This Had Oscar Buzz - 211 – Mermaids

Episode Date: September 12, 2022

We’ve got a personal favorite coming to you today starring one of our most beloved icons! After winning her Best Actress Oscar for Moonstruck, Cher then conquered the world with the album Heart of Stone, and didn’t return to the cinema until 1990′s Mermaids. With Cher as a mother of two rebuking societal expectations, the … Continue reading "211 – Mermaids"

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. You're going to play my favorite game. What is the worst weather in the world?

Oh, now don't tell me, let me guess. Who could it be? Could it be me? Charlotte's mother is many things. Charlotte, we're Jewish. Normal isn't one of them. Okay, how do I look? Like a woman about to go forth in sin?

Oh, good, exactly the look I was hoping for. That's how Rachel liked it. One, two, three, Ham, love. And that's why Charlotte didn't. Sometimes I feel like you're the child and I'm the grown-up. What is this? Cheeseball pick-me-ups and for dessert, marshmallow kebabs. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast,

the only podcast saying fuck you to the Chelsea boys and their waxed chests. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Joe Reed, and I'm here, as always, with my marshmallow kebab. Chris File. Hello, Chris. Okay. So the ingredients of a marshmallow kebub, obviously marshmallows. Yes. Yes.

Maraschino cherries and those like, what do you even call those circus peanuts, those puffy orange peanut-shaped things? I saw circus peanuts. I also saw gumdrops of some sort, I believe. Yes. Those might have also been maraschino cherries, but I do think there was something green in there, so maybe that's what that was. there was definitely something green in there gross shit no one wants to eat have you ever had one of those circus peanuts no they've always sort of repelled me and i like marshmallows but like that doesn't see that seems like a marshmallow gone bad right like you're supposed to sandwich those bad things no one wants between the marshmallows of the marshmallow a classic kebab strategy nobody's going to eat like a hunk of onion right just on its own but you put that Okay

A grilled onion is delicious Sure, but like You're gonna like slice them thin or something like that Like I don't know The circus peanuts though truly tastes like nothing And also something that should be used to spackle a wall Yeah Don't understand why they're candy

What are the other finger foods though She mentions like crab meat pick me ups sounds great Yeah This feels very like Jackie Weaver and Silver linings playbook-esque. The two of them could probably collab on a meal strategy. What are the Mermaids one called?

Something pick-me-ups. I think she says crab pick-me-ups. Okay, fuck Mary Kill, crab pick-me-ups, the crab thing, and crabby patties. Oh, God. Well,

crabby snacks. Craby patties are in SpongeBob Squarepants. I feel like, I mean, a crab pick-me-up just sounds like something you'd fuck you know what i mean it's a pick-me-up it's like a wham-bam thank-you-ma kind of a thing do you marry the crab thing it feels like the crab thing is an investment it really feels like you got to be in it for the long haul with the crab thing it is you know grandiose it is a little rich let's imagine and like fuck mary kill the mary is always rich is

always what you go for for mary so i guess i'm killing crabby snacks which like that's for Philadelphia Eagles fans and I'm a Bill's fan so like fuck that. Okay, I think it's probably based on who's doing the cooking. Sharon Mermaids is famously not good at cooking, so Sure.

The crab pick me up is going to be the kill for me. Definitely I am with you on the crab thing and I'm sure that Clarissa Vaughn is probably the most like artisanal of the cooking. So like I'm going to marry that and then I'm going to

Fuck the crabby snacks, because, like, crabby snacks also sound like, you know, a bunch of fried things piled on a plate that you, like, grab and go. Plus, it's a snack, you know what I mean? Yeah, like, you want to, like, something's a snack. It's something you want to fuck, so, yeah. Exactly. All right. Yeah, I think, I think, I think, I maybe, you've maybe pulled me over to your side, but I'm glad we work that out. I'm glad we, we, we managed to work that out.

I was going to open the episode instead of calling you a marshmallow kebab and just saying that I saw your wife the other day and she was ugly, but that maybe, without the context of the film in question, that maybe is a rude, too. I've tried my spouse. It's very beautiful. Anyway, it's not exactly my birthday as we're recording this. We were originally planning to record this on your birthday. Right.

It's my birthday weekend. And as a special request to me, which you have generously indulged, I said, can we do one of my favorite movies of all time, which is Mermaids. And you said that like we would be making some type of special exception, and we're really not. No, no. This is a Golden Globe nominee. This is a National Border Review honoree. This is an Oscar winner following up their Oscar winning role. Exactly. Exactly. So there's a lot of meat on this bone. More meat than I would have originally thought. Because growing up, like this was a movie that existed for me the way movies like, I'm trying to think of like what other sort of like, like hook kind of labyrinth. You know what I mean? Movies that people watched when they were a kid and watched a lot of. And I've seen this movie upwards of 20, 25 times.

and I, it's a movie that my sisters and I really bond over. We watched this a lot with our cousins when we were little. I know I was watching it last night, and I found myself just like speaking along so much of the dialogue along with the movie because I know it's so well. It is one of my most reliable cheer me up movies. Like if I want to just like sit down and watch a movie that I know is going to make me happy, Mermaids does the trick every time So I was very, very excited to be able to talk about this with you But like, what is your experience with Mermaids?

I know you had seen it before, but like... Of course I've seen this before. My childhood experience with Mermaids was like, I remember watching it young. Keep in mind, bear in mind. I don't remember a period of my life where I wasn't allowed to watch Pretty Woman, a movie about a sex worker. 1990, yeah. And, like, I've talked about this story before. Like, so much of that shit went over my head.

And I was like, yeah, she's the hooker, whatever. Like, that's normal, like, six years old. And, like, the thing of the different colored condoms, I thought those were the shitty flat suckers you get at the doctor's office, et cetera. So it went over my head. Doctors should be handing those out at the doctor's office as well. It's also a movie that's like Sindafucking Rella. In the first 15 minutes, they have a whole sequence talking about,

a sex worker who was found mutilated in a dumpster and, like, perfectly fine for me to watch this at six. Anyway, I'm getting there. Mermaids, however, I distinctly have a memory of watching it and there being a scene that I didn't understand why, but my mom was like, turn this off, this is a dirty movie, he can't watch this. Oh. And it's the scene of the girls in the bathroom saying, I gave him horal sex.

I love when men moan. And I had no idea what that meant, so I don't understand why this, this like basically family movie was so dirty for me to watch. Granted, Winona Ryder is very horny in this movie, very, like, in her narration, openly horny. So maybe my mom was already a little on edge about that stuff. Well, and in such a peculiar way to horny, just sort of like in that very teenager, way where how does it say how old Charlotte is supposed to be in this movie 15 15 which is sort of what I expect right so in a way that like she's not necessarily a late bloomer but I feel like she's probably a little bit behind in terms of like what her level of experience with something like this is I remember like as I certainly was I was certainly a late bloomer but I remember like at 15 in high school. school. Like, I definitely knew, like, classmates or whatever who had had some sort of sex or whatever. Well, but, I mean, there's two things, I think, about that. It is, A, set in the early

60s. Oh, totally. And B, because it's a family that moves around so much, like, she can't really establish friendships that she might be able to, like, people that she would be comfortable, like, having those type of joking. The Mary O'Brien's of the world and whatnot. Exactly. I But so also her notions of this is all caught up in this Lives of the Saints stuff with immaculate conceptions and, you know, all this, you know, religious iconography wrapped up in her sexuality where she becomes like. She sees a nun and she's like, I wonder what her boobs are like. I wonder what color her bra is, like that kind of thing, which is like the perfect level of like, yes, that sort of moving in all directions. sexual awakening where you have questions about everything and notions of purity and carnality are like inextricably mixed up in her head or whatever she's actually a really

fascinating character yeah along those lines yeah i mean i really like this movie just in terms of like we've seen i mean we just a few weeks ago did a movie very much like this with a walk on the moon but like this yeah of these movies of like not necessarily coming of age but like parents and their children and these like kind of romance happening like in the plot but this one's actually kind of an interesting one about female sexuality in a way like for a movie that was sort of sold the way it was as this kind of cute mother-daughter you know comedy it has at its center at least and i would count lou among them to like some really interestingly complicated characters but especially charlotte and her mother in this movie where both of them are very specific

I think Rachel Flax is an interestingly ahead of her time woman where you can there are moments in the movie where she talks about how her parents never understood her and when she left and never looked back and whatever where you can picture her own sort of rebellious youth in the late 40s I guess it must have been like to imagine that so Charlotte's 15 and it's 1963 so Charlotte was born in the late 40s. 1940 1948 essentially and so that's a really interesting time to be a

woman like Rachel who was so determined to be independent and sexual and

unapologetic and all of this stuff which is like not that I want a prequel to movies

that are already perfect but like a prequel movie about Rachel Flacks as a teen would be a

really interesting character to follow. But don't do it. Nobody get any ideas. Mermaid's perfect. Like, don't fuck with it.

