This Had Oscar Buzz - 154 – Battle of the Sexes

Episode Date: July 19, 2021

One year after winning Best Actress for La La Land, Emma Stone returned with an even better performance but faced even tougher competition. In Battle of the Sexes, the recent winner starred as Billie Jean King as she faced off Bobby Riggs (played by Steve Carell) in the famed titular tennis match. Directed by Little … Continue reading "154 – Battle of the Sexes"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. No, I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Heck. Hello? Eureka, Billie Jean. It's Bobby Riggs. I had a great idea.

Male sovereignist pig versus hairy-legged feminist. You're still a feminist, right? I'm a tennis player who happens to be a woman. Don't hang up. By the way, I shave my legs. Billie Jean King, already a champion of women's rights, is now the most successful female player of all time. I am not saying that women don't belong on the court.

Who would pick up the balls otherwise? Oh, my God. There's in a single thing I don't hate it by Bobby Riggs. You know what I'm doing? I'm cooking. I'm cooking. I won the triple of Wimbled. I could be Billy Jane King.

Yes, she has to know. Call Bobby. Tell me, tell me. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that's going to be angry until we die, unless Jessica Lang's narration says otherwise. 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 rival sponsor. by Sugar Daddy, Joe Reed. That really was a big Sugar Daddy in that movie. I was transfixed by it. I couldn't quite wrap my head around the idea of a sugary sweet,

quite that big. Listen, I have never had a Sugar Daddy Code. I don't need a Sugar Daddy Code. If I wanted to, yes, I could go out and get one because I am what, highly sponsorable. This had Oscar Buzz Podcasts sponsored by Shuddy Daddy Oh, sponsor us, cowards, like seriously

Sponsor us candy companies Seriously, we will go all the fuck out You can sponsor us and have the benefit of us not being Chauvinist Pigs Exactly, listeners, I want to mention You'll note the conspicuous lack of squeaking behind my audio Now I have swapped out my big comfortable but loud desk chair for the moment, for a small, uncomfortable yet, like, strictly silent a chair.

So I know the last several weeks, if you were listening and you were plagued by the squeak, squeak, squeak of whatever was happening while I was talking. That was my chair. And the sacrifices I make for you will be felt in the deep recesses of my tailbone. But you know what? I'm here for you. So, there we go. I am still sitting on my tainty tiny little stool because I am in what tiny closet. Chris podcast, you guys need to picture when Chris is talking.

Chris podcasting from like, not Narnia, but like the little, like, the causeway between the real world and Narnia. It's also literally painted black. It crawls into his little closet to like really, you know, block out all external audio, and every once in a while, we'll get on something that has video, and I'll be reminded that, like, I'm in a tiny dungeon of my own making. I am in the chokie. Yeah, and just, like, surrounded by just, like, just, like, clothes on top of you and whatever, and it's just, like, it's very funny. And right now, I am, not to give you guys all the full sensory experience of my podcasting environment, but right now, someone has

set something on fire in the backyard or something like that. I'm smelling some sort of thing. So hopefully if my building is... Like a roast? Is it like a roast pig or something? Or is it like... Because we're recording this on the 4th of July. Right. Is it some type of barbecue product or is it...

It feels like the beginnings of a charcoal grill situation, I feel like, perhaps. But if at some point I have to run out of my room because my building is on fire, you'll know remember me as I once was angry at John Ham apparently Hey Chris Should you find yourself engulfed in flames Yes

Luckily we are sponsored by Sugar Daddy To take the medical costs Interesting quirk of us podcasting about Battle of the Sexes today Today is the middle Sunday at Wimbledon Which is the traditional day where there is no tennis actually played in the middle of Wimbledon because England is, you know, odd and full of traditions. And the Sunday that falls in the middle of Wimbledon

is traditionally a day off for everybody there. And then everybody comes back and plays on Monday. So, yeah, we're in the middle of one of my favorite tennis, you know, moments of the year. I've talked about my... You are famously one of my tennis friends. I am a big tennis person. I grew up watching tennis, famously. My grandparents lived in the flat above us growing up, and my grandma and I especially would, I would be a little kid, and I would go up, and she would make me a tuna fish sandwich, and we would sit and we would watch the tennis. And I sort of grew up loving it. I'm not, I'm old, but I'm not old enough to have remembered watching Billy Jean King when I was a kid. But obviously, if you watch tennis, in any capacity, you are very much aware of Billy Jean King and her legacy. The United States

National Tennis Center and Flushing, where the U.S. Open is held, is named after her. Like, she is not, obviously, like, the greats in the sport from her era. She was sort of eclipsed shortly thereafter by Chris Everett and Martina Navratilova, but, like, Billy Jean King looms so large in part because of the event. that we see in Battle of the Sexes and how sort of forthright she was in fighting for equality for the women in the tennis world, equality of pay, equality of prominence, that kind of a thing. And so obviously the story in this movie was like very, very popular and well-known. So I was very much looking forward to talking about this movie because I also really like it.

Oh, I was going to say, I'm excited to hear your thoughts on this because, like, I have kind of complicated feelings with the movie and that I kind of feel like a stick in the mud about some of the stuff about it. Also, I'm sure we'll get into various Alan Cumming monologues that basically close the movie that are grinchy to me. On the nose, a little on the nose, yes. God bless Alan Cumming for delivering it as gracefully as possible. Alan Cummings sort of posh accent in this film. gives me life whenever I do hear it. It's very enjoyable to me. But yes, I know what you're...

We would die for Alan Cumming. Absolutely. Yeah, Joe, I don't know if you know this, but in 30 years from now, gay people will get married. And we call... And we called that... Now, today we call them homosexuals. Yes.

Yeah. It's a moment. It's one of those things where Simon Beauvoy, who is the right... of this, who, uh, Oscar-winning screenwriter of Salam Dog Millionaire, it really does feel like he didn't trust that the audience would get all the stuff in the actual story about Billy Jean's, uh, gay relationship and her struggles with being closeted and yada, yada, yada. And they felt like they had to like throw that button on it

at the end just so we'd be like, oh, okay. And it's just like, no, no, no, like we were watching the movie. We know. We got it. We've been around the past day. We got it. We get it, girl. Chaddly. We were all Chad Michaels in that moment. We got it, girl. We got it, girl. We got it. But yeah, so we've had this one sort of hanging out in the spreadsheet that we have for possible new movies. Obviously, this is one of the more recent movies that we've done. This is only a 2017 movie. So there's a ton of hindsight behind it. And when we were planning this episode, too, I was like, I don't know. We've done some recent episodes, and Battle of Sexes is brand new. And, I had one of those post-COVID, even though we're still in COVID things of, I was like, this movie just came out and you were like, 2017 was four years ago now. Yeah, four years ago. And I was silent for a good 90 seconds.

Yeah, yeah. It really has, time really has continued to march on by. Yeah. Right. So. For these people's careers, because we're going to talk about Emma Stone, obviously, a lot. And I think at this point, it felt like this performance was. to some people, and I would include myself in that, Emma Stone's best performance, and then to some people, myself included, would say right after this, she goes and does her best performance again in the favorite.

And those were her only three performances in those, it was like, it was La La Land. Her next movie was Battle of the Sexes. Her next movie was the favorite. Like she doesn't, she, I mean, and maybe this is, you know, a thing that will change up obviously in her career, but like maybe not. She just doesn't do, she doesn't work in volume in that way. And so, like, she picks her projects seemingly very carefully. And that's like, I kind of defy anybody to like do a three picture run. as good as that. Very few people can do that. You know what I mean? Like three consecutive movies where she shows up as strong as she does in La La Land and then Battle of the Sexes and then the Favorite. I'm a little mixed on her performance on La La Land,

but I'm going to concur with you. I mean... I will concede my issues with... Mixed as your opinions may be, she still did win an Academy Award for it. You know what I mean? Absolutely. That's why I say that.

And she has absolutely used the springboard of that Academy Award to do interesting things. Although, interestingly, as I was reading up the production history of Battle of the Sexes, learned that she had signed on to the favorite well before she had won the Academy Award for La La Land. And in fact, she almost had to pull out of Battle of the Sexes because the scheduling for the favorite was going to interfere with this. The favorite was originally supposed to film in spring of 2016, and so was Battle of the Sexes. And so Battle of the Sexes was almost going to have to turn to Brie Larson, who at that point was just, like, Room was just getting in front

of festival audiences. Like, she hadn't won the Oscar yet either. So, but she was going to perhaps replace Emma Stone in the Billie Jean King role, and then the favorite, filming on the favorite, got pushed back by a year. And Lantamos did Killing of a Sacred Deer in the meantime. And so Emma then was able to do Battle of the Sexes, and poor Brie Larson got shunted to the Glass Castle. And like the... Which was originally Jennifer Lawrence's movie. Oh, that I didn't realize.

Oh, that's very funny. She, I believe, actually brought that movie to Destin Cretton. I wonder if... It probably doesn't change anything. I think the Glass Castle's, you know, failure to make an impact is not something I would lay on Brie Larson's shoulders. But, like, Jennifer Lawrence was a much more, there was much more light on her and a much more sort of broadly notable and popular actress. So I wonder if maybe that film just gets more attention because it's a Jennifer Lawrence movie. Right.

Because I think a lot of the thing about the Glass Castle, not only, like, I've still never seen it. So I can't pass creative judgment on it. But just nobody saw it. You know what I mean? I think that was the biggest problems. It was released at, like, really the wrong time for that movie. The movie is just fine. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But you know me, I'm obsessed with these sort of like. So we don't have to go into that movie. Exactly. I'm obsessed with these roads not taken. Yeah, I feel like now that like more, more than a year has passed since the Naomi Watts miniseries. So we can do probably, we can probably creep into another Naomi Watts movie at some point soon, which will be good.

But, um, yeah. Yeah, so, like, you know me. I'm very much obsessed with these, like, roads not taken, and the idea that, like, that Battle of the Sexes and the Favorite and the Glass Castle are all sort of, like, intertwined histories is very fascinating to me. I also learned, speaking of movies that are not the movie we're talking about right now, but that Kate Winslet was originally cast in the Rachel Vice role, or not, if not cast, then initially, like, they wanted Kate Winslet for that role in the favorite, which would have been great for Kate Winslet. And I don't, and I think, like, she would have done quite a good job. I wouldn't trade Rachel Weiss's performance for anything in that. Absolutely not. I mean, Kate Winslet would have been wonderful, but, like, I think there's a layer of, uh, not cruelty, but a bitingness that I don't know if Kate Winslet would have quite had in the way that Rachel Wise has. And in a post-mare environment, like, Kate's doing fine, so I don't have to feel bad that Kate missed out on a great role. but yeah again like just you know fascinating to see but also the fact that like emma stone because emma stone

really fought for that favorite role like she she really really wanted it and that movie was developed for a long time yes yes yeah exactly so yeah we're going to be talking about emma stone quite a bit it is shockingly only our second emma stone movie that we've ever done on this podcast after another emma stone steve carell joint they are the uh Kathleen turner and and Michael Douglas of, uh, I don't know, something, you know, um, they tend to be in movies together, uh, and, uh, uh, crazy stupid love. It's also Steve Carell, uh, reunion with the directing team. Valerie Ferris and Jonathan Dayton also did Little Miss Sunshine.

