This Had Oscar Buzz - 094 – Diana (with Richard Lawson) (Naomi Watts – Part Three)

Episode Date: May 18, 2020

As our Naomi Watts miniseries continues into its third week, we come to the biggest misfire therein: 2013’s reviled biopic Diana. With Watts taking on titular role, the film follows Princess Diana in her final days and her thwarted romantic relationship with surgeon Hasnat Khan (played bby Naveen Andrews). But in an attempt to avoid … Continue reading "094 – Diana (with Richard Lawson) (Naomi Watts – Part Three)"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hacks. I'm from Canada. I'm from Canada water. I'll see you next weekend. The one after.

Well, if that's what the palace have decided. It's still possible you might be queen one day. I want to help people. You're so good at giving love. The hard part is receiving love. Doctor, this is Diana. Well, perhaps I can show you around. There's a can't see you around the ground floor, but it's not open late.

We could always pop around the corner for supper with me. I'm serious. I don't know how to contact you. Well, I'm like most people. I've got a mobile. Actually, I'm not like most people I have four. Cheers. Cheers.

It doesn't treat me like a princess. It's almost as if he doesn't know who I am. Maybe he doesn't. He might be very badly informed. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast. The only podcast taking the scenic route into a cholera outbreak. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy.

I'm your host, Joe Reed. I'm here as always with my co-host, Chris Fyle. Hello, Chris. Hello, Joe. Are you studiously avoiding the paparazzi at all costs? I am. I am in Nicole Kidman's fur wig from the movie Fur. An imaginary portrait of Dion Arbus.

Very good. Yes, Nicole Kidman, the best friend of our miniseries this month. What if Nicole was listening to this just to sort of do recon on her best buddy, Naomi Watt? This is maybe the episode to have. a little bit more of the Nicole Kidman conversation because this movie feels so psychically linked to Grace of

Monaco in every absolute way. And like I joked, the Princess Diana's brunette wig in this movie makes her look shockingly like Nicole Kidman as a brunette. I leapt for my notebook as I was making notes to write down about the brunette wig, but like we'll

get into that once we get into the episode. But yeah, so as our Listeners, hopefully know, we are smack in the middle of our month-long Naomi Watts miniseries that I somewhat regrettably referred to as Naomi on Twitter, because it's the month of May. I'm very sorry. When you sent me that, I wanted to say, you smell like Naomi and brass polish. You've been to a strip club.

Yeah, yes. Previously, we've talked about La Dvorse with our guest, Bobby Finger. Last week, we talked about the painted veil. hence my perhaps poor taste cholera comment in the intro. And now the one episode that when Chris and I were discussing this mini-series, I said we absolutely 100% have to do. We have to do Diana. It is the pardon the pun crown jewel in the Naomi Watts conversation of failed Oscar Gambits.

You get to make that joke one time this episode. Fine. Well, I did. Hopefully it killed. And we decided we had to bring a guest on for the Diana episode. We had to give it as much pomp and circumstance as possible. We have a returning guest this week. Previously, you guys heard him on our episode about evening,

the star-studded, snoozy Michael Cunningham adaptation evening, from Vanity Fair, chief critic at Vanity Fair, from their wonderful podcasts, still watching, and Little Gold Men, whose podcast I was on and made fantastic ostracter predictions that will never, ever come to pass now, because, you know, whatever. What are theaters? Yeah, welcome back, Richard Lawson. Pip, pip, cheerio.

We're going to Mary England. We all should be practicing our accents for this. Yes, apparently. Naomi said in interviews about Diana that she watched the Martin Bashir interview with Diana constantly, just on a constant loop trying to get the accent right. I, to my

perhaps embarrassment, don't think I know the Diana accent like innately, so I couldn't, like, judge. I was just like, was she doing a good job in this movie? Perhaps. I don't know. I can't think of too many times when I actually have

heard Diana speak. That's the weird thing about the royals. I remember when Prince William announced that he and Kate Middleton were engaged, and I saw an interview, and I was like, I don't think I've ever heard him speak before. Like, obviously, you've seen them in, you know, many paparazzi, you know, photos and stuff. But, yeah, I don't know that I could tell you what Diana sounded like either. I know that the audio's out there, but it's like those cartoons, there's sort of like a cartoon

trope where you see this, like, sort of very beguiling and alluring figure, and they're sort of elusive and whatever. I think of that scene in Roger Rabbit, where all of a sudden you, like, tracks down the Jessica Rabbit look-alike, and all of a sudden her voice is just like, ah, my God! Like that kind of thing, it's just like, oh, you didn't sound like what you thought you would sound like at all. She's kind of, from my memory, I've definitely seen the Martin Bashir interview.

She's more like soft-spoken, so it's like an impersonation of it is not, you know, like, you really have to get down to some crazy minutia. And like, the scene where they recreate that interview, you can tell that she. She's watched it probably a million times because it feels so minute. And she's taking these, like, tiny little details about her speech rhythms and magnifying them. Yeah, like, there's a scene of, like, Diana rehearsing it, rehearsing for herself that feels very mirrored to, you know, perhaps Naomi rehearsing to play Diana. There's a certain, like, jaw tension that feels unique to Princess Diana that I think Naomi Watts did. get, but I mean, we'll

get into the performance. Yeah, there's a certain feeling, like, that that interview is so technically precise and then the rest of the movie is just this completely characterless fucking nothing of a romance. Right. So you wrote a musical just for this one song

and then thought that was enough, like the big 11 o'clock number. Oh, God, that's right. There was a Diana musical on Broadway in previews. I was supposed to see it two days after they shut the down. Yeah. Oh, my God. Wow. Truly poignant in this case. And just also the fact that like this, you know, as we said, this Bashir interview, so momentous, so important. And really the only two things

I really remember from it are the comment that she, you know, we see it a couple of times in the movie that, you know, there were three people in this marriage so it was a bit crowded, which was like the line from that interview. That was the one that sort of got all the headlines and got to the sort of center of the gossip story that everybody wanted to listen to. And then it was also, for me, it was the eyeliner, which I remember being like, A, everybody talked about it, but B, it's still striking to look at it now. And it's just like, wow, that is, you know, that is a look for sure. And, you know, they definitely went with that. But it's also sort of like part and parcel of this, you know, this is a woman who everybody knew about and everybody kind of, especially in

England, sort of had this personal relationship with that was completely one-sided, right? And everybody sort of had their own feelings about Diana in one way or another. And so how do you make a movie about somebody who's greatest, who's famous, mostly because of how other people feel about them rather than, like, things that they necessarily did? And, which isn't to say that, like, you know, Diana's accomplishments in her life were negligible. But it's, it was interesting to me that this movie ended with those postscripts about the landmines, like multiple postscripts about her work with landmines. And I was just like, oh, that would have been an actually somewhat interesting angle to take. To take on Diana to have her sort of, it be like the Lincoln of Diana, where she spends most of the movie like really like trying to work out the politics of what she wants to get done with landmines and have that be this sort of like window into her life rather than this, what we got, which was sort of.

glossy and, you know, wan, and just sort of just like, it's, you know, kind of just sits there. And I was going to say, you mentioned that, like, Princess Diana is a figure that everyone has some type of opinion or point of view on, and the movie ended up being made by someone who apparently has no opinion of her whatsoever. He was saying that in interviews. He was just like, I didn't really know much about Diana, and I never cared. And I was like, oh, okay, well, then you are a natural fit for this. Yeah, I kind of wish they'd made, you know, this one of those quote-unquote biopics like I'm Not There or something that's more about like the idea of the person and the sort of mood that surrounds them rather than the particulars of their life. I mean, I think it's a good idea to maybe who's zeroed in on the landmines thing if you're going to do a more straightforward narrative movie. But yeah, exactly. The fascination with Diana was not necessarily like the day to day of her interior life. It was like what she represented and all that. And. And this movie, in only, you know, other than a few brief moments, just it turns it all so much more banal than, you know, kind of imagined. That's possible to imagine about this incredibly, you know, scrutinized life.

It's kind of a boggling movie in that it makes almost every single wrong choice it could have from Frame 1. Yeah. And yet, to me, it's not like, it's not a spruce. spectacularly bad movie and that we can have fun with it. Like, there are bad movies that you can sort of, like, have fun with. There's no one moment from this movie I feel like I would screen grab or take a gift from or, like, quote, dialogue from to kind of have fun with it even. It's just, it's just very bland.

I mean, maybe the wig reveal. Yeah, the wig reveal is extraordinary. And I think the movie's most indelible image is what I think its original poster was. which is her sitting on the edge of the diving board off of Doty Elfayat's yacht. And that's an extraordinary shot and it's beautiful and it evokes something that the rest of the...

It looks like a Luca Guadenae movie or something and then it just isn't very much not. So again, kind of ironically, like the person herself, this movie suffers from the iconography. Yeah. Diana's A Bigger Splash would have been a movie right there. Like, that's a movie.

