This Had Oscar Buzz - 155 – Moonlight Mile

Episode Date: July 26, 2021

Jake Gyllenhaal is the latest to join our Six Timers Club this week with 2002′s Moonlight Mile. Written and directed by Brad Silberling, Gyllenhaal leads the film as a young man living with the parents (played by Susan Sarandon and Dustin Hoffman) of his fiance’s parents in the aftermath of her murder. A light dramedy with … Continue reading "155 – Moonlight Mile"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hacks. Honey, those were gifts. Grieving for grown-ups? It's supposed to be helpful. Please.

This is helpful. Guys, this is Joe. Hey. No matter how difficult at my field, no matter how desperately we want to kill each other, there's always this warm body on my right. He never lets me that. You find your home. home.

Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that regularly gifts adorable little pigs to our enemies. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Joe Reed. I am here, as always, with my reluctant partner in.

commercial realty. Chris Fyle. Hello, Chris. You say that like, I'm, um, what's her name? Is it Olivia Recinos? Oh, are you talking about a realty ad at like the movies or whatever? Yes. We get Annie gets a done in New York City. And rent is due again. But stop whining about it. I'm going to show you how to be a homeowner. Yeah, I feel like everybody gets their own little sort of local real estate person at the movies, which is very fun. It's very fun. It's very for everybody involved. Chris, we've been talking around doing Moonlight Mile for a bit.

It's always been on, like, if we have a long list of, like, here's what stuff we could do for this month. Moonlight Mile is always sort of, like, on the long list. And for a while, we hadn't done 2002, and it's always like, well, if we want to do 2002 again, we could do Moonlight Mile. And I think the reason why it took us to episode 155 to finally do it is in some ways indicative of why it wasn't an Oscar success, which is it's got all the

stuff, it's got all the ingredients. It's, I mean, we'll get into whether we like it or not. I really like this movie. But it's not exciting and it's not sexy. You know what I mean? It's not a sexy choice for a film. There's not really any sort of like blockbuster sort of discussion topics for it, even though I think there's a lot to talk about in terms of both the meta-textual story involved involving this movie and also what's happening in it. But it's not too terribly exciting, and it's easy to see why this movie was overshadowed by, even though this movie was like, reviewed okay. Respectfully.

Ebert really loved it. Ebert gave it four stars and talked it up very well in his review. But it's easy to see why this movie got very, very quickly overshadowed by a Oscar year. that was very heavily at the later in the season anyway. So, like, this movie opening in early October was just like, oh, hon, like, the whirlwind is coming and it's coming in two months. So, right, absolutely. Because 2002 is incredibly packed in December and, like, not just December, but, like, Christmas of December. An all-December best picture lineup, which even with the Academy trending towards end of you really,

releases for Best Picture, that's still a lot. Even with that tendency, an all December best picture year is not, it's rare. And this year certainly had. Yeah, the earliest release from this Best Picture lineup is Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers, which is like the week before Christmas. Right, right. Yeah, Lord of the Rings were like very reliable mid-December releases. So yeah. Was Gangs of New York Christmas? I feel like that. Gangs of New York was Christmas. Chicago was Christmas. pianist might have been even after Christmas. New Year's Eve, I believe. And the hours, I think, might have also been just before Christmas.

But yeah, wild year, 2002. Again, a very, very pivotal year. We talk about a lot about being radicalized by the hours. But in a lot of ways, 2002 really upped me into the Oscar game. This was my year after college where I didn't really have a whole lot to do at my after college job, but browse the Oscar buzz sites. So that's basically what I did. And browse Apple movie trailers, which we've talked about before. I've talked about before. Moonlight Mile was definitely on my shortlist roster of Apple movie trailers that I watched over and over and over

again, along with... Because that trailer was like fucking emotional gangbusters. Elton John will like murder your heartstrings in that the use of someone saved my life tonight in this trailer, which that song isn't in the movie. It's maybe the only sort of of a song of that genre that is not in the movie. It's a very needle-droppy soundtrack, and I don't say that with derision, because I actually really like most of the song choices.

Oh, we'll get into that, because I really don't. It's 50% Van Morrison and... See, we're going to have to have the uncomfortable conversation where I talk about how much Van Morrison's music really sends me into a wonderful headspace. So, the fact that this movie ends on

Sweet Thing is just like, I I sort of drifted off into a wonderful little place, even though Van Morsen as a person is a nightmare, but like, who isn't? Anyway, that trailer, yeah, was on my shortlist roster of, like, it was like the hours in Chicago and adaptation and the Lord of the Rings of the Two Towers and 25th Hour and Moonlight Mile. What else? What were the other big, like, end of 2002 trailers that I watched a ton?

basically all of your big sort of like I think I watched the About Schmidt trailer a bunch maybe not as much as the other ones but like this was definitely on the short list and if I told you I watched the Chicago trailer at least once a day that was me with the hours

I wouldn't be lying the hours in adaptation the adaptation trailer which also makes fantastic use of under pressure which like you would think that the culture had run out of ways to make under pressure iconic and in its use in multimedia sort of platforms. But like, the use of under pressure in the adaptation trailer is like A-plus-plus, and for the longest time that, like, that was my only, that was the only venue in which I would

truly accept that song in a film or a television show. I was just like, no, it's not as good as the adaptation trailer. I'm sorry. It's too bad we can't do adaptation because it was obviously a multiple Oscar nominee and winner. But anyway... Incredible movie. Incredible movie. Incredible movie. But yeah, we're here to talk about Moonlight Mile, which, as I said right before we started recording, I'm always very excited to do a podcast when I don't know at all what your feelings on a movie are. Like, we don't really, because this movie has really disappeared from the cultural consciousness, I've had no occasion to

like get a sneak preview on like Twitter of you like, you know, talking about yeah, because I don't like to put it out there before we're on mic or, or even just like in the years that I've known you, you know what I mean? Like we pick up little like indications from each other about movies that we like or performances that we like. And I, I have no idea. And this is a movie that I don't really talk about a ton, except as I sort of gave a little hint towards, I kind of really like this movie. This movie is kind of neither betwixt nor between in terms of, I was trying to think of, like, we have this conversation a lot about, like, this movie doesn't get made today. And it's just like, maybe this movie does actually get made today, but not with this exact tone.

Usually a movie like this would be a little quirkier or maybe more overtly funny. Because it's Sarandon, I sort of thought of the medler a little bit. But the medler is kind of a different deal. Grief is a theme in the medler, but not quite as central. to the movie as this, as it is in Moonlight Mile. But it's like, it's a family dramedy. And it's just like, even on television, you don't really get this story told in this way. It's usually either something a lot more melodramatic like, this is us, something a lot more hooky.

You know, there's, you know, maybe like a mystery to it or something like that. This is like, it's a family drama told without a whole lot of narrative. jumpstarts or jolts I would say there's just There's not a lot of window dressing There's a temptation to call it boring All of the 1700 needle drops in this movie 1600 of which are Van Morrison

We're gonna argue it Here's what I My perspective on that is I almost wonder if A movie like this I think you're right in that like Yes we do still see some movies like this but I think like a Moonlight Mile might actually get more attention now

because it is less common whereas I think part of the reason why this movie deflated so quickly is because like there are a lot there used to be a lot of movies like this um I also think like regardless of we won't have we don't have to get into like how good we think it is or not but like I thought a lot about in the bedroom oh interesting while watching this movie, which would have been the year before, Best Picture nominee, obviously much darker than this. Yeah, that's the thing.

Dealing with some, like, plot adjacencies. Yeah. That I think, you know, that movie, even though it's a very, very different movie, handles, like, some of those, like, dynamics in a more interesting way. Well, but that even sort of, like, plays into my point even better, which is that like a movie like in the bedroom really cranks up the drama on the situation

and cranks like that is a far more dramatic movie and I you know not to its detriment at all like we've talked about how brilliant I think in the bedroom is as a movie right um and I think this movie really sits in a little bit of an in between place in terms of tone and I think part of that is that it's such a personal story for Brad Silverling it's drawn you know in many ways from his own life. Not exactly, but we'll talk about that, too. But this is a movie that really purges, it does not care to get very dramatic

with the seriousness of its plot in terms of the murder, the trial. We never see the resolution of the trial very purposefully. And it also, while there are comedic moments, It's not like a silly movie. It's not a movie that, like, you know, sort of chooses to crank up the comedy too much. Or crank up the quirkiness like a movie you might see with this exact, you know, scenario. It even chooses to downplay with the exception of the needle drops.

And I'll even talk about that when we talk about the genre of needle drops. But, like, the setting, the fact that it's set in the early 70s, I had to, like, go and double-check it because, like, it's not dripping with these kind of Vietnam-era cliches in terms of costumes or language or, like, you don't get the thing where, like, you see... I love that there's a scene where they're all watching television

and it's not, like, news reports from Vietnam or, like, you know, whatever, like, a television show that would, like, tell you exactly what year we're watching. There's not a lot of signposts in that way. And I think subtlety feels like an active choice in this movie. And sort of you could call this movie muted if you wanted to, except for the fact that I think the performances are all really fantastic.

And I think that goes a long way towards making this movie work as much as it does, especially when it comes to the two parents. And the Sarandon and Dustin Hoffman characters, I think, are both really, really well done. And I think any movie, movie that sort of talks about a kind of ad hoc family

structure as this movie does. Is your bread and butter? It is. It really, really is. Like, it really, really does. So, yeah, I really, really liked it. My guess is you were more mixed.

Uh, I mean, like, not overtly negative. I think there's quite a bit that doesn't work as well as you can imagine it could. I think the tone is off for most of the movie and then like the last 15 minutes of the movie I hate. I think I'm less enthusiastic about Dustin Hoffman

in this movie than you are. I think he's fine, but I do think he's miscast and I think the chemistry with Sarandon is off and partly because I think she's. I think she's spectacular in this movie. I almost wanted to write down one of the great Susan Saranam performances and I'm like, well, I don't know if I can do that

because she's given so many great ones. But like this is one of the great unheralded Susan's random performances because it's not asking her to do anything big. It's not, it's not Phelman Louise. It's not, you know, even like the client or anything like that. She's obviously not the lead.

there's not a lot of fireworks in what she's delivering, but like... It's a very smart performance in knowing what the emotional tenor of the movie is going for and really kind of embodying it better than any other element in the movie, I think. Yes, I think so, too. And I just don't think anybody gets that in this movie as well as she does, even the director, or like achieves it at least. I

It's I mean, yes, you're very right And that it's like, it's not this loud fireworks type of performance, but it's like, she nails the comic tone when it's trying to be funny. She gets the amount of intensity

that it's supposed to have that it's not ever really going full tilt into this like weepy type of movie. But, yeah, I don't know. I don't, not as enthusiastic about anything else in this movie as I am about her. Yeah, I think she's definitely the highlight, for sure.

