This Had Oscar Buzz - 205 – The Four Feathers

Episode Date: August 1, 2022

Long-time listeners of the podcast will recognize this week’s episode as one promised from the very beginning! In 2002, The Four Feathers arrived with major Oscar follow-up and star-on-the-rise pedigree. The film was Shekhar Kapur’s directorial follow-up to the Oscar anointed (and Cate Blanchett launching) Elizabeth, and starred three of the biggest young would-be megastars … Continue reading "205 – The Four Feathers"

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. There's no one. I'd sooner trust my life with him.

A loving woman. Do you take this woman to be your... Yes, and me kiss the bride. A promising future. An army of fanatics has attacked a British fortress in the Sudan. Congratulations to you all. We are shipping off to war. Until he questioned.

I sometimes wonder what a god-forsaken desert has to do with Her Majesty They're queer. An unjust war. It means he's a coward. It's the first soldier in the regiment. Please leave these barracks immediately. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that is sponsored by Powder Milk Biscuits. Every week on This Head 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 am your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with my sideburned rugby mate, Joe Reed. Oi. Or something. More like the four sideburns. Well, by the end of the movie, Heath Ledger has graduated to sideburns, which makes it look like he's about to go fight in the Alamo, which is kind of anachronistic because the Alamo has already happened. Right. Yes, sideburns have...

And also, though, a very fancy haircut by the end. Like, it is very sort of flopsie bangs kind of a thing happening, framing his face. There's a little bit of a Rachel, like a, it's not a full Rachel, but something's happening. It's framing his face, right? Those tendrils are sort of framing his face. Listen, by the very end of this movie, I was, shall we say, ready. for a different Heath Ledger look. Sure.

We're going to get into the makeup. We're going to get into the brownwashing of Heath Ledger in this movie. There's a lot. Inexplicable. Well, it's explicable in that it becomes sort of baked into the plot of it. But like a lot of this movie, you would think that the fact that it's happening that's getting made in 2002 would have maybe led them to some different decisions. I don't know. Or just don't make this movie. This is where I sort of

ultimately land on the Four Feathers. And so many of my little avenues that I mentally go down. And it all ends up with like, you didn't need to make this movie for the like eight bigillionth time in 2002. Like ultimately what are what are you what are you doing this for? I mean, the sensitivities of it are even worse, because you can imagine that this was possibly in production or maybe even right, started production right after, in the wave of 9-11, it's just like, yikes to this movie a little bit. But we'll get into all of that. When the very first version of this movie was made in, like, 1915, which is like only like 30 years past. the part, the point where it's set, it's like, okay, this was incredibly like old, an old-fashioned story, and the only way to do it would be to update it with some kind of sense of, you know,

not necessarily modern sensibility, but some kind of perspective on it, some kind of like it's been a century almost since we've, you know, first made this movie. And we've learned some things and we know some things. And this movie just does not, the only way it updates it is like, oh, we'll take three of the hottest young stars of the moment and we'll put them in it, you know, whether they fit into this, you know, dynamic or not. The millions, the roles themselves, et cetera. I mean, this was something that was present in the reviews, including Roger Ebert's review for the movie, that it's like, this movie is kind of perspectiveless at a time that, like, begs for you to have some point of view. And even some reviews and Eberts pointed out that it's like, Shakar Kapoor, who, at least in Ebert's review, notes that he's of Indian descent,

that I am not sure. Yes. Okay, fantastic. Like, maybe that's, he's someone who could have a perspective on this, but, like, has no perspective in the evident in the movie, at least. And it's like, maybe if he does, he actually likes the British. military or like British imperialism. That's certainly the only thing you could come out of this movie thinking because in its

lack of critique of the British Empire or like the most cursory critique really, while still upholding kind of everything about it that it's so puzzling. It's so deeply puzzling. And the fact that bookending this movie for Shrek Kapoor were the two Elizabeth movies. And those have really been the only movies that he's made up until this thing, this rom-com that he's got coming out next year with Lily James. And called What's Love Got to Do With It But it is not, it's not a remake Tina Turner Story in any way. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's, it reminded me of, I remember sort of getting taught in.

school when we were taught about things like the Revolutionary War. And this is a thing that is backed up through movies like The Patriot and, you know, other sort of things, which is that the reason why the Americans were able to defeat the British, or one of the reasons why, is that the Brits were so sort of stodgy in their war tactics that they could never anticipated, like, the more modern warfare, the more sort of, you know, less stand in a line and fire your muskets kind of thing.

And as one man falls, there's someone behind to step forward and take his place, you know. Right. Well, and it's one of those things where if that's your takeaway, that really kind of takes away the necessity to look at things like, was the British Empire right in its, you know, in its actual existence? like was and it kind of takes away the need to take a critical eye towards colonialism in general and and that the British ultimately were it wasn't a tactical like this wasn't because the the bottom line for all those things feels like oh the British lost because they were stuffy and that's the stereotype that we've decided to assign the British as Americans and I was like I can't believe that in like 2002 this movie kind of adopts the same thing where it's just

like, oh, those British, they fell for those sneaky foreigners who, you know, pretended to wear their red coats and whatever. And if only the British were more, you know, modern thinking tacticians or whatever. And it's just like, oh, my God, we're not, we're honestly going to make this movie and not talk about the, you know, the wrongness of... Evels of Empire. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's a not a good movie. I had seen it before.

How I had you seen it before? I had not seen this before. I saw this thing in the theater. Wow. I was very excited for this movie. I mean, so... Okay, so you were excited for this movie, and I feel like knowing us and the people we are. I think that's probably because this movie got the prime September slot in the EW fall movie preview.

Probably one of the big reasons, yeah. I mean, at this point... I didn't see this in theaters because it was in and out very quickly in theaters. And at this point, I would imagine so. I had just graduated college. I was still working at the library at my college. They sort of kept me on because I had no direction whatsoever after college. So I was also, though, I was the biggest, almost famous fan.

So I was, and this was Kate Hudson's next movie. She had not made a movie since Almost Famous. And so, and I had also really loved it. American Beauty was the other thing. And I really loved 10 things I hate about you. So by this point, the casting of this movie, I was so, so, so super excited for this thing. And the trailer made it look very sort of sweeping and epic. And Shakur Kapoor was the director of Elizabeth.

Like, the pedigree for this thing was through the roof. And it was pretty heavily advertised. And I was also sort of had begun my, you know, little Oscar watching career. 2002 was a big year for following the Oscar race for me, and Four Feathers definitely had a lot of buzz. It was this very prestige-heavy epic that was going to premiere in the fall, and so I definitely saw it in the theater. And I remember at the time being kind of non-plussed about the whole thing, and by the end of the movie had moved on to other things that I was enthusiastic about. But I think back at that, even back then, I was probably giving this movie more credit than it deserved and watching it now. I was like, oh, no, this is a bad movie.

This is kind of a thoroughly bad movie. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even you mentioned those stars who were all young and following up big things. I mean, Heath Ledger, we had seen more of than the other two, because, like, you have a Knight's Tale, you have the Patriot, you have, what was his other 2001 movie? Monsters Ball, even, where it's just like, you get this kind of hint that he is actually going to be a serious, like, indie actor or whatever.

This is the moment when they're trying to make Heath Ledger a young, hot movie star. And it's like, all three of these, this is another thing that there's, like, no perspective on whatsoever. And I thought it was really going to be kind of that movie as it started. They're all so fucking young in this movie. Yes. And it really made me think that, like, this would be about some type of, like, perils of youth. And these are the people we send off to war who don't, like, really know what life is yet or something. thing, and it's not even that at all.

