This Had Oscar Buzz - 263 – A Good Year

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

After the Oscar and box office success of Gladiator, director/star duo of Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe decided to reunite in 2006 for a very different kind of film, A Good Year. Starring Crowe as a finance bro who returns to the French vineyard of his beloved but estranged and now deceased uncle (played by Albert Finney), … Continue reading "263 – A Good Year"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. We want to talk to Merlin Hack, Millen Hack and French. I'm from Canada water. Dick Pooh You're selling You used troubles fast You would take me away from my vines

And take away my last few chances of immortality I'm afraid sir, be in touch If this place meant as much to him as I believe it did You're worse than I thought For thinking about selling it This place doesn't suit my life It is your life that doesn't shoot this place.

Once you find something good, Max, you have to take care of it. You have to let it grow. You can't for the life you may think of why I stop coming down here. Can I remind you, Max Skinner doesn't do weekends, take holidays. Max Skinner makes money. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that knows all the bad things you did to get your money. Every week on This Head Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar Hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy.

I'm your host, Joe Reed, and I'm here, as always, with my dubious Californian offspring. Chris File, hello, Chris. Dubious California offspring, who is married to... Who is Abby Cornish married to that I always forget that she's married to? In real life? Isn't she partnered with someone that you're like, really? I'm going to have to look that up. Hold on. Abby Cornish...

I always forget this. Because she's not married, according to Wikipedia. Well, in 2019, she announced her engagement to mixed martial artist Adele Altamimi. Is that who you were thinking of? Maybe she's some, maybe she, she's connected to someone somehow. Like, she's like, maybe she's a cousin of someone famous. I don't, all right, let's see. Listeners, if I am confusing Abby Cornish with someone else, I think you'll forgive me

because who among us? I'll do respect to Abby Cornish. Is she, is she, uh, your Siena Miller? Maybe just for me specifically. All right. Yeah, I'm not seeing anything. She was with Ryan Philippi forever because she was the one who he cheated on Reese Witherspoon with, allegedly. Anyway, Abby Cornish in this movie... Continuing her string of dubious accents that you don't...

You don't quite get what accent she's doing for like a while into the performances... Into the performance? Yes. Sort of like three billboards where it's just like... There's like you're 20 minutes into her performance in three billboards and you're like, I guess she's Irish, like, canonically in the movie? Coming and going with the Missouri and breeze. Yeah.

And in this one... And this one, she announces herself as from California, like, right away. And you're like, oh, but she's like an Australian who lives in California. And you're like, no. And you're like, but like she was raised in England, I guess. And like, no. And it's just sort of like, no, it's just sort of. Sort of in France.

Yeah. She is a creature of the world. She is a citizen of the globe. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. She, Abby Cornish, you can speak in whatever dialect you want, even if it's multiple at the same time. We forgive your three billboards dialect because, listen, you were hardly that movie's biggest problem.

Listen, Abby Cornish did Bright Star. Abby Cornish gets kind of a lifetime pass for me after doing that movie. She's incredible in that incredible movie. Yeah, yeah. So that's what I have to say about Abby Cornish. Well, to say about, we'll say more when we talk about a good year. What, uh, I did, I don't think we realized. A good year, a bad movie. A good year, a bad movie is kind of, yeah, I want to, so maybe we'll lead with this.

Forgivably bad. I don't like, it's not offensively bad. Absolutely. Absolutely agree. Yeah. Working outside of a mode that they are well suited to and they're making the most cliche formulaic thing. So it's like, it's a passable movie, but there is not much to recommend it for. This is what's so funny to me is essentially this was Ridley Scott doing a chill-out movie, where Ridley Scott was like, listen, I live in the south of France. I don't want to go very far to make my next movie. Why don't I make a movie? I don't want movies that I have to have like blood and violence anymore. Why don't I make a movie that's set in like the wine country?

and then I can just, like, roll out of bed and start filming from my house, essentially. And why don't I just, like, I'll make it with Russell Crow again. We haven't made a movie together since Gladiator. We've wanted to. I'll, you know, I'll make it kind of a chill-out movie. It's not really going to be action-heavy. It'll be mostly sort of these, like, light comedic setups. And you would think, then, that it would be, like, Ridley Scott working in a very comfortable mode.

But it's weirdly Ridley Scott working in, like, his most uncomfortable artistic mode, which is light comedy. And all the reviews kind of clocked him for that, too. It's not like it was this, like, next level observation that Ridley Scott isn't maybe good at doing his version of Under the Tuscan Sun or something like that. This movie is Under the Tuscan Sun meets We bought a zoo, I feel like. That's my kind of log line. It's Under the Tuscan Sun for boys. Yeah, yes, yeah, exactly. Under the Tuscan Sun for finance bros.

It's not that Ridley Scott can't do comedy because I think the comedy works in The Martian. I think there's elements or there's scenes, you know. Matchstick Men is a decently funny movie, I feel like. I still have to see. Have I seen Mad? If I've seen Matchstick Men, I remember nothing. But that would be a fun movie for us to do at some point. There's still so many Ridley Scott movies we can do. we're doing this because Napoleon is on its way. Who knows, maybe this year will give us a clear antecedent to a good year

is Ridley Scott's Napoleon, where he's like, they're both French, whatever. I was going to say this. Like, he finally cracked the code in that he figured out the movie he can still make in France. Right. It's just about the most... But still do what he's good at. Bloody Conqueror of all time. The real bitch would be if they somehow couldn't film the movie.

France. I don't know where they shot Napoleon. I actually don't know either. It would be just like really cruel to this man. If he had to go to Romania or something like that to film. Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. The cinematic center of the, I guess, cinematic world, Romania. But this is the thing I wanted to lead with with a good year, which is a good year is,

I think designed to be a sort of low-lift, good vibe kind of a movie that you could watch on, you know, a weekend, throw it up on, you know, your streaming service of choice or whatever, and just sort of vibe with it and not really have to engage too hard in, like, essentially what I call like a good, like, cable TV movie. And it has, you can see where it's going with that, right? And it's just sort of like, this kind of like, we've seen this kind of character before. He's a workaholic. He's, you know, pitiless in his financial outlook, right? He's a shark in the... Only cares about money. Doesn't even have a hobby or a passion.

Only wear suits to, you know, everything or whatever. It doesn't understand things like... the earth, and he, and he's forgotten his sort of idyllic childhood in Provence that, you know, he's now wasted that, that, you know, charmed upbringing by becoming a finance asshole. And so now he's going to rekindle and rediscover that, that child within, and go and find the vineyard that he grew up on, and sort of rediscover that version of himself. And, like, all of those things are designed to give you the same kind of sort of serotonin boost that I get from movies like Contact or my best friend's wedding or a league of their own or mermaids or whatever. Or under the Tuscan Sun.

That's the thing. But it's like, what is it about this particular, it says it's not just a good year. It's not like a good year is not tapping into whatever formula, but, like, I don't like any of these kind of movies. where, like, finance bros make good, you know what I mean? Or, like, I don't, there is something about, there is something alchemical about this, uh, this genre of movies where it's like, it's sort of like, why I'm sort of jealous of people who can vibe with Elizabeth Town, even though Elizabeth Town is not technically a good movie. Elizabeth Town not being a good movie should still be something I can vibe with.

But, like, there is something... This movie isn't even working as hard as Elizabeth Town is, though. Oh, Elizabeth Town is working harder than 12 movies. That's the thing about Elizabeth Town. You have to respect that about Elizabeth Town. This movie, it's just like... I don't know. Ridley Scott, I don't think of someone who can kind of lazily go through plot points.

And that is something that I do enjoy and respect in other movies, where it's just like... It's so laid back about moving this plot forward. but, like, Ridley Scott is not a chill guy. No. Despite his home life in France. No, Ridley Scott is very, very, very much not a chill guy. At least his movies, you know, they're very methodical. They are very forward momentum, even when they're not good, something like Body of Lies.

I will say one thing we can maybe get into later that I was a little bit surprised by. For as much as I was not vibing with this movie, I really liked Marion Cotillard in this movie. and I don't always like her, even when other people do like her. So, like, that was kind of interesting. It was the rare laid-back Marion Cotillard performance, and we'd love to see that. It was. Yeah, I'd like to see her in this mode again. We kind of never see her in this mode.

Like, rom-com Marion Cotillard would be, like, kind of interesting. Sure, sure, sure, sure. We should go into her filmography later on. I feel like that would be an interesting one. We have so few opportunities to talk about. This is the year before her Oscar, which was sort of seen as a, come out of nowhere breakthrough Oscar, but, like, she had been in this, she had been in

Big Fish. This was the thing that drove me wild about her Oscar run that year, and her Oscar campaign, and people were like, no, you've seen her before. We've all seen her in a good year. As if we have all seen a good year.

Notorious bomb, a good year. Yes, we have all seen that movie. We know this actress. It, wild to me. Like, she's weirdly kind of not in that much of this movie. I feel like Abby Cornish is a more significant character. Plot-wise, certainly, yes. Like, Abby Cornish has much more to do with the plot.

