This Had Oscar Buzz - 100 – mother!

Episode Date: June 29, 2020

We have finally arrived at a major milestone – our 100th episode!! To commemorate the occasion, we’re looking back at the notoriously divisive 2017 discourse factory, Darren Aronofsky’s mother!. An environmental allegory of biblical proportions, mother! arrived after a cryptic marketing campaign with few plot details beyond the promise of a horror spectacle and megastar Jennifer Lawrence at … Continue reading "100 – mother!"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. No, I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilynne Heck. What brings you to us? Well, they told me I could find a room here. He thought we were to bed and breakfast. He's a stranger.

Hello. Did you know he had a wife? Who are these people? They've come here to see me. Come to me. You're insane. Matter! God help you.

Hello, and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast. the only podcast that definitely knows what Ho-Hoba is, as long as you have absolutely no follow-up questions about it. 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. 100 different times.

It all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died. We are here, as always, to perform the autopsy. I am your host. Joe Reed, I am here as always with the heart-shaped jewel at the center of my cavernous country home. Chris File. How are you?

Ripped from the chest of Jennifer Lawrence. The Oscar host died 100 times and they were resurrected and they came back and said, baby. Baby. Oh, my God. It's such a perfect ending because it- Cuddy Smith. Is that actress anybody I should have recognized by the way? No, but you know who I did recognize and freaked out over because I wasn't a watcher before

quarantine, but now I've watched shit's creek. I know what you're going to say. Yeah. Stevie from Schitts Creek. I am so sorry. I don't have the actress's name. Emily Hampshire. Emily Hampshire.

Fantastic. I don't love Schitt's Creek as much as everyone else. I'm sorry, but I do love her. That she is the girl. She's one of the sink breakers. She like breaks the fucking sink. Like she's the one who like bounces on that and like so recklessly. I had gone and looked at the Wikipedia page for Mother before I had started watching it last night.

and I reminded myself. I knew that Jovan Adepo was in it, but I sort of had forgotten. And then I saw her name in the cast list, and I was like, I did not, because I also saw Mother before I had started watching Schitt's Creek, and it was a pleasant surprise. So I knew to look out for her, but yeah, that was really something. Also, I had never looked at the cast list for the movie and seen that all the character names are just, like, the function they are. Right. Yes. Jennifer Lawrence's mother. Bardem is him. At Harris's man, Michelle Pfeiffer's woman. But then it gets into like, Jovonne Adepo is cup bearer. Emily Hampshire is fool. There's idler, whisperer, adulterer, zealot, defiler, pisser, linger. What are the brothers Gleason?

Like, it literally seems like a book of Genesis like X begat Y, begett whatever, except like it's all just like nouns. It's just like novitiate. initiate, pilferer, good Samaritan whoremonger. Like, I can't believe that all of these extras, essentially, got character names. Wait, Kristen Whig is named, now I've got to find her, Harold. She's the Harold. We're talking about a lot of, we've done a lot of Kristen Whig movies, surprisingly. We have, yeah. Or is it just our second Kristen Wig movie?

After Middy. I thought there was another. one. I could be wrong. There probably is. Anyway. If you've figured out our many, many subtle to unsubtle hints that we have dropped in the past several weeks about what our 100th episode would be.

The anagrams I've put into tweets that like the first letter of every sentence spells the words sink. Chris has been the living embodiment of whoever Russell Crow in a beautiful mind thought was sending him messages through the newspaper. Like Chris

was that person. I tried to turn you into Russell Crowe in a beautiful mind. We hope some of you have been paying attention. Yeah. I know I threw in a few. I think I threw in a few braced yourselves. And I almost tweeted this week. I wanted to tweet, I have a sinking feeling.

Someone's going to guess what our 100th episode is going to be. And then I never did it. You still have time. We're recording this week and a half before. That's true. How are you all to know? By the time you're listening to this, it'll already have happened. So, yeah, we, we knew.

We've known for a while that this was going to be the movie. Every time we've thought about, like, should we do Mother? And then the next sentence out of either one of our mouths is just save it for the 100th. Because, A, what I realized when I was looking through the list of our 100 movies that we've done on this podcast, is this is the first one that we've seen together. No, we didn't see this together. Yes, we did. Did we not? We were both at the first TIF press screening, but not together.

We were in separate rooms? I think so, because this was my first TIF, and, like, this is when I had to do the, like, the voucher thing to get into the screenings. And I was, like, up at, like, seven in the morning in line, making sure that I got to see this movie. All right, I know, I'm trying to, like, literally, like, put myself in the seat. I know Richard Lawson, past cast Richard Lawson, was to my right. And I remember he had to leave, like, right away because he had another screening. I forget what the other movie that was screening right after, but it was like... God bless that movie, whatever it was.

It was another big one, I remember, because I remember everybody sort of like grumbling about the scheduling because it really left people with, like, no time to get to this other screening, and I just bailed on it. And you probably cannot at all digest whatever that movie would have been because you were just aggressed for two hours. Well, and I remember sitting next to Richard, I remember knowing that he wasn't liking it. I was like, like, definitely could pick up on like, whatever. whatever, like, vibing and, like, nonverbal, whatever. I was like, all right, Richard is hating this movie. And I guess it must not have been you to my left.

It might have been Nick Davis. But maybe I'm confusing that with seeing widows, which you were definitely next to me. Yes, I gave us a 4DX experience watching widows. I'll never not say that. We at least saw this movie simultaneously then, within the same building, under the same roof. Right, right, because it's one of those ones they split into two things. The thing that I will say that is important about when we saw this movie, we basically saw, I mean, we weren't the first people to see it. It played Venice before it played Toronto.

Correct. But we were like the first people to digest, among the first people, to digest this movie before like any discourse happened about it, really. And I remember. Which I think like primes the audience to understand, we both love this movie. Love this movie. Love this movie. I know there's going to be people waiting for us to, like, trash it. No, no, it's great.

Like, it will obviously get into, like, the discourse around this movie and Aaron Oski's role in it. Yes. But, like, I think if you, this is a movie made to, like, go in not really knowing what it is. And, like, that's part of the reason why it was so poorly received because I think it was absolutely presented to audiences, like, as this mystery box, but like a mystery box in a different direction that the movie doesn't make good on. Right. Well, so here's the thing.

So the teaser, like a year ahead, a year ahead, I'm into this movie because it's Aronovsky, it's Jennifer Lawrence. The cast is amazing. Michelle Pfeiffer's in it, whatever. I'm like, I'm already down for this movie. And then the teaser comes out, which is just this 30-second thing, which isn't like even scenes. It's like Jennifer Lawrence walking to the front porch.

of this house, and then it's audio snippets from the movie without you seeing what scenes they're from. And just from that, A, I was like, fuck, yes. But B, I was like, I want to know nothing else about this. This is sort of what I did with Hereditary, too. And so I, like, set up all of my muted terms on Twitter and refused to watch any of the subsequent trailer or TV spots. and this wasn't the one where I ran out of a theater during the previews. No, that was Hereditary, where I actually went and saw, I think it was when I saw Thoroughbreds when I was in, at the Grove in L.A. And it was one of those like noon screenings or whatever, so it's just like me and like two other people in there.

And the trailers came on, and the first one I knew was the hereditary trailer because I had seen just the beginning of it and like turned it off before. and so I literally got out of my seat and like hid my eyes from the screen and walked out and like waited three minutes and then walked back in so I wouldn't watch your fellow patrons think it's because you're a chicken shit right exactly right exactly I did the same with hereditary because for whatever reason I was lucky enough to not like see it on Twitter but I did see people saying that the trailer like fully gave away things that should be held for the movie so like I avoided that trailer Yeah. But I remember just like hiding my eyes in the theater and like not really hearing important dialogue. What I missed in the media blackout that I imposed on myself for Mother, though, was an ad campaign, specifically the TV spots that really sold this as a horror movie. And that is, and when you sell something that hardcore as a horror movie to mainstream audiences and it, the results. I do think this is a horror movie, but it's definitely not a typical horror movie, and it certainly doesn't go where you think it's going to go. I mean, it also is that.

Like, yes. I'm one of those cuckoo birds. You are, that fits perfectly with your personality and your sensibility. Absolutely. But I, but so then that explained to me, the backlash of the movie made a lot more sense to me once I went back and watched a lot of the TV spots. I was like, oh, okay. So like, they were definitely selling something that wasn't there. But so it also meant that the first sort of like indication, beyond the fact that they sent a heart, a cake in the shape of a like bloody heart to my place of business, which, okay, sorry, I'm like filibustering here, but like, bear with me.

No, I will have my moments as well. This was the summer I had mono. Buckle in, guys. And so the summer I had mono, I was sick with a fever that I could. couldn't explain for like three weeks, and I fully thought I was dying. And I was like, I'm the worst possible person to have an unexplained fever because, like, Chris well knows, because I texted him every day and told him I was dying. And I was just so, it was in such a bad way. I did not feel like myself for three weeks. I really thought something was like incredibly

seriously wrong. And so, but I also didn't know what it was. So I kept going into work, which if I had known I had Mono, I would just stayed home for a week and whatever and got better. Anyway, so I'm going into work. I feel like an absolute zombie. I feel like, you know, just absolutely not myself. And so in the midst of all this, I get this email from Paramount, Paramount publicity, being like, what's your work address? We want to send you something. And I never get swag, ever.

Anytime anybody is like posting on Twitter about this box of swag they got from a movie, never. Never happens to me. So I was so excited for this. And you want to Paramount listening. If there's leftover mother swag, we are your audience. Send it to us. But also one of the symptoms of me being sick was I had no appetite. So I was also eating nothing.

So like that also contributed to what it was over. I had absolutely no appetite. I had a doctor's appointment that afternoon that I was going right from the office. I still didn't know what was wrong with me. So I was all head up above that. And then they, and I knew this was coming like an hour before because I had started seeing other people sort of posting on Twitter. But Paramount sent. these to media.

They sent these cakes that were this like really kind of yummy chocolate layer cake covered in a fondant that was then sort of like slathered in this like slightly viscous red goo. And it was not like a like little like clip art heart. It was like a gnarled muscle heart. So it was just this big red glump of heart cake. that they delivered to the office. We'll have to put a photo of it in the...

We absolutely will. In the notes when we published the episode. But it was, I was, and I could need it because I had no appetite and I was about to go to the doctor's office. But so I sort of like, we photographed it and then everybody else in my office ate it. And I think I took some home for like when I was feeling better and it was delicious. But so in the midst of all of that, like it was, I was already thinking, like, I was already going crazy, essentially.

And, like, this really, really didn't contribute. So, like, that happened. And that was really the only promotional stuff from Mother that I had paid attention to until we walk into the screening at TIF. And they, like, scan your badge or whatever, and they let you in. But then they were handing out. That little sound is my ASMR. Yes. The little scanning sound.

Yes. And the little beat. Okay. So you got all better. and then by the time Toronto comes, you will launch yourself into basically cinematic mono. Yeah, yeah, basically. This movie is how mono feels. Yeah, I got, I literally, that day that the cake arrived was when they finally told me,

oh, you, they're like, you had mono, and I'm like, because by then, like, I just started, the symptoms had just started to get better. So, like, oh, this thing that you've had for three weeks has been mono. Anyway, so Toronto was not too long after this, because this movie opened, like, at the tail end of Toronto. The screened at Toronto just before it opened wide. Opened wide, by the way. Like, opened across the nation. It was a terrible decision. We'll get into that. But so we walk in and I promise this filibuster will end, Chris, and I will absolutely let you speak at length. But we walk in and we get handed this like square little piece of thick cardstock. Like the

corners are sharp. Like this was like very like a serious piece of square little piece of paper. They sliced it outside the theater. It was like truly... It was like hot off the presses. And so on it is a poem. And so I had my roommate, because I'm not at home at this point during the pandemic. So I had my roommate find this poem because I kept it and photograph it to me. So the poem on it is called Mother's Prayer, and I'm just going to read it really quick.

Our mother who art underfoot, hallowed be thy names, thy seasons come, they will be done, within us as around us. Thank you for our daily bread, our water, our air, and our lives and so much beauty. Lead us not into selfish craving and the destructions that are the hungers of the glutted, but deliver us from wanton consumption of thy vast but finite bounty, for thine is the only sphere of life we know, and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. So that is obviously a poem that is a takeoff on the Lord's Prayer. But it really crystallizes, like, seconds before this movie is starting, by the way, minutes before this movie is starting, by the way.

I'm reading this poem, and all of a sudden, I'm like, oh, this whole tantalizing concept of mother, what's it about whatever? And then I read this thing, and I'm like, oh, it's about the environment. Because that poem, like, very, very, very clearly tells you what this ambiguous term mother. Now all of a sudden it's like, oh, it's Mother Earth. And so by reading that, and I'm watching the movie. movie, now the quote-unquote, like, twist of the movie, the allegory of the movie, which is like a double allegory, but we'll get into that, it becomes incredibly clear to me as I'm watching the movie. And it really colors my reception of the movie. And I do feel like the very different ways that people received this movie really depends on where your mind was at in terms of what is this story about as you're watching it. Tell me if I'm wrong.

