This Had Oscar Buzz - 259 – Ammonite (with Christina Tucker!)

Episode Date: October 16, 2023

After Francis Lee’s celebrated queer debut God’s Own Country, the director leveled up with another gay romance Ammonite, this time with Oscar-pedigreed stars. Kate Winslet stars as 19th century paleontologist Mary Anning opposite Saoirse Ronan as Charlotte Murchison; the two develop a seaside romance of opposites between the gruff Anning and the unfulfilled Murchison. But Lee’s follow-up, … Continue reading "259 – Ammonite (with Christina Tucker!)"

Oh-oh, wrong house. No, the right house. We want to talk to Marilyn Hack, Maryland Hack and French. I'm from Canada water. Dick Pooh. I've often heard your reputation discussed in the Geographical Society in London. Is there something you wanted, sir? My wife, she hasn't been at all well of late.

She suffers from melancholia. I want her to walk the shoreline with you, learn from you. I'm not looking for an apprentice. I would pay a premium for a private audience. It's not easy work. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that gets to use gargantuan in a sentence. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we're here to perform the autism.

Topsy. I'm your host, Joe Reed. I'm here, as always, with my precious fossil. Chris File. Hello, Chris. I am but a fossil preserved in fish shit. You are on the beach off the Dorset Coast, waiting to be found by a woman who knows bones, but not the human heart. Whatever gets me into the palm of James McArdle. Truly, whoever will fit you under the stovepipe hat of James McArdle. as he's walking down the beach. He was keeping Sersha in there. Yes, this is true.

Tiny little Sershia underneath his stove-fipat. Let's not dilly dally any longer here among the fossils, Chris. We have a guest to welcome. So I am incredibly excited, as I'm sure are you, one of our favorites. Co-host of Wait Is This Date. Christina Tucker, welcome back to this at Oscar Buzz. Hello, my fossilized friends. I'm thrilled to see you.

I'm so happy to be here. to talk coasts and fish shit. Famously of the episodes on Divine Secrets of the sisterhood and stepmom, there's one I'm forgetting, right? Stepmom was your first. No, yeah. We are going to, you know, intentionally misremember this episode. We are going to pretend that it is set in Westchester. Yes.

On the banks of the Hudson River did. As is my culture, yes. Everybody knows that Mary Anning found those fossils on the banks of the Hudson near, somewhere up near Hastings or something like that. And yeah, yeah. She lived in the house from stepmom. Life has forced us to kind of charge forward with the months episodes ahead. So we gave you a list of titles to come and join us on rather than getting to pick.

But we will return to Westchester soon. I'm always emotionally there. And I'm thrilled to be doing, you know, something from this. decade with y'all. That's a new fun thing. That is a new fun thing. Very much of this decade. This is, and I'm sure we'll talk about it at length. This to me is one of the defining pandemic shut in year 2020 movies. Like this always sort of is like the art house example of like what was life like as we were all locked up in the 2020s? And I'm like, well, none of us could see ammonite. And we all sort of vaguely held out hope that it could be an Oscar contender. Christina, give us the lowdown

on why Ammonite was your choice to talk about this week. Well, I eyeballed the selection that Chris so kindly provided, and I said, some of these I can't do because I'm too scared for things. And then I said, but the sea? I love the sea. I love old ladies sleeping with younger women, huge fan of that, should be happening to me more, but we'll deal with that. It's fine. I'm not jealous. It's fine. It's fine. And I said, yeah, we got to talk about the coast. Like, it just felt coastal. It felt correct to be coast. Very coastal. I think the trick for us to get this to be happening more in your life is we need to take you to a seaside town and find you a fossil lady. Yeah. I think that's right. I think I have to leave my house kind of end of list. I never went

outside. Could happen. I just spent a week in Massachusetts staying on a house that is literally on the water in north of Cape Cod. And it was a very chilly week. It was one of those like low 60s, rain more than half of the time. Like the sun did not peek out for us. And literally like at high tide, the water comes right up to like the rock, whatever, the, the sea wall right at the foot of the lawn of this place. So literally, I was such in my glory, I would walk out with a little mug and cross my arms and look out at the sea as it was like lapping up against the rocks. And I'm like, I am a character in one of these sort of windswept coastal British, like, clearly I'm somewhere in Dover. or somewhere in, you know, Cornwall or something like that

or here on the Dorsick Coast. He spent an entire week in a cream turtleneck. Truly, like 100%. I was like, this is, I was a Judy Dench character in Newfoundland or something. Like something was happening there. It was wonderful. Highly recommend.

There was great personal turmoil. You had to really take in the sea. And also reflect on who you are and who you have. The other thing is, so there were two of those, like, little Adirondack chairs, which, like, I love in theory, but hate for me. Like, I love to look at Adirondack chairs, but I'm like, that is a trap from which I shall not emerge if I try to go sit down in an Adirondack chair. Like, I'm just going to, like, I'll never get up from one. But they're low. They're low. They're low to the ground. Um, but underneath the little,

like, it's one of those Adirondack chairs that also has, like, the little footrest that you can just sort of like to turn it into like a quasi-chaise. So you're really not getting out of it. And so huddled underneath that foot portion was a, was a little bunny rabbit that was literally just like two feet from where the high tide meets the water. And I was like, okay, this is adorable. And it's just sort of like little like huddled under there, not hurting anybody. I like, I literally like lifted up the chair to make sure it wasn't stuck.

And it just like didn't go anywhere. And I'm like, oh, so you're where you need to be. at one point it moved from the one chair to the other chair. So it's like, oh, so this is just like where you're... And I'm like, again, if I'm in a movie, this is my emotional metaphor animal that I will spend the week talking to and like, and trying to get it to do something that like metaphorically, symbolically fits into whatever crisis I'm having in my life. Like, this truly did have everything. So, yeah. And then one day you go out to look at your bun.

It's gone. It's gone. It's time for you to move on. Was it ever there? Yes, exactly. Exactly. I'm saying. I'm saying an animal metaphor.

Did you name the bunny Sersha? I could have. I really, I truly could have. Could have named the bunny Ammonite. Going into this movie did not know what Ammonite was. I was open. I guess I did kind of. Like when they explained it, I was like, yeah, I know what that is.

I just guess I didn't know the specific word. Like I imagine. it was like a type of stone or something like that. I didn't know it was like specifically like a fossil type. So like that's cool. I imagine the two weeks that it was in theaters, people who did show up to go see it might not have even known. The most. Considering that everything that was actually in theaters at the time was like Liam Neeson on a gun rampage movie and like the road rage Russell Crow movie. I'm sure they were a lot of red state men that showed up thinking it was ammo night like night for boys. it's that's the that's the great irony right is it opens in the fall of 2020 when the only places that like had anything open were your red state not going to listen to guidance we're going to open everything whatever and all of those places were treated to ammonites and and truly i hope they they had some i hope one lady in nebraska had her whole life changed by wandering into movie theater and seeing Ammonite and being like, oh, oh, I feel things. So, yeah. This is a movie about people realizing that they feel things, and that's awesome, and I love that. And you know, realizing that just because you feel things doesn't mean you need to change your

whole life for it, too. Also true. This is about women in STEM, and sometimes that they don't need to, they don't need to change their career paths for the hot young things. who comes wayfishly coughing down the lane to her front doorstep. It's an interesting little movie, I will say. I'm glad I saw it finally. I've been sort of saving it for this movie. I do. I understand why people don't.

People really, I feel like people maybe didn't give this movie a fair shot to, because when they first saw it, it was so deep in the pandemic, and it was just like, I think not only was it like pandemic vibes that you know were not was not a friendly environment for this movie no matter how you saw it but also

it's coming on the backs of especially for like lesbian dramas Carol and Portrait of a Lady on Fire two movies that it really does not compare favorably to qualitatively but also just like a movie that's

doing something different I mean you could kind of It's just got, yeah, I don't know. It has all of the, like, things that we make fun of lesbian films we're having. It's, like, old-timey. It's silent, basically. There's, like, you know, it's, everybody's drab. There's longing glances.

It was just, like, yeah, if someone was to, like, generate what they thought a plot, like, a lesbian movie plot would be, like, it would be this. There was an SNL sketch about this. Like, like, it's the, it's the, it's the movie that earned the least money to have inspired an SNL sketch and it's basically just like about like lesbian drama and it's sort of also about Portrait of a Lady on Fire but it was like right after Ammonite came out

so it was like it was kind of amazing that a movie so small could inspire such a mainstream response to it but they do kind of nail it in that and but the other thing is it makes its world premiere at the Ghost Toronto Film Festival of 2020 where it was like

hardly anybody was there there there were only like 10 gala presentations and they were like it was this it was nomad land which like did really well but like nomad land is like sad isolated francis mcdormand and it's pieces of a woman which is Vanessa kirby dealing with a lost pregnancy and it's good joe bell which is about like gay suicide and it's whatever the mind to show all those movies they did show it in theaters to like 50 people because that was the max capacity that you could have right But, like, to show Ammonite, the world premiere of Ammonite at Tiff was like a drive-in. So people are seeing this movie as a drive-in experience. This is not a drive-in movie. This is not, there's not enough sound. And it just, no, that's true.

That's true. Everybody would be yelling, being like, I don't think my sound is on. And it's like, no, it's on. It's fine. Oh, listen, you can hear those waves crashing. You can hear them. But it like, it epitomizes. Anybody who wanted to write a story about like, wow, this is a bummer of a TIF.

All they would do is like start with Ammonite because like that's, it stereotypically sort of fits the vibe. It was like, aside from Nomad Land, one of the big tickets. The other big ticket was one night in Miami, which people liked, but it was like day one of that festival. And then Ammonite, which Neon was very cagey about sending out screeners for it during that festival. Because I had press access to that festival and I don't think. that's when I saw this movie. No, they were being very cages. And it's because Francis Lee was very anti, like, people seeing this movie on a screener.

And it's like, I don't know if you've seen this program called The News, sir, but that's how people are going to see your movie. I mean, I sympathized with filmmakers to a put where it's just like, if I'm Francis Lee, I know that my movie isn't going to go over as well on, you know, a screener or whatever than it is. If people are, you know, in a theater where they have to pay. attention to it. Like, attention spans are going to wander if you watch Ammonite on a screener. So I get it. I get, like, I'm still the person who's like, I got it with what Christopher Nolan was doing with Tenet.