Yeah, yeah. The romance is kind of rushed, and then at the end... And kind of perfunctory. It's like, you know where this is going. Oh, they've always been in love with each other. That little revelation, I was like, you... This is a hat on a hat. people. Like, this is, this does not need to be here. We didn't need it. No. We didn't need it. We

absolutely didn't need it. It's this idea that he's become the person he was always supposed to be by being in a romance with her. Supposed to grow up and be the good doctor. And he instead became the bad finance guy. Also, this thing taught me something, which is every time they show those shots of, like, the London skyline or whatever, or those sweeping shots of like past the like the London Eye and all this other sort of stuff. I'm always curious what that big sort of elongated suppository-looking building, that Faberjé egg-looking building is, and apparently that's where they keep all the, like, jackass finance bros.

So, like, that's cool. Good, good to know that. Keep them in there and don't let them leave. And they don't let them leave. You are trapped inside this Faberge egg forever. Listen, when I want UK finance bros and women, I watch industry. Okay, you get two minutes to tell me why I should give industry another shot, because I did not like industry in this first season. Industry evolves very interestingly. I do think that the season two cliffhanger is awesome. I mean, not awesome, like, I'm happy that happened, but that was a wild and unexpected cliffhanger.

that also the season very methodically hidden plain sight was coming. You know, it makes sense. I think the characters are actually interesting. I love Mahala Harrod's performance. Yeah, like, and I also think the show doesn't dumb down finance stuff, but a dumb, dumb, like me, can fully understand what's happening. because it's always the emotional stakes of the characters, like as they're doing finance business, whatever you want to call it?

Maybe I just have such a problem with finance. Maybe that's my thing, is that, like, any, because we'll probably get into it when we do our Scorsese draft when I talk about the Wolf of Wall Street, another movie that I don't really like as much as other people like, and I'm giving you too much information about the Scorsese draft. This is bad. You're going to use it all against it.

I know, I know, I know. I know you're not to be trusted. but like that was one of my biggest problems with industry is like I was so like whenever they would start talking about like finance stuff or like or you know the actual like mechanics of their jobs and the only other thing that was left was like hot queer sex and that just like became diminishing returns for that after the first couple episodes and well I mean I think as the show has gone on they've done a really incredible job just in terms of of writing with the plotting of when they have to do finance things,

become so connected to the emotional arc of these characters that, like, you'll understand the terms of what's happening on some level. If you don't understand what it means for, you know, the business, you do understand what it means for them and they're standing in the company or their job or, you know, sure they work at mcuffin industries or whatever yeah right right right all right okay maybe i'll give it a shot because lord knows it's i can tell when a tv show is about to go from like annoying little pockets of people who are overinvested not you but other people um it's nice to be chill about loving industry well you are the only person who's chill about

loving industry. Everybody else is so fucking hype and annoying about loving industry. But it does feel like that show is on the precipice of maybe becoming more widely appreciated when it comes back for its third season. Yeah, I don't necessarily want this show. I mean, like, I want success for everyone involved in the show. I don't want it

to become TV monoculture in a way that I like, I like checking in with my stories. I don't like it overrunning the culture. You don't want too many memes about industry every Monday morning. Unless it's like succession level great. I don't think industry is succession level great.

That's the thing. But like there's not been a lot of shows that I think are in recent years. So. Yeah. All right. Why don't you tell our listeners about our Patreon? You've got me saying Patreon now. I don't think that's how we pronounce it, but it's fine.

I say, listen, I am from the Midwest. We sometimes switch our hard and soft A's. Buffalo is sort of Canadian Midwest Like Buffalo is sort of like Sometimes we're part of Canada Sometimes we're part of the Midwest Rarely are we part of As New York State as people think we are

It's what kind of Midwest Can you say that again for me? What did I? I can't remember what do you You said it was Canadian Midwest? Why is Canadian not the way we say Canadian? Do you say Canadian? No, sometimes you just do like little bits

of Canadian dialect to sneak in And I do love it when it happens Well, it's, my buffalo comes out in my vowels. My buffalo comes out in the times when I sound like I'm from Chicago a little bit, where it's like I'll hit those flat, those flat A's. This is just what happens to your mouth movement and your tongue movement when you live near a lake. When I'm back here long enough, it's, I'm trying to think of like the most Buffalo. Buffalo used to, there was, A&E used to have a TV show years ago called Confessions of a Matchmaker,

and it was a reality show set in Buffalo with this matchmaker. And her name was Patty Novak. I'm Patty Novak, and welcome to Buffalo. And that's like, and that's, we're not quite as like Minnesota about it, but it's like there's a flattening of the vowels that really happens when you say Patty Novak. And this is just the sound of living by a lake. That's just what I'm going to throw it out. One of my favorite bands when I was younger was a band from Toronto who would come down here and perform,

and they would all, the one time, I can't remember who it was from, it was maybe Lawrence, Lawrence, from the lowest of the low, who I've corresponded with before, would make fun of the way Buffalo people said Blockbuster, because it sounds like Blackbuster, because it's like, it's just like the, you would hit the O so flat, and it's just like Blackbuster. We'll go to Blackbuster, we'll go to Hollywood video.

See, you're doing, yeah, yeah, it's, It's easy to tip it a little bit into Minnesota. It's like, it's like not carbonated. It's a little bit like DeBares a little bit, the way that, like, you know, remember the SNL sketch, but it's, there's, it's an interesting, it's an interesting little, uh, little regional dialect where what, every once in a while I'll see a local ad and I'll just sort of chuckle on. I'm like, oh my God, that's the buffaloest ad I've ever heard in my entire life.

Uh, North Panawanda. that's sort of all of the suburbs in Buffalo are like very susceptible to like going to Cheekta Wagga So anyway I might ask you to just name Various types of wine

With the most Buffalo Accent Chardonnay All right Oh yeah she has a good Pino Grisio The Yaa is Minnesota The Yaa is definitely Minnesota

Yeah Oh it's a Pino Grigio Buffalo also has Especially like the areas were, uh, I grew up, there was a lot of like used guys. Like, a lot of, um, I don't know. I don't know.

I do have, I, I, I get some, like, Pittsburgh sneak in because my grandmother's from Pittsburgh, so we grew up with a lot of yuns and yon's. What is yon's? Yon's is singular in Yon's plural? That is how Pittsburgh my grandmother is,

but she will pull out a yon's. She will pull out of yon's. What's the thing that Philly people say, John, that John, that to me is so funny to me, when you have, like, actual, like, words that don't exist. Like, when your regional accent is so strong that you actually have words that don't exist, like, John. John, as in, like, J-O-H-N?

J-A-W-N, where it's just, like, that, that's... What are you referring to with John? That's their, like, that's their, like, catch-all word for just, like, oh, man, like, it's, I genuinely don't know. I can't speak for Philadelphians. I shouldn't, I shouldn't try and speak for Philadelphians, but... We should immediately call up Christina and be, like, Christina, We should. We should. What's that, John? Anyway, explain to our listeners about this had Oscar buzz turbulent brilliance.

Listeners, as you know, we have launched a Patreon recently. We want you to come over and join us over on this had Oscar buzz turbulent brilliance. Five dollars a month, you're going to get two bonus episodes. And then we also are doing call-in episodes, which we just recently started. The first of those planned episodes are what we call exceptions. These are movies that fit this had Oscar buzz rubric. We've always been having people to ask us to do movies that feel like this had Oscar buzz movies, but did get a nomination or two. Now they're here. They're over on the Patreon. They come the first of every month.

We started it off with nine. Most recently, we've done an Australia episode with our first Patreon guest, Katie Rich. also episodes on Pleasantville The Lovely Bones which was selected by our subscribers and then we also have on the 15th of every month so shortly this week after this episode drops

we have excursion episodes these are discussions that like deep dive into Oscar ephemera such as actress roundtables or we just well this week we're about to have a recap of the 1996 MTV Movie Awards. Anything that we obsess about on the show,

we do special episodes for that, including our first one was a Magic Mike live experience when I went there. So sign up on patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz. Join us for the turbulent brilliance. Thank you, Chris. Very good. All right, back to a good year.

I mentioned the thing about how Ridley Scott genuinely sort of reverse engineered this movie kind of where like Ridley Scott had an idea for a movie. He went to the novelist Peter Mail and is like, I have this idea for a movie. Why don't you write it up as a novel and then I will option your novel and I will make this as a movie. And I'm not entirely sure why he decided to do that rather than just sort of like going directly to a screenwriter, but like, okay. And then, like, changed a bunch of shit from the novel anyway. To make it more, like, movie-esque. Yeah.

You can also see how this might be a more enjoyable novel, because if you're reading this kind of very familiar story, you know, part of the experience of a novel is the language. Yeah. You know, the things that don't necessarily work the same way, like how you can go in and out of memories. whereas in this movie it feels like... Yeah.

