This Had Oscar Buzz - 249 – Love is Strange

Episode Date: July 31, 2023

Ahead of this week’s release of Ira Sachs’ Passages, we’re discussing perhaps Sachs’ most lauded film, 2014’s Love is Strange. The film stars John Lithgow and Alfred Molina as a newly married couple forced to live apart in New York City when one of them is fired from his Catholic school job for being gay. … Continue reading "249 – Love is Strange"

Uh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hacks. Your dedication, your commitment to each other, are an example to be followed. Word got out to the Archdiocese. You've all known this whole time that Ben and I have been living together. The decision is effective immediately.

Now, we invited you all here today because, well, your family. With my private lessons and Ben's pension, we need a place to stay. Why are we even talking about this? I'm the only one with the extra bedroom. It's nothing about that, Mindy. It's a perkipsy. Hello, and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast with its own table at the Algonquin Hotel. 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 am your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with my nice boy on a skateboard, Joe Reed. Uh, as in the film, I am noticeably older than you, and, uh, people are suspicious of that. So, um, yes. Uh, I thought you were going to say, as in the film, you are just softly sobbing in a stairwell somewhere. No, I'm the skateboard friend. So I'm, uh, I'm, oh, but you're the nice boy. I, I, I meant the other. Oh, you meant the other boy. You, well, he's not very nice until the very end. I don't know about that kid. think he's just a teenager. I think that's true. I think the movie has as much grace for him as it has for all of its characters. He's got enough problems not in like in not being Lucas Hedges and having feelings about that because like he's so close to being Lucas Hedges at that age and like

it's just not happening for him and you got to give him some leeway for that because that's got to be emotional for such an such a impressionable teen. That's what I kept thinking of. I was just like, How old would Lucas Hedges have been? He would have been halfway between Moonrise Kingdom and Manchester by the sea at this point, which puts him... So probably the exact age of the year. Right that age. Right, exactly. So, I don't know.

Casting fucked up on that one. Lucas Hedges is also not in Little Men, which seems feasible. Little men. Watching this movie again, and I love this movie, I love Love Strange. And I like... What's the current one that I keep wanting to call Passengers? Passages. Little Men is my favorite

Iris Axe movie I have now settled on and decided it's so good I want I just I love it so much Passages is so deeply my thing that I could give it time and I

it could be I'm sure I like and respect passages there is a wall between me and passages in that I just have such a visceral bone-deep antipathy for the main character that I just can't stand him. I don't get fascinated with. I don't think he's a bad character.

I think he's a good character. And I think what he does successfully is make me fucking hate him. And I also kind of hate Adele Exarchopoulos. So, like, that's... You hate her, too? Yes, for fuck's sake, I hate her. Shut the fuck up. We're talking about Iris.

Axis' Love is Strange because Iris Axis' passages is coming out this coming weekend and limited release. Thank you, Mooby. Okay. I love this movie. I've loved it even more since I've seen it and thought about it. I have not an ounce of sympathy for her character, I think, is where I come down in that movie.

Not a speck of sympathy for her character. I guess my mind just doesn't even go to that place. I just think they're all really interestingly, you know, develop. I think so too, but I also, like, I can't put my emotions aside. Like, I can intellectually appreciate that movie. But, like, on an emotional level, I'm like, fuck you, fuck boy. And fuck you. For- You are such a, like, card-carrying member of the Ben Wishaw Army. You are ready to defend him at all costs. Guilty. You have a limit. Why would you cheat on Ben-Wishaw? Why would you break up Ben-Wishaw's, you know, perfectly

dysfunctional marriage and and the both of them can go fucking raise their demon spawn child and seclusion for all I care. Well, I mean, you could look at it that way or you could look at it as Ben Washaw is being through painful means perhaps put on a better path than with this asshole. The great thing about passages is it's a great movie about an asshole. Yes. And you don't just mean the sex scene. You mean, uh, uh, I could not, I didn't mean that.

I couldn't resist. No, that's not what I meant. I did not think about the words coming out of my mouth. Um, maybe, maybe I should just like put that as my next letterbox log or something. It's a great thing about an asshole and let people think it means whatever they think it means. Yeah. Yeah. Don't give.

We'll cut that part out so that when you do it, people will be surprised. No, no, no, no, no. I'm sure I'm going to have a million other things to say other than that sex scene, though I would love to write about that sex scene. But as much as I would like to be this very sort of, you know, hard ass when it comes to appreciating movies, I do tend to own the fact that all things being equal, I will lean towards the movie that makes me feel good versus the movie that makes me feel angry. And Passages is a very good movie that nonetheless, by the end of the movie, I'm like, my fists are in little balls of rage because I'm just like that fucking guy. And then at the end of little men, I have little like hearts like bursting over my head. Well, see, I think this is the thing about Iris Axis, he makes you care so much.

Yeah. Maybe, like, I think the thing that we learned about him from passages is it's not, like, care as in empathy about his characters, but, like, we get invested in them. He makes them into these fully fleshed human beings in these actual, you know, real life circumstances that are more complicated in the way that, like, life is. like life is actually complicated. Sure, sure. This, and I would say little men, and pieces of his other movies are like, you know, the complexity of living and the way, like, economic means changes our ability to live or continue. I think I have a lot more endemic sympathy for somebody who's living in New York, who's getting

older and who's finding themselves priced out of the city that they love versus um heedless fuckboy filmmaker bisexual you know what i mean like none of those things none of those things apply to my life so perhaps i'm having a failure of empathy there but um all good movies like i have this is not a this is not in any way a slight on iris acts um i haven't it's interesting we're going to talk about his filmography a little bit later But I only really hopped on to his movies, as I think a lot of people did with Keep the Lights on, which was the movie immediately previous to Love is Strange. And that was a movie that got like some, I think that also had in Sundance Heat, or I remember having some sort of like advanced indie, like, you know, the word was out about that movie before I saw it. And then I saw it and I was like, oh, that's good.

And that's another movie where it's kind of hard to like, harder to like those characters. And then, but I appreciated it. And then Love is Strange comes along. And I'm like, bold over and blown away. And it's just like, oh, wow. Like, this is. And once again, the weekend lawnmowers are just never going to leave us alone on this podcast. I literally cannot hear your lawnmowers.

You'll hear it when you listen to. The ghosts in your parents' house are all, um, you know all they do in this neighborhood they don't do anything except mow lawns I fully believe that they just like mow lawns and then the next day

they move along again is it like the old timers in the neighborhood on like riding mowers where like they're not even they're not even mowing their grass they're just like going for a little trip stroll you know the lawns aren't big enough the lawns aren't big enough for riding mowers they're pretty like they're pretty

you know tidy tidily sized little lawns um it's it's done soon Well, but again, this is what I, this is the, this is the frustration. Why aren't they done sooner than they are? Anyway, whatever. What was I going to say? Love is Strange.

Oh, so the, Love is Strange comes along and it kind of ticks just a lot of boxes, right? It's this like really well-written, generous, empathetic indie movie. It's also like a gay movie about. really just well-drawn characters who are not, you know, don't fit into these little stereotypical boxes or, like, don't seem to be provoking discourse. You know what I mean? In a way where it's just like, we didn't have any, like, Tempest in a teapot about, like, you know, is Nick Robinson sufficiently swishy as Love Simon? You know what I mean? Like, I know that came later. But it just,

felt like there's, you know what I'm talking about when I talk about. No, no, no. It, it, you know, it doesn't invite any type of, I don't want to use the word trivial, but like, you know, trivial debate about this movie. Right. It sort of transcends that in a way that I appreciate. And I should say that the movies that invite that kind of like somewhat annoying debate also are generally worth it. You know what I mean? are generally better than the discussion that they provoke. But this one was just sort of like, oh, I don't even have to go through that. Oh, I don't even have to have the like, why are we doing another coming out story, you know,

you're making fun of me at this point, basically. No, we all do it. I do it too, you know what I mean? We all do it. And this sort of is about something. It's a movie that's about a gay couple, and it doesn't like make that incident. But it's also, like, about that and also the fact that it's increasingly hard for, you know, people to, you know, live and afford things and get by on a salary of a music teacher and a painter, you know what I mean? Well, yeah, like it's about the difficult, you know, it deals with a lot of the difficulties of life as people actually live them.

And I think, you know, there's things that a lesser movie would make be the movie. Like Alfred Molina's character getting fired, he has the, he, you know, has this rebuttal to John Cullum as the, like, you know, principal head, you know, priest, whatever at this Catholic school. And, like, it's in the first 15 minutes of this movie, but I think in a different movie, a more maybe mainstream or a, you know, not as interesting movie. movie, that's like the climactic monologue, right? But there's so much actual like business of how they're going to have to live their lives

now that their, you know, finances are disrupted. Even the stuff with the family, with the extended family. Like it's, you don't have this big sort of climactic argument between Marissa Tomei and her husband, whose name of the actor I can never remember,

and his sister, who is something. else in this movie. We're going to talk about fucking Mindy and Poughkeepsie at some point because oh my God. Mindy who is very much like, no, I want

to be the person who gets to take them in and it's like no. No one wants to go to Pekipsy lady. Like, sorry. It's a good movie. It's a good movie. What was your experience of this movie? I imagine you

so I saw it at the Tribeca Film Festival. I didn't get to see it until I saw it at home, and of course I completely fell in love with it immediately. Yeah. And, I mean, I've been in love with Ira Saxes movies ever since. Like, I really, really fell hard for little men. As I was recently on the Can I Kick It podcast, defending it, I feel, until the rest of the Can I Kick It gang saw it too, because they're on my side. I felt like the world's only defender of that movie.