Do you know what I mean, though? Oh, 100%. I mean, in the ways that I think like the movie is maybe a little bit slight, I do think that the actual character development of everybody is really interesting. And like you were right to you, I think, even mention

Lou is a really interesting character. I think there's a lot of complexity with Rachel, too, because, like, you mentioned, the kind of late bloomerness of Charlotte. Like, it ultimately, I think, becomes pretty clear that part of the reason why, even though her mother is fairly sexually liberated, might not have had, you know, a sex educational conversation with her child because she doesn't want her child to make the same mistakes that she has. So it's like she's kind of looking the other way about those type of things. And they don't have a great relationship to begin with. Right. The communication barriers between those two characters.

is like almost the entire point of the movie. It's pretty much the most dominant the theme of the movie. But yeah, the Lou Rachel relationship is very fun and refreshing, because in large part, because in addition to her being incredibly forthright and upfront, he is as well, the part where he's like, are you always this aggressive after sex, where he is sort of not afraid to lay his cards out on the table repeatedly, I think it's a really, really, really refreshing relationship

and one of the like underrated great movie relationships that nobody ever talks about, nobody ever talks about. And to be played by Bob Hoskins, who I think historically we think of as kind of like a barking, like kind of Uber Man to be this like forthright heart on his sleeve kind of guy, I think is really great casting. The only thing I had known him from when I first saw Mermaids was obviously who framed Roger Rabbit, which is kind of another movie where it takes you a little bit by surprise, or at least me when I was, you know, 11 or whatever, that this, you know, sort of short, stocky George Costanza-looking person.

Listen, Eddie Valiant, very formative. Very, like, that's a ladies' man. Like Joanna Cassidy and Bob Hoskins in that movie were a hot couple, for sure. Bob Hoskins is a sexy man, let me tell you. Bob Hoskins is exactly up your alley. Like, that makes a ton of sense. That really, really makes it. They're not exactly on my alley, but, like, you know, I don't really have an alley.

You know, I have a map. You have an alley. We all have allies. When you Instagrammed a photo of Bob Hoskins from, I can't remember what it was from that you put up last night, but I was like, yeah, Chris just watched the movie. Have you seen Mona Lisa? No, it's on my list. My, I caught up to it recently and I was like, A, Bob Hoskins is so hot. And B, he's incredible in that movie.

Yeah, that's his one Oscar nomination. It was, was it Neil Jordan's first movie or just one of his first movies? I think it's just one of his first movies. I don't know if it's the first movie. Kathy Tyson's also incredible in it. It's like, in a way, it's kind of like vibes, but it's not like a wavelength movie. Is he a mobster in that movie? It's not like, there's just like kind of this tone to the movie that's very pleasing, but it's not like a strange movie, you know.

Is he a mobster in that movie? Is that the deal? Basically, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So good. That's exciting. What a legend. Is it called Mona Lisa because they keep playing the neck and Cole song?

or is that... It is in there, I believe, it opens the movie. Okay, that's the only sort of thing I know about that movie is I've sort of like intuitive that like, oh, I bet like that's a recurring sort of theme. His only Oscar nomination, you're right. He almost did for Mrs. Henderson Presents, but that was a movie that just like really didn't exist. He showed whole hog in that movie and they still didn't nominate him. And I remember him being very funny.

The injustice of it all. Um, he died longer ago than I thought. He died in 2014. I thought it was more recently than that. God, God rest. What a good actor. What a good screen presence. Fun talk show guest, too.

Like, uh, always seemed like he was a very good time. So. And I think pretty beloved by the people that worked with him, if I remember correctly. I can be wrong, but like, seems like, I've, I would believe that. And also, I mean, that for as troubled a production as Mermaid's, was at the outset, and we'll definitely talk about that. It is a movie that is spoken of in terms of the three actresses especially, Sharon Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci, always talk about what a great time they had making that movie. Winona Ryder talked about being able to sort of talk

to share about boys. She was dating Johnny Depp at the time. Like I imagine there was a lot to talk about. Christina Ricci talked about what a great sort of first movie to have, you know, under her belts, she talked about, you know, filming the Shoup-Shoup-Song video with Cher, where it went late into the night and then went back and, like, had a pajama party at Shares' house. And they just seemed like, from all accounts, even like more recent ones, it sounds like they had a great vibe, the three of them. And if you add to that, that, you know, Hoskins was also somebody that people really loved. Like, I imagine that went a lot of the, a long way towards

making what started out as a stressful project into something good. Yeah, I think a lot of the turmoil seems like getting this movie off the ground, not necessarily the... Well, it was a lot of the vision

of what the movie was going to be, and we'll get into that on the other side of the plot description, because it was an interesting sort of road to making a movie that doesn't seem from the outset. You don't look at mermaids and think Troubled Production, right? And I mean, sometimes you never can tell. But, yeah, we'll definitely get into it.

I'm so excited. Again, one of my favorite movies of all time. It puts a smile on my face, so I'm very glad we're doing this. Are you ready? I am there. Are you ready? Let me pull my phone out. I never have it at the ready.

This is like a recurring theme here. me give a give us the rundown first though give us oh i'm gonna oh i'm gonna we're talking about uh mermaids from 1990 directed by actor director richard benjamin we'll get into his career he has a very interesting sort of footprint in hollywood it was written by june roberts based on the novel mermaids by patty dan starring share winona rider christina ritchie bob hoskins Michael Shofling, the only other non-16 Candles movie I remember him being in. It premiered December 14th, 1990, and that's what we got, Chris. Are you ready for a 60-second plot description?

Yeah. All right. Then your time starts now. All right, Rachel Flax is a single mother to teenage Charlotte and pre-teen Kate, and every time she ends another relationship, she uproots her daughters and moves across the country. The beginning of the movie, Rachel moves them to small town. Massachusetts and quickly takes up with a kind and handsome shoe salesman named Lou Lanski. Kate wants to be an Olympic swimmer when she grows up and Charlotte faces the struggle we all

face, getting caught between religious anxiety and being corny on Maine. She quickly develops a crush on local convent boy servant Joe. Charlotte thinks she has an amactualic conception and also Kennedy gets assassinated. Naturally as Lou gets closer to Rachel, Rachel starts to push away, debating, uprooting her family yet again. At a new, after a new year's party, Charlotte sees Rachel kiss Joe, but then the next day Charlotte gets drunk and stumbles into losing her virginity with Joe. Meanwhile, none save Kate from drowning in a Greek and she's in like a coma,

I think. But this brush with death kind of forces Rachel and Charlotte to reconcile their issues, and Rachel agrees to give her relationship with Lou another year before she would move again. Does she love him? I want to know, how can we tell that she loves himself? It's in her kiss. Boom.

Minute on the dot. Very, very good. Maybe the only time I've done that. I love that you fulfilled the prophecy as a gay man and almost said Immaculate Collection instead of Immaculate Conception, that is our birthright, I feel like. That is on a DNA level. It's in all of our blood, so well done there. What are the things you mentioned in there, our convent boy, Joe, could not be a more

thinly drawn character, and I think by design, I love how little dimension there is to Joe. the convent man servant there where he's all character bio and not a no actual character character which I think serves the movie well in its sort of shallowness because he's not a person he is what he represents to Charlotte exactly he is a perfect first crush he's a little too old for her. He's sort of unrealistically innocent and

with a dash of sort of tortured, right? He got a girl pregnant when he was younger and the girl had to be sent away and now he works all day, literally like upkeeping the convent up the hill for these

nuns. By the way, fun-loving, robust, awesome nuns. Like, Paul Verhoven could never. The nuns from the nuns having fun calendar are the nuns of mermaids. Basically, yes. I want to see the, like, waiting for Godot about those nuns in this Massachusetts town. They're playing, like, stickball at the beginning or something at the beginning.

They're just sort of running around. They're in town, sort of, like, chatting up Lou at the shoe shop. They are jumping right into that creek to save Katie, like, without hesitation. No idea how they saw that that child was drowning. We love you, Mary. We reject this blasphemy. These are the nuns that we've always wanted. I love them so much.

But you can see where Joe is like, oh, of course, that's who Charlotte falls in love with. And the way that she kind of pines for him. This is a movie, by the way I will say. And you can agree or disagree. I think it uses voiceover incredibly, cleverly, and humorously. No, I agree. I definitely agree. It's never used to like superfluously set the setting. It is almost entirely used for a comedic effect or to like have Rachel or to have Charlotte's sort of inner weird girl.

You know what I mean? Like weird and it's her weird girl, but it's also just like her horny musings a lot of the time. Basically yes, that's what I mean. It's like yes. The way she's just like and like tortures herself where he's like he's talking about his. poor dead mother and all I want him to be doing is undressing my uh undressing my blouse or whatever and it's just like yes exactly like it's so these sort of feelings of guilt and and horniness at the same time it's so perfect the way she like hugs him that early time and like starts almost like

licking his leather jacket she does lick his leather jacket though that is very funny it's very funny Yeah. And meanwhile, Rachel Flax can see it. Like, it's almost like she can read her daughter's mind and she's amused by it, but she's also, like, there's a lot of emotion from Rachel to Charlotte in terms of like, this is kind of funny to me, especially because you are outwardly this like weird proto-Catholic saints worshipping, like always judging me kind of girl, but I know what you're going through inside. I'm kind of concerned that you're going to end up knocked up at 17 the way I was. And all of this stuff, right? And it's the more, this is one of those, this is why I can watch this movie 25 times. The more you watch the movie, the more times you watch the movie, it really deepens just like what a really interesting relationship the two of them have to each other and to themselves via each other. Well, it's well done. I do think that there's a slight thing there.