At least in this movie, Emma Stone and Steve Carell get to share scenes together, where in Crazy Stupid Love, they played father and daughter, only you don't know it until the very end, and they get like one very brief and sort of tangential scene together. And this one, at least, they get a few moments of, you know, verbal sparring and obviously the tennis match. Although, of course, there are, you know, body doubles for them playing tennis. I want to talk about the final tennis match scene. Do you not care for it? It's a major problem of the movie for me.

Oh, that's it. See, okay, I think this is going to be one of those things where the fact that I come at it from such a tennis fan's perspective colors my judgment of it. because for me, I'm just like, it looks such like a real tennis match. You know what I mean? And I'm just like, I'm just very impressed by that. Because they have actual tennis players playing those scenes, and I think it still presents a huge narrative problem the way that it's shot. Because you don't get to see if there's no close-ups, there's no whatever,

it's shot like at just a sporting event. I mean, it's maybe a more like basic expectation for what that seemed to be. And like, I think what it gives us is the emotional payoff of... Billy Jean's experience after the match is over, after she's already won. Sure. But at no point in the game are we ever really put in her position, her point of view, what her experience was. And I think it's incredibly limiting to the audience. And it's very strange that that's not the case for Bobby that we kind of get to experience it as Bobby gets to experience the match.

and like my understanding of this match is that like she beat the shit out of him she did so it's like how do you create tension in this match and it's like i guess you're creating it for everyone watching it and everything but i still think it's the wrong point of the movie to like not to like keep the audience at an arm's length from being Gene. I don't understand it. It really kind of deflates a lot of the movie for me. I think this movie's commitment to Verisimilitude is that how we pronounce that? It's sounding like a stupid person right now.

Why not? Shut up. It's a strength of it but also in a moment like that maybe does sort of get in its own way a little bit where it does present that Tennessee very, very realistically. It doesn't

look fake. It doesn't look like ginned up for a movie. You also get things like the real Howard Cocell commentary track that is, you know, spliced in with Natalie Morales as Rosie Casales. And I think that's actually done really well. And it's interesting. And again, the actual, you know, the context of the kinds of things that Cocell is saying, the sort of like really sexist things, the way he keeps sticking up for Jack Kramer and Bobby Riggs. And things like, and again, the fact that it is a blowout. She beat him in three straight sets, which if you, you know, no tennis, the women's tour in grand slams and major events, they play best of three sets. So first to two sets wins. And in the men's, it's best of five. So she beat him in a men's best of five scoring format, which he beat in

the previous match with Margaret Court. He just beat her in best of three. So like this was a, a, you know, dominating performance by any standard. And so again, like you said, trying to ring tension out of that, would have to sort of fake that a little bit. But I do take your point in that we sort of, we leave Billie Jean's perspective once she gets on that court, and we don't reenter it until, you know, she's already won. And I think it just flattens a lot of her, like, narrative arc and like the emotional impact of everything on both sides of it, right? It makes the final, like, queer moments way more cheesy than they are and it makes like the stuff leading up to it like not as tense I guess because like the other thing of it though is is to me is if you're watching this

movie and if you're aware of this at all you know who won you know what I mean we're only making a movie about this because she won you know what I mean we're not going to be making a movie about this if Bobby Riggs had won this match so like the the outcome of the of the match isn't in doubt. And so I guess I do understand why that would be then a challenge for the directors. And I guess, again, as me as somebody who really appreciates, I think a lot of times when you see sports in film, I think the dedication to things like, you know, finding ways to pull in close-ups and finding ways to sort of like get into, you know,

the sporting event or whatever, oftentimes to me comes at the expense of, well, now it's just like, well, now I know I'm watching a movie. You know what I mean? Now I know I'm like, I've sort of been taking out of it a little bit because that's not how sports looks. That's not how, you know, these things go. And they also had the added difficulty because if you read interviews with Emma Stone, she was very upfront with being ultimately a terrible tennis play. And here. Right, right. So they could have made, that could, they could have been limited in that way and how they shot it too. Oh yeah. I mean, they definitely used, you know, right. She gives an amazing performance. They definitely used, uh, uh, body doubles for them. The body double for, uh, for Steve

Corell was a, uh, former American tennis player named Vince Bedia, who I like totally remember from the, from like 1990s and early 2000s. Um, sort of a middling American, uh, player. When, when I say middling, I mean, only like, in the top. 50 in the world. Like only one of the top 50 tennis players in the world. You know what I mean? Like that. But this, that sort of brings up another thing. And we'll get into this on the other side of the plot description. We promise we will describe the plot of this. But it's sort of this, one of the things I thought of while watching this movie was at the elite levels of tennis. And this is a thing, a lot of things about tennis and the way that the game is played, sort of the actual

mechanics of the way the game is played is very different than and now, and you can really see that in that match, and like the style of tennis is a lot less, or was a lot less power-based and things like that. Like tennis, watching a tennis match like that versus watching a tennis match today is, like, it's night and day. But one of the things that has remained constant is the fact that because tennis is an individual sport and because the, you know, being number one, like what it takes. to be number one. It really, really impressed to me the fact that, like, she had to win every

single time. You know what I mean? It's not like, you know, you have a baseball season and you can lose, you know, 30 games in a season and still be, you know, one of the best teams in the league or whatever. And in tennis, like, even the fact of just, like, just dropping, to the point where just dropping your serve once could be catastrophic to you, not to mention losing a set, not to mention losing a match. And there was this one point where, like, Billy Jeans, like, really, really at a low point where she, like, she loses in the third round of a tournament. And it's just like, oh, okay, like, you cannot, she couldn't afford to lose anything. She loses one match to Margaret Court, and she loses the number one designation in tennis.

And that's how Margaret Court ends up in her match against Bobby Riggs, which will talk about Margaret Court because I have some things to say. I love that the movie villainizes her. Well, she's a villain. Like, that's another one. She's a noted villain. If you have any awareness at all of tennis. And she's still doing it. And she's still, yeah.

Anyway. But anyway, just the idea that, like, Billy Jean had to, she had no other recourse, but to just, like, to win and to win all the time. And the pressure that it puts on her. And I think Emma Stone does a really good job with, you know, portraying that pressure that is on Billy Jean's shoulders from all sorts of all sides. But anyway, we'll get into it.

We'll have a lot to talk about. Should we move on to the 60-second plot description? Yeah, why not? Let's do it. All right, so let's get into it since we're already into the movie and we have lots of things to talk about. We are here to talk about Battle of the Sexes, directed by Valerie Ferris and Jonathan Dayton, written by Simon Beauvoy, starring the one and only Emma Stone, Steve Carell, Sarah Sillard. Wilverman, Bill Pullman, Andrea Reisborough, Alan Cumming, Elizabeth Shoe, Austin Stoll, Natalie Morales, Lewis Pullman, we will get into that. And Fred Armisen, movie premiered. I totally forgot, by the way that Fred Armisett is in this movie. And when he shows up, I like fell out. It is absolutely conceivable that Fred Armisen is in any movie like this. As, like, Bobby Riggs's nutrition? Like, nutrition shaman? Like, protein guru? Like, like, yeah. Hoping them up on pills and vitamins. Just feeding them amino acids left and right.

Just crazy. Yeah. Yeah, but the movie premiered at Telluride, then TIF before opening Limited in late September and going wide the very next week. Joe. Yes. Are you ready to give a 60-second plot description of the Battle of the Sexes? Yeah, I am, in fact. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think you have a somewhat easy task ahead of you,

but your 60-second plot description of Battle of the Sexes starts. now. All right, so Emma Stone plays Billy Jean King, who is the top women's tennis player in the United States, but the United States tennis establishment, and particularly former top player Jack Kramer, refuses to pay the women as equally as

the men, based on a lot of sort of bullshit justification about how women don't play well under pressure and are not as athletic as the men, and the men have to support their families, and it's all bullshit. So Billy Jean and a handful of the other top women players break off and start their own tour

sponsored by in glamorous Virginia Slims. The women have to fight and scrap for every dollar, which makes a particularly galling when retired player and gambling addict Bobby Riggs starts making noise about a battle

of the sexist tennis showdown between him and Billy Jean. She refuses sensibly, but then when Margaret Court, a crusty homophone that she does agree to play against Bobby and she gets creamed by him, Billy Jean agrees to the match to shut Bobby up

and make a statement for women's tennis. All the while, Billy Jean is in a relationship with Marilyn and her hairdresser while still being deeply closeted and married. The pressures from her personal and professional life build up. And eventually there is the match and she defeats Bobby

in straight sets, striking a blood for women's equality and carving a place for herself. And then gay people got married 40 years later. Indeed. Indeed. As did Billy Jean, although not to Maryland, and we'll talk about that. That's a whole thing.

Okay, question, because I know, because you brought it up several times in the past, the TV movie where Holly Hunter plays Billy Jean King, directed by Jane Anderson, director of Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio. Go back and listen to that episode. Absolutely.

Is the Maryland character or an analog to Maryland in that movie? So, funny story, I never watched that movie. Oh. It was a TV movie, and I can't remember whether it was like, and it was one of those things where it's like... A TV movie that exists only as production stills. Well, and it wasn't even like an HBO TV movie. It was an ABC, it aired on ABC, so like if you missed it that night, you missed it. It was in 2001.

So it's not like I could, like, stream it afterwards. So I didn't watch it. I will say, Stalker Channing is the narrator of that. So I kind of do want to seek it out at some point. Every movie should be narrated by Stalker Channing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yes, so I'm not sure, although I'm looking at the cast list for that, and there's no character by narrowizing.

That's why I asked. I was like, did they fictionalize the character or completely write her out? because the whole lawsuit portion of it happened in the 80s. Right. So Marilyn, what is her last name, Barnett, real person, hairdresser, also, though, in real life, I think, like, personal assistant to Billy Jean King, like, lived in the King's home. And in the early 1980s filed a palimony suit, one of the earliest. I think same-sex palimony suits

against Billy Jean for all this money and effectively outing her effectively outing Billy Jean which was something that she really struggled with you see a lot of this in the movie where a lot of the fact that she remained closeted was not only because of

her relationship with her parents and she was terrified of essentially being cut out of her parents' lives something that a lot of people gay people can certainly relate to, but also the fact that she would lose millions of dollars in sponsorships, and it could, like, threaten... Which she did. It could, which she did in real life, but it also, at the time, especially in the 70s, when the women's tour was so new, that it could conceivably, like, completely deep, deep six the entire women's tour. So much of the success of the early years of the WTA was on Billy Jean's shoulders because she was the most promise.

and the most sort of vocally active player in that movement. So there was a lot going on. So the palimony suit happens. It sort of goes on for years. It effectively outs Billy Jean. It's, you know, I would imagine quite acrimonious. Billy Jean and Larry King remained, not that Larry King, obviously. Remained married.

