This Had Oscar Buzz - 100 Years, 100… Snubs! – Part One

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

It’s May miniseries time, Garys! And we’re doing something a little different! In 1998, the AFI compiled a list of the 100 greatest American films of all time, and turned the list into a primetime special complete with famous faces and a schmaltzy Trisha Yearwood song. It was such a success, the AFI continued to … Continue reading "100 Years, 100… Snubs! – Part One"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hacks. I'm from Canada. I'm from Canada water. We're here tonight to celebrate movies, American movies. They provide us with our ticket to dream.

To many of us, our personal time capsule made up of hopes, dreams, fantasies, and fears. This kaleidoscope of emotions that we call the movie affirms our values, questions our beliefs, establishes our heroes and heroines, and takes us on a trip to places that we'd never imagine we'd ever travel. Hello, I'm Laura Linney. And I'm Jody Foster. And welcome to this head Oscar Buzz Film Institute presents 100 years, 100 snubs. Every week on this head Oscar buzz, you usually hear us talk about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we're here to perform the autopsy, but for this May miniseries, we're

doing something a little different. Every week in May, we'll be looking back and choosing the 100 greatest Oscar snubs of all time. And we'll have some special guests calling in to offer their choice for snub's submissions. I'm your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with my Ticket to Dream sung by Trisha Yearwood, Joe Reed. Chris, we're finally here. We're finally here. We're finally here. Our most ambitious main minis series ever.

Yes. Wondering what I'm guessing was the Chinese Gromond Theater. What's our version of that? Oh, gosh. I mean, it's got to be... It's us like solemnly walking through the Scotia Bank. We're in the empty Roy Thompson Hall. Walking through Scotia 11 or something. Right. Oh, like one of the small Scotia theaters. Yeah, that's exactly it. No, what we do is we record all our bumpers while ascending the escalator of the Scotia Bank. theater. Like, all it is is just, like, one endless, like, escalator opening. I'm Jody Foster. Welcome to, um, it'd be weird to, uh, to do this very American list in a Canadian theater, of course. Listen, she was very clear. I, the Yelp that left my body when I watched

the, uh, listeners, we are making joke of if you have not, uh, seen it yet, we will be putting it on the Tumblr. It exists on YouTube. The entire AFI 100 years 100 movies. And it opens with not only the most demented schmaltzy Tricia Yearwood song. Tremendous. And then a clip roll. And then Jody Foster enters into a theater and does this whole monologue about what we are here to talk about today. And she, it starts very, you know, but at this point, you know, Sean Connery, the movies is a little tired. We should be talking about Jody Foster in the AFI, 100 movies where she's like,

American, no, what's she's like. We're here to talk about movies. American movies, she says. Freedom fries herself, Jody Foster. Listen. Jody Mission Accomplished Foster. It's not called the United Nations Film Institute. It is called the American Film Institute.

And Jody wanted to make sure we knew the parameters that we were. She said, don't you bother snail mailing me with your where the hell is fucking Godard or whatever because she won't like she speaks fluent french we know that she's been in french cinema does she have french citizenship she is talking out of both sides of her mouth here miss foster she says don't you comp you serve me talking about antonioni i am going to be talking about american movies in this special um which wasn't all american movies in that it was i forget okay yeah that was the parameters the parameters was the one hundred greatest american films of all time for the American Film Institute.

Listeners, Gary's, don't be mad at us for our choices. Be mad at the AFI. They did worse than us. I guarantee it. Yes, although here's what I will say. I am not here to, first of all, we're not breaking down the AFI list. That is not what our main miniseries is. Well, we'll explain those parameters in a second.

But I just want to say, the 1998 AFI 100 films, 100 years 100 movie. list is an imperfect document, but it is glorious in its imperfectness. I am not here to be like, that list is dumb because it didn't have X, Y, and Z. That list was a snapshot of the American film canon at that point in time, and I feel like it was probably a pretty accurate one of where things were at the time. And, like, it's, it's, you know, I'm not here to say that it should have been, you know, hear any other things, right? Those were the hundred movies.

It's an important window into where things were going. And, hey, who am I to argue with a panel that by the looks of the talking heads on that special include the likes of Brooke Shields and Larry King and Bill Clinton and Walter Cronkeye? And David Fucking Copperfield. Listen, they talk to all the important Americans of that moment. They even had Donald Trump and. that real. We're not going to talk about it, but I was like, oh, you can't have anything nice. No, it's true. He literally shows up, like, throughout, like, it's fucking, uh, forest gump through,

through weird American cultural history, where you sort of go backwards. Um, but no, it's, it's an interesting special. You get, you get really, you know, some really interesting talking heads, actually. You get William Friedkin and Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg and, um, and like I said, share because I, I, I like the fact that, like, I know that, like, share was really of the godfather. Like, that's really, like, I like that. That was very cool. Isn't she Italian?

Uh, so good question. Sure. Sure. Sure. Share is all things. Share belongs to all of us. She is the Barbie of the gay community.

She's everything. She's everything. She is all heritage and backgrounds. Yeah. Yeah. Let's, let's contextualize what we're doing here. Let's do. Let's do.

It is the May mini series for this year. Our May mini series, we have, we are breaking. Our fourth. fourth or fifth May miniseries. How many May? I believe our fifth. Motherfucker. Okay. So every May we've done a focus. We did the year 2003. We did the work of Naomi Watts. We did focus features. We did last year starting to break the mold. We talked about entertainment weekly movie previews, fall movie previews, summer movie previews, etc. But those episodes were as much about the movie preview as the movie preview as the

the movie that we focused on, that was the, you know, the headlining movie of that movie preview. And we really enjoyed kind of breaking the mold of it and, you know, making the miniseries be kind of its own beast and its own kind of obsessive freak show quality. And we heard from a lot of listeners who really liked that we were doing something different and out of left field, you know, using the miniseries as an excuse to break our own mold. We are doing that here today for the whole month of May, five episodes. Five weeks, baby.

I mean, like, it's very true to what, like, we talk about, but maybe provides us an opportunity to do something listeners have wanted from the very beginning. And that's, you know, have some targeted conversation around movies that, because of our normal format where we do a movie that has zero nominations, We can talk about different movies. Maybe we can talk about some other movies. Yes. But we're going to be doing, we have a list of 100 snubs, 50 chosen by Joe, 50 chosen by me. And then we're going to have some of your treasured guests calling in, throwing in their own picks for the biggest snub of all time, or just a personal snub they think belongs on the list. Now, does that mean that we have more than 100?

Yes. have we ever claimed to be good at math? No. No. No. So you, listener, can decide. Also, when we say 100 years, 100 snubs, we are in no way beholden to the 100-year time frame in any way.

We do not go far, we do not go as far back as 1923. We do not limit ourselves to nothing before 1923. We are using 100 years purely for the video. For the- For the symmetry, yes, exactly. Well, and clearly a reference, a nod to the AFI list, which is just kind of a loose topic and framework, you know, I think had we done a mini-series that was like movies that made that list that we could talk about, I feel like it would be hard to still tribute the list. It would feel like any other month, kind of, if we did, you know, five movies or whatever that showed up on the list that got zero-off. Oscar nominations, you know? Much like a second grader, when we say 100 years, what we mean is a very long time.

That's all. That's just, you know, that's, we are, yes. But yeah, so the idea is 100 years, 100 snubs, any performance, craft achievement, film, director, any possible nomination that didn't happen from any. movie that we decide is one of the 100 most egregious snubs in our hearts, then we will present those, and we've got some rules, which we'll get into. We do love a rubric. We've got to give a framework to this. We can't be fully loose-goosey-goose. Listen, no. We can't be fully loose-goose ludic-goose. Let loose? Not here. Not here, baby. Listen, we will be letting loose. You can trust and believe we will let loose.

But we will let loose within... Not only will we let loose. We will definitely say which snubs were high, low. We will be very clear about that. We will be very clear about what snub is second place. No, no. Who we think was third place? No.

No. No. Was low safe? Can't do low safe. We've got to break it down. I'm not doing low safe. I'm not doing it. I refuse.

However, we are going to culminate. Yes. With both of our picks, at the end of this May miniseries, our personal picks for the greatest Oscar snub of all time. This is not a ranked list. This is not going to be a ranked list. We are not counting down from 100. We are just presenting our 100, except our final pick will be each of our chosen number one. Yes.

We're not doing the full ranking. We just got, we have to have some momentum. We have to have something for you to look forward to to guess. maybe what we're going to say. We love hearing chatter of what you think we're going to do. Yes. We love hearing a dissatisfied, um, uh, uh, kvetching about what we haven't chosen. Yes.

If you are upset that we did not put your pet project in here or you think we have, listen, I know what the list is. We know what's coming. That's right. I do think that there is one or two, that maybe there's some reason for us to talk about why it's not there. But we might also have, at the end of this mini-series, the 100-year-100-snubs-snubs. Oh, that's next May. That's next May. We do 100-years-100-snubs-snubs.

The snubs that did not make the list of our list of snubs. Listen. My snub, my 100 years of snubs is snubbing, yes. One thing we learned doing this project, I feel like it's safe to say, Chris, is that, Well, 100 years is representative of a very long time, 100 snubs is a very small number. Brutal. Brutal. Do you know how many darlings I had to kill? Many, many, many.

And, like, peek behind the curtain. We also were like, okay, so we're going to separately come up with a loose list that I think once we're personally both reaching 100, we're like, oh, shit, this is already hard. I already know I'm at an incongruous number. I believe I texted you. I was like, I'm already at like 120, and I am not done making my long list. Exactly. So we figured out where we crossed paths, where we had the same things, and that number was very few.

Yeah. So if you think that something essential is not here, trusted believe, we tried to get it there. But 100 is not a large number. All right, so why don't you explain to our phenomenal listeners what the ground rules are for this list of 100 snubs? So the first rule, we are only having one snub per category per year that it was selected. Right. No more than one. We're not doing one snub for every category every year, but there will be no more than one. If a guest, you know, throws in something that is like, say Joe has a best actor candidate from 2001 and another, a guest does, that's fine. We'll get that's their business.

We'll allow that. That's, you know, listeners can decide if the guests' submissions are canon or not, you know. They are. Our guests are, our guests are value. Of course, they're canon. But I think if you decide that the guest submissions are canon, It also means you decide you don't know. You don't care about math.

You can't be confined to concepts such as numbers. Yeah, no. We are, yeah. Math is for the weak-minded. That was my review of a beautiful mind, by the way. Yeah. So, yes. So on top of that, when we mention our.

snub pick. We are also going to be giving the boot to one of the nominees. We are going to replace that nominee. We are rewriting. One of the real life nominees that was really nominated. Yes. What should we call it if the person we're replacing actually won that Oscar? If we're giving the boot to the winner, that's the house down boot. That is the house down boot. It's the Naomi, no, it's the Nomi Malone understudy. Fine. Yes.

The winner takes it all and goes home. That's the, yes. Yeah, we can boot any of the five nominees that we choose, including the one who actually won. But we are, we are, in that way, it's a more rigorous

intellectual exercise where if we're going to say that something deserved to be nominated, we got to put our money where I'm out and say something's got to go. I have also instituted, I have kind of strong-armed that we will have a rule called the Nicole Page-Brooks rule, the Nicole Page-Brooks vote. So before you explain that, Chris, I'm just going to allow the readers to go with me on the journey of when Chris says the Nicole Page-Brooks rule, do you immediately think that Chris's rule is that I can jump in and say that this is just malicious faggotry? and shut down the discussion, or is it what Chris really intended, which is... Or is it that you have to determine which nominees should get a French manicure on their toes?

No, what's really the Nicole Pagebrook's rule? You send all these bitches home. Yeah, you can, yeah, we reserve the right to send them all home, to start fresh and only our nominee. You don't tell Rue which one you're eliminating. Send them all home. Give it to me. Give it to this person. Now that we have referenced the most important drag queen in all of...

Will the Nicole Page-Brook's vote get thrown into the mix here? Will it happen? Will I do it? Will Joe do it? Will we both do it? Stay tuned. Stay tuned. Five weeks, babies.

We're gearing up. All right. 20 snubs per episode. So we should probably not waste any more time. No, let's get into it. All right, Ms. Linney. Also, we're going to try to not have multiple mentions of a movie, of an actor, an actress, a crafts person. We're spreading the well.

Spread the will. We're not going to have a full episode of Nicole Kidman's snubs. Right, exactly, exactly. Well, while we get into it, Mr. Reed, would you like to give us your first snub? I carry your heart I carry it in my heart number well we're not numbering these so it's not number 100 but the first film

from our 100 years 100 snubs I wanted to pick someone who was definitional to our mission statement this is someone from a movie that we have covered on this podcast before they won't all be but this one is I have chosen from the best actress category in 2005, Ms. Cameron Diaz from In Her Shoes.

We have discussed this movie before. We love this movie. Curtis Hansen's in her shoes. Cameron Diaz, Tony Collette playing sisters. They're at odds. Cameron moves down to Florida. She lives in the retirement community. She learns how to read. she learns how to shop for old people and make them look. Well, she doesn't learn. She already knew how to shop, honey.

But she makes some money. Instead of fleecing her wonderful grandmother out of her cash, she decides to start a business shopping for old people. It is a wonderful movie. It is, to me, the movie that most shows how much Cameron Diaz really does have in her Arsenal, that we talk a lot about her being an underrated actress through the years, and an underappreciated actress, even though she's, you know, had Golden Globe nominations and has had roles for which she's been praised.

In her shoes, interestingly enough, got some awards attention for Shirley McLean, deservedly, and I think had some awards buzz for Tony Collette. And I think a lot of people just sort of Cameron Diaz was the other one in the movie, even though the more times they see that movie, which is many, The more impressive she is. She harnesses her own sort of screen persona, which is, you know, intimidatingly beautiful. I'm not going to say that her screen persona is like dumb blonde, but like there are aspects to her that could be, you know, categorize that way, right? And she uses that and uses all of those sort of perceptions about herself in a,

very canny way in this performance. So I know I love this performance. Are you saying she's a Mavis Gary who can't read her right? Kind of a little bit. Yeah. Yes. I think maybe I think she's she's not as irredeemably mean as Mavis Gary is but um she's she's got a heart there. She's she wants to do right by uh by her especially by her sister.

And there's a lot of there's a lot of colors to this performance. There's a lot of aspects. She She's petty and she's, you know, sad and she's fiercely loyal and she's maddening and she's kind of everything in that movie. And I really love her. And talking about, should I get, should I let you weigh in on Cameron Diaz before I talk about who I'm booting from the 2005 Best Actress lineup? How do we do this? How do we want to do this? I am interested to hear who you are kicking out of the lineup.

I will say this is, I love that you chose this. your first one. This feels like such a Joe Reed first pick. It's wonderful. It is. But also it gives us room to say there's a lot of things that we have whole entire episodes on in our backlog that we could include here. Yeah, go find there in her shoes

episode. So like picking those that we've talked about before, like felt kind of semi-definitive, but also like in a way we can say you can go back to the whole episode if we included in this list. But like if we don't, chances are we

have a whole episode where we were praising that thing. So if it's not in this list. I want to tell people what number episode to go find. And give me a second. In Her Shoes was during the pandemic. Was it? I think. Oh, gosh.

