This Had Oscar Buzz - 221 – The Front Runner

Episode Date: November 28, 2022

We’ve previously discussed the work of Jason Reitman with our Men, Women, and Children episode, and this week we have another Reitman bomb: 2018′s The Front Runner. The film features Hugh Jackman as Senator Gary Hart and dramatizes Hart’s failed presidential campaign that was thwarted by an infidelity scandal. Released on Election Day after a very … Continue reading "221 – The Front Runner"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hacks. I'm from Canada. I'm from Canada, Water. My name's Gary Harden. I'm running for president. I want you to think about the opportunity that we have right here, right now.

I've never known a guy more talented at untangling politics so that anyone can understand. It is a gift, and he wants to share that. And all anybody wants is for him to take a stupid photo. He will never understand that. Gary Hart is the man to beat in 88. If we hold ourselves to those highest standards and the voters cannot do otherwise. Senator, want to ask you some questions about the woman at your townhouse.

Can you tell us how you know her? You can't be serious. No one is staying in my home. There's no need for that. I am serious, sir. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that never went to the jungle, but will always be in that jungle.

Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Chris Fyle. I'm here, as always, with my polyamorous axe-throwing Senator Joe Reed. I don't see how that's any of your business.

What I do... Where I throw my axe in the woods is none of your concern, and the public doesn't need to know about it. Even if your axe is, you know... supposed to only go in one direction. Right. If I throw my axe at a different tree than the tree that I have always thrown my axe at, and I have pledged to only throw my axe towards, it's none of the public's concern. All that monkey business.

All that monkey business. Okay, so you are obviously a decent bit younger than I am. And I feel like the Gary Hart Donna Rice story is even like it's on the edge of my memory. Like it's maybe the last big thing that happened in politics that I have no memory of. Because I remember the Dukakis Bush election. I remember like some of the Saturday Night Live sketches about like the debates there. I remember, even, like, I remember, like, Kitty Dukakis being, like, in, like, the tabloids and People magazine for her alcoholism. Don't quote me on that. Maybe it was mental health. Don't yell at me, the estate of Kitty Dukakis. But, like, I remember having, you know, vague sort of, a vague sort of sense of that. And then from then on, everything in politics, I at least have some memory of. I have. No memory of the Gary Hart thing except for, like, Donna Rice's name being like a name that was sort of thrown around when the Jennifer Flowers revelations came about during the Clinton campaign. So this is sort of like an interesting boundary line, almost, in terms of like my awareness of the world back in, like, 1988.

I imagine this is like pure American history for you. like this is just like this is this is as remote to you as like the you know well i mean i think it's gas crisis or something i mean i think for a lot of view a lot of viewers of this movie is that this movie had a lot of viewers um i i think that's one of kind of the barriers of entry to this movie and less so remembering this happening as it is how it discusses this American cultural event we will get into it

I'm very curious to hear your thoughts on this movie because you had not seen this movie at a festival or in theaters I didn't right and that's what I thought I saw this at TIF where it you know I think

I was maybe the only person I talked to that saw it even though I don't even remember you talking about having seen it and we were living in the same flat for that festival I saw it on, like, the first Friday afternoon, so it was, like, immediately there were more interesting things to talk about. I remember, as I'm, like, leaving the theater, I usually don't stay for the Q&A. Somebody, like, mentioned Tully.

We'll talk about Tully. In, like, the first question or something, and me at the back of the theater is, like, woo! And, like, no one else is, like... Close captioning just says, like, brackets, gay voice. Woo! Like, that's basically whenever somebody says telly. Um, yes. Yeah.

Um, and, like, it was basically, I, I pulled up the Telluride lineup for us of this year, too, because this was almost kind of dead in the water at Telluride, too, which, like, it's hard for a movie to kind of... of die at that festival, we'll be kind of looking at a movie that maybe died at a recent Telluride next week. But this, it's a, we've kind of side-eyed Telluride. You more than me. I feel like you kind of despise Telluride as a concept. Not as a concept. I feel like people never really diss a movie at Telluride. It takes a lot for that crowd to

really let you know that a movie is not good. The diss is the silence, right? It's like if a movie... Sometimes, yeah. If a movie doesn't make an impression at Telluride, that sort tells you what you need to know. And I mean, Jason Reitman is a filmmaker who's had multiple movies die

at Telluride. There's also Labor Day as well, which like people are always forgetting the Labor Day existed. this strangely enough is a movie that exists even less than Labor Day but like I feel like my remembrance of when this movie premiered is like people kind of wrote it off in people who had heard or read the responses out of Telluride and it was very ho-hum but then went to TIF they just decided to skip it at Tiff yeah yes well yeah there was not a ton of urgency to see this movie. And because it wasn't opening until November, like, it's

usually... On election day. Well, we'll talk about that, too. But November, to me, is, like, far enough away that I'll be like, oh, I should see that here at Tiff, because I'm not going to want to wait a couple months to see that. But, like, already there was this sense of non-essentialness to the frontrunner. And Reitman's representation... by then, had pretty well, for me at least, settled into, yes, if he's working with Diablo Cody, no, if he's not, right? I mean, this year we're talking about 2018 is like the case-proof example. And I definitely want to get into that when we talk about sort of the vagueness of purpose

of the frontrunner, because I feel like that's pertinent there. But yeah, like, by the time this movie even hit that second festival, TIF, already, people were like, I only can see so many movies. This one is probably not going to survive triage. And so it didn't for me. Like, for whatever reason, I can't remember for the life of me what it would have been up against that I, like, chose to see instead. But I did see something else instead. That also could have been, it also could have been a casualty of my sprained ankle, if you recall.

I sprained my ankle walking out of Boy Erased. I'm pretty sure I saw this before you sprained your ankle Okay, so then I wasn't going to see it anyway Because I definitely remember there were some movies That I'm like, I'm bailing on that screening I'm not hobling my ass to go see something Maybe if you've just gone to Telluride You could have A seen this movie

And seen boy erase without spraining your ankle I know, that's my sliding doors What would have happened otherwise? Although I will say, I mean, whatever We don't have to tell the story once again Of me seeing can you ever forgive me with a sprained ankle And that's sort of healing my spirit it, but it sort of did.

Anyway. The medicinal powers of Mary L. Heller. Exactly. Exactly. Of Lee Israel. The spite healing of Lee Israel really worked wonders for me. We should also tell our listeners, we are recording this before Election Day. So if any darkness has happened, if the mood in the room is bad, we are coming to you

from the past. Like, you know, we also maybe didn't think about that when we planned this episode. We're doing it more so for Hugh Jackman. Who's having, who also has a, yeah, bad vibes coming. There's a lot of bad vibes on the horizon. Hugh Jackman. Yeah, yeah, we certainly, of course, hope that some things went well on election night. I'm certainly not naive enough to think that everything went.

well, but like maybe enough things went well that it's not as bad as we had feared. Let's see. Let's see how it goes. Um, I have voted already. I cast my vote. New York State better have fucking pulled it together by the time you're all listening to this because... I am voting on election day. I live a block away from my polling place and that, uh, has like a,

a lovely, uh, aspect to my life for some reason. And I, I like to go to the actual polling place on the day because I'm like, it's right around the corner. I can have a nice clock. I can cast my little vote and, you know. My polling place, uh, in Washington Heights turns out to be a block away from the subway sub shop that I tend to frequent on my lunch hour, which I didn't realize until I like looked up, where's my polling place? And I'm like, oh, it's right by the subway sub shop. So like, of course, I went. I voted early on the first day that you could vote early. Um, I think I was maybe one of the first people to

vote at that polling place because they were still like, training people on what to do and cast my vote got a nice subway sandwich and made a whole day of it so we should talk about the mailbag

before we get too far into it oh yeah listeners we're finally announcing this we are doing another mailbag this year we are taking questions for the holidays yeah Santa's coming down the chimney with your questions

That's our Christmas morning gift. Your Christmas, well, day after Christmas. Your hangover gift is us answering your questions. We will be taking questions through the 20th. I am going to work on getting some type of Google document thing that makes it easy for you to submit them via Twitter and Tumblr. But you can also email them to us at had oscarbuzz at gmail.com. You can ask us about what are the type of things we've? talked about before, Joe. We've talked about, you know, Oscar history. We've talked about the

state of the current race. We've talked about, you know, possible future episodes, et cetera. Yeah. We're not doing, we're not doing a listener's choice this year just because schedule-wise and, you know, that's not working out, but we're still doing the mailback. We always love your questions. You always tend to ask us some really fun ones, some really insightful ones and in general we just you know we really enjoy hearing from you so uh yeah get those questions coming in we're gonna have a nice little mailbag for you for the holidays and yeah we love it mailbag questions through the 20th had oscar buzz at gmail.com we're also going to be putting a google doc on or some type of document for submitting your questions on our tumbler page and

her Twitter. My name's Gary Hart, and I'm running for president. All right, Chris, we are breaking in from our regularly scheduled coverage of Gary Hart's troubled presidential campaign to talk about... Mostly to say that the primaries didn't go as bad as we thought. Exactly. And we want to update our listeners, our wonderful Gary's, on what's going on in the Vulture Movie Fantasy League, because it was a big week. First of all, We locked the gates, as they say on Mark Maron's podcast. We locked the doors on the league. If you're either signed up or you're out of luck at this point.

So we are good to go and we are rolling. And we got our first batch of awards points, which is very fun and interesting. For as much as I love the box office points, the thing about box office points with this game is they depend on when you've signed up. So it's tough to, like, gauge exactly how many points everybody has. But, like, awards points are going to be the same for everyone. So I'm very, very excited that we got started with the Independent Spirit Awards. I always look forward to the Independent Spirit Award nominations anyway. So, like, this is, like, doubly good for me.

Once again, we got an Independent Spirit Awards where some major category nominees are stuff I haven't heard about yet, which I find very exciting. There's always two or three where it was like, you know, what's this movie? I got to go check it out. Such it was with Best Feature Nominee, Our Father the Devil, and certain things. Solo nominee for Best Feature. We love that. We're intrigued. We're incredibly intrigued. It's not going to matter a lick for the fantasy game, but we're intrigued. No. So the big winner of Independent Spirit Award nomination morning was everything everywhere all it was. which, to me at least, sort of justified the high price tag I put on it, so I feel better. I think the rest of the season is probably going to justify that movie's high price tag, just from a hunch. It feels like the ball is now rolling. And obviously, like, the Independent Spirit Awards as a bellwether for the Oscars, especially at the nomination stage, are not always one-to-one. There are some of these nominees will probably not get nominated again throughout the season,

And even from, like, contenders. Like, that's just sort of how it rolls sometimes with the spirits. But this feels like the kind of momentum that's going to keep going, right? They were nominated for, I believe it was six awards in total. Seven. No, it's eight. Sorry. I short-sold it.

