This Had Oscar Buzz - 187 – Water for Elephants

Episode Date: March 28, 2022

Adaptations of uberpopular novels are always ripe for awards prestige, but this week’s episode is for a film that fizzled quickly. 2011′s Water for Elephants assembled an impressive crew for the circus-set period romantic drama along with a starry cast at tricky career moments: Robert Pattinson breaking from the Twilight franchise, Reese Witherspoon on a … Continue reading "187 – Water for Elephants"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Heck. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the most spectacular show on earth. Excuse me, sir, can we help you? You know circuses? 1931.

President Benzini brothers. That's the most famous circus disaster of all time. Are you telling me that you were there for... for right in the middle of it i don't know if i picked that circus something told me that circus picked me hello and welcome to the this had oscar buzz podcast the only podcast that is wearing a fedora to the danny collins show at the greek 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 prized attraction. Chris File. Hello, Chris. Hello, I'm recording this upside down on a trapeze. Kissing a tiger.

What is it about circus movies that I feel like part of the process a little peek behind the curtain for when we prepare for these episodes is we prepare an outline and some of the things we sort of include are why did this movie had Oscar buzz and and why did it fail and it was an era of circus movies it's not just that there was an era of circus movies but like I feel like there is something kind of endemic to us as a people that we look at something like a circus movie and we're like oh this is greatness like there is greatness there's potential for greatness in here because of the scope of this movie and like I'm thinking about something like in like the trailer for Big Fish when you saw the circus scenes

and there was just like this sense of wonder or like our ongoing obsession with Flora Plum and yes and like we just have this in our minds there's potential for this great sort of like wondrous thing that could take

the Oscars by storm because it's a circus movie and I think there is something like psychological within the human psyche that, and I double used the terms psychological and psyche, and forgive me it's early. There is something within us that sort of that capacity for wonder that it's just like, it's a circus movie.

I mean, we have had, because this episode is airing the day after, the Oscar ceremony, Joe, wasn't it so cool when that thing happened? Wasn't it awful when that other thing happened? By that, I mean, all of the categories not being broadcast live on television. Hopefully they'll change that

since we're recording this several weeks in advance. Anyway, no, that's definitely a thing. I think it's partly because, like, when we associate, like, the type of iconography and, like, cultural reverence for the circus, you're dealing with a certain type of Americana and a certain age in America that, like, is also associated to a lot

of, like, what we conceive as prestige, storytelling. Right. And I think it kind of borrows from that. It's kind of adjacent. But yeah, even down to like Nightmare Alley,

which like, sure, is more carnies than carnival, but like... Right. But I'm thinking of... And now I want to look up and see what year at one best picture, but like the greatest show on earth. Do you know what I mean?

Right. That was the Oscars for 1952, the Cecil B. DeMille movie, The Greatest Show on Earth, which is always on one of those lists of like, worst Oscar-winning movies, worst best-picture winners, but like... Along with like around the world in 80 days. Right, right, and crash.

And so there is something to this idea that the pageantry of it all, right, the Cecil B. DeMille of it all, this sort of big spectacle that he was known for that kind of wrapped Hollywood around its finger and got it ahead of. I'm looking at other movies that were released that year. High Noon. The Quiet Man, the John Ford movie, The Quiet Man, that he won best director that year for that. The John Houston Mulan Rouge was that year. What else I'm looking through? Oh, a little movie called Singin' in the Rain, which wasn't even nominated for Best Picture. Yeah, so all of those sort of fell at the feet of the circus movie that year.

And I feel like, down to the fact that, like, before we even knew what the greatest showman was, it was on sort of long lead predictions, even though it had a director that nobody had heard of before. And a concept that we were all just like, we raised a skeptical eyebrow. And yet we were just like, but if this gets pulled off in a spectacular way, it's, you know. In a way that people aren't like, so basically Barnum, which is already a musical. Right. Right, exactly. Barnum is not referenced by name in Water for Elephants, although the Ringling Brothers are as a kind of looming competition to the Christoph Walt's character. What is the fictional name of the circus in this movie? The Barzini Brothers? Something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's Pattinson's character is told early on, don't mention Ringling Brothers because he hates them so much. this is somehow

Benzini brothers Benzini thank you Barzini is famous Italian Christoph Waltz Right right Well I mean he's lying about everything I don't think his name is actually Benzini either

But anyway Where was I going with this Christoph Waltz right So somehow we have managed to make it To our fourth Christoph Waltz movie He is among the cast for this movie He's our most

disgust cast member, which is wild to me, because it still doesn't seem like he's made that many movies in America since Inglorious Bastards. And yet I look at his filmography, and it's more than, more than I remember. It's a lot of movies where he's essentially playing the same character. He's always playing the same. It's crazy to me. It's a little wild that this is only our third Reese Witherspoon movie, which like, when you actually think about it, she hasn't actually made a ton of movies right she's made fewer than you think and he's made more than you think but so we previously discussed uh christoph waltz in a tulip fever in our big eyes episode and in our uh carnage episode boy he's bad in all three of those i think he's bad in water for elephants

i still i still think he was good in inglorious bastards but i do feel like a lot of that Oscar was this unknown guy who was making a splash and we're just like he has such odd energy in this movie, what a great performance and then you look at the next

like 15, 20 years of his career not 20, it hasn't been that long since too Inglorious Bastards, but anyway the next decade of his career and you look and it's just like, oh he's doing the Christoph Valt's thing. He's doing it well in Inglorious Bastards And I also don't think he's bad in Django. I certainly don't think I would have given him an Oscar for it.

No. Well, that's such a unique situation, because those are all previous winners. Django was the movie that was surging at the time of voting. It makes sense that he won, but in terms of how much I liked the performance, I liked it. I wouldn't have nominated it, and I certainly wouldn't have given him a second Oscar for it. voted for him either but well and it's also like christoph waltz even by that point i feel like had been this established kind of typecast it's almost like no you can't say that he's typecast he just plays everything so similarly that's the thing it's he's cast in kind of a lot of different

types of rules sorry i think the performance that's different is jingo like that's the one where he gets to where he does play something a little different i agree with that and that's a large part of the reason why i like it but right you look at at, you know, carnage, water for elephants, tulip fever, big eyes, all of these roles are, I mean, I guess they sort of circle around this idea of the bad love interest, the bad husband, right? He's sort of the same guy in tulip fever as he is in Water for Elephants, which is like the domineering cuckold, right? But he's, he's surprisingly like nice in tulip fever, though, right?

he's just like he's awful but he's not like abusive like sure but cast christoph else in a movie called the domineering cuckold and make it a musical and i will uh i will go and see it um and then cardage cardage he's also a mean husband and big eyes he's he's a charlatan like he is in water for elephants so like all of the movies that we have actually covered he is kind of playing similar roles, but you look at stuff like downsizing, where he's also kind of a charlatan, but like in a different way. Why don't I remember

him in downsize? I blocked out as much of the movie as good. He's like the second lead in downsizing, once you realize that Kristen Wigg isn't going to be in that movie very much. Yeah, he's he's one of the people who Matt Damon sort of be friends at that apartment complex

that he goes to live at in the downsized world. But I also watched French dispatch again over the last week and he, it's surprising it's not surprising how little he's in it because like there are a lot of people who are

in that for like half a second but he literally, his part in that movie is literally consists of like turning to camera and like that's all the work he does in the French dispatch. But you also look at his other sort of major contribution to American

films in the last decade has been in the Bond movies he's been in Spector and No Time to Die playing a and now I'm not a Bond Scholar so like my opinion on this should probably not hold a ton of weight but I think he's terrible

in those movies just in terms of like a watchability factor for me I mean he's in no time to die which is I mean he's in it more than he's it's not just as brief as I think he'll be it's a long movie and he's in it for a decent amount of it

I'm famously not not, I'm cold on the Daniel Craig Bond, so I like No Time to Die quite a bit. But, like, he's one of the wiser elements of the two that he's in. He is. And he's so big a part of Spector, and Spector is so much the bad one as far as. I've never actually seen Quantum of Salas, so I can't say if it's the worst of the Craigs. But, like... I haven't seen it since the theaters, but it was the most, like, egregious writer's

movie to me where I was like, well, this script was fucked when they started filming. Right. I'm looking at his, still looking at Chris off Alts's filmography. I still have never seen Alita Battle Angel, so I don't know what kind of a role he played in that. Don't tell it's online fans, but you're fine. You're fine. I never saw the Slender Man movie, which is kind of surprising because I like sort of junky, uh, creepy horror stuff like that. Yeah, apparently. I don't know how much of it he's in, but like it's on his list. He's pretty far down. Oh yeah, he's like way, way down. So I, but I, you, he's in, like, a scene in... He plays the Slender Man as, like, a shockingly verbose and, like, clipped speech. Yeah. Are you disturbed that I'm so slender? Yeah. Were you expecting me to be this Slender?

He's in The Legend of Tarzan, a movie I didn't see, the Alexander Scars Guard one. He's in Horrible Bosses 2, which I, of course, did not see. Of course, he's in Horrible Bosses, too. what's that of course he's in horrible bosses too yeah right and then he was in that quibby show uh most dangerous game that uh that nobody certainly nobody saw in uh what's what's your what's your title for him what about the cuckold oh um i can't even remember the things that i say the disturbing cuckold or something it's domineering cuckold entirely shocking that that is not the title of his quibby show yes it's true it's true. Is that the one that Amanda Seifred

was in, the most dangerous game, or am I misremembering? No, Sarah Gadden. Liam Hemsworth, Christoph Valtz, Sarah Gatton, the most dangerous game. All right. Sure. Yeah. Anyway, so our fourth Christoph Valt's movie, our first Robert Pattinson movie, which will be fun to sort of

delve into. This came at a really interesting stage of his career. Only his second of at least like major releases like his first like headlining role outside of twilight except for what you guessed it secret 9-11 movie remember me

remember me exactly exactly we'll definitely delve into the patent center of it all he's he's sort of central to I mean obviously he's the main character of this movie but like he's sort of at the root of my opinion of this movie and then of course we have Reese Witherspoon, only our third Reese movie, which is

quite surprising after dun-da-da-dun rendition and Vanity Fair, which our boy our Pats is maybe in, depending on which whether you've seen the director's cut of Vanity Fair or not. He was apparently

cut out of the original version playing who, Chris? Her son. Her son. And now he's her love interest in this movie. So, listen, sometimes, sometimes that's one of those things that feels like is one of those, like, facts that become a meme that is less true once you actually sort of think down about it. Like, obviously, Vanity Fair covers a long period of time and whatever. Yeah, her character ages.

