This Had Oscar Buzz - 120 – Burn After Reading

Episode Date: November 16, 2020

After steamrolling in the previous season with No Country for Old Men, the Coen Brothers quickly returned to movie theatres with the brilliantly silly Burn After Reading. Though financially successful, the film proved divisive over the high dosage of standard Coen misanthropy despite brilliant, off-type casting for Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, and George Clooney. A veiled satire … Continue reading "120 – Burn After Reading"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hacks. I'm a senior guy who screwed the pooch. This could put a big dent in my surgeries. Big time. I have gone just about as far as I can go with this body.

Right. Hello. Osborne Cox? Yes. I thought you might be worried about the security of your shit. What you're engaged in is blackmail? I'm a mere Good Samaritan. Give me the CD.

And it's on and I'll be off. money, dick what? Where's the money? He didn't give it to me. And who's far off? It's messy. He is screwing Mrs. Cox. Pull around the corner, we'll do it in the back.

What's that cool? Back of the car, but not the rear-entry situation. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that knows that Christopher Nolan's dead wife complex originates with George Clooney's butt. 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 am your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with the securer of my top secret shit, Joe Reed.

Chris, how are you? You will be prominent in my memoirs, just so you know. My memoirs. My memoirs and my Masha are close cousins, I feel like. in our little universe. I need a movie where Malcovich says, My Malcovich, Masha Memoirs.

Malcovich, Malcovich, My Memoirs, My Mesh, Mesh, Mesh, Mesh, Masha, Masha, Mawas, Mawas, Mawin. Masha Masha Mawin. It is my favorite Sundance, Film Festival movie of all time. Masha Mammas, Malkovich, Mali. I like it. I like it. Good.

We're producing movies on this Sunday morning. on the Sunday morning where we are coasting on positive energy, so to say. I know. Our first podcast recording of the new era, of an era of me not feeling dread quite so constantly all the time. Right. Lots of work still to do. Lots of work still to do. We're in a pandemic, yada, yada, yada.

But I am a very big proponent of feel these good feelings. They are not always around, so feel them. Smoke them while you got them is essentially my motto for right now. I enjoyed the rare pre-noon bourbon yesterday. Very good. Very good. I feel very jealous of the West Coast people who got that news, like, promptly as they were, like, waking up. Just like, instead of, like, the rooster crowing outdoors, it was just, like, people

banging on pots and pans. That's fun. That's good. Good times. Well, before we get into this movie, which I'm really excited to talk about, kind of a weird case for our purposes, in that like, we become the Charlie Day. It's always sunny the meme of like, look at all of these interest cussies of how this came to be. But we still have something to hype up the podcast guys we're still taking listener choice submissions for our end of the year listeners choice episode once again we are taking submissions entirely by you and i am tallying all the votes the top four will be the twitter poll that you can all duke it out and have a battle royale top four mentioned movies that we hear from you guys are going to be the ultimate options for the big episode so you can either tweet at us at had underscore oscar underscore buzz the movie that you want us to cover on our listeners

choice episode or you can email us at had oscar buzz at gmail.com just as a reminder has to have been in some type of Oscar consideration with no nominations and only one vote per person it's been very interesting people sending multiple options yeah yeah if you do that we're going to take the first one that you list and none of the other ones. Listen, we've all learned a lot about how voter fraud does or does not occur. Right, but we will not stand for this. We will dispatch Rudy Giuliani to the closest lumberyard that you have. You get the one.

You get the one. Definitely some exciting things coming into play. But you guys have about two more weeks to do that. We're going to be doing that all through November. Then at the top of December, you'll get the Twitter poll. We'll make sure that you know when it's coming. Yes. But yeah, tweeted us had underscore Oscar underscore buzz or email us at Had Oscar Buzz at Gmail.

Very exciting. Good job. Good housekeeping. Very exciting. Very exciting. Joseph. Yes. You know what we could do with all of those bids, those tweets and emails that we get for our listeners' choice when we're done with them?

What could we do? We could burn them. I don't know if we'd burn them. They're all precious to us. No, we wouldn't burn them. I was just trying to find a smooth segue. It's not a bad segue. Segway back into our movie. Something that I'm not very skilled at doing. So, I am a blunt instrument. Watching.

Kind of like, uh, Malcovich's blunt, uh, axe that he carries through the... Yes, the fact that that was foreshadowed when he was just sort of like angrily stopping down, stomping down that boat pier. I was, uh, I was pretty impressed by. This is a sort of tightly compact little movie. Okay, tell me if you, you, felt this too. Because I watched this sort of as this current election was being called and now we're in this very sort of transitional time from a period of darkness to a period of some optimism.

I really, really situated myself in the 2008ness of Burn After Reading. This movie was released in September of 2008, so like just a couple months before the first Obama election. It was an incredibly, for me, evocative time. Like, not only is that election going on, but like the financial crisis is also happening in September, and that doesn't really apply too much to burn after reading. But a lot of my read, no pun intended, on burn after reading, has a lot to do with this kind of, it almost felt like shoveling dirt onto the Bush era of

not exactly foreign policy, but we've done movies that deal with the sort of the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War of the 2000s. We've done rendition. We've done Lions for Lambs. There are a lot of movies that sort of like took that era

of Bush foreign policy head on. And I think Burn After Reading feels like a very Coen Brothersy sarcastic, irreverent, disrespectful eulogy for the Bush administration, which is just like, what, like, what was this experience of having just these doofuses in charge of everything and having absolutely no sense of like making heads or tails of anything and they didn't know

what direction they were going in and whatever? And I thought, wow, like, the difference in, and of course, I'm sure at the time of the 2008 election, especially when like things were looking like the Sarah Palin star power might actually, you know, help to power McCain through. I'm sure I was nervous as fuck back then, and I don't remember any of those emotions. I remember the hopefulness and the sort of the eagerness and all of that. But looking back on that era now from this era, and I'm like, the way that that we characterize getting out of a destructive administration then versus now is really different. Whereas now we're all sort of like stumbling out of this one. And part of it is obviously

we're still in a pandemic. But like we're stumbling out of this one like battered and bruised and barely survived. And we're, you know, celebrating it now. But like the celebration comes from the fact that like, oh, we let the dumbest people in charge. And, you know, we're, you know, it's not funny or silly or bumbling like it got dangerous it got incredibly dangerous and i just don't i don't know if and i'm sure it's not like whatever whatever burn after reading version that might exist in 2020 2021 um would have a very different vibe to it is my guess i mean like if they're to a certain extent, yes, I also kind of had to remind myself that this is like a, if not intended as a closing document on the Bush era, but like somewhat of a comment on just like the tenor of paranoia and haplessness within that administration. Like I kind of had to remind myself because there is a certain level to burn after reading where it just plays now that it's just like,

It fits just very comfortably, generally speaking, along the Cohen brothers, like, uh, uh, of, uh, people who are fatally stupid. Yes. Um, and, like, that's, um, to a certain extent, like, the, the Trump administration and, like, their fatal stupidity, like, perhaps the Coens are the only one who could capture it. And it's like, if you want to read this movie through that, lens or interpret it through that lens and how it might relate. It's like all of these non-governmental characters are the Trump administration characters. But like, but if those people were not even just

like benignly dim-witted, like Brad Pitt's character in this is like I would say like ultimate benign dim-wittedness, but like we're like that level of stupid but also like dark-hearted and intentions. Right, right. It's just like, I mean, whatever, we've heard the, the horse in the hospital analogy before, and it's just, there's, we're still, we're going to spend a long time trying to actually, like, come up with the words to convey, like, what we've been feeling for the last four years. Sure, sure, sure, sure.

In the context of, like, burn after reading and the context, it came out, I feel like this is a much easier movie to just enjoy now? Because I definitely think at the time and like maybe in a way that like we didn't directly associate it to the Bush administration or as this movie has a comment on the Bush administration, at least with like wider audiences. I remember like seeing this in college and like talking about it with other students and such. Not everybody got that. But a lot of people were just really kind of put off by the misanthropy of this. Yes. Well, and it's interesting. This movie and, I mean, the Cohen Brothers filmography has had no shortage of people dissecting it and sort of, you know, coming up with their grant theories of the Coens and their eras and their tendencies and what are this kind of Cohen's movie versus that kind of Cohen's movie. And Burn After Reading is one of two movies that I would consider Oscar hangover. movies, which the first one was the Big Lebowski, which came right after Fargo. And Fargo had sort of really shot the Coens to the Best Picture Race, and everybody was sort of people who didn't know what a Cohen Brothers movie was, even if they maybe had seen Raising Arizona or, you know, Barton Fink or something before that. But like now all of a sudden there's this conception of what a Cohen Brothers movie is and what the Coen brothers are to like, you know, good, great filmmaking.

then the Big Lobowski comes along as the follow-up to Fargo. And there's no, certainly at the time, you can, you know, you can read meaning into the Big Lobowski. I think it's certainly possible. But it was definitely viewed as just this, like, what is this silly, stoner, bizarre thing? Why is this guy look like Saddam Hussein? What is it trying to say? Is it trying to say anything? Is there any real depth in this? Or is this just like a big, dumb comedy? and what a letdown it was for a lot of people who were expecting, like, the next level up from Fargo. And that didn't happen. And Burn After Reading, to an even more extreme degree, I think partially because I don't think it's quite as good of a movie as the Big Lobowski, but also because, like, at least the Big Loboski was following up a comedy.

Like Fargo's a dark comedy, but it's still a comedy. Whereas Burn After Reading is silly and stupid. and not, I'm not necessarily saying stupid as a pejorative. In direct contrast to maybe the Cohen Brothers' most serious movie, darkest movie, for sure, no country for old men. It still has humorous elements to it. It does. No, it does, but I mean. I'm just the chaos agent that laughs their ass off during that movie.

But like, but as for a Cohen Brothers movie, it's incredibly dark and serious. And it won best picture. And definitely like the most fatalistic of their movies. are among it. Totally. Yes, and it won best picture, but, like, they weren't courting Oscar with that movie.

