This Had Oscar Buzz - 111 – Much Ado About Nothing

Episode Date: September 14, 2020

We’re tackling our first Shakespeare adaptation this week with Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing. After launching immediately into Oscar’s good graces with his directorial debut Henry V, Branagh returned to the Bard with this lighter and more star-studded adaptation – but couldn’t match that previous film’s favor. With a cast featuring Emma Thompson, Denzel … Continue reading "111 – Much Ado About Nothing"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hacks. From Kenneth Branagh, the director of Henry V, and Dead Again, William Shakespeare's Much Adieu About Nothing. All women shall pardon me. I will live a bachelor. A dear happiness to women. She's the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.

Can the world buy such a jewel? If thou dost love, fair hero, cherish it. She shall be thine. Shall I never see a bachelor of three score again? I wonder that you will still be talking, Senior Benedict. Nobody marks you. I cannot endure my lady tongue. I shall see the air I die look pale with love.

Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast. The only podcast calling you Myron, even though your name is clearly Byron. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Joe Reed. I'm here, as always, with my visiting Italian prince, Chris File.

Hello, Chris. I almost said bonjour. Ciao Bella, Bella, Bambina. Good morrow to you, sir. This is kind of, Ciao Bella, Bella, Bella, Bambina, the movie. We like those here after our Captain Corelli episode. It's true, except. nobody speaks in an Italian accent at all, which is fun and funny.

Always funny about a Shakespeare adaptation where it's like, it takes place in Italy, and clearly no one's Italian. It reminded me of how many Shakespeare adaptations that I know of, and I am certainly not like a comprehensive Shakespeare guy. This podcast is really going to expose me as a Shakespeare dumb dumb, so like get ready everybody. Oh, same. But like so much, so many of like the big major ones that I can think of

are set in Italy. And like, Shakespeare just doesn't have that, like, luxurious, you know, Italian vibe or whatever, which is, I don't know, it's kind of funny. But clearly, like, he seemed to have viewed Italy as, you know, a fine place for, you know, romance or whatever. I don't know. Yeah, to just be, like, collectively horny. Right. A lot of misunderstandings. A lot of, you know, romance troubled by, you know, people thinking somebody is dead when they're not, you know, fun stuff. Fun lighthearted stuff. Fun lighthearted stuff. This is kind of, for a Shakespeare comedy, the whole scenario is kind of fucked up. Oh, well, absolutely. There's always, it's always going to, you know, bring down the room when you get to the point in the movie where the woman is framed for harlotry and then beaten by her father and cast out of her own family. that's and uh and like fakes her death or i guess they fake her death for her yeah oh yeah the father

comes around and decides to do the right thing and fake his daughter's death so truly it is um a heartwarming tale of honestly okay so this movie fills like a few different parallel buckets for me which i kind of loved which is just like it's a shakespeare movie it is also a kenneth brana emma thompson movie, which we will absolutely talk about. It is also a, here's what's going on in 1993 movie, where it's like, Keanu fills that bucket, Robert Sean Leonard super fills that bucket. And even, like, this was the point where, like, let's try Denzel and some new things and see what comes of it.

You know what I mean? That kind of thing. But he's like a trained actor for this type of stuff. Totally. It's exciting that it will not. be the only Shakespeare Denzel Washington movie. Yes.

And... Hopefully in your future. It's... Yes, I'm super excited for that. But it feels very like 1993 at the movies. We're like, up until this point, Denzel Washington had won the Oscar for Glory,

1989, had just been nominated for Best Actor in Malcolm X. And a lot of people thought he should have won. For that, he sort of lost out to the Al Pacino sentiment train, which, like, fair enough. Like, Pacino should have already won an Oscar by that point anyway, and if history had done what it was supposed to do, then we would have been fine.

But now at this point in Hollywood, Hollywood is like, oh, let's try not pigeonholing this guy in just like a very sort of, like, narrow lane of types of movies. And so 93 is much ado about nothing, which, as you mentioned, like capitalizes on Denzel's incredibly you know strong theatrical training and whatnot and um the pelican brief which is half acidly on hollywood's part let's put this guy in a film with the biggest actress at the movies and have them be a tandem and yet also chicken out and not have them be a romantic tandem as they were in the novel the pelican brief so you know sort of a you know two steps forward one step back kind of a thing but like a very exciting time and also 1993 is

Philadelphia so truly like it's a real Denzel time in Hollywood and it'll be really you know we can really delve into it and how much this film both serves him and doesn't serve him in that yeah it's like a weird asterix performance for Denzel not just for like 1993 but I will also say absolutely the hottest Denzel has ever been in a movie oh that's a really good call Like, it's so, like, and I guess, like, maybe you could see it in grain racism thing. Why? But it is so weird to me that he is the one who does not end the movie partnered off because he's so hot in this movie. Well, but that's like, that's in the text, right?

Yes, but it's like, why would you cast him? Yeah. Yeah, I guess that, and that sort of kind of ties into the Pelican Brief thing. you're right um but this it's a really interesting i love to see dintzo washington's benedict instead of kenneth brannaw but kenneth brannaw is not going to like not allow himself to be that is a true but also true is branna really does embody the infuriatingness of benedick in this way where it's just like you fucking child like get over yourself kind of a thing like i think I think his persona really, really fits that role in a really interesting way.

Much to do about nothing as a play slash fodder for a movie in this regard. And again, listen to Dumb Here, you know, say a bad word about Shakespeare. And I'm not going to like, whatever, it's not criticism. But like, it's a really interesting, it's an imbalanced story where the most interesting character is Beatrice, is Emma Thompson's Beatrice in this. And the most interesting movie star moment in the movie is Denzel Washington, as Don Pedro. And she completely is sort of siphoned out of the story by the second act, or by the second half of it, where she becomes, her part sort of gets pushed to the side in favor of all the like machinations and how we have to figure out the plot of what's going on. And Washington, as you mentioned, is the only one without a romance and is the only one,

sort of, he's kind of supervising the sort of plottiness that happens in the second half of the movie. And it makes for kind of an odd viewing experience because I'm so often in this movie being like, can we get back to Emma Thompson? She's so much fun to watch. She's so good in this movie. It's the perfect role for her. I genuinely feel like, and she's been fabulous and so many other things, this particular era of Emma Thompson is like the golden age of Emma Thompson. But, like, she's so perfect for this role, and she does such a fantastic job.

We accidentally walked ourselves into two episodes in a row with the same performer, again, which we have done before. It makes me wonder, how close is Emma Thompson to a six-timers club for us? Hold your horses. Now that we're starting to track these. Because after Meyerowitz last week, she just threw in two. I think this makes five, but, like, let me pull that up. It'd be really annoying on my part if I made such a big deal last time about how we're going to commemorate

six-timers every time there is a six-timer and then Emma just sneaks into their unbeknownst. This is absolutely us being accountable to our own metrics. All right, hold on a second. Ms. Emma Thompson.

Hold on. Oh, all right, so this will be number four for Emma. This follows men, women, and children. stranger than fiction and then last week we did the Marowitz stories. So this one I'm just going to add it in

right here. As you listen listeners, let's just you are here as history is being made. I update the spreadsheet. All right, what to do about... How many Shakespeare references I can get in here to make it seem like I know

Shakespeare better? Does this add to anybody else? We haven't really done a whole lot of Denzel or Kianu. We've never really had the Michael Keaton conversation, which this is so... I think he's terrible in this movie. He sticks out like a real sore thumb.

It's genuinely like Beetlejuice as Dogberry. And Dogberry is a character who stands out. I think it's sort of intentional that he does kind of stick out like a sore thumb in the story a little bit. But, like, Keaton is a lot. Keaton and Keanu Reeves were the two actors. They spent a lot of time with him. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, that's what I'm talking about about the imbalance in the second half of the movie, where it's just like, we spend so much time with Doggbury, and it's just like, why? And I don't know, again, I'm very, very outside of, like, Shakespearean conversation. But, like, I don't know whether that's, like, a thing among Shakespeare scholars that, like, that's, like, notable about this play or whatever, but it's really noticeable in, in the movie. But at the time, Keaton's performance, and again, this is Keaton coming right off of two Batman movies and, you know, Beetlejuice. So it's just like, it is, in terms of a casting

thing, like it's everybody at the peak of their early 90sness, right? Emma Thompson, Denzel Washington, Keanu just before speed, and Keaton just after the Batman. So just like, it's truly kind of an apex kind of a movie but Keaton and Keanu Reeves were the two who got the bulk of the criticism from this movie about being miscast about being you know

sort of out of place and not being able to keep up with the rest of the very talented cast hmm so he yeah which is unsurprising like they're the two that come across is like the most sort of I mean for lack of a better

term American like you know You know what I mean? Well, Robert Sean Leonard, too, because that was the one I was going to say, like, the things I don't like about this movie are Michael Keaton as, like, an anthropomorphize, like, booger of, like, a character, and he's very sweaty. He's got a lot of things going on with his teeth. But Robert Sean Leonard is like, oh, boy, you just needed, like, a pretty face, and he sucks. So I'm curious.

Do we do this now or do we wait till after the plot? Let's just do it now. Fine. We've got a whole lot more other fish to fry. So we'll do the Robert Sean Leonard thing now. What are your feelings about Robert Sean Leonard as an actor as a moment, as sort of like, does he hold any kind of place within your psyche at all? As a moment, I should have facial blindness to him.

but like I've seen a lot of those very similar 90s movies where he's usually playing some type of student or with like some kind of mentor. And I think he's generally fine to not great in those movies but I think he's actively terrible in this. What about you? I don't think he's great in this movie but I also think he's absolutely playing

the most reprehensible character. So like, stick a pin in that for a second. I, they're usually on this podcast, our relatively small age difference doesn't matter. We generally tend to be in the same kind of like general era of each other. I think Robert Sean Leonard is one of those people who pinpoints the little bit of age difference between us where like there was a like six to eight year period where like it's not like he was in everything, but like everything that he was in felt very sort of like targeted where it's like he's the doomed gay kid in Dead Poets Society,

and he's the dying gay son of Glenn Close in The Gloming. And Swing Kids was one of those student movies that I think you're talking about. And I remember him from The Last Days of Disco, where he's again, just like one of those fuckboys in a movie full of fuckboys. Also, reunion with Cape Beckinsale. That's interesting, that last days with disco was a much ado about nothing. reunion. But didn't always play characters that I necessarily knew I was identifying with, but, like, he played enough doomed either queer people or, like, queer-coded people.