And how much you had received people's processing of the movie and, like, when you saw it in the release cycle, because, like, it bombed, but, like, it did hang around in theaters for a few weeks and people were still seeing it. Yes. But, like, there was also the stages of how much Aronovsky keeps coming out of the woodwork to explain the movie and explain his thought process behind it and, like, not doing the movie any service at all. And I don't even think that poem does the movie any service to, like, especially if you see it right before the movie, which, like, I was bolting into the theater because it's like they let you in at the very last minute. So I didn't read the poem beforehand. But, well, we'll get into, I want to get into, after we do the plot descriptions, I want to get into what we think the movie is about, what Aaronowski thinks the movie is about, and what other people thought it's about. Because, like, it's all very different things. And it all absolutely contributes to. how people saw the movie. Mm-hmm. But, yeah.

So, so what was your... So now I've gone into like eight million stances on what my anticipation for this movie was. Talk to me about... It's almost like you're the Javier Bartem of this movie. I know, I don't want to be... I am the Jennifer Lawrence. I have five words to say. No, no, no, no.

Tell me about your journey to anticipating this movie. I mean, he's a dick, but I love Aronovsky. I don't even think he's that much of a dick, honestly. Like, but we'll talk about that. I do. I think he's a fairly typical Latour. Yeah, yeah. Most of them are, you know.

Very typical. Very particular types. Very particular using like weird, like not always okay practices to manipulate his performers, whatever. I love his movies. And I especially love the fountain. Yes. Which is like the one that felt like we didn't really know what it was going into it. His movies are always marketed usually really well.

And this was coming off of Noah. Right. Which is a piece of shit. It's also his most impersonal movie to me, right? Right. Obviously, it's a Bible story. It's not anything he wrote himself. But it also feels like he gives the least of his personal touch to it.

Mm-hmm. The thing about Noah is, like, that movie and this movie are in a really interesting dialogue. It almost feels like the things he was trying to do with Noah or the conversations he was trying to have with Noah. He actually does get to have them in this movie. So, like, I was obviously very excited about it. Like, when Black Swan came out, I was one of the Black Swan Obsessives. I saw it with my best friend two days in a row at, like, 11 o'clock at night. Amazing.

times um so like i was just very anticipatory of whatever this movie would be so it's like you say you didn't really take in any of the marketing for this movie i on the other hand took all of it in um and like ate it very vociferously but the thing was like you still weren't given that much information about what this thing would be like i remember it was either earth day or mother's day same thing if you watch this movie basically when the poster was released where it's like Jennifer Lawrence in a garden and she's clearly ripped out her own heart and she's like offering it up to whatever and it was like the type of thing that like yeah everybody looks at everything clearly a metaphor that wouldn't ever be literalized in a movie no like it was it was so extreme that you were like okay this is obviously like some type of like you know mystery box of what the movie is but really it's just like it is the movie that is exactly it is so literal for what it is. That's the biggest gag of this movie is that, like, for all that there is a lot to talk

about in terms of symbolism and allegory or whatever, the movie just gives it to you. Like, it does not do a whole ton to obfuscate what it's talking about at all. It's just there. It's right there. Everything is so obvious to the point where the few things where I'm watching it and that I don't fully get what they're supposed to be allegorically, it bugs me all the more because everything else is incredibly obvious. Adam and Eve and, you know, the Christ Child and all this. And I'm just like, but what's the yellow liquid that she's drinking? Like, I don't understand

what that metaphor is. And it's bothering me because, like, clearly everything else is very specifically something. I think it's more of just, like, a color theme throughout the movie. Like, whatever yellow symbolizes is some type of restorative thing. Like, the clay that she uses on the walls are yellow. Yeah, sort of like a brownish yellow. I mean, not to get gross about it, but, like, there's a whole thread of, like, pissing in this movie. I was going to say, the IMDB trivia lists that, like, that peeing is a theme in this movie. The little boy pees himself, and there's the liquid that she drinks is piss-colored, and I'm just like, all right. Yeah, like, I don't necessarily think it's supposed to be hurt ingesting urine.

Drinking the Piss of Christ? No, probably not. But, no, no, no, no. It's, but, like, it's got to be something right. But, like, for as much as, like, Darren Aronofsky, like, hammered in what the movie is about, like, and people vociferously rolled their eyes at that, like, there's still so much to, like, interpret. And I do actually think there's plenty of room to come up with your own interpretation for the movie that, like, he fully cut his own movie off at the knees by, like, talking to anyone who would listen about what he intended to make this movie for. I'll push back against that a little bit, but I'll do it after we get to the plot, because I want to sort of set that table first. But, like, the thing where you're talking about the trailers, the trailers didn't really give you anything.

It's like there was, like, Jennifer Lawrence wandering the house with, like, dialogue from the movie and yelling, and it's very, um, she yells murderer at the very end of the teaser, which, like, that was all I needed. That's when I knew I was like, well, I don't need anything more. I'm already as pumped for this movie as I can possibly. get it. And the longer trailer is like a bunch of flash cuts and you see the, I think the only thing you see from the third act of the movie is her screaming. Right. And it's like a really tight shot on her face. So you really can't tell what's happening. You do hear, you do hear in that trailer, because I watched it again this morning, the telltale crack. You don't see what it is and you have had no reference point for it when you're watching the trailer unless you've seen the movie. But once you've seen the movie, like, you hear that telltale crack that comes in the late part of the movie

with the baby. And I was, like, watching it again, I was just like, oh, shit. Like, he really just does put it right out there, doesn't he? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, like, there was a whole lead-up campaign to, like, a trailer being released. Like, they put these, like, 30-second trailers in theaters that were, like, all black with, like, some of that dialogue.

and then you saw her eyes open and just the word mother. That's right. So it's like there was like this building promotional campaign for it that just gave the movie this aura of like a horror mystery box that could never really be fulfilled. But it also allows whoever's watching that and their imagination to like fill in the gaps of what they expect this movie to be. And I think that this movie was was what exactly. Nobody expected it to be. And we'll get into the F cinema score thing later on. But it always sort of annoys me about the greater American movie going public and not to like get all on my snobby high horse or whatever, but like that American movie audiences have been so trained

to not only expect to find like typical haunted house answers to horror movies that when they don't get it, they get like seriously pissed. We're like, uh, we're like the, the bug trailers allude to, um, maybe that aliens are involved. And obviously when you watch bug, the idea that it's not really aliens is part of the thing because they're paranoid. It's about paranoia. Um, no less effective of a thriller, but because audiences need to have the kind of

explanation that they're used to from other movies, they won't accept anything else. And I think that was the thing with mother. Like, once you got the sense that maybe the house is alive or something is in the basement or whatever, then all of a sudden, the audiences now in their heads are demanding some, like, you know, modern cookie cutter, ghostly apparition showing up in the final third of the movie to explain why the house is so weird. Some of the rift on, like, The Exorcist and Rosemary's baby, so, like, you're expecting, like, demons or something. Well, the movie definitely riffs on Rosemary's Baby, like, very explicitly and in, like, good ways. But I think the things, the ways in which it's like Rosemary's baby are, like, the way that she can't trust her husband or that the husband keeps, like, whispering around corners with other characters, or not even whispering, but just, like, talking in that she can't hear and she's, you know, you're not sure what they're saying. And it's all just like, and it's all paranoia. And it's all very, like, you know, and then obviously the fact that, like, you know, her baby gets taken away from her at the end.

Like, that's an obvious, like, first movie's baby thing. But, yeah, you're right. That it's not like, it's not like the devil's behind it in this movie. And I think a lot of people needed something to be behind it all, right? Some big revelation at the end. And this movie just doesn't give you that. I'm not surprised at all that this was an F-cinema score, but like many F-cinemascore movies, it's incredibly interesting. Mm-hmm.

I completely agree. All right, do we want to try to wrap our heads around the task of doing a 60-second plot description for this movie? I think that sounds like something we're prone to do.

So I had an idea for our 100th episode that we would, instead of one of us doing the 60-second plot description, that we would both try a 60-second plot description at the same time. I think it is appropriate to the chaos of this movie to convey to listeners who have maybe not seen this movie.

Yes. What the tone of this movie is. It's, I felt like if we're going to do Mother, we might as well make our listeners feel as crazy as we felt watching the movie. No, that's not exactly what we want. But, yeah, I think you're right. I think chaos is the watchword for this movie. So let's just get the basics out of the way. This movie is Mother, 2017, directed by Darren Aronofsky, written by Darren Aronofsky,

starring Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Donald Gleason, Brian Gleason. Kristen Wigg, we mentioned Giovanna-Depo, we mentioned Emily Hampshire, the Sink Bounder, premiered September 5th, 2017 at the Venice International Film Festival, and then September 17th, 2017 opened wide, which again, probably not a great decision to open this wide, maybe platforming would have been better. Who knows? Hindsight is 2020. Christopher. Joseph. We're going to do this at the same time. Listeners can try and make sense of it if you want to or just embrace the chaos, which is, I think, a thing. about mother, that embracing the chaos is probably the road to having your best experience

with this movie. Fantastic. All right. Ready? Yes. And go. And on the eighth day, Darren Ossey cracked his knuckles and said, bitch, I'm going to try it. So Jennifer Lawrence basically plays Mother Earth.

And which was once burned down, and now she is restoring at one slab of Chris Brown who doesn't have a name is God. And also the house seems to be alive. He's a poet who repeats since was work often and pays her increasingly less attention at the front Eve is like, hey, why don't you guys have a local doctor who soon find out as a fan of the poet. And then their kids can't be able show up and then they kill each other.

And then there's a mark of cane literally in the floor of the house. And then they have a funeral of the house. And she's Michelle Pfeiffer and two with them overstep their bounds at all times and won't destroying my house. And then they break the sink. And then they get into a fight and then one kills the other one leaving to a memorial service in the house. And then they're going to celebrate and then they're going to celebrate and have like,

you know, an anniversary. something like that. He has a poem. Then Jaylau gets pregnant and everything seems fine for one literal minute until he finishes his book in their house on top of like, this is what Twitter feels like because she gets called the seward by some random man. She doesn't even know who it is, but then like truly war zone in the house. And then she has a baby in their room. They're blocked off.

He refuses to send any of them home because he's obsessed with him just as very obsessed with him. He wants to share his baby with the adored masses and they take it and they aren't gentle with it. They break its neck and they eat the body. and Bardam is like, honey, let's forgive them, and J-Law's like, fuck that, and goes into the basement and sets the oil furnace on fire, and the whole house burns down, and she is dying, and he's fine, she offers him her heart, which he takes from her chest and crushes it and retrieves from it his precious little diamond that lets him restore the house with a brand new young wife and start again. Baby? We did it. We did it way closer than I thought we were going to. Oh, my God. So much going on. So much going on.

Okay, so... We apologize if that was annoying to anybody, but it was a fun idea. Indulge us. We'll try to separate the audio. Hopefully there's funny shoot in there. It wasn't until I watched this at home that I realized how long the sequence is where it's like truly just madness. It's like 40 minutes long.

And it's so, it gets on your nerves. It's so miserable that it flies by. Meanwhile, the first like hour and 15 minutes of the movie also flies by that you don't realize how long and kind of meticulously observed all the quiet stuff is when it's just like the loudest thing in the movie is fucking Michelle Pfeiffer, not shutting up. Well, that's, okay. So that's the thing. Jennifer Lawrence. That's the thing that I love about this movie is there's creaky walls and there's weird heartbeats and there's a scary basement and there's a like scary jump cut to Donald Gleason being like behind Jennifer Lawrence and all threatening and whatever. And yet all of the most suspenseful nerve shredding moments are Michelle Pfeiffer like being an overstepper or that fucking sink being unbraced. Like that's so it's so emblematic. That's the that was the sort of like meme that I'm emerged from the movie. That was like the joke that emerged from the movie afterwards. And for a good reason, because like everybody remembers that stuff because it's so, um, sort of like quotidian and like elemental where it's just sort of just like, these people won't listen when I ask them nicely to get off that sink because it's not braced and it's going to break. Like so much of this movie is just people not refute, not only not listening to Jennifer Lawrence, but like either flat out ignoring her. or like kind of like laughing at her as if she like would make this request of them and it's a movie about rude people it is well it's it's a movie about somebody who's like slightly antisocial who like would prefer to just be like with one person that they like rather than like a group of people and like what would happen if i was going to say in like when we talk about different interpretations of the movie one of my favorite pieces about this movie

Camdus Frederick wrote it for Vice. It's interpreting the movie as like the hell it is to be an introvert in a world of extroverts. Yeah. Yes. Yes. I love it. So in terms of interpreting the movie, I just want to sort of like, I'll throw my take on it out there and then you can do the same. Again, reading the poem, set me on a path.

And then, because, so there's the biblical allegory in this stuff, which is, like, I think, like, that's surface A, where, like, it becomes incredibly obvious. You really can't miss it. Bardem is God. Jennifer Lawrence is, like, Earth Mother. And then, like, Ed Harris is Adam. Michelle Pfeiffer is Eve. There's a point when he's puking that first night where you can see this, like, open wound on him. We're, like, literally, like, at his ribs. So, you know, you can see his ribs and then Michelle Pfeiffer shows up.

Michelle Pfeiffer shows up, which is like Adam and Eve. Obviously, their children are Kane and Abel. Donal kills the other Gleason and then gets this, like, big gash on his forehead, Mark of Cain, obviously, all this stuff. Yeah, but the mark of cane to me is that wound that, like, is in the floor and is in the house. Well, also that. Yes, yes. Yes, there are, there's more sort of metaphorical allegory stuff, and then there's stuff

that's just like very much one-to-one. And then you get to the later part where she has the baby, and the baby is, again, a pretty obvious Christ metaphor where if you don't understand it at first, by the time they, like, carry the baby off and kill it, and then they cut to everybody literally eating parts of the baby as if, like, it's Eucharist, which I'm sorry makes me laugh out loud every time I see it.

