This Had Oscar Buzz - 156 – A Most Violent Year (with Kevin O’Keeffe)

Episode Date: August 2, 2021

“This was very disrespectful.” Once again, Kevin O’Keeffe joins us to talk about the one and only Jessica Chastain for A Most Violent Year. Starring an on-the-rise Oscar Isaac as an emerging entrepreneur in the 1980s trying to avoid crime in dirty business, the film chased Oscar after writer/director J.C. Chandor’s Original Screenplay nomination for his … Continue reading "156 – A Most Violent Year (with Kevin O’Keeffe)"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hacks. I'm from Canada. I'm from Canada water. He's a good man. Don't mistake his honesty for weakness.

He deserves respect. This was very disrespectful. I run a fair and clean business, and I will fight to my last breath to prove that. These are dangerous times we have to adapt. It's not like when we was driving. Take out. There were more murders and rapes in this city last year.

than they've ever been. So if you've come to tell me that we have an urgent security issue here, trust me, I'm aware. This can't continue. You're up when we're here. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast with a tomb in the middle of our house filled with nothing but Van Morrison albums. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations. But for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Chris.

file, and I'm here, as always, with a special guest appearance by one-time Best Actress nominee, Joe Reed. Hello. I watch this movie, and I'm sad that there are not more, that the volume of Oscar nominations for all cast members involved are not just, like, so, so much more. I know. It really bums me out. There's three among the cast members, or sorry, four. Jessica Chastain has two, Albert Brooks has one, Catalina. Sandino Moreno has one.

And, like, that's it. And, like, there should be, like, 10. I don't know. There should be plenty for Oscar Isaac. I would also say, I don't think it's ever going to happen. But, like, Alessandro Navola is amazing. Yes. He's a great actor and, like, it's nothing.

Like, the one that I could think of. And I think he got either an indie spirit or just the nomination for it is Laurel Canyon. We keep talking about Laurel Canyon on Mike. We do. We, like, we're hovering around it. He sings, he's fucking hot, he has a lot of sex with Francis McDormand. No, he doesn't, not with Francis McDormand. Fras McDormand is his mother in that movie.

Oh, never mind. He does not have sex with Frances McIntyre. He has sex with Kate Beckinsale, which is, you know, which is great too. Doesn't she still flash her boobs at him, though? There's like, someone else. There's definitely like an Oedipal back current to that movie, but like, it doesn't ever become. Well, when your mom's Francis McDormand. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can't really help it. Speaking of Edipal, Francis McDormand, I don't know, I want to transatlant. I don't know. I want to transfer this to our guests so we don't keep him in the dark too long. But I don't know how to make that work. I can't. I'm sorry. I love that that was your transition point. I appreciate that. I just pulled the rip cord. I like, I jumped out of the plane and I was like, I don't want to wait too long. And so I just pulled the rip cord. And very black, very black widow of you to do. Yeah. Listeners, guys, very exciting. We are back to having guests and we have a return guest.

Kevin O'Keefe is back. Yay. Hello, hello. Thank you guys for having me. It's been almost two years since I was last. I feel like the last time I was on, this was like still, y'all were still like in the early stages of it. And now it's become this amazing, wonderful thing over the last two years. So I'm glad to be back. Two years since you've been with us. What are you one of the four season 11 All-Stars on Drag Race All-Star 6?

What's going on? Which at time of recording, we at least have two left. Who knows? I was going to say, who knows how many. will be left by the time you're listening to this. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, there's a game within a game. There's still so many queens left. Listen, by the time that this episode airs, it's still going to be

plenty of season left in All-Stars. Listen, that is fair, but also, I appreciate that we're getting eliminations every week. We're, you know, we're not wasting time. I'm a big fan of this season. I'm enjoying it a lot. I am too. Chris, should we start referring to the IMDB game as the game within a game? No, our game within a game is when we have like a six timers club yeah right yes parental advisory a phone

phone a film that's the game within a game right right right no the game within a game was when i let you do just like seal award as a bonus this uh i mbb game a few weeks ago you um i will never forgive you um no we definitely need like a last chance kitchen of the set oscar buzz in some type of way. We'll figure that. That's conceivably what the twist is going to be. That's like it's inevitable that it'll eventually be it, but whatever. Okay, so no, if we're talking about Drag Race for just a minute, do absolutely love this

season, love what has been, like, seemingly on paper unpredictability of, like, who could come ahead. Yes. However, I think it is one of the most egregious seasons for, like, flat out rigory. Like, yeah, yeah. Okay, I'm going to, I don't think it's. that. I don't think it's rigory so much as inconsistency

baked into what some of these challenges are. I think some of these challenges, they just do not have a set of like, what are we judging on? What are we judging on when they, like, are not writing these lyrics to a rusical or, you know, singing the songs? Like, what do you want them to do? I don't play it. Some means having more choreography than much more than that. But I think, but I think, but I think that you're both kind of right. I think the inconsistency is to them a feature, not a bug. I think they like having as broad of criteria as they possibly can so that they can sort of pick what

makes most sense for the storyline. Was Jan better at being Lady Gaga than Trinity K. Bonnet? Was it being Beyonce? Absolutely not in no universe. But does Jan winning for the Rusical when she lost the Ruskell so iconically in season 12 make the most sense for the story. Yes. So I would hesitate to call it full out rigory. I agree. But I do think there is just a broad level of interpretation being allowed in terms of results right now. And I think some degree of predetermination has always existed in all-star seasons. So like I've never like and if like my second favorite of the week is going to win instead of my first favorite of the week, like I'm fine with that. Much as with the Oscars. It's just like, I don't need you to have my exact number one, but just like just be in the

ballpark. Just make an effort to be in the ballpark. That's fine. I think it's also just exacerbated because, A, it has felt like a somewhat unpredictable, like, season cast-wise, but it's also playing out in a really rewarding way with what's happening with Raja O'Hara right now. Yes. Versus, like, what's happening with everyone else, which feels very forced and, like, unorganically achieved to me a little bit. Like, I don't understand what, like, who Akiria Davenport is going to have to fuck to be justly judged for a single week. She's had bad weeks, though.

She's, she's... That Prince was not bad. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. Yeah. I thought it was, like, low middle. Yeah, I did. And yet, that runway should be absolutely enough to null and void anybody for being able. But this is part of my thing, though.

The degree to which runway is important varies wildly from week to week. Like, it's crazy. To the convenience of the judging, to me, at least. Like, if they will happily overlook a great look that you have if it means it fits their story. Well, we'll argue about this at another time. We have plenty of drag queenie shit to talk about, which with Jessica is... We are here to talk about someone I think we can all agree would make an iconic guest judge and who would be very earnest. Yes.

and very into it, is Jessica Chastain. And you know that Rue is a fan of Tammy Faye Baker. So, like, clearly... I mean, she's about to be on Rue's radar. Yeah, I was going to say we've talked about this because I think that the documentary that the movie is based on is... Yes.

...wold Wonder, which was narrated by Rue. So, like, clearly, there's a universe happening here where Jessica Chastain comes on the show. For a while, you could only get access to the movie if you subscribe to Wow Presents Plus. Or if you rented it through their account on iTunes. Well, that sounds about right. That's me trying to watch any drag race season that's not American.

Yeah. But yeah, no, I'm excited to be back to talk once more about Jessica, Jessica. I was going to say. You are a leading chest-stand. Because the last time I was on, I was talking about the new teletax and Ms. Sloan. And now here we are talking about, I guess, I can say we're talking about the most violent year. I was very, very happy that you were able to do another

Chastain movie force, and that it was this one specifically. Obviously, there are many foundational texts to our friendship, Kevin, but one of them is the mimics making a circle with your finger and then saying this was very disrespectful. I feel like...

You mean the single greatest line reading of Jessica Kathleen's career? I forgot that it leads the trailer for this movie. Like, it doesn't even show them at the end of the trailer. It's like right up front. It's just like we're putting our best foot forward. Yeah, our best nail forward, so to speak. Right, exactly.

Yeah, this is very finger-nail acting. She has the full Adele nail. That style, that, like, cut, what do you call nails? Like a cut, a shape, whatever it was, was having a real moment at the time of this movie in 2014, because Adel had those nails. Yeah, the sharp nail evolution was really, really happening then. Yeah. I referred to somebody recently. as doing excellent fingernail acting,

and now I can't remember, and it's going to bother me. You guys talk about this. I'm going to see if I can scrounge up. The fingernail acting. Yeah. I feel like I really appreciate good fingernail acting. Yeah, no, it's an underrated art,

and I also think it's very drag when we talk about it. Like, it's very, it's very this sort of, like, touch that tells you a lot more. I remember when I interviewed Anne Hathaway for Colossil, it was right before Oceans 8 had come out. and it was like while gay Twitter was like a buzz with everything about Ocean's 8 at all times and I remember she specifically when I said what can we look forward to she specifically said look at the nails and I was like huh that's something I think thought about but clearly something that she cared about a lot in her performance and it does feel very like yeah you know

just a little bit more than what you would think yeah it was I don't remember her nails in the movie it would track that she would have those like I keep calling them Adele nails, but, like, Adele has, like, them the most iconically. I think what's funny is, this is a period piece in 1981, and she still has these nails that were popular in 2014. Listen, we're holding on to it. We're holding onto a signature look, and honestly, I'm here for it. Okay, if we're talking specifically about that line reading, that scene where she's with David a yellow-o, it's iconic nail acting, but it's also iconic coat acting. You have to say, she wears that coat. Like, I think no one has worn a coat on screen in the past 10 years, except maybe

Jennifer Lopez and Hustlers with that fur coat. I was going to say, if we're doing a Hall of Fame of Coat acting, those two both have to be in there, for sure. Why didn't Jessica tell David come into my coat and just sort of. Because he didn't deserve it, Kevin, because he was being disrespectful. He was being very disrespectful. David of Yellow O's good in this movie, but I love. the way that his accent really, really comes and goes in terms of severity and intensity.

And I think to the point where, like, I do feel almost, I feel like that might have been direction on J.C. Chandor's part, where, like, towards the end of the movie, when he's really sort of dropping this facade of being very upstanding and very sort of, like, ideologically pure, now all of a sudden he's going to sound like really more like Brooklyn or Queens or wherever the hell that accent in the five boroughs. supposed to exist. But, yeah, this is, I will say this is a movie that I feel like the first time I watched it, I felt a little bit let down by it or a little bit left out in the cold by it. And watching it again this time, I was like, oh, I really, I think I really respect what it's doing a lot more than in a way that, like, I didn't quite grasp the first time around. I think this is a movie that pulls a lot of my sort of frustration strings, where it's just like, I, I liked The Sopranos, too, you guys, but, like, I can't do another movie with, like, a hair trigger, a criminal who wants to, sort of, like, striving for goodness or

whatever, but ultimately gets mired into, you know, the violent world of whatever, whatever. But Watching the movie this time, I was just like, it's so much less violent than, A, than its title suggests, and B, that, like, it's very, it's very intentionally, it doesn't become this sort of, like, organized crime, bloodbath that you think it's moving towards. And I think that's intentional, and I think that makes a big difference. Yeah, I mean, I think a big, a big part of what makes it work for me is that actually the most violent moment is very beautiful in a lot of ways. I'll talk a lot about Bradford Young's cinematography, which I think is gorgeous in this movie. He should have gotten a lot of Oscar nomination for a rival, and this is one of them. But that final shot of the blood on the wall and the bullet hole with the oil leak out of it, I just see that the fact that that's really the most violent moment of the film,

obviously there's a couple scenes of hijacking, that sort of thing. But like that is the most graphic moment. And it's very artful and it's very purposeful. I will say it's interesting to hear you say this, Joe, because I loved this movie when it first came out. It was on, I think it was in my top three that year. Like I was, me and Robert Kessler were sort of the, our friend Robert Kessler. Yes. We're sort of the two waving our flags.

