This Had Oscar Buzz - 157 – Woman in Gold

Episode Date: August 9, 2021

Somehow we have yet to cover a film starring Helen Mirren, but this episode, we rectify that with 2015′s Woman in Gold. Mirren stars in the true story as Maria Altmann, a woman who fled the Nazis and later sought restitution of her very famous family paintings by Gustav Klimt. The film also stars Ryan … Continue reading "157 – Woman in Gold"

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. She is. My aunt, Adela, painted by Gustav Klimt.

That's quite a painting. She was taken off the walls of our home by the Nazis. And since then, she's been hanging in the Belvedere Gallery in Vienna. And now you'd like to be reunited. Wouldn't that be lovely? And then there's justice. You really think a painting that ends up as a fridge magnet will ever leave Austria? It'd be a mistake not to take a look.

Could you drive a little faster? We're going to be there four hours early. But I wanted to buy perfume. Cognac in duty-free. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that does shady nighttime accounting in our dimly lit offices. 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're here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Joe Reed. I'm here, as always, with my pregnant but understanding wife, Chris File. Hello, Chris. Joe, I picked out your tie. This is the tie that you need to go wear to the Supreme Court. Oh, by the way, I'm in labor right now.

Yeah, my water broke. I'm fine. How absurd. How incredibly absurd. The most unheralded Katie Holmes performance. Honest to Christ. I maybe wasn't paying enough attention in the credits to have caught before she was on screen. Oh, yeah.

Much like Olga Curlienko in fucking Black Widow. To the point where you're just like Olga Curlenko, like greatest cameo or whatever. And I'm just like, honey, she was in the credit. Like, she was right there. I did not see her in the credits, but when she, when she dissolved onto the screen, her mask dissolved away, I fully screamed, and I was like, this, something went wrong here. They promised her something that they did not give her. And then I think she says one word and dies. Spoiler for Black Widow.

I mean, that's kind of where Olga Kerolenko's star meter is right now, right? Like, that's about right. Am I mid-Western trash for calling it Curlienko? No, I've no, I don't know. Well, I've watched a lot of hockey and also a lot of, like, gymnastics in my day. So... So you know all of the Russians. I feel like I've heard a name like that that has been pronounced Curlenko.

A Slavic sports. But, like, I could also just be, like, westernizing it as fuck. So, like, who the hell knows? Either way, Katie Holmes in Woman and Gold, the first time, she appears on screen, they're like in bed together and like it's from the side. You can't tell that it's her. But then when it like pans around and you can see it's Katie Holmes, I screamed her name at my computer screen. Okay. So top five, wait a second that Katie Holmes is, wait a second is that Katie Holmes performances in Katie Holmes's career. And I'm going to bring up her IMDB just so

like we can be comprehensive about this. Because it feels like half the time that Katie Holmes shows up in a movie, it's a surprise, right? It's like, I'm watching, you know, the giver, and it's just like, holy shit, that's Katie Holmes. I'm watching phone booth and, oh my God, that's Katie Holmes. And I feel like there's a lot of those throughout her career. Like, there's a lot of things were, like, for a while there, she was on the poster, like first daughter and pieces of April and stuff like that. But I feel like if I'm watching, I'm trying to look at some recent ones, Jack and Jill. Why would I be watching Jack and Jill? That's an excellent question. You're right to ask that question. But like all of a sudden it's just like, oh shit, that's Katie Holmes. Why is Katie Holmes in

this movie? She's the wife and Jack and Jill, right? She's the, that's all of these things. It's just like, surprise Katie Holmes. Oh, Logan Lucky is a great example of that. Oh, yes. I was really not prepared. She's really good in Logan Lucky. As is everybody. Okay, I watched. As is everybody, of course. I watched. Except for Seth Macbarland. Right. That is of truth universally acknowledged that Seth McFarland. Topic for a different episode. But I was watching the new Sodaberg, whose title I can never remember because it's so fucking generic.

No sudden move. Right. I always want to say no false move, but it's no sudden move, which I did not super care for. But mostly it's because every second I spent watching that movie, I spent wishing it was watching Logan Lucky instead. Like, that's all I wanted to be doing was just watching Logan Lucky. Very different vibe, though.

I loved that movie. Right. I wanted the vibe of Logan Lucky. seen Bill Duke is in. Yeah, you were really, I mean, Bill Duke is in a couple of scenes in that. I guess he doesn't jump out to me in that movie super much. I really liked Amy Simets. Maybe Amy Simets is my Bill Duke.

But, and of course, juppy, our little Noah Jupe. Kid's going to run the town one day. Truly, I am all in on the Noah Jupe train at this point. But anyway, not a fan of that movie, huge fan of Loken Lucky. And yeah, Katie Holmes is fantastic of it. we are talking about this week the great katie holmes movie the woman in gold not the woman in gold i sound like a mom when i say that woman in gold the gritty reboot will be the woman in gold right robert patinson is the woman in gold um category is gold eleganza yeah category as woman in gold would genuinely have been a viable thing if anybody had seen

the movie woman in gold and it had had any kind of cultural footprint at all but it didn't and so we talk about it. It made a lot of money. It made more money than it should have. Right? I think it's just very well-timed counter-programming. Because like there are those spring movies that are meant for older people that make money. And it feels like we're getting less and less of those now.

I'm thinking of all of the like best exotic Marigold Hotel. And, like, this is, this is, this is, uh, reaching for the same audience. So this opened on April Fool's Day in 2015, which I always feel like opening a movie on April Fool's Day feels like there's a reason why hotels don't have 13th floors. Like, it's just tempting bad luck to do it like that. Guarantee you like deadline or somebody headlined the box office, uh, weekend report with fools quotes gold. So do you have any idea?

what movie this counter programmed its opening weekend okay 2015 April 2015 first weekend of April 2015 I will tell you it was Easter weekend if that helps it doesn't in terms of it doesn't it's not like it's you know the Passion of the Christ

opened on Easter weekend or anything it was a big one Is it something like wrath of the Titans? No the first Peter Rabbit No it's something much much more popular than those. A Fast and the Furious movie.

Yes. Fast in the Furious Seven, which I believe was just called Furious Seven. The one where Paul Walker rides off into the sunset at the end. Ends up being the fifth highest. Yeah, fifth highest box office movie of 2015. So you could see Furious Seven and cry your little hearts out at Paul Walker at the end.

Or you could go see Woman and Goals and Goals. and watch Helen Mirren try and recover the art that the Nazis stole. So that was your choice. What else opened that weekend, if anything? Nothing. Those are the only two new movies of note. I would have chosen, woman in gold. I did choose.

I am fairly certain Furious Seven. How'd you seen this movie before? No, I hadn't. I hadn't either. Let me ask you now this question, Chris. Have you now seen this movie? Because my answer to that question is maybe. I had not seen Woman in Gold, but like, I'd seen Woman in Gold.

This is another one of those movies where it's like, oh, okay, this is exactly the movie you expected to be because you've seen this movie 15 hundred times. Watching this movie, Chris, and knowing it was a Weinstein Company movie, what other movie jumped into your head? And let's see if it was the same one for me. Oh, imitation game. Oh, wild. See, for me, I was like, they want this movie to be another filamina, where it's... Sure, it is in the crosshairs of an imitation game and a filamina. It is 50% filamina.

True life story of a woman seeking to redress a terrible wrong that, you know, a terrible moment in our history did to her. accompanied by a somewhat mismatched, oft-comedic actor playing her advocate. I was like they knew exactly what they wanted this movie to be when they had this come out, which is why it was sort of surprising to me that this opened in the spring because they had so much success opening Philomena like super, super, super late in 2013. But maybe they got cold feet about it or I don't know. seemed like I don't think this movie is too terribly exciting or interesting, but if you are

a Weinstein company person and you have had success with Philomena and you are working with the director of My Week with Marilyn, I don't know. I don't know why you would open this movie in the spring. Unless they were really like clearing the path. No wait, imitation game wasn't this year. Imitation game was the year was the year before this. What were they? they making room for, I wonder, in 2015, and we'll get to it, Weinstein Company was not, had bigger fish to fry other than its movies. And their big awards movies at the end of the year, they had the Macbeth movie that wasn't going to go anywhere. Right. Talk about movie opened super, super late. That Macbeth movie opened like February 29th, and I don't even think

it was a leap year that year. Like, it opened just on a date that never existed. technically opened in December, but, like, that it was a non-release that eventually, you know, whatever. Right. But they had Carol that year. Oh, of course. Okay. And we don't have to get too deep into it. Right. Right. And hateful eight. Handle Carol all that well. And then Hateful Eighth, which is like, we can get into it. But like, they were a company that had no money and they were like, sure, Quentin Tarantino, we will do whatever you want for this. Right. That Hateful Eight Oscar campaign was essentially just like it was Quentin Tarantino operating off of his own momentum and ultimately it didn't get very much as compared to something like Django Unchained. And I know people liked

Django Unchained better than Hateful Aid, but like both of them are in similar buckets for me. So Hateful Eighth does get the Jennifer Jason Lee supporting actress nomination and it wins for the score. But like Quentin Tarantino's movies on either side of that one have done much, much better with the Oscars in recent years. So that's... In the better movies. I don't like Django, but it's still better than that movie. Anyway.

I think I agree. But you're right that we're talking about a company that was kind of on the outs, not doing well financially. And this is before the Harvey Weinstein

legal matters came up. This is just purely financially the company was in to rubble. in 2015. Yeah. Yeah. So. Which, I mean, ultimately,

uh, it gets lost kind of as it should for like, the unearthing of everything horrible that Harvey Weinstein had done. Um, but like it is interesting. The Weinstein Company's financials in 2015 were the, uh, Gary Condit to Harvey Weinstein's 9-11,

where all of a sudden was just like, yeah, it's been lost to history now because something much, much worse happened. later and soon later. But you say, like, why would they release this in the spring when, like, it so clearly has, like, a clear path and, like, a model to follow in terms of an Oscar campaign, but, like, they kind of either baked it into the plan that they would bring it back around in the spring.