But, like, there are, like, circumstances do be extreme in this, in this whole situation. So, yeah. I did wish I had seen, like, I'd put eyes on this in a theater. I think mostly do the attention, because it is just so quiet. it and so dialogue-less, especially in the beginning, that I was like, eyes up, girl, eyes on the screen. Stay looking at it. You can do it.

Gemma Jones is looking at figurines in a way that is important to something. Like, you need to catch this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She is coughing and looking at figurines. That's what she's doing. That's another lesbian film subplot. There's figurines somewhere in the movie. Yeah.

I think it's also, like, that lack of dialogue and, like, you know, things happening on screen is Kate Winslet playing this very introverted character who is not very sociable and communicative, and she, most of her dialogue is her, you know, gruffly casting someone away. Right, right, turning somebody away from her, uh, ostensible shop. Like, she is sort of selling things out of there to make it. me, but she does not want any customers. It seems to be never, ever open, ever. It's just constantly closed. It's true. Again, not to keep bringing up my coastal vacation, but I walked into one of those as a coffee shop where people seemed actively hostile to the idea of me buying anything,

where they were just like, we don't have that. I can't remember what, oh, we're looking for something specifically, some sort of like, whatever, like fancy food item, you know what I mean, that we could bring uh home oh fudge we were of course we were looking for fudge we're in a vacation town of course we're looking for fudge and they were like nope we don't and it's just like well do you have any other and it's just like we don't have that and it's like well try upsell us then lady like jesus christ i don't know send us out of here with a coffee seriously chocolate covered fucking espresso beans or something for god's sake um anyway get out yeah exactly essentially yeah they were very hostile to uh

to the concept of making money, which, as was, uh, I, it's her, I keep wanting to call her Mary Amonite because her name is Mary Anning. And so like every single time, I'm going to end up calling her Mary Ammonite, like at least a few times. Mayor of Amonite. No. No. That would have been, that came like the very next year, right? Mayor of East Town was 2021. Yeah, yeah. I think so, yeah. So this kind of prepared us for, you know, another hard-bitten character

in a gruff town, I don't know. Two Winslet performances that I think are among her best. Even though this movie doesn't give her that much interesting to do, I do think this is a really good performance. I do too. I think she's good. I just, I needed like a scoch more from something.

I haven't quite figured out what I needed a scooch more from. Yeah. But I just, like, that much. I'm intrigued to talk about Francis Lee when we do because I was, I'd like to see God's Own Country again and have a little bit less of a chip on my shoulder about it. I was so caught up in the sort of, um, hipsterism of the people who were like, God's Own Country is better than call me by your name because they fuck. They for real fuck in that movie.

And it's like, all right, like, there was a lot of posturing. The people who thought God's Own Country was better purely by the fact that you see Dick in that movie. That you see, right. There was a lot of posturing among, I will say, the gay male community with regards to God's own country. Posturing in the gay male community? No, unheard of. Unheard of. I take it back.

Get out of here. I take it back. How dare I? No, the reason why God's own country was, I would not say the better movie, but like, if you're going to single it out for anything, it's that he takes the baby goat or the baby sheep and then makes a little baby sheet coat out of it and puts it on the other little baby sheep. that is true that could have happened in ammonite yeah yeah just putting fossils on putting putting little little coats on fossils i could see her doing that i could see mary amonite doing that putting little coats on fossils she loved her fossils she would not leave her fossils right listen she spurned the uh nicely appointed Airbnb guest room inside search's uh London home for

for wanting to go back and be with her fossils so what do we think about the end of this movie. We do like to skip to the end right at the beginning of our podcast. So, Christina, we welcome you into this practice of ours. Yeah. Where do you think things go?

If you were to guess, I know the whole idea is that we don't know and it leaves us on. I know, and like, of course, history, these are real people. Right. But where do you imagine that after the camera cuts off

and they're glancing at each other crossed a museum exhibit or whatever? Does she go back to her coast and her fossils? Nothing hotter than looking at someone that you've had sex with over your own work and accomplishments. So I can see them having sex again, but I still feel like Mary's hitting the skids and she's returning back to the coast. She doesn't belong in the city. She's too weird. She's too awkward.

Yeah, can you imagine her? She certainly doesn't belong as a possession, which is immediately what Charlotte does. She's just like, I've made up this whole. room for you the room is pink by the way which is just like she doesn't want a pink room she's gonna dress her in the clothes that she bought she's yeah yeah she's like you can just stay here which is like in a way i feel like this ending is the kind of kind of an answer to carroll which like the thing that's kind of interesting about carol is that it's like well at that point at least in american society these women who are in love with each other

could exist somewhat in plain sight because of the strictures of patriarchy are like, well, yes, if they live together, you would just think that they're spinsters, even if they're lovers. Or people would assume that. And like the answer to this is like, well, yes, they could just assume

that Mary Ammonite is a spinster who lives with her friend and her husband. Her friend who imported her from the coast to come live here with her. Yes, but then, like, what would she have to sacrifice of herself of that, you know? Like, the kind of questions of all of these different societal things that would keep these people apart. But then about, what about the base level thing of your ability to still be your own person? Yeah.

In a relationship. Living every day with that housekeeper scowling at her all day? Like, that's no way to live. No way to live. What is her name, Anne? Oh, that's just Anne. Okay. Well, Anne looks like she wants to, like, throw holy water on me, so maybe I don't want to talk to hand.

She tried to send her directly to the maids' entrance. She did. Out of here, please. You look poor as hell. Like, damn. By the looks of your unibrow, you belong at the servants' entrance around back. It's like, okay, all right. There was some brow work.

I will say, between this and portrait of the lady on fire back to back, the dominant characteristic of hot lady love stories in the late 20 teens was prominent eyebrow action. Like it was happening. Yeah. A bold

brows back in. We're going for it. We're into it. We're very much into it. I love it. Chris, before we move on too much farther, I'm going to ask you to give the plug for the Patreon because my voice needs some rest after.

Listen, listen, uh, we are here to help each other. Thank you, my friend. Uh, hopefully by now, you know that our Patreon has launched. Uh, we're calling it This Had Oscar Buzz Turbulent Brilliance. For $5 a month, you're going to get two bonus episodes every month. The first of those comes out on the first of the month, and we call those exceptions. These are movies that really fit the This Had Oscar Buzz rubric, but managed to get a nomination or two. We've talked about movies like nine, Pleasantville.

We did our first Patreon listeners' choice episode, and they went with The Lovely Bones. Sure did. So check those out. Ammonite could have been called The Lovely Bones, by the way. It really could have another search of vehicle. And then the second bonus episode every month comes on the 15th of every month. It is called an excursion. It's basically a deep dive into this had Oscar Buzz lore, our own fast,

nations. We've done an episode on an actress roundtable. We've done my experience at Magic Mike live. We're about to have a patron-only mailbag. Actually, that should be live by the time people are listening to this, I would imagine. Yes. I think it would have come out the day before. So listeners, after you're done with this, if you haven't listened to the mailbag, go back and listen to that. Yeah. You can sign up at patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz. We will see you there. Thank you. Now that that's out of the way, Christina, we are going to invite you to give a 60-second summary of the film Ammonite. Oh, it's so hard.

So much happens. Truly, truly, how are you going to pull it off? Chris, prepare the stopwatch while I read down the particular... I've chiseled it out of some granite. The sundial. I have an ancient sun dial. with which I will be keeping... Fantastic.

...time. We're talking about the 2020 film Ammonite, written and directed by Francis Lee, starring Kate Winslet, Sertia Ronan, Gemma Jones, Alec Sikarano, we're going to say, from God's Own Country, Sikorino, Fiona Shaw. We've got to talk about that doctor, by the way. We'll get to it. Hot to Trot, baby. Hot to Trot, Yauza.

Fiona Shaw, James McArdle, the aforementioned. James McArdle Stove by Pat and the film premiered at the sad, sad ghost Toronto International Film Festival on September 11th, 2020 then enjoyed an incredibly limited release, although I will say

250 screens is kind of more than I thought it had gotten, that anything had gotten in November, November of 2020. Christine, if you're ready, Chris has the timer on hand. Sundial ready?

Yeah, on your Hopefully the waves don't, you know, cast a shadow. But if you are ready, your 60-second plot description of Ammonite starts now. Okay, it's 1800-something and Kate Winslet is Mary Anning. She's a fossil collector who, like, lives on the Dorset Coast. Her mom is mad sick. And then one day this random rich guy is like, yo, love your work. Also, do you want to take care of my depressed wife for a bit?

And she's like, hard pass. And he's like, what if I give you money? And she's like, all right, that's tight. And then Charlotte, who is Sertia Ronan, hangs out with them for a little. like a day and then she like takes a tumble in the ocean and get super sick. So Mary has to like take care of her. And then they go to a party and Mary's like, I'm being ignored. I'm leaving you. And then Charlotte's like, are we fucking or not? And she's like, yeah, I guess we are. And then they find a big fossil. And then her husband comes back and is like, come back to London. And she's

like, okay, bye. I got to sit on your face one time. And then we'll go to London. And then she's like, oh, by the way, come visit me in London. And then she's like, look, I got this room for you. And Kate's like, no, I don't want to see that room. boo, and then they look at each other through a fossil in a glass case. And with five seconds to spare, that is the full one. You got it all. You got it all. I love it.

Again, a ton is happening. I'm glad you meant the acts of foreplay in this movie are really incredible. The first time that they kiss, it's immediately preceded by Mary Ammonite cleaning the tools, like literally, like cleaning the tools for her fossil work, or else the ghost of her father would be ashamed of her. And, like, literally, and she literally says that, and then immediately it's like kissing. Great, love it.

Get the ladies nice and warmed up. And then, as you said, they're carrying this giant fossil across the beach, which is just like, it's a two-person job. They are getting a good day's worth of satisfaction out of, like, good manual labor, carrying this giant dark egg of a fossil across the beach. And it's just like, that will get anybody worked up.

And, and that proceeds, like, the truly, that is a sex scene, man, I will say. Like, Francis Lee, the cap, she is tipped. The kitchen one or the one before she leaves? The one before she leaves. The one before she leaves. Right, because you get, you get full end to end where it's like, you get the moment in sex that you never see in movies where it's like, it could happen or it could not. And then it does, you know, which is a. Barry, like,

lived in things. There are decisions being made in flagrante in that moment where it's just like, oh, we're doing this, too. So, like, yes. Yeah. Let's, like, let's really get it all in. Let's go bucket list. Like, let's head everything before you know.

