This Had Oscar Buzz - 150 – The Shipping News

Episode Date: June 21, 2021

We’re marking a milestone this week with our 150th episode. And for such a momentous occasion, we’re finally digging in to one of the most notorious films of THOB history with Lasse Lasse Hallström’s The Shipping News. Adapted from Annie Proulx’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, the film cast Kevin Spacey as a meak man who uproots his … Continue reading "150 – The Shipping News"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hacks. I'm from Canada, Water. Discover the most extraordinary story of all. First thing, you have to understand about the curse. The house is sad.

You should let it loose. Happens to be his own. Face up to the things we're afraid of because we can't go around them. Now, the past is emerging. This is your grandfather. They're young, 12-year-old. And it couldn't have been my grandfather. You don't know Newfoundlanders.

A world is unfolding. Which of those women are in charge here? Somebody really ought to be supervising, don't you think? I'm wavy prows. I run the place. Bumbling, dead, chamelea, and daycare. And the life is awakening. I don't believe in the past.

No? Then what are we doing here? Like in a future. Hello, and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only Frisk the Frisg the Air Clean the Covered Bear podcast. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong.

The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with my Jack Crawford editor, Joe Reed. Yeah, coughing up lungs full of water and resuscitating right before your eyes. Back to life. I completely forgot about that plot point, which is... Yep. Totally thought he was dead, and I've definitely seen this movie before. Do they not do autopsies in Newfoundland?

No, it's Newfoundland. Like, you just freeze to death and you're preserved forever. I was just like, well, I guess he's dead, but, you know, days later, you can call up a lot. They do things differently around here, Christopher. You don't know Newfoundlanders. You don't know. Do you think that Judy Dench got the best reviews for this movie because she was the only one who could really do the accent correctly? Well, and she also shows up in like, I mean,

I mean, she's Judy Dench as Agnes Ham as Zoe Wanamaker. Yes. That's a good comparison. It's very Zoe Wanamaker, definitely. She is a... We just got to say, Judy Dench, while, by all reports, a heterosexual woman, is one of our finest screened lesbians. It's true. It's true.

She should get some kind of a lifetime achievement award for that. I mean, this notes on a scandal is her best performance. 100%. She played a lesbian any other time. a lesbian, and tea with Mussolini? I mean, she wasn't canonically, but, like,

all of her roles where she's not explicitly heterosexual could feel like you could graft a gay narrative onto them, right? We'll count Queen Elizabeth as well. Obviously. Obviously. How dare you, first of all,

bring up Frisk the Fridier, clean the cupboard bear in the intro and remind me of a good Julianne Moore movie, just as we are about to talk about a quite bad Julianne Moore movie. Well, what else am I supposed to do? We always call back to our previous episode. Like, this, once again, in very few months is the second, maybe third time that we have accidentally done two back to back. To back to back. And this was, again, purely accidentally. We wanted to... We did it with Kate Winslet, but like one of them, there's not really much to say about Kate Winslet.

for all the Kingsmen, and then we did college. Obviously, you talk about Julianne Moore for Prize winner of Defiance, Ohio, and, like, I called her my favorite actress, though it's also Upaire. That's my favorite actress, too. But there's not much to say about her in this movie. No, she definitely gets the short end of the stick, narratively. We'll have a ton more to say about, obviously, Judy, and Cape Blanchett, who, Holy Macquarie, the character arc that they

give her to play in this film. Walking Dive Bar, Kate Blanchett in this movie. I wrote down, I literally, I wrote this down, and then I'm like, I must be cribbing this from somebody, but, like, I just wrote Kate Blanchett playing a sentient, used cocktail napkin, which is like, I know somebody has said that recently somewhere, so if I'm cribbing from you, take it as an homage. It's, she's, like, the living embodiment of that Simpsons episode where Kirk and Luann Van Houghton break up, and Kirk is, like, pretending, like, trying to, like, make it seem like he's living

his great, fabulous single life, and he's at Moes. I want you to meet my new special lady. Say hello to Starla. Can I have the keys to the car lover? I feel like changing wigs. Oh, okay. That's Cape Lanchett in this film. Like, what, just the, you first see her through like some kind of like it's like watery windshield right or whatever that like he first spots her and it's like the only thing that's truly visible are her like raccoon eyes from the from the uh eyebrow pencil it's just it's a lot it's a lot especially in the same year where she played the queen of all fairies like it's just or elves rather not fairies elves Right, Lord of the Rings? Yes. You being the expert now in Lord of the Rings because you've written about this professionally more than I have.

Oh, boy. Me, the expert on Lord of the Rings who hates Lord of the Rings. Okay. Maybe I'm saying this too early. We always just kind of dive into things before we really dive into them. We do. We're talking about the shipping news, by the way. Hi.

Happy 150th episode. We're finally doing the shipping news. We will commemorate it. We'll memorialize it. Don't worry, everybody. The point I want to say before we talk 150 things. Yes. I'm just going to throw it out there.

Cape Lanch, it's really good at this movie. Wow. She gets exactly the person she's supposed to be. It's like, I do think that she is really impressive in, like, what could basically be an ashtray character. Well, that. And she, like, and, like, they're starting out. in Poughkeepsie, right? She really sells this like Poughkeepsky bar maiden, sex crazed, irresponsible woman in a way that like you believe it, even if it's like huge and like maybe it wouldn't seem so huge or like she was like putting it all out there if the movie was ever anything less than boring.

But I think she's quite good. She does pop in a boring movie. I will say I question, I have genuine questions about the value of knowing the assignment and nailing the assignment when the assignment is that vile. And you are, you are Nina Garcia right now. I question your taste level. I question your taste level, the shipping news. I don't know whether I need to put this right on Annie Pruill or whether this was a translation error by Lassa Hulstrom.

I would say that's the movie's problem, not her problem. I think she does her job well. Right. I just can't appreciate it because it is such a, it's just a terribly cliched character. She's also dead within the first 15 minutes. Thank God. I could not have left that screen fast.

enough for me. Like, honestly, I was so stressed out by that character at all times. And helped in no way by Spacey at his all-time worst. Terrible. And just having... Not pay it forward, terrible. I think pay it forward is worse, but he also has that dreadful monologue in that movie. Right.

But, like, this character who I don't think he gets who this character is at all, and he just declines to make a choice, and he just sort of plays him as a whimper. Of quite the wet rag. He's also miscast, too. Like, why? Wildly miscast. Why would you cast him as like a, like,

meek, you know, sion of, of Newfoundlanders who, like, I don't know, there's just, like, there's no point in this character that I'm like, oh, that's a Kevin Spacey. character. Like, absolutely not. It's just, I don't know. I've been watching, you know how I have my little YouTube binges. So the current strangest YouTube binge that I'm on now, that I totally, like, just clicked on one video and now all of my suggested videos have just, like, repeated and

doubled upon themselves. And now it's like, it's all that YouTube will suggest for me is people make... I thought you were going to say, you clicked on one video and suddenly it's Tuesday. Ha, well, I mean, also that. But so people just make these compilation SNL videos of like SNL sketches. And it's not just one person. It's many, many people. But they're all the same format.

And all the titles are like, SNL moments that give me my life. SNL moments that like make it worthwhile to get up in the morning. SNL moments that whatever. They're all the same. Like, it's, you know how sort of like TikTok has given everybody an algorithm them as to how to get attention on the internet. This is the same thing.

Mostly by pointing at words. Right, basically. But what happens in these videos, which I am like, I'm Boo Boo Boo the Fool for, you know, clicking on them every time. But it's like they all, like, so many clips repeat. So many clips show up on like

20 of these. I like watch them to see if they'll like have a new clip in there that like hasn't been on the other ones. I've still yet to see one that has included anything from the Lulu Diamond sketch with Melissa. McCarthy, which I find, like, so, like, and there's a lot of, like, really recent stuff. There's a new video made, like, literally every day. So, like, there's a lot of stuff that's just, like, from the most recent episode, even,

and, like, whatever. But it's, like, it's very familiar and very, like, just soothing to me in a way that, like, content that you've seen a billion times is soothing to you. But anyway, one of the things, one of the clips that shows up a lot is they, you know how SNL will do those like a sketch that is essentially like outtakes from the audition process for X movie and it's just like an excuse to like let all their cast members do impressions and the one was like outtakes from the 50 Shades of Grey casting and it was um do you remember John Milheiser the like one season he had on SNL and he was doing John Cryer like John Cryer was his

like, uh, impersonation. And Kate McKinnon was doing Jane Lynch. And so Milhizer's sort of like stuttering and stammering and sort of like being, the joke being that like he's, you know, trying to like dominate Jane Lynch. And like that's the visual juxtaposition. It's funny. And finally, Kate McKinnon is Jane Lynch sort of like grabs the writing crop out of his hand and just goes, you're a wet disgrace. And I'm like, that's Kevin Spacey in this film. He's a wet disgrace. That's just all I can compare him to. That was a long way around for that, like, little summation. But I'm glad we got there, though.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really glad, you know. Anyway, we wanted to do something special for episode 150. You guys, episode 150. Holy smokes. How far we've come. I can't believe that we're already 50 episodes past the mother episode, which could have conceivably happened a week and a half ago in my memory.

Exactly. I mean, like, I think, listen, if we survived all of COVID, doing weekly episodes still. We're 50 episodes out from the mother episode, which is like, you know, it felt like a huge thing for us to do 100 episodes. Now we're doing 150. I feel like we are New York City sewer rats at this point.

We're never going away. We're always there. Yeah. You know, like you're not even surprised to see a rat on the subway anymore. It's just there. It's just there. That's us. I'm selling us so well.

I know. You're really comparing us to some really great things. I tend to think of New York subway routes as a vision of strength, stability, you know, the world changes, but they're still there. Patience and faith. Are you going to do Pasi Anzia FAA for us? But like... I'm not, though. I could start weeping about how we will get Olga Merediz and Oscar this year. Guys, we've got the assignment. Now let's carry it out to the end. We've got to do this. But we wanted to do something special for 150. And at some point, on a long enough timeline, we were going to put the shipping news in enough listener polls that it was eventually going to win. But we didn't want to wait that long.

