This Had Oscar Buzz - 222 – Away We Go

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

After winning Best Picture and Best Director for his zeitgeist-seizing debut feature American Beauty, Sam Mendes instantly became a director who generate awards chatter no matter the project. In 2009, he took a noticeable tonal downshift with Away We Go, a minor key comedy about a young pregnant couple on a road trip to decide … Continue reading "222 – Away We Go"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Maryland Hacks. I'm from Canada, Water. Okay, we have news. We're leaving in June. Baby's due in July to Antwerp in Belgium.

You're moving 3,000 miles away from your grandchild. I think it's more than 3,000, isn't it, Cherry? Oh, I think so. You know, we don't have to stay here. Well, where'd we go? We agree we need to be near some and we know, so we could go anywhere we want. Wow. I have been searching all of my...

and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that had a real good time aboard the monkey business. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Joe Reed. I'm here, as always, with my stroller hating Earth mother, Chris File. Hello, Chris. I don't want to push my child away, but I now want to push you away. If I, All these nice people in this movie, you have to make me, Maggie John Hall. It's not all nice people.

She's not the only not nice person in this movie. I mean, okay, what's worse? Are you equate, would for you to equate me to Maggie Gyllenhaal's character, or Allison Janney, or Jim Gaffigan's character? Gaffigan, I think, is so funny in this. Like, Gaffigan, every single line reading that Gaffigan gives, when he talks about insurance for insurance, and he goes for insurance, It's so, it's, it's very funny.

We'll get into everything that I love about this movie. But no, watching this movie once again, and this is probably my like eighth or ninth time watching this movie, Maggie Gyllenhaal, every single time, I'm like, she should have got an Oscar nominated. I know why she didn't. I know that, like, that was never really in the cards. And that whole sequence of the movie, I think, is a lot of people's hang up with, This, like, it's the one that they can hang all of their complaints about the movie on. I guess, but, like, it's so funny. It's so incredibly. She's so good at playing that. I saw a little interview. She had done, like, a junket for the movie around the time. And it was just sort of like a, like, almost like a super clip of her responses. You didn't really even see the questions, but you could tell what the questions were by her responses.

Right. And she was like, she's like, it's not like I am this person, but I do realize that I have some of this person in me. And I'm like, I love the honesty, Maggie. I really do. She definitely knows a lot of those people. That's what she said. She's like, I've encountered a lot of these people in my, in my neighborhood in Brooklyn. And I was like, yes, Maggie, yes, you know. I also fully forgot that that couple lives in Madison, Wisconsin. Because in my mind, they were just Brooklyn. Because. like that was like the cliche of the joke, right? But really it's like, well, they're in Madison, Wisconsin. They're in a college town. Because we need to get them up to Montreal. So like, what's on the way? Right. But it's also a college town.

It's also sort of like that kind of thing. She's in academia. College town on the verge of hippie college town. Right, right. Yes. Yeah. It's the episodic nature of this movie really appeals to me. but it also really contributes to finding this movie on HBO halfway through

because with each successive vignette, it gets better and better. I feel like I think this movie quite intentionally sort of builds and builds and builds and each different location they get to is giving you more and sort of feeling a little more impactful and then ultimately earnest by the end. and the culmination of it at the end always gets me. It always gets me. I will talk about it when we talk about why this movie didn't really succeed as much. It's not like I don't get why people who don't like this movie don't like it.

I think their points are well articulated. I don't want to say they're like missing the point of the movie, but I do feel like there are certain points of this movie that don't, not necessarily that people don't get it, but, like, I just see it fundamentally differently, and because of that, it works for me. Like, I think a lot of people, what they see as smug and condescending, I find to be, like, fairly relatable anxiety, sort of writ large and made comedic, you know what I mean? Yeah, I can see that.

And I want to talk about that after the plot description, because we'll get into that. But I think also, I think this movie is coming at a. time when this sort of flavor of millennial person who has maybe the privilege to be introspective starts to grate on people. You'll also, like, I love the music in this movie, but this music also was getting to a point where it was starting to really grade on people. This is the sort of like great post-garden state. Great fulky revolution where it was sort of like, you know, Bonnevere adjacent, that kind of thing. All of the music is done by Alexei Murdoch.

It's really beautiful. I find myself now 13 years removed from this and sort of on the precipice of doing something else with my life. And I get very nostalgic for stuff that, like, places me in a very particular moment in my life in that way. And I'm just like, oh, my God. Because that's the one thing about this movie that I can't really relate to, which is anxiety about being a parent. Like, I'm not having kids. I'm not planning to have kids. So, like, that to me, I don't connect to you.

Also, a lot of this is about, like, Verona's parents being, you know, having grown up since college with her parents being dead. And I don't relate to that either. But there are ways in which this movie bridges that that I find to be really effective. And where other people find this movie alienating. I feel completely the opposite. I feel very sort of on a wavelength with the kind of sort of anxiety towards what kind of a person am I going to want to be, you know what I mean? That I find not navel gazing, but like genuinely introspective.

Right, right. I mean, like, it helps that my Rudolph is so good. she's tremendously good with and she's particularly good with like what you're describing like your connection with the movie is and I think she gets to do a lot of that I definitely kind of I haven't watched this movie in years oh interesting and I don't think I've watched it since I've been married and like now I can watch this movie as someone who like if we want to go visit friends we're going somewhere we're like we're going to another city for most part and uh in the past year of having like gone to different cities to see friends like yeah i one thing that i think this movie actually does do well is that like when they're going to these different cities that you know i think the movie could be better at you know making the location more specific about some of this you know where it's like the vast differences between Madison and Montreal

because they're like in the Montreal sequence they're like Montreal is amazing Montreal fucking rules and I'm like it looks a lot like where you just were Christmas Sina in the Montreal scenes is a little when we had George Severus on to talk about the bling ring he talked about the it's L.A. video that Rachel Senate did and that's sort of how I feel like Messina's talking about, like, it's Montreal, man.

Just like, go with it. Like, go with the flow. We got pancakes. We'll talk about that sequence. It's so good. It's not to dog on that sequence. Or anyone who loves living in the city of Montreal. I'm sure Montreal is fabulous.

I've heard nothing but wonderful things about Montreal, and I kind of do want to visit at some point. I'm sure everyone there is just like Melanie Olenski and Chris Messina. Just wonderful people. and fun to get pancakes with. But what I do think this movie does well is that it does feel like this small little world for the people they're visiting, for the couples that are visiting. It's like everything does feel.

And part of it is, you know, some of it leans heavier, like with whatever Alison Janney is doing in this movie. Right. It's like, Alice and Janie is at, like, 19 for her, you know, usual type of schick. But, you know, when you're in and out of, like, someone else's life for a few days, the kind of abruptness of what it's like to be in a couple, and then you're alone after you've been with those people. Like, I guess it's maybe I'm just, like, out on a limb here, but, like,

no, I think you're right. It does feel authentic to that feeling, you know? Well, there's also, I think the movie does a good job of creating Bert and Verona as a unit that have sort of built this partnership where it's just them. Like, they live in Denver because his parents live in Denver, but his parents, as soon as you meet them, you understand right away that, like, it's still just Bert and Verona. It's, you know, it's Bert and Verona as, you know, almost like against the world a little bit. And all these other places that they go to, with the exceptions of, like,

with a few exceptions, the Montreal one is slightly different, and then when they visit their respective siblings, it's different. They're close with their siblings. You also don't see their siblings with a romantic partner, but they're talking about a romantic partner. Well, and it's just like the way you encounter people who

you know, but maybe you haven't seen in a while, and then you encounter them again, and you're like, were they always like this? You know what I mean? Like, that kind of a thing? And sometimes it can be like, oh, yeah, they do that fucking thing that I find annoying. And when you couple that with this impending parental anxiety, where all of a sudden they have to be like, we need to decide what kind of parents we're going to be so that we cannot fuck up our child.

And then all of a sudden, you look at all these other parents and all you can see are the flaws. And I think there is a comedic heightening of that. I think is very intentional and where a lot of people thought that it was smug and mean-spirited towards all of the other non-Burt and Verona characters, I was like, no, this feels like how you see people when the purpose of this little excursion that they're on is, what kind of people do we want to be? You all of a sudden get really, really analytical and judgmental about the kind of people you don't want to be. And I think this means, this means, movie would lose me if it wasn't as funny as it is. But I also think it's a tremendously funny

movie pretty much throughout with a lot of, you know, with a lot of heart and with a lot of genuinely emotional moments. But like, I think each one of the sections has something in it that I think is very funny. And I also, and I have a feeling we're probably going to disagree on this a little bit, I like Krasinski in this a lot. No, we don't disagree. I mean, he's not a performer that I typically like. I think I maybe even like him more now than at the time because

the office was still running when this came out, right? So it's like it felt like, you know, he was doing the same thing just with a beard now that, you know, we're more of removed from the office, like I can appreciate this performance by itself. I think it's a lot goofier. I think

the office was so you, Jim on the office needed to be sort of detached and, you know, not really caring about what was going on in the office. He was sort of alienated by all of that, right? That was sort of

character. Whereas this, he's just a real goof in this movie. Yeah, but sure, he's more outwardly that way, but, you know, his comedic style it doesn't change from these two characters.

