This Had Oscar Buzz - 224 – The Man in the Iron Mask

Episode Date: December 19, 2022

As Titanic continued its months-long reign at the box office, its closest challenger (before Lost in Space would dethrone it, that is) at the multiplex starred none other than one of its star-crossed lovers. Yes, Leonardo DiCaprio owned the box office in the weeks ahead of Titanic’s Best Picture win, pulling double double duty as … Continue reading "224 – The Man in the Iron Mask"

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. In a turbulent time. The next time they're rioters, shoot them.

Power ruled. I am a young king, but I am king. Then be a good king. Injustice reigned. To the prison you shall go. And into the mask. The lyrics! Until you die in it!

And a tyrant took whatever he desired. Who is that? Rowe, the son of Athos. Francois, your taste may run to young soldiers, but I was referring to the beauty next to him. He thought no one could take his place. Now we know that some problems cannot be solved with a sword, and some can't be settled without one. But he was wrong.

We will replace the case. Hello, and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that has been euthanized by Matt Damon. Every week on This Head Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we're here to perform the autopsy. perhaps we're here to perform some type of S&M non-sexual act. I'm your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with my dungeon brother, Joe Reed. I feel like we should clarify a couple things up front, one of which is we are not into mask play. We're not into mask play.

Iron deficiency is real, and we shouldn't make light of it. No. This is our second Randall Wallace movie, which took me quite by surprise after Secretariat. We did Secretariat very early. Also another Malkovich movie. Digging into the filmography of Randall Wallace was a real eye-opener and we'll get into it. Yeah, we surprisingly, for as Starry a cast as this is, this doesn't get us close to six timers for anybody. I looked up the same thing because I was like, okay, surely we've got someone and it's truly no one. It's our second DeCaprio. It's our first Gabriel Byrne. Is there our second DeCaprio?

I thought it was like our third. Give me a second. I had this information and then I, it might be. It's because we're always like, well, we could do Body of Lies. You're right. It is our third. We don't want to watch Body of Lies. Our third, at some point we should do Body of Lies, though.

Our third Decaprio after Jay Edgar, Shutter Island, and now The Man of the Iron Mask. I think it's our second Jeremy Irons, is what I was thinking of. Second Irons after... A recent one. No, after House of the Spirits. House of the Spirits, of course. And then it's our fourth Malcovich. Reunited...

For not a reading, Secretariat, and... Mary Riley. Mary Riley. Yeah. Thank you for setting me up. for the whisper. Anyway, but yeah, you would have expected a lot more. I also

it's, we don't even have that many Peter Sarsgaard. Tinty Tinty, the babyest Peter Sarsgarde that ever did baby in this movie. Our second Peter Sarsgaard after wait for it, rendition.

So, also can I mention at this point before I forget, visually they don't make a ton of sense as father and son, but vocally, Peter Sarsgaard as John Malkovich's son is scarily appropriate. In this movie, they are very similar type of soft boys. Soft boys, yes, but also just like close your eyes and listen to their voices back to back, which like at one point I wasn't looking at the screen.

I was looking at something else, and I was all of a sudden their scene was happening, and I was listening to their voices, and I'm like, holy shit, Peter Sarsgarde and John Malkovich have that have there's a quality to their enunciation that is you're totally right though i'm not quite sure i agree that they don't make sense visually maybe it's just because sarzgard is taller than him but like at least this age of sarzgard it made it was good casting good casting in my opinion good casting which makes up for uh the picture of indifferent casting when it comes to um nationalities and accent work in this movie which truly... A movie that

asks, what is British, what is French? What does it mean to be alive? A person on a certain place of the middle. Yes. The 1990s were a golden era of we don't give a fuck about accents where you could show up in a

time period or a country, wherever, and just do your regular accent. Jeremy Irons is English. John Malkovich and Leonardo DiCaprio, both American, both doing their American accents. Gabriel Byrne is Irish, but I think is attempting to tamp that down a little bit and do a little bit more of any. He's the only one who I think is... As he does often.

As he does often, sort of stepping out of his native accent a little bit. And then Gerard de Pard de Pardue playing... It's very en-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-french. Pappy Lapeu personified. It's very ah-ha-ha. That's exactly right. That's 100%. I can't wait to talk about your R. Def R2 in this movie. Before we get too far into the movie, though,

we do have a little bit of business about our upcoming mailbag, which will be next week, the day after Christmas. This is our Christmas lead-up, I suppose. Listen, what is Christmas about, if not reuniting with your family, and by that, I mean,

the brother you've been keeping in a dungeon your entire reign of the aristocracy? This Christmas, Um, get your, get your, get your, get your, let your brother free. Let your brother out of the dungeon, invite him to Christmas dinner, um, give him a, give him a target gift card or something like that. Just something that really from the heart, you know what I mean? That really says, sorry, I'm going to put you back in the best deal, but for the moment, um, let's go get a Starbucks. You know what he needs in that dungeon, though? What would be a really thoughtful gift? Some new socks.

Christmas sucks. Does, who doesn't, who doesn't, love some little red and white festive socks that are probably a little too small and you're not going to wear them in regular life. You can find up some cute ones on like, I don't know, funsocks.com. I love my twin brother.

Listen. Wait. I'm trying to think of like a pun on ho-ho-ho that you could do for like Oh-ha-ho-ho. They're all French. French Santa says Ha-ha-ha-ha.

What do you bring to a white elephant party all between musketeers? Oh, well, that's a good question. I mean booze, lazy choice, but... Sure. Well, only some of them booze it up, I feel like. I think Porthos booses it up for the revelry of it all. Athos booses it up to drown his pain away. Aramis is probably, you know, pious and...

and is abstaining, and, you know, D'Artagnan is, he's secreting away a bottle of wine to have with the Queen Mother's life. He has a secret vineyard. Yes, right. D'Artagnan wines. Okay. This movie, all right, this was the other thing I wanted to bring up. No, this is the thing we got to do. Okay.

We got into this because our mailbag is next week's listeners. you have, if you're listening to this when the episode drops, you have like 24 hours. We're taking mailbag submissions through the 20th. Next week, you're going to have your questions answered. We will get in as many questions as possible. Thank you for your generosity and your thoughtful questions. You can go check out our Twitter account.

It had underscore Oscar underscore buzz. Our pin tweet right now has the mailbag submission tool. You can also find it on our Tumblr page. to this at oscarbuzz.tumbler.com. You can also email us those questions at had oscarbuzz at gmail.com. Woo-hoo. Back to the French.

You did it. Okay. So the one thing I wanted to say is our standards for this podcast remain as rigorous as ever. But every once in a while, like the definition of what had Oscar buzz ebbs and flows.

And we tend to err on the side of what would be a good conversation. I would say that the man of the Iron Mask, if it had Oscar buzz, was early stage and somewhat fleeting. There's many Oscar-adjacent conversations to be had. But I think for a movie that opened in the first quarter of the year in 1998... A costume drama at that. Right. Well, this is the thing is the fact that it's a costume drama based on tangentially a great work of literature

that featured people with Oscar pedigrees. That's probably what qualifies it for Oscar buzz. By the end of 1998, nobody was expecting the man in the Iron Mask to show up on nomination lists or anything like that. But it does have one heck of an Oscar-adjacent story to it, which is its existence in relation to the Titanic juggernaut of 97-98, which we will certainly be talking about because that is.

Listen, what does everybody want on Christmas? but to watch and talk about a James Cameron movie. God, here we go quite again. I, for one, am very excited to see this new mayor of East Town season, The Way of Wooder. I am here to watch this Catherine Bigelow stealth sequel to the weight of water. This is now just the way of water. God help me from four hours of fucking Pandora that wait me, whatever. Would you rather spend three hours and eight minutes on Jim Cameron's Pandora

or spend three hours and eight minutes in the chintzy hellscape of a store Pandora? Oh, wait, what is the store Pandora? I've never been to a Pandora. The little beads. Oh. They're like soccer mom's love. Is that a thing? I have no idea.

I'm ignorant. Please come to the Midwest. It is a thing. I'm awful. Apologies to all listeners who love their beads. Is it like a craft store that sells beads? No. I'm like Will Arnett in that arrested development scene where he's like, beads.

That's me. Tell me about the beads. It's like, it's like, it's jewelry. where it's like you get this little bracelet that you can put a bunch of different charm beads on it. Oh, this is sounding vaguely familiar. So it's not like, it's not like Bill DeBare level of like... I can't believe you don't know what Pandora is.

It sounds a little... Mostly Pandora, I think, of like, the Internet radio station. It's kind of like Bill DeBair if you have run out of Yankee candles to buy. I do love a Yankee candle. Oh, it's Christmas season. I hate Yankee Candle. They burn like shit.

I got to pick up a couple of Yankees. for the season. I got to get one that smells like... Not the first time you'll be saying that. Looking for a good time. This is our episode about gift giving. We didn't realize it was an episode about gift. That's my Sharon Hogan playing an old-timey prostitute voice or whatever. You're looking for a good time, Yank?

All right. Anyway, Man in the Iron Mask. Man in the Iron Mask. Okay, this movie's bad, but I will say I had a good fun time watching this definitely. Definitely bad movie. December is the month where we do these really poorly critically reviewed movies. And I watch it and I'm like, yeah, it's fine. Like, I don't understand what people's problems with is with this movie.

It's soapy and it's like silly and every single one of the actors is probably in a different movie. Oh, yeah, it's true. But it's fine. It's not anything to get so angry about us. to be like, it's horrible. I sure wouldn't get angry about this movie, but I think it's one of, I think it's bottom tier of all the movies

that we've talked about. I will also say, even though I know that it's a different movie, when we got to the end credits, I was absolutely waiting for all for one and all for love to show up. Yes, 100%. And it should have.

Because honestly, what would the problem have been? Just license the song. It's what we now expect from the end credits, of wait so let's line that was also from the 90s like if it was today you could have the gritty cover of all for one who would do that it would be like or do you just do like what the batman did and do like bring up an old nirvana song and play that over the end credits of like dark and gritty musketeers wait so let's let's do the crossover so in the 1993 i believe it was 93 three musketeers, the Disney three musketeers.

Kiefer Sutherland. Kiefer Sutherland was, I believe, Aramis. So that's Jeremy Irons. Oliver Platt was Porthos, who is Gerard de Pardieu. Charlie Sheen, I guess, was Athos, who is John Malkovich. And then Chris O'Donnell was young D'Artagnan. Also, who was Gabriel Byrne. Also, the fact that I mentioned the accents and how everybody's doing their own accent

and very much unconcerned, the one exception being, anytime anybody says the name d'artagnan at which point they really just like layer on the french the francois uh it's it's really d'artagnan like they're really really hitting you with it and uh in no other like even when they say louis it's just sort of like louis right where it's let's not like like louis um uh not like an interview with a vampire quality like louis um yes so there's that anytime I see a movie like this I think

I could be watching Robin Hood Prince of Thieves and having a better time is sort of how I feel like with a movie like this but Robin Hood Prince of Thieves you get Kevin Costner's butt

Manor and Marion Mask you get Girard de Perdue's butt Unfortunately I have to report that Gerard de Pardue has a wagon and a half in this movie Has a nice dumper

He really, really does. He's just, like, running around, free as you please, chasing the, the, you know, harlots around and whatnot. Someone's hauling groceries. It's... It's really something else. Good for him. There was a line of dialogue of his, I think, that I wrote down. Maybe I didn't. I don't know. Did I?