Feels like everything was during the pandemic. I mean, half of this podcast was in the pandemic. Oh, my God. Okay. In her shoes was not during the pandemic. That baby was early 2019. It was episode 76. So go back and find our episode 76 to talk about in her shoes.

Okay. So the 2005 best actress race, that was the one where Reese Witherspoon wins for Walk the Line. I am on the record as being happy for Reese Witherspoon winning an Oscar. I think she's good in Walk the Line. Probably not an Oscar winner if I'm voting from, like, everybody that year. But, like, I have no quarrel with Reese in Walk the Line. Other nominees are Judy Dench in Mrs. Henderson Presents, Felicity Huffman in Transamerica, Kira Knightley in Pride and Prejudice, Charlize Theron in North Country.

We've certainly talked many times about how this was not perceived as a competitive best actress year. Right. Rees was the only real question throughout this Oscar year, because I remember early on, there was talk that Reese would be pushed as a supporting actress, that it would be Joaquin, Phoenix, his movie as Johnny Cash, and that Reese Witherspoon would be a supporting actress contender, but she was always sort of thought of as a major threat to win in whichever

category. She moves into lead at some point during the season, and it's hers to lose pretty early on in that Oscar campaign. I've seen Mrs. Henderson Presents. I don't remember a ton about it. It's one of like many Judy

Dench Oscar nominations and probably in the lower third for me in terms of of, like, Judy Dench Oscar nominations that I would value. Felicity Huffman in Transamerica is kind of a moment in time, and I haven't rewatched that movie in years, and I don't really want to make any grand statements about that. I remember thinking, this is a good performance, but, like, I'm not quite sure what's at play here, right?

I was a little skeptical of that whole venture, even though there were parts of that movie, I thought were very humanistic and, you know, good. And I'm not ready to sort of throw the baby out with the bathwater. It was a different time. Anyway. You could probably throw warm milk out onto Route 56, and it will age better than that movie has. I am not surprised to hear that. Carrie Knightley and Pride and Prejudice I love.

I love that she's nominated for that movie. I love Joe Wright. I think everything about that is good. Charlie's Theron for North Country, the quintessential Halo nomination. She wins for Monster in 2003. Two years later, the Academy is like, I still like you.

She plays a mine worker in Minnesota, and she's agitating for worker safety, and, you know, we are very pro-union on this podcast, so we love Charlize and North Country. That said, I think Charlize is maybe my boot in this category. And for not that it's a bad performance, I don't think there are bad performances in this category, actually. I think it's probably the one that I feel like is least essential to have an Oscar nomination in the almost two decades of hindsight we have there. So I think I'm booting Charlize and I'm slotting in Cameron Diaz, who automatically,

becomes, like, my best of the category. You know what I mean? Like, she's then my should win in 2005 best actress. How do you feel about that? Thank you for not booting Dame Judy. We take nothing away from her, even though no one remembers that movie. I remember that movie as having full frontal Bob Hoskins nudity, so I endorse it. I mean, trans America has certainly not aged well and is certainly definitely definitely

problematic, I think, even probably by the standards of 2005. However, having Felicity Huffman a future felon as an Oscar nominee, we maybe don't want to take that away. Sure. Yeah, yeah, a net neutral boot. All right. Chris, who was your inaugural pick for 100 snubs? I could love someone even if I, you know, wasn't paid for it. I love you and you don't pay me. So for my first pick, I maybe did this as a decoy and trying to throw off the scent in...

Yeah, you really had the Gary's clamorin on Twitter about your hint there. Gary's, we're going back to a time known as 1991. We're talking about the best actor race, and I wanted to throw out River Phoenix in my own private Idaho, Gus Van Sance's masterpiece that some people, based off a letterbox, need to re-watch because I think they are a bit confused

about that movie's status as genius. Wait, why? What's going on? I just saw a lot of like three and a half stars on my own private Idaho, and it's like, gang, need you to bump that up, please. Yeah, it's a great movie. He gives just, I mean, when you talk about River Phoenix and you talk about what we lost when we lost him. You know, people talk in these terms of, like, Heath Ledger.

And, you know, River Phoenix did not leave us without an Oscar nomination. He was nominated for Supporting Actor for a full-fledged, basically every fucking scene of the movie. It's a classic, yeah, young actor who gets put in supporting because he's a young actor. Yeah. He plays, you know, a hustler, sex worker, opposite Keanu Reeves, who's also tremendous in the movie. I mean, this is a movie I wanted to include. I almost debated putting Gus Man Sam for Best Director, but, like, you know, River Phoenix, just, for people who haven't seen that movie, go watch that movie and try not to feel a tremendous sense of loss. there's a specifically iconic scene where he somewhat stumbles through a confession of queer longing toward it's it's you know it's the fire scene it's you know they're sitting by a fire and love for keanu raves and it's just i think any queer identifying person will feel such heartbreak and recognition uh through that scene it's probably a movie that plays really well

today, because I think it's a movie that addresses queer identity head-on without drawing very bold lines in the sand anywhere. And I feel like that's a very, like, 20-23 concept of queer sexuality for a lot of young people, right? A lot of people don't really want to draw these very, you know, limiting lines as to, you know, what my identity is. But it's still, nonetheless, a movie that does not back down from its queer identity and themes, and I love that about my own private Idaho. And, I mean, River Phoenix in this performance is just one of those truly once in a generation, holy shit, young lead actor thing, where it's like, we're going to be watching this person give, you know, art form changing work for the next few decades. And the tragedy of River Phoenix is he would die two or. three years after this movie.

Yeah. His last movie... His last movie came out in 1993, but he was obviously... Passed in 92, maybe. Yeah. Yeah, 92, 93, something like that. And it's not that this performance wasn't

awarded. He unanimously won Best Actor in Venice. He won the National Society Film Critics and Indie Spirit, but I think it should be an Oscar nominee. He's already an Oscar nominee by this point. And so he should be a best actor nomination. The nominees that year are Anthony Hopkins winning for Hannibal Lecter, Silence of the Lambs.

Other nominees were Nick Nulte, Prince of Tides, Warren Beatty and Bugsy, Robert De Niro, in Cape Fear, and Robin Williams in the Fisher King. Yes. This, I think, is actually a really great best actor lineup. It is. And a very, everybody in that lineup was sort of. of big at that moment, right? Right. Whether it be like box office, like, obviously, like Robin Williams, Robert Teniro,

even Nick Nolte at the time, these were all like leading men in American films at the time. Warren Beatty has, of course, you know, the entire previous decades' worth of, you know, work and sort of place of prominence within the film industry by that point. He sort of Bugsy isn't his, he doesn't direct Bugsy, but Bugsy does feel like authorial authorial. It sort of was like handed to him as like his, it's Barry Levinson, but I remember at the time even, like people sort of like, yeah, this is like Warren Beatty's Bugsy. And people still perceive that movie. Yeah. It's interesting to wonder who the fifth place person was. I mean, you would maybe guess Robin Williams, but Robin Williams was also like famously not nominated for

Awakenings the year before. And they gave it to Robert De Niro. It could be Robert De Niro was fifth place even though that was it's such a huge performance um i just remember that nulte was was thought of as the alternative to hopkins like nilty was running second place was presumed to be supporting um yes yeah and nick nolsey is tremendous in that movie i mean these are a lot of tremendous performances which makes the boot fairly easy for me because i think it's actually a bad performance and it's warren bady and bugsy yeah you're not a bugsy fan i i was i mean it took me forever to watch Bugsy. For the longest time, Bugsy was the most

recent Best Picture nominee I hadn't seen, and I knocked off two movies for this list. So now my most recent best picture nominee I haven't seen is Hope and Glory, John Borman's book story. Wow. All right. I'll catch up to it, I guess.

Yeah. Warmbady and Bugsy, I don't think it's a good performance. I do think that there is some immaculate craft in that movie. Shocking to me that that is Harvey Keitel. only acting nomination. It is. Yeah, it's...

I've not always been on board with Warren Beatty as an actor. You can come for me if you want. I don't always love him, and I really didn't love him in this. I love Warren Beatty as a... An artist. As a... I almost wanted to say a personality, a Hollywood personality, but that shortchanges him.

as somebody who I think has a very instrumental role in the development of American film, speaking of American film. Yes, he's incredibly instrumental. Yes. I don't disagree with you as, you know, the acting is maybe the least of his attributes, even though sometimes I think he can be incredibly good as an actor, but it's not every time. And I agree with you that of these five, certainly I'm not going to boot Hopkins. Certainly I'm not going to boot De Niro, whose nomination for Cape Fear is kind of a miracle

because that is a fucking lunatic movie and a lunatic performance. But it is unforgettable. You cannot shake that. I think it's really good. It's been a billion years since I've seen the Fisher King, but it's not surprising that Robin Williams was nominated. That's very Robin Williams, give him the keys and let him take the car over a spin kind of a performance. But that's what you want, I think, out of the Fisher King. And, yeah.

He's the best thing about the Fisher King. And I say that loving Mercedes rule in all things. I love Jeff Bridges in that movie. That was during the time when I feel like a lot of, Bridges was in a lot of movies where everybody around him was getting nominated but him because he's in Fearless in 93. And like Rosie Perez very much deserved that nomination. But like Bridges is fantastic in that movie. And anyway, yeah, I think Beatty's, I think Beatty's a good call. What do you have next for us?

What is it like for you? Heart. Sad. I miss you. What's it like for you? It's lonely. I'm rid of them. I'm sorry.

I'm going to take a little trip to the best original screenplay category of 1996. and I am going to hand a nomination to one of my favorite filmmakers who I think we all, whenever we talk about this filmmaker, this is somebody who we follow it up with like, doesn't get the praise that she deserves, doesn't get the recognition that she deserves. And that's Nicole Hollisenter. Her debut movie in 1996 was walking and talking. There's any number of screenplays that I feel like we probably could advocate for her from, you know, please give to lovely and amazing, to enough said. And ultimately, I think a debut nomination for

walking and talking is the one I'm going to stand behind. I really, this was one of those movies that I can't remember the exact context, whether it was like one of the premium cable channels was airing it or maybe even, I've talked about when I went to college that we had a sort of on-campus closed circuit channel that would just like play DVDs like just sort of like you know they would cycle through and uh however i saw it it was one of those movies that i that was kind of unheralded for me and i didn't quite know the only thing i knew is that i knew anne hush from another world and this was of course her in a very different context so i remember watching walking and talking and being decently blown away by how successful it was at telling this story of a friendship

between two, you know, women in their 20s who are trying to figure out this, you know, next stage of their life, and one of them's in a relationship, and the other one isn't, and there is, you know, feelings about that, and Catherine Keener and Anne Hache are really tremendous acting-wise, but they're working from a really, really solid script that is insightful as hell, that is funny. There's so many, like, weird and funny little bits to this. movie and it gives the actors a lot of space to, you know, to work. And it's, it's, you know, humanistic and it's kind and it's, you know, very relatable. I think I, I, the characters in this movie are not from my own circumstance and yet I can find plenty of aspects of them where I'm like, yeah, I feel that. You know what I mean? Like, yes, that rings. true. And it's really, really fantastic. And I think in a more perfect world, Nicole Hollif Center gets nominated right away for her debut movie and then become somebody who Oscar voters sort of look to through the years and maybe has, you know, three or four Oscar nominations by this

point in time. And I don't know. I really love it. How do you feel about walking and talking? This list could not exist without us putting Nicole Hollif Center on it. Yeah. In many ways, this project was created so we could be like, here's the Nicole Hollif Center nomination I would throw in there. I mean, well, Nicole Hollif Center's nomination, too, is for a movie that was somewhat extensively rewritten. Taken away from her. Yeah. Taken away from her, essentially because she...

We're talking about, can you ever forgive me? Yes. Yeah, and the firing of Julianne Moore because she wanted to wear a fat suit. And then without Julianne Moore, the movie falls apart financing-wise. Walking and Talking is, like, one of the, like, definitive movies about the 90s in terms of the way we lived in the 90s to me. Yeah. And, like, I think movie, people credit movies like reality bites in that way, but I think more of, like, walking and talking. Along with The Watermelon Woman, it's one of the best movies about video store culture.

Yes. When I think about walking and talking, I think about that shot that probably wouldn't exist in any other movie. or made by a different filmmaker, you know, the shot of the two of them walking down the stairs together. Yes. And what it does to that movie, having that shot in there, much in the way that Carol has a very similar shot in it. And it just speaks such volumes. Yes, I think this is an excellent choice. In terms of what I'm going to boot, so the nominees for 1996 original screenplay, Fargo wins it for the Cohen Brothers.

also nominated John Sales for Lone Star, Cameron Crow for Jerry McGuire, Mike Lee for Secrets and Lies, and then for Shine, which was a Best Picture nominee that year, Scott Hicks, and then Jan Sardi for the screenplay for Shine. This to me is a pretty easy call. I think Shine definitely feels like the weakest of all of those, both as a movie and as a screenplay. I think just even in terms of the talent involved no shade to Scott Hicks or Jan Hardy, but like Mike Lee, Cameron Crow, Joel and Ethan Cohen, John Sales, like all of those people giving some of their best work.

Look, the girls are not out here talking about Shine. Right. That's, yes. And, you know, and the other four movies are all hold up very well, I think, today. Fargo and Jerry McGuire, Lone Star and Secrets and Lies. I do have to see Lone Star. This is a pretty easy call.

So, yeah, I feel like we can, in the interests of moving things along, I don't think we need to belabor the point. But walking and talking, slots in for shine. And that is a tremendous category. If you look at that, if you put it in Nicole Hollisenter for Walking and Talking, that is a bulletproof original screenplay category. 1996, what you could have had. So, yes. What do you have next for me, Christopher? Exactly 10 years and a few years. Exactly 10 years and a few, future, one of, I would say, the biggest, we're not just talking, like, personal canon here. Yeah.

This is a personal canon choice for me. Yes. But in terms of, like, the history of notorious snubs, we're talking about my next choice is a snub that the snub itself was the lead of Oscar nomination morning headlines that day, ahead of anything else being nominated, ahead of the rest of the, ahead of whatever. the nominee well it was the nomination leader and still didn't get best picture so it's like you kind of have to lead with it and that is dream girls it is so what category are you are you are you best picture best picture best picture best picture for dream girls in 2006 all right i fucking love dream

girls there's a few things at play here one it had a teaser trailer with no footage from the movie released a year before the movie came out and it was was just like, it existed to say. Was that the one where like the word dream girls just went across the screen and was like dream girls? Basically with an outline that was not Jennifer Hudson or Beyonce or Erika. It was the actual Supremes. It was so like, they made it so blatantly obvious that it was going to be a major full court

press Oscar campaign and it really put a patina that made a lot of people kind of I roll the movie, let alone that it's a movie with essentially an all-black cast, you know, variation, a thinly veiled, you know, satire on Motown. The peak of Beyonce skepticism. This was just before we had all decided that Beyonce was without flaw and could, you know, broker no, no dissent. And this was at a moment where, especially in regards to movies, people were really like, Beyonce's not really an actress. Beyonce is not certainly not a... She shows up in this movie and kills it. Yeah, she's very good in this movie. But also, I think there was a false promise when Chicago won best picture that we were going to be in a golden age of Academy Anointed musicals.

