This Had Oscar Buzz - 181 – Leatherheads

Episode Date: February 7, 2022

This week, we are once again returning to the diminishing returns of George Clooney’s directorial career with 2008′s Leatherheads. The directing follow-up to his Oscar-nominated Good Night and Good Luck, this lighthearted film about the early days of American pro football stars Clooney as a player opposite Renée Zellweger as a journalist trying to break the story of … Continue reading "181 – Leatherheads"

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. Let me hear of Carter Rutherford, the bullet. We're a hero football boy?

They've got a completely different style, Carter. How are you going to adjust to them? Maybe they'll just kind of adjust to me. So you're a sports writer. Why not? Hey, what's a girl doing in the crest box? Certain jobs are always going to be done like that. Big strapping men?

Now, two of football's biggest stars will find themselves competing. The real story is the matchup between the bullet and teammate Dodge Connolly. Over the one woman. You're the kind of cocktail that comes on like, sugar if it gives you a kick in the head. Who can throw them for a loss? Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that never liked Sean. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once

upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Joe Reed. I'm here, as always, with my fraudulent war hero, Chris File, hello, Chris. I never meant to start a war. Oh, no. Only you would take a war hero reference and bring in Jordan Sparks immediately. I really cherish that.

That is Miley Cyrus, but I should have done that. No, it's both of them. Miley Cyrus is I never meant to start a war. You were thinking of Wrecking Ball, and I was thinking of the great Jordan Sparks song Battlefield. The better song between the two, let's be honest. I think they both kind of slap, so I'm here for this. I never meant to start a war duality. It's my default joke.

That's how my smooth brain functions. I am nothing but an auto generator of song lyrics. Fantastic. I think we would have probably a better time for the next 90 minutes or so talking about the finer points of Miley Cyrus and Jordan Sparks than talking about Leatherheads, a movie that I've seen now twice and somehow maybe I've never seen it all. I Okay, so I've been on the train of like

we need to stop taking George Clooney seriously as a director because his most recent movies are just like barely functioning movies and this is not a new thing. Leatherheads is terrible. It's really

bad. It sucks. It does. It does. It It does. I've not seen all of his movies, actually. I'm looking at his filmography, I've still never seen The Monuments Men. We should probably do The Monuments Men at some point. Okay, so the Monuments Men is the one that people dogg on all the time,

and I would argue it's way better than his worst movies. I'm not saying it's a good or great movie. I believe it. I believe it. The one, like, yeah. And then I haven't seen the Tender Bar yet, although I will, probably. before this Oscar season is over just... Extended, flapping fart noise here.

I, my guess is I probably won't dislike it as much as you, but who knows? Who knows what the future holds for me? We'll definitely get into the Clooney of it all, even though it's funny because this is not our first George Clooney directed movie that we've done in this podcast. We did Suburbancon, but there was kind of a whole lot of other stuff going on with Suburban. And I think that movie gave us more to talk about, because we were so dumbfounded at what was happening in the movie itself, I think we'll probably have less to talk about within the movie itself for Leatherheads, because both, I can't imagine you're too

interested in, like, the football aspects of it. And we can talk about the, we can talk about the football stuff, just for you, baby. I mean, but here's the thing. I, as a football guy, Even watching this and I was just like, I kind of don't care about this. Like, this is not actually super interesting. It's because it's re-competing movies. Like, this is not, people going to see this movie to watch a football movie, especially like the early days of professional football and what that was like are going to be completely unsatisfied. Because it's one third a football movie, one third a post-war, like, American ethics culture movie.

And then one-third this kind of, like, his girl Friday type of romantic comedy and none of it ever meshes together none of it's done particularly well It's a simulacrum of sort of all of those kinds of movies where it's sort of more the idea of those movies than anything else

I think is a big sort of problem with it I think also this movie really does kind of illustrate the whole problem with Clooney trying to be the third Cohen brother in with a lot of his movies, and that, and it's not, I think there are some of his movies where that feels more true than others. It feels like that kind of ended with Suburicon, and at least back then, it made sense to me that Clooney, like, seemingly had such a good time making O Brother War Arthur with the Cohen brothers, had such

such a good time making intolerable cruelty with the others, liked that vibe, liked that kind of sort of pastiche thing that they were doing with those movies, and wanted to sort of recreate that with the movies that he was making. And I get wanting to, you know, when you have those kind of resources, when you're George Clooney, when you've got a rubber stamp, yes, from the big studios and whatever, and everybody wants to work with you, I get wanting to just sort of like make a fun movie that everybody will have a good time on. What I understand less is these last couple, Midnight Sky and Tender Bar, and it's just like, okay, well, you're not really doing the Cohen's screwball thing anymore, but like, why these movies? Well, they're both

adaptations, and they were both, you know, produced for streamers. So it's like, Like, they want to work with Clooney, and it's, like, presumably these are just two books that he liked. Yeah. You do get that with people who sort of have the rubber stamp to their career and do have a ton of money and resources. I have no directorial point of view of their own. Like, he'd be better off producing these movies. Exactly. And it's like, you're right about his earlier directorial ones.

I would also throw in Soderberg, and I think it goes back as far as confessions of a dangerous mind in that, like, Yes. He is as a director trying to work within the vein of some of his most successful collaborations. But, yeah. George Clooney, not a director. Yeah, I mean, it's tough to argue. Again, you look at somebody who's made almost like 10 films. How many has he made?

Hold on. Eight, I think, right? Nine. Nine. No, eight, eight. Yes, sorry, I can't count. Yeah, eight movies. This is my math podcast.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Good Night and Good Luck, which is by far his most successful movie, Best Picture nominee, will talk about that because I think that sort of gave leatherheads the bulk of the expectations. I don't think a retro sports movie opening in April would have gotten Oscar Buzz at all, were it not the follow-up to Good Night and Good Luck. after Leatherheads was The Iids of March, which is

the most frustrating movie, I think, on his filmography, because that seemed to have a lot of ingredients to be a good... The closest to greatness. That's the kind of... That's the movie where it feels like he wants to be Sidney Pollock, who was a producer on this movie, by the way. Sidney Pollock, who was a producer on Michael Clayton.

Yeah, yes, exactly. So, again, him sort of trying to take the form of his collaborators. Monuments Men in 2014, which I not seen Suburicon, which was kind of a Cohen brothers cast off from years before, the Midnight Sky in 2020, and then the Tender Bar in 2021. So, yeah, once again, we find ourselves kind of at odds and ends with George Clooney as a filmmaker,

which the thing with Clooney is he's such a natural fit to be a movie star. It felt like the most sort of when he kind of transitioned. off of ER and moved into movies, and we realized that he was such a perfect, sort of like Hollywood leading man, A-lister, which is just like, we found our next one. And he fit into that so well. And then it turned out that he was actually a really good actor when he was in his element, especially. And, you know, Michael Clayton, I thought the movie he's coming off of with Leatherheads is a great example of that, where I still think that's his best. performance, but we were in a very kind of riding high on Clooney.

And then Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, I think, is a really interesting and promising movie. It feels very Soderberg. But there was a lot of promise in that movie. And then Good Night and Good Luck is the follow-up, which is, I think maybe in retrospect, we look back at that, and maybe it wouldn't be all it's cracked up to be. I've not gone back and watched that since then. Yeah, we've most recently said, I forget what episode. that we were like, we want to go back and watch that movie because I remember so little of the substance of that movie.

I just remember the vibe. And I remember it being like really caught up in like anti-George W. Bush's sentiment post-in 11. So it's like those of us who were politically aligned with the movie definitely rallied behind it. And how much does it benefit? It made it better. But it was probably a movie that's a product of its time.

