This Had Oscar Buzz - 173 – My Blueberry Nights

Episode Date: November 29, 2021

With the release of Criterion’s retrospective box set, film lovers have been revisiting the work of living master Wong Kar-wai. But this week, we’re going to be talking about his least celebrated (and one omitted from that treasured collection). His first film in the English language, My Blueberry Nights is an episodic movie about a woman who … Continue reading "173 – My Blueberry Nights"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. No, I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hacks. I'm from Canada. I'm from Canada water. I guess I'm just looking for a reason. There's no reason to be found.

You have to stop taking people with their work. What are you celebrating? My last night of drinking. I'll give you some action. Did he hit you? I got nothing to say to you. All you got to do is just start charging. You bastard!

It's over! Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast. podcast, the only podcast that's strapping a fake bomb to Hollywood and holding them hostage live on the air until they give us Flora Plum. Every week on this had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Chris File, and I'm here, as always, with my tower of six Grammys, Joe Reed.

Picture me with that classic, like, I'm trying to hold all the Grammys. for the press photo. That's, that's me right now. I always love those. Nor Jones in her photo, though, I do believe was like holding the top of the tower

with her chin, like, oh, look, I'm just all, like, relaxed with all these Grammys. It's a great,

it's one of my favorite sort of recurring Grammy. I don't really pay much attention to the Grammys at all anymore, but like when I do, I do like, when somebody wins like five or six Grammys, and it's just like,

they're such unwieldy trophies anyway. So, they don't stack. They don't stack, they don't, like, you have, they're tough to, you know, it's not like an Oscar, which is like the platonic ideal of an award statue, because it's just like, you can grip it by the base and you can hold it aloft and you can whatever. It's like a baton. It's like a, you know, a relay race baton, except very heavy. Emmys are weapons. Emmys have sharp corners and are dangerous around children and you should keep them away from like, you know, small kids or whatever, perhaps lock them up in like a safe.

or something. Was it you that observed that like the, not that, I mean, like, rest in peace, the globes are gone, but like the globe redo of the trophy in recent years. Was it you that said it looked like a beer can? I might have. Like, I did not care for the globe redesign. No, I did because it looked, yes, because what it looks like. It looks like an aluminum sleeve around.

Those newfangled, yes, those newfangled like bud light cans that are, that look like rocket chips that looks so tacky. That's what the new golden... Yes, I absolutely said that because yes, that's what they reminded me of. And it had that weird, like, matte sheen to it, you know what I mean? Where it's no longer sort of chromy.

So ugly. It looks like if you squeeze it too hard, you'll crush it. It looks so... Like, I have so many thoughts about the Golden Globes where no need to get into it again, but I will just say,

maybe if they hadn't changed their trophy and to look in something stupid, they'd still be around. Anyway, yes. The Oscar is the best-looking trophy. The Tony Award, I will say is cute because, and I don't know whether this is true, it's a fidget spinner. This is the thing is it really looks like if you were bored and you had a Tony Award on your desk, you could

just sort of like flick the disc and it would just like spin and it would be fun and it would be like fun to do. It looks like a fun little trophy to have. What other trophies have? Audra McDonald, email us and let us know if this is true. She has like a mousetrap board to like set all of them to spin. Audra McDonald is like those people who can do wine glasses, a wine glass symphony, except she does that with all of her tony's, and she just

sort of sets them to spin at different intervals and it looks very impressive. They're like wind chimes. I guarantee you that's what Audra McDonald is doing in her free time. It's just Tony Award goofiness. Like, yes, exactly. All right. I'm excited to talk about this movie.

A movie that we've like kind of mentioned for a long time in private that we would want to do this movie. I've been hesitant because talking about Wang Karwai makes me feel fraudulent because I have not seen most of his movies. I've only, I'm bringing up his filmography now, beyond the recent ones, which I saw the Grandmaster and when it was, you know, an Oscar nominee that year. But beyond that, the only other Wongar Wine movie besides my blueberry nights that I had seen was happy together. Like, I've still not seen in the mood for love because... Oh, you've got a treat waiting for you, though. I know.

So, you know my thing with Netflix and don't tell Netflix? Everybody listening, promise don't tell Netflix. I'm on the disc plan, and I'll get the discs, and I'll just sort of, like, rip them to my hard drive or whatever. And that's how I sort of, like, have this cache of, like, movies that, like, I haven't seen yet, but are waiting just to be watched. And so I went to go watch In the Mood for Love recently, and I realized that when you're ripping the DVDs of a foreign language film, you have to remember. You don't get the subtitles. You have to remember to, like, click a box or whatever to also download the subtitle track because it won't do it automatically. And I forgot to do that.

So now I have in the mood for love, but it's with no subtitles. So, and I'm sure it's like, I'm sure it's gorgeous. You can just probably watch a much, much better transfer of it on the Criterion channel right now. No, I know. But it's one of those things where it's like, especially, like, as I, you have, just yesterday traveled via train back home for the holiday, that's my time to, like, break out my hard drive full of movies and just sort of watch whatever. And I was so excited and I was like, oh, I'll watch in The Mood for Love and I had forgotten that I have this, you know, non-subtitled file on my computer. So anyway, woe is me. Whatever.

Don't feel bad for me. I've had my time. So. I don't feel bad for you because you get to watch some of these movies for the very first. first time. That is the one, and also Chunking Express is one you should catch up on. I think maybe once I get past awards season this year, I'll do a proper Wonkar-Y catch-up and watch Chunking Express and in The Mood for Love in 2046 and, you know, whatever the fallen angels, I guess. I still have plenty to see. I mean, like, he's also a filmmaker, too, that people have been talking a lot about

because he has a mini-series that will be coming, but also with a Criterion Collection, like, re-releasing this box set of his work, and they're all getting remastered. And apparently they've, I haven't seen the transfer of some of these that I've seen original ones, but apparently in The Mood for Love is one of them,

that, like, he recolor-graded it, and people were initially, like, pissed about these restorations because they're like, oh, they fucked these movies up. And it's apparently, like, at the choice of Wongar-Wi that he wanted to remaster them in such a way. And people don't necessarily like the new transfers. Oh, is he George Lucasing his way through his library? Well, no, it's not like cops show up with walkie-talkies.

No, no, I know, but I just mean it's just like the Wongar-Wi version of doing what George Lucas did, which is color-correcting. You know what I mean? Right, right, right. And some, like, other, I think, aspect ratio stuff on... Fallen Angels is, I think, the one that I saw people being the most. Like, what happened here? So what is your fave of all of his movies?

That is hard because, like, we've talked about the, like, masterpiece ones. I mean, it's like, you know, the 2000 actress race where it's like I could pick something different on. on any different day. One day, it might be in the move for love. One day, it might be Chunking Express. One day it might be happy together. I mean, ask me today, it's Chunking Express. Sure, sure, sure, sure.

I'm excited to get into this. It's a, it's been a shameful sort of black hole in my cinema monifies for a while. So I've got to correct it. Why, I bring up this box set, though, that's like almost all of his, you know, feature films in the Criterion Collection. We're here today to talk about one that is conspicuously absent and absolutely no one was like,

well, why didn't they include this? We're here to talk about My Blueberry Knights, his first English language feature. I would imagine his last English language feature. I hope he can't give it another shot again. I feel like, I don't feel like my Blueberry Knights was confirmation that the English language medium

is not the one for him. I feel like... No. It's not a good movie... I... I hesitate to call it a bad movie. It's... Yes.

It is... As a Wong-Car Y movie, it is a failure. I think as a movie stripped of... You know, take his name off of it or whatever, it's got its moments. It's not great. Yeah. It's very easy to point out what are the flaws in this movie.

But it's got some moments, I will say. It's the type of movie that if you told me that it was the adaptation of some unfilmable great American novel or something, I would believe it. That's what this movie kind of plays like, you know. It plays like a book that you just can't capture, like, the text of it well because it's like, you know, the prose doesn't translate to cinema or something. Oh, I was going to say, though, because you're mentioning the box set. And what's so funny is, as I'm going through these old. reviews of my blueberry nights from the time from when it came out.

Already, obviously, by this point, he had directed almost all of his, like, greats. Like, the only other movie he's made since then. He's the Grandmaster. The Grandmaster, which is wild. Which I feel like gives this movie an even more tainted reputation.

I don't know, and I couldn't find, like, really any research or interviews about, like, if the failure of this movie like, tainted his career in some way. Or, you know, but, like, I do think because it feels like, and the Grandmaster, which the Grandmaster is interesting, is the only, um, Wonkar-Y movie with any Oscar nominations. And that one had a really, like, fraught post-production history. Yes.

Um, so, like, that one took a while to get to the screen. But, um. But what I was going to say about the box set, though, is that in those reviews for my blueberry nights, Wang Karwai was already such a revered, you know, master of the craft that already people are like, I wonder if they'll include this in the eventual Criterion box set for, like, already that was a consideration. 15 years ago. Right.