Like, finding out later in life that Robert Sean Leonard is straight and married to a woman devastated me for, like, a day and a half, where I was just like, no. Because, like, for whatever reason, he's sort of in the little kind of like patchwork quilt of my, you know, the building of my psyche as a young gay kid. Like, he's got a little corner of that. And so it was interesting watching him in this movie. And again, playing heterosexual, which is fine because, like, even when he plays straight characters, they're always sort of, there's still, there's a little, um, Like at any point, if some, like, man burst into the scene and been, like, we've been in a relationship for 10 years, I'd be like, yes, that's absolutely what's going on. So, like, there's always something, you know, there with him and whatever. But, yeah, he's not great in this movie.

There's a couple scenes that call for him to really take on the burden of acting, sort of like capital A acting, and he doesn't meet that task. but like holy mackerel in this movie um is it claudio is that his character's name yes what a fuck boy this guy is like what a like like like seems to be the sort of like the nice guy the sort of like love lorn and oh oh i'm so in love with this woman and and you know whatever i'm i'm the innocent little lamb tries to be like the sort of like romeo character if for lack of a better term and yet twice within the span of like at best 70 minutes in this movie

um he falls for the dumbest most obvious traps imaginable falls for the dumbest most obvious traps and like very easily flips the switch into believing that Kate Beck and sales character hero um

is fucking around on him is either like you know flirting with Denzel or fucking that gross sweat hog that Amelda Stanton ends up being the woman who's getting railed by this guy. Amelda Stoughton, by the way, who is like

strump it with a conscience later on in this movie? She is the like St. Polly girl of the movie. Just like a Stein in each hand and just like, yep, yep, that's her. Yeah, so yeah,

Claudio is a disaster, but... A disaster, and then is like, just believe, this is my... But that's the thing where I'm like, okay, clearly Shakespeare's plays were written. I mean, like, I don't... That's the dumbest thing I've ever almost said, that Shakespeare's plays were written in a different time. But, like, so much of the drama. Isn't it easy to sound fucking dumb talking about Shakespeare? Like, I feel like I have no business mentioning his name.

Guys, this is going to be the episode. where we are very stupid, just throwing it out there now where... Because my instinct is to be like, that's a weird choice for a writer. But it's just like, but it's fucking Shakespeare. So like, Jesus Christ, I can't even... Anyway, though, my point is, like, so much of, like, the twists and turns of Shakespeare's drama relies on people just, like, believing what they're told without scrutiny. Right.

And, like, I understand that, you know, centuries ago, evidence was a very different thing. Yeah, you didn't have receipts back then. Yeah, yeah. There were, there were, you know, Claudio's not showing up and saying, show me the receipts. Show me the receipts. Where is her death certificate? Right. Asking, you know, zero questions.

People just believe what they're told. And it's like, what does he, like, he, like, looks through a keyhole and confuses Kate Beckinsale for a meldard. a staunton. Well, okay, this is the other thing. So, like, it's, it's, um, he looks at a, at a, at a, at a tower and sees them fucking in the window, not the keyhole, but, um, or is the keyhole a different

time, anyway. I don't know. People, but also it's just like, you're right. Like, people were far, seem to be far more credulous in these stories, but also it's like she had the same hair. Like, she's seen her from behind. Like, it's not like everybody was so distinctive back then. Like, you weren't going to be able to mistake it.

I don't know. Also, like, corrective vision wasn't a thing either. So like dollars to donuts, you didn't have the best eyesight. And dumb dumb, what a dumb dumb, Claudio. Yeah, it does rely on people just like, you know, believing whatever

narrative they're being sold, this movie. Yeah. And like the manipulation of it too, because a lot of it is these characters like manipulating their like love surroundings. You have the whole like Benedict listening in

on Beatrice scene. I'll tell you what, though. It's real easy to see why Shakespeare's plays have been easily adapted into these kind of like modern context, sort of like, you know, now it's a teen comedy. And it's just like, yeah, because we have never as a culture fallen out of love with the idea that a misunderstanding can create a movie's worth of plot. yes we just love that shit like that's just like that's never going to go away we you know we are a threes company culture and we always have been and honestly that's fine do you want to do the plot summary so we can actually like dig into this thing yeah i think for this one episode instead of the 60 second plot description we can just call it the cliff notes ah very good yes shakespeare closest i've ever probably got to reading shakespeare i think i read in school a couple of shakespeare's i know i read macbeth because i was just like a it was an ordeal reading in Macbeth

and I'm pretty sure I read Hamlet and I mean, well I've read a bunch of Shakespeare doesn't mean that I'm good at like interpreting it or you know talking about it or understanding it. Oh, I'm definitely the more of a dumb dumb of the two of us trust me. I've got a minute on the clock if you're ready to wade through the machinations of this film.

All right. Sure. All right. Much ado about it. Nothing in one minute from Chris Fyle starting in now. All right, guys, the war is over and everyone's horny. Two brothers, Don John and Don Pedro, who, like, were against each other in the war, but now I guess they've made peace because, like, the battle is over or whatever. Anyway, it's a bunch of dudes, like, descending upon this village where there's a lot of women there. Claudio is, like, a young guy who's underneath Don Pedro's, like, a ward or whatever.

he falls in love with Hero immediately and, like, they want to get married, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But Don John, because he is evil and, like, wants to get back at all of them, like, stages this thing where, like, Hero is, you know, cheating on him. Anyway, on the day of their wedding, he's like, you cheated on me. And then they all, like, run away. It's a big ordeal. And then, like, Beatrice and Benedict, who really have nothing to do with the actual story of it. She tells him that he has to go and, like, figure it out, figure it out, fix it Steve. And he...

That's fine. Wow. Yeah, so then they eventually come back. Don John flees. It's all fake anyway. He says he's going to marry Hero's cousin or sister or whatever to make up for, like... Cousin, yeah. ...causing her to die.

They don't want to explicitly say suicide. suicide or anything. No, and the way Benedict sort of like... And everybody's happy, and then Benedict and Beatrice finally get together. Listen, your minute's up, sir. No, you bring up two really excellent points. But yeah, you're right. Benedict kind of just as like you killed her with words.

And it's just like, okay. A, Don Pedro is up to like five minutes before this movie begins at war with his brother, Don John. And then as they like arrive in the city, they're like there together again. And I'm just like, okay, we can blame Don John for what happens later in the movie that he schemes just basically feels like he's like, I don't like seeing other people being happy. I'm crabby. I'm going to like make trouble. Which honestly, that was the story of Justin on Real World Hawaii. So I get it. I truly get it. Like I sympathize. Sometimes, sometimes as. in the case of Justin on Real World Hawaii. A gay guy just needs to make trouble. And I get it. Like, Don John just... John stays petty.

Stays petty. And we appreciate that. But also, can we really blame him from, like, Tom Pedro, like, you were just at war with this guy. You brought him into this, like, town. You know, at some point, we bring heartache on ourselves. And truly, this was a moment like that. But you also bring up the fact that, like, Beatrice and Benedict's roles in this really do seem

incredibly superfluous. And, like, I guess everything else that happens is a counterpoint to... Because, like, the whole thing is, like, Beatrice is just like, I shall never settle for a man. A old man is too old and a young man is too young. And yada, yad, yada. She's like, she's the fucking Goldilocks of men. They have, like, this whole, like, interplay that you could say is more, like,

thematic texture for, like, the whole, like, I guess, gender dynamic of it. because it's like all these men are dumb. But at the same time, like, they don't really actually have much function in the plot in the way that it's 900 other characters have some type of peace in making it turn. Like, I don't know. But, like, what do they?

They don't really do much that's substantive, especially Beatrice, which, like, sucks, especially because she's playing this character that's like, I don't want to marry a man. I am enough of my own person and the play itself does not allow her to be much of a person plot-wise.

So, and it makes it very easy to just sort of like stick a pin in her character and just like, we'll get back to you later, ma'am. But like... Yeah, when we need you to just like fall in love with Benedict. She's an incredibly interesting character because from the opening minutes of the movie where she's just like she's saying this poem

that kind of bookends the film and also sort of crops up in song in the middle. And everybody's kind of listening to her, and you get the sense that she is like the life of this little, whatever, town, feudal community, whatever the fuck is, you call those, like, things. That she's sort of, everybody likes her. Everybody listens to her.

She reads poems. She tells jokes. Everybody laughs. She's a wit. She's a charmer. Like, everybody kind of just loves Beatrice. And her whole thing is she's, you know, She's too tempestuous to, you know, settle down or whatever, and she's, she seems like,

you really get the sense that, like, she's the, she's too smart and funny for men. Like, men are intimidated by her or whatever, and it's all very cool. And she has, you know, she makes a great case for, you know, why she doesn't want to settle down with a man. And then as, you know, all these other characters decide they're going to play sneaky matchmaker, And they essentially tell her that Benedict likes her and tell him that Beatrice likes him. And like the instant she hears that Benedict likes her, she like flips the switch. And she's just like, oh, I suppose I shall settle down. And it's just like, no, lady.

There's like this montage of her in a swing and him running through the field. I will say, props to Kenneth Branagh as director of this movie. I thought that was a very funny moment. This movie is like orchestrally horny. Like she's just like Vibing on a swing While she's like I love him

And he's running through these fields Like I love her And then it's like all like cross faded Across each other Yes So let's start With Branna Because I feel like he's sort of the foundation

We should you know build on for this Um Classically I hadn't realized before doing my research that he's one of the somewhat rare first-time directors that gets a directing nomination. Yeah. For Henry V.

Well, he's one of these sort of, he's, you know, classically trained Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, like all of that, um, had done a lot of theater in England and in London. Obviously, Shakespeare felt, very sort of like in his bones. And then that's kind of how he entered the Hollywood ecosystem was he was the Shakespeare

guy. His first nomination, as you mentioned, was he got acting and directing nominations. It was very much, I wonder, I wasn't really attuned to the Oscar conversation in 1989, which is when Henry V came out and he gets nominated for director and actor. But I do wonder if he drew Olivier comparisons or not, because it was, you know, Acting and directing. I think he tried to perpetuate those. That would not surprise me whatsoever.

Certainly into the 90s when you're getting into things like four and a half hours of Hamlet. Right, right. But like, and again, that kind of feeds into that whole thing where he's, he's Hollywood's Shakespeare guy. And Henry V, 1989, is the big sort of breakthrough. He makes dead again in 1991 with. Emma Thompson. At this point, he's in a relationship with Emma Thompson. So she's in Henry V.

She's in Dead Again. She's basically in all of his first four movies. Dead Again in 1991, which is this like noir mystery, right? Romantic thriller mystery kind of thing. If you know what the twist is, I've had several people tell me that I would love this movie. It's really good.

Like, and it's, again, it's, you know, Emma Thompson and Derek Jacoby's it, and it's, you know, very well-acted. And it's very, um, stylish, like, very kind of, like, self-consciously stylish, but in a way that it appeals, that appeals to me. So I like that. He directs, then the year after that, he directs Peter's Friends, which is a sort of British big chill, I would maybe describe it as, with Emma's in that, too.

