This Had Oscar Buzz - 248 – Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (with Jourdain Searles!)

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

We are returning to the work of Jennifer Jason Leigh this week, and Jourdain Searles is joining us once again with an underrated and underseen gem. Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle takes on the life of indelible writer Dorothy Parker, capturing her days with the insular Algonquin Circle and her later dissolution with the … Continue reading "248 – Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (with Jourdain Searles!)"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hacks. I'm from Canada. I'm from Canada water. We've always been very lucky for writers, Mrs. Parker. New York in the Roaring 20s.

Cops are here. Everybody speak easy. The playground of a celebrated circle of friends. You almost look like a man today, Edna. So do you, Alec. At the center of the circle was the beautiful and irrepressible Dorothy Parker. I never liked a man I didn't read. Everyone wanted to know what was on Mrs. Parker's mind.

Oh, dear, dear, is the subject in danger of turning to sex? But no one ever guessed what was in her heart. Hello, and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast LARPing in Animal Suits with Brendan Gleason. 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're here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with the Lee Israel to my Dorothy Parker, Joe Reed. I'm writing your biography. Is that what's going on? You're the superstar, and I'm the fabulous who's copying your letters as my own. Is that what's going on? Basically, basically. I struggled to come up with a joke for this one, because I thought that this would be an incredibly joke-heavy movie, and it's not like there's not punchlines, but it was much more dramatic and emotionally affecting

than I was maybe thinking it was knowing what little I know about. this subject before watching this movie. Wait, wait, wait, you guys hadn't seen it yet? No, I haven't seen this. I'd been saving this movie to watch for the show. Oh, my God! I had watched this in high school, though. So it's been like a long time since I've seen this movie.

Oh, this is, this is one of my faves as, as a depressed girl. It's a big depressed girl movie. Oh, fantastic. Depressed, uh, writer girl. Yes, depressed. It's me. I felt those vibes myself. Yeah.

I used to do a Dorothy Parker impression. No, I can't do it anymore. Hold on to that because we will make you do that on Mike. I will force you to do that. Listeners, Chardine Searle is back. Hooray! Yeah. Hooray, a momentous occasion.

Your fourth episode with us. I know. We've previously done Cadillac Records, Lee Daniels the Butler, and Holy Smoke exclamation point. Oh, holy smoke, yeah. That's a trio. That's a trilogy right there. And we've been wanting to do this for a while. while, because I remember a while ago, you and I in conversation, I had mentioned that I'd

not seen it, and you'd mentioned that you loved it, and then we've been trying to get this episode happening for a while, and here we are, finally here to talk about it, and I know it's a movie you love. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah. I mean, I just love Jennifer Jason Lee. She can really... Do you, like, revisit this one a lot? Is this one that you've seen, like, a bunch of times? This is, I've seen it a good number of times, yeah. Sometimes I'm just looking at, like, certain scenes or things that I want to remember. Like, if I wanted to remember, does Matthew Broderick finger her under the table?

He sure does. He definitely does. We remember the Algonquin roundtable for many things, but that is one of the things that we remember it for now is that, yes. Under table fingering. Yeah. I noticed, I wanted to bring this up because I really made a note of the fact, I'm watching this movie. And it's not like something that's like, you'll never guess. But like, there is, the main cast of this movie is just a whole bunch of second generation Hollywood stars.

Like, it's very, you know, nepo concentrated in this movie where you're watching this movie and you're like, oh, right. Like, I'm watching, you know, Campbell Scott, whose parents are George C. Scott and Colleen Dewhurst, talk to Sam Robards, whose parents are Jason Robart. and Lauren Bacall, and, like, did you know that the Jason and Jennifer Jason Lee is named after Jason Robards because her parents were friends with... No, I didn't know that. That is, according to Wikipedia, which is now, you know, I've decided as Bible Truth. But, like, Gwyneth is, of course, in this.

And Martha Plimpton, who I didn't realize was Keith Carradine's daughter until I was doing research. Who is in this movie? And Matthew Broderick's parents were actors, although not, like, incredibly famous actors, but, like, Nick Cassavetes is in this movie, and of course, his parents are John Cassavetes and Jenna Rowlands, Rebecca Miller, daughter of Arthur Miller, is in this movie. So, like, it's very, which I think contributes a little bit. It's not like the Algonquin roundtable where all these, like, you know, sons and daughters of famous people. It does feel nepo culture, though. It does, it at least feels like there is a leisure class of people who, like, in the middle of the

day can just like go and gather at the Algonquin and have drinks in the middle of the day and just sort of like do their thing that I think lends itself to a nepo baby culture maybe I don't know um we can talk about that but I just thought I was I was struck by that like all of these and like nothing thrills me more than finding out that people who I didn't realize were related to each other are related to each other I found out earlier today that Stanley Tucci's sister was on my beloved soap opera Another World as like a kind of famous

recast for a while and I had no idea that they were related to each other. So I like went down the rabbit hole of remembering who the brunette Amanda Corey was and what she got up to on another world played by the Stanley Tucci's sister. So like this was

finding out about Martha Plimpton being Keith Carrotin's daughter was like found gold. Yeah that's that's a character. Isn't Isn't another caradine in this? I feel like there was a scene with Keith. Well, Keith Carradine is actually. Yeah, yeah.

He plays that politician. He plays Roy Rogers, I want to say. What? Right? Yes. There's that one scene where Roy Rogers is there. There's so many people in this and like the Altman effect is like in Will Rogers, not Roy Rogers, Jesus Christ.

I couldn't always tell who people were. And like I don't say that as a negative because it definitely, you know, is a vibe in this movie that I initiated and what felt intentional. It's a very Alan Rudolph thing. He loves to have these giant cast for his films

and all of them are usually like period pieces. I was honestly surprised Geraldine Chaplin wasn't in it because she tends to be in a lot of his movies. Yes. I do need to make it clear that when I said Roy Rogers

I meant Will Rogers, which is like, I genuinely feel like was a error that is made in a West Wing episode at one point. But like, so eight billion people don't come yelling at me. Yes, I understand the difference between Will Rogers and Roy Rogers. So, yes. The, what was, what did I just get really excited about? Oh, I'm sorry.

No, no, no, no. Geraldine Page? Oh, yes, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Geraldine Chaplin, who the only other Alan Rudolph movie, I think, no, I've seen Afterglow. I just remember nothing about Afterglow. Same.

The only other Alan Rudolph movie that I have seen or can recall is remember my name, where she just, she is a woman scorn, but she is so fucking cool. Just like the image of her movie is so fucking cool. The poster of it that I'm looking at right now is amazing, where it's just her in profile with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. She's so fucking cool in that movie. With sunglasses. Joe, I think you'd like that movie.

That's a good movie. It's going down on my left. Oh my God, yes, yes, you have to see it. Yeah. Just because, like, you will forever stand Geraldine Chaplin, if you didn't already. Yeah. The Alan Rudolph of it all is very interesting because he sort of famously came up through the ranks with Robert Altman. He was assistant director on Nashville and on The Long Goodbye.

And Altman is a producer on this movie. And, like, from my understanding was, like, a pretty involved hands-on producer. I saw a career retrospective interview that Jennifer Jason Lee had done around the time of The Hateful Eight. And the interviewer says, when you've done two Altman movies,

you've done shortcuts in Kansas City. And she said, well, three, because he was the producer on Mrs. Parker in the vicious circle. So, like, just, I think that fact tells you a lot about how he was sort of perceived on that movie. And, like, this feels very Altman-esque. I don't know if Rudolph's other movies feel as Altman as this one does.

I would say specifically in the group scenes because I think this movie spends or has as much focus on Dorothy Parker in a way that I've never really seen Altman do, even when you have like a McCabe character in one of his movies or even like three women. I don't think he's ever really devoted a focus to a central character in the way that this movie does. Popeye. Wow, okay. I mean, unless we forget Popeye. The classic Popeye.

Gotcha there. But yeah, yeah, I think it's really fascinating the way that everything's kind of around her, but it also feels really organic because these are all her friends, and she likes to drink, and she likes to fuck,

and she can do that with all her. friends. Yeah. Well, and also she likes to sort of use her, her wit and her, you know, verbiage to puncture her friends, too, which she is quite good at. And that's sort of a lot of these scenes with the Algonquin Roundtable is everyone's taking their jabs, right? Everyone's taking their, you know, little bone mows and, and, and, and, and, and one ups and that kind of a thing. And those are absolutely my favorite scenes of the movie. And I kind of wish almost that we would get more of them because there's such an energy, I think, to those scenes where you're sort of going around the table and you're trying to figure out, no, like,

which one of you, like, who were the ones who founded the New Yorker and who was the one who wrote Giant and who is the one who, you know, who were the ones who were ready for Vanity Fair. I texted Katie Richel I was watching this because it's like when people mention Condé Nast and they're not talking about a company or a building, they're talking about like the person, Condi Nast. I'm like, oh, okay. Like we're, now we're into it. Yeah. Now that I, I feel like the last time I watched this was like before I was like more entrenched in media. So like I was freelancing but I didn't like know everything. And so like now rewatching it and being like, oh, Conday Nas was a person.