And some people were just like, I would be fine if they didn't. And some people were like, I bet you at some point Criterion will like include it and people will start making a case for like the secret greatness of this movie. Like, already people were projecting out decades into the future. And it has not come to pass that people have made a case for my blueberry nights as secretly good. But, like, even still, at this point, I wouldn't, like, I wouldn't rule that out in the future. Based on the reception and the kind of, like, non-release for this movie, though, like, it's not that this movie isn't secretly good. It's that it's secretly not a disaster at all.

Yes. It's, you know, like, it feels like the world kind of treats it. We'll get into the Nora Jones of it all, but, like, I was kind of surprised. Like, I was expecting to watch, like, a kind of a disaster. But, like I said, it's more of a fascinating failure. No. Oh, interesting. The other thing about the box set that I think is interesting is, like, sometimes, you know,

what physical media criteria and releases is sometimes rights issues. It's not like this movie isn't available. I watched it on IMDB TV. I watched it on Tooby. Like, it is, it's very available. Or no, I watched it on the Roku channel. But it's also, I think, available on TV. Not the Roku channel.

Roku channels come through for me, I will say. I will say the New York City of my blueberry nights is very Roku City. Go on. There's a lot of blues, purples. There's a lot of blues and purples. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Blueberry Night's not. King Kong is climbing a tower in the back.

Oh, it's just the Roku screensaver. Yeah. Okay. So it looks like the Roku screensaver. This movie really is kind of a nexus of like Joe's blind spots because watching this movie, I'm such an idiot. I'm watching this movie and I'm like, I wonder if there's like some like John Sails to this. And then I stop myself and I'm like, Joe, you have seen maybe one John Sails movie. And it's not even like the most like I don't.

I don't know where I'm pulling, I'm pulling that straight out of my ass. Like, I have no idea what I'm talking about. And yet, there does seem to be some kind of, like, the Americanness of my blueberry nights does seem to be pulling from some place that for, as a reference point. And I'm not, and it's slightly eludes me. I kind of got, like, because of the, like, it's also that David Stratharon is in it. And that's making me think of John Sales, too. So like, okay, I wasn't going to get into this yet. Yes, you were. You liar. You absolute liar. absolutely were going to get into this. No, I was going to say this for later because, like, we're on a thread that I want us to stay on. I want to say, we are a David Strathairn is Hot podcast, but we're talking about the one movie where David Stratharne is not hot. I need us to move on from this. Dolores Claiborne is also a movie where David Stratharine is not hot. We've talked about this. For obvious reasons, for obvious reasons.

But David Stratharne, not hot in this movie. Sorry. I'm so sorry, Chris. No, what I was going to say. to, like, your point where it seems like there's maybe some other influences, or Wongar-Y wants to do his version of a certain type of narrative. I think there's this, like, and this is why I'm like, if you told me this was based on a book, I wouldn't be surprised.

But it's not. It's based on a short film. Like a Kerouac book or something, right? Like something from, like, that way. It's, like, trying to channel, Wong-Car-Wi is trying to channel that through, you know, his vibe. which is, like, very distinct vibe. He's, like, one of the few, like, uh, living originals that it feels like, you know,

he fully does his own thing and you don't necessarily see the influences there. Yeah. Like, you do with Malik, basically. Right. Malik, I feel like one of the other ones. But it does kind, like, I got kind of Paris, Texas in there, like Wong-Carwe's version of Paris, Texas. A movie that I have seen.

Maybe there is, maybe there is a little vendors in that. Yeah, maybe that's what I'm, I'm seeing. seeing. Yeah, that's interesting. But, like, I think because it's, you know, it's a road movie, basically. It's a road movie where, like, you don't see the road. If Harry Dean Stanton had showed up in this movie, you would not have, like, blinked an eye. Like, he would have, like, fit really well. Yeah. It is very bad. Um, yeah. I, and it's like, there's stuff in there that is very good and very bad. And it's a lot of it, not, I shouldn't say very bad, but like, it's a swing.

It's Natalie Portman doing a swing. It's Rachel Weiss doing a swing. Natalie Portman doing yet another Southern accent in a movie that we're doing about on our podcast. I liked this one better than Lucy in the Sky, but it was close. We are not only the chief historians of Natalie Portman, Southern Dialects. We are also the chief historians of Natalie Portman between Star Wars and her Oscar, which is like... We need to get to the other side of this plot description because I have a lot to say about the Natalie Portman part of this movie. We'll put a pin in Natalie Portman.

We will return to that. And we also need to have this conversation about Rachel Weiss too. Yes, we do. And Jude Law. Because, like, this movie is a convergence of a lot of people in really kind of tricky career moments. But then it's all centered around, I won't say the first screen performance because her screen debut is in two weeks. Really? Who was she in two weeks notice? She's Nora Jones in two weeks notice.

Oh, okay. She's out of piano singing a song. She's the Vonda Shepard of that movie. Exactly. The screen performance of Nora Jones, who critics were not nice to, and I think she's fine. She's fine. She's fine. She's not great. She's not, like, failure. I will say, a stronger lead actress may be.

elevates the movie more and the movie needs that more but like Nora Jones isn't dragging this movie down she's just not elevating it she's not embarrassing herself either I don't think it's I think it's maybe a nothing character yeah yeah you know Juan Carwai doing his thing you know wants like very compelling uh performers Nora Jones is not Tony Lang Chouai no he is not Maggie Chung uh or she is not Maggie Chung I saw that in some of the reviews too, where it's just like, Nora Jones, she's no Maggie Chung, and I'm like, fuck you. Like, that's such a high standard

to put on this woman. Like, my good gosh. Anyway, guys, we are here talking about my blueberry nights. We will get to the plot description so that you can tell what the hell this movie is about. It is written and directed by Wongar Wai,

the legend, co-written with Lawrence Block, starring Nora Jones, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, David Stratharne, Rachel Weiss, Frankie Faison, and Adrian Lennox, who I'm always very happy to see. Me too. The movie opened in competition, opened the Cannes Film Festival. Festival opener. And then opened Limited in the States almost a year later.

It had had some of its international release by that time. Yeah. But a lot of its Oscar buzz was pre-2007 Oscar season. That's when a lot of people were looking forward to. It's canned Oscar buzz, you know, like leading up to its premiere. Yes, exactly. Joe Reed, are you ready to give a 60-second plot description of My Blueberry Knights? I mean, yes, but I should note that I have not made notes for this.

So I am flying free for this. So we'll see how it goes. Then your 60-second plot description of my blueberry nights starts now. All right. Come away with Nora Jones. She is a young woman in New York City who goes to this cafe that Jude Law is like the like kindest person like making blueberry pies and whatever. And he clearly has a thing for her and he sort of like nudges her into realizing that her boyfriend's cheating on her. And you think they're going to get together. But then like for whatever reason she like moves to Memphis and becomes a waitress at a diner and also a bartender in the same place. And it's in this area that David Stratherin is a. a drunk cop, and he's got a flusy wife played by Rachel Weiss, and they're yelling each other all the time, and then he dies in a car crash, and Rachel Weiss has to pay his bar tab, and then Elizabeth, who is now Lizzie, but now she's maybe Beth moves to Vegas or someplace, and she runs into Natalie Portman, who's a card player, and Natalie's got her own problems, and she's going to give

Nora a car, but then she loses the car, and then she's, and then Nora makes it back to New York, and Jew Law is still there, and he's still very handsome, and they finally it was like they're going to make it happen. That's basically it. You really miss no plot there. Yeah. Like there isn't a whole lot. I'm pretty sure it's Vegas because the movie was shot in Vegas.

Yeah. But it definitely has like a Reno-5. I think there's one part of the Natalie stuff that's in like a smaller town in Nevada where there's like small time card games happening. And then she, they eventually go to Vegas where like there's the thing with like Natalie's dad or whatever. and the car, the Jaguar. Anyway, it's a very episodic movie. It's very clearly inviting you to be like, this is the part that works best and this is the part that doesn't work best.

And, like, I think the part that works the least is very obvious, but I'm interested to hear what you think. I mean, I would probably say the Rachel Weiss stuff. Yeah. Because that's where I'm like, why are we here? What are we doing? It's one of those, it's, the movie becomes a different thing in that part of the movie. And I agree with you.

I think the why are we here is very pertinent. Like, there isn't really a great plot reason why Lizzie, Elizabeth, whatever. The thing with the character is, she's Elizabeth in New York, and then she's Lizzie in Memphis, and then she's Beth in Nevada. But anyway. It's all, well, which is funny because it's not like she's a demonstrably different person. Like, she's very much kind of a cipher character. Like, she's there to observe the other storylines, right? Like, she's a little bit more involved with, like, Portman, but, like, not really.