Let's go bucket list. But, like, so, and, again, kudos to everybody involved. Actors, directors, body doubles. Who knows? Who cares? movies are an illusion and they exist. The thing that I had, and not to be like, where's ours, but truly this does not happen with male actors.

In terms of a four-time Academy Award nominee and an Oscar winner, like the level of movie stars that Sersha and Kate are. You would not get a male equivalent. You would not get Barry Keoghan and Leonardo DiCaprio fucking like that in a movie. Do you know what I mean? And like, I just want us all to like think about that and not necessarily just that, but like globally. You know what I mean? Just like, sure, sure.

Especially when sex scenes don't really exist, period. This sex scene is pretty surprising for actresses of their caliber. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the face sitting is like, oh, we've made a choice today. Like, we're going for it. Conceivably, Sershah did sit on her face, like, for the stone.

And that's beautiful. And that's beautiful. It is a beautiful thing. And all I'm saying is, it's not like, whatever, there are period reasons for this all to be true also. But, like, it would be nice that we lived in a world where male A-listers did not feel the stigma of, like, that'd be super fucking weird if, like, Leonardo DiCaprio sat at a top

you know whatever Josh O'Connor's face but anyway you have not seen all of us strangers yet I wait has anyone on on this call? No I haven't I mean like that's an Oscar nominee and an Emmy nominee sure it's getting there we're getting we may be getting

there we're you know it's still not quite slowly progressing yes move up that ladder move up that ladder um Chris Evans and you know I don't know it sounds Like, it sounds too horny. But, like, you get what I'm saying.

You get what I'm saying. I do you get your point. I get your point. All right. Where do we begin with the Ammonite? I want to talk about Kate Winslet's performance. Oh, I thought it was like, we begin with the dinosaurs. We begin.

Once upon a time, the English coast was beset with two billion B.C. Grand, majestic creatures, ectheosaurus and whatnot. No, Chris, you mentioned that you thought, Kate, between this and Mary of East Town, was giving two really incredible performances. I agree. I think she's fantastic. It's a task. She's got pretty much the whole movie, not to, like, discount what Sersh does, but, like, Sertia's much more of the secondary character in this. And, like, Kate, that's a lot of heavy lifting, and I think she does a really, really wonderful job.

you almost wonder why Sersh took this role unless it was she really wanted to work with Frances Lee really wanted to work with Kate Winston yeah I can see that her role is really underwritten and in a way that like maybe she would have played this 10 years ago or you know maybe even five years ago I do think when I'm trying to like figure out that one thing that's missing for me from this movie I do think it is in in Surcha's character I feel like I need a little bit more she because she basically wakes up from being sick from like a week and a half and it's like so are we fucking and I'm like right why would you like what's happening right what is the draw here yeah one word with this

woman and she was like nut up and get in the water and then you did and got sick for like two weeks so like where is this coming from we do see the part where like she's she's trying to be amorous with james mcardle and he's like not today hon yeah like the second that his finger her finger Tits touch him. He's like, we can't have another baby. Yeah. Yeah. Did they say, I kept trying to remember whether I had maybe glossed over it, is she coming off of like a miscarriage or like, was there like a traumatic like child death or like something

that happened? Yes. Yes. That's the extent of her character depth, though. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like she's overcoming that. I feel like also if the character was supposed to be younger than Sersia is and maybe Sersia is,

and maybe Sershah is older than the character is supposed to be, it would maybe make more sense that she's so immediately like, I love you, come and live with me and my husband, I have a room for you, it's pink. That would maybe make more sense, but I don't know. Yeah. I will say the relationship that I want to, sorry, Christina, go ahead. Oh, I guess it's like, you know, she's trapped and lonely and whatever,

so she has all these flights of fancy that do make her seem younger, than her character actually is because she hasn't like done anything. I mean, her attempt to peel a carrot was like, ma'am. I know she gave you a pairing knife, but like, she could have gotten good at it given given repetition. She could have gotten really good appealing carrots. Yeah. Yeah, but she does feel just a scotch underwritten and I think it makes it harder to buy like, what, why are you suddenly, like, because she was nice to you and took care of you. Like, again, I do get it. Like, yes, if a mean Kate Winslet took care of me when I was sick. I too would wake up. Of course. Are we fucking? Of course. Of course. Who among us? Yeah. Well, and at the same time

that the Fiona Shaw character can show up for two scenes and give you... And it's the writing, but it's also the performance. But those two scenes with her and Kate Winslet, you really, you know what's up with them by just the one scene. Thank God we get the second scene because it's more and I always wanted more of that. But like, from like just moments, you know sort of the whole story between these two. And it's so fleshed out in such a small amount of time. And you are left incredibly curious to know more. But like, you, you know the score. But like, I would watch an entire movie about those two characters and what, you know, their relationship. Yeah, I did find myself being like, I would watch that movie, like that movie,

have a little more season upon it, perhaps. Right, right. That was also a subject of some, I will say, you know how sometimes controversy seems almost like perfunctory where it's just like people are going through

the motions of just like, well, I suppose I should object, where it's like the historical accuracy of, we don't know for sure that Mary Ammonite was queer in any way, but we don't know anything about her. romantic life. And so that was sort of Francis Lees. And I love that it's like, it's her, it's the ladies' family, but it's not like her daughters, right? It's like generations hence or whatever

are like, great, great, great, great, great, Aunt Mary wasn't a lesbian. And it's just like, you don't fucking know. And that was kind of Francis Lees' retort to it is like, you don't know. And so if we're going to, like, flesh out this character, you wouldn't have objected if I had fleshed it out and given her like a little romance with the doctor or whatever. You You know what I mean? Like, you, nobody would have objected to that. But now all of a sudden, everybody's like, well, we don't know that that's what, you know, grand duchess Mary was. And it's just like, well, no.

And also, you don't care. You know what I mean? You really don't. Like, stop. It's not, it's not affecting you in any. Right. Right. Exactly.

Like, be serious. Genuinely, shut up. Your inheritance was not a letter that said, by the way. Collect your fossil money. Get your fossil check at the end of every month and, like, shut the fuck up. Get your fossil check. Those fossil royalties from the, from the British Museum are just rolling on it. The attention line, fossils.

Fossil legacy. Yeah, I do think that, you know, the Sershah half of this romance is, I think, where a lot of the weakest stuff of this movie lies. But Kate Winslet, I still think, is very good. I mean, I don't, I can't really pinpoint what it feels so. Maybe it was just at the time that she's playing these kind of, for lack of a better, less cliche term, Tough as Nails characters between this and Mare, that at the time felt so different from the rest of her work. And I suppose, you know, the performances we know her or love her most for are like Eternal Sunshine, Titanic, these very expressive characters.

I don't necessarily think this is an inexpressive performance. It's just, you know, someone of few words and not cozy. Very tightly controlled. Very controlled. She resembles the stones on her beach. You know what I mean? Like, it's like the metaphor is very clear, right? She's a, all those shots of like the beach, it's just like, well, it's a beach.

But it's also just covered in the most, like, it's stony and inhospitable. And it's just like this woman's heart. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, the metaphors are not particularly challenging. That one scene of Searsha just lying in bed looking at a moth under a glass. I was like, no, I got it.

I did get it. But thank you so much. Like, yep, sure. She's the saddest, sad girl who ever sated. She's trapped. We got it. We got her. I mean, Searsia doesn't even speak for like the first five or ten minutes of her screen time.

She's just carted around with her husband and his boring hobbies, just, like, taken from fossil store to fossil store, different type of fuss. That's the other thing, by the way, is, and like, James McArdle, you know, sweetie pie, but, like, that this person, like, Mary Ammonite is the leading whatever in her field, right? She is, like, the fossil lady of England at this point. She's famous for it. That's why he seeks her out. And to have this person who's, like, wealthy, but he's not, like, Lord, you know, fuckle what, or whatever, you know what I mean? It's just, like, he has money, but he's not, like, so, like, insanely rich.

But he has some money, so he feels entitled to go down to the Dorset Coast and show up at her door and be like, hey, teach me how to fossil. And he's, like, dangling. some money in front of her, and you're just like, you need some cash, right? Teach me out of fossil. And he's less mean about it than that, but it's just like the entitlement of this person to just be like, you're the greatest person in the world at the thing that you do. I have a little bit of money, you know, and you're going to teach me just so I can have like, as you said, a hobby, just sort of this like thing that I can do to like while away my time. It's like,

oh, right, society. Imagine going up to Kate Winslet and just being like, I'm going to pay you for your company for this time so I can go watch you do a monologue or something. God, I'd love that. I was going to say, now you're making me soften on the issue because like I'm worried. The three of us are not beneath this. No, I was going to say, like, wait a second, what if we pooled our money together? Would we

have enough? Wait, is this not just what cameo is? Yes. He pay Mary Amonite for a cameo, basically. Yeah. Old time you cameo. Oh, my God. I don't know, maybe it was one of the SAG item that you could I'm imagining a stone-faced Mary Amonite just being like your

friends told me that you had some interests in fossils. Happy birthday and, oh my God, it would be a great cameo. I would love it. Yeah, that would be incredible. My birthday is in May, just so everybody remembers, just so you guys know. Hey, Kate, could you do your Ammonite character for my friend Christina? She would really appreciate it. Drawing in her eyebrows.

Yeah. Oh, man. That would be perfect. All right, put down those fossils. Everybody, we are going to take a break from the Dorset Coast and go back to the warm confines of Hollywood and talk about... Carol, they're vulturing. Yes, exactly. We're going to talk about the vulture movie fantasy league for our weekly update.

Chris, we are underway. We are accumulating points. As we speak, Swifties are writhing. Swifties are writhing on movie theater floors, and I'm very concerned for the hygienic implications of such, but... Taylor Lautner is doing backflips in what appears to be, like, a small neighborhood theater. Like, I was very confused. I was like, that's...

Taylor Lautner is not, like, showing up at IMAX doing backflips. He's in some, like, small neighborhood theater. I love that, though. I genuinely love that. that. Good for Taylor Lautner. I hope he, like, I hope he normcores the shit out of the rest of his life, like, genuinely. Good for him. There's nothing more normcore than going to the Taylor Swift movie and freaking out right now. Like, that feels like very much the middle of America and good for everybody. Yeah, exactly. So you're, I'm waiting for the official box office weekend tallies to

come in, but you're better at, like, following the tracking and stuff like that. Where is, where is Taylor going to end up for the weekend. To everybody who drafted the heiress tour for those lovely box office points, it's had what appears to be somewhere around like the seventh biggest opening of the year, around like 95 million at this point. We'll see what the final total is, but you got them. You got your box office. Definitely the best box office we've seen since the pool has activated, so that's very good. I'm willing to go out on a limb and say probably the biggest box office opening for the rest of the year.