Right, right, right, exactly. Right, totally. Not just a name on a freelance check you get every once in a while. Yeah, exactly. But, yeah, the ensemble, I think, is really interesting. I, like I said, I'd seen this movie, but back when I was in high school, and I think I had forgotten. It's not like Gwyneth Paltrow has a huge role in this movie, but she's, like, on fire when she is. She's like.

She's playing the woman she would once become. Because it's like, she's putting on an accent in this movie, but I'm pretty sure the way she speaks in this movie is her normal speaking voice now. I don't know if we've ever heard Gwyneth Paltrow's normal speaking voice. Even the Goup voice, I feel like, is some sort of creation. Like, she's sort of in Goup mode. And I don't, that is not a, that's not a dig. You know I love Gwyneth in Gop mode.

The only cult I've ever thought about joining. Maybe we're an eighth Gwynness. Gwyneth, shockingly, we do not have a six-timers club to do for this episode. Shockingly, so. The number of people that we have in this movie. It's a huge cast. I mean, you'll go through it when you're giving the boilerplate. But I think some of my faves, I could have done with a whole movie of Lily Taylor as Edna Ferber.

I thought she was a scream. Like, she was so, like, dialed into that character. And it's that very sort of, remember, Lily Tomlin in Tea with Mussolini and we did tea with Mussolini and it's just like she's a lady who wears pants and like that's her and like everybody

just sort of like dials and of course like the you know the semiotics of that is of course just like well yeah she's a lesbian but it's you know the the revolutionary act of wearing pants in public company you know what I mean like that's kind of in pants. A woman in pants

could you imagine that was the headline in the in the New Yorker that Martha It's Plimpton and Sam Robards, right? Who are the ones who found the New Yorker? Because they're the ones at the one party talking about like, we're thinking about starting a magazine. We're not quite sure what to call it.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that is them. Yeah. Yeah, fantastic. There is also a musical number that stars the aforementioned graph, Heather Graham, Jane Adams, and Martha Plimpton and Moore. There's a full,

era-specific musical number that I don't feel like the people know enough about. I wanted almost like the background on that. Like was that like, would they just like put on little like Folly's shows or something like that? That's all. Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah, that's fun. What a time to be alive.

Like I know that like history did not treat of course, you know, people well the farther you go back in nostalgia as a trap. And yet you almost want to like import aspects of the past. And one of them is like, oh, famous people would just like sit around a table and, you know, throw jabs at each other in the middle of the day and then put on a folly's. Like, okay. I desperately have wanted this.

Do we not see this on the timeline today? Like, I just want to be just a bunch of writers, all of us, having a cocktail talking. Yes. Like, that's just, that's so beautiful. We need more of that. someone's getting fingered under the table. Right. Yes, I would love to get fingered to all of us.

All of it. All of it. Yes, Wallace Sean bringing in the big round table. He was so proud of himself. It was so cute. He really was. Good job, Wallace Sean. And then we put on a show.

Yeah. Except the show we put on our podcast. That's true. That's true. We are, yeah, we're, God. I don't want to get down into that rabbit hole of like, our podcast, the new Algonquin Roundtable, because we will never get out. Let's get it to the

plot description. We have this huge ensemble, and I'm sure we'll talk about more of them. And then we're mostly here to talk about Jennifer Jason Lee today, the reason why this is the sad Oscar buzz movie. Indeed. So yeah, let's get into it.

Mrs. Parker and the vicious circle written and directed by Alan Rudolph, also written by Randy Sue Coburn, starring deep breath. I'm not even going to get all of them in there, but here we go. Jennifer Jason Lee, Campbell, Scott, Matthew Broderick, Peter Gallagher,

Jennifer Beals, Andrew McCarthy, Wallace, Sean, Martha Plimpton, Lily Taylor, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sam Robards, Jane Adams, Rebecca Miller, Stephen Baldwin, and actually is kind of good Stephen Baldwin. Yeah. Heather Graham, Nick Cassavetti's, Keith Carradine, John Fabro, and even Stanley Tucci when he still had hair true

Stanley Tucci I've been thinking about him so much lately because I've been watching the Sopranos and I was thinking about his affair

with Edie Falco which I don't know why it just randomly pops We were talking about this on our text We were just talking about it Joe you need to fill in the rest of the story

for Jordane and the listeners too because it gets even wilder Oh my God well so I was watching Stanley Tucci's show where he goes to Italy and goes to various restaurants in Italy for a thing for my job. And watching it, I of course, as I often do, just sort of like travel onto the Wikipedia page of the person I'm watching. So I'm reading up on, of course, like, zoom right into personal life tab, because that is where all the hop and stuff is. And

Stanley Tucci's personal life is like low-key way more fascinating than most people realize. We're like his first wife, I'm trying to get this right, speaking of Campbell Scott, by the way, his first wife was formerly married to Campbell Scott's brother. And I believe they got married, because like Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott together were directed Big Knight. So they were like, you know, professionally and, you know, I imagine, you know, we're friends in real life and probably were after, because I think they directed Big Knight after Tucci married. Campbell Scott's former sister-in-law. And of course, as I said, Campbell Scott and his brother are the kids of George C. Scott and Colleen Dewhurst. So then Tucci's married to the first wife.

Cheats on the first wife with Edie Falco when they're both on Broadway doing Frankie and Johnny in the Clair DeLoon. Leaves her for Edie Falco at that moment. Is with Edie Falco for a little bit. Goes back to his wife. after that.

After her cancer diagnosis, which is, of course, tragic. Yes. She dies of cancer in 2000. It's like 2000, somewhere in the aughts, right? Then, through his Devil Wears Prada co-star, Emily Blunt, meets her sister, marries her after meeting the sister at Emily Blunt and John Krasinski's wedding. She shows up in the Italy. show, by the way. She seems very nice.

And then the last thing on his personal tab in the Wikipedia thing is that a few years ago, a couple years ago, he casually mentioned that he had and recovered from the like oral cancer, Michael Douglas,

cunolingus cancer. Oh my God. And it's like fine. So like, that's a life, man. Like in addition to all his professional accomplishments, that's a whirlwind of a personal time. In addition to only, go ahead. In addition to him naming Ving Rames. Oh shit, I totally

got about that. Yes. Yeah. What a life. What a man. Okay. Seriously. As one of the many who are currently rewatching all of the Impossible Missions, um, that,

that franchise is worth it for Ving Rames. Ving Rames is so wonderful in these movies that otherwise I am, I forget everything about as soon as I finish watching the movie. Yeah, they don't seem like your kind of movies. So it's so, it's fascinating to me that you're watching them. Good for you.

I mean, well, we were talking about this before we got on the call, but I'm watching them partly because I can't distinguish these movies apart. Like, I should rewatch them to at least try to parse what happens in what movie. I, my general, like, rules that I love the John Wu one. I like the Brad Bird one. And I keep on trying to start fallout and I never finish it, which I said tonight that I'm going to watch it all the way. I usually get like halfway through and then something else happens. It's like right when the Cavill Boy, he puts his fists up.

Like it's always that around like the showstopper stunt in every movie. In Ghost Protocol, it's the skyscraper. in Rogue Nation, it's the airplane. And in Fallout, it's Henry Cavill punching the air. Yeah. Recharging his forearms. Yeah.

The thing with those franchises, though, that start out as they're hopping from director to director, and then they settle on one director that they like can stick with it. That happened with the Harry Potter movies, right? Where you had your Chris Columbus movies, but then it was like Quaron and Mike Newell, And then it settles on David Yates. And then the Mission Impossible movies where it's like, you got your De Palma, you got your John Wu, you got your J.J. Abrams, you got your Brad Bird.

And then it's like, well, now it's just Macquarie and Tom Cruise essentially is like, no disrespect to Christopher McQuary. But like Tom Cruise is the person in charge of these movies. Oh, absolutely. And you got the same thing with the Fast and the Furious movies a little bit. Although those ones, like Justin Lynn was an authorial voice from a pretty early stage at least. And it's like, and I like all three of those franchises for as much as you have to sort of put Harry Potter in a box now and, you know, whatever. But I think as they go along, they just get, if not more anonymous, at least harder to remember what part of these three movies directed by the same guy are from what movie. Yeah, yeah.

It's like, I can remember the Brad Bird stuff. I can remember the John Wu stuff, certainly. All of the Macquarie's kind of blend for me. Yeah, yeah, I feel the same way. I mean, I feel like the only thing that everyone agrees on. Well, I thought that everyone agreed to fuck the JJ Abrams one. It's just ugly to look at. I like the JJ Abrams.

Okay, go back and watch it because I used to defend the JJ Abrams one. I watched it last night. It sucks. Like, there's good stuff about it. I've seen it plenty of times. I really liked it. I like, I like the romance aspect of it. I just, I hate how it looks.

