This Had Oscar Buzz - 136 – White Oleander (with Nathaniel Rogers)

Episode Date: March 15, 2021

Pfor this week’s episode, we’ve invited The Film Experience creator and Michelle Pfeiffer superpfan Nathaniel Rogers back to discuss one of our listeners most requested films, 2002′s White Oleander. Based on the beloved novel by Janet Fitch, the film stars Allison Lohman as the teenage Astrid, who is plunged into the foster care system after … Continue reading "136 – White Oleander (with Nathaniel Rogers)"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hacks. I'm from Canada. I'm from Canada water. You know you've been through a terrible ordeal. Three foster homes in three years.

We just love her. She must be a great comfort to you. Not being able to have children of your own. What did you say to her? I'm only trying to protect you from those people. Those people are not the enemy, mother. Maybe this is forever. Forever

Faves away. Like a rocket ascending in dispense. You look at me, and you don't like what you see. This is the price, mother, the price of belonging to you. I made you. I'm in your blood. You don't go anywhere until I let you go.

Then let me go. Hello, and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast with an abundance of juices. God. 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're here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Chris Fyle. I'm here, as always, with one of the muses of my diorama suitcase art, Joe Reed.

You know, it impressed upon me, as you were reading that, that when we have guests on, they haven't heard our previous episode, because it's not out yet. and the little spiel we have at the beginning that is a reference to our previous podcast sometimes is a little bit of mystery and sometimes I'm just like, I wonder what they must make of that. And then this time, when it's about the abundance of juices,

that was Glenn Close's fantastic line of dialogue in the House of the Spirits, I was just like, that's a particularly spicy meatball, as they say. I would say that it's traumatic and that if you've heard it and seen House of the Spirits. spirits before you are unlikely to forget it's it's the ultimate if you know you know yeah yeah uh yeah uh yeah right off from the top guys we have a guess that we are very excited for very excited for this movie in particular and much of the topics will get into nathaniel

rogers is here welcome thank you thank you always happy to talk fifer yeah always of course um of Of course, we should introduce you as well. Of course, the listeners know you as the creator of the film experience. You are the super fan with a P, actressual ringleader. It's true. You're sort of the anthropological actress sexual scholar, I feel like. Is that the way I'm saying I'm old? You're the Jane Goodall of actresses.

Where's your Nat Geo documentary? That's a good question. Well, and also, like, we knew we wanted to talk Fypher. This will be coming out an Oscar nomination morning. We'll see what happens with French Exit, and we can talk about that later. But we wanted you here for Fyfer, and we threw out some of the Fyfer titles, and this was, like, the obvious one, right? Yes. I mean, what would be the point of my life if I didn't discuss this movie?

At every opportunity. It's one I bring up a lot when I talk about, like, Oscar nominations that I'm somewhat mystified. I mean, we'll get into it. There are definitely reasons why it didn't happen. But, like, I'm still just sort of just like, oh, that, like, it was right there. It was right there for you, Oscar voters. Alas. It's still painful all these years later.

It's so funny because, like, Michelle Pfeiffer is, like, synonymous with glamorous movie star. Like, she's the movie star of movie stars, and just, like, when people talk about, you know, what, especially, like, what sort of separates, like, an actress from a star, like, what has that, like, extra, like, quality. And she's always sort of, like, she embodies that. And she has, oddly enough, like, as many misses with Oscar as she has hits, if not more misses. And it's, it's just somewhat, there's that class of actress. is Meg Ryan, we've talked about a bunch on this podcast. In that same way, I'm just like, it's just strange that

it hasn't happened or happened more for Pfeiffer. It happened at all for Meg Ryan. And it's just like, but they're such big stars. They were. The very least they were. There's also not a lot of movies. Like, there's, yeah. Fyfer has three nominations and, like, not a ton

of movies. And as many in, like, what people might consider her comeback stage of the past like 20 years, right? Every movie is a comeback. She's at that stage now. She's at the stage where, like, every movie is a comeback for Michelle Piper. I have things to say about that, but they'll pop up orgasm.

Yes, absolutely. Before we get too deep into the movie, though, whenever we have a guest, and you are actually a returning guest, you were our first TIF episode recorded as, like, all of two in the morning. But we didn't do the whole guest spiel with you and other guests Nick Davis. So what we always like to talk about, and I'm really excited to hear your answer on this, because I don't know, or at least I don't remember if you've ever written about it before, we like to talk about your Oscar origin, what first initially got you interested in the Oscars, or like, if you can remember the first ceremony or first win that got you, like, interested or excited for the Oscars. Yeah, I definitely have one. We have to travel back to the 1980s. And the very first thing that I read my very first memory like a very cemented memory that I have of the Oscars is seeing the TV guide for the 1982 Oscars oh wow and just and just so everybody knows when I refer to an

Oscar when I refer to a date I'm talking about the film year and not you're in good company for us as well you're in the safe space people it's a safe space yelling at us like I'm silly that's the wrong year and it's like oh no no no no no no That's not the school we attend. So I was looking at a TV guide cover that had like, it had the statue on it, but it also had pictures of like E.T. and Gandhi and Tutsi. And I was like, what's this? Like this shiny object attracted my baby eyes.

And I was just like, what is this? And all I remember about the Oscars in my home, because my family wasn't, you know, we would go to the movies like any family did, but, you know, they weren't really into it. And all I remember about the Oscars in my home is that when when the word came up, it was always this disgruntled, oh, that's the people that denied Star Wars type of thing. I mean, that's, at least that's passion in one way or another. You know what I mean? There's at least there's at least feeling there.

Yeah, so I know for a fact that my family didn't watch the Oscars because it required me, I'm the baby, I'm the youngest, and it required me to be like movie obsessive for that to start happening at their home. And so, like, the very, I don't really, I have very vague memories of the, I was really young, and I have very vague memories of the 80s Oscars, except for that I do, one of my very exciting moments was interviewing Nicole Kidman for, um, the paper boy. And we found out the very first Oscar memory, both of us had in terms of the show itself was Shirley McLean winning the Oscar for terms of the game.

Oh, that's such a great one. One of the all-time greatest speeches. Yeah. One of the great speeches. And that's the, I, so I obviously watched that show because I had a very specific memory of her saying, you know, the show has been as long as my whole career. Right, right. She's got, like, four or five different lines in that that are, like, so funny.

Everybody remembers, I deserve this, but, like, there's just, like, there's so many. She's so funny. Turbulent brilliance. Turbulent brilliance of Deborah Winger, I will never forget my entire. Like, it's such a wonderful, like, a backhand that's not even intended as a backhand. Like, I don't even think Shirley thought she was being shady there, but, like, it's so descriptive of everything, of that whole relationship there. Oh, my God. Also, everybody remembers this show has been longer than my career.

That's probably, like, the number two behind I deserve this, which she totally deserved it. But correct me if I'm wrong. But, like, that ceremony, I think, was, like, an half hour or an hour longer than, like, normal ceremonies, or shorter than normal ceremonies. or shorter than normal ceremonies now. Oh, was it really? Oh, that's funny. I think I've seen those numbers somewhere before. I'll look it up later and see if I'm wrong or not. But that's what's so funny about when, you know, every year it's the annual panic that

the Oscars, that nobody's going to watch the Oscars this year. It always feels like there's that Kathy Griffin joke when she's talking about Celine Dion in Vegas. When Celine Dion walks onto the stage and every single time, she acts like she's surprised that anybody shows up at all. And she said that Celine must be thinking, like, what if this is the year they do not? What's, this is the night they do not come. And I always feel like that's the way with the Oscar producers where they're just like, they're so petrified that one year, nobody's going to show up. And so they get like really panicky about just like throwing out hosts and presenters and performances and whatnot.

Yeah. And but you look at. Well, they have to be panicking this year with the Golden Globe number is where it was like the three of us and a few errant homosexuals watched this year. Well, I mean, yeah. I mean, and it's, it's an earned panic. Oh, sure. Like, we're in force majeure times. Like, this is, like, this is brand new circumstances. But my thing is, if you look back at any clip from the 1980s or 70s even with the Oscars, the joke has always been that the ceremony is too long.

That's, like, the oldest joke in Hollywood is that, like, we're at the Oscars and we're going to be here until Tuesday. Like, that's generally the joke. And it's just like, okay, well, and it's in, we're still here. we survived all this time so yeah and yeah i do the only thing i remember about that oscars was surely saying that so i i doubt that i watched the whole thing right um because i don't i didn't i thought it was a funny line but i didn't really feel like yeah i don't remember anything else about the ceremony yeah so it wasn't until like the late 80s where i started like tracking it obsessively like i have a couple memories from like each of the 80s years

but then by like 88 for example I remember like totally waiting for the nominations yeah you know well you have I know wondering which clips they would select all that stuff oh well yes that's you know the parlor game of parlor games but I know just from reading you as long as I have

and you have sort of these longstanding and I'm just going to say grudges but in the most complimentary way about like about like a special especially best actress wins. Like, if you have, like, very strong opinions about, like, 86 best actress and the Grace Kelly best actress, and you're just sort of, like, going, you know, all the way back. So, like, there's, when the rooting interest sort of takes hold, then that I think, I, because

my whole Oscar thing is just, like, I was rooting sight unseen, by the way, for Pulp Fiction to beat Forrest Gump, because Pulp Fiction was the cooler film at the moment. And I think that really, like, if you can, if you can, if you can. And find a way to be invested in someone winning over someone else, be it either, you know, happy or angry about it, it really helps, you know, foster the obsession. Yeah, yeah, it all happened very, like, across a decade of becoming more and more obsessed, and then I was, you know, hopeless by the end of the 80s. Yeah. It was my life by the end of the 80s. I got to say, like, that truly is, like, the inception of, uh,

true obsession if it happened to you in the 80s Oscars because I've been going back and watching like wins that I've never seen before and for months I've been trapped in a purgatory of the 80s Oscars. So like I think that really distills how rich your obsession and like part of your identity is with the Oscars because some of those wins, man. Yeah, well as as Joe said about me holding grudges. Maybe the 80s formed me because the 80s were the worst for how they treated the actresses. Yeah. All of, like, Kathleen Turner, Michelle, like, going close, all these people who by any stretch of the imagination should be Oscar winners are not. Yeah. Well, so that was, I was going to sort of transition from that. Of the three Fyfer Oscar losses, which one,

and I think I know the answer to this, but I'm just going to ask it anyway, which one do you hold the biggest grudge for the winner of among Emma Thompson, Gina Davis, and Jessica Tandy. I mean, a thousand percent Jessica Tandy.

