This Had Oscar Buzz - 227 – The Old Man and the Gun

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

In 2018, it was reported that Robert Redford would be making his acting swan song with David Lowery’s crime caper The Old Man and the Gun. As the film received its festival debut, those retirement statements were backtracked, but audiences were still given a thoughtful and surprising fable about a real “Redford type” of character and … Continue reading "227 – The Old Man and the Gun"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. No, I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilynne Heck. So, what did you say you do? Well, that's a secret. And why is that? Well, because if I told you,

you probably wouldn't want to see me again. Who said I was going to see you again? Would you? Well, let's take this place. Say it was a bank, and instead of that counter up there, that was really a teller's window, and you just walk in real calm.

So you walk right up, look her in the eye, and you say, ma'am, this is a robbery, and you show her the gun like this. And you say, I wouldn't want you to get hurt, because I like you. I like you a lot. I said, don't go breaking my heart now, okay? You're not serious.

Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that Helen Mirren keeps trying to get to switch to briefs. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here as always. with my young man, my rich man. A old man, increasingly an old man. Yes, for real. God bless Jack K. Harry

and my favorite scene from 227. That you used as the teaser for... Yes, I forget what you did, but I didn't tell you that's how I was going to tease this episode or, you know, hint at this episode, whatever you want to call it. Name something you must have in order to live. A man. One of the seven wonders of the world.

A rich man. Something that includes with age. A young man. A Christmas present you'd exchange. A old man. A condemned person's last request. Eaming man. And, uh, I think you sent me some type of gay slur after I busted.

Me? Never. Rue, never. I said, you better work is what I said. No, your teases as ever, I will happily remind anybody who reacts to those teases on Twitter, that that is 100% a crisp file joint, that is your lunacy at work right there. You're like, not me. I am smarter than this. I'm the lunatic who puts the weird, the songs at the ends of the episode.

want to yell at somebody for lunacy in song choice, I'm the one responsible for Imagine Dragons at the end of the murdering Express episode. Chris is the lunatic responsible for the Twitter Jesus. So that's how you divide. Okay. I could have also used, it might have been more literal and not require you to like have some context clues with that actual Jack Hay hip clip. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Jeff Bridges television program, is called The Old Man. It sure is. It 100% is.

There are TV shows these days. It's so funny. There are 8 billion TV shows. The competition for eyeballs couldn't be any more fierce. And yet these TV shows are just brazenly titling themselves in a way that tells you, like, you're going to fall asleep. Exactly what it is? Well, it's exactly what it is? But like, what's going to excite me about watching a show?

I'm going to call the show The Old Man. I'm going to call a show Slow Horses, which like, I've actually heard that that show's not bad. People are really picking up on slow horses, and I may have to watch just for Jack Loudon. Same. I mean, yeah, same, and I love Jack Loudon. But, like, you're doing yourself absolutely no favors. This is what, what was the Michael Fastbender, Cody Smith-McPhee, Western? Slow West.

Again, slow-west. Don't put the word slow in your movie title. Yeah, that movie should have just been titled Ben Mendelson in a giant coat, because, like, that's the reason to see that movie. Well, it could also have just been called, like, we got colors, because that is, like, the most color. Western I have ever seen in my entire life, and that's the thing I love best about it. It's so good. Who directed that movie? Great question.

And what is that filmmaker? Give me a second. Because, like, I feel like we should be paying attention to that filmmaker, maybe more than we do. Watch it turn out to be somebody who, like, held children hostage or some sort of under other awful thing. Slow West. Slow.

Highly recommended. I feel like Slow West belongs with it. the bones slowest slow it's it's so slow the slowest that's a little bit more Russian though that's the little maybe I don't know listen I am not a trained dialectician slowest was directed by John McLean who hasn't directed a feature since then so too busy

saving Nakatomi tower well Is that what, did I say that wrong? I don't love that movie. It's not like I watch Die Hard every year, but like the time or two that I watched it, I was like, that's a very good movie. I do love a hammy Alan Rickman in anything, but my hammy Alan Rickman of choice is, of course, the Sheriff of Nottingham from Robin Hood, Prince of Thees. And that's just sort of how it is. Come through drag. Okay, so the title of this movie, though, the old man and the gun.

Yeah. lends itself to the type of, like, blunt title that we're talking about. And yet, it's got gun in there. Pugh, pew, pew, pew. I mean, like, you kind of have to understand why it would be titled the old man and the gun. You have to, like, see the movie to be like, actually, that's an interesting title, because it's a character study, and, like, the gun is representative of so much of this character. Well, and so much of the way that this story is told is told in, like,

like an almost a tall tale fashion, right? It's like the legend of this of this guy. Everybody's sort of like telling their story about their interaction with this guy. He's a little bit, um, if not larger than life than like, you know, a character from a novel. And so in that way, the old man in the gun sounds like the name of a, of a fable almost. You know what I mean? Or a tall tale. And I think that works really well. It also is obviously like a play on the old man in the sea, which is not a book I've read, so I don't really know if there's any more of a connection than that, but that's fine. I don't

hold it against it. It's also a title that I think if people were more aware of this movie or not kind of oversaturated with things to come at the time of its season, this could have been a joke title. Yes.

In terms of like Ben is back. Me tapping you on the shoulder and being like, that's the gun. Like when he pulls the gun out? Yeah, that's a great movie. I will say that. I feel like it's come up several times in the past, like, year, and I keep saying

we got to do that movie, mostly just because I wanted to watch it again. Yeah. And I definitely think, you know, I liked it at the time, but, like, sitting with the movie made its reputation grow, and I was so glad that my rewatch of it. it fulfilled that. And that, you know, this truly is an exquisite, wonderful movie that I hope more of our listeners

watch. I saw it at TIF in 2018. I saw it late in the festival of 2018. It was one of the last handful of movies that I saw. And I think at the time, probably the thing that I liked best about it was that it was like 90 minutes. It was just like Bing, Bang Boom. It was so, because

at that point in the festival, you're just like, you're dragging ass. But I also remember being like, oh, that's a delight. That's, you know, what a great time to spend with these actors, Robert Redford and Sissy Spacec. And I'm obviously a big David Lowry person, and I've only become more so in the years since then. But watching it again, I had that same feeling of just like, oh, no, this is like a really, really well-done movie.

And I'm interested to talk about it in the guise of Oscar because this is another one of those movies where it's like nobody didn't like this movie really when it came out it's not like this movie was like uh love it or hate it kind of a thing most people liked this movie liked it quite a bit in fact and yet beyond the golden globe nomination that robert redford got it was never really a serious threat to you know major oscar nominations well and there's a lot I mean, there's a lot that goes into it. I think, A, at the time, people kind of, while no one was outright negative on this movie, I think, and even going back through the, like, letterbox logs that people were watching it at the time,

thinking the movie's not enough this, it doesn't do enough with this with the character. And I think it's a lot of people wanting the movie to be something that's not even while they say that they like it. Whereas if they let it be the thing that it actually is, which is this kind of, fable character story that ends up actually being a romance right they would appreciate it even more i think it's also a matter of priorities because this movie opened right after the festivals where its response was fairly muted muted positive yes and it's the same season that searchlight has you know bigger fish to fry theoretically yeah and Well, and the other thing is, if you go back, I sort of skimmed the Rotten Tomatoes reviews of this movie, and almost every single one of them mention the fact that the word around the time was that this was Robert Redford's last movie, maybe.

And I say maybe because it was sort of announced that this was going to be his last movie. And then in the publicity for this movie, everybody kind of soft-pedaled it. I remember that being like, even like when I interviewed David Lowry for the movie, by that point, they were already kind of walking back this idea that it's definitely his last movie. And of course, he would appear one more time in a film in Avengers Endgame, which everybody was like, you talk about like the one thing on the handful of like the things that surprised people in that movie. I think a lot of people were really surprised, even given all the cameos in that movie, that Redford not only shows up, but like does a scene. It's not like he's like Michelle Pfeiffer standing by the docks paying homage to Tony Stark or whatever. Like Redford shows up for a scene. And but anyway, so this sort of like, you would have thought that maybe the idea that like this is Robert Redford's last movie might have had a little bit more of an urgency to nominate him.

And yet I think that kind of quasi soft peddling of like, well, he says that, but maybe not blah, blah. And soft pedaling around the time that people were. beginning to see the movie exactly exactly and it's like and like all of that was probably in the service in service of like the truth you know what i mean it's just like right and yet you know if they had been a little bit more mercenary about it than maybe but robert redford's history with oscar which we'll also get into is interesting yeah that's why i kind of want to put a button he's beloved but in like a peculiar kind of way right right yeah so we'll put a pin in that we'll come back to this, because I want to get

at least to the plot description before we really dive into Robert Redford. Totally. And, I mean, we're also talking about Sissy Spasek, who, I mean, name another charming person. Sissy SpaceX, so immensely charming. She's so

wonderful in this movie, in the kind of role that is very easy to overlook. Right. She sort of, she shows up when the movie sort of wants to have its romantic scenes, and it's definitely a movie about him and she's sort of like the girlfriend

she represents she's you know she represents a different life that he could be leading and yet she is absolutely I think largely through SpaceX's performance this really present character and the scenes between

them are dynamite and it's just them talking and it's so fucking good yeah yeah yeah talk about like there's no like romance or romantic comedies anymore because no performers have chemistry with each other and it's just like we have old man in the gun it's not even five years old and like you want to see chemistry put a red light at the front of that diner because like there is um you know there it's uh not not for the children the degree of chemistry going on between redford and spaceick in that scene ah so good um We'll definitely talk about Sissy SpaceX.

One thing I didn't realize that I'm sure we might get into, Robert Redford and Sissy Spacec both won their Oscars at the same ceremony. That's a fun curiosity. I didn't realize until preparing this episode. Yeah, Coal Miner's Daughter and Ordinary People were the same year. Yes. Yes, they were. Very interesting, very curious.

Had they starred in a movie together, though, before this? I don't think they had. I don't think so. Which is, like, kind of amazing. Like their heyday of their career, which, you know, I think when we think of Sissy Spaceac, we think of more of the 70s, but most of her nominations are in the 80s. The thing about the 80s, I, we don't get a chance to talk about this enough because we don't really talk about the 80s very much. But especially in the category of best actress, there's like a handful of actresses who absolutely utterly dominate the 1980s. And it's Merrill in the early 80s, but then it becomes very much Space.

Jessica Lang Jane Fonda to a degree and oh who else is it but like it's like Spacec and Jessica Lang are showing up a lot in the 1980s essentially throughout Best Actress and and sometimes for these movies

that really have no other footprint than you know a Best Actress nomination for them and because it was them that's maybe why some of these nominations happen like Sissy Space Six nomination for the River. Yes.

Like three of Jessica Lang's nomination. She wins for Coal Miner's Daughter, which is 1980. Missing is 1982, she's nominated. The River, 1984, nominated. Crimes of the Heart, 1986, nominated. Have you seen Crimes of the Heart? I have. I like that play, but I have not seen the movie.

It's a weird and wild little movie, and not everybody's accents work very well, and it's, you could probably call it overbaked, but, like, I had a good time with it. Meryl gets a bunch of nominations in the 80s, like I said. Jessica Lang is nominated, I think, like, four times in the 80s, maybe. It's just, like, it really is just, like, a concentration of this handful. And it's all for, like, movies that really we've, a lot of them, like, we've largely forgotten. Like, the river nobody really talks about.

Nobody talks about Jessica Lang, playing Patsy Cline in Sweet Dreams. Jessica Lang in that movie Music Box, which I think is about like prosecuting a Nazi war criminal maybe. Yes. It's interesting. The 80s and Oscar is a really fascinating time on like a lot

of levels. I've talked about the how the, it's the best decade ever for the best original song category. Like I, but like other categories, it's a weird sort of wilderness time. I don't know. It's fascinating to talk about.