We can agree on that one. So before we get to the plot description, I feel like this is a movie that it helps to sort of set the table with the story behind the story. So Brad Silberling's not really a director we talk about when we talk about, like, you know, the great directors. He's sort of a work-a-day director, and he had been leading up to this movie. He had directed two features by this point. he had directed Casper in 95. And then City of Angels in 98, which as I recall, and I can maybe double check it. But like, I feel like that was like a decent success in terms of.

It was a hit, but it was a hit that pissed people off. Right, right, right. Because like it's a remake of Miser, but like American like mainstream audiences showing up to see Nicholas Cage post-Oskar, McRyan in her heyday. Right. And it's a love story. and she dies. And everyone was pissed about it.

But a lot of people saw it. And I feel like I would love to actually see like the cinema score for this movie because I wanted, I would love to know whether like audiences disliked it as much as critics disliked it. Maybe they did. But like obviously it's a movie that's very well known for its soundtrack. Google Dolls Iris was a huge hit off of that soundtrack. Also, Alonis Morissette's Uninvited, which is one of my favorite Alana's songs. I just remember it being kind of a big deal. And I think because it was a big deal, he was able to get this movie, which is his first writer-director thing, he did not write the first two movies that he made.

And it's a movie that he had been trying to make for a while because it's this very personal story to him. So he was, again, this kind of a work-a-day director. He was young, but he wasn't this like Wonderkind or anything like that. and he had in the late 80s, early 90s, been dating an actress named Rebecca Schaefer, who was most known for a sitcom called My Sister Sam, which was not a huge sitcom, but like because I grew up especially, I would say, I'm in the age that grew up watching a lot of sitcom reruns. They were sort of plentiful on TV. And like, my sister Sam, I feel like was in the same strata as like a Kate Nally, which I also watched a bunch of reruns of.

my sister Sam was Pam Dauber, who was best known for Mork and Mindy, and Rebecca Schaefer playing, I want to say, half-sisters. And Pam Dauber was older, and Rebecca Schaefer was quite a bit younger, and that was sort of the tension between them. That was really the only thing she was known for. And Brad Silverling at the time was dating her. Rebecca Schaefer was in, I believe, 1990, murdered by a fan who was stalking her. She was 22. The guy who murdered her was 19 years old. found her home address via a private detective and had been writing her letters and stalking her, showed up on her doorstep, and shot her. And she had, I believe, that day was going to go to an audition for the Godfather 3. I imagine for the role, either if they were still casting Mary Corleone or if it was the role that Bridget Fonda ended up taking. Anyway, Her murder was sort of a big deal. At the time, it helped to enact a bunch of anti-stalking laws in the state of California. Marsha Clark was the prosecuting attorney for the case.

So the Holly Hunter character in Moonlight Mile is, at least in part, based on Marsha Clark, which is a very interesting tidbit. And Brad Silberling, being her boyfriend at the time, ended up being very close to her family, ended up going to, as in the movie, sort of live with them for a short time. They kind of had sort of grown to lean on each other. This movie is set a good two decades before the real-life events. There are many things that don't match up exactly one-to-one. This isn't like a memoir from Brad Soberlin, but obviously many, many aspects of, and obviously the murder in Moonlight Mile is much more of an incidental thing.

the girl Jake Gyllenhaal's fiancé in this movie is killed in a diner shooting. I'm sure you will cover this in the plot description. But anyway, pulled from his life, and I think the successive city of angels allows him to make this movie,

and also the fact that he got Susan Sarandon and eventually Dustin Hoffman to sign on to this thing helped get this movie made. And that's sort of the backstory of this movie. Silberling's career will will, you know, go into after the plot description, sort of where his career went from there, how he ended up in kind of director jail, at least one assumes, after Land of the Lost.

But anyway, that's sort of the backstory. Were you aware of any of that? Was this the first time you've seen Moonlight Mile? No, I've seen it. And I knew all that backstory, because as we are prone to do, talking about the EW fall movie preview, I remember reading that specifically in a fall movie preview for this movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Were you aware of the Rebecca Schaefer thing before you had seen?

Before Moonlight Mile? No. Okay. I think that's one of those things that like the age difference between us sometimes plays apart and sometimes doesn't. And I think that's one of the ones that does because I definitely remember that being a thing that was sort of a one of the big sort of obviously treas. But, you know, you don't really hear very much about Rebecca Schaefer these days because, you know, for several reasons.

But anyway, yeah, so that's the story behind it. It's really sad. And it's really, it informs, I think, a lot of the sort of delicate directions that Moonlight Mile takes, the places where this movie declines to be bigger than it is or be more dramatic than it is. A lot of the times I chalk that up to, well, you know, a writer-director who really doesn't want to over-dramatize a real-life event. And I think that's, you know, for good and sometimes for bad in this movie, in that it does sort of sit in this kind of liminal space where it sometimes might have benefited this movie to be a little bit more dynamic. But, I don't know, we'll talk about it. So before we get into the plot description, was there anything else you wanted to sort of say about that, about the backstory, about the kind of meta narrative around this film? Not really.

I mean, it is interesting. It's obvious, like you said, it's not a one-for-one as things certainly happened, or it's like, you know, it's not. the Rebecca Schaefer story. Right. But I don't know. I'm watching it this time, I was kind of fascinated by, okay, where were the conscious choices to depart from his real life experience? And like, where does it feel like he's going beyond editorializing and, like, making

movie choices? And I think the ones that kind of, like, leap out to me or speak to me specifically are a lot of the things that I didn't necessarily like about the movie. Yeah. Well, we'll get into that, definitely, on the other side. All right, why don't we do, why don't we, why don't I kick it to you for a plot description? And then we can really get into the meat and potatoes of the film. Let me bring up my...

We can walk the Moonlight Mile. You certainly can. I'm going to bring up my little stopwatch. All right. So, we are talking about today, 2002's Moonlight Mile, written and directed by Brad Silberling, starring Jake Gillen, Hall, Dustin Hoffman, Susan Sarandon, Elm Pompeo, Holly Hunter, Dabney Coleman shows up. There's a bunch of character actors and actresses who pop up in this movie. I believe Roxanne Hart is one

of them. The guy who plays Mr. Litman on Seinfeld is one of them. Very interesting sort of cast of, you know, here and their actors. This film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on September 9th, 2002. It then opened limited release, September 27th, 2002, and then wide one week later. I'm not sure the wide release ended up doing much for it. It made very little money in the fall of 2002. I think that's a big part of its problem. But Chris, I'm going to get you 60 seconds to do the plot of Moonlight Mile.

Are you ready? I believe that I am. All right. Get ready to save my life tonight. with this plot description, you will start now. Okay, so we meet the Floss family. Ben and Jojo are grieving the murder of their daughter, who was engaged to Young Joe, played by Jake Gyllenhaal,

who has been living with them since she was murdered. They are preparing for the trial of her murderer. Joe's giant secret is that they actually broke up right before she was murdered. So he has been working in Ben's commercial reality office. Jojo's a writer. She has been struggling to not be able to write. Meanwhile, Joe falls in love with a postal work, post office worker bar lady played by Ellen Pompeo.

Her name is Bertie. She has a long lost love, but he was also abusive to her. And they, like, had this love story that, like, comes and goes because Joe can't, like, deal with his emotions, whatever. Eventually, Joe does out that they had broken up. to the family, but he also has to serve on trial and, like, make her come to life, but, like, the secret is weighing on him. And that's time.

Yeah. We don't see the events of the, uh, you know, trial, but, uh, we don't see the outcome of the trial. No. Yeah, in real life, uh, I believe Rebecca Schaefer's murder went to prison for, uh, quite a bit of time. And as I said, that was one of sort of Marsha Clark's early, uh,

legal successes. and she, of course, had a very notable legal failure, but, you know, we'll talk about that, or maybe we won't. Yeah, so, yeah, the places where this story departs from the real life sort of inspiration to it. Obviously, the time that it takes place is one of them. Also, obviously, the place, the setting, this is very East Coast. This is, I believe it was filmed in a few towns in Massachusetts, where, uh, It is generally... The type of towns that are frozen in time and you can conceivably set a movie in the 1970s.

I do love, I do love that exact kind of Massachusetts town. It probably helps that my mom is from that very milieu. But, yeah, I think the fact that the Jillen Hall character moves on to somebody new while this stuff is so immediate, I believe that is a sort of contracting of, you know, what happened in real life. Obviously, Silberling at some point did move on, I believe I read in a article about the making of the movie that the trial was still going on when he first was starting to date somebody new and that that actually caused a lot of problems with that relationship. I think the new girlfriend didn't quite know how to feel about how invested he had

to be in the trial at the time. And for the movie, it feels like what that relationship more so functions as is this, like, accelerating of Joe's guilt and, like, gives this kind of impetus almost for him to finally confess that, you know, to the flosses, you know, that the engagement, they were essentially best friends, but they had grown to not really be in love with. each other and like that that's not what they wanted to do. It's also that when she was murdered in this diner, she was going there to meet her father to tell him about the situation. And that's kind of why he keeps it a secret because Joe feels like he's the reason that it happened. Right. That if he had broken off the relationship several months earlier, uh, as they were sort of that if they had, you know, come clean about the breakup earlier, she would not

have been there to talk to her dad on that day. There's a lot of, you know, the what ifs of grief and the aftermath of grief is obviously not a subject that is foreign to movies. I think there are a lot of movies that are about grief in one way or another and why in the aftermath of grief some people get closer together and some people sort of are driven farther apart. I think this movie really gets into just how differently people grieve from one another. I think especially when you look at the Sarandon and Hoffman characters.

I think Sarandon's character grieves in a very sort of controlled and angry way. I think they're both angry in their different ways, right? And she very much wants to be upfront with her anger with him. She wants to sort of talk shit about all their friends who, are giving them platitudes at various, you know, at the funeral breakfast and when they come to visit afterwards and everything like that. And he wants, and he's keeping most of it in, his anger and frustration. He's in like emotional denial. Yeah. But like this weird kind of like matter of factness about like the business of griefing, you know, and like dealing with these

people. The thing that he gets most angry about is the diner has replaced the window that got shot out. That's one of the things that I don't like about that. That feels very screenwriterly to me. I was going to say, it feels very screenwriting class. It feels like give this task, basically, that can symbolize the arc of his grief in a tidy way in the movie. And I feel like this movie has a weird relationship between saying, well, grief isn't all

that tidy and trying to give these characters. these like easy marks to say that they are able to move on and like for Jojo it's that she's writing again by the end of the movie I think that works better maybe because Sarandon's performance sort of makes me more at ease

with that character a little bit more but yeah the thing about the window definitely feels very very scream really goes and he ends the movie because he used to get like ice cream with his daughter there and he goes and he pays for an ice cream cone and gives them like 50 bucks or something and they try to be like

like, oh, this is too much money. He's like, no, you can fix your window with the rest of the money. There are a few things like that in the movie that I feel like some of them sort of irk me less than others. I think one of the things is where Diana, the daughter, had been trying to learn Italian and had sort of put stickers all around the house of the names of the Italian names of these little objects to help herself sort of learn Italian. By the end of the movie, there's almost like ritualistic sort of like removing of the stickers. were letting her go, which also fairly screenwriter. And it also does this

kind of really just like corny thing. Like it feels like that like character beat exists in the screenplay just so you can get the end of the movie where everybody's looking up into the camera and it's like it just really cheapens. That to me

also was that was like, oh these are your City of Angels shots too. Like a little bit. These are for your trailer, sir. I would say some of those things though don't bother me as much, even though I can recognize them as kind of screenwriter crutches. I think...