Did people not like it? It got really bad reviews it can. Little men? No, Frankie. Oh, you said Little Matt. Right, but I was talking about Frankie. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. You're talking about Frankie, which I still haven't seen.

Okay, so I am part of the problem. Frankie, which is a great movie, really unfairly received, and I think partly because it is even more modest than most of Iris X's later movies are and it was in Cannes competition I think people were unfair to that movie because of how it arrived in the world It takes place in like Portugal or something right?

Yes, yes. Yeah, okay. That's nice. Exquisite movie. Also very much about you know the a movie that has a circumstance that could be way more dramatic that could be or like finger quotes

mainstream dramatic but yeah the things that it actually jumps off of and the things that it you know does show about how we live our lives are much more delicate and interesting than I think you know the more mainstream version of that movie would be yeah um yeah I've seen all of his features I love all of them I need to see keep the lights on again, because my initial reaction to that movie, I didn't love it as much. I remember that thing was pretty divisive when it came out. I think there were certain people who thought it was this kind of bracing and sort of fascinating gay story. A lot of people had a really hard time with the one actor, the younger of the two, who had played Glenn Close's son

in damages was the only other thing that I had remembered him from, the one who plays the drug addict in the film. A lot of people did not care for that performance. I had less of a problem with that. I thought it was a pretty good movie, but sort of never leaps past a certain barrier that love is strange and little men definitely did for me. So, yeah, worth a look back, though. That's a good point. I should see it again. But I'm excited to talk about this one. I'm talking about Love is Strange. Certainly, you know, his most awards-recognized movie. Fingers crossed until passages. I think, like, you know, that's probably not likely. But I'll be beating the Franz Rogalsky drum all year long. So to speak.

My favorite Franz Rogowski performance in what is going to be a very exciting career. But today, we are here to talk about Love is Strange. written and directed by Iris Sacks, co-written by his screenwriting partner, Maricio Zacharias, starring John Lithgow, Alfred Molina, Marissa Tomei, Charlie Tahan, Darren Burroughs,

Cheyenne Jackson, Harriet Sampson, Harris for not enough screen time, being that she is exquisite in everything. Christina Kirk, Adrian Lennox, and John Cullum, the movie premiered at Sundance 2014, and then opened in limited release. We will get into it August 22nd of 2000. In 2014.

Indeed. Joe, are you ready to give a 60-second plot description for Love is Strange? No, I'm not, but let's just do it anyway. I'm not prepared, but we'll wing it. Well, then you're going to start winging it now. Okay, so John Lithgow and Alfred Molina play Ben and George. They are a gay couple of 39 years together who finally get married and then go on the honeymoon. And because of the visibility of them on their honeymoon, they sort of forced the hand of the Catholic school that George works for into firing him for bullshit Catholic reasons.

And so he's out of a job and they can no longer afford their apartment that I think is in the village. And so they have to sell the place. And George goes to live with their friends, their young cop, hot cop friends, Cheyenne Jackson and his boyfriend. And then Ben goes to live with Marissa Tomei and his nephew, who is married to Marissa Tomei, and they have a teenage kid who he sleeps in the same bunk beds with him. And it's awkward, and it's hard to live with people. And it's hard to not have an actual home base and be separated from your husband. And Ben is sort of an annoying house guest, and he paints on the roof. and Marissa Tomei is losing her patience with him

and then he falls down the stairs and hurts his shoulder and he's got heart problems and then he and Alfred Milina have lovely drinks at Julius and things seem like they're going to be okay and then flash forward Ben has died and Alfred Molina has found a place and the shitty teen who was sort of mean to Uncle Ben brings the painting over that he was painting on the roof at the end.

Then he has a date with a nice young lady. Yes, that's the thing. That's right. They go on a skateboarding date. That's cute. A nice 95-minute lean-running time that took you 40 seconds over your 60-second plus. That's because I wasn't prepared. I need to, I need to, especially with a movie like this, where there's a lot of parts of it that you want to, I could have tightened that up. That's my bad. That's my bad. So this movie comes out in 2014, which, like, just to, like, place it somewhat historically, 2014, before. Before the Supreme Court ruling, before a burgerful, basically. Or is it the, no, it's before a burgerful.

Because that's what's 15, right? Correct. Remember when the Supreme Court, you know, gave us good news and, you know, gave people rights. We're going to talk about it, but watching this movie, listeners, you're getting this one several weeks after we're recording it. But we're recording this one, mere days after the Supreme Court ruled that made-up website. developers, website designers can make up an entire legal case without having any standing and have it strike down any non-discrimination laws in this country against LGBT people. So that's fun. So watching Alfred Molina's character get fired from his job as a music

teacher at a Catholic school. Where they found it out through Facebook, mind you. Is that what it was? I knew that it was from their photos from their honeymoon. But they had known that he had been gay and had a partner all this time, but now that, you know, he'd become just a little bit too visible, and that was a no-no. And I was like, oh, well, like, it's not like people needed extra help to be able to discriminate against gay people in this country and in this life. So congratulations, Supreme Court. You've done it again. So it was hard to watch it through that lens. It was also harder to watch it for me, and I'm going to make it all about me for a second. But watching this movie on the other side of having to leave New York City because I was priced out of the apartment market there was not fun. Not not fun. It was, you know, bittersweet and wistful. This is a, you know, really sort of lovely movie, and this is a movie that I think gets to a lot of the realities. I will say there were certain moments in this movie, and I think they're probably meant to be a little, like, make you raise an eyebrow.

But there's a moment where Cheyenne Jackson's, someone, Harriet Sansom Harris is like, oh, the condo, it's so hard to rent a condo in the city. And Cheyenne Jackson's like, oh, not anymore. And I'm like, oh, really? Officer, gay lover boy? Like, whatever? Like, fuck you. And just sort of the realities of, and I know that this is a very, you know, not everybody lives in New York. And not everybody wants to hear about what it's like to live in New York.

This is not just a New York thing. This is a nationwide thing. I mean, even in the city I live in, it's like, you know, we're just constantly twiddling our thumbs, staring at each other. That it's like, how long until we can't live here anymore? Yeah. It's frustrating. And then the other thing about this movie that I think is really smart. And I think it's probably the central, emotional crux of the movie, or at least one of them, is that,

But we talk about chosen family and we talk about support networks and they are fantastic. Support networks are necessary and they are, you know, they give you a soft place to land and they give you, you know, emotional support and they help make your life your life. And yet there is a baseline sort of autonomy and security and privacy that comes with being both having the social capital and the economic independence to live on your own. You know what I mean? It's wonderful that this couple has family and friends there to support them. And this movie doesn't deny that. But it also is sort of clear-eyed about the fact that, like, these are imperfect solutions.

And we should be providing, and this is not a movie that's like a social, social screen, but I'm going to make it a better movie for not being it, but I feel like it is, it allows for a more intelligent conversation and a more empathic conversation about things like elder housing and like elder, you know, support in communities and, you know. Yeah, yeah, that these people, it's wonderful that they have these people looking out for them. And yet, John Lithgow is sleeping on a bunk bed. And Alfred Molina is sleeping on a couch in a house that seems to never go to sleep. You know what I mean? And these people who are there for them are wonderful. And yet, like, the lack of an ability to just, like, go—I've lived with roommates my whole life. So it's not like I've ever, like, known the joy of, like, living truly alone.

but the ability to have a door that you can close and you are in your own space. You do not have to share that door. Right. You don't have to share that door. Also, we're going to talk about Marissa Tomei and her husband's apartment in this movie where all the doors seem to have windows on them, which makes me crazy. Like, was this a converted tool?

That, to me, sounds like a creative choice. It does. But it's an insane one. Who would want to live like that? But just the people who don't want to have any type of sexual activity. Yeah. But like the, like, you know what I mean? Like what they lose in this movie by not being able to make their own sort of, make their own space for themselves is this isn't a traumatic movie.

This isn't a movie about trauma. But it's about like. how destabilizing that is. Mm-hmm. So. For everyone involved, too, because, again, like, I feel like I just keep repeating this idea. A lesser movie would do X. You know, the act of taking in this couple separately, but still taking them in.

Yeah. You know, that would be the climactic emotional decision of a less interesting movie. Yeah. And in this movie, we get, oh, this isn't really ideal for Malie. Nina, it's like, it's less ideal for him. Cheyenne Jackson is just, like, playing board games and throwing parties and, like, seems fully undeterred by this. But, yeah, you look over at Litgau as Ben, who it's like, he, I think increasingly, as he

becomes aware that his presence is creating disruption, you know, becomes more uncomfortable, but, like, it doesn't matter. He plays a man who could probably fall asleep anywhere in any type of room on any type of surface. They might have been better suited in each other's opposite living situations, actually. And, like, him as a disruption is immediate to the son because he's sharing a bunk bed with an older gay man suddenly while he's a teenager and he can no longer be, you know, a teenager who needs their own room. A teenager who, like, isn't having, like, queer feelings for his best friend, but is having those sort of, like, I have a best friend, and I only have one best friend, and I've sort of invested a lot of my, you know, emotional, like, teenage, weird teenage emotions in this one friendship with this very aloof. After not really having friends. Right.