Should we maybe get into the plot description then? Yeah, why don't we? So we can talk about this movie that we both really like. Full disclosure, I did not pre-pre-pre-pre-perper a script for my plot description for this one. And this is a movie that, like, there is some plot, but it's very vibesy. Like, this is very, like, chill out. It's a chill-out movie about a bank robber. So to the point that maybe, I don't even think to the movie's detriment,

but in a way that makes the movie otter than you expect. Like, the plot is still unfolding well into the movie when it should just be kind of all payoff. But, like, because it's so vibesy and so, like, chill, lean back into this movie, it doesn't feel strained in a way or manic. Well, up until the end, it still continues to feel like a patchwork quilt

of other people's impressions and stories of this guy. I saw some sort of tidbit somewhere where Lowry had said that he didn't really want to make a movie about a bank robber. He wanted to make a movie essentially about a Robert Redford character. And I think that really comes across in this movie. And a lot of the movie plays like he said this in another interview somewhere where it's like, this is the movie that Forrest Tucker, the Forrest Tucker character sort of envisions in his head about his own life.

And, like, that makes a lot of sense. And that plays into... And I like that movie better than probably other people's conceptions of what this movie would have been. 100%. It's a much better Robert Redford movie than it would have been, like,

a Ben Affleck movie. You know what I mean? Ben Affleck's obviously a lot younger, but, like, the story of, like, you know, a criminal who's a gentleman or something like that. Or even, like, a Harrison Ford movie. Totally. Yeah, this movie maybe doesn't exist because it takes so much from, you know, Robert Redford's ethos and history, but also, like, the kind of vibe and, you know, texture of the movies of his heyday, too, some of which maybe we don't, like, talk about as much.

Yeah. But, you know, it's not the obvious movies from the 1970s that, you know, get regurgitated at Nauseum. Totally. But listeners, we are here talking about the old man and the gun, written and directed by one David Lowry based on the New Yorker article by David Grant, starring the one and only Robert Redford, Sissy Space hit, Casey Affleck, Danny Glover, Tika Sumter, Isaiah Whitlock Jr., Tom Waitsie Moss, Lizzie Moss, we will have a six-timers quiz. Get ready. This episode. Yes. Also Keith Carradine and John David Washington. Babyface John David Washington.

John David Washington, who really doesn't show up on screen as much as you hear him off screen. And I think that's some of the stemming of the how much he sounds like his dad. It's amazing that this is the same year as Black Klansman because this movie looks like it was made like five years before Black Clansman. Right, right. It's very funny. Yeah. The motion picture premiered at Telluride and then Tiff and Open Limited September 28th, 2018.

Yes. Mr. Joseph Reed. Yes. Are you ready to give a 60-second plot description of the old man in the gun? Sure. All right. Then your 60-second plot description starts now. All right.

It's Texas in 1981. Robert Redford plays a career criminal named Forrest Tucker, who robs banks, but is a gentleman about it. We see him rob a bank at the very beginning, and on his getaway, he stops spy to help a stranded motorist in the guys to help him evade the cops. The stranded motorist is played by Sissy Spacic. They have a wonderful meet cute. They go to have lunch at a diner.

The chemistry is out of control. And he continues to romance her while being sort of like vague, but like a little forthcoming about what he does, but not really. It feels like it's plausibly kidding that he could be a bank robber. Meanwhile, at the same time, Dallas police detective Casey Affleck is on the trail of Forrest. And it's a little bit of a cat and mouse game. Casey Affleck sort of comes to respect this guy, the more he hears people talk about him. Finally, this all comes to a head.

Redford ends up, does end up getting caught. Ten seconds. He's on the run. He rides a horse. He gives himself up. He goes to prison. Sissy Space comes to see him. He gets out of prison and he robs a couple more banks and he gives the camera a little wink,

not really, but like metaphorically. And it's a good time. Four seconds over. There were other things I could have gotten into, but I think that's the general gist of it. You know, he's it. I mean, a lot of the movie is setting up the legend of this man, not his actual actions. Like, you see all these people that he's robbed. And they're like, he just seems so nice.

He seemed like he was having a good day. You see him being, you know, somewhat comforting to the bank teller that it's her first day of work when he's robbing. Right. Eventually, in the getaway, you know, he's carjacked a car with a mother and son. and to keep them safe. He drops them off at a chicken joint rather than, you know, keeping them on the pursuit of the police. Right. I want to make mention of a character actor named Gene Jones because he plays one of the bank, he's like a bank manager or something. He's the one who after Forrest robs the bank, he sort of locks the door and is like,

everybody we've just been robbed. Oh, in Casey Affleck's like, my daughter's in the car. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Casey Affleck's in the bank when Forrest robs it actually and he doesn't realize it. But this is the same guy who plays the gas station attendant in No Country for Old Men. The flip a coin, what's the most you ever lost on a coin toss? So, like... You all getting any rain up here, what way would that be? I've seen you was from Dallas. What business is it up yours?

Where I'm from. Friendo. I didn't mean nothing by it. It didn't mean nothing. Just passing the time. If you don't want to accept that, I don't know what else I can do for him. Gene Jones has run the gamut of, first of all, movies with Old Man in the title, and also just sort of interacting with these really enigmatic criminals.

And, like, that's the spectrum of it, right? Where Anton Shiger is terrifying, and Forrest Tucker is such a lovely gentleman about this whole thing. But I thought that was very interesting. interesting. And, yeah, this idea of, like, the gentleman bank robber is this very comforting fiction that I think is woven into this idea of American myth-making, American storytelling, that I think serves this movie very well, right? Where this is not a warts and all telling. This does not, like, in as much as it talks to the other people in his life, really, the Elizabeth Moss scene, where she plays his his daughter, who he maybe never knew about, is the only part where we see somebody who's been, in some way, scarred by his forest's crimes. You know what I mean? That she's, you know, she's a little messed up by the fact that, like, this guy is her dad, and by the time she was able to even realize that he was in prison and never knew about her and all the

sort of stuff. But everybody else sort of walks away from their interactions with this guy feeling good you know what I mean what a nice man and that's just sort of the vibe of the movie and I think Redford's

the perfect actor to play this role and he of course he's the one who came to David Lowry with this project he had read this New Yorker article he wanted to make the movie

and then he had well Anthem Body Saints was a big Sundance hit and of course Redford runs Sundance still to whatever degree he was you know hands on with Sundance I think he remains

or at least like remained in the figurehead at least but like seems to like pay attention to the goings on in Sundance you know what I mean? And so saw Inth Emboddy Saints he was intrigued by Lowry and he came to Lowry with the idea to do

Old Man in the Gun and it worked out really well so. David Lowry is so interesting because his movies all kind of couldn't be any more different from each other, but I do think that there's this idea of

myth or like the birth of a legend in a lot of his movies. He also... Story being the myth of the afterlife, kind of, it is this kind of I suppose it is somewhat of like a fable of the afterlife.

Anthem Body Saints is like this myth of this, you know, basically Bonnie and Clyde type figure. Pete's Dragon is like the myth of, like... It's a fairy tale. It's a fairy tale fable of childhood. Green Knight is very much all about, you know, this larger than life, you know, this tale that's older than storytelling itself almost, you know what I mean?

And, yeah, he's a really, really interesting. That's why you talk about, you've made the joke before about like every iteration of COVID brings it a new Pinocchio tale. We're almost at that with Peter Pan, too. With, like, there's so many Peter Pan stories. And yet, like, I'm interested to see what Lowry's version of it is. Yeah, David Lowry might be the one that gets me to watch a Disney Plus original. Yeah.

But it's a really interesting career that he's had. Actors work with him again and again, which I think speaks well of him. Redford had been in Pete's Dragon, and then as in this again, he worked with Casey Affleck a bunch of times. He also, a thing I didn't realize until I was researching for this movie, he co-edited with Amy Simetz on Sun Don't Shine and Shane Carruth on Upstream Color, unlike Shane Carruth is, you know, not a nice person. Bad man. But Upstream Color is an incredibly well-edited movie, and, you know. And Lowry edits his own movies, too. I also made a note of, and I need to refer to my notes, because Daniel Hart, who is the composer for this movie, who has done the music for all of Lowry's movies, I'm pretty sure.

The score to this movie is... Jesus Christ. Dynamite. It's so good. And nobody was talking about the score of this movie at the time, and it is so good. I mean, there is a lot of it to the point where it's like, maybe there could be a few less music cues because it feels like you're listening to the score for the time. whole movie in a way that like maybe it veers slightly to too much but it is always so exquisite and contributing to the atmosphere of this movie I was going to say not cloying not indicating

what you're supposed to feel but feels like of a piece with everything else that's going on you're not necessarily wrong that sometimes it's like oh this is a lot of score but this is the kind of movie that I think accommodates that better than most because again the style of this movie the sort of the tall tale aspect of this movie I quickly I went into 2018 and I sort of grabbed my, I went into my awards and I was like, what were the scores that I was looking at? And like, 2018 is kind of a rad year for score because it's Bratel for Beale Street, which is one of the best scores that we've had ever, like one of the best movie scores of all time. Ludwig Gorensen's Black Panther score, which won the Oscar and is fantastic. This one for Old Man in the Gun. One of the more underrated scores that I always yell about, because, because it comes from a genre that doesn't really, you wouldn't really think to go to for, like, craft achievements. But, like, Cliff Martinez's the score for Game Night is so good and so fun.

And anytime I get a chance to talk about that, I want to tell people about that because it's, like, it's really, really top-notch work, and I love Cliff Martinez. And Cliff Martinez is one of those composers who, like, does really good work in genres that you wouldn't normally expect. So, yeah, 2018, a rad year for score. And it would have been really, really nice. Daniel Hart could have been recognized for this one.

I would also add Justin Hurwitz for first man, which I think is probably his best work. Oh, well, until now. I think Babylon's the best thing he's ever done. It's so good. I maybe have some limitation. I mean, I think that score is rad, but he rips himself off in that score, and I do think that's part of the intention of the movie. I agree.

But I think that takes it. first man score is pretty incredible. I like first man. I don't like it as much as the people who love it, obviously. That's sort of definitional. But I was just blown away by the Babylon score. I think it's so good. But anyway,

good composer. That Justin Hurwitz. I sat down on them once and I said, surely, there's an easier way to make a living. And he looked at me and he said, I'm not talking about making a living. I'm just talking about living. Chris, we're going to put a pin

in Robert Redford, Robin Banks, and being real sweet with Sissy Spaceac to talk about the Vulture Movie Fantasy League once again. We are... Big update this week. Big update this week. We got Golden Globes winners points. We got SAG nomination points.

We got DGA points. There's a lot going on. The Producers Guild also happened, but those points go into next week's update, so we're not going to talk about that here. We're just going to talk about the Golden Globes. And I wanted to sort of float by you because the crux of my newsletter this week was essentially, was this the, are the Fablemans back in the game, essentially? Because I think a lot of us had sort of mentally started resigning ourselves to the fact that the Fableman's was going to sort of fade away into the bin of, not fade away entirely, but like go into the bin of early frontrunner that ultimately gets surpassed by something.

thing more of the moment, maybe. I was saying that Fableman's was going to get Irishman. Yes. And now, after the Golden Globes, which we all agree that, like, the Golden Globes does not have an impact on the Oscar voting in terms of, like, there's no crossover between membership, obviously. We know this about the Golden Globes. There is no actual statistical reason why the Golden Globes should be a bellwether for

the Academy, except for the fact that. It allows people who win to go up and give a speech and essentially, like, preview their case for, like, wouldn't you want to have a moment like this on your Oscar ceremony? And I thought Steven Spielberg, in two speeches, made a pretty good case for why the Fableman's is a special one. And that's sort of the case that the Fableman needs to make if it wants to win anything at the Oscars. You know what I mean? If it doesn't want to be Irishmen at the Oscars. So what did you think of that? I think that's true.

I think it would still be really interesting. I'm skeptical that it has a shot really much of anywhere to win other than picture and director at the Oscars, which would be odd. But less odd these days. I feel like we're moving towards the era of at some point I think we're going to end up getting in the next 10 years. This could be a bet. a best picture winner that only wins best picture, like a grand hotel. I feel like we're going to get a grand hotel in the next 10 years.

I think that's possible. I also, I mean, I think that there, you know, the Oscars are still, we're in the middle of Oscar nomination voting right now. Yes. Actually, I think by the time this episode airs, it will be either the last day or the day before voting clotuses. I still think that that's a lot of momentum.

it's going to have to keep up. Uh-huh. I agree. Because I do think everything everywhere is still way ahead of it. I also agree. But I think at least it has a pulse now. It's weird to talk about the Fableman's as being dead in the water when it's still being widely predicted to have like five to eight Oscar nominations.