We've talked a lot about, like, screenwritery crutches that are always courtroom dramas. Like, this movie in the final 15 minutes becomes a courtroom drama. Right. Wait it. Yes. I do... I like it because it gets

this Holly Hunter, and I'm never going to turn up my nose at more Holly Hunter. She's in this movie very, very briefly, actually. It's almost sort of like an extended cameo kind of a thing, although she's very effective. when she is in there. But I was going to say, I think I forgive a lot of the sort of crutches that this movie

uses, in part because of the sort of, you know, real-life inspiration for it. I want to cut this movie a little bit of slack. But I think also, I think the stuff that, I think there's some really well-observed moments of dialogue and writing that are like performed very well, yes, but I don't want to like completely be like, well, this is just the performer and not the writer. I think there's the moment where Jillyn Hall and Ellen Pompeo are sort of, when he first

tells her the truth of the matter, which is that they had he and Diana had broken up three months before the murder. And part of it is this sort of like confession scene about what they weren't as a couple. But then he sort of rounds it back to

he says I lost my friend. And I was like, oh, that's a very that's a very simple and declarative way to bring that conversation around, and yet it's very effective. Because ultimately it strips everything else away of the deceit and the fact that there is a secret now being uncovered and all of this. And it just boils it down to, engaged or not, he lost his friend. And it communicates to me the sort of the deepness of their bond. in very, very sort of plain terms.

I think there's a lot of the dialogue with him and Sarandon when they have that conversation in the living room, where she and Hoffman just sort of had this bit of a fight, and he goes to walk the dog as sort of his response to conflict in this movie as he goes to walk the dog. And she's sort of telling Jalenhall's character why they stay together, even though it does seem like they do an awful lot of arguing and fighting. And she talks about how, you know, every night she can go to bed and she can turn over on her side and she can stick her butt out. And she knows that, like, there will be this man there with her to sort of, you know, spoon up next to her and put his arms around her and without question. And I think beyond the fact that it's an impeccably performed scene, it is a really, really, really, like, it makes me wish she had been nominated for something just so that could have been used as a clip.

And it's a good monologue, even though, like, it feels screenwritery class. monologue. I really like it. I really like it. Yeah. I also, so in preparation for doing this movie, I texted my friend Patrick, who was in a few episodes of Dash and Lily, the Netflix series, Dash and Lily, which Silberling had directed episodes of. And so I was just like, we're doing Moonlight Mile. I was like, any silverling sort of, you know, dish or whatever. And he just had the most lovely things to say about working with Brad Silberling. And he also sort of, he wrapped it up And he married Amy Brennaman. I'm just like, I know.

And, you know, that's almost, you know, as much of a point in his favor as anything else, obviously. And if you look back and like Toronto Film Festival, like red carpet photos from this movie, like he and Brennamen are there on the red carpet for this movie. And I think there's, for as much as sometimes we feel like we can pull out who these writer-directors' personalities are from this movie. And sometimes we can, and sometimes we can. Sometimes I feel like we're, you know, I'm full of shit when I feel like I think I can extrapolate. But, like, he seems like a good dude.

I don't know. It doesn't seem like there's any misguided. He doesn't seem preening at all in this movie. For somebody who, like, obviously, like, you cast Jake Gyllenhaal as yourself in a movie, like, you know, that's Hollywood. You know what I mean? 2002 Jake Gillenhol at that. Right, right.

This was, this was, but this was like awkward teen Jake Gyllenhaal year, right? This was like, you know. Well, 01, 2002, Jake Gillenhall, where he's ubiquitous. it ubiquitous and everywhere, too. It kind of, like, I think at the time was perceived to be playing on, like, variations on a similar character, like, you know, either brooding and weird or, like, sweetheart and weird. I'm talking about bubble boy. This movie, I feel like you cast him for a lot of his quiet awkwardness, his sort of, there's a, there's an inarticulateness to his character. that I think is baked in, that obviously Jake Gyllenhaal is not an inarticulate actor.

But I think he, at that time, had been playing characters who weren't always able to sort of verbalize what their deal was. And obviously, like, at the time, the movie studio, which I think it was always, I don't think it bounced around for too much. I think Spielberg for a while wanted to make it a Dreamworks. And then after American Beauty, he was just like, I'm not going to do anything too similar. It's odd that he sort of painted this movie as similar to American Beauty. I think when you boil down to it, I guess they're both family dromedies. But, like, that's sort of where the similarities end, if you ask me. But anyway.

Parents Fighting. The studio wanted people like Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp to play the Joe role in this film. And, like, I think that would have been all wrong. Her character would have been too old. Too old, but also too dynamic, I feel like. I think this movie works because Jillon Hall is able to sort of be the less shining. He's able to be articulate about being inarticulate? Well, but also it's just like he, obviously, you put him in a scene with Susan Sarandon.

Susan Sarandon's going to be like the much bigger star, the much bigger presence, the much bigger sort of life force on the screen. Same thing with Dustin Hoffman. And I think that plays into what the story needs to be very well. even with Ellen Pompeo, who at the time was like a total unknown, like that was another one where he had to really fight for Ellen Pompeo to play this role because nobody knew her from Adam at this point. I do really like Ellen Pompeo. This was, I think, the same year she was in old school and those were like the first two things I'd ever seen her in. And even she and her scenes with Jillon Hall, she's the much more dynamic player, which is funny because Jake Dillon Hall rightly has become a huge movie star. And, you know, obviously I really love Jake Dillon Hall. But like he, plays, he's able to credibly play as the sort of lesser light in these scenes. And I think Pompeo is really fantastic in this movie. And it surprises me that obviously once she got Grey's Anatomy, she became a TV star and she's stuck in that lane. And I don't think she,

I don't think she regrets not becoming a movie star, I think, if you talk to her. Obviously, monetarily, it's really worked out for her. But it's surprising to me after this movie that she didn't get more romantic lead movie roles or even just like lead movie roles obviously the you know dearth of roles for women is has been and continues to be an issue but um she's very impressive in this movie i don't know how i feel about the character but like i'm always i was always grateful when she was on screen because like it again not to say keep saying screenwriting class about this movie but like it's it's it's not a manic pixie dream girl but it's kind of close her character is a little bit like the grieving uh protagonist can like fall in love

with this like kind of wounded uh and they they write her a backstory that sort of dovetails with his where she's managing this local bar and uh the owner of the bar was her sort of on and off sounds like boyfriend who now this goes back into the kind of quietness of the time and place of this movie where like this guy went off to Vietnam

and never came back and it's been three years and he's technically missing but nobody really believes well and he was abusive right well there was also that so there's a lot of stuff that is written into her sort of relationship

with this guy and what she's waiting around for But, yeah, I think I don't think all of that is necessary. I don't think we really needed to parallel their paths or sort of contrast their paths as much as this movie does. I mean, it should be noted.

You know, Silverling, as I said, directed two movies before this. This is his first original screenplay. So, like, the somewhat amateur choices here, I think are explicable. Like, yes, like, they are. It is an amateur writer at work. Not to, like, you know, explain it and where, or like, not to excuse it, but it's very much in the mold of the type of drama that was, like, popular in the mid to late 90s, you know, so you can kind of see where some of the, like, influences, if not, like, direct influences. Like, this movie was an inspiration point for it.

But, like, the vibe, the, like, type of story, you know. Yeah. I want to circle back around to Jake Gyllenhaal for a bit. We talked about what a little bit about, you know, what kind of a year this was for him. We did a IMDB game a few weeks ago where October Sky was a – no, not October Sky. by bubble bot, bubble boy was a, who was it? Who wasn't bubble boy that showed up in the IMDB game? Was it Swozy Kurtz?

Am I? I'm going to be forever haunted by Swozy Kurtz. You can't do that to me again. So, yeah, the, the ubiquity or lack thereof of bubble boy was definitely a topic of conversation. So that was 2001. We talked about how 2001 was sort of the breakthrough year for Jillon Hall between that and Donnie Darko.

both in 2001. 2002 was like the, oh, now this is the follow-up year where he's in a ton of things. And so it's... Well, and at the point of Moonlight Mile, too, it felt like there was almost this, like, not fully mainstream

because none of these movies, well, that was the point. None of these movies really made money. Right. And like, there was this kind of backlash against him of, he's in all of these movies. Was there a backlash? Do you think so?

I mean, it was... I remember before the day after tomorrow came out because like he went away to become a leading man movie and it was this question of is he really going to be a movie star none of these 10,000 movies he's been in have really completely taken off

but like in hindsight I think that that was unfair because like sure Donnie Darko was considered a big failure after how it was received at Sundance, and a lot of them is because it was released right after 9-11. But things like, lovely and amazing, he's in it less than you remember.

Like, was Bubble Boy ever going to be a successful movie? Well, that's the thing is I think the trio of lovely and amazing, the good girl, and to some extent, Moonlight Mile, even though, as I said, his character in this is different that I think you can twin the characters in Lovely and Amazing and the Good Girl. where he's the sort of younger man who is something of a manifestation of your lead female character's personal life going awry. Do you know what I mean? We know that Catherine Keener is going through it because she has this, you know,

flirtatious and odd romantic dalliance with Jake Gillen Hall. We know that Jennifer Aniston is not in a great place because of, you know, what's up with her and Jillen Hall in this movie. And I think Moonlight Mile is not quite the teenage creeper that he is in those two movies, but it is, again, a performance that is decidedly quieter and more sort of awkward. He plays that sort of, you know, mop. The era of Jake Gyllenhaal playing teenage or young 20s men who seemingly never wash their hair. Yeah.

But the thing about the span that goes between you're right, so like he's, you know, goes away for a little bit while he's sort of more fingering. into this leading man. He comes back with the day after tomorrow. But I think in the interim, I think one thing that's important to note is Donnie Darko was a failure as a sort of theatrical release. But in that interim, Donny Darko had become a pretty good cult success on home video and or DVD. And I think that was an important consideration there. And the other thing is, how much do you really have to prove yourself to be a lead in the

day after tomorrow? Like, I love the junkiness of that movie. Do you know what I mean? Like, that is one of my favorite. It's on cable in the middle of a Saturday, and I can just park myself in front of there and, like, check my email or do other things. And it's just like, it's a perfect B minus of a movie, and I'm very fine with that. I'm like totally fine with that. But the thing is, like, people treated that, like, oh, well, he's finally in a big movie.