I just really hate how it looks. Like, if I could get over that, maybe I could enjoy it more. I know the big, the big criticism of it at the time was like, well, it just looks like a really long alias episode. And I'm like, that's fine. Like, I'll take a really long alias episode. That's fine by me. I still never watched that. I have a nightmare.

Feels like a big gap. I think you'd like. Okay. I highly recommend alias. Okay. It gets insane, by you. the end, as, you know, you might expect. Maybe when I...

Like, the fifth season of a show about, like, international spy stuff. Like, of course, by the fifth season, it's going to get into it. I'm almost done with The Sopranos, so I'll be starting something else. I've been considering Desperate Housewives, because I've actually never watched that. You want to talk about a show that gets bananas and, like, three episodes in. That show is unhinged. Yeah. I've been doing so much, uh, return.

to reality TV, I am not to be trusted on a recommendation right now because I'm like, go back and watch Project Runway. Oh, well, highly recommended. Now that all of the Project Runways are on Peacock, like, could not recommend more highly enough to go back to the very beginning and just start from there. If you need a really good, somewhat cringy, you know, time capsule of 2004, go back and watch Project Runway. because it's like multiple years and seasons of 2004 culture,

even though they passed 2004. Yeah, yeah. I think we stranded you in the middle of your boilerplate, though. No, this was all necessary in the good conversation. Mrs. Parker in the Vicious Circle premiered in competition at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival, i.e. the Cannes Film Festival that Pulp Fiction premiered and overwhelmed any conversation of any other movies, et cetera. We'll get into it.

And then it opened limited Thanksgiving weekend of 1994. Speaking of vicious circle tables around which many people were sitting, welcome to Thanksgiving weekend. The ultimate vicious circle. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Jordane is our guest. You are tasked with giving a 60-second plot description of the film. Are you ready?

Uh, sure, yeah. Okay. Then your 60-second plot description for Mrs. Parker in the vicious circle starts now. It's a film about Dorothy Parker, the poet, the writer, the screenwriter, the playwright, all of those things. She's very depressed. She drinks a lot. She goes through a lot of men. We meet her friends.

We all spend time together. It's great. And then it's sad and then it ends. That's very true. Boom. Boom. That's it. I wasn't expecting it to get so.

sad, but like, I mean, she didn't live ultimately a happy life, but I do think that there is the way that it balances and like kind of hopscatches through time, I do actually think is pretty interesting, much more interesting than the type of biopic I think we would get from a less interesting filmmaker. Yeah. I was bummed out by the Hollywood stuff towards the end where it was like, like young writers just sort of like looking at her and being like who's the sad old lady and it's like listen you don't know yeah yeah she wrote for vanity fair yeah she sure did she wrote the screenplay

for fucking the 1937 a star is born like show some respect yeah yeah okay but the oscar story for that one is kind of fascinating because that movie gets nominated for a bunch of awards for a bunch of Oscars for 1930s this is the the Star is Born that's Janet Gainer and... I like that one. The first one that by name is a Star is Born because it's an adaptation of... After what price Hollywood? Yes.

Right, yes. But before the Judy Garland James Mason was. So it's nominated for, what is this? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight Academy Awards. Well, one of those was an honorary award. But anyway, the only competitive one that it wins is a screenplay award for best original story, which was for William Wellman and Robert Carson.

So it wins for best original story, but loses for best adaptation, which is what Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell are nominated for. So it wins for the story, but not the screenplay. This was before those things were... I need a full explainer on every year's breakdown, down between story, adaptation,

like, what all... Right. What's an original story and what's an adaptation? Like, what are you picking up? out of, like, what the hell is going on here? So, I feel bad. It sounds like they got screwed out of an Oscar, so. Yeah, they definitely did.

And that's a good movie. Like, when I marathoned all of them because I wanted to watch every single one, like, I was surprised by how much I liked it. It's not my favorite one, but I think it's good. I've never seen it. Have you ever seen it, Chris? I haven't. I wanted to do the full, like, run of all of those movies,

and I was not able to. Mostly because the Judy Garland one is 900 hours long. I know the Bradley Cooper Lady Gaga one has like, the actual screenplay credits are insane because they have to acknowledge the earlier versions. Does it go back as far as this one? Does Dorothy Parker get one of those like based on a story by credit or anything like that in that one?

I mean, she should. I don't know. Because I remember that like Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunn undercredited because they had done the screenplay for the Barbara Streisand one. And who is it who does, who's the, the big name on the Judy Garland one? There's, um, fuck, hold on. Now I got to look at this. Yeah, thank you for looking that up because that's going to bother, bug me. It's somebody, right?

It's like, oh, hold on. Clickety-clack, clickety-clack, clickety-clack, everybody, listen. Moss Hart, of course, of, of Rogers and Heart. What a legacy of attached screenwriters of these movies. Yeah. That's Hollywood, baby. So, yeah, you get those scenes in Mrs. Parker towards the end, and this is after she's sort of gotten the word that Benchley has died,

has sort of drank himself to death, which she doesn't feel unresponsible for, considering she's the one who sort of, like, nudges him into, you know, picking up whatever bathtub gin. they're all drinking in the back of the Algonquin. Like, that scene is very funny, where they, like, go into the bathroom. And it's like, that's where the still is.

You know what I mean? Like, this was during prohibition times. So that scene, too, where she gets, Andrew McCarthy as her husband, backhands her. And then she finds out that Jennifer Beals, who was Benchley's, playing Benchley's wife, was in there the whole time. I think Jennifer Beals is actually quite good in this movie.

She is. She's kind of perfect. cast because just her like presence feel it's supposed to feel she seems like a little out of place yeah she's a little prissy for this or that's not the right word but you get what i'm saying yeah yeah she's she's the wife she likes the home she doesn't want her husband to drink and everybody is so weird to her dorothy says the meanest thing to her and then kind of like walks it back because even she realizes, where they're talking about how, talking about, because Benchley and his wife had a few children,

and Dorothy didn't have any children. And when the subject of children comes up, Dorothy says something to Jennifer Beale's character, where it's like, oh, if they ever made having children illegal, you'd be locked up and they'd throw away the year. Oh, yeah. And it's, and she knows it's too mean, because she knows that, like, she can say something like that.

to Gwyneth Paltrow's character, or Martha Plimpton or whoever, who are in this circle of mean old bitches, you know what I mean? Oh, I love a mean old bitch. But Jennifer Beals is, like, she's not part of that, and that was too nasty, so she sort of, like, walks it back,

which I thought was an interesting little moment. Yeah, yeah, that was a cute moment. I mean, cute. Cute in a writerly sense, yeah. Right, right, exactly. Oh, my God. Can we talk about Andrew? McCarthy, Mr. Brat back over here.

Yeah. This fucking guy, I, every single time I watch this, because I, you know, I was a very big, like, John Hughes person, 80s person, seeing him in this was so weird. That was like, maybe the first time I was like, oh, he's an actor, I guess. This movie, the cast of this movie is kind of an interesting cross, like crossroads between, because you have your sort of 80s brat pack and brat pack adjacent people where it's like Matthew Broderick, Andrew McCarthy,

Jennifer Beals is of course very sort of like 80s 80s coded, right, between, with flash dance and that whole thing. Yeah. And then you have this, I think 1994, as we'll find out when we were talking about the awards stuff for this movie, 1994 really is the first year of like the American indie scene.

asserting itself. This is the early day of fine line pictures. And so you get like Campbell Scott and Lily Taylor and James LaGro and Nick Cassavetes and these Jane Adams, you know what I mean? Like these actors who really come to be defined by that Wallace Sean. The idols Jane Adams. Seriously. James is eternal.

I mean like if there's anything. getting that would get me to watch the idol it's her presence and maybe divine toy randall but it's it's it's a wild show and it's so interesting that it's ending tomorrow after when there's just no way to wrap up anything in the time that they have her episodes i think they like there was supposed to be the remaining episodes they were supposed to be six and then when they um got rid of amy zimitz and then rewrote the whole thing It, they, HBO only gave them five because I assumed because they had wasted enough money

But it was just weird that they just didn't pull the plug Because what they put out is so embarrassing Yeah, there isn't there There were only five episodes produced So they didn't like leave nothing's been left on a shelf Oh, that I understand The original order A lot of people like, well they got reported in a couple of different ways

Yeah, I got reported improperly But yeah, it was six when it was Amy and then when it wasn't Amy it was five and it was clear that they were trying to like recoup costs but there's just nothing because like Sam like essentially just like rewrote it like I remember

it was Abel who had the issue he was just like it's too female focused which is like okay and so but then it was Sam who rewrote it and he like rewrote it I assume pretty quickly and like you can tell

because it doesn't make any sense and the fourth episode is really the only episode that works as an episode of television and now it's almost over. Like, you could... It's... I said to somebody, I said the last time at HBO show bombed this hard,

like horses died. Oh, my God, luck. Luck. Yeah. Oh, my God, yeah. Luck in vinyl. And now they get to... Yeah.