I think this is one of the reasons why it got the SAG nomination for Miran is I'm pretty sure this is one of the first. that were sent out. You talk about this a lot being, like, if you're the first screener out the door, you have a really good chance with SAG, and you're not wrong. Like, that has borne out. Sometimes you hear the report that, like, the first screener that's on everybody's door is X movie that really has no chance.

But, like, Amy Adams' part of her campaign was built on getting Junebug, the first screener in people's, you know, mailbox is that here. There is, I mean, it makes sense because when the deluge of screeners hits, you have to start making tough decisions. But that first couple that, like, trickle in, you'll watch just because it's like, well, this is the one screener that I have. It has no competition. Like, it does make sense.

Exactly. But yeah, this one was an early screener. This one was, but until it got that surprise SAG nomination, it was kind of already out of the conversation. And I think by the time the SAG nomination happened, it was too late, really, to get it back into the conversation. I know there was some talk because Mirren was also, and we'll talk about this, she was also getting buzzed for Trumbo that same year. But I think it was a little bit of a too little too late happening there. If there had been a campaign, even if she had been

running like eighth, ninth place in Best Actress that year by the time that nomination happened, maybe. But like she was such an afterthought in that category by then, by that point. Do you know what I mean? Well, it's also that this SAG lineup didn't just have Helen Mirren show up for a woman in gold. We're getting so far. Yeah. We're getting so far ahead of ourselves, but yes. We are, but like this is the shit that we like to break apart. So we can loop back to SAG because we're going to talk about Sarah Silverman's nomination as well. Yeah. But yes, to loop it back to the movie, this is very much a movie that I hadn't seen because I knew it was a movie I'd already seen before, if that makes sense.

You have seen very many movies like this all the way back to, you know, just the way that it's constructed narratively. You have a lot of flashbacks to how she actually escaped Vienna, how she, you know, kind of systematically had to, like, break from her family. You know what it made me think of also in terms of a better movie was, what was the documentary that was nominated this year, the documentary short? about the woman going back into a Nazi occupied year. Oh, God, hold on. I'm going to look that up because that was a good one, and I think it won? It did.

Colette, right? Yes. Colette, yes. I thought Colette treads some of the same ground, no pun intended, in terms of a woman sort of revisiting the ghosts of what the Holocaust had done to her and her family. And obviously that's a big part of Helen Mirren's character's storyline in this.

And it's certainly the most interesting part of the storyline. I think the movie wants you to think the most interesting part of this movie is the interplay between her and Ryan Reynolds, who plays her lawyer. But I would disagree. And maybe it should be. Maybe a better version of this movie, that is more interesting. And I think that's probably true. but I think I mean like you can definitely tell that like not to be too broad about it but that this is very much a woman's story told by from a male point of view he does seem to be just like an ambassador for a different audience that this movie wanted to maybe expand to right where it's just like but you got Ryan Reynolds come on you know men or young people he kind of his journey is to like kind of become

more like actively engaged with his own Jewish heritage and like confronting the atrocity and like his way of doing that is to help her and like risk his whole career for like this cause for her and then like in real life he ended up becoming like a restitution lawyer right after making a fuck ton of money on this particular case once it actually goes his way Spoiler alert. And to tell the vessel for that story, a story that I think is fundamentally Jewish, the author of that story is Ryan Reynolds. Yeah. Yeah.

And I get it if you're trying to cast it as somebody who has lost touch with their Jewish heritage. That's just like, how are we going to shorthand that? Well, what's the, who's the goiest actor out there? It might as well be Ryan Gosling on that aspect, except Ryan Gosling is a good actor. I was going to say Ryan Gosling would have done a much, much better thing. I don't want to bag on Ryan Reynolds too much, but like he's... I get it. I get it because it's like, certainly they are kind of chasing a certain dynamic, like you mentioned with Philomena, which was like Steve Coogan with Judy Dench.

But like, it doesn't make sense to me why this character isn't like a Michael Stolberg, right? Sure. Yes. the other i i mean i think they wanted to cast somebody younger for like we said the contrast but also i think i don't think the problem necessarily is that reynolds is you know too young or doesn't seem jewish enough or also even to the point where it's not exactly that he's not good It's that he projects comedy so much. You know what I mean?

The way that he projects unsiriousness. The way that he reads his line readings in every single movie with this way that's so like smarmy and proud of itself in a way that I like actively hate it all the time, except for maybe the proposal. Yeah, he can be like he can be very, very well used. I think he's incredibly well used in a movie like Adventureland that asks him to be sort of slightly older. And cool, but in a way that you ultimately end up mistrusting for good reason. Like, that's a really, really smart way to use Ryan Reynolds. Whereas this movie, I just feel like he, as good of a performance as he can possibly muster in this,

he just reads wrong for the genre of the movie. And it takes you out of it all the time. Like the archetype that it's relying on is more like Jimmy Stewart, right? And Ryan Reynolds does not have Jimmy Stewart in him. Right, exactly. But why don't we explain to the audience, who I'm imagining has not seen, largely has not seen Woman and Gold, what this movie is with a little 60-second plot description. Sure.

So we are talking about this week on this head Oscar Buzz the 2015 movie Woman and Gold. I love gold. Directed by Simon Curtis, written by Alexei K. Campbell. starring Helen Mirren, Ryan Reynolds, Daniel Bruill, Tatiana Maslani, Katie Holmes, as mentioned, Max Irons, famous son of a wife, Max Irons, Charles Dance, Elizabeth McGovern, Jonathan Price, famous husband of a wife, and Francis Fisher. This premiered at the Berlin Film Festival on February 9th, 2015. It opened on April 1st, 2015, April Fool's Day. ominous beginnings to this movie. Chris, are you ready to describe the plot of a woman in gold? I certainly will try. All right, begin now. All right, the story follows the life of Maria Altman, who escaped the Nazis from Vienna and then moved and started a new life in California. In the late 90s, she tried to receive these very famous paintings back

into her family name. They were taken by the Nazis and then now there were in a museum that didn't want to give them up. Shockingly, because it's the very famous portrait of her aunt, Adele Blockbauer, and several other paintings, including other portraits of her, the famous woman in gold painting that we all know. Anyway, Randy Schoenberg ends up being her lawyer played by Ryan Reynolds. He ends up helping her, including leaving his case. It goes through all different types of arbitration, whether it was first in Vienna, then here in the States, it goes all the way to the Supreme Court, and then there is a large court case, and it all ends up ruling in Maria's favor.

10 seconds, anything left to say in the 10 seconds you have to say. I mean, basically, Randy also goes through his own evolution, too, even though his family is growing, and he kind of gets more in touch with his Jewish. And that's time. I was sort of hoping you'd just, like, go into shout-outs for your extra 10 seconds. Shout-out to my Tatiana Maslani facial blindness.

It took me a second with her. her too. Like, I'm good at recognizing actors, even if I can't remember their name. I'm like, oh, I know them from that. And, like, I get that that's been part of her thing. Well, and if you didn't watch her TV show, it's not like she's been in a ton of other things, right? So. Right. But she plays the young Maria. She's the young Maria. Who is in the flashbacks as she's escaping Vienna. Just to clear up any confusion, when I said Max Irons famous son of a wife, I was not referring to Jeremy Irons as a wife. I was, of course, referring to the movie, The Wife, of which this is a pre-reunion Max Irons

and Jonathan Price. What if they remade the wife with Jeremy Irons as the wife? Well, that's a better movie. He wins the Oscar. He wins his second Oscar, and Glenn Close has a full nervous breakdown. I wish just having a fun little thing. You have to be the jerk. It's just jerky things.

Look at you, famous jerk towards Glenn Close, accusing anybody. else of being a juror. Just in that movie. I like her. In Hillbilliology, I know. You famously love her in Hildiliology. I didn't love her in that movie. I just, you know, I thought she was not the problem. Well, okay. So can we talk?

All so many things in that movie are not the problem because the problem is the movie. The fact that it exists, I know. Speaking of the wife, you just casually mentioned that Jonathan Price is in this. the most ghoulish thing about this movie. He's playing Rehnquist? Jonathan Price is just casually playing Chief Justice Rehnquist. I was just like absolutely

I couldn't tell who he was at first and then when I realized it I was like oh no. Yeah. Well this is one of the, you know, one of those things where because it is based on a true story, you do get where like Jonathan Price plays Chief Justice Rehnquist. Also, I can never

pronounce this guy's name right more it's uh blebatrow who was i mostly know from uh he's the guy in run lola run right he's the boyfriend in run low the run ah yes and he plays uh clint in this in this movie the painter of these very famous paintings very very briefly in this this movie starts with an incredibly stressful moment for me because whenever i see anybody working with gold leaf i feel so stressed out because just the the secondhand frustration i feel of how frustrating it must be to work with gold leaf where you have to be like so incredibly delicate and if like you like if you like breathe on it wrong you've totally like fucked it up and now it's stuck to something that it will never become unstuck to and it's just like i my my feeling about gold leaf whether it's used in

art or whether it's used in like frequently in food which i find baffling like so much effort to go into something that... Unlike chocolate. Right. It's just like, it's so, it looks so hard to work with. I'm just like, what is, truly, is it worth it? And ultimately, I come out the other side and I say no. I'm against Goldley.

If I'm coming out of this podcast right now, I'm against it. We are an anti-Goldly podcast. It is official. We have to put our foot down. Yeah. Anyway, that's how this movie starts. I think the fact that this movie is somewhat about just paintings, automatically places it as a bit of a matinee movie.

