This Had Oscar Buzz - 108 – A Dangerous Method

Episode Date: August 24, 2020

If you look at many of the bizarre and not-safe-for-work fascinations embedded in the filmography of David Cronenberg, it might be surprising that the auteur’s work ever made it close to Oscar conversations. But this week, we’re looking at one of his films that did: 2011′s Freud and Jung horny costume drama A Dangerous Method. … Continue reading "108 – A Dangerous Method"

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. Sex. Male. Family.

Child. Divorce. No. Professor Freud. Dr. Jung. I've simply opened a door. It's for the young men like yourself to walk through it. That she's the one for your experimental treatment.

Tell me about the first time you can remember being beaten by your father. It's exciting to me. Hello and welcome. Welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast married to a former real-world cast member. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with the super ego to my id, Joe Reed. I, of course, have actually no idea what a super ego does.

I feel like we've become comfortable with what the id means and, like, ego to a certain extent. But, like, I, is the super ego, like, the extremely, like, conservative? Like, that's the more, like, if I remember, you know, high school psychology and sociology correctly, pretty sure that the super ego is the thing that's like keeping you in check you know making you not do the bad impulsive things and

it's sort of the opposite of what it sounds like because it sounds like a super ego would be like your ego on steroids like it would be like ultra ultra ego if that was true I'm pretty sure we might be both the super ego oh for real

Also, I love a super ego, which is like a really big toaster waffle, like... It's, like, big? Do you have to, like, cook it in the oven or something? Oh, I'm only imagining it. But right now in my imagination, it seems very cool. It's like the uncle buck of egos. I love to say, now you've got me imagining, like, an ego that is just like, you have to cook it in an oven, but it takes, like, a double heavy-duty frying, like a baking sheet to hold it. And you just pull it out on one of those, like, pizza. whatever it's like a cronenbergian bizarre um breakfast pastry oh my god like an entire an entire bottle of syrup it takes to cover a cron and bergian breakfast pastry um it would look like

it would be huge it would have a sex organ it would have so many nipples on it like it would just have just like an eclair with just like seven nipples on it a few of the nipples might have teeth. Oh, yes, yes. With it, yes. Yeah. And it talks to you. The existence pod, but with like a, like a lemon curd filling or something like that, just like really tasty, but also looks like, um, a pouch of human flesh. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. God love David Cronenberg. Something. Something. In this movie, um, the human, fleshy. weirdness of Cronenberg is entirely exists within Cira Knightley's jaw, which I find

1,000 percent, which is like, people don't seem to get that. And I'm sure we're of course going to go into it. But like, the Cronenberginess of this movie exists like purely in performance, which fascinates me. Like, Kira Knightley is the like makeup creature of this movie. She is the fly. she is and like I think that is awesome yeah I think it's rad we'll get into it we'll get into it how I think it is subversive of genre even you you have come ready to with your well first of all the other thing is that the listeners need to understand is that for the last I'm going to say two months Chris Fyle has been on the Cronenberg kick to end all Cronenberg kick to end all Cronenberg It feels like every day I would get a text message from you about a different Kronenberg movie you're watching and like some, you know, observation or another. And it feels like I was like, I don't, you would think that at some point there wouldn't be any more Kronenberg movies, but you keep texting me about a different one that you're watching. There's a lot of Kronenberg movies, man.

There's a lot of them. I've seen more of them. Like I wouldn't have thought of myself as like even close to a Kronenberg completis, but I've seen more of. of them than I realized. It's only like a handful of the earlier ones that I haven't seen. The thing is like people kind of forget that for a period he was

a populist filmmaker. And he works with really interesting actors which is why I end up seeing most of his movies. Or even if not populace like just outside of the mainstream stuff like videodrome was too perverse to be within the mainstream but like people knew what it was and people consumed

it because of, like, Debbie Harry. VideoDrum is one of the ones I haven't seen, surprisingly enough. Oh, you got to watch Video Dron, Video Drome. Despite the presence of James Woods, Video Drome rules. It's one of the best Gronenbergs. Yeah, something about the state of our dystopia, quarantine psychosis. Cronenberg has been very soothing to.

me. I don't know what it is. I was going to say, let's unpack that. Let me play the Freud to your whomever, and you can unpack that for me. I think you can fully unpack it just in my letterbox log of when I watched the fly

because like it's the summation of my feelings of the fly, but maybe Kronenberg as a whole. I said as a scab picker, I relate. That's what Kronenberg does. He like picks, scabs. Once upon a time, at a previous job of mine, we were meaning to launch a podcast.

And my coworker and I had been recording a lot of practice dry run podcasts to get ready for this. And it ultimately never came to fruition and whatever. And all of this practice was for not. But essentially, the podcast was sort of revisiting an old movie. and picking it apart. And I had chosen the fly for the both of us to watch. The idea was that one of us would pick a movie

that the other one had never seen before. So she had never seen the fly. I think I was just like, it's Jeff Goldblum and Gina Davis. And she was like, Jeff Goldblum, love it. And she was so angry at me after watching the fly for what she had to endure watching it. And I was just like, I, in fairness, did not prepare her correctly for the degree of,

grossness that was ahead in the fly. It was something to see. And the fly is I think probably the most populous movie he ever did. I mean, the funny thing is a lot of his movies, especially the grosser, like perverse ones, were made by studios, especially in the 80s. Like the fly, it's weird to me that I think it's videotrome and the dead zone are in the same year. Yes, the dead zone was definitely a commercial sort of obviously a Stephen King adaptation when he was like really in that early hot streak of Stephen King and yeah most Stephen King movies are bad but that one is maybe one of the better ones and it's still a movie I don't like I would push back against that that most Stephen King movies are bad but have you seen needful things okay all right but like that's just picking out one I could probably pick out you know misery delivery

Loris Claiborne, the Shining, the Dead Zone. Like, there's a lot of really good ones. I love talking about. Anyway, we're here today to talk about a dangerous method, David Cronenberg's period piece about Freud and Jung. This biopic on Crystal Method, the Rupal's Drag Race finalist from this year. Truly, Cronenberg could do a number on a Crystal Method biopic, I'm going to say. Cronenberg really should have been a guest on Canadian drag race.

Oh my God, absolutely. Yes, 100%. The fascinating thing about Cronenberg is like, yes, you could understand this as an Oscar project because on paper it looks like the type of thing we always expect like Oscar costume dramas, biopics, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But at this point, David Cronenberg kind of had this late career Oscar ascendancy with the Vigo Mortensen movies with a history of violence being right on the outside and getting the last minute nominated. for William Hurt I hate that nomination and then Eastern Promises was like an Oscar outsider

and then this happened and obviously didn't get any nominations because we're talking about it It's funny Because this is Probably his most Oscar friendly

movie just in terms of what it is It's a costume drama It's got very sort of It's, you know, Kira Knightley had been an Oscar nominee. Vigo Mortensen had been an Oscar nominee for Kronenberg. Michael Fassbender, as we will discuss, was, like, happening at this moment. So it was like a very, like, of the moment year. But it's interesting that that run of a history of violence and Eastern promises, turning Kronenberg into sort of a, at least like an on-paper contender. leads to things like people thinking that Cosmopolis is going to be a thing or Maps to the Stars is going to be a thing, which is hilarious in retrospect.

Because if you watch those movies, and it's just like, oh, these movies are like actively hostile to the idea of like getting awards. An audience watching them. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Maps to the Stars is one of the most hostile things I've ever fucking seen. But at the same time, if that wasn't the same year as Still Alice, I do wonder if that, there would have been a supporting actress nomination for Julianne Moore. She's genuinely incredible in that movie.

I'm so glad it worked out the way it did rather than that way. Yeah, you hate that movie. I can't fucking hate Maps to the Stars. Listeners, I believe Maps to the Stars should still be on Netflix. I can't necessarily recommend it because it's thoroughly unpleasant and not, it's one of the bottom of Cronenberg's movies, but you should watch it just for Julianne Moore. She's playing Lindsay Lohan at 50. and it is a thing to behold.

What is your favorite Cronenberg movie after doing this whole deep dive? I mean, best and favorite might be two different things, but... What are they? Give me both of them. I mean, they could both be Dead Ringers. I think Dead Ringers is like the one. Crash is kind of wild when you're in it. Listeners, if you don't know, we'll have some time to talk about crash. But we're not talking about Oscar nominated, Oscar winning Best Picture Crash.

No, we're talking about having sex with cars crash. Or getting turned on by being in a car crash crash. That's what that movie is. We'll get into it. Yeah, I think it's dead ringers, honestly. A history of violence is also still really incredible when you watch it. And, like, it's this weird movie that I'm like, when I haven't seen it in a while. I'm like, that's probably not as good as I remember it.

And then when you're watching it, it's like, no, this is brilliant on every level. That's not William Hurt. But a dangerous method is up there for me. It's one of my favorite Kronenbergs. I think it's great for reasons I'll get into. My incomplete Kronenberg filmography needs to be viewed with an asterisk. but I will say you know my pick for favorite Cronenberg, and it is unwell, and I stand by it, and... If you say Cosmopolis, I'm getting off this call right now.

Absolutely not. I do not like Cosmopolis. No, it's Existence. I love Existence. Oh, yeah, you do love Existence. Gay panic metaphor, Existence. I don't know about panic. He takes to it pretty well. He does take to it pretty well. Okay, maybe not gay. panic, but, like, existence is... Existence asks the question of, what if your entry into a techno, new techno realm involved

you having a very, very real hole right near your butt that you would plug a fleshy protuberance into, and it would open you up into a brand new world? we should just maybe put a giant asterix before we move any further into this episode that this is probably going to be our most explicit episode this episode will not be for children yeah yeah that's a good point but existence is definitely children who are like very psyched to listen to us talk about a dangerous method yes kids who are maybe very into Freud and Carl Jung you still might want to just steer clear of this episode uh yeah don't play this in the car with your kids but yeah

Existence is very much What if Jude Law Was afraid of getting pegged by Jennifer Jason Lee But wanted to get pegged by Jennifer Jason Lee? Who among us? Who among us could say different? Yeah We both wanted and are afraid of it

Here's the thing There's so much to talk about this episode But like you also have to approach the fact That it is bizarre that David Cronenberg Was ever a direct that got this close to like Oscar conversation even though like nothing ended up happening with this movie because like his movies are like very sexual very gory very um like everything's allegorical and it's like allegories with sex and perversion and fetishism and they rule their great movies yes it is it is that mashing up of those things together that I think ends up keeping him at an arm's length. It is no, it is no accident that his two closest brushes with Oscar,

and that the two movies that got best Oscar attention, are the ones that are mostly only one thing, which is history of violence. I know it has great sex scenes in that movie, but it is still called a history of violence, and like the violence is the thing that the Oscars, were attracted to. I think the sex is what kept that movie at an arm's length.