Yeah, I knew this is good. I was so angry about that because I was like, you know, people kept treating it like a career win. Oh, we have to honor this legend. I'm like, she's barely made any movies. She's not a movie legend. So like, that was very frustrating for me, that whole narrative.

Sure. Well, and if they only knew that she was going to get fried green tomatoes a few years later, they could have given her. Not that I would have hated for Mercedes-Rull to have gotten usurped instead. Right. By the elder, itchy thread good. By the elder, itchy thread good. Exactly. Exactly.

God, the Jessica Tandy moment was such a, it's funny how we, this is going to sound condescending, but like we do sort of like fall in love. with older actresses for like a minute where like there was that glorious stu in the 80s Geraldine page also was the same in the 80s well Geraldine page was the finest actress that f. Murray Abraham has ever has ever known so the greater I didn't I didn't I was like I consider her to me that's the funny part about the F. Murray Abraham thing is that he doesn't just be like this is my favorite actress he goes I consider this woman to be the finest actress in the entire world and That's so funny. But, like, Gloria Stewart and June Squibb were sort of all of a sudden, like,

Hollywood sort of, like, latches on to just like, this is the old lady we like right now. Mm-hmm. Can I say one thing about how I was dumb when I was younger? I, for the longest time, until I was probably an adult, I thought that I'm on Cloud 9 meant I'm 90 years old. because in Jessica Tandy's Oscar speech She says, I'm on cloud nine And everybody claps

And I didn't realize that means I'm happy You thought that was a euphemism for like When you were in your 70s, you're on cloud seven I'm in my ninth decade I'm in my ninth decade I guess you call that I love that

So great I love that kind of stuff No listen It's Jessica Tandy's fault She misled you Like We'll blame her that is definitely the one that like feels like it got away for Pfeiffer because like I feel like

Fabulous Baker Boys like not to dwell on uh you know the pandemic and like all of that but it feels like the internet has crystallized around several different movies like it definitely happened for Moonstruck this year and I'm just waiting for it to happen for Fabulous Baker boys because like all those people that are now obsessed with Moonstruck if they got their hands on fabulous Baker boys, I think they'd lose their mind. Yeah, people seem, people seem to think I'm crazy and it's just the Pfeiffer thing that I say it's one of the best movies of the 80s, but no, it's one of the best movies of the 80s. I think if you talk to the, like, any critic who, you know, has seen it and remembers it

and has written about it sort of, you know, critically, I think they tend to agree. Like, I always hear, you don't hear people talk about the movie very much, but when you do, people are very, very sort of glowingly complimentary of it, because it is. And it's one of those, you know, we talk about like they don't make movies like this anymore, but they really don't. And it's also one of those great performances where she's a lead actress in the movie, but she's not, like, it's called the Fabulous Baker Boys because, like, so a lot of the focus of the film is on the brothers. And she sort of steals it from them in a way. that isn't sort of when you talk about

like somebody stole a movie out from under people it always always feels very like hammy or very you know over the top or whatever and it's not that with her but like she absolutely you walk out of that movie

and you're just like oh my god like you only want to talk about Michelle Pfeiffer and it's again it's star power it's performance it's all of that yeah it's exactly the kind of thing you want to you know give an Oscar to and she won the Golden Globe for that

I know that, like, we're in a very fraught place with the Golden Globes these days. But, like, that's one of those moments. We're just like, hey, like, if not for the Golden Globes, she wouldn't have gotten, you know, anything major for it. Yeah, I mean, the gold, I mean, we'll get into that, too. But the Golden Globes really love her, or are they used to? Right. So, yeah. But thank God, because otherwise she wouldn't have a statue for that movie.

Right. So what, for our listeners who maybe are not familiar. with this movie, though, I think a lot of them are, because this is one they've been begging us to do for a while. What is it about White Oleander of a lot of the Fyfer options that makes you, like, pick this one? Oh, it's the simple fact that I think it's one of her three best performances. Like, I think it's legitimately a great performance. I think she really kind of wholeheartedly elevates the movie, because, like, we'll get

into the book and like the Oak's Book Club of it all but I have like some problems with the movie itself and it's just like you really feel it coming alive and becoming the best version of itself

when she's on screen and when she's bringing what she brings to the table to it. So I think it's like it's the performance itself is great but her actual impact on the movie is really size. as well.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and part of that is that that's the function of the character in the story, too, where she just looms so large over everything. And, but the flip side of that is, that's a challenge then to the actress that you have to live up to the sort of legend that the rest of the movie sets up for you. And she absolutely, you know, fulfills that. She was in one of the interviews that I watched today that she gave about this movie.

She talked, I think, in a couple of them, about how the author of the book, Janet Fitch, had Fyfer in mind when she wrote that character. And so, like, you can tell because, like, and you get it in the voiceover in the movie, which absolutely, like, I'm certain is, you know, word for word from the book. but talking about how she was the most beautiful person I had ever seen and a lot of people say that about their mothers but she was the most beautiful woman that most people had ever seen and I'm just like well yeah

that's the Michelle Pfeiffer of it all like that's the one where you're just sort of just like that kind of intimidating beauty sort of hard I read the book before the movie was in

you know in production and well we'll talk about the book too for the Oprah of it all but um the uh the in the very first like chapter there's a sentence and i still remember to this day because like when i heard michel was doing the movie i was like oh my god perfection um but i didn't know that the author had had her in mind and the description of the character is her beauty was like the edge of a very sharp knife yeah i mean and i'm like that's her yeah yeah well and even just the way she's styled in this movie where like her hair is just like sharp straight you know what I mean it's just like there's absolutely no

texture to it whatsoever it is you could you know you could cleave a stack of papers in half with that with that hair and it she wears a ponytail in one scene and you can see that it's been slashing her back as she's been walking back and forth right right exactly which is kind of it sort of reminded me a little bit about how we've decided we're going to we're going to style right Rosamond Pike whenever she plays Americans. It's just this very kind of, you know, intimidation as character, as aesthetic kind of a thing. Very brave of you to bring up Rosamond Pike after those globes. Hey, that was one of the best parts of that is that just like the globes were kind of a mess this year in all sorts of directions, but some of those

wins were really surprising. And listen, that's what I'm, you know, That's what I'm here for is for an award show to give me something that I was not expecting. So I was happy with that at least. Well, perhaps before we get too deep into the movie, because we're waiting into those waters, we can do the 60-second plot description. Nathaniel, if you are primed and ready to go to describe the movie in 60 seconds. Okay. All righty.

So we are here to talk about White Oleander, directed by Peter Kuzminsky, adapted by Mary Agnes Donahue, the screenwriter of Beaches, from the novel by Janet Fitch, film stars Alison Lohman, Michelle Pfeiffer, Renee Zellweger, Robin Wright, we will get into that, Noah Wiley, Patrick Fugett, Cole Houser, Amy Aquino, and Taryn Manning, briefly. The movie premiered in wide release, one of, I looked it up, six wide releases. Wow. on October 11th, 2002. Nathaniel, if you are ready for a 60-second plot description of white oleander,

we will start your time if you are ready. Yes. All right, and your 60-second plot description of white oleander starts now. A young girl of an unknown age, Astrid, is recalling her adolescence for us in voiceover narration while making suitcase dioramas. turns out her mother, a famous artist, Ingrid Magnuson, up and killed her boyfriend because he wasn't properly obsessing over her

or some such. The details are vague. So she ends up in prison and Astrid ends up in the foster system where she jumps from home to home, experiencing Jesus Freaks, insecure actresses, Russian capitalists, and she falls for it. She's also an artist and falls for another artist and regularly visits her mother in prison, where her mother continues to be a toxic influence on her life. And then she leaves the foster system at the end. Yeah, basically. Yeah, it's one of those, it's almost like a travel log of, of hardship or tragedy or something like that.

that she kind of, that's why the suitcase motif feels very on the nose where it's just like, oh, right. And very pat for what the movie's doing. Like, it's almost like this kind of grim metaphor with how the movie adapts the book where it's like, it just packages away each of these little experiences for her. The closest it comes to...

Go ahead. Go ahead. I was just going to say, the closest it comes to plotiness is the thing towards the end where it's just like, is she going to testify on behalf of her mother to, you know, possibly get her conviction overturned or her sentence commuted or whatever? And that even comes to, you know, it sort of fizzles out a little bit in that, like, that revelation that, you know, oh, she said to leave you alone and she walks out of the prison. By the way, in the most glam-looking, like, prison garb ever, it reminded me, Because she's walking out, and she's got this sort of like this white, again, crisp, unimpeachably, like, white and sharp-collared, and it's like, the collar is very cheap.

The contractually obligated white, crisp, collared shirt. It reminded me when I was at ABC and working with the soaps, and there was a storyline where Erica Kane and all my children, Susan Lucie, went to prison for something or another. Like, who can remember these days? But the scenes, she's in jail, and she's got. got this, like, fully tailored orange prison jumpsuit with, like, a collar and rolled up short sleeves, and it's, like, cinched at the waist. And it's a whole, like, it's the most fantastic costuming decision I've ever seen on a soap opera. I'm just like, God, I love this show so much. And that's sort of the first thing that came to my mind when I saw Fifer

what getting sort of like perp walked out of the courtroom. And I'm just like, God, she looks fabulous. It's amazing. well the crazy thing is she got so much flack for that in the reviews and in the sort of discourse around this movie but but her sort of insane beauty is the point right exactly right exactly yeah um like the book describes her as very nordic she tries to pass off this lie that they're descendant from viking vikings yeah yeah um like yeah that's absolutely the point and that's absolutely um a huge part of ingrich's draw all right, that she weaponizes against people. Yeah. Yeah. To the whole, like, compartmentalization of the movie, like, I remember being very excited for this movie.

