Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - Motley Fool Money: 11.28.2014

Episode Date: November 25, 2014

On our Thanksgiving Special, our analysts talk turkey, share some stocks they're thankful for, and eat some humble pie.  Plus, corporate governance expert and film critic Nell Minow talks about the Uber controversy, Toy Story 4, and the future of the movie business.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chris Hill. Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money. From Fool Global Headquarters, this is Motley Fool Money. It's the Motley Fool Money radio show. Thanks for being here. I'm Chris Hill. And joining me in studio this week, for Motley Fool One, Jason Moser. For Motley Fool Income Investor, James Early, and for Million Dollar Portfolio, Ron Gross. Good to see you as always, gentlemen. Good to see you. It is our Thanksgiving special.

We will give thanks for stocks and identify a few turkeys. This is the show. This is the one show where we actually spend money on sound effects. We blew our whole budget on that one. I'd say it's worth it. Absolutely worth it. We will dip into the full mailbag, and as always, we'll give you an inside look at the stocks on our radar.

But let's start, because it is our Thanksgiving special. Let's start with a round of humble pie. Let's just go around the table. Is it necessary? You know what? He's looking at you wrong. You know what? Let's be better than some of the other financial shows that only tout their winners.

Let's just go around the table. That's fair. Take one story or stock from 2014 that you were wrong on. Talk about it. Go ahead. I was wrong. It was a sin of omission rather than commission. Oh, come on.

I had put Williams-Sonoma on my watch list at around $45 a share at one point and did my research. And, hey, my research turned up that it wasn't really for me. It wasn't appropriate. Too much of the thesis relied on them moving into a bigger online presence and the Williams-Sonoma store is doing better. They have Pottery Barn in West Elm also, I will remind you. So, that was $45. We sit now at $74. The stock is up 28% this year. that sits directly next to me, Andy Cross, our chief investment officer, is a big fan of this stock, and I failed to listen to him. So, Ron, do you feel worse if you leave out an idea, you're looking at an idea, it turns

out to be a good one, but you pass on it, as opposed to taking an idea that you think is good, but then really fails to live up to the expectations? I think I understand the question, but I'll answer it how I think I understand it. I don't mind if I miss something. I mind if I lose money. Gotcha. James Hurley? I am going with female health. This is a sin of commission.

This company makes female condoms that protect women from STDs, but unfortunately give them great protection from STDs, to make that clear. Unfortunately, I did not protect my subscribers very well against the declining profits of female health company and the cut dividend. This is a small market cap company, and these guys, I think, were just a little bit... I mean, the company's been around for a long time, but they're just kind of novice in terms of the big lights in the public markets.

And so I didn't think they'd plan enough. They cut their dividend. We sold with about a 45% loss, which was 65% worse than the S&P. So that is my humble pie for this year. You get to write that off next year, right? Don't you? You get to write off the tax loss. I think.

If you have a game. It was a great stock for the radio, too. Everybody loves the good female condom story. I have some of their female condoms. Most people. There was a restaurant in Bangkok that gave me some. I remember that. James, we're just going to move on to Jason Moser.

I mean, I would be happy with just staying on James. I feel like we have more of the story to tell. But, I mean, I'll go ahead. Going back to the very beginning of the year, really, and even in 2013, I was never really a big fan of Facebook. I was rather bearish on the stock. Sour on it because I'm not really a fan of the user experience. I had this perception that Mark Zuckerberg was more or less just a kid who was in over his head. But it was a research report that I did for Supernova Explorer in February that really started to change my opinion of this company and really understanding how great its reach is and looking beyond really just how I feel about the service.

And also, looking at its market opportunity in mobile advertising, looking at Mark Zuckerberg, learning more about his passions beyond Facebook, like Internet.org and immigration reform even, looking at how his plan to extend beyond the core Facebook product and buying new apps, like Instagram, I think has turned out very well. I think we're all probably still scratching our head a little bit on the WhatsApp purchase, but he got a lot of registered users from that. And I think the acquisition of Oculus is going to turn out to be a very shrewd one, virtual reality and its implications. I think they won't be realized for some time, but they will be profound.