Her character ages. This is what sort of thing when everybody was like, Tom Hanks and Sally Field were love interests and Punchline. And then she played his mom in Forrest Gump. And I'm like, well, she mostly played the mom of the younger version of Tom Hanks. And by the time they were both on screen together, she was, like, aged up well beyond her years because her character age. Like, there's a little bit of, like, dishonesty to that, you know, very memeable complaint about that. And they're not really love interests in Punchline, and she's, like, plot-wise, older than him in Punchline. I think we're all, I think we all managed to survive.

great Tom Hanks, Sally Field, aged debacle quite well. I think we're all, I think we all managed to make it onto the other side pretty well. But anyway, in the like top 100 things about Forrest Gump that you could complain about, like, it doesn't rank. I'm sorry. There are so many other things to talk about when you talk about Forrest Gump, a movie that I for many years liked and thought about fondly. And then I watched it again in the last maybe five years or so. And I'm like, oh, this movie is maybe like a force for bad. Yeah, morally reprehensible. If you watch it with anything, if you watch it with a single wrinkle in your brain, you are just screwed.

It is smooth brain entertainment. Like you cannot, you cannot process anything other than like the emotional function of the movie because otherwise it's maybe morally corrupt. Right, exactly. Anyway, so we'll definitely get into Patinson and Reese and that whole thing. I also will be very interested to talk about director Francis Lawrence, who I have always sort of thought of as a very underrated director, and now I'm looking at his filmography, and I'm just like, do I think Francis Lawrence is underrated, or do I just really like Constantine? That's exactly what I was going to say, because it's like, no, Constantine is just rad. I mean, Constantine is an adaptation of a graphic novel, right? So it's, even though he's the director of that movie,

is he really the, like, driving authorial engine to it? Yes, although I think there are ways that a Constantine movie could have gone wrong. Like, he, like, there is a penash to that movie that carries it through. It's also incredibly well cast. I mean, we can talk about Constantine sort of on the other side of, uh, the plot description. But my other thing about Francis Lawrence is I've always sort of held this idea that like Francis Lawrence directed the best Hunger Games movie, which to me is catching fire and it's not even close. Like it is by far the best Hunger Games movie. And then I'm like, oh, but he did also

mocking J. Parts 1 and 2. So it's like he directed the best one and also one of the worst ones. So at least one of the worst ones. Well, he directed all of them, but one. But one of them. Right. Exactly. So it's like what exactly am I saying when I say he directed the best Hunger Games movie? It's like he directed most of the Hunger Games movies. Also. And then there's Red Sparrow, which is... Which I have heard is at least bug nuts. And it's crazy that I haven't seen it because any movie where I've been told that, like, you got to see Mary Louise Parker's performance in that movie.

And it's wild that I haven't seen it. Oh, yes. But it is 140 minutes long. And every time I go to sit down to watch it, I'm like, it's 140 minutes long and it's supposed to be bad. And, like, how much of this could Mary Louise possibly be in? And yet, I do probably still need to see it. She is not in it that much. It probably takes at least an hour and a half until you see her.

But unfortunately, I do think you have to watch Red Sparrow for Mary Louise Parker. Maybe I'll just do it, like, I'll watch it while I'm like, you know, folding laundry and paying bills or whatever. And just sort of, when she shows up, I'll perk up or something like that. We'll see. We'll see what's going on. I do love Jennifer Lawrence. And Charlotte Ramplings in it. How much, I don't know, how bad can it be?

I guess I'll find out. It's not, I mean, I don't remember it being like. like actively bad as just like never good or interesting right um i mean i guess we're sort of you know waste deep in the francis lauren's conversation by now so right constantine's his first movie in 2005 and then he is the one who ultimately takes i am legend over the finish light even though that movie had been in the works for decades like at like that just there was so long and there was different actors who were going to be in it for the longest time it was supposed to be a Schwarzenegger movie, yada, yada.

It makes it to the screen completely, like, overhauled with reshoots, right? Right, yes. And delays, and I feel like there was just, like, this cavalcade of stuff in terms of the production history of that. And then by the time it makes it to theaters, I don't often think about I Am Legend in a way that, like, what a picture, you know what I mean?

but I liked it, and it also made quite a bit of money. Some people really hate it. And I've never seen it, so I don't really understand why. I understand that people think that the CGI is embarrassing, but... I don't know. It just looks like a movie that's, like, totally fine. I don't understand why it inspires so much, like, hate around it. Right.

I think the most thing, the thing I mostly think about with that movie is just like, that was one of those movies where people were, like, Will Smith, man. Like, he can do anything because that movie just made, you know, so much money. And I believe it was like a late, late in the year release. It wasn't even like a summer release. It was holiday season. It was either Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Right, exactly. So, which is not exactly like a desert in terms of movies. But when you think about Will Smith, you think about, you know, Mr. Fourth of July and all this sort of stuff. And so that was his second movie. Water for Elephants ends up being his third movie. a good four years after I Am Legend. So it's interesting. He's coming off of Constantine,

which is like a modest financial success, but like people really rode for that movie in a way that was good for Lawrence. And then I Am Legend is a legit big success. And so it's interesting that it took four more years for him to direct another movie. And that movie ends up being so far. far out of the genre that he had been working in up until then, which...

Yeah. I mean, it's tough to know what the expectations were on Water for Elephants. It was a spring release, so it's not like... An incredibly popular book. An incredibly popular book, but I also feel like more and more, and maybe in 2011, this was maybe less apparent, but I feel like now more and more, you look at, like, the people who are making books and New York Times bestsellers are not the people seeing films in theaters anymore.

And I just feel like, so like the fact that this made almost $60 million domestic is actually pretty good, especially because the reviews weren't that great. And most of the reviews were being like, Reese and Pattinson don't have any chemistry. And that's a tough, that's a tough criticism to sort of get behind when you're trying to sell tickets based on when you're trying to sell tickets to a historical romance.

Right, exactly. So I guess kudos for this thing making as much money. And it made like double, not double that. It doubled its domestic take when it got released internationally. It made just as much internationally as it did domestically. So I don't know. I can't imagine the promotional budget for Waterford Elephants was so massive that this movie would have ended. up taking a hit, but like, I don't know studio math. So whatever. But even though it made some

money, it's basically, I also think the title of it makes it really ripe for derision. So you look at something like Water for Elephants, and because it's not a massive hit, and because the reviews were pretty middling, the tiebreaker for Water for Elephants ends up being like, but it's much more fun to make fun of it because it's called Water for Elephants. And from Canada, Water for Elephants. You know, the author of the book is Canadian. Really? So it's literally in from Canada Water for Elephants.

Wow. All right. Now it's officially one of our movies now. I'm sorry. Even the log line of it is funny. Set in the 1930s, a former veterinary student takes a job in a traveling circus and falls in love with the ringmaster's wife. Just like, it's kind of funny. It's just kind of, you know, a little bit of a silly concept that he's a veterinary student.

I don't know why. I find that like a little funny. there's one point where well he gets Waltz's character calls him Cornell throughout all of it because he went to Cornell and he almost graduated and

it's one of those things in the movie where I'm just like it seems like a lot of effort to go run away with the circus and be an animal trainer with this like murderous guy out of the circus rather than like just try to find away like you're like two credits away from graduating Cornell

like is go be a vet was this really the easier option? Was this really, you know, I know, you know, his parents got killed and it was traumatic. Well, the movie tries to kind of like wipe any concern for that away by being like the depression, man. Right. Like, it's a very hand wavy at the depression. Just sort of just like, there was a depression happening, you know.

It was bad, you know, like, blah, I don't know. The one line that the guy says after his, so, whatever, you'll find this out in the plot description. we're like Pattinson's parents die and the guy who is essentially like laying out the financial situation for him because his father owed a bunch of money to the bank and whatever and he's so the bank's going to have to repossess the home and he says and it's bernard from lost first of all which like give me a break Bernard from lost he goes maybe if you hadn't gone to college you'd still have a home which is so it's not supposed to be a laugh line but I did burst out laughing because it was like so bluntly mean and just sort of like setting up the first act of the movie.

You college boy. Yes, you're right that it's from Bernard from Loss because I immediately was like, did you meet a woman named Rose? In Sue Sobbing. Yeah, I don't need Bernard from Loss to be that mean. But anyway, all right. So let me pull out my phone and we can get to the point where you're going to do a plot description for Water for Elephants. The 2011 film that we are talking about today.

Water for Elephants was directed by Francis Lawrence as we have been mentioning it was written by our old friend Richard LaGraveneis and we're going to get into that because we talked about him quite recently on this old podcast it starred

written by Richard Ligravene's and based on the novel by Sarah Grun I'm going to say is how we pronounce her name so apologies to Sarah if I butchered that it starred Robert Pattinson Reese Witherspoon, Christoph Valtz, Hal Holbrook, Paul Schneider, Jim Norton, Mark Povinelli, with Tie the Elephant as Rosie, and Uggie the Dog as Queenie will definitely get into it.

It premiered on April 22nd, 2011. Chris, I've got my stopwatch ready. Are you ready to embark upon the adventure of a lifetime with the plot description for water for elephants? Let's hop a train and join the circus. All right, all right. Your time starts now. All right, so this is the story of Jacob Jenkowski. We meet him in the beginning in the modern day where he meets Paul Schneider who's running a circus now

and he tells him his life story of when his parents died during the Great Depression and he was in veterinary school but dropped out and then eventually joins this circus where he wants to like give them their, uh, his veterinary skills. It's run by August, played by Christoph Waltz, who's like kind of this like schemy bad guy and he meets his wife played by Rehnary. Switherspoon. Her name's Marlena. She's kind of the

star attraction. She does like shit with animals basically. But her horse is sick and like he goes against August's rules and shoots the horse like kind of proving his worth but then they get a elephant named Rosie and they have to train him because train

Rosie but then the August beats Rosie and meanwhile Jacob and Marlena are falling in love and they love Rosie and eventually they kind of run away together get pulled back together. There's a giant animal breakout and August dies and they live happily ever after. Bingo, right on the button.

All right, well done. Yes. Weirdly, like, kind of not a lot of plot. A lot of the plot of this is invested in, like, getting Jacob to be a central figure in this circus by becoming their vet slash animal trainer. Right. And, like, how that, you know, kind of creates this not really love triangle because obviously August is an abusive husband.

There's also, by the time you get to the end of the movie, there's this kind of uprising among the circus, the employees, the roustabouts and whatnot, against August, but you don't really get a whole lot of that. I guess you see it sort of like simmering around the edges and just sort of like glances. And clearly, it's one of those things where throughout the movie, you're just like, it seems like people like Robert Pattinson's character more than they like Christophiles. but maybe that's just because he's so handsome. Well, and you hear, like, whispers of things, like, when he buys Rosie and they don't have money because they don't have a star, like, animal, and, like, he has to save money,

so there's, like, rumors that people are thrown from the train and that, like, he's essentially killing people or, you know, putting people in further danger. Yeah, his solution to all financial crunches is always just like, well, I won't pay the roustabouts for a week. I won't pay the carnies for a week, And it's just like, oh, okay. So, yes, it makes sense that these people are all sort of fed up with him by the end.

He also just seems like a real son of a bitch. Also, though, there is a frame story to this, which is where Hell Holbrook comes in. And I literally was like, oh, God, they're doing the Titanic framing. It's kind of, yeah. So similar to that with, like, with Paul Schneider as Bill Paxton, sort of. This was such a huge book, and that was the, but I didn't read it. Did you read the book? Oh, no. I don't read.