Yeah. And probably benefited quite a bit from David Stratharine's lead performance, which was really good. But I still, my memories of that being, I was pretty impressed by that. And I think in general, there was this sense of just like, and he can direct, which he's kind of the last big, excuse me, he's kind of the last big American movie star to do that like, but what I really want to do is direct, which was such a, almost like a punchline in the early 90s, in the 80s and early 90s where you had people like, Robert Redford and Kevin Costner sort of transitioning Mel Gibson, transitioning into directing. And in this generation, you've got Clooney did it, Affleck did it, although Affleck almost feels like he did it as a last resort because his movie, his acting career, had hit the skids, but like DiCaprio not doing it, Damon, not doing it, you know what I mean? This sort of like this, it felt like the newer generation of movie stars were.

not really moving into that area. But anyway, it felt like with Good Night and Good Luck, we had all sort of decided that, like, Clooney, he's the classic, he's your Redford, right? He's the new generation Robert Redford. He can act. He can direct. He's a, you know, matinee idol and all this sort of stuff. And then I think it took us a long, long time through subsequent leatherheads, Eyes of March, Monuments Men, Suburban. I think it wasn't until Suburbanon. Maybe we talked about this in that episode, where people were like, oh, maybe Clooney's bad at directing. Like, maybe could that be? Could somebody so handsome and charismatic and charming and such a great movie star be bad at directing?

That doesn't seem possible. And it is possible. It happened, unfortunately. I don't like, I don't like piling on in this way, but, like, it does feel like there's a bucket of cold water somewhere that, that needs to be tossed. I mean, I think the reason that we keep, like, for lack of a better word or phrase, falling for it,

is that so much of the problem of what he's drawn to as a director is just, like, not the right, not the right material or not good material. Because, like, Suburicon was the script that had been sitting around for, what, 20 years? Same is true of leatherheads.

Right, right. It's just like these, I don't know None of them have Like maybe the freshness of like Good Night and Good Luck had You know the kind of precision It's like some of these things

There's a reason why they sat around And I don't know Leatherheads though He did apparently quite a bit To revamp the script that existed But didn't get a screenwriting credit And apparently almost left the writer's guilt Because of it

Right So the original script for Leverner Other Heads was written a decade or more before by Duncan Brantley and Rick Riley, which if you are a sportsy person at all, Rick Riley was the back-page columnist for Sports Illustrated for a very long time, and then moved to ESPN and had a very, kind of a corny shtick. He was, there was a lot of sentimentality in his stuff, but it was also like loaded with these like dad jokes and and he was sort of uh i guess riding the edge of smarmy but more it was more corny more sort of you know i don't know folksy in a in a kind of way

in a way that like when you know the era of deadspin sort of arose with online sports writing culture he was kind of the antithesis of all of that where he was like you know just really glossy and falling back on these like really sort of like tired and traditional old cliches about sports writing and never felt like it had any teeth and it all felt you know just kind of dumb and lame and so when I saw that his he was the co-writer on the script that initiated this a you look at leatherheads and you're just like well obviously Clooney massively rewrote this because like there's not for all of this movie's fault so this movie is not overly sentimental or corny or in that sort of Rick Riley.

Well, but I, not in the same way. Like if you know this writer, you know that like it's, it's in a different kind of way. It's not that sort of the Rick Riley cheese to it. So the Clooney fingerprints on this one feel pretty apparent. And also Paul Atanasio. Especially in a screwball. Yeah, Paula Atonacio, who was a screenwriter for, I want to say, Quiz show and definitely Donnie Brasco and homicide on television did another uncredited rewrite before Clooney even got there.

So there was a lot of layers before we got to the finished product of this. And again, it feels like it feels worked over to the point where it's unrecognizable as anything genuine. It's so much a product of the influences that Clooney wants to put on it. The sort of like screwball, Howard Hawks kind of a thing. You mentioned his girl Friday. I think that's a big thing. I think there's also, again, I bring up the Coen's. Like, there's a lot of Hudsucker proxy, which was in itself an homage to older

screwball stuff. So it just feels like layers on layers. And it felt like Clooney wanted to do sort of. of his hud-sucker proxy crossed with his a league of their own, and there's nothing particularly unique about it. There's nothing particularly new and different or, I don't know, like genuine about it. It all feels like it's tracing on top of another drawing. Yeah, yeah. Like, you almost wish that it was kind of a boring straight. forward sports movie that would normally come out in April and like lobbed off one of the three

movies that it's trying to be. I think the portion that it's most successful at is probably the post-war stuff, but even that is like, you know exactly where it's going because, and maybe we should get into the plot description, but like John Krasinski is this football player who is also considered a war hero, but it's all based on this lie and yada, yada. I feel like, He's at least well-cast in this movie in that he's this, he's supposed to play this, like, golden boy who has some tarnish on him, and you end up wanting to root against him in all his sort of golden-boyishness. And just, like, yeah, that would have worked if everything else had been sharper.

I think there's also... Or that would have been, like, the main story, you know? Right. Because, like, it is the, like, emotional climax of the movie, like, where, you know, thematically, the movie's coming together. And then you still have a whole half hour after that about this football game that we really don't care about. Yeah. No, not at all. And it seems so tacked on at the end.

It's just, like, by the time you get past the part where the war fraud is resolved, where, you know, Zellweger's character has written this expose, revealing his war heroism as fabricated, and this all gets resolved in a very kind of screwball comedy way. Clooney, you know, pulls a fast one and gets him to admit what's going on. And then it's just like, oh, and now all of a sudden there's a whole 20-minute thing where the stakes are this football game, and we're supposed to care that, like, football has reached an impasse where now they have codified it into rules, and it is no longer the innocent game of hijinks that it used to be. And it's just like, have we been meant to care about this the whole time? Because that's kind of crazy. And, and, yeah. I also don't buy for

a second that Clooney gives a shit about football. No. Clooney probably cares less about football than I do. Right. No. By the way this movie seems, because it's like, there's no sense of competition, and I'm at least a competitive person. There's no sense of like history for the sport, so why are we looking back on it in this like early day time period? Yeah. No, it's again, it all feels like a simulation. It all feels like an approximation of something that someone else would have done more genuinely. All right, let's jump into the plot description though because we've gone along enough. Well, the plot description will be repeating ourselves a little bit at this point. Yeah, at this point. Yeah. All right. So we are talking about the 2008 movie

Leatherheads, directed by George Clooney, written by Rick Riley and Duncan Brantley, with uncredited rewrites by Paul Atonacio and later George Clooney, starring George Clooney, Renee Zellweger, John Krasinski, Jonathan Price, Stephen Root shows up there to really sort of nail home the Cohen brothersiness of it. I thought Max Cassella is there at some point. Peter Garrity plays the Commissioner of Football. It premiered on April 4th, 2008, and performed midlingly, I think, sort of critically and commercially, maybe commercially even less than middlingly. If I made you guess.

On a real nondescript weekend. Like Easter or something. If I made you guess the movies that it was behind at the box. office, you would never get them, but it was 21 and NIMS Island. I'm going to make you close that tab right now. Okay. Because reasons that will come up later. Do I even remember what NIMS Island is?

I feel like I remember, the only thing I know is that I feel like Jody Foster was involved in it in some way. Yeah. She didn't direct it. No. But she was in it, in like a supporting role, I think. I genuinely don't know whether that's a live action or anything. animated movie. Like, I genuinely have no idea. It's live action.

Um, anyway, close that tab. All right. So, Chris, I got to put 60 seconds on the clock for you. And then I'm going to ask you, one minute, zero seconds. The plot of leatherheads, can you manage to fit in three movies worth of a thinly plotted story into one minute? We'll see. Your time starts now. All right. In Leatherheads, we're following three main characters, first of which is Dodge Connolly, played by George Clooney, who is a pro football player. Now, keep in mind, this is post-World War I. There was, yeah, it was Post-World War I.

There, this is before, like, pro football is a cool thing. He might as well be a traveling circus performer for how low rent this is. Then we're also following Lexie Littleton, played by Renee Zelliger, who is a journalist in Chicago. She is supposed to follow our other third character, who's played by John Krasinski. He is a college football player. He's like a big star, but he was also a war hero. So she's going, because there's a tip that he is not actually a war hero, it's all a lie.

Anyway, yes, that's true. He is not a war hero. She writes a story about it. Meanwhile, there's a big controversy about it, and Carter eventually confesses that he is not a war hero, but there's a whole love story between Dodge and Lexi and then there's a... And that's time.