That's true. Which, yeah, I never even watch. like a second of, I've never watched a second of vinyl. I've at least seen some of luck, but vinyl just seems like not even a real show to me. Right. I watched the, I think I watched the pilot of vinyl. I don't think I watched any of luck. But yeah, it's rare. Like, HBO's track record is legit. Like, for whatever's going to happen in the future with, you know, that man. That man. But, like, up till now, we could at least say that, like, HBO's track record is really good to the point where it's exceedingly rare that they flop, like they have

with the idol, which makes it almost all the more, like, juicy and delicious when it does happen, because it's like, oh, my God, like, quality control at that place is usually so good. And they just, they just let Sam run wild. And I do believe that Jane is a leftover from when Amy was doing it. Because I, she, well, yeah, yeah, definitely feels that way. She's in, she dies tomorrow, right? She died, one of my favorite movies, she does. tomorrow. She's great in that. I mean, she's always great, but she is girl.

The timing of She Dies Tomorrow coming out in the first several months of the COVID lockdown was- Last movie I saw in the theater. Get the fuck out of here. Yes, I saw it at Nighthawk. It was like an early screening. Like they just like let me watch it. And I was like the only one in the theater. It was beautiful.

I watched it when I was already locked down. And watching it, I'm like, oh, this is hitting, this is, this is hitting home for real. Uh, good movie, though. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I, I want Amy to come back. Amy, Amy would totally, I would trust Amy with a Dorothy Parker-esque kind of story.

Fuck, yeah. So are you kidding me? Absolutely. She knows depression. And so does Caitlin Sheel, Katelyn Sheel loves, loves a depressing woman role. I actually wrote down as I was watching this, because we know, there's all this talk about, like, what even gets made as a movie anymore. and I'm so against our, you know, whenever I hear that, like, a top filmmaker is following up a film with, like,

well, now they're making a TV show. I'm always just like, God damn it. But a concept like Mrs. Parker in the vicious circle would work really well as a TV show because my whole thing with, like, movies that should be TV or could be TV is, can you make it really episodic? And, like, with the Algonquin Roundtable, every episode could be a different person in the roundtable, you know what I mean? You have some sort of like through line. This movie already is pretty episodic

for a movie. It could be so, like, a TV show like this, you could go for like multiple seasons and be real episodic with it, and I think it would be great. God, I would love that because I just, yeah, I just love this world. I love writers who take their work seriously and are trying

actively trying not to create content, you know? They want to create art, they want to write well, they have convictions, I feel, it makes me feel a million years old to be, and I'm just, I'm only 30, but I'm like watching this and I'm just like, can we just, can we, can we go back? I want to go back. Yeah, yeah. And yet it still is like, you watching this movie, they all operate like that.

And yet also, they're, they're so particular with what they do that sometimes it's just like, well, what have you done this year? And it's like, well, I wrote an essay. essay. You know what I mean? It's just like, sometimes the output is like so overweight, outweighed by the sort of fraternization and just the, like, I think for them, the main event was this, you know, roundtable. Like, that's where the real sort of like, you know, discourse. Yes, totally.

Yeah, I, God, those absolutely one of my favorite scenes. Jennifer Jason Lee, we should talk about. I was going to say, I was going to try to pivot us towards Jennifer Jason Lee, who is in a real fucking run in this stretch of the 90s, not only of just really tremendous performances in movies that could not be more different from each other, playing characters that could not be more different than each other. And I really felt it with this, you know, of her playing this living person who was a very particular kind of person that you would not immediately jump to thinking,

Jennifer Jason Lee for this role, but I think she's tremendous. It's the first real person she'd ever played in her film career, I'm pretty sure, as I sort of take a quick scan of her career. She obviously breaks through as a teenager in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and then, like, 1990 is her big sort of critical blast of a year, where she's in both last exit to Brooklyn and Miami Blues. She gets a bunch of a critical acclaim for both of them, gets, I think, a New York film critics circle

Supporting Actress Award. And then she's in, well, she does like backdraft. She's in that movie Rush, which it's her and Jason Patrick as undercover cops. Yeah. Undercover narcotics cops who get hooked on heroin in the course of their operation. Yeah.

That feels like a very kind of quintessential Jennifer Jason Lee role of the 90s, right? Where she's just like, just addicted to heroin and so intensely, you know, depicted and whatnot. Single white female, 1992, Chef's Kiss. What a film, what a picture. What a piece of wonderful joke. She gets some critical award attention for that movie, too, on top of MTV Movie Award attention. I was going to say she wins the MTV Movie Award for Best Villain and rightly. So, and then

Shortcuts in 1993. She plays the phone sex operator in shortcuts. It's her first Altman movie, although she's talked about how, like, Altman's known her since she was a baby. She knew her parents, and he's sort of always been a presence

in her life, but that was the first Altman movie. And then 94, it's Hudsucker Proxy and Mrs. Parker in the Vicious Circle both of which were at the Cannes Film Festival that year, in competition, which is very interesting. And the reactions to those are kind of very different, where Hudsucker proxy is, to that point, I believe the Cohen's most sort of mainstream movie in terms of positioning. Like, I know Raising Arizona achieved that to a degree.

But, like, I remember Hudsucker Proxy being in theaters and advertised widely when I was, like, a young teenager. And the, her character, it's interesting that both her 1994 characters have this very affected vocal, you know, stylization. And it's a little similar. And I feel like she got criticized for it for Hudsucker and got fairly universal. critical praise for Mrs. Parker. And I love her in Hot-Sucker Proxie. Like, maybe my favorite element of that movie. Yeah. I don't love that

movie. I like it. I think it's I think there are certain Cohen's movies that like Big Lebowski, where it's like, you've been more impressive fellows, but like I enjoy the act of just sort of like sitting down and

watching this film. I think it's a very watchable movie. I think Robbins is it's interesting watching Tim Robbins sort of like operate in that movie where it's like you really do spend that whole movie being like are you smarter than this character

or are you like using your dumbness to you know to because like Boulder I'm sort of the same way I will concede I maybe don't love Hutsucker proxy because like Tim Robbins is one of my least favorite actors this is why I haven't seen a player yet because I don't I'm just like

I'm not going to like it as much as I'm supposed to. Okay. I don't like Tim Robbins as an actor. I think he's bad. Oh, wow. Yeah, I mean, I can see it. I like, I think my favorite from him is Bob Roberts. That I also have to see.

And he, yeah, and he directed that. Oh, yeah, you got to see it. It's like very, it was, I was watching it during, like, my political movie phase where I was trying to understand, this was during lockdown. I was trying to understand why people are so obsessed with, like, the president and why they want the president to be their daddy. So I just, like, watched a bunch of stuff. Bob Roberts is actually, I think politically I like Tim Robbins more than he is as a performer.

Like, he's got good politics. So, yes. Yeah. I think I actively avoided watching Bob Roberts in quarantine because the 2020 election was so stressing me out that I was like, I can't, like, I need to escape as much as possible. It's so, it's, it's real, it really hits, like watching that and a face in the crowd on the same day, which I did. She was great. Yeah, it was, yeah.

Good double feature. We've recently talked about Dolores Claiborne on this podcast as well, and that was a great performance. We talked a little bit about, I don't want to go too much further out than Mrs. Parker, obviously, in 94. But, like, I think that, like, 1990 through 1995 era of Jennifer Jason Lee is just banger after banger after banger. And almost getting Oscar nominated after almost getting Oscar nominated after all. almost getting Oscar. And it culminates... It's so annoying how she did it.

Well, especially because we've talked about Georgia here before, and we can't do Georgia on this podcast because Merri Winningham got that nomination. Georgia. Georgia is a good movie. And it's a culmination of her career to that point, to a degree where, like, I don't think

people quite realized it, where she sort of developed that project herself. Her mother wrote the screenplay. She kind of, she says, she's said, that after doing single white female, she kind of had, like, real money for the first time as an actor. She had earned, you know, a paycheck from that movie, and she said she was able to essentially hire her mother to write a screenplay. And she had the idea for Georgia as, you know, something that was somewhat inspired by her own sister who had struggles with, you know, drugs and I believe mental illness, although don't quote me.

And it sounds like from the way she talks about Georgia that, like, the authorial voice was her mother's script and Jennifer Jason Lee as the person who sort of, you know, marshaled this project. And, like, that's the kind of thing that, like, we talk about the kind of meta-narratives of the Oscars, right? And people get nominated for more than just the performance. It's the, it's, you know, the story that they bring to it. And, like, I don't want to do the very simple, simplistic thing of being like, well, if she were a man, that would have all added up to an Oscar nomination. But, like, you do kind of imagine that we've seen these sort of, like, you know, actor pulls this production together themselves and makes it happen. We've seen it with actresses, too. I'm thinking of Salma Hyac and Frida, you know, and that led to an Oscar nomination.

but it's all the more frustrating that this performance that she gives in Georgia which was like universally praised Yeah, it's really confusing because I just watched it for the first time it's really confusing when you see the level of performance

that she gives in the movie that it didn't happen. Yeah, and it would have been such a great sort of story for her and she was such a celebrated actress that like that was the moment for her and it passed without an Oscar nomination.