Hold on. I mean, I wrote down basically all of the gross sexual innuendos that they said in the first scene because it's like, somebody refers to him being hung like a horse. It is a donkey, Chris. We are in the year of the donkey. You should know. That's right. That's right. Yes. Yeah, we learn in the first five minutes that Porthos is hung like a donkey. It is confirmed by a third party. So really we are getting like real proof. As by the way, poor Jeremy Irons, as. aramis who at this point is a Jesuit priest is really just like white knuckling it through this conversation with porthos and so

he's the Charlotte we no Aramis is the Miranda Aramis is the one with business concerns right Aramis is you know

is working hard and making plans D'Artagnan's the carry 100% D'Artagnan I mean, yeah. Porthos is 100% the Samantha. I think Athos is the Charlotte in that, like, most of his story is about family and children, which at some point Charlotte's storyline just becomes about that. And also that...

At some point, Miranda's story just becomes that, though. Well, that is true. And also, so you're, to back up maybe your assertion that Athos is Miranda. Miranda and Carrie have major falling out scenes together. And, of course, that happens in this, too. You may be right. You may be right. No one really ever has beef with Charlotte.

This is true. Charlotte and Miranda have it for a second. But like in Three Musketeers, everybody sort of defers to Aramis as being the wisest of them. And that never happens in Sex and the City. Like Charlotte never gets granted that steps. Whereas sometimes Miranda, they all sort of realize that Miranda's smarter than all of them. And they just sort of, you know, have to sit with that for a moment. Anyway.

Oh, I can't wait to talk about this movie. And Peter Sarsgarde is shady ass. Shut up. No, Peter Sarsgarde in this is either Brady or Elizabeth Taylor, Charlotte's dog. One of the two. Poor Peter Sarsgaard in this movie gets, chases off after a piglet, and then while he's chasing off after a piglet, a horny little shitty Leonardo DiCaprio comes and like scams on his lady.

And there we have it. A character who probably should have been played by an actress who we would have recognized. Like I was kind of bummed that it didn't turn out to be like Sophie Marceau or something like that. Exactly. What I do think this movie is deficient on is an Isabella Johnny, a Julie Dopee in the younger role. Right. Right. Exactly. I don't think that the female performances, unfortunately, I'm allowed to say this about one movie in my lifetime.

The female performances in this movie are not good. Are lacking, I will say. Also, though, there's only real two actual female characters besides, like, Porthos's harem of willing ladies. But, like, Christine, also. Also, do you believe the balls on this story to have a Raoul and Christine romance and give us no songs to back it up? Like, I'm sorry. And then poor tortured the Queen Anne, the Queen Mother, who pines for D'Artagnan and is played by an actress I've never seen in anything before, whose name is, I don't want to slight these women.

and oh god french i'm so bad at french how would you pronounce her her surname parallel or perio parolou or perio all right i'll give you that and then judith judith godrush as godrush as christine christine bellafort uh uh songbird of the paris opera and uh no i don't know Christine Ty will sing it for you, sir. And, of course, Hugh Lorry as Madame Jiri is... Poor Hugh Lorry shows up.

This is definitely... Hugh Lory definitely had more fun than most people on this movie, though. Hugh Lorry and John Malkovich together again after the Annie Lennox Walking on Broken Glass music video. So this is canonically Annie Lennox cinema, if nothing else, which you know that does not mean. Annie Lennox should have ended this movie with a song. Gritty, one-for-all Annie Lennox cover. Actually, Annie Lennox would probably rip the shit out of that song.

Annie Lennox could have played Queen Anne of Austria. She could have played... Annie Lennox should have played Louis. The mother... Both roles, both twins. No, Annie Lennox, as the Queen Mother, would have rocked and or rolled in this role. So I would have loved it. And rounding out the cast in terms of recognizable

faces. Were you an alias person? Did you watch Alias? Sadly, no. So Edward Aderton, who plays the sort of second in command of the musketeers who is loyal to D'Artagnan and who doesn't really relish having to fight him at the end, he played Sidney Bristow's fiancé and the pilot of Alias, who gets murdered by Ron Rifkin and the secret shadowy SD6. And that's what spurs her into turning herself to the CIA and becoming a counter-terror or a counter-agent and spy kicks off the whole thing, as it were.

That's what I know him from. Anyway, Man in the Iron Mask, which we haven't even mentioned Leonardo DiCaprio, which is really kind of telling. We're saving it. Because he's the whole reason why this movie was even a thing. movie made a ton of money and it did so on a global scale too because of course titanic is making money on a global scale right and it's making money based on almost not entirely but like i read an article where from 1998 where people box office sort of uh observers sounded surprised where they were like we were expecting a male audience because it has

sword fighting and musketeers and adventure and action and all this sort of stuff. And they were like, actually, the audience was like 55% women who came to see Leonardo DiCaprio. And the tone was very, like, surprised. And I was like, you dumb clucks in 1998 didn't know your ass from your elbow. Yeah, as a preteen at that time, I remember being like, no shit. No shit. No shit. I've talked to a number of women.

Yeah. Seen Titanic. I, yes, I know girls in 1998. I know what movie they're rushing out to see in 1998, and it's Leonardo DiCaprio times due, and that's what they're going to see. Be wigged like a porcelain doll. Oh, okay. So Leonardo DiCaprio at this point in his career is an angelic...

About to make Don's plum. Well, yeah, no. an angelic-faced Oscar nominee. Skin as unbothered as would be fit somebody who has now made enough money that he no longer has to care

about anything. All of a sudden he's hit the big time, right? No, but like the softness, you don't understand, you really have to watch a movie, because I think Titanic is so burned in our memory, you really have to watch a movie like The Man in the Iron Mask to really appreciate just how soft

featured Leonardo DiCaprio was at this stage of his career like to an extreme degree and so to then add to that this sort of

flowing mane of Lydia Tar style blonde hair like it's kind of the same style right

Lydia tar with pin curls plus the flowy robes that would be fit Louis the 14th, the Sun King. Do you know what I mean? So like all of the heaviest mu-moo khaftan you have ever seen. And it all, and it all contributes to, again, it adds to that softness. All of this stuff adds to the softness. And so then you take all that softness and you put

it in a character of this sort of really like fuckboy doesn't begin to describe. just the shittiness of the version of Louis that we get in this movie. And you're just like, oh, this fucking guy. Like, you really, really hate him. And it's interesting that these audiences that flocked to go see the man in the iron mask because they were in love with Jack Dawson, then goes to see this movie where the bad Leo you really hate, and the good Leo is behind a titular Iron Mask for, like,

The good first, more than just the first half of this movie, you don't see Philippe's face for a very long time in this movie. Like, the Man of the Iron Mask plot doesn't really even come around until the halfway mark of this movie. Yeah. Like, a lot of the first half of this movie is about the musketeers sort of coming to their breaking point with Louis. And so, I don't know, I would love to have exit interviewed the girls who went to see this for Leo and to. to see what they thought about this movie. They probably left satisfied for what they wanted. He has his shirt off more than once in this movie. Yep, yep, it's true.

You don't see his butt, like you see Porthos's butt, though. He's getting out of bed with a lady, and there's a lot of comforter action that... Well, their gay friends also left happy. Well, no, I shouldn't just say girls, because, yes, because boys who had an idea about things also flock to go. see this movie. Before we get into the plot description, we should say in the whole box office run of Titanic, you know, Titanic was number one for what, four months or something crazy. Lost in Space famously hilariously, the movie that dethroned it from number one at the box office. Man in the Iron

Mask is the one that came closest. I thought I put it in the outline that it's like within $300,000 of that Titanic. To the point where I found an article. that was written the morning, like the Monday morning, and they hadn't gotten final numbers. And at that point, it was a dead heat. It was essentially a tie, a functional tie, between Titanic and the band, the area of mess. Right, a three-way Leo tie.

But so I listened to the list of movies that opened opposite Titanic during its box office run, right? Not a complete list, but so tomorrow never dies. End of 97, Tomorrow Never Dies. Then you get into early 98. Fallen, the Denzel Washington movie, where people are getting possessed by the devil. Have you ever seen Fallen? Yes.

It's not a bad movie. Spice World opened up in this era. The Ethan Hawk, Gwyneth Paltrow, Great Expectations, which I saw again recently and is kind of a wild movie. Like, kind of a crazy adaptation. The Replacement Killers, the Chow Yun-Fat, Mirosorvino movie, Blues Brothers 2000, The Wedding Singer, very popular movie, The Wedding Singer, the Perfect and Unassailable Sphere, starring Icon Sharon Stone, among others, Dark City, the Alex Proyas movie, Dark City, U.S. Marshals, of course,

the sequel to The Fugitive, The Big Lobowski, the Man in the Air, mask, primary colors, wild things, the re-release of Greece, and then finally after 16 weeks, as you mentioned, lost in space, the oddest choice, just the most nondescript spring blockbuster knocks off Titanic after 16 weeks. It's a really interesting collection of movies, really puts you back in a time and place, that's for sure. Also, Man in the Iron Mask opened not the weekend of, but the weekend before the Oscars in which Titanic would win Best Picture. Yes. We'll talk about the Leo relation to those Oscars.

Yes. On the other side of the plot description, which Joe Reed is tasked to do this week. I am. I am. Are you prepared to do so? I am. I may run long. Looking at it now, I have it written out, and it seems long.

Are you trying to say that this plot is convoluted? No, I'm just saying that I. have no ability to self-edit, so here we are. Relatable. On that note, Joseph Reed, your 60-second plot description for The Man in the Iron Mask. We should give some. We should, in fact. Why don't you give some information? We already said the whole cast. Obviously, it's based on the Alexandre Dumas novel, but adapted and directed by Randall Wallace, we'll get into it. Joseph Reed, your 60-second plot description for The Man in the Iron Mask. Why don't you read a cast list, though, too, Chris? We said

Everybody, we set all these names already. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Am I delaying? Am I procrastinating, perhaps? Are you stalling? Your 60-second plot description, The Man in the Iron Mask starts now. All right, Leonardo DiCaprio plays King of France,

Louis XIV, who is just a giant preening piece of shit who wages war across Europe and chases tail around Versailles, while his people starve and he flippantly sends them rotten fruit. Naturally, his people want to murder him, including an active plot among the Jesuits, led in secret by former musketeer Aramis. Only Louis doesn't know that, so he sets Aramis on a mission to root out and kill the secret Jesuit leader, at which point Aramis realizes

his time to get rid of the king. Fortunately for him, he was privy to a plot at Louis's birth, at which he had a twin brother, Philippe, who was sentenced to hiding for political reasons, and then when Louis was made king, he placed Philippe in an iron mask and locked up in the bowels of the bastile. Aramis gathers his musketeer buddies together, Porthos, who spent his retirement boozing and whoreing around Paris, and Athos, whose son Louis sent to the front lines to be killed so Louis could make the kid's girlfriend his mistress. And then there is loyal d'artagnan, whose dedication to the king he knows is the worst, suggests a deeper connection, which is fully given away every time D'Artagnan cast a longing glance at the Queen Mother.