And I think my feelings on it on rewatch have settled more into what you have described as respect. I think that I think that there's parts of it that just don't really. don't really pull me in the way they did the first time seeing it on a big screen and sort of not knowing what was happening. Now I'm sort of like, okay, I absolutely get what this is doing and I have respect for it. I'm not sure I'm quite as enthusiastic about it as I was back in 2014. I kind of feel like I enjoyed it then, but like I'm kind of like on a level playing field with it because like there's stretches of it where I watch it. I'm like, we were really out of our minds to not respect this. movie on a higher level than we did and pay it more attention than we did, even just outside

of Jessica Chastain, outside of Oscar Isaac. But then there's also stretches of it where I'm like, nothing's really happening here. This is a little slow. Even individual scenes seem to take a long time. And I think J.C. Chandor is building up a certain tension that is atypical to what this type of movie is. And I think also this movie, like you spoke about the violence of it, Kevin, like it's atypically less violent than you expect, not even just with the title, but what the movie is

and what it's about. But, like, I don't know. There's parts of it where I'm like, let's speed this so long. And most of the, like, final half hour of the movie where Oscar Isaac's doing this whole chase, like, some of them are beautiful shots and there's, like, no dialogue, and something is actually happening. But there's a lot of room for your mind to kind of wander in this movie. I like that this movie comes the very next year after All Is Lost, the movie that J.C. Chandor had directed. And so I can imagine, God, I can imagine Jaycey Chandor... This is his answer to that question. Well, honestly, yes. I did actually think of, like, some of the themes of this movie about just the fact that he's, like, selling heating oil and, like, you know, nothing about this

industry can ever be clean yet to get it. Whatever. Anyway, my point being, um, I could see him making this movie and being like, look, like, compared to my last movie, this shit is just like moving like a Mack truck. You know what I mean? Like, this thing is just, like, blazing around. Because, and I mean, I like, all is lost. But all is lost is one man, you know, floating in a sea of hopelessness. And it's just like, oh, okay. Well, like, there's multiple characters in this movie. So, like, we're already, you know, we're zipping around. A lot of the character actors in this movie, too. It's, it's sort of an interesting thing, right? Because this has the character actors or the bigger cast of something like margin call, which I will admit

is one of, I think, five films that I've seen in my life that made me fall asleep in the theater that was watching it. You want to talk about a movie where nothing happens. It is margin call. It is long conversations about truly just, I know that people don't love Big Short, but like, Big Short is how you have to do a movie about complex financial. topics because it's so dull if you just have people quietly talk

about it for two hours, as Jason Chandor did in Margin Call. So I appreciate that this at least goes a little bit more Even with Demi Moore, Margin Call, I was just like, come on, come on Margin Call. But like, if we're going to give him a screenplay nomination, it's not going to be

the one that he actually got it for. We're going to give it to him for this. Yes, agreed. Yeah. I actually think this is marvelously written. I have I'm like you Chris I think there's a few too many conversation scenes where it's just sort of like

can you give me money I would like my money this is why I deserve my money I'm like okay he does go to like no fewer than seven people asking for like $100,000 it just goes on and on there's so many

I literally when I was get into my 60 second block description in a second when I was writing it up I was like there's nothing that happens for a good stretch he's just sort of talking with folks he's just like hey you got a few dollars lying around like it's go go on he's sending his venmo link out to people for a good 45 minutes good listen just go on repal's drag race and go you know lip sync to phone by lizzo and win 30k it'll help you yeah right that would be a lot

more economic use of your time i like lip sync to lizzo absolutely 30 000 30 000 for five minutes is exactly the kind of rate that he needs to be working at to get this million and half dollars. Like, that's the pace that you got to be going at, my friend. I was reading the Wikipedia summary for this plot. And so much of the Wikipedia summary is literally just like an accounting of like, so he needs $1.5 million. Yes. 500,000 of it is from this. And then 200,000 of it is from this. And I'm just like, all right, math checks out. Like, okay. Like, you know, work, I guess. Like, cool. Yeah, no, it truly, it really is an accounting movie above all else that occasionally has

some violence with it. Well, and who is the account? in this movie, Jessica Chastain. So, truly smoking with a glass of wine on a number machine. Whatever we used in 19881 for numbers, she was on it, man. She was there. I'm telling you, I was watching that scene like, fuck, I got to get out of H&R Block. I need her. Well, apparently not as we find out.

Oh, well, yes. Well, then I guess if we're going to get a plotty, especially with some of the reveals about Jessica Chastain's character. We can move on to the 60-second plot description. Kevin, since you are our guest, it is your task today. Okay, all right. Joe and I get off the hook for this one. We don't have to explain all of the people he goes to meet to get some money,

including, like, traditional Hasidic, like, businesses. Yeah, there's a lot. Interesting. There's a lot going on. There's a whole lot of the buries. in this movie, all walks of life in the boroughs. Anyway, we're talking about J.C. Chandor's Most Violent Year starring Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain, David O'Yellow O, Albert Brooks,

Alessandro Novolta, Elias Gable, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Christopher Abbott shows up for a scene to get beat up, and apparently Elizabeth Marvel's in there somewhere. Yeah, she's the wife of the guy who tricks. the cute twink salesman into getting beat up in the backyard. Oh, yeah. Love that for her. Twinks never trust Elizabeth Marvel.

Anyway, the movie premiered at AFI Fest, which we've talked about before, and then Open Limited on the very smart strategic date of New Year's Eve 2014. All righty, so Kevin,

If you are ready, we can start the timer. Oh, my God. Okay, yeah. Just tell me one. All right. Your 60-second plot description for a Most Violent Year starts now. Abel Morales is a heating oil company head with a truck hijacking problem. His trucks full of oil are getting stolen.

But despite his criminal family wife and his wishes, and amid the ultra-violent scene of 1981 New York, a most violent year, Abel makes like Whitecloth John and says, no fighting. He's committed to doing business as cleanly as he can. Despite an assistant district attorney, played by David O'Yolowo, breathing down his neck to try and find fraudulent business practices. But things are looking up for a bell. If he can sort a deal for an oil terminal on the East River, he just actually has to find the money. Because the bank he was coming on, coming on, is out after his competitors tried to shake him down. With firearms, he armed his, one of his, one of his, the guy with the twink we were talking about accidentally gets in a gunfight, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, controversy comes. He has to find the money where he can't see. Tops with a bunch of different people about it. The final bit of money actually comes from his wife, Anna, who he finds out has been skimming money for the company from years. This is very disrespectful. But he winds up taking it to avoid engaging with the mafia. And they get the terminal.

And then the quaint kills himself. I lost it in the middle. Oh, I know that. I lost it in the middle when you were about to say Shakira, Shakira, all right? I just... I about lost my mind. Yeah, no, I forgot the twink killing yourself

at that very end, but you're not forwarded out. Famous quote from this movie, Shakira, which Albert Brooks says. I would pay a lot of money at a charity auction to have Albert Brooks say Shakira, Shakira in some context. Me too, absolutely. Albert Brooks's whole wig and makeup work in this film is really, really funny.

Like, that is commitment to a bit. I got really nervous because I forgot he was in this movie. And the last time we had Albert Brooks, he was talking about his balls. And I was like, oh, God, does he have something like that in this movie? Like, does he have testicular cancer in this movie? I thought that something like that was going to happen again. Yeah. Albert Brooks, this was an interesting sort of corner of because, of course, famously, he and Oscar Isaac also were in a drive together, although I don't know if they ever shared any scenes together. But Albert Brooks is like the sort of fearsome criminal ringleader there or whatever he's the guy at the top of the food chain

and I saw I remember I was starting this movie and I'm like is he that kind of a character and this too I totally forgot that he was the sort of a haggard lawyer and I kept waiting for him to like turn on Oscar Isaac I've fully seen this movie by the way like there's no reason why I should have been thinking that but I was just like is he going to turn out to be like disloyal or whatever because he's always he's a really interesting character in this actually because he always

seems to know the thing that Oscar Isaac should be doing but isn't and is trying to press that without kind of overplaying his hand and trying to sort of impress upon a bell like you should be doing this you should be you know

agreeing to what this teamster guy wants and yada yada and seems to have a really good sort of like institutional know-how about all of the things that abel won't do because he wants to keep this sort of vision of himself as like the one upstanding man in this industry guys this movie's about capitalism did you realize i didn't know it is okay so like thematically like this movie obviously is set in uh new york city's uh year with the most violent crimes that occurred that's how it gets the title um but like yes it is also kind of about and not kind of it is about like the impossibility of honest capitalism right right yes and like it's interesting and like

we don't have to vola go into this but like i was really struck by watching it this time because i haven't seen it during any of the trump presidency but it does feel like almost a little quaint after the years of trauma we've gone through. Yeah. I also kind of have a thread on this movie where it feels like, because has Oh, J.C. Chandor has made a movie since this. The very, very

widely seen triple frontier. Netflix's all-time record holder for viewership. Famously, 42 million or whatever people saw it the same amount as Roma and every single movie Netflix has produced. You know, they hit that number.

but I was going to say like J.C. Chandor has like had a harder time getting his movies made and I do feel like there is some allegory here for the actual film industry too where it's like you can't you know make the movies

you want to make as you want to make them without getting your hands dirty or without you know bowing to somebody's process or like needing money from other people this feels like the sort of the third I don't want to say strike because it's like all of his movies were actually really well reviewed margin call was seen as a breakthrough for him and then all is lost was you know well reviewed and

almost you know probably came just short on a couple Oscar categories and that's not lost it did get one nomination what was it sound editing it was like sound mixing probably because it's water it's probably sound mixing but um uh and then this just missed on at least one like I pretty confident that Jessica Chastain was six place for supporting actress this year. Absolutely. Who was... It was Laura Dern.

It was Laura Dern for Wilde who sort of snuck in, right? Yeah, okay, yeah. Yes. And, like, I couldn't... Like, I didn't want Jessica Chastain to be snubbed, but, like, I couldn't be sad because Laura Dern's nomination was, like, my most favorite thing about that nominations. Right.

Yeah, I actually think Laura Dern was my number one in that category that year. But I was like, oh, but not at the cost of my girl. Right, right, exactly. But, wait, so what was I going to say? Oh, so, like, this movie's... you know, failure to do what, I think, I mean, I think it's pretty clear that, like, this is a movie with, like, significant Oscar ambitions. Like, this was the one that was really expected to contend, especially after it took the top prize at National Board of Review. And when it sort of fell apart, it felt like, well, you've run out of options now.

And now you're not going to be able to do anything except for five years later this action movie. and now he's directing one of those Spider-Man villains without Spider-Man movies in the tradition of Venom and Mobius. What is it called? Did you say it, Chris?

And I just talked over you? No, I was flabbergasted. Is it the one that Jared Leto is in? No, that's Mobeas. This is going to be called Craven the Hunter with Aaron Taylor. Johnson that is I don't believe

Isn't he just Aaron Johnson now? Oh, does he doubt Have they split up? I didn't realize. I thought they did. Am I wrong? Well, now I'm sad. No, I mean,

isn't a West Craven biopic? This is not a West Craven biopic. This is Craven with a cave. Oh, no, they're fine. They're still together. Never mind. God, don't scare me like that, Kevin. Jesus.

There were, there were, there were rumors, but then they took some photos much like Sarah, Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick. they weathered those rumors and stayed married for another maybe they'll stay married for another improbable decade whenever I hear the phrase there were rumors I always think of the Barbara Walter's

Ricky Martin interview which they want him to address these womos like you could simply address these womas let me tell you it does not age well no no as those things often don't but yeah no it's interesting that like all right we had

Triple Frontier a movie that I famously we'll never see and we have Craven now what happened to you like if you would tell me if you would tell me Jean-Marc valet would be doing

what he's doing in terms of like the sort of like ambitious very tone particular tone TV miniseries that I think are excellent don't give us a third season of big little lies please

but he strikes me as somebody who would be more likely after like Dallas Myers Club to have been like, all right, let me, you know, find, you know, let me go into the more masculine stuff, the more dude stuff, that sort of thing. And J.C. Shandor is somebody that I would have expected to do like, like almost, okay, this is going to be crazy. But like, if you told me J.C. Shandor was Sam as male, like, who was doing Mr. Robot, I would be like, yes, that makes complete and total sense to me. I think that is exactly what that career would have been. And the fact that he's pivoted into this space is very strange

to me. Yeah, there was that sort of generation where every year or so, we seem to get anointed the new sort of like white male wonderkind, where it's just like, you are the next, where it's like, it was J.C. Chandor the one year. And then it was a Kresha guy whose name I can never remember. Trey Edward Schultz. Trey Edward Schultz was one year. And this is the day that I keep, Jeff Nichols, I think, was that for a minute. And, The It Follows director whose name is also... David Robert Mitchell. Right, David Robert Mitchell.

