This Had Oscar Buzz - 162 – The Good Dinosaur (with Kyle Amato)

Episode Date: September 13, 2021

We’re doing something a little different this week and setting our sights on one specific Oscar category: Best Animated Feature. This episode, Kyle Amato joins us to talk about The Good Dinosaur, one of the few box office and critical disappointments in the history of Pixar. The story of a timid dinosaur and the human baby … Continue reading "162 – The Good Dinosaur (with Kyle Amato)"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. No, I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hacks. That creature protected you. What is his name? I don't know. I name him, I keep him.

Killer. Stinky. Violet. Spite. Spott. Spot. Come here, Spot. Come here.

Spot, come here. Well, ain't you just the cutest thing. I'm done being scared. If you're getting scared, you're alive. Hello, and welcome to the This Had Oscar, podcast, the only podcast flirting with all the ladies at the Daylily Convention. Every week on this had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong.

The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I am your host, Chris File, and I'm here, as always, with my favorite forest critter, Joe Reed. Hello. Joe, you are my good friend before we bring in. My other good friend who is guesting with us today, I just want to say, I want a dinosaur friend to drop LSD with. I mean, this movie really approximates that experience quite well. This is a children's movie where they drop hallucinogenics for a scene and like no one, I've never heard anybody talk about that scene. Literally just before that scene happened, I had the active thought of just like, this is the rare Pixar movie that like is more

fun for kids than it is for adults. Do you know what I mean? Where like so many Pixar movies are about like, and I love them for that, are about like these like sort of like thinky concepts and you watch and you just sort of like half the Pixar movies make me cry because I'm an adult who doesn't know what he's doing with his life. And then like this movie, it's just like, no, it's just like fun dinosaurs running around. And then they absolutely get high on magic berries. And it's very fun. I still want like, I will show this to my nephew. Like this is probably one of the first Pixar's that I will show to my nephew. He won't know what's going on. He'll just think it's fun colors. Maybe you can be the dinosaur. He can be the baby critter and you guys can not do

LSD because in real life that would make you a really bad influence. Yeah, that would make me probably criminally negligent or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That would be a different movie. Bad idea. The bad, the bad, the bad dinosaur. You are the bad dinosaur. Yeah, that would be bad. I kept trying to figure out how the good dinosaur fits into the good wife, Good Fight universe, and I couldn't quite do it, which is my major criticism of this movie. The Good Fight Universe also exists in a land where 65 million years ago, or billion, whichever, an asteroid did not hit the planet and kill an entire species. Right. All I'm asking, though, just like Christine Branski voiced one of these dinosaurs, it's not that hard. That's just like, that's all we need.

Not that hard. Not that hard. However, like I mentioned, we do have a guest with us today. Very excited to get into the history of Pixar with him. It's my friend writer and podcaster Kyle Amato. Hi, Kyle. Hey, guys, how's it going? Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Thank you so much for joining us. I'm really excited that you picked this episode. Is this the first animated movie you guys have done? I feel like I was skimming the list and I wasn't sure. It's absolutely the first animated movie. we've done, which feels like we're getting into like a niche of just one category with like best animated feature. However, it's tough to make animated movies fit into our particular rubric, right? Oh, absolutely. Like it's it's so this one we've had sort of on our long list

of like if we were ever going to do an animated movie, this was the one that makes the most sense because it's the one that really did have that like gulf between expectation and reality and then doesn't get anything. And yeah, so I'm very, very, very excited that you picked this one. The whole history of Pixar and Oscar together is like, I think makes this seem like an even bigger failure in a way. Yeah, hold on. I'm pulling up the best animated feature Wikipedia page, which I should know off the top of my head because of who I am as a person. But I distinctly remember when this wasn't nominated. And I was just like, Huh, they're not supposed to do that.

And even though the movie was just like, no one fucking saw this movie. So that was definitely part of it. But I was like, that doesn't usually matter. Basically, the, you know, the Oscars are always just like, oh, what's the Pixar movie this year? Yeah, that wins. Like, they don't think about it too hard. Well, and they were able to do that this year because this was the same calendar years inside out. So, like, the Oscars had kind of, like, had their bases covered with this.

But I think the fact that The Good Dinosaur was a second movie. Like, this was the first time that Pixar, had released a second movie in a calendar year with something else. And I feel like a lot of that has to do, obviously, with production delays and the fact that this movie, I feel like by the time it had made it into theaters, I think they knew that, like, we fucked this one up. And it's not like this, like, major disaster, but, like, because Pixar's baseline level was so high that it just, it really sticks out for being as kind of shambly and shaggy as it

is. And I think the other thing that's probably worth keeping in mind is, like, animated movies are the rare case at the Oscars where, like, doing well at the Oscars, unless you are a, like, Studio Jibly movie or a G-Kids or a Cartoon or something like that, for the big animated features, Oscar success doesn't really enhance the box office like it does with other movies, right? You've made your money by that point. Like, you're going to make your money. On these animated movies, the Oscars don't really boost an inside out or a, even like a Brave or a toy story movie or anything like that. Like that doesn't work that way where it does with like a Best Picture nominee or even like nominees and other categories. And I think because of that, Disney and Pixar really, really do not operate their calendar along the lines of how are we going to like promote these things for Oscars.

like that is not a concern for them and so you can throw in the good dinosaur at the end of the year even though you know that all of your promotion is going to go to Inside Out and like that's not a concern for theirs so like it's interesting to talk about Disney and Pixar with regards to the Oscars

and yet Pixar is also like as far as animation goes like the like for lack of a better word the big Gahuna because like they are the ones who largely have had the success of translating to best picture nominations and like not just best picture nominations like i'm sure there's you know 30 years ago beauty and the beast might have been something of a surprise

because it was the first one but like people expect toy story three to get a best picture nomination months in advance you know people thought that about like something like up right right yeah i distinct to remember that happening yeah but that was also a kind of distinct era too right We're like, because ultimately it's only up and Toy Story 3 that have been animated Best Picture nominees in this era, right? And it comes on the heels of Wally gets really, really, really buzzed for Best Picture nomination in 2008. Like people really, really thought it was going to happen. People thought that and the Dark Knight were both going to get Best Picture nominees. Yeah, those are the big ones, right?

It's funnier to think of with the Dark Knight. It's funnier, it's like, it was never, you look at it now, and it's like there's just no precedent. Even in the post sort of like Black Panther world, there is really no precedent. There's no real good reason to think that the Dark Night would have been a Best Picture nominee. But like, you look at now afterwards and you're just like, oh, Wally could have done it. And the uproar about those two things was so loud and the Academy got so worried about being out of touch with like, you know, the common moviegoer or whatever. that they expanded the category to 10 the very next year. And the next two years, up and Toy Story 3, both get the sort of, like, Pixar slot in the best picture lineup.

And it did seem like that would sort of go on and on and on. And it hasn't happened since then. Well, Cars 2 happened, so. Cars 2, I believe the first time that an eligible Pixar movie wasn't nominated in the category. That's correct. Yeah. And then, like, Monster's University wasn't, and then this wasn't, which is the first original. And Cars 3.

Yes, Ancars 3. But Onward and Soul were nominated this year, so, you know. That's true. I kind of want to get into maybe a little bit later where it's like it feels like the diminishing returns of Pixar of late as become, has provided more of a window for like something else to sneak in. Like specifically last year, you know. I think there was enough soul dissenters and people who didn't really care for it. And then there was a lot of really smart writing out there for Wolf Walkers. And it felt like especially because it was a weird year, the first time where maybe something could have had a shot.

And then it proved to, you know, really not be the case. Wolf Walkers is perfect and it just should have won. So, you know, just what's going to happen. soul came in so late in the air you knew it was going to happen I'm the sad dummy out here who's whatever campaigning for soul

but I like soul I'm not a monster that this sort of narrative kind of descended on because I thought soul was actually like one of the best movies of the year and I see that argument

with other things like I liked Toy Story 4 but there's no real reason that that needs to win the Oscar I liked I'm trying to think of like other, like, I like, I actually did like Brave a lot more than, like, other people did, but, like, brave more than most people.

But like, that didn't need to win me else. Braves okay. And, I don't know. My thing about Soul was, like, it had a lot of problems for me that I also have with Pete Doctor's other Pixar movies that, like, like, I always feel like I'm kind of on an island, and it felt like Soul was the first time I wasn't on an island. Like, I have some issues with Inside Out that, like, it seems like nobody else seems to really have in terms of, like, the emotional beats of that movie that don't feel organic to me. And I find that a lot in Pete Doctor's work, or it's just like, here's a few sequences that really make the whole movie and the rest of the movie isn't that great to me.

I feel like I saw those complaints about both inside out and even up. Because there was a lot of the stuff about up was like great for sequence and then it falls apart after that. Like I definitely feel like that was a thing. Yeah, I think Pete Doctor and I just see the world very differently. So the way that he approaches these things, I'm always just like, all right, that's your move. I don't know. I don't know. How much of Pixar should we be getting into?

right now. Like, where are we going? Let's reel back because we can save it for after the plot description. But first, obviously, we have you as a guest and we're so excited to have you on. And we always talk about our guests like Oscar Origins, which honestly, I don't feel like in any time that we've had like Oscary conversations. We've never really had this conversation. So I'm excited to hear what your, like, first Oscar obsession was, or, like, the first time you noticed the Oscars, what is that origin Oscar for you? Is it a certain movie or a certain year? So, it's a few different things. So I have watched the Oscars for as long as I've been alive, just because my parents always watched them. So they were always on. So even when I was very

small, I remember distinctly being like, I didn't know it was Jody Foster. but I know Jody Foster was there. I mean, I wasn't alive for Sons of the Lambs, but, you know, she's always, she's always there. I remember Titanic winning. I think it was around, like, Gladiator, where I understood, like, what best picture, like, could mean, I guess. But I didn't really start doing, like, completionist stuff until, like, 2009.

So that was the first year I watched all of the Best Picture nominees, which is what I try to do now. So that was early high school for me But I remember just like finding a cam rip of up in the air to watch stuff like that And then also ties into my Pixar thing because that was the year that up was nominated And I was like, oh, okay, we can that I guess that can happen again after, you know, beauty and the beast So yeah, I've always just been a huge Oscars person. I like it as sort of a a guidepost of interesting movies and I can learn about different actors or directors

Like, I mean, just for Science of the Lams alone, you watch that, you find out who Jonathan Demi is, and then you get to watch marriage to the mob, that sort of stuff. So I've always liked it for that. I've always been a big animated movie person, and I remember the first year for the animated feature was Shrek, Jimmy Neutron and Monsters, Inc. And they did that thing where you can see the animated characters in the audience, where they pretend that they're there. And, like, Jimmy Neutron was at the Oscars. And I was like, this is awesome. Which is a million times better than an animated character presenting the Oscars, which is an abomination from the third layer of hell that we should make fully illegal.