Yeah. For the matinee crowd. Yeah. Because, like, movies about paintings, like. We've done at least one. But it also definitely puts it right in our wheelhouse, too, because, unshockingly, the Academy takes such things seriously enough as well, where we have things like at Eternity's Gate for not really much reason being an Oscar nominee.

At Eternity's Gate, a girl with a pearl earring. our beloved goya's ghosts what are other movies about paintings I mean big eyes big eyes yes very true tulip fever is about tulips but is also in several ways about

a painting about somebody painting a portrait of somebody there's you know many many things it is funny how many times somebody's just like you know what would make a good movie this static piece of artwork that I'm looking at hanging on a wall that I was at like my rich like friend's house is just like well he's

got enough money to finance a movie what can I interest him in hey what's about this painting on your wall to the point where like there are some very very famous paintings that I'm kind of surprised aren't um aren't movies by now like the the I'm so bad with art you guys like I can't any the Da Vinci Code counts does. Mona Lisa Smile also counts. No, what's the painting where the guy's... Where the guy's face is... Is it an apple or is it a plum?

Do you know what I'm talking about? The Magreet. I just know that that's a Magrite. Yeah. Why isn't that a movie? Why isn't that the empty man? Because honestly, you know, it's scary. As scary as an empty man. Anyway, we are digressing. That is not a Magritte.

It's probably a Magrite. If it's not a Magrite, it should be a agreed. I'm just going to say that, all right? Um, we are a, we are an art podcast now this week. No, um, we're, we're straying far afield of woman and gold. This is the thing about woman and gold. I, I, my attention drifted watching this movie several times. I was, this movie was no match for my phone and, uh, in several. It also probably didn't help that, uh, we watched this through our good friends at IMDB TV and it has commercial breaks. Oh, I watched it on the Roku channel, but also with commercial breaks. Yes.

Oh. How were your commercial breaks on the Roku channel? We've talked about how IMDB TV will put the commercial breaks and Pluto at the most unwell times. And this actually felt right. Well, I think... It made me also feel like this was a movie built to have commercial breaks on like AMC. I think that's the thing. There's not a whole, not a whole lot of moments in this movie where I would be like devastated to have a commercial break interfere with my enjoyment of the movie.

I feel like most times I'm like you know what I could do with a commercial break here I could go get up and get a snack or pee or you know check my Instagram mentions or something like that just like something anything really yeah hell of a way to spend a Saturday evening and the only life I will ever live on this planet with watching women in gold in the middle at the end of July anyway what do we what do we think of Mirren in this movie I feel like should start with Helen Mirren. She's the reason why this movie sort of qualifies for this podcast. She got the SAG

nomination. She is she obviously won the Oscar for the Queen. She is a fully minted Oscar caliber actress to the point where almost anything, unless it's totally out of genre, is going to be

have some kind of Oscar buzz because she is the lead in it, right? This certainly qualifies. you know and I don't think she's bad in this I actually like no I like her in this especially like having the immediate comparison right there with drumbo right which she's bad because everyone is bad in that movie that movie is horrible yes you know that definitely helps me look at this performance favorably I mean I think there's a lot of these Helen Mirren performances that like you know the awards establishment always kind of is willing to reward or at least

recognize and this one I maybe liked a little bit more than something like the last station well so yeah go ahead and finish your thought well I was going to say there's a whole lot to this movie that is really even if any of it is based in fact that is still contrived like in terms of like Maria's hesitation to like go along with things at a certain point because she doesn't it's very painful for her to return to Vienna and like it's all movie business stuff right like you know certain obstacles that are overcome five minutes later you know that they're going to overcome them but I still felt from her performance like those things that felt very contrived on a movie level she did humanize them so the movie didn't seem so cynical

yeah she's she's sort of the anchor of the movie in that way i like her when she's in this mode where it's um she obviously has a lot of gravitas she brings with her a lot of gravitas but she's also um she has a sort of there's a lightness to her personality i feel like something like the hundred foot journey feels similar to this in that mode that she's in can't wait to watch that um i really really really like actually the hundred foot journey it it appeals to the best exotic Marigold Hotel fan in me. So I want to talk about sort of post-Oskar, Helen Mirren, because she wins the Oscar for 2006 as the Queen.

She had been nominated a few times before then for The Madness of King George and for Gosford Park. And she was an incredibly respected actress, and that sort of very much was one of those It's Her Time. It wasn't one of those like she's overdue. There's a little bit of a difference. We talk about the acting Oscars that feel like. like career achievements.

You're, you know, Puccino's, you're, much as we think that Still Alice is a great movie and she deserved to win for that performance. People definitely, there was a career achievement aspect of Julianne Moore's Oscar for that. But I think a slight sort of lateral

to that is the this is her year. This is his year Oscar, which is it's not that, you know, they're so overdue, but like they, they are of a caliber that they should have an Oscar and this is the moment

where we're going to give, where we're going to give that to them. I mean like other similar people, it feels like Sandra Bullock, Forest Whitaker are similar examples of this. Even Nicole Kidman in the hours, honestly, where it was like where she had, you know, emerged from the divorce

and she had her big year and it was just like, oh, this is her moment and we're going to give her moment. And which is not to denigrate performances that you know that were given for these particular moments but there's a lot going on there's a lot you know if you've been listening to this podcast this long you know our feeling that like it's not just the performance that goes into winning an Oscar there's a whole apparatus

and doesn't mean that it's usually not the performance and it doesn't mean that it's fraudulent and it doesn't mean that it's bad it's just there's context upon context upon context for all these sense. Right. I think she is good in the queen. I think that she was up against better competition from several of those performances, maybe all of the other performances in that category that year, where you're talking about Merrill in Devil Where's Prada and Judy Dench in Notes on a Scandal, and Kate Winslet and Little Children, and Penelope Cruz and Volver. I would probably put Helen fifth of five. I would easily put her fifth. And, but I still think it's a good... I don't like that movie either. I think... Yeah. I think it's okay. I was with it. If I

express my full opinions about that movie you'll never be allowed in uh in england again in the united i will never be allowed on the queen's internet um yeah but i think you know i think she's delivers a good performance and again it was her moment so i think after that oscar the other thing about that oscar was helen mirren had started to become a name that people knew even if you weren't super into, super into movies as we are. I feel like the leaping from movie consciousness to cultural consciousness is a big one. And a lot of the context of that was Helen Mirren, woman in her 60s, rock and bawd. Helen Mirren, woman in her 60s, seems like kind of a badass, right?

Like that's sort of her, she would give these kind of cheeky speeches at award shows. She would get caught by paparazzi in a bikini and like fucking Mika. or whatever. It certainly helped her Oscar chances and like her steamroll that season that she was giving a performance that she herself was nothing like. Right. It really enhanced the doubtiness of Queen Elizabeth II in that movie to know that like, oh, Helen Mirren's not just some older woman. She's like hot and cool. And it's just like, oh, okay. But I think it influences in some ways her career choices after the queen, where not all of them, but like there's there's a few different paths she takes i think with roles after the queen some of them

are um functionaries in charge of shit in uh kind of procedural stuff or bureaucratic stuff i'm thinking something like state of play or um the national treasure movie movie or movies i can't remember how many of those she's just in the sequel but i've never seen the sequel i've wanted to watch those movies recently um so there's that uh the debt was it which isn't like the debt isn't exactly a bureaucratic role but it's one of those where it just sort of like projects a kind of uh authority there it vaguely blurred with one of her other like type type cast that she's had or like roles she's taken on for herself in terms of her image of like slightly ironic action star Like, isn't it funny that Helen He's in Red is holding a machine gun?

Right. We're talking about Red. We're talking about the Fast and the Furious movies that she's in. I think something like Eye in the Sky, which was the same year as Women in Gold, falls into that first one of just sort of like she's a colonel in that movie. She's, you know, she's in charge. She's a, you know, woman in a man's world kind of a thing. I think some of the roles that she takes are this sort of woman in gold. a hundred-foot journey,

leisure-seeker. I'm not entirely sure what her character is in the leisure-seeker. She's seeking leisure. She is out in the world looking for leisure. Who among us?

She is a woman who goes places, experiences things. She's in a Winnebago in that movie, which really could have placed that movie within the lady in a van of cinematic universe. I mean, where else are you going to find leisure

but in a Winnebago? Truly, okay, we talk about things that like, seemed self-evident when we were children. And one of those things, to me, when I was a kid, was, when I grow up, I want to live in a Winnebago because it seems so cool. It seems so cool that, like, your house is also the thing you can, like, drive around in. I was also fascinated by the sheer, the sheer concept of a limousine seemed so incredibly

extravagant to me that when my cousin got married when I was in high school, I was, like, a freshman in high school maybe and the whole family got invited to Connecticut for the wedding and we were all staying at this one hotel and the hotel was going to like provide us like vans to the church and all of this it was the whole thing and so the hotel screwed up our reservation and we all had to go to at the last minute accommodations at a different hotel which honestly was like it was a chain so it's like it's one hotel to the other one wasn't so bad but because of their mistake, they arranged for limousines

for all of us to go from the hotel to the church. So it was... So to you, this was excellent. You were living in high style. I was the fucking Sultan of Brunei in this thing where it was just like, I literally was just like

me and my family and our cousins and our aunt and uncle in a limo like the limo ride that lasted about 17 minutes max. And I was just like... You're exiting the limo, throwing glitter in the air. with giant sunglasses and dubstep starts magically playing.

Well, and part of it was this wedding took place at a church in this fairly like modest town center in West Hartford, Connecticut. And so all of a sudden, like 10 limousines back to back to back, like start pulling up in front of this church. So, and normally it's just like, this is just sort of a pedestrian center and there are some shops around there and whatever. So all of the pedestrians, of course, go to look and see which fucking Kennedy is getting married at this particular church at this moment. And it was just like, so all of a sudden there are people looking at us. So yeah, I thought I was living the goddamn life of the rich and famous at that point.

