This Had Oscar Buzz - 190 – Love and Friendship

Episode Date: April 18, 2022

We’ve talked before about the shaky Oscar history with Amazon Studios, and this episode we are talking about one of their unfortunate misses that happened in the year of their biggest success: 2016���s Love and Friendship. Adapted from the scabrous Jane Austen novella Lady Susan, the film had a much-ballyhooed premiere at the Sundance Film … Continue reading "190 – Love and Friendship"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hacks. I'm from Canada. I'm from Canada water. I can't help fear that Lady Susan Vernon would destroy every comfort of our lives.

With pleasure. How and gentlemen. I'm enjoying Sir James' visit with Churchill. Churchill, that's how you say it, altogether like that. I'd heard church and hill, but couldn't find either. All I could see was this big house. You promised that you would give up all contact with this woman. What a mistake you made marrying him.

Too old to be governable. Too young to die. Lady Susan. How dare you address me, sir. Be gone, I will have you whipped. Outrageous. Have you never met him? No, I know him well.

I would never speak to a stranger like that. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast publicly humiliated in a bookstore by a secret lover, Kieran Hines. 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're here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with my wealthy young suitor, who's also a bit of a rattle, Joe Reed.

I'm glad you included that, because that was definitely one of the first things. My notes for this episode are almost entirely just like writing down dialogue and quotes from this movie. And one of the earlier ones was just James Martin, a bit of a rattle. Because what a great phrase. just like, and I have no familiarity with the Jane Austen novel novella, however, if this presented itself, but that seemed to me like, oh, I bet you that's like directly from the book.

It took me a second to realize what a rattle would probably mean as to like call someone a rattle, and then I realized it's just like a baby rattle. And then I, of course, was howling and laughter again. It took me this time watching it to figure it out, which was maybe my 50s and I've seen it. Yeah, it's just one of those words that even if you don't know like the specific context, the specific definition that it was used at the time, you're just like, oh, once you meet him, you're just like, oh, yes, well, of course. Yeah, he's got three tiny rocks rattling around in his head.

That's what, right. That's all that's there. Yeah. What a wonderful character. What a wonderful performance. Tom Bennett's so good in this movie. Like, I would probably put it. If I was going to do like top 10 comedic performances of the past decade, he would be in there.

Possibly the only man in there. Yeah, I mean, it's really something. And for a movie that beyond Beckinsale and Chloe Sevenye doesn't really travel in, because Whit Stillman for such a long time was kind of playing with the same kind of repertory company of people in and out of all of his movies. and this movie represented even damsels in distress with large like a different cast than his like you know metropolitan trilogy still felt like they're you know these very erudite college people and just the the going to englandness of it all here you you wondered where those kind of

through lines would come in and he I mean obviously Stephen Fry's a fantastic idea for a British Whit Stillman movie but like Tom Bennett really takes to that Whit Stillman dialogue so well well and he

I mean it's it's a really fine line for this character too because like we've seen a lot of idiot buffoons trying to present themselves as if they're not in movies but like I don't really know how to put it of what makes this one so funny it's maybe it comes to a degree of like it's not

a complete buffoon but it is you know somebody who is not uh on the same level of even these very simple people that he shares you know his company with um well he's completely guileless he's sort of there's nothing um kind of harmful about his idiocy it's just just, you know, the original smooth brain, I guess. Just the original, you know, that Churchill line is a perfect introductory line for him because he sort of like travels down the rabbit hole of his own idiocy a little bit. He's very much just like trying to over explain why he thought church and hill and there's, he was looking for a church and then I was looking for a hill and he just keeps going

on and on and on. And nobody is like bailing him out of this conversation whatsoever. And I don't think he even realizes that he needs to be bailed out. Like, that's the other thing that's so charming about him. Well, I mean, I find his inability to say his idiocy in very few words, incredibly relatable. Yeah, I just, I love that performance so much. But even just the rest of the cast, like, you know, Emma Greenwell, who I don't believe is British. though now I want to look this up because I mostly knew her from

Shameless, American Shameless, and yes, she's from Connecticut, so also Morphid Clark famously of St. Modd now. Okay, which I didn't make that connection until you just did right before we started recording, and like, it makes all the sense in the world now that I watch this. It's just like, of course that's her, and also just there is something about Frederica in this movie where I just

like have no patience for her whatsoever. Like I kind of I mean, you're invited to take Lady Susan's perspective in this movie anyway. So you sort of have, um, you kind of adopt these kind of low opinions of everybody else who isn't, uh, Mrs. Johnson, who isn't the Chloe Sevenny character.

Um, and yet, like, I'm, I'm going through this whole movie and just like, poor Lady Susan with this just like absolute drip of a daughter. Just like, I don't understand why all the decorseys like her so much. And everybody, like they keep calling, coming up with like you know the the uh the kent nightingale and whatever and the uh the um what's the other

one the person at the end who's like the something songbird the hampshire songbird or something like that and they start fighting over what her like beautiful nickname is going to be and i keep i'm like uh what's this jason baitman and arrest development about may whitman i kept just being like her really like all of this all this fuss over her huh um but that fits perfectly with her uh St. Maude character, who was also this very kind of, like, overestimated, and it's very easy for, uh, for what's her face to be, uh, to be mean to her and whatnot. Um, I would also call out, um, Jen Murray as Lady Lucy, who's kind of all, oh my God, shrill of them, the one who is phenomenal. If not sobbing at any given moment on the verge of it, um, on the verge of

a complete mental breakdown at all times as just being so funny. But like, as you were saying this whole adopting of their kind of mean, catty like the type of reads against these characters that if you're not paying explicit attention to the dialogue

you might miss how just like so funny but also just scathingly mean they are to these characters and it's perfectly cast in this Whit Stillman like way that like he

gets what he's doing in that like you have the two stars who are the like catty fabi more fabulous than the rest of these people friends and then at least at this point the rest of the cast was pretty much people aside from stephen fry we maybe had at that point never seen before right um except savior samuels in like twilight movies right he's like that sort of like where do i know this handsome face from and it's just like okay like other movies where he plays the what do i know this handsome face from guy like that's sort of his that's his vibe in this little era I don't know he was one of the was he one of the sons and sunfuckers am I making that up

maybe this did have a sunfuckers connection somehow maybe it was him when I was doing he was we should specify

to unfamiliar listeners when we right sunfuckers it's the movie adore with Robin Wright and Naomi

Watts, they'll think we'll lesos. He plays Naomi Watts's son, opposite James Frenchville, who plays Robin Wright's son. Okay, so... So he has the affair with Robin Wright. Does that make him the one that die?

Doesn't one of them die? Is that true? Maybe. Maybe. I've seen that movie. I think... Well, I know that one of them is just like a fling and the other one develops into a relationship, but there are consequences to that, and I think one of them dies.

Spoilers for Sunkewarmers, like me a adore. Yeah, that would feel appropriate to the kind of, you know, it's, it's, there's, there's a damage vibe to it. And like, obviously, like, the sun dies and damage. And so you're just like, oh, okay. So, um, wait, now I'm trying to read the Wikipedia page as I talk to you and double, uh, and multitask and da-ta-da-ta-ta-ta-da. So, do, do-do, do.

I don't know. I don't know if anybody dies. Anybody who has seen sunfuckers more recently than we have, like, let us know. Let us know if anybody dies. One thing I wanted to bring up before we get into love and friendship, like too far down into the rabbit hole of love and friendship, because I recorded the 2020, 2021 Movies for Grownups Awards, when it aired on PBS a few weeks. ago. We have to unpack this because you just watched this last night and you are still reeling. Right. It had been sitting on my DVR for a while. I had gotten spoiled on a couple of the winners

and I was so busy with Oscar stuff that I was just like, I'm just going to leave it there and I'm going to, you know, it's one of those like I'll save it for a, you know, quiet evening in or something like that. And now we're switching cable companies so our DVR is going away. So I was like, well, now I need to watch it. And nobody had told me the presentation that it had taken on, where it was a fully virtual award show. So it was unlike the, you know, the Critics' Choice and the Oscars and the BAFTAs and everything else this year

that has gone back to in-person award shows, perhaps because you're dealing with people over the age of 50 and maybe there's a little bit more of a, you know, COVID concern. People are, you know, more in that age demo where we have to be a little bit more careful. And for whatever reason, if that's the reason or not, fully virtual awards presentation, except for the fact that Alan Cumming was the host. And so there's Alan Cumming in his, like, his fully, like, silver LeMay suit thing with an accompanist and fully doing, like, production numbers for each of the best film nominees, Billy Crystal

style. And so he's doing it to just an empty room, just like fully like song and dance parodies to an absolutely empty room. It is when I say dystopian, what I mean is that. It's, it was so incredibly odd. And then for the winners, they didn't present, they don't, they didn't present every single one. And for most of the categories, beyond Best Film, Best Actor, and Best Actress. They didn't even read off the nominees. They just presented the winner. And the winner then had a little, like, dialogue,

Zoom dialogue with somebody else from their film. So, like, Anjano Ellis, one supporting actress for King Richard. And she then proceeds to have kind of a, like, lengthy, like sort of like five-minute little Q&A with Demi single. who played Serena Williams in the movie. And so, like, when Nicole Kidman won. Now, they read off all the nominees for that. But, like, Nicole Kidman wins best actress for being the Ricardo's,

which is, like, the first award presented, actually, which is kind of odd. And so she and Aaron Sorkin, like, proceed to have, like, a, like, a variety actors-on-actors-on-actor style, just, like, conversation for, like, five minutes or whatever, talking about whatever. And I was like, this is, I respect the effort to do something different, that if you're going to be a Zoom Award show. You can't just be sort of a sad facsimile of an awards presentation and do it sort of the same way you normally would. And also, I imagine that a lot of people probably at this point in the pandemic probably wouldn't want to sit around on Zoom for two

hours for a thing that they might not win. So this felt like a smart way to do it where you only have to really wrangle seven or eight celebrities rather than, you know, 20. And so it was an interesting way of doing that. I don't think I would ever want to see it that way again. And hopefully next year, we are at a point where we can have all the M4G's nominees in one place because, you know, they were showing clips of like old ceremonies and whatever. And it was, you know, you start to feel nostalgic. They had a nice lifetime achievement. achievement award presentation for Lily Tomlin, where, again, Goldie Hawn via Zoom, sort of, like, introduces it. And then Lily Tomlin gives a very nice exception speech.