Could you imagine. Could not. Remained married throughout that entire thing. They eventually got divorced when she got together with her. her current wife, her doubles partner at the time, which is quite a story that I would almost like to see fictionalized in and of itself. Alana Claus is her name. So one of the things I've always talked about is that like a great idea for a TV series,

whether on like HBO or Netflix or whatever, it would be a TV series about the behind the scenes going on on a tennis tour. You know what I mean? whether it's like the modern day or even a show about gay marids, but they are a lesbian and a gay man, even though Larry King was not a gay man, but I would watch that show. Yeah, no, I just feel like a TV series about like the ongoing sort of interpersonal dramas around professional tennis players is, it's prime material. Because the thing about tennis and the thing about any kind of sport that is not a team sport

is that it really allows for personality quirks, let's say, to really come through and shine to the forefront. Obviously, like, there's so many things, like, players can just be incredibly temperamental and tempestuous. And tennis especially, these kids are, like, brought up in the sport from an incredibly young age. So they're all, like, very, like, stunted emotionally, and they're all incredibly, like, they are sort of business interests on two. themselves. So there's just like, there's so much to consider in there. I think you could get like a ton of drama. And obviously, like, and they're dating each other and a lot of them don't like each other. And there's, you know, many things beyond just simply what goes on on the court that goes in there. So anyway, free idea for anybody. Make a tennis, a TV series about professional tennis.

Anyway, yeah, Billy Jean King's personal life is incredibly interesting. And in the promotion of Battle of the Sexes, they really kind of soft pedal. idea of just like, oh, right, this thing with Maryland ended very, very, very acrimoniously. Yeah. And it's partly because, like, the movie, one of the best attributes of the movie is this kind of love story, this flirtation. Like, those scenes are between Emma Stone and Andrea Riceboro are fantastic. And, like, to the point where the first scene where they meet, they used ASMR techniques for like their connection yeah um in terms of like the filmmaking of it um yeah it's very like it's probably shocking to anybody who doesn't know

the like how their relationship ended if you just watch this movie you know because i don't think it's uh presenting it as some great love but it is kind of this awakening for Billy Jean King, whether or not it's true in the movie she said she'd never been with a woman before her. And like all of those things are handled incredibly

well and very like tenderly and some of Emma Stone's best stuff in her performance. Yeah. I do kind of like the maturity though of a movie that's just like look like this was a relationship that was very important to Billy Jean at this point in her life

and we don't really need to like hold the audience's hand and be like look this relationship didn't work out like we can all be adults and read a post script and just be like oh right like not every relationship that's your first relationship with somebody uh uh of you know of the same sex uh works out in that way it's not a storybook it's not a fairy tale and yeah it's presenting this moment in time yes um and see this is one of my things that i have this issue that we break from billy because like i feel because that connection between the audience and the protagonist is broken, it feels like it breaks this like snapshot of what her experience was breaking from the league

she was within, starting her own outfit, basically, and then winning this major title and becoming a sports hero to the entire country. Like, I, I, yeah. I get why this. movie follows Bobby Riggs' character as much as it does. For one thing, he's an incredibly quirky, kooky, like, character. Beyond the fact that, like, the story of the legend that has sort of built up around this match, the Battle of the Sexes match, obviously and rightly paints Bobby Riggs as the villain and Billy Gene the Conquering Hero. And I like, I do like that this movie

really gets into what a sort of purposeful buffoon that Bobby is, and that a lot of what his character, a lot of the antics that his character got up to, was part of the idea. He was like a professional wrestler almost, right? Like playing the part of the heel to build up interest in this match. And ultimately, it was the only way he was going to be able to finance his gambling addiction. Do you know what I mean?

was to do these stunts. Ultimately build up interest in him so that he can reap financial game out of it. But one of the very interesting. Maybe to him in his perspective, he's building up a persona that it doesn't matter if he wins or loses because he's becoming a personality and will work from that. But what you do see in that match, and I think that's something that you sort of talked about and that like we do get more of Bobby's persona in that match and perspective in that. that match is that losing that match does take its toll on him, that he really, you know, it struck a blow to his ego for as much as he was playing the part and playing, you know, a role, that he also really did want to believe that he still had it enough to beat the top

women's players. And I thought that was interesting. I don't know if I necessarily need the stuff with him and his wife, much as I love Elizabeth Shoe. I don't know if we necessarily need the stuff with him and his son, much as you love Lewis Pullman. But, but, I don't know if we necessarily need the stuff with him and his son, much as you love Lewis Pullman. But, and I also feel like, and again, this goes back to my desire for a television series about tennis.

I would have loved a lot more with the WTA women, with the Virginia Slim store. Oh, yeah, that's group dynamic. I adore. Because all the scenes of them together are so, like, cool and fun, and you want to get more time with them to get, like, the personality dynamics. And great actresses, obviously, Natalie Morales,

as Rosie Casals, but, like, Mickey Sumner's there and Bridie Elliott's there, and obviously, like, Sarah Silverman is so much fun in this movie. Every single time she has anything to say about cigarettes or about, like, photo shoots or about whatever. Sarah Silverman monologuing about cigarettes. Also, Sarah Silverman, in that wig with this outfit, with the, like, a cigarette is the natural extension of that character's body, right? Well, she's just, Sarah Silverman is perfect in this movie, and I really wish that there was more. more of her. You really only get her in the first, like, third of the movie. Yeah. Because, like, to me, that would be the type of character actress thing. And we've had this from Sarah Silverman before, most notably in Take This Waltz, where it's like Sarah Silverman could be an acting

nominee someday. Well, the thing about the thing that I wanted to sort of mention, though, about something like Take This Waltz, and you know I love that movie and I love her performance in that movie. I would have nominated her for an Oscar for that movie. But I think it's interesting that in the films where her acting has sort of gotten good press or good praise has been things like Take the Swelts or the surprise SAG nomination she got for, is it I Smile Anyway? Is that what that movie is called? I smile. I smile back. I smile. Is that what it is? I smile forward.

I smile back. It's I smile back. I smile to the left. I don't know why I said I smile to the right. Yes, I smile backwards, forwards. Oh my God. Are we doing the Tutsi roll now? Is that what's happening? I don't know.

I smile to the left, to the left. I smile to the right, to the right. Okay, anyway. But... Not left or your left. What I was saying is that she sort of has gotten praise for these movies that play against her comedic sort of instincts, right? It's just like, oh, she can do such great work as a dramatic actress. And what I love about her performance in Battle of the Sex is, it's just like, this is a drama, but she is a comedic character.

within it. And everything that she does is, you know, she's not like, you know, hamming it up or anything like that, but she's a great community sensibility. Like, even the, like, stuff with the cigarettes and getting the cigarette sponsorship. Like, it could become a bit to where it's like, you get some cutaway of her chain

smoking at the final match. But it's not that, but it is a funny bit. The other thing about Virginia Slims as a entity is it's one of those great shorthands for like products of a different era

like the idea just the idea of Virginia Slim Cigarettes, just the idea of these sort of like these long, thin cigarettes that were marketed to women who liked being associated with things that were long and thin. You know what I mean? It's just like a cigarette that the original skinny girl margarita. Essentially yes, exactly. But so it's one of those things where it's just like it's so indicative of of the 70s. It's very much like how my mom still calls margarine oleo every once in a while,

and it's just like, oh, that is very 70s. That is very, like, old school. And it's such a, and the fact that Virginia Slims was so synonymous with women's tennis for decades. Like, it wasn't just at this very moment of the, of the Battle of the Sexes and whatever. Like, me growing up watching tennis in the 80s, when I first started watching tennis in the late 80s, Virginia Slims was still the sponsor of the year-end women's tennis tournament at Madison Square Garden. They were still a major, major sort of sponsor, which is hilarious to me because I can't imagine two things that go better together than highly aerobic activity and cigarettes. Well, that's what's so funny is you get this point where, like, I think Larry even says it to Maryland about just like Billy Jean hates cigarettes. like Sarah Silverman's character, it's like pulling teeth trying to get any of these women photographed smoking of Virginia Slim because they're all top tennis players.

Of course, they're not going to be smoking cigarettes. Do you know what I mean? But it's a great, it's a great runner throughout that movie. And I think every time Sarah Silverman just shows up, it's just like, it's absolutely delightful. But yeah, I think I would have liked a lot more of the inner workings of this tennis tour. What it meant that, like, Margaret Court was there playing with them. obviously was so separate from them and was, you know, so, you know, homophobic and judging and antagonistic and all this stuff. And one of the other interesting things that I noticed in that

the part right before the big match where they're interviewing the different celebrities about who they think is going to win the match. And like, you know, Lloyd Bridges now like on the record forever, may he rest, as supporting Bobby Riggs his friend. And like Ricardo Maltaubon says that thing about just like the masculine muscle. is a superior muscle, like, all this stuff. I was just like, oh, Khan. But you got that moment. It's basically camp now.

Right. You got that moment of Chris Everett, who was, you know, very, very early in her tennis career, and she would obviously become one of the greatest players ever, talking about how she thought Bobby had the advantage in the match. And it made me realize, oh, right, like, was Chris not part of this early WTA and what that would have met? You know what I mean? Just like, I would have loved so, so much more of that.

And that's probably the tennis fan in me, again, sort of coming. coming out. But I thought even the dynamics that we got just between the women, I would have liked more of that and less of, let's say, Bobby and Priscilla Riggs's marriage. What I do appreciate about this movie is there are, like, layers of antagonism, right? You know, it's so easy, especially in like sports movies, to reduce it to, like, one big bad. I think a lesser movie would have made all of the, like, bad misogyny become, becoming just from Bill Pullman's character.

Whereas, like, this movie is really good to have, like, this kind of clownish misogyny coming from Bobby. You have, like, the call coming from, uh, within the homophobic house of, uh, the, of, uh, Marlene Court. You have the kind of, like, press apparatus asking, like, all of these gross questions. Right. The Howard CoSell stuff. where he talks about how if she would, you know, take off her glasses and do her hair a little

bit differently, she could be as beautiful as any Hollywood starlet, which is just like, it's classic Howard Cosell bloviating, but it's also like it's, you know, that's the way that people talked about women's professional athletics back then, and that was like, you know, oh, God, like, it's just, it's really, really eye-opening. The Margaret Court stuff, I was so, so, so happy that, um, that they included it in this movie, what a outright homophobic woman she is. Because especially at that time, and this is still sort of going on, she turned to sort of Pentecostal ministry after her tennis career and has been in her native Australia, where she lives, very, very, very

vocal anti-LGBQ statements and very much against lesbians. in tennis, does not never, spoke out against Billie Jean King as sort of a poor role model back in the day. She didn't think that it was right for kids to look up to gay athletes or gay people

in general, has been very much against marriage equality in Australia, all of these sort of things. And so there has been a movement within the tennis world. So she's obviously, she is a huge, huge tennis figure, especially in

Australia. She was a dominant tennis player of her era in the 1960s and into the early 70s. She won a ton of championships, one of the few women ever to win a Grand Slam, which is all four of the major tennis tournaments in the same year. And so at one of the four major grand slam tournaments is the Australian Open, which is held in Melbourne. And one of the big stadiums there is named after Margaret Court. It's Margaret Court Stadium. And so there's been a movement recently to have her name sort of taken off of that stadium and named after, you know, another, a different Australian player. And it's because...