Well, and that 95 best actress lineup is insanely competitive, but when you look at all of those performances, it's not Jennifer Jason Lees that you think would be the one that gets screwed over, because it's that kind of towering. I also think you could make similar arguments about her performance in Mrs. Parker. Like, maybe Dorothy Parker, even for the 90s, was far removed enough from the culture and maybe seen as more of an intellectual type of figure than a, you know, mainstream figure. But like, this is an actress giving this level of performance and she's playing a former Oscar nominee. She is, you know, playing a creative. This movie is explicitly about being a creative

person and running in creative circles. Well, and Dorothy Parker is one of those people whose name is kind of a shorthand for a kind of snappy cutting wit, right? Like, that's sort of, you know, you save the name Dorothy Parker, and it conjures up an image of a type of writer, and, like, that, you know, not too many people have that about them. So, yeah. Yeah, she was very inspiring for me. Like, I remember, I think I watched this maybe for the first time either in high school or, like early college, it was still in Georgia, and I was, and I became obsessed. There was like,

this is the kind of writer I want to be. And it was also, and it was like, like, set kind of a rebellion, too, because, like, the, you know, the witty lady of the time was Tina Faye, and I did appreciate Tina Faye, but I really wanted to not write like her. Sure. And so I got very into Dorothy. I can see that, though. And, like, that's, that's, that kind of, of, you know, throwback style is very cool. Yeah. We've talked about the 1994 best actress race a lot because it's one of the, you know. It's one of the ones we hate. It's one of the more notorious ones, but I sort of, I laid it all out just to sort of like give myself a little bit of a better sense of it. And the ultimate lineup for the Oscars, this was, of course,

the year that Jessica Langman's for Blue Sky. We've talked about that enough. I don't know. Oh, to get in. Okay, Jordane, you are welcome to go on about Jessica Lange with the sky. No, it's... We have too much. One of my most favorite wins. It's, yeah. No, it's a bad win.

It's a bad win. And that was a movie that was on cable all the time. Like, I would just turn on, like, the TV, and it would be like, oh, blue sky is playing. And I just be like, for some reason, even though I love Tommy Lee Jones and I love Jessica Lang, I don't want to watch this. It's a bad movie. It is. Yes.

So your other nominees are Jody Foster for now, probably wins that year if she doesn't already have two Oscars. Miranda Richardson for Tom and Viv, Miranda Richardson was like hot on the buzz of crying game and damage and enchanted April by that point. Susan Sarandon for the client who fucking rules and that movie fucking rules and I love that performance. I love that nomination. And the thing that I always forget, even though we've talked about this before, is she did win the BAFTA. that year for the client. She's also writing high on when is she going to finally win an Oscar. Yes.

Yes. And this is in the middle of her. Yeah. And then the big surprise, the one who really hadn't shown up anywhere previously, was Winona Ryder in Little Women, who I think is very good in that movie. My pick to win.

I'm glad that she got, and that's a nomination where she had been nominated for the Age of Innocence the year before. And that was her sort of, sort of big era of being an Oscar, an Oscar buzzed actress. I think she'd also gotten a lot of credit for little women becoming, like, a Christmas season hit, too, partly on her star power. Yes.

And that certainly helped her nomination happen. So the Golden Globes nominate Lang, Jody Foster, Miranda Richardson, and then instead of Ryder and Sarandon, they nominate Merrill Streep for the, River Wild, a movie we've done on this podcast. Also, I think she rules. And then Jennifer Jason Lee for Mrs. Parker. And then in comedy, you have like Jamie Lee Curtis wins for true lies. And I don't think any of the comedy nominees at the Globes that year really had much of a impact on Oscar. It was like Emma Thompson and Jr. and Gina Davis in Speechless? She's a political speechwriter with Michael C. Oh, shit. I forgot about

Speechless. And then who was it? It's Andy McDowell in, oh, shit, something. Not green card. That wasn't the green card. Green card was 1990. So, oh, four weddings and a funeral, of course. Got it.

That's a banger, yeah. And then Shirley McLean for, it's either for guarding tests. Guarding tests or Mrs. Winterborn, one of the two of them. Oh, my God. I know. I know. Ricky Lake vehicle, Mrs. Winterborn. I know. Serandon wins the BAFTA, as I said. That one was all over the place.

Linda Fiorentino is nominated for The Last Seduction, Rad. Umah Thurman is bumped up from supporting and is nominated for Pulp Fiction. Irene Jacob, or Irene Jacob, perhaps, if we're going to get fancy schmance for Kislovsky's Red. And then SAG, the first year of the SAG Awards, Foster wins that. Jessica Lang, and Susan Sarander are nominated. They also nominate Meryl Streep for the River Wild. And then they throw in Meg Ryan for When a Man Loves a Woman. Another movie.

Another movie who has done great performance. And then you talk about the Critics Awards. Linda Fiorentino had won New York. Jessica Lang had won L.A. Miranda Richardson had won National Border Review. And then Jennifer Jason Lee wins National Society. So it really was all over the place in terms of how this lineup was going to coalesce. And

like there was wiggle room in that category that year for Jennifer Jason Lee. And it's a surprise ultimately that she doesn't get in there for it because she was so acclaimed. Yeah. And she's so, she's so great in this

movie. She plays she's, I mean, there's really not many actresses who plays like sad but also smarter than you like she does. The romance between her and Benchley, the sort of non-romance romance, right, where they are clearly in love with each other, but they never pursue it, and I think they both acknowledge it. I think they both know that they're in love with each other, and they know that each other knows. And they sort of make this unspoken decision to never pursue it and be this sort of, you know, platonic, you know, professional. It's almost, like, you know, work husband and work wife, even though they only work together at the very

beginning of this movie. Yeah. But, like, clearly there's such huge presences in each other's lives. And then she has these, she has the marriage to Andrew McCarthy. She has the affair with Matthew Broderick, which ends when she finds him in bed with Gwyneth Paltrow, who is bold as hell about it when she walks in. Oh, my God. Just her just nude, just being like, you know.

sitting up in the bed and being like what and what about it. It's sort of the and what about it meme. She also says, what does she say? She says like, she acknowledges that like the three of them in the room and she's like, I'd leave, but I think if there's any one of us who should leave,

it should be the one who already has their clothes on. It's like, okay, well, if we're going to be like that about it. Well, yeah. And then she had, right, she has this fling with Stephen Baldwin at one point. Although He can't get it up

He's good in the movie It's weird to see a Baldwin brother Be good in a movie But That's the scene where there's this big sort of party At somebody's fancy Cliffside home And like Harpo Marx is there

Like doing pratfalls and whatnot And I think F Scott Fitzgerald is there at one point That's the part where Martha Plimpton And Sam Robards are talking about founding the New Yorker. And there's like beguiling Stephen Baldwin or whatever looking, you know, 1990s snacking. This mid-90s thing of like us being absolutely gaslit that the Baldwin brothers were the hottest men on earth.

I don't think it took much gaslighting because they were all super hot in that era. Are they though? Are they like an avatar for a hot person? Like I just watched Sliver for the first time too. and Billy Haltwin in that movie the absolute utter convincedness that that movie has that he is so hot.

He won most desirable male famously from the MTV Movie Awards. That movie was initially supposed to be like we're going to show a man's penis and they don't. Billy Baldwin, my favorite Baldwin. I will say that. All right, well, I'll be the one

that's just shitting on the Baldwin. No, you know. I mean, no, I mean, they suck in general. But if you're going to choose one, I would say Billy's pretty top tier. Okay. The story is in you must remember this, where she's essentially just, like, quoting Sharon Stone's autobiography. And Sharon Stone is shredding Billy Baldwin up and down, without mentioning him by name. Like, yeah, exactly.

She does not mention him by name, but she, like, unambiguously, like, tears him to bits. That book is really a great read. It sounds it from the excerpts. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, like, oh, I, I, as a, you know, young, closeted burgeoning homosexual in the 90s, yeah, the Baldwin's were a thing. Like, Baldwin was a shorthand for hot guy in clueless. You know what I mean? Like, it was, you're such a Baldwin, right? Who am I to question, Amy Heckerling? This is what I'm saying. This is what I'm saying. It was a thing, Chris. It was a thing. I am not someone who loves South Park, though.

Every time I see a Baldwin that's not Alec Baldwin in a movie, I quote Mr. Garrison in South Park, all the baldwins are dead. All right, that was a good Mr. Garrison. Now it's time for Jordane to do you hear. Oh, yes, yes, yes, we have to hear. It's been so long. We can just have a conversation.

You will play Dorothy Parker, and I will play Mr. Garrison. What type of conversation would they have had? Oh, my God. I mean, it would just be them being extremely bitchy to each other. Like, Mr. Garrison would probably be, oh, I don't know if I ever told you this, but when I was in grad school at NYU, I was taught by the actual Mr. Garrison that Trey Parker Matt Stone, but his name is Gary Garrison.