She's just sort of a sounding board for these people. But the Portman section, I mean, like, I almost think the movie would work better. It geographically wouldn't make any sense. But, like, if the Natalie Portman section was before the Rachel Weiss and, like, because that is a more plotty, section of the movie whereas it feels like the

Rachel Weiss portion is like look at these characters look at this local color she's taking it in I think there's just a better flow if those two were flipped but the

hmm you do like I don't want to be mean to Nora Jones she's fine she has millions upon millions and Grammys and multiple number one albums, she'll survive. But you really do need a much more compelling presence, even though I don't think she's

necessarily bad. It's just like, it relies on us to be so, like, charmed and interested and like, you know, at like the every move of this woman. And she's not necessarily, that idiosyncratic of a performer. And, like, I think the added factor of it's Nora Jones makes it all a little bit more bizarre than it should be. Yeah. I mean... Interestingly, I think Maddally would have worked well in the lead role.

And you cast somebody else to play the Vegas poker player. I mean, sure. I feel like I don't know if she would make more interesting. interesting choices, because, like, on paper, it's just not a great character. No, but I think, but again, I think you would have a more sort of arresting, compelling presence there. I think, I don't think it fixes all the movie's problems, but I'm trying to, like, mentally, like, who would I have cast as a more sort of dynamic lead actress and that sort of age range. And if you did it that way, it would definitely make for a much more

linear closer sequel yeah well also she has her hairstyle in this is very reminiscent of when we first meet Alice her hairstyle in this is like when Nomi Malone has her hair pulled up I didn't understand the wig I didn't wow I hate to be I don't necessarily want to be a wig gay but I the wig gays need to maybe see

Natalie Pullman's hair in this movie I love just categorizing the wig gays like at some point we're all going to be a wig gay for a moment. That's what Andy Warhol said, right? Everybody for 15 minutes will be a wig gay in their lives in the future? Yep. Okay.

That's what Factory Girl is about. It made me think... Specifically at that moment in time when he said that. Yeah. Sienna Miller, kind of an interesting choice for the lead character of my blueberry nights. Anyway, living with a wig gay you love is sometimes lonelier than being a wig gay alone. Shut up. that's two episodes in a row now we've referenced the Sienna Miller

I can see how long I can keep it going Oh my God I'm willing to ride that ride with you I'm willing to see where that goes Wait I was going to say something shit I can't remember now I totally oh the Natalie thing So it made me wonder and go and look up where V for Vendetta was in the time like this And it was after this but it was just after this Because I was like at what point did Natalie shave Oliver hair off

and like at and you know and then it that it became her like brief pixie cut era right where she was just sort of like growing it out and whatnot anyway i thought the pixie cut was also during the west anderson short yeah but wasn't that filmed after v for vendetta huh but isn't this the same year as so my blueberry nights premieres at can in the spring of o seven darjeeling limited Hotel Chevalier is later on in 2007, and then V for Vendetta, I believe, is like February 08, but I'm willing to bet that she filmed V for Vendetta before she filmed Darjeeling Hotel Chevalier. Don't quote, yeah, that, I mean, that makes sense. Wasn't V for Vendetta kind of shuffled around a bit, too? Didn't its release date move?

It's very possible. Hold on. I don't think it was like my blueberry nights was where it was delayed a year. absolutely up a goddamn tree. I don't know why I thought V for Vendetta was 08. V for Vendetta is 05. So this is all after V for Vendetta, which makes a ton of sense. Blueberry Nights is Darjeeling all of that. So don't ever listen to me about anything. I'm canonically wrong. So, and in fact, V for Vendetta might have been filmed before closer if this is, if it was, because it was, I know, I remember it being like an early in the year release. It was March. It was... Doesn't she wear a wig through the entirety of Closer, though?

Yeah. Well, various wigs. I don't think any of that is her hair. Okay, so here's the deal. Now, all right, everybody listening to this, just like never listen to me ever again. V for Vendetta gets one of those, uh, uh,

Austin, um, what you call it? The, the Harry Knowles, whatever festivals. Right. Ain't it cool news? Yes. They're like little festival. That was one of the movies that they screened there at the end of 05. It doesn't open in theaters until early 06.

But that still places it before blueberry nights and before Darjeeling or whatever. So this is all post-head shave moment for Natalie. This is a big moment. We need a famous actress to shave her head again. I was going to say, we haven't had one since Anne Hathaway, right? I don't think so Somebody do that Somebody, Carrie Mulligan, get on that

I don't know why I just threw her name out there But I feel like she would do it Rosamond Pike be even more terrifying With her own head Saving her own head selling you cryptocurrency Rosamond Pike is like I believe in Goldman Sachs so much That I will shave my head in this commercial for you

Um, terrifying Absolutely terrifying. Wait, okay, back to Blueberry Nights and back to the Rachel Weiss Stratharne because I do feel like this is the weak part of the movie. This is when it all becomes this very melodramatic. Like Nora Jones is a fly on the wall to this very fraught, boozy relationship.

Like Rachel Weiss's character in this movie is in the dictionary next to the word flusy. Like, it's just, it's, it's, it's a real broad characterization of this, like, like, you know, bar wench, essentially. And it's, it also just them as co-stars together, something about, they look so familiar to me to the point where, like, the final shot of the movie that, like, Spider-Man kiss, but they're laying down. Like, because it's Nora Jones in profile, it looks like Rachel Weiss. Yeah, that's interesting. They were weird screen partners to me. It's, so, I feel like this seems to me the most sort of stereotypical.

This seems, like, not to, like, you know, try and get into Wongar Wise Head or anything, but it does feel like he had seen American movies, you know what I mean, about, you know, boozy couples, you know, haunting bars and whatnot. And it all feels pretty standard and pretty uninspired. And as a result, especially Vice's character, really suffers because she just seems stereotypical and she seems like a stock, you know, boozy, cheating wife. And it really does not serve her performance that well, which is, too bad because this is coming on the heels of her Oscar-winning performance in Constant

Gardner, which she wins that award while she is pregnant. And so she kind of takes some time to have a baby. And she doesn't really make a whole ton of movies in the intro. She makes the fountain. She makes the fountain, which, again, famously fraught production. Erin Oski had been trying to make that movie for years, almost made it with Brad Pitt and Kate Blanchett. We should do the fountain. The version that... I love the fountain. The version that gets made is like

a third of the original budget and scope of what it was supposed to be. They had like sets built for that movie. Yeah. And it fell apart right before... Right. So it ends up being vice in the role that Blanchett was going to play, and then Hugh Jackman in the

role that Brad Pitt was going to play. I really love the fountain too, but I get why nobody saw it you know what I mean like I get why it puzzled a lot of people it um it is perhaps the best movie score of my lifetime watching movies like it's so so good I could endorse that um but anyway we'll do the fountain one day so what had vice made anything else between constant gardener and this besides the fountain uh she was a voice in the aragon movie but because that's not a real movie, it doesn't count. That movie is not real.

Aragon is dragon with an E instead of a D, is what I have to say about Aragon. That's the fun little wordplay. What was the song? What was the Avril Levine song that was the theme song to Erdog? Yes, it was. Do you not remember this? No. I think it was Keep Holding On was essentially like love theme from Aragon.

Yeah. Which is actually not a bad Averill song It's sort of like No, I didn't have any association of that song to that movie But you can't have an association of a song to a movie When the movie isn't real Yeah, okay But so yeah, so the fact that this was basically

You know, it was the rare Rachel Weiss You know, film that we were getting at this point This was also during the time Where she was making that movie I think, right, Agora The movie about The amenabar film. Yes, which seemed like it was in production for 20 years.

It just seemed like it was always about to be like maybe it'll happen this year. And it eventually got released in, I want to say, 2009, although again, I am not a reliable narrator anymore when it comes to release dates. This is a movie that if we wanted to do, it requires so much research because the pre-production, production, release, post-production of that movie was so, like... Protracted? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it was a Cannes and TIF movie in 2009, and then it didn't make it into American theaters. And I say theaters with very much scare quotes, because, like, I would be shocked if it played more than, like, nine theaters ever in early 2010. So, but that was around this time where it felt like there was Oscar buzz for that, if only because, like, it was a Metabar, and he had done, you know, the others, and that was such a success for Kidman, and it was, like, ancient Egypt, and it was a, it was the rare movie that had big scope and big sort of, like, historical epic chene to it, but it was unambiguously a lead actress film, right?