And it's all of their, like, actor friends are all together. Legend, Rita Rudner. Rita Rudner's in it, but, like, it's Emma, Rita Rudder is kind of the outlier in terms of she's the American in the cast. But a lot of crossover with the cast of this movie. Amaldus Staun is in that movie and Phil Little Law, who is Emma's

mother. Both of them are in that movie. But Stephen Fry and Hugh Lorry, who were, along with Emma, all in that little acting sort of troop that they were in together, right? They all had this very sort of

intricate past together. And it's essentially, as I said, just sort of like British Big Chill. They're young friends from university who are back together hanging out for a weekend, and it's pretty good. I saw it semi-recently. I had done the Mixed Reviews podcast on Emma Thompson, so that was part of my study up for that. And then year after that is this movie, as much ado about nothing.

And that's sort of the Emma Thompson Quartet of Kenneth Branagh's career, because after this movie abruptly ends of his own doing. Yeah, he starts filming Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which is his big genre leap into Hollywood, Hollywood. Now all of a sudden he's not the Shakespeare guy. He's going to be remaking classic... All classic literature.

Right. So Mary... And I will say Mary Shelley's Frankenstein kind of slaps. I like that movie. Wow. Okay, I haven't seen it since I was a teenager. It was a lot from it. back then.

It was, it's so gross. It is so like, I don't know. Like, part of me is like, it feels like a response to Bram Stoker's Dracula that like just didn't get what that movie was doing. And it was just like, well, we can just throw a ton of money at these old horror novels. Because it's like, everything looks expensive. De Niro plays the monster in like, De Niro's got like staples on his face in this makeup. Okay, so agree or disagree.

Agree or disagree. De Niro in that movie is a precursor to Nolan's Batman movies and this kind of trend of making these fantastical villains into like, here's what they would really look like if this was really happening. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And nobody really ever talks about that. But I absolutely think that's a thing.

But so in that film, the theme, the theme, male lead in the film is Helena Bonham Carter, who had co-starred with Emma as sisters in Howard's End, to put, you know, salt in that move. I love at Howard's End. Um, Branagh and Bonham Carter begin an affair while making Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. He ends up leaving Emma Thompson for Helena. They are together for another like five or so years. And then she leaves him for Tim Burton, which, you know, good for the goose, good for the ganderers, as far as I'm concerned. But so then Brana kind of, and that's like, it's a pretty public thing. Like, it was, you know, they weren't exactly like Braden, Angelina, and Jennifer in America, but like,

on a sort of like smaller scale of like respected British actors, it was pretty notorious in terms of like a, you know, scandalous kind of a story. So he... It's kind of fascinating for how it didn't really, I guess maybe Brad, Angelina, Jennifer is a decent analog because this is the type of thing that doesn't, you know, somebody's career is usually hurt in these type of situations, right? Like, I'm thinking of like Sienna Miller with Jude Law. Right. But like the good thing about this one is the one whose career takes a hit is the one whose career should take a hit, which is Branagh. Like, it's the actual cheater in that situation, right? Like, I mean, I guess you could say that because, like, Frankenstein, I don't think it hurt his reputation in any way, though, because you have Hamlet soon after this.

Okay, but, but counterpoint, after this does come Hamlet, which is well reviewed, but also is seen as incredibly indulgent, and vain and everything like that, and feeds into, and feeds into everybody's preconceptions of Branagh from what happened. with the affair, right? And then, after Hamlet, it is a good decade before he makes another movie that anybody sees. Right. Which is sleuth, which is another bomb. And then it's another four years after that before somehow he convinces Marvel to... What's that? He has the wildest director filmography because he's made so many movies.

Right. But like between... Now it just seems he's like a studio guy for the most part. but he's still trying to do Shakespeare stuff because... Well, and now he's like, we're going to let you just, like, make all the Poirot movies, even though, like, murder in the Orient Express was crap. Like, he's still, you know, he's making death on the aisle this year, which I, a sucker, am all absolutely going to see.

But, um, yeah, after Hamlet, it's this, like, decade of anonymity. He makes a couple other, um, Shakespeare adaptations, but, like, nobody sees that. which correct me if I'm wrong is a musical? Or he tried to make it a musical? That could be. I never saw it. It has like Alicia Silverstone, doesn't it? It's, uh, yes, and Alessandro Navola and Matthew Lillard and Natasha McElhoun and Nathan Lane.

What an interesting cat. There's no way that it's actually a musical, unless they're all lip-syncing. I don't think it is, but the poster, literally, I'm looking on Wikipedia, and the poster looks like the poster for a, um, early 2000s WB series or whatever, where it's just like it's young attractive dancers. William Shakespeare's grassy. Right.

Yes. It's young attractive dancers like draped all over each other, sort of like lying down like a gap ad. Like all the men are wearing these sort of like white tank top teas that look very, very gap ad to me. But it does not seem like either a Shakespeare thing

or a Kenneth Branagh thing, which maybe was like what he was going for with that but no that makes no impact after hamlet that makes no impact and then he doesn't as you like it for hbo with bryce dallas howard and our beloved romola gary that also does nothing that's in 2006 and i think it got sold to hbo like i remember that being like on long-term predictions with before it was with a distributor and i think it was HBO that picked it up, but I could be wrong. And that's the same year as the village, right, for Bryce Dallas Howard? Close.

06. If it's not the same year. I forget when the village is. 06 sounds right. Yeah. So then, yes. I think the village is like 04, because I think I was still in high school. Okay.

Well, then, yeah, shortly after the village. As I mentioned, Sleuth in 07, Michael Kane, Jude Law, remaking a Michael Kane role, isn't that? Mm-hmm. It's a remake, and Jude Law played the, or Michael Cain played Jude Law's role in the original. Yes. With, I think, Olivier. Right. Which doesn't Jude Law do that?

No. Yes, Jude Law does that twice in his career, because Alfie, of course, we talked about Alfie on this very podcast. What an odd little thing. What an odd little career quirk. So, yeah, and then again, another four years, and then somehow literally still have no. idea how this came about, but that Marvel was looking for somebody to direct Thor. If, you know, somebody who's more well-aversed in the Marvel mythos than I am could probably explain what exactly went on there.

But Branagh gets on to direct... I think it's honestly a perfect choice, though. I do too, and I think all the Thor movies are underrated, except for Ragnarok, which I think is overrated, but, like, talk to me about my Thor opinions. I'll bore you for an afternoon. the first Thor is like it has its problems but like it's a really interesting movie and it knows what it has in Chris Hemsworth and sort of like you know gives him his moment to shine and you know walk around Arizona with his shirt off and it's wonderful and then Thor does really well as Marvel movies do and so then it gets to now all of a sudden Brand is on this like blockbuster track where he makes Jack Ryan Shadow recruit somehow and then directs the Disney live action remake of Cinderella and then they're like hey also a strong choice I think for that

I think that Cinderella is not bad of all the like Disney live action remakes it's one of my favorite ones which is to say it's the day after Mulan has dropped oh which I haven't seen yet probably watch it yeah maybe I watched that tonight although I have to watch the Charlie Kaufman tonight as well. So that seems like a emotional whiplash that maybe I shouldn't do both of those in the same day. But we'll see. So, yeah.

Jack Ryan Chatted Recruit in 15, Cinderella, 2016, Murder on the Orient Express, which I really was excited for, and it was such a bummer to me that it was bad. And, of course, the Shakespeare film, All Is True, AARP Movies for Grownups Awards. AARP Movies for Growne, All Is True. And then, did I tell you I tried to watch Artemis Fowl this year on Disney Plus? Disney Plus original Artemis Fowl? I made it halfway through because it's, you know, at worst, I was like, it's Colin Farrell and Judy Dench. Judy Dench, the accent Judy Dench is doing in this movie is so weird.

It's like, it's like a leprechaun who smoked for 50 years. Like that's sort of the voice she's going for. That sounds great. It kind of is, but like, I couldn't, like, I couldn't. I got bored with the movie, and I just never returned to it. That's the danger, by the way, of premiering your film on a streaming platform is, if you start to lose your audience, they will just, like, pause it and be like, I'll finish watching it later, and then they never, ever will. And so, such was my fate with Artemis Fowl. And now he's got, as I said, Death on the Nile coming soon later this year, early next year.

Who's to say when movies happen again? but um theoretically this year i do i saw that trailer and i was just like god yeah i was damn it i want to see this trailer is good i'm so mad i hate that it's doing the same thing that the original murder on the orion express trailer did where it's like it was set to like imagine dragons or something truly the dumbest and i forget what it is in the death of the nile trailer but it was like they're just following the same formula and it's stupid But I'm falling for it. Also, I want at some point

for Gal Gadot and Anadamus to do one of those things where you're seeing both of them in profile and they're getting closer and closer to each other and then their faces become each other's faces, like that kind of thing. Like they are...

Like persona? I don't know. But just like they have... There's such a similarity to both, like, they're both career paths and also, like, they look kind of alike. So it's just, I don't know, something. They play sisters. I'd be into that.

They should play sisters. That would be a great. That'd be a great idea. So, yeah, Kenneth Branagh is one of those, his, I think when Harry Potter cast him as Gilderoy Lockhart, like, that was perfect casting, because it's exactly how we feel about Kenneth Brana in the culture, I believe, which is, we mostly respect his talents. We think he's kind of a pompous ass, but we're comfortable with that, right? So long as it's not my week with Marilyn, we're comfortable with that.

Well, and he didn't have creative input in that. He was just in it, where he played Lawrence Olivier, which, like, talk about, like, Bonertown. Talking about, like, you know, he was just, like, Kenneth Branagh being horny for himself playing Lawrence Olivier is, like, perfect. I think Kenneth Branagh would have murdered. whoever else would have played or been cast as Lawrence Olivier. It was just never going to happen as anyone else. There would have been blood on someone's here.

And he gets an Oscar nomination for it, which classic, like, a supporting actor nomination that I don't get. He's one of the, he's one of the fun trivia factoid people, the like Christine Lottie of It All, this person has been nominated for a short film. Oh.

Yeah, he has a short that he's nominated for. Interesting. And then the dual nominations for Henry the 5th and then the acting nomination for My Week with Maryland. So it was like two decades between acting nominations for him. Yeah, 1989 and 2011. Yeah. So he's just one of those performers you think would have more acting nominations than they do. But then when you actually look at his filmography, it's less surprised.

Although I bet you he has got like a shitload of BAFTA nominations. Like, I'm sure that's a whole other story. I wonder, but I'll look it up. I mean, Bafta in the 90s was less aligned with Oscar, so that's possible. You look that up while I sort of get us started down the Emma Thompson Road. Because, like, it's a very interesting sort of, like, fork in the road moment where when she stops working with Brana and their marriage ends, which is after a bunch of do about nothing, which is after this movie, this year, 1993, was like Emma Thompson had arrived in America

and America was like, yes, thank you more, please. Where she sort of breaks... She already had her Oscar. Right, breaks onto the scene in 92 with Howard's End. Is that kind of, we never knew there was this talent just an ocean away? And she comes over and she sweeps everything. She wins best actress everywhere.