And even like Taylor Sheridan now feels like he's in that space. And it's just like... Correct me if I'm wrong, though. J.C. Chandor is a little bit different than these guys, though, because he was older when he first started his career. Was he? I thought he was into his 40s when he, when Margin Call happened. Maybe I'm wrong.

47 now and Margin call was a decade ago. So he was late 30. So you're not too far off. I don't know. I guess I... He's just one of those people who always presents as 45. See, I always... J.C. Chandoer, in my mind, will always forever be, like, 31 years old.

I don't know. I don't know why I've always, like, placed him in that kind of space of just, like... I think maybe it's because his dad's an investment banker, and he made a movie about investment banking, so I've always sort of seen him as, like, a kid of someone. But... Yeah. I don't know. I think of him sort of in the same pot that I would put Damien Chiselle in, which

is like young very or youngish and very like beloved by the people do you all remember that when with flash won all those Oscars and literally every single person walked up on that stage to accept him was like I would throw myself at the feet of Damien Chazel I prostrate myself like it was I it wasn't to the same extent but the fact that Shandor became such a like everybody was really interested in what he was doing you know everybody was very much like okay like we really want to to see what happens next. And obviously with Shazelle, things went differently than they did with Shandor. But I do think of them as sort of in the same category. Maybe that goes to what you're saying,

Joe, about like the young white male director being anointed. Yeah. Because I think that happened with you brought up Jeff Nichols, and that was definitely true as well. And then we saw a midnight special and we said, maybe, you know. Well, I think, but part of it is just like, I feel like they, like this sort of group of directors, you're seeing now that, like, and, you know, I don't want to be the guy making the argument that just like, man, we used to give so much rope to these young white directors and now they're not getting it anymore. But like, but even these guys now are just like, it's like one failure and now it's like either take this like, you know, essentially like take this desk job at, you know, with a studio movie. or, like, your margin, no pun intended, for I want to make these sort of creative personal projects is literally like, well, you get one.

You get one to try, and if it doesn't work, if it works, you can make one more. And if that one doesn't work, you're done. And you know what I mean? It's just like it's, you're getting, you know, one more step on the chess board. And that goes to the- I don't ever see, I don't remember J.C. Chandor as being, like, Harold and, or anointed as a director. Like, as a screenwriter, sure, but, like...

But he was directing all his screenplays, though. That's the thing, is he was at least able to make these movies. Like, that's... But I see him a little bit more, like, on the same level as some of these people who got Marvel projects after certain movies. Which makes me wonder, I mean, certainly he could have been approached or, like, took a meeting with Marvel. Yeah.

Well, and now he is made... I mean, he's making a Sony superhero movie. now. So maybe that was always the direction that was going. And I think that's what you see with kind of everybody now. That seems to be the pipeline for literally everybody is you make, like, if you get any degree of success with an indie or a, you know, sort of smaller scale film, whether you're Chloe Jow or, you know, Ava DuVernay, although that didn't work out, or J.C. chandor or you know whoever the hell the the spider man director now who had uh john watts right and it's just like that's the pipeline now is is any kind of that's the end game seemingly for everybody

or it's television which i think is you know a thing that uh some people are also doing is if you're not going into that big blockbuster movie direction then you're going to make a tv show and the good The good news is now you can do both with Disney Plus offering so many opportunities. Right. You're talking about, like, what he would have done if he were to go the Marvel route. I'm just imagining him making, like, an even talkier version of Loki. Just everybody, like, sitting around in rooms talking about time variance. Well, and it's funny because I want to get into talking about Oscar Isaac.

And, like, Oscar Isaac has a Marvel series coming out in a year and whatever. And it's just like, it just feels. like if you are working in Hollywood, the mandate seems to be that like, whatever else you're doing, you need to get one of these. You need to get in on one of these properties or else you are not viable in this industry. And because there are so many of them, it seems like there's room for everybody at this point. You know what I mean? Just like you can like move like there's there's a show for you somewhere. There's a movie for you somewhere. And Oscar Isaac has found his Marvel property. It is depressing a little bit for J.C. Chandor, though, because it's like, his movies were only getting better. I think, at least from the progression to margin call, all is lost to this. It's like, the movies keep getting better. He's already an Oscar nominee. Granted, like, his movies never made any money.

But, like, there's a progression there that you would have liked to have seen rewarded with, like, the next best thing. That's not necessarily, you know, something as huge as a Marvel movie. Right. It's surprising that A24 didn't go for another movie of his. You know what I mean? Right. A.24 being what they were, what they became, you know, at the time. Like, it's surprising.

And that he kind of latched himself onto Triple Frontier, which he essentially inherited from Catherine Bigelow. Yeah, right, right. When that fell apart multiple times. But I think similar to what I was saying about J.C. Chandor with, like, a most violent year seeming to be like almost a last. draw. It wasn't quite that for Oscar Isaac, but it was right around there where like there was a window where he had a space to be, and I fully admit that like my metrics for success are different

than Hollywood's metrics for success, where my metrics for success are like, he should have gotten three Oscar nominations in the span of four years. And like that would have made him like the greatest actor of his generation for me. And Hollywood is just like, yeah, but does anybody pay to see his movies? And I'm just like, fuck off. Don't talk about that. But this little era for him, where he's in Drive in 2011 and sort of like makes a little bit of an impression. And also W.E. But we don't need to talk about W.E. He is very hot in W.E. He's incredible. Well, that's the other thing. It's just like everything that he's in prior to inside Lewin Davis is when people started actually knowing his name. Other

times before that it was just like, remember that really hot guy who was in X, Y, and Z movie. It's just like it was always Oscar Isaac. Yeah. But like 2013 inside Lewin Davis is so acclaimed and he's so good and I do feel like in a less insanely competitive best actor year, he

maybe gets a shot at a nomination and maybe not, whatever. But like he's definitely in the conversation there. That year is also her, right? That is her. Yeah, that was the year where Joaquin doesn't get nominated for her. Robert Redford doesn't get nominated for

all is lost. Tom Hanks doesn't get nominated. Like, you could have fielded a very plausible lineup of five actors. A very worthy lineup without the five. That's what I always say is I think that I would have slotted, I would have literally replaced everybody, but I still liked every performance that was nominated. It was a very, very competitive. But, I mean, yeah. He had that.

He had Ex Machina around that time as well. XMachina is right after. Which premiered somewhere in 2014, but it wasn't in theaters until 2015. Right. And around that time also is 2015, I believe, he's in that HBO miniseries show me a hero, the David Simon series. Which is so excellent. Oh, my God. I raise about this. I need to catch up to it because I feel like in the past like a year and a half, I have all of these people coming out of the fucking woodwork talking about how great the show is and nobody talked about it at the time. They did, Chris, but like it was so early in the Emmy year that by the time the Emmys came around, they had fully forgotten about it, which is such a. a shame because it really is fan just it's really fantastic in a way that I thought um the plot against America was uh yeah two years ago and also like just was in a very

poor section of the calendar to to be viable for emmy stuff but meanwhile during all of this too this era that we're talking about he gets cast in star wars that so we think at the time that he is going to catapult in the way that like those of us who saw his movies and like Hollywood not paying attention to them because the movies didn't make that much money, thought it was finally going to happen for him. Well, he goes through this stretch, and he doesn't get any kind of, like, he can't get arrested by an awards body, which is like, it's annoying. And then you're right, Star Wars happens at the end of 2015.

And then from that point on, his career really kind of fragments in some, I would say, unfortunate ways. Star Wars definitely makes him a household face and name, for sure. So many people saw those movies. But I think the various ways that that series ends up disappointing over the course of three films is really, really felt with him especially, with his character especially, where you're really expecting him to be like the Han Solo of it by the end. And by the end of that series, he's just sort of running in place. And nothing, you know, doesn't really, nothing becomes of his character, which is a big problem with that series of films in general. he's also in

he and Jessica Chastain also have this in common where they take X-Men movies and play big fancy villains that nobody likes I haven't seen them but I've heard enough to know

X-Men Apocalypse does nothing for him He's actively bad in X-Men Apocalypse it is a bad performance from us I think she's also actively bad in X-M-Oh absolutely oh my God that's the thing she's like Wicca Storm manager in that way in that movie.

Like, I don't need to see the movie. I saw the production stills. I got everything I'm going to get out of it. I want to hop in here real fast to say something about Star Wars and X-Men, which is to say, not only did Star Wars disappoint in terms of the story and all of that, it was also very notoriously messy. Like, the production of it all was messy. And I think that that actually does kind of matter. and I would say it's fallen harder on somebody like John Boyega, right?

Who wound up being very vocal about the issues that he saw within the movie and all of that. But like... His character got screwed over even more. But also to hear them like actively badmouthed Ryan Johnson afterward. And like that all became kind of a disaster. And I would say this goes for X-Men Apocalypse as well. It's like you're signing on to what at this point is a fairly mediocre version of this franchise. it's had much better days

directed by Brian Singer in this climate I would say that when we're talking about the sort of Marvel pipeline right at least Marvel has this sense of professionalism to it

where it feels like if you're getting involved with it yeah you know maybe it's a little bit of a you know I don't know how much Michelle Pfeiffer is actually thrilled that she's in Marvel movies you know but I think that there's still They take up all your time to go back and do reshoots again and again and again

But at least it has a veneer of prestige to it. I would say that... The batting average of those movies is much, much higher than the X-Men movies or the Star Wars movies. And they're not messy. It just doesn't feel like you're walt waiting into some big production mess. It does feel like that. But it's such a machine. It's so, like, micromanaged that, like, entirely, they'll throw hundreds of millions of dollars

to keep it from being messy. Even if it's boring, it's going to be... But that's money well spent as far as I'm concerned. You know what I mean? Like, I think, like, that's... If you have that money, you know, use it in that way, I think. Yeah. I mean, whatever.

We've had the- But my point of all of this, my point of all this is just to say that, like, I think that Oscar Isaac did not necessarily benefit from getting the sort of, like, big movie treatment because a lot of his big movies were messy. And I think that that also affects how his star rises. Well, and then interspersed with all these movies, though, is he makes a whole bunch of movies with sort of intriguing or notable

directors that absolutely we talk about movies that don't exist but truly, where like 2015 he makes a movie called Mojave with William Monaghan, the guy who wrote the departed script, doesn't exist. The promise in 2016, the movie with him and Christian Bale, the Terry

George movie, doesn't exist. Operation Finale, 2018, the Chris White's movie, doesn't exist. Not real. Triple frontier for having been like Netflix's most watch yada yada yada nobody fucking saw that and then along with that it's either small roles in movies that work like do good things for other people like he's you know he's in annihilation but he's in a very very limited part of that movie he's a supporting character

in at eternity's gate but like that works for willem defoe but not him and then he's in just these disasters like suburbiccon and life itself and it's just like like, I can see why he would jump at a Marvel series when he's just like, this is what's happened every time I've tried to like take on a movie ever since essentially X Machina. And, you know, I feel like I worry that we missed our shot to make it happen with Oscar Isaac, which is insane because he's still incredibly young. He's 42 years old. Right, right, right.

And like, this is the year that could potentially like put him back on track. for like the Lewin Davis type roles that we love him most for or you know just roles where he you know takes his shirt off again um because he has next month he's in the paul schrader card counter movie which i'm very very fascinated by okay but does that not have the potential to be like another one of these movies a mojave of the promise and operation finale like there's a chance there is the cast of that i don't i don't think it's going to completely fall away but like if the movie's good it could be

special and then of course obviously there is Dune but if you know the story of Dune at all and I don't want to like don't get used to him is all I'm going to say but it's a but it's a very impactful role even if it is a you know one that doesn't last

very long and at least he's doing it to Neve Anir Nove at least he's you know giving a Marvel series in contrast to Jessica Chastain who is in her flop Let's just be honest about it. Say that now. She's going to be an Oscar winner within a year.

