This Had Oscar Buzz - 255 – Win Win

Episode Date: September 9, 2023

Before Tom McCarthy would deliver an Oscar triumph with Spotlight (and a bomb with The Cobbler), his critically beloved films centering on everyday people culminated in Win Win. The film starred Paul Giamatti as a lawyer and wrestling coach who takes in the grandson of an elderly client, one who he has taken guardianship of solely to alleviate his … Continue reading "255 – Win Win"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. We want to talk to Marilyn Hack, Millen Hack and French. I'm from Canada water. Dick Pooh. He's got man strength, dude. What's it like to be as good as you are? It feels like I'm in control of everything, you know?

Must be nice. Mom? What are you doing here? This kid really hates his mother. More than I hate my ex-wife. You can't let her take me back to Ohio. Mike This kid's got a chance to do something special

Maybe even change his life Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast The only podcast that you should give your MP3 player to when you die Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz We'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time Had Lofty Academy Award aspirations But for some reason or another it all went wrong The Oscar hopes died

And we are here to perform the autopsy I'm your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with my assistant, assistant coach, Joe Reed. Fuck him up. What's the thing that Bobby Conavalli yells in the middle of the match that Giamati tells him to cool it? Giammati is funny in this, but his character is so annoying and irritating and, like, the worst kind of person. Oh, you think so? Oh, I think he's so annoying. See, I think he's a good person that does something bad.

Kind of Alley? Something understandably bad. No, I mean Kanavale. Oh, kind of... Oh, you said Giamati. Oh, no, sorry. Bobby Kanavale's character is so annoying in this movie.

But this is like... See, Bobby Kanavale, I feel like kind of got a... I don't want to say got too big, but like, you know, this movie's 12 years old, which feels wild to me. Because this movie feels almost a drift in time at any time in the past 20 years. this movie could be 25 years old if it's 10 years old. Yeah.

Bobby Canevali in this movie is so funny, but he's in this movie the exact right amount to be that funny and do the Bobby Cannavali schick. Whereas like now, I feel like movies have maybe

50% too much Bobby Kind ofale to do the Bobby Connavali stick. The other thing is I think the Bobby Connavali schick has evolved in a way that, like, I think Tom McCarthy casts Bobby Kanovali to play a kind of overbearingly gregarious person who, like, you push him to slight degrees one way or another, but he's still on this, like, continuum of, like, a person you would be friends with.

And he's either, like, in the station agent, he's a little too, he's a little overbearing. and in this one he's a little too much of a sports dad even though he doesn't have any actual kids in this slash yappy lap dog like he's almost like the puppy of this movie where you know you get those like puppies that are so sweet but are like you know you get too close to their honor and they're like hey who the fuck are you well and he's also like he's still he's still living in his high school past in a way and he's got like the thing where like he'll like park outside his ex-wife's condo

and like these things that are like... That's icky. Don't, well, and also it's like, but it's like, it's not like he does anything. He just sort of like, you know, he's, it's benignly icky, but he's just kind of an annoying personality. And I think in later years, people have sort of morphed the Bobby Convali schick to be a little more agro, a little more dangerous a little bit. I think the fact that he won that Emmy for Boardwalk Empire where he was like a snarling monster throughout that entire season, um, kind of changed that a little bit. I guess he was still doing like the Will and Grace thing. Um, but yeah, I don't know. He's an interesting, he's in that movie with

Rose Byrne at Tiff that I'm not gonna, I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to see. Uh, the Tony Goldwynn movie that as this episode drops, we are at Tiff. As we as we, as this episode drops, we are at TIF and today the holdovers, I believe has its TIF premiere. Wow. Did we plan that specifically? We did not. We were just like, well, what should we talk about? Let's talk about Giamatti. Yeah, that's right.

The holdovers, and it turns out, hey. I mean, we've had this one planned for longer than the schedule has been out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. We'll talk about the Giamati character, of whom I have very complicated feelings. More complicated feelings about this movie, I think, than I remember having initially, too, which is always an interesting way to approach. approach a film. So I'm excited to talk about this. I always, Tom McCarthy is an interesting

figure in film because he makes these very small movies, even the biggest of his small movies, is still small. Like, Spotlight's one of the more, like, you know, in scope, certainly, like less least grandiose best picture winners of our time. But he takes a long time to make these small movies, right? Where it's like four years in between the station agent and the visitor, four years between the visitor and a win-win. Four years essentially, and then he makes like that weird like double where it's like the cobbler, oh no, and then it's like,

no, no, forget about the cobbler. I've got the spotlight. Like nobody needs to think about the cobbler. And then Stillwater was even longer after that, right? It was 2021, so six years. Yeah. So it's like it's he kind of takes these sort of long intervals and he's not doing that to like, you know, work on these like epic, you know what I mean? Like Baz Luhrman, you know, that's why Baz Luhrman takes so long is because he's making these like big epic grandiose things. Which I think is interesting. He puts a lot of care into these very sort of script forward movies and he's got a really good batting average. as a result. Yeah, I would say, I mean, and a spectrum of quality from, you know, disaster of the, the cobbler,

not good in Stillwater, and that, you know, you... I still haven't seen Stillwater, so I... It's not worth seeing. I've heard good things. You are the person I know who hates it the most, but, like, I've heard people who really liked it. So, like, I am going to have to check it out for myself at some time. There are people we trust who do actually see something, you know, valuable and an attempt at, you know, a reconcilatory tone for a certain type of character, whatever.

I kind of don't get that at all from that movie. Yeah. Yeah, don't care for that movie. We will probably, it is probably on our list of possibilities, though, because. Because, like, it definitely, sorry to say, but it is. Yeah, I know, I know. You can have your full say about it. Yeah, exactly.

We eventually do it. We don't have to completely go into it. This is a movie I was more than happy to revisit. I love this movie a lot. I would say this and Spotlight are safely McCarthy's best movies. Oh, interesting. I think it's a better movie than we maybe talk about. Like, I don't think, you know, we're maybe the first people to have a conversation about this movie in, you know, a decade, probably.

Yeah. But, yeah, I really like this movie. I think it's a lot of people in this movie doing kind of what they do best, but in a way that doesn't feel greatest hitsy. Right. Right. I put it solidly behind the station agent. I think the station agent is definitely McCarthy's second best movie, in my estimation. The station agent is really good.

Go back to our station agent episode. Though I feel like I maybe had complicated feelings about the station agent. Yeah. I think we are, I think we sort of, we flip on these two movies, win-win and the station agent. But we'll get into it. We should probably plug our Patreon. though, before we get too far.

Why don't you tell our listeners all about that Patreon? Well, we have finally launched our Patreon. By the time this is up, we'll have been going for a good month and a half, I feel like, right? Yeah, we got some good episodes waiting for you. We were so gratified to hear that so many people were excited about the Patreon, and we are that much more enthused about bringing you some really, really great episodes. We've got some already up there. If you have not signed up for This Had Oscar Buzz Turbulent Brilliance,

which is what we are calling the Patreon, go to our Patreon page, patreon.com slash this head Oscar Buzz. For $5 a month, you will get two new episodes every month in addition to our flagship podcast. Once a month we'll be doing an exceptions episode. Exceptions are when we cover movies that sort of fit. all the parameters of this hot Oscar buzz movie, but it, like, pulled in a nomination or two, even though it did definitely fall short of its expectations. We've already covered nine,

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It's so good. I will say that Actress Roundtable excursion is, I would be willing to say, peak form for both of us. Yeah, it's really good. It's really good. So anyway, patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz. Again, $5 a month gets you. I think a lot. I think it gets you some really, really interesting episodes that you'll be able to enjoy.

And who knows what we'll be bringing in the future. We're going to be doing a patron-only mailbag soon. Patron-only mailbag. Like, Chris and I are really, really excited to explore the kinds of things that we can deliver on this Patreon. So tell your friends, tell anybody who, you know, who enjoys the podcast, it's going to be well worth it. So thank you. And back to our regularly scheduled discussion. about win-win. You could almost say that signing up for our Patreon is a real win-win situation.

I've heard. I've heard that said about us before. I'm actually, I love when you surprise me in this way. I'm surprised to hear you have some skepticism about this movie, and I wonder if your skepticism around it is the type of skepticism I maybe usually would have. about a movie like this. I do think this is a very sentimental movie. For me, I think it really kind of earns that sentiment in a real

way. I mean, like, I think everybody's delivering a really good performance in this movie. Oh, that I absolutely agree with you. It's a fantastic cast. Like, down to, I believe I saw this movie

after I saw Nina Arianda do Venus and Fur on Broadway, at which point I instantly became a giant Nina Arianda stand. The moment in time when we were like, maybe we'll get Nina Arianda movie star. And like, I don't think I can think of something. I've seen her in in a movie since Flo Flo Jenkins. Oh my God, Flo Flo Joe was definitely a Nina Arianda performance. she's shown up in like small roles and things though um but you're right in that like she deserves

she deserves a lead role in something um let's see what is her oh she was in stan and ollie you know oh no she was in being the ricardo she was vivian vance and being the ricardo she was great in that i loved her in that because that season you know you liked that movie more than i but i think Even people who liked that movie were just kind of like, well, Nina Arianda is kind of getting screwed in this awards run of just

like, you know. The fact that like J.K. Simmons got all the supporting attention there and not Nina Arianda, which is too bad. She was really good. I do think the best scenes in the movie are Nina Ariandas. It's kind of surprising, though, that she has... And Dalia Shawcats. I like Dalia Shawkatz.

I love Dalia Shawcat, too. It's kind of surprising that Nina Arianda has never gotten a television show. Like, there are so many television shows. Sure, sure, sure. The fact that Nina Arianda is not in more movies is maybe, you know, exhibit 756 of why there, of like, there are no comedies anymore. Right, right. She would be in movies if we made comedies. Right.

That's the thing, which is why I sort of think about television, because it's like, like, at least on television, like, she should have an Apple TV Plus series. You know what I mean? She should have... Yeah, but... I mean, like, those shows aren't... Those shows have stars and, like, a lot of people. The, like...

But that's what I mean is she should be a star of that. You know what I mean? Like, she should be... I mean, like, I loved Dickinson. I know people... I mean, like, people love Severance, and I know people who love slow horses. But, like, there are a ton of Apple shows and, like, no one has ever watched them. Or no one talks about them.

The thing is. about Apple TV Plus is it's so many shows that they have a ton of shows that just air and nobody talks about them, but they also have a ton of shows that are really good. Like it's both.

They just have so much output. I have heard people talk about physical too, but like those are the four shows. Plotonic is really funny. People really liked Silo. I didn't watch Silo, but like people like got into that show. People really like for all mankind. For say

what you will about Ted Lassow, but like, Ted Lassau was a sensation. I guess you just kind of forget about, I forget about Ted Lassow as an Apple product. Right, but at what, you know what I mean? Like, it's, and severance, too, like, they, they have a ton of successes. They just also have a ton of really anonymous, like, throw it in a whole kind of shows. And it's, it really is both. And so it's like their batting average isn't great. I think a platform like Peacock actually.

has like a much better batting average because it's fewer shows but like those hits then like mrs davis and poker face really kind of you know stand out still got to watch both of those shows i love because i know i'll like them yeah yeah i really liked both of them um but anyway given an arianda television show she deserves it okay 100% make her be like a villain foil for i don't know something like natasha leone on poker face would i haven't even watched poker face and i want to watch that would love that well that's the thing about poker faces it's so episodic like throw her in an episode like you know no but just like give her an episode even like people who get one episode of poker face it's like it's so much good stuff cherry jones was fantastic in her episode

judith light and escapathamercerson are fantastic in their episode like it's um it's it's a good show it's a really good show um and nina arianda is in win win for like three scenes she's the sort of She's the secretary with a little bit of Tude, and she's just like, you, I think with all of the smaller characters in this movie, you could, like, oh, I could, like, I could do with more of this character. I would like to see, like, you know, more of her, or more of Margo Martindale, the, you know, the opposing attorney, or more of the other kids on the wrestling team, actually, who I think are all very, like, charming and adorable. What's his name? What's the character who wins the draw, Stemler? Stemler. That kid is so good. This is a movie where Margo Martindale gets to say, shame on you.