I would have wanted to see. see. So, Richard, before we sort of delve too far into things, we wanted to ask you a similar question to what we asked Bobby when he was on our The Divorce episode, which is we're doing this Naomi Watts miniseries, obviously. What do you recall as your first experience, either seeing Naomi Watts in a movie or sort of being aware of her as a celebrity? As an avid entertainment weekly reader in the late 90s, early 2000s, and also a sort of not David Lynch fan, I remember reading about Mulholland Drive as that movie kind of made its way through its ear and being curious about this new talent everyone was talking about, but having no real interest in seeing that movie. And so my hunch is that the first time I actually saw her on screen was at an apartment, off-campus apartment that some friends lived in, 16 Gerald Road in Boston, Massachusetts, where we all watch the ring together. So that would have been 2003-ish.

I guess the movie was out in 2002, so whenever it was on video. And I was like, oh, okay, she is interesting. It did not compel me to go watch Mahal and Drive for a number of years. years, but it was exciting. It was the first time I can really remember, at least as an adolescent, where I kind of, obviously from a distance, watched a movie star kind of emerge out of the shadows. Yeah, that's fun. That's fun to be able to sort of have some kind of awareness of that as it's happening. The generation of people that saw the ring for the first time on a VHS. Yeah. That is delightfully spooky.

one of the one of the quintessential VHS movies of our time so and then we so when I I can't remember what selection I presented you with when I offered you a spot to talk about one of the Naomi Watts movies we were doing but you I believe Diana was was an instant reaction from you if I recall well yeah I think when we talked about it I hadn't seen it and then I watched it during you know quarantine as kind of a lark, and then I realized it's not a lark at all. It's kind of a dull movie. It's not, yeah. But I think, you know, I was just talking to my sister about this before we recorded, because she was curious, like, what the podcast I was going to do was and what the theme was. And it gave me an opportunity to kind of lay out my, you know, Naomi Watts' theory of connectivity or whatever in that, like, she is a fast, her career is fascinating because she started with, you know, or I mean, she'd been around before, but her breakthrough was in the right choice with the right director being Mahal and Drive with David Lynch. Yeah. And so many times since then, she has chosen the project with the director right after the good one, you know. She's done the lesser of Woody Allen. She's done the lesser of Noah Baumbach. She's done the lesser of Peter Jackson. You know, it just goes on and on and on, no, no. So I think I think she's a perfect choice for your podcast because she represents so much a back. how our understanding of what an awards movie is, what an awards performance is, has changed

over the last 20 years. And it has not changed in her favor. It's interesting. It's forever interesting that she and Kidman are so intertwined. They have the personal friendship. They have, and their careers sort of both hit a level up period in 2001. But I think when you talk about Richard, that Naomi sort of choosing, you know, the right directors with the wrong projects. Nicole's always choosing the right directors with the right projects, or at least more

often than not. Just philosophically, with her career choices, she always chases directors. Yeah. Versus like the role. And you could almost see if, you know, if you want to view Naomi's career as sort of like following

in her friend's footsteps and sort of, you know, taking inspiration by what Nicole choices are. It's sort of, it's, it's kind of, I don't want to say sad as in, like, pathetic, but like, it's kind of a bummer to see, like, Naomi sort of taking all the lessons from, you know, this friend of her's career and just always getting the bum end of it. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's a bummer because, and I think we might have mentioned this in a previous episode, like, she's making good on paper decisions, but, like, when it doesn't work out, it doesn't

ever really feel like it's her fault necessarily. We can talk about how we feel about this performance, but I don't think anything in this movie is at all her problem. Well, let's sort of, let's travel the path from the Painted Vale, which was our last episode, to, up to Diana in 2013. So

Eastern Promises in 2007, which is, becomes very much a Vigo Mortensen story. He gets the Oscar nomination for that. She's there. She plays Russian. in that, right? Am I wrong? Yeah. I think she plays the sister of her... No. Oh, wait, no, she's British. You're right. You're right.

Okay. All right. Eastern Promises feels very much like the beginning of the roles for Naomi Watts, where, like, she is deferential to someone else, where it's like, it's fully someone else's movie. She doesn't really get much opportunity to shine. And I think that is indicative of a lot of, especially this era of... movies that we're going to talk about before we get to Diana. It's also a good example of the fact that, like, yeah,

Cronenberg was enjoying a resurgence, but this is not the Maria Bella role from history of violence, you know? So she's just always one movie late, you know, as she chases this thing. Yeah, then next year 2008, funny

games, which she is sort of the, she's the 1A kind of role in that, but that is a project. A remake. Right. Of his own, of Michael Hanukkah's own original. And yet, like, it's one of those ones that were just, like, comes to America and America's just like, yeah, we didn't really need that. We did not want that. That is not something we were interested in seeing it's such, like, it's so highly stylized with its, you know, violence and self-referentialness and it's, you know, like, literally at one point just sort of like stares into the camera and blames you for wanting to watch, you know, horrible things happen to people, which to me. Me is pretty obnoxious, but I know mileage varies on that film. I don't know if you guys have seen this particular version. I haven't seen that one.

I like the original. I have seen the Watts version. At the time, I didn't really know Hanukkah's work and rented it with my sister thinking it was just going to be an Amy Watts thriller. And then two hours later, my sister was like, what the hell did you just make me watch? And I was like, I don't know. But I need to go, like, wash my eyeballs because that was horrible. Ultimately, what it is to me is it's a quintessential Michael Pitt Brady Corbett movie where it's just like, oh, yeah, like that's what you cast those two guys for, is to be like...

Teenage Psycho Twinks. Yes. Exactly right. Michael Hanukkah somewhere, listen to this starts writing down, Teenage Psycho Finks. 2023. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, coming... Calls up Isabel. I have an idea

Could you be a twink? And she's just like, I had the exact same dream And it was, I don't know why she was shaved With the shaved head dyed blonde She's like already there She's in character She's, you know, she's in Vienna As we speak like ready to roll

She's ready, she's good The International 2009, Tom Tickver Which is... Another movie that's like, it's Clive Owen's movie And it's the Tom Tickfer movie that nobody talks about. It truly just did. It happened.

I know I saw it. I know I saw it in the theater because I remember that scene at the Guggenheim. That's really the only thing I remember about that movie is like the literal like architecture of the interior of the Guggenheim. In that movie, there's a whole big like action set piece. But like, do I remember what it was about? It was a heist, an international intrigue thing. Somebody had a file. I don't know.

Like something. Definitely saw it. But who the hell knows? Right. mother and child, which is another Rodrigo Garcia ensemble movie. Which she's really good in, I think.

People really like Annette Benning in that movie, too, but like that was a movie that still just didn't really register, even though it has its fans. Oh, totally. Absolutely. Richard, did you see either one of those two, the International or Mother and Child? I believe I've seen both. I couldn't tell you anything about the International other than the Guggenheim thing, which you mentioned.

I am a fan or had been a fan of Rodrigo Garcia because of a movie he made before Mother and Child, so again, Naomi doing the one after. He made the movie Nine Lives, which I think is actually a really lovely movie that's a series of vignettes that have some connective tissue, but not really. Mother and Child, less so, beautiful score,

but Garcia has lost me. His latest at Sundance this year was just terrible. Oh, God. With the Glenn Close one, right? right? Tell me about that. Yeah, where Milikunis plays her daughter because they look, I mean, you know, I think who could Milikunis' mom be? And I think, oh, Glenn Close, clearly. That makes total visual sense. You know, you know, Milacunis is a Russian, you know, her mom is the Queen Wasp of Connecticut. Milakunis, who is also playing Alice and Janie's sister in a movie that was supposed to come out this year, that who knows when it will come out. But I was just like, that's, maybe people need to go to a seminar and sort of, you know, let's all discuss who can plausibly. play related to Milakouns and who can't. Yeah, no.

It needs to be one of those flowcharts. Is your character Russian? No, cast someone else. Yeah, exactly. Have either of you two seen you will meet a tall, dark stranger? Because I never have. No. The Woody Allen film.

I remember someone, I have not seen it. I remember someone saying, it's really boring. And I was like, okay, if someone's saying a, like, they said, it's really boring for a Woody Allen movie. I was like, that must mean it's really boring. And I am never going to see it. Well, Woody Allen has sort of hopscotched through the 2000s, up into the point where, like, critical mass hit and he became fully unpalatable, sort of at long last. But he's hopscotched through the 2000s, making either really well-received movies or movies that, like, completely went nowhere, where it's just like Vicki Christina Barcelona does really well. Midnight in Paris gets a, you know, gets Oscar nominations. And then he'll do stuff like, to roam with love, nothing. Blue Jasmine. Big Oscar success. Magic in the Moonlight. Nothing.

Even something sort of that I find small and cute, like, cafe society, nobody remembers that. Blake Lightley's good in that movie. Yes, she is. You'll meet a Tall Dark Stranger was also one of the ones because when Woody Allen movies were still in favor and, like, people were still deciding to look the other way about him, it was like, he still would make absolutely dreadful, terrible,

nobody likes this movie movies and because he made so many movies good or bad that reputation was like this is one of the ones you don't have to see when he made another terrible one and I felt like that happened immediately with this movie yeah and yet again

Woody is enjoying his Renaissance his Euro phase Naomi says her management team says okay do the next one she does the next one and it's the worst one you know it's just like she cannot win she cannot ever catch a break with this stuff. Is it Blue Jasmine?