And since Chicago, if you discount, if you rule out biopics from it, I think it's just, is it just two musicals have been nominated? Le Miz and La La Land? I mean, cats. Of course. Of course. Well, cats won best picture. Um, hold on. Hold on.

That can't be right. Is it right? Since Chicago only two? It's two or three. I might be forgetting something. Hold. Like, you have all of these musicals, and Dreamgirls, like, again, nomination leader. It was somewhat in the water that, well, maybe Clint Eastwood will nudge out because the late-breaking thing, the Clint Eastwood late-breaking movie was letters from Iwojima.

But, like, Dreamgirls is, I think, an immaculately made movie musical. It is assembled brilliantly. I think it is a flawed stage show, and the movie. fixes so many of them. Some of it with its additions, but also just in the way that the movie moves. Right. And, yeah, like, I think one of the most, like, headline-grabbing snubs of my time as someone who obsessed over the Oscars, what do you have to say about Dreamgirls? I mean, I think Dreamgirls is a very good movie.

Here's the thing I'm going to put a little bit of a challenge to you, is you mentioned that Dreamgirls was the nomination leader and had a ton of nominations when supporting actress for Jennifer Hudson is not in this one's for Eddie Murphy is right is you could look at Dreamgirls and be like this is not a movie that was snubbed in the greater picture of things so why I'm why the importance to have the best picture snub as one of the 100s snubs. Well, okay, and this brings up an excellent point because you know, in making some of our

selections for our list, you know, West Side Story, by the way. West Side Story is also nominated for Best Picture. Oh, West Side Story. That's the third one, of course. COVID-Brain. The COVID Oscars, not it, they don't, they have not stuck in my brain. Yes.

When we're selecting this list, it's like, okay, maybe we feel something that missed a direct or nomination or something for a movie that was, you know, it got its due in some way. This, however, this one specifically felt, you know, there's snubs that just happen. And then sometimes there are a few that feel pointed. It did feel, this is one that I do think might actually qualify as a true snub, as in people were making the active choice to be like. Like, not you, baby.

To not give it to Dreamgirls because, like, it was so kind of out in front in that season and people forget it. It was taken for such granted that it was absolutely going to. And, like, you know, you're talking about the year after, you know, Brokeback Mountain loses Best Picture. And there's a whole, like, thing of homophobia and, like, dude movies. What it means is that a lot of people who voted for Dream Girls to be nominated, within their own little branch, then voted for best picture, and we're like, no, not that one. Right. Yeah.

Right. It's interesting. No, I think that's right. I think, you know, I'm definitely a little more tepid on Dreamgirls as a film overall than you are. I think there are high highs, and I think there are aspects of that movie that I feel like are not as successful. And I love that that movie exists. I haven't revisited it in a while, and in part, I don't, maybe that's part of, you know, me not really loving it at the time, and I haven't really had a huge impulse to go revisit Dreamgirls. But, weirdly, I think the thing that I ride the hardest for in that movie is Beyoncé.

I think Beyonce is actually really good in that movie. She's fantastic. Of all the acclaimed performances for Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy, and I think Beyonce is definitely my favorite. at her, the scene where she performs listen in that little recording box is really tremendous. And a absolute window into like the Beyonce that we know today, the way that she could command a space in, you know, in that way. That number also solves a huge problem for the stage show. Because without that number, which now is in every production of it, it's like you don't really know how to care or think about Tina Jones, other than Slay Mother. All right. Talk about who you're snubbing out because we got to...

Yes, we got to keep it moving. We got to keep it moving. Though I will say, for everybody who always talks about, and I'm telling you, or talks about listen, I actually think in that movie one of the best musical number. sequences since Chicago is in Step Into the Bad Side, Perfect Sequence. All right. When they come out in the red numbers, it's just like, it is everything to me. Okay, so the nominees are Departed wins. Babel, Letters from Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, and the Queen.

I'm very interested to see where you go with this, because I think there are three, three, maybe four possibilities. There are options. There's options here. I haven't seen Babel in a long time. I really respect the ambition of that movie. Especially, you know, pre-everyone hating in your retube for just finding him annoying, whatever.

I still enjoy him. Not necessarily in that mode. I am a noted little Miss Sunshine dissenter. I know. However, it is absurd to me that the queen was taken as seriously as to be... I mean, you're giving Helen Mirr, the Oscar. It is the quintessential to me like frontrunner

performer elevates their movie to best picture status. And like, but you're already giving it to her. You're not going to give that movie best picture. I rewatch it and maybe it's just I am not absorbed in the royals in a way that the culture is but I think that movie is

fine to not good. And I love Stephen Frears. I was going to say I do like whenever the culture comes around and it's like we're going to give Stephen Frears another best picture nomination. You know what I mean? Like, it is cyclical in that way.

I also think it's just like I lived through all that, but like I didn't have a relation to it happening. Sure. I feel like so much of that movie, people think that it's so great because they are pushing their feelings. Yeah. Going through it onto the movie. And I think if you don't, it's kind of inert to me.

So you're booting the queen. All right. Okay. I support that. I think that's, I think that's. I think that's highly supportable. I'm not sure what I would go with, but in the interest of time,

I'll let the listeners ruminate in on that. Okay. This is what happens when you die. That is what happens when he dies. And that is what happens when they die. It's all very personal. And I'll tell you something. If I knew then, what I know now,

I wouldn't have had my little accident. So my next choice, I'm going back to 1988. The Oscars for 1988. I'm going in the best art direction category, a film that while I understand why it was not maybe on the Oscars radar, I think maybe a few years later it would have been. And looking back, it's kind of insane

that it didn't get nominated. The film is Tim Burton's Beetlejuice. That movie is wall-to-wall art direction. And so this would be... Some of the most iconic note words. the, you know, design of cinema. Production designed by the great Bo Welch, who has gotten four Oscar nominations throughout his career for a color purple, or sorry, the color purple, a little princess, the birdcage

and men in black. Art direction by Tom Duffield, set decoration by Catherine Mann. The thing that is, I mean, you look at Beetlejuice once and you're like, yeah, art direction. There's like so much going on. There are so many weirdo sets, but, like, it's in so many different arenas, right? There is, you know, the house itself before they die, right? Which is, like, quintessential, you know, fixer-upper, old New England, quaint, giant, you know, home. Then when they come back, after the Dietz's have taken to it, all of the, like, tragic 80s awfulness of Lydia Dietz and her decorating style,

all the, you know, weird art and the sharp angles, that porch that has the freestanding wall, like the Otho of it all, right? The Otho sort of aesthetic of it all. And then you go in, you go beyond that, right? You're shrunken down into the little miniature model of the town where they find Beetlejuice for the first time. And all of those little, the weird little whorehouse that exists there, the styrofoam grass, all of that.

And then you go into the afterlife, right? The waiting room in the afterlife. Everything about that, the sort of industrial afterlifeness. There are like eight different modes that this movie needs to exist in on an art direction level. And they nail it every single time. And it's so fucking memorable. And part of it is, you know, there's practical effects going on. And there's obviously the whole thing is like this Tim Burton vision, right?

But like imagine being tasked to. replicate whatever the fuck Tim Burton has in his head art direction-wise. I mean, I think from an Oscar-y-snob point is, like, part of the reason probably why it wouldn't recognize for art direction is because all of that gets described to Burton rather than, like, the person who actually designed it, you know? Like I said, like, imagine Tim Burton coming to you and be like,

here's the thing that I have in my head and him talking to you and explaining it to you. And you're like, oh, but, like, okay, now I've got it. Like, do this on a practical level. But it remains a really strange omission that didn't happen anyway because that movie won a makeup Oscar. That is true. That is true. So it was definitely on people's radar. So, yeah, yeah, all the more puzzling.

So the nominees that year, Dangerous Liaisons wins, which is, you know, speaking of Stephen Frears, sumptuous costume drama, that is never a surprise when those kinds of movies win for art direction. And it's an incredible movie, and it looks incredible. other nominees were beaches, Rain Man, which won the Best Picture that year, Tucker the Man in his dream, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? So I haven't seen Tucker the Man in his dream, so I can't in good conscience beat that because I haven't seen it. Who Framed Roger Rabbit is, you know, with everything else going on, it's also a really,

really well art directed movie. There's a lot going on there in the practical scenes and the, you know, the recreation of that time period. So I'm down to, interestingly enough, so the choice becomes between Rain Man and Beaches. Who among us has not had to make that choice in our life? Rain Man's a

best picture winner, so you can see why it sort of got brought along, but like what in that movie is particularly strong on an art direction level? And I mean the casino sequence, but one presumes they just

shot in a casino? Not like, look, I'm not going to be ignorant here and say that there's not actual design and set decoration that still goes into a location shoot, but like... The casino is why it got nominated? You can say the same about beaches for the most part. Like, they shot at a, you know,

seaside little, you know, vacation home on the beach or whatever. Adirondack chairs go a long way with me, but still... Hey industry, found dead. Joe Reed says, industry. First of all, it's O industry. So you can take your little slam dunk and, uh, no, that's a good point and also auto titzling. And I think that's where it's like you're not about

to auto boot sling beaches. Also, now that I think about it, their little New York apartment is very well depicted in terms of, you know, they're banging on the radiator with a pot and, you know, they're growing, you know, they've got their little plant. Some of prototypical Nancy Myers shit. like in terms of like well designed homes well sure but in that way it's like this nightmare tiny little you know like murphy bed new york city apartment where they neither one of them have any money um but yeah i think that's right i think the o industry moment and the auto titzling moment certainly offer more to play around with than whatever's going on with rain man which i could understand from like a costume level right those like you know those sharp suits in the raybans or

whatever, or from a, you know, Rain Man's not a perfect movie, but I think there are enough things to recommend for Rain Man. I think Art Direction's a little bit of a puzzler, so I am going to boot the Best Picture Winner from this category, which is not the last time I will boot a Best Picture winner from a lineup, and I will slot in Beetlejuice over Rain Man for Art Direction in 88.

What do you got next, Chris? You could put an ad in the paper. Chef wanted. Yeah, Chef, Stoke Boyfriend, for gorgeous girl. No, mature woman with cat. No, mature-ish. We don't want to put them off, do we?

We are jumping ahead to a very contentious acting year. That is 2010. We are talking about a performance that there was a lot of hand-wringing of, where does it go? Is this a lead? Is it supporting? Is it a lead?

I myself have changed my thought on it many times. We're talking about Leslie Manville in another year. Today, I am saying that it is a snub for Best Supporting Actress. She's on my lead actress ballot that year. I will say that. Well, she won the lead award both at AARP and NBR, National Border Review. She won their lead prize. Bafta nominated her in supporting.

Listen, I'm not going to be like, well, just jockey for where you can get nominated but for her performance that lies on a straddling line and for a year that had really really stiff competition in lead yes they did they should have definitively gone supporting um i still think it's a tremendous performance i mean like and leslie manville would eventually get that somewhat surprising phantom thread nomination i think that that nomination can thank this performance for it as well she is The nightmare drunk friend who eventually Jim Broaden and Ruth Sheen get fed up with, she is basically fully functioning on her need for attention and her need to be important to other people in this really raw way that I think when you watch is it taps into, I think, that part.

of, you know, need for other people that is true in all of us and that we're all terrified of and afraid of and the performance is purely bad. Like, absolutely. Yeah.

To the point that she does so much cringy stuff and, you know, Manville's performance is incredibly human throughout. I understand anybody who says that she's a lead. I today think that it's supporting. I've maybe thought she was a lead before,

but I would probably err on. And a lot of the distinct. of, well, she's not supporting, even though she's gone for a good chunk of the movie, is people perceived Ruth Sheen and Jim Broadbent to be passive protagonists in a way that I kind of don't agree with, especially as I have aged, especially as I have had, you know, friendships fall by the wayside, or, you know, I've been both Leslie Manville and Ruth Sheen in this movie. That's the circle of life. That is the timeline of life from Ruth Sheen to Leslie Manville and back.

Right. Well, and I think there's also a person, there was this weird half speak talking out of both sides of people's mouths that's like Leslie Manville is so on another level in this movie. So that means she has to be a lead as if there haven't been barn-burning supporting performances before. I didn't understand what people were on about that. What do you have to say about this performance before I get the boot? One of my favorites of that year, like I said, she's a nominee for me in lead actress in an incredibly difficult and competitive lead actress year. So that should say a lot. Saw this movie at the New York Film Festival.

I related to her character too much in certain ways where I was like, oh, no, oh, God. But yeah, she's tremendous in this. Well, that's only because you dress like her. Right. Joe's very tarty. Very. But, yeah, she's a worthy nominee in any category. So I'm excited to see who you scooch out to make room for her in the 2010 lineup.

Well, Melissa Leo is the winner. We all know it's a performance I don't necessarily love, especially opposite her fellow nominee and fellow co-star Amy Adams, also in the fighter. Yes. Helen Abottom Carter in the King's speech. Haley Steinfeld and True Great, a lead performance. Especially when you have, like, Haley Seinfeld getting supporting nominations

and you can't give one to Leslie Manville. Right. when she, Haley Steinveld, is the protagonist of regret. She sure is. She sure is. And Jackie Weaver in Animal Kingdom. It's a good lineup. I don't love Melissa Leo, but I get it. Yes.

Helen of Bottom Carter, who I don't think is bad, who I don't think, she is very subtly funny and winning in that movie. I don't think performances like that should be disregarded for Oscar consideration. Sure. There's not enough there. There's just not. There's not much there. And it was nice to see her back nominated after about a 12 years, a decade. And to see that she could still do low-key after years of Tim Burton movies and whatnot, that she still had that option in her arsenal, yes, yeah.

But she's my pick to go. Yeah, I agree with that. I think that's the right call. Hey, Joe. Hey, what? It's time to take a call. Oh, is that a button flashing on our little, uh, on our switchboard? We have a call. We both have our cardigans on. We've slitched into our just

little slip on slippers, Mr. Rogers style. Who's at the door? Oh, I was going to go Larry King. Like, caller, what's your name and from where are you calling? Like, yeah. Wait, is this like Howard Stern? Who's the Howard and who's the Robin? Oh, we are not putting that dynamic upon us. I will, I will not have it. No, absolutely not. I refuse. Let's take the call. Let's take the call. Hello, this had Oscar Buzz. This is Katie Rich. Believe it or not, I am not here to talk. about some hymbo guy who you might not be able to tell apart being snub for an Oscar, though I really did miss the opportunity to talk about Channing Tatum and Foxcatcher here. I was super intimidated by this assignment. The history of Oscar snubs is vast, as I think this entire mini-series is

proving. So to make it easier on myself, I decided to narrow in on one Oscar category that is near and dear to my heart, and I know Joe and Chris as well, which is best original song. There's really no lack of snubs in this category across the years. I did linger for a while on my beloved drive it like you stole it from Sing Street. But I think the broader history of the Oscars is interesting to tell in Snubs. And I think that when you want to talk about Oscar Snubs, it really meant something that say something about where the Oscars were, maybe how they've grown a little bit, maybe how they haven't. You go back to 1989 and do the right thing. I think in no small part, thanks to Spike Lee talking about it, we have all become

angry enough as a culture about how poorly that movie was treated by the Oscars. It got a screenplay nomination and a nomination for supporting actor for Dady Aie Aiello, and it was snubbed for Fight the Power, the public enemy song that opens the movie with Rosie Perez dancing. It reoccurs throughout the film. It's a public enemy song that has really earned its place in the pop culture canon since then. It was a huge hit at the time. And it's so integral to that movie in a way that I think you want all of your original song nominees to be. The Oscars were not ready for do the right thing in many ways back in 1989. Again, we've talked about that a lot. But I think when you look back, that snub has not gotten as much attention as it

deserves. And it says a lot about what the Oscars are ready for, about the way of the original song category has treated rap over the years, which is, you know, rap and hip-hop is the dominant musical pop art form of the last 30 years. It's so rarely nominated. And what a track we might be on if they had nominated to Fight the Power back in 1989. So that's my pick. I'm really excited to see everything else you get and all the other snubs that I didn't do or that I didn't even think to do that you guys will cover. Happy Snub's Month, everybody. It's a good pick, Chris.