Okay. I was also curious if this was during your library time, but I do think it was too late. No, it was, this was after. Because I was like, did they add that for the movie? Maybe? I don't know. Because it's just like, if you don't really have Hal Holbrook at the end, rejoining the circus. Right.

And saying, I'm not running away. I'm coming home. It's like, what is really the emotional climax of, I mean, like, obviously the animal break out and August getting killed by Rosie who bashes his brains in with a, like, crowbar? A steak, a tent stake. She pulled it up because we had seen her doing it before early in the movie. She had pulled up the stake that had changed her to the ground. And so that was a little bit of a foreshadow.

You could have just had him trample her or her trample him. You could have, but then we wouldn't have seen the ingenuity of. Rosie to, you know, wield a weapon against, against Christoph. Or maybe does she pick up the, the, I don't think she does, the, whatever, the club that... Because August is basically taking another crowbar to Marlena's neck and trying to, like, choke her, it's awful. Right. This is a secretly very violent movie. Yes, it is.

Um, it is also a, a secretly, um, if, if, like, abuse against animals is a trigger. It's not like we see a lot of it, but like, I am one of those people. Um, the scene where they're trying to train Rosie, the elephant. And Pattinson doesn't want to be harsh with her. And there's a club, there's a bull stick, they call it, or whatever, um, a bull club. And it's, it's, um, a bull club. And it's, this sort of sharp-ended stick that you're supposed to, you know, hit the elephant with to make it do what you want to do. And it, like, draws blood, and it's, and it's, you know, it's, you really, you really, really end up hating Waltz's character. If you hadn't already, the abuse happens off screen, but you hear Rosie screams throughout it. And I'd seen this movie in the theaters, and I just fully pass forwarded that scene. I couldn't do it again. I am one of those people who like, I just can't do like animal abuse on screen. Yeah. Well, while we're on the subject, why don't we talk about Ty the elephant who played Rosie? Because this is a pretty

famous. Ty's famous. We've, we have talked about our good friend Bart the Bear before and when we did our episode on an unfinished life ages ago. God, we were different people then. who was sort of one Bart the Bear 2, sorry, I should be specific and the legacy of the Bart the Bear Cinematic Universe in there. Tie the Elephant is basically like if you've seen a movie where an elephant is a central

part of the storyline, it was probably Ty. Ty was the elephant in, okay, well, let's go through it. Starting with an uncredited cameo in Big Top Peewee, which like icon, like way to make your debut. um that way but also a major role in operation dumbo drop probably the titular i know dumbo was you know referring to the disney movie but like whatever was the titular elephant being dropped i imagine in operation dumbo drop um and then was the main elephant in the bill murray comedy larger than life from 1996 which i'm pretty sure i saw and i would still only it only exists as

like a video box, essentially, where it's just like, oh, it's the one with Bill Murray and the elephant, was in George of the Jungle in 1997, where, according to Wikipedia, she can be seen being ridden by Brendan Fraser and Leslie Mann, which, nice work if you can get it, where you can be seen being ridden by Brendan Fraser in 1997 is all I will say. Yes. Looney Tunes back in action, interesting, again, with Brendan Fraser. and then so Waterford Elephants comes along in 19 or in 2011. Before we get to that, though, we should say that Ty is apparently in Vanity Fair.

We have done almost as many Thai movies as we have Reese Witherspoon movies. And exactly the same number of movies as we've done Robert Pattinson. Robert Pattinson and Ty are in the same, are writing the same trajectory for us at this moment. I was trying to find, I remember an interview with some actresses, And maybe it was Reese that a famous, like, elephant that, you know, animal performer that's been in movies, like, the whole elephants never forget thing. Like, apparently is true. Oh, wow. I remember.

I can't remember who it was. I feel like it might have been Julia Roberts for Eat, Pray, Love. But that, you know, when they're going to, you know, meet the animal performer that's going to be in the film and, like, the actress was like, that animal. remembered me. Well, what was the Actors' Roundtable clip that was going around this year about, they were talking about, they had all worked with the same horse.

Shit. Oh, wow. Do you remember this? No, but. It was the actors, it was the Actors Roundtable from this year, the Hollywood Reporter's Roundtable from this year, where it was Nicholas Cage and Andrew Garfield

and Jonathan Majors, and I can't remember who else was in the, but like these are the major players we know. to talk about. So I want to say maybe Jesse Plemons or Benedict Cumberbatch was one of them as well. Probably Cumberbatch. Anyway, Cage is telling a story about this horse

who, on a set for some movie, one of Cages ate bajillion movies that he made. The horse was named Rain Man and the horse hated him and the horse tried to like headbut him and throw him off and whatever and Garfield's like dying laughing at this whole story. And then Jonathan Majors is like, yeah, I worked

with that horse the harder they fall. I worked with that horse this year. And so... Well, at least you had a nice horse. My horse on Butcher's Crossing named Rain Man wanted to kill me. Rain Man? Where'd you shoot that? Montana.

I was in Blackfoot country on the Reservant. And Rain Man kept trying to knock me off the horse. He would try to run me, my head into, like, roofs, and then he would try to throw me, and then I'd get off the horse and try to be nice. And he would headbut me. It was not fun. And I've always had good experiences with animals.

Always had great experiences with horses. but Rain Man wanted to kill me. Dayman is in Montana with, I think, a man named Scotty. Do you know Rain Man? I know Rain Man. Whoa. You've ridden Rain Man? Yeah, because Scotty is the Rain Man.

Was he not a Rockfoot Reservation with Rain Man? Yeah, no, he came down to Santa Fex. You've been on Rain Man? I've rid Rain Man. So was he nice to you? Was Rain Man nice to you? I think he made me older when I got it. Older doesn't mean we get nicer.

No, that was all. I just wrapped like three weeks ago. Then that's Rayman, Rain Man, yeah. Yeah, he's fine. Well, he's fine with you. He likes him. He doesn't like that. They were literally just talking about like just differing experiences and like majors, I think had a better experience with the horse.

And it was the whole kind of really delightful conversation about this. That very rarely does the actors roundtable come through in a memorable way. We are always talking about the actresses. But this was a really good lineup, too. Like I remember when I saw that lineup, I was like, oh, I kind of like all of these people. is it really good. I think Dinklage was on this one as well. So it was that half day where we felt like Nicholas Cage and Pig could happen.

Oh, God, if only. If only, I really wanted that to happen. What a great performance. Anyway, so yeah, so, yeah, stories about animals on sets. And also, it's interesting that, like, Nope is about a Hollywood horse ranch, right? Like, they are not about that. Let me tell you. That's sort of the premise for that, but.

Cannot fucking wait for that movie. God, I finally saw... Probably my most anticipated of the year. Finally saw that trailer on the big screen. And it is a fun experience. I'll say for as much as you know, watching it on the laptop, whatever, you're excited. But there really is no comparison to seeing a trailer for a movie you're super excited about

on the big screen for the first time. And you're just like, yes, fuck, I'm so excited. Anyway, back to... We should mention, Ty, there was like... Yes. As it often is with movies that have animals so centrally and especially more exotic animals, there was some, like, controversy question of if there was animal abuse occurring on set, and nothing ever actually came out, but Ty was apparently, there was some footage of

Ty being abused prior to the work on this movie, which is horrible and, unfortunately, fortunate and it was one of those things where the controversy got tagged to the movie because the controversy was coming out when the movie was coming out and like it was basically like were animals abused on the set of water for elephants and water for elephants was like definitely not here are all the procedures we followed we went to the letter yada yada yada and then it was found out that years earlier the company that that sort of provides these animals which is called have trunk will travel was under fire and there was video the allegedly video that showed uh possible animal abuse under their care from like 2005 right which was like well before water for elephants so you

do feel bad that like seemingly the water for elephants production did everything right and yet because the company that they used to provide this elephant was then uncovered for previous abuse now forever more sort of water for elephants is the movie that has an animal abuse controversy tacked to it even though there was no indication that there was

animal abuse on the set of that movie so like that's kind of a shame for that movie right yeah so but anyway yes this was one of the things I think when in the general conversation about this movie where like the

the buzz around this movie was just of generally bad for a lot of different reasons and this was a contributing factor to that but anyway we stand a legend we stand tie passed away last year yeah just very recently last year so um i'm not sure exactly how long elephants usually live but like lived about 55 years so uh that's pretty good also though not even the biggest animal star of the year in this movie actually because that glory-hogging bitch Uggy at the bottom of this cast list steal on all the laurels

because this was of course the same year as the artist Yes What do we think about Uggy and the artist I'm going to go on my own little spiel But I want to give you a chance to I know what your spiel is going to be We've definitely had this conversation before

And I love it Uggy innocent Uggy is like I mean It's not Uggy's fault that Uggy was turned into an overnight sensation and trotted out annoyingly. Uggie, wonderful, wonderful young man. I say young because he is a terrier.

God loves a terrier. That is true. God does love a terrier, canonically so. But like, okay, so again, let's, let's, you know, take this seriously. The career of Uggie the dog. Uggie also sadly passed away in 2015. Not in as many movies as Ty. Only previous to 2011 had only been in that movie

What's Up Rockers, the Larry Clark movie that nobody ever saw because by that point we had all decided to well and truly disavow Larry Clark. I would have loved to have heard Uggie's horror stories about Larry Clark. I'm sure there were many. Uggie saw some shit as Biting Dog and What's Up Rockers. God. imagine if, like, Twitter existed in the age of Larry Clark? I cannot, and I don't want to think about it.

I absolutely don't. In the era of Gen Z specifically, sort of, like, they would have, like, tore that motherfucker apart. For good reason. Sure. And yet also, like, I'm glad kids exists, because, like, kids was a major sort of milestone movie in a lot of ways. A flashpoint, talking point.

Yes, yes, yes. Yes, yes. It was also in a 2006 movie called Mr. Fixit that starred. David Boreanas, which looks terrible. But anyway, big breakout year for Uggie was 2011, was in Water for Elephants in the spring, but then the big news was, well, I guess the spring also was the cam premiere of the artist. And that's where it's sort of all happened for Uggie.