And it's like the perpetual bridesmaid. We are not of two minds. I wanted to make a bit out of putting it in every listener poll we ever do and watching it get last place every time because that's me is funny. But like get last place, but then have like a whole bunch of. of people in the comments being like, no, justice for the shipping news. And I would always like feel bad for that because like, if you've been riding for us to do a shipping news episode, like, God bless you. You're real one. Exactly. You're a real one for that. And ultimately, you know I love to do these, what I call sort of like red meat pitched down the

center of the plate this had Oscar Buzz movies. Your Captain Corelli's mandolins and your pay it forwardses and your um all the pretty horses tulip fever right exactly these like just legendary swings and misses from movies that had all the pedigree in the world and just fell flat on their face and it's like this movie really does epitomize the spirit of this podcast in a way and it's a founding text of this podcast it's a founding text of this podcast it's a founding text. There would not be a concept for this endeavor without movies like The Shipping News, which had so much, like, from the Pulitzer Prize winning novel

and, like, multiple Oscar winners in the cast, Future and, at that point, at that point, who had won Oscars? Judy, no, yes. Judy, Kevin Spacey, had two. Spacey had two by this point. Judy had won Lassa Hallstrom was coming off Shukala, which also, I think, kind of positioned this movie as, like, yes, it has all the pedigree, but it was also in that prime position to be knocked down a peg instantly because people already had, like, anti-Shukala feelings. This is the thing. We talked about this a little bit with Pay It Forward, where it was Spacey and Helen Hunt coming off of their Oscars.

So it was sort of, like, prime backlash material and shipping news is the same way. about the Lassa-Holstrom thing, because it wasn't just Shock-A-Lot. It was also Cider House rules, too. It was the accumulation of Cider House rules and then Shock-A-Lot back-to-back, and then this is the very next year, and everybody was just, like, absolutely not. And it's interesting

because I think the Cider-House rules, for whatever you want to say about it, is a very watchable movie. I think it's an incredibly watchable movie with really interesting, like, performances, and like, a wonderful

score and you know a vibe and shock a lot I don't think is as good but is like fascinating shock a lot is the one that I'll defend I haven't seen cider house rules in a while that I could like speak to it specifically other than like generalizations of like basically buffs off all of the thorns that like John Irving has into this like sweet little abortion movie which is interesting because he did the adaptation He did the screenplay adaptation. Right, right. But, like, it's kind of very formative for what Lhasa Halstrom movies would become.

Yes. And that they're just this glossy, uh, sappy. How many Lossa Halster movies is this for us now? Is this just two? I mean, we're hitting, we're hitting six movies for Judy Dench. I feel like we're getting close to Lossa Holstrom. Let me look up his filmography. I meant to do this before.

We definitely did an. Unfinished Life. We haven't done any of us talking to Hog movies. We did salmon fishing in the Yemen. Right. So I think this is our third. But there's a bunch of other ones of his that are like in the queue at some point. Like at some point I think we're going to get around to doing something to talk about.

And I think at some point we'll get around to doing the 100 foot journey. And Lord knows Nutcracker in the Four Realms will seduce us to do something at some point. So we've got some possibilities. Nutcracker in the Four Realms would be another opportunity that we could talk about why we need a choreography, Oscars, because that's like the best thing about that movie. True. So. Lassa Hallstrom.

Oh, so my thing about Lossa Holstrom is sometimes the shipping news sort of gets roped in with this like three-year triptych of Cider House Rules, chocolate shipping news being like all of these like Oscar bait sort of like similarly um bad movies essentially this like this run of Lassa Holstrom is when everybody sort of decided that like we you know we've got his number hussy like that kind of a thing and my contention is that that really really undersells how bad the shipping news is like the shipping news by by magnitude's worse than the other two absolutely it's just it's both

boring and like I can't believe what I'm seeing like it's both there's some crinchy shit that I even forgot about in this movie and the thing is like have you read the book or any of any pool's books I don't read no that's right I'm sorry I apologize to constantly bringing up that topic that you yeah you don't read I read this book as a kid of course because I was an early Oscar obsessive I knew this movie was coming. I knew Julianne Moore was going to be in it. So, of course, I'm like,

I'm going to stay in this movie. And I read the book and I flipped for the book. The book's beautiful. But it's just one of those things that is like, especially if you're not doing a level of magical realism, it's just going to be ridiculous. So much of it is ridiculous. Well, and it's one of those things, even just watching the movie and not having read the novel. Even if I didn't know it was based on a novel, I would have from just watching the movie, because there are movies that struggle with adapting novels in a very particular way, where novels are really allowed to be so, like, to really, like, go with symbolism and metaphor and stuff in a way that feels very right and allows your mind to sort of, like,

make these connections and, you know, you sort of fall into the world of that book because it takes a while for you to read it. You know what I mean? You're not reading it in two hours. And I think movies by their nature, even movies that like don't necessarily, aren't necessarily super grounded in reality, so much has to be literalized just to have a movie because you have, you know, all of a sudden you have a fixed picture in front of you. I mean, especially if you have a literalist filmmaker, like, Lassa Hallstrom, which, like, isn't always true. There is this kind of note of magical realism to Shukala that I think actually makes the movie more interesting than people give it credit for. It makes it more enjoyable, too.

But so much of this movie just feels like I'm not seeing a story. I'm seeing a metaphor. I'm not seeing, like, that revelation about the coil family. and the fact that, like, Spacey's character is so plagued with, like, these, like, he'll, like, have visions of, like, his ancestors being, like, pirates in Newfoundland Bay or whatever. And it's just, like, it's so hard for me to buy that from that character. Like, why would he be so ravaged by this? But it's like, but it's like, but there's nothing in the performance that suggests he has any type of inner life, which is not true of the novel. But it's also the fact that, like, all of a sudden, Now the movie needs this character who's like a, you know, flesh and blood person played by an actor, we know, to be so wrapped up in these like notions of like generational guilt and like family curses and all this sort of stuff.

And it's just like it probably works in a novel as, you know, sort of like metaphor made, you know, into a narrative. And in this, it just makes no sense. It just makes absolutely no sense. And no, it doesn't feel like real people. It doesn't feel like we're watching a thing about people. And we're watching, you know, like interconnected metaphors, just sort of like trapes across our screen. And like the house is bolted down by cables or else it's going to blow away.

You see the flashback to the coil family dragging this entire house across the ice. It's just not good. I mean, the thing that fills the gaps when you're reading this. novel is like Annie Proll has this really like sparse lyricism to the language of the book and like this really like a specific lens on these characters who like live these very simple lives but like are still human people whereas they don't really have any humanity in the movie that it's just like Lassa Hallstrom is it gives such a like boring take on this material that it's like you can't kind of even invest in character or like there's not a ton of real plot going on but it's just like it's just one of those type of adaptations where the novel is rightly praised and partly it's because of the language in a way that doesn't translate or isn't translated by the take of the director that just like is so boring so boring yeah and then it like parts like the cape blanchet

character, stand out even more, and feel so much more vulgar, maybe than even they would in a movie that has a better handle-on tone. And I don't know, I just feel like she gets such a, it's such a thankless performance from her, because it's just like, to what end is she sort of going all out like this? Like, it's just, there's no, there's no reward for it. Well, she wins these critics prizes this year where they're, like, lumping her billion performances that year together as one. And, like, at the time, I was like, why are they putting the shipping news in these? But I get it now, especially for, like, it makes sense to mention her for three or four or five or however many moves she did in 2001, because the range is there.

I think she's always one of the more interesting performers. all of those movies. Let's hop to the other end of the plot description before we talk about Kate's 2001, because I think that's a longer conversation. I do want to say the most rewarded, if hers is the most thankless role in the film, the most rewarded role in the film belongs to Jason Bear's sweaters because they get to be draped over Jason Bear in this movie, which good for them. That was one of the delights for me of this movie, was watching, like, full-on.

just like, I think he was probably doing Roswell at this point in his career. And just like taking a break from doing teen drama on the WB to go like freeze to death in Newfoundland playing the young one of this like grizzled team of

you know, whatever maritime newspaper men. It's funny. Anyway. Jason Bear. Jason Bear. So hot. All right. So guys, we are on our 150

episode finally talking about the shipping news, directed by Lossa Holstrom, written by Robert Nelson Jacobs, adapted from Annie Pruill's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. We will get into that. Okay, so before I even run down this cast list, I feel like you can't really

say who is in the movie without also giving their character names. Well, let's, I'm not going to, like, bother with too many character names in the plot description, because I'm really flying by night. So, do you want to give the character names in this rundown and just sort of marinate in them? All right, go for it. Everybody, lock yourselves in, brace yourself for some names that are not names. The craziest fucking names in creation. Okay, so it stars Kevin Spacey as Coil.

That is his last name. We never know the character's first name. sure do not. Julianne Moore as Wavy Prouse. Judy Dench as Agnes Ham. Agnes.

I.S. Not Agnatt. Agnes. Ham. Yes. Ham. Uh, Kate Blanchett as Petalthewate as Tert Card.

Excellent with and credit in this movie with Pete Possible. Yeah. And Kate Blanchett. Fantastic. Who among us? Scott Glenn as Jack Bucket Recy Fonz as Beaufield Nutbeam

Gordon Pinsent as Billy Pretty Gordon Pinsett is really pretty though What I answer? I mean, yeah, just a dream boat Jason Bear as Dennis Bucket And then the two actresses that play Kevin Spacey's daughter, they're twins, Alyssa and Caitlin Gainer as bunny coil.

It's just a real goddamn menagerie of bullshitty names in this. A menagerie of consonants and vowels strung together. It's one of those things where it's like, I guess the joke is that everybody has these really whimsical names to live in the least whimsical place on the planet Earth. Like maybe that's like the gag. But it's so, it just. Nut, like, I don't know. I don't know anybody who would.

Recy Fonds has Nutfield City Limit. Nutbush City Limit. Like, I don't know if anybody would look like a wavy, but, like, I don't know that Julianne Moore, like, embodies a woman named Wavy, wavy Prouse. Her name is wavy, and she has straight hair. Make it make sense. That's it. I'm out. This movie's lost me.

Right. Because, like, the idea that, like, Kate Blanchett's character's name is Petal, which is, like, the most, like, soft and delicate and beautiful thing you can imagine. And she is, again, just, like, seven ashtrays stitched together as a person and... A dried bottle of mascara. Just, like, the hole in a pair of fishnets. Like, that is Kate Blanchett's character in this film. Petal. Get it. Ironic. Yeah.

It's a fun supporting cast. I love, if there was a part of a version of this movie that I would love, it probably would exist within the, for, like, which sounds crazy because like there are three Oscar winning actresses in this movie and what do I gravitate more towards, but Oscar winning actresses. But like, the part where it's like, Resey Fons, Gordon Pinsent, Scott Bayer, Scott Glenn, sort of like Pete Paisal Thwait, like, making a maritime newspaper together. I'm like, that's the closest that this movie comes to feeling like a movie that works. And, yeah, ultimately it doesn't. Where it suddenly becomes a newsroom movie. Right, essentially, yes, essentially.