You know what I mean? Like it's going to get a bunch of Oscar nominations. But I think we've been around the block with Spielberg lately, you know, recently with this, with Lincoln, with The Post, with West Side Story, where it looks early on, like, it's Spielberg, it's the Oscar, how can he lose? And then you get to the end of that season, and it's just like, yeah, people really weren't, like, feeling the need to give Steven Spielberg more Oscars. And this, with the Fableman's, it really did feel like, what's it going to take? Is it going to take? There's definitely more sense of urgency with this movie than there was with, say, Lincoln to honor Spielberg.

Well, it's funny because when I was on the Little Gold Men podcast at the beginning of the season, and we were talking about our year ahead stuff back in April, and I think a few of us made the rationale for the Fableman's, which was, what's it going to take for Spielberg to finally win the Oscar? He's going to really need to, like, pull at the heartstrings. And we all assumed that that's what the Fableman's was going to be. And I think that's what a lot of people think from the outset that the Fableman's is trying to be. But the Fableman's is not really the movie, go to for, like, heartstring emotional devastation. It didn't do what, like, After Sun did for me, right? And I think the Fableman's is up to something a little more interesting than that, and a little bit more, you know, slightly even darker than that a little bit, right? With, like, the relationship that, you know, the young character has with his mom. And I think even you could walk out of this Oscar C. and just be like, he really didn't make him cry enough.

You know what I mean? And that's kind of wild to think about. It's just like if he's not going to make him, he's not going to pull on their heartstrings with the Fableman's, you know. So you're saying if Fableman's was maybe a more, a less complex or a cheaper emotional movie, it would have a better chance.

I think there are people who walk into Fablemen's expecting a, uh, Kind of expecting the movie that the trailer is selling them on, which is the magic of the magic of the cinema, you know, saved this boy from, from, you know, family strife or whatever. And that's not this movie. This movie is about a kid's complicated relationship with his mom and his dad. And the way that, like, his talent for movie making complicates that. And it's, I don't know. I really like the Fableman's.

I don't know. But it did well. It did well. It's had a good week. All right. Minus Michelle Williams not showing up at SAG. We won't jump to SAG yet. What else do you have about the Globes in relation to the game?

In relation to the game, I think, I mean, relation to the game and in relation to the long run Oscar thing, I think we were on the cusp of the RRR train. really hitting, and then it losing to Argentina-1985 in best non-English-language film is going to have a longer tail on it that I think people... This is going to be my weird, like, I'm not a crackpot theory in years to come, is like Argentina-1985 swung the... At the Golden Globes. The Hollywood Foreign Press going for Argentina, 1985,

swung the course of the Oscar race in ways that you would not imagine. Because I feel like if RRR wins that award and gets up on the stage, and has this big moment and gets the whole, you know, room enthused for it. And I think that goes a long way towards enhancing its chances at a best picture nomination, a best director nomination, and wins at the Oscars that now I feel like, I think it still has a shot to get a best picture nomination. I think it has an outside shot of the best director nomination, but I think it's a lot shakier. And I don't, I, you were on the group chat with me and Katie. We're like, at the beginning of that night, I was like, I'm calling it right now RRR is winning best picture. And by the time, as soon as Argentina in 1985 won that award, I'm like, well, I take that.

Because I really do feel like in that sort of like butterfly effect, you know, chaos theory, fractals, universe way, that that robbed RRR of the TV moment it needed to make that narrative happen. I mean, I mean, like, there's a lot of hand-wringing of things like falling out of best picture. Maybe it has a better best picture chance than I'm thinking. I kind of think that it's going to be down to that best original song category and it's going to win it quite easily and, you know, give us the best moment of the entire ceremony when they perform it. Right. But I do think the ceiling was higher. I think the ceiling was potentially higher. It probably had to do better on those short lists.

And my last thing about the Golden Globes, and this takes us into sad news, current events territory, is Austin Butler really is winning Best Actor. 100%. I was a little bit like, well, it's up in the air, it's Butler, it's Farrell, it's Brendan Fraser, whatever. And now between the Golden Globes and now the sad, horrible news of Lisa Marie Presley's untimely death. Not to be cynical, but to be cynical. You know what I mean? Well, I don't even think you need to be cynical about it. I thought it was his before that, unfortunately happened.

I agree. I mean, Colin Farrell has already, I mean, it was great globe speech, but he's given great globe speeches before. And Banshees of Inneshaeran has other avenues to win for people's love for that movie to go around. I don't think it's out of the running for Best Picture. Or Best Supporting Actress, actually. I think supporting actress is so up in the air. Okay, since you mentioned the group chat, the two threads that I've been on, I feel like this season is that we have high potential for a Marcia Gay Hardin situation in supporting actress to happen this year. Yes, I think I agree with you there.

The nomination leader is going to be all quiet on the western side. Okay, I'm glad you remember to bring this up because I would have forgotten it. This is, I think, your wildest... It's either going to lead or it's going to tie to lead. This is, okay. You're giving yourself an out, and I'm still going to. take it because here's this is your wildest take that you've had in quite a while and i'm willing to put a bet on this i think i absolutely do not think all quiet on the western front is going to be

even tied for nomination leader i i will either take everything everywhere all at once or just give i'll take the no on that whatever however you want to craft this bet i want to get something on the books uh how about if it happens i don't have to pay you anything for the colin feral bet. Yeah. Yes. We'll do a $50 bet. Yes. Okay. I got an immune, I got some type of Wait, so what do I get if I win, though? Is it double or nothing? No. Okay, so it's all upside for you and no upside for me. Listen, this is one of those very hyper-specific idols on Survivor that don't really ever amount to anything. Wow. But I can nullify the bet is what I think it is. Wow. Well, that's, that is a fool's bet for for me then, because it is, it offers me absolutely

no upside. I need to get something out of this. Bragging rights. You love to have bragging rights. I do love bragging rights. You love telling me I'm wrong. That's true. I do love bragging rights. All right, I'll take it for bragging rights. I am saying all quiet on the Western Front is not going to be the nomination leader, not even in a tie. Absolutely not.

I mean, I do think this is risky because I even went and looked and like, I don't post predictions. It's like everybody post predictions on Twitter and stuff. What's the point? But I did come up with either a scenario for All Quiet to be the leader or tie with everything all at once, but then I have like three movies with like eight nominations. Everything everywhere all at once is going to get at least three acting nominations.

And that's three that it's starting in the column that All Quiet is not going to get. Take another look at those short lists. I think the only one I have a question of whether it gets through of the things that it was shortlisted for is original score. All right. I still think I'm winning this one, and I think I'm winning this one handily. We'll see how... I'm also on the thread of it's getting a best director nomination, but the hang-up being nobody knows that director's name. I think it could get a best director nomination.

I definitely think and I think it could get a best picture nomination I think it could get those two but I think everything everywhere all at once is also going to get those two so I still I'm still holding fast to my prediction but we'll we've got that

I think it's certainly getting a best picture nomination especially because it performs so well on all those short lists everybody on all those branches is going to watch it I don't understand why but everybody seems to love this movie when they watch it it is now the Netflix horse in the race like Glass Onion has now been shoved aside

and it is now their number one priority, which is... To the point where I even wonder if a few weeks ago some nominations I would have predicted for Pinocchio, it's not going to get those. Interesting, because Netflix has moved their... Like, Adapted Screenplay? I mean... Yeah, I don't see... Netflix's going to get Pinocchio

and all quiet in there? Yeah. All right, I want to move on to the Screen Actors Guild Awards, though, because those nominations happened. The big sort of surprising news was that Michelle Williams was not nominated for Best actors. We do see this every year. A big contender who you feel like is probably running like at worst second or third gets snubbed from a acting category. And you're like, oh no, is this, does this mean trouble? And almost always, it doesn't mean trouble. Almost always somebody,

I'm trying to think, who was the person last year who got left off of the list? I feel like this thing you're describing is more common. in supporting categories, than lead categories? I think that's true, but even so, I think even still, like, Christian Stewart was not nominated for SAG last year, and that got everybody thinking, oh, no, she's not going to get nominated for Oscar. The, you know, the gravy train is over, whatever. And she, you know, bounced back.

And I think it's stuff like that, where it's people who you feel like are sort of safely ensconced, and then the SAG nomination doesn't happen. And you're like, oh, no, like this. This is a lot more tenuous. You look at supporting actress last year. They sang nominated Katrina Balfe, Kate Blanchett for Nightmare Alley, Ruth Nega for passing. None of them got Oscar nomination.

So they went a full two for five there. So a sag snub isn't the end of the world for people like Michelle Williams, for people like who else is sort of, I guess the women talking. contenders, Jesse Buckley and Claire Foy, even though I think they're both on real shaky ground in general. Yeah, I don't know.

They're also more likely to throw the surprise nomination to something like Adam Sandler in Hustle for it to just really maybe not have a chance at Oscar. Yeah. Oh, I don't, yeah, I don't think the Adam Sandler thing is going to go anywhere. I will say... I'm thinking about the Adam Sandler thing

this week that I'm like, the Adam Sandler Oscar nomination train is just going to take like 30 years in the oven. Yeah, it'll eventually happen. It definitely will happen. And he probably, I think there's a decent chance that before this is all over on this mortal coil, Adam Sandler will have an Oscar, an Oscar in his hand for acting. I mean, if his nomination happens for Hustle, it's going to be the wildest thing. I will say, I say it won't. But like best actor, that fifth best actor slot is whole wide open and it's but sag is you know way wider membership way more populist membership now that it's sag after uh you have like tick tockers uh god i can't talk about

ticotkers i can't do it i'll get so bad i'll get too mad i will say like sag has been historically way better for netflix movies just in general you know what i mean just like this is a consistent thing so like which is a bad sign for Glass Onion. All the surprise nominees at SAG this year were Adam Sandler, Eddie Redmayne, and Anna da Armis. All three of them are Netflix contenders.

So that's not a surprise to me. They do well with SAG because their availability is so widespread and the SAG membership is way more cross-continental than you think it is. That SAG membership

is not just in Los Angeles and New York. And so I think that's a big reason. I think... Eddie Redmayne, I think, is less of a surprise. Eddie Redmayne has really been getting out there for that movie no one watched. It's true.

And I think it's going to be an Oscar nomination. You said he's going to Jared Leto... I think he's going to... What was the name of that movie that I, like, steadfastly cannot recall its title? The Good Nurse? No. Which I kept calling The Good Doctor until I saw it.

No, the Jared Leto Rami Mollock movie. Oh, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, yeah, I think that's my closest comparison. I think my closest comparison to honor to Armist and blonde is Nicole Kidman in the paper boy in that, like, ultimately, I think the Oscar voters are just going to be like, like, no, thank you. I, I, I kind of disagree. I feel like the two things that I don't want to happen that the SAG nomination kind of confirmed for me are probably going to happen, are Anna da Armis and Hong Chow. I think Hong Chow definitely holds a good chance.

I'm now worried about this PGA nomination for The Whale, but we'll talk about that next week. I want to talk about the SAG ensemble nominations, because it's Babylon, Banshees of Inasharan, everything everywhere, the fablemen's women talking. I think I've been sort of defaulting to the idea that, well, of course, every person. everything everywhere all at once is going to win. But here's what I want to float to you is. I went through the last 10 years of the SAG Awards. The winner for ensemble is almost never the movie with the most individual acting nominations. I've done this tap before, too. You remember the parasite year. I was all in on SAG being the key to everything. Well, and it's only happened

in the last 10 years for three billboards and Birdman. Like, you look at like, even when American Hustle won. American Hustle only had one acting nomination in the... And it was Amy Adams? It was not Amy Adams. It was Jennifer Lawrence. But like Amy Adams, Christian Bale, and Bradley Cooper, who were all Oscar nominated for that movie. None of them were SAG nominated for that movie. So like... What a weird sag year. But like you look at like Coda winning last year only one nomination. When Black Panther won, it had zero acting nominations. When Parasite won, it had zero acting nominations. When Argo won, it had one. It had one.

acting nominations. Spotlight, one acting nomination. Hidden figures, one acting nomination. So I'm not saying that means everything everywhere all at once isn't going to get nominated, but it has four acting nominations, which is like, actually so does banshees of Inasharan. So the two of those are almost like tilting the scales in that way. Do you think that... You don't think Banshees of Inisharon is going to pull a sideways. Well, the thing about banshees of Inisharon is their entire ensemble nomination is just the four

individual performers who were nominated individually. Do you know what I mean? So like, I don't know. I don't know. I think by your logic, you're saying it's the Fableman's

to probably take SAG ensemble. I'm saying don't count the Fablemen's out just because Banshees and everything everywhere have such a, you know, such a seemingly overwhelming advantage. It's not maybe the advantage that people think. well you know I would be very happy to see Jeannie Berlin with a trophy in her hand

100% um although justice for Robin Bartlett who uh apparently not all grandmas just just one in the Fablemans gets nominated but okay also David Lynch being part of that ensemble win would be amazing I am kind of rooting for the Fableman's I do it's it's maybe Fableman's is a top 10 movie I don't have it as high as everything everywhere and banshees but I am sort of rooting for it now because it is a little bit of an underdog for me. And I think people...