Like literally, if your grammar school had a spelling bee at some point, they were like, we're going to take a moment and we're going to award our best actress prize to Emma Thompson and Howard Zand. It was like, it was that far reaching of a sweep for Emma Thompson. And good for her. She's fantastic in that movie. Howard Zend always feels like a movie that I always, for a half a second, think one best picture, even though it obviously didn't. It lost too unforgiven.

Just because it feels like one of those English patient style, you know, big epic sweep kind of a movie. um huge you know huge sensation back when oscar still was like deeply in love with um english country manner movies costume dramas yeah for sure merchant ivory exactly that movie has such like an interesting like oscar and awards trajectory because it was open for a very long time and spent a like huge portion of the year with a literal like nationwide exclusive and engagement at the Paris Theater in New York. Not playing anywhere else. Is that true? That's amazing. Yeah. It feels emotionally true anyway, but, like, that's fantastic. Let's see if I can look it up on the shambling corpse of box office mojo and see how long it played.

But she sticks with Merchant Ivory in 93 for the Remains of the Day, my personal favorite Merchant Ivory movie of the films that I have seen. She is opposite, once again, Anthony Hopkins. So it's the 1991 best actor and the 1992 best actress now reuniting for the remains of the day. They're both domestic help in this mansion in the days before World War II. And sort of things are ending in a general kind of sense. And there's a lot of, you know, the conflict between propriety versus passion because they both love each other. And they, you know, whatever, things stand in the way.

It's a wonderful movie. They're both fantastic. They both get nominated for Oscars. They're not going to win because they've won so recently, but you get the sense that if they hadn't, that they would have been much more formidable contenders for the ultimate winners who were Tom Hanks in Philadelphia and Holly Hunter in the piano.

If for whatever reason Emma Thompson had been upset in 92, let's say, who would have even done it? Like, it's, I, you know, not Michelle Pfeiffer and Lovefield, not Catherine Deneuve, not Mary McDonnell and Passion Fish. I just watched Love Field, and it is so abominable. Everybody who says that. Everybody who watches Love Field says it's really bad. It's garbage.

I don't understand that nomination whatsoever. Michelle Pfeiffer isn't even good in the movie. But Fifeer was at a moment where I think really, really loved. Mary MacDonald and Passion Fish in John Sells Passion Fish is genuinely fantastic and would have deserved an Oscar. Oh, the other one was, oh, who I love. So Susan Sarandon for Lorenzo Zoyle could have theoretically won it because that was the post Thelma and Louise where like it was really starting to be like, you know, Sarandon's, you know, she should have an Oscar. So if that had happened and Emma Thompson goes into 93 having been upset for the Oscar for Howard's End and now it feels like, oh, now we owe her one and it's the remains of the day where she kicks ass. And it's her up against Holly Hunter in the piano who was like winning every.

briefing that year. That would have been a really interesting race. Like, that could have been the kind of race where they could have split votes. Winning everything to the point where she's up against Angela Bassett and what's love got to do with it. I knew you were going to bring this up. Well, you know, it's like one of my favorite performances ever. Like, I mean, I fucking mean, you guys.

I mean, Angela Bassett was probably second place, though, over Emma Thompson because she got the globe. Probably so. But so much did Hollywood love Emma Thompson and Holly Hunter that year that they gave both of them supporting actress nominations as well that year. Emma for in the name of the father, which was a Best Picture nominee, right? Best Picture nominee, a Jim Sheridan, Daniel DeLewis joint. Emma plays a lawyer. It's, you know, it's one of those things where if she's not Emma Thompson, she doesn't get the nomination.

That character doesn't get the nomination because it's just like she is at ultimate. she's the lawyer. And then Holly Hunter, one of my favorite weirdo nominations, which she gets nominated for the firm for essentially being like a grassy secretary. Yes, but she's also like, she's kind of like the Girl Friday of the film, right? Where, you know, she's plucky and she's sort of a linchpin. She's the best thing about the movie. I love her. I love her performance in that movie. She's so good. You, I will say, not to like, you know, indict you for your letterbox ratings. I think you didn't like the firm as much as I thought you should have liked. I really, I was just like, this is fine.

This is fine. The firm is so fun. But the second Holly Hunter shows up as a yard ornament, I was like, oh, thank God. She's so fun in that movie. She's so fun. I want to know how the hell she got cast in that role. I don't know what unwell person thought, you know, who would be good in this, like, flusy role? Holly Hunter, and they were absolutely right.

Holly Hunter is having a blast. So quickly, though, after this, like, amazing 1993 for Emma, then she kind of starts to get pushed into the Hollywood thing as well, sort of. She sort of, like, goes one in one, where she makes junior with Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1994, the Ivan Reitman movie Jr., which is, like, truly fucking wild. Schwarzenegger's only Golden Globe nomination for. acting um then but also like then 95 it's carrington the christopher hampton adaptation and sense and sensibility which is another huge oscar year for her she wins the screenplay

award she's nominated for best actress it's like give some of the best uh speeches all year long truly phenomenal but then it's like she makes primary colors where she plays essentially hillary clinton a role i fucking love but i know that movie is pretty divisive but like i am definitely on the pro side of primary colors. It's so indulgent yet wonderful to me. I will watch it again and again. I imagine you don't like it. I saw it when I was a kid, and I don't remember anything about it. It's definitely Mike Nichols gathers some great actors together to put on a wild-ass fucking show,

but, like, I really enjoy it. Kathy Bates should have won the Oscar for it. She makes this really weird movie called Judas Kiss in 1998, another movie that I watched when I prepared for mixed reviews. And it is fucking awful. And it's her and Alan Rickman, those poor, poor souls. And it's really bad. And she has a terrible American accent. Emma Thompson's American accent is so bad.

But, like, it's... It just feels unnecessary. Yes. It doesn't need it. We know who Emma Thompson is. We sign up for Emma Thompson. We know... It's...

It's the classic... We know how she's going to feed the children. We know what she's got going for her. It's the classic chewy American accent where some Brits sort of play American accent and really kind of like masticate the R's and really like sort of like hit those consonants hard. What we're saying is let Emma Thompson be British. I always think of Ben Kingsley in Iron Man 3 when he's still pretending to be the Mandarin.

and then he's just like chewing on his ars. But what was they going to say? Emma Thompson, American accent. Oh, but I will say, and I know that, like, Ellen is a topic these days and whatever. We don't endorse Ellen, but we're going to talk about her sitcom. When Emma Thompson was on Ellen that year after she came out, which was like the wildest fucking year of Ellen ever, and Emma comes on as herself, she's a talk show guest on the talk show that Ellen's character works on and is preparing to, we think, come out as a lesbian on this

talk show is like, you know, ha-ha-ha parallel to whatever, you know, what happened the year before on Ellen. But what really the secret she's trying to hide is that she's from Dayton, Ohio, I think it is. Like, she's like she's really an American and she's really from Ohio, and that's what she's been trying to hide. I learned the accent from the Julie Andrews movies, all right? I knew the only way I was going to get any classy roles was to pretend to be British.

Besides, you know... Oh, I can come out to the world tonight. I can face telling them that I'm gay. You know, Hollywood, people can deal with that. But there is no Dayton Sheik. And that, like, really plays with her American accent very well, and it's very funny. Anyway, Emma Thompson, that's the other thing, is, like, Emma Thompson being secretly super funny, also kind of, like, snuck up on American audiences in a way that was,

sort of fun. Yeah, because she emerged in dramas, basically. Well, that's why every time... She's one of the funniest people alive. Right. That's why every time she shows up on an award show and says something like delightfully funny, you know, presenting an award or accepting an award, everybody like flips their lid. With her shoes off in her hand with a martini or something.

Right. And we all, because again, there's something in our, you know, odd little American brains where we still expect her to be, you know, Eleanor Dashwood or whatever. And that's very funny. Anyway, she starts to sort of like split time between like the Nanny McPhee's of the world and like her Harry Potter appearances and but still kind of throwing in something really great every once in a while. I think she's phenomenal in love actually. I think she's really good in Stranger Than Fiction, a film we talked about a little while ago. I think she's great in Brideshead Revisited that adaptation that very few people saw, but I thought was really good in 2008. She's great in and education. She sort of gives Carrie Mulligan what for in that movie. She does a lot of those movies like that. And what was the Beanie Feldstein movie? We saw where she just shows up for a scene. How to Build a Girl. Yeah, dismantles any young woman before her. Right. We talked about liking her in the Meyerowitz stories when we talked

about that last week. But like, it seems like every time lately that it feels like we're setting her up for an Oscar push, that just turns out to be bad. Saving Mr. Banks just turns out to be a bad movie. Not a good movie. Nobody sees Last Chance Harvey, even though she and Dustin Hoffman are pretty good in that. Late night had that like Sundance Buzz that wasn't sustainable last year. But I mean, I for one would love to see another Emma Thompson run at an Oscar. I'm just sort of waiting for it to happen. I think it could and will likely happen again. I was sort of hopeful for that Richard Ayer movie. She did a couple years ago, The Children Act, where she plays the McEwen adaptation. Yes. She plays a magistrate of some sort in England,

who takes a strong interest in a particular case. And Richard Ayer, of course, directed notes on a scandal, which is such a delicious, you know, indulgent, wonderful piece of beautiful trash, and I say trash in the most admiring way. It is the finest trash. It is the finest trash. So good that it got nominations for Judy Dench and Cape Blanchet, and so I was sort of hopeful that, like, the Children Act could give Emma something juicy like that to work with, and it doesn't, and nobody saw it and whatever. But, you know, we hope, we hope for Emma, right? Always, we hope for Emma.

Always. Okay. So, with your permish, do you want to detour into this little game I made about Shakespeare before we continue on with the rest of our much ado talk? You know what? Sure. Let's why not have a game? Okay. So last two weeks ago, when we talked about the way, way back, we talked about blacklist scripts.

And I played our little game that I still don't have a name for, even though I should, where I give you the names of three movie characters and you tell me the film that all three of those actors appeared in together. We should call it namey thing. I don't know. Three names or something. Three names, yes. Three names above Ebbing Missouri. Okay. So I am going to do this with Shakespeare adaptations.

The various fun and interesting Shakespeare adaptations. So some of them I made a little bit harder, but only because there are only so many Shakespeare adaptations, and I feel like you'll be able to sort of pull from a bank of possible answers. How many movies do you have for me? I think I've got like a dozen. We'll see how we go. I might cut some if we take too long.