And, like, there's a whole subplot about, like, Pete Possoplate being, like, in the bag for oil tankers or whatever that, like, I did not have time to really pay attention to. But, like... Yeah, there's, like, two minutes of this movie where it's, Maybe anti-capitalist. Well, and like, Risi Fons has these, like, big dreams to maybe, I don't know, let me do that. He has these big dreams of going to the gin house outhouse. I hate you. He has big dreams of traversing beyond the city limits of, uh, of NutBush.

Of NutBeam. Yeah. Um, yeah. All right. I normally will make notes. When I do a 60-second plot description, because there's a lot of information to get in, and I tend to stammer when I get nervous. Joe's notebook is like a swirl of ink, like something from the ring watching this movie. It is. All of a sudden, I, like, I fugged out for two hours, and then I woke up, and it was just like there was no white space left on my paper.

Yeah. I did not make notes for this one. I've decided because it's episode 150. I thought I'd, uh... Just wing it on your 60-second plot description. I'll just wing it. I'm just going to wing it. Yeah.

All right, Joe, on that note, then, are you ready to give a 60-second plot description of the shipping news? I mean, no, I'm not, but like I'm gonna. So, yeah. All right. Well, then, let's get into it. Your 60-second plot description of the shipping news starts now. All right, Kevin Spacey plays this, like, weeping dishrag named Coil, and he lives in

Poughkeepsie, and his father was terrible and, I mean, to him and he's like, doesn't react well to that. And he marries Cape Blanchett, who's mean and cheats on him constantly and does, has no interest in raising their daughter, Bunny. And she eventually, like, abducts the daughter and takes her away to like run away with this guy. And then she dies in a car accident. And she had sold the daughter to the black market. And that was traumatic for Coil. And in the same literal day, both of his parents commit suicide together. And then Judy Dent shows up as his aunt and wants to move the whole group to Newfoundland. And he's like fine and they do and it's super cold and he gets a job at the newspaper there covering shipping news and he does pretty well at that and he meets julian more whose name is wavy prouse and their children are friends and they're like sort of like romantically involved and they find out that his dad uh who is judy and his brother like raped her and she had to like abort that child and their like family guilt and then their house blows away and then they decide they're going to stay in newfoundland and start over because whatever i skipped a whole lot about a decapitated

millionaire on a yacht Hitler's yacht. On Hitler's yacht, about Scott Glenn coming back to life after drowning, about Risi Fons wanting to go to Brazil, about what other stuff did I skip, just like fully skip? I don't know. The stuff with Hitler's yacht, coil doesn't necessarily sell it like, hey, isn't this awful these people still own Hitler's yacht and are gross

people. It's just kind of like, hey, isn't it cool that Hitler's yacht is here? I was like, what are you doing, man? Yes. But that's like what gets him like ahead as a Newfoundland journalist. Also, the Larry Pine character who plays the owner of the yacht, the husband who owns the yacht. Also, Janetta Arnett plays his wife who I mostly know from, she was in Boys Don't Cry, but she was also in that sitcom head of the class.

on ABC. Anyway. But Larry Pines' character has like the Cruella disease where he has two-toned black and white hair and I really was like I wanted that tie-in to just like, oh, he's Crewella's real father. Like, no. They weren't going to tie that in, which is too bad.

Yeah, all of a sudden, that becomes like a subplot. And again, in a novel, subplots, you know, tend to work better there's more time to sort of like have it kind of like marinating there in the background for a while. And in this one, it just feels like a detour. And it's very hard to know what exactly the main point of this movie is. Like obviously he's moving to Newfoundland and he needs to like build a life for him and his daughter. And also like stop being such a goddamn mess and move beyond this like traumatic.

childhood of his and whatever. But, like, it's so loosely, like, thrown together and just in no way satisfying. I wonder what the editing process was like for this movie. I wonder if there's whole chunks of it that were left out. Because the movie's not too terribly long. Right, exactly. Without credits, it's like a buck 45. it's yeah yeah that like I wonder if this was also another like Harvey

scissorhands type of situation like it's very possible we need to talk about it definitely feels like the authorial voice on this movie is Harvey Weinstein I mean yes and I think that felt like the case with all of Lassa Halstrom's movies from this era where they all felt like Harvey pet projects um so I sort of interrupt our talk about Cape Blanchett's 2001, but we should revisit that because this was a big one. You mentioned she'd won a National Border

of Review Prize for supporting actress, which sort of combined this film, the shipping news, Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring, and then The Man Who Cryed. So, like, one incredibly successful film, two incredibly not successful films.

Like, the man who cried, I can't remember whether it was both poorly reviewed and nobody saw it, or just nobody saw it, but... I don't think it got a very wide release, is the other thing. Oh, yeah, 35% Rotten on Rotten Tomato, so yeah, it did not... I remember... Because, right, that's Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci, and, yeah, nobody liked the man who cried.

Sally Potter, great filmmaker, but this was not a highlight. But also that year, in non-supporting performances, which also, like, I guess credit to NBR for not, like, totally just, like, roping in. lead performances in their group award, which sometimes they do. Sometimes they do. Bandits, where you could, I could see somebody sort of like bullshitting that she's supporting in that because she's not wanting to mail. You mean like SAG?

Oh, did SAG put her in supporting? I know the Globes. Didn't the Globes nominate her as a lead actress? Yes, lead comedy. Yeah. She's the only good part of Bandit. Actually, I should take it. Bandits is fine.

I should watch it just for her. Bandits is cute. Bandits, but she definitely has the highlights. She chops vegetables to holding out for a hero. It's a whole mood. Find that clip on YouTube. It's worth it. And then she did the Jillian Armstrong movie, Charlotte Gray, that I've never seen,

but she's, like, trying to, like, is she a spy in Vichy, France? Or is she just sort of like... I feel like that's an espionage movie. She's just trying to, right? She's doing something to, like, thwart the Nazis. It's one of those Cape Blanchet movies that kind of blur together, because not a lot of people saw them. It's like that, Veronica Garen, what's the other one?

Heaven. Yeah, posters that are just her face. Heaven's the one where she shaved her head, though. Yes, heaven is the one where she shaved her head, so that's easy to sort of pick that one out. But yeah, so this was a very busy year for her, and it was one of those years where, like, she was critically lauded in certain things like Charlotte Gray and Bandits,

and she was commercially all of a sudden everywhere for Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring. And people forget that, like, ultimately, Galadriel is not a very major role in that trilogy, but she was a huge part, especially of the marketing of that first movie. She was one of the more recognizable faces in that, even though she's still pretty much just, like,

she's pretty much an art house actor still, even after Elizabeth and Ripley. But, like, she, Vigo, and Ian McKeown. Helen, and I guess Elijah would too, but like she's definitely one of the main like thrusts of the the marketing for that first movie. And that first movie is like where Galadriel gets the most to do. Obviously she, you know, she passes the test and, uh, and vows to move on and remain Galadriel. Um, I love that scene. And she also does the prologue in that she voices over the prologue, which is like one of my favorite, like, I'm just going to give you a whole novel's worth

of exposition at the beginning. But it's like, it's in Kate Blanchett's voice, and I will listen to it all day long. So, yeah, a big year for her, but I think it's one of those things where you look back now, and because she's been so rewarded since then, it feels weird that they were stretching to include things like the shipping news and the man who cried in awards for her when it's just like, it's Kate Blanchett, like wait till next year, y'all. Like, she'll be back with more good performances. Like, you don't have to jump on things like the shipping news and the man who cried. early aughts thing of like critics groups just going for the performer that did a bunch of stuff yes and like we're talking about a julian more movie that happened to julian more too yes what was her year for that her year was 99 magnolia ideal husband well she had two years she also had 2002 but that's after this right but i don't think anybody did that for far from heaven in the hours. No. They generally do it less for

lead performances and more like if you're in supporting in one thing that like you're really good in but maybe it's a smallish role or maybe like whatever the critics groups get a little cold feet about maybe being like oh we're rewarding

why are we rewarding this one thing over another thing and they're just like you know what just like rope them all together. Philips and Seymour Hoffman had that also maybe in 99. One of those years where they were just like Philip Seymour Hoffman's been great in like five things. Let's just give them an award for all of these things. They don't do that as much anymore. I don't know whether that's a thing that like they've declared that like I feel like publicists probably

didn't like when that happened. Because they had to share spoils. Right. And then they had to probably coordinate and I'm sure they hate that. Yeah. It's so weird that this is movie is memorialized forever now I wonder if she remembers making this movie I want to know what Kate Blanchett has to say about her performance like this had to have been two days max of filming right probably more because there's that shot of her dead

in the car where they've like pulled it out of the water that had to have been well and she shows up when he's in the boat capsizes and he's in the water and he sees her on like the robo like taunting him so yeah she also had to film that Who wants to go to town with Kate Blanchett and a rowboat?

God. I love that that was like, is she supposed to be enticing him into death? Because, like, he does not want to follow you there. You're scary. You frighten him. She's just the angel of death. Basically.

Can I just say one thing about her performance? The sex scene is the grossest thing. Yeah. When she says nibble, nibble, little mouse, I'm, like, I'm grossed out. when they, like, eat that, like, whatever, like, marshmallow-y confection in bed, and she says nibble, nibble, little mouse. I'm, like, this whole relationship is so cursed. Like, it's just incredibly cursed.

Unwell. Completely unwell. And, like, her pickup line is, you want to marry me, don't you? Which is pulled literally from the book. Because, like, you see her doing it with another guy in the movie, but she says it to coil, too. The thing I remember is, like, if you watch the trailer, you'll see so many alternate shots from what's actually used in the movie. And what's in the trailer is so much better Like you see her face on the

You Want to Marry Me, Don't You Line? And like her expression Like sells the character in the trailer Way more than any shot in the movie does In like a way that like this woman would like Be like kind of this mysterious figure to coil Whereas like The version we get in the movie is like

He's just. a sad guy and she happened to like be the one to manipulate him right like yeah you know he's kind of he's one of those characters in like who's just like well you're absolutely asking for a woman like this to take advantage of you because you have no bones in your body you're just made of jelly and you're Bruce davison from the first X-Men movie you're just like completely gelatinous and has no, you know, ability to advocate for himself whatsoever. And it's just like, and it's from no, like, disability. He's just sad.

He's just a sad man. That's his entire character. And it's not interesting to watch. And it's Kevin Spacey. So it's like, I need to have a very good reason that I'm watching Kevin Spacey in 2021. And this isn't good enough. And this was maybe the worst reason.