After, right, you find out later that the kid had had trouble having friends. So, like, Joey is the kid. He's, you know, I was harsh on him earlier, but like, you're right. He's, you know, he's going through a lot of really typical teenage stuff. And at the same time, then, he's got this older relative who's, you know, making himself at home. And the thing that I love about this movie is in giving everybody a plausible sort of degree of sympathy is, it's not like John Lithgow's character is fucking who's I'm trying to think of like I almost said Uncle Buck but that's not quite the like the archetype but like he's not like grandparents in Christmas vacation that thank you that's perfect that's perfect he's not this like oh my God what a nightmare I can't believe we're going to have to like in no way an unpleasant person and yet still fucking annoying to live with the idiosyncrasies of anybody will begin to wear on you when they are in your space and you have not like made the like they make the active decision to take him in but you know what I mean it's like it's it's a lot to ask of somebody to have somebody else live with them and like and disrupt your and I think this movie gets that across so well and that like he's such a well-meaning person he's such a kind person and sweet and yet like you totally sympathize with

Marissa Tomey's character, who is being driven up the wall by this guy. My favorite non-romantic scene in this movie is her trying to write on her computer, and he's just sitting there talking to her, and he's like, you know, I really need my own space to make my art. Yeah. I can't, I can't really paint when somebody else is in the room. It's very distracting. And she just sort of, like, pauses.

That seems fantastic when he's going on and on about, like, you know my friend, who's, who has the art. gallery and she said she read your book and she's and rissotome is literally like uh-huh wait what who like and she's like trying to be polite but is also trying to ignore him and like trying to figure out how like to balance the two she's fantastic she's tremendous in this movie like i'm pretty sure i would have placed her on my ballot this year and it's like it's not any big show of drama i would even argue like her scenes in frankie requires more, you know, like, typical things, you would say, well, that's a great performance.

This is a great performance because it's just, like, the ardor and the effort it sometimes takes to just be a decent person in this way. Yes. And not, like, she's trying to not be an asshole. She's just trying to be, like, decent in this and do her job. And, you know. Yeah. but like you know we're introduced to her character making this very lovely toast at their wedding and the toast as much as it is about them and how wonderful they are is also like she mentions she was writing her first novel and she mentions that's how she opens the speech like this was back when i was writing my first novel and half of the speech is about her and her husband and it's not doesn't make her bad person. It's not meant to make us sort of like be suspicious of her. But it's in, you know, even in giving this toast to, you know, the couple of the hour here that we all have, we all enter the world through our own perspectives. And we all enter these relationships with other

people primarily through our own perspectives. And it's... Well, and like, in that speech, she's like, their love together formed my marriage and, you know, formed my relationship. And I do think that that, like, even if it looks self-serving when she is giving this speech, like, that is true about relationships. It is. You do kind of form your relationship sometimes in the, you know, image of another relationship, you know. Yes. Well, and all the relationships in this movie are, feel very honest in that way. in that, like, these are all people who are very close, but they are also themselves foremost.

You know what I mean? We're like, Cheyenne Jackson and his husband are not going to stop being younger or cops or, you know, part of a sort of a louder social circle. And that's not going to stop just because George is living there. And so they've offered George their couch. And through this, you know, act of kindness, George ends up feeling. like the old fuddy-duddy who everybody is, you know, decades younger than him and he just wants some peace and quiet. I really, this time around especially, I felt this real visceral like, oh, he can't even go any place just to be quiet. He just can't like, and you start wondering,

like, what would you, like, would I just like go and see movies all day until it was safe to come back home and go to sleep on the couch? Like, what would I do? Where would I go in this big city to have a moment's piece to myself? You know what I mean? There's the moment where he shows up back at Kate and... What is his name? What is her husband's name? Elliot, thank you. Kate and Elliot's house, which is where Ben is staying. And he just sort of walks in and collapses in tears on Ben's shoulder, and it's the most heartbreaking scene, and all it is is that he's exhausted. All it is is that he's, like, mentally so adrift that he can't, like, he just wants someplace to hang, to lay his head, and he finally finds it, you know, on his husband's

shoulder. And it's heartbreaking, but it's also just sort of incredibly relatable, even if you are not married, even if you are not, you know, in this kind of circumstance, it's just like, oh, my God, all he wants to do is just find some peace. And when you get married, you imagine that that's, you know, you've found that, you know, peace after 39 years of them being together, right? So, he's fantastic in this. Can we talk about Elginna for a second? fucking rips in this movie. What a great... I mean, I just love him as a performer.

To me, this is almost the quintessential Alfred Molina performance. Yeah. Straight men do not come at me and yell about boogie nights. Yes, I think he's amazing in boogie nights, but, you know, just because I feel like... You did almost say Bussy Nights, and you know what? I'm just gonna... That's this movie. That's passages.

I mean, Bussy Nights is probably a thing that exists. Yeah, I'm sure that is a MET.com video that we can search out later. I want to talk about Molina's career arc, though, because I... Yes, because he does not have an Oscar nomination. He still doesn't have an Oscar nomination. We talked about in our previous episode, Jennifer Jason Lee, who is one of those people who, like, for the longest time, was like, you know, best actor to never be nominated for an Oscar. And there are those lists of actors who have, you know, been around forever and never got

Oscar nominations, Meg Ryan and John Cusack and Donald Sutherland and all these people. Malina's got to be on that list. And he sort of, his first ever film appearance, he's in a very small role in Raiders of the Lost Ark. And then he breaks out in Britain, his native England. He's in a movie called Letter to Brezhnev. he's in 1987 he's in the film Prick Up Your Ears with

Gary Oldman which is the Stephen Frears movie where they play a fairly volatile gay couple based on a real life playwright Gary Oldman plays this playwright who was I believe I've never seen the movie

but like I believe was murdered by his lover played my Alfred Molina but it's not like this I don't know I'm interested to the movie. Just only knowing it from a trailer. I should see it. He's in 1991. He is in the film Not Without My Daughter. Do you remember Not Without My Daughter? Sally Field marries an Iranian, I believe, who, and has a child with him, and then he won't allow her to leave the country after they split up with the daughter.

And it's, God, I only saw it back in the days. Back in the day, but I imagine it was not incredibly culturally sensitive. And it sort of, it also sort of underlines this very kind of fundamental thing about Alfred Molina

where he's English, his father is Spanish, his mother is Italian, and in Hollywood, would algebra, what that adds up to is he can play any ethnicity. So he has played Spanish people and Greek people and Italian people and anything on the swarthy spectrum. He has played Arabs and he has played, you know, anywhere on the map that is south of pale. he has been asked to play in a kind of a in a little bit of like almost like a throwback

to these sort of less enlightened days of Hollywood where you know if you were Italian you just played every race and ethnicity that wasn't white and it's interesting to sort of track that throughout his career and like even like semi recently where like he was in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot playing an Arab person And it's just interesting that that sort of, that kind of a complexion math still, still happens. Him and Kingsley.

Him and Kingsley, that's true. That's good point. So anyway, in through the 90s, he's in, like, he's in Maverick. He's in species. He plays a lot of, like, doctors for a while, like, which is interesting that one of his big roles was Dr. Octavius in the Spider-Man movies. But I remember him in Species. He's in the Perez family playing Spanish or maybe Mexican.

I can't remember where the Perez family takes place, the Miranayor movie. And then Boogie Nights, as you mentioned, he's this very small role, but it's like a very breakout role because it's an incredibly memorable scene where he's like, coked out of his mind and they're trying to, it's Mark Wahlberg and John C. Riley are trying to make this, like, deal to get money, and everybody's on way too many drugs, and it's going to go bad. Is he the one who's throwing firecrackers at them? Or is the...

It might just be one of his henchmen. It's been a minute since I've seen Booneys, but he's so good at it. He's really good. He's the one who puts on Sister Christian on the stereo, and he starts singing along to Sister Christian. That's what I remember.

So that's sort of the first thing that a lot of people really... If you hadn't seen prick up your ears, that's the first thing really noticed him in. Then that next year, he's on Broadway in the Yasmina Reza play art, which he gets a Tony nomination for. He loses to Anthony LaPalia for a view from the bridge, which if you had asked me whether Anthony LaPalia has a Tony Award, I would not have said that that was a factual statement.

Though, if you say Anthony LaPalia has a Tony Award, what's it for, probably a view from the Fair, fair. Melinas, he plays Snidly Whiplash in Dudley 2. Right. He's in... Who was he in Magnolia? I can't remember. He's the one that he works... Is it a mattress store or something? He's Solomon who fires William H. Macy.

He just has one... I knew he was part of the William H. Macy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. He has... Okay. Well, here, I'll keep going and then I'll come back. He's in Choccalot, and then his next big role is he's Diego Rivera and Frida, which should have been his breakthrough Oscar nomination.

