This Had Oscar Buzz - 219 – Always

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

As The Fabelmans is welcomed into theatres and Spielberg nostalgia is about to come back into conversation, we naturally are here to talk about one of his least discussed films: 1989′s Always. Based on the 1943 Victor Fleming film A Guy Named Joe, Always follows an aerial firefighter played by Richard Dreyfuss who dies saving his friend (John Goodman) in a mission, … Continue reading "219 – Always"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. No, I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hacks. I'm from Canada. I'm from Canada water. They Ask me how I knew

How did I get out of that one? You didn't get out, Pete? Well, you're either I'm dead or I'm crazy. You're not crazy, Pete. I'm dead. That's right. He was up in that flame doing his stone's stud.

Now now I'm supposed to give inspiration to some flyer. Here's your boy. I think we're both making a big mistake. They hear you inside their own minds, so that it were their thoughts. Give them a chance out! Okay, kid, you got a chance.

Don't screw it up. I'm gonna like this job. Hello, and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that shot a pilot. 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 am your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with my angel of death, but make it an actress, Joe Reed. My name is hap. I am the most intuitively hap-looking person you've ever seen. I personally, Joe Reed, look far more like a hap than Audrey Hepburn. It's just endlessly funny to me that that's what you would call. And I know that, like, originally it was supposed to be maybe somebody else.

Shoot, I was looking at the trivia earlier, and I know Redford and Paul Newman were originally in contention for one of them being Pete and one of them being Ted, and they both wanted to be Pete. So the story goes. Both wanted to be Pete. They couldn't agree on it, and so they both were out. Um, but who was originally... I mean, I think if either of them were the lead role, it would solve a lot of this movie's problems. Sure. We'll talk about it because I came around on this movie by the end of it, somewhat surprisingly.

I did too. Okay, I'm glad. We'll talk about it. Okay, so... Wait, just to complete my thought, though, it was Sean Connery, who was originally supposed to, uh, intended to play the Audrey Hepburn role, who fits more into a Hap situation than Audrey Hepburn, although I'm glad because we got Audrey Hepburn. Hepburn because obviously her final role, it's in a Spielberg movie, it's not in what it's better

remembered words. She's just in, the other tidbit that I saw was that she had to be carried on a stretcher to the set. No, no, that's what I thought too, because they couldn't, didn't want to get ash or soot or anything on her white. She's in such gleaming perfect white that they didn't want basically anthropomorphized cashmere in this movie she's yes she's in what she has two scenes in the movie

yes she gets special appearance by credit bring that back yes yeah she also donated her entire salary to UNICEF per I and give you trivia which she was

so well known for being a UNICEF ambassador yeah just talked about her being a UNICEF ambassador on Kevin friend and former guest Kevin Jacob Gibson's podcast and The Runner Up is talking about the 1959 best actress race when she was nominated

for a nun's story or the nun's story. Very good. Not just one nun. She was the nun. Yes. Listeners, go back and listen to that. I'm also talking about suddenly last summer. I know you want to hear that.

That reminds me of the Margaret Cho joke from one of her specials about how her mom would ask, she'd bring her gay friends over and she would ask, she'd be like, Scott called, is he the gay? and she's like, well, God, Mom, I don't know if he's the gay doing the entire parade all by himself. It's a good joke. I love Margaret's Joe. Okay.

Always. Back to always, though. This is a very intriguing pick. It's one of our older movies that we've done. We don't dip into the 80s too terribly often because it's sort of outside our frame of reference. But this was a Spielberg movie. It opened right around Christmas. it opened, I think it's, I looked, I watched, as I tend to do sometimes with the movies of this time period, I watched the Siskel and Ebert that it did, and it was the same Siskel and Ebert as born on the 4th of July. So, um, that sort of orientes you as to where it was on the calendar. It's the rare.

Back to the Future 2 was in theaters. Um, what, what else did I see was opening at this Christmas window? It's like, you can kind of see why always would have gotten gobbled up oh Christmas vacation War of the Roses which I would love for us to talk about sometime Yes

Wait let me find what else was on that Siskel and Ebert because it was A really interesting one Oh Tango and Cash is the other one I was thinking of Yes Tango and Cash born on the 4th of July Always we used to be a country The rare

Spielberg flop, mostly because like in the sort of the annals of his filmography there are certain ones that are sort of decided upon by everybody that were the failures to some degree. 1941 is one of them. The terminal

is one of them. The BFG is sort of emerging as one of them and... There's very few movies, which like we talked about in our terminal episode, very few movies, even the ones that weren't successful, very few Spielberg movies that receive zero Oscar

nominations. This one is kind of I guess I get it. It's also, I mean, we're going to get into it. It's also the same year as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. So it's like, there's the whole like two first Spielberg Oscar years.

He's kind of, even though he is, it's interesting that his reputation had been so sort of set by this point as the sort of big adventure spectacle guy, even though the color purple was only four years before this. But the color purple was also its own, you know, genre of discussion.

And that almost feels like separate from everything else that he did because so much of that discussion was about, was he the right person to make this and all this sort of stuff. Which probably led to him not being nominated for Best Director that year. Right. But we're also talking about a period for Spielberg, too. If you exclude his Thalberg Award, that Spielberg still. doesn't have an Oscar, too, and, like, Spielberg's early Oscar history is kind of, like, not fraud.

Fraud makes it sound like, you know, there's more than just petty Oscar drama. But, like, back and forth of not getting Best Picture or Best Director nominations, there's, of course, the famous video of, they gave it to Fellini, like, you know, during the Jaws year. I was looking up lone director stats recently, and he, every time, specifically. Spielberg has been loan-directed. It's been for, like, when he wasn't nominated for the color purple, we just mentioned, the lone director that year was Kurosawa.

You know what I mean? It was just like, and I think one time it was Bergman, too, when he was loan-directed out for, what would it have been? It would have been... Um... I'm trying to think of now. Because close encounters, he did get the nomination, right? Yes, but it was not nominated for Best Picture.

Right. Raiders, he's nominated for best director. Yes, and same for E.T. Then color purple, it's 85, which is, like I mentioned, Kurosawa for Ron. So then he's only been lone directored out twice then, and I guess, but it's just interesting that it's Fulini and Kurosawa, you know what I mean? Especially knowing Spielberg as, like, the, you know, student of film history, which... Well, and you get later in the years because he wasn't nominated for director for Warhorse, right? But then you get into, like, the top 10 years, it's so, it's so hard to decide to figure out what counts as a snub there.

Like, you know what I mean? Warhorse was never really considered one of the top five of that class. But we're getting into interpretation, even though, as I have said before and said again on our text chat this week, Warhorse should have won best picture that year given the competition. And that's all there is to it. But interesting, though, sort of bringing it into the sort of the old masters and whatnot. A lot of his inspiration for making always was he was so enamored of the original film, which was, sorry, I wrote this down. A guy named Joe, what is it? A guy named Joe, 1944, directed by Victor Fleming, written by Dalton Trumbo.

This was a perhaps a bathtub special, we don't know. Screenplay nominee at the Oscars. Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunn. I watched the trailer for it. Lionel Barrymore is in it, and it really underlines the fact that I cannot see Lionel Barrymore in anything without,

it's just like, it's just Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life. I'm very sorry. I am, oh gosh, wow, that's weird. When I said Lionel Barrymore, literally the program that I have

from my grandfather's memorial service in 2013, like fell down. Like, I don't know what that's about at all. Oh. But anyway. We have a secret guest on this episode. It's your grandfather. My grandpa. Maybe he was a big

Lionel Barrymore fan. Who knows? Maybe he liked a guy named Joe. He has strong opinions about always. The tagline for a guy named Joe by the way. I had to write it down. Because like I said, I watched the trailer. The story of a guy, a gal, and a pal. Which I've seen that pornography.

So like, listen. You can't talk about that and phone up your grandfather. Forgive me. But the story goes, that like Spielberg really loved this movie Dreyfus apparently really loved this movie saw it like 35 times. They talked about it on the set

of jaws a lot. They talked about it on the set of jaws. So much of like everything about Spielberg does feel like lore. That's why I always am just like as the story goes because like and maybe this is after seeing the Fableman's that I feel like this way too. Like everything that Spielberg has done or like the stories

of his career all feels like the kind of tall tales you tell about like Paul Bunyan or whatever like that. And, you know, I don't know. Who knows how... My feeling when I read that was like, okay, but how many other movies were they talking about on the set of Jaws? Like, it's not like they planned always on the set of Jaws. I'm sure there were like 50 other movies that they had in each other's lexicon that they were talking about.

The ties between the cast and obviously Spielberg of this movie is something I want to get into later, because how much they worked together again or didn't work together again, as it were, will be really interesting to talk about. I'm glad to hear you say that you came around on this movie by the end, too. This was a movie, I think I mentioned this. Oh, no, we're recording out of order. So I mentioned this on our Lost City of Zed episode will be next week. Spoiler.

Oh, well, listen. If you haven't figured it out by now, bonus for listening to this episode. it's next week's episode too looking at the timeline i wonder who might be joining us for this episode um but anyway i think i mentioned uh when we were talking uh with our guest for that episode that i had seen um always when i was young like i was probably 13 12 years old this might have been one of those the vhs that my aunt had when we would go and sleep over at my aunt's house um so i remember watching it had no frame of appreciation for it. I'm sure I found it terribly boring at the time. I really didn't retain a whole lot about it beyond the fact that it was airplanes

and Richard Dreyfus and Holly Hunter. And then watching it. And Richard Dreyfus is a ghost. Right. I don't even know if I retained that much of it. Like once I read the logline, I was like, right, right, right, he's a ghost. I also want to talk about that, like this era of I was going to say like this movie comes out like the year before ghost. And it's like, it's like Jerry Sucker or Jeff Sucker, whichever Jerry Sucker made Ghost Whoever was like,

what is this movie missing? Yes. Comic relief friend that knows he's a ghost. Yeah. But watching it again I started and I was like, I don't know, man. Like, I don't know if there's romance is working for me. I don't know

if it really kind of like meanders to like get to the point where it really starts to be the movie. that it's about and by the end of it I was like he doesn't die until like a half hour into the movie right by the end of it I'm really invested I really love Holly Hunter's performance in this movie and we'll get into that but like I find myself way more invested in her and Dreyfus together than I thought I was at the beginning part of the movie we'll talk about Ted Ted's his own sort of like I wanted to I one of the things that I

had forgotten to follow through with is I wanted to read more about that actor Brad Johnson because literally the top line of his Wikipedia bio is... He gets an introducing credit. American actor model, real estate agent, and Marlborough man which like that's a hell of a

I imagine... So wait, was he the Marlboro Man? He was... That's his claim to fame to getting this role. I imagine by he was the guy in the ads, the sort of the man in the Marlbroman ads.