Except for Baby Driver, where he is very creepy to young men. Yes. The thing is, I think there's not much more to coil on the page than there is in the movie. But I think because, again, like I said, the language of it, it makes you understand him a little bit more, whereas, like Kevin Spacey makes literally no choices in his performance in this movie. Right. So it's just like, it's not interesting. interesting to watch. You don't understand him. Right. Blah, blah, blah, blah. But he's also miscast because, like, A, the character is supposed to be much larger than he is. He's supposed to be this, like, kind of...

Oh, he's a sad fat man. That's fun. True. But, like, I don't want to use a cliche, like, gentle giant, but I remember also from... I could be wrong. I remember from the book he's supposed to be, like, six, five or something. I could be remembering that part of it wrong, but he's supposed to... Descended from Viking pirates. Right. He's supposed to be like a somewhat imposing physical presence. And it's like, well, that's not fucking Kevin Spacey. No, no. And they also give him red hair in this movie. I mean, they try.

They do indeed try. They do try. She did give an attempt. But it's just like, I don't know. And like, it could have been even more cursed because it was originally supposed to be Travolta, and we've seen what happens when Travolta tries to play a sad man. Yeah. We've covered it. We've done a love song for Bobby Long. We have indeed covered that movie. But I don't know. Even like a Philip Seymour Hoffman would give so much more dimension

to the type of like grief or like inherited trauma, lived trauma like that would make you at least understand this man if not, you know, find him more interesting. Yeah. I'm just realizing now that if I worked in online publicity for Miramax at this time, which, thank God I didn't, because I would have had like, you know, stapler thrown at me or something. Yeah. You would have had a phone lodged into your head. I would have absolutely done a shipping news name generator. Like, I don't know what kind of algorithm. I would have, like, devised, but I would make sure that people could get their Newfoundlander name. just like pick your favorite animal and also your favorite um lentil and your favorite animal pick your favorite animal make the letters backwards right right exactly

do the hokey pokey turn yourself around and yeah all right we should talk about dame judy Dench as Agnes Ham She's good in this movie She's good in this movie She's not in this movie very much For somebody who like The big reveal of the plot concerns her character

She does kind of like Disappear once she's almost not in the last hour Of the movie Right And it's interesting because like she's going back home too And her homecoming is more interesting than his Because She's well she's more interesting character in general

But also just like She had this terrible thing happen to to her. And then she kind of got like driven out of town because she had an abortion as a teenager. And then she like lived with a woman for her like most of her life. And now that woman died of cancer. And now she's coming back. And it would have been really interesting to see how she reacts to the townspeople. And she like interacts with like one other woman who like crochets something with her or whatever her job is. She starts a boat upholstery business. Right. Which, like, who works? That sounds like, you know. So, yeah, I think she's good in this movie. She has a few of the more memorable line readings.

She's quite industrious in the way that she swaps out the ashes in the urn for something else. So that she can go rightfully drop a deuce on her awful brother's ashes. Rapist brother, yeah. So this is our momentous sixth Judy Dench film that we have covered. When we cover six films by a particular actor or actress, we commemorate it. We put the actor, the performer in our six-timers club, and I mark the occasion by giving you, Chris, a quiz on the six films that you've covered. So we're going to do that now. It wouldn't be episode 150 if we didn't have some type of quiz.

This episode is probably going to be long, and you know what? It's going to be fine. Six movies that we've done with Judy Dent. She was in our second episode ever, which was Tulip Fever. Smoking that little pipe. Smoking that little pipe. That little huge pipe, because it's like a wafer thin pipe, but it is seven feet long. I think it's still our header photo.

Yes. I think it is on Twitter. Yes, it is. And happily so. Tulip Fever, Jay Edgar, Ladies in Lavender, The Incredibly Momentous and Prestigious Cats, Tea with Mussolini, and The Shipping News is now our sixth Judy Dentian movie. So I'm going to ask you a series of questions. The answer or answers will be one or more of those six movies.

Fantastic. All right, so let's get to it. All right, we'll start off kind of basic. which of those six movies earned the most at the domestic box office. Is it Katz? It's not Katz. Cats, I think it's maybe second among these. Is it Jay Edgar?

It's Jay Edgar. Jay Edgar earned $37.3 million at the domestic box office. Katz was 27.2. Jay Edgar, a movie that is worse than Cats. Oh, yeah. At least I can have fun watching cats. Which one earned the least at the domestic box office? Tulip fever.

Tulip fever. 2.4 million. You know what made more money than I realized is Ladies and Lavender, which made... Hell yeah, we talked about it on our episode. I totally forgot that. 20 million worldwide box office for Ladies and Lavender. Good for that movie. Hi, Danita, I miss you.

Yes, that was such a fun episode. which two of these movies were based on novels? The Shipping News and Tulip Fever And Tulip Fever, yes Which is the shortest? Which is the shortest? It's not

Is it Tea with Mussolini? It's not Tea with Mussolini. Is it Ladies and Lavender? It's Ladies and Lavender. Tea with Mussolini clocks in at 112 which makes it the second longest, actually. J. Edgar's the longest. Right.

Oh, sorry, that's a spoiler for the next question. J. Edgar's wrong. Whatever. I would have a question. I would have a question. Yeah. It's famously 17 years long. It will feel that long.

Tea with Mussolini is one minute longer than the shipping news and two minutes longer than cats. And then two, Fever is 107 minutes, and then Ladies and Lavender is the shortest at 103 minutes. Okay. Which are the only two of these movies to open before September in their calendar year? Ladies and Lavender and Tea with Mussolini. Yes. Do you want a hazard a guess as to what month?

May. They were both May. Tea with Mussolini was May. Ladies and Lavender was late April. So you're very close. Basically May. Which two are the only ones with fresh rotten tomato ratings? Well, not cats

Not this, so I can't PJ Edgar It's not Tea with Mussolini and Ladies and Lavender then Very good, Tea with Mussolini 67% Ladies and Lavender 64%. The lowest rotten tomatoes

You can imagine is Do you want to just finish that sentence? It's actually no, it's Tulip fever. Tulip fever, 10%, cats, a robust 19%. Really has climbed up from its 0%. Yes. Okay. Which two films does Judy co-star with exactly two other Oscar winners? Tulip Fever and this movie. No. No, this movie is three. Yes. Cats? No. Who is Cats? McCullen and someone. McKellin's never won an Oscar.

Oh, fuck me. Sorry. You're right about Tulip Fever. Tulip Fever and Tea with Mouselini. Yes. Who are the two in Tulip Fever? Tulip Fever is Crystal Fultz and Alicia Vecander. Teeth of Mussolini is Cher and Maggie Smith. Very good. Yes. All right.

Which two were nominated for exactly two Bafters? This movie. and tea with Mussolini. Yes. Do you want to guess as to which were the nominations? Well, this was Kevin Spacey and Judy Dench. Tea with Mussolini was Maggie Smith and, I'm guessing, costumes? Very, very good.

I'm incredibly impressed. Fantastic. All right. Which was the only one of these films to make the National Border of Review's top 10 in its year? J. Edgar. Yes, J. Edg. Which, too, were AARP Movies for Grownups Awards nominees? Ladies and Lavender.

Yes. And Jay Edgar. Yes, both for Judy Dench. Yep. Yep. All right. Which was the only one of these films to get a Nickelodeon kids' choice nomination? Is it Katz?

It is Katz. For Taylor Swift? Yes, do you want to guess the category? I mean, it's not going to be like supporting actress. I don't think they're that specific. It's got to be like favorite actress in a musical. It's just favorite movie actress. It's not even that specific.

Wow. Essentially best actress, Taylor Swift and Katz. Yes. Wait, now I need to see who she lost to. I'm surprised we never did this. We had a lot to talk about when we're talking about cats. It's got to be, like, to all the boys I loved before. Oh, my God.

All right. She was nominated alongside Zendaya for Spider-Man Far from Home, Scarlet Johansson for Avengers Endgame, Brie Larson for Captain Marvel, Angelina Jolie for Maleficent Mistress of Evil. They all lost two. Are you ready to just give up on everything? It's got to be another superhero.

No, it is not. It is Dove Cameron for Descendants 3. the Disney Channel movie about the, like, descendants of fairy tale villains, I want to say? Yes. You know what I will say positively about those movies? You know who costume designs the descendants? Who? Carri-San.

No shit from Project Runway. Yes. Good for Carri-San. I fell down the rabbit hole of, what the fuck are Project Runway people doing these days? Good for her. Has that. I don't know if it's the sequels, but she definitely did the first one. Anyway, we need to move on from the descendants.

I'm not... No, we can't have that conversation. We can't go down that rabbit hole. Okay. All right. About which film did critic Andrew Saris say, I am baffled by all the negativity surrounding it, and I am prepared to designate it as the most underrated film of whatever year.

Tulip Fever. No. This movie? The shipping news. bitch. It is about the shipping news. Andrew Saris was riding for the shipping news. Andrew Saris, please

send me the contact for your dealer. All right. Which two of Judy's This Had Oscar Buzz movies were co-written by Tony Award winners? Co-written by Tony Award winners.

Yes. Tulip Fever because that is Tom Stubes Correct. Co-written by Tom Sawdard. And I think it's T with Mussolini, but I forget who it. Well, no, it's, is it cats, technically speaking, it's cats.

Why? Because of Andrew Lloyd Weber, but. No, Andrew Lloyd Weber is not accredited screenwriter on cats, but you're right about cats. The origin of cats. So, no, the screenwriter is one of the, it's the guy who wrote. Red. What's his name? He won his Tony for Red. I'm pretty sure. No.

John Logan. No, it's not John Logan. It is Lee Hall who won Tony. Oh, for Billy Elliott. For Billy Elliott. Yes. All right. Last one. This is my favorite one. Which are the only two movies of the six where Judy's character, as credited, does not begin with an A?

God forbid, I remember what her character names were. Terrible with character names. Jay Edgar? She just credited his mother in that movie? Nope, she's, hold on, let me bring this up now. In Jay Edgar, her character's name is Annie, Annie Hoover. So that's one, that's an A. You know one for sure.

