the swap of a different category surprisingly validated there's no question or maybe not that surprisingly but because it is a really good performance kansas look i know go ahead go ahead no i just want to save it back a little bit quickly just the complexity of what she's doing in the giuliani scene is mind-boggling to me because she has to actually convincingly sell

this guy who admittedly is easily duped. Right. What are you talking about? America's. That she's a serious interviewer. Right. And keep him there with the risk. Obviously, the danger she knows she's getting into being alone in a room with this guy, even with a camera crew right outside the door. Who knows the fuck this guy is going to do if he thinks he's alone. Right.

he's alone right but the fact that throughout all of that she is somehow simultaneously playing to the camera that she is sad that she has to do this that her father has put her in this position the emotional arc the continuity of the character she has to play the meta text and the text at the same time yes and she can't overplay the meta text because if she does she'll flag giuliani it's just like i i that is such a skill piece to me i think she's incredible she would have been my best actress winner uh but i disqualified her first bulgarian acting nominee in the history of the oscars not bad about fucking time possibly the first bulgarian nominee period just want to point that out um maria so all right so we all we all nominated one person who is let's talk about lebron bergen uh candace bergen

and let them all talk a movie that is uniformly well acted in my opinion yeah i don't know i agree with that almost did a double nom with weist she was kind of my only Serious alt Weist was a high runner Up for me as well yeah Diane Weist Who's one of the queens of my spreadsheet Like over the years oh yeah Snuck in did a Really good performance from her I actually like Gemma Chan in that movie a lot I like everything

About yeah Gemma Chan's great in that movie Yeah but but Bergen is just outrageous And it has So much pathos and like and it's also you're just kind of like you know you give her enough rope she'll fucking you know it's incredible like she never gets that's my thing she carries so much of the narrative of that movie so much more than you would expect because you initially think it's just going to be like it's meryl's movie and these are her friends and we've sort of cast this thing very well.

But yeah, no, she's she shoulders a lot in that movie. I mean, in a way, this it's like Christopher Walken and Catch Me If You Can, where you're just like, oh, it's nice to see someone hand this actor such a juicy piece of meat again. It's not like we haven't seen her in a while. But it's like no one's given her this much in so long. The real estate in the movie, the depths of what she has to play,

the specificity of the character. And she does still score pretty much every single laugh line. She's just one of those people who... Every bucket, one might say. Yeah, she gets buckets she gets buckets from midcourt the funny thing i talked about this on my own uh podcast uh last week i think um but the whole thing about let them all talk and the fact that warner brothers

at some point probably before the whole pandemic happened just decided that this was not going to be an awards movie for them and they were not like, it was not on their radar for that. Yeah. But the fact that they never recalibrated once the pandemic happened and everything shifted to streaming and, and the like, didn't really know what they had on their hands. Yeah.

It's mind boggling to me that there was, they just didn't campaign it at all. The fact that like, they couldn't get a golden globe nomination for Meryl Streep in a well received comedy where she's in the lead role like that's insane to me like the fact that they couldn't like drum up some kind i don't know if bergen would have gotten an oscar nomination but she sure certainly would have been a contender she's a big holly like hollywood fucking loves yeah and it's a great story it's

a great sort of like comeback story uh for her in at least. And it just, it felt to me and Warner Brothers had their own, you know, litany of decisions that they made this year and whatever. But like that to me is so strange that they just didn't fundamentally didn't know what they had on their hands with that movie. You guys know what Soderbergh has on deck next, right? What he's shot. Remind me. Yeah, remind me. It's a thriller called No Sudden Move. Here's the logline.

A group of criminals are brought together under mysterious circumstances and have to work together to uncover what's really going on when their job goes sideways. Okay, so already I'm like, Soderbergh's making that? Probably going to be the greatest film ever made. Yeah, rock hard. Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon, Benicio Del Toro, probably going to be the greatest film ever made here's the cat brendan rock brendan frazier matt damon benicio del toro don cheadle john ham kieran culkin ray leota bill duke i mean i'm just

like yeah let me at this thing i can't be held responsible for my actions amy simons julia fox uh did you say benicio no one thepe. Noah Jupe's in there. Noah Jupe coming to fucking shank Tremblay in his sleep. You think you're the talented child actor? Jupe's scoring buckets on his own, I gotta tell you.

And all his stuff lately. David, did you mention who wrote this movie? Noah, wait a second. I may not know. Ed motherfucking solomon solomon wrote it that's right come on oh come on and that's another thing that hbo max is probably just gonna poop out in august yeah right exactly like yo this is a masterpiece they'll be like huh what what was that i'm sorry yeah okay okay so can i ask a how did this movie not become an awards player question about a movie i admittedly have not seen, but one of you just included on your list?

Uh-huh. How does French Exit not exist? People did not like it. People thought it was really off-putting. Even people who liked it, like, I pretty much liked it. But, like, it's really off-putting. I just feel like every couple of years there's a new this might be pfeiffer's comeback oscar movie and every time it belly

flops and this one just felt like on paper like oh that has to work for her right especially in a pandemic year that's like an easy nomination for her she's great in it she's really great in it but it's still that people hate that movie i didn't realize that yeah people i i remember when it uh premiered it premiered at new york film festival right david am i mistaken that is correct i believe it was the closing film which is right and i just remember that night like just everybody who i knew on my twitter feed who watched it were just like 80 to 20 like despised it and they were like it definitely had its supporters and its fans

but it's it makes you work for it it makes you work to like it it's um it's really hard to do a Whit Stillman movie like yeah you know it's just really really hard um but but I do also think there's the curse of Pfeiffer

I like Jacobs I like Jacobs. I like Jacobs, too. I really liked The Lovers. The Lovers was really good. I like that he makes kind of thorny, challenging comedies that you do have to work for. But yes, there is that weird Pfeiffer curse where it just feels like, oh, she's doing a Stephen Frears period film fucking slam dunk. And then people are just like,

Sheree gave me diarrhea. Yeah. This is the Frears movie that right. We were going to erase from his record, even though the Oscars are like Stephen Frears. Yeah. Yeah. We can get a nomination somewhere. We'll figure it out.

Like they're going through their file. We just covered a white Oleander on my podcast recently. And that was another one where it's just like, she's so good in this movie. What more do you want? She's fantastic. But that is a great point.

That's essentially the start of the 20-year Pfeiffer Oscar curse. If at the beginning of the year people go, oh, this is a big Oscar play for Pfeiffer, it is fundamentally not going to be a big Oscar play for anybody. Yeah, It is fundamentally not going to be a big Oscar play for anybody. Yeah, that is absolutely correct.

It'll happen someday. I have to imagine. It's got to, right? It's got to. Quantumania. Yeah, that'll be it. That'll be it. They'll give everything a nomination.

It won't be just Pfeiffer. Return of the King. They'll shower it. It'll be Return of the King. We have to recognize the trilogy. Joe, we both nominated Yun-YeYo Jung, which is one of those performances that is undeniable. I haven't watched it. It is, like, you know, much better than the sort of kooky, fun grandma role that it initially presents itself to be.

Yes. Yeah, she keeps it on a level where you do sort of, I mean, the late, great Cloris Leachman, I do not want to slight, but you do sometimes sort of expect it to sort of get to a level of, like you said, like kooky grandma or whatever. I'm sorry, are you talking about Cloris Michael Jordan Leachman? Yes, exactly. Cloris Kevin McHale Leachman. Yes. Wow. May she rest but yeah no it's so much of minari sort of stays on

this very sort of just like personal uh emotional keel that a character like that could really throw off and she was really dialed into it while still being really interesting and really compelling and really like lovable, but spiky. Like my favorite character type. Are you lovable, but spiky? Oh my, like, I absolutely love you. And yeah, it's one of my favorite Oscar nominations this year. It was one of those things where I first saw the movie. I'm like, I'm going to have to be so obnoxious about how she deserves an Oscar nomination, but it's never going to happen because X,

Y, Z. And I'm so glad. I mean, like with the farewell, like that usually gets ignored. There's the narrative of like, this is a really accomplished actress from her home country,

you know? And people are like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. She'll come seventh. You know, like it's usually like,

just kind of like on the outside and maybe this year, just because of the circumstances of the, of the year, but also it's just a special performance. And Minari kind of hit at the right time. Yep. Uh, all right,

we should move on. But Griff, is there anything in left in your, uh, ballot you wanted to shout out? I'm, you know, I'm trying to remember,

uh, Mary Elizabeth Winston, birds of Bray. I feel like is, uh, she's good. I mean, it's really good,

but it's, it's an actor choosing to play a legitimate superhero role like the hockey pads guy from the beginning of the dark knight right yeah yes yes which i find is so fun i just like the frame of that character i think the writing of the character is really good that's the best that movie has to offer uh for me uh never rarely sometimes always the performances are really good in that movie i'll speak about it again uh and tony collette i'm thinking of ending things that's a movie that i look at with all four that those performances where i'm like this would just be so much fucking fun to act the fact that it's just four people

and then two people playing off each other you know and and the thulis and uh collette performances are just so meaty in terms of the shifts they get to play and the sort of like it feels like fun acting class exercise stuff in the best way in terms of just like making bizarre strong nightmarish choices in response to everything yeah i just wanted to throw out briefly before we move on just because i know that like i uh shireen alvarez in saint francis nobody's really talked about her this award season. So I didn't want to just throw her out. Um,

she plays the, uh, the woman that, uh, the main character, Kelly O'Sullivan is working for, who's having this like postpartum sort of like very hard time trying to deal with,

uh, her kids. And so the main character comes and is, you know, sort of this like long-term, uh, babysitter up here kind of situation. And she's just like, she is sort of what elevates that movie to me.

I think it's a very well-written and very funny movie and, you know, touching, but like her performance really elevates it to something special. She and Kelly O'Sullivan really have a great sort of one, you know, tête-à-tête kind of stuff and good relationship that builds and and evolves and i think she's just really wonderful there's some really like big scenes in that movie where she really has to like act this postpartum depression stuff in a way that really has to land with you and i think she nails it that movie fucking rules and i assume it'll be more accessible at some point to watch um but it completely rules it's an oscilloscope movie i don't

know like where what it's sort of streaming status is right now but it's so good um i might talk about it again later um my winner is amanda safe read in mank nerds nerds i love her in that there's everybody talks about nerds but there's this one moment where mank's in a car on the lot or whatever and she just sort of like stops and she gets in and she just looks at him and she just goes mank like that and i'm just like well that's the funniest thing i've ever got that scene rules where he's like please do me this favor and she's like i already did my exit i love her in that movie she's incredible in that movie i think she's my number one underrated because yes she is people don't like mank or whatever i mean but probably because mank you know tells too many truths

you know this is gonna be my new bit is that you're not prepared for mank yeah mank isn't popular enough because mank keeps it too real keeps it real yeah even about people who don't like mank though i think people mostly really like see for that's it but like if she wins an oscar which I don't think she will but she certainly could because it's sort of a weird diffusier people will shit on that Oscar like they will be like

eh she kind of did whatever it was like you know she kind of snuck in that Griff who's your winner? my winner is Candice Bergen very supportable I did watch Mank. I just couldn't fully get into it.

I watched it in pieces. Yeah, because he kept it too real. He kept it too real. Okay, supporting actor. David, please read your nominees. My nominees are

Dan Stevens in Eurovision. I already love it. The Story of Fire Sock. Glyn Turman in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. Lucas Hedges in I already love it. Joseph Reed. All right. Mine are Daniel Kaluuya in Judas and the Black Messiah. Robert Pattinson in Tenet. Clark Peters in Da 5 Bloods. Paul Racey in Sound of Metal. And Mark Rylance in The Trial of the Chicago 7.

He is so good in that. He's so good in that movie. Whatever you think of that movie, he absolutely... He's so good in that movie whatever you think of that movie he absolutely he shows them show I agree best in show my nominees for best supporting actor are Matthew McFadden

in The Assistant incredible performance Clark Peters in Defy Bloods Dan Stevens in Eurovision Clark Peters in Defy Bloods. Dan Stevens in Eurovision. Song of Fire and Ice. Peter Thouless in I'm Thinking of Ending Things.