She quoted Ruth Gordon from Ruth Gordon's Oscar speech, which I thought was very cool, because, like, that means that Lily's one of us who, like, you know, remembers when Ruth Gordon said, you know, I can't tell you how encouraging this is, which is one of my favorite Oscar acceptance lines. But anyway, I wanted to talk to you about some of the more unhinged choices in the kind of lower categories. The major categories, like, Belfast wins Best Movies for Grownups, movie for Grownups, which, like, obviously. I had actually, I was going through, I was reading through my,

my vulture predictions for it, and I had, with the caveat that I know that, like, best movie for grownups and best director never matches up at the M4Gs. So my feeling was, they'll give brand, director, and then for picture, I just took a flyer on being the Ricardos because the M4Gs nominated it a lot. And I was like, oh, well, they obviously like this movie a lot more than, you know, other people. But anyway, Belfast winning best movie for grownups makes all the sense in the world. They did give Campion Best Director. So Jane Campion truly did

win Best Director everywhere this year. Like, there was nowhere she didn't win. There's probably nowhere else they could award Power of the Dog, too. Right, exactly. I kind of just assumed that they would, award power of the dog anywhere, but, like, cool and, like, great for that movie. Will Smith wins best actor for King Richard, and so it was odd watching it from the other side of his street and being like, oh, okay, and, like, he had, you know, this nice little chat with Sinaius Sidney, and that was, you know, really nice and sort of like, oh, happier times. Kidman wins for being the Ricardo's best actress.

The one that I had gotten spoiled for was Jared Leto winning for House of Gucci, which is spectacular. The craziest choice they could have made. This is why the M4Gs need to be the new globes. I swear to God. They do go for, like, all the other options. Kieran Heinz, J.K. Simmons, Timothy Spall for Spencer, and David Stratharin for Nightmare Alley.

All of those seem like they would fit more with the stereotypical movies for grown-ups voter that you're picturing in your mind. And they said, nope, we're going for Jared Leto in House of Gucci. Stunning that Jared Leto accepted that nomination. considering he's outing himself as over 50, which everything else in the world says that he does not want to acknowledge. That's an excellent point. It's an excellent point.

But the classic M4G thing is they'll do the most unhinged thing and give Jared Leto, supporting actor for House of Gucci. And then they'll do the, they were the only ones who were smart enough to do this thing, which is give Tony Kushner best screenwriter for West Side Story. like Kushner was so underrewarded all season, got snubbed from the Oscar nomination, and finally getting his laurels from the best precursor, the emphragis. Anjanoe Ellis, as I said, one supporting actress, but I want to get into some of the more, like Cota wins best intergenerational film, which I did call correctly because that felt right.

Best Buddy Picture, are you looking at these winners or am I going to surprise you if I am not? I feel like I have not been, I thought I was spoiled on some of these, but I wasn't. I know that last year Best Buddy Picture they gave to Defive Bloods, which is a movie about friends.

Yes. But everybody dies or is maimed and is experiencing grievous drama throughout the film. Right. Okay, so I'm going to read you

the nominees then for Best Buddy Picture. A movie called Twelve Mighty Orphins that seems to star Luke Wilson and Martin Shee. A football movie. Sure.

A movie called Queen Bees, which I've also never seen, but oh, look at this cast. I'm guessing Jackie Weaver is in this. I mean, it seems so. Ellen Burstyn, James Kahn, and Margaret, Jane Curtin, Christopher Lloyd, and Loretta Devine. The poster has, Jane Curtin, Loretta, Devine, and Margaret, and Ellen Burstyn, fully photoshopped in, standing around, uh, it's Loretta Devine is standing at

top a, or sitting atop a motorcycle, and they're all just fully photoshopped in. That's the bottom half of the poster. The top half of the poster. Zero idea what this movie is, and it gets my vote. Yeah, 100%. The top of the poster is Ellen Burstyn and James Conn and kind of like a romantic forehead-to-forehead sort of pose. Anyway, a movie called Off the Rails, which I've also not seen,

but which stars Kelly, the late Kelly Preston. So I don't know when that movie was made or came out, but off the rails. And then the two movies you've heard of, which are Finns, The buddy film between Tom Hanks and a robot he created. His buddy robot. The harder they fall, which is the Western, the Netflix-produced Western, with Jonathan Majors and Zazzi Beetz and Del Rlyndo and...

Is that the winner? R.J. Silar. That's the one I thought was going to win. The winner ends up being Finch. You've got to be fucking kidding me. Tom Hanks and a robot voiced by. Caleb Landry Jones. So

It's Caleb Landry Jones? Yes, that's the reason why I was so, like, hilariously excited for it. Caleb Landry Jones, I'm pretty sure is the voice of, now I'm going to go into

again the Wikipedia description and make sure that I'm not wrong. Yeah, yes. This is how Blake the movie landscape is in the modern era. Tom Hanks can re-turner and hooch himself with Chappie, and it's a movie that apparently is real. And won movies for grown-ups awards.

Okay, so next unhinged. All right, less unhinged, but sort of like a head scratcher. Best Grown Up Love Story. So Belfast was nominated for, in one nomination, for two separate couples. So it was nominated for Katrina Belf and Jamie Dornan and also Judy Dench and Karen Hines. I'm glad that they have confirmed that the grown-up love story is about specific love stories in the movie. We've famously, Wild Mountain Time was included and we were like, wait, between who? Right.

But wait, Jamie Dornan and Katrina Balfe are not over 50. They certainly, no, we've talked about this before. My sort of head-scratching things about how they can nominate aspects of movies that have nothing to do with grown-up. people over 50. Because also, Ciroin is nominated for Peter Dinklage, who is over 50, I imagine. And Haley Bennett, who is very much not. The Duke, of course, the late Roger Michel's movie, Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren, the tragedy of Macbeth, who doesn't love the love story between Lady Macbeth and

Macbeth, Francis McDormann and Denzel Washington, and then a movie called 23 Walks, David, Dave Johns and Allison Stedman. So of those, who would you imagine would win? I predicted Belfast. Is it the tragedy of Macbeth? It's not. It's Cirano, which is less unhinged than the tragedy of Macbeth would be, but also kind of puzzling.

It's like Serino's only nomination from M4G's. And, or did Dinklage? Yeah, Dinklage got nominated for Best Actor. But anyway. and I like Serenot more than a lot of people do, but Head Scratcher. All right, here's my favorite. This is what's great about the M4Gs is that it's like MTV Movie Awards

categories and Golden Globes, what the fuck, winners. Absolutely. That's absolutely right. All right. Last one of the Head Scratchers that I want to bring to you. Best Time Capsule, our favorite unhinged category, which we still have no idea what they mean by best. Time Capsule.

Didn't playbook win Best Time Capsule? Previous winners of Best Time Capsule include Mank, Harriet, if Beale Street could talk, Dunkirk, Jackie, Love and Mercy, Big Eyes, American Hustle, Argo, J. Edgar.

So those are your more recent winners in this category. Again, what do we mean when we say that Harriet is the best time capsule. What exactly are we saying? What are we sort of, is this a nostalgia category? Is this about like accuracy and production quality? Is this like, what do we mean AARP? Like we need some answers.

So anyway, nominees this year, being the Riccardo's, Belfast, licorice pizza, which once again, what is licorice pizza doing on movies for grownups? famously about young people the licorice pizza insane Spencer and West Side Story what do you think wins

Spencer Spencer? Spencer Yeah Spencer wins I kind of spoiled it by telling you the Jackie one in its year but like what do we mean when we say

Spencer is the best time caps I mean the early 90s but like is it that it most effectively evokes the vibe of the early 90s because I would even argue that it doesn't so I mean I guess the mic and the mechanics of it all or like the hairdo and like maybe that's the idea that like oh the KFC logo it looked it looked like Diana looked so it's the best time capsule but also again to me there's a hint of um sort of nostalgia to the idea of best time capsule and so I'm just like

what exactly are we nostalgic for in Spencer I long for the days of of psychological torture, of royals? Like, what are we talking about? What exactly are we talking about? In some type of royal manner where time doesn't exist, because it's the same as it has always been, and it will always be. Meanwhile, Belfast is right there,

giving you the exact kind of unhinged thing, which is Belfast is kind of a movie that sometimes feels nostalgic for a very violent time. And, like, that's kind of the dichotomy that the M4Gs brings to this category, usually. And they already loved Belfast. So, like, there's no explaining it. They are almost as inscrutable as the algorithm for the IMDB game. And for that, we do love them.