And Tar has seven. Tar has seven. Everything Everywhere All at Once nominated for Best Feature, Best Director, all four. of its principal cast members were nominated for acting awards. They've now switched to genderless categories, so there are 10 best lead nominees, 10 best supporting nominees, and five breakthrough. So we're going from four acting awards down to three acting awards, which I don't love, but it's an imperfect world, and I'm just going to live in it. Michelle Yo. It's still progressing forward. Sure, yes. Michelle Yo, Kiwi Kuan,

Jamie Lee Curtis, Stephanie Shoe, all nominated for, in various categories. All, I think, are Oscar contenders in certain ways. I think I could see a path for all of them to get nominated if it really, really goes well on Oscar nomination morning. But we'll put a pin in that. And then screenplay and editing nominations. So it was a good day for everything everywhere at once. And as somebody who picked that movie, I was very happy. with it. You... You did pick this movie because you are much higher on the leaderboard than I am. I am sitting

comfy at 932nd, I believe. If you're 932nd, you're ahead of me, though, I think. Because I'm in like... Did you only get everything everywhere points then? I think, yes. I think that's the case. I was pulling it up right as we got on mic, too. It's like, what rank am I? With a beautiful 132 points sandwiched between a bunch of other people who have 132 points and if you all drafted

the same exact team as I did I know where you live You have how many points did you say? 132 Yeah you're ahead of me I have 114. I'm in 1240th place

So but a lot of game to be played Not a lot of game You had some nice tar points though this week with the Independent Spirit Awards. I had TAR points. I had the inspection points. I had a very indie spirit friendly team. Yeah, the best performers at the Spirit Awards points-wise, everything everywhere, which got you 110 points, TAR scored up to 85, women talking and After Sun both got 45 and bones and all. The bones. Great to see Afterson doing so well.

That's the thing is we sort of had a little bit of a mini eulogy for Aftersun on this podcast a little bit ago, and I sort of lamented why it felt like everybody was resigned to the fact that that movie wasn't going to be a presence and award season. And now there's some hope. Paul Muscal and Jeremy Pope, the only male identifying performers nominated in the lead performance. Let's keep it going. Let's get them in the Oscar lineup. That's all I'm hoping for. That would be awesome. That acting, that best lead actor category really could use their presence. As you said, the inspection, 35 points, that was a nice showing. I will say also, this was the place where the ones that I was most interested in were, what are like the three and two and one dollar movies that were able to get you a little bit of bang for your buck, and that we're only going to maybe get you bang for your buck here.

And I think Emily the Criminal is the, you know, is the story of that one, right? Four nominations, Aubrey Plaza, which, like, I was so certain. There was a few things I was certain of this year. And, like, there was only so much I could do to capitalize on that in this game. But, like, I wanted to find a betting market that I could have placed down some money on Aubrey Plaza, Mia Gough for Pearl, and Dale Dickie for a love song. getting nominated at the Spirits because I was like, it's going to happen. So happy for that

Dale Dickey nomination. It was like, as soon as Sundance happened, I was like, oh, this is going to happen. This is going to be an independent spirit award because, like, they love her. And like, with good reason, should have been nominated for Winter's Bone, is what I say for that. But yeah, Emily the Criminal, really

good showing. Pearl, a love song, as I said. Regina Hall and Brighton Terry Henry also got acting nominations for Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul, and Causeway. respectively. After Yang got just two nominations, but they were two top category nominations. So that's a cool 30 for after Yang, which is pretty cool. And I think a couple that do have some legs got just five points this week at the Spirits. But Corsage and Sotomayr both. I'm now taking my cue for how to pronounce Sontomer from Taylor Page, because that's how I'm deciding to go for it. You have a French inflection with it. I do.

By the way, Corsage and Santomere, who picked both of those for their team? Uh-oh, a little fiver, a little fiver apiece. Very good. So, yeah, that's how the Spirit Awards went. I'm excited that there was a nice sort of spread of points. I'm really kind of thrilled for Bones and All, a movie that, like, is improving in my memory every day. Like, that's one of those movies that's really sort of growing in retrospect for me. So...

Yeah, I adored that movie. That movie, I don't know. We could end up talking about that movie on this podcast in a few years' time, because I don't know what kind of Oscar prospect it has, but it's good that it got something. Who knows? Adapted screenplay. Is it... I keep forgetting if it's adapted or original this year that's like... Adapted, because Sarah Polly has basically got the whole category to herself, I believe.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is good. So, who knows? Yeah. Who knows? The bones could endure. The bones could get all of them.

What else do you take away from the Independent Spirit Awards pool-wise? Definitely made me more excited to finally catch up to Emily the Criminal. Some of those snubs were interesting. Absolutely no nominations for the whale, which I think everybody knows made me happy. Fail whale. Hashtag fail whale, yeah. What else? What were the other ones that I thought, and I think it was maybe...

I love when indie spirits go their own way, like Andrea Reisbrough showing up for this movie to Leslie, which was not the Andrea Reisbrough movie I thought it was when I first saw that Andrea Reisborough was nominated, which I think is a very, that is a very true to the Andrea Riceboro experience. Sure. It's not this movie. It's this other movie you haven't heard of. Of course, to Leslie, is the incredible true story of Miley Cyrus writing See You Again, which is a very exciting biopic.

I like when they limit the scope of a biopic to just a portion of a person's life. And that's the... The Sundance movie, Palm Trees, and Power Lines, which I don't think either of us really cared for, did very well. So, I mean, it's good to see that they're still, you know, they're not just picking the Oscar fair for these movies, which I don't think that movie even has distribution. Well, and, like, and Jonathan Tucker, like... That's a worthy nomination. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He was nominated in, in feature. I keep wanting to say feature. And then it got a breakthrough performance, and I think Best First Feature. Maybe. Yeah, I think that's right. Yes, Best First Feature. And Best First Screenplay. Ineligible to select for the movie game.

Perhaps my biases made me blind to it. Also, I should say, if we're doing me a culpa, and I should, all the beauty in the bloodshed was not eligible to be selected for the fantasy game. That's on me, y'all. And if this thing marches towards an Oscar and it's not in the fantasy game, that's egg on my face. And you can all... If my soapbox suspicions about that movie are going to be true, you're not going to have...

At the very least, I think it's going to end up winning most of the critics awards for best documentary. That is, that I do think is fair and true. Yeah. So, however, for Oscar, aside from the fact that, you know, previous winners have a history of not even being nominated in the category, I question if you put that movie, I mean, like, not to put it in the most reductive terms, but I'm going to put it in the most reductive terms. Uh-oh. She's getting reductive. I think you put that movie in front of a bunch of rich people, and they're not going to get it. Like, well, I just, that's just, that's just, one of my favorite movies of the year.

All the Beauty of the Bloodshed. We'll see how it goes. We'll see how it goes. But anyway, chalk that one up, listeners, to the growing pains of trying this game for the first time. So apologies, if you had your heart set on selecting all the beauty of the bloodshed. It's a lot of points that are going to be left on the table. I also left Marcel the Shell with shoes on off of the list, which that was, that's again. That's on me, y'all. We soldier on. that got like

the indie spirits love to throw in just a random editing or random cinema I know I love that those categories don't just go straight to their best picture nominees Yeah But editing for Marcel the Shell Interesting Also shout out all those fire island points

Congratulations to Joel Kim Booster on his nomination For us for a screenplay Love you Joel That was fantastic Looking ahead We've got Probably won't get more awards until the Critics Awards start, which I don't think New York Film Festival or New York

Film Critics Circle has announced their date for when they're going to be presenting their awards, but it's got to be soon. I'm sure it's a week away from this episode. I mean, they know it. They're just not telling us. But it's usually early December. So I think the next week we're going to be looking at whatever kind of Thanksgiving week box office points are happening.

um devotion opens wide uh bones and all expands wide and uh we'll see how if you know what kind of the legs glass onion has at the box office i haven't checked the uh it's beating all of those movies good it should at this point it's fantastic netflix really really really should have put it in theaters in a quarter of their theaters of things like bones and all and such well it's tremendous and devotion Yeah, so look for early December. You'll probably get some New York Film Critics Circle, a National Border Review. Those are usually the two earliest of the critics groups. L.A. film critics will be more towards the middle of December and... I don't... I actually think the M4Gs are fairly early with their nominees, and that's another

place I expect everything. Well, they're also playing very coy. The M4Gs have not announced their nomination date as of yet. It probably comes out with the magazine, man. They're still going off of the magazine. But yeah, once we hit mid-December, L.A. Film Critics announced on the 11th, Critics' Choice nominations on the 12th, and Golden Globe nominations also on the 12th. Y'all, give us, like, space out your shit better. I'm sorry. Critics' Choice announcing their award nominations the same day as the Golden Globes. Like, coordinate people. Like, don't crowd out your press cycles. That's so stupid.

No, I don't think that's what they want. I think Critics' Choice probably wants to overshadow the Golden Globes, because it's still a question mark of how much people are going to care. Listen, you know I have been notoriously soft on the Golden Globes. I think the Golden Globes are just going to be back to being a thing. Like, sorry, they just are. And here we are. But, yeah, so those are coming in mid-December, and we'll look out for that.

And happy, happy participating, y'all. You can check out the Vulture Movies Fantasy League game at movigame.vulcher.com. From there, you can click on a link to the landing page. Right now, we have a fun little module, which lists everybody scores. So go up to that landing page, do a little Control F for your team name, and you will find how many points you have, what place you are in, and then if you click on your little team name, it will remind you in case it hasn't burned in your brain what eight movies you have selected. So we are off and running, and it's very exciting. And we're going to send you back

to your regularly scheduled Democratic politics. I think Gary Hart can pull this one out, Chris. I don't know. I'm crossing my fingers. If you can just make it to the New Hampshire primary, I feel like he's got this. So, all right. Thanks, guys. My name's Gary Harden. I'm running for president. So the frontrunner. The front runner. Okay, does it bother you that this is, that frontrunner is two words in this title?

I always tend to want to say like, like roadrunner, like frontrunner. Like one word? Yeah. See, I always, as I'm prone to do with most things, make it a hyphen it. Sure. One word, no, absolutely not. Okay. I don't know why that's my.

instinct is to do fun of there. We could maybe talk off the top here, the hubris of naming your movie that you are very clearly trying to put in the award season. Yeah, yeah, that's not fun. That's not great. Yeah, this movie, we'll get into it on the other side of the plot description, but it just, there's a lot of potential in this movie, I will say, in terms of an interesting, like, there's a lot of directions that this story could have gone that I think could have been interesting. You could have, you know, from a journalism angle, from a politics angle, from like a what might have been history angle. And the problem with this particular film is it sort of pulls a little bit from all of these little angles just enough to make

you sort of wish that it was more about one thing than the other things. And doesn't really take a strong perspective on anything, sort of like walks up to the edge of making interesting observations and then declines to make them, walks up to the edge of asking intriguing questions, and then doesn't really follow up on them, ironically, for a movie such as this. And there's a vagueness to it that I don't like. It also just to sort of...

The vagueness I find incredibly frustrating, especially on rewatch, more so than when I first saw. the movie. The vagueness was the dominant impression that I got from this movie as well, where the sort of neither here nor thereness of it, it also, just to sort of place it within a context within what was sort of around at the time, there were a lot of these mid to low attention level movies about recent 20th century political history that had been made around this time, Whereas, like, Chappaquinic... Obviously, re-contextualizing in the aftermath of Trump's election.