Because the cut is, it's such a comedic cut, and it's so obvious in its symbolism, which I don't think is a detriment to the movie. I mean, it's also so grotesque that, like, you have to respond in some way. Exactly. It's one of those things that it's so physical, you have to, like, put something out of your body. But so that second half of the movie where the house gets overrun for the second time, and all of a sudden it becomes, like, the entire horrible parade of human history marches through. that house and it's um so i wrote this down as my like my general sort of like thesis to the movie and it's essentially the story of like i can imagine and i don't know this for sure even though erinofsky talked about his you know reasons for making the movie a lot um but just

like imagining the the sort of uh elemental story of the earth right in its most literal terms. But, like, what if, like, imagining what if you were the earth who, you know, created by God or whatever, and then God grows disinterested with you, brings in humans, and then lets them literally do whatever they want, run roughshut over you, destroy this beautiful home that you've created, trample you, beat you, like, you know, destroy your child, destroy everything And like, what would that feel like? And Aronowski is very, very explicit when he did his interviews about like, this is an environmental allegory. And I happen to, that is my interpretation of it as well. So like I was definitely on board with it where he's just like, he's so unambiguous about it. We're like, this is an environmental allegory. This is about how humanity has destroyed the earth and ravaged. uh, the planet. And that is sort of in the person of Jennifer Lawrence. And the other, it is

climate change personified. Right. Climate change, but also just like the absolute, um, indifference of humanity to what they were doing. And they're almost like defiant cruelty in the face of what they're doing to this planet and all this sort of stuff. And to me, that made perfect sense. And I thought it was not subtle, but like, if you are going to create this, like, giant primal howl about the planet being destroyed, this is, to me, a pretty effective way of doing that. And I think the movie, like, achieves its objectives.

The other major interpretation of the movie, though, and I'll sort of pass this off to you to talk about, which was I was reading a couple of the reviews this morning to sort of like get me into it. And obviously I clicked on Allison Wilmore's review for BuzzFeed because one of our finest film critics. Truly. She was, as certain as I was that this was like, it's the environmental allegory, whatever. Allison was just as like stone cold certainly like this is an allegory about an artist who is writing about what it is like to create and have his creation sort of adored over and obsessed over and then kind of taken away from him and what the creator does in terms of isolating himself. from his, you know, loved ones, his spouse, whatever, like that all of this, that essentially the metaphor of mother isn't necessarily about the mother. It's about Bardam as artist slash God. And I think that's there, certainly. But my interpretation of it is, A, that's secondary

slash supplemental, and B, I think almost... largely accidental, which I think is maybe even more fascinating. But this is my problem. And, like, I, I love that interpretation. And I think there's a lot of, there's a lot there that is so smart. And I think, especially if this is a movie about the creative process, it gives you a real direct answer to the, like, regeneration or the, like, starting a new, you know, like, circular nature of this movie, how it, like, ends where it begins. You know, and it's, projects a repeated cycle. Like, that to me, you know, the artist interpretation of this movie has a better answer for that element than, like, the environmental thing because I don't know how to say this to you, but like, once the earth burns down, we're not going to get another earth, guys.

Unless it's Elysium, you know. Right. I like that. But here's my problem. This is what I was getting on with it. Darren Aeronovsky, coming out and being so hard talking to anyone who will listen about, like, this is what my movie is, being very rigid about it, doesn't allow for, like, any other type of interpretation when it's like, he made a movie that I think by its virtue and, like, what is so good about the movie is that you can take all of these different type interpretations from it. Like, obviously, it's rooted in that, but, like, it's rooted in the environmentalism. Like, you can branch off and have several different things.

Like, you even brought up the baby as kind of like a one-for-one Christ symbol. And I don't even necessarily think that it has to be the baby Jesus. It could be the polar ice caps. It could be, you know, natural resources. It could be oil. Sure. And I guess part of that is when you're making an allegory about something like the Bible, which is in its sense.

a creation myth that is largely allegorical, you know, all of a sudden now you're at layers on layers, right? You're at one layer on top of another already. So yes, absolutely there is like room within those folds to find other explanations. I would just say that like, sorry, go ahead. No, I was going to say my initial interpretation of the movie because like I didn't read any of the environmental stuff. I didn't read that poem before watching the movie, but my read was, like, really influenced by those Aronovsky comments before the movie was released of trying to convey a feeling of something, which obviously, like, turned out, like, conveying a feeling of how the earth must feel for all of our bullshit. But, like, I thought, for whatever reason, I was on a similar, like, trajectory, but not an artist as, like, Alison Wilmore's interpretation.

I interpreted it as, like, this is what it's like to send your literal baby or your literal child into the world and, like, having, conveying the feeling of anxieties about having children and then once you have them and not being able to preserve them or protect them from the world around you, which I guess is also a really literal interpretation. But, like, to me, this was, like, the hell of, like, contemplating and then being in the real world of what it's like to have a child today in this world. That was my first interpretation. I'm not, that's not where I am now. If anything, like, I feel like watching this movie now, and I feel like I might lose some people here, so sorry. I kind of, my interpretation of watching it now, and granted, I've seen it a bunch of time, is a little bit yes-anding what Darren Aronovsky is doing, and I think that this is a movie that says that religion is the most destructive force in the world. Because if he is God and even if he isn't God, what is created from his followers, his readers, whatever you want to call them, that invade this house, they worship him, they obsess over what he produces, they obsess over this baby.

and in doing so, they destroy everything. And the Earth can only respond back. So that is kind of where I'm at with this movie now. I definitely incorporate that read of it into my read. I just feel like that is a piece of it. That to me it's, you know that thing in Angels in America, where the Angel is talking about how God grew bored with his angels and in seeking something more interesting, created man who is flawed and dumb and whatever.

But so, you know, interested God that he turned himself away from heaven and the angels and put all of his attention on man. And so that to me was, is, I think, the fundamental thing of what Mother is about for me, which is, what if I'm the earth and I'm creating, I'm, you know, Mother Earth, right, the sort of like the animus of if you want to, like, you know, Earth as a human concept, right? I've created this beautiful home. I'm restoring this beautiful home. Everything is wonderful.

There is literally the pastoral environment around this home. I think one of my favorite touches of the movie is there is no path to the house. Like, there is no even walkway up to the front door. They check, they have a couple points where you see. see it from overhead, and they're like, there is no way to get to the house. It's so much. It's like if the Maitlands leave the Beetlejuice house. Right, right, right.

But at least when the Maitland's look outside, they see a driveway, right? Where it's just like, there is no getting to this house. If they look out from a window, but like if they step out onto the porch, right. It's just a sea of. Right. And she never, she never leaves the house, and I think for very similar reasons, right? but so she's you know puts all of her all of what she is into creating this beautiful home out of love and care and all he does Javier Bardem God whatever which at the end of the movie he does eventually say like when she's like who are you and he says I am which is like that's that's literally God anyway um uh all he does is

bring in humanity and then does nothing to curb what they are doing, does nothing to, like, and doesn't care, just absolutely could not care less about what they are doing to her beautiful home, to her wonderful, idyllic, pastoral. She says paradise at one point, I want to make this a paradise. Like, that was sort of my big early clue that, like, oh, okay, this is Garden of Eden, whatever. And so what must that feel like to not only have humanity all ugly and gross and selfish and consuming and pissing and farting and, you know, sitting on your sink and stealing shit, like stealing your resources and all of this stuff, not only to have all of that, but to have the God figure be completely indifferent. Like absolutely couldn't care less. And I was just like, oh, okay. of, like, the idea of God where God is obsessed with God's followers as much as the followers

are obsessed with God, right? Or maybe it's even more so. God needs their attention as much as they need his sort of, like, you know, benevolent gaze or whatever, right? Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah, right. Which then feeds into the God as artist thing because, like, an Aronowski made his God

character, a poet, for a reason, although I, see, my interpretation of is that I don't think Aronowski realized exactly all he was funneling into this movie, but where God in this movie is a vain, needy, praise-obsessed, like all he wants from anything in this movie is the adoration of humanity, which is very easy to read into as audience slash fans, right? And to, and so I think the other thing was, and this is, I think, a big reason why... Are you getting to the point where one of the jokes became Mother is a Rachel Weiss biopic? Well, yes, which is, but I think, but I think the entry point to that is, while filming, Aronovsky and Lawrence start dating, and there's an age gap and like Lawrence was already

impossible for people to not think about when watching this movie. Right. So that's the thing is because of that and because that relation, like nobody liked that relationship, even before anybody saw the movie, everybody was just like, uh, like we were at such a point where like a director dating his much younger movie star was so distasteful and so reminiscent of other actually like bad things happening in the industry. that a lot of, I think, a lot of ugliness was read onto that relationship that maybe wasn't there. Who, like, who knows?

We don't really know. He also didn't help because, like, he, in the publicity tour for this movie, like, did these, like, vague but, like, unnecessary ways that felt like they were digs against her or making fun of her that, like, she needed to watch the Kardashians to calm down from the process of making this movie, which, like, she goes through hell in this movie. Well, didn't she, she, like, she ruptured her diaphragm or something, something, right? Screaming. Yeah. Screaming in this movie. Right. So, like, all of that feeds into this very, very negative perception of him specifically, but also, like, of this relationship between creator and someone who is subordinate to that creator.

And then, because he used to be married to Rachel Weiss, you also then read into, oh, is this movie, him writing about what a disinterested, uncaring, inattentive husband he was to Rachel Weiss, which to me, I think that's as much of a reach as the environmental stuff. And I feel like everybody who made me feel like I was a crazy person for reading an ecological allegory into this movie. But then we're like, well, it's obviously about Rachel Weiss. And I'm just like, aren't we like? I would buy into that if Javier Bardem wore a scarf at any point in this movie.

But what I think is... I personally don't buy that part of it. I think it's one of those things where maybe, you know, unconsciously the artist possibly puts something like that in there. But I also think this movie falls into really interesting discussions of gender dynamics. And I don't know how much credit I. I want to give Aronovsky for that because I don't know if it's just like relying on the tropes of like, well, we always call it Mother Earth and God is regularly referred to in like male pronouns. So like does it just fall on that? But there's definitely an interesting conversation to have about gender in this movie that like you want to give the movie credit for. But at the same time, I don't know how intentional it. it is. Yes. I think I would agree with that. I think a lot of the stuff when it comes down to gender dynamics, the sort of internal politics of a married relationship or a committed

relationship, and then also the ways in which an artist needs validation from the audience much more than they need because even like Bardem's relationship with Lawrence in this movie is A, he's like largely inattentive. Anytime she says something to him, you barely get the sense that he even hears her. He's always

paying more attention to at first Ed Harris and then later to the sort of like crowds of people who are showing up. He's always sort of like leaving the room to go do something else. I love the my favorite stuff about this movie is the sort of like the small

touches of surreality before it gets fully crazy, where, like, all of a sudden he's on the third floor. And it's just like, were you not just, like, walking into another room on the first floor? Like, all of a sudden, he's, like, just somewhere so much farther away than you think he is. And that, like, organ in the toilet. Yeah, that's another thing that I was just like, what's the symbol of that? The, like, the little heart that squirts blood in the toilet. She, like, gets in touch with, she, like, puts her hands on the house and it's, like, the heart, the house has a literal heart.

Yes, and that the heart beats sort of like, the heart sort of like shrivels and sort of, you know, becomes more of a stone as the movie goes along. Yeah, I think all of that stuff sort of grows out of this central metaphor, right? But it also reminds you that, like, these gender dynamics come from these very old and ancient and, archetypal stories that humanity has been telling themselves for like literally ever, where it's just like a male godhead and a female mother figure, right? Like, that's the paradigm that we've had for fucking ever. The whole like of Michelle Pfeiffer's interactions or Eve's interactions with Mother Earth,

Michelle Pfeiffer and Jennifer Lawrence feels like she's telling her she needs to have a baby, like what she should do to have fun and like all of this. It feels incredibly toxicly suburban to me. Yes. Well, it's in a way that's like very pointed. The movie is obviously on Jennifer Lawrence's side. And I think Darren Aronofsky is getting at something with that, but I just don't know how much of it is like this is the,

archetype he sets up and that's how the movie plays out or if it's actually doing something interesting there. I think Fyfer's character is the point in the movie that most feels like a living, breathing character rather than an archetype. Like obviously, yes, she's obviously Eve. But like real housewives of the Garden of Eve. That's what she is. Basically, she's like, first of all, Fyfer's fucking amazing in this movie. From the second she shows up on screen, she's all you can look at. She looks absolutely directly through Jennifer Lawrence in every scene. It's unbelievable. But also...

