This Had Oscar Buzz - 176 – The Holiday

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

Just in time for the holidays, we are doing The Holiday. Nancy Meyers followed-up her smash hit Something’s Gotta Give with this story of two women (played by Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet) who swap houses over the Christmas week in order to get away from their romantic disasters. Naturally, new love finds a way and … Continue reading "176 – The Holiday"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hacks. I'm from Canada. I'm from Canada water. Iris and Amanda are in exactly the same place. Where do I want to go?

By myself, depressed at Christmas. Just 6,000 miles apart. Home exchange. We switch. Houses, cars, everything. Pango. I need you to answer this. Are there any men in your town?

Perfect. Hello, and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that's more comfortable when wet, saltwater specifically. 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 Hobbes died, and we are here

to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with my house swappers Oscar-winning neighbor Joe Reid. Hello, they don't make them like they used to anymore. I wrote the kid of here's looking at you, kid.

That is a great little touch, actually. I think This is a movie where I think we're going to be able to sort of like pick apart certain things of it, but it has a lot of little moments that work. And I think a bigger, I think the bigger picture of it for me also works. And I'll be interested to see if you agree with me or not. I think it's kind of a square peg in a round hole movie that I do actually enjoy.

Love you bringing out the terminology of the movie to describe the movie. It's very good. Wait, what? That's how Kate Winslet and Rufus Sewell talked about how their relationship didn't work, right? The square peg in the round hole metaphor? I maybe just black out when Rufus Sewell shows up because it's not the best parts of the movie. It's not. But sure.

But I will also say this movie among its many, I would say, virtues, it has a good eye for casting. And I think casting, Rufus Sewell and Edward Burns as the British and American versions of bad boyfriends is a really good idea. Yes, I just kind of made a face, but the point you are making, yes, I absolutely agree. I think one of my issues with this movie that we'll definitely get into, because we have a lot to talk about with the cast. I think, like, maybe everyone is miscast in this movie, but, like, I still enjoy everyone in this movie. Fascinating. Would love... All right, I'm excited to talk about that.

almost more than anything. I also feel like Shannon Sossaman is also well-cast as the not-right girlfriend. Shannon Sossaman. I fully did the Leo pointing at the TV moment the second she showed up, forgot. Shannon Sossaman was in this movie. Shannon Sossaman doesn't speak in this movie

except for like when she and Jack Black are finally having the like breakup. But like she's talking while there's score happening. So it's not like she's talking. Poor Shannon Sossaman. Yeah, she's definitely, I mean, she's cast aside in this movie. There's a lot of actually small roles in this movie that, I mean, the fact that... There are quite a bit.

Catherine Hahn shows up for one scene. If you ever do a movie Spelling Bee again, Shannon Sossaman is perfect for movie spelling bee. I believe she was part of the first one I did, or one of them. Like, definitely, yes, because she, she's a challenge and a very fun one. I'm fixing our outline because I spelled it as. Shanny Sossaman. Which is a good old Shanny. Maybe that's what she goes by to close friends.

It's Shanny. Is Shanny coming out tonight? Yeah. Like she, when she met Jack Black on set, she shook his hand and said, hi, I'm Shanny. And Shanny can't come out because she's at home babysitting. Is hers audio science? No. Pilot Inspector.

One of the, one of, she's one of the moms of weird kid names. Hold on a second. I'm going to look this up. Oh, no. Yeah. Which one is Jason Lee's kid? Is that Pilot Inspector? Maybe.

Hold on. We're going to figure this one out together as a group. Come on. Cast list. Let's get casting. Pilot Inspector, that is, we, see, again, like, I'm back to the games. Like, you need to use this for trivia. Yes.

Okay. Why is Wikipedia being a bitch about this? Like, Jesus Christ. Let's just use our good old friend Google. We can cut this out. Pilot Inspector Child. Yes, Jason Lee is Pilot Inspector. Yeah, Shannon Sossaman's kid is Audio Science.

Yes. Fantastic. Yes. Frank Zappa apparently has, you know, a child that is my drag name, which is Diva Muffin. Wait, Frank Zappa, in addition to having a daughter named Moon Unit, has a child named Diva Muffin? Hold on. Let me see if I'm reading this correctly. I love that. Diva Muffin is also the bakery that I'm going to open when I retire.

Yeah, Diva Muffin Zappa. Look at that. Youngest child of Frank Zappa. Okay. Yeah. Related to Moon Unit Zappa and Dweasel, of course, Zappa. the one who married Lisa Loeb for a time, I want to say, didn't he? Or was just in a relationship with Lisa Loeb? I believe that's true. Yeah. Yes.

They were together because they had like a food network show together, if you recall, which you probably don't, but that's fine. Yes. Wow, Shannon Sossman really sent us down a rabbit hole. You shouldn't make fun of people's names, but I would like to be named Deva Muffin. I'm fine with making fun of some people's names. It's fine. I'll be fun of Diva Muffin.

Joe, read, like, read a book. Listen, I got it. Other people will get it, too, all right? I have to put up with shit. I had to put up with... Everybody gets made fun of on the playground for a name, unless it's, like, Diva Muffin, and then they're like, honestly work. I had to put up with so many goddamn Jimmy Hendrix, Hey Joe, like, jokes, or whatever.

Yeah, Jimmy Hendricks has a song called Hey Joe, and so that's... Listen, when you have a boring name, you get boring jokes made about your name, all right? So it's fine. Anyway. Listen, my name was always mispronounced as feel or fail, so I got that. But mostly I just got like, hey, gay boy. And that worked for most people. Wow, you got the Megan Stelter treatment.

Okay, that's fun. I did. Hey, gay. All right, the holiday. No, gay boy. No, I know. I'm making... Someone calling you gay is just one thing, but they would call you gay boy.

Like, it's one word, not even a hyphenate. Well, that's fun. Listen, I could have figured out a lot of stuff a lot sooner if that would have happened. to me. So you know what? You know what? Imagine two men talking about a Nancy Myers movie. Yes. They're going to be gay boys probably. Yeah, this feels

this feels right. This feels good and right. This is our first Nancy Myers movie that we're talking about. No, it's our second. No, it's our second. Holy shit. I didn't even think about that. One of our first movies. God. Were we ever so young is when we talked about it's complicated on this podcast. So it's our return

to Nancy at long last. And it's our Christmas episode. It is. Because Merry Christmas. And also, this movie is called the holiday. It encompasses Christmas and Hanukkah and New Year's celebrations. So truly, it's got everything for everybody, which I love. This is a movie that's kind of maligned in the Nancy Meyer's sort of filmography a little bit because it comes after something's got to give, which was such a big success, and because Diane Keaton got an Oscar nomination from that, that's why the holiday had Oscar Buzz, because you follow up a Diane Keaton Oscar nomination with a movie

starring Kate Winslet and Jude Law, and all of a sudden, you've got your eye on, you know, some Oscars. Maybe even Cameron Diaz. Yes, indeed. It does feel like an appendix to something's got to give, right? Like, you know, it's like, here's all, here's a movie that references all of the things that, like, kind of inspires the, you know, romantic comedy, slight screwballness. Yes. Of something's got to give. And, I mean, like, there's a decent amount of time between those two movies. A couple years.

Yeah. But, like, I don't know. It does. It feels like in its shadow in several, you know, different ways. For as much as I think people tend to sort of write autobiography onto a lot of Nancy Myers' stuff, certainly, and something's got to give with the idea of being sort of single at an older age, and it's complicated, obviously, is like a lot to do with the end of a marriage and sort of staying in your ex's life and that kind of a thing. the holiday feels least like that and more like somebody sort of imagining, if not imagining for like themselves, like imagining a situation for these kind of fictional people, but it's situated within a world that like clearly Nancy Myers knows. Like obviously all the stuff about the fact that there are two sort of runners about very specific movie industry stuff, one being movie trailers and another being movie scores. which both appeal to me, and I'm sure to you, like, very specifically,

this is a movie very much made by somebody who's been in Hollywood long enough that this is just sort of this is what they know. And I'm fine with that. I'm happy with that. But I think with the characters, this feels like Nancy's sort of stepping out of herself a little bit, which I like. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I still think that there's, there's like the literal, like, Hollywood of it. There's also like this metatextual thing where it feels like she's kind of grappling with the romantic comedy and like what it has been historically in Hollywood and like what is it like now as like basically the genre is dying. Yeah, that's I think some of the stuff that makes it like kind of interesting. Also like doesn't work.

This is a romantic comedy that had a budget of $85 million, reportedly, and made over $200 million worldwide box office, and was pretty much kind of considered, if not a financial flop. Like, it was considered a disappointment in many ways. Right. But in hindsight, we look at this movie now, and we're like, maybe at the time, but, like, Nancy Myers makes movies that continue to, like, make money. Whereas, like, there's not a whole lot of filmmakers that can say that. Agreed. You know, like, I don't know, like, what would we even say is the one that probably, like, people revisit the least? Like, for now, it's the intern, but, like, give it some time. Give it some time. Exactly. Like, her movies tend to play very well on television, on cable, sort of, not because I would, I mean, whatever, it's not like they're these big, you know, visual, special effects extravagance. is obviously. But I think when I say they play well on television, I don't necessarily mean to slight them as being small, just that they are, they're rewatchable. They're very

rewatchable movies. The one I think is... She makes movies that will make money in perpetuity, right, basically. The only exception to that for me is what women want, and that's not really Nancy's fault. That's the fact that I don't want to watch a Mel Gibson movie. So... That I would also maybe say is her worst movie. Like, it's not even the Mel Gibson thing, but, like, you watch some of that stuff and it's gringy. That thing, though, I think the thing about what women want is... It's a fun movie, but it's... It made almost $400 million worldwide.

Like, that's the thing in 2000, rather. So, like, that is the success of that. I feel like carries what women want more than anything else. Right. Obviously, though, you can't really talk about Nancy Myers without talking about that whole sort of first half of her career, where she was a screenwriter. exclusively, oftentimes with her husband, Charles Shire, directing, and it's just this really

incredibly rich career. We talked about when we were, when we had her to die for episode, and we talked about Buck Henry, the screenwriter on that, and we were sort of like tooling through his filmography, and we came across that movie Protocol, right? The Goldie Hawn movie, where it's just like, Goldie Hawn goes to Washington, kind of thing. And we mentioned that. And I remember our Twitter mentions were like full of people who were like, I remember Protocol. I watched Protocol on HBO when I was growing up. I think her movies tend to be memorable in that way. Because she and Charles Shire wrote that script, or have the story by credit on that. There was a whole thing with Protocol where they had written

the script, Goldie Hawn, who had worked with them on Private Benjamin. Like, Private Benjamin, had done very well for all of them, right? Gets Goldie an Oscar nomination, gets them an Oscar nomination. They win a Writers Guild Award for all that. It's incredibly successful. They go to make protocol. Goldie doesn't like the script from Nancy Myers and Charles Shire and goes to Buck Henry for a rewrite. And apparently it was like an arbitration with the Writers Guild and all this stuff. And I don't believe they ever worked together again. So I imagine that kind of poisoned the well of that professional relationship, and she eventually, Nancy, ends up sort of teeming up with Diane Keaton a lot more often after that. But anyway, my point about protocol being, like,

even though we hadn't ever heard of that movie, that's a movie that, like, sticks in the memory of a lot of people. And I think her movies tend to do that. I think Baby Boom, you know, plays really well on TV. The Father of the Bride remake completely, you know, qualifies for that. Well, and some of these movies, I think, get respect in the long run. Like, Baby Boom is a movie that, to me, like, was a staple of my childhood, but, like, you would talk to people, and they would, like, curl their lip, basically. But now I think people actually respect Baby Boom, because why Baby Boom rules?