And so now I look back at that. It's like this was several years before I would realize that like idiot teens go into junior prom can also rent out a limo. Like limos are not that cool. You know what I mean? The moment where you find out that limousines are not something you can just like get for a few hundred dollars if you really scrounge around. It's just like, oh, okay, well, then this is no longer, you know, quite so glamorous. This is just sort of wealth pageantry. You know what I mean?

It is a decent method to procure some leisure. It is. I will say, if you're looking for leisure, it's Winnebago 1, limousine 2, and then... Jet ski 3. See, I guess, if that's your idea of leisure, then yes. If you're seeking leisure on the high seas, then yes. but anyway back to miran i think the third track then is stuff that could conceivably get her more awards and some and it's not always quite that like crassly cynical but like she gets

the nomination for playing tolstoy's wife in the last station very much kind of a halo nomination she loses to sandra bullock for um the blind side she's in the tempest uh what's her Julie Tamar is the Tempest, which is totally ignored. It's one of those things where it's just like, it was... Costume nomination, though. Right. Well, it had happened. Julie Tamar was sort of like on the, you know, on the ascent.

The Lion King on Broadway was big. This is pre-turn off the dark. Well, this is the thing is everything pre-turned off the dark was like, there was an assent. And then like, across the universe happened. And we were all, I think, kind of ready for across the universe to maybe be a big deal. because, like, Julie Tamer's an artist, and the Beatles are so popular, and that movie happened, and everybody's sort of like, huh, like, that's... It has a massive following now, but, like, at the time, like, the movie fully whiffed.

And so I think then they're like, well, maybe The Tempest, and then the people saw The Tempest, and they're like, well, I don't know what to make of that at all. So, that didn't happen. She's in a few movies that sort of seem like they might go someplace. but they never actually really open, like Brighton Rock, I'm thinking of. Or Love Ranch, which is the movie that her husband, Taylor Hackford, directed. That's like her and Joe Pesci are running a brothel in Reno, Nevada, which seems like an interesting idea, but like that movie never really released. And so no one saw it.

I also didn't see it. But then, like, she's Hitchcock's wife. I keep saying she's in these roles where she's like. like famous person's wife, but like, it's true. She's Alma Reville, Reville. Almost gets nominated for it. She gets a, is that another one where she got a SAG nomination? I think she got, see, here's the thing about Helen.

Globe and Sarah. Ellen Maren has actually had some decent, like, brushes where it almost happens. Like, Trumbo, I think she had like two of the three major precursors. I'm looking up Hitchcock now. She got Golden Globe nomination. She got a Screen Actors Guild nomination. She got a BAFTA, right? Yes.

So she like, yeah, it's kind of, then that was the year where Kovanchine Wallace and Emmanuel Riva kept winning critics stuff, but like missing at the precursor awards. And I kept being like, it's going to happen. Just wait. I don't know why I was sticking to my gun so hard about this, but I was, I was just like, don't worry about it. Like, it's going to happen. And it did, ultimately, those two both got actress nominations.

and it was bad news for Helen Mirren and Marion Cotillard for the Rustin Bone. But, like, Hitchcock, it was less surprising because, like, people weren't enthusiastic about it. Helen Mirren was getting the attention because she was the best thing about it and, like, the most agreed upon, like, best thing about it. However, she did get another major precursor nomination that we didn't mention, but we should because it is a major precursor. she got a best actress nomination with the movies for grownups. That's important to note, and I'm glad that you noted it and put it on the record. The thing about Hitchcock was, Hitchcock is one of the great this works on paper movies, and it worked so much on paper that people were really, really hesitant to give up on it,

even though the fact that nobody who saw it liked it all that much. But like a movie about one of the great Hollywood directors starring Anthony Hopkins and Helen, Mirren and Scarlett Johansson and this like all-star cast Tony Collette right and nobody really liked it all that much and yet it kept getting pushed hard for Oscars and Mirren got all of those precursors and then it just didn't happen and so then you're right she gets a Golden Globe nomination I think well-deserved for the Hundred of a Journey even though nobody but me saw that movie and then here comes 2015 so once again Trumbo works so well on paper.

Like, it's one of those ones where you look at that ahead of time. And nobody thinks that Jay Roach is some kind of, like, visionary director, but he's an incredibly successful mainstream director. So, like, there was no reason to think, like, that was going to be a problem. And it was starring Brian Cranston, who at that time was, like, the most popular actor on television because of Breaking Bad. and it was about Hollywood and Hollywood fucking loves Hollywood

and it was about a writer who was blacklisted and so Hollywood really loves movies where Hollywood can talk about you know political issues and paint itself as you know the battleground

of sort of great issues of great national importance so well and it's also like the like emotional peak of that movie is he wins an Oscar after getting blacklisted. Right, right, right. So like truly everybody, I think with very good reason, had an eye on this for big awards season success. Helen Mirren plays

Hedahopper where if you are listening to you must remember this obviously you know Hada Hopper is one of the two great gossip columnists of her era wildly right wing and politically toxic and eager to ferret out

communists and all this sort of stuff so obviously a big spotlight role for Mirren she is bad in the movie Brian Cranston is terrible in the movie and I like you know I know like

especially for people who didn't really get into breaking bad. There's a lot. There's a big sort of like what is the big deal with this guy kind of a thing. I like Brian Cranston. I think he works well in a lot of contexts. He's legitimately awful as Dalton Trumbo in this movie. It's a terrible movie. It really, really is.

Horrible. And yet, again, she gets a Golden Globe nomination. Like, first of all, Cranston runs the table and gets an Oscar nomination and we can all sit quietly and reflect on that for as long as we need to, that that happened. But it happened. Again, sometimes

these movies that are good on paper are good enough on paper that they ride the storm of bad buzz all the way to a nomination she almost does as well globe nomination sag nomination the double sag nomination because she's nominated for sag for women and gold and i unlike my very very correct the predictions about emmanuel riva and covangeney wallace i was like well miran's obviously getting nominated like let's all just make our peace with this now we don't like this performance, but like it's going to happen. And I didn't think... But for Trumbo. Right, for Trumbo. Sorry. Yeah. I thought that's what we were still on that subject. Anyway, I didn't think Rachel McAdams in Spotlight was going to happen. And so that, to my great

and wonderful surprise, did happen. Rachel McAdams does get a nomination at the expense of Helen Mirren, and good for everybody for that. So 2015 Oscar nominations were a real mixed bag. That was, of course the year that we Oscar So White got coined so like a lot of not great that year but also Mad Max Free wrote and Rachel MacAdams so there was some stuff some good stuff that happened that year after that Chris

what's the one movie she makes in 2016 well eye in the sky gets released in 2016 right a good chunk of money that's a decent movie I like I on the sky it's engaging it's not great it really showed I mean I think with woman in gold in that movie, it really showed that Helen Mirren does have an audience that she draws in, and it's like, might not make a hundred million dollars, but she has an audience that

will, like, show up for her. But she also was one of the many people in a cinematic masterpiece collateral beauty. What was her little function in that movie? What was she playing? She was playing the ghost of Christmas what?

She was... Death. She's not time. She's death. Right. Yes. The, the gag of that movie is Helen Mirren, Kira Knightley, and Jacob Latimore play people who are also concepts. But are they?

They're also off-Broadway actors. Don't spoil it for them, Chris. Maybe they want to see collateral beauty. Okay. This is, we're not getting into the full collateral beauty. We are saving that episode for a very, very special occasion. It is not a spoiler. The reason

you think it's a spoiler is because the trailer made it seem like they were actually ethereal people, and what the movie is about, this is in the first act of the movie, these actors are hired to pretend to be these constructs to gaslight Will Smith out of his company. All I am going to say is. It's not a spoiler. It's just the trailer made you think that it is actually a mystical movie. I first watched this movie because my good and wonderful friend Ashton, who's birthday upon which we are recording this podcast, so happy birthday, Ashton. forced me to watch this movie knowing as little about it as possible.

And I was like, but I could very easily find out. And he's just like, no, we're watching it this weekend and don't know anything about it. And so knowing very little about it, beyond just sort of watching the trailer, was kind of fantastic because, guys, so much happens in that movie. We will totally get into it on our federal beauty episode. All right, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, anyway. After Collateral Beauty, again, she joins the Fast and the Furious franchise. She makes a movie called The Leisure Seeker, where she goes and seeks some leisure.

She's in Winchester. Does anybody really see Winchester? It's a horror. I think that was like a January horror movie or like the Labor Day horror movie. She is one of, there's a, not only has she sought some leisure in movies, that there is a movie where she seeks out all of the four realms. She does do that in the Nutcrackers. The movie that asks truly the bravest question of our time,

what if there were four realms? She's in a movie that, to the best of my knowledge, is still up for a Saturn Award, because I don't think they've handed out those Saturn Awards, which is the Good Liar. We talked about this a few weeks ago, that somehow the Good Liar is a Saturn Award nominee, which I saw in theater,

and because it was the end of, of 2019 that I saw that movie, it ended up being one of a handful of the last movies I saw in a theater before the pandemic hit because I normally go sort of light on seeing movies at the beginning part of a year because the Oscars have so totally, you know, worn me out. Sucked up your line. And so it was probably like in the last 10 movies I saw in the theater before the pandemic hit. And the Good Liar is actually kind of fun. Like the Secret of the Good Liar is it's actually kind of a trashy thriller in a way. Bill Condon is very underrated for knowing what medium he's working in, knowing sort of what realm

he's working in. And he's pretty malleable about that kind of thing. He adapted, I think, really well to the Twilight universe in his two Twilight movies. He did a very good job. He did a very good job I think with Dreamgirls. I was going to say, he, much like Rob Marshall, have directed one of the very best and one of the very worst screen musicals of our time. Wait, what's his very worst? Oh, Beauty and the Beast.

