This Had Oscar Buzz - 201 – How Do You Know

Episode Date: July 4, 2022

While not known for their love for comedies, the Academy has often proven a fan for the works of James L. Brooks. This week, we’re talking about his (likely) final film, the 2010 flop How Do You Know. The film stars Reese Witherspoon as a softball player grappling with the end of her career while … Continue reading "201 – How Do You Know"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. No, I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hacks. I'm from Canada, water. Let me ask you know what I'm from Canada water. in love. Anyone?

I got a way. I figure I'm in love with somebody when I wear a condom with the other girls. Holy crap, I'm in love. What's for a trouble are you in, George? Currently unemployed. I'll soon run out of money. And I'm the target of a federal investigation.

You're a real chick magnate, aren't you? Son, we're in a rapidly evolving situation. Don't tell me. George. Are you going to make me literally run from bad news? You do not have the luxury of not... Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that's got the alias that you've been living under. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong.

The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with my corporate daddy, Joe Reed. How dare you bring my only fan's name into this? I was assured that that was... Corporate Daddy, but all the... O's or zeros. Yes, exactly. Happy pride to

all who celebrate. Yes. Although I guess we're probably in July already by the time you're listening to this. So whatever. Okay. So... Episode 201. We just had our 200th episode. We are starting a new year for us.

New year, new us. New century. New century of episodes. Yeah. Chris, I call you my corporate daddy because I think the only less conceivable father-son duo than Paul Rudd and Jack Nicholson would be the two of us. Yeah. What's the age range between Jack Nicholson and Paul Rudd?

Like obviously Jack Nicholson does feel credible as somebody who has had children later in life, but it still definitely feels like a grandfather, grandson. level age split between them. Not even. They don't look alike. They don't sound alike. They have zero temperamental overlap. Right. Yeah. We'll definitely get into that. I do have a very important question for you to lead off, which is? The eternal question, I'm guessing. When you say the title, how do you know, either out loud or in your head, do you sing it to the tune of that's how you know? That's how you know from Enchanted, or do you sing it to the tune of Whitney Houston's? How will I know?

And what is wrong with me that it's the former and not the latter? It should be the latter. I'm sure a lot of us, well, because, you know, Enchanted was fresher when this movie came out. But not now. That's not an excuse for me now because I, for days now, I've been in my head singing that goddamn Enchanted song and Enchanted is a movie that I liked, but still, those are not songs that I want to have in my head dancing around. Who was that, Alan Mencken?

Apologies to Alan Mencken, if that's who that was. Everybody wants to live happily ever after. That's who wrote those songs, right? I'm not mistaken. Do I need to look that up to make sure? I'll look that up. I mean, it would make sense. Okay, so, yes, the obvious Whitney song you would sing it to is how will I know. However, me being a contrarian, I would sing it to the tune of

who do you love? Oh. wait what's who do you love the wait who do you love is from the i'm your baby tonight album and you know if i'm going to do anything it's gonna i'm gonna ride hard for the i'm your baby tonight album i thought you were talking who was that the like george thoroughgood song who is that who do you love um now i got to look that up it is george thoroughgood i was right man this is why i do well at trivia music rounds anyway yes you were talking about winnie houston enchanted the songs are by Alan Mencken and Stephen Schwartz, look at that. Look at that. I'm on a streak right now. I'm on a winning streak. This is good. All right. Um, yes, but yes, have been singing that damn enchanted song for several days. I mean, you can ascribe this title to multiple songs and listeners probably will. I'm sure there's options that they might do, uh, do, uh, that we haven't mentioned. And partly it's because how do you know is basically,

the vaguest title. Like, this movie could not have been marketed more vaguely. Every negative review also employed that framework of, like, how do you know this isn't a good movie?

How do you know when a romantic comedy isn't working? How do you know when, like, a love triangle isn't compelling? All of this was, like, littered with the reviews. I'll get into the reviews a little bit later because I definitely want to dig into it. But this isn't quite so much the obvious setup that certain titles are that you're just asking for somebody to

pay on your movie. But this really played into the negative reception. Well, I also think it played into audiences not knowing what the hell this thing is. It was marketed purely as, this is a romantic comedy. But audiences still need to know a romantic comedy about what? What is the setup? What is the situation? And James L. Brooks is like, I guess a love triangle. I guess sports. I guess corporate entry. But like, yes, that's the, I think the one of the biggest problems of the movie is that there is, it doesn't cohere. The different, the different stories in it don't really cohere very well. But this was one of those movies I remember that was untitled for a very long time. This was untitled James L. Brooks movie for. With the chosen title. It's basically,

still untitled. I mean, this is the thing, is you look at some of these, and I feel like, I think a lot of his movies are like that. I don't quote me on this, but I think Spanglish was untitled for a while, and I definitely remember that as good as it gets was called old friends for a very long time, both of which are kind of amorphous titles as it is. Like, obviously, as good as it gets, we, you know, it's been around for so long that it just feels like, yeah, of course, you know, you know as good as it gets. and as good as it gets. The only people that are friends are Kuba Gooding Jr. and Greg Kinnear. Yes. Yeah. Old friends would have been a very, very strange title. But I don't know if as good as it gets is, I guess that's a little bit more descriptive. It's still sort of, you know, elliptical, neurotic in a very James L. Brooksie kind of way, which like I appreciate that. The characters in this movie are quite neurotic. Even the characters who don't seem like they would be neurotic, like the Owen Wilson character, is.

is sort of like constantly interrogating their own motives and whatnot. And, yeah, I don't know. This is my second time watching this movie. You watched this previously? Oh, yeah. I watched it when it came out. I don't know if I saw it in theater,

but I definitely saw it like when it was sort of fresh out on DVD. I might have seen it in the theater, though. Or even on, this was my very, very earlier days of like if I could have gotten a screener from somebody. although I don't think I did. But anyway, yes, I saw How Do You Know back in 2011? So, yes. Oh, wow.

I mean, it was a James L. Brooks movie starring Reese Witherspoon. Like, I wasn't not going to see it. I mean, part of the reason that I didn't see it when it came out is that it was such a, like, come and go bomb. And, like, I was fresh out of college, so I would have still not been back in the city I live now. so it's like, it was gone very quickly. And I wasn't surprised to pull up the box office opening weekend and be like, well, of course, it kind of tanked, aside from being marketed so vaguely, this is the week that both Black Swan and the fighter expanded. I'm sort of bummed that you looked it up independently because I did want to, like, gag you with, like, what it got creamed by at the box office. Can we talk about what the gag of this box office weekend was?

Well, the number one movie was Tron Legacy, which is sort of a cursed movie in and of itself, even though I kind of stick up for Tron Legacy. I do. I like Tron Legacy a lot. Any movie that has Daft Punk and Michael Sheen playing a cyber vampire of some sort, like I'm definitely into. Right, right, right, right. No, the cursed movie is the number two movie. Yogi Bear. Yogi Bear. Ionic, iconic tagline, good things come in bears, which somebody, Happy pride. Employ one gay person at your marketing firm. Employ one actual queer person who's going to tell you that that is maybe not the tagline you want to go for for your family-friendly cartoon about Yogi fucking bear. Bad things come in bears. But also, like, number three, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the Chronicles of Narnia in its second week. the expansion of the fighter, a movie that I love, finished fourth, Tangled has already been around for a month and it's still hanging around. The tourist, week two, even after suffering a 48% drop, is still outpacing, how do you know, on a pretty similar number of screens. And the first, I would imagine this would be the first expansion of Black Swan to all.

Not quite a thousand screens, but it was close. So it was about less than half of the screens of how do you know that still be there. Black Swan, like, this is obviously very, very early Twitter and such, but, like, Black Swan was, like, the internet movie of the moment, too. Like, it came on pretty hot and heavy when it expanded. It had an amazing trailer. It was... And expanded faster than it was originally planned to because the demand was so high. And, like, I've told the story.

of how I saw Black Swan with a friend two days in a row, both times at like 11 o'clock at night, and both times it was full, midweek. Yeah. I mean, that was the year where, like, all of the, like, most of, I would say, the kind of artsy-fartsy best picture nominees actually made a bunch of money. Or that, like, you know, like the King's Speech made a ton of money. Black Swan made a ton of money. The fighter made a ton of money.

all of this, you know, nice ammunition for all those people who were like, The Oscars are out of touch and whatnot. This was maybe the last gasp of that, that, you know, adult American audiences would go see movies that were in the Venn diagram of Oscar's Best Picture. But anyway. I mean, the joke is Yogi Bear opening at number two of this weekend, but, like, most of the rest of the box office top 10 this week are movies for adults. Yeah, it's true.

Yeah, with the exception of Yogi Bear, Tangled, and I guess Chronicles of Narnia, although that feels like it's a four quadrant, like... It's debatable for Tron Legacy. Eh, no, I mean, who is young enough to be in that youth demographic is going to remember Tron enough to want to go see Tron Legacy anyway? Like, Tron Legacy was for... I mean, but they were still selling toys. It was still marketed to teenage boys. I mean, like, misbegotten because kids... didn't care about that movie, but...