You know what was the one that never happened with is I Love Trouble, which... Because, like, that movie, it's not really buried. It was on Hulu for forever. another movie we watched as kids a lot. And it was always the kind of thing like, why am I watching this? This is not particularly good. I know I saw it, but I

don't remember a thing about it. I mostly remember the reports about it were that Julia Roberts and Nick Nolte couldn't stand each other. I mean, it shows. Yeah. No, but we watched that movie a lot because like Julia Roberts obviously, but like my mom loved Nick Nolte

but, like, you know, we weren't allowed to watch The Prince of Five. Remember the days when Nick Nolte was the sexiest man alive, like, Nick Nolte? Like, he was just this, like, stud of a man. It's so funny to think about in retrospect, because he then, he just sort of evolved into, like, a human, sentient growl on film, where he was just, I'm thinking of, like, obviously, like, Warrior, but, like, even Thin Red Line. Like, the Thin Red Line, all Nick Nolte does is just, like, growl out orders. It's very, very funny. um his story is a bummer because he is such an incredible actor yes yes but um i think in general

the nancy mire's filmography if it's one of those things where if you were on a desert island and you could only pick the filmography of one filmmaker nancy's in the conversation just because you can watch her movies again and again and again and i like that i'm sure i'm not sure i would she would be the exact you could have all of these movies including her screenwriting credits and you still probably wouldn't go back to I Love Trouble. It's not a good movie. Like you say that it's the one that it hasn't happened for, and there's a reason for that. Yeah.

Yeah. I still love it, though. I'm excited to talk about the holiday, though. For a Christmas episode, I want something cozy and comforting, and I think this movie front-burneurs that. We haven't really done a Christmas episode since the Family Stone. We apparently only do hotly contended Christmas movies. But when we were picking the episode, you know, we were trying to figure out what to do for Christmas. And you said, you know, if we took a holiday, took some time to celebrate and bring back all those happy days.

Famously, I only speak in Madonna lyrics. This is something you need to know about me. I said, you know, it would be so nice. Listen, Chris, every single thing I say or do I'm hung up on this movie. So we're going to talk about the holiday. This is also, and we'll get into this in a little bit, another Jude Law movie right after doing my Blueberry Nights, so if you're counting on your fingers, this is our sixth Jude Law movie, so get ready in a little bit. We're going to do a six-timers quiz for Jude Law. We'll have some good Cam Diaz talk. You know we love to talk, Cam Diaz. It's going to be good. Cameron Dian, Destiny. Yeah. So let's get into the plot description. How long are we pushing this? I feel like, you know, this Christmas extravaganza, we're probably pushing the 20 minute mark. Let's do plot description. Guys, we're here to talk about the holiday, written and directed by the one and only Nancy Myers, starring Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Jack Black, Eli Wallach, we'll get into it. Rufus Sewell, Edward Burns, Shannon Sossaman, Catherine Hahn, and John Krasinski for one scene,

Dustin Hoffman in a growling cameo, and in a really fine cameo that I love of James Franco and Lindsay Lohan. Stars of fake movie deception. Not the deception with Michelle Williams, Hugh Jackman, and Ewan McGregor. Right, of course. Different deception. Did you get that question right when I put that in, trivia that one time. I had the screenshot of James Franco and Lindsay Lohan

In Deception, and it was about movies and movies. I did not get that, but my teammate got it, which is how I knew to do this with the teaser on Twitter that we were doing this episode, and I don't think anyone got it. I forget. Guys, the movie opened December 8th,

2006, I believe, the same day as Blood Diamond, so there was all like Titanic Talk in the air. Right. No, wait, it did open the same weekend of Blood Diamond or, like, around those times because I saw this and Blood Diamond back to back on the same day. No, that is a double feature. Wait, which one was first? Do you remember? Ooh, I don't remember. I feel like that would determine how your day would feel, which one you watched first.

There's a whole, like, triangulation, too, because you have those two movies on the same day, which obviously the connection is Titanic. But the triangulation is Jennifer Connolly, who is also in Blood Diamond, but is in little children with Kate Winslet this year. Oh, in 2006, you're totally right. The other connection between those movies is, of course... I guess that's a square, not a triangle. You know what? Whatever works. Listen, I was better at trigonometry than geometry. The other connection between these two movies is when we finally get the scene where Cameron Diaz and Kate Wendellon.

let get on the phone with each other. And Kate says to Cameron, you know, it's very different in my house. Over there, it's bling, bling, and over here it's bling bang. And the Blood Diamond totally stole that line from them, and it was very controversial. But, you know. You know, Leo won't. Leo, as he does, he want, he, uh, he and his former Gangs of New York co-star, Cameron Diaz, sort of, uh, uh, uh, that's so. Wait, so yeah. So the Leo connection, Leo has a connection with both of those actresses. Any connections with Jack Black or Jude Law? I want to, like, like, Leo pill this entire movie now. Oh, wow. I mean, I doubt it for Jack Black. That doesn't, that wouldn't make

any sense. But. There's got to be a movie that Leo and Jude Law were in together. It would seem like it, right? Well, the Aviator. The Aviator. See? All right, we got it. Because the aviator is one of the, like, of course, like, you know, we are the, the whole, like, connoisseurs of Jude Law overexposure in 2004. But, like, the aviator was always one that people brought up, and it's like, he's in two seconds of the aviator. I know. It's incredibly unfair that that sort of got put in his ledger because you're right. I feel like our listeners are going to be, like, our call. Chris Rock that they're sick of us talking about this time. Just like, we get it.

Just like Chris Rock. What's the analogy here? Uh, anyway, again, the holiday. Yes. Joseph. You are charged with giving a 60-second plot description. I am. Are you ready? I mean, yes, I did not prepare for this, so I am going to be winging it, but you know what? Sometimes that works. Not the pottyist movie for a movie that is, you know, pushing two and a half an hour is, like. I, it is a long movie. That is, I will say, on the list of things that people tend to complain about most often about this movie, uh, its length is definitely up there. But this time when I watched it, like I feel like I go into a K-hole with this movie and it's fine.

Kind of. I'm not overboard. I, yes. I go into a, I go into a Christmas time fugue state with this movie and I'm fine. Yes. Yeah. All right. Yeah.

So yes, I am ready. All right, Joe, your 60 second plot description of the, The holiday starts now. All right, Kate Winslet is a newspaper reporter in Surrey, or in London, but she has a house in Surrey, and Cameron Diaz is an unhappy movie trailer maker in Los Angeles, and they are both coming off of ends of relationships, so they decide to swap houses and lives for a couple weeks around the holidays to essentially get away from their lives. So Cameron goes to Surrey, this cute little cottage, and she meets Kate Winslet's brother,

Jude Law, who is Jude Law and very charming. and they go out on a few dates, and they have sex sort of right away, and they're very pretty and lovely together. Meanwhile, Kate Winslet is in Los Angeles, staying at this giant Brentwood house. Eli Wallach is her old Hollywood neighbor. She meets Jack Black, who is a composer, and they kind of have a meet-cute, and it's very charming.

And by the end, both of the couples realize that they are in love with each other, and then they all end up at the cottage in Surrey for New Year's Eve, and they're dancing together, and it's really lovely, and there's not a whole lot of plot in between. There's some obstacles to the relationships, but really Jude Law's got a couple of kids. It's really kind of nice. And that is time.

Yeah. Right? Yes. See, okay. You ended on Jude Law. I feel like maybe let's just start there because I feel like he's the one who's the most miscast. Oh, all right. Mostly because, like, we are well on record of saying we like scumbum Jude Law.

Like Jude Law should be some, like, pathetic, like, asshole. You're saying he's too. nice of a guy on this. There's no, there's no. I mean, but like the movie kind of, and maybe it feels this way because it's like, well, no, for like the Jew law we like. But like, it's just like kind of like sad. Like how, how can we make this man more charming and more appealing to Cameron Diaz's character? Yeah. Let's make him tragic. He's a widower. Yeah. Like, he has two very adorable children in a movie that it's like, you know, you think that putting two cute kids in it would be pushing it over the edge and you're like, you know what, no, this is too sweet and saccharin.

But, oh, no, these are two wonderful, lovely children. And it's just... I don't know. He's just nice in this movie. He's just a nice guy. He's a very nice and charming guy. He does not have a dark side. He does not have any tarnish on him.

I think you could probably say that about all of these people, that, like, they have their flaws and foibles. But in general, there's not a whole lot standing between either one of those couples getting together. I guess Kate Winslet's sort of lingering feelings... I mean, a couple thousand miles is standing between these couples getting together, but, like, it's not a problem. It's not a problem, right? And it's not really treated as a problem for too long. And I sometimes am fine with a movie that is all charm, no struggle, and I can watch a movie like the holiday and just be like, oh, this is very nice.

This is very nice that these good people met other good people. And you know what? And they don't go through the regular hoops of a romantic comedy where there's a misunderstanding between them, or they, There's a, you know, there's something that's, like, very obvious that we think they should get past, but they just can't get past it. It's not even a discovery that Kate Winslet and Jude Law are brothers and sisters. That's, like, set up front. Yes. The only obstacle is Kate Winslet, or Cameron Diaz thinks that Jude Law is a ladies' man, but no, he has two daughters.

Like, two daughters who apparently have separate cell phones, like. Okay, so this is worth discussing in the guy. eyes under the umbrella of who has what money in this movie? Because one of the things that I kind of focused on in this one is not only are Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet sort of swapping houses, and one is in London and one is in L.A., and they have very different lives. They're at two different economic levels. I'm not saying that Kate Winslet's character is poor by any means, but she's not as wealthy

as Cameron Diaz. Like, Cameron Diaz has this, like... Okay, she's a journalist. She definitely doesn't make a lot of... lot of money, but she has this like cottage that is definitely too far to be her like home home. But it is. Where she commutes every day for work. Like there's no indication that she has like a flat in London or anything like that.

So as far as we know, that is her house. It's adorable and cute and in the country, but it's small. And like, you know, the bathtub is this sort of like freestanding. little, like, charming little country bathtub and whatever, and it's probably drafty and all that stuff. Like I said. I want to sit in it all day and destroy my back. Yeah.