But you know what? I think we're going to have a good time with it. All right? Are you ready? Yeah. Okay. First one, the names of the three characters are Calvin Candy, Cosette, and Luigi Mario. Okay.

Well, it's John Leguizamo, Coz is Luigi Mario. Cosette is Claire Danes from the non-musical Le Miserables. So it is definitely William Shakespeare's Romeo plus Juliet. It is William Shakespeare's Romeo plus Juliet. Do you have any idea who Calvin Candy is? It is. Oh, that's Leo in Django and Chain. Very good.

Very well done. All right. Good start. Good start to the game. Okay. Next one is hard. I have an easier version of it, but let's see if you can get the hard version of it. Okay.

I would write, yeah. Martin Riggs, Alex Forrest, and Marla Singer. Oh, Marla Singer. Oh, I just had it and I lost it. Marla Singer is, Huh. What was in the middle one? Alex Forest.

Alex Forest. My brain already wants that to be Alex Frost. I know Marla Singer. That's going to piss me off. Do you want the easier one? Yeah. All right, I'll give you the easier one. William Wallace, Crewella DeVille, and Belatrix LaStrange.

Damn it. Marla Singer is Helennebottom Carter in Fight Club. Yeah, that's it. William Wallace is Mel Gibson in Braveheart. It is the Mel Gibson Hamlet. It is the Mel Gibson Hamlet from 1990. Corella DeVille and Alex Forrest are both Glenn Close characters. Alex Forrest is Glenn Close.

Is Fatal Attraction? Correct. Yes. Very good. Okay, next one. Penny Pingleton, Jimmy Logan, and Juggernaut. Penny Pinguleton is a Hairspray character. Yes.

What was the second character? Jimmy Logan. I'm going to lean on that last name, Logan. Well, Penny Pinguleton, I'm guessing, is Amanda Bimes. Correct. what Amanda Bynne's teen comedy was. Is it like, She's the Man? She's the Man was an adaptation of 12th Night.

Yes. Is it really, though? Or is it? It is. Like, they barely change the names of the characters. I think the high school is, like, the name of the city. Like, it is one of the less adapted. Like, it really keeps a lot of that stuff.

All right. Jimmy Logan is Channing Tatum and Logan Lucky. And Juggernaut is Vinnie Jones in that one Xx. Men movie that he was in. Okay. I hate you so much. Oh, well, get ready, because this next one is unwell. William Shakespeare, Constance Miller, and Iris Murdoch. Well, someone who has played William Shakespeare, is it Kenneth Branagh in all is true?

It is. I thought I might shake you there, but yes, it is Kenneth Brown. No. So Brana is it the Brana hamlet? It's the Brana hamlet. Any idea who Constance Miller and Iris Murdoch are? I know Julie Christie and, oh, Iris Murdoch is Kate Winslet. In Iris, yes.

In Iris, yeah. Constance Miller, lean on that last name. For Julie Christie, Miller. And imagine Warren Beatty and a big old beard. Oh, McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Yeah, exactly. Very well. I love that movie. Yeah, it's really good.

Next one. The Joker, Robin, and Alex Mack. It's ten things I hate about you. Yes. Walk us through it. Heath Ledger being the Joker. Heath Ledger being the Joker, Joseph Gordon-Levitt being Robin, and Larissa Olinick is Alex Mack of television fame.

Some of these are television. Head of Hopper, Jane Hawking, and Q? Head of Hopper's got to be Helen Mirren. In? In the abysmal trumbo. Yes. Q. Is that Ben Wishaw?

From the New Bond movies, yep. Ooh, what's this movie? What was the second name again? Jane Hawking. Again, maybe concentrate on the surname. I mean, is it Stephen Hawking? Is it Stephen Hawking? Is it Felicity Jones? It is. Felicity Jones. Is this because of Helen Mirren? Is it The Tempest?

Is Julie Tamors the Tempest? Well done. Cool. Didn't know anybody, but Helen Mirren and Jiamen Hansu were in that movie. Ben Whishaw plays a ghost, like the spirit of the wind or something like that. Sure. All right. Next one. M. The Phantom and Brian E. Talas.

This is Corey Alainis. Yes. Care to walk us through. It is, well, Q is Ray Fines. Or M is Ray Fines. Yes. The Phantom is Jared Butler

Talk about facial blindness And Brian E Talis is Vanessa Redgrave Who is great in that film Yeah and as she is in Atonement as well Okay next one Jonathan Harker Indiana Jones and Sarah Palmer Jonathan Harker is that

Keanu Reeves Yes Indiana Jones is Harrison Ford Yes. What's the third one? Sarah Palmer. Ooh.

Okay, so Keanu and Harrison Ford. Oh, wait, no, no, no. Sorry, did I say yes to Harrison Ford? Because that's not right. Oh, is it River Phoenix? It is. Oh, okay. So my own private Idaho?

Yes, which is an adaptation of the Henry the Henry's, Henry the Fourth, Henry the Fourth, Henry the Fourth, part two. Sure, sure, sure, sure. You know. You know how it goes. Okay. Next one is, as I lose my first. my place. Troy Dyer,

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Paul Atreides. Oh, I should say Sarah Palmer is Grace Zabrisky and Twin Peaks. That's just... Finding a third actor in my own private Idaho was difficult, but yes. Give me those names again? Sure. Once again, Troy Dyer,

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Paul Atreides. I feel like FDR is going to be the fastest way for me to get in there. You've pulled out Troy Dyer on me before and it's a show that I should know it is a film that you should know film I should know it's an iconic character for Generation X right iconic fuckboy Troy Dyer

well FDR okay who has played FDR I will say A, you should be intimately familiar with it from doing this podcast, but B, almost entirely, this will hinge on you getting Troy Dyer, unfortunately. Oh, okay. So is it, is FDR, um, no, Robin Williams played, um, fucking, uh, Eisenhower. Yeah, think farther back than the Butler. Um, okay. Troy Dyer is a 90s. Upstate New York. Upstate New York FDR. Oh, Bill Murray.

Bill Murray from Handjob on the Hudson. Yeah, handjob. Handjobs on Hudson. Okay, Bill Murray. What was the third character? Paul Atrides. Okay. I know that name, too. I know Atrades is a... That's famous. Famous science fiction. name that

will be important later this year slash early next year. Oh, Dune. Yes. Kyle McLaughlin. Yes. So again, this is all going to come down to you knowing who Troy Dyer is. I mean Kyle McLaughlin could be. Iconic Generation X. Fuck boy, Troy Dyer.

Opposite iconic Generation X icon. Let's say. Is it Can't be Empire Records. Is it Reality Bites? Uh-huh. Ben Stiller.

Uh-uh. Ethan Hawke. Uh-huh. Is it Lofi Hamlet? It is Hamlet 2000. Yes. Yeah. Lo-Fi.

All right. You couldn't have given me a Julius Stiles. You, okay. I will challenge you to name a single Julia. Stiles' character whose name you would know? Besides Desdemona in O, which I also couldn't do because you can't do a Julia Stiles character whose name you know. Who's the author that she plays in Hustlers? I would have known that one.

Oh, God, no, but it's not the real name. They give her a faky, fake name. Oh, that's right. They give her a fake name. All right. Jessica Presler, yes. Okay. John Quincy Adams, Joan Crawford, and Nightcrawler. John Quincy Adams, uh, no, that's not Paul Giamatti. He's just the singular John Adams. He's original John Adams. What's two and three again? Joan Crawford and Nightcrawler. Oh, okay. Alan Cumming is Nightcrawler. Is Nightcrawler. And Joan Crawford is, um, uh, Jessica Lang. It's Titus. It's Titus. Who's John Quincy Adams?

Another Julie Tamer, uh, Shakespeare Adam. Exactly. John Quincy Adams is, of course, Oscar nominee Anthony Hopkins in Amistad. All right. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Leo Bloom, Klaus von Bulow, and Benson. Leo Bloom, is that the producers? No? Yes.

Oh, okay. Broderick. Yes. Ooh. What a Shakespeare adaptation was Manny Broderick? Who's two and three? Klaus von Bulow and Benson. Benton?

Benson. Benson. Klaus von Bulow. You're going to yell at me. Probably will. I like to yell at you. I'm excited. Okay.

Benson's from television. From a show called Benson. from a show called Benson Yeah That sounds like a Ted Danson Type of thing It's not But if you don't know the name

You don't know who it is From knowing that it's a TV show called Benson All right I will give you an alternate Name to Benson Max Bialistock Nathan Lane Yes

You are not about to tell me That the producers is a No I'm not No I'm not No I wouldn't give you the characters from the from the movie that we were trying to guess that's okay Nathan Lane Matthew Broderick why can't I remember them as something else Klaus von Duolo I will say is an Oscar winning role oh um okay

who won an Oscar for playing something named Klaus oh no no no no no because we were just talking about him the most sophisticated heterosexual Jeremy Irons yes all right so please Put it together. In Reversal of Fortune. Yes. Correct. That is a wild pairing of three people.

Uh-huh. What in the hell is this movie that I can't think of, and I know it's going to be embarrassing, and you are delighting in stumping me. I will say the connection to Shakespeare is probably the most tenuous of all of the films we've talked about. Roderick, Jeremy Irons, Nathan Lane. Oh my God, I hate you. I hate you so much. This is not fair.

You didn't even prompt me that it could be voice performances. It's the Lion King. It's the Lion King. I'm so excited. Okay. All right. That was wonderful for me. That's not fair.

Listen, I did not say that the rules of this game were that I had to tell you if something was animated. Can you say that I trick you all the times in the games that I give you? Oh, I fully own that I tricked you in that one. No, I will fully own that. Yes, absolutely. The Lion King loosely, loosely, loosely, loosely based on Hamlet. Okay.

A few more. Velma von Tussle, Dorothy Parker, and Big Edie. Okay, so Drew Barrymore is Big Edie. No. Jessica Lang is Big Edie. Yes. Dorothy Parker is Holly Berry? No.

She played Dorothy Dandridge. Yes. What was the first name? Because I had that one. Velma von Tussle. Velma von Tussle. Oh, this is a thousand acres. That is Michelle Pfeiffer,

which is based on King Lear. Yes, which is based on King Lear. Dorothy Parker was Jennifer Jason Lee and Mrs. Parker in the vicious circle. All right. Which I need to see. Magneto, Edith Piaff, and Riemus Lupin. Michael Fastbender.

This is the Fastbender Macbeth. It is. Edith P.F. is Marion Cotillard and Remus Lupin is our friend David Thulis. All right, last one. Mary Cotillard is great in that movie. I've never seen it.