Because, A, also, both of them have scenes from a marriage about to come to HBO, which, like, I know a lot of the snobs are, like, hissing at it because how dare you touch Ingmar Bergman, like, whatever. But it's reuniting the two of them. They went to school together. Their friends. They're going to produce something worthwhile. But also at the same time, she has.

my golden chalice in this season. I'm so excited. Which, I'm so excited. I'm so excited. I'm excited too. I think we need to be realistic about it. I refuse. I refuse,

Kevin, sure. There's plenty of time for me to be realistic after it opens. Right now, I'm going to indulge my fantasy. Fair. No, I think that's fair. No, it does feel like she was on this sort of very particular... We talked about this a little bit last time

where I was on the pod, but like, she was on this very particular... trajectory of like the Miss Sloan's the Molly's games I would even throw a most violent year into that as well yeah as sort of these like hashtag girl bosses you know whatever right right and then and I don't know what 355 you're talking about coming this January yeah no I just everything everything recently including her social media presence I don't know if you follow her on TikTok she's very chaotic on TikTok there's a lot of like I love her social media present.

It's why she's perfect for Tammy Faye. Wait, can we talk about how there is an IMDB page for Untitled a Most Violent Year's sequel only because she chaotically tweeted, maybe we'll do a sequel to that movie on New Year's Day in 2020? That's the only reason that IMDB page exists. It's so hilarious. It's really, really great. That energy is very, everybody pretending that the, uh, calling by your name sequel is happening

maybe his Army Hammer just used to talk about it. It's like, well, maybe not anymore. Maybe we can delete that. But like that one, at least the director talked about it. Like, I, the idea that they would make a sequel to a most violent year is hysterically funny on its face. And it's, and it's, that it's tied into her incredibly chaotic social media presence is just like the cherry on top. It's so perfect. Okay.

Speaking, I do want to talk a little bit about, as Kevin put it, her flop era, um, I, I really just, I know that this is a question that plagues, certainly all three of us, probably many of our listeners. What type of demons does Tate Taylor as a friend have against all of his actress friends that he can have both this assassin movie with her in it that nobody saw, but it's on Netflix called Ava and Breaking News in Yuba County in the same year and no one sees them? well and they both seemed so like they both had ma potential this is the thing about tate taylor is he'll throw you those two movies but then he'll give you a ma and like will buy me five years of benefit of the doubt so it's like that's the trick is yeah i like yuba county there's no there's no telling that that couldn't have been another maw you know what i mean like there's absolutely no way of predicting that and it wasn't i still haven't seen it because it bummed

me out that the reviews were that bad were that like terrible um i will like end up seeing it at some point. But like my expectations are no longer that it could be another ma. But like, I think that's the thing is there's always a chance that like it's not going to be, you know, good, but also what is good in 2021 is sort of my feeling about that. Ava is sort of the same thing where like I was excited for it as a concept. But Ava is like in that like gunpowder milkshake bucket now where it's just like, oh, like as a concept of. like X, Y, and Z actresses, like kicking ass and, you know, being

cool, I'm into it. But also the, you know, the execution always seems to be kind of an afterthought. I can guarantee you, I will watch Hava at some point. I want to see Jessica Chasse and hold a gun. Yeah. Well, this is the thing. This is how they get you every single time.

I will watch gunpowder milkshake, even though I don't expect it to be good. But like, okay. Yeah, it's, it's that all these movies feel very like 2016, right? It's very, like, women should be able to be assassins, too. It's very, right, it's very hashtag. Why aren't there more women prison guards kind of a thing? Yes, literally.

Like, I'm like, we've evolved, we've evolved past the need for this. I need everybody to catch up. Yeah. But again, like, who see, like, I, I'm a little bit sympathetic to the idea of just like, what are you fuckers going to watch? You know what I mean? Like, what can we do that is not based on a beloved comic book character that you people will fucking watch?

Like, because it's not, you know, apparently, you know, adult dramas with themes and feelings and, you know, whatever, gravity. But I will, but I will say, I think we had a really great example of this just last year with promising young woman. Like, that movie, the second that teaser hit the internet, the internet blew the fuck up. I know because I tweeted the trailer and I literally like, I think until I deactivated my Twitter, it was still getting retweeted regularly. Like, they're all, and people watched it. And I know we don't have numbers, but people watched it. I'm too cynical sometimes, but yes. No, but I get your point.

But I do think it's like what I'm talking about about like these kinds of movies feel very 2016 in terms of their politics. I think promising a woman, as divisive as it was represented a like more thoughtful, interesting take on this sort of thing. And it proved that if you know out, if you know how to do it, audiences will get excited for it, we'll turn out for it. Awards will show up for it. That sort of obviously. caveat. It was a weird year. But yeah, I just, I would rather see Jessica Chastain's promising young woman than I would her, Ava.

Jessica Chastain do an Emerald Finale movie challenge, like, definitely for sure. Yeah. It's why I'm like, I'm always confused. I'm not confused why she loves Uper so much, but like Jessica Chastain and I are like the leading Uper stance, right? Like, she always talks about Isabelle Uper, and I'm like, okay, so why aren't you making the piano teacher? Like, where is, like, that type of movie for her? Yeah. Where's her Greta, honestly? That would also be her ma.

It's very true. I don't know. I'm very excited for Tammy Faye because of, like, all of the things that you're like, she's a little bit much is, I think, what makes her perfect for it. I agree. Can we also talk for a second how she recently debuted her Vancouver accent at Cannes? Okay. Is that where it's supposed to be from?

Because, like, I am fascinated. Everyone's like, how is she French-Canadian all of a sudden? Really, I think it's that Jessica Chastain is a nerd, and, like, nerd voice is almost French-Canadian. Well, and I could also very much... And she's from the Midwest. Like, Midwestern nerd is close to French-Canadian. I could also just see her as being one of those people who, like, if you're in a place for long enough, you pick up the accent. You know what I mean?

Or she's sort of like... Or that. Right, exactly. Exactly. So, but I was delighted by that. That was a great day for me. The marinating and Jessica Chastain's new pan-European accent. I was very, very into it. No, it's very emotional, but don't make me cry. Because I already, I haven't taken my pictures yet. So, no, it's very, it's a very emotional night. Yeah, that was. People were like, she got Lindsay pilled. Can we at least agree that a most violent year is one of her best, if not the best performance of hers? it's up there for me

I so I'm a big staunch fan of her Zero Duck 30 performance I actually think Absolutely I'm a big fan of Zero Duck 30 in general

I think it is better than the Hurt Locker I think the controversy that tanked it is so fucking dumb in retrospect It was dumb at the time But it's only dumber now

Do you believe we allowed Glenn Greenwald To totally tank The Oscar chances of a movie Do you believe that we did that In this life? Yeah so I I love the Zero Duck 30 performance so much.

I think it is exactly what that movie needs. She plays at such a live wire the whole time where that final breakdown, it just, it made me weep. It was such an exhalation, and I don't think it works without her playing that so well the whole time. So that's probably my favorite. I also love her in The Help. I think she's a fucking blast in the help.

I adore her Losing my train I adore her Molly's game performance But this is the thing Like for it's up there Say what you will about Molly's game But like on a performance level

The way that she like Superstars that movie Is not everybody can do that Like genuinely that movie is a disaster With 90% of other actresses It's Bullock-esque honestly And it really takes advantage of her ability to sort of unironically dial into the Erin Sorkin temperature in a way that, like, I think other people might have fought that a little bit or might have tried to make it better, I guess, in a way that, like, would have made it worse. And I think she's just like, oh, like this, you just want me to be, you know, charging into every room and, you know, knowing everything about everything.

and having this, like, frightening degree of confidence. And it, like, oh, it so works, I think. Yeah. Two performances we haven't mentioned that I love. She absolutely fucking freaks it in Crimson Peak. Yes. I love that movie. She is sensational.

She knows exactly the movie that she is in. And I think, like, that's an era for her where she's taking these supporting roles with, like, big directors that don't serve her, like, The Martian or Interstellar. whereas this one does and is a fun, interesting different character to play. God, I can't believe I'm hearing mirf slander on my own podcast. I'm sorry, I'm sorry that I am slandering mid-Mirf. Intermediate MIRF. Intermediate MIRF.

She plays intermediate MIRF. And then I also think she's really amazing in Take Shelter, which when people talk about that movie, they talk about Michael Shannon. But, like, she is giving an equal performance to that movie. that is like incredibly like I think Michael Shannon gives a very obvious performance in that movie

I think she's absolutely the most impressive thing about that movie I mean I obvious sure because I think that's less the performances problem and then

maybe the way that it's presented in the movie but I think she's sensational in that movie I think Michael Shannon gives a lot of obvious performances

but I'll maybe leave it at that yeah you're not a fan I'm not I'm not a super huge fan she is in one memorably terrible movie the same year as Most Violent Year, although I don't think it came

out until the next year, but Miss Julie, speaking of scenes of a marriage, speaking of Leav Oman, Miss Julie's terrible on like every level, and it's so full of people that I love. It's like her and Colin Farrell and Samantha

Morton, and it's just it's so overwrought and the acting is just really, really bad. Like, kind of across the board, and it was painful to watch. Looking at this poster, I remember this now, but I completely forgot about this movie. Well, it made no impact. It played Toronto in 2014, and it was not very well received there, and it kind of limped out on a release

in sometime in 2015, and, yeah, it was a non-starter, although it had one of those, like, you know, early lead buzz kind of things we could end up doing this podcast if we wanted to. Was it just VOD before VOD? was, you know, fine. Oh, what was, I think, going back to Oscar Isaac for a second, I think one of those movies that doesn't exist, I think it was Mojave, like totally got released on like some kind of VOD platform or whatever, like wasn't even a, wasn't even a theatrical release.

And I think it's, I don't know, it's just a bummer when these, you know, really talented actors make these movies and then they just go like you know they go nowhere but oh one more thing i want to say about scenes from marriage because i watched the trailer before we recorded they pull a really like dirty trick that sometimes trailers do where uh the the text on the screen says based on the acclaimed series and that's that card and then they wait like five seconds and it goes from ingmar bergman and they wait just long enough that like you may be forgot about what the previous card was, and they try and maybe fool you into thinking that this series is coming to you from Ingmar Bergman.

The ghost of Ingmar-Bergman. Right, exactly, exactly. Can you imagine how disturbing something would be if it was directed by the ghost of Ingmar Bergman, considering his shit was already upsetting for a lot of his... That's true. He is going for broke after his passing. Can we, as we're talking about these people in their Oscar changes, can we talk about my beloved Bradford Young?

Yeah, I was just about to steer that. Oh, my God. Tell it. The, truly was like the best in the business, but he hasn't done anything since, um, solo. Yeah, since the Ava DiVernay show. Oh, right. When they see us. When they see us, 2019.

Yeah. I would like there to be more. I want more. I thought there would be more, I guess, to speak of a sporting actress winner from, from the same year as the most violent year. He had, uh, done the cinematography for Selma and Middle of Nowhere for, Ava. He had done pariah for D. Reese, Mississippi Damned for Tina Mabry.

He had done the cinematography for Mother of George, the Denai Guerrera starring Mother of George. He did the cinematography for Anthem Body Saints, which is a movie that I don't care for, but like looks fantastic. And

he was just like, his batting average was flawless. Like he was just like he didn't miss. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, this is just such a, I think this movie is one of the best examples of why his work is so excellent, right? Because there's a way in which this becomes muddy and gross and ugly, and it is not any of those things. The color palette is very distinctive. You get the vibe of the movie immediately, but you can see everything.

Like, it is, it is so handsomely shot. I think, I talked a little bit earlier about the final big dramatic shot with the, bullet hole in the wall with the with the blood it's just so uh it every bit of it works for me on a cinematography level um and it's it's a lot of what he would go on to do later in a rival that i love so much it's yeah it's it's it's sweeping without being obnoxious about it it's yeah exactly the right color palette and tone it's just uh i i love him so there's a real sense of like scale and intimacy at the same time that really kind of hones in on the character dynamics and it really enhances them in a way that it's like I feel like maybe some of the direction

is a little bit more like matter of fact but like just the way he captures like the space of their home versus like the city scape it's like yeah it really kind of allows you because the movie is kind of slow-paced I think he's creating really dynamic images that kind of allow you to marinate in the themes, even when the movie is slow. Well, and part of it is also J.C. Chandor's decision-making where so many of the most impactful scenes, and I think all of the action-heavy scenes, are all daytime scenes, right?

