This Had Oscar Buzz - 252 – Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

Ahead of this season’s Nyad, we are looking back at the Oscar history of Annette Bening and 2017’s Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool. One year after missing out on a nomination for 20th Century Women, Bening returned with this film, starring as actress Gloria Grahame . Told from the perspective of actor Peter Turner … Continue reading "252 – Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. We want to talk to Marilyn Hack, Merlin Hack and French. Dick Poop. Hey, you're the next door guy, right? Which makes you the girl next door. What's her name? Gloria Graham.

Big name in black and white fields. No, no, no, no, no. One in Oscar, too, if memory says. Big fans of glory we were, Me and you know. Is this like a date or... Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that wishes they could all be California girls.

Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Joe Reed. I'm here, as always, with my disco dancing bisexual starfew. fucker twink author, Chris Fyle, hello, Chris.

And don't you fucking forget it. We contain multitudes, and that is a multitude of a person who we're going to be talking about. A couple of people with multitudes who we're going to be talking about in this episode, actually. For film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, very excited to talk about this film with you, Chris, a film that I saw at the Toronto Film Festival when it premiered. Did you see that as well? I did not. This was my first time seeing it. Oh, I am fascinated and interesting to hear your thoughts on this movie.

I've sort of gone kind of all over the map with this one, so I'm interested to see where you land after a first viewing. I remember not seeing this at that TIF because you hated it. I don't remember hating it. That's so funny. I was definitely a little disappointed. I also saw it at Roy Thompson Hall. It was the first thing I ever saw at Roy Thompson Hall. And it was my first experience with the not ideal angles at that place. Although I did end up... I think they have since improved upon such matters. I ended up with a pretty good seat in as much as I was against a wall where, like, I wasn't on an aisle, but I also was, like, not in between two seats.

I was, I had a wall on one side of me, so I was only, like, bordered by a person on one side, which is nice. Yeah. I realize now it was the premiere, obviously, because it was at Roy Thompson Hall. And I went back and I watched the TIF video of the red carpet before the premiere, co-hosted by my friend Anthony Olivera. And the crowd was so fucking loud and screaming for Jamie Bell that they like nearly blew out poor Annetteette. Ming's eardrums as she's trying to, like, talk to, uh, to the interviewers, to Anthony and his, uh, co-interviewer. And she's like visibly, not necessarily like perturbed by it, but like, visibly, like, I would like to get out of this soundscape as quickly as possible. Why were they so wild for Jamie Bell? Like, does the Billy Elliott hive, uh, flourish in Canada? Here's my thinking. Was he on some Netflix show we've already forgotten In the economy of, first of all, I just want to say for the record that, like, it is

fucking cool that there is any kind of environment where a movie like film stars don't die in Liverpool is an occasion for, like, screaming anything's to be up against a barricade and, like, you know, hootin and hollering for anybody. Like, that's the kind of thing that you get at, Tiff, is this, like, weird little microcosm, like, fantasy land where, like, the biggest movies in creation, are like, you know, movies like film stars don't tie Liverpool or, like, disobedience. All the honeygrams were out in force, and by the honeygrams, I do mean the Gloria Graham hive. Exactly. So I think in that microcosm of an environment, Jamie Bell is like top tier hotty.

You know what I mean? Like, Jamie Bell is top tier hottie kind of anyway, but especially in that kind of environment, like these people are popping off for, for Jamie, and I think with probably good reason. But before we get into this too much, we want to talk about, once again, our Patreon, which is up and running and flourishing, I'm going to say. If you want to go check out

This Had Oscar Buzz Turbulent Brilliant. It's what we're calling our Patreon. You can find that at, let's see, what is the oh, Patreon. Patreon.com slash this at Oscar Thanks you. I'm always so bad at

pinpointing that in my copy. It's really simple. It is really simple. It's simpler than some of our other social media platforms, you can say. I know. That is very true. My problem is that I failed to underline it in my copy, which is my bad, and you, the listener, should not be punished for my oversight there.

Anyway, yes, this had Oscar buzz tribunal and brilliance. We'll make it highly accessible for you to find. 100%. $5 a month for membership, you will get in return. Two bonus episodes per month. One of those episodes will be what we're calling an exception episode, where we'll cover a movie which fits the usual. This had Oscar Buzz rubric, great expectations, disappointing results, not necessarily great expectations of the film, although maybe. That would be main show, main show.

That's true. That didn't get any Oscar nominations. It's very true. We could be talking about multiple great expectations. Right. Exceptions are movies that had great expectations. disappointing results, but got an Oscar nomination or two along the way, which opens us up to quite a few movies that we've been dying to talk about. We kicked things off with a discussion of

the musical Flop 9, which is available for your listening pleasure right now. If you go and sign up in the future, we're going to be looking at movies like Charlie Wilson's War and across the universe and the lovely bones. We have an episode on Pleasantville coming up very soon. So you're going to want to sign up to hear us talk about Joan Allen feeling her black and white fantasy in ways literal and metaphorical. Then we have a second episode every month, which will be what we're calling excursions. Those are going to be off-format episodes where we might do Oscar race check-ins or leaf through an old entertainment weekly movie preview or watch an old award show. We can do Patreon-only mailbag episodes. We're definitely planning.

one of those pretty soon. We can do some thought experiments. We're going to explore the space, see what works. Last week we put up a discussion of Chris's field trip to see Magic Mike live in Las Vegas, which eventually became a Barbenheimer discussion episode. We recorded it on Barbenheimer. We recorded it on Barbentheimer weekend, so we had to get into that.

So if you listen to our Magic Mike Live episode, you'll also get our Barbenheimer thoughts, which is good and fun. We're also planning on putting up some Patreon-only polls, where you'll be able to vote to determine certain upcoming episodes, both on the Patreon and on the flagship feed. So you can have your say in an even more determinate way. So we love that. I think this sounds fun, Chris. Does this sound fun to you?

It sounds so fun, and I can confirm that it is so fun, being that we have recorded a handful of episodes already. Yes, if this sounds fun to you, dear listener, and or you'd like to support our show and make sure we can continue to make it long into the future. You can sign up for This Had Oscar Buzz Turbulent Brilliance at our Patreon page at I Know It This Time, Patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz. Thank you, and we love you, Gary's,

and back to your regularly scheduled episode on Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool. Liverpool. when we do ads, we're not going to sell you, you know, dubious medications or batresses or, I don't know. Better help. Better help, exactly. We're going to sell you us.

We're going to give you Barbenheimer and Be Italian is what we're going to sell you. That's exactly. For the low, low price of $5 a month. Who can beat that? All right. Film stars don't die in Liverpool. A movie that I feel like we were both looking forward to because, is we are both card-carrying members of the Annette Benning Air Force?

Where do we go? Rihanna's got the Navy. I feel like she has played not only in Captain Marvel, but it does seem canonical that she has played some type of Air Force veterans multiple times. Well, 20th century women, she's a pilot. She flies that airplane. Does she fly it? Isn't that whole thing by the end?

She learns how to fly. I don't think she flies it. I think she's a passenger in it. Well, whatever. Either way. She's up in the air. Immaculate. Tears running down my face, et cetera.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. She's up in the air. She's cruising around. What we need, maybe. I mean, like, we're not propagandists here, but would see different movies with Annette Benning in different branches of the military. I would also support changing the name of all Boeing aircraft to Benning aircraft.

I feel like I would feel much safer. in the friendly skies if I was flying in a Benning 747. A Benning 747. Doesn't that feel better? Doesn't that feel like your better hands? Is 747 a big plane? Because I feel like today, if that is, if a 747 is a large plane, we're not flying a Benning 747 this episode.

No, we're flying a, it's a Benning version of a Cessna, I guess. Although, hopefully less apt to crash. We're flying a Benning 7, we're flying a Benning Private Jet. Sure. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah. Benning Airways. Exactly. We're flying with Benning Airways. And, yeah, but this was small as it is. I think any upcoming Annette Penning movie is an event, which we'll get into when we talk about her upcoming 2023 movie, Nyad, which seems like another small... Benning Seaways. Character study. Yes, exactly. Then we'll be in Benning Submersibles. Not a good year for submersibles. Maybe we shouldn't say that. Anyway, Nyad feels like, and I don't want to jinx it, of course, but like a similar kind of thing where we're sort of all looking forward to this like fairly small movie and excited to see if this is, is this the one? Is this finally an Epinning's Oscar movie? Could it be? I feel like much like film stars don't die in Liverpool, we will know quickly. Yes. We'll know quickly.

Yeah. Well, at least if it's a no, we'll definitely know. If it's a maybe, then we move on to the next step. I think Oscars are not won in the fall festival season, but they can often be lost. So, yeah. But in 2017, there was definitely hope. We were keeping hope alive for, because by that point, she had been snubbed the year before for 20th century women. And we were all nursing our wounds. and for many of us, I know the two of us are of the opinion that, at least I was of the opinion, that that was my number one performance of that year, that that would have been. I was as well. Which isn't to say that if she had been nominated, she would have won. I think Emma Stone's winning that Oscar no matter what. But we like to see greatness rewarded with the nomination, and she certainly deserved it. So we're going into 2017, we're like, all right, what's next?

move, like, you know, pull yourself up from the mat and dust yourself off, and we're going to ride into battle again for a net. And it's this movie where she's playing, an Oscar-winning actress that has worked for actresses in the past. And it's a, you know, it's a movie about a cross-generational romance, and there's illness and death and regret and England and all this sort of stuff is happening. Julie Walters is there. Vanessa Redgraves there. For some reason. I will say Julie Walters is one of my favorite parts of the movie, but we'll get into it. So there was a lot of hope. And then it premiered and it played kind of a lot of places in the fall festival season. It premiered at Tell Your Ride. And when things premiere at Tell Your Ride, and I say

this knowing that you are generally more plugged in to Tell Your Ride reaction than I am, everyone's, well, like, I'll show up in Toronto, and I'll mention a movie, and you'll be like, well, that didn't do well at Telluride, and I'm like, I didn't hear about this at all. That's part of the reason. My thing about Telluride, and I don't know if I'm all that plugged in, because I think Telluride has really morphed into, I don't, I, you are not a fan of the Telluride Film Festival. Uh, no, no, it's not the festival, and I've never been, so I'm not dumping on the festival,

but I think some of the voices that go there are only seemingly interested in the awards race and not the films themselves. And I think the effusiveness level, which like, we all understand being in an environment that's just like primed to only appreciate something and not, you know, think all that critically about it. It's not just the altitude.