David Thouless. Jesus Christ, my brain is soup. David Thouless in I'm Thinking of Ending Things. And Joe Pantoliano in Bad Boys for Life. Oh, wow. There we have it. Here's the thing, Griffin. You're angry.

I'm angry it's not on my list. You're angry. I gotta admit, he was on the outskirts. There were a couple guys fighting for that fifth slot, and I put him in there because I wanted to make you angry. Here's the thing. You've made me angry, but it's not just because you put him on and i didn't it's i'm angry at myself because i feel like i kind of forgot about it now obviously the movie came out like 14 months ago david it's the number one film of 2020 i don't understand it is the last blockbuster i still walked out of that movie with a five minute Joey Pants rant.

We talked about it. Exactly. And we talked about it after that. I think we might have mentioned it on the podcast. Absolutely. So I'm a little mad at myself. But thank you for shouting, including him. Look, I've spent years nursing the wounds of anger from you remembering to include

Condi Alexander for Patriots Day. So I feel like we're in a great moment by me. Yes. No, I think about that all the time. I should have done that. I know. She's so good in that movie.

She's so good. So those are the nominees. So I feel like we were all over the place. Did we share where was no. David, you and I shared Pattinson and Griffin and I shared Clark Peters I feel like that was right and David and I shared Dan

Stevens right right and Stevens who I made a manful effort to win get him the win I know you told me that but that one didn't get a lot of traction who I think he's wonderful in that movie he is one of the most surprisingly versatile actors ever considering when he left downton abbey i was like why so he

can be sixth on the like henry ravel call list like what does he think yes he thinks he's gonna get roles and instead he has had an incredibly exciting and varied career basically since you know leaving that cursed fucking mansion they're making like a sequel to the Downton Abbey movie now like you can never escape an example of a guy where you could announce that he is playing any role in any type of movie and I would go yeah he could probably pull that off yeah yes exactly I see why he would do that you know like it just feels like he's a guy who likes a challenge, likes stretching himself, and has pretty much pulled off everything he's ever tried to do. Listen, we all know what a masterpiece Beauty and the Beast was.

So, like, granted. But, like, I was thinking about this. Objectively, I think he does his job well in that movie. It's hard to give him credit because I think the design of the Beast is so disastrous that no moment the character is on screen really works. I think if you really try to think about only what he's doing, and especially if

you look at behind the scenes photos of what the fuck he was wearing. Him in the pillow suit. You gotta kind of give him the credit for that movie. And he's good at fucking everything. Everything he does. Yeah. I'm gonna make it my background um yeah i love dan stevens i love him in that movie i think he's so funny yeah he's um what uh else the pattinson yet now come on that's i'm glad i knew i knew i knew someone else would have pattinson i knew that i would have some company with that

and i'm he he was close for me. He was close. He's so much fun in that movie. I loved that movie a lot more than most people did. I always said Tenet and Mank are the two movies where I say I had fun and everybody looks at me like I've got three heads. But I think Tenet is such a good time and Pattinson is the most good time in that movie. He's just sort of a pleasure to watch. He is.

I agree with all of that. He's having fun. He's just at the movie. He's just like the spoonful of sugar the movie needs. You know what I mean? But also it is an achingly beautiful performance. Yes. In my opinion.

I think it's like a lovely performance. It's a story about friendship. He's playing a guy. Yes. Who is in, I think it's like a lovely performance. It's a story about friendship. He's playing a guy. Yes. Who is in love with his partner? Not in a, you know, uh,

you, you know, in a romantic way, but just in a, like it's real moment. Love is real. Exactly. Yeah.

He is excited to finally meet the man he's known for years. Like, you know what I mean? Like, and, and there's just so much joy to it. And it's so funny to think about it, considering the patents and interviews. It's like, you know what i mean like and and there's just so much joy to it and it's so funny to think about it considering the patents and interviews it's like you know i didn't really know what was

going on in that one you know like he's like i did what chris told me but like whoa because he's such a talented actor yeah i think he's on my ballot like every year these days yeah i think that sounds about right to me yeah maybe not every year, but like often. He's just such a, such a delight. He's wonderful. And Hedges too. Hedges in Let Them All Talk is just, that is a crazy,

you throw that actor in to a super, three super talented, you know, middle-aged actresses who've done this shit for years. Soderbergh is like, look,

the screenplay is, you're on a boat and there's a lot of shit going on. Right. And know like no script they're all improvising hedges has to do all this like giggling and physical stuff and like this sort of like you know he's he's uh vulnerable and like that shit is hard that is such an impressive performance there are moments in that movie where you can definitely see him being like, all right, what do I do? Like, what's next? But like everything else.

But that's also part of the charm of the movie, I feel like. And also everything else, like you said, the movement and that, you know, he's going dancing and he's sort of like the temperament of it is really, really good. He's so likable. He's just like so goddamn likable. Griffin, who else did you have? Wait, give me your list again, Griff. You had Stevens, obviously. Clark Peters, The Five Bloods,

who I think is quite the heart of that movie. David Thewlis, Thank You for Ending Things. Pretty much everything I said about Tony Collette applies here. Matthew McFadden in The Assistant. David, I walked out of that movie, I think maybe the last new release film

I saw in theaters, and I was texting you about how good he was in it, and I coined a phrase that I said I want to use this on the podcast when this comes up again. Thermostat performance. Right, you remember you telling me this at the time. Yes, yeah.

And they're single-handedly changing the temperature of the movie just with their acting alone he's got one fucking set piece scene one long two-person conversation towards the end of the movie that fundamentally changes the entire movie through just the energy he brings to it it is very fascinating to me that this guy who like you know has been around since pride and prejudice in american movies you know or at least in britain crossover right exactly it was known for tv and whatever and it just was sort of like i don't know this guy like never really found his spot and it turns out he is like fucking perfect at playing American corporate bootlickers.

Yeah. The thing about it, right, is like he was in this incredible British miniseries called Perfect Strangers. I think it's called Almost Strangers in America because they don't want it to remind you of the. Belky Associations. Yeah. If you ever can find it, it's probably on BritBox or one of these things. Like, really check it out. It's one of the most incredible pieces of drama I ever filmed.

And then he was on this TV show called Spooks, which is called MI5 in America. And like that, that was his thing. It's like this guy might be the next Bond. Like this guy is Britain's next charming leading man. You know, I'd seen him on the stage. He was in some movies and he's in Pride and Prejudice. He's playing Darcy, you know, 20 years after Colin Firth. It's like this guy has just been on the stage. He was in some movies and he's in pride and prejudice. He's playing Darcy, you know, 20 years after Colin Firth.

It's like, this guy has just been handed the role. Yeah. And it, that movie hits. He doesn't. Right. Yeah.

Like, it's not like it killed his career. He just hangs out in Britain doing mostly TV and stuff and theater and stuff. And then as you say, the start of it is Anna Karenina. I was just about to bring up Anna Karenina. I'm so glad you did. As this like sort of delightful drunk.

And you're like, oh, that's Matthew McFadden. And he's kind of leaning into being a buffoon. Yeah. This is interesting. It's a great performance. And then,

you know, come, come a few years later, he's in succession and you're like, oh my God, like, and he's playing an American and you're like, oh my God, he's incredible at this. Yeah. Uh, you're forgetting oh my god like and he's playing an american and you're like oh my god he's incredible at this yeah uh you're forgetting something very important david please he did

spend some time in the four realms he did go to the four realms right uh he he's the dad in that movie i guess so yeah like that's a perfect example to keep up this bit by knowing the plot there's there's four realms that's a lot to keep up with but like that's a lot I supposed to keep up this bit by knowing the plot? There's four realms. That's a lot to keep up with. But like that's the exact type of thing. It felt like his career was going to be relegated to. Right. Yeah.

You're an also ran in an also ran Disney movie. Yes. The thing about his performance in The Assistant, though, is like it's like the baseline evil of corporate whatever, which is also what he plays in Succession. And it's obviously two incredibly different takes on it. And in Succession, it's a comedy. And in this, the movie is sort of this low-key drama, but his scene plays like an absolute horror movie. It's five minutes of the most terrifying shit you've ever seen in an office and it's the she's made it out of the you know house in the

horror movie scene and a cop shows up and she's like oh thank god you know like it's like the moment where she's like i'm saved and then the the twist is like oh, no, no, you're not. You've walked into the fire. It's so good. And he does that solely through incredibly deft, subtle shifts in energy. You know? Yeah. I mean, it's a really, really skillful performance. Yeah.

It's great. I also, he once, many years ago, my mother, I really loved him in this thing, Perfect Strangers. And then I liked Spooks. So I was like really into him when I was like 14 years old. This is a little embarrassing. And my mother interviewed him for whatever, Spooks, you know, airing on like A&E in America or whatever. You know, like it was crossing over slightly. And he called my house and I picked up the phone. Oh, wow.

And he was like, hello, like is, you know, is Bob there? And I was like, oh, no, let me go get her wow he's like hello like is you know his father there and i was like oh no like uh let me go get her like he's like it's matthew uh you know like and i had like a two-minute conversation with him and he was so nice oh that's so wonderful 14 year old david i love that um anyway seems like a nice enough guy i'm so happy he's now just kicking ass on the number one show in America In the exact kind of part you would never think to cast him in Never, you would never be like, oh this guy can play a Midwestern, as you say, try hard bootlicker Yeah, he's so good, he's so funny

Realizing that I loved that show was very much realizing that i loved what he was doing with that performance because it takes you a second to just be like what are you going for here and like that it clicks and it's amazing weirdly he figured out the show before it feels like the show figured out itself i would agree with that right in those early episodes he's dialed a little higher and the show gets there quickly but not yeah right is he your winner griff um i kind of i i i i feel like he is let me look at this again yeah i kind of feel like i have to give it to mcfaden it's just it's just such a skill piece for me um joe who else did you have so i was gonna say i got i have kaluuya in supporting i know there's a lot of discussion about the actors in judas and the black messiah and whether they belong in lead or supporting i could see him in either way and he sort of fit

better on my supporting ballot he is absent for a good 30 minute stretch of the back half of that movie i don't care on that one thing and people are like what the movie has no lead character i'm like yeah maybe well stanfield to me seems egregious but like yeah i is very supportable i don't disagree in that i think stanfield is the lead of the movie that's what that that is the problem people have with that movie they're like why is that the lead character like not that everyone has that problem but like that is a criticism i've seen so but kaluuya's first build but that's because he's an oscar nominee like you know and he's a star who's been in big movies like he's playing the more famous he's playing right like a historical figure i don't know my yeah i yeah i don't know i mean he's fine in there like obviously

yeah he's gonna win an oscar he's a very talented actor he's fantastic paul racy i think is really fantastic and and and an actor i had never heard of before or seen in anything and is you know very much sort of the emotional center i think of movie, or at least like provides the emotional sort of like back and forth with Riz Ahmed in, in that film. Um, and then Rylance, I mean,

we said it right at the beginning, but just like best in show and trial of Chicago seven in a really strong cast Griffin. I know you and I have talked about our, uh, uh, differing opinions on who's good and who's bad in that movie. But,

um, he's so it's he's he's a really good fit for sorkin in a way that i don't know if i would have really expected uh exactly but i would now need to see him in other sorkin stuff because look uh i he's talked about i mean he he's like wanted to work with sorkin since sports night he like reached out to sorkin and was like i want to do something with you someday. Yeah. No, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm flipping this. I'm flipping this. What I'm about to say, because I was confusing my thought I'm about to share. My brain is soup. I came close to putting Keaton in my five.

Yes, because it's an unheralded performance. Right. Yeah. It is just so small. It just felt like a little bit tooalded performance. Right. Yeah. It is just so small. It just felt like a little bit too small to qualify for me. I don't really like that movie. I have watched his scenes probably eight times. His scenes are good.