I would argue. Okay. That's why it kind of feels the same. But, like, I don't mind his performance. I mean, I do think he is vastly outshined by Maya Rudolph, who I think is quite wonderful. Yeah. And, like, just exactly what the tone of this movie feels like it should be at any given moment. It feels like she's just kind of nailing the tricky balance it has to do.

Like, this is, her performance is part of the reason why I'm not among those people that think that this movie is. mug because like I don't think that either of those characters are yeah um and it's so very much through their perspective and I do wonder if and I my familiarity with Dave Eggers was not huge when I saw the movie nor now like I've like I'll read a McSweeney's link when I get linked to it you know what I mean but I wasn't like an early adopter of McSweeney's I never read a heartbreaking work of staggering genius I didn't read his you know, columns or anything like that or essays. And all I really know about him is that he, like, wrote two of my favorite movies of

2009, which, like, is pretty good. He sort of, like, earned my eternal loyalty for that, kind of forever. So between away we go and where the wild things are. And so I do wonder if some people had brought into this movie. a wariness of Dave Eggers. Well, and I think a lot of things that people have kind of rolled their eyes at

is he, his screenwriting partner is also his wife, too. Right, Vendalovina. You know, Krasinski is very easily seen as a stand-in specifically for Eggers. Although, interestingly, if you know, like, what little I know about a heartbreaking work of staggering genius,

like the thing about the two dead parents that Verona has is his. That's his biography. And I don't know much about Vendla Vida to be able to speak to, like, her work and how represented she is in this. But, like, I do think that that is something people definitely grafted onto their feelings of dislike for the movie. Well, and the fact that his most known work was a memoir, you know what I mean?

So that they're also sort of used to then. taking something that he's writing as autobiography. And I, like, yeah, like you said, I have no problem believing that a lot of this is pulled from their lives, but I don't necessarily feel like it's one-to-one. Let's get into the plot description, though, and so we can talk sort of more specifically about each little section of this movie, because I, again, it's a fave of mine, like unabashedly. I really love this movie. I know it's very divisive, but I really do love

it. Chris, we're going to be talking about a way we go today from 2009, directed by Sam Mendez. Sam Mendez. I have been going back and forth. Finally, I did the due diligence of looking up his biography. His father is

Trinidadian, so I guess Mendez would make sense. I've just heard it pronounced 8 billion different ways since American Beauty Times. Mendys, like the restaurant that Jerry Seinfeld promises he'll take that annoying comedian to that he promises a dinner and you said you take me to Mendez. Okay.

Directed by Sam Mendez, written by Dave Eggers and Vendalovita, as we said, starring Maya Rudolph, John Krasinski, Jeff Daniels, Catherine O'Hara, Alison Janney, Jim Gaffigan, Carmen Ojogo, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Josh Hamilton, Melanie Linsky, Chris Messina, and Paul Schneider, plus various children of all stripes. It premiered in limited release on June 5th, 2009, and opened wide on June 26, 2009.

Chris, I've got my stopwatch ready. Are you prepared? Yeah, I think I am. It's been a minute, but we'll do it. Okay. All right, Chris, your time starts now. All right, Verona and Bert are a couple who discover that they are pregnant

when he is going down on her, and says she tastes different. Interesting. Verona, unfortunately, has lost both of her parents since they died when she was in college. Meanwhile, they go and see Bert's family who decides, hey, we're not going to help you out with this baby. We're moving to Belgium. So they decide, hey, maybe we need to change our life and we can go to a different city. Let's go meet some people or go visit some people who are around the country and see how it goes. Let's find some place to live. 30 seconds. Anyway, they go meet Verona's old boss and her husband.

That is immediately like an absolutely not in Phoenix. Then they go to Tucson where they see Verona's sister and they have like a nice moment talking about their parents. Then they go to Madison, Wisconsin, where they meet Bert's cousin, who is now a hippie and they are annoying. And then they go to Montreal and they meet their really cool friends who have adopted kids. But then they have a lot of trauma because there are several miscarriages and they learn. about like, you know, how to stick through the hardships together through love. And then, unfortunately, they have to go down to Miami

where they meet Bert's brother, who was just left by his wife. And then, hey, they're really close to Verona's old childhood home. And then they go and visit it and see it and decide to live there. Time went up so long ago, but that's fine. I just wanted to let you go. It's a wonderful movie. It's been a minute. I almost want to, like, take this sort of vignette.

by vignette, as the movie does, because it's worth sort of going into each little section. You mention the sort of beginning part where it's just Burton Verona. He is going down on her and she tastes different, and that's how they find out she's pregnant, which she realizes it, and then slaps him across the face and he falls off of the bed, which I think is, once again, like, it's just a good start comedically. Jeff Daniels and Catherine O'Hara play his parents. His name is Jerry. she saying Jerry just pulls me into Best In Show every single time.

So that's really fun. She asks Verona straight out how Black the baby is going to be in a way that isn't laced with menace at all. And yet it's just sort of like, oh, man, like, you know, right off the bat. I mean, I almost feel like Bert's parents are, you know, as like, we don't really talk about that couple as like one of the visits in the movie but like they there's as much there of like we don't want to be like them right that's where it starts yeah any other you know visit well and it's interesting because they're sort of painted as sort of monstrously selfish in this and from burton verona's perspective yeah but you can imagine a

different kind of movie where this empty nest couple instead of signing up for two years being sort of de facto babysitters decide to just move to Belgium and it's seen as this sort of like empowering and freeing kind of a thing your Hope Springs moment or something like that where it's just like they've broken out of their routine and they're going to go to Belgium but they're also rootless too I think and you know I think the subtext there is that

Burton Verona really want to settle and develop a life somewhere that is actually, you know, grounded and within a support network and... But that they also... It's an interesting... It's a two-headed thing, right? They want the support network. They want to... They want roots. They want to move to a place where they know people and will have some sort of foundation. And yet, they want to, you know, make their type of family from the ground up, right? They want to entirely decide the kind of life they want to live, the kind of parents they want to be in a very

aughts kind of a way, right? Right. They're not married. Burt really wants to be married for one and it's not because her parents cannot be there. Right. And throughout the movie, you sort of see them by canceling.

It's like, you know, they're drawing the negative space, right? They're canceling all the ways that they don't want to be. They ultimately decide who they do want to be. I just don't think we should be talking about it in front of the children. Oh, please. It's just white noise. to them. Listen, why's this? Taylor. Taylor. Taylor. Taylor. Taylor. Taylor.

Keep going on and all. All right, Chris, we are interrupting our road trip across North America. We got a lot of places to go. We got a lot of places to go. Maya's, you know, going to have that baby sooner or later. So we got to get where we're going. But first, we're going to take a little detour into the Vulture. movie fantasy league because we got some New York film critics circle points this week and things are moving. We who drafted tar are happy. Well, as I said in my newsletter that went out last week and if you've signed up for the game, you should be getting my newsletter. If you're not, check your spam filter. Tar needed, this is where Tar really needs to rack up points because in my opinion,

I wouldn't count on things like the Oscars to be as maybe a big of a points bonanza as a lot of people are thinking. It still could be, but this is the part of the season where Tar needs to amass their points. And so far, if the New York Film Critics Circle are anything to go by, they are. Best film, best actress, not best director. I sort of thought they were going to sweep all three. and I actually thought they would also get possibly Nina Haas in supporting actress. So it wasn't that big of a sweep. I mean, this isn't a group that is prone to a sweep, though.

Not lately. Certainly not in the last, you know, 10 or so years. So, yeah, I feel like when you talk about New York Film Critic Circle, it's a little bit like before American Hustle and after American Hustle. Because I feel like the composition of the New York film critics after American Hustle feels like a different vibe, much more, as you say, into spreading out the wealth, much more into taking some big swings with your acting awards or your directing award this year. We saw a few of those. So, yeah, probably wasn't going to, expecting a tar sweep was probably a little bit ambitious of me. But still, best film gets you 20 points in the league.

Best actress got you 10. So they led the field with 30 points off of New York Film Critic Circle. So good for tar. And as I've noted also in the newsletter, the pool right now is the pool. I always say the pool. The fantasy league right now is being. dominated by people who have picked tar. Like, if you have not picked tar, you are not at the top of the league.

And whether that's anecdotal, and it's just like most people just pick tar because, like, overall. Tar was a good dollar value, though. Yes, it was. I did not pick it. So maybe I'm speaking from a little bit of a bitter betty. But I did pick the second highest point total of New York Film Critics Circle, which was the Banshees of In a Sharon, which I also thought was a good value. Listen, we who drafted TAR and Banshees of Anisharon, aren't you?

You're living it up. You're Scrooge McDucking it through your money bin right now. Yeah. My team moving through the ranks. Yeah. Colin Farrell getting best actor. Also, Colin Farrell getting best actor for not only Banshees of In Sharon, but after Yang, which is a nice little bonus for After Yang, which also did better than I kind of expected at the Independent Spirit Awards. So if you picked after Yang

with a nice little dollar value, I think it was just like a $5 movie in the pool. Probably not even that high, I don't think. Give me a second, and I can look that up, actually. After. You say it's a nice boost for it. No, it was a $2 movie. You're absolutely right.