Sorry, now I got to... It's just basically like, here's these characters, each of which belongs to a different movie, and then we're going to mash them together. Yes. You have Jonathan Price in there, like schmoozing, trying to keep the story,

being a publicist, etc. Jonathan Price. the actual villain because he's like a publicist, a leech hanger on guy. Here's the other thing is Krasinski's story as a war hero is turned out to be overblown and not genuine, but it's also like not villainy, right? Yeah, like he's basically let off the hook. It's like the story got away from him and he just kind of went with it. He didn't have any like intent to be like,

getting himself more famous, but along the way he's getting, like, cigarette ad deals. But it's one of those things where it's just like, this is sort of how legends are spun. This is how, you know, real, complicated, not cinematic kind of stories from war get spun into these very cleanly heroic kind of things. And it's like, as a movie viewer, you're watching. this. And I guess I'm supposed to sort of boo and hiss at this guy for being the bad guy, but it's just sort of like, eh, like, he's not

the bad guy here. Like, the, the way humanity sort of tells stories is kind of the bad guy here. And, I mean, all of the blame gets placed on Jonathan Price and, like, John Kaczynski gets to get off easy. But I don't think he's...

The good guy who never intended to do anything. But I think that is the case, and I think it's a... I guess what I'm saying, is I don't feel strongly about seeing him get his comeuppance because why, why does he really, does he really need to get that much comeuppance? Because he got a cigarette ad, you know what I mean? Like, what do I care? Like, I kind of don't care. And I think I'm supposed to feel more strong. I'm supposed to feel a pull towards Clooney. And there's a way to do a love triangle where the third guy isn't that bad of a guy. But then you have to invest in his character. And the movie doesn't do that either.

That's that much of a triangle, though. It's trying to do the, it's trying to do the Bull Durham thing. And it just makes me wish I was watching Bull Durham, too. You know what I mean? Where it's like Clooney's the older guy. And time between Zellweger and Krasinski. Like, the whole screwball stuff comes in with Clooney and Zellweger, like, trying to get out of the speakeasy and, like, going into a closet and putting on cop uniforms so that they can escape. And, like.

And that felt very strenuous. It felt so labored. It's the worst element of the three movies that this movie is. Yeah. That is the worst one. I can't believe that I'm like the worst part of this movie is watching George Clooney and Renee Zellweger fall in love. Because first of all... Try to do a screwball comedy.

And it's so like, it feels so perfunctory when they first sort of like meet and catch each other's eye. Whereas like, I don't feel it. I know I'm supposed to. I know this is what we're supposed to get to. The movie sort of takes it as a given right away that these two have this, like, fabulous chemistry as characters and, you know, this sort of, like, repartee and whatnot. And it all feels very perfunctory and very kind of, you've assumed that you sold me. It's another thing about screwball, too, is if you can't do it right and you can't do it well, it also comes across as try hard. And, like, if you're trying hard to get that comic tone, it's just going to make it less funny.

And yet, I don't think Renee is going over the top with it. I don't think she quite knows what the movie needs from her. And I think she's trying not to embarrass herself in this. But as a result, it just feels kind of reined in and half speed a lot of the time. And it doesn't work. I think good for her for not like hanging herself out to dry for this movie. that was not going to be a success, but she's also, I'm not, I'm not living. I'm not living for Renee in this movie, and it's too bad. Well, it's too bad because this is like when she

stops being in movies, right? In a couple years, yeah, within the next couple years, yeah. It's, of course, during the Judy run, we've heard a lot of her stories about, like, what she was going through at that time and, like, becoming disillusioned. And you can kind of see it in this performance, but not in a way that's, like, embarrassing. I think she, I think she does fine, you know. But at the same time, it's not like, you know, we both love Naselle Wigger. Yeah, totally. It's like, she's a comfort to have on screen.

And, like, you don't even get that, like, I'm so happy to be watching Renee Zellwigger. Right. Out of this performance. And again, because I, I, I, I, I'm less well-versed in the sort of screwball comedies of the Howard Hawks era than I am in, you know, more recent Coen Brothershit. Like, I couldn't stop thinking about how much I loved something like Jennifer Jason Lee and Hudd Soccer proxy, where that was the good version of this, where we're going to try and approximate this kind of old style, but also put our foot heavily on the gas and just, like, really. really go over the top with it, and that

risks, that approach risks a lot. And a lot of people actually at the time didn't like HUD soccer proxy. Like that was kind of a it was a stumbling block, I think, for the Cohen brothers in terms of like

widespread success. I think the public was not really ready for what that was doing. And but now you look back at it and it's just like, yeah, that's sort of what you need to do. That's the speed you need to go at to make something like this feel more than just a hand wave towards an old style. Well, and it's also probable that, you know, part of this, because it went through however

many screenwriters, that, you know, it's trying to fit a square peg in a round hole a little bit, and it's like if it maybe had originated as a screwball comment, If that was the intention of the original script, it might have worked a little bit better. But now it's like George Clooney got the idea of, okay, well, we have a love interest. What are we going to do with this love interest? I like screwball comedies of that era. Let's try to make this that, you know? Yeah, it's, it just doesn't work.

I want to talk a little bit about the kind of Oscar expectations on this movie. because as I said, on paper, if you sort of divorce the Clooney aspect of it, there's not really a ton about this that screams Oscar. But at the same time, George Clooney is on a certain level of prestige and an Oscar high. Exactly. That it's like truly anything that he would attach himself to would have gotten consideration in that way. And it's interesting that this movie comes not only a few years after Good Night and Good Luck, where he had kind of established himself as a director to look out for

and a sort of multi-level talent. That Oscars, if you recall, he was nominated as supporting actor for Siriana, director for Good Night and Good Luck, and also producer for Good Night and Good Luck. So he had three nominations. He could have conceivably gone home with as many as three Oscars. He wins supporting actor for Siriana, which is even at the time was sort of widely seen as consolation

prize for not he was never going to win the big prizes for good night and good luck because broke back mountain and eventually crash were so far ahead in that race but so he wins for syriana in a role that i think he's good in that one but i think again like nobody ever really had any illusions that he was winning for the specific performance in syriana there was a little bit of a hand wave towards like well he gained some weight and just like okay I suppose. I suppose that's a good movie. Like, I don't think it's a bad movie at all.

The game's wait and got naked. Yeah. Fine, I guess. But it's mostly just that like we really liked good night and good luck and we would like to give you something. So please accept this gift as a... Who do you think was second place that year? Do we think it was Giamatti for Cinderella, man? Wasn't Giamatti passed over for like SAG or something?

I thought he won SAG. Hold on a second. Let me look this up. maybe you're right it's one i feel like it's one thing or the other um but because this was also the sort of the era where uh that nomination for paul giamati felt like a makeup for the fact that he got passed over for the sideways nomination a few years earlier probably ultimately think regardless of the thing about giamati i think unfortunately matt dillon was probably second place Giamatti did win the sag

He won Oh, okay I mean then maybe not Matt Dillon But Matt Dillon won like Indy Spirit or something Matt Dillon was the one that like stayed throughout the season And like felt like it was picking up momentum as the movie did

Yeah It's kind of surprising and a little bit telling As to where that Oscar ceremony would eventually go That Jake Jillen Hall As a co-lead usually when you're a co-lead in a supporting category, you have such an advantage. He was the only he was the only lead in that

supporting category that year. And yet still, and Brokeback Mountain, which was the assumed favorite to win the Oscar, and yet he never really seemed like a possibility to win. And maybe that was a little bit of a canary in the coal mine there. It's weird that that movie doesn't have an acting

Oscar, which makes me lean towards even though it's a lead performance, whatever. maybe be someone who would have voted for Jake Gyllenhaal, but, like, I also think it's weird that Paul Giamani doesn't have an Oscar slash his only nomination is for Cinderella Man, a movie that is, again, it's another, like, thankless Renee Zelliger role, but for real. A movie that is just not,

Cinderella Man is one of the movies that if, I hate bringing this up, but one of the movies, if we ever did exceptions, Cinderella Man would be interesting to go back. Because remember when... It was an early frontrunner. Yeah. Huh? Yeah.