There's this one scene where it's, Cameron Diaz is sitting in the tub, and it's like, her legs are sticking at the one, and she, you know, her, obviously, her heads at the other. Her spine is fun. And I was just like, yeah, I was like two seconds in that bath, and I would just be in absolute agony. But you know what? She seemed to be having good time. Maybe when you're that skinny that everything works, and that's fine.

But, like, Cameron Diaz is that. a different level. Whatever level Kate Winslet's at in this movie, Cameron Diaz is at a different level, wealth-wise. And so I think there's something to that, too, where, like, Cameron Diaz is going to England to sort of charmingly downsize. And, like,

again, she's not moving to a life of struggle. She's moving to, like, picturesque Surrey, where there's, like, adorable cobblestone roads with shops and pubs and whatnot. And Kate Winslet is going to, for two weeks, live the life of an incredibly wealthy a Los Angeles woman with a mansion and a pool and a gate and all of the... So wealthy, she has that DVD wall, which includes two copies of identity.

Really? I had to pause to look at it. It's just like, if anybody posts their DVD shelves or bookshelves, I see it on Instagram. I'm going to pinch and zoom. I'm sorry, I need to see what you have on your shelves. I need to know if you're an ex-murderer. Apparently, Cameron Diaz is because who needs two copies? of identity. What else is on that wall? G. Lee. It's a lot of Sony movies because this is a

Sony movie. Also on that wall, Enigma, which is a movie that Kate Winslet stars in. Oh, wow. And then what movie does she pull off the shelf? She pulls off Punch Dr. Love. Oh, that's cute. Do we think there's any Amy Pascal in Cameron Diaz's character in this? Because it's a Sony movie. Like maybe Nancy sort of like Was friends with Amy and was just like There's a little bit of like I'm gonna I'm gonna import your house or whatever Like this is what I'm gonna base this house on or something

I don't know If Cameron Diaz showed up in a massive fur coat At any point in the movie I would say yes Okay here's my question about Since I brought up the whole movies thing Yes And like this is a movie very enmeshed Even if it's just on a surface level

But it's fun, it's sweet in like Hollywood history and like movies and the film industry, the business of film. What movies have been and then what they are today. You have Eli Wallach being like, in my day, nine movies open in a month. And now there's nine movies opening this week. And it's like, well, it's Christmas time. There's like even 15 years later, there's like 20 movies that will open during Christmas

week, even during a fucking pandemic. And also 15 years later, Eli Wallach was playing a character who was sort of bemoaning the existence of the multiplex as a thing. And now we're like, please save our multiplexes for the good of the film art form or whatever. Please see a movie that's not about

a superhero. Okay, no, this was going to be my question. Long-witted way of getting there. Has Kate Winslet's character ever seen a movie? Because she's so fascinated by everything? Okay, the

blockbuster scene kind of drove crazy this time because like... The Blockbuster video. We're in the, they're in the video store. Which A, again, I was pausing because I had to see what was on the shelves. Of course, there's copies of Bad Boys, too. But, like, it's all, like, unalphabatized. And, like... It's such a mess.

It's like... That's why they went out of business. Breakfast at Tiffany's is, like, next to... Well, you can see, if you look closely, there is a copy of the piano. teacher. I was very pleased to see the pair. Do you have like x-ray vision eyes that just like immediately when the piano teacher is in a frame, you like can zoom in on it?

I, listen, I know what I'm doing. You're like that gif of like the kid with like the glasses that go like, you know what the one where it's just like the super lens glasses? That is me. But like the piano teacher is on the same shelf as breakfast at Tiffany's and it's like, what is going on? Have some reckless teens just been like shuffling movies around? But anyway, has this?

this character ever seen or heard of a movie because like Jack Black does this whole tour thing and it's supposed to be charming. He does all of these film scores in a way that's like, you know, goofy and embarrassing, whatever. It's cute. I think it's cute. But it's all like very basic movies and she has seen none of them. Granted, they are all boy movies and the first two movies he recommends to her are chariots of fire and driving Miss Daisy. She says she's seen chariots Game of fire, though. I'm pretty sure. Oh, yeah, she has seen Chariots of Fire.

Either way, if a man recommend, the first two movies a man recommends to me are chariots of fire and driving Miss Daisy, game over. So, okay. I'm not fucking you. I read that scene differently. I don't think he was recommending the movies so much to her as just being like, these are scores that I find memorable, because he's a movie score guy. He's a composer. Who remembers the score from driving Miss Daisy? I do. As soon as he started tootling it out, I was like, yeah, that's it.

I remember. Okay I'm sorry I do He does say Vangelis Like Vangelis Which I famously

Thought it was Vangelis So we don't really know Please welcome to the stage Vangelis Right Is it Vangelis Is it Vangelis? He says Vangelis

I've heard Vangelis So We'll fight it out I don't know You're not just jealous You're Vangelis Exactly Exactly

When you see a nice minivan in the street, you're like, hmm, I wish I had that minivan. Van Jealous. I'm Van. I'm so jealous. I'm Van Jealous. I thought that was a cute scene. I do get what your point is. She does seem incredibly sort of wide-eyed about all of this. And it's like, you don't work in, like... Maybe the one movie she's seen is Cheriots a fine. That's her one movie. But like, you're a reporter. You work, you're not in the arts, but you're sort of like adjacent to. there's a culture there's a culture desk at your at your newspaper and again he only brings up dude movies to her and she's a she's a weddings reporter right because the thing where they bring up at the christmas party where they're like some type of like socialite columnist right right so like and like the movies that she watches that like eli wallach's character gets her into our a lot of older movies and let's face it like you know yeah don't you know yes the average person

doesn't watch, you know, the Lady Eve all the time. Right. Here's my sort of thing with Kate Winslet in this movie, and it's not so much about the film industry stuff. Although I do find that charming, and I find stuff with her and Eli Wallach. Yeah, I like that stuff. I think that's really nice. And I think that could have been a subplot that could have been kind of dull or just like, all right. Oh, I think it could have been the whole movie.

No, but I mean, I think handled poorly, it could have. been a drag on this movie that you just want to watch these couples be, you know, romantic with each other. Or a bummer, too sad. I was glad he didn't die at the end. Because, you know, whenever you are a movie and you introduce a older, like a 90-year-old character among a whole bunch of younger people who are then going to learn things from that person, it's very much... Let me tell you my love story of my dead lover and then let me, you know, fall asleep on a bench and not wake up. Yes. I always feel like there's an invisible ticking clock with that kind character where you're just like oh god like it's we're coming up on it and we don't get that ending so again

all the ways that this movie could have been sad or uh frustrating or have conflict of any kind and it's just like nope we're not going to do that and honestly i i'm fine with it i'm happy with it like i said i want something nice and easy and uh that's what this is oh but the one thing i was going to say in terms of missed opportunities. We talked a bit when you did the cast rundown. Catherine Hahn and John Krasinski are in this. They both work for Cameron Diaz in the trailer-making biz. And obviously, this was well before Catherine Hahn was a star. The first thing I had ever noticed her in, she had been in Anchorman, briefly. But the first thing I'd ever really noticed her enough to find out what her name was was Revolutionary Road, which is still two years

after the holiday. And she's spectacular, right now. She's wonderful in that movie. Her and David Harbor, actually, playing a married couple in that movie. Anyway, though, they introduced Catherine Hahn, and she's pregnant. Her character is pregnant, and then you never see her or Krasinski again in the movie. And all I'm saying is, Chekhov, is if you introduce pregnant Catherine Hahn in the first act, she absolutely has to go into labor by the third act, and, like, Kate Winslet has to deliver

that baby somewhere. Like, I just needed that to happen. At the theater, opening day, Christmas Day, seeing deception. Right, Kaitwin's like, it's invited to the premiere because they're like, oh,

we thought Amanda would be in town. We have this extra ticket. Do you want to go with me in John Krasinski? And she's like, oh, lovely. A film, a film premiere. I've never heard of such a thing. And so then she shows up. That is literally how her character speaks in this movie. That's why she is miss cast. Wait, so who do you

cast in the Kate Winslet role? Who do you cast in the Jude Law role? I mean, in 2006? Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I mean, Jude Law, you could probably cast a different handsome character actor at this point. Like, you know, um, I don't know.

You would want somebody a little bit. Somebody who's better playing less complicated people. Like, the more complicated the person Jude Law is playing. Right. The more interesting he is. I mean, here, he's literally just has to be pretty. I mean, check that box on me.

Sure, sure, sure, sure. So, and you feel like Winslet needs to be somebody who's... I mean, she wrote that role for Winslet. Yeah. And I'm like, huh? I think Winslet's good in this. The defining characteristic of Kate Winslet to Nancy Myers just British. Like...

I think this is the Kate Winslet character that's most like actual Kate Winslet. in her entire filmography. I'm going to throw that down. That might be true. I think Kate Winslet, at least in, like, interviews, is a little bit more of a rascal than this character is. You're right. She is a little bit more of a rascal.

But I think of her in, like, you know how every few years we'll give Kate Winslet an award and we'll remember that, like, oh, this is how Kate Winslet acts at award ceremonies? That's true. She does have a moment where she sees Eli Wallach's Oscar and it's like, oh, and this is, of course, before she has hers. But I rewatched yesterday for something else entirely. I watched her Mayor of East Town Emmy speech. And literally, it's like, you're Kate Winslet.

And I love her. And I have, this is not a complaint. But she walks up and she gets her Emmy Award. And she's like, Mom, they're standing for me. Like this kind of thing. It's just like, I love that this, that awards show Kate Winslet has never, she's like, it's very Taylor Swifty, right? It's just like nobody's ever praised her before in her life.

This is the one good thing that's ever happened. happened to her. She's so happy about it. And, like, and it's just funny to me because it's just like, you are Kate Winslet, though. Like, people do love you. Well, but the, the nice thing about her Mayor of East Town Emmy is that, like, she was winning an award for one of her very best performance. 100%. But, like, people also gave her shit over her, was it, was it her globe for, no, it wasn't the Globe for, Mildred Pierce. Mildred Pierce. It was the Emmy, because, like, She gets up there, and she's like, I didn't think we were going to win anything. And she was, like, so effusive about it.

And it was, like, it's not just about her. It was the fourth major televised award that she had won for that movie. So. Right. And, like, I think it's more like she feels the spirit of pride for the group endeavor. That's usually what I get from some of her awards. She's incredibly proud of the group that she was with. And, again, it's not, I am not complaining about Cape Winslet here.