Wow. An iconic choice from Katie Rich. I know. The most predictable thing that we'll have. Imagine. Yeah. Fight the Power. A fantastic song.

I think she makes a good point about the fact that the best song category has not been particularly overly effusive about hip-hop, which is odd considering the last two decades-plus of American culture. That makes sense to me. Well, there's famous hip-hop and rap wins, but, like, broad nominations, no. Right, exactly, exactly. It's almost as if Katie is very, very smart. It's almost if she's very perceptive about this kind of thing. Somebody should give her a job, making important entertainment, journalism decisions. Okay, yeah.

So, interestingly enough, so Katie's choice here dovetails pretty well with my next selection. I just, I tried to get cute and I tried to get, you know, fancier than I needed to be. But at some point, on a list of 100 snubs, you have to say, do the right thing for Best Picture in 1989. Period. There's no getting around it. It was the landmark movie of that year. It was one of the great landmark movies of all time. And did it make that original AFI list?

I literally just watched that whole thing in segments over the last few days. A hundred years and hundred movies. I don't think so. I think it did not. I think it's one of the movies that didn't make the initial AFI list, but then when they did it again, a decade later, it did. So, yeah, I think you're exactly right. It did not make the list at all the first time around.

It was only number 96 the second time around. So even in 2007, when they redid the list, it's still way too well. You know what I mean? So it's, you know, maybe now an extra 16 years into the future. It would certainly, I imagine, rank much, much higher. It's also just the fact that, like, this is not a vegetable's, movie. This is not a movie that, like, you need to see it to be, like, literate in culture, and that's it. It is a fully engrossing movie. It is visually on point. The ensemble cast is

really tremendous. It's funny in moments. It is, obviously, like, shocking and, and emotional in moments. It is just, it's also, like, a document of a moment in time that is, that has been ongoing. You know what I mean? That is a moment in time that, echoes again and again and again through culture. I am certainly not best positioned to talk about it as a cultural artifact for black filmmaking, and yet I imagine there is plenty of things to say about that, Spike Lee, obviously one of the great filmmakers of our American century, to sound pretentious about it, and finally got his Oscar for Black Klansman at long, long last, in 2018, and probably should have come much, much, much sooner.

Kim Basinger was right, and she should say it when she spoke out at the Oscars about the snubbing of do the right thing. She was on track with that one. So, okay, so the other, the best picture nominees of 1989, let's get into it. The winner was driving Miss Daisy, which like sharpened the, the, sharpened the stick. when it came to the do the right thing snub. That it would be snubbed at all is one thing. That it would be snubbed in the year

that driving Miss Daisy wins best picture is almost... As far as the reason why this remains one of the most talked about Oscar snubs of all time. You couldn't write it in a more stark way, right? Like the... Well, and then, of course, when Black Klansman is up against Greed book, like... Yeah.

Like, sometimes history does feel like... We love to solve racism in cars, I guess. The simulation starts to show sometimes, right? We're like, you know, the authors who are pulling the strings behind this thing we call reality. Sometimes the strings start to show. Okay. So other nominees were Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July. Peter Weir's Dead Poet Society.

Field of Dreams, which I love and I know a lot of people, it becomes a referendum movie on, like, movies about baseball or like boys or whatever. But like, fuck it. I love that movie. I just watched it again the other night. It's so good. And then Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot, which, of course, one best actor for Daniel D. Louis, have seen all these movies,

some of them more recently than others. It's been a minute since I've seen Born on the Fourth of July and my left foot. I flirted with leaving off Dead Poet Society, which is a movie that falls apart among, under scrutiny. I think it is a movie that is, it's engrossing to watch. You get wrapped up in it.

The story is, you know, is captivating. Robin Williams is captivating the idea of the sort of very poetic idea of this inspirational teacher who teaches these prep school boys to think beyond just whatever the regimented lessons and, you know, whatever, we've seen this kind of thing a billion times. But it is, it's a very watchable. movie. I think Driving Miss Daisy can be less than that. Driving Miss Daisy

is sometimes unbearable to watch. I take nothing away from Morgan Freeman, who gives a very good performance in the service of something that doesn't seem to value the fullness of him as an actor and sort of places him in a

very programmable sort of, you know, slot him in and he's the the whatever, the well-meaning and friendly, upstanding black man who helps

this white woman. I would also say, take away nothing from the legend status of Jessica Tandy, who was an acting legend. Yes, absolutely. And would go on to have an even better performance get nominated in Fried Green Tomatoes? Like,

her performance of Fried Tomatoes is interesting. The original Blanche Dubois, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, yes. Love, Jessica. I say Catandy. So anyway, yeah, driving Miss Daisy, I think to complete the loop, right, to complete the historical loop, there's no way I can boot anything but driving Miss Daisy. It's the only way.

Wow, you Housedown booted it. It's the only way to sort of heal the timeline rift that happened in 1989 is to take out Driving Miss Daisy, which didn't get a best director nomination anyway, so whatever, and put in Spike Lee and do the right thing. Can I say, if this had been mine, I would have Nicole Pagebrooks this lineup. Really? Well, I know you, yes, I know you don't like Field of Dreams, but there's no way I'm going to Nicole Pagebrooks for that movie alone. Like, for, if for no other reason, but I'm not going to do it.

But I also, I think my left foot's a good movie. I remember born on the 4th of July being a good movie when I saw it. So I... My left foot being a good movie, but of this lineup, if my pick is my left foot out of this option to, like, win... Sure. Which it probably is. Sure. Yeah.

Send them all home. Yeah. Okay. All right. What is your next pick? They all knew of the three actors in question and had much fun with the characteristics that they had in common with Sarah. Sarah laughed. They all laughed and the comparisons became a recurring source of amusement.

Was it Tom or Wayne or Jeff? You could just take back that one line. Yeah. Was it Tom or Wayne? Oh, Jeff. So we are jumping forward ahead in recent times. Obviously, I would say many of us in this past Oscar season feel redeemed by this person's Oscar win in terms of this situation. But I am talking about 2014 and Best Documentary Feature for Sarah Polly's Stories We Tell.

This movie, I think for any of us who have. a family tree that branches out closer like a bush will relate to this it's as someone who's had step siblings and half siblings their whole life and you know have people who are very close to me that I have no biological connection to but they are indeed my family the way that Sarah Polly captures her own family in this way I think speaks to a lot of people who have that type of family experience, but, you know, in, you know, cinema, you know, we don't always necessarily see that or, you know, have those type of relationships. It's this portrait of her mother who died while she was incredibly young, and the question of

her, who is her biological father in the movie, which over the course of this documentary in interviewing her close family members and people who knew her mother. She does discover who her birth father is, but it's also this not only tribute to her mother and, you know, the intangibility that we have as people who exist within a family because when you're in a family unit, you are not just yourself, the version of you that you believe yourself to be, but you are also the version that this person believes you to be, and that person believes you to be, and trying to reconcile all of that in this really beautiful movie that is, you know, Oscar has...

She's an incredibly, you know, sort of, the way she sort of investigates and excavates these family histories in this thing that she's very deeply a part of, and yet comes at it in a way that she's sort of welcomes every new bit of information from this as another piece of a puzzle that can give her a more complete understanding of the people in her life, which is a really interesting way to approach not only one's own personal history, but like the project of filmmaking in general. Mm-hmm. Yeah, this is a movie that meant a lot to me personally to see that I love that, you know,

stretches of it or me just quietly steadily unbrokenly crying and it's a great movie it felt like this was the movie that for a lot of us really kind of welcomed sarah polly into a fold as a filmmaker you know it wasn't her first feature so it was a you know interesting note to this person that we thought was in one lane but then they're in another lane and now because they're doing nonfiction is in a whole other lane. So I think people who love this movie and people who love take this waltz, that's why we were so happy for women talking to get her Oscar this year. In terms of this lineup, I think it's a decent lineup.

It's kind of a quintessential Oscar lineup. And also, you know, in what people think of a documentary versus stories we tell is more like a nonfiction type of thing that, you know, Oscar never really goes for it. They didn't not, I mean, like... Do you think they would be more apt to go for it now almost 10 years later than... Right. Like, and this movie feels like part of a shift of, like, nonfiction movies that we talk about and get excited about, you know, are more embraced versus, like, this is a serious subject and this is how we're doing it, talking heads, et cetera, et cetera.

Or, like, found footage type of thing. Sure. 20 feet from stardom wins. Also, the nominees are The Act of Kee and the Boxer, Dirty and the Boxer, Dirty and the Boxer. dirty wars and the square A different the square A different square Right right right

A much better the square In my opinion I think the square is pretty incredible I think from this lineup It is not surprising Yet still unconscionable That the active killing didn't win I loved 20 feet from stardom

And I understand that I think the active killing is a superior film Yes But no surprise whatsoever And I don't begrudge people voting with the thing that made them feel the best. I walked out of 20 feet from stardom, levitating two feet off the ground. I was so happy watching that movie, watching those people have their, you know, moment and get their spotlight. It's so good.

Well, 20 feet of stardom is like to many people like the kind of poster child for the type of music documentary that it is. But I think it does what it does 10 times better than a lot of the movies that gets lumped with. Sure. My vote to kick out is Dirty Wars, which I would agree. I think is the least interestingly made, but it's also, you know, partly based off of this journalist's book that was already published. So it feels like a version of something else. It relies on a lot of voiceover. It's a little, you, it's a very, it's a serious subject, right?

The wars in the Middle East and whatnot. It still feels a little Vianity Project-ish in a way that like... It feels a little recreated to a lot of the interviews that happen in the movie. It's like you would almost prefer it

to just be a straight talking head type of thing so that they could assemble it more interestingly. Yes. Certainly not the worst documentary nominee I've ever seen. It's a good lineup.

I think in general it's like it's not a bad lineup at all. Yeah. All right. Where are you taking us next? What's wrong? Dad! Jim!

Jim! He's infected! No! No! Jim! No! Jim! Get it! Don't get it!

Taking a journey to the year 2003, a year we did a May miniseries on, in fact. Although we didn't talk about this movie, mostly because this kind of movie doesn't really get Oscar buzz, though I think this is one of the best movies of that year. I'm talking about the best cinematography category for 2003. Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, one of my favorite movies of that year, and there were angles I could have taken on this movie, right?

Maybe Danny Boyle for Best Director in general, which I think it's a tremendously directed movie. There are performances in this movie, I think, are very good, Killian Murphy, and Naomi Harris and Brendan Gleason. Ultimately, the cinematography, though, this digital cinematography which in 2003 I was in a mood

I was in the middle of a mood being like digital cinematography is fucking bullshit it all looks fucking gross and sad and barely like a movie and it's ugly

and I don't like it every movie I had seen with digital cinematography I was like fuck this shit and Mike Figgis's time code fucking shit that just like looks like it was shot through a filter of dog shit. Yeah.

And then, so Anthony Dodd Mantle is the cinematographer on 28 Days Later, would win an Oscar several years later for Slumdog Millionaire. This is the movie he should have won the Oscar for is 28 days later. The way he uses the visual aspects of digital to his absolute ultimate advantage in 28 days later, in a way that unsettles the audience, unmoors the audience. You don't know what has happened to this world that looks like this. Sometimes it looks very, you know, you're looking through the viewfinder in your own little, like, handheld camcorder, right? And so you're looking around, you're looking at a home movie almost, right? But this home movie is of this world that

has been absolutely abandoned in the span of a month. And, um, And yet the images can be still so striking, the image of, you know, the abandoned Piccadilly Circus and the image of, you know, Jim waking up in the hospital. And that unbelievable shot that I always talk about in this movie, the scene that makes that movie for me where Brendan Gleason gets the blood droplet from the crow that falls into his eye, that the second that happens, your heart, my heart fell out of my heart fell out of my. body because I was like you can you predict the next like five minutes of this movie you know what's going to happen immediately and it's so awful but that shot is so unforgettable unbelievable and it's it's it's a it's a I think it's a genuine turning point in cinematography for the way that you know we would go on obviously 28 days later so influential in the horror genre and that's another one where it was like before I mean like to

definitive for specifically the zombie genre. Oh, yeah. Like everything zombies has ripped off 28 days later since, especially the visual style. Yeah. You exist before 28 days later. You exist after 28 days later. I don't know if I've ever talked to you about this movie and

we talked about it in 2003 because I've definitely on the record on this podcast of saying everything that Slumdog Millionaire had lumped on it for Danny Boyle and his people should have gone to you know this was the movie to recognize um i would also say this is a great call specifically for what was going on in digital uh filmmaking because now it's like

digital looks like uber polished sure right right digital used to look like shit and it's start some of it started uh with the dogma movement that anthony dodd manel was a part of can't roll out the full resume for it now. Right. But, like, it's so clear that this is somewhat of an elevation or, like, a next step that he's bringing to the table from what was going on with that movement with, like, movies by, like, Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinderberg. That, yeah, this feels like using that skill set to a medium forwarding, uh, effort. Immediately before 28 days later, almost like his last movie before that was Julian Donkey Boy, the Harmony Carine movie. I'm sure one of your personal favorites. You know, as with all the Harmony Carine Uber.