He's still playing one of these little feckless dwebes in that movie. Like, it's still the same character. He faces down those CGI Werewolves Those CGI wolves With a plumb They're both

They're both as equally Realistic The Wolves or Werewolves In day after tomorrow Anyway But yeah And also people forget the fact That like

Dennis Quaid is as much Of the lead of that movie As Jake Tilton It's not like Jillen Hall's Shouldering that entire movie On his shoulders Like he's

You know The lead of the teen Half of that movie And like Dennis Quaid Is the actual lead Of that movie Isn't Emmy Rossum, the love interest of that movie.

She is, yeah, it's Emmy Rossum, who, and it's also Austin Nichols, who was, like, Jake Gyllenhaal's, like, best pal at the time, who plays his, like, best buddy who, like, the two of them are sort of, like, romantically involved with her. The After Tomorrow is, as far as I'm concerned, perfectly good, uh, junkie cinema. Um, not junkie cinema, not, uh, what's the fucking Safte's movie that I hate. Um, Good time? No, the, heaven knows what? Heaven knows what. Heaven knows what? Heaven knows what is classic junkie cinema.

But day after tomorrow is classic junk cinema. Anyway, and then in 2005, obviously, Jillon Hall then levels up with Brokeback Mountain and Jarhead, which is, you know... How dare you eliminate proof from... Well, but he's a supporting player in proof. I think when I mean leveling up, I mean playing the lead in very sort of like director-driven

prestige movies, Brookback Mountain and Jarhead. Anyway, What I'm leading up to is the fact that this is our sixth time taking Jake Gyllenhaal around the block in our little convertible sedan. I don't know. I don't know what kind of metaphor. And wildly, our earliest Jake Gyllenhaal. Yeah, yeah, that's very true.

So as we tend to do when we reach the sixth film in a performer's filmography on this podcast, I like to give you a little. quiz. We've been doing this a lot lately. We had our sixth Michelle Pfeiffer. We had our sixth Judy Dench. Who else did we have? Our six Natalie Portman. So like we're hitting the six timers, which again... I think our podcast is just old enough that we're just going to be hitting a lot of these. It's 155 episodes. We're hitting that mile. So it's that thing where like you reach a certain age and all your friends start getting married and having babies. This is the this stage that we are at with this podcast where all of our friends are now becoming six timers.

So the six films that we've talked about of Jake Telen Halls that I'm going to be quizzing you on are brothers. The mommy is having sex with Uncle Tommy all the time film. Love and Other Drugs, the, you know, Viagra movie. Rendition. Rendition. Zodiac. David Fincher, Zodiac, proof.

The aforementioned, Chris could. not allow me to get through it's a very important proof it's a very important proof and uh finally now moonlight mile so chris the quiz that i'm going to give you the answer answer or answers to all of these will be one or more of those movies are you ready to take the jake jillen hall six timer quiz i absolutely am all right we'll start with some basics which of those six films is the longest uh zodiac zodiac zodiac by a good margin i feel like there's like a good 20 to 25 minutes between the second longest movie and Zodiac.

All right, which is the shortest? Love Another Drugs? No. Brothers? No, it is actually proof at a cool 100 minutes. Proof is the shortest of all of these movies. Interesting. I forgot it was that short.

Yeah. Which two were the only two that were original screenplays? Moonlight Mile and Love Another Drug. No, that's based on an article. Well, Moonlight Mile is one of that. That is one of them. And rendition? Rendition. Very good. The big question for this quiz is going to be how many times I use the Fiddler on the roof intro to when one or more of us says rendition. We'll see. We'll see how it goes.

You guys are listening will already know how insane I've decided to be. Yeah, if we don't do the drop. We do expect that you guys listening will mentally, every single time one of us says rendition, do the bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, yeah. I am not happy unless I am running a repeated bit into the ground.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like that is, that is our mission here. We definitely want to make you guys just yell at us at the end of this and just be like, enough! Anyway, which was the lowest rated Rotten Tomato score? Um, Love and Other Drugs

You would think so, but no. Rendition. Randition, 47% on Rotten Tomatoes. Which was the highest rated on Rotten Tomatoes? Zodiac. Yes, again, I don't think it's particularly close. Zodiac is the runaway longest and the runaway best reviewed at 89%. At 89% I think it's too low on Rotten Tomatoes as far as I'm thinking.

Absolutely, it's too low. All right. which film people were not on board with that movie right away like they should have been uh worldwide box office which film made the most money love and other drugs love and other drugs cleared a hundred million hundred and two point eight million dollars worldwide box office that is wild that that is the highest grossing film of any kind of subset like that's just listen everybody around the globe is clamoring to watch josh gad jerk off okay but also on the real you see Jake Gyllenhaal in a lot of nakedness in that movie. And, like, you know, $100 million worth of it? Yeah, I'll give that. Okay. The modesty pouch was getting a lot of work.

Listen, but you see his bum bum. So anyway, which film made the least money worldwide? Ooh. Proof. No. Again, you would think so, but no. Was it Moonlight Mile? Moonlight Mile.

$10 million worldwide. This movie really did not make very much money. Sorry, Brad. Sorry, Brad. Which film has a score by James Newton. Howard. Ooh, rendition.

No. Brothers. No. What the fuck? Proof? No. It's got to be love and other drugs. It's love and other drugs.

Yes, exactly. Which film has... I thought someone cool scored that movie. What's that? I thought someone cool had scored that movie. Listen, James Newton Howard is as cool as the other side. He's very cool, man. He's cool.

We're not saying you're not cool, but I meant, like... I thought it was like some random, like, I don't know. Atticus Ross or something like that, yeah. Yeah, or like a David Byrne. Right, Mark Mothersbaugh kind of a thing. Yeah. All right. Which film has cinematography by Dion Bebe.

Rendition. Rendition. Very good. All right. Which two films were released in Sagittarius season? So the mid-December. back through Thanksgiving season, that would be Love and Other Drugs. Love and Other Drugs, November 24th, just under the wire.

No, not rendition. Jarhead. Jarhead. Jarhead. We didn't do Jarhead. Not yet. We could do Jarhead, and it always talks to me that we could. Brothers.

Brothers was December 4th. I was thinking about it. Yeah. Yes. Well, yeah, you got it. December 4th for Brothers. Very good. Okay.

Which is the only one of these six where Jake Gyllenhaal does not co-star with an Oscar-winning actress? Mm. Prior to... No. Oh, no, wait. That's a stupid question. It's Zodiac. Chloe Seveny does not have an Oscar.

Chloe Seveny, nor does June Dye and Raphael have an Oscar. Nor does Ione Sky. Right, unfortunately. Yeah, a lot of these movies are with Oscar-winning actresses. Obviously, Natalie Portman. in brothers, Merrill Streep and Reese Witherspoon in rendition Anne Hathway, obviously, in Love and Other Drugs,

Gwyneth in Proof, and Susan Sarandon in Moonlight, wow, okay. Where did I leave off? Oscar-winning actresses. Which two films feature stars from the movie Garden State? Well, Natalie Portman and Peter Sarsgaard are both in Garden State,

as is Armand-Muller-Stahl. it's not arm in new no no no no it's brothers because it's also uh is it merri k place it's not mary k place you've you've you've misidentified now too uh older character and out and out well and dowd yeah so sorry i thought you were thinking of jean smart who was also in garden state but yes and doubt and doubt is in uh is and dowd in brothers i don't know oh i don't know let me tell you i remember You know what I remember about brothers? I remember one thing.

I remember that mommy and Uncle Tommy are having sex all the time. Yeah. So who's mommy? Natalie Portman. Right. So there's one of them. Oh, it's not one movie. It's two movies.

Two movies. Two films feature stars of Garden State. Now I understand. Yes. Now I understand. Yeah. But anyway, to correct you, though, it is not our Mimuller style. It is Ian Holm in Garden State.

Ah, what's the Ian Holm movie? I'm not saying there is one. I'm just correcting you. Oh, okay. Why did I think it was Armand Mueller Stahl? I don't know. But it's not. Unless they're both in it.

I'm just trying to put some respect on Armand Mueller Stahl's name. No, I get it. I get it. I want to make sure that Armand Mueller Stahl is also not, because if I am disrespecting Oscar nominee, Armine Muehler Stahl, that's on me. I mean, it's not Jean Smart, because Gene Smart's not in any of these movies. Right.

Correct. Yeah, Armin is not in Garden State. Is it Peter Sarsgaard? Oh, Peter Sarsgaard's in rendition. Very much. So, yes, Peter Sarsgaard in... Rendition, Natalie Portman in Brothers, are the two. Yes. Okay. Which two films feature stars from Succession? Well, Brian Cox is in Zodiac. Yes. Brian Cox is very good in Zodiac. He's very good in Zodiac. he's very good in succession.

And he's very good in the McDonald's commercials that you did not even realize until today. Text you this morning because it was on in the background with the Tour de France and I was like, Brian Cox is doing McDonald's commercials now. And apparently this is a thing that I didn't know because I don't watch commercials. For several years. I'm just sad for you that you have not been able to... Several years?

Several years? Years. For at least two or three years, yes. That you have been denied the joy of hearing in your internal monologue every time you go and pick up, you know, a quarter pound with cheese, Brian Cox going, Bar-a-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B. It is so fucking funny.

Brian Cox doing Bada-B-B-Bah, which is really more like, Bada-Bada-B. It's just like, it's so tossed off. He doesn't get it right. No. It's so good. It's perfect.

No, this commercial, he was talking about chicken McNuggets, and it was very soothing. What other things has he talked about for McDonald's? Oh, everything. Literally, there was an ad campaign when it first started. were like literally every little thing on their menu had its own little Brian Cox at go on YouTube and just search Brian Cox McDonald's you'll have like 30 different videos to watch it's amazing oh my god oh my god this is like pornographic yeah um the other answer is Moonlight Mile because of Holly Hunter yes very good Holly Hunter was great on Succession uh I loved her all right anyway uh can we talk about no the teaser the Secession teaser season three we're not getting derailed by Succession Season 3 we're not doing it oh but that teaser was so good so good. So fucking good.

Fuck a kiss from Daddy. What we all want, what we really want, is a spit from Shiv. Shiv spinning into a journal. Spit on me like a journal, Shivroy. Also, that part at the end, I don't know who that actress is, who's playing

the assistant, who's just like, he's laughing, but it's not a nice laugh. That's great. All right, anyway. All right, succession, yada, yada. Okay. Which film was directed by someone with exactly

one best director nomination proof proof directed by John Madden director of Shakespeare in Love which two films were directed by people with multiple best director nomination Zodiac Zodiac three-time nominee David Fincher

Not Love and Other Drugs No brothers Jim Sheridan Jim Sheridan has been nominated twice for In the Name of the Father And Not My Left Foot what's the other one? It wasn't in America. No, wasn't in America.

What's the other one? I don't know if you're exactly correct in your assumptions, my friend. Was he nominated for my left foot? He was nominated for my left foot? Yep. Really? Best director. I didn't remember that.