Uggie is essentially the third lead in the artist after Jean-Doujardin and Bernouz Bezreux. And Uggie was a instant sensation. took the what is it at the palm dog no what is the what is the thoroughfare is it the quassette there is there what's yes the star of the quassette

fashion icon with his bow tie took the entire festival by storm did win as you mentioned the palm dog award which is an award that predated uhgi but i would have believed that they would have like if you had told me they

created the palm dog to honor uggie I would believe it But actually the Palm Dog Goes back as far as 2001 And now I feel like we need to Like delve into the history of the Palm Dog a little bit Because we truly will never get another chance To talk about Uggy again

So the very Other great noted winners Include Brandy from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood That's true Most recently that Also What are other recent palm dogs. There was the dog in

sorry, once again, Wikipedia, you're just like, you're fucking this up for me. Okay. Anyway. Invisible dog Moses from Dogville. The very first, right, yes. The very first palm dog went to Otis from the anniversary party. Doesn't that dog get lost or hit by a car? I need to see that movie again. Or like, they accidentally feed ecstasy to the dog or something bad happens with that dog. animated dogs also tend to win

the triplets of Belleville won the palm dog for Bruno Marie Antoinette there was a dog named Mops that won the palm dog in 2006 obviously a unanimous palm dog winner in 2008 went to Lucy the titular

of dog of Wendy and Lucy which like a more appropriate winner could not possibly be imagined. Once again, animated dogs do tend to clean up in this category, actually, which I'm not sure if I was a real flesh and blood dog, I would be kind of pissed about animated dogs coming and taking my awards. You would be Meryl Streep complaining about stop motion performance. Kind of. Well, but it's even more so because like in Up, like Doug the Dog in Up is not based on a real dog's like mocap stuff. Like that's just, uh, it's the voice of the director, isn't it? Who is

the voice of Doug in up hold on that makes sense we're really like going down some rabbit holes it's not Pete Doctor that's a Pete Doctor movie no it's no it is a Pete Doctor movie but it's actually Bob Peterson is the voice of Doug anyway justice for anybody else in 2009

that Doug was taking the dog awards so yeah obviously the entire cast of White God that movie about the dogs won the Palm Dog in 2014 and pretty much rightly so oh the dog from Patterson I kind of loved the dog from Patterson, actually,

which won a posthumous palm dog in 2016. I've never seen Patterson. Oh, Patterson's good. The Meyerowitz Story's dog, Einstein, won the Palm Dog in 2017. And yeah, Brandy from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the most recent sort of acclaimed winner of the Palm Dog. So Uggy wins the Palm Dog in 2011.

And I think partially it's because the artist features actors who were sort of not familiar to American audiences then and certainly Jean de Jardin became a thing

he ended up winning best actor at the Oscars but like Uggie becomes the mascot of that movie in many ways the promotional push for the artist kind of wisely

pushes Uggie to the forefront because people love dogs people love cute little you know God loves a terrier and so do the American movie going public And there was, in my mind, to me, and I will say that, like, you very well may feel differently, to me, there was a tongue-in-cheek push for Uggie to get consideration for best supporting actor that, to me, went a little bit into the realm of, no, this should actually happen. and that's where my and I am again I've never had a pet so like I I come to this from a very different

perspective for most people I do not have whatever that microchip in me that like whatever I like dogs fine but like once that happened I was like well now you've just gone too far now all of a sudden you are this was a cute joke that now has to stop and it didn't stop Stop. It, like, people kept talking about it up until those goddamn Oscar nominations. That's kind of how I felt about the movie itself. All right. So where did you come down on the Uggie for Best Supporting Actor discussion?

I remember that less probably because I was just like, whatever, with most of the stuff about that movie. That wasn't, you know, Jean-Ducer-Den, because I was just like, that movie is fine. It is fine. I thought it was fine, too. I was I was sort of appreciative that a movie that was that kind of different was taking the award season by Storm. I was like rather this than like something that feels a little safer or, you know. In that year, it was definitely rather that than the descendants, which I hated. Right, right, right, right.

And, like, felt for a time like the active, you know, second place. Right. Yes. Although I wonder what ended up, what do you think ended up as second place in 2011, truthfully? I mean, I think the artist was pretty firmly out in front. Second place was, I mean, that's also Hugo, or is Hugo the next year? No, that's Hugo. Yeah, I mean, it was probably Hugo. Yeah, I think you're right. Although, I mean, it's tough to say because you're right. The descendants was in the mix for a while. I genuinely have no idea how well the help did in Best Picture. It could have been second.

It could have been eighth. Dead last. You know what I mean? Like, I genuinely have no idea. I don't. But anyway, interesting year, 2011. I mean, like, I almost wonder if the artist didn't exist, if Hugo would have done better. I'm colder on Hugo, too.

Like, the thing I love about Hugo is Ben Kingsley, but, like, everything else. And, like, I love Scorsese, but that movie. He, I don't know. Yeah. So, all right, give me a second now because I'm looking at Uggie's IMDB, and it doesn't really list much beyond the artist. And yet, oh, okay, all right, sorry, I was reading this wrong. It says here that Uggie appeared opposite another Jack Russell Terrier named Cosmo, who was in Beginners.

in a photo shoot spread for the Hollywood Reporter. So there was actually a little bit of maybe a rivalry between... Dog Roundtable? The Hollywood Reporter Dog Roundtable of 2011 was really something to see. Cosmo, obviously, in beginners, like, that's... It's rare that... I mean, I guess the terriers are the most photogenic of the dog. So, like, it doesn't surprise me that the terriers are the ones who are sort of the glory hog.

of the awards campaigns here. But Uggie definitely had probably better press than Cosmo did that year. Justice for Cosmo is what we're saying. I don't love beginners. It is no shade to Uggie to say justice for Cosmo. No, there could be room for multiple terriers in the cinematic universe. All right. Anyway, Uggie plays Queenie in this.

Queenie is a fairly minor role, but kind of, central to this friendship between Jacob and Walter, who is one of the performers in the traveling circus. And one of the people who, when the movie needs to, like, ratchet up the stakes and the tension, unfortunately, like, off-screen gets kind of dealt with along with, uh, what is his name? Camel, uh, uh, Jim Norton's character, Camel. Yes. whatever um these two are like his best friends and after like shit goes down

and Christoph Waltz finds out that Jacob and Marlena have been you know smooching and whatnot those two get thrown off of the train off screen and it's very traumatic when Jacob finds out about it I don't know by that point

I'm pretty well disengaged with the movie not necessarily disengaged but, like, I'm not really as wrapped up in the tension of the movie as I need to be. I don't know if you feel the same. It doesn't really get the, like, I guess, criminality of August, all that interesting. Like, we know that he's, like, threatening and a bad guy because Christoph Waltz is playing him. But, like, I don't know. It's...

It kind of feels, like, stuck in first not to use a car. metaphor. Right. Um, and this, but like, the romantic tension never really gets into gear. Meanwhile, like, the ecosystem around them, which, like, it really relies on the tension because, like, we mentioned earlier, the uprising and, like, unleashing of all these animals happens from within, you know? Right.

It's, it's August's crew basically rising up against him. Right. But that feels present, but not ever like it's generating any tension throughout. So, I mean, you're right. Like, this movie is kind of a little bit of a flat line that was pretty to look at. Very pretty to look at. Well, the bona fides on the craft team on this movie are, like, kind of impeccable. Like Rodrigo Preeto cinematography, Jack Fisk production design, Jacqueline West costumes,

James Newton Howard did the score. Like, that's the A-Team. Like, that's the all-star team that you get for a movie that you want to position well as, like, an adult drama that, like, is elevated to the absolute, like, apex of visual filmmaking, which is kind of surprising to me that it ends up getting released in April. And then maybe I'm thinking, well, then did they just dump it once they saw the movie and saw that it didn't really add up to anything. If it was really great, wouldn't they not have waited until the fall to release it? Right. Well, I mean, I don't necessarily want to pin it all to Francis Lawrence. Like, you were like, it's kind of odd that he did this movie after doing Constantine and I Am Legend.

I wonder if that's partly because of, like, clearly this was a difficult movie to make with, like, a high order of, like, challenges, especially with the amount of animals that are in it. And, like, sometimes you can tell that the animals are, like, were green screened in, and it looks like CGI. But, like, definitely other parts of it. A lot of the stuff with Rosie was not. And, um, I don't know. There's just, there's a real lack of tension throughout. And you can kind of see the version of this that's like, you know, uh, you hate to, like, fetishize 1970s cinema. But, like, you know the version of this movie that was like made in the 70s.

like a Sidney Pollock that's like closer to a they shoot horses, don't they? Right. That like really is able to contextualize what is going on during the Great Depression and the type of businessman that August is throughout. And you can still have this romance at the same time between these two characters. My favorite sort of film or TV depiction of a circus in this way was actually HBO's Carnival. which obviously has a whole lot of like supernatural and and sort of like quasi religious implications to it that like you don't necessarily I don't necessarily feel like I need water for elephants to be all that carnival was but one of the things that carnival did very well and a TV show is more easily able to do this is it created this ecosystem of the circus right this you know it was a it was more of an ensemble piece you got a sense of the kind of wide canvas of everybody working in this circus and where

they all fit, and they were able to better incorporate themes, like you mentioned, like the depression and whatnot, and it just felt a lot more satisfying. Here's an interesting tidbit, though, Chris, that I just sort of realized, as I'm looking at the 20th century Fox films of 2011, because I was like, okay, what did they move, what did they keep water for elephants out of the fall to make room for? And their big awards hopeful that year that we should actually probably do on this podcast pretty soon is We Bought a Zoo. And I wonder if there was a calculation made that like we can't have two sort of menagerie movies at the end of the year. We need to pick one of them.

They chose We Bought a Zoo, opens it right around Christmas in 2011 and puts water for elephants in the spring and sort of essentially just sort of you know sacrifices that one essentially even with robert patinson like i kind of understand that choice because like i'm sure we've talked about this in our other two reese episodes but like this is kind of at a down point for reese witherspoon very much so um because it's like the the real like you know bottom of the valley is the next year when this means war comes out yes but also what's interesting is the kind of of rebound, I think, that happens with Reese is basically even before her book club, it's all like literary adaptation. So this is like the beginning of the Reese Witherspoon based on a recent novel type of adaptation. Well, I wanted to sort of delve into this because I have a couple of thoughts on this. So she wins the Oscar in early 2006 for Walk the Line. Her only 2006 movie, she's in a supporting role in that movie Penelope that she produced.

I think that was, if not the first movie she ever produced, like one of the early, like, Reese's producing movies thing. That was the one where Christina Ricci has the pig nose. It's kind of cute. I didn't not like Penelope. I feel like reviews were worse than it ended up being. But then she goes on to a kind of a string of sort of high-profile failures where, like, Rendition is positioned to be Bump-bub-bub-bump rendition.

We've talked about this on this podcast before. Was positioned to be an Oscar player, was very much not. And reviews were bad. Then in 2008, she does Four Christmases with Vince Vaughn, and the reviews are, I believe, really bad. I want to check and see exactly how bad they were. But, uh-da-da-da-da. The Hollywood Reporter called the film one of the most joyless Christmas movies ever.

So, yeah, the reviews were not good. 25% on Rotten Tomatoes. So, yeah, as I remembered, that reception was pretty bad. And then, how do you know in 2010? I'm sort of glossing over Monsters v. Aliens, where she does provide a voice. And that movie, I believe, made a decent amount of money, but, like, nobody ever thinks of, you know, that Reese Witherspoon movie Monsters v. Aliens. So I think we can sort of gloss over it.