And so, that's one I've really turned to change my opinion on. Let's move on to stocks that we're thankful for. Ron Gross, so many to choose from, but you have to pick just one. Hey, it's been a good year following a good year last year, so there's a lot to be thankful for. But I'm really thankful for Apple. And that's because really up until probably May of this year, people had left it for dead, saying it's not Apple anymore, they're not innovators anymore. The best thing they could say about it was that it was a value stock, in quotes.

The only thing they have going for them is they're the largest public company in the world. Right, at $683 billion market cap now, $117 a share, it's up 47% this year. It's become a million-dollar portfolio's largest holding at 8%, and I'm really, really glad we stuck it out. Oh, and oh, by the way, the cash on the balance sheet. Yeah, that's good, too. But that's all they have going for them. James Early, one stock you're thankful for? C.H. Robinson.

This is a trucking company, like tractor-trailers. There's not much exciting about it. This stock has blown past even my optimistic valuation assessment, risen 40% since late April. I just bought this thing on a dip, and I happen to time it well. Not that I'm a timer, but hey, I'll take it. Where do they do most of their operations? Are they mainly North American? Jason Moser, what are you thankful for?

I'm thankful for Under Armour, Chris, and the reason why, beyond just the stock's excellent performance here, it's something that not only do I own shares in Under Armour, but my daughters own shares in Under Armour. Do you own Under Armour products yourself? Oh yeah, we do, absolutely. As a matter of fact, we were talking about the race on Saturday and we were wearing Under Armour shoes, they work quite well. But we have, I own shares, my daughters own shares, my dad owns shares, so I get to see, we have a lot of fun conversations about the company, its products. I get to see investing really

span three generations of my family with this one holding alone, gives me a lot to look forward to. I enjoy talking about it with my father and with my daughters, and I hope that it will lead to many more great conversations in the future. Alright. Since it's our Thanksgiving special, we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about a few turkeys. Ron Gross, it can be a business leader, it can be a stock, it can be a company. I've got three words for you. Chief revitalization officer. That's the new executive over at Radio Shack, my friend, whose job is to turn this turkey around, and it's going to be an uphill battle. Stock's down 68%.

They've had some people come to the rescue from a financing perspective of late, but I think it's going to be too little, too late. As we've said many times on this show, I just don't think Radio Shack has a future. Is 2015 the year that Radio Shack finally goes under? I think the answer is yes, yeah. Their market cap is like $100 million. $85 million. If you win the healthy lottery, you could buy RadioShack.

Would you want RadioShack? Let's face it. People who have won the lottery have done worse things with their money. Exactly. James Early, what do you got? I'm going with re-elected president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff. I think this should not have happened. And that's just not because my Petrobras stock got clobbered and I sold it for an income investor.

And Brazil's economy has been basically in a toilet for a while. But she is very left-wing, very anti-business, and somewhat populist. And that's really not what Brazil needs right now. And that's basically scared away a lot of the investment money the country needs. Let's be clear, though. It has a little bit to do with your Petrobras stock. A little bit to do. Petrobras is a two-time recommendation of mine.

It was once the best-performing stock on the Income Investor Scorecard. Now, partly thanks to President-re-elected Dilma Rousseff, it is one of the worst stocks on the Income Investor Scorecard. So maybe it is personal. No, it's personal. Jason Moser, you can only pick one turkey. What are you going with? You know, it was between Target's Greg Steinhoffel and actually I'm going to go not too terribly far back here to Walmart and Halloween.

I don't know if you guys remember the fat girl costume gaffe where they actually had on their website where they had all of their costumes for sale. You know, you have like men's costumes, women's costumes. Well, in the women's costumes area, they actually had on the website, it said, you know, fat girl costume. As a category? As a category. And it was obviously not intentional, but it was seen and made the rounds on Twitter, and the company took really a lot of heat for it. No one stepped up and really took the blame.