Yes. But yes, in some ways, and yet in other ways, just sort of telling a political story that people in the audience would remember, right? Where, like, Mark felt sort of felt that way, where it's like, we're going to, you know, tell the story about Deep Throat. And Chappaquittic definitely felt that way. There was the Rob Reiner, LBJ movie that movie that knows. And there was just a general level of disinterest in seeing those stories for, I would think, understandable reasons. But also, I think if there had been a really dynamic movie made, like, the Post comes out the year before this and kicks ass and gets a Best Picture nomination. And I certainly feel like the Post should have gotten more attention, more love, more everything.

Even still, that got some, you know, enough attention to get a Best Picture nomination, right? And it's a really good movie. So, like, that was at least proof that you could tell a story of semi-recent political history in a way that contextualizes it within the current. Like, if the Post does anything, it re-contextualizes that moment within that current political journalistic landscape. Yeah, I mean, like, the Post is galvanized by, like, the current moment. and, you know, the current sentiments and where we're, you know, the kind of fervor is. Like, this movie, I also think on top of the, like, lack of clarity on what it's actually trying to say about Gary Hart's failed political or presidential campaign, on top of that being frustrating as a viewer, I feel like it's almost moving against the sentiment of the time in a way that I found. really, like, what the hell is the point of this?

Like, what is... For a lot of movies about politics and journalism around this era, being released during the Trump era was enhancement for that movie's timeliness. Yeah. I think with the frontrunner, being released during the Trump era works against it because we've just elected a guy. who got elected after his October surprise about sexually assaulting women didn't do anything, right? Like that, and...

Which looms large over this movie and probably the intentions with which it was made. Right. It's not like this movie intended to create an apology for the idea that, you know, politicians should be able to do whatever they want to women and we can get elected. but this is a movie that would have felt a lot, whose outrage would have felt a lot more appropriate maybe during the Bill Clinton presidency, but also we had already started recontextualizing that and we were in a Me Too era and we were in a post-access Hollywood tape era with Trump and so all of that, and so if you're looking at the frontrunner through all of that, this idea that like this principled idea that a politician's infidelities and quote-unquote womanizing because I feel like that's like that was such a buzzword

of the 90s, right? And like, what does that even mean? A politician's personal life when it comes to their sexual exploits shouldn't matter as a matter of principle really felt out of step with what was going on at the time and didn't decline to first. interrogate its own premise in a way that, like, made it really feel inessential to the moment, out of step with the moment. Yeah. Yeah. Well, also out of step to the moment, because, like, the villains of this story, at least as Jason Reitman tells it, is the press. Yeah. Like, they are the ones who are, like, because the movie, I do think sides with

him, that it's like, well, it's not, it has nothing to do with Gary Hart's leadership. that's that I think is the point of view of the movie but then like but every once in a while it's bad journalism on top of that like the movie does go to lengths I think to show that like the initial reporting on Gary Hart's affair was not even good reporting and like but it's still there's a way to tell that story complicatedly and rightman again walks up to the edge of being able to tell it because he not only has the Miami Herald reporters who broke the story and were you know maybe a little bit quick to jump on the tabloid angle and where maybe, you know, their methods could be interrogated, right? Were they chasing a story because it had, you know, sex appeal, or were they chasing a story because they thought it had actual pertinence? But he also introduces the Washington Post characters, the sort of the composite character played by Mabiduati, and the Alfred Molina is Ben Bradley. Whenever you want to write a story about journalism in the 20th century, you got to cast somebody as Ben Bradley.

And then Ari Greiner with her business lady haircut. What's that? How are we describing that wig that poor Ari Greiner has to wear in this? I don't know. I mean, is it like Holly Hunter wig? What is it? It's like, it's very, it's very of its time. It's very late 80s, right?

It is sort of like maybe, yeah, maybe like Holly Hunter broadcast news kind of a thing. Maybe that's it. Maybe that's what we're going for. Anyway, they are there to sort of represent journalism that wants to do the right thing, but we're in a changing world, and maybe we have to change with the times. And, like, there was a way to dramatize that conflictedness. in a way that said anything. There's a moment in here, and I wrote it down because I was so struck by it,

where I think it's Molina, who's talking to the young reporter, who is like, why does this matter? Like, is this part into the voters? Yada, yada, yada. And he goes, it's different now, and I don't understand why. Maybe that's J.K. Simmons who says that. I can't remember. One of the old authority figures says that.

And it's like, okay, but understanding why. would have been a really interesting angle for this movie to, like, actually try and paint around the context of it and all, and just be like, why were things, if this was such a sea change in the way that we covered politics, why? Don't just throw your hands up and say, all of a sudden people are interested in it. One of my frustrations with the movie is that, like, I, I, I, maybe it's just in the telling of the movie and the kind of limpness of it. I even like come out of this movie questioning if it was like if the movie's not full of crap and like you know this wasn't the type of acubization put towards people before or the type of like career killer as it was like I don't know like what do you mean it doesn't it doesn't even make the case for it actually being the sea change moment right like not not convincingly enough to me like I like that That's what I mean. Like, I feel like if you can, like, make that case. Like, I'm here. I'm interested. If you, if you make that case, I will listen. This is, it's the rare movie where I watch it now, and I'm like, this could have been an eight-part documentary. You know what I mean? Because we're so sick of those things now. And yet, like, I would have watched it. Because the interesting angle of the Gary Hart thing to me is, I don't know how you can tell this story without all. telling the Bill Clinton in 1992 story, because I think that's the second act to this, which is for, however, and like there are, I listen to the, uh, you're wrong about, about, uh, Gary Hart, the podcast you're wrong about that sort of covers these sort of, uh, stories and adds additional context, uh, from, you know, things that we may not have realized about these sort of like received truths from, uh, politics and news. and such and such.

And the fact that the Republican sort of like demon strategist Lee Atwater, the guy who did, who masterminded the Willie Horton ad that helped take down to caucus in 88, was perhaps involved in the trumping up the Donna Rice story to the degree to which it might have been trumped up. But anyway. This is another frustrating thing about the movie. I know we're just kind of listing off complaints. But, like, nobody even gives a mention to the potentially, like, politically motivated side of spreading this information, right? Like, I think it's just maybe another thing that the movie takes for granted that, like, we already think, but, like, you also still have to tell a full story.

Actually, why don't we do the plot description now, and then I'll get into why I think it should have also covered the Clinton and 92 thing after this, because... Well, then let's do that, shall we? Before we get too far into the episode, listeners. We are talking about the frontrunner, directed by Jason Reitman, based on the book All The Truth Is Out by Matt by Adapted by Matt by Jason Reitman and Hillary campaign manager strategist, Jake Carson, starring Hugh Jackman, Vera Farmiga, Sarah Paxson, J.K. Simmons, Alfred Molina, Erie Graynor, Mamadou, Athe, Mark O'Brien, Molly, Ephraim, Alex Karposki, Caitlin Dever, sort of, Kevin Pollock, sort of, Bill Burr, and then a bunch of other people who you maybe vaguely

kind of sort of recognize in small roles. Exactly. Once again, the movie World Premiere to Tell Your Ride, played Tiff, and then opened, limited on Election Day, 2018. Yes. Joe Reed, are you ready to give that 60-second plot? description. Yeah, with the caveat that I'm not going to be able to motor mouth through this because I do have COVID and I'm not feeling super well. So if I try and do this too quickly, I'm just going to start coughing. She got she gal. She got Miguel. Yeah. So, but yes, I will try. All right, then your 60 second plot description for the frontrunner starts now. Gary Hart was a senator from Colorado with a good head of hair and the inside track on not only the Democratic nomination for president in 1988, but also. to maybe defeat George H.W. Bush and get the Democrats back in the White House.

But then he went on a boat trip with a rich friend of his, and he met Donna Rice, and soon enough, the Miami Herald is getting anonymous tips about infidelity. And since getting Hart to give the press a human interest angle for his candidacy is like pulling teeth, the press is zeroing in on his growing reputation as a womanizer. This all culminates in two Miami Herald reporters staking out Hart's townhouse in D.C. And sees Hart and Rice together. The reporters confront Hart about it who tells them his personal life is off limit. but what's off limits is this changing world of ours who's to say?

And suddenly the questions of Hart's infidelity become the top story of the news. Hart remains indignant about it all. His wife Lee is wounded, but stays with him, and it seems like the campaign might be able to weather it. Then the Washington Post gets an anonymous package with photos of Hart with another woman, and they decide they're going to maybe go with it. And then Hart hugely lifts the question about whether he's ever committed adultery and the writings on the wall, and he drops out of the campaign.

Candidate, that is your time. That is your time. We need to move on to the other candidate. All right, all right. Like a debate, you know? Yes. Yes. You can't go over time.

Listen, all I was going to say was the sliding doors of this truly is that if Gary Hart is never knocked out of the 88 campaign, Dana Carvey's comedy career suffered greatly because he's not able to do George H.W. Bush. What would he have done to make fun of Gary Hart? Well, I don't, he wouldn't have been the guy that SNL would have had. have play Gary Hart is the thing. It would have been maybe Phil Hartman. Who plays Clinton? I bet you if I look on... No, Phil Hartman's not on that early, though. He is.

Hold on. In 88? I believe so. He gets on... He starts around that time. I'm going to look on SNL Archive, though, because they have a list of impressions, and I bet you... Gary Hart, Gary Hart, Gary Hart, Gary Hart, Gary Hart, Gary Hart.

They had to have at least done a bit once. Dennis Miller? Is that right? Good golly. What? Yeah. Fine. Double check and make sure. Yeah, the Democratic 1988 debate. Dana Carvey played Richard Gephart.

Carl Weathers played Jesse Jackson. I imagine he would have been the guest host that week. Phil Hartman played Bruce Babbitt, John Levitts played Michael Dukakis. He would go on to play Dukakis in a lot of the political sketches. Dennis Miller played Gary Hart and Kevin Neillan was Al Gore. So I can see, like, again, Gary, if your idea of Gary Hart is that sort of like, again, like, politician with a good head of hair, like, in that cast, you kind of have to cast him as Dennis Miller, right? You know what I mean?

Like, you're not, there's really nobody more appropriate in your cast to do it, but that's... Listen, the wig team at ESS. S&L is a hardworking crew of people. They could have gotten somebody a good wig. I imagine if Gary Hart is elected president in 1988, it does end up going to Hartman just because, like, Phil Hartman's a better impressionist and would have probably found an angle on him. And, like, doesn't look so dissimilar that, like, certainly more similar than Dana Carvey would have, so. Well, and if he also had some, like, womanizing reputation, too, Phil Hartman played that very well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Phil Hartman's Clinton was very, like, so this was a very formal. era of SML for me. That was when I first started watching the show, Wayne's World, and the Dana Carvey, George Bush impressions and... Everything Chris Farley touched. The Johnny Carson impressions, right. Yeah, and then Farley came... The sort of Farley Sandler, Melanie Hutzel, who am I forgetting? There's just like that whole... That was my early SNL. And Phil Hartman's version of Bill Clinton. is such a funny way of just like it's it's uh darrell hammond played the liar bill

clinton and phil hartman played the sort of like i can't believe where we find this guy so appealing sort of angle to it's just like he's you know he's stopping in for mcdonalds after jogging right and he's i remember the sketch where dana carvey was H.W. Bush, after the election, and Dana Carvey's H.W. Bush crying, I'm a Jimmy Carter. I'm a Jimmy Carter. And Phil Hartman just coming off so smooth in comparison to this, like, bumbling baby. Slick Willie, right? So this is, now that we're talking about Clinton, so the thing about the angle that the frontrunner tries to take on Gary Hart, which is, Why, we have now opened Pandora's box, and now every politician who tries to run for office now must be subjected to everybody digging in, digging through their life to find some kind of sexual indiscretion, infidelity that would disqualify them.