It would get my vote in this category. People have been... The people who have been mean to it have been mean to it in a way that I think is unfair. Anyway, we've been talking for 20 minutes. We should probably stop. DGA, though. DGA, DGA, DGA, DGA.

Oh, right. Yeah, I think Joseph Kaczynski getting nominated for Top Gun Maverick is a telling thing and I think it could repeat itself at the Oscars. I think it means nothing. I think it means something. DGA is incredible.

populist. It is not just it is a much wider membership than the Academy Director's branch. I think it means nothing. If I throw in my theory that Todd Field is going to get snubbed for the Oscar in the year all quiet on the Western Front thing, would you give

me odds? Would you give me monetary odds? If I win both of those, if I win both of those. I think you are up a creak about Todd Field not getting nominated for an Oscar, so sure. All right. Okay. How much? Will I give you money?

If I win the Alquiet on the Western Front and the Todd Field as a pair, if I win both of those. I will give another $50 to a charity of your choice, but not to you. Love it. I absolutely love it. All right. Also, DGA, the first time feature director nominations loved those, especially for Alice Diop. It's about time that Alice Diop showed up in first time. feature like prizes yeah

st. Omer has been not doing as well as I thought it was going to do in the precursor season I think it's been I think those those donkeys of EO have really taken the shine for the international feature awards and after Sun has been taking

the debut feature prizes which and I like both of those movies but like after Sun's my best movie the year so like that's I'm not going to complain about that Charlotte Wells highly deserving but yes good good nominations for the first. I always want to see variety and those winners in that cat. I do, unless it's my favorite movie the year. That I just want my favorite

movie to win everything. All right. One last time, though, before we go back to that old man and his gun, you should go to moviegame dot vulture.com and click the link to a landing page there where you can get complete rules and

lists of what's upcoming awards-wise, and then you can look at the leaderboard and see where you sit. I am currently in the 200s, which that's exactly where I want to be. I'm ready to strike. Watch out top 10. I don't know.

And it's 669, three ranking spots away from me being able to say, hail Satan. There you go. Well, that's what I want for you. I want you to go up those three spots. All right. Chris, thank you for this update. And we will go back to Robert Redford. I'm not talking about making a living.

I'm just talking about living. But yeah, back to Old Man in the Gun. There's just, like, so much good craft in this movie, so much good character. There's a scene. I normally, as you know, if you listen to this podcast, I don't talk about the technical aspects of filmmaking a lot, a lot of the times, because I don't really, I don't trust my observations of them. I didn't go to film school. I didn't really, I haven't studied film. I'm not good at that kind of stuff.

You're better at it than I am, though. You are better at noticing things like aspect ratios and filming styles and stuff like that. You just, you are, you are. But I, so I like, I say that only in that, like, I rarely make notes about things like filmmaking style. And yet there is a whip pan montage in this thing while Casey Affleck's character is sort of putting the case together and getting, like, getting his information on Redford that made me write down because I fucking love a whip pan montage.

Like, for as much as I have, like, complicated Paul Thomas Anderson feelings, like, one of the things that I love best is, like, he's made that thing a part of his style. You think about, like, the Magnolia, the whip pan montage when you meet all the different characters. You think about the scene at Jack Horner's house or whatever in Boogie Nights, and I don't know. Mary Margulies with a shotgun. Yeah, so, like, I may not know very much about how to put a movie together from a series of shots, but, like, I fucking love a whippan montage. So, love to David Lowry for that. David Lowry is so great at montages. Like, we've talked about Barry Jenkins being, like, the master of the montage on other shows. Yeah. But David Lowry is actually really good. I mean, like, most of, at least maybe the back half of a

ghost story, is just montage. Yeah. The montage at the end of this movie, which, like, you could maybe say is the climax of the movie, where you see all of his previous jail breaks, is so good. That incorporates a scene from, oh, and I wrote this down too, this, a Redford movie that he had done with Marlon Brando and Jane Fonda, as you can hear my pages, The Chase, 1966 is The Chase, which, okay, get this, the Chase, which I had never really heard about before, even though it's, like, not a big surprise that, like, there's a movie from the 60s that I maybe hadn't heard of, directed by Arthur Penn. script by Lillian Hellman based on a Horton Foot novel starring Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, and then Robert Duval also has a very small role in it. Like, that's fucking stacked. Like, the 60s are so fucking stacked with talent.

It's insane. But, yeah, they pulled a scene, a little clip from that to add to the montage. And again, I'm going to be a broken record about this. Like, totally contributes to this idea of we're watching a movie about, as much about a Robert Redford character as we are about a person who, you know, robbed banks. Do you know what I mean? And I just, I love that conceit.

I think it's so fun. And again, for a 93-minute movie, like, this thing just trucks along. You get a lot of movie out of it. You get some bang for your buck. That is for sure. Yeah. Can we talk about my favorite scene in the movie? Yes.

I can't get too far into this episode without talking about this scene. Which one? I mean, like, watch this movie, and you are convinced that the most romantic thing you can do is steal a bracelet together. Oh, yes. The jewelry shopping scene where it's like he basically gets her to, like, walk out while wearing this bangle from a jewelry store in a mall. Yeah. And the performance that Sissy Spacec gives while they're walking away, and she is figuring out what's happening. And then she is charmed by it and maybe turned on a little bit.

Yeah. And then the guilt that kind of goes across her face, not like, oh, I've done such a horrible thing. But like, no, we need to be reasonable people. And they go back. It's not necessarily what she's done. It's that I'm not the kind of person who's going to steal something. Right. That's not me.

Yeah. As simple as it would be for us to simply keep walking and steal this. No, we're going to go back. Yeah. But when they go back, it's, and she's like fessing up and playing this game of, oh, I'm so stupid, I walked out, I'm sorry, blah, blah, blah. It's still a part of the flirtation with him because she gets him to pay for it, basically, rather than just give it back to the clerk. Yes. And the performance that Sissy SpaceX is giving in this scene is so incredible of not just the, it feels like I don't want to be.

like she's topping him but it's like she is she is like setting forth that like if this is going to be a relationship like we're flirting with these are going to be the terms of what the relationship will be this is the role that I will be playing in it and that will be the role that you are playing yeah and we're going to be these type of people well and it's an extension a little bit of that moment in the diner where he sort of talks about in this like hypothetical, in air quotes, how he would rob this diner, were he to rob this diner? After he tells her, I'm a bank robber, and she's kind of laughing at all. And she's like, oh, this is maybe a joke. This is, you know. It's a bit. It's reminiscent of, honestly, that Thelman

Louise scene where Brad Pitt sort of walks Gina Davis through, how he would rob a bank, and as a way of, you know, flirting, as a way of, you know, almost courtship. And of course, that one is all about this sort of like brash youth and vitality and whatever of that Brad Pitt character. And this one, it's a different vibe because he's, you know, older and he's gentle about it. And he's not... He does still have a hairdryer holster. Right, right. The other scene, though, between Spaceic and Redford, and you're right about the bracelet scene, I think that's the standout.

But there's a scene of the two of them. She lives, her character lives on this horse farm. She raises horses, and they're sitting out there on her porch, sort of looking out into the pasture for the horses, and they're just having this conversation about life. And he talks about how this sort of life philosophy that he has of as long as what he's doing would be that if his 10-year-old self could see the places he's going and the things that he's doing, if that 10-year-old self would be happy. with it, then that's what he feels like he should be doing. And it's one of those things where it's like, oh, I know, you know, what I've seen movies before. I've seen the lead character sort of like lay down his philosophy. And most of the time a movie will accept that at face value and just sort of have a little bit of a reverence for this person because he's got an ethos, right? He's got a he's got a code that he lives by. He's the gentleman, Ben, Robert. And she pushes back on it in a way that I found like really interesting. in a way that doesn't really, like, stand out necessarily for really listening for it. But she says, like, that 10-year-old boy didn't know anything about time or about what life is, essentially. And essentially being, like, you do not have to be beholden to what would this 10-year-old version of myself approve of.

And it's just a really, like, kind of lovely notion about getting older and about, you know, where these characters are now towards the closer towards the ends of their lives. And it's just, it allows her character to engage with him in a way that shows off that she's not just a dupe here, you know what I mean? that she's not just being sort of like taken for a ride, that she has insight, she's, you know, she sees into him better than maybe he's even, you know, prepared to hear about. It's, I don't know, I really like that little moment, good script moment, but also, like,

incredibly well-acted by Spacig. Mm-hmm. I mean, that's partly why I think this movie works is because lesser movies would make her character be, you know, just love interest. But there's so much that makes her a full character and an interesting character and someone we like seeing opposite this bank robber. And also, like, as much as he is not, like, the legend of him is not reduced to the type of stereotype things. I think she never really responds in a way that we would expect her to or the way that movie rules say that she should be responding.

it's always much more complicated and graceful than you would expect her to react. I will also say it's almost by definition the less interesting parts of the movie, but I like the Casey Affleck stuff in this movie too. I think he's really good as the detective and watching him kind of, again, put together this patchwork of stories about Forrest

is really interesting. I don't think that performance calls a ton of attention to itself, which I think is good. I don't think he... I think the movie is also really smart about how much of that story the movie needs to be effective

and doesn't... I think it's a pretty lean part of the movie that all of the Redford stuff feels like it's, you know, breezy and kind of going through the thing... the story at its own pace, but the Affleck stuff is very economical. Well, and in that economy

gets what it needs to do done. And in a way of, like, I really like the scenes with him and Tika Sumpter, who plays his wife, Tika Sumpter, I am obligated to point out a One Life to Live actress who played Layla Williamson. She was Renée Relese Goldsbury's on-screen sister.

So Rennelie's Goldsbury is Evangeline Williamson, who's this, like, phenomenal, hot, awesome lawyer. And her little sister eventually comes to live. But then Evangeline, or maybe this even happens before Layla shows up, Evangeline gets put into a coma. She's at a, there's a gas incident at a nightclub or whatever that was like intentional. and she's overcome by the gas and she's in a coma and like that's how they wrote off Renee Elise Goldsbury when a Renee

Elise Goldsbury is like off to go do Broadway and eventually the good wife's overcome by the gas so Evangeline's in a coma for like years off screen just sort of like she's comatose they eventually I was so mad right as the show was ending they took her off life support and sort of let the

character die and I was like no like have her be like perpetually like maybe she can come back forever even if the show is over but so then Layla eventually, Melissa Fumerro from Brooklyn 9-9 was on the show, and her real-life husband was also a cast member in One Life to Live. And he, David Fomero, had been dating Evangeline on screen. Like, that was her, like, relationship when she eventually went into the coma. And then so years later, then Lela ended up, he ended up being like her, like, one true love.

So, like, she ends up dating her sister's ex. this was after, by the way, she had dated for a while a cop who turned out to be gay, who was played by Chris Evans' real-life gay brother. So, like, Leila had a whole time. She was very fun. I really, so, like, this all explains, like, my loyalty to Tika Sumter. So, like, I root for her as I root for all the One Life Alums.

