This Had Oscar Buzz - 137 – Live By Night

Episode Date: March 22, 2021

After landing a Best Picture winner that famously left him without a Best Director nomination for Argo, Ben Affleck made his director-star return in 2016 with Denis Lehane adaptation Live By Night. Affleck cast himself as a criminal caught between the Irish and Italian mobs in Tampa (with an ensemble that included Chris Messina, Zoe Saldana, and … Continue reading "137 – Live By Night"

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. to fight in the war. I went away a soldier.

I came home in our law. We do what we want to do. We'll go where we want to go. He goes the money. I want to be a gangster. I stopped kissing rings a long time ago. It no longer matters what you want. You're in this life.

My father says there once was a good man in you. you. We all find ourselves alive as we didn't expect. Repent. Repent. Repent. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that has styled a suitcase to commemorate the time we spent under the wing of a Russian grifter.

Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we are. here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Joe Reed. I'm here, as always, with my Hollywood harlot-turned charismatic preacher, Chris Fyle. That was a mouthful. Hello, Chris. Brother Reed, how are you today? I'm a preacher. I have to find some type of Jesus thing. Show us your track marks to communicate your authenticity.

To show my sovereignty. Is that what religion is? Sovereignty? Yeah, sovereignty is more like governmental uh, you know, ruling or whatever. Well, L. Fanning did try to have some type of government rule or I guess. She was trying to not get the casino pass.

So that is some type of like, yeah. She was dipping her finger in, uh, in political, uh, you know, corporate affairs or whatnot. I should say I mentioned, I said you are a Hollywood harlot, but of course I should clarify that you are Los Angeles harlot because she did.

And the church that I preach at is, like, the church of Cher, right? Right. That line, though, where Affleck hands Chris Cooper the photos, and he's like, she didn't make it to Hollywood. She only made it to Los Angeles. And I'm like, I get that that's supposed to sound like a really, like, clever line, but I don't know if it entirely tracks, considering, like, Hollywood kind of communicates these fallen and angel

storylines, too. Do you know what I mean? I'm not quite sure what the, you know, what the delineation there between Hollywood and Los Angeles was. but whatever. Whatever, Ben. I did not like this movie. I hated this movie.

I hated this movie. Okay, good. It's been a long time since... You could hate something with your full chest? With my full chest, I hated this movie. Yeah. I mean, I think maybe it's one of those movies that, like, should have been longer, but, like, it really struggled, even for, like, I'm doing this for my podcast.

I'm trying to pay attention. really struggled to hold my interest in a way that we haven't had in a movie since, like, random hearts. Wow. That is a statement right there. I struggled to tell, like, competing crime factions apart from each other. Well, first of all, it takes some 35 minutes to get to Florida, which is when the actual plot of the movie starts.

And I couldn't tell you a single goddamn thing that happens in that first 35 minutes, except for maybe that, like, Sienna Miller turns on him. Like, that's the only really thing that I remember from the first 35 minutes of this movie. We talk a lot. It's also just, like, it's dull, too. So, like, you can't tell things apart because it is so dull. Well, and it's, we've seen all of this stuff in so many other movies. Like, all of it seems sort of, like, like, listlessly recycled from other things.

Like, even the idea of, like, oh, it's like a mafia thing. but in Florida and it's just like, yeah, but like The Godfather 2 was in Cuba for a while and like yada, yada, yada. Like there are all these other things. And we talk a lot on this podcast about films that we could see these days, and I say these days, meaning this film was four and a half years ago. These days, movies being probably would have been television shows. Do you know what I mean today. And this is the kind of thing that feels like that, except for I'm, normally I'm just like,

it would have been, that's almost like, oh, if only this could have been a television show, it maybe could have been like better, like flesh out or whatever. With this, I'm just like, thank God this wasn't a television show, because it would have been... There are television shows like this. Of course there are. Boardwalk Empire did like this. HBO's got a bunch of shows like this.

Yeah, I recapped Boardwark Empire for like four seasons, and it was exactly like this except for, and when you recap a show, especially as I did for television without pity with these long-form recaps, you do form a kind of George and Martha kind of relationship with it, where you're just like you're living with it, but you really, really can't stand it. And yet also you can't at the same time envision your life without it, because it's a steady paycheck every week. But like, my relationship

with Board Rock Empire was a lot like that, where I was just like, I don't even know if I think this is a bad show. I'm just so fucking sick of like day in and day out with these mobster characters who are just like it's the same there was this I think the Sopranos did not invent this but the Sopranos certainly popularized it among this golden age of television where we're going to have these anti heroes criminals mobsters gangsters drug dealers yada yada yada whatever permutation you want to say it where it's like everybody on this canvas is like a hair trigger sociopath where like if you say the wrong thing they're going to cave your skull in with the nearest blunt object.

And it's just like, at some point, it becomes so tedious of just sort of waiting around for somebody to, like, say the wrong thing to Steve Buscemi and he's going to fucking snap on them. Or like, whatever, Bobby Conavale in that one season of Bore Rock Empire, where he won the Emmy for just, like, being fucking loud. And I was just like, and it so burned me out on all kinds of TV shows about mobsters, drug dealers, whatever. And so I'm watching something like this. And I know that the things that it's pulling from are not like

Sopranos, Bord Rock Empire, Modern Day, stuff. It's really in every single interview that Ben Affleck gave about this movie. He talked about, you know, 40s and 30s and 40s, gangster films and, you know, old style. And I think mostly what he meant, I'm thinking uncharitably, is like the suits, I guess. Like everybody wore a nice suit. production design

right so he want I think he wants to sort of like recall that whole kind of thing and an elegance and yet the language of this movie is just like middle of the road modern day

mob story it's incredibly limited interpretation of what those influences are like even back to what you were just saying like these vague mob characters like I think what a lot of C tier C tier is maybe being

generous to this movie. What these like C-tier mob and crime movies really miss out on is like a lot of the best movies that they're trying to emulate, a lot of the Scorsese movies, like character and characterization is so incredibly important to keep things compelling. And it's like you can't tell people apart in this movie. Yeah. Really can't even tell how Ben Affleck's character is significant to. all of the drama.

It's just like, what do you, like, all of the things that we love about those, like, crime movies, when you see something like this, it's like, well, wait, what did you love? Do you just, like, watching movies with guys in suits and fedoros? Like, yeah, yeah. Is that all you're trying to create? I like this, the spin that Ben Affle puts on this is, like, what if he's wearing a cream-colored suit and fedora? And it's just like, okay, like, here we go, man. This is all brand new stuff. Like, even the stuff with like...

But if there was vague, racial and nationalist tensions. Well, this is the other thing. It's like, and again, I'm not going to interpret live by night solely through a, you know, racial lens because whatever, it's barely doing that. But, like, when you make a movie where, you know, prominent characters are the clan and prominent plot points involved, the clan and racism. And there's a lot of racist dialogue in this by bad people. But like, when you make the crusader against that and the recipient of a lot of that racist violence be Ben Affleck, like, fuck off. I do not care about this. Like, Jesus fucking Christ. I mean, it is about those things and it's not about those things. Like, the KKK is so fairly, like,

so easily, like, dispatched and pushed aside. in this plot. And it's like, but that's the KKK. And they're like, nope, we killed that one guy. Right. Yep, yep. And there was literally a part where it was just like, and the KKK was never a problem again.

And I'm like, really? Okay. Good for Tampa, I guess. I mean, like the movie, and maybe this is more of the source material too. And like, it is a lot about like Irish and Italian tensions, which like was the thing about a certain era. Yeah. But this movie doesn't do it well.

doesn't capture it well, it, uh, like, let me tell you what a mob movie loves. Sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. I was just going to say, let me tell you what a mob movie loves is reminding you that Italian people used to be discriminated against on an ethnic basis in this country. And Irish people used to be discriminated against on an ethnic basis in this country. Like, they really, really do love to talk about that a lot. And it's a really interesting. I've made people mad before by saying, I'm sorry, I can't distinguish different types of white people. But literally in this movie, I couldn't distinguish the different types of white people. And like, yeah, like, not denying that history, but just like, no, not at all.

Let's put it in some perspective, y'all. And it's like, it's not like this movie isn't also trading in stereotypes. It's not like I want these like gauche portraitures of like different national backgrounds in America. But like, I don't know. The most characterization that anybody gets in this movie to distinguish who they are, other than Ben Affleck just, like, scowling throughout the movie, is Chris Messina gets like an ever-expanding assortment of throw pillows that creates a fat suit. You know what's so funny?

