This Had Oscar Buzz - 146 – The Place Beyond the Pines (Focus Features – Part Four)

Episode Date: May 24, 2021

This week, our Focus Features miniseries brings us to The Place Beyond the Pines, Derek Dianfrance’s epic, novelistic tale of fathers and sons. The film reunited Cianfrance with his Blue Valentine star Ryan Gosling as a motorcyclist who turns to crime, with consequences that will reverbate across households and generations. After launching at TIFF in 2012, Focus Features … Continue reading "146 – The Place Beyond the Pines (Focus Features – Part Four)"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. We want to talk to Marilyn in Heck. I'm from Canada, water. Tom, it's for me. I'm still his father. I can give him stuff. Hey, I'm Officer DeLuca. We're here to search your house. What for? We're looking for the money that Luke Lanton, Mayor, may not have given to you.

14 grand. Shares going to our hero. This is your problem. This is our problem. And I'm bringing it to your attention because that's what I should do. I want to do two in one day. Yeah, get up!

I'm not going to let you bring us both down. There's a way out of this. You're not going to be lacking. Hello and welcome to the Sad Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast giving you a giant pink diamond ring before you betray us. Every week on The Set Oscar Buzz we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon the time had a lofty Academy of a Comedy of a podcast. award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong.

The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I am your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with my tattooed, bank robber, uh, motorcyclist daddy, Joe Reed. Hey, what's your problem? I feel like that phrase has said like 8,000 times in this film by several different characters. What's your problem, man? What's your fucking problem?

If it's Emery Cohen, it's like, what's your fucking problem? I have a feeling we're going to argue about him. I do. I think we've argued about him in this movie before. I'm sure we have. But, like, we're really going to get into it this time. I feel less strongly than I. I have galvanized my opinion after watching it again.

We, who are of the homosexual persuasion and love to argue. Us? What? No. No. Roon ever. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So that. opinion, my Emery Cohen is sinking the movie, he's so bad opinion, has leveled off. I just think he's generally bad. I don't think he kills the movie anymore. We'll get into it when we get into it, because that's the last part of the movie.

We'll get into it. I still have very, very opposite opinions of you for that, but we'll talk about it. Yeah, the, like, chapters of this movie, when I was watching it, again, I was thinking, it's like, I feel like we're going to be backed into a corner of having a more linear episode than we normally do. Just because we're going to have to like, bullet by bullet, no pun intended, this film. Yeah.

We have the homosexual persuasion who like to wander through a conversation instead of, you know, We don't follow your rules. We like to get lost in the woods, or perhaps lost beyond the pines. Beyond the pines, yeah. I am very much dreading having to do the 60-second plot description. I sort of took a massive hatchet to my pre-prepared remarks, and it was just like, I'm going to have to shorten this a lot. And either I haven't done it enough, or I've done it way too much. Much. We'll see. We'll see how it goes.

So much plot. But, like, okay, so I think the both of us have historically, because this is a fairly divisive movie. I think it was especially at the time. There were... Okay, I wasn't prepared for how divisive? Because I go and I look at my letterboxed when I logged to this movie. Oh, I didn't do that. I should have done that. Oh, I mean, like, there are five-star reviews. There are one-star reviews. and the people that I follow, and, like, the people that hate it fucking hate this movie. And I get their complaints. There are, like, contrivances that I think hold the movie back because, like, what C and France is doing is so, like, ambitious and, like, tying these different narratives together, you know, like, I don't want to say it demands it. but, like, I understand why some of those happen and why it would bother any viewer.

There's, there were a lot of sort of elements that would contribute to this at the time and still now. It is a incredibly male movie, and I would say by design, it is, it is a movie that really interrogates the sort of legacies of fathers to sons and whatever. And, like, those are the kinds of movies that have been made for decades on decades. And if you're, you know, sick of that, I get it. This is also not a movie, much as I like it. I can fully admit that this is not a movie that serves its very few female characters well. I agree. Also, Ryan Gosling Fatigue was real, and it was happening, and it was really, you know, settling in right about now.

This is where it sort of really started to make itself known. And people, like, people forget that Bradley Cooper at the time, it took a while for people to come around on Bradley Cooper. Not everybody. A lot of people really liked him right away in Silver Linings Playbook. Obviously, you got the Oscar nomination for that. A lot of people were on board, but there was a lot of resistance. There was a lot of Silver Linings Playbook backlash that happened. there was

with like another David O'Russell movie coming down the pike there was like pre-fatigue almost for Bradley Cooper and like it just it was he was a lot

a lot more divisive of a figure at the time and then I even think there was a lot of you know three years after Blue Valentine a lot of people were like was that movie good or was that movie not good. And I think while that movie is still pretty much really well regarded, even in

retrospect, there were very vocal sort of detractors for that movie that sort of made themselves known. And I think especially in our circles that we truck in, all those ingredients added up to the fact that, like, I know I remember my timeline, especially in social media at that time. This was not a well-liked movie. This was a really, you would not have known that this was a 78% fresh Rotten Tomatoes movie at the time with like significant exceptions. I think that the 78 fresh and then

it's in the like low 60s of Metacritic. It does like usually when we do those type of movies it's like boring costume dramas. Right. But like that makes sense to me where it's like people overall think that the movie is good

fine but at the time didn't have much enthusiasm about it. And it took me, I remember, at the time, a little while to come around on it. Because I remember, I was like two and a half hour movie about men and their issues. Like, what fucking ever, man. And it ended up just off of my top 10 list. I remember I was at the Atlantic Wire at the time. And I did our top 10 list that year because that was before we hired David Sims.

And it was my number 10 movie of that year. the day that I published my top 10 list. And, like, to give you a little window into just how kind of runaway train our editorial practice at the time was, and I say that with full responsibility of being the one responsible for that editorial practice at the time, I saw the act of killing the night that my top 10 went up, and then the next day I went into work, and I'm like, I'm changing my top 10. And I put the active killing into my top 10, and I dropped place beyond the pines out of it into honorable mention status. But it was like right on the cusp

there. And it was on a few top 10 lists. I know our friend and past guest and, you know, undoubtedly future guest, Richard Lawson put it on his top 10 that year. And it was a movie that a lot of people really championed for reasons that, you know, even if I didn't largely agree with them, it would make sense because there's a lot of scope to this. movie. There's a lot of ambition to this movie. Sean Bobbitt's cinematography is like, we'll get into Sean Bobbitt. I mean,

fuck. Poor Sean Bobbitt in his concussion. Yeah. We'll definitely get into that. Yeah, it's incredibly, as I said, ambitious movie, and that will get you respect, even if some people, you know, find that that ambition

isn't fully realized. I think watching it again in this movie, I have problems with the final third that are actually not involved with the acting. It's sort of in the writing of it and the structure of it. Yeah, I, this rewatch, I had problems with the final third that I didn't have initially. And I liked the middle third better than I remember liking it. I remember being like a fan of the beginning and end and sort of, I don't think I was fully on the Bradley Cooper train at that point.

So I think I was one of those people being just like, all right, like... The middle third sells me on the movie in ways that I think the other portions don't. But we will get into it. Joe, we are here to talk about focus features again. Yes, we are. Let's do our little focus features catch up. This is our film number four of five in our focus features miniseries. We have previously talked about the music.

at October Films, and then Possession, as I ethnically try and say it, and then Lost Caution last week, which was super rad. So now we are into the 2010s for Focus features. Focus is very dominant at this point, because when you look at the list of their releases, like, there's no way we're going to talk about or mention all of the releases at this point after, like, less caution, but there's a billion movies. And yet... Not a billion, but a lot.

No, there's a lot. And yet, no best picture. Like, the Brokeback Mountain wounds linger, I feel like, and I feel like that's going to... I mean, Focus Features is still a thing, and just had a Best Picture nominee this past year with Promising Young Woman, so, like, certainly, they're not out of the game at all. but it does feel like more and more that like Brokeback Mountain was their real shot

but... Yeah, Brokeback Mountain, I can't I can't think of another movie that they were closer to getting Best Picture or even something that's as close as Brokeback Mountain was, to be honest. Right, right, agreed. So, but yeah, so we'll pick up

where we left off with Lust Caution, which was a 2000 7 release They have a really Interesting 2008 with like Some highs and some lows We've talked about

At least one of the lows being Well wait The other Bolling Girl was a co-production So do we hang the other Bolein Girl on Focus or more on Columbia? I think we counted it When we did that episode Yeah

But like In Bruges is a really great success story, I think, for an indie distributor. Or would it this dependent, you know, a dependent. Built over an entire year. Yes. Yeah. Built over an entire year.

I forgot that it opened in February. They still had a Best Picture Player in Milk. Right. So it's not like it leveled up because, like, it had its movies falling through, you know, we're seen in other situations. Yeah. Milk is the big success story in 2008. Best Picture nomination.

wins Sean Penn his second Oscar Dustin Lance Black wins the original screenplay Oscar that year and Colin Farrell I would say probably comes close

to getting a nomination for In Bruges that year he had won the Golden Globe he's probably in that like 6, 7, 8 range in the voting for best actor that year would have been a very worthy nominee

I think he's wonderful in that movie also that year was burned after reading we did an episode on that the cohen brothers movie that didn't end up getting nominated for anything but yeah i think milk is a that's you know that's an a plus a plus work for focus features in terms of that oscar story for that movie really good job there um 2009 is i think even more interesting even though they only really have one serious awards contender no pun intended. They get the nomination for a serious man. A serious man only gets what, like two nominations. Two screenplay and picture.

Right. And that's the first year that Best Picture expands to 10. I think we can probably safely say, given that it only got two nominations, that it wouldn't have gotten a Best Picture nomination had it been only five, but like good for the Coens. No, that nomination makes me happy, though. Best Gone Brothers movie. I don't agree with that, but I, I respect it.