They wouldn't tell us exactly what happened. They assured us that it would never happen again, but the damage was certainly done. That's one where you really hope that the CEO steps up and says, nope, I've got to show someone the door on this one. It could have been a disgruntled employee. I don't know. Since you didn't pick him, I am going to pick him. Greg Steinhafel, former CEO at Target. I'm going to make this prediction, because we have a few weeks left in 2014. Someone

is going to name Greg Steinhoffel the worst CEO of 2014, even though he was only CEO of Target for four months in this calendar year. Overall, CEO for five years, but when you look at his track record, the way he completely bungled the data breach a year ago. And I bet he still escaped with quite a nice paycheck there. He probably did. Coming up, you've got questions, we've got answers. Full mailbag, next. This is Motley Fool Money. As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. Welcome back to Motley

Fool Money. Chris Hill here in studio with Jason Moser, James Early, and Ron Gross. It's our Thanksgiving special. We have so much to be thankful for, including and especially are dozens of listeners. You can always email us, radioatfool.com is our email address, radioatfool.com. Let's dig into the mailbag for a few questions here from Mary Ju in California. My boyfriend introduced me to Fool Radio our senior year in college as a way to start learning about investing. What are your thoughts on Wealthfront, Robinhood, Acorns, and some of the other startups trying to disrupt investing? As a young professional, these services are appealing ways to start investing without having to devote too much effort or capital,

but are they too good to be true?" Jason, for those unfamiliar, these are, certainly in the case of Acorns, which is the one I know the most about, these are apps set up to basically have a turnkey way to invest just small amounts of money here and there and low-cost mutual funds. There are fees attached to them, so this is not all altruistic, but what do you think when you look at these apps? Well, I like the idea that we're bringing investing and education to the mobile front there, and apps are a great way to get in front of growing investors today. I think the one I know more about than anything is actually Rubicoin. That's an app that we are

working in conjunction with the developers of the app to grow it out, I would encourage you to go to rubicoin.com, R-U-B-I coin, C-O-I-N. The app is available for iOS today. The Android app is on the way. You can actually click a link on the website that they will notify you when the Android app is ready, if you use an Android device. But it is a wonderful app that provides plenty of education. Brendan Matthews and I provide some video content with stock ideas and stock recommendations. They are also linking it up with brokerages so that you can purchase stocks from the app itself. I think it's wonderful that we're seeing the development there. And you are a compensated endorser for

this, Rubicoin? I am compensated to the point that I work here at The Motley Fool and get my salary every two weeks. Well, and as with anything in the investing world, always check the fees. Whatever it is, always check the fees. From John Daniel, self-identified as listener number 102. I've often heard you mention that you like to look at stocks that the market shuns. I was wondering what your opinion of the coal mining industry is, especially with oil and natural gas prices so low. With most coal stocks down 80% over the past three years, do you think now is a good time to jump in, or is energy too cheap and the political landscape

too perilous for this industry? Great question, James. What do you think? Yeah, John asks a great question. It certainly depends on his risk tolerance. John, I have not conducted evaluations on all these different stocks, so all I can do is make sweeping blanket generalizations, which I will do gladly. You know, coal is not dead. It's not a growth industry anymore, that's for sure, but it's probably a flat industry, and that's thanks to Chinese demand. Basically, exports are going to save the day to whatever degree the day is saved for coal companies in the U.S.,

and I think we'll see flat, if not maybe slightly growing, coal demand worldwide. We just can't get around that. So, yeah, they're down, but I don't think they're out. From David Goldberg, listener number 60 in Toronto, I don't want to get into politics, but I think it's hard to deny that the trend of marijuana legalization will continue to change the cannabis culture in North America. Before the midterm elections, I took a speculative position on Tweed, a medical marijuana company listed on the Canadian Venture Exchange.

change. I purchased the stock for $1.82 a share, and to my delight, it has now jumped more than 25%. Should I buy more into a company that has significant growth possibility in the long run with definite risks, or take my profit and feel lucky that a speculative position actually paid off?" Ron, we can't give personalized advice. We cannot. I will just add, this is a company with a market cap of around $100 million. This is a micro-cap. And the stock is up since that email came in, so he probably is even happier. So, some specifics about this company, and then he can make up his own mind.