Yes. You can't shit on it too much. You know who has done TV that I didn't realize at all? Tom McCarthy, he's the creator of Wait For It, Alaska Daily. I did not know that until I was doing my... But, like, yeah, Tom McCarthy is, like, the first thing I ever knew about Tom McCarthy is he was an actor in the cast of Boston Public. Like, that was sort of my very first experience of Tom McCarthy is he's this, like, character actor who was in duplicity and, like, and he was always sort of playing these, like, kind of sketchball, like, you know, he's a guy in a suit who's trying to, you know, hustle you. one way or another. I don't know. He's

a little bit of a little bit of a shitbag in a lot of these movies that he's in. He's a great director and a great writer. He co-wrote this one with his friend from high school, Joe Toboni, who

the story behind this movie is really interesting, actually. They were both on the wrestling team in high school, in New Providence, New Jersey, and Tom McCarthy wanted to make a movie about sort of their a high school wrestling experience. And like Alex Schaefer, the kid in this movie, was a high school wrestler who answered a casting call for wrestlers who wanted to act in a movie. And

it's just, it's a very kind of, I guess, McCarthy got a lot of the, like, family life stuff for Mike's character from Joe Toboni, who is, who has a family in that kind of thing. And it's an interesting, it's one of those sort of classic, like, oh, I want to make a movie sort of pulled from my life, but it's a very kind of, you know, specific setting with like small town, New Jersey, high school wrestling, which feels like a little bit of like a niche subculture. But it's not like this subculture where like everybody's super psyched about watching the wrestling matches in this, you know, in this town. It's just sort of, You know, all the coaches are moonlighting from their day jobs, which is not very true to life.

And like the kids are all, like, the Alex Schaefer kid comes in and he's like great. But everybody else is just sort of like, okay, you know, and it's fun. There are all these scrawny little kids that like, they're all on the lower weight classes. They don't have a star athlete on this team. Right, right, right. they don't they don't really have uh like muscle on this team mostly to speak of um i also feel like this is a very specific movie to the time it came out you know it feels very like if i think about movies about the recession like this is one that i think of um just in like the financial

precarity of this very you know middle slash lower middle class uh family you know just trying to survive in Jersey, you know? Yeah, yeah. The, like, economic threat, you know, that poses someone like Paul Giamatti's character where he's running his own business and, you know, supporting local people as their legal counsel, but also, like, he's coaching to, you know, make a little extra money. And at the end of the movie, you see, and he's gotten this, like, bartending job at what looks like a Applebee's, maybe, or something like that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. which good for him eating good in the neighborhood it's very bittersweet because it's like what you have to go through to get there it's like you know he found a way to keep this his family but also this expanding

family yeah you know together but also that comes with compromise and it comes with you know sacrifice and like maybe we should live in an economy where you know people don't have to do things like to support their family. Stop talking crazy, Christopher. And have to, you know, bartend on the evenings, you know, like, imagine what the teachers of that school district have to deal with.

Going to ship you to Cuba with your radical economic ideas. You know, my, you know, my labor supporting ideas. Yes. Good movie. Should we get into the plot description, maybe? Let's get into the plot description and then get into the specifics. of it, for sure. All right. Let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's set some boilerplate. Listeners, Gary's, we're here talking about the motion picture

win-win, written and directed by Tom McCarthy with a story credit also for his friend Jot Boney, movie stars Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan, excited to talk about Amy Ryan in this movie. Me too. Alex Schaefer, Bobby Cannavali, Burt Young, the great Bert Young spectacular in this movie, Jeffrey Tampore, we'll get into it. Melanie Linsky, Margo Martindale, and the Great Nearyanda, movie premiered at Sundance and then opened

limited March 18th of 2011 Joe. Yes. Are you ready to give a 60 second plot description of win-win? Sure, why not? All right, then your 60-second plot description of win-win starts now. Paul Giamatti playing a sad sack

groundbreaking, and this one, he's Mike, a small-town New Jersey lawyer with a tiny struggling practice that specializes in elder care. And his one client is Polly from Rocky who has dementia and a daughter who's in rehab and can't care for him. So Mike volunteers to be Polly's legal guardian. Only he pockets the 1500 a month and sticks Polly in an old folks home, which is textbook corruption and legit elder abuse, but put a pin in that for now. Meanwhile, Polly's affactless teen son, Kyle, comes to town and Mike and his wife, Jackie, take him in. And it turns out he's a wrestler,

which is good for Mike because Mike Moonlights is the coach of a high school wrestling team. So he enrolls Kyle in school, and Kyle's success at wrestling makes Mike and his sad middle-aged friend Bobby Conavale feel a young and purposeful again, and Kyle gets along well with Mike's family, and it's going great until Kyle's mom comes back to town, and she wants to take care of her father again, which unravels Mike's elder abuse scam, and Kyle hates his mom for what she did as an addict, and his mom hates her father for what he did as father, and Kyle and Jackie find out about Mike's elder abuse scam and everybody's angry, but Mike is just kind of like, okay, I'll do the right thing now, and he sends the $1,500 a month to Kyle's mom in exchange for Kyle staying with him

for the rest of high school, which I think he means, which I think means he just bought a son from a drug addict, but whatever. Everybody's happy with how things turned out so the end. All right. Only 10 seconds over. All right. Let's get into this. So because you said elder abuse, no less than like...

It's elder abuse. It is technically elder abuse. It's not like elder abuse, like forcing Harrison Ford to do action stunts in a No. A Jones movie. So people can make $100 million. That's elder abuse. Yes.

But he is also... It's nice, Elders. Abuse. I know. That's the thing. It's nice elder abuse in a way that, like, we can not feel so bad about it. But, like, he's not a bad person. He's a person who takes a bad opportunistic thing in this movie. Here's my maybe, here's the, the nut of my dissatisfaction with this movie is the fact that Paul Giamati's character on paper is committing elder abuse. He's pocketing $1,500 a month to put Burt Young in an old folks home, there are ways in which that story on paper

can be depicted like in 10 other movies he'd be the bad guy, right? I do wonder what the free Brittany community thinks of this movie. He would be the shady lawyer who has stolen this man's stolen money, you know, embezzled money essentially to

and then stuck this person in old folks home in another movie might have depicted the old folks home as being really shabby and his experience there being kind of traumatic and in this movie it's a good old folks home and this guy's doing okay and he's not like suffering he just has dementia and can't live in his old house so like this movie takes a point to again he's the he's he's doing elder abuse in a nice way in a way that the audience can sympathize, sympathize with. They, and we flesh out the Giamati character, and he's, you know, he's good to his family,

he's good to Kyle, he's a complicated person, he takes shortcuts, he makes some bad decisions, but ultimately in the end it goes, okay. He does still take care of Burt Young and see to Burt Young's care. In a way that does not, in a way that is, that makes it work his while to still pocket this $1,500. but at the same time then you have the Melanie Linsky character Kyle's mom who is a drug addict and who has gotten out of rehab

so she's like gone into a program she's gotten her life sort of like fingernails on the edge of a cliff she's sort of holding on to whatever sort of sense of stability that she's found she comes into town she's she is not painted in the worst possible light. There is that scene where she comes by the house, and Amy Ryan, who was all

set to, like, kick the shit out of her because she hated her on paper, sort of sees her and then kind of comforts her because she's a person with feelings and whatever. But still, as the movie goes along, she's the one who's like, I deserve that money. And she's, you know, she's the obstacle that Giamati has to get past. And Kyle hates her, likely for very good and legitimate reasons. But in all the ways that the Giamatti character is painted, is given context and is given, you know, mitigating circumstances and is painted in a way that the audience will sympathize with him, the Linsky character is mostly painted as the obstacle, the antagonist, and like a drug addict who, by the definition of the fact that she's a drug addict, is not a good mother,

and an opportunist and doesn't deserve the $1,500 in a way that we kind of think that Giamati is more deserving of that $1,500 through the language of the movie.

I would argue the movie is a little bit more generous to her than... Not much. I do, though, because I think she is painted this way before we meet her, and then when we meet her,

we respond to her in the way that Amy Ryan does to her. That it's like, oh, yes, when she is this abstract person, it's so much easier to be like she's bad. But then when you have her in front of her, this is the Tom McCarthy thing, that like Tom McCarthy does make space for attempting to understand that character. So, like, I think it's a little bit more generous to her because it gives her more of that space than...

It's a little bit generous to her. It's a lot generous to him. I'm saying. I think there is an imbalance. And maybe that's a natural imbalance of a protagonist versus a side character. I think maybe some of that imbalance is that we believe Kyle when he describes his experience with his mother and the bad experiences we have. I feel like maybe if anything, the movie is on Kyle's side. Maybe if we got a little bit more of a window into exactly what I don't need the kid to like give a laundry list of all the bad things because like you can you can draw some lines and you can extrapolate some things.

but I don't know. It's not like a huge problem. It doesn't make me hate the movie. But watching the movie again, I like movies. There's no bigger compliment that I can give a movie to say that it's generous to its characters because I really, really value that in a movie

that tries to take the perspective of as many characters as possible. And I think this movie moves a little bit in that direction and then only will go so far. And ultimately, at the end of the day, she seems to want the money more than she wants the kid. You know what I mean? Sure. And that is not, like, the audience.

She doesn't want those terms, the terms she's expecting if she doesn't get the money. Right. You know? Right. And there are people like that. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not sort of, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not seeing that.

But I also feel like there are people Like that from Ohio But there are also people who Pocket old people's money And put them in old folks' homes Do you know what I mean? That's all I'm saying is that like his character It is it is questioning of her

Even if you Even if you see some generosity In her direction, you think that It asks harder questions of her than it asks Paul Giamani's right. It lets him off the hook in a way that it does not let her off the hook is how I would probably put that. Not to a degree that I hate

the movie, but I'm just saying that like that nagged at me watching it this time in a way that I don't think it nagged at me the first time. So but anyway, I also think a lot of that is Linsky's so good in this movie in such a small role. I mean, I mean

the living legend. Love her. Love, love. I do feel like when you have someone like Margot Martindale looking Paul Giamatti in the eye of all of this and saying shame on you. I do think that does do some heavy lifting. Sure, sure.

He's momentarily chasing. Being told you've done a really bad thing. Yes. Who among us would not crumble to ash if Margot O'Martindale looked us in the eye and said shame on you? But she says that in the midst of a conversation that is essentially giving him everything that he wants, you know, at the end of the movie. but also giving him everything he wants but then he still ultimately still has to make a sacrifice

that is true that is true she gets everything she wants too right and it has to make a sacrifice in in that way so so yes you're right um i don't again i don't think this is i don't think this is a movie with bad intentions i don't think this is a movie that tells a bad story i'm just saying that was a thing that nagged at me a thing that did not nag at me was any anything involving Amy Ryan, because I think Amy Ryan is A plus the best thing about this movie. And I thought that then and I thought it now. Oh, I think so. I would have nominated her for win-win.

I think she's on my ballot, if you look at my ballot. She rules in this. And it's one of those roles where it's like I could have actually done with her being in more of the movie. I wanted a little bit more of her after we find, after everybody finds out. out about the scam that Mike is pulling. I wanted one more scene of her and Kyle, because I loved all the scenes of her with Kyle, them and her showing him their John Bon Jovi tattoo. J.B.J., I'm a Jersey girl. Them grocery shopping. Like, I felt like they have such a really good rapport. And it feels like after

the reveal is made about what Mike has been doing with the $1,500, those are the two characters who have been sort of most betrayed by Mike in that moment. And I wanted them to have a, like, it would be natural that they would have a moment to sort of like talk that over because they had been so close. And I wanted that scene. You know what I mean? And also because like she'd been knocking everything out of the park in this movie. She's, you know, all of those scenes where she's talking about how she's going to kick, you know, kick his mom's ass because, you know, she's so furious that a mother wouldn't do right by her son in that way. But she's like, it's that sort of like, again, it's that sort of Jersey girl nest to her,

while also being like a mom. She has such mom energy with Kyle, and it's so kind of lovely. And I also love her. Go ahead. I was just going to say she's also just an interesting character because, like, She's even skeptical of Kyle at first, much of the other than that she's skeptical. She's going to lock him in the basement all night. She, she's quick to, like, defend and, you know, think uber rationally to a point, but then when she's faced with an actual human, you know, things become more complicated.