So I remember there being, like, great excitement for that, and I was kind of bummed when it never really amounted to much. But anyway, so, like, we were in kind of a Rachel Weiss Desert at this point, and it bummed me out that her performance and her role in Blueberry Nights was not only, like, not much of anything, but kind of like an active detriment to the movie. And I don't think it's her, I don't want to blame it on her. It's not like she's not giving a good performance, but it is of a horribly written character right and she's asked to go big with it too like it's supposed to be this like

pseudo-american odyssey through dive bars and like dive bar culture type of thing so it's like you can see why she would be making the choices she is making yeah but it's just not good it's not it's not unfortunately stratharine fair's a little bit better he's a little more of a a slow burn. He's sort of, you know, sort of quietly drinking himself to death or whatever. He has this quirk where the first time he and Nora Jones speak, he tells her that this is his last day of drinking. And then the next time they meet, he's drunk again. And she said, I thought, you know, I thought you would quit drinking. And he's like, no, today is my last day of drinking. So every day is his last day of drinking.

So clearly you get the sense that, like, he is, you know, headed down a path that is ultimately very self-destructive and yada, yada, yada. So a lot of the movie is this part of the movie, which is unfortunate for us, for the movie. Anyway, eventually we make it to Nevada and the Natalie Portman. stuff, which I could watch her playing cards and giving shit to guys like for a while in this movie. I think that's entertaining. I think that's fun. Accents, you know, and all. I don't know. She refers to Nora Jones as tits. Yeah, that's fun. That's just fun stuff. I like that.

I like Natalie in that mode. There's a lot of, you know, plain Jane Jones. in that character a little bit. There's a little sort of sparkle, a little, you know, again, there's self-destructiveness with her as well. I think that's sort of a through line through the Memphis stuff and the Nevada stuff is there are these characters who are kind of, you know, they're rolling along in a life that is ultimately not working for them, right? And that's sort of her thing.

I think the stuff with that character's father is a little less effective because ultimately we're not really invested in that. And again, we're nominally invested in the Nora Jones character, except there isn't much there. She keeps sort of writing these letters back to Jude Law, and we cut back to him every once in a while. At some point, he has this sort of quasi-breakup conversation with his ex, who, is played by Cat Power, who is not a musician that means a whole lot to me, but I don't know

if you're a Cat Power person. Cat Power is great live. Very good. All right. How did you like her performance in this film? I was like, who the hell is this? And it was driving me crazy. And then I looked it up afterwards.

I was like, Cat Power. Interesting. Yeah. So we sort of have this, we keep checking in with that relationship. And clearly that's the more important relationship of the movie. It did make me wish that we could have just gotten a Wongarwai movie with Jude Law, even with Nora Jones. Like, I think that works out better for Nora Jones. If you just let that stuff kind of sink in.

Those are her best scenes. I mean, like, also I think those are maybe the best scenes of the movie or her and Jude Law, even though it's a little cutesy, a little like obviously thematically. This is where the type. the movie gets its title. Right. Because every day there's a blueberry pie in the bakery, whatever. Nobody ever orders any of it. So he's always throwing away a blueberry pie.

So she herself feels like that blueberry pie. And it's all like obvious, whatever, blah, blah, blah, but it does work. And it feels like, you know, you want to see the Wongar Y movie of that relationship. And you don't really want to see this road trip, you know. Yeah. I want to talk about the actual filmmaking of the movie, too, because the blueberry pie is a good entry to this, because there's a lot of sort of artful interstitial flashes of very close-up shots of blueberry pie with, like, melty vanilla ice cream and sort of whatnot. It's all supposed to be very sensual and, you know, almost magical kind of. Well, when the movie opens with it, I was like, wait, what am I looking at?

This looks like I, is this a crime scene? Yes. I think there is a bit of a gulf between what those shots are supposed to communicate and what they are communicating. Because at some point, you know that thing where, like, if you look at anything close and close up enough, it just looks like churning chaos. You know what I mean? Like, that's sort of how that appears.

And also, there is a style to this movie. I imagine this was shot on digital, but I'm not sure. At this point, probably not. Maybe not. There's something that we're much... I don't think Christopher Doyle... It's not Christopher Doyle. It's Darius Conjee.

Oh, it's Darius Conjee. Conjee? Yeah. That was like a big thing. I guess that's why it looks a little different. That was a big thing. I totally overlooked that. Because yes, he had worked, Wangar Wai had worked with Christopher Doyle and all of his other movies.

And this one, it's Darius Conjee, who had done seven and I can't think of others off the top of my head. But yes. That's all fine because apparently Christopher Doyle is reportedly Whisper Campaign a bastard. Oh, really? Oh, well, there we go. But there's something, so I mentioned the digital just because there were parts of this movie that reminded me a little bit of things like Michael Mann's collateral, which was around this time. Yeah, a couple years before this. But anyway, there's a lot of kind of cuts to, like, something will be going on and they'll cut to like a shot of something else happening at the bar.

or like, you know, an overhead shot of people at the diner. And it felt kind of music video to me a little bit. I don't know if you felt that way. It's very distinct to Wongar-Wise thing and, like, his visual language. Like, this movie is still that. But there's something about what's not working in this movie that really does push it in that direction. Right. Like, it feels like we're getting, you know, Nora Jones' visual album with,

the song's missing it felt like you know how like in it felt like the 90s era like levi's commercials like that was a little bit of what do you do i do i sound crazy when i say that though because no you don't unfortunately and again like i think all of this stuff like you're that like we're both saying here is like this is very much like in a lot of ways as a visual stylist what wankar why just does but because of, because, like, the story isn't really connecting to it, and because, you know, um, whatever, it feels like a cliche version we've seen before from people like Vim Vendors or John Sales as people we mentioned, uh, that like, it does come across as something silly like that. So I want to, I don't want to move off of the Jude Law thing quite so quickly because

he's another interesting, this is an interesting phase of his career. And we've talked several weeks ago, we did all the Kingsmen, but I don't think we really lingered too much on the Jude of it all. So we... Because we've talked so much about him, we are also the main historians of everybody hating Jude Law for being in a million things. Right. And we definitely talked about this. We obviously did the episode with Griffin Newman when we talked about Alfie, and that was one of the famous six movies in the latter half of 2004 stretch. So that happens. We've talked about the Oscars.

We've talked about Chris Rock making fun of him. We talked about Sean Penn, you know, rioting valiantly to his defense. But after that, he's not in anything in 2005. And then in 2006, all the Kingsmen, which is quickly sort of swept away. technically breaking and entering opens in 06, but... That was a qualifying movie. That was a qualifying movie, and nobody... That was another one we're like...

And that's an Anthony Mangala movie. Doesn't really get seen by anybody until early 07. And even in that case, now I want to look up really quickly, because I want to say, even in 07, like, people... I remember that being just like late, late, late, late, late. Like, people didn't really talk about that movie until its awards, you know, chances were already gone. And it was a lot of, like, looking back and being like, you know what actually was a good movie was breaking and entering. And I do think that is true. But, again, nobody saw that.

That's, Juliet Benosh is the female lead in that movie, right? And Robin Wright, I think. Yes, yes. And, oh, wow, VRFermita is also in this movie. I'm fascinated to see it. Oh, have you not seen it? It's a good movie. I haven't.

It's a good, solid movie. But anyway, not a lot of attention on that. And then the holiday. He did the Branagh sleuth, too, at some point, during this time period, which I just recently got up to trying to watch more of Kenneth Branagh's directorial movies, and it is really bad. Yeah, and that was another one that sort of got, like, swiftly swept away, as did my Blueberry Night. So really, in this stretch between the, you know, six movies in 2004, and then when he kind of resurfaces in the mainstream in Sherlock Holmes in 2009, it's really only the holiday, the Nancy Myers movie, The Holiday, that has any kind of profile. So it's like, this is a desert of Jude Law's career. And then by the time he came back, it was sort of the Jude Law, kind of what we know of now, which is kind of post- Youth Jude Law.

You know what I mean? The thing where I've always talked about how nobody has ever weaponized losing their hair the way that Jude Law has because he's really turned it into like a character beat in all of his movies where like it's it's there when he's Watson in Sherlock Holmes. But it's like it's backburnered. But like it's a it's part of his character in Contagent. It's very much part of his character in Anna Karenina. It is very much a part of his character in. what you call it,

even Grand Budapest, but what's the one I'm mostly thinking of? Oh, the young pope. Like, the young pope is like Jude Law was once you know, this like young hot thing and now he is this like

older hot thing. And it's just like, it's a whole, do you know what I mean? And like, it's there in Vox Lux. It's there when he's fucking Dumbledore. Like, it's this,

it's, you know, the last, It's the last decade of Jude Law. You've invoked the name of it. Doing this movie means that we absolutely have to be doing Foxx at some point in the future because... Close the loop on the Portman Jude Law. Jude Law, yeah. Four movies.

We can't do closer, obviously. Right, and we can't do Cold Mountain, even though we talked about it a ton on our 2003 miniseries. But yeah, that's four movies that Jude Law and Natalie Portman have been in. in together, and I feel like we haven't seen the last of it. Like, it does feel like that... I hope we haven't seen the last of it. That does feel like a pairing that will, you know, recur. This one is the most tenuous, because obviously they don't share any scenes together.