You don't think anything will end up topping this? No. Okay. Well, you very well may be right. There really aren't that many big box office movies waiting to come. There's no Avatar coming this year. And I think like the bigger ones are kind of waiting to disappoint. would be my guess.

Well, I read something that the Marvels is tracking low. The Marvel says, I would not anticipate great things for Aquaman 2. No. Maybe the only challenger is Wonka. I was going to say, I would not, there's a wide range of outcomes that I would accept for Wonka. I would accept Complete Bomb. I would accept like Alice in Wonderland style. Like, this is just so much bigger of a hit than I.

I thought. I know Alice in Wonderland was gused by the 3D stuff, but I wouldn't be surprised. I think either outcome, I think, is maybe equally likely for Wonka, so. Which is fine, because I do think, uh, you know, in people's drafting, they wanted to spread the wealth, which I think is evidenced in, uh, the top, uh, drafted movies list. Yes. So this was the subject of my weekly newsletter last week, which was the top five most drafted movies. On this list, I was somewhat surprised that Oppenheimer wasn't on it, if only because what bore out last year was, even though it started off a little bit more slowly, by the end of the season, you had to have everything everywhere all at once on your roster, or you were not finished. in the top. And that's because it was the Best Picture winner, and it won all these awards

at the end of the year. And so my thinking was, and that went off at $60 to get everything everywhere all at once. Oppenheimer, which is a $50 buy, so cheaper, I think it's just as well situated right now to win Best Picture and a bunch of craft awards. So I would have expected that more people would have seen that, like, oh, I really should. And like, maybe it will play out differently this season. Every year is going to be different. I genuinely think everything everywhere all at once swept to a degree that Oppenheimer is probably not going to sweep, things like three out of the four acting categories, although it's going to get a chance to. But I don't think it will. But so, like, but anyway, so Oppenheimer finished in the top 10 most

drafted, but not in the top five. So what we had was, poor things, which is rostered by 4,300 participants, Killers of the Flower Moon, rostered by 3,600, Barbie, rostered by just over 3,000, Taylor Swift, the Ares Tor, 2,600, and American Fiction, rostered by 2,400 participants or so. Three of these I mentioned in my newsletter last week, or actually two of these I mentioned in my newsletter last week, Poor Things in American Fiction, which we're like, yeah, I probably undervalued these when I made up these points back in, when I made up these valuations back in July, where I did think...

When Poor Things had a September release date. When Poor Things had a September release date, when it did seem like, even after they changed the release date, because they changed the release date before the very, the very state, before the Venice premiere, right? Yes. Even at that point, I was like, yeah, but like, I'm glad. I was glad for it, but I was like, it's still a weird movie. Having now seen poor things, it's still a weird fucking movie.

I'm still like, I will be so happy if it moves through award season and gets a bunch of nominations and stuff, and it would totally deserve it. But it is an odd movie for a mainstream. voting body like the Oscars to embrace. American fiction, meanwhile, the TIF Audience Award winner is very small, I think, but showed something by being embraced by such a populist award as the TIF audience award. So those two, I sort of talked about last week that they were very good values, that they poor things at $10, American fiction at $5, I think a lot of people waited to draft, as you see by the fact that Taylor Swift is in the top five, because that movie did not get added until late in the game. So, like, clearly people were waiting to draft, I think, is the other thing that this list tells you. A lot of smart people playing this game.

How many of these movies are on your roster? Remind me. Three. I have poor things. I have Barbie. And I have American. conviction. That's a good list. This is partly why I think Oppenheimer doesn't show up, because with that high cost, I think a lot of people recognize if you're going to draft Oppenheimer, you are putting almost all of your eggs in that basket, whereas if you drafted something like Killers of the Flower Moon or Barbie, instead, you could hedge your bets a little bit more by drafting a lot of things that were in the $10 and $15 range. I think that's true, except I did manage not to like make every update about my team. But like, I did manage to draft Oppenheimer and Barbie and

poor things and just like went real bargain hunting with the rest of it. But I, no, I want to, sorry, I want to remind myself of my own team because sometimes I do forget. Oppenheimer, Barbie, Poor Things, and also American Fiction. And then I just went with Teenage Mutiny, Ninja Turtles and Dix the Musical and perfect days and the taste of things and all that. So I still really like my team, but I did get those sort of big ticket items. Killers of the Flower Moon is interesting. I was in a conversation with some people this past week, and I kind of, before I realized that this is a thing that I think, I kind of said it, which is, I don't think Scorsese or Spielberg are ever winning another Oscar. I think the, at least in Best Director or Best Picture.

Just because I feel like the Oscars are such a expectations game, and Scorsese and Spielberg are never going to win the expectations game. Do you know what I mean? I mean, just for Scorsese, you know, The Departed was a movie that was released without the Oscar expectation. They intentionally said they weren't going to go for. for that, and then when it became... And he hadn't... ...it that it was. Yeah.

And, you know, it, you know... Was positioned as not thirsty for that. They're never going to get that everything everywhere all at once, or CODA, or even the shape of water narrative, where it's like, who could have seen this coming? It's like, well, we all will always see it coming, because we're never not going to. You know, that's how this works. I will say, it is a long season of... head with a lot of heavy hitters.

So I can't get as far as you are with what you're saying, but I do understand the logic. And I'm never going to bet against Marty. For a nomination, I think that's wise. I'm just saying, like, I don't know. It's one of those things. Again, I proclaimed it before I thought it through, but I do think it's probably true. No, no. I think there's decent logic.

there. Go, if you've signed up for the movie league, you can go to vulture.com and check out the movie league, see where you are in the standings. You can compare your scores to people in your league. If you signed up for a league, you can check out the podcasters league. So we had people from a ton of really cool podcasts, including Chris and myself, who are essentially going to take place on our own scoreboard and we'll compare ourselves against each other. from our friends at Little Gold Men and the mixed reviews and blank check and what other podcast, Clay Keller is participating from screen drafts. And then you've got podcasts like The Next Picture Show and Unspooled and film spotting and all of these really, really great

spots. So go and check out. And like I said, you can compare and contrast, see how well you're doing compared to your favorite podcasters. That's always a good. time. Anything else? Also check on who else you are among the other Gary's, how you're ranking against them. Hell yeah. Under the team name, all of us, garries. There is also a team called All of Us Gays.

I would like to say here and now that that is our rival. As our rival. Because how dare they? We initially. Just subtract a letter from our team. Tales from the back end, I will say, when we were working. on this, we went through a day to sort of clean everything up and make sure that like slight little spelling discrepancies still got you in the league that you were intended

to be. And my colleague sort of messaged me on Slack and was like, all of us gays, do we think that's a typo and it meant to be all of us garries? I'm like, yeah, probably. And so like days later she's just like, no, that's apparently another league is all of us gays. I was like, excellent. I don't care if there's only five of them in that league. They are our rivals. Yes. All right. I'm Into it, yes. All right. So we're going to send you back to your regularly scheduled lady fossils, and I think we have a game coming up. I think at this point in the podcast, there's a game coming up. So please listen to the rest of the Aminite podcast. It's a good one. All right, Chris, talk about The Doctor. Oh, I just feel like so much of this movie that was actually kind of funny to me about. you know, just the patriarchal structures

that Francis Lee is showing in this movie because it's not only that James McArdle can just be like, my wife can stay here, right? I'll pay you. Gotta go. Babysit my adult wife, please. But then she gets sick and the doctor shows up, a full-ass doctor.

And he's like, yeah, she's sick, but, like, you can take care of her. And, like, Kate Winslet looks at her like, yeah, you're a doctor, can you do something? And he's like, but you're a woman, you can take care of her. Listen, the stones ain't going anywhere, so you've got time

handle this, yeah. Yeah, and then when he comes back, he's like, you know how to like make soup. You can yeah, you can nurse her back to health. You know how to do that. Your mom's here, you've got two ladies in the house. Like, you guys have great at this. Yeah, there's two women here. She'll be fine. This is basically two degrees in

doctoring. That's what counts as a hospital at these times, is two ladies in a house like that's basically yeah Gemma Jones foreign can we say also Gemma Jones just like a withering stare

in human form I love it she's so good protecting her figurines I was like Rupro not all is well here I'm sensing some mental unwell

I did love at the one point that like that's Charlotte just sort of like starts, like, fiddling with one of the figurines, and she's just like, oh, I didn't realize they, like, represent your dead children, like, go-hoo-hoo. Sorry for touching your metaphor. Exactly, exactly. I was kind of surprised in looking this up that, like, Kate didn't get a stray nomination from somewhere, because it did seem like, and Chris, correct me if I'm wrong, because

you were sort of in the soup of it at that time. too. It did seem like people were kind of coming around on this movie by the time that like, because that was such a late, delayed Oscar season where like the Oscar season stretched so late. The movie basically opens six months before the office. Right. So like the movie opening in August. So like by that like sort of like pre-Oscar nomination time, people were like, you know, Amelite was actually kind of good and Kate was actually kind of really good. Maybe we should be talking about this. And by then, of course, it was too late. And, you know, that field pretty much in in covid cemented pretty quickly there were a few factors especially like the

Netflix movies that like shook things up really the only uh thing of note that you know kate has that like we would talk about here is that she was on the actress roundtable the first zoom actress roundtable oh god who else was that chris do you have the list uh neither of the winners it was glen close for hillbilly Elegy. Sure. Andrea Day for people versus, or is it people versus or United States versus Billy Holiday? I think it's the United States versus Billy Holiday. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That movie. Vanessa Kirby for Pieces of a Woman. Carrie Mulligan for Promising Young Woman. And then Kate Winslet for Ammonite and Zendaya for Malcolm and Marie. Whoa, Malcolm and Marie. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Whoa. Oh, man. Yeah. Not the first movie that we're doing a lot. A whole $20 million for that movie. Oh, my God. I'm like, truly.