Hey, after a gay Australian player, please. I'm not sure if Yvonne Gugong is, that's who they want to name it after, Ivan Gugogong, which wouldn't that be, like, the most fun name to say all the time? I would love it. Who was a great player of the sort of 70s and into the 80s? I'm not sure if she was a lesbian, but, like, there are plenty of lesbian women's tennis players you can name it after. But just, so there's been a lot of controversy over, you know,

whether they should, and people like John McEnroe and Martina Navratilova are very, very actively vocal in trying to get Margaret Court's name sort of scrubbed from this stadium, and so all of that was sort of big in the

tennis world at the time, and so it was very, very satisfying to have this movie really sort of paint Margaret, who could, in other contexts, be painted as just like one of the great tennis players of all time. But she, you know, they they got into what a sort of toxic presence she was, especially for Billy Jean at the time.

The interesting thing about, one of the many interesting things about this movie is it was, and you hear about it when they talk, when they were doing press about this movie, it was one of this sort of micro era of entertainment, TV and movies, that were conceived before the 2016 election, and then came out after the 26th election.

I always think of the first season of, the Good Fight that had to really retool things because it was conceived with this assumption that Hillary Clinton was going to become the first woman president, and that was going to become a big theme for the Christine Buransky character, and then they had to really change it up. And ultimately, the Good Fight becomes one of the great TV shows about the Trump era, because it really, really captures just how unmooring and how insane it made people feel. And Battle of the Sexes, they talked a lot about how when they were conceiving this movie, it seemed like Hillary Clinton was going to become the first women president strike a major blow for

for you know women in the country and after and then this movie is coming out early in the Trump era which really you know shook a lot of a lot of people with regards to the fact that he could be so you know brazenly you know with the with the um the access Hollywood tape and all this and that just the fact that like that kind of almost like old school sexism like you know in this country how we like we love we love to be able to um identify things like sexism and racism overtly right you use a word you use a verboten word or you you know you make something explicit and we have a more of trouble with the more insidious ways that discrimination is felt in this country But anyway, the fact that somebody could be so overtly sexist and harmful to women and yet still get elected was something that they talked about a lot on this press store and how it sort of changed the way that maybe this movie is going to be seen now.

And so it makes it a little bit of an artifact, too, of that very particular moment. I mean, and I think maybe people would greet it a little bit more enthusiastically because I've been trying to run my brain through it. especially while I was watching it. And I guess I was a little mystified at the time to why this movie was so unsuccessful. This movie made less money than the past two movies we've talked about, which when you look at what those movies were, that's shocking. And, wait, was, yeah, it made, uh, not less than Lucy in the sky. Okay, not less than Lucy in the sky, but less than something else that I was shocked by when I was looking at the numbers. Yeah.

And I think this movie tries to take a more optimistic approach to some of those things. Again, because it was conceived before the results of the election. And I don't, the type of movies that, like, felt like spoke to the moment, your mileage may vary on whether you think they actually do. I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about that for what this Oscar year was. Right. I don't think anybody was. willing, was at that place of like looking for comfort or optimism in something like this. And that's kind of why this movie quickly fell away when it plays very much like a crowd

pleaser, like the type of thing that you could put in front of just about anybody and they would enjoy. Yeah. I think also there is something to the way that the sort of the relative popularity of tennis within the United States, which it's always been an uphill battle. for tennis to have the kind of broad appreciation beyond, like, obviously, like, somebody like Serena Williams is incredibly, like, famous and, you know, notable and beloved as an athlete, but it's not always been easy to sort of transition from recognition and appreciation of the top tennis talent to, like, to, you know, broad appreciation of tennis as a sport. I think that's why whenever you sort of talk to anybody who is a major figure in the

sport, so much of their mind and so much of their focus is on finding ways to make tennis as broadly appealing as possible and sort of and sell tennis. They're always still selling tennis. And I think that comes from, you know, their years and years and years of fighting to make tennis seen as a major sport in America, which has always been very, very dominated by the major team sports, which is football and basketball and baseball and that kind of thing. And so that's why even like these days, like Billy Jean King, who I think is an incredibly like fantastic figure in women's sports will still like put her foot in her mouth about some things.

The thing with most recently with, you know, Naomi Osaka not wanting to do press at the French Open and ultimately pulling out of that tournament. And Billy Jean King had a statement that was like measured, but also like not overly sympathetic to Naomi Osaka and talking about how like, you know, I, you know, I feel for her. and whatever, but these are the responsibilities that we have to sell our sport. And it's because Billy Jean King comes from a perspective of always needing to sell the sport in order to keep it as a viable entity. And so I think the relative sort of agnosticism that sometimes exists in this country

for the sport of tennis probably comes through in the fact that a movie like Battle of the sexes is not a broadly appealing film and is more of a niche thing. Which is, obviously, I feel like that's too bad because I'm obviously a giant tennis fan. But also, I think it's just like, it's too bad as a, as a, you know, the fact that people missed out on this great Emma Stone performance. Well, but that's the other thing, too. Like, I mean, you talk about like a wardsy type audiences or like older audiences, like the type of people that go to prestige movies like this. They didn't really show up for this movie either in the way that you would think they were. And those are not stereotypically the type of people, I would say, are sports people.

Right, true, true. But I wonder if that was, but I wonder if that maybe made it a turn off, too, that like, if you're an indie film fan, do you want to see the movie about sports? Do you know what I mean? I mean, you probably want to see the Emma Stone movie regardless. Right, that's true. Yeah. That's just surprising about the box office for this movie, because it died very quickly, despite having good reviews. Right, it had good festival buzz.

Like, it really, and even, like, it had the kind of festival buzz that sometimes you need, which is, oh, this is better than maybe we thought it was going to be. There was a little bit of, like, pleasant surprise to that buzz, which is all, which is what you want. You want to sort of be surpassing expectations. And I think a lot of people in the wake of Emma Stone winning the Oscar for La La Land, I think I've always talked about a lot about how we always seem to be in this perpetual preparation for an Emma Stone backlash. and it never comes because she's always so good. We always have to keep reminding ourselves that Emma Stone is great. And I think we want to sort of turn her into, I always feel like we want to, we, not me, but we as like a culture in a way that like we aren't always at our best as a culture,

are looking to give her the sort of the Anne Hathaway backlash, the Anna Kendrick backlash, the sort of thing that we do to very popular and younger actresses who experience a lot of success. and there's always just like a little bit of like a not so fast, you know, lady kind of a thing, which is an ugly aspect of our culture. And I think Emma Stone keeps thwarting it by just being good. She's, you know,

great in battle the sexes. She's great in the favorite. Every single time she shows up on SNL, I know I have a broken record about this, but like she's one of the great Saturday Night Live hosts of her era. And every single time she shows up, it feels like there's this like preemptive almost like sigh from the culture about just like, oh God, Emma Stone not again.

And it's just like, oh no, and now she's going to knock like three sketches out of the park. And it's just like, oh, right, she's great. And she's even going to emerge, like, unscathed from Cruella, which is, like, largely reviled by a lot of people and then, like, enjoyed by people who don't take it super seriously. I thought that movie was atrocious. But, like, I had a great time.

Go see Crewella. I had a nightmare time. She has a great time in that, though. She and Emma Thompson are, you know, having a ball. I don't even know if she has a great time, but I think she's having a great time. I think she's having a great time. Oh, yeah, yeah. As she should be.

She shouldn't be, like, even if, even taking the point that people don't like that movie, and I get it to a point, I don't think there's any reason to put your dissatisfaction for that movie on Emma Stone's shoulders, because she's, you know, I think she's giving it to you. She brings it to you every ball. But, I mean, there's a lot of things going on that kind of, converge around this movie in terms of like it when you rewatch it now it feels like emma stone is the most likely thing to really get awards attention for it but because she was just she had just come off a win and this is also a searchlight movie and they had what would end up being the two best picture

frontrunners for the most of the season right and this movie got shoved and the best actress frontrunner is the other thing yes and uh that as well in a best actress year that is incredibly competitive. Yes. Yes. And it seemed for a moment there. It was a moment in that early fall, even after the movie premiered

and it didn't get, wasn't doing great numbers, where it felt like Emma Stone was really in the meat of that best actress race and was, you know, very likely going to end up with a nomination. She's playing a real person, which the Oscars love. She's playing somebody who like, you know, we've always, all those Oscar stories were like, you bring that real person on the campaign trail, like Billy Jean King, the real Billy Jean King was Philemona Leeing her way through that promotional cycle for that movie. Like, she showed up at Toronto. She showed up at Telluride. She was at all the things. She was Emma Stone's plus one to the Globes. Right, right. Emma Stone went to the U.S. Open with her that year and was, you know, obviously seen, enjoying the matches. And so, like, there was, like, the campaign was there. Like, the ingredients were there. And then.

for whatever reason. And it had built up for a long time because I remember Emma Stone's, I'm pretty sure it's in her vogue, 70 whatever questions. They ask her like who she think is a hero or who her hero is, and she says Billy Jean King. And this is during her La La Land campaign. Oh, that's interesting. That's fascinating. Yeah.

I'm pretty sure that's during La Land. So, yeah, I would believe it. So, yeah. So then all of a sudden, the air sort of fell out of that, and that sort of lineup coalesced around a different group. I think the Francis McDormin Three Billboard's thing was obviously a big part of that, where, like, after the festival season, Francis sort of shot up to, because I think before that, before Three Billboards started playing festivals, I think there was a question around whether that movie was going to resonate, how big of a thing was this movie going to be. it felt like searchlight was sort of... The first trailer they put out for it was so heavy on how huge Francis McDormand was going. Yes. That, like, it definitely had word of mouth just for that.

Right. But I also... But it did feel like Searchlight was kind of keeping the cards close to the vest for a while. And then once the festivals happened and it got, you know, really great for as much as that movie was, you know, contentious with a lot of people. It also got great reception out of the festivals, and then all of a sudden it was sort of off to the races. But I also think a thing that really, and obviously the fact that the other Searchlight movie that did great that award season also had a Best Actress campaign there with Sally Hawkins. So Emma Stone was already third in the pecking order at best, like at best. And was Victoria and Abdul also Searchlight? Focus. There we go.

Okay. But the other thing was, um, sorry, is that, yes, is that also, uh, coming to fruition in that festival season was Lady Bird happened. And Lady Bird was another one that like was not heralded from like a year ahead. You know what I mean? It wasn't one of those just like, look out Lady Bird's coming. There was a lot of people weren't quite sure if Greta Gerwig could make it happen as a director, at least right off the bat. And all of a sudden, Lady Bird became like the crowd pleaser of crowd pleasers of that festival season. And then all of a sudden it's just like, oh, okay, well, now we have a best actress race that already has three like lock solid Francis McDormand, just, not Jessica Chastain, although God, if Jessica Chastain and Molly's

game had got nominated, I would have loved it. Francis McDormand, Sally Hawkins, Sersheron. And then what ends up happening is, oh, we are going to have a best actress nominee who's playing a real-life sporting figure from a very incredibly, you know, notable sporting event. But it ends up being Margot Robbie in I-Tanya. And once then you add Meryl Streep in the Post to the mix. And like, Meryl Streep giving a great performance is not going to miss. Do you know what I mean? In a Spielberg movie. It very rarely happens.

