The Big Picture - The Cate Blanchett Hall of Fame and the Delightfully Sleek ‘Black Bag’

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

Sean and Amanda discuss their upcoming trip to Las Vegas for CinemaCon (1:00) before taking stock of Steven Soderbergh’s 36th feature film, ‘Black Bag,’ starring Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender (8:30). Then, they build a Hall of Fame for Blanchett by selecting the 10 most important performances by the two-time Oscar winner (27:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Video Producers: John Richter and Jon Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you hear the word Seattle SuperSonics, what comes to mind? Maybe it's Shawn Kemp, the Rain Man, or Gary Payton, the Glove, or maybe an image of a tall and skinny 19-year-old rookie, Kevin Duran. For fans in Seattle, it's something else. It's tragedy, it's theft, an iconic team with an incredible fan base that packed its bags and shipped off for Oklahoma City. From Spotify and The Ringer, I'm Jordan Ritter-Kahn, and in my podcast, Sonic Boom, I talk to players, politicians, owners, and fans

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Visit YSLBeauty.ca to elevate your lip game now. TD Direct Investing offers live support, so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TV Direct Investing. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the Big Picture Egg Conversation Show about Black Bag.

Today we are talking about Stephen Soderbergh's newest film, his second of 2025, and honestly, one of his best in years. We're also talking about the amazing career of one of this movie's stars, Cate Blanchett. We will build her Hall of Fame, long overdue, I would say, as an episode on this show. I'm not sure what the fuck I was thinking, waiting this long to do a Cate Hall of Fame.

She's had quite a career. She loves to work, my goodness. Yes, the last time we would have done it would have been for TAR. And were we doing Hall of Fame's then? We were, but I think we were just so TAR-pilled that we were like, maybe another nine hours on the text of TAR. Nevertheless, we are talking about Kate today. Any news out there in the world for you?

You want to talk about before we get into this movie and this career? Just just tooling around on the Internet. Nikki Glaser returning to the Golden Globes to host once again. I accept. She was dynamite, I thought, the first time around. Just mean enough, I would say, was her energy. And tell you what, if we got Nikki Glaser and Conan O'Brien for the next two or three years, that'd be great.

I'd be very pleased with that. I'm open. I never say that. Does that change whether you'd like to attend the shows? I don't want to go to the Globes. I have no interest. Okay. The Oscars, yeah, I'm feeling the pull. Is it you're ready?

I'm feeling the draw. Okay. Yeah. I was on my friend Katie Rich's show last week to talk about some takeaways from the Academy Awards, and she was there. And just even hearing her talk about it as someone who, like us, has been obsessed for years. Yeah, I think I'd like to go.

And if Conan is there, all the better. Nikki, she's good with the celebs, you know? Yeah. She doesn't care about me. She doesn't give a shit. That's not what that's about. She needs to burn them down. I have you to burn me down on this show. That's true. Could we just create our own Golden Globes? Just like heavy drinking?

Uh... And then and then we record a podcast. You mean just start recording it. It's already kind of happening these days. Yeah, I'm happy about the Nikki Glaser thing. You're happy? You're okay with it? Sure, yeah. I liked her. You know, I learned who she was. And then I watched the show and I was like, good job, Nikki Glaser.

Did you go back to the Tom Brady roast? No, I didn't. You know, I'm looking forward. Okay. I'll be roasting Tom Brady going forward on this show on a weekly basis because he sucks at calling football games. He's so bad. Yeah, terrible. Also, part owner of the Raiders. Not really sure how that works. OK.

Don't think that's great. He did trade for Geno Smith in this off season. Are you aware of that? I think I saw something about it. Was Geno Smith a jet? He was a jet some years ago. OK. About 10 years ago.

And then? He famously got punched in the face by a teammate No. Because of some misdeeds during a card game. OK. That sort of led to his demise as a Jet. He eventually revived his career in Seattle. He was in solid top 15. Oh, so that's why our friend Mina, Mina Kimes was tweeting about it. She's got some feelings about it. And interestingly enough, they replaced

Geno Smith, former Jet, with Sam Darnold, former Jet. This has been the Ringer Fantasy Football Podcast. Sam Darnold did not punch Gino Smith in the face. He did not, though, hmm, that seems like an intriguing story that we could develop. No, he followed Gino as the QB of the team. He also failed, as all Jets QBs do. Have you ever punched anyone in the face

as a result of a card game? Oh, no. I have. Yeah, we know. I've thrown a punch or two. No. No, and it's probably been decades since I've thrown a punch. Okay. Yeah, I would say more than decades.

Speaking of card games, uh, you and I are going to Las Vegas, uh, in a few weeks. Nice. Look at you, the Segway Queen. Thank you so much. Well, so should I gamble? And like, will you, will you like beam the, you know, my, my guide to the, I mean, I'm not going to like play cards. That seems very stressful, but like slot machines, like should I get in the mix? Amanda's first Vegas trip.

Slot machines are for suckers. So I would not recommend that. All right. Bobby's also, well guys, I do like, I'm going to Vegas. We're going to do it. Right. So yeah, she's not there to like win return on investment. We're going to do it, right? So, Vegas. Yeah, I'm not. She's not there to, like, win return on investment. She's there to have fun. Slot machines could be fun, Amanda. You could get into that.

Slot machines are just a video game. Get in the action. Get on a table. Touch some felt, you know? I feel very nervous about going to a table. I get it, but, like, you're going to lose money either way. So accept it. Just walk in.

This is what I personally try to do. But I don't like doing things wrong. You know? That's fine. And yet you persist on this show. That's true. I think you should walk in and say, I have saved $500 this month to lose, to learn and have fun.

What about if I gave up with your money? I see no real reason why I would agree to that. I think that Vegas is a weird place for you, but I look forward to seeing how you get in the mix. Do you feel responsible at all? To you? Like, for my experience in Vegas? Um, under no circumstances.

That's tough. I'm going to need you to revise that. I want to help you, but I don't feel responsible. Like, if you ask me, like, can we do stuff together? Of course. Right. But I'm not like, if you get arrested, I'm not bailing you out. No, no, no, no, if you ask me, like, can we do stuff together? Of course. Right. But I'm not like, if you get arrested, I'm not bailing you out. No, no, no, no, no.

That's not what I mean. But I just like, are you? Are you really not going to bail her out if she gets arrested? No, she'll have to rot. That's like one of the things you're supposed to do for your friends. No, well, casino jail is also different from Nevada jail. It's like Eagles' jail?

It is, honestly. It's like under the safe, yeah. It's under the stadium. No, I just meant like, are you going into this trip thinking, because you're like a Vegas expert. I wouldn't say I'm an expert, but I'm a huge fan. I love Vegas. So you're like, you're going to be an ambassador to me. The problem is, and we'll probably go through all of this

when we go to Vegas to talk about CinemaCon, you know, our pals Matt Bellany and Craig Holbeck are going too. Maybe we'll do some crossover stuff while we're there. We're going to hear about all the new movies that the studios have coming, which is why this trip is happening. You've never been. And I think the problem with CinemaCon, and frankly, most Vegas trips, is most of what you need is in the casino that you're probably staying in. And so in this case, we're staying at Caesar's Palace,

where they're holding this event. Right. Just like 40 restaurants in the casino. You know, there's shopping. There's all kinds of pleasantries. There's entertainment. There's literally clubs that you can go to. And I know you love to club. I did actually forward you.

Bruno Mars has a private club with what sounds like the world's greatest wedding cover band of all time. That could have gone anywhere. That's really true. Bruno Mars has a private club with what sounds like the world's greatest wedding cover band of all time. That could have gone anywhere. That's really true. Bruno Mars has a private club with the world's greatest... That's true also. It's just like where he's paying off his debts. So you could do that, yeah. Well, I forwarded you the symphony. I was like, let's go.

And you were just like, lul. You weren't even engaging with me. Yeah, Bruno Mars, much like slot machines, is for losers. We don't play in that game. It's a cover. It's like the, it's a cover band. The world's greatest wedding cover. Where is your sense of fun? You know, like where, where is Sean who drove us to shortstop in 2019? Uh, he's dead.

He died in 2021, July of 2021. He's gone now. Let's find him again. Everybody has their own version of Vegas fun. I suspect that yours and mine might be a little different, but we'll look for it. He's dead. He died in 2021. July of 2021. He's gone now. Let's find him again. Everybody has their own version of Vegas fun. I suspect that yours and mine might be a little different, but we'll look for intersections, just as we will look for intersections

in our discussion of Cate Branshed on this podcast. Thank you. There will be a lot of Vegas conversation to come in the future. Let's talk about Blackpac. Okay. This is Soderbergh's second movie of the year, as I mentioned. This is his 36th feature film as a director, which is remarkable, even for somebody who started in the late eighties, as he did.

Stars Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Marissa Abella, Tom Burke, Naomi Harris, Roger Jean-Page, and Pierce Brosnan. All kinds of Amanda flares going off in this movie. It feels almost like it was made for you. It does. And we now know that Soderbergh knows who you are after my last conversation with him. Well, that's true. He just knows that I read. He does know that you read. I don't know if I mentioned that you love spy fiction and

spy stories, but you do. Of course, this is a high-level spy story, a very familiar story, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's about, um, a couple who are a pair of married intelligence agents who are able to coexist in their relationship and in their professional careers. When one of those agents is suspected of some misdeeds of some, I don't know, some, some rejection of national pride, then the other partner needs to determine whether or not that is true, and how to protect or not protect our partner. Very slick, stylish, perhaps the most stylish

Soderbergh movie in some time. A lot of his movies in recent years have felt very designed, but a little bit sterile and a little bit like, we made this fast. This feels like a little bit more of an old school Hollywood movie. It's clearly a more expensive movie. I already know what you thought of the movie,

but what did you think of Black Bag? To quote the great man himself, no notes. Just like, no notes. Perfect. And you're right, it was... Like, I don't want to say alarming, because you need to like embrace things when they come to you, but I was like, did he make this for me? Like, does he actually did someone pass some notes?

It is, as you said, incredibly stylish, both in like the Soderbergh filmmaking sense, but in the immaculate London townhouse, Michael Fassbender cooking and like his like Savile Row shirt, like whatever Cate Blanchett is wearing is, I mean, it looks like a lot of Phoebe Philo to me. They probably don't have that kind of budget, but it's just everything is, like, aesthetically beautiful. Very funny. This is mostly, this is spy thriller by way of Agatha Christie,

which is also very much in my wheelhouse. And additionally, I just think this is a very romantic movie about marriage. I think it has great marital advice. I saw it on a great date movie, if you're in the kind of relationship that I'm in. My husband agreed, which was very happy. Just, just A+. I really enjoyed it as well. I think the movie of his that this reminded me of,

and this might seem maybe like not high praise, but is Side Effects. Side Effects is Slept On. Um, very Slept On and very, very slick, well-made. Has a very similar kind of like lighting technique where there's like a little bit of a glowy haze around the movie. I think some people will point to like, oh, it's, is it like haywire? Because Michael Fassbender's in it and it's kind of like a spy thing. But it's not that kind of bare-knuckle movie.

Everything is very smooth. Everything is very rounded. The dialogue is very clever. The scripting and plotting is very witty and sharp and kind of keeps you on your toes. I would say I did not find this movie predictable at all, even though I've seen a ton of movies like this. I, for the most part, was surprised by the way that it played out.