I think without that that sort of sex forward nature of that movie, I think maybe that movie is a best picture contender and a, you know, Vigo and Maria Bello maybe get some stuff for that as well. And then Eastern Promises is like his most

just purely agro violent movie. It's also probably his most, like If you watch it, especially in conjunction with a bunch of his other movies, you can absolutely see the stamp that he's putting on that movie. But, like, that's probably also a movie that even though there is some explicit sex in it and there's that whole extended scene of Naked Vigo Mortensen, brutally, like, being attacked by these two men in a bathhouse. It's still the movie that you could put in front of mainstream audiences and they could digest it in a way that's not. being repulsed by like Jeff Goldblum's jaw falling off.

Right. The dead zone kind of the same thing, where the dead zone is mostly what's extreme about the dead zone, it's the violence in it. It's the scene of the accused child rapist, right, killing himself by impaling his own mouth on a set of scissors. He head butts some scissors in the jaw. I sent you that. But it happens off screen.

It does, but, like, you see it up until, like, you know what's about to happen, the suggestion. I sent you that clip of Guillermo del Toro talking about that scene, right? From the Bravo special? The Bravo, my, I've talked about this. I must have talked about this before. Bravo, once upon a time when they weren't just Housewives programming, did a 100 scariest movie moments countdown in, like, 2006 or something like that. And it was really good, and it gathered, you know, these really great horror film. makers, and they would, along with, like, truly rando actors, like young sort of like

up-and-coming starlets that their agents got them a spot on this, and also, like, writers from Fangoria and, like, weird, like, spooky blogger type people. It was a really very interesting mix of people, but, like, I think Cronenberg was a talking hat on it, Guillermo del Toro was, West Craven was, John Carpenter, you know, all of the greats, right, are opining on all these other different horror movies. And Guillermo del Toro is one of the talking heads on the little bit about the dead zone and talks about this scene specifically. And he's so, like, gleeful about Kronenberg's use of suggestion in that and the fact that, like,

the guy has this, like, thick rubber raincoat, which also feels very sort of, like, fetish-adjacent. And just the evocative nature of, like, he like prized these scissors into this like between these two things so that it won't move and you know it's going to have to like really hold up to him like mashing his face down on these scissors to kill himself it's so upsetting so upsetting it's so upsetting even like the rest of the violence in the dead zone is i'm gonna say cronenbergian a million times this episode but it's cronembourgian because like you have like people being shot and the like bullet explosions are just huge and absurd and all time top five ranking of directors as adjectives

cronenberg makes that top five right oh that yes yes it's cronenbergian lynchian hitchcockian what are the other two that that fill out that top five like i got to feel like we can come up with this. Listeners, tweet at us other examples of what the other two adjectives for people should be. Because like Scorsese, Spielbergian, Spielbergian, definitely. That's our number four. And like, it doesn't work for Scorsese. It doesn't roll off the tongue.

No, and people don't really like speak of it that way. That's a thing, yeah. They don't speak of Scorsese as an adjective, nor Coppola. Or Kurosawa. Yeah, not really. Or even, like, the French, like, New Wave types. Godardian. Right.

Yeah, you don't really hear it spoken of that way. Yeah, listeners. Give us our number five. We've got four. Close out our list for us. The other Kronenberg movie that could possibly be in, like, this type of conversation, is M. Butterfly, which is one that I don't think a lot of people have seen. I got to see it. Yeah, it's a stage adaptation.

I'm pretty sure David Henry Long. won the Pulitzer for it. That makes sense. That I forget, but like that was a Broadway sensation and then it goes to Cronenberg. It's another Jeremy Irons movie after Dead Ringers, which made me

wonder if maybe Jeremy Irons brought it to David and Kronenberg first. They wanted to work together. Yeah. That and Dead Ringers felt the most where I was like, okay, I'm maybe stretching a tiny bit to like feel this

in the Cronenberg way. So, like, all of Cronenberg's movies are structured very similarly. Most of them are, like, an hour and 40 minutes long. Right. If you need another reason to stand David Cronenberg, his movies are short. Yeah.

But, yeah, I think a dangerous method is the one to have that conversation about, and there's also a million other conversations have, like, Kira Knightley this year for Michael Fassbender. Yep. Vigo got the Golden Globe nomination that year.

It had kind of an insane festival run for it to not do. And I get that this is a divisive movie, but, like, it opened it at Venice. It was in Tiff, New York Film Festival. Oh, yeah, it's one of those movies that played all the festivals. Every year, there's, like, one or two movies that won't just, like, pick or choose one or two. They'll, like, oh, we're just going to play all of them. Mr. Turner, I remember, was a movie like that. It's just like, nope, we're just going to be everywhere.

You're going to have your chance to see us somewhere. Yeah. But yeah, do you want to get into, so we can talk a little bit more specifically about this movie? Yeah. Do you want to get into a 60-second plot description? Sure. I'm certainly going to run out of time, but let's see how it goes. All right, cool.

Once again, we are here to talk about a dangerous method directed by David Cronenberg, written by Christopher Hampton, based on his play The Talking Cure. The movie stars Michael Fastbender, Vigo Mortensen, Kira Knightley, Sarah Gatton, and Vincent Cassell. As we mentioned, it did the Festival Trifecta, and then opened limited Thanksgiving week of 2011. Yes. My apologies in advance for the fact that I am almost certainly going to stumble upon a lot of these polysyllabic words that I have in this description. Just fair warning. We are not scientists or social scientists of any kind. Certainly not.

We are just two nerds. Exactly. We are merely nerds. Mere Oscar nerds. Joseph, if you are ready for your 60-second plot description of a dangerous method, your time starts now. Right, Kira Knightley plays Sabina Spiel, Ryan, a young woman and gifted psychology student, suffering from hysteria and fits who gets taken to a mental hospital in Switzerland,

where she comes under the care of emergent pioneer in the field of psychoanalysis, Carl Young, played by Michael Fesbender. In her sessions with Young, where he employs a method of talk therapy analysis, Sabina works out her sexual attraction to humiliation while also getting to work as his apprentice. Meanwhile, Young goes to consult many times with Sigmund Freud. You may have heard of him, played by Vigo Mortensen, you may have heard of him. Their professional relationships is productive, although begin to increasingly disagree on approaches to psychoanalysis. Freud sends a patient of his opinion a doctor named Otto Gross to Young, and Gross sounds up convincing Young to disregard propriety and repression, and so Young gives in and begins a self. sexual relationship with Sabina. There is a lot of spanking. They also work together on a theories of

sex as destruction of the self and present it to Freud. There's a lot of wrangling between Young and Freud over psychoanalytic approaches and between Young and Sabine over their relationship. And she ends up siding with Freud professionally. And eventually both relationships and Sabina later marries a Russian and has children.

And she and Young have a nice moment of longing and regret and Young is halfway down the road to a nervous breakdown when the movie ends. And then in the epilogue we find out she was later killed than Nazis while Young lived until 1961. That's... If there is a problem with this movie is like, especially in the terms of Kronenberg, like, all of his movies have such a distinct arc and, like, narrative thrust. This movie does kind of meander, right?

Like, it doesn't have a, like, steady trajectory of the way his other movies do. So at some point, like, it does become a very talky movie. I'm someone who likes talky movies, so that's not a complaint on my part. But, like, I can see why. Also, the fact that he starts a relationship with her, he ends it, he starts it again, and he ends it again. Like, it's, there is some sort of, it's not a straight line forward. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Also, I think Freud and Young are interesting figures in that, unless you are a scholar of that field, you basically know, like, the general concepts, right? where it's like Freud, psychoanalysis, everything relates to sex, which is a thing that Young in this movie very much bristles against. And then Carl Young, I'm vaguely aware of like the collective unconscious as like a thing. And that's like archetypes. There are Youngian like archetypes in, you know, the world or whatever. But I'm not. really like that informed on the specifics of it. So watching the two of them sort of spar and wrangle was interesting to a point for me. I was mostly interested in Vigo Mortensen's

performance as Freud, which is like this very, um, quietly calibrated, self-satisfied, um, like the way he his performance as Freud sort of like pokes at Young's character constantly is very entertaining for me to watch in this movie like he's very he knows that he is coming from a position

of professional authority and he has these genuine concerns about their field and keeping their field sort of safe from the external forces and politics and whatever that would try and like tamp it down, which is why he doesn't want young getting into things like parapsychology and premonitions and whatever, thinking he can tell when the wood is in the bookcase is going to crack,

because he can feel it in his tummy or something like that. And so, like, there are real concerns from Freud, but a lot of this movie is spent with Freud, like, needling young and sort of, like, lording his authority over him in ways that felt fun. Which itself is, like, a, a, uh, a Cronenberg fascination because he's like always interested in like male dynamics and like male bullshit and psychosis and like unpacking that. Whereas Fastbender as Jung is like slowly having a psychological decline throughout the movie. Whereas Freud is pretty placid, even keel the whole movie. So it's like he's also, I guess in a way, this dynamic is also. like setting off

Jung's character arc of kind of like falling apart a little bit. I like the way Fastbender plays Young as so um like subject to the influences of others where like he's so

affected by every little thing that Freud says to him and does to him and he sort of like tries to push back to it and he you know tries to uh you know keep himself guarded against falling under Freud's thrall essentially because Freud is such an authority. But like even there's an age difference there too. So it's like it's not like he's daddy,

but he is an older male of authority. But also he like allows the Vincent Cassell character to convince him to like give up on all of his professional sort of scruples in like a half of a scene. It's really kind of funny where Vincent Cassell just sort of like describes how he like, you know, sort of happily has sex with his own patients and subscribes to this idea of like complete no boundaries, no restraints, no repressions. And young, after like half-heartedly being like, we shouldn't do that. And then like after a scene, he's just like, well, maybe we should do that. Maybe, you know, maybe I will have sex with my patient. Vincent Cassell, by the way, in this movie

is such a scummy sex monster like I just He has the market cornered on scummy sex monsters And this one I just watched The Messenger, the story of Joan of Arc For when I was on the podcast like it's 1999 podcast And he's also like

I don't know if he's not like explicitly a sex monster in that movie but like he's so scummy and so attractive in that movie it's i i don't know uh vinson cassel did unlock one of those weird doors of like oh i i do like this visual here for me in this movie which is gangly frenchman in those like paper sack linen pants with no shirt but with dexies midnight runners but freders and a newsies cap frenchies midnight runners that's yes yes but they can't be like nice they have to be like scummy oh like vinson casillas and of course basically every movie he's like what if newsies but porn yeah and french and older well yes yes but like cosplay like french

sexy newsies cosplay sure that's my slutty Halloween costume this year slutty newsy Like also I mean speaking of You know the unconscious mind The unconscious mind throughout this movie Deeply wants Michael Fastbender And Vincent Cassel to have a sex scene together

Like you just do I'm sorry It's just I think it deeply wants Fastbender and Mortensen to have a sex scene together Yes that is also true Yes But that's more like That's almost text

It's not quite text in this movie But like it's bubbling Under the surface It's never quite a thing that you think they actively want but like all personal all personal tensions in this movie have an air of sex too so naturally our mind goes there yes even poor sarah gaddon who godin gadden how do we pronounce i'm gonna guess it's gadden gadden who is also we talked about mortensen being in several cronenberg movies back to back she is as well because she's in cosmopolis and maps to

the stars. Oh, is she in Maps to the Stars? I was kind of wondering. She plays Julianne Moore's ghost mom. That fucking movie. Um, she has such a, like, Nouveau Sadie Frost energy in this movie. Like, maybe it was just the collar that I was catching vibes from that from, but uh, she plays such a good, I mean, in this case, there, she's less calculating, I guess, although she has at least one scene where she's like, I know more than you think I know, Buster. Yeah, I think she plays the closest thing to a cliche that this movie has for a period drama,

but it doesn't feel like a cliche in her performance. I think she's good in this movie. Well, okay, you say that, and I think that's right. Like, but let's also say this movie starts very anti-costume drama cliche, which is it starts with Kira and I. sort of like having a fit and sort of like gangly limbs everywhere in this like carriage. She's being like dragged to this mental hospital. Listen, all Kronenberg movies basically start some point in the first five minutes.