And is making the case that, which is a case that was made frequently throughout the Bill Clinton candidacy and then presidency, which is. which is infidelity should not disqualify somebody from being a good public servant, which as a principle I can get down with, right? Like, we wouldn't fire the president of a bank for cheating on his wife. You know what I mean? You wouldn't fire, you wouldn't, you know, get a new doctor if you found out your doctor had an adulterous affair. But, like, by...

And like, this isn't just necessarily. necessarily sex scandals, too, like, with the Clinton thing. And there's also the, like, I did not inhale, even though, like, I mean, yeah. Those early Clinton scandals. Legitimate claims against Clinton, et cetera. Right. And. They do exist.

Right. Well, and the fact that, like, but by 2018, the Clinton stuff had recontextualized into sexual harassment, like legitimate sexual harassment. Right. Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, all this other stuff. And that that begat things like. John Edwards, whose political career fell apart, not just through infidelity, but through fathering a child and, like, in general, being exposed as, like, that's one where, like,

infidelity really did expose somebody as being seemingly not a good guy. You know what I mean? In a way that you wouldn't want to have that person making big political decisions. And then that era then moves into the Trump thing, which was like legitimate sexual assault. And by 2018 there were

no longer these quaint notions of just like, well, infidelity shouldn't disqualify. And it's like, y'all, we have moved so far beyond that question by now. So why? And also in the case of Gary Hart, at least as the movie is portraying it, you know,

this is consensual polyamory, like him and his wife having an understood agreement of every marriage should be allowed to be different. The boundaries of all of that should be decided by the people within the marriage, not by the public. But so I, on the interesting angle to take on this, if you wanted to make this claim that like, this was the day the music died, right? This was the day that like everything changed is that that pays off in 92 in a very specific way, which is an infidelity scandal took down the Democrats' best chance to take the White House in 88. And Gary Hart got knocked out because of the Donna Rice allegations.

And as a result, they had to run a candidate they maybe didn't want to run in Dukakis, and they got beat by George H.W. Bush, a singularly uncharismatic man, right? You know what I mean. And so in 92, the Democrats were sort of determined, and of course, like, Clinton was not the first choice for the, for the Democrats seemingly in 92 either. Like, that's a whole other discussion. But, like, the Democrats were seemingly determined to not allow another sex scandal to take down a political candidate that could beat George H.W. Bush. And so the Jennifer Flowers' accusations came out, and the Democrats, instead of, of, you know, sort of like having Clinton walk away and, you know, suspend the campaign and

we're going to, you know, try and run somebody else. They fought it. They fought back. They made the, you know, first of all, like denied everything, right? Like Clinton denied everything forever. It was a vast Republican conspiracy, all this sort of stuff. But also, people started making the argument more forcefully that this shouldn't infidelity shouldn't disqualify somebody from running for office and that the Democrats sort of standing by Clinton and making it impossible for the Republican tactic of you know uncovering these you know skeletons in Clinton's closet to get him out of that race that then further galvanized the Republicans right and so they, you know, that they then were determined that they were never going to get beat by

somebody like Clinton again and sort of the ever escalating whatever. And so if you want to make this argument that this all started at Gary Hart, I think you have to at least take it to where things went to in 92 and just sort of, you know, tell that story. Tell the story of this sort of escalating brinksmanship between these two parties. over this idea that what had used to be this unspoken policy in D.C. of everybody's cheating on their wives and we're not going to say anything. Yeah, I mean, like, that gets brought out. It's Alfred Molina, right?

That's like, we used to report it. They used to be like, no, boys, there's going to, you're going to see a lot of women coming and going to. Yeah, that LBJ, the LBJ quote, which reminded me of Tom Hanks in the Post, right? who is also being like, you know, we used to be chummy with JFK and we used to look the other way and it was wrong to do that. Like the Post sort of wrestles with that same morality, but does it in a more compelling way, a more interesting way, and a way that much more forcefully ties things to current events. And the frontrunner, typical of what it does on all fronts, just sort of like bring

it up and then sort of just like lets it sit there and it doesn't work for me. Exactly. Like it, nothing is really kind of developed or actively wrestled with it and it's like, I don't want to get fully into Reitman just yet because like I think one of

the, one of the big things we haven't really talked about in terms of like why it might have also sunk Gary Hart beyond, like the handling of his, of this sex scandal. But also it just him as a character in a movie the aspect where he kind of just shuts down and doesn't want to talk

about it and like so demonstrably like you know his his rejection of talking about it and saying how insignificant it is it's not just the way it's not just that as a tactic but also his demeanor when you know approaching that conversation gave people a perceived weakness it's not just the action it's also him as a communicator you know kind of

allowed you know it made him crumble basically in a way that gave people a lot less confidence about him and I don't think that the movie examines that as a political ramification enough and I also think it

it makes Gary Hart as a character, as frustrating as he was a political candidate in the, like, I'm not going to reveal anything of myself, you know, in a way that, like, just doesn't work. Like, that should make him a more interesting, more compelling character, like, if you're actually examining it, then it ultimately does. Besides the Post, this movie made me think of two other movies, most especially, from the 1990s, which were the American President and Primary Colors, which both came out within a few years of each other, both incredibly influenced by the Clinton presidency. And the American President has that same thing, where Michael Douglas is so forcefully, like, my personal life shouldn't matter, who I date. shouldn't matter. The American public should not care. And eventually Martin Sheen and Michael J. Fox and everybody else, and that finally gets through to them and just like, well, they do. And so we need to do something about it because this is the reality. I think that Gary Hart is mentioned in that movie, right? Probably. Because like that, you know, that was, and but again, that's something

you can do and you can dramatize in 1995. And in a way that is, more pertinent to that moment, I think too much has happened to be able to make a movie in 2018 the same way without furthering the discussion. And then with the primary colors thing, I mostly thought about that when we got to the scenes of Gary Hart and Lee Hart, played by Vera Farmiga, and her sort of, you know, what was their relationship? What was the actual sort of sin being committed here? Was it making her look like a fool in public? Was it bringing this attention to their doorstep? Was it getting the press to hound to their daughter? And in primary colors, that sort of reckoning that he has to have, Jack Stanton has to have with Susan

Stanton, his wife, played by Emma Thompson, to me is much more fascinating, compelling, it's trashier. Like, everything about primary colors is trashier. This movie, the frontrunner, you know, is the classy version. But, like, I would much rather watch primary colors. Because, like, the movie's so milk-toast. I don't think you can call it low-brow, high-brow. Well, I think it wants to take the high-row.

It doesn't want to take a lane. I feel like what this movie, it wants to be, like, classy Sorkin. Yeah. Like, or, like, I thought a lot about Sorkin in this movie. I thought a lot about Robert Altman. And, like, I feel like the movie is trying to, you know, do West Wing in a Nashville kind of way. For as much as people shit on Sorkin, Sorken would have made a much more interesting movie. And more people would have hated it, but more people would have actually loved it to.

He would have made a movie with an actual point of view. I would say that. I mean, like, I don't know if Sorken would make something out of Gary Hart that he hasn't already made. Right. But, like, it would at least, you know, have a point of view. Because, like, this movie you watch it, and it's like, what's the fucking target here? Like, what are you, what's the actual goal, rather than these maybe 15 different nebulous things that never really congeal on their own or pull together into an idea? Sorkin kind of did that in the West Wing when he wrote in the multiple sclerosis storyline with the president, where that comes out in the second season.

And for a lot of that angle is, did the president have a responsibility to disclose this? Why would, you know, what the morality of that? And again, that was, as a lot of things were in early West Wing, a way of writing around, recontextualizing the Clinton presidency to be more defensible. You know what I mean? A more, a Clinton you could be proud of was sort of the conception of early West Wing. But it still at least brought up those questions of what is actual pertinent, actually pertinent to the voters. What are they owed and what are they not owed? Are they owed everything?

Are they owed complete, you know, peer into the bedroom transparency? Are they owed something more vetted by? a responsible journalist, you know, uh, whatever, uh, fifth the state kind of a thing. So, I don't know. I mean, my feeling with like, and maybe it's not intentional that, you know, Reitman is gesturing towards those things. That's just like our frame of reference for like this type of, you know, story, this type of movie. But like it, uh, I mean, we, we've done an episode on men, women, and children, which we both agree. You don't mean

the movie you mean just in general we've done episodes on men on women and on children like movies are about a lot this podcast is for the parents and also the children shut up uh that's what jason wrightman said making that movie go go ahead sorry you're making your point and also the women the women and also the children the children all right um listen children for your nerves uh we did an episode on that movie we both agreed it's horrible. It's definitely his worst movie. I say that saying I have not seen his Ghostbusters

movie and I have less than zero interest in watching it. I would say even if his Ghostbusters movie is truly, truly terrible, there is no way that it is trying to say the things that men, women,

and children are trying to say, and like that's what makes men, women, and children the worst. Is that, like, that sort of attempt at more the internet generation in a way that is impossible. Not to, like, misuse sports metaphors, but men, women, and children isn't Jason Reitman punching above his weight class, right? Like, it's, this, this, I think, kind of exposes him as being out of his depth in a way,

because it's so flat, so not what he is good at doing. and, like, I mean, his best movies have some bite to them, even Tully, the same year, which I think is ultimately a very, you know, warm and tender movie, like, has some actual, like, teeth to that movie. Well, if you even want to, as I am sometimes tempted to do, sort of chalk up all of his Diablo Cody collaborations to Diablo Cody and sort of take them away from Reitman. but like he still made thank you for smoking and wrote that screenplay on his own and like that is a movie with some bite to it I don't love other people have directed Diablo Cody too it's like right

I mean and sometimes Diablo Cody is directed Diablo Cody scripts and it's like it I don't know I think that there is something that he is uniquely right for in her in like delivering her point of view that like honestly, like, you know, really highlights the writer that like, when he makes anything else a lot of the time, it's just like, it's not to what he's good at.

Absent from the Diablo Cody collaborations, he's, to me, and I think to a lot of people, getting worse. The run through from, thank you for smoking, to up in the air, to Labor Day, men, women, and children, the front runner, Ghostbusters Afterlife. I don't love up in the air, but, like, up in the air is at least a better movie than Labor Day men, women, and children, the frontrunner goes best. Like, it really does seem to be, like, moving ever further downward. I don't think, here's, the thing about the front one. I don't think he's going to be making movies like this anymore.

The frontrunner, like, they kept making less and less money. The frontrunner, with the exception of men, women, and children, which didn't even make a million dollars, is his lowest grossing movie. He has a movie starring Hugh Jackman, and it made $2 million. It's not as bad of a movie. as Labor Day and men, women, and children, those are movies that are like, to me, ostentatiously bad. The Front Runner is a series of missed opportunities that ultimately declines at every turn

to be a more interesting movie. And that is maybe in a way worse because at least Labor Day is going for something and it ends up being embarrassing, but, like, at least it risks embarrassment. I think Jason Reitman probably thinks this movie is more interesting than we do. Probably.