And it's like, these could be actors that are in their 30s instead of these, you know, really young actors. Yeah. Well, ultimately, this is also kind of a murderer's row of British actors we would see in character roles elsewhere in the coming years. Yes. All of them gifted, gilded even, with the most massive, unfortunate sideburns. it is true but also I think the fact that this the pedigree for this movie where you have

you know Robert Richardson cinematography which is like undoubtedly one of the highlights if not the biggest highlight of the movie you know it's one of those things where you sort of question yourself and you're like am I impressed by this because it's big sort of desert landscapes and I'm just falling for the cinematography equals landscapes trick and yet it really is those battle scenes especially I was more captivated by that big battle scene that I probably should have been and I think a big part of the reason

is the way it was filmed Well I mean it's impressive It's all you know This is just as the Lord of the Rings movies Are coming out and using that level of like Battle CGI that would become the norm For like even a straightforward war epic like this You know where it's like they actually had all those extras

They had all those fucking horses And it's like, I was actually shocked to see how low the budget was for this movie. It was in, like, the $30 million range, like 30 to 40. And, I mean, like, I do think it speaks well of Robert Richardson that this movie does look as expensive as it does. Yeah. But then again, like, all of the sequences in, like, the wartime look incredible. but then I found all of the stuff that's taking place in Britain looks kind of bad and looks kind of cheap.

Yeah, you're not wrong. Certainly all those sort of slow motion shots of like feathers falling from envelopes that we get, which is quite a few of them that we get, are I think the ones we're supposed to be very impressed by it or whatever, yeah. I'm guessing that this is a movie that not. Not many of our listeners have seen or might even be aware of. So we should maybe get into the plot description before we start unpacking too much of this movie. Yeah.

Good call. All right. Let's do it then. Listeners, we are here to talk about the Four Feathers, a movie we have talked about since the infancy of this podcast of doing. We are finally doing this movie directed by Shakar Kapoor. written by Hossein Amini and Michael Schiffer, starring the one and only Heath Ledger, Wes Bentley, Kate Hudson,

Jiamun Su, Michael Sheen, Rupert Penry Jones, Chris Marshall, and Alex Jennings. The movie was a Tiff Gala. That was its premiere, and then it opened wide and promptly bombed September 20th of 2002. Yes, indeed.

Joe Reed, are you ready to give us a spring sprawling and brief 60-second plot description. Yeah, be prepared. Last time I came in under the wire for plot description time, I will not be doing that again this time. Impossible. An impossible task, but you will do your best. Joe read your 60-second plot description for the Four Feathers starts now.

All right, it's 1884. The British Empire is very much the thing, and the thing that all the best little English boys do is joint army with their friends. Heath Ledger is Harry who just graduated to Army with his four friends, West Bentley, Michael Sheen, the fuck boy from Love Actually, and the other one who is hot, and has just become engaged to Kate Hudson. The Queen Victoria, or the prime minister,

or whoever the fuck was in charge of telling the British which dark-skinned populations to subjugate that year gives the order for Harry's regiment to be deployed to the Sudan to quell a Muslim uprising, and Harry, having just gotten this pretty new fiancé, is like, yeah, I'd rather not, and resigns his commission. This gets him declared a coward and all his friends except West Bentley and his faithful associate of a fiancé,

I'll send him symbolic white feathers, which is 1880s British slang for right puffter or whatever, and then the British go off to fight in Africa, where they're met by Shekhar Kapoor, setting the world record for ethnic wailing on a soundtrack. Meanwhile, Harry looks around and his life of being shunned with no fiancé anymore, and is like this blow, so he travels to Africa on his own, and goes under cover with the Sudanese

and what is perilously close to brownface, along with a very helpful Jaiman Hansu to try and help his friends. And when Harry sends Jiamen Hansu ahead with a warning, they're too racist to heat it, and they end up getting ambushed by the Madi fighters and a siege where West Bentley gets blinded and Michael Sheen gets captured and the fuck boy from love actually gets killed and then the reigning British fuck off back to Surrey or

wherever and Harry gets himself put in prison in order to rescue Michael Sheen but they barely get out alive and then it's back to England and Blind West Bentley and Kate Hudson are now engaged but then West feels Harry's face and it's like you were the one who helped me and you should take my fiance and since Kate Hudson feels really bad about sending Harry that feather she and Harry end up engaged and that's what passes for a happy ending in the British Empire the end only 30 seconds over time which is You know, maybe this movie is a little bit closer to, like, 30 minutes longer than it needs to be. Yeah, yeah.

It's a long movie. It's, what, two, two and fifteen? Yeah, like two ten. Yeah, yeah, okay. Feels like four ten. Yeah, I watched it over the span of two days. I watched a little bit last night and I watched a little bit this morning. It must have taken you a lot of energy to, you know, get that.

second watchin. Well, you know, I'm dedicated to my craft, so we'll do it. Plus, you know, I mean, again, you're looking at Heath Ledger, so it's not too bad. You're looking at Heath Ledger in Brownface for most of the movie, though. It is very, very, very close to Brownface is what it is. It's, they sort of plot it up. It's understandable that he would have a tan, but it is truly like he might as well be playing

I don't know like he's playing a character of that dissent you know like well but the I mean in the plot of the story he has to find a way to go undercover right

so it's sort of this this combination of like you know essentially like putting like rubbing sand on his face or whatever and dirt on his face and then also like the fact that he is in the sun for all of his time or whatever So, like, there is at least a plot justification for it. I kind of don't know how you can tell this story of this British officer going undercover with these people without doing that.

Because then you look at it and it's just like, what are they all stupid? They, you know, this white guy's in their midst and nobody knows about it, you know? So it's one of those things where ultimately, like, the solution to this problem would have been to not make the movie. And maybe that was an option that people maybe should have thought about more, given the audience. And critics clearly thought that was the better option. Yeah, yeah. So, yes, so you do, the upshot is you are looking at a borderline brown face, Heath Ledger, for most of this movie, which is unfortunate. I think there are many more offensive things in this movie to worry about that I don't want to linger on it too much, but that is definitely the case.

I think the most offensive thing about this movie is the way that it. gives lip service to this idea that the British should not be a colonialist empire. And yet, after giving that very, very, very thin bit of lip service, the rest of the movie is absolutely, oh my God, I hope these poor British boys are able to get out of this situation where these like marauding hordes of dark-skinned people are coming at them from all sides. And they're absolutely being portrayed as the enemy, and they are absolutely the ones that you are hoping get defeated. And if the audience is even given half a second to step back, especially from a Mormon perspective, you're just like, wait a second, who are we rooting for? And why are we rooting for them?

And why are the British here in the first place? And why don't they just fuck off? They don't need to be in the Sudan at all. And especially that this comes a year after 9-11. and we know how the American culture was shifting for the worst at that time. It just casts a sheen over this movie that's so ugly. And, like, the movie is not good, so it didn't succeed. But, like, it's surprising that this movie didn't succeed with the type of Ura, like, Americans.