Dynamite casting. Just every single person in this movie is the right person for this part. Some people you may be more familiar with than others. Some are kind of making leaps to the big leagues out of the streaming prestige television era, like Marissa Abella, like Roger Jean Page, who people probably remember from the first season

of Bridgerton. They're all great. Tom Burke, I think often underutilized, is fabulous in this movie, very funny. He's, I mean, he is one of the great actors, but this movie like understands that and understands what he can do. Yes.

Even without dialogue, even though every bit of dialogue is pitch perfect. Pierce Brosnan also. Yeah. I would say playing with his persona in an amusing way. Well, so is the movie. And the movie is doing that with every single one of its actors, which is really fun.

I don't think it's a spoiler to say that Marissa Bella plays like a hacker, essentially, like a... An ops tech. An ops tech, but she's in charge of getting into satellite systems and getting out of satellite systems, which is just, that's funny, you know? Yeah. What do you mean?

A beautiful woman can't do that job? What are you trying to say? She's just in there, you know, with the code, with Michael Fassbender. And I mean, they do manage to turn like a hacking satellite scene into like a very sexy scene, but that's also a good joke. I think almost exactly at this weekend last year, Marissa Abella was the star of a Focus Features film that we were... I don't know if we were anticipating it,

but it was at least a notable spring release. It was back to black. Then we was a huge bummer and we talked about it on the show. And we tried to say like, not really her fault. She tried her best. Kind of, this was like a no-win situation. I love her on industry. I think she's like a real find. And it's fun to watch her go toe-to-toe with somebody like Fassbender, who is so comfortable in this part.

And if you think that his character in The Killer is sort of like dry and monotone, it makes that character look like Ace Ventura. and the killer is sort of like dry and monotone. Yeah. It makes that character look like Ace Ventura. Like this guy is so stiff and quiet and calculating. There's like a long sequence where he just fishes on a boat, on a still lake.

That is like the perfect metaphor for how he operates. Yeah. Fastbender, one of our favorites, of course, but he does have a little bit of a, like, I can't access my real feelings quality in his persona. And so that's a good part for him. It's perfect. And once, like, Soderbergh's great with actors, great with movie stars,

understands both, understands how to get, like, acting and also, you know, presence and movie star shimmer out of people. But have you been watching the agency? I haven't, no. So I still haven't finished it because I'm really bad at watching TV, but it is another spy thriller.

It's a English language adaptation of Le Bureau de la Gende, apparently in France you're supposed to say the full title. Okay. Which is an incredible show, like five seasons, if you want to watch that. So, but he's also playing a spy. And the thing there is that he's supposed to play a spy who does have like very deep emotions and how much he's,

or does he, but like how much is he feeling his emotions? How much is he gonna betray his emotions? Does he have emotions? Does he not? You have to telegraph like a lot of different layers of, um, of feeling. Mm-hmm. I would say this is a better fit for Michael Fassbender. Yeah, you know, the only real like, true interiority I think he's amazing at conveying is like agony. Yes. You know, like in real, like, true interiority I think he's amazing at conveying is, like, agony.

Yes. You know, like, in shame or in hunger, this sort of, like, um, dedication to his own pain by way of his own point of view or ethics or trauma or whatever. That's, he excels at that. If not that, and charming on the outside or still on the outside. Also anger, I think, which is can be related to pain.

I think it's related to the agony. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is an interesting fit for him. You know, it's very obviously a riff on not just Bond. There's some like kind of MI5 stuff going on in this. There's definitely some from Tinker Tailor. Plenty of I was going to say there's La Carre is a huge influence on this movie. Um, and then there's also... It's almost like a meta-text for Soderbergh,

like looking at his history of these certain kinds of thrillers and him being like, I can do one of these Michael Caine movies too. Like I'm also capable of... It's weird because he makes movies that are obvious homages or clearly inspired. They don't duplicate the feeling. You know, like there's always like a little twist on the story. I couldn't remember, obviously Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a movie that is like this,

in description at least. But I couldn't think of another movie with a pair of agents that are matched in this way in the British tradition of spy storytelling? I mean, obviously I'm sort of an expert on this, but it is primarily men and the George Smilies of it all in the British tradition. I mean, he's even now that I think about it, he's fastbender, he's even wearing like the Alex Alleghenes

George Smiley glasses. Yes, he oversized black frames. You know, the Soderbergh of it all, they're probably more, whether it's out of sight or oceans 11 and 12, in terms of romantic interests who are circling each other and also legal and other consequences. Yes, are they participating, working together? Are they working against each other? So, and like, and how does that fuel their relationship and their connection?

To me, it's more in Soderbergh lineage than any sort of spy or British spy at least. The Brits are just about dudes. One thing I really like about this movie is, the dinner party scene at the very beginning, which sort of sets the table for this movie is, um, the dinner party scene at the very beginning, which sort of sets the table for this story, is really great.

It did remind me a little bit of, like, the occasional ringer dinner party, where it's like a lot of us work together. It's a little bit, there's like some things that are spoken and some things that are unspoken at these dinners. Um, there's like a tension, but also a sense of humor. It never gets quite as crazy as what transpires in this scene. But that workplace thing of like,

these people have known each other forever. They're all like a little too mean to each other. It's out of love. Right. They trust each other. Do they really trust each other? I think they trust each other, but then maybe they shouldn't trust each other. The whole thing is like very, very tense and very funny

and really riffing on like, it's kind of a workplace comedy in many ways. Um, and it plays all that stuff to great effect. It's also just like a very believable set of relationships that intersect with each other to me. Um, especially, I thought Tom Burke and Marissa Bella's like... Oh, yeah, absolutely. Very familiar circumstance.

A slightly younger woman in the workplace, a cat-ish fellow who can't keep his mouth shut or his zipper zipped. It's an easy movie to recommend. It's a hard movie to discuss because once you start detailing the plotting, I think it really gives away a lot of the fun of the movie, but the plotting is not, it's not the reason to go to see the movie.

The vibe and the energy, the performance, the way it looks, the style, you know, a classic home score from a Soderbergh movie, which we haven't heard in a little while. They're always so great together. And then this is the third movie he's done with Kepp, who I think is a really great screenwriter. Don't always love his ideas, but when he's matched with someone really good, you tend to get really good results. He's obviously worked with Spielberg a number of times as well.

So yeah, I think this is a great movie. The concept of the black bag. Just really good marriage advice, I think. Well, let's explore that. Yeah. What is black bag? So, black bag is, it's, it, I mean, like a safe word for lack of a better, like a signal word that because these are two MI6 or MI5, not really sure actually. I always forget.

Um. If I made a mistake, I'm not an expert. Right. Well, one's domestic, one's international, but you know, I guess they were interna- whatever. Who are married. And so there are certain things that they are not supposed to discuss and because of their work. And so when a question comes up, the other just says black bag. And it's just like accepted in their marriage that, okay, we're not going to go there. There's like some, some safe space and there's, there's're not gonna go there. There's like some safe space and there's trust,

obviously, built into that. There's obviously also suspicion and intrigue, which, you know, maybe a marriage needs. I thought I just, it's great, great stuff. Is there a topic that is in the black bag zone in your life? Hmm. Because you obviously are not, as far as I know, not a spy.

Yeah, I'm not a spy. I would be a really bad spy. But maybe that means I'm the world's greatest spy. You never know. Absolutely. I mean, who am I spying for, is another question. I'm going to let you cook here. Just keep going.

Okay. Let's see. Black bag topics. I don't think that there's anything, that there is like one topic that is not discussed, but like sometimes I just like, don't want to have the conversation. You know, like we know how the conversation's gonna end. Like we know where we stand on this.

We've been together for a very long time. And I like, and honestly, the conversation would just be upsetting for all involved. So maybe we could just black back this. Is this like when you guys talk about Doge at home, and kind of the upending of the American government? Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Do you have any?

But don't you think it's useful? Don't you think it's like very wise? You don't. I come from a repressed Irish family. Right. So, black bag is sort of a mode of operation that I have been trained to break. And so, I'm probably more willing to get in the weeds of what's really going on. There are some things that I don't like talking about, but I feel that that is different from what black bag is.

Black bag is like, let's not crack this hornet's nest open. Yeah, we don't need to do this. Because then we're both jeopardized. Have I ever told you, I think one of the greatest pieces of life and definitely relationship advice that I've ever gotten from my beloved Brooklyn therapist, who is Italian. And, or she, I mean, I don't see her anymore,

but I love Sylvia, shout out Sylvia. And I remember one time I mean, I don't see her anymore, but I love Sylvia, shout out Sylvia. And I remember one time I was telling her something and it was about like, you know, I feel like, should I share this? I think with Zach, like maybe with a parent, but it was something about like, I don't totally feel like I'm like being completely honest

or divulging everything in a relationship. And she was just like, I gotta be honest, this is a very American thing that you feel like you have to like be like a total open blank slate. And in like, in a different way, she was like, you're not, she was proposing the idea of the black bag of like, you don't have to give everything to everyone, to a person in like, in order to have a good relationship.

This isn't, I mean, this ties in... I have thought about it every day since. Well, this ties in, honestly, very well to the movie. Yeah. And I know that it is my job to keep steering us back. Sure. But, you know, Cate Blanchett's character in this movie, you could argue is being very underhanded

in the first act of the movie. You could also argue that she is merely pursuing a version of that European strategy of, I guess for lack of a better phrase, feminine mystery. You know, that there is in heterosexual relationships, this understanding that sometimes like a woman has moves and a man is trying to use his moves to kind of break down the woman's moves or penetrate beyond, sometimes quite literally, the walls or the scarves that are sort of wrapping the truth of certain experiences.

She's such a good actress for this because she's incredibly composed and such an elegant person and feels impenetrable. And so she makes for a great spy. She does. But there's also a world where when you're watching her, you're like, maybe this is just who she is. Maybe there's no performance here at all, that she actually is this Phoebe Philo draped woman

whose husband cooks every meal, and she is sort of the lead of the marriage, and she leads from the front of the marriage. And you buy it until the movie starts to play out, and then you realize, like, partnership is stretched in different ways at different times. But I do, I don't know that I have that thing that your wonderful Italian therapist has.

You know, if I'm not sharing something, it's probably either because I'm not sharing something, it's probably either because I can't access it or I'm probably being too strategic. OK. You know, as opposed to having a philosophy of truth, which is a thing that obviously many spies might just grapple with too.

I mean, probably, but also, you know, maybe we've gone too far as like an open, therapy-American society. Absolutely possible. And sometimes you just got to blackbag something. Is there anything that we have to blackbag? Like for example, when Chris took Endgame from me in a movie draft. Like that is, from now on, that's a blackbag issue. We don't discuss that. Um, I don't know if we like act, I think that we have a level of respect where it's like, we don't even need to ask the question, you know, like the black bag

doesn't even need to be said, which, which I like very much, you know, that, that is its own level of trust. So I don't, you know, sometimes whatever's going on with you, I'm just going to let it cook and I'm going to check the spreadsheet and I'm just going to go with it. And that's how we do it. Okay. You know?

Anything else you want to add about Black Bag? People going to go see this movie? Probably not. I think they should. I genuinely think it's a fun day and night movie. Feels like a real, oh, I didn't realize this isn't in theaters anymore, VOD classic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The likes of which we've talked about many times on the show. I know, but this is genuinely

get a babysitter, go see this movie, and dinner on either side. And we haven't had one of those in a long time that I think is... Well, you weren't here for Nosferatu. That was the last time we really had one of those. Yeah long time that I think is... Well, you weren't here for Nosferatu. That was the last time we really had one of those. Um... Yeah, I generally agree.