Oh, right. I never think about that as a musical, but yes, you're totally right it is, and yeah, it's terrible. Beauty and the Beast and then everybody is always underrating how great Dreamgirls is. Yeah, Beauty and the Beast in the Fifth Estate are his probably two worst.

movies and because there two have heard his last four most recent movies that's too bad um he does keep working with Ian McKellen and one of these days Ian McAllen's got to win an Oscar before he dies right like that's got to happen can we please I don't think that's going to happen to be such a bummer Christopher Plummer did I don't know um yeah but different roles Ian McCollins not doing Christopher plumber's roles. I also want to shout out Helen Mirren's single scene in F9, which A, is super fun. She gets to, you know, she gets to drive a car. The thing about the Fast and the Furious franchise that I love is they are incredibly generous with knowing that like getting to drive a car in an action scene in one of their movies is a cool thing for an actor to be able to do. And so

they'll sort of bestow these scenes on an actor who's maybe like newer to the franchise and you sort of maybe have to work up to it a little bit and like in this movie F9 they're like Helen Mirren, your driving scene. Natalie Emanuel, your driving scene. And it's just like

and it's like it's cool. And also Helen Mirren and Vin Diesel have legit great chemistry together and I'm just going to say that and just she loves making those movies. She loves making those movies. She said that she's love making the movies. But like she and Vin Diesel should have a movie where they kiss is all I'm going to say. Maybe not in the fast movies because, you know, he's very loyal to Lettie. But something. Make it happen. I'm just saying. Did I text you the day that I watched Lee Daniels as Shadowboxer, which Ellen Aaron is in? I think you did. Talk about seeking some leisure. She's not only seeking leisure. She's seeking pleasure in that movie. that movie is one of the most fucking bizarre things i have ever seen um i i feel like i have to

spoil it okay so she i'm not going to see shadowboxer spoil it she and kuba gooding junior are lovers who are also criminals who she's was his stepmother but like Like, her journey ends in the movie with them fucking because she's, like, dying. She has, like, terminal cancer. And she decides that she wants to die by fucking. What? And he, they're having sex. And, like, when she has her orgasm, he shoots her in the head.

I thought you were going to say she dies of, like, cancer or ecstasy or something. No. It's, it's, it's, and that is the tip of the iceberg of that movie. Oh. boy. That movie is wild. But that's the thing about Helen Miran, too, and why I think to bring it back to what you were saying of it didn't feel like her narrative was ever overdue, it was, it's her time.

That's because, like, before she kind of got into these more, like, stodgy, like, you know, not even meat and potatoes, but, like, oatmeal and sugar movies, like Woman and Gold. is, like, she did have kind of this evolving career. Like, there was the prime suspect stuff, which, you know, was probably the most, like, thinker quotes mainstream or boring, like that. People love those things, though. Like, that's the thing.

It's, like, I don't even think you can call them boring. Like, mainstream, definitely. But, like, people who are, like, PBS people, fucking love those prime suspects. Right. But, like, she came into. a lot of popularity and prominence doing like movies with Peter Greenaway

where she's fucking naked the whole time and like she and like weirder stuff like Excalibur so right the cook the chief his wife and her lover that kind of thing for something a little left of center or you know something silly like a Fast and Furious

movie right that's why that's yeah have to share a second to talk about teaching Mrs. Tingle yeah no I think that's I think that's all part of that thing and I think that's a big reason why we love her. And yet, while doing that, she can also lay it down and play both Queen Elizabeth I first and Queen Elizabeth II in different projects. She can be, you know, an incredibly sort of like buttoned up made in Gosford Park and then like out of nowhere

deliver the best scene in the entire movie. And like there's a reason why she has a ton of respect. And I think post-Oskar, because her projects have gotten, there's, you know, the median sort of of high water level for those projects isn't really super great. And I think maybe we've taken for granted that she is as good as she is. And part of that maybe is, you know, the movies that she's decided to be in. And that's fine. But I think she's an incredibly interesting act. We don't have a whole ton of actors of her stature and prominence doing the stuff that she does. And I think that's cool. I mean, again, to bring it back to woman gold a little bit like of those type of like performances i actually think she's good in this movie

oh i do too she's the most interesting thing about it she's the reason to see this movie kind of the boring version you expect it to be yeah it is very much structure like the a movie you've seen before but like i don't know she like her her emotion kind of undercuts that in a way that's a little bit more complicated than you might expect there's just on a performance level. There's a glint in her eye and yet also she's able to really communicate the gravity of what this woman is feeling, which is this sort of great sense of betrayal that her home nation has treated her and her family so poorly after also the even greater betrayal of, you know, what happened in the Holocaust and what, you know, happened to her people in the Holocaust and

that whole kind of thing. So, yeah, I think she communicates all that. you know incredibly well we haven't talked too much about the fact that this is a simon curtis movie and he's somebody who comes out of the theater and has directed you know some television stuff and shakespeare adaptations and the requisite you know cranford the miniseries and whatever um then I think his first, is my week with Maryland, his first feature film directing? Yes. Which is crazy. I don't love that movie, but it is a wild success with Oscars.

It gets nominations for Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh. And do, no, Viola Davis was definitely second that year for the help. But I have a feeling that, like, Michelle Williams was probably third place that year. Yeah. Right? Yeah, I think that was a. that was a year that was I don't think you get Meryl Streep

winning for the Iron Lady if it's not close between three people. Yeah, I think. Even though she's Merrill, even though all that, that movie, that movie. There was Iron Lady,

not to get off on another tangent, but like you talk about sometimes like having face blindness. Like I, the appeal of that movie to other people eludes me so greatly that all through that season

I was like well yeah but Merrill's not going to win though like not for this like we you know she's gonna she'll come close but like Viola Davis is going to win this Oscar and Merrill will win it for the next one as we've been saying for the last like 10 nominations and she ended up winning and I love her so much and I love that speech so much

that automatically I was just like well good for her but I just I couldn't believe that it was going to happen for that movie because I couldn't quite understand why anybody would love that movie or love her performance in that movie. Or that performance. Right. It's, oh, gosh.

I don't know. But anyway, Simon Curtis, my week with Marilyn. Simon Curtis, though, is trying to come for Lassa Hallstrom's guest because he did also direct a movie narrated by a dog. The Art of Racing in the Rain. Is that what we're talking about? Yes. He also directs. Lassa Hallstrom are going to battle out here. Listen, I like Lassa's chances, but Simon Curtis has been, you know, nipping at his heels.

He directs a movie also called Goodbye Christopher Robin. Which no one saw. Well, here's, I mean, I joked about this earlier about the women in gold, but I'm like, I really mean it here. I don't know if I've seen this movie. And part of it is that there was also a movie about Christopher Robin, played by Ewan McGregor, that i did see that i definitely did see i'm pretty sure this is also the same year or very close to the tolkien movie which i didn't see with nicholas holt but it was terrible so donald gleason in this plays a mllm author of leaning the pooh margot roby plays his wife kelly mcdonald's in

this movie phoebe waller bridge is in this movie alice law there's some like people in this movie i would probably remember if i saw this movie i do love donald gleason that much i haven't though and and i don't want to like it just seems the wild thing is that was a searchlight movie and like even by searchlight like they don't usually bury movies and they just kind of it also seems like the exact same story as finding neverland a movie i found incredibly boring and i don't want to do that again so i'm probably not gonna but um right so the next movie for simon curtis it seems like they're making another downton abbey movie which makes a ton of sense because there's an audience for that and why wouldn't you yeah the first one made so much money who directed the first one was it julian fellows no julian fellows who all throughout gosford park all throughout downton abbey i always think of brian fellows

Yeah, Julian Fellows only wrote those. Michael Engler directed the first down in Abbey. So Simon Curtis will be directing the second one. I don't think there's a ton directorally in Women and Gold that I feel like merits a whole ton of mention. It's fine. I mean, it's fine. It's of the two movies of his that I have seen.

It is the better directed movie. Yeah, I would say that that's probably true. I don't think he has any type of perspective on this material that, you know, is all that unique or original or insightful. I do kind of like the restraint that it had. You compared it to Filomena and like you think a lot of these like cute, quirky old lady movies. Like I kind of liked the bits where like she's in her shop, you know, selling sweaters and such. And like I did feel like there was a little bit restraint that I was like, okay, this movie's not amazing, but an even lesser movie would be like

look at this weird lady in her shop you know what I'm saying? I think also though the Philomena comparisons I'm thinking of the part where like they're in the car on the way of the airport and she's just like I want to go to duty free and get perfume and cognac and I was like oh this is very filamina

and I was like for as much as Stephen Freers can run hot and cold I think Stephen Freers would have done a very good job with this movie with us sure you know I want to dip into the Weinstein company for a second because

and we don't really have to like get super into it but like it really was in bad financial straits at this moment and while at the same time Harvey Weinstein keeps making all these overtures to like I want to buy Miramax back and like merge to companies once again

it seems like everybody these flexes because everybody knows that the company right everybody in the industry is just like you don't have any money like you're more apt to be sold yourself rather than like sell it and they keep like selling off their like film library at this point and just nothing is going well but at the same time because I think the machine of it is running on rails a little bit like it had just gotten a bunch of awards award nominations

for the imitation game wins a screenplay award for the imitation game and famously one of the most cringy Oscar campaigns ever. Right, but it worked. Honor the man, honor the film. But it worked is the thing. Like, that's the crazy thing. And so... Well, people are stupid.

And we mentioned before, like, the same year, they've got Carol, which doesn't get a best picture nomination, but does get six, you know, Oscar nominations, which is not nothing. Hateful Eight gets a couple ones and wins a big one. So, like, even as the company is, like, circling the drain, they, that awards apparatus is still strong and can still get some stuff done. But we are like under two years from the Weinstein company going kaput. And again, a big part of that was the allegations coming to light about Harvey Weinstein.