I read that they almost initially thought of having Albert Finney be a ghost, and it's like, he's not not a ghost. He's not a ghost anyway, right? When you see the flashbacks, it's like, it's, you know, it's also very corny, because it's like, literally Russell Crowe goes into a hallway, and he's like, I used to play, like, a pickleball or whatever that was with Albert Finney, when I was Freddie Highmore When I was, well that's, okay, this is the other thing

is obviously Russell Crow gets cast in this because he and Ridley had done Gladiator together. It's their second of, this would kick off a string of like four movies in five years that Russell Crow and Ridley Scott would do together where it was like this and then Body of Lies, no, this, then American Gangster,

then Body of Lies, then Robin Hood. like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. American gangster, at least, was a successful financial hit in all of that. But none of these were really satisfying to critics. Russell Crow, I think, is very miscast in this movie. I think it's... I want to talk about it. We'll talk about it on the other end of the plot description, actually.

Yes, please. But, like, I think he's really out of place. He also does not scan as the adult version. version of Freddie Highmore in any way. Like, there's, it's really kind of funny to imagine that we're supposed to buy that Freddie Highmore grew up to be Russell Crow. And I know that, like, Freddie Highmore grew up to be Tom Hollander. What are you talking about?

100%. That should have been the twist at the end of the movie. The Tom Hollander was the air the entire time. I love Tom Hollander. He's very good in this movie. We are almost at Six-Timers Club for Tom Hollander. I can't wait to do a six-timers club on Tom Hollander. That'll be very funny.

We'll get there. I'm sure we will. We're going to have you, Chris, do the 60-second plot of a good year, which will either be five seconds worth of plot, and you'll just sort of, like, faff around for a little while, or it's going to be, like, we'll get to the 40-second mark, and he's just arrived in Provence, so we'll see how it goes. I'm not good at this. This is our second straight 2006 movie. I don't know if we sort of... Full accident. Full accident, yeah. I thought that there were, I initially, in my mind, before we planned this, thought that there was more time between Gladiator and a good year. But there's only six years. Yeah. Yeah. Well, also, Inside Man, which we did last time, does not feel like a 2006 movie, as we explained. Like, Inside Man feels like a 2012 movie, and a good year definitely does feel Otts. Otsy. Yes.

Anyway, though, we're talking about a good year, directed by Ridley Scott, written by Mark Klein, based on the novel by Peter Mail, which was essentially dictated by Ridley Scott in the first place, starring Russell Crow, Marion Cotillard, Abby Cornish, Albert Finney, Didier, Didier, Bordeaux, Isabel Candelier, Freddie Highmoor, Archie Punjabi's hilarious wig. Archie Punjabi is fully winning. a bob off in this movie. Oh my god. The business bob on Archie Punjabi is not taking any prisoners in this movie. Holy shit. The business bob on Archie Punjabi is where she keeps all of her secrets about Juliana Margulies. Like that is, that is what I'm talking about. She's she kept it from this movie and that's her secrets bob. Um, Rief Spall, I always find Rave's Ball so darling, even when he's playing a little shit like he is in this movie. The would-be villain of the movie.

Tom Hollander, it premiered September 9th, 2006 at the Toronto International Film Festival. I do want to, I'm making a note to open up a little tab on the 2006 Toronto Film Festival, just to see what the lay of the land was there. It opened wide, inadvisably, on, I guess you don't platform something like this. This should appeal to a wide audience. didn't, opened wide on November 10th, 2006. Chris, are you ready? Sure. And go. All right, so Russell Crowe is a finance bro in the UK. He gets news that his beloved, but hasn't spoken to him in years. Uncle has died, and he has to go to the French estate of this

uncle to, like, basically settle affairs. Turns out when he gets there, it's a semi-run town, but there's a vineyard being run by this man named Francis. They butt heads immediately. He almost runs Merarian Cotillard over with his car. 30 seconds. And then Abby Cornish shows up and she is claiming to be the son

of his uncle, making her the rightful heir of this estate, or the daughter of this uncle. And the rightful heir of this estate, but he basically, you know, fabricates some stuff to be like, that's not true so that he can sell it. And over time, he begins to fall in love with Marion

Cotillard and be like, actually, Abby Cornish might deserve this place. So he forges a letter to make her to like say that it's from the uncle that confirming all of this birthright stuff. And then he also goes back to the UK, settles affairs and basically quits his job,

comes back and says Marion Cotillard, we will live together in France. 16 seconds over, not bad. Sorry I had to interject there, but it was I've done that before on the podcast where I like say something and I'm like that wasn't right You know like you just go into the blank space

You go into a white space of clouds When you're in a panic trying to give Full plot of a movie within 60 seconds So it's true Whatever listeners would have understood Have you seen have you watched this third season Of only murders in the building? Not yet I need to catch up

I think you'd really love it I really love it I'm sure I will I thought it's so good All right This We can't talk. I almost was like, Meryl is in season three. We got to talk about the split, and we kind of already talked about it.

No, we're going to talk about Meryl and Don Gummer in every episode going forward. That is the offering that we give to the universe. I did see the best tweet, I think I've seen about it, which was, I believe, from Jackson McHenry, who said something to the extent of this has been a test of the emergency Gummer system. It did feel like we all sort of like all our phones started bleating. Everybody has collectively lost their minds

in the past 36 hours. We want nothing but happiness. We're going to find a way to blame this on Louisa and her performance in the Gilded Age that like, I don't know, we're going to... Gay people certainly will. They certainly will. Gay people were so mean to Louisa Jacobson about the Gilded Age. It's very funny.

Why do... Why does everybody still watch that show? Everybody seems to hate it, but, like, they feel like they compelled to... It's pure dumb serotonin. It's, like, liquid dumb, like, injected into your veins, but it's so good. It's, like, it's costumes. It's Christine Baranski saying mean things. It's Carrie Coon, like, slaying.

It's Carrie Coon having a hot husband. It's... Who in real life is Rebecca Hall's hot husband? That's true, Morgan Spector. Morgan... Talk about a hot couple. Morgan something, right? Spector.

Spector, okay. The Bills have a player named Baylon Spector, which is why I was like, wait a second. And it's so funny because you say it related. If you say it quickly, it sounds like Bail Inspector. Anyway, the 2006 Toronto Film Festival did not have any gala presentations for Meryl Streep, so Don Gummer was not there in any way. Okay, so... Do we think Don Gummer would like this movie?

I don't think he would. Maybe Don Gummer's been living in. Provence for the last six years, and we just didn't know about it. The worst theory that I heard was from my friend Jordan, who I don't even think believes this, but, like, put it out into the universe, was that I mentioned that, like, this would track to, like, six years ago, would track to, like, shortly after the Trump election, and he's like, who did Don vote for? And I'm like, shut up. No. No. No. No. Stop. No. He and Merrill have been together for over 40 years No, no. Merrill would know

Don's politics. I agree. He's a sculptor. He's not a Republican. Also, he's a, what sculptors vote for Trump? Like, no. All right. No, listen, I'm with you. I'm with you. Just saying, Jordan No, that was just a rough time for all. It broke everyone and everything. Yes, broke me. We won happiness for both of them. So whatever Path forward makes them happen. A good year premiered as a gala presentation at 2006 TIF. I'm going to list for you the other gala presentations at TIF. So imagine that like, I imagine these would have all been at the Princess of Wales at the time because the Roy Thompson hall didn't exist. No, it was Roy Thompson for gala's then. Oh, it was. Roy Thompson is that old. Okay. Okay. So imagine then you're at the frankly ridiculous looking Roy Thompson Hall, which,

looks like the top hat in the... Very weird place to see a movie. Or it looks like weirdly like... It looks like actually the spinning top at the end of Inception a little bit. The seats feel like gymnasium seats. Susanna Beers after the wedding, which is the one that ends up...

From Denmark after the wedding. Yeah, exactly. Right, that's right. That's why I remember it, because Salma says it. Seasalians Out, All the Kingsmen. We've done an episode on it. Michael Apted's Amazing Grace, which is the one with Yo and Graham. who was like, I wrote Amazing Grace, the song.

Sarah Polly's away from her, which I'm imagining must have been like met with just people falling off of buildings so happy for their favorite daughter, Sarah Polly. It was just like, you know what I mean? Just like people throwing confetti into the air as they just like walked down King Street or something like that. What a moment that must have been for Canada. Alejandro Gonzalez Iniaritu's Babble, which went on to Best Picture Nomination, The Banquet, the Chinese film The Banquet, Paul Verhoeven's Black Book,

which I want to see what the swells at Tiff at the gala premiere as the thought walking out of Black Book. Emilio Estevez is Bobby. Bobby. Bonneville, that movie. weirdly think about a lot because it was Jessica Lang and Joan Allen and Kathy Bates taking a

road trip in a Chevy Bonneville. Anthony Bengell is breaking and entering, good movie. Barbara Cupples, Dixie Chicks documentary, Dixie Chicks Shut Up and Sing. Which, by the way, this is what sort of what I mean about, like, concert movies,

which, like, that wasn't even a full concert movie. That was like... No, it was a documentary. But, like, if that couldn't get nominated, you know, that year, I don't know. whatever um it's not happening for taylor is what i'm saying uh christopher guests for your consideration which we've said before will be the last movie we ever do whenever we whenever we decide to end this podcast that will be the last episode of uh this head oscar was will be for your consideration really scots a good year douglas mcgrath is infamous which we've done an episode on um a canadian

danish film called the journals of canud rasmussen i've never heard of but cool um um A French film called My Mayor Ami. Yeah, I don't know what that is. My lover of mine. I don't know what Meijer is. All right. The Indian film Never Say Goodbye.