It was an early frontrunner. Yeah. But it didn't do well at the box office. And even by the end of the summer, I remember like AMC running a promotion for the movie that it's like they were trying to get it back in theaters, trying to get more box office for it because they wanted to make it an Oscar push towards the end of the year. And if it wasn't a success, they knew how hard it would be to bring it back around. But AMC ran a promotion that it's like, go see Cinderella. man, and if you don't like it, you can have a refund. I also feel like I remember that movie being like, you're right, it opened earlier in

the year. It didn't do much of anything. The reviews were muted, and if not necessarily bad, but I remember them being at least muted. And it was a letdown from being a supposed frontrunner, and we all sort of then counted it out. And then as the fall sort of churned on an award season churned on, there felt like there was a very concerted effort to kind of rehabilitate the movie. And I remember, and if I'm, like, I might be getting the actual people wrong, but, like, there were those sort of your usual suspects who feel like, sometimes you get the really heavy sense that, like, somebody's carrying water for a production in a way that feels intentional in a certain way.

And just like, there were those people, I think, were out in full force for Cinderella Man being like, you might not have liked it, you elitist critic. But like, this is a salt to the earth kind of a movie. And it was kind of working because Russell Crow got nominated for the SAG at the same ceremony that Giamatti had won. And I do wonder if, like, that had been a top 10 best picture category. I could have gotten it. I mean, probably you can see it as like a sixth place movie in a lot of categories, too.

Yeah. And I think it's just because even for what it is as this Salt of the Earth movie, it's fine. Yes. I don't, I think it's maybe even a little bit less than fine. It's not bad. I guess it's not bad. But like nobody, you know, when was the last time you heard anybody talk about Cinderella, man? Kind of never.

Wait, so let's do the little intellectual exercise we sometimes do then. 2005 best picture if it was a top 10. We'll remind the listeners that it was Crash, Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Good Night and Good Luck, and Stephen Spielberg's Munich were the five best picture nominees. Five for five in director too. Right. They were all best director nominees as well, so you can't really look for the director outlier. The screenplay outliers there were things like, I think the Constant Gardner probably gets in as like a soft.

you know, eight or nine. Wasn't it nominated by the PGA or something? Constant Gardner did well that season. I think it was,

it would safely be in a top ten. Yeah, I think that's right. Let me look up the PGA really quickly. I would also throw out

Walk the Line probably would be in that 10. I think that's right. All right, let's see. 2005, PGA. No, Walk the Line was the PGA.

GA Outlier there. But I think, so yeah, walk the line, Constant Gardner, I don't think Matchpoint was a screenplay nominee, I don't think that gets in, Siriana was a screenplay nominee, I don't think that gets in,

history of violence. The way, if you keep breaking it down through Oscar, though, like, I don't, you know, some of the, like, areas you would look to see, like, is there a Pixar movie? Is there, you know, a strong, international feature contender ends like those things aren't there um so i do wonder which of like

a history of violence or like syriana or matchpoint one of those ones that we would maybe quickly say no could have actually been there because it's possible i do think one of them is probably pride and prejudice oh that's interesting how many other nominations did that get i think it got a total of maybe four? Art direction, costume, score for Dario Marinelli. Yeah.

That's a possible. Memoirs of a Geisha. Because Memoirs of a Geisha was like the second highest winning of the night. I think it tied. I think I think crash and broke back in Memoirs of a Geisha all won three if I can't if I'm if I'm not mistaken.

So yeah, I think I would probably do Memoirs of A Geisha. I also feel like there's a non-zero chance that if you have a top 10 and I think voters are sort of looking at a wider scope, I don't think I would count out King Kong.

I think not either, but it did have somewhat of a negative reception. It did, but I also feel like this could be one of those things where Hollywood kind of muscles it back in and is just like, no, it is an achievement. It's probably also one of those things. where the entire race changes if it's more than five best picture nominees,

like from the get-go, the way movies are considered. That's sort of what I was saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. So I would say, Constant Gardner, Walk the Line, Memoirs of Agatia, King Kong, and then you're saying Pride and Prejudice. That's an interesting, or no, Cinderella Man, I think, is I had already put in there. I think I would put Cinderella Man.

I would probably put Cinderella Man in 10th. Yeah. With Memoirs of a Geisha, Pride and Prejudice, Walk the Line, and... Constant Gardner. Constant Gardner, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so you're saying Pride and Prejudice, I'm saying King Kong. The Battle of Our Ages.

Like, truly, yeah, truly the face-down that we were, face-off that we've all been waiting for. Pride and Prejudice versus King Kong. All right. Anyway. So that was the 2005 Oscars. Clooney was riding high, gets the acting Oscar. Then, again, a couple years later, Michael Clayton manages to give the performance that is actually worthy of winning an Oscar and is running up against the brick wall of a, you know, yet another Daniel Day Lewis transformative performance that nobody can deny. But the thing is, I think if Clooney doesn't have that Siriana Oscar, I think this whole Oscar.

race changes and I think Clooney is probably undeniable for this. I would like to agree with you. I would like to live in a world where that is true, but I have seen too many. There Will Be Blood was very late breaking. So one of two things happens. Either Clooney amounts so much momentum throughout that year that it doesn't matter that it's late breaking or it's the type of late breaking thing where there's a two-way race. I mean, I would like to believe that like I mean these are two performances that I love and it's like a coin toss type of thing of which one I would vote for probably but I do wonder if he got like he's coming off of being nominated for three Oscars in one year but doesn't win and then gives a performance like Michael Clayton I think he that's the difference between him having zero chance to win that year and having really strong chance to win yeah here's my what I also think the fallout of it is yeah Tilda Swinton doesn't have an Oscar. I think that's very possible, yes,

where all of a sudden she's not the beneficiary of we should give Michael Clayton something. Right. And that race was already so close as it is. Here's my what-if scenario. I think if Clooney doesn't win for Siriana, I think he loses in a closer race to Daniel Day Lewis. He is definitely seen as the clear runner-up

who came close but didn't make it. Whereas in the way that it worked out, it was Daniel DeLewis ran away from the field and nobody else is really worth talking about. But I think in this one, Clooney comes out of Michael Clayton with, now we owe him one. And then I think when he comes back

with Up in the Air in 2009, by the time Jeff Bridges comes out with Crazy Heart, it's too late. And Clooney has the reins of that race. Crazy Heart was also. late-breaking. Right. Crazy Heart was very late-breaking, and that was one where there felt like there was a little bit of a vacuum at

the head of that race, and Bridges stepped into it. And so then I think Bridges maybe wins for true grit, and Colin Firth doesn't have an Oscar, no. I'm less doubtful of that. Like, I still think

the Jeff Bridges thing would have probably beat George Clooney, and there was the whole stuff with, like, up in the air, that it was like an early frontrunner, but then as more people saw it, people didn't actually like the movie and people had problems with the movie. I think it's probably more likely that George Clooney would have won for the descendants. Because George Clooney, for a while, people thought he was going to win a second Oscar for that. Definitely, if Clooney doesn't have an Oscar by the time the descendants

comes along, he definitely wins for that. Even though that was another movie that started off strong, buzzwise, and then people kind of turned on that movie as... I was one of them, because I The first time I saw it, I hated that movie. Yeah. I definitely think he wins that, though, if he's not already an Oscar winner. That was a weird Oscar race. That best actor race in 2011. Everything about the 2011 Oscars is so strange.