Yeah, they shouldn't do that. But I also, one of my most distinct childhood memories is when Angelica Pickles went on the Rosie O'Donnell show. And I was just like, oh, my God, Rosie's talking to Angelica. I have never been able to find that clip online. So if anyone is listening and has that episode, like, recorded anywhere, I need it. There is a still image of it on the internet archive from Rosie's website in like 1999, and that is the only evidence I have have been happening. I need that video.

Our listeners are an enterprising bunch. They will find it. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, no. So I've just, I've always been keyed into the Oscars. And apparently ever since like high school where I'm just like, okay, so they're talking about this one. And then I can just like, I'll see that and maybe it'll get nominated.

Maybe it won't. I think an education was like really one of the first times where I was like, I need this movie to happen. And then it got all the nominations and stuff. And I was like, okay, great, I'm good at this. So were you an avatar or were you a Hurt Locker person that year? So when I was in high school, I think I was much more of a Hurt Locker person because I think it was just one of like the bigger. It's rated art, right? It definitely is.

Oh, yes. I mean, there's like heads exploding in that movie. Exactly. And that was, I didn't see a ton of art. I rated movies when I was a teenager because I was nervous. I like snuck into the happening and that was about it. Oh, no. Yeah, no, it was funny.

We had a good time. We bought tickets for Kung Fu Panda and went for that. Nice. Speaking of the happening, I saw like the image, the image from the happening is all the people just like launching themselves off the building, right? Looping it back to the episode we're talking about. It was like, I saw an image that was like that, but it was cars falling off of a building from Faith of the Furious, yeah.

I think I sent this to you, Kyle, but it was like all of the stars of car, or maybe you sent it to me, all of the stars of cars when they see the reviews for their movie. It was like, all of the stars of cars when they lost the animated feature Oscar. Yeah, that's so good. Man, cars, cars, it's just like, I remember when it came out, I remember reading about an IGN and being like, this is a movie about talking cars. This is some put-put nonsense. And so the only Pixar movies I've not seen in theaters are Cars and Ratatoui, and I don't remember what I was doing. I don't know why I didn't go see Ratatoui. I straight up, I don't remember.

I should have just done that. I don't remember what I did. But Cars, specifically, I was like, that's not, I'm not doing this. And now I just like, I don't hate Cars. I just don't like it at all, and it's two hours long. I think the only Pixar movie I haven't seen is Cars 3, which interesting is, like, the best reviewed of all. of the Cars movies, but I think at that point we were all just collectively, like, absolutely

not, we will not be doing this. So what I'll say about Cars 3 is Mater is in three scenes. That is selling me highly on Cars 3. Okay, so here's the thing. Mader is not fucking in this movie. He's in the beginning where he's like giving Lightning McQueen a pep talk. He shows up on like a video call

and then he's at the end. Mader is not a character in Cars 3. I love that they do the video call as if like this is an actual like flesh and blood person who you need to contractually like let's like Suzanne Summers and Three's company or something like that where we got over. I am not hopping

on a Zoom with Mater. I will not do it. No, I mean, what always bothering me about cars is I think that the car world of Putt Putt, the humongous entertainment point and click game made a lot more sense because the cars and cars don't have hands, which is actually something we can get into

with the good dinosaur and part of some of my issues with it. This movie has a weird relationship with character that don't have hands. Exactly. But in putt-putt, in Putt, um, they have like a little, a wire that comes out of them and they can, like, press buttons and stuff. And when they don't do that in cars, I was like, well, they're not really going off

of their predecessors here. Like, I don't really know what the plan is. And I don't know. The world of cars doesn't make any sense. I could derail the whole thing if we get into cars, so we're not, we can't do that. No, we have, uh, we have a very good dinosaur to talk about an okay dinosaur. I mean, he's not a bad dinosaur. Yeah, yeah.

You know, he learns his inner goodness. It's a title that carried over from, seemingly the only thing that carried over from the original iterations of what this movie was supposed to be, which will... This was going to be a lot of things. Yeah, yeah. As was like Brave, we will absolutely get into it. This movie probably should have been called brave, though, right? Oh, yeah. Like, that's the, that's the emotional, like, through line of this movie.

Like, it's a dinosaur learning to be brave. Well, yeah. This movie is a Western about a gay dinosaur learning to be outdoorsy and making friends with a baby. Yeah. Well, yeah. And finding this in and they're like, braver. Wasn't Brave supposed to be called something else? Yeah, Monsters University.

Yeah, sorry. No, it was going to be the bow and the bear, I believe, at one point. Right, right. Pixar movies always start with, like, more descriptive titles, and that they always end up with, like, one word, like, up, soul, Coco. I mean, Coco was always Coco, but stuff like that. Luke was always Luca. Luca was always Luca, but in Japan, it's called, like, My Summer with, Luca the Murboy, and I'm just like, that's a perfect title.

That's the gayest thing I've ever heard. Yeah, it's called, like, that one summer with Luca. I'm not kidding. That's fabulous. One weird summer with my non-boyfriend, Luca. Yeah, exactly. My No Homo summer with my Italian man on a Vespa, we eat pasta. I don't think there was anything no-homo about that movie.

But, yeah, the Good Dinosaur was originally announced. as the Untitled Pixar movie about dinosaurs and the original image showed like a child riding a dinosaur like an older not like the little guy in this and it was going to be more modern day with dinosaurs

but a lot has a lot changed but um guys the good dinosaur directed by Peter Sone written by Meglofov who also wrote Inside Out with a story by Deep Breath

Peterson, Eric Benson, Meglifo, Kelsey Mann, and Bob Peterson, who was removed as one of the directors of the movie, which is something that happens with Pixar, with no real people but the voice talents of Raymond Ochoa, Jack Bright, Sam Elliott, Anna Pacquin, A.J. Buckley, Steve Zon. I love Steve Zon in this movie. Jeffrey Wright and Francis McDormand as the greatest dinosaur parents you could ever wish for. Mm-hmm. The movie opened wide the week of Thanksgiving in 2015. Kyle, do you think you could give us a 60-second plot description of the good dinosaur? I think I can. All righty, in that case, 60-second plot description of the good dinosaur starts now.

all right so the good dinosaur opens in space and the meteor that kill all the dinosaurs misses and so dinosaurs go back to eating and you see the more photorealistic dinosaurs in the past 65 million years later dinosaurs have small agrarian societies and we meet an apatosaurus family the dad mom and dad are awaiting their babies to be hatched the babies come out there's a boy and a girl and they're both like very excited and fun and there's a third one named Arlo, who's just a little guy. He's very scared. The dad ends up trying to teach him to be brave. He ends up dying in the river. Arlo gets lost because he's chasing down what seems to be a human who's like a little caveman boy. They get lost together. They have to team up to survive

the wilderness. Arlo has to learn how to fend for himself, meet people who aren't his family. And there are some scary taradactals. And eventually he gives the little human boy to another human family goes home, and his mother is very happy to see him. And that's time. Yeah. That is pretty much it. I mean, most of, like, what happens in this movie,

you can see how they eventually, like, finger quotes, saved it by Frankenstining in all of these other characters. It really feels very obviously Frankenstein, like, is the thing. I mean, that being said, I really liked the movie. movie it's nice it's it's it's it's nice it's a nice movie um i don't know i think there's such an impulse because of what pixar is and what it has come to represent to just be like this needs to be the best thing you've ever seen and then right with something like the good dinosaur you're just like oh no that was nice yeah it's a good be minus of a movie it feels to me watching this movie

like I don't know maybe like Arlo's journey needed to be more solitary like I get the idea that like you get cold feet you don't want to have this movie with like no other characters but like every time they introduced

like another sort of trio of friends or foes for him to kind of interact with I'm like this is just distracting me from what the actual story here is like yeah absolutely and it just felt like those things felt very patchworky to me like when the pterodactyls show up and then when the T-Rexes show up

and Lord knows I like a Sam Elliott voice performance but like what is this doing for the for the story of the movie what is this doing for me and massive kudos to the animators for making a Tyrannosaurus Rex that facially looks like Sam Elliott they said it couldn't be done and they did it they did it

Okay, but like The thing about the patchworkiness of the movie Like you can tell like You know reading reports of the production of this movie They literally kind of farmed it out to other directors To make like chunks of the movie And you can totally tell And I feel like the Pixar movie

That is like informative For the salvaging of this movie Feels like Finding Nemo right Because there's a whole like 45-minute stretch of the movie that's just introducing new characters very late in the movie

and then you don't see them again. It's the Lion King that becomes Finding Nemo. And then, I'm trying to think of, like, what is even, like, the predecessor for the, I have my little buddy that I have to now, like, say goodbye

to. Well, it's Ice Age. It's Ice Age. Okay. Oh, God. I hate Ice Age, too. Ice Age is an ugly, ugly movie, but it is about, you know, prehistoric animals taking care of a baby. So they're, I mean, spot in this as a more active toddler, I would say, than, like, the baby in Ice Age. But the climax of Ice Age is exactly like this, except it was Sabretooth Tigers instead of cult taradactals. Right.

Yeah. I, see, and like, some of the stuff that I use. even liked with Spot was like where it or the best parts of the movie I thought were like Spot being the active character and like the struggle to actually communicate between the two and the way that they mostly like relate to each other and connect is nonverbally and yeah like the two big things of drawing the circle which like basically bookends their story yeah like those actually made me emotional like I was choked up when Spot got to go to the other family so It's like, I think it's an effective movie.

All the best stuff about this movie is visual and nonverbal to me. Like, there are some really, really gorgeous shots and sort of setups. There's the part late, both late in the movie, actually. The one part where Arlo and Spot, Arlo has finally, like, gotten his confidence and has learned that he doesn't have to be afraid of nature. And they go running through this, like, field of birds that, like, scatter all about. And, like, it's a gorgeous, gorgeous looking scene. scene. And then a little

bit later, there's the scene where the teradactyls come back and you first see them by the like bottom sort of I guess thin. It's it's stylized. It's upside down shark fins coming through the clouds and I'm like, that is

really, really innovative and like and elementally terrifying. And I was just like, that is so good. I really wish this were in a more effective movie because like we'd be talking about that shot that sort of sequence so much today if it was in a movie that was better received than the good dinosaur was.

Yeah, I mean, I just want to say for animated dinosaur movies, there's always a point in production where they're like, there's not actually going to be any dialogue. I don't know exactly if it happened for a good dinosaur or not, but I know it happened for Land Before Time, Dinosaur 2000, and another cheapo animated dinosaur movie called Walking with Dinosaurs, which was originally non-verbal and they added like John Leguizamo and stuff into it. So, yeah, the, as you have to do, yeah, exactly. Like, do you, you guys remember the trailer for Dinosaur?