It's just, like, it... Right. It just ended up steamrolling the season. We, as a culture, decided it was the Cohen's time. I don't think they've ever really courted Oscar. I feel like that's just not a thing. To the point where they actively, like, work against it. They didn't...

They, like, intentionally didn't do anything for Hail Caesar. Buster Scruggs, they didn't. And, like, still, those movies get... recognized, right? Yes, yes. But yeah, I think burn after reading, I think a lot of people sort of saw as a thumbing of, you know, their nose at the, at the expectations that followed No Country, which I think is, doesn't really follow even from a timeline perspective, because like, Burn After Reading would have been well into the works by the time No Country wins the Oscar. Yeah, they had a, they had a long, uh,

like time to produce another movie because no country premiered at can and then had to wait a whole other six months to even be released and then another six months of Oscar. But I think the other thing is it's easy to see burn after reading as a sort of like middle finger to something because it's a it's a middle finger in and of itself. It's a middle finger to its own plot by the end of the movie you know what i mean it's such a it's such a lark that by the end and i think the end is like audacious in a way that like i really respect even though like it's like it absolutely like it's such a fuck you it's thumb in the wound of people who were pissed off by the no country ending which is basically like yeah well nothing fucking means anything well and

this movie's like no in case you didn't get anything uh nothing means anything and it's not even nothing means anything, but just like the whole idea of trying to follow a, a thriller plot, this movie is just like, whatever, this shit happened. And now it's over. I guess like, the world is run by idiots and people of bad intent. Yeah. But like... Or self-involvement. This movie is more like, this I don't think is a movie about people who like have bad intentions, but are just, like, so self-involved and, like, can't see past their own noses. And, like, that is not only what makes them stupid in the Cohen's eyes, but also, like, what is their ultimate demise. Yeah.

Yeah, I think so, too. Also, sort of dialing back to how much of this was an intentional or unintentional commentary on the Bush years. And I do feel like there was definitely intent there. But did the scene where Elizabeth Marvel is reading a children's book on a morning news show feel like an intentional callback to, like, not plot-wise or anything like that, but like that's a my pet goat illusion, right, a little bit? Yeah. Anyway. I mean, maybe I can't imagine Elizabeth Marvell being the George W. Bush. No, that's why I mean, like, I don't think it, like, goes any farther than the tip of the message.

But just, like, the imagery and the, like, what it's trying to. evoke is very subtle throughout the movie yeah great cast like that's the thing is like at the at this point in the coen brothers career like they there is no actor who they can't get so like every cast feels incredibly very intentional and this particular cast was like if you didn't know that this movie had been in the works for a long time you could be probably convinced somebody that they gathered up the people at the 2007 Academy Awards and were like, do you want to make a movie together? Because it's literally like, it's Francis who was, you know, there with Joel Cohen, obviously her husband, Clooney and Tilda Swinton

together again after Michael Clayton. And I guess, no, this would have been the same year as Pitt with Benjamin Button and Richard Jenkins with the visitor. So I guess it's like, it feels very much like the moment. Oh, and J.K. Simmons, who was known to everybody by this point as the dad in Juno, which was a 2007 Oscar nominee.

It's interesting. It's interesting to sort of view it through that lens. It really, I was not expecting to be transported to 2008, like sort of astral projected that way, as much as I was by this movie, because this movie

is not a nostalgic movie, but like, I just really remember the place and time that I was. You can't really even say, like, backlash against this movie. This movie was incredibly financially successful. I'm pretty sure it was the first Cohen's number one movie at the box office. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Like, this was a successful movie, even though, like, I think it pissed quite a few people off.

Yeah. just with like because I think with that level of success people are expecting to be a little bit more handheld whereas like this is probably one of the more misanthropic yeah not like audience hating Cohen movies but like I don't think it hates its audiences I think as many Cohen brothers movies do it does not have a ton of pity for its own characters and audiences really react to that, I feel like, on a spectrum, right? Like, sometimes we're more in the mood for that and sometimes we're less in the mood for that. And I think more than anything, what Burn After Reading does is takes the expectations of this genre, where this genre feels very, it's a plotty genre. Like, it's a genre that wants its audiences to be hanging on every twist and turn in the plot and trying to figure it out. And that's what those scenes with J.K. Simmons and David Rash basically are, are just like, how can we make sense of this? What's going on? And ultimately, it's just like,

a bunch of fuck-ups did their own thing and were at cross-purposes with each other and intersected at different times and half of them ended up dead because of it for literally no reason and for ultimately this great piece of like intel which was his fucking memoirs

like the CD of his weird and sad little memoirs and it's okay this memoir though and they like get it on this disc they think it's a CIA thing Like, what is this weird House of Leaves memoir that he is writing that's like, looks like code? I mean, you get the sense that this guy is real up his own ass in terms of his estimations of his own intelligence.

Like, he definitely, Malakovich's character in this movie thinks he's so much smarter than everybody in the room. You can see the contempt on his face when he's at this cocktail party with his wife, where it's just like, you know, you're better than all these people. He goes to his little Harvard or a Princeton reunion. It's this, you know, Masters of the Universe kind of a thing. And that's what informs the way he reacts to Brad Pitt trying to extort him, where it's just like, you're the dumbest person I've ever seen in my entire life. I'm so mad. Not at you necessarily, but just that, like, that you would presume to do something this idiotic. It's, it's a, I mean, a great performance by by both of those people.

I think everybody in this cast is really doing a really good time. Everybody's pretty outstanding in this movie. And, like, we can get into it, but in a way that, like, everybody can kind of probably come away from this movie with a different favorite takeaway performance. And that's probably why, you know,

this didn't register on a performance level. I find it kind of baffling that it's not, doesn't, especially at this time, create more noise for Brad Pitt. but as you mentioned, like the story that year for him was Benjamin. We'll definitely talk about Brad Pitt. I love Brad Pitt in this movie.

It's so good. Maybe we should get into the 60-second plot description. Perhaps we should. Joseph. Yes. This week, you are tasked with the 60-second plot description. I am. Your movie is Joel and Ethan Cohen's burn after reading,

written and directed by the Cohen, starring George Clooney, Francis McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Brad Pitt, Richard Jenkins, J.K. Simmons, David Rash, and The Wonderful, our beloved Elizabeth Marvell, movie premiered out of competition at Venice, and then opened wide September 12th, 2008. Indeed. Joseph.

Yes. You ready for the 60-second plot description of Burn After Reading? Sure. Okay. Your time starts now. Okay, John Malkovich plays a CIA analyst who's retiring and planning to write his memoirs. While at the same time, unbeknownst to him, his wife, Tilda Swinton, is planning to divorce him. carrying on an affair with George Clooney, a hyperactive type who works for the Treasury

Department, is cheating on his wife and is secretly working on inventing a dildo chair. Meanwhile, Malcovich's disc containing his memoirs, which may or may not contain sensitive information, gets left at the gym and is found by gym employees, Brad Pitt and Francis McDormant. He's a real deeufist. She's hell-bent on getting four surgeries to improve her appearance, and together they think they can get money out of Malcovic in return for his shit. They're in over their heads. Malkovich punches Pitt in the nose. Pit later goes snooping at Miltkovic and Tilt his house, where Clooney is now staying, and when he's surprised by Pitt hiding in his closet, Clooney shoots him in the head, and he's dead.

Meanwhile, while all of this is happening, Clooney and McDormon go out on some dates, totally unaware of their connections. Poor Richard Jenkins is Pitt and McDormant's boss and tries to investigate what they're doing, and Malcovich catches him stooping and murders him in the street like a crazy person, so the CIA shoot Malcovich and Clooney goes on the run and Pitt and Jenkins are dead and Francis won't get her surgeries. And in the end, J.K. Simmons is like, that was weird and it's over. And that's time. I can't believe you got it all in there, but you did. I did. Can I say the thing that, like, I like this movie way more now than I did at first, but the thing that still annoys me, that feels like, I don't want to say lazy,

but like a holdover from lesser movies is the way that everybody is connected in this movie. I mean, I think that's part of the thing, right? That's sort of the fact that, like, all of these connections are so incredibly, dumb and random and tenuous. Like the whole Clooney starts dating Francis because they were like fixed up on a dating site is... Right. George Clooney is just having affairs with everyone in this movie.

Do you remember in the absolutely perfect 1992 film sneakers when Mary MacDonald gets caught snooping in Stephen Tabalowski's stuff? And he brings her to the company he works at, which is Ben Kingsley's company, where they're trying to snoop.

And he's almost ready to let them go. And then Tabalowski's like, that's the last time I go on a computer date. And Kingsley's like, wait a second, a computer fixed you and you up. He's like, I'm not buying it. Something's going on. Like, that's sort of what I got with this Clooney McDormant thing, where I was just like, this character and this character, like, got fixed up by, like, a dating site. that is so, that's the one part where I was just like, well, this is just silly.

Like, we can't, we can't be expected to buy that. Yeah, all the dating stuff, all the dating site stuff on this movie feels like even outdated for the time and maybe that's the intention. But it's, yes, it is very silly and funny. I don't know. I guess the, like, the, in a certain way, it's like the, this bundle of idiots forms their own bubble where like only violence can happen. Um, but the violence is all incredibly like, I don't know, I guess it just felt like, yeah. No, I get what you're, I get what you're saying. Well, we talked about when we did Suburicon, which was like a 20 year old Cohen brother's script.

Yeah. Which is the only time we've ever really talked about the Coens on this podcast so far. Um, it felt a little bit like a dated thing that maybe this screenplay had been sitting around for a while. Yeah. Um. I don't know. Maybe that's just me. No, that's, you know, you're not entirely wrong, but I do feel like the, the, I mean, it's, it feels like a cheat to just sort of like write off everything that is perhaps not great about this movie as just like, well, it's dumb on purpose.

