This Had Oscar Buzz - 099 – Proof

Episode Date: June 22, 2020

We’re looking to the stage for this week’s episode! After being awarded the Pultizer Prize for Drama, a Tony success, and two years on Broadway, Oscar obsessives looked to the big screen adaptation of Proof to continue its slew of trophies. With Gwyneth Paltrow reprising her role from the London stage (along with that production’s director and Shakespeare … Continue reading "099 – Proof"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hacks. Someone's got to go through your dad's stuff. There's nothing up there. There are 103 notebooks. I'm prepared to look at every page.

Are you? No. How long have you known about this? We found something potentially major. All newspapers around the world are going to want to talk to the person who found this notebook. He didn't write it. I mean, he couldn't have. I don't believe in mine like his can just shut down. You're not taking anything out of this house.

I wouldn't do that. You're hoping to find something upstairs you can publish? No, it'd be for your dad. I thought we'd have some people over tonight. if you're feeling okay. You think I'm like, Dad. I think you have some of his talent and some of his tendency toward instability.

I'm afraid of like my dad. You are not him. Maybe I will be. Maybe you'll be better. There is nothing wrong with you. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast barking out presidential orders from the shitter, just like Leav Schreiber.

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 am here, as always, with my definitely not imaginary co-host, Chris Fyle. Hello, Chris. Chris File exists. Stop saying Chris File. One of my favorite moments in the movie. That was one of those moments, and there were several in this movie where I was like, oh, I wish I had seen that on the stage. Like, I feel like there

are moments in the movie proof that are funny, but I'm like, oh, that must have been like, you know how like things are just funnier in a play? Like when you're in the room and the show is like maybe 20 times funnier than the movie. Always. There's like laugh lines that they totally just like choke on in the movie. And that is the case in almost every adaptation of a stage play. I think there's something about the sort of tension of being there in person in the room with the performers that like the breaking of that tension is such so much more of a release than it is ever in a movie which like just by virtue of the medium that you know cannot not be true but yeah so many things in this movie really really made me feel like I wish I had seen

the play but we will super get into that and we'll get into my whole we will Mary Louise Parker thing as we go along I'm excited to talk about this movie Chris I I'm glad you're excited because I feel like this is one I've been badgering you for a long time for us to do. And you've kind of like rolled your eyes at me. I was really resistant because my memories of seeing this movie were like, eh, me? I didn't like, I had had a lot of anticipation, but like I'm going to say watching it a second time, I liked it a good deal better. And I'm excited. I forgot how short it is too.

So short. A tight hundred minutes. Yeah, yeah. A tight hundred minutes and it kind of flies by. Yeah. All of a sudden, I was just like, holy shit, there's only a half an hour left in this movie.

I was like, it was, I, in my memory, this was more of a slug of a movie or more of a bore. And I wasn't bored this time. And maybe that says something for like active watching when you're like, you know, preparing for something like this. Like, you know, who knows? We'll get into it, too, because I think there's also some of it that has to do with this movie sitting on a shelf that, like, made the resulting movie less than exciting, too. Sure.

Oh, yeah. Well, and it came out at a time that was, like, very fraught for Miramac. So, like, the publicity push for it was very anemic and very sort of half-hearted. and it gets the sad, lone golden globe nomination for Gwyneth Paltrow, which, like, you almost would rather nothing, you know what I mean? Nothing would almost seem, would almost seem less of a, less of a insult almost, where it's just like, it's such an afterthought nomination. It's such a just like, oh, we need one more, what, who, Gwyneth, just throw Gwyneth in there.

Just like, whatever. It's the Kate Winsland and Labor Day nomination where it's just like, who else do we have in the hopper? Like, Kate Winslet? Okay, yeah, she was in a movie. Let's put her in there. You've already invoked the movie Labor Day. We will at some point have to talk about Labor Day. Oh, God, talking about movies that I don't want to do.

Talk about, you know, pie baking as a metaphor for fucking. Everything in that movie is a metaphor for fucking. I will tell you that. Basically, basically, basically. Also, two other things I want to bring up. A, happy pride. We haven't mentioned this is Pride Month. This week, I would really like to spotlight and encourage all of our listeners to donate to the Marsha P. Johnson Institute.

They can do so at Marcia P.org. This is going to go to support the black trans community here in America. They do a lot to protect and defend their human rights. Please donate to the Marsha P Johnson Institute. That's Marcia P.org. M-A-R-S-H-A-P.org. Also, here for proof, our nation. 99th episode. Yes. We are one episode away. We're on the cusp. From our 100th episode.

Those who follow us on Twitter when I was doing the monthly tease of titles, very many people saw that proof was in there because we put a liquor bottle on there that said the word proof. However, me in my not infinite wisdom chose a bottle of liquor. That was 100 proof. And everybody thought that episode of. 100 would be proof. Not quite. I apologize to those of you who might be disappointed. I will say,

very exciting coming next week. I appreciate the ingenuity, though. I appreciate the ingenuity of our listeners who went that extra mile and were just like, not only proof, but 100 proof. Like, as ever, our listeners are the smarties and I am a dumb dumb. So yeah. I'm sorry, I just wanted to let that linger in there. I wanted to let you sit in the discomfort of you.

saying you're dumbed up. The discomfort of my stupidity. You are not a dumb, no. We are just very excited for episode 100. And one more week, one more week to sit in the uncertainty. Wild, man. Speaking of smart people, proof, is this or is this not retroactively the biopic of the math lady meme? Oh, I mean, yeah, actually. like that's Anthony Hopkins's role in this is essentially just sort of like pausing and staring off into the middle distance and calculating numbers in his head.

As like signs and cosigns like come up above his head. Yeah, it's he's the role, I mean, sort of unsurprisingly, he's the role in this movie I kind of wish you could recast. He's so much bigger than anything else in me. this movie and also not hiding his Welsh accent one bit, which makes very little sense considering spent his entire life in Chicago. Yeah. As a Welshman. Yes, exactly. Like, I forgot how Chicago-y this movie and this, the play is when I saw it the first time. It is, I think when I seen it initially and then, you know, remembering it, I was just like, oh, it takes place in like some sort of college town, but it's like it's varied specifically

Chicago in this, which... Very specifically Chicago, London, where are the two cities that this movie was shot in? Oh, interesting. What were the scenes that were shot in London? I have no idea, and I was trying to spot it. Maybe it was a set, like maybe that house was shot. Maybe the interiors. I will say the front porch of this house. The play very sort of famously takes place on a back. porch um which i think is interesting because it makes the the setting feel a little bit more um

not like rural but like maybe more like small towny than it it you know then chaggo was private but like the house that they chose for the exteriors of this movie this front sort of like stone and and wood sort of like wrap around porch i was so incredible envious of that. I was just like I could just like exist for my entire life on that porch. And I, there's a lot of talk about the house in the movie about how the house is too big for them and it's, you know, drafty and it's a bitch to heat in the winter and yet, yad, yada. And that the university has sort of had its eye on it forever. And it's just like, that makes sense. That makes, you know, that kind of a house makes sense as like a university owned, either like, you know, they'd turn it into some sort of offices or professor residency. or something like that, but it's an amazing house. One of those, like, big, beautiful giant, like, things that you know is just filled with a bunch of, like, books and shit, and truly that's what this house is. It's one of those things, when you talk about adapting a play into a movie, and you're

always sort of talking about how to keep it from seeming stagebound, you want to sort of, like, open it up, and what does that mean for a play, like, Proof, which is very much a play about ideas and sort of, like, very sort of. of like human level interactions and nothing that sort of automatically makes you feel like, oh, this is a natural way to kind of make this bigger and more cinematic. And so John Madden, the director, I don't know if he's ever super successful at doing so. I think one of probably the worst moment in the movie is probably the moment that feels most effortful in trying to open it up and make it less stagebound, which is the part where

Jillon Hall is chasing after the car and like flings the notebook into the open window of the car, it's embarrassingly bad. It's really, really, really terrible. And there's also just like basic things where it's like when Catherine and Claire are, you know, having their long conversations about you know, moving to New York, the life that she lived with her father, all of that. Instead of staying on the porch, they go to a mall and have this conversation. Things like that, where it's like you're really just transposing it into a different location.

Right. But I think one of the... For the sake of it. Yeah. One of the successful things that they're able to do, though, is I think that scene towards the beginning where they have the kind of after memorial service get together, right? The sort of the party at the house. And you see a, just how big the house is B, like what kind of sort of crowd you get where it's a lot of academics letting their hair down and then this crowd of like

mathematician groupies and like sort of like young students and the band is there that's sort of like geeky band that Jillen Hall's in and I think oh okay well that at least feels like oh this now feels alive in a way a film should feel alive whereas you know the play doesn't, you know, doesn't opt for that. A, because you can't really. And B, that's not sort of

what it's going for. This made me want to see the play so bad watching this movie. It truly did. Okay, but here's the thing. It's like, this is one of, obviously very successful. It won Tony's. It won the Pulitzer 2. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It won the Tony Award for best play and best actress for Mary Louise Parker. This was her big. She had obviously been in movies before this. She was in Fried Green Tomatoes. She was in the client.

And she had been in theater before this as well. She was in prelude to a kiss at the very least. But this was her big sort of like level up moment where we'll talk about level up moments also with regards to Jake Gyllenhaal in this film. But this was like the big Mary Louise Parker ascendancy. This was just before. This basically is what got her, the Angels in America role, the West Wing role, ultimately. Like, this is, you know, what ascends her career. And opens in early 2001, written by David Auburn.

The play opens off Broadway at Manhattan Theater Club and then transfers to Broadway fairly quickly early 2001 and then by, you know, whatever, June 2001. winning the Tony Awards and obviously I went for a long time went for a very long time for a straight play went until January of 2003 which is like attracted people like Jennifer Jason Lee in the lead role I saw it with Anne Hayes did you uh Neil Patrick Harris yikes um how was it what was that what was the experience of it was great yeah it was great and of course I was a brace faced teenager I did the stage door and everything I think I've told you this story before.