They're also the great Sorkin stuff where he's like, That's the other thing. You didn't see, I'm hitting the button here. You know, you didn't see this coming. And it's a little mini play but it's also yeah he's doing the tossed off thing that works better for sorkin it's like i remember reading an interview with um jeff daniels where he said like you just need to know the fucking language backwards and forwards so thoroughly that then you can just kind of toss everything off dance on it, take whatever

it is but just like you know and I feel like Sacha Baron Conan is a perfect example of someone who is playing the Sorkin of it too hard. I think that is underlined a bad performance I am astonished that became such an Oscar run Well I think it's also just he was going to get

an acting nomination and they love to do that to give you the nomination for the serious movie over the better performance in the comic movie. Right. Which they should have done. But I think I think Rylance is great in that movie. I think Keaton's great in that movie. The other person I consider putting in, I by the sorkininess of that movie and his decisions or or you know his the the uh actuality of of how things played out yeah i just think that guy's a fucking star yeah he's great

david you had glenn turman in ma rainey he was one of my runners up i also had colman domingo and ma rainey as a runner also veryup both of them I thought were really really fantastic I think glenn glenn turman is my winner he's my easy runaway winner I think that's like a slept on performance in a way even though it was well reviewed um yeah I am a bit of an august wilson slut I don't know how to you know like we're like I really love I really love watching incredibly talented actors tackle his language. And that's why I really like the filmed versions of his movies, even when they are, you know, filmed versions of excellent plays. Like, I think Ma Rainey is a really good, well-directed movie.

Like, I think it's making a lot of interesting choices. What do you have to say? Sorry. Well, I was basically what you just said, which is that I'm surprised how much i liked george seawolf's direction of that i was expecting a lot more of just like i think he makes some really interesting camera choices in that and um i was impressed at the way that like he sort of built it out without being like now we can we have to set a scene outside because you wouldn't see that in a play you know what i mean like one of those kind of things um i really thought he did a good job um that i just think that performance is so sad and so tremendous and i love him as an actor he's my guy orion lee's the only other guy on my list i haven't talked about just a great performance great performance kelly reichardt was trying to tell me about him when i interviewed her

many many moons ago and she said like you know we're very different he likes shrek that's how she put it to me i've never let that go in terms of like did he mention shrek right how did this come up paul shrek in how he wanted to do something in a scene was he like like shrek like i just have always wanted this cow reminds me of shrek i think yeah when shrek came up in their conversations but he loves Shrek he's great in that movie I mean she gives him a direction and he's like oh like in Shrek and she's like yes exactly have I shared

the anecdote about my day on set with her on Night Moves I can't remember I mean we've talked about it personally but I'm not sure I'll just say this very quickly because it feels parallel to this and asking how is that the thing that lingered with her uh she's you know an intense uh a quiet very focused person right right uh and and you know she speaks in a way that is uh you know kind of uh economic and sparse much like you'd imagine from the person who makes

those movies she just knows exactly what she wants and she's pretty direct about it. There was some line in the script where it's clearly this character, this manager of a sporting goods store that I played is talking about Charlie Sheen. Like she just, you know, wrote like a placeholder line of like, oh, they're talking about like people magazine shit. Right. Yeah. And it's when Charlie Sheen was on his whole like winning thing and she was like we need more time

so can you just riff more on the charlie sheen thing and she called cut in the middle of a take because i talked about him blowing his syndication money and there was a level of disdain in her saying like why why would you even be talking there's no way your character would know about that but also that she resented that i as a person even had that in my mind to bring up yeah because i think she's you know she's this person who like moved to oregon and right like is kind of like i don't want to i don't want to think about all that crap right i want to make it clear a very sweet person i had a lovely time with her incredible director one of my favorite

living directors but it was just like the way she came up to me it was just like first of all no way this guy would know that second of all why are you even bringing that into the picture uh but yes a ryan lee lecture um here i uh joe who's your winner did you say your winner i'm sorry i didn't i think mine is kalia i also want to shout out my big runner-up was malachi kirby and mangrove who i don't know if i'm going to be able to talk about mangrove very much and the rest of this thing i just want to say he's really really good he is in that film he is really really good um that movie i i can't wait to watch all those again. I sort of watch them quickly.

Yeah. Or not all, I watched all the Lovers Rock long before, but then I watched the rest of them kind of quickly. Right.

But I just want to give you the blankies, 10 supporting performers. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Because I could not find this. I've been looking for it for the last 15 minutes.

No, I haven't. I haven't. They have, you know, just 10 lead, 10 supporting. So their 10 supporting performers are Looking for the last 15 minutes They have You know just 10 lead 10 supporting so their 10 Supporting performers are Paul Racine Sound of Metal Amanda Seyfried and

Mank Nertz Yunyu Jung and Minari Maria Bakalova and Borat 2 Chadwick Boseman and Defy Bloods Great performance in my opinion Ryan Lee and First Cow Pattinson and Tenet Tali Ryder and Never Rarely Sometimes Always Buckets Bergen And Let Them All Talk And J.K. Simmons and Palm Springs which is a and first cow pattinson and tenet tolly writer and never rarely sometimes always buckets bergen and let them all talk and jk simmons and palm springs which is a performance i liked but some

people are really passionate about that's an interesting choice i like that choice palm springs was the last movie i saw in a theater uh what a good movie i love that movie um the what should we move to? Should we do the screenplays sort of quickly? Do we want to knock those out? Let's knock those out Griff? Yeah, sure

Yeah Okay, okay Alright, I'm going to give you my original screenplays Alright? You're going to sit there and take it My original screenplay nominees are Sean Durkin for The Nest Andy Ciara for Palm Springs Kelly O'Sullivan for St. Francis Take it. My original screenplay nominees are Sean Durkin for The Nest.

Andy Ciara for Palm Springs. Kelly O'Sullivan for St. Francis. Lee Isaac Jung for Minari. And Cleber, Phil Ho, and Juliano Dornels. And I apologize. My Portuguese is probably way off for Baccarat. Those are my Baccarat. Good pick.

or out those are my back or out good pick well now that you've gone with the flex of naming all the writers like i should have when oh i'm sorry you don't have to you don't have to i just have no no no no this is good uh the only one i actually didn't know off the top of my head was andy ciara for palm springs he is one of my nominees though um. Also, Emerald Fennell. Fennell? Fennell, I think, right? Promising Young Woman. Oh, God. David Fincher's dad. What's his dad's name? Jack.

Jack. Jack Fincher for Mank. Lee Isaac Chung for Minari. And Kelly O'Sullivan for St. Francis. Best original screenplay. Let Them All Talk? Yep. Debra Eisenberg. Let Them All Talk? Yep. Debra Eisenberg.

Defy Bloods? Rachel Bilson's dad, Spike Lee and Kevin Wilma, and another guy, I forget his name now and I feel bad because I literally interviewed them, but the other guy is dead.

Anyway, yes, Paul DeMeo. You're on the hook for this, by the way. You've set the standard. The Assistant? The Assistant is Kitty Green, right? Correct. Yeah.

Palm Springs? Andy Ciara. Made all three. The Way Back. Oh, The Way Back. Who wrote The Way Back? The Way Back was written by Brad Inglesby, the writer of Out of the Furnace and Run All Night.

Two movies I think about constantly. All right, you're going straight to Adapted. Hit it, hit it, hit Adapted. We'll do it snake style, right? Then we'll go backwards from Adapted. Yeah, exactly. Adapted. First Cow.

Yeah, that's John Raymond and Kelly Reichardt. Yes. I'm thinking of ending things. Chris, Charlie Kaufman. Charlie Kaufman. The Invisible Man. I love this pick. Who wrote The Invisible Man?

Lee Whannell, baby. Just Lee Whannell all by himself. Good job. Nice. So low credit. I mean, this one this one you're gonna say who wrote it but i think we're gonna have to give this a little bit of a wink the old guard uh the old guard which is i believe is it solely credited to um yeah uh greg rucka it's solely credited to rucka but i read that comic and i saw that movie and i mean there was work

there was work done i well i think gina collaborated with him is the nice way to put it you know he was never excluded or whatever no no no no i'm just saying she doesn't get credit on that movie and everything i like about that movie is the stuff that she's clearly adding that is not there in the book that he wrote and my fifth adapted screenplay nomination the trip to greece ah that does that i'm gonna say it counts why not that's the oscars does it that way they run yeah based on characters yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly beforeset did that. Yes. Yeah. I had a good trip to Greece question on my last trivia night that I did that you guys would have gotten, I think. I have confidence

that you guys would have done well with it. I think that's a... I find it odd that that movie flew so under the radar, considering that for me, it's like, that's a perfect lockdown wash. it is that is surprising nobody really talked about it yeah no i think people got burned on spain i know a lot of

people were really turned off by spain where i feel like people didn't even try this one i mean once again the only thing is good though spain's good all four of them are good all four of them are good it's one of the most consistent film series ever. My only criticism of them is, I wish I was watching the TV series, because my problem with those movies are, I could watch them for eight hours, and I hate that in England they get to watch them for eight hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. I mean, you could always... Or four hours or whatever.

Six, whatever it is. Express VPN, whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. The Assistant is adapted? Wait, is that, or was that original? I'm losing my mind. I can't remember.

I put it in original. Am I wrong about that? It is original. No, it is original. I'm sorry. I couldn't remember where things ended up. Okay, Joe, give me your adapteds. My adapteds are First Cow, Jonathan Raymond and Kelly Reichert. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Ruben Santiago Hudson.

Nomadland, Chloe Zhao. One Night in Miami, Kemp Powers, and Unpregnant, which is credited to Jenny Hendricks, Ted Kaplan, Jennifer, Katen Robinson, Rachel Lee Goldenberg, and Bill Parker. A classic Joe pick. I really, really loved that movie, and I'm surprised more people didn't talk about it i haven't seen it i'm sure i would love that fucking thing i liked it on the level that i liked book smart and i thought i thought it should have gotten maybe a little bit of you know a fraction of the love that book smart got at least and it and nobody really talked about i mean it was hbo max HBO Max when HBO Max was launching and nobody had it on Roku. And I didn't watch it for several weeks because I didn't have HBO Max on my Roku. And I get it. But it's really charming. Hayley Richardson's wonderful.

The other, her counterpart, Barbie Ferreira, who it's the first thing that i've ever seen her in she's really good and funny in that and it's like you know it's a good like funny road trip comedy with these two you know really funny and engaging girls and i don't know i thought it was pretty well written i'm like queer positive in a way that i really liked and yeah can i throw out a hot take yep throw it maybe this was a weird year for movies you talking about why that movie fell under the radar is like oh right this is the year that film culture like sort of like ate itself and then turned into an out inside out creature where the veins are on the outside. Uh-huh.

We were subject to things like whether a platform had launched on Roku or not. Yeah. Right. Like a platform launching on the wrong day of the week. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah, it's totally true.

Here are my adapted nominees. We've got John Raymond and Kelly Breitkart for First Cow. We've got Charlie Kaufman for I'm Thinking of Anything. We have Christopher John Raymond and Kelly Reichardt for First Cow. We've got Charlie Kaufman from The Game of Anything. We have Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller for The Father. The Father. We have Simon Blackwell and Armando Iannucci for The Personal History of David

Copperfield. And we have David Pryor for The Empty Man. Which one was The Empty Man? The Empty Man is the empty man which one was the empty man the empty man is a horror film starring james badgedale that was filmed uh like in the fucking eisenhower administration and was done during the pandemic by disney it was a fox movie that was given the same treatment as the new mutants it's like two hours and 20 minutes long it is directed by

written and directed by a guy who did epk for many years including for david fincher and for other people uh it's based on a comic book but has nothing to do with it except it shares the title which the director thought was cool and it is absolutely incredible and i highly recommend it and i think it has a lot of brilliant ideas running through it in the screenplay, especially, especially, but it's also gorgeous.

Some people, some, some outlet just ran a story about the weird cult of the empty man. Yes. Dan Jackson was one of the first to jump on it. I'm sad that I'm on paternity leave. Cause I would try to be all over this fucking thing. This poster scaring the shit out of me as it is so like i already really want to see it it's scary

it's scary and it's not where it is it on a streaming platform or is it like vod you gotta buy it or rent it you gotta buy it i'll do it it was like it was like new mutants like the first movies pushed to the front line when theaters were reopening it was just like oh this thing must be garbage. Right. And then David, two months ago, was like, people are telling me the Empty Man is good. A couple of people started banging the drum. Adam Neiman, I think, you know, Sean Fantasy, a couple of, you know, I was like, oh, OK,

I guess I'll check it out. Checked it out. And I was like, well, this is straight up good. Oh, OK. And then I read one interview with the guy and I was like, oh, this guy put a lot of care into this movie. And Disney was like, I'm seeing we own something called the empty man i don't know what that is like why don't we put it in the empty theaters fuck off um david uh right before we started recording you said that you were like uh i haven't seen David Copperfield in like 15 months.