If you're still caught up in like this is a horror movie, you are probably thinking, oh, Michelle Pfeiffer is just going to, like, murder her at any point or start terrorizing her with a knife. And functionally, she's sort of Ruth Gordon in Rosemary's Baby without the, like, ulterior motive, although you're absolutely meant to think that she does have an ulterior motive. But mostly, she just, like, she has no... boundaries. She, like, wants to tell Jennifer Lawrence how to, like, be living her life. She's so incredibly judgmental of her at all times about her, uh, sex life and why don't you want to have a baby and what are these underpants? And like, everything about that. She, like, touches everything without

asking. The hideous green, uh, leafy green bra that happens after they, uh, fall out of grace from the Garden of Eden slash diamond room, right? Like, all of the stuff, like, very, like, symbolism everywhere. Um, but also, she's just like she's the worst like she's just like the most if you are in any way um sort of allergic to strangers she's just like the worst possible example of that where she's just like she's mean and she's judgy and she's like all up in she's touching everything she's grabbing the grabbing the handle on the flying pad even though you told her not to come right like minus guns right right um but fifer

plays her in such a like she really builds a character out of her in very short screen time actually she's not really in the movie for very long and obviously once Jennifer Lawrence's character gets pregnant she's not in it at all but she's absolutely utterly riveting in this movie I would also say like I don't want to sidetrack us with getting into the

Oscar talk because we're not quite there even though we're coming on an hour already guys this is going to be a long one guys like buckle up you've already By this time, you've seen the running time before you've even started the podcast. We haven't gotten to Exodus yet, guys. We're still in Genesis. We haven't gotten to the gods and kings. To talk a little bit about Michelle Pfeiffer, like, Michelle Pfeiffer was definitely

wrapped up in, like, the early Oscar talk before people saw this movie. Because, like, Michelle Pfeiffer is just one of those people that we know as soon as a comeback can happen. she can very easily be an Oscar nominee or winner too. Especially for someone like her who's coming back still in a supporting role. There was a lot of anticipation for what she would be doing, even though we didn't know what it would be. She actually gave one of the first about how he got her on board for this movie because she's notoriously kind of cagey and hesitant.

She talked about it was one of the first things for press for this movie. I think it was an interview, interview magazine, and Darren Aronovsky was the one that interviewed her, and they really only talk about the movie in oblique terms other than her saying, like, he really had to, like, sell her on what it was because the screenplay itself is, like, confusing and oblique. Right. I did read that. I did read that.

She read the screenplay, and she wasn't quite sure what was going on, which, like, fair. Like, you know, even though I do feel like the story, the story is so much out on front street that you almost distrust it because it's just like, why would it be this, like, up front? Like, why would, like, something else has got to be going on because, like, you're just really, it's just like, just like, they take the baby and they kill the baby and they eat the baby. Like, it's just like it actually happens. Like, what the fuck? Yeah. My imagination of what, like, the stage notes are in this script, have you ever seen toxic, obviously? The toxic Mimi I'm First roast, where she reads Raja's, like, writer for a performance on the Michelle Visage Rose.

Yes. It's very that. Where it's like, flames, flames, more flames. Yeah, exactly. Right, that's mother. That's the second half of mother. Absolutely. But I think the movie doesn't work if it doesn't go completely insane.

Because, like, the bold, like the broad strokes of the symbolism and the story ultimately don't work at all if you don't go completely over the line and over the top in the second half of the movie, I think. No, I agree. It's an exhilarating film. Like, it really, I totally get why people hate it, of course. Like, yeah. Even watching it, I'm just like, man, like, you know, put, tip me over a hair in the other direction and I probably hate it too. But, like, man, like, if, I mean, the movie itself and, like, it's hard to, like, remove Aronovsky from it because, like, if you're looking at it through the lens of this dude, it's like the movie is ego personified. Like, um, but if you can kind of just, like, get on the movie.

level and like just purely open yourself to whatever it is giving you and like shut anything else out like I think this is a masterpiece I think it's Aronovsky's best movie um again I'm one of those psychos that thinks that this movie is a comedy um it it it the through line from black swan to this is to me pretty obvious and thrilling that black Swan. Black Swan, I do think, is a movie that's maybe even more about the Auteur and his muse,

even though it comes at it. Although that movie does center the woman character as you're sort of like you're in her head and everything like that. But so much of everything that Vincent Cassell is doing in that movie is very much like these

impossible demands of the Auteur and how it like just literally not only like drives her crazy, which would be like the simple way to do it. But like... Well, those manipulation tactics that he uses against his muses are the exact things that Aronovsky did to Portman and Milakunas, like, he pitting them against each other. Yeah.

Um, right, which is like, okay, so then is Darren Aronovsky an incredibly self-aware Autour? Asshole? About, about ways that he is, um, uh, sort of wicked about this kind of thing? Or is he the least self-aware person at all and sort of writes these things into his films not knowing that that's what he's pulling from?

And I think in Black Swan it feels knowing. And I feel like in Mother, maybe not. He's so dead set on the ecological allegory, which again, I agree with, that it feels like, oh, did you like, did you write all this subtext in it in your sleep? Like was this like, did you do that while you were maybe

like in a fugue state? Ah! I think one of the reasons why people like lean into despising him a little bit is because it's so easy and he makes it easy to peg him as an asshole.

But if you just look at the movies and you look the way he's evolved as a filmmaker, I think he's incredibly difficult to place. Um, his movies are largely pretty different. Like, this one I feel like is most akin to Noah, while it does really feel like this is the movie that we were promised by Black Swan. Like it feels like this is the progression from Black Swan, right? But after Black Swan, he goes and makes the wrestler, which is those Black Swan and the wrestler are actually really interestingly tied. And like he originally conceived them as one movie. Um, so it's like if you can get, past like the genre and like some of the like uh more superficial aspects like you can see how those movies are like structured very similarly their shot very similarly well and the other thing and i think that makes him also hard to peg as you know from one film to another is he doesn't

he writes some of his movies but not all of his movies and like um where like i think pie is a fully original, right? I don't think that's based on anything. Requiem, he wrote the screenplay, but it's an adaptation of a novel. Black Swan is not his script. The wrestler is not his script. And then Fountain... Obviously, Noah is based on the Bible.

And then The Fountain and Mother are, like, Pye, just fully original stories. So, that to me, like, I don't know. Like, it's really interesting to try and, like, draw that line. To various other things. Like, he was originally attached to Jackie and just produced it. Right.

But they're not his scripts. Right. I can't think of anything off the top of my head where it's like, it was announced for production and it was his screenplay. Well, he was supposed to do a Batman movie. Like, he was one of those, like, before Nolan, right, right? He had that whole, like, they were, I think they were. He was one of the, like, 15 people that were courted for Batman begins. Yes.

I think it went even, like, farther than that. I think it was, like, really close to happening. But, like, I am not as well-versed in the Batman stuff. Forget who is supposed to be his Batman. Maybe Christian Bale was his Batman? I don't remember. But it was definitely, like, a thing. He was, it was very specifically, I think, he was the one who was supposed to make Batman

Year 1, which was, I think that's the name of a comic. I don't know. Again, we should have, like, Griffin on and get him to tell this whole tale, because I'm sure he tells it flawlessly. Can't believe we don't have a phone. friend on our 100th episode. I know, we should have. But it's interesting.

So you talk about, like, because I think the through line from the wrestler to Black Swan is incredibly clear. And the wrestler is not his script. And Black Swan is not his script. But like, the body horror of both of them, like, Black Swan makes it body horror. And the wrestler, it's just like, but he, like, the way he breaks his body in that movie and abuses his body in that movie. for the sake of this, like, only thing he's good at, which is also what Nina Sayers is doing.

Like, Nina Sayers, like, turns herself into a different species because she's so desperate to make her body do the things that she needs it to do. And I don't know. And I guess you can draw a little bit of a throughline from Black. Like, Black Swan, I think, is the only other movie on his film in his film in his, filmography that you could call a horror movie, right? So, like, that ties Black Swan and Mother together. I don't know. It's really kind of fascinating. There's something about Aronovsky's movies that make me think a lot of Steve McQueen. I think they're both filmmakers that make movies that you experience very physically. One of the things about Widows is, like, a lot of the

political discussions that it's having and like the kind of like body blows of the like violence in that movie it's like it renders that very physically um or he's like putting you in like an emotional uh territory that makes you experience what the physical right like experience of what the protagonist is going through like widows feels like the first movie he's made that isn't about a fundamentally physical experience right Right. And I think Aronovsky does that a lot. Oddly not for The Fountain, which I'm surprised we haven't really talked about that yet. Well, the Fountain is metaphysical, right? So, yeah. Right. Right.

So how can it be? Yeah. Even though it's like it's about cancer and... Well, and even the Fountain, though, has like the cum tree where, like, it is sort of alive, right? So, like, there's even, like, body elements to that, right? Yeah. I mean, maybe we should save a lot of Talk of the Fountain because we could do an episode on the Fountain. Good. It definitely had Oscar buzz, and, like, that production history is really interesting.

Really fascinating. It was originally Brad Pitt and Kate Blanchett, and it had, like, $100 million budget. So... And, like, it was... They had sets built, and the pug got pulled, like, right before they were supposed to start filming. Fascinating movie. Love that movie. Love Clint Mansell's score. Obviously. It's perfect. It's wonderful. When we talk about the divisiveness of Mother, though, I think we have to talk about Jenelle. for Lawrence fatigue because it was it was a real thing like

obviously it was a real thing and also I think what her core fan base is was abs or like was at the time yeah what is her core fan base? It was a lot of suburban white women and like talk about the audience that's probably not primed to you know

like this movie I'm sure they felt a certain way about the Michelle Piper scenes from points I brought up before, but, like, all of the people that were attracted to Jennifer Lawrence because of the Hunger Games probably are a contributing factor to the F-cinema score for this movie, I would imagine. Yeah.

If anybody is showing up to this movie for that Jennifer Lawrence. Or even the David O. Russell Jennifer Lawrence is. Like, she's, it's interesting. She's only really had a legit movie star career or a film actress career. Like, let's say, let's, I know she made the burning plane and I know she made, like, she was in that television show. But, like, let's say it starts at Winter's Bone, right? So Winter's Bone through Mother, she has, like, for a career that only lasts, had only gone seven years at that point, there's a lot of distinct eras and, like, segments, right? Where it's like, it's the Hunger Game stuff, which does feel connected to, but still separate from the X-Men stuff, right?

And then there's the David O. Russell stuff. And outside of those things, she doesn't really do anything else. Obviously, like, Serena is a thing, but, like, that's still Bradley Cooper. So there's still, like, that tether. To our Serena episode. Yes. That tether to the David O. Russell stuff. And then she makes that horror movie house at the end of the street, which almost feels

like a remnant of, you know, a role she might have taken before she became, like, Oscar-winning. Right. They like pushed it to after Hunger Games was released because it was supposed to come out before. So it's like it's clearly trying to make money off of the presumed success of the Hunger Games. Right. And then the only other outlier to that comes right before Mother, which is Passengers, which is a movie that had a lot of Oscar buzz at the beginning. And then people read the screenplay and were like, this is fucking gross.

And then people saw the movie and they're like, yep, gross. and it's but like I don't think I don't think people blamed that movie's failure on her I don't think they blamed even if you hated mother I don't think most people hated Lawrence either and yet it definitely felt like well the immediate reaction was involved in like a stark drop off in public favor and critical favor I would also argue for Jennifer Lawrence because I think also after the Joy nomination happened. My name's Joy, by the way. Yes. There was a lot of backlash to the Joy nomination, even though I think she's great in that. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think probably her best performances are this and joy. I mean, I'm not inclined to disagree. However, it's just like, it feels like it's also an amalgam of like people were tired of the pizza and farting persona.

Right, right. The friendship within humor, like, all this kind of stuff. Yeah. I mean, like, it was a lot, and it felt like she was pushing it really hard. But, like, it does also feel like there's an ingrained sexism in that response, too, that always kind of, like, bristled against me. Like, yes, we're annoyed because, like, we're, like, the instant buy-in is getting to be, like, maybe too much. The pressure for her to have to define herself to try and stay ahead of. a backlash to me always felt present. And it always reminded me of the Anne Hathaway stuff, which is

Anne Hathaway being like, what kind of person do I need to be for you to not hate me? And I think with Lawrence, it's maybe less fear that you're going to hate her, because I ultimately don't think she craves approval quite as much as Hathaway does. But it definitely felt like with her a need to define herself as like not a typical actress so because because there is a knowledge that like ultimately there's a misogyny in this culture that will lead to people hating actresses we've seen it with Hathaway we've seen it with paltrow we've seen it with Julia Roberts over the years we've seen it with you know so many of these actresses yeah yes exactly and I think Lawrence with Monique. We saw it with

Yes. Yeah. Right. And I think Lawrence is If she's not aware of it, then someone is telling her to be aware of it. Do you know what I mean? Because like her, I think her career and her public persona has shown unawareness to that. I mean, there was a whole lot, there was

like her, the nude photos of her were taken away from her and leaked. Like, there was, there's a whole lot of dynamics coming together for the public that it's like it feels like the press is constantly hungry for her to interact with a lot of these dynamics and it's like how many interviews was like has she given where people like want to ask her about pizza getting stoned and like things like it's all like coming together to be too much and I don't feel like a lot of it is necessarily her fault right it does feel now though after mother and after um Red Sparrow was an interesting sort of attempt to create something new that was hers, that wasn't a Marvel product, that wasn't, you know, based on YAA novels, and that wasn't an anuteur project like Mother was, that Red Sparrow, I think she tried to, like, make something that was hers. And obviously, it's Francis Lawrence, right? Yes, the guy that did the last Hunger Games movies.

Right. Who, obviously, she seemed to have a real rapport with. And so I feel like she was trying to sort of like, you know, run her ship at that point. And it didn't work. And so now it does feel like she's in Dark Phoenix, but like it's of all the X-Men performances that like already she had sort of cultivated a reputation for being over the X-Men franchise. And like Dark Phoenix is the epitome of that where like the disinterest is palpable on that movie. And, and now- I probably haven't seen an X-Men movie in a decade, I think First Class was a lot. one I saw so like I am only witness to the like photo slides that people post where it's like

the mystique makeup is evidence of how over it Jennifer Lawrence progresses to be right we're like she only allows herself to be put in it like once per movie like joins the little ones yeah it's like the blue makeup cannot touch her clavicle it's like clavicle up but like so now it does feel like her career is in turnaround. And we're waiting for what the next phase will be. She has a movie that A24 will be releasing whenever they're releasing movies again. Right. With a stage director, I'm going to butcher it, so I apologize.