But like, it's only effusive responses. So when a movie plays there and you hear nothing, that's a bad thing. Because they won't say anything bad. Like, you know, yeah. Mostly because the movie stars are in the audience with you rather than up in a balcony somewhere or backstage. Like, that's the whole thing about, that's why they're saying the Telluride might be able to actually behave as normal this year during the strikes because they don't have people. big, you know, red carpet premieres or gals or whatever, the stars are mingling in their little, you know, Colorado mountain wear among everybody else and aren't really working

so much as they're just sort of like there to see the movies. But if Tom Hanks is sitting next to you, you know what I mean? Like maybe you're inclined to be, you know, you're in... I don't know. I still think it's your job. Like, I don't, I'm not saying. You can do whatever you want on Twitter. But like, it's also still your job. to like think critically about these things and to human nature is human nature and that's probably where a lot of that you know maybe at least a lot of that comes from anyway we can speculate about tell you ride tell you right tell you right to me is this great mystical land that sort of exists behind a veil and I'll never go to it because you have to pay for it and it's and

it's an expensive trip to take anyway we're like and if I'm going to pay that much at least send me to a gay destination and I also like I understand that everybody has a wonderful experience when they go there, et cetera, et cetera. Oh, I'm sure once I was there, I would have a great time. I'm sure it's idyllic, beautiful, wonderful. I'm sure that, like, you meet great people, et cetera. Totally. I'm not necessarily inclined to go see a movie in a high school gymnasium,

even if they, you know, do whatever state-of-the-art equipment that they have. You know, I get it, but like, I don't know. But it exists as this sort of mystery place. I never, they never announced their, lineup. So there's always a degree of like a guessing game as to what movies are playing and you're sort of reading the negative space. It's a, to me at least, it's a little bit of a land of mystery. And I find that a little bit intriguing as opposed to Venice and Toronto and New York film festivals, which are, you know, much more on Front Street. But anyway, I was very excited to

see if film stars don't die in Liverpool. And I was disappointed with it. And that's probably why I chased you away from it. Um, there is nothing more apt to get me to change my TIF schedule than at me asking somebody about a movie and then being like, you don't really need to see it. And then I'm like, great. I'm going to find something else because like, there's so much competition for, you know. This was also my first TIF too. So like, my, my schedule has never been more in flux than the first time and I'm never

doing it that way again. Yeah. Yeah. Um. Well, then let's, why don't, what are we waiting for? Let's just get into it. And we'll talk about the bending of it all. We'll talking about, we'll talk about the Jamie Bell of it all. We'll talk about the real-life inspo of it all, because that is the authorship questions kind of abound when we talk about this movie. So I'm interested to see, to hear what your thoughts are on that, because my thoughts tend to get a little more sharply formed every time I see it. But anyway, we, we, We will be talking about 2017's Film Stars Don't Die on Liverpool, directed by Paul McGuigan is how they pronounced it on the red carpet at Tiff, so that is how I will pronounce it, too. It is not how I would have pronounced it before I heard that. So Paul McGuigan, whose filmography is kind of wild.

We'll get into that. It was written for the screen by Matt Greenlaw, and that was based on the book Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, written by Peter Turner, who is, of course, a character in this film a main character we'll talk about it starring Annette Benning Jamie Bell Julie Walters Kenneth Cranham Stephen Graham with

Vanessa Redgrave and there's no and credit which is to me always the most intriguing and the ghost of Gloria Graham is yes right but when there's a with but no and fascinated to know what the contractual

implications are there Right? Where they, is it that they had tried to negotiate for an and but couldn't get it? Is there a salary threshold for a, is there a contractually obligated and that was on the cutting room floor? Or maybe, like, there's, this is anybody with knowledge of casting credits and knows what it means when there's a with but no and, let me know, what it implies, because I'm fascinated to know.

Um, film premiered, as I said, at the Telluride Film Festival on September 1st, 2017, played the Toronto Film Festival. It played London. It played AFI film festival before premiering in, I, as I recall it, quite limited release on December 29th, 2017. And then I imagine it was one of those things that, like, didn't really have a proper, even, like, platformed, like limited. Until February. Until, yeah, January, February, exactly. Topping out at a hundred and seven theaters, I believe. Well, yeah, it was a very, very slight release. And that, like, after, that between Christmas and New Year window, I believe, is the same limited release that 20th century women got.

However, obviously, you know, that got more of a platform. Yeah. Press attention. All right, Chris, I'm going to put 60 seconds on the clock. Are you ready to sum up the wild and woolly world of film stars don't die in Liverpool? Sure. All right. And begin.

Behold, the time-spanning back-and-forth process of dying for Academy Award-winning actress Gloria Graham told through the eyes of Peter Turner, who late in life, was a lover of hers when they met while she was performing on the stage in London. He had no idea who she was or that she was an Academy Award-winning actress. She teaches her out of dance. It's actually kind of sexy. They have a late in life romance. And meanwhile, she is secretly very sick, having previously had a cancer diagnosis that she did not receive chemotherapy for. And she, once again, has illness. The movie is hopping back and forth, kind of creating a mystery of when she knew that she was dying.

There's not really a reason for this kind of back and forth process. Anyway, he takes her to. her, his family home in Liverpool to recuperate, and eventually she gets on a plane back to the States, and she passes away the day she arrives, and he continues his acting career. Only two seconds over, Chris File. Welcome back to punctuality with the 60-second plot description. It's not a plotty movie. No.

There's this framing device of back and forth in time. Yeah. of, you know, she eventually takes him to Los Angeles or, you know, California, generalize California. I will say, the old-timey rear-screen way that they do, them arriving in California is one of my favorite parts of the movie, because it's so weird. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the bad visual effect of this movie and the way that it goes in and out of different memories is by design. I love it. Like, it's not supposed to. to look sleek.

I love it. It's this mid-century affective type of romance of the movie type of thing that I think sells you more on the romance than anything that actually happens.

Because I think as far as things happening, this is not, unfortunately, an interesting movie. I'll tell you my favorite things that happen in the movie. One is the rear screen projection in Los Angeles. Two is, you mentioned, when They're dancing to boogie, ogi,ogi, yogi, and Jamie Bell is, like, dropping to the floor doing the splits and, like, is just...

He fakes the split, though. It's so hot. It's so hot. No, but it's the thing where you fake the split and come back up. Like, it's a, it's a, it's like, that's not, I bailed out on the split. That's a move. Your half leg that's not in the split is used to propel you back on. Yeah, it's a move.

It's the straight, it's the heterosexual split. What else? Oh, when they go to see Alien in the theater, and she's laughing her ass off at Alien. She loves Alien. And everything to do with the Emelda Staunton and that Benning relationship in this, with his mom, Peter's mom, and Gloria, sort of forming this bond as the mom is taking care of her through her terminal. I loved all of that. Everything else in this movie, I need to be, and like, this has nothing to do with the performances of Annette Benning and Jamie Bell, who I think are both, you know, doing very good work with what they're given.

I tend to raise, and I hate doing this, because, like, I hate being, I hate being the person who's just like, well, like, this movie is so fundamentally flawed at its root that, like, it never really had a chance. but I think there are perspective issues with the Peter Turner rendering of this relationship that make it hard to invest in the movie. His character is so fucking sainted in this movie where he's like, he's young, he's hot, he's into her, he has no seemingly, like, doubts about this, you know, older woman. He has no, he's like so cool with it. He's like, fashionably bisexual. And he's, you know, he sticks up for her.

Fell in love with her without knowing who she was. Yeah, he didn't know, like the side eye I am casting to he didn't know who she was. Right, right. I don't believe that. I have nothing to back it up, but I don't believe it. But he, like, he sticks up for her with her family. And then he sticks up for her with his family. And he, you know, defense her all the way.

He's better to her than her own children were and all this sort of stuff. He's caring for her. He's not keeping her away from a doctor. And a lot of these things may well be true. I have a hard time believing that all of them are true. And regardless... It's based on his book, though. That's the thing.

It's based on his book. But in his book, he is the hero of this story. And I ultimately, as a movie, think it's less interesting when we're telling his story. This is the My Week with a Maryland problem. You know what I mean? Like, I'm here for Maryland. I'm not here for the boy who fell in love with Maryland. And there's... And it's like, it seems like that would be an audience surrogacy thing. Like, the romance with the movie star, we can more relate to the person who loves the movie star and the movie star themselves. There's a way to do that. But this movie saints him so like it places such a halo on top of his head and at some point you're

just like well now I'm just like well you're telling your story and you're like the greatest guy ever in your story so like I kind of now reflexively don't believe you so what am I going to do with that and you gain so much fun like he doesn't you know say that he became the greatest actor but like there is you know when the end of the movie is her going to America to die and him taking a bow on a stage production. It's like you kind of have to interpret it that like their romance and her death whisper made him a more successful actor, question mark. I think this is a movie that is incredibly lucky to have not only as charming of a performer as Jamie Bell in that role because like that's one thing that my weakness. Maryland does not have.

Your nemesis, in fact. I'm not a nemesis, just like not a charming performer. He's your nemesis. Not a charming performer. I mean, and the way that that character is insufferable in my week with Maryland, so is the actor. The, Jamie Bell's incredibly charming, and I do think that there is really strongly developed chemistry between him and Annette Benning that is also surprising, and because it's surprising, it makes the romance work more on screen, even as nothing interesting is happening, and you are questioning the perspective that you're being given.

My thing is, and who are we talking about, oh, when we had Taylor on to talk about love and mercy, just last week, last week. Sure, last week. Time is a flat circle. Talking about how we prefer biopics with a limited scope, biopics that only cover maybe a certain window of a person's life. And I still feel that way, but I maybe want a different window of Gloria Graham's life. There's so many, like this movie alludes to so many things, and some of them are Todry, the whole thing with her marriage to Nicholas Ray, and then she, you know, two husbands later marries his son from another marriage who at one point was her stepson. And there are actually that they got together when he was only 13 years old.

And, you know, it's tawdry, but it's fascinating. And it's, you know, I would like a, you know, I would watch a movie that has to do more of that. I would watch a movie that has to do with Gloria Graham's, you know, struggles within the industry. And I know that there are like... I would watch a broad biopic that, like, is, you know, the greatest hits of Gloria Graham. Yeah. And then this can be, yeah, this feels like, and again, it just feels like this is a Peter Turner movie.

Even though Bening is great. Or it's like, if it's a limited scope biopic, it's limited just to her death. And it's like, when do we want to see that ever? I didn't want to say this because it sounds callous, but I did text you last night that like, I'm at the point in the movie. I was going to call you out. I am at the point in the movie where she just dies for an hour. And it's like, and it's interspersed with flashbacks, but like it is, it's so suffocating at some point where you're just like, you're just like, and it's not like she's dying for like several years of her life. This is like a, you know, fairly limited time frame.

And the movie kind of drags it out and throws flashbacks in the middle. And the flashbacks by that point of the movie are this very typical, like, they get together and they break up. and she gets a diagnosis, and she doesn't, she's too proud to share it with him, and she's self-conscious that he's so much younger and hotter, and Peter Turner, you know what I mean? And she can't play Juliet anymore. All this sort of stuff. And it's like, we're sort of trudging through the paces of, and by this point, we know the term the diagnosis is terminal.

We know she's not going to, like, come around and survive or whatever. and it's just this kind of like long slow march this isn't a long movie but it feels longer than it is because it's this sort of just like slow march to this inevitable end and and that's why i'm partly like what do the flashbacks even serve in this movie it's like it really makes it feel like she is near death the whole movie but also makes it feel like this relationship went on for longer than it did. Yes. Because why are you doing time jumps when it's all set within like a two year time? I was going to say the whole span of their relationship is the last two years of her life. And it does make it seem like it's a lot longer than that. And it also does. You're right. It makes it feel like because so much of her preoccupations are that she's old, that she's, you know, that they look foolish and that he thinks of her as this like old lady and whatever. And it, it, it. it contributes to this whole idea that she's dying throughout the whole movie and it's

as I said suffocating at some point and it doesn't really let you like you know the best parts of the movie I said are the scenes where she's dancing or the scene where she's laughing at the movie or she's you know whatever and the part where there she's in the play and they're at the after party and they're walking through and the one guy who's an agent or a manager a director or something it greets her and he's very flirty

and then she and Peter walk past and Peter whispers to her I think whatever his name is I think that guy I think that guy wants to fuck you and he's not saying it accusatorially he's sort of like joshing her a little bit he's like I think you think that guy wants to fuck you

and she goes honey everybody in this room wants to fuck me and I'm like yeah man like that energy let's see more of that Gloria and And I think the movie relies on little snippets of film from the actual Gloria Graham's career and like little, you know, headshots that we see of her, or like a caricature of her on a lampshade from a restaurant in New York City. And those things are what the movie sort of like leans on for that, like, look at this once vibrant and young movie star. And it's like, bitch, you have Annette Benning.