I watched a handful of sort of press clips from this movie interviews, that junket interview type stuff, which was essentially the extent of the publicity, I think, that Affleck ended up doing for this movie. He was on the Today Show with, like, he and the cast were on the Today Show with, like, Jenna Bush Hager or whatever. And, but a lot of, a lot of the, um, junkety stuff talked about Messina and Messina's performance. And now he was with, he had been in Argo and Affleck really liked him so much in Argo. And he wanted to, you know, cast him in this movie. And, you know, the only question was what role to give him. And I'm just like, I do, you wonder, speaking, talking about it from, the lens that we talk about it, is like, if this movie had been a thing and existed at all, which we'll talk about what an absolute blip on the radar this movie was when it actually got released, if Messina would have been pushed for a supporting actor kind of a thing because he was absolutely the supporting cast member that was talked about the most. And sometimes you can tell, especially in junkety kind of things, with what are the

public the talking points that the publicists really want to get talked about and like messina certainly seemed to be one of them and that was kind of surprising because like he's not bad i love christmasina don't we all love christmasina but like i don't think there's anything particularly special about that character or that no not at all i couldn't even tell really and i love christmasina i couldn't really i mean like he was the one who was given the big thing to do they definitely give him some teeth stuff at one point yes they do but like they do Who was he? Right. I thought for a second, when they, I mean, whatever, spoiler, and we'll get on the other side of the plot description in a second, when he comes in and he tells Affleck, Affleck who had previously basically given the order that Dakota Fanning's character wasn't to be knocked off, even though that was the prudent thing to do from a mobster's perspective. And then Messina comes in the one day after Affleck and Fanning have their sort of heart-to-heart conversation. and tells him, hands him in the newspaper and says she had killed herself. And I'm like, oh, they're going to reveal that it was Messina who went back and defied orders and killed her for the good of the whatever, and that's going to be like a conflict.

And I'm like, nope, it wasn't. And like, there just wasn't any conflict between the two of them. It was just like eventually Affleck retires and gives the business to Messina, and that's all she wrote there. And it's like, okay, well, cool, cool story, mobsters. Before we get into the plot description, though, I just want to talk about the Dennis Lehane of it all. We can talk about sort of the production history of it a little bit, where this is a novel, 2012 novel by Dennis Lehman. Dennis Lehman, if you don't recognize the name, was the writer of Mystic River, which obviously did big Oscar stuff in 2003 for Clint Eastwood.

He wrote the novel for Shutter Island, which was adapted by Martin Scorsese. He wrote the novel for Gone Baby Gone, significantly, which was adapted by Ben Affleck for his feature film debut, and obviously did a lot for boosting him into where he became and ultimately as an Oscar winner. I guess he doesn't have any writing credit on the town, which is surprising, because the town fits very much into the like Boston crime genre that Ben Affleck really has enjoyed existing in. And so he writes Live My Night, released in 2012. Apparently, it's the middle book of a series of books about the Coughlin family, which, okay.

I did not care to investigate what the other ones were, but I imagine one of them was maybe about his father, and one of them is maybe about his son, who they all knows. But book published in 2012, and then almost immediately, because he has a good track record for a book-to-film adaptations, people are looking to adapt it, one of the major ones being Leonardo DiCaprio's production company, which now I can't remember what that production company is called. But Apian Way, is he Apian Way? Right?

Maybe. I think so. I'm going to file that one away for next time we place categories. So, and originally we thought maybe it was going to be another, I think briefly there was talk of it being another DiCaprio Scorsese movie, because anytime Leonardo DiCaprio attaches himself to anything, people are like, is this going to be the next Leonardo DiCaprio Martin Scorsese movie? And ultimately, in 2015, Warner Brothers Greenlit the film as an Affleck thing, maybe even before that. And Affleck, we're going to talk about later on, Ben Affleck's 2016, which is chaotic as fuck. As a hell. All right.

But before we do all of that, is there anything? Wait, talk to me about Dennis Lehman. What are your feelings about Dennis Lehman's books turned films? Never read any of the books. I was curious about this one because it, I mean, it's partly said in Boston, but I was like, oh, maybe this one will be different. Yeah. because it is mostly set in Florida. This definitely felt like the type of adaptation where some of these things that, like,

it feels like the movie's trying to get everything in there, so it makes a lot of these connections, a lot of these relationships seem really flimsy and disposable, but there's probably a lot more heft to it on the page. Or, like, some type of internal monologue or some type of, like, more richly developed relationships but it just felt like it either needed to

be longer and go into more depth with that or it needed to cut like whole characters. When I say it needed to cut whole characters, part of the movie's problem is it feels like it could be any one of those characters they could just get rid of. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, there's it's not one of those movies that seems very obviously to be based on a novel for me. In fact, when I initially saw the writing credit was Ben Affleck, I was like, oh, God, did Ben Affleck like come up with all of this on his own? And then, of course, I saw the Dennis Lehman thing, and I was just like, ah, right, right, right, right.

But it's, yeah, I think you're, I think you're accurate in your, in your assessment of it. Lehane, the only novel of his I ever read was Mystic River. I read that in between when Mystic River premiered it can, right? Maybe that or New York, I think. I think it must have been Cannes because I had that interim period where I was like, I knew it was going to be getting released soon and I wanted to read it before the movie comes out. So I read the book, which is a big part of my problem with Tim Robbins winning the Oscar for Mystic River is I thought he really flattened that character from what the character was in the book. I don't think it's a great book. It's, you know, it's a pop boiler kind of a thing.

But I thought the character was much more nuanced in the book and more interesting as a result. And I really thought that Robbins kind of cartooned him up. And also the Laura Linney sort of Lady Macbeth turn at the end is a lot more, you're prepared for it a lot more in the book, which was an interesting thing. But anyway, I haven't read any of his other books. I think there's a sense of diminishing returns, especially as, the kind of, again, Boston crime element of it becomes a lot more perfunctory, where, and this is sort of, I don't want to get into a whole Boston thing again, because they could make people mad, and justifiably so. But there's a sense of, you know how people get mad at New Yorkers for being enamored of the fact that they live in New York? Which, like, fair enough, we are. Whatever. And I say we as, like, a person who moved to New York City in my late 20s. So, like, I do not have a claim on that place. but this is sort of how I feel like man like Boston people really love

talking about how they're from Boston and Boston seems like a cool city man I guess but just like there's I got a bunch of friends of Boston I should go I do too and I love my friends in Boston but just like there's a sense of like this Ben Affleck thing where it's just like I'm going to set this movie and put as many scenes in a Dunkin' Donuts as I possibly can

and then I'm going to call it the town okay but you need to separate the there's two different types of of there is Ben Affleck who loves the city of Boston, and then it's everyone else. Right, this is sort of what I'm getting at, yes. It's annoying, but, like, literally everybody else in the world is fine. Sure, yes, everybody else in the entire world is fine. There are no other problematic people in Boston, Massachusetts.

Well, no, but what I'm saying is, like, 75% of Ben Affleck's personality is I live in Boston. Right. And this is the sort of thing that I tend to get from the Dennis Lohane stuff, where it's just like nobody lives as an authentic as a life, as authentic a life, as somebody who grew up working class in Boston, Massachusetts. Do you know what I mean? There's that kind of a thing. And it's just like, okay, Dennis, like, we get it. And there's a sense of that, too, where it's just like he has his, you know, his father's a cop. There was strong moral fiber.

And look how far this, you know, good upstanding Boston boy has fallen. And, like, the poster for this movie is, first of all, it's Ben Affleck in the iconic cream-colored suit, which we've talked about, pointing a gut, sitting in a armchair and pointing a gun at whoever's, you know, facing him. And then the tagline above the title in, like, these very kind of prominent letters and sort of spaced out, Joe has, Joe was once a good man. And first of all, was he? Like, we kind of don't know. We have no frame of reference. We are. I mean, you get that opening.

narration where he talks about his in the war. Sure, like, I guess. And then immediately came and started bootlegic. Right, exactly. But, like, that's the thing is, like, from, like, minute two of this movie, he's already, like, a criminal. And it's like, there are good criminals, of course. But it's just like, I, Joe was once a good man sort of implies this thing of just, like, this, that the movie is about the moral sort of tumbling down a hill of a once good man. And I'm like, that's not really true. But again, it, it, yeah, that's not what this. movies. It falls into that line. Also, this is the kind of movie where, like, we're supposed to believe that he is actually a good person because a woman at some point says, I know you do all of this, but really, you're a good person. It is that type of movie. Can somebody make a super cut of that, by the way, of characters, particularly women in movies, assuring the male main characters that they're good people. Like, there's, it's such a trope, and I really, it's very annoying. It's quite annoying.

especially because we'll get into this too. My perception of Ben Affleck is, as a filmmaker, especially when he directs himself in a film, is that there's just like there's a lot of ego involved. And there's a lot of like carefully maintaining his sort of star persona in a way that I find limiting to the films. But we can talk about that on the other side of the plot description, which I'm going to make you do right now.

So let me pull up. Oh, boy. Let's see how much I can get it. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of, it's a lot of movie. All right. One minute on the clock. Live by Night, of course, written and directed by Ben Affleck, adapted from the novel by Dennis Lehane, starring Ben Affleck, Chris Messina, Zoe Saldana, Chris Cooper, El Fanning, Sienna, Sienna, Miro, Max Cassella, Brendan Gleason, Rimo Girone, Robert Glenister.

It premiered on Christmas Day, December 25th, 2016. to very little fanfare, as it turned out. Chris, would you like to grace us with 60 seconds worth of plot from Live By Night? Sure. With that hesitant, sure, I will send you into your minute, which starts now. Okay, Live By Night stars Ben Affleck as Joe Bootleger and son of an Irish Boston Police Chiefs. He's secretly in love with the daughter of the Irish Grime Boss. Her name's Emma White.