I respect the hustle for a serious man. I'm good for that. O'O9 also has some other things that, like, tangentially, like, were around Oscar, like, Coraline, away we go. Coraline was an animated feature nominee, right? I'm positive it was. I'm sure. I can look at very quickly. What did it lose to, like, happy feet?

Up would have been O'9. Because Up was a best picture nominee. Yes, it was nominated for an animated feature that year. It did lose to up. Yes. So I have... We came out with another movie this year in Taking Woodstock. Yeah.

A very... Maybe one of the most interesting Angley movies to talk about just because of the fact that it was not all that successful. I think that and Ride with the Devil are like the interesting Angley movies to talk about just because it's just like, oh. And they weren't disasters. the other thing. They were just sort of just like, huh, like, that, that took a swing and didn't go for it. I remember enjoying taking Woodstock well enough. I liked certain elements of it a lot. I remember some people kind of really hated it. I think some people really hated Amelda Stanton's performance in that movie. I know, I think I saw at least one person

called anti-Semitic, which I cannot speak to. But I enjoyed. that movie. Jonathan Groff is super hot. I remember that movie not at all feeling like an angly movie, like just feeling you know, very like broad and uninteresting.

I don't know if I would say uninteresting but broad I'll give you for sure. I was going to say Jonathan Groff enters a scene in that film on a horse with a vest with no shirt on. So if that's what you're looking for have at it. away we go is also that year

which is a film that I love with my whole heart and I know that's another movie that I think some people like and some people really don't like that movie I really like that movie episodic though it is I also I never quite appreciated at the time

because Maya Rudolph is the female lead in that movie here it's her in Krasinski and she hadn't really been she hadn't been the lead in a movie ever She was a, you know, obviously Saturday Night Live performer, and she had been in some sort of some small movie roles. The degree to which that role dovetails with her own life and, you know, losing her mother so young. And I don't think I appreciated at the time what, you know, that element of her performance.

That hers is a performance that I appreciate more and more every time I see that movie. I think at first I probably wasn't super impressed. I thought it was a little reserved and I wasn't quite getting why. I'm a little precious with what it's doing and like the structure of it seems like the type of thing that like, you know, a lot of people I roll at like this kind of quirky comedic drama, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. they're going on a road trip, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But, like, I do actually think it's a little bit more nuanced and tender of a movie than people at least regarded it at the time. I think it really builds. I think it's really good.

Focus gets another Best Picture nomination in 2010 with The Kids Are All Right. Again, probably not a movie that would have gotten a nomination if it wasn't a top ten. But, like, that's why I love the Top Ten because the Kids Are All Right deserved that. though because like that was enough that movie was around enough it got other major nominations to like Lisa Jolodeco didn't get the director nomination for it

but like that movie stuck around for a long time yeah I guess so I just feel like 2010 the major narratives were on other movies and I think I could easily see a world where the kids are all right gets boiled down to

you know the Benning and Ruffalo nominations, and you know, that's all a screenplay. You know what I mean? Like, it feels like that kind of movie. Also, 2010 is Sophia Coppola somewhere, which we've done an episode on. This period of time really reminds me that, like, we've

done a lot of focus features. Like, it's funny that we're doing a mini-series on it, and it's just like, we've done so much. But honestly, but they fit so well into our rubric that like it makes all the sense in the world that we really have. 2011 is also a really interesting year

They were probably very close to getting Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy wasn't a Best Picture nominee, was it? No, it wasn't. But you get the feeling that it probably came close, though. Yeah, yeah. And obviously there's the Christopher Plummer steam roll that happens this year. For beginners, yeah.

They weirdly put pariah at the very end of the year, and if they hadn't done that, that movie could have maybe gotten some traction. Fucking love that movie. 2012, however, also feels like they're kind of close on the outside. What's interesting is, like, ultimately their big 2012 player was Moonrise Kingdom because their other movies nobody else liked. And this also gets us into the place beyond the pines because their big fall movies are

Anna Karenina, which we both love. Yeah, and got four nominations. Yeah, but like four nominations and a win is like, that's nothing to sneeze at. Right, exactly. But like, it wasn't going to be a best picture player. Right. People didn't like it enough. And then Hyde Park on Hudson, which is so bad.

Disaster. One of our early episodes. But both of those movies played the TIF that Place Beyond the Pines premiered at. Right. But they still held Place Beyond the Pines for the fall. which, like, I understand that because... For the spring, for the following spring. Yes, the following spring, sorry.

I get that because it's like they bought that movie at a fall festival. It takes a lot to kind of launch a movie. They bought it at TIF. Yeah. And I think right away, I was reading one of the write-ups about when Focus had bought Place Beyond the Pines. And right away, there were like coming in 2013. So, like, there was even no even considering. that they would try and open it at the end of 2012,

which because that's the same TIF that Silver Linings Playbook kind of had that breakthrough, that calculus makes sense because it's just like we don't want to run the other Bradley Cooper movie up against this one, we want to maybe take our time with it. I agree with all of that. I don't know if I necessarily agree with opening it in March of 2013. Right.

The very end of March, like Easter weekend. In limited release, take your... family to see a movie about mail, you know, whatever. Focus also had Promise Land in the pipeline for this year, too, but, like, it had their Christmas slot. That movie we talked about in our episode, if I am remembering correctly, had a somewhat fast turnaround. Promise Land, yes.

In that, like, they could have, it's hard to, you know, just, it's happened before, where it's like still Alice ends up becoming an Oscar winner immediately after a fall festival, kind of out of nowhere, too. Yeah. But like, I don't know. The thing that puzzles me about Place Beyond the Pines being a March release in 2013 is it's not like they had something huge in the tank waiting for the end of 2013. Their Oscar movie that year in 2013 ends up being Dallas Buyers Club, which does get a best picture nominee. but that feels like that was a late-breaking strategy. I think for the longest time,

they were pushing that as a Matthew McConaughey nomination, and I think the snowball effect of it got it into the Best Picture conversation. But that felt like that was a late development, whereas, like, it doesn't feel like that movie was big enough a year ahead of time to sort of force place beyond the pines into the spring. Right. Yeah, but the other thing is, like, If you hold a movie for that long from, like, a Toronto premiere to the next fall, yeah.

It gives, like, a tainted thing about the movie, right? Sure. Sure. Yeah. I get that. However, like, this kind of brings me to one of my points I wasn't going to bring up this early. I think Tiff was the wrong festival for this movie. Yeah, I could see that. What do you think would have been better? Well, okay, so it played TIF shortly after it finished post-production because, like, it took them, like, nine months in the, like, to edit the movie. Yeah. To get it to be what San France wanted it to be.

I just feel like if it was launched at, like, a can or a Sundance instead, people would have. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, at least in terms of an awards narrative, I think the movie probably would have fared better. So, Blue Valentine. I mean, this movie made $20 million being what it is, and I think that's a good amount of money.

I agree with that. Yeah. Spring counter-programming. Yeah. So it's like, even though, like, we're talking about it in awards context, this movie isn't, you know, hurting in any way. So I wonder if there was a worry that it wouldn't get into Cannes because Cannes is sort of famously Once you're in the club, you're in the club, but until you are, it's sort of you're rolling the dice as to

Whether you can get into the competition there and I don't know if premiering this one out of competition would have been enough For the film but yeah, can certainly in it's just a festival it would have made more sense at two. I agree. It feels like a European festival feels like a more fitting premiere for this movie with the kind of the style of it, the scope of it, the kind of not to like, I know people people use this term a little too readily, but like there is a 70s sort of feel to it a little bit. Or I remember watching it this time especially. I had to check like three separate times to make sure that this wasn't based on a novel because it really feels

based on a novel. It has that novelistic structure. Yeah. Well, and C in France basically works with novels now. Right. Which is so interesting because in doing my research for this episode and listening to some of his reviews, he kind of like talks shit about reading interviews.

There was one in particular where he was like, you know, you watch those movies based on books and they're not very good and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, well, surprising the pivot that you took, sir. I think early 2010's Derek C. and France, I remember, I saw Blue Valentine at Bam, at Brooklyn Academy and Music. It might have been one of those simultaneous with Sundance things. Or it couldn't have been, because if it was simultaneous with Sundance, he would have been at Sundance.

But, like, he gave a talk after. So it was like, but I think it was still, like, pretty early on in that year. but I remember he gave a little, you know, short little talk back after the film. And I remember walking away from that being, like, he seems a little full of himself. And it took me a while to sort of, like, come back around on Derek Sea of France because it was just like, he seems like he's maybe a, you know, jackass. But so maybe now he looks back at sort of that era of him and is just like, calm down, buddy. I do also kind of, like, I guess to speak to his later works or what he's done more recently, like, Light Between Oceans, we won't say too much about, I think. Because we will do that, yeah.

We will absolutely do an episode on that movie. And, like, that movie kind of got, like, kicked around. I think it, like, sat on a shelf for over a year with, like, no plan of when they were going to release it. And, like, I do think that's a better movie than it's given credit for. But, like, watching Place Beyond the Pines, it really felt less of a piece than with Blue Valentine and more of a piece with I know this much is true

which was the HBO limited series with Mark Ruffalo last year that I loved but because it is very much a bummer sandwich I think no one else watched. I mean Mark Ruffalo has been winning

awards for it as he rightly should but like it's really great work by Derek C in France and it feels very close to what this movie is. is. It felt to me, I kept sort of like hovering over, should I watch this, because the cast is fantastic. I really do like Derek C. and France, and your recommendation sort of carried a lot of weight with me. And yet, early, spring into early summer of 2020, it felt like a big ask for me,

emotionally. And I was just like, you know. It hit at exactly the wrong time to get people to watch I might go back and watch, you know, darts videos on YouTube instead of watching. I know this much is true. And honestly, that was probably better for my mental health at the moment. So, you know, I think I could have made an easy. It does also end, if not with uplift. Like, it does feel like, you know, you're not left on this horrible, like, taxing note for the show. I will say that.