I loved the book. I've read this book multiple times, including I was assigned it in college, and I was like, cool, I've read this book before. Great. It's so trunk. By the way, no better feeling in college when you get assigned to read a book that you've already read. You're just like, you really feel like one.

You just really feel like you just, like, you nailed it. I was just like, yes. Uh-huh. I think I read it either in, like, a female author class, something like that in college. Yeah. But the book really goes into, like, I think the longest stretch of the book, and I suppose it's the longest stretch of the movie, but there's a lot more detail when she's in the Russian capitalist, Rina's House. That's like my favorite stretch of the book.

like Astrid really kind of starts to come into her own and it feels so miniature in the movie like everything feels so condensed to be an under two hour movie and like I hate to do the whole it would be a limited series now and I've said that so many times it absolutely would but it would also be better sure it would yeah um and like it would do right by the rest of these actresses that aren't Michelle Pfeiffer and Alison Loman um And, like, nobody is phoning it in in this movie. No, absolutely not. So the movie gets, you know, like, flack and people don't think it's very good.

But the cast is really quite good. Oh, yeah. Across the board. That's absolutely the strong movie. Yeah. And I think Renee Zellweger is, like, pretty amazing in this, especially the scenes with her, the scene, I guess, but it's a couple different moments with her and Michelle Pfeiffer are, it really made me want those two to do another movie together again.

Like, I would really really. love to see those two sort of add it again. My thing... I did not... Go ahead. I did not expect my grudges to be brought up in this box.

But it is just so funny that we're discussing a movie that's also a Renewr-Zell-Wicker movie since for many years I referred to her as she who must not be named. But I also think she's fantastic in this movie. She's really good, I think.

It's an interesting movie. to think about with her career, especially after the Judy campaign brought up a lot of the stories of her career where she was constantly working herself, like, to the ground and, like, should have maybe turned down some of these movies. And, like, she plays the, like, actress who can't get work. And they literally show a clip from her Texas Jane Saw Masker movie in this. Yeah. Even at the time, it felt a little spooky, for lack of a better word, Like something, something feels autobiographical here. Too real.

Not to put too much on it. So, like, it is interesting watching her stretches in this movie now, considering the much better place she's in. I absolutely agree about the performances, I think, especially, this time watching it especially, because this is probably like the fourth or fifth time I've seen this movie. I've seen this movie a bunch. I've always You know Fyfer's always been on a pedestal for this movie I've always loved this performance

Lohman really impressed me this time around That the fact that she and Fyfer really do feel like They are the twin pillars Of this movie especially in their scenes together I think it's a really good Loman performance My thing with The film The story the screenplay

And sort of like movies like this And maybe we can use this to sort of ease into the Oprah discussion. I've talked a little bit about how I used to work at the public library when I was in high school in the late 90s. And this kind of era of Oprah's book club dominance, but so many of these, the books that were very popular then, were these books that, like, for lack of a better description,

just like it was a series of the worst possible thing that could ever happen, happening, sort of like over and over and over again, too, especially, like, in this, just this young girl who just goes from, like, one terrible foster situation to another. And I remember there was this very popular book at the time when I was at the library called A Boy Called It. And it was about just this, this boy who, like, went through this, like, horrific child abuse and locked in the basement and all this sort of stuff. And it was always sort of, it was, it's always a little bit strange to me that these books were so popular because it's just like, it's just a lot of misery. I thought of that when I, when everybody was reading a little life and I did as well. A book that I actually, I did very much, was engrossed in and enjoyed, but that had that same sort of literary tendency of just like, oh, God, what's the next thing that's going to happen? What's the next awful, terrible thing? What, you know, and in this one, it's just like, well, her mother gets sent to jail. she gets thrown into the foster system

she gets accused of trying to sleep with her foster mother's boyfriend, she gets shot, and then she goes into a group home, and she gets assaulted. That absolutely tracks to me. Like, there's a lot...

Go ahead. Yeah, it's very vague in the movie, but I think that's one of the movie's truncation problems. Yes. Is that it's trying to race you through like each one of these vignettes, you will, could have been... Well, as we said, they would have been whole TV episodes in a miniseries. I think you get

also, especially in the early parts of this movie, I was really like, we always bitch about voiceover in films. I always feel like Brian Cox and adaptation about God help you if you have a voiceover narration. But like, especially at the beginning of this movie when we get

Astrid sort of talking about her mom and she's, you know, she's talking about how tells us how she started dating the guy and we used to sort of have a laugh about him. And she used, my mother always said to me, XYZ. And I'm just like, well, you have Michelle Pfeiffer right there. She could just say it herself. Like we have, you know, you're paying her already. Might as well have her speak these lines. But that, it all, it all felt very much like the getting to the part where Ingrid gets sent

away to prison really got fast forwarded in this, where even if you watch the trailer, Stephen Root is in the trailer talking about, says the line about, you know, white oleander's poisonous. I don't know why people grow it. And so you can tell, and there's more, it seems like there's more Billy Connolly as the, you know, ill-fated boyfriend than we end up getting. So it feels like. You barely see his face in the movie to know that it's Billy Connolly. So it really feels like a lot was cut out of that portion of the movie. and it just, it felt like glossed over.

Well, there's a certain level that the Ingrid portions of the movie, there's a fluidity to them. They kind of blur time. I mean, like, Astrid's slashing back, but, like, you see bigger chunks of that story later on than you expect to. And it made me wish that, like, not that it was all jarbled in time, but that there was a little bit more fluidity with these other foster homes that Astrid has put in because it just all. feels like these blunter objects in the story. Well, and then maybe it would have more of an impact at the end when she is able to lay out her life in suitcases sort of linearly. Like, then maybe that becomes a little bit of a hard one triumph,

where, you know, she's able to assess these things that have happened to her and these things that she has gone through a little bit better. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, because. the way the movie starts with you seeing the the suitcase is a little bit like every TV episode like and then and then we jump back 36 hours to see how we got there right right exactly yes but but I I will say one thing about the movie that I think it sort of works even though it's coming from this place that makes a lot of things not work is because it's so vague you sort of are with Pfeiffer early on and it takes you a while to catch up to how sociopathic she actually is.

Which I think is an it actually works for the movie because you're more, it places you more in Astrid's mindset, like where she worshipped this woman. And then comes to realize, oh wow, my mother is toxic. Right.

Well, and as you go along, you get more, not exactly into Ingrid's head. I don't think you're ever really quite there, but you get her, you know, the psychology of this woman sort of becomes revealed more and more. Even in just the way she reacts to things like Astrid talking about the Jesusy aspects of Robin Wright's family and when she, you know, and Astrid's sort of a little sunny about it and a little optimistic about it or at least, you know, and that becomes a threat then to Ingrid. And you see that sort of. of like in her face and just her reaction to that. And then that leads you to, well, you know, now Renee Zellweger's character is also a threat and here's what she's going to do about it. And by the end where you get this reveal of what happened in the early years of Astrid's life and, you know, who her father was and what kind of how that really sort of set Ingrid

off in terms of how she would react to, you know, men and children and all through her life. And you sort of like unravel that ball of yarn a little bit with her. And she lets that all unfold really interestingly. Yeah, I love that. I love the final confession scene where you get all that story. it is surprising that just on a performance level like that Pfeiffer didn't get this is a very very packed year for actresses in both lead and supporting category very competitive but it is still a little surprising even for the movie to have not been received well that Pfeiffer didn't get further or wasn't more of a threat to like win or even just to get nominated because every single one of her scenes is huge, and every single one of her scenes could be an Oscar clip.

Right. And it's one of those performances that is a true supporting performance that, nonetheless, whenever she's on screen, she's the lead of her. She's in charge of her scenes. And so it's the perfect kind of formula for a supporting performance that, you know, is memorable and is impactful Yeah, I mean If her child had been a boy

You might have even had And the movie had been beloved You might have even had to silence a lamb situation Where she was promoted to lead Because of how impactful Like the movie Every time it goes back to her The movie comes alive

Yeah We kind of almost got towards Like the book conversation And I think one of the things we should bring up, because I could have sworn that we'd had an Oprah's book club movie. Me too, actually. Yes. And maybe we just talked about it tangentially. But we should mention this was an Oprah's Book Club book, which at the time, this is pre a million little pieces where it's like that was considered a very prestigious literary thing for like contemporary literature for Oprah to select.

to you. And it's like any of those books that were selected were automatically hits. They were given a certain regard, like all of the Wally Lamb books. Oprah was a huge proponent for Tony Morrison's books.

The Wally-Lam books, too. That's another one where it's just like, oh my God, just like this series of the worst possible thing that's ever happened. God, it's amazing. Yeah. But, like, all of the film adaptations that came from Oprah's Book Club books are basically this had Oscar buzz movies.

Yes, absolutely. Or very close to be. Or sometimes nominated. Like, the reader was even an Oprah's Book Club book. That one I totally don't remember. But, like, Deep End of the Ocean was hugely popular. Again, back to my, like, library days. Like, you could not keep a copy of Deep End of the Ocean on a shelf.

Like, there was a waiting list a mile long. This was the dominance of the Oprah's Book Club And House of Sand and Fog, dido, Map of the World I'm And Deep End was also a Michelle Piper movie Oh yeah, we got to do Deep End of the Ocean at some point Like we got it just that's Deep End of the Ocean would be a good opportunity

To talk about Whoopi too Oh yeah, that's a really good point And so the only real Go ahead No no, go ahead No I was going to say The interesting thing about Michelle being in two of those is that in one, she's, like, perfectly cast. It could not be better suited for her.

And in the other, she's horribly miscast. Like, I had read Deep End of the Ocean when Oprah selected it. I was one of those people who were like, oh, I got to read this. And I never would have thought of Michelle for it, and I don't think she's very good in it. She's also a perfect mother in one and a horrible mother in the other. Right. But yeah, you talk about, like, a map of the world and, you know, love in the, well, love in the time of cholera is when the Oprah's book club then decided to be about sort of classic stuff. And I think that was after the A Million Little Pieces, sort of flesh wound on. Love in the time of cholera, she selected right before the movie came out. So I'm sure that was like a marketing type of tie in situation. Yeah. Yeah, it's an interesting because, like, again, the Oprah seal of approval made those books absolutely bulletproof.