Yeah, it was dialogue-free, and it was just, it made it look like a Roland Emmerich movie. Dinosaur 2,000 isn't dialogue-free? No, there's monkeys and shit. It's terrible. Oh, my God. I see, I've never seen the movies, but like, I would have never expected that from only watching the trailer. Exactly. Yeah. Every studio, I mean, it's Disney, and then, I don't remember who did the Don Bluth movies, whoever put those guys out. Amblin, maybe? Amblin, Universal, yeah.

I just think I remember the Universal logo on my VHS of that movie that I watched a million times as a kid and never liked. The Land Before Time is... 67 minutes long, yeah. It's 67 minutes long. It's incredibly sad, but, like, I am glad they made them put tie-leg in that because, like, Ducky is the cutest little character in a movie ever, and I loved it. Oh, yeah, it's not saying it doesn't work.

It's just, like, every time they make a dinosaur movie, they change. chicken out on making it as nonverbal as possible. And that's all the best parts of good dinosaurs. So, I mean, besides Steve's on. It's all truly like the middle 45 minutes, middle hour of this movie that you can feel where, like, they stitched together some movie by committee, which, like, I feel like is more of a problem with a lot of Pixar movies, a lot of the Pete Doctor movies, like I mentioned. But, like, they just get away with it.

And what's interesting about this one is they didn't get away with it. And it's like you read some of these reports of their original ideas. And it's like, well, you can imagine that this is the one that fell apart. Because conceptually, it's kind of like, what are they even talking about? Like the idea behind this movie that they wanted to make is, what would it mean to be a dinosaur in the modern world? And it's like, I don't know, Darlene. That is crazy to me.

And it's also, like, this is the year of Jurassic World, where, you know, what I'm saying is our relationship to dinosaurs are way deeper than it needs to be. Yeah, we love dinosaurs. I just don't under, like, it makes sense that this fell apart because as a core idea, like, what does it mean to be a good dinosaur? Right. I think that. It makes no sense. I mean, I guess just like make sure your friend doesn't get eaten. Right, protect the baby.

Yeah. The ideas of these are dinosaurs like millions of years beyond the point where they actually went extinct, right? Ends up being, like, I almost appreciate the fact that this isn't like dinosaurs in suits and ties and high rises go into buildings, sort of like the Zootopia version with dinosaurs or whatever, like, which is a way you could do that. This one seems a lot thinkier in that way of just like, what if dinosaurs like shaped the world, shaped the modern world? And became cartoons. Right. What if? And like, and their answers are like, well, we'd probably be an agrarian society that like takes a lot longer to get to, you know, where we're at.

And it's just like, and a lot of those, I just kept sort of like stroking my chin and just like, yeah, it kind of would be like that. And the carnivores would kind of be ranchers. And there would be Buffalo, but not in the same way. And there would be humans, but not in the same way. And, like, evolution wouldn't have happened exactly the same way. And I'm just like, finally, I just sort of stopped. I'm like, but this is mostly a movie about, like, a cute little sad dinosaur. So, like, why am I thinking about all of this stuff?

Right, right. I mean, that's something that Pixar always does is kind of make these worlds and then just not answer any of the questions about it, like the car's world that implies that There's like, you know, car Christianity, car World War II, blah, blah, blah, like that's been said a million times, but like even something with like onward where the plot is, there used to be magic, but everyone got bored of it. And I was like, I'd like to know more about how this world works, because it seems like it's mostly just like San Francisco.

But, um, I mean, that's why I think toy story, the lore there works the best because it's just like, it's the real world, toys are alive, they don't want to talk to people. They do their own thing. Right. but they have a whole, it makes a lot more sense as something you can accept happening like literally and metaphorically than something like cars. Well, and in a toy story, each toy has its own kind of reality. You know what I mean?

Each toy is real in its own kind of distinct way. And where, you know what I mean? We're like, the piggy bank is still a piggy bank, but like it also, like, the potato heads sort of like operate on their own sort of, you know, rules and regulations. And I think it makes that really easy for toy story to just be like, yeah, it's a toy. It does the thing that you think this toy does. And the next toy does the thing that you think that toy does. And it's not really, you don't really have to have any expectation of like a coherent toy.

Like nothing governs the world of toys. You know what I mean? So it's like, it's very. Yeah, they just know that they shouldn't talk to people. That's the only thing that toys really have in common. They have to present the reality that they, they cannot break. Andy's reality by saying that they are alive because then that suggests that they are their own person and they need to be for Andy whatever Andy wants them to be right I mean the toys get a lot

out of it too because from the implication of the opening of Toy Story 3 is that playtime feels like it is happening like virtual reality right is real for that so they get a lot out of this and if they started talking this whole thing would be screwed and they just like wouldn't get to enter the world of a child's imagination. They got a pretty sweet racket going on and they don't want to... Exactly. Back to the good dinosaur, the evolution. It just made them cartoonier because, as I said, when it shows the meteor going over them,

they look more like photorealistic dinosaurs. And when we get to them, they're like little Ardman clay things in front of the most stunning backgrounds. Yeah. A generic toy. Yeah. And it's just so crazy the juxtaposition between these dinosaur characters and some of the most stunning landscapes that Pixar has ever made and it almost hurts your brain in a way I feel kind of similarly about Coco where I mean I really like Coco I think it's a great movie but the humans

almost move too real for how clay they look and it just kind of like hits my brain a little bit the skeletons look great it's just I don't know sometimes their stylization can be very strange like I think some of the humans in Toy Story 4 look terrible oh yeah these like uh people who have larger eyes than noses and it just like it has to it's so easy for it to look wrong and i guess an uncanny valley way that feels like i don't know a cop out to say say it like that but um it's like when i've seen any clips of the new um there's like a monsters ink tv show with like ben feldman in it apparently oh right right right no i know but the second i see the animation on it i'm like no it's wrong this is not main pixart this is not it is like

Pixar Canada, there's something going on here. Like, I don't know. It's so hard to make these things look good at all. I think so many Pixar movies are good by accident in a lot of ways where they're just like, they manage to choose the right story element. Like every story about every Pixar movie is like, oh, yeah, well, this effective moment, it was almost this thing. That would have been really bad.

But we decided to change it all over. Yeah, I'm glad that you did. It's overhauled at some point where it's like, you have certain degrees of things where it's like it feels like the good dinosaur they just cut out a bunch of stuff and then filled it with kooky characters for like, and it's also like

way shorter than a lot of Pixar movies but then you hear about like Toy Story 4 which had an extremely massive story overhaul very late at the game. The issue with Toy Story 4 is it was I mean Mr. Lasseter was the original director

for that film which we don't have to get into him being awful you know a nasty man who was a little hansy with tinkerbell whenever he got a chance but uh yeah i know it's terrible but his original idea for toy story four was literally just like yeah i want to make a movie about how i love my wife so it'll be about uh woody and beau peep but everyone's like okay so it's like a romcom he's like yeah definitely and then he was removed from Pixar for being a bad person uh and they're like okay we can actually make this a toy story movie and not whatever that was. I think Toy Story 4 turns out really well, though.

I think Toy Story 4 is the best case scenario for a fourth Toy Story Story movie that I did not feel like I needed. I fully agree. It's a great example of five scripts becoming one well where the good dinosaurs, five scripts that kind of come together. Five scripts that they have already created. One of those scripts is the Lion King, is the other thing where they're just like, let's just do like the first act of the

Logan King. Let's have another horrible father death that wave shot is oh it's a nightmare terrifying I was not like part of the reason why I mean like this was my first time watching the movie and I had the anticipation

that I was like okay this is going to be boring throughout not much that's interesting but like pleasant right because like I don't think I've heard or like read or scene, anyone discussing any individual scenes about this movie? So, like, when you get to this horrific death for the father, I was kind of blown sideways.

It's, like, he's shoving Arlo up onto a higher ledge of this cliff. Meanwhile, a title, you see a tidal wave crash into his body, and it immediately cuts to black. It is, I mean, maybe it's not Mufasa levels, but it is. I mean, Mufasa certainly is the inspiration. Like, that is, like, they really just sort of, like, papered over that and then traced the outlines of it. At least he doesn't find his body. Right. Well, that's true.

That's a very good point. And then Francis McDormand shows up and it's like, you know, this is your fault, right? Oh, my God. Or I just want to say, before we get past. Who is the villain? Okay. They think. Who is the villains?

It's a great question. The original idea is, like, nature. is the villain and you can see like shades of that and you can see in the things that they overhaul the movie with how they kind of punk out on it they have to make these pterodactals be the villain though like it even seems with the taradactals it even feels like with the taradactyl the taradactals i will learn how to pronounce a word um that they decide halfway through that scene that they need to be villains like it almost you know it it almost feels that way well they're like a cult and i think

think, I like when Steve's on gets really intense, and as the teradactal, I'm just like, hey, I've seen the inside of the storm, you don't understand how I'm alive, and I'm insulted that you have made it this far without having seen what I've seen. Now I'm going to eat your baby. Yeah, it's almost like

very, like, the hills have eyes or something like that, or all of a sudden. Well, so are the raptors. Those are like hill folk, I guess, the idea. Yeah. Yeah. Wait, are they raptors? Why did I think they were T-rexes? Oh, no, I meant the raptors, the, the, the, the, the, the, that try to get their buffalo.

Oh, right, right, right. It's the T-Rex family, the Sam Elliott, Anna Pacquin, and A.J. Buckley, who I don't know. No, nor do I. That 15-minute stretch, maybe it's even less than that. Maybe it's just a 10-minute stretch, where all of a sudden you have to, like, process three different new groups of different dinosaurs.

And, like, they're all on, like, some level of, like, kind of scary, but are nice to kind of nice, but are scary, to, like, are fully scary. And it's just like, it's too much in too compact time to... And the first one he meets is like that pet collector who's voiced by the director. And you're just like, this is a weird guy. Right. And if the movie were more successfully episodic, I think I would also like it better.

But it doesn't feel like there are discrete, like, moments of the movie in that way, either. And I don't know. I also feel like it takes a long time to get started. which it takes like 20 minutes for the father to I think die and Arlo to go on his journey and this is a movie that taps out at about 86 minutes at the credits so right yeah and I like the fact that the movie gives us time to grow an attachment to the Arlo and his dad relationship so that's good I did want to bring up so like Jeffrey Wright and Francis McDormand as the parents who

who I love both of them as actors. And I like their performances in that they are giving these very naturalistic, emotional, like, they are dialed in, they are not phoning this in. Like, even Francis, who, like, doesn't really have a whole lot of, like, actual story beats. Feels like she is bringing a real genuine warmth to her performance. And yet, my question to you is, are these good actors and good performances, but not necessarily good cartoon voices in a way that, like, James Earl Jones and Jeremy Irons are great actors, but also great cartoon voices. I think Jeffrey Wright is giving a fantastic performance in this motion.