Well, it's not... The problem with this movie is it's not... it's not actively jingoistic. It is very passively accepting of the evident truth that you are just going to, that the British are the protagonists in this story, right? Right. Where it's, it's, and I think that's almost more insidious of just sort of this, like, the default is, well, the British are your protagonist and they're the ones we're going to

root for. And the thing that annoyed me the most is the story gives you a little bit of a little bit of, of a creak of an opening into well this character could be resigning from the army because of and I mean this also opens the door to problematic things too. If he's resigning from the army because he has is a conscientious objector and he doesn't believe in the British Empire and he doesn't feel like they should be in Africa, then you run into white savior problems, right? But the other side of that is, that's not what this movie is. This movie is essentially just like, no, he's a conscientious objector

because he's so in love with Kate Hudson he cannot leave her side to go to war. The closest thing this movie comes to me relating to it is when it almost says outright that he's like, I don't want to go to war because who would want to go to war? That seems bad

and dumb. And I'm like, yeah, like that to me is like, that's all, you know, I'm on your side for that one. I wouldn't want to go to fucking war either. But the movie absolutely declines to take a moral stand, even though there's ample opportunity within this story to take a moral stand, and it doesn't do it. I mean, like, it could almost be the type of movie

that's the Rote movie that, like, does all of that moralizing, even if it hits, like, snags along the way that you expect. And it could be boring for that. But instead, this movie is, like, boring and objectionable. Yeah. It's not the same thing. It's not a one-to-one comparison, but you look at something like Lost City of Zed, and that does, it does this kind of thing better, which is interrogates the motivations for why these young men, or sort of, I guess maybe like, you know, whatever, like men in their prime or whatever, would choose to go trample into foreign lands. like they own the place and the dangers of that and the, you know, sort of hubris of that. And that's, again, it's not a one-to-one comparison.

They're both different stories. But I think there are ways to make this movie that are much more ambiguous and that feel much more, you know, questioning of the inherent truth and rightness of the British having a position in Africa. at all. I don't know. We could talk about that aspect of it all day, and maybe it's probably best if we move on. Well, at a certain point, you kind of run in circles,

and you're doing it for a movie that really just, like, doesn't exist on the face of the earth. I think it's also kind of... This type of thing normally doesn't bother me. But you're also watching that play out with all of these leads who aren't British,

right so it feels like a number of reviews i read for this movie called the movie dress up and that is so not off base um no unfortunately it's not even like heath ledger with like the brown face of it makes it feel even more like a dress up i have no idea why kate hudson coming off uh i mean like very quickly after her oscar win she pivoted towards like romantic lead So, like, maybe that's what makes sense. But, like, she's playing kind of a nothing character coming off of, like, becoming a megastar off of playing kind of this, I mean, Penny Lane's not an enigma, but, like, Penny Lane's so fascinating and, like, magnetic and filled with life, but also imprint other people imprinting their impression of her. her onto her and she's playing off of that and like this is just nothing she's barely in this movie and when she is she's not a character who you dial into whatsoever because her motivations are so like dependent on where the story needs to go why does she end up you know

sending him that feather well because the thing is called the four feathers and you need a fourth feather. And, you know what I mean? Like, it doesn't really, is she super into war? Is she super into, you know, propriety? She's a nationalist, right? So it's like, well, then why are we rooting for her to be with, for him to be with her? Right. Why do they end up together at the end? It's crazy that she doesn't still just end up with West Bentley at the end. She should be with West Bentley. They are more suited for each other and that they are both very, very into imperialism. That's a thing they can talk about, you know, over tea and whatnot is how great imperialism is and whatnot. I don't know. I don't know where she and Heath Ledger are going to, you know, at some point it's going to probably come up where he's

like, hey, remember when you sent me that feather and made me feel guilty enough to go and nearly die in the desert for, you know, no good reason? I'm not sure. Maybe more people would have shown up to this movie if it was how to lose a guy in four feathers. So, you know, the story is, And again, I've seen this in enough places that I think, if it were untrue, somebody probably would have debunked it by now. But the story is that she was going to be offered the role of Mary Jane in the first Spider-Man movie in Ramey's first Spider-Man movie. And she turned it down for this, right? And she turned it down because she was already committed to doing this. And she couldn't do that one, which is one of the all-time.

Or something, yeah, but it's one of those just like, you know, fork in the road kind of moments. If Kate Hudson is Mary Jane in those Spider-Man movies, what is her career now? And, you know, she went in a very different direction. Obviously, the Four Feathers was not that direction. I think that was like one period costume drama, and that was probably enough. And then she sort of began pivoting towards rom-coms, and there is nothing that America hates more than an unsuccessful rom-com performer. and when those didn't go well, I think there was a lot of weird resentment towards her.

I think a lot of the same resentment weirdly that, like, Jennifer Lopez got throughout the aughts where it was like, oh, we hate these rom-coms. Go away. You're bad. You're terrible. If all of a sudden, if you are good in rom-coms, you are Julia Roberts, your Rees Witherspoon,

you're Sandra Bullock, right? You're elevated. We love you. You're on magazine covers. We care about your romantic life. All of the flowers sort of fall at your feet. If you are in romantic comedies that don't work and people don't like, which are probably not super your fault. It's almost certainly the felt of a bad script or bad directing or a bad concept or whatever.

But if you're in bad rom-coms, oh, boy, oh, boy, do we hate you, Kate Hudson, Jennifer Lopez, Catherine Heigel, like, you know, the list was on and on there. Like, the tides always turn on people because we as audiences are so full of shit. Because, like, the successful names you just mentioned, like you mentioned in the positive in this circumstance, also had audiences turn against them. Yes. And for rom-coms. I think that's true. But I think if you're in enough good ones, they're all, that audience is always going to want for you to come back and do another good one, which is what we've seen with Julia Roberts. And even though Reese Witherspoon hasn't gone back to rom-coms, she was, you know, the audience is willing to go on.

on the roller coaster ride of the comeback. And ultimately, like, Jennifer Lopez did not rebound by going back and doing good rom-coms again. She just, like, she pivoted in other things. How dare you slight marry me this way? I still, can I tell you I still haven't seen marry me? I know. We've talked about this. Don't think I don't resent you for this.

Is, okay, here's my question about marry me. Because I waited, I wanted to see it with people, and ultimately circumstances, you know, conspired against that. And so then it's like, okay, well, am I just going to, like, watch this on Peacock alone with, like, you know, my sadness or whatever? Like, that's a possibility. I know we've said that we would watch a billion different movies at TIF, but I will watch this movie in our Airbnb deal. I mean, but here's my question is I could not for the life of me figure out whether people liked this movie or not. Because the reception to it was so people wanted to, like, not talk about it. I feel like people were, like, avoiding the subject.

And when, you know, the subject of marry me would come up once everybody had seen it, people would, like, avert their eyes and whatever and not really talk about it. And it didn't sound like people liked it all that much. Or if, because if they had, it would have been like, remember how people loved Mamma Mia too and, like, still are talking about that movie? People didn't talk about Mary Me like the week after it came out. And so I got the sense that it was just disappointing and bad. I do think some of that has to do with the fact that most people watch it on Peacock.

like streaming movies just do not have the shelf life that literally any other movie has. What I will say is like it succeeds modestly, like putting it up against like a Mamma Mia to where you're talking about something that like makes people happy but is ridiculous. Like I think that's putting marry me at an unfair advantage. But at every step, marry me is absurd and ridiculous. but I had a wonderful time with it. Like, it's just about the vibe.

Like, the, being asked to root for a romance between Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson, you have got to be fucking kidding me, but I did at every step. And, like, it's so silly. Every plot turned in that movie is bug nuts, but I had a very nice time. I have no complaints about marry me.

I love that we detoured into talking about marry me in our Four Feathers episode. When we, in about a couple of months, are like, what episode did we talk about Marry Me in? We're never going to be able to remember it. We're never going to be able to follow those breadcrumbs back to Four Feathers. Not for the life of me. Okay, but back to your point, though,

that you feel like people are welcomed back into a rom-com. What I'm guessing or I'm asking is you think Kate Hudson would not be welcomed back into a rom-com. I mean, it hasn't happened. It hasn't happened yet. I'm very happy to be proven wrong on that. But, like, I don't know if there is enough goodwill for Kate Hudson out there beyond, like, lunatics like us. You know what I mean? I don't feel like.