There's not, like, I think the most significant nighttime scene I can think of is that when they hit the deer and she shoots the deer, which also, by the way, hysterical. Like, it's very... Oh, God. Just like the Lady Macbeth of it all, where it's just like, you're not going to get your hands dirty, I'm going to get your hands dirty. And it's just like I'm going to shoot the fuck out of this deer. But all those daytime action scenes, the chase, you know, the two Christopher Abbott scenes where he's getting chased, the train scene, you know, where he's chasing him through the train, the suicide scene, as you mentioned, Kevin, all being done in this very...

just accusatory daylight almost you know what I mean where it's just like we are not going to you're not going to be able to hide from this you're not going to be able to be shadowy about this you're going to have to be corrupt out in the clear blue sky and and it's also great like non-snowy winter also you can just like tell that it's just chilly but you're just like snow that's starting to get gross yeah right where you're just like you're just like you're standing at the water and you know that that breeze is just like unkind that's also so well shot in the this was very disrespectful scene where it just looks bleak out it looks it looks like a miserable winter outside. It's that type

part of winter where you're just like are we fucking done with winter? Yes like can we please yeah yeah and yeah going back to the coat acting it's also a big part of like you know just watching people sort of of the costuming in this movie is actually really great I would say it's it's and beyond that coat

it's all very non-showy but it tells you a lot about every single one of those characters which i love that's my that's sort of my ideal kind of costuming is it's just detailed enough like i love how we see oscar isaac in contrast to david o yellowo i love that there's just like a there's sort of two presentations of the same idea of like how much are you presenting as non-corrupt versus actually being corrupt so there's that sort of like buttoned-up thing happening uh i just The detail in this movie is really, really impressive across the board, I would say. I think on this watch, I may have been less impressed by some of the filmmaking in terms of, or at least in terms of the story, I guess. But I was way more impressed by, and I noticed a lot more of just so many of the details that really work in those.

The craftsmanship of this movie is so, like, exquisite and very specific, very character-specific. very era specific, that it's like, if this was just a very, if J.C. Chantor was telling this story in a different way, one that was, you know, perhaps less introspective and more flashy, showy, it could have been a multiple Oscar nominee very conceivably just because of how, like, well made and stunning it is to look at. But, um, also, if we're talking about the costumes in this movie, I would be remiss not to bring up, uh, Alessandro and Avola in tennis. Shorts, which was, I mean... A very impactful scene, as far as I was concerned. He's really good in this movie. Beyond tennis shorts, aside, he's very, very good in this movie. All of the character actors are, though, where it's just like, who's, like, Patrick Breen shows up for a second.

I always enjoy when he is around Glenn Fleshler, who at that point, I think, I think true detective had happened by this point. or was sort of happening around this point? Because I remember watching this movie and being like, where do I know that guy from? It's just like, oh, right, he's the scariest fuck guy from the first season of True Detective. We talked about Elizabeth Marvel. We talked about my beloved Christopher Abbott, who I love in everything and is great in this. Oh, what's his name?

Jerry Adler from The Good Wife. I know he's in other things, but... Oh, my God. Howard Lyman. I lost my mind when I realized it was him. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. As the businessman, he wants to buy the oil yard from. Yeah, really, really fantastic set of character actors in this. I enjoy a movie where I can sort of...

What were we talking about where I wanted it to be better populated with character actors, Chris? This was happening recently. Oh, my God. DeLovly. I wish that DeLovly had the sort of like the level of character actor attention to detail as this one did. I don't... How dare you just respond? expect Alanas to not call her a character actor actor.

Fair, fair. Yeah, no, it's a really strong ensemble. I think, so talking about the scene with the businessman who says it up, I think that was one scene that kind of struck a different chord with me this time. It's very obvious the whole scene. Like, it's the point of almost being literal. And I think this is where I sort of tire of accounting 101 starring Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain.

is literally he says he says you're paying a down payment you will have to pay the rest later if you don't I will go to your competitor and he says it twice too and I'm like that's how down payments work like that we don't have to literally sit there and underline it

and I think that's very just so you know it was very Chad Michaels we will be charging you this thing called interest it was interest it was very Chad Michael's girl we got it we got it girl we got it Yeah, no, that is the part of the movie that doesn't work as well for me. It does feel like almost in reflection of the Wikipedia page.

Maybe that's why the Wikipedia page does it. It just feels like painstaking in terms of like you need to understand what's happening here with the money. And I'm like, I don't really care that much about the money. I don't think that's what's interesting about this movie at all. This is why I'm excited for scenes from a marriage because the best scenes in this movie are the like late at night home scenes between Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain where her character has maybe had three glasses

of wine and he's had a shitty day and it's like it's the character dynamic between them and the secrets that they have that make it way more like easy as something to connect to not just on a human level but on thematic level. Yes I will say the fact that we

don't use the jiff of Jessica Chastain just walking in brandishing a gun is a thing on all of our I will start to rectify this. I will do my part in dismission. I remember the jiff that like free that like it wasn't even this is very disrespectful, which I feel like eventually latched on. But I remember when this trailer first dropped and the shot of her sitting on the steps

with a cigarette next to her face just like silently crying is just like. Yeah. It's like amazing. Every time I watch the movie, I am like the old lady jiff. Academy Award, you know. Also, the decision to shoot that one, the shot subsequent to that, where she's saying goodbye to the party guests and their parents as they're leaving, and then the camera just stays fixed and the cops start entering the house the same time as like the stragglers

from the party are also leaving. And it communicates so much of just like how embarrassed and sort of called out she feels like at that moment is really, really well done. I love that. I'm excited to see Stephanie Germanada recreate this performance this year. Oh, God. In House of Gucci. We're all very excited for House of Cucci. It's going to be a mess. I can't wait. So, award season started out actually really well for a most violent year.

Because, like, shockingly, like, National Border Review comes out, and they pick it as their top film of the year. which seemed to indicate that, like, this was going to be one of those late-breaking movies that is a force to be reckoned with. But if you look at the top-10 list from NBR, you can point out why, not the reason why, but, like, a reason why it didn't happen was it really got its thunder stolen by another late-breaking movie that year, being American sniper, which turned out to be, like, the late-movie that year that, like, because it was such a

box office success, it's all anybody could talk about. And I don't know if without American Sniper, a most violent year is a Best Picture nominee, but it didn't help that there was no oxygen for it in the landscape. I mean, so much so that

American Sniper probably also took the oxygen out of Selma, too, which is also incredibly late-breaking. When they showed that at AFI Fest, too, because it famously premiered the same day as American Sniper at AFI Fest. Like, Selma didn't even have credits on it. Right. Like, that's how late

Selma was finished. Selma also was one of the infamous, like, did not get screeners out to SAG examples, right? Right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's always tough when that happens because you understand why, but it's also like, well, fuck, because the movies it happens to are always like that

and if Beale Street could talk in like these like amazing movies quite frankly often buy in about people of color and black people. And it's just like, of course we're going to use the excuse of no screeners, right? Like, of course that's going to, of course that's going to be the thing said when in reality we could have more of a conversation about like why an American sniper takes off in the way

that a Selma doesn't. But I also wonder if there's something to be said for movie studios and sort of the awards campaigning apparatus feeling like they need to hustle these movies. movies with, you know, black, black stories, black creators, black themes out at the end of the year, almost like they don't trust that these movies are going to be able to sustain their acclaim long enough, that they almost feel like they have to try and, you know, really quickly, because I think of also something like Hidden Figures, where we've talked about Chris before, that if Hidden Figures has maybe a few more months in that,

award season. And they didn't rush the movie out. Does that, is that a best picture winning film? Maybe because like the acclaim, the enthusiasm for it was so loud. But they released it at the very, very, very end of the year. Couldn't have been later in the year. And I think it has no bearing whatsoever on the actual quality of the film. But I think it maybe shows an unwarranted mistrust on the part of the studios that they

don't believe that those movies can withstand, I guess, months and months of scrutiny, which I think has been disproven, you know, time and again between like 12 years of slave debuting at Toronto and absolutely having the stuff to make it to a best picture win at the end of the year, to things like Get Out, premiering in February, and it definitely like still had the stuff to make it all the way through to the end of that year. So, I don't know. Maybe this is just, maybe I'm just, you know, cherry-picking examples, but it does feel like that's maybe a thing. No, I agree with you. I mean, like, to also, like, the thing I think about this is, like, to Kevin's point where it's like, oh, it's super convenient to say you didn't have screeners for this or whatever, or that, like, something wasn't campaigned well enough. But there is a certain onus on the people that are actually doing voting to prioritize these movies to see, you know, like.

Yeah. yeah no it's it's 100% true and it's it's where i think a lot of the conversation around because we are firmly at this time in uh oscar so white era this is the first no go ahead yeah this i was going to say this was the first of the sort of one-to-punch of 2014 2015 back to back where right because then sorry go ahead no i was yeah go no i was and then the very next year is uh the moonlight hidden figures here that sort of put things right their book ended by 12 years of slave on one end and moonlight on the other end but there's this this desert in between them right but yeah i think that was the conversation that maybe wasn't being had there was oscar so white was a was a obviously

tremendous movement and i think wound up actively changing the academy for ever you know like yeah charl moon isaic said all right fuck it we're fixing it and god bless her for it um but i think that the conversation often sort of fell into extremes in a way that there was actually a more nuanced way to be like there is an onus on membership that already exists to be doing this work and therefore there is an onus on leadership to be pushing them to do that like yeah the the academy didn't need to just add it's good that they added more members it's good they added younger more diverse members but there was also things that they could do just in terms of like what are they scheduling for Academy screenings?

Like, what are they prioritizing in terms of what they're getting out to their membership? And I think there could have been a little bit more conversation about what they could do on that level. Because if a Selma comes out and doesn't have the ability to get screeners out, the Academy should be like, all right, how can we help? What can we do to help even the playing field here? Because it's unfair to be like, well, because you didn't get the screeners out, you're not going to actually be actively considered for anything other than your song and a best

of your nomination. You know, it was... Right, right. Anyway, it's long since over at this point, but it's still a sore spot. Yeah, but I mean, it's so, like, when you talk about the awards year of 2014, it's, like, one of the big things that you can talk about. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sort of... I'm here staring at this top 10 list from NBR for this year, which has the very sort of... I feel like it's a very classic National Border

Review mix, where it's like, some... ones that turned out to be best picture nominees where it's like Birdman, Boyhood, the top two sort of movies that year that were jockeying for Best Picture for a while. The top two all stars of the week. Exactly. Exactly. American Sniper was there,

imitation game. And then you had sort of the movies that got a nomination here or there, like Gone Girl and Inherent Vice. Nightcrawler, which I think was the very big like Justice 4 X. movie that year.

It's a pre-play nominee, though, right? I think you're right. I think you're right. The Lego movie, which people forget, people forget how celebrated the Lego movie was at that moment. And I was... And how shocked people were that it wasn't a... Animated feature nominee.

Yeah. Insane that that was the case. And then I think the more classic NBR outliers were... I mean, you could say a most violent year, too, because it ultimately didn't get any Oscar nominations. But I think Fury and... Unbroken are the ones where I'm just going to look at this list and just be like God, you had to throw it.

I mean, like, I don't think Unbroken's a bad movie, actually. Angelina Jolie is Unbroken. But it is a... It's a deeply fine movie. It's, it can be a slog to sit through. And it's just like there was, I think there was an era. We talked about silence somewhat recently where it's sort of just like this genre of movie where it's just like, I'm watching these very handsome actor, Hollywood actors,

just waste away to nothing. to prove their, like, resilience in the face of X, Y, Z. And it's just like, okay. Silence is the good version of that. But, see, the thing of... It doesn't feel typical of National Border Review for this movie to win Best Picture. Like, normally it's something like the imitation game, right?