I should, but I haven't. It's not worth seeing other than that. All right, final one. Sherlock Holmes, Sidney Ellen Wade, and Charlie Chaplin. Oh, that's two Robert Downey Jr.'s. And Sidney Ellen Wade is Annette Benning in the American President. Pretty good.

So let's assume that it's not Charlie, that it's not Robert Donny Jr. twice. So someone else who, I don't think anybody else has played Charlie Chaplin that I remember. So it's got to be a different Sherlock Holmes. Ooh. Or I should try to guess it. Oh, no, it is, it's Richard the 3rd.

Yes. Because it's Ian McCullen. It's Ian McKellen, who played Sherlock Holmes in Mr. Holmes. You did very well. well on that quiz, Chris, beside the fact that I tried to break your brain with the Lion King. Benson, by the way, is Robert Guillaume from the television series Benson, who was also a voice in the Lion King. All right.

Well done. Good job. Can we talk about Keanu Reeves? Okay, so Keanu Reeves, I don't think is that bad in this movie. He's also barely in the movie. But he does get like a big, like, sneering. monologue that I don't think works very well. Which he's

shirtless and that does work really well. Keanu Reeves, iconic carry nipples less. Yes, we are very happy to have that. Net positive. Net positive. Yes. He's nominated for a Razzie, which is stupid. It's like we all kind of forget that the Razies hated Keanu Reeves in the 90s.

To be fair, however, this does come right on the heels of, again, all of these actors in this movie were like really having a moment, comes on the heels of Bram's Stoker's Dracula. So it was two years of Keanu Reeves being cast in

projects that don't seem to fit his vibe and him sort of standing out because of it. And not in a good way, I think. I think he's fine. If they really felt the need to, like,

nominate this movie for something, they could have just as easily done the star that is terrible in Michael Keaton or they should have nominated an actually bad performance with Robert Sean Leonard. You are being mean to Robert Sean Leonard, and I don't like it. But yeah. He is the quintessential middle part actor. But you underestimate the impact that middle part people had in my life. Anyway, yeah, I agree with you that Keanu's not as bad as a Razzie nomination would indicate. I do feel like he does take me out of the film. Because anytime he's on

screen. I'm like, oh, I'm watching Keanu acting rather than I'm watching a character, which I don't know what he could have done with that. Keanu's a very, like, it's, it's his curse, right? He's never not Keanu Reeves. He never is able to disappear into a character ever, with the exception of Neo, which I think succeeds so well because it plays into what we think of Keanu Reeves. where, like, that character really is the sort of babe in the woods who is ushered into this whole sort of, like, new world of knowledge. So all his Keanuness really pays off. And I would argue that his best performance, where he transcends that kind of thing even a little bit, is probably speed, where I do buy him as kind of a hot shot, you know, cop, even though he's still Kian. in very many ways.

But, like, I think that's the farthest afield from the sort of, like, affable, slightly dumb surfer guy that he had really, like, established himself as with, you know, Bill and Ted and Point Break and all that kind of stuff. I mean, I guess it's before all of that had kind of really settled in, but he is great in my own private Idaho. Oh, absolutely. Everybody's great in that movie. Yeah, I'm not, listen, I am not saying that Keanu Reeves is a. a bad actor. I just feel like his cross to bear is that he

just is never able to disappear into roles. And so he needs to make that work for him in, you know, whatever he does. And a lot of times he does. He's a great movie star because of that. Great movie stars have

a hard time blending into things because they're a movie star. Like, that's fine. Like that's sort of, you know, Hollywood was built on stuff like that. but in the ensemble of a Shakespeare adaptation is maybe not the best use of that. Yeah, sure, fine. Talk about Michael Keaton, though, too, because...

What a sweaty, sweaty man that he plays. I was still, like, this is where I felt very dumb on, like, a Shakespeare literacy level, and especially because this is an incredibly convoluted plot. I was confused why we were spending so much time with him, And, like, what he really had to do with anything? We spend so much time with him. And it absolutely takes away from everything else that's going on in the film.

And this feels like an adaptation problem, right? We're like, if you're adapting this and you don't want Dogberry to completely take over the majority of the back half of the movie, just shorten that part. Just, like, compress that. It's not that, you know what I mean? That seems to be... It doesn't really serve much other than, like, to let Michael Keaton kind of flounder in this, like, bizarre, gross. I will say, I'll bring up the comparison of the 2013 Joss Whedon adaptation of Much to Do About Nothing, which was kind of a film festival sort of thing.

And also can definitely feel like a self-indulgent kind of thing where it's like it's black and white and it's all his friends, and, you know, they had gotten together on, you know, weekends to just, like, read Shakespeare stuff and that's where it came out of and, like, yada, yada, yada. I found it charming. I also love all of those actors from all of the various Joss Whedon shows, so, like, it really played into my interests. But I think that movie, which cast Nathan Fillion as Dogbury, does that, does that right, whereas he's the comic relief, but he's, you know, in the movie as much as the comic relief you would have. imagine to be in a movie where they sort of pepper him in and he's funny and then he you know goes away i never saw that one i can't imagine putting myself in front of it right now but why why right now i just like there's there's there even in the pandemic there are just other

things that i could are you were you were you into any of those just weddon shows i don't think that's ever a thing we've talked about no not that i can really think of... Not a Buffy guy, not a... I was a Buffy guy when I was a kid, but, like, a lot of Buffy details have kind of left my brain somehow. You haven't transitioned into being a Buffy adult. I did not transition into being Buffy adult, unfortunately.

Many of us have. It's a thing that... I would, though. I absolutely would. I would just have to be, like, mindful of it. It's a fun thing to, like, talk about on Twitter at Nausea, because, like, truly, we're all still having the same arguments we had. back then. Truly, it's a great way to arrest your adolescence is to be an adult Buffy fan, for sure. But yeah, I think that's a film that does that character more economically than what this one does. And I wonder if, because Keaton was a big star at the time, again, this is the year after Batman returns, which like doesn't do well, but he's still like, he's your

big screen Batman. And I wonder if part of the deal with Cassidy, him in this is like, well, we have Michael Keaton now. We got to give him a lot to do and we got to let him go big and we got to let him do whatever. And to me, I kept thinking of the perfect size for this role is Miracle Max in the Princess Bride, where just like give him a good, you know, five, ten minute scene and that's it. And then just like, and then we can like get back to our business elsewhere. I don't know why it reminded me of that, but like his little, you know, layer in this movie, whatever, his office where he interrogates the two henchmen reminded me of Miracle Max's little cabin. I don't know. Maybe I just wanted to watch The Princess Bride. Why not? Can we talk about the Golden Globes?

Yeah, you talk about the Golden Globes, and then I'm going to talk about Cannes, so yeah. This is, like, absolutely the Golden Globes comedy or musical lineup that, like, people, people say that they want. So it's like the Mrs. Doubtfire wins, which is like wild, but not that wild. Probably Robin Williams completely carried it to that

win. Yep. Also nominated was Dave, much to do about nothing, sleepless in Seattle and strictly ballroom. What a great, like, diverse spread of musical or comedy. All of which fit the category.

They're all either musicals or comedies. Like, they're not, like, nobody's trying to get away with anything. Two of them were Oscar screenplay nominees. You've got a very satisfying broad comedy in Mrs. Doubtfire that wins in a way that, like, people are always grumbling that the Golden Globes don't, you know, recognize actual, you know, broad comedy comedies. That's definitely one. Like, Dave, for being, you know, a little headier, is still pretty much like a bread and butter comedy. It's a studio comedy, yeah. yeah um much ado strictly ballroom and what's the fifth one sleepless in seattle sleeps in

seattle right classic romantic comedy the like obvious deserving winner right right so you're getting Ivan Reitman recognized you're getting uh Nora Ephron recognized you're getting a good you know Shakespeare adaptation and then your fun young new up-and-coming Baz Luhrman movie like that's you're right that's a perfect lineup well done once again interesting that like they didn't crack actor or actress categories in comedy

I mean I guess maybe just to me what do you mean explain okay so like why weren't Kenneth Branagh or Emma Thompson nominated especially because it's such a big year for Emma Thompson why weren't they nominated in the comedy categories was she nominated twice at the Globes as well

for the other two movies. Pulling it through, it is like kind of psychotically organized. Huh. She was for both in the name of the father and the end of the day. So maybe they were like,

maybe three is too much. Possibly. But you're right. I think she absolutely deserved it. She did get a nomination. Let me read you the nominees and why I think if this is a best picture nominee it would track that this,

that they could be nominated as performers. Okay, actress, Angela Bassett, winner, amazing, incredible. Deserved. One of the finest screen performances of the full time. I'm afraid to reference or not reference. Yeah, we love it. Diane Keaton, Manhattan Murder Mystery. Stocker Channing, Six Degrees of Separation, Oscar nominee.

Flawless. Angelica Houston, Adams Family Values. I love that nomination. Angelica Houston and Adam's Family Values has one of my favorite underrated line readings in, A, that franchise, but B, like, all of studio comedies from whatever. It's the scene where they're at the police station, where they're talking to Nathan Lane, speaking of Nathan Lane, is the cop who they're trying to be, like, essentially, like, this woman, my brother married has absconded with him or whatever, and he keeps

talking about, like, I have seen horror, I have seen terror. And every time he says it, like, I've seen horror and they cut to lurch. And he's like, I've seen terror and they cut to the grandma. My name is Gomez Adams and I have seen evil. I have seen horror. I have seen the unholy maggots which face in the dark recesses of the human soul. There it can. And it's so funny. Oh my God. It makes me die laughing every time. And the way she, like, she pauses the exact right amount of time and then, like, tilts her head and leans in. It's, oh, it's perfect. It's a perfect moment.

Other nominee, Meg Ryan, Sleepless in Seattle. Of course. Wonderful performance. And the actor comedy nominations are winner, obviously, Robin Williams, Mrs. Dalfire. Right. Johnny Depp for Benny and June. Huh! Which is clear, I mean, like, that has to be a star-fuckery thing, right?

Like, Benny and June... Well, but... Fine, not a great movie. Johnny Depp was a star then, but it wasn't like current day Johnny Depp where, like... I don't know. That's sort of a... That's a quirky little nomination for a movie that, like, wasn't really doing anything anywhere else. Right.

He's doing his little Buster Keaton thing. Indeed. It's cute. Tom Hanks for Sleepless in Seattle. Correct. Kevin Klein for Dave, obviously. Correct. And Commeanie for something called The Snapper.

okay so there was definitely i've never heard of this movie not a thing but there was definitely an era that kind of culminated with the full monte i want to say where quirky british comedies just were like a golden globe avenue that they went down i'm thinking of like ned Kelly. I'm thinking of the Englishman who came up a hill and went up a hill and came down a mountain, like that kind of stuff. Where I feel like they were just sort of like attuned

to that came. What was the the Jane Horace nomination that she got that one year? Little voice, but that was an Oscar nominee for other things. Sure, but it felt like it still felt like that's the genre of movie that like

the Golden Globes. Like for whatever reason And somebody at, you know, whatever British production company was doing that, like, knew the right people at the Hollywood Foreign Press and, like, got them a screening and a cocktail party or something and did enough. That's interesting. I guess. He was the bad guy in Far and Away. So he was, you know, having a home. He's up there. He's happening. Yeah.