I think this is the best movie of the year so far. I think it's been a... it's been a spotty year. It's been some gems. We'll talk about a few gems next week on the show. Um, you haven't seen the Electric State yet, right? No, that's on the list for this weekend. Me as well. I didn't check it out at any of the as well. Yeah, really, really exciting.

I didn't check it out at any of the screenings. Okay. Let's talk about Cate Blanchett. Okay. He has a big career. Yeah. He has a long career. One of our great working, living actors.

I think there are some people who would say she is the greatest living actress, actor. You know, she's in that conversation with Daniel Day-Lewis and I don't know, who else is up there right now that you're like... Meryl Denzel. Meryl Street Denzel, yeah. People when they show up, it's an event in and of itself.

Even if the material is not always good. Yes. And someone who works as often as she does is not always going to hit. This is a somewhat similar conversation to her Australian compatriot, Nicole Kidman, who we talked about in January for Baby Girl. She's a little bit younger than Nicole Kidman, who we talked about in January for Baby Girl. She's a little bit younger than Nicole Kidman. Mm-hmm. But she has worked just as much, if not more.

I don't know. In the last... Maybe not as much in the last five years. In the last five years. I mean, Nicole Kidman is just... She's making a lot of TV. No days off. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. She's the winner of two Academy Awards

for The Aviator and Blue Jasmine, supporting actress and actress. Four BAFTAs, four Golden Globes. Not an EGOT person. Does not have an Emmy, does not have a Tony. I was surprised to learn she did not win for Mrs. America, the Emmy. That seemed like a mini-series that was almost made to pull in Emmys. And I thought it was quite good actually.

I don't know if you ended up watching that. I watched some of it. She was good. She's very good. Yeah, Phyllis Schlathley. I thought it was a great ensemble cast. I thought that was a really interesting series. Tremendous career in the theater.

You also didn't know what happened, right? Like you were like, did they get the Equal Rights Act? Well, there was another movie recently that was about that. What was it? Was it the RBG movie? Well, that was about... I mean, it wasn't specifically about, like, the Equal Rights Amendment, but... Can women vote? Are they allowed to vote?

Um... She has a Tony Award nomination, no Tonys. She's done an enormous amount of work in the Australian theater. Yeah. And her husband is a playwright and a director and screenwriter, and they work together a lot as well. So there's also just a lot that she does.

She lives in Sydney, I think. She doesn't even live in LA or the United States. And didn't really break into the movies, as we know them, until she was about 28 years old. She did some work on TV and in the theater in Australia, and she made a couple of Australian films before coming to the U.S. And then once she broke through, she was kind of like here to stay in the late 90s. So what do you, what do you think about her?

What do you make of her screen persona? What do you, what do you think she's really excels at? Stealing us. Like that is a woman who can do anything and can bring a lot of nuance to just be an ice cold, but there is like a level of composure that she excels at that, and like, you know, regal scariness, basically, that she brings that you do not come to expect with her. So it was interesting to go and rewatch some of her younger, like younger, earlier performances, where she, I think, is cast in a wider range of roles

and is asked to do things like naivety and, you know, cluelessness or not quite having everything together. And she can do it. She can do anything. But knowing what I know about Cate Blanchett now, I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's interesting because she's often described as versatile. That she can do any kind of part. But I would say, especially over the last 10 or 12 years,

she has developed a kind of framework that she really thrives in. A certain kind of a part. Maybe some of that is just like what kind of roles are available to women in their 40s and 50s. But I do think that she has a really good feel. Because if you look at the movies that she made in the 90s, especially in the early 2000s, a lot of like broad comedy, daffiness, like maybe not showcasing that evident intelligence that she has.

She's obviously a very smart person. If you ever read an interview with her, she's really deft at eliding annoying questions. She's really good at revealing just enough about herself, but not too much. She still has that aura of mystery that you were describing earlier to her as a performer. But a lot of charm also.

Very charming. And she can... There is like warmth to her, but also you don't want to cross it at any point. But are we just confusing that with her movie roles, you know? With Elizabeth or with Lydia Tarr. No, because I have watched like a lot of content of her, especially in the last, you know, five years on Instagram,

because she has quite a devoted, um, following. Especially, like, a queer following. No, no, no, no, no, I think she's just, she is like... There's a huge stan culture around her, yeah. Huge, queer stan culture. Especially post-Carol, yeah. Yeah, and so, and which she like has also embraced. But so, there's just like a lot of Instagram content.

You can like, you can go down the reels with Cate Blanchett for a long time. And so no, she's, and she's like game and fun. Like she is a performer. Mm-hmm. Does she have any social media? I don't think so. She's Cate Blanchett.

Why does she, why does she need to be on Instagram? I don't know. Actually, it's funny you say that. There was just a story this week about Scarlett Johansson saying that movie executives were encouraging her to start an Instagram page so that she could help promote, I guess, Jurassic World Rebirth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is something that has been in the news. I think it was maybe Maya Hawke who talked about this a couple of months ago,

that, you know, movies are greenlit now in part based on following, which is something we know kind of intrinsically. And we know even just from doing this kind of work in a digital atmosphere. Right. No, but Cate Blanchett is grandfathered in. She's not that much older than Scarlett Johansson, but yes. Um, she just got over the line, I would say, from having to relentlessly promote her stuff. She also has two Oscars, so...

She has two Oscars. She is genuinely one of the most successful women at the box office in movie history, because she has a number of franchises that she can hang her hat on. You know, she's been a part of not just The Lord of the Rings and not just the MCU, but the How to Train Your Dragon movies, the Indiana Jones movies, the Ocean's movies.

Like, she's not afraid to just do Hollywood stuff. Sometimes it's not good. But she doesn't really seem to care. She doesn't seem to care. I get the impression she does make plenty of stuff just like for her kids. She's like, my kids would want to see me do this, which is something we've talked about with the Ben Affleck's of the world in the past. And also to fund like a theater company in Australia.

Yes. Which makes sense. Which is rad. That's cool. That is very cool. Do you have a favorite performance of hers? Let's put Tar in a box for a minute. Let's put Tar in a box. I think she's really, really good and talented, Mr. Ripley. Okay.

Because even there, she's playing like the rich person rich person who doesn't, who's clueless and doesn't know anything. But there is, there are things that, manipulative things, like she's figuring out under the surface that I just, it's like very memorable. I like that more than I like, you know, Elizabeth. She's really good in when she shows up in Thor, whatever Thor that is. Yes, Ragnarok. Yeah. You know, I tend to like the bit stuff more than the things that she has won Oscars for.

So what makes you say that? Well, Blue Jasmine, she's obviously very good, but that's such a... I don't... It's not that fun. Mm-hmm. It's a very busy performance. And it's so obviously like, I would like an Oscar please performance. Mm-hmm. And then the aviator, she's really, really good at Catherine Hepburn and she has like a lot

of Catherine Hepburn-esque qualities in terms of like the regalness and the cheekbones, I guess. And the... Her posture, her elocution. Yeah. That athletic sense that she has. Yeah. But like, you know how I feel about the Aviator.

I'm like pretty mixed. Okay. You think this will be a hard Hall of Fame to build or not? No, because there's so much to choose from. And there are a couple really obvious ones. Mm-hmm. And then the rest, like, I don't think, I'm not gonna like die on the, you know, fence of Thor or whatever or, you know, talent. Like, I don't feel that passionately.

I think the ones I feel passionately about are definitely going in. So I'm not too worried. Are you nervous? No, I think there's five like rock solid. You know you have to do these. And then the other five, partially a matter of taste, partially a matter of impact. It's a little hard to not choose movies

in which someone has won an Academy Award, even if you don't love the performance. We do it all the time. Do we? Yeah. What was an example of that? Um, I don't know. I remember we didn't even, Julia Roberts was nominated for Steel Magnolias and I was

like, I don't care. She didn't win. Okay, well, didn't we do it? An Academy Award winning performance? I don't know. Like, Erin Brockovich went in. Well, yeah. You know, I would say Philadelphia and Forrest Gump went in when we did Hanks. Did we, have we done Hanks? Some years ago, yeah. You know, I would say Philadelphia and Forrest Gump went in when we did Hanks.

Did we, have we done Hanks? Some years ago, yeah. Okay. I don't know if they all did. Hanks or Cruz, who you got? I'm not, I'm not getting into this. We can have them both. You won't make a choice.

No, no, no, that's between you and Bill. And I'm not going to be, I'm not going to be like relitigated. Let's build it. Okay. She gets her start with a couple of movies in Australia in 1997, Paradise Road and thank God he met Lizzie. Thank God he met Lizzie, a romantic comedy.

I know. That looks like her career could have gone. I would have liked to see it, but it's Australian and not easy to track down. This is, you know, somewhat similar to the Nicole Kidman thing, where you can see that the Australian film industry sees a cute, tall, young woman and is like,

we're going to make her our Julia Roberts. And that's not really like where they excel. And so you kind of see her moving away from that sort of thing. So Paradise Road and Thank God He Met Liz, our nose. Those are both red. In 1997 she's in Oscar and Lucinda. This is probably the first time I heard of her. She's opposite Ralph Fiennes in this movie, which is directed by the Australian director Gillian Armstrong. Very small Oscar movie, but had a best costume nomination. Ralph Fiennes coming off of like one of the more wild runs

where he's in, you know, Schindler's List and the English patient and he's like really at the center. And he makes this fairly small, I guess, like novel adaptation opposite this relatively unknown actress. With great supporting cast Karen Hines, Tom Wilkinson, Richard Roxberg, who she's worked with many times in the past, Australian actor. I haven't seen this movie in like 30 years, whenever it came out. It's pretty good.

I like everyone involved, including Jillian Armstrong. Yeah, I do too. And this is not the last time she'll work with Jillian Armstrong. But I don't think it goes in. I think it's like close. The problem is, is that the breakthrough that I always like to point to is like really loud on the next one. Yeah. So it's fine. So, I mean, it has to be Elizabeth. Yeah.

So Elizabeth comes one year later, um, which is probably caught a lot of people by surprise for a variety of reasons. A relatively unknown star, star, an Indian filmmaker, Shikhar Kapoor, who had, I think, only made films in India up until this point, and then became kind of a known quantity in English and Hollywood cinema. Went on to remake the Four Feathers

and a number of other things. The Elizabeth story, I rewatched it this week. So, by Elizabeth story, let's just be clear. So you mean history? History, yes. The story of Elizabeth I. We can call it a story. It's ancient history.

Yeah, no, no, I know. But you tend to have a skepticism for this time period, whether it's Shakespeare or... What do you mean? I don't know. I heard you getting ready to just be like, I don't know about Elizabeth. Uh, no, I wasn't going to say that. Okay.