Well, this is Agnes Ham. Right. Not Agnes with an eye. It can't be, it's like Mother Abyss for tulip fever. It's not tulip fever. Is it Ladies and Lavender? Ladies and Lavender is one of them. She plays her character in that is Ursula, Ursula Whittington.

oh and duh it's cats it's cats it's old deuteronomy yes all of her characters i thought it was old duteronomy a uld duteronomy fuck off all of her characters in all six movies that we have chosen for her begin with a vowel i find that fascinating um what are the other two uh that i need to declare tulip fever is the abbess you're right uh no name given but she's just known as the abyss Ladies and Lavender's Ursula What are the other movies? Sorry, I'm totally

I lost my space We just said cats We said this one Team with Mussolini She's Anna And yeah, she's Agnes Agnes Ham In the shipping news

Very good job on the Judy Densch quiz Chris And congratulations Judy On being part of our six timers club Also interestingly This is our fourth Cape Blanchet film where we have done the gift

and the missing and truth and now the shipping news this is interesting this was my favorite little tidbit this is our fourth Scott Glenn movie and I would have not thought that at all like I did not remember us doing it

he's also missing right what else is he's not in the missing he's in it seems like he would be because like Tommy Lee Jones's face is exactly as craggy as Scott Glenn's face in that film but I think you were just

transposing one for the other courage under fire which was our fifth episode. Of course. Secretariat, which is C-Biscuit. And the Paperboy. I do not remember who he plays in the Paperboy at all. Me either.

Yeah. I don't really remember anything about Secretariat, but it's fully conceivable he's in that movie. He plays the horse. Oh, okay. Obviously. So back to Z-shipping news. Let's talk about Miramax in 2001. We did this a little bit when we did Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

We've talked about this specifically before, but we're both people who hounded the Muromax Award site, which was like the first time I had exposure to like a for your consideration website for movies. Yeah. And it was like, I don't necessarily remember the shipping news moving dates around, but I remember it being like, okay, well, when are they going to put something up for this? movie. Yeah, I feel like this was set for December forever. I think it was just sort of it was camped out in December. But this was one of those weird years where the planned Oscar bait falls flat on its face and the studio has to go to something else. So this and Captain Corelli's mandolin were, I think, the big hopes for Miramax in 2001. Which is interesting because it's the year after, they also flopped with all the pretty horses.

And so once again, like, the best laid plans of mice and men go awry. And they then turned to their Sundance acquisition, right? They acquired in the bedroom at Sundance that year. And that was the big sort of Sundance Prize winner. And everybody was like, yeah, it's going to go to Miramax. But Miramax has bigger fish to fry and they're not going to give it attention. And then all of a sudden in the bedroom. Just a performance thing, et cetera, et cetera.

Right. And all of a sudden, in the bedroom was, like, their best horse. And so they gave it the push, and it got, you know, Best Picture nomination and nominations, obviously, for Sissy Spaceic and Tom Wilkinson. And it's a great movie. It's a great movie. I mean, it's the best movie that they have on their plate. I honestly think, based off of the sudden, like, large awards tally that it had, if they had made Amelie their big horse, they would have a best picture nomination for it. Yes.

I think that's true. I still think if there was a 10 best in 2001, Amelie probably would have made it. Oh, yeah, absolutely. But they could have had, like, picture and director for Amelie at the time. Like, even Bridget Jones's diary took a while to be, like, a for sure actress contender. Yes. Because, like, that was a February release. And it was a comedy.

As things fell through throughout the year, like, that kept, that stayed in the race and, like, elevated as the season went on, even though it was an older movie. and all these things that you would normally suspect to be against it. And then even though Judy Dench did get a SAG nomination for shipping news, they did pretty, once the scent of failure was in the air for shipping news, I think they jumped to Iris as the big Judy Dench Awards play for 2001. She gets a Best Actress nomination for that. Jim Broadbent wins. Right. Jim Broadbent wins beats Ian McKellen, which I'm still sort of sad about,

because Ian McEllen should have an Oscar. Twice, he was sort of second place. And Jim Broadbent's better performance that year is in Moulon Rouge. Is in Moulon Rouge. That's the thing. If Jim Broadbant was going to win that year, it should have been for Moulon Rouge. He's very good in Iris. Yeah.

Oscar's not cool enough to nominate him for... No. Moulon Rouge, especially when Iris is right there. Right, exactly. Classic Oscar move. Let's not forget Sting's Best Original Song nomination for Kate and Leopold. Is that song Until? Right?

Until, still. my will to live is not stoked by that song. Right. So one of those, this was the era where Miramax had so much product that like two massive failures even could not like put a dent in it. And it still, you know, didn't win Best Picture that year. But it, you know, it got a haul of awards and nominations. And yeah. So, yeah.

The thing is, like, in terms of, like, obviously zero Oscar nominations for the shipping news, its precursor run is shockingly robust. Robust. Yes. It got a best picture nomination for critics' choice. That I completely blanked out of my memory, and I laughed my ass off when I saw it. It didn't even get in, like, the top 10 for National Board of Review, which you would believe for this movie. But critics' choice put it in their best picture.

lineup. Critics' choice, I should also mention, nominated it for score, which wouldn't have been... Golden Globes also nominated it for score. Yes, it did. Like, I feel like it probably came close to getting a score nomination. That's probably the closest nomination it had. Yeah. 2001 NBR top 10 is actually really good. I think this is, this might be like a no-skips list. It's, um... Oh, there's a skip. Well, I'm trying to see what won. It's not giving me an indication of which film. I guess Mulan Rouge is that's the top. Yeah, they did a 10 and a best picture. Well,

no, this was when... Here's where they've done a best picture and then a separate 10. Their best picture is Mulan Rouge and it's in the 10. Right. This was before they started pulling that little scam. Yeah, Mulan Rouge in the bedroom, Ocean's 11, Memento. Yeah, Monsters Ball's not great, but...

Yeah, Monsters Ball's abysmal. But... But the Halliberry Momentum, you can, like, see how that. But yes, you're right. Monsters Ball with the Outlier here. Black Hawk Down, the man who wasn't there, underrated Cohen's movie, AI, Artificial Intelligence, which is a really interesting movie. The Pledge is the one that, like, goes, like, the furthest from the Oscar Typicals, the Sean Penn. Which I haven't seen.

It's good. It's a real downer. Obviously. It's also a Warner Brothers movie, and, like, you can always count on National Board of Review to, fill their Warner Brothers table at their event. The cast is amazing, though, because it's Jack Nicholson playing this, like, guy whose kid had died, and then he's trying to solve a murder, maybe.

Or maybe I'm conflating something of that with the crossing guard. But anyway, he's a detective trying to solve the murder of a child. Patricia Clarkson is in it. Benicio del Toro, Aaron Eckhart, Helen Mirren, Tom Noonan, Robin Wright, Penn, Vanessa Redgrave, Mickey Rourke, Sam Shepard, Harry Dean Stanton, Dale Dickey, Lois Smith. It's like an insanely packed cast. You should check it out.

Queen of my heart, Lois Smith. The photo someone posted of Imagine Seeing In the Heights with Lois Smith, it made me so happy. She was getting her life and good for her. You know she loved that fucking movie. Yeah, exactly. All right. The other thing I wanted to look at was what else got broadcast film critics awards nominations for best picks. along with so wait this was back when they only had three nominees and it still got a nomination

exactly well no they're their best picture lineup is 10 they did 10 those crudy bastards um it's definitely the outlier there whatever you think of shrek shrek was a success like shrek makes sense i believe it was also a producer's guild nominee shrek um but shipping news stands out like a sore thumb it is again like I mean, you know I think a beautiful mind is terrible, but like that was the best picture frontrunner. So like understandable, in the bedroom, Moulin Rouge, Memento, Mulholland Drive, Lord of the Rings, Ali, man who wasn't there, all great movies. And then the shipping news, want, want, want, like, so crazy. Oh, boy.

Yeah. But then, like, that's just the one that, like, kicks it off because like a major precursor nominated this for Best Picture. but like SAG, BAFTA, and the Globes all gave this acting nominations. Yeah, yes. Which is like, very, weirdly very rare for the movies that we talk about. Like, they'll usually show up. You don't see it as much anymore. You don't see it as much anymore where, like, a movie can totally bomb and the fumes of it will still get a bunch of precursor nominations, which is basically what happened with the shipping news.

And usually nowadays, I think things move faster. and I think the stench of failure really can take a movie from like expected like multiple nominations to like nothing to absolutely zero and it happens very quickly. And the fall festivals are way they're way more reliant on them now too whereas like this if the shipping news came out today with the expectations that it had on it, it would either show up at a festival, bomb and then be immediately out of consideration or. Or it could be like a Mary Queen of Scots type of situation that it's like it sets an expectation if it doesn't go to a fall festival. Like people are questioning, oh, well, this should be here. Why isn't it? It probably means that it's bad. And then maybe like Mary Queen of Scots is the best case scenario where it gets some type of like craft nominations.

But like, I don't know. if people had really seen the movie because this was a Christmas Day release open, everybody wants to go see incest, inherited family trauma ice movies on Christmas Day. Somebody should do a list of like the most insane movies to open on Christmas Day.

I would happily write that if anybody wants to pay me to write that. You should pitch that to like Polygon or something like that. The worst Christmas Day releases. Yeah. Or just like the least like the most unhinged just like least fitting for that release date. You know what I mean? It's just like, who's going to go see this with the family on Christmas? Like, I guess maybe there are bummer singles out there.

I will say for as much as I rag on the Broadcast Film Critics Association, that year in 2001, they did at least their best director was a tie between Ron Howard, who won the Oscar for A Beautiful Mind, terrible. But Baz Luhrman for Milan Rouge tied best director that year, which is pretty cool. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. All right. What other, we have still tons to talk about. We mentioned the sort of Kevin Spacey back last year. We talked about that a lot and pay it forward, so we don't really need to go through all of that again.

But this was also, speaking of our old episodes, this was the same year as Hannibal for Julianne Moore. Which is like a leveling up in terms of making her, like, I don't want to say fully movie star because she's never necessarily been a bankable star. but in terms of her profile was considered a huge leveling up. We talked about it in the Hannibal episode where it's like the whole casting run up like when she got the cover of Entertainment Weekly as the announcement

which was like a big deal at the time. Right. Not at all now. That movie was a financial success was a decent financial success. Not like a like a, yeah. Oh no, it was a big hit. Yeah.

On the top of my head, aside from the lost world, I think it's her highest grossing movie. movie. That's probably true. But like, but the, the, the worm turned on the assessment of that movie pretty quickly. Those aren't real. What's that? I said the Hunger Games movies, but those aren't real. Um, I think the worm turned on the public opinion about Hannibal and, and at least about her replacing Jody Foster was just not, at least not viewed as like a triumph. And then the other movies she had in 2001 were worse, where it was like evolution, uh, the Ivan Reitman movie with David Dukovney, which just got taken. terrible reviews, as I recall. Shipping news, obviously, we're talking about it. And then World Traveler, which we keep finding our way to Bart Freundlich when we talk about Julianne Moore. Her husband casts her in things.

The, what the hell is his name, Melissa McCarthy's husband? Ben Falcone. The Ben Falconey to Julianne Moore. Burt Friendly's movies are better than Ben Falcone's. Let's just be clear. Yeah, but it's the same deal, right? where it's just like, like, stop making your wife do your shitty movies.