Like, you, like, they were instant bestsellers. They were just, like, enormous. The fact that, you know, most of them got movie adaptations is absolutely due to, you know, the Oprah influence. And yet, almost all of them, with the exception, really of House of San Diego. Sandin Fogg, which had, you know, success in certain Oscar categories. But, like, most of them ended up becoming disappointments as films just in terms of, like, their successes. And, again, it's one of those things where it's just like...

Or just not well reviewed, because even, like, the reader is the best picture. Right. Oh, right. The reader. Nobody likes that movie. Right, right, right. Exactly. Where the heart is the scene is, like, junk, right?

even though I will watch some where the heart is. Like, that's one of those ones where, like, I've caught that one on cable a few times. And I'm just like, sure, I will. Sure, I will watch this movie with Natalie Portman and Ashley Jett. Absolutely, I will. But it also, it's very indicative of just like different marketplaces, have different barometers for success and different, you know, things that are valued. And as films,

the Oprah book club sort of genre and there was certainly sexism was part of that where it's just like these are you know stories largely about women and you get you know these are you know these are lifetime movies

and yada yada yada even though something like the deep end of the ocean really could have been a lifetime movie you know what I mean that kind of thing but that's just that's like that's you know there are good ones and there are bad ones and but I think as films

Oprah's book club was a little bit of a, if not a hindrance, that at least it boxed these movies in with a certain amount of the audience or critics or the industry. I mean, like, I agree with the negative assessments

of the movie while also thinking that, like, some of that was exacerbated by a certain degree of what you're talking about here of, like, sexism and, like, see, looking askance at this, like, it could be, A Lifetime movie. The thing is, like, I think this is a really good book.

I did really like this book and, like, you know, discussing it in, like, college classes and stuff. Like, the language of it is, like, kind of what makes it. And, like, it's not a huge book, but, like, sitting with, like, Astrid's situation, like, rather than speeding through all of these houses, really, like, prevents it from being that type of. of modeling thing and you're really watching this character grow as she goes through these experiences and you're watching her awareness of who her mother is evolve or I guess reading if you're reading a book you're not watching in a way that like if the movie could capture that better I would hope that there would be less of those type of comparisons and complaints Yeah.

You talk about sort of like loving the Rina portions of the book. And in the... The portions where Katia Zamolochikva plays Bibi New Worth. Basically, well, it's so funny in watching it unfold in the movie. Because, like, Amy Aquino is, like, the picture of compassionate competence in this film, where she's just, like, she shows up and she's, you know, a functionary, but you at least, you know, trust that, like, Astrid must be in good hands, because this woman has it together.

And yet, like, there's that moment where you see Rina sort of walking across the lawn in her heels and mini-skirt and leopard print and all this sort of stuff. And she's, like, she's stumbling in the grass because her heel gets stuck in the mud or whatever. And she just looks like an absolute, like, red flag, well, walking red flag, essentially. And Astrid goes, I want her. Well, she's Russian. Right.

Well, and Astrid goes, I want her. After, like, Amy Keene was trying to place her with this, like, perfectly boring, nice family. And Asher goes, I want her, and they don't cut to Amy Aquino's face. And I think part of it is, because then the movie would be over. Because Amy Akina would be like, fuck, are you kidding me? Absolutely not. But that's the reaction I kind of wanted to see also. It's just like, anybody with their head on straight would just be like, what the actual fuck are you talking about? She's going to sell you to a Saudi prince. Like, what is going on? Like, this woman does not have your best interest in art.

It's amazing. The visual of that alone. Well, and what actually happens is she kind of like teaches her to like stand on her own feet and like... It's capitalism. It's capitalism. This country likes money like I like money. Well, also, I think what's so great about that is that it is sort of like this weird segue from what Ingrid in the prison is trying to teach

Ostrud. And so it's almost like revenge against Ingrid at the same time that it's actually doing what Ingrid's asking her to do. So in terms of wanting her to learn from her experiences. Yeah.

Instead of going for what's easy. But it also feels like a very hostile accepting of someone's advice. Like I think it's like psychologically really fascinating. Which is why I wish that people were nicer to the movie, even if they didn't think it was good, if you know what I mean. Yeah.

Yeah. I think I'm in that boat where it's just like I, the weaknesses of the movie really were more pronounced to me watching it this time. And the strengths also were in that way where I do feel like the performances are really good. And things like, well, we're going to depict the idyllic nature of her time with Claire, with the Renee Zellweger character. by showing them running on a beach sort of arm and arm, and I'm just like, guys, it's just, it's pretty, it's a lot. It's, it's pretty unsubtle. It's just sort of just like running and laughing on a beach, and I'm just like, okay.

It's the antithesis, because it's, uh, ultimately like the most devastating home that she's in. Uh, it's like the antithesis of, uh, something's got to give in terms of beige sweaters. Oh, yes. It's very, yes, beige sands, uh, kind of a thing. the beige sands beach club that they uh that they uh spend time at i guess all of her homes are traumatic but like at least in the way that it registers in the book like this is the real breaking point for astrid um what she goes through in rene's outwiger's home the thing i noticed watching it that i remembered this time around that i'm sure must have been much more impactful in the book because you probably had more time with it is her relationship with the little boy in robin wright's home who she seemed to really bond with and he was the

one who called the police after she got shot. And Melissa McCarthy, by the way, shows up, which I was not prepared for. Our first Melissa McCarthy episode is Wilde-Oleander. Just the angelic face of Melissa McCarthy. I, too, have been rescued by Melissa McCarthy. And it's so funny because she shows up and literally just like her face comes into Astrid's view and she's coming to, and I'm just like, I literally gasped. I just yelped.

I was so happy to see her. I did not remember her being in this movie whatsoever. I did not either. And she gets, like, full close-up. I mean, it's like Melissa McCrothood. Oh, yeah. There she is. But the relationship with the little boy, I feel like if I, it must have in the book, felt

even more devastating that she, like, she just never sees this kid again after being, because they have that really nice little scene where she's just sort of like, you know, talking to him. And it feels like she has a sibling for a moment. Well, and Robin Wright's character, if I'm remembering the book, correct. assaults the child in a separate incident, like breaks his arm or something. Yeah, because he's wearing a sling

in one scene. Yeah. But there's no context for that. Right. Yeah. Robin Wright is good in this movie with a pretty impossible character. I feel like this woman is a walking I don't know,

halter top. Like there's... Robin Wright rules, guys. Yeah. How did they... How did they... How did she ever get approved to have foster children? No, that's my going back to Amy Aquino's quiet competence. I'm just like, lady, like, you really seem to be good at your job. And yet, you just keep dropping her off in the most, like, literally when she's walking in to Robin Wright's house and Robin Wright is just sort of just like, oh, that's my other daughter, she sucks.

And I'm just like, you're going to leave her here with this woman who's obviously terrible? Like, what the fuck? That's like the best, one of the best scenes in the movie to me, it's certainly that don't include Michelle Pfeiffer, is that introduction where it's like this cyclone labyrinth of a double wide that is all done in one take, and Robin Wright is like a full neon monster taking Astrid through the auriboros of this double wide. Right.

That like all of these rooms are connected somehow. Right. So good. And, like, the foster system in this country is obviously not perfect. You know what I mean? It's like, we don't want to be naive about the fact that, like, yes, like, unfit parents get foster children. You know, I don't know. I don't know about often.

I don't know you numbers here. But you know what I mean? I don't want to be, like, naive about that. But the movie is particularly kind of, you feel like a little bit of insidiousness would have benefited that portion of the movie, a little bit more of just like, oh. Maybe it doesn't seem fully aware of, like, the system as a problem. Or aware of it on a very shallow level. Do you know what I mean? Where it's just like, well, she's in the system and the system is bad.

Yeah, I kept thinking of it of short-term 12, which, of course, when, which would be another, the sad Oscar was. Very. Because, of course, when White O'Leander came out, short-term 12 did not exist. So I think Wait, O'Leander was the first movie I saw about the foster system. But Shortcheng 12 has, it has these, like, nightmare situations within it. But it also has, you know, the balance. You do understand that some of the characters had really great experiences that sort of saved their lives. Right, right.

It's, it's a much more interesting, I think, take on the foster system because it views sort of, like, you know, all of the possible problems and solutions. of it yeah the 2002ness of this movie really comes through in a lot of different ways one of those ways is obviously Renee Zellweger but like the fact that Patrick Fuget is the boyfriend I'm just like oh I know exactly what you this was you know what I mean and he's very sweet like he you know he doesn't really have a ton of heavy lifting to do in this movie but he's sort of the picture of um you know this sweet artistic boy that she obviously you know, he's a little bit, a little bit of a lifeline for her. And the movie doesn't do, and obviously the book, likely not either, doesn't really care about making him a savior for her.

And I was happy for that. But you, like, that's really good casting, I feel like, because, like, he's the epitome of look at that face on that boy. Like, look at that face. You can, you know, how could you be mad at that face? And, like, that's basically all you need him to do. Heardly conceivable boyfriend and girlfriend, too. Yes, yeah, yes, exactly. Yeah.

Guys, what's Alison Lohman doing right now? That's my question. I know. Like, she left us with, um... She got dragged to hell and she's never returned. Favorite of hers. Yeah. It's too bad.

She's good. She's really good. Another, another 2000 thing, 2002 thing about this movie is the whole like subplot. Or it's not even a subplot. It's like a tiny, tiny niche plot within one of the subplots. is Cole Houser's character sort of sleeping with his ostensibly his stepdaughter?

Yeah. And the movie doesn't even seem to It doesn't admit that that's what's going out But that's clearly what's going on And the movie doesn't seem to be blaming him Cowardly and allowing you to decide If it happened or not Where it's explicit in the book

And at this point, Astrid is 14 years old Yeah Yeah, and like Like today, obviously, that they wouldn't have handled that plot in the same way. Because even within this movie, which is a very, you know, female-centric movie, they sort of blame Robin Wright for that whole situation. Yeah, it definitely doesn't see him in a way that is like grooming. Right.