No, no, no. It's, you'll meet a tall dark stranger. Is it Vicki Christina, too? No, no, no. It's a boring thing that no one cares about with Anthony Hopkins. Isn't there something? I think that one's the one that has like, not magic, but like mysticism in some way. Yeah, it's a fortune teller thing, I think.

Although I think that's the one with Emma Stone also, right? Who cares? Whatever. It's so. God. that is a thicket that you really don't want to ever delve into. It's just like the forgettable Woody Allen movies. God, that Larry David one still kind of scars.

Poor Patricia Clarkson was in that. Remember when Woody Allen made Magic in the Moonlight? Amidst, you know, storms of controversy, and the movie opened with Colin Firth doing yellow face with all this chinoiseries. You're just like, for the opening scene? Yes. I never saw that movie. Truly a master of reading the room, Woody Allen, for sure.

Next in 2010, the same year as the Woody Allen movie. Yep, the Doug Lyman movie that nobody ever talks about, Fair Game, which I talked a little bit about on last week's podcast or maybe the one before, about how there was that re-edit of it that emerged recently and nothing seemingly was different. Because everybody was clamoring for a director's cut of Fair Game. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, another. Kind of a good movie. it's a solid movie yeah it's just it just nobody ever talks about it like it didn't make any kind of a ripple at all which is you know which is a shame because it's also the one where it's like

she is the starring role like she's actually getting a good vehicle for her right oh yeah although she eventually it becomes sean pen's movie I think um you know it's weird that she's worked with him so many times kind of become his right you're right yeah yeah it's weird they've worked together so many times it is weird right it doesn't feel like it sounds exhausting for her it would and it also it never feels like they've got this like oh that classic wats pen chemistry it's just like i don't know i don't know if that's a thing um yeah wats pen sounds like a dc metro stop god it was a nightmare at wats pen today it really had to

You know, circle through the crowds. Yeah, for sure. All the DuPont Circle Gays moved to Watts Pen. It's a nightmare now. 2011 has the combo of Dreamhouse, where she plays third banana to Daniel Craig and Rachel Weiss, if I'm not mistaken, right? Correct. I watched that movie this week, and it is truly among all of the Naomi Watts movies

where you're like, why is she in this movie? It's the pinnacle of absolutely what the hell. Did she agree to do this movie for? And it's probably because it's directed by Jim Sheridan, who, like, has things like in America. Yeah, has actual good movies on his... Yeah, exactly. That movie's garbage. That's one of those movies where I watched the trailer, and I'm like, oh, I know what the twist is.

Before you reveal, like, the twist, there's twists that continue to happen, and Daniel Craig's actually good in the movie. But that movie's so silly and her presence in it playing this role that is very silly that an Oscar-nominated actress is playing it. She's not like the doctor in it, right? She's the neighbor, right? She's a neighbor. She lives across the street and like helps him solve the whole mystery of it and she's like kind to him. Yeah, yeah. I remember fits and starts of that movie.

that is, but then also, so 2011 also is the second Naomi Watts movie that we did after, or aside from I Heart Huckabees, is Jay Edgar, the Clint Eastwood horror show of bad makeup. And she's the, she's the, like, one cast member, if I remember that movie correctly, that emerges from it unscathed. Relatively, yeah. I mean, they put her in bad makeup, too, but. she's not asked to do anything silly or like laughable. So she's fine. She's the loyal secretary. That great trope in Hollywood, you know, who doesn't want to play the loyal secretary in a Clint Eastwood movie? You know who I really wanted to tell the story of a monomaniacal transvestite person who changed the course of American life for the worst immeasurably is Clint Eastwood. He's really going to, he really nailed the weirdness of that story.

You really wanted him to tell that story In the Shadows. Oh, boy. You know who I want to see play a homophobe? Judy Dench. Yeah. Yes. That's exactly what I want.

I still can't believe that movie ended with like the elegiac poetry that he like cribbed from Eleanor Roosevelt's diaries as he was reading through to try and blackmail her essentially for her queer associations. Chris, I should say I think that Judy Densh's

character in Chronicles of Riddick was homophobic. I think it was kind of subtextual. Yes, that's what's Villanino's about. Yeah. Thank God I can't see all of you homos out there. That's what she said in Chronicles of Riddick. Also, her character in, oh, fuck, now I can't complete the joke because I can't remember the title of it.

The upcoming thing where she's in green goggles. Artemis Fowl. Yeah. Boy, that thing. Which we're going to. again, right? Like, of all the movies that we're not going to be able to see for a year, thank God we're going to get to see our as well. Yes, it will be on Disney Plus in June. 2012 is the big bright spot for Naomi. She gets an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for

The Impossible, a movie Richard, you and I saw together. I'm pretty sure. And was it, and I might be remembering this incorrectly, or maybe I thought about it later, but I remember seeing that movie and being like, that kid who played The Sun, he's going to be a star. And then sure enough, he was. Tom Holland. Yeah. Tom Holland is fresh off of playing Billy Elliott. Yeah, that's right. The most successful of our Billy Elliot's. He's so good in The Impossible.

She gets the Oscar nomination for it. That is a movie that I sort of run hot and cold on, as I remember it. It has some very effective scenes. I think she's very good in it. But it is also a movie that takes an odd angle, obviously, at the tsunami of 2006. I can't remember the exact year. 2004. Right.

Yeah, it's the visual. I think it's a well-made movie. It's J.A. Bayona, right? Yes. And then it ends with this visual of this white, blonde family being literally airlifted out of this horror. And you're like, there are like 200,000 dead, you know, Thai and Indonesian people.

Like, why are we focused on this one thing? Yes. that's that's the thing of it all yes um but has some really as i said some really sort of harrowing effective scenes and i think she's very good so she's of course springboards from the oscar success of the impossible to make in succession um adore the they'll think we're lezo's movie with robin right which she's good in which she's i mean that is sort of you know a fun tawdry movie i feel like um but it's certainly not like the thing that's going to get her, let's say, another Oscar nomination.

The problem with that movie is it doesn't take the one tawdry twist I wanted it to, which is the boys' kiss. Yeah. They should. They absolutely should. It's what's his name? It's James Frenchville from Animal Kingdom, the movie. And Xavier Samuel?

My beloved to Xavier Samuel, who's a really good actor and just never quite took off. He's in at least one of the few gay Australian surfer movies that used to float around on Netflix's LGBTQ section. genre onto itself. Yeah. Well, there's gay Australian Surfer movies and there's

European, usually French or Dutch gay's high school sports movies. There are these little mini genres. Wow. But yeah,

Adora is a weird, weird. It used to have a different name. It had like different names. It was like two mothers, right? Something about mothers and then it became

Ador. Why call it a door when you can call it sunfuckers? It's called sunfuckers. Just call it sunfuckers. That's what. it is. They fuck each other's sons. Come on. And you could have it be

S-U-N, because they're outside a lot. And just, it's like a double entendre. Yes, they are. Floating on a raft in the ocean. Also, I just, I love the idea that she and Robin Wright are in a friendship where I can't imagine a more imbalanced, um, set of personalities than like severe and frightening Robin Wright with like meek and accommodating Naomi Watts. It's so, it's really funny to think about that. I don't know. Anyway, follows that up with the universally reviled movie 43, of which I've maybe seen like one, one of its component little short films or whatever, and it's Naomi's, it's awful.

And then a movie called Sunlight Jr. that I never saw, but I do remember it being a Tribeca Film Festival premiere, and all that that entails in terms of, like, was submitted really for Sundance and was not accepted. And it's just like, okay, we'll go down the road to Tribeca. Her and Matt Dillon are in that movie. But 2013 was my awesome Tribeca year where I worked for them and got like whatever the gold pass was. And I just got to see any and everything.

I got to basically just like hop around the Chelsea movie theater and, you know, see whatever I wanted. And that was really fun. That was a fun year. And then this. Remember film festivals? Yeah. Yeah, remember film festivals, weren't they great?

As we record, it's a Saturday, I would be flying to can tomorrow. Oh, Richard. Oh, I'm so sorry. I mean, it's fine. It's all right. It's a year off, and then we'll be back. We'll be back. It's just funny that, like, in mid-March, I was like, they're never going to cancel.

It's going to be, that's in mid-May. It's so far away from now. Yeah. See? And this is sort of what I think some of us are trying to tell ourselves about Toronto, or at least worst trying to talk about Toronto. I'm just like, I can't see Toronto. I've given up anything happening for the rest of the year, sadly. Yeah. Yeah. So now that brings us up to the doorstep of Diana, our topic du jour, directed by

Oliver Hirschbeagle, who directed Downfall, the meme that you've all seen and loved of Hitler pounding on a table, Downfall, written by Stephen Jeffries, starring Naomi Watts, Navine Andrews, Cass Anvar, Lawrence Belcher, Douglas Hodge, Juliette Stevenson shows up for a cup of coffee in this movie, kind of a literal cup of coffee in this movie, premiered September 5th, 2013 in the UK, and then limited in the United States on November 1st. Richard Lawson, would you like to deliver a 60-second plot description for this film? Yeah, I think I can do it in less than 60. I think I can do it pretty quickly. All right. Ready when you are. and start.