She's played by Seattle, Miller. the Italian mom blackmails him into getting him to kill Emma's dad. But they go on the run in California after Joe kills some cops in a bank heist. Emma sells him out to her dad. He goes to jail and then he is told that Emma is dead. When he's out of jail, he's recruited by an Italian crime boss Pescatore. He runs things in Tampa where he quickly falls in love with Zoe Sal Dana. She's an Afro-Cuban woman.

Her name's Grosiella. And then he gets to close the sheriff whose he gets close to the sheriff whose daughter is named Loretta. She wants to be an actor. She ends up addicted to heroin, and he, like, helps her get off heroin. Whatever. Meanwhile, Prohibition ends, and Loretta finds Jesus, and she's a big stumbling block to getting them a casino in Tampa. But she kills herself, and then he finds out that Emma is alive. And then in a raid, Joe kills all of Pescitor's people. And it turns out Emma is a prostitute. That's my friend. His son is killed by Loretta's dad. Or his wife is killed by Loretta's dad. And he raises his son. He sure does. He sure does raise that son. Yeah. Sorry I give you a 15 second warning instead of a 10 second warning. I don't know where my brain was at at that moment, but okay.

It's fine. It's fine. Yeah. Live my night. So, yeah, the last sort of 10 minutes of this movie are like epilogue on steroids kind of thing. Once there's that shootout at the hotel, once that is sort of settled, then it's like, all right, now we're going to get into the wrap up. And the wrap up just sort of like goes

and goes and goes. We talk, you know, he hands over the business to the scene. and he settles down and has a kid with Zoe Saldana and they, you know, Chris Cooper is sort of slowly decompensating over the guilt of what happened to his daughter and then, you know, tragedy sort of happens. And again, this character, Grasiella, who is underwritten as it is in this film

and shows up, again, to tell Ben Affleck, to hook up with Ben Affleck and sort of, you know, burnish his bona fides as a charismatic and sexy leading man, has one scene where she's like, I want to be your wife. Then the next scene is like, I don't think she should be a criminal. And it's just like, where are these things coming from? And then has another scene that's just like, you're a good man. And then they just kill her so that they give him sort of a tragic end, a tragic hero's end.

And it's just like, this is all so, A, recycled from other things. and be just, like, very thin. And, like, nothing... Like, there's no heft emotionally to her dying because, like, we barely knew her as a character at this point. Mm-hmm. I don't know. I don't know.

Dialect Queen, Sienna Miller. Oh, my God. Okay, so... We should talk about how one of the problems of this movie is that the plot hinges on Sienna Miller being recognizable. Okay. Wrote that down because Fully Wild. you're absolutely right the fact that she's presumed dead she's presumed dead for like the middle

hour and a half of this movie and then he sees a photograph from like across a room and he's like what the hell is that and it's just like what and first of all photographs in 1920 or whenever the hell this is photographs back then are not the you know high definition pristine quality that they are now but like from across a room he's just like what the hell is going on and he goes and he looks at the photo. And again, you're right, recognizes Sienna Miller from her face, which is categorically impossible to do. Sienna, this is a real condition,

and it affects everybody. I will say that. Absolutely everybody. The second I saw her character in this movie, I'm like, oh, Kelly Riley? Amma Cawfield? Like, what's going on? What's happening here?

And of course, it is... Once I realized it was Sienna, I kind of lived, because her Irish accent is Bananas. It's so much fun. Not as Nanners as her cat on a hot too. Roof, of course. Living with someone you love is like living entirely alone. Living with someone you love can be lonelier than living entirely alone if the one that you love doesn't love you. And then by the time he finds her again at the end of the movie, which is this weird

scene of just like, he needs to see her to see sort of how callous and trashy she is to make peace with the fact that he made the right choice, that he like settled with the right woman or whatever, is annoying. But she becomes, in that scene, the Blake Lively in the town of Live By Night, which is the only portion of Live By Night where I was kind of living for it, because she's just like, she's kind of fabulous in that scene. And I'm just like, oh, this is what I want. Just give me trash. Give me this trash. Obviously, Blake Lively is the best part of the town. And so, yeah, that connection was pretty clear for me. Yeah, Sienna Miller face blindness is absolutely the first note I have in this.

It's too bad that she's not in more of the movie. I want to talk about, we should do the Ben Affleck thing off of the top. So where are you with Ben Affleck? As a talent, as an artist, or as a celebrity, or as all of it. Okay, as a celebrity, very different. Um, and maybe this is just a recency thing, but I, the whole, um, Onadamus relationship, all of their, their donkeys, um, I was obsessed with. You were tickled with that. Okay. All right. I was very tickled with that. And like, we should mention Ben Affleck's in recovery. We wish him well with the recovery. As far as, like, a movie star goes, I'm going to need something else. Um, I mean, like, I don't maybe want to get too much. into the way back his movie this year, because I'm sure we'll talk about it in our class of

2020 episode. I hated that movie. I thought it got this weird free pass for like reinforcing as much bad as it did good. Yeah. And it was also just a movie of like masculinity and this grown man yelling at children. That was another movie that I feel like I've seen this movie 20 times. Like there wasn't a whole lot in that movie that I feel like I haven't seen. And also like God bless Gavin O'Connor. I liked the hockey movie that he made as well. But, like, he gets into these sort of, you know, contemporary poems about tragic masculinity. And I'm just like, buddy, like, cool, good for you. But like, I don't care. I'm super don't care. Affleck to me, I always try and try to check myself with Affleck because I know that a lot of my feelings about him as. a artist, as an artist, are wrapped up in my feelings about him as a celebrity, where, like, I have never liked him as a celebrity. Even back in, like, the, I think the, you know, Ben and

Matt Goodwill Hunting Day is, like, as everybody did, I got caught up in that thing, too, and I really enjoyed him. And then, whenever I would hear him on a commentary, which I know some people really enjoyed, like, him on, like, Armageddon or whatever, the director's comment, the cast commentary for that movie, or, like, interviewed about a thing or sort of talking about his career or the way that, like, you know, shows up on, um, that the Bill Simmons talk show on HBO and, like, goes ham about Tom Brady or whatever. And, like, all these things that some people find, like, endearing about him for being such a, like, you know, the Uber, Uber-Mensch masshole of the world. Um, I just annoy.

me. He's always annoyed me. He's always come across as very sort of egotistical and self-regarding and not in a way that I find is backed up by the work. I, you know, liked Argo well enough. There's a lot of homogeneity to his performances. Yes. And I think like I enjoyed the pivot in Gone Baby Gone to being a director and especially a director of something that he wasn't starring in. And the fact that he then went right from that, like he couldn't, he couldn't stay off screen for one movie. Like, it was immediately, he goes and he makes the town, and he cast himself as the lead

in the town. And I think the town, for as much as other people seem to enjoy it, I really didn't. And I think it's a better movie if he's not in it, for sure. I think Argo is a better movie also if he's not in it. And I liked Argo. I thought Argo was fine. And I think the fact that in Argo, again, I've talked about this before, where the closing credits of Argo show you how much the cast of character actors close.

resembles the real-life people who they played, you know, the Scoot McNary and Cleo Duvall and all these people. And then it's Ben Affleck. And it's like, no, Ben Affleck has decided to cast himself and his sort of like, you know, conspicuously revealed torso in one scene as just this character who... One of the good days online was when everybody decided this would be the day we would make fun of Ben Affleck for randomly giving himself a scene.

in Argo to show his pecks. Yeah. Yes. And again, that to me encapsulates the Ben at my issues with Ben Affleck to a T. And like, I understand that other people sort of see his sort of, that, that degree of celebrity self-obsession is something that I appreciate and maybe other people more than I do in Affleck. And I, like, I will own that, like, there is just something about him that has always bugged me. But I also don't think he's... I think he's...

Live by Night is kind of this weird direct. an anomaly thing, because I do think his other movies do get character right and do get narrative arc right. Like, if there's anything that I appreciate most from Ben Affleck is, it is his directorial career, even if it's just like, you know, we're not jumping up and down about any of these movies. He does, like, have the makings of a solid studio director to make, like, these type of movies if he can get out of his own spotlight a little bit.

Right. I think there's, I think on certain people, ambition wears well, and on others it doesn't. And I think, like, that sounds like a really shitty thing to say about somebody. But, like, I think that's true of Ben Affleck, whereas I think Argo is a real, just a real solid top to bottom movie. And you can be annoyed by certain things about Argo. But I think that is, like, a well-put-together movie that moves things from A to B to C. and, you know, captivates the audience and takes you on a ride with it and all that sort of stuff. And I think then with Live By Night, where he's just like, well, my next movie is going to be the godfather and Havana sort of, you know, all wrapped up into one.