And then immediately after, he does the cinematography for Dogville, you know, which is such a very specific. But you're right, Thomas Winterberg and Laris von Trier. And obviously, he's stuck with Danny Boyle. throughout he's it's a you know tremendously accomplished

filmography I think this is definitely the apex of it he did the cinematography for Antichrist which was another movie that people really flipped out for that cinematography

in terms of the nominees that year so Russell Boyd wins for master and commander the far side of the world the rare non-return of the king

win that year because Return of the King was not nominated that year. So other nominees were Cesar Charloan for City of God, John Seal for Cold Mountain, Eduardo Serra for Girl with a Pearl Earring, and John Schwartzman for Sea Biscuit. So not getting rid of Master and Commander, I'm not going to get rid of Cold Mountain,

which for all of its faults, I think, is a handsomely photographed movie in a way, and I mean that as a compliment. I don't love City of God as a movie, but I think the cinematography in that movie is pretty striking, and I'm not going to go to it. So it comes down to the sort of painterly prettiness of Girl with a Pearl Earing for Edward or Sarah, and then Sea Biscuit, which I will grant that movie the degree of difficulty of cinematography on a moving horse. You know what I mean? there is there's a degree of difficulty points that I don't think I think as in terms of like what's the least visually memorable of those movies it's C-Biscuit for me right a movie that I don't hate but I think is ultimately fine I think that's my the queen right that year where it's just like that movie is fine but I think there are challenge there are cinematography challenges in that movie that I that I recognize girl with a pearl earring is a pretty movie but I think that's probably where it begins and ends and don't remember a damn thing about that movie this is the thing i like i remember

liking scarlet johansson that movie but i liked her better in lost in translation that year so i think i probably bump out girl with a pearl earring just in terms of i want to give john schwartzman a little bit of a nod for like yeah i imagine it was not easy to mount some of that cinematography for that movie what do you think yeah no i agree that's exactly what i would have done. Yeah. All right. What do you got next? What the hell is that? A dress. Says who? Calvin Klein. So, let's talk about the 90s, the period where we're taking classic literature. Okay, this is maybe a time to say, hey, listeners, if you think we're talking about the 90s a lot, you can blame me, like half of my listeners. All I talk about in my real life is the 90s. Don't worry about it. I literally watched on YouTube the other day a year in rock from 1992.

Like MTV, like, oh, watching old MTV programming is, like, what I do to ease my mind after a long and stressful day. So, like, don't worry about it. It's spectacular. Yeah. In the 90s, though, there was this, like, it comes from very different product, but, like, we talk about a lot of these movies and we don't always necessarily lump them together. But, like, reimagining classic literature through a modern lens. I think for a lot of people, the pinnacle of that is Boss Lerman's, William Shakespeare's, Romeo, plus Juliet. For me, the pinnacle that I am going to talk about is Amy Heckerling's Clueless.

We're talking Best Adapted Screenplay of 1995. I mean, Clueless is Jane Austen's Emma. It's Emma, right? It sure is. Not showing my ass. Yeah. Okay, good. Yeah.

You know, we talk a lot about Alicia Silverstone's performance. I mean, I think that's a valid answer there as well. I wanted to get some screenplays in here, and I think there's a seamlessness to which Heckerling re-contextualizes Jane Austen that just feels like the most natural thing in the world, the most obvious thing in the world, and finding such, like, brilliant, you know, humor of her own for the movie

that feels both incredibly 1990s and exactly in the vein of Jane Austen. I know we've definitely talked about Britney Murphy's fucking brilliant performance in this movie. Heckerling won National Board of View and National Society

and was nominated for the Writers Guild and doesn't get the Adapted Screenplay nomination. Based on pure snobbery, right? It's just pure snobbery. You know, we're both people who, in doing this show, don't want to fall into the trap of, well, the Oscars aren't cool enough to do it. Sure, of course. You know, we don't want it to just be like, they're not cool enough to do that.

But, like, it does feel like they are almost close enough to be cool enough to have done this at the time. And, like, you know, maybe it's just, it was too MTV for them. Like, it was too, you know. But, like, this was a critically loved movie. too. Election came along. I think Clueless walked so election could run in terms of being an Oscar nominee for screenplay, right? MTV produced election a few years later and that does get the screenplay nomination. So maybe. The Academy, you know, they took all his money and they forced Amy Hegerling to ruin her dress. The nominees are, sense and sensibility wins for

Emma Thompson. She doesn't do Jane Austen at her speech at the Oscar. She does it at the Golden Globes. It's brilliant. I think maybe the presence of a literal and flawless Jane Austen adaptation didn't help Heckerling. But think about the narrative possibilities of having both of them as a nominee. Yeah, but also think it's a very male academy at the same time, too. They're not going to give two Jane Austen things. The other nominees are Apollo 13, Babe, Il Postino, and Leaving Las Vegas.

I finally, for the purposes of this mini-series, watched Il Postino. I kind of like Il Postino. You know, especially on a screenplay level. Wow. And, like, you know, my understanding of the background is it's doing its own version as an adaptation, you know, not just like a literal. You said, thank you, Harvey. I'll have some more, is what you said when you watch. I would not say that.

I would say, thank you, Masimo Troisi. and the screenwriters of the film. My boot is leaving Las Vegas, a movie that I've watched since the pandemic. Oh. I don't know if I... I haven't watched that movie since, like, the late 90s, I want to say. Leaving Las Vegas feels kind of quintessentially 90s to me

in a way that I don't necessarily mean as a compliment. Sure. Like, that movie is maybe only interesting if it comes out in the 90s, and while I think Cage is very good in it, I feel very, at the end of that movie, I feel very Whoopi Goldberg, okay. Sure. Like, I, yeah. There are things that are worth celebrating about that movie.

And, like, I know that that is a very rigorous piece of adaptation. Is that my boot close, but honestly, and don't tell my husband this, it's his favorite movie. I think my boot is Apollo 13. Because do I think about the story structure when I think about Apollo 13 A movie that I think is really great? Yeah. But like Apollo 13, while, you know, we can talk about movies like Titanic not getting screenplay nominations. Like if they'd done it for Apollo 13, I'd get it maybe even more.

Yeah. Because like there's some good dialogue in there and there's maybe some good story structure. But like nobody leaves Apollo 13 talking about the script. Well, it does have one of the more. memorable. Talk about 100 years, 100 quotes. I guarantee you, Houston, we have a problem, is on 100 years, 100 quotes. And that's not when he said. So somebody came up, I don't know. Like, I'm giving you a little bit of a hard time. I think, I think you make a good, you make a good point. I think it's Apollo 13. Yeah, you make a good movie that I do think is really

great. Yeah. It's a very good movie. Probably should have won best picture in terms of what was likely to win best picture that year. So it should have been sense and sensibility. but sense and sensibility was never going to win best picture you know what I mean like in terms of like what what had a shot to be brave hard well and like you know yeah yeah listen all I'm saying is don't throw your vote away vote for the film that's going to beat Braveheart and if you're still in line to vote for Best Picture in 1995 stay in line stay in line okay so we've been booting things yes I think you are about to steal We're gonna back Now baby blue Cadillac Just when I was stalling I heard an angel

calling This is a lot You can go anywhere You gotta grab the wheel And on it Drive it like he's rolling This is the last

You can be laughing You got the rock It's rolling You got put the Uh-huh. I thought you were going to say we're going to to do something, but I'm also going to, yeah, steal something. Katie Rich isn't the only person to bring a best original song nomination to the table. And the one... Imagine us talking about best original song.

Yeah, get used to it, guys. There are some choices that are going to be made. And I know this is a song that Katie loves, so maybe this is my tribute to Katie on this episode. Every episode is a tribute to Katie. It's true. Best Original song, 2016, from the movie Sing Street. The song is Drive It Like You Stole it. It is, we use the phrase, understood the assignment a lot lately, or not even lately, for the past several years. And it's to the point where it's maybe been devalued as a phrase. But you talk about a song, it was words and music by Gary Clark, I should say. Gary Clark understood the assignment for Drive It Like You Stole It, which is, Give Me a Bop that sounds like it could have been conceivably written by a bunch of teenagers

that is still very good for, you know, some teenagers, that is, that is impressive, right? That is catchy, that is catchy in this sort of like Britpop kind of way. It fits the genre. It is an earworm like you would not believe. it doesn't it's an earworm that doesn't make you feel like an asshole for singing it two days later you know what I mean like it's a it's I compare it to like that thing you do right where like nobody's mad that that thing you do gets stuck in their head for a week after seeing that movie and I feel the same way about Sing Street I watch Sing Street I'm sing and drive it like you stole it for like an entire week and I am not mad about it that is a fun song for years and years and years I would be a little bitch and talk about how they should get rid of the best original song category. By the early 2010s, I had had it. I was done with that category.

I was like, we have passed the point where original music in movies is a thing. Nobody's making hits out of, you know, movies anymore. The nominees are mostly terrible. and we have this category has outlived its usefulness and I loved it too much back in the 80s and 90s to see what it had become there 2016 comes along

2016 is an embarrassment of riches for good original songs and movies and they weren't all nominated but enough of them were in the conversation that year that I was like 2016 kind of redeemed the idea that we should have a best original song category

even if the ultimate nominee weren't all my faves that year. Also one of the years where we have a lot of original songs written by SIA and none of them nominated. 100%. I have talked on this podcast about how Try Everything from Zootopia deserves me nominated for best original song. But we will, that was also...

Because of the rules and the framework that we've set for this, because we can't have two from the same category and the same year, you had to pick and choose. You better believe both were on my long list. Right. Yes. I think if you're talking about a source... song that is written in order to enhance the narrative

like this the narrative of Sing Street depends on drive it like you stole it being the kind of song that it is and as good as it is so that year that was the year of La La Land of course so that movie gets two nominees

City of Stars wins the snoozyest of options from La La Land and I am not a La La Land hater I particularly like the contributions of Justin Herwits in general should have won Best Original score this year. And so City of Stars wins.

Audition the Fools Who Dream is also nominated. I have no quarrel with Audition The Fools Who Dream. I think the best... The best songs from La La Land were the ones that weren't nominated, which are Another Day of Sun and someone in the crowd, but that's a whole other story. The Gap commercial songs. Yeah, exactly.

Listen, I love a Gap commercial. Talk about 90s pleasure center stuff. Like, I will go back and I will watch a compilation of Gap commercials. Can't Stop the Feeling from trolls, which I know nobody is allowed to like Justin Timberlake anymore, that's an earworm that you did kind of feel like an asshole that's being stuck in your head a week later. And yet, it's trolls, right? Like, that's, that song fulfilled the brief of that movie, too, in the same way that, like, Farrell's Happy did a few years before that, right? So, whatever.

I have no problem with Can't Stop the Feeling. It did what it set out to do. Max Martin is an Oscar or not. nominee, and that's fine. And then how far I'll go from Moana, music and lyrics by Lin-Mendro Miranda, should have won, was absolutely the best of that category. Lin-Manuel would have a negat. We wouldn't have to talk about what's going to happen for him to finally win any got.

He would have had it by then. The one I'm going to get rid of was the other nominee, which is... The song about Clint East with talking to Barack Obama. The empty chair from Jim. The James Foley story, which is a documentary, and of course, it's a very, you know, incredibly sad story, a tragic story. Music and lyrics by Best Original Song Ringer, J. Ralph, who steps in every few years and nabs a nomination. To make a song for a documentary. And then also Sting.

How many nominations for Sting now? Can you look that up while I'm talking? Can you check on IMD how many? I reeled back because they're probably all horrible. The thing about the empty chair, beyond the fact that it is not a memorable song, and I could not, for the life of me, sing any part of it for you right now, it's emblematic of that drought in original song that made me really hate it, which is the nominating committee reaching for whatever the fuck song from some documentary that nobody saw, no offense to Jim, the James Foley story, and nominating it because whatever. The people doing the nomination don't have imagination or recoil

from anything that sounds like it was made past the year 2000 or whatever. It's just, it's emblematic. It makes me really, really pessimistic about the taste level of Oscar voters whenever one of these songs get nominated. And it goes,

Lord knows I love Diane Warren, but like the RBG song was the same fucking deal, right? Where it's just like, spare me. So I think I would feel a lot better about the original song category as an enterprise if things like the empty chair were not nominated. Love and Light to J. Ralph, and I hope that J. Ralph has a long and prosperous career ahead of him. Just maybe no more Oscar nominations, even though I will say, having said all of that, the song about the climate change documentary that was sung by Scarlet Johansson, I was like, that's kind of good. Anyway, Sting's four Oscar nominations, in addition to the empty chair.

Yes. My funny friend and me from the Emperor's New Group. Of course. Until, from Kate and Leopold. Right. And from Cold Mountain, you will be my ain't true love. Of course. Yes.

Four nominations for Sting. Not the Ane True Love. Sting, up until last year, Sting was the Michelle Williams of the original song category. Now he is the. Who's a four-time nomad, Willam Defoe? He's the Willem Defoe of the original song. Willem is three. Is it just three?

Just three. Florida Project? No, it's four. It's Platoon, Shadow of the Vampire, Florida Project. Oh, yeah, it's four. And Vincent Van Gogh. Listen, if the fifth gets him a win and your ghost is the one that gets it for him, I'm going to be happy. I'm saying.

Anyway, anyway. All right, what do you got next? We're not lying in your eyes We're still talking about music here beside me We're not talking about a music category. We are talking about a music category. We are talking about iconic music cinema.

So listen, concert movies, concert documentaries, if you want to call them docs or nonfiction, whatever, used to be a thing, and now they're kind of not a thing. I feel like for a hot second, Beyonce made that happen with the Homecoming Doc, which is essentially behind the scenes and the footage from her Coachella set. And talk about a movie that got mentioned for. It's editing. I almost feel like, you know, homecoming would be a great choice for the editing

because of that single shot where they jump and it's between the two sets and it changes costumes, blows your fucking mind watching it. I have instead chosen for Best Film Editing from 1984 Jonathan Demi's Stop Making Sense. I like this. Editing by Lisa Day. I like this. Stop Making Sense is, I mean,

the definitive, the kind of peak of the concert movie to me and I think a lot of other people in terms of it really is this kind of rapturous experience, not only making you feel like you're at a concert, but like it's very enveloping

cinema and like you see the cameraman throughout the movie. It's like it feels like such a participatory experience that you in the audience of the movie or at your home feel like you're part of the audience. You feel like you're part of the band. You feel like you're part of the band. You feel like you're part

of the people making the movie even because you're like integrated with cameramen, you know, it's this very democratic feeling of like you're all amped on the music together, both in the band outside of it and the people creating the movie. And I think that is because of Lisa Day's editing. I fucking love Stop Making Sense. It's getting a restoration and re-release this year. Everybody should go. We should all have dance parties at every cinema that's playing it. I love that. best film editing stop making sense i love this pick i think this is a very crisp pick but in a way that like this is why this is this is why i'm glad to have you on this venture with me because these are the picks that we need to make for this list i love we fucking love the talking heads

yeah and like david byrne you know uh american utopia is not uh you know talking heads it's just david burn but there's of course a lot of talking heads music it's like it's very interesting that he has multiple of this level of movie, too. And American Utopia was shot by Spike Lee, who I would argue is the greatest at, you know, filming theater and creating his own vision for it.

Everybody go watch Passing Strange. But, yes, stop making sense is this is also a time where the Oscars weren't not to be like they're not cool enough. You know, I don't love those conversations, but like they had to warm up

to Demi. Yeah. And it's like, still feels like a miracle that the silence of the lambs happen. Sure. Yes, it does. This is a real eclectic This is a real eclectic field. Best film editing in 1984. Uh, the killing fields wins. Umma Deus. The Cotton Club. A passage to India

and romancing the stone. It's a lot going on. I love David Lean, but a passage to India is a fucking snooze. It is kind of a snooze, isn't it? I don't. I don't. Yeah. I don't. Yeah. It is. No, yeah. That's my pick for the boot.