But they were like... They're one of the best parts of Cold Mountain. They're part together. I, as you know, am a giant fan of Closer, and I think they're both fantastic in that movie. I am also a fan of Lux Lux. And they have a very comfortable and good screen chemistry. Like they really do. They're really wonderful together.

But this is a real interesting. He really did kind of go away for a while. It really did feel like the 2004 failure. It probably scared a lot of studios away from hiring him for big roles. It was sort of like, remember when Dan, Daniel Craig, Clive Owen sort of attained the reputation of not only that, like, he can't open movies, but like, it almost felt like he was box office poison, which is dumb, because it's like Clive Owen was never, I guess maybe they did. He's in a lot of bad movies and a lot of movies that blur together. Well, but he was also, but it was.

With the exception of children of men. I was going to say part of it was also that children of men didn't make the kind of money that people wanted it to make, which is kind of crazy to think. about in the you know in retrospect because like that is that's a very perfect movie but it's also a very that's that studio's fault they've bungled that release it is but so but so at some point clive owen sort of attained this reputation that like nobody wants to see a clive owen movie and then just like the roles just sort of dry it up for him and he had to start sort of coming to you know taking an end run around his career essentially i mean he hasn't really come back and i've seen truly zero people talking about him in impeachment.

I have a little bit, and I think people came around to that. I think a lot of it was just like, I can't believe that's Clive Owen playing Bill Clinton. It was one of those, like, it was so just uncanny kind of a thing, and people were not, didn't quite know how to take it in. I've only seen the first few episodes of impeachment, so I can't really talk about it too much. but Jude Law's career is really fascinating to me just for the way that he was able to emerge from that desert

and he really could have like just sort of slunk away after the 04 sort of drubbing that he took and he's become a much more interesting actor not that he wasn't interesting in his sort of early aughts sort of post-Ripley period but I always look forward to a Judelaw performance now. I mean, he's not exactly like a box office draw, but I do think what's interesting about his career is now he is very much easily achieving the type of thing that we thought that he would. I mean, again, with the caveat of he's not a box office draw, but who the fuck is these days.

Exactly. But, like, he can go between these more interesting character roles, and then he can go and do. do fucking villains and superhero movies just as easily, and he can be Watson, and, like, he can kind of do just about anything that he's tasked to. 2019 to 2020, the fact that he was able to do Captain Marvel and the Nest with the new... God, he's so good in the Nest. With the new Pope, sort of, like, in that range, right? He's so fucking good in the Nest.

and people rightly gave Carrie Coon like Best in Show honors there and there was a campaign for her for Best Actress that unfortunately didn't go anywhere and we will do The Nest at some point on this podcast because we both need to just scream at people about how they didn't appreciate this movie. About how much we love that movie.

But he is playing a role that you are not supposed to like him. He is definitely like that it's, but he's doing it so. so well. And he's putting his whole ass into that role. Like, he really invests. And again, it's, it's new Jude law to a T, right? Because what that role is, is what if capitalism just like rotted a man out from the inside, right? And... And you can't cast to anybody but Jude law for that. Well, it's... He brings such an fascinating element to that because it's just like this, again, this like, one

Again, not like Jude Law isn't number one on... If you had sex with Jude Law, he would be the only thing you'd ever talk about for the rest of your life, right? Like, he's that hot. My mind was more so going to Jude Law is just too famous to be on Succession, but like otherwise would be. Just, just, though. Just too famous. He would have to show up at, like, the last two episodes of the series, right? Or something?

Like, yes. And that said, I want to see Jude Law and Brian Cox in like a play or something like that. I think that would rule. Anyway, he's just perfectly cast in the nest because it's this sort of like post youth and beauty phase to Jude Law that is like the post pretty boy sort of era, the post-jigolo Joe, the post-Dickie Greenleaf thing. That is so fascinating to me. And it's perfect. I think I think like Jude Law is our. our greatest living, not arbiter, but like the greatest living vessel for men who are pathetic.

He plays pathetic people so well. This is why I love him and closer. And people hated that aspect of him and closer because I think people were not ready yet for him to embody that. And in that movie, he is pathetic. And people hated the movie, I think. a little bit and his performance specifically for being that but I'm like no like that's that's the point

of it that's the absolute point of it he's not supposed to nest that's the point of yeah yeah anyway love jude law um I want to dip into the Cannes Film Festival if we could 07 a very Oscary

can a very Oscary can so before we started recording I pulled up that 2007 Cannes Film Festival page on Wikipedia, and it has the poster for it. And I want to visually sort of, we've, you know, described posters before on this show, and I do enjoy it. It is a whole bunch of movie stars and autos sort of jumping in the air. You know that thing where, like, photograph me when I, like, jump in the air and, like, my, you know, I'm kicking my legs out. I'm showing you, I'm having a good

time. I'm fun. I'm, yeah. So it's, uh, from, like lower to higher on the poster will move left to right right so first of all Bruce Willis in which from this vantage point looks like pajamas um it's all black and white too is the other thing um it is Samuel L Jackson and I believe a lot of these photos were taken during the 06 can yeah this is that was a good observation on your part um Samuel L Jackson doing like a weird like cannonball pose with his signature Kangle hat Pedro Almodivar who looks so happy

I don't know what caused him to jump into the air in this particular way but he looks incredibly happy Center Square in this is Juliet Benosh looking like her Choccalot character like it's sort of like riding a bicycle down a hill pose where like her arms

are outstretched and she's feeling the sunshine on her face like it's one of those looks Who else am I looking at on this poster? Well, Wonkar-Wi is on this poster is the other thing. Who's the person at the top? I cannot recognize this sort of Andre Leon Talley pose, which is like, Cafthan, like, wings spread. Oh, by the way, wait, you haven't seen House of Gucci yet.

I have not. I see it tomorrow. I'll say nothing more then. I'll, we'll... I assume that this is. Kaftan related, in which case you've made me more excited than I already was. But anyway, Jane Campion is on this poster. Gerard Jeff Hardew is on this poster. It says on Wikipedia that Penelope Cruz is on this poster, and I'm trying to find her.

Anyway, it's... Is that... I don't know. Anyway. It is very class graduation. Now take a funny one. Yes, it is 100% now take a funny one. Yes.

Anyway, you're right. Not me being goofy. So the jury is also a really interesting jury. It's one of those, like, sometimes you'll look at canned juries and be like, which one would I want to, like, spend a long dinner talking about movies with? And, like, this is an interesting one. Tony Collette, Maggie Chung, Sarah Polly, Stephen Frears was the jury president. I'm trying to see if I know of any of these other

Maria de Maderos Maria de Maderos who was in Speaking of Bruce Willis and Samuel Jackson was also in Pulp Fiction, right? Yes Anyway, really interesting jury and yeah, and so the film's in competition, this was the year that

four months, three weeks, and two days won the Palm Door. A notorious international feature, foreign language film. I only just saw it for the first time. over quarantine. Oh, God, what a rough quarantine. It wasn't early quarantine.

It was like post-election quarantine when like my nerves were a little bit less marginally less fraud. I think it might be even like after I had gotten the first vaccine shot. So you decided to watch the most stressful thing. I was like I need to bring that stress level back into my life. So I decided to watch.

I need normalcy again. I need to be anxious. It's one of those, it's a great movie that I will never see again. kind of a thing. But really, really good. The eventual Oscar winner, No Country for Old Men, was at this can. David Fincher's Zodiac, which we previously raved about on this podcast, and I will continue to rave about forever. Diving Bell on the Butterfly was an Oscar success later this year.

Quentin Tarantino's... Persepolis. Persepolis, right. Persepolis was a big Oscar thing. Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof, which eventually was released in tandem with Planet Terror as Grindhouse. I liked Death Proof much better than Planet Terror, but we don't have to get into that. What else was this? A Mighty Wind is out of competition.

The Edge of Heaven is in competition, the Fatia Keen film. Oh, boy. Yeah. There's a Bella Tarr movie. You look at the list of filmmakers, and it's like there's a Li Changdong movie. There is James Gray's We Own the Night. There is... The French love James Gray. Kim Caduc's Breath. Catherine Brea has a movie. Naomi Kowas has a movie. It is a... It's Primo Can, right? Like, it is, you know, it's Cannes at its highest level. So very interesting. I'm trying to see if anything in In Certain Regard played that sort of jumped up. That and Director's Fortnite seem pretty chill. I will say the one interesting thing is the Israeli film The Band's Visit that ultimately would become the Broadway musical The Band's Visit was this year in In Certain Regard.

Harmony Karin's Mr. Lonely, which I've still never seen. That was the one where Diego Luna... Is Michael Jackson? Yes. It's going to be a hard pass on that for me. That was my feeling then. That is still my feeling. I am happy to just continue living my life.