I had also read the previous novel by that author by Wally Lamb. she's come undone. And I remember, and I read that one, like, in my early 20s. And, but I remember even then, I was just like, this is Bombertown. Like, it was, and not, like, I, like, Bombertown is almost, like, too innocuous. I was just like, you are putting this girl through the ringer of, like, it's one of those novels where, like, every possible bad thing that could happen to somebody, happens to somebody. And I was like, this is not the kind of novel I want to be reading.

And I say that as somebody who read all of a little life on vacation, which was certainly a decision that I made, to put myself through that kind of emotional ringer by the ocean. But, you know, I did it. And then you finished the book and you walked right into the sea. Right into the sea. Yeah, never looked back, exactly. You are speaking to the Trish-esque water spirit that once was me. for this podcast. I love that your Trish origin story is reading a little life. It's reading a little life on vacation. Won't make that mistake twice. I'll say that much. You know, I can't believe that

we are a podcast hosted by two gay men, and it's taken us almost 150 episodes to mention a little life. But here we are. Well, here we are. Yeah. Well, we'll mention it when eventually gets made into a movie produced by Focus Features and gets zero Oscar nominations. That's when we'll talk about it. And we'll talk about it. Okay, so speaking of, I know this much is true, which I think listeners should definitely, you know, give it the time. It's not something you're going to want to binge, but you should watch the show. Mark Ruffalo's incredible. Rosie O'Donnell's fucking incredible in it, actually.

This is what I've heard, yeah. It's the TV show that everybody should have been talking about for Catherine Hahn. She's even amazing, even though she doesn't have a ton to do. Listen, Catherine Hahn was justly praised for Wanda Vision. I will not hear the slander. I haven't watched it, so I don't actually know. she was great any praise that she gets at all is justly earned we know that we listen we were on the ground level we were a katherine hans stan podcast before it was cool i was in on katherine haunt at revolutionary road which i know it wasn't like the very beginning of katherine hond but like it was pretty close to the beginning so like kiss my butt what i want to say about uh like see in france and i know this much is true is like he goes i mean that that book

like fucking huge. It's like 700 pages or something. And he goes and does a limited series with it. It's like, I think, eight episodes. And we've talked a lot before about movies of like this era and before that the unfortunate thing about the business is, you know, some of these movies would be limited series today. Right. And I'm... I'm glad this wasn't. Thank you. That's exactly what I was going to say. I think because this movie has the type of scope, it has, it has the kind of ambition that it has, I think it's better for being a movie. Even a long movie, even one that like sometimes bites off more than it can successfully chew. I think that's, I think that's an asset to the movie. I think it's part of what makes me really like it. It makes the movie stand

out. It makes it in a way that like, I don't actually think this would be interesting if it was a limited series, even if it was three episodes that are... Oh, it would become such a fucking slog. Like, it would be... It would be a lot worse, I think, as a limited series. And I think, like, the connective threads between the three narratives would get lost. They would run concurrently. The way TV is done today, everything has to be experienced on multiple timelines, seemingly.

So, like, you would have all three timelines happening at the same time, and it would be so irritating. Well, in one interview, Derek C. and France said that when they were trying to get financing for the movie, one studio wanted them to do that. They wanted them to have, like, because the concern was, uh, spoiler alert listeners, we'll get into the 60 second plot description soon. Yeah, we should. The concern was you're killing a major character. Right. Right. A third of the way into the movie. And they wanted all three storylines to have, not only a major character, but like. A, the star the marquee star right yeah like the big star the guy who we're hanging our marketing on yeah which like a there are a million movies like that right and a lot of them are bad right but b like i don't

understand how you maintain any type of tension when it's like one of the other narratives or two of them actually is predicated on knowing that one of these characters we're watching is going to die. I think that would kill all the tension. Yes. Yeah. The movie being structured as it is is part of why it's good. I agree.

I absolutely agree. We should get into the 60 second plot description. So we should start talking about this movie. And also, I'm just very eager for the torture of you trying to condense what happens in this fucking movie. God, we'll see, we'll see where that minute ends up. Yeah. Guys, we are here talking about the place beyond the pines,

written and directed by Derek C. in France, also co-written by Ben Koshio and Darius Martyr. I will have some things to say. Starring a really large cast and a lot of them in very small roles, but Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Dane DeHan, Emery Cohen, Eva Mendez, Rose Byrne, Ray Leota, Ben Mendelssohn, Maharshala Ali, Olga Meridaeis, Harris Eulen, and Bruce Greenwood. The movie premiered at Tiff in 2012 and then didn't open until Easter weekend of late March 2013.

He is risen, and by he, we mean... Dane Dahan. Dane Dahan has come back to us. Yes, exactly. The movie, Dane Dahan emerges from the cave. kind of does. Rolls that boulder back? Yeah, exactly.

Joe, are you ready to give a 60-second plot description of the place beyond the Pines? I mean, sure. Again, as I said, this is going to end up being either too hacked down or still not hacked down enough, and we'll see where we go. All right. If you are ready, your 60-second plot description starts now. All right, first third, Ryan Gosling is a traveling motorcycle stunt driver who, fathered a kid with Eva Mendez, but she's been Mahershala Ali now, but Gosling wants to be a big shot

anyway and provide for his kid. So he gets into robbing banks with Ben Mendelssohn, which goes well for a while until it doesn't, and he ends up getting chased into a house by Officer Brad the Cooper, and Cooper shoots first and Gosling dies. Second, third. Gosling ended up shooting Cooper, too, though, but he survived, and he is hailed as a hero cop by the department,

and they happily cover up who shot first, and then Ray Leota and his pig friends come over, and they're like, come with us to help us shake down Eva Mendez and Mehershershra and Cooper feels gross about it, and eventually he blows the whistle on their whole corrupt cop ring and blackmouses away into a job in the DA's office. Final third. Fifteen years later, Cooper is divorced from Rose Byrne and running for state district attorney,

and his teenage son from Smash is a real nightmare who befriends Dane DeHon, who is the teenage son of Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendez, and Smash kid bullies DeHan into scoring some oxycontin for him, and Dane eventually finds out Smash's dad, his dad, and kills his father, and he flips out and he gets a gun, and he drags Cooper into the woods at gunpoint, but he doesn't kill him, he just steals enough money to go by our motorcycle, then become a drifting ball of problematic masculinity, just like his dad, the end. And that is exactly at time.

I have never been more fucking. proud of you. I'm so impressed with myself. Yeah. So that's the place beyond the pines. It's a good, it's over an hour just the Gosling portion of the movie, which is probably the least plotty and the more like

it's very artistic. It's the most like, yeah. It's the Sean Bobbittiest part of the movie. For sure. It's the one. I mean, like, can we just maybe get into Sean Bobbitt now? Sure. Because that's where the movie begins.

It's this really, like, impressive tracking shot through this carnival. Schenectady, New York is where it takes place in, which you would know if you've ever taken a train to or from Albany. It's the first stop after Albany, upstate. It's, tracks sort of behind Gosling. You don't know where he's going. He eventually makes it to this motorcycle, exhibition, which he is part of.

It's called like the ball of death or something. Right, exactly, yes. And it's this like big circular motorcycle cage, which you've ever seen. You know, they go up and around and it's very impressive and scary. And Bobbitt takes the camera, tracks it through that whole extravaganza. In real life, he insisted upon being inside the cage while it filmed with like protective gear and whatever, but a motorcycle still hit him and gave him a concussion.

Fell on top of him. They did that shot from one of the interviews I read with Cian Grants. They did that shot twice where Sean Bobbick goes into the actual thing. Fucked it up the first time and then the second time

motorcycle falls on his fucking head. Somehow miraculously is only concussed. Like nothing else is wrong with him. And after that, C.N. France was like, yeah, you're not going in the cage again. Right. And, I mean, like, not to be like, oh, he put himself in danger. That makes him a legend.

But, like, you see the shot as it is. The shot's great. It's still not exactly what he wanted, and it's still kind of gobsmacking. And then a lot of the, I mean, first of all, the movie's just for, like, the whole, like, greedy, blah, blah, blah. Right. You know, it's actually kind of. fucking gorgeous. It's elegant. Like, there's an elegance to it within the gritty sort of, you know, milieu of all of it.

Also, the fact that... Sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. Well, I was just going to say, the fact that 2013, when this movie's released, is also the year of 12 years of slave, is like... Sean Bobbitt was... And still is, by the way, and finally is getting Oscar nominations, thank God. Finally got nominated. He should have won this year. Just my opinion.

No, he's fantastic. He should have an Oscar. He's one of those people who's just like, he's... should have an Oscar. But, like, this was the big sort of, like, Sean Bobbitt was the hotness when it came to cinematography at this stage. Yes. I mean, well, there's also, like, all these crazy shots of, like, the motorcycle footage that they, like, I don't know how they filmed it.

Yeah. Not just that opening shot, which, like, we talk about that shot, but, like, the getaway scene. The getaway scenes are fantastic. Both of them. Both of the big motorcycle chase scenes are astounding. And the way they shot it, I'm like, someone died to make this movie.