I think it's hard to compress a person's life that is so big into movies like this. This movie is only two hours long, then you remember that 10 years later they make a sequel. Yeah. Which I think is actually quite cool, and I wish that there were more historical dramas that were like, we'll come back to you in 10 years with this,

when the actor has aged, when certain technologies have improved, so I've always liked that. She's really good, and you can see her kind of like, wrap her arms around what that persona's gonna be in this movie. It isn't my favorite historical drama of all time. No. Solid supporting cast, Jeffrey Rush,

Christopher Eccleston. Josephine's never really had a taste for that, you know, not really my guy. Pretty much never really liked him in a movie. That's hard. Much more of a Rafe guy. I know you. I mean, so am I, but, you know, I have time for Joseph. I know you're Shakespeare in Love team. It's listen, it's it's good. It's it's fine. History is what it is,

both in the in the case of Elizabeth and also what happened with Shakespeare in Love. No, it's just, I mean, the performance is just electrifying. And you're like, oh, who is this? And it's Kate Blanchett. And she like immediately gets Oscar attention and... Not only did she win the Golden Globe, the movie itself was a pretty big Oscar movie, and basically confirms her as a leading woman,

like, and almost like a Hollywood fixture, instantaneously. Like I said, she had been kind of working in Australia for five or six years to this point, but you don't really see things work this way in quite the same way. I guess you could say like a Nora is sort of like this, where Mikey Madison now will have her pick of the litter, I would say like a Nora is sort of like this, where Mikey Madison now will have her pick of the litter, but the level of prestige that was afforded to this movie

and to this part felt very rare to me. You know when you feel like you're, like if you're a big sports fan, you know, I know everything about the NFL, and then some guy gets signed to a free agent contract, and I'm like, I don't know who the fuck that guy is. That guy got $75 million, who is that? It happens with young actresses, a fair amount.

Yeah. Who's the last person? I guess like Daisy Ridley is a person to whom this happened. Um, so maybe it's more common than I'm thinking. Nevertheless, Paradise Road, Red. Thank God he met Lizzie Red. Oscar and Lucinda, Yellow. Elizabeth, the first green. Yeah.

Um, An Ideal Husband. Is this an Oscar Wilde play? Yes. Um, is it with Rupert Everett? I haven't seen this in a long time. The first green. Yeah. An ideal husband. Is this an Oscar Wilde play? Yes. Is it with Rupert Everett? Yes. I haven't seen this in a long time. I haven't either, but I definitely saw it at the time as like a result of, okay, now

we know who Cate Blanchett is. Yes. And we know who Rupert Everett is. Yes, Minnie Driver as well as in this movie. Who directed this movie? I need to refresh my memory. Oliver Parker. Okay.

Um, fine. As I recall. Okay. Yeah. I think she gets a little bit, um, typecast as woman who wears, uh, yeah, corsets, corsets. And she can do that very well. I wonder how she feels about that now.

When's the last time she's strapped on a corset? Let's see. It's probably been a while, right? Maybe it is Elizabeth the Golden Age, and she's kind of in armor in that movie. Yeah. She does, I mean... Cinderella, perhaps? Well, yeah.

Like, at some point, it's, we're talking about, like, different garments. You know, like, in, in Carol, they were wearing, she was doing period pieces and corsets of a sort. You know, like in Carol, they were wearing, she was doing period pieces and corsets of a sort. You know, I don't remember what's going on in Nightmare Alley, but you know, she's very good. Yeah, but I met in terms of like the underpinnings as they call them.

Sure, yeah. You know, but so period pieces, but not that level of period piece. I see. Has Kate Blanchett posed for Playboy? No? OK. An Ideal Husband is Red.

Pushing Tin, do you remember this movie? This was a big cover of Entertainment Weekly. I do remember. Angelina Jolie, Billy Bob Thornton, John Cusack. You know what they are? They're air traffic controllers. This is going to be a zany dramedy from Mike Newell, English filmmaker.

Not a big fan of this movie. 1999, she makes three movies. Her second is just a vocal performance as mysterious woman in Eyes Wide Shut. She does have a great voice. A great voice that is very good in this very weird part where she sort of like helps escort Tom Cruise through a mysterious, orgiastic secret society having their weekly fuck session. I don't know how else to describe it.

Um, not going in. Mm-mm. But I'd like to create a new delineation. And I don't, maybe the color should be orange. OK. And it's the, I'm fucking glad this happened. Just the cool shit? Yeah.

Yeah. OK. Just one cool thing. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Just one cool thing. Great. I'd like for it to always be in a movie. I don't want it to be some social media moment, a meme, a talk show appearance.

Okay, listen, stop waving your hand at me like that. I don't want that. No, no, no, I don't want it. As soon as you know that I'm doing it. Okay, uh, Orange, Rise Wide Shut. Okay. 1999 again, The Talented Mr. Ripley. Now you think going in, now she's a critical character,

but it's a small part. Yeah. No small parts, only small actors. Oh, OK. Great. Excellent. I think it's green. I'll allow it.

Thank you. Have you seen The Gift? No, I haven't. But I know it's a Sam Raimi film, so I was just going to let you cook. It is a Sam Raimi film. Getting out of the way. Very disreputable swamp noir thriller.

Here's my one note on it when I rewatched it a few years ago. It's got a great cast, Keanu Reeves, Giovanni Robisi. There's not really any movies about characters who have telepathy or like a sixth sense. Like that's not... We're not doing that anymore? No, like there are just not a lot that exist.

There's certainly some like exploitation like smaller horror movies that feature that, but like Hollywood movies about somebody who can like see the future or read minds or is like a palm reader. This is the rare case where that's like, you know, she's got after a murder, they go to her, the police go to her and they're like,

help us solve who killed this person. Help us use your magical powers to read whether or not your mysticism. And that alone distinguishes it. It's very unusual. Cause I think most people look at that stuff and they're like, there are people in the world who are actually trying to pretend that that's real, but we all know it's not real.

So it's not a good framework for a movie. What do you think about that? Do you, have you ever been to a palm reader? Have you ever been to a psychic? I think that I tried to go once with our mutual friend, Lindsay Fields, but the psychic was closed, which didn't seem like a good, like, auspicious sign. You and Lindsay Fields at a psychic, that's an insane energy. Well, we definitely had, like, several drinks at lunch.

It was great. I miss Lindsay. I hope she's really well. Me too. So, but, like, the psychic being closed is kind of, I mean, I guess that's, like, my autobiography title. Um, so, no, I haven't been that I'm aware of. You don't think that there was... The psychic was closed. Hey, Amanda Dobbin story. I haven't been that I'm aware of. You don't think that there was... The psychic was closed.

The Amanda Dobbins story. I mean, I do kind of believe there are people with ESP. Is that what it's called? ESP, extra sensory perception. It's probably not a good story construct because it's just kind of like magic basically. And then this person solves the problem. And how do you visualize it? It's always like her, like... It almost has like a thought bubble attached to her head.

It's just like, I'm seeing the murder transpire. Um... I mean, like, it's in Ghost, right? But that's played for laughs. Yes. But even then, it's like... Yeah, it's like a ghostly figure. It's not the same as sort of like a person who can kind of channel a memory. You know, like Patrick Swayze is actually like there

trying to touch you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, that's a tangent. The gift is red. Okay. Not a huge success. The Man Who Cried, never seen it. Okay.

You, this is your favorite movie? No, but I'm reading, here's the cast. 2000 drama film written and directed by Sally Potter, starring Christina Ricci, Cate Blanchett, Johnny Depp, Harry Dean Stanton, and John Totoro. Incredible. Written and directed by Sally Potter, never seen this movie. Yeah. It's about a young Jewish girl who after being separated from her father in Soviet Russia,

who I assume is Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci is the daughter, grows up in England. No, her father is Oleg Yankovsky. Oh, OK. Grows up in England and moves to Paris as a young adult shortly before the beginning of World War II. Johnny Depp is a mysterious performing horseman. I want to say, whoever wrote the Wikipedia page for The Man Who Cried, written and directed by Sally Potter,

you're doing great work. Boy, this is a movie that does not exist to me. Played Venice? I guess so. Cate Blanchett won best supporting actress in the National Board of Review. OK. This will be the last movie of hers that I just straight up have not. OK. I've not heard of. All right. 2001's The Shipping News.

Let me take you back once upon a time when two time Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey was the hottest name in Hollywood. Hard to hard to imagine now. but this guy could get anything made. He could get K-Pax made, he could get Pay It Forward made, and he could get the shipping news made. The shipping news, a literary adaptation about a guy who's like an ink setter at a local newspaper who falls in love with a woman played by Cate Blanchett, and she is

not a nice woman at all. Yeah. She cheats on him, breaks his heart, and then he needs another woman to come in and save him. This movie stinks. Her name is also Petal. Read all of the characters' names in the shipping news. They're insane.

Kevin Spacey as Coil. Coil, Q-U-O-Y-L-E. Yeah. Julianne Moore as Wavy Prowse. Wavy Prowse. Judi Dench as Agnes Ham, but Agnes spelled with an I. I like the name Agnes. Kate Blanchett as Petal.

Pete Possilflate as Turt Card. Turt Card, T-E-R-T. Card. Reese Ifans as Bo Field Nutbeam. Bo Field Nutbeam. I mean, we could go on. This is the most, it's an Annie Pruill novel, I'm pretty sure, right?

Yeah. And I remember trying to read this when I was a big fan of Kevin Spacey's, and I was like, what in the actual fuck? You know when authors just get bored and they're like, I'm gonna try to come up with the craziest name again. Yeah. That's cool. Anyway, shipping news not in.

2001 Charlotte Crate, not a bad movie. No, not a bad movie. Gillian Armstrong movie about a spy in World War II. I know. So it's like, you know, all of Amanda's things are coming together. That's pretty good. Well, Billy Crudup is playing, like, a French resistance guy

with an American... The accents are all... They're doing the thing where everyone is just gonna speak in English with their best, like, ha-ha accent. I think this is his first movie after Almost Famous. And... Cate Blanchett is... I mean, she's capable, but she is doing that whole, like, I'm, you know, thrown in the deep end,

and I don't know how to do all of this. And I'm like, well, you're Cate Blanchett. You would know how to do all of this. Interesting and very good point. Yeah. Okay. Well, Charlotte Grey, not even yellow. No. Join the high volume trend with YSL Love Shine Plumping Lip Oil Gloss. Formulated for maximized volume and 24 hour hydration, this gloss delivers a non-sticky, ultra-thin,

glass-like additive texture in every shade, from bold berry reds and pinks to breathtaking nudes. Shine on with YSL Love Shine Plumping Lip Oil Gloss. Visit YSLBeauty.ca to elevate your lip game now. Hey, it's DJ First Dibs. I notice you've been listening to a lot of summer vibes lately. I get it. You're dreaming about vacations. Game Now. My algorithm suggests book before March 30th. Remember, Sunwing. Save more. Do more. Book with your local travel advisor or at sunwing.ca. 2001's Bandits, never seen this before,

watched it this week for the first time. This was a big movie at the time. Barry Levinson bank robber comedy, starring Billy Bob in a reunion with Cate Blanchett, and Bruce Willis. They play bank robbing brothers called the Overnight Bandits, I think, where they sleep over bandits.

Sleep over bandits. Movie doesn't work. Yeah. It's really weird. I do really love this era of Billy Bob Thornton when he was getting all these cool parts and like a simple plan and Armageddon and he's great in all of these movies.

That was kind of a cool run where he was like, not a movie star, but not a character actor. He was doing something very interesting in Hollywood. Anyway, I really liked Cate Blanchett in this movie. It's one of the only times when she is completely rejecting that stealiness that you were describing. She plays like a completely frustrated, like over it housewife of a rich guy

who accidentally hits one of the bandits with her car and then she goes on the bank robbing spree with them. The movie itself is not very good, but I like her performance in it. I'm not advocating for it in the Hall of Fame. I'm merely just drawing some attention to it. She's good. There is a new Barry Levinson movie coming out next week.

My dad is so excited. The Alto Nights. Yeah. It feels a little bandits-y. Yeah. In that it won't be good, but maybe something cool will happen in it. Have you watched any of the De Niro Netflix show?

It's like, well called One Day? No. Is it called Day One? Day One. Something like that. I haven't, and I never will. Okay.