Yeah, I liked Jeffrey Wright. He was originally supposed to be John Lithgow. Right. Francis is the only person, yeah, Francis is the only person who survived the original cast, like, culling. because the siblings were all going to be like Bill Hader and Judy Greer and stuff like that. Well, and like you can see that there were like the the seeds of whatever this family dynamic was supposed to be is still there. But the fact that they the siblings were originally supposed to be played by like famous people tells you that there was a whole like family dynamic or maybe they were included more in the drama throughout the story that just also got completely cut. It's entirely possible.

No, I was just struggling, like, Jeffrey Wright is giving, like, a performance instead of just speaking into a microphone, like, a lot of cartoon voice actors can do. I totally, I do not disagree one bit. I think my more of my question was a general trend towards, like, great acting in voice work rather than sort of iconic and memorable vocals, if that makes any kind of sense. I think I understand what you mean, where it's. James Earl Jones is Darth Vader and Mufasa, that sort of thing. Would you, like, know immediately? I think Pixar has always been good about picking voice actors where, I mean, I think

that's one of my problems with Onward is they just, they pick like Chris Pratt and Tom Holland and then it's like, okay, do your normal voices. It's one of my problems with Soul, too. Like, Tina Fey does not make sense as that character. I think you cast like... It should just be Nicole Beyer. It's Nicole Beyer. Yes, we've had this conversation.

Like, if it's, if Nicole Beyer is the Tina Faye voice, it's a, like, 10 times better movie. Well, and then you sidestep a lot of the problems with the reaction to the movie, which was a people's, people sort of knee-jerk, you know, Tina Faye thing, which I think has become sort of malignant at this point with a lot of people. Well, but it's also this, like, thing that Pixar feels like they're moving to that it's like they're catching these name actors. who maybe have an interesting vocal quality, but they're not pairing them with characters in interesting ways. Like, even aside from all the problems with Soul, like, there's nothing interesting about Tina Fey's vocal performance in that movie. There's nothing interesting about Tom Holland and Chris Bratt and Onward.

Yeah, that's my big issue. And I think they always end up surprising me, except for those, the most recent movies. Well, I mean, the kids and Luke are good, but those are children. That's different. I'm talking about, like, casting Christina Hendricks as Gabby Gabby in Toy Story 4, which I think is a phenomenal performance. That's not, you wouldn't think of just like, oh, who's going to be in Toy Story? Oh, Christina Hendrix, of course.

Right. I think she's great. And if you think about, like, the cast of a Bugs Life, which is the most 90s thing ever, because it's Dave Foley, Louis-Dreyfus, Bonnie Hunt. Yeah, Kevin Spacey. Bobby Hunt, they're one of the great voice actors of her time. Oh, she's phenomenal. I think, yeah, she's in a bunch of these.

She's Dolly in Toy Stories 3 and 4. She is the girl car Sally in Cars franchise. So she's on all of those. Bonnie gets residuals. I'm very happy about it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Bonnie's making money for sure. And I'm trying to think, like, John C. Riley has such a distinct voice.

And then he's really good as Reckett Ralph. That's Disney, not Pixar, but, you know, I don't know. The Reck and Ralph movies are cast wonderfully. Yeah. But to just sort of close the loop on soul, though, the best vocal performance in that movie is by far, Rachel House Oh my god, yeah Rachel House is doing such an

such oddly specific stuff as that character And like that's sort of She's really creating someone there Right, right I think that's the thing I think that's the Yeah

Yeah and that's why I think Jeffrey Wright is good Because he's not This is not Jeffrey Wright's Stormble Voice He's doing like a country Stern father thing Where he doesn't sound like It's definitely one of my favorite

performances of his Like it really if I'm making a top ten Of like favorite Jeffrey Wright performances This kind of has to make it in like the ninth or tenth spot because like he's really really really good um no thank you for letting me sort of work through that because that's always sort of the thing with me of just like we're like I don't know like you'll get these like great actors and they're just like they're they're not these big performances and maybe that's a problem with me that like I always need

sort of like bigness in animation but you're right though that he does a very very good job but that's the thing about Pixar is like a lot of these choices aren't big choices. Like, Rachel House isn't going big in soul. It's more so that it's, like, from a really sharp perspective and, like, inspired. It's, like, Holly Hunter playing a mom in The Incredibles movie, who is also a superhero. That is really inspired to me. But, like, their choices of mom, or, like, Lori Metcalf in Toy Story, which, like, now feels like,

Lori McHav as a mom, makes sense. sense, but, like, in the 90s, that was really inspired. Yeah, that was on Jackie. And, like, it's not... Well, even, like, I know we don't... Those type of choices are just, like, average mom now. I know we all don't like her anymore, but, like, Ellen DeGeneres in Finding Nemo is a great, and, like,

not the choice that you would have really expected at the time. To pair with Albert Brooks, who is, like, exactly who I'm talking about when I'm talking about a great cartoon voice. Like, is one of like the best is that in that like it you know exactly the character that he's giving you within like the first three seconds of him talking and he's a genius we know and i think finding nemo is one of the finding nemo is my favorite Pixar movie so like i'm you know in the bag for it in general but i think that is a movie that like at every turn even like down to like willam defoe and all

of like the little like fish tank characters alice and janny and whoever oh janny is spectacular all like it all works so well yeah vicky lewis lewis Isn't Andrew Stanton the voice of the turtle? He is. Yes. So, like, he does a great job. You know what I mean? It's just like, it's, it's, I think that's the high water mark that you're talking.

Seagorny Weaver playing herself multiple times in the Pixar universe. That's right. She also a genius. That is the saving grace of finding Dory, a movie that is fine. I like, I do. I'm Sigourney Weaver, one of multiple movies where she introduces herself as herself. Yep. I'm looking at my Pixar ranking now, and I just remembered.

I mean, kind of the opposite of what we're talking about, an actor just doing their own voice, who I think is really good, Jeff Garland in Wally. I, I, yeah, that's definitely, that, I mean, I was a Wally obsessive for a while if we're talking about what our favorite Pixar's are,

if Joe, you say yours is funny. Nemo, I, like, it's probably, at this point, it's probably because, as I've aged with Wally, I'm like, this is actually a little bit more didactic than I thought it was at first. But that's my thing. It's tied probably with Ratatouille as my favorite Pixar.

Yeah, I mean, mine is just Toy Story. Because Toy Story was the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater. Oh, what a great one. I know. I distinctly remember it happen. I know what movie theater we went to. But, yeah, so that's very early on. And similarly, one of a few years later,

the Rugrats movie was huge for me of just like understanding you in the Rugrats movie. Oh, yeah, I know. But that was when I found out movies could get sold out. We had tickets. We had tickets. But one of the Ushers came in, which is like everyone, this like 1110 screening of the Rugrats movie is sold out. So we need everyone to move in so everyone can sit. And I was just like, oh, my God, this can happen.

That's probably because of the Wild West days of the Lion King, where I'm sure the, I mean, like, I was too young to really like, know this, but I wonder if this was a larger cultural thing. I remember, like, seeing the Lion King where it was sold out, but they just kept selling tickets and people were just sitting in the floor in the aisles. I think by 1998, they were not allowed to do that in the showcase cinema. Definitely probably a larger cultural discussion about fire codes was happening. I remember going to see the Lion King, my brother, me, maybe we let, I can't remember whether we let my sister tag along with us. That was always a point of contention around that age. And then the two kids across the street and their mom took us all. And their mom did the thing where she made

like little bags of snacks and also like soda cans. And so like was like just loaded up this like Mary Poppins bag full of like stuff. My mom would do that too. That was the first time I was just like, oh, this is a real work around here, isn't it? We're just like we're all getting like these little, like, and of course, you know, you have to go through the whole charade of just like, nobody say anything and nobody make a move until the lights go out. And then all of a sudden, it's like this like full picnic getting like distributed down

the aisle. Two of you kids are little rascaling it into the theater where one is like standing on the other's shoulders and inside this. massive trench coat. You have an entire buffet. What's so funny is that's the same summer as speed. And so like the Lion King, I'm having this really sort of like childlike experience. I'm 14 years old. Or I'm maybe not quite, if Lion King is early summer, I haven't quite turned 14 yet, but I'm basically 14. This sort of like, you know, very childlike experience with like again, like going with our friend's mom and everything like that. And then that same summer was

Speed, which was the first time that I saw an R-rated movie in a theater because someone else's mom, who was a lot less scrupulous, bought tickets for all of us to go see this R-rated movie, and then we all just... There's a tame R-rating, though. Yeah, I was going to say there's just a horrible panty shot. Dennis Hopper does get beheaded at the end of that movie, which, like, it'll stick with it. No, I'm not saying that, like, we were scarred by speed or anything, but, like, it's funny to me that, like, those are my two memories of 1994 summer movie.

are like this sort of like tail end of childhood and beginning and I was like I was a late bloomer in almost every context so like I stayed a kid for like a while but that was that was a real transition summer. You wanted to be a Toys R Us kid? I mean

I did. We've talked about the Toys R Us shopping sprees before but yes two stories I have to branch off on this one of which is like and our rating is not necessarily the most important thing in terms of scruples when you're taking children to a movie. First of which because you mentioned carrying bags and bags of snacks into the movie theater.

Whenever people talk about sneaking food into a theater, it always makes me think of my dad taking me to see Dumb and Dumber, where we snuck in Taco Bell. Real Pavlov's dog thing for me. I cannot watch Dumb and Dumber if I don't have Taco Bell. Truly. And then the whole, like, a street or neighborhood's worth of kids piling into a car to go see a movie.

My parents did that at my own request, and we apparently recruited other kids because I was dying to see Cool World. Oh my God. How many times are we going to talk about to keep coming out for me lately? We talk about it so often. We need, okay, we need whenever, like,

we can actually have crowded theaters again for things like rowdy screenings. We do truly need to have a Cool World Renaissance because, like, fully that movie could not happen today. It is a movie where Gabriel Byrne fucks animated Kim Basinger into corporate reality. Her name is Holly Wood. It sure is. Okay.

As in W-O-U-L-D, as in what wouldn't Holly do? Yeah, and they had that whole thing where they put the, like, cardboard cut out of her on the Hollywood sign, like, laying all sexy. and people were like, this is fucked up. You can't just do that to the Hollywood sign. Incredible. That movie, I should, is there like a shout factor release of that thing? Because I should just have it around. It was on Prime for a while, and I saw a couple other, like, fellow weirdos tweeting about it for, like, a week.

I was in a barcade once, and it was playing, and I was, like, so distracted by being like, oh, my God, cool world is on the TV that I just, like, stopped paying attention to the games. That's so funny. Okay. To bring the question, to bring the conversation a little bit towards, like, the Oscar race type of thing. Would Cool World have received an animated feature nomination in the 90s, or would there have been too much live action?