None of these people should be noted have remotely the same accent. Anyway, Aramis and the Musketeers minus D'Artagnan carry out this plot, and it works for about an hour until Louis gains the upper hand and sends Philippe back to the Bastille. The Muskees make one more attempt to free him, and D'Artagnan finally joins them and reveals that he's Louis and Philippe's father, obviously, and then he dies while saving Philippe from Louis's dagger, and the truth is revealed, and it turns the entire Musketeer order against Louis, and they send him into the Bastille and the Iron Mask and Philippe becomes Louis the Sun King,

and according to the closing voiceover, was beloved by all. no further questions. 18 seconds over time. I'm sorry, Joseph Reed, you will be sent to the best deal. God damn it! Not the mask, not the mask. Okay, so my question is, when did Philippe? Okay, if there was, you know, if there's twin brothers, first of all, Philippe, if you're

named Philippe, clearly you're the other twin. You're not the A twin, you're the B twin. Wow. Wow. Apologies to Filippe out there. Yeah. When did they put a mask on him? Who puts an iron mask on a baby?

Well, he wasn't a baby. He was, he wasn't sent into the best deal. He was sent into hiding, right? And then he wasn't sent him to the best deal until Louis became king. And then he, you know. And then he masked him up. But he was a boy king. He was a boy king.

They don't really, I don't know if they lay out the plot as rock solid as you would want them to. But yes, your concerns are valid. a young person in the tortured did they have a small version of the mask when he was small-faced and then did they have to like fashion a larger mask when he got older and did at that point somebody, because the whole

point of the iron mask is that nobody would look in and say, hey, that guy looks a whole lot like the king. So I also love at the end when they send Louis into the bestial with the iron mask and they're like, first of all, you shut

up. Second of all, we're going going to put you in the best deal, and we're going to make sure that only a deaf mute comes and brings you your food so that nobody can ever know your identity. And I'm like, huh, like, that's really specific. Okay. Like, I guess, I guess that's what we're doing. Yeah, a little convoluted of a plot. I will say that there were moments, there were relationships in this movie that got me a little bit more than I expected to, considering I don't think this is a very good movie, one of which is I kind of get Aramis's sort of dedication to doing the right thing and to atoning for like the one bad thing he's ever done, right?

He willingly was party to putting this kid in an iron mask in the best deal, for the good of the country and for the good of, you know, peace in France or whatever. And it's, you know, it's something he feels like he has to atone for. The other relationship I actually really bought into somewhat despite myself is grieving father, John Malkovich, and unsure teen about to be placed on the throne, Philippe. You know, I actually kind of bought into their couple scenes together at the end when Philippe's like, you want to be my dad? Like, I was like, aw, like, that's kind of sweet. And that's sort of the extent of it.

That's sort of the extent of what I liked about this movie, besides like the fun of, you know, the accents. Like I said, it's soapy. So it's like, it's never exactly boring. No, it's not boring. It's bad, but it's not boring. Yeah. And that's fine sometimes. It's too heterosexual to be camp, too.

Right. That is true. You can tell this is made by Christian Oaf Randall Wallace, I feel like. Oh, boy. So you brought up Randall Wallace, which I didn't even remember this as a Randall Wallace movie. And then when I saw it. His directorial debut. Derectorial debut, he gets.

to direct his first feature after winning the best original screenplay, Oscar for what? Braveheart. Nominated, I don't believe he won. Oh, right, right. He loses to Brian Singer. No, Christopher McQuarrie. Brian Singer did not write the screenplay for the usual suspects. Never want.

I'm off my rocker today. But Randall Wallace did win the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay. Christopher McQuary for The Usual Suspects was not nominated. Randall Wallace beats out. Are you ready? Get ready. Aaron Sorkin for the American president. Fantastic screenplay.

Amy Heckerling for Clueless, fantastic screenplay. PJ Hogan for Muriel's Wedding, fantastic screenplay. And Woody Allen for Mighty Aphrodite, which he's Woody Allen. At that point, he's, you know, a less problematic figure, sort of. Who are you voting for? Who am I voting for? am it's tough i'm flipping a coin between the american president and clueless i'm voting for heckerling yeah i'm probably voting for sorkin you know me um i love american president good movie

fantastic movie um and at that point especially pre west wing pre everything else uh full cocaine well yes but also like the fact that because like so much of the american president is replicated in some way on the West Wing. But at this point, it's just like, what a great sort of throwback to, you know, the very sort of throwback to like the Frank Capra of it all. It feels very much sort of original in its sensibility in that, in the 90s of that moment. I definitely think I would have gone for the American president. It's wild, though, that Braveheart is given a screenplay award of any kind.

It's, right. Remember, like, we went through an era for a while there, where I'm thinking of Titanic, I'm thinking of Gladiator, where movies win Best Picture with the full-on front street acknowledgement that the screenplays are not very good. And sometimes they get nominated. I think what Titanic was not nominated, Gladiator, and Gladiator was nominated, but certainly didn't win. I think it might have been. Give me a second to look that up.

But anyway, just the intrigue of that where it's like, there was definitely an era, and I think we are definitely in kind of an opposite era where best picture is almost more connected to a strong screenplay than it is to a big directorial spectacle that doesn't have the bones in it. Well, and the Academy has decided to distinguish

between those it's you know Director and picture are a lot more separate entities now than they were in the 90s

especially director is more spectacle based or vision based whereas best picture is how did it make you feel

yes gladiator was nominated for original screenplay and lost of course to Cameron Crow for almost famous but yeah

you don't see I think if the 2000 Oscars were voted on in 2020, I definitely think you would have gotten something like traffic. Interestingly, it's interesting that traffic wins director

and then Gladiator Picture. I think it would be probably flipped. Or, I think it would be flipped probably. And you would have gotten Ridley Scott getting director for Gladiator because Gladiator's the spectacle. And Traffic getting best picture because traffic at the time was seen as

the more grounded applicable to I'm not quite sure I agree because so much of I mean like a lot of gladiator success was attributed to Ridley Scott but I think even more so

like traffic in a way that it's like well actually Aaron Brockovich is the movie Sotomberg should have won for sure but that's very much us talking about in hindsight but like it was so much credited to his directorial vision and you know his person style.

You're not wrong there. I'm just sort of musing the fact that something like a split picture director thing tends to not go for the spectacle as Best Picture anymore. The spectacle in a split tends to go to director. Well, and my thing is actually kind of the reverse back towards Braveheart Apollo 13, whereas even in the modern era, the thing we're talking about here results in best picture wins for movies that I don't like. Right. But, like, you kind of wish in the past that it's like, well, because Apollo 13 was so

derailed by Ron Howard not getting that director nomination, that it's like, yeah, but you could have still voted for Apollo 13 to win Best Picture. Like, it's still fine to say that that's the number one movie. But, like, when was the last time that Best Picture went to a movie? movie that was seen as, I guess it's Birdman, right? That was, and even that got a nominator, or one screenplay, right? That's such a weird year, though. Yes. Yes, I agree.

And when you have Mad Max in that Best Picture lineup, you know, and racking up a bunch of prizes, that movie is so, like, bug-eyed bug nuts that it makes something like Birdman seem way more normal by comparison. Right, right. We're just in a very different era. where is even movies that people, Best Picture Winners that, that, you know, people don't like as much,

like Green Book and Coda. And when I say people, I mean people we know, people in our circle. I think Coda and Green Book were very much liked by a wider population. I mean, I do actually think that there, we could see the reverse this year. Obviously, it's still very early.

But the more, like, broadly sentimental movie could be the one that wins best director. And then you could have the, one that is positioned more as the visionary type of movie is the best picture winner. Well, what's funny is when you said broadly sentimental, I didn't quite know what you were talking about, which I think is going to be a father. Everything everywhere is very sentimental. It's very sentimental. So I think, and I think that's going to be one of the reasons why maybe it does win if it does win.

Back to the prison you shall go and into the mask you hate. Louisville. Wear it until you love it! All right, Chris, we are breaking into this coverage of an escaped prisoner at the Bastille. Everybody take shelter in your homes. If you are taking shelter with Porthos, God bless you. Have a good time, I guess.

And if you see a stray French man in an iron mask outside in this December cold, if you're cold, they're cold. Bring them inside. Warm their mask by the fire, but not too much because iron is a conductive property, and that can heat up really quickly. So, like, you want to be very careful about that during the episode, but that had to have been uncomfortable.

Yeah, an Iron Mask, yes. Well, we're talking about it now, because this is going to be in the episode, because we are updating our wonderful listeners on the current state of the Vulture Movie Fantasy League. With the most important update of the season at that, because

our favorite major precursor. Yes. The AARP Movies for Grownups Awards, nominations dropped end of last week. You know that I had a hand in crafting this movie Fantasy League because we definitely get points for the M4G's. I had to, I like, there was a meeting where I was like, just double checking. Like M4G's points are there and they're like, yes, Joe.

Like we got him. It's just like, okay, just making sure. Yeah, so that critic's choice was also this week. Critics Choice was, as, if you know anything about the Critics Choice Awards, you know that, like, they just throw the nominations out there, like, candy corn. So, like, there was a ton of point. If you know anything about the Critics Choice Awards, you know that they do not have constituencies for ties. Right. No, God, no. They're, like, 13 nominations in a single category. Like, go for it. Yes. So that was the biggest points bonanza. I believe that occasioned the, uh,

biggest single point-earning day of the pool. I initially thought it was Fableman's, but then I recalculated Chris, and it was everything everywhere all at once, got 140 points just off of the Critics Choice Awards. So they are, right now, everything everywhere all at once, just based on awards points, guilds and independent spirits and Golden Globes and critics' choice and all that. More than 100 points ahead of the second place movie, which is TAR. I will say, TAR did, we've talked about this before, this is

the time of year where Tarr really needed to come through, and they did, basically. Like, TAR did really, really well in Critics' Choice Award season and early precursor nominations, so that's good. There and second, banshees of In a Sharon, a strong third at this point. Fableman's

fourth, this is all taking box office out of account, by the way, listeners. So, Fableman, is fourth, women talking is fifth, in a way that, like, it's interesting, because don't you have a little bit of an impression that, like, women talking could be doing better in precursor season? One million percent. It's almost, I mean, like, that movie hasn't opened yet.

It'll be opening shortly after this episode airs, but, like, it hasn't really had its moment, but it does feel like it's not showing up as much as you might have expected at the beginning of the season. Well, by the numbers, it's hanging in fifth. There is a bit of it. There's a drop off from one to two between everything. everywhere and tar there's a drop-off between four and five fablemen's to women talking um but it's got 180 awards points so far which is pretty good babylon is in sixth and babylon didn't start

scoring points until the golden globe so like all of those babylon points are like within the last seven days essentially so um top gun maverick in seventh tied with elvis which elvis is another one who all of elvis's points have come pretty much in the last week glass onion in uh ninth Actually, tied for ninth is Glass Onion and AfterSum with 120 points, and that's your top 10. And then knocking on the door is Avatar, The Way of Water, which is going to get 110 awards points plus all of those box office points that are impending. We'll talk about those next week. Yes. So those are your best, the best bet movie items at this point.

And that's not getting into smaller items that really are paying off like RR and living. and the inspection is actually doing really well because of strong independent spirit awards points. Anyway, so we're here to talk about the M4G nominations, though, because a slight in points, though they were, they're always fascinating. I'm trying to pick out movies that got on the board because of the M4Gs. I think we should start with a man called Otto, because that was a big old goose egg in the in the fantasy league up until the M4Gs came around and they were like not on my watch honey Tom Hanks best actor nomination you betcha a man called Otto wait I was trying to think of like

the comparison for a man called Otto and it's it's very much doing the a song for was it a song for Jordan was that what it was called last year where it was like is that movie coming out did it come out like what did I miss it what's happening and just a very, very quiet end of year release, but good for the M4Gs for giving it. I believe it got two nominations because it also got best intergenerational film. Sure. Yes, yes, yes, yes. What else in terms of like, you know what the M4Gs did?