But she does the James L. Brooks failure. How do you know that we really do have to do. I would love to do that movie. We really do have to do it. I kind of wanted to sit on it for a while because when we were starting this podcast, like, I think Blank Check had like just on it or we're like just doing it. And I wanted to kind of. At this point, that was years ago. Exactly.

It still feels like the point of the pandemic when it's like 2020 was yesterday. Right. Exactly. And then those are the movies that she does leading up to Water for Elephants. So Water for Elephants kind of adds to. that kind of bad buzz. And then you're right. This means war at the very beginning of 2012 is the Nadir.

That's sort of the bottoming out. The other thing that I wanted to mention, though, that is around the same time as things started moving up for her. And I actually looked this up because I thought it might have been the same year as Waterford Elephants 2011, but it's not. It's 2013, which is the getting pulled over by the cop for, whatever it was like she's i can't remember exactly what they had pulled her over for but she's drunk and giving the uh do you know who i am thing to the cop and i thought this was america the whole thing

gets caught on tape it is on its face you would have been like oh what a disaster this is going to kill her career she's going to be absolutely ruined by this but the fascinating thing was because the sort of public perception of Reese up to that point was this incredibly high achiever, a lot of like the Tracy Flick stuff I think got like glossed onto her where she's like she's producing things. She's a high achiever. She broke up with Ryan Philippi and a lot of the

the scuttlebutt around that was that he did not, he had trouble dealing with a wife who was more powerful than him like professionally. How much of that is true or not, who knows. But a lot of the public perception of her was this just like totally in control, totally type A. And then this audio comes out of this, you know, her yelling at the cop. And it really kind of started to make her seem like messier and thus more relatable. And it really starts to turn her public perception into something different. There was also around that time where not too long after

there was the video of her at some sort of wedding like really... Dancing. Yes. Spectacular. And so all of this stuff came around and like not too long after that there was the Met Ball or the Met Gala video

in the elevator with her and Kara Delavine and Zoe DeCherne and whatever. I love you, Kara. I love you. I love it. I don't know what you're and if you forced me to say your last name, Don't try. I love it. I love it when you do it.

Say it. Dela Vigny. Kara. Dela Vigna. Hey. Dela Vigna. Hey, Karen. We don't know.

That's super much out of this place. Where are we? The important thing about being a name for a girl. Yes. Is that a man can whisper it in his. Like that whole thing is just like, it really does turn around her public perception. And all of a sudden then, people really start to like her, I think. to like her, I think, a lot more than they did. And so then when, like, wild happens and, and, you know,

she's an inherent vice. And, and I think sort of things start moving up from that. I don't know. Am I off base? Am I crazy? No, no, you're totally right. I mean, like, it is a, it's somewhat of a public perception thing. It's also just the type of roles that she did. And I mean, she's producing a lot of the roles that she takes on. Right. Especially these days, but, like, that really starts with wild. And, like, a lot of it comes from, like, popular literature. I feel like we need a little bit more of that looseness back.

Yes. It's gotten very social media. It's gotten NFT. That's exactly right. Yep. But, like, big little lies felt like we were going to keep it for a while because, like, you and I were both Madeline McKenzie. fans. Oh, she's the best part of that show. I love Nicole Kidman, too. She is the best performance in that

show. I love Nicole. I love Laura Dern, but like, by a mile, Reese is the best thing about Big Little Eyes. She's so good. I agree. One of her best performances. And it's wild that, like, it got, no pun intended, that it got so incredibly overshadowed by her co-stars. And she seemed fine with it. Like, she didn't, she never felt, like, I'm sure there was probably a part of her. But she really is in her like, I'm going to be in things with a bunch of women and they're all going to overshadow me in terms of reception era. Because also

the morning show, we're like Jennifer Aniston is winning SAG Awards and everybody's talking about Juliana Margulies and nobody is talking about Reese as kind of at all. I feel like the first time I heard about her character was when she became a surprised lesbian with Juliana Margulies. And then Little Fires

Everywhere is the other one. We're like, Carrie Washington's the one who gets the Emmy nomination out of that. And I never finish Little Fires Everywhere, though I really, really liked the book. I think you're fine, never finishing the TV. The TV show felt like a mess. I found it to be a watchable mess.

And I did not regret my time watching that show. But I can't, you know, I'm not going to say it was like the best, you know, the best thing on television. Right, right. So she's in, you're right. She's in a very kind of a little precarious. She's sort of pushing it to. a point of back to unlikeability again with the NFT stuff and the I don't know the over curation over curation there's there's more cringe I think than there used to be with her although cringe has always been a little bit part of the package even when you know at her best but I still love her I still want the best for her and adore her yeah back to water for elephants though nobody's really good in this movie but, like, she's, like, she's no exception.

I mean, she's no exception because I think all three of these leads are pretty miscast. Like, yeah. I don't know. Even, like, the way that she's styled in this movie to be, like, this very Prohibition era, like, styling of, like, ultra-platinum, like, it's just, it's, I don't understand why they considered her for this part, because, like, it's not even, first of all, there's nothing really for her to do, except right an elephant. Right.

But it's, I don't know, I think that people were, I mean, people were overly mean about it. But I think people were right that she doesn't really have chemistry with Patinson. She doesn't. Patinson, who, like, I would love to talk about, I think, is a little more at sea than she is. Yes. Because his character also isn't very interesting. If her character had a little bit more to go on, she might have been, a little bit better equipped to anchor that a little better, even though you are right,

that I think she's pretty miscast. But, yeah, she's just sort of, she's the one who, from the very first time she steps on screen, you can basically write out the entirety of her arc. And that's not good. And it's pretty cliched, and it's pretty, for as much as the movie wants you to sort of hang on, especially when they go back to Hell Holbrook in the flash in the sort of a rap story essentially talking about how they were together for all those years and they were the best time of his life and and he made he you know kept all the promises he made to her and all this stuff and it's just

like I not as invested as I need to be in this to be moved by all of this stuff at this point seeing them on their like little you know farm or homestead or wherever else wherever they end up, you know, making their life, training animals or whatever. I guess I'm supposed to feel a note of relief and triumph for them at that point, and I'm just like, my heart's not in it. Yeah. I mean, it feels more mechanical, like, this is where the story is supposed to go than something that's, like, earned and has, like, our investment in it.

And at the same time, I don't necessarily think it's the actor's fault. Walt? Like, no, but they're, they're not, they're not rescuing it. I don't, I don't know. I think, we'll get into Patinson in half a second, because I do want to do it, but I do think he's a weakness. And I think at this point, Waltz is always going to be a detriment to a movie. I'm always going to wish I was watching somebody else in that role because he just brings the same notes to everything and I'm done with it at this point. He's just a bad guy in this and there should be something more intimidating. Like, I don't know if it's more of, like, a physically intimidating presence or if he needs to be more of, like, a brute than a squirrelly, like, businessman, you know, but... Right. I think that's, I think that part is definitely right. I think you need to have somebody with a completely different physical imposition to him. Before we get off of the Reese's conversation, though, the one thing I want to ask you about is she's... At this point, I think they are filming or have filmed Legally Blonde 3. I don't think they've filmed it yet This is like, I mean, I guess if the enchanted sequel can finally get made

Eventually will get Legally Blonde 3 I think Legally Blonde 3 could actually be a lot of fun But in the age of like streaming where they're just like making whatever for a streamer Because like they're trying to lure subscribers I don't understand how that hasn't happened yet And it's probably because they just don't have a good script yet well and also so it's um the original films were MGM so where would that where would it exist now in the uh it would go to United Artists now which is what streaming platform though is what

I'm is where I'm getting at I don't well yeah you're right I don't think they are associated to because it does I think they're getting wrapped up with Amazon but like they're still doing their own distribution and not even like what Searchlight is doing now which is basically like latching itself to Hulu. I could definitely see this being one of the, like, Amazon's definitely gotten into the Lego sequel game. They did. They did Bill and Ted, right?

No. Bill and Ted was theatrical. Yes. They definitely did coming to America. Yes, they did. So, I don't know. Yeah, I question whether Legally Blonde 3 is what she needs at this point in her career, but like,

whatever. We don't need any more nostalgia, but I think it could be a good time. All right, so let's jump over to Pattinson, who at this point in his career, this is the same year as Breaking Dawn Part 1, which actually, it's so funny, we did the

that box office game, the Wordle version of box office game that I've now become obsessed with, did this weekend, this day, as we are recording this, and I was like, oh, I got exactly, I didn't have to burn a guess on the wrong Twilight movie,

Because the thing they give you is, like, they give you the weekend box office take and also what's studio. So as soon as you see Summit at the top of the box office, you're like, well, it's a Twilight movie. But it's which one. And because we were researching for Water for Elephants today, I was like, oh, I know which Twilight movie it was because I just saw this. I just made a note of this. And so, yeah, Water for Elephants comes out in the spring, and then in the fall, it's Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 1. So he's almost out of the Twilight era of his career. So he's just now starting to move into the realm of, you know, I don't want to say, like, grown-up movies because, like, you know, I don't want to slight the Twilight Saga too much.

I feel like it's gotten a lot of shit. I don't think it's as good as it's. It's gotten a reclamation, though. It has, and I don't think it's as good as the reclamation wants you to believe it is. But, like, it has its moments. Certain movies in that saga have its moments. And I think Pattinson and Stewart in particular deserve a lot of credit. And they sort of went through a real roller coaster in terms of reception.

The good part of that is they will have insane dedicated fans for the rest of their lives. And every project that they embark upon will have some degree of fervent interest. and you will always end up getting things like, I mean, we'll talk about the awards that Water for Elephants ended up being in contention for, almost certainly entirely because of the Twyhards. And Kristen Stewart will always have an army of people at the ready whenever you mention even a whisper of her name on Twitter

in any context. They'll be like, it's time to go see personal shopper this weekend. And it's like, okay. There were times when I would legitimately be reduced to sub-tweeting when I would talk about Kristen Stewart on Twitter, and they would still find me. I was like, this is a sophisticated operation, and I genuinely... They probably still have message boards where they're, like, posting your sub-tweet, be like, is this possibly a sub-tweet about her? Right, and they'll scan it for any possible sense of, like, sarcasm or shade or whatever, and, like, it has... to be totally clean.

I'm still in absolute fear of the Kristen Stewart stands. Anyway, so I don't want to shade the Twilight movies, but there was definitely a sense, especially at this point, that Pattinson really wants to break out into an adult acting career. And this was... And yet it's still before he's, like, working with Autours, because it wouldn't be until... 2012 when he worked with Cronenberg.

Right, on Cosmopolis, right. And then worked with him a couple of times. And right, then he's making movies with eventually, you know, James Gray and Claire Deney and the softies and all of this stuff continuing on today. He's, he's an Auteur boy. He really, he's kind of the male Nicole Kidman in a way where it's just like, I went through this incredibly tabloidy temper. tempest of a career point and my solution to breaking out of that is just to work with

nonstop autors all the time and good for him as far as I don't love all of them. I agree and like this is why I'm not prone to like look negatively towards him doing the Batman because I do think him playing Bruce Wayne probably is now going to get a million of these movies

movies that are going to have otherwise struggled to get financing made, like 100%. I did not care for the Batman kind of at all. I wanted to talk to you about this because we haven't talked about it yet. I didn't like it, but I liked him in it, even though I think his, like, that character is just nothing. Like, there is nothing to that character. There's not a lot to that. I don't understand why he's doing the things that he does.