And, you know, I think that's also a hard thing to play because, you know, that character could be played in a way that's just, like, bananas of being. wishy-washy or something, and I think Amy Ryan makes it, you know, human and complex in a way. Yeah. That the movie is all the better for, you know. It's also the fact that in nine out of ten movies, that role is the most thankless role. It's the most annoying. It's, it's Catherine Keener and Captain Phillips, right? It's, it's, you know, it's, she might as well be on the phone, you know what I mean?

because all she's doing is being at home and nagging at the husband because the water bill is late and, you know, I've got two kids to take care of. I can't take care of another kid, you know, that kind of a thing. And McCarthy draws this character with such specificity and agency. And I love that. And she, like, and she rewards that writing with a really, good performance. And she's very, very funny. And she's so funny. She's so funny. She's so warm. She's so feisty in a lot of ways. I know feisty is one of those compliments that doesn't sound like a compliment. You know what I mean? But I just, I don't know. It's, you know what she reminds me of. A very, I mean, a lot of these characters are, you know, the aim of what Tom McCarthy does in his

movies is creating these people that you can actually, like you, you know these people. You see people like this in your everyday life, but like making them compelling in a movie is a very, very difficult thing, like that averageness. Whereas here they find ways to make it interesting. She reminds me. She's the best performance in the movie. Yeah. She reminds me of Amy Madigan and Field of Dreams in a lot of ways. And that is, if you know me, a giant compliment.

The highest compliment. I fucking love Amy Madigan and Field of Dreams. one of my favorite performances. And that's another one where she could have just been the, you know, Honey were laid on the bills. And she has those scene where it's like Honey were laid on the bills. But it's also she believes in this dumb, you know, baseball park thing. And she, you know, gets a lot of, gets, you know, a lot of wonderment out of the players.

And when James Earl Jones comes, they sort of, you know, connect in their little way. And it's a wonderful. And she has that great scene with the, the, school board where she I have to I have to call you out though because you didn't select Amy Madigan for I know I know I should have the fuck is wrong with you I don't know you don't know you don't know yourself anymore no I think I had picked I think that was the same year as Shirley McLean for steel magnolias so I I could I had to make a choice I'm positive that we have not really had a conversation certainly not as many conversations as we've had about Amy Madigan and

Field of Dreams. It's true. It's true. Listen, Chris, you're not allowed to weeks later get on my case about this. Call you out. You know how many hard choices there were to make in selecting that 100. You know. Garys, it's time to bring Joe to the Red Table.

Oh, my God. The betrayal. Wait, what if one of our excursions episodes for Patreon is just the Red Table? And we each bring each other to the Red Table for a slight. Call each other out on trivial things. I don't know. What trivial thing are you calling me out on? Oh, I'll figure out something.

Boy, don't you, don't you worry about it. I'll figure out something. Just you wait, Henry Higgins. Just you wait. You know who's also really good in this movie? Alex Schaefer. Alex Schaefer. This kid is so good.

And, like, yeah, not an actor. which maybe is kind of why the performance is good because, you know, you get someone who's like repped by CAA or DME or something in this movie and it becomes very child star performance. But, like, at the same time, he gives this performance that is, you know,

a unicorn in movies, which is conceivable non-annoying teenager. Like, this is just like an average teen who talks like a teen, acts like a teen. he justifies these character choices that, you know, without overselling it, like, and he's funny. Can I tell you how many nominations he got for, like, best younger actor throughout that entire 2011? It's crazy. It's fucking zero, and it's so dumb.

Hold on a second. And he probably ran the table with those performances. I want to call out the critics' choice, so give me a second to look up the critics' choice. Is this the year that they're nominating, like, Adelix are copolos for a second? like young performer because she wasn't she wasn't for another couple years but hold on critics choice award for best young performer 2011 get ready critics choice awards i'm about to rip you a new a hole um bring it to the red table okay all right okay okay okay oh there's a lot to go on here okay there are some good ones here the the defensible one probably shaline woodley

shaleen woodley for the descendants sure sure surcia for hana hana um um that movie rules and she rules in it. Chemical brothers robbed. Say what you will about Ezra Miller. They were very good and we need to talk about Kevin. It was a thing. Al fanning and Super 8. Okay. Fine. She cries. Asa Butterfield and Hugo.

I like Asa Butterfield on a global level, on a like overall level. Yeah. He's good in that sex education show. Oh, I don't watch that show. Hugo is maybe not, but again, he's the lead of a Scorsese movie. I get it. I'm rewatching a bunch of Scorsesies. I have to watch Hugo. I have only seen Hugo one time. It is one of my least favorite. Before rewatch, I will say it's one of my least favorite Scorses. The winner, though. It's not bad. It's just, it's fine.

The winner, beating all of them. is the kid from extremely loud and incredibly close. Who I'm not even going to name because they don't want to, like, be mean to a child, or to whatever. He's not a child anymore. It's been 12 years, but still. So I can think of at least one person who Alex Schaefer could have been in this category. But, like, I put him ahead of L. Fanning and Super 8.

I've loved El Fanning in a lot of things, but, like, she was fine in Super 8, but I think Schaefer's more aggressive. all of those performances. I think Sersha in Hanna and Ezra Miller, and we need to talk about Kevin, are like top tier for me. But Schaefer's up there. Sure, sure. Like, those two should be in there.

I feel like, I don't know, maybe I need to rewatch, uh, we need to talk about Kevin. Because when I first saw it, it was with all of this talk of like, this revolutionary, a new star who's great and such a presence. And I felt like, to the movie's benefit, Kevin is more of a construct and it's more about Tilda's character. But, like, we'll eventually talk about that movie. As a construct, they delivered exactly what that movie needed. You know what I mean? Sure.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My thing with somebody like Ezra Miller, whatever, I don't want to get too into, like, you know. Teen stars. No, I don't want to get into art versus separate the art from the artist. But I do think there's a tendency with a lot of times to sort of look back through whatever the opposite of rose-colored glasses are and be like, they weren't that good. They were never that good. I'm not saying that was not, that performance was not the thing I was talking about when talking about that movie.

Sure, sure, sure. All right. But anyway, yes, Alex Schaefer absolutely deserved to be. near the top of that list is what I will say. So, um, great performance, standing toe to toe with Oscar nominees and not breaking a sweat. Did you know also that he had, that in real life, Alex Schaefer injured his back shortly before when Wynn came out and, like, had to stop wrestling, like, could not wrestle anymore? His wrestling career, uh, was cut short by a back injury. Isn't that sad? Wrestling is a scary sport to just ask, children to do.

Hey there, all you Bon Jovi stands. We are here to interrupt for a quick moment. Chris and I are to talk about the Vulture Movie Fantasy League, which is up and running for 2023. J.B.J. stands for Just be jumping in to the episode. Just by what's a movie that starts with Jay this year? Jumagi 3. Jumagi 3. If there's Jumagi 3 out there, you better grab it.

you better joker folia do not till next year my friends joker folia true i never learned french anyway there's going to be so many joker names for the for the league next year for team names i know i know it's going to happen it's going to happen um listeners if you are uh if you are fans of this podcast you already know we are very very big on the vulture movie fantasy league uh the 2023 edition is up and running. We launched back in August, and you are clear and good to go draft your team at any point from now until September 28th, I will say. And this is one of the things that has borne out in the last couple weeks. It may behoove you to wait a little bit before you draft. We are not trying to prevent people who want to sign up from signing up right

away. We love that enthusiasm, and you should go for it. But what I will say is sometimes movies like Dune Part 2 move to 2024, and they leave people who drafted them very sad, and it's a bummer. We are in a particularly unusual year where a dual strike in the industry is leaving studios to, rather than pay people what they're worth and settle the strike. They're deciding to move movies to 2024, like little cowardly baby studios. Even when they have a six-week IMAX exclusive run. Is Taylor Swift just jumping into those IMAX screens?

Is that what's going to happen? What's going to happen there? Well, Taylor Swift opens about a month before Dune was supposed to. So technically, no. If anything, she will be eating Martin Scorsese's IMAX lunch. Oh, God. Should we do like a line? The Exorcist moved.

This had Oscar buzz on IMAX to fill those dates. Sure, sure. Just the audio. You would me as big as an IMAX screen. You do not need the sounds of our annoying gay voices coming at you in Dolby Atmos IMAX. I guess the point about June part two, though, is

that some movies this year are subject to release date changes. And there really isn't a whole ton we can do about it, except to say that the longer you wait and compile your information, the more information there will be to compile. But do not wait too long. Do not wait till past September 28th. You won't be able to participate, and it's going to be very fun to participate. What you do is if you have not played, and by the way, if you want to know the full rules and regs and everything that's going on, you can go to vulture.com slash movies-league is the page that will give you all. of the rules and regulations, the prizes you can win.

But essentially, the nutshell is you draft a roster of eight movies that will open from now until the end of the year. You collect points based on box office if that movie opens after September 28th or awards. If then those will count for all movies, Rotten Tomato scores, there's a whole lot of ways you can collect points from now until Oscar night. It was a very fun time last year. I think it would be very fun this year. If you go to vulture.com slash movies dash league, you can check out, you can find a link to my draft kit where I have exhaustively previewed a whole bunch of movies, including where I did mention in the dune blurb that there was talk of it moving off of the release schedule. So I did try and warn me as much as possible. And yet some people live dangerously.

Listen, and we respect the people who live dangerously. And we hope that the rest of your movies will score enough points to compensate. One movie that I think will end up scoring quite a few points, at least on the box office end. We mentioned Taylor Swift. The ERA's Tour movie is coming to theaters in October. We quickly added it to the list of draftable films because it is going to make bank. It was crashing AMC ticketing sites. we expect sold-out screenings.

$5. $5. Mostly because it's going to be a big, big box office play. It has almost zero chances of scoring awards, just because concert documentaries don't get awards, even the really, really great ones. I can't remember the last time that a concert movie got nominations for anything. Woodstock.

Yeah, seriously. And on top of that, Taylor Swift, herself does not get Oscar nominations, even for things that you would think would be more in the Oscars wheelhouse. It's bouncing from category to category, man. Next year, she is going to have an ASC membership. She will be a cinematographer on something. She is going to be editing the new, I don't know, Spider-Verse movie, something.

She's going to be, she's working. She's working her tail off, and she's going to get that Oscar nomination by Hooker by Crook. But anyway, we have added that. So if you want to prove your Swifty Bonafides and draft a Taylor Swift movie, then that's fine. If you want to draft Barbie to show that you're a true blue, true pink, I guess, a Barbie stand. If you want to draft Dix the Musical for $1, which a lot of people have been doing, actually, that's our most popular sort of bargain bin. I think people just want to have Dix the Musical on their roster, which God bless.

If anybody can come up with like an all pink roster. Or like a full like a full like girl power experience of something like that, you know, where you're drafting Barbie bottoms, Barbie bottoms joyride. Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift. Right. Exactly. I love it. Yeah.

I fully approve of that. Megan, of course. The only. That's if you have a full gay roster. You're drafting Megan. You're drafting the Andrew Hay. Right. That's true.

Dick's the musical. That is true. All queer. Listen, if you want to, you have one roster. We have not moved into the realm of people being able to draft multiple rosters, unfortunately. Perhaps that will be down the line in future years. But you only have one roster to play with. So if you want to do something silly with it, God bless you.

If you want to be a hardcore gamer, you can also do that. If you want to wait until the festival roundup is about closed. We are currently at TIF. TIF is going on as this episode drops. You want to wait until after the festival, that's cool. If you want to live dangerously to it now. I would say. The good thing is, you have two weeks to either gamify the system to get your best possible roster that you think will get you those points.

Or if you want to be silly, you can be silly too. It's a free world, free life. You get one and you do what you want with it. All right. However, what we can do is we can have all of the Gary's sign up together as a league. Joe, tell them how they can do this. Yeah, so there is an option when you sign up for your team. Before you select your movies, you put in your name and your email address, and then you put in, it's optional, but you can put in a league name.