Or, like, you know, he has control and he can put a stop to certain things. Right. And I don't think it's perspective on that. character is very good but again like truncating everything it makes for mistakes like this I noticed this time through that the very first name that came up on screen was John Wells a John Wells production and I was like oh my arch enemy because he also made a complete mess and a reductive mess of August Ossage County, which is so brilliant. Sure. Yeah.

Which is so brilliant on stage and of course was a mess of a movie. And yeah, it just reminds you that some like adaptations are not easy. Like you really do have to have like artistry to pull them off. And I think especially adaptations like this where, you know, the overarching story is a lot more episodic is probably even more difficult to make interesting because you can just, like kind of fall into this boring, hop-scotchy, um, like storytelling structure. Yeah. It almost felt like a biopic in that greatest hits from Astrid's life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. At the very end, if she turned out to become like a Supreme Court justice,

you would have been like, oh, yeah, okay. Like, that's the moments that built their love. Today we call them artists. Today we call them suitcases. Yeah. Yeah. She is like the inventor of, um, What's that suitcase company? Oh, Samsonite? She's like the CEO of Toomey. Yeah.

Oh, right. Yes. Yeah, what's the really good suitcase that's trendy now that I definitely want but is too expensive? She's that. She invented that. The one where you can plug your iPod into it or whatever. Your iPod. What the fuck you are I talking about?

Jesus Christ. Speaking of 2002. It is very now. It is very current with iPods. Yes. Yeah. But so the movies reviewed decently. Fyfer's reviews are much better for her, sort of specifically.

She's singled out. She wins a couple of these sort of smaller Critics Circle Awards. She wins at Kansas City. Like regional prizes. And San Diego. And then the height of her progress in award season is she's nominated for the SAG Award in Supporting Actress, partially because So Nathaniel, you'll remember this as well as anybody.

Was it that Meryl Streepin adaptation was slotted as a lead at SAG and then wasn't nominated because she competed with herself for the hours? Or did they just not like Merrill? I think that's what happened. I think that's what happened, if I recall correctly. Yeah, that's sort of my memory. Because it's the same as the Oscar lineup except for Meryl. Right.

Yeah, and also, but I mean, if we're talking about, like, the race for supporting actress this year, the reason, the person I blame for Michelle's miss is Cameron Diaz, who also wasn't nominated. I was going to say, go on. That was her in games of New York. She also wasn't nominated, but she, but, you know, the Globes had been, like, major fanatics with a P.F., right? They had nominated Michelle six years consecutively, which is like a big deal. And then this movie came around where she was even better than many of the nominations they gave her. And then they just went with Cameron Diaz and Gangs of New York.

Now, I am not a Cameron Diaz hater. I think she's been brilliant in some things, but that is a nothing performance. That's a universally disliked performance. I don't think anybody's going to be mad at you for saying that. I'm a fan of Cameron Diaz, and that is, yeah, she's bad in that movie. We can say that. I think we can see it. And yeah, she shows up with a globe.

nomination, which I think effectively killed Michelle's momentum, because the Globes would have made her, you know, it would have been like, oh yeah, we love Michelle Fiver. She's amazing in that movie. So even though she got the sag subsequent to the Golden Globes, you think of like she was already, it was already too hobbled. I think it just killed the momentum. Yeah. Yeah, I mean. Because she did have momentum. Some people thought early in the season, like in October. Some people thought she might even be able to win if she got nominated. Well, and I think part of it, too i mean it's it's that it's not great reviews and like we've talked about this before o2 is so incredibly backloaded where it's like all of these movies come out in december yes wasn't about schmidt even a december release they were yeah and best picture was like all december releases yeah yeah about schmidt was december 13th yeah yeah yeah yeah incredibly late late breaking year with the Oscar. Catch me if you can. Also, I'm pretty sure was December. That was, yeah, that was Christmas. That was Christmas. Yeah. Yeah, it's wild how incredibly backloaded it is even beyond the best picture category. So, what's interesting is the person who slot, I think

Michelle Pfeiffer would have taken, actually, is Julianne Moore's. Because Julianne Moore wasn't Globe nominated, whereas, like, Catherine Zeta Jones, Kathy Bates, Queen Latifah are the ones that show up everywhere. Yeah. And Julianne Moore, for that movie, kind of took a minute to take on. This was a big year. And they were already nominating her for Far From Heaven. Right.

This was a big year of like triangulation of triangulation. Can't talk today. Of award strategy. Because you had things like Julianne Moore has two films that are contenders. And one of them, she doesn't want to compete with herself. And so we're going to. put her in supporting for the hours, even though that's absurd. And then Meryl is also in the hours,

and Meryl is also competing with herself among two performances that could be conceivably, you know, slotted as lead. I do feel like supporting for adaptation is reasonable. But she's also competing with Nicole Kidman in the hours. So it's just like there's a lot of, you know, internal competition is kind of the rule of the day. And then you get into the Chicago women where Catherine Zeta Jones is nominated as a lead at the globes but now she's supporting at the sags and at the Oscars and it's and then Catherine's also competing with somebody from Chicago just there's a lot of jostling among these

you know sort of top movies and the cast of these top movies and I think that at least kept things a little unpredictable for a little while at least even though in retrospect you look at this and you're just like oh of course like of course Julianne got nominated for the hours for a co-lead performance. Yeah, I mean, it's funny that you said that's the slot you would have taken because I remember at the time, like that sounds accurate to me,

but I remember at the time the feeling was that Queen Latifah was the sort of extra nomination morning, which doesn't really make sense because she was also nominated before. Yeah. Well, she was everywhere because,

hold on, let me look up Critics' Choice. This is when Critics' Choice was still only nominating. They only had three nominees. Three, and I truly wonder if it had been, like, more established as a precursor, and they had, like, the full five or, like, nine or 12, however many they nominate these days. However many they need to to predict the Alpsis. Exactly. I think Michelle Pfeiffer could have shown up at Critics' Choice, just based on what, like, their taste was earlier on.

Let me see, because I'm pretty sure Queen Latifah was in that lineup. up, she was not. It was only three people. It was only three people. So I think it's Kathy Bates and Catherine Zeta Jones wins. Let me look up who the other person was. I think it was Merrill. Yeah. I think that feels right. But the thing about Queen Latifah in Chicago is now looking back, for as much as people were sort of incredulous about that back then, because you know, is Queen Latifah an actress or is she a singer, yada, yada, yada. And it's a very It's a small performance. It's, and I think there was a lot of sort of people were slow, certain people I think were slow to embrace Chicago as a musical, especially if you were really into musicals because there was, there's always these purity tests with movie musicals. But I watched Chicago a few months ago as a pandemic comfort watch. And that, when you're good to Mama, performance, like, jumps off the screen. It really is.

Oh, it's sensational. It's absolutely sensational. No, she deserves that nomination. I think it also speaks to the strength of Chicago at that time. Yeah. In a way that it, it maybe sounds like circular logic, but I think it was probably harder in the way maybe some of this is gendered that, you know, awards voters think of performances. I think it was probably easier for them to push aside Richard Gere than it was for Queen Latifah. But Queen Latifah's nomination partly speaks to, like, she'd been in Hollywood a long time, worked with a lot of people, and like gives the performance that she gives, but also in like a movie that was really strong and really hot.

Yeah. And like she shows up throughout the other precursors, too. I don't think that she would have been in last place. Right, which is what's funny, because I specifically remember the conversation being like that. even though you're right, I was probably Julianne Moore. I also watched Chicago this summer as part of the

Supporting Actress Smackdown at the film experience and it was it holds up remarkably well. It's a good movie. It's a really good movie. I really really love it. We are talking supporting actress who won from the from the panelists who won that

Smackdown? Catherine Zeta Jones. Yep. She's great. Yeah. And she got like five stars basically across the board. I think I would still maybe vote for Merrill. That's one of my favorite Merrill performances, but like anybody voting for Catherine Zeta Jones is not

wrong. You mentioned the Richard Gehr thing, too. On this podcast, we support the Casa. Yes, we do. We support Casa Zeta Jones implicitly. Please sponsor us Casa Zeta Jones. That would be the greatest day in the world if we ever found out that we got sponsorship from Casa Zeta Jones. You mentioned the Richard

Gear thing, though, and I wanted to just bring up the fact because he is also nominated at SAG and the eventual Oscar nominee who wasn't was Michael Kane in The Quiet American, a film that I've still never seen that I can't imagine, like if you asked like, you know, even

like among like film Twitter people just like, remember the Quiet American, they'd be like no, but like it's also a Miramax movie and I wonder like what is, what's, what's the internal politics there that they managed to snag a nomination from Richard Gear

for Michael Cain from like the less popular, you know, Miramax movie. Well, they also had gangs of New York and they're probably not going to get three, right, like from a single. Sure, but like, why, my question is just like, why didn't Miramax just like at some point tell the quiet American that like, yeah, we're not, we're not doing it with you? Like so many times movie studios have like de-emphasized an awards campaign for something because there's a stronger horse in the race. And, like, Richard Gear for Chicago was a stronger horse in the race. So it's surprising to me that Miramax sort of, like, kneecapped their own star with their less, with a star from a less popular film. I also think that's a gendered situation, too,

in that what they value from men is so different than what they value from women. Yeah. And, like, musical performances. And, you know, there was criticism that he wasn't doing his own dancing. Like, they didn't care that Renee's. Elweger was a bad dancer, but, you know, they cared that somehow... Well, it helps that Roxy Hart is supposed to be a bad dancer. Yeah.

So, yeah, I think that that had to play... That played into it, too, that the musicals are a feminine genre. Right. Yeah, I'm trying to think of, besides Ryan Gosling in La La Land, what are the musical actor performances that have been nominated recently? Right, Hugh Jackman. name is Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd. So there have been, yeah, there have been a few, but yeah.

Those are definitely kind of uber macho performance. Not like, maybe not Uber Machos, the right word, but Yeah, Depp does a lot of growling in Sweeney Todd. He kills a lot of people. That's fine. That works. Well, Depp and Oscar at that point, I mean, they're fucking nominating him for shit like Finding Neverland, so, like, he's already, like, among their favorites.