And it could just be, you know, Charlotte is a different kind of teenager than we usually see in these, like, it's, how would you even categorize this movie? Because it's not like a teen comedy, but like when we see stories like Charlott's, I don't think we quite see characters like Charlotte. And when we see stories like Rachel's, I do think Rachel is maybe closer to the type of character we've seen before. And I think it's just not as interesting as Charlotte, but I do still get very invested in Rachel. The typical sort of part of the structure of this movie is it's the classic inversion of the rebellious kid and the sort of conservative mom, right? Where the mom is the one who's the libertine and the daughter is the one who wants to be a nun. And yet even within that structure, the daughter finds. ways to be rebellious in her own way and I think that's really interesting it like if you're

talking about what subgenre does this belong to there's a little bit of a coming of age there's a little bit of that like mother daughter tale and it is a comedy we'll talk about it within the sort of 1990 I want to talk about the Golden Globe movie uh musical or comedy nominees that year about Orion Pictures. Well, so let's sort of start then at the very beginning, which is a very, very good place to start. 1987, I guess March of 88, Cher wins the Academy Award for Best Actress. She finally thinks she's on the road to being someone. She thanks Mary Louise Streep.

She loses an earring on the way to the stage. Sally Kirkland is beside herself. It's a moment for all of us. And then she doesn't make another movie for three years. Busy being a superstar. She's busy being a superstar. In 1989, she releases the album Heart of Stone, which is the album that has, among other things,

the Diane Warren Banger, if I could turn back time, which is, I didn't look this up. I imagine it was her biggest hit to her career at the time. I mean, I think it ultimately, gets eclipsed by believe, but I do think that's true. Yeah. Yeah. The music video scandalized a nation. She was basically wearing electrical tape with a little bit of fishnet over it. With a bunch of sailors who definitely were not ogling her as a sexual object. Right. She started dating the guy at the bagel shop and her personal life was for all to consume. She was a fascinating celebrity.

mega star She was It was probably around this time That she's doing all these interviews About like mom I am a rich man And you know Going on Letterman and giving him shit And all of the stuff

She's an incredible celebrity That album is like All Killer No Filler Maybe there's probably filler Knowing the 1980s That was probably filler But like if I could turn back time Is on that album

I have that album A vinyl, it's no filler All right you can attest to it. You have it on vinyl. I do. That's rad. Hardest Stone is also a really good song. Hard Stone is probably my favorite share song. Have you ever seen the music video

for it where it's all like current events newsreel stuff? Which is very funny to me. Where it's like that shares message song. It is shares message song. I don't care. It's earnest and I love it. It's my favorite share song. You put it on a montage of Best of the Year's stuff a few years ago and I will never forget it. It was very

well used. That was a really good montage. I really love it. Also on that album, one of my favorites of all time, cheesy as fuck, it's Sharon Peter Satera duetting on after all, which was Oscar nominated for the movie Chances Are in 1989. Cher had no part in writing that song, so she wasn't nominated herself. It's a sports movie, right? No, chances are. There's like a lot of sports songs that nominated for original songs. Crazy for You, I believe, is from Vision Quest, which I think is a sports movie. Yeah. Isn't he a track runner or something like that?

I've never seen Vision Quest. No, chances are is the movie where, oh, what is it? Someone's the dead reincarnation of someone. Sybil Shepherds X. Hold on, I'm looking it up, because I'm going to get it wrong. Oh, my God, I might have to watch this. Oh, it's like. Cheesy as hell. But it's Sybil Shepard and Robert Downey Jr. and Ryan O'Neill. And the premise is... Oh, Wikipedia, you're giving me too much. I don't need to read that much. Okay. A reincarnated man unknowingly falls in love with his own daughter from his previous life. Right. Ryan O'Neill... I think it's Ryan O'Neill dies and is reincarnated as Robert Downey Jr. And Sybil

Shepard was Ryan O'Neill's wife, Mary Stuart Masterson, is the daughter, and like the daughter, like, Mary Stuart Masterson and Robert Tony Jr., like fall in love, it's weird as... 80s studio pictures were fucking wild, man. Exactly. I only recently found out that, um, against all odds is like a spy movie or something. Against, oh, I never saw that movie. So I have no idea. I've read the actual plot.

Maybe it's not a spy movie, but I read the plot description. I'm like, that's the plot of the movie that those songs are for? The 1980s trend of hit songs from movies that have absolutely nothing to do with the vibe of that song is really, really, really funny. We need to bring that back. This is how we get pop songs in movies again. That's why the 80s was the golden age of the best original song category. I'll say it till I'm blue in the face. Maybe it's because Disney made us.

the success of like Disney at the Oscars made us think that it all has to be plot-driven original songs. No, you can just shove some bullshit song into a movie somehow. Yes, that's exactly right. You're 100% correct. After all, it's not bullshit. Great song. No, it's fantastic. I love, after all, one of my favorite songs to do at karaoke. If my friend Dan is listening, one of my favorite birthday memories is doing, after all, with him at birthday karaoke. If Joe's going to do one thing, he's going to do Peter Satera at karaoke. Although I did the Cher part, and Dan did the Peter Satera part, because his voice is perfectly suited for Peter Satera, and since nobody's voice is perfectly suited for

Cher, I might as well have just done it, so I just did it. So, Cher hasn't done a movie since Moonstruck. Mermaids is going to be her essential follow-up to her Oscar-winning performance. And so it's based on a novel. It's being developed. It's originally going to be directed by Lassa Hallstrom, who is at this point a couple movies after My Life is a Dog. So he's like a bit of a name.

And to hear Cher tell it, and I can't remember, I didn't write down exactly where this quote came from, but this was around the time. Like, this wasn't like years later. She said, we never got... He wanted something more like traumatic, right? He wanted Kate, Christina Ritchie, to commit suicide by jumping in the pond and die.

Intentionally. And die. Cher said, we never got to Lhasa, thank God. He wanted Kate to commit suicide in the pond. And so, Cher really, really resisted. He also... She's like the only character with a goal in this movie. And the only character whose goal is not a pole.

Also, an actress named Emily Lloyd was supposed to play Charlotte and Cher. was adamant that she didn't think it was believable that this girl, this blonde girl, would look like her daughter. So she wanted that as a recast. So Lhasa leaves six weeks before filming is supposed to start. Emily Lloyd leaves as recast with a Winona Ryder, and they bring in Frank Oz. Now, I don't know. Frank Oz, no stranger to troubled productions. This is the thing. I don't know. I've really tried to look into this. And I even, uh, texted some people about this because it was like, is Frank Oz just the most unlucky person ever? Or is there something? Because like all of these productions, it never says Frank

Oz is a nightmare, right? But he goes to these things where he like, doesn't get along with Brando on the score, doesn't get along with anyone on the Stepford Wives. Right. The Stepford Wives is disaster. He's like, taken responsibility. He's like, I fucked up the Stepford Wives. I fucked up the score. I didn't know how to direct Brando. I thought I had to really challenge him. And it turns out that like, I think the unspoken thing is like at this point, it was

the year 2000, Marlon Brando's a billion years old. What are you going to tell this guy? You're not going to get in here. Also, you're making a schlocky, kind of dumb movie no one cares about. Yeah. He's doing you a solid by showing up. Let Brando do whatever the hell he wants to do. Basically,

there was strife on, wait, there was another movie. I believe it. I mean, like, from where Frank Oz started, you know, it's a different type of production, you know, so it's like you can understand how he would approach material in a different way. Oh, he also directed What About Bob, a favorite of mine, but apparently, like, Richard Dreyfus and Bill Murray couldn't stand each other on that set. So it's like none of these things, or not all of these things seem necessarily the fault of like Frank Oz being this monster. or whatever, but he really does seem to hop from like troubled production to troubled production. So Frank Oz also wants mermaids to go darker than

Cher would like it. And I think Cher at this point is at the peak of her sort of being able to wield some power behind the scenes. Again, she's coming off of her Oscar. She's a giant star. And she knew

the movie that she wanted to make. And honestly, for as much as this probably garnered her reputation, as being difficult to work with on set. Ultimately, I love the movie that Mermaids turned out to be, and I really do feel like Cher pushed for it. And she probably made it a better movie. So Richard Benjamin is ultimately the director who is brought in,

who is a actor-director he had started in movies like Goodbye Columbus, and what else was he in? I wrote a bunch down. Very, very interesting career. He's in Catch 22. He was married to Paul Apprentice. He was in Diary of a Mad Housewife. He's in the Sunshine Boys. He's in a movie called The Last of Sheila that you have seen recently and really loved. My God, I cannot wait to talk to you about that movie. I hope you know absolutely nothing about it when you watch it. It's at the Paris Theater, so I'm seeing it very soon. I'm very excited to see it. And then in the early 80s, Richard Benjamin, transitions into being a director. So he directs. Peter O'Toole to an Oscar nomination in my favorite year, O'Toole's playing this sort of Errol Flynn type on the set of a movie, opposite Mark Lynn Baker, of all people. I always forget who's the screenwriter guy on that.