I think it's it's just not as interesting as it thinks it is it's not as interesting in the way that it tells it as it thinks it is I think it's a little overconfident of a movie and like I appreciate the like gentler touches that come in like capturing the performances that like lingering shot that slowly zooms in on Vera Farminga on the payphone hearing from her daughter and like

yeah like the realization like that is the moment that the campaign is over well you bring up Nashville in a way and like Altman in a way that I think it's because like there's there's a lot of things that this movie could have been right it could have been a movie about an idealistic campaign it could have been a movie about uh sort of changing standards in political reporting it could have been a movie about Donna Rice about how Donna Rice gets railroaded there are a few The best stuff in the movie is the Donna Rice scene. That's the thing. It could have been a movie about a political marriage and the thoriness of that. It could have been a movie about a candidate who wanted to run for president and not reveal where he grew up.

You know what I mean? To that degree. And so I think maybe from Reitman's perspective, he feels like by touching on all of these things, he's making a movie about all of these things. But to me, as a viewer, I think he's making a movie about none of these things because he doesn't, they only get sort of brushed upon and they don't get told. Yeah, complete agreement. Well, I mean, I shouldn't say, the Vera Fermi guy, I think, is quite good in this movie in the like three.

I was going to say she doesn't get a whole lot of opportunity to be that good, but yeah. But like I do like the Donnery's scenes quite a bit as well. And like that's when the movie feels like it's finally clicking into place. And then when you move into another seat, it's not like. Even when we're describing the movie and describing all the problems of the movie, all we're talking about is Gary Hart. But like with a movie with this many characters and this many moving parts, you should be able to talk about those characters much more than you're able to. They should have more of an impact on the movie than they do. I do like Mamadu Athi in this movie.

Yeah. Star of Paddy Cake Dollar Sign. Oh, I was wondering where I had seen him before. Yeah. Yeah. I remember when he showed up in this movie, I was like, that's the Patty Cake Dollar Sign actor. He was good in that movie. And I think he's good in this. He's the closest thing that I think the movie comes to having an actual, like, character. Because he's somewhat conflicted. He's, he and the Molly Ephraim character who plays the campaigner who has to sit down with Donna Rice. Like, that scene with Molly Ephraim and. Sarah Paxton is Donna Rice. Sarah Paxton, Aquamarine herself, is Donna Rice. I thought the scene between the two of them is like maybe, I think, the strongest in the movie.

The most interesting angle that the movie actually kind of locks into this whole idea, not only of we have Donna Rice, we're going to silo her, but the person in the campaign who that suddenly becomes their job. to get information from isolate and get chummy with this... This woman they're about to hang out to dry. Yeah. And she knows it. And she can't be honest about it. And she's a composite character, Irene. And so I think it's telling, as it often is in these movies that sort of, you know,

find themselves a little bit handcuffed by having to tell a true story, is these composite characters can be the most sort of free to be you and me kind of, you know, people. So that makes sense, yeah. Well, and I love that Molly Ephraim's character, basically, her last note is that scene that ultimately morphs into seeing that pay phone call, where, like, her last note, you can kind of tell that, like, she's still doing her job, but she's kind of like, let's fucking get real here like you she's she's at least the maybe one of the better people in this movie at like portraying an arc to their character that this movie is only so interested in right of like you know what she's had to do professionally and the moral implications of it yeah yeah uh this movie also sort of borrows a little bit from the stephen sotaberg the informant uh tactic of I'm just going to cast a bunch of comedy people to play in this case journalists

in a way that I hope will like josh up something and I think when Soderberg does it... No jokes in this movie. When Soderberg does it in the informant, it becomes almost like a joke in it of itself that like they're all playing these like

non-comedic characters and yet it's like you know, I can't now I want to look up with few exceptions self-aware Soderberg castings are usually gold. Rare exceptions being Seth MacFarlane. But, like, the informant has, the one that I always

remember is, like, the one that really is like, Joel McCale is playing an FBI agent, but, like, who the hell else? Pat and Oswald's in that movie. Scott adds it. Everybody needs to get on board with putting Rita Wilson in their supporting actress ballot for Kimmy. I'm just saying.

Like, Soderberg cast the Smothers Brothers in his movie, you know what I mean? And sort of, like, that tells you something. And in this case, it's like, it's Steve Zissis from the, I know him most from, like, Baghead, like the D-plus Swanberg sort of Uber there. Bill Burr is one of the Miami Herald guys. Kevin Pollock is like the editor-in-chief of the Miami Herald. In like two scenes, and it's like, where the hell is Kevin Pollock there? They're in the one scene where the editor is like sort of giving them their marching orders.

And I'm like, why does this guy look familiar to me? I can't place them. And it was Mike Judge, you know what I mean? So it's just sort of like, it's like, oh, okay, I get what you're doing. Well, because Mike Judge, we don't know what he looks like, but we know what he sounds like. Did you ever see that video that Mike Judge on camera does the Beavis voice? Yes. It broke my fucking brain. I'm going to try to find it again for our listeners, but it does not compute.

Something is wires are not crossing. It's great. But again, like, it's, I don't think it's doing for Reitman what it's doing for Soderberg. And I do feel like there is, there's a degree to which every once in a while, I feel like the film, like, because Reitman as a filmmaker doesn't have a super strong identity, even though he is a name brand and he's somebody we know. I think even beyond, you think even if he wasn't Ivan Reitman's son, after the movies that he's made, I think we would know him as a brand name, but he doesn't really have a strong identity. Every once in a while, the closest I think he comes is like, oh, I think he's maybe trying to be like Soderberg. Up in the Air always makes me feel that way, and maybe it's the Clooney of it all. But like, there's, I don't know, there's some, every once in a while I'll catch a little bit of a aspiration towards somebody like, Soderberg, and this little aspect of the frontrunner makes me think that as well. But there's not a looseness to it. I mean, probably, like, the quintessential Jason Reitman performer is the one who in this movie

does at least seem to know from a scene-to-scene basis what the scene is about and, like, the message that each scene needs to convey is J.K. Simmons, because, like, J.K. Simmons is like, if he's not in the movie, he's a voice on a phone in Jason Wright. Well, I'm glad you brought up J.K. Simmons because we do have some business to take care of. This is Mr. Just kidding, Simmons. Yes. It's our second Simmons episode

in the last four weeks because we did the meddler a few weeks ago with our friend Richard Lawson, and of course, J.K. Simmons there is playing a sentient push-broom mustache, and we love him for it. So the frontrunner makes six for

J.K. Simmons. J.K. Sixmans. He is our latest to join the hallowed halls of the Six-Timers Club on this had Oscar buzz after episodes on The Gift. I would challenge you or I to remember

who he plays in the Gift, but he's definitely in the Gift. Who the Hell is he in the Gift? That's a really good question. It's a really good question. We did the Gift a long time ago. Sam Ramey's the Gift. He's in rendition as

some sort of CIA person, I imagine. He's in men, women, and children. He's in Burn After Reading. He's in The Medler, and now he's in the frontrunner. So that makes six. Six movies with J.K. Simmons. The consummate character actor

before he won his Academy Award, I think a lot of people probably, if you didn't watch Oz on HBO, which is, like, the most, like, featured. like he's like one of the stars of that show he's terrifying he's mostly maybe like oh he's like the shrink on law and order for all those years or he's someone's boss in something or he's you know what i mean he's very much like the consummate like that guy and then whiplash happened and you know people knew his name he won's an academy award so anyway one of those quintessential

actors that i talk about all the time that it's like the first time they get nominated they're absolutely just going to run the table all season. It's worked with everybody. Suddenly they just get nominated for things. So we are going to do a six-timers quiz. I'm going to give you a six-timers quiz on the films that we have covered from one Mr. J.K. Simmons. So, Chris, are you ready? I am. All right. Once again, the gift. Rendition. Men, women, and children, burn after reading, the medler, the front-runner. Listeners, feel free to play along. which one of these movies is the longest.

Rendition. Rendition. By the way, juries out on how often I'm going to use the fiddler on the roof drop for this. We'll see how it goes. I could do it every time. I could just do it once. Listeners, you'll know by the time you're listening to this, which I've chosen.

Yes, bump-p-p-bump-bump-bump rendition. Shortest. The meddler? Nope. Burn after reading. Burn after reading at a sleek 96 minutes. Highest domestic box office total. Oh, God.

These are all, is it rendition? It's not rendition. Burn after reading takes it fairly easily with $60.3 million at the domestic box office. Lowest domestic box office total. Men women and children with $705,000 at the box office. office, yes. Highest Rotten Tomatoes score. Well, Burn After Reading actually didn't have a good score if I remember.

No, Burn After Reading. Not Burn After Reading. The Gift. Not the gift. The Medler. The medler at 85%. There's justice in this world. Burn After Reading was 78 on Rotten Tomatoes.

So, yes, there is justice in this world. The medler. Lowest Rotten Tomatoes score. Men, women, at children. 33% yes very good quite generous which two of these movies were distributed by studios

inside the Sony umbrella the meddler Sony classics and the frontrunner regular as Sony regular as Sony all right which movie had cinematography by Dion Bibi rendition rendition

which movie was released during Taurus season. Taurus season, so this is a spring release. Is it the medler? It is the meddler. Very good. The meddler is your Taurus queen. Which is the only one that ended up on the National Border Review top 10 for that year?

Oh, burn after reading? Burn after reading, correct. Which are the only two where the director didn't write or co-write the screenplay? The Gift. Yes. Sam Ramey. and um did jason wrightman do any script touches on men women and children that's uh no it's it's rendition it's gavin hood yeah Gavin hood did not do the screenplay for rendition um in fact let me look up the gift

screenplay was billy bob thornton of course and tom epperson renditions uh screenplay was by kelly sane. Wrightman co-wrote men, women, and children with Aaron Cressida Wilson. All right. What's next? What's next? What's next? Sorry.

Which is the only one of these movies that didn't play the Toronto International Film Festival? No, burn after reading, because it would have opened during the festival. It played Toronto. It did. Okay, never mind. The Gift?

The Gift, correct, yes. Which one of these movies got an AARP Movies for Grownups Awards nomination for Best Supporting Actor? Burn After Reading, it was Malcovich. Indeed, exactly right, Burn After Reading for John Malcovich. Excellent choice. Which of these movies received two. Two Teen Choice Award nominations. The gift.

Not the gift. No, not for Katie Holmes? Not for Katie Holmes. Rendition. Rendition. That's right, because we made fun of it. Jake Gillenholl and Reese Witherspoon, both nominated for choice, actor, and actress, and a drama. All those teens going to rendition.

Which is the only one of these movies not to feature a best actress Oscar winner? Um, the frontrunner. Exactly right. The Frontrunner. The gift features Kate Blanchett and Hillary Swank, rendition, Hezrease Witherspoon. Men, Women, and Children, who's the Oscar winner there? Well, it's narrated by Emma Thompson. That's it. That's it, exactly. Very good. Oh, there's not someone else in the cast. Not somebody else. Should, well, Jennifer Garner should have won a best supporting actress Oscar for Gino, but that's neither here nor there.