And so what that allows you to do is when the scores are posted, you can toggle a little toggle button, and you can look at how your scores are doing relative to everybody else who has signed up for the same league as you. And so all of the this head Oscar buzz listeners, we are giving you a little tap on the shoulder and saying, if you want to compete, with all the other Garys, we are giving you the league name of all of us Gary's. That is all one word, no spaces, A-L-L-L-O-F-U-S-G-A-R-Y-S, no punctuation, no spaces, no nothing silly, no nothing fancy or funny. All of us, Gary's-R-L-L-Letters at the first letter of each word. Yeah, I don't think it's going to matter, but just to be sound the safe side. I always err on the side of caution, as we always say.

And then you can compete with the other garries, and you compete with us, and it'll be a good and fun time. And we can see whom does better than whom, right? Who does better than whom? Hmm? Whom? I'm spiraling. All right. E?

No. Well, I turned into an owl of Gahoul there. What's going on? Anyway, Vulture movie fans. This had Oscar buzz, sponsored by Titsyroll. Two, a three. Yeah. That's about it.

If you can tell, we are on the eve of leaving for Tiff as we record this. So we are slap happy and punch drunk. I have to be awake for my flight in like four hours. Yeah, Chris has got to wake up and on a godly hour, and I still have to pack. So we are going to leave you with the encouragement to sign up for the Vulture Movie Fantasy League to join up with the Gary's under the league name. name all of us, Gary, is no spaces. And be careful of what are the other big movies you should, we should, we're saying maybe be wary of.

You think Aquaman is going to move. You think Aquaman. I've been saying Aquaman is going to move for months. You have. My feeling is because of the everything that's gone on with the DC universe, that Warner Brothers wants Aquaman off of its books as soon as possible. They're going to make it a Red Box original if they can. They are going to boot that.

thing off the side of a boat if they can and just let it drown in the briny deep. I don't think they want to push that movie to 2024 if they can at all help it. They can have an empty red carpet for all they care. They are going to get that movie off of their hands, is my feeling.

Three months and there's not even a teaser poster. It could have been pushed by the time that this airs. That's true. Maybe we should make a side bet for that. If Aquaman gets pushed, I owe Chris ten dollars. A Wonka, I've heard, sort of floated around as a push possibility. I think if that was going to happen, it probably would have already been announced, but don't take my word for anything. Listen, by the time you listen to this, God willing, maybe there's been some positive progress on the strikes and everybody's maybe in a better mental position.

Who knows? Hope springs eternal. Regardless, sign up for the Vulture Movie Fantasy League. Draft yourself, a team. Hopefully they all open in 2023. and we're all very happy and competitive through Oscar night. And we will send you back to your regularly scheduled win-win with a hearty slap on the ear. Back to wrestling practice.

Send you back into the ring. All right, bye. I mean, yeah, it is. The thing of them that I thought watching this movie was, it's wild that this is a thing that we have. have high school boys do in a way that, like, puts their aggression on Front Street and then asks them to, like, just accept the fact that, like, another person bested them in physical hand-to-hand combat, which you would think, like, my conception of teenage boys is just

egos that are, like, frail, like, like, parchment paper. Untamed emotions. But having this like organized structure where like one can like legitimately say to another one like I bested you in physical combat. And yet I also imagine there is probably something beneficial to giving high school boys a structured avenue to get that aggression out in a, you know, healthy way, in a controlled way. right they may be psychological but they're rolling around on the oh sure sure sure sure no I but I mean I'm yeah I'm talking psychological I guess in this way but in like but then again also like this is why I one of my like jump scares is when like on the timeline there's a wrestling video or something because I will scroll past it as quickly

as when I see a video for a snake because you think it's going to be like an injury like Well, in, like, the early days of the internet, it was like, ha, ha, ha, ha, wrestling industry, watch this kid's arm get snapped. Is it that funny? No, it's not. I don't want to watch someone get their arm broken or something, you know. So, yeah. It's like how every few weeks my YouTube recommends will just throw in, like, 24-hour live coverage of 9-11.

And it's like, why are you, what, what, what in my history of, like, watching marble races on YouTube has told you that I'm going to want to watch the 24 hours of news coverage of 9-11, you fucking lunatic app? And it's not just the video of the camera that pans from the Twin Towers in travesty, and then it pans to a subway poster of glitter. Is there a video that does that? That is a great Jif. I've never seen that. That's amazing. You've never seen that? Okay, I'll find it and I'll send it to you.

Also, the thing about sports, because, like, this is maybe the thing in the movie that I was like, oh, God, this is just like such an anger trigger for me. It's just like high school sports, a setting where people are just okay with a grown-ass adult screaming at a room of children. Yeah. Yes, this is apparently okay in our classroom. culture to just do that. However, in Win Win, win, it's ironic because it's Paul Giamatti and not Jeffrey Tambor screaming at a room full of people. That's true.

All right, I have two, I have two things to say about that. One, high school boys are the worst and sometimes deserve to get yelled at. Two, Jeffrey Tambor is funny in this movie. I don't know. It's one of my things with sports and high school sports. I just don't, I don't think that that should be a lot of. okay. That's, you know. Okay. All right. What about Jeffrey Tambor, though? He's very funny in this movie. He's not in it that much. He's not. He's not. He gets like those like very quintessential

Jeffrey Tambor laughs in this movie. Yeah. Especially for this time period. But maybe I remembered him being in it more, but like he's the third coach. He's the third coach. But I think that makes tambour even funnier because then he becomes like the more like the most flat-footed one right exactly that's a good way of putting that and like I hate to say it

because like he does seem to be in real life like a real asshole but he's very funny in this I'm sorry I have to speak my truth so I mean this was the time when he was coming up because like he got to

do those type of jokes and such We haven't talked about Giamatti, which is part of the reason why we're here talking about this for the show, even though throughout this season, this movie was most successful as a screenplay contender. And we'll get into that, and I definitely want to talk about, you know, the Fox Searchlight of 2011 spectrum and how this movie clearly got knocked down a few pegs in their priorities. But Paul Giamatti back this year with an Alexander Payne reunion, and we didn't have him in our hundred snubs because I chose Gail Garcia-Brun all over him. Oh, oh, oh, now we're going to just not let it. No, no, no, no, it's a good call. It's a good call. I feel much more passionately about that performance than I do Giamatti in sideways.

But, like, in the culture. No, no, no, I'm not, no. This is, you gave me such fucking shit, not 10 minutes ago about my choice. No, you should have given me shit if I pulled Paul Giamatti instead of Guy Al Garcia-Bernal because I loved that performance so much. I was also having fun. Whatever, whatever. Whatever. Even Madigan in Field Dreams is like quintessential Joe Ree performance.

Sorry, I'm going to go and pick the hardest IMDB game for you today, just because you annoyed me. That's fine. That's fine. All right. But in the culture, I think in terms of acting snubs, Paul Giamatti for Sideways is considered one of the biggest in the past, you know, 20, 25 years. The craziest thing about Paul Giamati not being nominated for Sideways, beyond the fact that it was, I mean, Johnny Depp was never not going to get nominated for Finding Neverland because it was the Halo nomination the year after Pirates of the Caribbean. But, like, It's crazy to see the caliber of some of the performances. Even, like, I think Clint Eastwood is good in Million Dollar Baby, but, like, come on. I think John Cheadle is good. He's the one that, you know, it's interesting that Million Dollar Baby, we talk about it as kind of, you know, eating the aviators lunch, but I think the person who's, you know, most got sideswived by the presence of Million Dollar Baby suddenly dropping into the race.

is Paul Giamatti. Yeah, yeah. Also, the, like, Don Cheadle in Hotel Rwanda, who I also think is, like, good, but, like, not as good as Giamatti was in Sideways. The other thing about Sideways is, he's such a central presence to that movie. It's just wild that that movie gets picture and director nominations,

in addition to supporting actor and supporting actress. And everybody gets nominated almost for that movie, except for Paul Giamatti. Like, it's weird that that, there's that sort of hole at the middle of that. He did win the Independent Spirit Award that year as

as the okay so Paul Giamani was never in danger was like never a threat to win the Oscar but it was largely seen as him running at a somewhat distant second place to Jamie Fox

Jamie Fox was so far ahead in that year. Not only did his performance in Ray pull up collateral a full leading performance into a supporting nomination. Jamie Fox gets a best actor at the Indy Spirit nomination for Joe. Do you have the title pulled up for me?

I don't. I'm pretty sure this movie was like a cable. I think it debuted somewhere at like Sundance or something, but ultimately I think was placed on cable. Is that the one? Because that year he had gotten three nominations at the Golden Globe. So one of them was for television

So it was probably for this thing that you're talking about Let's see, 2004 television Um Hold on Yes, redemption, The Stan Tuki Williams story I'm going to pull this up and see where it would have debuted

But like Jamie Fox was so far ahead this year that it was like, we need to give him everything that we can. Yeah. It was a Sundance movie. I will say Redemption. It was a Sundance movie, but then it did a debut on FX.

So it aired on FX in American television. But yeah, you're right about the Jamie Fox thing. Jamie Fox Good actor Hope we get more actor Jamie Fox Than less movie star Jamie Fox Because like I'm not begrudging movie star Jamie Fox anything But like

What about voice? What about voice actor Jamie Fox? I'm not seeing strays You could not pay me to see strays It's in theaters now as we As we record this I thought you weren't my friend who was like Strays looks good

Somebody I was talking to was like Strays looks good No are you joking Okay Somebody I know know out there. You're listening. You've said Strasel. It's good. They're going to bite the guy's dick off. What can I tell you? Oh, boy. In retrospect, it does not seem to be a thing. He was good in Just Mercy, that movie that went exactly nowhere. Did you see Just Mercy? Because I saw it at that

Tiff, yeah. Didn't. Was it good? He's the best thing about it. Okay. He's the lawyer or he's the one on death row? He's the one on death row. Gotcha. Gotcha. All right. Um, Paul Giamatti. though. Paul Gianmati, this the snub is the snub hurt around the world. So significant that they

give him the retribution the next year. Yeah, I was going to say. By carrying Cinderella Man, the like very labored, you're going to love this movie, we promise you. What do we have to do to get you to love this movie?

We're not going to harm this kitten. They re-released it, right? Didn't they re-release it? They re-released Cinderella Man, and then they got in, like, a scheme with, like, AMC, where it's like, if you don't like the movie, we'll give you your money back. And, you know, it was just like, just take your licks and move on. It did seem that way, though. It did seem that, like, we are, Paul Giamatti, we are going to load up the sort of battered husk of Cinderella Man onto your back. and you are going to carry this movie's awards chances

over the finish line. And he nearly won the Oscar. He did. He came very close. He won SAG and Critics' choice. He's very good in the movie, but, like, he's Paul Giamatti. He's very rarely not that good. There is a world in which George Clooney's many nominations in 2005 for producing and directing and writing Good Night and Good Luck. pull enough of his awards votes away

that Giamatti does win Best Supporting Actor for Cinderella Man, which would be just the strangest case of giving somebody an Oscar for fully a different movie altogether. Like, would have been interesting as a footnote, I will say, particularly because, in retrospect, George Clooney's Siriana nomination

feels more and more, like, vapor in the wind every time I think about it. Even when I think about Sieriana, there are, like, multiple performances in that movie, I think, are better than Clooney. Clooney's not bad in that movie, but, like, Alexander Sidig is more interesting in that movie. And Matt Damon, I think, is more emotionally affecting in that movie than Clooney is. And Clooney got the Oscar for the story of all those nominations, and also for the, like, he gained weight. Being George Clooney. But also, like, remember how, like, the weight gain story, like, felt almost, like, perfunctory. It was like, well, he also gained weight, so we should, you know, probably.

And it's like, okay. And he got naked. That's true. That is true. Clooney, who didn't normally get naked in movies, did it for his art. We saw his side butt. We don't see the full butt in that movie. We'd already seen his full butt in Solaris.

That's true, but nobody saw Solaris. So when we see, when you say. when you say we saw his butt in Solaris, you're talking about you and a very small group of people. Was there a gay, Mr. Skin? Because if there was, I'm pretty sure people on the

early internet saw his butt in Solaris. Miss Skin. Miss Skin. I mean, Miss Skin. Touch all of Miss Skin. Welcome to the stage, Miss Skin. But Paul Giamatti, you know, I

feel like this you know sideways was such a huge platform for him he'd been a character actor uh up to that point and he'd had some like sort of major roles but it gets to the point where it's like he's an emmy winner for john adams right remember the barney's version globe that he won i do the 2010 golden globes are the weirdest goddamn thing we've talked about it before but so strange double johnny depp Who else is nominated? Hold on. Hold, please. Because this is the year of the tourist.