Misogic gaze. Right, exactly. Like, what is the thing that the mainstream really holds in their heart for Kate Hudson? Like, do they like how to lose a guy in 10 days? I don't, like, I think that's probably her most successful of, the rom-coms that she did. And, like, I don't think people really like that movie very much. I mean, I don't think that that's a rom-com that gets mentioned all that month. Like, when people talk about rom-coms that they, like, wish were still a thing, you know, that's not one that people

trot out as an example. But I do think, generally speaking, the women that I know, do, you know, consider that, you know, a nice movie to revisit, whatever. Okay. It's on TV all the time, so. there you go um if it's on tv all the time that must mean that it's pulling in people on tv to watch it right right yeah i kind of want to see her play weirdos the other yeah what like a week ago remember the um uh the anna lily almanpoor movie that was at venice last year that i was like kate hudson was supposed to be doing some weird shit in this movie what happened to this movie, because I want to see Kate Hudson be weird. We will see what she is doing in Glass Onion, the Knives Out movie.

I'm very excited for that. I feel like our hope for what Kate Hudson is doing is that it's going to be along the lines of what Tony Gillette was doing in the original. 100%. Yep. 100%. In that it's like, you know, maybe skewering something that we kind of align. Kate Hudson, too. And maybe this could be an avenue towards her, you know, playing something

a little more offbeat. I feel like she is a performer who Penny Lane is more offbeat, I think, than it is mainstream. And she quickly got pigeonholed into a, like, mainstream rom-com performer that ultimately makes sense, but was never going to give her the type of career if she was working with, I don't know, I don't even have maybe an example, but, and like, this is a bad example, but, like, what if Kate Hudson had been, like, a David O. Russell performer, right? You know. That's not a bad example, though, because you could see her thriving in roles like, like, in a movie like I Heart Huckabees, right?

Or in something like, you know, even, like, as the sister in joy or something like that. Like, I feel like there are ways in which she could have succeeded. did. And let's be fair. Cinema Italiano is more weirdo than it is, you know. Yes, of course. Yeah, we all appreciate it for that fact. The only things we like about nine are the weirdo stuff because everything else was like unbearable to watch.

Right. The earnest, sincere stuff of nine is not good. Or even like the sincere stuff that like we can twist and say that it's weirdo. like, Fergie. Oh, the Fergie stuff is full weirdo. Like, I, you know, I can't imagine making that movie and not realizing that what you're doing is full weirdo. She's playing like a vampire empress. You cast Fergie. Like, that's the biggest giveaway right there.

You know what I mean? So. All right. All right. Let's move on from Kate Hudson, though, for a second, because she is kind of barely in this movie of the three leads. Let's maybe work our way up. So, West Bentley, at this point, had he done anything big between American Beauty and this? Does soul survivors count?

I mean, that's ultimately the question, right? He was in that movie The Claim that I never saw, which was this, like, Western, this Michael Winterbottom, Western with him and Sarah Polly and Nastassia, or not to stop, Nastassi Kinski is in it, but Mila Yoavovich is the one on the, on the poster for it, that I remember at least. I might have to catch up to this for my Sarah Polly rewatch ahead of Toronto. I mean, it was during that time, that sort of post-go era where they were like, oh, like, Sarah Polly is part of this generation of young exciting talent. I guarantee you she was on one of those Vanity Fair young Hollywood covers at some point because, like, they were definitely trying to put her in that, in that vibe. You know what I mean? in that fraternity, sorority of people. Other than that, after American Beauty, you're right,

it was Soul Survivors, and then this. So, like, he had been, I think, even at the time with American Beauty, the sort of, like, the plastic bag thing became a little bit of a joke. And... Yeah, I think West Bentley kind of suffered from becoming a punchline, even if he, like, I think he was BAFTA nominated for that performance.

So it's not like everybody was treating him like the punching bag of the movie, but there was enough jokes around his character and the plastic bagness of it all that I do think it maybe hurt his career as a young performer. My resistance to going back and watching American Beauty is keeping me from being able to sort of reevaluate what that performance was. Because I do feel like there's a strong chance that he's better than we remember him because we only remember the plastic bag of it.

And I've never thought that Wes Bentley is a bad actor. He went away in a way that feels like, you know, young actors who weren't what we thought, you know. I mean, no shade to people like, let's say, like Shane West and Chris Klein. and sort of like that people in that, you know, in that generation. But, like, West Bentley kind of faded away like that. And I think with, we tend to just sort of chalk it up to, like, well, they didn't have it.

You know what I mean? They were sort of flashes in the pan. And I think West Bentley was and is, I think, a really good actor. And I don't know if he, like, he's kept working, right? He was in Interstellar. He was in, oh, what was that? I mean, he was in that one Hunger Games movie. He was the first one, I believe.

He's in Night of Cups. He's in Pete's Dragon. He's in... The very good Pete's Dragon. I don't remember him in Mission Impossible Fallout, or do I remember him in Mission Impossible Fallout? We are in the minority of, or at least, like, we are not the cool kids about the Mission Impossible movies. I can never remember a thing that happens. I remember Angela Bassett saying, that's the job, and I remember Henry,

Cavill shaking out his fists of fury, but that's about it. Shaking out them titties. Yeah, well, I mean, it's that in the set pieces, right? And the greatest set pieces of the Mission Impossible movies are Angela Bassett saying that's the job. And Henry Cavill, like, punching out his man boobs. He did, by the way, you were right about the BAFTA nomination for West Bentley for American Beauty. He was also got a National Board of the movie. American Beauty had an insane number of, like, acting nominations. They nominated, like, six people from that movie at BAFTA.

Yeah, well, that's... Because, like, in general, like, Thorough Birch was usually overlooked, and, like, Mina Suvari was popping up in certain places, but, like, yeah, all of those actors got some kind of bit of recognition in one place or another. I think Allison Janney even got a nomination somewhere or another for that movie. That cast was really, really well-regarded. I really should just go bite the bullet and watch it again and see where I stand with it. But Bentley in The Four Feathers ultimately isn't able to overcome the kind of structural problems with the movie.

He's given the task of being like, he's the one friend who doesn't send Heath Ledger the feather because he believes in him. And yet he's also like clearly gunning for Kate Hudson after she and Heath Ledger break up. and there's just a lot of like cutaways to like him looking conflicted right and but ultimately doesn't get enough it's not a particularly interesting part it's like the toby maguire role of this cast where it's just like okay i mean like maybe i don't know this is again no shade to west bentley but like maybe to make this role interesting you need someone who is like super hot like yeah in the way that like roles like this work in other movies but like usually they come across like wet blankets hence being a toby mcguire role but like

right someone who's really hot and is like interesting to watch be hot yeah it's at least passable i mean west bentley's not a not good looking guy you know what i mean like i don't want to like exactly yeah um i just think ultimately this movie put so much screen time on this regiment of British soldiers. Like that big battle in the center of this movie gets so much time. And I think we're asked to invest so much in the sort of great friendship of this group of lads or whatever. And it's like, I don't feel like the movie has done enough to make us care about the friendship

between him and Michael Sheen and the guy from Love Actually and the other one. And it's like, so much time is spent away from Heath Ledger and on that siege or whatever. And it's like, I ultimately don't care whether Heath Ledger goes back and rescues Michael Sheen from the prison. And I ultimately am not as, I think we're supposed to be sort of devastated when the Love Actually guy gets killed in the battlefield. And I don't know. I don't know if they've built that up to that point. Colin Gottax is the one you're talking about from Love, actually. Yes, exactly.