1990. Okay. Which film's tagline was, The Biggest Risk in Life is Not Taking One. Well, that's a stupid tagline. stupid tagline. It could apply to almost anything. The biggest risk in life is not taking one. It's got to be love and other drugs. It's not. It could be. It could apply to that movie, but it's not. Is it proof? It's proof. How is that a tagline to proof? That's so dumb. God damn it. Like, come on, marketing people. All right. Which were the only two films to not screen at either Cannes, Venice, or Toronto? Brothers And Love and Other Drugs

Love and Other Drugs Which did AFI Fest, but not the other ones All right Didn't rendition, did rendition? Rendition was TIF Oh, okay And was Brothers AFI? No, brothers did not do any festivals

Yeah, they just dumped it on that Post Thanksgiving weekend Yeah All right, about which film did Peter Travers write This movie is best treated like Dim sum, weighed out the bad portions until a tastier dish is served. Don't compare movies to food, Peter Travers.

This is what I was thinking. Yikes, Peter Travers. Love and other drugs? Love and other drugs. According to Peter Travers, the dim sum of movies. All right. And finally, about which film did Rex Reed write, manipulative and brush-stroked with so much Disney gloss it looks polyurethane.

I mean, probably Moonlight Mile, but with Rex Reed, It could be anything. It's Moonlight Mile, and that's a bitchy-ass quote. Like, that's a lot. You were in Myra Breckenridge, Rex Reed. All right. Now, as I like to do, we transition from that quote, back into Moonlight Mile. Yeah, I think that's too harsh.

I would say that's too harsh about this movie. Too harsh. I think this is a movie with its heart in the right place, and I think that emerges in some very interesting ways. So Susan Sarandon. Like, maybe this is also because, like, where we are with Disney now. But, like, that quote is just like, what are you talking about? Right. Also, this is, like, I get it.

Like, Touchstone is Disney, and I know. But, like, Touchstone that same year had 25th hour and signs. Well, like, I guess signs you could probably, like, try and, like, graft the Disney thing onto it. But, like, it's not like Touchstone was making these, like, you know, uniformly syrupy, Disney, whatever. Like, I don't know. I don't know. It's lazy. It's lazy.

Speaking of Brian Cox being great and giving great monologues. Oh, my God. What a great monologue in 25th hour. Was Terrence Blanchard? No, Terence Blanchard wasn't nominated for that. No, because he was only nominated for first time for Defive Bloods. I thought he was nominated for Black Clansman. No, you're right.

I think it was right. I thought that was his first nomination. That was his first nomination. He should have like three Oscars. Yeah. No, his score for 25th hour is phenomenal. 25th hour, like I said. The end of that movie, like I was.

would absolutely hate it in another movie and it's genius. There's so much in 25th hour that shouldn't work. The monologue that Edward Norton does into the mirror in that movie that sort of, you know, goes across the length and breath of New York City and is so risky. I think it's such a risk. And Spike Lee just like carries that off so super well. Spikely directs the shit out of that movie. That's maybe a screenplay that in anybody else's hands I would despise.

Yeah. Yeah, he does such a good job. So, well, to transition then into Touchstone that year, because I put this in our outline, again, Moonlight Mile making only 10 million worldwide and getting very sort of like middling 60-something percent rotten tomatoes. It was dead in November. It was dead in October when it premiered, basically. But, like, that same year, Touchstone has, well, signs in the summer, which, you know, know, it's sort of folly to count on any August release to be an Oscar success, but it is

Eminichamelon who did have Oscar success with the Sixth Sense from August. So, like, it was not out of the question. And I think there are elements of signs that you could absolutely have credibly pushed to Oscar nominations if the temperature was right. You know what I mean? I think it's a movie that looks fantastic. It's a movie that sounds fantastic. And while I don't think it's a acting nominee anywhere, even though I think there are performances that are really good. Actually, I think Joaquin Phoenix is one of my favorite Joaquin Phoenix performances in Science. I think he's strangely kind of funny in that movie. It's very funny in that movie. So, but science, obviously, not a player come awards season time.

Sweet Home Alabama is a Golden Globe nominee for Reese Witherspoon, and rightly so, but doesn't really have any prospects anywhere else. But I think 25th hour is a movie where it really feels like there was a push for that movie. It's released at the very end of 2002. It is, I can't remember whether it was really, really well reviewed at the time or only pretty well reviewed at the time. And then, like, its esteem has only, like, grown and grown and grown. But definitely its esteem has grown regardless.

Yes. But that is a movie that I feel like if, you know, in a slightly different parallel world, you could see 25,000. I were getting five or six Oscar nominations, possibly a Best Picture nomination. I think if they had, I don't know how ready we were in the fall and winter of 2002 to deal with a movie that spoke to 9-11 on an emotional level the way that movie did. Not directly, but like that is a movie that has the soul of post-9-11 America, but specifically New York City in its bones and maybe it was not enough time, maybe not enough space and distance

in between that for that to be really appreciated for that for what it is. And also I think the subject matter of a movie where like the actual plot is about this guy who's going to be sent to jail and is sort of trying to, you know, find a way to get out of the more unseemly aspects of being in jail. Like, a lot of that movie is weirdly about him not wanting to get, like, raped in prison for being too pretty, which is an odd little, you know, I think that's sort of maybe what you're talking about when you say, like, in another person's hands, that screenplay is kind of despicable.

Yeah, I think Spike Lee maybe has a different perspective than the screenplay does. One would imagine so. That's why the movie is good. Yes. But anyway, it's interesting. I think in hindsight, 25th hour is one of those movies that you're just like, how did that movie not get a bunch of Oscar nominations? it's clearly one of the best movies of that year?

Yeah. I feel like... Well, I mean, here's the thing about, like, post-9-11 movies, and this is maybe also why, like, a Moonlight Mile was not ready to be embraced, because, like, even something, like, in the bedroom already had, like, Sundance Raves and stuff, so it was already established for what it was,

and maybe if it had been released on its own, people would have... Like, people were not really ready to deal with a certain type of actual palpable grief. That's why, like, most of, like, what actually did work with Oscar this year is like the spectacle of Chicago right the spectacle of Lord of the Rings

right the spectacle of games of New York even you know the hours we obviously appreciate it probably for different reasons than Oscar did but right that like there's a reason why that movie is considered quintessential Oscar bait like the pianist was like dealing with

the Holocaust in a way Oscar's going to respond to you could put your feelings for the pianist in a historical context that doesn't make you sort of linger on what's going even something like about Schmidt which like is very very much a contemporary movie but like is about none of it is actually deal none of these things were actually dealing with right what we as a culture we're going through and in a certain way you could say it's actively avoiding it well about Schmidt is about sort of like burrowing ever

further into the Midwest sort of geographically and like that's not all that that movie is about but like that movie doesn't really you know make you think about you know, the current events of what was happening. It is very much, you know, America sort of turning inward and dealing with itself and dealing with its own sort of, you know, things in a way that doesn't touch upon its borders. And anyway, but yeah, I think you're right. I also think, you know, I really, like, this is, I will stick to this point until the day that I die.

The only movies that I really feel like Oscar subconsciously really rewarded or, like, went for that, like, we're very much wrapped in our, like, immediate aftermath of 9-11 psychosis are the Lord of the Rings movies. Oh, go on. Well, it's, it's very much this, like, large-scale, uh, sharp definition between good and evil, uh, this collective effort type of thing. Like, very much our subconscious relationship with those movies. Yeah.

I believe we're informed by 9-11. Yeah. That's a really good point. I don't think we think we think about that as much with those movies, but I think you're right. There's probably smarter than me. People smarter than me. Who's smarter than you? Get out of here.

All right. I want to talk about Susan Sarandon in a sort of more, a broader sense. We've talked about how much we love her in this movie, and I do. This is an interesting year for her. This is a sort of multiple movie year for her. where after a few years where I think the biggest sort of thing that she had been in before this

was previous, this had Oscar Buzz film Anywhere but here. I think in between anywhere but here and then her movies in 2002, she's in Jill Gould's secret, but that's obviously like a very, very independent film. She's a voice in, of course,

Rugrats in Paris, the movie, which, of course, she's a voice in cats and dogs. So, but that's really all she's doing. Obviously should have been her second Oscar. Right. and then she might have done some TV in the interim there as well actually now that I think about it she was well she was actually no she was just in an episode of friends and an episode of Malcolm in the middle

so anyway that was kind of a it was a quiet period for her so 2002 were her kids at that point though she could have been focusing on that well one of her movies 2002 the banger sisters co-stars her daughter eva so she was a teenager in that film so maybe yeah um And let's not forget stepmom. Well, stepmom 98. Yes. So even earlier than in there. Oh, Eva is in stepmom as well.

Is that what we're saying? No, I was just saying stepmom. We can't forget stepmom. Well, of course we can never forget stepmom. So her three films that she's in in 2002 are Moonlight Mile, the Bangor Sisters, aforementioned, which I watched again on cable a couple weekends ago. It was just sort of randomly on and I was not going to turn up my nose. And then Igby goes down where she.

gets a Golden Globe nomination for that film. I think the difference between Igby goes down, her character and Igby goes down and her character in Moonlight Mile is very, very instructive about what sort of was going on for her in that award season, where she plays the mother to the titular Igby, played by Karen Culkin, in the film, Another Star of Succession. And her character is this very kind of disastrous, alcoholic, Upper East Side.

It's a very big character. I think she does a good job in that film. But that is, that's not necessarily a person who's just like, oh, I recognize that person. Even, you know, unless you're in a very, very specific circumstance. I think that is. Very, very specific comedy at that. Sure. And she's obviously playing to the comedy of it.

It's a bigger performance. I think she is leaps and bounds better in Moonlight Mile, but in a very, very much quieter character. And while I would have definitely preferred a nomination for Moonlight Mile, it surprises me zero that the voters for the Golden Globes actually preferred Igby goes down. It also preferred her Banger Sisters co-star, Goldie Han. Goldie Hawn was Best Actress and a Comedy nominee for... Well, and Goldie Hawn was more of, like, a comeback because Goldie Hawn did not many movies. Well, and that was her last movie before, uh... Oh, boy.

The, the Amy Schumer movie. What was that movie called again? Snatched or something. Right. God, what a disappointment. I've still never seen it. I couldn't bring myself... Once everybody was, like, talked about how bad it was. I'm like, I can't let that be my next Goldie Hawn memory.

I would love for Goldie Hawn to do another movie soon. It's unfortunate, but you don't need Goldie Hawn to do another movie. movie. No, I know. On Instagram. I mean, yes, of course we do. I don't want to, you know, be so, like. No, I know.

She's got, you had the best idea for bringing her into another movie, Chris, and I want you to talk about it right now. Wait, what was this idea? Well, you just mentioned Instagram. What was when I, when we talked about her latest Instagram, where she was doing, uh, oh, yes, I said she needs to be in Mammothria. She does need to be in Mammothria. And what did I say?

She and share in a love triangle with Andy Garcia. Yes. As, because I said she should play Dominant Cooper's mother. Well, yes, she should play Dominic Cooper's mother. Love Triangle with Cher and Andy Garcia that becomes a triad. Yes. They can be a polyamorous, thruple. And the song that they do is people need love.