But like, I think a lot of burn after reading is dumb on purpose. And it's, it's a lark of a movie that, like, I think comes off better than some of, I think this is generally viewed as. low to middle Coens. I've seen some people sort of like stick up for it as like secretly great. I think it's middle Coens. I think it's fine that it's middle Coens. I think it doesn't really certainly

does not have the ambition to be like one of their great movies and that's fine. There are good moments and then there are you know sort of like whatever moments essentially. I don't think any of it is really bad. I think you're right about the like ambition note about what this movie

is it does kind of feel less hefty. Yeah. Even though like there's a reason to, you know, explore the movie for like weightier subject matter or like whatever it wants to say about human nature is all Cohen Brothers movies do. I don't know. I would probably put it towards the middle top.

I'm not someone who likes the like overt silly. Coen Brothers movies. Like, Raising Arizona is great, but, like, I don't really want to watch that movie that often. Yeah. I hate, oh, brother, where art thou? Right. But, like, I think, like, I think a movie, we said it previously, but, like, the Big Lobowski is a much, much better version of the sort of overtly silly Coens to me. Yes, yes. But I wanted to mention this movie has two of the biggest surprise moments I can remember in movies in terms of just like stuff that happens

and I was just entirely gobsmacked by it one of which it turns out is really well foreshadowed in this movie and just not in a way that I had remembered from the last time the part where Clooney shoots Pitt in the head which I remember when I saw it my entire audience just fucking freaked out and gasped but that's really well foreshadowed. He mentions the gun so many times. It's literally just like it's a Chekhov exercise where how many times he mentions that he's never fired his gun in the 20 years that he's owned it and he's talking and droning on forever about, you know, the fact that he has a gun for his job as a marshal. And it really sets you up. And then in that half a second right before it happens when Pitt looks to the empty holster in the closet,

and your brain, like, makes all those connections, like, in a snap second. It's a really, really good moment, but it's a, it was a shock. You're not prepared for the dildo chair. The dildo chair truly comes out of nowhere, and it's... Well, because you think that he's downstairs in his, like, man cave basement. Working on, like, a stealth bomber or something like that. Yeah, right, like, yes, yeah, something that's going to have international implications or whatever. Very Stalin's Gar's Guard, dragon tattoo, where you're like, oh, he's going to,

to maybe keep a person down here. Right. But it's so, you're just, you're just not, and it's so funny, that visual of the first time, it just sort of like pops up from beneath the apparatus. Half-acidly, rocks back. That's so funny. Like, people don't talk about that moment enough, because it's just, like, incredibly well, well-executed, and just deeply insane.

Yeah. What do you think of Clooney in this movie? This is an interesting moment for Clooney. Obviously, I mentioned it's right after Michael Clayton, which to my mind... And right after we just talked about Clooney... Yeah, we're doing back-to-back Clooney's, which is interesting. Clooney feels like the least, like, story to talk about this movie with, even though I do think he's fantastic. George Clooney doesn't always get to play these, like, paranoid idiots.

He's usually playing somebody with, like, a certain degree of competence or, um... star charisma, and this is the time I think he maybe works against it the most, and I do think he's really funny in the movie. I think the Coens like this flavor of Clooney, because he's kind of antic in Obrother Wararta as well. And I think the Cohen brothers like to work against that kind of cool, that Clooney coolness, right? Which you see in stuff like Ocean's Eleven and, you know, other stuff like that, or even, like, dramatic Clooney stuff. And the Coen brothers, I think, like to put him in a position to seem a little foolish and see what he does with that. And I think this is a big example of that.

He's opposite, for the most part of this movie, either Tilda Swinton or Francis McDormand. and it's interesting, like, distinct vibes in both of those things. I think I love Tilda Swinton, and I think Tilda Swinton is cast to essentially be frightening in this movie. I'm like, on like an interpersonal level where it's just like, can you imagine if she ever, like, fixed her eyes on you and, like, called you inadequate? Like, what would you do? It's just so. Yeah. But I think the best gag.

But in a very atypical way to what you might. I'd expect Tilda Swinton to do that. It's just like she is such a monumental grouch and asshole in this movie that that's what's disarming, not that she's like a snow queen, for lack of a better word. Right. She's literally played a snow queen before. Right. And you would think in a film that's as much about the CIA as this is that you would

expect her to be a spy or a, you know, official. Someone a little bit more maneuvering. When really she isn't, she is once again She's the most superfluous to the plot of this movie. She really doesn't have almost, she has almost nothing to do with the plot of this movie except for the fact that she facilitates Clooney being in the house, which is when he kills Pitt.

But I think... The movie does, like, go to lengths to give, like, all of these characters a certain level of autonomy and background, and hers is basically, she's a pediatric doctor. The fact, hers is the least... this is what I was just building up to, is casting Tilda Swinton as a pediatrician is maybe the funniest gag in this whole movie. And it's played completely straight face. A pediatrician who hates kids. That's the thing. It's just like, what can you imagine in your mind's eye, Tilda Swinton taking on any number of jobs.

We've seen her, you know, she's a criminal in certain movies, and she's an heiress in certain movies, and she's a singer in a movie, and she's a whatever, like, a cult leader in a movie. but, like, you cannot... Vampire. Right, exactly. But, like, trying to picture Tilda Swinton as a pediatrician, and, like, this is what you get, which is just, like, the iciest, most pitiless, like, just, like, looks a hole right through any child she's working on, and it's so funny. Like, just the concept of it is so funny, and they don't really lean on it too much,

and they don't, like, you know, push their thumb down on the scale. for it at all. They just let it be as just like, we have cast Tilda Swinton as a pediatrician. How fucking insane is that? Everybody in this movie is cast at least somewhat atypically in ways that I think make the movie

funnier. Like even Francis McDormand who like, in this era is when she's really starting to get cast a lot as like... Salty. Quiet curmudgeon. Yes. Well, I wanted to look at the sort of the interim

this is a film that comes almost directly in the middle of her two Oscar wins, right? Where she wins in 96 for Fargo, she wins again for three billboards. When did she win her Tony? This is around the time she won the Tony. She won her Tony in like 2010, I'm pretty sure. Feel free to correct me on that, but I think it's not too long after this. But so there was a moment there where she won the Oscar for Fargo, and then we didn't quite know what to do

with her, right? Like, her follow-ups to Fargo are really kind of interesting, where it's Madeline, the children's movie, Madeline, and then her big year in 2000, which we just very recently talked about on the Little Gold Men podcast, where she's in Wonder Boys and Almost Famous the same year. She gets awards buzz for both.

She gets nominated for Almost Famous. But in that one, she's the woman Michael Douglas is having an affair with in Wonder Boys, and then she's the mom and almost famous. So, Both of those are, like, definitely supporting roles. She's supporting in The Man Who Wasn't There. She's fantastic in that. And then, like, Laurel Canyon's actually a really interesting role,

where she plays this sort of refugee from the late 60s music scene in California. And she's sort of, like, very ill fit to be someone's mother. She's Alessandro's Navola's mother. She's, you know, it was an interesting movie. And then it's like, and then it's just a collection of, of supporting roles in things like Something's got to give. She's Diane Keaton's sort of Aserbic sister.

She gets nomination for North Country playing Does she have ALS? Like early stages? ALS in North Country? I believe so. And she's like very, again like salty. That's like we're getting towards salty. And then friends with money,

she's, again, she's this like rich lady, but like there's a real edge to her. And so I think that's that turn that you're talking about is sort of those roles are pushing her in the direction of what she eventually we get in like olive kitridge three billboards uh nomad land which is like three very different flavors but it's all very much just like salt of the earth uh you know iron rod of a of a woman kind of a thing and various degrees of heart and then this not necessarily

an expressive person right and then 2008 is a real um goes again that in a couple of ways. Burn after reading, which we're talking about. But then she's in Miss Pedigrew lives for a day, which is this very fancy little light British comedy. Or is it British? Yes. It's in London. It's technically British starring like almost all Americans. Right, because it's her and Amy Adams. And I think that's a really cute movie. I haven't seen it since. I saw it in theaters in 2008. And she did win her Tony in 2011. So it was right after Burn After Reading. Yeah, yes.

The same year, she is in Transformers 3. That Tony Award speech, there's so many elements of that I love. A, obviously the jean jacket is fantastic. B, she gives that, like, I think I've mentioned that before, that, like, low five to Alan Barkin as she's running up to the stage, which is so funny to me. Her speech is obviously, like, fantastic. That was also, I've told this story before, where I saw her in that play.

And she stopped, stopped the scene in its tracks because somebody answered their phone in the balcony. Some old lady answered her ringing phone. And she stopped Raina Elise Goldsbury in the middle of their scene together. And we're just like, we're going to wait until this person stops. And it was wonderful. It was wonderful. Amazing. Indeed.

That was the, like, peak era of stories like that coming out of cell phones and theaters. Right. That was not too long after Paddy Lapone had that. Goeliorious. Who do you think you are? That's so good. How do you think you are? Stop, stop, stop, stop.

I don't think you are. Taking pictures. Get them out. Three times. Three times you took a picture. You heard the announcement. In the beginning, you heard the announcement and intermission. Who do you fit? You are. Amazing. Yeah, so this is a really atypical role for Francis McDormand. You're right. I can't think of any other role where she plays this type of character. she's very vain, she's dumb, you usually think, you usually project intelligence upon

Francis. She's the most expressive character in this movie. Like, the most, like, revealing of who they are to everyone, you know? Like, she's not guarded. But she's not super likable either. Like, that's the thing is... I mean, she's likable because Fran's likable. Right, but that's the only reason. Like, this woman is, um, again, she's vain. She's not very smart. She doesn't seem to have a ton of concern. She's, like, outwardly mean to Richard Jenkins, even though Richard Jenkins is obviously in love with her. When, like, the slightest thing goes wrong in her and Brad Pitt's little scheme,

she's just, like, she's just snapping at him and whatever. And it's tough to really, like, sympathize. I mean, her whole thing throughout this movie is she's trying to do this scheme to extort John Malkovich because she wants money for her four surgeries so that she can, you know, whatever. Because it's denied by her insurance. Yeah. That is an angle to this movie that every once in a while feels like the Coens should be preparing to make a comment on the fitness industry, the beauty industry.