That does eventually become, like, kind of an also-ran Best Picture nominee. This is, like, one of the... Like, those people who get crazy about stats, it's like, this is forever an asterisk. when they talk about National Border Review alongside, like, Quills. I was just about to bring up Quills. And even Quills got a Best Actor nomination for Jeffrey Rush. Do you know what I mean?

Like, this is even more of an outlier than that. I'm trying to, I'm sort of going through the years and trying to find something that was, I think Quills was definitely the one that jumped to mind. But, like, something that was quite that much that didn't get any kind of Oscar nomination. It's so atypical for them because we, like, we talk about National Border Review. like they are the pinnacle star fuckers aside from the globes

and it's like they give this movie from what was then an upstart independent distributor three awards one of which is a tie but like including best picture like that's really surprising do you know what comes closest actually

to a most violent year on that level of Oscar futility is this past year with Defive Bloods like that's as close as it's come and and again it's don't remind me that that movie got screwed over but also like those are two of the more interesting and I would say like celebratory like choices that they've made over the years I would much prefer you know a most violent year and Defive Bloods to like the year

that they picked Finding Neverland as the best picture of the year oh boy I often feel like NBR feels like it has, like, different membership every year. Like, it truly has... Well, they're not up front with who their members are. They say that it's like, there's some people in the press. There's people who are historians. There are people who are archivists, stuff like that. That's just like, well, okay.

I think it's three boys in a trench coat who just sort of decide what they want. It's literally Vincent Adult Man from Bo DeKhorst, man. And one of them is Leonard Moulton. And yet, you know what? If they had, if they were just up front and just be like, we do a revolving panel of, like, selected members, I would fucking celebrate it because I feel like more, more organizations should do that because I think juries end up being more interesting. It's why we got some great, uh, BAFTA nominees. Why we got great and also insane BAFTA. I remember waking up that morning and being like, I'm sorry, what? What just happened?

The, the high degree, high percentage of like, I got to write that title down because I have. I want to see this now. It was like very high with BAFTA. Yeah, God bless them. God bless them for nominating Ashley from Revenge. When I saw her name on the list, I was like, good for you, Ashley from Revenge. I can always count on you to bring up revenge, Kevin, and I'm very happy about that. Oh, I will be thinking about Madeline Stowe and revenge for the rest of my.

That will be one of the last things I think of before I pass from this mortal plow. I'll be like, you know what, Madeline Stowe? deserved an Emmy for Revenge and then just like curtains. Jessica Chastain would have been great on revenge. Oh, oh my God, yeah. She would have been great. Also, for a most violent year, got a few Independent Spirit Award nominations. Now, this was the second of a two-year span where the eight acting winners over those two years

matched with Oscar seven of eight, which is like, which is my least. I hate it so much. It's my least favorite flavor of independent spirit awards where they like, they just really, and again, I say this a lot, part of that was that the indie spirits were getting more Oscar-y, but also the Oscars were getting more indie-spiritsy. Like, the fact that, like, you know my other grudge with the Independent Spirit Awards. It's because you can pay to become a finger quotes member and vote on their awards, whereas, like, people are just paying to vote on indie spirits. And it creates these very basic winners. Anyway No, go ahead, Kevin.

I never knew that. Y'all broke that news to me on this podcast that you could pay to be an Indy Spirit voter. I literally never knew that. And I think it's just very at odds with the whole ethos of indie spirit. It's, if you told me, Golden Globes did that. I would be like, sure, at 100%.

Right, absolutely. Or like the golden satellites. Indy Spirits? It strikes me as so contrary. I mean, it's funding American Independence. I get it. So like, that's the part of it where I'm like, you know what, whatever, it's just a trophy. But like, at the same

time when Indy Spirits does have these cool nominees that just really have no chance of winning, and sometimes they're the ones that deserve the win, and like will never, will not get mentioned on anything else. It just kind of blows. Not never, though, because I was

just thinking, Baker's latest movie just debuted at Cannes, and I was thinking about my beloved tangerine. That is very true. And Maya Taylor won, and I had forgotten that. And I was like, oh, shit, that's right. She has a whole indie spirit award. I'm sunnier. Yeah, I'm sunnier on the spirits here than Chris is.

And I do feel like, like, it's not a very high price point to be able to pay your way into, you know, film independent. And I think that and the fact that it is sort of helping. to, you know, fund that the work that they do with independent filmmakers makes me feel less, you know, I don't feel like it's on the level of a, you know, Golden Globes or anything like that. There doesn't seem to be like a grift going on. I'm being overly churlish about it. You are. That was very shangeloat, true, you'll never be glamour. How dare.

I am furious. I have been equal to me and me. I'm first. You walked right into that one. You could smile. But Kevin, you mentioned, you know, us breaking news on this podcast, which made me, of course, think of the Saturn Awards. And guess what was a Saturn Award nominee in 2014, a most violent year? Breaking News and Yuba County. That's how I'm going to preface all of my statements from now on. Breaking News in Yuba County. I'm having a sandwich for lunch.

No, a Most Violent Year was a Saturn Award nominee for Best Independent Film, which, like, continuing my just utter bafflement at what exactly counts as a nominee at what is still called the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films. So, like, what rubric are we judging the Most Violet Year under that, like, I guess, like, crime is a genre now that is, that qualifies it for. a Saturn award? Any movie that is not a straight drama, straight comedy. Like literally, they're just like, unless you're like a lesbian love story, you count for a Saturn award. Like, I genuinely don't understand. And even in Carol, she says, flung out of space. So why isn't that eligible? Exactly. That should count. Carol is famously science fiction. Canonically a science fiction film, Carol. Nominated at the Saturn's, by the way, opposite another Oscar Isaac movie, that doesn't exist that I didn't even mention before, which is the Hossein Amini directed Patricia

Highsmith adaptation, speaking of Carol, the two faces of January. Do you remember this at all, you guys? Wasn't that supposed to be terrible? I think so. Kirsten Dunst, Vigo Mortensen, Oscar Isaac, in a movie that absolutely, like, came and went and did nothing, and is also, like, it's a con artist drama. So again, why are you a Saturn Award nominee? I don't understand this at all. It's crazy. Like, I guess did they look at the title and there were like two faces on January? That's not real. Like, that is... I'm sure they definitely nominated your treasured Brit Marling movies as their independent zone. Can I tell you another nominee in this category is Eye Origins? Fuck off. Which I don't think is specifically Brit Marling, but it's

like Brit Marling adjacent, right? No, she's the star. She's in that. She just didn't write or direct it. But yes, she's definitely in that movie. Yes, you're right. The behavior that exhibited was Brit Marling like. Was Britt Marling, yes.

Very disrespectful. And of course, the winner in that category was Whiplash, famous science fiction movie, Whiplash. Was it sound? Sound? It was a horror film. Yeah, that's what they said. It's a canonically a horror film.

Whiplash is elevated horror. It's really about grief and trauma. Their winner for international film was the theory of everything. I wish I were making this up, but I am not. Oh, my God. I don't understand it. This is a fun party game, though, is throw out a satellite category, and you have to make up justifications for why everything got nominated.

Right, right, exactly. Or, like, just throw out a movie. We need to be on the Saturn voting committee so that we can really brings me five bucks what's the what's the you know let's give us give me a low bar and i'll pay for it and we'll do it best action adventure film unbroken it truly was that was their winner what an adventure won an adventure the adventure like no other many adventures just all right anyway we could be doing this all day uh Oscar Isaac won the NBR tied with Michael Keaton that year which was cool who should have won the Oscar um

I mean, I'm fine with... Both of them. Let them tie again. It's a tie. I love it. We need a good... God, that's what we need at the Oscars. Oscar Isaac in the most violent here.

We need a tie in an acting category in the worst way at the Oscars. Can you think of a more feel-good thing to happen at the Oscars in these days? You know what the feel-good tie would be? If Amy Adams and Michelle William's won, so neither of us would have to pay each other $50. That's very generous to celebrate together.

Wait, what is this bet? Oh, or explain the bet, Chris. You think you've already won up. Okay, so on our Thousand Acres episode, I bet Joe, 50 bucks that Michelle Williams will win before Amy Adams wins. I think you have... This is going in perpetuity. Which is not out of the question, but I felt like it didn't deserve to go unchallenged

because, like, I'm going to stick up for my girl, Amy here. Joe resents my confidence. here. Yeah, because Michelle Williams is going to be playing who? What was the biopic that was announced? Peggy Lee. Right, Peggy Lee. Oh, shit.

I didn't know that. All right, Kevin. No, no, no. That's not. Kevin's with me on us. Don't be on Chris's side here. Well, okay. What are you thinking Amy's going to win for?

I don't know, but like... Not disenchanted, bitch. Like, she's not... This is not a dig against Amy. I obviously love her. I've been on this podcast talking. about how I love for my love for her but yeah but we've wanted to talk about somebody being in their flop era like literally the tweet was the one of my followers is in her flop era and I feel so bad

because she's such a cool girl and somebody quote tweeted it just said Amy Adams like that is where what you're right now with her the the dear Evan Hanson of it all is depressing me uh the kind of her and Julian Moore's song is depressing me it's that's gonna be the tie they're both gonna tie for dear Evan Manchin. Wow. Truly a moment. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, no, you're not wrong about Amy Adams being in her flop moment, but the kind of movie that she will win for is not going to be, like, that's a movie that could like come together in the span of eight months. Do you know what I mean? Like that is, she's not going to win for, I think so. Is she going to Ingrid Bergman for murder on the Orienne Express when she's 60? Boy, the curse that you are putting on her. unfortunately for Amy Adams. I want her to win for something that's good. It's adorable. Even if it's like we think it's really good

and everybody else is like, who cares? Like Still Alice? Yeah. I just don't see it. Still Alice, notoriously a movie that should have three acting nominations. Absolutely. One hundred percent it should. It's adorable, by the way, that you think they're going to allow them to make any more murder on the

on the Orient Express movies after Army Hammer has completely destroyed. It's going to take three years for that movie to come out. That trailer coming out, when Army, Amher and Gal Gadot were both going through their controversies simultaneously was the most cursed energy. And, and Letitia Wright.

Like, that's the other thing. It was all, yes, yeah, it was a triple play. Because people started noticing, she's kind of in the back of the poster or whatever, and people started noticing we're like, oh, God, also she's here. Yeah. Oh, my God.

It's just that grimace from Dawn French in the trailer is just like the mood for everything to do with that movie. I'm still excited for that movie for that movie, Jennifer Saunders and Don French. That's what I'm there for. Sure. Yeah. I agree. If they ever release it, which like they might not. It's Disney, right? Because it's Fox.

That's the thing. They could just dump it on Disney Plus on ceremoniously, but because of Army Hammer, I think that, you know... They're dumping it on Hulu. Armie Hammer is not Disney Plus appropriate anymore. Throw them on there with Victor. I mean, like, they've been. I've already spent so much money on this movie. Like, I was genuinely surprised they did in all the money in the world this movie, considering how far out they pushed it.

You know what? But it's like, I just feel like. There's so many people that you have to get so many schedules aligned. I was going to say, it takes a very specific kind of movie to even be able to do in all the money in the world. I think the fact that that movie was able to do that really like unrealistically put that option on the table for anything. And it's just like, you have to have a character who's really siloed off from everybody in a very specific way. They have to reshoot this whole movie with a million people. You basically have to be a queer character in a Disney Marvel movie who is like so isolated so that they can be excised for the Chinese release.

So isolated to their retail store and their David Bowie get up. Just like so that they can, you know, cut them out for the Chinese release. Like, yes, you can. It's that degree of. isolation. To all the money in the world, you really do have to have somebody as crazy as Ridley Scott. Do you remember the interviews he was giving around that time where he's like, I'm a fucking madman, I'm doing this. He must have, I don't know, I want to know what he was on because he was truly, he said, I'm fucking doing this. And you know what? I honestly think,

like, hubris and spite. And I think that's what he runs on. And honestly, like, good for him. Oh, boy. That saga of that movie, we talked to, we mentioned that recently here, too, Chris, right? It wasn't just that. It was also the salary dispute thing with Michelle Williams and Mark Wahlberg and and like, it's not a great movie, but like I did find it watchable. I enjoyed it, actually. I kind of enjoyed it.