They said, we are going to give, she said, some nominations, but not the ones you think we would, which is interesting. They really, the M4Gs really responded to, I would say, the New York Times inter-work scenes. They really responded to the workroom of the New York Times, nominating Andre Brower, who rules, and Patricia Clarkson, who rules and whose wig in that movie was rad as hell. Ice Queen, Patricia Clarkson with that, but interestingly enough, everything you hear about she said. Obviously, Carrie Mulligan is the one who's getting sort of the big push. She got the Golden Globe nomination. Because she's erroneously being run and supporting. Yeah. Right. Right. She is a lead for that. I think she's great in that movie. So like, I'm not as mad about that as I could be because I don't think she would have a chance in Best Actress. But most people look at that nomination and they're like, you know who should be getting nominated is either Samantha Morton or Jennifer Ely, both of whom are old enough to. be nominated in AARP, M4G's, and yet the M4Gs were like, no, Patricia Clarkson instead. And, like, I love Patricia Clarkson. She's very good in this movie. But, like, those other two

are standouts. And I kind of would have loved if one of those women would have gotten a nomination, even though the roles are very small. The M4Gs could have done, uh, instead of for women talking, instead of for everything everywhere, the multiple supporting actress nominees could be for she said. Honestly, yes. If the M4Gs wanted to be like, We're going to go 100 million percent all in on She Said and give three of the five nominations and best supporting actress to that movie. I would have been like, yes, that is what you are here for. That is why I love you. They also, I will say, gave two of our faves from TIF nominations, and I'm incredibly grateful for that.

My beloved Judith Ivy, who should be the women talking supporting nomination, but no one's talking about it other than the imp for G's. And then Gabrielle Union, who is probably not going to make it to an Oscar nomination, which is too bad. Which is very depressing. I rewatch that movie recently, and I don't think people are giving it the fair shot it deserves. I was a little more mixed on the movie, but I loved the performances. I thought Gabriel Union and Jeremy Pope should be definitely more in the Oscar conversation than they are. They're kind of on the fringes of it. It's kind of too bad.

Um, what else are you seen? What else jumps out of you? I mean, they kind of let that movie die, too. Uh, obviously, another reason they are a major precursor is because they honored Mrs. Paris, Mrs. Harris Coast Paris, uh, with Leslie Manville as they should. That's right. Yes. Can we talk about the M4G's consistently most?

What are you going for here? This is maybe a little cringe category. Go for it. Best time capsule. Every year, every year best time capsule, I wonder what's happening. Is this supposed to be a good thing? Right. Are you just honoring a movie's ability to capture a period?

Because, like, a lot of these are, you know, capturing times that were not, you know, happy. When you call something a time capsule sort of colloquially, it tends to be, the implication tends to be it's transportive in a positive way, right? Like the thing you want to send to the future. Sure. Or like, or like remember what a kind of idyllic time that was or I think the way the M4Gs use it is in the broadest possible definition, which is best movie that doesn't take place now.

And that can end up with something like, well, we're going to nominate Till. And like, it's very hard to look at a movie like Till and be like, Remember the time? You know what I mean? Exactly. It's uncomfortable, or even something like Armageddon Time, which is like not a movie that looks back on the past with rose-colored glasses. That's kind of the whole point of Armageddon Time.

Well, even, like, Elvis is nominated here, and it's like, that is so, like, uber heightened that it's like, it's not really capturing the time. It takes place in the future on Neptune, so what are we doing? But somehow in the past. Elvis is in the Star Wars universe. Yeah. Yes. I think it's also interesting that Armagedon Time gets nominated in Best Intergenerational Film, which it's not, it's intergenerational in a more confrontational way.

Yeah, that's a good nomination. I think that is a good nomination. I think everywhere, everywhere all at once is sort of similar to that. I think those are good nominations, actually. Fableman's Man Called Auto. at least Till's nomination in that category, it makes more sense. And it sort of sits a little better in that, like, it's, I don't know, it's still a little bit, like, what do you mean by intergenerational? Like, what's the intergenerational sort of angle here?

Older people and young people interacting. And the dynamics of intergenerational relationships is how I've always kind of taken that. Which, like, Armageddon time, a movie I have some reservations about like those are some of the best scenes in that movie yeah but again sometimes it just seems like the M4G's voters are like a movie with older people and younger people in the same movie imagine imagine it happening um you know I love best grown-up love story that one uh nominees were Empire of Light which had a love story that I don't think is a strong suit of that movie eyebrow raised but um nomination I don't begrudge anything about that movie I think that movie is not my favorite, but I don't begrudge anything about the movie. Same thing. I think that

movie is very first draft. I wouldn't even say that's a love story. It's like, they fuck. Oh, part of it's a love story. I don't know. I get it. It's more friendship cinema than love story. Good luck to you, Leo Grande, which was like set in stone as best. Where was that, by the way, in Best Intergenerational Film also? I agree. I belong to there, but Best Grownup Love Story is a good spot for that. I have not seen Netflix's Lady Chatterley's lover, even though that is why, somewhat bizarrely, Emma Corrin is in the Hollywood Reporter Roundtable. Everyone was like, what movies are they there for? And it's like two movies no one's talking about. Right, exactly. Exactly. I don't understand it.

Dale Dickey in a love song, Dale Dickey and West Judy in a love song, which is great, wonderful. Hope it wins. And then, of course, another sort of no-brainer, George Clooney and Julia Roberts in Ticket to Paradise, the movie I still somehow have not seen. I haven't seen it either. I want to see it. So anyway, good M4G's nomination. Somehow they managed to make their way to seven best movies for best picture nominees, best movie for grownups, got to seven nominees, which I will indulge the M4Gs. But in general, I think both of you, both you and I are very much reaching a crisis point of too many, too many nominees in categories. It just hasn't been seen that hard to just develop.

a practice so that you don't have these funky numbers of nominees. This is my Grandpa Simpson writing into The Sickos at Modern Bride Magazine, just like, really, like, just complaining just there are too many nominees these days. Please eliminate literally two from this category. And okay, so this is a exercise then for you, Chris. Of the seven best movie for grown-ups nominees, Elvis, everything everywhere all at once, the fablemen's, tar, Top Gun Maverick, the Woman King, Women Talking. You have to eliminate two. I know what one of them is. One that I haven't seen that I really don't want to.

Have you still not seen it? I don't care, man. Like, it's the same thing as the Fast and the Furious movies that I'm just like, people don't understand what it's like to see movies like this in the Midwest. Yeah. Well, you can see it in the comfort of your home now, but say what it is because we haven't said it. Top Gun Maverick.

I really did think you had like texted Katie and I at one point. We're just like, well, I'm seeing it. So, all right. So besides Top Gun Maverick, what's the other of those six that you would lop off? If we're talking about quality of movie, it's got to be either Elvis or everything everywhere for me, but I understand why they're there. The interesting thing for me is, if we're talking about movies that I had the most enthusiasm for, my five out of that are, everything everywhere, Fabelman's, Women Talking, The Woman King, and Elvis, and I actually end up leaving Tar off of it. But I recognize that, like, Tar is a great movie, and I probably would lop

off Top Gun Maverick and I guess Elvis, because Elvis is uneven, even though, like, I fucking loved Elvis in general, but, like, I would probably lop it off for being a little bit I had a good time at Elvis. Do I think Elvis is a good movie? movie, jury is out. Here's the other thing. Bazlerman and Gina Prince Bythe Wood have showed up on the best director lists of both the M4Gs, and I believe they both got Critics Choice nominations, right, for Best Director, if I'm not mistaken?

Yes, but the Woman King is not a Critics Choice Best Picture nominee. Which, like, again, they had 11 nominees for, like, so, like, just growing up for and 10 Best Director nominations. It's like... It's dumb. But anyway... Have one less cold brew in the morning. I don't know. I think it's interesting now that, like, Best Director is maybe a category we should talk about in the future, as we are hearing, like, the 20-minute mark of this inset, so we should probably wrap it up.

But Best Director is getting interesting, and we'll talk about it in the future. For now, Chris, I want to mention you are your team of Lydia Tar Vivo. I want to bring it up one more time. One of multiple Lydia Tar Vivo's in the Voltramo Fantasy League. Well, your team is Banshees of Inasharan, Tarr, Bardo, which got its first points finally this week at Critics' Choice. Banking on some Oscar points. Yes. Till, Corsage, which is still sort of waiting to enter the chat. The Inspection, Santo Mare, and Fire of Love.

And I think you are definitely playing the long game, and that I think you're right. Bardo, Corsage, Sontomere, Fire of Love, all feel like movies that have better chances of showing up as Oscar nominees, than a lot of these movies that have been getting points so far. Never going to pull a lot of points from any of those, but over the course of the game, I think they could pull plenty of points. Right. And I want to just remind everybody of my team. So your team is currently in 184th place with 762 points.

We're coming from behind. I say that to explicitly brag that I am currently in 476 place with, 902 points. So thus far, I am upper middle pack. If you look at where the little like progress bar is down the line of the leaderboard, I'm upper middle, which I'm very happy with. My guess at this point in the game, just going to throw this out there, is if you didn't draft everything everywhere all at once, you probably don't have a chance at winning. I would say that's maybe true. I would, yes, and I definitely did. I did everything

everywhere. Banshees, having everything everywhere and Banshees of Ineshaeran, which are two of the top three movies right now, is really, really helping me. I finally got Pinocchio points this week between the globes and the, like, Pinocchio points are starting to roll in. A little bit of turning red points. Thus far, my Lyle Lyle crocodile pick has been a dud, which is too bad. It's outside shot at a Best Original Song nomination is seeming more and more outside by the day. I still believe in living and fire of love to get me some points. And another dud is devotion. I have thus far experienced a big old devotion goose egg. So there you have it. Once again, listeners, if you want to follow along ever more closely with our progress and hopefully with yours that you have a team as well, progress in the Vulture Movie Fantasy League, you can go to moviegame.vulture.com. From there, you can click on a link to our landing page where you can get the complete scores

and what lies ahead in terms of scoring. This was the last big precursor points dump of the season. We're going to get on January 2nd, the Rotten Tomatoes scores will all lock in, and Rotten Tomatoes points will be dispersed. Like we said, Chris, Avatar, box office points are a coming. So hang on, you little water sprites or whatever the fuck those creatures in the sea are called. Good for you. The Tolcun.

Sure, yes. Good for you, little space twink. She was a composer of songs. Shut up. Okay. Yeah, moviegame.valture.com. Click the link to the landing page from there. And we will talk to you next week about further adventures.

Maybe hopefully go on a little less long-winded. This is going to be a long podcast. Good, good job. We're wearing until you love it. But anyway, so back to Randall Wall. Because Braveheart is not the end of that story. And the Man in the Iron Mask is also not the end of that story. So Man of the Iron Mask makes a lot of money and doesn't direct another movie until we were soldiers in 2002.