But I do, it's just, it's a very particular flavor of her. Well, and it was also. that was it a variety cover or a Hollywood Reporter cover where it's like literally the pull quote that they did from the whole interview the whole profile is do I want an Oscar of course I want an Oscar like and it's like that's just what is on the cover great but again I want I want you to want an Oscar I want you to want it so yes anyway yeah I'm charmed by her in this movie so who do you feel like is giving the oh she's charming I just don't I'm maybe it's that like she's also in little

children this year which is like the era of Kate Winslet when she was doing you know more I don't want to say minor key but like otter work that I think is like what she's best at and it's like and like of course not to

talk smack about Nancy Myers in this way but like this character isn't really that interesting and I don't want to say like Kate Winslet is better than this character but like oh like what how do I want to say it

Like, she could, she's capable of giving more than what this character asks for. Exactly. Though, like, what she does, and she is incredibly charming and it's rare that she just gets to be charming in a movie, but, like. And I also don't get the sense that she's slumming it here. Like, she does not give that air of just sort of. No, I don't think that about anybody in this. I just, I guess I wish there was more on the page for all of the four leads. And, like, well, maybe Jack Black.

feels like, yes, there is enough for him to do, given the size of the role, and, like, how on the rise his star was at that moment, but also at the same time, it's like, their chemistry is charming, but, like, in a way that I still don't feel like... Yeah. I feel like for me... Is a perfect fit? I guess, I don't know. I think for me, the character I tend to be most frustrated by in this is Cameron Diaz's

character, because there are highs and lows, and... I want, I want more of what are the highs. Like, I think she's, she's putting herself into this performance. I like a lot of the little things she does, like, the drinking from the wine bottle at the market, I think is really, like, cute and charming. Um, when she and Kate Winslet have the call-waiting mix-up, which, like, put it in the Smithsonian, the era of call-waiting mix-ups.

That's like her best scene, yeah. Um, uh, just, you know, remember when this was how we had, uh, snafus once upon a time with telephones. But anyway, when Kate comes back to her the second time and goes on even longer sort of haranguing her brother, so she thinks, and then it's just the cut back to Cameron Diaz and she just goes, still me.

And it's just a really well timed, well-executed little moment. And yet... Yeah, call waiting was the like, you're on mute. Yes. Of its time. Yes. Yeah, yes. You're still on mute. Still on mute. Yes. Good call. That is an

excellent call. I think you're right. But then there's the stuff like, there's the trailer voiceover that narrates her life when she's feeling frustrated or when she's trying to go to sleep or whatever that I think is a little too, a little too much for the vibe of this movie. It's the, it's like a meta-textual thing that I'm like, it's also like as like funnier die was becoming a thing, so it feels a little funnier-or-dye. But like- It's also the same year as Stranger Than Fiction, where it made like a whole movie out of a shout-up. to our episode and guest Kevin Jacobson. Yes. Yeah, it's something that doesn't fully work, but doesn't bother me. And it also, I think, if it was maybe handled a little bit more sharply, it does kind

of present her, like, why is this trailer voice in her head all the time? Because she's so focused on her work. Her work is so consuming to her. Like, she can't even get away to another continent in a cottage on a wintry hillside without, you know, thinking and work talk, right? Right, exactly. I don't know. I think she's the character

that actually has the most depth. I just think she's maybe directed in a weird way that's like smoothing out any of those more like prickly edges to it or any of the more darker stuff to it because it's like a movie that's just trying to be, you know, pleasant. It's, I just, I think the complicating stuff with her doesn't super work for me.

The thing where she can't cry, which I always think of that a Seinfeld episode where George's mother gets an eye job and she keeps yelling, I can't cry! Don't upset me! I can't cry! I'm not sure how well that worked for me. As a character beat, I've never been able to cry. I'm just like...

Well, that's the Chekhov's gun in the movie. Right, of course. Not pregnant Catherine Hahn. And then she walks in at the end, and who was crying? It's Jude Law, who is crying. Which really, like, was a thing because I was just like, oh, it really reminds me that, like, how few times you see men in movies cry in that context. Right.

As just, like, just crying, not because somebody died, not because, you know, whatever, but just crying because you're sad about a woman. And you don't really see men just allowed to be sad like that. And I thought that was interesting. They're, like, you probably wouldn't have gotten that in a story written or directed by a man. Right. So, anyway. Do we want to do our Jude Law six-timer quiz? Yeah, let's get it out of the way.

All right, so if you are a listener to this podcast, you know that when we reach the sixth film by an actor or actress that we've covered on this show, we do a little sort of the induction ceremony, we induct them into our six timers club, and to mark the occasion, I give Chris File here a little quiz. and so we've reached that point with Jude Law we were hanging at 4 for quite a bit and then the last few weeks we have had a flurry of Jude law activity with my blueberry nights in the holiday so Chris to refresh your memory

the six Jude Law movies are Midnight in the Gooden of Garden Evil Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil I Heart Huckabee's Alfie, another 2004 Jewelaw movie, Huckabee's and Alfie, All the King's Men, the Steve Zalian film, My Blueberry Nights, which we covered a few weeks ago,

and now the holiday. So I'm going to give you a series of questions. The answers will be among those six movies. Are you ready? Yeah, let's do it. All right. So, of those six, which is the shortest? My Blueberry Nights.

My Blueberry Nights at a cool 95 minutes, very good, which is the longest. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil? Yes. Wasn't it longest for somebody else? It might have been. It's probably the longest for whoever is in that, because it's... It's a long movie. 155 grueling minutes of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

All right. Spiritually, all the King's Men is the longest, because that is purgatory. Which one globally made the most money? The holiday. holiday cleared 200 million dollars which one made the least money all the king's men all the king's men at nine million dollars all right which one had the best rotten tomato score i heart hookabees i heart hookabees 62 percent which one had the worst rotten tomato score all the king's men all the king's men 11 percent all right i ask you those questions every time so i'm starting to wonder whether you study up on them but you know what it's fine no i don't i just i think jude law is going to be the easiest time we ever do. Very possibly. All right.

Which two, all right, this is the layout, but I just want to, you know, throw this out. Which two movies were directed by people who were once married to each other? Oh. Oh, okay. So Clint Eastwood, Nancy Myers, David O. Russell, Juan Corwai. It's got to be the other two then. Oh, no, wait. It's Charles Shire and Nancy Myers.

Charles Shire for Alfie. Yeah. Charles Shire directed Alfie, Nancy Myers directed. Can't believe I had to walk. Found a rabbit hole for that. Which one of these movies was released in Aries season? So, April, not Cabeas, not this, shit. Oh, no, it's my blueberry nights.

It's my blueberry nights. Very good. Released early April. Yes. Which three of these movies does Jude Law star with Stars of the Lovely Bones? So Tucci Serendon Serendon

People yell at me for saying Serendon But I have seen an interview with her before Where she said No, it's Serendon I just go with it

Yes I tried to find this to be like All right You need to leave me alone Because I have been thinking All this time I've tried to find it I know that she has said

It's Sarandon I just go with it When people say Sarandon Um Well, Alfie Yes Serendon Which one is the

Tuchin. There's also Sersh, Mark Wahlberg. Well, Mark Wahlberg is Huckabees. Well, no, Rachel Weiss, who is in My Blueberry Nights. Yes, very good. My Blueberry Nights. Jude Law is the tomb in the middle of their house. Yes, exactly.

All right. Which two of these movies does Jude Law star with stars of Good Night and Good Luck? Well, Strathairn is in My Blueberry Knights. Who else is in Good Night and Good Luck? Robert Downey Jr. Patricia Clarkson. Clooney is also in that.

Hmm. Is John Cusack in that movie? I don't believe so. Okay. So he's not the answer. Spacey's not the answer. The Lady Chablis is not the answer, but wouldn't that be wonderful?

Um, I can't think of, no, Patricia Clark sends in, um, all the Kingsmen. Yes. You sort of sped right past and I was like, is he going to realize? Okay. She's in the Mercedes-McCain patrol. Yes. Uh, which is the only one of those six films to not either be written or co-written by the director? Oh, okay. Uh, not the holiday.

Uh, Midnight in the Garden of the Good and Evil? Correct. scripted by John Lee Hancock. Everything else is either co-written or written by the person who directed. All right. Which movie was released on the same weekend as Apocalyptic. So that's December. It's not the holiday, is it?

It's the holiday. Wow. Oh. Oh, finished number one at the box office, the weekend that the holiday finished third to debut. Hold, please, because I need to look up this curse weekend again. You do. Like, look it up. It is, it's wild.

It's wild times. If you, if you are a blank check fan, you already know this one because they've covered the holiday, so Griffin did the box office game. Oh, yeah. Wow. Blood Diamond. Yeah. Like, kind of bombed.

Blood Diamond, Apocalyptic, the holiday, all released on the same weekend. So if you showed up, if you were Christmas shopping, let's say, in early December, and you wanted to take a break from your Christmas shopping and see a new movie, your choices were Mel Gibson's, uh, uh, ultra, violent Mayan Empire film Apocalypto bling bang itself Blood Diamond or the holiday

and if you picked anything but the holiday I want to know what your problem is yeah wild weekend what else was in the box office that weekend happy feet which Cameron Diaz gave the animated Oscar too because I always remember her

being like happy feet and Casino Royale Oh, well, all right, you have permission to have chosen Casino Royale in retrospect. That would have been good. Okay. Which movie was released on the same weekend as Shark Tale? So that was October of, like, oh, three? No, it's Alfie.

It's not Alfie. Really? Huckabees. I heard Huckabees. Yes, the other 2004 movie. All right. which two of these movies played at the Toronto International Film Festival Famously All the Kingsmen

Yes And Not Alfie Not Midnight in the Garden Oh I Heart Huck These Yes I heard Huckabees was a gala Can you imagine? I would have lived my entire life

I would have loved it so much All right Ladies and Ball Gowns watching that movie This is a tough one so I'm going to let you work it out a little bit which three of these films does Jude Law star opposite exactly two Oscar winners for acting?

Okay. Not counting honor. So, meaning there are two Oscar winners for acting in the movie. Alongside him, yes, exactly two. Alfie. Alfie, who are they?

Sarandon and, um, um, um, um, I'm going to make you say it. Siena Miller has an Honorary Oscar for the Cat on a Hot Tin Roof video. To May. Yes, Marissa Tomey. Yes.

And the holiday. Who? Eli Wallach has an Oscar, right? Honorary. Not count. Oh, so it doesn't count. Yeah, honorary doesn't count. Two other movies.

It's three movies total. It's not... I guess. it's probably Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, but I can't figure out who it is besides Spacey. It's a huge movie. Is it that movie? It's that movie, but, like,

I put a pin in that one because I want you to get who the other Oscar winner is. Okay, not QSack, not Clint Eastwood's own daughter. It's a smaller role in the movie. Yeah, there's a million small roles in that movie. Yeah, yeah. And that's, like, one of our earliest episodes. Um, shit, I can't remember.

Well, put, like I said, put a pin in that and get the other, get the other, uh, movie. Oh, I said Alfie. Yeah, there's three movies. Oh, there's three. Okay. So, um, it's not Huckabees. Is it all, no, it is all the Kingsmen. Why? Sean Penn, Kate Winslet. And, um, I said it needs to start exactly two Oscar winners for. acting.