She wants for plastic surgeries. She works at a gym, this whole thing. And they just resolutely could not give a shit about trying to say something about that whole angle. It's very much like it's not that deep. just stupid and vacuous. I think they were just like, what is a, what is a profession that we could give these non-governmental people that will communicate, uh, extreme dullness? And it's just like, well...

People who sit at computers in big box gyms. Yeah, basically. Um, although Pitt, we see, uh... As a personal trainer, there's that moment where he's, uh, training that one guy and the one guy With the medicine ball? Yes, where he's just like, he's just like, I'm pretty sure

I just felt my hamstring snap and Pitt is just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, one second. And they just like, will he walks away. There's the other scene where we see him, right, well, this is going to talk about Brad Pitt. He's my favorite performance of the movie by far. He should have been nominated for an Oscar for it. He's so funny.

Truly. The scene of him running on the treadmill where he's pumping his fists as he's running on the treadmill is so funny to me. Oscar worthy just for that like two seconds. All of his physical comedy. That's your Oscar. Do we get in the movie, okay, I fully own that I may have been, like, slightly distracted while I watched this movie.

Did we get the part that's in the trailer where he's dancing in the office and, like, snapping his fingers? Does that happen in the movie or does that get cut out? Yes, it definitely does. I am also a little foggy because I watched this immediately before the news arrived. I watched it sometime after. So we were in a celebration haze. Yeah. No, but yes, you do get that moment in there.

also another moment that should have gotten him an Oscar nomination for this movie. I think, like, one of the, every time I've seen it, one of the, like, happiest surprises about this movie, aside from the fact that what he is doing is completely unwell and, like, is just constantly funny by existing in this movie. I love his chemistry with Francis McDormand in this movie, and it is not something I anticipate anytime I watch it. I am a real sucker. I'm a real sucker for platonic chemistry in a movie in a thing where it's just like there is no hint of sexual tension or romance and yet they're both as far as we know

like she's definitely heterosexual he could be gay we don't really have we don't really get a sense of his romantic life at all but like there's they're just co-workers and colleagues and like friends slash collaborators in this little scheme or whatever and it's their cronies

And it really sort of draws a line to the idea that, like, oh, we don't let, like, nine out of ten movies Francis's role as a man, right? Or, like, that, like, that kind of relationship is just, like, two guys, two just, like, bumbling dudes, like, bumbling through. And we don't allow women to play. Or if, like, it's a Coen's movie, it's two, like, hill jacks, right? Right. Right, exactly. And they just get to, like, play together, which I think is fun. and they, like, bounce off of each other.

And he's so manic, and all of his expressions are really big. And the phone call... I think some of that dynamic, though, that, like, you're describing comes from the fact that, like, the way that Brad Pitt and the Cohen's characterized Brad Pitt's character is, like, obviously, like, vain. He has the frosted tips and everything, but I don't think Brad Pitt has ever been less sexualized. on screen than in this movie and he's supposed to be playing like a hot gym instructor but like

there's nothing about it that is sexy but he's so I still think he's like the the type of silly he is I think is very cute like I think it's still like it's cute Brad Pitt like he's so the scene where they're both on the phone trying to extort John Malkovich and he just has that line about like I thought you'd like to know about the security of your shit it's so dumb and funny it's so well done every single line reading of his in this movie is perfect and that just like the the guilelessness on his face when he's hiding in the closet even which like even further goes to like set you up so that you're not expecting him to get murdered right in that second because it's just like his the look on his face is just so like

it's so light and and you know non that goofy little like like shit-eating grin. It's amazing. He's so fantastic in this movie. Okay, so what was the supporting actor situation that that couldn't happen for him? Like, what was... I mean, truly, I think it's that Benjamin Button was such a behemoth in this season that it overshadowed it. Because it's surprising to me that only BAFTA nominates Brad Pitt for this movie.

Whereas, like, and like, I'm not going to say anything negative about Benjamin Button. I know a lot of people really don't like that movie and think that he is fine. it. I think he's pretty great. I think the movie is great. But, like, I don't know. This is the, like, I would definitely chart this performance above it. I just think this was a September movie that was easily, like, kind of wiped under the rug. It was not, like, there wasn't a universal thought around this movie that, like, a campaign could have hung its head on. It was pretty quickly sort of filed away under lesser Cohen's. People love to talk about, like, oh, that's, a minor Cohen's movie and this was definitely filed away under that and you're right by the time

award season really started in earnest um they had kind of filed it away this is a incredibly odd best supporting actor lineup at the Oscars that year this was obviously the year that heath ledger won a posthumous Oscar for the dark night that was essentially the like that was wrapped up all year like yeah all year like perhaps even before the Dark Night opened, people were talking about it because people, like the legend around the intensity of this performance was so big because he had died soon after making it. And then once the movie opened and it was a huge hit and critics really respected it and they raved about his performance, there was no way he was losing that Oscar.

Like that was a dud deal. So it was the question was, who are the other people who are going to get nominated? And it's Josh Brolin in Milk, who is good playing. a villain you know villains tend to do pretty well and best supporting actor that's a year after not really making much headway and no country for old man right but i think that movie really like set the table for him it's just like he's a very you know now he's a very respected actor he's not the kid from the goonies anymore and whatever and so milk is a best picture nominee that year sean penn is on his way to winning the Oscar for a lead actor in that it makes all the

sense in the world that broling gets nominated for milk it makes a lot of of sense that Philip Seymour Hoffman gets nominated for Doubt in a role that I think borders on lead in that film. Everybody, all four major principal characters, principal performers in that movie get nominated, him and Merrill and Viola and Amy Adams. Doubt comes incredibly close to getting a Best Picture nomination, and it's generally very well received. So, like, none of that is a surprise either. And this is also after the Oscars, finally got on board with Philip Seymour Hoffman

where he wins for Capote in 2005, he gets nominated again in 07 and now in 08, and now it's just like the Philip Seymour Hoffman train is well on its way. You know what I mean? Like it has picked up Steam

and it is now, he's an Oscar fave at this point. The other two nominations are Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder, which has, which is such, there are like 12 different angles to this thing, right? Where it's like, A, it's the very rare pure comedy nomination. Like,

it is a nomination from not even just like a comedy, but like a dumb comedy. Not to say that Tropic Thunder is bad, but like it's dumb. It's, it succeeds in its dumbness. It's not a highbrow by any means. There is no highbrow angle to it whatsoever. B, he's in blackface for 90% of it. Like, which is the joke? It's not like Tropic Thunder thought like it was getting away with something here. Like, that's, that's the joke. The blackface joke is the highbrow bit of it, but it's also, like,

digging in the ribs of the whole charade of the, like, Oscar prestige. Yes. Yes. Right. That's his whole, right. The whole reason why he's in blackface is because...

It is a character who is very much invested. Right. And Hollywood does enjoy having a laugh at itself that is still kind of celebratory, which is good. See, this is his, big breakthrough year. This is Iron Man, was the huge hit of the summer. People were talking about

maybe he'll get a best actor nomination for Iron Man. Like, it was that degree of, right, of course. But, like, Hollywood. It's about celebrating him and his, like, this really triumphant year that he'd had. He came through all of the addiction and all that sort of stuff. Like, it couldn't have been, like, there were so many moving parts to that nomination. And yet, because Tropic Thunder has no tether to the rest of that Oscar year, it's the one I always forget when I try and think of who were the nominees that year. Because it's

just like it exists on an island. That nomination exists on an island unto itself. And then the fifth nominee, which was the surprise nomination that year, was Michael Shannon in Revolutionary Road, giving, to my mind, a terrible performance

that I know a lot of people really love. I have complicated feelings about that movie. I think certain things are good and certain things are bad. To my mind, if you're going to give supporting nominations to that movie, it's Catherine Hahn and David Harbour, who I think are both really fantastic. Michael Shannon is playing, to me, the most irritating role in that movie,

which is, ah, the insane man will show us the way. Like, there are so many points in that movie where, like, Michael Shannon as the sort of, like, he's schizophrenic in that movie, right? Like, vaguely, mentally ill. But he's like... In a while since I've seen it. He's the one who's just, like, speaking truths and pointing out the flaws in their marriage from, like, an hour spent in their company at dinner or whatever. It's so stupidly annoying.

I hate it so much. It makes more sense on the page in the actual book. And he's chewing so much zinery. It's so annoying. I hate it. But he also derails the movie in a way that, like, the movie doesn't work if he doesn't. Well, I might say the movie doesn't work. Like, he needs to, like, show up and, like, completely shift the end.

the energy of the movie. But, like, that was the crazy surprise nomination in that there wasn't really the, there wasn't major precursor attention for that performance, right? Like, he wasn't Globe nominated. I didn't think he was Globe or SAG nominated. I know at the Globes, it was Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder, which, like, nobody thought was going to happen at Oscar, so there really was kind of a, uh, a hole in that. But now I'm going to look up and see who got SAG nominated.

I don't think it was a Marina de Tavira one where there was like absolutely no attention before Oscar nomination morning. No, he was definitely like in the like, when people would make long lists, he was definitely on long list. As was Marina de Tavira at that. I remember as in like the days approaching that those nominations, people were like, don't rule out Marina de Tavira because, oh, you know who got nominated at SAG? It was Ledger, Brolin, Downey, Hoffman. it was Dev Patel for Slumdog Millionaire, which a lot of people really did think was going to happen. Absolutely a lead performance.

100%. That's the Oscar caveat of, well, if they're young enough, they'd stop being leads. They're just like, if you are young, you have to age into being a lead, Jacob Trombley. Yeah, Haley Joel Osmond.

But like also, Michael Shannon did this twice. Yes, because he did it for nocturnal animals. There was more attention to him for nocturnal animals, but like his own co-star had won the supporting globe the funniest Golden Globe win of my lifetime. Absolutely. Absolutely. Listen, if you

wipe your ass and show it to the audience, you will get a golden globe for it. I'm just saying that is a new precedent that we have set. Thank you, Aaron Taylor Johnson. It only makes sense that he wipes his ass and shows it to the audience in Nocturnal Animals, because Nocturnal Animals is wiping your ass and showing it to the audience, the movie. It sure is. I still love Laurelini in that movie, but yes.