It's Lila Newberger. Sure. Nuggebauer. Newgabower. Acclaimed stage director, first-time filmmaker. so like that seems prime to be her comeback i don't know if i wonder how an awardsy campaign will be received yeah by people considering there was so much pushback to the joy nomination the problem with her career and it's not a problem with her but like the difficulty she faces is

i think clearly she doesn't have an interest in being in a franchise right now. She's done two of them. She, you know, has seemed visibly, you know, fatigued by them. And yet, I think she also got burnt out on the Oscar campaigning stuff. By the time Joy comes around, she's not even doing any campaigning for it. And ultimately, there's no other option for a movie at this point because mainstream adult dramas or comedies don't exist anymore for somebody at her level of actress, right? We're like... The things that she is best at as a performer are so few and far between.

Right. Especially ones that focus on women. So it's like if she's going to stay in lead roles, like where are those movies? Right. There's nothing there. There's no middle ground between awards bait or indie stuff. And like, I guess she could do like... Or even like, I hate the word...

quirky, but, like, quirky movies, like, the type of stuff that David O'Russell does. Right. But, like, there's no, like, even if she wanted to try and do, like, a romantic comedy, those don't happen anymore. If she wanted to do a romantic drama, those don't happen anymore. If she wanted to do a legal thriller, she would be so fucking good at a legal thriller. Like, give her, like, what's, you know, the present-day version of the Pelican brief? Let her do that. But that doesn't fucking exist anymore.

Do we think the Elizabeth Holmes movie will happen? If it happens, I hope it's not Adam McKay like it's supposed to be. But I do want to hear the words come out of Jennifer Lawrence's mouth in the Elizabeth Holmes timbre. So no one has to lose a loved one to you soon. I mean, ultimately, we've gone. We are not at the right point in the spacetime continuum where the right actress to play that. role could, which is Mirosorvino. Holy shit.

Absolutely, the actress who was born, and she was just born too early, and, like, the cosmos didn't overlap correctly, because Mirosurvino in the Romi white voice. So no one has to lose a loves one from Tucson too soon. That's exactly it. That's exactly it. Do you have some sort of businesswoman special? And so, if we can't get 1995 Mira Sorvino, the next best thing, yeah, I think would be Jennifer Lawrence.

But again, if that movie is to be a success, it's going to have to go for Oscars. Because you're not going to, like, that's not a popcorn movie. That's not a movie that's going to get, like, you know, the Hunger Games suburban white women to the movie theaters, right? So it's, I mean, yeah, the market is fucked. Anyway. She, I mean, like, I get that people are annoyed with her. and whatever, I wish they would maybe interrogate it a little bit. But I think the things that are great about Jennifer Lawrence as a performer are things like what she is doing in Mother that just don't really kind of get the credit that they're due because like for her performance to work as well as it does in this movie, it makes the movie work.

If she wasn't a believable person, even though she's playing a concept and not a person, the whole time in this movie and like responding to it in this incredibly visceral way that feels very human that we can you know project a human feeling onto what like the environmental experience is or whatever you interpret the movie the movie just flat out doesn't work right um and like she has to convey a lot of this wordlessly or like without a verbiage right like it's all her response. It's an incredibly physical performance, even though it's not an action performance. But it's like, it's a lot of very controlled physicality. It's not like obvious responses that she's telegraphing how she is feeling about things in an obvious way. It's all very complicated and subtle. I think she's incredible in this story. She really, really, puts across a sense of panic as the crowd sort of like, you know, build up and build up and everything like that. Yeah. This movie was an F cinema score. It was, I believe, maybe at the time,

the 19th movie ever to get an F cinema score. Not many. And we've talked about this before. It's like cinema score says more about the promotion of a movie than the movie itself. A bad cinema score. Were people's expectations. met. Right. It's a gulf between

expectation and what you've got, and normally also it has to do with a dark subject matter, a unpleasant subject matter, that kind of a thing. Or sometimes just an outright bad movie.

Here's one thing I want to posit as one of the reasons why that F-cinema score happened. Because all of these, like, many trailers are coming out very, very, clearly projecting this movie as a horror movie. Yes.

And this movie opens two weeks after it opens, which is an incredibly mainstream, incredibly popular horror movie that, like, delivers on a horror movie completely in a way that audiences like want in a way that, like, draws people together. Yep. And that movie was huge, absolutely huge. And they even, like, one of those little mini trailers were talking. about. They even made one that was attached to that movie that played in theaters with it. And if you are going to see it and you're given probably a bunch of horror trailers

and you're given one from mother and you show up two weeks later to see mother expecting to have some type of experience tangential to that, you are going to despise the movie. Right. Starring Katniss Everdeen herself. Do you know what I mean? Just like, yeah, yeah. It's a recipe for disaster. So, Chris, I made a game for you. We've been sort of following this game type a lot lately, but I think we have a lot of fun with it. We don't have a name for it. Maybe our listeners can help us come up with a name for it, but it's the game where I give you three character names, and you then tell me what movie, all those three actors, were in together. And the answers for this will all be movies that got an F at Cinema Score. All right?

Okay. Are you ready? I am. Okay. The F. Cinema Score Game. Okay. The first question, your three characters, are Billy Flynn, Ruth Stoops, and Penny Lane. Okay, so Billy Flynn's obviously, Richard Geer. Penny Lane is Kate Hudson. Is it Dr. T. and the women. It's Dr. T and the Women. Billy Flynn, Richard Gere in Chicago, Ruth Stoops. We've got to do that episode.

Dr. T. and the Women? Yes, we do. Ruth Stoops, a citizen, Ruth. Laura Dern, and Penny Lane is indeed Kate Hudson and almost famous. All right, next one. Kathleen Kelly, Bruce Banner, and Dr. Ventress. Kathleen Kelly, I know. Bruce Banner.

What? Ventress. What? Dr. Ventress. I don't think I know that one Well, what are the other two? Bruce Banner is a superhero Why can't I remember?

Dr. Bruce Banner, if that helps. Oh, this is in the cut. Yes, work me through it. Kathleen Kelly is, well, it's McRyan, but what is the Kathleen Kelly movie? You've got mail. Oh, you've got mail. Yes, F-O-X.

Yep. Bruce Banner is Ruffalo in the Avengers movies, and Dr. Ventress is Jennifer Jason Lee in Annihilation. Mm-hmm. Annihilation. Did you know that Jennifer Jason Lee's characters in both in the cut and Margot at the wedding are named Pauline? Oh, fantastic. I don't know why I thought that was interesting.

All right. Next one. Your characters are Achilles, the Sheriff of Nottingham, and Beverly Weston. Okay, so Brad Pitt is Achilles. Sheriff of Nottingham is Alan Rickman, Beverly Weston, is Sam Shepard. From August Osage County. What were they all in together? You're right about two of those.

Oh, so one of them is wrong. Which one is wrong? Which one is most likely to be wrong? Normally when I steer you astray It's when I give you a character Who's been played by different people in different movies Oh, because there's a billion Robin Hood movies There's a different sharing of Sheriff of Nottingham

Okay, so Sam Shepard, Brad Pitt Problem is a lot of F-cinema score movies If I remember correctly, are horror movies Because horror movies always are like graded on the opposite of a curve I will say a lot of the horror movies that got F-cinema scores I wasn't able to do for this game because the actors in it don't have other credits or like, you know,

recognizable enough character names, yes. Brad Pitt. What has a hated Brad Pitt movie? I wonder how old this is because it's also Sam Shepard. I'm not even going to begin to guess the different Sheriff of Nottingham's because there's... It's the most recent Sheriff of Nottingham.

I'll say that. The one with... Taran Edgerton, I didn't see that one. Yeah. Why would I? Neither did I. I will say I had to, I got to Sam Shepard, who is like the fifth lead in this movie, because one of the more prominent characters

has only one notable character name, and it's incredibly notable. It would have been a dead giveaway. But if you're not getting it, maybe I can go there. So is it, I'm trying to think of movies that Brad Pitt is in that are despised, and I'm guessing, well, no, wait, what? The other Andrew Dominic movie, killing them softly, got an F-cinema score. Yes, that's the one.

I don't know why. I've seen that movie, and, like, I understand people that love it. I understand people that hate it, but I don't know that level of hate. Is it just, I've never seen it, but if it's Andrew Dominic, I imagine it's slow? I mean, maybe. I think if you're showing up for a mainstream Brad Pitt movie and you get some slow, Andrew Dominic movie. Maybe, or you think that it's going to be some hyper-violent thing, then maybe there's that.

Yeah, because also the- Which Sheriff of Nottingham? Ben Mendelssohn. Jesus Christ. Of course, Ben Mendelsohn has probably played the Sheriff of Nottingham multiple times. I glossed over James Gandalfini because Tony Soprano is too easy. Okay, next one. Your three names are Kimberly Wallace, John F. Kennedy, and Richard Nixon.

Kimberly Wallace is Cameron Diaz a bunch of Richard Nixon possibilities I'm just going to say because it's Cameron Diaz is it the counselor It's not the counselor that is not an F-Sidimscore movie shockingly enough Kimberly Wallace is Cameron Diaz by the way in my best friend's wedding Just for okay you said Nixon and who John F. Kennedy Two presidents Who are the big

Played Kennedy. The big Nixon's are Langella, Hopkins, John Cusack. Wait, I don't think she's been with Anthony Hopkins, but she's with Frank Langella in the box. Correct.

Is the box an F-Cinima score? The box is absolutely an F-Cinema score. And who's... I need to see the box. Then who's my John F. Kennedy? James Marston. In? From the Butler.

Exactly. All right, next one. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Linda Porter, and Anne Boleyn. Oh, wow. My mind is instantly going to Star Wars movies because Anne Boleyn was Natalie Portman and the other Boleyn girl. Obi-Wan Kenobi has to be Ewan McGregor. Linda Porter, just concentrate on that last name.

Linda Porter. Uh... What other famous porters are there? Is it Ashley Judd for DeLovely? It's Ashley Judd for DeLovly. Ashley Judd is impossible to find iconic names for. You're giving me a slew of movies that we need to do. Yeah.

You and McGregor and Ashley Judd were in. This is one of those movies that like blends in with like six other movies, unfortunately. Yeah, I know what it is because I can picture Ashley Judd in her wigs. Is it the Eye of the Beholder? That can't be an F-cinema score. It's Eye of the Beholder, an F-cinema score. And Anne Boleyn is not... I don't remember it enough to know why it would be

an F-cinema score. Yeah, I never saw it. Anne-Belin is not, in Natalie Portman, but Genevieve Buzold, who was Anne-Belin in Anne of the Thousand Days. Sure. All right, next one. Cameron Poe, Barbara Bush, and Joan of Arc.

Barbara Bush. is Elizabeth Banks for W. No. Is that the wrong Bush? That's the wrong bush. Elizabeth Banks is Laura Bush and W.

Whatever, they're all toxic and evil. What was the last name again? Joan of Arc. Is it Milo Jovovich? It's not Milo Jovovich. This was from a television movie. Oh, well, I'm never going to get that. Um

Barbara Who the hell would have played Barbara Bush? Like Ellen Burstyn? Yep Oh, okay Ellen Burstyn is Barbara Bush and W. Ellen Burstyn in an F-cinema score movie, huh? I'll try and give you a better one for Cameron Poe.

Hold on. I thought you might have. Yeah, that feels like something that I do know, but I am not. This actor has a lot of character names that are very, very obvious that I didn't want to throw to you, but I thought Cameron Poe would be a nice middle ground. How about Castor Troy? Oh, Nicholas Cage.

Nicholas Cage in Faceoff. Cameron Poe is Nicholas Cage in Conair. What the hell were Nicholas Cage and Ellen Burstyn in together? What indeed? Um... Think of notoriously poorly reviewed movies. Hmm. Even for Nicholas Cage.

this one is pretty notorious oh wow is it like drive angry no ghostwriter i can't imagine it's ghost writer ghost writer had a sequel yeah not ghostwriter um the wicker man the wicker man nicholas cage ellen burston and uh lily sobieski played joan of arc um oh right that i did actually know that she played joan of arc somewhat famously yes um not that the bees. Yes, exactly. All right. Next one, I'll see if you can get it with the harder name, but then I'll give you the easier name if you can't. Okay. Jane Goodell, Goodall. Scornie Weaver. General, nope, Scorniweaver is Diane Fossey.

Jane Goodell. God damn it. General Zod and Daryl Lee Cullum. Oh, General Zod, Michael Shannon, it's got to be bug. It's bug. Ashley Judd played a character named Jane Goodall in that Hugh Jackman movie that she's in that I'm already forgetting the title of. No. No, no, no, no, no. She is not allowed to be named someone

Jane Goodall. That's not Jane Goodall. Exactly. And then Daryl E. Cullum is the most notable name I could find for Harry Connick Jr. character. That is his character in copycat. All right. Next one.

Chili Palmer, Lucia DeLurie, and Mr. Orange. Travolta. Chili Palmer is Travolta and get short. Could genuinely be any Travolta movie in the past 10 years. Is it Gaudy? It's not Gaudy, surprisingly.