Well, yeah, that's two Oscar winners for acting. Kate Winslet has an Oscar, and so does Champagne. And so does Anthony Hopkins, so it's three. Oh, okay. You need me to name all three. Okay. No, but what I'm saying is that's not, it does not count because I said he needs, oh, exactly two.

Yes. My blueberry nights? Yeah, my blueberry nights. Yeah, because it was. Natalie Portman and Rachel Foy. Yes, all right. So Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. You're missing Oscar winner.

won an Oscar in I want to save the 1950s, but I could be wrong for a movie that like people still talk about today that is sort of adapted kind of a lot if not necessarily on film

so it's been on TV no well there have been versions on television I think Is it Carl Mulden? No, but like, you're circling the airport here. Like, you're really... So it's someone from like a Tennessee Williams. Yeah, you're circling the airport real closely.

Is it Kim Hunter? It's Kim Hunter. Kim Hunter, who played Stella in a street car named Desire. I never would have gotten Kim Hunter. Was in Midnight in the Garden of Goodneville. We didn't really talk about her very much when we were, uh, when we were doing that. But anyway, yes. I couldn't even tell you who she played in the movie.

I know. Well, it's, whatever, the Rokes Gallery of Weirdos and Savannah in that movie. Yes. All right, congratulations on doing so well at the Jude Law Six-Timer's Quays. Thank you. Thank you very much. It's an honor. Yes. What else do I want to talk about in this movie? Oh, I re-watched Diane Keaton's Golden Globe acceptance speech for Something's Got to Give earlier today, which, again,

something's got to give is like the proximate reason why the holiday had Oscar buzz. Because up until that point, Nancy Myers, for as successful as she was, was not an awardsy person. Like, Baby Boom had gotten, I think, a Golden Globe nomination. And obviously, Private Benjamin, like, way back in the day. But, like, by this point, she's doing the parent trap. She's doing Father of the Bride. She's, you know, what women want. These movies that are successful, but are not Oscar movies.

They're Golden Globe at best in these. And, but then something's got to give, it sort of reached. It's this sort of like magical moment. Because there's nothing about something's got to give that is necessarily more awardsy in concept. It's just that everybody was so in love with that Diane Keaton performance. And that best actress year felt very shallow for a very long time. Well, but also Diane Keaton had so much heat around her. It was even pulling like original screenplay talk.

It ultimately didn't get there. I ultimately didn't. I should have, but... But I think it was just the fact that we reached a point in the year. At some point, Charlize Theron's publicity photo or on-set paparazzi photos for Monster had everybody so intrigued that she was being predicted. And then everybody else, like, everybody assumed Nicole Kidman would get in for Cold Mountain because it was Nicole Kidman.

And that ultimately wasn't correct. But then there were a lot of, like, a lot of people had been predicting Jennifer Connolly for House of Sand and Fog. And then that movie really fizzled, really sort of, like, became a nonentity for her. Ben Kingsley and Shori Agadashulu ended up so outpacing her in the reviews that they sort of got pulled in at her expense, almost. in America, like, had this long trajectory because it was the year before at TIF. Right. And like Samantha Morton had kind of been having like near nominations with other things. She was a very late breaker.

Kisha Castle Hughes had been campaigned in supporting, so nobody was really assuming her in lead. And so there was kind of a void. And everybody was like, why not Diane Keaton? She's an Oscar winner. She's great in this. It's sort of a comeback story. and so watched the Golden Globe speech, which it's very Diane Keaton. And she's got this like, like head-to-toe sort of ivory trench coat dress kind of a thing,

where it's like this very sort of like, it's the Victorian collar, right, that goes all the way up to like your chin or whatever. And the gloves and this sort of like insane long string of pearls and her hairs. very like a hair stylist really kind of went to town being like we're going to give you like the wet messy look and I was just like maybe not the best idea but whatever and she's being Diane and she's very effusive and every time she mentions Nancy her voice like options up about two registers and she's just like I can't believe that in my advanced age I found this great script

written by Nancy and it's just like she just really like projects whenever she Nancy and it happens like three times it's very funny and she talks about she like keeps repeating the phrase like cast me as a woman to love I sure as hell wasn't prepared to be rediscovered by Nancy Myers let's face it getting to play a woman to love at

57 is like reaching for the stars with the step ladder but I know I got lucky and isn't it ironic that my luck all my luck was to have Nancy give me a chance to play a woman to love. One more bittersweet time. And it's very sort of sing-songy the whole speech. It's one of those things where I'm just like, just for a while there, Diane Keaton had gotten four Oscar nominations in four separate decades. That was like the

easy way to remember which were her Oscar nominations because it was one from the 70s, one from the 80s, one from the 80s, one from the aughts. And then she never got one in the teens, which is why the teens are a cursed decade. But it made me feel like, we should just give Diane Keaton Award an award every few years, just have a Diane Keaton speech because they're very, she ends the thing with just like, I can't believe that they made this movie where the combined age of the two stars is a hundred and twenty-eight. It's just like, it's so wonderful. It's a great speech. Check it out. So, yeah, I don't think the holiday even got any globe dominations or did it. No, it did not.

Did it get, like, anything? I kind of want to talk about Eli Wallach for a minute because I think if this was a more respected movie, and maybe you could say maybe it was a little bit better too, but, like, actually respected. Yeah. Like, especially in the mid-2000s, like, that's the type of role for, like, you know, sweet old man or, like, sarcastic old man that would get, like, a legend, like, Eli Wallach. a nomination. It didn't happen. I want to look up, because now you've intrigued me.

Big mistake on your part. Now you've got me thinking. I apologize. The recent history of that kind of sort of old man who we really like in a small role in a movie. And I'm thinking of like Hell Holbrook In Into the Wild, got that nomination. Alan Arkin got a win.

Ellen Arkin got a win. That's a little bit more irascible. Well, and he's also a lot more of a focus. in that movie. He's, he's, he gets a lot of attention in that. But like, someone like Al Newman in Road to Perdition, which is a little bit of a different thing because it's like Paul Newman's last performance, etc. And he's the big villain in that. But I'm thinking like Alan Alda in The Aviators is kind of like that, where it's like really small role, but we really love him. And at that point, I don't think he'd ever been nominated for an Oscar, which is kind of amazing. Um, Max von Sido and extremely loud and incredibly close is sort of like that. Alan Arkin and Argo, fuck yourself. I hate that nomination. Yeah, I am often a defender of Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine, but Alan Argoen and Argo was a really weird nomination. There's really nothing to that. He's not bad, but it's just like, why him and not John Goodman in that same movie?

I'm not saying that Goodman deserved him necessarily. The un-nominated John Goodman. Yeah, it's weird. It's weird. It's weird. It's weird. Who, like, had that run in, like, a few years where he's doing, like, 10 Cloverfield Lane, and he's amazing, but, like, they're never going to nominate 10 Clover Field Lane. He would have deserved for 10 Cloverfield Lane.

Like, honestly, he really would have. But, yeah, so I could have seen it with the Eli Wallach thing. He's very charming in this. He's very, you know, he's fun. I think for an Oscar nominee, they would probably demand a little bit more drama there. I think they like these roles, these sort of small roles where they have... If it was tragic, if he died...

Right, and it would have been a worse movie, I think, but probably a better case for an Oscar nomination, which is... Or if his, like, big speech when he goes to the, like, Writers Guild tribute to him, if it was, like, actually, like, a weepy moment, but, like, the moment ultimately becomes about Kate Winston's love story. That's the other thing about how much... how sort of Hollywood insider this movie is, is that, like, it has one of its biggest emotional climaxes happen at a Writers Guild tribute to somebody. It's really something else. It's real insidery in a way that I appreciate,

but, like, I could see where, like, its appeal maybe has a limited range to it, so. I'll just say, for a movie that has a lot of love stories and a lot of romances in it, I think the best love story is between Kate Winslet and Eli Wallet. I think you're right. I think you're right. the point where when she's on the phone talking with Jude Law, and she's like, I found somebody

who makes me laugh, and I enjoy his company and all this sort of stuff, and then she's just like, and he's 90 years old, and it plays as if that is like sort of self-explanatorily, like, ha, ha, ha, I'm joking. And yet, I'm like, but like everything else you said still kind of applies. So, like, maybe you are in love with him. Yeah. Yes, the romance of friendship. Oh, I love that. I agree with that. Okay. I love movies about the romance of friendship. I do. Well, it's so funny. Lately, there's been a lot of sort of talk about, like, what happened to sex in movies? And I do get it. About how, especially studio movies, have become very, very skittish about any kind of sex in their movies. And it is a problem, and it's worth talking about. But I think the conversation about that tends to then sort of demonize a thing that I actually like in a movie, which is a movie that is where it's about a friendship rather than a relationship. especially, like, platonic male-female friendships being, like, valued in movies, I think is wonderful. And a lot of times, I think in this discussion, people have been like, those two people could have been fucking.

I'm just like, okay, I mean, you're not wrong. They could have been fucking and still just been friends. Like, you know. I mean. Or, like, complete polar opposite. What's probably the one of the best, like, maybe not romance of friendships, but, like, there is, like, this deep well of, like, complicated affection is, like, Can you ever forgive me? Yes.

Oh, totally. Yeah, absolutely. Friendship cinema. My favorite cinema. Oh, again, when I win the lottery and open that money-losing theater. We just did an episode on Hustlers. If there's not a movie about, a recent movie about, like, the romance of friendship, the whole relationship between Ramona and Destiny is like a friendship romance.

You're right. You're absolutely right. What else is going on? I also wrote in the, before we got on Mike, you yelled at me in our album. line under Eli Wallach, it's just in brackets, bottom eyes emoji. You're the one who wrote that phrase. Which I think you took differently than I meant. Heterosexual listeners, we know you're out there.

If you don't know what bottom eyes emoji is, it's the one where it looks like the emoji is about to start crying, which has taken on its own gay life. But like, I meant it as like, my eyes are welling up, Eli Wallach. Oh, man. I'm just saying, you're the one who used the phrase bottom. emoji in a bracket right after Eli Wallach. What was I to infer? Joe innocent, as far as I'm concerned. Like, I accept no responsibility for reading. I mean, young Eli Wallach, absolutely. Wait, so we haven't talked a ton about Cameron Diaz and where she's at in her career at this point.