And it's just like, my friend, like, let's scale it back down. Let's just like, let's put that ambition down a little bit because it's not your strong suit. It's not your strong cream colored suit, my friend. the Argo shadow kind of looms large over this movie. Because in a weird way, like Argo did, I think people who were actually paying attention never doubted that Argo would be getting Best Picture, even when he lost out on Best Director. Yes. But it did kind of give it this sheen that kind of really pushed it across the finish line where it was looked at a little bit as an underdog because it didn't have the Best Director nomination. Absolutely, absolutely.

And we talked about this recently, but I can't remember what episode it was, where it was the critics' choice, the day of the Oscar nominations, and, like, he got those standing... It was an Irish, it was an Irish wake for Ben Affleck, really, at that point. It was just like, it was a celebration of a life, and yeah, yes. So, and the thing about Live by Night, though, is this has been in the works for a while, and it was sort of the next Ben Affleck movie, which, Like, the next movie from a director of a Best Picture winner is always going to be really, really anticipated. And is my memory wrong that this movie got announced for a December release sort of partway into 2016? Like, this wasn't, like, a year ahead of time. I don't think this was on the schedule.

Was it? It was, but it was originally for, it got announced late for December, but I think the expectation. was always there as the movie would be finished that it would probably get bumped up into the award season because it was always announced as a January movie which should have said January movie because it plays like a January movie. Gangster Squad 2.0, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But even before then, it was slated for like a fall release and a fall release of like the next year. It was shuffled around a lot. But as soon as, and you saw this with a couple, other movies, too. I just, I'm struggling to remember certain ones where it was like, because we'll get into the Batman versus Superman thing, but like, post-production going on while Batman versus Superman is doing full press and, like, inevitable reshoots, too.

So, like, you can understand why this would have had some flux in its release state, but it was one of those movies that it's like, oh, you've slotted this for January, but the expectation is probably that you're going to do a limited release at the end of the year to qualify it. Qualifying releases, a thing that people think was invented in this past year and got pissed off about it. Truly, I mean, existed since the 80s. Speak on this. Yes, yes. So what I find so interesting about Ben Affleck's 2016 is like, so. The Jennifer Lopez relationship with him really sort of like crystallized a lot of his persona, I feel like, in the media and the public or whatever.

And there was such a backlash against that. And, you know, Gile happens. And his sort of early 2000s acting roles are just like, it's just, you know, beat down upon beat down upon beat down, of just like he makes Daredevil, which doesn't, you know, do. what people wanted it to do. He makes Gilee. He makes paycheck. He makes surviving Christmas. Jersey Girl. And then sort of like goes away for a few years, gets Hollywoodland, which is like, oh, he's going to be kind of a character actor now or something, and gets a Golden Globe nomination.

And people, you know... Hollywoodland did a lot to, like, revive his career as an actor. Yes, but then he follows that up with... Well, that's the same year as Smoking Aces, which, like, is, again, it's just, like, junk. But then, like, he revives his career as an actor, and yet that next year is gone, baby, gone, and it's just like, oh, this is cool. This is a cool little, you know, new thing for Affleck is he could, maybe he's a director. And because he still isn't able to come up with a hit as an actor with a state of play, which, like, we'll talk about, we'll do an episode on that eventually, but, like, that doesn't really. happen for him and like the company men although the company man is after the town but like so the town

comes very close to being an Oscar nominee it's not a massive success but like people like that's a successful directorial effort by Ben Affleck is what the general consensus about the town is and it's the next stepping stone to Argo and all of that stuff with Argo happens he wins best picture he you know talks about how hard it is to be married to Jennifer Garner he you know thanks Hollywood for you know getting him past the lean years, all of the sort of stuff that he did in his speech. And then it's just like, oh, well, now Ben Affleck's going to be a director.

Cool. And he sort of intimates that just like, this is what I, you know, really want to do. And then what's so funny is, he goes hard right back into acting, pretty much immediately thereafter, where he gets Gone Girl and then Best Performance of his career.

Best performance of his career. He's fantastic. He weirdly, like, doesn't get any awards. buzz for that movie even though Rosamond Pike got a lot of and eventually got the best actress nomination. None of the buzz is for Ben Affleck, which is weird, because it's perfect. And I wonder sometimes if it's too perfect. It's too perfect because, like, it's, David Fincher is so smart. And I think, like, this, I did give Ben Affleck a little bit of credit during, like, the press run of that movie because, like, his casting alone in that movie is very, um, aware of our

perceptions of Ben Affleck that he is an asshole and that he's you know not a likable person and like the movie works better because it weaponizes that yeah it does and like I think Ben Affleck was very gracious about that and very smart and I think ultimately that performance is really funny um because of all of that and yeah um it makes sense I think that's exactly why he didn't get credit for it because it's already playing into right that you know So it makes sense that he would be drawn away from maybe directing his next thing to do something like Gone Girl, which is, you know, in many ways a role of a lifetime for him, right?

What makes less sense to a lot of people is that he takes the role of Batman, Bruce Wayne, in the Batman versus Superman, sort of new Zach Snyder, D.C. cinematic, burgeoning DC Cinematic Universe. and I think a lot of people, and again, whatever, actors don't owe us explanations for why they take roles in films, but I think a lot of people were just like, you have this now flourishing directorial career, you can make anything as your next project, because you're a best picture winner, like you've got, you know, to coin a phrase, a blank check, and instead what you're going to do with your time is you are going to play, like, not only like, play Batman in the next movie, but like play the single most. like joyless like tired weary sort of like like a human sigh of a Batman in these next movies

and it's just like and not only are you going to do Batman versus Superman Don of Justice in 2016 you're also going to show up in Suicide Squad and you're also going to make the accountant with uh who is that director um oh that's also Gavin O'Connor the Ben Affle like Gavin O'Connor cinematic universe um which is a movie that like I think I remember I remembered it being more hated than it was. I think the reviews were very mixed, and it was a lot of just, like, puzzlement. I feel like, when I'm looking back at those reviews, I think a lot of people were just like, what is, what's happening here?

What's going on? What's this supposed to be? And it's just like... But also on top of that, he was initially supposed to do the Batman's standalone movie that he was also going to direct. Right. Which was going to be... And then it evolved into Matt Reeves directing, and then it got completely overhauled to

the movie that Matt Reeves is now doing it. Right. But, like, it's still... I could be wrong. Yeah, it's Matt Reeves. The Patton's a lot, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.

Batman who fucks? Listen, we all want it. Evanescence, Batman. Wake me up inside. Yes. So, I think, yeah, so I think by the time Affleck sort of like dons the cowl, as it were, there's just, there's a lot of just puzzlement of just like, why? why are we why are you doing this what's going on i mean at that point he he'd made two hit movies

for warner brothers and got them a best picture um winner yeah he'd kind of gotten to be like the warner brother's golden child for a minute and like all of this is obviously conjecture too sure yes you have to imagine that the batman deal they probably wanted somebody who they already had as one of their people playing that incredibly integral role to the corporation. Yeah. But you can see how there were probably strings attached, like a directorial credit for his standalone one. And I would not be surprised if Live By Night was part of that, that they would finance, they would release it, they would, you know, give it an awards campaign, etc. because he'd wanted to find this movie for, sorry, girl, because he had been trying to make this movie for a while and they just didn't have financing.

Right. So you can imagine that when contract conversations were coming up for Batman, that this movie got, you know, was part of the agreement. Yeah. 2016 in general for Warner Brothers is a hell of a year, let's say. Just a lot of, I wrote in our outline. We could do a mini-series on Warner Brothers 2016. Warner Brothers floppediana of a 2016, because like it's genuinely, it's Batman versus Superman, which is greeted with such hostility and such sort of, you know,

this is before even, you know, snobes. cut becomes a thing, but this is the film before that. Genuinely the most unpleasant movie-going experience of my lifetime, I think. Not even, yes, not even leavened by what I think, for as much as Justice League is not a good movie, I do think it's leavened by the fact that, like, every few minutes we hop to a different, like, now we're with Aquaman, and now we're with the flesh, and now we're with Wonder Woman. And it's just like, okay, well, like, at least I'm not, you know, in this drudgery of just like, oh my God, Batman and Superman, like kiss or kill each other, like one of the two, for God's sake.

There's also, though, a future best, the future this, he almost said Future Best Picture winner, which no, it was not. Future This had Oscar buzz film, Collateral Beauty, which was their other December film besides, their other big December film besides Live By Night, which like, what a one-two punch, truly. 10% of my personality is collateral beauty. Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right. We mentioned the accountant that was also Warner Brothers. We mentioned Suicide Squad alongside Batman or Superman, which, like, truly just antagonizing the public, antagonizing, um, sinophiles more than anything else. I guess the public sort of had their own interpretation of whatever Oscar winner, right, winner Suicide Squad for makeup?

Yeah, makeup. Yeah, yeah. They also had War Dogs, which is another movie that just, like, made me mad that it existed. and ended up getting a golden-in-loid nomination for Jonah Hill. The weird bright spots for Warner Brothers that year, I think, which also sort of tells you what kind of a year it was, that, like, the bright spots were Sully and the Nice Guys. Sully, which I think is...