Byrd after reading Francis McDormand, the meddler, Susan Sarandon. Yes, very good, the frontrunner. Which two movies on this list feature stars of Elizabethtown? This is a question we did for the previous six-timers' guest, too. Just trying to get Elizabethan into the six-tops. Yeah, why not? Okay. Well, the meddler, obviously.

And Judy Greer's in men, women, and children, right? Very good. Judy Greer is in men, women, and children. Which two movies feature stars of The Giver? Rendition has Meryl. Yes. Is Taylor Swift in any of these movies? No. Well, Jeff Bridges is in none of these.

Who else is in The Damn Giver? Is Marilyn in another one of these movies? I've never seen The Giver. Okay. It's got to, is it men, women, and children for one of the teens or something? It's not, although that would have been a smart guess. This is somebody who played, I believe, somebody's mother in The Giver. Huh.

Okay. She was, I definitely remember she's in the trailer, and people are like, oh, she's in this movie. you previously erroneously thought this person might have been a teen choice nominee Oh, Katie Holmes Katie Holmes From the gift

From the gift is in the giver Yes The gift and the giver She really like That's a full circle career for Katie Holmes She's in the gift And then she's in the giver Sounds like a Christmas movie

Which two movies feature stars Of Dangerous Liaisons Well, burn after reading has Malcovich. And, okay, so Glenn Close is in none of these. There's Malcovich, Glenn Close, Umma Thurman, Michelle Pfeiffer, Keanu Reeves is in the gift.

There we go. The gift, again, true to its title, it keeps on giving. Which of these movies, which of these movies was originally going to be titled, the same thing that, Lucy in the sky was originally going to be titled. Pale blue dot is men, women, and children. One of these days, we're going to get pale blue dot.

It's going to happen somewhere. Of which film did Peter Travers say, quote, A scolding sermon on the evils of the internet, preacher redacted won't be satisfied till we stomp our smartphones, L-O-L-W-T-F. Men, women, and children. Men, women, children. It's obvious, but I just had to throw out there.

It takes a bad movie for it. Peter Travers to not like it. Peter Travers revolving into text-speak by the end of that quote is just very funny to me. All right. Of which film did Rex Reed say, hot off the headlines, this is one timely thriller that delivers its message with a huge punch and no heavy speechifying. Rendition. Rendition. He loved rendition. Of which film did Rex Reed say, this is a responsible, educated, sophisticated, and often deeply witty film about politics and journalistic responsibility

in the tradition of all the president's men, the Post, and the aides of March. The frontrunner. Yes. Should we re-contextualize our discussion based on Rex Reed's high opinion of the front-runner? No. God forbid Rex Reed ever listens to our podcast. He's just going to feel dragged, hither and yawn by us. You deserved it, Mr. Rex a million.

All right. Rexit Ralph. Not Rexit Ralph. Okay. What else to talk about? So let's talk about the reason why we're talking about this movie at this moment. Hugh Jackman. Husef Jackman.

Husefair. Hucifer. Mr. Huge, Ackman. Huge Ackman. Okay. The, I mean, his nomination for Le Miz, a movie that I despise, like, was the most given thing that would happen. Like, of course, that's how he gets his Oscar nomination. He can't really seem to get arrested for anything else.

A lot of his other attempts, like, it's a real shame about bad education because Hugh Jackman is a performer who, like, is just outside the door of things that I would normally like. I think if this movie was just a better movie, a movie that, like, did more interesting things, I think he could give a more interesting performance. That said, I don't think he's bad in this movie. But one year later... Sorry. Huh?

No, finish your point, because you're going to lead up to that. One year later, he comes out with bad education, which world. premieres at that Toronto International Film Festival. If you're a movie that doesn't have distribution and has awards aims, it's not always, Toronto

is not always the friendliest place. It's worked before. The wife was held for a full year and got very, very close to winning Glenn Close in Oscar. Still Alice premiered there and really

kind of took the reins of what was seen as a very very paltry best actress year and they got and they basically did a qualifying release for that movie it's hard to you know when you're a distributor that like you've locked your release plans for the year to throw a new movie in the mix and for it to do well all that to say bad education gets picked up by HBO and is even by emmy standards a completely also ran, and I think it's safely the best performance of Hugh Jackman's career. Well, we've talked

about, at least I've talked about, why I feel like that movie was dead in the water from Emmy consideration, because we are in such an era of limited series that TV movies are just

not considered. This is what, you know, this happened to the tale. This happens to now this era of, well, movies are being premiered on streaming services, they can just compete for Emmys. And I think there's a false sense that is

stemming from a decades-old conception of the Emmys, that it will be easier for a movie star to win an Emmy if their movie premieres on television. And that's just not the environment we're in. Right now, we are in the golden age of the limited series, and there is no room at the inn

for these people. Here's my question to you, though. Had had bed education opened in films or in theaters and played in the Oscar race do you think he has a shot at getting a best actor nomination in 2019 the next okay so 2019 give us that best actor lineup if we think that that's crackable 2019 is joker Joaquin phoenix for joker Adam driver for marriage story. Jonathan Price

for the... Dos popes. I'm trying to do this from memory, so we'll see how I go. Let's see. 2019. DiCaprio for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Antonio Banderas for Pain and Glory.

Yeah. That's a hard lineup to probably crack. I mean, the one that we could maybe guess would be because it's such a more minor performance in a minor movie would be Jonathan Price but like people really liked that movie the irony of bad education

of course is had it been had like Warner Brothers bought it right or you know some had it been bought by a movie studio scheduled for release in the spring of 2020.

And then, once the pandemic happened and theaters closed, they then... You want that movie held for two years so that he can lose to Anthony Hopkins. No. But the movies that then had to change their plans and premiere on streaming were allowed to compete for the Oscars if that was a changed plan.

Bad Education, because Bad Education doesn't premiere on HBO until April of 2020. or already in the pandemic. But because that was always the plan, that was an Emmys movie. Whereas I'm trying to think of, like, other movies that year that were able to premiere on streaming as a backup plan were sort of grandfathered into the Oscar race for 2020. And then I do feel like maybe in that special circumstance, asterisky 2020 year, maybe

right no no no I completely I completely see that logic and that's such a like lack of movies type of thing that if it had it been eligible I think they could have made

some type of case like I don't think you're wrong about the best performance of his career thing he's quite quite good in that but it's still it's still not exactly the kind of movie that's in in vogue with the Oscars these days, right? Right.

It's contemporary. It's darkly comedic. It's a dark performance, too, because he's not a good guy, but the movie, I think, is hesitant to position him exactly as a villain. Right. And I think that's a very interesting mode to see Hugh Jackman, who, like, Like, I think as a screen presence isn't, like, relatable. Like, people don't think of him, like, Tom Hanks, you know,

where we have an emotional connection to him or, like, and a, like, a parental type of figure, you know. He's not Jimmy Stewart, you know, for us. Like, who is he? He's like a, I don't know. And, like, it's a, I almost kind of think it's a shame about the sun, which is so abysmal, because, like, I do think Hugh Jackman is best at playing these kind of complicated, delusional sort of guys that, you know, their complexity, their, you know, the darker parts of, you know, their psyche, that he's good at playing, like, kind of bury. that and then having to

deal with the consequences of it and like that's the kind of common thread of a lot of his good work and I think it's a common thread that the sun would share it is however a complete piece of shit

and it's opening this week I can't imagine how I think if this was a more competitive best actor year he would be completely out of the conversation because the movie is so bad. The only person who I think emerges unscathed from it is Vanessa Kirby. Yeah, I still am not willing to count him out

of the Oscar conversation just because that field is feeling very, very shallow in terms of performances that, again, I made this argument when we talked about Afterson a few weeks ago, but it's insane that Paul Muskell is not a huge presence in that conversation for every reason. The performances that seem to be that things seem to be whittling down to

it's still among them because there's not a whole ton of But anyway, I wanted to People need to be talking up Bill Nyey and Jeremy Pope That's all I'll say 100%. You know I agree with you

on both of those counts Those are two deserving winners Right there But again, it's also Colin Farrell who like Yeah I do wonder if there is actual If there could be

A real race there It could be It could be You mentioned the Les Mis thing, though, and I want to sort of track his career from the first Oscar nomination to Le Maiz and, like, where a second one could have even come from? Because he's, in that stretch from 2012 through 2022, he's made, he's gone back to the Wolverine role four times with a fifth one on the way in Deadpool 3. setting all of those aside because that does seem to me the like sort of you know the fallback right

and there's a lot of like kind of a lot of cameos actually where like he plays King Arthur in one of the night of the museums he's a voice on the phone I want to say in me and Earl and the dying girl

a voice cameo in Free Guy and anyway we'll set those aside so really we're not dealing with a ton of actual movies. Prisoners is 2013, which I think is interesting in that you look at prisoners retroactively, and we're like, yeah. He's trying real hard for it in that movie. But again, it's in that thread that I'm talking about. And there's, it's not like Prisoners is so out of the question of could have been a potential. Because like, what's the

qualitative difference between Hugh Jackman and prisoners and let's say Sean Penn and Mystic River. Right. Not that much, really. I mean, I don't love that Sean Penn performance, but I can see how it's easy to say Sean Penn is significantly better than Hugh Jackman. I wouldn't dispute that, but what I'm saying is they're in the same ballpark in terms of type of role, register of performance. subject matter of the movie, you know what I mean? Because I think a lot of people look at prisoners and be like, Oscar voters weren't going to go for that movie.

It's disturbing. And it's like, it's no more disturbing in a lot of ways than what Mystic River was about. You know what I mean? I also wonder if you release that movie in November instead of September, what happens to it. Who knows? So then it's like, again, he plays Wolverine a couple of times. 2015, Chappie. 2015.

I even forgot. about Chappi. Wait, he's in Chappie and Real Steel. He's in Chappie. Real Steel came before Le Maze, but yes. Yes, but I just put those two and two together. 2015, he's in Chappie and Pan in the same year, which is a year. Top tier, this at Oscar Bill's episode. Yeah, I loved that Pan episode. 2016, he's in Eddie the Eagle, which, again, in a world...

In a world... That's true. Dexter Fletcher cinema. In a world where somehow, and like, weirder things have happened, Eddie the Eagle becomes a populist sort of like full Monty style, you know, Americans... Right. There have been, you know, Michael Kane almost getting nominated for Little Voice, et cetera. Sure.

In a world where that happens. Hugh Jackman is a supporting sort of like, you know, he's the coach in that, right? Like, that's sort of the, you know, we've seen that kind of thing have success in another parallel universe. It just didn't for Eddie the Eagle. I'm going to send us to a darker timeline that I would actually pause it something. Let's imagine an alternate reality where, you know, hell has taken over the earth. The Centa Bites have gained control of the board of executives of AMC theaters. This is what happened.