Because it's on the Toronto Venture Exchange, it's not that easy to get the information. The information is available, but not as readily as if it was on the main Toronto Exchange or a U.S.-based exchange. The company came public as what we call a SPAC, a company that goes public. A SPAC, a special acquisition company. acquisition company. They come public just for the purpose of raising money to then go out and find an acquisition. That's what this company did. They bought into this company called Tweed, which is going to be producing marijuana on an old Hershey's chocolate facility up in Canada. Hershey closed it back in 2008. Bottom line, $12 million of cash on the balance

sheet, $188,000 of revenue only, $2 million of operating losses through the first six months of this year. So, you said $100 million market cap. Does the company have the ability to grow into that market cap? Will it be able to produce enough? And does it have enough cash to get it where it needs to be? And if not, how will it raise that cash? A lot of risks, obviously, as he said, a lot of potential. Do you think marijuana is a growing trend that will produce some winners in ... They absolutely do. There's some bigger companies out there, GW Pharma, Medbox, a company called Cannavest. They're a little bit bigger than this one, but it appears that

we're certainly on the trend of it becoming an actual, real, viable industry. It wasn't just a few market fooleries ago. I think we were talking about Jack in the Box and a new menu that they had created. The munchie menu, the late-night munchie menu. The munchie menu. I mean, it's quite obvious who this menu is catered towards. And so, I think it's worth at least knowing that there are other ways to play it, rather than just a direct style investment in something like Tweed, for example. There are going to be other companies out there that benefit. Alright, we've got just a couple of

minutes left. Let's get to the stocks that are on our radar this week. Ron Gross, you're up first. A new watch-lister for me, Howard Hughes Corporation, HHC, a real estate developer in 16 states, developing some really neat properties like the South Street Seaport in New York, some stuff in downtown Vegas, some stuff in Honolulu. Looks really interesting to me. I need to delve into it and see what the valuation looks like, but it really caught my eye. The ticker one more time? HHC. And James Early? I will go back to flogging my favorite, Apollo Investment Corporation, 9.7% yield. This is the

business development company that makes loans to the middle market companies. These are the often forgotten, in between companies that are a little bit too big to go to the bank to take out money, but too small to tap public markets. So, Apollo Investment makes about 11% on its loans, gives you over 9%. Is that safe, that 9%? It's on the safer end of the risky spectrum. Oh, wow. If that reconciles anything. But no promises.

Jason Moser, what's on your radar? Well, I think the internet has really done wonderful things for our lives, and travel is one industry that has really just changed the entire dynamic. TripAdvisor is a company that I am really starting to learn more about. Ticker is T-R-I-P. It's a $10 billion company or so, bringing in a little bit more than $1 billion in sales. Projections are their market opportunity. They'll see, by 2016, around $13 billion or so spent in digital advertising for the travel industry. Two of their biggest customers are Priceline and Expedia. That is a sword that obviously can cut both ways, so that's a risk and, I think,

something that could work out well for them as well. But, you know, this has tremendous network effects here in play, and it's consistently profitable, generates a lot of cash flow. Trading at, I think, a reasonable valuation, 30X free cash flow for a company that I think still has a lot of room to grow. So, this is one that is on my watch list. You think this is a takeout candidate, or are they getting too big for that? It wouldn't surprise me. I mean, I think on its own, it certainly has some interesting verticals it could pursue. But I could also see where a Priceline or an Expedia would love to have this company sort of in its portfolio of offerings there, just like Priceline, I think, recently