I don't think you have. No, this is the one where, like, Anne Hache, this is when I, of course, thought I was going to be an actor. Uh-huh. And I was, like, maybe 12 years old, 13 years old. Oh, my God. It's adorable. And this is when I was, like, meekly, like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And she, like, looks me in the eye. And she's like, yes, you can say that with confidence. You can just say whatever you need to say confident. Oh, my God, you've never told me the story, because I would have died. It was also clearly, like, this little gay boy. Anne Hache is the best. I absolutely love her. One of my very favorite celebrity interviews I've ever done.

I've told you the fact that my old roommate was the dresser on proof, right? Yes, yes, yes, she's Mary Louise's dresser. She stayed on with Jennifer Jason Lee and Anne Hache. I'm sure that was not an easy job, because if I remember correctly, there's like a fully psychotic, quick change that the character has to do, yes. It's funny because I watched in my sort of YouTube deep dive for this. I found an interview clip of Mary Louise on the Rosie O'Donnell show. Rosie O'Donnell, of course, famously was very tuned into what was going on on Broadway at all times.

She had interviews with most of the major theater people of the moment, and one of the questions she actually asked Mary Louise is, have you ever missed a quick change? And I was like, that's an interesting question. This was also right when Rosie was doing, I believe, Susical. So Rosie had just started performances in Susical. So she's very much like, you know, trying to relate to Mary Louise on like an actress-to-actress thing. And so she mentioned the quick change thing. And that actually now makes a lot of sense if you're saying there was a sort of famously chaotic quick change. It's like, I forget what she has to like change in and out of, but it's like immediate.

It's like you have like 60 seconds to do. wild. Oh my god. Oh, I'll have to ask Jen about that. Shout out to Jen Lyons. Um, yeah. It's the most early 2000s play though to get back to like the movie and like what it is in terms of it's just a bunch of people talking on stage about stuff. It has aged very poorly in terms of like, why were we obsessed with this? Um, in terms of like watching it now and being like this is morely though. It's just, I think because of the amount of prestige that it got at the time and now it feels so far away that like now on a play basis, it's like they're doing it in, you know, community theaters everywhere. It's like so ubiquitous. But at the same time

is not all that exciting to watch in my opinion. I'll see, all right, I'm going to actually take a little different tech because I was hoping that I would be able to find some kind of like bootleggy, you know, terrible video quality YouTube of not the original production of proof and wasn't able to find it. But what I did find, uh, there's a lot of, as you say, like community theater productions and, and stuff like that. And even just watching those, which is like usually it's a pale substitute when you're looking for, you know, a video of a Broadway play. But watching that, I was like, oh, I would have been very riveted by this. I would have been very into this.

I think it's the kind of sort of like, you know, four characters excavating these memories of their father and sort of what was going on in that house in the last few years and, you know, things that they're not telling each other. and then Hale shows up and he's got his own agenda and like obviously it's not it's not breaking new ground formally or even the subject matter is unusual you know this whole play about you know a math proof but it's not like but you know plays sort of you know burrow their way into very specific subjects all the time but as a play as written I also read some of the play this week I really sort of got into this was my week of like getting into proof finally in 2020 but I don't know I was like I have a feeling I would have been like deeply deeply into it and I still kind of like I still find it interesting and kind of riveting now so well some of the language of it too it's like it's a little bit drunk on its own supply of its wit and like it is very the first time you're hearing this dialogue it is way more like catching, I guess, than it is when you've heard it multiple times, you know. It feels very early 2000's stage wit to me. Yeah.

But also, it's very early 2000. This is very early 2000 in terms of when film adaptations were happening and there were a lot of, I'm sure we'll talk about it as we really get into like the awards conversation for this movie. There's a lot of not just Broadway plays, but off-Broadway plays that were getting adapted into movies that had success on the stage that was expected to be an immediate translation into Oscar. Right. That's a big subject I want to delve into because this feels emblematic of the struggles

of trying to translate what on stage felt vital and magical and super impactful. and the struggles to have something feel the same way in a film. The one other thing, though, before we get into, because I am going to make you do a 60-second plot description. But while this is on Broadway, like I said, it premieres on Broadway, or opens on Broadway, in January, I believe, of 2001, and runs almost two years.

And why, that is going on, there's a London production that is directed by John Madden and starring Gwyneth Paltrow. At the Donmar Warehouse, which was like a bigger deal in the early 2000s in terms of like what they would bring to the States, like the Sam Mendes Rob Marshall Cabaret originated at the Donmar Warehouse, I believe. Yeah. That is, that's, and that, you know, feels pretty significant and so when then miramax gets the rights to the film adaptation it is deeply unsurprising that they would go for madden and paltrow obviously the reteaming of two of them for the first time since shakespeare in love which was such a you know huge success for everybody

involved and it you know it's kind of a no-brainer that that's what you would do for the film adaptation, but like in some sort of parallel universe, I would really have died to see, to let Mary Louise Parker do the film adaptation of it as well. I'm not saying that would have been any more successful as an Oscar play. I think it still has the same limitations. But like, and normally I'm very much a big proponent of film roles require something different than what stage roles do and I don't I think when when you when you see a lot of sort of like griping about a stage to screen adaptation casting movie stars rather than Broadway stars I normally don't mind that and I'm actually usually in favor of casting movie stars

because like there is a different requirement there's something capturing you know attention and sort of and holding that attention in a film there's just like it does require different things and I'm not saying you can't be good at both many people can but I do understand the idea that like you want to

cast for you know the spectacle as much as possible right so like I get that but in this case I think this is a small scale movie anyway it's not like you were turning this into some sort of like big extravaganza and it only made seven and a half million at the box office. So, like, most of the people who were going to watch this.

It's still kind of shocking for, like, how much of an afterthought of a release it was that it even made that much money. It's probably a testament to, you know, Gwyneth's star power that it was able to make even that much money. But I think when you're talking about that, I think there's nothing that's done in this movie that Mary Louise Parker couldn't have knocked out of the ballpark anyway. And it would have been really cool to be able to see her do that and sort of, like, you know, take ownership of this role in the in the transfer is all i'm saying i am a fucking giant mary louise parker fan i watched a lot i watched her tony acceptance speech which a guineth paltrow presents the tony for a actress in a

play this year so like that's an interesting little footnote in history and she also um she really makes a point to thank billy crude up because they were still together at that point and that's always sort of like a little bit of an arrow in the heart because obviously their relationship ended under pretty bad, uh, pretty bad circumstances. He left her while she was pregnant. And, uh, left her for Claire Danes while, uh, while she was pregnant. So, but I do, I'm sure we'll get into whenever we do stage beauty. We will do stage beauty. I kind of really love stage beauty. Oh, that was the other thing in, um, I'm bouncing everywhere. I'm sorry. Um, in that Rosie O'Donnell interview is, and that's, again, early 2001.

Rosie makes a point to say to Mary Louise that she thinks Billy crude up is going to get an Oscar nomination for Jesus's son. She's like, and apparently, I didn't remember that being like that big a thing. Mary Louise. Rosie would have mentioned that on like her show. And so apparently the Oscar buzz for Jesus's son was like maybe more than I even remembered it being. I sort of thought that I was the weird. It was an indie spirit nominee, right? Or did he win indie spirit or something?

I don't know if you won, but I think you're right that it was a spirit nominee. I will look that one up right now. All this said, Billy Crudeup is a wonderful actor. Oh, I fucking love Billy Crudup. Like, that's the thing. When that sort of happened, I very much tried to remain a fan of both of them because they both deserved it. So, Independent Spirit Awards nominated for Best Male Lead.

Let's see who he lost to at the O-1 Spirits. I hate it when the IMDB doesn't list the nominations in, like, order of prestige. Like, it doesn't have, like, best film at the top. Yeah, I don't like that they alphabetize everything. Ooh, I wonder if I can guess that. 2001, Indie Spirit, Best Actor. So this would be for the films of 2000. Oh, okay.

So the films of 2000. There's going to be things in 2000, like, Chuck and Buck Weirdly Chuck and Buck gets nominated for a bunch of stuff but not in this category Not in the male acting categories

Oh there was still a debut performance category then So that was Mike White was nominated for that Loses out to Michelle Rodriguez In Girl Fight Interesting Awesome

Yeah Okay I don't think Javier Bredem was nominated because they have that weird role that if it's not American financing, it's considered international for them. Though it is, that is an American director.

Was Javier Bardem nominated? Yep. Or did he win? He won. Oh, he won. Okay. For Before Night Falls. That was his big precursor on the road

to getting an Oscar nomination. He's the only one in that category who did get an Oscar nomination. I will say two of these are performances and films I don't imagine you'll get, so I'll just say. One of them is Adrian Brody for a film called Restaurant, and one of them, which is like Adrian Brody even before, oh no, it's right after Summer of Sam. So he had just sort of become a thing. And the other nominee is Hill Harper for a film called The Visit, which I also didn't know about. But the fifth nominee in this category hugely deserved was really the only venue that recognized him, weirdly enough, like absolutely deserved an Oscar nomination.

The film was nominated for other awards, and it's somewhat, the only reason that he wasn't sort of, like, swept along is this was his, essentially his screen debut. Like, if it wasn't technically his screen debut, it's the first thing anybody ever saw him in. So is it a young performer? At the time, yeah. Okay. Not like a kid, but like... But like 20 years old? In his 20s.

Oh. Okay. Nominated for other things. Year 2000, it's not going to be like traffic. It's, um... It is not traffic. Huh.

Was it like a screenplay nominee? It was. Okay. What were the screenplay? It won best screenplay at the spirits. it's not almost famous that was too expensive correct um

okay crap what are the screenplay nominees that year that would have had a male lead performance adapted screenplay original original okay so original screenplay almost famous wins oh it's uh jamie bell no it's not jamie bell but that's a good guess

but it's not well that's British anyway um So Billy Elliot Um, Billy Elliot almost famous. It's not almost famous. Otherwise, I'd say Patrick Fugett. Um. Older. Think older. You're, you're thinking too young.