I hate Sully. Yeah, pretty not much of anything for me. The nice guys I really enjoyed. The nice guys I thought was a very fun time at the movies, and I really loved Ryan Gosling and Russell Crow in that. But, like, that's another movie that, like, by the end of that, year, nobody was really talking about it, which is too bad, but, like, it was the case. I remember at one point in the 2016 Awards conversation when we were trying to sort of

predict who would end up with best actor nominations. And I remember at some point, we were all just like, is it just going to be Tom Hanks and Sully getting a nomination? Because, like, there's not really much anything else on the slate. And it ended up being Vigo Mortensen and Captain Fantastic, which is equally puzzling, but in a very different kind of a way. But, yeah, it's just a weird, weird flop stravaganza for Warner Brothers in 2016, which, you know, kind of is typified then by Live By Night at the end of the year. Because this movie gets released, Christmas Day, you know, platform release, it's released, it gets its platform release the same day that Hidden Figures gets its platform release.

And, like, you could not line up two movies next to each other, more sort of goofus and Golan. of the 2016 award season than Hidden Figures and Live My Night both movies which were originally supposed to be January releases, or at least like supposed to be in question marks will live by night. I think Hidden Figures was genuinely supposed to be a January release and

people saw scenes from it. I don't think was late until was ready until late because like I remember that TIF they didn't They showed scenes from it. They didn't have the movie ready but they did like a concert and showed clips

from it. Yes. And I think that was a genuine groundswell where once people started seeing stuff from it, people were like, oh, this could be like a huge crowd pleaser because they, because I think the first trailer announces a like mid to late January release date. And I remember thinking like eight billion people are going to go see this movie and love the shit out of it. It just looks like such an absolute like, you know, rousing, crowd pleasing, like delight

of a movie that people are going to love. And I think enough people with more positions of power than me sort of had similar thoughts because they were just like, well, we could do something with this. And they moved it to a qualifying release at the end of the year. And it obviously did very well, got a Best Picture nomination and Screen Actors Guild win for Best Ensemble, which was super rad. One of the more underrated awards moments of the last 10 years is that Sag win for Hidden Figures and Taraji's speech. from it was, you know, super wonderful. So, like, that movie, A, did all the right things, but B, had the stuff, had the goods

to do all the right things with. And I think everything that Live By Night wasn't Hidden Figures was, including conversation, which there was so much conversation around Hidden Figures, and Live By Night opens and absolute crickets. Well, and when it did its wide release, it never broke the top ten. And I, here's the thing. I feel like Live by Night, by the time it was finally released was so much of an afterthought. We didn't really even notice it bombing when it did because, like, in my memory, it was there and just, like, existed in theaters for a while.

Yeah. No, it was basically yanked from theaters as soon as it hit its wide release because it bombed so hard. Right. This has to be one of the lower grossing movies we've done in a while, which surprised me. it only made like 10 million U.S. Yeah, yeah, 10 million U.S. I think the total worldwide was only something like 22. And I mean, as so much as you can never trust what a listed production budget of a movie is,

but somewhere in between $60 and $90 million. And so, like, that's a huge, like, that's a crater. And I guess it's not one of the lowest of the movies we've done recently. We've done some actual, like, bombs. Yeah. Yeah, like, it, what was more surprising to me is not necessarily how much it cratered, but how much, like, we didn't notice it cratering at the time. It was just, like, we were happy to ignore the movie entirely.

But, like, 2016 is a really exciting year. Like, you obviously mentioned Hidden Figures, which at the same time was becoming a genuine box office smash. You have, like, movies like Arrival and La La Land doing, hundred million dollars, which, like, feels rare. Like, moonlight was still on the rise. Right. Well, we also, you know, forget that, like, so much about fall of 2016 was so fraught anyway with, you know, obviously, the election and all of that. And I think a lot of that year's Oscar race crystallized early, where, like, La La Land was pretty much set in stone from the fall.

festivals. And the only real movement was, with everything else, was kind of hidden figures sort of becoming a bigger and bigger deal. And how far can Moonlight go? How far can, you know, we ride this beloved but tiny, you know, little film? And then that was the sort of the momentum of the season was sort of just like riding it with Moonlight. But like Arrival was a November movie. La La La Land, I think, was an October movie, if I'm not mistaken. No, it was closer to Christmas. Was it closer to Christmas? Okay. But like, Hexaw Ridge, I'm pretty sure was fall, and Heller High Water was summer, was late summer, and Lion and Manchester by the sea, I'm pretty sure we're Thanksgiving. Maybe Lion was Christmas

too. No, I think you're right. I think Lyon was Thanksgiving. So, yeah, it just felt like, yeah, Manchester, I think, was early November. I don't know. I think Fences was another one of the later ones. It almost makes it seem like, again, I'm trying to not read too much into it, but, like, the qualifying release and, like, awards attempt at this movie was a little bit more of a contractual vanity thing than the studio's actual intention. you know because otherwise like I don't think they would have necessarily let it die the way that they did because like awards campaigns are expensive yeah yeah totally what did you think of el fanning in this movie uh I love L fanning this is our what fifth L fanning or fourth fourth after four somewhere and door on the floor and reservation road yes um I mean like I just I feel bad for all of the women this movie because like when I say you could extricate a character and like the movie could move along the way that it wants to like it's unfortunately true of all of the female characters

this movie only cares up to a point yeah about all of the women in it well she gets about a good 10 minutes of this movie that it feels like she's like a big deal and I think she's miscast I think she's miscast it's it's definitely the most outside her wheelhouse that I've ever really seen her in a movie, and that sort of includes when she's played a alien. She's an alien in that movie, right? The Nicole Kidman movie? Yeah. Yes, I love that movie. Yes, I know you do. That's why I asked, I knew you would be the resource I would go to. I think she's much, much more aptly cast as an alien than she is as a charismatic preacher, but that is sort of the moment that this movie sort of affords her, and she's, again, very important to the plot of the movie for a very

limited time. She has kind of two big scenes with Affleck, the one right in the revival tent after she gives her sermon, and then the big one where they meet for whatever, brunch or something like that, and she talks about how, you know, this is heaven and all this sort of stuff, this sort of profound stuff that I think is supposed to be just supposed to land, I think, with a little bit more of an effect with us than we don't, because he mentions it again at the end of the movie, where it's like, as Loretta said, this is

heaven. And it's just like, I guess that's the theme of the, I guess that's what we're going with as a theme. Yeah, I think miscast is probably the right word. I think it's, for whatever that role was maybe supposed to be, I don't know if

we're getting it from her performance. Like, I don't think I get. certainly doesn't convince that she would, like, amass a following enough to block the building of a casino. Yes, that's sort of what I mean, yes. Especially because her father, who is the Chris Cooper, who plays the sort of the lawman in town, the sheriff or whatever, doesn't, like, I would get it if like he was also a preacher and who he had also this like huge following and she was the daughter of a preacher. where it's just like, I get that like she's the cautionary tale for the temperance thing of just like, look at what this world of vice and sin does, look at her track marks and all this stuff.

But to make that next leap to, oh, then she becomes the fire and brimstone preacher. And again, like you said, blocks the building of this casino that has like quite a bit of economic interest for a lot of people in town. feels like a leap that the movie does not quite have the hops to clear. It's a bad movie, Chris. It's a terrible movie. And I was looking at some of the reviews and the reception for it, and I feel like people were very kind towards it.

Maybe it's just everyone's exhausted at the end of the year. Yeah, yeah. It was way more mild than I expected for what the result of this really, like, messy inner movie is. I don't know. Maybe Ben Affleck will come back and direct a better movie than this. It feels like his most ambitious movie because even though the town has these set pieces and stuff, right? All of his movies before this are very, like, narratively insular. Right.

And this tries to be a lot of different things and have a lot of different things and a lot of different characters and he doesn't have any control over it. I think the big failings of this movie, beyond the sort of like the narrative and characterizations or whatever, are you need this movie to have a really transporting sense of place. And like, you know, it's it's an old style gangster, organized crime, really epic, you know, it's going for epic that is set in Tampa, Florida, which like, I'll do respect to the Kings of Tampa, like, is not quite. quite a glamorous city. And I think that's sort of the point. At the one point, somebody who, I think it's Messina, calls Ebor City, which is the area of town that they get set up in, which, by the way, I've been to Ebor City. Ebor City is sort of like the young, hip sort of area of Tampa. I remember I went there when we were, we had a summer or whatever, spring break trip that I went with the high school baseball team down to Florida.

and we had like an afternoon where we could go to Ebor City. And it's just sort of like young and hip and you can, you know, like go to a weed shop or something like that, all the sort of like weird funny stuff in Ebor City. But he calls it the Harlem of Tampa, which is such a funny phrase to me just on its face. Like I get what they were going with. And it like is probably apt as a descriptor of that time period. But like the Harlem of Tampa made me laugh. But you should have, again, if it's this is this odd little location that hasn't really been done to death in movies.

It's the only thing about this movie that doesn't feel incredibly derivative about other things. Then, like, that has to be your thing. You really have to give a really concrete sense of vibrant time and place. And the movie doesn't do it. Just doesn't come up with it. Yeah. Even shot by, like, the great Robert Richardson. Right.