acquired OpenTable. All right, Jason Moser, James Rowley, Ron Gross. Guys, thanks for being here. Thank you, Chris. Thanks to Dan Boyd sitting in behind the glass, helping out with the sound effects this week. Coming up, companies up to no good and movie studios rolling out their best bets for the Academy Awards. Nell Minow is next. You're listening to Motley Fool Money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Chris Hill. This week, we've got corporate executives in the spotlight, and we've got the holiday movie season kicking off. So, of course, we're going to talk with Nell Minow. She's a corporate governance expert with GMI Ratings. She's also the movie mom. She's also our most frequent guest. Nell,

thanks so much for being here. Well, thank you very much. Apparently not for good enough, because I have to bring you up to date. We actually sold GMI ratings in August. Oh my goodness. See, this is what happens. We need to have you on every month. You missed a meeting. Yes, we sold it in August to MSCI. All right. Corporate governance expert with MSCI ratings. Let's try that. No, no. I didn't go with the company. I'm just a freelance corporate governance expert. A hired gun. Do you hear that, American corporations? You want to improve your image. Mel Minow is a free agent. That's right.

Let's start by talking about a private company that I think everyone expects will become a public company in 2015. And that is Uber, the car-sharing service. Recently, Emile Michael, who's a senior executive at Uber, was caught on tape talking about people who are in the media and critical of Uber. And he went on to suggest that the company should consider spending a million dollars to hire a team of investigators to dig up dirt on media critics and their families. So my first question is, A, were you surprised by this? And B, to what extent has this done damage to Uber's prospect as a public company? Well, I was surprised by it. You would think after so many stupid gaffes, the 47% gaffe with Mitt Romney and the Lululemon gaffe,

that people would realize that people are recording them and they should not say stupid stuff. But in another respect, I was not surprised because their approach has been thuggish and arrogant, and that's worked really, really well for them for a long time. But as we see happen so often, the very same qualities that make a disruptive company successful stop working when they turn out to be bullies themselves. After this happened, there were people coming out in the financial media saying that this was really going to hurt their valuation. Other people saying, no, this is going to blow over. But to your point, this doesn't seem like sort of a rogue comment by a rogue executive. It does seem emblematic of a company that may find the public spotlight more of a challenge than other companies.

Yeah, I think that's right. And like Lululemon, they have managed to insult the very people that they're most trying to market to. You know, their success is in large part because women feel vulnerable when they're out there in the streets at night. and Uber has been the safe alternative for them. And if they start to come across as a company that's not safe and that pries into what they call the God view of their system, which allows the executives there to look up anybody's record about where they went and even produce aggregate figures about walks of shame and other kinds of escapades,

then no one's going to feel safe with them. And there were a flurry of I'm deleting the app tweets the next day. And speaking of tweets, just so you know, for the record, when you offend an entire gender, an apologetic tweet is not the way to go. Yeah, the CEO did come out and make a statement, among other things, saying that Emile Michael was not going to lose his job. But, yeah, that's the kind of statement you probably want to put out on an actual piece of paper and not in a series of tweets. Let's move to the far less sexy world of share buybacks. Walgreens may be suspending its stock buybacks in an effort to restore its credit rating. This is a big company, one of the leaders in sort of the consumer health care space.