Selen Siama's Water Lilies was in certain regard. Ah, her debut. Yeah. So, you know how I look. I tend to look at old film festivals this way and just being like, what would be a film festival that I would want to, like, you know, risk the hazards of time travel to go back in an experience? And this would have been a good one, I would say. We could go back and tell people to not be so mean to my blueberry nights.

Yeah, you know what? Don't be so mean to my blueberry nights. We wouldn't get another one car white movie for six years, you monsters? Like, Jesus Christ. All right. What else? What else do we want to say? Anything else about this can besides just, like, what a neat?

What were the, I'm trying to think of what the, uh, the award winners. I will say, Wikipedia, get your act together with your can pages, because there's no rhyme or reason or flow to it. The fact that, like, it is all very scattered. It's very scattered. I have to scroll down so far to get to the awards. All right. So, Shanabal for Diving Bell and the Butterfly wins best director, on route to a lone director nomination at the Oscars. How did you feel about the diving bell on the butterfly? I think it's fine. I kind of do, too.

I did not connect with it. I didn't like it as much as I liked before Nightfall's, which was his sort of previous Oscar success. Julian Schnabel has been, like, more successful at the Oscars than you would maybe... A weird secret, like, Oscar favorite, even though he's not... Well, he was the best director nominee for Diving Bell, but...

He's got two best actor nominees out of his... like, he's Bardem for Before Night Falls, and then, of course, everybody's favorite... nomination in movie that everybody saw and has an opinion on Willem Defoe in at Eternity's Gate. So, yeah. Otherwise, weird that they, I love when they just like throw out, like they essentially make up the name of a prize to give to a movie just because they want to. In this case, they gave a, this was the 60th Cannes Film Festival. And so they gave a 60th anniversary prize to Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park.

Why? Just because, you know? Yeah, they do weird anniversary prizes. Remember the year that they gave the anniversary prize just to Nicole Kidman because she had so much stuff at that can? Just because they liked her. It was Killing of a Sacred Deer. It was The Beguiled. It was Top of the Lake.

And I think something else. Wow. Can we please do Killing of a Sacred Deer soon? I feel like nobody talks about this movie at all. I feel like nobody's going to believe us that that was. I mean, that was... I really liked that movie. That was a predicted Oscar movie until people saw it,

and they realized that the movie opens on open heart surgery. Right. But I... But it definitely did have Oscar Buzz before that. Like, it definitely... I do love that movie. Oh, yes. Colin Farrell in that movie is like weirdcore person...

The hottest man. The hottest man. Okay. It's very funny. I would risk it all my kingdom for... I would let him ruin my life. in that movie, all of it, all of it. That is a choice.

That is a choice right there. That particular... It's the right choice. All right. Anyway, back to Blueberry Nights. What else did it... It played Cannes, but then it didn't... Oh, no, it did get a dubious award nomination from our friends at the Alliance of Women Film Journalists.

Yes, the Hall of Shame, which I'm not quite sure. sure what they mean from that. My guess is like there... I have a guess. One of the things that I do think is questionable about this movie is the way women's bodies are shot. Like, there's a whole thing that's just like on Natalie Portman's crotch when it doesn't need to be... Yeah. I think, like, I feel like that nomination is mostly for the Rachel Weiss character,

which is just a very kind of stock, unfaithful, flusy wife character that does not sure sure I have a ton of nuance but okay it's other nominees it nominates choke and I saw choke and I don't remember much about it so like I'll give that to them I'm so glad that we have a cult we as a culture have moved on past Chuck Pollanick yeah even though again I am a fight club boy but yes I like that movie for the right reasons anyway right um the house bunny doesn't deserve to be on this list the house bunny is a perfectly funny and good movie and Ana Farris is wonderful in it. And also, I understand, A, why people didn't like 27 dresses and why they didn't like

Catherine Heigel, I think they're wrong on both of those counts. I think 27 dresses is a perfectly good and very watchable romantic comedy. Pitch right down the middle of your rom-com genre. It's exactly what you want to watch when you're. flipping through channels and you just want to veg out in front of something fun and it's great and it's cute and Catherine Hegel is

wonderful in it and people get so crazy about her people get so out of their mind about her drives me crazy anyway what we think that movie probably is not so reviled literally if it's just not released in January that's maybe true

also if it's not called 21 dresses or 27 dresses, because it's one of those things where it feels like it's sort of red meat to, A, the people who don't like, even though it's not based on a book, like, it feels very chicklit, right? You know, it's just like, the hook is like, she's a bridesmaid 27 times. And it's a better movie. It's a better movie than its reputation is. Maybe if it was called 127 hours and Catherine Heigel chopped off her arm, people would have taken it more seriously. Wait, a hundred and twenty-seven dresses where, um, it's, it's a, like, ten-hour Bella Tar movie where it's just Catherine, like, painstakingly. Trying on literally a hundred and twenty-seven dresses in real time.

And then cutting her arm off at the end. But it's in real time. So literally, it's just like you go through the whole process of her trial. Well, and also because it's Beilatar, there's a two-hour shot of boy. boiling potatoes. Right. Yeah. In between each dress, she boils a potato and eats it, yes.

Eats it whole, just, like, takes a big bite out of it. And, like, some of them are not boiled all the way, so they're, like, hard potatoes. So it takes her a long time to get through some of the... What is the opposite of ASMR to me is the... Catherine Igel trying on dresses and eating boiled potatoes? No, no, just the idea of a not fully cooked potato that's sort of raw on the inside, just imagining the like the weird like crunch that that would have when you got to like the hard center of the potato is imagine doing that with an onion just like chewing into it like an apple

oh that was a great i like raw onions but like you just don't eat it that was a great Seinfeld joke the one time where george lost is there a Seinfeld joke about that yeah George lost his glasses and there was some questioning as to whether he was he was able to spot something from across the street. And so he spots like there's a nickel on the floor across the room that he's able to see without his glasses. And he's like, when I squint, I can really, you know, I can work. And it's just like, okay.

And then yet at the same time, he goes and picks out what he thinks is an apple out of the fridge and bites into it and it's an onion. You know, George, that's an onion. Yes, it is. He couldn't tell an apple from an onion, and he's your eyewitness. I saw them making up. You can believe it. I don't know what to believe. You're eating onions, you're spotting dimes? I don't know what the hell is going on. Seinfeld, great show. Anyway, what else do we got for 120s?

Nora Jones, huge Grammy success. Yeah, what year was that? Was that right before this? Oh, shit. I think it was the 03 Grammys. I'm much more comfortable with calling the Grammys the year of the ceremony. Yes. The people that do it for the Oscars, it's like, no, that's wrong.

You're talking about a movie year. But the Grammys are a weird, like, October to October calendar or whatever. Yeah, the Grammys are not, they do not judge a calendar year. So, wait, now I want to bring up and see who she was nominated again. against which it's like people consider her like a one-hit wonder but then she was also in i think it was two years later the ray charles like tribute album right that was like huge and she got record of the year for doing that duet with him all right and it's like a lot of her other albums did sell well like her first three albums were all number ones so she wins she she sweeps the top

four categories. She wins Best New Artist. She doesn't win the Song of the Year award because she didn't write Don't know why, but don't know why wins Song of the Year. And then she wins Record of the Year and Album of the Year. So I don't know what... I think it's six total Grammys, but then

there was also like an engineering Grammy. Right. That's not hers either. She also wins Best Pop Vocal Performance. So like I don't know the stats on how few people have swept those top four awards, but like I'm sure it's rare competition. So anyway, album of the year. She wins album of the year over

Eminem show Eminem, which whatever, fuck that guy. Nellie's Nelliville, which like, what a moment in time, that Nellieville was an album of the year nomination. Like, I love that. Bruce Springsteen's The Rising, which is kind of surprising that that... Shocking that that wouldn't have won, because that's like all post-9-11. It's such a narrative around that. Right, exactly. And then the one that I imagine that both of us, probably would have voted for, which is the Dixie Chicks home.

Which is not the best Dixie Chicks album, but, right, this was the album with Long Time Gone and Travel and Soldier, and the landslide cover, which my unpopular opinion is, I have no use for the Dixie Chicks landslide cover. It's not bad, but, like, I, why do we need it? Why would you listen to that version when you can listen to the version from the dance? This is my, this is my feeling. Yes. All right. for, thank you for standing in that truth. I do think we need to talk about Nora Jones

because I do think in the reception of this, I think it's part of the reason why people were so mean. Because, like, Nora Jones was incredibly successful, but never cool. Like, so, like, I think there is a certain snobbery that goes into it that it's like, people were like, Nora Jones in a movie

and already rolling their eyes about it, you know, the hip, cool people. Nora Jones was synonymous with Starbucks music, right? I was gonna bring, up Starbucks music. Can I say that I bought my Nora Jones album out of Starbucks? Did you really? What a great story. I love that. I absolutely did. Also, if Cap Power is in this movie, we do know that Wang Karwai loves to get his music at Starbucks. Who else? Wait, who else could they have cast in this movie to like really round that out? Like, who would have been... India Ari. Who I also bought that album

out of Starbucks. India Ari as the, as the Natalie Portman role. And Corinne Bay, Ray as the Rachel Vice character. Just really, like, cast it out fully. I love that. Starbucks didn't stop selling CDs until 2015. Wow. Good for them. I feel like Starbucks could still get away with selling CDs.