It was a very, very, very good value. So that's really paid off. You say it's a nice little boost for after Yang, though. for the for the purposes of the pool absolutely i feel like that's almost a little bit more of i mean i'm sure that there were fans of after yang within that group but to like i think highlight his performance in both of those movies just kind of underscores to me how versatile of a performer he is and hopefully gives him a little bit more gas in the engine you know for uh for an oscar campaign Yang. I think, well, that's absolutely not wrong. He does show quite a bit of range between those two performances, which is pretty great. And I think we are very, very much in the thick of the precursor season, where we are all, especially those of us who have either seen the whale and not liked it, which is you, or not seen the whale yet and are kind of dreading it, which is me, who are kind of casting about.

for alternate paths to best actor that don't include Brendan Fraser. I mean, it's about to open that. I think that movie's about to sink like a stone a little bit once it actually opens and there's more reviews and such. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. I still feel like this is one of those things where we could all be talking ourselves into Colin Farrell or Austin Butler or Bill Nye or whatever.

And then the Golden Globes and Sags and Critics' Choice come around, and it's like Fraser, Fraser, Fraser, and then we're just like, so I'm still bracing myself for that. We will see if that goes. Banshees of In a Sharon, by the way, also got Best Screenplay for Martin McDonough, which I feel like is a thing that could happen quite a bit. I think it's going to be Martin McDonough and Sarah Polly for the Critics Awards for screenplay. And, of course, then come Oscar time, they'll be in two separate categories. Right. But I think those are your screenplay frontrunners right now, I would say. Talk to me about New York film critics' big acting surprise, which I didn't see coming, and I don't think a lot of people saw coming. Lead actress Kiki Palmer, winning best supporting actress for Nope.

I mean, I think that at least the tenor in my sphere was people immediately qualifying it, but then immediately qualifying their qualification to. say, but I'm happy for Kiki Palmer. Kiki Palmer, who just announced, as of this recording, last night that she is pregnant. Congratulations to the legend. Yeah, she won a supporting prize, New York Film Critic Circle, who love Jordan Peel performances, because they also gave their best actress prize to Lepida Niyanga for us, which we've talked about. Yeah, I mean, mean, definitely a surprising choice. I think this was a surprising choice strictly on the fact that it is a lead performance that they kind of arbitrarily said is supporting. I don't know what your thoughts are. We didn't really talk about it beyond we were happy to see Kiki Palmer be given

a prize. Yeah, I think I love Kiki Palmer. I love Kiki Palmer. I love Kiki Palmer in Nope. I, you know, I quibble with the fact that we're giving her best supporting actress when she's she's a co-lead and if you liked her that much just give her best actress like cape lanchot will be fine if you if you give somebody else best actress i imagine there was probably would have been resistance to that and this is the path of least resistance which is sort of how you know these category things often go and i'm happy that she's having a moment and if this i will say this and i know that new york film critics will very loudly and vociferously say that they are not doing this to impact the Oscar race and, you know, and they shouldn't.

But if this... Apparently Universal is also pushing her for supporting, which is dumb. Sure. I agree. If this ends up pushing Kiki Palmer into the Oscar race for Best Supporting Actress in a real way, if this ends up giving her the kind of momentum that she needs to get into that, then it's absolutely like it's worth it no matter what it's worth it on its face

but like all the better if this can get her into the Oscar race Oscar nominee Kiki Palmer is absolutely worth it I agree she's great in that movie okay what do we think of Kee Hui Kwan as supporting actor winner for everything everywhere all at once it feels like everybody I think the chatter around it is just like

this is just the beginning like he could end up if not sweeping the supporting actor prizes, then at least, like, puts him as the frontrunner for the Oscar at this point. I understand people saying that I would maybe pump the brakes because of, you know, two very early prizes, you know, indicating that. However, I mean, like, there is kind of a trend and there is a certain type that works within Oscars' taste for supporting actor, that, like, he fits in incredibly comfortably, you know, it's a sentimental choice. He's a, playing a dad, he is a man of a certain age, like, I totally get the logic.

People are getting Troycott survives, is what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, I would pump the brakes in this in the same way that I've pumped the breaks on everybody saying Kate Blanchett is getting a third Oscar. It's too early to say who is winning for some of these things. For a racist that are very good. Yeah, I think people are eager to make the call, which is funny because, like, picking Kiwi Kuan at this point is like, that's not much of a call right now. He's your frontrunner.

So, like, you know, I don't know. Knowing also that the Oscars categorically have kind of spread the wealth over the past, you know, decade or so, decade and a half maybe, I feel like there's maybe going to be other things that they're going to award that movie for. And, like, I feel like if you're calling it for him, you could potentially be calling it for this movie to win, like, five. or six Oscars today, and that's crazy to me. I don't know if it's crazy that that could happen. I think it could happen. I see the possibility for it, but I'm not calling that many wins. Sure, sure.

And then the other big surprise of the New York film critics was SS Rajamuli in Best Director for RR, which I haven't seen yet, but is supposed to be rad. and I'm looking forward to it now and I don't know if this puts that film or Rajamoulli himself into the director and picture race but like it couldn't hurt and also this was the time last year

where we were like New York film critics trying to be different with drive my car you know this will be you know such an isolated moment or whatever and then that ball really got rolling So, um, that, that movie has a campaign behind it that is angling to get in in quite a few ways that I think it could. It would be interesting if it becomes a director nomination, but I do think there's a huge possibility for that movie to be an Oscar nominee. Yeah, and in a bunch of different categories. So that's cool. Um, so yeah, like I said, you in particular had a pretty good week at the, at the fantasy league with Tar and Banshees of In a Sharon. And we did get a change at the top of the leaderboard.

So the team Zoe Kazaners had been riding high for the first couple weeks. And now NY Cinephile has moved into the lead with their team that includes Black Panther Wakanda Forever, which is, you know, holding it down with box office points. All the avatar pickers, by the way, are just like sitting at the bottom with like zero points right now and are just waiting, just waiting to emerge from the sea on Pandora. they're waiting for the way to that's right I'm speaking of course of the way the way of water um Black Panther Wakanda forever I'm reading NY Cineophiles team tar banshees of and Sharon so obviously that's where uh those points after sun which also got a best first film prize for Charlotte wells which I imagine is the first feeling it's going to be racking up quite a few of those I think so too after sun is already overperforming my expectations and award season delight

fully so. After Yang is on NYCinefiles team, we mentioned that, a love song, Dale Dickey and a love song, which got some independent spirit awards points last week. Don't worry, darling. So our friend Katie Rich, who is lamenting having picked Don't worry, darling, for her fantasy team, it is possible to succeed in the fantasy league, even while picking the zero point lead weight that is, don't worry, darling, for the fantasy league. And then NYCineophile rounds after. team with X. So I just wanted to give a shout out to our new leader. Also shout out to Vulture's own Allison Wilmore, who is still holding it down as the only staff member in the top, not only in the top 10, I think the only staff member in the top 50 at the very least. Holden Strong in seventh place right now with her team, which is called Triangle of Madness. also racking up points for TAR and after Yang and Black Panther Reconda Forever and After Sun. So, yeah, another exciting week in the pool.

We've got tons of stuff coming up. We're now in the thick of Critics Awards season. So just in the next week, we're going to get National Border Review, which hands out their awards on December 8th, and then the Los Angeles film critics on December 11th. And then December 12th is a real crowded day because both the Critics' Choice and the Golden Globes decided to play this game of chicken where they're both announcing their nominations on the same day. So that's December 12th. And that's going to be just a flurry of points everywhere.

So get ready for that. That'll be fun. We'll have a good time breaking that one down, Chris. Indeed, we will. Tar Hive Assemble. All right. Back to the road. back to

you know, Maya and John and all that wonderful Alexei Murdoch music. Enjoy. See you next week. Taylor. Taylor. Taylor. Taylor. Taylor. Taylor. So from Denver, they go to Phoenix to visit her old boss,

played by Allison Janie. And her... I don't even know if Henpecked is the right word for what Jim Gaffigan is. He's just sort of this like blasted-out shell of a man. who goes to the dog tracks and, like, repeats these weird things about, like, well, that's how they're going to get you, you know, that kind of stuff. He's so, he's so funny. Janie's very over the top in a way that I do actually find,

I like, I see, I've met people like this. You know what I mean? I mean, I also think there's something to the movie, too, that the first people that they go visit are a lot. A, I mean, there's some practicality to it because, it's a former professional relationship if they are going to move they're going to need to figure out the job situation but also there's something to the first one that it's like what were they thinking of even going to see these people well the interesting thing though is at

one point like bert's talking to gaffigan by the track right and explaining that he sells insurance futures and all the sort of stuff and then they look back and like janny's being abrasive but like verona's laughing her ass off and it's like on some level Verona appreciates this woman's sort of boisterous abrasiveness in a way that she doesn't appreciate, I'm trying to think of like, well, like, Maggie Gyllenhaal, obviously, but you know what I mean? But other people, like, there's something that, like, you know, Verona has some fun in a way that you would enjoy a co-worker. Right. But not necessarily somebody whose parenting style you would want to emulate. So someone you want to go out with on Friday nights to, you know, dinner and a movie. So then they go to Tucson, where Verona's sister is working at some kind of hotel resorts.