One of them at least. So all I remember Marlbroman ads are were like pages in like Sports Illustrated or whatever. Yeah, a dude in Wrangler Jean, smoking in a cowboy. You couldn't advertise. I still don't think you can, obviously, cigarettes on television. I don't think you could even back when I was a kid. You could at some point, like Don Draper was making ads, you know, for someone at some point.

Eventually you couldn't put. cigarette ads and magazines anymore. Right. But that's what I at least remember the era of, and cigarette ads were everywhere in magazines. Joe Camel, the Marlborough Man, all those fabulous ladies with their Virginia Slims, all those sort of Newport's ads where it was like a woman in like a bathing suit or whatever with like a Newport or whatever, all of them. Listeners who are too young to remember cigarette ads and magazines, imagine like yogurt ads, you know, very lifestyle, look at this

hip woman living her life. Yes. They stole that essentially from cigarette ads. Cigarette ads were like, I have a great lifestyle, my life is so easy. Marlboro 100s, I remember, that was a brand that my grandma smoked were the Marlborough 100s, which were the sort of longer,

skinnier, sort of like the Virginia Slims of Marlboro, right? When I did smoke, when I was a very casual smoker, usually I would just sort of bum cigarettes off of people, but on like the rare occasions that I would buy, of cigarettes, I would buy Marlboro Lights. That was sort of my, like, I don't know

why, who the hell knows? But, yeah, the magazines would be, like, really, really sort of chockful. And you had your, again, like, the more female-centric ones were the Virginia Slims and the Newports and whatnot, and then your really masculine cigarette ads were, like, the Marlborough

Reds. And Winston cigarettes, I remember being a thing, which, like, had very sort of, like, stark. It was just, like, like logo stamped on a, you know, stamped in scarlet on a magazine page. They were everywhere, yeah. So good for Brad Johnson, which is also, like, Brad Johnson was the name of a quarterback who was like the blandest quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and won a Super Bowl.

So, like, truly, like, that name is giving me nothing. Quarterbacks are bland. Just, girl, give us nothing. We'll get into it, for sure. Yeah, we'll get it. Okay, we'll need to loop back here because that introducing credit. Um, always. Always.

I, okay, I can't really say that I think it's a great movie. No. But given its reputation, like nobody talks about this movie at all when talking about Spielberg. I feel like it's probably seen as his biggest failure ever. Oh, I think 1941 feels like the flop that stands out. That's certainly his biggest creative failure, I think, because it's like it's this pivot. Critics hated that. Like, they were really mad at that one.

He's not, he's, I mean, like, again, we'll get into it if we talk about the fablements, but, like, Spielberg is not bad at comedy. No. But, like, that is such a broad farcical comedy that, from my memory of it, I haven't seen it in years, doesn't work. But, like... The trailer, it looks like, it looks like Stripes. It looks like a John Landis movie. You know what I mean?

Like, yeah. I think always is safely the biggest non-entatement. within Spielberg's you know, filmography I think as far as like a financial failure and obviously Sugarland Express doesn't count. It's before Jaws. It's his lowest grossing

movie. But aside, ruling out Sugar Land Express, his lowest grossing movie is Empire of the Sun, which is like a movie I've gone to bat for a lot of people do. A lot of people go to the bat for that movie. But like that movie lives on basically in perpetuity on

HBO Max. Like it's like they take it away for a month and immediately bring it back. It's just like always there. And like I do think that's a good movie. It's kind of a flawed movie. People stick up for the terminal too. Like that one is mainly seen as a flop, but like there are definitely people who like will stick up for that movie and we'll

bring it up. Or like the terminal's a punchline for some people too. Right. Yeah. But like, yeah, no one talks about always at all. It's really, really glossed over. Yeah. Yeah.

It'll be interesting to talk about for that reason. This is, yeah, like I also want to. It definitely deserves more consideration than it's given, I will say. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I was surprised to glance over the letterbox logs for this movie, though, and see that people, like, who have seen it hate, hate it. Really? Like, I can understand pointing out its flaws and stuff, but, like, I don't know. I think, I don't know if it's worth that much ire.

I will say, I, it doesn't surprise me that from a 22 perspective, that, people perhaps like within our sort of circle of taste would look at that movie and just like really, really hate the Richard Dreyfus character. Like Richard Dreyfus has such like a reputation for being a difficult actor and he hasn't really worked in anything that would appeal to younger audiences in decades, right? And so that is an actor who then when you see this guy who's an abrasive character at times and certainly it's this very kind of older Hollywood type where he and

and Holly Hunter have this relationship where like he's a hot shot and she doesn't like it and he gives her shit and she gives him back and that kind of thing and that kind of we've kind of been conditioned out of appreciating that kind of movie and so with that character in the guise of Richard Dreyfus I can see people watching this and be like

fuck this guy I do not want to watch a movie about this character at all I don't care if he gets into heaven or whatever the fuck he's supposed to be doing like Audrey Hepburn can have him and you know

whatever so I ultimately think that there's kind of a more complex relationship going on in that love story than like it appears on the surface

like and again not we tend to do this but like not to jump ahead to the ending but like I almost feel like the note that we're left with on that relationship as he like

lets her go as a ghost and like delivers this whole old-fashioned monologue to her, that he's like, I don't know if you can hear me, but blah, blah, blah, blah. The impression that I think you're left with is that it's two people who loved each other, and he did love her, even though he was a bit of a bastard. But, like, the impression is they wouldn't have ultimately worked out, which I think is much more interesting for a movie like this, you know, that it's not like the great. the great love of your life visiting you as a ghost. But, like, to have somebody leave you in that way, when you were sort of in the throes of one of, like, the most passionate phase of a romance, which is, you imagine, like, they

were on the cusp of maybe getting married, she, you know, they had this really intense relationship that did all involve, you know, arguing, but also was, like, the spark was definitely really there in that relationship and to lose somebody at that height of the relationship, it makes sense that she would have such a hard time moving on from that. And so, that's

so much of what the movie is about. Also, speaking of the ending, now that you've opened that Pandora's box, and I, the Fableman's, by the time this movie comes out, this episode comes out, has the Fableman's opened? Limited release. Okay. So, but not everybody has seen the Fablelman's yet, so I don't want to, like, go too far into it.

But did you notice the last shot of the movie, and the way it related to the end of the fableman's. Yes, I did. And did you notice where things are positioned in the movie? And I was like, curious, interesting. In relation to this thread, exactly, I thought about in certain moments of always that I was like, horizons at the center. Okay, okay, okay, okay.

Right, right, right. I thought a lot, I, as I was watching it and I didn't realize, until after I went back. I was thinking about Kurasawa's dreams like specifically the Hepburn scenes but that actually

didn't come out until after this movie. And I think that's one of the Kurosawa's that Spielberg had a hand in like producing or like helping get made

so like maybe he was ripping off Kurosawa before he did. This was his revenge for that Ron nomination getting instead of a color purple. I'm excited to talk about this movie, though. Should we...

Let's get into it. Let's do the... Let's get into it. Listeners, Gary's, we are here talking about always directed by none other than Steve, Stephen Spielberg. Written by Jerry Belson, starring Richard Dreyfus, Holly Hunter, John Goodman, Audrey Hepburn,

Brad Johnson, Keith David, and none other than Mark Helgenberger. I did the full Leo pointing at the TV thing when she showed up. Yeah. Movie opened December 22nd of 198. I was a wee two and a half year old baby. Mark Halkenberger, this would have been,

she would have been on China Beach at the time, I feel like, right? Like, I feel like that show was still happening. China Beach was a television show that, like, that's what Dana Delaney has her two Emmy Awards for. It was about nurses in a unit in the Vietnam War, and it was like Dana Delaney and Mark Helgenberger, who else was in this? Hold on a second. I want to get, because I remember the cast being like,

That was one of those shows that I was too young to, like, watch it, but I think, like, my mom watched it at the very least. And it was pretty popular. It went for about maybe, like, four seasons. It did. I wonder if my mom watched it because my mom was born during the Vietnam War when my mom's family was stationed in Japan. Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah. Went from 1988 to 1991. So, yeah, Mark Haldgenberger was definitely on the show. Dana Delaney, Michael Boateman was on the show. Conchetta Tomey. who was, if you know, the mom from Don't Tell Mom, the Babysitter's Dead, among other things. She's sort of character actress. Chloe Webb was on that show from Nancy from Sid and Nancy.

Interesting, cast, interesting show. Like I said, Dana Delaney won two Emmys. When I did my little piece after Angela Lansbury died, sort of like talking about her Emmy history. And you talk about all of the, I think it was only, Like, I think, I can't remember the exact. I think it's like only five women beat Angela Lansbury for that Emmy. It was like a lot of them won, like Dana Delaney won two, Patricia Wedig from 30-something one two, um, Kathy Baker from Pickett Fences won three.

It was just like a lot of, you know, women winning multiples. And Dana Delaney was two of those. Anyway, yeah, Mark Helgemberger, lover. Always, Joseph, are you ready to give a 60-second plot description of always? are you always ready? I'm always ready. I stay ready. All right. Then your 60-second plot description for the motion picture always starts now. All right, Richard Dreyfus plays Pete, a hot shot pilot who works as an aerial firefighter, and Holly Hunter is Dorinda, his girlfriend and Air Traffic Controller. Their relationship is prickly, but deeply felt, and she really resents the chances he takes while flying. One day, Pete risks at all to save the life of his best friend Al, played by John Goodman, and Pete's plane explodes and he dies, welcomed into the afterlife by a luminous Audrey Hepburn, whose character's name is Hap, because Audrey Hepburn just looks like a hap. She sends him back as a ghost. essentially to help Ted an amiable loaf of bread

who is Pete's replacement in every sense of the word applying for Pete's old pilot job and cautiously beginning a romance with Derinda. 30 seconds. Pete's more enthusiastic about helping Ted with the former than the latter. Derinda and Ted get closer and Pete at first tries to keep them apart, but Hap reminds him that his purpose is to help Ted and also help Durinda move on. It's easier said than done, but when an especially dangerous forest fires,

he's Ted planning to embark upon the same kind of reckless rescue mission, Pete would have attempted. Derinda hops into a plane and flies into the blaze herself, with ghostly Pete guiding her. She saves a group of stranded firefighters, And then Pete finally says all the things he never said to her. And then after Durinda makes a water landing, she makes a choice to move on with her life, embracing Ted, while Pete walks off into the horizon in a way John Ford might have found a little bit boring.