There's all this talk about, like, he's a detective again. And I'm like, well, A, he's not a very good detective. And, like, so much of that movie is, like, the same exact, like, push-in shot of him, like, realizing the answer to a really dumb and basic riddle. And I don't dislike Jeffrey Wright either. And, like, I... And yet, I don't think there's a whole lot of, like, charge to the endless amounts of scenes of the two of them, just sort of, like, talking over this case. I do feel like he is astoundingly hot

in this movie And you were going to get there That's the That's my sort of like The one thing That's your bread and butter Best about the movie But like I did not care for that film

Kind of at all I feel like I could Really be pushed in either direction If I watched again I wish that I could watch this in a vacuum Because I am so weary and over the like

intentional darkness of these type of movies in that direction. It's crazy to me. And yet I do think there are some good ideas there. Like if like the whole brooding Batman like movies that are I think significantly not as good as this one is didn't exist. I think I could

like this movie more, but right now I'm just not sure. See, I don't think this movie is a patch on the Nolan movies. I think the Nolan movies were better. Oh, I'm not talking about the Nolans. I'm talking about the Sniders. Oh, gotcha, got you. And like, there is a certain level of the Nolans that I, a lot of it is the fandom around it, like really pushing it in a certain direction. Because Christopher Nolan, at least in like the Dark Knight, is trying to make a Michael Man movie. Sure. I, I mean, I hate Dark Night Rise. which is like he says he's making a David Lean movie. I think he's making 17 different movies that don't make any sense together.

Batman, sorry, the Dark Night Rises is a much better movie to watch on television than it is in a theater because you can dip in and out of it. You can pick it up halfway through. It's much better to watch in chunks, I think, than to watch as a whole. And I have appreciated it much more. But speaking of Nolan, I think, I mean, you know, I am one of the. foremost pro-tenant people around. Right, where Patinson plays, uh, human linen.

He's marvelous in that movie. I genuinely think he's fantastic. I would have nominated him in supporting actor. I think he's great. But so, yeah, he does these big, even the big budget movies that he does. You're right, there is I think the, like, I think the Batman is getting more credit that it deserves for being like, people are like, it's a real, it's a singular idea

sort of executed to its fullest and whatever I'm like it's a little overblown it's like he's falling back on broody Batman clichés and David Fincher stylistic so like the Fincher the Fincher illusions are the thing that's

driving me crazy that people are giving it credit for I'm like all of the stuff that it relates back to Fincher movies is all surface like and like the surface like while is very you know catching in Fincher movies. Like, that's not why we still talk about Fincher movies.

Like, there's a lot going on beneath the surface that, like, I don't think this Batman approaches at all. It's just these really, like, kind of superficial fincher allusions. But the thing about modern Pattinson is, and I say Modern to sort of differentiate from sort of the Twilight Years, even when he's making a movie that I don't care for. Like, you know, I have no time for good time. Like, I do not. I have no time for the Safty Brothers, and I specifically do not care for good time.

I guess, this is the one that, like, pushes it the most for me, but I'm still, I guess, glad Pattinson made it. And I think it did something interesting for his career. And I do still think he's really good in the movie. I mean, he's never bad. This is the thing. I'm trying to think of, like, a movie where I think, I mean, he's bad in Water for Elephants. But, like, in the last, you know, decades since then. his two Netflix movies

that he's doing weird accent stuff which I've still never seen either of those movies and probably never will but I've seen the clips of like whatever the hell he's on it's like you know what good for him for going for it in this movie that otherwise wouldn't register

The devil all the time is kind of his Jupiter ascending like his Eddie Redmayan and Jupiter ascending you know the Jupiter ascending people the Wichowski people are going to come after me for comparing those two movies and like I'm not saying the devil all the time is good I don't think Jupiter pretending is either. But, like, Patinson's giving you

something. He's really just all in on this weird accent, and, yeah, you're right. Nobody liked the king either, but everybody was like, ah, but Patinson, if only there was more Patinson. Like, he really is kind of Teflon at this point. He's going to continue to evolve to be a very interesting actor. He's immensely watchable. Like, as much as I love High Life, and I think he's spectacular in it, we haven't even mentioned the one that I think is his best performance, which is the Lighthouse, right.

Which he manages to, like, go kind of, like, all in on the conceptualism of that movie while at the same time being so incredibly funny. Right. Yeah. No, I'm with you on The Lighthouse. I think The Lighthouse is an incredibly fun performance for a movie that is kind of that surface level grimy and grody and whatever like it's a it can be a very fun movie um i also think of something like lost city of zed where he i don't think utters an intelligible the line of

dialogue throughout that entire movie and yet um you uh you walk out really really incredibly charismatic did you ever see i'm sort of going through his uh his filmography and did you ever see the uh anton Corbyn movie Life? No. That movie, I don't, I think, barely got released. Yes, I agree. And that was like a hugely predicted movie because it's like,

look at this picture of Dane DeHan as James Dean. And it's like, look how remarkable the similarity is, but like, it just never happened. Have you seen it? Is it bad? Is that why it went away? I was asking you

because I was curious about it. I have not seen it. I probably should seek it out at some point, even though it's surprising to me that is, that is kind of pro-patinson as our circles in movie Twitter tend to be that nobody ever talks about it. I don't think people know that the movie exists. That's very possible. What does he have coming up? Nothing after the Batman planned. He was supposed to be in the second Claire Deney movie that is supposed to be coming this year. I wouldn't be surprised if it's not until next year.

got replaced by Terran Edgerton and then got replaced by Joe Alwynn. Having read that book, Joe Alwyn's probably the most appropriate for that role, though I can't wait to see Patinson work with Claire Deney again. However, I, if it's, if, I mean, it's Claire Deney, so it could be her own thing. If it's anything like the book,

I think Margaret Qualey's going to rip the fucking roof off that movie. Can't wait for it. Well, that's exciting. That's something to look forward to. all right um what else did we oh richard le gravenace i promised richard legris yes we have to talk about him okay so we talked about him only a few weeks ago in the guise of how did we get to him um i can't remember now because i remember us talking about living out loud and we were talking about uh the mirror has two faces but i genuinely oh because he was one of the screenwriters that

Ted Griffin was friends with. Ah. When we were talking about, rumor hasn't. Okay. So, LaGravena's is like the screenwriter, screenwriter. He's directed one, two, three, four, five features. And yet he's much, much, much more often employed as a screenwriter, either from the beginning or often brought in to, like, punch up stuff or, like, take a second pass at

something. He's done a lot of very high profile adaptations of things. He did the script for the Bridges of Madison County, which was a massively anticipated movie because the book was such a big bestseller. But also reviled at the same time. So it's like you could, I mean, obviously you can credit to Merrill Street's performance, Clint Eastwood's direction, but like he definitely punched up that script to be less crunchy. He's one of the two credited screenwriters on Alfonso Quaron's A Little Princess, which was another adaptation of a book. He wrote, again, one of two credited screenwriters on Ted Demi's The Ref, which is always one of my great underrated Christmas movies, The Ref. The big first thing for him was he wrote the screenplay for The Fisher King, which was directed by Terry Gilliam, ends up being like a multiple Oscar.

nominee. Mercedes Rule wins the supporting actress award for, uh, for that film. And that Richard LaGrovena's only Oscar nomination. Right. And it kind of launches him and this excuse me, uh, launches this screenwriting career. He, uh, did the screenplay for that Diane Keaton movie that she directed called Unstrung Heroes. That is also apparently based on, uh, Andy McDowell cinema. Right. Speaking of Margaret Qualley. What else? It's a really interesting career. He does the Horse Whisperer adaptation.

As you said, Living Out Loud, which is his directorial debut, is one of the screenwriters credited on Beloved, although you imagine that one had a very long sort of process. And I imagine Oprah was like intimately involved in the creation of that movie. And also director Jonathan Demi as well. he directs two Hillary Swank movies in the same year, 2007, Freedom Writers, and P.S. I love you. I've seen neither. Freedom Writers is the one that seems like dangerous minds redo and less cool, dangerous minds. Right. And then P.S. I Love You is she was married to Gerard Butler. He, no, wait. He dies and has written her letters or something. Or is it that Jeffrey Dean Morgan no one of them is dead

and the other one is a new love there was that era where Jeffrey Dean Morgan kept showing up in things and dying because he like he was he's Mary Louise Parker's husband at the very first episode of weeds and his death sort of spurs her on

to have to take up selling weed and then he also shows up on Grey's Anatomy and famously dies so he's also at PSOVU I've never seen that movie he's got an uncred screenplay, uncredited screenplay work on Conviction, which is another movie that we've covered on this podcast.

I mentioned the last time that he wrote and directed my beloved beautiful creatures with Alden Aaron Reich and Alice Englert. I've said too much about that movie already. I love that so much. I can't wait to watch that movie whenever I watch it. And then he did the kind of maligned the last five years movie, even though I liked that movie. I don't know where you stood on that.

I thought it was fine. I mean, I love that musical. This is the thing is I did not come into that with any preconceived anything about that musical. I knew that it was a thing that people really loved, but I had no experience with it. I think that movie happened right at the beginning of that musical becoming a little dated and ubiquitous. Gotcha. Because then shortly thereafter, it kind of got a resurgence of that. musical right it's kind of shocking that you haven't seen more of that musical being performed

during the pandemic on like theater zoom the very very best iteration of anything from that is the youtube of cynthia rivo singing i can do better than that at marie's crisis which is one of the most i like i will watch that when i need to feel better it just makes me feel so wonderful and i you know just the one of my top five favorite show tunes tango, you don't have to eat prosciutto, you don't have to change a thing, just stare at me. Woo! I want you and you and nothing but you, miles and piles of you, finally I'll have something worthwhile to think of each morning. imagining the serendipity of if you had been at marie's crisis that night marie's crisis

which is both a very fun time and also just a pain in the ass to actually uh endure because it is it's it's small it is cramped everybody like nobody budges everybody's crowding around the piano it is impossible to get to the bar and it's just and if you are i mean i don't know why you would be at Marie's Crisis if you're not inclined to musical theater. So, like, that's what, like, I don't mind that part. A lot of people are like, can you imagine being in a room of, like, of theater kids? I'm like, yeah, that's fine. Like, that's why you go to Marie's Crisis.

To me, it's mostly just like, I can't get a fucking drink and I can't move. And there's a line to get in because there's such limited space. But anyway, if you endure all of that and get as your reward, Cynthia Arrivo, like, singing the shit out of I can do better than that. Like, that's in the middle of the bar. Oh, God. It's so. Like no fanfare, just like belting it out. So good.