It's just, and like, not that danger makes for good art. It's just it really kind of... No, I'm joking. Oh, okay. I was like, what did I miss? No one died. No one actually died to make this movie. But like, when you're watching it, like,

you feel like someone could die. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And Gosling wanted to do some of his own stunts in the film. And, like, this was, again, this was part of the whole Ryan Gosling mystique of the early 2010s. Like, of course he wanted to do his own stunts. Well, and, like, just the way that it shot really adds to the tension, the real sense of, like, I mentioned danger and, like, the kind of rush of the movie. But there's also, like, I really want seeing France and Sean Bobbitt to work together again. Because so much of this movie is, like, about, like, myth and, like, myth of, like, fathers and sons and building this. And I think what Sean Bobbitt achieves in this movie really kind of enhances that in a way that is very moving. Yeah. The fathers and sonsness of the movie is something that I had to kind of overcome in this movie. again, we've seen so many movies where that is the theme.

And a movie that marginalizes its female characters to the extent that this one does is just starting at a deficit with me. And that's just like, that's sort of how I'm, you know, oriented. And that's fine. Especially when one of those women is Rose Byrne, who I fucking love. Is that like this is the moment we all kind of especially us of the, I'm just going to keep calling us, us of the homosexual persuasion started to

really kind of lock into loving her. Well, Bridesmaids was a couple years before this, and I think that's when I think that's when we first all realized because going into Bridesmaids, she was the one, she was the outlier. She wasn't part of the SNL,

and even like Ellie Kemper was like an NBC comedy, Wendy McClendon Covey was coming from Reno 911, and they all had, like, Melissa McCarthy, had, you know, been on sitcoms and stuff like that. So, like, Roseburn was like, oh, and also, there's a movie star to play the villain, essentially, of this movie. And then you watch Bridesmaids, and she's so funny and game for all of it, and winning and, like, perfect for that role. And, like, for as much as I love Melissa McCarthy in that movie, and I think she's a total scream.

And, like, I love that Oscar nomination. Roseburn is my best in show for that movie. Like, she's so fucking funny. And I think after that performance, a lot of the kinds of roles that she had been getting before bridesmaids really started to stand out as, like, just not enough. Like, we really need movies to be giving us more and better for Roseburn. And, like, even with that set, she plays Bradley Cooper's wife in this movie. She probably shot for maybe two or three days. She gets like basically three scenes.

She's in the hospital with him. She is at dinner with him with the dirty cops. And then in the third section, she's there at his father's funeral and sort of tells him he's got to take Emery Cohen. But in that middle scene, that dinner scene where he sort of, Cooper like invites these cops, Raleioda and the other ones, in he's having a hard time sort of relating to her. after the shooting. We sort of see seeds of their eventual divorce. And she doesn't want these cops to come over for dinner, clearly, to be like to come in for dinner. But like, there they are. And she at one point says something, they want him to come with them on this, what turns out to be the shakedown of Eva Mendez. But they're like, you want to come and like, you know, introduce

them to some people and, you know, have them, you know, celebrate his heroness or whatever. And she sort of says, like, well, you know, he's, he's the big hero. And Ray Leota is like, do I, do I detect some, you know, sarcasm there? And she plays it off, but it's such a good scene for her. And I'm like, she's so good getting a crumb, just a crumb of something to work with. And I'm just like, it really, it impressed me all the more with her. But she's not served well in this movie. Eva Mendez is not served well on this movie. And I, I get that that's not what the movie is about. And normally, like, nine times out of ten, that would, like, that movie would be dead to me because of that.

And I think it takes... I agree. It takes this movie being as good as it is for me to sort of look past that and be like, okay, fine, you want to make a movie about fathers and sons and legacies. And, like, this is a movie that interrogates the sort of masculine drive to... whatever, provide for a kid and be, you know, the fucking macho guy who has to show up the new boyfriend or whatever. This movie also interrogates cop culture a lot more than I remembered it doing. I remember being like sort of cringy. I was like, oh, are we going to have to like sympathize with Bradley Cooper as like the poor cop? And this is just like, this is not what that

movie is asking you to do, like at all. And it certainly isn't asking you. It means like it could veer in that direction too but like at the end of like that portion of the story basically it shows him to be just as corrupt as the rest of them and um that it shows the system to be like endemically corrupt in a way that like i didn't remember us talking about in 2013 so like that's cool absolutely well and i also think that as far as like what the movie interrogates like it shows like that whole like um toxic thing very rooted in the center of our culture as inherently male too and in like very bad way like I don't think it feels like kind of a diversion from the grander story because it's like here here is a chapter on why cops are bad you know whereas like the rest of it is just like this kind of broader study of like fathers and sons um except i would say that like sorry to interrupt you for a second but i just just except to say that like i think what that middle part does with the corrupt cops thing is like cooper's character was planning on like he wanted to be a cop because that's how he was going to contribute to society and be a good man and be a good father and be a good husband and all of that and watching that. This idea of a perfect man or like a righteous man.

And watching that sort of like get disillusioned and how that sort of crumbles him as a man and like leads to things like him becoming this sort of like hollowed out politician figure in the final third and not a good father to his kid and sort of like not willing to try even. He doesn't he doesn't want the responsibility of taking on this kid. the summer or whatever. And I think that middle portion, because like, what's a more, like, typically masculine archetype in

a film, but also in, like, American cultural life, it's a cop, right? So, like, watching that... You probably just said what I was going to say, way more eloquently than I would have. But no, like, to what you're saying, it's... The reason it doesn't feel like, oh,

this movie's going and doing something else in this portion is that it does feel very intrinsic to the type of masculinity that see in France is talking about with this movie or like he hates to say like talking about that sounds straight but like no it does feel very much like the way that that story unfolds is like intrinsic to yeah the type of masculinity he's trying to unpack so before we get too far into that, before we move past the Gosling portion of the movie too much, I want to talk about the sort of the Ryan Gosling thing of 2012, 2013, because he really, he was everywhere for a couple of years there. And it started, because he got the Oscar nomination, I mean, whatever, Mickey Mouse Club, the younger star, the notebook, murder by numbers, all of that stuff, right. It gets the Oscar nomination in 2017. six for half Nelson. And then it's like, oh, not only is he this like, you know, up and coming young actor, but like he's got the goods. Like he's sort of, you know, been anointed with this

Oscar nomination as like, there are big things ahead for this guy. Also, almost gets a nomination for Lars and the Real Girl. I feel like he came very close for 2007. And then nothing for a couple of years. And then 2010, he comes back, Blue Valentine. It feels like. It feels like he and Michelle Williams are both sort of campaigned kind of equally. It's definitely like a two-hander of a movie and it's a campaigned that way

and Williams gets the nomination and Gosling doesn't and I'm always somebody who proceeds with caution when trying to glean stuff from that because you can't you can't say

that you know Oscars liked her better than him because it's like you're voting in two separate things. You're dealing with different competition, whatever. And maybe, you know, the best actor field that year was more competitive than, you know, best actor saw as and whatever. But like for whatever the reason, she gets the nomination. He doesn't. He probably comes in six or seventh that year for Best Actor for Blue Valentine. But regardless, that movie kind of sets the new template for Gosling where he's,

playing this moody, again, like dealing with a lot of masculinity stuff and troubled and a little bit of a hair trigger and self-destructive, you know, and that sets the template for a lot of stuff going forward, not necessarily Crazy Stupid Love, which we did an episode on, and Iads of March, which is, I think, is a failed attempt to make him a Clooney-era parent, which, like, that never fit anyway. But, like, Drive certainly plays into that. Drive is, like, he doesn't even get a name in that movie. He's very much, like, the masculine id in that movie, has to, you know, kick the shit out

of Oscar Isaac in order to, you know, win Kerry Mulligan, and there's just a lot of, and again, a very stylish movie, but, like, stylish around these sort of, like, interrogations of toxic masculinity going on in there. And then Place Beyond the Pines, like, he's a stunt driver in Drive. He's a stunt motorcycle guy. It plays me on the Pines. Like, it's so similar, and it happens, you know, right next. And he's also in, like, an iconic jacket again. Right.

And then that same year that Place Beyond the Pines comes out, he's in another Nicholas Winding Refundon movie. only God forgives, that is like somehow even moodyer, somehow even more like, you know, violent and toxic. Right, exactly. So like by this point, the Ryan Gosling thing has almost come to the point of parody where it's like he's adopted this kind of tough guy voice that, you know, is feels like it could be a bit of a put on. And he's playing these like, as you said, ever more taciturn character. who strike these sort of stylishly violent and, you know, macho postures. And having those three movies come out within two years of each other is a lot. It's a lot for people to take in.

And I think he goes away after that, too. Like, after Only God Forgifts, the next movie he makes is the big short, which is like a few years of a gap. but this whole period we're talking about I think it's so interesting because there's like a gap before and after this whole kind of ascension which like he was gearing up for it

and then he had to cool down it's like he was doing a very intense workout well I think the I think the gap at the beginning of it which is after his Oscar nomination and after Lars and the real girl I think the reason for that is because of the lovely bones

Oh, right. Because he was cast as the dad, cast way too young for that role. And gained weight for it. But he puts on a ton of weight. Yeah. Yeah. What a disaster that movie is. I forgot the many tentacles of the disaster that is the lovely bones.

I know. I don't remember if he filmed scenes or not, but like, he was on set for that movie. Right. And then they call Mark Wahlberg in, and Mark Wahlberg is terrible. He, Geisling very much was the tomb in the middle. of that house. You have a tomb in the middle of your house. In the lovely ones.

He was the, he was the, uh, the actors who passed away. You're the tomb in the middle of your house. I love Susan Sarandon in that so much. I don't, I don't love Susan Strand in that. Well, she's probably my favorite performance in it because there's not a lot of competition there, but that line I will stick with me forever. I should rewatch that bad movie. Um, a shame we can't do it on this podcast because of Stanley Tucci's horrible nomination.