It's Mark Lynn Baker from Perfect Strangers. He directs a movie in 1984 called Racing the Moon with, Racing with the Moon, rather, with Sean Penn and Nicholas Cage, sort of World War II guys about to go off to war kind of a thing. I know, like, yeah, Cage and Penn in 1984, right? He has brought in to replace Blake Edwards kind of last minute on a movie called City Heat that starred Clint Eastwood and Bert Reynolds. I watched the trailer for it. Neither of I.

I watched the trailer for it earlier. The trailer is literally like, this is not word for word, but it might as well basically being worse. It's just like Clint Eastwood is the world's grumpiest private eye. Bert Reynolds is a wisecracking gum shoe. Wisecracking gum shoe is actually a direct. quote from the trailer. And there are these, like, you know, old-timey PIs who are, you know, trying to uncover

something or another. This is when his directorial career kind of pivots to either things that are outright reviled or become almost like punchlines, but I actually like some of these movies in here. So the Money Pit with Tom Hanks, one of them, which I have seen. He directed Sidney Poitier and River Phoenix in a movie called Little Nikita that I've never seen, but, like, I do think that speaks to this idea that, like, Richard Benjamin is who you bring in to direct these very big, you know, Clint Eastwood, Bert Reynolds, Sydney Poitier, you know, Peter O'Toole, all this sort of stuff, right?

My stepmother is an alien with Dan Aykroyd and Kim Basie. That movie. I've never seen it. It looks very bad. Apparently, it also starred an incredibly young Alison Hannigan, who I guess is the daughter in that, which would have been almost a decade. before Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is interesting. What else? After Mermaids, he does Made in America

with Whoopi Goldberg and Ted Danson, kind of the notorious movie. He's not Blackface in that movie. It is important to know. That is just they were dating when he did Blackface at a Friars Club roast, at her behest. Like, that's all been sort of wrapped up. Danson doesn't do Blackface in Made in America. Milk money.

the Melanie Griffith at Harris movie where a bunch of little kids are horny but a family staple of mine A bunch of kids are horny for Melanie Griffith that's the plot of milk money They're not really horny is the thing It's like these preteen kids

Who just want to see Okay this is the plot of milk money Wait and Haitia's in this movie And Haitia's in this movie Anne Hach is great in this movie May she rest in peace I was so so deeply sad about that We don't have to get into it

Yeah Wait so give me the plot of milk money give it to me milk money is about three preteen friends who like sell their video games they make uh the main kid he uh his mother has passed away and his father is ed harris and like wait it's not an old-timey movie they have video games i thought it was like set in the past they do things like they have yard sales selling their video games what they do is they raise a bunch of money with the intention of going into the city and see a lady's boobs.

So they pay a sex worker Melanie Griffith to look at her boobs and it's not even like sexual. There's like something sweet about it but like the movie has an interesting relationship to sex work is what I will say. Melanie Griffith

has to go on the run. So the nice boy who is the son of Ed Harris who when she takes off her top he actually closes his eyes because he wants to be a gentleman blah blah blah. Yeah. She ends up, like, living in his treehouse while she's on the run. And then, like, Melanie Griffith and Ed Harris develop a relationship.

And then, of course, they, like, a mobster comes after her at the school dance. And, like, it's a nice movie. The golden age of movies where women are on the run from mobsters, so they hide out in interesting places. Exactly, exactly. One of my favorite genres of cinema. It sounds crazy. So at what point does Fergie come into the film? Is that right?

Is she billed in this movie? No, I'm making a milk money joke. Oh, got it. Got it, got it, got it. Sunk like a stone. Okay, after Milk Money, of course, the seminal film Mrs. Winterbourne, starring Oscar winner Shirley McLean and non-Oskar winner Ricky Lake. Other movies.

Oh, and then... Marcy X. Marcy X, which I think is the most... He's not directed a feature film since Marcy X. So he's still... Yeah, he's 84 years young. Sherry Renee Scott Cinema. Oh, is Sherry Reney Scott in Marcy X?

She's indeed in Marcy X. Let me look at the cast of that movie. Good golly. MarcyX. A movie I'm willing to bet does not hold up today. Richard Benjamin is also in that movie. Kudrow, Krakowski, Barre. Ransky, Sherry Renee Scott, Vian Cox,

oh, Matthew Morrison, wait, Mary Murphy plays herself. Oh, not the Mary Murphy from, so I think he can dance, a different Mary Murphy, a news personality, never mind. I was about to freak out. Mary Hart is herself, though. Okay, anyway. It's a movie for gay men, but also problematic. Okay, so Richard Benjamin gets brought in, I imagine he's brought in as a actor-friendly director, as I said.

And so Cher is able to make the movie that she wants. She was on the record early on in the press for Mermaids saying that either she didn't think she gave a good performance in the movie or early on she didn't give a good performance in the movie. It sort of reported both ways. I think she gives a tremendous performance in this movie. I know Ryder is also great and is the one nominated for the Globe and whatnot and gets the National Border Review citation. We'll get into those things. But I think Cher is tremendous.

I think she's one of the great screen presences and is, you know, always interesting. Yeah. But I think she gives a very, she gives a very, uh, cany performance in this movie. I think she's, uh, she knows where to take this character. It's pretty low key of a performance. her, too. It's interesting, like, the whole, like, you know, the public kind of turning against her, at least as a screen presence and as an actress, because, like, I do actually don't really see her. I almost feel like she's working against a certain level of a star persona or something.

It doesn't feel. Yeah. It feels more like share the character actress than, like, when you consider where she is in her career at this point. Yeah. You would think that this would be more of like a movie star performance, and I don't really see that. It has its moments. It does, but I think. The parts where she and Lou start flirting, where he's like, so, call me, Rachel, and she says, so Lou, call me. Or no, he says, call me Lou, and she says, so Lou, call me.

Like, all of that sort of, like, very sort of, like, flirty, like, she's really turning it on stuff is... Her stuff with Hoskins is my favorite of her in this movie. But I do think, largely, for a share performance, it's a pretty low-key one. Oh, definitely. And I think the stuff that I love so much about it is the stuff that comes out in smaller moments when she does the, when she accidentally slash on purpose cuts the sandwiches into star shapes, like, that kind of thing where she's, you know, reading Peyton Place in the bathtub, when she's sort of at her wits end about what to do with Charlotte, when she, oh, one really, really small moment that I loved that, like, doesn't. really have anything to do with the plot so much. After they go to the swim meet where Katie swims on the swim team or whatever, and they're after, they're walking to the car, and the

swim coach comes up and sort of catches up to Mrs. Flacks and says, I just wanted you to know that, like, we love Katie so much. We love having her on the team. I really think she has, like, Olympic-level talent. And the way that, like, Rachel is giving barely enough of her attention, where she's just like, she's, she doesn't know how to interact with these sort of locals. She doesn't, she's not somebody who wants to be a part of the town, right? Because she's always on the move. She's always ready to pick up and go. And so she's just giving, she's incredibly, like, casually guarded in that scene.

And I was like, that's the perfect small note of characterization that, like, nobody's going to remember this. scene, but it perfectly, like, adds up to who Rachel is his character. And then that scene also ends with, uh, the swim coach gets into the car with her, uh, lady friend. And it's totally not commented on at all. And I love, there's so many little moments of that stuff in the movie, these sort of like local, uh, signs of the times. There's also the moment where we see the TV, where Barbara Walters is on the Today Show talking about the discothex in Paris. And, and it's a new trend. It's a dance called the fruit. and she's just she's out there a dance in the frug I loved that so much yeah I think it's a very very

good share performance one of my favorites um but I think you are right I think there is the low keyness really comes across at a time when she was you know like I said if I could turn back time like such a big star such a tabloidy presence yeah and and she's giving something very low key. But it's Winona Ryder who kind of breaks out of this movie. She had really been, really been leading up to it with, she was on a streak. She was in Beetlejuice in 88. These are among other movies. She's in Roxy Carmichael. She's in Lucas. She's in Great Bals of Fire or whatever. But like, Beetlejuice, 1988, Heather's 1989. And then Edward Sissorhans is released the week before Mermaids comes out. So, and like, again, she's dating John

she's the hot young actress actress she's like she's not like I think there was a big point to like she is this is an actress she's not like a flirt a flitty little like movie star kind of a thing well and then basically after this she immediately starts working with major filmmakers like Scorsese and Coppola well right she is a headliner after that with little women. Reportedly, she had gone from the mermaids set to Italy to start filming the Godfather Part 3 because she had been cast as Mary Corleone. And from like, I don't know what the official story is, how much of this is, but like the, the, what has been reported at various times. She showed up on set. She was supposed to get out and start filming a scene. She didn't

come out of her trailer. Depp was there on set with her. She was apparently not feeling well. And one of the stories that came out was this sort of like, she went through a bout of nervous exhaustion and she couldn't play the role. And so they had to recast and it ended up being Sophia Coppola quite notoriously. But Andy Garcia has said in at least one interview where he was like, yeah, I never saw Winona Ryder on the set of that movie. Like she never came out of her trailer, essentially. She would have been too young. I mean...