Yeah. Oh, I should go watch Tron Legacy. What a fun movie. It is. It makes not a lick a sense. Yeah. So, yeah, I definitely saw how do you know, around that time, like I said, I think it was probably on DVD. But, um, so this being my second time watching it, and I remember at the time

being like, yeah, this is a disappointment. I want to make a case for it, and I really can't. And why, Watching it this time, I think I was a little bit more in an analytical mode and trying to pick it apart at least. And it's kind of a fascinating failure and that like trying to figure out where within this movie is the good movie. Because there are good elements to it and there are some intriguing ingredients that I think don't cohere together and are kind of let down by other aspects of the movie. And I'm curious to know whether you you and I are on the same page, because reading through the reviews, it was very interesting.

Even the bad reviews, trying to sort of pick out the good things, and some of them thought that, like, Owen Wilson was the good part. And some of them thought that Paul Rudd was a good part. Almost nobody thought Jack Nicholson was the good part. Almost everybody agreed that, like, Jack Nicholson was a big weakness. Like, it's so much looks like a favor, a favor to his friend. Because he doesn't seem that interested. He's not particularly right for the role.

no it doesn't and it's not an interesting character it's not written it's got he's got one i think interesting line slash scene the scene isn't fully great but the part in when he and rudd he's finally sort of coming clean to rudd about uh every all his his corporate crimes or whatever and he says at one point he's like i need you to leave because i can't i don't know whether what i'm telling you is being intended to manipulate you or not. And then he's like, I think I am. I think I am being manipulative. And I was like, in the midst of a better written character and a better written storyline, that line works.

I think similarly of the line that Rudd says in a scene with Catherine Hahn, where he's like, I'm on a boat in the middle of a storm. And like, inexplicably, the boat hasn't gone under. And the only reason it hasn't is because I haven't. done anything wrong, like that whole metaphor. I'm like, that would work in the midst of a storyline that makes more sense or that, like, is more compelling. And I think you get those little flashes of, you know, the James L. Brooks that we know from broadcast news and from terms of endearment and all that stuff. And it's just kind of not enough of it, not enough connective tissue.

But anyway, when we get into the discussion of it, yeah, we'll figure it out. Do you want to just kind of launch into the 60-second plot description? I forget how long it took us last week with Gloria Bell, but maybe we should get this one as we're hitting the 15-minute mark. Yes, this one's going to be tough because I have not pre-prepared. So this is going to be, I haven't winged it in a while. So we'll see. We'll see how it goes. Listeners, how do you know what movie we're talking about?

It feels very how, this title's so vague, it feels very who's on first, you know. Yes, yes, exactly. How do you know what we're talking about? We're talking about, how do you know? Written and directed by James L. Brooks, starring Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd, Jack Nicholson, Owen Wilson, Catherine Hahn, and Tony Shaloobe. The movie opened wide December 17th, 2010, right before the holiday season. Indeed. Mr. Joe Reed, are you prepared to give us 60 seconds of what the hell is going on?

What you know about how do you know? Yeah, no, not prepared, but forward I march anyway, so, yes. That seems very much like the approach James L. Brooks took to this movie, which I guess your 60-second plot. description of how do you know starts now. All right, Reese Witherspoon plays Lisa Jorgensen. She's a 31-year-old softball player on the U.S. national team who gets cut because she's past her prime, and so now she doesn't know what to do with her life. She starts dating Maddie, who is played by Owen Wilson, who was a pro baseball player,

and he's kind of a womanizer, he's kind of a dufous, but they have good sex, and she's willing to sort of be with him for the moment. She also meets George, played by Paul Rudd, who is goofy and a little odd. And at the moment, he's about to be indicted on federal charges for some sort of corruption in his business. That ultimately is the fault of his father, played by Jack Nicholson. So this love triangle between Reese and Owen and Paul Rudd is odd. And she keeps breaking up with Owen Wilson and she keeps sort of running into George. And we all know that she's going to at some point end up with George.

So it feels like a fate of company. Meanwhile, Rudd has to make the decision about whether he's going to go to jail to spare his father. And ultimately, it doesn't. And also Catherine Hahn is Paul Rudd's secretary, and she has a baby and is very sweet. And ultimately, of course, he ends up with Reese Witherspoon. And that's time. Because we all knew he would. So, there.

This movie has an issue figuring out who the protagonist is. Do you think so? Well, yeah, between Reese and Paul Rudd are in two very different movies. Very different movies. Like, this movie does not merge the, like, baseball aging athlete stuff. Yeah. With the corporate stuff at all. Here's my question to you about that is.

At this point in James L. Brooks's career, do you feel like if he had been a younger man with a, you know, a younger career, do you think he would have been like, okay, I'll make this movie about the baseball player who's at odds with what to do with their life, and then I'll make the movie about the white-collar criminal who didn't do anything wrong. Rather than this one... Oh, you think because he's an aging director. He's like, I might as well do them both because I don't know if I'm going to be able to have the energy to do. He hasn't made a movie since, how do you know? And I don't think as bad as how do you know did. And it was a massive bomb and we'll talk about it. I still don't imagine that James L. Brooks is in the kind of director jail that he wouldn't be able to make something.

Do you know what I mean? So I do feel like there is probably a sense of, you know, semi-retirement maybe to him or something. Yeah, it doesn't feel like director jail. It feels like a retirement. I mean, he said as much that he just wants to focus on the Simpsons for the rest of his career, which... And the Simpsons is never going to get canceled, so that's probably a feasible career plan. The Simpsons will continue to be made as long as the people who make the Simpsons want to make the Simpsons. Well, and like, he narrowly has already evaded Director Jail because of I'll do anything.

Sure, yeah. And then rebounded from that with, you know, a giant hit in as good as it gets. wins two acting Oscars and is a Best Picture nominee. Best Picture nominee. He gets snubbed. Massive box office success. Yeah, he got snubbed for Best Director for that one. He did.

And also for broadcast news. Which is an odd trend. It is and it isn't. It's not odd in the fact that it's not surprising that the director of a light, quote unquote, light comedy would get overlooked in a best director race. But even a previous winner, because he'd already won his Oscar at that point, directing Oscar. Because he's a previous winner, because he had won for terms of endearment, it does make me feel like, well, he's in your club. Like, nominate him, you fucks. But like, it does feel like a lot of the analogous kind of Rob Reiner snubs over the years, where, you know, they just don't recognize comedy as being a director-driven medium as much as it is a writer-driven or actor-driven medium. Well, in terms of endearment is a comedy, but, like, it was also taken seriously as a drama, too. So, like, you can envision a world where he's not nominated for terms of endearment, right? Well, and plus, it was the frontrunner in a way that broadcast news wasn't, and as good as it gets, definitely wasn't. And as good as it gets coming in the same year's Titanic, nothing was going to be the frontrunner, but Titanic. So I actually can't speak to broadcast news in 87 because it wasn't. aware of the race at that time, but like, I don't, I don't know, it got a bunch of nominees.

Maybe at some point people thought it could win Best Picture, but like ultimately the Last Emperor swept. That's interesting that both of his big movies post terms of endearment were victims of an actual Oscar sweep in the case of the Last Emperor or a near Oscar sweep in the case of Titanic. I mean, broadcast news feels like more of the victim of it because broadcast news didn't win anything. Whereas, as good as it gets got those two acting Oscars. And what is one of the few movies to actually defeat Titanic in a competitive category? Yep, yep, yep, yep. Okay, so what were the other movies that beat Titanic in any categories? Mastering Commander won, not Mastering Commander, that was the one that everybody thought could beat Lord of the Rings. I'm thinking of different

movies. There was one, is it Men in Black who beat it in a tech category? For makeup, yes. And then, I guess it's just the two acting categories that it was nominated for. right yeah yeah yeah um i like confidential and uh and as good as it gets yeah that's an interesting trivia question that now i can't do because you know it but put that in your pocket um well i'll wait for a week when uh when you know i i hold a trivia event don't tell you about it um but um yeah what were the three movies to beat titanic for oscars yeah all right listeners pretend you didn't hear about it just in case or tweet out the trivia before this episode drops a good point is a very good point Okay. Yeah, you're not wrong in the fact that this does definitely feel like two movies that don't mesh very well together. And I think the Witherspoon Rudd stuff suffers, even though they have moments where they do have good chemistry together. I think.

I think they would have good chemistry in a different movie playing a different relationship. Part of a, I think maybe my biggest issue with this movie is, I think, I think, think everyone is kind of miscast. Maybe not Paul Rudd if it was a movie that was about his character where he was explicitly the protagonist. Yes. I think he is well cast. I think the movie doesn't always serve him very well. And doesn't give him good material. Nobody gets good material. Here's what I will say about Reese Witherspoon, though. And I'm going to stick up for Reese here. Surprise, surprise. I think she is giving a good performance with a character who is not written very well or consistently. And I think she's trying harder than anyone else is. And I think, and then because it is a character that does not seem super suited to her.