But you're right, though, a few years later, he does emerge. The big short, he's sort of back into that kind of crazy, stupid love, cocky. He's still doing the voice, but it's like... He's barely in that movie. He is, but he's very flashy when he is in that movie. Like, he's sort of, he's doing that crazy stupid love thing. He's taking over scenes, and he's telling people what's what, and Steve Carell is in the general vicinity, and, you know, there's a lot of that.

But then he really does start branching out into, where, like, The nice guys, which I really love, and he's very funny in that movie. And it's just like, oh, right, like, he can use this persona to get laughs. Like, that's very cool. And La La Land, another incredibly divisive movie. But it's a different thing. He's charming, and he's sort of, you know, he can be very sweet in that movie. And Blade Runner, 2049, another divisive movie that I love.

This is kind of a theme with me and Ryan Gosling. he's doing the sort of like action hero thing but very kind of very cerebral and I mean first man is sort of back to oh can we get a character who doesn't smile or talk very much that would be ideal we need someone who is not going to smile on screen is Gosling available and then coming up next he's doing a thriller with the Russo brothers Netflix, yeah, this movie sounds like I Will Hate it. Yeah, he's playing a CIA operative, and it's Chris Evans and Anna DeArmus, and Billy Bob Thornton is in it, Elfrey Woodard is in it, but yeah, it's sort of a CIA thriller thing that I, what was the movie with all of the hot actors, and they were like Soldiers of Fortune? Ben Affleck was in the cast Charlie Hunnam was in it

And Oscar Isaac was in it Yeah what the fuck was that called It's the same guy I thought as most violent year It's what was it called I want to say Tropic Thunder but it is not No I almost want to say like stealth force like something like that It's just like it has a very like 80s action title triple frontier triple frontier Frontier.

Not a double frontier. It's a triple frontier. Triple frontier, which went through like several, like, versions. It was at one point going to be a Catherine Bigelow movie with Tom Hanks and, like, then became this whole other very different movie. That was one of the first times where Netflix trotted out the bullshit 40 million or whatever number that they say for every single movie of people watch that movie. Right. And I was like, no, they did not. You just copied the press release from the last movie.

I don't know anyone who saw this movie. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, hopefully the Greyman, which is the CIA movie, is better than that. And, again, I tend to like the Ryan Gosling movies that are a little divisive, so maybe I will like it. But, yeah, anyway, Place Beyond the Pines is coming smack in the middle of this Ryan Gosling fatigue that had really sort of started to set in. And it's kind of too bad because I don't think we're, I think we are meant to be as frustrated with this character as we end up being. And his sort of insistence on playing this role in, you know, his family's life where he's going to provide for this kid no matter whether Eva Mendez, you know, wants him in her life or whether he's going to be good for the kid. or, you know, Mahershala Ali is there and he doesn't give a shit

and he's just going to bulldoze his way into the kid's life and he's going to rob banks and he's going to do whatever because he's got to be a provider for his whatever. And I think the movie looks upon that with a lot of criticism and a lot of skepticism. And I appreciate it. Yeah, I definitely think we're perhaps not supposed to like him because it's very clear that if we were supposed to like him.

If we were supposed to like him, he wouldn't have put a gun in Ben Mendelsohn's mouth. Because Ben Mendelso is so likable in this movie. He's so great. Ben Mendelsohn is so good in this movie. I love him so much. Well, but also, like, I think one of the key themes is, like, in terms of fatherhood, it's very clear that, like, C. and France is saying, you know, maybe the best thing that this character could do for his kid is truly fade away, like, not ingratiate him. not be involved

whatsoever and at every turn he doesn't do that because of whatever this ingrained masculinity is whereas he creates basically the whole fucked up situation of the

entire movie simply because he you know wants to be involved and that theme ends up getting revisited in the final third in a way that like it doesn't quite it feels a little forced to me. But in that final third, again, Dane Dahan, who plays his son now grown up to be a teenager, has a really great father figure in Maharshala Ali. And we see that. And it's actually contrasted with what a poor father figure Bradley Cooper ends up being for Emery Cohen. And he also weirdly, like Ben Mendelssohn's a better father figure than Ryan Gosling at this. Because like when he meets Ben,

Mendelsohn. Mendelsohn, like, there's that moment where, you know, he's there to sort of tell Dane Dahan about his father, who has never really known about his father. But even still, he's like, don't read that article about how he died. Let me tell you about the good things about him. Let me, like, he's kind of looking out for this kid in this, like, very small scene or whatever. And that, and yet, just the mere specter of Ryan Gosling and just finding out about him

sends Dane Dahan down this, like, spiral of doubt and self-destruction, and all of a sudden he becomes the kind of guy who, you know, is going to pull a gun on somebody. And all of a sudden, he's, you know, this like motorcycle riding drifter. And I'm like, that to me, that to me is where I lose this film a little bit because it's so abrupt. And it's so, I get the symbolism of it and I get the the thematic thing of it is just like, oh, right, once he, you know, once he learns about his dad, he gets sort of sucked into this vortex of fate that he is doomed to sort of repeat the life of his father. He literally, like, the movie ends with him being a traveling motorcycle drifter just like his dad was. And, like, it is a little too.

And then it cuts to Bonnie Vair, of course. Okay. the credits. Can I also say I was never into Bonnevere, but like if you existed in the world in 2012, 2012, 2013, you heard a lot of

Bonnevere because he was sort of just like he was in the culture. And listening to that song over the credits gave me such a rush of I'm back in 2013. And look like any nostalgia at this point in my life after 14 months in quarantine

is weaponized. automatically and so I was just like really overwhelmed with this like very intense like I was once eight years younger than I am today like one of those kind of things and it was just it was very intense but yeah I think um like bonnie bear I should say because I just kind of gave that withering I think that song too is ridiculous but it is but it's a very pretty song but like yeah but I don't know if you agree like I do you agree with me that that that turn at the end of the movie with Dane DeHan's character feels, I don't know if it feels supported by what we've seen on screen.

It feels like the portion of the movie. When I first saw the movie, it felt like the portion of the movie that I liked the most, and now it's the one that I liked the least. It feels the most truncated. It feels like whenever there was some longer version of the movie, it is the one that, Like, because you're right. It is very abrupt. And it, it, it, this is where a lot of the contrivances that people have, people have a problem with with this movie come into play because it's, the abruptness makes a lot of things seem awfully convenient.

Right. The ways in which he finds out about, uh, Emery Cohen, who Emery Cohen's dad is and, and the, the dots get connected. And the way in which, like, all of a sudden, this father who. he never knew is like the most important thing in his life that must be avenged and it's like really like and I get where like it would fuck him up but I don't know if I buy that it would fuck him up this way this quickly right to hold a gun to Bradley Cooper's head right um this kid who like seems like a generally good kid he's not like this like honor student like you know head of the class kind of kid but like and you know he's you know he knows where to

at Oxycontin. So, like, clearly he's seen some shit. But, like, he's not a bad kid. He's actually contrasted with Emory Cohen, who seems like much more of a little shit. And... Well, and that's where, like, I think the ideas of masculinity in this movie are maybe the most interesting or, like, again, it takes a pivot from, like, the cop stuff to, like, here's another different angle on masculinity. Like, Emery Cohen has abs and, like, has, like, has, like, the chain necklace. He's super hot in this movie. But like, Dane Dahan has conceivably never taken a shower in this movie.

And like he's this lanky little scrawny kid, you know, so it's like they are very contrasted in a certain way. And the fact that Emery Cohen is the like really bad one is, you know, just kind of another angle on these tropes. Well, right. That feels like very structured, right? We're like now the cop's kid is the bad influence on the criminals kid. And like, but I do feel like, okay, so here's where I'm going to make my case for both of actually the teen characters in this movie is that is a structure, right? Cops kid bad, criminals kid good. I think those two actors really sell it.

I think Dane Dahan's very good in this movie. I think he's doing the best of what he does as an actor. And we've seen him used, you know, sort of, I think as his career went along, he just got, kept getting cast in these, like, ever more creepy roles. He's sort of like Caleb Landry Jones himself into, like, more and more permutations. He is. Caleb Landry Jones is tethered, but he's the good tether. He's the good tether. Right, exactly. But I think he's giving you in this movie what the best of him is, which is, like, troubled little scron.

who you know there's you know the good sort of kid there in him right and you mourn what's being lost by you know him getting you know the shit kicked out of him and him getting arrested for you know having oxy and then him you know what happens to him at the end of this movie but like the individual scenes the scenes where he and emery cohen sort of interact and it's it really is just like it's a bad kid corrupting a good kid a little bit And then the scenes with him and Mendelsohn are really good. That shot of him sort of shot from afar where after he gets arrested, Mahershala drops him off at school and sort of like gives him this little like,

you know, side hug and it's very sort of affectionate fatherhood moment. And that scene is there so that Emery Cohen's character can see that and see what he doesn't have with his own father and hate it. And but I think this is where the Emery Cohen thing comes in, I think he sells that character, too. I knew kids like that who put on such a front of toughness and sort of this, like, you know, like, you know, urban chain around the neck. I'm going to be like spout and rap lyrics, like a fucking tool. Like, he's not, he's not meant to be the one we sympathize with.

And maybe we want to put that fault in it is that, like, he, he made. this character too hateable, but I think he really embodies the little moments where you see, you see the facade, you see what a front he's putting on, you see how wounded he is and how much he resents Dane DeHan's character for at least having, you know, a father who loves him, who sort of like outwardly loves him. And I think he's so effective at playing that type of a kid. Like, when you see him at the end where he's, like, all, like, dressed up at his father's acceptance speech for winning... Probably wearing his father's suit. Right.