And the greatest showman is an immediate box office success. Well, I was walking up to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Instead of, you know, a slow burn. The thing about that movie is it is a piece of shit, but other pieces of shit have done well with the Oscars. I think that movie's reputation changes among, you know, I think that movie is perceived very differently from an awards standpoint if it succeeds right out the gate instead of becoming this slow burn Tumblr-esque late hit. Here's what I'm going to say about The Greatest Showman. Is it a good movie?

no not particularly uh oh it's a terrible movie is it good at staging some of its best numbers i would say no for most of them with one exception i do but like am i a fan of the uh whole pacic and paul thing not really not really and yet as often happens with the whole and Paul thing, there are multiple songs from The Greatest Showmen that I do think are bangers, and I do listen to them

on my own accord often. And I do feel like, at the very least, the Zach Afron Zendaya rewrite the stars number is actually well-sendary. Rewrite the stars, and never enough

should have been the original song. Rewrite the stars, never enough, good in the movie. Zach Efron, good singer, not particularly sure but like delivers the package on time you know what I mean

like he's Federal Express in that way this is me from no on done particularly well in the movie no and yet I'll watch both of those YouTube from the like live whatever song performance that scored them the money to make the movie

any day of the week we'll watch all that so like that's the thing with a great show Is it a movie that particularly likes audiences? Not really. There's a whole critic that's like, audiences are fucking stupid. And then P.T. Barnum's like, yeah, they're stupid, but you can make them fucking happy.

And it's like, wait a minute. Who am I supposed to believe here? Everyone in this movie is telling me that audiences are stupid. This is a movie that hates the audience. And it's like, yeah, but we can trick them. The improbability of The Greatest Showman is honestly one of my favorite things. Just because, like, I just, I find it so delightful. The less I like the movie, the more I find that all genuinely, uh, kind of delightful.

But so you're not wrong. Does that mean Hugh Jackman is nominated for it? Probably not, but like maybe you get a costume nomination that way. Well, it was also the most deserved Golden Globe nomination in the history of Golden Globe Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy because, like, of course he should have gotten that nomination. Like, that was made for that. But the, so you're not wrong about your assessment of that. I think to put that even into a broader context, the greatest showman and Logan both

happening in the same year. And again, I don't like Logan, but Logan succeeded with the Oscars way more than you could have ever in your wildest dreamed. Got a goddamn screenplay nomination. Got a screenplay nomination. So what I'm saying is, I think there would have, there should have been a way to package Hugh Jackman's success in 2017. This should be the next level.

This is, you know. Right. Like, that should have been, and all, and that, like, walking up to the door of the frontrunner being, like, look at what he just gave you in 2017. He made you money. He was, you know, he, he made you. He made you money in two very different types of movies. He made you feel somehow improbably, with the 17th go-around with Wolverine, he made

you take that movie series. and then he made a bajillion dollars playing like an amoral huckster who sings, you know, 2017 style musical theater, like 54 below caliber, you know, whatever musical theater shit. All of that leading up to the frontrunner, that's a gift. That's a gift for an Oscar campaign. If the frontrunner were in any way interesting, somebody should have been able to make hay. And I think looking into festival season, this is a lot of what the mindset was around this movie. And then because Gary Hart is this kind of limited character that gives Jackman not a ton to play and it not being a particularly interesting movie, it helped it die basically immediately.

And it's not like Jackman didn't work for it. He went to that telluride and shook hands with all of the people who ooh and awe overseeing famous people on the street at a film. film festival. He was on the Actors Roundtable that year. Talk to me about the Actors Roundtable that year, Chris. Okay, this Actors Roundtable, uh, hopeful, I swear to God, it's going to drop any day and people will be like, no, Twitter is good again. We can't leave. Um, we're going to get that actress roundtable any second now. Any second, it's coming. By now this episode,

if it hasn't come yet, like, trust and believe I am beside myself. self, you know, wondering when my husband will be home from the war. Does it usually release around Thanksgiving time? Is that usually? It's November. Okay. Okay. Okay. It's November. Okay. But this actor's roundtable, Hugh Jackman, Chadwick Boseman, rest in peace. That made me so sad to see. Uh, Richard E. Grant, Timothy Shalameh, Mahershershula Ali, and Vigo Mortensen. It's a good roundtable. Double green book. Tubble Green Book

Timmy representing Beautiful Boy Was that Beautiful Boy year? Yes, this is Beautiful Boy. Richard E. Grant for Can You Ever Forgive Me? Right. Chadwick Buzzman for Black Panther. Interesting that only one eventual best actor nominee in the whole in the whole lineup.

And it's Vigo. And it's Vigo. Making his own Calzone. But like, I'm trying, so like, wait, who were the other best actor nominees besides Rami Mollock would have been just. an odd addition to any roundtable and almost to the point where you almost want to see it but like I don't know everybody would have just been very awkward he's just a weird it would have been it would have been his uh in is it Mandarin hotels the one where the ad where he's like

Rami Malik at his most dead eye yes he's like I'm a fan of old movies I watched last night my mom. How did I get there? I'm trying to remember how I got to my, as I often do, watching the end credits to Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2. Somehow, oh, something had led me to, so you think you can dance clip where they did a waltz to that song. And so I was like, well, now I have to go and watch the end credits to Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2, as I often do, because it's genuinely batched and delightful. In that, So it's like side character, side character, all these people, mostly people you don't really know, and then all of a sudden, like, and it's like two or three people in a shot,

and then it's like name, name, name, sort of like floating on the screen, and then just Rami Malik, like literally looking as wild-eyed as you've ever seen him, like talking to the butterflies or whatever, and just in this shot, and it makes me laugh every single time I see it. It's so funny. The other best actor nominees that year were Christian Bale for Vice. Cooper doing no press for a star is born and Willem DeFoe for at Eternity's Gate. What was the deal with Bradley Cooper doing no press for a star is born? I mean, like...

And we all got mad about it on his behalf when he didn't get nominated for, wait, which one did he get snubbed for, actor director? He got the actor nominations, so he got snubbed for director. And we all got mad about it on his behalf. That was expected by that point, though. Was it? I thought it was kind of expected that it was a possibility that he wasn't because he did nothing for it.

But, like, why? Like, that's... He had that one profile, was it in the New York Times. Yes. That, like, everybody... I mean, he... He seemed just very press shy in it. Like, it was a whole, like, talking point of the piece of how he was, like, very guarded.

But, like, this movie was his baby. Like, he, like... It, it... I want somebody to get to the bottom of that. Like, and by that, I mean... All that to say, I cannot wait for the maestro press cycle next year. It's kind of something, you know something weird and crazy is going to happen. So I'm like, I want to have fun, but like, I'm so like, about this season that I'm like, give me my struggle.

What is making you blah about this season? I don't know. I don't care about or like a lot of the movies. I mean, the Brendan Fraser thing is just making me be like, let's just fucking get it over with. I just, yeah, like, I mean, I want to see banshees again to see if I, like, I thought it was great, loved it, but like, can I get excited about it as an awards player? Oh, interesting. Interesting that you're... I haven't found, I haven't found my lane of advocacy and what I'm rooting for, even if I know it's not going to win yet.

Yeah. Like, I feel like what's been exciting to me is so far outside this year. You liked Fableman's though I did See this is why I'm like Your voice goes up in that like Did I? No I did I like that movie

Quite a bit It's very entertaining I can't wait to like You know take people to see that movie Like be excited for it Yeah But like I guess maybe I'm already

Bracing for people to really take Spielberg For granted in the way that Yeah They always have Yeah I mean saying that He's the second most nominated Living director behind Scorsese

You're gonna be very annoyed you're going to be very annoyed in the eventuality that everything everywhere all at once ends up getting a best director nomination or winning best picture I think that's a really strong possibility that that movie's going to be a best picture winner

I do too that's a movie that the things that I like about it I really really like and then the things that I don't like about it I really don't like I really like I'm happy for Michelle Yo. Michelle Yo is a stronger best actress possibility than Michelle Williams at this point. I think at this point, yes. I think at this point, yes. I think at this point, yes. I think it's more likely between Michelle Yo and Kate Blanchett than it is Michelle Williams. It's so funny that at Toronto, we were both counting our money for this this bet that we've made. And sort of to the point where we were like, should we like exchange the money on the same day? Like, how funny would that be? Should we, you know, start talking about, what our further bets will be.

And now, I have only gotten more solidified in winning, and you have gotten the rug pulled out from under you. I should give you the $50 for Colin Farrell yesterday. Well, let's wait till it's official. But yes, I do feel for you in that, like, it really felt like it was sewn up for you. And then Michelle was like, Chris doesn't need that money. I'm just going to go

into Best Actress. No. Oh, boy. I'm sure we'll have some questions about it in the mailbag, so we shouldn't go too far down it. There's probably other things I would be more annoyed about than Everything Everywhere winning Best Picture. Like, I have at least accepted with that movie that, like, I have my limitations with it, but it's a movie that a lot of other people, and a lot of smart people do really, really like.

And it's just maybe not for me. And a lot of people outside of, like, every year we always hear the same, like, there was a, I'm not going to say the writer's name because I don't want to call people out. But there was like yet another piece very recently about like the Oscars need to be cool again and they need to be cool by nominating popular movies. And by popular we mean movies that made hundreds of million dollars at the box. Writers that have said the opposite before. So it's like, but also like popular movies are going to get nominated. Well, also, everything everywhere all at once is the definition of a popular movie. It is a movie that people...

It's going to be the movie that's going to pull votes because the people who want to support the theatrical experience. That's the movie they're going to vote for. The people who don't... Like, that is a movie that has got enthusiasm outside of the Oscar conversation. That is a movie that, like, that is a... ground swell actual enthusiasm like the people who love that movie exist all over the spectrum not just people like us who are like super into the Oscars and that's what like I find it absurd to lead into Oscar season with conversations of here's why the Oscars are out of touch

when you are entering into an Oscar year where one of the frontrunners is is an honest-to-god, like, populist hit. And... Not engineered to be one, too. What are we doing? Like, I... This is another reason why I don't want to, like, talk shit about the movie, because I'm like, I know it's just my thing, but, like, this is an actual...

It's, like, an actual good thing happening. If you just want to say that Top Gun Maverick should get a Best Picture nomination, at least just say that. I won't agree with you. I'll be more annoyed if Top Gun Maverick is a Best Picture nominee than that. movie. No, my everything everywhere won that is going to annoy me as if Jamie Lee Curtis is nominated for that movie. Like, well, Christ. I think both of those things there were not going to happen. I thought she was an active deterrent to that movie being good. I don't agree with you, but, but, you know, but anyway, but this is my, like, the arguments, whatever, this is, I feel like this is the 800th time I've talked about this, but like, the, the, the, the, if you're going to have the conversation that the Oscars should nominate more. things. You have to come at me with a title. You can't just be like, they should nominate more popular things. If you're saying they should nominate Spider-Man, then say it. And then I can

be like, no. If you're saying they should nominate popular movies, all I'm going to do is come back at you with a list of 20 movies that were popular that they did nominate. So, like, or they're going to nominate. So, like... I know that there's no quantifiable way for this, but, like, a shit ton of people watch The Power of the Dog on Netflix. A shit, like, Even more people are going to watch Glass Onion. Like, what does popular even mean anymore? There is no monoculture. Like, all right, all right.