So, yeah, I think they've got a lot of talent in this cast, and yet I'm not sure I invest in that group of friends. No, not at all. Even like Michael Shee. They all, first of all, look like babies. And this is a year before Love Actually, and Colin God of Sex looks like a baby compared to he does how he does it in Love Actually as well. He's supposed to be, you know, this barely 20-something who's got ideas of himself. Yeah. Right.

That character in Love actually fully would be like TikTok famous, right? Yes. Awful. Definitely. Yeah. Michael Sheen, though. is like 85% sideburns in this movie. Yes, he is. It looks very silly.

Um, and yet baby-faced. He would be in the underworld movies as of the next year, right? I think the first underworld movies. I'm pretty sure he considers this an underworld movie. It's the underworld prequel. Uh, yeah. Yeah. It's true.

Well, he's like bearded in those movies, right? I've only seen a production still. I know I would probably like the underworld movies, and I just never sit down to watch them. I've only seen the first one. It's not bad. I'll say that. I haven't seen the other ones, but the first one's not bad. Um, entertaining enough. Michael Sheen also would be only a few years away from, did he, did he actually get snubbed for being Tony Blair and the queen? Yeah. Oh yeah. Did he get the nomination? He's never been Oscar nominated. Ever. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. But like in that movie,

he still looks like he's 40 years old, handsome, 40 years old, you know, and this, he looks like he's 12. Yes. West Ben, okay, looping back to West Bentley. Yes. He does, like, work regularly now, though. Yes, he does. And it'll be things like, I don't think he's on a cop show, but things like cop shows,

you know. Well, he's on Yellowstone right now is the big thing. So, like, it's one of those things where it's, like, hugely popular show that, I don't watch and nobody I know really watches. So he is succeeding, you know what I mean? He had been on a few American Horror Story seasons. He sort of became, you know, one of the favored recurring people in that. And in fact, I think the one season, he's like one of the main characters in the hotel.

He's like one of the main guys. But like, yeah, so like he's doing really well for himself in Yellowstone. And yet I have no idea of knowing whether he's. The, you know, is he one of the people's favorites in that show? Is he not? Is he somebody who, you know, is being very impressive? I only ever really hear about Costner and Kelly Riley on that show. And ultimately, I hear more about how successful Yellowstone is than anything about actual Yellowstone. It's the only story I ever hear, as you know, like eight, however many million people watch that thing every year. Most popular show in America, et cetera. right right right and this like with this tone of like it's the most popular show in america why don't you watch it fag like that kind of thing was just like okay sorry sorry america um i am too busy watching top chef drag race and p valley straight person

right right it does feel like all those articles about how many people watch yellow I always have a tinge of judgment to them, where it's like, yes, dad, sorry, I'm not watching Yellowstone, like, whatever. I should say that my dad doesn't watch Yellowstone. Come on, come on now. He's got, I mean, like, I've also seen the, like, the tone of like, can you believe this shit? Like, this thing you've never heard of is actually wildly popular. That's how I felt about when I first discovered what TikTok was. Yeah, that's the other end of it, whereas just like, also no, like I do not know. I, TikTok is none of my business and neither is Yellowstone, and that's all I have to say about that. Yeah. Right. Like, you see these, like, variety articles about, like, super famous TikTok star is dead, or super famous

TikTok star, signs with CAA, and it's like, oh. That's a real range of human experiences, Chris. Either you've either signed with CAA or you're dead. Like, okay. It's the TikTok generation for you, I guess. Um, I guess he was. was in... Not an episode about me and TikTok. West Bentley was in that Zach Efron DJ movie that I never saw that the other

catfish guy directed. West Bentley is conceivable as like Zach Efron's dad. Dad. God, we're so fucking old. Can you imagine? West Bentley, my contemporary, essentially. I bet you he is pretty close to my age.

He was two years older than I am. Year and a half older than I am. No, two years older than I am. I am. I'm not going to give myself. I'm not going to give myself that extra half a year of you. Then again, Zach Gaffron is conceivable from being 20 years old to being 40 years old. Yeah. We'll see. We'll see what Sean Durkin does for Zach Cephron. Let's move on to Heath Ledger. I love Heath Ledger. This is the thing. We only have a handful of Heath Ledger movies. We have a finite resource now of Heath Ledger movies. And it does kind of bum me out that one of them is a movie that's like full bad and I can't recommend it to anybody. I don't think he's bad in this. He's not great, but this movie kind of like bumps up against what limitations he had at that moment in his career.

I think it asks of him to, you know, sell some story that, like, I'm not going to be into. And yet there are moments where I'm like, yeah, that's the Heath Ledger that we would end up getting for the next, you know, five years. Right. Well, this is a period where he was being pigeonholed into, like, leading male movie star in a way that, like, seems like it makes sense for him, but it always felt like, and it's probably because, you know, the material isn't enough, you know, and he's worth a little more. I know a Knight's Tale has its fans, but, like, it was seen somewhat. Well, great. Right, right. Like, fun movie, but, like, it was expected to be bigger than it was, and partly because he was being platformed to be not, like, the leading male character actor that he would become, you know, contemporaries of, like, some of the greats that we consider now, and he would have been among them, like, he was supposed to be, like, romantic leading man. in a way that never quite sat, right? Right, and so the time in between...

And even I do think Night's Tale, as fun as it is, is still a little square peg and round hole. Yeah. This point in his career, this sort of post-Night's Tale thing, is a little bit of a to, you know, pardon the pun in this case, wandering the desert kind of era for him,

where they are struggling to place him in a context that really works for him. He does the Australian historical epic maybe-ish, Ned Kelly, him and Orlando Bloom, and that's where he meets Naomi Watts, and they get together. And that one doesn't really do a whole lot, especially in the States.

I don't know if it's one of those things that is, like, more popular in Australia. or whatever. And then he also, that same year, does the order, which is that sort of supernatural drama with Shannon Sossaman. And that one is kind of a flop, or at least like doesn't do what I think they want him to. He's a supporting character in Lords of Dogtown that I remember people, the Catherine Hardwick movie, that I remember people thinking fondly of him, but like, that's not really sold. He is the most famous person. person in that cast when that movie comes out and so he's definitely like part of the trailer and he's

sort of the biggest name in that cast but it's not like that movie doesn't become the like the next big Heath Ledger thing. I think the thing that I remember being the precursor that started people thinking like Heath Ledger might actually be a really great actor was the Brothers Grimm where he's playing in the, you know, it's this Terry Gilliam movie and he's opposite Matt Damon, who's a much bigger star than him at this point. And he's playing the quirkier of the two. It's this kind of like, you know, kind of horror comedy kind of a thing, gothic comedy. And he's really, really good. He's the more like bumbling Jeffrey Rush-esque one. But he also has a surprising amount of pathos in it. And you're surprisingly

connected to him emotionally watching that movie. And it's not a great movie, but it's a pretty, it's an okay movie. And he's absolutely the highlight of it. And I remember walking out of that. And I knew by that point, that was already a 2005 release and Brokeback Mountain was on the way later that year. But I remember thinking, like, oh, like this, this kind of makes sense that Heath Ledger would be the lead actor in this Ang Lee movie coming out that's supposed to be this really big thing

and and then he and then Brokeback Mountain comes out and then his entire the entire conception of him as an actor and a celebrity changes right then like immediately

I mean I mean this is just where it gets like sad to talk about I think because like we know like how Like, it was genuinely exciting moment where it's like we've seen him go through these things that weren't quite working, weren't really serving him as an actor, but we see what the promise is and it gets activated in real time and, you know, takes off from there and kind of sky rockets and, of course, it leads to the Joker. and, you know, and, you know, we lost so much, and of course, like, his loved ones obviously lost more, but it's just sad.