And he's, like, he's just, like, you can see it's like, it's all a facade. He just, he's... And it makes you kind of hate him all the more because of how he dragged down Dane Dahan into this sort of, like, hell of whatever, you know, this new life for him is. Like, I don't know. Maybe some people see the end of this movie and are like, now Dain Dahan is free to, like, follow his own path. And I'm just like, this poor fucking kid has just, like, left a loving set of parents for the life of, of, you know, on the road and, and a destiny of his father's. And, um, but I, I do feel like, and I think Emery Cohen in this movie sells it to me in a way that when, remember when he was in Brooklyn and everybody was like, oh, remember that guy who we all hated in a place beyond the pines? So hot in Brooklyn.

I don't like him in. So good. So hot. buy them in Brooklyn. That's the movie where I'm just like, I think this is a put on. I think this is all. This feels like a comedy sketch. I think that's true about this performance. It feels very put on. It feels like someone doing a weird accent. I completely disagree. I like it more than I initially did. At first, I was like, I never want to see this actor again. Well, that's the other thing is like, that's not how I feel now. I can't remember whether Smash was still on TV at this

point or not. But if it was off the air, it had just gone off the air. But I'm pretty sure it was still on. And like, he was the most, like, of like several characters who everybody hated on that show, everybody hated him. And I think a lot of that was for storyline reasons. But also it was just like, he was the like sullen teen who always was sullen about everything. And it's just like, you fucking hate that guy in everything, like in every kind of, you know, TV show where you have that teen, everybody hates that teen. And so all of a sudden, he's shows up in this movie where he's got to do this like, you know, at least some dramatic heavy lifting. And everybody was just like, absolutely not. We do not accept this. We do not

take this on. Yeah, I don't know. I will say, uh, I think Daney Hahn is the best performance in the movie. He's really good, right? A movie that has like almost uniformly really strong performances. Yeah. I think Gosling's great. I think Cooper's great. I think Mendelsohn is fantastic. Even Mendez is amazing. And she doesn't really have much to do. She doesn't get a lot to do. Yeah. But, like, it makes you really want to see her do this type of heavy lifting in a role that serves her.

Right. I need to see that James Gray movie she's in, because I wonder if that really gives her the opportunity, too. Right. Which James Gray movie is it? Is it We Own the Night? Yes. We own the night. I'm Joaquin' Phoenix.

It does sound like a Pat Benatar song, doesn't it? We Own the Night. That is Patty Smith. Dane Dahan earlier in 2012 was in that movie Chronicle that we don't talk about anymore, and rightly so, because it's directed by Josh Trank and written by Max Landis, and like, no one wants any part of that.

But I really loved him in that movie. And I actually, and Michael B. Jordan is also in that movie. who we love. And I really liked that movie, but I really especially loved Dane Dahan in that movie. And at that point, the only other thing that I had seen him in

was on In Treatment. Did HBO show In Treatment about The Shrink that was on like five days a week, whatever? And he was really good in that. And so I was really, really fond of him by the point where I see him in place beyond the Pines.

And like, not two years later, He shows up in Amazing Spider-Man, too, as Harry Osborne. And, like, again, being like, hey, kiddo, do you want to be, like, the creepiest creeper who ever creeped in this movie? And he's just, like, got it on it. And I read to Han in, like, villain costume with those teeth is me this morning nursing this hangover. That's how I feel. And I just feel like from then on, everybody was just like, oh, that's what this guy is.

Like, I'll pass. And, like, cure for wellness, and everybody's like, no. And tulip fever, which, like, the two of us who saw and nobody else did. And he's kind of miscast in that. I, of course... Cure for wellness. He's, like, a hairless baby seal. He is.

Investigating killer eels in a tank. Yeah. The movie does kind of rule, but then it's also fully bad. It's both of those things at once, which I kind of love. I actually think he's really good. Valerian in the city of A Thousand Planets. I know I'm like on a very small island there. But...

Again, another movie where he is just a shirtless, hairless baby panda. And he has to play this like cocky space jock. And I'm like, you're selling me on this. And I love that about you. And I dig it. And, um, but yeah, he feels like he's somebody because like, like those three 2017 movies were Cure for Wellness, Tulip Fever, Valerian are all movies.

movies that are only known by, like, a very select group of, like, movie psychos, which, like, are all my people, but, like, nobody in the greater world knows anything about those movies. And even though one of them involves, like, Rihanna being, I want to say maybe a hologram or an alien or both, but she's also doing, like, a burlesque routine. We love a noted Acre Girls member Cara Delavine. Yes. Valerian's a wild movie. You should go see it. By you, I mean everybody. So, yeah, so that's my whole, I love Dean Daham thing. I do love him in this movie. He's just, he does a lot with just his face. Like, it's just like he's perfectly cast, I think.

Because, like, it really is such a tragic face where it's just like, oh, you poor sweet little, you know, baby child who, like, the world is really going to, like, chew you up and spit you out. And I feel bad. perfectly cast and like this is the thing that's still so wild to me like watching the movie the first time and this time I was like no but really he's perfectly cast because he is absolutely conceivable as Ryan Gosling's son yeah yeah which is like you know parents and children in movies is always like okay sure we we will buy into this but like yeah you could actually buy into that being real yeah and it's even a more impressive in that the fact that they don't obviously share any scenes together because of the way that the movie is structured. But yeah, I, again, I feel like the last third of the movie really, like, races towards this conclusion it wants to get to, and I think skip some steps along the way. And that feels a little dissatisfying. But in general, I respect the swing. I respect the ambition of it. And at two hours,

and 20 minutes, I never really felt, I've read some reviews where they're like, it's interminable, it drags, it's whatever. And I'm just like, I didn't, I didn't feel that then and I don't feel that now. Like, I really feel like there's a, there's, the movement of the narrative all feels correct to me. I mean, I feel like it's one of the problems with the third act of the movie is that it's following the Bradley Cooper portion, which is probably the most lean of the story in terms of, like, Like, just kind of shuttling along in that story. And, like, maybe that portion could still be briefer, but it does, I don't know. I feel like the part that maybe drags or is not as interesting is the final third.

But, like, saying that this movie has a whole drags, I don't. And, like, the Ryan Gosling portion of the movie, which I feel like we've barely talked about. Well, because, as you said, though, it's just vibes. It's such, it's so vibesy. like I'm trying to sort of like go through my notes and see oh that we talked about how great Ben Mendelsohn is but like we need to linger a little bit on the scene after their first robbery where they're they're dancing to dancing in the dark which is like Springsteen is a perfect music choice for this film I don't care that it's not in New Jersey it had to have been so fucking expensive to get a springsteen probably true but like it's so there's like it's that's the one little moment of joy for gozzling's character and it's so lovely to just watch them uh and like mendelson is such a you know wiry little you know cigarette stub of a man and i love him um it's he is a walking ashtray in this movie yes truly oh but so

lovable starring ben mendelson as an ashtray yeah um the shot of Ryan Gosling's dead body after he gets shot out of the window and they really linger on it. It's like it's really gnarly. It's really effective. And I mean, if you're pinning this movie on like the

life trajectory changing things that happen from that one moment, you really need that to linger and to sort of settle into the audience that'll do it. Well, and then that kind of like, I don't want to say glamour shot, but that like

completely the sideways shot where you see the cop running up to his dead body where it's like

it does the literal thing of turning the movie on its head yeah you're right that it does a really good job

of selling that it's like life altering mythos and that chase scene is incredibly well filmed too the one where like he's like

going through the cemetery on the motorbike and Cooper is, or no, wait, it's the other cop at that point who's chasing him there. And then Cooper, like, meets him at the T intersection of those roads. And, like, it, there's a really great sense of place in this film, the sort of this, the skinectady of it all, that feels really, uh, well-earned and well-established.

And I loved that. To bring it around to like an Oscar conversation. Yeah. It's just like, maybe it's, to some listeners, it might be in the weeds to be like it. absurd that this is not a cinematography nominee. But, like, guys, it took how long to get Sean Bobbitt nominated doing

like, it's shocking to me he wasn't nominated for 12 Years of Slave. Well, that's the thing. It's like, 12 Years of Slave had how many Oscar nominations and it's a Best Picture winner and all of that. And so, all right, let me look at the nominees that year. So, like,

I get it for most of it. All of his work with Steve McQueen is incredible, too. Oh. Shame. He did shame, right? Yes, I imagine? I'm pretty sure he did shame. He also did hunger, which, like, there's some shit in hunger that is just, like, mind-blowing. It's, I think there's one cinematography nominee that really stands out, like, a sore thumb in this movie, and, like, that's fine. But, like, this was finally the year that Emmanuel Labetsky gets over the hump, wins his first of what would be three consecutive cinematography wins for,

gravity for this is for gravity um the nomination for philippe lesword for the grandmaster is a really cool nomination and i'm glad that it happened um bruno del benel for inside lewin davis that's a really really beautiful looking film and that's a great nomination i get the uh feeding papa michael uh it's so weird that that's how you pronounce that name at the oscars i was like that's really there's just no like little european trill on that at all okay Um, gets nominated this year for Nebraska, which is, as I mentioned when I was on, uh, or no, wait, this was, uh, this was at game night when we were all talking about who's going to win cinematography. And everybody's like, I think it's nomad land. It's so pretty. And I'm like, yeah, but manx in black and white. And white winners aren't really a thing so much as they are nominees. Well, because like the white ribbon didn't win. Yes, it did. Did it? I'm pretty sure it did. I am positive it did not win. What would it have lost to? Hold, please. Oh, it did. It lost to Avatar. Okay, fine. Yeah. Avada.