It's, like, theory, like, I don't want to say heightened. but like... But also muted. Like, I feel like the color palette is really muted. Vibrantly muddled. It's not pretty to look at, but it's certainly going for a certain type of vibe.

Right. I don't know. And I think the other thing that it doesn't really pull off is this hotel siege at the end of the movie where Messina and the other, you know, Affleck loyal gangsters come up from the tunnels below the city to take the hotel and foil the Italian mobster who has now partnered with that's the other thing about this fucking plot twist. The Italian mobster sort of unveils his long

ago rival, the Irish mobster, and they've decided to team up against Ben Affleck, which seems like overkill to me. It seems to me, it's one of those things where it's like, what this have really happened to anybody who's not a character played by Ben Affleck, who's not like the main character in this movie. Like, it feels like the only reason this plot twist, like, feels it all supportable is because it's a, you know, you never would have expected the big Italian mob boss and the big Irish mob boss to team up against Ben Affleck. And if you take a step back, you're just like, why are they doing this?

For this, like, one little, like, mid-level gangster in Florida? Like, okay. All right, man. But that whole siege of the hotel. Again, hard to tell what crime group is which. Right. So, like, that whole scene, no idea what I was watching. But it's supposed to be, I think, this big sort of, like, spectacular action scene.

It's supposed to be thrilling, and it's supposed to be sort of visually dynamic and all this stuff. And it's just like, to the point where this, like, 1930s, 1940s gangster movie has Ben Affleck, John Wu style, like, sideways jumping, like, while he's horizontal. in the air, firing a gun. I was like, okay, Chaggot and fat, calm down. Yeah. I was like, this is a little absurd. You watch the killer and face off a bunch, and you said, let me put that

in my period movie. A lot of interesting character actor sort of pop-ups in this movie. I didn't mention Matthew Marr in this movie as the brother-in-law of Chris Cooper, who's also the, like, the head honcho clan guy who

I mostly know from seeing and plays around the city. He was in the Mr. Burns, a post nuclear play, which I thought was very good. I've seen him in the flick, right? Also in the flick, which I also saw. Yes, exactly, exactly. Who else shows up in this movie? Max Cassella, who I will

always know first and foremost as Dugie Houser's best friend from Dugie Houser, MD, plays the Italian mobster's son, who sort of hates Affleck's character. Clark Gregg Oh, I love him. He's Jack Valenti and Jackie, right? Yeah, yes. Yes, he is. So good. Anthony Michael Hall shows up in this movie

for a scene as sort of a mid-level boss that they have to get rid of. And Clark Gregg shows up as a easily black-mailable homosexual, which we always love in these films. But again, a lot of character actors that, like, I don't know, I don't know if it adds up too much.

in the end. Again, just give me a whole movie about Sienna Miller in her little Miami hanging up clothes on the clothes line in Miami. I don't know. I loved that. I did love that. Can we talk about a little bit more about him not getting nominated for Best Director for Argo? I feel like we kind of glossed by that.

Yeah, we talked about that a few weeks ago, but yeah, let's do that again. did we i completely forgot that we did we did we brought up uh uh the whole the uh the uh the critics choice of it at all but yeah we it was briefly we can you know let's get into it okay so but why what do you think is going on there i mean i think there were some whispers that like ultimately ben affleck was not well liked um as person uh i definitely read like gossip site saying that one of his competitors was telling people not to vote for him. Really? Oh, tell this story. I have not heard this. This was just like in the days of like reading gossip columns. So take of that what you will. All right. Wait, I'm bringing, now I'm bringing up the... I think there's some assumption, though, that it was an unlikeability of Affleck factor. And it's like, this is the industry that's voting for it, too. And it's not like the

the DGA, which is a much wider group of directors than the Oscar directing branch is, um, I all, I mean, like, that's one thing. I more so think because of like what ultimately went down in Best Director that year is that there might have been more of an overconfidence factor and a lot of like darling directors, like the type of people that, uh, you know, people are, like, rooting for, so they put their passion vote behind. Yeah. Was going to other people like Michael Hanukkah and Ben Sightland. So, right. So here's what, here. Because, like, this was the director year that, like, multiple Oscar winning directors like

Catherine Bigelow, Tom Hooper, Tarantino, didn't get nominated. And people thought, like, Affleck and Bigelow both missing out on best director nominations was a shock. Like, we talk about Affleck a lot more because Argo ends up winning Best Picture. But, like, Bigelow also not getting nominated was a shock. And that was amid a lot of that, like, there was the controversy and over Zero Dark Ferdie and the torture scenes and whatnot. It was less so for Tarantino. But even Tom Hooper at the time, like, this was like right at the nomination morning was right at the point where the wind was kind of taken out of Les Mis' sales.

But, like, that was a hit movie. Like, there was a time where people thought Tom Hooper was going to get nominated again. So of the best director nominees that year, Angley. for Life of Pie, Michael Hanukkah for Amor, Ben Zaitland, Beast of the Southern Wild, Steven Spielberg for Lincoln, David O. Russell for Silver Lanings Playbook. Who was the one talking shit about Ben Affleck behind the scenes? If I had to guess? Yes. Spielberg. Really? Oh, I would have gone with David O. Russell, but I love your interpretation. And, like, Spielberg, I adore him, but like, you just don't get that type of power in the industry

if you're not also a jerk sometimes. I love him. I love it. My initial thought was David O' Russell. His sets like a machine, man. Like, he's, he knows what he's doing. I guess because... That's also just a guess because, like,

if it was somebody that people were going to listen to if a fellow director said, don't vote for Ben Affleck, they'd probably listen to Spielberg. That's a good point. That's a really... Oh, boy. Well, now this is going to linger in my mind.

Oh, I love that. Maybe I also just feel, like, I love Angley, obviously. But, like, I also still don't understand how Lincoln didn't get arrested that season. And, like, I think the authorial voice on Lincoln is Tony Kushner, not Steven Spielberg. But I was always, like, surprised that Spielberg was kind of thrown off in conversations that year. Like, oh, Spielberg won't win. Let's contextualize didn't get arrested.

Because 12 nominations to lead the pack. Sure. Is it exactly snubble up. It was treated like it was the boring movie. It was. It only won to... Right. No, I know. Though, I mean, maybe part of that is, like, it was just so blatantly obvious that, you know, Daniel Day Lewis was going to win. Right.

And, like, I think the Oscar habit nowadays is really about spreading the love. So it's like, if you have a performance that's likely to win, they're going to feel less likely to vote for you elsewhere. I think the one award that Lincoln didn't win that that was most not exactly puzzling because of what was happening everywhere else that night, but the fact that Argo beats Lincoln in adapted screenplay, that's the one where I'm just like, come on, guys, come on guys. Especially because what is great about Lincoln feels very screenplay-based, the fact that it's not the movie you're expecting is very much the credit to Kushner's screenplay. Whereas, like, I get why you're not really clamoring to give Spielberg Oscar number three for this movie that is not sort of, you know, taking the nation by storm or anything like that. I was very happy with Engley getting one for Life of Pie. I, of course, like Life of Pie, probably more than most people. And one of our finest working directors.

Yeah. And I think, you know, the sort of oddity. of Ang Lee having two Best Director wins and Zero Best Picture wins is intriguing. He and Alfonso Coron should start a, I don't know, a club or a substack or something like that

where they just, you know, talk about that. 2012 is a really, really interesting Oscar year, even if a lot of the nominees that year, you're sort of just like, you know, a little bit of a side eye towards, mostly I'm talking about Les Miserrape. and even that movie again I was caught up in it at the time

but yeah it's a really interesting one I think this was was this one of the years where they switched up the calendar where the voting window wasn't what it once was I feel like this is where the Golden Globes That's always so hard to keep track The Golden Globes started having a little bit less of a

influencer role because Oscar voting windows were moved up. I don't know. I don't know. I cannot remember something like that. But yeah, a really interesting year. I want to talk about 2016 though

and live by night because you just sort of that the environment that it was sort of like being dropped into at the end of that year. It's a really good year. We talked about this I think IRL this week, right? About how 2016

might end up being like one of the most amazing years. One of the best movie years, I would not, I mean, like, it has, you know, probably one of the best, best picture winners of our lifetime, but like, across the board, I don't think it's a great Oscar year. But a film year. Though, like, some of the winners, I do love. But as a film year, incredible.

I was looking through my, like, I brought up my, you know, my own list to look through that year, just to sort of get a sense of. what that year was. And like every single major category is like 15 deep with just really incredibly very deserving movies that I still love. I still go back and I watch, you know, today. I say today, again, a whole five years later. But yeah, it's an incredible year. And obviously live by night was never going to compare. But yeah, you're right. Arrival being a nominee, Moonlight, obviously, being a winner.

I really loved Manchester by the sea. I really loved Jackie. I really loved fences. I really liked... 20th century women. Yeah. Oh, my God. I mean, turning to century women

does not get the nominations that it deserves, but, like, phenomenal movie. La La Land, I will, you know, my journey with La La Land is very strange. I initially, when I saw it at Toronto, very much felt like the turd and the punch bowl about it, when I kept being like,

but it really lags in the middle, guys. And everybody was like, shut up! And then the backlash happens. And then I'm the one being like, yeah, but the beginning of the end are really good, you guys. And everybody was like, this is trash. Jazz is stupid. And I was just like, okay. I don't know where to land on this one with everybody.