She can give you vibrant. She was giving you vibrant in several of these scenes. You don't need to, you know, lean on that as much. I don't know. This movie disappointed me, I will say. I don't hate it, but I wanted more from it. In terms of the abject failure of it, I think there's more appealing things going on in this movie for then like a movie that made something like a hundred thousand dollar or like a million

dollars maybe at the box office would have yes like the movies we've talked about and a lot of it isn't at benning she's you can't you can throw her in crap and she is never giving you crap well and she it's not like she except for her husband's movies well everyone's giving crap and rules don't apply i want to talk about it because she's not an actress who, like, works a ton. She's, she doesn't, like, it's not, like, it's sparing, but, like, on Annette Benning performance, you're, you're giving maybe at most to a year, and one of those is probably going to be a smaller one.

You know what I mean? Like, she's... Might be life itself. Right. Where she shows up, she has a sandwich, and she gets hit by a bus. I, this, this question is sometimes a little more open-ended than. than is worth it, and sometimes there isn't a really good answer. What's the first time you remember being aware of a Net Benning in a movie?

Early. Like, either seeing a movie or, like, being aware of her in, like, the marketing of a movie, or, you know what I mean? Like, in general. I mean, in, like, the marketing of a movie, it's the American president, but I definitely saw her in things before then. I knew my dad, like the grifters a lot, but I wasn't allowed to watch it, and being an adult, I could see why. But, like, I remember we used to, like, rent the Great Outdoors all the time.

We would, too. So that, I think, is probably the first time I ever saw it. I remember the marketing campaign, but especially the Oscar lead up to Bugsy. And she's not nominated for Bugsy, but that's the movie where she in a Warren Beatty get together. But there was the clip from Bugsy. I guarantee you it was the clip they showed on Siskel and Ebert, where she's talking to Bugsy, and she's kind of prickly with him. I imagine this is sort of early on, and she tells him, why don't you go jerk yourself a soda? My, oh my, you're pretty ferocious for her mom's concern, aren't you?

The rest of the time, you're just another good-looking, sweet-talking, charm-using, fuck-happy fellow with nothing to offer but some dialogue. Dialogs cheap in Hollywood, Ben. Why don't you run outside and jerk yourself a soda? And I remember that scene getting clipped a lot. And I'm like, this lady is something. You know what I mean? Like, this lady's got a little bit of snap to her. And so then, yes, then I, you know, like, oh, that's Dan Aykroyd's wife from the Great Outdoors.

And then, like, when I would see later on movies like the grifters or postcards from the edge, you would see. sort of early Benning. She's so good in postcards from The Edge. In one scene. She's so good. Yes. Her character is the one who is sleeping with Dennis Quaid behind Merrill's back, right? Yes.

And she sort of like... I think I also had it in my mind, too, before I had even probably seen her in much more than the movies we're talking about, though I haven't seen Bugsie, was that she was supposed to be Catwoman. See, I don't remember hearing about that as much, but yes, that was definitely the case, that she was in the running to play Catwoman and Batman Returns. And obviously the role eventually goes to Fyfer. But yeah, I think then the next big thing, I remember seeing like the trailers and the commercials for Love Affair, because that is her and Warren Beatty and Catherine Hepburn doing the remake of... An Affair to Remember. one of the I mean like I remember

my grandmother having on VHS an affair to remember love affair and sleepless in Seattle just a whole cinematic universe right there have you seen an affair to remember no that shit is so wild so stupid

like that's amazing I mean I can buy that people earnestly like love that movie as a romance but it is goofie It is real goofy. I can't remember whether it was the critic or 30 Rock, but they were doing a, making a joke about...

They do that Latin movies, an affair to remember, sleepless in Seattle, and that remake of an affair to remember that I was in, a Blair to Remem Black. But no, I never saw a Love Affair, nor an Affair to Remember. Love Affair is supposed to be a really, really bad remake. Yes. But it has, it's, it's the final movie of Catherine Hepburn. Exactly. That's why it's notable.

Because Warren Beatty had to leave that, he had to make that nice lady leave her house. Well, she might not have been a nice lady. But, like, couldn't just let her live in retirement and peace. Has Mark Harris entered the chat? What's going on? He had to commit elder abuse and bring her into that bad movie. All right. The Grifters is her first.

Oscar nomination. In 1990, she loses to Whoopi Goldberg. Her 1990s are actually kind of interesting. Obviously, Bugsie, I mentioned, Love Affair. She's in Richard the Third. Who directed that, Richard the Third? Is that Richard Eyre? No, Richard Longcray. But that's the Ian McKellen, modernized version of Richard the Third. And it's her and McKellen and her and Robert Downey Jr. And it's very good. And I didn't see it until later. She is transcendence in the American president. We've talked about the 1995 Best Actress Race and how there wasn't

enough room for all the 20 great performances by actresses that year. She's everything, she's like the ideal sorkan heroin in that. Like, she's so wonderful. She's so, she and

Michael Douglas are perfect opposite each other. It's just a great role. It's a great performance. I'll tell you exactly what happened here. I got screwed. I got screwed. You saw the polls. You didn't like the number, so I got scroed. She also has one of the great PG-13 fuck interences in the movie, where she's going through at the end. The American president has like seven PG-13 Fox. No. Does, is it, I remember hers. She has a fuck. Uh, Michael J. Fox has a fuck. Does he? Michael Douglas has a fuck. I'm pretty sure Martin Sheen has a fuck. I'm pretty sure Martin Sheen has a

fuck, there are so many fucks. I'm going to watch this movie with a counter next time. And I'm going to, I'm going to tally them all up. I think there's at least four. Listeners can get at us with how many fucks there are in the American president. In the scene where you just performed a flawless dramatic interpretation of Sidney Allen Wade. She also is looking for her sweater that was her sisters so that she can leave and never come back. I go around scaring the hell out of Congress, making them think the president's about to drive through a very damaging and costly bill. They'll believe me, right? Because I'm the president. president's Friday night girl. Now, I don't know if you can dip into that well twice,

especially since I've lost all credibility in politics, but you never know. I might be able to just pull it off again. I might be able to give you just the leverage you need to pass some groundbreaking piece of crime legislation, like a mandatory three-day waiting period before a five-year-old can buy an oozy. Oh, fuck the sweater. She'll have to learn to live with disappointment. We're going to do an exceptions episode on that. Join our Patreon, five dollars a month, and you'll get us talking about Sydneyll and wait. It'll be great. her run from that where it's like Mars attacks, which is we can go round and round in circles about, is Mars attacks underrated or overrated? Because at any point, it's one or the other. It went from

underrated to overrated and then the overrated, it went from underrated and then like redeemed. And then the redeemed went too far so then it was overrated. And then it went back to underrated a little bit. So like it's this constant circle of are we appreciating Mars attacks appropriately? I do think nobody is having as much fun in Mars Attacks as Annette Benning is having in Mars attacks. That's a good way to put it. She's in The Siege, which is a much more interesting movie than it is a good movie, if that makes sense.

It is a fascinating movie to watch in the sense of it's a post-9-11 movie that is made in 1998, which is kind of amazing when you think about it, and fascinating to watch in that regard. She's in the Neil Jordan movie in Dreams. which is ultimately, that's another movie where she co-stars with Robert Tony Jr., in fact. And not really successful, is not very well reviewed. But good for her, that's the same year that she's in American Beauty, which is a phenomenon. It, you know, puts DreamWorks in the Oscar race,

and it gives DreamWorks Best Picture for the first time. And it has her on the precipice of which, winning best actress. I will sell this house today. She wins the sag. Wait, right, Hillary Swank won the globe and then she won the sag, I think is how it went.

Maybe. Whatever. Going on to Oscar night, I think people were like 52-48 Benning. Like it was still very, very close, but I think people were leaning towards it'll probably be Benning because she's in the Best Picture winner and Kevin Spacey's probably

going to lose to Denzel Washington for the hurricane so if they're going to want to give it to a lead actor from this movie, they're going to want to give it to Annette Benning. And she's super pregnant. Doesn't everybody want to see her win and then have to immediately go leave and deliver a baby?

That's always this weird, we've had multiple pregnant Oscar winners as of late, including Natalie Portman and Catherine Zita Jones. And in all of the run up to that, there is always either somebody says this outright or there's this like weird unspoken allusion

to the fact that like, what if their water breaks while they're accepting the Oscar? You know what I mean? Like there's this like a vision that people have of them like going into labor because of the like emotion of winning an Academy Award. And it's like, I don't think that's going to happen.

But like if it does, I guess it would be like. Talk to a. a doctor, any doctor, and see if that is even possible. Here's what I will say is somebody going into labor on stage at the Academy Awards is the only thing that would surpass the slap at this point as like the wildest thing. I don't know if it would even pass the best picture snafu. I feel like... Okay, how about this?

not only do they go into labor but they have to deliver the baby on the stage and then the baby slaps someone okay all right all right all right the baby

slaps Jonah Hill that would be everybody wants to see Jonah Hill I don't think he's showing up the Oscars any time soon God what if the baby slapped somebody like Merrill that would be then all of a sudden you'd really have some

discourse like the baby slaps merrill and then fay dunaway barks at it that it's a little homosexual baby wow we're really we're spinning out a scenario okay so okay the oscar snafu though i know i'm jumping ahead in time but we mentioned it one of my favorite memories of that moment that i actually kind of hate it would i feel like it would have been just you know it obviously would have been so much more transcendent if moonlight had just gotten the award and didn't have that whole situation happened, but one of my favorite notes of it happening in all of the, like, people breaking down the oral history second by second of what happened. Oh, is when they reached out to a net for comment? No, when like he's on the phone with his wife the whole time being like, this is what

happened. And her comment apparently was Warren, come home. That's great. It's great. So she does not win the Oscar for American Beauty. That is won by upstart actress Hillary Swank. Who is she? She was on 9-2-0 and she was on the next predicate. Or if you're Roberto Benini, Hillary Swank.

Hillary Swank. And then Annette Benning is like, well, sorry everybody. I guess I didn't win, but how about I just star in a Mike Nichols movie as revenge? And it's like, well, you're going to star in the worst Mike Nichols movie. So,

sorry. She's in what planet are you from, which is sort of roundly dismissed. And then she's in only like five more movies for the rest of the decade of the odds. She's in open range with Kevin Costner, which is like a decidedly supporting role in a, you know, sort of low-key Western. 2004, however, well, we'll skip around 2004. 2006, she's in Running with Scissors. We've done that episode. 2008, she's in the remake of the women, ill-fated. We should find a way to talk about that, even though I don't think it ever had, like, real Oscar buzz, but we should find

the way of it. We'll be talking about it for Annette Benning, and here we are. Yes. Have you seen, okay, have you seen the remake of the women? I have not, because we've been like, maybe Willowichly do it. Yeah, all right, all right, put a pin in that. And then she's in the Rodrigo Garcia movie

Mother and Child with, among others, Naomi Watts. And I think that's an underrated movie. Have you ever seen that movie? I don't trust Rodrigo Garcia. I generally don't either, but I think it's an underrated movie, at least for some of the performances. I think she and Naomi Watts are both very good. Anyway, 2004, she's in a movie called Being Julia. It is a decidedly sort of, like, not incredibly arresting costume drama. It's directed by Itzvon Zabbo, who is known for, at least with me, directing the other Sunshine. The other, the costume drama, Sunshine.