I'm sure as hell not booting Amadeus. The Killing Fields, which is like very much a movie of its time, does have a rhythm to it. Romancing the Stone, I think that's a fucking cool nomination, especially that opening sequence, like, is really precisely assembled. More comedies. I know it was nominated probably more for its adventure aspects than its comedies, but more comedy should be nominated for best editing. Like, editing is so crucial to the same. success of a comedy. Right, right. And the Cotton Club, you know, because that's a somewhat troubled production and has had since, like, you know, recuts of it, I think a lot of people

might jump to that simply based off of its reputation, but that movie's fine. Like, yeah. So you're booting a passage to India. I am. All right. Well done. I have been awake for almost 60 hours. I'm tired and I'm dirty. I've been from Chicago to Paris, to Dallas. To, where the hell am I? Scranton. I am trying to get home to my eight-year-old son. And now that I'm this close, you're telling me it's hopeless. I'm sorry.

No, no, no, no, no way. This is Christmas. The season of perpetual hope. Mammaph. And I don't care if I have to get out on your runway and hitchhike. If it cost me everything I owned, if I have to sell my soul to the devil himself, I am going to get home to my son. All right, kiddos.

this is a fun one for me this one is a I'm leaping away from the bounds of plausibility for my next selection 1990 Best Supporting Actress a pretty good year for Best Supporting Actress, I should say so we'll get to who I'm snubbing in a second or who I'm pulling from the nominations

in a second so this is a movie I watch every year this is a movie that every time I watch it this particular performance gets better and better. I have stopped feeling like this is me being a troll and me being a little scamp about this. And every time I see this movie now, I'm like, this is textbook, fantastic comedic acting.

This is Catherine O'Hara in a little movie called Home Alone. And yes, I am serious. She should have been nominated for Best Supporting Act. everything else that's going on with Home Alone, right? The, you know, the Macaulay Culkin of it all, the pranks and the, you know, the slapsticky Looney Tunes violence. Okay, here's the thing that I find funny. Is people getting overly moralistic about like,

Home Alone is so violent. He really, like, those guys really, they could have died. Yeah, that's why it's funny. It's like, yeah, it's a fucking Looney Tunes cartoon. Like, get a fucking life, people. Jesus, age Christ. But anyway, from all of that, there is a subplot

going on where Catherine O'Hara is trying to get home to the son that she accidentally left at home. And of course, the thing that everybody remembers, he's on the plane and she goes, Kevin, you know what I mean, in that. But like, it keeps going on from there. The plane lands in Paris. She's on the horn with local

cops. She has to wheedle her way past Hope Davis and an old couple with the box of dangly earrings, and you know, the rent-a-car desk at whatever airport, Dallas Fort Worth

or whatever the fuck. And then ultimately gets a ride from John Candy and a kindly group of polka singers in a budget one of the greatest mini romantic comedies because you kind of want them to fuck. This is the thing that I'm saying is every single one of those moments

has a scene where Catherine O'Hara is fucking brilliant. When she's on the phone with the cops, she's so funny when she's on... When she's trying to make the deal... Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. When she's yelling at Octavis.

Madame, there's nothing I can do. Obdavie? The old couple, right? And then, right. She has lots of earrings, dangley ones. Oh, you don't want to get me quoting every line from Home Alone, because I can do it. But then, right, she's in the scene. with her and John Candy.

And it's like a couple scenes, right? They read it a couple times. And like, these are two, obviously, you know, SCTV, the two go back away. Their comedic chemistry has been refined to a sharp point. And they just riff off of each other in this van talking about. And she reacts to him and he reacts to her. And it's so, the comedy there is so pure and so, you know,

There's nothing, there's no, there's no empty calories to it, right? It's just fun and loose. And on top of all of that, then, she has this really beautiful emotional reunion with McCulley Culkin at the end where she makes it home. And she sells, she sells the emotional core of that movie. And she also provides the non-slapstick division, all the funniest moments of that movie. Talk to any mother about that scene when she comes back to the house and sees this beautiful home. And, like, I'm sure it's going to unpack a can of worms for that mother.

And it's because of Catherine O'Hara's performance. That scene particularly, that's, like, an impossible task to do as an actor. And she, like, and, like, not be corny, not be schmaltzy. And I think she does it so beautifully. We talk all the time about how the Oscars don't honor comedy enough. And this is the, it's a perfect example. And it's not one you would think of because Home Alone is not thought of as a, even though it is an Oscar nominee, it's not thought of as a respectable movie. But. Well, and it's also interesting because it is a year where a comedy performance won.

That is true. Whoopie for Ghost. But it's a comedy performance in a movie that is a kind of overwrought drama, too. You know what I mean? Like, it's comedy. Yeah, Ghost is a bad movie with an incredible Whoopie. a tremendously watchable movie. Like, there's, you know, it's a little junk foodie

in terms of the Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore of it all, but like, it's so watchable. Oh, my goodness. Yes, so anyway, so the nominees that year, Whoopi wins for Ghost, Annette Benning for the Grifters, Lorraine Brocko for Goodfellas, Diane Ladd in a bonkers nomination for Wild at heart. Absolutely insane that she's nominated for that movie,

and I love it. And then Mary MacDonald for Nances with Wolves. I love all of these actors. I think they all give at worst good performances. I'm still going to boot Mary McDonnell for Dances with Wolves. I don't hate Dances with Wolves. I've talked about this on another podcast recently. I don't hate this movie.

It has problems. I don't even think the Mary MacDonald character is particularly problematic, but of everybody in this category, like, whoopies unimpeachable, Lorraine Brocko is tremendous. I can't take away that dynamic. land performance. The history books need it. And Annette Benning, her first ever Oscar nomination for the Grifters, Stephen Frears, once again, shows up. She's good. She's crackling in that role.

And Mary MacDonald would get nominated a couple years after this for Passion Fish, a tremendous performance that we are both definitely way more passionate about. I very recently talked about that on the podcast like it's 1992 podcast. If you want to go and find that episode, I had a great time talking. to Phyllis Gove and Emily St. James about that. And, but yeah, Mary McDonnell and Dances Willves is number five. She's riding number five in this one, I would say. Amazing. Yeah.

All right. What you got next? We talk a lot about love, but we don't feel it a lot. So perhaps this marathon will open up some doors. So this is the furthest back that we're going this episode. We'll go further back in this episode. We'll go further back in episodes to come. When we talk about Oscars and we talk about, you know, essentially cringe pre-Winstein

and like, you know, the way that there was a shift there, there's a reason why we don't do older movies on this podcast because it's an entirely different ecosystem. I think secretively Michael Schulman's book, Oscar Wars, helps kind of bolster this idea for our listeners because when you listen to a lot of those pre-80s and 90s, or when you read those chapters it's like

kind of barely about the Oscars in those chapters because it's more just about other things I'm going to throw out for Best Picture in 1969 one of my absolute favorite movies that for the type of cultural touchstone that

it was I am also very surprised that did not get Best Picture traction wasn't even nominated for musical or comedy Best Picture at the Globes that year which is really shocking to me me, Paul Mazzarski's, Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. One of my fucking favorite movies. I mean, like, notorious for the obvious, like, couple-swapping, you know, post-sexual

liberation, or I guess mid-sexual liberation, where the sexual liberation has reached married couple-aged people in terms of their sexual exploration, and that's the avenue that this movie like gets you in the theater to see. It puts butts and seats and that's where the movie kind of begins. But what I think ultimately the movie kind of evolves in is this almost generational study, you know, because they're kind of, they are an age of people that are caught between the young people going through the actual sexual revolution and free love and all of that and between their parents' generation that told them what a marriage is supposed to be, what men and women are supposed to be what you know the nuclear unit and how marriage is function and what

this movie ultimately becomes is couples who are figuring out their own rule book in you know a time that they don't have any type of reinforcement yeah they are on their own to figure out how to make their marriages work you know and you can talk about the sexual politics of it too but it's, I think, ultimately, about people who love each other, figuring out what to do to, you know, be together what their, you know, love is going to be. And I think it remains even almost 60 years later, incredibly relevant. And I think it is my favorite movie. You can't just say almost 60 years later like that and just not prepare me to, like, I feel dizzy now. That's such a long time.

If you want to feel dizzy, watch the ending of this movie. My favorite movie ending of all time as well. It's nominated for two supporting Oscars for Diane Cannon and Elliot Gould. Incredible nominations. Who's the performance of the movie? Who gives the best performance in the movie? Diane Cannon. It's been on my list forever.

I still haven't seen it. I need to at some point see this movie. Well, then I shan't spoil the... the euphoria of the end of that movie for you. Paul Merserski would eventually, well,

two years later, a few years later, get nominated for Best Picture for an unmarried woman, another one of my favorite movies that, you know, captures, you know,

a very specific generational moment in beautiful ways that I think are bigger than people, that the movie approaches it in a bigger way than people talk. about the movie about. And so this is also kind of a pivotal turning point year for the Oscars.

Midnight Cowboy is the Best Picture winner, you know, famously the first X-rated movie, even though it eventually would be rated R. The other nominees are Ann of a Thousand Days, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Hello Dolly, and Kostasovrs. Z. Yes. Have you ever seen Anne of a Thousand Days? I have not. I think a lot of people would throw the boot here to Hello Dolly. I think it's pretty standard musical fair. Sure.

Anne of a thousand days, more like an of a thousand fucking hours long. It is quintessential, like, and Anne of a thousand days, also, if you look into its Oscar story, is, you know, it's one of the first movies pegged with campaigning. You know, it's a movie that they gave away filet mignon and champagne at screenings of it. You know, it's targeted as, you know, one of the first movies to do a campaign. campaign like that. Sure. And you see why they would dog that movie for it because the movie is fucking boring. It's, I mean, Javier Bujold is the lead and was nominated for it and she's pretty good. And it's Richard Burton. But like, there are so many movies in this time and two decades prior that are just these really, really boring costume dramas. Yeah. I think costume

Drama sort of attained a little bit of a, sort of a dirty word for a while. When people turn their nose and say the word costume drama, this is the movie they mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. That's a really good, it gives me a lot to think about because the only movies from that best picture lineup that I've seen are Midnight Cowboy and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I haven't even seen the Hello Dolly movie, although I have seen the stage show. So it gives me a lot to throw on my list and watch. Should we take another phone call from another special guest?

Joe, who's at the door? Oh, wait, are we doing this every time? Maybe. Maybe I'll change it every episode. Who's at the door? Who's here? Ding dong, the last culture. No, that's the wrong podcast.

Anyway, let's get a dispatch from the field. from one of our valued guests. We need, like, Glenn Close and Donald Sutherland. Oh, my God. Yes, we do. Ushering these people in. All right. Good evening, distinguished panel of judges. And by judges, I mean this had Oscar Buzz listeners, Chris Fyle, and Joe Reed.

My name is Kevin O'Keefe, and I am honored to be part of the 100-Years 100 Snubs series. As the resident Jessica Chastan of the podcast, I think my selection for what I would put in is going to come as no surprise. I'm going to be talking about the 2017 best actress race and the exclusion of one fiery redhead currently starring on Broadway, Jessica Chastain for Molly's Game. I think this is one of her best performances. I also think as we talked about during the Miss Sloan episode, I would highly recommend anyone who has not listened. Go back and listen to that because we had a lot of fun recording that one.

as well as, I think I was also on the Most Violent Year episode. I can't wait to come back for yet another journey into Ms. Chastain's Uvra. Anyway, as we talked about in the Miss Sloan episode, Ms. Sloan and Molly's game sort of exists in this same sphere of Jessica Chastain acting, where she was really, like, focused, galvanized, very sorky in both, even if Aaron Sorkin technically only wrote one Molly's game, although you never believe it. I was actually hoping to be able to talk about Molly's game, on the podcast until we realized that it actually got the best adapted screenplay nomination

for Sorkin, so we wouldn't be able to. But my love for the performance continues unabated. I think it's some of her most fun work. I think it's really interesting to see her in this particular mold, and I would have loved to see her be encouraged to continue to work in this particular mold. And instead, it feels like she's fallen into a couple different traps. I can't say that I've seen Ava I can't say that I will be seeing Ava

but from what I can tell of Ava as well as a lot of her recent work other than the beloved Aise of Tammy Faye which I was so happy she eventually won her Oscar for I feel like she's drifted a bit from the things that I really like about her the George and Tammy series seems to be more in line with what she's been doing recently

congratulations on that SAG Award Jess, thank you for showing up for it, despite your theatrical engagements. Anyway, yeah, I would really have liked to have seen her nominated for that early. It's easier to understand, it's easier to feel good about now, considering she didn't wind up Oscar list that she won for Tammy Fay, but I still think she was very deserving for it. She wouldn't have been my winner that year, but I still think she would have, she should have been included. I actually would throw out, part of this was being asked to remove someone from the category if you're going to add someone.

And I would actually throw out that year's winner, Francis McDormon, for three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, not over Ebbing, Missouri. Bullets over Broadway, billboards over Missouri. Yeah, I would throw her out for three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri. I really don't like that film. I don't think Francis is particularly great in it. And Francis would win just a couple years later for Nomadland, both in Best Actress and for producing the film.

So she's fine. She's got plenty of opportunities. I'm not robbing anything major from Francis. I think we could go on with her out without her getting even a nomination for that. She was my fifth of five in that category pretty easily. And I would slot Jess in there instead. In terms of who would win, I would probably give it to Merrill Street for the Post. But I also think there's a world in which it's a good thing that Sersha Ronan has an Oscar.

Speaking of the ways in which an Oscar nomination or Oscar itself can affect someone. one's career trajectory positively. I think it would be great to see Sersha with one, so she could get it for Lady Bird as well. But my personal pick is probably Merrill in the post and that captain. Anyway, I had so much fun thinking about this.

Thank you to Joe and Chris for inviting me, and I can't wait to hear what everybody else comes up with for this miniseries. All right, bye. Wow, the chastan has logged back in. And I am walking out the back of the Scotia Bank Theater and hustling back in to do my curtain call. That is a joke for three people.

I was going to say, not a lot of people, but the ones who get it will really get it. I love Jessica Chastain and Molly's game. That is a... Kevin, thank you for staying true to the brand. Yes. We love this. It's not necessarily a junk food performance, but it is a high-carb performance. performance is what I like to think. Who doesn't want to watch Jessica Chastain play a Kardashian?

I mean, that is a, you watch that movie, and it's just entertainment from beginning to end. And she's watching, I think one of the things that for as embattled as Sorkin can be as a screenwriter and a filmmaker, I think he gets the exhilaration of watching somebody be very good at their job. and she's so good at setting up that poker empire and is so believable in that role. I love her. Chastain is a perfect performer for Sorkin, too. I think she will know how to digest all of that and give you the drama of Sorkin, but also make it seem like something an actual human being would say. Yeah, I think that's right.