Too young. Okay. Then the other original screenplays were Gladiator. We just talked about this. Did I say Aaron Brock. Billy Elliott, almost famous Aaron Brockovich, Gladiator, and what is that fifth nominee? It's also an acting nominee. For original.

Oh, is it Mark Ruffalo? It's Mark Ruffalo. Mark Ruffalo for You Can County. God, so deserved. So deserved. Like, it still is, it still pains me that he didn't get an Oscar nomination for that because he is, and I'm sure part of it was. I can't believe that took me that long to get to. That they didn't know.

I almost was just like, you want to have all the sex with this man. Me being the house matron of the Ruffalo House of Thirst, taking forever to get there. It's such a good performance. He's so fantastic in that movie. And it's such a, that movie is such a clear two-hander. Like, you can't, like, Linney's phenomenal in that movie. She'd be my Oscar winner that year. But, like, you can't have one without the other.

They're both so good together. It flabbergasts me that it's not a package deal. Anyway, how did we get there? Anyway. Billy crude up, Jesus' son, Mary Louise Parker. Okay. Mary Louise Parker. Okay, follow the breadcrums back.

Would you like to take a stab at a 60-second plot description of this film. You know, let's do it. This is, like I said, it's only 100 minutes. There's not a ton going on. Yeah. Anyway. All right. Well, we're going to talk about the film is Proof, 2005's Proof, directed by John Madden, written by David Auburn and Rebecca Miller, adapted from Auburn's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Jake Gyllenhaal, Hope Davis.

We'll get into Hope Davis. She's so fucking good in this movie. And Anthony Hopkins. It premiered in September 2005 at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals before opening in limited release on September 16th, 2005. Christopher, how about 60 seconds on the clock, and you tell us what proof's all about. I think I have this. I think I have this. I'm happy to take one on since I'm terrible at this

that I don't think will be terribly challenging. All right, ready, and there you go. All right, proof follows Catherine She, is a young woman and grad school dropout who father recently passed away. She dropped out of school to take care of him. He's like a legendary mathematician. She was also studying mathematics as well. But she's starting to see visions of him and talking to him the day before his funeral. Meanwhile, his student Hal has been like going through their father's stuff and they're having like a

flirtation anyway. Her sister Claire arrives and is like, hey, come move to New York. I bought you shampoo. 30 seconds. Then after the funeral, there's a party. She sleep. Catherine sleeps with Hal and then the next morning learns that Claire is selling their house and also Hal finds a proof that looks to be some legendary like all changing proof and we Catherine says that it's hers. They accuse her of stealing it from her father.

We flashed back to see that her father was going crazy the whole time and never could have written it anyway and at the end it's all resolved and yes Catherine did write this. With four seconds to spare, very good job. Well done. As you so disgustingly texted me the other day, Hal says the proof, the proof, the proof is on fire. It's all I could do.

I have to go buy a new phone. I took a sledgehammer to my phone after you said. One of those, we mentioned this earlier, but one of those scenes that feels like it would have been really, really funny on stage is the scene where, Jake's character says the wordproof, like, 20 times in the span of 10 seconds. And then all of a sudden, there's a beat, and Hope Davis just goes, what does it prove? Like, it's such a, like, tension breaker. I was going to wait until we were, like, really into this point of the conversation about this movie of why I'm like, what?

Why? Like, I get it. Like, it's very, it's an entertaining show. Like, you can watch it. You can get wrapped up in, like, this very. clear, like, problem with these witty people that, like, know how to have an interesting conversation together. But, like, this movie is as the, and the script is as vague about mental illness as it is mathematics. And I get, like, we're not going to understand any of this.

If they really got into any true mathematics or, like, trigonometry, we would probably, it would either be, A, very boring, or B, we would become the math lady of, like, what the hell are they talking about? But at the same time, time, they're asking him what the proof is. And he's like, well, it's a proof that they've been trying to prove since there were proofs anyway. It's that scene. That's the scene I'm talking about. I can't say what it proves, but it's a very important proof. And like, that's almost verbatim from what they say. It is. It absolutely is. But okay, so yes, granted, yes, the vagueness. And I get that. But also, I think the vagueness of the proof. And honestly, the vagueness of, as you mentioned, like the mental illness. I think A, makes sense because if we're, if Catherine's our focal point in this thing, like, she's not, she's, her confusion about this, about, you know, what she's going through and whether she is sort of becoming like her father, makes sense. But B, I mean, it's a very simple, like, it's about a math proof, but it's also about what proof do you need to believe somebody who, blah, blah, blah, blah, like, or what proof, like, but to me, that is effective. To me, the fact that Catherine is going through this whole story looking for proof that she is or isn't going crazy. And then you enter, you add this other wrinkle where then she has to find, she finds herself unable to prove that she did author this, you know, she did write down this proof in the notebook, even though it's the same handwriting has her father's.

it's that the circumstances are sort of against her, even though the most sort of, the most damning thing against her when she's trying to argue to both Hale and Claire at the same time that she did write it, is that neither one of them thinks she could have done it, and that's basically all the proof that they need. And, like, to me, that is very effective. I think it's a really, I think it's a really interesting story. I know I'm, like, probably like... Yeah, that part of it is very interesting, but it's like the more you kind of like squint and try to figure out what it's, I mean, A, all of the math stuff is vague. You can understand why, but it's almost comically so, like when, as you mentioned, Jake Gyllenhaal says proof 15 times in 15 seconds. Yeah. The mental illness part of it, though, it's like, it's not clear what her father suffers from, though you could maybe conjecture that he was a schizophrenic. but hers it's just like maybe I'm crazy because he was crazy and it's like really she's just a depressed person and you can see why there's no real sign of her other than you know conjuring her father and talking to him in a corporal form when he's already been dead there's no real thing to hang the movie's hat on with how she could possibly be suffering from mental illness

herself aside from depression well yes i think that's true but also again within the context of the story to me that makes sense because a it's this is you know so much of this movie is about what she inherited from her father did she inherit this sort of like mathematical genius or did she inherit this you know madness but also it's about what she sort of um was able to learn from her father so it's just Like, yes, she could have been, like, born with this genius and born with this madness, or the fact that she was sort of cooped up with her father for all these years, especially, you know, as he's deteriorating, whether that environment, it's almost like a nature versus

nurture thing, right? We're like, that environment nurtured not only this kind of depression slash stir craziness within her, but also was a, that's how she was able, she mentions at one point where he's like, you know, you dropped out out of, you had one semester of, you had one semester of, math classes at Northwestern. And she's like, that's not where I studied. Like, that's not where I learned this shit. I learned this shit from living in this house for all these years. And I think that is an angle that makes sense to me, too, where it's just like, oh, okay, it's, you know, as she's wondering, you know, what, what's going on with me, could I have,

you know, could I have this? It's also the fact that she's just like been cooped up in this insane environment for all these years while claire has been you know as she says like living her life in new york and and i think i like that the play sort of allows claire to kind of defend herself too where she's just like i was paying off this house while i was living in a studio in brooklyn and all this yeah yeah the the sister relationship is almost a little bit more interesting to me than like the flirtation well definitely more so than this like love story that i don't that feels a little pigeonhole into it but like the sister stuff is interesting because I'll watch that

any day of the week of like they're both right but they're you know not listening to each other or not you know they can't find allegiance in each other on stage the Jake Gyllenhaal role is played by Ben Shankman

and as I texted you as I just started to watch this movie and I'm also sort of like digging through the clips of proof on YouTube that it was really weird watching Harper Pitt and Lewis from Angels in America makeout. And it just felt like the universe was turned on its side. I do love relating everything to Angels in America.

Proof also opened on Broadway in the same theater that Angels and America. The Walter Kerr? Yeah? Yes. Excellent. Yeah, this was a good two and a half years before the HBO production of Angels in America. But like I said, it does not surprise me that Mary Louise's performance in proof would have gotten her to the point where she got cast and something like that. Which then got her to the point of having a perpetual appendage of an iced coffee and a very long straw. Yes, this feels like the kind of play where she could have an ice coffee with a very long straw in her sort of claw-like hand.

at all times, like that would have fit this character, I think, really well. It also feels, and I, again, didn't see this on stage, so I don't know. It feels like the kind of play where the main character wears some kind of long cardigan sweater at all times. Oh, I think it was a robe, actually. Oh, interesting. Like a robe and pajamas. Yeah. Yeah. All four main character, all four performers in the play were nominated for Tony Awards. So in the sort of buzzy, long-lead forecast for the film version of proof, all four lead actors were getting some kind of level of Oscar buzz, I think especially Gwyneth and Anthony Hopkins.

But I remember there being a decent amount of buzz early sort of long-lead buzz for Hope Davis, and she's so fucking good in this movie. Yeah, I think Gwyneth is legitimately good in this movie. Oh, absolutely. And I think Hope Davis is probably the best thing, the most, the, feels closest to what the tone should be, because I think she's also the funniest. Hope Davis, though, it was definitely like the time of we think a Hope Davis nomination will be coming soon. Right, American Splendor was 2003. I think that's probably the closest she's ever come.

to a nomination and I feel like probably so 2003 do you feel like Hope Davis is like sixth place for supporting actress that year? I'm so curious because like there were a lot of pundits at the time that thought that American Splendor would break through in some real type of way and that's a movie I like a lot more now than I did at the time. It was a screenplay nominee right? I'm not wrong about that? Yes, it was a screenplay nominee. Maybe she was sixth place. I'm trying to think of, like, who else? So that's the year that... I've wiped all of 2003 out of my brain after we did a miniseries last year.

Yeah. Renée had won for Cold Mountain. Other nominees were Shori Agadashlu for House of Sand and Fog. Patricia Clarkson for the awful pieces of April, and she would have been a much better nominee for the station agent. Marcia Gay Harden for Mist... I mean, maybe Patty Clark's was sixth place for the station agent. It's possible.

Marsha Gay Harden for Mystic River. I think you probably would have also found Laura Linney on a long list for a possible nomination that year. I hate that monologue. I do kind of love that monologue, but probably only because Laura Linney is delivering it. Like, within the context of the movie, yeah. Like, it's a real, uh, uh, heady turn, for sure. Um, and then Holly Hunter for 13, who is great.