Have you? No. Okay. But sometimes Netflix auto plays it for me and it's like De Niro just being like, you know, go to the Situation Room or something like that. Is he playing Biden? Uh, probably.

Okay. The one problem with me not watching it is in the Bill Simmons mold of season tickets. I have sworn to watch everything Jesse Plemons does. Oh, that's tough. And he's in the show. Yeah, right. So what do I do about that? Um, you could just watch his scenes. That would be deranged, but it is the kind of thing I would do.

Yeah. So there you go. Okay. It is not called one day or day one. It is in fact called zero day. Zero day. We're not even on the first day. We're on the zero day. We're not on the first day yet.

Maybe that's season two. I mean, we could be on the first day in the UK. Zero day colon day one is season two. Uh, okay. I'm not watching that. 2001 Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Rings. Yes. Yeah. She's a... She's the queen of the elves? Correct. Galadriel. Is she really the queen of the elves?

Yes. You only know that because I just said it to you on another pod that won't be released for nine months. This happened literally yesterday. Don't pretend like you knew that. But it's not like I remembered that that's how you told me. That was like... Because here's the thing, I've seen all three of these movies. Yeah, local woman knows about famous actor in the biggest movie of all time.

I've seen all three of these movies, but like, the way that you can't remember, like, meaningful personal interactions, I can't remember the plot of these movies. Like, and you could tell me, and it just goes to a part of my brain where I'm like, uh-huh, uh-huh, and the ears were pointy. Um, so that I remembered that, I know it's because you told me, but my brain is working in amazing ways. So she's the queen of the elves.

She's the queen of the elves. She's the queen of the elves. She helps set the fellowship on their path toward... The fellowship or hobbits? As well as other figures. The tree people? Not really, no. No. You know, there's hobbits, there's Aragorn.

Aragorn's not an elf? No, he's a man. He's played by Viggo Mortensen. What's up with the humans in the Shire? What is up with them? Like, what's their status? They don't live in the Shire. The hobbits live in the Shire.

Well, Middle Earth, Middle Earth. That's what it's called. That's the entire realm. Yeah, so like, what is the status of humans in the realm? What do you mean, are they vaccinated? What are you talking about? Well, are they? Status? Yeah, like, like, like, what's the...

Have they been naturalized citizens? What is the human elf tree people, like, is there a power structure? Is everyone coexisting? I think there's three whole movies that you could watch and find out the answers to these questions. I watched them, but I don't remember. There are various kingdoms. Some of them are led by men.

Some of them are led by these other characters. Is Middle Earth before now or after now? It's not in the chronology of America. Like, I don't know. I'm not asking about, like, America, about, like, the chronology of humanity. Amanda, this is a fantasy story. It's all made up. Coming soon to a Ringer movies YouTube video near you,

Amanda's cast system of Middle Earth. Well, I'm not trying to impose a hierarchy if one doesn't exist. If they've worked it all out... and they're treating each other with respect, which it doesn't sound like they are. It sounds like Middle Earth needs a zero day to make it clear who's in charge.

Lord of the Rings and Fellowship of the Rings going in. I think that's the most Galadriel screen time we get, but honestly, I can't remember. And if there's somebody out there who's like, actually, Dick, it's the Two Towers, I apologize. I think Fellowship is a good stand-in for the entire series. Okay. And she's very similar to Talented Mr. Ripley,

a very important character with a modest role. Yeah. Okay, Two Towers, we can just read, just for the sake of conversation. Heaven, I haven't seen in a long time, Tom Tickford movie. I think the first movie, maybe the first movie he made after Run, Little, Run. Also with Giovanni Rupisi, as I recall. Haven't seen it in a long time.

Feels like a very minor movie about... What did she play? Teacher? I don't remember. And this is the first... She plays a teacher in another movie coming up, are you? Yes, and she also plays a woman proximate to drug addiction in another movie coming up very soon too,

so this is something she's kind of like working in. And she's doing this thing where she's bouncing between big tentpole-y stuff now, or big prestigious projects, and smaller projects, often directed by international filmmakers or women. Something that she's kind of always been committed to. So Heaven is Red, 2003's Coffee and Cigarettes. She appears in one segment of Jim Jarmusch's Omnibus movie that is a very fun movie.

Yeah. It also stars the Wu-Tang Clan, Bill Murray, number of other people, the White Stripes. She plays herself and a woman named Shelly. Okay. It's a cool sequence. I mean, that's the gist of this. It's cool. It's cool that everybody did these things. that's the gist of this. It's cool.

It's cool that everybody did these things. Like, is it essential? Is it going in the Hall of Fame? If we had not already given her voice work in Eyes Wide Shut the coveted orange space. The orange thing? Okay. Oh, so there's only... This could have been an orange space.

There's only one cool shit award for Hall of Fame. What do you think about that? I like it. Okay. So red for coffee and cigarettes. Veronica Garan. Sure. It's a movie about an Irish journalist,

directed by Joel Schumacher, who is absolutely the director you want, making a drama about an Irish journalist, who is a true story based on a very upsetting, um, real woman's tale, uh, who sought to expose the incredible wave of, um, drug dealing and drug addiction that was happening in Dublin in the 90s and

It's fine she's good accents Why is Joel Schumacher making this movie? I don't know okay, and he's kind of bouncing around in the aftermath of his Grisham Batman period mm-hmm. I think this is right around when he does phone booth with Colin Farrell actually Colin Farrell This is one of his very first roles. He plays a guy watching a soccer match in this movie. And I think, I want to say Tigerland is like right after this, another Joel Schumacher movie. And so that is, that's the movie that really set Colin Farrell on it, on his way to being

the wonderful man that we know today. Okay, so does this go in Colin Farrell's Hall of Fame? Well I'd love to do it with you. Okay. And he's going to be the star of The Ballad of Fame? Well, I'd love to do it with you. Okay. And he's going to be the star of The Ballad of a Small Player, which is the new Edward Berger movie about a gambler who goes to Macau, which I cannot wait for. Unfortunately, it's a Netflix movie, so I'm lowering my expectations, but after your Vegas run, maybe you could be the star of The Ballad of a Small Player too.

That sounds wonderful. Okay. Veronica Garan is red. My mind feels very strong right now. Okay, what do you think? Did it not start off strong? Very weak this morning. I know and I asked you about that

and you black bagged it. It was raining very loud. It did wake me up. It woke me up too, but I was able to go back to sleep. I did have three cups of coffee. I had two. I've been doing the... I changed magnesiums and I do

think it's helping. I've never tried magnesium. My wife uses magnesium. I do magnesium and it like, and it's with vitamin D for absorption and I need vitamin D anyway because we all do. Uh, so... Not something I'm currently getting as most viewers of this podcast know. Right, yeah. Uh, so that helped, but the rain

did wake me up. And it woke Zach up and then Cy was crying and then, you know. Tough night. So I think Zach is bearing the brunt of the, Zach's where you are. But it's nice to see that you've woken back up. My mind is strong. 2003 The Missing. This is Ron Howard's follow-up to A Beautiful Mind. It's a two and a half

hour western starring Tommy Lee Jones and Cate Blanchett as a woman whose daughter is apprehended, abducted, abducted. My mind isn't as strong as I thought. Kind of a faint homage to The Searchers. Tommy Lee Jones plays her father, who's very learned in the ways of the Apache, like you do. Okay. I thought this movie was incredibly boring. Yeah. There is a contingent of people who think it's very underrated. And it's very kind of stately Ron Howard production.

Yeah. I'm not a big fan. Okay. There's a contingent of people who think every just like really long Western that like came out between 1994 and 2005 is underappreciated. I usually have a handshake agreement with those people, but in this case, I don't.

I don't feel that Ron Howard has a real flair for the Western or something kind of flat and uninspiring to me about this movie. Nevertheless, 2004, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Well, you skipped Return of the King. I just, like, I don't want people Steve Zissou. Well, you skipped Return of the King. I just, like, I don't want people to yell at us because you didn't say Return of the King. It won Best Picture. Yeah.

What did it do? Go 11 for 11 at the Academy Awards, something crazy like that. Yeah, I saw it. It's darn good. She wasn't nominated for her work in that film. I think it's a fairly small part in the third film. But congratulations to her. It just wanted the people of Middle Earth

and their new and equal society to be seen and heard. They are not listening because they don't exist. Return of the King, you know what's good about those movies? They shot them all together. Yeah. Why aren't we not doing that more? We're doing it with TV shows. Well, of course.

Yeah, well. But three epic films, you know we're doing it with TV shows. Well, of course. Yeah. Well. But three epic films, you know who did do it? Big Jim. Avatar 2 and 3 shot together. Shout out to him. Did they, they didn't do it with Dune. They didn't.

I think because they weren't sure if Dune 1 was going to work. It's their hedge, their pencil. You know who did it though? The god Kevin Costner with Horizon Part 1 and 2. Oh yeah. Well, I've heard, I've heard. I actually don't know if that's true. To the contrary, Bob. Really?

Well, I know he didn't shoot three at the same time, even though he wanted to. Uh, let's just say it was a rolling production is my understanding of the situation. Okay. That's waiting for those checks to cash. I think that there was like, let's make sure we have enough to complete two going on. But they did. And I can't wait to see it. Uh, okay.

2004, The Life of Quadruple C, I think it's going in. Green. Okay, great. She's wonderful. She's excellent in this movie. She's so good. And there is a softness, like a little daffiness to what's going on with her, but it's still believable.

Modulates her voice, different kind of performance, but still very emotional. Yes. She is a journalist on the boat, tracking Zisoo's reunion with his son, right, as I recall. I mean, I love this movie. We both love this movie. But no-brainer.

2004, let's just go back. How many do we have now? We have four. We have four and we're in 2004. We've got quite a few films to talk about, but how many greens we'll have? Let's go, let's see. 2004, the Aviator. I think it has to go in.

Now you want to fight? We can fight. I don't want to fight. I, we can, we can fight later on, but I would agree. This is her first Oscar. Very memorable. It, it is, you know, everyone doing old Hollywood cosplay, but like she's perfectly cast. I do really like Katharine

Hepburn. Like those pants. So sure. Green. Okay. 2005 Little Fish. This is a movie I was not aware of until yesterday. An Australian production. Like I said, she does go back to Australia to make films there every few years, which I think is very admirable. This one features a number of very well-known Australian actress Hugo Weaving, Martin Henderson. It's about a woman who works in a video store

who is a recovering addict, and it's a very emotional family drama. It was just okay. All right. I like that they tried it. Was she a good video store clerk? She's attempting in the movie to become a partner in the video store instead of just a clerk.

Oh. Relatable. And so it's about her journey to become like, you know, to elevate her status. Got it. Okay. Much as Gladriel elevated the status of elves in the film, The Lord of the Rings. Not going in. 2006 Babel? I mean, it's not going in.

I'm not a big fan of this movie. Nor am I. This is Inarritu's multi-continent, multi-character story about how we are all trapped in the quagmire of power and randomness. True. And true. Which is a true thing.

Yeah. So it's a sort of like a spiritual sequel to Amores Perros in some ways. You know, it has like a kind of a unifying conceit, but it covers a lot of different kinds of characters. She plays a woman who's married to Brad Pitt. They're on a trip in... Is it Tunisia? I can't quite recall which country they're in. Is it Morocco?

I think Morocco. Morocco. And something awful happens. And I don't want to watch this movie again. I did not revisit it. Okay. Interesting, the same year she also made The Good German. Yeah. Arguably the worst Steven Soderbergh it. Okay. Interesting, the same year she also made The Good German. Yeah. Arguably the worst Steven Soderbergh movie.