On top of being, this is my suspicion about the M4Gs, because I feel like the winners are voted on by, like, publicists or, like, you know, picked so that everybody shows up to their party. So it's like the categories are MTV Movie Award vibes. The unhinged winners are Golden Globes vibes. But then also the kind of spreading of the wealth is please buy a table at our dinner ceremony, National Board of Review vibes. Which comes across as even more odd in a year when there was no in person ceremony. So, you know, it's all wild.

It's all wild and crazy kids and wild and crazy adults, I guess, as it goes here. But anyway, that's our Movies for Grownups Update. We love what you do. Please bring us on as red carpet reporters next year or something. We are immensely available. We are incredibly available. Actually, I don't want to do red carpet. Let us sit in a booth and, like, I don't know.

You want us to be the Donald Sutherland and the Glen Close at the employees. One million percent is what I want. Absolutely. That is what I want. Thank you for articulating that. Okay. We will be in the booth and when, I don't know, Barb and Sargo to visit Del Marr,

went out of a grown-up love story, we will be like, Annie Mummolo, Kristen Whig, and Jamie Dornan are not 50, but we're still eligible for this award. All right. Back to the business at hand. One other note before, Back to the Business of Hand, though.

Yes. This is a very businessy episode. Yes. We have our main miniseries coming up. Yes. We kind of slowly teased it. out, but this week, pay attention to our Twitter account at Had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz. We're going to be revealing what the May miniseries will be. We're going to

have another listener's choice where you can pick because we will be having five episodes in May. We'll be having some guests, a new guest, a returning guest. It's going to be very pleasing. I can't imagine anybody taking issue with any of the movies that we choose. I do feel like it's going to be one of the most, like, minutia unpacking things we've ever done. I agree. At the same time, probably being all movies that our listeners have definitely seen before. Yeah. Yes, I'm very excited.

Got some great guests lined up. We've got some great movies lined up. We're going to give you guys a listener's choice. It's going to be great. It's going to be fan. Fantastic. So to pull us back into love and friendship, Joe, would you like to give a 60-second plot description? Of the two of us, am I love or am I friendship?

Ooh. I don't know. I think you're maybe love and I'm friendship? Sure. Let's do that. I don't know. It's a weird question, and I don't know why I posed it to you quite definitely. It's a weird question considering what this movie's ideas on love and friendship are.

Yes. Yes. Well, I feel like the friendship of the title feels, I feel secure. And that's, you know, your Beck and Sale and Seven-Yea friendship. the value of two people who feel like they know more than everybody else being able to sort of, you know, take each other's company and be entirely honest with each other in a way that they're not able to with everybody else. Right. At a time that, like, being completely honest with each other requires, you know, a level of verbosity. Yes.

The love is the one where I may be less, you know, less of a pinpoint on it. But, you know, great movie. Also, as a title, because it's based off of the Jane Austen novella Lady Susan, who is the Cape Beckinsale character, it would be weird to have a Whit Stillman movie named after one of the characters. Because even when there is, like, a protagonist or, like, two or three characters that a movie focuses on, they are all ensemble movies. Right. Like, even Damsles in Distress, which so very much has that central Greta Gerwig performance, it still takes. great effort to be, you know, to focus on the ensemble in that way. Also, before we move on, and I'm glad you've mentioned the fact that this was based on, the title of the novel was Lady Susan.

Chris, when he does a sort of teaser images on Twitter for the month ahead, and, you know, the listeners and the Twitter followers can guess at what kind of inscrutable connections these images have to whatever movies we're going to reveal are coming. up soon really like above and beyond this month with this particular image you put up an image of a lazy Susan inside a cupboard and I know it got it so far as I often do when you put up that post because I don't know what Chris is doing until he does it and it goes up and I'm trying to play along and again I know the four movies that we have scheduled for this month like I have the answers right in front of me And so I look at him and I'm like trying to make the connection. I'm like, uh-huh, uh-huh.

And that one, I admit, took me a second. And once I did, I think I out loud was just like, you maniac. Like that was my favorite one in a while. Lazy Susan for Lady Susan. Fantastic. All right. And hopefully a listener will guess it by the time the second clue comes out. Yes, let's hope.

Guys, we are here to talk about love and friendship, written in direct. Directed by Witt Stillman, again, based on the novella Lady Susan by Jane Austen. The movie stars Kate Beckinsale, Chloe Seventy, Xavier Samuel, the great Tom Bennett, Stephen Frye, Emma Greenwell, Morphid, Clark, James Fleet, and Gemma Redgrave, premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, and then opened and limited release May 13th of that year. Yes. Mr. Joe Reed, are you prepared to give a 60-second plot description of... of love and friendship. I am. We'll see if it fits within the 60 seconds, but yeah. There's a lot that actually happens in this movie.

Yeah. All right, then your 60-second plot description for love and friendship starts now. Lady Susan Vernon is a recent widow who's just been turned out of the manoring estate and has attained the reputation of a tremendous flirt, an outrageous accusation because most people don't even know that she was sleeping with the married Lord mannering. So instead, she goes to live with her in-laws at Churchill, including her suspicious sister-in-law, Catherine DeCorsi Vernon, and Catherine's hot and younger brother, Reginald. Susan's twofold mission, as she lays out to her American friend, Mrs. Johnson, is to marry off her excruciingly dull daughter, Frederica, to a wealthy man and find a wealthy husband for herself.

She sets her sights on Reginald to herself, and for Frederica, she's hoping for Sir James. It's perfect combination of wealthy and foolish. Lady Susan's designs on Reginald are opposed, but briefly by pretty much everyone in his family who fears that the marriage between them will drag down the family's reputation. Meanwhile, Frederica doesn't think she wants to be married to the dunderhead of Sir James. Reginald seems determined to marry Lady Susan anyway, though. That plan gets derailed when Lady Manoring comes boohooing to Mrs. Johnson's husband, her guardian. that Lady Susan is stooping her husband and she intercepts a letter from Lady Susan to Mrs. Johnson that basically says, keep Reginald busy for me.

I'm about to tap that Mannering ass and makes Reginald read it out loud and, oh, what a mess. And yet, through sheer determination of the fact that the entire Decorce family is mystifyingly fond of a young Frederica, Lady Susan manages to pull her feet out of the fire, manages Frederica off to Reginald and decides to marry Sir James herself, though, day after wedding, pregnancy, and the newly separated house guest, Lord Mannering seem to suggest that her days as a flirt are not long behind her the end. You almost can't follow the shit in the movie because it's, so dialogue heavy and funny and everyone is so ridiculous that it ultimately doesn't matter

but like I realized as I finished rewatching this movie it was like oh I am very grateful that I don't have to do a 60 second one description of it. It's not even just what happens is you have to set it all set up what happens

with sort of the manners of the day and the you know the reason why Lady Susan has to do what she's doing and sort of has to scheme the way she's scheming. It's a lot of characters that are maybe only one piece in the grander puzzle. Right.

Lord Manoring in particular, who says I don't think a word. I don't think we get an actual word of dialogue out of Lord Manoring. He just sort of like shows up and we're supposed to connect the dots that he's this like incredibly alluring presence for Lady Susan. I think it's probably intentional that we

in the audience don't understand the appeal of him quite so much. He's not unhandsome but like in a movie with like other handsome people it's just I think it's I think we're meant to sort of he shows up and we're just like oh like Lady Susan's at it again essentially um but just an endless parade as I said in my notes of fantastic bits of dialogue I wrote down the one she says about Lord Manoring she's talking about Lucy lady mannering who has essentially kicked Susan out of the house because Susan was sleeping with her husband. And Susan's talking to, again, Mrs. Johnson, Chloe Seveny, who's the only one she's fully honest with, she says if she were going to be, sorry, if she were going to be jealous, she should have never married such a charming man, which is just Lady Susan in a nutshell,

which is just sort of placing the blame on everything else, sort of like blaming the people she has wronged for having been wronged, which, you know, I love it. I didn't even mention Mrs. Cross, who is sort of Lady Susan's employee that she doesn't pay. She mentions that she'll have her along to pack and unpack, and then we get the title card that says Mrs. Cross packing and unpacking as an unpaid. The title cards are such genius, and like, even if they're just like his wife or something like, like that. Yep. The combination of word choices to the performance being given by the actor is just so funny. Yep. Even down to the fact that, like, I don't know why it's funny that when Catherine Vernon is given the title card, Catherine Vernon, Nate DeCorsi, I find that, like,

kind of delightful and, and perfectly sort of in line with everything else. It's just, it's that very wit Stillman kind of like mannered way this is why he's like such a great fit for jane austin actually because he's his whole career has been made in these kind of patrician mannered environments and add to that sort of jane austin in this book of hers which was kind of known for being her most um scathing or or kind of mean and nasty, which, again, also fits the Witt Stillman thing because his characters are usually pretty unlikable if you judge them by this kind of traditional rubric of, you know, likable and unlikable characters. I think one of the reasons why his movies are so great is because it

kind of relieves the audience of the burden of needing to like the characters quite so much, and you can just sort of like watch them operate on their own level. And you don't have to worry about who's going to come out on top, because, like, nobody really deserves to exactly. Like, the fact that last days of disco ends with Kate Beckinsale and Chris Eigman's character sort of deciding that they've been right the whole time, and they don't really suffer any consequences for that belief, and they're just sort of, like, going to go on, you know, being themselves, and then it ends with, you know, the sort of more sweet little ending of, is it close to me?

one of my favorite movie endings. It's Love Train. Right, but it's Chloe Seventy and it's the Kiesler character, right? It's the Matt Kiesler character. I believe. I know it's at least Chloe Seventy because part of what's so interesting about that movie is, like, through that friendship, you think that Kate Beckinsale's going to be the start of the movie, but no, it's ultimately Chloe Seventy. Right.