No, they were always so snobby for a while. Even stuff like, I remember there was a lot of, yes, yes, but I remember even there was a lot of buzz for waking life because it was link letter, because it was smart, because it was whatever, and the animated voters were just like, no, no, absolutely not. We are, we have, you see this a little bit in the Emmy Awards when they added reality categories to the Emmys, very, those first few years, and they were like, okay, but we only like one or maybe two types of reality shows, but usually just like one, and we're going to nominate these same shows every year.

We like the amazing race, and we like the voice, and we like Top Chef, and that is it. And then when Drag Race broke through, it felt like a revolution, but now, like, drag race is the reality TV, you know, mainstream. Right, exactly. Kind of amazing that that's the case now, but yeah. And I think that's slightly the case with the animated feature one, although you look back and, like, they were doing, you know, like, Miyazaki got the second ever animated feature Oscar. so like I can't be too But like Yes but that was Disney's major play that year

Because that is true That's a very good movie So like Disney was behind it Though I mean Spirit of Away deserves that I'm not shitting on Spirit Of course not Of course not no

Yeah I'm glad that it happened I'm sad it probably won't happen again When How Do You Live finally comes out But I'd say Something I've always felt About Best Animated Feature Is a lot of The correct movies have won a lot

Like it's awesome that Spiderverse won. That's fantastic. Stuff like that. Rango. Rango is insane. I'm so glad that it won a fucking Oscar. Walls and Gromit. There are good winners for animated. I'm always rooting for the Ardman movies because I love Ardman and I fucking will go hard for the Sean the Sheep movies. I love them. I don't care. Oh my God. I like cried at Armageddon. It was incredible.

But yeah, this is a category with a very good track record where even if it's not like the number one movie that you would have wanted, it's like like big hero six was not my favorite movie that year but like i kind of like that movie won you know an oscar that year well it should have been princess cogia but yeah yeah that's the year that i want uh lica to get there win because the box trolls is my favorite like no that was my that was look at those nominees those are all good nominees it's so rare that a category where everything is just like they're all good let's see what happens that like never happens Yes, that's the Big Hero 6 Box, Troll, Song of the Sea,

Taylor Princess Coguya, and How to Train Your Dragon 2. Another movie where the death of a parent in an animated movie makes me go, Jesus Christ! That's another movie that's Frankenstein script, because the mom was going to be evil at first. Oh, fuck. Yeah, you can kind of tell in the movie. I know, right?

The first How to Train Your Dragon is a lot better than the second one, and that's one of those movies that, like, if it did not come out the same year as Toy Story 3, which was like a Best Picture nominee, it probably would have won. It would have won. Probably deservedly so. I love that movie.

One of my favorite animated film scores of the last decade plus. It's like unbelievable how good that movie is. It's so good. Like it came out of nowhere. Yeah, that's the other thing is like I really do like those animated movies that like they make that sort of leap from just like, oh, it's just like one of, you know, the many films sort of like pitched kids. And you could feel it kind of. happening because um when kung fu panda came out everyone's like this is actually good this isn't just like madagascar like this is like a worthwhile film and then how to train your dragon i believe is

the next uh dream works movie yeah i don't remember what the 2009 release is but i remember i don't know how much longer dream works is even going to exist like i remember after seeing the cap down underpants movie which i like i was like huh they do not have a movie on the calendar for another two years for How to Train Your Dragon 3. And I'm like, that's grandfathered in. Like, I don't know what the plan is for them, but I digress. If they make another one, it'll be How to Train Your Dragon 4, probably, because of...

That's not going to happen. The Dean DeBloy, who made those movies, he's like, I'm only making a third one if it's an ending. And they're like, fine, do it. I don't care. My thing is, like, because you mentioned the first How to Train Your Dragon and Toy Story 3 that year. And, like, my choice that year would be the illusionist. and like a lot of i mean g kids gets like sometimes multiple movies uh nominated that was sony classics but like there's a lot of very like artful animation movies that are really great

but like it does i do think even though sometimes they do pick the right movie the animation as far as animation goes the branch may not be so lazy in picking you know how to fill out their category depending on how many movies are eligible that year but like it doesn't really feel like the academy at large really is seeing these movies no never well okay I'll kind of push back on that a little bit I think I don't think you're necessarily wrong but I think if you look at the history of the animated feature category from 2001 until now and and again at the beginning there were only usually only three nominees per year that didn't they sometimes still do three I guess how many movies are released because it has to hit a certain threshold right but because there are so many movies like being like even the fact that even last year there were five nominees in a you know pandemic ravaged year as it was like I feel like we're probably never going back to three just because of the volume of of things that are being produced but I think if you look at it through the years where you know Disney and Pixar and um Shrek was DreamWorks, right?

Trek is DreamWorks. Right. So like DreamWorks and Fox, those were sort of like your big things. But like as the years have gone on, you get, there are animated movies. There are more slots, I would say, than there are, or there are fewer slots available for nominees than there are studios that we feel like, oh, this gets a slot. Where we've got Lika and Ghibli and G-Kids and the Ardman movies. And all of that along with your Disney, your Pixar, your Fox movies, and it's, I think we've ended up with, you know, while maybe not perfect, we've now ended up with a category

where a lot of really different types of animated movies are contending every year. And I think that's exciting. And sometimes animated movies for adults, like Anomalisa, which I hate. Me too. You hate Anomalisa? Yeah, same. um i like i didn't like i lost my body but that's a no that's not a good movie that's the problem right but but i think it's it's very exciting that like it's not you can't just at the beginning

of every year be like we're going to get one disney one pixar one fox one jibbley one g kids like it's not that like there's more there's more to you know there's more out there that the oscars have historically responded to and i like that and i feel like you have now an animated diversity in animated movies at the end, like in the 2020s, then you did in 2001. And I really, really like that. No, that's very exciting. That's totally true. Like, we're not going to be

nominating Jimmy Neutron anymore. But, like, I'm hopeful that, like, the type of momentum that seems to be building to support something like Cartoon's Filons movies. G-Kids is amazing. Everything that G-Kids does is, like, spectacular. I want to work for them. I love everything they've been able to do when they got the

Ghibli license back, those beautiful box sets, not box sets, just like slip covers for all the Ghibli films now. They look so good. I have the original Disney ones because I had to buy them when they came out. But I'm always like, if I was suddenly given $1,000, I would just go to the G-Ked

store on the website and just buy everything. Yeah. I wanted to ask, if we're allowed to discuss, what is going to be nominated for best animated feature this year besides, like, Luca and flee. Do we know? See, here, this is what I was

kind of building up to. I was going to ask about flee. Yeah. I feel, and maybe I'm being naive here, I feel like there will be potential for Flea to be the winner this year. Neon is an incredibly savvy campaigner. I mean, like,

it could, I will see how there's the potential that it could also be like international feature and documentary, but like there's whispers that what will be released in the States will be redubbed into English. I hope that's not the case. But, like, I...

Flea's incredible. When Flea actually, like, gets to open, I hope everybody goes and sees it. I know. I need to actually watch it. I didn't do it at Sundance. I think... I feel like... If you look at in terms of, like, what's likely to get nominated, Flea, definitely, Luca, definitely. I feel very strongly that the Mitchell versus the machines is going to get nominated because it was so well received and because it's a lovely movie and Netflix has had a good track record lately with getting animated

uh animated uh so I think those are probably your strongest contenders what's the is Enkanto the Disney movie for yeah Encanto comes out at uh Thanksgiving that's the classic Disney Thanksgiving release like those ones do very very well so that's I picked up Vivo and nobody was talking about it and it's already on Netflix. So I wonder. Oh, Vivo's not, doesn't matter. Yeah. No one cares about Vivo.

But I wanted to say just about the Thanksgiving slot. The Good Dinosaur was the Thanksgiving slot of 2015 and no one saw it. That is so strange. Because if you think about- It got buried by the final Hunger Games movie. Oh, my worst of that franchise. And that movie didn't even make as much as Mocking J. Part 1, right? I didn't even see Mocking J. Part 2 in theaters.

It's horrible. And I am remembering now, and I don't think it was you nominated that year, also that November is the Blue Sky Peanuts movie, which is a nice movie. I hate it. I feel like that's what everybody said was a nice movie. I did not see it. See, in like the more, this is another reason why I think the Academy's animated branch is like does make smart choices on how they fill up the Academy or how they fill up the category, but then the Academy at large, you know, just defaults to. usually the biggest and best best received because like cars was probably as big as happy feet but they still went with happy feet over cars because no one liked cars but um that's so funny that

um where was i going with this um peanuts movie the peanuts movie yes thank you for bringing me back peanuts and the good dinosaur with like the globes critics choice both show up and they both blank at the Oscars. And both of them didn't really do that well unless I'm misremembering how the Peanuts movie was received. No, the good dinosaur is like the biggest Pixar box office bomb besides Onward,

which has an asterisk, obviously. Exactly. But also, Onward didn't open strong at all. It was the first time a Pixar movie has been released outside of essentially June or November. And, I mean, obviously there's a pandemic, so that didn't help, but... Well, but like,

Like, things weren't closed down yet for Onward, but, like, the week Onward opened was, like, the first week that everybody started. Yeah. We can fairly put the asterisk on Onward for that. Like, I can't. It definitely does. I remember going to the press screening at the end of February for Onward by myself, and I sat behind Ty Burr, who was explaining to another one of the critics. It's like, oh, yeah, I've had a terrible cold this week. And I was like, oh, God, thinking back.

Onward is not worth COVID. Onward is not good. No. It's got some moments, but like barely. This whole second act is this then, like, walking through a field. It's like, so I want to sort of bring it back, though, to the 2015 animated feature nominees, just to sort of talk. Because, like, Good Dinosaur didn't get nominated, obviously. But, like, so Inside Out wins, obviously.

It was always going to win. It was hugely well received. It probably, I would love to see how. close it came to a Best Picture nomination because I feel like it wasn't too far away from it. It's probably the closest Pixar has come to a Best Picture nominee since

Toy Story 3, I feel like. If it didn't happen for it, it's not going to happen again for a very long time. I really loved Inside Out. I saw twice in theaters. I get the complaints about it, and yet I don't, doesn't bother me

so much. I really like it. Other nominees were we talked about Anomalisa, neither Chris nor I like it very much. I think it's a lot of, I like a lot of what Charlie Kaufman does, and yet when Charlie Kaufman is left to his own devices, more often, just as often as not, he can either be profound or deeply, deeply aggravating

and deeply, deeply self-obsessed in an... Every time I watch, yeah, whenever I watch one of his movies, somewhat abandoned like he was like he had to be sold on the movie being made he was like you want to do what with this script like I don't really yeah anyway

sorry go ahead Kyle I was just gonna say every time I watch a Charlie Coffin Project I'm just like really glad I'm not him yeah that's how I always come away from these things I'm like being you seems bad dude it certainly feels like he feels like being him is bad like that um yes

so Um, Anomalisa getting nominated, I think a year ahead of time, I would have been like, no. Like, the animated branch isn't going to go for that. And the fact that they did, I think shows a little bit of an evolution for them. So even though I don't like the movie, it's a nomination that I can get something positive out of, which is cool. Uh, boy in the world, which was a Brazilian movie that... I haven't seen it. I've seen it.