That's always. It's always. Holly Hunter made it nice. Okay, we need to talk about this. This is the first time since Derinda Medley joined the cast of Real Housewives of New York City that I've seen a character named Durinda in a film or television. And it's literally all I could think of was just Sonia Morgan yelling, where's Derinda? You know, that's in the back of my head. Whenever Holly Hunter's not on screen in this show, I'm just yelling, where's Derinda?

An unusual name. I think it was also the name of the Irene Dunn character in a guy named Joe. That sounds quite possible. John Goodman asks her after Richard Reifest dies, how she's holding. up and she says not well bitch uh she tells him to close that holl and tunnel okay um yes god what a nightmare woman uh with a haunted house in the berkshires that uh she draws people to like a witch in the in the gingerbread house in the middle of uh in the middle of the woods just come did you see the new hellraiser i didn't i i only ever seen the new hellraiser is set in the

Berkshires. Is it really? It's about Derinda Medley. Yeah, yeah. It's Real Housewives' Ultimate Girls' trip. Is it the Berkshires? It's set somewhere that's like noted Real Housewives' location. So, I want to talk about Holly Hunter to start because I really love her in this movie, and I think this phase of Holly Hunter's career,

which, you know, late 80s, she gets the broadcast news nomination. She is such a fascinating screen presence. Just her energy on screen is so incredibly alive and peculiar and her sense of interacting

romantically or even like not like her relationship with John Goodman's character as just like Friends is really interesting. And she just makes Yeah, Holly Hunter's incapable of being less than interesting. Just totally fascinating. And I like it's not like she didn't work a lot.

She worked pretty steadily, but even I watched this and I was like, after that broadcast news nomination, like she's in a ton of different things. But the thing is, this is the least weird of them. That's so like, I feel like the through line almost begins with Raising Arizona, which is the same year as broadcast news. But like, that feels like tonally, obviously raising Arizona is a lot more heightened and a lot more absurd. but like there's not an inconsiderable amount of Ed from Raising Arizona in her character and always weirdly enough gets the best actress what's that they both have mullets broadcast news she gets the best actress nomination she loses to share I'm not going to complain about that but that was a best actress a year where you could have given that one

to multiple of the nominees and it would have been just and right like glen close and fatal attraction winning would have been perfect and Holly Hunter winning for broadcast news would have been great my winner um share winning for moonstruck i wouldn't trade for the world though and i'm glad that that happened um after broadcast news she's in a trio of movies in 1989 one of them is miss firecracker which i've never seen but i take it you have no oh okay i looked at the logline and i was like this movie called miss firecrack Thomas schlamy directed it Thomas shlamy who directed a bunch of especially early West Wing sort of was very instrumental in the look

and vibe of the West Wing, married to Christine Lottie, much more prolific as a television director than a film director, but that movie was also written by Beth Henley, who wrote the play, Crimes of the Heart,

that won the Pulitzer Prize. If you've seen Crimes of the Heart, I've only seen the movie. I've never seen that on stage, but it's some wild shit. Anyway, She's in a movie called Animal Behavior that I sent you the trailer of this morning because it just looks so odd. It's a romance between Karen Allen and Armand Asante, where she, where they both, they all work with chimpanzees to communicate with chimpanzees. And she's teaching them sign language and he's like playing the cello for them.

And Holly Hunter is like another character who is like teaching them friendship or something. Like, I don't know, man. It looks super weird, and I've never seen it, but it also looks like, there were just like, there were a lot of comedies back then that were just sort of like, you know, that existed. I don't know. I don't know how else to describe it. What was it in the 80s of us needing to, like, communicate or be animals? Because it's like it belongs in, like, the Paul Schrader cat people cinema universe. Well, and it's the next year after Gorillas in the Mist.

And so I wonder if they were like, Grillo's in the Mist, if that intrigued you about... What about a comedy, Grueless in the Mist? And then Always is the third movie she makes in 1989. Then in 1991, it's her next movie. She's back together with Richard Dreyfus in a movie called Once Around, a movie that both neither Siskel or Ebert liked always very much. They both actually kind of liked Once Around.

And it's like a January release, so it's only like 13 months after Always. And so it's Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus again, except in this one, he's playing a character. He in real life is like 11 years older than Holly Hunter, but like he's playing a character who's older than Holly Hunter. She plays a little bit younger. He plays a little bit older. Now all of a sudden his hair is white, and he's sort of this eccentric guy romancing Holly Hunter, and she's like the Nia Vardalos in my Big Fat Creek wedding, the older sister

who hasn't been, who hasn't gotten married. Isn't she the older sister in Big Fat Creek Wedding? Maybe she's not. Yes. No, she's the younger sister in that movie. I don't forget what I just said. Anyway. Yeah, because her older sister, her older perfect sister, Athena, has a bunch of children.

Anyway, though, this is an Italian-American family where, like, the dad is Danny Iiello, and the mom is Jenna Rollins, and the sister is Laura San Jacomo, and Holly Hunter is unmarried, and then she meets this weird, eccentric guy in the Caribbean, played by Richard Dreyfus, and none of the family likes him. And it's just this sort of like comedy of manners or whatever, directed by Lassa Hallstrom, who was sort of post My Life as a Dog, pre, um, I was there, I was going to say, was there anything before the Cider House rules that sort of indicated that sort of run of his?

Yeah, so anyway, just an interesting movie that I'd never really heard of until I was doing this research. And it was just interesting that they made a movie, they made two consecutive of movies together as a romantic couple. I did also send you the clip of when Holly Hunter won her Oscar, and they cut to a shot of Anna Pacquine in the audience, and you can see Richard Dreyfus, like, two rows behind her, seemingly, you know, happy for, uh, he's, he's, again, somebody with a reputation for not getting along with people on sets, so I didn't want to, like, read too much into it, but, no, it's interesting that they, you know, were romantic partners in films more than

once considering his reputation. And then she's not in anything after once around until her double Oscar nominated performances in 93 with the piano, which she wins for, and then the firm, which she is nominated for in supporting actress. And then I wrote, when I first started at The Atlantic Wire, I wrote an article about how we sort of, we being the American movie going public, but also like Hollywood, sort of failed Holly Hunter as a leading actress because after the piano she gets like she's the lead in copycat she's the lead in home for the holidays both really interesting movies that you should go and watch

crash the the the Cronenberg crash is you know what it is there was a ceiling on how mainstream that was ever going to be but like I'm really glad she made it but she's not like the lead of that movie no um living out loud is really the only lead role that she would get for kind of the rest of her career in film. Good movie, too. Very good movie. But like, she has a fantasy dance sequence. She wins the Academy Award in 1993, and then she has three lead roles for the rest of her career in Hollywood. And that's wild to me. And, like, it's just, and I remember one of the most, like, flattering things, she was interviewed for

something. I don't remember what it would have been. Maybe for the big sick. I think when she was making the rounds and doing interviews for the big sick. Someone brought up that interview, or that article that I wrote about how, you know, Hollywood failed Holly Hunter. And they were like, what do you think about that? And I was like, oh, God, please don't let her be offended by this or whatever. And she was just like, that's a really interesting question. You tell me.

And I was like, yeah, Holly Hunter, like, but it's just, it's this. And she was, okay, so like 2016, she's in an indie movie called Strange Weather. She is the lead of that. But in general, she is a supporting actress from then on, from Living Out Loudon. Jesus' Son, oh, brother, where art thou, Moonlight Mile, which we've talked about. Oscar nominated for 13, nearly Oscar nominated for The Big Sick. She's in sort of really indie movies, like Nine Lives. She's, of course, the voice of Helen Parr in The Incredibles, which she's fantastic in.

but like it's like movies plenty of television well she plays the senator in Batman versus Superman Dawn of Justice which we don't really need to talk about Exploding pee like Grandma's peach tea Yes

Does some television work She's Billy Jean King and when Billy beat Bobby She's in a TV movie in 2000 Called Harlan County War She's of course shows up in succession For a stretch as Ray a Jarrell and she had a main role opposite Ted Danson in a sitcom called Mr. Mayer that ran for, I want to say, two seasons a couple years ago. But I maintain that, like, for an actress who is as inherently fascinating and is as skilled and is as good as Holly Hunter is, like, to have...

A state is good, too. To have given her that few opportunities to be a lead in a movie feels criminal. like not to be too hyperbolic but like I don't know what do you think I mean maybe even if it's not for a lead performance I don't think that 13 nomination I think it's very conceivable that you know Oscar is not done with Holly Hunter

oh I agree with that but I just sort of mean as a as a indictment of Hollywood's interest or disinterest in actresses as they get older and you know I don't know I don't know like her contemporaries are you know at that point Meryl Streep and you know some like Glenn Close you know actresses who have ended up with more leading roles obviously Meryl's an outlier you can't really compare but like Glenn Close

Susan Sarandon like there are there are actresses who faced a lot of the same hurdles but I think we're still given probably more opportunities than Holly Hunter for whatever reason. No, I mean, I definitely agree with you. I think it's probably odd that she hasn't gotten, like, again, not to like temper, not to like offer the bummer solution to this, but like it is odd that like she hasn't had her, like, prestige limited series showcase. Yeah, she was a, you know. She was a feature performer in Top of the Lake, which is like a different, you know,

that's a sort of a different thing. That's obviously her back with Jane Campion and whatever. But, like, yeah, you're not wrong. But even that, I don't think, would solve my general dissatisfaction with, you know, three lead roles since the piano. It's just such a stark statistic. You know what I mean? One for each decade, basically, because the piano was 30 years ago.

Yeah. Yeah. She's tremendous in all ways. I just love her energy in it. She makes, once again, I am picked up a pen. The movie is better because she's there, and the movie's more interesting. because an actress like her is there. Tell me, tell me, tell me.

Oh, tell me, tell me. Hi, Chris. Good evening, Joseph. How are you? Afternoon, twilight hours. That's right. We are recording this at a different time than the rest of the podcast. We're taking a quick break from our episode on Always to talk to you for your weekly

Vulture Movies Fantasy League update, as we are going to be doing once a week through the Oscars. get ready. Listeners, did you know that Vulture is bringing back its Vulture Movies Fantasy League, and they let me, of all people, help design it? Scattered Oos. I was shocked as YOLA. Yeah, exactly. Monocles breaking everywhere across the nation.