Everybody, you know, remember, love the tourist. Indeed. Noted comedy, The Tourist. Yeah, double Johnny Depp for Alice in Wonderland and the Tourist. Jake Gyllenhaal for Love and Other Drugs, which is why we've talked about this before, because we've done that. By the way, the recent,

spate of movies about Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers and the OxyContin epidemic that I've watched lately have put love and other drugs in a completely different light, where now I watch a movie like that, and I'm like, you fucking scumbag, like, you deserve nothing in life, like, you know, pharma sales are the tool of the devil and, I don't know, very, very... That being said, Jake Gyllenhaal wouldn't have been a horrible win. for that, because then the other nominee is Kevin Spacey in Casino Jack. Yeah, it's a

cursed, it's a pretty cursed category. I probably would, of these five, have voted for Jake Dillon Hall in Love and Other Drugs. I've never seen Barney's version. No, I've never seen it. Who directed that movie? Richard J. Lewis.

Maybe we have to do Barney's version. Barney's version, Taylor's version. Barney's version is directed by Richard J. Lewis. Who's mostly done television. Yeah. Most recently

let's see. He's always extraordinary playlist, a deeply annoying show. Yeah, he's mostly a TV director. Westworld episodes, 28 episodes. Oh, no, that's as a producer. I hate when IMDB puts producer credits before directing credits for people

who are primarily directors. What the fuck? Yeah, six episodes of Westworld Five episodes of A Million Little Things Which I believe was that show On ABC Um 12 episodes of person of interest

44 episodes of CSI So Yeah, he's the CSI director There we go What, okay, we're saying this After reactions from Tell Your Ride Would have happened for this movie And you know, the movie's about to show up at Tiff

essentially sight unseen about Paul Giamatti where do you think his chances are this year? I feel like because it's him reuniting with Alexander Payne you know that automatically is going to cast him in a light

of There's going to be a lot of remember sideways stories which I think points in his favor I think the pairing with Alexander Payne is tricky because Alexander Payne has some me two remnant stuff

that hasn't been fully dealt with, and it'll be very interesting to see how they decide to proceed with that. But the trailer looks good. I'm excited to see the movie. I think Paul Jamadi is one of those actors

who's worked with everybody. People seem to really like him. And in the absence of a stronger campaign elsewhere, like I can easily see Killian Murphy getting nominated for Oppenheimer

I think it's less likely he wins I think the win momentum in that movie is going to be more towards Robert Downey Jr. I know and I think so much so that it's going to potentially deflate Killian Murphy's chances which sucks because he's...

So long as he gets nominated I'll be happy I think DiCaprio for Killers of the Flower Moon he's already won so I don't think there's going to be a ton of momentum for him to win. Who are the other big contenders in Best Actor?

Coleman Domingo and Rustin. I would love, I just need that movie to be a big enough impact for that to carry through. Thus far, Netflix has only gotten one acting Oscar, correct?

Florida Earn? Uh, yes. I believe that's right. Netflix is very good at getting director Oscars, but acting Oscars, I don't think they've won many. Yeah, just that one, I think.

I can't think of one off the top of my head. No one from Power the Dog. No one from Mank. It's, oh my God. It's already crazy, but in 20 years it's going to be so weird that no acting Oscars went to Power the Dog. That movie still slaps. Yeah.

That's true. All right. Yeah, I will be certainly very much looking Wait, let me just take a quick gander at what Gold Derby's saying about the Best Actor Race. Bradley Cooper, but we saw how that went the last time you directed the movie. There's already controversy around that performance. That, I'm fascinated by everything about that. Absolutely everything about that.

Okay. So the current odds on Gold Derby right now, Killian Murphy is best odds, followed by DiCaprio, Cooper, Coleman Domingo, Paul Giamatti, Barry Keogin for Saltburn, interesting, Joaquin for Napoleon, Teo You for past lives. We're already getting into long-shot territory here now. Did you say Adam Driver for Ferrari?

Adam Driver for Ferrari, they have listed as 85 to 1, just behind Kingsley-Benedadier for Bob Marley, One Love. And then they've got 100 to 1-20-2-4 for... Oh, did that get pushed to 2024? The bottom one? I think it's coming out in January. Well, I mean, we all know what that means that it's coming out in January. So if they think that it's good and they have

shot, they'll sneak it. You know, yeah. And then Jay Barrichelle, they've got it 100 to 1 for BlackBerry, which would be adorable. I don't see it happening. But like... That's not real. That's cute. I love Jay Barichel. So, yeah, right now they've got Giamati listed as fifth behind those

four people we said. Killian Murphy, Leo DiCaprio, Bradley, Cooper, Coleman Domingo. So that's an interesting race right there. I'm always in favor of talking about more people at this time of the year. I'm not really interested in narrowing the race at this point.

So, you know, Andrew Scott in all of us, strangers is somebody... That's one that I think is kind of laying in weight that by now people... I've heard good things. I've heard very good things about that movie. Andrew Scott's worked with

lot of people. He's a very respected actor. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, lots going on. Lots to talk about. All right. What else should we get into? We talked about Amy Ryan. Amy Ryan

coming, sort of, again, four years after her big awards breakthrough for Gone Baby Gone. What was she up to at this point in her career? me a second. The office. Oh, the office. Right. She was so, her character was so fucking popular on the office. People loved her. Her and Steve Carell have good chemistry. They do. They have very good chemistry. This was around the time that I was starting to wane on the office, but like she was a good

jolt of energy. The thing about the office, and I'm far from the first person to say this, But, like, at some point, which is a thing that happens to all popular sitcoms, I think popular network sitcoms especially, is they become, they belong to the shippers at some point. And so the office became a show about Jim and Pam, Michael and Holly, Andy, the weird triangle with Ellie Kemper's character and, and Andy Bernard and Dwight. And, like, this is what happened to, obviously, friends. This is what happened to, I guess, not really Parks and Recreation. Although Parks and Recreation became very coupley with, like, Leslie and Ben and Aubrey Plaza and Chris Pratt's characters. And it's one of the things that makes me wary about Abbott Elementary is the second season was so focused on. I haven't finished the second season.

It was so focused on that, that budding romance between Janine and, oh, what's his, what's, uh, Gregory, Janine and Gregory that it gave me pause. I don't know. My pause for the second season of Abbott Elementary was it became literally like every two minutes someone was looking at the camera. Sure. Which it's like, for shows like this, that, that joke is always going to land. But when you play that joke a dozen times in an episode, it's a lot. Yeah.

what I'll say for win-win in terms of the searchlights slate that year because this is a year that Searchlight gets two Best Picture nominations. It's interesting to talk about it. What were the two? Let remind our listeners what the two were. The Tree of Life and the Descendants. And it's interesting to talk about Giamati in relation to the Alexander Payne thing.

You know, his big snub is for an Alexander Payne movie. This year, he's possibly, a contender for an Alexander Payne movie is I think in terms of like this movie getting a push the Alexander Payne movie is probably why this didn't get a better push from Searchlight because

you have the dromedy in the descendants a significantly less good movie than win-win in my estimation and you know that's even though if win-win's chances

best chances were in an original screenplay race you know that the descendants wasn't a direct competitor there but you know do you push that movie which is actually released during the award season and has a major movie star at the head or do you know this small spring movie that opened i was going to say that opened in march like yeah yeah yeah i at least feel that way that like if the descendants wasn't so much of an obstacle you know you can see that certain Rich Light does well with movies from earlier in the year because Tree of Life is right there. Right. Tree of Life was May? Yes. Yeah.

Or maybe it was June, actually, but it debuted at Cannes. Yeah. They also had Marguerette and Martha Marcy this year. They had shame. They were pushing that very late. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I mean, shame probably doesn't get that best actor nomination because they were also pushing

George Clooney. I was going to say a lot of really good movies. on that roster that fell by the wayside because of the focus on not because of the focus on the Descendants or the Tree of Life, but like Martha Marcy and Marlene and Shame, I think, are two movies that I would have expected to do

a lot better. Even a major indie label can only handle so much product at a time. You see this with someone like Netflix where I think part of the reason why Netflix doesn't have as

strong of an Oscar telly as you think they would is because they're constantly pushing so many movies. They're not focused in the way that some distributors are. That's true. The other thing that I wanted to mention about Tom McCarthy at this point in his career

was this was around the time that he was directing that ultimately a failed Game of Thrones pilot that had to get completely reshot. Oh, I didn't realize that was him. Yeah.

And it's one of those things where it's supposedly from like every consideration was like a horrendous pilot and had to be almost like completely revamped. He is like his name was was not even credited as the director by that point. There were so many reshoots that like. Why would you even hire Tom McCarthy to do games of Game of Thrones? It just seems so completely out of his wheelhouse. and but like the creators of Game of Thrones have like said I looked up and it was actually our friend Joanna Robinson wrote this article where they're like they talk about that original pilot and they talk about how bad it was and they're just like they are ripping not McCarthy specifically but ripping the episode so like you know they call it a piece of shit and they say that like they took it to Craig Mason and I can't remember who was the other person to like have a look at it and And they were like, there's nothing redeeming about this. And there was 8 billion problems with it, and yada, got, yada.

And then ultimately, the Game of Thrones pilot episode is, like, one of the, like, best done, you know, pilots in recent memory. It's this, like, hugely revered thing. And I feel so terrible. And Tom McCarthy was like, well, I'm probably not going to do TV for a while after this. So Alaska Daily is, like, in many ways, kind of, like, a comeback for him in that regard. But, like, you know, thank God he was able to... It lasted one season. Listen, we take our comebacks the way we can get them.

And the way we get them sometimes is creating semi-doranged shows that only gays make fun of on the internet and no one else watches. Yes, I would guarantee you there are grandparents who watched all of Alaska Daily. Like, I feel like that show, not in big. enough numbers to keep it alive. But I bet you there were people who watched Alaska Daily is what I will say. But I was going to say, it makes me feel all the better

that Spotlight was able to win Best Picture. I know McCarthy didn't win Best Director, but that Spotlight was able to win Best Picture as sort of like a career you know, that like somebody was telling Tom McCarthy that he

did good work again, because, like, that's such a kick in the balls. And to beat a movie like The Revenant, which has a lot of that same sort of, you know, scope and, and large S as something like Game of Thrones. I mean, Spotlight winning. I kind of, and I think I rewatched it within the past year, the, my thing about Spotlight is when people are like, it's such a small movie. And I'm like, I guess, but not really. It's a system movie. It's a movie about a system. It's I think a lot of that, though, comes because it was in an Oscar race where it was up against the Revenant and Mad Max Fury Road. So it's like, compared to those two movies, it really was like this. But like the movies that kept getting compared to like all the presidents men, that's not a small movie. Correct. You could argue all the presidents men is a smaller movie because it's about fewer people. people like sure sure it you know the not that i'm saying all the president's men is a small movie i i always feel like that's a silly moniker for spotlight but spotlight kind of almost

feels like the quintessential preferential ballot best picture winner to me because it's like you kind of look at that lineup and to me it's like well of course spotlight's winning people there's not really people that dislike spotlight you know i mean and maybe that finger quote smallness is the thing that like certain people in the industry might have used against it like it's not big enough to win best picture yeah but then again they're going to say that about half of that best picture ballot anyway what's funny is you bring up the narrative about spotlight that i don't always love which is the um it's a perfect consensus choice. Nobody didn't like it, which is true. But I think that tends to... But there's also people

that loved it. That's the thing. I think that tends to sort of allow people to write off Spotlight as a movie that nobody really loved. And like, I think Spotlight is a, is an incredible movie. It's like a genuinely stunning piece of work and, and a worthy winner of best picture, even though, like, Mad Max Fury Road was a, you know, an accomplishment on a completely other level. And if Mad Max Frieder wrote it won best picture, it would have been good and right. But I am also a person who feels like... It's also maybe too much to ask the Academy to get that. Sure. And I'm also somebody who feels like in any given year, there are a lot of movies that would be the right choice to win best picture. I'm never a person who's like, there's one and only one movie that can win best

picture. Agreed. I'm much more of a person who thinks that there are probably 10 movies that could, you know, that would be, you know, good and right to win best picture. So... And we're probably both both people who, like, if we had a ballot, we would be putting Mad Max Fury Road. Sure, yes. But, like, Spotlight would be a strong top two or three for me. Sure, sure, sure. In fact, hold on. Tom McCarthy, Maker of Good Movies and also The Cobbler and...