And again, I have been on the record as saying that I would, I would have. have voted for Merrill for best actress that year. I thought she was phenomenally good in the post. No, she's great in that movie. I mean, she's definitely not my last place. And I think Francis McDormann getting a third Oscar for acting this year, technically a fourth, but her third for acting this year, definitely changes things even further. Yeah, you want to be sort of like, go back and just be like, well, we don't need to give you this for three billboards. And by the way, I think she's great in three billboards. Like, I know, again, That movie was very contentious, and I have, you know, my feelings about that movie are complicated, positive.

But I think... My feelings about that movie are like complicated, useless. Because it's ultimately, I think it's ultimately just this blind rage movie that is about expression of blind rage. And that's truly the thing that connected people to it if they connected to it. And I think that her performance, like, embodies that well, whereas a lot of other things in the movie embody that poorly. Yeah, I think that movie doesn't do everything well, and a lot of that movie made me very, very angry. But a lot of that movie, I also felt like this is for the moment, for the cultural moment and historical moment that we were in at that moment, which again was, like, 2017, we were. really sorting out our feelings. But I think one of the things that three billboards spoke to that

really resonated with me was like, oh, we are in a moment where everybody is incredibly angry. And nobody really knows what the recourse for this is or what we want to do with it. And I thought that movie resonated along those lines the most strongly. And again, as you said, her performance is sort of the eye of that particular storm. And that's what I think that movie does probably the best of anything. And I agree. I just, I don't think it ultimately serves any purpose. That's why I was like, complicated, useless.

Like, I don't know if that movie, even if that's true and even if it would be the best version of that, which I don't think it is, I don't, I think it doesn't really have much of a purpose. Because, like, what did our blind rage serve us in those years? Absolutely nothing. Right. But I guess to me, my, and we don't have to, you know, argue about three billboards throughout this entire podcast. Oh, please God, no. My feeling is that, like, I don't know if it necessarily knowing what to do with that rage is, A, something that movie is interested in or B, something that movie needs to be interested in. I think it, I mean, I agree with that.

But anyway. Anyway, I mean, the best actress race definitely, I mean, like, you mentioned all the nominees, but like, it stayed this, it stayed pretty contentious for, and I would say ended up being the five most obvious nominees, but like, it was going to be really hard to budge any one of those five women out of that race is the thing. Like, and there were some really good contenders. I mentioned Jessica Chastain. Judy Dench was definitely closer than people probably want to admit. Probably a close sixth, I would say. From the other Globe nominees, you have Jessica Chastain and Molly's game. Michelle Williams being quite good in all the money in the world.

No one wanted to like that movie, but me. And that movie really came on strong at the end of that award season. The fact that it got that Christopher Plummer Oscar nomination to me is bananas, but I guess good for the team from all the money in the world for salvaging what was a PR disaster. with the Kevin Spacey thing. And, like, that is one of the... They should make a movie about that. They should make a movie about the All the Money in the World's release and Oscar campaign.

Just because it's just like, it's one of the great pulling victory from the Jaws of Defeet thing I've ever seen in my entire life. Well, and it stayed a PR disaster, too, when it was revealed that Michelle Williams made, like, a tenth of what Mark Wahlberg did for the reshoots. I defy anybody to name... to name ten things about all the money in the world and have one of them be Mark Wahlberg, unless it is specifically that salary dispute. Like, he's so much not an entity in that movie, even though he's, he's the ostensible lead of the movie.

And it's just like, nothing, even if you, and I don't hate that movie. I don't love that movie. I liked it. But he just doesn't register at all. Absolutely not at all. The most bananas, bonkers. Bonkers, Best Actress Pick.

Bafta nominated Annette Benning for film stars Don't Die in Liverpool. A movie that I really, really wanted to love and didn't, even though I think Benning is good in it. Well, but by that point, because, like, BAFTA is one of the last things to come out before Oscar. Nobody was talking about that movie. But it felt like... The movies for grown-ups nominated her. But it felt like Bafta was almost doing the tweet of, like, you know who we're not talking about that we should be talking about is Nat Benning and film stars don't die,

Liverpool. Like, it was like, it would, it very much was a, I think they were trying to almost like make a statement. That is a movie that I think is done in by its insistence on cleaving to the perspective of its male lead character who is intimately involved in the production of the film. I think, um, I think it's maybe a more interesting movie if it's more, if it's less about sort of showing what a great guy the Jamie Bell character is. But I also just don't think, I don't know, I wanted it to be, I wanted to be more sort of emotionally wrapped up in it or something. I don't know. I was, of course, in a very, very pro net-bending place the year after 20th century women. So, like, I get the idea that everybody would be.

No way it was going to be as good as 20th century women. No, of course. No, but at the very least, I would have been just like, you know, we owe Annette Benning so much. And we don't have to talk too much about that movie because we could eventually do an episode. Yeah, probably will at some point. I haven't seen it, too, so that would be interesting. Obviously, the big story of the actresses in the awards season that year, of course, was the fact that I predicted correctly that Helen Mirren would get a Golden Globe nomination for The Leisure Seeker. And we're not talking about that enough. That's my great victory in my entire career of following the Golden Globes and the awards

season is that I fucking nailed that. That's when the globe should have ended, you know, because how was that ever... How were you going to top it? How are you going to top Helen Mirren getting nominated for the leisure seeker? And literally like that morning, I tweeted my predictions. And then I think it was Katie who was just like, wait a second, did you just call that? Just like, yeah, somehow. Because it was the year after she got not, she had been nominated for the woman in gold. She had been nominated for the 100 foot journey. I was just like, she's not going to miss even just because she was in a movie that nobody's ever seen or heard about.

Well, and Globes' comedy was so light, like, to the point where they're like, I, Tanya's a comedy, even though, like, there's comedic stuff in that, but... Yeah. I mean, that's part of that movie's problem. Judy Dench was nominated there for Victoria and Abdul. Again, laugh a minute, Victoria and Abdul. Yeah. Yeah, a sequel to a movie that was decidedly a drama.

Right. I mean, except for, I mean, like, I... If you understand... I think at the time, I have... made this like bullshit claim that maybe I still stand by

is like maybe you could nominate Steve Corell for comedy and her for drama like some stupid thing that like whatever

so Steve Correll ends up being It makes you wonder though if comedy had been more crowded if A they wouldn't have pushed that movie

as comedy I mean it's not a comedy but also if she would have even been nominated and then she wouldn't have had anything for the season

I'm of two minds on that. Part of me wants to be sort of steadfastly adhere to my principles and my principles say that Battle of the Sexes is very much not a comedy. And it's bullshit that it was placed in those categories. And yet, you're right. I do, I am glad that Emma Stone was not, was recognized by at least somebody for, for that performance. And I don't think, where do you think she would have shown up in the final ranking? I wonder if she would have even been in the top 10 final Oscar, voting because we also forget that like one of the big surprises Oscar morning was how well Phantom Thread did and I would be of course we're always interested to see the vote totals but like I would be very interested to see how Vicki Creeps was I think probably I don't know if Vicky Creeps ended up being would have ended up being close to an Oscar nomination but I think her outpacing Emma Stone is a possibility for sure I think it's a little probably likely We'll see. I don't know. The thing about Vicky Creeps is she was a big, big fave among like a very, very sort of, even among, you know, people who like Phantom Thread. I think there were probably a lot of the sort of P.T. Anderson, Daniel Day Lewis adherents who just like voted for it for that and maybe weren't necessarily doing the creeps thing that maybe our little corner of Twitter was at the time. But I mean, but you could have said that about the movie. until those nominations happened.

Yeah, and I think that's true. And I think Leslie Manville giving a nomination is sort of, you know, points in your favor. But I don't know. I have... I love Vickie Creeps, though. I will be one of those people that was like, Vicky Creel.

Yeah. You could have said that about time. You are not alone. Like, I feel like my entire timeline around then was making, like, you know, my little hungry... My little hungry man memes and whatnot. I... For the hungry boy.

Yeah. Very excited for Vickinville. Creeps is summer. She has the new Mia Hanson Love at Cannes. How dare you mention... How dare you mention any movie before Old in why we're excited for... Old is going to be terrible. I'm excited. I think comes out the week of this episode or the week after this episode. I'm just excited to tweet that Old is my favorite Vicky Creeps movie and inherit that Whirlwind, just for the thrill of it, just for the fucking thrill of it. I never understand why you hate that movie

so much. I don't even hate it. I just hate that other people are so fucking extra about that movie. Find other filmmakers to stand. P.T. Anderson is only one man. He can only, you know, support so much of your fucking... I think the people that lost their mind over that movie are not the people who are usually loud about Paul Thomas Anderson. I think they were there. I think those people... I think those people showed up. ...dynamic that people connect to in that movie, and I am maybe ashamed to say that I also connect to. Yeah, I did not have the life experience to be able to connect to that movie on that level. So for me, it was not as exciting. You can be the Leslie Manville.

You are my Leslie Manville. Oh, I'll always be the Leslie Manville to that movie. That's fine. Okay, back to Battle of Sexes, though. The big winner, award season-wise, for Battle of the Sexes, ended up being Steve Carell because not only did he get the Golden Globe nomination. He got a SAG nomination for supporting actor, which is, more, like, he is more of a well, no, I don't know if I would

necessarily say that. A lot of the times... He should be more supporting than he is. He should be more supporting than he is. I think that's right. My problem with the Bobby Rigg stuff in this movie is like, I do think it is interested in a more nuanced portrayal of him and like kind of understanding the layers and such

and like not trying to necessarily outright villainize him, but see him as like a product of a certain like world and realm and like just trying to understand, you know, what his motivations are on a level that's not exclusively interested in demonizing him. However, I think we get more of that than we need. And it's like, at a certain point, it's like, no, we get it. We're smart enough to see, you know, the layers of what you're doing

here. Yeah. I don't think we need that much of Bobby Riggs in this movie. So he's nominated for supporting actor at the SAG Awards alongside four of the eventual Oscar nomination. And Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson, both from three billboards, Richard Jenkins from The Shape of Water, who is so good in the Shape of Water. Like, every time I see that movie, I'm just... We really disagree on this performance, too. Do you not like Richard Jenkins in the shape of water? I think he's perfectly fine.

I think he's not bad. I think he's good. I don't think that's a performance that needed an Oscar nomination. Oh, I so disagree. He's not even the performance I think about when I think about that movie. what is? I mean, probably Sally Hawkins, but, like, the supporting performances. I was the Octavia Spencer.