Emma Thompson did get a nomination at the Independent Spirit Awards that year, where, Much to Do About Nothing was nominated for Best Feature, and I think those were, yes, those were the only two nominations that it got. But it's an interesting, so Emma Thompson is nominated. I think that's one of those, like, again, she's the moment. She is, you know, an icon in the moment. Now, come on now. But they couldn't nominate her for the remains of the day or in the name of the father. And for whatever reason, because normally they restrict these to just American movies.

So for whatever reason, much to do about nothing, must have had enough American financing. Is it a Miramax movie? No, it's Samuel Goldwyn. Well, Samuel Goldwyn's an American company, so that does it. She gets the nomination. She loses two. That's the year that Ashley Judd wins for Ruby in Paradise. That was her big breakout.

Which I've not a film that I've seen, but I trust the people who say she was great. And that was a movie that was nominated for Best Feature, Best Director. That was the year at the Spirits that shortcuts one film and director for Altman, so that's really good. Other nominees were Aryan A. Johnson for a film called Just Another Girl on the IRT. May Chin for the Wedding Banquet, which is a cool nomination, the Angley film The Wedding Banquet. And Susie Amos, the future Mrs. James Cameron, for a film called The Ballad of Little Joe. so this is when still the independent spirit awards were really like going off the grid and giving you like real you know recommendations and stuff that was like it's the kind of thing that they still do a little bit but like just less than they used to so interesting there's also a top 10 film among the national board of review which actually let me read this top 10 to you because it's actually like I'm A solid National Board of Review lineup where it's like...

Wait, can I try and guess? Oh, sure, sure. This and maybe like one other thing are like very National Board of Review, but like this was the other one is probably even more respected than much ado is. And it's an Oscar nominee too, so see if you can guess this top 10, which is a really good top 10. So it's got to be Schindler's list. Chinler's list, yes.

I got to say Philadelphia. Philadelphia The Remains of the Day Yes The Fugitive? No That would have been a really fun one for them Okay

In the name of the father Yes All right Shortcuts Yes You have four more movies Because much ado makes six Okay

Um 1993. I would love it if what's love got to do with it was, but I don't think it was. Sadly, no. All right. I'm trying to think of... Oh, the piano. The piano.

So three more. And one of these three, you said, is another sort of, like, weirdo one? One, I mean, okay, in fairness, I haven't seen this movie, so maybe I shouldn't shit on it, but it does seem like the type of, like, fluffy... like oscarry product and it is an Oscar nominee two of these are Oscar nominees one of them in one of them was like it got a couple nominations but is like perhaps the Oscar failure of the year the other one is a movie we could absolutely talk about and I love this movie but is not Oscar nominated all right the age of innocence I think is one of them yes the age of innocence is the kind of awesome Oscar almost flop. Nomination for Winona Ryder, but nobody else got anything. Okay.

Two more. One of the which was an Oscar nominee and one of which wasn't? Yes. Was the Oscar nominee an acting nominee? Yes, it was. Is it fearless? No. Okay.

All right. Is it... Let me double check that I'm not crazy that this was an Oscar nominee. I'm kind of goes. actually. Multiple acting nominations? No, just one acting nomination and then a screenplay nominee. Hmm.

So I was right, but then more. Do I love this movie? I have no idea if you've even seen this movie. I haven't. This is a movie that was probably more wrapped up and sold off of a performer who was not nominated

for this movie, but was nominated for another movie. Shadowlands. Shadowlands. Shadowlands. The CS Lewis biopic that Debra Winger was nominated for. Okay. All right, so this next one was not nominated for any Oscars. Not nominated for any Oscars.

Kind of cool? Kind of a cool choice? I think that this is a cool choice. I think this movie was like seen as boring prestige because it's an adaptation, but I think this movie is fantastic. The cast is fantastic. An adaptation of a

famous novel? Yes. Like a classic literature or like a more, a newer... A newer modern literature. Pelican Brief? No, not the Pelican Brief. The Pelican Brief, I think, got like a score nomination or something. No, this is a movie that in recent years got talked about a lot, but for some reason

kind of fell away from like wider consciousness. Well, not Jurassic Park. That never really fell away. I don't know. I give up. It's the Joy Luck Club. Oh, this is the Joy Luck Club. I thought for some reason that that was a 92 movie.

Yeah, it's kind of hard to place in the year because weirdly, like, the awards run for this movie should have been so much more than what it got. Yeah. That's a good point. The cast is so goddamn great. Yeah. No, that's all of your clues were very spot on. Very well done. That is a good list.

That is a good NBR list. Good job, guys. This was also, much to do about nothing, was in competition at Cannes that year, that year that the piano and farewell my concubine tied for the palm door, which is pretty cool. Mike Lee won director for naked, David Thulis, one actor for naked, Holly Hunter, one actor, or sorry, David Thulis, one actor for naked, and Holly Hunter won actress for the piano. Interesting year. Yeah. Joel Schumacher's falling down was a can competition title. Had no idea.

Wow. Honestly, good for Joel Schumacher. Oh, yeah. Like, I'm happy. I'm happy that that happened for him. Yes, I'm interesting. I'm trying to think of Sue. Oh, Soderberg's King of the Hill was in competition that year.

Pretty cool. Good stuff. All right. Cool. Oh, do we have anything else we wanted to get into for this film? I don't think so. We talked about Denzel. We talked about, oh, so, like, this was the thing I wanted to talk about maybe up front, but we'll do it now.

The sort of the Shakespeare of it all, because I think there's this sense that because Shakespeare is sort of like bulletproof in terms of prestige level, that a Shakespeare adaptation is always going to be a big Oscar contestant. tender. I think we saw that when Coriolanus was coming down the pike. I think because there is this sort of like history of, you know, like Olivier's Hamlet, which is the only Shakespeare adaptation to ever win Best Picture, but like it really, like Olivier is such a sort of standard bearer in terms of like Hollywood acting. And like that really like set a template. And there were, you know, best picture nominees from Shakespeare stuff, especially in the sort of four. 40s and 50s, you had Olivier's Henry 5th in 46, you had

Julius Caesar, Mancowicz's Julius Caesar in 1953, got a nomination for Best Picture and for Marlon Brando. The 1965 Othello, which starred Lawrence Olivia as Othello, got nominated for him, for Maggie Smith, for a few other actors.

The Zeparelli, Romeo and Juliet, is a Best Picture and Best Director nominee in 1968. So, like, there's definitely a history of it but and I also feel like in modern times we sort of conflate the idea that Shakespeare and love is an Oscar winner with the idea that Oscar still loves Shakespeare and it's just outside of you know the Brana those two little Brana moments we haven't really had modern Shakespeare Oscar nominations and maybe that's partly because we are in an era where

people are kind of re-envisioning Shakespeare in a way that audiences are not always it's either perhaps a certain like prestige audience or an awards voter isn't quite ready for like the Bosler and Romeo plus Juliet right or it's like Shakespeare into genres that are not Oscar genres yeah like teen comedies right but I also feel like just as the 1980s sort of Oscar fascination with the Merchant Ivory British costume dramas faded. I think there's a sense among prestige sort of Oscar voter types or even like top critics that Shakespeare adaptations, unless you're really doing something funky with it, like, you know, like a Richard III was like incredibly well reviewed because of the ways

that it sort of like made that should that play malleable into a different era but that like got a lot of critical support but didn't really break into the major Oscar categories. It's kind of like a bummer that McKellon didn't get a nomination for that because he was so

great. But I think there's a sense that unless you're really like upsetting the apple cart with a Shakespeare adaptation that it just feels sort of stagey. Like Coriolanus updated that story in a very sort of similar way

to Richard the third, but still like wasn't what, for whatever reason, wasn't what Oscar was looking for. I'm so excited to see what Joel Cohen does with Macbeth with Denzel Washington and Francis McDormand. Yeah, that seems to be, that if anything's going to do it. Direction and any type of Coheny direction too. It could be incredibly dark and bleak and violent,

or it could be their kind of misanthropic comedy as well. It could be a real dark comedy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's very exciting. And that will be a really interesting litmus test because, like, the Coens are fully in the Oscar wheelhouse at this moment. So. To the point where they get, like, Oscar nominations for Busker Scruggs

when they really don't want to campaign for it at all. Same with Hale Caesar. It got that production design nomination, right? Yes, yes, absolutely. used to do any type of Oscar work for that movie. Yeah. Yeah. So, all right, I want to go through my notes.

I would also say this is one of the rare non-R-rated movies with definitely visible penis. Yeah, butts and baths and nudity in that opening montage. I love it. Lots of dangly things. Amel de Staunton, the Telltale Strumpet. I mentioned that. My last note is just, okay, I do love a reveal, because, like, that wedding scene was very much just, like, a very lip-sync-for-your-life kind of moment for Kate Beckinsale's character. Absolutely.

Lips the veil, and she's not her cousin. She's her. Beckinsale doesn't get a ton to do besides sort of look pretty and then be menaced and cry towards in that moment. That's bad for her character. Beckinsale's an actress I've loved intensely in certain parts and then sort of like becomes very forgettable in other parts but the ones that I love her in sort of sustain me The last days of discos and love and friendship

Like those two performances Are so good Are so good and she's so like And it's again both with Stillman movies So like I feel like he taps into This Queen B sort of like semi-oblivious

Queen B because both of those parts are similar her last days of disco performance and her love and friendship performance where you almost can't believe she behaves the way she does

like oblivious to other people's sort of irritation with her but it's so perfect and she does it so well you saw the last days of disco recently. You seem to enjoy it. Yeah, it was one of my early quarantine movies that I was like, I haven't seen this,

and I finally caught up to it, and I, of course, fell in immediate, passionate, undying, will carry it with me to my last breath love with that movie. It's a wonderful movie. It's a wonderful movie. Highly recommended to anybody who wants to see it. It's a movie that, like, it's just in really

interesting ways, ties like, you know, a phase of personal growth that I think we all go through where it's like you finally move on into adulthood so it's like and ties it to a cultural like happening of like quite literally the title of the movie is last days of disco but like I guess like all of our youth is disco um yeah but does it in a way and like the ending which is perfect it is in the pantheon of like maybe top five most perfect endings of all time, like, nods towards nostalgia in a way that feels, um, a lot of movies I think are

about this type of thing or it's like nostalgia is bad or nostalgia might be toxic or might be holding you back. It feels like nostalgia is fine. Nistalgia is okay and, uh, you know, it understands the pull of it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. Oh, I love it. Do you want to do IMDB game? Heck yeah. Every week, we end our episodes with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try to guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for. If those titles are television or voiceover work, we'll mention that up front, unlike Joe does in his games that he makes for me. And after two wrong guesses, you, exactly, yes, correct.