The Christina Ricci has a pig-nose movie, Penelope, that I believe was the first movie Reese Witherspoon produced, or an early Rees-Witherspoon-produced film. Peter Almotivars Volver. and the Canadian film The White Planet which is a documentary

about wildlife in the Arctic So It's a documentary about No, I'm not good So you're going into that TIF Put yourself into that headspace What are the like What are the tickets you need to have

Of those gala presentations as like Volver I would agree that like at that point I obviously want to see Volver I think putting myself in that position Hang on everyone's face but, like, the ticket everybody needed to have was all the King's Men, and, like...

I would have been salivating for all the King's Men that cast, my goodness. And then, like, 15 minutes into the movie, it's very... Oh, no. And then, honestly, I would have been hyped for Bobby, is the other thing. I would have been so fucking hyped for Bobby. I would have hoped that I would have had enough foresight

to see away from her, because I loved Sarah Polly so much as an actress. But because that movie, kind of that buzz sort of emanated from the TIF premiere, I believe. Obviously, I'm falling all over myself to see the new Christopher guest movie, and I would have been disappointed. Disappointed. I probably would have absolutely needed to see Bonneville because it's, you know, three actresses, three middle-aged actresses on a road trip. Like, what is more directed right to me? I would have wanted to see Penelope. This would have been.

been an interesting year of me, like, trying, making a point to go see movies that were, like, a little disappointing. This is maybe not a great gala lineup for Tith, like, from... I mean, the gala lineups... I mean, this one I feel like is, like, kind of a mishmash of actually some really incredible stuff, but, like, I feel like if something's selected for a gala anymore, it is a little bit of a red flag. Okay, but, like, this was a different era of TIF, though. I feel like this was Tiff when they had a stronger hand a little bit, right? This is coming off of things like far from heaven being

gala's, you know. The Midnight Madness lineup is maybe more interesting because the Midnight Madness has both Bong Joon Ho's the host and Borat. Borat is one of the... This is the notorious Borat year, yeah, where it's like the print

broke, so like... Oh, I didn't hear about that. Oh, you didn't know about the... Okay, so Borat, the big premiere Sasha Baron Cohen shows up in character as Borat and I think like arrives on a wooden cart being pulled by women. Ha ha, wasn't that so funny? Right.

The print breaks like 15 minutes into the movie with a sold out midnight crowd that's like really hyped. Sasha Baron Cohen has already like gone out and hyped up the crowd. And who was? Was it? It was like Michael Moore and someone else goes up on stage and just starts doing like a live Q&A to keep people in the theater while they're trying to fix the projector. And I think they ultimately can't and they have to reschedule the movie somehow. Oh, man. From a Midnight Madness movie at that.

2006 version of Michael Moore talking about the impending midterms. Let's see if I can find this. In America. That's fascinating. Fascinating. God, see, it's coming out in me already. All right. I feel like we've talked about Russell Crow a ton. So maybe we also should mention that Ridley Scott is our most frequently covered director. With lots of room to grow. His filmmaker is so, his filmography is so dense that like we could still end up. I want to talk about like this particular era of this sort of. aughts era of Ridley Scott because he does Gladiator in 2000.

It wins Best Picture, but he doesn't win best director. The very next year, he gets a lone director nomination for Blackhawk Down, which in many ways felt like an apology of just sort of like, sorry, Ridley. Like, here's an extra director nomination for your trouble. That movie was also a very late arrival. Very late in 2001, yes. Very early in 2001 was Hannibal, which is a bad movie. we have talked about.

Fun movie. Bad movie. That we have covered. Matchstick Men was his next movie after Blackhawk Down that came in 2003. That's Nicholas Cage and Sam Rockwell as con men of sorts. And Allison Pill is also there. I think it's a good movie. Allison Lohman.

Allison Lohman. I do that all the fucking time. I dare anybody else to judge me for that, though, because that to me is a natural mistake. 10 years later, Allison Pill would have been playing that role. Okay. Kingdom of Heaven, 2005, a movie I feel like I should watch again because I don't think I've watched this like vaunted director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven. Yeah, the director's cut that is significantly longer for this already very long movie.

That movie had, I mean, that movie was a summer movie, very, very expensive. Right. People didn't like it. The problem with a movie like that is, it's a long movie. that you didn't like and then they're like ah but the good version of it is even longer and you're like that's a lot that's an act of faith that is a leap of faith than you're taking for like this movie that I didn't like and it's like what if I watched an even longer version of this movie that I didn't like that I'm told will unlock the key to it being good and well it also unlocks the thing

the key to it making sense and that so like I trust that the longer version is better and like Ridley Scott is the, you know, pinnacle of the director's cut is better because of Blade Runner. Right, right, right, that's true. I mentioned the four consecutive Russell Crew movies then. He embarks upon starting with a good year, American Gangster, Body of Lives, Robin Hood. They basically don't stop working together. And then they haven't since. It's kind of funny.

Yeah. He gets back on the alien train in 2012 with Prometheus, a very good trailer that ended up being, I thought, a fairly frustrating movie, but, like, some people really love it. The counselor, which you and I kind of disagree on, which I think is kind of a masterpiece, and I think is a mess. Exodus Gods and Kings, which is a human collar pull of a movie, where, like, the whole movie is just like, oh, I don't know what that. And also just, like, a movie that nobody wanted, and it's just like, really Scott just keeps

making these large-scale movies to make the large-scale movie. Yeah. 2015 is his most, like, objectively speaking, biggest success since Gladiator, essentially, in terms of the Martian. Oscar success, it was a popular movie. It's a crowd-pleaser. I know a lot of people got on this movie's case for being too much of an awards player, like for being too over-rewarded or whatever. I don't know.

and calling itself a comedy which I think is perfectly fine I also think it's an example like it does stand in comparison to a good year and like the Martian is the type of comedy that you know

Ridley Scott can do well and that it's like it's incredibly plot focused and then he it comes down to casting and putting witty allowing witty people to be witty so it's like it ultimately becomes funny.

Drew Goddard wrote that screenplay, and Drew Goddard knows what he's doing. Right. It's the same thing as, like, Thelman and Louise. Thelman Louise is not a comedy. It's not, I wouldn't call it a funny movie. But the chemistry of those two actresses

and the circumstances that Ridley Scott creates allows for some of their dialogue between the two of them to be funny because they're funny performers. Follows that up in 2017 with Alien Covenant, which is a movie, that asked the question, what if the dumbest people imaginable went into space and encountered

the alien from alien? I really like this movie, actually, for as much as it does frustrate me that, like, the space, the human space travelers just, like, make the absolute least well-advised decisions at all, at all possible moments. It's not the same movie as Prometheus, but I do think it doubles down on some of Prometheus ideas, like, very conscious of, yeah, but you didn't get it in Prometheus, so it's like, Yeah, the people are supposed to be dumb because we as humans are dumb. And it's like, okay. But it also doubles down on the Michael Fastbender thing, like literally doubles down on the Michael Fastbender thing. I mean, it's Michael Fastbender doubling down on Michael Fastbender. It's Michael Fastbender doubling down on himself, like sort of in this movie a little bit. Like that's, I mean, yeah. I was going to say, more importantly, this is a movie that asks, what if Michael Fastbender kissed himself? Like, and these are the fundamental questions of existence that I want a movie to be answering. So I I like Alien Covenant. It's a very watchable movie.

He also does All the Money in the World, which is another very, very late in the year release, so late in the year that they had time to recast the, one of the leads after Kevin Spacey got canceled, and they decided to reshoot with Christopher Plummer, and everybody in Hollywood was like... Hollywood was so impressed that he was able to pull that fast one, that they were like, hey, here's an Oscar nomination for Christopher Plummer for your trouble.

Christopher Plummer I like that movie a lot This is the movie The Ridley Scott movie That like Ridley Scott movies Sometimes are falling into Especially later

They're following Later in his career They It's so like Formulic And like lacks a little bit of life That I don't think is true In this movie

I think Michelle Williams Is fantastic I think you forget about Mark Wahlberg Which is sometimes The Mark Wahlberg Is such a drag on this movie he's a millstone around this movie's neck

I genuinely feel it. Plummer is great. I think it's probably a better movie just having Plummer rather than Spacey because you have someone who is that age. We have the trailers for Spacey being in it with all that heavy makeup and people were like rolling their eyes at how bad it looked in the first place. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean but like I would stand up for this movie. I think it's pretty good. He doesn't make another movie until 2021 when he releases two, count him two movies in the same year.