A Marriott. Is that what it is? It's a Marriott. I didn't notice that. Okay. So is this part of the Danny Collins cinematic universe? No. That is Hilton Honors.

How dare you. I'm sorry, that's Hilton Honors. How dare I. Yes. Okay. Carmen Ojogo is so wonderful. in such a very small part in this movie. The way that not only, like, she has the big scene where they're in sort of this like showroom bathtub, her in Verona.

And she's trying to get Verona to talk about their parents. And she has that great line that I wrote down where she says, she's talking about how Verona's daughter might have some traits of their parents and maybe stuff that skipped a generation. So it's stuff that they don't even have in themselves that will express itself in Verona's daughter. and she says, you're bringing them back, kind of, in a way. And that really gets me. But even beyond that, just the way she, like, interacts with Bert, she clearly really likes Bert in a way that, like, a sister-in-law just sort of, like, appreciates what a good guy her sister ended up with. And that, to me, felt very real.

She and Maya Rudolph makes sense as sisters. Very quickly, they have this, like, real, believable... sibling chemistry, especially like that bathtub scene is just so wonderful. It's really tremendous. And it's one of those things where it's like the people who talk about how smug this movie is and how sort of like unrelentingly mean it is to

everybody else they interact with. I'm like, you're just sort of willfully omitting the Carmena Jogo part of this movie then. And I would also say the, the... And you mostly the back half of the movie. Right, right. And I don't know, sort of like it makes sense that

they wouldn't sort of root in Tucson either. But I think that's not really about anything that she sees in her sister that, like, I don't want that. I don't want to be around that. I think it's painful to be around her sister a little bit because anything that reminds Verona of her parents is painful. I think that plays into when we get to the end of the movie. Because I could see, I've heard some people say, when they get to the end of the movie, and they're like, she's had this giant mansion in Florida. at this whole time that she's like, why are they looking for house? But it's like everything that reminds Verona of her parents, whether it's her sister, her old home, the concept of getting married at all, having a baby. Like, that's why she's like very melancholy about, at times about having the babies, because all of this stuff makes her think about her parents, and it's so painful for her. Well, she talks about the house with her sister, too, because they mentioned at some point the idea of selling it because it sounds like they had been, you know, leasing it out to businesses or something.

I think they said, I think she mentions renters at some point, so. So, like, it's, it's not like it's a surprise at the end of the movie. No, it doesn't come out of nowhere, but it's also just like, it tracks throughout the course of the movie that, like, this is not just, like, some small little thing where, like, you know, Verona's a little bit sad about having lost her parents. It's painful enough that she like kind of walls off huge portions of her life. She avoids it and like avoids things that make her basically confront it. And one of the things that watching the movie as many times as I have, when I get to that end of the movie and so many things about that last scene make me want to cry. But also it's just like I have the thought of just like, oh, she's going to have such a better relationship with her sister now, even than she used to. because those walls are kind of breaking down a little bit.

That fear of encountering the memories of her parents is maybe going to break down a little bit. And that's good. So anyway, from Tucson, they have to take the train to Madison, Wisconsin, because they won't allow Verona to fly because they don't believe that she's only six months pregnant. Again, a really, like, funny, you know, interlude in this movie, where they call the other one... I need that bit almost a little bit, because earlier in the movie, when Verona's like, are we fuck-ups? I think we're fuck-ups. And I'm like, I don't really know. I mean, like, you...

Again, the joke is they live in a house with a cardboard window. But, like, I don't necessarily buy them as fuck-ups, but, like, when it's like, oh, right, they're the type of people who can't take care of... themselves and that like you maybe should just have that doctor's note to say this is how pregnant you are but she doesn't need it until eight months though that's the thing it's just that like nobody believes her like everybody she you know you should think you might have preparation of course you know anyone but you also get that woman in Tucson who walks up and she's like pregnant and like any day now right and she's like or in three months yeah um but the woman at the airline who has walks up and she looks at her and she looks at her and she's like

Could you turn to the side, please? It's just... Also, that child of the woman in Tucson. Yes, who's going to smother his little sister. He was like going to smear his sister. And the mother's like, we're going to go. The last thing he says is, but I'll try again. I was like, oh, God, that's so terrifying.

So many of these kids in this movie are going to grow up, fucked up. Maggie Gillenhall and Josh Hamilton's kid will get to in a second. But Burton Farona get to live the dream. and travel by sleeper car from Tucson to Madison, Wisconsin. And they get to Madison. One of the funniest things about the Madison part is they're walking on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and they're looking for Maggie Gillen Hall's office, and they ask somebody who's pushing her kid in a stroller. And they're like, do you know where Ellen, whatever, whatever's office is? And she's like, oh, yeah.

The letters L-N. L-N. And she's like, yeah, she's in this building. over there. She's the one without the stroller, and there's a tone in her voice. Right, right. We meet Maggie Gillen Hall.

You just remind our listeners how we encounter Maggie visually for the first time. They find her in her office breastfeeding two children that are too old to be breastfed. One of whom, like literally is standing

on his own two feet, and and welcomes... Like she's a water fountain. And she's resplendent in her glory in this like peasant top that she's wearing. And she kisses Bert on the mouth too long. She's almost

holding like grapes in her hand as she like, you know, there's basically like draped fabric. Like she feels like she is some type of I don't know, Botticelli muse. She's so smugly convinced that Verona's having a boy that

Verona's like, no, the doctor in the sonogram said it's a girl. And she's like, I will see about that. And then, of course, she's married to Josh Hamilton because all people who have awful husbands and movies are married to Josh Hamilton. And he is just this slovenly hippie-haired, you know, family bed practicing. They're a continuum home. Is that the term for it? Continuum parenting. Hold on.

I think that's what it is. Where they're very tactile. They don't use strollers because it is pushing their child away. They all sleep in the same bed when Verona's like, what do you do when you want to like, you know, fool around? You go out to the car and she goes, were you planning on hiding your lovemaking from your children? Do you know how, what Josh Hamilton's like, do you know how traumatizing it is for a child to never see their parents love each other?

Every single thing that they say is just dripping with condescension. It's the most like, it's drawn with no subtlety. And I don't think there was any intention of subtlety in the scene. Like this is, if the movie is sort of a roller coaster, like this is the reach the climax and then you come thundering down big thunder mountain or whatever. where it's just like and everyone's screaming and it ultimately ends with Bert running around their dining room table with their kid in the stroller

because he's so fed up with them that he just wants to like reject everything that they stand for. This kid's going to grow up to like eat McDonald's and love MCU movies and disappoint his parents for being conventional. He's going to eat like human flesh

like this is, this kid is going to be so fucked up. No, I think that this is the type of child that is when they grow up they just want to be as normal as possible and that's true that's how they piss off their pair that's how we that's how we get norm core that's how we've gotten norm core is uh is that kid um so like yes it's over the top but like that's the the platonic image that i have in my head of maggie gillenhall sitting at that dining room table with her leg up with like her knee sort of like up at chin level and she's resting her hand her her arm on her knee and the wine glass that like very big wine glasses in her hands and her hair is earth mother perfect and she's sort of pontificating about whatever the fuck i'm just like that's perfect maggie jillan hall for me i think she's so fucking great in this movie constantly walking a tight rope of anger as well because she'll just start bellowing if anything break shatters this crystal-clear image in her head of her perfection and her perfect child.

And, like, casually racist constantly to Verona, talking about how your people have such a great oral tradition. And that's why, like, how long since your, since your mama left you and this all sort of thing? I'm, like, so condescending about them. So anyway, they... Burt and Verona sort of galvanize under their shared revolving. of these two people, and basically, like, levitate on their way to Montreal. They're so powered by their, like, hatred of these people. Well, in the movie, I mean, like, I feel like if there's anything that's overly broad about this particular sequence, it's almost, I feel like, because the movie wants that

before it does ultimately have, not darkness, but, like, even in Montreal, as, like, we're about to duck about, like, there is, you know, a lot of pain there, too. So it feels to me, like, the movie trying to, you know, get its last yucks in, in a way that, like, I don't know if it's, the, I definitely think it's one of the weaker parts of the movie. What is? The, the Jillyn Hall stretch. Interesting. I think it's one of the strongest parts of the movie. I mean, like, I think the movie doesn't always know how.

to just, like, let these funny people that they've cast be funny. Maybe. I don't know. Like, it almost feels like it's uneasy about how dramatic it's going to be early. Well, I think that's true. There's definitely, I think you reach, the movie gets to its most cartoonish before it gets to its most sort of melancholy. And that. And it's most, like, real, like.