But he is a Hungarian filmmaker. Yes, he's a Hungarian filmmaker. She plays a Lady of the Stage. Isn't that another one where she's a Lady of the Stage and she's dating a younger man? Isn't she dating? Isn't that part of the plot of being Julia? Doesn't she have an affair with the younger man? Anyway.

The movie's defenders keep telling me I need to re-watch the movie because I hated it the first time I saw it and didn't necessarily love her in it either. But I think that could be the plot. It is conceivable. That's part of the plot. The thing about Being Julia is 2004 is shaping up to be one of those years where people say it's a weak year for best actress,

and you can't see me, but I'm making scare quotes when I say that. What that means is, it is not a year where there are a ton of actress contenders from traditional Oscar avenues. So we're going to have to look elsewhere, and we're going to have to look at smaller movies and more outside of the way, and one of those was being Julia,

and I think people were like, oh, well, Annette Benning has this costume drama, and she's never won before, and she was kind of owed from the American Beauty Year. And it's a little bit like Julianne Moore in Still Alice, where everybody decides that, oh, this would be a good thing to happen. The thing about that is Julian Moore is quite good in Still Alice. And so anyway, Buzz sort of starts to accumulate around Annette Benning.

And people are like, well, Amelda Staunton's kind of having a breakthrough, but it's not quite like an Oscar winning breakthrough. It's not like there's nothing, there's no guise. glamorous angle to that or whatever. So Catalina Sondino Moreno is this like breakthrough star from a Sundance movie, but there's, again, there's not really star power in that. Kate Winslet is doing such good work in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but that movie is way too weird to actually win.

So I guess it's going to be Annette Benning. You know, nobody's really enthusiastic about this movie, only like, you know, Oscar voters are kind of the only people seeing this movie, but it's Annette Benning. Who's going to complain? And then who comes mosying down the dirt road from her little rundown shack with Margot Martindale yelling at her is who? Very last minute, too. Incredibly, this is one of those movies where Clint Eastwood always has the reputation

for making his movies very quickly because he, like, takes two takes, and he's like, oh, you print, you know what I mean? mean and he's you know good enough for me um and like famously makes movies very very quickly and so all of a sudden this clean eastwood movie materializes at the very very end of 2004 and who was the star of this movie but annette benning's new nemesis hillary swank Hillary swank with the boxing gloves on and people are like oh well she plays a boxer that's interesting and like I guess there's a physical transformation angle and then people see the movie and what happens when they see the movie, they find out

that she falls down and she breaks her neck and she eventually gets mercy killed by Clint Eastwood and then everybody's like, well, fuck. Terry Schiavo is in the press. It's over. The race is over. Hillary Swank is winning another Academy Award. We're so sorry Annette Benning, but

you cannot compete with the way that Million Dollar Baby ends. And so Hillary Swank wins Oscar number two and all of a sudden Annette Benning is 0 for 3. And And you can't argue with it, because it's not like you can be, like, justice for being Julia. Well, here's, here, I have a few notes on that.

Let's hear. First of which, Hillary Swank is better in Million Dollar Baby than she is in Boys Don't Cry. I would very strongly argue. All right. And, like, a Million Dollar Baby, good movie. And I say that as someone who is. not on a defender of Clint Eastwood's movies in the past 20 years. Wait, Chris, what's that on your t-shirt?

Does it say Makushla? What's going on? Wait a second. It says, my darling, my blood. It says they all look at you and life. Also, absent Hillary Swank in that race, if that movie does get saved for 2005, like it was initially supposed to do, before those test screenings were through the roof and Warner Brothers didn't really have anything so they are like you know what we're

going to put out the movie blah blah when Annette Penning was the de facto frontrunner at the beginning of the season there wasn't a lot of enthusiasm about it and partly I would say mostly because of the movie and I do wonder if absent Hillary Swank from this race if Imelda Staunton would have been able to create a type of grounds well. Yeah, I could see it for sure. Because, like, even up until Oscar morning, there were a large portion of people that were, like, Amel de Staunton deserves it, but Hillary swings. I think if we didn't have the baggage from the 99 Oscar race, we would probably not just assume

that Annette Benning was second place in 2004. You know what I mean? But the story is so good. Like, it's one of my favorite Oscar narratives to kind of, like, make a joke about. What did I say the other day? And that Benning has Nyad coming out. And you know who has three movies coming out between now and the end of the year? I don't care how non-buzzy they are. It's Hillary Swank. And she's... Right. Well, I mean, like, one of them is like a Christian movie. It's not going to be put in the Oscars. I think two of them. One of them is overtly

Christian. The other one is like Hillary Swank is Erich, like Schmerin Schmachovich. And I'm not sure what the third one is, but like it's hysterically. The third one is like it's it's I don't know, white goose or something. No, there is an actual movie called

White Bird coming out. But it's just kind of hilarious that like all of a sudden and that Benning is a massing Oscar buzz and there's Hillary Swank. And it's not like every year there's in Annette Benning movie and a Hillary Swank movie. These movies, like, they kind of don't come around that often. And it's like the transverse of Venus, where all of a sudden, like, Venus and Earth and the Sun are lined up, like, every few years. And it's crazy to me. Anyway, we're in for it yet again. All right. So, next Oscar nomination and the most recent one, as of yet, is Annette Benning and Julianne Moore star, as a lesbian couple in Lisa Cholodenko's.

The kids are all right in 2010. People don't really talk about what an unlikely, and hit is the wrong term, because that was one of the, like, low box office earners in that, like, famously lucrative box office or best picture class of 2010. But the fact that Lisa Cholodenko, who is, like, not a, even among indie directors, I don't think anybody was like one of these days Lisa Cholodenko's going to break out with a banger. You know what I mean? She was making high art and she was making, um...

Well, she's now going to make the beautiful adaptation, so put a pause on that thought. Like the Carol King? Yes. Ooh, interesting. Which I'm also like, ah, I want Lisa Cholodenko to be making Lisa Cholodenko movies, but she might make the beautiful movie better than other people might. She also did Olive Kittridge, which was, pretty well well

Al of Kittridge written by Elizabeth Strout which like pause for a second I am becoming an Elizabeth Strout Stan I am reading my third Elizabeth Strout book in a month like fantastic as I smile and nod at book talk yes yes

Boise Barton girlies get at me but the kids are all right being this like fairly like straightforward just like yep they're a lesbian couple they have kids they have like a fairly messy plot development where Julianne Moore's character has the affair with Mark Ruffalo for like none of this seems to harm this movie you would you would expect a

movie like that to get discoursed to death and that to be sort of you know scandalized people and whatever and for whatever reason in 2010 everybody was like yeah cool yep into it yep I'm going to go see it we're going to like it we like the kids are all right We like a net Benning enough that we're going to nominate her for best actress. We like the film enough that we're going to nominate it for Best Picture. And I think that's kind of rad. And I kind of wonder if, like, somebody, like, sprinkled fairy dust over the whole country and we're like, just be cool about this one. And, like, everybody just decided to be cool about it.

I mean, I think the movie allows all of that to be messy in a way that is, like, I don't want to say, push. just a side critique of it, but, like, I think people appreciate that the movie isn't some conclusive thing. Like, on a relationship level, it allows it to be messy and, you know. Yeah. Unresolved, in a way that is actually very satisfying as a viewer. Once again, perception sort of settles in than Annette is second place in, 2010, that Natalie Portman ultimately wins for Black Swan.

I don't have any problem believing that Nickle, that Benning would be second place in that race. The other nominees that year are Jennifer Lawrence for Wintersbone and her big breakthrough. Michelle Williams for Blue Valentine and Nicole Kidman for Rabbit Hole. I think Benning probably is second place. Probably, I would say, distant. It's one of my favorite best actress lineups. I think it's all bangers. and I think everybody's great.

But Benning is never really going to win that one. Like, Portman's got that one pretty locked up from an early, early stage, I feel like. I think Benning was also at the disadvantage. Like, for me, and like, yes, I say this as, like, Julianne Moore is, like, the, like, top three for me. Yeah. I, for me, I feel like it was always right,

movie, wrong performance, getting the awards attention. I, like, them both. I think I would have probably tried to nominate them both, even though that really crowds out the category. That's one of the things that even if I know I'm in a minority saying that, but I think

even if you don't think that she is still for whatever reason, because people just don't think that people that a movie can have two leads anymore. Right. Right. That she's competing with her own co-star in a way, even though

her co-star is not nominated. Yeah. No, I agree with that. So now Annette Benning is 0 for 4. And now it becomes, at that point, it becomes like a thing. And that Benning is never won an Oscar. If she were to then work at the pace that in Amy Adams does, then I think people would be, would probably have been talking about it a lot more over the last decade or so. But she goes from the kids are all right and does generally in film a series of supporting role. She's a supporting character in Ruby Sparks, a movie that we talked about last week, and I really like. She's in Ginger and Rosa, which is the Sally Potter movie with Elle Fanning and Alice Englert. And I think she's really good in that. Like, that's another one where it's just like, she's only in a handful of scenes, but I think she's really good.

Um, she's in our beloved Danny Collins playing, uh, a representative of the, uh, of the Hilton honors program. She's really, um, representing the company. She's Miss Hilton honors. And then here comes 2016. In 2016, she has a small role in the next Warren Beatty movie where we had, we, we had waited so long and, um, ultimately she's not a really, but like, The disaster kind of elides her because she's in such a small part of it.

And we got to talk about Rule Stone Apply at some point. We got to do that on a flagship. But that same year, she's in the new movie from Mike Mills. And now, Mike Mills, I have talked to you before about how I am not a big fan of beginners. I don't think it's a bad movie, but it's a movie that I felt like I should have connected to more. It's a movie with, like, you know, this older gay character played by Christopher Plummer, and I've always felt a little bit alienated by the U.N. McGregor performance in that movie. I don't like it. A recent rewatch of this movie had me on board with the things you're saying.

And then he's, of course, married to Miranda July, who's another filmmaker, I just don't. get. I still have to see that latest one that everybody says I will like. I do think you will like that way. What is it called? Cagillionaire. Cagillionaire. I wanted to say kaleidoscope, but it's Cagillionaire. I got to see Cajilinar. But anyway, up until this point, the 20th century women opens. I'm like, I'm just not a Mike Mills person. And then the trailer for the movie comes out. And it looks so fucking good. It's a net Benning. is a single mother in Santa Barbara in the Jimmy Carter years of the late 1970s living at this sort of like, not quite a flop house, but this sort of like fixer-upper place where like wayward souls have come where it's like Billy Crudeup and Greta Gerwig. And then Al Fanning is her son's friend who's like always around and he's in love with her. And she's, you know, you know, ready to, you know, go explore the space in Santa Barbara with regard to other people. And that bending is just trying to raise her son without a father in a way where she wants him to have good influences. And so she wants, you know, Greta Gerwig and El Fanning and Billy Creed up to all be good influences on her son.

And this all sounds a little bit pat, but you watch the movie, and it works so fucking well. Everything I didn't like about beginners really fucking clicks for me with 20th century women. It's one of my favorite movies of the 20 teams, and I don't know. Your turn to gush about it, because I love it so much. Oh, yeah, that's a movie that's hard to talk about without crying. Yeah. A solid masterpiece, I think part of the reason why it works so well is that there's other factors, beyond just the personal in there.