Soaps and So You Think You Can Dance are the true way to the center of Joe retard. One billion percent, yes. Okay. But back to. like the... Are you sure? Because I could keep telling one life to live stories if you want. So, no kidding. We are not a One Life to Live podcast as much as I'm sure

there are several Gary's that would like us to be. The economy of those stories, I think... Well, also, the Casey Affleck thing, I think that was a lot of people's aversion to this movie at the time in a way that I think people might not be today.

And like he's not in the movie that much too. So it's like you would say that to people would be like, he's barely in the movie. But the economy of what's going on, I think, is so smartly used because if you just have this legend of this guy and no

real, like, contextualization of it, I think the movie's less effective or less interesting. Yeah. Because what the you think that it's a stock you know, cop investigator role, but really what that

character's purpose serves is like, okay, so this legend exists, what am I going to learn from it? Because his whole investigation of Redford's character is ultimately, you know, informing what kind of father he wants to be. And if the movie maybe doesn't go, because like Lizzie Moss is just in one scene of the movie, the movie doesn't really investigate that much of Redford's character as an absentee dad, you know, that at least feels like it's responding to it. Yeah, yeah. But you mentioned Lizzie Moss

and this is probably our good entry point into our six-timers conversation. I like how I just like pass that off. I do. I thought that was very skillful, Christopher. Very smooth. Well done. This is our sixth Elizabeth Moss movie, kind of

unexpectedly because at least half of these movies, she's in it very briefly. Really, I think... We got to Lizzie Moss six. timers before we did a Hurstmell episode. I know. Well, she's, the six movies that we did, she's a lead in none of them, and she's really only a significant supporting character in two of them.

But I almost like these six timers even better, because it's like, it's like we did the Dermit Mulroney six timers, and it's just like, hey, listen. Oh, I can't wait until we get into full character actor six times. John Carol Lynch is coming. John Carroll Lynch is going to be a fun six timers for us. I thought that already happened. No, where are we with John Carol Lynch? on.

I believe he might be hanging out at five. Hold, please. Yeah, John Carroll Lynch is hanging out right now at five, and his next one will be a six-timer, and that will be fun times had by all. Yeah, but Elizabeth Moss, we've done six times we've done Elizabeth Moss movie, starting with Anywhere but Here, then The Missing, then Truth, which she has an actual role of substance, a thousand acres, us where she has a roll of substance, and Old Man in the Gun, which is at least a, like, featured, almost like a featured cameo in this.

She's, what, one of Natalie Portman's friends in anywhere but here, I would imagine. I think so, yeah. She's, I imagine, one of the, like, children in the missing, I don't know. And she's some, one of the characters' daughters in a thousand acres, so. Yeah, she's very young in that. Yes, yes. So six movies, one Elizabeth Moss, Chris, as we do when we reach six times for an actor or actress, I give you a little quiz where the answers are all one or more of those six movies. Are you ready?

I'm very ready. All right. Elizabeth Moss quiz, quiz engaged. Which of those six movies is the longest? The missing. By a good margin, I think. I think the only, it's 137 minutes. I don't think anything else gets out of your low 120s.

Shortest. Old Man in the Gun. Hell yeah. 93 minutes. Old Man the Gun. Bingo, bingo, in and out. Highest domestic box office total. This is also not close.

Us. I didn't realize, and we did an episode on us, and I don't think I lingered on this enough. $175 million. Like, that's... Hell, yeah. Maybe I, like, now that I'm looking at it from the sort of impoverished box office's perspective,

I'm like $175 million for a fully original... This is the thing about nope that, like, people... I feel like people were weirdly shitting on that movie for... It made like 120, and people were like, well, I guess Jordan Peel has a dud. And it's like, are you kidding me? If we weren't in pandemic times, it would be as highest grossing movie. Yes. Yeah. That there's only a $50 million gap between his movies that were released in February

and this movie that was released in July. I'm going to say this right now, and I've... never been more dead serious in my entire life, if there's anybody out there listening who has or will have an Oscar ballot in their hand, Nope for Best Picture. Like, just fucking do it. It deserves it. Do it. Just do it. All right. I don't know if this comes out during the voting period. I don't care. Well, it doesn't come out after the voting period. Like, stick a fucking pin in it. You know what I mean? Just like write yourself opposed it. I think Nope will be an Oscar nominee. For Best Picture? It's on the visual. It's on the

visual effects short. It will be an Oscar nominee, but I mean, it deserves to be a best picture nominee. Make it fucking happen. We agree. It's in both of our top ten. Lowest domestic box office total of those six movies. The old man of the gun. No. Oh. It outgrossed at least one. Oh, truth. Truth. Truth. Two point five million for truth. The highest Rotten Tomato score is actually a tie between two movies. I would imagine it's us and the old man in the gun. Correct. Us and the Old Man and the Gun, both 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. Actually, I'm a little surprised that Us is that high because some people really don't like that movie. But I think that kind of seeped out a little bit later. I think the initial reaction to us was very positive.

Lowest Rotten Tomatoes. The missing? Nope. Thousand acres. A thousand acres. 24%. Which is, like, I remember that movie being not well reviewed, but 24% is, although I feel like because of older movies, movies is working with fewer reviews, the extremes are easier. A 24% then is like a 55% now.

Right. Yeah, you've got to be really, really bad to get a 24% now. You've got to be, like, shockingly bad. You've got to be Morbius. Well, Morbius 15. But yeah. Which movie shares a cinematographer with Everest? Everest.

Which I guess is the next Katie Rich movie. Apparently. We've laid it down. Okay, so Who Isn't that movie directed by like Timor

Balcasar Hold on I'll look up Are you thinking of Timor Bikmobatov? Yes, Bikambatov I don't think it is It is directed by

Baltazar Kormacour Ah Different Different director whose name sounds like he's a vampire But yes You really need to do another do another spelling bee, which if we ever

If we ever gather live shows, I've pitched to you, it should be like a game show, and we will do a spelling bee at it. You would have had so much fun at the spelling bees that we did at I would want to be announcing it with you. I don't want to play.

I want to fuck with people. Well, I would, Griffin Newman doing the sample sentences for the spelling bee was like half of the fun of that thing. He was so much fun. God bless you. All right. We could all three come up with something.

Is it the missing? It is the missing. Salvatore Totino. Those are at least the two most similar type of things. He's the cinematographer, like Robert Richardson? Salvatore Totino. Great. Of pizza rolls fame, let's just say, maybe.

Let's put that fiction out there. Salvatore Totino did the cinematography for the missing and then invented pizza rolls. Cinematography is his hide hustle. Yes, exactly. Which movie shares a cinematographer with The Silence of the Lambs? That is Tak-Fujimoto, which... Did Tak-Fugimoto shoot us? No.

No. Did Tak-Futimodo shoot 1,000 acres? No. Fuck. Anywhere but here? Yes. Tak-Fujimoto shot anywhere but here, which is very... I guess it makes...

I forget that that movie was directed by Wayne Wang, who was, like, an auteur of some distinction. So, like, it's not a shot. shocker that, like, Tak Fujimoto, and then, like, Danny Elfman does the score. And, like, but anywhere but here does somewhat seem like a little bit of a sitcom-y movie, a little bit. Anyway, and I do like it, but yes. Which three movies were Golden Globe nominated for acting? Oh, okay.

Thousand Acres. Yes, Jessica Lang. Which one? No, Us was not, because I think Lupido was not nominated for that, but she can, got nominated at SAG. Old Man in the Gun, obviously. Correct, Robert Redford. And anywhere but here?

Correct. Natalie Portman was nominated for Anywhere but here. Which film was released in Aries season? So March, April. That is... Well, us is February. Is it a thousand acres? No. Is it us?

Us was March. Us was late March. All other movies on this list were autumn movies, were September through November. Which movie played the Berlin Film Festival in the year after it was released in the United States? The Missing. The Missing, correct. Which two movies feature stars of annihilation? Anywhere of it here.

Yes, Natalie Portman. And, um, okay, so, Tessa Thompson, Gina Rodriguez, Oscar Isaac, Jennifer Jason Lee, a thousand acres. Thousand acres, Jennifer Jason Lee. Very good. Insert, Annihilation. Sound drop.

Annihilation. Which two movies feature stars of Black Klansman? Old Man in the Gun. Old Man of the Gun, which features actually two different actors from Black Klansman, because it's John David Washington and also Isaiah Whitlock, Jr. is also Yes. Oh, by the way, Isaiah Whitlock Jr. apparently plays the same character as he plays in Pete's Dragon in this movie. So this movie exists in a universe where dragons are real. He does that a lot because isn't his character in 25th hour plausibly his, if not his character from the wire, but like pretty much, like, sort of his character from the wire? I feel like there's connections in his career. Isaiah Whitlock Jr. legend. Anyway.

Who else is in Black Klansman? It's got to be a character actor. Um... Is it a thousand acres? It's not a thousand acres. Uh... It's not Tim Heidecker, is it? Is it us?

It's not a bad guy. He's conceivable to play a... 100%. 100%. No offense to Tim Heidegger, but like, yeah, we can see it. Oh, no, it's Tofer Grace. It's truth. It is Tofer Grace, who plays David Duke.

in Black Klanzman is in truth. Yes. Which is the only one of those six movies not to be based on a book? Us. Fully original screenplay, us. Which was the only one of those movies based on a book written by the namesake

of a Simpsons character? Okay. The Missy? Not The Missing. A thousand acres. No. That's Jane Smiley, I believe, is her name. Oh, my God.

Anywhere but here. Anywhere but here, based on a book written by Mona Simpson, which is the name of Homer's mother in the Simpsons. Oh, got it. Got it, got it, got it. All right, which movie got exactly three Saturn Awards nominations? Us? No, Us had...

Probably a bunch. Eight Saturn nominations. The Missing nominated in... Wait, I've got this. Best Action Adventure Thriller Film. Best Actress and Best Performance by a Younger Actor That was for Jenna Boyd. Which movie released the same weekend as Goose Bumps?

That's like October. Old Man in the Gun? No. Okay. Really? Yeah. Truth? Truth.

Goose bumps, 2015. Wow. Goose bumps is older than I thought. That's why I asked the question. I thought it was a little bit of an instruct. Which movie released the same weekend? is the Tiffany Haddish comedy night school. Old Man in the Gun.

That's Old Man in the Gun. Had you made note of that when you looked at its box office? Yeah, I remember being like, oh, night school. We all remember night school, don't we? Which movie released the same weekend as The Myth of Fingerprints? Anywhere but here. No. A thousand acres.

Have you ever seen The Myth of Fingerprints? I have. The movie were famously barred. Art Freundlich met Julianne Moore, and that's where their whirlwind romance and marriage began. No, I've never seen The Myth of Fingerprints. So it's on my list of – I want to do a movie-watching project where I watch all of the late 90s, the blank of blank movies, the weight of water, the myth of fingerprints. There's a lot of them. Stay tuned.

I'll do a letterbox list. Which movie was in Peter Travers' Rolling Stone Review compared unfavorable. to the slums of Beverly Hills. Anywhere but here. Anywhere but here. Yes, correct. Of which film did Janet Maslin of the New York Times say, think obsessive-compulsive Lady Macbeth or Ophelia with an eating disorder,

and you have an idea of just how simplistic that seems? A thousand acres. A thousand acres, famously based on King Lear. Which film did the Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan call, a puckish film with a wistful quality, a gently comic end-of-the-line adventure about doing what you love, the passage of time, and the things that might have been. The old man in the gun.

The old man in the gun. Congratulations. You have passed the Elizabeth Moss Six-Timer's quiz. Well done, Chris. Thank you. It's a good quote from Tehran. That's why I wanted to end on it. Like, that's...

He's not wrong. He's not wrong. Very, very well put. Do we want to talk about the National Board of Review, Chris? Okay, so this movie made the National Board of Review's top 10 best independent movies. Because it's a searchlight joint. Which is normally a list that does not yield, I would say, the most interesting options. Why do you think that is?