So Princess Diana, played by Namibwantz, is divorced or separated from Prince Charles. She's trying to figure out what to do with her life, part of which ends up being working in countries where there are a lot of landlines. Meanwhile, she is lonely and looking for love, and she meets a doctor that no one else remembers, and that some people probably think Naveen Andrews is playing Doty Elfayette. He's not. They have a romance that kind of goes nowhere and falls apart because she's Princess Diana and he's not famous. then she meets Doty and then she dies. Oh, boy, 28 seconds left on the clock. Richard Lawson sets a new record.

The 32-second plot description of Diana. Yeah, that's really all wishing two different men that Princess Diana dated. You have gone deeper than the film does. Genuinely. Yeah, I mean, that's fair. Let's talk about Nevin Andrews now. Why not? plays a heart surgeon in London named Hasnott Khan who dated Diana sort of under the radar and on and off throughout these sort of last two years of her life.

I like Neveen Andrews sort of in general, liked him on Lost, he's good in the English patient. I found him dreadfully dull in this movie, and I can't entirely deny that I chalk a lot of that up to his haircut in this film, which is so dorky. Like, I don't, like, I don't, I don't, I know that's like a not fair thing to just be like she would never fall in love with somebody with that hair. But, like, kind of. Yeah, he's genuinely terrible in this movie, and his character is so unappeal. feeling. Um, he's an asshole. Like, he's, he has these insane expectations of what dating princess fucking Diana is going to be like. Um, you know, I want to date you, but I can't deal with the paparazzi. It's just like, well, sir. It's like, well, who do you, who did you

think was going to happen? Um, it's just so, I, you're just not rooting for them at all, um, in this way. The scenes of him, he's like staring at like tabloids on the street. So it's like, Clearly, you have some investment in, like, a celebrity culture, or, like, you can't say that you didn't expect this in pursuing this woman. And you could almost see it if he was sort of prickly, but in a compelling way or in, you know, where it's just like, oh, he's an asshole, but also he has these, you know, very exciting qualities. And, like, something that Diana would, after spending all these years with Charles, you know, stick in the mud Charles. And now she's, you know, excited by this, like, fun and new personality, which is sort of what I think were meant to see that she saw in Doty Al Fayette towards the end of the movie, where it's just like, at least he's got a fucking boat. But you don't get that

in Naveen Andrews in this movie at all. It's just like, oh, I don't know why you would hop from Charles to this guy. Like, I don't know what's the, you know, the appeal here. Well, I was Watching it, my husband piped in, and he said, why does a brain surgeon have this shitty apartment? Where it's like he has basically a bed that pulls out from the wall, and it covers the whole living room, and then he has a dirty kitchen, and that's it. They're trying to show, you know, that she's so like, oh, this bohemian life and whatever, and it's like, yeah, but again, he's a brain surgeon. He's not, like, you know, playing jazz at a cafe. Right. And it's like, and I know that scene of her getting to sort of scrub up and like hover over his heart surgery had to have been based on a true story or else they would never put it in a movie because it seems so insane.

But it's also just like that's the scene that's meant to sort of like sell her and thus us on like what an impressive man this is. He sort of, you know, he restarts this person's heart and saves his life. But even that is filmed in such a like quotidian and kind of like dull way. just sort of just like, I don't, I don't understand why this moment is supposed to be, beyond like the mere fact of it, is supposed to be so thrilling. I mean, it's, it's not that surprising that a guy who directed a movie about Adolf Hitler looks at this material and is like, oh, who cares? Like, it's, okay, then this happened.

Like, this is so minor. None of this matters. Yeah. But, like, there's so many of the relationships in this movie seem on that kind of, you know, sort of blah level. she talks so much about how she only gets to see her kids every five weeks and we get the one scene of her sort of like seeing them off into the chopper or whatever. But like if you're going to show how much Diana sort of like loves and misses her kids, like give us a scene or two with them. Give us a scene where she and the Douglas Hodge character have a like Bond. He's playing her essentially like, you know, sort of her Alfred. Her Alfred Penton with her like lone confidant in this world. But we don't get any scenes where it's just like, oh, I really feel the bond between them at all. Her and Juliette Stevenson don't even really, it's just like, that could have been a really, like, interesting relationship.

Like, oh, this, you know, friend of hers, she didn't really have too many friends. And the movie just consistently underplays these scenes and doesn't give us anything to latch on to. Well, what I think is so frustrating about this movie is that it feels very much like, in its screenplay and its direction, a movie that thinks it's, being smart by not giving us a ton of the expected biopic stuff because it movie has a disdain for biopics it seems and yet in doing that I mean

we've seen this before we're like well I'm going to make a superhero thing but like not like you're used to and then it's just really boring because they've stripped it of everything that people watch those things for and I think you're exactly right Joe that like it's boggling to me that the choice was made to not have the children in the movie at all it's like

she's one of the most famous mothers in the world like her children are hugely famous when this movie was coming out. Like it just like in every aspect of it trying to avoid what it views as sensationalism and cheap sensationalism, it just, it like completely denudes itself of any dramatic weight, you know? And in a way, like it probably sees all that sensationalism as offensive or like inappropriate or disrespectful to the character. But in a way, it's like it's basically fetishizing her private time alone. where she's just like sitting around being sad and that to me was almost like more offensive in a way or like more disrespectful to this person by like not really making her very interesting and like basically just painting her as this sad woman sitting around and doing nothing like it wasn't just that like post credits where it's like well why are we not learning more about like her activism work or like her global relief efforts those type of thing. because, I don't know, just the, her defining trait as a character, even though she's like a real person, is like, moping?

Yeah, being like low-key sad. Yeah. She's sad about the constraints that her very public life put on her. Sure, I understand that. That we've seen that in movies about fame before. And yet also in the movie, we see her put on a bad wig and walk freely around the streets of London. or just go out at night by herself, no security detail, anything. And it's like, okay, if you're trying to tell us a story about someone whose life is so rigidly guarded and maintained, you can't break your own rules because then it makes everything seem like, why is any of this happening?

This is the kind of movie where I hate to be reductive, but I watched it. And I was like, why did straight people make this? Like, why, like, you clearly don't care. So, like, give it to a woman or give it to a gay guy or something. Like, I don't know. Or give it to a British person who would at least have a fascination with, you know, what's going on. By the way, also, I deeply needed that scene of her walking down the street in the brunette wig to be scored to K.T. Tunstall's suddenly, I see. Just so I could truly complete the devil wears Prada of it all. I needed that.

It was actually going to be Vanessa Carlton a thousand miles, but they couldn't get, 10,000 miles, but they couldn't get the rights. Making them a way downtown. Absolutely. I mean, she was making her way downtown. She was. Yeah, that was. I also love the fact that, like, all of this, she gets glammed up. She takes, you know, she puts on the wig. She's going out on the town. She's feeling her fantasy. And then it's like all to just go to this, like, kind of dingy comedy club. It's just like, you know. And this guy makes some like passing joke that's not funny, but she laughs because we're supposed to believe that she goes throughout her day is never hearing a joke. Yeah, she discovered humor for the first time at that comedy club, truly. That was at least, though, the part of the movie that I was like, oh, if this is going to be a bad movie, this is at least going to give me a little bit of fun, as, you know, her in this, you know, long brown wig. And ultimately, we don't get anything that interesting again in the movie, which is a bummer.

Just to talk about why, I think the why did Diana have Oscar buzz question is a little bit. self-explanatory. If you're going to make a biopic about Diana, about Princess Diana, it's going to have Oscar buzz because biopics are Oscar's favorite genre, and this is like the biggest, highest profile biography you can think of to make. And I wonder if, do you think this is a kind of thing where, I mean, obviously did not turn out to be a good movie? But is this the kind of thing where, like, expectations were always going to be too high for a movie like this, unless it was, like, legitimately fantastic? I mean, I think there's certain things. that exacerbated those expectations beyond like it's a princess diana biopic i mean

hersch beagle was nominated for downfall in foreign language this is the year after naomi watts like this is basically considered the big follow-up to her Oscar nomination yeah and like those things are seen as having momentum but like as far as it being like basically too high to ever really, like, match our expectations. I think there's enough, like, comparisons to that, that prove that to not be true because, like, you think of, like, Spielberg and Lincoln, you know, that satisfied a lot of those expectations, too. It's just, like, it just doesn't always work out.