But in the interim, he is one of, I believe, the credited screen. No, he's the sole credited screenwriter on Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor, which is really interesting. I mean, he definitely, that movie went through so many iterations, but he's the one who's credited for it. Razzie nominee for Worst Screenplay, Randall Wallace, then reunites with Mel Gibson in 2002 for We Were Soldiers, and then does not direct another movie until 2010, which is aforementioned Secretariat. and then his at this point most recent movie is, and this, I did not know when we did the Secretariat episode. I did not know this until mere hours ago when I finally read his entire filmography that Randall Wallace wrote and directed the 2014 film, Heaven is for Real, starring Greg Kinnear, as you guessed it, Colton Burpo. Or, sorry, Todd Burpo. Colton Burpo is the son. just a wild filmography.

To go from Braveheart, Man in the Iron Mask, Pearl Harbor, we were soldiers, Secretariat, Heaven is for Real. I have whiplash. I just, I'm really... I mean, this one's the outlier, right? This is the weird sibling. Kind of.

But even this. So like, okay, two things about Randallis also. One of them is, unsurprisingly, especially once we get to the Heaven is for real thing. a devout Christian who among other things in perusing his other work tab of his Wikipedia page

wrote a hymn called Mansions of the Lord that was performed as the recessional song for Ronald Reagan's funeral was once the commencement speaker at Liberty University which is Jerry Falwell's University was once the speaker at the National Prayer Breakfast has also done like

charity work has done you know Habitat for Humanity and stuff like that and it's like there is no intimation that this is a bad person but like clearly like the Christianity is very much Front Street University well whatever like stepping onto campus at Liberty University I don't know I don't want to I'm not I'm not interested in casting aspers show sure sure sure to that degree But what I'm saying is, the Christianity is a big part of the man in the Iron Mask. I think there's no, not by accident, is what I would say. I mean, this movie definitely has, it feels like it is intending for a certain type of masculinity that I think the material somehow is actively kind of fighting against. Like, this does feel like it's trying to be some type of, like, do.

movie, but it's ultimately so like bodice rippie that it can't be. But with that in mind, I would say the outlier is probably Secretariat, because Secretariat has a female protagonist. But that's also like a vaguely Christian movie. Well, and also

there's this sense of if not necessarily, like Americana is also a theme in Pearl Harbor and we were soldiers and Secretariat. And so just like small C conservative values, I'm sure he's also probably a large C, a capital C conservative, I'm just guessing, but like this sort of these very traditional American values, even when you're talking about France, even when you're talking about Braveheart, these ideas of honor and, you know, masculinity and these kind of things. and that one of the things that sort of tells you that Louis is a bad person is this extravagance, right? It doesn't, like, it doesn't go as far as Braveheart goes in, like, throwing a gay guy out the window to his death, right?

But there is the sense that Louis's softness and extravagance and pompousness and pompousness and pomp and circumstance are all elements of his wickedness. Yes. Or at least indicators of it. The other thing I wanted to mention, before I moved off of Randall Wallace, in perusing his Wikipedia, and perusing people's Wikipedia pages, every once in a while you come across a section and you are like, if that wasn't submitted by, because you know, you're not allowed to edit your own Wikipedia page. It has to be done by a third party.

But a lot of the times, much as Lydia Tar tried. But a lot of the times when you want to edit your own Wikipedia page and you have, like, you can outsource that task to somebody else, right? And they can do it on your behalf. And a lot of times you see a section of a Wikipedia page and you see it. And it's just like, oh, this is coming from like their PR desk. So the early life paragraph from when Randall Wallace is one of the, the dead giveaway for the self-penned Wikipedia page section is when it sounds like a section of their resume that they would have had. in their early 20s.

You know how like when you have a resume and you're in your early 20s and you haven't done enough? So like a big part of your resume as like proficient in Microsoft Word. You know what I mean? Like one of those things. His early life Some experience in Excel. Born in Jackson, Tennessee.

He lived in Memphis and Henderson County, Tennessee before moving to Virginia. Wallace began writing stories at the age of seven. He graduated from EC Glass High School in Lynchburg, Virginia and attended Duke University, where he studied Russian religion and literature and was a member of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. He put himself through a graduate year of seminary by teaching martial arts.

Wallace holds a black belt in karate. Like that sounds like the special skills section of your resume, right? Like it almost ends with Wallace got an A in conduct all through high school. You know what I mean? It's like one of those things. Also, red flags abound in that. Lynchburg, Virginia, which is of course where Liberty University. is located.

A seminary school, a fraternity member. Anyway, anyway. Randall Wallace, quite a guy, seemingly. Interesting character. Interesting character. Very interesting character. So, he is the one

writing and directing Manoran Rasm. But of course, this is based on Alexandre Dumas and his works of literature. These are obviously characters who exist have existed in other films other people have made James Whale made a version of the Man in the Iron Mask

in 1939 there were other versions of this story that were turned into movies so this is not like an original work of Randall Wallace's but it also then becomes telling as to

you know what he focuses on in this can I also say and I want to both this by you. Of the casting choices in this, obviously DiCaprio, I think, is catching the right actor at the right time. Like, it was a smart choice. The reason why this movie made as much money as it did was that casting choice.

You question if Titanic wasn't involved, would he have been, like, the headliner of this movie? Right. Malcovich, accent-wise, really sticks out in this, but I think is an interesting actor to watch do his thing. Jeremy Irons, I think, is doing his job in this movie. Gerard Depardue is arguably the most well-cast in that he's the only French person. I mean, he's playing the oaf to...

Yes, and porthal, yes, that's, yes. Of the main cast members, the one who I'm like, what is this casting is Gabriel Byrne as D'Artagnan? Sorry, as D'Artagnan. And I like Gabriel. I don't think he's a bad actor. I think it's an odd bit of casting for this particular role. I mean, he's hot off usual suspects. I don't think it's that strange.

The only thing that makes it odd is, like, the other three are these Oscar-enointed actors. And recently Oscar, like, nominated or won, like, within the previous decade. Gabriel Byrne, it's weird that he's never been nominated before. And I feel like we've talked about it in a previous episode that he's one of those actors that as soon as he goes to TV, that's where the awards show up for it. Right. He gets the awards attention for it in treatment. I don't necessarily think it's that he wasn't on a hot streak because you're right.

The usual suspects definitely was good for him. And he was also in like Little Women in 1994 and, you know, had been showing up in movies. I just feel like the vibe that Gabriel Byrne gives off is he always seems to be a, Like, a little bit more, if not cagey or canny, like somebody who sort of, he doesn't give off a vibe of self-effacing loyalty and sort of, you know, doing the right thing even though I'm going to sacrifice my life's happiness. Do you know what I mean? That doesn't seem to be his vibe. I just think he's very believable as like man with a secret or man who is tortured by something in his past. Like that I do think he is right for

I can give you that one Yeah I don't know I just that was my My main thoughts Sort of going through this is just like He doesn't fit to me Like he sort of sticks out in that way

The other three are character actors And he's I wouldn't I wouldn't say that's what he is But like he's the closest To a protagonist of them Yes So it's like it may

I think it kind of makes sense That of the four Musketeers In this movie D'Artagnan is the more leading male type of actor. But he's also sidelined for, once they actually, once, once Aramis introduces this knowledge of Philippe, the man in the Iron Mask, D'Artagnan is really sidelined for a good half hour or more of this movie. Oh, okay. We are going to talk about this. Aramis comes up with the plot to spring Philippe out of jail, tells it to the other ones. D'Artagnan is like, I'm out, I can't do this. The other ones are brought around to the plan, and then the plan is executed, and it is executed thusly. Aramis puts himself into a disguise, and I'm going to put a pin in the word disguise,

because I'm going to describe the disguise in a second. disguises himself to go into the Bastille under the guise of he's a priest who's going to administer whatever, priestly give communion, I guess, or something, whatever, to the man in the Iron Mask. And hatches a plot to get him out of prison. And what he does is he goes the most Jean Parmesan disguise I could possibly think of with like the face. nose and the big bushy beard, but this giant cloak, so he literally is looking like, I recently

rewatched Tim Burton's A Nightmare Before Christmas because the blank check was covering Henry Selleck. And there's the one guy who looks like an upside down teacup with legs sort of underneath it, right? You're just sort of like this reverse umbrella, this, or whatever

umbrella like figure where it's just like this big torso. Are you talking about the mayor? I think that's, I think I am thinking about that in real life form is sort of the figure that Aramis undercover looks and he looks like this because underneath his big billowy cloak is the corpse of a dead body that he is like secreting in by like baby beorning it to his body so that when he's in the cell he can dump this corpse on the floor and have it you know stand in for Philippe. And then Philippe then Baby Bjorns himself to Aramis, which I would have loved to have watched that moment. And then

Aramis puts the cloak over him and like waddle-tottles his way out of the best deal looking once again like Jean Parmesan. And it is I could not stop laughing. It was so that to me, I was like this movie's worth it. I'm glad we did it. See, it's entertaining.

I think that's what I texted you like this movie, exclamation, part, exclamation part. It's so fucking wild. I don't understand why we don't talk about that scene the way we talk about Brad Pitt getting hit by the car in Meachio Black. If that degree of, I can't believe they put this on celluloid, it's so fucking crazy. I mean, there's some probable intention of whimsy there.

Sure. Absolutely. I don't know about intention, but, like, the whimsy comes across. Yeah, Randall Wallace is not a good enough director to know when this movie should be funny. I don't think, I'm not prepared to give Randall Wallace points for being campy, but that's, that, that is the end result, is ultimately, is just this site of, like, undercover Jeremy Irons with what you know is what you're supposed to. a picture in your head is Leonardo DiCaprio under his cloak

sort of like legs up and like clinging to him as once again I keep bringing up the visual of the baby Bjorn because that's all I can think of. It's just sort of like that's how he's getting him out of... No, I mean, famously Jeremy Irons has a papoose he's just

you know, you do one too many Kronenberg movies and you just about you know pockets of flesh it's incredible everybody this movie is streaming for free on amazon prime video find it's about the middle part of the movie fast forward at the very least to this scene you gotta see the disguise jeremy irons puts himself in meanwhile athos and porthos are just like hanging out in the rowboat just like waiting for him to be done it's so wild it's so amazing i don't know i had to i had to talk about it it's a great scene uh i hope it's on YouTube so that I can put it on the Tumblr. Yes. All right. So that's basically that's the scene

that I think of. The one that was in the trailers and all the sort of advertisements was of course Leo versus Leo. Once finally giving each other the once over. Two thirds of the way through this movie and finally they come face to face and you get the scene this very sort of like

like two house cats. How are we doing it? We're like Louis, Leo, walks not only into like the right hand side of the frame but then walks around the back of Philippe and you're supposed to be like ooh and ah and meanwhile I'm just like I've watched soap operas I've watched Anne Heish be two sets of

you know a pair of twins in a scene with each other like I understand what's going on here I'm sure there was more technical achievement in this version but the effect is basically the same which is just like yeah there's a good twin and a bad twin and here we are so did it live up to what your expectations were, Leo versus Leo? I cared maybe less about everything to do with Leo in this movie than I expect it to.

It feels very much like the type of, I mean, you know, it's 25 years old, so of course it's not the type of thing he would do now or maybe even the type of role that he would take now. But, like, I don't know. I don't think he's particularly good in this. I think he was maybe the standout of what's not. He's outmatched. The task is a little bit beyond his capabilities at this point. I mean, it's also probably... This is...

I don't like dogging on this actor in this way, but, like, not someone known. for being able to have a good time. And he's probably the one who should be having the best time, had some fun with this type of thing. And he just doesn't seem, like, even as Evil Louis, the Evil Brother, he's not, you know, kind of, it tasks him to be mustache twirling, even though he couldn't sprout a whisker at this point if he wanted to.