Incredible. But yeah, I feel like Hope Davis, uh, had gotten some sort of precursor attention for American Splendor that year. And probably, if not sixth, maybe like seventh. Like, she's, you know, within that, you know, first circle of outside of the nominations. But yeah, this is a really interesting sort of era for her. She's, I think also wasn't Secret Life of Dentists this? That might have been 03 or 04, but it is of this period where it's like she's someone that you're paying attention to because you think their first nomination is coming soon or, like, that's.

She's someone who's part of the conversation in that way. Yeah, I'm looking at her filmography now. So I think you can go about Schmidt and Secret Life of Dentists, Secret Lives of Dentists in 02, American Splendor 03. She's in the Matador in 05, which is a movie I have not seen, but that's the Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear movie. And that's the same year as proof. Also, she's in The Weatherman this year with Nicholas Cage, the Gord. of Rubinsky movie, The Weatherman. And then

in 06, she's in infamous talk about movies that's set on the shelf for a very long time. The other Truman Capote movie, infamous. And yeah, I think then you don't really see I'm trying to think of like the next time she's in a movie

that she would have gotten any kind of like awards buds for. And I... She faded away really quickly. Yeah. I mean, she does a bunch of like TV. Unfortunately, because she's wonderful. She got cast in that television series. Do you remember 6 Degrees?

Do you remember the TV series 6 Degrees, which was in that sort of post-lost everything? Now all of a sudden, like, serialized television is a thing. Oh, yeah, where everything has to be episodic to the point of following different characters every episode. Right. And so this one, it was called 6 Degrees, and everybody, the whole premise was that, like, everybody has a connection to each other in some way. And she's in it, and Campbell Scott's in it.

and Erica Christensen and Bridget Moineshan, and it was not a very good show. Did it last a full season? No, I'm pretty sure it only lasted. Yes, 13 episodes, five of which were unaired in the United States. So always a sign that a TV show got nixed early. But then she's in a season of entreatment. You remember the Gabriel Byrne. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

So she was a patient of his for one season on that show, and I remember her being really good there. She popped up on the newsroom for a few episodes. She was in a show called Allegiance, which I believe was an NBC show about married spies, but like not fun married spies, but like not like the Americans or something like that. Bureaucratic married spies.

Right. She plays a retired Russian intelligence operative in that. Okay, so. I would love to hear Hope Davis with a Russian dialect. Yeah. So that was a knockoff of the Americans for sure. She's also in a season of American crime. And I believe she plays Timothy Hutton's wife in that, but I'm like not very sure. So like she definitely transitioned to primarily TV roles. Although one thing I found was interesting about this movie, the movie proof is all four principal actors are in. the MCU. Which I thought was just really kind of funny, where it's just like... Wait, what is Hope Davis in the MCU for?

She's Tony Stark's mother in that flashback at the... Oh, my God. Right? Tony Stark's mother and wife, all together in one. Wait, what? Oh, the two of them. Yes, sorry. Yeah, Pepper Potts, Tony's mother, Mysterio, and Odin.

All yes, starring in Proof. Oh, that actually is a nice little entry point to the game that I devised for you, actually, when we're talking about actors from other roles in a movie. So I want to get into, at some point, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama Ness of proof and also staged-to-screen adaptations, as we have promised. But before we do, maybe this can be like our little intro to it, I devised a game for you. the subject of Pulitzer Prize. Pulitzer and MCU. How is this happening together? What have you done to me? This is a game about Pulitzer Prize winners for drama that became movies. Okay. Okay. You think I'm not going to remember this, but I think I remember a little,

because like this was the type of thing that I, as an early awards watcher and like excessive. I have no doubt that this is a expertise of yours. So I am going to play the game we played a little while ago when we talked about Warner Independent Films, which is, I'm going to name you three characters from other movies, and you are going to name me the movie that all three of those actors are in together. All of the answers will be Pulitzer Prize winners for drama that became movies, all right? Does television movies count because there's a lot of HBO movies? There are some television movies in here.

I will say at least one. Okay. All right. Also, um, oh no, there are some, I say for the most part, they're 1990s and after, but there are a couple exceptions to that. So, okay. Okay. All right.

To begin, your first trio of movie characters are Madeline Ashton, Mallory Knox, and John LaRoche. All right. Madeline Ashton is, uh, Merrill Streep. John LaRoche is Chris Cooper, so I think this is August Osage County. Indeed, it is. Madeline Ashton is Merrill Streep in Death Becomes her, Mallory Knox. I want to talk about Madeline Ashton. Mallory Knox, Juliet Lewis in Natural Born Killers, and John LaRosch is Chris Cooper in Adaptation, All-Stars in August, O'SH County. That will be, again, when we move the discussion into adaptations. We'll get into it.

Okay, your next one. Detective Somerset, Nini Threadgood, and Elwood Blues. Mini Threadgood. Nini with an N N Nanny. Nanny threadgood. That is, okay, who plays Nini? That, I mean, it is fried green tomatoes.

It is. There's a lot of people in fried green tomatoes, more than you remember. It might be Lois Smith. Nini. Oh, no, Nini Threadgood is Jessica Tandy. Yes. Ew, did Driving Miss Daisy win a Pulitzer? Ew!

Yes, it did. Ew! It's Driving Miss Daisy. Detective Somerset is, of course, Morgan Freeman in seven, and Elwood Blues is Dan Aykroyd, Oscar nominee, Dan Aykroyd, when he was in the Blues Brothers. All right, next one. God damn, D'Azie, fuck off. Fuck off.

Your next one are Natcharel Rivera, Winston Shakespeare, and Cici Blune. Winston Shakespeare Indeed C.C. Bloom, I know. What was the first one again? Natural Revereux. Hmm. See, what the fuck is C.C. Blum? I know that name.

You do. Natural Revereux. Hmm. the middle one again Winston Shakespeare Why can't I get C.C. Bloom. Oh, is C.C. Bloom? No, no, no, no. Wait, what did you think it was?

No, I didn't have it. C.C. Bloom, think lifelong friendship between women. Yeah, yeah. That maybe ends in sadness. In sadness, right. Oh, it's, um, no, no, it's not Bette Midler in Beaches. Well, C.C. Bloom. Is it, Bette?

C.C. Bloom is the lead character in Beaches, yes. Yeah, so it's Bette Midler. Bett Midler in a Pulitzer winner. It's not one of the HBO's. It is... Chris, listen to how specifically I'm saying this. C.C. Bloom is...

Myambiolic. You are thinking correctly, but there is perhaps another avenue to go down. Oh, no. Is it the Lifetime remake? With Adina Menzel, it's got to be rent. It's right. I'm so glad you got there. C.C. Bloom is the character Edina Menzel played in the lifetime remake of Beaches.

Natchel Rivera is, of course, Rosario Dawson's character in 25th hour. And Winston Shakespeare is the name of Tay Diggs in How Stella Got Her Groove Back. Gotcha. All right. I haven't seen How Stella Got Her Groove Back since I was like a teenager. All right. I was allowed to watch that as a teenager. I don't know.

He's very attracted than that. Okay. Next one. Amanda Waller, Amelia Earhart, and Phil Parma. Definitely. Oh, no, it is, it's doubt. Work it through. Tell me how you got there.

Amy Adams says Amelia Earhart and Night at the Museum, a night of the Smithsonian or whatever that was called. I'm surprised that didn't fool you into a Hillary Swank direction. Hillary Swank does not have a Pulitzer movie on her. Amanda Waller is Viola Davis in the Suicide Squad. And Phil Parma is Philip Seymour Hoffman in Magnolia. Okay, next one. Yes. Mori Schwartz, Danny Collins, and Jack Ryan. Well, Danny Collins is, this is, it's Glenn Glary, Glenn Ross. Danny Collins is Al Pacino.

Jack Ryan is Alec Baldwin. Alec Baldwin. Alec Baldwin in the Hunt from Red October. Who's Morrie Schwartz? You want to take a stab? Is it going to be, like, it's not Jack Lemon? It is Jack Lemon. It is Jack Lemon, all right. In Tuesdays with Moray. This is a tough game because, like, all of the things blur together.

Indeed. And, like, create chaos in my brain. Jack Lemon in Tuesdays with Mori, the much-beloved performance. Remember when that was, like, such a thing? Yeah. Okay. Next one. Mrs. Baskin.

Dick Cheney and Edward R. Murrow. All right. Ed Harris. Where are you getting Ed Harris? Dick Cheney. From what? Oh, no, wait. I'm thinking of the wrong thing.

Is it Christian Bale then? No? What's another movie where Dick Cheney would have been a character? a whole bunch of them W. Right. Richard Dreyfus. Is it Dreyfus in that movie?

Right. Dreyfus and Strathairn. Right. Oh, it's Lost in Yonkers. Yes. Mrs. Baskin is Mercedes Rules character in Big. And yeah,

Dreyfus and Straferan all in Lost in Yonkers. Pulitzer Prize winner. It's so good. It's so good. This one could be interesting. John Quincy Archibald Abelene Clark

and Bubba Blue Okay. Abelene Clark. That's one that I know. This is maybe a little evil, this one. No, Bubba Blue, that's Forrest Gump,

this is fences. Wow, you got that way quicker. Okay, work that one through. What are the other ones? Abelene Clark is, Um, that's Violet Davis. Is that her character in the help? It is. Yeah. Yeah. And what about John Quincy Archibald? That, um, is that John Q? Yes. Densel. Yes. It's John Q. It's Denzel and John Q. Okay, next one. Ada Monroe, President Benjamin Asher, and Aunt Jet. Aunt Jet.

Aunt Jet. Jet. Ada Monroe Ada Monroe Okay I might try to do the cheating thing And remember No no try and do it on the merits of the game It's much better than that

All right President someone who's played a president Right See I think I did the harder one All right let's start over Okay Okay Ada Monroe

Harvey Dent and Aunt Jet Oh, okay. So Harvey Dent, it's either Aaron Eckhart or Tommy Lee Jones. Aaron Eckhart had to have been in something. And I don't think that Tommy Lee Jones was. You're on the right track. Oh, is it, um, is it rabbit hole? Yeah, work it out. Ada Monroe. Oh, Adom & Row is Nicole Kimman in Cold Mountain.