Anything else you want to say about the frontrunner before we move into IMDB game? We should talk about Vera. The phone acting is so good. We already know that Vera is good at phone acting, but her two phone acting scenes, I think, are pretty good, quite good. Talk about that, because, like, I, that. me kind of washed over me. Oh, the scene where she hears about it, and like

not only do we basically learn about the terms of their marriage when Gary Hart, over the phone tells his wife, this story is coming out, this happened, and it's not that

what Vera Farmiga has to play and basically teach us as the audience is that this is, you know, the terms of their marriage, this is an accepted thing, but also what she is afraid of is not losing her husband. I mean, Lee Hart has since passed away after this movie, but they were married and together their whole life. Yeah.

We can hope and assume they were very happy the whole time. Yes. But that she wasn't afraid of infidelity or that her marriage would be in jeopardy. she was afraid of public response. And, like, her response, which is, I think, fairly emotionally complex, but, like, fear for Miga has to play is, I told you not to embarrass me. Right. And, I mean, like, maybe we who, you know, don't have the full, like, traditional sense of, like,

how marriage is function. Right. aren't as surprised by that. But I do think it's a surprise for the audience. And I do think it's, you know, for a movie that has, like, no element of surprise, I think it's, you know, a really impactful scene. I want to bring up the fact that if you don't want to have your political career end in scandal, you really shouldn't have a home in troublesome Gulch, Colorado.

Thank you for bringing this up because I was like, that's like... Sometimes we craft the instrument of our own demise subliminally, and it's when we take up residence in troublesome Gulch, Colorado. Joe famously born in Anxious Glug, Idaho. I am from a trepidation batch, North Dakota. Trepidation Valley. Yeah. Yeah. All right. That's basically, that's all I got. That's all I got. Would you like to explain to our listeners what the IMDB game is, maybe? Certainly. 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're most known for if any of those titles are television, voice-only performances, or non-acting credits. We mentioned that up front.

After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. And if that is not enough, it just becomes a free for all of hints. That's it. It's the IMTP game. Are you giving or guessing first? I'll give. What's the coin toss in this political debate? I'll give first.

My choice comes from, I believe this was, give me a second. Where did I? Where was my little... Oh, right, yes. So this performer was in Jason Reitman's breakthrough film. Thank you for smoking. We've already done, I believe, IMDB games on Aaron Eckhart and Katie Holmes. So I'm giving you somebody who does have a film in this year's Oscar race. Is it Maria Bello? It is Miss Maria Bello.

Maria Bello could be a double nominee. No television, so no ER or the remake of Prime suspect and no voiceover either. Okay, Maria Bello, a history of violence. Correct. Not nominated, but almost. Coyote Ugly. Coyote Ugly, correct. She plays

Lil. Famously a Lil. The cooler? Yes, correct. Three for three. All right, I'm almost there. My brand would be getting a perfect score on Maria Bella, so I can't screw this up.

Okay. there are options however thank you for smoking I feel like she's high build in that or she might get like an and or a width so I'm not against picking that I just feel like I should have a backup to at least weigh it with so that I can hopefully get this perfect score wouldn't it be such a gag if the woman king was on there already for her producing credit and her screenwriting credit I don't think it will be though

Yeah, I'm just going to say thank you for smoking. It's not. I will tell you, she is second build, and thank you for smoking. Robert Duval is the and thank you for smoking. Okay, so it's a really condensed time for Maria Bello. Almost gets that nomination for the cooler, almost gets that nomination for a history of violence. They just didn't know what the hell they were doing with that campaign. Um, interesting for both of those movies is that, like, they both get supporting actor nominations that no one talks about. Yes.

The Alec Baldwin nomination for The Cooler is always the one I forget from 2003, like, reliably so, yes. And William Hurd is, like, the only not great thing in that movie. Okay. Maria Bello. What? She's, isn't she, like, the love. interest in a sports movie. There's also T, well, you didn't say that there was TV.

She's on TV. Yeah, no TV. Um, why am I struggling to come up with a title? Hmm. Was it? The... Fuck.

What franchise is she in? She's randomly, like, a bureaucrat in, like, Olympus has fallen. Um, no. What am I thinking of? I keep, like, walking up to the door of, a title and I can't come up with one because it's a lot of, there's some junk in there. Let me know when you

want me to start throwing out hints. You can throw out hints, yeah. Give me a minor hints, but like, not big ones. I kind of doubt you've seen this movie. Is it for dudes? No. Not, not specifically. Hmm. Though it's not, you know,

not for dudes. It's just not just for dudes. It's for It's intended audience is not gendered. Got it. Is it its intended audience children? Not children, but like, it's a genre... It's a genre that can appeal to teens. Although, again, not exclusively.

Oh, it's a superhero movie. It is not. She's not in a superhero movie, I don't think. Go for her. Unless you count, and I'm just going to reveal that it's not this, unless you count the Jayne Austin Book Club is a superhero organization, and they are, of course, not. Oh, fuck. I should have guessed that. No, it's not that, though. I'm just going to guess this so that I can get the year of the Jane Austen Book Club. All right. It is not. It should be maybe the Jane Austen Book Club. The year is 2016.

Oh, so it is recent. Wow, that's why I wasn't getting it. 2016 what was she in that here that would have been for like teens is it I'm guessing that it's some type of IP that is specifically team focused no I maybe get away from it's not like the gym and the holograms movie is it it's not that was Juliette Lewis um right it's I maybe led you astray by by making a thing of the teen thing it's not a teen genre it's is a genre. It's a specific genre. It is one that I would imagine teens make up a lot of the in-theater audience for. Horror movies. Yes. Okay. Horror movie from 2016, I'm guessing it's like very C-tier horror. You probably won't remember it unless I like describe it for you and like even then. Like I guarantee you probably didn't say it. And it's probably not franchise horror. So it's not like an Annabelle sequel. I feel like it made a decent amount of money and was like decently talked about for a little bit

and like that's my thing with a lot of horror movies like in four years people are going to be like what is smile it's sort of a hit on the level of smile like that's about is it lights out it's lights out yes yeah because yeah I was gonna guess sinister if it wasn't that

I haven't seen lights out you are correct lights out she's like not even in the trailer for lights out written by the screenwriter this was the same year written by the screenwriter of Arrival, lights out. Oh, sure. A movie I liked...

Sorry, Maria, that that took me so long. A movie that I liked and then got picked apart by discourse in a way that, like, everything in 2016 felt like it got picked apart by discourse where people were like... Arrival? No, lights out. Oh. We're like, the movie promotes suicidal ideation, and I'm just like, not really, like... There's like, yes, you could look at it that way, but like, God.

Anyway, I liked it. I liked Lights Out. That's Teresa Palmer, who I like have, like, low-key stand for a while. If it was Teresa Palmer, I might have gotten it because she's in the trailer. Yeah, Maria Bello plays her mother. That's where a lot of the problematicness. Okay, Maria Bello, though, her, like, the sports movie, by the way, where she plays a wife that you were thinking of, I think, is McFarland, USA, where she plays Kevin Costner's wife.

The running movie. She also, speaking of wives, plays Hugh Jackman's wife in Prisoners. We were talking all that. Oh, God, I didn't even get that. I always forget that. The people I remember from prisoners. Well, because the bench is so deep in prisoners, too. And, like, Maria Bello gets the worst part in that movie.

Like, you say name eight actors from prisoners. And I go, Jillenhall, Jackman, Dano, Leo, Viola Davis, Terrence Howard, and then I get to, and then I get to Maria Bello, maybe. Aren't even the kids somebody like now? Maybe. It's also. No, but it's also. Oh, it's a mom, mom, um, he, the. The 13 Reasons Why kid.

Dylan Minnet. Yeah. But it's also, though, David Destmaltian, who is that creepy guy who shows up in like, always a creepy guy. What was he in just recently, too, playing? He was in The Batman, maybe? Or he's in the Dark Night? Something.

He's conceivable. Yeah. Yes. So for you, we talked a lot about how you felt. this movie should have incorporated the Clinton scandal as well. Yes. No surprise that you didn't mention this because no one watched it because partly no one really could figure out how to watch it.

American Crime Story Impeachment. I went into the cast of that. And I chose Edie Falco. Edie Falco. Partly as the type of chaosery that there are three television. I was gonna, I was wondering. So Sopranos definitely, Nurse Jackie, definitely. Correct. Correct. What's her third television? Only one movie. What would be the one movie? Like, I can't imagine it's anything small like Sunshine State or Freedom Land.

Oh, she's in landline, but that's also really small and didn't really make much of an impact. Okay, third television. She's in Oz early in her career. She's in Law and Order Menendezezes. I will throw you a bone and say she is only credited in four episodes of this TV show. Oh, God. Is it impeachment? it's not impeachment

okay well she's in more than four episodes of Oz and she's in more than four episodes of Law and Order Menendez's four episodes of huh

can we talk a little bit about how it is very strange that she is not on succession yet She should absolutely be in success. Oh, is it 30 Rock? It's 30 Rock. Wild.

A pure guest performance. 30 Rock is on E.D. Falco is known for. Playing Cece, the Democratic Congresswoman girlfriend of Jack Donegie. Did she win an Emmy for that, is my question? She was definitely nominated. Because that is probably why it is there. Probably. She was definitely nominated.

She was nominated for one Emmy. yeah she's a very very successful emmy uh competitor not surprisingly okay so her one movie one movie you have one wrong guess huh okay um i'm just gonna say because she did win at least a couple critics words for this I'm just going to say Sunshine State. It is Sunshine State. Is it? John Sayles is Sunshine State. Yeah.

I do remember her being, like, part of the, like, Critics Awards conversation for that. Conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. All right, listeners, this is a much longer episode than I was expecting for the frontrunner. But that is the episode. If you want more, this had Oscar Buzz, you can check us out on Tumblr at this at oscarbust.com. You should also follow us on Twitter at had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz.

you should also be sending us your questions through December 20th for our mailback episode that would be dropping the day after Christmas we will be your hangover episode. You can email us at Had Oscar Buzz at gmail.com. Joe, where can the listeners find you? As of recording time, Twitter is still a thing

that exists. And so so long as that continues to be the case, I am on Twitter at Joe Reed. I'm also on letterboxed at Joe Reed Should something happen to Twitter We'll have someplace else you can find us

We'll let you know when we know Right Find us on Mastodon Just send up like a smoke signal of some kind Or like a bat signal up into the air Our main posts for this podcast Will be on LinkedIn We're gonna restart Friendster

And just so that we can let you know about LinkedIn is surely one of the worst. Did I tell you earlier this year that I found out someone made a fake LinkedIn of me that was like all pro-Trump. And I was like, uh, delete this now, LinkedIn. This is not me. A pro-Trump LinkedIn. What is the purpose and point of that? Also, anybody who has like ever heard three words out of my mouth or knows who knows who A.M.

or has met me. I had to update my LinkedIn a few months ago so that I could try and find a source for an article I was writing and I was so annoyed in having to do that. I would rather chow down on cinder blocks than get back on LinkedIn. It was like, oh, the last time I'd updated it was like literally, I could, I, jobs and jobs and jobs ago that I was, that I was still using LinkedIn to try and find a job. So, yeah, not there. Anyway, I should say I am currently still on Twitter and letterboxer. Chrissy file. That is F-E-I-L. What do we do next?

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