Where did you come down on the Last Duel House of Gucci dichotomy? Uh, last duel has a lot going for it. I don't ultimately think it's super successful. Last Gucci, I think, is the same. Last Gucci. Last Gucci. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Defline of Gucci.

also released within like a month of each other because last duel was mostly filmed before the pandemic right and then they finished filming right house of Gucci they were like what can we film during the pandemic and they're like we'll go up to like the snowy alps and just film lady gaga skiing for two hours meet got it from sequence to sequence last Gucci you keep saying last oh my god i did it again it's so funny las Gucci is the sequel to last Vegas house of duel Last Gucci, yeah. House of Gucci, from sequence to sequence, I think, varies so wildly.

So wildly. So wildly. Absolutely true. Absolutely true. I would also believe that House of Gucci has a four-hour cut that is significantly better, too. I would absolutely believe that. It's the movie that I'm like, Ridley Scott just keeps making these unwieldy things that, like, to make a coherent movie where all of these. plot threads are like successfully produced like you know from end to end it's got to be four hours long

like house of Gucci so much feels incomplete and you can just see that there is a you know there's a version of this where it's not so truncated i agree with that i kept there were there were many moments in house of Gucci where i just want them to keep pushing it and keep going bigger and more which is why I love Jared Leto in that movie, most of all, because I think he's the performance that's giving me what I want, which is just, like, trash, just give me, like, more and more trash. Yeah, he's giving you Luigi's Castle. Yes. The last duel, I will say, though, I walked into the last duel with my arms somewhat crossed

and being, like, all right, like, whatever. Affleck is so good in it. The last duel I loved, and I was so impressed by, I think Ridley Scott, I think Nicole Hollison are doing the screenplay, or contributing as much as she did to the screenplay, right? Because it was a, she was brought in later into the process. To the process of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck doing the, yeah, because they really wanted a woman's perspective writing that third of the story. It pays off. I think the, I think Ridley Scott has a really strong handle on balancing those three perspectives. I think everybody

in it is good. Affleck is a screen. And a lot of the times, I'm really resistant to Ben Affleck Pop-Timism. I think sometimes people give him a very, very low bar to clear pop culturally. But I thought in this movie, he's excellent. But, like, Drivers Good. Matt Damon giving an absolutely vanity-free performance as, like, the most spineless little weasel in the entire world. Jody Comer's great.

I really love The Last Duel. I think that's of the two movies that year, that's absolutely his better one, and it kind of got pushed aside because they were going to make an awards run for House of Gucci that ultimately didn't work aside from one category. It also feels like it got somewhat pushed aside because it was a 20th century movie, and Disney, I don't know, does not really seem to know what to do with those movies. I love that Disney bought 20th Century Fox and then, like, had no interest in doing anything with 20th Century Fox. Like, good purchase there, assholes. Right, right. And I know it was like, you know, cornering the market or whatever and getting, like, the X-Men IP so that you can do, you know, more Marvel shit with it or whatever.

So you can do Deadpool 3, like... Right, exactly. I don't know. When that movie comes out, I don't know if people are going to care. We'll see you. I think it's going to make more money than we want it to make, honestly. I think it's probably going to make more money than, like... Soon as they put out a trailer where Hugh Jackman is being Wolverine.

Like, I think it's going to sell itself. But anyway, we talked about Gladiator 2 in relation to Denzel Washington last week with Inside Man. So we don't need to talk about that again, but I am oddly intrigued for Gladiator Winds of the North or whatever it's going to be called. Let's talk about Napoleon, though, which is one of the, like, remaining question marks in this award season. as we are recording this. Like, we don't really know a ton about how good or bad it is. I think people have started to see it. I've started to see some reactions to it.

I've only seen positive reactions, but I mean, it's also probably the type of thing that people can say they liked it, but they can't go into detail. So it's hard to know how effusive it was. I feel like we would be hearing more if it was effusive. Do you feel like more and more that these movies that get held out to the last, to the last stage, I mean, whatever, we're still only in October as we record this. So it's not like Napoleon is like waiting until December, but it does feel like, by waiting so long, by skipping the fall festivals, is Napoleon putting a lot of onus on itself to be really impressive, to sort of break up what are becoming the kind of like, oh, these are your Oscar contenders, these are the ones we're going to. have to pay attention to this year. Do you know what I'm saying? I mean, it's hard because I think there's maybe a little bit overconfidence in Ridley

Scott's stature with a lot of these movies that we've mentioned. And, you know, no, you know, I don't think people are as excited for them. People will go and see these movies, but there's, I don't think there's much, you know, there's not like the expectation that we've had that like maybe this is a bad example but like Spielberg doing West Side Story yeah you know which skipped festivals and you know people were anticipating that because we want to see that director tell that story and I don't really know if we have any of that with Ridley Scott and I think it's partly because like we want to we don't want to see the same movie over and over which even the good ones if

feels like he's made that movie before. The unfortunate thing is, we're here today talking about a movie where he didn't do that, and it's not good. I mean, I will say I would probably jump to watch this movie again

than some of those other movies that it's like, you know, it's Ridley Scott doing a Ridley Scott thing. Sure, that's interesting. I don't know. I think I would watch the Martian before this. I'd watch Daily In Covenant before this. I'd probably watch Prometheus before this. I'd watch the counselor before this, even though I don't think it's that good. I'd watch both the last

duel in House of Gucci. All right, to bring it back to a good year, we've talked, we sort of alluded to that we don't think Ridley Scott is good in this mode of comedy. Expand on that maybe for our listeners a little bit. It's just such a soft lob. Like, it doesn't feel like he knows when to punctuate comedy. And I do think, I, I wonder what this movie would be like if it was someone that wasn't Russell Crow, because I do think a lot of that problem is Russell Crow, who is not funny in this movie. I'm trying to think of, like, what English actor, that's the other thing is he sort of, like,

seems very out of place, is this, like, English stock trader guy. Where are the obstacles in this movie? where what is to overcome over then himself and when he does overcome basically himself and his nature it happens very easily so much of this movie is about him trying to sell this vineyard and it's like but you don't need to sell this vineyard there's no real actual urgency for you to sell this vineyard as quickly as you want to or as like or or at all like you're this to me feels like a drop in the bucket for you you're this like weird tycoon master the universe type person. It's not like you're on the precipice of being ruined as a financial guy. There are these things that are talking about like the whatever, whatever version of the British SEC is sort of investigating this latest like trade that he did. He sort of shorted the market on something. And you get the sense that like, but you never get the sense that it would be anything more than a slap on the wrist. He's not like in danger. He's not ever

really in danger being usurped at his job by Rafe's ball. Like we don't really ever take that seriously in the movie. It's all just a lot of plot contrivance. Like, it's happening because that's what has to happen. Every once in a while, he'll, like, call and check in with Archie Punjabi, and she's like, Rave's Spall's getting very comfortable in your office. And it's like, is he? Like, come on. Like, we don't. And then it takes two seconds for him to pull a fast one on Rief Spall to get Raph's Ball fire. Exactly. Exactly. There's no effort at all. There's zero stakes in this movie. And I don't think even, you know, that's fine when you're watching just like a laid-back romantic comedy, but the romance isn't really even developed

that interestingly. For as much as I think Marion Cotard is the best part of this movie, I still don't really buy into that romance with her and Russell Crow. Right. Even when he like rolls up his sleeves and decides to be the waiter at her little outdoor cafe because she's overwhelmed or whatever, that place's business model is a mystery to me that I would love to solve. Like it's a lot of cliches. Who owns? Does she own that? Does she own that place? Yes, but apparently is the only... She can't find waste stuff.

You know, COVID has happened. She's the only employee of that cafe. Yeah, exactly. She has the worst clientele. They're all, like, obnoxious and rude. Americans who want bacon bits on salads. What does she want to? She wanted a Niswaz.

First of all, she butchers the pronunciation of Niswaz. Niswas salad. With Light Ranch and Bacon. Right. Light Ranch. Light ranch. That's an easy shot at Americans, and you know what, I'll take it. I mean, yeah, it's too easy.

Americans love their ranch dressing and bacon bits. That's fine. Bacon bits, that's disgusting. Wait, on anything or on Niswis salad? Bacon bits aren't bacon. No, there are, like, sure that, like, bakeos isn't bacon. Bacon on a salad, sure. But, like, bake bacon on a salad?

But I think there are places that do, like, bacon bits in a cafe like that, you would have, like, actual bacon. You would just, like, cook up bacon and crumble it. Yeah, yeah, you just chop it up. But it's not like they've got, like, their, like, jar of bakos, like, in the back or whatever. Right. But anyway, Americans love, Americans love bacon. They take another shot at Americans for one of their culinary preferences, and now I can't remember it. But anyway.