Right. Any clue who Aunt Jet is? I mean, it's got to be either Diane Weist or Sandra O. Or maybe Tammy Blanchard. It is Diane Weist in Practical Magic. Oh, fantastic. Wonderful. Beautiful. All right. Your next one. Muddy Waters, Mrs. Potts, and Ruth Jameson. Muddy Waters, that is...

Oh, this is Angels in America, Muddy Waters, is Jeffrey Wright in Cadillac Records. Ruth Jameson is Mary Louise Parker in Fried Green Tomatoes, and I don't remember the middle name. Mrs. Potts. Oh, well, oh, Emma Thompson, and God, why would you ever, ever deign to bring up the live action beauty and the beast with me ever? Indeed, all right. How dare you? Last two. K. Corleone, Francis Farmer, and Carrie White. Sissy Spasek should be August H. County.

K. Corleone. That's Diane Keaton. Oh, Diane Keaton and Sissy Spacec, did Crimes of the Heart get a Pulitzer? It did. Crimes of the Heart. Francis Farmer is Jessica Lang in Francis. Okay. Last one. Cleopatra, Sidney J. Musburger, and Sam the Snowman. What? Cleopatra. I guess in The Cleopatra?

The Cleopatra. I mean, it's not who's afraid of Virginia Woolf. Correct. Because, like, there's that whole controversy that it didn't win. Correct. What else would she have been in? Oh, um, cat on a hot tin roof? Cat on a hot tin roof.

Yeah. Uh, Sydney J. Musburger is Paul Newman in the Hudsucker proxy. And Sam the Snowman is voiced by Burl Ives in, uh, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Good job on this game, Chris. Well done. I want to do this game at game night tonight and see if anybody else can get him. I did kind of do some backwards thinking. Which was?

No, I think you worked it out. You worked most of them out on their own marriage. You worked it out the way that you wanted the game to be played versus my cheating the last time that you did. You do getting... All right, for the listeners, we played this game at our game night recently with Fox Searchlight titles. And we had to stop Chris from answering because Chris just knew all the Fox Searchlight titles by memory and was just like throwing them out. left and right and getting them all right and we had to stop them somehow so I have to be good for something okay so all right now we're on the subject of Pulitzer winner so you think about a lot of

those titles and some of them actually are pretty good Oscar successes right like driving Miss Daisy wins best picture fences gets best supporting actress for Viola Davis and the best picture nomination. And a best picture nomination. Doubt could have very easily been sixth place. Yeah. Oh, yeah. If there's a top 10 in 2008, doubts on it, for sure. It gets four

acting nominations for its principal characters. Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, and Rabbit Hole both get acting nominations. Obviously Angels in America is a massive Emmy success. Crimes of the Heart gets an acting nomination. Who's nominated in Crimes of the Heart? Was it Sissy

SpaceX? Tess Harper. Tess Harper as the supporting actress. Oh, that that rolls fun. Yes. And then August O'Sage County, of course, gets nominations for Streep and Roberts. But, like, I think August O'Sage County is an interesting comparison where even with just getting those two acting nominations, it felt like that's the very least. Like, August O'Sage County still got the very least.

And I think if it's any good, if it's, I do think, I mean, I shouldn't say it's not any good, I think August O'Sage County has its moments. It's watchable. If it's a great movie, that film gets everything, right? Mm-hmm. So, but I think that's instructive in terms of what works on stage versus what works in film and how you have to, like, mold it and work it, right? Mm-hmm. And I never saw August.

I'm such a hard time saying it. August. O'Sage County. I guess I have to, like, really. like, almost like pause for the colon in that, August, O'Sage County. Right. So did you see that on stage? I did. So tell me what they fucked up. There is absolutely like no political subtext or context in the movie version that there is on the stage where you're kind of like marinating in it and like what the stage pictures are.

how you think generationally about a certain type of apathetic, white, middle American, um, none of that is in the movie. None of it. It's just these, this family and their relation to each other, not their larger context to like the American cultural landscape. Yeah. When you mentioned, when you said politics, I was like, huh, I would have never considered politics as part of that story

given my only experience with it is watching the movie. Yeah, I mean, it makes you think that a lot is taken, or not a lot is taken from the script because it's three and a half hours on the stage and it's like a two hour and ten minute movie. But like it really misses a lot of just like kind of what it makes you sit and think about.

larger what this type of mindset that we're watching means for the American consciousness. And I think what Tracy Letts was actually, like, getting at in a bigger picture. Yeah. The movie just has none of that. On top of also being, it's never as, like, acidic or funny as it is on the stage. Right. Like, it feels like such a... which feels like the funniest part of the movie.

It's still, it's mostly funny because it's Julia Roberts freaking the fuck out over Fish. I saw Amy Morton in that role who originated the role. I love her so much. It's like maybe the best performance I ever saw on a stage. Just like, I can't imagine how, like, she just, like, put, everything on the stage, and I can't imagine physically how a person could do that eight times a week run that marathon. Yeah.

Incredible. I saw Amy Morton in the Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf with, it's her and Tracy Letts and Carrie Coon, and I can't remember who the fourth person was, but like, so fantastic, so amazing. And obviously, Tracy Letts is interesting casting. that regard because he wrote Augustosage County and Amy Morton, you know, was such a big success from that. But yeah, she's phenomenally fantastic. And really, as a film actress, I don't remember her in much. She's in a small role in Up in the Air is really the only film performance I really

can think of her. She's great in that movie. She is. She's fantastic in that movie. But, yeah, fantastic stage actress. So, yeah, I sort of, in our little outline, I kind of jotted down some recent examples of stage-to-screen adaptations, and they really do kind of run the gamut. The History Boys had a lot of expectation. Really, really, they basically transferred over that entire stage cast to the film. So it's a very faithful adaptation. I have a, you know, soft spot for History Boys. I really do enjoy it, but, like, not an Oscar success.

Rabbit Hole gets the nomination for Nicole, but... Should have gotten more. Should have gotten a lot more. It's like the example of the movie that maybe is even better than what's on the stage. Interesting. I never saw that on stage either. I had only seen it locally, but I'd read the script while it was before the movie came out. I think that's an interesting.

When we talk about how proof kind of struggles to establish itself cinematically, I think Rabbit Hole with, again, that's not a play that, has a lot of, you would imagine, like, ways to open it up into this sort of, like, big production, right? It's still basically... It all takes place in their home. It's small. It's human. It's about grief. But I think John Cameron Mitchell does a really good job as director of finding ways to, I think the thing with the notebook and the drawing, which I think is so affecting. That's sort of like the comic book that the Miles Teller character draws and shows her. That's a thing that you can't really reproduce on stage, unless I guess you could have like a projection screen

or something like that. But I think that's something that is sort of unique to being able to film it. You can get up close with them. You can see the drawing. You can see whatever. And it's such an affecting moment. And I think that's a way where it's looking.

They didn't have this big production number. They didn't, you know, throw a notebook into a moving car. They didn't have anything like that. But it's like, it's really effective. And also, it's insane. saying that Diane Weist didn't get nominated for Rabbit Hole. I've said it before. I'll say it again.

Her scene talking about the brick in your pocket, describing grief as like a brick in your pocket, is a scene I will just watch over and over again just on its own because it's so, so good. And also the scene where she tells the story about telling her friend to get her fat ass out of the house and stop eating all her cinnamon buns, and Kinman's reaction to that. It's such a great scene. You know, I never had a moment to myself. So finally, in the middle of coffee one afternoon, I said,

Maureen, why are you always here? What did she say? She said, I want to be there, Nat. I want to share in your grief. And I said, well, it's not working. You plant your fat ass in that chair every freaking day. You did not say that. I did.

Mom. I did say that. You said fat ass? And she sucks up all my coffee. And I don't see you leaving with any of this alleged grief you're sharing. In fact, the only thing you do take you. out of here on my cinnamon buns. So I never saw her again, obviously.

I believe it's Tyne Daily. That was that role on the stage. I think that's right. Cynthia Nixon was the lead. Tine Daily was the mom. Yeah. Doubt, obviously, we mentioned... Which had higher hopes than all of the acting nominations. I think Viola Davis and Amy Adams probably saved that movie.

That's another movie that's kind of stripped of its political context. It's very allegorical to how we felt about the... invasion of Iraq and you know oh that's interesting evidence versus certainty um right in terms of what we're doing and like now you look back on it it's like is this really maybe the allegory we want to be making for um right for those things but like you could when i saw that on broadway it's like you could feel like people stewing in like just that idea of and like self-conflict of certainty versus evidence, you know. Yeah. Now that you mentioned that, and again, watching the film, you really don't get that.

A lot of people were certain. Talk about certainty. Certain that that was going to be the movie that would get Meryl her third Oscar. It was obviously a Tony winning role for Cherry Jones. That's another thing where I would have liked to have seen what Cherry Jones could have done with that role on film. all the sense in the world that you would cast a big movie star like Merrill in that. But I would have loved to have seen what Cherry Jones could have done with that on stage. She was incredible. Her opposite Adrian Lennox was incredible, which is the Viola Davis plays her in the film. Adrian Lennox, who we just saw in the Butler.

Butler. Yes. August Sosage County we just mentioned. Frost Nixon's an interesting one, because Frost Nixon, I think, succeeds as an Oscar play far better than it should. I don't love Frost Nixon. I don't dislike it. But to be a Best Picture nominee from when there were only five Best Picture nominees, and to be... A movie that nobody cared about, probably less people cared about than the reader.

And the reader is the one that year that people are like, what the fuck? People at least had strong opinions on the reader, even if you hated it. Frost Nixon is such a middle line. Like, it's one of those perfect examples of a movie where it gets an Oscar nomination, and you're like, but did people rank that as their number one? Like, it's so weird that, like, who loves Frost Nixon besides, like, Frank Langella and his immediate family? He also gets a nomination for that. And it's weird because, like, for all that success and for all that, like, sort of puzzling success, Ron Howard, best director, for what? it doesn't get nominated for what I thought it should have, which was Michael Sheen as David Frost.