That should be Brad Pitt's Oscar. Yeah? Well, a lot of people think that. I am less sold on Moneyball than a lot of people, even though I don't dislike Moneyball. I kept waiting for Moneyball to sort of thrill me in the way that it seemed to thrill other people, and I was sort of left a little nonplussed as to why everybody was freaking out about this movie, which is strange because it has all the elements of things that I like, including, you know, a Sorkan script, and I like Bennett Miller's stuff, and I

like Brad Pitt quite a bit, and I was stuck on B-plus, and I think a lot of people were at, like, A-plus, and I was like, okay, I don't know. But anyway. I see a bit less of a thrilling movie, and I would say the same. thing about his performance that it's less that it's like thrilling and I get wrapped up in it than it is kind of this like emotional quasi spiritual thing that I didn't get that I find very moving I mean I think so rarely in that register or had been at that time yeah yeah no I mean I get it and you know I I am definitely the outlier on that one but uh here I am here I am all right

we're saying is George Clooney's Oscar is not very good, but at least it's not for directing. Right. And again, I don't think he's bad in Siriana. Like, it's just that, and I think that was another one where just there was not enough of a push behind anybody else. There was no story in supporting actor that year that beat three-time nominee George Clooney. Like, that was the best story. So that's what people went with. let's jump to Renee for a second we're at a real a real weird stage of a movie star's career in the in the post-oscar pre-retirement renezalweger run where she's coming off of this was only the fourth live-action movie she had made since Cold Mountain five years before so she had done voice roles in Shark Tale and Bee movie again even the voice roles are kind of animated movies we shall not speak of. Yeah. And then she had done Bridget Jones the Edge of Reason, which feels like obligatory and then also

not very well received, even though she'd get a Golden Globe nomination. Was it you that I was recently explaining to that the... Yes. The Thai prisons subplot in that movie is lifted from the book. It's not like a movie doing something weird. I had no idea

any of that happened in that movie. I've still not seen Edge of Reason. Wild. Truly wild. So Cinderella Man, which we just talked about, where it's an overwhelming movie that even in an overwhelming movie, she's an underwhelming role in that movie, which is like, that's tough. That's tough one to come back from. She literally monologues about like every time you get hit, I feel it too. It's a parody of the supportive wife. It really is. It's, it's, you know the Heidi Gardner SNL weekend update character where she's like the boxer's wife and she's clearly doing like

an Amy Adams and the fighter kind of a thing but like the sort of stock version of it like it's not even that trashy. It's not like it would be fun if it's trashy but it's like all of the drudgery of the supportive boxing wife role but then also

you have to keep up the respectability of the fact that you're in the 1920s or whatever and it's just like oh boy it's just it's the least fun role in any movie ever I will say just of all time. Miss Potter, which we've covered on this podcast before, which gets her another Golden Globe nomination

and truly not a soul saw her play Beatrix Potter in that movie. From the director of Babe, it's weirder than you think it would be and yet still not quite to the level of being great. You at least get to enjoy charming Renee Zellweger in it than you do in this movie. And then D-movie in 2007, as I said. And then 2008, she's in two movies by actor-directors that kind of don't exist, kind of flop,

leatherheads. And then the other one is Appalusa, the Ed Harris Western Apalusa, wherein she is on the poster in sort of a, like, fancy stagecoach lady dress in the negative space in between Ed Harris. And Vigo Mortensen, who are doing a kind of reunion from history of violence, but now they are in a Western as opposed to each other. Fancy stagecoach, lady, I need you to give running sports commentary on, like, the drag race runways and try to explain outfits in that register. And Jiria could do fancy stagecoach lady on that runway, is what I will tell you. And you're going to see Willow Pill as a fancy stagecoach lady. I'm sure you would.

Like, what's her subversion of that? I'm sure she would be very silly doing that, and everybody would love it. So, yeah, Appalusa kind of comes and goes, as does a lot of things at this point in her career. And then, God, 2009 is kind of such a disaster. 2009, that movie New in Town, where it's her and Harry Cotic Jr., and she plays another sort of, like, career gal, right? The poster is the Sweet Home Alabama poster, except she's sitting on some suitcases. Right. She's a fancy, big city, professional lady who has to move to Northern Minnesota for reasons.

I'm telling you, you need to do the Drag Race Runway Competition. It will compete with Sasha Valour saying With a commitment to showcasing women who are strong That's true Fancy City Lady It's also a movie that's released on like literally like January one half Like it's just literally it's the earliest possible You could release a movie was new in town

January 1st at 7 a.m. January 1st at 2 minutes past the stroke of midnight They rushed that thing into theater and you're just like, are we done? Are we good? So, yeah, that was bad. She's A Voice in Monsters v. Aliens, which I don't even, I saw Monsters v. Aliens in the theater, and I don't remember who she plays in that. And then a bunch of movies that, like, barely got released.

My one and only, the Richard Longcrayne movie with, oh, who else is in that movie? Isn't that a bunch of, like, young folk? Logan Lerman. Lurman. Little Logan Lerman is in that movie. And then Case 39, which is the horror movie that she... Delayed for several years. Which I started to watch with a group of friends, and I remember we turned it off because it was just too unpleasant. At some point, like a kid ends up in an oven, and we were just like, we don't need to see any more of this.

So we turned it off. Yeah, that was a movie that had very long delays, was supposed to be terrible, but that's where she met Bradley Cooper. and that's when they started dating. Right, which also felt like a weird death knell. Remember when, like, because she had the marriage to Kenny Chesney that was annulled for, what was, it was, like, but it was one of those, like, a failure to, failure to tell the truth or something. Well, yeah, it was, well, right, it was fraud. I felt like that one was just like the actual legal definition was fraud. And, of course, everybody jumped to the conclusion that Kenny Chesney was gay.

And then when she got together with Bradley Cooper, who also at the time, for a long time, was sort of plagued with rumors that he was gay. And so I think people just sort of started envisioning Renee Zellweger as this sort of like black widow of beards where she just sort of just like would like flit from like closeted mail to closeted mail and and the press would get would get bad. It was, you wonder, you wonder why she stepped away. You wonder why she stepped away from all of this. Yeah, people were obviously awful to her. And then the last straw was the Olivier de Haan movie, My Own Love Song, with her in Forst Whitaker. Which I would love to do.

We should. I don't think it ever got a, no, it did get a U.S. release, but I did it eventually years later was direct to DVD. Yes. Yeah, it was one of those ones where it was just like, did that movie ever get released? And it turned out like, yeah, like a year ago. And it was like, oh, I never noticed. Matthew Lebitique did the

cinematography for that one. That's too, that's, that's, that's, that's too, that's too talented a cinematographer. It's another movie where she sings too, apparently. Yes, apparently. And she plays a, she's paralyzed, right? I do believe. She's in a wheelchair and, yeah, it was one of those ones where it was like Oscar Buzzy in a really kind of crass way where people were just sort of,

to just like, nobody really... Some festival where people saw it and they were like, SOS, do not send help. Do not send help is the opposite of SOS, but I guess that's the messaging of the movie. Well, yes, it was SOS backwards, Chris. And so...

Fucking idiot. And then she went away for, uh, forever. And then Bridget Jones... Bridget Jones's baby, though. Drew her back. Lovely. Sure, I believe you. Good, Bridget.

its own sequel. I believe you. It's a nice movie. I believe you. I feel that you recently about this movie. I don't know why. All right. It's a nice sequel.

All right. Unfortunately for Renee Zellweger, speaking of Appalusa, by the way, her two 2008 performances, Leatherheads and Epilusa, managed to earn her a yoga nomination, which is the, once again, the Spanish, the Spanish. the Spanish Razzies, which not content to rag on the bad performances in Spanish language movies, they also have a worst foreign actress award, which Renee did win for her performances in both this and in Appaloosa. I want to quickly bring up who else were nominated. De Niro and Al Pacino won foreign actor for Righteous Kill. I think they earned that just in title alone. Right.

Director, worst foreign director, went to Catherine Hardwick for Twilight, and worst foreign film went to Sex and the City. I think we know what's going on here. I think we... I think we're quite aware. I think we can put a pin on what is happening with a lot of this voting. Speaking of putting a pin in stuff, let's put a pin in leatherheads for a moment because I have a game for you.

Love a game. realized, I figured we wouldn't have a ton to say, actually, about actual leatherheads. So I wanted to put together a game, and I realized we have not played my beloved alter egos in quite a while. So I want to play a round of alter egos. I have 10 movies for you. I will name three movie characters from other movies, and you will figure out the actors who played those roles and what one movie all three of those actors were in together.

All of the answers to this one will be movies that were in the box office top 50 on April 4th, 2008, the day that leatherheads opened. So somewhere on the box office top 50 of that week in 2008, all right? So you're going to have some Oscar holdovers from the previous season. You're going to have some bad movies. You're going to have some Valentine's Day movies. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

All right. So to start you off, Chris, your three roles are George Boulin, Lois Lane, and John Doe. This is definitely 21 because John Boulin is Jim Sturgis from the other

Belaine sister. George Boulin, yes. Lois Lane is Kate Bosworth and Superman Returns, and John Doe is Kevin Spacey and seven. Very good. Yes, 21, a movie I defy anybody to tell me that they have seen because

number one movie at the box office. Hit movie. I don't know a single soul who ever saw it. All right. Next one. Lemuel Gulliver, Ford Prefect, and Rosemary Woodhouse. The Gulliver one has to be Jack Black because he was in that Gulliver's travel movie. Is that correct? Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Okay. What were the other two names?