I think it's a very political movie. I think there is a lot to it that is about kind of a paradigm shift in the culture. And I think that's part of the character she plays, you know, her kind of weird displacement that's not, you know, the type of dramatic emotional or psychological displacement that, you know, you usually see in movies, but it is like this weird moment in time for this very particular type of left-leaning woman who, you know, there's the scene where everybody's like, it's Jimmy Carter, right? They're watching the Carter speech and everybody's like, that guy is so cooked. He's over. It's done. And she

sits there so confused in the room. And it's like, I was actually very moved. And it's just like, It's a great scene. She, she, like, sees, she's, like, experiencing in this real way at this time where she wants to be there for her son, that she might be out of touch with something that, you know, she doesn't understand these people that are around her son, but she knows that they are all in their own way good for him. Yeah. I find very moving. It's interesting, we're talking about this in sort of the wake of Barbie, and Greta Gerwig is kind of, you know, on top of the world at the moment, where... She just went to Renaissance last night. Oh, was she at MetLife with... Oh, I thought I sent you that photo.

No. People are sharing videos and photos of Greta Gerwig at Renaissance. My Instagram was inundated with party bus after party bus of people going to MetLife to go to Missy. Hell yeah, I wish I was there. But anyway, we talk, and rightly so, about Greta Gerwig's collaborations with Noah Baumbach before she began directing with Francis Haugh and Mistress America in terms of her sort of formation as an artist, because she co-wrote those movies. And I think her stamp is very much on those movies, authorially, even though she did not direct them. And I would love for somebody to ask her about the process of making 20th century women. So shortly before she makes Lady Bird, I imagine at least, this was released the year before.

So I imagine that she films this movie before. At least she shoots Lady Bird. It could be wrong. But if that was the case, I would love to know if making this movie had any effect on her. Because there are hints of, you know, the wisdom in this movie that show up in Lady Bird and Little Women. And I don't know. I think I would just be interested. I think there's a continuum that maybe exists from Francis Haugh to 20th century women to ladybird and little women.

Do you know what I mean? Am I totally off-iss? Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. Anyway, back to Annette. She doesn't get nominated. She's sort of a last-minute snub. Amy Adams is the more last-minute snub. I think by the time Oscar nominations came out, people were a little bit more pessimistic about Annette that she was going to

probably get left off, which is how it happened, and it's a bummer. And like I said, then film stars don't tie in Liverpool is the next year. And then since then, small, or not small role, but like the Seagull was not a very big role. Small role in life itself. She gets a Golden Globe nomination for playing Diane Feinstein in her more lucid days in the report, which the buzz was there. We're probably going to end up. doing the report at some point. It's not a bad movie, but it's... That movie's a snooze. I liked it. I thought it was good.

We saw that together. No. Basically, like, the attic of the lightbox in one of those private screening rooms. That's right. And you were like, I liked it. I was like, I'm ready to go to bed. Yeah. It's certainly is not a great loss that she didn't get nominated for that, like it is with something like 20th century woman. You mentioned she's in Captain Marvel as... Marvell

Remember the revelation Oh right Her like call sign was Marvell or whatever She's in a very small little movie That I also saw Toronto called Hope Gap Her and She's good in that movie She's good in that movie

She's going for an accent in that movie And it takes a second to sort of acclimate to it Well I didn't realize it was based on that play Retreat from Moscow Until like I'm halfway through the movie Otherwise, I might have seen it at that festival. She's in Death on the Nile in 2022. She gets overshadowed by a wayward Galgadote line reading that swallowed that movie.

Oh, my God. Did you see Jerry and Marge go large? I feel like Katie Rich or somebody like that said it was pretty cute. I love you, Annette. I am not watching that. I feel like somebody we know, and it might have been Katie, said that it was cute. Katie Rich, get back to us if that wasn't in fact to you. But anyway, she's got two.

movies coming up, one of which, they're both actually going to be at TIF. Nyad, we mentioned. She plays a woman who swam the distance from the first woman to swim from Cuba to the United States, and she's a distance swimmer, and it's her, and it's Jody Foster, and I could not be more excited for this movie. It's a Netflix movie, yes, but they still do good Oscar campaigning for like a handful of movies, not for all of their movies, but for a handful of movies. We hope this is one of the handful. The director

pair behind this movie I can't confess to loving their documentaries but very curious to see what they do with a fiction film. I liked Free Solo. For as much as I had like, you know, frustrations with the main guy

in Free Solo, I thought it was a well-done movie. I thought it was a very well-done movie. And this is another movie where sort of like, you know, individual pushes themselves to the, you know, their physical limitations and why is she doing it, you know, this whole kind of thing. So I think it holds the potential for us to see a different kind of performance from Annette Benning. And I think that's one of the reasons why we love her so much is like she is such a distinct performer and gives like such an Annette Benning line reading. Yes. You know, no matter what type of movie she's doing or what type of. performance she's giving, but I do think

when you look at her best work, they are distinctly different performances. Yeah, I think that's right. And Nyad could also be something a little different. Yeah. She's also in Chris Pine's movie, Poolman. Poolman. Poolman. It's the sequel to Bergman.

It's about Bill Pullman when he goes to Sweden. Bill Pullman on an Arctic vacation. It's a movie about Bill Pullman meeting Paul Verhoeven for the first time. It's Bill Pullman. Anyway, the logline is actually kind of interesting. A man tending to the swimming pool, whatever, to the swimming pool is an interesting way to put it, uncovers a sizable water heist, one in the same vein as Chinatown. I'm in

It's like 100 minutes I'll be writing about it The cast rules Chris Pine and that Benning Danny DeVito Ariana DeBose Jennifer Jason Lee DeWanda Wise

Ray Wise and Juliet Mills I'm you sold me I'm in directorial It's this first movie He's directed right He hasn't directed anything else

Has he Mr. Chris Pine No it's his debut Fantastic She also plays Diane Feinstein in this As as the

Diane Feinstein's career It goes all the way up to the state Senate something All right I'm into that I'm very excited about that

All right So back to film stars Don't die in Liverpool It is a movie wherein Annette Benning plays Oscar winner Gloria Graham

I want to get into Gloria Graham in a second But before we do I want to play a game that I have devised for you called Film Stars Don't Die

They Get Reincarnated Essentially this is a game about actresses who have played Oscar-winning actresses We've talked about the phenomenon of Oscar winners playing Oscar winners That's not quite what this is

You're going to be guessing the names of actresses But they don't necessarily have to be Oscar-winning actresses They only have to have played Oscar-winning actresses So, in this game, I am going to give you two other roles that this actress has played. So then you have to, from those two roles, guess the actress and then guess the Oscar winner who they played in another movie. Fabulous.

All right. So it's not unlike alter egos, but it's a little bit of a shift. Alter actress. Alter actress. Exactly. Okay. So, if you're ready, we can begin. I'm going to start easy and they get harder as they go.

Okay? Sure. Let's do this. To start. The roles are Queen Elizabeth I and Carol aired. This is Kate Blanchett, who played Catherine Hepburn in The Aviator. That's exactly how I want you to answer. Thank you very much.

Well done. Okay, next one. The pair of roles are Evelyn Stoker and Chase Meridian. This is Nicole Kidman, who played Oscar-winning actress. Oh, TV also counts. Oh, Grace Kelly in Grace of Monaco. There we go. Okay, yes, TV also counts.

I should have said that at the outset. Okay, next one. The roles are Motormouth, Maybel, and Matron Mama Morton. This is Queen Latifah, who played... Huh. What Oscar-winning actress has she? played I will tell you

the options are pretty limited right doesn't Monique play Hattie McDaniel in Bessie or is she just in Bessie?

I think she's just in Bessie I still need to see Bessie this has got to be some supporting role that I'm not familiar with. Who do you think she plays? Who do you think she plays? I mean, I would guess maybe

Hattie McDaniel? Correct. I don't think you've seen the thing that she plays Hattie McDaniel. Oh. Can I get a Hell Mary and you tell me what it is? Yes.

No, yeah, if you don't know it, you don't know it. It's Ryan Murphy's Hollywood. Oh, did not watch that shit. Sorry. Yeah, but you got Hetty McDaniel, so very well done. Okay, your next pair of roles are

Evelyn Mulray and Bonnie Parker Hmm Evelyn Mulray does not ring many bells Bonnie Parker Pretty basic name

but I wonder if I will get there Bonnie Parker Right, right Right Um as in a titular Bonnie

Bonnie thinking Bonnie Bedelia, that is a person. Frankie and Bonnie. Um... Not necessarily Frankie and Bonnie, but maybe flip those around and... Bonnie and Clyde Faye Dunaway. Who has played Joan Crawford and Mommy Dearest? There we go. We got you there. All right.

What was the first one? Is that like her network character? Evelyn Mulray is her character in China. town. Ah, yes. The next one, the roles are Mortisha Adams and Velma Kelly. Well, this is Catherine

Zeta Jones, who played famously Olivia de Havillan. Litigiously. Yes, litigiously, Olivia de Havilland in feud. I thought I would throw you with Morticia, because she plays Morticia in

the awful Wednesday on Netflix. You will not catch me watching that show. Yeah, you're fine. Okay, the roles are Lola Johnson and Katie Heron. Oh, this is Lindsay Lohan in, oh, the Elizabeth Taylor Lifetime movie. Yes, Liz and Dick.

She played Elizabeth Taylor. All right. Next pair of roles are Gwynnevere and Sabrina Fairchild. Oh. I mean, Gwynnevere is a, that's a Hamlet's mother, correct? No? No, that's Gertrude, right? Gertrude.

Gwynnevere is a Shakespearean character, though. What was the second one again? Sabrina Fairchild. Sabrina Fairchild, which I don't think is of Sabrina. so not Audrey Hepburn or Lena Olin but

Hmm Oh you're all you're all at betwixt in between I don't know what to I don't know where to nudge you first because you're making some incorrect assumptions on a couple of these things

Okay So it could be Audrey Hepburn or Lena Olin. Gwynnevere. No, Gwynnevere is first night. This is Lena Olin. You're absolutely not thinking of the right actress. Oh, okay. Never mind. Gwynnevier, no, that's not

King Arthur's. No, you're thinking of the right movie. You are just naming the wrong actress. Oh. In both of those movies. Really? The original Sabrina was not Audrey Hepburn? No, the original Sabrina was Audrey Hepburn.

But it's not Lena Olin in the new one. Right. And it's not Lena Olin as Gwynnevere. You're thinking of a it's a different actress. Not Lena Olin. First night is not Lena Olin. No. Is this like seriously like a Dougree Scott type of thing for me, confusion for me. Who do you think Lena Olin is?

She's the, she's the female lead of first night. What other things has Lena Olin been in? The Sabrina remake. And what else? I don't know. Do you think Lena Olin was in the Three Colors movies? No. Who was? That's Julietipinosh.

And? Uh, uh, uh, uh, Julie Delpy. And, who's the third one? Um, what was her name? Now am I wrong. I better not be wrong. This will be egg on both our faces. Not going to be egg on my face if it was Lena Olin.

Well, it's not Lena Olin. It's definitely not Lena Olin. Hold on. Oh, okay. Well, it's not Lena Olin, but I'm also thinking of the wrong person. Okay, this person is not in the three colors. We forget about the three colors movies. I was wrong about that one.