For those who haven't been following the story all that closely, what's going on here? well this is a story that i think is extra interesting because companies tend to be very unilateral as they think about their shareholders and their debt holders and they often overlook the fact that the same people are both and if the large institutional investors it seems to be the case here say that the stock buyback is not worth as much to us as shareholders as the credit rating is as debt holders uh it seems to me that that's the kind of thing they have to listen to and i think that companies are going to have to take more of a holistic point of view on that going forward. I just read a new study. I was at a presentation by a professor who released a new

study that showed something that won't surprise you. Buybacks are good for a temporary rise in the stock, but it's not always the most efficient use of money. And we would much rather very often companies spending that money on innovation or on some other very productive kind of expenditure rather than buybacks, which very often benefit the holders of options and restricted stock more than they do the rest of the shareholders. Well, let's stay in the consumer healthcare space for a second, because one of the big stories of 2014 in the business world, I think, is CVS coming out as they did earlier this year and announcing that they were going to be much more focused on health care. And as part of that,

they were going to stop selling cigarettes and tobacco products. From a corporate governance standpoint, is that something that matters to you and your colleagues? Or is that just, look, that's a business decision they're making, and we're not necessarily going to factor that in when we are grading CVS on corporate governance. Well, this is one of those areas where corporate governance and investor analysis come together beautifully. You know, it was just a few years ago when shareholders were filing shareholder resolutions about tobacco, and everybody was saying, oh, that's, you know, warm fuzzies, that has nothing to do with any kind of investment decision, well, then some walloping liabilities hit the balance sheet, and we have to think about

it differently. And I love the idea that CBS is thinking of this as a branding issue and making a total green-eye-shaped decision about what's best for them as a brand. So this is something that succeeds in every category. It succeeds as a matter of public policy, it succeeds as a matter of morality, and it succeeds as a matter of what benefits the business. So, I think we'll see more decisions like that going forward. You're listening to Motley Fool Money, talking with Nell Minow, corporate governance expert and film critic. Before we get to the business of movies, where do you think we are in terms of companies in general engaging shareholders? Are companies in general getting better at it in terms of, I guess, just reaching out to individual

investors? Or do the rules of engagement, for lack of a better term, make it harder for companies to be as transparent as they want to be? I think we've made tremendous progress in that area. Of course, on a company-by-company basis, it's not always the companies that should be. And the ones who have the least to worry about are the ones who are the first to extend a warm hand of welcome. But generally speaking, it seems to me that the establishment of lead directors whose job description includes reaching out to shareholders or being available for shareholder communications, I think has been a huge step forward. And really everywhere I go, I see directors who are willing to come to meetings with the Council of Institutional Investors and

sometimes even address those meetings. So I think that's great. On the other side of the equation, I see a lot more shareholders who are saying things like, well, if I'm going to vote against the pay plan, I'm going to vote against the entire comp committee. If I am concerned about the transparency of the financial reports, I'm going to vote against the entire audit committee. And if there are not enough independent directors on the board, I'm going to vote against the entire nominating committee. So I think you will see a lot more focus on individual directors, and therefore you'll see even more communication between boards and shareholders, which I think can only be a good thing. All right, let's move on to the business of movies. The last time you and I talked in May, I made the comment that I was already looking past the slate of blockbuster movies this summer,

And I was looking forward to the summer of 2015 when we're going to get another Pixar movie, another Avengers movie, etc. Apparently, other people were in the same boat as me because the summer box office was down around 15%. And when you look at the movie theater chains themselves, Regal Entertainment, which is the largest chain in America, is exploring a possible sale. And AMC Entertainment, which is the second largest chain, their third quarter profits were down nearly 80% from a year ago. Is this just a bad year, or is this indications that the movie business is in trouble? It's always a bad year when Pixar doesn't release a movie. It's been a long, long, long, long time since that has happened. But individual movies did very well.

Of course, Guardians of the Galaxy was a total blockbuster in the U.S. and abroad. And even the movies that failed in the U.S., like Expendable 3, picked up a lot of money abroad. So the movie studios are doing pretty well. Movie theaters are not doing that well. And in my opinion, it's because they are in a downward spiral of trying to appeal to teenagers when there are a lot of other people who would like to go to movies. And, you know, every year they purport to be shocked that some PG movie turns out to be one of the highest-grossing movies of the year. And I think you're going to see that this week with Penguins of Madagascar.