He's a SAG nominee. He's a BAFTA nominee. He's a Critics Choice nominee, and he ends up getting iced out by Walkin, kind of. I'm trying to think of who was like the number of, at Harris, maybe. I think that was the late breaking one, yeah. That same year, by the way, 2002, he stars in a very short-lived CBS sitcom called Bram and Alice, which is just very funny that, like, while he was having his, like, biggest cinematic breakthrough success, he's in, like, a three-camera sitcom on CBS that lasted nine episodes called Bram and Alice. He's in identity playing another psychiatrist. He plays himself in coffee and cigarettes, the Jim Jarmish movie.

And then 2004, he's Dr. Otto Octavius in Spider-Man 2. So that's, like, obviously his biggest mainstream success. He is a both MTV Movie Award and Teen Choice Award nominee, both for best villains. So good job there. And then that same year, once again, he's on Broadway, as Tevia in Fiddler on the Roof, gets a Tony nomination for that, loses to Hugh Jackman for the boy from Oz. Or he does Mark Rothko on Broadway? Yeah.

Yep. Oh, why did I think that was backwards? He might have done the Rothko thing off Broadway and maybe, but like he doesn't, like red is until 2010. So that's like several years later. He's in an education in 2009, which he gets another bunch of precursor awards. He's BAFTA nominated, Critics Choice nominated, M4Gs nominates him for an education. Is he her father? Who was he in an education?

I think he's the dad. I think he is. He's in Julie Tamar's The Tempest, which, well, we'll talk about the tempest later. Put a pin in The Tempest at some point. Not in this episode, but we'll talk about it. He's in The Prince of Persia playing, once again, a character named Shake Amar. So Hollywood shenanigans up again. 2010, as I said, he's Tony nominated once more, his third Tony nomination for

John Logan's play Red, where he's playing Mark Rothko. Eddie Redmayne wins the Tony for that one. Molina loses the best actor, Tony, to Denzel Washington for fences. And then the same year as Love is Strange, 2014, he's in The Normal Heart on HBO, which had just previously been on Broadway, revived on Broadway. He plays, Mark Ruffalo plays the, Larry Kramer surrogate character, and then Molina plays his brother, his sort of quasi-homaphobic, at the very least, like, resistant to Larry Kramer, the brother, who I think he's quite good in that. The next year, he's also on HBO in Show Me a Hero, which was the well-reviewed but under-recognized mini-series about

city planning essentially starring Oscar Isaac which is very good. He shows up in Little Men, back with Ira Sacks briefly. He's in Betty and Joan. He's infude Betty and Joan in 2017 which is another TV thing where he gets

an Emmy nomination, a Golden Globe nomination a Critics Choice nomination. So that's like a big one. He plays the director of whatever happened to Baby Jane. And then, since then, he's played Ben Bradley in the frontrunner. We talked about that movie. He has an uncredited cameo in Promising Young Woman, where he's very good.

He returns as Dr. Otto Octavius in Spider-Man No Way Home. He was, I thought, very good as a voice in the Hulu comedy Solar Opposites, which is from the same now disgraced guy who did Rick and Morty. But I think Solar Opposites is really good, unfortunately. And then, 2023, he was in that show Three Pines. on Amazon Prime, which is one of those, oh, there's a thousand shows on TV, and one of them is called Three Pines. You know what I mean? And that's up to present with Alfred Molina. A lot of, like I said, he's been nominated kind of everywhere else, right? Emmy nominations, Tony nominations,

sag nominations. I guess the Globes have only nominated him once, and that's for feud. Like, the globes maybe are part of the problem there in so many ways. Add that to the list. Add that to the list that they've run afoul of the Alfred Molina. What would the Alfred Molina fan club be called? Fanlinas. The fanlina. You have run afoul of the fanlina.

So, yeah, at some point the Oscars are going to, one would hope, figure their shit out. He's so good. He still is good. lost his touch. And he's incredible and love is strange. Where are your thoughts? What jumps out to you from that Molina filmography? What are your faves?

I mean I don't want to just do the cliche, but it's this in Boogie Nights. I mean, also Frida. He's so good in Frida. But this, I think, is just kind of his best performance, partly because of what I mentioned earlier, that it feels like you know, it's just a show

case of the best things that he does just, like, being these, like, graceful characters. I think the, you know, rebuttal to being fired is a great example. I remember in our frontrunner episode, I was like,

Molina is horrible in this movie, and it's because he's just, like, kind of overdoing it a little bit. If that's the movie I was remembering, there was a movie that we watched... No, it might be secret in our... In their eyes that I was like... I think it was secret in their eyes

because I think he's, He's pretty good in frontrunner. I don't think there's anything like that. He has a good, I mean, when he's had his best, like in this movie, I think he has a good measure of like what is, where's the line of, you know, not overdoing something. Yeah. And he's just, he's just so sweet in this movie. I just want to give him a smooch and tell him it will be okay. He was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for this.

This was one of the years where, like, the independent spirit awards and the Oscars could have been the same thing. It really was so much overlap. All of its indie spirit losses, it loses to an Oscar nominee or an Oscar winner. That's the thing. Three of the four indie acting winners were the Oscar winners, and the fourth one was Michael Keaton, who, like, came this close to winning the Oscar. So, like, and even the nominees, like, in Molina's category, he's nominated in Best Supporting Mail. J.K. Simmons wins that, as he does at the Oscars. Edward Norton for Birdman and Ethan Hawk for Boyhood

are nominated here as they are at the Oscars. Riz Ahmed is nominated for Nightcrawler, which he was still too unknown at that time to get nominated for Nightcrawler, but Nightcrawler is also an Oscar nominee and screenplay. And I'm trying to think, what were the two that the Oscars went for in 2014? That would have been,

um... Help me out here. Ruffalo. Ruffalo for Foxcatcher, which would have been eligible. And, oh, God, it's Robert Duvall for the judge, which wouldn't have been eligible. Imagine thinking that Robert Duval is better than Alfred Molina. Robert Duval and the judge is better than Alfred Molina in this movie. Yeah, it's unconscionable.

Truly, I don't fuck all the way off. In a week where judges have not done well by us, Robert Duval, and the judge joins that list. There are seven horrible Supreme Court judges, and one of them is Robert DeVall in that movie. God, can you imagine if he was on the Supreme Court in that movie? You know, we dog on the man, but I do actually, if I recall correctly, believe that he has left-leaning politics.

Oh, Robert Duvall's a fantastic actor is the other thing. We talk about some of his sort of later, like, but like, I mean, watch. the apocalypse now, watch the Godfather, watch... We love you, Bobby. Robert Duval is phenomenal. But anyway, yeah, Molina in Love is strange. Lithgow's fantastic, too.

Lithgow is more of the lead. Melina's in less of the movie. But I think within that context, the scene where he gets fired is heart-wrenching, and he's really just trying to argue the facts against

a priest, which, like, you're sort of up against, like, the tractable wall of religion there and it doesn't make sense and you're never going to make it make sense. The scenes with him in Cheyenne Jackson and his boyfriend's apartment are...

I was going to say the scene with him and young Voldemort is... And young Voldemort. Exquisite. Wait, is that who that guy was? Yes. Get out of here. I know. He played Young Voldemort. Okay. That's a fantastic scene where he's just like Molina... He has to explain the circumstances

of what his life is now to a stranger who he might fuck um that's also one of my favorite things about this movie is the the plausible the plausible existence of desire and and sexuality in this movie that doesn't put a put your finger on it so to speak um where like you can watch that scene and either read into it that George is attracted to this guy. I think you can make a credible case from watching that scene that he is, but it's all... You can certainly make a credible case that the guy is attracted to George. It's all in the subtext, and then later, it's mentioned explicitly when he's at Julius talking to Ben, and Ben sort of like raises a quizzical eyebrow at him, and he's like,

Are you jealous? And he does say that he's, George does say that he's always been faithful to Ben. And in a way that, like, it doesn't seem like he would need to lie because they are in a place of radical honesty with each other. Ben is incredibly up front. They're monogamously. Yeah. Monogamously is a good point.

Yeah. Ben has mentions that he has in the past cheat on him and George knows about this. And George is okay-ish with it. It sounds like George is the more committed to monogamy mostly because. that's what works for him. You know what I mean? And so I don't really believe that George and this guy had sex, but I do believe that they were both very attracted to each other.

I do think that that's, okay, I think this, the guy is initially flirting with him. Yeah. And that's, I think, where he was minded. And then learning about Georgia's situation, he's like, I'm about to leave the country. And do you want to come see my apartment, by the way? it's only 1,400 a month, and, you know, it becomes more friendly transactional. They literally are standing in the bedroom together, and it's like, it's not even like the sexual attention has died, but it's like, it's still there.