Here's what I find interesting is, so this comes out in 2013. Obviously, like, the best case scenario was Naomi would have been going for best actress. The best actress field this year is four fictional characters. Cape Lanchet wins for Blue Jasmine. Amy Adams is, I know the aspects of American Hustle are based in true story, but like Amy Adams playing a fictional character for the most part in American Hustle, Sandra Bullock and Gravity, Merrill Streep in August Osage County, but the one actress playing a real person is Judy Dench playing Filomena Lee and Filomena, a woman who was real but nobody knew about. So it lets that angle sort of start from the ground up. And it's just like, oh, and now we can all,

obviously the joke at the time, or at least the joke I was making at the time, was that, like, Philomena Lee will show up for the opening of an envelope. Just like, she will just, like, she will be there. She will be there to, like, cut the ribbon on, you know, a new supermarket or whatever. She was making all the press appearances. And it's interesting to sort of, you know, Philomena was the one that succeeded and Diana deeply did not. I think that something about Diana's DNA, the movie's DNA, not the person, was working against it from the get-go, no matter how bad the actual movie is, which is pretty bad. I think, like, look at something like Judy, which a lot of people would probably, you know, older people especially, would probably

say there doesn't need to be a biopic about her. She has, you know, she has all these films on the record. She has, you know, her Carnegie Hall audio. Like, she's spoken for herself. I think a lot of other people would say, no, her story deserves to be told. I think with Princess Die, with Diana Spencer, I think a lot more people were like, wanting to know her story is what killed her, and so we really don't need this movie. You know, making this movie misses the point that her death proved. And so I think that they had to combat that from the get-go, that there was a bit of an audacity into making this movie, at least when it was made.

maybe now with more time removed it would be a different story so I think that didn't help certainly and of course there was curiosity about the tightrope walk of that like this high wire act like can they pull it off they certainly didn't but I know again I just think to people had a lot of knives

out for this movie in a way that they don't for more conventional Oscar epics I guess I thought of the queen during this movie because a lot of the queen obviously has to do with Queen Elizabeth Reaction to the reaction to Diana's death.

Not only is, it's less about her reaction to Diana herself dying than sort of her puzzlement at the nation sort of like coming out in deep mourning for Diana. And that movie, at least to some degree, deals with the meta-narrative of it all that I think you really have to do, which is it's not just the Royals. Like, it's the British people and the way they feel about them and react to them and sort of put them on a pedestal but are also just like voracious for any kind of information about them.

And that at least played an angle into the queen that made that movie more interesting. And I think you almost have to do that with the movie about Diana or else it's just going to play very flat. Right. Or there needed to be music.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's exactly right. There needed to be Elton John revamping Candle in the Wind. I was kind of surprised he wasn't like a weird cheeky little like one-off presence.

You know, like one scene with, like, you know, her and Elton or something like that. Or he plays a waiter and she's at an outdoor cafe and a wind gusts up and he's like, my candles. Table for two, Benny and the Jets. Okay. I mean, I think the ultimate problem with the movie is that, like, if you take any type of knowledge that we already have about Princess Diana or her death or any significance out of the equation because like the movie relies so much on like what we're bringing to the

table like this is essentially a failed love story about very uninteresting people at least as the story is told and a like a relationship that isn't all that compelling you don't ever really root for them. They don't really have any defining traits or they don't make each other like better people in any way. So it's like this has not just biopic problems, but like romantic drama issues. Like it doesn't satisfy on any of that. So it's like it just makes it all the more confusing to me that it's a biopic while you're watching it. Yeah. There's also that scene where they break up, and she finally is just like, if you won't do it, I'll do it. It's over. And then she runs away, like Phoebe on Friends. Do you ever, you know, the thing on Phoebe and friends?

Where she runs, like, limbs a limbo and stuff like that. I definitely got Phoebe vibes watching Naomi Run as Diana. Maybe that was a character choice. Well, I mean, this movie is by and large not so bad it's good, but there are certain moments like The Run, like various scenes that are supposed to be super romantic but are really just very clunky that are kind of laugh lines. I mean, like, it's, at times it's kind of an appallingly bad movie. Like, it's kind of, I was surprised by how bad it was. Around this same time, I watched Grace of Monaco, which is, that movie's problem is really that it's boring and it focuses on something that no one cares about, which is like monocan tax law, which is kind of insane. It's like, it's like the, um,

phantom menace of I don't know glossy Euro biopics but yeah this one I don't know and I also but something that I found

I was laughing at a lot as I watched it was the costuming which like everyone else is like dressed like full nine or like you know 90s

and Naomi like has the hair but like a lot of her clothes are like of the 2000s in a way that they were she was like I don't want to look too boxy and bad

yeah it does feel like they spent so much time trying to get every little minute aspect of the hair right and then they were just like well we're out of time just like put on whatever you have like we gotta go someone go to norse chumbrack and get us a sweater set a card again yeah yeah very true um this movie was a massive critical bomb i at 8% on rotten tomatoes and i know rotten tomatoes is an imperfect metric but like you can't spin it single digit. That's really bad. The one kind of, it was still a negative review. It was still like rotten on rotten tomatoes, but Manola Dargis did write some complimentary things about Naomi Watts in the movie, which I always appreciate that when there's like, I think I joked a little bit ago, but just like if it's a movie everybody hates, obviously Rex Reed will love it. And like nobody cares if it's Rex Reed because it's whatever. But like Manola Dargis is a, is a, you know, respected voice in there. And I'm glad at least that somebody, I think she was at least trying to make the case that just like, this is not on Naomi.

Like, Naomi's trying her best and, you know, does, I think she saw maybe a little bit more virtue in it than I did, but I'm glad, you know, it wasn't a pile on. Because, of course, Naomi gets a Razzie nomination for this movie that, like, is shared between this and movie 43, and it's just like, I don't know. Maybe movie 43 deserved it. I don't know if this did. I'm going to go a little harder than Manola did in that the performance. in the film is not bad, is not really what's wrong with Diana, the movie.

But I would knock Naomi for the hubris of doing it in the first place. I think it was a totally arrogant, weird decision at a totally wrong time in both the legacy of Diana's, you know, where that was and where Naomi Watts's career was. And I think the kind of, I mean, it's, it's ballsy to go play Princess Grace, sure. But that at least had several decades removed and her life was something. else, you know, I don't know. So I would kind of ding Naomi Watts for agreeing to do the movie in the first place. It feels like one of her few cynical choices to me. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's very calculated. And it's kind of satisfying in a way that the calculation didn't work, even though I'm always rooting for Naomi Watts, but like this one, it's like, yeah, that should have

failed. It deserved to fail. There's definitely a few interviews where she talks about the movie, where the tone she kind of strikes because it seems like the question of why do this movie at all was a thing that came up a lot and was a thing that I think she was prepared for, you know, the publicity team

and her were prepared for that question and the note she sort of hits a lot when she's asked that question is this movie was going to happen anyway so I wanted to you know make, essentially just like make sure that I was there

doing my best to make it good. You know, that was sort of the angle of it. It was just like, well, you know, this was going to happen, so why not me kind of a thing. And it does feel like that's not why you make a movie and that's not why you make a decision like that. And whether that's the, you know, as you said, Chris, the cynical sort of angle to take on it. I also wonder if, because the reaction to this in the United States was mostly just like, you know, L. well, bad movie. And the reaction in England was just like, just absolute, just firestorm in hell down on it. And I wonder if a big part of that is because she's so identified as

Australian, I know she's part English, but like she's pretty much known as an Australian actress. And I wonder if there was a little bit of just like, you don't get to tell our story in that reaction. The question then is who would have been good around that time, you know? I can't really think of anyone off the top of my head. I mean, for me, although the age difference was a problem, but had they at some point, I think Natasha Richardson would have been the perfect choice. Oh, yeah. You know, but that obviously didn't work out for a variety of reasons.

All of them tragic. Yes. But, you know, that's a, but it's either you go with someone like that or you just cast a complete no-name. You go the Clairfoy route and just have it be that. Yeah. I think that's right. I think that's, I think ultimately when you look at these like impossible casting decisions of just like who can live up, whose persona can live up to the thing. Unless it's somebody that's such a no-brainer, that's such an obvious choice, you almost have to go unknown to give yourself the best chance of crawling out from under that. Have they cast her on the crown yet? I thought so. Give me like half a story. I think it's a, I think it's kind of a no name. I think that's the thing that because it's Melda Stanton is playing, right? is playing older Elizabeth?

Right. Yeah, I, Quick Google says Emma Corrin is set to play Princess Diana. So, yes. A smarter choice than a big, than a movie star. Mm-hmm. Yes, absolutely. It's just too much, it's too much pressure.

It's too much everything. Who is Jillian Anderson playing? Jillian Anderson's playing that. Oh, yes. Wow. Yeah, Jillian Anderson playing Margaret Thatcher with like extreme, um, frighteningness. Also, we'll probably put Meryl to shame and Meryl will have to give back that third Oscar and then have to win it all over again, which I'm sure she'll. I once interviewed Gillian Anderson in person when she was doing streetcar in Brooklyn.

Uh-huh. And I've never had this happen to me before because this is only true of a few people. But I walked into the room being like, I wonder what accent she's going to say. speaking. And the funny thing is, I can't remember. I don't remember if she was southern because of Blanche, Dubois, or if she was just American, or if she was British. But like, yeah, anyway, she's fascinating. Julian Anderson sent you into a fugue state. Yeah. Was I even there? I don't know. Oh, man. Do we have, is there a season of the crown in the can? That's not possible, right? We're not going to get another one of those for a while, right? It'd be

nice. That feels like for as much as I tend to kind of look at the crown as a chore sometimes, it's just like, well, I got time to make the donuts, time to go watch the crown. I always do enjoy it once I do end up watching it. But it would be the perfect thing to

watch when I'm hold up here in quarantine and all that. That is a show that has managed to do the, you know, portraying all of these larger than life British figures with a very, very minimum of of blastback, really.