But I think now I feel like I'm more of a la-la land defender for as much as, you know, that movie needs defending. But yeah, it's a really, really interesting year. The Lobsters that year. We're both big fans of Scorsese's silence. Yeah, silence just misses my top ten. I'm looking at it right now. My top ten that year was Arrival, American Honey,

which, God, American Honey, what a wonderful movie. 20th century women, moonlight little men, Ira Saxes, little men. Incredible. Manchester by the Sea, the invitation, the wonderful, unexpected Karen Kusama movie, the invitation,

which I fucking love. Mountains May Depart. Jackie and Hell Caesar. And then right after that is like silence and little, or little women. I almost said certain women. Kelly Records, certain little women. This is like one of those movie years that's so good that it's like a top 10 is so insufficient to really like say what the year was and like say the movies that really like spoke to you, move you, etc. mine's like fluctuated a lot and I'm sure it'll continue to fluctuate my top 10

is the handmaiden where are you going 10 to 1 or 1 to 10 looks the hand I'm doing 10 to 1 the handmaiden the lobster the aforementioned exceptional iraax's little men things to come I am the weird outlier in the one two punch of what isabelouper did that year. I would vote for things to come, not only just as a movie, but as her performance. Both are incredible all around,

but, like, that's the one that seeks to me. Luca Guadino is a bigger splash. That is his best movie. Jackie Arrival. Tony Airdman, which has, like, since I first saw it,

grown so much in my mind and spoken, like, so much to, like, me and my emotional state. And then Moonlighten, 20th century women. Tony Erdman is a movie that I think I saw way too late. I think the hype on it was so large by the time I saw it.

And then I saw it and I was just like, I'm not, I'm not feeling it. But it also opened very late too. And like that's a lot of movie. Yeah. It's like it's got a lot of depth to it that like I think a lot of people saw it. And I include myself in this that like we saw it at the busiest time. Yeah. of Oscar season, and you do need some room to kind of process what it's doing, like, the, like, global industrial implications of the movie and the personal ones and, like, how they work together and, like, how the movie is funny and tragic, like, it's, it's, uh, I can't imagine, like, the can reception of that movie was so, like, uh, warm and smart and great.

that I'm like, I can't imagine having seen that movie at a festival and then have to process a dozen other movies around it. Yeah. It's a movie that I think needs some space. Yeah. But it's a masterpiece. The one precursor award nomination afforded to live by night among, like literally almost anything anywhere, was it got a production design nomination at the Critics' Choice that year.

And I'm trying to find... Okay, yes. So it gets nominated for Best Production Design Critics Choice. The winner that year was La La Land. Other nominees were a rival, which has very... You know, obviously the production design with those... The alien pods and sort of the different timelines happening here and there and all the little, like, obviously, like the little chotchkes in her apartment.

I think that's a really good nominee. Jackie, again, no-brainer, the aesthetics on Jackie were really fantastic. Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them wins the Oscar, right? Or is that costume? I'm pretty sure La La Land won this Oscar. Fantastic Beast definitely won the costume. Yeah, that's what it was. Oscar.

And then Live My Night, which again, I talked about how I don't love, I think they fell short when it came to sort of designing the time in place of this setting. So I get why this seems like a production designy kind of a movie, but like as you're one of the top five, that felt to me like Critics' choice was reaching. A lazy

nomination. Yeah. Yes. And again, so much good stuff that year that it feels like I don't understand where why a lazy nomination would happen. Again, even stuff that's like big and gaudy and you don't even have to like be that you know, looking for it to find, like

Hell Caesar has so much amazing, like, production design in that film. What's going on in that movie? And got the Oscar nomination when, like, really there was no campaign for that movie whatsoever. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, anyway, what are any other sort of stray, spare thoughts for this film? Um, uh, it's hard to have a full thought about this film. It is, it is.

I wanted to talk a little bit about Oscar movies, mob movies, with Oscar, and sort of the history of it. Obviously, The Godfather being such a huge figure in terms of both Hollywood, but also, like, the Academy Awards, it wins Best Picture for The Godfather and The Godfather Part 2 is nominated again for Godfather Part 3 in 1990. But, like, in the last 20 years, the only person who really gets nominated. for making gangster movies as Martin Scorsese. Like, he's, you know, with the Irishman last year, with the departed, obviously winning 2006. Gangs of New York is a different kind of a organized crime movie, but it's a, you know, mob movie. And then you really have to go back to, like, Bugsie and, you know, Pritzie's Honor in the 80s and that kind of a thing to really get into Oscar and mob movies. And I think Oscar, the history of Oscar and crime is sort of a very long and interesting one anyway, and certain things about movies that have big, like, crime elements are deemed Oscar-y and other ones are deemed maybe too lurid.

And that definition fluctuates and moves all the time. So it's always a little hard to think of, like, oh, is that going to be too much for, you know, Oscar voters? and sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. And I don't know, I find that kind of fascinating. I mean, the thing about Scorsese, I think, is, you know, whatever the crime setting is, it's just setting. Like, it's, that's not really the emphasis. Like, the Irishman is not about just, like,

the assassination of Jimmy Hoffa. Right. Like, it is about, you know, aging, dying, committing yourself to a job. You know, those movies are about, like, other things in a world of crime, right? Whereas, like, something, like, live by night is just... Yeah. I mean, like, what are the themes of this movie?

What is the character exploration of this movie? Right. Like, what ideas does Ben Affleck have that he's exploring in this movie? And I don't really think there is anything. Right. Again, we talk about, like, the thing on the post. It's like, is this a movie about a good man gone bad? Like, not really.

Is this a movie at the end about like this is, you know, this is heaven, us right here? Not really. You know, it keeps trying to sort of introduce these themes that don't ring true. Because ultimately there isn't a whole lot of there there not to, you know, or aren't grounded in, you know, like relationships, people, character. So do we want to just move into our IMDB game, Chris? Let's do it. Guys, every week we end our episode with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try to guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for.

If any of those titles are television or voiceover work, we'll mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. If that's not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints living by night. Okay, that's one more thing I did want to mention. in some of the Junkett interviews and stuff like that where with Affleck, he in all of them tries to explain what living by night means. And it's just like, and it's so weirdly facile

where it's just like, you know, he's living by night, you know, he's not living by the rules of daytime. And I'm just like, what are you talking about? What are the rules of daytime? I'm just like, and I think he's trying to, he's trying to. Right, exactly. He's just trying to get, like, he's living like off of the grid or whatever. like outside the law and I'm just like, then just say outside the law, but like it sounds so dumb

when you're just like, he's flat living by the rules of daytime. Oh my God. Shut up. Sorry. No. All right. So, all right. IMDB game.

I want to give to you, but I want to give you the choice between the hard one or the easy one. The harder one or the easier one. Let's say that. They're not, they think they're both. So, yeah, anyway. Okay. Well, let's, geez, I feel like you backed me into a corner where, like,

I look like I'm a coward if I say, give me the easier one. Have I? I can't imagine. I would never. Is this some type of trickery? No, no, there's no trickery, but now I do feel, now I do recognize what you're saying, and that is true.

I have done that to you, and I'm sorry, but also I'm amused. Fine. Give me the more difficult option. All right. So I wanted to pick somebody from Ben Affleck's filmography. I went into the cast of Gone Baby Gone. One of the actresses in that film who I have always loved in pretty much everything that she does is Amy Madigan. So I love Amy Madigan.

I love Amy Madigan, too. There's no television in Amy Madigan. Speaking of HBO dramas, there's no carnival or anything else. So, yeah, no television, no voiceover work. Give me the known for for Amy Madigan. Okay, the thing about Amy Madigan, she is an Oscar nominee for a movie that I don't know how to get a hold of if it's even out. It might be rentable. More things are rentable now than they have been.

Yeah. Is she for, but I don't. Cross Creek? What is she? Or not Cross Creek. No, it's. Twice in a lifetime? Yeah.

Something like that, but I know it's not on there. Cross Creek is Mary Steenbergin and Alphre Woodard. Yes, twice in a lifetime. Yes. 1985's twice in a lifetime. That is not. I'm just going to give that to one for free. Your instinct is correct that it's not one of them.

So that's a free guess. Right, right, right. Yeah. I wonder if Gone Baby Gone is on there. So I'm not, I'm going to keep that in my back pocket at this point. But I'm going to say, Field of Dreams. Field of Dreams. my favorite Amy Madigan performance.

I think she's so incredibly charismatic and fun and wonderful. And the scene where she tells off Lee Garlington about banning books and calls her a Nazi cow is just one of my favorite scenes. At least he is not a book burner, you Nazi cow. Okay, I'm going to guess my favorite Amy Madigan performance. in Uncle Buck. I knew you were going to guess that, and you're absolutely correct. Uncle Buck is there. Amy Madigan and Lori Metcalfe playing the like warring love interests for John Candy in that movie is amazing.