I was like, oh, okay, this is what we're doing. Got it. Cool. And this movie does it with Kieranightly unhinged, literally with her jaw. Like her jaw across the room, just fully across the room. We'll get into that. Sure. But, like, as this movie moves along, there's a lot of really very costume drama beats. And, like, most especially, this idea of, like, Kira Knightley and Michael Fastbender can't be together. They, they, you know, much as they might want to be together, their love cannot be. And there are, like, carriage rides where they're sort of like there are longing glances at the window. There's a shot of them. lying together in a boat that is, like, straight out of something like Jane Campion's Bright Star, which is so

deeply romantic and spoony to me. I don't, I certainly don't use the term costume drama as a pejorative, which I know some people might. I don't, but there's like, there are definitely, like, at certain points of this, I was like, oh, this is almost like, you know, brideshead revisited kind of a thing, or just like, you know, like some sort of like Jane Austen thing. It's just like their love cannot, cannot endure. I mean, like, not to make it sound cheap, but because of like the actual conversations they're having or the degree of sexual frankness that this movie has,

it does feel like it undermines a lot of expectations, a lot of conventions of the costume drama genre. And like, I don't think it's necessarily perfect. I think there's movies that have done it better, like the handmaiden. But I do still think it's there. in a way that people didn't fully appreciate about this movie that I think it's trying to do. Yeah. No, I think you're right.

It's interesting to note the Christopher Hampton of it all, that this was a Christopher Hampton play that he had written in the early 2000s, that he initially wanted, was sort of like pitching this around as a film, and wanted Julia Roberts to play the Kiranightly role in the early 2000s, which is like just post Oscar, just post Aaron Brockovich, which would have been a fascinating route for Julia Roberts to take. I can't think... Because Mary Riley went so well.

Well, that's the other... Okay, so Christopher Hampton's filmography as a writer is very interesting. He's obviously has... I think it's safe to say that he's most known for the play Le Le Leis-on-Dangerousse, and then... the screenplay for Dangerous Liaisons, the film version. Which he won an Oscar for. Which he won an Oscar for. But following that, it's a really interesting little... He does the screenplay for Carrington, the Emma Thompson movie that was right around the sort of big Emma Thompson era, right in the same general area as Howard's End and Remains of the Day and that whole kind of thing. Mary Riley, our beloved Mary Riley. Q Whispers.

Q. Whisper track. The Quiet American, speaking of whispers, The Quiet American with Michael Kane, the Oscar-nominated performance from Michael Kane. He plays an American that goes, Shh. Yes, exactly. The Quiet American.

Imagining Argentina, the Emma Thompson movie that got booed at some film festival, right? I think I remember that, yeah, where it's like this movie is perhaps politically problematic or something. Yes, have never seen it. He directed that as well.

Oh, boy. Christopher Hampton. Does the screenplay adaptation for Atonement, which I think is fantastic and is a fantastic movie, got nominated for the Oscar for that as well, or am I wrong? Yes, he did. Does the screenplay for Cherie, the Michelle Pfeiffer? A movie we will absolutely talk about at some point. Exactly. A dangerous method, but also does the screenplay for Adore, our beloved sonfuckers movie, which the world would be...

They think we're lesos. Yes. And then, before 2020 got canceled, the father is the big Sundance sensation of this year with Anthony Hopkins getting like Oscar buzz out of Sundance and Christopher. They're still releasing that movie. It's going to Tiff. Oh, is it really?

Yes, it is. Okay. I mean, listen, the Oscars are still happening. So like Anthony Hopkins is still. going to be out there. And yeah, it's an interesting mix of very well-respected films and stuff that we love, like, Adore and Mary Riley and are sort of, you know, personal inside jokes for us, yes. But yeah, well, the other thing about Christopher Hampton is like, it is a lot of, especially what he is most known for or probably most celebrated for, is a type

of costume genre. Yes. And like, not necessarily to say that those are like stuffy, the way people look down their nose at costume dramas, because, like, dangerous liaisons is awesome. Dangerous liaisons is hot. This is the thing about his costume dramas is there is a pointiness and edge to them. Like, they're, like, dangerous liaisons, obviously, like, it's no accident that, you know, cruel intentions didn't come from nothing. Cruel intentions is a much more sort of, like, vulgar, maybe.

Pruriant? Of that, yes. But, like, again, that didn't come from nothing. And people, like, need to remember that the entire plot of atonement hinges on Sertia Ronan walking in on James McAvoy, fingering Kieran Knightley up against a bookcase. Like, well, no, it all hinges on Sershra Ronan intercepting one of their sects by a typewriter. Oh, right, which, which is, what does he say? Shit, what's the line in? Uh, he, uh, just do a sound drop.

Don't make me say the C word on my. no i'm trying to entrap you so that one day i can hold this against you yeah um he basically says i want to do this to you and he uses vulgarity that she thinks is violent she under misunderstands like that's the entire crux of this movie that that ultimately becomes this swoonie tale of longing romance and also this the uh the dunkirk you know scene that like is so definitive and whatever and but people forget that like it has these very um sort of not i don't want to say vulgar because vulgar is the wrong term but like you know know sexual and overt sexuality yeah yeah yeah i haven't seen sherey but i assume there's some type of flirtation because like michel fifer's

topless on the poster so yeah michel fifer and uh rupert friend like have that that is as i recall that movie and it's been a long time since i've seen it i don't think it It's, I don't think there's quite that like little root of darkness in it, but it's very sort of like light and frothy and whatever, but like it's very sexy. Jesus, your unwell Charlie Hunnam game from our Pan episode, you could definitely do a British version of that with brunettes because I do not know who Rupert Friend is. Like I and I have seen his movies, but like I couldn't place him against a bunch of other actors like the Rupert Friends. It's, he, the way of getting a solid bead on Rupert Friend is to take costume dramas totally out of it. Don't think of Sheree, don't think of the young Victoria. It's, if you ever watched Homeland, he had a role for a couple seasons on Homeland that, like, is sort of unlike that.

But also, he's so fucking funny in the death of Stalin that, like, just hold on to that one. He's the son of Stalin who's coaching the hockey team. He didn't like that movie. Oh, I loved that movie. Wow. Okay. So that's like two Ionucci movies then, recent Ionucci movies that you have like completely hated. Oh, yeah. No, I outright hated David Copperfield. Right. Which I thought was kind of cute. It was a nightmare.

So we have found. But yes, the thing about Christopher Hampton, though, is like you can absolutely see this text that goes of a dangerous method or the talking cure, whatever you want to call it his original. play and goes to a joe right or a typically costume drama director right but this is a very different movie under david cronenberg and like you can see his directorial stamp on it and i think that's what makes it interesting um in a way that like his his like point of view kind of is isn't assigned to a genre because i think people probably think of him as like science fiction or horror as a director, but, like, the same filmmaker, I watched his other movies, and I see the same voice behind them.

It's funny that we do think of Cronenberg as a sci-fi director, because his last sci-fi movie, I mean, I guess you could, like, the thing about Cronenberg is obviously he blends genres, and there's definitely a sci-fi air to Cosmopolis. I would call Cosmopolis, yeah, science fiction. But, like, his last legit science fiction is Existence, which was, you know over 20 yeah like what we conventionally assigned to science fiction where you're talking about like creatures or technology or you know right not like purely like it's like a you know social metaphor yeah also i'm trying to remember what spider is actually about and i'm coming up short

spider's good ray finds is great in spider what's the plot of it though so spider which like spider is harder to get a hold of. It's like sometimes I log movies on letterbox and people are like, where did you watch this? I can't find this anywhere. Use your public library. Friends, your public library has a lot of things for you and you don't have to pay money.

So yes, I had to watch it from a copy from my library, but Ray Fines plays this mentally ill man who is released from an asylum or like psychiatric care and revisits his home

as a child and has these flashbacks that kind of lead up to revealing like why he had a psychological breakdown and it deals with his family. His mother is played by Miranda Richardson and his father

is Gabriel Byrne but his father has a relationship with a prostitute who is also played by Miranda Richardson. She has multiple roles. Right, right, right. Remember that. It's a good movie. It feels like the least like structurally it's pretty complex but it's like it's the most like straightforward

I could explain everything that happens in the movie including spoiling it in like three sentences but fines is good it's like the least complicated Cronenberg movie to me interesting okay yeah I should revisit it all right yeah it's good you should see it for Ray Fines let's talk about Kira She's already, at this point, just to sort of, like, situate her, you in her career at this point. She had broken through with the bandit, like, Beckham in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, but was, like, sort of disregarded as an actress.

People thought she was just sort of this, like, beautiful, you know, thin porcelain creature, right? Which is sort of how the, I guess that's sort of how the Pirates movies take her. a corset. Like, she was at least the perceived poster child of the costume drama in a way that, like... Something modern, like Love Actually, she's still sort of the woman on a pedestal, right? And she starts to, almost immediately after that breakthrough, she goes for movies that sort of try and bust her out of that. Like, even though she's playing Gwynnevere in the King Arthur movie who directed that King Arthur movie Antoine Fuqua

And but like that That conception of Gwynnevere is like she's riding into battle and she's got a bow and arrow and she's like She's a fight in Gwynnevere, right? She's in Domino where the Tony Scott movie Domino

which is a mess but like It's definitely like A totally different image of her She's a supermodel but she's also a spy? Is that the deal with Domino? There were sex scenes, but she had a body double, or it was maybe just nude scenes.

But, like, she has the spiky hair and the blonde highlights. Right. She's in that movie The Jacket with Adrian Brody and Jennifer Jason Lee, which... Never Let Me Go, which, like, even though it is not a stuffy costume drama, it was perceived as such. Right. But she gets her first Oscar nomination,

in 2005 for Pride and Prejudice, which is a, you know, costume drama, although a absolutely flawlessly made one. And it, you know, starts her relationship with Joe Wright, which I think her best work has been historically with Joe Wright, with Pride and Prejudice and Atonement and Anna Karenina, which happens the year after, a dangerous method. But by this time, by the time she's in a dangerous method, she's, like, gotten respect for her acting at long last. Like, people were, I remember it was, like, there was a very begrudging sort of respect for her that, like, was not easy to come by. But at this point, she's- The response to her nomination was not entirely friendly.