Wine. It's a lot of the wine. Well, a lot of taking shots at California. Can't believe we haven't really talked about wine yet. Yeah, California wine is a fruit punch. I think is essentially what the one person says. This also should be, I expected even more of a wine movie, though I guess, you know, it's two years removed from sideways,

how deep can they get into wine without seeming. That was one of Ridley's inspirations for this. Like, I really liked sideways. I wanted to make, like, my own little sideways. It's like, okay, cool, work. But then go more into wine. Even if you're just, like, ripping off sideways in that way, like, you're just ripping off a bunch of other movies, too, with everything else.

guy, the guy who sort of has been running the vineyard, to at some point, impart what he finds so romantic or pleasing or satisfying about working with wine or working with grapes, like, for as much as it would have also been, like, kind of perfunctory to have the, like, you don't understand the vintage of this grape. This grape began its life as a small little seed. You know what I mean? It's just like, but also, the movie probably could have used a little bit more of that romanticism to it. So it at least gives him... This is one of my other things.

Like, he doesn't end up selling the estate. Right. But, like... He engineers it... He never gets attached to anything there. Like, the movie's so enamored. Like, he doesn't even have a passion or a hobby. But does he even develop one by the end?

He's just going to be with Marion Cotard and learn French. one word at a time. Learn like French 101 words where she teaches him like blue. Tree. But at the pace they're going, he is going to be dead in the ground long before he's that conversational French. Right, right. Give that man some duolingo.

But like you could get in this, to make, you know, more of a character arc and make the movie more interesting, he could start getting really entwine while he's there. You never get the sense that he's, caring about the grape. He has any kind of, there's any kind of danger of him getting into wine, like, at all, not one bit. It does feel like he still would want to do finance. He doesn't ever become disillusioned with his life as a finance guy. He just wants to be retired. Also, he's supposed to be, like, 35 in this movie.

Also that, yeah. Which was an LOL for me. Everything, like, the pieces are there that, like, maybe they wouldn't have made an interesting movie, but a more, like, fun movie. There's this Jack Russell Terrier the whole movie Who Pees on his leg once I looked up and tried to see if that was Ugy They make no humor of just like a dog It wasn't Uggie, thank God

Was it Uggie's dad? Oh God, what if it is Uggie's dad He actually doesn't have a credit in the movie So he could be like uncredited Uggie But like on Uggie's Wikipedia page He doesn't show up for this movie So I don't know Yeah like

There's a lot of things about this movie that like could have become I would have taken a cuter version of this movie for as much as like cute as often a pejorative when it comes to movies but like

there's there's a degree of charm that's missing here and I think a lot of it is probably that just like this is not a very comfortable Russell Crow performance I don't think he's very he ever really settles into this role

it is not in his wheelhouse and I don't think he ever really makes it into his wheelhouse by the end of this movie. It's not like there's not top name people who could have been appropriate for this role. Like, maybe Tom Hanks was too old for the role, but then again, so was Russell Crow. I think casting an American would have been a tough cell regardless, but still... I mean, you're probably easier to cast a British person, like cast a Colin Firth, cast a...

Cast a Colin Firth, my goodness. Cast a Pierce Bros. It's just a Hugh Grant. Like... Right. It is Russell Crow trying to be Hugh Grant, and he is not. It is not a skill set that he owns. He has many other skills.

He does. They do not include singing. They don't. What is he singing this? I don't think he sings in this. It's just I... Oh, okay. You're talking about Le Miz.

I see. My trauma is Le Miz. Your trauma. All right. Let's talk about Marianne Co. Gautiard's career, though, she is my favorite part of this movie. Her and Finney, like, it is always just funny to watch, like, fun to watch Albert Finney just sort of, like, get handed a pass to just sort of just like, just live life theatrically. Like, be fun. I like that. I like, he's just so likable. He's just so incredibly inherently likable. Do you remember when Julia Roberts, uh, in her Oscar acceptance speech just said, like, I, I am fortunate to have, Albert Finney is my friend, or however she puts it. And it's like, oh, that's so sweet.

I love the way she says that. All right. Marion Cotillard, up till this point, the movies that she's in that you had probably heard of, she's in a very long engagement, a movie that I definitely saw and remember very little about. But she's essentially, like, the third lead of that movie. After Audrey Tattoo and Gaspard Ulliel, but don't quote me on that. She had been in Big Fish a few years before this. She was the sort of ingenue co-starring with Albert Finney, actually.

In Big Fish, she actually gets to share scenes with Albert Finney in that movie, I believe. Big Fish is a movie we should end up doing for our Patreon soon because That's a real interesting Oscar trajectory. I feel like a lot of people really expected that to be the movie that the Oscars were going to finally honor Tim Burton after years of him making very non-Oscarie movies. And it just did not work out that way at all. She's in all those taxi movies, the Luke Besson taxi movies. She's in at least the taxi one, two, and three. I don't know if there are any more than that.

What other filmmakers did she end up working with? Sorry, I'm like, I should have probably been a little bit more prepared for this. But, yeah, she's a French actress. She's, you know, she's in a lot of French movies. And then this movie is followed immediately by LaVian Rose. She plays Edith Piaf. The critics love her. there are finally at last some angels in this city and she wins

also she wins in the last strike year so like there was a strike going on during that Oscar season it delayed the globes or no there was no globes that year because of it the globes were a weird little extra episode of extra episode of entertainment tonight or whatever so follows up her Oscar with Michael Mann's Public Enemies and nine, which we talked about on our Patreon. Go sign up for our Patreon and listen to that episode.

She's also in a French movie called The Last Flight, which is loosely based on the events surrounding the disappearance of British Aviator Bill Lancaster. So there is that. She's top-billed in that. Then she is in Inception in 2010, with Christopher Nolan. She's in Midnight in Paris and Contagion in 2011. She gets Oscar buzz again for Rust and Bone, the Jacques O'Diard movie in 2012. Shows up all season for that movie and then isn't Oscar nominated. Yes.

She's like at the very last minute it sort against. That's a movie that I remember. A lot of people liked, and then as the season went on, people were like, is this a good movie? Like, she also dances with an orca whale to, is it firework? Katie Perry's Firework.

Firework, right? Katie Perry's Firework. She's also in the Dark Night Rises in 2012, and she's kind of like, whatever, you had your chance to watch the Dark Night Rises Un spoiled. She's the twist in that movie, where she, it seems like she's just the love interest for Bruce Wayne, and it turns out she's Taliel Gould.

It's really unsatisfying. But it's not her fault, even though her on-screen death has been memed and it is very funny. But that movie's a mess. It is a mess, but I think there are things about that movie that I really like. She, unfortunately, is not among them.

She follows that up with 2013's The Immigrant, James Gray's The Immigrant, which people really, really, or that's 2014, right? But it's 2014 in the U.S. In the U.S. But it debuts at the 2013. Well, the saga of the immigrant, which we should cover on this podcast eventually, where it gets essentially like, it becomes a topic of contention between James Gray and Harvey Weinstein.

And essentially the vibe publicly was that Harvey Weinstein was vindictively not campaigning it for Oscars because he was mad. at James Gray. And so the critical establishment sort of decides to get behind the immigrant and behind Marion Cotillard for an Oscar nomination. And after all of that effort, what did it do? But it got her an Oscar nomination just for a different movie entirely. She got it nominated for two days one night. Which also had goodwill building towards it because it wasn't the French submission. It either wasn't the French submission or it didn't make the bake-off list. Right, right, right. My favorite Marion Cotillard performance of that year, though, is she's an Anchorman, too.

The Legend Continues in the big sort of anchor fight battle in the middle of that movie where she's a Canadian TV. It's her and Jim Carrey are the Canadian television, and she's the French Canadian anchor. I don't know. I enjoyed her. We should do her and Michael Fassbender's Macbeth for this podcast at some point. She's tremendous in it, but that movie is a snooze. I think we should do it anyway. 2016, she's an allied with Brad Pitt, and there's all of these rumors that they had an affair on set.

Everybody's sort of expecting him to trade Angelina Jolie for her in this sort of like never-ending, I don't know, just like chain of leading actresses for him that everybody sort of assumed that was going to happen. and then it never did. She makes an iconic Instagram post among her many other fun posts, including some that maybe have been a 9-11 Truther. I was going to say,

this is around the time when the 9-11 Truther thing started to really take hold. She posts something like, I'm doing very well, thank you. I stay out of other people's private lives. Actually, my husband and I are expecting another child.

Her husband, who she had done multiple films for as well. Right. Also in 2016, she is in Xavier de Lawn's Can Winning But Career Killer It's only the end of the world Which I have seen, and it is fine Don't know why people were so Wirted up about it

Hating that movie. Yeah. She kind of like sort of drifts for a little while And then I think makes a triumphant mini come back to more French movies Yeah makes a triumphant The mini comeback in Annette And we need to do Annette I love Annette is a great movie And that's fantastic

And that's so much fun And then the only sort of she was in The Arnaud How do we pronounce Arnaud's last name? De Placinne's movie Brother and Sister that played Cannes in 2022 and then never saw the light of day, ever again. Yeah, people did not like that one at all.