We had nothing to watch. U.S. dollars? Yes. We had nothing to watch when we were all watching Malcolm and Marie. We were, yeah, we were down bad. It was true. We needed, we were talking about in the last episode about, what was it, the old guard? Where people were like, this looks like the kind of movie I might have seen in a

theater. Thank God. Thank goodness. We have this movie. Yeah, it was a dark time. It was. And Malcolm and Marie looks like a movie you would see in Sam Levinson's dungeon. I don't want to contemplate Sam Levinson's dungeon, because right now... No, I'm good. There is definitely... The weekend is opening his tour in Sam Levinson's dungeon. I don't like that. Yeah, like... No, I think if I... I'm too light-skinned. I think if I say it three times, I'll just appear in there.

Oh, no. I don't like it. Inside like a genie bottle, just like, yeah, he's got these, like, open jars and just, like, waiting for people to, like, stumble and, yeah. Zendaya the weekend, just hanging out, being like, well. It's just a bunch of, like, dudes with, like, scraggly beards, and they're wearing, like, a bad lieutenant t-shirt as a uniform. Oh, no.

Speaking of scraggly beards, so... Speaking of scraggly beards, the... doctor in this movie was the other guy, this scraggly bearded guy, in God's Own Country, a movie that, like, I had kind of forgotten that Francis Lee had gotten as much indie award attention for that movie as he did. Like, it kind of, like, ruled the British Independent Film Awards, which I imagine are called the Bifas, but I'm not going to call them the Bifas, because that just sounds silly. No, we're going to call them the Bifas from Pha.

It won Best British Independent Film. for 2017 beating out the death of Stalin. I am not a witch, which I have not seen and I don't... Good movie. What is it, what's... Is she a witch? Is she lying? What's going on? Homest is a witch.

No, it's a little girl who her tribe believes that she's a witch. Oh, okay. Lady Macbeth, another big breakthrough for Florence, and then three billboards outside Ebbing,

Missouri, which always is so funny to me. The very British really, really, really trying to claim that movie. And it's like, guys, you can let that one go. Like, it's fine. Has Missouri in the title, God? It sure does. It sure does. So good for God's Own Country for winning that. Josh O'Connor won best actor. I think Alex Sakarano was nominated there. And then nominated for, or won, one best actor and won best debut screenwriter for Francis Lee. So this is his big kind of acclaimed follow-up, which does make me feel like, oh, I probably would be throwing fits about seeing it in a theater, too, despite the fact that there is a pandemic. Because this is his, like, harness the

lightning moment. This is his chance to, and I don't know if it would have happened anyway, but there was a note in his Wikipedia entry that he's working on an upcoming horror film that explores themes of, quote, class and queerness that he was going to do with Josh O'Connor. And there are, like, news items about this in, like, the spring of 2021, but it does not show up as a Viet on his IMDB page at all. So I'm hoping that he's still working on that, because that sounds cool. I'm into that.

Yeah, that sounds like the sounds of a queer horror movie. Yeah. So fingers crossed that Francis Lee can produce that. He's an interesting. I sort of dug into his story a little bit, because I really didn't. didn't know anything about that, but, like, he literally, like, he grew up on a farm in, you know, in West Yorkshire. He, uh, in between, like, going to school and making his movie, like, worked in a factory or scrapyard or something like that. Like, he's, like,

working class. And, like, that's not always the case when you come across, you know, British people who are, like, famous actors or famous directors. Like, there's a lot of, you know, Royal Academy designations in Oxford and Cambridge and that whole kind of stuff. So to have this solidly working class director is

really interesting. And so I'm interested to see where he goes with this next movie, even though Ammonite didn't hit the way he would have wanted to. But I think there are things in this movie that intrigue. I do think if this had a more traditional life

and, you know, If COVID never happened. I do think people would have received the movie for what it was trying to be because, like, it's a romance, but it's also, like, more of a character study for Kate Winslet's character and, like, the idea that, you know, you can't lose yourself for a relationship, even though I don't, I think that's interesting about the movie, but I don't think it really sees that idea through. Because, like, this movie does end abruptly. I do think if this movie had had better luck, I guess, to come out before COVID, it would have at least been received as such, you know, rather than people immediately being, comparing it to something like Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Yeah.

But do we think, like, the fact that it got this COVID time release means that people are like, oh, yeah, that didn't do well, but, like, who could have, why, how could it have done well? Right. You won't let you. There's really no way of knowing. Right. Right, totally, yeah. So keep making movies, I guess, my guy, let go off.

Speaking of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, though, another great classic movie about a lesbian romance. And so, after I was done with Ammonite, Hulu suggested to me a trio of solidly lesbian romances. So I, of course, responded to the both of you with a screenshot and just said, Harold, they're lesbians, which is still one of the funniest stories slash memes of moviegoing. God bless. I hope that couple is well and doing well. But I decided to make a game out of all the different, we've had a lot of, like, kind of surprisingly, especially in the last, like 20 years or so, lesbian romances with actresses who are of note, I would say. And there's a good tradition of that. And I think you two are

a receptive audience to a game about these actress pairings in movies about lesbian romance. Or lesbian romance, I'm allowing coded lesbian romance also for a couple of these. Sometimes there's, just so I don't get so Megan and Allison Williams

Right We're going to do this slightly The format's going to be a little interesting It's going to be kind of like a name that tune style In that you'll take turns Telling me how many you think you can get right in a row Without missing And if you get them all right in a row

You get all those points And if you don't Your opponent will get all those points and I'm going to randomize them. So there will be easier ones and harder ones in there. So it's going to be a little bit of a confidence game and a little bit of, and then if your opponent gets them wrong, you will get the chance to get bonus points if you can guess the ones that they miss, essentially.

So I'll guide us along. How are our clues happening? Is this like an alter ego's thing? How are we getting? You're going to get the name? of the actresses and you need to give me the title of the film. Okay. Oh, okay. So I will give you the names of the two actresses and then you will give me the title. So again, some of these are very easy. Some of these are going to be decently challenging, but I will have randomized

them. So you don't know. It's not like they get steadily more challenging as they go. So I'm going to start with our guest, Christina. So. And we're going to going to do it like you will make like an opening bid and then chris will be able to like bid you hire essentially um but because it's your initial bid you you will be you will be given the final chance so like chris can't be like i can name them all you you would you would have to you would you would uh you would get the final bid because it's your turn essentially so we have 31 how many do you think you could name without missing to start who i'm gonna low bow myself and sing three.

All right, Christina says three. Chris, you can either say four or higher, or you can challenge Christina to do it. In honor of my competitive spirit, I'm going to say four. All right. Christina, do you want to want up him or do you want to challenge him? That's a great question. I want to challenge him, I feel.

All right, Chris, you said you can do four. I'm going to read you the top four, and then we'll see how. how you do. If you get all four, you get four points. If you miss any of these, Christina gets four points and the chance to get the one you missed and get a bonus point. So, Chris, your first one is Annette Benning and Julian Moore. The kids are all right. The kids are all right. Second one is Christina Ricci and Charlize Theron. Monster. Monster, correct. Your third one. Emily Blunt

and Natalie Press. Oh, this is My Summer of Love? My Summer of Love, correct. You need to get one more. Your fourth one is Clea Duval and Natasha Leone. But I'm a cheerleader. But I'm a cheerleader.

Chris gets all four points to start off. Oh, boy. All right. So Chris, you will lead the bidding in round two. I'm going to say I can get three more. All right. Christina, what do you say?

I'm going to say, I'm sticking with my three. I feel good about three. Feels realistic. Okay, so then if you can't up Chris, then you're challenging Chris to get three. Yeah, I guess. I guess. Okay, okay. So, Chris,

it's up to you again. If you get these three, you get three more points. If not, Christina gets three points. You're going to start with Jordana Brewster and Sarah Foster. What? Jordana Brewster and Sarah Foster. Only thing I know Jordana Brewster is in recently is the Fast and the Furious movies, and I have never seen any of them. Okay.

So I'm going to say, what's Fast 9? Is it just Fast 9? I think it's Fast 9. F9. Yeah. Incorrect. Christina gets all three points. Christina, you can get a fourth point if you can name this movie. I can. It's the film Debs. It's Debs. Christina ties it up at four.

All right. Dubs. Okay. Well, I'll watch the Debs. All right. So, Christina, it's back to you. We have 26 more. So how many can you name?

Let's say four. Let's go bigger. Christina's going bigger with four. Chris. Can you go five or do you want a challenge? I want to get those four. All right, Christina, you will get the chance to name these four. All right, starting with Judy Greer and Lily Tomlin.

Oh, fuck already. I'm like, I can't remember the fucking title of this movie. I know it. No, I don't have it. It's gone. All right. So Chris is going to get four points, and you can get one more if he can name this movie. Is it grandma?

It is grandma. Chris gets five points. I don't know if it was grandma or stupid lady, the van one that got all confused. Damn it. All right, Chris, you are going to lead off the bidding in the next one. I'm going to stick with three. Three. Christina, can you go four?

I am learning for my mistakes and I'm not going for four. That is insane. I'm sticking with three. Chris. For your three, you're starting with Cheryl Dunya and Guinevere Turner. Cheryl Dunya and Guinevere Turner. Watermelon Woman. The Watermelon Woman, correct.

Followed by Olivia Coleman and Rachel Weiss. The favorite. The favorite. Followed by Molly Gordon and Rachel Senate. Shiva Baby. Shiva Baby. Three points to Chris. All right, Chris is up 12 to 4, but points can come in bunches.

So, Chris, I think you'd lead this one off, right? I'm going to go and say two, just two. All right, Christina. All right, I'm sticking with three, so I guess I am challenged in that way. Chris, can you go over the top? Are you going to challenge Christina to give three? No, challenge. All right, Christina, your three.

Start with Audrey Hepburn and Shirley McLean. Oh, you are killed. No, I know this one. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I won't, I won't let this happen to me again. I can't. Um, um, fuck. What if I forgot?

It's, um, it's, um, the, it's not the hours, but the hour is in the title. Oh, you're so close. You're so close. It's not, is it the children's hour? The children's hour, correct. All right, very good. I was really going to go for like the kid hour and I was like, that's insane and that can't be right. Your next one, oh God, your next one's maybe our toughest one, unfortunately.

Gemma Archerton and Elizabeth Debicki. They've been in a movie together? Yeah. Elizabeth Debicki. And Chris is gasping. and praying to Kate Winslet in this photo. This is the hardest one. This is the hardest one.