But I think history has been very- Yeah. Yes, history has turned on that nomination. History has proven that nomination correct. Also, very similarly to, I would say, Winona Ryder and Little Women in 94, which also seems like, oh my God, it's just a costume drama, whatever,

but she's like, no, she's really good. Anyway, by the time a dangerous method happens, she does have that respect. And yet, I still don't think people were prepared for what she does, especially with her physicality in this movie. And the initial reaction to this performance was a lot of laughing, revulsion, sort of like what the fuck is she doing she's trying too hard like she's going for too much she's

not it's not working and i think this is another one where in retrospect there's a lot more respect for what she does oh i think she's incredible where do you fall on this performance watching it again in the first minutes i remember i was almost like thrust right back into where i was initially which was like what is she doing but like i came around on it a lot quicker this time because it's so obviously a choice and it's so I've really come to respect actors who at the risk of seeming over the top do something with their physicality that not anybody not just anybody can do like the degree of commitment to put to those scenes where she is having her sort of like hysterical fits like where like physically her ticks yeah her body is just like not moving the way she wants to she's literally in some scenes it's like she's getting electricuted like it's trying to hold her face together like it's i um i'm but see the thing is like she was respected as an actress at the time but i do still think that there's this kind of like i roll to her doing things like the duchess all the time and even she like

started speaking out about it at some point of being like I'm tired of doing these fucking corset roles to the point that I think she is incredibly intentional casting in this way that she like we mentioned earlier she is the Kronenberg creature of this movie and it gets to be her performance

and it kind of feels like I don't know if people got that or had that read on the movie at the time in a way that like it put so much negative opinion on her performance, you know, because it's right out in front, rather than people seeing her as a piece of everything that Kronenberg is doing with this movie.

It's a very risky performance. And with that risk, like, that is the risk. The risk is people will think that it's being too much that you're not in control of your instrument, that it's too hammy, that it's over the top, all whatever. Like, that is the risk. And I think the payoff is that enough people will see in this performance something intentional and special and all of that. It's interesting, just to sort of jump back to something that you had said a second ago, about her sort of pushing back against all of these corset movies. And yet that is a well she continues to go back to. It's not like she's ever really left that behind, right? actually made Colette, like, two years ago or whatever.

In between, you know, all these movies, she does Anna Karenina. She does, I mean, the imitation game isn't a corset movie, but it's definitely a period piece, and that gets her her second Oscar nomination. Even, I mean, God knows, I think she's a fucking hoot in Nutcracker and the Four Realms, but that's also like... Hello, boys. Oh, my God, she's delicious. She is having the time of her life with the millennials in that movie.

Absolutely true. But she does start taking these more contemporary roles after a dangerous method. She's in Begin Again, which, like, famously, her jerkass of a director, John Carney, like, years later, like, completely shits on her performance in that movie, talks about how he never wants to work with models again, really, like, denigrating her performance, even though she's great in that movie, I think. I think she's absolutely wonderful. She's in the Lynn Shelton movie Laggies. that is super underrated, and she's really good in that. So, like... Lorraine Scafaria is searching for a friend at the end of the world. Right, which is not my favorite movie, but, like, yeah. Mine either. I might need to watch it again, but she was definitely my favorite thing about the movie. And, again, it's a very sort of, like, contemporary thing.

Obviously, the flawless, unimpeachable film, Collateral Beauty. She is playing a contemporary role. Oh, well, contemporary slash timeless, I suppose. You can really... Modern masterpiece of... my brain cracking in half and a dragon coming out collateral beauty um i don't know i just think she and kronenberg deserve a lot of credit for kind of undermining not just her perception as a performer in this performance but also undermining like what this genre is um and i don't

think that that was something people took in at the time when like processing this movie yeah i mean cronenberg has a gift with actors that i think is pretty underrated he's not really known for i think he's mostly known for the body horror stuff and his i mean cronberg women are always incredible like maria bellow is probably one of the like oscar snubs of my lifetime in a history of violence the campaigning on that was was just dumb if they had decided early on that she was one or the other leader supporting, she would have been nominated. Absolutely.

I completely agree. Samantha Egger in The Brood is incredible. Alien baby liquor or whatever, demonic baby liquor. Yeah. Even Genevieve Bujold and Dead Ringers is doing something that's like not going to get a ton of attention from people, even though I think she won critics prizes for that movie. But like, she's insanely good in Dead Ringers. Yeah.

Chris, I heard a rumor that you have a quiz for me. I not only have a quiz for you, I have two. Oh, wow, I was not prepared for two. The first one is really brief, and it's actually to help you with the real quiz today, your real game for today, because I know you haven't seen all of the Cronenberg movies. So we're going to quickly classify them all of his movies

to help you as like kind of a little hint for your second. Okay, I like this. I like a two-part quiz. If there are two things that you could describe Kronenberg's filmography with, two words, what would those words be? Oh, um... What are like the things that he is known for in all of his movies that are defining traits? Well, body horror, but that's two, that's a double word term. body horror so like physical things like gore yes gore yes what's another theme um sex exactly sex

gore so i have a game that i have called that i have dubbed gross horny or both i'm going to tell you the david kronenberg filmography each of the movies and you have to tell me if it is gross horny or both Okay. All right. Starting from the beginning of his film, the movie Shivers. Shivers I've actually seen. Shivers is both horny and gross. Shivers is both.

Shivers is about basically the horniness as a disease. A horny disease that sweeps through. A horny virus. Like people get the virus and they're horny. And then they kill each other for through sex. Next film, Rabid. Rabbit, I know nothing about. I'm going to say it's gross, but not.

Rabbit is actually both. Rabbit starring Porn Star, Maryland, Chambers is about basically a virus that she is spreading through. She gets like a wound in her armpit and it starts biting people. So she has like a killer armpit, but the armpit, like, again, no children for this episode. Get ready for these games. The armpit basically looks like a butthole that has a clitoris. And it bites people. Oh, right.

Bring it on. I got to see it. Welcome to Cronenberg. Cronenberg's next movie, his worst movie. I was mad I watched this. It is called Fast Company. It's about car racing. Is it just horny?

It is just horny. There is a scene where a man pours literal motor oil over a lady's breasts while they are interacting. It's a terrible movie. That was like the only Cronenberg aspect. Otherwise, it just looks like something that should be lost to time. Sorry, David, that movie's terrible. All right, your next

movie, the brood. All right, I definitely know the brood is gory. But, like, it's also about birthing a demon baby, so to get there, I imagine there would be some horniness, so I'm going to say both. No, the brood is just gross.

It's like, yes, there's like, sexual politics in it, but that brood is not very horny. Next movie, Scanners, the notorious Scanners. Scanners is the famous shot of the guy's head exploding, which many a gif has enjoyed. I'm going to say it's just gross. Scanners is just gross. Okay. All right, the next movie, which you haven't seen, I highly recommend that you do.

Videodrome, is it gross, horny, or both? If it's a James Woods movie that's horny, that ought to be. automatically makes it gross, so I'm going to say both. It is indeed both for the reasons you say and for the reasons that you have not acknowledged. The dead zone. Is it gross, horny, or both? It's gross.

Just gross. I wrote that it's kind of both because there's like this underlying level of like the love interest. They never had sex before he had his accident or whatever. So there's always this sexual tension. But you're probably more right that it's just gross. There's definitely sexual tension, but I don't know if I would describe it. is horny.

Sure. Dead Zone is probably his most neither movie, right? That's probably fair. Though, like, the thing with the scissors, all of the gunshots in that movie are a lot of gunshot. Yes. Yeah, correct. His next film, The Fly.

All right, the Fly is definitely gross. But, like, he does have that romance with Gina Davis, which doesn't feel super horny, but, like, horny enough, so I will say both. It is both. Jeff Goldblum is naked for a decent portion of that movie, which makes it inherently horny. That's true.

Dead ringers. The Jeremy Irons as twins movie. Twin gynaecologist. It's another one. It's like at top of my list of things I have to see. Oh, you've got to watch that wild-ass movie. It's horny but not gross? Nope. It is indeed

very, very both. It is probably his most horny, if not his most gross, the most like skin crawling i would say okay okay um next movie the william s borough's uh adaptation naked lunch naked lunch i famously tried to watch and turned it off after five minutes because of the cockroaches so definitely gross and it's called naked lunch which i know is like not like there's that great simpson's joke where it's the barton millhouse and nelson and whatever all walking out of a movie uh uh with the marquis says naked lunch and uh uh uh

What's his name? Nelson just goes, I can think of at least two things wrong with that title. So, like, I know, like, but like it does have the term naked in the title, so I'm just going to guess that it's both. It is both. The bugs become pretty sexual at one point. There's a lot of, like, sex stuff with a typewriter. I'm just never, I'm just never going to watch it. I can't. It's too cockroach forward for me. It was one of my least favorite ones. I understand why some people might like it, but I was like, I just don't care. um his next film reuniting with jeremy irons m butterfly just horny not gross it is just horny but it is debatably but gross because spoiler alert it ends with jeremy irons slashing his own throat open oh well okay and that's pretty bloody but it's mostly just horny it's it's a it's a chill horny um but it's horny uh crash crash is explicitly both crash the whole point of crash is that it's both it's the point of crash is that it's the point of Point is both, but, like, it's not gory. Well, he has sex with an open wound.

He, like, he, he fucks her leg wound. Like, that's gross. I said the crash. I am a sex positive as the next guy, but, like, that's maybe a line. Yes, okay. It's a metaphor, Joe. I know. I don't know if you know that the movie about people getting horny from car crashes is a metaphor.

But it's a metaphor. Okay. All right. Existence. I said debatably both, but it is mostly gross because it's not like there's actual nudity. Butthole courts. All right, fine, it's fine.

It's so horny. Jude law once pegged. It's fine. Yes, yes. All right, Spider is his next film. Oh, gosh. Spider, again, as we've mentioned, I've seen and yet remember very little about it. And also, you just described the plot to me, and I still don't know what I'm going to say for this.

I'm going to say it is... both now spider is horny it's a but only kind of horny okay there's a whole like a fair yeah a history of violence both very horny

and also the violence is pretty violent the violence is pretty bad um uh Eastern promises uh if only for the scene in the bathhouse where he is naked and and uh fighting

it's both but I said that it was debatably both for that reason. I think it's mostly just gross because, like, he's starkers in that scene, but it's not sexy. No, but the film ogles him. Like, the filmmaking. Sure, sure. There's other sex scenes with him. I think that that movie just qualifies as gross. Okay. He makes a man, like, he knocks a man's neck back into a knife. And that made me want to scream. Yeah. All right. The movie we are at, a dangerous method. Horny, not gross. Yeah, probably his least gross movie. Cosmopolis. All right.