But, like, Hugh Jackman, like, if you take the musicalness, out of it, like, that's the type of thing that they reward in lead actor already. He just happens to sing. Whereas, like, a shmarmie, like, seductive guy is not on the top of their list. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Good point. Good point. Even one who is a career performance

that they could have used to, like, recognize Richard Gere's. But if we're in the section already of why didn't this get nominee? Or why didn't Pfeiffer get nominated? I think the other problem is just a problem of momentum. You know, I talk about this all the time on the film experience, but, like, momentum is, like, something that does not get discussed enough, but it really matters. Like, carrying over from year to year really matters with awards. And Michelle had made a lot of bad movies in a row at this point. And also, she doesn't really seem to care about awards.

She doesn't care about publicity all that much. That's why I partly feel a, like, this is coming out Oscar nomination morning, and I wouldn't be surprised to see her show up in Best Actress, simply because, like, you know this. She doesn't do press, she doesn't do interviews. And, like, French Exit seems like the most I have seen her do in my adult lifetime, at least. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

I mean, I've been actually surprised at how much she's been doing, because having been like a super fan my whole life of her. Fan of the P. Yeah, I have never, I have never seen her be this out there promoting a movie before. And I certainly don't remember her doing much or this much for White Oliander. I watched a couple of clips earlier today from when the movie was being released. She did a Letterman. She did a Today Show with Katie Couric.

And you watch both of those. much more so, I think, with the Today Show with Katie Kirk, because Katie Kirk was really asking some dumb questions. Katie Kirk leads the interview with just like a minute and a half about how much she hated Michelle's character in the movie. And Michelle's just like, oh. And I think Katie thought that she was being a compliment. I think Katie thought she was being complimentary because, you know,

the character's a villain. So it's, you know, but she's like, I couldn't stand this woman. Oh my God. And Michelle's just like, oh. But you can tell she doesn't, you can tell she doesn't like doing it. You can tell this is not her thing. The last time we talked about Michelle, or at least when we did the Frankie and Johnny episode, and I watched that whole Barbara Walters interview from that era. And it's so, like, at least that one is fun to watch because, like,

it's so contentious, and it's so very much, like, and you can tell that Michelle resents having to do this at all, and Barbara resents the resentment. And so it's just like they're both really, really angry at each other in a way, but they can't really, like, let it out. It's an amazing interview. These ones, the ones with Katie and Dave, where you get this is, she's just like, this is just not her, you know, she's, you know, shilling for a movie like this. Not quite her thing. And then I don't know how, you know, because that movie opened in October, you know,

was she doing anything in December and January for it? Like, you know, who knows? I mean, she will dutifully, she will dutifully show up if she's nominated for something. Yeah. Oh, yeah. She's not one of those people who, she's not one of those people who, like, just will never. And she's always there when David E. Kelly gets nominated for something. Yeah. Yeah. She's a good, she's a good sport about it, but she just doesn't try. Yeah. Yeah. And I think with, with her, with this performance in particular, I think one of the reasons I wish that, aside from the fact that I think she should have won is one of the reasons I wish she had been nominated is I think sometimes she'll take on parts. And I will. feel her pulling back from the tougher edges of

the material. I feel like she is not always as brave as she is in White Allander with totally embracing how pathological this woman is. Right, right, right. And so I just like, I'm like, don't give her, you know, don't

attack her for playing somebody so unlikely you should be rewarding her. Well, this is why we loved her. Because it's such interesting psychology. This is why I loved her so much in Mother too, where it's just like, she's really, she's getting her life with that character, she's really enjoying

playing that woman in a way. Lemonade! I can still hear her playing with that glass. Oh, God, yeah. Yeah. So, okay, so then, so we are in the sort of,

we're in the voting window as we record this now, Oscar Oscar nomination voting window. She is a content. for French exit. I don't think a nomination is going to materialize for her, although this year's weird, so who

the hell knows. Yeah. But where... It's a huge performance, too. It is. Where are you with that, Nathaniel, in terms of the performance, in terms of what you think her chances are? Where are you? I mean, I have her in seventh place

right now. I think it would not surprise me actually just because she's done much more promotion than usual and it's a good performance and she's definitely the whole movie but you know the again the precursors

weren't really there for her and you know I and also the movie just isn't she has this problem regularly where she's the very best thing about her movie yeah I mean Meryl Streep has that problem too but with Meryl Streep it's like

People are so obsessed that, you know, they don't care if it's bad. Right. You know? Whereas I think with Michelle, like, people care if they like the movie or not. Yeah. So it wouldn't surprise me, but I think Sophia Lorenna is just as likely if there's a surprise. You think that she's the possible big surprise of that field. Yeah, because I think, you know, the, I think most people think it's going to be like Moodorman, Mulligan.

Davis Day and Kirby. Yeah. I feel like Vanessa Kirby is maybe the most honorable of that. I feel like we're going to have some weird 2016 shit happening. Yeah. But like,

I don't know. I think Vanessa Kirby could easily be replaced. People are talking about that movie for. Right. So I think either Loren or Pfeiffer could show up in Kirby's in what people think it's going to be Kirby's spot. I keep making Chris angry by saying that I think Amy Adams is going to sneak in there. I'm just preparing.

It would be so unfortunate. I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm piling up sandbags in front of, I'm like Judy Dench and ladies in Lavin, or in Nati with Mussolini, where I'm, I'm piling up sandbags in front of the artwork just so that like, if the worst happens that, like, something is preserved, and that something is my sanity. So that's why I'm mentally preparing for. Amy Adams getting nominated for a hillbilly elegy is something that's going to maintain your sanity? No, no, knowing that it's going to, like,

being ready for it happening is going to maintain my sanity. Thank you, meteorologist, Reed. Yeah, I think something, it's something weird will be there, and I think the most likely weird thing is Fyfer for me. I see. Well, and I think the most likely word thing is Sophia Loren, but I could see either of them happening. We will see.

As listeners are listening to this, we will know. They'll already know. Oh, yeah. Oh, will either sound prescient or stupid for even considering. Yeah, the weird thing is going to be, um, uh, uh, Salma Hayek for like a boss. I love that performance, by the way.

God, that seems like eight billion years ago, though. Like, you talk about how this extended year really, you know, goes on and on and on. But, like, that does feel like that movie happened just a billion years ago. You did. Um, Oh, you know, we were talking about that Michelle doesn't really do a lot of press,

but I think one interesting factor now that she's back to work, who knows how long it will last, is that she's, like, active on social media, which I never in my entire life could have imagined happened. Oh, she does she do Instagram? Yeah, tons of Instagram. And she says she likes it, which is a shock because she's always been so secretive. Does she interact with comments, though, or does she just post it?

She just posts, but she, but the funny thing about it is if you, you know, if you follow a bunch of celebrities, she regularly interacts with other celebrities. I've seen her in like Anne Hathaway's comments that's like, you look gorgeous, blah blah, blah. Yeah. I love that. And so I, the thing that's been surprising, and maybe this is just my own fantasies about Michelle because my life has been obsessed with her for so long,

is that I always imagine that one of the reasons she had trouble at award shows is that she wasn't friendly. Like, because her screen persona can be so icy, I just assumed, oh, she doesn't, she doesn't, she doesn't, like, hobnob with other celebrities. And yet on social media, she seems to be like, totally like a softy. She could be very introverted.

And I kind of actually feel like Instagram is a very introverted social media in a way, or you can make it be that way. Well, she's also fully in control of there's no mediator for that, which I do feel like a lot of her guardedness comes from, well, I'm going to give you this, but like, then what are you going to do with it? You know what I mean? a lot of that, you know, the Barbara Walters or whatever, it's just sort of just like, well, yes, you know, I'm going to you know, make myself available and open and whatever, but I don't

trust what you're going to do with it. Well, and like, we talked about this in our Frankie and Johnny episode where like the media wasn't, was really backhanded to Pfeiffer in a lot of circumstances. Like, Frankie and Johnny was a movie that was like, well, she's too pretty to do this movie and she's

right in the movie. Right. I mean, yeah. I mean, I understand why she's guarded because like you you can't you can't win right she's yeah she's too beautiful and yet that's why she wasn't taken seriously at first is because she was so beautiful and then it's like when she gives a great performance oh she's too pretty even in this where her beauty is the point it's like oh she's too pretty for the role um and then i i do like the one time i've met her um was for i never do roundtables or junkets because i hate them but yeah i agreed i agreed to do it for Cherie.

Oh, right. Cherie. Because, like, I thought, well, you know, it's my only chance to meet her type of thing. So I agreed to do it. So sitting at this table with all these other people. And I don't remember

if it was from us or people, but whatever, it was some big magazine and they were actually not allowed to speak because I'm not even kidding you. They had the hand of a lecture mask on them the reporters. They were not not allowed to ask a question because

the publicist or the handlers or whatever knows that that outlet is always going to ask about plasticity. They were in the doghouse. Oh, wow. And they were already in the dog house, so they were not, they were there, they could report. That's fantastic. I love that so much. Honestly,

fucking good for her if she gagged them for that shit, like. Yeah. And I just thought it was so interesting because I was like, no wonder she's guard. It's because people have not been fair with her. Right. And, um, yeah so that's so funny i love that do you want one more crazy fifer story yes absolutely okay sorry i mean you did invite me no this is exactly as much fifer as you want to give us yeah

you are as i mentioned the pre eminent fifer scholar so i when i've had an fief in front of it as well so when i uh first moved to new york The very first Fiverr movie that came out when I had moved to New York was The Story of Us. Oh, sure. And I was not invited because I was not like, I didn't have press passes to anything. I wasn't, you know, I had just barely started writing type of thing. And so I don't even remember how I got invited, but it was like a fan invite type of thing to the premiere of the story of us. So it was at the Zig Field.