I put it in. I was between putting that in or putting in something really, really chaotic. No. Can you tell us what the chaotic pick would have been? The Empty Man was the chaotic pick. I decided to include David Copperfield as well and kick out Nomadland,

which I don't think the screenplay is the thing about it. I do think it's an interesting work of adaptation that she's taking a non-fiction work but like i don't like you know i was like it's okay chloe chloe jow is doing fine she doesn't need my screenplay nomination my winner is i'm thinking of ending things which is an adaptation of a book i did not like that i think did all kinds of incredible um work with its concept. I know not everyone agrees with that. That's obviously a very divisive movie.

Yeah. But obviously I love First Cow. I think that's beautifully written. And The Father, which is adapted from a play, is one of the greatest pieces of play-to-screen adaptation that I've seen in a long time. Oh, wow. That's high praise.

Yes. David, my winner is also, I'm thinking of ending things. I agree with everything you just said. I also feel like Charlie Kaufman is the only person who makes movies the way my dreams feel in a way that I find very cathartic to watch. I think people who are not riddled with panic stress nightmares all the time, perhaps find his films alienating. But I just am so on the wavelength of what that movie is doing with regards to logic. My original winner is The Nest.

Sean Durkin's The Nest, one of my favorite movies this year. That is an incredible piece of, I mean, I think it's a work of memoir. I think it's about his life but his childhood especially but like it is I think a wonderfully written movie but Palm Springs is kind of right behind there and then that's just like that's just kind of a slam dunk screenplay

like it's such a good idea not to do a time loop movie but to do a time loop movie as this metaphor for marriage for taking the plunge on a big relationship yeah and it just nails the metaphor so exactly and it's funny and it's and it's very funny cleverly constructed and you know good characters yeah yeah did you say you're adapted winter joe oh no but mine is first cow adapted was a lot thinner of a category for me than an original this year i think uh ditto um i think in any year where like no none of the big studio movies come out is always going to be

thinner and adapted because that's where you get most of your adapteds but um yeah it's just a really lovely story and i think it's uh told really well my original winner is probably minari david you you've you've already made me regretful that i didn't put the nest in my nominees because you're right the nest is uh really fantastic but like it's a strong set of nominees i probably could have named you know up to 10 but like palm springs as you said super funny i think saint francis is really uh well observed i think mank i like mank as much as I do because it's about so many more things that I thought it was going to be about. And I like the way it sort of meanders around

to those kinds of things, California politics and yada, yada, yada. And Promising Young Women, which I think is more of a directing triumph than a screenplay triumph, but I think the ideas it has going on to me are very intriguing, and I think it earns its spot on my list because of that. You said it's more of a directing triumph than a screenplay triumph for you yeah i think the i think what i love most about this movie and what sort of like took me a second to come around on is the audacity of it and sort of just like the the willingness to sort of go to the places that it goes especially by the end and sort of leave you on the note that it leaves you and yeah i think and just sort of the way that it, you know, styles its environment and sort of like lures you into certain things and the way that the pacing of like the Mulligan Bo Burnham relationship sort of rope adopts you in. And, yeah, I think it's a really well directed movie. See, I disqualified Promising Young Woman for my stupid reasons but i had the exact

opposite takeaway yeah i i like that movie uh it would have been in contention in a couple categories for me but i think it is far more successful as a screenplay than it is a piece of directing for me but potatoes potatoes yeah goodbye. Yeah. Goodbye, Finnell. I just wanted to say that. Sorry. I'm going to give you the blankie choices. In original screenplay, the blankies chose Palm Springs, Defy Bloods,

Minari, Never Rarely, Sometimes Always, and Promising Young Woman. And in Adapted, they chose First Cow, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, Nomadland, One Night in Miami, and Emma, which is a very nice screenplay, in my opinion. Very good piece of adaptation. I should say Defy Bloods is my winner for original screenplay. I think Spike Lee has now tapped into this really interesting thing of what if I take a script that's just sort of like on the shelf at a studio

and put my shit on top of it correct i like he's made two movies in a row that kind of have like more sort of like obvious studio genre uh uh origins yeah and has then been able to take this really kind of sturdy um kind of like uh a populist base and put all of his as a as a framework for all of his ideas and thoughts and formal expectation uh experimentations uh and i think that's an incredible script um i really do want to plug i rarely plug my writing but just check out my interview with yeah that's incredible interview kevin wilmot and danny bilson not because of what i did just because the three of them talking was just interesting that's what i was gonna say the process of that script coming into

the form we've seen is fascinating because this is the whole thing i just assumed it was what as you said that does it off this screenplay that was danny bilson and paul demay had written that oliver stone was going to direct and then just sort of languished. And so I figured that Bilson had nothing to do with the movie. And when Netflix was like, hey, do you want to talk to all of them at the same time? I was like, oh, they're into that. And then it was just this incredibly sweet, especially since one of the writers is dead, thing of Bilson being like, Spike, I had never, when you did this, I had never thought about like adding that element in and it was so cool that you had that idea and Spike Lee's like yeah but you had this in there you know like they

were all just being very nice to each other about yeah all of their contributions but it's the argument for like getting outside eyes and fresh eyes and stuff like it's like Spike never could have come up with I don't think he would have come up with that movie on his own whole car sure he adds to it they never would have gotten to themselves right exactly so it was just very interesting um that movie is that sort of the screen the thing about it is like i think the screenplay is kind of insane and a mess but in a good way. Yeah. I love that movie. That's what I love about it, baby. I want to move us on to lead acting. Which one do you want to do first? Let's

do actress first because we did supporting actress first. That's fine. I will give you my lead actors. So we've got here they are. Are you ready? Sydney Flanagan in Never Rarely. Sometimes Always. Julia Garner in the assistant han yeri in minnery carrie coon in dawnest sorry i can't resist doing that every time

and jesse buckley and i'm thinking of ending things thanks mine uh my fifth slot is still up in the air and we're just going to see where i get to when i uh get to my uh fifth name um but the first four are real griff style there yeah i'm flying without a flying without a net here carrie coon in the nest sorry david Sorry, David Dunnest. Dunnest. Julia Garner in The Assistant. Frances McDormand in Nomadland. Carrie Mulligan in Promising Young Woman. And I think I'm going to go with Hayley Bennett in Swallow. I keep trying to say Shallow. It's not Shallow.

It's Swallow. Good movie. Just edging out Elizabeth Moss in The Invisible the invisible man who i loved and i will also say my five starts with elizabeth moss the invisible man so good then i'm gonna go to the only performer shared by all three of us julia garner in the assistant very good uh jesseley, I'm thinking of ending things. Sydney Flanagan, never rarely, sometimes always. And Rachel McAdams, Eurovision, motherfuckers. Certainly in my top 10 for that category. Yeah, definitely.

Kristen Milioti, also close. Yes. Close, close as well. Yes. also close yes close close as well yes uh that's a look no one is more astonished to have liked uh eurovision that much but one of the many things that film does right is that it is her movie yeah it is so fundamentally her movie not only does she have more screen time but she is the one who is uh the propulsive force of the narrative and she is constantly underrated as a comedic actress uh largely because she is also able to bring depth while doing uh comedy i'll also just say this she is far more convincing

lip-syncing her songs in that movie than people who have won oscars for lip-syncing their songs who could you be referring to? How dare you? I can, I'm going to impanel a grand jury. Who knows? But like watching that movie and it's like Will Ferrell is doing his comedy singing for those songs and she is lip syncing some prerecorded track. I buy it in that movie.

Yeah. And that's half of the movie. It reminds me of how much I love, especially in the Marvel movies, maybe more so even than WandaVision, but the way that Elizabeth Moss does finger acting when she does magic shit. She's so good at the handshake. That's how I feel about Rachel McAdams doing lip syncing in HeroVision. It's just like, you wouldn't think that that would be such an important skill, but it really is. My winner is Carrie Coon in The Nest, one of my favorite movies of the year. winner is gary coon in the nest one of my favorite movies of the year and like again i'm looking at this it's like i saw all these movies in theaters except for i'm thinking of ending things which was

my most profound at home viewing experience of the year i watched the night before i got married oh wow because i was interviewing charlie kaufman like the day after i got married and i was like they gave me the screener that day and I was like well I gotta watch this I queue it up I'm like Jesus it's like two hours and 20 minutes long and then I'm like just sitting with it this is anyway it's two hours and 20 minutes long

and it's three scenes exactly and it's about like the mortal terror of being with someone or being alone. Right. Right. But,

but I, anyway, I do think there is, that's just one where I really know, but then the nest is it. Carrie Coon in the nest is kind of my performance of the year. Yeah. She's probably my number one too.

It's her. It's the carries for me jockeying for number one coon and mulligan but i think coon takes mine uh and i think my winner is going to be elizabeth moss and invisible man she rules in that she rules in that she rules in that it's kind of like it's it's a coin flip between her and Garner, I would say. Garner's incredible, obviously. Moss is just such a complicated performance with all of the weird technical aspects of that movie. And the whole thing really does hinge on her being the person you see everything through the field of optics yes the pioneer is that the phrase a pioneer in the field he's a pioneer in the field of optics yeah

i really like that movie when i saw it and i'd like to see it again that is a that is as i'm sure was it sure it was for you guys a one of my final pre-pandemic watches in a crowded theater. I saw it at home in pandemic, but it's the loudest I yelped at a movie during the pandemic was the scene in the restaurant that I don't want to give away in case anybody listening hasn't seen it.

Really, I screamed out loud in my room to nobody. It was amazing. I wish I'd seen that in theaters. I watched it very early in lockdown because it was one of the first things that then went to iTunes early. Yes. And when I made this decision that I was not gonna

fucking watch all the Oscar movies I hadn't seen, I gave that guy a rewatch and man, am I glad that I did. Because it certainly felt like I watched it 18 years ago and the refreshes really made me appreciate that movie more

the assistant is Garner just we all had her like that movie is on her obviously if there's a thermostat performance in there but like that movie is all in her face like you know there's so much that she has to carry every scene where nothing is happening in her face while she's like reading emails There's just so much that she has to carry every scene where nothing is happening.

In her face while she's like reading emails and, you know, like that kind of shit. Like to make that as compelling as it is. Right. That's the thing for me is I feel like the Invisible Man and assistant performances are very similar in that way. And I worry that I'm giving Moss the edge because she ultimately has to quote unquote do more right that it's the bigger performance which is not to say that what garner is doing is any less uh complicated and skillful and difficult but they're they're just really kind of neck and neck for me garner had it it until I rewatched invisible man last night. Um,

yeah, I feel like that's it. Right. Is there anyone else you want to talk about? I mean, this is a crowded category. I think McDormand is great in nomad land. I think Chris is great. I'm trying to think of some other big ones.

I'll talk about Haley Bennett for a second, just cause I think she's really, that's a movie i think i would like more people to see it took me a while to get to that one just because it was just like one of a billion movies that i felt like i heard one or two people talk about at one point but you get even past the point where you get of just like what the movie is about which is this like it's called swallow because she starts to swallow weird household objects that really that was another movie that made me like yelp out loud what the movie is about which is like it's called swallow because she starts to swallow weird household objects that really that was another movie that made me like yelp out loud at one point when uh she starts swallowing thumbtacks and shit but like it also becomes this really

kind of like involved in uh almost like macabre character study in terms of just like what she's going through and what you know her background is and she's an actress who i have loved since forever she was in that greg iraqi movie um kaboom yeah like a bajillion years ago and i'm like she's a fucking star and then almost right after that jennifer lawrence happened and everybody was just like well we can't have hayley bennett because like she looks like too much like Jennifer Lawrence. And it feels like the last few years she's started to sort of like build up more and more and more. And I'm happy about that.

Cause I think she's really, really talented. Yes. She is very talented. Swallow is crazy. Swallow is a, isn't it? Really great.