She's a jock. She's, you know, a little, she's not coarse, but she's sort of, you know, she's tough emotionally. You know what I mean? And I think those are, that's kind of a note. that she Rees sometimes plays. But it's, I think the sort of

the jock mentality of her was something that you could tell was sort of like, you know, an acting challenge. And I think she does really well.

She creates a, she gives you moments that I think, oh, this is an interesting look on Reese. This is an interesting shade emotionally for Reese.

And I want to sort of explore it more. And I ultimately don't think, that Brooks explores that character well enough, even though she's given so much of the sort of, you know, real estate of the storyline in this movie. You don't, one of the most telling things I think about this movie is she trained for months how to play softball, how to sort of like look credibly like a softball player, and there are no scenes of her playing

softball in the movie. Well, and James L. Brooks interviewed like female athletes for a year or something as prep for this movie and where is that like maybe if this was a movie about a essentially forced into a retirement female athlete it would have done but like it you could have seen the threads of that but it's not there in the movie I mean I do ultimately think she is miscast I think she's trying the most of anyone and I do think there's you get like you mentioned I do agree with you there are those flashes where it's like she's doing something good here. And I think of this post-Oscar stretch before, like, Wild happens, basically. I mean, Penelope has its fans, and that's, I believe, the first movie she produced, too, so, like,

you don't want to lump it into too much of, like, the failures. And also, Penelope isn't a movie that you watch for, like, the Reese Witherspoon performance, whether you like it or don't like it. It's a supporting performance. It's whatever, yeah, yeah. But, like, of this, like, downslope era for Reese, I do think that, like, she comes out ahead in this movie and that, like, the problems aren't hers, and the movie's problems are not hers. I also feel like just in a, on a dialogue level, it's interesting watching her deliver dialogue that's pitched to this particular wavelength, and it made me feel like, for as much as she sort of became known as the next great romantic comedy queen with, like, you know, legally blonde and stuff. Sweet Home Alabama and yada yada. It really makes me feel kind of sad that she, she, like, I feel like this is what I wrote ton of my notes. I was like, Reese Witherspoon deserves a great

romantic comedy now. Like, she deserves a great romantic comedy for the post, like, it's been 20 years since Sweet Home Alabama. Like, when was the last great rom-com that she really did? Well, we of the Madeline McKenzie stand-up. But that's not a rom-com. Like, I love her. No, it's not a rom-com, but I'm saying the type of idiosyncrasy she's doing in that performance is precisely, and like recently, is precisely the reason why she should be

doing a rom-com right now. And part of it is that, like, the economy for rom-coms has kind of dried up, and if she wants to do a rom-com, she'd have to do it for, like, Netflix or something like that. But she's still a personality that I want to see, and, you know,

in a rom-com, I mean, and I think... I mean, there was home again. We should mention home again. That is true. And part of the reason... Not a great movie, but she comes off ahead in that movie, I think. It's part of the reason why I find that movie, I found that movie watchable without

it being like, great, is like I'm dying in the desert waiting for a great Witherspoon rom-com, and that was at least giving me something. That was at least, you know, moving in that direction. And it's sort of a bummer that the great rom-com guy of the 80s and into the 90s, James L. Brooks,

she's right there front and center for a James L. Brooks movie, and it doesn't do it for her. It's not there for her. And I think she showed up for this. As you said, if the worst thing you can say about her performance or her character in this is that it looks like she's trying very hard, she showed up to work. She showed up to make this character work.

And ultimately, there's only so much she can do with it. Even, I think, the worst part of her performance is not really her fault. And that's the stuff with Owen Wilson, because we're asked to believe that these are people who are fucking. And there is zero sexual tension between those two stars. The movie cuts around every moment that it could have existed in is the other thing. There's like, you hear them fucking. And, like, it's a little cringy because it's just like, I would believe them as siblings before I would believe them as people who are fucking. But this is the other thing that I find so kind of vexing is that's absolutely correct.

And also the fact that every single scene we see them in together, they're breaking up, which is like, I would get that if that was kind of the point of it, if that was, like, you know, the conceit. But I don't think that's the conceit. Even if I don't think she's appropriately cast, I do at least think that half of the movie, works so much better if it's, I was trying to rack my brain of like, who should be in that role instead of Owen Wilson. It should be like a Channing Tatum who like is believable as this like fuck boy and can be charming as a fuck boy and might actually have some sexual chemistry with Reese Witherspoon. I don't disagree. And yet everything that I found, almost everything that I found funny about this movie was in Owen Wilson

line readings. Like I thought he was, because he's such a peculiar persona, right? Well, I mean, that character is also the only one who's given, like, punch lines. Right, right. That's the thing. And his kind of wide-eyed

like, you know, he's completely not aloof, but you know, oblivious to the emotional realities of things until it kind of like lands on his head and it does in basically every scene and he's just the moment that they put in the trailer where he's got the he's like I wrote a note I wrote a whole I wrote all this

down he's like I was so upset when you left I punched a lamp I wrote a thing down she's like all right read me what you wrote down and he's like that was it I wrote I punched a lamp and it's all there is and I was like that's a good piece of Owen Wilson business right there And again, I think it's just this movie needed more connective tissue, more, you know, for a movie that was in production for this long. It's odd that you would say, like, you know, another rewrite. But like, give it something. I don't know. And it's too bad because I think he's another one who, you know, I think all three of the leads are bringing, at different points, are bringing something to this movie that I would have liked in a movie.

serves it all better. Yeah. I think Nicholson's the only one. I don't want to bag on Jack Nicholson. It was his last performance. Listen, Living Legend. And I love Jack Nicholson. This is what I've sort of come to accept about myself,

is that, like, people talk about, like, their problematic faves. I think Jack Nicholson might be a problematic fave of mine. I think he's, I've always sort of in the tank for what he's bringing, even when he's going very over the top, even when he's sort of dipping into his bag of tricks. I always watch his Golden Globes, Cecil B. DeMille,

acceptance speech, which is like classic, like just riding up to the line of what would be sort of odious behavior for anybody else. You know, before television it was wild. I saw Joan Crawford, you know, the legend. The idol of my... my own mothers and sisters in World War II for Sheik and a strong woman, probably already the

chairman of the CEO of Pepsicola, stand up here and go, in my day we had them. I saw Rita Hayworth come sauntering down to center stage to some stripper music, you know, turn her back. her back, flipped the press back over her back, I'll tell you, what a sight. I almost wept. And over there, her ex-husband and stage partner

and presenter for the night, Glenn Ford looked out of this all and said, if you only knew how many times I've been through this. The Hayworth flips or skirt over her head and whatever. And he's telling these stories in this kind of...

you know, horny old man way, but in a way that, like, stays just on the line of being charming rather than gross. And I just, whatever. Anything that ever would maybe come out about Jack Nicholson for here into the future, I'd certainly believe it and whatever. But at the moment, I can still sort of hold him as a problematic fave. I don't know. Where are you on Nicholson? I love Nicholson. I don't want to be morbid, but he's probably one of the next legends will lose, so... Probably true. I mean, let him stay retired.

I kept thinking during this movie about the proposed Tony Airdman remake, which, like, bad idea, don't do it. But, and I think it had shifted over to Bill Murray because the rumors I'd heard was like they were selling Jack Nicholson on doing the movie, and he didn't really want to do it. You wanted to stay retired. do it let him be retired you know what i also don't make that movie um it's sad that this is his last screen performance although here's what i propose you can tell he wants to retire in this movie because like he's not really bringing much to it you know here's what i propose to the culture to you and then

to the culture at large is that instead of recognizing how do you know is his last screen performance we all decide to recognize his last screen performance as the post oscars a reception moment where he and Jennifer Lawrence Thank you for bringing this up. I wanted to bring this up. It was wonderful. It's so charming in a way that like everything about it shouldn't be charming. Everything about it should seem on paper creepy and bad and you know hashtag me too and all this up. I'm not so sure because he approaches her nicely to just be like congratulations. This is the thing. If you watch it, it's all so fucking charming. And he's charming, and she is, and she's sort of, you know, she's in the driver's seat of this whole thing.

And she's definitely flirting with him. And he's definitely sort of, you know, he's reacting to that. And it's so funny. Good to see you. I love to meet him. Oh, my God. Thank you. I loved all your movies.

Oh, really? Do I look like a new girl, man? I thought about it. Is he still here? I'll be waiting. Oh, my God. I need a rearview mirror. I was going to ask you, what are you going to remember about tonight?