But like it was not a healthy company. It is worth mentioning though that like even without the allegations, the company could have completely gone. It probably was headed in that direction. It probably was going to get sold to someone. It probably wouldn't be gone. It would probably be owned by a bigger company now. but because the Weinstein name wouldn't have been, you know, toxic.

But once it became toxic, there was no upside to anybody owning it now. Anyway. This year, though, like, especially in comparison to women and gold, it's no surprise that, like, woman and gold could come back around because it is in that position to, like, be the first screener out to people. But, like, financially, it was like what the hell was going on? Because they do this whole huge, expensive 70-millimeter rollout for, Carrantino. Meanwhile, like, Carol hasn't expanded its release after two months at all.

Right. It was... So... It's also the year of burnt, by the way. Oh, I realize. Wait, so I'm going to ask you to sort of tab out of your Weinstein company Wikipedia page for a second. I realized that we haven't played a game of alter egos in a while, and I wanted to. So... I love alter egos. I came up with a little round of alter egos for you. That is, of course, the game where I name three movie roles, and I ask Chris to name the movie that the actors

who played all those roles are in together. Theme for this installment of Alter Egos is the Weinstein Company, which is why I don't want you to have a list of Weinstein titles in front of you while you play. Oh, okay. I think I have, what, 11 or 12 or something of these. We'll see. I don't know. I always am a bad judge of how easy or difficult these are going to be.

So, you know, do the best that you can. I think I have a great confidence in you. Ready? Sure. All right. So once again, listener, I will give Chris three movie roles. He will then figure out who played those roles and what movie. All three of those actors weren't together.

First one, Queen Elizabeth I first, Jay Edgar Hoover and Harlan Pepper. There could be a few different options here. Jay Edgar Hoover, I'm going to guess, is Leonardo DiCaprio. and Queen Elizabeth I'm just going to guess is Kate Blanchett and we are talking about the Aviator? No. Although... Technically, that's Miramax.

That is Miramax. No, not the Aviator. Are my actors right? No. Judy Dench for Queen Elizabeth I. That is correct. With Leonardo DiCaprio is Jay Edgar. What were they in besides Jay Edgar?

It's not Jay Edgar. And it's maybe not Decapre. So, Judy, this is, is this, um, Philomena? No, it's not Philomena. So the actor who played... Well, famously, DiCaprio and Judy Dent were in Philomania together. That's right. No, um, a few people have played Jay Edgar Hoover over the years.

Um, this one was from the movie Nixon. Oh, okay. Who's Jay Edgar Hoover in that? but it's not, I mean, it's not Steve Coogan, because I guess, Philomena, Judy Dench, Nixon. Also, Harlan Pepper is your third one, who... Yeah, and I know that name, but I don't know that name. Yeah.

Jay Edgar Hoover in Nixon is played by a sort of character actor who had a sort of brief Oscar dalliance in the 1980s. He had sort of a brief window where Oscar smiled upon him in the 80s. He has at least one very, very well-known role in a very popular late 80s movie that blends animation and real-life action. Oh, Bob Hoskins. This is Mrs. Henderson Presents. This is Mrs. Henderson Presents. Yes, Queen Elizabeth I first is Judy Dench. J. Edgar Hoover is Bob Hoskins.

Harlan Pepper is Christopher guest in... Oh, that's in... best in show yes correct all right next one queen elizabeth the first john conner and q well problem is there are a lot of john conners at this point um so queen elizabeth the first i'm just going to guess that that one is cape lanchet uh-huh which john connor do i want to guess do i want to dress Christian Bale do I want to guess whoever was in

Genesis probably not Edward Furlong going to go out on the Wednesday it's not Edward Furlong No great Kate Blanchett Edward Furlong collabs

Kew would be Ben Wischaw is oh no this is um it is christian bail it's i'm not there it's i'm not there very good todd haines is i'm not there uh you got them all right okay next one mark darcy linda partridge charles stoker okay this is um mark darcy is colin ferth obviously in linda partridge i know mark darcy in what just for our listeners uh bridget jones's diary And Bridget Jones Starry, yes.

What was the third one? Charles Stoker. Is that Matthew Good? It is. From Stoen Firth, Matthew Good. This is a single man. This is a single man. Linda Partridge is Julianne Moore in Prize Winner of Defines, Ohio.

Nah, not that one. No. No. Linda Partridge is Julianne Moore in Magnolia. Shame on you! Shame on you! Gnonon! Oh, duh, da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

All right. Next one, your roles are MIRF, Robbie Turner, and Amanda Waller. This is Jessica Chastain, is Murph. What was the second one? Robbie Turner, that's Atonement. This is the disappearance of Eleanor Rigby. The disappearance of Eleanor Rigby. Robbie Turner, one of my favorite tidbits about Robbie Turner,

the main character in Atonement, is James McAvoy's character in Atonement, is that that's who drag queen Robbie Turner from season eight of drag race named his character actor. It's after Robbie Turner from Atonement. I wanted to like her so much and then she just turned out to be a disaster. Amanda Waller is Viola Davis in Suicide Squad. Yes. So there's that. All right.

Next one. Renaldo Arenas, Sophia Serrano, and Christine Chubbick. I know all of you. of these, they're right there, and I can't think of them. Reinaldo Arenas is Habia Bardem in Before Night Falls. What are my other two? Sophia Serrano and Christine Chubbock.

Ooh, Christine Chubbick is a, like, journalism movie. Yes. What is the journalism? movie it's kind of right there have we covered this movie no but it's kind of right there for you huh it's right there right there um say it christine chubbic yeah is right there journal the journalist is the movie called no it's the movie called journalism nope nope say your name again Christine Chubbock

It's right there Huh You said it Christine Oh It's Rebecca Hall This is Vicki Christina Barcelona

Oh my God It was like scream I was just like For God sake You keep saying it Any guests on Sophia Serrano Knowing that it's Vickick That is

I guess you're going off of billing order, is this... Is Penelope billed above Scarlett Johansson? Oh, it's not necessarily the top three build. I'm just picking, you know, three prominent actors who I think have good characters for you. So I left out Scarleto Johnson. Sophia Serrano.

Sophia Serrano is Penelope Cruz in Vindola Sky, of course. Oh, okay. All right, next one. Elizabeth Swan, Bruce Banner, and Maddie Ross. Okay. Bruce Banner is either Edward Norton or Eric Banna or Mark Ruffalo. I can't believe Mark Ruffalo was my third for that one. Nor can I. Jesus.

First name was familiar. What was that? Elizabeth Swan. Elizabeth Swan, which I should know this. Elizabeth Swan, whenever I hear the name Elizabeth Swan, My mind always goes to the Theranos woman. Who is Elizabeth Holmes? Right. Mirosorvino's greatest character.

Yeah, so new one has to lose a loved one too soon. Who is Elizabeth Swan? In a movie with... Elizabeth Swan is played by an actress who also had an incredibly famous role where she played another Elizabeth, although not a queen, but a famous character of literature. Oh, um, is it Carrie Mulligan? No, but you're really in the right ballpark. Is it Akira Knightley? Yes. Okay, Kiranitly. Oh, this is begin again. This is begin again. Elizabeth Swan is Kiranit Knightley in

the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Oh, okay. Bruce Banner is Mark Ruffalo in The Avengers movies. And Maddie Ross is... Oh, Haley Steinfeld and True Grigg. Yeah. All right, next one.

Brian Fantana, Rita Repulsa, and Summer. Elizabeth Banks is Rita Repulsa. Yes. Summer is Zoe de Chanel. In 500? days of summer yeah the hell movie were they in together what was the first name brian fantana oh that's familiar yeah this isn't like zach and mary make a porno is it it's not although i think that is a Weinstein company movie okay and you're in the right genre for the movie

Elizabeth Banks. What's another role I can give you instead of Brian Fantana? Scott Lang, does that help you? No. Hold on. Brian Fantana I know is one that I should know. It is. It's in the same genre as the movie in question is.

Right. It's some type of comedy. Yeah. he's part of a sort of notable squad in is he one of the anchorman people yes is it Paul Rudd

yes problem is I don't know if this is going to help me get what the movie is Paul Rudd Elizabeth Banks Zoe Dishinell all of those like Paul Ruddy romantic comedies kind of blur together

hold on let me see if I can get anybody else from the movie oh um agatha harkness agatha harkness that's some hunger game shit um god oh watch marvel things jesus christ um oh is this katherine han yes it used to be so much more fun to be a katherine han oh shut up um um jane banks Diane Keaton. No. Oh, you're thinking of Father of Bride.

I want to say her name is Nina Banks. Ah, yes. George and Nina. No. Jane Banks. Oh, God. Why have none of these actresses

have notable character names? What is this movie? I'm not going to get it. It's our idiot brother. An incredibly, incredibly talented cast in our idiot brother. Jane Banks is Emily Mortimer and Mary Poppins returns.

uh yes paul rudd elizabeth banks zoe de chanelle emily mortimer katherine hawn shirley knights in this movie hugh dancy's in this movie rhesita jones under no circumstances did i remember that our idiot brother exists all right it's a good movie i liked it all right uh next one charity barnum prince hamlet and tom hayden charity barnum prince hamlet and what was the third tom hayden Tom Hayden. Charity Barnum is Michelle Williams. Prince Hamlet means it's either Mel Gibson,

Kenneth Branagh, or Ethan Hawke. I'm going to guess it's Kenneth Branagh and say, it's my week with Maryland. It is my week with Maryland. Tom Hayden is Eddie Redmayne in Trial Chicago 7. All right. Next one.

Next one is hard. Which I know it's funny to say after you struggled so much with our radio brother. Fanny Braun, Marilyn Barnett, and Duke Lato Atreides. Oh, okay, so I'm going to know what some of the... Fanny Braun. I know that, I know that, I know that, I know that, I know that. Did we just do a movie with Fanny Braun?