I'm sure he's a lovely person, and I, you know, I'm happy that they have a very nice marriage. As I am for Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone, by the way. Like, just because he doesn't make good movies, doesn't mean he's not a good husband. World Traveler, it's another Julianne Moore, Billy Crude Up movie, much like Trust the Man was. And I don't know if it really had any expectations on it,

but it was definitely the definition of like middling. No, it even was way, it got worse reviews than middling, now that I say that. It was... How dare you gloss over her cameo in the ladies' man? I saw the ladies' man. That was 2000.

That was not this year. That was 2000. Oh, well, damn. That was her highlight of the year 2000 was her only appearance in a feature film that year was in the ladies' man. And we stand. Listen, she was busy after 1999. But then like 2002, obviously is a huge, you know,

bounce back with Far From Heaven in the hours, so people sort of forgot about the dip that she took in 2001 pretty quickly. She's not bad in this movie. She doesn't get a ton to do. She gets like two scenes of like any... She maybe has the worst role in the movie.

I at least appreciate that she is very understated in a way that feels appropriate. She feels like she really lives in that town. Yeah. But that's like that's sort of as far as it goes. The romance with her and Coyle

is, like, insultingly bad. Like, I can't believe we're expected. So boring. The most interesting thing is she tricks him into eating seal flipper pie. Yes. Yeah, I thought the joke of that was going to be that she, like, sells this whole thing with seal flipper pie, and then he eats it, and it's like, it's like, it's blueberry or whatever, and it's just like, ha-ha-ha. The joke of it is that, like, she makes him eat it, telling him that everybody in town eats it, and then she's like, I don't eat that shit. Like, that's disgusting.

Um, that was a fine moment. It's weird that she did multiple whole ass hunger games movies that we never talk about, that like, I know that those, they had a huge fan base and it's like, I read all those books and saw all those movies too. But like, the lasting impact of the Hunger Games has been, I mean, maybe it'll get like, you know how in the last year, like Twilight has had a whole recent. resurgence for people during the pandemic. Yes. Maybe the Hunger Games will get that, but it feels... The problem with the Hunger Games movies vis-a-vis the Twilight movies is Twilight movies didn't start very well.

So even if you don't love the last few Twilight movies, you don't, you can't make the claim that like they dropped precipitously from the first one. You could much more easily make the opposite claim, which is that the last couple ones are fucking crazy. So, like, there's at least that, you know, better than the first one. I think the first two Twilight movies are the worst ones. The second one is abysmal and boring and whatever. And the last ones at least have giant dream sequence battles and credits that go on for 25 minutes.

And I'm happy with that. The thing with The Hunger Games is its first two movies are the best two movies. And it really fizzles down the stretch. It made the bad decision to split the last book. into two movies it also had the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman sort of hanging over it by the end there and it really and that book didn't stick the landing either so it like it was kind of drawing dead looming thing of like that final book didn't satisfy people right so like you knew the movie was not going did the final book come out after the first movie came out I don't think so I thought it was pretty close but it was pretty close time-wise because I remember the book was just like I think that people started saying

how the book was an unsatisfying ending pretty early on so but yeah that's definitely like listen we know every major actress during the early teens had to have their YA dystopian

the amount of actresses in the Divergent series is wild that it's not just Kate Winslet it's not just Kate Winslet and Naomi Watts. It's Kate Winslet, Naomi Wats, Octavia Spencer, and Ashley Judd. It's just like, wow.

Wow. Yeah. All right. What else should we talk about? We talked about Lassa Holstrom, year after Shock a lot. I mean, we could bring up just for, like, listeners who are unfamiliar,

like, this is a Pulitzer Prize winner. The very next year, another Pulitzer Prize winner was, like, in the hours. It's like, we talked about this more with, plays specifically that a Pulitzer Prize automatically kind of catapults you into Oscar expectations

if you're doing an adaptation of their examples being like Beloved is one of them I mean Beloved is like a landmark novel too so that has its own thing but you see way less of it now but like the aughts were like

oh Pulitzer Prize winning books let's make them into movies yeah you really don't see like some a novel will win the Pulitzer Prize and you never hear like oh when is the movie adaptation like hardly ever anymore right right I mean there's um Barry Jenkins just did the Underground Railroad but it's a limited series right but like I'm going through even just like the 2000s and like all of these like very well-known books like they've been trying to make an amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay movie forever but it hasn't happened and one of my favorite books um they made a mini series out of empire falls they've never made a middle sex movie um they made the road which is a super bummer i don't think they've ever tried to do the brief and wondrous life of oscar wow as a as a film all of the stuff that's come out about juno ds right exactly so you're not going to but even when it was like even at that time there was no i don't think

there was any kind of push for that because i think the limitations of movies to be able to you know capture a lot of these books kind of, you know, the failures have been proven. Yeah. Olive Kittridge was a mini-series. We talked about that a little bit. Last week, right?

Whenever we last talked about, oh, no, no, no, no, because the writer of prize winner of Defiance, Ohio also adapted the miniseries. Right. They got an Emmy for it. Good for her. They never tried to make a visit

from the Goon Squad as far as I know, or did they? I love that book. Or did they try to make that as a TV series? They tried to take it to HBO. That's such a wild book that adapting it, I think, would be kind of a Herculean task. There's a whole chapter in that that it tells a story via PowerPoint. That's really, like, moving.

But, like, how do you adapt that? Yeah. Anyway, so, yeah, I think you're right. There's less of a pipeline for that now than maybe there was in the era of the hours and the shipping news and a thousand acres and, as you mentioned, Beloved and, you know, other stuff, ironweed. Looking at just the, because obviously all the precursors that this showed up for, largely for Judy Dench, which like, I get it. She is like, if you're looking, if you feel the urge or like, you know, you have to recognize this movie. that was at one point seen as a large contender.

It's easy to hang your hat on Judy Dench in this movie because she is the most interesting character, the most interesting performance in the movie. And it's like it feels like the movie should be about her for most of it. But it did remind me how kind of influx the supporting actress race was this year in a way that we really don't see often. I mean, the past year has been kind of wild,

but that was interesting to look at. Yeah. Because like the sag list, Helen Mirren wins, but she's also the only Oscar nominee in that lineup. Right. That was the big outlier category of like all time for the SAG Awards was supporting actress that year. Because it was, I'm trying to remember.

So it was Judy Dench in this, Cape Blanchett and Bandits, Dakota Fanning and I Am Sam, and. No, Kate Winslet was an Oscar nominee for Iris. Someone who is Globe nominated. You can get it. Someone who's Globe nominated in supporting?

Yes, and has never been Oscar nominated. Oh. Jennifer Jason Lee in something, Robin Wright Penn in something. Jennifer Jason Lee is an Oscar nominee. Oh, right, but yeah, at that point, wasn't right. Someone who we did an episode calling it her best performance Oh interesting

One of my favorite episodes 2001 The movie we called her best performance Was not 2001 Oh But this nomination This is a movie that won an Oscar Or was nominated for an Oscar

I always mix it up with another Of this director's movie Acting Oscar? Nominated for an acting Oscar? It was nominated for original song All right I always confuse it as winning original song Oh, it's Cameron Diaz

Yeah My beloved Cameron Diaz and Vanilla Sky Yes, she's great in that She swallowed has come It's great We stand A stranger All right

Do we want to talk about Our 150th episode spectacular I can't believe we've gotten this far I just want to take a second to thank all of our wonderful listeners for sticking with us, even if you've maybe only stuck with us for a few episodes and you're a new listener, wild that we are here.

Yes. And we still have so long to go. And we still have so much still to do. I'm very excited for what we have coming up in the future. It's been a fantastic 150 episodes, though, and I'm very, very thankful both to you, Chris, and to our great, great listeners. guys we're we're uh we're we're two uh goofballs awards assessives uh we love that you listen to us

we appreciate all of your support and uh yeah stick around uh we will still be having we're gonna have a fun summer so one of the i think on our first mailbag episode maybe one of the questions was to if we could create a list of acting nominee and also Best Picture nominees from the films that we had done to that date. And we repeated that one when we did our 100th episode Spectacular for Mother. And now we feel like it's time to do it again.

From the last 50 episodes that we did, from the Mother episode up until now. I think we did it this past Mailbag episode, too. Did we? I think so, but we were really flimsy on what timeline we were supposed to use. So I think we can just say now, we'll do this every 50 episodes. Yeah, I think that's a good, we'll start, we'll mark that in stone.

Yeah. So we'll be doing 101 to 150. Right. And then basically in a year's time, we'll be doing 151 to 200. Exactly. So I have prepared actor, actress, supporting actress, supporting actress categories, five nominations each, and then a top 10 list of my family. I have also done this, and then I have a separate list of superlatives.

I have 10 funds for her litig. Showing me up. Okay. All right. They're fairly simple. They're fairly simple. No, I get it. All right.

Do you want to start with supporting actress or should I start? I feel like we all know that supporting actress should go first. Yes. It's the most important category. You know, might as well just do it first. All right. What are your five? Okay, my five.

I'm going to list them alphabetically. Of course you are. That's the only way to do it. This is also my longest list of people. I almost put in there, of course, because it's supporting actress. Yep. Okay, so my five. I chose Glenn Close, House of the Spirits.

Oh, wow, you are starting it off. You've chose chaos today. Coming in hot. Coming in hot. She's great in that movie, that terrible movie. Viola Davis and Solaris. She almost made my list. Elizabeth Marvel and the Myrowitz stories.

Yep. Michelle Pfeiffer and White Oleander. Very good. And Sissy SpaceX in a home at the end of the world. I knew you were going to do Sissy Space Sysk in the Home of the Earth. I'm very glad that you did that. Excellent. What is your five, and then we can say who we would pick?

Right. My five are, well, this first one is one we have disagreed on categorization, and that's fine. Patricia Clarkson in the station agent. Elizabeth Debicki in Widows. Tina Majorino in When a Man Loves a Woman. Elizabeth Marvel in the Marowitz Stories and Michelle Pfeiffer. in white lilyander. I love when we don't have much overlap.

Me too. Me too. So, as I said, Viola Davis and Solaris was one that I had to leave off my list. Francis McDormand in Friends with Money, I'm surprised neither one of us picked her because she's on my long list. She's absolutely

on my long list. Lindsay Duncan... I figured you would pick her, too, which was another... And I figured you would pick her. What a gift of the magi story we have here. And then Lindsay Duncan in about time was also on my long list. My long list also included Patricia Clarkson

and Elizabeth Tabickey. Jennifer Ely for possession. Of course. The great Jennifer Ely. I also put Cynthia Revo for widows. Her seat of Viola Davis. Just fucking rule, man. They do. They do. Someone who I think we maybe had

a conversation about category placement, Kira Knightley in a dangerous method. Right. Yeah. Francis McDormant for Friends with Money, and I also put Maggie Smith for tea with Mussolini. Oh, that's a really good one, actually. She's great in that movie. You know who I should have included to, and I didn't, and I feel bad now, is just from last week, Ellery Porterfield from the prize winner of Defiance, Ohio.