Now I've got to, like, wrangle with what Cosmopolis is about. So it's not explicitly... I mean, he does have sex in the limo with. Is it Samantha Morton he has sex with? Julieta Pinoche. Julia Pinoch, right. So it's definitely horny. And there's, like, moral gross.

to it if you want to get like real like you know metaphorical about it but I don't know I can't recall any like explicit physical grossness so I'm just gonna say it's just horny yes just horny okay Robert Pattinson gets a prostate exam with forgive me I forgot her name again the actress who plays Stevie on uh chitzkriek oh right Emily Hampshire yeah yes she does not give it that they have like a full conversation while he is getting a prostate exam. Right. In a car. Fucking movie. And then his final film

Maps to the Stars. I think Maps to the Stars is gross as hell. I don't remember if there's like blood or gore, but like I find it just disgusting. But it's also very horny. I wrote that it is horny, debatably both because Olivia Williams self-immolates,

but it looks terrible. That's right. It's like the word CGI. Like, 2010's John Cusack is inherently gross, right? Yes. So, like, that counts as far as I'm concerned. That is the David Cronenberg filmography, and that was gross, horny, or both. And now we are moving on to a game we have done before, a game that I have dubbed parental advisory. I am going to read you the parental warnings from IMDB of various movies, giving you three titles that you have to guess which one is which.

I have removed character names and you have to tell me what movie it is I will give you options since you have not seen them all. Hopefully, gross horny or both will lead you in the right direction. Okay. Are you ready for parental advisory?

Yes. Okay. A female character tells a male character to punish her as to sexually excite her and on two occasions we see him spanking her backside. Is it crash a dangerous method or maps to the stars?

A dangerous method. it is indeed a dangerous method I started easy for the movie that we are talking about today All right, a man fights to others while fully nude Eastern Promises and Butterfly or Shivers Eastern Promises

Yes One fully clothed sex scene in a car lasts about 20 seconds Is it Cosmopolis Crash or Fast Company Um Well I think the sex scenes in crash

are longer and do feature some nudity. So I'm going to say Cosmopolis. Yes, it is indeed. Cosmopolis crashes. I can't imagine a sex scene lasting. Only 20 seconds in crash. They last 20 years. Yeah, they do. Yes.

A man and a woman have sex in a car. The woman has a large open scar on her leg, and it is implied that the man uses this scar as a vagina. What did I tell you? Is it Cosmopolis, Crash, or Spider? As previously referenced, it is definitely crash. is indeed crash A man and a woman have fully clothed

Scare quotes Doggy style sex in a limousine Is it Cosmopolis Crash or Maps to the Stars? Well we've already done Cosmopolis So I imagine this has got to be Maps to the Stars It is indeed Maps to the Stars It is Julianne Moore and Robert Pattinson

While Miavasikovs don't watchers Right, good golly Next one is also easy for you. In an iconic scene, a man's head graphically explodes. Is it Exist and Scanners or Videodrome? It's my Twitter feed every third day. Somebody post that GIF. It is Scanners.

It is very gross and iconic. All right, the next one. Male character and female character. Try to make up for not being with each other in high school, so they dress up like themselves back when they were in high school and start to make out. Is it the fly, a history of violence, or shivers? Oh, it is a history of violence, the cheerleader thing, yeah.

Yes, yes, it is, correct. You have a perfect score so far. All right. All right. This is maybe where it gets a little bit. Actually, no, it's still pretty easy. A man embeds a pair of scissors into his head, the dead zone, M. Butterfly, or Spider. Boy, lucky we've ended up discussing these scenes

specifically. I know. I was not prepared for some of these to go mentioned already. This is the dead zone. This is indeed the dead zone. The only gross thing in the dead zone, but that's not a bullet wound. Right. Okay, next one. Female character takes a bath while showing nothing is implied a creature enters her through her genitals. Is it the brood, naked lunch, or shivers? I think this is shivers. It is indeed shivers.

I'm surprised you'd seen that one, so you got that good job. I still got a perfect score. I will say, when I used to do trivia at Videology, I would show up early because you'd show up ungodly early to get a table. And they just threw that on for the public. Well, it was in the back room and they would just be showing movies back there. And yeah, Shivers was the movie they were showing that day. So, yes.

Gotcha. Videoology was the best. All right. Next question. There is a scene where one character cuts a cord, which is connected to another user. The cord squirts blood for a while. It's pretty gross. This is my beloved existence, yes. Yes, your other options were scanners and videodrome, but I knew you would get it.

I literally just picked that one because sometimes the sentence structures of these are just too good. They're just wonderful. Oh, well, this one I already spoiled for you. A man looks at a woman's wound on her armpit. A bloody proboscis comes out of the wound and stabs him. It's seen several times. Is it the brood, rabid, or videodrome? It's rabid.

I guess I have to see this movie now. It's kind of, it's really grungy, but it's, it's a movie. All right. A woman bites into a bulged organ, removing a still fetus, then licks blood off of the ladder. The brood, naked lunch, or spider. This is the one scene I've seen from the brood. The brood is good. The brood is the right answer.

A man is shot multiple times, then tumors form where the gunshot wounds are, and they proceed to erupt out of his body. Is it the fly, scanners, or videodrome? I mean, I've seen the fly, and there's a lot of big exploding grossness in the fly. And I'll feel bad if I get that wrong, so I'm just going to guess the fly, even though it's probably something else. It is videodrome. Okay.

Um, next question. The way to describe what was happening in the fly. So yeah, I get it. I mean, I think that's an accurate one. It's a giant cancer metaphor. Um, a man peels off his fingernails, blood is shown, but a pus-like substance is secreted. Is it existends the fly or rabid?

This is the fly, right? That is definitely the fly. Yeah. That was why my log was as a scab picker. I can relate. Um, Next question. Male character dreams another male character is in bed with him and a female character,

with the men connected by a strange scar. She says she'll separate them and bites the scar, pulling out some bloody material. Is it the brood, dead ringers, or shivers? Oh, golly. Is this the brood again? It is iconically dead ringers. Wow! Okay.

The way that this is described is way tamer than it is in the movie. I should have guessed because of the two, yeah, in bed with the two male characters, yeah. We see a man's nose pushed back into his head with the nose bone protruding from his forehead. Is it Eastern Promises, Existence, or a History of Violence? Well, it's either Eastern Promises or a History of Violence, and I'm trying to remember I'm going to guess A History of Violence It is a history of violence. It's one of the scenes that they edited down for the NC17

Because it was originally like shooting a bunch of blood out And they just like digitally erase the blood and it was fine Because you know it's not any less gross I guess A female character exposes her breast to a child Is it Dead Ringers Maps to the Stars or Spider? is it spider is spider yeah okay

splashes a boob creatures have mouths that look suspiciously like giant anuses or female genitalia which talk to people is it the brood naked lunch or video drum

oh my god is this video drum it is not it is naked lunch naked lunch fucking naked lunch next question there are several scenes of passionate kissing, a brief clothed scene depicting anal intercourse, as well as a clothes scene suggesting that oral intercourse is about to take place.

Is it a dangerous method, M. Butterfly, or Maps to the Stars? Can you, I'm sorry, but can you read that one more time? I chose this one because it's one of the ones where I was like, this, this, I think a diagram the sentence, and I think I just died of the... Exactly, this one run-on sentence, which I love on those parental advisory. things. Okay. There are several scenes of passionate kissing, a brief clothed scene depicting anal intercourse as well as a clothed scene suggesting that oral intercourse is about to take place. A dangerous method, M. Butterfly, or Maps to the Stars. I mean, I don't think we've

had an M. Butterfly yet, so I'm going to say M. Butterfly. It is indeed M. Butterfly. Great deductive logic, though. That could have happened. That description could have happened in all three of those movies. I was trying to think. I was just like, this sort of happened in a dangerous method, not entirely, but yeah. All right, next question. A man and a woman have sex. We see the man thrusting in the distance along. He pierces her ear while doing this. Your options are crash, naked lunch, and videodrome. Oh, boy, oh boy. Um, naked lunch. No, it is videodrome. And your final question, pointedly, I made this your final question.

A woman kills another woman by beating her to death with an Oscar award, they wrote that at. It is Crash, Dead Ringers, or Maps to the Stars. Of course, it is Maps to the Stars. It is maps to the Stars, though it's not an Oscar, but it is, it's a gold trophy of some kind. It's meant to evoke an Oscar. Evoke Oscar. That's a fantastic and unwell quiz, but. Unfortunately, the conversation led naturally before we got here to some of those to give you the answer, but...

Unfortunately, for me, I like to do well at quizzes. I think the other point in creating this quiz for you to kind of loop it back to a dangerous method is to loop in, or at least underline how kind of bizarre it is to be having an Oscar conversation with Kronenberg's name. the same time, considering the type of movies that he makes. Vigo really, you know, grounded him in those in that little era, though. It's really, you know, I guess it was surprising when a history of violence seemingly, even though, again, nosebone protruding and whatnot, seemingly stayed within the boundaries of what you could call Oscar. eligible, you know, Oscar-friendly work. Well, and I think the critics kind of,

I don't want to say single-handedly because they did run a strong, if-misguided campaign for that movie. Hashtag Marie Bellow. But that definitely a history of violence was kind of at least launched because of the critical response, right?

Yes. As an Oscar contender? Yeah. And it might have been a Best Picture nominee in a year of 10. I wonder what would have happened to that movie if it was a year of 10. There was also, yeah, I think that's right. I think if 2005 is a 10, history of violence probably does better across the board. Yeah, I think that's right.

But the interesting thing about the Kronenberg Awards conversation is he had been on the periphery for a while, where like, Dead Ringers gets a lot. of critics' prizes for Jeremy Irons in Best Actor, and that pretty much leads the path directly to him winning the Oscar in 1990 for reversal of fortune. In fact, in his acceptance speech, he thanks Cronenberg for, you know, giving him, giving his career such a boost. And in many And that's a performance that's absolutely incredible, but Oscar will never in a million years go for. Right. Right.

And then Naked Lunch gets like, one national society of film critics. It got a lot of critics prizes, especially for the screenplay, because that movie, it's not just like an adaptation of that text, which is already really difficult and people have tried to. It is somewhat It's not a Burroughs biopic, but it weaves details specifically about Burroughs in with the actual text, too. So it's like, it's a meaty piece of adaptation that, like, critics celebrated. Naked Vunch wins screenplay at National Society of Film Critics, New York Society of Film Critics, Boston Society of Film Critics.

It also wins Best Director at National Society. Supporting Actress for Judy Davis at New York Film Critics Circle. And so, and I think M. Butterfly also had some, like, critics' prize attention, maybe, or at least was like... I don't think so. That seems like more, like, our avenue of movies that we talk about here. Okay, well, then I'm wrong about that. But I think because of that, and then Crash wins a prize at can, even though it's incredibly controversial and incredibly divisive.

They made a prize for it. It can. Right. So that, I think that sort of like ramping up, then you get this run with Existens, which was never going to, you know, be a prize winner. And then Spider, which also wasn't, but I remember there being

like pre-season, like oh, Miranda Richardson's playing multiple roles. That's a baby kind of thing. Maybe Miranda Richardson. Sony Classics kind of flubbed the release and the strategy for that movie. Nobody knew what year that movie was eligible for. I think it was one of those that opened in L.A. but not New York.