Why do you think their independent movie list isn't really very good? I don't think their taste is that adventurous. I want to look up what there was, there's, uh, were, for this year. What their top ten was this year? This year it was Armageddon Time, which I like, Emily the Criminal, which I like, Eternal Daughter, which is your number one movie of the year. Funny

Pages, which I was sort of underwhelmed by after the hearing good things about it. The inspection, which I liked and you really liked. Living, which I liked and you really liked. A love song, Dale Dickey, supremacy. Nanny, the

Sundance Award winner. To Leslie, which is The Andrea Riseborough Surprise Independent Spirit Award nominee that I hadn't heard of until the Independent Spirit Award nominations. And then The Wonder, which is the Florence Pugh movie that we didn't really love when we saw it at Tiff. That's not a bad list, I will say. It's not a bad list, but like even some of those feel like you might be fudging it a little bit. They're not digging incredibly deep is what you're saying. Is that what you're saying?

No. No. The year that old man in the gun is on that top ten, it does feel like, it feels like half. of that and half not List it off Okay, here's the list Lean on Pete Leave No Trace

Minasha Mid-90s Searching Sorry to bother you The Death of Stalin Old Man in the Gun The Rider We The Animals

And you were never really here I think something like Mid-90s and searching Being on there Are kind of what you raise your eyebrow With Yeah Because, like, searching played.

But, yeah, searching, I saw it in a, like, in a multiplex. I saw it, like, a regal cinemas. I mean, they made it on the cheap, but, like, that was a movie released by Sony. Yeah, yeah. But, like, what I'm saying is, like, something like Manasha, which is a great movie that nobody saw, that, like, they were the only ones riding hard for Manasha. Yeah. We The Animals was great, and I feel like that was a movie that was embraced by a lot of queer critics and, like, couldn't. you just couldn't get other people to watch it.

Yeah. I believe that was released by the orchard rested piece. Yeah. I think that was the orchard. Did you know that the guy who directed We the Animals, directed that Adam Sandler basketball movie? Hustle? I, same, but like that's surprising to me.

It makes it less surprising that people thought Hustle was good, though, because We The Animals is a really good movie. So, like, that's- I was so excited to see that director's next movie. and then I was like, I don't want to see that. Yeah. Well, Jeremiah Zagar make another movie, and we will see that one.

Not about sports. But even like... I will watch a sports movie. I just don't love an Adam Sandler movie. That's fine. Right. I mean, like, I suppose, you know, old man in the gun seems like maybe the more

quintessential choice for them to make here, but it does feel like a lot of these movies they selected were along the lines of advocating for smaller movies that really didn't get much mentioned throughout the rest of the season. Yeah. Which, like, how are they going to know that Manasha is not going to get, you know, attention? Or Leon Pete is not going to get attention.

I will say. They come out first. But given that, almost as a caveat, like, you're not wrong about that. They could, I think the Independent Spirit Awards, at least in their nominations, often go deeper in terms of digging out movies that maybe you haven't heard of. But, like, just in terms of quality. And a lot of this is the NBR sort of casting as wide and that as possible, which is like their thing. That's the thing that they do.

And I celebrate them for that. But like I loved Death of Stalin. Lean on Pete's a really good movie. I loved Leave No Trace. I loved The Rider. Loved weathing animals. Really like, sorry to bother you. I think I was like more positive unsorry to bother you than a lot of other people were.

And then I don't ever want to think about you or never really here. Because it was so unpleasant. You never really here, I think, is a really good movie, but it's, I think, not even close to being Lynn Ramsey's best movie. And then mid-90s, I never saw. It was the other one. It's horrible. Yeah. Is that the kid from something else, though, that I've seen?

I think it's the kid from killing of a sacred deer. There it is. Right. If I'm remembering correctly. I think you're right. I think you're right about that. But that's really... The Old Man in the Gun doesn't really show up a ton of award season beyond that, and then the Redford nomination at the Golden Globes.

So who were the other nominees that year? Remind me. He's nominated in Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, up against Christian Bale, who wins for Vice. I totally forgot that Christian Bale won, even though it, like, makes total sense that he did. It makes absolute sense. Lin-Manuel Miranda was nominated for Mary Poppins Returns, also a nomination that makes total sense. Vigo Mortensen nominated for Green Book, which I forgot they ran Green Book in a comedy, which, like, for what that movie is attempting to do, I don't disagree, so... Right. It's a little surprising, actually, that Vigo doesn't beat out Bale, even though Bail is doing that, like, classic, like, mimicking a famous person thing.

So, like, it's not surprising. But, like, Green Book had the better trajectory that year. And I think it wins the Golden Globe for Best Musical or Comedy. And the fifth nominee, movie that we had forgotten, the second it left theaters. And I think... I did see it in a theater, though, this movie. Well, it was shortlisted for makeup. Yes.

But I don't think was nominated is Stan and Ollie? Not a bad movie. I don't think it's something that I would, like, put up. my year-end list. But, like, I remember thinking, like, yeah, not a bad movie. Good for John C. Riley. John C. Riley and Steve Coogan, right? That was the pair? Yes. Yes. I mean, Robert Redford should have walked away with this globe. I think so. I absolutely think so. And also, again, we talked to, we referred a little bit earlier in the podcast to, like, he has this amazing star power. And yet, for somebody with this kind of,

incredible star power, you would think that he would have been more... It's not exactly a celebrated actor. More lauded. Right. He got the Oscar for directing ordinary people. Did he get any other directing nominations? Was he nominated for directing Quist Show? He was. Okay. Quist Show. Quist Show's great. I love Quist Show. His only acting nomination was for The Sting. Famously. Yes. Which is wild. I mean, he, in that way, he's... It's not a one-to-one to Harrison Ford. But Harrison Ford is also, because, you know, obviously Robert Redford has a directing Oscar.

Yeah. But Harrison Ford only has his one nomination for Witness, which is something I don't think people always remember. But even I don't, I have to be reminded that Robert Redford was only nominated once for acting. And I think that that maybe you, I almost want to say it speaks to why his late career movies that feel like. you know could be a thing like this all is lost is all lost um right don't eventually happen for him but it feels like these movies are sold as him being one of our most celebrated actors or one of our most beloved actors and while i think that's true for audiences it doesn't seem to be true for the industry well you even look at the golden globes which i just checked on this

awards tab because surely the Golden Globes, the star fuckers that they are, would have nominated a big movie star like Robert Redford more. And really, most of his nominations there are for directing. He's been nominated for directing four times at the Globes. For ordinary people, a river runs through it, quiz show, and the Horse Whisperer. But has only been nominated for acting really twice for all is lost an old man in the gun and was one most promising new for Inside Daisy Clover in 1965, but like not even nominated for The Sting at the Globes, not nominated for, look at all of these movies that had either are well regarded or had awards attention or both in his career, like Barefoot in the Park, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance

Kid, the sting, obviously, but like the way we were, you know what I mean? How is that not a Golden Globe nomination? That's the best picture nominee, right? Right, I'm pretty sure. Stryzand was nominated for that, I think. All the president's men, you know what I mean? And then the natural, which gets nominated for Glenn Close, for essentially standing in the middle distance, but not for Robert Redford. Out of Africa.

Best Picture winner, you know what I mean? Obviously, I feel like, why do you have a best actor in a musical or comedy category, if not to nominate Robert Redford in sneakers, I ask you? Tremendous. You know what I mean? there are things that like, you know, I don't think his performance in up close and personal

is Oscar worthy, but like weird that that didn't get an Oscar nomination, or a Golden Globe nomination rather. And then you sort of look into sort of like his later stuff, and it's a lot of like, you know, truth or Pete's Dragon where it's like you could see a world in which

a supporting campaign could have been sort of crafted around beloved actor Robert Redford. But that's never really been his vibe. And I wonder if And he's also such an industry guy, but his industry guy, mess, is very much this idea of independent film, right? He moved out to Park City. He created the Sundance Institute, all this sort of thing.

And maybe it's as just basic as like he doesn't do the Hollywood thing as much as you would expect him to. You know what I mean? Given his statue. I mean, that seems more likely than I think the other thing that I've seen bandied about by him is that he's, was seen as a pretty boy actor and... Well, in his early career, I could definitely see. Right. Talented.

But, like, that's... If it's true of Robert Redford, it's interesting that it's not true of other people, like Warren Beatty. Like, Warren Beatty has four acting nominations. Never won for acting, but... But Warren Beatty hustles. You know what I mean?

And I bet you that, like, plays a part in it. Warren Beatty threatened people within an inch of their life. Right. But, like, you, like, you saw even a little bit about, it in you and I both watched and very much loved the last movie stars. We're talking about how Newman and that series

talked a lot about the ways in which Newman sort of saw himself as lesser than to a certain degree to other people. But in the dynamic with Newman and Redford in all the movies that they were in together and whatnot that Newman was seen

as the actor. He had done theater. He had done the actor studio and all the sort of stuff. And Redford was seen as the pretty movie star. And, but like, yeah, even, even under that, under the guise of that, it's still a little strange, especially because, okay, this is a comparison I didn't think I was going to make until just now as it's about to trip outside my mouth. Is it not a little bit Ben Affleck-esque in terms of, well, Ben Affleck, though, was snubbed for the

directing nomination for Argo. But, like, that almost seems like an accident. Ben Affleck also had a reputation for being an asshole that I don't know if Robert Redford ever had some type of negative. I'm just talking about in terms of for somebody whose films have been respected as much as Affleks. Like, you would think, like, he'd been, he would have gotten an acting nomination by now.

Do you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Because the Argo directing snub really genuinely does feel like an accident. And I think we've talked about it before about. about how like the awards timeline that year was a little bit weird and I think that contributed to it. But anyway, and that eventual best director lineup does feel like a lot of people, like whatever was in the water that year was people throwing their support behind a number of unlikely potential. Michael Hanukkah and Ben Zitland specifically. You see previous winners and recent winners not get nominated that year despite Best Picture nominations.

and it feels very much like they thought those people were safe or they thought, you know, you've already won yours. Well, and by the time then the Oscars happen for Affleck, we're really going for our field. We'll get back to Red for a second. By the time the Oscars happen, it still feels like the kind of vibe you would have for a celebrated actor director, right? By that time he wins Best Picture, you realize that, like, oh, if he had been nominated in Best Director, he would have 100% won Best Director. Well, I think it's not a bad comparison, and it's not a bad line to draw because I think when you see these actor-directors, you know, or these people we know for acting who eventually move to directing and it gets awards buzz or, you know, before anybody has seen a movie, I think, you know, Robert Redford is always the name that is thrown out as the case example of. why the academy likes it or proof that the academy, you know, respects that, you know, Redford feels very much like the first name that has always thrown out as, you know, evidence.

The way we were, by the way, not nominated for Best Picture, but it was nominated for six other Academy Awards, including Best Actress for Barbus Streisand. Yes. FYI. Can we talk a little bit? about the 1980s Oscars, though, since that's when the Sissy Spaceac and Robert Red won their Oscars? That was the year that

Ordinary People won Best Picture. Somewhat, I remember certainly... Controversially. I think more so when I was younger, but maybe it's because I know more people now who stick up for ordinary people, and maybe that's just

I'm talking about my friend Chris Schlecker, but like other... Who is the biggest ordinary people stand that I know. Ordinary people But beat out Raging Bull Yeah

And a lot of people talk about When they talk about Especially before Scorsese won his Oscar When they talk about the great Scorsese Snubs He lost two actor-turned directors He lost to first Robert Redford For Ordinary People

With Raging Bull And then Goodfellas lost Two Dances with Wolves And Kevin Costner And that was An interesting little Awards footnote for sure But I think now people have come around more on ordinary people.

Ordinary people is one of those movies that I still haven't seen because I'm waiting for the optimal way to see it. And I really should just, as I did with Casablanca, just be like, I'm just going to watch this movie rather than like waiting for the optimal, you know, repertory screening or something like that. I'm just going to fucking watch it. It hasn't always been the most available. No, it hasn't changed. I mean, I think it's pretty regularly on Paramount Plus. And I think it just got a Blu-ray release. I mean, it's a good movie.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I am also, I'm more frustrated by like the lingering, like, the misogyny that people don't realize they speak about that movie with than I am with, like, people frustrated that Raging Bull didn't beat it for Best Picture. It's interesting that you say misogyny because, like, it's... People hate that Mary Tyler Moore character, and it's so unfair. But it's like, it's still seen as Robert Redford's accomplishment. You know what I mean? It's like still seen as like the accomplishment of a male director.