Mary Prefect? Ford. Ford Prefect and Rosemary Woodhouse. Rosemary Woodhouse is Leslie Manville in Phantom Thread? That's Woodcock. Oh, fuck. Woodhouse. Rosemary Woodhouse.

I know this. Oh, Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby. Uh-huh. Mia Farrow and Jack Black. The middle one was Ford. Ford Prefect. Ford Prefect. I don't think I know what that is.

If you don't know it right away, I'm going to say don't work it out because you probably won't get it. Is it year one? No. It's not year one. What Jack Black movie had me a pharaoh? Let me see if I can find another name for you for this. Hold on a second. it was i definitely feel like you've seen this movie even if it's not sort of like

top of your mind um what's another role for this person instead of Ford Prefect doesn't really have a ton of like oh chuck berry It's not in... Chuck Barry is the other

instead of Ford Prefect. Jeffrey Wright? No. Is Moes Def? Right. Oh, I actually haven't seen this movie. Oh, okay. Be Kind Rewind.

It's Be Kind Rewind. Michelle Gondry, I believe. Yes. Yes. All right, yes. Be Kind, Rewind. Jack, Black, Moose Def, Mia Farrow. Kind, really likable.

I remember liking it. I don't think about it a lot these days. All right, your next three roles are Noir Spider-Man, Bridget von Hammersmark, and Queen Elizabeth II. Okay, so Bridget von Hammers-Mark, noir Spider-Man.

Noir Spider-Man is Nicholas Cage in Spider-Verse. Um, Nicholas Cage in 2006, Is this like drive crazy? It's 2008, by the way. Oh, 2008. No, Ghost Rider. No.

Not Ghost Rider. Okay. Bridget Von Hammers mark. I am right about Nicholas Cage, though, right? Yeah. Bridget von Hammers mark Queen Elizabeth II. Queen Elizabeth the second in a movie, though, Helen Mirren.

Mm-hmm. Helen Mirren and Nicholas Cage Uh Bridget von Hammers Mark Which is a name that I know I'm not quite there You definitely do Um

Hold on, let me see if I can get another character for this person Do, do, do, do, Helen of Troy. Diane Kruger. Uh-huh. What? You've not seen this movie, but I'm surprised you don't, you're not getting it from this cast. It's a sequel. With Nicholas Cage.

Yeah. And Nicholas Cage, I'm assuming. is the headliner because you mention him first. Is it the second ghost writer? No. It's not. It's not any ghost writer.

It is a sequel. Oh, God. Yeah. It's National Treasure, too. It's National Treasure, Book of Secrets. A movie I do actually want to see. Yeah. One of these weekends I should just do the National Treasure movies.

I feel like that would be a fun weekend for me. It's only two movies. I know. It should have been. I know. Well, at least the first one. I don't know. I can't speak for the second. All right. Next one. Randall Patrick McMurphy, Nelson Mandela, Jack McFarland. Nelson Mandela is Morgan Freeman.

I'm not going to tell you anymore because sometimes these could be multiple things. Yeah, it could also be Idrisalba. Work out the other ones. Okay. Give me the names again. Randall Patrick McMurphy Jack McFarland Jack McFarland is DiCaprio

No Some of these are television I will say Okay Randall McMurphy is a name that I know From like an adult prestige action movie It's not like Mel Gibson It's not an action movie

I will say, don't, don't bark up that tree. Drama. Jack McFarland, Randall McMurphy. What if I... With either Morgan Freeman or Idris Elba. What if I said the Joker, Nelson Mandela, Jack McFarland? Jack Nicholson.

Oh, the bucket list. It's the bucket list. Yeah. Randall Patrick McMurphy is, Oh, Jack McFarland is Will & Grace. Yes, Sean Hayes and Will & Grace. McMurphy is Jack Nicholson's character, and one flew over the cuckoo's nest. Yes.

All right. Next three. Stephen Glass, Mace Windu, and The Thing. Mace Windu is Samuel L. Jackson. From the Star Wars' is. Samuel Glass is... Stephen Glass. Stephen Glass.

Oh, so that's not Bruce Willis and Unbreakable, is it? No. Mr. Glass is also Samuel L. Jackson. Right, that's Mr. Glass. Okay, there's something. And the third one is...

The thing. The thing. The thing. Ooh. Oh. Stephen Glass. Shattered Glass. Hayden Christian.

is this jumper it's jumper hayden christensen is stephen glass mace windew is samuel jackson the thing guesses uh billy ellie not billy ellie jane a bell in something and the the bad fantastic four all right oh you do not just invoke that i know a four-year hex follows you if you invoke that movie next one abraham lincoln the riddler julius caesar uh well the riddler would be Jim Carrey Abraham Lincoln it can't be

it really can't be Daniel Day Lewis oh no it's there would be blood because you're counting the upcoming Batman I am Paul Dano plays the I feel like that's breaking a rule it's not breaking a rule because I decide the rules

Paul Dano plays the riddler in the Batman Daniel Day Lewis is Abraham Lincoln. I tried to find a third There Will Be Blood actor, actually, who had notable names in his filmography. I ended up with Kieran Hines, who played

Julius Caesar in Rome, the HBO TV series Rome. All right, next one. Lady Macbeth, Julie Powell, Ronan the Accuser. Ronan the Accuser is a recent superhero thing. Lady Macbeth,

could be one of many people could be Francis McDormand could be Marion Cotillard it could be Judy Dench I'm going to guess at this timing

that it's Marion Cotillard is it Rustin Bone? No, Rust and Bone wouldn't be for another several years Okay No But she's not really headlining movies yet. Okay, so I've got to go down maybe Francis or... Lady Macbeth, Julie Powell, Ronan the Accuser.

Lady Macbeth. There's got to be another Lady Macbeth because... none of those are coming to me what is ronin the accuser that's like is that dc nope it's marvel it's marvel oh that's lee pace aha from the guardians of the galaxy movies oh okay so lee pace at this point it's not um it's not the fall the other tarsem movie is it no okay Is it the Immortals? Is that the name of that movie? Or Immortals? No.

No, no. I put these roles in the order that the cast order from the movie that you're trying to guess. So Lee Pace is definitely the third. Yeah. Lady Macbeth, Julie Powell, Ronan the Accuser. Oh, it's Mrs. Pettigruis for a day. It's Ms. Pedigr. Yes.

Because he's third build, and then that's Francis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then who's our. middle who's our middle siblings amy adams is julie paul and julia yes all right yes next one sebastian valmont pretty boy floyd and cobra commander uh sebastian valmont is colin firth in valmont no i'm not saying give me the other two names then pretty boy floyd and cobra command Commander.

Pretty Boy Floyd is from like one of those outsider movies I don't like. Cobra the Commander is a G.I. Joe thing. Who was in those G.I. Joe movies. Joseph Gordon Levitt. Yes. Joseph Gordon Levitt played Cobra Commander in the G.I. Joe movies. This is pre-500 Days of Summer. Is it stop loss?

It is stop loss. Very good. Sebastian Valmont would be. Not Colin Firth. I guess Channing Tatum? No. Follow down. Who did Colin Firth play in Valmont?

Oh, it's Ryan Philippi in Cruel Intentions, which is the same freaking role. Yes. Pretty Boy Floyd was Channing Tatum's character in Public Enemies, the gangster Pretty Boy Floyd. All right. Gotcha. Kitty Pride, Robin, and Jenna Rink. Kitty Pride is Elliot Page. Yes, from the X-Men.

So this is Juno. This is Juno. Any guesses on who the other ones are? Robin and what? Jenna Rink. Jenna Rink has to be... No, because Wippets after this. Correct.