I think it is. I mean, at that point it had already felt like Jennifer Lawrence was a star. Yeah. But, like, that. whole back and forth felt like oh my god legend in the making like she can go toe to toe she can hang with jack nicholson yeah she can flirt harder than jack nicholson yes like just just a perfect you couldn't script it better um the fact that he's walking away and when she's like do i look like a new girlfriend do i look like a new girlfriend well that's the thing is because he's walking

away and he's like you sort of look like an old girlfriend and he's almost away and like you know that could have been the end of it and then she sort of like yes ands it almost. And I think at that point people were really teetering on the I'm a little sick of the Jennifer Lawrence schick, people who thought it was a schick. I have always kind of been charmed by her. And I think, I don't know, I've always given her a lot of leeway for like she got famous young and was definitely grappling with how to deal with it. And she decided to deal with it by just sort of like being aggressively um you know by taking it all as a performance right and i don't know i just find i i i give her a lot of rope for i'm going to co-sign that that is the final

the true final jack nicholson performance with you okay everybody else needs to agree with us um is that also the last oscars he attended oh that's interesting i mean has he presented has he Presented Best Picture since then. Because I feel like that's the... Not since trash. That was the last. That was the last time he presented Best Picture. No, because he presented The Departed, which was also before Silver Langus Playbook year, but still.

He presented The Departed with Best Picture, I'm pretty sure. Because I remember it being odd that, like, the star of the movie, one of the stars of the movie presented that best picture. Give me half a second to look this up, though, because I do, I would... Who presented Best Picture? Yeah, hold on Okay, so who presented Who presented this year? This year?

Best Picture to Oh, it was Gaga and Liza. Right. Who presented to Nomad Land? Rita Moreno? Maybe. Am I crazy? That, hold on.

Parasite was Jane Fonda. Parasite was Fonda. Julia Roberts presented it to Green Book Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty did it for shape of water to make up for the moonlight thing Morgan Freeman presented it to Spotlight I don't remember who presented it to Birdman That's the last one going back that I can't remember

Hold on presenters Yeah Rita Moreno presented Best Picture to Nomad Land because then they did best actor last and it fucked it all. Right. Oh, right. Sean Penn presented Birdman because he did that awful

somebody check his papers joke about Iniaritu. Oh, fuck off, Sean Penn. Right, right, exactly, exactly. Will Smith presented to 12 years a slave after Goldie Hawn introduced its clip package. So memorably. Okay, so right, Jack Nicholson was the one who was on stage when they did the Michelle Obama video presentation for the Best

Picture Award to Argo. So that was that year. That's why he was there. So that was probably his last Oscars attended. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody's replaced him as a front row mascot. Yes.

Oh. That's driving me crazy. It is going to drive me crazy because it's definitely somebody else. There's, I can't remember. and I know that we know why but like the regular like you can't remember the most recent Oscars

but yeah who does like Jimmy Kimmel go to in the audience for like go to reaction shots it isn't Jack anymore it's um oh hell if you're listening to it and you know and you know who we're talking about let us know because it's gonna bother us I feel like

it was somebody if memory serves like the way that it felt that it was this person, it feels like the new Jack in the audience. I was like, wouldn't have guessed that, but this feels accurate. It is not necessarily someone, I don't want to say at Jack's level,

but like, not older. Well, who's at Jack's level? You know what I mean? Like, there's not too many who are. Yeah. I think sometimes, like, if Hanks is in the crowd, people will default to Hanks, but it's still not quite that thing.

Now I'm going through, like, who... Tom Hanks felt like that the year that he's, like, lifting his hands up, you know, to get the house lights back up. Yes. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, tweet at us if you can think of who... Who's the new Jack Nicholson in the audience at the... What's that? Maybe it's Hanks.

Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. Still doesn't feel quite right. Okay. So... The thing about how do you know? Yes. Because, like, this was...

If not the last, it was... It was one of the last things to be seen this season, and, like, it kind of stayed as a question mark. Like, I remember when people were waiting on, like, what the AFI premieres would be. It would be, like, how do you know if it's going to premiere somewhere, it'll be AFI, and it didn't get to AFI anymore. AFI doesn't feel, like, as significant for premieres or things launching there. Sure. But I remember it being somewhat of a talking point when it didn't go to AFI, like it was maybe a warning sign. But the thing that everybody held out potential for was Jack Nicholson.

And I think that's because two of his three acting Oscars are for James L. Brooks movies. Right. He won for Terms of Endearment and Supporting. He won for as good as it gets in lead. And it's the kind of thing. Remember when he was in The Departed and he didn't get nominated ultimately. but I remember being like, well, if Jack Nicholson's in a supporting role in a big movie that is an Oscar player, how are voters going to resist that? And it is still kind of surprising. I get why they voted for Wahlberg instead. It's a flashier performance. It's all the serotonin, if you're the kind of person who likes tough guys swearing comedically. He gets to kind of own the final twist of the movie. Right. Whereas Nicholson, it's interesting that Nicholson's playing a mob boss. It's not like Nicholson has played mob bosses a ton in his career, right? And yet it felt like, oh, well, of course, that's the Nicholson role. And it's like, is it? Like, I don't know. And critics were a little bit hard on him. I think critics sort of looking for a thing about the departed to complain about kind of zeroed in on Nicholson a little bit. I mean, for a movie that's fairly kind of grounded in what it is. He's doing something pretty broad.

Sure. I think he's great. I mean, I don't know. I don't, like, DiCaprio's also going large in that movie. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, but I love Leo in that movie. He's not my favorite. He's so twitchy.

I have a big problem with, it's interesting that I should say that, that I have a big problem with overly twitchy characters. Just as I was listening back to a blank check, do their Ben Foster or Giovanni Ruby a C discussion, and I'm mentally sort of sticking up for Ben Foster the whole way. So maybe I don't have a problem. I'm a Ben Foster person. I love Ben Foster. I don't think Ben Foster's as twitchy as Giovanni I don't think so either. And I don't think... Go back to our episode on the gift. I think I pretty much dragged Giovanni Rear B.C. in that movie. Oh, yeah. I think he's terrible in that. Terrible. And I think sometimes... Sometimes Ben Foster goes over the top, but sometimes, like,

I loved him in 310 to Yuma. I'd nominated him for an Oscar for that movie. I think he's great. Leave no trace, baby. Leave no trace. So good. But anyway, anyway, we're far afield. We're far afield. Nicholson, right. So it's not surprising that he got a lot of buzz for how do you know when people were sort of holding, like leaving a space at the table essentially for Nicholson to show up. And then the movie opens, it is a huge bomb. Now, just making the money that it made, it ended up making $30 million domestic, which for a, you know, non-action rom-com movie wouldn't have been a disaster if the budget wasn't well over $100 million. Like, it was, that was the story of this thing. It was such an expensive talky rom-com that feels like what possibly were they thinking? What, in what world was this movie going to recoup that budget in that environment, in 2010. I mean,

Nancy Myers gets those budgets, and it's not necessarily, the thing about rom-coms, like, this is also kind of a movie that as people are stopping buying DVDs, there's not really a rental apparatus anymore. Right. Like, this type of movie would make money long after its box office life in, you know, previous years. And now, you know, I'm sure Nancy Myers' movies still pull in some money, but, like, rom-coms don't really, they're not really in that ecosystem anymore. So it's like, they're not continuing, like, there's so many examples of movies that weren't big box office hits, but they have a long life in, like, home distribution, right? The intern, which was Nancy Myers's 2015 movie, made $75 million. domestic, 118 worldwide. So, yeah, or 118 international. So worldwide almost hit 200 million. So, yeah, you're not wrong. You're not wrong. Well, and, like, I'm not saying that this would have, like, been a hit with the blockbuster crowd. You know, it would have been the second movie everybody rented because, like, it's not a good movie. And I think part of the reason it didn't make money is because audiences could tell. It's not a great movie. But I, I'm a little, I don't always trust.

those narratives, though, because I don't trust the public to be able to sniff out a bad movie like that. The public flocks to movies that look bad, kind of a lot. Sure, and the public loves movies that are bad, but, like, this got a C-minus cinema score. Oh, yeah, like, once people saw it, and I'm sure, like, if this movie was counting on word of mouth, bad news. Right. And definitely, if this is the kind of movie that you need to have a long tail into, things like, you know, DVD and whatnot, that bad word of mouth is pretty toxic for that. Right. Well, I mean, I guess I was a little surprised, knowing that this is a movie that was released right before Christmas, that it didn't make a little bit more. Because Christmas time is

a time when anything can kind of leg out and make a bunch of money. Yeah. Which is part of the reason why Black Swan is a hundred million dollar movie. Yes. that it only made 30, and it kind of evaporated from theaters so quickly, I don't know, probably speaks to how that movie just, like, got cut from theaters immediately, as a lot of things were coming out, especially for adults, that there were a lot of options, and those movies were doing well, like Black Swan. True Grit opens a week later. Yep, yep, totally. This is the Chris File mentions True Grit once a week on this podcast corner. One of the things, too, that you mentioned in the outline that I definitely want to get into, which is still so surprising, which is this movie got blanked by the Golden Globes. And whether it was like it had the stink of failure on it and it's Columbia is the production company, right?