I thought she was very good. Oh, that's a good call. As the daughter. As the daughter, yes. All right. Who's your winner? My winner, it's very tough. I think I have three who could take it.

I think my winner is Patricia Clarkson for the station agent. My winner is Sissy Spacec, a home at the end of the world. My other two that I was really struggling with not having to be the winner, or Fyfer and Elizabeth Marvel, because they both totally rule. They totally rule. All right, why don't I lead off with supporting actor? That sounds cool Another one that was pretty

I had some fun with this one Yeah Oh god I cannot wait to hear your chaos pick So mine were Bobby Kanovali for the station agent Dane Dahan for the Place Beyond the Pines Dustin Hoffman for the Meyerwood stories

Bill Nye for about time And Brad Pitt for Burn after reading We really don't have any much overlap I love this Okay My picks are Brian Tyree Henry for widows. Oh, that's such a good. I'm jealous of that.

I'm already jealous. Yeah, yes. You did it right. Ben Mendelssohn for the place beyond the pines. He was on my long list. Our only overlap, Brad Pitt, Bradley Pittman, for Burn After Reading. And my fifth, Martin Scorsese in The Muse. Wow.

Honestly, a great pick. That is a great pick. He's so good. He has one scene. It's so funny. You don't stop laughing when he's on screen. Your supporting actor picks run laps around mine. I already regret all of mine, and I wish I had done Kaluja and Brian Tyree Henry from Widows. And that Scorsese pick is inspired. It's absolutely inspired. He's so funny in that. He's really genuinely is. He's so good. He's so good. Playing the most cliche version of himself knowingly. You know, picking fun at himself. It's the best scene in the movie. My long list was Bobby Kandavale for the station agent.

Udo Kier for Melancholia. Oh, my God. I cannot look at her. Maniac. Mamiac. Dallas Roberts for a home at the end of the world. And Denzel Washington for much ado about nothing. That's a great one.

I also had Ben Mendelssohn on my long list. I flirted with the idea of just like putting Ryan Gosling for Place Beyond the Pines and supporting because he leaves so soon. But I didn't want to be that controversial. It is confusing because he, I think, he definitely has the longest of the three chapters of that movie. And it's like, it's all him, whereas, like, the third one is shared. And, like, his portion of the movie is over an hour long. So I understand.

It's the Dev Patel in Lion thing, sort of, where it's just, like, time-wise, you are definitely a supporting player. But, like, you are the lead in your portion of the movie. So, right. I also had Sean Penn in Carlito's way as a runner. up. Fun. Who was your winner? Um,

that's a very good question. I'm going to say that it's Bill Nye and about time, mostly because I don't want to give Dustin Hoffman. I don't want to give Dustin Hoffman even an imaginary word, even though I think Dustin Hoffman is marvelously funny in Myerwood stories. Excuse me. Excuse me.

You think this is an imaginative. I think this isn't real? How dare you? I'm sorry. I'm sorry to... Where do you come off thinking that our superlatives from the past year are not a real award? I will create a little tinfoil statue for us to hand out to... We will track these people down and we will hand them awards and we will make it real.

We will get televised on PBS right before the Movies for Grownups Awards next year. Honestly, let us do the red carpet at the M4Gs. At some point, they have to recognize that we're their biggest fans, right? They have to. I mean, get the word out. Maybe they won't because it's somewhat ironic love, but it is also an earnest love. Do you think at their age they can appreciate what's ironic love and what's not? I mean, they nominate fucking the most inappropriate things.

for best time capsule. All right. All right. My winner is Daniel Kaluya. I mean, that's a great winner. I regret so much. I regret so much already. You have such a better list.

All right, why don't you lead off with best actor? We'll save best actress for the last of the acting categories. Yeah, I mean, of course, of course. You know, we bookend it with actress. Yes. Actresses, because that's what matters. Yes. Okay, my best actor lineup.

George Clooney for Solaris. Uh-huh. Stephen Dorff for Somewhere. Yes. Tony Leung for lust caution. Yes. Adam Sandler for the Meyerowitz stories. Yes.

And Ben Stiller for the Meyerowitz stories. I was wondering whether you might do both of them for Myrowitz stories. That's very good. We have a little bit of overlap. But again, not too much. Mine are Bradley Cooper for the Place Beyond the Pines. Peter Dinklage for the station agent. Tony Leung for lust caution.

Al Pacino for Carlito's Way and Adam Sandler for Myerwood Stories Fantastic Stiller's good though Stiller's good He's definitely one of my runners up That monologue at the end man

Like I'm just always kind of blindsided by it And I'm like I'm Ben Stiller's making me cry It's crazy Yeah He that I think that's a great performance My other ones would be Peter Dinklage for the station agent

Colin Farrell for a home at the end of the world Lucas Hedges for boy erased and Kevin Klein for life as a house Kevin Klein was on my long list for life as a house I had Philip Seymour Hoffman for flawless Colin Farrell for Home at the End of the World Yeah My winner I think

Is Adam Sandler for the Myronwood Stories It is my uncut gems Like for all y'all who loved him in Uncut Gems Jennifer Aniston I'm talking to you That is what the Myrwit Stories is So great. I love that. Her love for Adam Sandler makes me appreciate Adam Sandler more.

I love you, buddy. She says something about like, it's, it's, your magic, your magic is real, right? That's what she says? Something. Your magic is real, and I love you, buddy. It's great. If I ever get to accept an award, I am just going to word for word, quote her about Adam Sandler, about you. Oh, my God.

The dream of my life. Yeah, I think everything that people say about Sandler and On Kachems is what I say about him in Myroitz. He's a goddamn delight. Yeah. Who is your winner? George Clooney for Solaris. It's a good pick. It's a good pick.

He's also on my runners-up. Yeah. All right. We have arrived at Best Actress. We have. The most prestigious award. I'm interested to see. Especially when we are giving it.

I have so many. I don't have a ton of runners up, but the ones that I had to leave off were, like, painful. Really good. missions yeah what are yours uh viola davis for widows kirsten dunst for melancholia juliet lewis for natural born killers meg ryan for when a man loves a woman and tongway for lust caution somewhat unsurprisingly this is our most overlapy category we that that happened to us before, too. We overlap on four out of five.

I have Viola Davis for widows, Juliette Lewis for natural born killers, Meg Ryan for When a Man Loves a Woman, Tongway, for lust caution. I left, I had to leave Kirsten Dunst off, even though I think she's incredibly impressive in melancholia. And I'd open myself up for all of her homosexual fans to, like, tear me limb from limb. I had to put in, speaking of, Your Magic is Real, buddy, Jennifer Aniston for Friends with money because it is her best performance. I feel like an asshole not having friends with money and the station agent. Not anywhere on my acting nominees, but it's how to take down. Definitely

Kirsten was a runner up for me, as was Julianne Moore for the prize winner of Defiance, Ohio. What were your runners up? Aniston and Julianne Moore. And also Emma Thompson for much ado about nothing. It's a good choice. It's a very good choice. choice. I should have really investigated that for acting nominees more, but I'm happy with my acting nominees. All right, we each picked a top 10. I did not put mine in order. I put mine in alphabetical order. Oh, that is, that, that, that, that should be illegal. I do not believe in alphabetical list. Though last year, I was kind of like, these seem kind of close. Maybe I would do alphabetical, but no. All right. No. No. So why don't then I do my alphabetical and then you do

you're ranked okay all right alphabetically mine are about time uh richard curtis is about time uh nicole holl of center's friends with money ang lee's lust caution noa bombbacks the myerwit stories kenneth bran is much to do about nothing uh derrick ciann frances the place beyond the pines stephen soderberg solaris sophia coppola's somewhere um um um um um Tom McCarthy is the station agent, and my winner, Steve McQueen's widows. Vidos. Vidos. Vidos.

Fantastic. I have a top 10, in numerical order, as it should legally be mandated. All right. All right. Just go. My number 10, a home at the end of the world. Very good. Number nine, Les Deschon, Argent.

Number eight, a dangerous method. The method Dangerous Number seven Friends with Money Number six Melancholia Number five

The Meyerowitz stories New and Selected Number four Lust Caution Number three Vidos Number two Solaris

And number one Much to my surprise Honestly Thought long and hard about this It was easy to come up With a 10 Less easy to come up With a ranking

My number one I chose Sophia Coppola's Somewhere. It's a great movie. It's a great movie. I was talking to our friend George Severus, who did that episode with us recently. And it's I stand by that.

I stand by that as being my favorite Sophia Coppola movie. More and more... Doing that episode confirmed for me that it's her best movie. Yeah. Yes. I am resolute in my feeling there. We've covered some really good movies. It's so funny because going through the list, there's so much that's like spectacular garbage. And I say that with, you know, love and appreciation for...

It is fun when we can celebrate the things that we actually like. Oh, absolutely. That we do here. But again, there's stuff on there where, like, I would have never put it on a top 10 list, but, like, movies, like, 54 and nuts and life as a house and cats, you know what I mean? Like, movies that, like, I couldn't put on a top top 10 list, but, like, I have such a for in one way or the other. And, you know, recalling some of these episodes, if anyone is new or perhaps doesn't listen to every episode or, you know, has, like, fallen off and gotten back on, this can maybe

stir you to go back and listen to those episodes you might have missed. Exactly. Exactly right. Can I share ten quick superlatives that I also came up with? Please do. You always want to have some fun other categories. Some of these are a little more basic, some less. So, for best performance in a titular role, I chose Leslie Nielsen Scrotum in the movie Nuts.

Jesus Christ. Best cameo performance, Sigourney Weaver as Sigourney Weaver in the Meyerowitz story. Yes, the role she was born to play. Best acting like you're in a bad movie, but it's not a bad movie. It's a good movie, but no, really, it's a bad movie. Natalie Portman in Goya's Ghosts. Yes. Uh, best single line reading, Lindsay Duncan in about time.

I have no interest in the life without your father. I'm thoroughly uninterested in a life without your father. Right. Thoroughly uninterested, yes. Uh, best that's been moment is Zawak in Zawak. Yes. Uh, best sex scene, less caution. Yeah. Worst sex scene, life as a house.