If you're at all familiar with fantasy sports, the concept is very similar. If you're not, do not worry, it is very easy to grasp how it's all going to work. We've gathered a list of movies that will be released and assign them dollar values based on how well we think they will perform during awards season or perhaps at the box office if they are opening in the last, say, five or six weeks of the year. And if you want to play, you will have a budget of $100 fake dollars and put together your team of eight movies. So with a budget like that, there's some strategy.

You've got to take your shopping list out. You've got to supermarket sweep this shit, essentially, right? You've got to work some shit out. you'll take some expensive movies and some not as expensive movies. That's, as Angela Bassett might say, that's the job. That's the game. And speaking of Angela Bassett, we should talk about Wakanda Forever, which is our first kind of big landmark. Now in those pictures of theaters.

Now in theaters, our first sort of big landmark in the Fantasy League game, because this is going to be our first sort of big box office points bonanza. So hopefully... And if you haven't already signed up, you lost some points there, friend. when you listened to us talk about the Fantasy League last week, you took our advice. If you wanted to draft Wakanda, you drafted it nice and before the opening weekend, because by the time you're hearing this, it's going to be doing Snow Angels in all of that sweet, sweet box office money. So it'll be interesting to see what, obviously, all of the teams that opted for Black Panther and decided to go the, I'm going to go for the box office behemoth route, are all going to shoot to the top of the standings. And all these points. Fableman schlubs are going to be there with their, you know, with their pittons. Waiting out the season. Waiting out the season. Waiting for the Golden Globes and the Oscars and the sags and whatnot to start.

Not to get into, I don't want to, again, get into the specifics of what our teams are. We will reveal that once everything is locked. This game walks down on November 21st. If you have not picked a roster by that. Listeners, you can't steal our strategy. You're not allowed to do that. You've got to come up with your own. It's not like you found a survivor idol that's a steal a strategy, and you can just sort of ask us for it and take it.

You have to tell Tina, she can no longer use that strategy because you are using her strategy. So, but pick a team before November 21st because we want to be able to play with all of y'all. And so if one were to have picked Black Panther Wakanda forever, what are we sort of looking at in terms of long? long-standing possibilities, because you have seen this movie. I have not. Obviously, the box office is going to be there. But, like, once we get past that into awards season, where are you sort of thinking this is going to go?

It will be very interesting. It may actually, you know, have to kind of settle in with how people are thinking about it. I was surprised to see the amount of negative responses to the movie that I've seen, especially after having seen it. So, like, that being said, maybe best picture is not, is, looks like more wishful thinking, uh, from what we've had in the season so far. I wouldn't necessarily rule it out. I do think that there's plenty of nominations and the offing. I would be very, very surprised if Ruth Carter wasn't back, uh, and be a potential winner for costumes. Yeah. Um, obviously visual effects is on the table.

sound is on the table. I would imagine art direction, production design is on the table. Best original song, Rihanna. I know people don't like that song. I like the song, especially in the context of the movie. I like it. I think people are going to come around once they get over the fact that not every song can be an ass throw and bop, you know what I mean? And when people realize hold my hand is a terrible song. Okay, but I came around strongly on hold my hand, though. I have now become... I was out at a bar the other night, and it came on the jukebox, and I literally, like, my spirit sort of rose. Listen, it's Stephanie's worst single ever.

Whoa! Oh, I have to... I gotta figure there's something else that I can throw out there. There isn't. It's her worst single. No. I'm going to come back to this. We're going to return to this subject. I like the Rihanna Lollaby. That's what I'll say, and I would say that would be a great winner. Everybody's assuming it's going to be Gaga versus Rihanna versus Taylor Swift versus LCD sound system versus somebody. Probably not Diane Warren, even though she's getting the governor's award this year. She doesn't really have anything else on the horizon. So she's sitting this one out as an emeritus.

I hope all four of those artists get nominated because what a cool year for Best Original Song. It would be the coolest in like decades, kind of. I say this, having never heard the Taylor Swift song. Oh, same. Or seen the Crawdads. No. None of my business. What the Crawdads are singing about is none of my business.

Honestly. I will have to see it if Taylor gets nominated, but it is outside of my sphere of influence. But anyway, if you have picked Black Panther Wakanda forever, get ready to reap that points bonanza, and then, you know, cross your fingers that it shows up in enough awards categories through the season. There is that possibility because, like, those, there is. It's more than just the Oscars, folks. Like, you'll be getting Critics' Choice nominations in, you know, certain things. And who knows what the, you know, the Golden Globes and the Sags are going to do. So Angela Bassett.

I will say... What do we say about Angela Bassett? I would feel stronger for her being a possibility if she had one more scene. However, she does get the best scene in the movie. Yeah. And it's the one that I think... Is it the scene where she walks out of the palace? in Wakanda and snaps her fingers

because it's on fire behind her, is that she just dumps all of a submariner's clothes on the floor and lights them a blaze? Exactly, it is exactly that scene. It's in the post credits. No, it's the scene that really kind of got

people's attention and started this conversation, I think, when the trailer first dropped. Maybe I'm a dumb-dum and I didn't realize who her scene partner would be for that. a scene Don't tell me, because I don't think I

realized either. It came as a surprise to me, and it came as a really kind of satisfying surprise to have those two characters having the conversation. And you're not a Marvel person, so I'm not thinking it's like, now it intrigues me, who would be satisfying for you

in a Marvel movie to be like a scene partner? Okay. Well, just like it was kind of a surprise. The context in which, you know, Angela Bassett's big moment happens. It is really good. Is it Richard Schiff in character as Toby Ziegler from the West Wing? Is that what's going on?

Is that what's going on? Yes. Yes. It is not. Though she does share a scene with special guest star, Richard Schiff. Very good. The thing, okay, if she had one more scene, I would feel maybe more confident about it, but there does seem to be a lot of gas

in that engine. Well, and supporting actress is that, is betwixt in between right now, with Michelle having, having exited the category. And I do wonder if there is some overconfidence in the multiple women talking nominations that I think a lot of people are kind of taking for granted right now. So there's still room to maneuver. And, you know, maybe this isn't a movie that critics love as much as audiences do,

and this still, you know, becomes a big Oscar player. Sure. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. As soon as I think the Academy realizes they have not nominated Angela Bassett in 30 years, I think they are going to try to do something about that. Whether they do it in a superhero movie or not, remains to be seen. We always say this, though, and they don't always listen.

We always say you would think that they would feel some sort of urgency to nominate somebody they haven't nominated in quite a while, and they don't always listen to us. But perhaps they will. We're going to use our bully pulpit throughout the season. So anyway, listeners, you must select a team, as I said, by November 21st to participate. So if you're listening to this, as soon as it goes up, you've got a week to sign up. If you wait till the end of the week to listen to us, then you've got even less time. So get out there.

The movies will start scoring points as soon as you select them based on all sorts of factors that we mentioned. Precursor awards, Critics Prizes, the Independent Spirit Awards, the AARP, Movies for Grownups Awards, which we love very much. And, you know, at the end of the season, once Oscar night's done, if you're in first place, you might win a TCL 55-inch-5 series Smart Roku Television, or second place gets a stream bar and wireless-based bundle, which I don't have either one of those, and I would like those. I can't get those. I'm not eligible for prizes, as I keep my ever-minded people, but other people, you, someone out there, somebody, knowing that the $2 billion powerball ticket was bought at a gas station in Pasadena, California.

And, like, I have been in Pasadena, California really does make you think every once in a while. I'm just like, maybe everywhere I go I should just buy a lottery ticket just in case. You know what I mean? Just to sort of, like, cover my bases every time in a new city. Anyway, that was a stray thought that didn't really need it to be in this section. But you know what? Here it is. That's what we do here.

That is what we do here. We wander off the beaten path. Anyway, if you want to play, just go to moviegame.vulture.com. Thank you for sticking with us 10 minutes into this ad read, ad read, promotional segment before I mentioned the actual place you should go to sign up for the game. Moviegame.com. From there, you can click on a link to a landing page where you can get the complete rules and regulations and all of the movies and their prices, and then when you're ready, you can draft your team.

Once again, November 21st. don't wait too long and yeah we'll see you in the game all right chris should we go back and talk about always some more yes all right back to always there's something about the like emotional like ebbs and flows of this movie that like it's missing a cook in the kitchen or something like it never quite gets there but like the times that it does it kind of does basically on her shoulders. I think it maybe needs a more robust comedic energy or I think that's it because you wouldn't want to lose the idiosyncrasies of Hunter's performance.

And like there's a scene early on where they're in the little sort of like canteen area, right? Where like they're all, you know, having a drink and everybody's kind of around and he wants to give her this present and she's giving him shit. And they start sort of wisecracking at each other. and they start laughing in this really like matchy-matchy sort of like cackle at each other. They're making fun of each other's laugh. They're making fun of the way each other laughs in a way that feels almost like improvisational.

Like I wonder how much of that was even in the script. But there's so much energy to that, so much weird energy to that, that I was like, this is something. This is something I'm responding to. It's a weird energy, but it's not. Like, I like watching them together, but I don't actually root for their romance, particularly. Right. And, like, again, this is not to just, like, shit on the actor that we know as a, like, problem because it's trying to sound cool. But, like, I think the problem is Richard Dreyfus.