Yeah. So Montreal, they're visiting their college friends, Tom and Munch, I did not realize until this viewing of this movie, that her name is Munch, Chris Messina and Melanie Linsky, who have, is it four adopted children, I believe? I thought so, yeah. Or at least four children in the house. Maybe one of them was like a babysitter that they had come over for the night or whatever. But family of adopted children, and Burt and Verona are absolutely smitten with this image of

this family who play together. and really love each other, and who, like, this feels very modern, feels very much like a family that has built itself up under its own rules, and that's what they want. And Verona is especially so taken with this and wants to move immediately, like, we should move to Montreal, this is where we want to be, these are who we want to be, and it's not that they get disillusioned by learning, sort of the sadness at the core of what Tom and Munch are going through that they've adopted

these kids because, in part, because she cannot have a child of her own. She keeps getting pregnant and she keeps having these miscarriages that are like devastating to the both of them. She does this really sort of like sad pole dance at an open mic for dancing thing. it's Montreal, anything goes, to this Velvet Underground song in a way that, like, it's a real tightrope walk to make that scene work. And I think Mendez and Melanie Linsky together really make that work in a way that is almost improbable. I mean, like, as we've all been saying and, like, finally celebrating her in the past year or so. Just a fucking tremendous performer.

I feel like she, Munch, we don't actually get much of this couple before they, like, go out. And it's like, Messina is the one that, like, is they're talking about their kids, and then they go out. And he gets to do this big whole monologue about how, you know, the syrup on the pancakes is love and you have to basically drain the well of love to live your life and it's a lot of hard work but like that's what's going to make you

a strong happy family is just like smother each other in love but she even has the best line in that scene linsky does where she says you have to be so much better than you ever thought you could be yeah and and that really just lands that scene um and then messina talking about the miscarriages I think is also tremendously good and heartbreaking the way he talks about how you just like you just don't know what to do with this grief that you have. And it's very good. And I think one of the things that I love about that is Bert and Verona sort of it's a splash of cold water on what they thought was going to be this fantasy of what they want their life to be. And it's a splash of cold water in reality.

they don't end up rejecting either Montreal or Tom and Munch. They get called away because Burt's brother, his wife has just left him and his daughter. And so they have to go down to Miami to sort of check in on his brother. And Verona's so sweet with the daughter singing Mr. Tambourine man to her. And Bert and Verona sort of put on this little like... play with the stuffed animals that I think is very sweet. But Burt gets real spooked by this because this idea that one of them could leave. You know what I mean?

Either he or Verona, at some point, after wanting this family and after seeming fine, that you could change one day and walk out. And it's also the only visit that they take where it's really considered that you as a parent can do something that would really damage your child as a person, as a developing emotional psychological. So he sort of reels from this, and he asks her to marry him again, and she once again says, no, never. But then they have this really sweet moment on the trampoline, where they're lying on the

trampoline, and they sort of recommit themselves not just to each other, but to their kid. and it's really well written in a way that doesn't go over the top sentimental but feels like a statement, a restatement of purpose for these two characters. Well, I think in a lesser movie, too, you have that type of, you have that conversation much earlier in the movie, and then, like, the schmaltz of it has to keep, like, amping up from that type of conversation. I think because that happens later in the movie, like it feels like this kind of, like you said, a whole like reclamation of their relationship instead of like a nice sweet scene of this couple that like they're going to constantly be having conversations like this

for the whole movie, you know? And then, so one of the things that I really love about the movie is I constantly sort of wonder what is it that finally turns the corner for Verona and makes her decide, we've got, we've got to go visit. We've got to go see my childhood home and that's where we're going to end up living. And I wonder, watching it this time, I wondered if it was that that's the scene in Miami where she realizes to herself that like, I'm, this is, I'm all in on this. You know what I mean? Like, I am, I've committed myself to this, I'm never going to leave this family. And I shouldn't be scared of

sort of bringing my new family into what was home for my old family and sort of bridging that gap. And so I believe this place is also in Florida, right? Yes. The next thing we know, and like, interestingly, the next thing we see of them, they're moving. Like, they've got their car, they've got their belongings all strapped to the roof. They have made the decision now to move down here. And the house is sort of introduced quietly and sort of little bits by bits, and you don't ever really get the whole sense of the whole house right away. And it's this gorgeous, beautiful, right on the water, like home where they open the front doors

and then they open the doors to the back porch and you feel the breeze sort of go through the house, right? And it's this like cleansing breeze sort of like moves through the house and sort of passes over them. And they just go and they sit out and they overlook the water. And she starts to cry. And it's the first time she's cried in the movie. And he says, I think this place is going to be perfect for us.

And she closes it by saying, I really fucking hope so. But they're, you know, hand in hand and they're committed to this, and it's so beautiful, I think. You also skipped over her monologue before they visit her house where she's just recalling the fruit trees. Yes, yes, yes. I love that scene that she and her sister hung fruit from the trees for the benefit of their dad and say, hey, you know, because the trees weren't growing fruit and he was frustrated. by that and again so she's able to on her own without prompting bring up a memory from her past which feels like a thing she wouldn't have done at the beginning of the movie so I don't know I sometimes feel like I'm a sap for this movie working on me as well as it does but like it's all

there for me like it the math of it tracks like nothing feels like I'm shortcutting my way through this movie. And I don't think the movie is shortcutting its way through. I'm almost relieved by the simplicity of it, especially on rewatch, because I'm just like, I don't, I mean, like, it, I think it kind of sets itself a low bar and achieves that bar much more like interesting and subtly than you might expect it to be. I don't know. I mean, like, sometimes I'm a little bird. out with like high ambition like comedy type of things where it's just like it gets it puts too much on the movie's plate whereas I think this movie relies heavily on the chemistry of the actors the kind of simplicity of ideas that are all very relatable to what the frustrations they

have with these families and like how they see themselves fitting in how they see themselves fitting in the scheme of what type of parents they want to be, the type of child they want to raise. I don't know. I mean, like, it's not necessarily reaching high, but I do still think that there's a lot of depth in this movie. Yeah. So this movie was released in June, and I think once it got scheduled for June, because this is coming off of Sam Mendez, is that a real, like, his careers go in really well, Even, like, American Beauty right out of the gate, his first feature film, Best Picture, Best Director, Huge Oscar Success, and then he follows that up with Road to Perdition,

which gets these very kind of, like, oh, like, accomplished but cold that, you know, we see a lot. Right. But even with that, gets a cinematography win. Paul Newman's nominated. Jarhead doesn't get anything. we really do need to do jarhead. Right. The Oscar failure of that, I think, is a story that we should tell then.

And then Revolutionary Road is another one where people are, like, impressive but very, like, chilly, right? Like, very remote. And had to bear the weight of the reuniting of DiCaprio and Winslet. He was also married to Winslet, or Mendez, that is. Right. And, like, just the expectations couldn't be higher for a movie that is very, like, dark and emotional. It suffers from the confluence of events that brings the reader into 2008's awards conversation, because if the reader doesn't happen, I think Kate just wins best actress for Revolutionary Road. And it would have been a better Oscar.

And, yeah, and I don't love Revolutionary Road. but it would be a better Oscar. I like it a lot. I should watch it again, but like, I wasn't. I wasn't with it. You're like, yes, let me, let me haul down for this bummer sandwich. But like, it's just, it's funny that, like, the Oscar wasn't for the reader. The Oscar was for Kate, you know what I mean?

And so she was just like, she would have won for Revolutionary Road. And yet, okay, so that Oscar wasn't, like, for that performance, and yet the, she propelled that movie to a Best Picture nomination. Granted, it was also directed by Stephen Daldry, who at that point, like, well, and muscled along by Harvey Weinstein is the other thing. Right. Like, that was the other big thing. So away we go is the year, it's like six months after Revolutionary Road,

because Revolutionary Road was a very late 2008 release. So, uh, Mendez had two in the chamber, essentially. And I think compared to Revolutionary Road, and even compared to like Jarhead. and wrote to perdition in American Beauty, a way we go stands out as small and slight. And you can see why they slotted it in the summer because they were like, we're not going to be able to, you know, make much of comedy.

Well, and it's interesting because the summer of 2009 also had its fair share of sort of major directors whose movies were, I'm thinking mostly of like, Woodstock, right? Where, like, Taking Woodstock was another summer movie that year. Yeah, that was, like, late August. And that was, again, like, it's the New Ang Lee movie, but we don't really think it's going to be a big Oscar play, so we're going to release it in the summertime. Sort of similar to, oh, what did I just see? I'm sort of scrolling through the summer releases that year. Summer 2009 was a time, honestly, I'm looking through some of these. Oh, the soloist was the other one I was thinking of Joe Wright's The Soloist. another movie we should be here. Right, which was pushed off of the previous season. Right. That was April that year. But like, okay, so like starting in May 2009, um, we get Eric Zonka's Julia

starring Tilda Swinton, a movie that nobody ever talks about anymore, but like Tilda Swinton rules in that movie. Tremendous. Very in the vein of, uh, Elizabeth Moss, her smell type of performance, though, I think, you know, the movie itself is not on. till this level. Ryan Johnson's The Brothers Bloom, which was completely sort of cast aside, even though I really loved it. Olivier Aceyaz's

summer hours. Masterpiece. Yorgos Lantamos's dog tooth. Sotaburg did the girlfriend experience. Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus comes out that May. These are just sort of like the Autour stuff. Drag Me to Hell was in May.

year um love that movie away we go is in june my life in ruins nea verdalos and my life in ruins is in june um what else oh duncan jones's moon another sort of like a tory thing uh sort of a lot of like atypical summer fair uh that year stephen freers is shirry the hurt locker of course comes out in may that year. Then in June that year, rather. July is Michael Mann's Public Enemies, which sort of like straddles the line between summer movie and a tour, art house sort of thing. And kind of, the audiences don't really know what to do with it.