Yeah, you really liked it. I remember that. I like that movie. I mean, Mark Wahlberg is absolutely like not even there. He's the lead of the movie and he is not there. The hardest trivia question in all of movie trivia is. is name the male lead of all the money in the world. Impossible, impossible to tell.

Yeah. Looping back to a most violent year, I think this is definitely the closest to an Oscar nomination movie that we have done in I don't even know how long. I think there's no question that Jessica Chastain is in sixth place. Globe nominated, Critics Choice nominated, a million different, um like regional critics nominations and it's like it's obviously laura durn that got that spot because she was the surprise nominee but the one who shouldn't have it and you know i hate to speak ill of uh of of of the queen but like merrill shouldn't be there no what was that

into the woods oh no fuck yeah into the woods half of that nomination is donna murphy we talk about, well, Chris and I have had the discussion of which Merrill nominations would you take away. And Chris, you always mentioned Florence Foster Jenkins. I think Into the Woods is by far the one that I would take away. I mean, I probably still would say Florence Foster Jenkins, but I only say that so easily because Into the Woods is the nomination that I always forget happened. I kind of like her in Florence Foster Jenkins. Not enough to have nominated her if I had a vote, but like I find her entertainment. taming in that film what I will say is frustrating about those two nominations is that what happens immediately after those is her nomination for the post and everybody chalks that up to just being like oh it's another default Merrill nominating typical Merrill access yeah Merrill's excellent yeah she's wonderful she rules in that movie she's so good and it's really frustrating because it it is chalked that performance kind of up to this bin and I think there was a little bit of how we talked about it that also led to that like there was obviously a lot

of fixation on the cap tan as there should have been but like yeah But I do think people saw it just as another Merrill Drag performance. And it's like, no, it's very not bad. It's, it's, it's giving you, it's giving you life on that level, for sure. It's giving you, let's go, let's do it. Let's, let's go. Let's run it. But, and also, caftans.

But, like, it's also the real deal. The way that people sort of knee-jerk dismissed that movie for reasons that I felt were pretty shallow was very annoying to me. This was very disrespectful. No, I adore the posts. I think it's extraordinarily well written. I think Tom Hanks is another of those great. Yeah, Hanks is great. I will rant for hours about how for almost a decade,

Tom Hanks turned out the best performances of his back to back to back. And the Oscars were like, who's this man? Right. He could be walking down the street and I wouldn't know a thing. Sorry to this man. What the fuck? he's so good in all these movies

it's deranged it's it is it's genuinely deranged yeah and I mean like I don't necessarily begrudge the um Brad Pitt win like I get it Brad Pitt should have an acting Oscar yeah and like that's not a bad performance

to give it to him for but like a beautiful day in the neighborhood is just like top tier Tom Hanks to me um and of course I love that movie I love Mario Heller blah blah blah I think the problem with Tom Hanks's chances to win for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Brad Pitt aside, is you know, you always know when you're drawing dead, when the first thing you say about a performance and why it's great is you really have to think about what he's going for with this. You know what I mean? There's so much sort of just like, like, so much of why that performance is great is what Mariel Heller is giving you that is not. expected in that role and yeah and it's wildly impressive but you really have to like sit down

and just be like it's that annoying thing about like a lot of his performances the same thing about captain phillips too it's like people are not prepared for the thinking man's tom hanks like they want uh cute and cuddly tom hanks or something it's a very annoying jazz player like you got to listen to the notes he's not playing but you really do have to listen to the notes he's not playing in that role. I even feel that way about his saving Mr. Banks performance, which I think is wildly underrated. I think he's really good in that throughout. And again, it's sort of like, I think everybody thought Tom Hanks' Walt Disney, it was going

to be very showy, very, very, you know, big. And it's, it's not. It's actually really good, subtle work in this, like, movie that was a lot, not as good as he was. But, okay, so sort of to connect the dots here also, we're talking about Brad Pitt beating out Tom Hanks obviously the other one of the other acting winners that year was Laura Dern who got her first nomination or no second nomination for wild yes yes and I think that that performance is actually kind of a thinker as well like and I am overall very impressed that it got nominated I hate what it was at the expense of but I think that that performance also is very like subtle and interior and there's a lot going on there oh yeah she makes the most of out of very limited time. I mean, I think that nomination was the, like, first sign of the perfect storm that we

were going to have in the next coming years of Laura Dern, because, like, part of the reason why that nomination happened, like, that was a movie that wasn't getting as much love as it deserved, so it wasn't the movie. It's a, she has a very limited screen time, so it's, like, that's kind of against it. But, like, partly why is, like, the industry absolutely adored her. And it's, like, the roles that were coming after that. it's like there would there would have been no stopping it and it's like i think that nomination was a sign of that level of respect and adoration that she has within the industry yeah i mean

she was almost the academy president and didn't want it yeah that's true but they were like no but you have to i but i think wild was still was at the sort of that was at the moment where you know who you don't talk about enough laura durn had start like that was the last of that and before it would become, like, you know who we always talk about is Laura Dern? And I think, like, with good reason. But, yeah, I think if you swap out Meryl for Chastain, that 2014 supporting actress category becomes, like, really, really great, actually. Because, like, even Kira Knightley is the best thing about the imitation.

I think so, too. I think she's great in that. I think Emma Stone is at worst, very good in Birdman. I think Patricia Arquette, like, there's a reason why Patricia Arquette won that Oscar for boyhood. She has some really, really fantastic moments in that movie. And, I mean, we just mentioned Laura Dern, and you throw Chastain into that mix. Like, that's a really strong lineup. I do wonder if had Chastain gotten nominated, it maybe doesn't get a little bit harder for Arquette to win. And she may have still. But I think the problem is, among those other four, right,

Stone was not winning for that performance. That was not where the stars were aligning that year. that was not where the conversation I think she was still second place You think she was second? I think she was probably second place That's fascinating A very very distant second place It's tough for me to think of who actually would be second place though

I can't really come up with a better argument for anybody else So that's kind of my point though Is that of the other four nominees Nobody had a really good case to win And I think Chastain would have had a good case to win Because it would have been her third nomination She could have been the second place if she was nominated Yeah, yeah.

So I think that's interesting. I think it's a more competitive race of testing. Sort of similar to Albert Brooks in this movie. Sort of similar to Albert Brooks missing for Drive back in 2011. If he gets nominated, he's second place in that category. You're totally right. Right. But as a result, it was just a plumber steam roll.

And that, okay. And also tying it all together, Lordearn, Jennifer Lopez not getting nominated, turns Lordearn into a total steamroll that it wasn't going to. Wow. It all connects. It's all, we're weaving a web here. Jennifer Lopez's fur coat is the Chekhov's gun of this podcast episode, where we dropped it in early, and it all comes around.

I mean, I feel like, I don't think I've been on the podcast since Jennifer Lopez did not get nominated for hustlers, and I would be remiss not to say justice for Jennifer Lopez and hustlers while I have been right before hustlers, or was that a year before? No, I think it was right. I think I saw the movie like two weeks later. Oh, wow. Oh, fuck. Yeah.

So it was a different time. It was. It really, truly was. We didn't know who we were then. We didn't know about the novel coronavirus that would be hitting our show. Oh, God. Yeah. Well, that's what I was thinking, too, about talking about the Jessica Chastain tweets about a sequel to the most violent year.

I was just like, did that splinter off this universe into what the game? Not only the Academy not nominating Jessica Chastain for a most violent. year was very disrespectful. It also was the very beginning butterfly effect of the coronavirus. Do we have any last thoughts about a most final year before we move into the IMDB game? Justice for Bradford Young. Justice for Bradford Young. We didn't really talk about box office.

This movie made $2. Yes, it really did. It's one of those. I think if you have Showtime, it's free to stream or you can get a seven-day free trial or whatever. I rented it because I decided I was going to. give back to artists you know i was gonna throw some dollars in that tip jar yeah but no it's it's genuinely so great and i think it's woefully underseen um even if it's even if it's not even if i don't feel the same love for it it's just so well done it's it's beautiful to look at i i think it's

absolutely worth to watch the thing to talk about the box office we didn't really mention this is this is an a 24 movie and it's an early a 24 movie you could say that this is a like, their first awards campaign they did because James Franco for Spring Breakers does not count. They kind of did that as a joke. It's true. But, like, this movie made $5 million, and at that time, that was a good box office for them. Yeah. Yeah, they were just about to transition into being a for real, for real award season presence.

The progression for them every, like, in this, like, span of years is really interesting because they had this movie where they almost get a nomination for Jessica Chastain, the next year they get a Best Picture nomination and a Best Actress win, and then the next year, they win Best Picture. It's kind of, like, perfect in that way. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. Also, I just want to mention, as I, like, clean up my notes here, I did, and Chris knows

this because I texted it to him, I fully out loud whistled at the scene where Oscar Isaac is is in front of the bathroom mirror without a shirt on because that man is a good-looking man. I mean, in the next year, when we got ex-Machina, like, that's like perfect Oscar Isaac tit just to put it so gosherly. Oh, God. All right.

Why don't we do IMDB game? Let's do it. IMDB game, Joe, why don't you explain to our lovely listeners what the IMDB game is? I sure will. Every week, we end our episodes with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with an actor or actress and try and guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for. If any of those titles are television work or voice-only performances

or perhaps a non-acting credit, we mentioned that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. If that's not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints. I should specify that non-acting credit only counts if they are not an actor in that movie. So if it says producer for a movie that they're in, don't say it. Like Charlie's Theron, says producer for Tully. Right. Yeah. Yeah, that's the Mdb game.

Great. All right. So, Kevin, you are our guest. You get to decide two things, whether you would like to give her guests first, but you also get to decide who is giving to you and who you are giving to. Okay. Joe threatened me that he has a hard one before the off mic. So I am going to give first to Joe, and I will take first. from Chris. Okay.

The fear, the fear. I'm avoiding a bomb. I'm avoiding a bomb. Great. I am so excited to do another fucking swoosy curse. So I will tell you that I literally had to ask Chris and Joe for the list because I was not sure who had been done yet. And unfortunately, my iconic choice of Demi Moore because of Margin Call had been... I also was going to do Demi Moore until I looked and saw we had already done her.

So I went in a different direction. from margin call to somebody who uh joe it's actually appropriate that i'm giving to you because we obviously uh have a bond over the slap um and one of the stars of the slap was another star of margin call pen badgely okay yeah oh my all right you know what bitch all right you deserve this i don't want to hear anything is there television you deserve is there television there is no television

which actually shocked me. All right. First of all, double F words for you. Okay. Pen Badgley, just the movies, famous movie star,

celebrated a film presence. Pen Badgley. Okay. Uh-huh. Well, one of them is probably easy A. That is correct. Actually,

one of them is probably margin call because you know what shows up for a lot of people is fucking margin call. That is correct. It's going to be. another one of those IMDB game movies where if they're on the poster

Yeah So Margin Call is a yes Those are yes Yes All right two for two Okay No television Obviously I would have guessed the slap first

Um All right Penn Badgley Like there's no way like the movie where he plays Like Jeff Buckley is going to show up Because like literally I saw that at the Tribeck of Film Festival And nobody else in the world saw that the audacity of making a bad Jeff Buckley movie

Oh, all right Speaking of the Suzy Kurtz incident When we also did the Seal Awards One of the movies that came up was The Stepfather The Stepfather is indeed on there Is it? Fuck yes, all right IMDV game Power Player

The Stepf Oh my God So you have one left and no wrong guesses so far that's fucked up the problem is I've run out of movies that I remember Penn Badgley being in

is the thing I feel like I just pulled it up and this is hilarious I feel like he's in a movie with Alexis Bliddell at some point but like

all right I'm just going to guess maybe he's not even the guy on this is it post grad no okay one wrong guess one wrong guess who is in that movie though

yeah it's some there's like there's definitely a cute boy in that I'll look it up once I'm done with this Michael Keaton is the second credited that is definitely not it oh it's Zach Gilford from Friday Night Lights oh yes

you're absolutely right darling boy is he still married to Kili Sanchez I hope so I wish them nothing but happiness I have to assume. I don't know. You put the fear of God in me with Aaron Taylor Johnson. And I was wrong.