And then this year, she's in another festival movie that has been memory hold, essentially, immediately memory hold, which is poor Ellen Curris, who, like, is a fantastic DP and did the cinematography for Eternal Sunshine at the Spotless Mind, so it will always have a place in my heart. She directed the Kate Winslet movie Lee that played TIF and

disappeared. So. There's still chance for someone to buy it and release it in the spring. I'm kind of surprised that Marian's never gotten a follow-up Oscar nomination after her second. Yeah, yeah.

After her first, she didn't get a sec. Two days one night, we were just talking about it. We just said, right, right, right. Yeah. But even that just feels like... But there's a lot of things that feel like she's either gotten close or heavily in the conversation for that don't end up working out.

But it's also cool that all of her nominations have been in the French language, so. That is cool. I wonder if she can make it three for three. That's interesting. What else is there really to talk about? I guess we can talk about Freddie Highmore. Okay, Freddie Highmore is the only cast member of this movie to get a major nomination for anything.

He gets nominated for Critics' Choice Award for Best Younger Actor, which by this point, he had already starred in Finding Neverland. He got a SAG nomination for Finding Neverland? Is that—am I remembering that correctly? Oh, that seems highly probable. He probably won the Critics' Choice Young Actor Award for Finding Neverland. So this is two years later. He gets nominated for Best Younger Actor. He loses to Paul Dano for Little Miss Sunshine, which of this competition is the right call.

He's nominated also against Cameron Bright for thank you for smoking, Joseph Cross for running with scissors, and Jaden Smith for the pursuit of happiness. So I think Paul Danos the right call there. And also because they were splitting it by gender. It was also his and her wins because Abigail Breslin on route to her Oscar nomination. Freddie Highmore has two Critics Choice Awards for a young actor, Finding Neverland, and can you guess the other one? Is it for television? No. Then no, I can't.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Oh, sure. Also nominated for August Rush. Sure, sure. Wait, I want to see if he was SAG nominated, though. He was. He was supporting actor nominated in SAG. Unreal.

Unreal. Okay, so we talked about, when we did our Inside Man episode last week, he talked about the best picture race. We didn't really go beyond that in terms of the 2006 Oscars. I understand that Russell Crowe is not. good in a good year so like he wouldn't have but like he was definitely at the beginning of that year buzzed among the best actor contenders as he would have been for anything this is a really odd year for best actor in that like it does not shake out the way people expected in a lot of

different ways i remember there was a while there where people were assuming that forest whittaker was going to be a supporting contender for the last king of scotland because it was going to be James McAvoy's movie, which it sort of is. James McAvoy is your POV character, and Forrest Whitaker is almost the Hannibal Lecter of this movie. And, but like, once you see the movie, you obviously see the, it is interesting that Forrest Whitaker kind of like steamrolls this entire season. And it's not that his performance isn't good. It's a very good performance, but I think his competition is really scattered to the wins this year. Like, they, people weren't ever really able to nail down what Leonardo DiCaprio performance, whether Leo was a lead or a supporting character in The Departed, which I think is weird. Of course, it's Leo and Matt Damon are the two leads of the departed. Like, that's silly. But then he ends up getting the Oscar nomination for Blood Diamond instead of The Departed. So that, I think, takes a lot of momentum away from DeCaprio. I think there's a universe in which Blood Diamond is sort of deemphasized.

and Leonardo is nominated in Lead for the Departed and maybe makes a proper run at winning Best Actor, maybe. I think Whitaker's probably winning it no matter what. But this also has, like, Peter O'Toole getting the latent life nomination for Venus, and yet... Just after, or a few years after his honorary win. Right. And you would have thought, maybe it's...

I mean, the Paul Newman comparisons were good in that Paul Newman won his first competitive Oscar. believe the year after he won an honorary Oscar. So I think like there was that, but I don't think there was ever any real momentum behind Peter O'Toole of just like, oh, just give it to him. He's, you know, he's been nominated all these times he's never won. And that never really materialized. Maybe perhaps, perhaps because nobody really saw Venus. Yeah. He was still probably second place. I think that's probably, well. This is in second place, but second place. Will Smith doing his, like, kind of, kind of a Craven Oscar play with The Pursuit of Happiness, right?

Where it's this very aggressively inspirational movie and... Now we would call it Craven. I think we fell for this type of thing at that time in the odds. Absolutely without question. I don't think, you know, people loved the movie, but that... No, they didn't. That's what kept in the second place. Ryan Gosling then gets his first ever nomination for Half Nelson,

a nomination that I remember people being very, very doubtful that was going to happen. Small movie. A very small movie, very indie. And at the time, Ryan Gosling wasn't really, I know he would have been in The Believer and whatnot, but I don't think people had really thought of Ryan Gosling on that level of being an Oscar nominee yet. He was so young. And so that ends up happening. I think looking at the, like, ancillary contenders that year, it's weird to me.

that Matt Damon never became a contender for the Departed because I think he gives the best performance in the Departed? On my recent rewatch, I was feeling the same thing. I don't know if I agree that he gives the best performance

in the movie, but I do think he gives one of his best performances. And I was... He's really good. He was just not in any conversation at all that whole season. Nobody talked about

his performance because people talked about... I remember people even talk about Alec Baldwin for that scene that he blows up, which is... Martin Sheen got a lot of discussion. Like, everybody sort of got some ink for that movie, except for Matt Damon. And that was the same year that he was in The Good Shepherd, and I think a lot of people were sort of, like, mentally assuming that was going to happen.

But then when that didn't happen, the buzz never, like, transferred back over to how good he is in The Departed. Decaprio was nominated at the Golden Globes twice in Best Actor and a Drama for both of his big performances. Another thing that I think ends up diluting his buzz, isn't that like, everybody knew he couldn't get nominated at the Oscars for both. The Oscars don't allow that to happen. The Golden Globes are craven and shameless, and they, you know, we'll do that. That's fine. The comedy nominees, Sasha Baron Cohen wins actor in a comedy for Borat. That is a little bit of a fool's gold, I think, for people following the Oscars

that year. A lot of people were like, maybe Sasha Barron Cohen could take that fifth slot or whatever. And that was never... Well, and Borod has a screenplay nomination, so... That's true. That's true. But then your other comedy nominees that year, Johnny Depp for the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie, Aaron Eckhart for Thank You for Smoking, Chichy for Kinky Boots, Will Ferrell for Stranger Than Fiction. I don't think any of those latter three really ever amassed much of a threat. towards a nomination and then you go and look at your

SAG nominees that's the one where DiCaprio gets nominated twice but in two categories they really tried to make it happen with a double nomination for DeCaprio that year they nominated him in supporting for the departed which is a bullshity distinction

and lead for Blood Diamond their lead actor nominees at the SAG that year were exactly the same as the Oscars and then what was the BFTA's that year I have Bafta pulled up I'm getting to that factor

Forrest Whitaker still wins which tells you Peter O'Toole was never going to win though Last King of Scotland was a British production Kevin McDonald is Scottish I believe Something to that extent Richard Griffiths is nominated

by Bafta in lead As was Daniel Craig for casino royale Richard Griffiths for the history boys Yes, which Richard Griffiths was... Had won the Tony. Correct, but I believe campaigned as supporting, which raised some eyebrows, but I think makes perfect sense for the movie. We've got to do the History Boys again. Have we ever mentioned the fact that the History Boys are a lost episode?

When we, before we launched, we did some test episodes. No, this was after we had started. This was supposed to be our third episode, and we recorded it, and the audio was so bad that we scrapped it. Yeah. No, that wasn't even one of our test episodes. It was, I think, supposed to follow Tulip Fever. And the audio was so bad that we were just like, let's just like move on to the next one. And so we got to do the history boys again. So who are the other BAFTA nominees? It's Whitaker wins. DiCaprio is nominated for The Departed, Peter O'Toole, Daniel Craig, and Richard Griffiths. So it's a really weird. It's a really weird. year for Best Actor. Best actor usually doesn't get this weird because usually Best Actor has a lot of like best picture crossover. And this year it really didn't. Besides The Departed, Babel did not have any lead actors. Letters from Iwo Jima was a foreign language movie that like start Ken Watanabe. And like that was always going to be a hurdle for Oscar voters. It's also a pretty ensemble focus too. You can say Ken Watanabe is the lead. he'd already had an acting nomination. Yeah.

Little Miss Sunshine pushed everybody as supporting. And I don't think they would have done any better had they pushed, say, Greg Kinnear as a lead. Right. Even though I think Greg Kinnear would have been deserving of a nomination. I have him as one of my supporting nominees because I went with Little Miss Sunshine pushing everybody as supporting, and that's fine with me because I think it's a true ensemble. And then the queen doesn't have a lead actor. Like, Michael Sheen is the top male in that movie, and he's definitely supporting. So, like, it's an odd year where Best Picture doesn't have very much crossover with actor.