Dennis O'Hare performance at the end of that movie too. Um, all right, well, I'm, well I'm moving over to actor guys. Here are my actors. This is a stacked category where every single person is a potential winner for me. And this was the category I had the hardest time filling out. Probably because outside of the obvious picks, there are not many other people. I feel like even when I was looking at long list contenders,

it was like, oh, there were like eight obvious people jockeying for these slots. Yeah. And then very few other people outside of that who were even in the conversation anyway. My nominees are Delroy Lindo and Defy Bloods, Mads Mikkelsen in Another Round, Chadwick Boseman in Ma Rainey,

Anthony Hopkins in The Father, and Jude Law in The Nest. Those are my nominate picks. Great, great picks. Mine are Christopher Abbott in Possessor. Riz Ahmed in Sound of Metal. Delroy Lindo in Da 5 Bloods. Lakeith Stanfield in Judas and the Black Messiah. And Steven Yeun in Minari.

Ooh. My nominees are Delroy Lindo, Da 5 Bloods. John Magaro, First Cow. Cookie. Jesse Plemons, I'm Thinking of Ending Things. Ben Affleck the way back and Lucas Hedges let them all talk he is co

he drives the story yeah sure yeah I'll accept that I thought you were gonna fight me more on that I don't know I mean it's an ensemble yeah like so it's one of those sort of like are they all supporting you know yeah i could see him as a lead i should watch it again too he's in a lot of it you're kind of right movie yeah he's in a lot

and he is kind he's he's the plot driver yeah yeah and he's sort of the audience surrogate character and is is really the poV character as well for almost all of it. Yes, that is true. Very true. It's pretty much either him or Bergen. You're like always pretty much seeing the movie. It's about seeing Meryl through Bergen's

eyes or through Hedges eyes and then Hedges has all the Gemma Chan stuff as well. Yeah. He is so fucking good with her yeah um he is he's so good with her you guys had all of my runners up basically you guys i had mads and jude and chadwick and magaro uh those are my next four so yeah very much in agreement i had we had like no overlap and yet i feel like you probably don't disagree with any of my choices, Joe. Yeah, well, Lindo is on all three of ours, right?

That's the only one. Lindo is my winner. I just think it's sort of a Titanic performance. He's my winner as well. I feel like Titanic's the exact word I use when describing it. It's arguably as good as any acting anyone has ever done on camera. It's just astonishing shit. And he's been an actor who I've loved for so long.

And I'm sure it's the same for all of us. He's been such a great sort of small parts. And even when it's stuff like Crooklyn where he's been in the lead and whatnot. Just a fucking pro. Just an accumulation of goodwill and goodwill and goodwill. And this one felt so triumphant for me yeah and so much just like he's just like nailing it in you know finally getting this really great showcase and it really really like i don't want to talk about the oscars

too much just like why didn't this person get nominated but like it really bums me out that just award season did not happen for him the way i expected it to and it sucks no i i mean like there is as david said that very small group of movies where you got so engrossed by them watching them at home that it felt like as captivating as watching the thing in theaters and uh five bloods is top of that list for me and so much of that is I just feel like Lindo's performance is like, like it hits you on a molecular level. It is just so immediately grabbing from his first moment on screen. He's doing so many contradictory things at every moment without showing any of the work. It all feels so natural and lived in and it's like this

fucking like five course meal performance where he gets the big oscar monologue you know he has the tearful breakdowns he's this fucking like tsunami of charisma i just will never understand how that movie didn't linger with the oscars at large and even if that movie is just a little too weird for people and messy for people that it just it's one of the most bizarre snubs in a long time for me. Yeah, it just feels like that performance is undeniable. It's a crazy

snub and yet I will admit like this year's lead acting nominees are all very strong. They're all really good. It's not like it's a bad list at all they they've they've nominated five very good performances it's just tough that um linda and five performances especially like there's something oldman is the one you should kick out sure i actually like the performance but he's the one who should not be there right but like i'm so

so happy that like it was not a given even six months ago that like riz ahmed and steven young were going to be oscar nominees not and i'm so thrilled that they are that's a pretty quiet performance like absolutely i know he's having a moment as a person and as an actor and that's that's helping and the movie is cresting at the right time for the oscars or whatever but like that is not a movie you watch where you're like, well, that performance is in. I really didn't think it was going to happen until it happened. I was very much bracing myself for it to not happen. The other thing is,

I think we're complaining about Oldman, but Mank got in there because of all the dirt he's got on Hollywood. Well, well. He has too much. He knows he has too many phone numbers he can he's no has too many phone numbers. He can call. He has too many gossip columnists in his pocket.

Look, he was in the kitchen wearing his standard, incredibly normal apron. And then he slowly turned to the camera and he said, let me be Manc. Oh, yeah. There are no times in art I want to just say that I'm nodding I know that I'm not saying anything But I am nodding I appreciate it

You loved every minute of it I'm Mank Mank is good He's Mank What do you want from us? He's Mank I'm not saying i didn't like man uh but then this is the thing it's like hopkins for me and i said this

to griffin like i described the performance as the destruction of alderaan because griffin was saying i think correctly like are do people really want to watch that movie it's such a tough hang i mean do people really want to watch that movie? It's such a tough hang. I mean, A, do people really want to watch that movie? B, has anyone watched that movie? That's what I'm saying. I haven't seen it yet. I just felt like it literally wasn't getting out there. And it's one of those movies that when I saw it,

it premiered at Sundance last year. I was sitting down being like, oh, this sounds like a fucking drag. And then you watch it and you're like, oh, this is like one of the most exciting pieces of cinema like this is absolutely electrifying and he is so good and then he has a scene at the end that you're like forget it he's won it's over he has a scene at the end that you're like that i it is amazing to me that after that was filmed, he wasn't like, you have to burn that film because it's too fucking intense.

Yeah. Or that the camera didn't just explode. Like it's the most Oscar-y. It's a great piece of acting, but it's also their bread and butter. And he's not going to win because Bozeman is so extraordinary and Ma Rainey. And then,

and also the tragic narrative there. But I think also just because Bozeman is kind of incredible. Yeah. I think Bozeman might, but who knows, you know, but like, but he's also just because Boseman is kind of incredible. I think Boseman might, who knows? But like, but he's so good. David, I mean, old Oscar, Mr. Gold

himself. Old Oscar, and Mank knows it. People think about him being naked, right? Yeah, we can see it. It's right behind you. He's got no pants pockets. He's holding that sword in front of his genitals, right? Yeah. But he's holding something else this year it's crumpled up very small in the palm underneath the handle of the sword and you go what is this and you step up closer and you go oscar open your hand what do you got in there and you take it out and you unfold it and it says vante mac no matter

what yeah it does it doesn't matter what fucking hopkins did it's gonna be vante mac no matter what i couldn't predict i was like is this gonna be like a like a cuck joke like a jd amato style i was really ready for something i'm you really delivered. I'm very happy about that. Look, I haven't seen that movie yet either, but just by all accounts, it's just like, it's the same thing as fucking Joker, where it's just like,

oh, the guy maybe gave his best performance ever, and also he's a beloved person who was taken from us too soon. Impossible to beat, right? Yeah, impossible to beat. And yet, Hopkins, incredible. Lindo, as we all said, incredible. Mads Mikkelsenson another round is so

good and so mad like you know yeah it's like it's so full it's such a full spectrum performance of a guy that you often in a hollywood movie only get to see a sliver of and you know this is true in a lot of the danish movies he makes but it's still true and it's obviously so good that it did resonate with voters because it got that surprise directing nomination yeah my thing with the father the faja the father the father the father is the nest i i since last march i've been back in buffalo living with my parents it's going on 13 months now it's been a very obviously uh strange year um and then this year 2020 yeah yeah i'm just gonna advance that notion um normal year normal year but i keep getting confronted with these movies that are like what if your parents died

where it's just like and i watched dick johnson is dead and it's a very good movie and i'm just like it was a lot to get me to watch that movie because I'm just like I'm not in an emotional space right now to deal with what if your parents died and now with The Father I feel like I'm also being asked to be put in that space that is a classic example of a movie I just cannot imagine when I will feel ready to watch that

Dick Johnson or The Father? The Father I watched Dick Johnson which I love but is a tough movie. But I think playful enough in its ways that I could handle it. The thing about The Father

is it is kind of, it's cinematic in ways you just don't see coming. But you'll get around to it eventually. Guess what? I won't see them coming and I also won't see them,

period, because I never, I cannot foresee a time where I will be emotionally and psychologically. That's when you will know you've healed is when you can watch the father. Yeah. I look forward to watching it in 2037. I just want to shout out Christopher Abbott in possessor, which is a movie I saw very recently.

He's fantastic. He's having, that's a movie that like, I was sort of prepared for maybe to be like too gross for me and maybe it was going to be a little bit more than i could handle but i really uh loved it i think it's really uh you know brandon cronenberg he got it um and christopher abbott's an actor who i feel like every year is like showing me more and more and more and like he's so good in this he's the only thing I liked in that Sundance movie the

Suicide Pact Sundance movie whose title I am now struggling to think of with Gerard Carmichael Suicide Squad Suicide Squad he's great Gerard Carmichael's Suicide Squad I did not like that movie but I thought Chris Abbott was really really good and uh the the good part of it um but he's the possessor sort of asks him to

play you know both bewilderment and also like then the parts where he is sort of like being taken over by this you know other personality it's the classic sort of like actor's challenge that, you know, you sort of, but I think he plays it in really interesting ways. And I don't know, he's, and Rysborough is also great in that movie. She's one of my runners up for actress, but yeah. Look, I mean, I haven't seen Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, where him being in that role itself is a problem but outside of that he's always good always always exceptionally good yeah absolutely large role lead any type

of project he's he's he's quietly one of the best we got right that right now always exciting to see him in something yeah uh. Possessor rules. It is gross, but good. Super gross. To the point where sometimes I'm watching and I'm just like, did we really have to see that? But yeah. Ben told me he thought it was the funniest movie of the

year. A feel-good romp for the whole family. Oh, perfect. Okay, Griff. did you have any other actors you wanted to shout out get on your list no once again i mean look this this was the category i had to uh stretch the most oh but of the people i put on look i think i had five good nominees that's what i want to say despite all your caveats you have yeah a very robust yes like a great set of nominees this year like i guess look i mean my qualifications are that i just felt so aware of how incomplete because look the three

of us are lunatics who feel uh i get the whole shin a true compulsion to watch almost everything right and there are so many things i left off that i felt like i had to offer more qualifiers rather than being like i'm gonna put this person on the same list with this bizarre griff nomination but guess what it ends up sounding not that different than my usual fucking weird exactly it's a good group exactly exactly yeah um here's some go ahead yeah i mean like look know, Plemons is the least showy of the four. I'm thinking of ending things. He's good nominees, but he's solid as a rock. He gets a bump from also being really fucking good in Judas, which I like a lot, but did not include for these reasons.

And then once again, just one of those guys who's become one of the best. Um, and, and the, once again, just one of those guys who's become, uh, one of the best, uh, Magaro, super quiet, unshowy work. Probably if I had seen the four other devastating, uh, best actor front runners, he might have gotten bumped out. The four other devastating best actors. Sorry. But I do want to circle back to one Mr. Benjamin Affleck, where I feel like that movie was supposed to come out October 2019.

They bumped it to March. It played in theaters for 10 days before going to iTunes, essentially. Right. Yes. And it was so early front lines like it was like, oh, that's going out and Bloodshot is going out. Two of my favorite movies of the year. But I feel like the other things that got put on iTunes early were like Invisible Man, which had already had a decent box office run. Right.

Like even though it was cut short. And then you have the bigger things that make a bigger splash a couple months later. The thing was totally forgotten. I think if that movie had gone straight to HBO Max in October or November, he would have been a serious best actor contender even in a crowded year. I think if that movie had come out the previous year in October, he would have been a serious best actor contender, even in a crowded year. I think if that movie had come out the previous year in October, he would have been a serious best actor contender. I mean, it's hard to extricate it from

the narrative, but I re-watched it again last night. It was the other movie I re-watched to look at it, and that guy's just so fucking in the zone at every single moment of that movie. I know it's got juice from the blurring between everything we know about what this guy's been going through and the thing itself,

but he is so incredibly good, I realized watching it, because Affleck's got a lot of weaknesses, right? And a lot of times he overreaches, he takes a role that he should not take, and drowns in it, right? He is so good at bullshitting on screen and by which i mean he's so good at playing people who are bullshitting their way through life it's the thing that i feel like people have always struggled with with affleck is it feels like there's a certain insincerity to him at times you know that he's sort of like taking shortcuts and cashing out and whatever. And he it's it's such a devastating performance the way back. And you look at the combination of sadness there, the anger there, the quiet poignancy there. I feel like it is the most sort of natural lived in performance he has given for a guy who has, you know, a handful of performances I really love and a far greater number of performances that I think are near catastrophic.