See, you've already got it sketched out. We're saying this because she was on Instagram dancing on a beach to Abba. It was to Mamma Mia, right? The song Mama Mia? Yeah. She was having the best time. I think this was on, like, the 4th of July. She was just having the best time.

If you don't follow Goldie, you just really need to do it. You're only getting half the story. Yeah. So Moonlight Mile, I think, is definitely the least sort of glitzy of her three films in 2002. We're watching The Banger Sisters. She's quite good in that movie. She definitely, like, Goldie's the more, she's funnier. She's the more sort of, like, personality forward in that film.

She's the one that, like, jokes about blowjob. Goldie rules in that movie. But Susan's the one with like the actual character conflict in that one, right? Where she's like the former, you know, good time girl. And now she's, right. Now she's like very settled down and she's the stern mother to eternal shitty teen Erica Christensen. Like I like Erica Christensen as an actress.

But man, did that girl get typecast as just like nightmare teenage girls? We're between traffic and bang her sisters. And then she's the titular swim fan. like she's just oh boy um and then eva a murray is the other sort of like even she's the more just like she's the brady daughter who just like whines and cries about everything whereas like erika christensen's the daughter who's just like i wish you weren't my mother and i hate you um and i don't know it's a good movie it's not a great movie but i would say it's a good movie and we need movies like that that are uh that are at that level but yeah i think by leaps and bounds her performance in moonlight

Mile is like it's a real highlight and it's a bummer that it couldn't get more like that's a movie where it's just like if it's just you know that left field sag nominee for supporting actress that doesn't get her anything else I'm like that's the level she deserved for this performance I think yeah that would make sense right 2002 supporting actress though now I want to bring up who the sag nominees nominees were because was it the same as the Oscar nominees no because Merrill wasn't nominated right Okay. Let me bring up a video. So the thing about this supporting actress race, and of course we're always going to talk about it, the thing is that list of nominees, I feel like, is 100% the list of nominees. It was always ultimately going to be. And, of course, like, nothing would have ultimately stopped Catherine Zeta Jones from winning. Though I do think, like, she had some competition, but, like, in no version of events, did she not win? No, I agree.

We did talk about this recently because this was the year that Michelle Pfeiffer for White O'Leander was a SAG nominee. This was because Meryl in Adaptation was submitted as a lead in adaptation for the SAG Awards and was not nominated for anything as a result, which I feel like is sort of like a slap on the wrist of just like, don't go outside the lane. Like, don't, you know, we've decided what your category placement is for this award season. I think there were many people who sort of assumed that Meryl in adaptation was probably second place to Catherine Zeta Jones, and I have no reason to think otherwise. But, like, I think you're right.

Like, there was no version of events that wasn't going to end up with Catherine Zeta Jones winning the Oscar. A very well-deserved Oscar, I should say. Yeah. But, yeah, I think Julianne Moore in the Hours, obviously I adore. But obviously, I feel like all three of those women are the leads of that movie. So I don't love that she's in supporting in this film. Queen Latifah in Chicago rules, and I love that nomination. Kathy Bates is an actress I love.

I think her performance in about Schmidt is, very good and is probably in my top 10 for supporting actress that year, but probably wouldn't have made... Actually... I remember almost nothing for that movie. But my problem with that nomination is like, yes, she's very good, but

like people weren't talking about, she's very good. They treated it like, how brave she is to be naked on screen. Yes. That's right. She had that famous scene where she's naked in the hot tub, and you're right. That was the narrative of it. She wants to be naked in a movie. Let her be negative in a movie. Kathy Bates is not skinny.

and she's naked in a movie like the absolute bravery of it all and it's just like fuck off with your backhanded compliments like fuck every single one of you but I do love I do love Kevin this was sort of my feeling with

Richard Jewel as well where it's just like I love Kathy Bates I would not have nominated her for this but like I'm not going to begrudge a Kathy Bates Oscar nomination because I'll begrudge that nomination I just don't think

we like we don't have a whole lot of opportunities for her and for her to get Oscar nominated anymore these days. And so let's nominate her for a bad performance in a worse movie. I'm not defending the movie. I'm just saying

I'm not going to be churlish about Kathy Bates is all that I'm saying. Anyway. All right. I'll be over here churlin away. As is you are right. We talked about this again, like you mentioned, in our white oleander episode, like the fringe, even though like that is absolutely in hindsight

a locked best, best supporting actress lineup of five, the fringes of it are very interesting. I think that's right. So I brought up my own personal list just to see how high up Sarandon was. And she is at my current mental, where I am currently, mentally, she's a just missed. So I have Catherine Zeta Jones Merrill Streep Michelle Pfeiffer That's you know

Locked in I have Viola Davis for aforementioned Solaris Because she's great In that film Samantha Morton for Minority Report Which is I think

A very That was sort of on One of those performances in 2002 Well people were just like What if Samantha Morton And I don't think it was ever taken all that seriously But it was definitely

It definitely helped her get that nomination for in America the next year. That's probably true. I think she's really, really fantastic in Minority Report. And I think my also, my almost nominees that year, it's a really strong, so it's Tony Collette, who I think in either the

hours or about a boy would have been worthy of a nomination. Susan Sarandon in Moonlight Mile, Patricia Clarkson and Far From Heaven, who got a little Critics Awards attention, I feel like, for that performance, and went a long way towards her getting nominated the next year for the

abysmal pieces of April. I think all three of those are really, really strong performances, and on a different day might crack that line up for me. That's a strong year. And again, don't hate Kathy Bates. Don't hate, obviously, Julianne Moore, even though she's not supporting that year. But yeah, I think you're

right. I think that five kind of solidified fairly quickly. My five would probably be somewhere in, like, the list of names you've mentioned are from the Oscar nominees, the only performance that, and I think, I forget if we've done our ballots and I don't have mine open, so I don't know. The one performance I want to throw out there, and I know we've talked about this performance before, and I don't think it would be in my five, but it needs mentioning. Didn't at all get mentioned that year, but we have to talk about Andrea Martin in my Big Fight Greek wedding. Okay, that's a, that's an inspired thing. And I think, I mean, I, I, mean. I mean, she's, she's Andrea Martin. She's a legend, regardless. There's not much of her. But then when she has the twin monologue, it's a great monologue. Talk about things you wanted to have seen in a clip in an award show. It's just like, Andrea Martin for my Big

Factory quitting. And it's just her talking about how she had the Bibopsy and inside was teeth and a spinal column. It's so, it's so funny. The outrage at he doesn't eat any meat. What do you mean he don't eat no meat? That's okay. I'll make lamb. She's great. You're right. I think more and more, my appreciation, I think that was a movie.

It was such a contentious movie at the time, I feel like, because people thought that it was this dumb thing that people were going to see because they were dumb. And the success of it continued to baffle people. And Nia Vergalos is a very sort of particular character in her real. life. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like she's somebody who always feels like she's hustling you a little bit. And I think there's a natural reaction to being like, wait a second. Like, maybe I'm, maybe I'm, I should be on my guard a little bit more. Because she always feels like she's about to like upsell you into like the next level of, you know, vacation package. It's a theater kid trait that we don't talk about enough. I think it's probably true. And I'm sure it

helped her, you know, sell Rita and Tom on, uh, on throwing some money behind my Big Fat Greek wedding. But, yeah, I think Andrea Martin in that movie is a very, very interesting. I need to watch both of those movies, like, tomorrow. Yeah. No, I think that's probably true. All right. 2002 is such a great year for movies, though. Holy shit.

I'm looking at this now. I'm looking at my little list. And, like, obviously not even stuff that, like, would necessarily play into this category. But just, like, that's the year of panic room. That's the year of insomnia. That's the year of Itumama Tomien. and confessions of a dangerous mind and kissing Jessica Stein and frailty and, you know, about a boy. And it's so good.

It's such a good year. No wonder I got radicalized ever more by the Oscars that year. The Hours is the pinnacle, the peak. Yeah. Yeah. What a great movie The Hours must be to be the best movie of that year. Man, I'm really on to something. Okay.

You don't love Dustin Hoffman in this movie. We're getting on in minutes in here, but, like, kind of brief. I think he's fine. I just think he's miscast. Like, you can imagine, uh, and I think, what makes me say that is I think he's miscast and not on Susan Sarandon's level in this movie. And I want someone who is going to, I feel, uh, kind of, uh, volley back what she's serving, you know, and I, I feel like they are not in sync. I like, I, I'm, I'm, I'm not on that same page. I, I like their interplay in this movie.

I like the fact that she is sort of aggressively trying to shake him out of his avoidance of his grief in that way. I love every time, like, the phone rings and she sort of like yells at him not to answer for, not to answer it. And I do feel like you see the, you see the long years. I think at one point she mentions that they've been together for 30 years or something like that. And I think you see it on both of their ends. I think you see it in the way that he sort of patiently declines to engage her in an argument that many times seems like she wants. Because I think that's how she's dealing with her grief, is she wants to sort of yell her way through it, and he very much does not. And I think, I don't know, I feel like, I think Dustin Hoffman is a person who we often find it difficult to love for very good reasons.

Well, he doesn't really play. He makes it hard for me. Likeable, grounded people. But I think about, like, Meyerowitz stories and how much I just fucking adored his performance in Myrolet's stories. Yeah, but he's playing an asshole. He's playing, you know, someone who's in the clouds all the time.

And I feel like, I mean, just thinking, like, right in the 2002 box, the sporting actor winner, I wonder what, like, a Chris Cooper would have been, like, opposite Susan Sarandon in this movie. And, like, Chris Cooper is no stranger. to like making us weep like I don't think any of us predicted uh Chris Cooper being the person to give us the biggest tears from little women but like yeah but man did it happen type of actor yeah like I want that type of actor and Dustin Hoffman just isn't that's fair uh he was after

all though nominated for a AARP Movies for Grownups Awards uh the most important precursor he was a best actor nominee that year I think they might have just done all performances in actor and actress rather than dealing with lead or supporting because he is nominated in Best Actor that year. He loses to Jack Nicholson for About Schmidt, who almost won the Oscar that year. Came, I think, very... I won the Best Movies for Grown Up Award, which is wild to me. About Schmidt did? Yes. Fantastic. I would love to see, we talk about wanting to see Oscar vote totals all the time. I'd love to see who finished second in 2000.

too, whether it was Nicholson or Daniel DeLewis for Kings of New York. I bet it was, I mean, I would bet it was Nicholson. And I feel like I think it might have been Daniel DeLewis, but that's why I would like to see. Also nominated at AARP for Best Actor, Michael Kane for the Quiet American. We always wonder

who saw the Quiet American. I was going to say, who saw the Quiet American, all the people who voted for the AARP Awards that year. And then Samuel L. Jackson for Changing Lanes. The movie that came out in, like, March or April. The Roger Michel directed Changing Lanes, him and Ben Affleck, which I've never seen. But the fact that it's a Roger Michel movie and the fact that it has Tony Collette in it makes me feel like I should at some point see it.