Beats out the shipping news. Wow. I mean. Wow. He just, like, ejaculates with, like, male-sexuals in your eye. No, he definitely does, but, you know. He's a teenager, he should know better. He doesn't need to know better.

Just like, ugh, ugh. Why did we have to see that? You don't want to know how close Hayden Christensen came to my ballot for supporting actor. You really don't. You genuinely don't. Okay, that's fine. Maybe I should have done a superlative for Best Blue Tips. Well, then, yes.

He would have ruled. The best needle drop is share singing smoke gets in your eyes and tea with Mussolini. Million percent. Also, best demand for a Picasso is share in tea with Mussolini. Worse my Picasso. Where's my damn Picasso? Worst needle drop is Florence and the machine doing stand by me while Natalie Portman and Jacob Trompley run towards each other in the rain in slow motion in the death of John

F. Donovan. Yeah. And then finally, the most important superlative, my jellical choice. The jellicle choice is cats, obviously. But which cat? No, the movie cats. No, but which cat is your jellical choice from cats? We did not get a chance.

We already talked about that in Catsisote. Did we? I mean, did we just say Skimble Shanks? Did we both just say Skimble Shanks? We got it? Okay. Probably. It's good.

I wish I had come up with a list of superlatives like you. I feel like you did the assignment. much better than I did. You are the Kate Blanchett in Streaky. I make up to my sad noodle of Kevin Spacey. 150 episodes, guys, we love you. But especially for sticking with us. Thank you for supporting us.

On to the next 50 and beyond. All right. And on to how we end all of our episodes. Joe, what is that? Yeah, every week we end our episodes with something we call the IMDB game, where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try and guess the top four titles that IMD says they are most known for, if any of those titles are, let's say, a television performance, a voice-only performance, or perhaps a non-acting credit.

We will mention that up front to be sporting about it. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue, and if that's not enough, oh boy, here comes the free-for-all of hints. That is the IMDB game. We'll go fishing for some hints. right we'll we'll drag you along to the answer like a house on ice god yes that's what we will do and then we will turn up your decapitated head in the bay no i don't know i can't i can't continue that metaphor it's a bad metaphor much like much of the shipping news it's a bad metaphor okay

we'll poo on the ashes of the correct answer yes exactly all right well i guess we'll resuscitate the answer. The answer will hack up a lung full of water. Of icy, icy maritime province water. Yes, exactly. All right. Is Newfoundland part of the Maritimes or is it its own thing? I don't know. I think it's a province of Canada. I think it's a full-ass province. Oh, it's definitely a province. But when you talk about like the maritime provinces, is it just Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick? Or do they include Newfoundland and Labrador with that? Canadian listeners, let us know. I don't think I've told you this. My people do hail from Newfoundland.

Wait, is that true? Yes, that's true. I didn't know that. On my father's father's side, may he rest, that family came from Newfoundland. Very interesting. My mom's side of the family. It does track that I am canonically Canadian lineage. My mom's family comes from Quebec originally.

That's very interesting. You would be very French. Yes. Anyway. All right. Would you like to give or guess? Guess first. I will...

Guess first. Okay. So, naturally, naturally, I figured you would like me to go into the history of Scott Bear, whether or not in a giant sweater. Yes. Jason Bear, whatever. Not whatever. Put some respect on his torso. I mean, his name.

Go ahead. So I went into the surprisingly large Roswell cast, and I found for you one Miss Emily D'Raven, the Australian actress Emily D'Raven. Controversial, Emily DeRaven, who shows up on that show and just wrecks everything for our main couple. She's the reason why Colin Hanks' character ends up dead. It's a whole thing. I almost gave you Colin Hanks because he's. his known for is unwell. Oh, no. All right. Emily DeRaven.

I wonder if Chet Hanks has a unknown for. I don't need to know that. I don't need to know that Chet Hanks has three more known fours than Glenn Close does. I really don't. Anyway, you do have one television show for Emily DeRaven. So just one, so she's not remembered for Roswell. She's got to be, it's got to be lost. Yeah.

One of Lost's most completely disposed of characters who stayed on show for a long time. A lot. Well, and it was like absent for a while, but then they brought her back for like that last season. And she like went bad or something. It was a whole thing. Um, poor Emily DeRaven. Okay. So, but yes. The reason why you picked Emily DeRaven is obviously so you could get me to mention Remember Me, Secret 9-11. I did choose her for Secret 9-11 movie. Of course he did. Um, all right. Here's now where it gets to the point where I'm like, what else?

Because, like, she's in Brick. She's like the girl who like spurs him on to try and solve this mystery. But she's not in Brick a lot. But I would still hazard to guess that she's probably credited high up on that cast list. So I'm going to guess Brick. Oh, my God. If you get a perfect score for Emily DeRaven... I won't because I can't think of another Emily to Raven performance now.

Well, good, because I was going to say you need a new co-host, because I will refuse to play this game with you ever again if you can nab a perfect score on Emily DeRaven. All right. I'm three for three. I genuinely, beyond, if I can't do another television show, like, what other movies was she possibly in? I think I've exhausted all of the movies that I've seen Emily DeRaven in. I'm positive you've seen this movie. I'm not giving you any more. No, you can't.

You can't give me any hints. Emily DeRaven. Like, after Lost, she must have gotten a few, like, everybody in Lost got some rolls off of that. I'm going to have to duff this and go for the hints because I, I'm just going to guess. Remember me four times. I'll just keep guessing remember me. I mean, was she in Josie and the Pussycats? No.

Scrolling back. I don't think so. Was she in? All right, so that's one, wrong guess. Was she in, trying to think of, like, early teens movies. Was she in Marguerette? No, she was not. All right, give me some hints.

One movie that she was in that I completely forgot that she was in. is public enemies, but it's not public enemies. Also forgot that. This movie is 2006. I will say it is a remake. 2006 remake The Departed? No. A horror remake.

The Grudge? No. This is a horror director who's like kind of slowly building a cult around this director. Is it, I can't remember. Is it like the The Hills Have Eyes remake? It is The Hills Have Eyes. Yeah. I did actually know that she was in that now that I think about that.

I've never seen that movie. The Hils and I'm Eyes remake is good and fucking brutal. Who is that director? Alexand Aja. Ajah, right. Yes. Who also did the alligator movie that people really like. He just had a Netflix horror movie.

Yeah. But I had done one of the Piranha movies that I liked. And my problematic fave, high tension. Right. the movie that I'm like, guys, this horror movie is great. I cannot stand by some of the offensive shit in this movie. Of course not, but it is well done. The twist in the movie is not only so stupid, but also offensive.

Offensive. But it's a well, well-made movie. It is. Up until the twist, it's like, this is one of the best fucking horror movies in the past 25 years. Yes. Talk about Grizzly and Brutal. All right, that's a good, that's an interesting known for. I'm glad I went three for three at least. So, very good. All right, for you, I, as I often do, travel down the path of the director, so I followed Lhasa Halstrom upstream to New England, where all the princes of Maine reside.

Ah, all of those princes of Maine. I did not choose one of the princes of Maine, because it turns out we have done Toby McGuire before. We have never done Charlize Theron, surprisingly. Oh, interesting. Yes. So I'm going to challenge you with Charlie's Theron. Uh, Monster. Yes, her Oscar winning role in Monster.

Mad Max Fury Road. Furiosa. Yes, correct. Atomic blonde. Should be, but no. Hmm. There's got to be another genre movie. I, um...

No voice. performances, by the way. Right. I don't think I don't think young adult is there. I wouldn't be surprised if maybe Tully is there, but I'm not going to go there yet. And, okay, so which genre movie? I mean,

Hancock is fun, but people don't remember that movie. Snow White and the Huntsman is like all about her. Permethius, I feel like, shows up places. But I think she even gets like a with or an and credit for that movie. So maybe not Prometheus. I feel weirdly that like Eon flux is there. Huh.

I'm not giving you a free guess. Of those, I'm going to guess Snow White and the Huntsman. It is Snow White and the Huntsman. okay um then my next one is going to be prometheus incorrect not prometheus what's my year well you need one more wrong guess oh no wait did you get something else wrong yeah i guess atomic blonde oh right yes all right so you're missing year

is 2018 oh that's tully it is tully well that's great yeah that's great I would have never, never, never thought that Tully would make it over young adult. That's very surprising to me. I mean, I feel like there's a lot of, like, probably photos for that movie that get her name attached. She's Globe nominated for that movie. Yeah. It's good.

The search engine optimization would probably... Yeah. She's first build. I think she produced it. I was going to say, she's listed her known for it as a producer for both Tully and Monson. so that probably helps for both of those. Yes. Very good. Good job. Spectacular. All right. Our 150th episode on the books, guys, we're here to stay. Long history. Yeah, I think we've decided. I think we're going to keep going with this. What if we were like, guys, surprise,

this is our last, oh my God, it would make me so sad. Don't even say that. No, I've always had our last episode should be for your consideration because of our opening music. Yeah, exactly. That might be a bummer last episode. It would be, but we would do, we would, but it's also an episode about, like, that movie is about what we do here. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Okay, so one thing about for your consideration now that it comes into mind, because, like,

the twist is that the male actor gets nominated. We don't talk about how home for Purim pulls a Michael Shannon. How so? Because, like, both of Michael Shannon's nominations, more so for Revolutionary Roe. No buzz, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. With zero buzz gets nominated, but was talked about for everyone else. That's true. That's not how it works.

That's not how it goes. I guess that's the comedy of it, but that's not how it works, my friends. It worked for Michael Shannon. I guess, yeah. Twice. All right. Twice. Yeah.

All right. I think that is our episode, our 150th episode. If you want more of this had Oscar buzz, which of course you do, you can check us out on Tumblr at thisheadoscarbuzz. tumbler.com and follow us on Twitter at Had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz. Joe, please tell our listeners where they can find more of you. Sure, you can find me on Twitter

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at F-E-I-L. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Miebius for their technical guidance. Please remember to rate and review and like us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, wherever else you get your podcast. Five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcast visibility, even though that app is totally fucked now. Totally fucked.

Fix it, Steve. From the grave. They keep making it worse. Like every few days, they redo the app to make it worse. it's Steve. It is the box office mojo of apps. Honestly, yeah. If you give us a five-star review there, regardless, it does help us out with visibility, so please

haul this house of a podcast across the ice to even more listeners. Oh, I just like swallowed my bowl. I was going to say something happened. It was the ice. The ice did it. I'm drowning, like, pedal. But that's all for this week. We hope you'll be

back next week for more buzz. Bye. That's all it Nubbush. Oh, Knitbrush. How to Knitbus is a lemon. Twenty-five was a speed limit. Motorcycle not allowed in it.