Because at this point, she's kind of past the brush with Oscar moment. And she's... Right. And I mean, and in her shoes is like the end of the road for that. Really. I mean, like, there's, what's the, my sister's keeper or your sister's, the one where her. My sisters. Yeah. Which was like still a summer movie. But. But even within her shoes, when people would talk about that as an Oscar contender, it was Tony Colette was talked about as a lead actress. And Shirley McLean was talked about in supporting. And nobody really even had Cameron. Diaz as a possibility, even though, and we've talked about this in the episode that we did on that movie, we both think she's giving the best performance in that movie of many good performances in that movie. It's not like that she's winning that award by default. And the best performance of her career. And we agree with that on that as well. But I think by that point, I think gangs of New York really kind of poisoned that well, because it had been... People really hate that Globe nomination. I mean, she's not good in that movie, and she didn't deserve a

golden globe nomination. But, like, that's... I could name 20 people a... of whom that sentence applies, right? And so, but I think she had come close with Malkovich in 99, and then Vanilla Sky in 01, and then the Gangs of New York thing, and I think with both of those performances, people are like, oh, she deserved. Like Cameron Diaz missed it, but she really deserved it, and, you know, we think better of her for those performances. And then gangs of New York happened, and they're like, no bad, dumb. And that really kind of poisoned the well as far as Cameron Diaz's possible Oscar nominee. And so, again, by the time in her shoes comes along,

she's just a total afterthought. And then something like this, again, I think when people were talking about the Oscar chances for the holiday, which were, you know, on long lists, I don't think anybody really had this as a major contender. It was for Winslet. It was for Jude Law, mostly. I think even when they were talking about, like, Oh, well, they get nominated for Golden Globe, musical or comedy.

It was mostly Winslet, I think, that was... I remember a few people when the movie was released. It's like, you know who's great in this movie is Eli Wallach. Yes, right. But it never really happened. But, like, Cameron Diaz is just like, she's not in the consideration in the conversation anymore. And really, we talked about the counselor semi-recently.

That was really the only other time in that whole, like, back half of her career, that even for a little bit, people were like Cameron Diaz, Oscar conversation maybe, and it didn't last longer than however long it took for people to actually see that movie. But... Yeah. And people were, of course, mean. Mean. Yes. Afterwards.

Yes. So, yeah, we've had the Cameron Diaz conversation in that counselor episode when we talked about that, about how, you know... We wish her a happy retirement with her clean wine business, but we also miss her very much. May she hologram into the Drew Barrymore show whenever she wants to, um, as far as I'm concerned. Yes. Yeah. I don't know. What else? What else do we want to talk about? She's fine in

this. Yeah. We should, we can talk about how Kate Winslet was actually nominated this year for little children, which I remember at the time her being the one that I was kind of rooting for. I mean, like, partly this is when the narrative is setting in for her. And it's like, she's just never in like a best picture frontrunner to get her there and it's like almost like did we maybe miss the opportunity to with Titanic. Also this is the year after the extras

appearance where she's like you know do a movie about the Holocaust guaranteed to win an Oscar. When's Winslet going to win one? Yeah. Interesting about the 2006 Oscar race though because that's one that got kind of became academic pretty quickly

I think once those precursors start had started happening and go went like so solidly to miran everybody knew miran was going to win and nobody really i mean nobody really wanted miran to win among the circles that i think you and i were traveling in these sort of like oscar obsessive you know uh message board sort of prediction sites or whatever all of these kind of pre-twitter oscar circles that we were in everybody who at up until that point had been like, up until that year had been like very pro-Mirin in other things. And I think that year, everybody was just like, no. And so everybody kind of divided up, I think, into little camps. And you had the Merrill in Devil Wears Prada people. And you had the Winslet in Little

Children people. I counted myself among the Judy Dench in Notes on a Scandal people. And then there were definitely the Penelope Cruz in Volver people. And no one group, I feel like, had supremacy over the other. And I think it was, in general, a fairly polite year among those people towards each other. Everybody kind of sniped the queen most often. But that's an incredibly strong lineup. And I think the fact that every single one of those nominees had people who were, like, passionate in their corner speaks really well of it. And also speaks to the fact that... Well, and this is why I wanted to bring this race up, because my thought when I was sitting and thinking about it this morning is like we talk so much about the like 2000 race the O2 race where it's like flip a coin on any given day and you could feel any different and I think the same is true for this lineup and it's like Mirren is clearly last place but it's not bad she's not bad like you know it's not Rami Mollick and Bohemian Rhapsody it's just like everybody loved those other performances better yeah well but they're

also interesting performances for each of those actresses, like, careers and different from a lot of their other work. And, like, Judy Dench is the one where you kind of want to stick up for it the most because I think, A, there's, like, the gay audience for that movie that loves it because, like, on a baseline level, that movie is camp trash, but it's also very good. And the fascinating thing about Judy Dench in Notes on a Scandal is up until that point, she had really become this, like, British period piece Oscar magnet, right? For a lot of, sort of like people who are looking at the Oscar nominees and the conversation sort of from the outside. And it's Shakespeare and Love and Iris. And I think it's taken a long time for people to realize that notes on a scandal isn't that. If you didn't see notes on a scandal, if you just saw a trailer or a description of it or just the title,

you would probably assume that it's stuffy British movie. Exactly. And so you sort of chalked it up to yet another stuffy British movie. that Judy Dench is in. And then this is why I think it's the easiest thing in the world to tell who's actually seen notes on a scandal. Because if you've actually seen it, you know how absolutely bonkers it is and how off the chain she is.

And good, though. Yes. Oh, yeah. But it's also, it's like nothing else she has in her career at that performance. But like, and maybe this is a little, like, gay echo chamber. But that movie is becoming a cult classic. And maybe it's a queer cult classic.

But like. That's what we're here for. That is what we're here for to create cult classics. Yeah, no, totally. And then with, like, Penelope Cruz, she had been, like, Volver was kind of her comeback in terms of, after she had sort of... Talk about somebody that people were very mean to. Her career in the early 2000s fizzled because she was sort of foisted upon the American public a little bit, and it didn't really work in the movies she was in. And so, I think kind of very appropriately, she ends up getting back.

into the conversation when the Oscars start to become more friendly towards performances in foreign language movies, and she's, like, back with Almotivar again. So that was... In the race this year, I hope that she actually gets nominated. It's my favorite performance of the year. What do you think, though? Do you think she's... I'm really worried she's gonna be, like, sixth place. Seriously, dude, like, the amount of Oscar races that I'm like, somebody could just as easily like win is not get nominated are crazy this year and I love it and I think people are like pulling their hair out in a way that like makes it seem like they hate it and I'm like no guys this is good this is fun we're gonna be frustrated yeah like good stuff will also happen but like

I really want everything so unpredictable she deserves to win it's her best performance of her career it's a performance that made me realize like she's one of our greatest living and like never gets any credit for it plus like I don't know if I would say so never gets any credit for it. Like, she's won an Oscar. I don't think she's talked about in that way. Okay, but like she's an Oscar winning actress. You know what I mean?

I don't think she doesn't give any credit. Sure, but like, I don't know. I think it would also be rewarding, and I think there's a narrative right there to, like, reward her for the partnership that she has had over her career with Pedro Almodovar, giving her best performance in, like, what I think is one of the top tier of his movies. But, like, they could have also done it for Warfare. Yeah. Best actress this year is crazy.

I genuinely don't know who I could picture winning. I don't know who the frontrunner is. I think a lot of days I would pick Winslet, but like, I think if Merrill had won for the devil wears Prada. Oh, you're talking about 06. I was like, wait a second. What's happening now? Oh, this current year. No, we can keep talking about this current year.

No, we don't necessarily have to. I'm just saying that, like, there's, at this point. I think people are, like, thinking that Kristen Stewart is a given, and I think that is at this stage, naive, given what that movie is. I do, too, but unless somebody becomes a real threat to her, I think it should just, like, I think people could just fall into it. Yeah. But, I don't know.

It would be interesting, and maybe we'll have some questions on it, on our mailbag episode. But, yeah, no, let's dip back into 06, because, you know. We should have. We could have saved ourselves so much if Meryl had won for the Devil Wars product. I know. That's the thing. That's the great what if. It feels like it felt like the nomination was the win in a weird way, even though you're

talking about Meryl because, like, most of the year. It was so outside of Oscar genre. Yes. I think the fact that she ended up getting the nomination was initially people thought that it could be run in supporting. Well, like if Anne. And Hathaway had gotten the kind of credit she deserved at that stage of her career, which she wasn't at that point. Maybe they would have, because they would have at least tried to campaign Anne Hathaway and lead.

I like the way it shook out because this way we at least got that Emily Blunt Golden Globe nomination, which was so richly deserved. And I think Critics Choice was she nominated at Critics Choice? Maybe. I don't know. Critics Choice is, you know, chasing that Oscar Dragon, so who knows. But, like, Merrill's third Oscar could have been for one of her best performances and not her worst or one of her worst. You know, maybe she doesn't get nominated for something like Into the Woods where who needs that? Well, you say that, but Into the Woods happened after her third Oscar also.

Well, I suppose that's true. This is a good year. Yes. Flip a coin on any given day, and I will give you a different answer on who I would vote for. I've stuck with Judy pretty steadfast. Fastly, but I also would have happily cast a vote for Merrill that year, knowing that, like, if it was more of a competition, I guess. Like, again, Mirren was winning that thing no matter what, but it did feel like Streep was

in many ways running second place. Kate Winslet in a Todd Field movie, and next year, I, listen, I'm still hedging my bets that, like, I am being punked, but... Wait, talk to the listeners about this. new Todd Field movie because I don't know if they know about it. It is about, it stars Kate Blanchett as a, it's a real-life figure. She was a conductor, I believe. The movie is called Tar.

That is the last name of the woman that she plays. Todd Field, for the past 15 years, has had so many announced projects. Yes. Many of them, which have been interesting and, like, have been ready to go and then fall apart. Todd Field, from his first two features, did not amass a great reputation. And of course, there's like a rumor mill. Not that he's like a bad person, but maybe an ego monster. Well, one of the interesting things about Todd Field and his ego was it did allow him to, from everything that I have read, kind of stand up to the Miramax machine a little bit for in the bed.

And it really let him kind of stick to his guns on in the bedroom a little bit more and ultimately to all of our benefit with that movie. But I imagine that, yeah, that would probably take a personality who has a healthy dose of ego to be able to do that for their debut film. So, yeah, in the bedroom and little children are his two movies. We've been waiting fervently since little children for him to make another movie. and seems like we're getting one? It's listed as filming. It's done filming. Oh, it's done filming now.

Yeah, it's listed on... Apparently, it's done. Okay. Blanchett stays busy. Kate Blanchett, because you did initially say Kate Winslet, so I want to... Oh, I apologize. You know, I just talk faster than I... Or I think faster than I talk, you know.

Apologies for that. Next year's going to be interesting, though, because, like, Todd Field, Cronenberg, there's a lot of people coming back that we haven't seen in a while I'm gonna probably go crazy we're getting to that point now it's early December we're getting to the point where I'm going to have to start compiling

my spreadsheet for 2022 which is always an exciting time for me so we'll see we'll see how that all goes all right anything else we want to talk about with I'm bringing up my little notes about the holiday

oh you wanted to talk about the stinkers right Yeah, so we'll get there. First, we should mention probably the weakest MTV Movie Award best kiss lineup. The holiday was nominated for Cameron Diaz and Jude Law for their chaste kissing. The winner is Will Ferrell and Sasha Baron Cohen for Talladega Nights because isn't it so funny when men kiss? Funny men kiss. If I had told you what these movies were, or if I had made you guess, it would have been the most diabolical thing we would have been here for hours. The other nominees are Invincible Little Man and Stomp the Yard.