I almost want it to, like, show up on cable so I don't have to make the active choice to see it, but I can watch it passively. That's all I ask. Susan Sarandon is nominated for Best Actress for two supporting performances for Moonlight Mile and Igby Goes Down. also nominated Judy Dench in The Importance of Being Ernest. That was the one I'm pretty sure. Also a supporting performance. Right. I was going to say that's the one where Reese Witherspoon is the lead of that one,

that I remember being pretty well reviewed, and I hadn't seen it. And I should go back and I should watch that at some point because I love Reese. It's silly. So Gorney Weaver for The Guys, which we talk about post 9-11 movies. A movie which one person saw. That was a movie that dealt very specifically with 9-11, where it was about a fire captain. in the aftermath of losing a bunch of his men at the World Trade Center.

And she plays somebody who deals with that fire captain. She's interviewing him. It was originally an off-Broadway show that opened like three months or something. I was going to say it would have to if it was based on Jesus. It was what, yeah. Yeah. She was one who was very much on the periphery

of the awards conversation that year, but this is probably the most that that performance got. got in terms of recognition. They all lost... It really didn't get much of a release. Yeah. They all lost to Merrill Streep,

who was giving a lead slash supporting, sort of riding that, you know, middle line of... She's, you know, in many ways, adaptation is as much about her as it is about the Nicholas Cage twin performances. She's incredibly good. One of her best performances.

Incredibly good in that movie. Wins a very, very well-deserved AARP award. And then the third award that Moonlight Mile was nominated for, which I think you might disagree, as we just talked about how you don't love the Hoffman performances, but it was nominated for Best Grownup Love Story for the Sarandon and Hoffman performances, which I think is justified, nominated up against Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood, Ellen Burstyn and James Garner. Feel confident in saying that's probably the only award that Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood was up for, considering people loathed that

movie um jill clayberg and geoffrey tambour for a movie called never again unfortunately Jeffrey tambour yeah for a movie we love Jill though we love Jill Clayberg what a fucking legend

never heard about that movie but that movie also stars Caroline Aaron Bill Duke Sandy Duncan and Michael McKeon like that's a cast right there like that's a real fucking Duke every time Bill Duke

shows up in the new Sotoberg movie on HBO Max. I knew you were going to mention that. I, like, screamed at my TV, Bill Duke. He's the coolest. He's great. They all lost to a television movie that year. Vanessa Redgrave and Albert Finney were nominated for playing Winston and Clementine Churchill in The Gathering Storm.

That was an HBO movie, my friends. Like, do better AARP. I don't have to yell at them very often, but I do in this case. Listen, you know what should have won Best Grown Up Love Story? What? Can you just fat, can you, like, rack your brain for what it should have been? Obviously, it should have been Merrill Streep and Allison Janie. I mean, Marriest, I was going to say Nicole Kidman and Stephen Delane, but also that,

Merrill Street and Nelson, Jenny. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff in the hours that would count as Best Grown-Up Love Story if they had the guts to include it. Yeah. All right. So that was, I think, the extent of the Moonlight Mile Awards journey. Susan got nominated for a Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award. No, she won Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress for this, and Igby.

Silberling got a couple screenplay nominations from regional critics, but that was about it. All right. Any sort of closing thoughts on this before we move on to the IMDB again? I'm going to peruse my notes. Um, I mean, we didn't really get into... Oh, let's talk about the needle drops. We do have to talk about the needle drops. Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say.

You hate it. Like I said, it is this movie cut out the Van Morrison needle drops, and it is 30 minutes shorter. It's literally named after a Rolling Stone song. It was originally supposed to be named after a Beatles song that had even less to do with the plot of it. It was going to be called... Um, shit, I can't remember. But it was a Beatles song that was too expensive. Wasn't it?

It wasn't, it's, um, oh God, it's right there. It's not Eleanor Rigby. It's not, no, it's not. There's a different movie named after that. It's not anything quite so well known as that. Yeah. Babies and black. It was supposed to be Babies and Black.

Yes. Which would have been an even worse title. Yeah. Moonlight Mile doesn't really describe a whole lot about this movie, but like Babies and black describes even less somehow. So, yes, this movie is very, very much a particular strain of classic rock. It feels almost famous-ish in its curation, where it feels like it's very much curated by, like, your dad's coolest friend. I don't know.

But as I said, I am, it was also the music supervision for this was shit. Now I'm at Jack Cassidy and Yorma Kkonen, who were in, what was the band? It was obviously also formerly of a Jefferson airplane, but they were in another band. Which probably helped them secure some of these songs because I'm like, this movie's budget is 80%. It's a lot. There's a lot of Elton John Razorface is the Elton John movie that is most prominently in this. obviously you mentioned Moonlight Mile

Van Morrison's Sweet Thing is at the end of this movie As I said I have a soft spot for many Van Morrison songs That one especially

It really puts me in A mood And a mental place On the tracks Right There is Sly in the family Stone is used

To sort of comedic effect At the beginning When they get in the car To go to the cemetery And they turn on the car And it's blasting I want to take you higher which is a very funny.

Also, um, I hear you knocking the, uh, which I always think of as an iconic, uh, raven lip sync for your life song from season two. Rest in peace.

Uh, Monique Summers Madison. Yes. Uh, yeah, that's, that's who she beat in that lip sync. It was right. Mystique Summers Madison.

Apologies. Yes. Um, yeah, Raven killed that one though. I thought she was very good. Anyway, yeah,

I did not. Also, uh, funny use of I thought rock and roll part two by the disgraced Gary Glitter but when Alan Pompeo was sort of

shimmying to that behind the bar Anyway just don't think you get to use that song anymore Like it is just who you think would All of sports has made that Well you can't use that in a movie Yeah, that's fair That's fair Anyway this movie very much made me think of sitting

At the bar in my dad's garage and it's a lot of, you know, my dad has a bar in the garage. My dad and I built a bar in our garage in preparation. Where is my invite? What is wrong with you? When you come to Buffalo. I'm going to hang out at your dad's bar. When you come to Buffalo, we'll definitely do that.

Yeah, my dad and I, it's not much of a, it's not like this big elaborate thing, but it's like, it's a bar. Yeah, but it sounds cool. We built it in preparation for my high school graduation party. My grandfather sort of had this. iconic, like, that one is like full L-shaped sort of bar in his garage. And my grandparents' garage was like the place, the place where all the sort of, especially in the summer, all the gatherings were they had the bar, the fridge behind the bar, you know,

the wonderful little bar stools and then some like tables elsewhere in the, in the garage. All the walls were sort of festooned with photographs and like family kind of Chochies and memorabilia, which is another thing that my dad's done in his garage, is, You know, everything, there's a lot of sort of, you know, ball caps and penance and photos and little things in my dad's garage. So, yeah, it always, this soundtrack very, very much felt like, oh, this is a hanging out in my dad's garage, kind of a soundtrack. So obviously, it put me in a very, very good.

Well, now I am an asshole. Why? No. Because I am shitting on it. You are not required. No, absolutely not. No, I understand it is a very needle-droppy kind of a movie, and I criticize those things as often as anybody else. But for this, for me, it definitely worked.

Anyway, what other little last-second thoughts? Oh, I love how both Sarandon and Dustin Hoffman's characters refer to Diana as the girl. That, to me, feels very—that's maybe another sort of like screenwriting. trick, but for me, it really helped it feel very lived in, very much just like that was sort of a quirk in their family that they call her the girl. And I think whenever especially Sarandon sort of gets to talking about her, it feels very intimate and emotional when they get to those scenes. Yeah, I also really love that scene. I think the two Jake Dillon Hall, Susan Sarandon scenes are the highlights of this movie.

The one where they're in the living room and then the other one where she's sort of drunk and in his bedroom after she found out that he had been on this date and also sort of then surmised that he and Diana had broken up before she died. She is really wonderful in that. She's really wonderful. She's definitely, I think, I'm glad we at least both agree on her as the highlight of this movie because I do love her. I also love the scene where she screams at Dustin Holland.

Hoffman that he's building a tomb in the middle of... Fuck off! You're a tomb in the middle of your house. Oh, perfect. Glad we got one reference to the lovely bones in before we hit the IMDB game. Chris, do you want to explain to our listeners what the IMDB game is? Of course. Every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with an actor or actress

to try to guess the top four titles that IMDB says they're most known for. If any of those titles are television, voiceover performances, or non-acting credits will mention that up front after two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles to release years as a clue. If that's not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints in Van Morrison track. Exactly. Would you like to give or guess first? How about you make that call? All right. What's put it on you?

Well, I'm going to give first, but then I'm going to shoot it back to you to make a choice. Would you like the easy one or the hard one? No, no. No, I'm taking the... I normally want to take the hard route, but I have earned some points after you're giving me both Swozy Kurtz and Cila Ward in a single episode.

All right, I'll give you the easy one. All right, so we talked about Brad Silberlings. We didn't really talk a ton about his post-Munlight Mile films. He follows that up two years later with a series of unfortunate events, which doesn't do as well, I think, as people had wanted it to. You know why he partly got that job? Why?

Which we didn't talk about. He almost got the Harry Potter gig instead of Chris Columbus. Oh, I don't think I knew that. Yeah. That's really interesting. Post City of Angels because that was a Warner Brothers movie. I see. Harry Potter is obviously set up at Warner Brothers.

He almost directed the first Harry Potter. Yeah, I think they wanted a series of unfortunate events to be a franchise, and it did not succeed enough, although it did get an Oscar for makeup. So I always be, me being an Oscar nerd, I'm just like, what? A series of unfortunate events was definitely a success. It won an Oscar, and people are just like, no, people. They wanted that to be a series. But then he in 2009 directed the Will Ferrell Land of the Lost that was absolutely despised and a huge bomb, and that sort of put him in director jail. he's only made one movie since then, a movie in 2017 called No Ordinary, or An Ordinary Man with Ben Kinsey.

Which I had never heard of. Nor had I. But anyway, the movie he made in between a series of unfortunate events and Land of the Lost is a small little movie called 10 items or less that I had never heard of either. It's a short little 82 minute. Is that the Jesse Eisenberg movie? No. I think Jesse Eisenberg had a movie called Fuller. 30 minutes or less, right?

Because isn't he playing like a delivery guy? Sure. The or less cinematic universe. Right, the or less cinematic universe. This movie starred Pazvega and Jonah Hill and some other people, but it's Star, the person who I'm going to quiz you on for IMDB game

purposes, is Mr. Morgan Freeman. Aha. Okay. Morgan Freeman. Shawshank. uh no strike one oh fuck constantly the number one movie on iMdb is not on his known for isn't that isn't that the i mdb game what you call it algorithm at work yeah

uh okay i'm just gonna say his oscar win a million dollar baby correct million dollar baby and these movies show up for everyone else i don't know why it wouldn't show up up for him, because he is rad in these movies. I'm going to say the dark night. Oh, no. But you're like, that is a, that's sound reasoning

for you there. I think he's maybe a little bit too far down. I mean, I guess he's in bigger movies than a lot of those people, but he's very, very far down that cast list, but yes. Okay, so that's two strikes. You will get the years. Your years are 1989, 1999, 1995, and

2009. 89 is driving with Daisy, gross. Correct. 95 has to be 7. 95 is 7. Awesome. Yes. He's great in 7.