I still have never seen The Cobbler because in my mind, if I don't see it, it didn't happen. I do really want to... I'm curious. I'm curious about it. I am curious. It can't be that bad, right? It can't be collateral beauty. Well, but the thing about collateral beauty is it's that bad, so you're really happy.

You're happy you saw it, ultimately. Whereas a movie like the cobbler could be bad in a way where you're just like, well, I regret the two hours that I spent watching that movie. You know what I mean? Yeah. I want to look up and see where Spotlight ranked on my top 10 in 2015. It really is a shame for the cobbler because, like, if there's somewhat, you know, I mean, the, the Adams, Sandler serious actor trademark emblem has been, you know, this thing 20 years in the making or whatever. So it's not like, you know, there's not people who haven't tried. But it does feel like of the people who could maybe do a real bang-up job of giving Adam Sandler, you know, the everyman type of thing. Tom McCarthy's not a bad option. Yeah. You know what's funny is my top 10 for 20. is

forever enshrined because that was the first year that I did the blankies on blank checks so like it is on this one wiki that they have so let me look up what was my top 10 my top 10 that year was oh geez

you know the movie that we haven't talked about at all Carol yeah Carol I was going to say fuck off nothing's beating Carol at my number one All right hold on my top 10 that year were Oh, I underrated Spotlight, and I underrated Mad Max Fury Road. This is a, okay, this is the top 10 that I already am looking at, and I'm like, I mean, maybe that wasn't your actual top 10.

Consider where you were and how Mad Max Fury Road probably didn't need your endorsement. But it was, all right, I'm going to put it in alphabetical order. You can look it up whenever, find the blank pack, blank check wiki, but like, I don't stand by a lot of these. But in alphabetical order, my top 10 that year were Carol, Eden, the, Mia Hanson Love movie, Eden, which I loved and still love. Good movie. In Jackson Heights, the Frederick Weissman movie, that I think is my favorite of the Weissmans and is a perfect top ten movie for me.

The Look of Silence, the Joshua Oppenheimer, follow up to the act of killing, stunning movie. Mad Max Fury Road, Mistress America, what else do I have here, room? which was in my top five. I don't think I would still have it in my top five. Nor would I, but I remember putting it really high. But I liked that movie. Let's see.

Son of Saul, which I had is my, like, higher on this than I would, again, if I made it, even though I really liked Son of Saul. Spotlight, Steve Jobs, and that's it. That's the 10. Steve Jobs is good. If I did this again, my top five of those 10. would absolutely be, in some order, Carol, Spotlight, Mad Max Fury Road, Steve Jobs, and then either Eden or Look of Silence, I think.

That was a good year, 2015. I can't find my list, so, I mean, Carol would be my number one. Just scrolling through my 2015, like, high rankings, Mad Max Fury Road, magical Michael Triple X-L Lori Anderson's Heart of the Dog Oh, I never saw that, but yes Really hit me in a certain place

In my life and heart Tangerine was that there Tangerine would probably make my top ten now I feel like Mustang Mustang, good movie International feature nominee Mustang Mustang

Good movie, yeah Mountains may depart Yep. Oh, my God. I loved mountains made apart. Oh, my goodness gracious. I was also a shy rack defender. I know there's people I really don't like Shyrak. I do. Spy was that year. I really loved Spy. 45 years was that year. It's a solid year. Yeah, I got a... 2015. 2015, I think, is our most discussed year on this podcast because there's so many options. Maybe. Yeah. We did this just recently. We talked about love and mercy. see, 2015. Very true. Very true. All right. I want to go through my notes and see if there's anything that I didn't.

Oh, we talked very briefly about Amy Ryan's John Bon Jovi tattoo in this, which is then followed by a montage set to Bon Jovi's It's My Life, which was one of their later career songs, which I mostly associate with Melinda Doolittle doing. that song on Bon Jovi Week on American Idol. And she, and that was, the thing about Melinda Doolittle, if you, listeners, if you weren't around for the Melinda Doolittle year of American Idol, you really were missing out on like a whole narrative. Her whole thing was, she was a backup singer.

So the narrative for Melinda was, can you step to the front? Can you, you know, that 20 feet from stardom thing, right? Can you step to the front of the stage and be a star in your own right? and she was very shy and she was her personality was very every time she got a compliment it was the whole it wasn't quite taylor swift like shocked face in the audience but it was like really you liked it for me and it's and and and she was so clearly better than every single other person that season and i love jordan sparks and i was happy when jordan sparks one but melinda doolittle was by far the most talented person.

And then so all season, she's singing these very belty songs. She's singing, and not even necessarily belty, but these kind of, you know, very put together. She's singing My Funny Valentine, and she's singing Home from The Whiz and stuff like that. And then we get into Bon Jovi Week, and it's like, how is Melinda Doolittle going to handle Bon Jovi Week? And she gets out there and she does, it's my life. And she kind of like brings the house down with it. And she's, you know, these big vocals and she's, and then I think it was the very next week or one of the next few weeks, she did Nutbush City Limits, the Tina Turner song.

And she fucking slayed that. And again, it was that and all that was just like Melinda sort of like off the chain. And unfortunately, she got eliminated at top three because beatbox. white boy, Blake Lewis, had to make the top two. God. God. It was a classic American Idol case, though, of in the final three, you had two people who occupied a similar box, and one person who had the box all to themselves. And American Idol voting was all about not diluting your support pool. And so Melinda and Jordan were pulling from the same pool of voters, and Blake Lewis had them all of his voters to himself. And that's how he had the top of him to do. And it's also, like, not. diluting your voting block, but also amassing a voting block of tweens? Like, Melinda Doolittle was at a disadvantage because she didn't appeal to a letter. She was an adult, and she seemed like an adult. She was in her 20s, but like she seemed like she was in her 30s. She had like,

she was sort of pre-possessed in a way. And it's kind of, once you're at top three, it's like, who appeals lease to preteens? It's kind of amazing she made it to top three, actually. Like, she was clearly the most talented but like in a show like american idol it's it's you know those prompts every once in a while that like name a thing that you could give an entire hour long ted talk about and like yours is malinda doolittle or like so many of mine could be different little tempest in a teapot things that happened on american idol i could go an hour on the whole sanjaya malacar thing i could go an hour on the whole vote for the worst phenomenon or like so many like it was God, it's, it's, I'm not happy about it, but I'm not ashamed of it either, so here we are, here we are.

I feel like on paper, the American Idol thing that it's like who appeals to tweens, like, this winner did appeal more to tweens, but I cannot explain why, and if you weren't there, you're just not going to get it, but Taylor Hicks winning. is the on-paper break of this rule, because why did Taylor Hicks be Catherine McPhee? It remains one of our great national nightmares, even though she is a Republican. Here's what I will also say, though, is that one of the interesting things about American Idol, as you move through the seasons, is it's a shadow map of cell phone technology and availability through the years, because as cell phones got easier for adults to use, your Taylor Hicks's were, I know Taylor Hicks was the season before Melinda Doolittle, but still, you were seeing more of an influence of, I would say, moms. You know what I mean? I think that era where it was handsome white boys with guitars was, I think, very mom intensive. Not that the tweens wouldn't have loved that. But every year you were like, why isn't this like young girl who would be like so appealing to tweens? succeeding more and it's like well there are now more well it's because the large wasn't like the study done that the largest voting demographic for american idol was like 11 year old white girls in the south i think at one point yes that was definitely true yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

but sometimes the handsome white boys were also very good justice for chris allen okay so um back to win me who beat chris allen no chris ellen won But people wanted to say that Adam Lambert was the rightful winner of that season. Adam Lambert was never going to win because homophobia. Okay. But also, I don't love that because that then puts me in the bucket of homophobia by wanting Chris Allen to be. No, no, no, that's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying there was a zero percent chance of him winning against pretty much anybody.

He would have been competing. But. Also, Adam Lambert was overrated, sorry. But Adam Lambert. also appealed to tween girls because what do tween girls love, it's gay boys who aren't sexually threatening to me whatsoever. You know what I mean? Just like, you know what I mean? Like Adam Lambert was a cartoon character for them and they really loved that. But then again, Chris Allen was also not sexually threatening. But cute as a button, that little one. There you go.

How did we fall this far into an American Idol? Bon Jovi, Bon Jovi, which in my notes I literally did write down as Bob Jovi, which now I feel like is a... Bob Jovi. My name's Bob Jovi. What a great drag king name. Did you know that John Bon Jovi wanted to buy the Buffalo Bills at one point? Would you have died?

Well, no, because the other person who famously wanted to buy the Buffalo bills at one point was Donald Trump. So, that's one of those sliding doors things where, like, one of the last things that Donald Trump tried to do before he decided he was going to run for president was try to buy the Buffalo bills.

And so I've had people say to me, too, it's just like, if you had it in your power to allow Donald Trump to buy the Buffalo Bills in order to spare the country from the Donald Trump presidency, would you have made that sacrifice? And like, on pay, like, yes, I say yes, I would, but it's one of those things where it's like, it's easier for you to say. But, like, then picture me with like my hand hovering over the button and my hand is shaky. and it's like, could I do this? Could I, like, absolutely ruin my beloved football team to save the world? And, like, I would, but again, my hand would be shaking before I did it. So, um, anyway, life's weird. Anybody would doubt you, uh, or would judge you for doing that.

You could just say, listen, I come to you from a different future. Yes. Um, there was a, there was a, there was a, back to win-win for a second, though. There was a Times article about the movie ahead of time. It had a couple quotes that I pulled out, which I thought were really interesting. The one was from Tom McCarthy talking about writing this teenage character, and he said a lot of teenagers I know are like this. They're deadpan, disinterested, but beneath that veneer of coolness, there's a real personality, and you feel lucky if you get to see it.

And I think that's such a good quote because I think it really pertains to the way that he wrote this character. Yeah, 100%. It's a great way to look at I think writing teen characters as an adult is hard because you're sort of fighting through the thicket of your own memories of your own teenage years

which are unreliable and which are subjective and then you look at teens from your perspective as an adult and they're like alien creatures and you like observe them from afar. I don't know if you feel this way but like I feel this way where it's like what are you people like and like every once in a while I'll be like around my younger cousins who are in like teens to early 20s years and every time I end up at like a family party and talking to them I end up being like I'm conducting a survey over the phone where I'm like what are you guys into do you guys go to the movies how do you listen to music what do you guys do in the weekends what's you know what I mean I'm like an anthropologist sort of like what is teenage life like now

And I hope that they don't find me, like, to be incredibly creepy when I do this. But, like, I'm just so curious about, like, what do you do? What do you, like, how do you consume things? What is the, like, and it fascinates me. And so I think writing a teen character as an adult in a very successful way, you almost have to have this attitude that Tom McCarthy has of there's a shell there. There's a wall there. And if you are able to get a peek underneath that, be fortunate.

You know, feel fortunate for that and sort of take from that what you can. And I think it led to him writing a really good character. That or you can be Mavis Garry. True. Like a thief. Like a thief in the night. Yes. The other...

Should have been Diablo Cody's second Oscar. That's true. The other quote, though, from that... original screenplay category blows. Oh, yeah. Read them off. Woody Allen wins for

Midnight in Paris. The artist is somehow everything about the artist. I know. God, God. March and Call is nominated, which is not a bad movie. No, it's not.

But I think it got a... That movie had a successful run for what it was, and it also had a successful VOD life when that was still in its infancy. Yeah. But I don't. think that there is anything

all that exceptional or worthy of an Oscar nomination there. And then the good nominees are bridesmaids, and Asgar Verhattis, a separation. Yes. Yeah, yeah. There's a number of movies that you can absolutely refill this lineup with.