Well, they ran him in supporting, right? They did, because, yeah. Which is bananas. Sure, because it's called Frost Nixon. It's both of them. He's in it more than Nixon. But, like, Langella does, like, Langella is the Hannibal Lecter of that movie, right? Where, like, his Nixon is sort of, like, you get why that's the focal point.

And Langella's really very good in that. He won the Tony Award for that as well. And then another example, and a movie we will do at some point despite our distaste for the director, is God of Carnage, which was adapted to merely Carnage for the film, a fantastic theater experience. With Hope Davis. With Hope Davis.

Oh, God, Hope Davis. Cukin all over that stage. Got no credit for that role, but it was so good, and she was so funny. barfs across the stage. Like, the moment where she does, it comes out of nowhere. And the audience reaction to that, I remember seeing God of Carnage, I was in, like, maybe the third to last row in the balcony,

the most uncomfortable theater seating experience, perhaps, of my life. And I'm just like, maybe that contributed to how much I love the, because of the play, because the play is about just this, like, horribly uncomfortable situation between these two couples. But when Hope Davis starts puking in that scene, the audience just, like, fucking flips their lid. It's just like the gasp and reaction to it is really something. She ends up losing the Tony to her co-star, Marsha Gay Hardin, who is so good. Because they rightly put everybody as leads. Right.

Well, because the Tony Awards, you have to. There's a rule where if you are above the title star, you have to be placed in a lead category. It is how, like, it's, you wish there was some kind of rule structure in film for that, you know, some way of determining that. So just, just for simple fairness sake. But obviously the Oscars don't have that, and it leads to any number of debates between us dorks. I think you can probably see the barfing scene. On YouTube, maybe not anymore, but I definitely had seen it before just to like relive like the shock of that audience.

Because like at the time, too, it was like, don't tell anybody what happens. Don't tell anybody what happens because it's like the perfect gag. Yeah. But yeah, that was, what a thrill. What a thrill for Marcia. Yes. I did mention also we have one, you know, whenever, again, we'd start to get new things. films again. They are doing a big screen version of the humans, which was a big play just a few years ago. That's one of the ones where it's mostly, it's almost entirely the original Broadway cast except for the father, am I correct? No, the mother, Jane Howdy Shell is going to be

in the movie? No, but I think it's everybody, or is she the only, is she the only crossover? She's the only one because it's like June Squibb, Stephen Yun, Amy Schumer. Right. Right. Beanie Feldstein. It's Beanie. It's Beanie. And Richard Jenkins, I believe. Right, right. It's a, yes. Okay, so right. I had it backwards. It's only one from the original cast. Jane Hadeshiel won the Tony, I believe, for that is. Yes. Fantastic in that show. I really, really liked that show a lot. But that's another one where that one had, there's a lot of context in that play as well, as I recall.

And you wonder, I'm trepidious about this big screen adaptation. I wonder how successful it can be. I'm very curious about it. It's an A-24 movie, and they said they are not doing any type of switching to premium VOD. So, like, it could even probably be held until next year. Yeah, that wouldn't surprise me. And they'll be sitting on actually quite a lot of movies. So who knows?

It's an interesting, I'm not sure what I think about that strategy, actually, where I think once we go back to being able to watch movies in theaters, I think it's going to be so hard, I think, to get people into, like, to feel comfortable in that kind of a setting anyway. and maybe I'm being a little naive. Yeah, I kind of have zero interest in being in that space right now, even though they're reopening here already. And I feel like we're just going to wind up with an even more starkly polarized thing of just like the biggest movies go to theater and nobody sees anything that's not absolutely, you have to see it in a theater in a big screen or whatever, anything smaller than that, I would imagine people are going to wait for. Right, because I've even seen people argue. like go when movies weren't even like you could go and be the only person in a theater anyway

and I just I don't think that's a thing because like you're in basically a box room of circulated air right um and all of the things that had started to sort of make the theatrical experience more sort of comfortable or um you know you'd have you know food service and recliners and whatever and all that sort of stuff I can't imagine anybody serving food at a movie theater in the future

I'm sure it's still going to happen but it's just going to be so weird like now all of a sudden in addition to everything else everybody's going to be like eating and drinking and like I don't know I don't know but I think my point was though is like I don't know

why the smaller distribution arms are I don't know what they're waiting for just release your stuff on VOD I mean it makes sense for a lot of people too because like production has been shut down for a long time and like what are they going to do when they run out of content to

actually release anyway yeah yeah that's true so they kind of have to sit on their product a little bit as well yeah anyway indeed anyway proof a lot of the

like Oscar buzz for it aside from being a Gwyneth project in like less than a decade from her win we talked about a lot of her post Oscar win trajectory when we did Sylvia speaking of our 2003 miniseries this one still felt like an extension of that but it's like when you have already an Academy Award winning performer in the Pulitzer Prize play right but like I I do also think that this movie, because it's a little stodgy, and because, like, you can tell it's a movie that sat around on a shelf for a year, it kind of started the tide of maybe this play is overhyped. Right, or, like, or just, you know, or just not a good fit for a movie. Mm-hmm. You know? I think it's interesting. Or an exciting movie. Like, it's, I think the movie itself reveals all of the things that are not interesting or that are, like,

like, not ambitious or, like, you know, groundbreaking for the stage that, like, it's like, well, what, did it win a Pulitzer then? Right. And maybe that's me watching it now 20 years after it won the Pulitzer, and it's like, this doesn't feel revolutionary at all. Yeah. Yeah, I think maybe winning the Pulitzer gives a lot of sort of, sort of, like, retrospective anticipation, you know what I mean?

That now you're just like, okay, well, you know, show. me why you're worthy of something like that. And it's probably too much for this to live up to. I definitely think I liked this better than you did. Um, but yeah, I can see that. I mean, it's fine. I mean, like, I don't necessarily think that it's bad. I definitely think with maybe the except, I mean, I like Hope Davis and I like Gwyneth in this movie. It's almost a little too perfectly cast. Like, it's too pat with people, like especially Anthony Hopkins, that it's like, oh, yes, they are a very good fit for the role and what the demands are for them to do. Right.

But they're not really going to do anything outside of a box of what you expect. Right. I think Jake Gyllen Hall especially, which like this is obviously a big breakthrough here for him. He especially is like, let me just be incredibly charming the whole time to the point where it's like he has huge laugh lines in this script that aren't that funny because he's just being charming. I will say, yes. So, Jillen Hall this year, this is obviously the Brokeback Mountain year. That's the big one for him. He gets the Oscar nomination.

It's, you know, massive. He's also the year of Jarhead, which is not the Oscar's success that I think many, including me, thought it would be. But also, it is the movie that creates the Jake Jillan Hall sex symbol thing. Like, he's so, that movie. kind of just like licks him up and down you know what i mean where it's just like he's like he shows so much skin in that movie he's so just sort of like like buffed up and cheesecake category is massively hot in that movie and so i think surprisingly not an Oscar nominee for anything that movie we could definitely do it we could probably should

um I remember really liking it at the time and I haven't really thought of at of it at all beyond Jake Gyllenhaal's sexiness since. But I think so with those two then sort of like twin pillars that year, proof really is the sort of like sad, flat Laura Brown cake from the beginning of

the hours. It's just sort of just like, oh, he didn't really... I'm like, but even still in this movie, and he's playing a math dork in this movie, it's so much in the pocket of handsome Jake Gyllenhaal era that just like... It's very much to like,

I'm a math. I'm not a regular math dork. I'm a cool math dork. He's so, he's so hot in this movie. Why is he so hot in this movie? It makes no sense. And it's almost just like, he can't help it. But like every once in a while he'll just like sort of like flash this like semi-grin, which is like, I get it. That's the Jake Gyllenhaugh. This is the semi-grin. And he should be a better chemistry fit to Gwyneth than he actually is. Their chemistry is off to me. Yeah, it's not super strong. It's not. You definitely far more believe it in the scene, the fantastic scene, where she's just sort of like dressing him down. Or she's just like, the math is too advanced for you. You wouldn't get it. You're in this pathetic band. And you think you're past it at 23 because you are, or at 26 because you are.

She's, A, great in that scene. But B, that's much more believable that she would just sort of like be like, you're not on my level. Because, like, frankly, he's not in this movie. Like, yeah, you're totally right. It's, I don't think he's doing a bad job, but like you could think of, you could think of so many ways to do a better job in this movie. Yeah, I feel like, you cast a character actor in it, which like, I think at this point he now is kind of a character actor. Yeah. But like that's not the phase of his career that he was in, but you would cast a character actor in this.

If Ben Shinkman's your stage performer, like the leap to Jake Gyllenhaal as a screen performer, it's the, the most Hollywood-y of the casting choices. Even with Gwyneth being, like, the most Hollywoody actress, I think she's less of a leap to play Catherine than Jake is to play Hal. Absolutely. And, I mean, she'd already been playing this role on the stage, too. John Madden directing this just because he directed it on the stage, I think, is also one of the problems because, like, he doesn't really bring,

it's the third John Madden movie we've done, shockingly. I do want to mention that. I thought I had texted you earlier in the week. I thought this was going to be our first repeat director. I was corrected. You corrected me. Who was our first? Ridley Scott.

Somehow. With the most unwell trilogy of movies. 1492 Conquest of Paradise. Hannibal and Exodus Gods and Kings. How? How did we do that? Profoundly unwel. And like as an Oscar bait trio, it's so.

weird. It's so weird. Yeah. But yeah, so John Madden, we've also done Captain Corelli's Mandolin, the horrendous Captain Correlli's Mandolin, and the... Bella Bombina. Bella Bambina. And then the fantastically junky

Miss Sloan, which, you know, I fucking love. Nutella Tax. Love that Nutella Tax. The John Madden trio is Nutella Trix, Bella Bombina, and really important proof.