It's cool. It's good. Yeah, it's cool. I think it's like, it's sort of very visually, very interesting. I don't remember a ton about the actual story of it, but I remember the visual. Probably the smallest movie that the branch has ever nominated, too, because like, even at the time, it was not incredibly available. And it doesn't come from any of the, even like the sort of like the mid-major animation studios, right? Like, I don't think it was G-Kids, to be honest.

Like, it feels like a true sort of, like, independent path towards. this nomination going through like the film festivals and whatnot and and it's just a it's really cool animation so like it probably helped that it stood out in terms of the art of it it feels like the kind of thing that would get nominated very easily in the animated short category but it's a feature and for sure i think something like what the year after uh 2015 my life is a zucchini also feels that way um where it's just like oh Oh, this feels like an animated short nominee that, you know, is feature length. I loved my life as a zucchini.

God, it's dark movie. Sean the Sheep movie, 2015. My beloved Sean the Sheep. Talk about it. He's a great guy. Talk about it. No, this was a TV show first? Yeah, they did Ardman shorts, and I think it has a little TV show I've never seen,

but the movie is also like 72 minutes long, so. The Sean the Sheep movies are funny as fuck. Yeah, they're awesome. They're so funny. Those are nonverbal. It can happen. Again, feels like this, and again, with the same thing with the Wallace and Grommet win in 2006, 2005, 2005. Their movies all feel like, you know, short, animated shorts sort of like brought out to future length.

I think anything that is nonverbal in that way sort of feels a little bit like that. I like the Ardman movies I don't think I've ever really fully loved one But that's just sort of my own sensibility Like I fully respect and you know Love love you if you love them And then the studio Ghibli movie this year Was when Marnie was there

Which is one of the saddest movies I've ever seen I really like it but it's sad my goodness I remember watching it because I got I got the Blu-ray when it came out and my Hawkcast co-host and I watched it because that was when we were living together and afterwards we were just like okay and just like completely devastated by

it it's just like Jesus Christ if we can talk about the shorts of this year too we should mention Sanjay's Super Team was the Pixar really attached to the good dinosaur and I feel like at the time I heard more people talking about Sanjay's Super Team and loving

Sanjay's Super Team than said anything about the good dinosaur. Absolutely. That's a lovely little one. And I do love Sanjay's super team. It didn't win. Also this year that was nominated and didn't win is the world of tomorrow. Oh, that's funny.

Oh, one of the best nominees. So, like, yes, this, I think this year, this was, like, the most attention in the animated short category probably had up till this point. I think because of both of those two shorts, because they got a lot of mainstream attention. World of Tomorrow more from, like, the indie film chatter. But, like, Sanjay's Super Team is the opposite of the thing I was just talking about with, like, the Ardman movies, where, like, this is a feature movie, it feels like a feature movie that is at short film length, right?

And I think some, and it stands out from the animated shorts, I think, because of that. And I definitely, of these five nominees that year, I really preferred World of Tomorrow. I also really liked the short film We Can't Live Without Cosmos, which is about too sad, I would say, queer-coded Russian astronauts stranded in space, but like that's my own thing. I haven't seen that. I might be reading into it. And then the fifth nominee that year, well, Bear Story is the one that wins, which I think is like, fine. Like, it's odd, like, I guess it's not odd to me that it wins because, like, it's the type of story that, like, with this lineup, I mean, like, aside from Sanjay's Super Team, it's probably the one of- It's not heavy. It's the most straight down the middle.

And I think Sanjay's Super Team came at, like, the wrong time where, like, people were starting to get annoyed with Pixar always winning the feature and. animated and like Pixar actually doesn't have that many of the animated ones as you think they do it doesn't of the short films no it doesn't and then the fifth nominee is a film called prologue that is incredibly violent and cool I would watch that um and like and plays just so different like the variety of types of animation and types of animated movies in the shorts is always a lot more uh vast which is I think the appeal of the animated shorts, I always recommend to people that if you live in a city where they are theatrically screening the animated shorts, go. It will not take up your whole day. I think AMC has started doing it. Right. Right. And it won't take up your whole day like the documentary shorts will or even the live action shorts. It's very brief. You'll actually get more than your money's worth because they will screen extra movies at the end because just to sort of to make a running time. Um, but you get a really, really cool variety of types of animation. And you'll

sometimes get shit like prologue where you get just like, what the fuck? Like super, super violent murders and deaths. And it's like this like Greek, uh, battle. It's, uh, it was originally planned to be a feature film based on Lus Estrada. So like, if that gives you a little bit of a hint of where great um i will say last year one of my favorite movies and the whole nominees of the whole list of last year's nominees and like one of the movies i most wish i had been able to see on a big screen instead of my fucking computer was this animated a short opera which was like cool as hell and dark and bleak but like had a real sense of scope that like you know opera was one of my favorite movies of the entire Oscar slate last year. It was so fascinating. I immediately watched it again because your, I

can't get to everything that's interesting about that movie. That one, my two favorite animated shorts last year were so, like, opposite ends of the spectrum. It was that, which is, like, dense and fascinating and

intellectual and, you know, really, really want to just sort of sit and marinated in it. And then at the opposite end of the spectrum was Burrow, which was just like, I just need something Burrow's great. And it's so... It's about a gay bunny who just

wants a disco bathroom. Who just wants a disco bathroom. And bless people in his house. Like, get the fuck out of my house. It's such a good movie. It's a movie about how introverts have to learn how to be social. Yes. And how to build a disco bathroom. And it's like, and it's

comes from the most like, I mean, I would put crassly in scare quotes because I don't actually think it's that crass, but like it comes from the most commercial origins, which is like the Spark Shorts program at Disney Plus. Sparks Shorts has some

dark shit in there. It does. Yeah. It's just like, but like I think the association to Disney Plus really makes it feel like an arm of the corporate behemoth or whatever, but it's so cute and it's so They're doing cool stuff. It makes you feel good. Like it like, I mean, I know

feel good is, you know, often a majority but like uh bro go check it out and then the winner last year was clearly the worst nominee to be that happens a lot remember skin remember skin oh Jesus Christ

talking about skin that was the year where it was like all of these are children in danger movies um no but this not to like dunk on you know an animated short you know but like if anything happens I love you which was

the Netflix one that was also like executive produced by Laura Dern it like she's going real hard for that thing tensions it's about like gun violence but like I think I saw it before you Joe and I immediately text you there's a surprise Columbine movie yeah in animated short it is surprise Columbine it hate when that happens they really do spring it on you um yeah I did not really enjoy the process of watching that movie, but, um, it's so nice we get to- Yeah, it's so nice we get to talk about animation on this. We never do. So I feel like we're like, really like spreading out. Yeah. There's not a whole lot of, you know, options that

we could really discuss this category. So I'm glad that we, uh, are kind of diving deep. Do you guys have any other like observations you want to make about the animated category? I feel like I've done nothing but like kind of shit on picture. in this and that I'm like the Academy needs to branch out a little bit and I think it's just because like Pixar as a brand for me has had a lot of diminishing returns and I think you know some of the movies have been emblematic of it I'm also somebody who doesn't love like Toy Story 3 doesn't love Frozen even though that's just big Disney you know Pixar my thing with Pixar and animated films in general is I kept liking them when I became a teenager and you know when a lot of people were like really growing out of it and I was like okay if I need if I'm going to keep liking animated movies I do have to become a genius about it so I just I just like doubled down and I was like now it's not a weird thing that I do it's something that I can like have knowledge on

and my relationship with Pixar has really changed and grown a lot since I was a child the Toy Story's first movie I saw in theaters, as I said before, and just kind of every year just having my mind blown by one of these. And then I remember seeing Cars 2 in theaters, knowing it was going to be bad. And then just like walking away being like, oh, God, they're not magic. And then seeing Brave. And I was like, that's kind of good. Yeah. And just having the diminishing returns in the 2010s and just like always kind of holding out just to be like, I'm obviously going to see all of them. But I'm not at the point every year where I'm like, oh, boy, this June, I'm going to have my, like, I'm going to get slaps.

in the face by a Pixar movie. Right, right. And I come away from these movies at this point with opinions like, I like Incredibles too because it didn't try to make me cry. Like, that's where I am with this thing. No, you had Bow at the beginning of it where I'm still sobbing through the first 15 minutes of Incredibles 2 because I just watch Bow and like, I'm on the floor. I'm crying so hard.

And Domé She, who directed Bao, is directing the next Pixar movie, Turning Red. Oh, yeah, I'm kind of excited about that. though I can't tell what it's about It's about a red panda A little girl who turns into a red panda Her mother is voiced by Sandra O So they got a Canadian Asian actress Yeah

I mean I don't know I feel like it's gonna What I've enjoyed about Pixar Recently is every one of their movies Is just like they're like Hey director I know you have some shit to work out Would you like to make a whole movie about it And they're like yeah of course

And so sometimes it really works Like something with Luca where it's Eniko, whatever the director's name, where he's not really saying it. He's like, this is about when I was gay when I was 13. Yeah. Luca is about, uh,

Luca is for every gay person who only had straight male friends that they didn't fall in love with. Yeah. Well, Luca is about just like, I really like this kid. I don't understand why, but I am going to emulate everything that he does and follow him around all day. Um, but then something like onward where the interviews were like,

oh, so what was this movie? movie for you and he's like well my dad died before I was born so this movie's about that and it doesn't work as well as you think it would I think there's a couple moments in Onward that are so clearly just from that director's soul that I just that stick with you but then the movies not very good so I'm interested to see what the way they balance like their blockbuster ones and then the ones like Domesi is just making a movie about it being a Chinese Canadian girl in the early 2000s and yeah very simple and then we're going to have light year which I don't know

the deal with that is, and I don't care about it. Right. I just, just from the concept alone, I mean, like, maybe it could be good, but it did feel a little up its own ass in a way, but, like, we'll see what the movie actually becomes. I'm excited to see who the voice cast for that is, because it could be really weird, or it could be, like, fucking, like, Jordana Brewster or something. Like, they'll put some really random people. I don't know.