But I will say this is a hella basic thought, but coming from someone who just watched The Way Back and also had to watch all the fucking Snyder movies last week in preparation for ZSJL, can you imagine if he fucking played Batman like that? It'd be better. It'd be better. It'd be better.

Like, I'm not saying play Batman as a lush, but also just like, if he was able to conjure the energy he has coaching. That's because that's what that movie wants. And I think he's fine in those movies. Snyder wants him to play like angry, grieving, broken Batman. Yeah. I think that Snyder, the problem with his performance in those movies i actually want him to play like angry grieving broken batman yeah i think that snyder the problem with the his performance in those movies is i think snyder actually does him dirty even though snyder obviously wants this out of him and has this whole conception

of that character he then hands him the character arcs of is mad at Superman and feels bad that he killed Superman over two movies and I'm like I need more than just this guy's pissed off about Superman like there's a Batman movie here that you didn't make anyway the Snyder cut obviously will dominate 2021's ballot that's that's

another story we're not even gonna have a blankies next year we're just gonna do two hours waxing rhapsodic about the night joe who's your winner delroy right all three of us yeah all right did we all pick delroy that's my question i think joe has frozen but he is frozen and a still image that looks like he is just deep in thought considering his options like his eyes are looking down like he's looking at his list and his lips are just lightly pursed it looks like he's he's ramping up to drop the hammer right he look he looks like um cheryl boone isaacs is about to look back up at the camera

and confidently say dick poop ben how you doing oh joe's gone uh he? Oh, Joe's gone. And Joe's gone. Ben, how you doing? Every year, Ben, I always feel so bad for you on this episode because you mostly, I know you have a heater coming. I know you've got something in the pocket, but you have to listen to us blather. went to a drive-in movie last weekend and ben was telling me how proud he was that this was the year he felt like he had seen the largest number of oscar films that this is the year where i did the least and ben did the most well and it just because i wanted to be informed i wanted to see him but yeah these episodes i always prepare myself and every year without fail it's like the three of you are speaking another language where I'm picking up little words here and there. That makes sense. But it's

like chained together. It just sounds like, yeah, it sounds a completely different language. Um, but I don't know. I, I enjoy, uh, hearing you guys, uh, wax poetic on these topics. Very charitable. Is Judas your number one? That's what you said the other night that you think it might be your favorite. Yeah, I think so. It really, like, I like a period piece, and

it was powerful, and everybody in it was so good. But he's unreal in that movie. He is. He's the star for me. Yeah. I loved Sound of Metal. Unsurprising. Yeah. I have not watched it yet.

Very Ben movie. Yeah. Very Ben movie. Yeah. Five Bloods I just watched last night. That blew me away. It was just like, that's a movie? What isn't in that movie?

It's just all of it. I mean, that's the thing. Yeah, yeah. I also just feel like that's the only movie I've watched at home, aside from the levitational thing that David's talked about, where, you know, whatever, you're just fully energized by it as if you were in a theater. I also think that's the only movie I've watched in the last year that genuinely feels epic to me. And it's not just the nature of the story and that it's sort of this throwback to those kinds of adventure movies,

Sierra Madre and whatever, but it's also that, like the ambition of what it wants us to consider. You know, there is such a depth of thought in that movie. And just the expansiveness of the characters and everything yeah like in and re-watching it there's going to be so much more context to catch because again there is just so much going on i could study that movie forever yeah i loved it uh what did i want to say that i thought? Oh, Minari. I mean, what an incredible movie that made me feel stuff.

Do you know? Do you know like feelings? I do know. And wait a second. You're overwhelmed? A24 just issued a new poster. They're no longer promoting their Oscar nominations. What an amazing movie that made me feel stuff you know ben hosley

our finest one critic i mean they got they finally got number one to weigh in i mean yeah they they kicked justin chang off the poster yeah uh joe has returned i have returned okay uh hi joe i do i'll say the blankie nominees now uh for the lead performances which are delroy lindo Lindo in Defy Bloods, Riz Ahmed in Sound of Metal, Sidney Flanagan in Never Rarely, Sometimes, Always, a wonderful performance. Chadwick Boseman in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom Mads Mickelson in Another Round Steven Yonemunari and another one that would in a normal year be a possible winner for me Hugh Jackman in Bad Education like one of the best

performances that actor has ever given and he has a strong body of work like a movie again that I saw 18 months ago now and I would like to see it again but it's a wonderful movie uh let's also say uh much respect to that movie uh shout out to mike mckowski screenwriter of the film a friend of the pot um that is a movie where i feel that is that is the

movie that i feel the worst for in award season, just because it falls through so many cracks. Yes. It got totally fucked by the fact that it going straight to HBO would not have been disqualifying. If that deal had been made months later, just a couple months, but it won Emmys. Obviously it did fine for itself,

but yes, I totally agree with you. It got stuck in a 20-year zone, but that's, yes, a very strong film with very strong performances and a lovely screenplay. Yeah. So before we get to director picture, are there some specialty things we want to do?

Griffin, is there anything you had in particular queued up? Score, you know, animated film, these sorts of things uh i mean i i i could think of some specific things i mean look it's like uh i'm incomplete in all these categories i know i know right i might think of some some quick things to jump out i do want to say uh you know it always feels like a little bit of a cheat when i uh double dip in this category but i i do i think thulis kind of has to be the putters and murmurs winner for the range of different putters and murmurs he gets we didn't even talk about putters and murmurs yes i've got some i've got some options i've got no of course of course okay of course i love through lists through this is a fantastic one i didn't have them on my list but i should

have and let's say also an actor kind of a a hall of fame putters and murmurs actor right he's done it he's done it he's done the work we know he's naked is like puttering and murmuring on amphetamines you know and then like this it's like that's already his love language is puttering and murmuring and with this he gets to like hold on to that not that dial and go like okay now i'm at a one now i'm at 11 i'm back to five yeah like he's running the gamut uh who else did you have joe so i have uh caitlin cheal from she dies tomorrow who is a very sort of unconventional putters and murmurs. But there is there's just the the murmuring in that movie as especially in the early going when you don't know what's going on. Great actor.

I look forward to seeing that movie in 2037. Dick Johnson in Dick Johnson is dead. Sure. You have to shout out her and murmur. Oh, fuck. That's good. Yeah. you have to shout out and murmur oh fuck that's good yeah um yeah i would i would shout out elizabeth moss in shirley which is oh yes putters and murmurs energy movie in general one of those

movies where you're like is this house one room wide or 50 you know million miles wide you know like right like just moving through messy room after room wrapped in a sheet being weird. Yeah. What are some other good ones? I've got for mumbles and muffles. I got John David Washington and Tenet. Oh, there's a lot, a lot of muffled dialogue in that film. I ordered this hot sauce an hour ago.

Was there a trial of Chicago 7 murmur? I guess it's Rylance. It's sort of Rylance. He's not really. I mean, he's he's puttering a murmur less than he usually does. He's a little more crisp in that movie. Peter Capaldi and in David Copperfield. I might I might give a little.

Yeah. To. I have Lucas Hedges and let them all talk for stutters and stammers. Oh, yeah. I mean, I know, but we also have to include Adam Sandler and Hubie Halloween. Lucas Hedges and let them all talk for stutters and stammers. Oh, yeah. I mean, but we also have to include Adam Sandler and Hubie Halloween if we're going to do that. Sure. Excuse me.

The king. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm just seeing one thing here. Best supporting thermos in a landslide also goes to Hubie Halloween. Good job, Hubie Halloween. Brian Dennehy in a very nice performance. One of his last performances, Driveways.

You need to watch that movie. Good movie. I have Sonia Braga in Baccarat for Glowers and Frowners this year. Joe, I love the work you've done this year. A city on the face stuff she does in that movie. Yeah, her face is incredible in that film. If you could harness grumpiness. But my, I have an ensemble, my ultimate Putters and Murmurs is an ensemble

choice, which is the entire cast of Bloody Nose Empty Pockets, which is just a lot of Putters and Murmurs. Might as well be called Putters, you know, Putters, Nose Right as well be called a putter you know putters yeah nose right right bloody putters empty murmurs yeah yeah i feel like for a majority this year i've had my outstanding list of things to watch and a lot of them i'm like i should watch that

i need to watch that right and uh bloody nose empty pockets is one of the movies where i'm like i want to watch that and i haven't gotten around to it. I actually love that thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of good a lot of good choices here. A lot of good choices here. I'm going to give out another special citation.

Yeah, please. My award. It's actually it's it's kind of a condemnation. it's kind of a condemnation, um, uh, movie that is most offensive, violently offensive, uh,

to, uh, uh, chronically late people. I'm giving this, uh, non award to Martin Scorsese's the Irishman. Uh,

okay. So you're saying one year after it's eligibility, you're mad about how rude that movie is about Stephen Graham's lateness? Oh, so now you're getting on my fucking face about the fact that I didn't put it in last year? What does it matter? Wow. What's the fucking big deal? There was traffic.

Very good. Very good. Thank you. I've been holding on to that for a year. You had some spit on the ball, and I loved it. Very good. Thank you. I've been holding on to that for a year. You had some spit on the ball and I loved it. I did. And my animated film this year is Wolfwalkers. Probably sort of become just the du jour choice, but that movie is pretty wonderful.

Have you seen it yet, Griffin? I have not yet. That's also in that top five of movies I just genuinely want to watch. Yeah, you'll just like that. It'll be a fucking warm back. I mean, my answer is soul movie that I think is deeply flawed, but I also love. Yes, I have so many problems with it. And I also kind of just love it on balance.

It works for me, even though a lot of it sticks in my craw. even though a lot of it sticks in my craw. But it's also just, it's like, that and The Old Guard are the two movies that I felt like kind of grabbed me and were making the arguments I needed to hear for the value of life in a year where it feels like life has kind of been taken from us. Soul also has my favorite voice performance of the year,

which is Rachel House in Soul. Ooh! I love all the Jerrys. you know. So also has my favorite voice performance of the year. Yeah. Which is a Rachel house, uh, and soul. Ooh, I love all the Jerry's all the, I mean, we were, we were just talking up Rachel house in our Moana episode,

which is an incredible vocal performance. And also, uh, uh, I'm very aware now that, uh, Jermaine Clement is a half Maori. Thank you everyone for correcting,

but, uh, uh, egg on my face, my face but uh i just want everyone to know i have been corrected um uh but i was gonna say i i think fox is actually kind of underrated in that he's awesome because he is often underrated and i think when a movie star that big plays the lead character in an animated film, it does not affect a real voice. People go like, oh, well, you're just like cashing in on the movie star energy. But he is a deceptively skillful voiceover actor. And most of that movie's issues come from the handling of that character within what should be his own story. But he's really, really working overtime to sell that shit. Can I say what my favorite vocal performance is of the year?

My very uncool choice? Chris Pratt in Onward? Chris Pratt in Onward. Wow. Wonderful performance. I was about to shout out next. I agree with Pratt and Onward wonderful performance I was about to shout out next I agree with you it's a wonderful performance and I think Onward's issue is

kind of Holland I agree Onward is a movie I really like more than I think that as I think I might have mentioned on an episode I can't remember but but yeah I think Holland is kind of just flat in it he's you know fine I guess but I kind of just flat in it. He's, you know, fine, I guess. But I kind of have a problem with this before,

but I think Pratt is like really good in a role that was written clearly for Jack Black or something like that, right? You know, like he had more and he kind of just puts his own thing on it. He's doing his thing, like his parks and rec kind of thing. But he's, I think, I don't know know i just think it's it's really really sweet and like human it's not

i agree and funny doing a week of work funny yeah no it's also just like prat had his like big couple years and it feels like he sort of like lost the plot a little bit and weirdly watching that movie you're like right that's why everyone got so into the idea of being a movie star he's also so funny in the lego movies i mean we should you know he's he's good at that yeah he's really good at that like lego movie guardian same year kind of thing and the thing that onward gets right that those two movies got right and a lot of the other performances in between have gotten wrong is he is best playing a little boy in a large adult's body right yes that is and you can put it in different genres and modify it in different ways

but the more straight-faced you make pratt as a conventional leading man the less interesting he becomes rather than as a sort of odd abstraction of a leading man where it's like this is a little boy pretending to be a movie star in his backyard. Right. And that's what his performance in Auburn is. And he's great in it. I want to say that. The blanky choices for a few categories.