And in this one, in that one, they were very much sort of frenemies. And Beckinsale's character was, you know, terribly mean to, I believe it's Alice. It's interesting that she was. was Alice in Last Days of Disco and Alicia in Love and Friendship. I'm pretty sure she was Alice. Last Days of Disco, easily my favorite Whit Stillman movie, although I do really love Love and Friendship. Easily my favorite Whit Stillman movie, but I will also say love and friendship is probably

my favorite Jane Austen movie, and I think it goes back to that thing you said that he's such a perfect fit for Jane Austen. I mean, I feel like this movie very much, like, the authorial voice feels just as much Jane Austen's as it does with Stelman's, which is so uncommon for, you know, Jane Austen adaptations. Yeah. In a way that's just, like, really kind of fresh and, you know, feels, I don't know, Jane Austen is sometimes one of those untouchable voices that even, like, you wouldn't probably say that, you know, Joe Wright, like, kind of makes it, makes pride and prejudice a little bit more, like, opened up and light and, like, kind of modern emotions to it. But, like, there's still an approach that, like, feels like Jane Austen is a little untouchable and people have to go a certain avenue. And this feels a little, it's still, like, beautiful costumes, et cetera, but it's a little off the rails of that in a way that feels exciting, even though I've seen this movie half a dozen times.

I also love that Jane Austen as an author has had her works adapted in so many different ways by so many really kind of distinct filmmakers, right? Yeah, like you have to have almost a complete, like, it's a version of this Jane Austen, but it's like in modern day, but it's not a direct adaptation. to have had her works being interpreted by Engley slash Emma Thompson and also Joe Wright and also with Stillman and then also like the Gwyneth Paltrow Emma which was Douglas McGrath I'm pretty sure which felt like incredibly traditional but also in that same year or within a year I think it was Clueless came I think the year before you know Clueless this sort of like very modern

you know, Liberties-taking adaptation by Amy Hackerling. And then the more recent Emma, and I'm going to forget that filmmaker's name, and I'm going to kick myself, because I really liked that Emma, Autumn DeWild. It's cool, and I think it speaks well of the material. And now we're getting this summer,

we're getting Fire Island, which is another sort of like... ...interpretation of Jane Austen's stuff. And so I love that kind of malleability and the fact that she lends herself so well to very distinct styles and, you know, filmmakers. Observations on communal behavior. Yeah, yeah, pretty much.

Which makes her a perfect fit for Whit Stillman, especially sort of like communal behavior among a kind of specific set of people, which is usually Blue Bloods and the strivers toward Blue Bloods. His stuff was very much often the kind of prep school elite, and then the people who feel like they have to work hard to sort of travel in the circles with the prep school elite. His biography is in no way surprising when you've seen his

movies, the fact that he was born to a Philadelphia politician mother and a father who was Assistant Secretary of Commerce under John F. Kennedy and has also this sort of lineage that includes, you know, captains of industry, his great-great-grandfather, Charles Stulman, founded the town of Brownsville, Texas. It's like that kind of thing. And he went to all of the schools, you would imagine he went to, including Harvard. And then upon graduation, like, he did the thing that, you know, if you've watched any of his movies and his characters, like, he worked at Doubleday for a while. He worked, you know, for a, like, conservative newspaper and stuff like that. He is a Republican. Who does not like to talk about it. He does every... No, he will block you on

Twitter if you call him a Republican. He's, he does not seem like somebody who would be. very fun to know, which is probably not untrue of a lot of filmmakers that I love, actually. So he's definitely somebody who I don't need to sort of cozy up to as a personality. Which makes sense, also, given his movies,

I can't imagine you'd watch more than one Whit Stillman movie and be like, you know who seems like a cool guy is probably Whit Stillman? Probably not. But he makes these really fantastic movies. Metropolitan was the, the first in 1990, gets a screenplay nomination for that. I wonder if people back then thought,

this is the beginning of a career which will see many Oscar nominations for Whit Stillman. And he kind of burrowed, rather than expanding his horizons from that movie, as a lot of sort of younger filmmakers do, he sort of burrowed ever more deeply into it. It makes a whole sort of thematic trilogy that does kind of, I think, certain characters do carry over if not actually in person then like they get mentioned sort of like honestly kind of like how Kevin Smith did with his first three movies um to make a to make a very odd comparison um but metropolitan in 1990 Barcelona in 94 which I've actually still never seen which

is kind of crazy for as much as I love uh all his other movies I don't think it was super available until it wasn't yeah put the trilogy out right um I haven't seen Barcelona either but I've seen the rest. We should find a way to watch it when we're in Toronto or something like that. Yeah, I bet it's like 90 minutes like the rest of his movie. Yeah, that's the thing is they're just like 101 actually, so it's a leisurely with stillman film. A wit stillman epic.

Yes. Then last days of disco in 1988, which... 1999. Sorry, 1999. Which I always find so fascinating. we've already done an episode on 54, which was also 1998. And I still find it so incredibly entertaining that, I mean, it makes sense that those movies would have been talked about in tandem with each other because they were both

the Studio 54 movies of that year at a time when we were sort of having this kind of wave of nostalgia for Studio 54. And yet, like, might as well exist in two different solar systems in terms of their sensibility, their perspective on the time, their perspective on Studio 54 as an entity. It's always

entertaining for me to think about how, essentially, the culture was encouraging us to do a double feature of 54 and Last Days of Disco. A double feature that I imagine would just like break your brain in several different pieces. Yeah, I mean, it couldn't be any more different, but

I mean, you're right about their perspective that last days of disco has on like, the whole Studio 54 or disco culture because it takes place as the title says at a very specific time when like that culture was ending yes you know and it uses that as kind of a reflection of these post college days before you become a real adult you know and you know the fun times are kind of over et cetera blah blah blah blah blah and like maybe some of those college friends you have actually suck and are holding you back. Well, and also, the fact that, and I kind of use this as my retort to, I mean, I'm never

going to make the argument that, like, Witt Stillman's movies aren't incredibly cloistered and, you know, of their own sort of social strata. But I think something like the last days of disco at least gives you the sense that he, he knows that and he doesn't sentimentalize that. So much of the last days of disco is this era of sort of night. clubbing and Studio 54 and 70s freedom and whatnot is ending because now the Ivy League prep school kids have invaded the space. And it's incredibly conscious of that. Like a lot of people seem to think like that's sort of like an accident of that movie. And it's very much not. Like very much the point of one of the points of the last days of disco is, you know this is like

the dying days of this sort of once vital, you know, way of life in urban settings. is because, oh, if these people have now corrupted this space, you know we're in our dying days. Yeah, because it's not cool anymore if those people are there. Right, exactly. What a great movie, though. Again, wildly quotable. It's with Sylman's masterpiece.

It's great. It really is. I find it incredibly rewatchable. Again, there's, I guess you could say, like, Chloe 70's character is, like, the likable one, the one you sort of root for. And yet, like, it really is just this collection of, you know,

mean and petty and striving and status-seeking people and the dialogue is brilliant, just really, really fantastic. And as a companion piece to love and friendship, it's, like, it was, you know, when it was announced for Sundance, you know,

it was announced as the reunion of these two stars and the director. And Chloe 70's role in this is smaller, you know, especially in maybe the first half of the movie. She's the and. with Stephen Frye and Chloe Seveney a fantastic with-and. Ooh, we need more

of that movie. That with-hand. It's interesting because they're playing people who have the status already in this movie and they have this very insular friendship and it's

as mean and nasty as it can possibly be just like the friend that you can just like say whatever you want to. Yes. That's like hideous. But of course, because it's in the Jane Austen language to us, it's like funny and innocuous.

Right. It's the best, the best laugh line in this movie, which thank God when I saw this in the theater, I was alone, which sucks, but I had probably the most inappropriately loud laughter I've ever had in a movie at the gout line.

Because they're constantly praying, well, Lady Susan's husband is dead. So it's like, that's a relief on their friendship. But Alicia's husband is keeping them apart because of Lady Susan's reputation. And they have to kind of like meet in secret. So they're constantly always throwing these lines of, well, maybe he'll die soon. And it's their last line in the film proper together. And then also the end credits of the film, when they're doing the credits, give each sort of main player. a sort of cut line of dialogue that we get to see.