Avada. I thought the way, that's what I was sort of, like, basing that. But anyway, they do, they really do, like, they value black and white. And whatever, I was right. So I'm going to hang my head on that. You were right. You were right. Not to just, like, shit on someone. But, like, I, any time a movie is shot by Faden Papa Michael, it is an eyesore to me. I think Nebraska looks fine. But the Roger Deacon's nomination for prison. is the one where it's like, did we really need to nominate prisoners?

I like prisoners fine, but... I understand your logic, but go back and watch that movie again. There is some really interesting visual stuff going on in that movie. I mean, I believe it. It's a Deacon's movie. It's all subtextual. But I feel like to sort of exclude Sean Bobbitt for the Best Picture nominee just seems interesting. Right, right, right.

Whereas at least Nebraska is also a Best Picture nominee. Just don't nominate Nebraska. I hated that movie. movie um yeah yeah but like that's the one that makes sense for me i think there were some critics towards the end of the year when they were trying to like reassess this movie we're talking about gosling as a supporting actor yeah that was never going to happen though fc i don't think it was going to happen either but like we forget this is the weird time of like us being like when is Ryan Gosling going to get that second nomination?

And I think it doesn't seem weird now. But like if we had our future selves had gone back in time and said, you know, he's going to get nominated for a musical that really isn't any heavy lifting whatsoever. Yeah. We would have probably lost our minds. Yeah, it's true. That's definitely true. Ultimately, it's sort of its biggest moment in award season.

is it shows up on the National Border Review top 10 independent films of the year. This was when NBR had realized that they could double their pleasure, double their fun, by recognizing 10... At this point, this is when they were like, we'll do a top 10 and our number one of the year. So it's like 11 films as their top 10

and also a top 10 independent films, plus, you know, foreign films and documentaries. So, like, the more the merrier. and again, this is why I love the National Border Review. I think... Replace the Globes with the National Border Review. Dick Clark Productions get on it. I think that their top 10 independent films

is a better list than their top 10 films of the year. Their top 10 films of the year has some really great ones, of course. Twelve Years of Slave, Gravity, Inside Lewin-Davis. But, like, Secret Life of Walter Middy is a wild choice. Saving Mr. Banks is a wild choice. Loan Survivor is a wild choice. There's some real questionable stuff. Her is the one that wins Best Picture

and also Best Director for Spike Jones, which wouldn't have been my pick, but I like that they did it. I like that there was a corner of award season that year that was like, yeah, we're going to give it to her. And her ultimately is the Best Picture nominee. So kind of good for NBR for setting that ball rolling that way. But their top 10 independent films list is, again, not bulletproof, but like, Ain't the Body Saints, which I don't love, but I do love David Lowry.

Dallas Buyers Club, which is the only one of these that gets a best picture nomination. In a World, Lake Bell's In a World, which I really loved. Mother of George, the movie with Denai Guerrera in it. Fantastic. Really, really fantastic movie. Glad that it made a list like this. Joss Whedon's much to do about nothing, which doesn't look great in retrospect, but I really liked at the time and thought it was at least like a fun, if you're going to do another Shakespeare adaptation, like that was a fun angle, I thought to do it, where it was just like, you know, modern day and friends, you know, sort of in a yard and black and white and all that sort of stuff. I like that. Jeff Nichols' Mud, which was a very big part of the McConnaissance that was happening right around that time.

Place Beyond the Pines. Short-Term 12, my beloved short-term 12, the big Brie Larson breakthrough movie that preceded her eventual Oscar win. Ben Wheatley sightseers, which is like, ornery and, you know, nasty as so many of his movies are. and The Spectacular Now, which, where have you gone, James Ponsol? Like, I would like him to make a movie again. Like, even when I don't... He's doing a show... Hold on, I'm going to look this up. I think he's doing a show?

A series? That would make sense to me, but, like, I would like for him to make another movie. Because... I'm a fan of James Ponsold. I never saw The Circle. Nor did I. It looked... It was supposed to be pretty bad.

Everyone says that it's terrible, so something went wrong. there. The James Ponsault movie that like, I want to see another James Ponsult movie that is going to give me a lot of faith for him in a while is smashed. I love smashed. I think smashed is fantastic. Just got buried. Yeah. I mean, it was very small and he wasn't a thing yet. And like the spectacular now is probably the closest he came to like legitimate awards buzz. We could probably do that movie at some point, which. If we want to talk about Miles Taylor. Oh, right. Which we don't. Um, the TV show I was thinking of is the Facebook show, sorry for your loss with, uh, Elizabeth Olson. Yes, which people really liked. I never watched, but I remember people being like, it was, it's very good. The people, the people, the few people who saw it. Um, yeah, bring back James Ponsold. Anyway, what are your thoughts on this NBR top 10 independent films that year? It's good. It could probably be better, but I mean, you are right that it is definitely better than their, uh, overall top ten yeah yeah there's some good stuff in there and that was sort of it for

place beyond the pines like you would think like a movie that has this much sort of heft to its craft that it would have showed up in like somewhere something for like we said cinematography or production design or editing or something yeah i mean i think partly it's just that it's the movie was positioned poorly um and like i again i don't think a tiff world premiere is what's right for this movie certainly not in an awards narrative because like could focus have rushed this movie out or done like a qualifying release sure but that's very hard to do it does seem like the type of movie that would probably benefit from people seeing last minute you know and the type of, like, narrative you could have built around this movie.

But, like... And yet, I feel like the reception that this movie got, I think it needed, you know, a while for people, for certain people to come around on it. Or maybe I'm just being so self-focused there because that was my journey with it. But I don't see this movie doing, you know, super well at the end of the year also.

And again, this particular year, Cooper was already getting awards buzz for American Hustle there's always such an odd nomination to me in retrospect. I don't like that movie very much except I do like certain elements of it. I don't think he's bad in it,

but I also like don't, I don't know, I don't think back fondly on like the Bradley Cooper of that movie. And it also feels like he's a borderline lead in that movie and it's weird that it's a supporting nomination. I don't know Yeah

I It's It's This movie's kind of a weird one Because it's also like If we're talking about the Oscar buzz this movie had A lot of it was probably even before the movie premiered Like I remember when those images were released of Gosling on the motorcycle

Right With all of his tattoos His face tattoos Yeah And like the The Gosling ethos but I just, like, it's also that, like, this movie made, for what this movie is, it paid kind of a lot of money. Like, you know, it's, it doesn't feel like this movie got shafted.

No. And it's, you know, we talk about movies that, like, don't exist. Like, this movie definitely existed. And, like, a lot of people, you know, talked about it. And this movie was on Netflix for, like, a year. Yeah. So, like, people have seen this. Yeah.

And maybe, you know, we can, you know, encourage people if you did not. if you didn't see it at the time because you thought it would be something that you wouldn't be into for a lot of the reasons we've talked about in this episode, maybe give it a shot. It's, you know, there's a good chance that it's better than you thought it would be. It's unpacking all of those things that, like, people have lobbed against it. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I like this movie a lot. I do, too.

I really do, too. And again, I want Derek C. and France to make another big screen movie. He was going to make Sound of Metal. That was going to be his movie for the longest time. And it didn't happen. It ends up going to Darius Martyr. And, like, of all...

He passed it off to him, yeah. And it ends up being Derek C. and France's first ever Oscar nomination as one of the screenwriters for Sounded. I was going to bring this up because it's like, it's almost kind of like we've talked about Nicole Hollis Center's first Oscar nomination in this way a little bit, that it's like, You just want something that feels fully theirs to be their Oscar nomination. Though during the telecast, when it was the, like, whatever that, you know, boardroom meeting of a ceremony was, when they did the screenplay category, I was like, Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at the TV meme, I was like, Derek C in France. There he is.

Like, I recognize that guy across the room. What was his little factoid that they said about him? Do you remember? I totally don't. I don't. And I, did they do that for screenplay? I don't remember. I don't remember. It's going to be the weirdest Oscar ceremony to rewatch.

It's going to be so weird. I swear to God, it's going to be like, I kept calling it a wedding where no one was dancing. But it does feel like, you know, a city council meeting in a lot of ways to me. Oh, wow. But yeah. I like, see in France. I like his work We didn't say anything about

The Light Between Oceans Is that the title of that movie? Yeah, the Light Between Oceans But we're gonna definitely do that movie Yeah, we'll definitely do that movie That was definitely a movie that had A lot of long lead Oscar Buzz That was pretty well misplaced

I feel like I was as much as anybody Being like keep an eye out for this movie And now I look at it and just like I mean DreamWorks punted on that movie too They kind of just like dumped it after like dragging their feet on when they would come out because, like, that movie was filmed a long time

before it was released. Yeah. I guess to kind of put the button on it, it still is strange to me that, like, focus couldn't pull something out for this movie, given what their Oscar lineup was. Yeah. We've basically done episodes on the whole focus lineup from 2013.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a good point. Is it 2013 or 12? 2012. 2013, they actually, it's basically Dallas Buyers Club and nothing else. Like the world's end happens.

That's my, you know, least favorite of those Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, great movies. But some people really liked it. Otherwise, what was closed circuit again? Oh, the Stephen Knight movie. Yeah, the weird spy movie that... Yes.

Right. You're always being recorded. Stephen Knight wrote it, John Crowley. directed it. Interesting. John Crowley, director of the Emery Cohen vehicle, Brooklyn. Yeah, yeah, 2013, getting the Best Picture nomination for Dallas Buyers Club is like,

we'll talk about that, I guess, in the next episode when we do focus features up until the present day. But good job getting that best picture nomination, because they really worked for that. And we can say what we want about that movie, but, like, that was a well-campained film by them, I would say.