Oh, we disagree on that. See, I think, I think Octavia Spencer's nomination for that movie was a waste. I just don't think she has very much to do in that movie. I think she brings an absolute dynamic to that movie that is needed. I love that character that she is, it's essentially a movie about, like, lonely people. It's a movie about loneliness. And, like, she's the type of lonely person who won't shut the fuck up. You know, like, the type of lonely person who, like, the way of processing how alone they feel is that they can't stop talking to people who aren't even listening to them.

I don't know how you can say that that movie about loneliness. Her best friend is someone who literally can't, like, speak. Yeah, no, but I... She speaks to her through sign. Right. But what I'm saying is to sort of centralize that aspect of the movie correctly and then in the same breath be like, I don't know why it was such a big deal about Richard Jenkins, who like, This is just me defending her. I like her performance more than his.

Oh, my God. And she's also really funny in the movie, too. That brings a whole level that is needed to that movie. I don't know if it was enough for a nomination for me. I don't know, man. That's how people take her for granted, is like, that she can go and ace exactly what the assignment is. Listen. Like, if she doesn't, the movie's not as good.

She should have won best actress for Ma. I am very much an Octavia Spencer person. but just that is that is a nomination I would not have given her anyway the thing about Steve Carell's SAG nomination I think is it really showed how like the fifth slot in that category was pretty in flux yeah throughout the season yeah because at the Globes it was Army Hammer right Army Hammer for Call Me By Your Name and again not even the Call Me By Your Name performance that I would have put in there, like, it's still

befuddling to me. Yeah, only critic's choice nominated Michael Stilberg, which is also Michael Stilberg is probably my winner that year. I should bring that up. Oh, no question, he's mine. Much as I loved Willem Defoe in the Florida Project and thought he was wonderful,

Michael Stulbarg is my winner that year for Call Me By Your Name. And it's, yeah, the fact that the bullshity critics' choice are the only ones to give him any kind of recognition is crazy. And then the fact that, like, again, all the money in the world comes creeping back into this conversation again. Because Christopher Plummer got the Golden Globe nomination. That was

the one where, like, all the money in the world gets, what is it? Director, actress, and supporting actor. Director, actor, actress, and supporting actor at the Globes. And you're just like, ha ha, globes are going to globe. Like, we're all going to find this incredibly silly. This is going to be the Aaron Taylor Johnson and Nocturnal Animals. of this year or whatever. And then the fact that Plummer, like, comes back around again and gets the Oscar nomination, his third, his third Oscar nomination, and obviously final one, which is kind of too bad

because he could have gotten a nomination for Knives Out, and I would have been happy about it. But it's just like, it's the craziest story. It's the absolute craziest story for, again, a role that was filmed in reshoots because Kevin Spacey was revealed to be a sex criminal. So fun. Like, fantastic. I mean, like, they definitely gave degree of difficulty points because, like, they shot that so quickly, like, right before the movie was supposed to come out.

Yeah. Also, I do think there was a small element of it that was kind of a fuck you to Spacey. But also, Christopher Plummer is really good in that movie. Do we think Christopher Plummer finished second in the Oscar voting in that category? No. Who do you think to it? DeFoe, but a distant second. Defoe is that movie's only nominated.

I guess Plummer is too for his movie. People are willing to recognize him as a legend now. If he gets nominated for the Vincent Van Gogh movie nobody sees, like, I think it's safe to say DeFoe was second place, but a distant second place. It's interesting, we're talking about Michelle Williams and all the money in the world, that he and Michelle Williams both have the same number of career Oscar nominations now. And I think all of the oxygen is, in the well when will X win an Oscar conversation is going to Amy Adams right now and you know understandably so but

Michelle Williams will have an Oscar before Amy Adams does oh that's a prediction I'm going to write that down when all right I'm going to make you pay me money now for me all the times I've made advisable uh what do you want to what do you want to bet on that 50 bucks 50 dollars yes 50 dollars that's a big bet what am I made of money um all right Are we putting a time limit on this or no? You're just saying on the course, on the long, long timeline of life, Michelle Williams will get an Oscar for acting before Amy Adams gets an Oscar for acting. Yes. All right, I'm in. I'll make that bet. All right, cool.

But anyway, two years to get Colin Farrell and Oscar, my friend. Fuck off. Fuck off. I'm going to end up owing you like hundreds of dollars in gambling debts. going to be the Bobby Riggs of our podcast, and I'm going to have to resort to, like, more and more ostentatious stunts in order to fund my gambling debts to you. One note that we should make about Bobby Riggs in comparison to Trump is, like, both of those are figures of people who just owe tons of money to the mob.

Okay. I think that's a not inconsiderable thing. The idea that not the owing money to the mob thing, although a good note. But a thing that could have resonated if more people. had seen this movie is this idea that Bobby Riggs's sexism was ultimately buffoonish and in many ways performative and in many ways there as you know you could say well self-advancement he doesn't he doesn't necessarily mean it he's there for he's he's using it to get attention and these were the things that we've talked about that get talked about Donald Trump all the time it's just like oh

he's saying this just you know to say it and ultimately and and I think what the Trump era, one of the things that the Trump era has taught us, one of the many, many sad lessons that we've learned is, um, is that old, you know, Kurt Vonnegut lesson of like, you are what you pretend to be, you know what I mean? Ultimately, the fact that Donald Trump, you know, the reasons that Donald Trump was, you know, saying the things that he was saying is kind of immaterial because it was taken seriously by enough people. And I think the Bobby Riggs thing is sort of similar to that, which is ultimately it doesn't necessarily matter in the long run if you were doing this to put on a show is the effect of, you know, saying over and over and

over again that women belong in the kitchen, that women aren't equal to men, that women shouldn't get paid as much as men, yada, yada, yada, yada. Like, he is saying that stuff as a clown, but what Battle of the Sexist shows is that it's backed up by somebody like Jack Kramer who was saying that as a cold-blooded businessman. And that these, you know, just because something is being espoused

as a joke, doesn't mean that there isn't, like, real insidiousness behind that in the system. It's my feeling. Like, all these stand-up comics that constantly say horrible things and then lose their careers and then say even worse

because they're just supported by people who believe them. Yeah. Any way to wrap up the supporting actor race. Yes. That fifth slot at Bafta went to Hugh Grant for Paddington 2. Oh, fuck.

Pause so everybody can cheer because everyone who loves Paddington 2. Yeah, God. If you liked my Vicky Creeps material, you're going to love my fucking Paddington 2 material. I still haven't seen the Paddington's.

I'm going to pause again so that someone can try to end my life. And then Bafta, aside from Stoolbarg, which everybody should have been doing. They also did Patrick Stewart for Logan. Insert jerk off motion here.

Did you know? Insert me making my one billionth. Did you know Logan is a Western joke? Yeah. I, there are people I know and love and respect who would probably also make that Patrick Stewart and Logan claim.

Same. I still respect their opinion and I think that it is. I want to talk about, we haven't talked about Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Ferris, and we should, because they had as much Oscar pedigree as anybody going into this film because, of course, they previously directed a Best Picture nominee in Little Miss Sunshine. Best Picture nominee and likely second place. That's very probable. Yeah, yeah, I think that's probably true. Although, again, that race was super wide open.

I would, again, love to see the vote totals in that one. I remember, I think my prediction going into those Oscars was that Babel was going to win, but I was obviously on the wrong track there. But Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Ferris, they've directed three feature films, The Little Miss Sunshine, this, and in between these two movies, Ruby Sparks, which is a movie that I think presents as the thing that it is satirizing, which is sometimes a challenge, especially when it comes to a movie that is, pitched to an indie audience who likes to feel very much smarter than the movies that they are

talking about sometimes. And I think the thing with Ruby Sparks is a lot of people initially sort of tart it with the brush of being a manic pixie dream girl offender when it is, in fact, a manic pixie dream girl criticism, which is very interesting, written by Zoe Kazan. Cast is Wild. Yeah, it's Zoe Kazan and Paul Dano, right? Real Life. real-life couple?

Real-life partners. Yeah, Annette Benning is in that film, Antonio Banderas, of course, making it a life itself. Making life itself, I guess, a Ruby Sparks reunion for Annette Benning and Antonio Banderas. It's a really interesting little movie. Nobody really talks about it these days. It's really interesting. But, of course, before they made those films, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Farris were very, very much notable as music video directors.

And that is sort of the medium where they came up in. They directed videos by Jane's Addiction and Red Hot Chili Peppers. They directed the Go Deep video, the Janet Jackson Go Deep video. They directed Corn's Freak on a Leash video. But most, most notable were videos for the Smashing Pumpkins, including Tonight Tonight, which won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Director. and is, if you've ever seen it, incredibly memorable, based on the film A Trip to the Moon, and is a sort of looms large from my teenage years of a music video that I was just sort of entranced by.

I was very much, I had my melancholy in the Infinite Sadness, Double CD, and played it. Often, I was really, really into that album. And so Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Ferris were from, that prime era of celebrity, like, superstar music video directors, which, like, David Fincher was from that era, and Jonathan Glazer was from that era, and just these, you know, that was when, Mark Romantic, exactly, that was when, Hype Williams, that was when my favorite thing that MTV ever did was when they would play music videos and they would put the little, like, square in the corner of telling you like the artist, the song title, the album, and then they

would tell you the director of the video. And I think that did a lot to sort of, and again, me being the little sort of budding film nerd that I was, it really was fun to watch and be like, oh yeah, that movie looks like a Samuel Bayer movie because, or that video looks like a Samuel Bayer video because, you know, there's scratches on the, on the, you know, film and it looks very, you know, sort of like grungy and very, you know, think, you know, garbage stupid girl kind of stuff. And so being able to pick out the kind of visual language of the different music video directors was always very, very fun for me. So Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Ferris, because of, I think that Tonight Tonight Video especially, became one of the sort of like better regarded

music video directors. They were offered the Mod Squad, the 1999 film version of the Squad with Claire Daines and Omar Epps, that ultimately was a flop. And they were also offered, according to at least to my research that I saw, Bad Boys 2, ultimately, which is wild to me. First of all, that Michael Bay wouldn't have just been, you know, a given to direct Bad Boys 2, but also just like, I don't know what their version of that movie would be. It sort of runs counter to a lot of their sensibility, especially when you see the films that they did make, which is, you know, sort of very much, you know, indie, some might say quirky, some might say sort of humanistic films like that. So I think that's very interesting. Where do you come down on

their filmography? I mean, like, Ruby Sparks is the one I need to see, because I feel like Ruby Sparks is probably the one that I would say I like the most, but I need a fresher view of it. Like, I feel very much the same way about Little Miss Sunshine as I do Battle of the Sexes, that I have very, like, like, frustrating snags with the movie that, like, don't take it all the way there as it, like, is very close to being. And then I just sound like a grouch. I think there are people who are a lot grouchier about Little Miss Sunshine than you are, though. I think that movie has some very loud detractors, especially among these sort of film types. I probably would say this is safely better.

than I think that movie is. I think Little Miss Sunshine is a pure crowd pleaser, and I don't resent that the way that I think a lot of other people do. I really, I really jive with that movie. I think that movie is

pretty wonderful in a lot of respects. I'm glad that they worked with Corell again because Steve Carell's performance in that movie is one of my favorites. I think that is a movie that sort of dares to steer into its own sort of good feeling in a way that I think other movies might try and be a little bit more cynical about. And I think my good friend Linda Holmes, who is Pop Culture Happy

Hour on NPR co-host, said about that movie at the time that it's always stuck with me. And she said that not every movie could earn the ending that Little Miss Sunshine earns. The fact that that movie ending with that sort of dance off wouldn't work as well in a movie that doesn't sort of earn it. And I think I agree with that. And I think that's maybe the thing that unlocks that movie for me is that the rest of that movie gets you to that moment in a way that allows, at least me, to really, you know, accept that as the way that that movie was going to end. And I don't know. I really love it, and I still really love it. And I like Battle of the Sexes quite a bit, but it doesn't quite get me

to that kind of, you know, emotional moment that Little Miss Sunshine does. Little Miss essentially makes me incredibly happy. Well, yay. Well, good for you, Joe. Glad you're happy. Can I tell you something that makes me happy? Yeah. The AARP movies for Grown.