I hate that movie. Oh, yeah, me too. I despise that movie. Anyway, backing up, supporting actor, Brad Pitt. Brad Pitt should have been nominated over, I think, quite a few of those nominees, is my take. I think it's, the thing that I always kind of have to remind myself that we could have, like, I think this is our 120th episode, like, and I think we've talked about doing the Coens before, and like this, I always forget. was an option for us because you expect it to be a screenplay nominee. It almost was.

The screenplay, like, the way that original screenplay rolled out this year is absolutely, like, wild to me. Go on. Well, the Oscar lineup is Milk is the winner. Other nominees are Happy Go Lucky, Frozen River, In Bruges, and Wally. which Wally didn't have any other major precursor attention beforehand, partly because Writers Guild does not allow animated movies to be nominated in their screenplay categories, which is stupid. Which is very stupid.

Like, I don't even know what the, like, what the pretense of that would be. Like, I don't get that. But, like, Critics' Choice still had one screenplay category as did the Golden Globes. writers guild nominates it but like i wonder if one of these other movies wasn't eligible the thing about im bruges is like im bruges had that kind of late surge especially after colin farrell won the golden globe um the golden globe yes so the the writers guild awards are the hardest ones to look back on as a precursor because there's so many ineligibility thing. Yes, that's the thing.

That's the thing. And so the WGA nominees that year were, well, Milk won for Dustin Lance Black, which is what happened at the Oscars. But then the other four nominees were not Oscar nominees. It was Burn After Reading. It was Woody Allen's Vicky Christina Barcelona, which is actually one of my favorite late-stage Woody Allen movies. The Visitor, Tom McCarthy's The Visitor, which was a, like, a little.

working beneath the surface throughout a lot of that outskirts season, I think really could have been if this is the year before it goes to the best picture. Ten, the visitor really could have had a chance to be like the tenth best picture. But at the time, I remember people being like really like fingers crossed that Richard Jenkins makes that best actor lineup because it was, it was, there was a lot of question over whether the movie was ultimately going to be seen as too small for that. And then the wrestler, Darren Aronovsky is the wrestler written by Robert Siegel, who is somebody I've met in person before and a friend of a friend. So, like, that was cool.

I remember being very, riding very hard for that nomination, and that didn't happen. And then at the Oscars, they were like, hey, we'll keep milk. We're going to shove everybody else aside. And it's going to be happy go lucky for Mike Lee, in Bruges from Martin McDonough, both neither of which are Americans. and I wonder if maybe that was a WGA thing, that neither one of them maybe are in the WGA, who knows? I may be crazy, but I think McDonough is not because I don't think three billboards was nominated for WGA.

And I feel like isn't that a thing where like if you're mostly a playwright, you're just, you're not going to be in the WGA because like you're not writing movies, you're writing plays. And then like, and then all of a sudden you like cross over and it's just like, well, now I can, like, I'm already making movies. So what do I need to be in the WGA for? it's but like the ultimate oscar like five original screenplay nominees is so much wrapped up in like other things like imbruges wrapped up in the colin farrell thing happy go lucky it was a huge like surprise i mean like to people who really know what oscar was going to go for i don't think it was a surprise that sally hawkins wasn't nominated but like it was still a little bit of a surprise like she had won the golden globe it was based off of the stats like the stats people were the people who like just like hold like Oscar stats with an iron fist of like this is what will and won

because she had won at least one of the major critics awards she had won like LA film critics won multiple yeah and then the golden globe and I think when she won the golden globe people who were like a little bit like oh could she do it and then like she won the golden globe and everyone's like she's gonna do it but that was her speech was like she was noticeably uncomfortable she also had to like walk up to the stage from like the fucking parking lot I I remember that, like, that walk to the stage took so long because the happy-go-lucky table was, like, literally next to the fire exit. It was so far back.

And, but that best actress year was not only more crowded than you would think, but chaotic because of the Kate Winslet situation where she had been campaigned in lead for Revolutionary Road. And then as supporting for the reader and then on Oscar nomination morning, she gets nominated for the reader. my theory has always been that if you looked at the vote totals, you would probably see that Winslett would have had enough votes to be in the top five twice for Best Actress and once for Best Supporting Actress. And because you can't be nominated twice in the same category, they knocked out Revolutionary Road because that would have been a lower total than the reader. And then because you can't be nominated for the same performance in two separate categories, they knocked out the reader. And that's how we ended up with what we ended up with. That's how we ended up with, I believe, Melissa Leo, probably in fifth place. I think that's probably true.

You look at the rest of that lineup. Merrill Streep was absolutely running second place that year for Dow. She won the SAG? She won something, right? I think she won the SAG because Kate Winslet won the reader in supporting a SAG. Kate Winslet won both at the Globes. She won for Revolutionary Road and the reader at the Globes. I think, yes, Merrill won the SAG in lead for doubt.

So, like, she was definitely, like, and that was when we were really ramping up the, when is Merrill going to win number three. Like, that was when the temperature, once the Devil Wars Prada happened, the temperature on that kept going up and up and up. Right, because the several years where Merrill is the conceivable second place. Right. My particular choice for Best Actress that year was Anne Hathaway and Rachel getting married, one of the great performances.

Absolutely same. I get why she didn't win, but it's an injustice that that's not what she has her Oscar for, because that's... Yeah, I probably wouldn't even nominate the other nominees in Anne Hathaway as the, like, clear winner of that lineup to me. I never quite feel bad about Angelina Jolie's nomination for Changeling, even though it's certainly not a film or a performance that I feel like is spectacular, but I was happy to see her back nominated after. all those years that, you know, happened in between Girl Interrupted in this where I thought it was on a celebrity level, I liked having her sort of like back up in the mix. And the year before, she had been so good in a mighty heart

and wasn't nominated. And I was happy to see her. Melissa Leo, this was, like, we didn't know Melissa Leo. At this point, Melissa Leo was she had been on homicide on television and she had been in 21 grams. And people thought she was like, oh, this like supporting actress who like isn't really a thing was so good in 21 grams. And this is before the consider

of it all. Right. That's the thing is like the Melissa Leo we know now, who was like a 12 out of 10 on the intensity scale at all times and is just like will go so wild in a movie. But this was a different, like Melissa Leo at this point was just like understated character actress

with a lead role in a very indie movie. Frozen River, I'm pretty sure was a Sundance movie. Yes. And Frozen River was one of those sort of cause celebs of the film. types who are just like, let this small little movie get some Oscar success. That and the visitor, I think, were very much in tandem that year in terms of like what people were hoping for. So, yeah, I think Melissa Leo probably nips that one at the end and sort of knocks off Sally Hawkins. But it was a really competitive year for Best Actress that year. It's just to pull it back to original screenplay a little bit. It is very strange, how often I have to remind myself, that this lineup included two snubs, for lack of a better word, of two like Oscar staples between the Cohen brothers and Woody Allen.

Yeah, that's a really, really good point. Yep. And an eventual screenplay winner in Tom McCarthy. It was, yeah, there was a lot going on. Chris, we really blew right past at the beginning of this a milestone for this episode. I believe several milestones, if I am correct. Oh, well, yes, but one that will be commemorating. This is a movie that is chock full of people who we have talked about a bunch on this at Oskobas.

This is our fourth J.K. Simmons movie. It is our third Brad Pitt movie, our third Richard Jenkins movie, our third Elizabeth Marvel movie. Oddly, our first Francis McDormand movie, which is, and maybe our first Tilda, I think I made that note as well, which is like super surprising. But the only person in this movie who has made it to the level of our prestigious Six-Timers Club now is in one scene of this movie, although you hear him in another. When Francis and Clooney go to the movies, they watch, what is it called? Coming Up Daisy, starring an unseen Claire Danes, who would have become our seven-timer.

poster. Yeah, but does not count. You won't count her because she doesn't speak. Right. You don't see her in action. You only see her on a poster. Or else she would be a seven-timer. But our six-timer is her co-star in this fake movie, Dermit Mulroney.

Our six-time this had Oscar Buzz appear. What we do hear around these parts, when an actor or actress makes it six appearances on our show, we do a little quiz. I give Chris a little quiz about the six movies. Yeah. That makeup, that actors, this had Oscar Buzz's filmography. Chris, do you want to take a little quiz? I would love a little, large, medium-sized, whatever you're throwing at me. A Dermit-Moroni quiz. The greatest of quizzes is a Dermott-Milroni quiz.

So, okay, your answers here will come from the bank of the six movies of his that we've done. So a reminder, those are The Family Stone, How to Make an American Quilt. he's in Jay Edgar He's in Truth He is in Zodiac And now for his sixth He is in Burn After Reading

So your answers will come from that bank Fantastic Okay So first question The only one of those movies That features a real-life Female character on the poster Truth

Yes correct Cape Blanchett is Mary Mapes In Truth All right The only two of these movies that were written by Oscar-winning screenwriters. Ooh, Oscar-winning screenwriters. Burn after reading.

And it's not Zodiac. It is definitely not Family Stone. It is... How to Make American Quilt? I'm trying to remember what the other options are. How to Make an American Quilt, Jay Edgar, because it's Dustin Lance Black. J. Edgar, written by Dustin Lance Black.

Oscar winner this very year that we're talking about. And then the Coen's one screenplay for No Country for Old Men. All right. The only one of these movies to premiere at TIF. Truth. Truth. Yes. Saw it there.

The only one of these movies to premiere at Venice. Burn after reading. Yes. The only one of these movies to premiere at AFI. Jay Edgar. Yes. Well done. Okay.

You're killing this so far. The only one of these movies that doesn't star an Oscar-winning actress. Ooh, it's not Jay Edgar. Oh, it's not Family Stone. It's not How to Make an American quilt. It's not this. What do we have left? Zodiac. Zodiac. Yes.