500 Days of Summer is in July that year. In the Loop is July that year. Orphan is July that year. And then August. Oh, God, what is August? Julie and Julia. Amazing. It's Julian Julia. Excuse me. My personal fave and forever love, a perfect getaway with Timothy Oliphant and Miliovovich. I still have to watch that movie.

It's so fucking fun. It really, really truly is. Ponyo is that August. And Inglorious Bastards. is that August, and we still haven't gotten to taking Woodstock yet, but we will get there. Yeah, taking Woodstock the very last weekend in August. So, summer, like 2009, I think in general, is an underrated movie year. Like, there's a lot of really interesting things happening at the margins at least of that year. And that's really kind of like Autour Summer in a way that appeals to me.

But, like, you can see why away we go. was not an awards priority, even though I love it and you love it. I wonder at what point because what's interesting for Mendez is this is his last movie

before taking on Skyfall and doing his Bond movies. Surrendering himself to James Bond for a while. Even though he only made two of them. But it took a long time to make those two movies. That was a chunk of his career.

Yeah. And to the point now where it's like he gets to go and make his like, you know, Vanity Project type of things like 1917, Empire of Light, which is opening now. That's right. That's why we're doing this. Yes. Empire of Light. We will see how that movie does.

Yes. I wanted more from it. I don't think it's a bad movie, but I definitely wanted more. from it. This is my thing about a way we go in terms of Mendez's career, that whole, like I said, I didn't want it to sound like a backhanded compliment, but like

the low bar it sets for itself, I think, of his filmography, it's towards the top in terms of the movies that I think pull off all of the things it's trying to achieve or most of the things. Sure, sure.

Whereas, like, I, that's one of my things, my problems with a lot of his movies is like I don't know it comes up short those movies come up short in a lot of different ways I felt that about 1917 definitely feel that about

Empire of Light and that I don't know it's throwing in all of these elements doesn't really serve any of them very well the one that it does best is the like

the cinematic experience you know the type of that a lot of people are rolling their eyes about now but that movie I think that's the best thing that it has. I'm looking at his filmography. He's directed nine movies and I just, if I'm ranking them, right?

I'm going Specter 9. Oh yeah. I would probably go Revolutionary Road 8, Empire of Light 7. Revolutionary Road that low. Yeah, just again, I haven't seen it since

2008, but, like, I did not care for it. Probably provisionally American Beauty 6th, and we'll see when I do Brave a rewatch, whether it goes higher or lower. Jarhead 5, 19174, Road to Perdition 3, Skyfall 2, and away we go is my favorite of all of And it's funny because it's probably Maybe his least well regarded Globally Spector is he's least well regarded globally

I would probably have Revolutionary Road Or Perdition at the top At the top At the top Not to Perdition Again, I love that movie And that's another one where I feel like I'm always defending that movie It's a super dry movie

But it's dry in a way that I It's so And it's like The fact that it looks gorgeous Is sometimes held against it In a way that I'm just like But it looks gorgeous So, like, what's our problem here?

I don't know. Yeah, I really like that movie. That was a weird movie that they tried to make a summer movie out of. Yes, yes. But, yeah, I quite like that one. I quite like 1917. He's an interesting, he's one of those filmmakers who, and it's interesting that he did two Bond movies,

because that's the closest he's ever come to being anuteur, is to do two movies back-to-back that were that similar, obviously, in Skyfall and Specter. But he's one of those directors that appeal to me in that it's a high quality, and he brings to it a high degree of skill, but doesn't have a super strong through line through his career. Right. It's not like a Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson kind of a thing, right? Like Skyfall is like the most bespoke Bond movie. Yeah. Empire of Light is basically 75% just that type of like sheen and gloss that you are talking about.

It is like, you know, it is cinematography in search of the movie. I guess that maybe is the San Mendes through line then, like with the exception, like a way we go sort of sits outside of this, but like everything else, there is a polish to everything. And in some ways, that becomes part of the narrative in American Beauty and Revolutionary Road whenever he's sort of doing something that, like, critiques the placid, you know, veneer that he has placed upon it. So other times, it's just like Jarhead just looks spectacular. You know what I mean? And away we go is the only one that doesn't feel cinematography forward of all of those movies. I mean, it makes me wonder, it's always felt strange in his filmography because it feels like the biggest outlier. I mean, to have gone from this to Skyfall is kind of weird.

But at the same time, I think a lot of us who like this movie would really like to see Sam Mendes do something on this scale again. You know, because, like, all of the actors, I think, are uniformly pretty good to great in this movie. Yeah. And, like, I don't know. I think it would be interesting to see Mendez do something like this, which is maybe why Empire of Light kind of... I wonder if that's partly why it disappointed us, because, like... Maybe. It's anemic on a script level, which we could say Mendez did the script for that movie, and he's not...

usually a screenwriter. But, like, we wanted to see just, like, an intimate, smaller-scale drama from him again, and it just didn't live up to, like, that. I should also say it's, I don't mean to sound like I'm slighting the cinematography and the way we go, because it is Ellen Kuros, who has done a tremendous work in her career. She did the cinematography for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I really loved, and Summer of Sam, and I shot Andy Warhol, and... It's just a different vibe than the Deacons stuff and the Conrad Hall stuff.

Exactly, exactly. So, sorry, back into our little outline. This is Maya Rudolph's first leading role in a movie, which is pretty spectacular. I had kind of forgotten that my mind wants me to put her as still on SNL by this point, but she had left SNL in 2007. She sort of frequently comes back and makes guest appearances and has hosted a few times since then. But she left as a full-time cast member in 2007. She had been in some small roles.

She shows up in her husband, Paul Thomas Anderson's movies. A few times she is in a Prairie Home Companion, which we've discussed as the stage manager. She's also pregnant in a Prairie Home Companion. She is. And I just, this is, this is a movie that asked of her something completely different than had been asked of her in her career. And it's really kind of amazing to put away we go, lined it up next to, like, her unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt as. I was going to say, like, Big Mouth. Yeah, yeah.

It's just like she's capable of such tremendous range and can be really effective in either way. and we haven't really seen her revisit this register too much, this sort of Verona register too much. And I would love to see her doing again. I do actually think she's really great in bridesmaids. She's just like... She is. She doesn't have as much to do, but like the wedding lead-up scenes,

the, you know, the fights between her and Kristen Whig, I think that she's just fantastic. Her screaming at that bridal shower, I love my bleachers. asshole is also like the I mean we everybody's seen at least I've seen a billion times because I watch it every once in a while just to sort of laugh the wedding dress uh a stomach distress scene in bridesmaids Kristen Whig saying you're really doing it you're shitting in the street is such a great line reading but it's accompanied by the most absolutely defeated look on Maya Rudolph's face, and then Maya does the thing where she just waves the cars past her

as she's sitting in the street, and she's like, go around me, go around me. It's hard cut to them on the bus back where she's covered in sweat, just like, dazed, saying how much she shit herself. Everybody in that movie is giving a great performance, down to, like, Chris O'Dowden, John Hamm. Like, every single person in that movie gives a great performance. And that's why I think people don't talk about her performance as much, because, like, it's easy to, you know, hang your hat on the Oscar nominee or to, like... Did that get a SAG ensemble nomination? I think so.

I think it did, right? Yeah. Good. Should have. Deserved it. But, like, in the same way that I think she builds this completely believable sibling relationship with Carmen Ojogo in this movie, you see that. type of like performance and that you know natural chemistry in building the friendship of bridesmaid as well that's like not always the most maybe interesting thing to talk about but like that is actually a skill yeah you know to like build this type of relationship on screen that we believe these people have known each other their whole life You know, that's not, that's not an easy task to do, and I think she makes it look incredibly easy.

Chris, I didn't intend to come into this with a game, but I have a little makeshift game for you, and that is this. Of the supporting characters in this movie, so everybody who's not Bert or Verona, you have to craft a five-person, THR-style roundtable discussion. Who are the five characters you choose? The characters, not the, okay. five of them. And then sidebar, two of them you would go out for drinks with. Oh, okay. I mean, I would be going out with Melanie Linsky and Chris Messina for drinks, obviously.