He is a gay man from this. from the south um midwest south like what yes Gary Garrison is a real guy and he and he taught theater to me at NYU and it's really out when you meet him he looks exactly the same the cartoon looks exactly like him he used to teach tray Parker and Matt Stone and so yeah it was based on him wow did he have a I did not know that no he did not have a Mr. Hat he was just like I mean The show's pretty accurate to his sense of humor. Damn, that's crazy. That's amazing.

I also jotted down. She was, Jennifer Jason Lee. Actually, this movie was nominated for, like, several Independent Spirit Awards that year, five Independent Spirit Awards. And, of course, it loses all of them because Pulp Fiction. I was going to say, this is going to be a common refrain when we talk about, Mrs. Parker in the vicious circle and awards season is it just gets absolutely steamrolled at every occasion by Pulp Fiction. Indy Spirit Award that's nominated for Best

Feature loses to Pulp Fiction. Best director loses to Pulp Fiction. Best screenplay loses to Pulp Fiction. Campbell Scott's nominated for Best Male Lead. He loses to Samuel Jackson in Pulp Fiction. And then Jennifer Jason Lee loses to Linda Fiorantino in Best Female Lead. So five up, five down for Miss. This is Parker. What a shitty year to be any other independent show. Any indie. Yep. Yep. Exactly. Exactly. What else did I want to get into?

Jennifer Jason Lee wins. Oh, again, she wins best actress at National Society of Film Critics. What wins best film and best director there? Pulp Fiction. Paul Newman won Best Actor, I will say, for Nobody's Fool. A movie that is pretty good, and he's very good in it, I think. Um, do we want to bop over to the Cannes Film Festival? Do we want to bop over to the south of France? Uh, if, if we were talking in literal terms, yes, let's all go. It never kind of fails to amaze me that the jury president that gave Pulp Fiction the palm was led, the jury president was Clint Eastwood.

Clint Eastwood, yep. I can't imagine that man watching that movie. That jury's really interesting because it's Clint Eastwood. president. Catherine Deneuve is on that jury. Kazuo Ishiguro is on that jury. And yeah, like you said, they give it to Tarantino for Pulp Fiction. It's a good, it's a pretty good lineup, actually, for Cam that year. Sometimes you, as the farther you go back, it's filmmakers maybe you know of, but maybe, like, not always, they're, like, most well known, but like, Hudsucker proxy, we mentioned, three colors red is there. Um, Kiaro Stomber.

Tommy is there with Through the Olive Trees. Zhang Yimu for his to live is there. Exotica, the Adam-Agoian movie. I love Exotica. I need to see Exotica. Exotica was a movie that would be on HBO at like 1 a.m. And you would

stay up because you knew it was about like, it was called Exotica. You know what I mean? Like I remember There was a slight chance you might see a boob. And I remember watching it and I'd be like, this is quite what I was expecting, but also, like, I'm intrigued, and, uh, yeah, it was a good movie. Yeah. It's a good movie. Edward Yang had a movie there. Edward Yang had the, a confusion there. Queen Margo was there. Have you seen Queen, have you both seen Queen Margo? I haven't. Talk about violent movie. Queen Margo came up at a videology trivia one time as a,

in the picture round. And I remember, I had no idea what movie it was. but I was like, or no, maybe it was the video clip round. Whichever it was, I was, I was, eyebrows were raised, but I still haven't seen it. It's also like eight billion hours long, but that's fine. Actually, I think it's like, she went before me. Every once in a while, a straightforward costume drama will come along that is like, yes, we're doing the costume drama thing. But did you also know that historically, we just beheaded people. Like, in a royal court.

In a royal court. By the way, people were also very horny then, too. That's what Queen Margo is. Queen Margo is also significant because Vernalisi wins best actress at Cannes over Jennifer Jason Lee. And Jennifer Jason Lee, you know, there's two performances there that they maybe could have given it to her. But Vernalisi is not a lead performance in that movie.

It's a supporting one. Isabel Johnny, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that's odd. Was it just that she was so, such a knockout in that movie? I think she's good in that movie, but when you watch that movie, I think it's somewhat, it's surprising that she won at Cannes for the performance.

It's not that she's bad. It's just that they gave her that, okay. The other movies, though, that perform in either other sections or out of competition, are really telling in terms of, like, as I said, like this 1994, is a turning point year, I think, for the direction that cinema was going and eventually American cinema, but you have, like, The Adventress of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and I like it like that, and Clerks is at that can, and Eat Drink Man Woman, and John Waters' cereal mom, and I think Muriel's Wedding is at that, is at that can.

Muriel's Weddings and Director's Fortnite, yeah. Yes. So it's all of these movies. that would kind of bubble up in the American indie scene in one way or another that were pushing things towards where they would go for the rest of that decade. And it's really interesting. I think it's fascinating that, like, clerks played it can. You know what I mean?

For as much for, you know, where we ended up settling on with Kevin Smith's filmmakers. And Matt Scho asked me, Catherine de Nouve to watch clerks. Like, it feels a little profane. well it wasn't in main competition but she you know was probably she was there maybe she saw it maybe she liked it but like clerks was seen as an important indie film yeah if only for the way it came to be you know what i mean such a low budget financed on credit cards you know films you know on a weekend at the at the mini mark or whatever um and it was received as kind of a sensation in terms of like there just weren't movies like that back then. There weren't movies that were that sort of like loose and conversational

and vulgar and whatever that anybody beyond real hardcore cinefiles would have seen. You know what I mean? Like that was a break into, you know, a foot into the mainstream for a lot of people. And like me who like, I wasn't some like 12 year old, you know, sinophile or anything like that. Like, those were the movies that introduced me to indie film and sort of, like, got me on the road to all this stuff. So, really interesting year. Yeah. Yeah. That, I mean, I, of course, was too young to be there.

But I did watch a lot of those when I was of the age, and Clerks was a big movie for me, which, by the way, y'all should watch the documentary Chasing, Chasing Amy, and not just because my friend made it. But I do need to watch that. Yeah, it's very interesting because they talk about clerks coming out and it being very popular and Guinevere Turner is also there talking about Go Fish and how it wasn't as popular and like there's a lot of

interesting stuff because it's not just about the movie, it's kind of like about like how the movie overshadowed the women. Yep. Yeah. There's stuff about that in the Peter Biscan book too, the Down and Dirty Pictures which is the one about the rise of indie film in Miramax that talks about that same kind of thing,

how movies like Go Fish and Gas Food Lodging and stuff like that were overshadowed by clerks because Clerks was, you know, very aggressively marketed. But no, I've been dying for a queer re-evaluation of Chasing Amy because I find that movie is so fascinating. I've talked about this. I've talked about this before, so I won't go along. You got, yes. That movie was hugely important to me. Yes, me too.

Yeah. Yeah. And like in ways that, like, I still go back and watch it. And I'm like, well, of course, so much of this seems so very, like, made by a straight filmmaker. But there's also stuff that, like, is kind of ahead of its time in the way that it would talk about, like, talking about, like, weirdly, like, intersectionality gets, like, broached in chasing Amy by Kevin Smith. It does feel like, for as much as it's made by a straight filmmaker, it's made by a straight filmmaker who is, like, honestly curious and not just, like, just asking questions, which has become, like, so turned into something ugly. It really felt like Kevin Smith was open-mindedly being like, I would like to know more. Yeah, yeah, the doc.

It's interesting. Yeah, the doc gets into, like, all of that. I got to see it. Yeah. And I was at the, I was at the part. for it at Tribeca, and I met the actor who played Hooper, and he is... I love

him so... What's his name? Dwight? Dwight, Yule? Yeah, he was so... He was, like, just such a sweetie. I was just like, I watched this movie for the first time when I was 12, and I loved you, and he was, like, very, very... Oh! That's great. Oh, I love that for you. That's fantastic. I will absolutely be watching that movie, so thank you for the

recommendation. Awesome. Chris, what else do you want to get into? There's a lot we can talk about. I mean, like, I opened this with a can you ever forgive me joke. I was surprised to see that this movie pairs so well with, can you ever forgive me in a way? Yeah. That, you know, and like, of course, you know, Dorothy Parker is a great, you know, subject of the people that Lee Israel plagiarized to kind of, to kind of,

of center on in that movie because of the kind of parallels in their life. You know, Dorothy Parker, who, you know, or Lee Israel, who is kind of ultimately ostracized from her community of, you know, or like, you know, not as welcomed into a writerly community, the certain level of depression and melancholy that afflicted their lives. And, yeah, I just, want to talk about can you ever give me a little bit because i love that movie i also love that movie and i didn't even make the connection until you said it and now i i have to rewatch can

you ever forgive me now because i mean i love it obviously but uh who's the other one in that movie who she had it's so good who's the other major one in that movie that she had uh no coward yes but who was the one who she pitches the the biography to jane curtain and jane Curtain's like, nobody gives a shit. No one is going to publish a book on Fannie Bryce. Chain Curtin. So good in that movie. I'm trying to go.