Not a whole lot of actresses. Not a whole lot of actresses. A Family Stone has Diane Keaton. How to Make an American quilt has Ellen Burstyn and Anne Bancroft. Jay Edgar has Judy Dench. Truth has Kate Blanchett. Burn After Reading has Francis McDormand and Tildas Winton. Yes, okay. The only one whose cinematographer was a woman.

Oh, sure shit isn't Jay Edgar. Is it How to Make an American Quilt? It's not. Oh. How to make an American quilt directed by and written by a woman, but not a photograph.

Exactly, that's where I was going. Is it truth? It's truth. Mandy Walker is the cinematographer on truth. Cool. All right. The only one produced by Amblin Entertainment. It's How to Make an American Quill?

It is. Very good. I thought that would be a real stumper. Okay. The only two to earn at least $60 million at the domestic box office. Burn after reading. Yes. And, oh, God, it can't be Jay Edgar.

Um, How to Make an American Quilt? Uh, no. Okay. How to Make an American Quilt was like $23 million at the box office. Oh, okay. What about the Family Stone? Yes. Both the Family Stone and Burn After Reading made about $60 million a little bit more at the domestic box office.

Um, the others were How to Make an American quilt had about 23, J. Edgar 37, Zodiac 33, and Truth, alas, with a 2.5 million at the domestic box office. Yeah. Okay. Um, where'd I go? Domestic Pop. All right. The only two whose and credit is an Oscar winner. Jay Edgar.

Jay Edgar and Judy Jench. Um, I feel like Zodiac is and Brian Cox, so I don't think it's that. Um, I can't imagine that Family Stone is and Diane Keaton. Although we found out, as I texted you earlier in the week, that EasyA is and Emma Stone, which is the wildest shit.

Oh, it's, um, it's burnt after reading because it's and Brad Pitt. It's Ann Brad Pitt, very good. If you needed a sure sign that he was going to, uh, die in the movie. Easy A's wild. Easy A's credits are all alphabetical and then it's and Emma Stone. And I'm just like, why wouldn't you just start with Emma Stone and then do alphabetical? And then do the obvious thing, which is, this is a with Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci or the other way around. Like, that's the most obvious way to do that.

Like, that movie. That movie still frustrates me. I'm not going to get into it. Okay. Emma Stone is great. So much of that movie is bad. A lot of it's good, but so much of it is bad. Okay. And credit. The only three where our man of the hour, Dermit Mulroney, his name is on the poster. And by the poster, I mean in that credit block that happens on the poster. Family Stone Correct Zodiac Correct

And truth Incorrect How to Make an American Quilt Yes he's the love interest In how to make an American quilt Yes

Okay The only one that opened Before December Zodiac Yes in March Wait No sorry not December September

The only one that opened Before September I wrote that down wrong Oh Zodiac Zodiac Yeah all the other ones were fall fall to winter movies. Wait, I wrote this down. Family Stone was December. How to Make an American Quilt was October. Jay Edgar, November. Truth was October and Burn After Reading was September. So yes, the only one to open before the fall was Zodiac. The only two that star people who were in the movie Heart and Souls.

Okay, that's Elizabeth Shoe, Robert Downey, Jr., Alphrey Woodard, Charles Groden? Yes, Charles Gruden. Um, Okay, um, oh, boy. Jay Edgar? Nope. Okay. Um,

Family Stone? Nope. Oh, Jesus. Four more. Zodiac. Zodiac, yes. Robert Donny Jr. is in Zodiac. Oh, duh, of course, of course.

Burn After Reading is like Richard Jenkins in Heart and Souls? He is not. Although he would have been a great fit for Heart and Souls. Oh, absolutely. What a lovely film. Yes. How to Make an American Quilt. Yes, because.

Okay. Oh, Alfrey Woodard. Alphrey Woodard isn't how to make an American quote. Very good. Yes, okay. Living legend, Alphrey Woodard. The only two of these movies that star people who were in Okja. Okay, Oakja is Paul Dano,

Stephen Yun, Lily Collins, Tilda Swinton, so Burn After Reading. And Jake Jelen Hall, so Zodiac. Correct, well done. Yes, okay. The only two that star people who were in Ocean's 11 Burn after reading

because of George Clooney and Brad Pitt, yep. And Brad Pitt. So many people. Julia Roberts was in Oceans 11 from my best friend's wedding,

also starring Dermot Mulroney. Yes. It can't be truth. Oh, no. it is truth because Tofer Grace is in Oceans 11. Yes, indeed. Tofer Grace is in Oceans 11. Well done. Good job with that. Okay. The only one that is under 100 minutes.

Burn after reading. A nice efficient 96, I think. It was yeah. Yeah. All right. Here we go. The big ones. The only three that were AARP movies for grown-ups nominees. Burn After Reading. Yes. The Family Stone

Was Oh, it's got to be Jay Edgar Judy Dench for Jay Edgar Yes And then finally the only two That were SAG nominees In any category Jay Edgar

Jay Edgar Had the double nominations For Decaprio and Army Hammer Um I don't think it's truth Um It's not burn after reading it's um oh no it uh ensemble nominee uh how to make an american quilt ensemble nominee how to make an american quilt

very good very good job with the dermot molroney quiz chris i like it i uh i could remember the movies that we talked about more i i bombed the merrill one i am the only uh homosexual who will bomb a merrill quiz and do well on a dermot moroni quiz uh you know it takes all kinds chris it takes all kinds. So let's talk about those movies for grown-ups awards nominations since I brought them up. Indeed. A screenplay nominee, a best actress

nominee, and a supporting actor nominee, not for Brad Pitt. And Brad Pitt had to have been 50 at this point because their nominees all have to be over 50, right? Maybe you wasn't 50. Oh, is that the actual rule? No, you have to be 50 and older. Okay. So this is part of the chaos

of whatever awards buzz did exist for Burn After Reading and besides the screenplay, I don't really think there was any kind of serious whatever. But the fact that at the AARPs, and again, we're going to treat them as the serious precursor that they are, the AARPs nominate Francis McDormand and John Malkovich. The BAFTAs nominate Tilda Swinton and Brad Pitt. And I think this was part of the thing, was like, nobody could agree on what was the standout performance in this movie. If there was just one, there's a chance that maybe there would be some kind of momentum built behind it.

But I think nobody could agree on the best performance, even though I think it's clearly Brad Pitt. But, like, there's a lot to go around in this movie. Right. So, yeah, so what was, what won in those categories? Give me, give me the dish. The screenplay category, burn after reading was nominated against Curious Case of Benjamin Button, doubt. Vicky Christina Barcelona, and the winner, the most unwell, is changeling. Oh, no! They love Clint Eastwood so much.

Holy moly, changeling. I feel like we've talked about this very, very, very bizarre supporting actor lineup before, but I can't remember when. They're supporting actor lineup. John Malkovich for Burn After Reading. Pierce Brosnan for Mamma Mia left them. No! Holy shit. Yes, yes.

Dennis Quaid for The Express. Football movie The Express Wow Bill Murray for City of Ember Children's movie that You cannot gaslight me into believing that that movie happened And the winner

Who would definitely at least be on my ballot This is a great call I don't think anybody else made this call Or even nominated him all season Bill Irwin for Rachel getting married Should have been more So this is the thing about Rachel getting married That's a beautiful nomination

Rachel Getting Married, like, did well at the AARP movies for grownups, and that's why they are a serious precursor. My hot take, that isn't even a hot take, because it's just true. Like, it shouldn't be controversial. Rachel getting married should have been the doubt of the 08 Oscars, which is to say that all major, like, principal cast members in Rachel getting married should have been nominated. It should have been Hathaway, Rosemary DeWitt, Deborah Winger, Bill Irwin. Like, those should have been... I don't know if I can get there with Deborah Winger, but yes. are so good, Chris.

Plus, it's she's back. It's winter's back. She's great. She's great, but like. She should have gotten the, you know, we love you and we, we've always loved you and your turbulent billions kind of a nomination. She slaps out halfway. Never happening all season is bananas.

Yeah. But anyway, then best actress, which Francis McDormon, burn after reading, Annette Benning for The Women. Get the fuck out of here. no way we got to do the remake of the women for this podcast we really do it we'll definitely do it we'll get into it um uh living legend alfrey woodard in tyler peries the family that prays

which the aARP movie for grownups named best buddy picture of 2008 okay that's a wild distinction but i will say uh friend of the podcast is not a drama it is i'm pretty sure uh friend of the podcast and then former guest uh nick davis i remember really liking that movie. So I give that movie some respect. I would buy that being a good movie. I haven't seen it. It sure does seem like a drama. It's Kathy Bates and Alphery Woodard. Why wouldn't I see that?

But the whole buddy picture, it's her and Kathy Bates and Kathy Bates is a mean all racist and like that's the whole... We categorize buddy pictures as comedies, right? Like this was a serious drama. A buddy drama. I'm trying to think of like what an example of a buddy drama would be exactly. I'm having trouble. Tweet at us. Tweeted us with your favorite

buddy drama You're buddy dramas. This podcast is a buddy drama. For sure. Other nominees, Catherine Deneuve for a Christmas tale. Wow. Which I will catch up to this holiday season.

Who directed that? That's one of the big Frenchy directors, right? One of the big ones. It's not like, is it Claude Chabrole? Oh, no, it's Day Placian. Oh, no, De Placian. All right, yes. Yes, yes.

Yes, we are Philistines on this episode. And the winner for Best Actress at AARP Movie for Grownups, a very predictable Meryl Streep for Doubt. Sure, of course. That's not Mamma Mia. I feel like they should have given her the Mamma Mia nomination. I feel like Mamma Mia stands for what the M4Gs stand for. I also think Doubt stands for what the M4G stand for, though.