Well, I mean, I do talk to, like, British friends who are like, why do you watch the crown? Well, how could you? Who cares? You know, and I think there are plenty of people in England who do like it, probably older people, but, um, yeah, casting-wise, they've done well. I thought that Josh O'Connor as, um, Prince Charles was really good.

I mean, he's like super hot, yes, but, but also a good actor. But besides that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Josh O'Connor, one of the four identical-looking Brits that I always can do. Callum Turner, Josh O'Connor. Callum Turner, right, is the other one? Yes. Is another one?

Yes. George McKay was one of them, and he's sort of, like, broken off from that pact. But there's still photos where he looks so much like some of the other ones. And Harris Dickinson is the fourth one, who, again, doesn't always look like the other ones, but there are certain photos where I'm just like, it's that same kind of appeal, right? that same kind of, well... Bug-eyed, long-face. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Harris Dickinson was in an adaptation of a YA novel that, like, barely came out. No one saw it. I think Amanda Lestenberg was the lead in it. And I went to a press screening that was, like, mixed of, like, press, but also, like, some families or whatever. And there was this group of teenage girls

sitting toward the front of the theater. And you could just hear them, like, heaving over Harris Dickinson and it took all I it took all I could after the movie because they were like in like a little pool in the lobby of the theater afterward to walk up to them and be like girls

beach rats look into it I didn't I didn't do that obviously but it was funny. Was that one of those YA stories where the girl has some sort of tragic illness that she's not allowed to leave her home

and the one boy dares to essentially climb up her Rapunzel hair and... No, here's what was interesting about it. Everything, and that is Nick Robinson. Yes. This one was a very, very, oh, we didn't get the note about Divergent adaptation of like a dystopian YAA novel, where kids are divided up by colors. You're a greenie or a blueie, like literally. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I got it. I kind of maybe need to watch that now. It's not bad. It's just very dated. As I mentioned, Naomi gets nominated for Razzie. This is her first ever Razzie nomination. She would get one more in 2016 for the dual roles, again, of Allegiant and a movie called Shut-in that I've never heard of, much less seen. But glad the Razies can scrape the bottom of the barrel to stick it to poor Naomi Watts. But so 2013, she gets nominated for Diana and Movie 43 at the same time, along with Selena Gomez and Getaway, which is that movie she's in with Ethan Hawk, I'm pretty sure. Lindsay Lohan for the Canyons, because we all remember the, like, great brouhaha over the Canyons and how that was. That's like a perfect Razzie choice where it's just like, oh, there was a lot of negative attention around this movie. And she's bad in that movie. And the Razzies like to stick it to famous women. I remember I saw a preview screening of that movie at either Walter Reed or one of the Lincoln Center theaters, and there was a reception after.

But I remember watching that movie, and, like, Dina Lohan is, like, two rows away. And everybody in the movie is just sort of watching this movie through the lens of, A, everybody knew Lindsay had a topless scene in this movie. And, B, everybody, like, basically knew that it was going to be. really, really bad. So there's just, like, laughing at the bad dialogue and all this sort of stuff, and it's just like, her mom's right here. It's so weird. Yeah, they did all the screenings for that at Walter Reed Hospital. For good reason, truly. That's one of the great quirks of American life is that there is a Walter Reed movie theater for, like, fancy smancy Lincoln Center stuff and a Walter Reed Hospital. An infamous hospital. Yeah. And then so the movie, the nominee that I super

call bullshit on. Hally Barry is nominated for, again, two movies, movie 43, which just nominate people for fucking movie 43. That's the bad one. But it's the movie 43 and the call, which I think is kind of junky, fun, and good. And I enjoy Halliberry in that movie.

Well, the Rassies, like, their sense of humor is not good, so they don't get it, I think, a lot of the time. Case in point, the winner in that category is Tyler Perry for a Medea Christmas, which, like, it's 2013. We can't be making the Tyler Perry for playing a lady, like, joke, and, you know, we'll nominate him for worst

actress, like, it's so old and stale and musty. Anyway, am I the only one who likes the call in this? I don't think I've seen it. But I can probably bank on liking the call. I've seen the one where her kid gets kidnapped and she chases them in a car. I think it's called kidnap. Yes. But that's not the call.

That's not the call. Which I thought was somehow the call when it came out. And then what's the Kim Basinger one? Cellular? Yes. Yes, with Chris Evans. But the call is like Hallie Berry is the 9-11 dispatcher, and she's essentially trying to save Abigail Breslin, who has, like, been kidnapped and put into the trunk of a car. So like, there's definitely- Wait, but it takes place on 9-11? Oh, 9-11? Okay, sorry. Yes, it's the finest of our 9-11 movies, for sure. Yes.

After the Robert Pattinson, Emily DeRavid one. me. Remember me canonically the Secret 9-11 movie. Secret 9-11 that's the most classless trashy thing I've ever seen in a movie. Oh, surprise, everybody. It's 9-11. End credits. It's so funny. We talked about Grace of Monica.

We talked about the best actress lineup of that year. Anything else we want to dredge up about this movie before we close the book on it forever and ever, never, never? I don't know. There's shockingly little to talk about with this movie

in terms of like any singular scene or like call out Yeah, it's biggest sin is that it's boring deeply boring Yeah Which like it's easily the worse

Of the are you bad boring Or are you bad spectacularly so Spectacular boring will get you remembered I think again I think in England I think this movie is probably more notorious And more memorably bad

I think after a while Well, once the, like, you know, Diana and Grace of Monaco, twin failures kind of thing, kind of faded away. Nobody really ever talks about Diana anymore. Most people didn't see it. It's not like a movie where it's so bad you got to see it. Like, most people just didn't see it. It faded away. Well, exactly.

It's like Ebola. It's so bad that people die before they can spread it, you know? Right. It's kind of a self-containing thing. It's a very contained failure. Yes. Yeah. Whereas Grace of Monaco, like, spread over the airways.

and, like, it went on to television. It infected television. Years. That was a weird little, that was part of the whole, like, Weinstein Company, uh,

financial issues, whatever, where, like, they were just selling shit to lifetime for a while, because it was, um, not only Grace of Monaco,

but that Michelle Williams movie. Sweet fronce. Sweet fronce, which was like, in the can forever. And like, every year it was like, maybe Michelle or sweet fron.

And, like, no. And Stockholm, Pennsylvania with Searsha Ronan and Cynthia Nixon, which is an insane movie. So this is a movie about a girl who is kidnapped as a child and then is found as a young adult and brought back to her home. And Cynthia Nixon's her mother. And things get really weird because the mother is convinced that her daughter's going to try to leave because she doesn't really remember being living there. Oh, weird.

It's not a good movie. dance. I was really excited to see it because I thought it would be Cynthia Nixon's supporting actor play that year. It was not, obviously. Always on the lookout for Cynthia Nixon's Oscar so she can e-got. Yeah. Exactly. If you can track the movie down, there is one scene that I can't, I wish I had access to, so I could make a gift of it. It's Cynthia Nixon looking like almost like Ellen Burstyn in Recruit for a Dream Crazy, manically on an old-timey exercise bike. it's

It's so good In my memory The exercise bike is solid gold I know it's not But like I love cold You gotta track it down It's quite something

Also the plot of that is very similar To the plot of the deep end of the ocean Which is a movie we are going to have to do On this podcast at some point Michelle Pfeiffer's Deep End of the Ocean co-starring Richard you'll appreciate this Jonathan Jackson during his

general hospital camp nowhere era. I was going to say the deep end of my longing for Jonathan Jackson. Deeply Christian, by the way. Deeply, deeply Christian. Oh, yes, I remember, because all of his daytime Emmy acceptance speeches were very much like God Forward, and he's in a Christian rock band with, like, his brothers or something like that.

I know too much about Jonathan Jackson. Well, you wrote the biography, semi-authorized. The teen-beat biography of Jonathan Jackson, of the kind where, like, in the middle, it's eight pages of glossy photos. Yeah, that's, that was when I was 16 years old. That was my claim to fame. And the last sentence of the book, those two couple sentences is like, though he might have been to Camp Nowhere, Jonathan Jackson is going somewhere, right? That was it? Yeah, I invented, I invented that form of writing. It was very influential at the time. I love those movies where you will discover

them on either cable or streaming, where it was just like, this movie is, has two famous actors in it for it to have been this unknown. I remember I found on cable the one time there is a movie where Dakota Fanning and Patty Cakes, I can't remember what the actress's name is, but the actress who played Paddy Cates. Daniel MacDonald. Right. Are two girls who, one of them went to jail, they like killed a child together. It's a whole, that whole

thing in England where like the two young people kill a younger person or whatever. And, like, one of them went to jail and one of them came back, and Elizabeth Banks is investigating the one for another baby that's gone missing, and Diane Lane is one of their moms. And it turns out that, like, whatever, we thought it was Dakota Fanning, who's the bad one, but Patty Cakes is the bad one. And the weird thing is that movie is made by, like, a really respected documentary

filmmaker, right? Oh, that's very possible. I think that's, like, it's, like, her first, like, you know, scripted film. But, yeah, that movie is bad. Yeah, it's bad. And it's on, like, HBO or Showtime or one of those channels, like, kind of a lot. I'm just like, maybe this isn't good for anybody. It is fun seeing Diane Lane as a kind of Medea, like, evil mom role, though. That's different for her. I want Diane Lane to stretch as much as possible. I think she's so, I think she has so much, you know, potential to go crazy and she kind of ends up playing the same kind of a person, kind of a lot. I don't know. With the exception of serenity. With the exception of Serenity, where she plays a off-the-shoulder top in human form. Like, that's sort of... She plays a non-playable character, an NPC.