Like, you mentioned Redford as one of the potential, like, actors in that role. And, like, I think you put Robert Redford in that role, and it's a completely different movie. And I don't always love Robert Redford as an actor. But, like, those two in a relationship in this context in this movie, I'm absolutely rooting for it. I'm absolutely emotionally invested in it in a way that I'm really not in this one, like, their relationship together and his feelings for her particularly. The thing about Richard Dreyfus is, he's sort of, he has the Oscar for the Goodbye Girl in 1980, no, 70, 77. It's the same year as close encounters. And it's like, it kind of sucks because I think he's way.

better in close encounters yeah well i well i was going to make the observation that like he sort of comes to attention in jaws where he's a supporting character and has a lot of that kind of big not necessarily manic but like he's a he's an agitated character and a lot of and it's really successful i love him in jaws and close encounters very handsome i i owe a rewatch too because that's another movie where i i don't even think i've ever seen the whole thing the whole way through I saw it when I was way too young movie. And I want like and but it's it's encouraging to me that you say he's very successful as the lead role in that because I was sort of wondering like what the energy that Richard Dreyfus gives. I I always come back to a movie like what about Bob because I've watched that movie eight billion times and God we talked about this a little bit when you talked about in our Mermaids episode about Frank Oz and how he's sort of a cursed director who always ends up with these.

like problem situations and like to be on a set with Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfus who are both these like famously prickly difficult people who hated each other on set. Well and all the shit coming out about Bill Murray right now and like all of the what about Bob stories Richard Dreyfus is the one who like not that Richard Dreyfus didn't add to that situation but like Richard Dreyfus is the one who comes off well. Right. This is a lot. Right. But like so Richard Dreyfus in that movie, just talking about it as a movie, right, is the bad guy in that. He's the, sort of pompous and easily agitated, and his comedic energy in that movie is, for as much as Murray is the lead guy, like, Dreyfus is the one who I find so incredibly funny in that

movie, because he's so just absolutely driven absolutely up the wall by Murray's character. And part of me is like, maybe I was sort of imprinted with that movie early to the point where it's like maybe that's the Richard Dreyfus that I want, because I see him in something like always. And it's like, my inclination is not to be on your side here, buddy. Like, my inclination is to sort of sympathize with Holly Hunter's character when she's the most sort of frustrated by you and agitated by Hugh. And it takes a lot to get me invested in these sort of real deep feelings between you two. And again, I think by the end of the movie, like when, after she puts out the fire at the end of the movie and she's flying back, and he's sort of talking

to her and sort of saying all the things that he always, you know, should have said. It really works. And he's very good in that scene. And she's tremendous throughout the movie. But I think that's the moment where I was like, oh, this is affecting me more than I thought it would, given that I didn't think I really cared about this relationship. Interesting. I didn't feel the same way about that scene.

Yeah. But, like, I also don't think Dreyfus is necessarily a problem as an actor. I don't like emotionally invest in and that's why the problem is I think he's more so just like probably wrong for this part in the relationship your point about Redford is very well taken I think you're totally right about that he would I mean imagine Redford doing that monologue like not only would you be like crying but you would be like sliding off your chair right like you know bull snail situation um no but like Dreyfus is someone that I root for emotionally even though like he can play an asshole like close encounters mr holland's opus like the problem isn't that

you can't connect emotionally with that actor i think in the circumstances i just don't think he's right for it and like i don't know if i believe him as a love interest to holly hunter in a way that i would like a redford yeah i want to bring up his filmography for a second because where is he at this point in his career so he had just done... He is Bob Rumsfeld, and he is running for president. He had just done that movie Moon Over Parador, which is... I remember when this came up in the box office game, and the plot

of it was... It's essentially Dave, but in South America. The Kevin Klein movie, Dave. I had no idea. That doesn't sound problematic at all. That's a movie that existed as a VHS cover at Blockbuster, for You know what I mean? He's like hanging off of the moon and Sonia Bragha and it's sort of this like artist rendering or whatever. So that was 1988. So that was right before this.

And then right after this, he's in a small role, I believe. I think it's, well, he's built third in Rosencrantz and Guilden-Sernardad, which is, again, a movie that I saw before I should have, because I didn't really appreciate the references. and the comedy and all the stopper of it all. I owe that one a rewatch too. And then he's also in a supporting role on Postcards from the Edge, if you recall. He's the doctor who sort of falls for

Merrill Streep's character. Is that the only time he ever worked with Mike Nichols? Hmm. That's a good question. Maybe. I'm going through interesting. That very well could be. Yeah.

And then 1991, it's once around that movie with Holly Hunter that we were just talking about. What about Bob? 93, then he's into, like, Lost in Yonkers and another stakeout, which was a sequel to 1987's stakeout. And then, like, yeah, 95, he gets his other Oscar nomination for Mr. Holland's opus. And he's also Senator Bob Rumson, who's, like, thinly. Oh, did I call him Rumsfeld? You might have, but, like, that's, he's, he's that standing. He's the stand-in for every Bob Dole, Newt Gingrich, like, Clinton, Bill Clinton antagonist that existed in politics at the time.

And then after Mr. Holland's opus, like, he makes that awful movie Crippendor's Tribe with Jenna Elfman, which was not a great idea, I would have been. Secret Scientologist, Jenna Elfman. Secrets, not even secret. She's just out there. But, like, after that, he's basically, he'll show. show up in movies like Poseidon or as Dick Cheney and W. Boy, play on Bob Rumson and Dick Cheney in one's career. Like, that's a real, uh, that's a real, uh, full circle kind of a thing. Um, he showed up in book club in 2018 as, as, that's right, one of Candace Bergen's suitors.

That's right. And then that might have been the last time I've seen him in a movie. Perhaps. He was on television and a bunch of things. He was in that show, um, the education of Max Bickford that only lasted a season but it was notable for having Marsha Gay Harden right after she won her Oscar for Pollock so that was a TV show with two Oscar winners just in a regular

network TV drama he shows up on weeds for a few episodes playing Mary Louise Parker's I want to say father-in-law in weeds that was when they like the first season where they like ducked out to California to southern to the

border see the thing about weeds is you have to pretend that it ended after season three when they leave Agrestic, because that's when it tanks. There are moments after that. I watched that show to the end, and I do feel like it ended on an interesting note, but yes,

you're not wrong. Played Bernie Madoff in a mini-series called Madoff that aired on ABC. Him and Blithe and Daner. It sounds like Paramount Network. I know. and then he was on a Great British Bakeoff

Stand Up to Cancer Celebrity Charity Special That's interesting I didn't see that one I want to track that one down Speaking of Bakeoff How are you feeling about Bake Off this season I feel like Bake Off's going to be over By the time I was going to say

By the time it's come out Which is fine because I can talk about Eliminations without being So you've watched this week's episode Which was Custard I have I don't understand why it's controversial People really don't seem to like

Janush and I'm like, he's great. He just had a bad week. But he should have gone home for that bad week, is the thing. No, he shouldn't have. Kevin has never done that well. To send Kevin home after Prue is literally like, I can't wait to make that again. It was the best thing I've tasted in quite a while. Just because it was falling apart. After that ice cream challenge, we can't get on anybody's case for things falling apart, I believe. I think Yanush had a really, really... I think you can when it's a different challenge. I think Yanish should have gone home. That is my... That is bat shit to me. I know you have been... I know I have a massive crush on Janusz, but that's still crazy to me. No, he should have. To me, this is Shabira's season. If Shabira doesn't win, I'm going to be really, really sad. I love Shabira.

I love Maxi. I'm okay with Maxi. Maxi is like... Maxi's that traditional like Paul Hollywood crush object that like he sort of settles on every season, that I'm just like, whatever. She's so reliable, though. She's fine. I think Sandra's a little overrated

because he's so hot is the other thing I don't know if I agree with that I just think he's missed on I mean he did finally get it this week right? No, he finally got it No he's the storyline that like will Sandra ever win Starbaker It feels like the show wants us to be very invested in him winning Starbaker and I'm like I don't know if like

I am like he's had so much many weeks where they were like, your flavors are whack, like, at this point. And, like, what's going on? And he had a good week, except for, uh, something went wrong this week. I don't know. He had a pretty good week. He was the only person whose ice cream wasn't complete soup. And like, for as much as the technical even matters anymore. The technical is like runway and drag race where it's like, do they really judge, like, do they take this into account at all or is it just there as like window? I feel like they have for Shibira. Well, yes. Because it's been a component of her the first time she got Starbaker at least.

But if they took it into account this week, she wouldn't have won Starbaker because she was, like, last in technical. But like, it was Sandro and everybody else. Right. But I think if they took, but if they took technical seriously, then Sandra would have won Starbaker this week for Custard Week. Maybe. Anyway, justice for Kevin. I did this to myself because I did. You thought I was going to agree with you on the Janish thing, and I am not on your side.

Sorry. All right, where are we? Richard Dreyfus, I do want to track down that episode of Celebrity He better have been nice to them, by the way. Well, that's what I want to see. I'm very curious. All right, now I'm looking at Richard Dreyfus Awards

and nominations. He was, obviously, two Academy Award nominations, one win and one nomination, was a Golden Globe nominee for supporting actor for Nuts, a Barbara Streisand movie that we've talked about before. Previous episode. He was a Razzie nominee for Worst Actor for The Competition in 1980, which is him and

Amy Irving, where he is... Speaking of Spielberg. He's a gifted pianist, and she's, I imagine, his love interest. So the poster, all right, it's one of those posters with like a paragraph worth of text, so I'm just going to read it. He has been working for this moment his entire life. This is his last chance. for her, this could be the beginning.

And it would be the perfect love story if it weren't for Elypsis, the competition. So I imagine they are in competition with each other. All right. Razzie nomination for that. SAG nomination for a television movie called

the day Reagan was shot where he plays Alexander Haig. Okay. Which I imagine that if he's the lead of that, that's sort of like, what's going on when Reagan is maybe dead and Alexander Hague is essentially running the government, which we was dramatized in an episode of the Americans, I believe, that one time. He did get, or always did get a Saturn nomination. I feel like that was one of its

few accolades. Was it two years after the movie came out? Like the last time we talked about the Saturn Awards? Maybe. What was the Saturn nomination? It wasn't for a Dreyfell. I'll say that. It was for, God, IMDB, your entire layout makes me sad.

Everything's where it shouldn't be. Best Fantasy film nominated and Best Writing for Jerry Belson. I want to get to Jerry Belson in a second, too. Best Fantasy film in the year of 1989 was won by, all right,

here's where we're going to get into. Was it back to the future, too? No, I'll read off all the other nominations. There's like 10 of them. right? Batman, Dick Tracy, Field of Dreams. So this spans 89 and 90 stuff. Gremlin's to the new batch. Indiana Jones in The Last Crusade, the other Spielberg, 1989 movie.