My only drawback there is I would want to find a way to invite Carmen the Jogo's character out also. That's true. That is very true. Yeah. I guess I would probably hang out with all of the women. They're much more interesting. So that's your roundtable, is all of the women? All the women, basically, yeah. So Catherine O'Hara, Alison Janney, Karma Jogo, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Melanie

Winski. That's not bad. That's a good roundtable. Janie would totally take over that one. Her character would totally take over. There would be, like, she and Jillen Hall's character would have a really dark energy between them. They would not. They would agree on more things than you would expect

them to agree on, and that would be incredibly scary when that happened. Like, is the truth of that. Definitely neither of those characters believe in vaccines. No, God, no. That's the, and from, like, completely different ends of the spectrum, but, like, that's the Venn diagram, is they intersect on don't believe in the effectiveness of vaccines. Oh, boy. Okay, so this was actually, it was a pretty middling set of reviews for this movie.

as I mentioned, 67 on Rotten Tomatoes, 58 on Metacritic. Roger Ebert really liked it. A lot of other major critics like A.O. Scott and Kenneth Tehran did not. It only made $9.4 million domestic at the box office, which... Can you imagine it making that much now, though? No, but it should have made more than. You know what I mean? If that makes sense?

Like, this is a movie that probably should have made, like, 18. You know, like double that, probably. I feel like 15, something like that. And then in terms of precursor awards, Maya Rudolph ended up shortlisted for more critics awards than I remembered at the time, where she was, I want to say, like, runner-up at a bunch of regional stuff. She was a nominee with the Chicago film critics, which we'll get to in a second. She was a runner-up with St. Louis and Utah film critics and Washington, D.C. film critics. and she was in the conversation at least enough for that. The Utah or the Chicago film critics,

which is something we don't talk about as much. Chicago film critics are interesting. They do a full set of nominations and then announce like the next day who their winners are. And it's not quite as independent-minded as like the Boston film critics who really do tend to like strike out on their own a little bit from within, you know,

they don't like go, fully off the reservation or anything like that. But Chicago film critics usually tend to be pretty astute with their awards nominations. Their nominees for Best Actress that year, 2009, Kerry Mulligan won for an education, which again feels very Chicago film critics, is she was a nominee at the Oscars, but she was not going to be a winner. So she's like part of the discussion, but not your regular choice for winner. Like, that feels very Chicago film critics.

Merrill Streep nominated for Julie and Julia. She's excellent. Gaboray Sidibe for Precious. Both of those women were nominated for Oscars. And then not Oscar nominees were Maya Rudolph for Way We Go. And then Abby Cornish for Bright Star, making... Your beloved Pride Star. Part of my heart now. I love that nomination. Better Best Actress lineup than the Oscars. Oh, 100% true. Yes, absolutely. Again, I'm never going to shade Sandra Bullock for winning an Oscar. But, like, yes, This is objectively a better lineup from the Oscars head. Who among us has much to say at all about the last station? Exactly. A movie that I definitely saw and remember very little about. Away We Go was nominated for the AARP Movies for Grownups Award for Best Comedy,

lost to its complicated, alongside other nominees, Pirate Radio, the Informant, and in the Loop. Which I think it's a pretty cool lineup for G's. Like, that's a pretty defensible comedy lineup. More defensible, I think, than the Teen Choice Awards, which nominated a way we go for Choice Summer Movie Romance. Sure, all the teens. Alongside, I Love You, Man, which I do like. My Life in Ruins.

Once again, Nea Verdalas comes into play. The Ugly Truth. The Ugly Truth is Gerard Butler and... Oh, no. That's the movie. the vibrating underwear. I've never seen the ugly truth, so I'm going to take your word for it. I never saw

it, but it was in the trailers and people were like, oh, God. Catherine Hegel. It's Catherine Heigle and John Butler. When they were trying to put Catherine Heigle in movies. Yeah. God bless her. All of those movies lost to Sandra Bullock

in the proposal, which was people forget a huge hit. Like, Sandra Bullock winning the Oscar for the Blindside is kind of a bit owed to how big of a hit the proposal was. Well, because the proposal was the highest grossing movie of her career, and then she topped that with the blind side. The proposal was, hey, remember you like Sandra Bullock? And then the blind side was like, hey, remember you like Sandra Bullock, and now she should win an Oscar. Like, that was a real one-two punch of a year. And

good for her. Again, I love Sandra Bullock. Yeah. What else do you want to say about away we go? is like delved into my notes. Let's talk about this soundtrack a little bit. I definitely owned it. This, I mean, this kind of feels of a piece where it's like you have all the same songs by one artist. Like, of course, there's a movie tradition of it of things like Harold and Maud, the graduate, that I think is formative for a certain, you know.

Yeah. Like, era of filmmaker that Mendez would below. long in and it kind of made like an aughts resurgence of being like a thing. I mean, Juno as well. Oh, that type of soundtrack you mean. The type of thing where it's like you have a soundtrack that is the majority one artist, you know, so you have like a singular voice throughout the whole thing. Yeah.

I think it's very effective in this. I think Alexei Murdoch's songs convert themselves to score very well. you know what I mean? It is a very, it's very vibesy, it's very sort of, you know, plucky guitar, plucky acoustic, you know, guitar kind of a thing. He's got a very sort of mellow voice. I think the songs that get featured, which are mostly All My Days and Weight, are both really pretty and really... I mean, the weight at the end of the movie, Mendez does a... It's like he almost landed on this song and it was... the perfect thing and then maybe the other ones came from there because it feels the rhythm of

the shots in this final sequence feels very much attuned to the kind of catharsis that Verona's going through in a way that like I don't I don't feel like it clashes with the performance but like they're in concert with each other. Rudolph is doing something much more understated than I think the big emotional swell of the song is, but they're complimentary in a way that, like, I understand if people don't agree, but, like, I wouldn't want her performance to be sort of stranded on its own. You know what I mean? I wouldn't want her performance to be anything different than what it is, too.

And, like, I like seeing people that are more like real people that might not have these big, giant emotional outpourings, you know? She's not that type of person. But the feeling is still a big feeling, so the song gives that. The rule tends to be you don't want to have your soundtrack telling you too forcefully how to feel. And yet, I do feel like there's an exception to every rule. And I do feel like in this case, I appreciate the fact that the soundtrack is doing something is, reflecting her emotions in a way that she

isn't going to give you and shouldn't give you outwardly, right? Right. Well, I don't feel like the song is telling me how to feel too. No, but it's definitely enhancing my mood. Like, I don't think I like, I end up weeping at the end of that movie as I do every single time I see it, probably without that song. I mean, I think that's fair, but I think it's because ultimately what she's going through emotionally is so internal and she is a particular type of person, you know, too. So it's like, that doesn't make her catharsis any less seismic, you know, but like, I think what it does is kind of get us on the audience, in the audience on her, you know, emotional release level, you know.

Yeah. Seeing her finally sit down on that back. step and finally sort of let it out a little bit is really, really powerful, I think, and really well done and well well waited for, I think. You talked about, like, how

you can almost feel the breeze passing through the house, and, like, that's almost what like the emotional, like, the emotion passing through her is like, you know, it's not, like, it's not this big, grand, like, thing that needed release from her. It's like almost like, a

feeling that needed to like she's she's airing these feelings out you know what I mean she's sort of she's literally like that breeze is kind of passing through her and sort of making space for something new again and yeah I can imagine watching this movie

being a person who is about to have a child or my parents had died when I was younger you know what I mean like to have any more of a connection to it I I'd be a mess. Yeah. As it is, I just sort of, you know, sit in a watch and I tear up. It's a really wonderful ending to a movie that I really was already liking very much.

I'm glad you feel the same way. I would have argued my way through a podcast about this movie, but I would have had a lot less fun doing it. We already have to argue everybody else who doesn't like this movie. We weren't going to be proud to argue with this episode. Listen, if you are a person who also likes a way we go, just make yourself a little. known in the Twitter comments or something because it's good to know that we have support

out there. I mean, and again, I do think it's one of, in terms of achieving what it sets out to do, I think it's one of Mendez's most successful movies personally. And, like, Krasinski, I'm not against Krasinski in this movie. I do wish

that there was someone who I thought was as interesting in that role as, you know, Maya Rudolph, but like, I don't think he's bad in this movie. I think he's charming. And I think they fit at, I think they fit at interesting angles in a way where, like, he's, he's not insincere, but he sort of goes off on these kind of, like, tangents and,

and gets, um, a little goofy, for lack of a better term. And she loves him, but also, like, will roll an eye at him. You know what I mean? like that kind of thing kind of constantly and you feel the genuine connection there between them that I don't think there's a way to view and I've seen some people view this movie as ultimately phony and I just wholesale reject that because I think there I just don't think there's so many things in this movie that ring very true to me and one of them is the relationship if you think that my guess is

you are probably also focusing so much more of your energy and what you think the movie is on all of the people they visit rather than the central couple because like that relationship never feels phony to me. You could call

it annoying. If it annoys you, that's fine but I don't think it's phony. Yeah. Yeah. Anything before we go into the MDB game? I love that this is an M4G's nominee for best comedy, even though I don't think anyone in the cast,

except for maybe Gaffigan and Janney, are over 50. Oh, yeah, good point. Yeah. That's true. Should be a nominee for best grown-up love story, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, if you're going to go in, go all in.

And, uh, yeah. Cast Carmen and Jogo and Maya Rudolph has sisters again. Please do. They're so wonderful as sisters. cast Maya Rudolph as your lead again. Do and actors on actors of Maya Rudolph and Melanie Linsky at some point, just so that they can reminisce. Yeah.