It's the discovery of like, is this still a possibility? Maybe, maybe not, but like, we have a business transaction to talk about first. Just because the sexiest thing in that scene is a $1,400. a month one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. The low rent cost makes everyone, including the audience, very horny. Yeah, exactly. And I also think it's fascinating how when Ben is on the roof painting his painting with Vlad as his model, Vlad, who is 16, they mentioned it a bunch of times, who is also mentioned

as looking older than he is, there is this unspoken but. still alluded to idea of should Ben be doing this because it just seems like there's there's these overtones of the like the artist and his underage muse you know what I mean and is is Ben does not seem at all like that is what Ben is not at all but there is but there is an atmosphere of it all around it it's in it when Joey walks on to the the roof and is, you know, says, well, this is gay. And it's like, well, he doesn't mean gay, it means stupid. And it's in it when Marissa Tomey is like, should you be real.

But Marissa Tomey's character is even like, should you be really, you know, painting Joey's friend? Is that really the most appropriate thing? And none of it is explicitly homophobic. But also, it has this sort of like, let's be honest, you know, sort of, sexuality is all around us kind of a thing. And the parents also unspoken, but I think the parents are also not quite sure whether their kid is gay and what's up with their kid. And there's just a lot of uncertainty hanging in the air. And that contributes to the tension. That's what's happening in the house. I loved how all of that played unspoken because it knows its audience. This is what a movie with a small niche audience can get away with. is they can trust that audience to, like, you know what's going on. You understand the, like, the cinematic language and the cultural language that's being spoken here. You don't need to know that, like, this old gay painter on the roof isn't going to raise some eyebrows with this, you know, 16 going on 22, a skateboarding kid painting him on the roof.

Do you know what I mean? I love that. I love the ambiguity of all. And there's a lot of ambiguity in this movie that, like, really works for it, I thought. What else do we want to talk about? I'll talk about Lithgow, the most unlikely two-time Oscar nominee and... Back-to-back years. I would say even unlikely because the second nomination, which I think probably speaks to

the way that Lithgow's World According to Garp performance was perceived and like as a strong potential winner because I don't really watch terms of endearment and be like nominate Lithgow No he's not the one that jumps out Well sort of like run it down

He gets nominated in 81 or 82 and 83 Right yes in 82 he's nominated Playing a trans woman in the world according to Garp Loses to Lewis Gossett Jr. also nominated against Charles Durning for Best Little Horehouse in Texas, James Mason in The Verdict, and Robert Preston, and Victor Victoria. Who do you give that award to of those five? Gosset.

Do you give it to Gosset? I maybe give it to Robert Preston. That's not a movie that I like really kind of at all, but he is tremendous. He is very good. I have such affection for Robert Preston's character in Victor, Victoria. That's where I should have come down on that. It's interesting that in 1982, you have, and of course, like, you know, representation questions abound, but you have a category where two of the five characters are

queer. Right. That's nice. It's interesting that Durning is also nominated back-to-back years along with Lichau. Durning, not nominated for Titsy, though. I know, I know. I mean, everyone's good in Tutsi. All right, and so 83.

He's nominated for Terms of Endearment, also nominated against Jack Nicholson, who wins for terms of endearment, also nominated against Charles Durning again for to be or not to be, Rip Torn for Cross Creek and Sam Shepard for the right stuff. I saw Cross Creek and I don't really remember very much about Rip Torn in that movie, so that's an interesting nomination. That was also Alfry Woodard's to date only Oscar nomination was for Cross Creek. I give this to Nicholson of these nominees. I don't think this is the most exciting lineup, but...

It's not. It's not. I like Sam Shepard as an actor. I know he's primarily a playwright, but I think he's an interesting actor. He makes for an interesting actor. But, yeah, among these five, I think Nicholson takes this, you know, running away. But yeah, so – and then Lithgow, of course, then goes on to win a bunch of Emmys for Third Rock from the Sun. He's the guy who sort of broke up the Kelsey Grammer streak of Kelsey Grammer when Fray. premiered one like three Emmys in a row or two or you know two of four years or something like

that and then Lithgow comes along and is like going toe to toe with Frazier and it's so funny because like Frazier is a silly show Frazier is like not this highfalutin show but it's a show about a highfalutin man so it sometimes got interpreted as oh, like, shit don't stink Frazier, you know, is coming along and sweeping the Emmys every year and like, you know, let's all put our pinkies up in the air and, and watch Frasier. Yeah, it's a show that's more on the side of Frazier's dad than it is on Frazier's side. But I think for people who didn't watch or who sort of resented the Emmy streak of the moment, which like, I get it. Nobody wants to see the same things win the Emmys every year and year and year.

Right. got sort of annoyed with that and sort of painted Frasier in that way. So then here comes along. John Lithgow playing like an alien in a human body. Like Third Rock from the Sun could not have been a more goofy, silly show. Honestly, go back and watch some Third Rock from the Sun. It's a funny show. But also between the Third Rock stage of his career and his Oscar nomination.

He, like, pivoted to villains. Like, evil villains. Cliffhanger. What's the one where he plays the twin? Raising Kane, the De Palma movie. That is very weird. Yeah. Yeah, I had forgotten about that.

Thank you for bringing that up. That's a very good point. He does go through this very sort of like he's going to play the bad guy in a lot of things. Did you ever watch Dexter? No. He plays a villain. He plays a serial killer in Dexter. in what is sort of widely regarded as the best season of Dexter.

I think it's also the last good season of Dexter. And he goes back to that villain role, and he is terrifying. He plays this sort of like nice, genteel family man on the surface. He's got a wife and a teenage kid, and he's upstanding, and he's totally nice. And then he's like this super sadistic, methodical, sociopathic serial killer who Dexter has to eventually get rid of. And it's a really good performance. It did. I believe I was recapping Dexter in some form or another for, I'm pretty sure, television for that pity back then.

And so I had to, I like, I watched that whole season and wrote about. that whole season. And that's one of those where, like, you got to the end. This was sort of a thing with television about pity, too, because our recaps were very long form. And so you just spent a lot of time with these shows. This happened to me with Boardwalk Empire, where you just sort of, you spend a lot of time with these shows. And you get to the end of a season of Dexter. And it's like, I'm good. You know what I mean? Like, I am sated. I don't need any more of this show. And that's sort of where I got to At the end of that season

It was intense It was very intense But he's really, really good in that And like he plays really good villains Like there is something He's such a versatile actor He can play like the goofiest person And also like really terrifying

And then like a lot of the notes in between And Little Men is Or not Little Men Love is Strange is one of those notes in between I just watched Interstellar recently And that's another one where he's, you know, he's just the grandfather.

But in that role as the grandfather, he communicates a lot in, you know, he's not entirely happy with Matthew McConaughey's decision to go to space. He's, you know, he's a little fed up with some certain things. When Michael Cain shows up as the, you know, professor, there's a little bit of, like, grandfatherly rivalry there with MIRF, young MIRF in the middle, of course. Murph Watching Interstellar again

We were not exaggerating There's a lot Murph gets said just a lot Of wailing the word Murr A lot of Murrff Shalamay playing the kid The young son in that Is

I knew that Young Casey Affleck is He's the younger version of Casey Yeah But Casey Affleck's barely in it Right no no because like at the end He's like gonna like interstellar's a long movie there's a lot of interstellar so like everybody who's even

in it a little bit is in it more than you think like uh john lithgow that's the case katee aflick tofer grace matt damon like all these people oh bill irwin is so good oh my god as a robot poor west bentley gets washed out to his death on the wave planet um it's a good movie it's a really fucking good movie i love interstellar um anyway so Goal goes back to villains a little bit, though, but, like, not, you know, evil psychopath. Well, I mean, yes, but it's still a different flavor because there's good and there's bad. We've talked about Beatrice at dinner. I think he's tremendous in that movie.

Tremendous. Nominational-worthy in that movie. I think we were all kind of bracing ahead of bombshell for him to be nominated for playing Roger Ailes, and that never really took. off unless he like Globe nominated for no no he's not in that much of the movie but like oh yeah that one and came around the same time that Russell Crow also did the showtime series where he played Roger Ailes and I think the parts of bombshell that got recognized were the parts that were not also in the showtime show so like yeah you know Russell Crow took a lot of the oxygen out of that conversation, because he plays a much more omnipresent and grotesque version of als, whereas, like, bombshell gets nominated for Megan Kelly, who isn't really a presence in the Showtime show,

or the Margot Robbie character, who's like a fully, you know, composite, invented character. So, bombshell's still so bad. We talked to, we dumped on it enough in 100 snubs, but I'm just saying, bombshell's bad. We didn't dunk on it enough. That's true, yeah. Look out in this movie, though, I think, is just,

so delicate and tremendous. Yeah. Persnickety. He's a, he's a, he's a, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, 12 or 13 years after that. And, um, my grandmother died when I was in college and my grandfather lived for another 12 or 13 years after that. And sort of was, um, he's, he's, he was, he was, he was.

um you know a lovely man but like has his old man peculiarities right you know what i mean as they all do and um lithgow's character reminded me a lot of that where you just sort of like we'll wander through a scene you know without a shirt on and making a coffee and whatever and just sort of just like oh what like and and um sort of you know making himself at home and of course like he does live there And, I don't know, there was a, there were ways in which he reminded me of my grandfather. My grandfather would sit in his living room and watch, for some reason, he had HBO. I don't know why he had HBO. But he would watch Sex in the City at like full volume, like full, like, where we could hear it downstairs.