But I do have one more thing. Like, since you brought up Luca, and I know we're of similar minds about Luca, like, this was another case where I felt like. I was on an island and to me it felt like Pixar's best movie in like maybe even a decade for me I loved people really liked it I feel like I love Luca I feel like Luca got a very very strong reception though yeah I think some people were kind of just like yeah it's very slight and I'm like yeah is that bad I felt like a lot of straight male critics did get it well they just they they didn't understand it you know and I also thought like for like in terms of character animation

And, like, the thing where the good dinosaur is just like, okay, you are literally just rehashing these things to have these kooky characters. Luca felt like it had a lot of kooky characters that felt like their own creation. Yeah, it's a little clay world. It's nice. One more thing about the good dinosaur, I forgot. One of the greatest, like, ending shots. Oh, my God. In an animated.

In a movie, in recent memory. Just like it's so... And I don't want to talk about the turn. Yeah. But I think that is so effective. And that's another thing in Pixar. They're like, it was almost like this. And I was like, well, I'm glad it wasn't because that would have been bad.

Yeah. But one last thing about The Good Dinosaur, I just remembered when I went and saw this in theaters, they, you know, sometimes movies seemingly at random will have like a little introduction from the director. So Peter Sone had a little video and he's like, hey, thanks for coming to the Good Dinosaur movie. I definitely directed myself the whole time. and he's just like growing up he's like I'm a Korean immigrant my mother is from Korea she didn't really speak English but we would go to the movies together

and just enjoy like watching these things and not having to understand the language like the visual medium and he's like I wanted to put a lot of them to the good dinosaur so I do believe that all of the good stuff from the good dinosaur came from Peterson and I hope that he gets to make a feature that isn't just a Frankenstein monster

from Bob Peterson who couldn't crack the film yeah well and also that like that definitely tracks with the movie too because like that type of thing that it's just purely visual storytelling that's when the movie really really works and when I really really liked it and then when it feels like you know the corporate hands are around the movie's neck like that's what I didn't like it's always a balance there I'm glad I finally watched it though because I definitely feel like this is a movie I probably like way more and especially just from checking like logs on letterbox I'm like people were way too harsh on this movie and yeah people

don't understand what nice things are like my right and like I I feel like my complicated relationship with soul where I'm like you know soul or not not soul itself but like Pixar as a whole like the way I feel about like Toy Story 3 uh and like I was even a little disappointed by the Incredibles, too. Just where, like, my complicated feelings about where Pixar has been, was surprising to me how I felt about the Good Dinosaur. Chris File, Good Dinosaur's greatest fan. I don't know if I'll go that far.

It is, I mean, like, it's a movie about definitely a little gay dinosaur. who's just trying to make his family happy while all of the other siblings, you know. Okay, this was the thing I was going to bring up and then it sort of got lost in the shuffle. There is something to this idea of, and it's not just Pixar, like this is a thing that's like always sort of like

been a thing in fiction. And I wonder if it's just like a thing about sort of writer-creator artistic types. But this idea of just like, he was the smallest one ever. Like the smallest dinosaur. in his entire generation like Nemo is just like

the tiniest little fish and it's just like it just makes me think of like who is like writing these stories it's just like I wish I were a big strong person you know what I mean I think for Nemo it's I'm just a little guy

I think Nemo does it better than yeah defines him in terms of his siblings it's like his siblings can just like naturally do something And Arlo is afraid of their weird fucking chicken things. They do make a, well, right, the two things about Arlo that are definitional, they do make a big deal about how tiny he is when he's born. But it's mostly that just like, Arlo's a scary cat.

And like, as a scarity cat, I related. But I don't know. Like, it's just like that sort of struck me of this idea of just like, we're going to follow the story of the littlest blank in the blank. You know what I mean? I think Nemo is a little more of just, like, about raising a kid with special needs than Arlo is about just, like, having courage. Because, I mean, they have everything with Marlon being like, oh, yeah, Nemo's, like, lucky Finn. And it's about him being overprotective. Yeah.

Sort of stuff. I think that works a little better than Arlo being a little scaredy boy, which is what every cartoon ends up being about. There's a strain in the good dinosaur where, like, the fourth or fifth time that Jeffrey Wright as the father is just like, Arlo, it's just a bug. you know what I mean it's just like it's just like come on like move along and I was just like I know I know that exasperation I I've I've I've seen that exasperation so yes the like the fourth or fifth time I like get up from a from a sitting down in the backyard situation because a bee has gotten too close like yes yes yeah relatable less highly relatable is being a dinosaur who is

also a farmer. We didn't talk about this. It's maybe the wildest thing if they have to use their faces in the ground. But this was the thing I was talking about is just like it's it's kind of I almost want to like take like an hour and just sort of like ruminate on like so how exactly did this agrarian dinosaur society evolve? Because it feels like there is some kind of like thought out process in there and ultimately. They're not a society of dinosaurs. We don't see any other dinosaur farmers. Right. This is what I mean by like,

they don't communicate with other families. What is your conception of the world? Because like clearly, like there was an idea here, this idea that like, you know, dinosaurs evolved in a certain way. Dinosaurs evolved into humans. It wasn't, well, yes, but like, but I don't think it's quite that.

This is what I meant when I was saying earlier. Like it very easily just could have been like dinosaurs and suits and ties and high rises and you just like one to one put in a dinosaur where you would put a human in a story. Like Zootopia, like you said. Right, exactly. And this isn't that.

This is a more specific vision of a world that evolved differently because there were different creatures that evolved it. And it was like, I don't know, like, I was a little interested, but it doesn't think it, it doesn't like take you down the whole path of like. It's not important to the film. This is what it is and they don't like it. Farmers is because at its heart, this movie is actually a revisionist Western. that's why they're farmers

we can't have the good dinosaur is a western actually it's basically a western they're farmers no I can't do another it's a western actually story I can't do it you know how much I hate that conversation Sam I will say the good dinosaur is my favorite revision is Western Oh my god tweet that and I will cancel you Here to High Heaven I swear to God Any last notes on the good dinosaur before we move into the IMDB game

That's all I got um we noted at the very beginning But there is a scene where they eat from it to be berries and have an acid trip. They sure do. And they like switch heads. It's just like a moment. I remember being in the theater. I was just like, huh, yeah, okay.

And then it just kept going. That baby really got fucking high. Yeah. He sure did. That baby was tripping his balls off. That's amazing. Yeah. Joe, would you like to explain the IMDB game for our lovely listeners?

Always. Always, always I will explain the IMD game. Every week, in fact. we end our episodes with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with the actor or actress to try and guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for. If any of those titles are television or a voice-only performance or a non-acting credit, we mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue, and if that is not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints that is the IMDB game. All righty, Kyle, as our guest, you get not one decision. two decisions of if

who, if you would like to give or guess first, and then who you would like to give or guests to slash from. Oh, geez. All right, so I picked a couple of things that weren't on the list. So, Chris, I'll pick you first, and

can you give me, you know, pop a dinosaur himself, Jeffrey Wright? Hold on. I'm actually, I pull it up. So Jeffrey Wright, how much television and are there any voice performances? yeah hold on I'm just I'm pulling it up I forgot to have it out because I wasn't sure if one of you was going to pick him okay so it's all movies which is not something I expected fantastic which actually is rather difficult

because then there is no angels in America no Westworld I'm surprised no Westworld that's what I assumed immediately that I was like oh this just yeah but it's not okay so So, um, the Shaft remake slash sequel where he is the villain. You got it. That's the first one. I need to read something I would have expected. Because I remember being like, Jeffrey Wright's amazing. He, technically he is.

It's just like, there's a lot going on with that movie that I didn't expect. Jeffrey Wright is also in the Hunger Games movies at the end. Or is he in... No, he's in Catching Fire, right? He is in Catching Fire, but that's not the one that's on here. Okay, I was going to guess Catching Fire, so I'll take that as a wrong guess. Mocking Jay Part 1. That's correct.

Ah, fantastic. Very strange that that's the one they picked, because I think he's more prevalent in catching fire. Yeah. I... Okay, I was certain at a certain point, because this is who I am and what we do, that he would be, he would get his first Oscar nomination for the goldfinch because he had a great part. Now do I think the goldfinch is in there.

I'm going to say yes, the goldfinch. It is not. Okay. So now I get my years. So there's two years left and it's 2004 and 2005. Is one of those lady in the water? No, I think Lady in the Water is 2006. Okay.

So this is right after Angels in America. He has his Emmy. Yep. But still is doing, like, character roles in things like Lady in the Water. Oh, I know what 2004 is. It's the Manchurian candidate. You got it. Phenomenal in that film.

Oh, 5. I'm trying to think of what other movies I know him from. It's not the Ides of March. It's not W. This is a movie that I am flabbergasted is on someone's IMDB known for. I got to say, I didn't know he was in this movie. That's my hand. Chris, this is a movie we've talked about before on this podcast.

We could definitely do it. No, we could, though. But we've talked about it just sort of, we tend to arrive at the oddity of this movie a lot. oddity of this movie having Oscar Buzz to begin with. Huh. Okay, so it's an odd movie, so I'm guessing it's the type of

thing that like if people predicted it or if it was campaigned, it's like, well, that's not going to happen. Right. It was, you know, that thing where somebody narrowly loses an Oscar and then for the next

several movies, you're just like, well, they're going to get it for this. And then you look back years later and you're like, Why did we think that? So this is like a star vehicle. Yeah. Of somebody who almost won. With a very, very particular, like a very niche director who...

In 05, so somebody... This is probably somebody who recently almost won. Is it something with Julianne Moore? No. No. this is a real niche director niche director like this this this person's movies are their own thing okay and uh johnny dep no no but you're it's a man you're really circling the the boomerie yes uh uh uh niche director

05 is no this is not on anyone's no for it this is what I thought too it is broken flowers it is broken flowers which I always get confused with St. Vincent because they had similar posters

it could not be any less like St. Vincent to be honest yeah that's absolutely a movie that the second you see is like the Academy's not going to even fucking watch this. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Jeffrey Wright, fantastic. All right, Joseph, for you, and then you will be giving to Kyle.

Yes. I went into the Pixar vocal cast history. I picked someone who was almost originally planned to be in The Good Dinosaur and instead was in Pixar's other movie in 2015. I'm talking about Mr. Bill Hater. Bill Hader. Bill Hader, no television, one voice performance. Bill Hader, no television is so funny to me.

All right. One voice performance? One voice performance. So it's got to be Inside Out. Inside Out, where he voices fear. Yes, okay. Is, all right, so Bill Hater movie stuff. He hasn't had a whole lot of movies where he's like the lead or a co-lead.

So I'm going to guess one of the few that he is, which is the skeleton. The skeleton twins. The skeleton twins. I like the skeleton twins. I do too. I really like the skeleton twins, actually. Yeah. All right.

So, now we're looking at probably supporting stuff. You still don't have any wrong answers. I know. Very happy about that. The problem is you got to, like, calibrate what kind of, you know. kind of a smaller role is going to show up for him. I'm going to guess because I just saw it on TV again a week ago. It is one of the great, it's always on HBO sometimes movies.