Arguably, the movie he has the best time in, especially, during this phase of his career is Titanic. Right. He's hawk and lugies. He's hawk and lugies. He's dancing the jig. He's, yes. Yeah, he's running around

and he's, you know, king of the world and all this shit. Like, yeah, like, he's having a great time in that. And I think around this time then, and of course, Titanic comes on the heels of William Shakespeare's Romeo plus Juliet, which is also like, he has more fun in that movie

than you would think for playing a tragic hero Romeo. He's also... He's dropping E. He's hanging out... Looking at a fish tank. He's looking at a fish tank. So then that in Titanic,

and it's just like, has any boy been more beautiful? And also, has any boy ever been more tragically heroic for a girl? And then both of those movies back to back. And then I think from that point, of course, then you have Leo himself, I imagine, take some agency and his career choices at this point.

But also, and of course, we're talking like Man in the Iron Mask was made before Titanic was a success. But there's all, you can already see an eye towards him doing different things, right? Making sure that he's not pigeonholed. And so he does Man in the Iron Mask where he's a dastardly villain and also the sweet boy. And also the precious wounded angel baby. He does Woody Allen's celebrity where he's playing a braty, you know, celebrity who is unlike He eventually does the beach, which is a much more sort of complicated hero that I think is an admirable swing of a movie that we should probably do at some point, because I think it would be very fascinating to talk about the beach. Especially the whole Mishigas surrounding him being cast in that movie.

100%. It's a really, really interesting story. But that I think you can also probably chalk up to an effort to diversify what we see. see as like the Leonardo DiCaprio type. And eventually he does succeed in that because by the time we get to certainly like gangs of New York and forward, then Leonardo DiCaprio at some point stops being known as like the dreamy boy, right? Then he starts. And it's more and more so taken seriously as an actor. Right.

I mean, because I feel like this era where he is seen as the heartthrob, he, I mean, it's a performance we cringe about now but he garnered a lot of respect at the time for what's eating Gilbert grape and then he becomes a heartthrob and that's all that people kind of really see him for he also somewhat becomes a pain in the ass or has a reputation in the press

for being a pain in the ass which like it's interesting and for being a cad also right where like at the same time that he's playing this pompous evil kid it's also the Titanic Oscars where he doesn't get nominated and refuses to go to the ceremony. I know.

Not a great look. It wasn't a great look regardless what the reason was. He wasn't working. He wasn't filming during. I understand being wounded. The fact that Titanic was at that point, like what tied for the most Oscar nominations of all time, tied with Ben Hurd, right?

That was. So could not have been a bigger smash with the Oscars. So not nominating Leonardo DiCaprio, the male lead of that movie, could not help but feel a little pointed, especially when the detractors of that movie were mostly like, the screenplay is terrible, and, you know, DiCaprio isn't all that, essentially. He got like a little bit of a lot of, you know, whatever backlash there was for Titanic, some of it fell on him. And then not only does he not get nominated, but he sort of de facto loses the hot, young thing, face off with Matt Damon, who does get a best actor nomination. Because that was the year where it was like all the great old guard. It was Nicholson nominated for as good as it gets. Peter Fonda gets a comeback nomination for Uly's Gold.

Robert Duvall for the Apostle, Dustin Hoffman for Wag the Dog. It's like the great stars of the 70s are then welcoming into the fold this new kid. and the new kid is Matt Damon, who is, you know, he and Leo were the two hot young things that year. And so he essentially wins that face off. And so I understand where Leo is probably licking his wounds a little bit. But the best revenge at that moment is truly to do the share thing, right? You're not nominated for mask. You come out and you wear the Bob Mackey. You say, clearly I have read the Oscars handbook on, you know, for dressing like a serious actress. You make the joke, you show them that you can take it, you show them that you are not, you know,

there's no hard feelings, essentially. And then eventually, Cher gets her due. I'm not saying that Leonardo DiCaprio gets an Oscar sooner if he shows up to the 97 Oscars and, like, presents an award or something. But it is ultimately a look that suggests a little bit of immaturity, let's say. And it results in kind of, it takes until I, is it the aviator he's nominated for next? I don't think he's nominated before that. He's not nominated for Catch Me with You Can and he totally should have been. 100%. Yes.

Obviously not nominated for Gangs of New York. Kind of in the same way that like that role in Titanic too, that like headlining role is probably not the one that's ever going to get. Well, and I also. By nature of the role. I also don't think he's great in Gangs of New York. But there's a lot that doesn't work in that. Yeah, but I think he's like one of the more visible examples of things that don't work. Of it's not greatness.

But yeah, the Aviator is his next nomination, which at that point is 11 years after his previous nomination for Gilbert Grape. So yeah, it took a while. It took like multiple Scorsese movies and him playing like Oscar's favorite genre, which is biopic, to, you know, to get back into. And then once he's there, then it. It's, you know, hot and heavy, right? Then it's Blood Diamond and Wolf of Wall Street. Where his movies barely miss Best Picture nominations. Right.

But also that he's getting Best Actor nominations left and right. And ultimately, it is kind of interesting that he wins for the Revenant on the basis of this Pacino-esque, isn't it time that we finally give Leo his Oscar? It's only his fifth nomination for best act, or for a fifth acting nomination at that point, which, Pacino was on his, I want to say, seventh? Like, how many nominations for Paul Newman? Eighth? I want to look these up really quickly. Because...

Give me half a second of Dead Air. I mean, the thing is, if you break it down to actual nominations, you're right about Leo. It's not as overdue as a lot of people have been in the past, especially a lot of lead actors, that we treat of similar stature to Leo now. but like it's also just the I think the level of success especially award success that his body of work generally receives like there's not a whole lot of I mean like Leo's someone who's going to be hard for us to get to a six-timers club because there's not a lot of movies that he makes anymore that don't get Oscar nominations I think that's right Pacino was on his eighth nomination when he won for cent of a woman Color of Money was Paul Newman's eighth acting nomination. Of course, a year after he wins an honorary Oscar. Peter Ruhl, I think, was nominated for eight and never won competitively. And never won, right. Richard Burton was around seven or eight.

So, yeah, so, like, for Leo to sort of jump the queue on the, it's time campaign, feels a little bit in keeping with the 21st century of it all, which is just like we're impatient about everything. And, you know, Michelle Williams has lost four times and it's intolerable that she hasn't won. And I'm not saying that that's wrong. But like, you know what I mean? Just like I don't feel like we temperamentally have the patience

for a Deborah Carr anymore or a Peter O'Toole or a Richard Burton situation where people are being nominated seven, eight times. I guess Glenn Close flies in. in the face of that. But people kind of, like, go out of their mind imagining the glenclose of it all, right? Like, it's such a, it's almost unfathomable to have that degree of being so close and not getting it. And, God, these people would never have, wouldn't have survived being an all my children fan. They wouldn't have survived Pacino.

They wouldn't have survived Lucci. I'll tell you that much. But, yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting that that's how that went down. It's a fascinating career. I don't always, I haven't always loved him, DiCaprio, but, um... I maybe like him a little bit more after his Oscar. Yeah.

I, of course, loved him. I was in the lead-up to it, because, like, at a certain point, like, I love him in Catch Me If You Can. I actually kind of liked him in, uh, don't look up. Um... I don't know about that. Like my favorite performance of his is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I 100% same. I think he's tremendous in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood would have absolutely supported that being his Oscar.

That's such a hindsight thing of just like if you knew this was coming down the pike. And of course, we've talked a ton of times about the meager competition that he was up against in 2015 anyway. But, yeah, favorite Leo performances, I do think he's very, I think Romeo plus Juliet is great in and of itself. That's something that I appreciate much more as a filmmaking endeavor than an actor's movie, but I think he's wonderful in that. I think he's great. Catch him if you can, 100%. Top two, Leo for me. It's that, and I think, once upon a time in Hollywood for me.

I kind of run counter to some of the other ones. I don't love him in The Departed. I don't like Wolf of Wall Street, so, like, that I sort of set aside. I didn't like Great Gatsby, so that I sort of set aside. I recognize that he's giving a very good performance in Revolutionary Road, but that's another movie that I don't really like very much. I think he's giving a great movie star performance in Inception, although I don't know if I would say that's like acting at its finest or whatever,

but I think he's great in Inception in a movie that I really love. But I think if I'm talking about my top two, it's Catch Me If You Can, and it's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I mean, I think those are... I think some of my frustrations with him as an actor are when he, you know, gets caught in his isms and such. Sure.

Which, like, you can pinpoint any number of even his good performances where those are really present. But I don't know. There's something about those two performances that feel so atypical to his work that it just feels like he's very spry and light on his feet and also with ease

showing his real range as a performer. He's really funny in both of those. And I don't think he gets to do that a lot. Or it doesn't seem like he is letting go as much as he is letting go in those performances. I don't want to put you on the spot but I'm intrigued by when you say

his isms because like I would And if you're able to sort of like pinpoint what you mean by that, I would be very fascinated to hear about that. He has a way of speaking and he has a way of mugging to the camera. I mean, like, it's become memes for things like Inception, you know, where he like, when he's getting serious, he'll like, you know, squint and, you know, squint and, you know, there's a lot of those. Yes. He has a turn of phrase sometimes that it's just like, you've just made 15 lines sound. exactly the same. Yeah.

I will say... He has a bag of tricks. The vision of Leo squinting in Inception is an expression I find myself making a lot in real life, so I find a little bit of fellowship with him with that. But I also just think in general,

I am much more interested in Decaprio. There's a version of Leo taking a chance, and I'm using scare quotes here, in a movie like the Great Gatsby or Django Unchained or the Wolf of Wall Street when it's like he's very sort of like

he's still ensconced in these very sort of safe projects which are these like untouchable autours right who like are going to you know there's there's a soft landing spot for him no matter what right

where he's like he's going out there in his performances but in a way that feels very expected. Whereas something like the beach, I find much more fascinating. And we'll talk about it when we eventually do that movie.

For as much as Danny Boyle was coming off of train spotting by that point, he was also coming off of a life less ordinary. He wasn't like this bulletproof director. He was a director who was kind of putting himself on the line with the beach. And DiCaprio was right there with him. And

I like that the beach doesn't fully succeed. I think it's much more interesting of a DiCaprio performance because of that. You know what I mean? Catch me if you can. He's got Spielberg. So that's sort of the same with the other stuff where it's like, you know, that's a soft place to land. And he's in the hands of a director who is not going to get, you know, dinged for, you know, he's not going to let him fail, right? But I think he's just in general, you know, he catching lightning in a bottle with that performance. I think he's. He's just tremendous in it. Anyway. I mean, of those two performances that, like, we both are in agreement are his best. Like, I think DiCaprio is such a manored performer, but his best performances are also really mannered. And kind of, like, use his manneredness to enhance what the character is actually doing.