And, like, it is the type of performance, you know, there was something about Brokeback Mountain where it's, like, Oscars, like, biased towards, like, younger men, you know, and what they're fulfilling. And, like, Philip Seymour Hoffman was definitely one of those performers that was, like, Oscar's, like, biased towards, like, younger men, you know, and what they're fulfilling. and, like, Philip Seymour Hoffman was definitely one of those performers that was, like, as soon as they are nominated, they are absolutely winning, and that proved to be the case. Yeah. And, of course, like, he loses for Brokeback Mountain, wins for Philip Seymour Hoffman, who also has this, you know, tragic trajectory. So they, as two incredible performers, are all so tied in my mind, and it's just, like, diving into a soup of sad. The thing with Philip Seymour Hoffman, though, is... The silver lining of that is he has this incredibly deep and wide-ranging filmography to go into.

He had been working since he was super young and you can, so many movies to go into. And with Heath Ledger, it's essentially 15 movies that really, that, you know, you have to go back and to look through. And so with all of them, he makes, it's more technically, but like in terms of, you know, movies that have any kind of footprint, whatsoever. It's essentially 15 movies, from 10 Things I Hate About You, through Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. And it's, so every one of them then becomes imbued with a little bit more importance, or like, you want to be able to find something in there that feels unique or that, you know, feels of a piece with this, you know, great young actor who died too soon. And the frustrating thing about the Four Feathers is it's really hard to do that with this

movie. I don't know what I'm supposed to take away from this as a Heath Ledger movie. Do you know what I mean? And I mean, it goes down to, I think, the writing of the character, too. Like, there's something about the three headliners of this movie that it feels like they were cast solely based on their resume and, like, what, like, their trajectory was seen to be and not, you know, their rightness for the roles or, like, the interestingness of the roles that they could have contributed to that. And you almost feel it more so with Heath Ledger. And it's because of that whole, you know, they're trying to figure out where he fits in as this promising talent. And, you know, it's – and, of course, like, he's the lead of the movie.

Like, the – has the most screen time. So it's like, of course, that's partly why you feel it the most. Yeah. Like, definitely, there was definitely an investment in Heath Ledger as a leading man by this point. And it's interesting. Like, it only takes a matter of three more years to really, like, figure it out. And yet because there's only so much of his career after that point, it feels like that three years feels like a very long time in terms of like, oh, you wish that they'd been able to like, like, hone on to it sooner so that we didn't have essentially 2002, 2003, 2004 with, like, nothing really to show for it. unless you're a big Ned Kelly fan, which, like, you know, more power to do you.

Well, Ned Kelly and Brothers Grimm had a long wait to open in the U.S. Yeah. Brothers Grim, I think, was delayed, like, two years or something. When did Brothers Grim open in the States? I think 05? Yeah, okay. So it was supposed to. Because I think that's one of the movies that opened right before I went to college.

Yeah, it was supposed to have, I mean, as with everything Terry Gilliam's ever done, it takes forever in a day to, you know, come into fruition if it ever does at all. I'm sure, you know, he was making that Don Quixote movie before, during, and after the Brothers Grimm. So, yeah, yeah, always a little sad to talk about Heath Ledger. We don't really have a ton of opportunities on this podcast to really talk about him. This is kind of, I mean, Ned Kelly is another one we can do at some point, because that definitely did have some Oscar buzz. We could do Cassanova. We could do Casanova. at some point. That was a Golden Globe nominee.

Is Casanova a Lasah-Holstrom movie? Yeah, it's a Lassa-Holstrom movie. I thought it got a Golden Globe nomination. Maybe it didn't. Maybe I'm thinking of Nicholas Nicklopi. But anyway. So, and Parnassas was a Oscar nominee, right? Didn't it get a costume nomination or something?

For, like, makeup or something? Something. Yeah. Yeah. Hold, please. Yes. nominated for two Oscars, costume and art direction. All right, okay.

And then obviously, like, I'm Not There, has Oscar nominations or at least one Oscar nomination? That movie is, like, in no way about his performance, but he is just, like, incredible. That also felt, like, even though, you know, he's not the story, like, even to the extent where it's, like, you kind of come away talking about the joke of Julianne Moore. playing Joan Baez more so than you do Leisure's performance. But it was still like really exciting because it felt like he was doing the exact type of vibe role, you know, the thing that he should be doing. Yep. And you look at even in that span, Candy, which is not a movie that had Oscar buzz, that was

the one with him and Abby Cornish, and they're playing drug addicts, which is, you know, there's a pall over that, I think, for a few reasons, one of which being, I believe he and Abby Cornish had a relationship on the heels of his relationship with Michelle Williams breaking up. And also, obviously, the subject matter of candy after his death feels like it sort of casts a pall over that movie.

But regardless, I think he's really, really very good in that movie. I don't think that's a movie that anybody needs to, like, drop everything and go find. but I think it's a really good performance that he gives. I think he and Cornish are both good together in that. And again, it's one of those things where it's like every single movie, because there's so few of them, you want to be able to, you know, get something of his career out of it.

Anyway. We also have, like, nothing we can talk about in terms of, like, awards ephemera for this movie because I feel like this got forgotten. yeah immediately like it is a little surprising that you know you don't see some stray nomination or something for like Robert Richardson or like it it could have been like costumes or something from some guild or whatever but like there's nothing and I think it's partly because a this movie was dead on arrival at TIF like we're we're priming for this year's TIF and like there's we've talked to the past about movies that like show up and like either have

a gala or a big premiere there and like kind of crater and it's it's a tough festival for a movie to premiere at because like if you're bad yeah like and you get bad reviews and such like the movie is pretty dead right away like we've talked about I wouldn't say St. Vincent is one of these but like what can you remember some of the other examples we've talked about like reservation road sure yes yeah yeah uh this TIF, the gala's at this Tiff, were pretty interesting to sort of take a step back and look. We talked about another one of those, kind of recently, Moonlight Mile, and also White Oleander, we've done on this podcast. But in terms of Oscar successes, there was obviously

far from heaven, which sort of broke out in a big way in the fall of 2002. Frida was a big Oscar success by the end of the year. In America was an Oscar success the next year by the time it finally came out. I feel like Antoine Fisher got Golden Globe nominations and was in the conversation for a while there. And then you have movies like Jill Schumacher's phone booth, which I imagine must have been a blast to see a Tiff. If for nothing else, then... Right. What a fun movie. And so short, you could so easily fit that into your schedule when you're trying to make. Like, there is nothing that you love more when you're trying to make a TIF schedule than a nice short movie that you can like get into and out of and then on to the next

thing. Also, the kind of movie that kind of recharges your batteries when you need it, too, if you're one of the psychos like us that are there all the time. Yep, yep. There was also Brian De Palma's Femfital was there here. Neil Jordan's the good thief. David Cronenberg's Spider. And these are all just the gala's. Like, you know, you can't even, you can't get into trying to dig through a TIF lineup because you'd be talking about it all day, you know, all these other movies that premiered there. But of the gala's, I think you're right that like, if you are a gala premiere and it doesn't really latch on, it is, it's a bit of a thud. You know what I mean? It's a bit of a high-profile thud. And yeah, it's too bad. I think the other thing, when you were

talking about the fact that it's kind of surprising that this didn't get anything for Robert Richardson or any of the craft nominations is the 2002 Oscars are sort of famously backloaded in terms of the fact that like all of your best picture nominees were from December it's not just the best picture nominees this was a very top heavy Oscars so like even in the crafts categories you look at with the exception of Road to Perdition which was a summer movie all of the major crafts nominees were December movies So you look at cinematography, Road to Perdition 1, but it's Chicago, far from heaven, which was earlier fall, but Gangs of New York, the Pianist. Art Direction, Chicago, Frida, Gangs of New York, Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers, and then Road to Perdition.