Adventureland. Incorrect. No Adventureland. Okay. All right. Bill. I've never seen that, actually. I love it. I really love it. I should revisit it.

It's really... Because I didn't love it at the time. Oh, I think it's so wonderful. My favorite of the Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart's collabs. See, I kind of want to go back through and rewatch a bunch of Kristen Stewart before Spencer. Probably a good project. Okay. Bill Hater.

William Hater, you have one wrong guess. You have to get another one to get your years. Is he in the way, way back? Let me look. If that is your guess, it's incorrect. All right. I don't think he's in that. would be.

My Rudolph is. Maybe I'm just thinking of Adventure Lems. Right. And grafting him into that. That's possible. It does not look like he is from what I can see. Okay. All right.

Two strikes. So what's my years? Your years. These are actually the two that I would have guessed. Oh, interesting. 2015 and 2019. 2019, huh? Mm-hmm.

All right, so 2015, the same year is inside out. Um, I mean, I imagine they're both comedies. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, um, uh, uh, train wreck. Yes, train wreck. I like train wreck a lot, actually. I don't, but I like Bill Hader in train wreck. I remember seeing it in theaters. You haven't seen train wreck or you did?

No, I remember seeing it in theaters and not really retaining anything. I would maybe go so far as to say, well, maybe not. I do think that that is top-tier Judd-Apital. Your mileage may vary on one of the phrase means. Yeah, my mileage does vary. Yeah. All right. Hater, 2019.

What even happened in 2019 the last year we were alive? One of your assumptions is wrong. Oh, it's a drama. Bill Hater in a drama that isn't Barry. you're still pretty wrong 2019 he was also a voice in Toysory 4

oh am I wrong that it's not a supporting performance it's a supporting performance but it's a drama no what the hell am I wrong about I'm not wrong about anything else those are the only two things I've ever been wrong about you forgot that this happened we probably should forget that this happened it's important that we forgot that it happened

oh god it's a wet fart of a film I never saw this it is I've heard that it's terrible I don't want to say anything else because I feel like he'll just get it but yeah oh lord

so like legendarily terrible he was not the most prestigious person in this cast too I will say because it's like Bill Nader why are you doing this movie other person we know why you did this movie

but why are you doing this movie oh god and then there's like an ensemble he and other more prestigious person who we've maybe recently talked on this podcast about we're technically part of an ensemble we talked about on this episode that we're recording right now no previous recent episode a prestige actress who we will

definitely be talking about in the month ahead oh boy that's true I don't have the energy for that I do have the energy for it I'm so fucking excited oh and also no not Merrill not Merrill not also in this ensemble you probably this may not help you um a hot actor who you've maybe run into on the street before Jason Ritter no oh I wish hotter actor much hotter actor James McAvoy sorry Jason Ritter is I actually spoke to Jason Ritter when I ran into him on the sidewalk so that was at least that um all right James McAvoy in a terrible movie that's not a drama or a comedy. So what

type of movie might that be? Action? No. No. Horror. Yes. James McAvoy in a horror movie. With Bill Hader and a prestige actress who has a movie coming out in this month that we will definitely

see, discuss I love how hard this is. It is really vindicating for me. It is absolutely vindicating that this is very difficult for you. Yeah. I'm genuinely... Oh, oh, is it

Glass? No, glass is January 2019. Glass more like ass. Oh, wait, is it not? Did I get a month? I must have missed where you said. It's not glass, but it's a sequel. Fuck. I know, right? Oh, man.

I know why you can't remember this movie, because I would be willing to bet you didn't see this movie because this movie and its original opened when we would have been at Toronto. So it's like it probably never happened to you. Can I get one more hint? Oh, I know what it is. I know it is.

You got it. It's Chapter 2. It Chapter 2. I was going to say that thing was three hours long for no reason. It was actually one of the rowdiest screenings I've been to you. I didn't go to the press screening or anything. I saw it with my friends. But there were people there who were very, very, very drunk and loud, and I was like,

what is going on over there? And then eventually they like left halfway through, but I was really nervous the whole movie. It legit is three hours long. I just pulled up the page in two hours and 49 minutes. Here's the thing. For no reason. I like, I have

a soft spot for the it movies, I will say. Probably because I like the first one. I never saw the second one because everyone hated it. Yeah, I think if they put them together in one movie, it might work a little better but that's not my job. Yeah. I think I was a little confused as to why people hated the second one so much, but it's definitely not kids. It's not fun. It's not fun to see these adults do this.

It's fun when the kids are wailing on a evil clown with a bat. That's a very good point. Bill Scarsgard, though, sexiest evil clown in history, I will say. Bill Scarsgard is great in the first one, I thought. Yeah, he is. He's barely in the second one. You know who's also great in the first one is, speaking of leave that. Please don't say one of those annoying-ass kids.

No, it's Jack Dylan Grazer's great in that movie. Jack Dylan Grazer's been great in every single thing he's been in. Yeah, he's Alberta. I'm going to chew glass. He's great in that. He's great in Shazam and he's great in Luka. He's great in Luka. Did you not see Shazeram?

He's great in Shazam. He's fantastic. I can't with smart ass kids. He's not a smart ass in that. He's like a little, he's just a brat. It's a little different. Yeah, I had to look it up for Luka. I was like, really?

This kid that I was like, really, this kid that I don't know. I can't stand in other things is great in that? He's also great in the, in the, uh, in the, uh, in the, uh, in the Luca Guadena, HBO show. Oh, I feel like I was the only person who watched that thing. It was really, I thought it was fantastic. I'm glad that no one watched it because people would be weird about it. Yeah, but it was great. It was great. It was great. Yeah. Yeah. Joseph, who do you have for Kyle? Oh, okay. So, I'm not going to say how I ended up at this one quite yet, but, um, it is appropriate that I am giving to Kyle because it is

another Kyle. It is Kyle McLaughlin. Oh, okay, cool. One television show, one voice performance. All right. So it is Twin Peaks. Correct. Voicing the dad and inside out.

That is what brought me to this. Yes. Of course. He voices the dad and inside out. I never remember that. But yes. Yeah. It's because people mostly talk about how the dad is hot inside out, but they don't talk about how he's voiced by the great

comic book. Yeah, the parents are him and Diane Lane. Diane Lane. Yeah. Um, all right. So two, two legit movies. All right. Let me think. Because he has a few things. So I'm wondering if one of them is

it could go either way because he's not really in it that much. But that's kind of the point of the movie, I think. Is it Twin Peaks Firewalk? with me. It is not Twin Peaks Firewalk with me. Okay. I wasn't sure if that would also show up. All right. So I still have two trying to think. Is Dune on there? I feel like Dune sometimes shows up over the other Lynch one. Dune is on there. Yes. I would absolutely guess Blue Velvet. Well, I was I was going to do that one first, but I'm like, no, Dune like shows up weirdly a lot on IMDB.

I don't know. There's something about, it's star ranking. All right. So I have one left and... Still only one wrong guess, too. Okay. Is it just blue velvet? Because...

It is not blue velvet. Okay, so it's not blue velvet. All right. So do I get a year now? You get a year now. You're missing a film is from the year 1995. All right. Then it is showgirls.

It is show girls. Very good. I thought it was either going to be. showgirls or the Flintstones? I was going to say, are you going to guess the Flintstones? Yep. No, Flintstones is 94. I rewatched it recently. Where he plays Cliff Vandercave. I want

to rewatch the Flintstones movie because that was like a movie that I watched every day when I came home from school and loved it. And I feel like I would still have a good time. Did you read the Rosie O'Donnell interview that our friend Matt Jacobs did at Volta? No, not yet, but I cannot wait.

First of all, it's fantastic. It will make you deeply sad that both Nora Ephron and Penny Marshall are dead. But she talks about, because Matt asks her about being in her first two movies being a league of their own and sleepless in Seattle, both these like greatly remembered movies and big hits.

And she and her answer are just like, she's like, I was in three big movies, three summers in a row because the third year was the Flintstones. And I'm like, it is genuinely adorable that she still brings up the Flintstones when like nobody else is gonna, like I love that. I love that.

It was like a $100 million. It was like a $100 million. It was That's the thing. It was a huge success and nobody remembers it. It is Elizabeth Taylor's last movie. This is something I learned this year. And that's why I rewatched it because I was like, that's crazy. But Flintstones is something I saw a bunch as a child. I think that's where I found out like what adaptations were, where I'm like, well, they're not cartoons now. And my mom's like, oh, yeah, because it's a movie based on it. I'm like, also she fully got that role because she could do the little Betty Rubble Giggle,

which is, I think, so fantastic. That's a great interview. I highly recommend going and I haven't saved on Pocket. I'm going to read it. I will link it on our Tumblr page. Excellent. All right. I think that's our episode. Kyle, my friend,

thank you so much for coming on and bringing your animation, knowledge and passion, to the episode. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Yeah, thank you so. Thank you, so much. This was so fun.

This was super great. We, I feel like, have been constantly terrorizing each other throughout the pandemic as friends. It's true. It is nice. to have a real actual conversation.

If you guys want more of This Had Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz.tumbler.com. You should follow us on Twitter. It had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz. Kyle, tell our listeners where they can find more of you if you wish to be found. Yeah, so I have a Twitter, which is just at Kyle underscore Amato. I don't tweet a ton these days just because that website is crazy and scares me.

but I always link to reviews that I do for Boston Hassel, which is a local website slash publication here in Boston. I live in Somerville, but, you know, it's the Boston area. So I do film reviews, and sometimes I manage to snack interviews, so I'll always post stuff. Yeah, that's about it. And then Hawkcast, we have essentially caught up, so we're not releasing regularly, but just stay subscribed.

We'll be doing an episode on his Reckcast. recent graphic novel pretty soon, which is clearly a screenplay that Ethan wrote, couldn't get made, and had his graphic novel friend help draw it with him because one of the characters in it is just Ethan. It looks just like him. And I'm just like, all right, dude. I like it, though. You are the only source that I trust for anything related to Ethan Hawke. You are the only perspectives that I will be needing when the Northman comes out next year. Oh my gosh. I I can't wait. And Joseph, tell our listeners where they can find more of you.

Sure. I'm on Twitter at Joe Reed, Reed spelled R-E-I-D. I am on letterboxed as Joe Reed spelled the same way. And I am on Twitter and letterbox at Crispy File. That is F-E-I-L. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Miebius for their technical guidance. Please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Play, Stitcher,

wherever else you get your podcasts. Five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcasts visibility so write us a nice review that tells us how we made our mark a major thematic element of the movie that we did not discuss at all

Well, it was just He's just like, yeah, do it, put your paw up. Yeah, just making your mark is putting your handprint on a rock next to your family's handprints. But that's all for this week and we hope you'll be back next week for more buzz.

It's the lie. You never fail to satisfy. It's no.