We'll get into Spielberg two for us in a second, too. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, notorious now for Sarah Polly, right? That was the movie. That was the Terry Gilliam movie where Sarah Polly had the really, really bad time. And Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, speaking of VHSs that I wore out as a child

I watched that movie so many times but the winner that year was Ghost which was a very... So yes this is split across calendar years. Yes Ghost was Best Picture nominee in 1990 made so much money a different

spin on a similar thing where the man in a relationship dies and he sticks around to sort of watch his beloved sort of struggle to put her life back together. Now, in Ghost, that also becomes wrapped up in finance crime and Tony Goldwyn and also, of course, as you mentioned, Odomay Brown, played by Whoopi Goldberg. But also, like, around this general time, also that movie Heart and Souls with Robert Johnny Jr., which is in 1993, where the, the,

the spirits of four dead people played by Kira Sedgwick Alphrey Woodard, Tom Seismore, and Charles Grotin, all sort of serve as guardian angels for little Robert Downey Jr. And then speaking of Robert Downey Jr., it's not ghosts, but I will say chances are, which I think is also 1989, which is the movie that

the song, After All by Cher and Peter Satera gets Oscar nominated for, one of my favorite share songs of all time. The plot of that movie, which I always have to remind myself, like, how creepy is this? It's pretty creepy. Robert Johnny Jr.

plays the reincarnated version of, like, Civil Shepard's husband dies in the 1960s. He is immediately reincarnated into a baby who grows up to be Robert Donny Jr., who then encounters he doesn't know he's the reincarnated version of anybody at this point. Encounters Mary Stewart Masterson, who is Sybil Shepard's kid with the guy. So, like, his reincarnated daughter, or reincarnated him had the daughter, right?

He doesn't know this, but then all of a sudden he goes to his mother and he's reminded. So then he starts to romance Sybil Shepard because he's her. reincarnated husband. But she is in this tentative, like, should I get in a relationship with Ryan O'Neill, who is the husband's longtime friend and he's been like there for her all this time. And so eventually he puts, he sort of match makes maybe Sybil Shepard and Ryan O'Neill together and then is gifted the gift of ignorance essentially and sort of, so then Robert Downey Jr. goes back to just thinking he's Robert Downey Jr., but, like, ends up with Mary Stewart Masterson at the end of this movie.

So we in the audience still have the awareness that he's having sex with his spiritual daughter. Where was Karina Longworth on this for erotic 80s? I ask you. I ask you. So that was also in the ether in 1989.

So it was really all happening back then. The 80s were fucked, man. These were crazy. Like, they just, like, there's some sort of degree of Hollywood hubris where it's just like if we give them a romance they'll go for it you know what I mean it's just like if we tell them

that this is the romance that they are supposed to root for they will root for it and it's like we have our limits good sirs so yeah what else did I say we would get back in oh Spielberg tufer's I want to talk about because uh yes this this is the first Spielberg twofer because it's the same year

as Last Crusade, which it's also the only Spielberg two-fer where they both aren't nominated for something. Last Crusade doesn't get anything? Glass Crusade has three Oscar nominations. Yes. Oh, so you're saying every year that there's a two-fer, they each... Only always. Yes. Of all of the two-fer Spielberg movies, always is the only one with zero Oscar-nombers. Lost World is nominated for visual effects, I guess? Yes, but maybe also sound. Interesting. So, right, 89.

Just visual effects. Last Crusade is the popular one, always is the quote-unquote failure. Then 93 is the, like, platonic ideal of the Spielberg double, where it's like the commercial success, Jurassic Park. It breaks records, probably, and was like a huge, huge deal. And then up at the end of the year comes Schindler's list, the awards, darling. He finally wins the Oscar. It's like, couldn't have gone better for Stephen Spielberg in 1993. 97 is like, it's literally like redo, but on a lower level, right?

The Lost World happens. It's less of a success. It's less of a good movie. People go to see it, but not to the degree of enthusiasm, still get some nominations. And then Amistad is the sort of wannabe Schindler's list sounds more cruel than I want to, but like it's going for the same kind of prestige niche that Schindler's list is going for and succeeds to a lesser degree. gets a nomination for Anthony Hopkins and supporting actor, but doesn't reach the heights of Schindler's list. Then the next double is 2002, Minority Report and Catch Me If You Can, which both seem to succeed around the same. That's like the closest, we're like, that's the double year where like they're the closest to each other. I feel like in relative levels of success, right? I mean, Catch Me If You Can does better with awards and such.

also gets that acting nomination for Christopher Walken. But, like, I don't know, history has maybe changed the point of view on this because you get a lot of people now, crazily, to me, saying, like, Minority Report is, like, their favorite Spielberg. I love Minority Report. I do. See, Minority Report does not do it for me. Oh, I think it's so good.

It has a higher, I would argue, it has a higher reputation now than it did at the time. Here's what I will say. Minority Report comes the next year after AI, and I remember at the time being, like, Minority report is so much better than AI. I don't think that anymore. Every time I see AI, it jumps up higher and higher for me on my Spielberg list. AI is incredible. But I still think minority reports really fantastic.

Also, top five handsome Colin Farrell performances. And like, that is maybe a list that needs to be made this year with the band's of Minasheran. But like... The list of people who need to work with Spielberg again, Colin Farrell at the top of my list. Well, Holly Hunter, too. Like, this is what I wanted to say that I didn't mention with the Hunter thing, he doesn't work with Holly Hunter again. And like, a lot of sort of misguided takes

will lead you down the path of Spielberg doesn't write movies for women. And, like, on a numbers level, that's kind of true. But I don't think I would paint Spielberg as like an anti-woman filmmaker. I mean, like, but does Spielberg make, if you look at the, all of it as a whole, Does Spielberg make movies for like humans? There's a lot of alien movies where the thrust is. Right. I wouldn't peg Spielberg as like a filmmaker for men either. You know what I mean?

Right. But. And even that is me being reductive. Right. And I don't, yeah, you don't, you want to avoid being reductive about that kind of thing. That being said, um, put Holly Hunter in a movie, Stephen. Like, please. The next Spielberg Toofer is 2005 where you get War of the World.

again, visual effects may be sound for that movie, but then it's also Munich, which Munich is like that season, the movie that's looming over the whole season, we knew that this movie, it was like the big, like, final movie back when there was like, is this movie going to get done in time type of movies in the holiday season, which you really don't see that much of anymore. And it gets five nominations is way better than the amount of, talk that I think that that movie gets. War of the Worlds in Munich, that double is like, once again, we talk about like the classic Spielberg double of financial success followed by Oscar play. That is like, if Lost World and Amistad were like that but worse, where the world's in Munich is like that but on drugs. Like, it's so, like, it's on like peyote or something like that, right? We're like, War of the Worlds is a weirder blockbuster than it gets credit for.

Plus, all the Tom Cruise, couch jumping stuff. It was very divisive at the time, too. don't think it's as good as people. Like, there are people who will ride for that movie. I like it a lot. I think there's a lot of problems with that movie. I think, I don't know, not to get into it. But, like, and then Munich, I like, but it's a weird movie for, like, for what it is.

Munich is a very, very dark movie. And maybe not everything works, but it's very, to me, very close to a Masterpiece. Interesting. The, like, cross-cutting of sex to violence is, remains very deeply strange. And kind of out of touch, not out of touch, like, incongruous with Spielberg's strengths, I would say. Like, I don't know if Spielberg's the guy who I want towing that line of sex and violence. You know what I mean? Like, he's maybe not the guy for that.

For a movie that, like, is never talked about for its actors, there's a handful of really tremendous performances in that movie. Um, visually, I think, you know, for this morally complex espionage thriller, there's a lot more going on visually than I think that movie gets credit for, um, Munich's great. Uh, and then the last one, 2011, Adventures of Tintin, which I remember so little about, like, it really doesn't exist in my memory at all. Remember when they were like, we're going to make four Tintin movies or something? Yeah, and it just, it doesn't really, connect with the public. I think it makes a decent amount of money. It's not like a flop financially, right? Or am I misremembering? It definitely did not make as much money as they wanted it to. I think it made like 75 million in the States.

And there's like some cool visual stuff in that. I remember like the finale of that movie being a lot of fun. Yeah. But it's just like it's an IP that nobody not a lot of people really cared about at least in the states and I don't yeah or it's like it's just an older property that the movie didn't do a great job of investing us in yeah for if we were unfamiliar and then Warhorse which as I said was the best best picture nominee of 2011 so there we go we again we were fighting in the thread I used to be a money ball voter I am probably now a tree of life voter listen on the long enough timeline People will just float to Malik, I guess. Listen, listen. You can't give me shit because I don't give Warhorse shit. You of course give War Horse shit.

You mean everybody. I don't like War Horse, but when we're talking in the context of that best picture lineup, which I said was the worst since the experience. That I won't disagree with. It is. Definitely floats towards the top of that list for me. Lords over all of them as the Lord Horse of War. War, yes. The thing about Warhorse, as I said in our text thread, which I, it's one of those

things, sometimes I'll say something, and I'm like, wait a second, I think that's true, because I can be as full of bullshit as anybody. There is something about War Horse that I feel like it's, now I'm going to sound like an asshole for saying it out loud, there is something about War Horse that to me feels like a reckoning with the kind of violence that saving Private Ryan succeed. it's very well in. Saving Private Ryan was so Ballyhooed for many things and I think it's a tremendous movie but for showing the horrors of that Normandy landing in all like not the unvarnished

violence and terror and horror of that and all the death and all the bodies on the beach and all the bullets sort of zipping through people's helmets and through the water and all of that. It's an incredibly violent scene. And I think War Horse, to me, feels like Spielberg reckoning with that a bit and being like, war is so horrific. And I've made this, you know, gotten, I've succeeded so well in depicting it. And now I almost want to turn the camera away from it. And it got a lot of criticism for that. Because there's an incredible amount of purpose to the way that violence of war is depicted in Saving Private Ryan, but because it was so, like, definitional, it completely

re-changed, like, it re-changed, not a word. It completely changed the, like, cinematic language of how violence and war would be depicted in a way that was used by all these other filmmakers, video game makers and such, with much less purpose. They were like, let's use that language, and it's cool, you know, like. And I think a lot of people sort of got on. Warhorse's case for the ways in which it would sort of step up to the line of something really horrific happening and either put the camera on Tom Hiddleston's

face or that shot where like the windmill sort of obscures a killing you know what I mean and to me it felt like well that to me felt very intentional which was almost Spielberg the like the caring patriarch you know what I mean sort of like turning our face away and being like, you know, this is too much to bear for these people. And so, you know, these horrors of war can be that there's a time to show these things and there's a time to show the act of, you know, the person who's watching it and the person who maybe shouldn't have to watch it. And listen, I love what Spielberg gets on as well. William Weiler shit. I'm not going to complain about that.