I mean, like when the goose was cooked was when this got zero comedy globe nominations. This is the globes that were so criticized because of all those nominations for the tourist. Well, this is the thing. And so the tourist is another Columbia Pictures movie, right? So Sony clearly, like, rolled out the red carpet for the Hollywood foreign press and, like, plied them with all sorts of stuff and whatever and managed to get nominations for Best Picture, musical or comedy, got nominations for Jolie and Johnny Depp. And it's like, so clearly... A Best Picture Comedy nomination for Alice in Wonderland. This was, like, how... I want to get into that in a second.

comedy line of how cursed these nominations are. But like, do you feel like the calculation was made within Sony that like, were these emails part of the leak? Because now I kind of would want to know. Was the calculation made within Sony that like, how do you know as a loser, the tourist could still be something? We are going to put all of our bribery money into the tourist and, you know, and wine and dine the Hollywood foreign press for.

this movie, or did they try to get the Hollywood foreign press on both of them, and they just didn't bite on how do you know? The latter seems unlikely. I mean, because like... I would believe both versions, because, like, for the former version, it was probably clear to studio brass that the writing was on the roll, that they were going to make more money with the tourist in the long run than they would with this movie, or they, like, kind of cut their losses on this one, maybe. Yeah. But I just don't, it is even, like, not liking this movie, not particularly liking any of the performances. It is weird that this doesn't have a Golden Globe nomination for a comedy, considering when it was released.

Yeah, the tourist made $211 million international on top of 67 domestic. Like, that's... It wasn't huge domestic, but, like, by the time it opened, it had those globe nominations. still made more than twice what how do you know made domestic um but okay so you look at the nominees this is a cursed golden globes year this was the year where like uh and i don't even want to say his name but like ricky jervais you know got monocles dropping everywhere and and uh and mentioned the the bribery uh mentioned and whatever gained an entire unearned reputation for being edgy and outrageous and whatever and uh i don't know the world turned bad

after that. But anyway, the nominees, so like, best actress, Reese Witherspoon would have been up against. So Annette Benning wins for the kids are all right. Obviously worthy. Julianne Moore nominated for the kids are all right. Obviously worthy. Emma Stone nominated for Easy A. Obviously worthy. One of those nominations that is going to mean that I will never fully write off the Golden Globes because the Oscars weren't going to touch Emma Stone for EasyA. But she's so great in that movie. And I'm glad she was nominated. Thus far, we're good. Anne Hathaway and Love and Other Drugs. No, you know I love Anne Hathaway. And we've talked about that movie on this podcast. She's good in that movie. Sure. I, and like, again, I don't think, how do you know is great.

But, like, if we're nominating Anne Hathaway for Love and Other Drugs, I think Reese Witherspoon for How Do You Know does have a case for like, but why not also me? And then Angelina Jolie for the tourist. And again, I love Angelina Jolie, but the tourist is dumb. And if... Laugh riot, the tourist. Well, that's the other thing. But I don't know. So again, like, it's not like, I think, justice for Reese Witherspoon in here.

But if I'm Reese Witherspoon and I'm looking at this lineup, I'm looking at my studio and being like, guys. And whatever, Reese probably doesn't give a shit about getting nominated for a Golden Globe at this point in her career. But, you know, you manage to make a... make this happen for Angelina. The type of starfuckery that they are notorious for, and, like, they nominate supporting stuff all the time that doesn't translate to Oscar. It is very weird. I mean, like, maybe it's just that it's a nothing performance, but, like, on paper, it is

incredibly weird. They didn't nominate Jack Nicholson. Yeah, so that year, the Oscar crossover with Golden Globes and supporting actor, Christian Bale wins it in both, so whatever. Jeremy Renner for the town is nominated for both. He's the only thing about that movie, besides Blake Lively, that I think is successful. So, like, I don't mind that nomination, even though, like, if I'm given five slots, it's not going to be one of mine. But, and also it was the Halo nomination after Hurt Locker, right?

So, um, fine. Jeffrey Rush for the King's Speech, co-lead, you know, category fraud, whatever, was always going to happen the second that the King's Speech became a frontrunner. So that's the crossover. The two outliers, Andrew Garfield for the Social Network, who I would imagine came pretty close to getting nominated for the Oscar, given how well the Social Network did everywhere over there. It was kind of surprising that he missed that lineup and would have to wait another six years for his first Oscar nomination for a bad movie in Haxar Ridge, which is too bad. And then Michael Douglas for Wall Street Money Never Sleeps, which feels like a very Hollywood Forum Press nomination, though.

And kind of the other side of the coin of a Jack Nicholson. You know what I mean? Probably got nominated for the same. He's a legend in Hollywood. He's back revisiting old success. Obviously, he's revisiting his old Oscar winning role, whereas Nicholson is reteaming with his Oscar director. So it's a very similar narrative. And they went with Wall Street. Money Never Sleeps, which didn't get any other nominations anywhere, so it's not like it was being buoyed by anything. Curiouser and curiouser, I would say.

But Douglas had a legit Oscar campaign. I remember they were really pushing him hard to get an Oscar nomination for that. What a non-entity movie, too. Money Never Sleeps? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Boy. Remember that one? Remember poor Carrie Mulligan,

just adrift in that movie? Oh, my God. Awful. Talk about showing up. to work for a movie that, like, is not serving you. Like, she gives a performance in that movie, and it's just like, oh, for what? For, yeah, to what end? To what end. Exactly.

Yeah. Money Never Sleeps, however, is a great post-colon surtitle in a movie. Wall Street Money Never Sleeps. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, what else could be Money Never Sleeps? Mama Mia Money Never Sleeps. Yes, I mean, yeah. Because they run an inn.

So, you know. you would think that things would go to sleep there, but nobody ever really sleeps in the Mamma Mia movies. An extension of the Jessica Alba franchise where she goes onto Wall Street, honey never sleeps. It would also be a good step up. Step up, money never sleeps. Yeah, that would work. That would work for me. The fast and the furious money never sleeps. I don't know. Think about it. Think about it, Vin. Now that you're a month by the week. your shadow directing. Money never sleeps. A month by the lake, money never sleeps. Well, you know, you got to put some money into that lake house or else. Tea with the dames, money never

sleeps. Well, sure, sure. I mean, yeah. So I want to talk about Paul Rudd a little bit. So I really like Paul Rudd as a personality, as an actor. Famously ageless. Yeah, famously ageless have liked him in so many movies. My question is, and then I have a little bit of supporting evidence, is Paul Rudd the kind of actor? He's been famous for so long. He's been so successful. Is he the kind of actor who we think at some point he's going to get an Oscar nomination

for when he maybe steps out of his box a little bit? Or... I can conceive that, but he's not like an Alice and Janie in that like the second he's nominated he is winning. I feel like he'd be the type of person where it's like, they'll view him in a way that the nomination is the prize, you know? I agree. I just don't know what that is.

Like, I do like Paul Rudd and, like, I'm always happy to see Paul Rudd, but I don't know if the range is there. It might have to be, like, the right role in the right movie, or he could be the type of person that gets carried along with a Best Picture Frontrunner, but he doesn't make the type of movies that become Best Picture Frontrunner. I think the right role at the right time is probably true of a lot of people. So I think it definitely would be true of him. His career is very interesting in that you look at the very beginning of his movie career, at least. And obviously, okay, so he does, Object of My Affection with Jennifer Aniston.

He's in the Cider House Rules in a small role. He's in a very small role. I don't even think he gets to talk in William Shakespeare's Romeo plus Juliet. He's in The Shape of Things, the Nealabute movie. shape of things in 2003. So couched within that is Wet Hot American Summer, which is small cult movie. But I remember at the time, and he sort of, you know, wasn't really known for being a huge comedic actor by that point, but he's so funny in that movie. I remember around that time, Janine Garofalo was talking in an interview or in somewhere or whatever,

where she was like, best reaction shot in the business is Paul Rudd or something like that. She really complimented him on his comedic shops and was like, that's very interesting. And then it all changes with Anchorman in 2004, where that launches him into a solidly comedic career. And it follows up with 40-year-old version and knocked up and forgetting Sarah Marshall, he shows up, role models, I love you, man, all this sort of stuff, right? And then he does that for essentially a decade and then transitions into his Marvel role. And now he's got, you know, a handful of big, you know, big money Marvel movies. And so now he's sort of bouncing between comedy and these sort of big action movies. The things that I find interesting are he has made a few forays into against-type indie drama-slash-dramity stuff.