So we had to wait in the separate line Aside from where Do you guys remember the Ziegfield How they had that red carpet spot Oh yeah Where the limos can pull up or whatever And then inside there's like a version of the red carpet Because this is long hallway

And so the fans had the fan section Had to wait way away from the red carpet But some of the sneaky fans were like Oh let's go away by the window to the Ziegfield Because then you could see the Celebrities file in So I'm like I'm going to do that because we were basically like told that we would be seated

if there was enough seats for us basically. Yeah. Yeah. So so then I so then we run to the window and literally every single blonde actor or blonde famous woman that walked in people from pressed against the window like myself

kept shouting, it's Michelle! And I'm like, that is not Michelle. That's, you know, and I would name, or Melanie Griffith or whoever else, you know. It's like, Like, no matter what act, they look nothing like her. If they were, if they were blonde, they would shout out, it's Michelle.

And I'm like, I would know, I would know Michelle from the back of her head. That is not Michelle. That's so funny. That's Miris Sorvino. Yeah. And the funniest one ever was like this blonde woman comes in, everybody's like, that's Michelle and freaks out. And I'm like, that is Oksana Bayoule.

That's fantastic. Not Oksana Bayul. Oh, my God. God. So literally everyone they thought was Michelle. And then Michelle finally came in. But anyway. That's perfect.

And she just breathed through it. But they didn't let us in. They let none of us in. And so we got passes to see the movie for free when it opened. Well, that's nice at least. So that was my final. The other, the two times I've met, I've seen Michelle in public was once. Your brush with greatness and that greatness was Olympic gold.

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. This movie did get a costume design guild nomination, which was nice. For contemporary film. Speaking of prison duds. But actually, that's a great, that's a very savvy nomination for this. Well, the costume designer, Susie DeSanto, has actually done a lot of Fyfer movies of this era.

So I was like, maybe Susie DeSanto is the Anne Roth to Michelle Pfeiffer's Merrill Street. But if you think about it, the character of Astrid is very well designed because she has to morph into all, into versions of all the women she lives with. They age that character really smartly, I feel like, in this movie. And both performance and the way that they kind of style her, it doesn't feel gaudy. Even when she shows up at the end and she's dark hair and a choker and dark, you know what I mean? She's just like, she's threateningly goth. That all felt like, well, yeah, like, you know, I, you know, I knew people like that, of course, yeah. Yeah, and also since Alison Loman doesn't age, that's remarkable that the costume design doesn't age.

Right, yeah, Allison Lomond at any moment can be plausibly 16 to 35. Like, you just have no idea. Wherever she is now, she still sort of like 12 years old or something. Yeah. We haven't talked about. Queen Taryn Manning showing up in this movie and then not really getting even a scene

She doesn't even really get a moment She's just like it's Taryn Manning Just like hanging out in the van Yes she's the most conceivable actress To show up in this movie True that is true yeah Yeah She basically is in three shots or two shots

I think she has two lines Yeah And she always shares like no close-ups Nothing like that Right But she's you know She's sharing cigarettes or whatever with Ellison Lover.

That's sort of... As Rina says, Russian cigarettes, no cancer. Yeah, that was such a good line. And it's so tossed off, too. It's so funny. They, like, cut right after it, and you don't even, like, have a second to linger with it, but it's so funny.

Russian cigarettes. You know that actress was having a ball with that performance. That actress, I only have ever seen her in one other thing. She was in an episode of the West Wing, where she played a Russian reporter for what turns out to be this, like, really like no standards tabloid in Moscow that like they find out that like their

newspaper like printed the the grades of the defense minister's son from high school and like they do topless photos in the magazine in the in the newspaper and all of this and that's sort of and she's very sort of like defiantly you know uh standing up for for herself and she it's that same kind of like thing where she's just like we make money what you don't want to make money like we did and she just said you have your comic strips in your newspaper we have what we do just like whatever um

and I like that vibe from her it's a nice consistent vibe boy I wrote down a couple just like random lines that if like the gay circles of the internet got a hold of screenshots of it would go everywhere at one point Renee Zell Wigger says typical Pisces

and I was like Jesus Christ that one another one where she mentions astrology when she's meeting with Ingrid in prison and you get that pit in your stomach of just like Molly you in danger girl like it's very much just like

oh god oh god she said something about astrology you like astrology tell me your three favorite signs basically. Exactly she's just like and she says you're into astrology but what she really is just like you're a fucking idiot aren't you? It's just like it's so right right. Oh my God. That whole

that whole Michelle's so brilliant in this movie but one of my favorite bits is before Renee shows up and Esther and Ingrid are talking and she's like telling her but she's really nice

and like the look on Michelle's face it's kind of like an eye roll like the very fact that kindness is like poison to her well just the word nice you know what I mean like for some people like the word nice is anathema

is just like oh my god she must hate the word nice so much it's also the second movie where Robin Wright says the word virus pronounced like virus virus Sin is a virus infecting the whole country like the plane

Wait what's the other one Forrest Kump Oh Oh god I want to see Robin Wright In this character talk about Coronavirus The virus

I'm sure that character Had some real interesting opinions about the coronavirus Oh definitely anti-back Yeah an anti-masker Oh absolutely Yeah she was at the Capitol on January January 6th, for sure, for sure.

Handed out Bible. Rubbing an onion on her face. I also love that like the suitcase that represents that portion of her life is like red light district. Like it's all very like threatening colors and whatnot and just like, and it looks like, okay, so some of the things from her other portions of her life look like little artifacts that she held on to. and one of the things in the suitcase from that moment is just like this big gaudy stripper bra and I'm just like, honey, did you take one of her bras? Like, is that one of the things?

Like, when you were getting wheeled away from getting shot, did you just like grab a bra on your way out or something like that? I'm not quite sure how you manage that, but like, okay. My last note on the movie is that the trailer features Cheryl Crow's Safe and Sounds Safe and Sound from the Globe session. album, and this, like, more so than even, like, Aaron Brockovich, this is, like, The Globe Sessions, the movie.

Like, that album intrinsically linked to this movie in my brain. So, the song is in the trailer, and then it's also played over the end credits. And then, so this movie came out in October of 2002, but I also remember Cheryl Crow performed, I'm pretty sure, performed safe and sound at the video. music awards that year and that was the first video music awards after 9-11 because the VMAs happened like just before 9-11 in 2001 and so like the 2002 VMAs were very much like, uh, elegic and sort of just like Springsteen was there and he did his, you know, song and everything was teens love Springsteen.

It was very like, you know, halfway MTV, you know, glitz and gaudy and whatever and then halfway very sort of like somber remembrance and Cheryl was definitely slotted into one of the somber remembrances slots so safe and sound always make even though it probably isn't like makes me think like it's a 9-11 song because of that and so I'm there like watching the end credits to this and I'm just like oh god all this and now I got to think about 9-11 okay all right yeah that that safe and sound song I kept thinking when it was playing or the credits that I was like this is like the movie's version of like sort of edgy but it's really not It's like really adult contempt.

Yeah. And so I, and then it made, it started making me think about the fact that, oh, Ingrid would hate so many things about this movie. Yes. Oh my God. Ingrid would have despised White Oleander. 100%. Are you kidding me?

Wait, what would have been the 2002 movie that was nominated that Ingrid would have been like really into? Ingrid would have like secretary. Yes. Yes. She would have been really, really pissed that secretary didn't get nominated. You're absolutely right. That's the one.

That's the one. the one. Yeah. For sure. God, she would have seen my big fat Greek wedding getting a nomination at the SAG for Best Cast, and she would have burned the whole place down. She would have been so mad. Oh, my God. She wouldn't have even liked about Schmidt. No. Well, and this, yeah, and this is like what's so funny about the Michelle being so brilliant as her is that Michelle's taste from what we can gather is very mainstream.

Oh, yeah. And yet she understands this character so well, and yet the character would probably hate most of her movies. Right, right. Well, one of the great things about the characterization in the movie is she gets into how much this woman identifies herself as an artist and really clings to that identification for so much of her own, not only worldview, but like sense of superiority. She's, you know, she's an artist, so she's better than all these people. She's a Viking. She's whatever. And she shows where, you know, she shows where that little view on the world is kind of threadbare at portions.

But she's really, you know, she's holding on to it as, it's really like the only thing she really has by the time she's in prison. It's the only thing she really has to hold on to. Oh, also, the one thing I did want to bring up before we move into the game, the Thomas Newman score plays such, a big part in it's almost like you know it's the four leading ladies and then thomas newman is the fifth beetle of this movie kind of and my friend uh bobby who i always talk about movie scores with a former guest uh bobby finger um he one time i mentioned how much i like the white only underscore and he just goes ah yes american beauty uh light and i was just like oh yeah and now i always when i hear the score i'm just like it is sort of like oh i had these sort of like

leftovers from when I did American Beauty and I put them together for a white o'liander. It is very, very, very similar in that way. What's the movie that he rips off his own, like it's the B-sides from the Aaron Brockovich twanglin score? Oh, that was, pay it forward, right? It's pay it forward. Yeah, which was, yeah, the same year

as Aaron Brockovich. It really was just like you know, I had these scraps lying on the floor. Yeah. I do like this one as far as like his American Beauty rip-off scores. I do like this one. too. I do too. I think it's very evocative and whenever sort of that theme kind of presents itself

it's a little transporting. Also because that theme shows up a lot in the trailer as well and I watched, this was the, I think I talked about this before, this was the year that I discovered Apple movie trailers as a website and I watched

I just had a job that I was really bored at and I watched movie trailers all day and all the big 2002 trailers were just like I would watch this and Chicago and the hours and adaptation and just like all the big

O2 movie trailers I was obsessed it was like little dopamine hits throughout the day All right Should we move into the IMDB game then? Yeah, why don't we? Joseph, why don't you explain the IMDB game to listeners new and old?

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

Nathaniel, you are our guest, so we're going to do this round Robin style, but you get to decide if you want to give or guess first, and who you want to give or guess from. oh I'll give first I'll give the since we were discussing White Oleander

I thought we should do another screen daughter of Michelle Pfeiffer Ooh is this going to be for Joe or me Oh I didn't know I had to choose I forgot that part Let me do you

Chris And the screen daughter is Searsha Ronan. Oh, okay. Because a lot of people don't know this, but Searsia Ronan's film debut was playing Michelle's daughter. Yes. In, um... Was it that Paul Rudd movie?