Yeah. She plays a horny guava. From the mind of a 12-year-old, from the mind of a grieving 12-year-old comes... Yeah, I love this gay 20... It's gay 12-year-old. He's like, Diane Lane type enters, like... You know, a brassy old, like... whatever, a woman who patronizes male hookers.

Yes, that's exactly. Desdemona. Yeah, because like a normal 12-year-old boy would be like, it's like Gigi Hadid, and instead it's like Anne Hathaway type. I just imagine like his like one buddy or is just like, so you wrote a video game and he's like, yeah, it's really campy. It's just like, okay. It's on this really gay island where. dude my dad fucks the shit under my mom in this game it's really awesome

good what a great movie what a fine fine film serenity was thank god thank god we had it before just under the wire before everything went to you should start a side podcast called wish had oscar buzz where you just talk about movies that you wish it yes in what we just talk about serenity every week yeah oh boy all right um you should start a serenity podcast We should.

Just like covering just one minute of that movie every week. Wasn't that Blank Check's original idea with Phantom Menace that they were going to cover that movie like five minutes at a time? Yeah, something, but then it got exhausting, I think. Well, it's Phantom Menace. I mean, it's only going to turn out that way at some point. All right. Anything before we jump into the IMDB game?

I think it's interesting that Naomi wants got O-Burned, basically, on biopics. the closest thing that she's made to one is the Glass Castle since? Because this is basically a decade since this movie and you think for a prestige actress she would show up in another biopic, but she's not. What would be a good

biopic for Naomi Watts to be in at this point? I mean, I guess she played on TV. She played Gretchen Carlson in The Love's voice. I suppose that's true. That kind of avoids my point. I want to see her... Well, it's TV. Well, I mean, Gretchen Carlson's the same thing.

But I want to see her play someone evil. You know what she would be fun at, in a few years' time, if she played Martha Stewart during the whole insider trading situation. Holy shit, that would be great. Because as we've talked about on this podcast before, her American accent's fantastic. And Martha has that sort of like mid-Atlantic sort of, you know, way of speaking anyway. Yeah.

Although her voice is so much lower Martha's is. I don't know. But anyway, I think to see her tackle that challenge. I think that would be really interesting. I think you're right, Chris, something kind of bad, dark. Not that Martha Stewart's bad, but, you know, something where she has a little bit more like agency, I guess, would be interesting. Well, and I think a Martha Stewart biopic, you don't have to be so reverent. You don't have to worry about, you know, are people going to think we're being, you know, unfair or to anything?

I think a lot of Diana's problems are that they didn't want to be too gossipy or too salacious or show too much. you know, of the, you know, the sons in a bad light, so they didn't have them in it at all, where it's like, you don't have to be precious about Martha. And also, you could cast her daughter really interestingly, like, because her relationship with her daughter is so sort of like damously feisty. Let's make this happen, you guys. Let's all produce this movie together. Richard, you have all that trolls money, right? We can, you can finance this movie. No, because I, I invested in theme parks and live theater in February. invested in theme parks and handshakes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm ruined. All my futures are in hugging weirdly, so now that's, yeah, I'm ruined. Yeah, I had invested a huge amount of money in singing telegrams. Um, just buffet restaurants upon buffet restaurant. Yeah, I'm a majority stakeholder in Golden Corral. Um, anything with a chocolate fountain that you have to stick your dirty hands into. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly. ball pits and whatnot. Yeah. Anyway, Chris, why don't you explain the rules of the IMDB game for

our listeners? All right. So guys, every week, we end our episodes with the IMDB game, where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try to guess the top four titles that IMDB says they're most known for. If any of those titles are television or voiceover work, we mentioned that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release. Yours has a clue. If that's not enough, just becomes a free-for-all of hints. We love a free-for-all-of-hince. Richard Lawson, you have played this before.

You will get the opportunity to either give a challenge Chris or me with your IMDB selection. Who would you like to challenge? Oh, I have to choose. Yeah, you get to choose.

Okay, so I'm going to challenge Chris because I think, I don't know, I just have a hunch that you might get this quicker than Joe. That's not an offense to you, Joe. But I take too offense about that. So my challenge is, and I did change this, by the way. I came in thinking I was going to ask you guys to name the top four for Naomi's We Don't

Live Here Anymore, co-star Peter Krausa, because there is one funny answer on that, but the other three are kind of whatever. The funny answer, by the way, well, I won't tell you yet. But what I'm going to ask instead, is Chris, if you can name Juliette Stevenson's, four. Fun. Okay. Um, uh, is truly madly deeply on there.

Sure is, yep. Okay. I would have bombed at this, by the way, Richard, you chose the exact right person to give this to you. I would have been so bad. I think she's too low build on, um, Diana to, for Diana to be there. I'm going to say the Gwyneth Paltrow

Emma Exactly right Okay I did choose well Joe You're right You did You did I would have bombed Um There's got to be like

Other British comedies in there right Like That is a good inclination yes You're missing the only one I would have gotten right On this one by the way Oh and interestingly

Well I won't say yet But there is an interesting thing about the two left. Oh, okay. She's... I'm trying to think of what she's in that I can remember. She...

No, wait, she's in Bendett, like, Beckham, right? Yep, that's the third. That's the one I would have gotten. So one more. Yeah, you're free for three. I'm just going to start randomly guessing like Mike Lee movies. Because for the life of me, I can't remember anything else.

I know that one of these is going to be bad, like I should know. And I can only just, like, picture her in truly madly deeply, which I haven't seen in a long time. Do I just start guessing, like, Vera Drake? No. Another year. Peterloo. Speaking of years, though, it did.

It's the same year as Bend it like Beckham, but... Okay, so it's O2. Is it also a British like comedy like Bend It like Beckham? It is British. And it's a comedy-ish, but it's not like a period piece.

It is a period piece, yes. Okay, so it's... O2, that's not... If it's comedy-ish, that's not, it's not Mike Lee or anything like that. Oh, boy, I'm trying to remember. It's not Mike Lee, but it's one of those, like, oh, this cast is a very sprawling cast, full of names you know. And it stars an attractive man. A very attractive man.

A very attractive man in a British ensemble period comedy. Yes. in 2002 directed by the same director as I don't know how she does it Is that true? That's very funny. I don't know who directed.

And it was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Musical or Comedy film. Oh, really? Okay. Yes, it was. Obviously it would have lost to Chicago. Indeed. Oh, wow.

Its title is alliterative. It is. 02 Nicholas Nickleby There you go Jesus I haven't thought about that movie in

probably 18 years Who's the lead of that movie Charlie Hunnam Oh Jesus Christ And Jamie Bell's in it too All I know is that Isn't Anne Hathaway in that movie She sure is

Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Charlie Hunnam Jamie Bell Anne Hathaway Juliet Stevenson

and Christopher Plummer, our girl Romula Gary, is in that movie. It's supposed to be a pretty good movie, I think. Yeah, I've never seen it, but it did get very good reviews, obviously. The Golden Globes really loved it, yeah. Okay, what other Juliette Stevenson embarrassing things have I forgotten? I mean... Because even though I did well, I feel like I could name the things that I could place her face in. I think she's got a pretty representative of...

The one you forgot that I thought you might guess is Mona Lisa Smile, because that movie obviously means a lot to us here. But I don't remember her in that movie. She's like one of the, you know, she's one of Julia Roberts's friends, I'm pretty sure. And she's the one that they imply is gay, right? Mm-hmm. Am I remembering that correctly? Yes.

Yes. Yeah. See, I can't picture her in it, but like that tracks. Yes. You're totally right. But also, Chris, you should have, I thought you would remember her for playing Lady Cassandra Eltham in the Julia Style series Riviera, which you created. So I thought that, you know, just kind of, because you worked with her.

I know. That wasn't a great relationship. Oh, I see. Okay. Not a good experience for you. Yeah. Moving right along, I guess, Joe, I am giving to you. You are. I did not go the Naomi route. I actually went the Navine Andrews route. I did not go to Lost because all of those people are either Marvel movies or Lost. Yeah, I flirted with Evangeline Lily myself, but I didn't.

dead. I went with his English patient co-star and Oscar winner, Juliet Binoche. Okay. Not Julia Binoche. All right. Benoche. English patient? The English patient, correct. Chocolat.