And, like, yeah. We were, we were both. I mean, obviously, you know, the way we discuss Woody Allen now is not entirely the way that we discussed it then, even though we were having those conversations then still too, but we were both the people that were

like, what is the big deal about Midnight and Paris? You felt that way. Yes, and during that era, I would like a lot of those Woody Allen movies. Like, it wasn't every, like, he made a movie every year. Matchpoint's a good movie. I loved Matchpoint. I loved Vicky Christina Barcelona.

Like, there were absolutely movies made in that era that I liked along a whole spectrum of like, liked, to loved, to hated, to whatever. And Midnight and Harris, I never got the appeal beyond, as I've always said, with that many interesting actors playing very quirky characters, Adrian Brody as Dolly, or Tom Hiddleston and Allison Pill as F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Kathy Bates as Bella Abzug? Who was she playing?

Don't remember. Don't remember. But even all of that just felt like bits and the foundation of That movie. Gertrude Stein, not Bella Absa, Gertrude Stearns. Good. Yeah. Yes, I agree. And if you want to award that, then you award those actors. Don't award, like, the movie.

100%. Nominate Corey Stoll for playing Hemingway. Like, that's your nominee. But, no, I think we definitely have the same feeling about Midnight and Paris was not a fan. You could have win-win in this category. You could have young adult in this category. We've talked about this. Obviously, that your Marguerette was not really.

going to happen, but you could have Marguerette in that category. Want to hear my original screenplay nominees from that year? Of course I do. Okay. Okay, it's an incredible category. So, first of all, oh, no, wait, I'm looking at 2015. Hold on. Let me scroll.

Let me scroll. 2011. Original screenplay. Okay. Okay. Abbas Kira Stami for certified copy. Great call. Diablo Cody for young adult. Kenneth Launergan for Marguerette.

Andrew Hay for Weekend. Sean Durkin for Martha Marcy May Marlene. Tom McCarthy is in my top eight. Ashgar Farhadi for a separation is right there at number six. Meek's cutoff is on this list. Contagin is on this list. 50-50 is on this list. Shame.

It's a good list. There's some good ones that could have been nominated there. Can I just get this out there and we can move on hopefully quickly? Because I don't need the masses coming after me. One of my dirty secrets is like, I just... You are good and wonderful to include Andrew Hay in this list. I don't think Weekend. is anywhere near his best movie.

I don't, like, I just, I just don't, that movie does not land with me the way that it seems to land with everyone else. I will say, I don't think there isn't everyone else with Weekend. I remember when Weekend came out, there were a ton of people talking about this, why is, why are people lauding this movie as, you know, finally an authentic gay movie?

This doesn't reflect my gay experience. I don't understand what the big deal about this movie is. I think there was a lot of... I just... I think there was a lot of... I think people go overboard with that movie. I think comparing it to like before sunrise is like... That's giving weekend way too much credit.

Before sunrise is a high bar to clear, I would say. I would not do that. And like, everybody just throws it out there. Like, weekend clears it easily. And I'm like, no, it... I will say, with his new movie... It's a good movie, but it doesn't... With his new movie coming up, I'm really...

interested to go back and re-watch weekend. He's never made a movie I haven't liked. I feel the same. Yeah. I really liked 45 years. I really liked Lean on Pete. I really like looking. I think a lot of people misinterpreted looking.

Because I don't think looking is on that Jonathan Groff's character's side at all. But looking as a television show, it's harder to compare. It's hard to compare a television show to a movie. I think there's just objectives are different. And the, you know, whatever, it's just hard. Well, that's why Andrew Hay is interesting. I feel like the objectives of everything he's made is completely different. Yeah, yeah.

I'm so excited for this new movie of his. I'm really, really, pins and needles, can't wait for it. Okay. Two last things with win-win, unless you have any other. Well, I had one more quote from that Times article that I wanted to mention. Give it to me. We'll give our two things and we'll move on to the IMDB game. Is Alex Schaefer was talking about the wrestling.

scenes in the movie and he at the end just goes I didn't want to see another Vision Quest and I thought that was so funny that like a teenager in 2011 would have been mad about a movie like Vision Quest for not getting the wrestling stuff right

that was very funny to me I liked it a lot. I love that yeah what Madonna songs from Vision Quest crazy for you crazy for you one of my favorite Madonna songs one of her best absolutely totally

Everybody's so lazy when they're like Favorite Madonna song Like a Prayer And it's just like Listen I like A Prayer is my favorite Madonna song But like Crazy for you is up there Those are classics for a reason And people say those for a reason Like crazy for you

I actually think my favorite Madonna song Is Open Your Heart One of the best Too too many divergences in this episode No such thing Chris No such thing I did have one last thing to say looking at Alex Schaefer's acting credits

because I was like, where did he sort of go after this? He was in that movie, The Lifeguard, that Kristen Bell movie that was at Sundance. He was in the Zach Efron movie, We Are Your Friends, the DJ movie, playing a character named Squirrel. And then he was in a movie that I had never really heard before,

except maybe the title sounded a little familiar to me, called Youth in Oregon, which was directed by, that guy from Avatar, Joel David Moore, from Avadaah, starring, so it's Billy Crudeup

driving his 80-year-old father, played by Frank Langela, on a cross-country thing to Oregon where the old man is going to die, essentially. Sort of like is choosing to die. And it's,

but like, it's one of those movies that, like, we joke about, like, movies that don't exist, and it's movies that we actually heard about at one point, but don't exist anymore. This is one of those cadre, like, there's a level of movie that just you didn't happen. You know what I mean? It might as well didn't happen.

You just never heard of it. And then you look at it, and it's like, Joel David Moore, the guy from Avatar, made this movie with, and like, all these people sort of, like, made a movie together. And it's like Billy Crudeup and Frank Langella and Christina Applegate and Mary K. Place and Josh Lucas and Alex Schaefer. That's what I sort of, because like thinking about it from the Alex Schaefer P.O.V. It's like, I'm Alex Schaefer. I have this experience where I'm making this movie with like Mary Kay Place and Marianne Plunkett and Christina Applegate and Billy Crudeup.

And everybody just sort of like makes this small little movie and you have this small little experience with these people. and then you make this movie and it doesn't really come to much and it's like it doesn't matter to us but I imagine for a kid like that like Alex Schaefer that's a really like that's an experience you know what I mean?

That's like I don't know every once in a while I sort of think about that and like the process of making movies and a lot of times I'm sure it's like a lot more like you know compartmentalized and bite sized and whatever than this but especially I think about that especially when I think of like little indie movies

like this and like like I don't know it's it's it's interesting I don't know I don't know why that that you know hit me but well it can still be if you're the creator of something it can still be the experience for you

and you can have creative growth through that process right it's just maybe I mean you probably don't get the that just for and just the experience of making it just the actual like time spent with these other sort of you know creative people And Lord knows, like, who knows? Maybe it was this hellish experience where, like, Frank Langella, like, yelled at everybody for two weeks. But, like, I don't know.

Conceivable. Conceivable. Right. Yes. But, you know. Quietly canceled Frank Langella. Yes. Okay.

All right. What were your final thoughts before we move on? Win Win. Win was a National Border of Review top 10 independent films of 2011. The others were 50-50. Another Earth. Joe reads, uh... Like 11.

Standum continues. unabated for Britt Marling. Yes. Her TV show got pushed back a month, and I was like... I was going to say, where is Britt Marling? She's making a TV show for FX. I feel like you would be on the case. That was supposed to be coming in September, and it is now coming in November.

And I'm excited for it. Pushed back because of the AMPTP's inability to pay fair wages. Just for fuck's sake, just pay people and give us our entertainment industry back. I don't know. Exactly. Also, in the NBR, top 10 independent films, Beginners. A Better Life, which would go on to get Damien Bashir, his best actor nomination. Cedar Rapids, also a Fox Searchlight movie.

Margin Call, Shame, Take Shelter, and we need to talk about Kevin. More importantly, Win Win was an M4G's best movie for grown-up nominee. And I would say, I know you will disagree. Uh, the rightful winner of the category. The winner was the descendants, also nominated the artist. This is Best Movie for Grownups, right? This is the top category. Best movie for grownups.

Uh, extremely loud and incredibly close. Midnight in Paris and Warhorse. That's a very Oscar, uh, overlapy best, best film category. Uh, win win is there. We're cool too. Yes. Uh, yeah, for me, Warhorse wins that one easily, as it should have won the Oscar easily. and, um, yeah.

We, uh, we've been saying that, you know, original screenplay is how the movie, uh, really stayed in the race, uh, despite mostly talking about Paul Giamatti. But, uh, we should mention that win-win was nominated for original screenplay at critics choice, indie spirits, and the writers' guild. The Writers Guild nomination is a, is a biggie for that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, because, you know, writers guild nominations, somewhat you can take, not with a grain of salt. There's a lot of things that are ineligible for writers' guild.

Because of, you know, guild membership or, you know, not written in the way that the guild says has to be written for eligibility, et cetera. But it makes it an more interesting signpost on the award season route, too, because... It gives you usually a sense of, okay, well, these are the movies that are right outside of a nomination. And we love getting those little windows during award season. Yeah. And I remember from this lineup because Bridesmaids was nominated for this, and this is when, you know, people are really beating the drum for Bridesmaids to be an Oscar nominee. And, you know, a lot of skepticism towards that being possible. This definitely put some wind in the sales of that. And Bridesmaid is eventually an Oscar nominee. Indeed. Deservedly so. Deservedly so. Yes.

Joe, should we move on to the IMDB game? Let's do it. Would you like to tell our listeners what the IMD game is? I suppose I could. I could tell them that every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game. I could go further and say that the IMDB game is a game where we challenge each other with the name of an actor or actress, and we try and guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for. If any of those titles are television roles, voice-only performances, or non-acting credits, we mention that up front. After one of us gets two wrong guesses, they will get the remaining titles release years as a clue. and if that is not enough, it just becomes a free for all of hints.

IMDB game. You, sir. Yes. Are you giving or guessing first? In your estimation, do I tend to give or guess first most often? You know, enterprising listeners, feel free to tally. Do not ask somebody to tally all of these. My God, it's so many episodes.

Moving forward. See if you notice any trends. because I don't want to track that. You probably don't want to track that either, but... All right. So what I did was went into the... You're giving first, you're saying. Oh, sorry, yes, I am giving first.

My bad. I already moved on in my head, as I tend to do. Okay, so I went into the filmography of Tom McCarthy, and I went into his various movies. and the casts of those movies, and one of those movies was, sorry, one second as I'm scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, and I'm trying to make sure that I'm getting the path to this one right. I thought I had pulled this up, and I had not...

Oh, it's because I pulled it up on my laptop. That's why we can cut all this out. It's totally fine. Yauza. Yauza, indeed. Okay, so 2007's The Visitor. a good Tom McCarthy movie one we didn't really talk about very much

one of the stars of that movie though not the main star but one of the supporting performers and that is my beloved character actor Richard Kind Richard Kind has a known for with two voice performances I thought you were going to say Heumabuss and then I was going to get to do that

we're getting her a taxi to go to the subway to go back to her little to their little apartment. I mean, truly, I think that that is the most gag-worthy line of the entirety of Succession. That final season of Succession had like five lines like that, though, because the other one... Just like total, like, side-swiping lines. The ludicrously capacious bag line, the taxi, the taxi to her... The taxi to the subway to her tiny apartment.

Yeah. The ludicrously capacious bag thing, though, is like... There's three follow-up lines that are even funnier. When you talked about, like, it looks like she's going to slide it across the floor as part of a bank heist. I'm telling you, like, I already have to re-watch the entirety of success. I know. I know that people are annoyed, and we do need to actually move on. Guess what we can't, because the Emmys aren't until January.

In the lead up to the finale, I watched a lot of the early season episodes to do, like, a bunch of retrospectives. And, like, those, it's so funny. All right, I know I sound obnoxious when I say this, but I'm just going to say it. So many people were not in on succession in the first season and then pretend like that never happened. And I was in that, I was in on that show from the beginning. And there were people who were like, well, it got better in the second season. That's why, you know, and like justifying why they didn't. And here's what I'm going to tell you.