But these movies are so small that they don't get any kind of recognition. It's not that he's failing in these. It's that genuinely nobody sees them. The 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, which was the one that I was working for Tribeca then. I was writing for their website. So I got to see basically anything that I wanted at that Tribeca. He had two movies at that Tribeca. He had the David Gordon Green movie, Prince Avalanche, which I saw, and I thought he was actually pretty good in.

He hits him and Emile Hirsch. Couldn't tell you too much about the plot at this point because, like, I don't remember a ton of it, but I remember thinking he was good. And then he's in a movie with Paul Giamatti called All Is Bright. that is about maybe people who work on a Christmas tree lot. Like, I don't know. That's what's on the poster. It's him and Giamati looking, you know, glum and working class and with a Christmas tree in between them. Anyway, two movies at the Tribeca Film Festival for Paul Rudd, and, like, nobody ever sees any of them.

He does a movie in 2016 with Selena Gomez called The Fundamentals of Caring that, again, makes absolutely no impression. He does oh, what's the other one from this? Oh, the catcher was a spy, which I only know because I think the title is dumb. And this is, he's, it's a, it's a, it's a World War II spy movie that he's the star of him and Mark Strong and Sienna Miller and nobody saw that one either. And so it's just interesting to me that he does seem to have an interest in taking some of these small roles in

interesting slash challenging slash against type projects they just don't get seen by anybody. And you wonder if... Well, and he's somebody who is working all the time. All the time. Yeah. So it's hard to differentiate some of those things, too.

It's that as well. And I mean, he's working across a broad spectrum of scales. I think he is kind of weirdly place and what makes it like hard to imagine him in the type of role that gets an Oscar nomination is that he occupies this kind of middle ground between leading man and character actor that I don't know if he leaned more into one direction

it would be more conceivable because like Allison Janney as the example Allison Janney as like one of our like foremost character actors working it's like it just has to be the right role but like Paul Rudd, even like with what we've said, I still feel like, yeah, but I don't know. Like, he just doesn't do the type of performances that people, you can rally people around to support. And similar to the Reese Witherspoon thing is you go back 10, 15 years, you'd say, oh, you know what Paul Rudd really needs and would do great in? A James L. Brooks movie. You know what I mean? Because it's like, that was the ideal for, you know, smartly written. well-characterized comedy for adults, and that can be respected and that the Oscars will, you know, gravitate to. And that would be, that would be the key to unlock the Paul Rudd thing.

If you want to get Paul Rudd an Oscar nomination, put him in a James Elbrook's movie. And they did, and it didn't work. And now it's like, well, who's doing that kind of stuff now? Who would be the person to take a comedic actor who has got the chops and give him something with enough heft? Like, honestly, I'm like Mariel Heller. I mean, I think much like everybody. Oh, thank you. I was just about to say that. I was like much like everybody else in the business, everybody needs a Mariel Heller movie.

Yeah, that's sort of what I'm thinking, though. Can we talk about how fucking angry I am? I get that Hulu is using Searchlight as a way to. we got to talk about this at some point. Prestigify, for lack of a better word, their original output as a streamer. And like, I do actually think they're doing a good job of differentiating themselves in the market because one of Hulu's problems in recent years has been they don't have the content library. Like, at a certain point, it feels like nobody's talking about a lot of the shit that's on Apple, but Apple almost has a larger original content library than Hulu

does, or at least of stuff that's still currently running, like, Hulu's ended enough shows at this point that, like, we don't even talk about anymore. So here's, but like, here's what I'll say. I think it's all about, it's all been a strategy that's been in place for a while, but they're making these decisions of things that would deserve a theatrical life to put on their original stuff, including Nightbitch, which I don't understand that decision at all. I could probably talk for a good hour about what's going on with Hulu because it's 8 billion different things. Part of it is I don't think

Hulu gets to make their own decisions anymore now that Disney is running the ship and I think Disney is currently using Hulu as a weird like everything that Hulu is being used for

is dumb. I think it's being used to weirdly obfuscate what FX's space in the streaming world. is, because now things that are on FX and they're on FX on Hulu, and FX just premiered this show The Bear that I thought was very good with Jeremy Allen White, and then he dropped the whole season on Hulu, and it's like, is this an FX show if this is a Hulu show? I thought FX on Hulu was done.

I thought we weren't doing that anymore, and yet, here we are. Hulu is also being used to kind of murder Fox Searchlight in its sleep. But they're not, because they, Searchlight is still a theatrical entity. The movies that are coming out this fall are not going to be on Hulu right away. It's, I do think that it is a smart strategy to kind of combine the forces of, and essentially the prestige of Hulu FX searchlight into one thing. I just think they're making the wrong decisions about what they're making the Hulu releases and what they're making the theatrical release. I think if Disney's going to be the one who's going to be the money behind it all anyway, if you acquire a movie and have no intention of distributing it, just make it a Hulu original.

Don't make it a Searchlight. I think Searchlight still has a name value in the indie cinema world that you want to keep them theatrically exclusive to keep the brand. I think they're really killing the brand by doing that. And the other thing is, I think Hulu's doing very well with television at this point. I think they've had, they're coming off of a really good year where they had the dropout and Dobsick. I think they're going to do very well at the Emmys this year.

they still have the inexplicably hugely popular Handmaid's Tale that I think they're going to, you know, when that show comes back, I think it's going to be marketed to High Heaven. I think that is the one show that when I come back home for like the holidays and I talk to people and I'm, you know, I write about television and I want to know what people are watching. They're always watching the fucking Handmaid's Tale. Like it's still incredibly very popular. So I think Hulu is doing well with television. And I like, they're one of the few streaming outlets where I kind of like their user experience. I think it's a very sort of like easy user experience. Anyway, my point being, what Disney is doing with Hulu strategically drives me up the wall.

Also, justice for Emma Thompson's Oscar campaign and good luck to you, Leo Grant, which is now dead. Yeah, because she's not even going to have an Emmy campaign now because she's starting at the beginning of next year's Emmy season. She's not getting nominated. it's no it's awful also movies like I know there is still a category for Made for Television movie at the Emmys but like those acting

categories are all the limited series categories and right now limited series is where it's at so if you have an acclaimed performance in a made for TV movie you are never going to be able to beat Amanda Seifred in the dropout or you know Colin Firth in the staircase or whatever those are where the buzz is.

So this is why, like, bad education with Hugh Jackman or whatever struggled to even get to nominations and was never going to win. Because TV movies are not where it's at. And if you are a TV movie that is basically getting shunted from a theatrical distribution, you look like leftovers. Like, that's the... I mean, I think the big picture strategy, and I do think that they're pulling this off incredibly well,

is like, as, you know, people are having more and more complaints across a broad spectrum of issues with Netflix right now, one of the things that is getting more traction is a lot of their original content that they put out is dog shit. And it looks like dog shit. And Hulu, even something like fresh, which I don't like, is a cut above the crap that Netflix is putting out. And, like, I do think that that is the goal in how they're trying to separate Hulu in the marketplace, and I do think they're actually achieving it. However, at the detriment to movies that do deserve more life than being forgotten on Hulu. Here's the difference, though, is that just on a perception basis, Netflix is the studio of Roma and the Irishman and the Meyerowitz stories and marriage story and all of these movies that are. are good and that are successful and that win Oscars. And Hulu as a movie presenting entity

doesn't have that. Hulu feels like leftovers. Well, and they won't because they're not doing, they're not putting those movies that are launching on their platform. This is the thing. In theaters. They did get a leg up like during the Nomadland year. Yes. They had a bunch of, like, I do think like that gave them a lot of credibility at a time when it was needed. And like some of these things like Fire Island, like that was in their deal that it was always going to be searchlight on Hulu. It was never a theatrical release. Should they have reassessed or figured out what contractually they needed to do? Absolutely. And like, I understand some of this was like made, these deals were made in a more uncertain

marketplace. So, like, we'll see how it keeps a ball. And I think at least with Fire Island and like happiest season or whatever, those feel like they are contributing to a niche program programming interest, which we can argue for days about whether Fire Island deserves to break out from that niche. I think it does. Whereas some of these things that are just sort of like, well, there's Sundance acquisitions that they have decided not to put in theatrical. And I think the Nomad Land thing is a good point. But I think because it happened during the pandemic year, it's very easy to asterisk that movie and just be like, well, it was force majeure, whatever, they couldn't put it in theaters. And so it was a Hulu movie. But anyway, I don't know. It's, I have thoughts. I have lots of thoughts. My basic thought is free Fox Searchlight. And just let it be Fox Searchlight again, even if it's not affiliated with Fox in any way. Because it's a brand that means something. And I know that, like, whatever, there is no financial incentive to do that, but do this for me. I don't know.

to bring it back to how do you know a little bit this movie is way closer to the like Netflix has gotten so much credit or did a few years ago before people saw the movies that they were doing for like trying to revive the romantic comedy and all of this I exclude Always Be My Maybe I like Always Be My Maybe But it's these movies that like

look horrible they're not good nobody talks about them the Monday after they have launched on the platform and how do you know felt so much like that to me did you happen to see who the director of photography

is on this movie no who is it my jaw dropped oh my god it's Yanush Kaminsky it is fucking Janush Kamitsky this movie looks director of darken it or director of Lost Souls, rather, Yanush Kermitsky?