What I'm saying is I get more frustrated by the way people still talk about her character. Sure, sure, sure. That's what I mean. Sure. Yeah. But that's an interesting best picture lineup that is ordinary people, Raging Bull, we mentioned, Cole Miner's daughter, which is basic wins for best actress for playing Loretta Lynn. That is a best picture nominee as well.

the Elephant Man, which is David Lynch's first Best Director nomination, is Best Picture Nominee, and then Roman Polanski's Tess, which we're all dying to talk about. So of all of those movies, only Cole Miner's Daughter doesn't get the corresponding Best Director nomination. Richard Rush for The Stunt Man, which is also an odd Peter O'Toole nomination. Best Actor nomination. Yeah. But, like, these acting categories are pretty stacked. You look at Best Actor.

De Niro wins for Raging Bull, but, like, also nominated is, like, Duval, John Hurt, Jack Lemon, Peter O'Toole. That's just, like, all-killer, no filler. Best actress is Sissy Spacec beating out Ellen Burstyn, Mary Tyler Moore, Jenna Rollins for Gloria, Goldie Hawn for Private Benjamin. Goldie Hawn's only other nomination, right, after Cactus Flower, I think, is Private Benjamin? I think that's true. I think that's right. These are, like, stacked, stacked categories full of actress and stars.

Have you ever seen Resurrection? No, I keep hearing. Keep hearing. Like, it's a, like, it's a movie that everybody's, on everybody's lips. But, like, I've heard many, many people say it's worth watching. If you, it's, it's not, I don't think it's a good movie by any stretch. But, like, if it existed in the world without a best actress nomination, it would just be a movie. Yeah. It is the strangest movie. She's, like, clairvoyant. It is the strangest movie to net acting nominations. This is why the 80s are wild, though, because the 80s have a few movies like this, especially in Best Actress, when really that idea that, like, Oscar movies are so slanted towards men really kind of does present itself a lot in the 1980s where movies like Resurrection or like Jane Alexander getting nominated for Testament or. That's one I want to see. Or what does he does? There's like Jessica Lang getting nominated for Country,

or Redgrave getting nominated for the Bostonians, or Jane Fonda getting nominated for the morning after. Do you know what I mean? Where it's like these great actresses who are in movies that are otherwise not these big Oscar plays, right? Pauline Collins for Shirley Valentine, another movie, which I need to finally see. Sissy Spaceac was probably a,

always going to win though she'd previously been nominated for carry yes uh and was probably like already like maybe seen as a little bit overdue between like carry and like she's not nominated for badlands but like by the time 1980 comes around she's seen as this like premier actress and she's also playing a beloved real life country music star and loretta lynn and it's a good movie also like cole miner's daughter's a good movie like it's not like it's this like cheap biopic win. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's a really good movie. And I mean, I think that movie was a pretty big hit too.

Probably. I immediately watched Carrie after I finished Old Man in the Gun last night. Oh, wow. Nice. And it's so interesting that most of her nominations do come from the 80s because I think we think of her as a quintessential 1970s actress. Yeah. God, I wish she was

getting more right now than these like they seem like bargain basement TV. shows, but she does do work in TV. I wanted to talk about that. I know some people like them. I'm going to talk about that. Because the same year

as Old Man in the Gun, she stars in the first season of Castle Rock, which was the Hulu series based on Stephen King's sort of greater universe of work. She plays a character named Ruth Deaver who

has dementia, but really you find out sort of later in the season that she's sort of unstuck in time, and she's going through, you know, various times in her life and can't really articulate herself, and there's this one episode where it all sort of comes together. And it's really, really powerful. She gives a phenomenal performance. It uses that piece of music from Arrival, the Max Richter piece of music from Arrival that makes me cry. So I always highly recommend at least that episode, which you probably can't watch an isolation because

so much of it depends on realizing what else has been going on the whole season. But she's tremendously good in that. And that show, for a lot of reasons, was like never really on Emmy's radar. And it's too bad because like she 100% would have deserved a sort of, the kind of, I mean, nomination that you get for being a very long-standing, well-respected actor, but it would have been super, super, super well-deserved. Meanwhile, the one

that she has been in that I think people have forgotten about now, and for good reason, it was still running by the time people forgot about it, was Bloodline. Bloodline, yes. Which, I mean, she started out really good in, much like the show starts out really good and promising, and quickly

devolves into dog shit. Yeah. And I abandoned ship on that show. How far did you get into Bloodline? I never watched Bloodline. It was interesting. When I was at Decider, somebody else sort of covered that for us. But it was one of those shows that was like a bigger hit than people realized, even though

you can never trust Netflix when they say stuff's a hit. But like, that was one of those shows where I would talk to people when I would go home for the holidays and whatever. And people would be like, you watch that show Bloodline. I really like that show Bloodline. And it's just like, huh, okay. I mean, like, Ozark basically, you know. took that ball and ran with it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's also currently on, I think the show is still, no, it was canceled after its first season, Night Sky, the prime video show Night Sky that she and J.K. Simmons is. They pushed that really hard. I guess nobody watched it. Yeah. And she did a season of Homecoming, too. Right. Another show no one watches. Which season of Homecoming was that? I liked Homecoming a lot. I think she was on that first season.

She was Julia Roberts' mother. It was the 2018 season, which I think is the first. Homecoming, one of the, the early proponents of the half-hour drama, which I will stand by. I love the idea of a half-hour drama. I really enjoyed especially that first season. I'm not sure if I stuck with that second season as much.

But I in general enjoyed that one for what it was. Again, I have to grandstand and say Cissy Spacex should have been cast as Violet Weston in August Ossage County. Oh, there you go. Had she been, it would have been a good movie. Well, so says Chris Fisle. There we go. She could have played Julia Roberts' mother again, then, for that.

Let's make the profit. Yeah. I'm trying to think of, like, recent movies from, like, the post-2000s era that she's in. Like, obviously, like, she has a good laugh at the shit pie and the help, and... Is Charlize's mother in North Country? Is that right? Possibly. I think so.

And then, of course, we talked about A Home at the End of the World, which is not a movie that a ton of people saw, but we both liked her very much in that. But yeah, in the bedroom does definitely feel like an Oscar nomination that was not capitalized upon in the ensuing years. I do, yeah, I would agree. And especially because she was probably second place. that was such a close. She would won the Golden Globe. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Oh, God. And she's amazing in it. I think in, representationally, I don't think we would trade that Hallie Berry Oscar win for anything. But qualitatively, Spacic gives the better performance of the two of them. I mean, I think representationally, we would probably give a black actress, best actress, a lot earlier than Holly. Barry. Well, certainly, but I mean, given to what the realities were at the time. Do you know what I mean? I mean, Monstrous Ball is such a deep cringe. Yeah, it is. It is. But we love Holly Barry. And it's a great Oscar moment. And sometimes if something's a great Oscar moment, I'm, and Cissy Spaceic has an Oscar already. So like, she's doing fine. But had I had a vote and were I voting purely on a performance? months Sissy Spacic would have had my vote. Yeah, I don't, I'd have to go back and look at everything, but I don't think that there's any Oscar that it's nominated for

that I wouldn't give in the bedroom. Yeah, a tremendous movie. Tremendous movie. What? Maybe Todd Fields best if you ask me. What about David Lowry? What do we want to say about David Lowry before we start wrapping things up? I mean...

Such an exciting director. Really? like we've said, all of his movies feels so different. I really love him as a director. Lovely person to talk to. I talked a little bit about this when we had Katie on

talking about, I interviewed him for Old Man of the Gun, in fact, and was just incredibly sweet and accommodating and a good conversationalist and makes me want to root for him. The only movie, really, of those directing, I've never seen St. Nick, which was

his feature debut. But I've seen all those others. The only one I don't love, honestly, is Ainth and Body Saints. And even Ath & Body Saints, I can look at that and be like, there is skill present here. There is good work being done. I appreciate it for what it's reaching for. I just... But, like, I really love Pete's Dragon.

I really love a ghost story. I really love Old Man the Gun. I really love The Green Knight. And that all bodes very well for Peter Pan and Wendy, I would say. I honestly, I loved Pete's Dragon so much that it gives me so much optimism to a movie that have absolutely no optimism for otherwise, which is Peter Pan and Wendy, which, A, we don't need another Peter Pan movie. B, Disney Plus Original, get out of town. Disney live action remake. I know. Absolutely not. Elevator straight to hell. I know. And, but like, I'll still watch

that movie because his Pete's Dragon is so good. It feels so far removed from the quick cash grab, which, no shocker, it didn't make that much money, of the Disney Live Action remake things. Yeah. Also, I will say, not not excited for Jude Law as Captain Hook. Like, he's going to do something fun. I would have to agree. He's going to be fun. So there's that.

Now I'm looking up to see who the kids are because I was like, oh, those kids are probably somebody's kids. And yes, in fact, Wendy is played by the daughter of Miele Jovovich and Paul W.S. Anderson, and Peter is not the son of any famous people, as far as I can tell. Okay. But yes. The thing you said about my repeated line

of every variant of COVID COVID brings a new Pinocchio movie. No. Peter Pan movies caused the pandemic. The last movie I saw in theaters before the pandemic, everything shut down for the pandi. was Ben Sightland's Wendy.

That's true. God, I thought you were just being mean, but no, you're actually... People don't remember that movie. I never saw it because I didn't want to have... What a failure. I want the best for Ben Zitland, and I didn't want to watch a movie and hate it. It makes you almost respect, like, want to treasure Beast of the Southern Wild a little bit more, because it's like... It's very clear that it's like, well, this is just how this guy makes movies, but Beast of the Southern Wild is the case where,

all of the things that are the things that he does go well. Everything goes well. And Wendy is the version where nothing goes well. Because it's like, the kid performances are bad. The optics of it feel very cringy. Like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, is this new version of Peter Pan and Wendy, what are they doing to evade the Tiger Lily situation? Are they just... I don't think there's a Tiger Lily, based off of these credits.

I think I see I think there is. I think I had seen something that there is a tiger lily in this. Well, there is a tiger lily. Yes. Well, we can hope that it's a native actress. Yes. But even still, there's the characterization does need to have some finessing, I would say.

But yes. I mean, my guess, honestly, is because this will be a Disney Plus original, is that people will watch it the day of and then forget about it immediately after, unfortunately, even though it's David Lowry. But if it keeps getting his movies funded, we are fine with it. Because, like, David Lowry, I was just talking about this, or maybe we just, like, brought it up, a friend and former guest, Kyle Amato. David Lowry is, like, the one person that it's worked for, right? Where it's, like, you go and you do a Disney or Marvel movie. And then you can make whatever independent movie you want.

It's David Lowry, and it hasn't worked for it. anyone else that I can think of immediately. I mean, you're putting me on the spot, so I can't, I can't jump off of that exactly, but it definitely did work for them. If you could think of anybody else that it worked for, that they went and they made their own small movie, get out of Sinarminches. See, now you're distracting me before we get into IMDB game. I'm sorry, I did not.

That was not my intention. Well, before we do that, I want to go through my notes and see. if there's anything else that I've forgotten to mention. I also thought towards like the mid, towards like last summer, I thought I saw rumors that David Lowry was doing a secret movie, but I could be wrong. Well, that was a ghost story, right? A ghost story kind of came out of nowhere.

Well, yeah, a ghost story, nobody knew that it happened. So maybe he's doing it again. Right after Pete's Dragon. But I thought that there was at least rumors that it was happening again. Oh, yeah, I bring up a ghost story because like he does, he can do that. Like, that's in his repertoire. Right. And David Lowry could absolutely, you know, continue to do things like that.