Same. We would have gotten along very well. Probably so. Was your grandfather a Samantha or a Carrie or a Miranda or a Charlotte? I would have loved to have had this conversation. I never broached that conversation with my grandfather. I don't think I ever really would have wanted to know more than I knew. He was a very lovely man.

But he had his eccentricities, and that's what Ben in this movie reminds me of. And in that same way, where, like, we loved him. And yet there are moments where you just sort of. of there are frustrations and there are you know the utter i mean like he's it's also very true that he is this like artist who you know moves at his own pace basically in the utter lack of self awareness too that is like that's just who he is he's not being an asshole but it is very annoying and you also see just like kind of a lack of annoyance on george's part two, which just makes their, you know, romance all the more touching because, like, they

truly did find the people that can co-exist together. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and then meanwhile, Marissa Tomei, what is her name, Kate? Kate and Elliot are not, like, going through marriage problems, but they're going through the sort of, like, normal tensions of a marriage where, like, they both have their careers that make them very busy. They can't find a common afternoon to go see a movie together.

It's like those little moments where it's just like, oh, right, like, which is like, so that all is compounded by this like added extra pressure of, you know, Uncle Ben living with them and doing little things like when they're telling Joey that he can't leave the dinner table until everybody's finished eating. And then Ben just sort of pops up and says, like, oh, it's. it's fine, like, he can go. And it's like, that's not, like, you're, that's not your call, man. It's not, because they're parenting their child. Right, right, right, right. But it's, it's so, like, he's not, he doesn't mean any, like,

I would maybe do the same thing because your instinct is just to be like, oh, I don't, not on my account. Don't, like, you know, don't let me hold anybody up. And yet, like, it's all so, uh, relatable. I'm going to see this. bless you diva bless you diva do I have it

it's really shocking is I haven't really sneezed on Mike much in the years of us doing this and you know what it's like when I sneeze Let me find a tissue very quickly Blow out my mic forever I'm a serial sneezer So I will

Oh that's going to I was around my nephew yesterday, and I sneezed, and he just, like, looked at me after, like, two beats and was like, what's wrong with you? How old is your nephew? How old is he? His sister is 10. He is going to turn, I think, seven then? Wow. That's a little smart house.

I showed up, and I got myself a milkshake yesterday, going over to my sister's new house, because they just bought a house. and I had text her, I was like, do you or the kids want anything? Because I'm not just going to selfishly show up with a milkshake to myself. And she was like, yes, they would love milkshakes for them. And, like, he comes flying out the door. And he was like, hi, I'm so happy to see you, blah, blah, blah. I was like, did you come running out here because your mom told you I brought you a milkshake? He said, yep.

I was like, all right, man, come show me your house. That's great. All right, let's jump back in. Yeah, let's jump back. So let's talk about the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, which is where Love is Strange debuts, not like the most blockbuster spectacular Sundance Film Festival, but I jotted down some of them more interesting. Fairly Oscar-y, though. Whiplash premieres at that Sundance Film Festival, and that's definitely the one that, like, you know, last the longest, gets a Best Picture nomination, wins the Oscar for J.K. Simmons. definitely where the J.K. Simmons Oscar buzz started. But then you get movies like Obvious Child,

which was a pretty big thing at that festival. Dear White People. The Skeleton Twins was at that Sundance. Joe Swanberg's Happy Christmas, which starred Anna Kendrick and Melanie Linsky, which is one of my favorite of the Swanbergs. There's that movie, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter, was a big deal. A girl walks home at night, which is a good movie. listen up Philip But yeah An interesting crop of Sundance stuff that year I ended up seeing Love is Strange

At Tribeca that year That's when I was still seeing Tribeca Film Festival movies And that played Tribeca after it played Sundance But already I was psyched to see it Of course from the Sundance reaction Anything else jump out to you from that Sundance I would add John Michael McDonough's Calvary He's the brother of Martin McDonough

but a writer and filmmaker in his own right. Calvary is a really good movie with an incredible Brendan Gleeson. I haven't seen it, but I should throw it on the list. It's a pretty dark movie, but maybe my favorite Brendan Gleason performance. Nice. Nice. Wonderful. I also wanted to get into the original screenplay race of 2014, because that's where Love is Strange might have found a place had it not been this is a lockstep original screenplay year like the same six movies were in contention for five spots all season and like

nothing really budged anything out of there uh your eventual oscar nominees are birdman boyhood fox catcher the grand budapest hotel and night crawler so of those three are best picture nominees. Foxcatcher is not a best picture nominee, but is a best director nominee. It was the very first time since the expansion of Best Picture that a director had been a lone director. People didn't think it was possible that it would happen, that a film would be, you know, because it was 19, or 2014 was a nine, or was it just eight best? Best Picture nominees. It was eight. It was eight. So ninth place at best was Foxcatcher, and yet Bennett Miller made it. into the top five for directors. It's fascinating. And the Nightcrawler, which was not a Best Picture nominee, but which was, gets this screenplay nomination. The Globes go Birdman, boyhood, because the Globes are combined. It's adapted and original. So it's originals where Birdman, Boyhood, Grand Budapest, add to that Gone Girl and imitation game. The Unnominated Gone Girl.

Truly, I mean, we talked about that in 100 snubs too, but like that's, remains. shocking and infuriating Bafta original screenplay Grand Budapest wins there Grand Budapest won everything but the Globes and the Oscars like Birdman wins the Globes and the Oscars but Grand Budapest had won everything

leading up to that and it's still kind of a upset that Birdman wins even though Birdman is the Best Picture winner It does remain shocking though I think that boyhood I mean the boyhood love

condensed around Patricia Arquette, which is not wrong, but, you know, Linklater's achievement with it, which like, that's not a movie that I wholeheartedly love. But, like, Linklater's achievement wasn't really ever recognized. Well, and Link, Boyhood. I didn't win, like, no. Riders Guild did it. Did Boyhood also premiere at that Sundance out of competition? Yes, okay. It did. Yes. It did. Because I remember the buzz for that one started early, and the thing about Boyhood. And that movie went through like a lot of evolution in terms of opinion about it from

the critical class. It still kind of is. It's still kind of is. I think it's still tough to tell whether like do people, does Boyhood have a good reputation among like, you know, cinefiles or not? I really love Boyhood. It's an experiment of a movie. It's necessarily shaggy. It's necessarily sort of calls attention to itself. Linklander is an interesting figure, though, because he's somebody who was always, you know, known as this sort of writer-director, right? Where his movies were very shaggy, I guess, or like screenplay focused, but in a very kind of like, you know, it was the before movies, right? The before movies all have this kind of looseness to them that, you know, is brought together. and I think has always been a little bit of an underrated director because his movies seem very wordy and very talky.

You know, his movies tend to, you know, rely on conversations, at least his best ones. And, you know, people sort of forget the less talky ones or sort of like, nobody thinks of School of Rock as like a link letter movie. They think of it as a Jack Black movie. Do you know what I mean? And so with Boyhood, the achievement is so directorial. and so self-consciously directorial because of the way that it's put together that the screenplay,

you're sort of allowed to like backseat the screenplay even though it's a talky movie. You know what I mean? Like, it's mostly about conversation. Like, the most evident achievement is the, you know, the payoff of the artistic risk,

you know, that he was able to bring it across the finish line in that it actually works. Yeah. I mean, though you could say the same for, like, the performances of Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawk, too. You know, they're playing these people over the course of a lifetime. And, you know. It's interesting. It's maybe easier to prescribe, like, an emotional feeling to those two performances than you are to what Link later delivers.

Yeah. It's interesting that Grand Budapest Hotel won BAFTA, right, Guild, New York Critics, L.A. Critics, National Critics. National Board of Review, do you know who they gave their screenplay award to? You won't guess it in a hundred years. It's got to be something crunchy imitation game. It's the Lego movie. They gave their screenplay award to the Lego movie, which is, I did not even remember that one. Go off? Like, double check, like, I'm so, it so knocks me out that, like, I would like you to double check that for me, but I'm pretty sure that that's what I found. They had, NBR,

does original and adapted, and so their original went to Lego. They had to give Warner Brothers something because they never let Warner Brothers be empty-handed. My computer's being slow. Sorry, we can cut the dead air. Can we also take just maybe instead of having dead air

to cut, can we just lament for two seconds? Whatever the hell IMDB, which keeps getting worse and worse, how IMDB has now not they've just said you know what the awards tab needs

more chaos more confusion I click on the wrong thing more than half the time confusion and buffoonery like it's where you click it's not alphabetized anymore I have to scroll and scroll and scroll to find National Board of Fucking Review

I've said it before and I'll say it again IMDB is primarily a reference site. It is a resource site. It's a research site. It should primarily function for

ease of research. And it does not at every turn. And every update gets worse and worse at that essential function. And it's so stupid. Yes, they did give original screenplay to Lego movie. Do you know what they gave their adapted screenplay to? Was it gone, girl?