What if an Exorcism movie was a Law and Order episode? Laws Souls. Wow. I'm a little aghast that he shot this movie. This movie looks horrible. Yeah. There's no visual signature to it. It's all overlit.

It's all these very anonymous apartments. that, like, are shot with, like, no character whatsoever. It's set... When there's green screen, it looks so bad. It's set in Washington, D.C. It was partially filmed in Washington, D.C. It was a lot of it was filmed in Philadelphia to look like Washington, D.C. None of it feels like...

The only reason why this movie feels like it needs to be in Washington, D.C., is because Owen Wilson's character plays for the Nationals. That's the only real reason. None of this movie, there's no D.C. character to this. I'm sure people who live there and can spot certain locations will probably maybe say differently. But, like, to me, there is no character of location in this. Okay, here's the other thing I wanted to mention to you. And this is total non-sequitur, but it's about location.

Did you notice that it has always, not always, but like in so many of these scenes, it has just rained. Like, there's, like, you look at, like, the ground or whatever, and there's just, like, puddles of rain everywhere. and, like, the sky is blue and whatever, and it's, like, it's sunshiny, but it's just, like, why is it constantly having just rain? I mean, maybe that's why it looks like shit. It's all green screen blue sky. But I don't even think it's green screen blue sky. Like, Reese Witherspoon walking down the street and they have a giant fold-out green screen behind her. I don't even necessarily think it's that. I think they were probably just, like, waiting for, like, rainstorms to pass through before they could start filming again or something. But, like, if you're not going to go back and watch this again, but if anybody listening to this decides to watch this movie, keep an eye out.

for like how many times there is just like just freshly rained on ground everywhere. It's so strange. I'm sort of going through my notes and I want to see. Okay, so I'm not going to get up in arms about the casual heteronormitivity of this movie. I'm just going to say that when Rees Witherspoon's character gives her speech about how,

with all the other softball players, when they leave the game, they go and they find a man to marry and have kids, And I'm literally like all the softball players find a man to marry and settle down. I was like, that is the most, this was written by a straight guy who just didn't even bother to, like, think about that that might not be the case. Maybe a lot of these softball players might not settle down with a man is all I'm going to say about that. How dare you, sir, at the tail end of Pride Month. reduce an entire sport to stereotypes. Not an entire.

I'm just saying, just give me a little aside that is like, well, or wives. You know what I mean? Something, something. Anyway. Can we talk about my favorite softball player in this movie? Sure. Go for it. Arriving into the movie Chowin on a sandwich, Tiana Paris.

Oh, Tiana Paris. Yes, who gets like a scene and a half. A scene. Yeah. A scene. I was so mad. I mean, granted, this is before we're like, we knew who Tiana Paris was. But, like, I love Tiana Paris.

No, she's great. She was definitely your face lights up when you see her. I want to get to Catherine Hahn in a second, but I do want to shout out as I'm going through my notes, and then I'll put my notebook down. Two things that I actually thought were pretty funny. And again, this movie is so sporadically successful that I took to, like, writing down the parts that I actually thought were funny because there weren't not enough of them. Not a long list.

When Rudd is grilling on his little, like, terrace or whatever, after he finds out that he might be indicted and he just sort of flings the stake over the balcony or whatever. I thought that was funny. Also, the part where Rudd goes to visit his dad and he's like just adjourning this meeting with all of his lawyers and he's sending his lawyers out

and he just like, as on the side as they're all leaving, says to the one who's like, get me that list of non-extradition countries. I thought that was kind of funny. Okay, now can we talk about Catherine Hawn? Yes, we can, which I was confused. when she first arrives because she comes on screen with like a Sony Vio

folded all the way open pressed against her body and it's confusing at first because it looks like one of those things on TV shows and movies where they're trying to hide a pregnancy and then it's revealed that her character is actually trying to hide her pregnancy. Right.

Very dark given current situation in the United States. One thing I want to say about that? a bit. I also had a Sony Vio at that point, I'm just going to say. So I felt very connected to Catherine Hahn at that point. Continue. Always looking for a way that you are personally connected to a Catherine

Han character. She was real life pregnant in this movie. And so when you do see that scene, though, she's very obviously pregnant. And part of it, me, was that I'd seen the movie before, so I knew that, like, her pregnancy becomes, like, a part of it. So when in the next scene, she's on the phone with him, and she's like, I I'm pregnant. And he's like, oh, and he seems genuinely surprised. I'm like, really? Like, I don't know. It was very surprising. It was very surprising that you would be in all, at all

shocked. Catherine Hahn apparently was filming the childbirth or whatever, or like the in the hospital scene the day before she had her child. I mean, I would believe it. I love her in this movie. The case could be made that her entire character, could be cut out of this movie, this movie that is already pretty long. And I wouldn't disagree on a mercenary sort of, you know, got to cut something. And she does kind of lift out of this movie pretty easily. And yet, all of her scenes are for themselves, in and of themselves, really good. She's giving a very big comedic energy, but I think in a way that I appreciate, the scene where she keeps trying to tell him what she knows

and he keeps trying to make her not do that. I think she's really funny and I love the proposal scene. I think that's the one moment where the movie actually makes me feel something. Your thoughts? Yes.

My thing about Catherine Hahn in this movie is yes, it feels like a godsend when she's there because the successful stuff that you're talking about there, that is absolutely true. And yet maybe I would have I've seen it at the time, it would have felt more special. But now it feels like, I don't want to say like Bargain Ben, Catherine Hahn, but she's

doing the Catherine Hahn thing that we love in so many other movies. Sure. But, like, it's so much better in other movies. I think that's probably true. Just the scene where her boyfriend shows up and proposes to her, and it's all, he's doing all the talking and she's doing all the reacting. And yet her reactions are so. so idiosyncratic and wonderful and kind of, you know, feel very spontaneous and

really pull me into that character. And that scene, you need to believe that that scene would inspire Lisa to, like, get in the game, no pun intended, in terms of, you know, realizing that she could go for a romantic relationship with the Rudd character. And it does that job. And I think Catherine Hahn is the reason why it is able to do that job. This is all I'm going to say. All right. Do you want to move on to the IMGB game? Actually, before we do, I just want to go

through some of the reviews, because I did jot some of these down. They were all pretty bad. This was a 31% on Rotten Tomatoes. There were a handful of people who stuck up for it, I will say, going through the Rotten Tomatoes reviews, including our friend and frequent guest, Katie Rich, but she was not alone there were a handful of freshes, and I think not, I can see finding the good in this movie, even though I found myself frustrated that the good was not buttressed better. But anyway, of the negative reviews, if you pull up the top critics thing on Rotten Tomatoes,

which is what I immediately go for, because I don't need to be bothering with non-top critics. the very first review on the page is by Shubra Gupta from the Indian Express and her quote is three likable stars and Jack Nicholson first of all shade can take this can you take this for some and make a film that makes you want to barf the moment it opens yes if the film is how do you know Peter de Bruges from Variety how do you know when a spark is gone when your latest romantic comedy looks like TV, feels like a

greeting card poetry, and sounds like a self-help manual. Oh, wow. Also out. Peter Bradshaw for The Guardian called it a fatuous parade of nothingness. Yow! Burn. And the great Roger Ebert,

his pull quote is just, I expected this movie to be better. Which is the most, I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed. Dad response. I could have imagine for a movie. Like, that is, that would make me feel terrible. Roger Ebert just giving you the, like, I just thought this would be better.

You have let down Roger, and I can't imagine. I can't imagine. I can't imagine it. How sad. Yes. All right. Now I will say, yes. Let's do the IMDB game.

All right. Yeah. Why don't you tell our lovely listeners what that is? I am the one who does that this week. 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 will mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we will get the remaining titles release years as a

clue, and if that's not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints. Would you like to give or guess first? I'll guess first. All right. So for you, I went into the various women of James L. Brooks films, one of which we mentioned early in the episode is I'll do anything, misbegotten, almost musical, I'll do anything. I do wonder if the musical version from what I've heard about it or read or what the rumor mill is around the musical version, I do wonder. or if he would have been put in director jail for the musical, if that had been released. Instead, it's just like this nothing disappointment movie. Maybe. All right.

But it does sound pretty bad. So, for you, I have chosen Jolie Richardson. Oh, boy. Okay. Any television. One television. Nip tuck. Nip tuck. Sure. Okay. I was also just trying to bring back discussion of one of our

early obsessions in this podcast the way that she says, Christian. Christian Troy. Yes. I love that. Okay. Also, someone recently on Twitter, I saw this getting retweeted a bunch of stars who dated their

fictional children, and I forgot that she briefly dated the actor that played her son. Yep. She sure did. She sure, sure, sure, sure did. Yes. Um, all right. For you, Jolie. Jolie Richardson.