Fuck, yeah. Give it to me. Okay, so Steve Carell is nominated for Best Actor, Lead Actor. Loses to Gary Oldman, no surprise there. Darkest Hour, sure, yeah. Yeah, yeah, the eventual Oscar. Darkest Hour, a good movie. So, suck it.

Darkest Hour, um... I don't have any strong feelings about it. I think what is good about it is Joe Wright. Oh, yeah. Otherwise, that movie, who cares? Yeah, but, like, Joe Wright is a not inconsiderable part of that movie considering he directed it. My thing that annoys people that I don't even know if I fully stand by, but Darkest Hour is the movie that Lincoln wants to be is the thing that makes everybody crazy when I say. Boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, absolutely.

Absolutely not. No, but there's a lot of what I love... A lot of what I love about Darkest Hour is also stuff that I like, and of course I would, you know, that people really sort of sung the praises of Lincoln for, which is it's very processy about a very political, sort of like, you know, a world affecting political decision. And I like that. I agree with everybody that the scene on the tube is maybe not the best ones. Bad. It's bad. It's bad. The scene of him exposing himself to Lily James, bad. Oh, yeah. God, I always forget him about that. See, Darkest Hour, what is good about it, I ascribe to Joe Wright.

Lincoln, what is great about Lincoln, I ascribe to Tony Kushner. Anyway, AARP movie for Grownup Awards, also nominated Battle of the Sexes for their most unwell category. This is becoming a new fascinating. Intergenerational? Not intergenerational, but best time capsule. Oh, God, yeah. The one where they said that Vera Drake was a great time capsule.

It was a great time capsule. This isn't quite as unwell, but it's, let me just read the rest. Darkest Hour, understandable. You know, the post, kind of understandable. Yeah. I, Tanya. Because, yes, does a great job of immortalizing the tackiness of early 90s, late 80s. Here's what I will say to that, Chris, is if I could take a time machine to 1994, I would and I wouldn't look back.

And it would be great to know you. But you know what? I'm going. You know who should be recognized for like, for doing what that movie does well? with the time period, that should have been nominated for costumes. Was it nominated for costumes? I don't believe so. Hold on.

I feel like somebody nominated it for costumes, and it was like, that's smart. Looking it up right now. Of course, as I mentioned, the last time, IMDB has changed their layout, so I don't know where anything fucking is anymore. I have to scroll down so far to get to the awards. BAFTA did. See, you found it before I did. Where the fuck?

Ow. Hit my elbow in my tiny closet. Oscar nominees, the two acting performances it was nominated for, and then film editing, which is the choice. Bafta nominated for costume and makeup,

which I think both are good nominations. Yeah. Anyway. The AARP, movie for grown-ups winner, of Best Time Capsule of 2017. Can I give you a guess? Do you want to guess?

2017 Time Capsule. Let's see. What were the major movies that year? I mean, honestly, like something, I don't think you would be mentioning this if it's something like, Call Me By Your Name Had One, even though I think that's an incredibly evocative, you know, 80s. Of its period. Absolutely.

Sort of period. The thing. God, if it's like the greatest showman, I'll shit. It is not the greatest showman. It is an Oscar-winning, Dunkirk. Fuck off. Twink's drowning the movie, Best Time Capsule. Like, I get it.

Like, it does capture, like, period detail of World War II. But, like, I don't know. They need to get a better name for it because Best Time Capsule makes you think of, like, nostalgia? Well, this is the thing is isn't this a nice time? Like, isn't it a nice

revisit of that time? Time capsule. That's not Dunkirk. It is literally Twinks drowning the movie. Time capsule is so personal to the voter, right? So if it's an AARP award,

obviously it's going to be a time capsule for people who are older than us. So it's, you know, and I mean, you know, you got to be pretty old to be like, oh, remember what it was like at Dunkirk. But for someone like,

about Dunkirk. For someone like me, I think of, like, Lady Bird was a great time capsule because it exists in the early 2000. It's like my senior year of high school. Right, exactly. But like we are of an age where, like, Lady Bird would speak to us on the time capsule level in a way that like a typical AARP movies for grownups voter wouldn't. But, yeah, I think that category maybe doesn't fully explain itself. Are you just saying best movie that took place before? Like, yeah, best evocation of an era.

Like, I think when calling it best time capsule, you are sort of making the implicit argument that, you know, oh, could I, oh, to be teleported back to this time. And maybe that's not the case for, you know, what we want to say about Dunkirk. You know, what was nominated for Best Grown Up Love Story this year. What? The leisure seeker. Fuck, yeah. Wait, who's the male lead in the leisure seeker? Donald Sutherland.

Oh, my God. Other nominees, Our Souls at Night, the Netflix movie that maybe 15 people watched. Breathe, which may be two people watched, including me. I had to watch Our Souls at Night, by the way, and review it because it was a Netflix movie, and that was the time where I was reviewing every Netflix release back when there was one major one a week instead of, like, 20. Yeah, Our Souls at Night, Jane Fonda and Robert Redford, and it's real boring. And do you know what one best grown-up love story? four nominees.

Well, I know all the Phantom Thread people are probably bitching and moaned in that it wasn't that. I mean, Shape of Water is probably not grown up enough for grown-up love story, right? They're probably too young. No, that won Best Fish fucking Love Story. I don't know. Tell me what one best grown-up love story. The greatest showman.

Fuck off. Oh, my God. The worst, for as much as, like, I don't have. that movie, the way a lot of people hate that movie. But, like, the worst part of that movie is absolutely the love story. Like, Jesus Christ. Anyway. Any last thoughts on Battle of the Sexes?

I jotted down the fact that the closing credit song, which is called If I Dare by Sarah Borellis. I really love Sarah Borellis. And in the post-Girls-Evva era, I really love Scarell. Sarah Borellis. I will sing her praises, no pun intended, to anybody who will ask. I'm so impressed by how funny she is on that show. I also just love her voice. Her voice brings me, once she started singing, I was just like, ah, like, you know, a nice little wave of calm sort of passed over me. Lyrics-wise and song-wise, this song doesn't, you know, break any barriers or anything like that, but I will say- Sarah B-side. Yeah, but in an era where we're getting,

getting so many sort of milk toast, I'm going to slander my queen, Diane Warren, but like these sort of like the Diane Warren songs of this era that have been nominated, the mudbound Mary J. Blige songs that have been nominated, this kind of thing. I don't think Sarah Borrell's, if I dare, is any worse than those and probably as, you know, among the sort of top tier of, you know, grateful from Beyond the Lights or the RBG song or the, like, you tell me that Sarah Borellis doesn't deserve a nomination if those are going to be your nominees year and year out. Right? I forget how far she got in the, like, bake-off eligibility. I don't think she got very far. I don't think it was in the like final.

I don't think it was. Because I probably would have. been, you know, more actively riding for it just because I love her. Original song at the Globes that year were, This Is Me from Greatest Showman won it, Mighty River, which ended up being an Oscar nominee, Remember Me, which ended up winning the Oscar from Coco.

Deservedly. And then the Globes went with the Nick Jonas song, Home from Ferdinand. Remember Ferdinand? Remember when I had to watch? Not Golden Globe winner Nick. Remember when I had to track down the publicist for Ferdinand to send me a screener disc because I needed to watch it for my Oscar rankings because it was an Oscar nominee?

And then the most unwell nomination, which was The Star from the film The Star, written by Mariah Carey and Mark Shaman. The long history of Christian cinema getting Oscar nominations for original song. And then Oscar went for, Call Me By Your Name, And what was the fifth? I genuinely don't even remember. But anyway, um,

yes, justice for Sarah Borellis. I'm just going to say it. Justice for Sarah Borellis. That's all. I think those are all. I mentioned Sarah Silverman. I mentioned Brie Larson.

I mentioned bad boys too. I think we're, uh, I think we're on it. Hot nepotism, honey, anyone want to talk about hot nepotism. Oh,

yeah, talk about Lewis Pullman. I didn't even realize that was, uh, that was who that was playing Bobby Riggs's son. It's also just like the year of him, uh, being like that's Bill Pullman's son.

Why? What else was he? This is also bad times at the El Royale, right? Oh, he was the little bellboy and bad times at the L.R.L. That was such a disappointing movie. I wanted that movie. People loved that movie. No, did they? There were people that loved that horrible movie.

I feel like the dominant emotion I saw about that movie was like, meh. And that was sort of, I thought it was such a disappointment. I wanted to, like, it presented as, like, the trailer got me so. hopeful. This is why I can't trust this, what's this Michelle Yo, Carlo Gugino, the Guns, the Ladies with Guns movie that looks like... You can't trust that movie because

it's going to Netflix. That's why you can't try that movie. Well, no, I, because I'm not weird about Netflix in that same way. I... What is it called? What the fuck is it called? Gunpowder kitchen? What is it? Gunpowder milkshake. Yeah.

I just can't, I can no longer trust that a trailer where it's just like, I, like, women, you know, actresses being badasses. I'm just like,

I can't trust it anymore. I feel like sucker punch fooled me. I feel like the kitchen fooled me. And, um, something bad times at the L. Royale doesn't quite sell it the exact same way, but bad times at the L.

Royale really sells you on a, um, sort of murder mystery who done it at a, at an isolated hotel. Yeah. And I really wanted it and it didn't deliver. Even though Cynthia Orivo sings like a, goddamn angel in that movie.