And, yes, straddled. And it was like New Year's Eve, something like that, yeah. Yes. So there was this sense that, like, Cronenberg's on the periphery, but there's always something that is too weird, gross, controversial, that is keeping it away. And so... There was a lot of interpretations of movies at the time, like Dead Ringers, too, that he was, like, a misogynist or anything when really

I think now you can look at some of these movies in hindsight especially all of them together and see that like a lot of his movies are critiquing and unpacking male psychosis rather than reinforcing it. Well you see that in a dangerous method where it's the hook of this

is and it's reflected in the Hampton play as well. The hook of this is you know Freud and Young you know Batman versus Superman and but all Ultimately, the most important character in this movie is Kira Knightley's character. And this sort of woman who was their intellectual equal, but for many societal reasons, has not been recognized historically on the same level. And even for these men, too, like, she is some type of, even Jung who's supposed to love her.

her she's some like jockeying point where it's like she is going to fall in line with one or the other and like she is some like pawn between them in a way but really what she ends up coming up with is some of her own ideas and like studying in the field of children um so it's like she does go her own way and she can borrow pieces from both of them yeah yeah exactly but yeah i think that It was sort of the fact that a history of violence was ultimately not about bugs or having sex with open wounds or, you know, whatever, that it was normalized Cronenberg enough that, okay, now all these people who maybe really liked his movies, but there was one hang up or another, at the very least, we could get a little bit of awards love for history of violence. and, you know, Eastern promises that as well. Because, again, the American sort of like critical, not critical establishment, but like the American psyche is much more accepting of violence than sex. Like, that is definitely a thing. But even so, because the sex is somewhat explicit or at least very intense in a history of violence, Like, I do think there is a certain embracing of, even though it only got the nomination for William Hurt, but like it was very much in the conversation for other categories.

Yeah. There, there's been a chipping away at like, Academy prudishness to, that like, like, it's not just because it's not like, bugs fucking on the freeway. Um, it is not, this movie's not that, that like, you know, it's still a pretty explicit movie. Um, but people are less, you know. But also, I think it's decently interesting that a dangerous method, which is his most quote-unquote normal movie, I would say, doesn't get the acting nomination that a history of violence got and Eastern Promises got, I think partly because, even though like Vigo Mortensen, who was the, you know, the closest it got to an acting nomination, certainly there's nothing overtly. sexual about his character. But I think because the thing that was Cronenbergy about a dangerous method was about sex and humiliation and spanking and sort of like that whole, you know,

kinky aspect of the knightly character, I think it probably kept awards voters more of an arm's length than the violence did in the two other Vigo movies. I think that's probably true, especially in this year where the two front runners are these you know pretty tame sanitized period films

different periods than this obviously but yeah like Hugo it's it's I wouldn't say it's a costume drama but it like you know certainly has a certain perception about it and then the artist as well yes yeah

you mentioned when we were talking about what we wanted to discuss for this movie that you wanted to get into the supporting actress race that year because that's where nightly, likely would have been placed as an awards contender. And it's an interesting, read off the nominees for that. The actual nominees, obviously, Octavia Spencer, wins for the help. The other nominees are Bernice Bejou for the artist Jessica Chastain for the help.

Melissa McCarthy, four bridesmaidsmaids, and Janet McTeer for Albert Knob. it's I think with I think I would say with the exception of Melissa McCarthy who everybody agrees delivers a fantastic performance in a comedy and the kind of comedy that is so rarely recognized like everybody I think is probably on board with that nomination all of the other four of them have their detractors I think the very nature of what the help is as a movie will mean that even though the performances all three nominated performances from that movie I think are great performances. I think Viola is great. Octavia's great. Jessica Chastain is great. But it's all in service of a movie that is pretty questionable

for a lot of people. So that's always going to have like a drawback. And I do love Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain in that movie, but they wouldn't make my ballot. I think that's right. I think I would agree with that. Well, Jessica Chastain too also

like that was such a year for her and that was probably the movie that was the most embraced by Oscar in a way, even though, like, Tree of Life landed those nominations. It's just like, are you going, are they, is Oscar more likely to nominate her bigger performance in the help? She is a delight in the help. She is. She's great.

I would have, of her, like, what, four movies that year? Was it three or four? I would have nominated her for Take Shelter. Sure. But still not even on my ballot. I mean, yeah, she was in, I think it was at least four, right? Because it's the help and tree of life and take shelter and what was, is it the debt? Is the debt that same year?

I think it was. Hold on. Let me look this up now. Because there's also that movie Texas Killing Fields, which I don't know when it actually opened to the United States. She had other movies that came out that year too that just like nobody saw or knew about. Texas Killingfield's played at the Venice Film Festival this same year that a dangerous method was there. I sort of looked that up, too. That's an interesting Venice Film Festival, where not everything is great that year.

Carnage, the Roman Polansky, adaptation of God of Carnage, was in competition. Iads of March, which I don't like, is in competition. Killer Joe, the Friedkin adaptation of the Tracy Let's Play that I don't like is there. So, like, there's a lot of that, but, like, Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spies, there. Andre Arnold's Wuthering Heights is at Venice that year. Shame, the Steve McQueen shame. So, like, obviously, the Michael Fastbender... Sons. You can't call it a Renaissance, because whatever. The Michael Fastbender breakthrough was happening in a big way. Wait, so Jessica Chastain... We definitely need to get into that, too.

I know, I know. All right. Quickly, Jessica Chastain's 2011. It is Take Shelter. Okay, it's way more than just four. Take shelter. Coriolanus, the tree of life, the help, Texas killing fields and the wild salome that like was I documentary directed by Al Pacino thing which I don't think was even release until a few years later right but like all of those are marked as 2011 so like it was and it was she came from nowhere she was like and the debt was technically Juilliard no but like in terms of just like yes like obviously she came from somewhere but like just in terms of of, like, she was, you know, who was this person, who all of a sudden is in everything.

And I think it was, I might not have the story right, but I'm pretty sure, because Tree of Life filmed, like, three or four years or something before it was released. Right, it was just this weird confluence of all of everything, sort of, you know, really. So she's, she's an actress who has this on her resume, working for Terrence Malick opposite Brad Pitt, and, like, has a good relationship.

with those people that can help her get other jobs. And it just also happens to come out at once. Former guest Bobby Finger, he and I were at some sort of gathering at a bar somewhere. And I remember, I think he had read, maybe read the book The Help or knew enough about this is before just maybe a few months before the help comes out. And we were talking about it. I was sort of talking about it in like general like, you know, Oscar terms or whatever. And he said, watch this Jessica Chastain performance because she's playing the most fun character in the book. And he's like that's, he basically called her nomination, like, pretty early, which was, I always know.

She's also the only white character that really feels like they do, I mean, she doesn't really do much, but like, the only one that feels like she does something against the racism in her community. Right. Because even the Emma Stone character is so incredibly passive and, like, gets the credit for these women's lives. Jessica Chastain's, Jessica Chastain plays the one white character in the help who you don't have to feel bad about liking. I mean, and, like, imagine for Academy voters, like, feel good about nominating her, too. Yeah. Oh, boy, that movie. The other two nominees, I think Janet McTeer is very good in Albert Knobbs, although Albert Knobbs is just such a deeply strange movie.

I haven't seen it. It's just, like, the lingering. You know how I, you know my feeling. Oh, that's right. You're a Glenn Close phobe. My dominant reaction to Janet McTeer and Albert Knob's is at one point she pulls her shirt down and she exposes her breasts and they are enormous and wonderful and good for Janet McTeer. Oh. And then Barney's Bijoux in The Artist is a performance I never got the hype for ever.

Even when I was like, oh, the artist is a good, like, I was I was okay. positive on the artist. I was like that's a, you know, I was good movie, but like I never got the guy. Why about the artist in like every possible way. Like, I understand Jean-Dou Chardin getting love for that movie and that's it.

Lee, the artist. This is why I don't love this Oscar year. Do you have your supporting actress ballot? 211 is a deeply, deeply bad Oscar year, I will say. Like, even even when it's stuff that I don't necessarily hate. It's just like, oh, it's so frustrating. It's such a frustrating year. There's

so much better stuff. Yes, my own personal supporting actress ballot. Do you have yours as well? I do. Do you want to go first or second? We haven't done one of these in a while. I know, we haven't. Also, partly why I was like pulling this out to be like, we should do this. Let me go first. All right. Okay. Mine, none, there's zero crossover with the Oscars. I sort of went, I made some reaches, but I stand by all of these. I think. think at this point. So let's go in order from fifth to first, let's say. All right.

My number five... Fifth to first, not alphabetical. No, let's go... No, I have respect for the Oscars. That's right. Alphabetical. All right. Alphabetical order. Jeannie Berlin for Margaret. Amazing. She's so good. She's so wonderful.

Thank God that movie eventually came out. Rose Byrne for bridesmaids, which I don't... Like, nothing against Melissa McCarthy, but I think Roseburn gives the best. performance in bridesmaids. She's a fucking scream. She's so funny in every single scene.

Dagmara Domenchik, Mrs. Patrick Wilson. Amazing. Higher ground. How much do you love Degmara Domenchik in like the three scenes she's allowed to do anything in Succession? She's so good. She's so good. She plays such a perfect corporate crony.

Like, she's absolutely amazing. Higher Ground was the movie that Vera Farminga directed about a woman who has, is in this very sort of repressive religious it's not like a it's not like a cult but it's like it's a very conservative

religious community and she's sort of is straining against the boundaries of it she's very very good it's a really underrated movie that I think more people should see and Dugmar Domenchik plays her friend her best friend in that movie and she's absolutely wonderful

you should highly recommended Carrie Mulligan for shame. Shame is a movie I should see again, and I will probably like less than I did the first time. I was a big shame defender at the time, and I think there are the more little moments of it that I think of. I'm just like, okay, well, I don't like that, and I don't like that. But, like, I stand by in my memory, at least, Carrie Mulligan's performance. I think she's phenomenal in that. And my fifth nominee is Amy Ryan from the film Win Win Win, the Tom. Almost Made Mine. She's Probably my sixth place. She's phenomenal in that movie. In a role of that... Win-win is incredible. Very easily could have been just a like, you know,

stand-by-wife movie, but she really is allowed to be a character in her own right, and she's... Amy Ryan really delivers. She's great. As someone who hated Gone Baby Gone and kind of hated her performance

in the movie, win-win should be Amy Ryan's Oscar nomination. She's so good. All right. So good. So good. So that's my five. All right.

We have a decent amount of overlap. Nice. I also have Jeannie Berlin in Marguerette. Yeah. Incredible. I also just fucking adore Jeannie Berlin. Again, great on its succession. Marguerette is like, oh boy, the whole story of that movie, like, it would feel like, you know, a little bit of a cheat for us to do an episode on that.

But, like, guys, if you don't know anything about this movie or the movie. release or like the support it received after its non-release, like read up on it. It's fascinating. And then watch the movie. It's a masterpiece. I also have Rose Byrne for bridesmaids. Do neither of us have any Oscar nominees on our ballot? I don't. I have no Oscar. I don't either. I did put Kira Knightley from a dangerous method. I think she's great. It's not just this physical thing. I think

in the ways that I said maybe my complaint about the movie is its lack of a clear arc, I think she absolutely does, and I think her physicality carries throughout the movie beyond the tick and, like, beyond the, you know, throwing her jaw into the Atlantic. Kira Knightley is actually a ninth on my lead actress list. Oh, you think she's a lead? Yeah, I think it's a...