Um, good pick by Kevin. I guess we're moving into mine. Yeah. What do you have next? So this is a sort of particular and peculiar Oscar story that I don't think we've really ever talked about to any degree of length. the Zhang Yi-Mu film Hero, which is one of the more one of the more curious Oscar journeys in recent memory, where it is China's submission for Best Foreign Language Film for 1992,

gets nominated, loses to nowhere in Africa, and is acquired by Miramax. Notoriously, one of the most notorious, sort of Harvey Weinstein does not do right by a filmmaker stories, is he acquires Hero, pitches eight kinds of fits about recutting it and doing whatever changes he wants to make to it before he will release it in the United States, and essentially in a fit of peak sits on it for two years. And for those two years, people were constantly being like, when are we going to get Hero? This was back.

at a time where like the foreign language films were not a guarantee to be able to be seen, you know, there were foreign language films that just were not available to be seen in the United States. And so, so many people were so excited to see this movie and couldn't for years. I even feel like a trailer was put out for that movie, like, early, and then the release date was pulled. I believe, don't quote me on that. This is a movie we could abs. Well, we can't because it was a foreign language film nominee. But then when it gets released in the United States and is eligible through those odd little rules where a foreign language nomination does not preclude you from getting nominations in the year that you are actually released

in the United States. So it's released in the aforementioned city of God. See the aforementioned city of God. So it's released in 2004. By the time it gets released, it's really dazzling. This is a really dazzling movie Jet Lee stars as a long, like talk about like all star cast. Zhang Yomu is directing. Jet Li, Tony Leung, Maggie Chung, Donny Yen, Zhang Ziyi, like the cast fucking rules. This is another movie where I really debated as to what nomination

I wanted to give this one. So it doesn't get any nominations from the year 2004 when it comes out. I thought about director for Zhang Yemu. I thought about cinematography for Christopher Doyle, who, you know, this fantastic career doing large Cinematography for Wonkar-Wise films, never nominated. And being a known monster. Oh, is that true? I didn't realize that. Oh, well, then I feel even better about the choice that I'm making now in this. Instead, I chose Best Costume Design for Hero for Costume Designer, Emmy Wada.

And I'm hoping I'm pronouncing all of that correctly. A costume designer for film, but also ballet. She did a lot of ballet costume design died very recently, died at the age of 84 in 2021, was nominated, won the Academy Award in 1985 for costume design for Akira Kurosah was wrong. So, like, this is an honored costume designer, and yet the costumes in Hero. Have you seen Hero? Is that a movie you have seen? Ages ago. Sure.

But yes, you are your right to include it. The costume story in that movie is every fight has a different color palette. And it's this saturated one color. You've got the green fight and you've got the red fight. And you've got the blue fight and you've got the white fight. You know what I mean? Like everything is these very sort of like monochromatic saturated, like in your face sort of assault of color on your brain. And it's overwhelming intentionally so.

The costumes are these very flowy, everything's motion, right? Everything is fighting clothes, right? So it's everything that looks beautiful, swirling around in this swirl of fabric as everybody's jumping and fighting and whatever. And also there are like armored soldiers in certain scenes. And so there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot to do costume-wise in this movie. It looks stunning. I think hand in hand with the cinematography and with Zhang Yemu's direction, it creates these really, really unforgettable scenes. And I think just in general, Hero deserved, at the very least, a run at Kraft's nominations.

And I think part of the narrative of Harvey Weinstein sort of exhausting everybody on the subject of this movie is people were kind of ready to move on. And by the time that hero comes out, Zhang Yemu's next movie, House of Flying Dagger, is nominated or is released in 2004. And that does get nominations for cinematography, and that's it. So that also doesn't get nominated for the costume design, even though that's another one where these costumes are intricate. You know what I mean? like incredibly

complicated and stunning and you know this is another Zanzi movie and she looks tremendous and so this is almost a two for one

Emmy Wada costumes for you can give it to Hero you can give it to House of Flying Daggers I went with Hero because that's the one that was more overall sort of snubbed and wronged one of my favorite just movies to look at from the aughts.

It's just really, really tremendous. So that year, in costume design, your nominees are Sandy Powell wins for the Aviator. Sandy Powell bodying the costume design category throughout the years is not a rare thing. Colleen Atwood's nominated for Lemony Snickets, a series of unfortunate events. Alexandra Byrne is nominated for Finding Neverland, Sharon Davis for Ray, Bob Ringwood for Troy So in terms of costumes Troy, Troy put Brad Pitt in a miniskirt

so I'm not going to quarrel with anything about Troy. Troy also made the great editorial decision to put him in no clothes. That's true. A fine, fine decision that there. Thank you, Wolfgang Peterson. Colleen Atwood for Lemony Sink is a series of unfortunate events.

If you're going to recognize anything for that movie, it's costumes in our direction, right? Like, that's, there's a lot going on there. Sandy Powell, Aviator, costumes are really, really fantastic, actually. Like, just lots going on. So I think it comes down to Ray and Finding Neverland. Ray, I struggle to sort of come up with any sort of standout costume decision. There are, the Raylets, of course, have, you know, their cute little performance outfits or whatever, which are not bad.

Ultimately, it comes down to I fucking hate Finding Neverland, and I would like it to have as few nominations as possible. To defend the Ray nomination, there's a lot of era specificity there that really, you know, adds to that movie. I think not bad costumes. There are probably 20 movies that I think have more impressive costumes from 2004 than Ray. But I, I, all respect to Alexander Byrne, I don't want Finding Neverland to have nominations. I'm getting rid of that one. What's your next one? Well, if you don't go and see her. What?

I will. And I'll tell her I'm you. And I'll do terrible things to it. Listen. If Chris Files going to do one thing, he's going to talk about this filmmaker. He's going to say that it is a travesty, that this filmmaker remains.

Entirely unnominated. Right. By the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences. Right. Who am I talking about? Talking about the master, David Cronenberg. Everyone's favorite Canadian. I mean, I have a lot of favorite Canadians.

Maybe my favorite male Canadian. Okay. All right. We can say that. I'll give you that. Yeah. I mean, sorry, no one, no one's going above. It's like, okay, favorite Canadians.

Selene Dion. Sure. Friend and former guest, Danita Steinberg. Sure. David. David Cronerick. Okay. Dream block rotation.

Look, there's a lot of Cronenbergs you could talk about. You, again, fall into that trap of, well, the Academy's not cool, and I'm just doing that choice. Right. I think, I think my number one Cronenberg movie, my number one, this is a Cronenbergian vision. This sells you on who. who he is. There's other movies you could maybe throw out there, but I'm talking about the best director race of 1988.

We're talking about Dead Ringers. Yes. By the time, Dead Ringers was a movie. I thought a lot about how to get it in there. You could say Jeremy Irons. Jeremy Irons goes and wins a year later and thanks Cronenberg in his speech. Yes.

It remains the best Jeremy Irons performance. By now when this airs, listeners can go and watch Rachel Weiss do... I was going to say, I just watched that entire series. You've seen the episodes. I have not had the access to it. Yeah. And...

It made me want to watch the movie. Like, it's a good show, and I think it's a well-directed show, that ultimately I'm like, this would be better as a movie. And then I'm like, oh, wait, there is a movie. Like, that's, you know, it's one of those things. It's a leveling up for Cronenberg at this point, but I think it's also him at a career point really defining who he is as an artist and how his career would continue to proceed the type of risks he would continue to proceed.

The immaculate, just like complete design and conception of this movie shows why he is a master. Maybe not a master for everyone who does not make movies that everyone will love, but I think he makes movies that everyone will respond to. It is impossible to not respond to this movie. And the wild thing about Dead Ringers was this was Cronenberg coming down to earth a little bit from... It's a studio movie. It's him after Videodrome and after the Fly and after... Fly was a big hit?

Sure, Fly was a big hit. But it's like... And an Oscar nominee. Let me do something that is a little bit less body parts sort of falling off of people and holes opening up in the center cavity of people and like whatever like this is comparatively a norm a normie movie for well but on the surface absolutely relatively relatively considering psychology of this movie which is you know where i think he you know the the the headline is the gore or the violence of some of his movies yeah but the actual upsetting thing and the thing i think that lingers is the psychology

yes and yeah you know the fly had already won an Oscar. This is a studio movie. But also, it's not a year that the Oscars would have been too cool to have, you know, put their neck out there for a really, you know, controversy-cording movie. Because this is the year, or, you know, a movie that's, you know, up its own creek. This is the year they nominates Gorsese for Last Temptation of Christ. Yeah. There's obviously, you know, a lot that goes into it. And that movie received a really, really, um, notoriously heated reception from audiences and Christians specifically that you could see why the Academy would want to go and stick his neck out for Scorsese. Yes, yes. But it is the Cronenberg pick for me. The other nominees that year are Barry Levinson wins for Rain Man. Charles Crichton gets a comedy nomination for a fish called Wanda.

Mike Nichols also gets a comedy nomination for Working Girl. Neither of those are Best Picture nominees. And Alan Parker for Mississippi Burning, which is I can at least stand by that Alan Parker nomination because that's a movie that is so clearly elevated by its directorial vision, and you can see the significantly weaker version of the movie that's directed by someone else so clearly in your mind. Rob Reiner's Ghost of Mississippi. Right. This is a house down boot situation. Barry Levinson winning for Rain Man. is absurd to me.

Even in this, I mean, in this lineup, Rain Man, first of all, this is the Alan Carr Oscars we're talking about here, and you're not going to get some weird shit like Kronaberg in there? I rest my case. Wait, this is the Alan Carr Oscars? Explain that. Okay, so Alan Carr was notorious gay man,

producer of many gay sex parties and the motion picture Greece. He does the Oscars that got like some of the, like it killed his career, Worst Oscar reviews ever, it had the whole Rob Lowe Snow White situation that was like his baby And like they were, these were the Oscars that were essentially accused of being too gay And Oh boy

Barry Levinson winning for Raymond, which Rain Man is also like It's like in many ways the peak of 80s Oscar Schmaltz But like, why does that movie need a directing Oscar? Well, because it's winning best picture, is the reason for it. Because it's winning best picture, essentially, which is, like, I think we have, like, the Academy has finally broken of that mindset in recent years, which I actually think is a good thing, even though I don't always love how it plays out. But why does Barry Levinson have a directing Oscar for Rain Man? Well, if you get to the actual directing of it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Rain Man is a movie that I haven't seen in several decades, so I can't speak on it now. But yeah, I mean, I think that's a very supportable conclusion you come to. I'm going to take us to the year 2012. My first of what will prove to be a few best original score nominations I'm going to correct in the public record. So, 2012 was a really fantastic year for original scores.

Only some of them made it into the Oscar lineup. This is actually a year where there are two movies I would put into the score category. So I had to make a decision between two of my favorite scores of the last 25 years, two scores that I listened to to this day. One of them, the one that got the boot for me was, the Cloud Atlas score, which is Tom Tickver and, oh, God, it's... You're not giving something to Cloud Atlas, I think speaks to the level of your admiration for something. I mean, yes, is the thing.

Give me a second. That's, it's Johnny Climack and Tom Tickver and... Oh, I want to... Ben Whishaw. Ben Wisha. If only, man, Reinhold Heil is the third one. Okay, so love that score, listen to it constantly, catch me on a different day, and that's the one that I'm putting into the lineup. But the one I am putting in there at this very moment is the original score for Beasts of the Southern Wild from director Ben Zaitland and composer Dan Romer.

Beast of the Southern Wild is a movie I've not revisited since 2012. I'm a little bit trepidacious, too, because it's a movie that I feel like I could revisit it and maybe find it a little precious or a little condescending or a little something, maybe, and I can, you know, I can see a world in which I like it less than I did the first time around. But I was really taken with it the first time around, and one of the things that lingered the longest was this original score. very, you know, beautiful and rousing. It sort of has a main theme once there was a hush puppy that is sort of the central standout track from that that I listen to all the time. It's great like walk-in music.

It's very sort of like it comes to this like beautiful crescendo and almost sort of like a children's, sounds like a children's parade a little bit when it gets to the crescendo of that movie, which I really love. Dan Romer is a composer who has not saturated the film world in terms of like it's not like we get a new Dan Romer score every year or whatever he most recently did the score for HBO's Station 11 adaptation that is one of the most gorgeous TV scores I've heard in forever so much of that show was beautiful

and that score really really contributed So yeah, I really You said of the two You would have gone this way as well Between Cloud Alice and Beasts No question It's really Very shocking to me that like this did

This score didn't register Throughout the season in the way that You know Beast of the Siler It's a best picture nominee Yeah like my god It feels like an avenue that they could have gotten A craft nomination very easy So it makes you wonder if they didn't push for it

Yeah I tried to even go back and be like Is there an illegitial eligibility issue here. Because it's two of them and because it's, yeah. I mean, I don't, I couldn't find any. Right. But it's also over a decade old and the way back machine is being even less

and less of our friends anymore. The music had such mercurial, the music branch had such mercurial rules that seem to change every year in terms of eligibility and whatnot in both score and song. So I could see that. The nominees that year, Life of Pie wins. Michael Dana's score from Life of Pie, which I, I actually think is very good. I liked Life of Pie, I think, quite a bit more than a lot of critics maybe did at the time.

A lot of critics really liked it, but I think a lot of sort of younger, cooler critics were like, yeah, I'm Life of Pie. Dario Marianelli's score for Anna Karenina, which is very good. John Williams is for Lincoln. Thomas Newman for Skyfall, which in some ways it's like, yeah, it sounds like a James Bond score. But in other ways, I think Newman does some good things with it. And then Alexandra Displah for Argo, which, I remember at the time being like, because

DeSpa hadn't won yet. And I was like, this could be his win. Argo's going to probably win Best Picture. Nothing else seems to have really stood out as a score. Why not? Ultimately, life of pie wins. I do think Argo's the one I boot in terms

of, even among, like, John Williams' fatigue, Lincoln is a pretty distinctive score. And I think is one of his better ones of the last, say, 20 years or so. Like I said, I think Skyfall does some interesting things within the James Bond sort of coloring box. Coloring box is a term, right?

If I have a ballot, I'm giving it to Anna Karenina. Oh, I love Anna Karenina's score. I love Marianelli. And Mariannelli and Joe Wright are tremendous team together. So, yeah, I think I'm getting rid of Argo. Fabulous. All right. What do you got?

What am I going to do? I can't go out there this way. How can I go out there this way? So here's an example of one that we've talked about semi-recently in a previous episode, but the episode is not for the snub that I am throwing on the list. It's Best Supporting Actress, 1998, Joan Allen and Pleasantville. We talked about this on our, Upside of Anger episode. You can go back and listen to that. But I do think this is genuinely

shocking. She wasn't nominated for it. I get that there were somewhat middling feelings about Pleasantville and it got, you know, some craft nominations. The performance is so great. It is, I mean, you know, sexual awakening cinema. It is horny cinema. But she won critics' choice in LA film critics and doesn't get a nomination. Very, very shocking. Performance I love. I do love Pleasantville and all of its schmaltz and obvious metaphor. Yeah. Good movie. Excellent performance. Probably

should be Joan Allen's Oscar. Yeah. And the nominees that year, Judy Dench wins for Shakespeare in Love, Kathy Bates for primary colors, Brenda Blethen in Little Voice, Rachel Griffiths and Hillary and Jackie. Finally watch that Hillary and Jackie for this.

I still haven't seen it. It is about real life musicians. How did you like it? Rachel Griffith plays the flute. Emily Watson plays the cello. Uh-huh. All right.