That usually is definitely not the case. This was a year where Best Picture doesn't have very many lead performances. Like, it's kind of amazing how, of the five Best Picture nominees, you could only really pick out Helen Mirage. Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio as like the sixth place movie was probably Dreamgirls, which is also very, you know, spreading the wealth. Well, and they were not going to nominate Beyonce as a lead. You know what I mean in that movie. Nor would I say they would have nominated Jimmy Fox for that movie. No, they wouldn't have. So like it's a really odd, 2006 is a low-key, super weird Oscar year. We don't talk about it enough. It's not an Oscar year I love. either. No. But I also think it's like, it's messy in really fun ways. That was the year where like the departed really coalesced as a best picture frontrunner kind of late. There was a while there

where like people were like, oh, maybe it's going to be Babble. Maybe it's going to be Little Miss Sunshine is going to be the sort of like the little movie that could. And people, you know, it was, there was a lot of moving parts at the 06 Oscar race. I think it's kind of fascinating. Gosling being probably a best case scenario nominee, and it happens. And it happened, right, exactly. I would maybe pour one out for Aaron Eckhart, who has never been nominated, and this was probably the closest he ever would have came to a nomination. That's true.

Thank you for Smoking is what. It's the Jason Reitman debut, right? Yes, yes. A movie that feels like we have done, but we have not. We've done so many Jason Reitman. We've done, yeah, it's the one Jason Reitman we have in. Did that get a screenplay? No, we haven't done Labor Day either.

Oh, God, Labor Day. Not Labor Day. Labor Day is so bad. So bad. Oh, God. It's a little bad. All right. What else did we want to talk about in this?

Fox, I want to talk about Fox's, this was kind of the Fox Awards movie that year, the 20th century Fox. And, like, Fox Searchlight is a major sort of asterisk for this, and that, like, all of There are years where, like, the Fox Awards hopes just get, like, entirely shunted to Fox Searchlight. And that would have been Little Miss Sunshine this year, right? Little Miss Sunshine Miss Searchlight? Yeah. So that makes a lot of sense. But, like, Fox...

Little Miss Sunshine and Last King of Scotland. And I think Venus as well? No? Was it? I will look that up. Look up Fox Searchlight while I recite... Because a lot of the biggest Fox stuff awards-wise in 2006, was stuff where they were not the primary distributor also.

So there was like, what you call it? Sorry, I'm scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. The Fountain, which was a Warner Brothers movie, but Fox did international distribution. Apocalyptic, which was a touchstone movie, hilarious that Apocalyptic was a touchstone movie, that Fox did international distribution for. So really, like, it kind of, was the devil wears Prada, was the Fox Awards contender that year, somewhat backdoor, right?

Like, this is the Fox Searchlight lineup. Okay. Thank you for smoking. Little Miss Sunshine. Last King of Scotland. Fast food nation, which didn't go anywhere. History boys, which kind of didn't go anywhere. Notes on a scandal.

And from Canada, water. Oh, wow. That's a good year for Fox Searchlight. Good for Fox Searchlight. excellent um is there anything else we want to say before we move into the i mdb game no let's do it let's go to the i mdb game all right chris why don't you tell our listeners what the i mdb game is listeners every week we end our episodes with the i mdb game where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try to guess the top four titles that i mdb 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. If that's not enough, it just becomes a free for all of hints. Free for all of hints. Chris, would you like to give her a guest first? I want a guest first today. Okay, so I went into the vast Ridley Scott filmography. I went into one of his Russell Crow movies, the one that I have not seen, which is Robin Hood.

I've still never seen the Ridley Scott Robin Hood. I haven't seen it either. The guy who plays Robin Hood's father in that, Sir Walter Lerner, Loxley is Max von Sido. Robin of Loxley. Yes. I will watch Robin Hood Prince of Thieves probably five more times before I watch Ridley Scots, Robin Hood.

Not out of spite just because that's just how I roll, and I will watch Prince of Thieves a lot. Anyway, no television. How many times were you watch Robin Hood Men in Tights before you watch Ridley Scott's Robin Hood? I have watched Robin Hood Men in Tights in my lifetime probably like 10 times. I've watched that movie a lot. It was on Comedy Central a lot. Also, when we won Videology Trivia the one season

and got to watch a movie in a private viewing in the back, that was one of the ones that we chose, was Robin Hood Manette. Fabulous, fabulous. All right, Max Foncito, no television, no voice performers. I'm going to put a pin in any, like, Bergman

films or something like Pele the Conqueror, because I just feel like the algorithm is not going to favor those movies, but I am going to say the Exorcist. Not the Exorcist Fuck off, Jesus David Gordon Green

wins again Extremely loud and incredibly close Correct, extremely loud and incredibly close His Oscar nomination for that All right, then I'm going to say the seventh seal Seal, correct There we go

So that's at least one of them Pele the Conqueror He was, I believe nominated. I think that is a foreign language winner. It was a palm winner. And I think he got best actor at can, too. So I guess I'll say Palo the Conqueror. It's a good guess, but it's not correct. So that's your second. So your years are 1980 and 2002.

Okay. Didn't he do Woody Allen movies? So is 1980 a Woody Allen? No. Okay. These are both genre movies Yeah Yeah Not horror, but like Well, 80 could be horror, I suppose

It's not O2 is horror, no No 80 is a movie Whose title is very familiar I've never seen it, his character is also very much Is it like a Scalibur or a movie like it? No, it's way

more genre than Excalibur. It's not like Dragon Lancery, though. No, no. But it's fantasy. Yeah, fantasy sci-fi. Oh, he's in, it's not, it's not like a Star Trek knockoff, but it's like aliens.

Yeah. Like other planets. Yeah. What is the, it's not. It's also racially insensitive. Oh, I can imagine. No, his role in particular. Oh, right, because he's supposed to be, like, Asian?

Yeah. Sort of. Asian-coded. It's, um, it's like Flash Gordon. It is Flash Gordon. It is Flash Gordon. He plays Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon. And O2 is, uh...

O2's a movie I really like. Um, it's by a very famous director. Yeah. He is the secret bad guy Sorry everybody You had a very long time to see this movie I'm spoiled A secret bad guy

Max 1Cdow shows in a movie You should probably anticipate him being potential Secret Bad Guy O2 And it's an action movie It's a sci-fi action movie Sci-fi action in O2 It's very sort of futuristic in a way that has

Is it minority report? It is a minority report? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's the secret bad guy in Minority Report. For God, he was the bad guy in Minority Report, that he was in it at all. Yep. I just remember the scene of Minority Report when Lois Smith shows up and says Minority Report. And makes out with a plant, more or less.

Good for her. Good for her. Also, like, kisses Tom Cruise full on the mouth. Like, it's a delicious. It is a delicious performance by Lois Smith. For, like, it's a good six-minute performance where she just, like, absolutely devours the screen. It's so good. All right, Chris, what do you have for me?

So for you, I simply went into the Oscars of that year, and I chose for you the supporting actor-winner, Mr. Allen Arkin. Alan Arkin? Okay. I'm going to say that Little Miss Sunshine is one of them. Correct. Is Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, one of them? Yes. Well done. All right. Is Argo one of them? Argo, fuck yourself, sir. You are, you have the potential to get a perfect score. I'm going to say if you get one, it will be wild to me, but you never know.

Is it wait until dark? It is not wait until dark. Cool call, though. Alan Arkin inventing sunglasses in that movie. Is it like the Russians are coming? the Russians are coming, which is his other Oscar nomination? Incorrect. So you get your year.

Your year is 1990. Alan Arkin, 1990. He is giving a very Alan Arkin performance, but absolutely nobody talks about him being in this movie. Edward Scissorhands. You got it already. It's Edward Scissorhands. I love him in Edward Cisorhands.

How wild is it that it's on his known for right now? It is kind of wild, but he's legitimately great. I thought he and Weist should have both been nominated for that. The way he sort of imparts, like, good moral judgment lessons onto Edward is just very charming to me in that movie. I love him so much. That's a good one. That's an interesting known for for Alan Arkin. I like that.

All right. Good episode, everybody. Good episode. Great episode. Good year. Also, the opening title cards, which there were, like, several vintages ago, it's like, all right. I thought that was cute. But it promises more whimsy than the movie delivers, to be honest.

Like, I don't know. Okay, that's our episode. If you want more, this head Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this head oscarbuzz.com. You should also follow our Twitter account at had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz and our Instagram at this head Oscar Buzz. And also check out our Patreon at patreon.com. This had Oscar Buzz. Come join us, listeners. Come join us, Gary.

Come join us, Gary. I'm doing The Shining. We are in spooky season. Our listeners are not currently in spooky season. Come play with us, Gary's. Come play with us. All right. Chris, where can the listeners find more of you?

Twitter and Letterbox at Chris V-File. That's F-E-I-L. I'm on Twitter and Letterboxed at Joe Reed. Read-spelled R-E-I-D. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork. Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Mubius for their technical guidance and Taylor Culfer's theme song. Please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Play,

wherever else you get your podcasts. A five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcasts visibility. So make Tom Hollander ice down your back for a while and then write us a nice review. We didn't talk about that, did we? Kind of erotic. Kind of like the hottest scene in the movie is Tom Hollander icing down Abby Cornish's back. I didn't really find it erotic. I found it uncomfortable.

They were my OTP after this. There were my one true pair after they were. I love them so much. All right. That's all for this week, but we hope you'll be back next week for more.