I mean, one of them's probably Jennifer Garner, considering the billing. Uh-huh. Jenna Rink is Jennifer Garner in 13 going on 30. Robin is a little bit of a head fake. Michael Sarah. Is Michael Sarah like an animated Robin? In Lego Batman. Yes.

All right. Last one. Oswald Cobblepot, Knuckles McGinty, and M. Oswald Cobblepot, unless you're really trying to screw with me, it's either Danny DeVito or Colin Firth, or Colin Farrell, sorry. Colin Firth would be funny. Maybe a decent penguin. Yeah.

He's always in penguin suits. It's true. M is going to be either Ray Fines or Judy Dinch. Huh. What was Colin Farrell even doing at that time? I deeply, deeply wish there was a 2008 movie that starred Danny DeVito and Judy Densch. I really, really do. Or Ray Fines.

So I guess it probably means that it is Colin Farrell with Judy Dench or with Ray Fines. Oh, it's, is it in Bruges? It's in Bruges, yeah. Okay, so the middle one is Brendan Gleason. Yeah, Knuckles McGinty was Brendan Gleason in. Any guesses? Paddington 2. It was his character in Paddington 2.

Very well done, Chris. Another fun and chaotic game. I am very rusty at that game. Of alter egos. It makes me wish we were doing Scategories tonight so I could give this game to our little game group. We should do that again.

All right. Back to Leatherheads. Any odds and ends we want to go back into? It was not very well reviewed. It was very middle. reviews, very... Which I think is over-generous. Yeah.

We're talking before we got on mic that it's like, it's probably one of those things that this movie opened in April and it's like post-Oscar season and like, you know, people are just recharging their batteries. They end up being more generous

than they should be... That's right. That's right. It was nominated for an S-B award, ESPN's Sports Awards, for Best Sports Movie. Interesting, as I'm going through, I'm sort of scrolling down

the SB Awards that year. It's amazing how in 13 years so little has changed. International athlete went to Rafael Nadal that year, who just today, as we're recording this, won his 21st Grand Slam championship.

I was very happy. Best NFL player went to Tom Brady, who I'm thinking slash hoping is retiring, although he's playing sort of Fast and Loose with his retirement. Anyway, Leatherhead's nominated for Best Sports Movie. It does not win. It is nominated up against

the game plan. Disney's The Game Plan, starring The Rock. And also, apparently, Kira Sedgwick is also in that movie where he plays a quarterback who discovers that he has an eight-year-old daughter.

So, I've not seen the game plan. Have you seen the game plan? I think you know the answer to that question. The other nominee that didn't win was resurrecting the champ from the contender director Rod L. L. L. Jackson as champ and Josh Hartnett also. Does he get resurrected, Rebecca Hall style? Apparently, so, no, Samuel L. Jackson is a homeless man who, it turns out, was a great boxing legend who everybody thought had died. And I think Josh Hartnett plays a sports reporter who comes upon this story. I have never seen, yes, he resurrects him in this.

And then the winner of Best Sports Movie went to semi-pro, the Will Ferrell Basketball Comedy Semipro with Woody Harrelson and Andre 3000 and Mora Tierney. One of the first, like, Will Ferrell disappointments, right? Yes, yes. Will Ferrell and Sports doesn't match because the same was true of kicking and screaming, it was called. And Blades of Glory also. Yes. Yes.

Blades of Glory, nominally a sports movie, but also a homophobia movie. So there is that. All right. So anything else about Leatherheads before we perhaps move into the IMTV game. It was very disturbed by early football. I realize... Oh, yeah, we haven't really talked about football at all. I mean, I realize, A, I am not the sports person here.

You're not, yes. But, and I realized that, like, American football evolved over time to the point that, like, early pro football players were not these hulking, you know, masses of meat, like, modern day. There were not weight training regimens and fitness stuff, and, yeah, they were not... Yeah, these were just dudes running around. in the literal mud. But, like, I was so disturbed by what the helmets used to be. It's basically just, like, wrapping your head in less than you wrap your foot in a shoe. Well, so the interesting thing about that, though, is, and people have kind of written about

this and sort of with the concussion stuff and CTE and whatnot, that the days of the leather helmets, while also being sort of, like, dangerous in their own way, they say that concussion risks have gone up, the better that the equipment has become because you feel freer to play more violently, I guess, and sort of launch your body. Because you feel protected by this equipment, the game has sort of gotten more violent. And obviously, it's faster now and all that sort of stuff. Whereas if you, there's this odd little counterintuitive plea that never really gets taken seriously for good reason, you know, that like they should all play without helmets and the idea being that if you're, you know, if your actual dome is exposed,

that you maybe don't go for these very dangerous hits and stuff not. I'm dubious. I love a thought that's based purely in theory and not reality. Exactly, exactly. But, yeah, it definitely, old football, very, very little resemblance. It was funny. that they actually went for and the movie sort of has ended on a climactic forward pass because, and I didn't really care to sort of go into this year,

but the forward pass was like an innovation in the game of football. Like before, for a while there, it was just sort of handing the ball off and running and everything and like the innovation to actually like throw the ball on football, which like now if you watch

football, like that's the whole, that's the name of the game is long touchdown passes. Probably if you watched an equally, cheesy but better movie this movie would be about like the invention they would create the lie that this movie would be about the invention of the forward pass

and that's what this climactic game would be well and again the end of this movie there's this whole thing was just like pro football now has all these rules so you can't be playing with your flim flams and whatnot like used to and it was just like I guess we were meant

to care more at the beginning of the movie that Clooney's team are full of, full of beans, and, you know, they've got these, you know, these goofy little names for trick plays and whatnot. And now they can't do that anymore because football's on the up and up. And it's like, that's a real thin premise for a, for tension going into the helmets, though, I was still concerned for their safety because, like, the feel that they're playing on is this muddy mass that's, like, constant divvets in there. It looks like a bunch of groundhog holes, but, like, everywhere. And I'm like, how is not every

single one of these players shattering their ankles running through this. You are really asking to have your leg get stuck about the calf deep in the mud and to have somebody literally just separate you from your knee bone essentially. And yeah, it does not look incredibly safe or. And that was the other thing is, and they make mention of it in the movie, is now without all these, you know, all this trickery and all the George Clooney, you know, the monkey shines or whatever, they're like, well, now it's a pretty boring game. And it's just like, yeah, for a while, until all this, until you actually got like elite athletes playing it, I imagine football played by, you know, this bunch of doofs would not be super fun to watch where it's just like run for two yards, then you get tackled. It's a big mud pile.

You can't tell who's playing for who because everybody's jerseys are caked in mud, which also becomes a plot point by the end of the movie. The end of the movie, by the way, is absolutely ridiculous and dumb because the whole thing is premised on this, like, the, movie purports to fool you that it's going to end on an interception in the end zone, but it ends up being that Clooney was pretending he was on the Krasinski team, and then he caught it, and then it turns out he was on his own team, so it's not an interception, it's a touchdown. And it was just like, yeah, but if the whole premise is that all their jerseys are caked in mud, why would they call it one way and not the other without checking the jersey? Anyway, it's just dumb. They didn't, you know, whatever. I could football about it for.

for a while. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Leatherheads is a fraud. Cinema Sins. Somebody call Lights of Camera Jackson. All right. Anyway. Don't invoke LCJ. He'll block us. I just found out today that I am not blocked by a notorious internet person who I thought I was blocked by, and I'm kind of bummed. I was enjoying my blocked period. Now I have to know this person. But LCJ and the French Cesar Awards have in common. Oh, God.

What? They both called Eileen one of the best films of the year. I hate, I hate that you brought that up. LCJ, put Eileen, or Eileen. We'll talk about that movie in April when it comes out. It is everything that you expected to be. How should I watch that movie? What, what, in what, under what conditions should I watch the Celine Dion movie, Aileen?

In a literal sea of homosexuals. Okay. But like, gathered at my home because it'll probably be a VOD release. Like, I'm dubious that this thing's going to get a theatrical. I mean, Roadside is releasing it. It's getting a theatrical release. Okay. All right.