Wait, Invincible, the Mark Wahlberg Football Movie? Yes. Who is he even kissing in that movie? Elizabeth Banks. Sure. All movies known for their passionate romances. Little Man about the Little Basketball Man? Little Man as in the Wayans Brothers movie.

Right. Doesn't you play basketball? Where one of them, I think, plays a baby. Yeah. I don't think it's a basketball movie. Oh, okay. I'm probably mixing it up with something. I think you're thinking of the bow-wow movie.

I think you're right. I think you're right. Okay. And then Stop the Yard, which is Columbus Short, I want to say. I believe. But, like, that's a dancing movie, so you can understand that there would be a romance. Sure. Yes.

But... Yeah, that's a thin lineup. What else in 06 would we have put in there? I mean, little children. Not like the MTV set was there, but, like, it's a hot movie. Give me one half a second to bring up the list of movies in 2006 Because I want to help them to...

Little children is epic cinema for like upper butt on a man Like Patrick Wilson No man has ever been sexualized By another heterosexual man Like Todd Field sexualizes Patrick Wilson You're not wrong In Little Children

The like the most cinematic part On a man's body Is the lower back upper butt region I just want a clip of you saying upper butt to just deploy whenever I want it. It's a fun phrase. You get that section and apparently more, but I wasn't paying attention probably because I was writing Bradley Cooper upper butt. Yeah, Nightmare Alley, you get his upper butt. In Nightmare Alley.

But like, you do get Bradley Cooper's upper butt, and apparently his dick... It's underwater, and I would be very surprised if it was his actual dick, but... Screenshots will be out there, and it's probably CGI. There's been a lot of sort of dick... discussion in the Oscar conversation this year, and I have a feeling that almost everything that we're seeing penis-wise in film is probably a prosthetic this year, I'm just going to say. You think that Benedict Cumberbatch, which I've seen that movie multiple times, and I still can't see it.

It's very, that is... Simon Rex isn't, listen, you are well-educated enough to know. Yeah. Simon Rex is the real deal. I don't know. Simon Rex is the only one that actually cuts to a shot of his penis. It looks really, it looks really long in Red Rocket. I don't know.

I've, again, I've seen Simon Rex at work, but I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm not sold. We'll see. I don't know. He has like 0% body fat. 2006 really is kind of kiss light. Like, I'm not seeing a whole ton.

Well, I mean, also, though. There was no centrifugal motion. You're not. There was no perpetual bliss. You can't tell me that there wasn't a kiss and step up between Channing Tatum and Jenna Duon that wasn't worthy of a nomination there. Like, come on. Come on. That was worthy.

What else is happening in 2006? I mean, obviously the Wicker Man. No, what else? There's a whole movie called The Last Kiss. It's not a good movie, but, you know, if you're going to nominate- Justin to Barrett Cinema. Classic Justinda Barrett Cinema. also good upper butt in that movie for Eric Christian Olson.

I'm just going to say that's another thing that I'm going to program when I opened up my own movie theater is a month of upper butt cinema. Yeah, we'll have little children, we'll have Nightmare Alley, we'll have... Oh, there's plenty. Probably Brad Pitt and Thelman Louise, probably. Probably, almost certainly. Conceivable. Yeah, yeah.

Conceivable upper butt. That's a genre. I mean, probably Magic Mike. But, like, in fairness, our cinema is going to be playing Magic Mike and XXL, you know. Constantly. Perpetuity. Right. We'll have one theater that just plays those two movies off and off and off the entire year.

Also, I imagine there's a kiss in Casino Royale. It's a Bond movie. Like, Daniel Craig and Ava Green, like, that... It could also be the thing of, like... But, well, I guess Casino Royale would have fallen wherever the holiday did. But, like, MTV Movie Awards were always in the summer. That's right. It cuts the year and half.

You never know. You never know. Okay. But, like, who's even remembering Invincible a month after it opens besides, like, someone's dad? Mark Wahlberg's dad, yeah. Oh, Mark Wahlberg, yeah. Yeah. All right.

Well, let's, I want to, I'm very curious what you want to say about the Stinkers. Okay, so the Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, I have no idea where this group originated. The Wannabe Razzis. Where they're doing actual fun things to dump on movies, and they're not just like, Hating Kim Kardashian. I'm all for it. They did, in this year, if you can imagine, there were enough Christmas movies

for them to have a worst Christmas film category, where they nominated the holiday. My good friend, I'm going to charge you. I will give you hints to push you along if you can guess their other nominated films and their winner. So this would be 2000 Christmas themes. Or 2006, rather.

Okay. What were the Christmas movies? See if you can name any off the top of your head that are correct, and then I'm going to help you a long film by film. All right. Oh, six. There wasn't any Christmas content in The Fountain. These are all explicitly Christmas movies.

Four Christmases wasn't that year, was it? If it was, it was not nominated. I think it was later. I think it was later. as well. And Christmas with the Cranks, I think, was sooner than that, maybe. Or is it that year? Is it Christmas with the Cranks?

Incorrect. Not Christmas with the Cranks. I think you're right that it's sooner. So I'm going to help you alone. Okay. Okay. One of these is a franchise. Oh.

Very cursed poster. The Santa Claus? Is it a Santa Claus movie? Yes, which one? Three? Santa Claus 3 The Escape Clause With Martin Short as whatever character he's playing

Jack Frost or something like that Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so that's one, three to go? Yes, the next one is a remake. Um, a remake. One of many remakes of this movie. Oh. Or multiple.

Multiple. I think there's... How many are there? I think there might be three at this point, but there's definitely two. Christmas Carol. No. Not a Scrooge, not a Christmas Carol. Think a different type of genre for a Christmas movie.

Oh. Oh. Horror. Is it Black Christmas? It is the Black Christmas remake. I think they've done two remakes of Black Christmas and also one remake of Sorority Row is maybe what you're thinking of. Oh, interesting. This is the one with Mary Elizabeth Winston. Right. The one I have not seen.

I've seen the most recent one, but I've not seen that Black Christmas. Black Christmas, the original, is one of the great horror movies I've ever seen. Oh, my God. Truly one of the most terrifying things I've ever seen. It's fantastic. Highly recommended. Just like the type of guts in that movie to just like leave you feeling incredibly awful and

watch it at Halloween time, watch it at Christmas time, you have your, you have two annual feelings. Watch it alone because if you want to be scared out of your mind with that movie, watch it alone. A plus plus. Also iconic Andrea Martin cinema, Andrea Martin plays

one of the girls. Obviously Margo Kidder rules in that movie. Yeah. All right. Next movie is not Christmas with the cranks, but feels Christmas with the cranks adjacent. Is it the one with Arnold Schwarzenegger? Jingle All the Way?

Is that what that's called? Jingle All the Way is from the 90s, my dude. Then it's something else. That's what I think of, though, is that genre is like... I'm going to look this up if this was also a... It was a Razzie nominee for supporting actors, supporting actress, and worse excuse for family entertainment. Wow. Oh, wait.

It's not the Schwarzenegger one. I literally thought Schwarzenegger because... I was thinking, I got my twins lines crossed. It's Danny DeVito, right? Yes. It's weird that they both have bad Christmas movies. Named after a Christmas carol song. Yes.

Not Silent Night. Not joy to the world. It might help you along to say that the plot is like dueling neighbors who want to do like Christmas decorations on their house. Right. It's like him and like, is it Matthew Brodering? or someone? It is Matthew Broderick. Deck the Halls. It's Deck the Halls. Deck the Halls. Which like, I'll watch this stupid movie. I have fun with it.

Matthew Roderick is married to Kristen Davis. And she got the worst supporting actress nomination? No. Danny DeVito's co-star who plays his wife, Kristen Chenoweth. Oh, wow. Oh, you know what? Okay, here's why this movie, here's why I was able to come up with that movie in even a little bit of timeliness. This was the movie he was promoting when he showed up on The View, still drunk from the night before,

from drinking lemon cellos with George Clooney. Because he starts to try and describe the plot of this movie, and he just gets absolutely lost in the weeds. We talked about it on the View podcast that I do for Primetime or semi-recently. I should have come up with it. I will try to find the clip, and I will post it to the top. Oh, it's a whole adventure. It's a whole ass adventure. Yeah. Deck the halls. It's a wonderful movie. It's in theaters now, and we are hoping that you all will go see it this weekend. I saw it's funny. It's funny. You guys have funny. You are very funny.

Thank you. With lighting up your house and getting... Yes. Well, I find... Are you like that in your life? Am I... No, well... My kids, I've always decorated, my mother decorated, put the little lights in the windows, and then we had the tree, and then you get a little lights left over, you put them around the banister,

and then you go outside, you put a few. Yeah. And then you keep putting... And every year you had a few lights. Somebody would bring lights over and they would get little... It would sprawl a little bit. But this character in Decta Halls, he is, his two daughters see that he cannot see. His house is the only one on the block. He can't see from space.

You know how you can look at the things? Yeah, Google Earth. That's right. Yeah. And he sees the neighbor's house. Matthew Broderick. Yeah. It's all like really nice and white and this and that.

My house looks like it's like, you know, ugly. Yeah. So I get an idea to put, and it's Christmas time, you know, holiday season, I get the idea to put the lights on, and I put every available light from the town, from the next town, from the next town. I find horses. I put them in front of the house. Yeah, I don't think it's all everybody. Yeah. All right, one more.

One more. I saved the winner for last. I was worried when you, that I would spoil the quiz because when you brought up the box office of the holiday, this movie also opened the weekend of Bling, bang, and the holiday. But was not obviously in the top ten. It was in the top ten. Oh, it was? It was like eight. Oh, six.

Oh, God, is it the Nativity story? No, that didn't make any money. Was that 06? That was later. That was later. Okay. Because that 06 would only be three years removed from whale rider. She was still incredibly young.

That was the whole thing. It was like she played... She was 16. Right. So it would have been around that time. Well, whatever. It's not the right answer. Okay.

No. I can't really help you out with this cast because... Uh, let me just give you some names. Wilmer Volderrama... Unaccompanied minors. Unaccompanied minors. There you go. Totally forgot about that movie.

That movie, like, yeah, it made some money, I feel like. But, yeah, people hated it. No, it didn't make a ton of money. Never mind. Also starring rest in peace, Jessica Walter. Oh. Paul Feig, right? Yes.