I feel like they are the only retailer who could probably pull it off. I should also say that Record of the Year and Song of the Year nominee that year, but not album of the year nominee, was Vanessa Carlton's A Thousand Miles, which is a top five karaoke song of all time. I was talking to somebody recently who said they had done a thousand miles at karaoke and the absolute way that by the end of that everybody is singing along with you. And it's so true. It's like a universal's truth

to that. However, if you did, don't know why, I think people would probably throw tomatoes at you. Yeah, don't do don't know why. Because here's the thing about don't know why. It's not a sing-along song. And it's the only reason you would do Don't Know Why at karaoke is if you really can sing and you want to like show off your vocal chops and that is not what karaoke is for.

That is for open mic night and that is for your odd. That would be an even shittier place to do, don't know why, to go to an open mic and be like here's one of my favorite songs. Don't know why. Well, all right, true. But it's also again, the

Vonda Shepard of it all. Like this It's the song that you audition for to be, like, the in-house shantus at, like, a hotel lounge, right? Like, that's the vibe there. Good for Nora Jones for winning all that. Also, she won Best New Artist over Averill, Michelle Branch, John Mayer, and Ashanti. Again, a real snapshot. Oh, wow. A real snapshot of 2003 right there.

I feel like this, I was the one who wanted to talk more about the whole Nora Jones thing, and I feel like I'm just shitting on her. She's actually still making, like, good, interesting music that's like, I can't even describe the five. I would like to, you know, put her in another movie. It's, again, give her an actual character. Give her an actual character. Give her, you know, she doesn't have to be the lead in something. It's interesting, we talk about the buzz for this movie. Because obviously, the fact that Nora Jones was going to be the lead in Wong,

Wankar Wai's first English language movie. Part of the reaction to that is like, huh. Must be a thing there. But yeah. The other thing is, right, Wankar Wai is a genius. I trust him. Clearly, there must be something there.

And there is a precedent. Well, it happened. Like, there are other instances where a sort of atypical, not, like, non-actor. I mean, Bet Midler was considered a cabaret. This is sort of what I'm saying. Bat Midler and the Rose. Obviously, Lady Gaga and a Star is born would come later. But these moments were like, oh, that person's not an actor. And then you see them in the role and they have, you know, real presence and gravitas and all this sort of stuff. And it didn't really happen in this with Nor Jones. But like, try it. Maybe she doesn't want to. Maybe that's the other thing with her. But like, I don't know. Give it a shot.

what you're saying is come away with her acting talents right i always for the longest time would get nora jones and rashita jones confused not in who they were but that i would mistakenly think that nora jones was quincy jones's daughter and she is ravi shankar's daughter which yes like that's a really interesting musical legacy there um yeah norah jones is a nepotism higher Nora Jones is like the is essentially like a Beatles descendant, right? Because obviously like Robbie Shankar had such, you know, you know, ties to George Harrison and whatnot and all that. But yes, for the longest time, I would be like, well, obviously Nora Jones won all those cramies. She's Quincy Jones's daughter.

And people would be like, idiot. That's Rashida Jones. What are you talking about? Right, exactly, exactly. But yes. So, a little, I'm not, like, fully ready to go, like, full, like, justice for Nora Jones, but, like, don't be mean. Don't be mean to her. This movie had its problems that were not, were not Norfolk. Yeah. I also think it's interesting that the screenplay was co-written by Lawrence Block, who I only know of from working in the public library. And he's one of those, like, mystery writers who, like, has, like, a whole shelf full of books. And that's what I'm saying about. this movie is it feels like a certain type of a novel so it's not surprising that he collaborated with someone who is like schlock novelist yes um i've never read a laurence block book he was

i will say as i'm looking at his uh wikipedia page he was born in buffalo new york so i guess i have to support him to a degree um but yeah it's like mystery fiction crime fiction like that kind of thing. His recurring characters are these sort of like hard-boiled detectives and whatnot. And it's an interesting choice for, again, Wang Kar-Wai, who is so, by reputation at least, and again, I've only seen Happy Together, romantic. Like, I feel like that's one of the big sort of touchstones for Wang Kar-Y is this sort of romanticism. And yeah, it's an odd choice to go script this. And because this is a movie that is romantic on its edges. I think the stuff

with Jude Law and Nora Jones, the like bookends of this movie, is going for sort of a swoony romance. And there is absolutely some kind of primordial appeal to the idea of I frequent this little cafe and the guy who makes the blueberry pie is gorgeous and like clearly has thing for me. And I go in there every day and I eventually break up with my shitty boyfriend and we

sort of grow closer and then we get together. There is a archetypical romance almost, right? And there's an appeal to that. And part of me wants to just like dig out the middle part of this movie and just be like, make another movie. Like do this shit somewhere else. Like let me just sort of marinate in the romanticism of the New York parts of this movie. I also wanted to wish that Wang Karwai had made more of a New York movie, but that's me being selfish. Yeah. Well, I mean, he's so good at creating, like, city dwellings and, like, the atmosphere

of what that's like, that, like, it feels like this is more of just, like, an America movie, though I would love to see specifically his New York. movie, you know, or like, or just fucking keep it in Vegas. Like, what's his, like, even a Vegas movie? This is why I really, I wish that we would get more English language, Won Karwe movies, because, like, and again, it's selfish, but like, I do want to see him sort of, you know, you're right, make a New York movie, make a Vegas movie, make a, you know, God forbid, an L.A. movie. I think it'd be really interesting.

Also, just make more movies in general. I would love that. What is his big thing coming up? It's a TV thing, right? It's a mini-series. I don't know much about it. I just know that people are anticipating it. I mean, yeah.

As they should. As they should. Yeah, what is this thing? I'm trying to look this up now and see what it would be called. I don't know. We'll figure it out. Anyway, anything else before we move on? No, let's move on to the IMDB game.

All right. Why don't I explain it? What is the IMDB game? Explain yourself. Every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game, wherein we challenge each other with an actor or actress and try to guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for. If any of those titles are television, voice-only performances,

or non-acting credits, we mentioned that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles, release years as a clue. And if that's not enough, it just becomes a free for all of hints. Fantastic. That's the IMDB game. Sure is. So, Joe, would you like to give or guess first? I mean, I'll give first. Mine is a little bit of a, mine is sort of impish on my part to give this person to you.

Oh, my. And so we might make room for, if this is too weird or difficult, that we could skip to something else. But anyway, talking about Nora Jones and sort of, you know, atypical Grammy-winning singer-songwriter showing up in a movie, I was like, who else along that same kind of vibe could I give to see if Chris could guess they're known for? And what I landed on, who I landed on, was... Oh, no. Grammy winner and also sometime Grammy host, Alicia Keys. Oh, okay.

Who did you think I was going to? So, nominated... Was she nominated against Nor Jones? She wasn't. I don't believe. Hold on a second. I thought the Diary of Alicia Keys was nominated for album of the year, but that's probably a different year. No, the only thing she's there on that year's Grammy is she and Cindy

Lopper presented Best New Artist, so she must have won Best New Artist the year before. This is going to be really hard, because I honestly... She did. I know that she has been in movies as an actress. Wait, can I time out and give you who Alicia Keys beat for Best New Artist in 2002? Well, I mean, Alicia Keys is a good Best New Artist win, but shoot. Well, from the least interesting to you to the most interesting, David Gray, that British artist who had that song Babylon.

I had several David Gray albums. You cannot do this to me. I was not cool in the early 2000. Did you get your David Gray albums at Starbucks? Because that could have happened. Lincoln Park, who I shamefully was kind of very much into at that point in my life. Such a fucking boy. I know.

They had some jams, though. Okay, Nellie Furtado, which was like pre-timble-ing. Like, I'm like a bird, Nali Furtado. And the aforementioned India Ari. So what I'm saying is a movie that stars Nora Jones, Alicia Keys, India Ari, Nali Furtado, and Corinne Bailey Ray. That's, that's Juan Carr-Wise next movie. All right, anyway, Alicia Key is known for. She has, she does not have a ton of acting credits in like films.

So one of them has to be the Secret Life of Bees because it's the only one I can remember. Yep, Secret Life of Bees. Oh, sorry, I should say one of these is purely a soundtrack credit. It is not a movie she's in, I don't believe. Can I at least ask if it is an original song? Like, was that song written for the movie? Yes, very much so. Very, like, kind of famously so.