Yeah. Yeah. Place Beyond the Pines. I liked it. I still like it. I like it a lot. Yeah. I like it.

I hear everyone's complaints about the movie. I get it. I still like the movie. Yeah. Same here. All right. Do we want to do IMDB game? Yeah.

Let's move on to the IMDB game. Joe, tell our listeners new and old what the IMDB game is. Sure. Yeah. Every week when we're done riding a motorcycle around a steel death cage. We end our episodes with the IMDB game, where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try and guess the top

four titles that IMDB says they're most known for. If any of those titles are television or voiceover work, we mentioned 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. That's the MDB game. Fantastic. Would you

like to give her guests first? I'll give first. All right. What do you have for me? So we brushed upon this a little bit earlier when we were talking about Derek C. in France and his wonderful says you, and I believe you, HBO miniseries. I know this much is true. Great performance, acclaimed performance by Rosie O'Donnell. And I don't think we've done Rosie O'Donnell. And if we did, I don't remember it. So. Holy smokes. Why don't she do Rosie? Oh, League of Iran. Sorry, no television, one voice performance. Oh, that's going to be hard.

Yes, a league of their own. A league of their own. The Flintstones. Yes. Exit to Eden. No. I love that you guessed that, though. Strike one on Exit to Eden.

The widely reviled Exit. By her. Sleepless in Seattle. Yes. Great. Great underrated performance. of Rosie O'Donnell's and Sleepless in Seattle. Everyone's wonderful.

The ideal best friend in a romantic comedy performance, I think somebody else, I may be like stealing that observation from somebody else that I heard in another podcast and apologies if it was. Maybe it was Katie Rich when she did the blank check episode on Sleepless in Seattle. But it's true. It's like it's the absolute, it's what you shoot for when you have the best friend in a romantic comedy. It's what Rosie O'Donnell is doing in that movie. All right. So now you are down with one strike to the voice performance. The voice performance.

I'm trying to remember. It's not some, like, ironic, you know, animated movie for adults. It is definitely a kids movie. I'm trying to remember... Maybe it's that I don't like this movie. Because, like, I'm running through the animated movies that I do like. It's not Pixar. because it would have been like kind of before Pixar took over and I can't remember her in a Pixar movie is no it's not Hercules

Hercules is like all dudes too so um no it's not hercules has all those like the Greek chorus is all those fabulous female sing yeah but like they're amazing how do you see in Hercules yet we're still fighting about this Nope, I haven't. You can't tell me what's in Hercules. It's the only thing I know about Hercules is that everybody always talks about the sickers in that movie. The Greek chorus just shows up for like three songs. Fine. It's like, it's not like, you know, it's obviously Lilius White, which fuck yeah, she rolls.

I am to paraphrase Ernie Sebella in and out. Too old for Hercules. I missed it by a window and it can never go back. You are just being petulant about Hercules, a movie that will take up. like 75 minutes of your day and make you very happy. I could easily watch it. All I'm saying is if I don't have the foundation

of having seen it as a child, I'm not going to appreciate it the same way as an adult. I disagree. I think you're going to have a good-ass time. All right. Anyway. Okay, okay. So it has to be, it's 90s animated.

I hope it's not something like that fucking animated Sinbad movie that has Brad Pitt. Wait, no, I know what it is. I don't like this movie. It's Tarzan. It is Tarzan. It's the only, as far as I'm going through her, besides, like, television, like, American Dad,

I think it's the only animated movie that she lent her voice to. So, yeah, it's Tarzan. Best Original Song Winner, of course, we remember. Tarzan. She plays... You will be in my heart. Turk.

would I assume is a guerrilla or something but yes Turk from Scrubs She's playing iconically Turk from Scrubs in that film

Wait Glenn Close I imagine Glenn Close is his mom Yeah His like gorilla mom Yeah Wow Why didn't she win the Oscar for that I ask

I ask you Anyway All right So for you you, thank you. For you, I also went back into the Sea and France projects, films, motion pictures. I went a little more basic, though, and for you, I have another Gosling co-star, Michelle Williams. Don't think we've done her before.

All right, Michelle Williams. Well, there's a lot of competition here. No television. No television, no Fossi Virdin. All right, okay. Let's see. Well, I am with four Oscar nominations, we're going to at least get some of them in there. My Week with Marilyn.

Yes, unfortunately. Yeah. I actually think she's kind of good in that not good movie. Not like give her an Oscar for it. Yeah, I was going to say, not like Oscar nominations. good um okay Manchester by the sea Manchester by the sea

broke back mountain no okay I knew I shouldn't guess that I'm not going to guess blue valentine even though you're probably cackling in your head if it is blue valentine um no you said no television so obviously no Dawson's Creek um Michelle

What's like, oh, I would, all right, Venom? No, no Venom. All right. How, that is, you are a jerk for guessing Venom for Michelle. It's a mainstream movie. I get it, but she's, that, that's shady. She's not good in that movie. It's a mainstream production.

I get it. I need to rewatch Venom and try to give it a chance because I want, I want to have as much fun with that movie as everybody else does. and it made me so mad when I saw it. I liked it. I thought it was dumb and fun. You were, I remember you, like, egging me on to see the movie, and then, like, when I left, I probably just text you like, fuck you. I'm sure you did.

I'm sure you did. That sounds exactly right. I was like, I hate you. Okay. Your two titles left for Michelle Williams, your years are 2010 and 2011. Of course. All right. 2010's Blue Valentine.

It is indeed Blue Valentine. All right. What would be her 2011? It was the same year as my week of Maryland. I will say, just to kind of guide you on, 2011 is probably a weird year because I don't think this was released stateside in 2011. All right. It's crazy that three of her four Oscar nominations show up on her known four, but not Brokeback Mountain. The injustice continues. I think that's probably a billing because she would have been billed even below like Anne Hathaway. No. I, well, maybe. But like, Fourth at the worst. At the time, yeah. At the time, she was still that Dawson's Creek actress.

Yeah. But like fourth at the lowest, I feel like. I don't know. We'll look that up later. All right, 2011 movie into 2012 for Michelle Williams, which means it played a festival. So it's a festival-y kind of a movie. Wasn't that movie that got delayed a billion years by Harvey Weinstein? Sweet Francie. That debuted on Lifetime. Oh, boy. All right.

Oh. What am I missing in my brain? Is this one of those, like, what the fuck is this doing? Really? Okay. I'm pretty sure you love this movie. I fucking love this movie. Oh, wait.

No, not Synecichy. We love this filmmaker. We love this film. I will just guide you along and say it debuted at TIF, and it makes sense why. It's too early for Kelly Riker. Wait, okay, it makes sense why. So it's a French Canadian filmmaker or just a Canadian filmmaker? Perhaps.

Okay, all right, okay. Who are the Canadian filmmakers we love? Um, wouldn't be a Jason Reitman movie. I don't think it's a... Maybe you don't love this movie, because I feel like I've led you on a different path. Maybe I don't. I think we've talked about this, and you do love this movie, too. All right.

Well, kind of a starry cast, her... there was a supporting actress player who was a lot of people have mentioned for this movie because we've not really seen them in that mode before. Okay, that's interesting. It's not like a romantic comedy, but it is kind of a, you know, it's a drama with like comedic undertones. It's, I do love this movie, and I do love her in this movie, and I do love this filmmaker.

write about all of those things. It's take this waltz, I imagine, yes? It's take this walt. Sarah Polly's Take This Wals. I love that that's in her known for. That's rad. She's so great in that movie. She's amazing in it. That scene of her on the, whatever, not the Tilta World, but whatever the little amusement park ride. The Scrambler. Oh, my God. It's such a great scene. Holy shit. Ah, she's so great in that movie. Yes. Amazing. I love it. Can't wait for Sarah Polly's next movie. Yeah. What is that?

that, when is that? We're overdue. She had this really nice thing after Olympia Dukakis died. She had this really lovely sort of tweet about having worked with Olympia Dukakis on away from her, and she said that Olympia, wait, what was the thing, that Olympia had said to her, she's like, you're 25, you should be having the best sex of your life, and if you're not, you better start, or something like that. And I was like, it was just wonderful.

And there were a lot of really, you got the sense that people really did love Olympia Dukakis, because there was so many, like, really, really lovely testimonials about her. And that was maybe my favorite. I didn't see that one, but I do love that. Sarah Polly, this movie's announced, who knows if this is still happening, but partnering with Francis McDormand for a film called Women Talking. It's a novel adaptation. The movie sounds fairly intense.

Wait, would you like to pitch something exactly to my demographic? Make a movie called Women Talking. Okay, yes. I've already... I've already... I've already purchased my ticket. Yeah. Jesus.

I am the people before Phantom Menace that would literally take tents to movie theaters and sit outside for weeks for a movie called Women Talking. A movie called Women Talking about Women Talking, starring women talking. Yes. I'm into it. Yeah. All right. All right. Guys, that is our episode. If you want more This Had Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this at oscarbuzz.com. You should also follow us on Twitter at Had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz. Joe. Tell our listeners where to find more of you.

Yeah, you can find me on Twitter at Joe Reed, Reed spelled R-E-I-D. You can find me on letterboxed. Joe Reed spelled the same way. And I am on Twitter at Chris V-File. That's F-E-I-L, also on letterboxed under the same name. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic art. and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Miebius for their technical guidance. Please remember to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, wherever else you get your podcasts, including Spotify. A five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcasts visibility. So please have your bank heist out in the open with your five-star reviews. Don't hide away in a U-Haul truck. Perfect.

We didn't really talk about the bank heist, but, you know. It's really well filmed. We talked about it a little bit. Yeah, I love that. That's all for this week. We hope you'll be back next week for more buzz and the conclusion of our Focus Features miniseries. You know,