And the last one is Kate Beckinsill's lady Susan saying to Alicia, may his next gouty attack be a severe one, which is the note that the movie goes out on, which. I screamed at the top of my lungs at that line. It's one of the funniest things I've ever heard. The one that I dived at sort of towards the end of the movie is, She's talking to Reginald, to Xavier Samuel, and she's trying to impress upon him that, like, well, your father won't be around forever. And he keeps being like, no, he's in pretty good health. I actually think for his age, like, he's doing okay.

And she, at one point, just goes, ah, mortality. Like, she's trying to sort of push this, like, inceptive with this idea that, like, you know, your dad won't be around forever and you will soon inherit his fortune. And she's kind of like pushing him at that point, I think, towards marrying her daughter. But, yeah, all mortality. And she's insidious in that way. She also says after she gets caught with the letter, she's updating, she and Mrs. Johnson are having their kind of catch-up about what happened. And, of course, she's taking incredible umbrage that Reginald would have read the letter

because it was not addressed to him and that's such a social faux pa, and I can't believe it and she's you know trying to you know brush off all responsibility and then mrs johnson goes well also though the footman like then basically said that you've been having this affair with lord mannering and she goes oh facts are horrid things which i want to use i want to keep using it what a great quotable movie um i mean the the lines are so funny but it's also to kate beck and sales credit that they are also perfect line reading oh my god an absolute like understanding of what the tone is and should be to make this movie as funny as it can be. And I think it's her best performance.

And as the kids would say, she was paid dust. But it's kind of shocking that there was so little attention that paid to this because, like, I don't know. Maybe if this was a bigger movie, it would be the kind of thing. I want to talk about Kate Beckinsett's career. Yes, I do too. Because she's mostly an action star at this point of her career. And it's like she's an action star and then has the Whit Stillman movies. Well, what's funny was she became an action star, and she's talked about this.

One of the reasons why she was sort of very eager to take those roles in the underworld movies and sort of take that career sort of pivot into being an action star is she was worried about being too pegged as a costume drama actress, right? Where she's, we've done much ado about nothing, which was one of her very first movies in 1993. In 1995, she's in a movie directed by John Schlesinger called Cold Comfort Farm that I've never seen, but I've heard she's great in it. She's in that Joanna Lumley, Ian McAllen, Rufus Sewell, Eileen Atkins, Stephen Fry, Miriam Margulies. Like, what a really fantastic cast. I really should seek this movie out. And then she's in things like she does, interesting, the same year as Gwyneth Paltrow's, Emma, is in movie theaters.

She does a BBC version of Emma, where she plays the title character. She's in Last Days of Disco in 1998, which is a stylistic. That's her first American movie. She said it was the first time she ever had to learn an American accent. She's in Broke Down Palace the next year, the movie that exists as a trailer for me, with that Sarah McLaughlin sort of like Technomics song on it. And Claire Dane's screaming, I didn't do it. which is burned into my brain.

But then, even still, she's still doing things like the Golden Bowl, which is the Merchant Ivory movie from 2000 that didn't really go anywhere. And sort of tragically, she's in Pearl Harbor. She's the sort of center of the love triangle. I know there are no centers to triangles, at least on the angles, but whatever, math geeks, leave me alone. She's stuck in between Josh Hartnett and Ben Affleck in. Pearl Harbor, and that movie was kind of widely derided, even though it should have won...

She kept a part of both of them with her. I was going to say. Should have won Diane Warren her Oscar for There You'll Be, but alas. That same year she did Serendipity. Did you ever see Serendipity? Bitch, I love Serendipity. Really? I've never seen it. So you will go to bat for Serendipity. Okay.

I mean, it's like not a logical good movie, but I love that movie. Is she American in that, or is she a Brit in New York City? She's Britt. Molly Shannon is her friend. Is it Molly Shannon? Yeah, it is. And it's, she buys a Prada bag, but it's fake and it's Prado. I should see this movie.

It's very silly movie. Yeah, I should. I should check it out. That was a movie I remember as being a right after 9-11 movie. Exactly. That's sort of the space it holds in my brain. 2002, she's in Laurel Canyon, and it's kind of the part of that movie nobody ever talks about. People talk about McDormand and Christian Bale and Alessandro Navola,

and Beckinsale's the one who is dating Christian Bale and is kind of the target of Francis McDormand as his mother. In this kind of, I don't know if I would go so far as say psychosexual, but like it's not not psychosexual. Lisa Cholodenko wrote and directed that one. And then right after Laurel Canyon is when she does Underworld, which is directed by Len Wiseman, who she would go on to marry in 2004. They just got divorced only a couple years ago. But Underworld is 2003, so they, I imagine, met and got together on Underworld.

she does four Underworld movies it's looking like well it's only a cameo in Underworld Rise of the Likens I imagine that is a prequel I don't really know Underworld beyond the...

I want to watch all the Underworlds because I think I've seen the first one but if I have I remember nothing about it. I've definitely seen the first one that might be the only one I've seen but also it's indistinguishable there's the

at least from what I know about them there's the one where there's snow on the poster Yes Where the poster is snowing I could have probably The other thing about the underworld movies is The first one at least

Co-stars Michael Sheen Who Cape Beckinsale Was married to At that time She sort of goes into Underworld married to Michael Sheen And comes out of

Underworld married to Len Weissman which Hollywood is a fabulous place. Yeah, I've only ever seen the first one. I remember Bill Nye's character, death in that one pretty vividly, but that's kind of the only thing. I also, like, was very, very hot for Scott Speedman at the time, so that was also a consideration for me, I feel like. Did you watch Ed Sundance the Lena Dunham movie Sharpstick? Yes, I did. Scott Speedman in that movie.

movie man is so like the movie you know whatever there's defenders there's people who hate it whatever yeah i didn't got spedman i will go to bat for scott speedman in that movie a movie somebody do a movie where scott speedman's character from that movie and simon rex from red rocket um encounter each other and are perhaps rivals or something um i am team scott speedman oh wow what a nice man that character that he plays oh yeah Like, he's definitely, like, a much nicer person than, uh, than the horrendous character that Simon Rex plays in, uh, in Red Rocket. That's for sure. Um, but anyway, back to Cape Beck and Sale. So Underworld kind of then puts her into a different category. She also does Van Helsing in 2004, which is a tremendous flop and, uh, kind of widely reviled. And so by the time then, she's doing that. She's also in the same year as Van Helsing, she's in the aviator. And I remember by that time, it was like, who is this unworthy, like, actress from Underworld who's going to dare to play Ava Gardner? And it's like, she's an odd fit for Ava Gardner, if you've seen Ava Gardner in anything, actually, sort of temperamentally. But it's not like she's an unworthy actress. She had been so, you know, good in these other things. And people, I think once sort of Underwomenal, and Van Helsing happened, this cultural memory of anything she might have done before that was

sort of wiped clean. And yeah, she caught a lot of shit for that. Other than the underworld movies from there, she's, it seems she's the love interest to Adam Sandler and Click. Plays his wife in that, a movie I've not seen, but I know is it Oscar, is it winner? Nominee for makeup. I don't think it won that makeup category. No, it did, it just. was nominated. It lost to Pan's Labyrinth, which makes all the sense in the world. It's just odd to imagine even those two in the same category.

One movie she did that I saw in theaters that I can't imagine too many people remember is the David Gordon Green movie Snow Angels. Like even among David Gordon Green forgotten movies, this one's pretty forgotten. Is she good in it? Yeah, I mean, I don't remember a ton about the movie.

It doesn't make a ton of impression on me. It's her, Sam Rockwell, Michael O'Garano. I remember liking Michael and Ongarano in it quite a bit. I believe it is a movie about a grieving parent, something. Sounds like that era of David Gordon Green, for sure.

Yeah, it was a Sundance movie. A big surprise. That same year, she does that horror movie Vacancy with Luke Wilson, that is, I watched it a few years ago during one of my, like, one scary movie a day, Halloween things. Not very good, not very memorable. She gets some awards. Yeah, I remember it being not identity at that time.

Yeah. Because it was like hotel horror. Right. But it's also, I believe it's kind of also torture porn adjacent a little bit. Interesting. It's unpleasant, I will say, even among horror movies. When does nothing but the truth? 2008.

So that's the next year after vacancy. Gets a little bit of awards buzz for that. was the Valerie Plame movie before what's the Doug Lyman one? Fair Game. Which came... And this is the one that was more fictionalized than Fair Game was. Like, she's not playing, Scarecquotes, Valerie Plain, but she's playing Valerie. Right. Directed by Rod Lurie, who had directed

the contender. And it's her. Matt Dillon is in this movie. Vera Farminga, I remember, who was one of them was Judy Miller and one of them was Valerie Plame and I can't remember which was which. Beck and Sale was playing the reporter, right? And Fear of Farminga was playing the spy? That, I believe, is what it actually is. And they were both Critics' Choice nominated for it.

Fascinating. Yeah, they were definitely... I believe Fear of Armiga also was. Beckinsale definitely was. But that kind of died quickly because even during that season, no one saw that movie. Right, right. And that best actress season is pretty locked down early, except for maybe that fifth spot, which quickly wraps up anyway to be Helen Mirren.