That movie is very lucky that she is in it. Otherwise, it would be useless. Disaster. Yeah. And again, any movie that wastes Dakota Johnson is my enemy, is what I will say. Yes. Don't do it. Don't do that. What else was it just thinking of that wastes

Dakota Johnson? Oh, we were talking about wounds, that army hammer, horror movie wounds that wastes Dakota Johnson. Don't do it, people. She's incredibly exciting. Anyway. Stop it. Yeah. Should we move on to the IMTV? game. Yeah, let's do it. All right, explain to listeners what the IMDB game is. Hey listeners, every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game. In this game, we challenge each other with an actor or

actress, and we try to guess what the top four titles are that IMDB says they're most known for. If any of those titles are television, or perhaps a voice-only performance, or perhaps a non-acting credit, if they're the director or the producer, but they're not in it, we mentioned that up front. Then, after two wrong guesses, should those wrong guesses, emerge. We get the remaining titles release years as a clue, and then if we still have to guess, it just becomes a free for all of hints, which is fun. Which is fun. Yeah. What do you have to serve up for me? So we mentioned Ruby Sparks, the sort of middle child of the Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Ferris

film universe. That film is a really, really interesting cast. We mentioned Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan, Annette Benning, Antonio Banderas, Chris Messina is in that movie, Steve Coogan's in that movie, Elliot Gould is in that movie. Also in that movie, though. Oh, also in that movie is Wallace Langham, who is Ellen Cummings assistant costumer in Battle of the Sexes, which I thought was cool. Anyway, the person from the Ruby Sparks cast, who I'm going to give you, though, to do an IMDB game for, is one Ms. Alia Shawcat. Ah, how much television?

One television. Search party. Wrong. Okay. Oh, arrested development. Arrested Development, yes. Um, hmm. This is going to be really hard.

Because I think of her mostly from TV. Oh, um. I mean, she's in first, Cal, but she doesn't even speak. I know. So it's not going to be that. Damn, this is going to be hard. I'm, like, kind of at a loss. Is Ruby sparks in there?

No, unfortunately. That's two strikes. All right, so now you're going to get the years. Your years are 2009. 2013 and 2018 I will say this is a hard one so I will give you you know you are already a superstar for even attempting

That's okay I've given you some very difficult Yeah you have Yeah oh I don't feel bad about this choice I'm just saying Oh okay you maybe you should no Shant I shant Okay um 2018 and what 2009

2013 2018 Okay So 2009 Hmm What would have been going on for her Around 2009 that I can at least place her Because that's earlier

Oh wait, is one of them green room? No, although it should be Because that's a good movie and she's good in it. People either really like that movie or really hate it I know. I feel like it was one of the most uncomfortable viewing experiences I ever had because I was so tense the entire time. I saw it at Tiff Midnight Madness, like at midnight with a friend Nick Davis, and Nick

did not care for it. And I think Nick's sort of not caring for it, like by osmosis, kind of like transferred to me. So I was, I was pretty mixed on it the first time I saw it. And then I watched it again this past Halloween season as I try and watch 31 horror movies and 31 days every October. And I liked it a lot more. I was really, really, really into it. But yeah, no, not that one. Nick, if you're listening,

we miss you, we love you. We miss you, we love you, Nick. Yeah, that was 2015, Green Room. Or maybe even 2016 by the time it came out. But anyway. Okay, so that's not one of them. Ruby Sparks isn't one of them.

Do you want some hits? Yes. Okay, the 2009 movie we both love, I'm fairly certain. Directed by somebody who we talked about, I believe, two episodes ago. Somebody who... I think it was in that episode. Somebody who we both wish would direct more, I think it was, if not their only directorial effort, one of like maybe two. Oh, my God, it's Whippet.

Yeah. Because we were talking about Spielberg saying that Drew Barrymore needs to direct more and he loves Whippet. Yes, it is Whippet. She plays Elliot Page's best friend in Wippet, and she's great. And everybody in that movie is great, and it rules. And more people should see it. It's great. All right.

So that's your 2009. Your 2018 movie is very, very, very indie. she's the lead in it she's one of I think a pair of leads in it I have not seen it but I remember it being sort of notoriously explicit oh

in certain ways and again I haven't seen it so maybe not like sexy stuff yeah I believe so written and directed by a very notable sort of indie director who tends to do these kind of I'm trying to think not exactly like provocations

but like directs some really really interesting indie stuff including certain scripts by a very very talented screenwriter who sometimes directs his own stuff but usually usually just sort of writes it and has a new television series coming out very soon that I'm very excited about. Someone who sometimes directs but writes a lot for this director has a TV show coming out. Yeah.

I don't know if I've talked to you about this TV show, but I'm really, really excited for it. I've watched some screeners for it, and it's... Am I excited for this TV show? You should be. This screenwriter has... He had a year recently where he wrote two movies that we both really liked in the same year. Oh, I know.

It's Mike White because the White Lotus is coming out. I am very excited for the White Lotus. Yes, you should be. So who's directed a bunch of Mike White movies? Miguel Artetta. Yes. Miguel Arteta directed this. Yes.

Don't think that's going to help me get what this is. Have I seen this? I don't know. I genuinely don't know. Because I'm trying to think of what Miguel Artetta's most recent things are, and I can't remember. It might be his most recent movie. Hold on. This played, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2018.

Oh, so it's a Tribeca movie. Yeah. But, like, as a Tribeca movie, like, is, like, pretty well known for a Tribeca movie. Okay. there is an animal in the title and also a food stuff animal and food and it sounds dirty

it just sounds filthy oh you know what Miguel Artett's most recent film is that he directed are your beloved maybe a little bit more than me like a boss Like a Boss is fun Like a Boss is not entirely successful in what it is But Salma is on fucking one in that movie

She's so funny Okay, this film title I'm just gonna really break it down Like we're playing celebrity Waterfowl plus a dairy item Waterfowl Plus dairy item Seagull, duck

A duck Uh huh Okay Dairy item Milk No Cheese No

You're circling the parking lot though Butter? Yeah Have you not heard of duck butter? I don't think I have Oh okay I've not seen it Why can I have heard of duck butter?

I feel like it was just a little Like it was a little indie Flair up I don't know It could be the type of thing that I had heard of And because I didn't see it it's evaporated from my brain. Yeah.

I should check out duck butter. Alia Shokat, Laya Costa. It's supposed to be good. Okay. All right. Now your 2013 movie stars a sort of indie darling actress who got famous for a supporting role on a sitcom but then was in a bunch of indie stuff and apparently this movie. should be known. Like, this is a movie that, like, you should know just because, like, this is a

movie that, um, I don't know, apparently is well known, uh, according to you. And, um... According to me? Yeah. And, like, say if somebody tried to guess this movie at a previous IMDB game and struggled with it, um... Oh, my God. It spoke ill of them.

No, no, no, no, no. And... Is the indie actress, um, Aubrey Plaza? Maybe. Maybe it is. Is it the to-do list? Yeah, I can't believe you didn't get the to-do list, Chris. It's an incredibly well-known movie.

I never said it was incredibly well-known. You should have been expected to get this movie very easily. Very easily. And I think it speaks ill of you that you didn't, as is all I'm going to say. I never said that you should have gotten it easily. I can't believe this is the first time I've ever gotten to do a revenge IMDB game. This is very fun for me. This is very fun.

I am positive. You have done it. Revenge IMDB games before. Listeners, I famously struggled to come up with the film, the to-do list, because I had never heard of it when I did the obvious as a game. And several episodes later, Joe exaggerates on

how obvious I thought that it was. I would never. I chose it because it wasn't obvious. I would never exaggerate ever. Anyway, I might go see duck butter this week. We have the homosexual persuasion would never exaggerate. Yeah, we definitely we observe the world

as it is. Anyway... My favorite brand of poppers is hyperbole. All right, what do you have for me? All right, so I went a little more basic, probably an easier one to guess. I went into this year's Oscar race, perhaps the person that Steve Carell lost the Saga Award to, Mr. Sam Rockwell.

Oh, fascinating. Well, I imagine that his Oscar or Oscar win for three billboards is there. Yes. I don't know why I'm so sure that Moon is one of them, but I'm going to guess Moon. Moon is one of them. Okay.

Moon has a cult following. And it also, and he's a lead. It's like his movie and... Every, like, production still from the movie is going to have at least one of him in it. Yeah. So now it becomes... Because Sam Rockwell is a supporting actor's supporting actor

He is very, very rarely a lead in things So it's now a question of Is it going to be early supporting stuff Or later supporting stuff? I'm going to I'm going to put a pin in vice for the moment Because I want to think better of IMDB That they wouldn't have vice there

I'm going to guess Galaxy Quest No I also don't think matchstick men is well remembered and is not well is a is remembered enough these days. I should see matchstick men. It's fun. I really enjoyed matchstick men as I recall. Okay. Is seven psychopaths one of them?

Yes. Ooh. Okay. Seven psychopaths shows up for a lot of people. That's why I guessed it. Yes. All right. One more Sammy Rockwell.

I'm just going to guess Vice. no your year is 2002 2000 which is the year is it match stickman no oh fuck all right 2002 so it's too late for Charlie's Angels um Sammy Rockwell oh is it Confessions of a Dangerous Mind it is Confessions he's so good in that movie he's really really good in that movie. The first George Clooney movie. That was like the first time that he was the star. You know what? On the poster, he's the and credit for the movie. That is tip. Like, that is both wild and also unsurprising. Because that movie was sold as, it was sold on George Clooney, being the first George Clooney directed movie. And it was also weirdly sold on like, it's like a listy cameos, like the fact that like Julia Roberts is in that movie briefly. And like, and like Sam Rockwell was very much at the bottom of the list. of things that they've sold that movie on, which is... They could also say that they're pulling alphabetical

ranking in the billing on this poster, because who is billed first, but Drew Barrymore. So that is what EZA does, and that is why Emma Stone is the and credit in EZA. That's, I almost wonder if, I wonder if there's enough movies to make, like, a listicle about that. Movies where the lead is,

is the and credit. Because now we've got two, so one more makes it a trend um not from this poster but from another poster and has known for i want to have this conversation with you so bad but i would have to spoil a movie that is vaguely i don't know if i spoiled this for you what movie what movie Black widow oh yeah don't tell me i want to see i want to see it no you've already you've already teased about some like some very random cameo that like i'm already i already You are going to text me that performer's name.

I just know it. And I'm going to know, oh, he just saw Black Widow. I know, but I'm already sad that I know to look for it. I don't know. I don't want to know anything more. I'm only a week away. Okay. I will see it.

I don't think, I can't prepare you for it. It is unpreparable. No. It's not spoiled for you. All right. It's psycho. All right. All right.

Well, then I guess I have done the Sam Rockwell I MVP game. Happy for me. Good for me. Thank God for me. All right. I think that is our episode. Guys, if you want more This Had Oscar Buzz,

you can check out our Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz.tumlr.com. Please also follow us on Twitter at Had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz. Joe, please tell our listeners where to find more of you. Sure. How about Twitter?

I'm on Twitter. At Joe Reed, read spelled R-E-I-D. I'm also on letterboxed, spelled that same way. I am also on Twitter. I kind of want to leave Twitter. Don't we all. At Krispy File. That's F.E.I.L.

You can find me both of those places. Oh, and we would also like to think, Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Mievous for their technical guidance. Please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, even though it's terrible now. Google Play, Stitcher, wherever else you get your podcasts. A five-star review in particular really helps us out

with visibility on the terrible Apple Podcast. So please tell us that in 30 years gay people can get married and everyone will listen to our show. That's all for this week, but we hope you'll be back next week for more buzz. Bye. man Yeah Give me a piece Oh my daddy

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