All these people showing up to Gaudy and giving it a C-minus cinema score. What's wrong with you? Lucia DeLurie is a character that would not be so notable, but the way that you pronounce her first name is like a bit in the movie. okay Chili Palmer Did you say it's from Get Shorty By the way

I'm bad at just saying Who the people are I need to say what movie they are Yes Lucia DeLory and what Mr. Orange So somebody from Reservoir dogs Right

I don't remember What all those are All right I'll find you a better one For Lucia DeLore There's one that's There's one that's, there's a TV credit for this person that is, like, wildly obvious. Oh, oh, so they were in a popular TV show in a movie with Travolta that got an F cinema score.

Indeed. Also, hint, I saw this movie very recently. Oh, interesting. And was telling you that I was going to watch it. Oh, I forget whatever this would have been that had Travolta in it. Yeah. I mean, it's got to be some type of crappy action movie. All right. Here's another one that you have to read.

read into the character name. Marcy Field. Marcy is the notable name there. Sorry, Marcy's Felt. Is it Lisa Kudrow? Yes. For Marcy X? Yes. Lusha Delrie is Lucey in the opposite of sex, where Christina Rigi is like, your name is Lucia and you pronounce it Lucia. Like, what is wrong with you? Anyway.

Good movie. Marcy X, a movie I almost saw because Sherry Renee's Scott is in it, and I never saw it probably for the better. All right, so put it together. Lisa Kudrow and Travolta. Oh, they were in, I don't know the name of it,

that Nora Ephron movie that bombed. Yep. And had Oscar Buzz. He's a local weatherman and she is a lottery girl. They like, do they scam a casino or something? They scam the lottery.

They scam the state lottery. The movie's called Lucky Numbers. I watched it last weekend. It is bad. It's so bad. Oh, really? It's a Nora Afron directed it, but it's not from her script, and you can really tell. Yeah. She might have been hired. Yeah. All right. Next one. Katie Heron, Vivian Lee, and Dum Dum Dugan. It's got to be Katie Heron is Lindsay Lohan in, um, mean girls. Mean girls, obviously. Vivian Lee is Julia Ormond. in Hitchcock. My Week with Marilyn.

My Week with Maryland. But it is, I Know Who Killed Me. It's I Know Who Killed Me. Lindsay Lohan, Julia Ormond, and Dumme Dugin is Neil McDunna in the Captain America. The First Book of course of me. I kind of want to watch it. I've never seen it. Let's watch it.

Just the mess. All right, a few more. Joe March, Casey Jones. And, all right, this is one. Oh, wait, no, sorry. Not Casey Jones. Joe March, Jimmy Gator, and George Villers, the second, Duke of Buckingham. I'm going to take a leap and say that it is not Sersha.

I don't think she's done something that would get her an F-cinema score. You're correct. And nobody's doing cinema scores for, you know, the Siegel. You're correct. So it's got to be Winona Ryder for the 90s little women. Yep. I say that knowing full well that they were probably. several little women in the 90s.

I think you might be able to get Jimmy Gator as well, though I don't think it'll help you get what this movie is. Jimmy Gator, I do know that name, and I feel like, because like Jimmy Gator, whatever character that was had a catchphrase, right? Uh-huh, yeah. Try and go with like,

okay, so like what were like the bad Winona Ryder movies of, let's say, the late 90s? I feel like it's going to be a horror movie because she did some, I think. Oh, directed by a very famous cinematographer. That's not going to help me.

But I know that she had some... Wasn't there one that was held for like two years? I don't know if that's... I know that it is that, but I can't place a poster or what the movie is. Yeah, shot in 1998, released in 2000. Yeah, there you go. I got to figure out who Jimmy Gator is. I know this.

Oh, I'll just, I'll read you, I'll give you a little help. I'll read you from the Wikipedia page. The film was initially set for release in October 1999, however, due to a flood of End of the World and Supernatural Horror Movies, such as End of Days and Stigmata, scheduled for release around the same time, a decision was made to delay the film. Sure. So, it's like End of Days and Stigmata. Matta.

It very much is. Don't know if that's going to help me. All right. If I get who Jimmy Gator is, can we say that I might... No, I don't know if that's going to make me have it. I just got to figure out who this is. Yeah, I don't think any of the other people are going to let you have it, unfortunately. I may have to just give it to you.

What was the third one again? George... Oh, no, no, no, no. Jimmy Gator. Jimmy Gator is Magnolia. I knew it would be a movie like Magnolia. It is the great, may he rest. Philip Baker Hall.

Yes. It's not going to help you at all with the movie. Absolutely not. No. There was ever... Oh, wait, he's still alive. I said that he was dead. I thought Philip Baker Hall died.

Who from Magnolia recently died? My instinct was to correct you, but I didn't want to be wrong. Okay. All respect to you, Philip Baker Hall. I am sorry. I thought you were dead. I love you. So George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham, was Ben Chaplin in Stage Beauty.

I don't know if that helps you any. Ben Chaplin is not going to help me find anything No, he's not The movie is called Lost Souls Sure, yep, yep, that sounds right All right, next one Bruce Wayne, Rose Maxon, and Daniel Faraday Daniel Faraday is

Ruth Maxon Rose Maxine. Did I say Ruth? Rose. Oh, then maybe I don't know that. Well, who are you thinking? No, I lost it. Maybe I was thinking of fried green tomatoes again. Okay.

Well, Bruce Wayne, though. You can work. Yeah, Bruce Wayne. So either Michael Keaton, Christian Bale, Pattinson doesn't count yet, George Clooney or Val Kilmer. Right. I would buy any of them having an F-cinema score. If it's Clooney, it's Solaris.

It's Solaris. Oh, it's Solaris. Okay. Oh, yeah, it does have an Fis cinema score. I need to see that. All right, so if it's Solaris, who's Rose Maxim? Jennifer Ely or Viola Davis. Viola Davis and Fences. And Daniel Faraday is Jeremy Davies. I'm lost. All right, two more. Will Scarlet...

That's how I know Faraday. You can't give me these TV ones. It's evil. Okay, name a character from a movie that Jeremy Davies is better known for. All right. You can't. Will Scarlet, Bunny Lubowski, and Deacon Frost. Bunny Lobowski is Territory.

Uh-huh. From the Big Lobowski. Deacon Frost. What was the first one? Will Scarlet. I feel like I know this too. I feel like Tara Reid maybe gives you all you need. I mean, Tara Reid is in Dr. T. and the women, I believe.

Oh, yeah. I think so. But what's her, like, big notorious terrible movie? Where she plays a scientist. I mean, I don't know. Directed by, like, one of the, like, notorious directors of bad movies. Michael Bay No, no Like way

Like down the food chain From Michael Bay Oh okay So this is like trash Like known trash Yeah Um Yeah

Terra Reid What were the other names Will Scarlet Who is definitely a character From a movie that you know And you guessed Will Scarlet is Um

Christian Slater In Robin Hood And Prince of Thieves Prince of Thieves Um The Robin Hood that fucks Yes aside from the Disney Robin Hood

because I know there's that whole subset of people that find Robin Hood from Disney Robin Hood like the sexiest character ever. That's the Robin Hood that something that's not full fucking fucking... The Robin Hood that gives you a quick handy? Yeah.

Okay, Christian Slater, Terror Reed in a truly terrible movie, I don't think I know the name of it, but the director, is it the Ova Bull? Yeah. Moron. Yes. Oh, okay.

What is the movie? It's called Alone in the Dark. Sure. Christian Slater, Terereid, and Stephen Dorff, who was Deacon Frost in Blade. One of the Blade movies, Blade Trinity, I want to say. Yeah. Blade movies are awesome. Yeah, good old Ova Bull.

Okay, last one. Your characters are Tully, Mooney, and Richie Tosier. The bad thing is Tully is a really common name in a lot of movies. Uh-huh. Tully, did you say Moon? Mooney. Mooney. Okay.

Uh, I mean, it's not Charlize Theron, is it? Well, no, but Charlize Theron is Marlowe in that movie. Oh, right. Oh, so is it McKenzie Davis? Never mind. Yes. I know better than that. I love that movie.

It is McKenzie Davis. I'm Tully. Okay, McKenzie Davis. So this would have to be a fairly recent movie. You know, Mooney. Oh, it's, I saw this. It's The Turning. It's the Turning.

Who's Mooney? Brooklyn Prince, the Florida Project. Right. And Richie Tozier is Thin Wolfhard in The It Movies. Thin Wolfhard, terrible actor. Finn Wolfhard, good in the goldfinch, bye. Okay, yes, congratulations. You did the very good.

Terrible. What is wrong with you? I love you, but this is a bridge I cannot cross. Good in the goldfinch. We will talk about other things now. Yeah, we'll talk about the goldfinch eventually. That'll be the boxing episode that we have because it will be fully us just punching each other and fighting. Because I will break you of this bad. Kind of liked it.

Kind of thought it was okay. All right. All right. I love you. I want to talk about the Alliance of Women's Film Journalists for a second. They did not care for this movie. The reception to this movie, it surprises me. This movie is a 69% nice on Rotten Tomatoes. And that surprised me.

I thought I was surprised it was that high. I think a lot of people appreciated the movie while still sort of like dunking on Aronofsky. sort of like threaded that needle, which was kind of interesting. That number's not surprising to me if a good portion of those reviews came out of the festival circuit. But even, okay, we saw this at a festival, though, and like, even that immediate reaction, there was a lot of hatred, like, right off of the bat. There was a lot of, it did get booed at best. I remember more what than hatred. I don't know.

I caught a lot of, like, knee-jerk sort of, like, instant bad reactions. I want to read to you, um, the first. first paragraph of Rex Reed's review. I know every time I dip it to rot tomatoes. What does Rex Reed know what to do when a decision is split on a movie? Right, exactly. Rather than just going against the grain. Rex Reed did not like this movie. The headline is Mother is the worst movie of the year, maybe the century. And his opening paragraph, from the idiotic drug addict Hocum Requiem for a Dream to the overrated, overwrought, and overhyped

Black Swan, which I called a lavishly staged repulsion in toeshoes. This is me, Joe, saying, that sounds amazing. Yeah. The films of Wackjob Darren Aronofsky have shown a dark passion for exploring twisted souls in torment, but nothing he's done

before to poison the ozone layer prepared me for Mother, an exercise in torture and hysteria, so over the top that I didn't know whether to scream or laugh out loud. This is Joe again. That also sounds awesome. That sounds amazing. Stealing ideas from Palanski. Fellini and Kubrick, he's jerry-built

an absurd Freudian nightmare that is more wet dream than bad dream with the subtlety of a chainsaw. That's a fucking stupid quote because what about this movie is Kubrick? I don't see that at all. Also, everything about that makes this movie sound amazing. Right. Everything. Like, good golly. All right. The Alliance of Women Film Journalists really hated this movie. They have

their awards every year. They gave Mother three awards. They were actress most in need of a new agent, Jennifer Lawrence, Hall of shame to Darren Aronofsky, quote, and all associated with mother, and most egregious age difference between the leading man and the love interest for Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem.

I do want to talk about the age difference thing. It's 21 years. 21 years age difference. But doesn't that kind of set up a dynamic? Like, yes, like, if you don't think about it and process it, like, yes, it's off-putting. It's gross. It's, um, it's like, it's commented on within the text. This is, this is back to the point of, it is commented on in the text and not positively.

Um, I don't think it's reinforcing anything about their relationship. And I think it immediately sets up for a dynamic where it's like, you don't want these people to work together. And, like, that's kind of the point. And, like, it goes back to what I was saying earlier that, like, I don't know if that makes the movie work better in that it was chosen intentionally or if it's like this accidental thing that makes all of what Aronovsky is doing work better. He keeps recreating the world with a seemingly younger wife every time. Like, it's definitely a point in the movie and it doesn't, and it's not sympathetic towards the Javier Brideh character. Like, come on, I don't know. Yeah, I don't think anything the movie is doing is reinforcing that as good or showing,

I don't think that this relationship is shown as being anything but toxic, and I don't think that the movie is okay with that. Right. I mean, I understand anybody wanting to have another opinion about it, and, like, I'm sure there's a lot you could pull from this movie because, like, you can, this is a movie designed to be a pulled part for its minutia. but I don't think that the movie If that is being pinpointed as toxic

I don't think that the movie disagrees Yeah I agree with you I think you're on the exact right track about that This also was nominated for three Razzies Unsurprisingly, Worst Director, Worst Actress and Worst Supporting Actor for Burdom Which he also shared with his Pirates of the Caribbean

Dead Men Tell No Tales rule It lost picture and director both to the emoji movie, which, like, the fact that they have a category where, or no, wait, it lost director to emoji movie. emoji movie also wins Best Picture that year at the Razies. But the fact that you have a category where Darrenovsky, Darren Aronovsky from Mother, is, like, in the same breath as the emoji movie, just shows you. A, that the Razzis are stupid, but B, that they sometimes, even beyond just being stupid, have incredibly dull and bad taste. Like, just truly. Right. They just, they like hopping on a pile.

I know I just said this movie has nothing to do with Kubrick, but it does remind me of the Razzies nominating both Kubrick and Shelley DeVall for The Shining, which is absolutely. absolutely stupid. And, like, talk about, like, two creatives who had an incredibly toxic relationship. And, like, Cooper was absolutely in the wrong for how he treated Shelley DeVall. But, like, she's amazing in that movie. And, like, The Shining's one of his best movies. Like, one of the most influential movies ever. And all you need to know about the Razzies is they nominated Jennifer Lawrence for Mother. They nominated Dakota Johnson for 50 Shades Darker, which I've never saw darker, but, like, she's good in 50 Shades of Grey. She's great in those movies.