That's because it's the James Bond movie she did. Yes. Do you remember which James Bond movie? small movie. Quantum of solace. Quantum of solace, correct. All right. So your other two, she's in them as an actress. Um, one of the, I'm just going to do hints because it'll take too long otherwise. Okay. One of them is kind of an ensemble crime movie with like, kind of a grubby ensemble that is, it's mostly men. It has shown up on some. Somebody's known for, or a few.

Is it that movie, The Losers? No, but it's a movie that I sometimes might confuse with The Losers. It is, um... Because it's like people holding guns on the poster, just like The Losers poster? Yes. It's all... Is it Smokin Aces? It's Smokin Aces.

Yeah, those are two interchangeable movies. The cast and Smokin Aces is absolutely unhinged. So Alicia Keys and Taraji Piansen are like the women in this movie. And I think they're lesbians. Oh, really? Oh, that's interesting. I've seen this movie, unfortunately. Andy Garcia, Martin Henderson, Common, Ben Affleck, Peter Berg, Alex Rocco, from Mo Green from the Godfather.

Wayne Newton is in this movie. Ray Leota, Ryan Reynolds, and first build in this movie, unfortunately, is Jeremy Piven. Oh, boy. Yes. All right. Oh, boy. The moment in time where we allowed Jeremy Piven to be a star. You're, oh, honestly, honestly, God.

Only because people, only because people liked entourage. It's so gross. It's like, what a gross. Entourage is gross. Yeah, that's what I mean. All right, so this next one is a decidedly girlier movie. It is two lead actresses. I imagine Alicia Keys plays like the best friend to the main.

character, from the one press photo I see. That does seem to be the case. It is a movie that is mostly notable as kind of a footnote in that it is the, it is a movie that two Marvel stars starred in together before they did Marvel movies. And it's a girly movie. Yes. It is also a movie that is um from it is very much decidedly a post devil wears prada movie oh i know what this is it's the nanny diaries because that was a big book first and it's sold um i actually liked that movie from what i remember of it laur lindy's very good in it laur lindy scarlet johansson but it's chris evans and scarlet joe hanson because i was like this is you're saying that it's movie for women,

which means that there is a female character in it. And there's not a lot to go off of Marvel that has a female character. There you go. All right. I kind of strong-armed you with the hints there, but I figured we'd be here all day trying to get you to come up with what Alicia Keys' supporting actress movies were. Very good.

Well, then I guess it's to me to figure out if I want to be mean to you similarly or if I just want to give you the easy one that I had. because as I was telling Joe, before we got on mic, it took me over 20 people to find someone we hadn't done this week. It was not my week for picking IMTP game. Okay, I'm not going to force you to do Dana Ivy, which would have been the hard one. Wait, can I try quickly and then we can move on? Okay, you can try quickly.

How many Adam's families? Just one. Just the first one. Well, it should be both of them. Home Alone, too. No. Okay, well, then I've done. No. Okay. The other ones are Rush Hour 3, the Sabrina remake, and the color purple. Wow. Would never in a

bigillion years have gotten that. All right. I know. Okay. All right. So, uh, Nora Jones, uh, Dana Ivy would have been from Nora Jones's first feature in two weeks notice. But Nora Jones also, notably, uh, did an original song and apparently peers on screen. I have never seen this movie. I will never see this movie. Uh, in Ted. starring Mark Wahlberg. You know I watched Ted because it was an Oscar nominee that year. This was before I was watching all of them. This is when I would pick and choose.

And to be frank, I may go back to that. Oh, no. Breakthrough broke me. I was like, this piece of shit. There are so many hours in a day, Chris, in a lifetime. You do not want to waste any of them on TED. All right. So, wait, so who am I doing from Ted?

Mark Wahlberg. Aw, boo. I'm telling you, it took me a long time to find someone we hadn't done. No, no, fair, fair. All right. How is this going to work? And it's all movies that he was in, right? It's no, like, producer credits that he's not in.

I will say one of them. It lists him and is known for as a producer, but he's in it. But it's a movie that he's in. Okay. Yes. All right. So I'm going to guess the departed. His Oscar nomination.

His Oscar nomination. Listen, people liked seeing him swear, so they gave him an Oscar nomination for it. Congratulations, everybody. All right. The Fighter? The Fighter, that's the one with his producer credit. Yeah, okay. All those MTV girls are boosting up that SEO for the movie.

Honestly, it's so weird that two such reprehensible human beings as Mark Wahlberg and David O. Russell could be so good together. in a way that I really like. Like, they together managed to produce two movies that I'm just like, well, it's, I love both of those movies, and Walberg is great in both of them. And it's not a fair universe. And sometimes two awful people can give me art that I really love. I think he's fine in The Fighter. I prefer him in Huckabies, but that's because I think Mark Wahlberg is giving his best performance playing stupid people. but it's when he's because sometimes he gives a performance playing a stupid person

who's not supposed to be stupid and then you get the happening and that's the bad side of that but yes right in general well i've said this before he is horrible when he has to be earnest but when he has to be intentionally stupid he's good is ted one of them ted is one of them you are very close to a perfect score god how ironic i get a perfect score on mark walbert all right so it's not going to be hookabies um I don't think it's going to be something like three kings. I think it's going to be I think the fourth one is probably going to be one of his

Peter Berg movies. Now, what one of his Peter Berg movies? Because like those two codependent dipshits can't seem to make a movie without each other for the last like eight years. And

if that had, by the way, if that was ever the case for a female actress and a female director, people would absolutely discredit them. And we would absolutely, like, brush them aside as being, like, a novelty act or whatever. But what's the audience for that, for those movies? That just does nothing but stoke that audience's egos.

Like, that's my answer to that. Like, it's, that movie is made for Republicans? Okay. I'm going to guess that it's a lone survivor. Incorrect. Okay. What if I'm totally up a creek and it's fucking, like, the happening? All right.

Anyway. Happening made a lot of words. haven't you made a lot of money. I also feel like, also, the fact that Planet of the Apes shows up on Tim Roths makes me want to maybe say Planet of the Apes, but I don't know. The problem with Mark Wahlberg is, Mark Wahlberg is like the opposite of Clive Owen, which is that at some point somebody was like, Mark Wahlberg is bankable, and they never stopped making Mark Wahlberg movies. I just want to say, I know I'm giving you a hint, but you helped me all along with Alicia Keys. You are overthinking this.

Oh, okay. There's a real obvious one. You are fully overthinking this. I'm probably overlooking like a really obvious Mark Wahlberg movie. Oh, it's Boogie Nights. Jesus Christ. It's Boogie Nights. Of course.

Again, another movie that fulfills your thesis, he's fantastic playing a dumb character. Exactly. He's genuinely very funny in that movie, but it is, I will chalk most of, it's like when you chalk up the performance of a child actor to a director, that's absolutely how I appreciate all the good Mark Wahlberg performances, is that, like, I fully credit the director for getting that out of them. So. Oh, no, totally. That's actually maybe what it is, is that it's directors pulling his stupidity out of him. Yeah. Yes. It's like, if we haven't shit on him enough, can I maybe

be a dick for a second? About Mark Wahlberg? Please do. In Boogie Nights. How many people do we think he told that was his penis until they started being like, it's a prosthetic? Okay, how mad was he when they decided? When they were like, no, we gave him a prosthetic. Yeah. Oh, furious, probably. Well, I didn't get a perfect score. Thank you for bailing me out of my tailspin, though,

because I literally would have been like Deepwater Horizon and then just wanted to kill myself. Well, also, if you had gotten one more wrong movie, I would have given you the year and you would have gotten it right away. Right, exactly, exactly. All right. All right, that's our episodes. Guys, this is the last call on both our mailbag and listeners choice. episodes you have until the end of the day on how many days are in November 30th?

November 30th. And this, I believe, comes out on the 29th. Listeners choice. No movies after 2019. You can only submit one movie title. If you say Kill Bill, you have to say which Kill Bill you want. Things like that. Mailbag, ask us any type of questions about Oscar race's past and the current one you

can ask us. any questions that you kind of have in mind just try not to have it be a question that we have to nail it down to one thing because that's not fun we want to talk about a bunch of things but that's our episode if you guys want more

This had Oscar Buzz you can check how the Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz.com You should also follow us on Twitter at had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz. Joe, where can the listeners buy more of you? Well, you can watch me tweeting through my blueberry days

and Blueberry Nights on Twitter at Joe Reed. Reed spelled R-E-I-D. And I'm also on letterboxed as Joe Reed reads spelled the same way. And you can catch me waiting till I see the sun on Twitter and letterbox at Krispy File. That's F-E-I-L. We'd like to thank

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already, we don't know why you didn't review. That's all for this week. We'll be back next week for more, Bob. Prison, honey. I don't know why I didn't come. Left you by the house of fun.

I don't know why I didn't come. Don't know why I didn't come When I saw the break a day