Like for that role. Sophia Coppola was pretty young, too. I think that was sort of part of the... Problem. Well, and also that the character is this sort of like, she's such a young person getting handed this, you know, responsibility within the Corleone family and all this sort of stuff.

So that was kind of a notorious moment. But the reviews for Winona and Mermaids are really good. And Edward Scissorhands certainly helps because that movie was also hugely well received. And you're not going to, if it's a performer having a real moment, between these two performances, Edward Cisorhans is not the one that they're going to gravitate to, to recognize her. Right. So she kicks off the 1990 awards season, winning Best Supporting Actress for the National Border Review,

which is not a bad way to kick off award season. It's a pretty influential NBR. Sometimes sort of the National Border Review waxes and wanes as to how predictive they are, how influential they are. But like their best picture that year was Dances with Wolves, which ends up being the best picture. They give that movie picture and director. Joe Pesci wins their supporting actor award.

He ends up winning the Oscar. they give best actor to a shared award for Robert De Niro and Robin Williams in Awakenings. De Niro ends up nominated for Oscar. Their best actress goes to Mia Farrow for Alice, who doesn't get nominated. Mia Farrow has sort of famously never been nominated for an Oscar. Alice, I believe, gets a screenplay nomination that year. But even NBR's top 10 that year was pretty sort of on point in a lot of ways, it's dances with wolves.

It's the Mel Gibson Hamlet. Goodfellas, Awakening's, Reversal of Fortune, which is what Jeremy Irons wins his Oscar for. Miller's Crossing, which is like this hugely beloved now, Cohen's movie, with Stillman's Metropolitan, Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, the James Ivory, merchant ivory movie with... Which gets Joe Ann Woodward nominated.

Which gets Joe and Woodward nominated. She's in it with... She's with Paul Newman, right? It's the two of them together. Have you watched the last movie stars? Not yet. I want to. Was it good?

Okay. When I finished it, I find it to be on top of all the other shit with HBO Max right now. I was so annoyed that I didn't have like five Joanne Woodward movies that I couldn't watch the second that it was over. Yeah. Yeah. I will say HBO does a good job with their documentaries about people in Hollywood. I loved their Spielberg documentary. I loved their Nora Ephron doc.

I don't know, but it's good. Anyway, rounding out the NBR top 10 that year was Avalon, Barry Levinson's Avalon, which gets a screenplay nomination, and then the Grifters, which gets a handful of nominations, including Angelica Houston and Annette Benning. Which, if you're using basically the Globe analog for Winona Ryder, Annette Benning, for some reason, is not nominated at the Globes, but does get basically Winona Ryder's spot. Right. So the Golden Globes do nominate Winona. They nominate six that year. It's Whoopi Goldberg wins it for a ghost before sort of precursoring her Oscar.

Lorraine Brockos nominated Diane Ladd for Wild at Heart and Mary MacDonald for Dances with Wolves. All of them would end up in the Oscars lineup. McLean for Postcards from the Edge is nominated, still one of the more mystifying, I can't believe, that never got the Oscar nomination performances. It has to be because it's smaller than you expect it to be, the role. It is smaller than you expect it to be, but because it is a former Oscar winner playing essentially Debbie Reynolds in this movie that people in Hollywood really liked at the time, I remember it being like such a thing, Streep's nominated, I don't know. And then Winona Ryder is the sixth nominee that year for for Mermaids. And then if you looked at the other sort of big precursors, it was a little bit over the map, right? Whoopi wins the globe. Winona wins NBR.

Lorraine Braco wins Los Angeles Film Critics Award. With a runner-up, it says here, which I love, Diane Weist for Edward Cisorhands, who I would have definitely nominated. She's so good in that movie. tremendously good in Edwards. The performance that would probably get closer on my ballot from that movie is, of course, the legendary

Kathy Baker. Oh, of course. Horny neighbor, extraordinary Kathy Baker. And then New York film critics went for Jennifer Jason Lee for two performances in Last Exit to Brooklyn and Miami Blues. So that category was kind of

all over the map and kind of wide open. Annette Benning. Makes complete sense. sense that would be one, especially if, you know, there's that kind of spread. Totally. Here's what doesn't make sense, as far as I'm concerned. That, I mean, whatever, I can bitch and moan about Mermaids not getting nominated for Best Picture Musical or Comedy and Cher not getting nominated for Best Actress Musical or Comedy.

I, like, Julia Roberts wins Best Actress Musical or Comedy at the Globes for Pretty Women, obviously. That is a no-brainer. She deserves it. She was an Oscar nominee, all of that. Other nominees were Merrill for Postcards from the Edge. She's an Oscar nominee. She's Merrill.

Makes sense. Andy McDowell for Green Card, which the column of four impressed. Lobes loved Green Card. They gave it Best Picture Musical or Comedy, and they gave Gerard DePardt, Best Actor Musical or Comedy. So, like, they fucking loved Card. This is the same year as Serenot, right?

Because he gets the nomination for Serenow. Oh, yes. Some of that has to be, like, all of it happening at the same time. He's probably not going to win for Cyrano, but they do give him a win for Green Card. Sure, but also to give Green Card Best Picture is, like, they love that movie. It's a lot. Peter Weir?

Am I crazy to... Peter Weir. Is that Peter Weir? Yeah. Mia Farrow also ends up nominated for Alice. And then, the fifth nominee, Demi Moore for Ghost. Now, no shade against Demi Moore. I think she cries beautifully in that movie.

I think she's not... A lot of people thought she was bad. at that movie. I don't think she's bad. I don't like dumping onto me more, but like she is not bad in that movie. It's kind of a nothing part, but nominating that performance is odd to me. Also, we forget, Ghost made like

an insane amount of money. Ghost made an insane amount of money. It ends up being a best picture nominee at the Oscars. Ghost is not a comedy. Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost is giving a comedic performance. Ghosts. People don't know how to have this conversation though. Ghost is not a comedy. I am not budging on this one. Like, it is, it starts with a murder. It ends with tears and someone ascending to heaven. It is a drama with a wonderful piece of comedic relief within it that deservedly won the Oscar in Whoopi Goldberg. But that's not

a comedy. Right. Mama, that's not, that's not a comedy. But it's also a movie for lady and they love to kind of look down their nose at them, but all by like saying, well, comedies are lesser drama. Ghost and pretty woman. So it's like it's a convergence of. Yeah. Ghost and pretty woman losing the best picture, muses of a comedy to green card at the Globes is truly wild.

That's goofy behavior. Anyway, so after that, the Golden Globes is sort of the height of where Winona goes. with the mermaids, and it's not really nominated anywhere else. I will mention, under protest, that Cher wins the Yoga Award, which is the Spanish Razzies, for worst foreign actress for mermaids, which... Fuck you, Spain. Chos throwing up two birds.

I'm going to throw up the birds to Spain. Have we ever had a yoga... We've had so many yoga worst actress award winners that we talked about. Has there ever been one word? We're like, yeah, we agree. I don't think there has been. No. Not that we talked about.

It's like Jennifer Lawrence and mother. It's... Oh, you have a better memory than I do. We've maybe not had one in a while, but we, I mean, we love talking about the yoga awards. Yeah. So, Mermaids, I think, goes on to have a pretty robust life. It made like $35 million, whatever. It opened in a real competitive weekend.

It opened the fifth week of Home Alone, which Home Alone is busy juggernaughting its way through the American box office. Look Who's Talking 2 premiered that weekend, which, yeah, take the L that you've lost to Look Who's Talking to The Luke Who's Talking Sequel. I will say the amount of times I've watched Mermaids, I've watched both of the first two Look Who's Talking movies a ton. Maybe not in the last 20 years of my life, but certainly when I was younger, that was a classic, We used to have a lot of sleepovers at my aunt's house, and she had a very limited number of VHSs, maybe like 15 VHSs that we cycled through.

Look Who's Talking was one of them. And we watched that movie a fuck ton. I will say. Okay, so I'm watching Pretty Woman as a child. Pretty Woman was another VHS that my aunt had. I'm watching, look who's talking too, which has an entire fertilization sequence of come. I have to turn off mermaids as a child.

I'm just calling bullshit on my family. We need to relitigate that. Yeah, it is. Oh, I learned so much about life earlier than I should have from. I learned, look who's talking mentions bulimia. This is the first time I ever heard about bulimia, about postpartum depression, about It's how I learned what a diaphragm is, I'm pretty sure. Kirstie Ali talks about how her boobs got bigger after having the baby.