I'm going through my notes to see what we haven't gotten to yet. The one quote I wrote down, I could have like, you could write down everything that gets said in this movie with a quote. But who is she talking to when she says, I think my version, oh, it's Freud. When she meets, when she gets analyzed in this movie by, that's supposed to be Freud, right? Yeah, I mean, that's the whole idea. I assume so, yeah. He's got the beard, right?

And he, like, he, like, brings her into a room and, like, has her lie down on the couch and does the whole, like, you know, trying to analyze her. And eventually, she's just like, I'm good. She says, I think my version of pain is more fun than yours, which is a really, like, that's Uncle That's a good line. I thought that whole thing was so funny. And then the post script to this movie, which, like, they don't really ever prepare you for it anyway, that she left all of her money to Martin Luther King, Jr. And that if you look at the end in the credits, all of her, like, poems that they quote in the movie are, like, made available courtesy by the NACP. So, like, there's, like, that's where the ownership of that resides.

I thought that was very cool. That was part of the, like, oh, I would love to see, you know, this made as a TV show because, like, little avenues like that. I'm like, tell me more. I would love, I would love to know how that happened. I remember seeing that, like, even just, like, as, like, a teenager and being like, what? Yeah. Oh, what?

Like, that's kind of fascinating to me. It's just, like, this, like, you know, revenue stream for the NAA is licensing out Dorothy Parker poetry. Love that. You know, she left that with intentionality in her will. Yeah. Yeah. That's not really explored by the movie in a way that I think... They just have the one quote where she talks about, like, what do you

hate in the culture? And she's like segregation. And that's kind of really the only thing that's mentioned in there, but it's very interesting. Also, Cindy Loper shows up in this movie for like half a second. That was great. I loved that. I thought that was so fun. also the first time I saw Rebecca Miller in this movie and like I've seen Rebecca Miller in things I know what she looks like

the first time I saw her I was like is that Jane Krikowski because like I don't know why I don't know what made me think that but it was like is this Jane Krikowski like early Jane Krikowski like before maybe a procedure or two

like who knows I don't know I don't know Rebecca Miller I love her Her newest movie opened Berlin this year, and I heard nothing about it, so maybe it's not good. And I guess it's getting released, I think, by the same people that released to Leslie. So we won't probably get to see it until, you know, there's suddenly five Oscar nominated for it. You know what Rebecca Miller's really good in? Peter Dinklage, Anne Hathaway.

And I'm like, why have we not heard anything about this movie? You know what Rebecca Miller's really good in? Meyerowitz stories. Yes, yes. It's true. I really like her in that. I really like her in that movie. She is also in consenting adults, which I watched because of this season.

Oh. You must remember this. What a bad movie. I've never seen it. I feel like I've never finished it. Like usually if I'm starting anything erotic that has to do with like a bunch of like white people lying to each other or whatever, it's like very easy for me to get through it. But I actually don't know if I'm. I've ever, it says that I've watched it on letterbox, but I don't believe that. Well, the movie's like 90 minutes long. It goes by way too fast for what it is, and there is

absolutely zero internal logic to the movie. And like Kevin Spacey's house is like red velvet walls. It is exactly what you think Kevin Spacey's house would look like. Oh my God. Just in the world. It's, the movie is ridiculous. It's, Maybe, like, the definitive text for me of movies I'm annoyed by because heterosexuals think that monogamy is the most interesting thing about their relationship. Oh, they sure do. That is exactly what that movie is about. But, like, that's a weird, weird movie.

Yeah. But, yeah, I'll be excited to see her next movie whenever I can see it. Yeah, same. I feel, like, my closing note on this movie. is it's a I mean like it's great that we do actually have quote Oscar nominee comma Jennifer Jason Lee now but I just hate that her Oscar nomination is for the hateful hate a movie that I hate so much I hate it and I don't like her in it it's endless it's endless it was like hell like watching it was like

it felt like I was in hell I mean, it's just, well, and I don't like saying I didn't like that Jennifer Jason Lee performance because I do think she is one of our best. I love that she feels like she's in a moment of like being celebrated and partly because, you know, Criterion Channel just did a ton of her movies like all together in one and it's like her career spans so many decades and like look at all these performances that while I think she has a definitive stamp

as a performer, I don't think she has many performances that are alike. Yeah. Well, it's so funny because she kind of got pegged as the actress who played a lot of prostitutes for a while, because she played in both Last Exit to Brooklyn and Miami Blues. She's playing a sex worker. Chris, you'll enjoy this. After she did Miami Blues and Last Exit to Brooklyn, Entertainment Weekly called her, the Merrill Streep of Bimbo's, end quote.

Oh, fuck off. One guess as to who provided that. I guarantee you, it was my nemesis. He hates women so much. Yeah, it's an Owen Gliboram, unquote. Of course it is. I went to go check it, and I'm like, do I even need to check it? Of course I know who wrote this.

Of course I know. Right. But, yeah, like, she, I think for a while she was playing, she also plays, obviously, a phone sex operator in shortcuts. So I think that, but she sort of goes through kind of eras, right? where, like, I guess you can compare things like Rush and Georgia and these sort of, like, very kind of extreme. And then, like, now she's, she went through the fact that, like,

both in the cut and Margot at the wedding, she's playing, like, troubled sisters whose names are Pauline. Is very interesting to me? I wrote about that. It's an interesting, it's an interesting coincidence. And then, like, lately she's kind of played, um, uh, doctors, like, in lab. Laboratory settings, like in Annihilation.

And is she the one in, speaking of Andrea Rysborough? She's in Possessor, yeah. Possessor, right? Yes, okay, yes. She's also a laboratory doctor, I believe, in that movie Morgan, the Anya Taylor Joy movie. And you have to see this Morgan movie. She kind of goes through these phases. Morgan is like the jump scare of this podcast lately.

When else did Morgan come up? She was on somebody's IMDB game recently, and I can't remember who, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, recommendation to watch the anniversary party, which she co-wrote and co-directed with Alan Cumming. That's a fun one. That's a fun, Gwyneth performance. Basically, Gwyneth playing Gwyneth. Yeah. A lot of people from Mrs. Parker are in the movie because Jane Adams is also in that movie.

And I think Martha Plimpton also may be in that movie. So it's like, you get the feeling that, like, again, these are all people who, I'm sure they all, like, grew up together. and went to like, you know, whatever, Harvard Westlake together or whatever the fuck. Jennifer Jason Lee being a stage door manner kid is so funny to me, because I'm imagining her, this is the performing arts camp in upstate New York, which the movie camp is based on the currently upcoming movie theater camp is essentially based on. I'm just imagining like 10-year-old Jennifer Jason Lee in like some kind of, you know, Edward Albee's play. You know what I mean?

Like doing like, Who's a Fader Virginia Woolf as a 10-year-old? That's the last line of camp is Anna Kendrick as Elizabeth Taylor's character in Virginia Woolf walking into the room and going, what a dump! And it's like, boom, end, like movie ends. It's great.

Yeah, I don't know. I think it's fascinating. All right. Yeah. about the IMDB game, finally. Yes, we can. Actually, before we do, Jordane, any final thoughts on

Mrs. Parker in the vicious circle? Hmm. Final thoughts. Final thoughts. I love that, like, near the end, like, when she's, like, running out of guys, she just, like, turns to, like, James LaGroes, and she was just like,

have we ever touched? Oh, I love that. That's a great one. I hadn't even thought about that. That's so funny. And there are those, like, parties where you might, like, have, like, a weird sideways glance at a friend, and you're like, should we? No. Yeah.

We, I mean, we could try. Those are fun parties. Yeah. This happens to me constantly. Fantastic. All right. Now we. we will do the IMDB game.

Joe, would you like to explain what the IMDB game is? You know I would love to. Every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with the name of an actor or actress, and we try to 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-actant credits, we mentioned that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue,

and if that's not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints. That's the IMDB game. Sure is. All right, Jordane, as our guest, you obviously get the choice to give or guess first, but you also get to choose who you're giving to or guessing from. Okay. You. Okay.

Are you giving to me or am I giving to you? Giving, guessing. I don't know. Giving. Oh, no, am I guessing, or? I'll give to you. Okay, we got it. It's, yeah.

So, for you, I chose a fun one. Also, kind of sad because of recent stories, but hopefully fun for IMTP game. I went into Alan Rudolph's filmography. Alan Rudolph directed an adaptation of Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions. That was kind of a major disaster, but starring one Bruce Willis. So for you, I've chosen Bruce Willis. There is one TV show. Hmm.

God. Bruce Willis. Hmm. I was very happy to see the TV show up on his known for. Oh, moonlighting? It's moonlighting. Moonlining is on his known for. How great is that?

I love that for him. Hmm. Die hard Die hard, correct Six cents The six cents You are one guess away from a perfect guess On Bruce Willis

I know The pressure gets to be a lot When you're so close We just had We almost had it where we almost had A perfect episode Was that one when Lewis was on Joe And I was the one who fucked it up

we almost all three of us would have had a perfect score it was that was fun that was fun hmm I feel like I'm trying to think what other one it would be because I mean there's so many to choose from hmm do I get a hint or do I guess first uh I'll give you a hint to say it's a movie we've mentioned already on this episode. Oh, Pulp Fiction? Pulp Fiction. Nice. Very good.