No, but we just did a movie with one of these other ones. Oh, okay. Atrades is Dune. What's the middle name? Marilyn Barnett. Marilyn Barnett, so that's the one that we've done an episode on. Great. I can't remember it. This actress, this was the best possible option for this actress.

And she does not have memorable character names, unfortunately, even though she's a great actress. Is it Chastain? It's not Chastain. What did we do before that one? Is it Sarandon? No. What did we do before that one? Emma Stone. Right movie, but wrong actress. Sarah Silverman

No Andrea Reisborough Yes It's got to be Oh no Fanny Braun Fannie Braun is Bright Star Which I just watched again

Yeah It is This is WE This is WE Fannie Braun is Abby Cornish In Bright Star Marilyn Barnett is Andrew Risbrough in Battle of Sexes

Duke Lato Atreides is of course Oscar Isaac in the upcoming Dune That is WE All right Oscar Isaac is Daddy Dickie Greenleaf, Nina Sayers, and Evelyn Carnahan.

Nina Sayers is Natalie Portman. Dickie Greenleaf is... Oh, fuck. I just had it and I lost it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is Jude Law. Jude Law, Natalie Portman. Dickie Greenleaf, Jude Law in Talented Mr. Ripley. Nina Sayers is Black Swan. This is...

Is this my Blueberry Knights and you don't have a character name for Nora Jones because she didn't do another movie. That's absolutely correct, is what's going on there. Yes. Evelyn Carnahan is Rachel Weiss in the Mummy movies. Yes. All right. Luisa Contini, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Jesus Christ.

Oh, wow. That is Jeremy Renner played Jeffrey Dahmer. Louisa Contini is Mary in Cotillard. In nine. What was the third name? Because I can't remember a movie they did together. Jesus Christ is the very forgettable third name that you couldn't have.

Um, Ben Kavitzel or Jim Kavitzel? Jim Kavitzel's brother, Ben, who is now taking Hollywood by storm. Um, Joaquin Phoenix? Uh-huh. Okay. Oh, oh, this is the immigrant. I love the immigrant. I didn't, but you're right. Okay, last one. President Jackson Evans,

Sister Aloysius Beauvier, and Bambalorina. Bombolarina is Taylor Swift. In cats. And Sister Aloysius is Merrill Streep. This is the giver. Yes. Any guesses as to who President Jackson Evans is? Jeff Bridges.

In? The contender. That is his Oscar-nominated role in the contender. Yes, classic Jeff Bridges, Merrill Streep, Taylor Swift movie, The Giver. All right, that is alter egos. Sorry, I thought that was easier. I always kind of do. We also haven't played this game in a while, so I'm a little rusty.

All right. Let's talk about our baby Daniel Brule in this movie, who's not in it much, but... Can we talk about the indignity of Daniel Brule is billed above the title on the poster? and who isn't Katie Holmes. Well, okay, to be fair, Katie Holmes' role in this movie is she's going to fold a little laundry, she's going to be momentarily sort of peeved at how much time her husband is spending on this case,

and then she's going to make a sharp right turn as she goes into labor for being supportive of Ryan Reynolds' involvement in this case, and that's basically it for her character. To be fair to my point, Daniel Broome, has even less screen time than that. But Daniel Brule has the all-important exposition scenes, and I feel like that is, he's the one who's like,

picture it, Vienna, 1938, you know, that kind of a thing. And I mean, yeah, he doesn't have a whole lot of emotional lifting to do in this movie. But this was... And then at the payoff, when they finally win the arbitration and, you know, Maria's family gets to have the paintings back, Ryan Reynolds looks at Daniel Burl and is like, we couldn't have done this without you. And it's like, maybe in real life you couldn't have,

but like in the movie. I know. I kind of liked their bromance. Listen, they went to the symphony together. That's true. It was nice. Oh, my God, because his last name is Schoenberg, and they show up at like the box office or something

and they're like, you have the same last name as the composer tonight. And it's like, okay. It's his grandfather. They're talking about his grandfather. We know. We know. All right. Yeah, Brule had been so, so close to an Oscar nomination just two years prior to this for Rush.

I've always felt bad that it didn't happen for him there, even though, I mean, I liked that performance. But, like, I wasn't, like, such a Rush fan that I was, like, crushed that he didn't get that nomination. But, you know, that's too bad. Who did get that? Who was the surprise 2013 nominee? was it Michael Shannon for what no that's 2016

so 2013 I'm going to try and get this without uh Jared Leto wins for the Dallas Buyers Club barcott obdi and Daniel Brule I feel like we're always in the mix

on the same level as like you know sort of new faces that we're going to maybe pop into uh the thing I guess maybe we weren't totally sure that Bradley Cooper was a was going to get nominated for uh for what you call it american hustle american hustle that's probably what the surprise is because what am i forgetting now i'm looking it up just because i

can't because it's fastbender obdi cooper right michael fastbender for 12 years of slave was always going to please don't tell me it was will forte for nebraska no they tried it they tried it but it didn't happen. Who are we forgetting? Oh, you know who it was, and it was a late breaker. It was one of the, it was an actor who,

for the second time, got a nomination after not having a whole ton of precursor support. Although I think the one previously had more precursor support. See, I remembered the narrative because that's why I was like, was it Michael Shannon?

It's Jonah Hill. But it's like a Michael Shannon. It's Jonah Hill for Wolf of Wall Street. That's right. One of my least favorite nominations of the last 20 years. Oh, I think he's good in the movie. I like that nomination more than I like his moneyball nomination.

Oh, I'm totally the opposite. I think he's really good in moneyball. And I also get the whole, like, the novelty of it. It was just like, oh, we didn't know that, like, Jonah Hill could, you know, not be a pure goofball and still being a movie. Whereas, like, Wolf of Wall Street is just like, yes, he's grotesque and the teeth and whatever, and he's cursing. And it's just, it's the same kind of thing to me, but what, but, what,

slightly worse as the Mark Wahlberg nomination for The Departed, where it's just like, yeah, like, you know, I don't know, I find it so obnoxious. All the actors you could nominate in the Departed. I know, but people love that nomination, and people love the fucking Jonah Hill Wolf of Wall Street nomination, and I find them both the same kind of degree of if the people who, not to bring this into it, but like, truly, if the actors and actresses, and it's mostly actresses who gay people love and who performances that gay people love got nominated at the clip that performances like Jonah Hill and Mark Wahlberg are getting nominated because they're

in like Martin Scorsese movies and like straight people find it hilarious it'd be a whole different fucking ballgame and people wouldn't shut up about the fact that like Blake lively in a simple plan got nominated it's the same level to me it's the same level to me I get that. I follow. Thank you. I'm glad somebody did. Glad somebody understands that. All right. We're at an hour 30. Let's start wrapping it up. Do we have anything else to say about, I don't want to keep piling on Ryan Reynolds.

I don't love him in this, but like he shouldn't be in this movie. I guess my other thing was it was originally supposed to be Andrew Garfield. And while he would have felt like a wee bairn in this movie. He would have been so much better in that role. I think that's a good role for Andrew Garfield. Yeah, I think that's a perfect role for Andrew Garfield. I think it's a good, I mean, again, it's a good, like, Donald Gleason role. It's a good Jimmy McAvoy role.

You know what I mean? It's that kind of a thing. All right. We can't get out of this without talking about the M4G's movies for grownups awards. We've talked about this Best Actress lineup before. We have. And it's the only movie we've covered. So, like, I feel like it's just this is, like, the ascendancy.

This is the peak form of movies for grownups. Yeah, Helen Mirren for Woman in Gold, Blythe Danner for I'll See You in My Dreams, great performance, great movie, Charlotte Rampling in 45 years, who gets the Oscar nomination that essentially Helen Mirren had been, you know, sort of blocking her from from the SAG field. Helen Mirren and Sarah Silverman in I Smile Back were cut out of the, from the SAG nomination, they were left off, and it was Charlotte Rampling for 45 years.

And of course, Jennifer Lawrence, in joy as joy. I'm Joy, by the way. Maggie Smith for the Lady in the Van, iconic transportation movie. Again, Helen Mirren in The Leisure Seeker, wants what Maggie Smith and the Lady in the Van has, or maybe it's the other way around. Probably the other way around.

Probably the other way around. I don't think she's actually seeking any leisure in that van. That's where she lives. Yeah, it's a good point. is homeless, and I believe having some type of mental illness in that movie. Yeah, it's the other way around. All right. Winner, very deserving winner, Lily Tom and Grandma.

A movie that, like, with a little bit of, like, extra oomph in that campaign, might have been able to crack a nomination? Am I crazy? Oscar nomination? You just said oomph, and I'm like, if that movie had a little one of my followers? Oh, my God. See what we've done to language? We can't use it for, like, force.

No. It is a flirtation phrase. Gross. Anyway, Lily Tomlin and grandma. Anyway, she's great and grandma. She is. She's great and grandma. All right.

That's all Lily Tomlin needed. She needed oomfis and she would have gotten the nomination. Go away. Go fully away. All right. Anyway, would you like to explain to our listeners what the IMDB game is as we transition into that? You think that that is something that I could do. Listeners, hello, every week.

We end our episodes with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try to guess the top four titles that IMDB and its illustrious algorithm says that they are most known for. If any of those titles are television, voice-only performances, or not acting credits, we'll mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. If that's not enough, it'll become a free for all of hints.

Hooray, free for all of hints. All right. Chris, would you like to give or guess first? How about I guess first? All right. I am once again going to give you a choice between do you want a man or a woman? I always want the woman. All right.

So I went the Ryan Reynolds route and picked a co-star of his from a movie that I like. even though I don't know how much I remember about it, but I remember liking it well enough at the time. He is in a movie called Definitely Maybe, where he dates several beautiful women, one of whom is the great and award season frequenter because of her relationship with Sasser Baron Cohen this year,

I love Fisher. I love Fisher. I'm going to guess definitely maybe it is on there. No, incorrect. Wow. Who was it on there for? Wasn't it on like Rachel Vices or something? It was on someone's.