Oh, that was 2009. Am I thinking the wrong year? No, I believe it was a 2008 movie, although it might have not, it might have been a weird release, released it. Oh, like it was released in 2009? Maybe. Give me a second. I'm going to tumble down this. Yeah, it was 2008.

So at that Critics' Choice, that was the year that Hathaway for Rachel getting married and Meryl Streep for Doubt tied. Damn, I thought of the wrong year. Yeah. But that year also, like, there was a lot. Like, that was Streep for Doubt. Winslet had her two movies that she was sort of a little bit in flux for. Angelina Jolie for Changeling, Melissa Leo for Frozen River.

Kate Blanchett was nominated at Critics' Choice that year for Benjamin Button. And she never really even was able to crack that lineup too successfully. Like, she was definitely seen as very much an outsider, even though she was in the nomination leader, you know, the movie that year, Benjamin Button. Well, and for this year, I guess what it is is that a small movie that few people had seen, there was a real, like, rallying mission around Melissa Leo and Frozen River. and Frozen River came really ahead with that because I would imagine in a Best Picture 10 it would have been nominated. Yes, I agree.

Yes, I agree with that. I don't think Changeling would have, but yes, Frozen River, I think, would have. It's wild to me that in two consecutive years, Merrill Streep tied for the Critics' Choice Best Actress Prize, that she tied Hathaway at 08 and then famously tied Sandra Bullock in 2009. That was when Sandra Bullock planted one on her.

on stage when they accepted. Famously, her lover, Meryl Streets. Okay, this Critic's Choice, though, I don't remember Meryl and Anna Hathaway accepting together. Was one of them not there? It's very possible. I don't remember that acceptance at all.

Critics Choice Best Actress has tied three times in its existence, and they've only been around since 1995, which I know you can't engineer a tie, but, like, it seems very Critics' Choice, mealy-mouthy. We want to, like, increase our odds to be right. These awards are not chosen. by people in a closed room.

It's everybody filling out their balance. Right, right. And yet, like, just by accident, it seems like the most critics' choicey thing to be like, oh, we don't know if Glenn Close or Lady Gaga's going to win the Oscar, so we'll just give it to both of them, like that kind of a thing.

That was the other tie, Glenn Close and Lady Gaga. But anyway, yeah, nothing but the truth. A movie that nobody really thinks about now a day is, even with regard to, you know, Cape Beck and Sale, the poptimists like we are um without looking it up i'd question how available it is it's probably rentable because most things are yeah sometimes you'll be surprised yeah um and then she just ends up doing like a lot of movies that uh you don't really remember very much she does a movie dominic senate movie called white out in 2009 she does another movie with sam rockwell

and also deniro and drew barrymore called everybody's fine that... Oh, yeah, the Christmas movie. Yes. A Mark Wahlberg movie called Contraband in 2012, another underworld. She's the lead female in the Total Recall remake, just like choices. You know what I mean? Kind of a bunch of unfortunate choices.

She's in a Karen Moncrief movie called The Trials of Kate McCall. She's in Michael Winterbuby. movie called The Face of an Angel. What else? What else? A Terry Jones movie called Absolutely Anything with Simon Pegg. Just like a whole lot of stuff that just doesn't... Again, I'm trying to get away from saying doesn't exist. But like just a lot of stuff that doesn't exist anymore.

Or exists like Total Recall does sort of infamously. And so that's where her career was going into love and friendship. And I remember feeling like a palpable sense of relief that it was going to be a last days of disco reunion because that stood as this like shining beacon to me of Kate Beckinsale in my life and I was just like yes finally like you know so I had a lot of expectation for her performance in this movie and she lives up to it tremendously well I mean it's even though it's not my winner I still think this is like a note perfect performance absolutely and like at a comedy

register that we don't see very often and that's incredibly difficult to pull off and yet she feels perfectly cast so i don't know it just feels like this thing this performance that you know i don't know it felt like at the time it felt like people saw this movie and for whatever reason didn't think it was worthy of mentioning even though i can't remember anybody who didn't enjoy this movie. Yeah, if you saw it, I think you ended up really, really liking it. It was incredibly well reviewed. It was also in, and like, you know, they did not do, Amazon did not do enough of a campaign

for this. Amazon put... It wasn't one of their priorities. All of its... This is only the second year that Amazon Studios was releasing. And it was the Manchester by the C year. So like they had their contender. And they, again, smartly, we talk about, you know, studios sort of making smart calls.

times it leaves movies that we love out in the cold and it's often you know that was the right call to go like Manchester by the sea was the was the one that was going to succeed and it's too bad that that a great movie like Love and Friendship doesn't get as much of a push um that's also a very even for like costumes why wasn't it nominated right right um it again felt like a kind of fledgling a studio figuring out how to do awards and to date it's the only year they ever did any good at it, so they did not take the lessons that they learned from their early success, but we've talked about that plenty. It's a very, very strong best actress year 2016, to the point where I was by this point doing Blankies at Blank Check, and I remember,

and I've regretted it since, like, I didn't, Kate Beck and Sale didn't make my five for actress that year, and I wish that she had. I ultimately included her. Becca Hall for Christine in my fifth slot there, which I like, that's a great performance. Good choice. It's a really good choice. And the other, like, I wasn't going to not include a net bending for 20th century women or Amy Adams for arrival. And then, like, there was Viola Davis for Fences, who I bumped up to lead because she was not a supporting actress in that movie. And Natalie Portman and Jackie, who I still think is an incredibly impressive performance. Now I'd probably include Beck and Sale and maybe risk just sort of bumping either Natalie Portman

or Viola Davis from there just because I like to tinker with my lists and you know but like it's at the time I was very much like why isn't Viola Davis being campaigned

in lead she would still win and lead and like while I think it's true she still would have won in lead I'm maybe a little bit more okay with it being in support I I think and I think the worry was not entirely unfounded that

there was such strong momentum for Emma Stone by that point because Fences comes out late that season and La La Land had been building buzz ever since the like Telluride I believe right or Venice or like very early fall festivals

and I think ultimately they saw a clearer path in supporting actress but also I remember thinking the absolute horrid optics especially the year after Oscar So White of

Emma Stone beating out her the help co-star in Best Actress, I was like, that is a hurricane of bad optics that I was glad got avoided entirely. And I still don't, I think if those two would have been facing off, it would have been. I mean, maybe it's because Emma Stone had more competition, but I think Viola Davis still would have won. it's possible i don't i don't know if i i can go with you there but like like again we talk about the competition that year that was isabel huper in l that was um ruth nega in loving that was i mean obviously you know we talk about streep getting the nomination for florence foster jenkins which none of us feel like should have happened but like susan sarandon in the medlars that year um who else haley steinfeld in edge of 17 just in terms of like not stuff that was going to get Oscar nominated, but just like the strength of performances in that category that year was. Amy Adams is the famous snubby shocker non-nominee.

Yeah, and that betting as well, although I think we all sort of saw that snub coming by the time it happened. Right, we did. But no less painful because that was, I thought that was my winner that year, for sure. Mine as well. But a great, a great, a great lineup that year of contenders and again I do wish I had sort of stuck to my guns Cape Beck and Sell was again a late kind of bump down

when I did Blankies that year and I should have kept her I think even for people like us it's kind of a brutal year where it's like you know we're gunning for faves who probably don't have a chance like Kate Beckinsale but like 2016 is like

just a font of great leading actress performances this is where I sound like I'm, you know, just going against the grain for its own sake. But I do genuinely feel stronger feelings about Isabella Pair in Things to Come. Right. Versus L. I love Sontra Hewler in Tony Airdman.

Right. I love Kim Minhe in The Handmaiden. Both Emma Suarez and Adriana Ugarte in... in Hulietta, also fantastic. Oh, my God. And then it's like that Amy Adams performance, like, also a note perfect performance. And like, the movie works because her performance is so good. Like, Arrival we're talking about.

Arrival, what did I say? No, I just, I'm orienting myself. Yes. Yeah. No, fantastic year. And the other thing is, the other year that, I have Beck and Sale sort of in my lineup is for Last Day of Disco in 98, which is another just wildly, incredibly competitive and great year for supporting actress that year.

So that's the year, if you're listening to Orient yourself, that was the year that Judy Dench wins for Shakespeare in Love. Her primary competition, no pun intended, that year was Kathy Bates for primary colors. But, like, Lynn Redgrave had won the Golden Globe for gods and monsters that year, and who else was nominated? Rachel Griffiths for Hillary and Jackie and Brenda Bleffin for Little Voice. My own list is populated by the likes of, well, Kathy Bates is on my list because I love Kathy Bates in primary colors. I think she's phenomenal.