That's a good known for. I think Pulp Fiction is weird, considering, you know, Bruce Willett. There are multiple stars of Pulp Fiction. Yeah, yeah. But, like, I don't jump to Bruce Willis when I think of Pulp Fiction. Yeah, no, I recently watched Hudson Hawk. I wish he was known for that. Oh, sure.

Okay, how is that? It's really weird in a way that I found, like, charming. The fact that everybody's, like, named after candy and there's, like, singing. Danny Aiello, always a pleasure. That movie starts with a musical number, right? Because I remember that... That's one of those movies where it starts on cable TV. And I'm like, oh, this is interesting.

Like, what's going on here? And then I found out of Hudson Hawk. And I'm like, oh, this was this big bomb. Like, this was supposed to do. Yeah, he's constantly singing, like, I remember the kind of songs that we would sing in, like, a middle school chorus, where he's, like, he's singing, like, swing on a star, you know? And I just, like, I immediately was just, like, am I 13 again? Like, this is crazy.

Bruce Willis had a whole separate music career, too. Like, we forget this. Yeah. Oh, that's so funny. He also, if you read Demi Moore's memoir, my favorite memoir to bring up, she talks about how he and John Goodman and Woody Harrelson would like hang out and they were like like like a pack of bros. Wow. I do.

I love this bro pack. I feel like there was a fourth, but those are the three that I remember. I just like, because I just, can you imagine? I want to, I'd watch a movie with Bruce Willis, John Goodman, and Woody Harrelson now. I mean, put them in a waiting for Godot situation. Yeah. Yeah. That is funny.

all right so you now give to joe whoever you have pulled up sure um this almost seems like a hard one but it immediately came their mind because when i see campbell scott i immediately think of singles um because that was maybe one of the first times i'd seen him and when i think of singles i think of kira sedgwick oh kira sedgwick sure uh famous star of singles okay um and it's all movies or is there any television? Let me see. I would, I would assume, I would assume there's one television considering the one. It's got to be the closer. Yeah, absolutely the closer. Okay, all right, all right. So the closer is there. I'm going to guess singles, actually. No. No, no singles. Correct.

Kira Sedgewick. Something to talk about? Yes. Okay. A phenomenon Yes Okay one more Curious Heart and Souls No Damn it should be

What an excellent guess But no It should be No this one I mean She is She is the co-star in this But she's not on the poster

Which I think is important And it's 2004 Yeah 2004 Oh is it the Woodsman Yes. Yud. The woodsman.

I think that's also on Kevin Bacon's known for. It's very strange. Didn't he direct it to? Yes. No. He's like, I'm going to direct myself as a pedophile. That wasn't him. It was somebody named Nicole Castle.

Oh, okay. I do remember, he might have produced it maybe, though. I remember it being like this very bit, like he was, he very much wanted to make his make him happen. He wanted to play this pedophile. He really. Really, really did. I still haven't watched it, even though, like, it seems like something I would have watched at some point.

That's one of those things that it's like, we could do that for this podcast, but we don't want to. Would you want to? We got, you got Mo's Deaf in there. Oh, wow, most deaf. Good actor. Yeah. But you won't have a, this had Oscar Buzz, Woodsman episode. I doubt it.

I doubt it. All right. Chris, for you, I have chosen somebody who we've never done. So I also went through the Alan Rudolph filmography. He directed a film called Mortal Thoughts. Speaking of Bruce Willis was in Mortal Thoughts, starring Demi Moore, but also starring Mr. Harvey Keitel, who we've never done before. Yes.

See, for Harvey Keitel is his one Oscar nomination for Bugsy in there, and I feel like it's probably I'll say it, Bugsy. Nope. Yeah, I should have followed my instinct. Taxi driver. No. No, not taxi driver.

Wow, okay. So your years are two movies from 1992. The piano? No, that's 1993. Two from 92, one from 94, and then one from 2014. The piano is not on there?

One of those has to be bad lieutenant. Yes, bad lieutenant is one of the 92s. Okay. 2000, what? 14. Okay, what are those? Is reservoir dogs? Correct. That's your other 92.

Pulp Fiction. Yes, that's your 94. All right, so 2014, Harvey Keitel. Is it youth? No, that was 2015. What a piece of shit. This one is actually kind of hard. It is.

Is it like a big ensemble? Yes, it is. That he's randomly in. Yes, correct. 2014, what could that be? It's not Prairie Home Companion. Nope. No, that's 06.

Why did I assume that's 2014? Large ensemble from 2014, that is the year. of I'm trying to remember movies from 2014. It's a good, what are certain ways that you would remember what are the movies from 2014?

Not huge ensemble movies except for like gone girl. No, but I mean like if you want to like, oh, I got to think of what were the movies from 2014. What are like the, your, what are your entry points? for that. Still Allison gone, girl. I am who I am. You're thinking...

Right, but that's what I mean. Like, what category of movies would be, like, a good way to start? Like, when you're thinking of... I got to think of the movies from 2014. What, like... Blockbusters, Oscar movies? Oscar movies.

Yes, go with that. Okay, so this is an Oscar movie. Yeah. That he is in 2014. Mm-hmm. Yeah. that's not Argo Argo's 2012

yeah 2014 is the year of Oh is he in the artist No No that's 2011 You're in the wrong year This is the I've not done this poorly in a while

I mean I almost want to give you a hint It's a best picture nominee From 2014 From 2014 Those are Wait is it five No it's not five nominees

It's multiple nominees So you have the theory of everything you have what the hell won Birdman Birdman's 2015 Oh it's Birdman Okay so it's the Birdman year

Yeah What was the second tier To Birdman winning I believe it was actually the nomination leader Okay Or tied with Birdman for the nomination year Yeah Holy smokes what

It won a few of the crafts awards Grand Budapest Hotel There you go Grand Budapest Hotel He is in that movie He's in the prison scene Yeah I just did my whole big

I would have never guessed that for him I did my whole big Wes Anderson performance ranking And that doesn't show up But you know what does from Harvey Kite is he's very briefly in Isle of Dogs. He's in, like, two scenes. He's so good in his two scenes in Isle of Dogs.

My condones says to you for having to re-watch Isle of Dogs. I will say, almost everything that I re-watched for that project, I ended up liking better than I had before, including Grand Budapest, which was a movie that I didn't really get the first time around, and I liked it a lot better. And I liked Isle of Dogs a good bit better the second time around, too. I really did not care for that movie the first time. So it's still not my favorite of his. But watching them all together, I'm in a very, like, West Anderson place right now.

Like, I really, my respect levels for him as an artist is really fun. I need to see Asteroid City again. Well, apparently it's coming on to VOD in, like, a day. By the time this episode is out, it'll probably already be on VOD. I feel like things like that are a sign that they're actually making a shit ton of money off of VOD, but we'll just never know. Maybe. Because, like,

you're just leaving so much money on the table to do that. It's doing well. It's doing well in our house release. It says maybe they are actually making a lot of money off movies on VOT. I hope it makes... Like, I just want people to see it, man. You know what I mean? Like, I want people to see it and talk about it

and for it to, like, behave like, a real movie. Yeah. And... I was so... I was so completely surprised by how movies. I was by that movie. It really hits you. Yeah.

Well, that is our episode. If you want more, This Had Oscar Buzz. You can check out the Tumblr at thisheadoscorbuzz.com. You should also follow us on Twitter. It had underscore Oscar Buzz. And on Instagram at This Had Oscar Buzz. Jordaid, thank you so much for coming back. Thank you so much.

I'm so glad we finally got to talk about this movie. Yes. Because I know it's one you love. Yes. I'm so happy. I'm very energized, even though I'm about to watch the final season of the surprise. rhinos as soon as we get off.

I'm sure that'll knock the wind out of me, but it's good. Well, once again, thank you so much for coming back and bringing this movie to us. Tell our listeners where they can find more of you. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Judy Squirrels. I'm a letterboxed at Riot Glasses. I actually updated my website, so if you type in jordained souls.com, it actually takes you to a place that doesn't look like shit. It's incredible.

So, yeah. Joe, where can the listeners find more of you? Oh, Twitter and letterboxed at Joe Reed. Read spelled R-E-I-D. I'm also on Twitter and letterbox at KrispyFile. That's F-E-I-L. And recently, Bluski, in case I have abandoned Twitter, as I have wanted to do by the time that this episode airs.

Oh, yeah. It's famous Jessica Lang movie, Blue Ski. We'd like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave and Gonzales and Gavin Medius for the technical guidance. Please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, wherever else you get those podcasts. Five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcast visibility. So find us in the bathroom of Apple Podcasts and say,

hey, I kind of like you. Should we do this? That's all for this week, but we hope you'll be back next week for more buzz. Thank you for you It says it's me Everyone to win a baby That's no lie You never fail

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