Yeah. So it's like David Lowry is the Beyonce of movies. The only other thing I haven't mentioned is that they call, well, we haven't talked about, and I want to do it briefly, how much I love Tom Waits in this movie. Tom Waits and Danny Glover are part of what they call the Over the Hill Gang in the media at the time, are calling this little group of senior citizen bank robbers, which made me, of course think of the old lady gang

from the Real Housewives of Atlanta Candy's mother and her aunts her terrifying meddling mother and aunts who run the little restaurant down at Atlanta

called the old lady gang anyway I love Tom Waits so much every time I see Tom Waits in a movie I always just sort of I know I am in for a very interesting and very singular character This is a guy who gargled stones as a baby, I think,

because he has always had a voice like this. His parents were a piece of gravel and a strip of sandpaper, and we love him for that. But when he's in like, you know, Altman movies or whatever, or like as Renfield in Bram Stoker's Dracula, he's, I don't know. Oh, who he's in, isn't he the devil in, uh, uh, uh, imaginarium of Dr. Parnassas or sort of a devilish figure, I want to say, I fucking love him. He's great. He's great in this. Great as a, uh, sort of a Robert Redford bestie. So, shoutouts to Tom Waits and Danny Glover. That's all I got. What else do you have? Um, I mean, I could give you 3,000 words on that bracelet. scene again. It's pretty good.

I like the... Oh, M for Gs. We haven't mentioned the M for Gs of it all. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It got two movies for grown-up nominees. Obviously, Redford in Best Actor. Vigo Mortensen won that for Green Book. I think that's the one thing he won all season for that awful movie.

Hugh Jackman from the frontrunner, John C. Riley again for Stan and Ollie, and Willem DeFoe at Eternity's Game. gate. Okay, that nomination, this is why we need to consider them a major precursor. Everybody said that that Defoe nomination was out of left field, but no, no, no, no, no. There was the M for G's. Apparently watching their Julian Schnappel. Setting the agenda for all the M4Gs in 2018. Yeah. It was nominated for Best Grown Up Love Story. I think it should have won. What's a better grown-up love story than this? Like, for God's sake. right well okay so there is one other movie that yeah this movie because it feels so romantic and so

flirty and such i agree i would maybe still give it the win but there is one other movie we'll get to it what they had is the winner the blythe dana dementia movie i had to look up what that movie was because i have absolutely forgotten it Hillary swank i think right it's not a bad movie um from what i remember it's just a very nondescript title what they had when especially when it's nominated alongside All Is True, which is another sort of like, you know, short words. It's a not bad to mid movie that has some stuff going for it. Okay. Also nominated

All Is True. Previous Episode, All Is True, on the basis of sex and then private life. A movie we could eventually do. We should. We both love it so much. Tamara Jenkins. One of my favorite filmmakers, even though she's only made three movies. Yeah.

We've mentioned two of them already in this podcast, because we mentioned slums of Beverly Hills earlier. Yeah. Shout out to The Savages, so we can name all three. The Savages has been chilling on HBO Max for a while, which is great, because it hasn't always been super available. I should watch it again. I should commemorate my return to Buffalo with watching Savages again, because, of course, that's set in Buffalo. Perfect movie. Bucking Perfect movie.

Garys, please watch The Savages. All right. Um, I guess what else do I want to say? I like the way that, you know, it doesn't feel like there's not closure to the love story, but like the love story feels like there's still story there when the movie leaves you, but like the movie leaves with, you know, he could spend the rest of his life with Sissy Spacec, but he ends up going and robbing four banks in a day and gets arrest. I know.

The movie leaves you with when he's arrested, he had a smile on his face. Yeah. And I think ultimately the movie feels like it's doing this character study of someone who maybe has a pathology or, you know, a compulsion towards a certain type of behavior or a certain type of evasion in a way. Yeah. Of avoiding, you know, having a normal life. But it doesn't ever feel like it comes down too hard on anything to try to. to pathologize the character study that it's doing. Yeah.

I agree. In a way that I think the movie's better for. Good movie. You know what? Good movie. I'm just going to say it. I'm just going to say it. Good movie.

Good movie that people should, if they have seen it and did not have amazing things to say about it, they should revisit it and see if they are. And if you haven't seen it, get to that because you will not regret. Step to it. Joe, would you like to move on to the IMDB game? Yes, let's. Would you like to explain the IMDB game?

Yes, why don't I? Every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game, where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try and guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for. If any of those titles are television, voice-only 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-of-hints.

All right. Would you like to give her guests first? I'll give first. Who do you have for me? So I know you sometimes get annoyed with me when I give you a choice, but I'm going to give you a choice because between either doing somebody who we've done before but has a different, they're known for is different than it was when we did them. Or somebody who is harder. but a really interesting, like a very quirky known for in what it is composed of. I'm going to take the latter, because if I take the first one,

I feel like there's a strong possibility I could remember what their IMDB used to be. Okay, all right. And that feels like cheating. Okay. Then I will hold on to that other one for maybe when we have a guest. Okay. So we've talked about the great Pete's Dragon, one of the start. of that movie is

Bryce Dallas Howard. So I'm going to have you guess Bryce Dallas Howard, but first I'm going to say, Bryce Dallas Howard's known for, has one television and one non-acting credit that is also television. Interesting. Is it a producing

credit? It's a directing credit. Oh, okay. Oh, I think I might know. Was she also acting in a though? I don't believe so, but it is not a show that I watch. So, God, I'm giving you hints all over the place. The other TV credit is Black Mirror.

It is Black Mirror. Her episode of Black Mirror fucking rules. It's so good. One of the movies has to be the help. Yep, the help. Because Bryce Dallas Howard didn't use to have a full known for. She was, I think, the second person after Glenn Close, who didn't. And now they both do, I guess.

Bryce Dallas Howard's Blackmerex. episode, by the way, was directed by Joe Wright just to... It's called Nosedive. You guys, if you dip in and out of Black Mirror as I do and you have not seen NoseDive, definitely check it out. It's maybe, it's not even maybe... The most memed of the Black...

It's definitely my favorite Bryce Dallas-Haward performance in her entire career. I think she's excellent in it. Jurassic World. No. What's that face? No. Oh, it's a Jurassic World sequel. Yeah.

Do you know the names of it? the sequels. Dominion? Yes, Jurassic World Dominion, the one from 2022. So you've got three of four with no wrong guesses. That is a brand new movie that no one I know saw. I know. And made less movie, I think, made less money than Jurassic Worlds initially.

Haven't those sequels depreciated? Jurassic World, I mean, I think they all depreciated. Yeah. The second, I mean, I didn't see the new one. The first two were abysmal. and I only guess Dominion thinking that it would be wrong because I cannot remember the second. It's Fallen Kingdom, I think, right?

Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom? Maybe. Sure. Okay. Even though that sounds like a video game title. All right, so you're three for three. You have no wrong guesses. TV show that she directed.

Yes. But not. Okay. She's directed two episodes of this show. I keep giving you hints. No, it's not three for three because I said Jurassic World. You can count. Well, okay, fine.

A soft, a soft wrong, because, like, you know. It'll still count. It's a soft wrong. Because I'm not going to be that generous to you to say that it doesn't count. Fucker. I would be like, no, wrong. All right. Okay, TV show that she directed, she is doing directing stuff right now, but what TV show did she direct?

It's got to be, it's got to be something. thing for like Apple um could be Netflix too you know she's also attached to a remake to direct a remake of Flight of the Navigator did you ever watch that when you were a kid or am I is that the thing where I'm older than you I didn't

you watch that in like school I know what it is though I know the VHS cover yeah um okay television program that she's directed I'm just going to say like what? No, I was going to give you a hint, but then I realized that you're not, you don't deserve hints yet.

Oh, okay. Fuck. It's obviously semi-recent. Her documentary about dads was only like five years ago. Not even. 2019, so. Oh, okay. So it is very recent.

Yeah. Emily and Paris? Not Emily and Paris. All right. So we're counting that as a second strike. The years of the two episodes that she directed on this show were 2019, 2020. Okay. It is a ongoing show.

Still running. And she's directed another episode of the spinoff of this show. It's a Marvel show. It's the Mandalorian. It's the Mandalorian. It's not a Marvel show. It is a Star Wars show. But yes.

Yes. Two episodes of The Mandalorian. Good for Bryce Dallas Howard. Yeah. It's a weird known for. I'm just going to say it. It's an odd... It's probably weird because she didn't use to have a full known for.

Well, there we go. But I don't think it's a bad known for. Justice for the village. Justice for the village. Justice for... Like, just not a pure financial level. It should be the first Jurassic World and not the third one. like that's just silly um right what if i said justice for her after what if i said that

even like strangely like podcast she's probably she's probably higher build in twilight eclipse than uh than you think but like it's weird that lady in the water isn't there it's weird that the village isn't there yeah all right she's the titular lady in the water all right who do you get for me okay so for you i pulled from the day David Lowry stable of performers, someone who I think we would think would be an odd person for a David Lowry movie, but is good in the David Lowry movie that they are in. Someone who we talked quite a bit about in recent years and then completely stopped because they kind of went away, Alicia V. Cander.

Okay. I went perhaps easier on you. But Alicia Vekander is you're known for. Danish girl. Danish girl, her Oscar win. Ex Machina. Ex Machina, the movie that I would argue they thought they were giving her an Oscar for. Yes.

Would have been the better choice. I mean, when XMachina won that visual effects Oscar, I was like, oh, yeah. We could have just... We could have just done it... We could have just done it... But also, if they would have just done it for Ex Machina and given her... It wouldn't be a bad Oscar. It would have been more appropriately supporting, and it would have been a better qualitative win.

So... Right. Anyway, so it's two. And not for that horrible movie. Anyway. Two more. You have no wrong guesses. The thing is, is Tomb Raider enough of a bomb to disqualify it from a hundred people?

IMDB consideration. I will say what I think is hard about Alicia V. Kander is that years will not help you. Because when she makes a movie, she also makes 15 other movies that year. Right. I'm going to guess Green Knight, actually. Incorrect. Damn it. Is it a Tomb Raider?

It is not Tomb Raider. Also incorrect. Okay. In that case, your years are 2014 and 2015. Oh, God. A third movie in 2015. Oh, wasn't that? Didn't she also have Testament of Youth that year that everybody was like, the year of Vicander?

Is it that? Testament of Youth is the 2014 movie. Oh, it's the 2014. But I do think, X Machina is even credited to 2014. I think it did, like, Fantastic Fest or something before we released the next year. I think Testament of Youth didn't come out in the States until 2015, although don't quote me on that. All right. So there's a 20.

Right, exactly. So basically we're saying her entire known for is one year. One year of domestic release. Yes. God. Oh. Is it a movie I've seen? I think you've seen it.

Oh, oh, oh, I love this movie. It's the man from uncle. It fucking rocks. I love that movie so much. Yeah, a man from uncle. the man from uncle whips ass that movie is so good

it does enough to even Dickie should have been nominated Henry Cavill is so charming in that movie and I will say even

we're not in the habit of recommending Army Hammer movies these days but like even with that caveat still go see this movie it's so good

it's so much fun right who are the other wonderful who are the other ancillary people in that movie because like

that cast has some fun ones Hold on I'm looking at it up too Jared Harris Yeah Jared Harris is fun Guy Richie man

Like he's so hit and miss But when he hits he can be really fun Unquestionably his best movie Oh absolutely Oh Hugh Grant is who I was thinking of Like who else is in this right Yeah I mentioned Hugh Grant Oh sorry

I was probably thinking of Elizabeth Debicky Being unfathomably tall on this movie And so good It's such a good movie. I love it so much. All right. Good IMDB game. Good IMDB game.

Great episode. If you want more, This Head Oscar Buzz. You can check out the Tumblr at thisheadoscarbuzz.com. You should also follow us on Twitter and Had underscore Oscar Buzz and on Instagram at This Had Oscar Buzz. Sorry that those are different. Joe, where can the listeners find you and more?

Twitter and Instagram, not Instagram, Twitter and Letterboxed at Joe Reed, it's spelled R-I-D. Hey, if you want to promote your Instagram, you are allowed to do. Mine is locked, and there's really nothing interesting going on in there, so there's no reason for you to follow me on Instagram. It's fine. Follow the podcast. That's much more interesting and fun. No, Joe Reed at Twitter and Letterbox.

And I am also on Twitter and Letterbox at Crispy File. That's F-E-I-L. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Miebius for their technical guidance. please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, wherever else you get your podcast. Five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcasts visibility, so rub a rock and some sandpaper together, and maybe you won't get Tom Waits, you'll get a nice review. That's all for this week. We hope you'll be back next week for more fun.

Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, O yes, demote, oh, yes, demot, oh, yeah's demote, bitch. Tag, da-gah, da-gah, da-gat-a-gat-a-gat-a-gat-a-gat.