Like, it's, I mean, like, it's almost turning it on its head and once upon a time in Hollywood because it's, like, it's, it's, highlighting all those mannerisms to make this really egotistical character and make fun of it and make it funny. Yeah. No, I think you're totally right. And, of course, like the mannerisms and Catch Me if you can are because he's doing these cons. And it's all about, like, the mannerisms are his actual charm. I'm excited for Killers of the Flower Moon. I don't know very much about that character.

but um i'm worried that uh this is why i thought of his his manneredness as a performer because i'm a little worried that this could be a very mannered performance in a way we don't like from him but i'm so excited for that movie yeah yeah um who else do we want to talk about in this movie i mean the male headlining cast is kind of all interesting if you look at them together as a group in terms of their history with Oscar, like Jeremy Irons is only ever nominated for Reversal of Fortune and wins, obviously,

but never returns to the Oscars at all. Well, I want to sort of look at his where he's at in his career at this point, right? Because at this point, he's almost a decade removed from the Oscar. He's about eight years removed

from Reversal of Fortune. And the 90s for Irons, he works a decent amount, but, like, obviously, like, the most well-known role in the 90s for him is animated, right? He's Scar. He's the voice of Scar and the Lion King, which is, like, one of the great voice performances in a Disney movie, I think, of all time. I genuinely feel like it's such a highlight. But others, like, he makes damage for Louis Mall.

He's in the Cronenberg adaptation of M. Butterfly. We've talked about House of the Spirits on this. podcast. He's in the Adrian Line remake of Lolita. He's in the Bertolucci movie Stealing Beauty. He's in Die Hard with a Vengeance as the, I believe, brother of Alan Rickman's character. I've never seen Die Hard

with a vengeance. I've only ever seen the first diehard. Skip two. Just watch vengeance. It's fun. So it's an odd decade for him, right? Where... That's a lot of range, though, in the type of things that he's doing, the type of people he's playing. That is true, but not, with the exception of the Lion King.

Like, even Die Hard with a vengeance is I'm sure, I imagine that thing made money. I don't remember that movie like bombing or anything like that. But it's not like that movie is well remembered within the diehard sort of universe, right? And otherwise, it's just a lot of movies that were, you know, started small and stayed small. Or, like, damage gets an Oscar nomination, but it's Miranda Richardson, right? And Stealing Beauty launches or helps to launch Live Tyler, but people maybe don't remember that he's in it. And I don't know, it's interesting.

It's an interesting decade for him. And then he doesn't ever really reach, he never gets back to even that level, right? Then it's a lot of just sort of as he gets older, kind of older British guy rolls. And yet he delivers so often, right? Like, if you are casting Jeremy Irons, he is going to, you know... Give you Jeremy Irons.

I think even something like margin call, right? Where he's in that for like a couple of scenes. And he's so, you know, effective in that. Or, I mean, obviously House of Gucci. I was going to say, where did you fall... Remind me where you fell on the what's the worst performance of House of Gucci? because I thought Jeremy Irons was the worst in House of Gucci. I don't know if I thought he was the worst performance in House of Gucci.

There's the House of Gucci spectrum where it's like, okay, where do you, where do you align with Jeremy Irons' performance and where do you align with Pacino's performance? Because Pacino, to me, a tier of House of Gucci. Pacino's a lot of fun. Maybe I did think Jeremy Irons was the worst. It's the champagne of House of Gucci. It's tough for me to remember at this point. It's all a blur because I remember. Wanting more from that movie.

And yet, I think my least favorite performance is probably Adam Driver, and I hate to say that because I love Adam Driver. But just like... He has that one really good scene, but like that, there should be more to that performance. And I'm disappointed that we, like, Salma Hayek's not much of anything in that movie, but I don't think that's her fault. I think it's an underwritten character. We don't really get as much of her. But also, like, I was expecting one delicious scene of Salma Hayek. in that movie and I didn't get it.

Which is why I like Jared Leto because at least he's like delivering the chef boy or D that I'm looking for in that movie. But like, yeah, I don't know. I thought, I mean, Jeremy Irons is tremendous in Watchman. I will say that. Like, that is not a movie, obviously. It's a miniseries, but like was fantastic in that.

He's also ends up doing a lot of like he's in the Borgias, right? He's in the HBO movie Elizabeth I first. He does a lot of costume drama, a lot of very, like, high-end costume drama, very sort of, like, well-funded costume drama. I will also say, as I am bound to do, he, God, in terms of accents, he is sporting the wildest southern bayou accent

in my beloved supernatural teen romance beautiful creatures that uh which i still need to catch up he and emma thompson emma thompson's bad accent is at least character-based you eventually realize but like he and emma thompson and like margot martindale and all of the adults in this movie are really just like competing for who is going to go more over the top with their accent and it's really really thrilling to watch them compete on that level um yeah Yeah, I love him, though. I love Jeremy Irons. Or as Lisa Simpson says, in anagram form, Jeremy's Iron, who, I don't know.

I fucking love him. I think he's so good. What do you think of him in this movie? I mean, aside from DePardue, I didn't really have a huge opinion on any of these performances. Yeah. I mean, Debrieu, we could, like, probably quickly say at the top of this decade was the nomination for Sirono. He also had Green Card, which was a big hit at the time and won him in the globe. The one that I was most kind of fascinated by, mostly just because of the timing of it, was Malcovich.

Because, A, Malcovich, as you mentioned earlier, being Peter Sarsgaard's dad is itself interesting. But this is a year before being John Malkovich. So it's like, it feels like it's on the cusp of, or it's like right at the edge of the movie's jokes that he would be in a movie like this. Sure, yes. He is not a jewel thief. What's the joke? I was going to say, it's the jewel thief, right? I loved you in the jewel thief movie.

Yes, it's a great joke. I never did a jewel thief. It's great. What a great movie. Back to Departy for half a second, though. True or false, Gerard DePardue's early 90s popularity in Hollywood slash America is not entirely unlike Roberto Benini's appreciation in Hollywood slash America at the end of the 90s.

I mean, I think by nature of Departu being in this movie, it lasts longer than Benini. Because Benini... I agree with that. Immediately. The second he stood on that chair, you've said this before, it was like instant buyer's remorse. I would say it's like instant like, well, we're not hiring this guy. Because he... This is the thing, because there can't be enough Pinocchio movies.

He immediately makes a Pinocchio movie. that's like disaster to the point that when he made the COVID Pinocchio movie so good the other COVID Pinocchio movie not that COVID Pinocchio movie the other other one

the other other there's like been for movies since COVID it's like every time we get a new variant of COVID we get a new Pinocchio that's what the variant does is it infects a whole lot of people

and then creates out of thin air creates a Pinocchio movie no one else for. Yeah. I like the 2020 Benini Pinocchio movie. It's so fucked up and weird and unsettling. That is true. It also made me want to

chew cinder blocks. Like, I hated my life watching this movie. I really enjoyed watching that movie, I will say. About to watch Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio soon and we'll excitedly report back. John Milkovich was married to Glenn Headley from 1982 to 1988.

I did not know that. May she rest. Queen, Glenn Headley. What a talented marriage that would have been. I love learning about character actors who are married to each other. Like, nothing brings me more joy than thinking of, like, Anthony Edwards and Mayor Winningham. Just that idea of a marriage like that. or, like, Elizabeth Marvel and Bill Camp, like, one of those marriages.

I love the Marvel Camp household. Ed Harris and Amy Madigan, scowling from the front row of the Oscars at Elia Cazan. Like, just my favorite genre of relationship is older character actors who are married. Love it so much. I genuinely love it so much. Weird gays who love the cell and also character actors who are married. That is, those are the things that I, that I appreciate. We'll find more, Gary's, tell us who your favorite character, actors, who are married are.

Yes. I love them so much. Anyway. Then in the Iron Mask, nominated by the costume designers guild for excellence in costume design on film. Is that just most costumes? I think that's just best suits to then. But it sounds like most costumes. Most pleasant fill.

bolts of fabric used in a film in 1998, something like that. Well, here's the other nominees. They might tell you that it is not most costuming. It's also beloved Mask of Zorro and the Truman Show. Truman Show's an interesting inclusion in that, actually. I think that kind of shows you how widely embraced the Truman Show was and how strange it was it didn't get that best picture nomination. Very true. Very true.

Or, you know, more than it ultimately did. It got the director nomination for Peter Weir. Beloved and what else? Zorro, the Mask of Zorro. And Pleasantville, the winner, were Oscar nominees, obviously. Oh, Pleasantville. I love it. I love Pleasantville. Actually, I don't think Sorrow was a costume design nominee.

But obviously, Elizabeth Shakespeare and love get nominated. No idea why they don't show up here. Mask of Zorro and Man in the Iron Mask covering the gamut of facial coverage in terms of a mask. They were nominated solely for the masks. Like, two, doing very different things with masks. One is full coverage, very obviously metallic and heavy. The other one is barely there. Just sort of, you know, eye black could accomplish the same thing.

Zorro, not nominated, replaced at the Oscars by one of my very favorite. nominations. Sandy Powell for Velvet Goldmine. Oh, now that is a movie with costumes right there. Now, bitch, that is most costumes. That is, that is some low-hanging leather pants on, on Ewan McGregor. That is Jonathan Reese Myers dressed up as a dandy for a photo shoot. That is, oh, God, scarves on scarves on scarves on young Christian Bale in that movie tremendous

tremendous costume work. Also the best costume, lots of nudity. Listen, the best costume, no costume. Best costume is no costume sometime. Yeah, all right. What else do we want to talk about? Leo won, actually. The Razzie for worst screen couple for

himself. All right, Razies. Once again, you're getting too cute here. Big fuck off to the Razies because they also nominated the Spice Girls in this category. Boo. Boo. What an honor to all those other nominees to share space with the Spice Girls.

Deeply boo. Deeply bad. All right. Wait, I want to dip into my notes. Wait a minute. Excuse me, sir. I do actually need you to clarify this. Please tell me you are booing the Razies and not the Spice Girls.

Obviously, I'm booing the Razies. Booying the Razzies for disrespecting the Spice Girls. Booying the Spice Girls will get me to not do this show. Oh, my God. The end of this had Oscar Buzz. would be... Joe booing the Spice Girls. I would never. I would never

move the Spice Girls. Absolutely not. Okay. Pothos hung like a donkey. Scars Garden Malkovich voices. Raul and Christine wishing you were somehow here again. Oh, okay. The scene in the gardens of Versailles

where they're chasing around the pig and then Louis devises a dastardly plan involving the sprinkler systems to corner Christine and lure her away from Sweet Rowell. And all I could think of is that Kate Winslet did not design the water features at Versailles for them to be used in such a viciously manipulative manner in this way.

Justice for a little chaos, a movie that very few people listening to this podcast probably saw. What else? Versailles doesn't look as well. big as the Mauritania. Uh, da-da-da-da-da. Oh, the secret passageways. I can't believe that they like,

Chekhov is rolling in his grave, that they, like, introduce these secret passageways and do so comparatively little with them. Like, I needed to have some antics or something, something spectacular. Yeah, like there needs to either be a rescue through the secret passageway. There needs to be a Bacchanal orgy

sequence through a secret passageway. Like, literally, the only thing we get is when Christine... I shouldn't laugh. It's very... Like, Christine hangs herself outside the window, and all we do is we hear a yelp, and D'Artagnan goes into the room, and Louis's literally, like, it's in Christine's room.

Like, that's where the son... And he goes through the secret passageway to her room, and he sees that she's... All right, Gene Parmesan. Oh, this quote. Oh, D'Artagnan. Like, honestly, this line... I almost had to, like, catch...

gather myself, where he says to Anne, his beloved Anne of Austria, I know that to love you is a treason against France, but to not love you is a treason against my heart, at which point I... Excellent greeting card. I threw the remote control across the room. Oh, when... What greeting card can I get? that says, I love you, but I might also be headed by the king.

I found it. Found it. When the musketeers get the jump on Louis and plan to put him in the Iron Mask the first time, and Aramis says, it's judgment day. The balls. The balls. The balls on Randall Wallace to throw a line like this. into a movie featuring the Three Musketeers.