Oh, oh my God. It's that flop, Vita in Virginia. Vita in Virginia is correct. Very good. All right. Thank you, my time at Netflix. Your third one to get the points is Jessica Parre and Piper Parabot. Now, you said Piper, so I'm like, confused.

because that's not... I was expecting the Lena. I was expecting the Imagine Me and You. I know it's not that. It's another Piper. It's not Imagine Me and You? I'm not saying anything. That's Lena Haiti.

That's Lena Haiti. I know that. I know that deeply in my heart. So I'm just like, I don't know... Fuck, I'm going to lose my points because I don't know what the hell this movie is. I give up. All right. The points go to Chris.

Chris, can you guess the movie? Is Piper Parabo like someone's lesbian daughter in something? And it's not Imagine Me and You? Or I'll just say Imagine Me and You. It's not Imagine Me and You. It is a movie called Lost and Delirious, starring a young Misha Barton, who is a girl at a boarding school who boards with Jessica Parrae and Piper Parrabo.

All right, Chris got those points. Christina, you are leading the bidding with this one. All right, I'm going to two. I'm knocking myself down a peg. All right, two. Those last two have me scared because I wouldn't have gotten Vita and Virginia because I couldn't remember the other name. So I'm going to challenge.

I'm going to let you get them. All right, Christina, you're going to start with Roda Mitchell and Ali Sheedy. oh that's um fuck fuck what's that movie called I don't know what things are called um

it's in here no it is in here I have faith in you I have faith in you do you have faith in me I don't really have faith in me at this moment I'm trying to remember any single plot detail about this movie, and I know that it exists. Rada Mitchell and Ali Sheedy.

It is good. Oh, it's high art. High art, correct. High art. Your second one. Patricia Clarkson as Katia Zamolochkava. Yes. Christina, for two points.

Your question is Lena Heidi and Piper Parabo. It's Imagine Me and You. There we go. Two points. All right. Chris, you're going to lead off the bidding for this one. All right. I got to go big or go home. I'm going to say three. All right. Chris says three. Christina, can you do four? I simply can't. Have you seen me perform this game? I'm a judge.

All right. Chris, you're going to get to challenge to do three. You start with, okay, this is, I was wrong. This is the hardest one. Holiday Granger and Anna Pacwin. And we're talking coded So this could be an X-Men thing Because everyone's gay in the X-Men movies Coded does count in this quiz I don't even know who Holiday Granger is That's a person

I believe Holiday Granger is in Tulip Fever But don't quote me on that I you know what I don't know who she is and I believe that too Okay So it's got to be around Tulip Fever time. Oh, that is a clue that I gave you. Shoot.

So, but what has Anna Paquan been in in that time? It's not the Irishman. Though, maybe that character is gay. I don't know. I'm just going to say, one of the X-Men's. Let's say X-Men X-3 X-Men United?

No, it's none of the X-Men's. Christina, you can get a fourth one if you know this movie. Oh, I have no idea with that movie. I'm certain you made it up. It is. I very well may because the title is called Tell It to the Bees, and I've never seen it. Not Tell It to the Bees.

Tell It to the Bees. What do you tell it? You're telling it about your girlfriend, Holiday Ranger. I think that's about right. Yeah, probably. Tell it to the bees. Isn't that the movie where Anna Pac-Wan literally whispers to some bees that someone is being hate-crimed?

Wait, what? That's Jupiter ascending, duh. All right. Tell it to the bees. So, Christina, you are up. And then the bees go and, like, attack the attacker. Chris currently leads 15 to 9. Christina, you are bidding for this next one.

Okay, I'm going to say three again. I'm going back to the safe old three. All right. It's never been safe for me. Chris, can you do four? I'm in a good position. I'm going to challenge. All right, Christina, three.

So you're going to start with Melanie Linsky and Kate Winslet. That would be heavenly creatures. Correct. Then, oh, God. Jane Fonda and Deborah Monk. Oh, shit. That's that crazy one with all. of the people in it that has like a thousand people in it um oh shit that's that's it has that

stupid title that all movies had at that time oh fuck it's like is it this is where i leave you this is where i leave you correct all right one more weird one all the people you you have it exactly right it's exactly the movie you're thinking of all right now for three points Rachel McAdams and Rachel Weiss. Okay, that's disobedience. Disobedience. Three points to Christina. She's creeping in closer.

All right. Yes, I am gay. We've got to do disobedience. Chris, you are going to lead the bidding on this next batch. Okay. I'll stick with my three as well. All right. Christina, can you do four or will you challenge?

I'm challenging. I'm not going to get too overconfident. That was luck. Chris, you're going to start with Heather Juergen, and Jennifer Westfeldt. Kissing Jessica Stein. Kissing Jessica Stein. Correct.

Adele Hynell and Noemi Merlant. I'm sorry, France. Portrait of a lady on fire. Portrait of a lady on fire. And finally, Kate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. Carol. Carol, three points to Chris. All right.

Christina, you lead off here. How many do we have left? We have 10 left. Okay. I'm not going to say 10. I'm not going to say 10. I'm going to say two this time. I'm going to take it down. All right. Christina says two. I says you. Chris, can you? Challenge. All right. Christina, for two points. You're going to start with Isa Gonzalez and Rosamund Pike. Oh, that's that movie. I care a lot. I care a lot. Correct. Gemma Archerton and Gugu Mabatha Raw.

What if it was beauty and the beast? Oh, no. The story of the feather duster? I wish. That is tugging at something in my mind. Is it like Summerland? It's Summerland. Two points for Christina.

What is this? Summerland's a good movie, I will say. Is it? I recommend it. Yeah, it's cute. I liked it. I love Goo Goo, which is why I knew what that movie was called. It's a good, it's sweet.

That was probably around that same time as Ammonite. Like it might have been that same year. All right, Chris, lead off. I'm doing three. All right. Christina, you're going to challenge them? Yeah, challenge. All right, challenge.

Chris, three, starting with McKenzie Davis and Kristen Stewart. Oh, shit. Oh, my God, why can't I get this? Kristen Stewart with McKenzie Davis. I feel like I should know what this is. And now I can only think of McKenzie Davis movies like The Martian. Oh, no, this is embarrassing because I think this is a movie that I like. It is.

Why can't I? I remember whatever this movie is. People are yelling it as they listen. They are. They're hooting. They're hooting and hollering. They're hooting and hollering, Chris. I love Kristen Stewart.

Mackenzie Davis and Kristen. I guess not. It's not like personal shopper. It's not. Oh, it's happiest season. Happiest season, correct. Yeah, yeah. All right.

Second one, Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly. Bound Third one for the points Annette Benning and Kristen Chenoweth What What? Annette Benning and Kristen Chenoweth Is this

It can only be the women Is that your guess? That's my guess It is not Chris we did this movie It is running with scissors Oh my God, that's true Oh shit!

I'm sorry, Christina I was supposed to give Christine the chance to... No, I didn't have it. No, it's okay. I didn't have it. I fully forgot. All right. Well, Christina gets the three points anyway. You guys, Chris currently has 18. Christina has 17. There are five questions that remain. Christina, what do you bid? I'm bidding three.

Three, Chris. I'm getting a challenge. All right, Christina, for three. You're going to start with Patricia Sharper. and Helen Schaever. Desert Hearts. Desert Hearts, correct. Next one, Asha Davis and Adaparo O'Douye.

Rout row. Yeah, I got nothing. It's a blank. Nothing? All right. Nothing. Chris, you're going to get the three points. Can you get the fourth with your answer?

What about Pariah? What about Pariah? Yeah, four points for Chris. We have three left. I think Chris has it locked up, so we just have three for... I'm going to give Christina the chance to get the three. Because even if Chris... To get those three points.

Yeah, just to make it close. All right, so the final three for Christina are... Edina Mansell and Tracy Tom's. That would be the rent film. That would be the rent film. Kim Minhee and Kim Tyree. That would be the handmaiden. The handmaiden.

And finally, Vanessa Kirby and Catherine Waterston. Oh. Vanessa Kirby and who? Catherine Waterston. I will say, it was a gala at the same. wasn't it? No, it wasn't. It was from the same year as Ammonite.

And it was on that screenshot that I sent out that I said, Harold, they're lesbians. It was the third of the recommended films that Hulu recommended me. Oh, oh, yes. Not the time. The world is to come? The world to come. Vanessa Kirby and Catherine Waterston. All right.

That was a marathon. on, but I'm so proud of you guys for getting some of the ones that you got there. So, good job on Harold their lesbians. Well done. I loved that game.

Thank you guys. All right. What else do we want to say, Chris? We talked about Francis Lee. The pairing of Sershia and Kate Winslet is fun because I believe Sersha broke Kate Winslet

Oscar record for most. Most nominations by a certain age. Before, like, 30 or something. So that's fun. Fastest to, yeah, fastest to four nominations or something. Yeah, I think that's right. Kate Winslet. That's true, yeah.

Okay, Sertia Ronan. I was just, this is exactly what she's about. It's not going to be this year, because Foe is currently in theaters with a shockingly low rotten tomato score. Rotten Tomatoes means nothing, but when a movie is that low. I need to see what people hate so much about this movie. Like, it's making me so much. I just don't get it. Like, I'm like, what, what do you mean, you know?

What could be so bad about Sersha Ronan and Paul Meskala in a movie? Like, I don't understand. It just has to be that it's not awful. Like, it's not an awful movie, but it's just universally accepted as not very good. Yeah. I got to see it now. It has a worse Rotten Tomato score than the Exorcist right now. Like, what?

Chris's choice for worst movie of all time. So, like, how could it be worse than the worst movie of all time? I think it's going to get the same vibe as this one did where people are going to be like this should have been good but it's kind of like people are going to be like on it which is sad So Greta and Scott Barbie

Greta Gerwig's got Barbie this year She's parlaying that they want her They're throwing every kind of like Bambi or like every Sarah Polly Unfortunately yes But no but I think they She's doing the Narnia thing for net

That's right, Greta? Right. So when Greta goes back to making a terrestrial movie again, I wonder if that's maybe Searsha's Avenue for getting her Oscar is when she reunites with Greta after a time apart. She has the Steve McQueen movie next year that I will be very excited to see. Oh, yeah, that could be something. It could be.

It's also a World War II movie, so we know that's right up the Oscars. The Blitz, right? It's called The Blitz. Yes. Yeah. Or Blitz. Just Blitz. It's cooler. Sir Sharonin in Blitz. It's about Ballroom Blitz, the song.