Yeah. When I spoke with Steven a couple years ago, I was like, when are you guys gonna put this on Blu-ray? And he was like, why do you wanna put that on Blu-ray? Um... That was very amusing. Bless him. He went for something cool, I think, in an attempt to recreate

a 40s black and white kind of war film. Um, it's kind of a spy war film in a way. She's cast kind of typecast in a way that she can get, often is typecast as Katharine Hepburn, and as in Nightmare Alley, she has this kind of Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, classical Hollywood actress veneer. She's fine. She's not really the problem with it.

I think Clooney is miscast and then... It's just like it's a little stayed. Agreed. It's out. Hot Fuzz, this also would have been a candidate for the orange cool, I'm glad you did this thing, where she plays at the very beginning of the film, the boyfriend of Simon Pegg's character, but she is wearing a forensic getup in the aftermath of a murder, and so we never see her face.

We only hear her voice, but it is her. That's her. You can see her eyes. You skipped notes on a scandal. Oh, shit. Well, that's important. Which is a green. That's important.

All right, I'll let you speak on it. I rewatched this because this was another buzzy Oscar. She was nominated for this movie. As was Judi Dench. And you know, it was like a, we were of an age where I was like seeing every Oscar. This was May, December before May, December. Yeah. I really like, it's like, good messed up movie.

Incredible Judi Dench performance and like, and a good script that uses it. But the Blanchett character could be a nothing burger and she is very interesting. Like this, the film is about two teachers, one of whom has an affair with a student, and the other exposes it or is interested in it for her own reasons.

And you don't totally understand why her character is doing what she's doing, but also you do. Like, there is, I guess, that bit of mystery that she imbues, but she also just makes it like a... She makes her a real, very believable person in what are, as the title would indicate, like pretty scandalous and soap opera-y circumstances. which really only Cate Blanchett could do. So it's interesting that she took on this part.

She's very good at it. I don't really have much to add to what you shared. I think it's maybe a part that only she could have played? Well, the May-December thing is apt because the setup is very different in May-December. The tones are so different. And the tones are different. And there's also a self-awareness, an awareness that is built in to the casting.

But if Natalie Portman were in Notes on a Skin, it would be quite different, which is the point, if Natalie Portman were in Notes on a Scandal, it would be quite different. Which is the point of casting Natalie Portman in May, December. Yeah. But... Could Nicole Kidman have been in Notes on a Scandal? Yes, maybe, but there is something...

Just a little more ordinary about Cate Blanchett. You know what I mean when I say that? That's exactly the right word, because I was trying to... You know, she is like extraordinarily beautiful and also extraordinarily... like, unique looking, you know? She's like the striking movie that you see on... She's like the striking woman that you see on a train.

Where you're like, she's in the real world. When you see Nicole Kidman, you're like, who's that alien? Right. That beautiful alien. Totally. Exactly. But yes, there is something that she can like shift down and be a little like messy and relatable. Let me ask you this, Nicole Kidman who played Galadriel. Yeah.

Notes on a Scandals Green, hot fuzz is red. Elizabeth the Golden Age, as I said, nine years later, Kapoor and Blanchett reunite to continue the tale of Elizabeth the First. Mm-hmm. In a very different phase of her life. She's nominated again for an Academy Award. Yeah, it's not going in, but... Okay.

It's a cool way to do history, I guess. Agreed, it's red. 2007, I'm not there. Green. I agree, she plays Jude Quinn, who is a version of the Bob Dylan that we just saw in the recent film, A Complete Unknown. The same era, essentially, it's about Bob's time in London

in, is it 64? I want to say 64. Um, she plays a version of him and it is the best Bob Dylan performance of all time. I think that's true. She was nominated in this year in Best Supporting Actress for this part and in Best Actress for Elizabeth the Golden Age. The rare double-double. You don't see it that often. She didn't win either part.

She should have won for I'm Not There. Okay. We'll come back to it. 2008, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. She plays an evil Russian named Irina Spalko. Mm-hmm. She's really, she's good. It's not going in. It's so hammy. This is the hammiest thing she's ever done. Yeah, but it's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. She's like, oh, Dr. Jones.

Well, I mean... You'll come back, Dr. Jones. Yeah, she's having fun. Like, if you're going to be a villain in an indie movie, that's what, you know, sees the day. OK. Not in an independent film, but in an Indiana Jones movie. Right, yeah.

Yeah, OK. It's red, you're saying? Yeah, it's red. But I enjoyed it. Better than The Dial of Destiny or worse? I mean, remember when, like like Archimedes comes to life or no, I guess it's Indiana Jones goes back in time. So Archimedes is like still living.

He's confronted by Archimedes and he's like, oh my God, when he doesn't speak Greek, he can't talk. And they have like an emotional question, like emotional conversation about like time. I thought that was pretty dumb. Completely disagree. I loved it. The only way to make that better would have been to just leave Indy there.

That was the way to end that movie. When they go back to New York, they fucked that up. Okay. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not going in. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 2008. Hmm. Hmm. Now... An interesting situation here. Of course, not my favorite of the David Fincher films.

Right. Because your heart is closed off. No. She plays, I think, a poorly written character. Yeah. I think this is one of the more standard girlfriend figures. She is luminous in the movie. And there's that incredible sequence in the plaza where she dances.

They're so, they're both so beautiful in it. Yeah. Which is the point. It is part of the point, for sure. I gotta go back to this movie and think about whether or not it's something I can never get my heart around. I'm not against it and I would suggest a yellow. Yellow.

We can come back to it. The thing is that the supporting performance in this movie is Taraji P. Henson. That's the one that is and she was nominated. Not Cate Blanchett. But the dancing really is so beautiful. As always, Cate, ahead of the curve, 2008, Ponyo, she supplies a voice performance

in the dubbed version as Grandma Mare. Cool that she did it. She's got five, it's cool that she did it. Cate Blanchett rules. Can't wait for your children to discover Ponyo. It's gonna be an amazing day. 2010, Robin Hood, don't know what happened here. She starred as Lady Marion,

and she's a little bit of a yosified Lady Marion, I would say, in Ridley Scott's completely unnecessary retelling of the Robin Hood tale, starring Russell Crowe. Chris Ryan and I were living in Brooklyn at the time when this came out, and this was easily the biggest event of our year to that point. We were extremely fired up as hardcore Ridley heads. We both wanted to go see it and-

And you were like, what I need is a Ridley retelling of Robin Hood. This seems like a good idea to you. Yeah, I mean, who's better at like the big action set piece, the period piece, battle sequences? This is what he does. He's great at this stuff. The movie is so turgid, except for Oscar Isaac,

who's excellent in it, as Prince John, I wanna say. So that's out. Now, 2011 Hannah. I was gonna say Green. I think it might be. This is one of her coolest performances. It's really, really fun, and also it can stand in for doing something different, playing the villain,

like in the non-costume drama type. Also, we're Joe Rightheads, so. I think this is one of my favorites of his. It's about a man who is like trained as a super spy assassin, who then essentially leaves the life and goes out and live in the wilderness, and he raises his daughter by himself, Hannah, and teaches her everything that he knows.

Hannah's played by Saoirse Ronan. Cate Blanchett plays Marissa Wiegler, who is this like CIA attache, somebody who's trying to basically bring Hannah in and utilize her skills for the government. She's very evil and intimidating and great in this movie. I think this movie's a little forgotten. Yeah.

Pretty cool though. It's really good. Okay, I like that as a green. 2012, The Hobbit and Unexpected Journey? Isn't all they do just journey places? They eat and then they got to go somewhere. So what's unexpected about it? Great note.

Got no follow up to that note. That's red. 2013, Blue Jasmine. This is her first film with Woody Allen. It's a film about a middle-aged woman essentially having a nervous breakdown. Yeah. As I said, a very showy performance,

a lot of tics, a lot of vocal affectation in the performance as this kind of like angry, nervous New Yorker. I think she's good in it. She's good. The whole campaign had this kind of air of inevitability, I think. And it was sort of in the same vein as like Sean Penn's second win, Daniel Day-Lewis' second win, where it was like, you can't not because she's Cate Blanchett.

Like she could add by this time. Who is she running against? Two thousand. Good question. Oscars. Here we go. It would be the 2014 Oscars. I, I Googled that. OK, I know what's up.

Amy Adams in American Hustle, respectfully no. Sandra Bullock in Gravity, respectfully no. Judi Dench in Philomena, which was like the award season joke of that year because who had heard of that. And Merrill, but in August, Osage County. So with this lineup, you kind of can't not do it. I actually think Amy Adams is fantastic in American Hustle, which is a movie I don't like.

She's good. This was the year of Wolf of Wall Street and Margot Robbie was not nominated. I would have put her in supporting personally. Okay. Well, oh, June Squibb was nominated in supporting that year. That was nice. She's very good in Nebraska. Okay. Well, oh, June Squibb is nominated in supporting that year, that was nice.

She's very good in Nebraska. Okay. Well, I think Blue Jasmine probably has to go in. It would be weird to put in Hannah and not Blue Jasmine. Well, don't you feel like we're a little samey doing the expected stuff right now, with the exception of Hannah? That's what I like about Hannah.

The problem with Hannah is there's at least three more that have to go in. Well, I just don't think the blue j— We already did an Oscar. Make it yellow. Bobby made it yellow. Good job. Thank you, Bob. 2013's The Turning. No, not going in. 2013's The Hobbit, The Desolation of Smaug.

So, Smaug is... I like saying it like smaug. Is that not how you say it? Some say smog. Okay. Well, what is what's in the text? Tolkien's dead, so I'm not really sure. No, I meant in the in the movie.

No one says smaug at any point or smog. I think it's like somewhere in between the way that I'm pronouncing it. Okay, so it's like an American thing where we can't get the vowels right. That's... Soran is the I. So That's, oh, Sauron is the eye. So what's up with Smog? Smog's a dragon voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch. He's trapped in a lair protecting gold.

Okay, but then the hobbits get in the lair and they get the gold and they redistribute it equally. Not exactly, you'd be surprised. Oh no. There's an unexpected journey. Oh. I thought we had already completed the unexpected journey. Keep your unexpected journeys

out of my desolation of smell, Sean. It's kind of an ongoing situation, you know. It's one of the most offensive things ever that they split this into three movies. It's so offensive. Yeah, Ralph Bakshi did it all by himself in the 70s. He made one movie in 110 minutes. Or some well-to-do works.

This is just an adaptation of the book The Hobbit. Which I've read. Yeah. Okay. I'm looking forward to reading that to my child. The Hobbit? Yeah. It's a good story to read.

Hated it. Hated it. Yeah. Explains a lot. 2014 The The Monuments Men, this film's directed by George Clooney and stars Matt Damon. And it stinks. It really, really stinks. John Goodman's in it.

Tons of great actors in it. Bill Murray's in it. Bill Murray. I really wanted this to be good, and it's just, like, really not good. If you do it 100, if you do it 99 more times, how many times is it good? Is George Clooney directing it, with respect?

Let's say no. 99 other directors get a shot at making this kind of a movie. A heist movie set during World War II. Let's just have Edward Berger make it. Well, that would be good. Yeah. I agree. That would be good.

Would it be funny though? I guess Conclave is pretty funny. Yeah. Okay. 2014 How to Train Your Dragon 2? Um, no. Okay. I, we're going to CinemaCon.