Oh, my God. This person was in Legends of the Fall. Lena Olin. No. And Smilla's sense of snow. And... she was an inland empire eventually. The mom from I Know Who Killed Me?

Is that not Lena Olin? That might be Lena Olin. No, it's no. You're thinking, no, she isn't I know who killed me. You're just absolutely naming this person wrong. This is great. This is great. I know who she is.

I know who this actress. I want you to look up on your phone, Lena Olin. Just look up and look at it. it Lena Olin's face and tell me if that's what you're thinking of. Who have I Doug Reescott? Yep. With that other guy. Oh, that is not who I'm thinking.

Lena Olin. Lena Olin is married to Lossa Holstrom, right? Yes, yes, exactly. Who are you thinking of? Sorry, Lena Olin and this other actress who definitely I have conflated. And they don't even look alike at all. This is fantastic. This is my favorite thing remember that?

Okay. I know who she is. Julia Ormond's, Jesus Christ. This is great. You were giving me all of Julia Ormond's movies and being like Lina Olin was in this and she was in that. I don't look at anything like. Say it again. Is it not right?

What's her character? It's the character's name she played. Cheryl Canning. Is that not it? Jake me! It was Julie Delpy, by the way, who I thought was in three colors, white, but it's not. No, no, no, no. That was driving me crazy, the third actress, who was the least likely to be in anything.

It was Irene Jacob. No. Irene Jacob. Yeah. Sorry. Anyway. All right. Next one.

Julia Ormond. I should get to not have to do an idea. IMDB game this week for that. You're going to pull out Julia Ormond for my... All right, your next pair. I was going to give you the hard... There's a hard version and an easy version of this next one. I want to give you the

hard version to see if you know it, and then I'll move on to the easy one. All right. The pair of roles are Michaela O'Donne and Princess Wencesia Carrino. What? Yeah, okay. The pair of roles are Annie Savoy and Janet Weiss. Susan.

Yes. Playing... Yes. Betty Davis. Yes. Annie Savoy is Bull Durham. Janet Weiss is Rocky Horror Picture Show. You had no idea on the other two. Michaela O'Donay is her character in Lorenzoil. And Princess Wencescia Carrino is who she played in Children of Dune. Okay, we're moving on. We're moving on. Yeah, Susan Saran and played Betty Davis in Feud, Betty and Joan. Okay. Next one. Fiona Gallagher and Christine Dye. This is Emmy Rossum. When was she allowed to play an Oscar-winning actress?

This is tough. This is tough. I will say it's a TV movie. And she, I think, was a child performer. Did she play like Judy Garland? You're so close. No, Judy doesn't have an acting Oscar. It was...

Tammy Blanchard played young Judy Garland and the Judy Davis one. Expertly. But you're right that it was a younger version of an Oscar-winning actress in a TV movie. Who might she have played? She like young Shirley Temple. No, it's an app. Who would have had a movie on TV?

This person's surname has been used in this game so far. Huh? Like famously shares a surname with another famous actress. Oh, Audrey Hepburn? Yes, Audrey Hepburn. She was, Emmy Rossum was the younger Jennifer Love Hewitt in the one where Jennifer Love Hewitt played Audrey Hepburn. All right, a couple more.

Okay, this is another one where a harder pair and an easier pair, but if you know this, you know it. Marianne Singleton and Laurie Sullenberger. Oh, Laurelini as, um, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I should know this. I am the preeminent Laura Lennie Stan. Think outside the box on this one. Is it television?

Yeah, but even think outside the box when it comes to television. Damn. It's not another... No, she's not been in Ryan Murphy's shit. Nope. Think outside the box in terms of television. What do you mean?

Are you pulling out some, like, drunk history thing for me? No, I would say we would need to cite this, especially in the IMDB game, and not just because it's television. Oh, it's a voice. Yes. A voice on television. Is it, like, Bojack Horseman? Not animated. Oh, she's just on a phone.

Laura Lennie constantly stuck on the phone No, it's in a documentary Oh, the last film stars The last movie stars She voices The last movie stars, yeah She voices Joanne Woodward In the last movie stars

I knew you loved that So I thought I would Have you watched it yet? Yes That was wonderful That was my packing All my shit in New York movie Back in December

So It is the most theater kid thing I have ever seen. Yeah, it's great. Brackets positive. Who was, who did they have doing Gourvedal's voice?

It was Brooks Eshmankas, maybe. It was so, oh my God. Brooks is Manchus. Bruchess, Mish. Bruchessish. Marvin Hamlschmish is the, is like a reason to watch it.

It's so, he's so, he's, 100%. Delicious. Special, he should have gotten some type of fucking Emmy for it. Yep. It's so good. 100%.

I absolutely agree with you. Okay. It was the thing that made me say Our generation of gay men needs a gorvidal. And we don't have one. There are several gay men who think there are generations of a doll. They are not. All right.

Are you just yelling at, who are you yelling at this time? I'm yelling at several people. Okay. All right. Anyway, two roles. Chris Jenner and B. Arthur. What? Chris Jenner and B. Arthur.

This is Alexis, Michelle. That's, you're getting. cute. What's the Oscar-winning role? Joan Crawford. Oh, actually, that is true. There's another one. Oh, wow. I didn't even think about that, but you're totally right. She played Joan and Joan the unauthorized musical. She played Alphaba.

Not an Oscar winner. No, who did she win Snatch Game with? Liza. Liza. Liza. All right. Last one. That is a C-plus Liza. That is the Liza that every gay man thinks that they can do. I don't disagree.

She should have won for Christian. Anyway, last one. Marsha Clark and Vicky Hiller. This is hard. Sarah Paulson. Yes. Who played? I will say.

Someone in feud. Uh-huh. Now, I think you can work this out. Okay. Why would somebody, why would an Oscar-winning character, be in feud? Because they were nominated against Joan and Betty?

Uh-huh. Who do we think? Who, like... Who would have... Now I forget, he's nominated against Joan and Betty. Who would have... Who would have been a best actress nominee around that time?

The winner? No, actually, the winner was Anne Bancroft, and I didn't recognize the name of the artist. Oh, and Bancroft didn't show up to the ceremony. But who... This person had many Oscar nominations. Geraldine Page. Yes, Geraldine Page.

Very good. That's a good casting, actually. Yeah. I like that. Sarah Paulson, come back to us, please. All right. That's the end of the game. I love...

That was worth it just for Lena Ola and Julia Ormond. That was one of the most unwell segments of this show we have ever had. I cannot believe that we are probably going to have a two-hour episode on Full Stars Don't Die in Lillard. It's going to be longer, I bet you. All right, anyway, because we haven't even gotten into... What have we not got? We got in all the... Jamie Bell.

Jamie Bell. I sent you the clip last night of Jamie Bell winning the BAFTA for Billy Elliot with his frosted hair, with his frosted tips. Very 2000. And acting very mature when he was like, I'd like to thank Doug at Working Title

and like all these, like he was just very professional. It was very funny. Presented the award by Goldie Hawn. As I said, who among us would not want to be, be presented an award by Goldie Hawn. It's the platinum experience of the awards show. What do we want to say? He was nominated for the BAFTA for film stars don't die in Liverpool.

He lost two. He was the sort of, I feel like every BAFTA lineup these days is like four people from the Oscar race and then a somebody from Great Britain, somebody who's like, who's a local sort Fave, right? And so this, in 2017, Gary Oldman wins for Darkest Hour as he does the Oscars. Timmy Shalameh for Call Me By Your Name. Daniel DeLewis for Phantom Threat. Daniel Kaluya for Get Out. They all are also Oscar nominees. And then, surprise little local choice is Jamie Bell for a film star for Daniel. Who did he replace? Oh, he replaced Denzel Washington for Roman J. Israel. Who was a late... The never nominated by BAFTA, Denzel Washington. Well, we raise a skeptical eyebrow on that one. Denzel Washington would be my winner from that lineup. I think that's a really strong lineup.

I am somebody who, I am a Darkest Hour fan. So I think of that lineup, it's a tough call for me between Shalami and Kaludia. I think they're both aces in those movies. Call Me By Your Name, by the way, was, so the film stars don't die in Liverpool is the Sony Pictures Classics movie. We've talked about them before and how sometimes they will just latch on to a movie

and ride it to, you know, a nomination or whatever. Sony Pictures Classics did not cover themselves in glory in 2017. I feel like we all kind of agree that they, in one way or another, botched the Call Me By Your Name release, where they had this incredibly buzzy movie that they just refused to release. It was playing in New York and L.A. for about two months before the expansion happened. They had no confidence in expanding it at all.

And I think that was a mistake. It left a lot of people frustrated who were waiting and waiting and waiting to see the movie. However, you have to asterisk that to say that it was botched. It's one of their top earning releases of all time. Okay, but do you not agree that it probably would have made a good deal more had they handled that expansion better? Possibly, but this is also in the time, like, what Star Wars release was released that? The one everybody hated except for the, no, the ones all the fanboys hated and everybody else, all the critics loved. This was the, this was the year of, Last Jedi.

Last Jedi, Last Jedi, good movie. It's not as good as people think it is. Oh, no, I think it's pretty great. People talk to themselves into loving that movie because it made the fanboys angry, and I get it, but also it's not that good. I mean, like, I felt, that whole thing, we don't have to get into it. I felt so out of the loop of it that I was like, oh, so all of the, when I, when, like, it came to me that it was happening all this, I was like, oh, so all of the things that are great about it, that are exciting about it, that are exciting that the franchise might be moving in this direction are the things that all of

these, you know, jagoffs in their basements are pissed about. You're never going to make me like the weird green mother's milk Luke Skywalker scene just because... I think that shit is funny.

Just because people who suck hate it doesn't mean that it's not dumb. Like, it's dumb. I love it. I love the frog nuns. I mean, that was at least funny. I think in general the way that the story went was good. I think the movie itself is okay. I think people elevated it to extreme degrees

because they wanted to be an opposition of the worst people on the internet. I'm like, go off. I don't know. Call Me By Your Name gets its limited release. The Week of Thanksgiving doesn't hit 100 theaters until New Year's Eve weekend. doesn't hit its widest release,

which is 800 theaters for another four weeks. So, like, this is very extended. We'd also the frustration had grown. Sorry, go ahead. Carol had also seen the same thing that, like, it doesn't expand into a wide release for another two months. So, like, gay people especially were just, like, tired of...

Well, the other thing is about call me by your name, and, like, which is even more so than Carol, Call Me By Your Name was a Sundance premiere. So this movie had been accumulating interest and expectation for a fucking year. And it was still not expanding. With an audience that I think Sony Classics is not used to selling movies to... Younger people? They're used to, you know, selling their audiences, you know, an older audience.