All right, 101 Dalmatians. Correct. All right. She plays Anita Darling. Yeah. 102 Dalmatians. Incorrect. All right, Jolie.

I'm trying to think if there's a movie where she was in it with either her mother, her mother is Vanessa Redgrave, or her sister, the late Natasha Richardson. she was in nip-tuck with her mother that's right that's right uh christian troy uh didn't he like he definitely had sex with her i'm not sure the particulars of it but yes uh that was definitely a thing christian had sex with everybody on that show that is sort of a thing um all right jolly richardson is she in i can't remember whether it's her or Natasha or both. Is she in the white countess?

No, what was that called? Right? The white countess? The white countess is not correct on her known for. Let me see if she's actually in that movie because it doesn't count if she's not in it. Yes, it does. You always say this that it doesn't count.

I think it doesn't count if someone's not in it because circumstances... It's still a wrong guess. I think it's still a wrong guess. All right, she's not in the white countess, but I'll follow your rule since it's your guessing. All right, give me yours. 1997 and 2000

Huh 97 These are both before nip tuck if that helps place But after 1001 Dalmatians I feel like I've just recently watched a movie where she shows up in a small role And I don't know whether I would be going for that 97 is she an Oscar and Lucinda It is not Oscar and Lucinda

The 97 movie Speaking of movies that notoriously have directors' cuts that I don't believe this movie's cut has seen The Light of Day, or maybe it has on like really super grainy footage. Uh-huh, 97, a movie with a director's cut. Like, heavily edited, I think, for like story confusion and also maybe some gore. Gore. Mimic? No. Mimic is MIR a Sorvino.

Yes, that's right. Mimic's a good movie. I like Mimic. I like Mimic. Gore, 97. She's not in Scream 2. That's Portia Dorasi. That doesn't have a director's cut. And it doesn't have a director's cut. I don't think I know what you did last summer has a director's cut.

there's definitely people that like ride for this movie i've been curious to revisit it for a while it is horror science fiction oh is it uh that one with sam neal event horizon event horizon i did not like event horizon i only watched it a couple years ago when i was doing my halloween spooky movies thing and i had heard so many good things about it and i was very very eager to watch it and i did not care for it. It seems like something I would like. Give it a shot. 2000, big summer movie

Problematic Star. Johnny Depp? No. Kevin Spacey? No. Ezra Miller? No. There's so many problematic.

Gary Oldman? No. Problematic star we've recently talked about. Recently, Mel Gibson. What women want. Yes. No. Summer movie.

The Patriot. The Patriot. She isn't a Patriot. She's his wife, right? Or his, like, sister-in-law? She's a love interest. Lady Down the Lane. I think she's like, yes, I think she's maybe his sister-in-law.

Or, like, his dead wife's sister than he later married. Can't imagine a movie I want to re-watch less than the Patriot. Yeah, even though Heath Ledger is such a hands. handsome boy in that movie but yes um yes all right that's tough all right chris for you in the iMdb game i also went into the james l brooks filmography i also went into the james l brooks um miss filmography and picked somebody from the movie spanglish uh screen actors guild nominee Chloris Leachman Oh, may she rest.

Last picture show. Correct. Her Oscar win. Young Frankenstein. Correct. Fraubb Lueger. I actually think Spanglish is there, so Spanglish. Spanglish? Yes, I hate you. You're three for three. Oh, sorry. I should have said this in advance. One of them is a voice performance. Oh, okay. Whoa, what was that? What the fuck?

Are you going to Funky Town? Are you recording this episode from Funky Town? I got a goddamn pop-up ad in the middle of this. I got Russians in my fucking... What were you saying? I just freaked out. I really think that was the beginning of Funky Town. Okay.

Animated film. Voice performance in an animated film. Oh my God, Beavis and Butthead to America. She's a voice in that, but it is not correct. Strike 1. oh well whatever it is is not right okay what else is she an animated voice in that is the question for you my guess is she's in a voice in a lot of things because she has a very distinctive old lady voice sorry i'm still thrown i jumped out of my skin because um

Okay. And I don't have a year. Not yet. Because I was otherwise on a roll before. Yep, you were. Whatever hacker. Yeah, that was really a sabotage. Okay.

I mean, those were maybe the obvious guesses, so maybe I wasn't really on a role. Okay. Animated Voice, Cloris Leachman, not Beavis and Butthead. She's not in like one. of the Shrex, is she, like, one of the later Shrex? Well, one of the later Shrex is not the title of a movie. Um, all I can think of right now is her saying, there's so many slots, she won't know where to begin.

Is that from Beavis and Butthead? It's from Beavis and Budhead. You're a simple creature sometimes, Chris. You're a very simple creature. Problematic Fave, Beavis in Bloodhead. Damn. See, this is the thing. This is also why I don't do those daily games to begin with,

but this is why I hate the box office game thing that everyone does. It's so fun. You can't remember animated. movies. Well, that's the bane of my existence. Yes, it is true. Okay. What is... It's got to be like a Pixar. They were smart enough to get her in Pixar at some point. Gotta make a guess. Monsters Inc. Not Monsters Inc. Okay. So your missing year is 2013.

Okay. What were the nominated animated movies of 2013? I will say that's going to get you there, if you can remember. Okay. What was the Pixar movie that year? That would have been, like, Monsters University. No, that's not Monsters. Is it Monsters University? No, there was no Pixar nominee that year.

The winner was a Disney movie. Big Hero 6. No, that was 2014. Um... Big Disney. I really need to, like, do my research on animated feature nominees because, like, I can't place it in time. No Pixar nominees. No Pixar nominees.

It was a Disney winner. Big, big Disney winner. There was also a... It's not Tangled. We talked about Tangled earlier. Correct. Is this the winner? No.

it is not the winner okay is it Disney it's not Disney um give me is it how to train your dragon no that was the first one of that was 2010 and uh I can't remember when the second one was but it wasn't that year um let's see this movie was produced it was this is train your dragon too is some fucked up shit to be giving to kids it's like the plot point is like hey kids what if you watch your best friend get possessed and then kill your parent in front of you. That's just like what that movie asks you to contemplate.

The second one? Yes. Yeah, I don't like the second one. I love the first one. It's not that I don't like the second one. I don't like the second one nearly as much as I love the first one. Anyway. It was just like that sequence. I was like, Jesus Christ, this is supposed to be for kids. So you're looking for a DreamWorks animated one.

That isn't how to train your drag. The other nominees are, like I said, the winner is Disney. there's a Ghibli nominee, there is a illumination nominee there is a

Oh, Despicable Me. She's not in Despicable Me, no. And there is a French movie that I'm not sure what the Is that my life is a corsette? No. No?

Anyway, the one you're looking for is the most besides the winner is the most sort of like well, despicable me too. It's a broadly commercial one anyway. Okay, so it's DreamWorks. What are the DreamWorks animations that are not? This one had a sequel fairly recently.

Is it the Crudes? I refused to ever see The Crudes. The Crudes, which I actually watched and remember very little about, because I watched all the Oscar nominees that year, obviously. Yeah, surprising that it's that voice performance and not, let's say, Beavis and Butthead to America, you make a good point. She's also in a voice in the Iron Giant, which is sort of surprising that it's not that. Anyway, yes, may she rest, Cloris Leachman, Gran in the Crudes. And she was also a voice in The Crudes A New Age.

It should be Beavis and Budhead to America. IMDB still has one movie on her IMDB that is announced and it is listed as in development. Guys, I don't think that's going to happen. I have some unfortunate news. What if she did? Wouldn't it be a gag? It would be a gag.

I mean, yeah, the cast of that movie, it's something called The Home. The proposed cast is her, Ed Asner, Louise Fletcher, and Fonola Flanagan. So that is, and it's fantasy horror. Okay, that would have been really interesting. And I wonder if they're still going to make it with a different actress who's not Cloris Leachman. Anyway, may she rest, Miss Cloris. Yeah.

Work, Miss Cloris. You give it to them, Ms. Cloris. All right. I think that is our episode. If you guys want more, This Had Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at thishead oscarbuzz.com. You should also follow our Twitter account on Had underscore Oscar Buzz. Joe, where can the listeners find more of you? Twitter, letterboxed, both at Joe Reed, read spelled, R-E-I-D.

I am also on Twitter and letterboxed at Chris F-File, F-E-I-L. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Mavius for their technical guidance. Please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, Apple, Podcast, Google Play, Stitcher, wherever else you get your podcasts, five-star review, particular really helps us out with Apple podcast visibility. So tell us exactly how you know that we are a great show. That's all for this week. We hope you'll be back next week for more boss. Bye-bye. Don't want to be a bunch That's going to go

Party and wrong It's not enough The break for one and a lot On your life On your life Thank you.