Chocolat. Correct. Okay. Now the question is is it her more American movies where she doesn't maybe get the best roles? Or, her Olivier

Aceas side hmm okay I'm gonna guess clouds of Sils Maria correct

who okay no wrong guesses one left to go okay so I should probably stick with the European stuff

oh Oh, gosh. All right. What's, I want to, now I have pressure because I want to get four for four. Oh, what was the one I really loved her in?

Well, there's two that I really love her in. I kind of love her in everything. No, yes, but like above, above the rest. But I would be so surprised if it was either certified copy or summer hours, even though she's, so fantastic in them

I love summer hours all right I'm going to actually switch gears I'm going to go American I'm going to guess Godzilla no not Godzilla where she basically shows up to die to die she sure does absolutely

all right and we're supposed to believe that she Juliet Benosh world treasure Oscar winner is married to Brian Cranston right Offensive. Right.

Oh, actually, I'm going to guess cachet. No, not cachet. Okay. But your year is 1993. Oh, oh, it's the Kislauski movie? Is it blue? She's in blue? Three colors blue is the answer.

Okay. All right. Wow, I did not think it would go back that far. I kind of respect the algorithm there. I mean, that's four good things. I think that's right. I assumed it would be Dan in Real Life and Godzilla. That was the other American movie I was thinking of.

It was like Godzilla and Dan in Real Life or certified copy summer hours. And turns out neither. Okay. So Julianne Pinoche, in her American films, Julia Binoche has been paired with Brian Cranston and Dane Cook. Cool. Jesus. Unbelievable. Yow.

I wanted let the sunshine in to be in there because she is wonderful in it. I love that movie, but it is not. All right. Richard, here is, I went, what was the route that I took for this one? Sorry, sometimes these are circuitous.

Oh, okay. Oliver Hirschbeagle, in addition to directing Diana, directed the invasion with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig a movie that I keep meaning to watch, but still have not. one of the actors... A bomb that maybe Nicole should have let Naomi know about.

Yeah. Oh, wait, maybe this wasn't... How did I get to this person? I don't know. You know what? This person I don't think is even in the invasion. I'm trying to do my backing through my IMDB history, and she's not in this movie. You know what?

Forget about that. I don't know how I got to her, but I picked Samantha Morton. Oh, okay. I would say Minority Report. Minerty Report is correct Is The Walking Dead on there? No, no television Okay

Samantha Morton is on the Walking Dead A major season villain Yeah Well, she's dead now But I don't watch it anymore But yeah But yes, yes Yes

She was like the villain for like two seasons Yeah Um Okay What's that movie? In America? Is she in that? Weirdly enough, not in America, even though she was Oscar nominated for that.

Sweet and Lowdown? No, also Oscar nominated for that one, not that one. Oh, sorry. Very strange that none of her Oscar nominations are in her own stars. Her, so your missing years are 2008, 2009, and 2012. Hmm. I don't think I've been paying close enough attention to Samantha Morton's career. I think I need more hints because I'm not, I'm just like, all right.

I didn't know she was in the 2012 movie, but I haven't seen it. 2009, she is in it. She's really good in it, but she was not nominated, but a supporting actor was. Yeah. She is, so she's the lead. No, she's the, um, she's the most prominent, uh, woman in the cast, but it's about these two men, these two, uh, military men. Oh, the Sheridan, no.

Two military men. Oh, the Major Dad movie? Yes. She's gunny. She plays the Delta Burke role in the Major Dad movie. Right. This, I believe, was this actor's first Oscar nomination. I'm going to look it up.

No, he had been nominated previously for... Oh, yes. Yes, da, da, da, da, da, da. For Brady, is it a British military movie? No, it's American. Although they do both wear berets in this movie, which makes them look plausibly British, but it's not. It's their American. I think this is one of the lowest grossing acting nominees.

They're not in combat in this movie. Oh, oh, the Oren Moverman movie with Woody Harrelson, which is called Valor The Brave or some, I don't know, some title like that, right? The Messenger. Yeah, you got it. The Messenger. You got the movie, though. All right. So of the two you're missing, one has a huge ensemble cast, even though there's, like, one character who's, like, very literally the center of the universe in this movie.

And the other one is based on a novel that people really love. A director that has worked with Naomi Watts. Oh, yeah. And I think this also, I may be wrong, but I think Julia Pinoche is in this movie. She is in this movie. You're absolutely right. And what year was that one? 2012. Most of it takes place in a car.

2012 takes place in a car. I'm almost positive you've read this novel because it seems very much like a novel you'd have read. When did everything? Illuminated come out? That's in a car a lot. That's not everything's illuminated. Oh, okay. Sorry, guys.

I'm so bad at this. I'm just going to have to get heavily edited. This is a heartthrob actor that was mostly known for, at this point, a certain franchise and has now pivoted to basically doing mostly movies like this. Except he's now attached to another major franchise. Yes. Oh. But, like, classic, like, everybody thought he...

Oh, oh. Cosmopolis or whatever? Cosmopolis. Cosmopolis. Yeah, okay. Your final movie is 2008. It is written and directed by somebody who is more so known as a writer, but he directed this movie as well.

He's going to have another movie this year that will be on Netflix. Yeah, has an Oscar as a writer. This might have been his first movie he directed. It's like a very... I do believe. Very sort of surreal movie, and Samantha Morton plays... There's a lot of actresses in this movie. Oh, it's...

Synecdochie? Synecichy, New York. Okay, good hints. Sorry, I'm so bad at that game. No, it's a really... She's got a really tough IMDB game because it does pivot away from both the, like, commercial stuff she's been in and also the stuff she got Oscar nominations for. I think she also looks so different in every movie, at least for me anyway, that I'm like, it's like I don't have a picture of her in many movies, you know? Oh, here's why I arrived at her, because the writer of Diana, Stephen Jeffries, also wrote both the play and the screenplay for that movie, The Liberty.

team that I've never seen. Johnny Depp. All I know of it is that Johnny Depp has a big curly wig in that movie. She probably also sprang to mind because you have her in a bathtub full of milk at your house telling you the future. I mean, I think that would be probably...

And you guys do not want to know what she's been telling me. Yeah, no, I really don't actually. I'm looking at her IMDB. It's a real interesting list of movies where, like, I don't remember her being in John Carter, like, okay, she was in John Carter. I think she was, like, CGI'd over.

Oh, yeah? Yes, you're right. You're absolutely right. Yeah. Obviously, she was in Elizabeth the Golden Age playing Mary Queen of Scots, the predecessor to R. Sertia for playing Mary Queen of Scots.

But anyway, yeah, well done. Well, well played, Richard. That was probably mean if me to pick that one. No, it was fun. I mean, it's good to remember that she's, in a lot more than I remember. Definitely. All right.

Thank you so much for being with us on this episode. I'm glad you were here to sift through the dull ashes of poor Oliver Herschbegels, Diana. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, happy to do it. You know, any movie where the most exciting thing is a wig reveal, like, I'm there. I'm there. at the very least there was that it's true uh that is our episode if you want more this had oscar buzz you can check out the tumbler at this had oscarbuzz dot tumbler dot com you should also follow our twitter account at had underscore oscar underscore buzz richard where can our listeners see and hear more from you uh well they can hear more from me uh on vf's podcast little gold men and still watching uh still watching is just

wrapping up a season about Mrs. America before going on hiatus, but we got a lot of great interviews. I'm talking to Sarah Paulson next week, and Little Gold Men were just trying to figure out how to talk about movies and TV when, you know, especially movies, don't exist anymore. So that's that, writing for VF.com, a lot of reviews, and tweeting at R-I-L-A-W-S. You guys at Little Gold Men have come upon a really cool solution to the fact that that there are no more new movies at the moment. Have both the polls trying to get people to vote on what they want you guys to talk about. But you've had some really interesting movies in sort of the Oscar history,

the conversation of Oscar history to talk about. Well, thank you. Yeah, that has been fun. I will say that one thing that wasn't fun was the night before we recorded an episode. So like 1130, 1145, realizing that the only version of Amadeus available anywhere is the three-hour milish form. directors could, and staying up till three in the morning watching Amadeus. But I was glad to have finally seen that movie. I got to see that movie. I also need to see ordinary people,

which was another movie you guys talked about. So, like, clearly you guys are giving me great inspiration to see good movies. Well, I'm glad. So, yeah, this is a, this particular episode is about a movie that no one should see. Right. But, yeah, you guys are covering the movies people should see. And we are not doing that. Yeah. Christopher, where can the listeners find you in your stuff? You can find me on Twitter at Krispy File, that's F-E-I-L, also on letterbox under the same name. I, on the other hand, am on Twitter at Joe Reed, read-spelled R-E-I-D.

I am also on letterboxed, Joe Reed, read-spelled, R-E-I-D. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Muvius for their technical guidance. Please remember to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever else you get podcasts. A five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcasts Visibility. So make like a true people's princess and show some love to your favorite people, a.k.a. Us.

That is all for this week, but we hope you'll be back next week for more buzz. Goodbye, England's Rose. You have been holding that in your pocket this is fair time. I like that. bit of it made you count Should you captivated in a pound Suddenly I see

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So much to me Thank you.