It's amazing. Okay, so what was going on in supporting actress that year that she wasn't nominated for Field of Dreams? I say this all the time. The fact that Field of Dreams is a best picture nominee and yet neither James or Jones nor Amy Madigan even got a sniff of award season attention is insane to me. Because James Earl Jones is like the classic like spotlight. He gets a big fucking speech in that movie. Like it's a whole like it could not be a more of a featured supporting player kind of a performance. And also he's an incredibly well respected actor. And like blows my mind that there wasn't that nothing came of that.

And also again, and you're right, the supportive wife role, which is like a. trope with the Oscars that like happens all the time and yet she's like the best example of it where like she's not just some like dishrag of a like supportive wife she's super fun and like charismatic and nothing

absolutely nothing 89 supporting actress was a best picture nominee that I always forget is a best picture nominee because I think as far as like it's Oscar footprint goes it kind of doesn't have one right like I think when we think of like Oscar movies it's usually

like there's got to be some type of or acting nomination associated to it. It was the best picture nominee with only three nominations total. It was picture writing and then James Horner's wonderful score for that movie was also nominated. But it was definitely like the sentimental choice, the fifth nominee,

you know, the best picture nominee without a director, like that kind of thing. And it was, again, for the detractors of Field of Dreams, which there are, you know, several. Think it's hopey. I don't think it's a movie that I would like. Oh, I... You've never seen it?

Here's what I will say. I was a kid. I don't really have... I remember her big scene and, like, the ending. It's very, very, very sentimental about baseball and fathers and sons. And I get where, like, that's, like, not your genre. But, like, I absolutely adore it. Anyway, 89 best supporting actress.

Obviously, Brenda Fricker wins that year, and we love Brenda Fricker for her. for her career, but also my left foot. But, like, 89's the year that, like, both Angelica Houston and Lena Olin are nominated for Enemies a Love Story. Diane Weist for Parenthood, which is a cool nomination, but not a performance that I think about a ton. And then Julia Roberts and Steel Magnolias. Yeah. Yes. So, yeah, I would put Amy Madigan above all of them.

Anyway, you're two for two. Okay. More Amy Madigan. I'm glad that I bought my time. I love that we got that little dig. An Amy Madigan digression. I live. I don't think it's a supportive wife, but I do remember her in places in the heart.

She is in places in the heart. That's not a correct answer, but that's not a bad guess. The only other thing leaping to my mind is Pollock, which she is, like, makeup and styling they put on her is wild. By a nose, Amy Madigan and Pollock. Yeah, yeah. Wait, Pollock showed up for somebody else. I'm going to guess Pollock. Incorrect.

That is your second strike. But, like, again, not a bad guess. Amy Madigan playing horny Peggy Guggenheim in Pollock, which I love the choice. That's right. She's Peggy Guggenheim. Yes.

And Randy is I'll get out for Jackson Pollock in that film. Obviously, her real-life husband or partner. I don't know if they're one of those couples who never got married because of, you know, society. Ed Harris, her and Ed Harris. Anyway, all right. So your two missing years are 1984 and 2007. Oh, well, O-7's Gone Baby Gone, so I should have said that already. You were, yes. You were correct in your instinct for Gone, Baby Gone. 84. This is what makes this hard. This is what makes this one hard. I don't know if you've ever, if you have familiarity. with this movie, but we'll see.

It is from a director who is like made hold on a second. I want to bring up his filmography really quickly. Directed a bunch of really well-known 80s movies that were like crowd pleaser, hit movies. I don't think these are movies that like

are Chris Files specials. So action movies. And he directed a really, really offensive movie a few years ago, actually in the same year as Live by Night. That was like, I'm pretty sure it was direct-to-video. But like, even as a direct-to-video movie, everybody was like, this is offensive. And that was the most recent film he ever directed. I can't think. of it.

Offensive along, let's say, gender lines. Was it like transphobic? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. In, like, the plot of it. Like, the whole, like, the log line for it.

You read the log line, and you're just, like, absolutely not. Starring one of our beloved widows. Oh, there was that Michelle Rodriguez movie. Yes. Yikes. I don't know who directed that.

Yeah. This guy directed a bunch of Eddie Murphy comedies in the 80s that are really well known. Like Beverly Hills Cop? No, the other sort of action comedies that he made in the 80s. 48 hours. Yes. Don't know who directed that. Yeah, this one's going to be tough for you.

I'll just describe it, and then I'll just give it to you. This was Diane Lane's in this movie. Michael Parre is in this movie. Rick Moranis, Amy Madigan, Willem Defoe. What? Rick Rossovich, Bill Paxton. The logline is, A mercenary is hired to rescue his ex-girlfriend,

a singer who has been kidnapped by a motorcycle gang. Which works for this director, because he also directed. The Warriors. Walter Hill. Yeah, it's Walter Hill. Still don't know what this movie is. I'll tell you in a second, I just want to look at the poster for a second. The tagline, the poster is this very sort of like, almost like chalk painting kind of

the street scene of a sort of streets in chaos. And it's this very sort of like, probably looking like a streetwalker lady, like hanging on the arm of this guy in a dance. duster with a rifle. And it says, tonight is what it means to be young. So truly, it's called Streets of Fire. Yeah. Streets of Fire, the other tagline is a rock and roll fable. I have never seen it, but I've definitely heard of it. And it sounds like very, very, very, very 80s sort of music video aesthetics. I don't know. Maybe I'll see it. Well, listeners, it was a Razzie nominee. deserves to be in Amy Madigan's

known for. Razzie nominee for Diane Lane, although that was a shared nomination with the Cotton Club, so I think it was mostly a nomination for the Cotton Club. But anyway, yes. Leave Diane Lane alone.

Amy Madigan, in Streets of Fire. Yeah, kind of an odd. That's what makes that one. That's why I said that's a hard one, because I was like, he's going to get three of them, and he has pretty much no shot at the fourth one. Well, damn. hit me with yours okay so for you i also went back into ben affleck actors um this is someone who i believe

we both love i think you love this actor we maybe have talked about him before um great character actor usually shows up in things that i am so happy to see him in and liking very little of what's going on around him uh it is scoot mcnary Scoot. Any TV? No TV. Dang. All right. No Halt and Catch Fire. I get it. I get it. Even though it was a great show. I get it. He's great on that show. So good on that show. All right. Argo. Argo, correct.

See, the thing about Scoot McNary is we love him, but he sometimes blends in very well, very successfully with his cast. I'm going to say, because this movie shows up for a lot of people, 12 years of slave. 12 years a slave. He has two best picture winners and is known for. Two adjacent

best picture winners. Spoiler alert, the other two were not best picture winners. Is one of the monsters? Damn it, you got monsters. It's his breakthrough movie. Yeah. Yeah. I still haven't seen that. I thought it got a little oversold to me, although there's at least one scene of sort of about with the monsters that I think is like really amazing and probably worth seeing it for.

It got a lot of credit for being made for no money and looking like it was very expensive. Yes. Yeah. It's worth seeing. It's absolutely worth seeing. Okay. So what's our fourth scoot? Scoot, scoot, scoot. And I think you have no wrong guesses yet. I thought I was giving you one that was very difficult. And if you get this, I don't know who I'm going to have to give you to break this strong streak you are having, sir. Yeah, you got to knock me down a few pegs.

I thought I was doing that. The only one that's jumping to my mind right now, even though it's probably not correct, but I won't be able to think of anything else until I throw it out there, is he's the, not a spoiler, but whatever. You should have seen this movie.

Now, he's the villain at the end of nonstop. It is not nonstop. Damn it. I can't believe he's the villain. He's the villain in nonstop. Would have sworn from the trailer, obviously, I have not seen that movie. Would have sworn from the trailer that it was Julianne Moore. Well, that's the thing about nonstop.

Is that, like, because of the trailer, everybody was positive, it's Julianne Moore. And even through the movie, you're really, she's like the big red herring. And it is ultimately. not her. It's ultimately Scoot McNary, and I'm pretty sure Nate Parker, I think, are in cahoots in some way. Um, but it's been a while since I saw nonstop on opening night in Union Square like a psychopath because I was so excited to see nonstop with a crowd. All right. Scoot. We're waiting on one more wrong answer before I give you the year. Yes, I know. Um, all right.

What are, like, Scoot movies? I mean, I'm not going to say Frank yet, but, like, Frank shows up for other people in a way that has surprised me in the past, so I guess I'm not ruling it out. But maybe now I can't think of anything else if I say Frank. I'm going to say Frank. I fucking hate you. Ha! that Frank shows up on a lot of people's known for. A lot of people's.

It's so weird. Damn it. You got it. I'm so mad. I'm so mad. You're going to get someone you have never heard of next week. I didn't get it four for four. You know, I didn't sweep the board. I'm fine. Whatever.

All right. Good IMDB game, Chris. That was a fun time had by all. And by all, I mean me. But that is our episode on Live by Night. If you want more of this at Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz.com. You should also follow our Twitter account at Had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz. Chris, where can the listeners find you and your stuff? You can find me on Twitter.com at Chris V-File. That's F-E-I-L, also on letterboxed under the same name.

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