After watching that show again, that show was good from the jump. That show was so good in its first season. And people who say that it only got good in its second season are trying to justify the fact that they were not on board early, is all I will say. That's all I will say. I wasn't on board early, and I agree with you. Thank you. Richard Kind. I love Richard Kind.

Richard Kind's two voice performances. Okay. Bing Bong, or whatever it's called, InSense. Inside Out. Yeah, inside out. Yep. He played thing. Richard Kind is just one of those people who are so monolithic that it's just, like, saying

their name in the context of this game immediately sends you into the white space. Yes. It's like, they are just the monolith. Yeah. They don't exist for any one thing ever. Sure. It's just the monolith. Sure.

Yep. I know what you mean. That being said, I got one. You take it one. Yes. The second one, I mean, the, I mean, the. The tricky thing about Richard Kind is a voice performance is not going to help narrow it down like it would normally for people. Because Richard Kind, it could just as easily be like The Simpsons for a voice performance.

It's not, it's a film. It's not a television, I will say. It's a voice. There's no television. There's no television. That's a little weird. I know I'm just, you, you're fine. to be this mean to me, because, like...

You've been mean recently. You've been... And I'm being very... I'm being very gentle to you today, so... Okay. Feel guilty about that. What's the other voice performance? There's...

I mean, like, it's Anna... I feel like he's done other Pixar, besides Inside Out. No. No. Richard kind I'm guessing Beau is not Bo is afraid is not on there

I'm trying to think of recent things I'm also trying to think of just like comedies but like he's such a character actor Yeah He works a lot is the thing A lot How many credits does he

have for 2023 already. Oh, gosh, let me look. Including upcoming? I'm willing to bet there's at least five. He's been in a Coens, right? What Coens was he in? Okay, including TV stuff, it's 14 credits in 2023.

Jesus Christ. This is why I can't name. anything because if there's one thing there's a million things um okay i will i'm gonna try to get this animated okay yes and i don't feel like they Pixar would reuse him in something like that but it it does also seem possible that he's in like Monsters Inc. Or Finding Nemo? Finding Nemo?

Not Finding Nemo. Okay. I almost just want my years so I can start getting hints. Fine. I'll say Bo's Afraid. No, not Boas Afraid. Okay. So your years are 1998, 2009, and 2012.

Which one's the animated? 1998. Is that Pocahontas? No, that was like 95. Oh, okay 98 is like... Pocahontas, you got to go back to England

with John Smith. He plays like, I don't know, a B. 98 is that... Grandmother Willow. A bug's life? Is it a bug's life? It's a bug's life. Yes. It's a bug's life. Did you ever see John Mullaney

and the Sacklunch Bunch on Netflix? No. No. I'm... It's not always easy to predict your taste. I think you would really love John Mullaney and the sack lunch bunch. It's, the kids in it are so funny and, like, natural and naturally performative. But so there's-

When I shit on theater camp and you were like, the good stuff about that movie is also the good stuff, is also why you would like John Mullaney. That was the pause that made me be like, okay, maybe I would like that. So Richard Kind is in a segment called Girl Talk with Richard Kind. And it's Richard Kind And three of these Three of these girls And it's just

And he's just chatting with them Okay, girl talk I'm here for you I'm an open book So ask me anything Girl Talk, go ahead Actually, who did you play

In a bug's life? In a bug's life? Yeah Oh, I was I was Malt But you won't remember the name But I was Remember the angry grasshopper?

I was his brother Really? his life as an actor, and, like, one of the things that's interesting is you work on a production and you get really close with all these people, and then you never work with them again. And it's just like, and it's just like, and it's this weird thing. And they're like, no, I think I would, if I'm in something with them, I'm going to be friends with those people forever. And it's like, you say that now, but you're a kid, you know, you grow up, you're an adult and you work on something and then you leave it behind. and so at the one point he just goes he's talking about the movies that they might have seen him in

and he goes oh you know what you might have seen is a bug's life you know a bug's life and they're like yeah and he goes you know the bad guy in a bug's life and they're like oh my god and he just goes I played his brother it's just it's it's one of one of many highlights of John Mullaney on the sack lunch much but anyway yes he played is molt in a bug's life.

All right. So you're two... This is also part of the reason why Richard Kind is so difficult for this, because Richard Kind is Richard Kind. Like, Richard Kind is not a character in anything. Richard Kind is Richard Kind. So your two missing ones, or live action ones,

2009, 2012, I will say, if you want more hints, both Best Picture nominees. Okay, well, that makes sense for the game. So 2009, he's not an avatar, but God, I wish he was. Jake Sullivan! Natieri's in trouble

I don't know why my Richard kind is just yelling Richard he's not in that he's not in not in the hurt locker not in precious not in the blind side possibly in education As soon as you land on it it's going to be like

duh because it's the most Richard kind of all of the 2009 nominees is it a serious man it's a serious man yes yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah masterpiece a serious man and then 2012 is like one of those years that i can never place because after the artist it is so jean du darjean gives an oscar to jennifer lawrence so it's the silver lining here. Is he in silver linings? Not in silver linens. I didn't think so. No. So that's

Jennifer Lawrence and he's not in a moor. No, my God. He's their neighbor in a more. Playing Uperr's husband or something in a war.

Okay, what are, not in Beasts of the Southern Wild. Put a pin in Argo, possibly. Argo? Argo. He's in Argo. That's not.

He's one of eight billion people. Like, I know that I struggled to get, like, Richard Kindin anything. But, like, I don't, no one's thinking of that man for Argo. And he's got to be, like, 12th build at best in Argo. It's got to be, like, 14th, 19th built in Argo. Let me check. And hopefully it's not billed alphabetically. let's see

I have to pull up Richard Kind just to like pay my respects to the legend because I did so poorly but you understand I'm right when I say that Richard Kind is about as difficult as you can get to this because like

18th build in Fargo you said Fargo Argo, sorry he plays the snow but like you I'm not wrong when I say you don't necessarily think of Richard Kine for certain roles. You think of Richard Kine, being Richard Kine, being the legend that he is. And that's no...

Which is why you should watch John Malaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch because he's playing... He doesn't make memorable characters, but like Richard Kine can conceivably show up in anything, even if it's Avatar. This is why you should watch Sack Lunch Bunch because he plays himself. And he's playing Richard Kine. Yes, okay. You did well, considering. That was a tough one. I mean, I think that took me a good 15 minutes, so I don't know about that. For you, however, I have also gone to the well of Tom McCarthy performers, including one who was Oscar nominated for one of his movies. For you, I have chosen Rachel McAdams.

Oh. Have we not done Rachel McAdams? Apparently not. All right. The notebook. The notebook, correct. Mean girls. Mean girls, correct.

Spotlight. Incorrect. Her Oscar nomination is not in her known for. What's interesting is like it felt like an era that is now over, but it was weird we were ever in that place to begin with that, like, in talking about Rachel McAdams being great, it took a while to get mean girls on that level for some reason. Yes. Maybe because mean girls is way more monoculture than it was like 10 years ago where it was like girls and gays loving it. But now, you know, mean girls is true monoculture. Yes, I think so.

I think the fact that it's in that god-awful regal quotes promo at the beginning of regal movies is a sign that it's like one of those monoculture movies. Because that ad only has quotes from monoculture movies. I haven't seen it. Rachel McAdams. What's that? I haven't seen it because I don't have a regal. You're fine. I miss AMC so bad.

Okay. I hate A.C. I only have bad experience at AMC's. Oh, I love AMC. Red Eye. Red Eye, correct. I thought that would be more difficult. Um, and it's got to be another one that she's the lead in.

Oh. I bet you it's that one, Nicola. Sparks. What was her Nicholas Sparks movie? The Notebook? Oh, no. There's another one that I'm thinking of. Maybe it's not Nicholas Sparks. Maybe it's a knockoff. The one with Channing Tatum, where you see his butt a lot, and she has amnesia. The vow.

The vow. Is it the vow? Hold on. I need to double check if the vow is a Nicholas Sparks. At least not credited on IMPDB. It is not the vow. Oh, my God. So it's a total knockoff Nicholas Sparks. Okay. Exactly. your year is 2009 2009 Rachel McAdams

So it's not Midnight in Paris Thank goodness That movie So mean to her Um 2009 What is she doing

In 2009? That's before about time Is it like an obvious thing that I'm totally missing? No. Is she the lead? She is probably third build. Okay.

Third build. Rachel McAdams, 2009. This is one of the times that we were like, how dare we not find a better vehicle for Rachel McAdams than this? But this is maybe also in a downward moment for Rachel McAdams for Rachel McAdams' career. It's not the one where she's like the war veteran who comes home. No, that's the lucky ones.

The lucky ones, right. If I recall correctly, Tiff Gala, the lucky one. Oh, you know what this is? It's going to make me mad, right? It's one of those ones that makes me mad. It's Sherlock Holmes. It's Sherlock Holmes. God damn it.

She deserved so much better. She deserves better than that being in her known for. She deserves better than having to be in that movie instead of something that would give her something. See, this is exactly what I was saying, and we still feel this way. Listen, this year, any awards body that wants to recognize her wonderful performance in, Are You There, God, it's me, Margaret. Supporting actress campaign.

Make it happen. Would be doing a good thing. I really thought that that would be the movie that the most annoying people online wouldn't shut up about this year, and it's not. Thank God. because this movie deserves better than annoying people. One of these days, we're going to do, that'll be a Patreon exclusive episode. I want to explore your notion of the most annoying people online

because I feel like it's an expansive definition. I feel like I don't have like a list of those people. It's just you see the things that, not a list, but like the types of people. And sometimes you see, it's just like, ugh. It's just like, ugh. Like, annoying. And it's especially annoying when,

the annoying people latch on to something that's good. Okay. Okay. This is just like, this is not pointed in any way. This is like anthropological. Do the people who are still in late August making, um, my job is beach, uh, jokes. Um, are they some of the most annoying people? Or the she's blank, he's just blank, like Barbie template, like, Barbie template, like.

I mean I mean like I hate prompt tweets but everybody follows prompt tweets They're not prompt tweets though They're just memes They're just people making the same fucking joke Funny is like someone being like His job is just beach to something

Two years from now When it's like everybody remembers this Everybody remembers making those jokes And then getting annoyed by those jokes And then two years later Here's someone making that old joke. That is funny to me.

Sure. But, like, I'm talking about somebody who, like, made that joke, like, yesterday. No, that's, that's not a super annoying person. It's just, it's, you know. Like, this, this Ken's job is, you know, impeachment. You know, I don't know. No, that's just, that's, that's like, that's just like a joke's lifespan once it hits Facebook, you know.

Fascinating. It's fascinating that you're not bothered by those people. Sometimes people just, they just, you know, things might just be stale. Staleness is annoying. I'm going to figure out what annoys you on Twitter. It's a project of mine. Okay. Are we done?

I think we're done. That is our win-in episode. Listeners, Joe and I at the current airing, are wrapping up our time at the Toronto International Film Festival. We'll have our TIF episode for you next week, but if you want to see any of our right reactions, we're going to tell you where to follow us. But for now, that's our episode. If you want more, This Had Oscar Buzz. You can check out the Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz.com. You can also follow us on Twitter at had underscore Oscar buzz and on Instagram at This Had Oscar Buzz.

And now on our Patreon at patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz. Joe, where can the listeners find you to see any of those TIF reactions? Twitter and Letterboxed. I will be doing letterboxed reactions to some degree. Probably not in depth, but in some way. I don't like doing immediate reactions that much anymore, but yeah. But I got to log it. We've talked about this.

We talked about this, I think, in the Patreon, maybe. Yeah, Twitter and Letterboxed at Joe Reed. Read spelled R-E-I-D. I am also on Twitter and Letterbox at Chris V. file. That's F-E-I-L. We would like to thank Taylor Cole for our theme music, Kyle Cummings, for his fantastic artwork, and Dave Gonzalez and Kevin Medias for their technical guidance. Please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts. Google Play Stitcher. Well, not Stitcher anymore. Stitcher's dying. We'll take that out of the copy.

Wherever else you get those podcasts, though. And a five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcast visibility. So show off your J-B-J tattoos with a review. I guess. That's all for this week. We hope you'll be back next week for more. Bye.