Joan Allen and Pleasantville was that year. It's still wild to me because Joan Allen was in the midst of her hot streak at that point and yet didn't get nominated for Pleasantville. Lisa Kudrow got a bunch of indie attention for her performance in the opposite of sex. Tony Collette. Great performance. Tony Collette is phenomenally good in Velvet Goldmine, and that movie was never really considered for anything more than its crafts, which is too bad, because she, she's the quintessential takes a long drag from your cigarette. I haven't heard that name in 50 years.

like that's what I think of when I when somebody makes that joke like that's who I see Patricia Clarkson and high art was a if she didn't win the indie spirit like she was at least nominated

for the indie spirit that year um Laura Linney and the Truman shows that year but like Beck and Sale I think is right up there in that in the top echelon of that for Last Days with Disco I think she's just truly incredible in that one so she tends to sort of be

great in years where like it's an uncommonly insanely great year for competition and she's never really like I think when we speak objectively she's never come close I can't imagine she's made the top 10 in any in any voting year and yet worthy at least twice as far as I'm concerned I mean 2016 it's it goes beyond even I think her even though again I think she's perfect in this movie but like with stillman's already an Oscar nominee so why I wasn't there more pushed for like adapted screenplay because I do think this isn't a great adaptation for the reasons I said of that. It feels equally Austin and Stillman. I do just genuinely.

Not that it should have beaten Moonlight or anything, but it would have made sense in those moments. I think if they were with a distributor who had more experience, I genuinely feel like it was like Amazon was still getting its sea legs and didn't really want to risk trying for too many movies when. And, you know, Manchester by the C was a Sundance movie. So, like, they had a whole year to ramp that up. And that, to me, feels, it makes sense to me that they, you know, would be so tunnel-visioned. And yet, if love and friendship is a focus movie, you know what I mean? If Love and Friendship is a Sony Classics movie, maybe better luck. Who knows?

and Amazon also had like a rough summer like the movie they release after this is the neon demon oh wow yeah yeah okay let me read love and friendship came out in May I'm gonna read their like summer lineup to you neon demon Todd Solanz's ween truck

Cafe Society the last Woody Allen movie that like we as a culture allowed to really actually happen. I will also say... So Blake Lively is genius in that movie. Cafe Society comes in the midst of, like, a handful of, like, really bad late stage Woody Allen movies.

Cafe Society is the one I kind of like. That, like... I thought it was kind of lame. I would understand... I mean, like, when Blake Lively shows up and is doing kind of almost a Whit Stillman character and that, like, she's not playing the laugh, but she's incredibly funny. Yeah. Boy.

it's certainly like in an era that was populated with like your magic in the moonlights and to roam with love and wonder wheel and whatever like to me cafe society still sort of stands out as um better than those other ones they also had the delayed release of the dressmaker which like felt like a shoved under the rug and totally i kind of want to we've done so many winslets in the past year but i do kind of want to do that movie to get like a resurgence in any way we can to lead the path on people reassessing that very fun movie. Still have never seen it. I think you're going to have a time.

Will, when we eventually do it. But, yeah. Yeah, that's a chaotic summer. That's, you know, how did you spend your summer vacation with some of the weirdest movies we could possibly have released? Yeah. This is also a movie that got nominated at the Gotham's for screenplay and actress. I feel like we never really talk about the Gotham.

No, we don't. I like The Gotham's quite a bit because it's so early in the season and it feels like, you know, pure optimism. It does. Yeah, the Gotham's are fine. The Gotham's are doing their thing. Oh, let's talk about Tom Bennett a little bit before we move on to the I of TV game. Yes, because also shocking to me that he got no traction. Like, the biggest nomination he got was with the online film critics,

which is, like, a larger organization. I'm in it. He's so good. He's just tremendously good. And I believe that same year, he was in the Christopher Guest movie that nobody likes, mascots. Mascots, terrible. I think he's great.

in that, though. I think he's incredibly funny. He's, again, playing a kind of a lovable dufus in that, imagine a lovable doofus in a Christopher guest movie. I thought he and Parker Posey are kind of the standouts in that movie. That one I saw at Toronto, and

boy, talk about a quiet Toronto debut. Yeah, I was going to ask, what was that like in the room? It was a Ryerson premiere, not even just a Ryerson screening, a Ryerson premiere. So, which is kind of a, you know, the big ones don't premiere at Ryerson. So, it was kind of subdued.

I thought in the moment, you know, even bad Christopher Guest to me is pretty good. Like, I don't, I think I probably liked it a little bit more than I liked for your consideration, actually. But I wonder if it's because my expectations for those were so different. My expectations for your consideration were so high. And my expectations for mascots were very much not. And, yeah, I just remember loving Tom Bennett and Parker Posey in it. That's pretty much it.

Tom Bennett in this movie was really just like one of those performances from someone you've never seen before. And they show up in this movie with this fully formed genius performance where it's like everything they do is so smart. And you're like, who is this person? And I don't think I've seen him in anything since mascots. he's mostly a theater actor and he's done a bunch of like tv here and there he did uh 13 episodes of api bio a show that i have heard good things about but i never watched so have i i haven't watched it either uh he did a miniseries called resistance yeah more stuff he's the most excited shih Tzu in this movie he is the scene with the peas is so funny oh my god he's so fascinated by the peas tiny green balls how delightful somewhat sweet oh my god

what a great performance so funny his two now I want to see where because I definitely he was definitely one of my nominees that year oh he was definitely one of mine I had him

obviously I was just enamored of Aldenar and Rick and Hell Caesar one of the great comedic performances I would guarantee you that my ballot is probably

Tom Bennett Alden Aaron Reich and then flip a coin and fill the rest with Moonlight. I mean, that's the thing. My thing that year was I put in Andre Holland ahead of Mahershal Ali that year. That was how I sort of asserted my independence. I did love Lukie Hedges. I was in early on Lucky Hedges, mostly because I remembered him from the slap. And he was like the one person I really liked in the slap.

but like Ray Fines in a bigger splash is that year like what a great performance that's a leaving performance to me to me I put him in lead well I didn't

let's see John Goodman and 10 Cloverfield Lane is that year I mean our friend Simon Helberg in Florence Wester Jenkins who got some precursor attention Golden Globe nominated Simon Howlberg. Where was that nomination for Annette this year, people. He was so incredibly worthy in Annette. Anyway, anyway, anyway. If I'm going to stand by one of the supporting actors in

Moonlight that I think we didn't stand by enough at the time that I feel like history is not going to be as kind to that because I think it's, in retrospect, one of the best, if not maybe the best performance of the movie is Ashton Sanders. Well, I mean, yes, I agree. And yet also, I think, understandably, awards didn't know what to do with any one of the Chiron portrayers in that. You have three performers playing him in different stages of the movie. Does that mean?

I mean, we had this problem also with, like, Dev Patel and Lion. The good thing was that DeV Patel was a known quantity. So that helped him there. but like what is you know what counts as a lead performance versus supporting performance whether or when you are splitting up a role in in three parts like that um but yeah ashton sanders is phenomenal in that movie i mean pick a bad performance in moonlight like i dare you you know what i mean like it's just you really can't i mean this was you know how much do you reward jenelle mona for like two phenomenal scenes of you know work in that movie like it's just uh screen

time and, you know, size of role versus campaign. I think that's why it sort of defaulted to Mahershla Ali, because he's just, while his character is in that film, he looms so incredibly large, and he's great. In that chapter of the movie, he's the shared lead of that chapter. Right, right, exactly, exactly. I mean, Moonlight, good movie. I don't know if anybody's ready to accept that, but I'm just going to say it. All right.

Anything else about love and friendship before we move on to the IMDB case? Let me peruse. Speaking of Tom Bennett, the bit where he believes wholeheartedly that there are 12 commandments. And when he's told that there are only 10, he then jumps to, oh, we're just getting rid of two of them. I wonder which ones we can lop off. This is me earlier in this episode with the certainty of what best actress year we were talking about, and I was entirely wrong. Tell of you, he's a very relatable character.

Incredibly, incredibly relatable character. Opening credits, I loved. I mentioned Cape Beck and Sale and Emma, facts are hard things. Yeah, we also wish that Stephen Fry's character's next gouty attack be his last one. Yeah. Yeah. Great movie. Loved it.

Very funny. And again, it's on, if you got Amazon Prime, it's right there for you. You don't got to rent it. It's, you know, it's there for your enjoyment. And I highly recommend it. For 90 minutes of your day. You won't regret it. Yep.

All right. Would you like to explain to our lovely listeners what the IMDB game is? Yeah, I think I will. Why not? Every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game, where we challenge each other with an actor or actress and try and guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for. If any of those titles are television, voice-only performances, or non-acting credits, we mentioned that up front. After two

wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. And if that's not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints. Hooray, that's the IMDB game. Would you like to give her guess first? I'll give first. So mine, um, I kind of chose a little bit deliberately and this one is going to be very difficult for you to get without like a whole lot of hints and maybe not even then but I think it's going to be fun to talk about anyway so I'm going to sort of

hang you out to dry for the purposes of a good conversation I went into we mentioned Kate Beck and Sale played Ava Gardner in the Martin Scorsese movie The Aviator that film garnered three acting nominations

Cape Blanchet won for playing Catherine Hepburn. DiCaprio was nominated for playing Howard Hughes, and then the surprise nomination came for one Mr. Allen Alda. One television performance

on Alan Alda's national. Which is MASH. Which is MASH. Correct. Is the Aviator in there? It is not. Damn. Okay. Interesting. no more television

I would have thought that his Oscar nomination was in there which people treated like it was a surprise but if you were paying attention he got BAFTA nominated right? Yeah there was I remember one precursor towards the end there that was a little bit of a canary and a coal mine. Right and he was showing up later yeah

trying to think take your pick of a bunch of Woody Allen movies Did you ever see Betsy's wedding? He's the dad in Betsy's wedding. I've never seen... Well, Betsy's Wedding is one of those movies that used to be on TV a lot,

so I think I've probably seen some of it on television, but never the whole thing. Well, and it's semi-reviled, too, but, like, it was treasured in my household, probably because we are on what people... Who was Betsy in Betsy's wedding? Molly Ringwald. Ah, there we go.