Like, I mean, sure. An old nun with Gravitas, like, yeah, they're going to go for. that for sure. All right. I want to go through my little notebook and see if there's anything else. Loved focus features. One of these times, and we don't have enough time to do it, but I want to dig into working title films at some point because that is a production label that shows up on a ton

of films, and they've just done a lot of really good movies and have had a lot of Oscar success. And you never really, they've never like categorized or sort of crystallized themselves in the public consciousness the way that like of Anna Perna did or something like that but um

it's they they produced a lot of like your favorite British movies of the early 2000s like Bridget Jones for weddings and a funeral yes yes exactly exactly focus this year though like clearly milk was their big player

they put all of their energy into it and then like laid on in the season they pushed to get in Bruges recognized and I feel like that kind of put Burn after reading under the rug those were the right

those were the right ponies to pick though I think for this Oscar season like that good on them but when you have like your stars of the movie

like pushing other things like both Tilda and Brad Pitt have Benjamin Button like the Coens have like no interest in doing the dog and pony show to get Oscar nominations

even Malcovitch had changeling to push right so like yeah yeah exactly I remember there being a little bit of Oscar buzz about that performance about like if changeling happens is malcovich going to get nominated um yeah i think that's a good point oh i mentioned cluny tilda very briefly but like

let's pour one out for tilda swinton uh mentioning the bat nipples and the bat suit explicitly in her oscar speech when she again a delightful oscar speech where she just like and george cluny you know the seriousness and the dedication to your your art, seeing you climb into that rubber bat suit from Batman and Robin, the one with the nipples every morning under your costume, on the set, off the set, hanging upside down at lunch, you, rock man. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And clearly, like, there's, like, there's rapport there. Like, I'm sort of bummed that they haven't made more movies together since then, because they clearly seem to have gotten along and have... Well, Clooney is clear, is the noted

prankster, and the only way to pull the piss out of him is to bring up his Batman. Yeah, and she knew it, and like, it was very funny, one of my favorite moments at an Oscars. You're right that it's a great speech, and she seems very flummoxed and surprised, and, like, it's one of the Oscar speeches where, like, not to project feelings onto people that we do not know, but, like, you know, there's just some Oscar speeches where you can just tell that someone is an authentically good person. Yes, agreed, absolutely agreed. Just even the way, like all of her phrasing's where she mentions, you know, looks at the statue and talks about its buttocks. It must be said, the buttocks, yeah.

Francis McDormand in this movie, on the phone with her health insurance company, repeatedly saying agent to try and get a real person on the phone, is... That is absolutely... Is me in a nutshell. I have done that so many different times. It's so relatable. If I have to call a hotline, I just, like, bark customer service. I do not care what your prompts are. just put me on the phone with a post.

Yep. Oh, when Brad Pitt says report instead of rapport and how angry that makes Malcovich's character is a beautifully funny moment. Also the part where Malcovic tries to, like, says they're in the car, and he's just like, you come over here on your fucking schwin, and Brad Pitt just starts laughing, and he goes, you think that's a schwin. It's so stupid, but it's so funny. Oh, I want to talk about David Rash for like half a second. David Rash is a character actor in this movie.

He's the counterpart to J.K. Simmons. He's the one trying to explain this. This is a good era for him playing government functionaries in movies that are essentially about the farce of, again, the Bush administration, because the next year he's in The Loop, which is a perfect movie with a fantastic ensemble cast. And he is, he's not quite the guileless character that he is in Burn After Reading, and in the loop, he's really rancid and really, um, just sort of vile and mean. But, like, there's a scene where he and, uh, Peter Capaldi are going at it that is just absolutely vicious.

And what a great movie. We don't talk about it. Injected into my veins. Yeah, it's good. Um, oh, so the fate of Richard Jenkins's character in this movie, I wanted to talk about very briefly. he's the one purely good character in this movie and he gets killed in a senseless thing where like Malkovich completely misunderstands his intentions

he initially thinks he's the guy that's sleeping with his wife and then eventually he thinks he's in cahoots with Brad Pitt and Francis McDormant neither of which are true Richard Jenkins has really no idea what's going on and he ends up pursuing this partly because he's in love with Francis McDormand and partly because he just like wants to know what's going on. But he's just like a purely good person. And he's one of those purely good people

in Cohen brothers movies who get killed that really, I think, helps ratchet up the reputation for the Coens as directors and filmmakers who hate their characters. There's always this talk about like, to what degree do the Coen brothers dislike their characters? And part of it is that they'll write these like really good characters. I'm thinking of like Mrs. Lundegarde in Fargo. And And Donnie, the Steve Buscemi character in the Big Lebouski. Kelly McDonald in no country. Kelly McDonald in no country who are just like these pure souls amid corruption and vacuousness. Right.

And they all end up getting killed. And it's always so heartbreaking. And but I think rather than sort of act as proof that the Coens don't care about their characters or don't like their characters, I think these are the ones that prove to me that they do, they just always see this as a world in which the good-hearted get trampled by the like, you know, in the debris of what's going on with these less good-hearted people. Well, and also, like, they, like, a lot of their movies are, like, if not religious, like, speak to, like, the randomness, the, like, unfeelingness of God that is their perspective. So it's like, there is a, like, a-

It's a godshot in this movie, for sure, like, when we, like, zoom down from the heavens. Well, and also that, like, the order of the universe and the order of human existence is not necessarily that good people don't suffer. Right, right. Exactly. Exactly. That's a very Cohen's trope. Yes. My other note for this movie, since you mentioned the, like, godshot of the movie, the opening and closing title. font of this movie is the same font as the like DVD anti-piracy ads that you used to see in everything.

Like you wouldn't steal a car. What a presumptive thing to say about me. I know, I know. Why are you jumping to that? Why are we, why are we just going to that level? You don't know me. You don't know my life. Right, exactly. Maybe I would steal a car. Maybe I, yeah. Maybe I would steal another mode of transportation. You don't know. Maybe I'd steal a train. yeah and make a movie about that one then you don't know me mpaa right also what convinces me that stealing a car or a train or whatever would be a good idea the movies have so sorry like ipso facto all right anyway um anything else before don't pirate anything people we're joking no right yeah be good citizens be good uh consumers of be good cinnophiles yes anything else before we hop into i mdb uh uh i don't think so um this was a nice

Cohen's conversation. There's other Cohen's movies that I'm sure we will do in the future. Yes, good Cohen's conversation. Cool. IMDB game. Should I play the IMDB game? Sure. All right. So, guys, the IMDB game. Every week, we end our episodes with the IMDP game. We challenge each other with an actor or actress to try to guess the top four titles that IMDB says they're most known for. If any of those titles are television or voiceover work, we'll mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue that's not enough it just becomes a free-for-all of hints and the randomness of god upon us um indeed perhaps we'll be axed to death i don't know perhaps perhaps that will happen a hatchet-wielding maniac conceivable yeah all right

joseph would you like to uh give or guess first i suppose it's my choice because it's uh i uh or what is it i don't know i don't know i don't know We're very confused. No, I think I was supposed to read the spiel, and that's why we're confused as to the order of operations of this. Our brains are gobbledygook of memes and the Four Seasons Landscape Company at this point. I am mentally never leaving the Four Seasons landscaping company, in fact. It's the island of Lost. Truly, and we have to go back.

Okay, I picked one for you. we are all waiting rather impatiently for the next Cohen Brothers movie, which is their adaptation of Macbeth with Denzel Washington and Francis McDormand. We are all super excited. But I delved into their last movie, which I was not uniformly a fan of. I thought it had its moments. But the Ballad of Buster Scruggs was, to me, not great. But one segment that I really liked, co-starred.

one Mr. Liam Neeson, and... Ah, yes. I'm going to give you Liam Neeson. Liam Neeson. But problem with Liam Neeson is how many indistinguishable action movies on various modes of transportation

are in his known for? It's a good question. It's a great question. So I'll just say Schindler's list. Correct. His Oscar nomination for Schindler's list. Yeah.

Okay. So that one makes sense. I'm just going to say taken. Shockingly, it's not. Wow. I know. Okay. The Dark Night.

Or not the Dark Night. Batman Begins. Not Batman Begins either. So that's two strikes already. Your years now are 2004, 2010 and 2011. 2004 is Kinsey, which is wild

because I didn't even get to things like Love Actually. Right. Kinsey, which he is great in. Great. Should have been nominated. Absolutely. Your other years are 2010 and 2011.

Okay, so is that before Taken? For your reference, Taken was 2008. Okay. So this is like kind of the rise of action Liam Neeson. I'm going to guess that there is, that these are going to be action movies as well. Is one of them the gray? Yes. Liam Neeson straps the tiny liquor bottles to his knuckles and tries to punch a wolf. A wolf in gray. Yes. Awesome. Perhaps a movie that is as much of a fuck you to the audience at the end as Burn After Reading because you wait the whole goddamn movie for him to fist fight a wolf

And it cuts to the credits just as it's about to happen. I don't think it's a terrible movie, but the people that like stump hard for it, like the bros that stump hard for that movie, I'm like, I feel like that stopped happening after a while. I feel like I don't hear anybody sort of like writing for the Grey anymore. To my money, nonstop is more fun than the Grey. But you know what? want me to be a real bitch. Let's talk

about the gray. Well, let's get you through the A team. It is the A team, you jerk? I can't believe you got that. You should have been stumped by that one. I couldn't remember any other action movie from that time that he was in. I know that there's more, but like, I remember

the A team showed up for somebody like Bradley Cooper one time. Wow. Other action movies around that time, he's in both Clash and Rath of the Titans. He is in Battleship, the notorious film Battleship. Rihanna Vehicle.

Yes. He's in the aforementioned nonstop, which is taken on a plane, which I really liked. Unknown is another one of those movies where he wakes up and he doesn't know who he is, and Diane Kruger is familiar to him. There is a walk among the tombstones, which had a scene filmed across the street from my old apartment in Hell's Kitchen, that took them, like, literally the better part of two days to film him walking out the front of an apartment building. It was a real lesson in how long it takes people to make movies.

He's in that movie Run All Night. And they all kind of blend together. Yeah. All right. All right, indeed. Mr. Neeson, come back to real movies. For you, Joseph, I have someone who was a precursor nominee this season. The star of the Best Picture winner of the season we're talking about.

Talking about Mr. Dev Patel. Ah, SAG nominee, Def Patel, as we were mentioning. Indeed. Well, obviously, Slumdog Millionaire is one of them. Slumdog is one of them. No television? No television. So no skins.