Could it have made more money? Maybe. who knows, but, like, this is why I brought the Star Wars thing up, because, like, the way, I mean, the release of those Star Wars movies really fucking changed things in terms of, like, how a movie, how smaller movies were essentially kind of pushed out of theaters. The anecdote I always used was, like, spotlight was in every fucking theater in town until Force Awakens opens, and it's nowhere in town. and that movie won best picture and was a legitimate for its scale a box office hit that's the anecdote I always use so like

I could understand being like we can wait until after the new year and be in more theaters and not be wiped out within a week I understand that and also like if you look at just the hard numbers of it

you know it would be in its like top six or seven Sony classic releases of all time Sure, but Sony Classics is not exactly known for making a ton of money. No, but maybe they hit the ceiling on what that movie was going to make. I don't know. Anyway. Anyway, they did even less for film stars don't die in Liverpool,

partly because as soon as the festival audiences saw it, it was kind of ho-hum. Yeah. Yeah. Those three BAF denominations are, I'd be interested. interested in going back and looking at what their long lists were, because BAFTA does have long lists, even under their new processes for voting. I'm on board with Benning and Jamie Bell getting nominated. Or wait, did Benning not get nominated? Benning is nominated by BAFTA. Who did she? She wins. She wins for movies for grownups. Yes. Yes. Yeah, it was another, her nomination for BAFTA was another one very similar to Jamie Bell, where it's four Oscar nominees plus her. It's Francis.

first few billboards. She replaces Merrill. Yeah, she displaces Merrill for the post, which was such a late, late, late bloomer. Yeah, I think it missed BAFTA entirely. Might have, yeah. Sally Hawkins for the shape of water, Mago Rabi for I Tanya, Sersha for Lady Bird. And then, Annette wins at where are good friends at the M4G's. Beating a pretty M4G's friendly lineup, I will say, not only Francis in three billboards, who was your Oscar winner, not only Salma Hayek for Beatrice at dinner, which we've talked about, but Merrill in the Post, which could not be more tailored to an M4G's audience, right? And M for G's fave, Judy Dench in Victorian Abdul, which also feels like M4G's bait. So for Annette to win, and I think it's that like, maybe the M4G's voters were like, I remember Gloria Graham. I loved Gloria Graham. Like, that thing. I'm into that notion. Um, I want to talk about Gloria Graham, actually. Um, what is your, what is, going into this movie, what was your familiarity with Gloria Graham? I definitely had more familiarity within

the past year, because, uh, Bad and the Beautiful is one of those movies that a ton of people seem to have watched in the past maybe year, two years, because of its placement on the criterion channel. I watched it in preparation for our screen drafts, for Best Picture follow-ups, because this was Vincent Minnelli's follow-up to an American in Paris? No? No, American in Paris. One of them.

One of his two. That was her second nomination. That's the one she wins. I was shocked at how little of that movie Gloria Graham is in. She is in two scenes. She had up until Beatrice Strait wins for Network for supporting actress. Gloria Graham in the Bad and the Beautiful was the shortest amount of screen time for an acting winner up until network. So that's how briefly she's in it.

She's not bad, but it's shocking that that performance beats, for example, Jean Hagen and Singing in the Rain, who, and we talked about in 100 snubs how singing in the rain was in general, you know, not appreciated in its moment. But Gene Hagen's so fucking funny in that movie. And it's just, it's interesting. And so up until that point, Gloria Graham is sort of known for playing characters in, like, she's in a lot of noir movies. She's in a lot of sort of, her previous Oscar nomination to that was in a movie called Crossfire, which I watched, I had never seen. Have you ever seen that movie, Crossfire? Yeah, I talked about it for a hundred snubs. Gloria Graham is safely my winner in that category.

Yeah. She's pretty fabulous. She, uh, that movie I didn't realize, well, she plays, she plays a character named Ginny who is described, um, in, I can't remember where where I read it described as a working girl. There are all these euphemisms for not saying that she plays a sex worker where Bosley Crowther's, uh, Times review said, uh, Gloria Graham is believably brazen and pathetic as a girl of the streets. I'm like, just say, at least say prostitute. I know prostitute is a little, is passe at this point. They didn't have sex worker at the time, but at least all these, like, euphemisms for, like... Yeah, but you couldn't say the word prostitute.

It was a dirty word. I mean, like, in a different way than we wouldn't say it now, but, like, you can't acknowledge the... You can't acknowledge in any oblique way that sex acts happen in the world. Yeah. It's also notable for being the first B-Mood. to get a Best Picture Nomination, Crossfire, which is interesting. It's a movie about a Jewish man who gets beaten to death by a group of army soldiers and who are back at home. And it's the same year as Gentleman's Agreement.

So you had these two Oscar Best Picture nominations that really deal with anti-Semitism, which is interesting coming in like, I imagine that coming in 1940s. You know, after the, you know, the camps in Europe had been liberated, the concentration camps had been liberated, I would imagine, this is just me spitballing as I tend to do sometimes and have no actual information. But I imagine that there was, this was maybe part of the reaction to that is the sort of the shocking horror of the extent to which anti-Semitism went in Europe in World War II. and so you get movies like Gentleman's Agreement and Crossfire. That's just me speculating.

But in general, so those are her two Oscar nominations. In general, though, I imagine that she's most widely known, Gloria Graham, for playing Violet Bick in It's a Wonderful Life. That's a performance I've watched once a year since I was a kid,

you know what I mean? And had never really put it together that that's the same, you know, woman that Annette Benning played until I, like, finally, looked up Gloria Graham in the run up to this movie. Love that performance.

I think she's, you know, that's a really, really sort of very interesting performance that is not one of the major ones in that movie, but I always, like, I wonder what Violet bicks up to. You know what I mean? Like, I hope she turned out okay. And then she played Ato Annie in the musical version of Oklahoma,

the Shirley Jones one. Cinemascope, Oklahoma. Cinemascope, Oklahoma, which I sent that clip of her playing, I'm just a girl who can't say no, to you and Katie. And I made the mistake of doing that because this is Katie's home version of Oklahoma. This is her, the one she grew up on. I'm just a fool when lights are low. I can't be prissy and quaint.

I ain't the type that can't fend. How can I be what I ain't? I can't say no. Gloria Graham, this is the one time that her actual voice is heard on film, and she would been in other musicals and been dubbed, because apparently Gloria Graham was functionally tone deaf. Well, you can tell when you're watching this clip of her in Oklahoma. I don't, I don't want to be mean.

It's a choice to make Ato Annie in that role that I think has been made before for someone who is not a singer. Even with that choice, though, it's, there's just, it's, it's the Go Girl Give Us Nothing school of performance. There's just nothing, even if you're going to play Ato Annie as awkward or vacant or weird, I watched a clip of, because then all of a sudden, YouTube is like, I know what you're looking for, Fsler, and starts throwing me, like, other people playing or singing that song. And it's Christian Chenoweth at 54 Below singing, and it's not in a performance.

Probably ripping the roof off. Well, ripping the roof off, but also just, like, being, like, a real character with it and sort of like, and making, you know, for Christian Chenoweth, you know, sort of subtle acting choices. And then you go back to the Gloria Graham performance, and it's just, like, absolutely devoid of anything. and it's tone deaf. And from what I had read, she had, because at that point in her career, she had gotten very self-conscious about her looks, and she had tried to get plastic surgery to enhance her upper lip because she did not, like, how thin her upper lip was. And it apparently paralyzed the nerves in her upper lip, so she couldn't really move, you know, the top half of her mouth. And so it was all of this stuff. And so it's like you feel, you know, awful for her in that

regard. But, oh, God, it was, is I, I, a dummy. That was really, really bad. I did not care for the pronouns. But then you get the other stuff in, you know, the movie about the sort of more scandalous aspects of Gloria Graham's life. We mentioned it the marriage to Nicholas Ray and the marriage to Anthony Ray, who is Nicholas Ray's son. And the husband that she had in Between those two, then sued her for custody of their child because of, you know, this revelation with the stepson. And it's a messy, messy life. I don't know. What did you, I don't know if you went as deep into the...

I would rather watch that movie than this movie. That's the thing. Thank you. Thank you. That's the thing. I don't know. What else? What else do we have to say about Gloria Graham, about this movie, about whatever?

Jamie Bell, very charismatic, and, like, you can see why he got the best reviews of this movie. Just a really charming screen presence. I feel like Jamie Bell has not had the best go at it, partly because, you know, the whole Fantastic Four monstrosity. And it's just that thing of, you know, when someone becomes famous as a child star, as an adult. actor, they maybe don't always know what to do with him, but I feel like it's quite possible that this movie just got very lucky in having this underserved actor who I would like to see in more things. Here's what I will say about Jamie Bell is he is in an upcoming movie, one I was hoping

would be announced for TIF that has not been. Andrew Hayes' new movie called Strangers, where Andrew Scott and Paul Muskell have some sort of encounter where it is rumored. This is based on a book, so people have read the book. Apparently, there's going to be some hot, hot, hot stuff happening between Andrew Scott and Paul Muskell, which is very exciting. But Claire Foy is also in this movie, and Jamie Bell is also in this movie, playing the parents of Andrew Scott's character. So this is a sort of odd little mystical reality, time travel kind of a thing where he comes across his parents looking. you know, years younger, and they were, you know, they had died, and it's, it's an interesting

premise. And it's Andrew Hay who directed Weekend and 45 years and what's the horse movie that I really like. Lean on Pete. Um, I like Andrew Hay's movies. So, it's going to be on Hulu through Searchlight. I imagine this will probably be. Why do I get more angry at Hulu through searchlight than I do about Netflix? Like, you're the one. because they have exciting things that should be put in theaters. But, like, it was also, like, these things were developed at weird times where, you know, it's, you know, it's a corporation trying to develop their slate for their streamers. And it's like, well, we want them in theatrical. Well, they're contracted to be a streaming movie.

Yeah. We've seen other streamers change those plans, such as Max, you know, like. The Evil Dead movie was supposed to just be a streaming movie. They put it in theaters. It makes almost $80 million. Yeah. Why can't Searchlight do this, too? Did you watch any of that?

I know the answer to this before I asked the question, but I'm going to ask the question anyway. Did you watch that show Shining Girls on Apple TV? What? Yeah. It was the show Elizabeth Moss was in it. She's... We love Lizzie. Yeah, Elizabeth Moss was in it, and he plays a serial killer in that show.

I have not watched it. But it was around that it was one of those. Remember how in spring of 2022 last year, like everybody released their prestige limited series where it was like the dropout. Yes, yes, all at the same time. Under the banner of heaven and just everything. And it was too much and I didn't watch it.

But it's a title I remember. So yeah, he played a serial killer in that. And it's only eight episodes, so maybe at some point I will go back and watch it because I like Lizzie Moss. I like Jimmy Bell. I like Amy Brennaman. I also have recently seen him recently as in like the past decade. He's also in Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac. Oh, and he was so good in Rocket Man.

He was easily my favorite part of Rocket. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not easily. I thought Terran was very good. Rocket Band is a movie I had my issues with. I had my issue with. I had my issues with Rocket Man but Jamie was so good playing Bernie Topin

If that movie had been a little bit better And had been the type of movie to get like major Oscar contention and not just like minor Like you know in certain categories I would have loved a campaign for Jamie Bell In that movie and I think he would have deserved it I thought it was so good Charming actor

Charming actor Love him Cute as a button in Billy Elliott and he's still with us today, which I love. I love a success story from a child star. Like, that's, you know, that's not bad. I'm into it. All right.

See what Andrew Hay does for him. Gosh, so excited for that movie. I guess at this point, if it's not in the festivals, it's just going to be next year. I think that along with the other Hulu Searchlight movie, Mariel Heller's Nightbitch, I think those are going to be. My guess at this point is that they're Sunday. dance. Yeah, that would make sense. That would make sense. All righty. Especially considering Searchlight just shifted all up there. Yeah.