Smaller categories. I'm just going to shout them out now. For cinematography. They had Nomadland. Tenet. First Cow. Mank. And Lover's Rock.

Five great choices. For music. They had Soul. Tenet. First Cow, Manc, and Lover's Rock. Five great choices. For music, they had Soul, Tenet, Manc, Minary, and Eurovision Song Contest. Okay. And for ensemble, which do we usually do? Maybe we have.

I can't remember. They have Defy Bloods, Minary, Mangrove, One Night in Miami, and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. All good choices. Yeah. Yeah, I just want to call out the Five Bloods thing, too, which is like Five Bloods is a movie that could have had like, you know, multiple best actor supporting actor contenders, you know, like everyone's good.

Clark Peters and Jonathan Majors and Chadwick Boseman are all like really top tier. And then you have so many other good performances in the movie. But, um, you know, Spike Lee's intention for that movie was to sort of like bring his all stars in and do it with Denzel and in the Delroy Lindo part, John David Washington's,

the son, Samuel Jackson, Giancarlo Esposito. And it was like, Netflix wanted it soon. He couldn't wait for all those schedules lined up. He ended up just casting like, you know, great fucking actors. Right, right.

But a little more in the character actor zone than the big star zone. But to that movie's credit as an ensemble, I really think it's one of the secrets to why that movie works so well is that you genuinely don't feel like as as titanic as delroy lindo's performance is like any star is too big in terms of what they're bringing past baggage to overpower the movie or make you feel like the the hand is tipped too much as to who's going to survive and in what form. And I just think, yeah, that movie ended up being cast absolutely perfectly. Yeah.

It's also nice that like Bozeman's the biggest star in it, you know, and that he has. That's the other thing he's talked about. He would have done like Irishman de-aging if they'd given him the budget to do it. But it ends up being so much more poignant. I like it better the way they do it. The way they do it's so good. And it now is only imbued with more power that Boseman has passed. Let's do our best

directors and picture. Let's do it. Speaking of Spike Lee, The Five Bloods, Kitty Green, The Assistant, Lee Wannell, Invisible Man, Kelly Reich Bloods. Oh, here we go. Kitty Green, The Assistant. Mm-hmm. Lee Wannell, Invisible Man. Kelly Reichert, First Cow.

Charlie Kaufman, I'm Thinking of Ending Things. Right. Mine are Kelly Reichert, First Cow. Sean Durkin for The Nest. Christopher Nolan for Tenet. Charlie Kaufman for I'm Thinking of Ending Things. And Steve McQueen for Lovers Rock. Very good.

All right. Mine are Lee Isaac Chung from Minari, Sean Durkin for The Nest, Steve McQueen for Lovers Rock, Kelly Reichert for First Cow, and Chloe Zhao for Nomadland. Now I do wish I had put Christopher Nolan in there, I wish I had the guts I wish I had the guts love it number six for me um Mank let me be Mank

uh I think people know where this is going my winner is Spike Lee yeah right my winner is Kelly Lee. Yeah. Right. My winner is Kelly Reichardt. I usually pick my favorite. Mine is also Kelly Reichardt. Yep.

Kelly Reichardt. The boss. The blankies picked Kelly Reichardt, Chloe Zhao, Spike Lee, Steve McQueen, and Lee Isaac Chung. With Chris Nolan is the sixth there too And Oops, I closed that by mistake

Alright, so best picture Should we each just do our top tens Yeah That first year we did the We talk about it all the time Chaos pick We were learning, we were still figuring it out We were so young let me

give you I'll give you the blankies first so here was their top 10 number one first cow number two palm springs wow number three nomad land number four to five bloods number five I'm thinking of anything six minari seven sound of metal eight lovers rock nine never rarely sometimes

always ten ten at ten at ten at 8 lovers rock 9 never rarely sometimes always 10 10 et 10 et 10 et okay uh david would you like to list your top 10 of the year my 10 uh at this point it's always changing but my 10 right now is first

cow number one lovers rock number two those who have been pretty locked the whole time. I'm Thinking of Ending Things, number three. The Unasked, number four. Tenet, number five. Back Around, number six. Minari, number seven.

Never Rarely, Sometimes Always, number eight. Duff Eye Bloods, number nine. And Bank, number ten. Bank. Bank. Bank. I was going to leave him out, and then he, you know he took me into his walk-in humidor he had the goods on you too

is that what you're saying he's got the goods mine are gonna go from 10 to 1 if you'll permit my number 10 is Possessor my number 9 is Manc 8 Bloody Nose Empty Pockets 7 Nomadland is Possessor. My number nine is Manc.

Eight, Bloody Nose Empty Pockets. Seven, Nomadland. Six, Promising Young Woman. That's six. Five is Baccarau. Four is Soul. Three is The Nest. Two, Minari. And my number

one movie of the year is First Cow. Love that cow. Yes. Cow Army Rizal. Love Them Donuts. Yeah. I left Soul off my list through my own weird disqualifications, even though it wasn't a best picture contender. But that would have ranked five or six for me.

But here is my ten. The Old Guard. Number ten. Yeah. That movie really fucking hits for me. Number nine, Let Them All Talk. Number eight, The Way Back.

I always forget how much I like a Gavin O'Connor movie until I'm watching a Gavin O'Connor movie. And sometimes when I'm not presently watching it, I then immediately start underrating him once again. He knows what he's doing. He knows what to do. What he's doing. And I think he is one of the best chroniclers of masculinity, at least in American cinema, especially on the studio level. especially on the studio level.

Number seven, Tenet. Number six, The Invisible Man. Number five, Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always. Number four, The Assistant. Number three, First Cow. Number two, I'm Thinking of Ending Things. And number one, Defy Bloods. That's a good ten.

It's a good ten, Griffin. I'm proud of my ten. All these fucking disclaimers at the beginning is i just didn't want people yelling at me being like but what about minari but what about this what about that and the answer is with all these movies either i didn't fucking watch them or i watched them and i felt like i didn't really connect to them and i don't feel like i can actually hold that against the movie just admit you're making that up because no one's ever yelled at anyone on the internet and you're just afraid of Mank and you're just trying

to get around Mank, but he's got people everywhere and he knows everybody. I was too afraid to be Mank. I was too afraid to be Mank. I couldn't. I will say, because we've talked about

most of these movies, but I will say that Lovers Rock, which obviously doesn't sort of figure into acting and screenplay nominations as much not that the acting and screenplay is bad but it's all sort of part of this beautiful tapestry that movie is just

magnificent it's like it was like the biggest surprise of the year I had no idea what to expect going in it's the one that I am the most since I've seen tenant in a theater it's the one that I am the most, since I've seen Tenet in a theater, it's the one that I am the most like, I gotta see that shit with people someday. Hopefully they can figure that out.

The regret I have for not being able to see that movie with people, I mean. The regret I have for not being able to see any movies with people. I mean, I did, it's funny, like I was looking at my list and the amount of shit that I watched this year that didn't even come within a mile of

making any of these categories but that i watched like the day it went up and i was just like oh i definitely prioritized any movie that i would have watched on an airplane right you know right that makes sense where i just like i will feel zero depression about the fact that this is how i'm watching this film yeah and even just like there was the fucking week recently where like coming to America, SpongeBob three, Tom and Jerry. And there was one other one all came out the same day. And I was just like, oh, this is my biggest movie going weekend since the pandemic started for movies. I will feel no guilt about watching at home. Yeah.

Yeah. That's true. Here's the thing about Lover's Rock, and I'm ready to get into it, is what about this thing about whether it's television or movies? You guys, we got to get into it. We got to talk about it. Oh, I should make it clear. I'm sorry. I'm going to change my list. My number one film of 2020 was season four of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. That is definitely my favorite thing I watched last year. It made the list. Wow. I think of that as 26 individual movies.

So yeah, my number 11 is the real world New Orleans, which is all on YouTube, by the way, that I watched very early on in quarantine. So yeah, my yes. Also, I'm going to change my list again. My number one is clips of magicians I Watch on YouTube When I Can't Sleep. That was my favorite movie of 2020. I got into the weirdest shit on YouTube, not to derail the conversation, but the weird three-week runs where I watched professional darts videos on YouTube,

which is more of a weird subculture than even you'd think of. It's just like there's so many, so many odd little diversions. Look, I mean, I spent so much time on YouTube this which is like a weird, like more of a weird subculture than even you'd think of. It's just like, there's so many, so many. I mean, I spent so much time on YouTube this last year, pointedly not engaging with YouTube culture, quote unquote, using YouTube as my personal Paley center. But I asked this for both of you guys. David, I know in particular,'re addicted to uh signing up for streaming services you've been talking about how you just love signing up for every oh my god paramount

i got so mad that i couldn't sign up for paramount plus because i was already a c i was already signed up for cbsl access same same just convert damn it i know i know i can't browse their poorly transferred library and shitty films. You know what bums me out? I signed up for some fucking six month run of CBS All Access as a channel on Apple TV. So I gotta wait for that to die out before I can even dive into their shitty user interface. So bad. It's really bad.

Have either of you pulled the trigger on YouTube premium? Because that just feels like, on one hand, a bridge too far for me. And on the other hand, I am so goddamn tired of watching that fucking medication commercial with Martin Sheen and Charlie Sheen. I think your mental health would be best improved by a vaccine, which you will get soon. That's the number one thing I need right now. best improved by a vaccine, which you will get soon, which is exciting. That's the number one thing

I need right now. The thing with YouTube Premium to not get ads on YouTube is like, I've already done this with Hulu and I can't go back. The thing where like they said, oh, you can bundle Hulu now

with Disney Plus and it's a lot cheaper and whatever, but it's Hulu with ads. Joe. Can't do it. I can't go back. Joe. I can't go back now.

Joe, dig into account settings and you will find that they now give you the option because that's what I do. Here's, but I just want to, Griffin, you have to pay for YouTube premium. It is a must. It is one of the things that is absolutely breaking my brain the most. It is, I would say, a more essential streaming service than almost anything. I don't think I watch nearly as much YouTube as you do. The second I made the switch, I was like, never, ever looking back.

I would pay more. If they emailed me tomorrow and they're like, it's 40 bucks a month now, I'd be like. Oh, my God. You got me. Look, I obviously also avoided a lot of the atomic bombs of cinema this last year. But no question, my least favorite movie of 2020 is that fucking Sheen and Sheen medical. I cannot. I don't know what you're talking about.

Oh, you're so lucky. You're so lucky. There are things I know now that I could never know. Oh, no. I do love YouTube premium. I would say the most obscure service that I pay for is AMC Plus, which is a bundle of AMC, IFC,

Shudder, and Sundance Now. It is weird how often something I want to watch is in that little catch-all. And I've quite enjoyed it. I'm going to sign up for this fucking shit right now. So we're done. I would say.