Oh, by the way, there is one voice only performance in this. Oh, okay. The voice only performance. I think I know what it is. I'm just forgetting what it is. So I'm going to come back to that. But I'm going to say, now you see me. Yes, correct.

Now you see me. Wedding Crashers. Wedding Crashers. Wedding Crashers is correct. Okay. You know, sequels don't usually do that well, but like I can't think of that many Eila Fisher movies that I could really get out of this without saying Now You See Me Too, which is fully stupid that it's not Now You Don't. You said that right. Now You See Me Too should be called Now You Don't. I've been saying this forever. That's my guess. Oh, well, famously, she's not in Now You See Me Too. She was replaced by Lizzie Kaplan on the show.

the team. This is how I reveal I did not see now you see me too. Probably because of the title, you know, I said, you know what, no. It was mostly because I didn't, I didn't like now you see me one. Now you see me should have been like 20 times better than what it was considering its premise and it just... Now you see me is 20 times more stupid than it should be too.

Yeah, but it should be stupid fun. Listen, we just saw old, we know stupid fun and it's... Oh yeah. Old is stupid fun. Oh yeah. Old is real stupid fun. I loved it. you believe she found it online my god so good there's so many things i want to talk about i saw somebody unpacking it saying like she didn't find the beach online and they were pissed about it but if you see the movie that line is in reference to the hotel which where do you find hotels where do you where do you shop for hotels online yes we can believe you found a hotel online yeah um but really it's like it's a whole sweepstakes thing it's a whole don't let's listen

discover the the secrets of old for yourselves listeners please there are two things that old really doesn't understand the first thing is any science yeah science science of any kind old does not understand science right second thing that old doesn't understand online shopping yes very true all right you say you have two you have one wrong guess yeah and i thought of this one after you oh no way you have two wrong guesses because you guess definitely maybe so now you get years your years are i have another one okay but give me the year because that'll help me up 2009 and 2012. 2009 is definitely the non-voice one because it's the shopaholic.

It is Confessions of a Shopaholic. Did you think of that when you said online shopping? Yes. It's amazing. I'm stupid. I should have thought of that before. Yeah, confession. Which shows up for somebody else.

It's like, it's in like Kristen Scott Thomas's or something like that. It's crazy. Yeah. 2012 for a voice performance, this is going to be difficult. Yes, it is. It is an animated movie that has a title that often gets confused with another animated movie. What the hell? Neither of which ended up being all that popular, but the one that this isn't was much more of a like movies, movies that exists as a title kind of a thing because the title is very punchliney.

But that's not this one. Punchline animated title. Yeah. Are either of these, like, animated movies for adults? Like, it's not, like, sausage party. No, it's not sausage party. Although this one is PG. It's not G. It's PG.

So that's probably as... Oh. It's very high concept as far as an animated movie goes. Where it was like, what if dot, dot, dot. The PG thing tells me that it's not Disney or Pixar. Correct. Is it DreamWorks? Who is it?

Hold on. Yes, DreamWorks Animation. So it's not a Shrek. It's not a... It's not a Shrek. How to Train Your Dragon. Very much an all-star cast as far as the voices are concerned. And you just don't do that in an animated movie.

That's how you kill your animated movie. She plays an icon... It's not Mars needs moms, right? It's not Mars needs moms. No, the concept is much, much more... Monsters versus aliens? No, I'm going to tell you this because I don't think this is going to help you get it. Screenplay by David Lindsay a bear, which I didn't know until just this second, but holy shit.

She plays a character who is incredibly well-known in culture associated with small amounts of money. All amounts of money. Yeah. Oh, is she like a tooth fairy? She is, in fact, a tooth fairy. Okay. She's also part of a team on this, much like she is in Now You See Me.

A team of fairies, a team of mystical creatures. Uh-huh. The second one. What kind of a character is the tooth fairy in culture? Tooth Fairy culture? Yes, she represents as a person of tooth fairy experience. I'm like growing up because the tooth fairy gives you money when you lose a tooth.

Yeah, so like what are other like characters who exist on a similar level of like the tooth fairy where maybe we tell children about them? The boogeyman. We'll think happier. The Easter Bunny. Right. Santa. Right. Chris, you've heard of this movie.

Are these all characters in this movie that I don't know anything about apparently? Yes. You've heard of this movie. You've not seen this movie, I'm sure, but you've definitely heard of this movie. So there's some animated movie that was DreamWorks, that was all of these, like... Yes. Okay. With a screenplay by David Lindsay A Bear. Wow. All right. The movie that the title gets... confused with is

Legend of the Guardians the Owls of Gahoole I was just thinking about Legends of the Guardians of Gahouls of Gahoul Yeah The greatest movie title is merely called Rise of the Guardians

Oh this was like a big bomb right? Yes Okay yes It's one of like the few animated bombs see I was close because I guess Monsters versus Alien and Mars needs moms. In some ways, yes, you were close. In other ways, we're very, very far away.

All right, good job otherwise with Iowa Fisher. Catch my Porn, Perry, Legends of the Guardians, the Owls of Gohold. Nope, nope, nope, no, no. Cancelled. This podcast is canceled. All right, give me. so it is your turn i went not only into the oscar best actress lineup i went into the aARP movies for grown-ups best actress lineup i am talking about none other than uh nominee for 45 years

miss charlotte rampling oh god damn you famously she is an owl of gahoole charlotte rafling's going to be impossible for me and it's also going to expose me as not knowing european cinema so great all right um 45 years 45 years her Oscar nomination all right never let me go no damn it um um okay can I just say you just breezed by me saying that she was an owl of gahoole and just accepted that as fact and I was joking she should be she should be an owl of cool. Okay, Charlotte Rambling. It's not going to be any of her older movies, like, when she was in...

Isn't she in, like, The Verdict or something like that? She's in a bunch. Charlotte Rambling. Charlotte Rambling. She's not... It's not going to be Dune yet, although, like, honestly. She is going to be some type of space witch in Dune. Yeah. And it's very scary.

All right. What other movies? I will say this isn't entirely cruel. You do, even if you haven't seen all of these movies, you know these movies. Okay. All right. All right. I mean, she's barely in this movie, but is it melancholia? Melancholia. God, all right, so it's that level of stuff. Okay. But not Never Let me go. oh she's in red sparrow is it red sparrow no that is a decent guess except nobody fucking saw red sparrow right right good point good point um your years are 2003 2016 ha ha quite the spread there 2016 i'm positive is a movie that showed up on i on an i mdb game you've given me fairly recently oh that's Interesting. 2003. Oh. That was so that was when she was still almost entirely known in Europe.

Is this the Francois Ozone movie that she did? Ozone? Yes. Is this the one with, oh, the poster is, um, what's her face in like a bikini, right? Mudevine Sagnet or whatever in a bikini. It's called swimming pool. It's called swimming pool. Swimming pool, which I know you know because it was on focus features pre-roll for like years.

Yes, you're totally right. Not years, but like attached to everything. All right, 2016. 2016 is kind of a genre bomb. A genre bomb. I don't think anyone expected this movie. Was she like a... I'd know people have...

It has its... Like a senator in a Transformers movie or something? No, it's not like that type of genre. Not that type of genre. I could get really specific about the genre and I think you'd get it right away. No. Like fanboy action movie. Like Resident Evil.

Like... Yes, based on a video game. Okay. Assassin's Creed. Assassin's Creed. I've never seen it. But she, yeah, that seems about right that she would be in Assassin's Creed. All right.

Yeah. Well, give her a year and she'll be in Dune. It's so sad that IMDB is listing it as Dune Part 1 because as, I can't remember. There's not going to be a Dune. I was going to say, somebody pointed this out and like, and much as I don't want this to be true, like, this movie is really going to create her. Given the climate of how people are going to the movies or not going to the movies, like i think also just given the ceiling of what box office grosses are for movies right now that's what i mean and like this movie's going to be two and a half hours it's going to nobody knows the source

material except for like the very very dedicated of the geeks timothy shallame much as i love him is not going to be that kind of a box office draw it's it's it's going to be a bummer like i'm going to i'm not going to enjoy it bombing but like it sure is going to bomb damn it and they're only doing half of the story because there's too much story for one movie and like I just want to see the second one. This is why we... And they've probably pissed Denevo Novo off enough about the HBO Max side of it that like he may not be all that inclined to do it now. This is what we actually need billionaires for. It's not to go to fucking space. Like we need them to like also like pay their taxes and you know save the country but also throw your... Maybe fund some...

But if they want to throw some money away, throw your money away on funding movies that will never make a profit. Just do that. You could do that. You could also, you know, end global warming. Do that first. Do that on Monday. And then on Tuesday, fund Dune Part 2.

Please. Just for Joe. Just for me. Thank you. All right. That's our episode. We end our episode with an earnest plea to billionaires. That's our episode.

If you would like more that, uh, if you would. Billionaires can go stay in space, but send their money back. Yeah, stay in space, die of suffocation and whatever exposure. But before you do that, give us all your fucking money. If you would like more of this at Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this at oscarbuzz.com.

You should also follow our Twitter account at had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz. Chris, where can listeners find you in your stuff? You can find me on Twitter and Letterbox at Crispy File. That is F-E-I-L. Yay. We should, and we will. I am on Twitter at Joe Reed, read spelled R-E-I-D. I'm also on letterboxed as Joe Reed, read-spelled the exact same way.

We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork, Dave Gonzalez, and Gavin Mievous for their technical guidance. Please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, the unfortunate Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever else you get podcasts, a five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcasts visibility. So take a second to buy some duty-free cognac and write up something nice about us, That is all for this week, but we hope you'll be back next week for more hours. Good evening, everybody.