They're gonna show the How to Train Your Dragon live-action film while we're there. Oh, they are? That was officially announced. Are we going? Well, would you like to go? I've never seen the animated version. Well, then this will be interesting to you,

because you won't know the story. It's at 9.30 in the morning? I believe so. Okay. I'm not sure. You know. We can get some coffee. Yeah. We can sit together. Okay. We can. You you know. We can get some coffee. Yeah. We can sit together. Okay.

We can. You think that I'm going to go to a CinemaCon, like, presentation and not sit next to you? Amanda, you sit over there. No, a little further back. A little further back. The Hobbit, the Battle of the Five Armies, she once again recurs as Galadriel. So, name the five armies. Uh, Jimmy's army, uh, Ricky Bobby's army, Steve's army, Galadriel's army. Okay.

Um, I forgot the other one. Uh, 2015 Night of Cups. This is her first film with Terrence Malick. Not her last. Yeah. She plays, um, I think she plays Christian Bale's wife. Yeah. And also a doctor. It's not the meatiest role. Yeah. She plays, I think she plays Christian Bale's wife. Yeah, and also a doctor. It's not the meatiest role.

No. This movie is interesting. I was just talking to Mags, who we work with, and she was like, I'm getting into Malek. I've never seen any Malek movies. And I checked it. I started with Night of Cups. I was like, not the place I was at.

Yeah, no. It's not where you want to go first. Night of Cups is an interesting emotional journey as well. An unexpected journey of assembled footage. Yeah. I'm not... I don't hate it. No, it was fine. I just... I revisited just the Cate Blanchett part for this.

Uh-huh. I mean, she's in it, you know? Yeah, definitely. She's in it. She's there. It's not... It's not a signature performance for her. Now here's an interesting thing, 2015 Cinderella. Okay. There's a case for this.

Are you, have you guys done this one yet in the home? And not only that, but in the light of day, which is to say 10 years later, when this phenomenon continues so significantly after the big success of this movie, this might be the best live-action Disney movie. And I had only just seen it either this year or late last year for the first time. Come to find out, one, it's Kenneth Branagh directed it. That doesn't ensure quality, but it raises the ceiling. And she's amazing as the wicked stepmother.

Yeah. I mean, born to play the role. So good. Yeah. And this is like a very star-studded cast in this movie. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it. I saw it. You saw this? Yeah.

And also, it wasn't Mirror Mirror around this time. It was. Not as successful. No, but we were all doing, we were just, Cinderella was back. We were re-interrogating Cinderella, but not. Lily James is Cinderella, Richard Madden is Prince Charming. Yeah.

Helena Bonham Carter is a fairy godmother. My girl, Holliday Granger from Mickey 17 is evil stepsister Anastasia. Sophie McShera from Downton Abbey is the other wicked stepsister, Drizella. And then fucking Stellan Skarsgård and Derek Jacobi are in this movie. Yeah. I'm not saying it's in, but I'm saying it's pretty good. I'm yellowing it. OK.

Just to play referee here for you guys, we do have eight greens already, four yellows, and we have some big ones coming up. Bob, thank you very much. Thanks, Bob. We're going to have to do some work here. This has been quite a career for her. As always, I am reminding you of the yellow opportunity.

OK, well, this is yellow, and then the next one's green. Cinderella is yellow. 2015, Carol, green. One of her best performances. Harold, they're lesbians. Perhaps her best movie? No. No.

Tar is Amanda Coded, but Carol may be her best movie. I think Tar is the best movie. Okay. I love Carol. We both love Carol. Yeah. Wonderful. Todd Haynes' film. Is it Todd Haynes' best movie?

Probably Safe would be my choice. Anyhow, she plays a gorgeous woman with a strong desire for Rooney Mara. And it's about a pained love affair, an agonizing love affair. Beautiful, sumptuous movie, extraordinary costume and production design. A Christmas movie, right?

Very much a Christmas movie about a shop girl. Yeah. And this is her kind of channeling that mystery that we're talking about, that kind of like, that ability to withhold. And I think she's very, very good at. So that's a no brainer. 2015's Truth, you mentioned you might check this out.

I did check it out and then I turned it off after 40 minutes, because I was offended. It's very bad. It gets worse if you finish it. I mean, I can't believe that. I can't believe it was offended. Um, it's very bad. It gets worse if you finish it. I mean, I can't believe that. I can't believe it was made. It's about the television producer who helped to report and produce the segment on the story around George W. Bush's military record, which was a big story at the time about how there

had been falsified documents of some kind that showed that he didn't actually serve or went AWOL. I can't remember the details. Robert Redford plays Dan Rather, who was, you know, shamed in the aftermath of this reporting when it was revealed that it was all untrue. Right. I don't know why the movie was made. I don't know Mary Mape's, the producer is like not, a notable figure that deserves this kind of treatment.

I find the whole thing very odd, especially for somebody who's like, making Carol in Cinderella. Also just like a very weird performance from her. It's sort of like blue jasmine light. It is. Very nervy. And you're just like, why? Yeah. Big, big, big failure. Yeah.

2015's Manifesto is interesting. I've never actually seen what it ultimately is, which is an art installation in which she portrays 13 roles. There was a movie version of it that was made available. It might actually still be on Amazon. It's not so much a movie as it is a performance piece, but it's a cool thing to cite.

It's gonna be read. 2017 Song of the Song, she plays Amanda. It's also a Terrence Malick movie. And did you play Kate in this movie? We're looking for positive Amanda representation wherever we can get it. Where else have you seen it recently? I mean, that's the issue. It's primarily...

What do you think is going on there? It's really tough. It's like a lot of Bachelor contestants. You know, enough that it has to be like Amanda C, Amanda W, Amanda K. So, you know. It's really tough. we've got Amanda Pete and we've got, She's good. Like her. I guess we've got this character named Amanda.

We've got the 2022 Karolina Cavalli masterpiece, Amanda. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That was great. Then that was, that was like a real step forward in Amanda presentation. There's a good Way forward in Amanda presentation. There's a good Waylon Jennings song. Okay. Amanda.

Okay, that's what we have. I don't think this has to go in, but I appreciate it. 2017 Thor Ragnarok. I do like this. I don't think it has to go in. I don't either, we've got Hannah. Let's yellow it. She's good as Hela, Thor's sister.

It's definitely when I woke up in the movie. This movie is good. I know that everybody is like Tyka sucks now, and Jojo Rabbit is terrible, and all that. I thought it was funny then. I think it's funny now. I go to the movies, and it holds my attention, or it doesn't.

And when Cate Blanchett's like on that moor, just being like, ah, I'm evil. I'm just like, all right, I'm having fun. And she just wears a headpiece. Mm-hmm. Tell us more. You know.

I liked it. 2018's Ocean's 8. No. What happened here? They didn't get Steven Soderbergh. Gary Ross directed this movie. Why? Produced get Steven Soderbergh. Gary Ross directed this movie. Why? Produced by Steven Soderbergh. Well, sure.

And that was nice of Steven. Anne Hathaway cooked. Amazing. Really funny. So good. Yeah. Who's the other lead? There's a paired...

Oh, Sandra Bullock. Yeah. How did this movie not work? What happened? It's okay. It's not terrible. It's not terrible, but I would have liked to have Soderbergh. You're probably right. It is missing some flair. Yeah. Ocean's 8 is out. The house with a clock in its walls has its fans.

Eli Roth movie, kids movie. Okay. Good movie if you're into like spooky houses and Jack Black. I wouldn't say it's a Hall of Famer for Cate Blanchett. Have you watched it in the home yet? No, it's way too early for that. It's too scary for that. Um, 2018's Mowgli, Legend of the Jungle.

This, of course, is an adaptation of The Jungle Book, the Rudyard Kipling book, and I believe it's directed by Andy Serkis. And she plays Ka, and if my memory serves, Ka is a snake. Okay, so I bet she would be really good at that. Just some more cool shit she's doing with her voice. She's now voice acted in a motion capture jungle movie, in a Miyazaki movie, in a How to Train Your Dragon film, and in a Stanley Kubrick movie.

Using that voice for good. Mowgli is red. How to Train Your Dragon, The Hidden World from 2019. This is the third film. Oh, wow. In the HTTYD series. Okay. Which you'll soon be getting up to speed on in Las Vegas.

Great. She once again returns as Volka. I think Volka is a dragon. Is that where the dragon, the dragon's living in the hidden world after? Volka is married to Smaug. Okay. That's not true.

Red. 2019, where true. Um, Red. 2019, where'd you go burn to death? We did a whole episode about this movie. We like that, again, we like that they tried. We liked that everyone tried. A real old school misfire. Yeah. We liked that Link later tried. Yeah.

We liked that she tried. Reunited with Billy Crudup, if memory serves. He tried. Yeah. Kristen Wiig, she tried. Yeah. She's always trying. Stop being mean to Kristen Wiig, she tried? Yeah. She's always trying. Stop being mean to Kristen Wiig.

It's just not. It's black licorice. It's just not my flavor. But like, I can identify patterns, you know? And the pattern is, when she's trying, I'm not buying. 2021, don't look up. She lights out good in this, but we don't have room for it. She's lights out good in this, but we don't have room for it.

She's playing who? She's one of the morning show. Megyn Kelly? Yeah, one of them. Basically, a morning show host on a political cable channel. Yeah. Who slips into an affair

with a rumpled climatologist portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio. Sure. Preposterous movie. Rumbled climatologist portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio. Preposterous movie. Neither as bad nor as people will tell you nor as good as it was meant to be. That's my take on it.

Always kind of mixed on this movie. But you know, it's a true ensemble movie and so her scenes are dynamite. She's very, very funny. Them together in bed is great stuff. But it's red. are dynamite. She's very, very funny. Them together in bed is great stuff. Yeah. But it's red. 2021 Nightmare Alley,

directed by Guillermo del Toro, best picture nominee. She portrays Dr. Lilith Ritter. Yeah. Playing, once again, a kind of Barbara Stanwyck, Veronica Lake, femme fatale figure. Ida Lupino maybe an inspiration for this part. She's amazing in this movie.

She's very, very good. It was the part of the movie that I really liked because it was separate from the carnival. Remember her office? Beautifully, the production design. Is Ada's world. Fantastic. She's great.

Sometimes like, sometimes movies kind of use her as like an art piece almost, you know? Like, she is, there is something like sort of sculptural to her look, and that is such a very specific, visually designed movie. And she is like doing her, her shtick. Um, so... She has that purring voice.

Yeah, she's great, and she can do it, and I have no objection to it, but I don't think it needs to go in. Okay. Nightmare Alley's red. 2022 tar. Green. What key is that? I don't know. I don't have perfect pitch. Hard to believe.

Uh, tar is of course magnificent. I'm not musically inept. I thought that was a weird side, you know of course magnificent. I'm not musically inept. I thought that was a weird side, you know, side swipe. What do you mean? I just don't have perfect pitch. Does Lydia Tar have perfect pitch? One would hope.

Yeah. One would hope given her status as a world-class conductor. Yeah. Felled by cancel culture. Tar is amazing. Tar, I want to do a rewatch pod about Tar. We haven't done a rewatch this March. We always do a rewatch.

I don't know if you realized that. Oh, that's right. Um, I think Tar is fabulous and so fun. When is that on the schedule? It's not on the schedule. Oh, yeah. Can we do it as one of the... Okay, we'll discuss.

Okay. I feel like Tar, though, have we ever done a movie that good? Yeah, Babylon. Okay, but there's a lot of- Oh yeah, Bob, I see you buddy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of, I think I was so pregnant

when we did that and that was like- Yeah, we did Free Guy, that was good. Oh no, I was really pregnant for that, but I was also pregnant for Babylon and that was like hour three. We did the Snyder Cut, that was really like hour three. We did the Snyder cut. That was really good. Yeah.