Blitz, the musical. Yeah. No, I think, I mean, clearly Oscar voters love her. I think they love sort of her, like, I don't think it's any, I don't think there's any, like, box that they even, like, require her to be in, which I think is kind of cool. Like, they can, she can be nominated for Little Women or Lady Bird or Brooklyn, which are all, like, sort of, you can find the similarities there, but, like, there are differences in approach and tone of those projects that I feel like it's not like they need her to be, like, damsel in distress, or they need her to be, like, you know, Action Girl or something like that. So, although if she'd been nominated for Hannah, Action Girl would have worked for her. I don't know. I'm excited. I'm excited to see. She's young enough where I'm not like fretting over like, oh, God, is it ever going to happen for poor Sersia? Like I am for, I don't know why this is the year I've decided to get sad for Mark Ruffalo where it's like, God, he might get nominated again and he's not going to win. So it's going to be like, it's going to be a lot of nominations for Mark for never. It'll be his fourth, right? Yes. Yes.

Fox Catcher Kids are all right. Amy Adams, I feel like our last, you know, our last stand could potentially be with Nightbitch next year, which I hate that it could, that could be true, but like, I don't know. You don't think Amy's going to come back at, like, age 80 with a glorious Stewart style, like, late in life Oscar? I would love it. I mean, like, I want better for Amy Adams than disenchanted. I will just say that. Honestly, I will say, Disenchanted was better than I thought it was going to be.

When I eventually wound up seeing it, like, I was, I was, I was like, oh, this is weirder than I, that was it, it was, it was weirder than I thought it was going to be. I think it was weird than it needed to be. Yeah, it was not bad. But yeah, I'm, I'm optimistic for Sersia, which is like, she's not yet reached the crisis point, which is good, because, I don't know, it's getting,

It is getting a little sweaty with Amy, unfortunately. The Ebson flows. Amy's Glenn Closing, which is hard to watch. She's Glenn Closing. You don't want to be Glenn Closing at any point in your life. It's hard. It's hard to watch. It's true.

I finally watched. Kate Winslet, what will bring her back to another Oscar nomination? Yeah. Because we know that it will eventually happen again. Last one was for Steve Jobs. She's so good. She did not go well. So it's not that.

What didn't go well? Lee. Lee? Oh, God. No. Lee, the forgotten I mean, is it not Avatar Way of Water? Do we not think? Oh, well, sure, sure, sure, sure.

She did Avatar Way of Water, and then there's Ammonite the Gay of Water. Oh, Chris, Boo. Sorry. Oh, I love it, though. The tearful monologue about the fallen

Pandora Whale. Okay. We'll talk about it. It's classic. It's just one of those things that's so earnest that, like, it's a tragic scene that you're, like, emotional, but then the things that are coming out of her mouth are so absurd, and she gives it her full commitment as an actress of, like, she waited many birth cycles to have a baby. She was a composer of songs. Is that the next drag-race spoken word lip-sync for your life? Yes, absolutely, but they have to do it in a water tank. Yeah, they have to do it. They have to get James Cameron to be the guest judge,

and he has to put them in all of the mocap and get them, I want a full dropped-in experience from these queens. Hey, James Cameron, hey, Roo, welcome to my abyss. Yeah. Oh, God, that's all good. Oh, man. All right. What else?

What else? The closing thoughts on Amonite. Wait, I got to bust out my notes. I'm sure I wrote down something. Cheeky and strange. Oh, James McArdle calls Mary Amonite the presiding deity of Lyme. That feels like a backhanded compliment, right? It's hugely backhanded compliment, yes.

I don't know about that. Oh, he also mentions the geographic. The old boys back at the geographical society. I'm like, are those boys at the geographical society still making trouble that they did for What's His Face in Lost City of Zed? We're not that old boys club again. Just a bunch of dudes with handlebar moustaches sitting around a map. James O'Cardle also orders dinner for his wife at one point for Charlotte, and he orders plain white fish. Plain white fish.

Plain white fish baked no sauce. I'm like, you're a plain white fish baked no sauce. Like, Jesus Christ, man. That may be really quite sad. And you know what's bone in. She's going to just be deboning some of sad. All day. All day.

With no flavor to be found. Oh, I was so sad. And I don't think she's even spoken by the time that he's ordered her plain white fish. Honestly, no. She's been spoken for her. And that's that has been. She's kind of drifted in the back of, like, a frame and just kind of, like, almost like she's about to pass out. But then, like, oh, she's got it.

Many ways I am a plain white fish. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That lady apparently. When I had a small chuckle when she tumbled in the ocean waves and almost got knocked into the changing stand bathroom zone that she was, I was like, girl, this is. Come on. Yeah. Use your leg. Stand up a little bit.

Like, come on. Use your legs, you can do it. She actually, I'm reading up a little bit on her, she went on to become a geologist of her own, so clearly inspired by Mary's example. And you know how sometimes that like couples inherit characteristics from one another? Do you think that was just like, she just like, by osmosis got like, geologists from

from Mary from like being with her like that's nice that's kind of romantic she sat on her face and she's like now I have a master's degree and now I know about stones how you get master's degrees well depends on the college please don't tell me if that's not how it happens

because I don't want to have to return any of them I love all my degrees where you can't see this because you're listening on a podcast but behind Christina is just a wall of degrees. Like, it's kind of amazing. They're all framed. Gross, bros. All right. Anything else before you move on to the IMDB game?

The scene where you think that they're going to have a Nicole Kidman in birth moment of Kate Winslet just stone-faced reacting to being in the presence of music. Right. Also, I think people dogged it for being like, That's just like the ending of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, but it's just, you know, feels a little tropey. Francis Lee, have you seen birth? We presume you have.

Also, and I mean, it does, you mentioned Carol. It does end on a knowing glance between two lovers. Yeah, it's a knowing glance. Christina, last thoughts on Aminite. It's currently streaming on Hulu. Do you recommend our listeners? Go check it out. Look, it's not a bad movie.

It is a little slow at times. like, I don't know, if you're, it's getting chilly out. If you want to feel, you know, ocean chilly instead of, unless you're on the ocean, in which case, shut up. But like, if you want to kind of just breeze in and out of this seaside town and see Sersha sit on Kate's face, like, that's what's going to happen in this movie. So, you'll get exactly what is advertised. So, yeah. Why not put your eyes on it? I love it. All right. Chris, why don't you explain to everyone what the IMDB game is. So every week

we end our episodes with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try to guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for. If any of those titles are television, voice only performances, or non-acting credits will mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as

a clue, and if that's not enough, it'll just become a free for all of hints. All right, Christina, this is your third time with us. You've done the IMDB game before. Would you like to give a clue for guess first, and then in which direction should this round-robin go? I forget how much power I hold in the IMDB game.

It's a lot of power. I'm getting high on it. I will guess first. All right. Would you like to guess from me or from Chris? I can't remember who I guessed from last time. So I pick Joe. All right.

So I actually chose. somebody who was nominated, who was nominated for Best Actress in this year, this COVID year of 2020. Vanessa Kirby, who we've not done before. There is one television show for Vanessa Kirby. That would have to be the Crown. It is the Crown, our young Princess Margaret from the Crown. Gorgeous. Okay. I feel like it's too early for Dead Reckoning to be involved in her lifestyle. And by lifestyle, I mean IMTV. Known for it, yes, it's a lifestyle, yes. It's a lifestyle.

It's kind of a way of life for some. It counts. So I have to assume Mission Impossible Fallout is also in there. Mission Impossible Fallout is correct. Yes. Okay. Two more. Now, things could get tricky. God, she really

fresh to the scene in a lot of ways that Vanessa, is pieces of a woman in there? Pieces of a woman. you are three for three. Okay, but now I'm kind of like, am I out of movies? For Vanessa Kirby. Because what else could be in there?

Can I just be bold and guess that that one I literally just guessed for the gay movie is on there? What is it called? The world that we come around in, the world to come. The world to come is correct. You have gone four for four. You have got it. Yes. I think you're our first guest with a perfect score.

Perfect score, Christina Tucker. Give it up, listeners. Listeners, get loud. Get excited. Get excited for Christina. That's awesome. That's fantastic. Be like J-Lo as the inauguration and get loud.

Let's get loud, everybody. All right. Well done. Oh, my God. I'm so happy for you. That's fantastic. Dumb luck. Yes.

You nailed it. All right. So you are now giving to Chris. I am giving to Chris. Okay, so I was scanning through all the actors in this film, and I was like, there's not a ton of actors in this movie. And if you guys haven't done them, they've also just been trapped in Harry Potterland for so long that they're not very interesting. So then I was thinking about, well, I did turn on the West Wing pretty much immediately when I was done with this film.

And what of Martin Sheen? what of Martin Shee And I'll tell you this There's no TV Christina I was No West Wing I was perusing your letterboxed reviews yesterday

And your review for the Departed Which is just like Just imagine you're on the tray On the subway and you turn to your left And it's just Martin Sheen If I had ever in my Almost 10 years of living in Boston Simply popped on the red line at South Station

and saw Martin Sheen, I would have literally passed out and died. Okay, Martin Sheen, who I believe has no Oscar nominations. Apocalypse Now. Yes. Okay. The American president. No. Interesting.

I thought so, too. The Departed Yes Okay The departed but not the American president What are we doing here? What are we doing? No West Wing too

Yeah no TV I feel like these are After Apocalypse Now my guess is they're going to all be Fairly recent But what else has he done Was he in Bobby? He's in Bobby

I'm going to guess Bobby You are incorrect. Your years are 1973 and 2010. Okay, so 1973 is before Apocalypse now. Yes.

He's not in Is he in the Godfather? Is that even the right year? I didn't think so. You threaded the needle in Between the two Godfather, the first two Godfather movies. So, okay, so it's between Godfathers. What movies are that year? This is a movie.

I can say that. Directed by somebody who's gotten Oscar nominations in the last, in this century. Oh, is this the, the, the, a Ridley Scott movie, The Doolists? No, not Ridley Scott. It's not Ridley Scott. Gotten Oscar nominations in the past decade, you said? In this century.

I think his latest was like 12 or so years ago. Okay. Yeah, I'm trying to think of another good clue for this. Is Martin Sheen even in that Ridley Scott movie, I just said. Start opposite an actress who would win an Oscar several years later. True. It's maybe her, it's her big breakthrough movie, I feel like, right? I think that's, yeah, I think so.