Like, honestly, all right, finally, Chris, and obviously you can give your wrap-ups as well, but before we get too far down the path towards the IMDB game, I think the fact that we are talking about a movie about the Three Musketeers does somewhat demand that we engage in the thought experiment

known as Fuck Mary Kill with Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. So D'Artagnan is, as he is for much of this movie, cast aside. So in the versions of... Okay, because I would definitely kill D'Artagnan. We all would. Don't talk to me like that. We all would.

Don't tell me that what would be treason against your heart. Don't talk to me like that. I'm not getting with you. With your fucking little mustache. No, the versions of Athos, Porthos, and Aramis that we get in this movie, fuck Mary Kill. I think I'm going to kill Aramis. Okay.

Jeremy Irons, I'm sorry you do not do it for me. I would marry Malcovich because, like, he's a good dad, stable person, you know. Yeah. And then obviously I'm fucking porthos. This is, this was my inclination as well. But I would imagine, especially with the limited range of prophylactic options in that, era that fucking porthos

earns you a lifetime a hurt afterwards. They had not discovered penicillian. Just imagining the consequences, which like, we all want to take a ride on that wagon, and yet maybe the juice isn't worth the squeeze, as it were.

Which is where I'm totally with you. I marry Athos. Like, that is, He's a good man. He's probably, like, abnormally sensitive for that era. Like, certainly, like, above and beyond kindness. I'm sure Malkovich is a very sensitive lover. No, I just mean in terms of, like, the character and, like, at that time in world history, like...

Oh, of course. Like, a sweet man. It's probably hard to find a little bit. And so, again, like you say, good dad, good surrogate dad. that's a keeper right there I would probably roll in the hay with Aramis because I do find Jeremy Irons to be quite the haughty

but also those religious guys when you let them let loose man like all that repressed Jesuit heat something's going off That does sound appealing However He also narrates the

movie, and you don't want him narrating your bedplay, that shit would get annoying. You're not wrong. You're not wrong for centuries afterward. I do hear you on the Bless Me Father Frye have sinned. Right. But you don't want him being like, and then for centuries afterward, this lovemaking was known as, you know, the finest love making in all the land. And you're just like, shut up and like, get down there, Aramis.

I suppose the other thing against Porthos is like, they have. full on sex in a haystack in this movie? No wonder he's got kidney stones, man. Like, what's, what's getting up and up in there? Yeah, uh, hay. Hay is prickly. Hay is very prickly. Hay is not comfortable for bear's skin.

No. The hay, as the saying goes, is for horses and is not for, uh, for making love upon. Although I imagine at that time, unless you're in like comfy Louis the 14th, Versailles poster, four poster bed or whatever. You're probably not sleeping on the most comfortable things just in general. No. Like, at the very best, you're getting, like, a sack stuffed full of lambs wool, scratchy, like, scratchy lambs wool that probably has, like, fleas in it or something like that. God forbid you get sweaty and it pulls all of the wool together.

No wonder these people wanted to assassinate Louis. Like, truly, the gulf between life in Versailles and, like, lumpy wool sack. live in life for even, you know, Jesuit priests and whatnot, like, no wonder. It's fucking off with his head at this point. I wouldn't survive during these times. No, I'm very, very glad that I was born in these awful times where at least I can, like, you know, catch a couple z's on a mattress topper or something like that. God bless.

Should we move on to the IMTV? Let's do it. Let's, let's go. Let's, let's, let's. Why don't you explain to our listeners? what the IMDB game is. Yeah, 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 mention 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-hints. That's the idea. And, sir, would you like to give or guess first? I'll guess first.

All right. So we've been talking about Leo at the height of Titanic's success. He had a fitful kind of rebound to come back from it with his projects. I also chose for you, someone who right alongside him had very similar, you know, post-success project stumbles with Kate Winslet. Have we never done Kate? Whistlet. Wow. And bestie for life. Well, I won't say the aforementioned a little chaos, even though I do think she's wonderful in that, and that is the one context in which I met her that one time, was at the premiere for a little chaos. Well, Titanic. Titanic. Obviously.

Oh. Her Oscar poses some interesting conundrum. because famously nobody ever saw the reader as Hugh Jackman expressed in song that one time but I am going to guess it

I'm going to guess the reader incorrect fuck okay Oscar win not in her known for Kate gives you a real tough set of options

because it's like lots of movies a lot of them small but memorable a lot of awards how about she's gone into franchises now how about Eternal Sunshine of the Spallessalon

Eternal Sunshine correct Eternal Sunshine Shari I said eternal sunshine Laja Laja what are you doing that's no that's more that's Elizabeth Ashley introducing Hollinotchev Now

you are going to get me on some type of train as if Liza in the alternate universe where Eternal Sunshine and the Spotless Mind is a Best Picture nominee and Liza Manelli is the one who gives the clip speech

for it. You know. Ladies and gentlemen, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. David and I watch together. And we thought it was great. We found it so relatable.

We really didn't want to remember being together. Have you been sitting on an A-plus, Liza, Manelli impersonation this entire time? Do you know how easy it is to give it A-minus? I couldn't do it. Did you listen to mine just there? Mine was horrible. As I said, it was much more Elizabeth Ashley.

This is why I said a B-minus version of Liza should not have won that snatch game. Oh, wait, who did Liza? Alexis-Micha. All due respect to Alexis Michelle, who gets dumped on a lot, that Liza was not a winning Liza. Get ready for All-Stars. Um, anyway, okay. What? Saying, but just saying.

Okay. Where are we going? Where are we going? Where we going? With Kate. You have one in, you've got, correctly guessed two. You've gotten one wrong. Okay.

Okay. I'm going to get this one wrong. But I, I just want to throw it out there because I don't know why. Maybe it's because she's on the poster for it. But part of me wants to just say quills. Incorrect to not quills. Okay. SAG nominated performance.

Yeah. All right. What are the years? I'll get it now once I got the years. 1995 and 2008. Okay. 1995 is Sense and Sensibility, I should have guessed. 2008 is the other, not the reader, but revolutionary road.

Yes. Okay. All right. The definitive answer on what she should have actually been nominated. IMDB has weighed in. Yes. Okay. All right.

No, Steve Jobs. No. I was going to guess that, too. Fix it, Steve. Fix it. IMDB. Put her in there for Steve Jobs instead of Revolutionary Road. Honestly, at this point, fix it, put Mary of Easton on there. I think that's some of her best work. Oh, 100%. All right. Chris, for you, I delved into that aforementioned list of movies that opened against Titanic during its stellar run, one of the first of which was the James Bond feature, Tomorrow Never Dies, featuring a okay theme song by Cheryl Crow, I'll just say. It was no, the world is not enough, as I mentioned. It is a very snoozy bond theme.

You know, good for Cheryl Crow for, you know, for taking the leap there. Anyway, also in that movie, though, playing I'm almost certain a villain, even though I imagine maybe the villain of Tomorrow Never Dies, is one Jonathan Price. Jonathan Price. No television, no voiceover. Four feature films of Juan Jonathan Price. Brazil. No. Shockingly enough.

Wow. No. Tomorrow never dies. Correct, yes. The wife. Correct. Um. Ooh, what?

I just, uh, Vita. No. Not Evita. Wow. Another surprise. All right, that's two strikes. Your years are 1998 and 2019. Okay, so the same year we're talking about in something very recent.

2019. So that would have been the same year that the wife was released in theaters. No. Year after? Huh? Wait, what did you say? What year was that? That was 28.

what was the wife? The year of the wife. Yes. The year of the wife. That's in the Chinese zodiac, in fact. That was known as the year of the wife. Yes. Um, okay, so 2019 would have been the year after the wife. What was his like cash in

on that movie? No, it's two popes. Two popes, yes. Speaking of Liza. nominated for the two popes, Dose Popes. Yes. 98. So 98 is the same year as Man in the Iron Mask.

Yes. What was he doing around then? I can't believe Brazil isn't there. This is definitely the tough one of all of them. It's a movie that I've heard of, obviously, but I've not seen. He's kind of far down the cast list for this being one of his, db movies um it is a sort of action thriller but like a like a tony action thriller like a you know it's classy it looks it looks classy um uh-huh starring is it what go ahead no what

you're gonna say is it like the rock no classier than the rock the rock is michael bay trash This is like... Champagne. Yeah, it's a screenplay by a very famous playwright. It is directed by... Tom Stopper. No. It is directed by a very well-regarded action director, and it is starring a two-time Oscar winner.

Oh, okay. I'm guessing it's like... If you're saying he's far down on the cast, it's got to be a big ensemble. Yeah, it's a pretty... It's a decent ensemble. Okay. There are names that we know in this ensemble. Yeah.

Yeah. 1998, two-time Oscar winner. Yes. Had they already won any of those Oscars? Both of them by then. Yes. Both of them. And in fact, this Oscar, this Oscar winner, what is he doing at this point in his career?

he's still doing good stuff but like he's maybe about to embark in not one of his best decades, perhaps. Interesting. Who has two Oscars at that point? De Niro. Yes. Ronan. Very good.

I have not seen Ronan, but I know it's in 1998. But we're not my clues all accurate, right? That's like... Yes. It's De Palma, right? It's, it's, it's, uh, no, it's John Frankenheimer. Oh. From a script by David Mamet.

Got it. Um, but it's like, it's sort of, it's a bespoke action thriller, right? It's, it's, it's tailored and, uh, and, and who did the cinematography? I wonder. Give me a second. Um, because I imagine, it's probably somebody very talented and very, uh, accomplished. Robert Freyce. I don't know who that is.

Frays. Anyway, I have not seen Ronan. But, like, the cast is really interesting. Jean Renaud, obviously, Natasha McElhoun, Stellan Scarsguard, Sean Bean, Jonathan Price. Katerina Witt, the ice skater, the figure skater.

Katerina Vitt is apparently in this movie. Not even just as herself, but as, like, a character. That's very interesting. Ronan. Who knew? All right. Joe, I think that's our episode.

if you want more this head oscarbuzz, you should check out the Tumblr at thisheadoscarbuzz.com. You should also follow us on Twitter and had underscore Oscar underscore buzz. If you're listening to this as it drops, you have about 24 hours to get your mailbag questions in. So, checks out on Twitter and Tumblr for that, or you can email us at had Oscar buzz at gmail.com. Joe, where can our listeners find more of you? Somehow still on Twitter at Joe Reed, read spelled R-E-I-D. it's about to become even more unbearable with this 4,000 character limit on tweets

my God help us all also on letterboxed also as Joe Reed reads spelled R-EID I promise none of my reviews will be for 4,000 characters maybe I don't know I make no promises actually some people on letterbox will just like post the first like five paragraphs up their review and then link it

I'm like do you have to do that many paragraphs if you're just going to be linking your own review. I generally, I don't want to, whatever, if you do that, if you,

if you just post a link to your review on letterbox to go with God, get your traffic, however you want to, it is not my favorite genre of letterboxed comment,

let's say. Letterbox should be pithy, because a letterboxed log itself is not a review. That's not a review. It's an impression. Right. It's a joke.

Sometimes I'll, I'll muse for a couple paragraphs, but like, it's, if I'm drunk, I'll throw a, some word salad and letterbox. I don't care. Yeah. Listen,

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Merry Christmas. Bye. Merry Christmas. Now it's all for one and all for love. Let the one you hold be the one you want, the one you need. There's one for one.