We did Dark Knight Rises. That podcast file was too long for me to upload so I had to lower the quality so that people could hear it. Yeah, just like Zack Snyder did when he expanded the cut to four hours. Dark Knight Rises was good, that was fun. Dark Knight Rises, that one was very funny. Did that in Bill's old office. I remember. And we did Tenet as well, did we not? Um, I... Dark Knight Rises was good. That was fun. Dark Knight Rises, that one was very funny. Yeah.

Did that in Bill's old office. I remember. Um, and we did Tenet as well, did we not? Yes. And that, and that was so confusing at the end. Yeah. For you, but not for me. Okay.

The real Tenet-nower. I... We don't have one on the schedule. Okay. Tar's... A masterpiece. Masterful. Todd Field is writing the script

to the next Martin Scorsese movie. Did you see this report? No. Wow. I listened until stuff's in production. Like I love Marty. Marty keep doing Marty. Like I can't get my heart wrapped up in it.

You know? Okay. 2022 she's used her voice once again. Yeah. She stars as Spazzatura in Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio. Right. Is she a fascist? I believe she is. Yeah. So you say yes going in? No. Auto green? No. That's red. The School for Good and Evil, she also lends her voice to this film.

Mm-hmm. She plays the story in. Okay. Not going in. 2023 is The New Boy. Yeah. One of your favorite movies of that year as I recall. Was it number three on your list? The New Boy is actually not available to be seen in the United States. Okay. Well, I haven't seen it, so.

It's a story about a nine year old indigenous Australian boy. Okay. And she has a supporting part in the film. If I had gone to Cannes, I could have seen it. Well, if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle. You know, that's how life goes. Okay.

2024's Rumors, this is the new Guy Madden political satirical comedy... Okay. ...about the G6 meeting of world leaders getting lost in the woods. Okay. I thought it was very bad. I did not see this because Cy was born like a week before.

And you know, I didn't visit. Is he a big guy Madden fan? Cy? No, that's his favorite one. 2024's Borderlands, arguably the biggest bomb of 2024. Yeah, tough break. Not a good movie. No, not going in. Not going in.

2025 Black Bag. Hmm. Well, we already have, we have 10, right, Bob? I think we have 11. We have 10 or 11. I think we only have 10. I'll also add in 2024, she made Disclaimer. Right.

With Alfonso Cuarón. I completed three episodes of that series and stopped watching it. I completed none, but I listened to the watch, so I know what happens. Um, also in literary adaptation, she's had many of those in her career. Cuaron among the finest filmmakers she's ever worked with. But largely the reception of that show is, what is this? Yeah. I don't know, we gotta just stop making TV shows.

I'm with you. Why did Alfonso Cuaron spend three years making this show? I am with you, and you did also with you. Why did Alfonso Cuaron spend three years making a show? I am with you. And you did also, you... I love Alfonso Cuaron. You texted me after seeing Black Bag, and were like, this is perfect. We don't make a TV show. All we need are 90-minute movies.

Thank you for pointing that out. I forgot to say that, which is like, every TV show is trying to do what that movie pulls off in 93 minutes. Yeah. I f... I don't know. You've heard that right before. I hate it. I agree. I hate it.

The elongation of stories is so annoying to me. I preach. Okay. You know? We should have led with, like, this movie's 93 minutes. Black Bag, I don't think it's going to go down in the history books as one of her greatest parts. She's actually really more of a supporting character in this movie than she is the star.

She's very good. She's very good. I would say it is really more Michael Fassbender's movie. And an ensemble, so. It is. Let's read it. Okay. Wow, oh yeah, all right, that's fine.

We can yellow it if you want. No, I don't care. We have a lot of yellows to go through here too. Let's go back to the beginning. Right now we've got Oscar and Lucinda as a yellow, that's going red. No, no, we can't make space for that. No offense to Jillian Armstrong.

The greens as of now are Elizabeth, the talented Mr. Ripley, the fellowship of the ring, the life aquatic with Steve Zisoo, the aviator, notes on a scandal, I'm not there, Hannah, Carol and Tar. The existing yellows are the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Blue Jasmine, Cinderella, and Thor Ragnarok. Many will look at this list and say, Hannah over Blue Jasmine?

Once again. If it happens, it will be because of you. Well, that's most things on this podcast and in life. Everything is ugly, cruel, stupid, and especially ugly is your fault. Okay. I think that we already have one Oscar-winning film. I mean, do you want to do Blue Jasmine instead of The Aviator?

No. Okay, I don't either. Why can't we just do what we want? We can. It's an amazing question. We don't either. Why can't we just do what we want? We can. It's an amazing question. We don't live in a free society. We do not. In this podcast and in this exercise, we can do whatever the hell we want.

Why is that so scary to you? Why is it always, why can't you just embrace exactly what you want? I'm a man of honor. I have a code. I live by a code. That code has created an incredible structure to this conversation. Is that the thing? That you just-

Do I not know what I want? That you just, that you're uncertain? Is there a person who knows more what he wants than me in the known universe? Yes. Maybe, but barely. Uh, I don't think the Hannah choice is logical. Make the case. Go ahead. I don't care about logic. This is an expression of my feeling.

It's an irrelevant thriller. It's the fourth best Joe Wright movie. She's the third lead at best in the movie. And it's an underwritten villain part. She has tremendous presence. Would you like to do Cinderella instead of Hannah? No. They're the same movie. Would you like to do Thor Ragnarok instead of Hannah? No. Okay. They're the same movie. Would you like to do Thor Ragnarok instead of Hannah?

No. So you don't want to honor... There's three villain parts that are fun, but are like minor compared to the movie like Blue Jasmine that sits on her shoulders. But they represent something that she does very well throughout her career that we like. As opposed to Blue Jasmine, sure, the movie sits on her shoulders. The movie's fine. She's good. But like, people have breakdowns, you know, the mascara is

running down her face. Like, whatever. That can't be your case against Blue Jasmine. I just, why I, you're like standing on procedure a little bit too much, you know? And I think that I think that's boring. Also, I have to be honest, if it's Blue Jasmine, then we have like no, there's nothing interesting in this list. This is so predictable. We didn't have to have a conversation.

That's not really how it works here. Okay, well, but I'm just saying. We had a whole conversation about Middle Earth and we're in the timeline that exists. I know because I'm, listen, because I come prepared and I ask questions, you know? Uh-huh, definitely. that's exactly why it happens. I can always create.

Fully. I can engage on any topic, but it's boring. I think it's boring to do Blue Jasmine instead of Hannah. You can do something else if you want, but we don't need Blue Jasmine. Okay, you can have your way. I don't want it like that. That's not how I like to win.

Make your decision. You do it. You decide. You've already made your mind up. I have made my mind up, but I'm letting you conclude it. Uh, no, thank you. Okay, that's fine. Great. Uh... It makes your mania just a little bit more noticeable if I just pull back.

That's my secret weapon in these conversations. The Cate Blanchett Hall of Fame is as follows. Elizabeth, the talented Mr. Ripley, the Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring, the life aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Aviator, Notes on a Scandal, I'm Not There, Hannah, Carol, and Tar. Great. She is the supporting character in one, two, three, four, five, six of these movies. Well. You feel okay about that? I do. Okay. Because we have Tar and Elizabeth and Carol. And I mean, I guess she's a supporting character and I'm not there, but like we have, I'm not there.

I don't know. You know, it's not numbers on a clock for me. It's the impact of the performance. Oh, so because you don't believe in category fraud either. No, yeah. Okay. Well, you have a really strong point of view. Really, really happy for you.

This is a great, great lineup. Okay. Great job. Good job, Kate Blanchett. She's a wonderful actor. I highly encourage people to see Black Bag. A thousand percent. Bob, you saw it.

What did you think? I thought it was awesome. I it just wasn't trying to be more than it was. You know when you get like an awesome chicken parm with perfectly cooked pasta and you're just like I'm not striving for more than this but this is the best execution of this? That's how I felt about it. I fully agree as a chicken parm fanatic it's an apt comparison. Let me ask you a quick question about that. I know you don't rate movies. Yeah.

But if you were gonna rate Black Bag, do you think about what Bob is describing, which is a movie that sort of has a clear intention, that is not trying to be more than it is, which I think is actually quite admirable. I think the problem is when something's trying to be something and it can't be it or doesn't know how to be it. Yeah.

But is there a ceiling on that in terms of how you rate it? Like can a movie like this only be an eight? Well. Even though you love it. As you know, I don't like to think in those, in the terms. I'm challenging that construct. Well, but you know, you're challenging it, but my answer to you is, that is why I think that your rating system is imperfect

and doesn't reflect my view of the world. Okay. Because I think that we need a system that, like, I don't know. I do think that doing the job that you set out to do and landing the plane is an extremely important part of any artistic endeavor. And as you know, I tend to wait at like,

if you tried something big and you did not land the plane, hello, the brutalist, I have some questions. Whereas if you are very clear on what you want to do when you do land the plane, I appreciate, I like, I tend to value that more. But am I going to tell you that the that black bag is like better quote unquote than the brutalist? I don't know. It's, they're two different systems. Okay. Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner for his work on today's episode. Thanks to John Richter for filling in for Jack Sanders.

We'll be back next week to talk about a movie that I'm sure will be equal to, if not stronger than Black Bag. I'm talking about The Electric State, which is on, going to be on the Netflix service. You're going to watch it there. Yes. Not at the 70 millimeter service. You're gonna watch it there. Yes. Not at the 70 millimeter festival. You're not gonna wait. No, no. Okay.

We'll also talk about movies we missed so far this year. Yeah. Is there anything you're gonna catch up on? I'm gonna see Ephus. Oh, oh yeah. Which I'm excited about. Yeah. You love baseball. I do love baseball.

So I'm gonna check that out. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to see Novocaine. I'm gonna see Novocaine tomorrow.'t know if I'm gonna be able to see Novakine. I'm gonna see Novakine tomorrow. Okay. I can tell you all about it. Um, I have a passport appointment for my child, so... Okay.

Uh, and both parents have to go, you know? I'm aware of this. So... I'm trying to think what else. I've seen some things. We're gonna talk about Opus. I'm excited about that. We're gonna talk about The Last Breath, which I have seen. things. We're going to talk about Opus. I'm excited about that. We're going to talk about The Last Breath, which I have seen.

Oh, OK. I think it's just Last Breath. Oh, is it? I think so. OK. Lose the the. It's cooler. Zzz.

Anything else that you want to throw in the mix? Is there a part of me that wants to have Chris and I describe The Gorge to you? Oh, I was going to watch it, of me that wants to have Chris and I describe the Gorge to you. Oh, I was gonna watch it, but I shouldn't watch it. You guys can just explain it to me. Maybe we'll describe the monkey to you. Oh, yeah. Have you seen the Gorge, Bob?

The Gorge rocks. I loved it. I had such a fine time. It was a horrendous take. I look forward to hearing your thoughts. You don't wanna look at Anya Taylor-Joy's face? Like, that's the whole plot of the movie. I assure you it is not. There's a lot of plot in that movie. I've watched a lot of movies at this point where the whole plot is look at Anya Taylor-Joy's face.

And it is very beautiful and captivating. Still working. For me, it has limited returns. That's fair. Whole bunch of other movies. I'll think of some others. I forget what they are. We'll see you then.