Olympia Dukakis, as Kirstie Ali's mother. in that movie, constantly uses the term frozen pop when she's talking about Kirstie Allie going to get artificially inseminated, who's the frozen pop? It's a lot of information. Just a lot, and not to mention, as you said, the sort of the inner biology

of it all. It's an education. I'll say that. Is it who's talking or look who's talking to where Travolta does a Schwarzenegger impersonation? to a poster for Total Recall. Only thing I remember about. Well, it would have to be Luke Who's Talking, too, because Total Recall was 1990,

and I think Luke Who's Talking was 89. So, I will say, speaking of actors you are sexually attracted to, Elias Coteus is in Luke Who's Talking to, playing Christi Alley's sort of a fail-son brother. Oh, yeah. I'm into that. Yeah.

Interesting little tidbit at that. The very end of Look Who's Talking, sort of into the credits, you see the younger sister being born and her inner monologue, because the whole concept of Look Who's Talking is that Bruce Willis is doing the inner monologue of the baby. And at the end, you see the girl being born, and her inner monologue is played by Joan Rivers in that scene. And then when the sequel comes along, they cast Roseanne as the young daughter. Anyway.

Yes. Okay. So also opening that weekend, or not opening that weekend, also in theaters that weekend. I mentioned it's the second week of Edward Cisorhands. Dances with Wolves is in its sixth week. Dances with Wolves was a hit, honey. Like people, that was in the culture. That movie pervasive.

Everybody had that. I remember my uncle had that soundtrack on vinyl. It's a really good soundtrack, I will say. My mom lives for that movie. She thinks Kevin Costner is. so sexy. My mom is like on the Kevin Costner thing. It's like, if I ever tried to explain to her why Kevin Costner saying neat to Madonna makes him null and void, it would not compute. I will say, you must remember this, this most recent season, Erotic 80s, did a very good job of

reminding people what was definitely true at the time, which was people were horny for Kevin Costner. It was, a lot of it was Bull Durham. But I remember, like, when he does Robin Hood, of thieves. And it's the like long distance shot of Mary Elizabeth Master Antonio as made Marion sort of spying on him sort of naked under the waterfall. I remember that was like a big deal where it was like Kevin Costner butt shot in a movie. And yeah. So it was a time. It was a time to be alive. It was indeed a time. Okay. So you brought up Dances with Wolves, which is the best picture winner this year. Also in Orion's picture as well as Mermaid. Mermaids is actually smack dab right in between the calendar of two best picture winners,

because two months later, Silence of the Lambs comes out. Oh, fuck. That's right. Silence of the Lambs was in theaters when that previous year's Oscars were happening. Correct. Because I believe, doesn't Hopkins present at that Oscars? And don't they in... Hold on. I'm bringing this up.

Is that... They never wheeled him out with the Hannibal Lecter, mask. They do it with Crystal, but I thought that was the year that Silence of Lambs won. It was. That was the year that Silence of Lambs was nominated. But, um, hold on a second. Let me find it. Yeah, Jody Foster and Anthony Hopkins together present the screenplay awards at the 1990 Oscars because that movie was already a big deal in theaters at the time. I can't imagine that they thought that it would last a year and the next. year we'd be talking about it as the Best Picture

nominee and eventual winner. But yeah, they presented together at that Oscars. So, interesting tidbit. So, yeah, so Orion was, Orion's a real interesting piece of work. Best Picture winner for platoon. When you go back and actually look at their

lineup of stuff, it's like a real range of, you know, you have those movies that kind of became awards prestige movies. They were the first ones putting out Cohen Brothers movies like they have like gaudy comedies they also have full

trash action movies and you know famously like Orion now is like more famous for their collapse right than for being anything else and because it is kind of resurgent now a little bit I feel like I'm seeing a lot more Orion can we talk about the new logo

the new the hideous new logo that like makes you think that you're in Key West or something no Bring back the iconic original Orion logo, please and thank you. The original Orion logo, which shows the constellation of Orion, and then all the stars in it, form a circle and start spinning around in a circle. That is the only Orion I want or need. Yeah. But even after Orion's collapse, you would still have Oscar nominations and wins, like Michelle Pfeiffer's really bad Oscar nomination for Love Field.

in the year of Catwoman, if nothing else proves my point about what I was saying with Winona Ryder, Mermaids versus Edward Scissorhands, Michelle Pfeiffer getting nominated for Lovefield. Also, the collapse of Orion was, that was the reason the blue sky was on the shelf for all that time, right? Yes, yes. And then a few years later, when nobody can kind of make any other decisions, they give Jessica Lang a second Oscar making up for the fact she didn't win lead for Francis

because it's the same year as Sophie's Choice for a, I would say, genuinely terrible performance in Blue Sky. The thing about Blue Sky is it was filmed a few months before Orion went bankrupt, and so it had to sit on a shelf. It was also filmed like a year before Tony Richardson, the director, died. So by the time the movie comes out, the studio that made it is gone. The director who directed it is dead. And it was this real curiosity.

And I think that all probably contributed to this sense that this was a sort of a story. This Lang performance was a story. But like that performance swept that year. That won all the precursors. And like when you watch the performance had. you know that about it. It's like surely there was someone else. Surely there was someone else. Well, we've talked a ton about the 94 best actress list. I maintain the fact that if Jody Foster was not already a two-time Oscar winner, she would have probably won for Nell. Whether

some people would have also thought that a pretty over-the-top best actress win is another story. We definitely talked about this our River Wild episode. Probably, because I think Merrill should have been nominated for the River Wild. Winona Ryder, by the way. also nominated in 94 for little women. Probably who I would pick to win. A better performance than the one that won, for sure. Yeah, it's a real... That's also the year that Linda Fiorentino is not eligible

for the last seduction because it aired on HBO before it made it into theaters. So there's a lot of stuff about 94 Best Actress. Definitely, definitely. Orion, though, since the rebirth basically of United Artists and now the purchase by Amazon, it's going to be very interesting to see how they, how like Orion's identity kind of develops, especially after the Amazon of it all. Their two releases this year are going to be Till and Women Talking, which definitely kind of considering United Artists's slate. definitely looks like they're going to be using Orion as a focus features, as a searchlight, as a, what have you. They're more adult fair, their awards slate, et cetera.

All right. At some point, and let's just do it now, because I'm going to have to just sort of run through all of my favorite quotables from this movie. Because they really are just a lot. It's just a lot. Christina Ritchie, in her little bathrobe, sneaking red wine, and saying, hit me, Sergeant, when she wants another refill, is very funny to me. It's a thing my sisters and I will say to each other constantly. Christina Ritchie also, with the pumpkin atop her head, wandering into the kitchen,

barely able to lift her head off of the ground. And she just says, Rachel, flex. It's, she's so cute in this movie. Like, genuinely, Christina Ritchie is a doll. All of the Charlotte voiceover stuff where she's talking about, I may be pregnant with the next Jewish Italian Messiah, is very funny. All the stuff where she is in the doctor's office, once he does the exam on her, and he's like, come into my office. And he's basically trying to be like, why do you think you're pregnant? You are still a virgin.

and she's like, I just want to die. And all the stuff where she's telling herself to shut up, I think is very funny. The whole sequence of her going and basically running a ruse on that family that she runaways to and says that her name is Sal Val. Sal Val and her brother Al. She's out of her mind in that sequence and it's so funny. Like Winona is so incredibly, like she, it's that self-awareness. of this girl who knows that she's off the rails and cannot stop herself. And it's really very funny.

Lou painting, that hideous painting of Rachel as Cleopatra. She's like, if you paint me like them, I'll leave you or something like that. Well, and then he does, it's horrible. It's so bad. It's so bad. And yet, I will say, I want to live in that under the sea room he does for Katie, with the light, the sort of... Very cool kids' room. Oh, my God.

It looks so calming. It looks so incredibly, like, soothing to be able to just sleep under that. The sort of reflections in the light and whatever, it's so good. The scene in the shoe store at the beginning where she won't, she can't talk to the nuns, but all she's thinking is, like,

I desperately wanted to ask her what color her bra was and whether she has pure thoughts every single day. Meanwhile, Rachel's talking about, like, your feet swell, when you're pregnant. And she's like, Mother, how could you say that? She's a holy vessel.