We did another year. I do think next year will be better, Griffin. I hope you agree with me. It will. It will. And it is crazy. It's been the weirdest year year ever i wonder if i will be in a strange situation next year since i have a baby like god knows am i gonna am i gonna watch fucking you know

my usual 150 movies like i don't know i don't know like you've been you've been telling uh we're talking about it off mic somewhere else but that like uh you've been watching more stuff now with the baby because you're so much on the couch holding her yes but i'm not watching a lot of new stuff i'm mostly watching my gentle film festival which is great your letterboxd list of gentle films made me so happy when i found it yesterday i uh um but but also like uh yeah a year from now she's gonna be more actively a handful it will change things she she's right now she's pretty immobile uh so she really just has to do what i say but uh yeah eventually she's gonna need more entertaining and i don't know if my gentle movies list is gonna do it for her only because you

brought it up i feel the need to mention look i i certainly understand a certain power in the absence of words but i really feel like she contributed nothing to this episode and for how adamant you were about adding an additional mic setup giving her her own zoom account keeping her here for the entire recording she has not contributed a single goddamn thought you joke and uh and it's a funny joke but i do this is my first recording this is my first blank recording apart from some march madness you know bits uh with a baby and uh we're gonna we're about to release like probably what two months worth of episodes griffin where i am sort of alluding to the fact that something big is brewing in my life without saying anything i have an amazing little play on words that you do you got a good listeners might be able to hear uh pick up on at some point

um but i am genuinely wondering what i am going to come out to when i walk out of this room and it is the first time i'm having that experience well i'll come out and well i'll be like well so what's up and you know forky might be like oh yeah she slept for like the whole time and i'll be like oh okay or i might or she might be like baby and having like right take her take her right right uh who knows who knows yeah she might she might be the the poster for i don't know how she does it yeah right but i do want to apologize for her lack of contribution to this episode but maybe one day she'll weigh in more next year she'll have her own list

she is the newest member of the Blankey family and she's happy to be here I just David I hope you don't take this personally but I just as it currently stands I don't think she has incredibly good taste in films I will say the movie she has paid most attention to so far was serendipity

on hbo max and i think it's a good start you also said she she hiccuped throughout the snyder cut which is a certain type of attention maybe negative she had a reaction yeah yeah it's it's yeah it's a reaction ultimately isn't that all zach is trying to do he's provoking he's trying to provoke and she hiccuped at how uncompromising everything was yes yeah uh you you joke about that david but it is like uh the number one reason i i look forward to getting the vaccine uh imminently is just the ability to fucking go to the theaters again like i do think it will take a very long time before i can rebound in other aspects of my life and i imagine i'm going to be someone who continues to go to theaters at off hours and perhaps also buys multiple seats to even insulate myself greater from other people than the little distancing that they put in. But the idea of being vaccinated and being able to like wear a mask, sit far away from everyone else, not be terrified for my mortal life, and go see fucking Raya and the Last Dragon at 11 a.m.

It's not like I didn't know this, but it truly, this year, has erased all doubt of how much my sanity is really kept in check by Dammuvish. Griffin, when I'm back in the city, we'll both buy up a whole row of seats, we'll sit at opposite ends, we'll see a movie, it'll be fun. Like, this is another thing I

did. I realized, I'm gonna throw this out as a gift to Blank Check listeners. They have these rules at the chains where it's like they can only sell to a certain capacity, right? Yeah. So if you buy one seat, then suddenly the four seats directly around that seat are all unavailable. Right.

There's whatever advertised amount that it costs to rent out a screen to yourself, right? Where the risk inherent is always like, well, some guy can sneak into your theater or whatever, right? Sure. Which is a reason I have not done it more often. your theater or whatever, right? Sure. Which is a reason I have not done it more often. But there is mathematically, if the screen the film is playing on is small enough, an

amount you can spend to buy like eight tickets. Right. If you triangulate your placement and whatnot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's going to be my move once I get back, Sam. We could Ocean's Eleven this whole thing.

Yeah, we could form a plan. It ends up being much cheaper. Yeah, sure. Especially if I feel like a lot of these theaters are doing half off matinee for most of the day into the early evening for most of these movies because they so desperately just want people back. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway.

To movies. To movies. So we're done. Ben, anything you wanted to add yeah i mean i don't know why you'd uh throw to him like that he rarely has something chaotic to add at the end of these episodes i just yeah i have some you know like original categories i'd like to revisit oh okay cool sure that's okay yeah they'll be uh be normal. Normal, yeah. So just, you know, there's the lead category here. Films that should be remade with babies, animals, puppets, also fruit,

and now clowns too, maybe a robot or two could be cool. Now it's changed. That's a new thing. But actually, how about we add monster hunters? Monster hunters! For babies, Nomadland. How about Nomad Babies that's cute yep

they ride around in little campers little power wheels yeah that'd be adorable I do want to say just because you've reminded me now Ben I apologize for failing you as a friend the

frequency with which Ben texted me that we should rent out that theater in New Jersey again to go see Monster Hunter. I really, I feel bad that I didn't have the courage to do that. That's okay. That's all right. We'll, I don't know. We'll have them run it again.

We'll demand that they program it for a six-month run at the Metrograph. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Animals, I care a lot, would be a lot better because it's a depressing, despicable movie. And then if it was animals, it would be, I don't know, a little bit more digestible. I bear a lot. I bear a lot. lot well said well said very good like that uh puppets i think the trial of chicago seven wouldn't change really at all

if it was just performed by puppeteers to be completely honest yeah yeah um i'm gonna skip Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to skip robot because I couldn't really find anything that's good. Chains also kind of doesn't really work because it's an insane idea, but I'll just say this. Oh, that's the problem? Yeah. Tenet. All right. What if the chains were off the chain?

Do you know what I mean? They were unlinked. You saw it in real time. Oh, okay. Oh, wow. All right. Trains kind of run backwards and forwards too, Do you know what I mean? They were unlinked You saw it in real time Oh wow Trains kind of run backwards and forwards too So you got something there There's that And then monster hunters

Hillbilly LG Have the hunters Kill those dang monsters That you're seeing on screen With this terrible makeup Mila Jovovich just like bursts in Hunters killed those dang monsters that you're seeing on screen. Terrible makeup. Mila Jovovich just bursts in and starts wailing on Glenn Close. Yeah, exactly.

I do kind of want to see Paul W.S. Anderson's Hillbilly Alley. Yeah. Hillbilly Hunters. Yeah. They're good monsters, bad monsters,

and neutral monsters. that's great uh the wetties right another category of mine now this year or the golden mops of course um manc because the that boy is soaking right he is he's young promising he's pickled oh yeah a hundred percent yeah um promising young woman there's all the lake stuff right so that that's serious like there's some dampness going on another round it's mad drenched folks i mean come on to five bloods because it's very sweaty like very sweaty movie yeah oh yeah i mean the sweatiest of the year i'd say have you seen let them all talk no sit on a boat big ass boat it's not a boat whole movie's on water there's just ocean as far as the eye can see oh wow all right well my last one was palm springs because

again everyone's drunk that was like kind of the through line for this year i also ben you you got to check out weathering with you the japanese oh yeah you do makoto shinkai where a girl turns into a cloud it's yeah oh. Oh, shit. That sounds cool. Ben, it is a movie about what if precipitation. the weather was a girl. Your girlfriend.

Yes. Oh, my God. Wait, what if you were dating precipitation? It's really. Right, but only the wet weather. Right.

That's amazing. But it's like one of those things where like, she's perfect. She's so cool. You get along great. One problem, she's along great. One problem.

She's a cloud. One problem. Record scratch. She's made to rain. I feel like that's also in that batch of like the last movies I saw in theaters for the year. And I was so kind of confounded by it. I like it. But that movie is so perplexing in its ultimate message, which seems to be.

I don't know if global warming is going to happen we should probably just let it happen that's what i love about that movie the teens shall inherit the earth you're all going to drown bitch i want to date my girlfriend but a spoiler alert who are we to try to prevent ourselves from dying it's sort of the message of the movie ben another wet movie you should check out that I think you'd really dig is Underwater which is a film that is set wait for it under the water

and has great setting and has monsters yes they're not really being hunted but they're definitely being dealt with yeah and one of them's above the title that's right folks thank you all for listening oh sure ben did you have anything else really quickly yeah i know i know i need to

let joe go all right um no thank yous this year's the father a movie that asked what if there's a dad it's like no thank you the snyder cut cut it all out i'm not interested i know it doesn't even qualify for this year but i'm not watching four more hours of fucking superhero movies you're officially giving the snyder cut the uncle joey award cut it out a hundred percent yeah rather watch the puppet that he performs with on that show than watch that thing i'm thinking of ending me this movie is boggers what the hell is this hillbilly elegy seems bad didn't see it don't need to see it not good the personal history of david copperfield really a letdown thought i was

gonna learn about the magician totally different movie I tell you I didn't see that coming and I feel bad that I didn't see it coming it was right there yeah exactly the secret is sometimes he's so left brained that the most surprising thing he can do is go for the easy joke

anything else Ben? was that it? quickly honorable mentions I always like to shout out some scumbomery. This year in particular, Damien Young, who rules, really stuck out in trial of the Chicago 7, and I care a lot. I think he's just like a really

cool character actor who I feel like pops up every once in a while. He's notable for being the bus driver on P and P. Yes. Oh yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Stu. Best vomit. Mank, of course, hands down. Great vomit. So good. So good.

Third act vomit. Cinematic. Damn. Best possession is of course, Possessor. That movie is fucking nuts. And quickly, quickly, quickly. Best band Tease, Sound of Metal, of course. And we got Jizzum, Japanese hardcore band.

They got the German band, Eidström, Zende, Neubauten, the industrial noise band, Arabic version of a Motorhead shirt, and Youth of Today and some other stuff. version of a Motorhead shirt and Youth of Today and some other stuff. Anyway, that's my original categories and honorable mentions for this sixth annual Blankies

Awards. There's one... We're all done. I forgot to mention, Griffin, this is a fuck-up. The most irresistible movie of the year was Irresistible. Sorry. I just had to mention it. Oh, okay. Sorry. We couldn't resist it. mention sorry we couldn't resist it yeah we couldn't resist it um oh thank god you got that in there that would have been rough right uh

folks thank you all for listening uh what a crappy year uh to next year to next year's blankies a return to uh normalcy and by normalcy i mean the way that things used to suck before this. Right, right. Hey, please. The kind of shitty that I was used to. Yeah. But thank you all for listening. And please remember to rate, review and subscribe.

Thanks to Marie Vardy for running our social media, especially now that we're finishing up this absolute gauntlet of March Madness, which seems to have been a little weird this year. Wait, I have an interview with one of the voters from March Madness. I did not murder him.

Sorry. Sorry. A thing that may or may not have contributed to me being like fuck it i just i'm gonna just nominate whatever the fuck i want i'm not gonna watch all these but i can't deal with anything i'm done with film culture um uh and i i hope people are ready to have to go to physical locations to vote in person for March Madness next year. ID! We're going full Mitch McConnell on this shit. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. Thank you to Lee Montgomery, the Grand American Novel for our theme song. And Alex Barron and AJ McKinn for all the editing help they've been doing in general

on the show. Tune in next week for. A new leaf. Hey, April will be May. We're trying a new leaf.

April will finally be May. Just a nice quick four episode mini series about one of the all time greats. I'm looking forward Joe do you get it I got it you get this I got it it's April for me

April for me but we're we're doing May yeah right and head over to blank check comm slash patreon for blank check special features where we are still still tracking still tracking getting ready for whatever is gonna win that slash Patreon for Blank Check Special Features where we are still trekking. Still trekking, getting ready for whatever's going to win that March Madness Bracket Show. Thank you. Thank you, guys. You know I love doing this.

I love getting up in my awards nerdery with you guys. I feel like we connect on this. I feel like we're, I don't know, kindred spirits. Simpatico. I mean mean we need to have some longer conversation about the lakeith thing at some point off mike because i'm just so fascinated about it from an oscar standpoint we'll take it to the group text uh and as always uh just to clarify the joke is that the filmmaker's name is elaine. Right, right, right. And she only has four movies. We do one movie a week on the show.

So it's one month worth of episodes. exactly. Right. Right. And so we could have done those four movies in May, but instead we picked the month right before May, which is April. Right.

So April is May. And if you think about it, April, April. So April is May. And if you think about it, April 1st is April Fool's. That's how we're starting the month out. Crazy. It's a whole month of practical jokes. Yeah. It's a goof. Also listen to my podcast. I'm just going to say that.

Oh, fuck yeah. Jesus. Listen to my podcast. It would be nice. God. How are we six years in and we still... fuck yeah Jesus listen to my podcast it would be nice how are how are we six years in and we still how are we six years in listen

it's a long day it's a long day this had Oscar buzz go to had underscore Oscar underscore buzz on Twitter I'm just gonna be shameless about it

it's fine it's not shameless follow the link in the episode description to check it out do it bye bye