Like, Dakota Johnson is absolutely built for the Razies to pick on and to completely misunderstand. In that same vein, they nominated Catherine Heigel for Unforgettable, which is not a great piece of, like, trash camp, but like... It's also a sign that everybody in the Razies ranks are heterosexual. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Because clearly you didn't get it.

That we're still picking on Catherine Heigel in 2017 says everything you need to know about the Razzies. But Unforgettable, like, is at least going for trashy fun. Like, it's not, like, I wanted more out of Unforgettable. This is the one where it's her and Rosario Dawson, essentially doing Beyonce and Allie Larder and obsessed. But, like, it's just, like, to nominate it for worst actress. And of course, they all lose to tie. Perry for boo to a Medea Halloween, which I guarantee... Because not only do they hate women, they're homophobic.

Right. Like, also, like, they can't get enough of this joke that we're going to... Fuck the Razies. Give Tyler Perry worst actress. Like, it's... I fucking hate the Razies. We save this all the time. We've given them too much airtime anyway.

However, I do want to ask you the question. What do you think of Javier Bardem's performance in this movie? I think... Because, like, I've read, like, some serious... like critical assessment where they're like actually Javier Bardem is kind of terrible in this movie

I don't think he's terrible I think he's asked to be absent emotionally in this movie a lot Yeah I definitely think it's an essential thing for this movie

to work for these two screen for these screen partners to like not have any chemistry and to not seem like they make sense together like that is essential in making this movie

work but at the same and like I don't think that the role really gives him as much to do obviously as it gives Jennifer Lawrence to do but like at the same time he does weirdly feel a little miscast in what direction would you cast that role differently somebody who is less charismatic than he is like it feels like he's working against his like natural gifts in a way that doesn't complicate that character or this archetype that he's playing. Did anybody give Aronovsky shit for casting, quote, unquote, himself as Javier Bardem? Like, everybody was so ungenerous to Aronovsky throughout that entire reaction to that movie.

I'm not surprised it didn't go in that. I mean, he gave them reason to, again, if they had just put a scarf and, like, a fitted trench coat on Bardam, I think we could have interpreted it differently. Yeah, I don't know about Javier Bardem in this movie. It's my one sticking point. I think he's... I even kind of like Ed Harris, who's like just kind of a bumbling, weepy idiot throughout the movie. Yeah.

I think you're asking from Bardem a lot of... Again, just sort of like absence, inattention. you know, wandering this, like he's... And that's so atypical of what he's good at. Like, he plays people that, like, you side with them or even if they're an outright villain,

they're incredibly compelling. But I think that, that to me is evidence that he is doing a good job, that, like, it's Javier Bardem, and by the end of the movie, you're just, like, you fucking piece of weak, like, shit. Just like, you're so, like, when she, she by the end of this movie is sort of like snarling at his ineffectualness and his, his inability and unwillingness to do anything to keep these people at bay.

And ultimately, the god figure in this movie is revealed to be powerless and ineffectual. And that Javier Bardem is able to sell that to me, I think. think that's, I think that's a good reflection on him and his performance. In my opinion. I'm sure I'll have a lot to marinate on as I continue to watch this movie a million times. Do we want to start sort of going into final thoughts on mother and then we can get into our, as we approach the two-hour mark? Yes. I think, well, I think we can talk a little bit about Oscar, and I do think Paramount is an interesting conversation in this year.

Yeah, this movie really kind of fucked it up for Paramount, did it not? we will be the oral historians of Paramount's disastrous 2017 awards campaign Yeah They had a really Like

When Mother is your best effort For a movie that's so publicly reviled When it's like the best reception of anything What else did they have that year? Just remind me Suburba Khan Which we did an episode on

Made even less money than Mother did Surprise, that's not an F-Cinima score. Yeah. Utter piece of toxic shit. And then they also did another toxic movie in downsizing. Wow. All three of those movies were at Toronto. I saw all three of them there.

We talked about this a little bit in the Suburicon episode about, yeah, yeah. We'll save a little bit of the downsizing talk because, like, we will absolutely eventually do a downsizing episode whenever I can muster the courage to watch that movie again. Right. um downsizing was interesting in that like it played venice tell your ride and toronto and each progressive festival it went to the reaction was getting worse and worse but like you had people in venice saying because i believe it opened venice that year people being like the best movie of the year like these real real high praise for it and then by the time it got to toronto everybody was like that was an absolute nightmare yeah um

not as bad as like waves got where like waves had like incredible like support out of telluride and then right and like people are saying it's an oscar movie and then when it gets to toronto and then by the time of opening people were like i don't know about this movie things are like divided with that movie but by the time downsizing opened like that was absolutely like noxious yeah the fumes coming off of it and then so shortly after this awards campaign is when they sell off Cloverfield Paradox to Netflix and right? That was the progression and they sold something else to someone too, right? They like, they seemed for a while that they were just like going to get out of the theatrical. Yes, that's what it was. Annihilation, they sold all of the overseas rights to Netflix

and then they still opened it here. It seemed for a minute like they might go under, right? And there was a lot of of stuff with um i'm bad at like the business end of this kind of stuff honestly but like there was a lot of there was a lot of talk that like this might be the end of paramount and it was it was a tricky time whereas like maybe if they had pushed an annihilation to be their christmas movie like who knows people want to show up to see that movie at that time i would have loved to have seen what annihilation would have done if it opened at a different part of the year than February yeah it's a tough movie so like I can't imagine it would have gone all the way with Oscar to like nominations outside of maybe like visual effects because like it's nothing but a depression and suicide allegory guys but right I do feel like sound and visual effects could have been getable if you release that movie in November I don't know like it's not gonna I don't know that's a movie that what that I get the point of we're gonna release it early in the year and let people sort of meriting on it and discover it and I think that's a movie that what that I get the point of we're going to release it early in the year and let people sort of meriting on it and discover it and I

think that is definitely a movie that benefits from watching it multiple times, but yeah, ultimately, that's never going to be, you know, 2001 a Space Odyssey. Like, in terms of Oscar success, it's just not going to happen. Yeah. I don't know. As far as like putting the button on the mother conversation, I think we are evidence of people who I think this movie does better if you go into it more blind or at least open to whatever it's going to throw at you than having some type of expectation of what it is. It's kind of wild to me that obviously Aronovsky because of Black Swan, which is really such an Oscar anomaly for this like movie that made $100 million and is

what it is that it could carry it onto like early buzz and like predictions for like I guess it's just hilarious to me with what this movie ended up being that we ever considered it in that way at all yeah it's but again like you see why it looks good on paper um it's but yeah you're right in the in retrospect it's very kind of funny um I'm paging through my notes I want to mention very quickly the sound design in this movie is amazing like the ways in which like voices get muffled and the house is making sounds everything we're like the whenever the diamond is in the room there's this weird like chimie sound effect that sounds like if you're dropping coins into a bucket of coins um and that persists even later in the movie when they

go into that room so she can deliver the baby. And the diamond is obviously gone by this point. It's been destroyed. But even still, whenever in that, they're in that room, that little chimie sound effect remains. It's so, like, it's weird. You don't know what's going on. If you want to, like, really get the full, like, sound experience of, like, this movie sounded incredible in a theater, but, like, this sounds kind of basic as a recommendation. Watch this movie with headphones in, because it's intense. That's how, like, I watched it on my computer this time. Yeah.

And with headphones felt like a really, like, attuned experience to every bit of minutia of what's going on in the sound design of this movie. And it's, like, very meticulous and very unsettling. Yeah. The other thing I wrote down that we haven't talked about is in the second home invasion of the movie, when things are really, really getting bad, she picks up the phone and calls 911. And I literally just wrote down, oh, no, another white woman calling the cops.

Oh, Jesus Christ. Obviously, that didn't play into the movie at all. But I was just saying that's where we are at in our current moment. Anyway, any more thoughts from you? Yeah, love this movie. Would have also nominated it for production design. Oh, absolutely. The house is amazing.

They filmed it in, I want to say, Quebec. on a set I have one of those she-she art books that like details the set and the shooting specifically of the home invasion sequence and it's just kind of staggering

yeah I love this movie I hope people end up revisiting it in years to pass and it's like I hope its legacy is not Aronovsky's ego I think this movie deserves an assessment that isn't quite so obsessed with Aronovsky and Lawrence as a couple.

I think. Yeah. That's what I will say. I'm not going to be all justice for Darren Aronovsky. He's fine. But, like, I do feel like there was a fundamental ungenerousness towards him in the movie that I think. That he also seems.

completely ill-prepared for in terms of doubling down and explaining the movie that I also think, like, that's another reason why I would like there to be a reassessment of the movie eventually, because, like, just because he says this is what the movie is about doesn't mean that's how you have to take that this is what this movie is about, or you can't have jumping off points that don't fit inside his box of interpretation. But again, in that way, I don't think he's very much different than a lot of writer-director-autors of his ilk. Like, I really don't. I mean, sure. The bit of nuance I would push back on is, I don't think there's a whole lot of filmmakers coming out so explicitly saying what they think their movie is. I see, and I will say, I think if what he was saying the movie was about wasn't, that it's an ecological fable, people would have accepted it differently. People would have at least brushed past it.

I think because he was saying it's a fable, it's an allegory about Mother Earth, people thought that sounded silly and didn't want to. Well, and even two and a half years ago, general consensus about climate change was still even very different than what it is today in terms of acceptability and like open discussion and acceptance. Like I, I, even if it was subconscious, I would probably argue that him saying this is what this movie is about and people not wanting to deal with that or approach it

or accept it as fact played into some subconscious hate for the movie. Yeah, I think that's true. Maybe that's cynical of me to say, but I'm sure that's some of the visceral reaction. You can't tell me what to think, dad. Let's move on into, so it's our 100th episode, as we've mentioned, quite a few times. And to commemorate this, one of our mailbags that we had done previously asked us to choose our best, essentially, what's our Oscar ballot from the pool of films that we had covered up to that point? And so we thought, with this being our 100th episode, that we would do that task again, culling from all 100 films that we have. talked about on this had Oscar buzz. And since we are very comfortable, very comfortable with

being self-indulgent, we will do that now, Chris. And I think we said that we would do it again, but I forget what the marker was. And we were like, you know what, it's the 100th episode. We probably will be doing our ballots again at some point in the future. So we're just doing all 100. Sorry if we promised something else previously. This is what we want to do now. All right. So I have a top 10 films, and then I have five in each of the acting categories. Okay. I have the same.

All right. Do you want to lead off with our favorite category best supporting actress? Sure. Let's do that. Hold on one second. I'm just putting these so I'm rearranging so I can do my best picture choices alphabetically. Ah. I ranked mine. I'm just going to do mine as ranked, but go with God. I'll do alphabetical. I think if you listen back, you could probably figure out what my rankings are.

All right. Best Supporting Actress, for me, I have, in alphabetical order, at the Lady Shablee for Midnight and the Garden of Good and Evil. It's a wonderful pick. I have Anna Devere Smith for the Human Stain. Yes. I have Brittany Murphy for riding in cars with boys. It's a great pick. Naomi Watts, not from our Naomi Watts miniseries, but Naomi Watts and IHeart Huckabees. Uh-huh.

And Oprah Winfrey for Lee Daniels the Butler. I'm going to tell you, we have three in common. All right off of the bat. Give me your five. I have also Anna DeVier-Smith in The Human Stain. I have Naomi Watts in I Heart Huckabees. So good. And I also have Oprah Winfrey and Lee Daniels the butler.

To those, I add, I'm pretty, my recency bias in this category is showing. I have Hope Davis in Proof, which we discussed last week. And I have Michelle Pfeiffer in Mother. I almost put Michelle Pfeiffer in there. So of your five, who would win? Of those five, I would probably give it to Naomi for I Heart Huckabees. Not a bad winner. I am almost tempted to give a tie, but my winner's

going to be Britney Murphy and riding cars with boys. That's a good one. I had a couple. I'm tempted to give it to the Lady Shabli. No, there's no bad, there's no bad option there. I did have to leave off a few. I just did want to mention. Audra McDonald was a close sixth for Ricky in the Flash.

She was on my long list too. My long list. Who else did I? Hold on. Let me flip a page. My long list had Roma Mafia for Double Jeopardy. Amazing. Kim Basinger for Prediporte.

Shirley McLean for in her shoes I think next time we do this I'll have Basinger on there I knew I was leaving someone off on there I mean it's impossible not to Kirsten Dunstan Maggie Gillenholl and Mona Lisa smile Awesome Sigourney Weaver in the Ice Storm

I did have Sigourney Weaver in there I had Shirley McLean in there that you had I had Audra MacDonald I also had Bibi Nilworth for Tadpole It's a good one Nicole Kidman for the Paperboy If anybody's going to pee on him, it's going to be me. If anybody's going to pee on him, it's going to be me.

Rosario Dawson for rent, Beyonce for Cadillac Records, and Cher for burlesque. I was wondering if you would put Cher on your list. I'm actually kind of mad that I didn't put Kim Basinger from Prediportez. She's so great. She's so good in that. It's truly that she should have her Oscar for Prediporte. Okay. Best Supporting Actor, Ali.

off this time. I have, this was a tough one for me. This one, I had a seven wide list that was very tough to lop two off of. But my five ended up being Morgan Freeman for Nurse Betty, Jude Law for Iheart Huckabees, Matthew McConaughey for Magic Mike, Mark Ruffalo for Zodiac, although also you could have him for in the cut, but I have him primarily for Zodiac, and Mark Wahlberg for I Hard Huckabees. Fantastic. We overlap on three again. Nice. My lineup would be James Gandalfini for enough said.