It's just really, really good. When she meets Lou and he talks about, can you imagine trying to keep kosher in a place like wherever he said he was living in? And she just says, I can't imagine trying to keep kosher anywhere. Like, how do you make the phrase keeping kosher sound that flirty? Just like, only share knows. Genuinely only share knows. The scene of share angrily chopping up

What I believe is peanut brittle Or it may be rice crispy treats Just at any angle She does it Diagonally first Just seriously Just like chop chop chopping It's so

All of this I mean all the stuff with food is very funny The scene where They're having breakfast At Lou's house That very first time Where he's They've got an actual like

You know breakfast And all of a sudden He turns around and Katie's up on the counter and Rachel's behind the little island and Charlotte's sitting on the little stool nobody's sitting at the table and they all just sort of like turn and look at him

and it's that shot of the three of them together all sort of like you know that meme about how like gay guys can't sit normal it's like that but it's it's these three women and he's just like all the times he sort of like looks at them sort of bum-fuzzled it's very very funny

what else sorry i've written down like a bajillion things i do just i fucking love this movie so much um charlotte we're jewish at the very beginning is such a great sort of like scene setter and then she brings it back at the end where she says charlotte we're not greek um oh this doesn't have anything to do with the movie itself but sort of i read a interview in interview magazine in 2016 that Tavi Gevinson actually conducted with Winona Ryder. This I imagine was coinciding with early stranger things. And they sort of talked a lot about Winona's early career and whatever. She talked about how, I think the subject of Judy Garland came up at some point about sort of the perils of being a young star and how much the studio sort of preyed upon her. And Winona said

that at the time, her parents were very cautious of that. kind of thing. And they said at one point on the set of mermaids, they weren't there briefly for like a brief moment. And during that time, the producers gave Winona a B12 shot, which in the grand scheme of things is like not super dangerous. But she said her parents came back and found out and really kind of freaked out and were like really, really guarded. Someone tells you that it's a B-12 shot doesn't mean you know that it's a B-12 shot. And just the fact that there was,

this thing was undertaken without their overview and without their permission. And apparently they were just very protective of her in that way. I thought it was very interesting. It's a really interesting interview, actually, for as much as, like, the Tavi Gevinson of it all sort of like makes you roll your eyes a little bit.

But like she talks about how at the time all these sort of roles, she said she really, really, really wanted Heather's and she could tell that the casting people didn't think she was pretty enough. She said the people who were casting Heather's wanted to cast Jennifer Connelly. She talks about how she was constantly at the time losing out roles to Martha Plimpton. She mentions she lost out on mosquito coast and running on empty and Stanley and Iris all to Martha Plimpton. She was like, Martha was kicking my ass at the time.

And she's like very complimentary. She's like, she was incredible. What a great, you know, presence or whatever. But she's like, I basically just like, I couldn't get over on Martha the plimpton at that moment of my career um so check it out if you haven't um yeah i don't know it's a tremendous movie i love it very much it's very uh it's very dear to me this movie i will say don't understand why rachel would want to move away from the massachusetts coast i'm just like but look at where you are it's i believe the town of eastport is a fictional town but essentially it was filmed in rockport which um is a real town and northern Massachusetts, north-eastern coast of Massachusetts, up towards New Hampshire and Maine and that

kind of thing. And it looks, what a beautiful town. They're in this little sort of out-of-the-way house right by the water. And they've got this porch swing that like really keeps recurring and keeps recurring. It's... Can't be more than a two-hour drive from Provincetown. I mean, that's where you need to settle. Well, the thing about Provincetown, I mean, it's probably you'd probably be a lot closer by like boat um because the thing about provincetown is just like you have to drive if you're driving you're driving the whole length of the cape i did it so basically you're basically just sort of like tracing the entire coast of massachusetts to get from uh rockport to uh it's fabulous um i do love cape cod i've never been to

province town one of these years maybe anyway um what else did i mention god they're doing some kind of construction outside. If you were probably hearing on my side of the audio, just rebar being thrown hither and yon outside my window. So I don't know what that's about. Yeah, I don't know. I love it. I love this movie.

Very good movie. What was that? Throw me some things that you loved about this movie. I'm gushing too much. I mean, no. I mean, I think we covered a lot of it. This is a highly rewatchable movie. This is like a perfect Saturday morning movie.

The music's really fun. It's all very sort of like traditional, like songs you expect from this time, but like, I think it's all pretty well chosen. The recurrence of fever, the Peggy Lee fever, when Rachel sings it, and then later when Charlotte's trying to be like her mother, she sings it is very funny. We get some blame it on the Bossa Nova, which is a good time. had by all. It's good. It's an interesting, like, this early 60s thing, we talked about a little bit on a walk on the moon. That's sort of like, you know, late 60s, Woodstock era, milieu.

The early 60s thing is a really interesting moment in time because it was right before this cultural upheaval really started happening. But you are still, like, the Kennedy assassination looms large over this story. And that sort of, you get a little bit. of the sense of how much that affected people, how sort of the mood that that cast over everywhere in this movie. And it's an interesting time to set something, I will say. Right. And specifically, like, as a conscious choice, I guess. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Can we talk about the very, very last scene where they're dancing in the kitchen? Where they're just dancing, and you get that slow push in on... I mean, you feel a little bit like...

Like, Kate has been left out of it because it really ultimately is about Charlotte and Rachel. But they do get that scene, like, as that scene moves along, they're all sort of like setting the table or whatever, and they're all kind of like, you know, pitching in and doing their part or whatever. But it really becomes, you really feel like you're watching Sharon Winona Ryder just paling around by the end where they're like doing the dance moves in sync. they're doing the monkey and they're doing the head bob thing um and they're like tossing like cheese puffs into their mouth and whatever and it's so joyful i know the idea of the like mothers and daughters dancing around a kitchen thing has become sort of like a notorious trope that a lot of people kind of scoff at and sneer at even though it works on me almost every time like practical magic lime and the coconut i am in baby like you know what i mean i mean we it is

something we need to bring it back. I mean, like, it feels less crunchy in mermaids, and maybe it's because it's punctuating the end of the movie, and it's like that scene actually is serving a dramatic purpose, but, um, and it just leaves you on such a, it's a great note to go out on because it really does come, well, no, because they have the big, uh, fight scene where share slaps are. Also, classic share slap. Like, love a movie with like a full arm, like, snap out of its slaps. slap, right? That's what you need in your next trivia that you assemble is actors who have been slapped on screen by share. Well, so the sort of vaunted videology trivia that I used to go to

that gets mentioned a lot on various podcasts because it was so fun. And something that I, my own, when I write my own trivia, it aspires to. The bartender there, this sort of big, burly, gay bartender who I adored. I thought he was so nice. every once in a while, he didn't really participate in trivia, but every once in a while he would ask to write a video round. And it would be 20 slaps from movies shown in rapid succession. And you had to, like, write down as quickly as possible what you thought they were. And then that was it.

It was like 20 slaps. And you just have to get them or you have to get them in order? You had to get them in order. Like, you had to, like, before the round started, he's like, number your paper, one through 20. You're going to go through them. It wasn't like, you got like a second and a half. You know what I mean? You got like beat, beat, beat, whatever.

But it was 20 slaps right in a row. You had to write them down. And then it was like you got however many minutes to like deliberate. But like that was all you got. And it was so fun. I, I fucking loved every time they did that. It was a time. I know we're tired of talking about it,

but you know what's not going to be on the next year's Oscar ceremony in any month? Tosha's any slap. You will not see Cher saying snap out of it. RIP, RIP, that most beloved clip, you're never going to see it at the Oscars again. You're absolutely right. Anyone who is a cast member of the slap is not invited. Deborah Winger and Hathaway are forbidden from recreating their moment in Rachel getting married.

It's totally true. Yeah. Oh, wow, I didn't even think about that. of an era. Truly, end of an era. Snap out of it indeed. But yeah, so anyway, that scene happens. They have their big sort of finally they're able to talk to each other after this entire movie of like just absolute inability to communicate with each other. They finally do. And then you get that sort of flash ahead where it looks like they're moving away, but they're really going to visit Cooperstown. And things with Lou are going pretty okay. And Rachel

likes him a little bit more than she, you know, wants to let on. And it goes right from that to I heard that mom was going to make a main course tonight, says Katie. And then she comes out of the car and she like twirls around this new dress on a hanger that she has and they're like, and then it's the dancing scene in the kitchen and that's the end of the movie. It really just knows when to make a very winning exit. For a movie, it's almost two hours, which you could probably, I'm sure there are people who are like, that movie's too long. But, and I wouldn't disagree, even though I wouldn't trade anything of it. Like, what you would cut out of that movie is her going to the gynecologist because she thinks that she's pregnant.

Or you'd cut short the Connecticut excursion. You'd cut short the thing where she goes and sees the family, which I wouldn't trade. For anything. It's so funny. It's so incredibly funny. talk just like and it's also very revealing of her character where she really is talking about how I have a family with a mom and a dad and we play games and we're very traditional and we you know we have all these things that we do together all the time and she sounds unhinged but

she's also just sort of like spinning out this family she wishes she had and um it's also a really interesting story about a mom who moms her own way, but like really feels like she has the limitations of that, where she just doesn't know how to get through to Charlotte. And there are moments where you look at her and you're just like, just be a little bit less confrontational with her and she'll open up to you. And she can't do it because she's also a person with personality traits and limitations and foibles and whatnot. So, like, you can see where these women are sort of, you know, coming at odds with each other.

But it's a really interesting movie about, like, communication styles. Like, honestly, I took a lot of communication. I was a communication studies major in college. And so we would take classes in, like, comm theory and whatnot. And everyone would show us, like, clips from movies or maybe even entire movies about, like, that would illustrate concept of communication style. Like, you could really, really instruct somebody. Like, barriers in communication style from their relationship in this movie, because they are just at cross-purposes.