Those two acting nominations, I can endorse it. Sure. I stand. That's fine. And then Lynn Redgrave for Gods and Monsters. Who are you doing? A movie I do defend and love. Yeah.

She's the cartooniest one in that movie. It is somewhat incommant. I really don't love little voice in a way that I was kind of surprised by eating. But, I mean, Brenda Blethen is good in the movie. She would maybe be my backup boot. Is it another one of those Brenda Blethen, like, sweet-y sort of performances? Is that sort of... Sweet art.

Yeah. You know, you should do, sweet art. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's just loa, love it so, oh, sweet art. Right, is one of those. Sweet art. um that um who beat her for secrets and lies oh francis mcdorman francis and fargo francis mcdormon has three acting oscars but that's her best one i don't want to take it away

it's her best one but francis mcdorman might be in rightful possession of brenda bletton's acting oscar i just got to maybe possibly say it don't kill francis or fargo is one of my favorite oscar ones of all time i can't i'm not taking them in secrets and lies is just like a holy fucking shit performance though um it is a little bit of a sweet up performance, but it, um, yeah, I, I don't like little voice. I think it's a mean fucking movie. Yeah, okay. Um, but Linwright grabs my boot. Uh, Joan Allen should have won for Pleasantville. Go back and listen to our upside of anger. We talk more about, uh, Joan Allen in her 90s run. I recently, but searching for Bobby Fisher was on TV the other night,

and I watched a lot of that, and she's so good in that, too. Like, um, God, I fucking love her. But yeah, listen to our upside of anger episode. We go in on the Joan Allen of it all. Roger's Hornsby was my manager, and he called me a talking pile of pig shit. And that was when my parents drove all the way down from Michigan to see me play the game. And did I cry? No, no. No. And you know why?

No. Because there's no crying in baseball. There's no crying in baseball. No crying. It's maddy, Jimmy. She's crying, sir. I want to talk about Tom Hanks for a second. I want to talk about America's dad, Tom Hanks, who, Mr. Areta Wilson.

Mr. Rita Wilson, Chet's reluctant dad, famously won back-to-back Oscars in the 90s, a thing that a lot of people sort of, you know, have feelings about, I think there was a while there where Tom Hanks was sort of trying to live that down a little bit and sort of fight back to regain a little bit of his street cred, which I think maybe took until Captain Phillips to sort of revisit. I could have had Captain Phillips as my Tom Hanks snub. I was a little surprised that Katie Rich didn't pull out Tom Hanks and Captain Phillips. Me too. Me too. The thing about Tom Hanks in the 90s is he would have been wholly justified in having back-to-back Oscars in the 90s. The thing is, it shouldn't have been for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump. It should have been 1992

A League of the Rhone followed by Philadelphia for a lead actor I think's best supporting actor in 1992 Tom Hanks and A League of the Rone is so fucking funny and good There is a read on that movie where I guess

you could call him a lead but like that is Gina Davis and Laurie Petty's movie and he is definitely a featured supporting player by this point in his career he's still a comedic actor He's the guy from Big and the Burbs and, you know, Joe versus the volcano and whatnot. And what's your call it? The one where the bathtub falls through the floor.

The money pit? The money pit. You know. I do you disrespect Shelley Long. Listen, I just couldn't think of the title for a second. I remember that bathtub falling through the floor. So he's sort of like he's a great comedic actor with this point. And it's sort of interesting that he only has one.

nomination for a comedic performance which is a nomination for big he's so fucking funny in a league of their own on top of the fact that it is wild that a league of their own has zero nominations we're going to do this movie I will eventually do it yeah

so I don't want to maybe I want to save a little bit for when we do talk about that but like for as much as the there's no crying in baseball scene has become a little bit of like cinematic wallpaper and that like it's on every clip reel and it's you know whatever he's so funny. Every single

word he says in that scene is so funny. The scene where he throws the baseball mitt and hits the kid and goes, ha ha! Got him. That is so good. He plays the loutishness

of Jimmy Dugan so well, and yet the redemption of him, too. You really, really kind of love him by the end. He and Gina Davis have some really good kind of like heart-to-heart scenes in a way where a lesser movie would have tried to throw in a romantic wrench into that thing, and I'm glad that the movie ultimately made the decision not to do that. One of my favorite performances of Hanks's

entire career, and I am a Hank's guy. I really like Tom Hanks a lot, but he's on another level in a League of Their Own. Where do you come down on this performance? I think this is a great call. I think it's a perfect Joe Reed call. I'm so happy a League of Their Own is on this list somewhere. Yeah, yeah. All right, nominees in 1992, Gene Hackman kind of wins everything that year for Unforgiven on his route to the Oscar. Other nominees, Jay Davidson for the crying game, Jack Nicholson for a few good men, Al Pacino for Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, and David Pamer for Mr. Saturday Night. So here's the thing is, I'm not getting rid of Jay Davidson. I am like the last remaining defender of the crying game. I really, uh, I still really love that.

movie. I know that there is problematic up the wazoo for that movie, and I don't, I don't disagree. And yet, um, I really, really love that movie. Jack Nicholson and a few good men is, again, a high carb performance that is, uh, satisfying. It's a chicken farm. That's a good chicken parm of a performance. That is a, yes, 100%. And I, and I, uh, clean my plate with that. He's so fucking good and big and scary and detestable. It's been a minute since I've seen Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross. But, like, I remember thinking Pacino is very good in that movie. And yet I maybe might not have nominated him for, I think if I nominate anybody,

I know it's a different category, but, like, it's kind of bizarre to you. He's my winner in this lineup. That's interesting. I think if you nominate anybody from Glenn Gary, you nominate Lemon and Lead. and whatever, but that's apples and oranges at this point. I saw it Mr. Saturday Night a long time ago. I didn't love it. I didn't find it objectionable.

I just found it kind of boring and a little self-regarding and a little, like, that was Billy Crystal really wanted to win an Oscar after all those years hosting and really went for it. ultimately he doesn't get nominated. Pamer does, and I remember him being sort of proud of Pamer for the nomination, but probably, like, kind of visibly sad that he wasn't the nominee. But anyway, Pamer's fine in Mr. Saturday Night, you know what I mean? He's the sort of long-suffering one in that movie, but I don't think that movie needs to be an Oscar nominee in any kind of fashion. And I, for as much as it sucks to pull a character actor or

Oscar nomination from like a, you know, real work-a-day character actor, give it to him a couple years later for a quiz show. He's so good and slimy and, you know, everybody in quiz show does well, that's good to hear because if that wasn't undecided, we need to learn to work on our people skills. That was what, American President? Yeah, he's great in the movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, wait a second, I know that line. Yeah, that's American President. But yeah, I think it's Pamer. I think I boot him on Forch. How dare you?

We only have one left, Chris. We have been talking for a while. Let's... What a booted Hackman. I hate that movie. Really? You hate... Even the performance of Hackman you don't like.

Interesting. No. Fascinating. Okay. Sorry. All right. All right. So, our last one for this episode.

Yes. Listeners, thank you for... We started on Best Actress. We're going to end on Best Actress, too. Isn't it you? who made me give of divorcing? Didn't you talk to me here in this house about sacrifice and sparing schedule?

And for Maysing and for yours, I did what you asked me. This is a movie. I have very strong feelings about the movie and the performance. I have a strong feeling about its Oscar place. I thought about putting this movie in a bunch of different categories,

best picture, best director. It got a couple Oscar nominations. It won for her cost. costumes, I believe. Ninety-three. Best actress, Michelle Pfeiffer, The Age of Innocence. Countess Olenska?

Am I getting the character's name right? Right? I think I'm right. Also, a very, very heated, very often talked about best actress race because you have Holly Hunter winning and Angela Bassett nominated

for what's Love Got to do with it. It's one of the greatest actress lineups of all time. Yeah. I mean, it's an unimpeachable win. Also, Angela Bassett would have been unimpeachable, even though, especially post-Tina documentary, there are complicated feelings to be had about the movie itself. I still think that this should be Michelle Pfeiffer's Oscar. And this also means I had to not put Michelle Pfeiffer on this list because of our rules for Batman Returns.

A tough call, I would say. Tough call, but I'm standing by it. I am standing in this call. Okay. This movie has, I've seen so many people, you know, when everybody's doing Scorsese rankings, I've seen so many straight critics be like, oh, all these people who think they're special by putting the Age of Innocence on there. Fuck you, uh, straight, bro.

The Age of Innocence is a fucking masterpiece. I'm dying to rewatch it. It's been forever since I've seen it. And I really, really owe it a really. you watch. You know, it got, you know, kind of a disappointing Oscar reception and a box office reception because this is one of the movies, people forget about this, this is one of the Scorsese movies that were delayed by a year, basically, because he was cutting it. It's an Edith Warden adaptation. We've talked about the House of Mirth, I think. It's even better

than House of Merth. It, in terms of... This is the movie that Miriam Margulies hates Winona Ryder for because Winona Ryder was in support. instead of what she thought or should have been a lead and then Miriam would have had a supporting campaign for that movie.

Yes, yes. She's not a lead in the movie, Miriam. No. Listen, Miriam can say what she wants whenever she goes on Graham Norton

and I will eat it up with the spoon. Please, talk shit about more people even if you're wrong. Exactly. Michelle Pfeiffer, though. Yes. I think what everything

this movie does to capture period-specific longing and emotional suffering is so incredibly precise and knocks the fucking wind out of me every time I watch it. There is a line that she says in this movie, I am enduring it that is just like, oh my one of the one of my favorite acting beats I have ever seen quintessential fifer fire underneath ice. We talked a lot in the Frankie and Johnny episode. where we covered Frankie and Johnny, which also go back and listen to that one, about the sort of the press narrative, episode 52, by the way, Frankie and Johnny, the press narrative around Fyfer that she was, that she was, you know, icy and reserved, and I think that bled a lot into the way, after a while, the way that people would review her performances. And I think this particular character played right into the hands of people. people who wanted to not value Fyfer as an actress because of that sort of tendency to be very good at playing icy, you know, not necessarily closed off.

I would argue that this movie, if you get on its wavelength, you realize that she's weaponizing that. And there's just like a real emotional blow to this performance that I don't know if we often get from Fyfer. Yeah. I mean, like, it's no, the vibe that this movie is going for, it's no wonder that, like, people who don't understand what's so great about Carol don't understand what's so great about this movie. Like, it's that vibe, friends. Yeah. But this, I mean, it's a performance I had to put on there. Fifer had to be on there.

And even if it's not for Batman Returns, I am so sorry to so many of you who probably disagree with me. What's interesting is by this point in time, in time, in fact. terms of film discussion, at least in the film discussions that I'm in. Age of Innocence, the Martin Scorsese costume drama feels like a more daring choice than Michelle Pfeiffer should have been nominated for Batman Returns, the Tim Burton superhero movie, because so many people have come around on that Fyfer performance, and because we live in the age of superhero movies now, that I almost feel like the Scorsese choice is the more interesting option for you to choose.

And maybe the more interesting choice for this movie, too. Scorsese, while, you know, much like Spielberg, I think, is ultimately underrated by the Oscars. Shout out to Katie Rich as well. All right. Last time we talked about Katie. No more name-dropping Katie. We're not allowed. But that's it.

We've reached our limit. She's royalty on this show. She is. We love her, of course. Okay. This lineup, however, legendary. I mean, like, the Holly Hunter versus Angela Bassett thing is one of the most talked about actress races. But then I think also firmly in third place and, like, a worthy winner as well is Stalker Channing in six degrees of separation.

A tremendous performance. On the right day, I'm casting my vote for Stalker Channing in this category. And I don't necessarily blame you. Like, you know, the other two nominees, Emma Thompson remains of the day and Deborah Winger and Shadowlands. Have you seen Shadow Wentz? So good. I have. Yeah, I saw it very recently.

Deborah Winger's my boot. I hate to shit on Deborah Winger more than the roller he has. But, like, it's four great ones and then a very good one, I think. Replace her with Fyfer in this lineup, and you've got an all-timer. I think it's an all-timer anyway, but it's even more of an all-timer, I think, if you put it in Fyfer in there. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. All right, much as with the AFI years, 100 movies, whenever they went to commercial, they would

recap the movie. So I'm going to very quickly and very economically run down our 20 choices in this episode and maybe we'll play the A-FI music underneath me or whatever. Cameron Diaz, in her shoes, Best Actress, 2005.

River Phoenix, My Own Private Idaho. Best Actor, 1991. Nicole Hollif Center, Walking and Talking, Best Original Screenplay, 1996. Dreamgirls, Best Picture, 2006. producers to be determined. No, I'm not, no, no, no, no.

It's too hard to figure out what producers would have been nominated for a movie, so we didn't do that. Beau Welch, Tom Duffield, and Catherine Mann for Beetlejuice. Best Art Direction, 1988. Leslie Manville, another year. Best Supporting Actress, 2010. Do the Right Thing. Best Picture, 1989.

Stories We Tell. Best Documentary Feature, 2014. Anthony Dodd, Man. 28 Days Later, Best Cinematography, 2003. Amy Heckerling, Clueless, Best Adapted Screenplay, 1995. Drive It Like You Stole It, Sing Street, Best Original Song, 2016. Lisa Day, Stop Making Sense, Best Film Editing, 1984. Catherine O'Hara, Home Alone, Best Supporting Actress, 1990.

Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, Best Picture, 1969. Producers to be determined. Producers to be determined. Emmy Wada Hero, Best Costume Design, 2004. David Cronenberg, Dead Ringers, Best Director, 1988. Ben Zaitland and Dan Romer,

Beasts of the Southern Wild, Best Original Score, 2012. Joan Allen, Pleasantville, supporting actress, 1998. Tom Hanks, a league of their own, supporting actor, 1992. And Michelle Pfeiffer, the Age of Innocence,

Best Actress 1993. Those are the first 20 of 100 snubs. Wow. We are on a journey. We're on a journey, you guys. 80 plus to go, if you count our guests. That's true. Yeah, we want to thank Katie Rich for bringing us Fight the Power from Do the Right Thing. We want to thank Kevin O'Keefe for bringing us Jessica Chastain, Best Actress for Molly's Game, 2017 we we hit some good ones here chris i feel like we came out the gate uh this is a long

episode we're gonna see if we can maybe be a little bit more concise we're gonna see if we can be maybe a little bit more concise than our episodes going forward but no promises listen we we had we had to set it up we did episode we had at least a good 20 minutes to set up that's true listen that's true yes we're hopefully giving you a fun feast and a wide range of cuisine. That's right. I gotta stop comparing movies to food. I am starving now, so we gotta get off of this call so I can have lunch. And that's our

episode. If you want more of this had Oscar buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz. You should also follow us on Twitter at had underscore Oscar underscore buzz and on Instagram at this had Oscar buzz. Joe, where can the listeners find more of you? Twitter and letterboxed at Joe Reed, read spelled R-E-I-D.

And I am on Twitter and letterbox at Krisvi-File. That's F-E-I-I-N. We'd like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Meevius for their technical guidance. Please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, wherever else you get your podcast. A 5-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcast visibility, so don't drive it like you stole it. Review it like you love it. That's all for this week. We hope you'll be back next week for more.

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