And I think that there are a lot of movies that kids and their families want to see. There are a lot of movies that older people want to see. And they just keep going for the big bang-bang 3D IMAX kinds of movies that have a pretty short shelf life. I'm glad you mentioned the Penguins of Madagascar, because twice in the last two months, some company has come along and kicked the tires of DreamWorks Animation, the company behind Madagascar and Shrek, etc. First SoftBank in Japan, then Hasbro. Does anyone really want to buy DreamWorks Animation for real?

You know, I hate the idea of it becoming just one division of some large conglomerate. I love what they've been doing, and so I like the idea of keeping them independent because they've been very artist-led. Of course, it was formed by artists, and I would hate to see that go because every time we've seen United Artists or other kinds of studios that were formed by the artists themselves take it over, it's always been bad news. So I'm kind of secretly hoping that nobody buys them. Do you think it's possible that the fact that DreamWorks Animation's main competition

is Walt Disney had anything to do with scaring off potential buyers? It very well could. It doesn't help, right? That doesn't go in the plus column. Yeah. Disney has been very shrewd. I've been hugely impressed by them. They made a decision a few years ago that they were about characters, and if they couldn't invent them in-house, they were going to go outside. And to bring in the Star Wars characters and the Muppet characters has been very, very, very smart. And Marvel, of course, has been very, very smart for them.

And so as good as DreamWorks is, it doesn't have characters with that kind of immediate impact. And, yeah, I do think that's definitely caution. Coming up, more with Nell Minow. This is Motley Fool Money. Come on, baby, to the driving show. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money, talking with corporate governance expert and film critic Nell Minow.

Disney recently announced they will be making a Toy Story 4. Were you happy with that news or a little sad? I don't think there's ever been a better movie than Toy Story 3. So I am the last person to say, you know, stop trying to run that franchise into the ground. They did such a good job with the third one. It was better than the second one. The second one was better than the first one. Furthermore, they brought in Rashida Jones and her writing partner to write it.

And I think she is extraordinary. She's just great. She's the daughter of Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton. She, of course, is an actress herself on Parks and Recreation and has written a terrific movie, Celeste and Jesse Forever. So I'm very intrigued by that announcement because of whom they picked to write it. Before we get to this year's holiday movies, since the last time you and I spoke, the film industry lost a couple of giants with the tragic death of Robin Williams

and just last week the passing of Mike Nichols. And I'd love it if you could just share a couple of thoughts on each man and the role he played in the film industry. Well, of course, they worked together on The Birdcage. That would be a good movie to watch to pay tribute to both of them. I think that Mike Nichols, who did, you know, so many different movies in so many different genres, so many groundbreaking films, really should be remembered first and foremost as a director of actors. He brought, or I should say he coaxed, the best performances ever out of people like Candice Bergen and Margaret, and he was an actor himself.

He studied with Lee Strasberg, and he had a real gift. The story that I always love about him is that when he was directing Candice Bergen very early in her career in Carnal Knowledge, she was not at all experienced and really didn't know what to do, and she was supposed to be at a college party being very uncomfortable, and he told her to take her skirt off and to stand there in her slip. and it didn't show up on the screen at all because it was all on her face, but the embarrassment that she felt from standing there in her slip while everyone around her was dressed was just genius, and I thought that was great.

The other thing I want to say about Mike Nichols is that I recommend to everybody that you read the memoir by Neil Simon called Rewrites, where, of course, he worked with Mike Nichols many, many times on theatrical productions, and he describes him as the smartest man in the world, and it's a wonderful partnership to read about. And as for Robin Williams, there'll just never be a star like him again. He was so good in so many different kinds of roles. He was so good as a person. He insisted that the film companies he worked with had to employ homeless people on the set.

Never got any credit for it. He was wonderful with sick kids. And, of course, you know, just an incredible range of performances. I think that, for myself, I loved him the best when he played a doctor. He played a doctor about a half a dozen times, very, very different roles, sometimes a very small role, as he did in the Kenneth Branagh movie, but really beautiful little performances. He played bad guys, he played good guys, he played funny guys, he played serious guys. He was great at everything, and both of these men were just giants in the industry, will be missed very much. This is the time of the year when there are sort of the last blockbusters of the year.