So it's like four December movies and Road to Perdition. Costume design, Chicago, Frida, Gangs of New York, The Hours, the Pianist, all December. Frida was December, right? I'm not making that up. I'm not sure. I don't think it was December, but, like, we've talked a lot. No, late October. Late October.

But that was a late-breaking. Samaheik, like, was the hardest working person. Yes. In show business during that Oscar campaign. It feels... This is the thing I was going to say about Far From Heaven is, like, Far from Heaven is the outlier in that it opens earlier than some of those. And you almost wonder, because, like, Far From Heaven is still a movie that they talk about that.

Like, it's surprising Oscar didn't go for it more. And, like, maybe, maybe not. Like, you could say that about, like, it's a Todd Haynes thing. But, like, is it also because it came out in October or November whenever it came out? Early November. You know, like, it was kind of old news. Well, it's interesting. So look at Frida and Far From Heaven next to each other.

Frida opens October 25th wide and Far From Heaven opens November 8th. After both of them playing festivals and whatnot. Far from Heaven had the bigger buzz early. There was big, huge buzz in terms of Julianne Moore and also all of the visual design aspects of it and Dennis Quaid and Patricia Clarkson and Best Picture and Todd Haynes and all of that was big buzz coming out of the festivals

and Frida was a lot slower burn and it was Salma Hayek pounding the pavement on it that's why I think I kind of think of it as a later year release because I don't think people were really talking about Frida until like January, February, kind of in that year. And so it's the difference of are you going to get a big splash early and then hope you can hold on while this unusually December-heavy lineup ravages your chances, or is it better for you to open a little smaller and more quietly

and then have the narrative of, you know, building momentum and this, you know, movie star really working every room that she's in to get this movie nominated. And ultimately, I think they probably had around the same number of nominations. Freedda had six and Far From Heaven had four. Yes, exactly. But ultimately, I think Frida comes out of that year's Oscars a bigger winner. It wins two Oscars.

Far From Heaven doesn't win anything, right? No. No. So, ultimately, is it a story of momentum? Yeah, 100%. But, like, the type of effort that specifically Salma Hayek put behind Frida is what it took to break through in all of those late-releasing movies. It's kind of wild to me.

Like, if a, Chicago and the Hours opened December 27th, not even Christmas, if a movie opened, when a movie opens in, like, the Christmas to New Year's window, like, maybe one thing will break through, but, like, largely, we would consider that bad strategy for a movie now. Well, I think one of the considerations there was people want, if studios want, wanted to get as far away from the Lord of the Rings while still being in December as possible. Lord of the Rings and Gangs of New York, too, because it's like, Gangs of New York was a wide release, but like it was going to pull in that art house crowd. It had over a year's worth of anticipation behind it because it was delayed. And they both opened slightly before Christmas. And so they're like, well, how can we get the late December perch while still not being

totally steamrolled by these two movies, and it was, well, okay, so open a little bit after Christmas and have this, you know, I guess New Year's holiday weekend to yourself. And plus, I think both of those movies were committed to doing, to playing the long game, and ultimately it worked out for both of them. But like, you look at the nomination totals at this Oscars. Chicago had 13, gangs of New York, 10, the hours had nine, the pianist had seven, And then Lord of the Rings had six along with Frida and Rote to Perdition. And it was very, very few movies were in that, like, two nominee range, right? And there just wasn't a whole lot left for everybody else.

Not that the Four Feathers was going to be much of a consideration anyway, but it really was very slim-pickens. No, I don't think so either. It's just given what the movie is, it's surprising. It's surprising. It's surprising there isn't a cinematography, like even a precursor for cinematography or something. And yes, I think that's probably right. But anyway, better for everybody that that was not the case. Is there much to say about Shakar Kapoor beyond the other, the two Elizabeth movies that he directed? It was such a big splash with Elizabeth in 1998, gets a best picture nomination. He does not get the director nomination. That goes to Peter Weir for Truman's show. Right, correct. And then I think somewhat surprisingly, when Elizabeth the Golden Age comes out in 2007, I think a lot of people, myself included, were like, I don't know, it's a sequel to a costume drama.

Is that really going to bring in, you know, Oscar attention? Have they not really moved on? Like, Cape Blanchet is in, you know, I'm not. there this year and and there are other there are other places for this attention to go and ultimately it manages to grind out a nomination for cape blanchet and gets a win in costume design for alexander burn so and then we don't hear from shakar kapro again well reviewed no it's a million times more campy so it's like it does have a slightly different vibe to it i need to i i should maybe rewatch it because I've been told

that like if you're taking, if you watch it outside the context of that Oscar year and what people expected it to be, which like people treated it like it was kind of trash at the time but it's like it's actually kind of intending to be this kind of like camp spectacle of it.

You can have a good time. But yeah, there was definitely kind of people looking down their nose at that movie at that time. Whereas like both of the Elizabeth are like palace intrigue movies. Right.

And I think he actually does a good job with that aspect of it, where it almost makes me feel like, okay, so what was appealing about the four feathers to him? It's like not anything like that. Doesn't really even seem like so much of a fit. Yeah. And, you know, we have this Lily James movie coming out that we could maybe have more of a,

sense of him as a director, but... Yeah. Yeah. He also does direct a segment of New York, I Love You? Is that correct? I haven't seen New York, I love you. Nor have I, but his little short film in that, this was, of course, the follow-up to Parish Item, which is essentially a bunch of short films all set in the same city by a variety of major directors. New York I Love You had I mean, Mirin Ayr, good, Brett Ratner, not so good,

but like Fatia Kine and Joshua Marston and Natalie Portman directed a segment. And so Shachar Kapoor's film starred Julie Christie and John Hurt and Shia LaBuff. So that's interesting. And was written by Anthony Mangela. So there's that. I don't know.

maybe go and check that out if that's interesting to you. Yeah, he's a director who, you know, you haven't really had a whole lot of reason to think about him very much lately, but here we are. And then also credited on this movie for the screenplay was Hossein Amini, who is just a very odd and interesting filmography from this guy. He's an Iranian-born screenwriter who was Oscar nominated for adapting the Wings of the Dove. A lot of this is adaptations that he's done sort of throughout the

years. He was also an uncredited screenwriter on Gangs of New York, which at this point I think you were and then I was also. And I think everybody got a crack at that screenplay. But has written the screenplay for the John Madden film Kill Shot. the one with Diane Lane and Mickey Rourke. He's credited with the screenplay for Drive, the Ryan Gosling movie Drive, which is based on a novel, which I don't think I realized

until I was just looking this up today. He's one of several people with a credit on the Snow Wine and the Huntsman screenplay. I imagine that was probably also one that went through a few passes. Well, and that's one of we actually did get a screen credit for screenwriting.

Yeah, he did. You and I both. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. But together, we shared a screen credit on that one, even though we had to go through arbitration. We both wrote the line mirror mirror on the wool. On the wool, yes. Yeah.