He's phenomenal. He's most underrated performance, and I don't even think that people don't say that he's good in that movie. It's just he's that good. I feel like that was one of the ones where, like, Ebert at their, like, if we picked the Oscars special, I think he, like, went to bat for Freeman and 7. If I'm not mistaken, maybe I am. But I feel like there was a. there was a string of what about Morgan Freeman for seven that year, like even though it was never going to happen with Oscar voters, it should have.

Right. Brad Pitt also rules in that movie, though. That's the thing is the two of them together are like really, really fantastic. Put them in another damn movie together. Yeah. What was my other year? 09. 09.

Okay. So that's too late for Bruce Almighty, which like I had in my back pocket that I'm like, he is definitely known for being God. Yes. is that red it's not is that the same year as red you might be you might be right on the year but it's not uh red is 20 it's around that time red is the year after okay see oh nine oh you're gonna shit oh what you're gonna be you're gonna flip out when you realize what it is it is it that other bad action movie that he's in want to No. Oscar nominee, want. Wanted was 08, I'm pretty sure.

Wanted a movie where Angelina Jolie trains James McAvoy to throw cars at other cars. The bucket list. No, that was, oh, 7? Oh, my God, I can't get any fucking years right. I, like, I'm placing myself in the right moment in time, though. Right. I picked the easy one, and I'm having embarrassing struggles. But, like, Morgan Freeman is not easy, because Morgan Freeman is in a lot of movies, popular movies, and he's, like, the star.

This is definitely the hardest one of the four, but it is almost, for me, it's easy for its hardness, if that makes sense. Like, to me, this movie sticks out as, like, don't forget this one. It's always fucking this one. So it's not, it's a movie that people don't remember? Well, they. Oh, my God. my God, this is not okay. We need to do

something to prevent this. This is Invictus, isn't it? You are the captain of your soul for forgetting that one, right? You guys, we can't. No. Invictus is always the movie when I try and think of like, who are the best actor nominees in 09? And I always

get four. And then finally I'm just like remember the hardest one to get is Invictus because it doesn't exist. So now I weirdly like remember it more because I'm always just like my brain is over correcting. People who love Clint Eastwood movies, who, like, I constantly see raving about these bad Clint Eastwood movies, like their masterpieces, those people don't even remember Invictus.

Agreed. Nobody does. And yet, it was two-time Oscar nominee for acting for both Freeman and Matta. Oh. Yeah. Did it get any other nominations? I think it might have been just those two. Just those two. Which, that's always so dubious to me that a movie gets no other nominations but acting. Because sometimes that's warranted. But usually when that happens, it's just that the Oscars are going on actor reputation. Right.

Weird. All right. Oh, my God. Wasn't Matt Damon's Oscar clip him just like staring out a window? It's very possible. What the fuck? Yeah. All right.

All right. I'm not happy about Morgan Freeman's known for guys. We need to do better by him. Even put Last Vegas in there. Anyway, for you, Joe, I think I also went the easy route, though. Maybe I could be wrong. I went for also another Brad Silberling star, also an O2 acting nominee, who I have said in the past and I will stand by it. I would have voted for him currently as of this episode airing.

Pig is in motion theaters. He is incredible, and it is his best performance in a very long time. the movie I am somewhat mixedish on, but he is amazing and worth seeing the movie for. We're obviously talking about Nicholas Cage. Nicholas Cage. All right. I mean, yes, easy in that, like, I can think of a lot of Nicholas Cage performances. I famously won a trivia tiebreak around at Videology by, in a name as many Nicholas Cage performances as you can, face off with the other team.

My greatest moment at Videology. You're saying you took your face off? I took my face off. All right. Nicholas Cage. All right. See, this is the thing, though, is there's a ton of performances, but like which ones float to the top is the question. All right.

I'm going to, oh, God, it's like where you even begin. All right. I'm going to say The Rock. The Rock. Okay. I've never seen The Rock's not bad. There's some stuff in the rock that I really hate. There's an unfortunate, although unsurprising, if you think of Michael Bay, a strain of homophobia in that film that I hate.

I mean, Michael Bay is the reason I have not seen the wrong. Connery, though, is very fun. And I love, you know, Connery getting to ham it up. I was watching recently the trailer for The Hunt for Red October because that movie had been, it was on TV, but it was like at one in the morning. And I'm like, either I can commit myself to staying up till three in the morning to watch The Hunt for Red October. or I can go to bed right now. And I chose bed. But, like, the next day I was just like, you made the right choice.

I did, but I watched the Hunt for Red October the next day. And the fact that he's just, like, his hybrid Scottish-Russian accent in that movie, a lot of the times it's just fully Scottish and just, like, not even pretending to be Russian. It's very funny. Anyway. We talked about this during our Finding Forrester episode, but, like, the stretch in the 90s that, like, Sean Connery was a major movie star. Yeah, I know.

That's, like, we don't talk enough about that, but also it rules. Yes. Oh, the, like, the entrapment era, the, there, yeah, he was. I am a first night apologist. Fantastic. All right. All right, back to Nicholas Cage, though. I'm going to guess National Treasure.

No. Damn. We've kind of forgotten. I mean, like, weirdos like us have not forgotten about those movies because we have fun with them. But, like, the culture has kind of forgotten about those movies and how much money it made. But they were, yeah, I was going to say, they were incredibly successful movies, especially of that first one. All right. I'm resisting picking, leaving Las Vegas, because I think for somebody with as many credits and successful movies as his as he has, I'm not sure a relatively little scene movie is definitely going to be.

going to show up on his, but, like, putting a pin in it. I'm going to guess Moonstruck? No, no Moonstruck. Okay. Moonstruck, for whatever reason, we don't talk about Nicholas Cage in that movie, but he is... I feel like we do more now than we used to. I think the recent... Yeah, well, because Moonstruck has become, like...

The Moonstruck Assas has recognized Nicholas Cage pretty well, I feel like. All right. All right, so your three years are 1995, 1995, 1997, and... 2007. Every time I guess wrong for this, every time I think I know the balance of are they going to include the Oscar winner or not. Oscar nominations are very important in this game. They are, but sometimes they're not. And all right, so leaving Las Vegas is the 95. Yes. 97. Is that what you said? 97 in 2007. All right. 97, Nicholas Cage. So the year before City of Angels, the year after the Rock. Conair No Really? Okay

Face off Faceoff I was like I was surprised you made the faceoff joke I basically gave it to you I was gonna say But the fact that you made that joke

Made me less likely to guess it Because I was like Chris isn't gonna just give me the answer For comedy sake Faceoff I remember like having like One of the like three college parties I went to Face Off was on in the background And like a bunch of like the dudes

Like one of the few times in my life I've ever had like a male camaraderie. We just all like kind of stopped what we were doing and watched face off. And I like talked about it being like one of the movies my dad took me to see like in that era. And then a bunch of people also realized they saw that movie in a theater with their dad when they were too young. And we all had a nice moment together. That was a movie that was on TV recently and I watched. And I remembered that the end of that movie, the score at the end of that movie, which feels very kind of like cheesy, triumphant and sort of out of place with what this movie is, I was like, where do I know this piece of music from? And what it was was from one of

those HBO year-ender montages that they would do. And it was specifically, I remember when they were like coming up in 2003. And it was like, it was, because I think it was one of those like best of 2002 or best of 2003 or whatever. And it's like coming up this year. And I remember the big flourish in the face-off score is, like, very, very prominent in this video. And once again, I call upon somebody who with access to the HBO promotional vaults to release all of those year-end super cuts onto YouTube. What are they doing for you locked in a vault? Absolutely nothing. Like, you know whose rules and face-off? Joan Allen. Joan Allen. Joan Allen rules. Yeah, she does. I was like, it's either going to be Joan Allen or Dominique Swain, and he's probably not going to say

Dominique's Mayne. It's Margaret Chow. She isn't that, isn't she? All right, one more. Dominique Swain, what a time. 2007. It's a movie that I always cite for a very specific reason. Oh, God. Oh, seven, Nick Cage.

A movie that I cite in my relationship to, we'll say, an actress. God, it's so rare for. few to talk about actresses. Okay. Fuck. Action. Yes, an action movie. Not Wicker Man.

Wicker Man was 06. Not the bees. Not the bees. And not the weird Port of Call, New Orleans that he did. That was, I think, a couple years after that. He actually has a lot of movies in 07.

And it's not Eraser Baby Eraser. because that's not him. He's not in a race. No, I know, but I'm thinking of movies that you reference a lot in relation to a certain actress. I loved you an eraser. Eraser, baby, eraser.

Rest in peace, Chee-Gy DeVane. I know. God, she was so fantastic. All right. Action movie, is it like notoriously bad? Is it when... Oh, God, it's next, isn't it?

It is next. Why do I always cite next? Because of Julianne Moore. Why is Julianne Moore in that movie? It's the last movie that I decided I have to... to see every Julia in one movie. I was like, I can't do this. Of all of the Nicholas Cage movies, it's unconscionable that Next is one of his known for. The other 2007 movies

that he is credited with, he has a cameo and grind house. Understandable, well, that is not there. But the other ones are Ghost Rider and National Treasure 2. And Next is the one that shows up from that year. There are so many Nicholas Cage movies that deserve placement over Next. It's and saying, knowing is much more, is much better than next and should be on his list instead. Obviously, either one of the first two national treasures. God, so many matchstick men should be there. Adaptation should be there. Moonstruct should be there.

All of the ones that I guess. We should we do a Nicholas Cage soon. Have we done a Nicholas Cage? I mean, his career doesn't offer a whole ton of options because he's either nominated or he's in a movie that, like, is not an option. You know what I mean? It's just like it does not have those ambitions. He has a few.

Match Tickman, I guess, is one that we could do. I mean, not that we want to do World Trade Center, but World Trade Center as well. We could. Also, like, to do another silver link so quickly, but, like, City of Angels is, like, within our rubric. We don't want the listeners to see us because we don't think that they would understand.

I would spend that entire movie talking about that soundtrack, and rightfully so. And also Andre Brower's line readings, which are like all very, very dramatic in very, very fantastic ways. Oh, wait, we did do Bringing Out the Dead. We've done Bringing Out the Dead. Yes, we did.

That was a good episode. All right. I think we've closed the book. We've completed running the Moonlight Mile at long last. Yes. We are crossing the finish line of the moonline. We are crossing the finish line. Thank you for sticking with us, listeners.

That is our episode. If you would like more, this had Oscar Buzz. You can check out the Tumblr. at this had oscarbuzz.tumbler.com. You should also follow our Twitter account at had underscore Oscar underscore buzz. Christopher, first of all, happy recent birthday,

I want to say on the podcast. As of this recording, yes. I hope all of our listeners wish you a very happy birthday once they realize. Where can they find you and your stuff? You can find me on Twitter and letterboxed at Chris V-File.

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