Here we go. I mean, I'm sure it'll be on VOD short. thereafter. But yes, the French Cesar Awards, which if listeners are not familiar, basically the French Oscars, it got like 10 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress. It's only the French. I guess. That's insane. That's wild to think about. All right. All right. Let's do the IMD game. I mean, we did it with Bohemian Rhapsody. America is not special here. We also fall for it. That Kristen Stewart-Sesar gets less and less impressive every day. All right, let's do the IMDB game.

Tell our listeners how the IMDB game works. All right, listeners, every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game, where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try to guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for. If any of those titles are television, voice-only performances, or non-acting credits, will mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. If that's not enough, it'll just become a full.

free for all of hints and our Celine Dion impersonations. All right. That is the IMDB game. Chris, would you like to guess first or give first? I'll give to you first. All right. Okay, so we talked about the S.B. Awards,

which Leatherheads was nominated for, and it lost against semi-pro, which we mentioned is a Willfarel comedy. Do you know who one of the other top-billed stars is? That's not Andre Benjamin, like you mentioned. Woody Harrelson. Woody Harrelson. So I've got to guess

Woody Harrelson. I have Woody Harrelson. Who surprisingly we have not done, there is one television credit and is known for. I'm going to get, all right, I'm going to go against the grain here.

I'm going to guess that it is not cheers, but it is true detective. It is true detective. All right. Which feels like is largely forgotten, even though the mehercialist season

was supposed to be good. I still stand by that first, season. I think a lot of people got disillusioned because they sort of created this thing in their heads that the ending was going to be something that it was never going to be. And I don't think that's the show's fault. Anyway, three Woody Harrelson movies. I'm going to guess that one of them is the People versus Larry Flint. Correct. One of his Oscar nominations. I'm going to put a pin in his other Oscar nomination for, oh no, he's got two others, The Messenger and three billboards.

Is three billboards one of them? No. Incorrect. Well, now I'm in a tough spot because I don't think it's the messenger, but it can't rule it out because it is an Oscar nomination. All right. I'm going to guess no country for old men. Also incorrect. Damn it.

All right. What are my years? Your years are 1994 and 2009. The Messenger. God damn it. No. Really? 2009 was the same year as The Messenger, though, right? The Messenger, like, this doesn't matter anymore. But for the longest time, the Messenger was the lowest grossing acting nominee?

Yes. Yes, it was. So another movie he did in 2009 that was not the movie he was Oscar nominated for. All right, you said 1994. That's Natural Born Killers. It is Natural Born Killers. All right. O'9. Which makes sense it would be on his known for because, like, just from. an SEO standpoint, like he's probably in almost all of the photos listed for that movie. Yep. Yep. Yep. Totally. All right. 2009, same year as his Oscar nomination. What else is Woody Harrelson in? Is it something obvious? Is it obvious, something obvious that I'm just not thinking of? Maybe not obvious, obvious, but like, you're going to be like, you're going to think that you should have said this already. It's pre-Hunger games, but this is probably a role that helped him secure that

Hunger Games role. I totally didn't even think of Hunger Games. That would have been one I probably should have guessed, even though it's wrong. All right, so it's a franchisee action thing? I mean, yes, but no to all of those? Like, it's not, but it's something else. And it's too early for solo, and it's too early for Venom. He's been in a lot of franchises, actually, now that I think about it. He's done a lot of work. He's done a lot of work. It's the credit to True Detective and Natural Born Killers and People v. Larry Flint

that those are in there, you know, and it's not, you know, longer games, you know. All right, so what was... Oh, 9. I'm trying to think of what we're like... I imagine it's like Summer Blockbuster kind of a movie. Not Summer. This movie did really well, and it does have one sequel. It does have one sequel.

Oh, is it... Now You See Me? No. I would be willing to bet you have seen this, but haven't seen the sequel. By the time the sequel came out, no one cared. Okay. Would I have liked this movie? Maybe.

Like, this movie's fine. Yeah, okay. Is he the lead? He's first built. But I would say that the second build actor, who's a younger actor, is the lead of the movie. Right, right, right. They're, like, co-leads, but, like, the other one is the protagonist. A kid.

The young man. A young man. Actually, this young actor is like that. the one that Jack A. Harry was talking about, maybe. Wouldn't it be funny if she was? Did this younger actor sort of blossom into a big career? I mean, yes. This is this younger actor before he really leveled up the next year and was perhaps

taken more seriously after that. Jesse Eisenberg? Yes. Huh. Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg made a bunch of money, got a sequel, and it's not, now you see me. The next two build actresses, one of them has an Oscar and the other is an Oscar. Oh, it's Zombiland.

It is Zombiland. I should have gotten this. You're right. I'm dumb. I'm dumb that it took me that long. Yeah, I like Zombieland. Zambiland's pretty good. Did you see Zombiland, too?

No. Your assumptions are correct. Yeah, in retrospect, it's very dumb that I didn't get that. Okay. That was a good one. That's an interesting known for. That's interesting and challenging. All right.

I mean, I would argue he has a pretty good known for, considering what it could be. Oh, yeah, definitely. And yet, some, you know, I am kind of surprised that a recent Oscar nomination, like Three Billboard's isn't there, or a blockbuster like Hunger Games, isn't there. But, but, yeah. All right. So, for you, I went into the George Clooney filmography. Luckily, he has many movies with many stars in them. He's not wanting for cast members.

And so I chose somebody who I know you like very much, and so I feel like you would be better equipped to guess her filmography. This person was in the Ides of March, although not in a very prominent role. This is Jennifer Ely. Ah, okay. Actually, this is going to be tough. One television. No television?

One television. Which is Pride and Prejudice. Yes, correct. Pride and Prejudice. Okay. Contagion No Oh my god

Um Okay Saint Ooh I don't want to throw out another one just yet No It's not going to be St. Maud She's barely in the movie There's probably like no photo stills of her in that movie

I wouldn't say she's barely in the movie She's the second lead She's the second lead Okay I'm not going to guess that though It's too new and she's got bigger movies I will say zero dark 30 Correct, zero dark 30

Two more films People forget that she's in the king's speech But I'm going to have to guess That some of these are going to be Her bigger movies And I'm going to say the king's speech She's Jeffrey Rush's wife in the king's speech Is not the king's speech

So that is two strikes. So now you get your remaining years. Both of these movies are 2016. Is one of them Little Men? Yes, Little Men. Oh, my God. My beloved Little Men. Irisax is like one of the names that just like regularly will come up on our podcast of like people we love.

Yes. I want to make sure that. Speak out Little Men. Oh, it's so good. She's on the poster of it. Everybody in the family is on the poster of it. It's really wonderful. I'm going to guess that this other 2016 movie didn't get released in the States until 2017, but let me confirm.

Is it a quiet passion? It is a quiet passion. Yes, it did not get released until... I forget when it was released, but I know that those movies were like back-to-back. Spring 2017, it got released in the States, yes. Terrence Davies, we are a Davies Babies podcast. Who is she in the Quiet Passion? Who is, what's her role in that film?

She's Levinea, the sister. Gotcha. Gotcha. She's wonderful. I mean, of course, she's wonderful. Jennifer Ely, but. Very well done. Good job. Interesting. She also has, I think, an interesting known for her. I don't think I'd have given just anybody that one to guess because I do think it's, those last two movies are tough. But I knew you as a big fan. What's a, what's a Jennifer Ely Stan? It's a strategy that pays off for Jennifer Ely a strategy I don't like doing, but you sometimes do because it's a smart thing to do. So if you get the wrong answers out there, you're going to get the right

answers faster. Yeah, but I don't like relying on years. I try very hard to get it before I get to the years. All right. Anyway, good show, Chris, good podcast. Wonderful. Mediocre movie, at best. All right.

That is our episode. If you want more this ad Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz.com. You should also follow our Twitter account at Had underscore Oscar underscore buzz. Chris, where can the listeners find you in your stuff? You can find me on Twitter and letterbox at Chris V-File. That's F-E-I-L.

All right. I am on Twitter and also letterboxed as Joe Reed. Reed spelled R-E-I-D on both of those. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Mievious for their technical guidance. Please remember to rate, like, and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, wherever else you get podcasts, a five-star review. view in particular really helps us out with Apple

podcast visibility so forward pass us something nice about us won't you? That is all for this week but we hope you'll be back next week for more buzz. Sports. Oh

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