I just have other qualms with the movie. But, again, of that best picture lineup, I think it floats towards the top of a lot of... I'm sort of going through my always notes now. This movie gets a lot of mileage out of smoke. It's in your eyes, which feels a little on the nose to me in a movie about, like, you know, firefighters. Literal smoke.

But that is a song that is in a lot of movies, and a lot of TV shows that it gets a lot of high brow low brow movies it's interesting it's in so many things and you would think it wouldn't be then defined by any one movie and I was surprised how much watching this movie I'm like oh that song kind of belongs to 45 years for me now like every time I watch it it's kind of wholeheartedly robbed it from the rest of right like I hear that song and I immediately am thinking of Charlotte Rampling in 45 years and like it's it's surprising to me how indelible that is now. It also, apologies to you, Chris, delves into the Van Morrison of it all with the moment where they're dancing to Crazy Love, which not one of my favorite Van Morrison songs, but still very good. How can you have favorite Van Morrison songs? They're all the fucking same.

Interesting, because, like, Spielberg doesn't use pop music all that much. I was kind of struck by that that he could use some singular piece of music in a way I mean like a lot of his movies like musically rely on like the scores of John Williams and such I feel like there might be a pop song or two

in the Fableman's. No this is John Williams something else that I was thinking of was a Horner score this is of course John Williams because everything is John Williams. Yeah this is John Williams. You were thinking of what in the Fablemans?

I think there's I think there's like a pop song cue or two I think you're right. I can't wait to watch that. It's rare that, like, a famous piece of pop music is in a Spielberg movie, and, like, spotlighted in the way that it is in this. What else do I want? There was one line of dialogue that I wrote down. Holly Hunter's line readings in this movie are really fantastic, but she's talking about, I think she's talking to Goodman about the TED character, and she says,

I can't be with a guy who looks like I want him in a raffle. which is just a really good one. Okay, we got to talk a little bit about Ted. Okay. The most... I have never seen an introducing screen credit for such a milk toast performance. Like, not...

I mean, I get that the Marlboro Man... You bringing up that he was a Marlboro Man makes total sense why he would have gotten an introducing credit. Speaking of lines from Angels in America, by the way. I was going to say that as well. Excellent punchline. A maroamine, incredibly

enigmatic piece of pop culture that people were very drawn to. Not a screen present. The man just... He's a loaf of bread, like I said, in the plot description. He really is. He's just sort of reliable and, you know... Why does that have to be the character, too?

Like, make her fall in love with John Goodman. Like... Yes. The movie needs more John Goodman as it is. Okay. Like, John Goodman kind of cuts out of... of the movie at a certain point when it's like you want him to be there like you you put in a section in the notes that I want to visit about uh John Goodman has never been nominated for an

Oscar how close do we think he's ever come because it's aside from Barton Fink like I don't think it's ever so there was a point during the his run of being in a bunch of best picture nominees or best picture Jason movies where he's in the artist he's in Argo he's in inside Lewin Davis, which isn't a Best Picture nominee, but was in that conversation. He's in flight, which, uh, ditto. Extremely loud and incredibly close. It felt like there was a

sentiment around that time that if they could just latch on to one thing, it's surprising, okay, here's where I'm going to say. It's surprising to me that Alan Arkin nomination for Argo, which I guess it's a Halo nomination. He had recently

won for Little Miss Sunshine. It makes sense that the Oscar voters who loved him so much in that would still gravitate to, you know, a performance that, like, literally says the one thing about that movie that everybody was, like, the catchphrase from that movie that would endure throughout that Oscar season with our go fuck yourself. But looking back, you're like, why couldn't that nomination have just been to John Goodman? They both are, they're doing kind of the same thing in that movie.

Right. Well, because Alan Arkin has the catchphrase. And I think that's true. But I think if you, it's one of those things where if you look back, I don't think John Goodman needed an Oscar nomination for Argo, but like to give him an Academy Award nomination at some point, that would have felt like the place to do it. I wrote down three roles that I would have had, I would have, if not nominated him for it, like would have been close to a nomination for me. Are they all Cohen's? Two of them are. One of them is Barton Fink, which I think he's genuinely incredible and is terrifying.

And just a, if that performance comes later in his career and later in the Cohen's career, that's maybe a nominee. I also feel like he's so fucking funny in the big Lobowski. And I get that, like, Lobowski was the come-down movie after Fargo. it's a lot more of a broad comedy so Hollywood was basically like oh this isn't the Coens in the register that we nominated

them for will maybe take a pass on this and like the reviews were kind of mixed for Lubowski even though it's become such like a fan favorite of theirs but I think regardless of all of that I think Goodman specifically is just tremendous

in that movie and it's funny maybe the best performance in the movie I think it is the best performance in the movie and one of my favorites in his career. And then the third one, which was never going to happen, but I think he's great. And I think a lot of people have said this, too, is 10 Cloverfield Lane. He's so terrifying in that movie. He's so good. I mean, on a certain level, he makes the movie work as well as it does, too, because if you don't question him and his motives throughout the whole movie, the movie kind of falls apart. um without that performance i think or at least calibrating that performance in the way that

goodman does it's the the kind of shitty thing about it is that like this whole kind of trajectory because you could you could have seen it for a few years because he's in all of these awardsy movies and it's like somebody's going to give him the role that's just like gonna happen for him because i do actually think he's one of those actors that the first time he's nominated he's winning Like a Regina King or like that kind of a thing. Exactly, exactly. That, but like, ever since the fucking Connors, man, like, that show, I believe is still running. Yes, it is.

Yeah. We love gainful employment for. I will say. And there's the righteous gemstones, too, which I don't. I know people who still watch the Connors. And I believe them when they say that, like, it's doing some really interesting things in terms of a working-class family, dramatizing, like, working-class concerns. And now that Roseanne isn't on it, it doesn't have that taint of, you know, who are we carrying water for, like, you know, trumpists and whatever. and it's just, it's depicting a level of economic reality that doesn't exist on most of television.

And I agree with that every single time I try to dip into the Connors, it's so, the bleakness really, really throws me. It's just like, it's an incredibly bleak sitcom. And I think for better or for worse, I watch that. And I think of how funny I thought the original 1990s version of the show was. was with Roseanne for all of her awfulness. Like back then, like that show was really funny and she was a really big part of that. And it's hard for me to sort of then go into this show that is just like, you know, it's really grim. It's really bleak.

And I can't quite do it. It's just not for me. It's just not going to be. He doesn't have any movies on his IMDB in the works right now. It's a bummer, man. He's doing voice work on Monsters at Work on Disney Plus and he's doing the con. and he's doing the righteous gemstones. And, like, yeah, nothing yet, nothing at the moment.

Give us a remake of, like, you can't take it with you or something. Give us something. Yes, yeah. Like, we need John Goodman's Oscar. Briefly, I want to talk about screenwriter Jerry Belson, who is credited with the script. There's uncredited rewrites by Diane Thomas, who wrote, romancing the stone

but anyway Jerry Belson which sounds like the name of like literally if you said that was the Eli Wallach character in the holiday I would believe you but co-created the Tracy Elman show with James L. Brooks

and some other people was a writer for the Dick Van Dyke show part of me feels like when I read that part about him is the writer for the Dick Van Dyke show I'm just imagining like Jake Lacey's character and being the Ricardo's, you know what I mean? Like that kind of a thing, where it's just sort of like this, like, young, sort of young punk writer.

No, ma'am. Shut up about that movie. I think it's going to be. All right. I'm so sick and tired of being shamed for, like, that movie. Anyway. I'm not shaming you for liking it. I'm shaming you for bringing up that non-character.

At least bring up Ali's Shaw cat. Okay. They were the same, that was the same storyline. Whatever. She at least got to have the monologues. Anyway. My thing about the script in this movie is, if you told me that whole passages were lifted from that original script that they're remaking, I would believe you. Because this was one of my issues with that final monologue where he's literally framed right over her shoulder telling her all of these things that he never got to say.

it's old-fashioned in a way that I want to like that it feels like from a movie from the a Spencer Tracy movie yeah exactly but like Richard Dreyfus just isn't the vessel for that like he can't he can't be earnest in the way that it needs him to be earnest but like I do also think that that's probably some of people's limitation with this movie is that it is remarkably old-fashioned in that that way that like people talk like people would have talked at a movie in the 40s not like in a movie that they talk in the 80s or the late 80s but again I think Holly Hunter fits that vibe really well and it makes me wish that they had that you know she had been put in that kind of

you know almost like retro pastiche kind of thing more often because I think she would have really succeeded really well with it um which I think is also a reason why she does very well with the Coens, because it's a very specific sort of pitch of tone that she's able to really dial into. And I don't know. I really like that. But yes, I think you're not wrong about that and about the sort of the old-fashionedness of a lot of the dialogue.

Sometimes it really works. Like I said, I really liked that one of them as a prize in a raffle line. But, like, it is sort of, you know, part and parcel of a thing like that. So, yeah. but also you see why Spielberg was drawn to somebody who loves these old movies so much was drawn to making a movie sort of unabashedly old-fashioned in that way

I mean this is again I think Spielberg on his William Wyler shit which is a mode that I love him in it feels again I think like it's not quite getting there so like I understand that this is not a beloved movie but I also don't understand that this is a hated

movie. It's also an interesting time in Spielberg's life. He's going through the divorce with Amy Irving at this time that like makes you wonder if like maybe it wasn't his most focused set or something

because it's just like it feels like all the ingredients are there and it just doesn't get where it needs to go. Yeah. I also want to to quote this, there was a re-appreciation of Always that was written on Roger Ebert.com in 2016 by Jessica Ritchie. And there was this one thing that made me sort of take note of it in terms of like influences on Spielberg, right? Always, so this is the quote, Always is a remake of the 1943 Victor Fleming film, a guy named Joe. And it owes a great deal to Howard Hawks' only angels and only angels have wings as well. The Hoxian influence is unusual.