And I was wrong. Okay. All right. Another Pan Badgley movie. What the fuck is he even in? Is he in like, I feel like he had his own like disturbia at some point, right? Where like some like little quasi thriller kind of thing that they're just like, hey, you know this guy from Gossip Girl. Um, oh, is he in, um, that movie Love the Cooper's? I'm going to guess Love the Coopers. He might not even be in that.

He may be in it, but it is not in his known for. Um, so you have year now, it's 2006. Oh. So if that doesn't help you, Joe, I feel like this would be a great movie for your festival of movies that exist only as titles. Oh, yes, yeah, yeah. Oh, interesting. So, 2006 is just before Gossip Girl for him, then. Correct, yes. Who? But not, like, long enough where he's, like, a kid.

He would be, like, junior high at oldest, like a tween at oldest. I thought you were about to say a twink, and I was like, well, man. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, no. Um fuck Is he the lead in this? No I will say

The lead is a titular character And can I just say Who the second billed person In this movie is? Sure. Yes It's a shanty Oh

Oh Well you've really narrowed it down It's John Tucker must die It is indeed John Tucker must die Sorry I just No thank God Because I would have been here

all fucking day. I did not know he was in that movie. Nor did I. I was pretty... How did you know Ashanti was in that movie? Because it's a shot... Like, that's like... She's in, like, two movies. And that's one of them. Oh, I thought she was in more movies. I don't think so. Unless I'm really short-changing her. That's an unhinged one, Kevin.

Anyway, well done. That was impressive. Good job, dear. All right. So now I... Who do you have for me? All right. So... What are you subjecting me to? I went the road of Triple Frontier, actually, for you. So unfortunately, it's not an actress. That's how you can tell.

Is it Charlie Hunnam? It is not, but you're in the right ballpark because we once famously did the great, with our guest, Katie Rich, the great Charlie Honum or Garrett Headland quiz. And I'm giving you the other one. I am giving you Garrett Headland. Okay, see, Garrett Headland, I think, is going to be easier. probably than Charlie Hanam probably than Charlie Hanam

Is Tron legacy in there? Yes it is Okay Which movie that he is someone sweaty and dirty Is going to show up there Tempted to say unbroken Because we were just talking about it Or we just mentioned it

But I There's so many twinks in that movie That I don't think Oh no no no no no no no no this i remember he is in this i can't not say it because it has tripped me up on like two other people before he is in four brothers if four brothers isn't in there i'm going to be mad he is the fourth of four brothers and that is in that is absolutely correct yes you tried to pull one on me with fanula flanagan i won't forget

yes so you have tron legacy you have four brothers I'm just going to say unbroken. No, strike one. Unbroken is not it. He's one of a million people in Lewin Davis, which I don't even think inside Lewin Davis shows up for Oscar Isaac, so I'm not going to guess that. There's no way that Pan is on there from our episode.

on the movie Pan. There's no way Triple Frontier is on there because no one saw it. What else should I guess? He's one of another million twinks in Billy Lynn's long halftime walk. I'm going to guess Billy Lynn's long halftime walk. It's not a bad guess, but it is incorrect.

All right, so that's two strikes. You're going to get years. Your years are 2012 and 2017. 2012 and 2017. Is this our first Netflix movie to show up? Is 2017 Mudbound? I don't know if it's our first Netflix movie, but it's our rare Netflix movie to show up.

It is Mudbound. That's why I didn't guess Mudbound. Yes, Mudbound is one of his four. I mean, Mudbound deserves to be there. Mudbound's great. He's very good in that movie. So 2012, shortly after Tron failed to make him a movie star, but before Lewin Davis.

This actually was going to be my first guess if I had gotten this. Oh, so it's something like big that I'm forgetting. Is it another blockbuster? No. Don't read too much into that. It's just this was what. Okay. You just remember this and I'm blanking.

Yeah. It's not a blockbuster, but he is a lead. Okay. I mean, I feel like he's usually a lead. He's usually, like, second or third building. Well, but not in something like Inside Lewin Davis or... Sure. Georgia rule.

Or mud round of us. Oh, I should have guessed Georgia rule. Well, I shouldn't have guessed Georgia Rule. Well, not now. That's not a 2012 movie. Um, okay. What movies are 2012? Is it...

Hmm. I'm struggling. He co-stars along with somebody who, well, one of his co-stars is somebody who we had a very intense conversation about in this very podcast discussion. Somewhat contentious. Somewhat contentious. Michelle Williams? No. Amy Adams.

Yes. Amy Adams. What was Amy Adams? What was she in 2012? It's before the master. No, it's not, it's not, it's not, I've forgotten some of these people are in this movie, wow. This is a very, very well-cast movie. Oh, is this a big ensemble? Yes. It's a movie where, like, very, like, famous and recognizable faces will show up for, like, a scene or two.

Okay. But the, the main female actress in this was somebody who had, like, just recently put a kind of big franchise behind her. They actually, she might not have actually been done with this franchise officially, but. I know what this is. This is on the road. This is on the road. Right. Kristen Stewart is what I was describing.

It's actually pretty good. And he, is it Steve Buscemi, he fucks in this movie, Kevin? Uh, right? I've never, I've never seen it, but now I want to. Yeah. Also, like, a giant, a giant, like, I believe. one of the, like, great, the big, like, emotional throughlines of this movie is how much Tom Sturridge wants to have sex with Garrett Headland, which, like, I get it.

I get it. Sure. Unless I'm misremembering, but still. No, but I always think about this movie with Garrett Headland for some reason. It, it, it, I remember. He's the one I think of him and Kristen Stewart are the two, are the ones that I really think of in this movie. But, like, Kristen Dunst is in this, Elizabeth Moss.

Like, it's, it's really well cast. Yeah. Interesting. Yes. Good job. Good job on Gerard Hedland. All right. For you, Kevin, I have someone who I don't think is quite as difficult. But one of the notes that we didn't talk about this movie is that Oscar Isaac's role was originally supposed to be played by Javier Bardem. He backed out semi at the last minute and Oscar Isaac came in at Cheska Chastain's recommendation. Regardless. Since we've been spending the time talking about Oscar Isaac's character wife, I figured I

I would give you, Hovey Obrose. Oh, do you give you, Penelope Cruz? Yes. I'm so excited. You know I love Penelope. Oh, wow. Okay, all right, all right. Oscar wins.

So, Vick-Cristina is obviously there. Correct. I'm going to guess Volver is also there because she was nominated for it. Thank Christ, Volver is also correct. Okay, good. All right, okay. Hmm, all right.

The disturbed part of me wants to say nine, but I'm going to resist. Although, does nine show up for people? Is that? Are you trying to say you don't want to live for Italian? Does nine show up for Fergie?

That's the question I have. Fucking better is all I'm going to say. It's fucking better. Joe, will you please look up to see if Nine shows up for Furkey? I need it to. What if her known for is like Glenn close and that there's only one role

except her one role is in Poseidon. Oh my God. Well, now once we're done making Kevin guess this, I'm making the both of you guess Fergie's known for. I'm just saying. We've officially moved. Like, it is now more of a, it's too big not to address, is what I'm going to say.

Okay, so Kevin, you have two correct guesses. You're waiting on two more. You have no wrong. Yeah, and I'm stuck on. Oh, she was in a Pirates, wasn't she? She was in like the fourth Pirates movie um i'm gonna guess that i don't remember the name though no do you have a subtitle for me i know it's the fourth it's like oh god nope it is correct but uh the title is on stranger i would have never gotten that i thought it was no man's land or something like that um okay

it's the rob martial pirates though well okay so that makes i'm just gonna say nine just to get out of my system nine is incorrect it's wild that why One of her Rob Marshall movies is on there, and it's... It's not one she was nominated for an Oscar board. Oh, I forgot she was... That was a Coat-Tales nomination, right? Because that was the year after. It sure was. Yeah.

I'll be waiting for you with my legs right open. Um... I wonder if there's going to be another Elmadovar on there. I don't think it's going to be... like broken embraces. It could be pain and glory. That's so new, though. And she's, like, but she's very prominently,

I was going to say she's not in it much, but even the credits are, like, very spotlighty of her. I love Payne and Corey, by the, like, great movie. She's wonderful in it, too. It's wonderful. I'll go ahead. Pinn-Corp. Incorrect.

Your year is 2001. Oh, shit. So this is like very different. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. This is Cruz and Cruz. This is Vanilla Sky. It is Vanilla Sky. Very good.

I wouldn't even, honestly, Penelope Cruz for me kind of like, once Volver happens, it sort of separates into two separate eras for me. it's like there's the Tom Cruise era before and then there's the hobby of our era after they feel very disparate but um cool that was that was fun i enjoyed that all right also we're we're running long and i just realized it will not be fun to try and guess for he's i will say nine is one of them poseidon is in fact one of them so you guys guess the

two fun ones the other two are it's a weird where grind house is one of them and also planet terror being one of the grind house movies is one of them So it's a weird double dip. Right, because isn't she murdered in Planet Terror? I think a lot of people are, and I would believe that, yes. So that's kind of a two-for-one kind of thing, which makes me feel bad that she doesn't have four distinct movies that she's on IMDB for. Which does make her kind of a Glenn Close. Throw her NBA finals national anthem.

I can. Who wants to play some basketball? Honestly, cast Fergie and things. Hollywood, just give it to me. She's so good in nine. She's genuinely so good at nine. Like, there's gotta be. It's stupid she wasn't in cats.

It's real stupid. She wasn't in cats. Let's say that. She could have done as much as I love the icon who plays the bitchy cat, because she was also in hustlers in the same year, and she's amazing. Fergie could have done that role. Fergie could have done a lot of those roles. Like, genuinely, could have done a lot of those rules.

God bless Taylor Swift, but like Fergie could have done that cat, too. Furgy Forgy for old Deuteronomy Just make it happen A cat is not A dog Sorry for my ginger minge

Fergy information Who's ready for the Jellica Ball? Oh god All right This is going to last you guys Thank you for being here Kevin This was so super fun Yeah

That is our episode If you want more This Had Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this hadoscubbuzz.com. You should also follow our Twitter account at Had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz. Kevin, please, first of all, thank you for coming back. We love having me. Thank you. We'll have you back in the future as well. But tell our listeners where they can find more of you.

Well, before I come back for what will inevitably be another Jessica Chastain movie, you can find me on Letterbox at Kevin P. O'Keefe. You can also find me recently reemerged on Instagram at Kevin. P-O-K-E-E-F-E-F-E. I have two E-S-2-Fs. I have long since abandoned the scourge of Twitter, but I did decide to make my re-emergence on Instagram so I could actually be social again. So you can find me in other of those places. You can also find my writing about Rupal's Drag Race every Thursday evening and Friday morning at Extra. X-T-R-A. It's a wonderful queer Canadian publication. Extra magazine.com. We publish recaps every Thursday night and power rankings every Friday morning for the rest of All-Stars 6.

We're having a wonderful time covering the season. I'm sure I'll be covering whatever season starts immediately after All-Stars 6. Probably UK-8, probably UK-3. We look forward to your coverage of Rupall's Drag Race Antarctic. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But only of Rupal hosts. That's the rule.

Unless it's Canada's Drag Race, Rupal has to host it for me to write about it, which resulted in me having to cover all eight up. episodes of the absolute disaster of RuPaul's Dark Grace Down Under. Ooh. But yeah, that's all me. And Joe, tell our listeners where they can find more of you. Sure. I'm on Twitter at Joe Reed.

Read spelled R-E-I-D. I am at letterboxed. Joe Reed spelled the exact same way. And I am also on Twitter and Letterbox at Crispy File. That is F-E-I-L. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Mievous for their technical guidance. please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, even though they are dog shit, Google PlayStitcher, whatever else you get your podcasts.

A five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcast's visibility. So slam that fifth star. Otherwise, you are very disrespectful. This was very disrespectful. That's all for this week, and we hope you'll be back next week for more buzz. Bye. Bye. It's no laugh.

You never fail to satisfy. Sites my love.