And they, whoever, whoever put that online, whoever recorded it with their phone and put it online is a national hero because, A, we get her version of singing that song. But like, then there were, that video was so good. There were productions of her in that role. She did that with that show with Justin Henry. So the, the video predated, this is a thing I've never really known, the video predated that production. Yes. Amazing. Amazing. So good. Also, Danielle Brooks. That's right, because she was doing the color purple at that point, because Daniel Brooks is in that video. Just sort of like standing behind her or whatever. So, yeah, fantastic, fantastic video. Okay. A couple other Lagravena's things. He's one of several credited screenwriters on Angelina Jolie's Unbroken, along with the Coen brothers. I genuinely don't know in what order people got involved with that. He's also one of several credited screenwriter.

on the Robert De Niro movie, The Comedian, that I've never seen. Oh, boy. Directed by Taylor Hackford, which I actually didn't know, Mr. Helen Mirren. Did De Niro get a Golden Globe nomination for that? Was it him? Something happened. He won a Hollywood Film Award. Okay.

Oh, God. Not the Hollywood Film Awards. We have to talk about them in a while. I think those are now defunct. I don't think those exist anymore. Yeah, I think that's right. Wow, shocking the comedian is not. Not an AARP movie for Grownup Award.

I agree. And then you invoked earlier in this episode, The Specter of Disenchanted, the Enchanted sequel. He is one of several credited screenwriters on that one. So, yeah, I am kind of obsessed with the sort of the journeyman screenwriter in Hollywood. I mentioned when I was on the B-Sides podcast. My episode actually just went up this week, how I want somebody to embark on a

long-term podcast where they cover all the films of Lowell Gans and Babelou Mendel, the dream writing pair who've done like Forget Paris and League of the Rhone and just a whole bunch of these like 90s middle brow comedies that you've definitely seen on TV a billion times like that's their genre and it is I love the idea of because like podcasts and like intense cover

of atoors is great and we love that and like there's so much to dig into but like covering the careers of sub a tourist filmmakers is also I think deeply fascinating it's one of the things I love that we get into on this podcast actually is we get a lot of chances to sort of explore the films of sometimes atours but sometimes people who are just like who work a lot and who don't have like that signature thing that they put into those their movies does that make sense? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. All right, what are the odds and ends that we haven't gotten to?

Oh my God, the awards that this movie won. The comedian was not an AARP of Movies for Grownups Award nominee, but Water for Elephants was. Christoph Waltz was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Go off AARP. Who else was he nominated against that year? Well, Christopher Plummer wins. Sure, for being honest.

Danny Collins stud Christopher Plummer Also like the absolute ideal crossover point of the Oscars and the M4Gs is Christopher Plummer and Beginners

like that that could not have worked out better Only other Oscar nominee is Max von Sido for extremely loud and incredibly close Sure, right Surprise not Oscar nominee

Ben Kingsley for Hugo that always is just so weird to me and maybe I feel that more acutely because he's, like, the one thing that I actually love about that movie. Oh, interesting. And then Jeremy Irons for Margin'Call.

If you would have told me that the Margin Call would have been nominated in this category, I would have said, absolutely correct. But I wouldn't have guessed Jeremy Irons, though I suppose the only one who could have been nominated would have been Spacey. Right, and you're glad it worked out this way.

Yeah, because everybody else in Margin Call is pretty young. Yeah. Yeah. All right. A little surprising they didn't nominate to me more for a sporting actress? It is, although she really doesn't have a ton to do in that movie. I'm very happy whenever she shows up, but Irons is the one who gets... Do we remember anything Jeremy Irons has to do in that movie?

Well, but he gets a lot of those, like, a lot of his scenes in Margin' Call are the ones where you look at it and just like, this is why America's fucked the way it is, is because people like him. He really gives these sort of, like, very, you know, capitalist pig. monologue kind of stuff and I get why that would sort of get a spotlight. One thing we haven't really talked about very much on this podcast at all, kind of surprisingly, is the people's choice awards, A, because I don't respect the people's choice. I don't respect the people, so I don't respect their choice. And I don't know, we just, like, it never really comes up in this podcast for too much. I don't think people pay enough attention to, like,

I wouldn't be surprised if people's choice awards are, like, not fully maintained on IMDP. I think that's probably true. I also have no idea at what point in the year they get presented. I know they used to be on CBS. I imagine they still are. They are none of my business, and they exist outside of my purview. Water for Elephants got two People's Choice Award nominations for a movie that, again, made only 16. million dollars which again is not nothing but in an era where eight billion things get you know

are a hundred million dollar movies um kind of surprising that that would have ranked but again these things are voted for by uh you know open voting situations and the patents and army will show up like they will make sure that even a movie like water for elephants gets nominated for favorite book adaptation where it loses to um Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part two nominated up against other Francis Lawrence has two nominations in this category, actually, at the people's choice. I am number, or no, sorry, it's not I Amudge. It's I'm number four. Never mind.

I am number four, a movie that I saw in a theater. DJ Caruso's, I Am Number Four, starring, of course. Did you see that? Was that like one of those times that you're like, what is playing literally right now at this theater? It's very possible that that was the case. it also might have been very possible that I was just like Timothy Oliphon's in a movie and I want to see it so that is also possible

The Help was nominated for a favorite book adaptation and then the fifth nominee was Soul Surfer which was the true story about the girl who lost her arm in a shark attack which has one of the most unintentionally hilarious posters of all times which is just this

it's Anna Sophia Robb is the main star of this she is on the poster she's sort of clutching a surfboard in front of her her face is sort of half obscured by it and the surfboard has a giant bite taken out of it and it is both

like crass and also and also the font is very like the OC font it's very like you know I don't know the name of this want, but it's very, right. It makes, it gives the impression that Soul Surfer is giving you on a very special episode, right? Very much so. But like, it's just, how do you not look at that, knowing the story of Soul Surfer, and not just have a laugh at that? It's just a big cartoony

shark bite out of this surfboard. I don't know. It feels like the inappropriate choice was made. I think that's right. And then the, the, so Waterford Elephants doesn't win that one. does win favorite drama movie over the help and money ball, which we're both Oscar nominated for Best Picture, Limitless, which is the Bradley Cooper takes a drug that makes them super smart. That's an interesting subgenre of the, especially like the 21st century, is people becoming super smart artificially, because it's this, it's Lucy, the Scarjo movie. What's the Wally Fister movie that nobody liked?

Super, not Super Intelligence. But it's something like that. Transcendence. Transcendence, yes. It is a movie about super intelligence. So anyway, that Bradley Cooper movie. And then the Adjustment Bureau, which is a movie I kind of liked. And it got paid like actual dust.

And like nobody saw it. Wasn't it on like? Emily Blunt's IMDB are her known for. I think she's good in it. I think she and Damon are both good in it. I think it is, again, speaking of Danny Collins last week, it is a fedora movie to beat all fedora movies. It is like the fedoras and that are kind of a plot point almost.

I enjoyed the adjustment beer. Did you ever see that movie? If you ever catch it on cable, I would say don't go out of your way maybe to watch it. But like if you see it on, you know, I don't know, if you catch it somewhere and you have some spare time, watch it. But anyway, water for elephants bests them all. Once again, because the R.PATS fans are scary and have a lot of time on their hands.

So what else? What else? There was also a Teen Choice Award that this movie won, which is, again, R.PATS fans voted Robert Pattinson as choice movie actor in a drama. Let me look this up really quick. all right was he nominated against himself he wasn't actually me i imagine twilight was nominated in like action or sci-fi or some other genre that wasn't straight-up drama um yes he was nominated in choice movie actor sci-fi fantasy where he lost to taylor loutner the absolute gaggery of that uh i'm sure the twiards were in uh open

revolt against each other. I don't know. Almost shocking that somebody didn't Adrian Brody that win. Also, choice movie lip lock Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in Twilight Eclipse were nominated along with Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner in Twilight

Eclipse. They, I imagine, must have split the vote and then they lose out to Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson in Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Part 1. So, I imagine TwyWorld was in was in quite a state. Anyway, Pattinson did win Choice Vampire that year. Oh, wow. All right.

Nominees for Choice Vampire. Only two from Twilight Eclipse, four then from the Vampire Diaries. They cross, no, sorry, three from the Vampire Diaries, and then Alexander Scars Garred from True Blood. So TV and movies crossed the streams because the teens don't differentiate between the two. Pattinson and Nicky Reed were the two Vampires nominated from Twilight Eclipse. Good for Nikki Reid, honestly. Yeah.

Anyway, this was the one thing I wanted to bring up because thank you for mentioning Jacob. Oh, right. He's named Jacob. Stupid, like, interview questions and, like, grabs of Robert Pattinson is playing someone called Jacob. It's like, okay.

Listen, I. I understand the need to pay a bill and to make some money. And if this is how you get SEO to show up to an article about Water for Elephants, by frontlining the idea that Robert Pattinson is playing a Jacob. Just like throw the name Jacob in there along with Pattinson's name, and you've got probably, you've tripled your Google hit count. He should have trolled them specifically and only played Jacobs from here on out. All right, so Teen Choice Awards, choice movie actor drama nominees.

Pattinson wins. Bradley Cooper for the aforementioned Limitless is nominated, along with Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg for the social network. Also nominated Shia LeBuff for Wall Street Money Never Sleeps. Sure. A movie that, like... No teen saw. It's really surprising that that movie ever happened. Like, it's still, like, it just kind of amazes me that it happened, that it had the people

in it that it did. It's just, you know, I believe, didn't Michael Douglas get a Golden Globe nomination for that? I'm pretty sure. Sporting actor. Yeah. And then the fifth nominee is, oh, God, my fate, one of my favorite hymboes actually, um, Cam Chigande, and the roommate, which was, I'm pretty sure, like, one of those, again, isn't that a latent meester horror movie? If a movie could have been released in the early morning hours on January 1st, it's that much. of a January movie. Yes, it is Leighton Meester and Minka Kelly,

Mika Kelly, who was in Friday Night Lights at the time, and Leighton Meester from Gossip Girl, who both look decently similar in real life and are made to look like even more similar in this one. And they are college roommates. Is it like a single white female situation? Yes, essentially they're college roommates and one of whom

one becomes obsessed with the other. And I can't remember, I think Meester's the Jennifer Jason Lee of that pair. is the kind of obsessed one. But anyway, also saw that one, I'm pretty sure, in a theater. And like I said, the earliest of Januaries. See, that's a movie that should be nominated for Teen Choice Awards. Wall Street 2, Money Never Sleeps.

Like, this is why I sometimes love coming across the Teen Choice Awards when we do stuff like this, because it's like, what are you talking about? It's like, no teens saw that. It's truly just about the star. I would bet my lunch that Patinson was nominated for Secret 9-11 movie. Probably. That, like, not even no teen saw. No one saw that movie.

Wait, now I want to look up and see how many Teen Choice Awards Patinson has been nominated for in his career. I bet you it's like something like... A million. Like, hold on. Teen Choice Awards. Total number of nominations. I'm going to tally them up. You talk a little for a second, and I'm going to tell you them up, and I'm going to have you try and guess the number.