I don't think the movie ever adopts her perspective at all. That's fair. But I understand she has a decent amount of screen time, if that's, you know, how you feel. Oh, my God, that is so backhanded. Sorry, no, no, it's not. I suppose she has screen time if that's how you feel. Shut up.

I also have Carrie Mulligan from shame. I understand people's complaints about shame. I understand people's complaints about Steve McQueen's films in general. I still am just very taken with how he manifests physical experiences for the audiences of his movies. I think Cary Mulligan is just incredible in that movie. Wait, wait, before we move on, just a thought experiment. Okay.

Steve McQueen directs a dangerous method. David Cronenberg directs shame. What happens? I think both of those movies aren't as good. Oh, interesting. Okay. I don't want to see shame directed by Cronenberg. I don't think that's what that movie is about. I don't think what shame is about.

Have sex with in that movie of Kronenberg directs it? Like sides of buildings? Like, anthropology. Probably. If it's like the city is destroying you, yeah, he like fucks a Dwayne Reed or something. Dwayne Reed anthropomorphizes and, yeah. Okay.

The David Cronenberg shame definitely has more of the like whole webcam aspect of it. Yes. Um, my fifth, uh, person on my ballot, though, would be Kim Wayans for Pariah. Oh, that's a great. That's a great nomination. People really only talk about Ataparo in that movie, but I rewatched it this pride month. And I'm like, everyone in this ensemble is amazing. Um, Kim Wayne's got some talk, but like Rob Morgan's great in that movie.

Um, everybody should watch Pariah. So what you're saying is, what about. Kim Wayans. What about Pariah? I have always saying this, yes. Also, along those lines, how would Merrill Streep in 2011 have pronounced Dagmara Domenchik? I think she would probably say Doug Mara correctly, and then say

Degmara, Rooney. Gilda. Yeah, I had Asha Davis from Pariah on my top 10 that year. Pariah has a fantastic supporting cast but like a bunch of my like

runners up would have been a great nominee Sarah Paulson for Martha Marcy May Marlene. She's on my long list. Colette Wolfe for her like one phenomenal scene and young adults. It pains me not to put Colette Wolfe on there but like it's a very short performance but it's one of my

favorites. Jay Smith Cameron and Margaret. I also have on my long list how do you feel about a separate I think a separation is fantastic. I put Sarabayat on my long list for that movie. She's the one who's pregnant. Yes. I have Paman Moadi for a separation on my best actor list.

Yes. It's a really interesting year. The best movies that year were great in a way that completely bypassed the Oscar conversation. I think certified copy that year was amazing. Hannah. Just watch that for the first. first time and I lost my mind

certified copy is so good. Juliet Benoche and certified copy is one of the best performances of that whole decade. It's... I've been trying to get you to watch Let the Sunshine in and like you want to talk about incredible Benoche performance. The thing about me and Claire Deny is I was

so ready to love um high life. No. No, I actively did not like high life. Oh, I love high life. No, what's the one Beau Trevi. I was so ready to love Beau Trevi and then I watched it and I was

a little alienated by not quite getting the love for it. And then High Life, I like actively disliked which may have been circumstantial.

That last movie at Tiff is always a bit of a struggle, right? Where it's just like... Yeah. We saw it at like 10 o'clock at night on the line. late at night on the last day and I was just like oh boy oh boy but like I definitely didn't connect with it and I'm like maybe

Claire Deney is one of those like brilliant filmmakers who I'm just too stupid to enjoy and like that's I maybe think that Let the Sunshine in will be the movie that unlocks for you like what she's doing and like how she does it perhaps but it's

incredible it's incredible I do love Julia Pinoche so like even I mean again high life also So, like, it's still worth it to see a Julia Benoche performance in anything. Yeah, let's not forget she has a giant sex braid and rattles herself in the fuck box in high life. Yes, she does. Where were we?

Okay, we need to talk about Michael Fassbender. Well, wait, who is your... Before we move on to Fassbender, who would be your winner? Carrie Mulligan. Same. Carrie Mulligan. Yeah, nice. Very good.

Wow, we're way more... For two lineups that went really far afield of the Oscar conversation, that year we were remarkably in sync like that's kind of amazing love it watch higher round Michael Fastbender yes the thing about Fastbender in this movie like it never when he's winning

like Critics Prizes this year sometimes just for body of work sometimes for Best Actor they lump them all together right but really the one that was close to Oscar probably sixth or seventh place in Best Actor was shame right

he got what Golden Globe nomination I don't think he actually got that much. Or maybe he got, no, he definitely got, I think, Critics' Choice, because even Carrie Mulligan got nominated for Critics' Choice for it. Well, Critics' Choice, again, is a great way to tell what the Oscar prognosticators are guessing for a movie ahead of time. Because they will give you a snapshot of what the conversation is at that moment in December. or sometimes they'll do a weird thing that's clearly a weird thing like nominating tilda for snowpiercer or something right so michael fastbender for shame gets nominated for

the golden globe the bafta um sorry as i'm scrolling down a nominee for boston society film critics which i think means runner up in this case wins the british independent film award nominated at critics choice a bunch of citations for like regional film critic stuff. But yeah, he was definitely kind of everywhere except for, you know, ultimately at the Oscar nomination. That year was also the year of Tilda Swinton and we need to talk about Kevin. And I always think of both of those performances in tandem as being left off even though I think they're both fantastic, but also we're both representing very alienating movies. Yeah, those movies you can kind of tie together to see ways that like maybe Oscar is stodgier than we're giving them credit for in the same episode that I'm like, but they're getting less, you know, prudish.

But like, and maybe I don't actually, I think you're, you're right. I don't think that shame not getting a nomination for Fastbender has really anything to do with the sex of the movie. It is the way you feel about the movie while watching it. yeah um yes i think that's right and oh he also i should say uh in terms of um awards that he won los angeles film critics association he wins best actor for everything shame a dangerous method jane air even x-men first class gets not gets noted on that la film critics win which it's like guys you don't have to to do that. You don't even have to put

Jane Eyre on there. I do wonder, I might, if I would watch Shame again, if I like him in this or shame more, because I was taken with him this time in a way that I wasn't before. I want to watch Shame again. I also

want to watch Jane Eyre again. My great shame is that I walked out of Jane Eyre. Not necessarily because I hated it, because I didn't hate it. But I was definitely, I saw it on a Friday night after I got out of work, a late night for a fire at work. And I was watching that movie and I was just uninterested enough that I literally, my mind started making these calculations of, you know,

you got to run this errand and you got to go to the grocery store and you got to go to a whole thing. And just like, if you just leave now, you can be home by X time. And I was just like, it was the most pragmatic walkout I ever had of a movie where I was just like, I just don't have time to finish this movie today. And I've always felt. really bad about that because I really love Carrie Fukunaga and everybody really loved that movie. I definitely was not on the road to loving

that movie. So, like, I don't think, I still don't think I'm going to end up being on Team Jane Eyre, like a lot of people were, including Meryl Streep that year in her speech. But I do feel bad about walking out of Jane Eyre. How close do you think Vigo was?

We really haven't talked about him, but he was Globe nominated for it? Yeah, I mean, so wait, Let's go back. In a year that weirdly, well, this year is steamrolled by Christopher Plummer, and then second place was probably Kenneth Branagh, because he's the one that shows up everywhere else, and I think Jonah Hill does too. Yes.

So that's the thing. God, talking about movies that sort of like left me outside of the conversation, I didn't love beginners. Yeah. Famously, you don't like it. I should have, I wanted to be swept up. that is like, God, like, intergenerational, gay, familial, dromedy, I was so ready to. And then looking back, the fact that it's Mike Mills, who, like, I loved 20th century women so much.

It's just kind of baffling to me. But, like, I thought it was fine. I thought it was in the, you, any time it focused on Ewan McGregor, I thought it was obnoxious. And any time it focused on Christopher Plummer, I thought it was fine. And ultimately, weirdly enough, going through the season, I always thought that second place was Albert Brooks for Drive,

who then gets left off of the Oscar list in a big... I mean, it's one of those things where it's a surprise, but also, like, there were signs along the way, so I can't be, like, super... Totally. But, like, I hate that Oscar lineup. Kenneth Branagh in my week with Marilyn is not good.

Nick Nolte and Warrior is terrible. Jonah Hill in Moneyball is fine, but only got nominated because people thought that Jonah Hill was a terrible actor and were, like, surprised that he could be fine. That he could just keep a straight face in a movie for two hours. I love Moneyball, though. I love Moneyball. I like it. I don't get that nomination.

I don't get why he, yeah, whatever. So who's the fifth? It's Plummer, Branda, Nolte. Max Montsido. Right, the Shocker Max von Sido nomination for extremely loud and incredible close, which I loved the chaos of extremely loud and incredibly close on that year's Oscar nomination morning so much that I couldn't begrudge the nomination. I was just like, bring it on, bring it all on, melt it all down. What a weird slash bad Oscar year that was. A bad Oscar year. Yeah. You know who else got nominated for Critics Choice? It was Plummer, Albert Brooks, Kenneth Branagh, Nick Nolte. It was Andy Circus for Rise of the Planet of the Apes, because every once in a while, especially the critic's choice. will try and, like, I think they also nominated Scarlett Johansson for her. Like, they will try for that thing that the acting community really resists, which is the mechanism through which they could become obsolete at some point.

Like, they really don't like mocap performances, I think, for a very practical reason, which is like, we don't want to encourage this behavior. And also nominated was Patton Oswald for young adult, who was definitely. incredible he should have been nominated it's so much about young adult should have been nominated like it's insane that charlie star is not like charlie's thron's performance in young adult is better than any of the nominated

performances that year it's probably my favorite performance of that decade yeah I love it also anapakwin for marguerette since we're saying we love that movie yes yeah but yeah I think the the

the Fastbender breakthrough because like the universe was primed for it for this point right where he had been in hunger which was the breakthrough Steve McQueen movie which I can recognize

as a good movie while also it's an thoroughly unpleasant film watching experience that I don't want to repeat again ever but like yes he's obviously good yes he does the body like taking your body to extremes thing that people love in actors and definitely put him on

the map and then he was also in Fish Tank which I think was recognized by maybe a different little like small sliver of the film watching audience which he's fantastic in that in a very much less of a heroic kind of a role and but also like Fish Tank is the movie where everybody watches it and is just like oh he's so fucking sexy like and that became even though he's gross in that movie yes but just like just the the sight of him you know what i mean um and i think that then became and then shame happens and nobody could talk about anything about how big his penis was and it became like a definitional part of the michael fespender thing was great actor but also like super sexy and then 2011 happens and it's a very you know we joke about

X-Men first class being part of that critics prize but like I think a part of the reason why it was such a thing for him was it was a very diverse set of films and he is good in that X-Men movie he's great in that X-Men movie he's a star that's the thing it's like he is a it's a star performance in a mainstream superhero movie. It really, like, announced him. And then the kinds of roles he plays in A Dangerous Method and Shame and Jane Eyre are all so very different from one another. It's a really, it's just a really great sort of, like,

if you wanted to, like, put your best foot forward in as many different types of films and roles as possible, he couldn't have asked for better. And yet, you have, like, the same thing happening with Jessica Chastain. and because it's more to, I guess, a mainstream or an acceptability of taste, she's the one who, like, becomes the, like, virtuoso this year. Have they ever done a movie together? It feels like they should have. They should have, right?