Okay, for as much as that movie wasn't much of anything, it had this moment's, but whatever. That was a really cool trailer. I remember being very, very excited by that trailer when it came out. It's my favorite Charlize Theron Chanel ad, or Dior app, whichever she did. She was also, that was the same year as Prometheus, right? Or am I wrong?

2012? Yes, I think. Right? Maybe Permepheus was 14. I think it's 12. I think it's 12, but that was the year of, like, Charlize Theron being in really great trailers that ultimately produced disappointing movies, so. Prometheus is fun to revisit outside of the anticipation of it. Yeah, I think it's fun.

Okay. He also, Hossein Amini, did, he finally directed a movie with that movie The Two Faces of January, the Patricia Highsmith adaptation, with Kirsten Dundsen, Vigo Mortensen, and Oscar Isaac, where they're all wearing white-glasses. Sunglasses and hats and white linen ensemble. Yeah, the poster is a sunglass at it, and it's great. Yeah. Have you seen that movie, Two Faces of January? Maybe you should. Tell me how it goes.

And then, of course, the piece de resistance, another one where it's like several discredited screenwriters and also weirdly uncredited the Prince of Darkness on this screenplay for The Snowman, the 2017. Mr. Police, I gave you all the clues. Mr. Police, Hossein Amini, gave you all the clues. Okay, so that movie I have never seen, but I am still deeply fascinated to watch it eventually because the director, Thomas Alfredson, has said that, like, there was a whole lot of, like, behind-the-scenes fuckery going on.

And part of the reason why the movie doesn't make any sense is they never got to film, like, a bunch of scripted sequences. Uh-huh. Well, maybe that was Hossein Amini's contributions to this. Yeah, he's pissed about it, too, probably. Who knows? Anyway, any other sort of odds and ends for the Four Feathers. We don't really, I don't know.

Ultimately, I just think this is probably a movie that didn't need to get made. It was made five times previous. Like, that's, I think that says a lot. And it was all in, like, the 20s and 30s and, like I said, 1915 and whatnot. Back when they remade things all the time. All the time, yeah. I just don't understand who thought, who at Paramount or Miramax or whoever was making this call, like, decided

that, like, we needed to have another Four Feathers movie right now in 2002. I just... If you told me that this movie was some type of major tax scam and somebody made off with several million dollars because it got made, I would absolutely believe you

because a lot of the other decisions don't make a lot of sense. Yeah, somebody needed to you know, launder money through North Africa or something like that and they figured out. Yes.

Should we move on to the IMDB game? Yeah, why don't we? Tell our lovely listeners what the IMDB game is. Sure, every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try and guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for. If any of those titles

are television, voice-only performances, or non-acting credits, we mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue, and if that's not enough, it just becomes a free for all of hints. That's the IMDV game. Mr. Reed, are you wishing to give or guess first today? Well, I'll give first.

Why don't I do that? Why don't I give first? All right. Who do you have to? So, well, here's the thing. We mentioned before that Heath Ledger made a movie in 2016. called Candy with Abby Cornish. Abby Cornish was also in a Shakarkapur movie.

She was in Elizabeth the Golden Age, as you may recall, in 2008. So I thought, who better, we've never done her before on the IMDB game, who better to challenge you with than Abby Cornish? Oh, boy. Bright Star. Correct. Her best movie. The excellent Bright Star.

Bright Star Rules. It's my favorite Jane Champion. Um, not a, not a bad answer for your favorite Jane Campion. Um, three billboards outside, Eben, Missouri. Yes, Abby Cornish and her inexplicable accent in three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri. Correct. Isn't she, like, married to McDonough? In real life.

I thought somebody told me that. Or they're together. It's very possible. Let me look it up. That would make sense. Let's see. Because my next guess is seven psychopaths. Is she even in seven psychopaths?

I'm pretty sure she is in that. But it is not part of her IMDB known for. But she is in seven psychopaths. Sucker Punch. Yes, correct. Playing sweet pee in sucker punch. Sucker Punch shows up for a lot of that cast, but like it kind of makes sense.

Yeah. It's re-correct. Only one strike. Now I have to remember other Abby Cornish movies. Is the other one Candy? It is Candy. Very good. Oh, okay. There we go. I just saved myself a lot of torture. All right. Other Abby Cornish movies you could have thought of include the Robocop remake from 2014. She's, of course, in W.E. I'm kind of surprised you didn't guess W.E. Oh, fuck. I should have got it. I mean, obviously, I don't. I shouldn't have, but W.E., yeah.

She's in the aforementioned Elizabeth the Golden Age. She's in stop-lost. She's in Limitless. She's a voice in Legend of the Guardians, the Owls of Gahoul. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see what Abby's got coming down the room.

Which she's got cooking. Let's get this roast a cooking. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So for you, I wanted to pull another young performer of this era what better connection

is there than the wide and various cast of the motion picture Almost Famous for you someone we have never pulled before I pulled Patrick Fuget Aw Adorable little Patrick Fuget Okay

Well Almost Famous is only adorable and almost famous He's adorable in other things I feel like I don't know We'll go through it almost famous definitely correct

okay he's in gone girl but not a major part of gone girl but I'm still going to guess it I didn't think you would get there because we talk about how great everyone is in gone girl

but we never talk about him in gone girl and he is great and it is correct he hates Ben Affleck's character in that movie so much it's so awesome Um, all right. One of my favorite things, and I love to pull this line out and no one knows whatever I'm saying is like, he's like, well, my wife, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then Kim Dickens is like, well, if Tiffany says, so if anybody, anybody who like of untrustworthy opinion has a very strong feeling about something, I'm always saying to myself, well, if Tiffany says.

I so wanted there to just be like a shared nomination that year for Kim Dickens and Carrie Coon just to sort of like double up for God. Gone Girl. I think they're both so, so good in that movie. Really a bummer that Rosamine is the only part of that movie that got Oscar nominated. Not that she didn't deserve it because she did, but like, ah, everybody's so good in that. Gone Girl is not my favorite Fincher, but the people who say that it's their favorite fincher are not. Yeah, yeah. It's a good way of putting it. All right. So I'm two for two. All right. No wrong guesses so far. He's the main love interest in Saved, so I'm going to guess saved. All right. You're almost out of

perfect score. Saved is correct. All right. Now. Oh, all right. I don't... I'm trying to think of what other... Well, okay, he's the main love interest for Allison Lomond's character in White Oliander, but I don't think I've ever seen

White Oliander show up on an IMD game. Maybe for Allison Loman herself, but even that, maybe not. He's in that movie wrist-cutter's a love story, and he's like definitely the main guy in that, but that was such a small movie. Patrick Fuget. He just kind of disappeared after a while.

I guess I will go with White-Oleander. Incorrect. Dang. Dang. I guess I'll guess wrist-cutter's a love story. Risk-cutters-a-love story is correct. No. Oh, I was so close.

Fuck. Fuck. Other Patrick Cuget movies, you could have guessed. He's in that ashtray of a movie spun. He is in, he's in We Bada Zoo, a movie that we should hopefully do soon. He's in Queen of Earth. He's also one of the many, you know, clean-cut men of First Man. He's one of Claire Foy's Bunch of Boys.

Oh, I totally forgot that. Wow. Is he the one that dies first? No, isn't it David Harbour who dies? Am I wrong? I should rewatch First Man. First Man's a good movie. David Harbour's in that movie, right? I'm not misremembering. I feel like he dies. It would make utter sense if David Harbors in that movie. Yeah, I don't know. Let me know, Gary's, if I'm wrong on that one. But yes, okay. All right. So I came close to a perfect score on Fuggett. All right. Almost perfect. I think that's our episode.

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