Yes, it was. I could never be your woman. I could never be your woman. I could never be your woman. You know, it's Amy Heckerling. It's Amy Heckerling. Oh, fantastic. Sersha, I'm going to say, how many of her Oscar nominations do I think are on there?

I definitely think it's too recent for. little women, so I'm going to say Lady Bird. That is incorrect. Lady Bird is not on there. Wow. Wow. All right. See, Cersia doesn't have a ton of...

Okay, I wonder how many of her... One of her Oscar nominations has to be on there. Atonement? Because I think Atonement showed up for somebody recently. Yes, that is one of them. Okay, cool. Um, um, what about

Oh, um, she would be like the third person that this has not ever shown up for, uh, the Grand Budapest Hotel. Nope. Damn, I am bombing Sersia. Um, wow.

She's surprising as somebody that Grand Budapest isn't on there for. Yeah. Because Grand Budapest is on there for everybody. um okay what are my years then um your years are do i give them all or yeah yeah oh all the other ones um 2009 2011 and 2015 15's got to be brooklyn that's correct oh nine's got to be little lovely bones 2011 is a weird time for surcia so just to place it in time to try to figure out what it is it's After the Lovely Bones, before Grand Budapest Hotel, I'm just going to take... I can't remember if it's the host, not the good Bongchun Ho host.

The bad host. But if Sertr was in the host, that would be amazing. People have kind of forgotten the host, so I'm going to guess Hannah. Hannah is correct. She's so good. She's so good. I redeemed myself after I got my years, but... I don't know.

Just as for Sersia Ronans, I am her known. for because the lovely bones should not be there for anyone. No, it should not. That's tough. That's a tough pull for sure. That's a tough break, yeah. All right.

So that means that I'm going to be giving to Joe, and Joe is going to be giving to you. Joe, for you, we didn't talk about Pfeiffer in the future, future spelled with a P. She is hopefully going to be an Emmy contender

playing Betty Ford opposite as Michelle Obama. Violet Davis. Likely Oscar nominee this morning. Violet Davis, that's your known for. All right. Violet Davis. All right.

Let's be smart about this. Let's do this. Let's say her Oscar win for Fences. Let's say that's there. Correct. There is no television. There's no how to get away with murder. There's no television.

Okay. All right. So Fences is correct. The help, almost certainly, because it keeps showing up for everybody. Yep, the help. One of Bryce Dallas Howard's three known for. Um, all right. So I really don't want to say suicide squad, but I'm going to hold that in my back pocket at least as like a possibility. Um, I don't want it to be true for, you know, many reasons. Um,

I'm trying to think of, like, movies where she's... Well, let's say, be optimistic and let's say widows. Widows is correct. All right, okay. One answer away from a perfect score, sir. Okay. Pressure is on. You've been doing very well of late.

Yes. I need to pick someone, like, really difficult for you to throw off the street. This is not fair. We'll see. We'll see. Oh, this goes. Okay. Huh.

I'm sure Viola Davis lead roles, or should I find something? Because, like, Netflix movies don't show up. And Ma Rainey is both two Netflix and two new to show up. So I'm really hesitant to do that. I don't know why my brain keeps poking in there with Solaris, even though it almost certainly can't be Solaris. She's incredible in Solaris. She's incredible in Solaris.

She should have been nominated for Solaris. She was great. I don't know, Antoine Fisher. No. Oh, no. I stupidly didn't think of doubt. Is it doubt? It is not doubt.

It is not doubt. Whoa. Okay. Your year is 2016. So the year of fences. Correct. What else is she in? That wasn't Suicide Squad, was it?

It was Suicide Squad. God damn it. I had it. I had it too early. Justice for that slot, get Suicide Squad off of her note for it and give it to something better. For real. How funny would it be if it was Lila and Eve? Oh, that I thought of too. I'm just like it's not going to be Lila and Eve. But oh, my God, if only.

Lila and Eve, spoiler alert, listeners, go watch that dreadful movie. Gay people don't realize this, but this is a movie where Viola Davis's imaginary friend is Jennifer Lopez. It's amazing. That alone should make people watch that movie. It's amazing. We watched that one together in early pandemic, and we both called that one pretty early. Yeah. We were like, that's not, she's not real. She's not real. She's not real. She's not real. She's not real. She's not real. Okay. All right. So I'm going to give to Nathaniel. We've talked about French exit a couple of times. Maybe by the time you're listening to this, Michelle has been pleasantly surprisingly nominated for French exit. Either way, she co-starred in that film with Oscar nominee himself, Lucas Hedges. So,

Nathaniel, what would Lucas Hedges is known for be? Oh, goodness. He's a tough one. He hasn't had that many hits. They're more like critical hits. But I'm going to go with

the aforementioned Lady Bird for one of them. Lady Bird is correct. Lady Bird being on Lucas Hedges is known for and not Sersher Ronan is... Well, it underlines the fact that she's in a lot more a lot more notable movies than he has. Sure, sure, sure.

I want to say Manchester by the C just because of the Oscar nomination. Correct, Manchester by the C. Okay, the Let Them All Talk will not be there because it's brand new. Excellent movie. Oh, Boy Erased. Boy Erased is there.

You are three for three. Oh, wow. You could be another guess that gets a perfect score. Jorge, we deemed, got a perfect score. But now I'm like blanking, like, Lucas Hedges. Like, my first, oh, is anything TV? No television. No, no the slap, unfortunately.

Justice for the slap. Justice for the slap. See, Lucas Hedges is tricky for me because it seems like he's in everything, but I can't remember him in many of these things. He gets cast all the time, though. Oh, no, I'm so sad I'm going to ruin my perfect score. Because now I'm like totally blanking. I think if you follow your logic, you will get a perfect score of things that, like, you forget that he's in this movie.

Manchester by the sea. I already said Lady Bird, Manchester by the Sea, and what did I also guess? Boyer race. Boyer race. Boy erased, okay. Honeyboy? No. One of his multiple boy movies, but no, not honey. Yeah.

So what's my year? Oh, I get one more. Yeah, you get one more incorrect guess before you get a year. Um, Honeyboy was a bad guess. Nobody's seen that movie. I almost got something I don't even think he's in because my brain was on the toy

I'm pretty sure I've done that I will say though I don't think you're going to guess this so I feel comfortable saying this he is the second person who is in Grand Budapest Hotel that is not on their known for in this single episode I had forgotten that he shows up in Grand Budapest

I had forgotten that too That was before he got famous. I will say you gave me one who was a Pfeiffer daughter. Joe gave you this from French Exit, where he's a Pfeiffer son. This other movie, he is playing a son to a famous actress. Oh, oh, oh, oh, it's that one with Julia Roberts. No. You're thinking of Ben is back, and it is not Ben is back.

Ben is back. Yeah, no. That was going to be my next guess. So what's my year? Oh, 2017. Oh, same year as Lady Bird. Yep. What else did he do that year?

Best Picture nominee. Yep. Oh, Jesus. Oh, but of course, now there's like 10 best pictures. Right. That makes it harder. He plays the son of a famous actor. in this

Best Picture nominee. It's probably not coming to you because like many of us, we're trying to scrub this movie from our minds. Okay. I'm going through the Best Picture nominees in my head. Lady Bird. You'll get there.

Lady Bird get out. Phantom thread. Shape of Water. He is famously Sally Hawkins' son in Shape of Water. You might have better luck going through the acting categories, actually. Yeah. Multiple acting categories. Wow, why am I blanking on this?

He perhaps calls this actress a very, a very derogatory term in this movie and that's all I remember of his performance. I actually really like him in this movie. I think he's really good. Oh, three billboards? Three billboards. Yep.

Trace. Sorry, I needed that hit. I totally forgot he was in three billboards. I saw that in Lady Bird within like a day or two of each other at Tiff. And I remember being like, this is a good festival for Lucas Hedges. I thought he was really good. In both. Yeah, he's in so many things.

I used to be tortured when Nicholas Cage would always star opposite my favorite actresses because I don't like Nichols Cage. And then I have certain other people who do that where I was going through when I was picking my name, I was like, I'm going to pick someone who played a Pfeiffer's Child in a movie. So I was going through all the famous actors who played her children. And I couldn't remember if Chloe Moretz was her daughter or her niece in Dark Shadows, but I almost picked Gloria Moritz because I hate Chloe Maritz. Oh, wow. What is embarrassing is I probably would have gotten Chloe Moretz faster than... Who played her children in the family? Thank you for not bringing up the family.

Well, the girl from Glea, it was Diana Agron. And I don't know who was the other one, but it was Diana Agron for sure. Diana Agron, who shows up, I believe it'll be like a month after this movie comes out. It'll be available streaming, but shows up in this movie Shiva Baby. Oh, she's in Shiva Baby. She is. That movie's great. I can't wait to see it.

Check that movie out, guys. I shall. Yeah, the screenplay's really good in that movie. I almost picked Britney Snow, but then she has two of the same franchise, so then I ruled her out. Those are always tough. Those are always annoying when,

because I keep wanting to pick Uma Thurman, but it's like, well, two of them are Kill Bill, and that's half the game. Like, it just, like, it gets over very quickly. Yeah. Guys, I think that's our episode. If you want more, this had Oscar, 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. Nathaniel, this was amazing. Yes, thank you so much. So glad to get you on here. Not only to talk about this movie, but Pfeiffer in general. Yes. I think listeners are really going to love this one. But before we go, tell our listeners where they can find more of you.

They can find me at thefilmexperience.net, which is my site. And I'm also on Twitter at Nathaniel R. Fantastic. Joe, how about you? Where can they find more of you and your suitcases? Yes, I'm packing my suitcases on Twitter every day, full of ridiculous observations and things about the world that I probably could just be ignoring, but whatever. Twitter, at Joe Reed, Reed spelled R-E-I-D. I'm also on letterboxed as Joe Reed, read spelled the exact same way. And I am also on Twitter at Krispy File. That's FEIL, also on Letterboxed under the same name. We'd like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Mievias for their technical guidance.

Please remember to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Stitcher, wherever else you get your podcast, now including Spotify. Five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcast visibility, so please don't give us five suitcases. Give us five stars. That's all for this week, and we hope you'll be back next week for more buzz. Until you see those Until you see those are To your secrets out You're going to say it's