Okay. Devastatingly handsome, Dev Patel. Okay. Lion. Lion. Correct. He's so goddamn attractive in Lion. I can't deal with it!

Another film where he's the lead and he gets a supporting nomination, which don't get me started on the lead supporting designations in Lion, or I will be there all day. He is playing the lead character. I don't care how much of the film he is in. Co-lead shared with... The kid, the cute little kid. Yeah.

Okay. All right. I think that the David Copperfield one is probably too recent. The terrible David Copperfield one. I think it's fine. One of the worst movies I've ever seen at any Tiff. Your hatred for that movie is the wildest thing. Like the degrees of antipathy you have for that film.

I want to be on board with everything that that movie is trying to do. I thought it was an assault on my eyes. you're wild for this one i can't most of the performances were embarrassing oh my god you're so you're so i'm a grouch about it's a movie i'm just going to be a grouch about yeah clearly uh you're right that it's too new though yes all right um so other dev patel stuff also no tv meetings no the newsroom rap he's in the newsroom he's in the newsroom he's like their tech he's their like internet geek He's their token young person. Interesting.

Yes. So you can imagine all of the storylines that Aaron Sorkin whips up about the youngs in that movie. Okay. Anyway. Oh, is it Hotel Mumbai? No. Damn. Okay.

One strike. Dev Patel. I'm trying to think of like, oh, oh my God. I'm so stupid. for not getting there first. It's Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It is not Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Shut the fuck up.

I hate you. I hate you. Noted star of movies about hotels. He's not in Grand Budapest. He should be in Grand Budapest because he is like hotel actor. As soon as I thought of that, I was like, well, it's clearly both the best exotic Marigold Hotel and the second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which by the way. We really need to do Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

Okay, yes, if you just want to have me just weeping decency tears for two hours. I will talk about the best-exhaired hotel. I'll do that to you. I love that movie so much. Also, the fact that they titled the second movie, Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a triumph for populism because genuinely, everybody on Twitter who was like they should call it the second one, the second best exotic Marigold Hotel. And then they listened to us in the same way that. that now you see me refused to listen to us when we all said that the second one should be called, no, you don't.

It's sometimes good people get listened to, is all I'm saying. Is all I'm saying. That's, I, I, um, I, um, I, um, I, um, I, um, I, um, I, um, you're remaining years for death Patel are 2010 and 2015. All right. So, 2010, not too long after, uh, slumdog. And 2015 is this. year before Lion.

Correct. All right. All right. Where are we going with this? 2010. I feel like 2010 is when they started putting him in American movies that were like semi-anonymous, like, thriller type things, and he's, like, the third or fourth lead? No? Is he the lead in that movie?

I would bet that he's first build. I will double check that All right, and then 2015. He is a second build, which makes sense. Second build, second build, second build. Is it a romance? No. It's a genre movie.

Horror? No. Comedy? No. Sci-fi? Sci-fi action. Uh, would-be franchise. Oh.

From a director who is known for genre movies, but had, uh, not really done franchises, uh, in a way that was, like, IP previously. He's not in Pacific Rim, is he? It is not Pacific Rim. This is a disaster. This is like a, um, a regularly, uh, a regular movie. Oh, oh, oh. I never remember this movie because they never saw it. It's The Last Airbender.

Last Airbender. He is the villain of Last Airbender. Right. Right. Your 2015 movie, not a disaster, but definitely a punchline. Drama? No. Directors follow up to a Best Picture nominee.

Oh. Best Picture nominee from, like, The year before, or from a few years before? A few years. I forget if this was the direct follow-up or, like, the second movie they made after their Best Picture nominee. I'm going to look that up. No, it's the second movie they made after their Best Picture nominee. Okay.

God, and now we're talking about the Top Ten era of Best Pictures, so that's... Also a genre movie. Also a genre movie. Also sci-fi? Sci-fi. He's not in The Prometheus follow-up He is not

Dev Patel is the second build character Or the second build actor The first build actor Is mocap Oh shit And they like Oh No, it's not like, the title is a, the title is a punchline.

The title of the movie inspired a certain meme that you have terrorized me with in person. Ben is back? What was the Ben is Back meme that you terrorized me with? Oh, where you lean over to the person, you say that's the thing. Yes. What movie, to my knowledge, instigated that meme? Oh. Shit.

The first time I ever saw this meme was in reference to this movie. And it's sci-fi. It is sci-fi. And he's the second lead. He's the second build actor. So is the lead like an alien? The mocap guy is an alien? Not an alien, but you are close.

You are close in genre, for sure. Not an alien, but a creature of some kind? Yes, the first build actor that is in mocap is the title character of the movie. Oh. You're going to be really mad. You're going to be mad at me for even making you think about this movie. Oh my God, it's chappy. It is Chappie.

Mother, he's, his note for it. I'm going to take my date to Chappie and lean over and say, that's Chappie. Oh, my God. Charlton Copley, noted star of Chappie. Okay, can we talk about the buyer's remorse to deal with Neil Blom Camp and just the fact that, like, we all got so excited about District 9, a movie that does not hold up as well as you think of it. I think a little bit. I think there's still some stuff in District 9 that I'm just like, all right, this is a good stuff but like it does not hold up as a best picture nominee at all and it was the first year

of the 10 and they wanted to have something real populist and they kind of bristled at the idea that it was almost Star Trek but it ended up being District 9 because that felt more indie and artsy and then he just like the succession of middle fingers god we're talking about a lot about middle fingers but like the back to back of elysium and chappie where it's just like you thought this guy was good you dummies like It's so, oh my God. Chappie. Okay, Chappie is a robot, right?

Yes, Chappie is a robot. But, like, under his own power, like, it's fully autonomous? I don't know. He's supposed to basically be E.T. as a robot. How is Hugh Jackman not the lead of that movie? He's the villain. He's the villain. Okay.

Chappie. Fucking Chappie. What a year. What a time. That was early 2015. That was before 2015 started to become real toxic when, like, I feel like Trump really seeped in towards the end of 2015 and everything felt. That was when it all started to feel so dark. But, like, early 2015, we didn't know what we were in for, so we were still just, like, making Chappie jokes.

Sigourney Weaver's in Chappie? Hell yeah. She's in Chappie. You don't remember anything? I've never seen Chappie, my friend. Why would I have seen Chappie? bringing Chappie back into everyone's bread. You should.

Oh, boy. I think that's our episode. Burn after reading. Francis McDormand, probable nominee this year. Yeah, for No Bandland, I think I would pencil her in. For sure.

I would not pencil her in for a third win the way that some people think. I think it's possible. I think it's possible. Anything is possible, says Kevin Garnett and me. True. Yeah.

Joe, that's our episode. We'll burn this after we're done recording. Guys, we are taking, once again, we're taking our listeners choice submissions, tweet at us at had underscore Oscar underscore buzz, or email us at had Oscar buzz at gmail.com. Remember, no Oscar nominations must have been in some type of Oscar consideration, whether it's predictions or actual campaigns. One vote per person, please. Oh, and nothing from 2019. Yes. We've got to stick to our rules.

Don't worry, guys. You're getting Catsisode soon. Catsisode will happen. Yeah, that's not your Christmas present. If anybody out there can remember the exact date that I quoted for Catsisode, by the way, can you tweet that at us? Because it's on a Post-it note at my apartment that I'm currently not living at, so I don't know what I quoted, and I want to be consistent. So if anybody can remember, I mentioned it on an episode, and I, for the life of me, can't remember what one. But if it sticks in your head, the date that I quoted for Catsisode, please.

tell me, help me. Yeah. If you two have it on a posted note. Right, exactly. If you are anticipating it as much as we are and you wrote it down, we would appreciate it. Katasode's going to be a solid five hours, right? Oh, Katzisode is going to be an extravaganza. It's going to be something else. It's going to be a ball of a gelical variety. I'm going to actually, what I'll do is I will describe in detail my screening of was it Julietta? What was the movie that I was watching at a screening that I walked out of and the cat's trailer had dropped and I just like wept in a in a shippers as I was like drinking a milk shake? No, you saw it after you saw a pain and glory. That's what it was. It was pain and glory.

I knew it was an Almodivar. I knew I got my year wrong. It was pain and glory. You're absolutely right. Thank you. We'll save it for the cats a episode. We'll save it. Also, uh, my reference to my finest tweet I've ever had in my life. That was a joke for all of two people at the time. But yes, the Katz is out. Coming soon. But that was our burn after reading episode. If you want more This Had Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this had

oscarbuzz.tomber.com. You should also follow us on Twitter at had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz. Joe, where can listeners find more of you and your shit? Yeah, you can find my shit at Twitter at Joe Reed, read spelled R-E-I-D. You can also find me

on letterboxed. Joe Reed, read spelled the exact same way. I am now past my big watch a bunch of two thousand Oscar movies project and my big watch a bunch of drag queen movies project because we were on screen drafts. Go listen to that one by the way. Yes, go listen to both of those episodes.

Yes, really, really fun week for us of doing guest spots on podcast. And you should listen to both Little Goldman and screen drafts. We had a ball. But now I will be able to get to the task of catching up on all the 2019 movies or 2020 movies rather that I still need to watch. Ooh, I'll send you a list.

My letterboxed should be poppin at some point. All right. Cool. I'm going to work on that list of things that you need to watch. Meanwhile, I am on Twitter at Krisvi File. That's F-E-I-L. Also on letterboxed under the same name. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork

and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Mievous for their technical guidance. Please remember to rate and review us on Apple Podcast, Google Play, Stitcher, wherever else you get your podcasts, which now includes Spotify. Follow us on Spotify. A five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcasts, visibility so please uh tell us where we need uh no not not that not the plastic surgery not the fracking uh tell us where um um yeah just uh tell us where to keep our secret shit um give us a five star review we love uh that's all for this week uh we hope you'll be back next week for more bus you were working

without a net there truly that was uh something else forgot the ending joke forgot the ending Everyone says it's me Everyone's a winner, baby That's no lie You never fail To satisfy It's good Thank you.