I also want you to tell me not only what the end tally is. I want to know which of the Twilights he was most nominated for because they're going to throw in as many, like, categories as possible, like choice vampire, choice dramatic actor, whatever. Yeah, give me a second. It's going to be, it's going to be interesting. I do want to see if he was nominated for High Life, a movie that is at least 15% about semen. Yes. I feel like the Twyhards have been like surprisingly quiet about the Batman. Or maybe they'll just be louder at the end of the year.

They'll be louder than the fanboys about, you know, getting him a best actor nomination. I saw some people, I think it was Joanna Robinson, who retweeted in. to her timeline, something where it was like, the Twyhards are being very resistant to letting the Batman people co-opt Robert Pattinson and essentially be like, you're not about to co-opt this guy who you all made fun of for years for being a broody, sparkly vampire boy. Frankly, good for them. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying.

It's like, good for you. This is your guy. Claim your victory. Do not let these, you know, in-cell jerks and you know whatever not all batman fans are in-sell jerks but there's too many of them that are and don't let them co-opt your guy i'm into that all right i mean the batman is kind of about how his fans are in-cell jerks like i mean it's not not about that although again i don't think that movie does does as well by that as they think all right the your issue with which

Twilight movie is the most represented is there's like a lot of them that have like three and four apiece. So there's no like runaway winner. But anyway, how many total nominations throughout his entire career do you think Pattinson's gotten by the Teen Choice Awards? Oh my God. I'm going to say it's 30 or more. It's actually only 20. I think we're overestimating at this point. But for a movie saga that was, what, five movies, and only a couple, only a small handful of nominations are from not Twilight stuff. His non-Twilight nominations are, well, in 2009, he's nominated for Choice Hoddy.

That is not, like, connected to any specific movie, but, like, that's the only movie he was in that year. So there was that. He's nominated, you are correct. He won choice movie actor drama in 2010 for Remember Me. So you are 100% correct about that. He won choice movie actor drama the very next year for Water for Elephants. Another choice male haughty nomination in 2012.

I will bet money that he lost to Lautner. And so that's it. Those are his only non-Twilight nominations. Otherwise, it's, you know, choice movie liplock, choice movie rumble. a bunch of choice movie actor sci-fi fantasy choice male haughty as I mentioned choice movie actor romance which is how

they they let Breaking Dawn compete in both sci-fi fantasy and romance for Breaking Dawn Part 2 so they really just like they wilded out for that so yeah 20 total nominations

11 total wins just the absolute Merrill Streep of the Teen Choice Awards good for him being in the romance categories and the sci-fi fantasy categories are like being in lead and then supporting right right exactly um in terms of other like odds and ends for this the only other note that i have here uh that is somewhat unwell which is that uh this was the original big cat rescue movie that uh carol baskin clearly took uh her inspiration from from from the end of this movie, they let all of the big cats free. And I will say, I guess circus attendees innocent, and yet they were the ones who kind of got rampaged by these lions and tigers running free.

Anyway, probably took a lot of cleanup. Any other final thoughts from you on water for elephants? Justice for Floriplam. Yes, once again, justice for floor plumb. We love them. We bring it up all the time. Justice for Flora Plum. Do you know who I am?

I thought this was America. And I don't know. Remember Me as a Secret 9-11 movie. That's basically our thoughts on water. We've really hit. What's strange about water for elephants is that we've kind of hit like all of the benchmarks for our podcast. Yeah. Movies for grownups.

Yep. Remember Me as a 9-11 movie. Flora Plum, rendition. Yeah. It really does. Beautiful creatures. Yes, yes. It's all coming together.

It's all happening. All right. Chris, let's do the IMDB game. We have been doing this for almost two hours. This is an unexpectedly very long episode for I did not think we would go this long on water for elephants, but good for us. Here we are. Why don't you explain to the listeners what the IMDB game is? All right.

Every episode we end with the IMDB game where we challenge each other to guess the top four titles that IMDB says an actor or actress is most known for. If any of those titles are television, voice only performances, or non-acting credits, we'll 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. We just open the cages and we let the lions run free. We do. We do. All right. Thank you, Chris. Would you like to give or guess first? How about I guess first? All right. So I went into the Francis Lawrence filmography, and from the great movie Constantine, once again, if you have not seen it, highest recommendation, Keanu rules, Rachel Weiss Rules, Tilda is amazing. All right. Also in that movie, though, is one Mr. Jaimon Onsu, as Sigourney Weaver, expertly pronounced it when she read the Oscar nominations that one year.

and we have never done him for IMDB games, so why don't you? Do I think both of his Oscar nominations are in there? I definitely think Blood Diamond is there. Correct, Blood Diamond. Bling Bang itself. Amistad. Amistad, two for two. He has the lead in that.

What Marvel movie was he in? I would have liked to have seen how close he came to a actor nomination for Amistad. He did get a Globe nomination, I'm pretty sure. I would guess that he is somewhat close. Yeah. That was also the year that Leo did not get nominated for Titanic. Correct. But I would bet that Jiamen-on-Su was closer than Leo. Interesting.

We'll open the vaults Academy. Prove us wrong. All right. Okay. What Marvel movie is he in? it's it's Guardians of the Galaxy Guardians of the Galaxy

Chris File you are three for three Oh Three for three No misses Pressures on Can you get the fourth Trying to think

Well I mean It could be his other Oscar nomination I don't know if people Still talk about it in America Or like I don't know if it's streaming anywhere

the other thing I mean again another movie that people don't really deal with The Tempest I know he's in that because he's on the poster which makes me think that it could be the tempest

I'm just going to say in America Here's the thing about this Chris is your irksome tendency to underrate in America is almost proved your downfall on this, but you ended up on the right side of history, and you guessed in America, and now you have a perfect score for

four. Yeah! Congratulations. Congratulations, Chris. Very happy. You know, I was doubting in America, but I do feel like, you know, there's probably a lot of production stills that he's tagged to, obviously, awards and such. Yeah. Also, it's a great movie. All right. What do you have for me? All right, for you, obviously, I could not do anything but go. into Secret 9-11 movie

Remember Me, starring Robert Pattinson. Who plays his father in Secret 9-11 movie, Remember Me? None other than Pierce Brosnan. By the way, this is not the first time you have terrorized me with Remember Me in IMDB game. You made me do

Emily Deravin one time, and I still am angry at you for that. Was it her known for, like, it didn't have lost? Yeah, it was, yes. It was Emily DeRaven had a known for it that didn't include lost. You monster. You absolutely like that's probably the reason I chose it just to be like

this is wild. I can't not do this. All right. Okay. Pierce Brosnan. Well, obviously the question here is how many bonds. But I'm going to put a pin in that. I don't think you would have given this to me if it was more than

two bonds. But that's me trying to psychoanalyze you. So, very first what I'm going to say is I'm almost certain that the Thomas Crown Affair is on here. Thomas Crown Affair, correct. Okay, all right. My next non-bond question is

does the culture value his part of Mamma Mia more than it does Mrs. Doubtfire. Now, Mrs. Doubtfire is the older movie by quite a bit, But every year there's this thing of like most shown on cable movies of the year. And Mrs. Doubtfire is always near or at the top of that list. So...

Mamma Mia definitely is too, though. Yes. I don't know what this means that you are pushing me in one direction or another here, though. I'm trying to keep you in the middle. Well, I don't like that. All right. No, I'm just being petulant. I am going to guess gold and I.

Incorrect. Damn it! All right. You'll never know how I watched you from the Shadows as a child. So one... Because you're not on a known for. One bond movie down, three to go. His best damn gold...

His best bond. Not there. Yeah. I feel like if it's any of the other ones, it would probably be die another day because it's the most recent and it's the one with Madonna. But I'm going to, again, hesitate. I'm going to guess Mrs. Doubtfire. Incorrect. Damn it.

All right. Give me years. Your years are 1999, 2008, and 1997. 2008 is Mamma Mia. Correct. 1999 and what? 97. Well, 99 is the world is not enough.

Correct. Is 97 tomorrow never dies? It is. What a weird thing that it's the two middle bonds. Exactly. That's why I have. had to choose it because Golden I rules. Why

is it not GoldenEye? I don't know. Though I think the other, or at least World is not enough, I think actually made more money. Yeah. And it's terrible. Except for the song, which is one of the best bond songs, if not the Best Bond Song. As I am

contractually obligated to say every single time, world is not enough, a tier bond song. All right. That is a weird, that's a weird known for. I should have, I should have, why were you pushing me to Mamma Mia? You made me, you, you made me, you broke my brain doing that. In my mind, I was pushing you towards the, towards, like, I didn't think that was going

to help you get Mamma Mia. You were pushing me towards the right answer, and I questioned that. I was like, what's... I thought it was, where your mind was going. I was actually trying to help you a little bit. It was pushing you towards Mrs. Doubtfire, and I was just helping just a little bit. I was like, why would he be doing this? I don't trust it.

I guess I should have trusted you. I guess that's my lesson. Your lesson is give in America a break, and mine is trust Chris and his good... Just looking at Pierce Brosnan's recent filmography... Yes. Got to say, a lot of crap. What are we seeing?

Throw it out there. Well, probable... We'll see if I'm wrong the day after the ceremony. probable Oscar's fan favorite, Cinderella. Oh, God, he's in that. Is he her father? He's King Rowan.

Oh, so he's Prince Charming's father. Yes, something. I guess her father in that story dies pretty early. Although, in the Lily James version, I feel like he was a presence for at least a little bit at the beginning of that movie. Quite possibly.

I won't be watching the Camilla Caballo, Cinderella, even if it does win Oscar fan favorite. I'm sorry, I can't do it. I'm so glad that it's not a real category and you don't have to watch it for the... I mean, there's not even like nominees. They've put out the like 10 movies that were

supposedly winning it. Oh, I hate that you just brought that up now because now I'm questioning whether I should include those, but I don't want to. No, don't do it. It's not a real category. No, it's not. I relinquish you. I absolve you. Thank you. I

bestow grace upon you. All right. All right. We've got to let our listeners go. We've had them hostage now under our big top for two hours. Our listeners are saying, hey, clown. Jester, you have done it again. Constantly raising the circus tent for us all.

I'm so ashamed of you. All right. All right. That is our episode. We're very sorry. If you want more of this at Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this. had oscarbuzz.tumbler.com. You should also follow our Twitter account at had underscore

Oscar underscore buzz. We have some great stuff coming up for you. So you definitely want to follow our Twitter account. We are going to be, it's going to be a spring for the ages. So get in on the while you can't. Chris, where can the listeners find you in your stuff? You can find

me on letterbox and Twitter at Chris V-File. That's F-E-I-L. All right. I am on Twitter at Joe Reed, read spelled R-E-I-D. I am also on letterboxed as Joe Reed spelled the same way. We like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Meevis for their technical guidance. Please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, wherever else you get podcasts. A five-star review in particular really helps us out with

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