I don't know. I'm going to be like, Rachel is an ENFP. Basically, yeah. God, I never know what my mind. Her love language is words of affirmation. I don't, I'm always up a creek when people talk about that. They're Myers-Briggs and their whatnot. I don't remember.

I could take that quiz a hundred times and I would never walk away from it remembering what my letters are. But alas. All right, anything else before we jump into IMDB game? You know, the closest I have ever come to joining TikTok is when I found out from my friend Ryan that Cher is on TikTok.

And I don't think she's posted since then, but her introduction to TikTok is a video of her clearly doing, doing several trial runs of being like, hi, I'm on TikTok now, blah, blah, blah, blah. She does costume changes, outfit changes, and all these different versions of being like, hey, it's me, share on TikTok.

And like one time she just comes in, she's like, you know who I am. But now I'm on TikTok. It's wonderful. That's great. I love that. All right, why don't you tell our listeners what the IMDB game is?

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

Woo-hoo! We love a free-for-all of hints. All right, Chris, would you like to give first or guess first? How about I guess first? All right. So I mentioned that Winona Ryder interview where she talked to... about losing out on all of those roles in the mid-80s to Martha Plimpton. So, why don't you just do Martha Plimpton?

Martha. Yes. No television, no voiceover. 200 cigarettes. No, unfortunately, she's so good in that. Yeah. She is a version of a Clarissa Vaughn in that movie. Always throwing a party to cover the silence.

Um, she also talks shit about Love Story in that movie, which is a terrible movie, and she was right to do so. Allie McGraw, by the way, from Love Story, got the Golden Globe for a most promising newcomer for Goodbye Columbus, co-starring Richard Benjamin. Oh. Um, okay. Martha Plimpton's going to be hard. It's going to be a little hard. Yeah. Shy people. What's that? The Jill Claiburgs I need to see.

No. Because I love Jill Claiburg. What is it called? Shy people? I've never heard of it. No, it's not. Damn it. All right.

So two strikes right off of the bat. Your choices are 1985, 1986, 1989, and 1996. So no mass. Thank God. Running on empty. Do you not like mask? Wait, do you not like mask?

Mass. Oh, mass. Oh, mass. I was like, I don't remember her in Mask. Guess who was the first person to mention that movie in a year? Me. Yeah, you bring this on yourself, my friend. Nobody care.

So Mask, I'm guessing, is one of them. No, no, no, no, no, no. I was going to say, is she in Mask and Mask? No, I just thought that's what you were saying. Running on Empty, though. No, again, you would think so, but no. Wow, okay, the Goonies. I should have said the Goonies right off.

You should have said the Goonies right over. Yes. I only have one. And I'm running out of Martha Blumpton movies that I know. One of them was one of those movies that Winona mentioned. She lost out to Martha four. Which one of them was running on empty. I forget the other two now.

Starring a major star, especially a major star of the 80s. Mosquito Coast. Mosquito Coast with Harrison Ford. Also Peter Weir. Also a Peter Weir movie. Yep. Yeah. Okay.

So I need two more. They're both from the 80s. One of them she plays daughter to an actress who was an Oscar nominated for the role. Oh, no, it's Parenthood. It's Diane Least. Exactly. Parenthood, correct. So you're missing 1996. It's an ensemble movie. Ensemble indie comedy. I really loved it. It is endlessly problematic. I imagine we- Beautiful girls? It is beautiful girls.

Yes. Problematic fave of mine, beautiful girls. I've not rewatched it in full. It is full of a lot of objectionable characters. It has both Michael Rappaport and Matt Dillon. And also Timothy Hutton, who is romancing kind of Natalie Portman, who is canonically 14 in that movie. And yet, it was a very very... early indie

fave of mine that I really that shot you and I will say a lot of that movie is a critique of those behaviors. Whether a movie needed to be made to sort of like kindly critique

those behaviors is you know you could as a matter for debate but like Ouma's really good in that movie fucking who Mir Sorvino is actually on that movie and then the big Rosie O'Donnell

angry monologue where she talks about like you know you guys are obsessed with models and whatnot and you need to get your shit together and whatnot is still incredible and I will go and watch that still on its own because I think she's just a tidal wave in that scene I don't know beautiful girls problematic faith

good job with Martha Plimpton Fantastic. So for you, I chose somebody who we could discuss not only from the Oscars that year in the category that Winona Ryder could have placed, but also the Yoga Awards, where you said that Cher was named worst for an actress. This just seems, I need to understand where they were coming from because it just seems mean. The winner of worst foreign casting was Diane Ladys. shared with Wild at Heart and Rambling Rose. Oh, wow. Her two Oscar nominations. Worst for in casting. Are you saying you don't want Diane Ladd to be gainfully employed? Yeah, that seems petty.

That seems real petty. Did people think she was miscast in things? I don't understand. Anyway, for you, I have Diane Ladd. Okay. Well. Mermaids, but with Laura Dern and Diane Ladd. I mean, honestly, like, do it, but do it now.

Have Laura Dern play 14 years old or 15 years old now. I'm going to guess Alice doesn't live here anymore. The incredible Alice doesn't live here anymore. She's also Oscar nominated for that, right? She's got three Oscar nominations. Correct. Yes. I love that Oscar nomination, too, because it's like, that's the type of performance and the type of character that we're like, at the end of the year,

doesn't get, like, any type of awards recognition. and we're like, you know who is actually incredible. Diane Ladd and Alice doesn't live here anymore. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. That movie makes me cry. I love that movie so much.

I'm going to say it's not both Wild at Heart and Rambling Rose, but I'm going to say Wild at Heart. Wild at Heart, correct. Okay. No television. No television. So no Enlightened. No television. She's so good on that show.

Speaking of stuff she's in with Laura Darn. Okay. Diane Ladd. She's in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, which is a hugely popular movie, but it's a very small role. She walks into that movie and asks Johnny Galecki, who's playing her grandson,

to rub her bunions on her foot, and she'll give him a quarter for it. I will say a lot of the cutaways to Diane Ladd in that movie are very funny. We don't kind of talk. about how both not very good and also like maybe toxic that movie is but I will still watch it every year I love it and like every time I watch it there's a new cutaway to Diane Ladd that I'm like no one talks about Diane Ladd in this movie but Beverly DiAngelo furiously smoking in

that movie is tremendously funny um I know we listen nobody loves Chevy Chase what I love about that movie is that John Hughes or not Chris Chris Chris Columbus was supposed to direct that movie, Chevy Chase was such an asshole to him that they took him off of that movie. And John Hughes was like, here, I have this other movie that you might want to direct instead. How about Home Alone? And I was like, okay, don't threaten me with a lucrative multi-billion dollar career. Like, all right, thank you. Okay, so I've got two for Diane Ladd. Yes, and no wrong guesses. Well, I'm just going to say Rambling Rose then. I don't know. If I get a wrong guess, I get a wrong guess.

Incorrect. Okay. I'm going to guess Christmas vacation. Incorrect. Okay. So your years are 1974 and 2015, so big gap. Yeah. Is she in...

Oh, she's in Joy, right? Joy. Joy. She's Grandma, right? She's Joy's Grandma. Okay. Yes. Ninety-four, people definitely don't really talk about her in relationship to this movie.

Best Picture nominee. The Conversation? No. Chinatown? Chinatown. I don't remember her in Chinatown. She's in Chinatown. Good for her.

I haven't seen Chinatown in a very long time, but I don't remember her in Chinatown. That's on me. That's not on Diane. That's on me. I mean, like, I can visualize her in the movie, but I can't, like, tell you how much of the movie that she is in. It could quite possibly be, like, an early scene early in the movie. When people think of Chinatown, they think of Forget a Jenkins Chinatown. She's my daughter. She's my sister.

She's my daughter and my sister. You know, that's what people think about all the time. Yeah, yeah. All right. All right. Good week. Great episode. Won't be the same for our listeners, but happy birthday to you, my darling.

thank you another year almost I'm just going to keep turning 39 forever is what I'm going to keep doing that it's going to keep doing that it's going to be fun all right

yeah thank you love you mermaids okay that is our episode listeners if you would like more this had Oscar buzz you can and should check out the Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz.tumlr.com you should also follow our Twitter account

ad had underscore Oscar underscore buzz Chris where can the listeners find you and your stuff You can find me on Twitter and Letterbox at Krispy File. That's F-E-I-L. Yeah. I'm just realizing now that this episode comes out while we are in Toronto. So that'll be fun and interesting.

We will be living it up back in our old Toronto. Is it the episode after this or after our next one that is our TIF episode? It'll be the one after this one. Yes. So coming up next week, then, get ready for our TIF special. if that is not ultimately correct I will cut that part out of this but I believe that's right

I believe it comes out yeah because we'll have an episode right after the festival is done so look forward to that I am on Twitter and letterboxed as well at Joe Reed Reed spelled R EID

we would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Mievous for their technical guidance please remember to rate like and review us on Spotify Apple Podcasts Google Play Stitcher wherever else you get

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