I also want to throw in one last thing before we move on to the IMDB game. Annette Benning was nominated by the Alliance of Women Film Journalists for quote-unquote, best actress defying age and ageism. We don't have time for me to get into why that's a weird category. Because how do you defy age and ageism isn't the whole idea of valuing the concept of defying age taking part in ageism right the fact that the category exists makes it a backhanded should it not be best actress embracing age and defying ageism and not the other way around like ah all right anyway i mean that has to be because like annette benning is nude in the sex scenes i would imagine She's nominated a lot, well, I don't know, because she's nominated against Francis McDormant for three billboards,

who apparently got nominated for every award possible. She was nominated for a Nobel Prize for Chemistry that year as well. But the winner in this category from the Alliance of Women Film Journalist is Agnes Varda for Faces Places. That's why I threw this in. I wanted to throw that in for you. They're just nominating people who are older than 50. I mean, you know, you know what she means to me, but... I'm just Varda, an actress defying age and ageism, that is always how I will think of her.

She's, um, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's weird, y'all, that's weird. It's a little weird. It's a little weird. This is what I'm saying. Uh, I mean, like, she, the, not all of her films were nonfiction, but she made nonfiction films, largely. The ones that she was in were nonfiction. This is, for, Or I'm guessing. Yeah, you said faces places. Yeah. Which is nonfiction.

She's there as herself. Yeah. She's not acting. Yeah. It's weird. It's a weird thing. All right. All right.

It's a weird call, guys. Anything else before we do the IMDB game? I don't think so. All right. Let's do it. Do the rules to the IMDB game. Every week we end our episodes with the IM2B game where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to 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-earned.

acting credits. We will mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. That's not enough. It just becomes a free-for-all of hints. That is the IMDB game. I'm going to my phone to bring up my choice for you, and I see that I have gotten the most inept attempt at scamming me through a text message I've ever received, where they're like, your package has arrived at the warehouse, but cannot be delivered due to incomplete address information. Please copy this link and paste it into your Safari browser and then open it. I'm like, well, this sounds perfectly legitimate. I'll get right on that. Yeah. Oh, God, I hope my Siri didn't listen to that and do it. What if that's the plot of, wouldn't that be the plot of something?

No, it didn't. Are you giving or guessing first? I'll give first. All right. I don't know, of course it went away. All right. I looked up all of those. names of actresses for the little game that I presented to you and one of them who had played young Audrey Hepburn was Ms. Emmy Rossum and Emmy Rossum has one television

among her four IMDB known for. The television is shameless. Sure is. She moved on that show. Movies are Phantom of the Opera. Yes. Day after tomorrow. Yes, you're three for three.

And I feel like there was a romance in there somewhere. Or she was like the daughter in something. I'm not going to get a perfect score on this. I'm just casting that dream aside. Okay. I mean, those are both 2004 movies.

What else was she doing around the 0-3-0-4-0-5 window? What got her cast in Phantom, I wonder? There was something. I feel like it's going to be pre-2004, whatever this other one is. It's not like Ella Enchanted, but maybe she had like an Ella Enchanted moment. I'm coming up blank.

Maybe I need to... I can't think of anything she was in recently. Wasn't she in, like, San Andreas? I'm going to say that because I can't come up with another movie title. Not San Andreas. I know that's not her. I'll look up and see if she was in that at all, but it's That might be, um, Alexander Diderio.

Very possible. Okay. O3 Emmy Rossum was like, Yeah, no San Andreas. God, was she in like cheaper by the dozen? No, not cheaper by the dozen. That's two strikes. Your year is in fact 2003.

Yeah, I, I, knew this um it's like headlined by a man it could be any kind of genre I don't think it's an action movie let me know when you start needing hints I need hints it was an Oscar movie

yeah an Oscar winning movie yes in 03 yes it's not lost in translation it's not Lord of the Rings what would it have been what were the other winners that year supporting actor was

it was supporting actor in 03 it's not House of Sand of Fogg it would have been it's not the last samurai Right, it's not... One supporting actor, right? Yes. Mystic River.

She is the daughter that gets killed in Mystic River. She is exactly that. You had it so early on, you said that she may be the daughter or somebody. No, I knew that's exactly what it was. I just couldn't remember what it was. If you had gotten a perfect score, I would have reminded you that you had requested that this IMDB game wouldn't count for you this week because you did the other game. So I would have said congratulations, but it is not an official win.

But, great. Anyway, well done. Well, well reasoned, Christopher. Who do you get from? So for you, I went into Gloria Graham is a best supporting actress winner. We could have talked about that video of her win, too. She pulls a full merit weaver. She's like.

She does. It's a drive-by. You can tell she maybe didn't think she was going to win, but she's like, hustles up to the stage, a little nervous, just says thank you, and, like, barely gets her thank you out before she's walking away with her stashia. She, like, it's a drive-by. She doesn't even stop at the podium. It's so great.

Yeah. Yeah, she, like, you're right. She doesn't stop moving. And Bob hopes like, she just got here. Like, you know, like, she was running late or running late to something. Yeah. It's fantastic. Gloria Graham, one supporting actress, one of her final

roles was a supporting actress winning movie that is Melvin and Howard for Mary Steenberg. Nice. Okay. Mary Steenbergen. Okay. Any television? No television. Melvin and Howard. No. Okay. Book Club. No. No. Fuck. God damn it. Mary Steenbergin's known for also spans quite a bit of time. Your years are in 1979, 1990, 2008, and 2013. Jesus Christ. Okay. 2009, or the 1979 is, I'm going to say very difficult because I don't know what this movie is, but I had to throw it in here.

Is 1990 Parenthood? It is not Parenthood. I believe 1990 is 1989. Or Parenthood is 1989. I believe 1990 is 1989 is me then looking like the lady with the numbers all around her head being like, how does that work? Yeah, you're right, it is 1989. 1990 Mary Steenbergin. Okay. I really thought you were going to say 93 because 93, she's in both Gilbert Grape and Philadelphia.

But that's not the case. All right, 79. 79 is a science fiction movie where the last. lead character is billed as H.G. Wells. Is build or plays? The character That's the name of the lead character. So H.G. Wells, and I guess

that she is some type of time travel. Oh, it's H.G. Wells in pursuit of Jack the Ripper? What? This movie sounds bananas, but she is apparently the romantic lead. Is it a title that I would recognize? You wouldn't expect it to be about H.G. Wells,

hunting down Jack the Ripper, based on the title. This is a very famous title of an 80s pop song that is like in any movie set during the 80s. Total Eclipse of the Heart. No. A female singer, though. Betty Davis size. No. Everybody wants to rule the world.

A female singer who is definitely more famous for another song that's in like every movie set in the 80s. especially if women are involved Oh Sisters are doing it for themselves No Um Let the river run No

A very ubiquitous song The song is in Barbie Oh Not the song that's the title of the Mary C-Burgeon movie But the artist's other song Not the Indigo girls No Not Aqua

Not Aqua Not Matchbox 20. Not matchwarks 20 from the 80s. No, I just wanted to throw in a song that I would imagine is contractually obligated to be in any Barbie

movie. So it's like women power. I mean, what are you before you're a woman? Girls just want to have fun. I forgot that that was in. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. So another Cindy Lopper

song is time after time. Time after time is the name of this movie. Because it's H.G. Wells in the Time Machine. Okay. Never would have got that. I've never heard of that movie. Okay. Nope.

Nope. Malcolm McDowell plays H.G. Wells. It sounds... That's fucked up that that's in her known for. IMDB, you have something to answer for. All right. 1990. 1990.

Comedy? Yes. Comedy franchise. Oh. Well, she's not in Home Alone. I hate that this is maybe her big post-oscler role because this movie, I don't know, man. Comedy franchise, it's her big post-oscor role.

This is not a franchise I love. This is a franchise I tend to side-eye. Is it the first installment? It is definitely not. Oh, it's Back to the Future 3, of course. It's Back to the Future 3. I don't like those movies. I love Back to the Future.

I don't really have a ton of use for the sequels, but I love Back to the Future. I don't get the appeal. Oh, man. That was a, that was a taped it off of an HBO free preview, and we watched it all the time movie for us when we were kids. We watched that all the time. Your other two years are 2008 and 2013.

My dad could not get enough of the joke. He thought it was so clever. This is your cousin, Marvin Berry, holding the phone up to Chuck Berry. Also, because it gave my dad an excuse to tell us all about Chuck Berry. That was very fun. He's talking about Chuck Barry.

See, in real life, there was a guy in Chuck Barry, and he invented Rockville. Anyway, what are our other two years? 2008, 2013. Christ in heaven. Okay, 08, comedy. She is the top-billed female star of both of these movies. Of both of these movies.

Okay. But she is not above the title. Yeah, no, I would not. To give you the vibe of the movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, is she like the love interest or is she like the mom? Yes. She's different for both of them.

Yes, of course, of course. Oh, wait. Love interest or mom? Mom. Mom. Not like, well, Pineapple Express? No. Okay.

Same summer, though, I think. Yeah. Summer of 08 comedy. This is a movie that a lot of people love, and while I had fun at this movie, the way that people love this movie drives me insane. Step Brothers. She's great in Step Brothers. I love her and stepbrothers. She's the best part of Step Brothers. No, the best part of Step Brothers is Catherine Hahn. Let's be clear. Catherine Hahn fucking rules.

I like Mary Seaborgan in that movie. Mary Seaburger and Richard Jenkins. They're lovely. They're great. Okay. Okay. The 2013 movie is a type of movie that we talk about. And like, this is the movie that we reference when we mention this type of movie. August Sage County. No, she's not doing that.

No. It's like a subgenre of movies that, like, there's always going to be these. movies, and this is the example that we... Indy? No. I mean, I think this was a CBS films, but no one's calling this an independent movie. Okay. It's a type of movie.

It's a dance movie? It's like a subcategory. We would definitely, like, I don't know if we would use this as, like, a Scattergories category, but, like, this movie has come up on, like, trivia nights often. Oh, okay. This movie or this type of movie? This movie and this type of movie. Okay. Comedy.

Yes. She's the love interest. Oh, so it's, oh. Oh, okay. So it's a older woman self-actualizing movie. No. No. No.

She is the top-billed actress of this movie, and she is not billed about the title. Right, right, right. Oh, okay. So what does that mean? Oh, it's about a movie. man this is oh oh oh this is a this is four old guys go out and have the time of their lives this is last what is the quintessential movie it's last Vegas it's last Vegas yeah okay okay okay there we go I got it I got it you know you it's a bunch of old guys you described it perfectly yeah yeah yeah exactly all right

good IMDB game that was fun that IMTP game god we got a longer podcast than the movie I always appreciate when we can go longer on the podcast than the movie was and we did that for film stars don't tie on Liverpool. Well done. All right, Chris. That's our episode. Listeners, if you would like more this had Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr

at this hadoscarbuzz.tumbler.com. You should also follow our Twitter account at had underscore Oscar underscore buzz and our Instagram at this had Oscar buzz. A reminder, you can go to patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz and sign up for this had Oscar buzz,

turbulent brilliance. Our Patreon membership for $5 a month where you can get two bonus episodes a month along with special mailbag privileges and the ability to vote for upcoming movies. And just in general, support us because you love us with a question mark. But I think that you do if you're listening to two hours plus of film stars, don't die in Liverpool. So we'll see you over on the Patreon, I guess. Chris, where can the listeners find more of you?

You can find me on Twitter and letterboxed at Chris V-File That's F-E-I-L I am also on Twitter and letterboxed as Joe Reed Reed spelled R-E-I-D We would like to thank Kyle Cummings

for his fantastic artwork Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Mavius for their technical guidance and Taylor Cole for our theme music Please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, Apple, podcasts, Google, Play, Stitcher, wherever else you get podcasts, a five-star review

in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcasts visibility. So if you are bad or beautiful, you're welcome to leave us some nice comments. That's all for this week, but we hope you'll be back next week for more buzz.