Jude Lough right, Hart Huckabees, Matthew McConaughey for Magic Mike, Mark Ruffalo for Zodiac, and Jeffrey Wright for Cadillac Records. It's really good. Yeah, I had, my long list had Gandalfini and also Ben Wishaw for Cloud Atlas, and those were two very late cuts for me. also jean hackman for get shorty was on my long list yeah i debated some get shorty on there

get shorty was like a very close to not being a nominee in like several categories for me i will say like it was my 11th film it was my sixth best actor yeah i would give the win to mccaneh i would give the win to jude law for huckabees both of my supporting wins would be for huckabees but mcana hay is a close second i think that's a good lineup that's like supporting actor lineups are notoriously uh i bitch about them all the time but like these would be really good lineups for any of those all right absolutely i'll lead us off with actress yes do that uh also hard to pare down yes jesus christ yes imagine uh i think we're gonna have some overlap here however i do think so i agree i'm not fully happy with my best

actress lineup i feel like it could be a little bit more exciting but like when i'm was true to like what I wanted to actually pick. This is what it ended up being. I have Joan Allen for the Ice Storm. Cameron Diaz for In Her Shoes. Julia Louis Dreyfus for enough said. Nicole Kidman for the others. And Meg Ryan for In the Cut.

We overlap four for five in this one. We're really, our minds. Our minds indeed. I had a lot of, I almost put Jennifer Lawrence for Mother on this. I didn't. I almost put Joan Allen on this for the Ice storm as you did. I almost put Ashley Judd for

Double Jeopardy on this, but I have just like you, I have Cameron Diaz and in her shoes, Nicole Kidman in the others, Julia Louis Dreyfus in enough said, and Meg Ryan in the cut and to that I have my one double nominee on this ballot, Michelle Pfeiffer, for

Frankie and Johnny. Almost put her on there too. Yeah. It's a good long list. I mean, Zell Weger and Nurse Betty, Tony Collette in her shoes would be great. and Proof, Shirley MacLean and the Evening Star, Jessica Chastain and Miss Sloan, Blanchett and Truth. It's a good list. Who are you giving it to?

Oh, gosh. I know. It's kind of hard. I, again, I would be down for a tie for my ballot, but I think I'm giving it to Cameron Diaz with my runner-up being McRyan. I think Cameron Diaz is my runner-up to Kidman for the others. But, like, I don't know, though. I do fucking love Cameron Diaz and in her shoes. Maybe I agree with you.

Maybe that's what it is. It's a very tight race. It's a very tight five-way race. Just imagine a real-life scenario where either the four that we have in common and then either Fyfer or who's your fifth one again? Joan Allen. Joan Allen. Right. Like either one of those lineups in a real-life scenario would be utterly amazing.

Mm-hmm. All right. All right. I'll lead off with Best Actor. Actor, so unsurprisingly, the easiest one to pair down for me. In fact, I was, my fifth place won. I'm like, I don't know. Anyway.

Jeff Bridges for The Door and the Floor. Jake Jillen Hall for Zodiac. Channing Tatum for Magic Mike. Forrest Whitaker for Lee Daniels the Butler and Robin Williams for one-hour photo. we only overlap on two here I have Jeff Bridges the door in the floor Nicholas Cage bringing out the dead

Mark Ruffalo in the cut my only double nominee Channing Tatum Magic Mike and Denzel Washington courage under fire Denzel was also on my long list Travolta was on my long list for get shorty Jillen Hall also on my list for brothers

and We've done a lot of Jillen Hall We didn't mention it the last episode, but you text me like, we've maybe done as much Jillenhall as we've done Claire Daines. I don't think it's that much, but we have done a lot. Our Jillenhalls are proof. Love another drugs. Love another drugs.

Rendition. Rendition Brothers Zodiac. That's five already. We've got like six Claire Daines. Right. But, like, it's close. Like, it's real close. And, like, there are other Jillon Halls that we'll end up doing.

Yeah. It's worth keeping an eye on, for sure. All right. Best film. You've done yours alphabetically. I've done mine ranked 1 to 10. I love the chaos of this. I love the discord.

It's truly appropriate, given this episode. We agree too much on this movie, this episode. We need to find chaos and discord where we can. All right. And not just in the 60-second plot description. All right, why don't you list yours alphabetical And then I'll come at it with the ranking All right, cool, my alphabetical rankings for the best

10 best films that we have covered Bringing out the Dead The Door and the Floor Enough Said The Ice Storm I heart Huckabies In her shoes In the Cut

Mother, the Others And then my winner would be Zodiac all right I think that is I was trying to count how many similarities we have but maybe you can while I go

all right all right I almost now want to tinker ooh-hoo no you have to do you have to give me what your list was otherwise Kim Basinger

would be on my supporting actor that's true no that's true okay all right mine are number 10 is mother number nine Nine is cloud atlas.

Number eight is in the cut. Seventh is enough said. Sixth is the ice storm. Fifth is in her shoes. Fourth is the others. Third is I heart Huckabee's. Second is where the wild things are. And my number one is also Zodiac.

We overlapped on eight titles. Amazing. Amazing. And I almost had the door on the floor. I was really, really teetering on whether I wanted the door on the floor. crazy milestone 100 episodes joe we've talked about a lot of movies we sure have when we first started a ton in the hopper like you guys we are not running out anytime soon i will say that we're not yeah we're we're still this is a marathon not a sprint when we first started and i was explaining

the concept to people like in my social circle of what it is they're like yeah but that's not going to be a lot of movies and i'm like oh you fool because when i remember things like I think one of my examples that I'm like we're probably not you know

running on fumes until we get to like creation the Paul Bettney movie yes exactly that's exactly the kind of movie

you'll know the death now is coming when we get to creation guys when we end up doing the vintner's wife that's when you'll know we haven't even

gotten to things like Goya's ghosts bagger Collateral Beauty Indeed, collateral beauty, yeah. Okay, so we've done all these movies. I want to take just a short time to reflect back on some of them. Do you have episodes that you fully forget we did?

Oh, yes. Going through this, I, wait, there's one... I forget what movie it was one time. You were like, we could do this. And I'm like, buddy, we've done that. I fully always forget that we've done an episode on the Fifth Estate. absolutely can never, ever, ever remember that one. I forget that we did Summersby.

I will never forget Summersby. I know that if I'm thinking back, especially early episodes, that that was a good episode. But I fully forgot that we did that when I was doing my research for this. Yep. I don't know. Random Hearts. It's tough to remember Random Hearts.

Random Hearts is the episode where we were fully circling the drain of like, oh, God, what are we going to talk about? with this movie we hated. I think we spent probably a good 20% of that episode talking about that department store scene. Yes, that's right. Now I, okay, now that you've mentioned that. Also, I remember not a single thing we had to say about 1492 Conquest of Paradise. We talked a lot about Enigma. Oh, sure. Of course we did. Yeah. Yeah, 100 episodes. It's a lot. I stand by all of them. I stand by everything I've ever said in any of them.

Yeah. We also, I want to take a moment, and I know you do too, to shout out our many guests we've had over these 100 episodes. We have had some really fantastic people talking to us about various movies. We love you all. Just want to take a second to shout out Nick Davis, Nathaniel Rogers, Katie Rich, David Sims, Tara Ariano, Gavin Meevius, Bowen-Yang, Bobby Finger, Pamela Ribbon, Nate Jones, Richard Lawson, Eric Mann, Kevin O'Keefe, Jordane Searles, Danita Steinberg, Cameron Sheets, Matt Jacobs, Matthew Rodriguez, Kevin Jacobson, Oliver Saba, Griffin Newman, Rob Shearer. Just all of you. We love you all. We love you all. Thank you for joining us on this crazy journey. Hopefully we'll have some guests back soon. Joe, is there anything that you are all. so excited about that we didn't mention title-wise that you hope to hit another milestone with.

We were saving this movie for a big milestone. What are some like milestone movies that you can think of? Oh, like the big ones, like the big hitters that were still out there? Listen, guys, we got, I know when we've done like listeners choice, nobody ever goes for the shipping news. Sorry you're going to deal with us doing this shipping. Please let us do the shipping news at some point. We're dying for it. We really want to do it. We've done 2001 too recently, but we're doing the two news. Also, and I know we just this week did a Michelle Fifeer movie, but I want to do a thousand acres so bad. I don't know why I want to do a thousand acres so bad, but I really do. I'm surprised nobody guessed that we would be doing a thousand acres for episode 100. I don't think anybody said that, because I think we've been saying since

episode one, we would be doing a thousand acres. And the other one is the one I always mention with, uh, if in the event that we ever do, do a live show, which again, just imagining people gathering in a place is so science fiction to me at this point. But it's an idea we've had in our long-range, you know, sites. No definite plan, certainly for it. Big dreams. Maybe one day we'll do a live show. And if we do, I've always said, that's the collateral beauty moment is to do that.

So we'll see. We'll see how it goes. If we do collateral beauty, Ashin and Evans, you are coming on and you are talking about that movie with us. because you made me watch that movie. Don't forget to notice it. Collateral beauty fam. All of that.

Get in my mentions. Exactly. All right. 100 episodes. We've kept these people hostage for two and a half hours. We should let them go. Thank you all, all of our listeners. You guys, we love you.

You rule. Thank you for supporting us. Thanks for sticking around for 100 episodes or joining late, going back to old episodes. Either way. we really appreciate your support and sticking to our lovely bunch of coconuts that we call

a podcast. Indeed. Oh, shit. Chris, we still have an IMDB game to do. We should read... Oh, boy. We got this. We got this.

Chris, quickly as possible, tell them how we do the IMDB game. All right, the IMDB game. That's how we end every episode, 100 of them now with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try to the top four titles that IMDB says they're most known for.

If any of the titles are television or voiceover work, we mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. If that's not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints and home invasions of people breaking your sinks and trashing your walls and killing your baby. Indeed. All right, I'm going to quiz you first. You're not going to get a choice. I picked from Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, a title I can never say without sounding like Elmer Fudd. from Requiem for a Dream, the star of that movie, actually, besides Best Actress nominee, Ellen Burstyn, is Jared Leto, so give me Jared Lettow.

All right, Suicide Squad. Yes. Dallas Byers Club. Yes. Is there television? No. All right. What else has he been terrible in?

Well, is Requiem for a Dream in there? Yes, I got you, bitch. Ah. You always think that. that that's a trap. It is not something I intentionally do. Um, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Blade Runner 2049. No.

Ooh. Um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, like, year is 19 98. I did not remember him being in this movie. I'm sure he's in this movie for like half a second. Uh, what, okay, so this is, this is even before fight club. Um, um, there's a lot of people in this movie for like half a second. Like, like, the cast list is full of names, but like, I defy you to remember more than a few of them in this movie. Damn, I was going to say

Urban Legend next. No, far more prestigious than Urban Legend. Yeah, I mean Rebecca Gayheart and Tara Reid does not count as a bunch of names. I don't know. What were the big prestigious movies?

Is it an Oscar movie? It is. He's not in Shakespeare in love. He's not in Saving Private Ryan. It would be really funny if he was in life as beautiful, but he is not. I guess there's a lot of names in the thin red line. He's in the thin red line. Of course he is.

Yep. It's the thin red line. Weirdly enough, that's the fourth Jared Leto known for. Psychotic, but here we are. Well, I also went down a similar route as you. However, I went with Darren Aronofsky's other mothers. No, I did not choose Barbara Hershey because she has a movie that even I have not heard of on her known for, so I wasn't going to do that to you. I went with the other Darren Aronovsky mother.

I went with Ellen Burstyn. You did go with Ellen Burstyn. Okay. Is Requiem one of them? Yes, it is. Is Alice doesn't live here anymore one of them? Yes, it is. Okay.

Is the Exorcist one of them? Yes. Okay. Now this fourth one is going to be fucking bug nuts, I can tell. Okay. Um, Ellen Burstyn. What's like something she's been, and it's not television, right? Not television.

Okay. Alan Burstyn. God, now all I can think of is the Wicker Man, because we were talking about the Wicker Man earlier. Oh, gosh. I'm not going to get you against. You don't even have one. Did you say Yaya? Yeah.

No. Oh, damn it. It would have been really funny. It's probably something where, like, she plays somebody's mom and, like, gives, like, really good advice or something. You think she's played a lot of those roles. She really hasn't. She really hasn't. Maybe that's more television.

And even still, when she plays somebody's mom on television, it's usually just, like, she's a pistol. The Burst, Ellen Burstin. What if we've called her that? What if that was our fun little nickname for Alan. I'll give you not a hint, but I'll throw one out there that I think you might use as your next guess. Old Murph is not on here. Oh, damn it. Old Murph!

Actually, it's not Old Murph. It's Murph in parentheses older. If I ever do the movie character name for an Ellen Burstyn movie movie, know this. that I will absolutely pull out old mirth, like one million percent. MIRF. I've never had more fun with anything that I've had with old Murf. So good. All right.

It's got to be something recent, right? It's got to be. It's like, oh, she's in another Aronovsky movie. Is it The Fountain? It is not the Fountain. Your year is 1971. Motherfucker. Okay, 71, so before the Oscar, oh, it's the last picture show.

It is the last picture show. All of her known for is her performances she was nominated for. That's amazing. Ellen Berson Rules, Joseph, I love you, happy 100. Can't believe we almost forgot about the IMDB game. Okay, that finally is our episode. Chris, I love you too. If you want more of This Had Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this hadoscurbuzz.com.

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