No. It was inherent vice. They had to fill their Warner Bros. Slots. Anyway, though, but so back to Grand Budapest winning almost everything leading up to the Oscars, which is also a movie that I think is more of a directorial. I was just about to say that. But more a directorial achievement than a screenwriting achievement. Even watching it again, I think I mentioned this when we were talking last week. When I wrote my West Hampton, Anderson ranking for Vulture, performance ranking, not movie ranking, but watching Grand Budapest Hotel, a movie that had alienated me a little bit the first time I saw it, and I had a much greater appreciation for it this time around. I think the themes of it really come together better for me, and I think watching these Anderson movies back to back to back, I think movies like Grand Budapest and French Dispatch and Asteroid City, there's a lot more going on authorially with those movies than I think people, even who loved Grand Budapest Hotel gave it credit for. Certainly more than people gave French Dispatch credit

for. French Dispatch ends so beautifully and is such a lovely testament and tribute to journalism. Like it sounds so corny, but like it really, it's no simpler than that. And I think people who talk about... Well, an asteroid city in that regard is like a tribute to the art form of acting Well, it also is A evolution it went through in like the mid-century. Yes, it is. On top of being a movie that's about

like, to me that feels like It's his artist statement. His most personal movie since, like, I mean, I think people ascribe the family movies of Wes Anderson to being like his most personal and like I don't feel like we know enough about

him to know that, but like the way that's so much of this movie accesses grief and, like, that period of grief where you're, like, unwilling to move forward and you, like, don't know what to do, this movie accesses so much of that. It's so clearly a movie that was written during the pandemic, but in the best way, in a way that, like, everybody else, you know, make something crunchy. He makes something that in 20 years, maybe people won't recognize it as such. Asteroid City is the movie where he essentially, like, makes his defense for himself as a filmmaker, too.

Like, it's the movie that is most in conversation with his skeptics, I think. And in most movies where that's the case, that's annoying. And I think it's not an asteroid city. And I think Asteroids, like, Anderson repeatedly gets criticized for making the sort of beautiful detailed dioramic. that ultimately are devoid of emotion. And I think consistently that is a misapplied criticism. And I think Asteroid City is the movie where he's like, yeah, I understand this is what you always say about me.

And this is why, this movie is going to, I'm going to try and make my case for, this is why I tell stories the way I tell stories. And I think it's a wonderful statement along those lines and very sort of elegantly put. And it's not defensive. It's not snippy. It's not like Ratatouille, a movie that's very good, but Ratatouille ending with, you know, critics need to appreciate the fact that they can't create anything. You know what I mean? I don't know.

I just love it. But anyway, Grand Budapest Hotel, even in appreciating it more the second time, it is far more of a directorial achievement that it is a screenplay achievement, even though those themes that I think really came through for me do exist there on the screenplay level. It's interesting that that's how the Oscars and that's how the awards community finally decided they were going to, at long last, sort of welcome Wes Anderson into the fold is in this way. Although the Oscars certainly appreciated Grand Budapest as an aesthetic achievement because it gave it so many of those crafts awards. But yeah. To pull it back to Love is Strange, like in this conversation of like, is it a writing achievement or a directorial achievement,

Love is strange is like had this been nominated and probably in screenplay. It's like the quintessential type of thing that like the Oscars will award a screenplay for. but I do actually think it is a directorial achievement because like so much of like the the richness of character of these circumstances is on the page of this script but like the emotional texture of this movie the like nuance that you see in these circumstances and character and like just the way that things play out the amount of things that we as an audience member are able to consider in both these characters and how they interact with each other. That's directing. Like, I mean, I say this as an Iris X super fan, but like, I would consider this movie among those type of examples we just gave that were awarded for screenplay, but we're, you know, as impactful as they are because of how they're directed. I think that's true, although I do think that movies of this size and scope, Right. Screenplay tends to be where they fit in at the Oscars, which is why I sort of zeroed in on screenplay in this particular year. I think usually the tendency with the Oscars, especially in maybe the last 20 years, has been screenplay is four Best Picture nominees and then one for fun. You know, now do a silly one. And it's, you know, bridesmaids in 2011 or, um,

what was this year's one um god i'm so bad with the most recent the most recent ones are always the most it's the hardest ones it's because it's not given enough time to sink into my subconscious and like i think by the time the oscar ceremony is over we kind of want to like just wipe those movies from our brain for a bit too because we're sick of reset reset yeah exactly um i guess living was the well in glass onion living in glass onion were sort of the outliers for this for this past year.

But anyway, in a different time with a different, oh, that's the other thing. We need to talk about the Sony classics lineup in 2014, which was bangor after bangor.

Because it never had a shot. If they weren't, I'm not sure what they would have. This does like feel like if this had been a fall movie, you know, it would have had much more of a shot, you know, not being just an indie spirit Sure.

But talk about the movies that Sony classics had in the Hopper for 2014, because it's really something else. It's pretty hefty because, I mean, they have two foreign language feature contenders in Wild Tales and Leviathan. Which are both nominated, right? Earlier in the year, they have Jim Jarmish's Only Lovers Left Alive. Great movie. Great movie. And then their fall. Talk about a sexy fucking movie, Only Lovers Left Alive.

Like, holy fuck. shockingly the only movie where Tilda Swinton drinks blood though I mean unless you count her home movies Right The Living Legend

Tilda Swinton Yeah Their fall lineup though Is Whiplash Mr. Turner Foxcatcher and in a very quick turnaround Because they buy it at that

Toronto Film Festival Still Alice So they've got a lot going on They have one Best Picture nominee They have two acting winners They have a

lone director nominee in an era where people didn't think that that was possible, and they have a nominee in dick poop for Mr. Turner. So, like, truly, 2014. Yeah, Mr. Turner gets nominations, and quite possibly is sixth place in Best Actor for Timothy Spall. For Timothy Spall, yeah. That's for a indie shingle, like Sony Pictures Classics, which tends to, at least in my memory, tends to sort of latch on to one, maybe two awards hopefuls in a year, and really, like, rides them. And then has international feature.

Right, right, right, yes, yes. This is a fucking stacked lineup. So, like, no shame to Love is Strange for, you know, being on the bench of that, of that particular group of films. Because, like, it doesn't surprise me that Whiplash would have gotten a bigger award. boards push than love is strange it's the reactions out of sundance were very sort of kinetic and very you know there was a lot of energy coming out of that um they saw a a darth of uh best actress contenders and really made the move on still alice they worked their asses off to get that fox catcher those fox catcher nominations so after foxcatcher having like a somewhat tumultuous post production life almost

being released. We was scheduled to be released the previous year from Sony. Not Sony Classics, from Sony. Right. And every festival it showed up at was this like combination of, oh, what a well-done movie. And oh, like, it's not that exciting. You know what I mean? I like Foxcatcher. We got to get Katie Rich on to, and the two of you can bully me about Foxcatcher. I don't hate Foxcatcher. I just think it's like, less than what it could have been. And I don't like Steve Carell. It's a movie that, to me, you can tell they had a hard time in the edit room, and at one

point it was a four-hour-long movie. You can tell. Especially, like, towards the end of the movie where it's like, we got to get this and this. And when, like, Ciena Miller doesn't have a word that she says on screen, but she's on screen. I love Ruffalo. They left out a lot.

I love Ruffalo. I love Channing Tatum. I don't like the Steve Correll performance. I think it sort of is a. is a little bit of a black hole at the center of the movie, unfortunately. I think he's fine. I mean, again, I feel like I said this in a hundred snubs, is that I feel less generous that he's the Oscar nominee instead of Channing Tatum.

Yeah, I get that. But I get that. But Sony, you're right, Sony Classics usually is like putting their entire apparatus into getting Isabellaupéer nominated for L. They're putting their entire apparatus at getting a more, not just a foreign language Oscar, but getting nominated for best picture. You know, they tend to center their efforts in one way. I think this fall is going to be interesting to see what kind of bubbles up. I wonder if their whole apparatus might go towards Strathairn in a little prayer.

I'd love it. I mean, he's great. I think Jane Levy is even better in that movie. Every time I praise Stratheron in that movie, you obligate yourself to mention Jane Levy, which is very funny. No one's going to talk about her. Everybody fucking talks about her. Every time I try to talk about David Stratherer and somebody is like,

Jane Levy is so good. It's like, yeah, fine. Let's talk about the best performance in the movie, which is David's Sutherlander. Well, then they need to do their job. Like critics tried to do their job with love is strange. Because that's the thing. It's like, it was, if it was, you know, to the extent that it was kept in the conversation throughout the end of the year

it, you know, relied on a lot of critic support. Yeah. Can we talk about the one major award that Love is Strange did with? Truly a major precursor. It won Best Grown Up Love Story. No argument here. At the

Movies for Grownups Awards. The Best Grown Up Love Story, truly the best kiss of the Movies for Grownups Awards, where Best Kiss is the only category at the MTV movie awards that truly matters. And I think for the M4G's grown-up love story sort of rises above all of them. Only three

nominees this year, but Love is Strange gets the title for well-deserved. Like, this is a film. You talk about Oscar bait. This is best grown-up love story, M4G's bait. Right. Love is Strange. Other nominees were still Alice for Julian Moore and Alex Baldwin, which I support. I think they're both very good, and that is a complicated love story there. And then the Love Punch, which is a movie I have not seen or maybe don't remember at all. I remember that as being like a TIF Gala that bombed. Oh, that makes sense. That makes sense. Emma Thompson, Pierce Brosnan, the Love Punch. I'm just going to describe

the poster, as I sometimes enjoy to do, which is a kind of three-panel thing where Brosnan is on the leftmost panel with, like, has just walked out of the Botox salon. Like, cannot

raise, like, his eyes are almost closed in that, like, he's so, the, there is just no nerve endings that are able to lift his. Well, I mean, And Pierce Brosnan is, you know, the originator of the sexy squint. Sure. I don't even think this is a squint, though.