We have the recent release of the latest Hunger Games movie, but we also have studios releasing their pictures that they're trying to get nominated for Best Picture early next year. What are a couple of movies that people should have on their radar over the next few weeks? Well, I think number one has to be the Angelina Jolie film Unbroken, the real story of Louis Zamperini, who was an Olympic athlete. He was shot down by the Japanese in World War II. He was in a prison camp. He had an extraordinary life, and Angelina Jolie looks like she has created a real masterpiece about him. So that looks really, really good. Personally, I'm really looking forward to Big Eyes from Tim Burton with Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz,

the true story of the Keens. Now, remember that during, like, I guess it was about the 50s and 60s, Walter Keen was the guy who painted the pictures of the children with very big eyes and made a fortune. It's hard to believe now, but that he did. And it turned out afterward that he actually had stolen his wife's pictures, and she's the one that painted those pictures, and it's about what happened then. So I'm very, very, very interested in that. I think that's good.

Into the Woods will be a fascinating picture to think about because it's a Broadway show that is not exactly super family-friendly, and I wonder if they have softened it a little bit for the theatrical release. And so I'm looking forward to that. an inherent vice. Anytime Paul Thomas Anderson makes a movie, I'm always interested. And the trailer for this one looks a little bit Delmore Leonard and a little bit offbeat and got a great cast. Oh, and Wilde, I guess also. The Cheryl Strayed book with Reese Witherspoon. Those all look really good. Do you have any movies that you see coming out over the next few weeks that you

think, okay, that performance is absolutely going to get nominated for an Academy Award or that picture is a virtual lock for a nomination well i do think unbroken and jack o'connell who you've never heard of but you're going to hear nothing but him since he's got about five big movies coming out i think will definitely and then i think uh one coming from a little bit of left field that looks like a lock for best screenplay is a film um written and directed by chris rock called top five and that has just had rhapsodic reviews at all the festivals and that looks just terrific. So it's wonderful to see that people like Chris Rock and Jon Stewart, who are well known for comedy, are showing themselves to be such gifted directors. I

think that's great news. I have not yet seen this documentary, but based simply on the reviews, I have to believe that the film Life Itself, about your good friend Roger Ebert, I think that's a possible Academy Award nominee. Has that crossed your mind at all? Yeah, absolutely. I am betting on it as the winner this year, partly because, I mean, who votes on the Oscars? It's members of the industry. There's a tremendous amount of affection for him, but partly because it is an extraordinary film. It's made by Steve James, who did Hoop Dreams and was one of Roger's favorite directors. And it is absolutely one of the best films of the year. It is not a movie about sickness. It's not a movie about being a film critic. It's a movie about how

you live your life. And it's in sort of three distinct chapters, his early years, and then after he quit drinking, and then after he met the love of his life, Chaz. And it is one of the most beautiful love stories you will ever see in a film. All right, we have about a minute left. In the past, I've asked you about movies for Thanksgiving. And we've talked about movies that are about family and family gatherings. Last year, I asked you specifically about movies about food. So this year, I want to focus on travel. What's like one or two movies that you think of when you think, oh yeah, that's about travel. Well, of course, like trains and automobiles, which everybody watches at Thanksgiving every year, I have to say, it's not my favorite John Hughes

movie. It's so harsh, but it is hard not to get caught up in that and in the total frustration that we all experience when we travel. So that's a really good one. One of the best reasons to be on Twitter is so that you can follow Nell Minow. You can get her thoughts on corporate governance, movies, and so much more. Thanks so much for being here, Nell. My pleasure. Let's do it again soon. That's going to do it for this week's edition of Motley Fool Money. Everybody have a great holiday, and we'll see you next week.