Yeah. And she's like the headliner of this movie. The two of them together. Two of them together. Yeah. Why can't I recall? It's a very good movie. I love this movie.

He looks, syncrut. Gotta give it up for him. Yeah, he does. He's like, yeah, he's a hottie. He's really giving. He's giving. Yes, yes. Is it a romance?

Yeah. Or is it like an action? It's a romance of a type. Yeah. A romance of a type. Romance can look like anything, and I think it's important that we do. What the hell is this movie? Romance of a...

This filmmaker definitely. works more often than he used to. He was... Oh, it's Terrence Malik, it's Badlands. Duh. It is Badlands. Yes. Yes, it is Badlands. Now buckle your safety belt, Chris, because this next one...

I have to be honest with you. Not sure this movie exists. It is in 2010. And it is the reason I picked this because I was like, what the fuck is this movie? This isn't some, like, Secret Republic. movie, is it? It's not like...

No. I don't think so. Not secret Republican. I don't think Martin Sheen would do a secret Republican movie for as much as... I don't think so. Actors in Hollywood will do anything, but he's particularly, like, lefty, lefty. It's a family affair? Yes, it's a family affair. Is it the way?

How did you pull that? I would not have been able to pull that. Yes. he's like walking with like his son's ashes or something in the movie oh is that what it is yeah okay yeah a father heads overseas to recover the body of his estranged son who died while traveling the el camino de santiago and decides to take the pilgrimage himself so it's like a fastball song is in there no less than 12 times it's it's wild crossed with that richard link letter movie it's wild for bros what's the richard link letter movie with the uh the people coming to bury their soldier friend. You know what I mean? Oh, Last Flag Flying. Yeah, it's Last Flag Flying meets Wild is essentially.

That movie's title is a tongue twister that wants me to say a slur. It sure does. It sure does. All right. Yeah, this is a movie. Sure is. Joe, for you, I went into the mayor of East Town cast, which on top of having Kate Winslet

and James McArdle also has the very great Gene Smart Very great There is one television show Sure Okay Oh now

This could be tricky Because there's one Sort of obvious television show But then there are more recent television shows I'm just going to say designing women. Incorrect. It should be designing women.

And the thing is she's won Emmys for so many different TV shows. I'm going to put a pin in TV shows. Film-wise. Oh, I want it to be Babylon. Garden State. Garden State is correct. I knew it would be something crazy like that.

Okay. Yeah, there's a one, I feel. I'm sure I yeah hers is very weird very very Babylon Babylon is correct okay Garden State Babylon Huckabees Incorrect no Huckabees You're the Hitler for saying that to me Chris How do we do TV shows because we usually go for how do I'll do

Yeah give me the year the first year give me the first year that they give you 06 Okay 24 No, wait, no, no, no. Yes, that was her first year. That was her first year on 24. Okay. I was going to say, I thought it was going to be one of those ones where she was like a guest star and won an Emmy.

Okay. Yeah. Your movie year is. Like a season and a half, I think. Yeah, 25 Eps. Chris, what is the movie year? 2016. Huh.

Gene Smart, 2016. All right I memory hold this movie Tell you what This is definitely a movie that I've conflated With a bunch of other movies starring this actor So it's not an older lady And her circle of friends find fulfillment movie

I don't think Gene Smart's done any of those She should though She'd be great at it Get Blythe on the horn Yes seriously So you see said that it's a, it's a movie with a male star. Yes.

That has a lot of movies that are sort of like this movie. Maybe not a lot, but they, enough of them to blur together. Is it an action film? Yeah, yeah, action thriller. Is it like a Gerard Butler action thriller? No, but if Gerard Butler had been in this, you'd believe it. Is it a Liam Neeson action thriller? No, younger.

Jason Statham action thriller More respectability An actor who also directs Yes But did not direct this movie Vin Diesel No he doesn't He just shadow produces

Um But did not direct that movie But he does direct Um Action Action spy action. Yeah, it's like, I have not seen this movie.

Me neither. Crappy highbrow, is that what you said? Yeah, it's crappy highbrow. I think it's crappy highbrow. It's a little better than you see those. Oh, okay. Crappy highbrow. English or UK?

American. American. Not an American director, though. I believe this director is Australian. So an Australian? Oh, but the director is not the action sir. Um, Affleck?

Yes. Is your star. Right. He's a star. He's... Is it like the accountant? It's the accountant. Never seen it.

I've never seen it. He plays an accountant. Isn't that the one where like he's Asperger's syndrome? He has Asperger's syndrome and Anna Kendrick is the only one who understands him or something like that? Anna Kendrick is second build. It's a lot of... images of him with a rifle. But isn't it though he has some sort of like neuro atypical?

He's a math savant, so I guess we kind of have. Okay. Okay. Have never seen that. Yeah. No. It's very strange. Believe it or not, there were some people who decided to declare that movie problematic

back in 2016. I know that will surprise you. Shocked. Shocked. All right. That's a weird. I wonder who Gene Smart plays in that. What if she's her same character from Babylon

and she just gives him the same speech about how... That's what got her cast in Babylon. Accountants are on the way out, but you will live forever in your accounting. I mean, that would be great. That'd be great for accountants.

I would love that. All right. Christina Tucker, once again, we cannot thank you enough for traveling to across the pond all the way to England to talk about chili fossils.

and hot lesbian romance. I am so glad that my husband paid you guys to hang out with me. And now I'm going to go back to lying on my bed and staring at a moth I've trapped in a glass. Wait, you said as soon as you finished the movie, you went and immediately watched a West Wing episode. Which episode was it? Which episode?

I'm getting, I'm at end of season four, so I'm getting to the point where I'm like, am I going to keep watching the West Wing? Probably not. Yeah. I don't care so much anymore. Rounding the corner to season five is a rough one. It's a rough transition.

It's been my, like, it's good background when I'm, like, watercoloring because I don't really have to look at it because I know what's happening. But even the end, I'm like, well, this isn't good enough to, like, even listen to really. Even as you're, like, rounding the corner into, like, late season four, there's stuff like, oh, we're just going to, like, go to CJ's hometown for a bit. You know what I mean? Yeah, she's going to fuck Matthew Modine for a. She's going to stick them on an airplane for a while and they can't land.

And it's like, okay, like, sure, why not? Yeah, Zoe Ireland just got kidnapped, so I'm kind of like... Yeah, that's how you know. That's the things are getting bad. Wasn't Tay Diggs, like her Secret Service agent for that episode? Where they're like, hey, we're going to give you a Tay Diggs for an episode. Yeah, oh yeah. It was a whole mess of things happening, Chris.

You wouldn't believe it. All right, Christina, thank you so, so much. Thank you. Where can you, where would you like to direct our listeners to find more of you, find fun things that you've written? What can we do? You can find me on Twitter slash X, I guess. Shut up. I'm just naming that website.

We have never called an X on this show. No one does because it's dumb, but I'm still occasionally tweeting mostly about this current season of the morning show, which I am also writing unhinged reviews for that honest. still need to, I have like a, I have a season and a half to catch up on. And once I do, I am belining to read your thoughts on this show. Joe, I can't urge you enough to watch what they have decided to do in this season is just, it sounds like anything. Every, everything I hear, right? Yeah. In episode one. Yes, I've heard that Reese goes to space. I heard that they flashed back to an entire, this is what happened on January 6th episode. which she is present for, right?

Yeah, she's been in space and she was also in the interaction, of course. It sounds like it would scratch a lot of the itches that the good fight would scratch for me, except the good fight I was always like, this show rules. And every time I see people talking about the morning show, they don't quite say that, but it still feels like essential viewing of that regard. I have actually been watching my show and my friend all of the good fight, and the good fight is like perfect insanity, and this is deeply deranged. and unwell insanity.

It also works for me. Just dark memories and such. But it's good. And I think I talked over you saying the name of your substack for that. It is. Chaos is the new cocaine because, of course, one of the greatest quotes from the first season ever said. Billy Crude Up richly deserved. That's a crude up quote from that show, right?

Yeah, yeah. Richly deserved that Emmy Award. All right. Thank you so much, Christina, once again. Listeners, that is our episode. If you want more of This Had Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at This Had Oscar Buzz.com. You should also follow our Twitter account at Had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz. You should also sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com slash This Had Oscar Buzz.

Christina, this is your chance to talk about how much you love listening to This Had Oscar on Patreon, just kidding. Chris, where can the listeners find more of you? Twitter and Letterbox at Chris V-File. That's F-E-I-L. I am on Twitter slash X. Christina's gilting me into saying it. Christine is making me call it X.

I am. She's saying Mr. Musk requires that we all call it X. It's weird. It's weird that you keep calling Mr. Musk. When there's like a new Diet Cola that they want to like sound cool. It's very new Diet Cola. Remember when it's like Diet Pepsi is not cool, so we have to have Pepsi one. Yeah.

Can we talk about how there's a new lemon lime soda that looks like, that looks like you, like it's from a movie where they couldn't just say Sprite so that they have like, it's just like it's, it's replaced Sierra Mist, right? It's replaced Sierra Mist, but it's called like sploosh or something like that. It's like it's not exactly that, but it's like it sounds fake. The whole thing sounds fake. Bring back Surge. Bring back Slice. It's called Starry. Slice still exists.

Starry. Yeah, starry. Okay. Story sounds fake, right? It sounds like. Starring. sounds like a party drug. It sounds like something that like J.J. Abrams would have put it.

It sounds like a party drug. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Like Katie's here. She brought some starry. Oh, my God. Did you bring the starry? Fantastic.

How are we going to go to the club rave without the story? We should, all right, somebody needs to do a substack or a podcast or whatever on all the movies that were made when rave culture was the thing. And, like, Go is obviously the best one, but, like, so many movies just had, like, a plot or a scene or whatever where people are just, like, people are going to a rave. Because people were very, very concerned about raves. It was a moment. Maybe think clubs were going to be cooler than they were, and they are. I know.

I know. It's all such a disappointment, right? Yep. All right. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork, Dave Gonzalez, and Gavin Muvius for their technical guidance. Taylor Cole for our theme song. Please remember to rate, like, and review us on. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, wherever else you get podcasts.

A five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcasts visibility. So make sure you clean those tools before you get to any kissing and then write us a nice review. That's all for this week, but we hope you'll be back next week for more buzz. I was trying to think of someone to thank for bringing the story, and I couldn't get there. Thanks, Cassandra, for bringing the story. I don't know. It just sounds like somebody who would have the story. Bye.