Okay, so Alan Alda, I'm going to guess, I'm going to just guess one of the Woody Allen's. Is it everybody says I love you? It is not everybody says I love you. All right. So two strikes. Your missing years are 1981, 1989, and 2019.

89 is crimes and misdemeanors. Correct. Crimes and misdemeanors was interesting in that I feel like, and again, I don't have experiential memory of it, but I remember that, like, Alda got some of the precursors, and then Landau sort of swoops in and gets the

Oscar nomination for it. Right. Yeah. 2019 and what? 81. Okay. 81's the one I don't think you're going to get, so I would probably...

81 is as Mash is wrapping up. 2019, I think I'm going to get faster. It's marriage story. It is, marriage story. He's so funny in marriage story. They show up at his weird office. or apartment or something

and there's like what's going on in that seat? Isn't there like something in a kitchen? Maybe. That's like who is this woman? That's one of those performances where if they would have gone for sort of aviator style like a late breaking

push for him to get nominated for this sort of very small role I would have been all for it. I think he's incredibly funny. He did get a little bit of buzz for a while when that movie first started screening Because he's in enough scenes of the movie But no, that scene I'm talking about it Just like, it's funny because like

You're, because of the environment you're in It informs how screwed the main character is with this guy I've, isn't that the one? There's any small performance in marriage story Or too small for an Oscar nomination performance That Needs a nomination, it's Merri Weaver. Well, I mean, I'm not going to argue with either one of them. I think they're both phenomenal in that movie.

What a great cat. All right, your missing year is 1981. Again, this one is maybe not something you've heard of, although the cast is really interesting. I will give you the hint that it's one of the films that he wrote and directed himself. Oh. He stars in it, he wrote and directed.

How many movies did he direct? In general. Like, it's more than you think, I feel like. Hmm. No, actually, I'm wrong. He only directed, he directed Betsy's wedding. He directed... Oh, I don't even know that.

Four feature films, and this was the first of them. Okay. It's him... I don't think I know of anything he directed, though. He directed, so Betsy's wedding... Hold on, let me get back to that list. Betsy's wedding. Sweet Liberty in

1986, a movie called A New Life in 1988 which is him and Anne Margaret among other people. And then this was the first one. It's him and it's Carol Burnett.

Oh, wow. I genuinely don't know what this is, but maybe I need to watch this. The log line is, I'll give you the title in a second. The logline is three couples vacation together every season. After one divorces, feelings of betrayal and more spawn criticisms of each other. But the things that keep them together are stronger than those which might otherwise pull them apart.

This isn't couples retreat? It's not. It's probably the good version of it. It's called four seasons. So I want to tell you who the three couples are. The first couple is Alan Alda and Carol Burnett. They're the ones who are on the poster. Second couple is Len Keru and Sandy Dennis. Perfect.

And then the third couple, which is the reason why I have pulled this, is Rita. Moreno and Jack Weston, who were both in the Ritz that I watched the other night for the first time, which is the film adaptation. You were having a time. Have you ever seen that movie? No. Highly recommended. Based on the Terrence McNally play that Rita Moreno won the Tony Award for. So the Ritz is, I want to say, 1976. And it's directed by the guy who directed, like, Superman 2, what's his name, Richard Lester.

And so it's, and again, based on a Terrence McNally play, it's this farce where Jack Weston plays this, hold on, let me bring up the IMDB because I want to get all the names of everybody right, plays this guy whose father-in-law has just died. and he is about to inherit the, I think it's like sanitation business or something like that, like trucking business, something, some sort of like family business. And Jerry Stiller plays his brother-in-law who wants to essentially kind of get rid of him. And it's either like knock him off or in this case discredit him. And so Jack Weston thinks he's going to get killed.

And so he's fleeing. And he flees to, he tells the cab driver, take me to a place that nobody would ever think to look for me. And he drops him off at this bathhouse in, again, 1970s, New York City. And he sort of enters this kind of, you know, world that he never knew existed out there in this, like, big, elaborate bathhouse. F. Murray Abraham plays this incredibly sort of, you know, fabulous and forthright and horny bathhouse denizen. and Rita Moreno plays essentially like the in-house entertainment, Googie Gomez, who is this like just hugely over the top, big, you know, ambitions. She has this like longstanding grudge against this producer who she keeps talking about,

who always fired her from things. She thinks Jack Weston is a producer who can help get her a job. Other people think Jack Weston is just like a gay guy who is in the bathhouse. Treat Williams plays, you think he's an assassin, but he's really there to like get the dirt on Jack Weston, and he has this, like, permanent Mickey Mouse falsetto voice. And, like, he's in a tiny towel the whole time, Ephraimary. Abraham is in a tiny towel the whole time. The whole thing is this just, like, wild, incredible farce, and it's not PC by today's

standards, but it's also not, like, wildly, you know, offensive in any way or whatever. And it's just this very kind of, again, pre-AIDS-era New York Bathhouse movie that is in equal parts sort of silly and horny and it's an absolute goddamn delight and... I will be watching it as soon as possible. Highly recommended. Absolutely highly recommended. But anyway,

those two, Rita Moreno and Jack Weston were the third couple in this movie four seasons. That is the fourth Alan Alda, IMDB movie. So thank you for taking that journey with me. I love going on a journey with you, especially if it's going to bring me to this wonderful movie. Listen, you had me at Terrence McNally. Yes. You had

me at Rita Moreno. You really had me at Tiny Towles. I was watching a clip of her. She was doing an interview, like, maybe in the early 2000s or whatever, and she was talking about this role that she won the Tony for. And she said that Terrence McNally put it in the play after seeing her sort of like playing this character, sort of like spinning this character from nothing at a party at James Coco's house, that she was just sort of like, they were hanging out, and Terence

McNally's there at James Coco's house. and she's singing, the thing that makes it into the movie, she's singing, everything's coming up roses and this very heavy sort of Puerto Rican accent. If, you know, if you imagine her character, her Cuban-American character from one day at a time, she's doing sort of like similar sort of accent work in this, but it is just like, again, she's 15 out of 10,

and it's everything I've ever wanted. It's so funny. Wonderful. Yes. Well, for you, I just want to loop back to your earlier question of which one are we love and friendship. Clearly between our IMDB game choices, I am love and friendship, and you are hate and misfortune. Because for you, I went back into the Whit Stillman filmography of his past performers, and I have given you a gift just for you. I'm giving you Greta Gerwig.

Oh, have we never done Greta Gerwig? We haven't. And one of the credits is listed as a writing credit. The other are all listed as starring. A writing credit in something she's not in? You're not going to say. All right. I'm not going to answer that question.

I feel like if it was for something that she wasn't in, like Lady Bird or Little Women, it would be a directing credit and not just the writing credits. So, I'm going to imagine that the writing credit is for one of her Noah Baumbach collabs. I'm going to guess Francis Haugh. But you would think that those would be for a writing credit and not the starring credit? Well, I mean, you know, six of one, half dozen of another, I guess. Either way, I'm going to guess Francis Haas is one of them. Francis Haas is correct. It is not the writing credit.

Interesting. Well, all right. so put a pin in that um now i imagine god is it going to be something totally unhinged like arthur or something um i doubt it'll be something cool like house of the devil uh all right i'm gonna

i'm gonna take a flyer then on ladybird ladybird is the writing is the writing credit that's so weird that it would be writing and not directing. It's definitely an SEO thing because, like, the awards tab probably gives it a boost because she definitely won more writing prizes than directing prizes

for that. Okay. All right. Again, though, you... I think. You constantly try and logic the algorithm and I think the algorithm exists to resist your logic, but I hear you. All right. Mistress America. Mistress America is correct. All right.

I deserve to go four for four. I deserve to go four for four on Greta Gerwig. And yet, all right. So Little Women is out then if there's no other writing or non-acting credits. So. All right. Greenberg. Greenberg is correct.

Yeah. All right. Congrats on your perfect score. wanted you to get. Of all the perfect scores to get, this is the one that I wanted the most. So, I'm very happy. You know what we're not talking enough about? What? Aside from the fact that Barbie is somehow filming right now, it is going to be real. We're getting the first Greta-Gar-Wig performance, like acting performance in years. Yeah. She's in the new Noah Obama. She's in White Noise. Yes. I've not read the novel. I'm not a Don DeLillo

person. So I don't know. know what to expect. Are you excited to see it? I mean, I'm curious of how close of an adaptation it's going to be but sure, I'm always excited for a Nobomback movie. Yeah. I mean,

lots coming out this year. I don't know what to expect from this one. It's maybe one of the handful of movies that I have the most variance in terms of expectation just because I have no idea. having not read the novel.

But yeah, really exciting. All right. And that is our episode. If you want more This Had Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz.com. You should also follow us on Twitter. It had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz. Once again, we will be talking about the May mini series this week on our Twitter account.

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