Oh, my God. Yeah. All of it. I want all of it. All right. Chris, why don't you tell our listeners what the IMDB game is? Listeners, we end our episodes with the IMDB game where we challenge each other to guess the top four titles that IMD says an actor or actress is the most known for.

If any of those titles are television, voice-only performances, or non-acting credits, we'll mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue, and if that's not enough, it'll just become a free-for-all of hits. Yes. All right, Chris. Would you rather give or guess first? I'll guess first. I have to really redeem myself after last week, so we'll do this. I'm being eager to do it.

We've talked about Sam Mendez's, God, I feel like such an asshole. umphography this week and one of the films that we both really like very much is Rote to Perdition which got an Oscar nomination for one Paul Newman his final Oscar nomination so I'm going to ask you to give the known for for Paul Newman HUD no not butch Cassidy no not butch Cassidy wow I adhere to redeem myself and I immediately fail. I think once I give you the years, you're going to be able to get it.

So the years are 1961, 1988, 1982, 1994, and 2002. Did you say 94? Yes.

That's nobody's fool. Yes, correct. Oscar nominee for that. She should have won. Is 61? It's too late to be cool hand, Luke, I think.

Is that the hustler? It is the hustler, yes. Two for four. What are my other years? 82 and 2002. 2002 is Perdition. Yes, wrote to perdition. Wow, I wouldn't have guessed that.

82 has to be color of money. No, that's 86. Wow, his Oscar win isn't on there. Yeah. Okay, so 82, this would have been... Oh, it's the verdict. It is the verdict. Sidney Lumet's The Verdict.

which he was also an Oscar nominated for, I'm pretty sure. I feel that wasn't that like sort of a comeback for him? Wasn't that his first Oscar nomination in quite a while, I feel like? I'm trying to remember from the last movie stars, if it was or not. I know that it was like significant. No, absence of malice was the year before that. That was the big comeback nomination. He hadn't been nominated for an acting Oscar for 14 years.

Did you watch Last Movie Stars? No, I keep meaning to. I think you'd really like. I would absolutely love it. The biggest injustice is that you can't immediately watch every Joanne Woodward movie right there on HBO Max. I don't know why not, but it's really good. It has such high school theater kid energy, too, because you have all of these actors playing, doing, like, letters and interviews of their actors and movie stars. I mean, Laura Linney, unless I'm misremembering because it's early.

She does Joanne Woodward, and it's like, my God, they're just a bunch of, like, you know, our greatest actors, you know, really pulling out their high school theater kid energy. It's so good. All right. Chris File, redeeming himself with Paul Newman this week. What do you got for? So for you, Joe, I have chosen someone. It's very interesting that there's like, you see them in other movies too, but there's like this Brooklyn group of actors who are definitely friends and they star in a bunch of stuff together. However, I pulled someone who is also from both the Mendez filmography and married to one of the stars of this movie. I've chosen for you, Mr. Peter Sarsgaard. Peter Sarsgaard. We've never done Peter Sarsgaard. That's very interesting. Yes, not. All right. Okay.

Peter Sarsgaard's kind of tough because he's in a lot of movies that you wouldn't think necessarily would be IMDB movies. A lot of his roles kind of blur together. And like his bigger stuff, like his forays into big budget action adventure are stuff like Green Lantern, and I kind of don't think Green Lantern's going to be on there,

but I'll put a pin in that. I'm going to guess Shattered Glass. Correct, is probably closest to an Oscar nomination. Yeah. Um, what else do we have? Oh, boy. Okay. Kinsey?

Okay, all right, now we're cooking. I'm gonna guess green... We all know how I feel about him in that movie. I'm gonna guess Greenlee. Lantern. God damn it. I was trying to make you get stumped and you had it. Yes, Green Lantern is there. Okay. Three for three. One more. Not giving you any hints because you don't have anything wrong. I don't have anything wrong yet. But like, oh, this is a challenge now. Where do I go with this? Peter Sars. Green Lantern, which like buried him in prosthetics and like no one liked or wanted that movie

to begin with. Now he just like completely forgotten that he's. on, you know, a D.C. movie. Marvel. No, D.C. You're right. The Lantern is D.C. I'm thinking of, because it's green, and when I think of green, I think of the Incredible Hulk, which is Tim Roth, is the bad guy in that one, in that Incredible Hulk movie. All right. Anyway, anyway, I kind of don't think it's going to be this, but I'm going to guess Jarhead. Incorrect.

Okay. All right. what other it's your first wrong guess the problem with doing this is we're in the this had Oscar buzz space so all I can think of is

rendition and I know it's not rendition I mean I want to push you in the direction but you're not getting wrong guesses yet if you get the wrong I mean like I don't know

I'm... Knowing the algorithm, the one that's remaining is the one that I would have guessed first. Oh, interesting. Well, that's... I was almost going to guess the lost daughter, but knowing the algorithm, you wouldn't have guessed that because it's a Netflix movie. I can't tell you if it's the last daughter. I know. I know. I'm just going to guess it at The Lost Daughter.

Incorrect. It is not The Lost Daughter. Your year is 2004. 2004. So right after Shattered Glass, right before Jarhead. I should have guessed in education, actually. But I didn't. 2004 is the same year as Kinsey.

Correct. What else is he? It's actually the same distributor as Kinsey. Oh, that's not going to help me, unfortunately. Oh, God. Is this like very obvious? Am I missing something very obvious? I think you're going to be mad at yourself that you don't have this, yeah.

Dang, is he the lead? He is definitely third build. He is on the poster. I want to see if he got any critic prizes for this. Because I feel like he was getting mentioned for this movie somewhat in tandem with Kinsey, but that never really happened for him for either of them. He was Golden Satellite Award nominated for this. Is this a movie I like?

Huh? Is this a movie I like? I do believe this is a movie that you like slash defend against people who don't like it. Well, he's not even closer. People definitely don't like this movie anymore. Oh, really? Maybe because it's probably dated, but also, like, it's of a brand. of movie that

people just don't want to have these movies anymore. Oh, God. Okay. Why? The writer-director is also the star of the movie. Oh, boy. Oh.

Oh, God. Oh, of course. We mentioned it in this podcast, in this episode earlier. It's Garden State. It is Garden State. Of course. I always forget that he's in Garden State. You're right. Yeah. Really? Yes, because it's a all, to me, that movie's all Portman

and then also Brath. But yeah. I like SARS card in that movie. I don't like him. I just like, I do forget that he is the third dude in that movie. Yes, of course. That makes total sense that that's on his I-N-B game. Okay. All right. See, I was less impressive on that than I thought

I was going to be after getting the first three correct. All right, Chris, that is our episode. And thank you for another great one. Should we do another call out for our mailbag? Yeah, we're doing it. mailbag listeners we have we're taking your questions through december 20th uh you can go to either our twitter account at had underscore oscar oscar buzz our tumbler at this head oscarbuzz dot tumbler.com or you can just email us at had oscar buzz at gmail dot com once again we are taking your mailbag questions through

december 20th we are not yet on mastodon we are not yet on uh friendster two we're not yet on a resurrected Kazah that is going to be a chat app instead of a song downloading. Something's going to arise from the ashes. Bring back cults or something.

Sure. Yes. Perfect time for it. Talking Club, the app. All right. If you want more of this at Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr. Wait, Talking Club The app just got me. I'm sorry. Oh, Talking Club. Club. Barb and Starr save us

from this cultural moment that we're in. Only you can save us. Mastodon kind of sounds like Talking Club. Or is it Discord that I, okay, Discord also stresses me out because I'm like, it's... All of these things stress me out, but I will

once I get used to it, it'll feel like second nature, which is how all of these things work with me, right? One of these apps, like one of these Twitter alternate apps sounded like talking club when like someone explained it to me. Like you have to go into a topic and they'll boot you if you talk about something that's not that talk it. That is literally Vanessa Bayer's rules

in that movie. It's also the television without pity message board rules. So maybe we're going back to that. Maybe that's what's going to end up saving us all. Who knows? Um, anyway, uh, listeners, if you want more of this at Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this hadoscarbuzz. dot tumbler.com. You should also follow our Twitter account at Had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz. Chris, where can the listeners find you and your stuff on Talking Club.com? Well, I'm on Talking Club at... As Trish fan 69? Yeah. Trish Vivo.

As of now, you can find me on Twitter and Letterbox at Chris Vig File. That's FI.L. Yeah, I will probably... I'll stick with Twitter until it becomes... a wasteland, and then I'll go to wherever everybody else has already decided they're going to go, and I'll let them make that decision for me. No, I... It sounds enigmatic to say that, but there's no way I can fulfill that. I'm not that much of a self-possessed person. I can't live up to that. I'm sorry.

I am right now on Twitter at Joe Reed. I'm also on letterboxed, also at Joe Reed. Reed, in those cases, spelled R-E-I-D. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork, and David. Gonzales and Gavin Medius for their technical guidance. Please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify. Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, wherever

else you get podcasts. A five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcast visibility. So get up out of your family bed and write us a nice review, won't you? That's all for this week, but we hope you'll be back next week for more buzz. lose it all

If I can't be All that I could be Will you Will you wait for me