A Paul Feig movie. The worst Paul Feig movie. Yeah, that's too bad. Wow. All right. All right, stinkers. You got me on that one. Any last note.

on the holiday before we move into the IMDB game. I mean, I do cherish Cameron Diaz's house and business, and then she ends up with Jude Law at the end, too. So, like, really, she's of... If you're picking, like, top five movie characters,

you would like to actually step into their lives, like, she's not a bad one, honestly. She's doing all right. I mean, as far as, like, Nancy Myers' aspirational lifestyle movies, this feels like... Oh, that's what I wanted to say. The pinnacle of that. I did want to say, like, yes, sorry, finish your thought.

It's all jobs that, like, sound cool and sound like they pay you a lot of money, even if they are not and do not. But, like, you don't actually ever know what actually goes into that type of work. It's book editor, lifestyle journalist, film composer. I make movie trailers No, it's very, she's giving, it's a fantasy And I appreciate her for that I think one of the things I do too I was gonna say though Nancy Myers gets a lot of shit

For like essentially making like kitchen cinema Right and You know all the stuff about You know the wealth of her characters And the whole it's complicated kitchen renovations And yada yada I think the thing that people sort of miss in that conversation is Nancy Myers has a really good understanding of the way that where you are like the setting can contribute to character and can contribute to the story so much I think the holiday so much of the holiday is this idea that like just put me in a whole other milieu, right?

Put me in a whole other setting and let me... Get me entirely out of my own life. Right. Get me out of my life. And how much where you are and where you're hanging your hat at the moment means to that. About, like, it's as, you know, as somebody of needed to find a new apartment this fall experience, um, it's, it contributes a lot to your psyche and your sense of well-being and everything like that. As someone who has spent the pandemic living in a studio with their spouse.

Right, exactly. Yes. Correct. Exactly. Relatable. I think there's another way to look at Nancy Myers rather than just sort of this like parade of kitchen excess or whatever. It's she understands that, and again, she's coming from her own perspective, who's lived

a certain life. And also like her mom was an interior. decorator, which is the thing that I learned when I was looking her up today. And like, I'm sure that has a lot to do with it too, but just like this idea of making your home in a way that will sort of enhance your mood or contribute to your, you know, sense of self, it, this movie gets to that in a way that I think is, you know, worth mentioning. Jude Law plays a human scarf. This is a movie that thinks Jack Black. isn't hot and he is and that's one of my problems with it I don't all right I do like when

Kate Winslet throws her arms in the air in triumph in any movie I don't think this movie doesn't think Jack Black is hot I don't I think it this movie intentionally wants us to think that he's a schlub and I'm like but Jack Black's hot but there's no point in which Kate Winslet is like oh I've never considered him as a romantic partner because of the way he looks or anything like. Their chemistry is weird. It's a weird chemistry, but I don't think that the movie as conceived ever rules him out as a romantic interest. Like, he's a romantic interest to her right from the beginning. Yes, yes, yes. All right. Anyway, I'm surprised we disagree as much about this movie as we do. When we both still kind of like it. No, but I think for us both

Our thoughts are all adjacent to each other. Sure. Well, perpendicular at times. But anyway, yes. Anyway, should we move on to the IMDB game? And would you like to explain that to our lovely listeners? Oh, right, I should do that this week. All right, every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with an 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, voice-only performances, or non-acting credits,

we mention 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. That is the IMDB game. Would you like to give her guess first? Why don't I guess first? All right, cool. So we talked about the Stinkers Bad Movie Awards,

and we talked about the motion picture, deck the halls, which stars none other than Matthew Broderick. For you, I have chosen Matthew Broderick. Okay, this is good. Well, obviously, Ferris Bueller's Day Off is one of them. Correct. Could you imagine? I could not.

I'm going to hope that election is one of them. correct all right now where do we go all right i have a feeling it's going to be like one older one and one newer one and i really hope one of them's not like inspector gadget or something um i'm going to guess war games joe you have a trend of getting the first three correct with no wrong guesses you have one and you have not gotten a perfect score you maybe it's my fault for constantly bringing this to your attention. Yeah, you tend to do that. But as a Christmas miracle, I would like you to get this correctly.

All right. I'm just going to. No pressure. Thank you. Or to get this correct. I'm famously not good at talking. There's one. Good thing I host a podcast.

I feel like there's one sort of like modern adult Broderick movie. oh wait big pressure is it the producers is that your guess yes congratulations yes yes yes yes yes all right

Christmas is real Santa is real I knew there was something that was modern that was big for him that like okay yes exactly Santa is going to climb down the chimney and bring you a

a producer's DVD. Oh, thank you. Thank you with a question mark, Santa. Okay. We should do that. We got to do that movie at some point. I know. It's just we're going to run out of musicals.

I know, but ultimately, like, we got to pull the trigger on it. All right. Anyway, Chris, I, for Christmas, am going to give you a little bit of a choice. I have two options, one of which is slightly too easy and one of which is slightly too hard. Is it Denise Richards because she plays Christmas whatever in the James Bond movie? No, it's not. Which one, though? Would you like slightly too easy or slightly too hard?

I mean, you got a perfect score, so let's go slightly too hard. Okay, slightly too hard. Let's make it interesting today. And then if, you know, when we're done, I want to give you a slightly too easy one anyway. We'll maybe do that. But anyway, because this is our Christmas episode, I wanted to do something related to a Christmas movie. and the one I watched last weekend that I thought was perfectly good for what I wanted it to be, was the Netflix Christmas movie single All the Way,

starring my beloved Michael Yuri, that also starred, among some other people, one of an actress who was like having a year of it, and we love to see it, and that is Ms. Jennifer Coolidge. And so Jennifer Coolidge has a known for where one is a voice performance, and there are no television shows. No television show. That's not a surprise.

White Lotus is too new. Yeah. And it's like only one season so far. Yeah. Ooh, the voice performance is what's going to throw me off. I will say there are two of these that I expect you will probably get, and two of these I don't expect you to get. Right. One of them is legally blonde.

Surprisingly, no. Oh, my God. Right. Right. Are you kidding me? I'm not kidding you. This is going to... I should have known that Legally Blonde wouldn't be on there if it's slightly too hard.

Yeah. It's the other one American Pie. Yes. American Pie is one of them. Um... Nobody remembers her as Stifler's mom? Yeah, they do. Just not us.

Straight people. Straight men. Who cares what they think? Yeah, well, they exist. Ugh. Apologies to any straight mail listeners that I've offended. I feel like if you're straight and male and you listen to this podcast, you probably don't care about the American Buy movies,

so I probably didn't offend you, but I apologize. Christmas is about forgiveness. Famously, Christmas is about forgiveness. Specifically to me, forgiving me. Yeah, Christmas is about forgiving Chris File, so yes. Yep. For whatever. Best in Show.

No. Oh, my God. All right. So your years are going to be 2003, 2003, 2004, and 2005. 2003 is a mighty wind. Yes. So, yeah, it was either going to be best in show or a mighty wind. Obviously, thank God for a mighty wind, because without a mighty wind,

we wouldn't have the idea for the big wind. Yes. Yeah. Her greatest line in any movie. It wasn't for the mighty wind. We wouldn't have thought of the light wind. Yeah. We got to put that clip in at some point in this podcast.

I don't think we've done it yet, the, the, the, the, the, the funniest line, the favorite, the funniest line, the most I've ever laughed. It's the most I've ever laughed in a movie ever, was seeing, was seeing a mighty wind in the theater and the big trains line. I, I missed the next five minutes of that movie, just like laughing so hard. I'm a model train enthusiast. Oh, that's great. Yeah, so the whole layout in my basement It's very much a big passion for me

Yeah Thank God for model trains Oh, absolutely If they didn't have the model train They wouldn't have gotten the idea for the big trains Well, and then when Bob Balaban has a thing like Everybody in the room hum for dad

Yeah, and she's humming with her mouth open, she's like open mouth breathing It's great She's so great Oh my God All right. Anyway, so you have two of four. So, all right. We work very well together. Sometimes it's like there is one brain between us.

All right. Spectacular. Okay, what were my years again? 04 and 05, one of which is an animated movie. Your non-animated movie stars someone who was sort of transitioning out of TV at the time. Um, it is, uh, a movie, not like a friend. No, um, more cable than that and more, uh, young than that. Oh, like a Disney channel star, Hillary Duff, a Cinderella story.

There you go, a Cinderella story, which I've never seen, but apparently she's in. Which year was those? That was 04. That was 04. So 05 is the animated one. Uh-huh. An animated movie I have never seen. I'm trying to look at the poster to see what studio it came from. Oh, I think it's Fox. Oh, boy. Is it an Ice Age movie?

It is not. But it says it's from the creators of Ice Age. Is it robots? Yes. How do you remember robots? Because that was like the other non-Ice Age movie from the Ice Age. You could have given me a hundred years, and I would have never come up with robots as a movie.

I've never seen robots either. I just know it as an entity. Jennifer Coolidge voices a character named Aunt Fanny in robots. So there is that. Yes. Gay people, do what you got to do. Other actors. This cannot stand.

This is a Christmas nightmare. This is like, this is the family strata all over ourselves on the floor. This is a catastrophe. Jennifer Coolidge is known for cannot stand. The robot's voice cast includes U.N. McGregor. Hallie Berry. He was the headliner. Hallie Berry.

Yeah, Reuben Greger as Rodney Copperbottom. Okay. Hallie Barry, Mel Brooks, Robin Williams, Paula Abdul, Jim Broadbent, Terry Bradshaw, Amanda Binds, Drew Carey, Dan Hadea, Paul Gianmati, and, of course, the great Jennifer Koolis. This is the, this is like the era when studios had to discover, you know, nobody shows up to an animated movie just because there's famous voice people. Like, you've got to have good voice people. Even so, that's not going to draw an audience. No, that has a lot of good voice people. I think you're right.

Mel Brooks and Paul Giamatti, Dan Hadea, those are good voices. Robin Williams, obviously. Yeah. Maybe not you and McGregor, but whatever. He can't have everything. You did better at that than I thought you would, so I'm going to save the two easy. one for maybe another day. Thank you.

I think I've earned it. Yes, I think so too. All right. Well done. Fantastic. Joe. Merry Christmas, buddy. Merry Christmas.

I know. I know. Here's to seeing each other in 2022. Yeah. Here's to not hitting three years of not seeing each other. If our podcast is basically as long as the time that it's been since we've seen each other, I'm going to. Well, I guess that's always. But you know what I'm trying to say.

I do know what I'm trying to say. Again, I am not good at speaking. And that's our episode. Merry Christmas. If you guys celebrate, thanks so much for sticking with us. If you want more of This Had Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz.com. You should also follow us on Twitter. It had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz. We'll be back next week with our mailbag episode.

Joe, tell our lovely listeners where they can find you. Sure. I'm on Twitter at Joe Reed, Reed spelled R-E-I-D. I am on letterboxed as Joe Reed, read spelled the same way. I am also on Twitter and Letterbox at Crispy File, that's F-E-I-L. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Mebius for their technical guidance. Please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, wherever else you get those podcasts. Five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcast visibility, so hum us your favorite film scores in the form of a nice review.

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