Yeah. It's a really, it's a really important proof. It's a proof since there were proofs. The proofs since there were proofs. Very important proof. But I think if you get an actor who's like more on the Schenckman vibe who's like, you know,

a little skinny and awkward and... Even for this era if it had been like SARS guard. Oh, that's a good one. Which like he's pretty dreamy. But But he's also weird. He would have been a little too old, but maybe Gwyneth is a little too old for this, too. Right.

Where they're supposed to be like 26-year-olds. Right. But like, it's fine because she's right for the role. So can I take a second to just sort of like trace Gwyneth's route from one John Madden film to the other? Because I think it's an interesting, what is it, seven years, where Shakespeare in Love, she wins the Oscar. Ripley is the very next year, should have been nominated again. And she's fucking fantastic in that movie. Justice for Talented Mr. Ripley all around.

Then it's this weird sort of like, she's in duets, she's in Bounce. We talked about Bounce several months ago. She's in the anniversary party. Anniversary Party is a really good and underrated little movie. Playing herself and she brings ecstasy to a party and gives ecstasy to like Phoebe Kates. Speaking of Jennifer Jason Lee and Gwyneth Paltrow in. playing, you know, both played Catherine in Proof, and they're both in the anniversary party. Royal Tena Boms, she's phenomenal.

Again, should have been nominated for an Oscar. She's so fucking funny in that movie. She's so deadpan. She's like the commitment to keeping that face throughout that entire movie is phenomenal. Shallow House and Abomination. She's got that really kind of like that funny cameo in Goldmember where it's like, She's not funny, but just the fact of her being in that is funny. The fact of her saying, I'm Dixie, Dixie Normis.

It's not funny coming out of anybody else's mouth. Right. Then there was Possession in 2002, which is most notable for being like the Neal-Lebutte movie that doesn't feel like a Neal-Lebutte movie, for whatever reason. View from the Top, which everybody hated. Sylvia, which we talked about as a failed Oscar film. Sky Captain in the World of Tomorrow, which we should talk. about at some point because holy fucking shit that movie is so weird wasn't it a visual effects

nominee oh i could see that maybe that's true yeah and then proof so like i feel like and then so and the wild thing is after proof without looking at the filmography how many other lead roles do you think she has in the 15 roles since proof or 15 years since proof um i mean Contagent does not count So she's great in that movie But she's a corpse I mean probably Definitely like low single digits

I'm gonna say like two It's four but one of the MCUs count as a lead No absolutely not It's four of them but one of them Wait Mordecai Mordecai doesn't count as a lead I don't think I haven't seen it she's like the main love interest

but like that's Johnny Depp's fucking weirdness is the lead in that movie I'm gonna say I'm counting two lovers country strong and then those are the two that like those are the two for real ones the other two are she's in a movie called

The Good Night directed by Jake Paltrow her brother ah yes so you know whatever also nobody saw that or ever heard about it so whatever and then she's I remember the posters for it

Right. And I believe she's a lead. Maybe not, though. It's like an ensemble. That movie, thanks for sharing, which I never saw. The Mark Ruffalo, sex addiction movie. With pink. Right. With, I'm sorry, with Alicia Moore. How dare you. She is not credited as pink. Which I think is just sort of, like, the whole ensemble's on the poster. She and Ruffalo are central. I'll count that as a lead role. But, like, it's four movies with two that sort of are aster escape. But she really just does kind of go away after Proof. In terms of being in movies, yes, but like Gwyneth has never gone away. No, no, no, no, no. But in terms of being a lead actress in films, she does. And so Proof is sort of like it's kind of a, it's something of an end cap to an era where like she had been, even in movies that like, A, people didn't like, like V from the top, or B, people didn't. see, like Sylvia, she was at least in those movies as a lead, you know, whatever.

So, yeah, and it's kind of a bummer, because I do think she's very good in proof. She gets the Golden Globe nomination, which can be discussed that for half a second. Yes, because she was, I mean, it's a weird year. There's two nominated performances for Oscar in the category, and then the two other performances definitely would have been ahead of her in terms of Oscar voting as well. Yeah, this is one of those rare years where the majority of the eventual Oscar nominees are in the musical or comedy category. Reese wins for Walk the Line.

Judy Dench is in comedy for Mrs. Henderson presents Kira Knightley for Pride and Prejudice, which like, yeah, it is a comedy. It's, you know, not exactly a knee-slapper, but it's, you know, comedy in the classical literature sense, I suppose. I mean, and Joe Wright's tone of that is definitely, I think, more comedic than... It's great, also. Like, I'm not going to, you know, seriously complain about that. But so then you, so that it leaves you with dramatic actress, with sort of the, the shallower end of the pond.

And Felicity Huffman wins the Globe for Transamerica, a performance and film that would be absolutely dismissed out of hand today. You would not, would not even approach the awards conversation. It would be shut down immediately. And it's interesting to think of, whereas then I think it just sort of like, it not only like got a pass, but I think it got praise for the same things that would get it shut down today. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, perhaps rightly so, you know, rightly so. And then the other Oscar nominee from that bunch is Charlie's Theron for North Country, the club.

classic follow-up nomination to a win. But the other nominations are Gwyneth and Proof, Maria Bello in a history of violence, who was like all over the map in terms of lead versus supporting that year. Yep. Huge category of confusion. Huge category of confusion. I'm not sure where I would have. Incredible performance.

She's great. Oh my God. She's really great. I probably would have put her in supporting. We've been talking back and forth about Cronenberg lately, and I've been watching Cronenberg movies, and maybe we should find an excuse to do a Cronenberg. a Burke movie. Yeah, obviously can't do.

A glaring one that we should do. Yeah, can't do a history of violence because William Hurt does get nominated for that. But I do think I probably would have nominated her as a supporting actress that year. And then the fifth nominee is Zijang for Memoirs of a Geisha, a film I've still never seen. Multiple Oscar a winner. Yeah, no film that year won more Oscars than Memoirs of a Geisha. It ended up tied with Brokeback Mountain and... I guess, Crash, did they all win three?

I think Memors of a Gatia won four. Hold on a second. No. I'm going to have to look that up. No, four films won three Oscars that year. So Brokeback Mountain wins director score and what the hell else does Brokeback Mountain win? Adapted screenplay, probably. Yes, director score and adapted screenplay.

WASH wins, picture, original screenplay, and editing. Yep. King Kong wins your standard visual effects and probably both sounds. Yes, visual effects and both sounds. And then Memoirs of Agatia wins cinematography for Dion Bibi. Art direction. Probably costume design art direction. Yeah, costume design.

So, like, it's so, it's like, it's the four almost like the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, divisions of what Oscar, like, Memors of Agatia wins all the style ones, King Kong wins all the texts, and then Crash and Brokeback Mountain kind of divvy up the major ones, except for neither one of them wins any of the acting ones. So, yeah, it's a weird, weird year at the Oscars, epitomized by Jack Nicholson's thoroughly flabbergasted reaction to reading Best Picture. Yeah, Memors of Agatia have never seen it. I probably should at some point. The score is actually fantastic.

John Williams. Yeah, one of the really standout John Williams scores of this sort of last couple decades of his career. But, yeah, so Gwyneth is, as I said, the, hey, she's there nominee of that category. I feel like, I think of all of them. I don't think all, even like Bello and Zhigizang got way much more Oscar buzz. Were they both nominated at SAG? Well, now I'm going to go look that up, aren't I? Hold on a second.

SAG Awards 2005. Zhizang does get nominated for Memors of a Geisha. I don't see Maria Bello anywhere. So she, again, Bello is a victim of category confusion. I'm not sure where she would have, because of the SAG, you place yourself in one category or another. But that was, the SAGs were where the supporting actress category kind of really firmed up, where it's the Rachel Weiss, Amy Adams, Catherine Keener, Francis McDormand,

Michelle Williams, Quintet that stays intact for Oscar. Yeah. That was the year where I think people started, I think that was the year where it was just like, oh, the SAGs are the determining precursor for the Oscar. because that was the one where Crash wins Outstanding Cast in a Motion Picture and then after it won the Oscar, people are like, oh, we should have known

because of the Sags. And the Sags did, you know, again, firmed up that supporting actress category where the Globes had nominated Shirley MacLean for In Her Shoes and Scarlett Johansson for Match Point. So I think that's the year where everybody just kind of started seeing the Sags

as the much more than the globes, the precursor to look for. One thing I want to bring up before we move on to the IMDB game is we haven't talked about this in a while. Probably since we did an unfinished life because an unfinished life was another one of these movies where this is a Miramax title in the era

where they're like constantly shuffling their movies around. Because this was originally intended for 2004 and they just like never held to a, date and then pushed it to the next year. Yes. And they did that an awful lot. So it's like by the time that the movie arrives, it already kind of

has this veneer of like, if not spoiled goods, like unwanted ones. Right. Yeah. I almost wonder though if like it had felt fresher if this had been a 2004 nominee or a 2004

movie released at the time it was supposed to. If Gwyneth could have been nominated. So, yeah, I mean, what is, the thing about best actress in 2005 versus 2004 is, I think 2005's a year with, like, there was room to maneuver in that category that year, whereas I feel like 2004, I mean, 2004 still has an up ending in being Julia, which, like, at the time felt like a contender, and now you're just like, what was going on there? The other thing about 2004 is Miramax, you know, they were pushing both The Aviator, finding Neverland,

but they didn't have a best actress person to really push. Yeah, well, that's the other thing we haven't really discussed is this is a bad time for Miramax. Like this was 2005, especially like late 2005, like that was when the Disney negotiations, negotiations were, had gone south and the Weinstein's had been essentially forced out of Miramax. And up until the queen comes out in late 2006, there's this like just sort of no man's land in terms of Miramax movies, getting Oscar push, Oscar attention. It's tough. I'm not sure this movie ever makes it there anyway.

Yeah, it's not thrilling. No, that's the thing. And I think that's sort of I think personal interaction can be thrilling on the stage, often is very thrilling on the stage.

And I think it's harder to pull that off in a movie. And I think it, you know, you can. You can definitely pull it off in a movie. But it's hard. it's harder I think there's something

about being in a room with people that it's so much more immediate right there's no there's no remove and really when you're watching a performance that you know

is just existing before you it's not processed through you know editing ADR you know a director choosing and an editor choosing like what bits of performance you're seeing. Right.