They were so big. It's, like, at the exact same time. It's like, it's kind of amazing that they didn't. I'm looking at Fast Vendor's stuff right now. I don't think they have. Yeah. Oh, no. X-Men.

Oh, God. See, I haven't seen an X-Men movie since First Class. That last terrible X-Ben movie. It's not a franchise I like. It's a franchise that I like, even though it keeps, it often delivers movies that I really can't stand. I stayed with it longer than I probably should have. Like, I liked First Class a lot, and I found things to like about Days of Future Past, and then it's just these last two that I'm just like, oh, boy, oh, boy. Anyway.

Anyway. Any last notes on a dangerous method? I think Cure Knightley is fantastic. I just want to stake my claim in there. I love that the poster is a riff on the Dead Ringers poster. Oh, is that true? Yeah, where it's like the two male faces blurring into a female face. Ah, that's interesting.

Yeah, I like this movie a lot. I wanted to shout out the scenes that were filmed at Belvedere Palace in Vienna, which are breathtaking. Like, I know that, like, I am a sucker for those sort of palatial European locations where, like, anytime it's like Versailles or something like that I'm just like, I'm always just amazed at how, like, how old these buildings are and how massively huge. there's these just like giant fucking gardens everywhere and stone statues and it's a phenomenal location there's that one shot where it's Freud and Young sort of talking as they're like walking around the grounds and they stop to talk and it's the two of them and then this like lady sphinx statue with just like big marbled breasts and it's just like the three of them are like in equal proportion to one another so it's just like the three of them

are conversating together it's it's very funny um i love howard shores score i love all of his scores in kronenberg movies it's absurd that he has never been nominated for a kronenberg movie because that's where he does his best work um especially dead ringers and a history of violence those scores are incredible um yeah yeah i love the score for this there's a lot of wagner in this movie as well yes yeah all right should we move on to the i md game at the two hour mark for closing hand on it. Boy, are we really?

All right. Yeah, every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try and guess the top four titles that IMDB says they're most known for if any of those titles are television or voiceover work. We mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. If that's not enough, it just becomes a free for all of hints. Hooray.

Would you like to give her guess first? I will guess first. All right, cool. So we're doing a movie that has two stars of multiple Kronenberg movies in Beagle Mortensen and Sarah Gatton. I went to another regular star of Kronenberg movies, and that's Mr. Jeremy Irons. Oh, I should have anticipated this. Okay. There's one voice performance.

Well, the Lion King has got to be the voice performance. Yes. Iconic star. Yes. I think that's what I was texting you Or maybe I was talking to somebody else about this That it's like, it's amazing that Jeremy Irons isn't gay And I said, no, he's just the most sophisticated heterosexual

That's true I think I was talking to my friend Martado Ophoto about this It's a very smart observation. It's true. Okay The most sophisticated heterosexual So you have the Lion King I'm going to guess reversal of fortune No

one of the rare Oscar winners that their Oscar win is not in they're known for and no television no television so no watchman no watchman all right what are the very populist I'm gonna be really mad if it's one of the new Batman movies where he plays Alfred but I'm not gonna guess that quite yet let me talk my way through Jeremy Irons. I feel like there is an action movie where he plays

like The Bad Guy. But I'm not quite sure what that is. I doubt it'll be something as small as like damage. I want to watch that. Speaking of Juliet Benosh. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Like, I mean, Miranda Richardson is the show. but, like, it's very much a supporting performance. So, I'm trying to think of, like, what the, like, 90s, irons movies are. Can't help you along yet. No, no, definitely I want to be able to guess. Irons, irons, irons. All right, fine, I will guess. Batman v. Superman, Don of Justice.

Unfortunately, you are correct. Yeah. Okay. That abysmal, you know, nightmare is on his known for. Right. Is Red Sparrow? Red Sparrow is not. Okay.

All right. So your years for your remaining two titles are 1988 and 2016. Oh, Dead Ringers. Dead Ringers. Yes. And then what's the other year? 2016. Okay.

Of course he's on there for Dead Ringers. He plays not one person, but do. 2016. You were saying, what's a dumb action movie that he's in? Wait, is Batman v. Superman not 2016? It is also 2016. He isn't too bad action movies this year. It's not the other.

It's not Justice League. Okay. I shouldn't say this. I haven't seen this movie, but I'm sure it's, at least, even if it's good, it's stupid. Is he, is it the thing that I'm thinking? of where it's like dumb action and he plays the villain i don't know if he's the villain people definitely defended this movie it the star of this movie is somebody we have talked about

quite a bit this episode quite a bit jeff goldblum no no we've talked about this person actively as a bullet point on our oh outline figo mortensen no michael fast What action movie is? It's Assassin's Creed. It's Assassin's Creed. What action movie do you think Vigo Mortensen is in, sir? I don't know. Everything is an action movie with Vigo Mortensen. I don't know. Yeah, he's actively folding that pizza in half and eating it.

He sure is. Yeah. Listen, Captain Fantastic sounds like an action movie. Yeah. It's not. Captain Fantastic is definitely like one of those things that the momentum built because he's he missed out on things like a dangerous method. I feel like... Yeah, I think that's probably true. It's still a very weird domination. It's still a very weird domination.

It's still a very weird nomination. Same. Super same. All right. Anyway. Who do you have for me? All right. So I followed down the Kiran Knightley rabbit hole a little bit. As I mentioned, the year after she makes a dangerous method.

She stars in Joe Wright's Anna Karenina, which I love. And the cast in that movie is fucking stacked. It is such a a well-cast and interestingly cast movie. The one stand-out performance that I am going to choose to have you guess

is my imaginary boyfriend, Donald Gleason. Donald Gleason. Good guy. Great, even in bad movies. Like the kitchen, the heartbreak of my lifetime. No, God, speaking of imaginary boyfriend. He's in...

Get you, a scruffy man who will kill for you. The problem with Donald Gleason is he is in franchises that you don't remember that he's in. Like, I know he's in the Harry Potter one. We used to, he's in a Harry Potter or two. We used to say we would avoid Harry Potter, but like it seems to have fallen off for some people. I definitely think that ex machina is in there. Very well chosen. Ex Machina.

Yes. Ex Machina. Okay. about time weirdly a reunion for Anna Karenina because it is him and Alicia Vikander Yes Sorry, go ahead

She's great in Anna Karenina I wish she was as good in Anna Karenina As she was in other things I'm going to say about time Because that showed up for like Rachel McAdams I love it about time He's so good in that He plays a character in that movie

Who you shouldn't like And yet he's so like genuinely wonderful and charming that like I love him okay one of those franchises oh no no no no no it's the new Star Wars movies

the Force Awakens has got to be on there nope I thought it would be too but it is not oh wow okay never mind then so is that two strikes for you did you guess that's one strike for me I think I'm hard-pressed to guess Anna Karinana because there are a million people in there

and I don't actually think he has that much screen time comparatively. He's in that terrible Peter Rabbit movie but kids' movies never show up here for the most part. Oh, no, no, no, it's got to be Brooklyn because he's the not good love interest in Brooklyn. It's not Brooklyn, but that's a very good guess. All right, so you have...

I hate everything about that storyline in Brooklyn. Like, I think that I love that movie so much. I do too. When she goes back to Ireland, the movie just completely deflates for me. I do too. Yep, I agree. Anyway, I still do love a lot of Brooklyn, but yeah, I think that is the weak part. Yes. Okay, your two remaining years are 2012 and 2014.

Okay, well, is 2012 Anna Karenina? It is. All right, well, great. You did the thing to me that I... Isn't it annoying? Isn't it deeply annoying? No, I'm just pointing out that I don't think you did that intentionally, and you always think that I do. Uh, 2014.

Okay. Before Star Wars, before Brooklyn. Is that the year of X-Mogg? No. Oh, um, no. this is um god why is this there it's unbroken no i thought you're like the the answer to this is uh why is this their movie but it's not unbroken okay you there's a very good chance that a you've never seen this movie and b you don't even remember that this movie was ever a thing really it's a really

odd choice. It was definitely like an indie movie that people were talking about at the time. And it definitely, it has a cast full of people, including a person we have talked about a lot on this podcast, who

plays the title character, even though... Is it Frank? Yes, it's Frank. I like that movie. Okay. I thought that would be completely off your reader. It is like so Sundancey. Lenny Abrahamson's Frank. uh-huh i like that movie that i would have probably been like my original song choice for that year wow

michael fastbender plays a character who is just has a big giant head fastbender's great in this movie mask on maggie jillen hall is on one in that movie but she's funny yeah uh maggie jillen hall's in that movie scute mcnery's in that movie that's on donald leeson's known for because he's the lead of the movie, and there's not a lot of movies that he's like the lead. He's sort of, it's the ex-Machina thing, too, where he's sort of the normie and

things are happening around him. Yes, yes. I really wanted to love Frank, and I remember being a little confused by Frank, but now I kind of want to see it again. Yeah, it's not a bad way to spend an afternoon. All right, well, I'm sorry I aggressively hinted that too much. I should have let you come to it at your own pace. I don't know.

I might not have come to it, but I was initially thrown by, like, you probably haven't seen it, where it's like, this is the shit that I definitely have seen. The thing about Donald Gleason is his career, like, he only has been making movies for, like, not much more than 10 years. Like, those Harry Potter movies really were,

along with he has a very small role in Never Let Me Go. And that's really, like, when his career started. But, like, he's made a lot of movies since then and a lot of, like, really good and interesting movies. You mentioned Brooklyn. he's in the revenant He's in Mother of course

God, he was in the Revenant Yeah, yeah He's in Mother, he's in the kitchen He's in The Little Stranger, which Which he's fantastic in Yeah, he's very good I like that movie a lot I just like him a lot

I really do, I enjoy him Anyway, yeah, good job Anyway, Joseph, I think that's our episode If you want more This Had Oscar Buzz, you can follow the Tumblr at This Had Oscar Buzz, buzz.tumbler.com. Please also follow us on Twitter at had underscore Oscar

underscore buzz. Joseph where can they find more of you? I'm on Twitter at Joe Reed. Reed is spelled R-E-I-D. I am on letterbox name spelled Joe Reed, the exact same way. And I am on Twitter at Krispy File. That's F-E-I-L, also on Letterbox under the same

name. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Mievous for their technical guidance. Please remember to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, wherever else you get your podcast. Five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcast visibility, so

please give us some good compliments instead of some good spankings. Can you believe we got through this episode and didn't talk about all of the spanking? I know. I'm proud of us. Yeah. There's a lot of spanking in this movie. Anyway, that's all for this week. We hope you'll be back next

week for more fun. She's extremely dangerous She's got what it takes To break and sneak The ice of love The hit like You know she's a little bit Dangerous

A little bit Dangerous Oh Oh Oh Hey Where's the run Thank you.