Spielberg, leaving his adoration of John Ford to the side to focus on the jockeying friendships of men and the fierce women who thrive under pressure, which, as somebody who has not watched nearly enough of the old Howard Hawks films or John Ford films, and you mentioning Weiler really intrigues me as well, because Spielberg is a filmmaker who wears his influences on his sleeve so much, watching a Spielberg movie, especially one like this always makes me wish I had, like, a week to just watch, like, a dozen old movies. You know what I mean? That just to get a better sense of his influences and where he's coming from and this

kind of stuff, because I bet you it would make for a richer experience for me watching it. I mean, maybe. Just for me, you know what I mean? Like, I just feel like it would just, at the very least, it maybe doesn't make them movie work any better, but it makes me want to, that, you know, makes you understand where he's coming from. You make me want to be a better man from as good as it gets. Like, that's Spielberg to me, but about be a better movie watcher. Yeah. I mean, you're probably not going to get me to watch many more John. Sure, of course. Because he did a lot of Western. Sure, but I just mean

in general. In general. Anything else you want to say? Fableman's. I can't wait. I can't wait to watch the Fableman's again. Holy mackerel. Yeah, I can't wait to take, like, people I love to see that movie. Not to sound like a complete cornball, but, like... Oh, it's so good. It's so good. Yeah, good movie.

All right. Go see it. Not that anyone who listens to our podcast probably needs to be able to this. I was going to say, if you're listening to this podcast, you're already geared up for the fablemen, so good for you. This is another reason why I pulled up all of, like, the lowest Spielberg grossing movies because, like, I'm really worried what's going to have. happen to this movie if it doesn't make that. I don't know. I feel like movies that are released

towards the end of the year, we're having, we're in a good box office year. Like, there are encouraging signs for movies of all stripes at the box office this year. I think I have faith that Fableman's will do well. Listen, holiday movie going, like, Fableman's isn't that long. It's only two and a half hours long compared to three hours and ten minutes of Avatar, three hours and 10 minutes of Babylon. Yep. Okay, the thing about Avatar is like when they said at the three hour, 10 minute runtime, I'm like, yeah, 20 minutes of that is going to be credits because they've been making this movie for five years.

Still, I am not looking forward to the largesse of Avatar, the way of water. I have so much fun at Avatar. I'm going to love Avatar. Ooh. I'm just going to tranquilize myself. I'm just going to sit down. I'm going to find, like, the most, like, the theater decision that I make. movie. You can't tell me you're not excited

for Avatar the Way of Wooder. Okay. All right, Mayor. Should we talk about the IMDB game? Yes. Why don't you tell our listeners what the IMDB? All right. 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 performance, 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 it.

That's it. How are we doing this? Are you guessing first? Are you giving first? What's going on? I'll give first. All right. I looked into 1941 a bunch in this movie,

and my research for always, because I wanted to sort of talk about Spielberg flops, and I've never seen it, and it just feels like such an outlier in so many ways. one of the many many far-flung cast members in that movie sort of far down the cast list but is one that I love it is the late John Candy and so I'm going to give you John Candy's known for

what are they well Uncle Buck correct Home Alone no even though he's tremendous like one of the best comedic he's in two scenes but like one of the best brief performances in a comedy ever he and katherine o'hara are in their own world in that movie and it's so good for as much as i like my love of home alone feels like

it's what you know how like i never trust that the blank check boys are not doing a bit when they talk about sally i'm sort of like that with home alone with how much i talk about how much i love home alone but sorry sully sucks ass that's a horrible movie there um but anyway the CGI in that movie is laughable. I am genuinely, genuinely 100% honest when I say to Catherine O'Hara and John Candy are putting on a comedy clinic in their scenes together in that film. They are so, so, so good. Plains Trains Trains and Automobiles.

Correct. Which brings me to my point that, like, planes trains and automobiles, I understand why people love that movie. I understand why people think that it's, like, sappy nonsense. I think everything that he's trying, everything, All of the, like, sentimentality of planes, trains, and automobiles is, like, condensed and perfect in, like, two scenes of Home Alone. Sure. Even though it's, like, he's playing a more buffoonish character, but ultimately, the, like, the sentimentality of, like, getting and being with your family and Loss and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, is perfectly done in his two scenes in Home Alone.

Yeah. All right. So you got two. You have one strike. Okay. So I feel like you wouldn't have put. JFK doesn't really show up for people, but I feel like I have to say JFK just for you,

because I feel like you want to bring JFK into conversation. I always do. It's not on his list, but like, again, a one-scene performance. John Candy is off the goddamn rocker in that movie. He's doing... Top ten performances in that movie. A ludicrous accent. A ludicrous Bayou accent in that thing.

He's eating crab meat in a wild. way that is obscene and he's given Kevin Kossner shit and he says the line, you're as crazy as your mama, it goes to show it's in the jeans. It's a whole, it's a whole experience candy in that movie, but no, it's not as known for it. So that is your second strike. Your two years are 1980 and 1987. I will say, both of these movies are movies I have seen a billion times for both of them. Like, I've rewatched them a lot. One of them, at the very least is on cable a ton the other one is on cable

often but less... 87 has to be a little shop of horrors it's not he's in that right if he's in that it's a really small role he's in a small role yeah it's a very small role yeah no he's in a uh he's probably third lead

fourth lead in this movie isn't he like a cop in one of these movies he's it yes he is a cop in one of these, but it's not the one that I was just talking about. He's a cop in the 8th, and then the 1981.

That is a movie, I suspect, you maybe have never seen, and it doesn't seem like a Chris Files movie. I mean, it could be, because it's probably like a movie for my dad. My dad loves John Candy. It definitely, I know, I know. It's a movie I associate

with watching with my dad. My dad loves this movie. It's not like Blues Brothers, is it? It is the Blues Brothers. It is, in fact... I thought Blues Brothers was like 84. It's 80. He is a cop pursuing the Blues Brothers in that film. I love that movie.

Great. All right. It's not a movie for me. That is a movie for my death. Exactly. 1987. Maybe also not a movie for you, but probably stands a better chance. It's a comedy.

I think it's really funny. It's very broad. It's a... Well, I don't want to go too far into what kind of comedy is because I think that kind of gives it away. I mean, is it a spoof? Is it, is it Spaceballs? It's Spaceballs, yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's barf and Spaceballs. It took me too long to get to Spaceballs. Do you like Spaceballs? Where are you on Spaceballs? I haven't seen it as an adult is where I'm at with Spaceballs, but I should because I used to love it as a kid. It's very dumb and funny.

Famously, I saw Spaceballs before I ever saw Star Wars. There's some good jokes in Spaceballs, I will say. And also, you reference Pizza the Hut enough. to make me feel like you should watch space balls again, just to put yourself... Who was like saying was Pizza the Hut? I don't know. You've called a few people

Pizza the Hut over the years, and I feel like it's been funny every time. Because of the bad makeup that they're given in movies. Anybody who looks like they have a melting face is Pizza the Hut. Like, I get it. All right. Good job. Good job on John Candy. Fantastic. So for you... For me. I pulled up famously this movie is the last movie

of Audrey Hepburn Notedly there was another Hepburn in the mix I also mentioned being on Kevin Jacobson's show talking about the Hepburns famously they were nominated together in the year that we were talking about 1959 so for you I have pulled up

Catherine Hepburn Back to Audrey though for a second Did you notice they used the term funny face in this movie a couple of times? he calls her he calls holly hunter funny face and i was like oh audrey's in this movie okay um anyway katherine hepburn who i love and who i desperately want to see more movies of hers because every time i see her in a movie i'm so enchanted um have you seen suddenly last summer oh yeah yeah that was the movie i was going to say what's wrong with you if you haven't seen it yeah um

that's the movie that that was that year that you were on the podcast talking about. Actually, I got to listen to that episode soon. Suddenly last summer is off its rocker in some really fun ways. Listeners, if you haven't seen it, please just like put this episode down. Go watch it now. Catherine Hepburn enters the movie in from the ceiling in an, basically a solo elevator. It's more dumbwaiter than it is elevator. But like, oh boy. Yeah. It's spectacular. Elizabeth Taylor's maybe a little bit more downbeat in that movie than I want her to I sort of want her to match... We broke your word for him.

Okay. Now, the thing about Catherine Hepburn, obviously, is the four Oscars, so how many of those do you want to throw in there? I'm going to say the lion in winter. Correct. The lion in the winter, per

Edgar Bergman. I also had to pick this so that you could do your... It's a tie. It's a tie. I'm doing the thing. I'm doing the hand on her chest. She's so delighted. It's a tie.

Okay. Well, I'm going to say, guess who's coming to dinner? I think those are probably the two. Oh, okay. All right. The Philadelphia story. Correct. Okay.

On Golden Pond? On Golden Pond, correct. So I've got three. You have three. You have only one wrong guess. I really don't think it's going to be. be Morning Glory, but I'm going to put a pin in that one. Oh, gosh.

Here's where, like... Morning Glory is terrible, by the way. Titles just kind of... Oh, is it Little Women? Is it the Little Women that she's in? It's not Little Women. It's later than that, it is 1951. Oh, shoot. May or may not help you.

Wait, 51 wasn't suddenly last summer. Was it? That's 59. Okay, right. Okay, 51. Here's where I'm going to maybe embarrass myself and say like a Betty Davis movie at some point. Is Jezebel, Betty Davis, or Catherine Hepburn? I know that you can get there. This is probably, I mean, like you said you want to watch more of her movies.

This is one I'm willing to bet that you have seen. Oh, okay. Very famous star vehicle with her and a male actor. Her and Is it one of hers with Spencer Tracy? No. Is it another one with Carrie Grant? No.

Sadly not. Sadly, there is no bringing a baby on here as much as I fucking love bringing a baby. Yeah. One of the funniest movies over me. Famous co-star. She was nominated for this. She was nominated for this.

1951 oh god I'm going to really embarrass myself she was nominated but he won oh god I have seen this

of course it's the African queen I don't know why that wasn't like my first guess like that's yes of course obviously the African queen yes Humphrey Bogart did famously win

for that one thank you for unlocking that for me yeah Audrey Hepburn Or, sorry, Catherine Hepburn, oh, and Audrey Hepburn, really. Those are two actresses where I really feel like a homework assignment is

inevitable for me and just to do a lot of... You should go on Kevin's show just for that reason for homework like this, because I actually haven't seen that much Audrey Hepburn and the Nunn's story is, while, spoiler for that episode, not a movie I find very interesting but is the type of star, like,

1950 star vehicle that, like, you can totally imagine what the movie is, but she is actually quite good in that movie. Very good. Very good. I think that's our episode. I think it is, Chris. Good job. Good job by us. Listeners, go see the fablemen's. If you want more ThisHad Oscar Buzz,

you can check out the Tumblr at this hadoscurbuzz.com. You should also follow us on Twitter at had underscore Oscar buzz. where can the listeners find more of you? Sure. Twitter and letterboxed at Joe Reed, read spelled REID. And I am also on Twitter and letterbox at Chris V-File.

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