You know, a character like this can be more compelling to watch. Yeah. That's true. In material like this. Did you have any sort of last notes on this? I mean, I... We never mentioned... We talked that Jake Gyllenhaal is in a band with fellow, like, nerdy mathematicians.

The lowercase eye joke is increasingly. incredibly stupid. It is, but in a way that, like, I kind of appreciate. That doesn't exist. So, like, they just stand there for, like, what is it? Three minutes and 14 seconds or something stupid. Yeah. I don't know.

Oh, here's something I noticed that's straight up insane. Did you notice the at least two instances that they overdubbed her saying fuck with another one? I absolutely noticed that because, uh, Hope Davis gets one too. Does she? Yes. So the movie gets released as PG-13. A, what's the fucking point of that? I don't, like, what's, why do you need proof to get a PG-13 instead of an R-rating?

So all the teens can go see proof? I am, granted, at this point I was in college, of the Venn diagram of people under 18 who want to see this movie but can't without their parents. and the Venn diagram of literally just me. Right. It is a circle. Also, that part of the Venn diagram is, I will say, fiercely eccentric. You know what I mean? Like, they'll find a way to go see an R-rated movie.

They'll be fine. Right, right, right, right. Like, what, and this movie ends up making only, we said, $7.5 million domestic. How little was it going to make as an R-rated movie? like, what's the fucking difference that drives me crazy? I don't understand it. It's also that they're fully not hiding

the fact that it was originally fuck. No, you see her mouth move and say fuck. Like, it's crazy. When she's saying damn, that to me was way more emblematic of like, okay, they really, by the time they dumped this in theaters, they didn't even try. Even though they took it to

Toronto and Venice, it was in competition at Venice, which is bananas to me. Yes. Also, So, I'm sorry, I'm, again, going through my notebook. David Auburn is, like, 31 years old when this thing makes it to Broadway. So, like, so fucking young. Like, he wrote this when he was incredibly young.

I don't know. I'm just, I find that very impressive. Should we move on to the IMDB game? Yes, but can you give me, like, half a second? Because I forgot to pick out a person for the IMDB game. Oh, yes. While Joe is looking up someone to taunt me with, guys, we've been building up to this. Next episode is our 100th movie we've ever discussed.

I'm so excited to talk about this movie. Do you feel like we're maybe overselling it now? I mean, no. I fully am like preparing my schedule for it to be like our first three-hour episode. I wouldn't be shocked. I don't know if we'll actually go that long. So that's not a promise. but we could.

All right, I've got. All right. I guess it's on me to explain what the IMDB game. Oh, yeah. Why don't you do that for us, Chris? I shall do that for listeners new and old. We, every week, we end our episodes with the IMDB game, where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try and guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for.

If any of those titles are television or voiceover work, we'll mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining. title's release years as a clue. If that's not enough, it just becomes a free for all of hints. That is the IMDB game. Indeed. That's very well.

Very well put, Chris, I will say. All right. Would you like to give or guess first? How about I give first this week? All right. You know, I had my person prepared for you. Okay, so I mentioned when I saw proof on Broadway, it was with Anne Heish, who was playing her father, but none other than Len Carew.

Len Carew famously, the original Sweeney Todd opposite who as Mrs. Lovett? Angela Lansbury. Joseph, your IMDB game challenge this week is Angela Lansberry. No television. Mother fuck. That's so absolutely insane and unwell. Very, very stupid. Justice for murder, she wrote.

Wow. Justice for murder she wrote. But there are two voiceover performance. All right. Two voiceover performances. One of them is Beauty and the Beast. One of them is Beauty and the Beast. All right. Give me a second to think about the other one. Speaking of Mrs. Potts, the only Mrs. Potts will recognize. Yep. Okay. Um, Manchurian candidate. Oscar nominated performance.

Bed knobs and broomsticks? Bed knobs and broomsticks. Yes. Yes, that very strange movie I was obsessed with as a child. Yeah. Yeah, I saw that a bunch as a child. I feel like it was on the Disney Channel a lot when I was a kid, actually, when they would actually dip into their Disney vault. Okay, so I'm looking for the other voice performance. And I'm sure it's like an obvious one, and it's just not sticking out in my head.

Oh, oh, is it Anastasia? Anastasia. Fuck yeah. Yeah. She's what? She's like the, the doubt. Howager, right? Yes, she is.

Yes. Okay. Nice choice, though. I was very worried you were going to give me Len Karu, and I was going to be like, fuck you. Wasn't he in, like, spotlight or something recently? Something like that. Something very possible. He's sort of your go-to casting now for corrupt patrician, you know, member of the elite kind of a thing.

Uh-huh. I feel like he was in a, he had a guest appearance in the West. wing where he played like a pharmaceutical head and he was in a season of damages where he played some you know whatever CEO of something anyway anyway uh i actually went down the route of rebecca miller rebecca miller did the screenplay adaptation for proof she is of course the daughter of arthur miller and i think ex-wife right of daniel de lewis i don't think they are still together? I don't know actually. I think they are still married. Hold on a second now. I will check that out. Rebecca Miller underrated writer-director. Everybody should see Maggie's plan

just to see... Oh, they are still married. I've said bananas too many times this episode, but what Julianne Moore is doing in that movie is utter proof that Julianne Moore can absolutely absolutely do comedy. It is so funny. Maggie's plan, one of my least favorite Greta Gerwig performances, but one of my favorite Julianne Moore performances. She's really fantastic in that. Yeah. Rebecca Miller also is fun in a small little role in the Meyerowitz stories, an underrated little movie, I will say. Yeah. So Rebecca Miller has directed

a few movies, one of which is the rare, speaking of Daniel DeLewis, her current husband, which I I knew all along and didn't have any waiver. One of his rare screen performances that didn't get an Oscar nomination was in the film The Ballad of Jack and Rose that Rebecca Miller wrote

and directed. One of the stars in that movie is Paul Dano. So, Christopher Christopher Give me Paul Dano. Paul Dano could go a lot of different ways. Actually, in quite a few best picture

nominees um there will be blood correct little miss sunshine paul and eli sunday should have been nominated i feel like for their lily lud if they like to feel that great and people still say that he's terrible in that movie and i'm like the things that make you think he is terrible are entirely the point it's people mistaking i hate that character for i hate that performance and it is exactly exactly yeah um little miss sunshine is correct you are too okay um hmm now I just kind of have to think of what he would show up for obviously I do not think that the ballot of Jack and Rose

will be one of those you would be correct he's also in a lot of ensembles man I'm gonna say prisoners I think prisoners has shown up for someone else Prisoners is a great guess that is nonetheless incorrect interesting he's in

which is another ensemble that he's in Netflix never shows up on here but I still am going to guess Okja everything you said there is correct and it is not one of his four so Netflix

Netflix stays invisible on the IMDP game all right so that's two wrong answers you get hints now your missing films are from 2013 and 2014. Hmm. Okay. Wait, the 2014 film was released in 2015.

It's a 2014 festival, but it's a 2015 film. Oh, that's Love and Mercy. It is Love and Mercy. Well done. Incredible. If he wasn't my winner that year, he might have been my runner-up. Golden Globe nominee came probably really close. Should have been an Oscar nominee.

That was a weird year for supporting actor. I'll say that. Um, you think that's the supporting performance? Well, that's what he was nominated in. Oh. Well, that's silly. Um, okay, so 2013, which is the year of prisoners. It is.

It's the other movie he was in that year. Oh, it, that's weird because he has like two scenes in this movie, if I remember correctly. Is it 12 years a slave? 12 years of slave. 12 years of slave. That could be a movie. that is one of those like all the names on the poster or most of the names on the poster have it in they're known for because it's shown up for other people that it's like

they're not in the movie that long so that poster credits chihuetil edgifor michael fastbender benedic cumberbatch paul dano he's well oh do they go alphabetical after uh fastbender maybe that's true because it's edgia four fastbender cumberbatch paul dano paul giamati Lupida Njango, Sarah Paulson, Brad Pitt, and Alphrey Woodard are on the poster. Alfred Woodard has, like, literally one scene, and it's incredible. Oh, she's so good in that scene. It's sort of irksome that Fastbender gets to escape the alphabetical list and not Lupita Nyango. Yeah.

But anyway, 12 years of slave. I didn't mention it last week because Jordane gave a very good explanation of why she did not care for that movie. I do love 12 years of slave. I think it's a really fantastic movie, and I think the cast is pretty much uniformly fantastic. I love Steve McQueen, period. I'm excited to see

the stuff that he's working on with Amazon. Yeah, I am in general, bummed out that we seem to be losing so many good film directors to television series at this point. McQueen and Barry Jenkins are both

working on Amazon series, I believe, and kind of a bummer, just because I fucking love movies, and they make very good ones. But, you know, whatever, that's my thing. Good episode, Chris. Fantastic, great episode. We've got a big one coming next week. Why, what's that?

I don't understand. I'm not sure. The 100th episode. I know. You were just talking about it. I wanted to get you to say it again, because we're so very hyped for it. Yeah.

Proof. I liked it a lot better than I thought I did. So good for me. Good for me that I found another thing to like. Thank God for me. Wonderful. That's our episode. If you want more of this head Oscar Buzz,

you can check out the Tumblr at thisheadoscarbuzz.com. You should also follow our Twitter account at had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz. Chris, where can the listeners find you in your stuff? You can find me on Twitter and Letterbox at Chris Fee File. That's FIIL. Also, please, we encourage you to support the Martha P. Johnson Institute to protect and defend the human rights of black transgender people in America. Black trans lives matter.

MarshaP.org. M-A-R-S-H-A-P dot org. Thank you. Well done. I am on Twitter at Joe Reed. I am also on letterboxed as Joe Reed spelled both ways 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 please try to differentiate your writing style from that of your fathers

and scribble out a nice, provable testimony all for us, won't you? That is all for this week, but we hope you'll be back next week for more buzz. Very important proof. Oh Oh Yeah