It was rude of you to not do that. But after two wrong guesses, we get the reigning titles release years as a clue. If that's not enough, it just becomes a free for all of hints. That is the IMDB game. very well said chris would you like to give or guess first i want to guess first this week okay i think that's what happened last week too but whatever all right um as as ever i never remember who gives or guesses first the previous week it's fine all right so i obviously went the kenneth brana route which had a route with many detours on it and the one i decided to take was the hercule

Poirot, one of the stars of the, as I mentioned, disappointing remake of murder on the Orient Express was eventual Oscar winner Olivia Coleman. Oh, my beloved! Yes, so good. How much TV is on there? I will tell you, none. Oh, okay. No television, no peep show, no The Crown, no

What's that? A million different British Procedure. Broad church, no broad church. I feel like this could possibly be easy because, A, I have scarcely seen any of her television work and I've seen a lot of movies that she's in just because she's in them. Her Oscar win for the favorite.

Absolutely. The lobster. Absolutely. she's so spectacular fucking funny and the lobster um

okay actually no fleabag is surprising it will say yeah it is surprising um the iron lady no although very good guess

not the iron lady rightly so the iron lady should not be acknowledged um I don't think Hyde Park on Hudson

is going to be there because that's gone away. What does that mean? It surely can't be the terrible like Pentecostal snake movie that she is in for some reason that was at Sundance like two years ago. What Pentecostal snake movie?

It's like it's a, it's this religious cult in the woods and like they absolve their sins of snakes. Can I tell you, I thought that trailer looked interesting. I haven't seen that movie. You're talking about them that follow. I thought that trailer looked really interesting and then I heard everybody hated it

and I'm like, okay, I guess I won't see it, but I kind of want to. This is the weird... Caitlin Dever's in that movie. Yeah. Anyway. She's not even the protagonist. I, who is so deathly afraid of snakes, will watch that movie.

Granted, half watch it, because any time there's a snake, I will look away. But I won't watch The Crown. I can't do it. Oh, that's funny. She's very good in the Crown. I'm sure she's great in the Crown. I'm sure she's great on, like, all of her TV shows. Also, Helen Abonham Carter is a fucking scream on that show.

I will say that, like, a delight. Um Okay What else am I going to say? Is, well, is murder on the Orion Express on there? No, I don't do that sort of thing. I mean, that makes sense. Even though it's a big movie, she's like 20th build.

Yes. That's my two wrong guesses. Oh, sorry, yes, you're right. You do have two wrong guesses. All right, so now you get your hints, which are the years 2007 and 2011. is i mean i can't place the year for this but i'm just trying to think of like she's definitely second build in um taranosaur yes she's incredible in that movie she got some nominations for that for sure that's the first time i saw her in something and i was like holy shit um it's an incredibly

hard movie to watch she got a uh outstanding debut oh wait that's for the writing never mind She got a British Independent Film Award for that movie and some other nominations. She was, what else am I seeing? London Film Critics Circle Award winner for Best Actress, Best British Actress. Yeah, so that makes sense. She got prizes for that movie. Patty Considine directed that movie. Yeah.

Haven't seen it yet, but yes. Which year was that? That was 2011. So you still need a 2007. Okay, so, um, oh, seven. Is it be, is it when she plays one of the cops and hot fuzz? It's when she plays one of the cops and hot fuzz. Yeah, I should have, I should have guessed that.

She's very funny in that. That was sort of the kind of thing that she was doing back then, where it was just like very British ensemble-y stuff. She was sort of, you know, often like the woman in this sort of, like, ensemble of, you know, very funny men and whatever. And it worked for her. I don't know. I thought she was, you know, very funny in that movie. Yeah. You go back and you watch a lot of that kind of stuff and you're just like, oh my God, there's Olivia Coleman. Who knew? Well done. Good job. Olivia Coleman is an excellent choice. Yes. Thank you. For you, I went into the archives of the

much ado about nothing route, and I looked because certainly, certainly, Shakespeare in the park had done a much ado about nothing. Turns out they did. Who was their Beatrice, but Miss Blythe Danner. Oh, wonderful. Oh, I love it. Blythe Daner. Oh, that's going to be difficult. All right, let's start with Meet the Parents. Meet the Parents is correct. Meet the Fockers? No. Okay. All right.

That's a dead end. Is it the wonderful I'll see you in my dreams? Is that one of them? Yes. Love that movie. Okay. All right. Blythe Danner.

All right. Now, what other, like, and no television. television, right? No television. No voice ever work. Not her two-time Emmy winning role in Huff. I'm incest. It's wild to me that she won back-to-back Emmys for Huff in the age where it was like

early Grey's Anatomy where like Sandra O and Chandra Wilson were tearing it up and I think six feet under. I think she took a couple of like the Lauren Ambrose ones that I wanted her to win for six feet under. Anyway, I'm getting far afield. Okay. Blythe Daner. I'm trying to think of like stuff where she would be

because you're not going to find a whole lot of leads but like was she opposite Gwyneth in anything maybe not pretty sure she was in Sylvia right didn't she play her mom and Sylvia

yeah she did but that's way too small of a movie and way too small of a role in it for that to show up but yeah good point um God, now I can only think of her in Will and Grace. And obviously, that's television, so that's not going to count. Not Meet the Fuckers. There's got to be another one where she's like The Mom.

Because I think there's not enough of the I'll See You in My Dreams type movies where she gets to play the lead, unfortunately. We're like, there's got to be something where, like, she's the friend. She's the, you know, she's not one of the women in, it's complicated, but like she could be. All right, I got to make a guess to at least get myself into the hints. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She is in, oh, well, she's in two wong fu. Thanks for everything, Julie Numer.

I doubt that's right, but I'm just going to guess. First, we bake the pies, and then we eat the pies. and then we go home. No, Two Wong-Fu is not on there. She's so wonderful. I love her. All of the townswomen in Two-Wong-Fu are incredible, including Beth Grant. That's the thing about that movie is it sells itself as a movie where these A-List Hollywood tough guy actors are playing drag queens.

And yet, what it really is is a stealth bomb of character actresses that was. It's a great movie. And all of the macho movie stars are great in that movie. Okay, so your two years, 2006, 2011. 2006 has shown up an

unwell amount of times in this game. Well, 2006 is the year of Huff, so I don't understand why that's not there. What's the other one? 2011. 2011 and it's not Little Fockers No well gosh

Same genre though Actually 2011 I will just say We have had an unintended Symmetry with Some of the titles that have shown up on our IMDB games What does that mean God, I don't know, but now I want Blythe-Den or a New Yorkos-Lanthamos movie, like crazy.

That would actually be fantastic, I think. Is it, it's not the Melanie Linsky movie, Hello, I Must Be Going? No, but that's a good movie, and Melanie Linsky is great in it. She is. I'm up, I'm at a lot. Okay, 2006 has come up in a lot of IMDB games. It is very unwell that it has. I don't know how this has come up so much.

featuring one of our favorite topics. One of our favorite topics. Which might be real-world cast members. Oh, is it a Jacinda Barrett movie? It is. Maybe. Jacinda Barrett 06, not Letter 49. No.

Okay. Not, that's later than the human stain. I am positive this is at least the third time that this movie has come up, Oh, my God. Is it the last kiss? It is absolutely the last kiss. Tony Goldwyn's The Last Kiss, starring Zach Brath and the beautiful butt of Eric Christian Olson. Yeah.

It's her and Tom Wilkinson, right? Are like the parents in the movie. Or at least they're on the poster. Did it come up on Tom Wilkinson's? Is that why we did this before? Pretty sure came up on Tom Wilkinson's and Casey Afflex? That's wild. Okay.

Okay. So the last one you get is remarkably aligned with the last one I got. Hot Fuzz. Another... Okay. Hot Fuzz was 07, so what was before that? Before that was Sean of the Dead, but that was 04. So it's not one of their, like, official films in whatever that trilogy is called. Yeah, I would say this is probably less than iconic. People probably forget about this. But it's Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. It is. 2011. You are right. It is not the trilogy, so it is not the world's end. It's not Run Fat Boy Run. What a terrible movie that was.

Yeah. Notedly Fat Person, Simon Pegg. Yeah. Fuck that movie. Stupid fucking movie. Oh my God. All right. This movie doesn't exist anymore. This movie I saw in theaters and thought it was like fine, but like it absolutely stopped existing like a month after it came out. It's Paul, right? It is Paul. The alien movie, Paul, with Seth Rogen as the voice of the alien. That's, why doesn't Blythe-Danner have better IMDs?

That's insane. Had no idea she's in the movie, Paul. Did not know before I did this. I still don't even remember. Like, I remember that Simon Pegg is in it. I totally had forgotten that Nick Frost was even the other guy in it. Oh, and it's a Greg Mattolla movie. That was the movie where, like, oh, Greg Mattolla was on such a role after

Adventureland and then nothing. Oh, that's why. Um, no, that's fully insane. Again, a fine movie, you know, not a bad movie, but like, good Lord. No, Blytheander's other ones should be Will and Grace, because that's absolutely the role I first think of for her. And, I don't know, hello I must be going as a fine choice for that. Like, why not that? Why not to Wang Fu? Thanks for everything, Julie Newmar. In a more correct world, I would have been right, is what I'm saying. Her pie line reading is fully iconic. It is fully iconic. All right. Good job. Well picked. Well done. Good episode. Very good episode. Shakespeare. All right. Yeah. Finally. We have addressed Shakespeare. You're welcome. Shakespeare people. Recorded live, socially distant. We all wore mask, recorded live from the stage of the

Globe Theater. Yes. As all our episodes are, you don't know it, but we record all our episodes live from the stage at the Globe Theater. We are in our element, as always. All right, that's our episode. If you want more of this had Oscar Buzz, you can check off the Tumblr at this hadoscarbuzz.com. You should also follow our Twitter account at Had underscore Oscar Buzz. Chris, where can the listeners find you in your stuff? I am on Twitter at Crispy File, F-E-I-L, Letterbox, same name. I am on Twitter at Joe Reed. Read, called REID. I'm also on letterboxed as the same name. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Muvius for their technical guidance.

Please remember to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, to share it wherever else you get podcasts. A five-star review, uh, say that again. A five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcast's visibility. So if this podcast left you feeling Blythe and Bonnie, please convert all your reviews of woe into Hey, Nanny, Nani. That's all for this week, hope you'll be back next week for more buzz. Thank you.