I genuinely think, like, this is the top of his face just being, like, unable to be supported by the dead nerve endings that exist now in the middle part of his face. So mean. It's, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This is a thing that exists. You understand what I'm talking about. And getting joy out of ribbing you.

And then on the rightmost panel, Emma Thompson, sunglasses. down to the tip of her nose, eyeballs facing leftward, like she is side-eye personified. And then the middle panel is all the particulars. Pierce Brosnan, four people above the title. Pierce Brosnan, Emma Thompson, Timothy Spall, Celia Imrey, good for Celia Imrey. The tagline, you can't pinch a diamond without stealing a few hearts. B-minus? How do we grade that tagline?

I'm confused. C-plus? You can't pinch a diamond makes me think that the movie's about a fart. Or something like that. Is that a euphemism for farting? Pinching a diamond? I don't know. Something.

I'm pinching a diamond over here. What ingredients besides Blue Curacao do you think go into the Love Punch? Blue Curacao is a good, is a, Where was I? I was at a Christmas party one time, and we made a drink that was like, Blue Curacao, vodka, and something else, and you... Hypnotic. Well, you tasted it, and it, like, disappeared from your mouth. Like, you took a sip, and it's like, it was, like, absolutely, it tasted like nothing at all.

It tasted, like, pure... Not even water flavor? Like, nothing. It was, like, it was just gone from your mouth from the second you tasted it. It was bizarre. We've stumbled into alchemy. I don't know. I'm sure this wasn't battery acid?

What's happening? No, battery acid, I imagine, would pack a punch. A love punch, if you will. Yeah, love punch, blue Curacao, pineapple juice. There's going to be a... Strawberry vodka. Oh, yes. Yeah, one of those really sort of like whipped cream-flavored vodka or something.

This sounds awful. Very sweet. Yeah, I don't think I would want it. I don't think I would want Love Punch. Yeah. Emma Thompson doing SponCon for Love Punch Mix, just add vodka. Love Punch, like, mocktails, right? What is the thing on Drag Race where they're talking about, like, cocktails and mocktails.

Oh, it's in the House of Love or something? No, it's the untucked. It's like they'll go backstage to enjoy. Mocktails and Mocktails from whatever, whatever. And, like, it just reminds me that, like, I'm very much in favor of people living a non-alcoholic life. But let's find a better word than Mocktail, because it just sounds... It sounds juvenile. Juvenile and childish.

Thank you. Thank you. I agree. All right. Any last thoughts before we move on to the Mdb game? I love this movie. I do, too. I love Iris Saks's movies.

I do, too. Sea passages. Yes. Great movie. great performances. Yes. Don't see it with your mother or someone. You might be embarrassed to see anatomy with.

Yeah. You do see a lot of anatomy. Franz Rogowski, FYC, best actor, 2023. He's tremendous. He's very, very good. For as much as I hate his character, I cannot deny it. He's great. All right.

Listen, if you appreciate the cinema of men in a slutty meshy top as a character-defining trait. Sure. Go see passages. Yeah, exactly. All right. Yeah, a slutty-meshy top is a supporting character in this movie. Like, that should get a campaign of its own.

Best costume to sign for the meshy top. All right. Let's move into the IMDB game then. Yeah. Would you like to explain the IMD game? Yeah, and as much as 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 mentioned that up front.

After two wrong guesses, we get to the remaining titles release here's as a clue. And if that's not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints. That is the IMDB game. Sure is. Do you want to give her guess first? Oh, why don't I guess first? Cool. Okay, so for you, I went into the Ira Sachs catalog of films and his ensemble members,

and I went to Married Life, a movie that is probably his most, like, has the veneer of Hollywood polish on it, maybe more so than the rest, and has, like, stars, stars in it. Remember thinking this is better than it's gotten credit for and has a great Chris Cooper performance. Don't remember much about it, though. But also in the cast is Patricia Clarkson, and for you, I have chosen, Patty. Patty C. One of my faves. Okay. No television.

The thing about Patricia Clarkson, of course, is that she's been doing this for a lot longer than you think she has. and she's in a lot of things. She's in small movies with lead roles, and she's in big movies with supporting roles, which is always a roller coaster. I'm going to say Shutter Island. Correct. All right. She lives in a cave and dances around a fire. She is maybe not real.

She's maybe not real. Spoiler. Pull yourself together, Teddy. She's credited as Rachel, too. Yeah, she is. Pieces of April? Incorrect. Her Oscar nomination, not there.

The station agent. The station agent. Good, good. IMDB. The performance, she should have been nominated for her. Writing history is wrongs. Yes, okay. So I've got two.

The maze runner? Also incorrect. So you're going to get your years. The years are 1999 and 2002. Okay. 1999. Green Mile? The Green Mile, yes.

Her role in the Green Mile is... She's the warden's dying wife, right? Yeah. Yeah. One scene. Oh, two. See... Is, oh, what's the, um, oh, fuck, what am I thinking of?

Shoot. Um, is all the real girls, O2? Uh, I believe it's O3 or O4, but it's incorrect. Yeah, okay, okay. You're maybe thinking too hard about this. Oh, okay, so nothing too out of the way. I definitely would have thought you would have gotten this. before you got some of the others.

Oh, it's far from heaven. It's far from heaven. Yeah, that makes all the sense in the world. She's so sensational in that movie. She really is. Yeah. I didn't get the, like, critical support behind that performance initially when I was young and probably too young to fully grasp the whole nuance of this movie.

But, like, she's so integral to the aspect of this movie that is, we are going to make this in the length. and in the style of a thing from the 50s, but the perspective is modern. So it's like you have to pick up on those cues. And I think she is, her performance is essential in pulling it off. And she's brilliant. Brilliant. I agree.

Who do you have for me? So I followed down the rabbit hole of the Sundance lineup from 2014. One of the movies that I mentioned was the skeleton twins starring. Among others, Bill Hader. So I'm going to give you Bill Hater, no television, one voice performance. No television? No television. No Saturday Night Live.

There's not Barry. Nope. Okay. No television one voice performance. The voice performance is, it's not, he's not indisputable me. No, he is indisputable me. Is it despicable me? Not despicable me.

Um... I won't give you hints yet, because you haven't gotten to the hints stage, but... This is going to be embarrassing, but It Chapter 2 is on there. Yes, it is. Stupid. Why would you guess Chapter 2 over Chapter 1? I'm curious. Because he's not in Chapter 1.

Is he not at all? No, it's just the kids. It's just the kids. That's right. That's right. I never saw Chapter 2 because everybody... The movie separates them. The book has them overlapping.

The movie separates them. That's right. Yes, it is chapter two. Yeah. Okay. I maybe need to put a pen in the animated one. I'm going to guess the skeleton twins. Yes, correct.

Okay. So, have two more. One wrong guess. One of them is animated. That's not... Oh, it's Jason Siegel that's in Despicable Me. Okay. but I feel like it's one of the no oh Bill Hader

Bill Hader's voice in Inside Out Inside Out correct there we go All right one more with only one strike Train wreck Train wreck correct There we go He's on the poster of three of those four His characters on the poster of Inside Out

Only It Chapter 2 he's not on the poster of those four. Yes, well done. I thought that would have been challenging, so good job. Very good job. All right. I think that's our episode. But for listeners who have been sticking around,

maybe we should tease this up ahead. Next week, episode 250. 250. Quarter centennial, this had Oscar Buzz title. It is a big one for us. The centennial is 100. quarter, uh, we're a quarter of a thousand. We are only a quarter of a way to our thousandth episode.

Uh, wow. I, um, I'm very excited for this. Listeners should be excited because not only is it our, you know, annual 50, whatever episode, but we've, uh, got some exciting news that we've been sharing only in episode 250. Very exciting news. We'll have some fun, uh, game. and a fun movie to talk about and join us next week. It'll be a time.

It'll be a celebration for all. Another movie we both love. So if you like the episodes of movies that we love, definitely come back. Join us. But that's our episode. If you want more This Had Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz.com. You can also follow us on Twitter if it still exists at This Had underscore Oscar underscore buzz and on

Instagram at this had Oscar Buzz. Joe, where can the listeners find you? Oh, they can find me on Twitter asterisk and letterboxed at Joe Reed read, read spelled R-E-I-D. And you can find me on the cemetery

that is Twitter letterboxed and bluesky at Krispy File. That's F-E-I-L. We'd like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork in Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Mavis for their 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 Podcasts visibility. So please don't make us the uncles that you're kicking out of your bedroom. Put us in more bedrooms with a five-star review. That's all for this week. We hope you'll be back next week for more buzz and 250 and some news. Tonight at 11. Love, love is strange, a lot of people take it for a game, once you get a new.