This Had Oscar Buzz - 277 – Beautiful Boy

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

Attention, Dune-heads, we’re talking about Timothee Chalamet this week! In 2018, fresh off of his first Oscar nomination, Chalamet joined Steve Carell for Beautiful Boy, an adaptation of David and Nic Sheff’s memoirs about a young man’s addiction and his father’s attempts to help him. Directed by Felix van Groeningen (who’d directed nominated international feature The Broken Circle … Continue reading "277 – Beautiful Boy"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. We want to talk to Marilyn Hack, Millen Hack and French. I'm from Canada water. Dick Pooh There are moments that I look at him This kid that I raised Who I thought I knew inside and out

And I wonder who he is I thought we were close I thought we were closer than most fathers and sons Why? I felt better than ever had So I just kept on doing it This isn't us. This is not who we are.

Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast offering listeners 50 cents for each piece of sea glass. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we're here to perform the autopsy. I am your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with my beautiful boy, Joe Reyes. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy. I suppose I could have done that.

Listen, it's very hard to pull a joke from this movie, as we usually do in our lead-up. Podcast outlines are what happened when you're making other plans. Beautiful boy. I suppose I could have called you my everything, but that's one of, we'll get into it. That's one of the things that I don't like about this movie. You could have called me your frustrating meth addict, so I guess, This is the better... That wouldn't have been nice.

I might have done that. Yeah. This is a movie we saw together. One of the rare. One of the rares. One of the rares. We saw this together. As I, listeners, as I text Joe to try to figure out how he could, if he could remember

this in his brain, we walked out out of Gloria Bell and straight into the theater for this movie. So you can imagine, it was not setting this movie. up for success. The upgrade in companions, though, we went from Jeff Wells to our dear friend Matthew Rodriguez. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Much bigger upgrade, so that's

good. Thank you, thank you for seeing this movie with us. Yes. We miss him about you. But yeah, the falloff from Gloria Bell to, here's what I will say. There was a lot of sort of hatred for Beautiful Boy

from the critical community. Immediate. I was less, and watching it again, well, it was an interesting experience watching it again. Because for the most part in this movie, I think I get so empathetic towards the premise and the plot of like, I'm just like, oh, God, what a nightmare this seems. Oh, because this poor father who, you know, this poor family, I think now that I have, not to be like as an uncle of nephews. But, like, now that I have a nephew, I watch a lot of these stories to just be like, oh, God, if your sweet little child, like, grew up and, like, this is sort of, and like, that's kind of the premise of Beautiful Boy is what if your, what if your sweet little child grew up and then had his entire life ravaged by a meth addiction? And it's hard to then watch that and just be like, and to focus on process and focus on the filmmaking. much though I try. So I think

watching this movie then and now, I'm I think overloaded with empathy, which is sort of how like tear-jerkers kind of get me to. This movie is not one that left me crying, but like I'm just so because this is a movie that is more frustrating

than devastating. I think it's, I think in its intention, I think it's supposed to show the sort of frustration of having to deal with drug addiction that does not sort of lend itself towards easy, you know, recovery narratives. And also, I mean, I think it's intentionally trying to reflect a flattening and tangle of time. You know, this is a movie that's very back and forth.

And it's like, when you're talking about addiction journeys, you know, it's not a straight line. Very much so. And I think the movie tries to embody that. And I think it's not successful at that in a way that's... I would agree. It's not just like, this isn't working while you're watching, but it's also frustrating in a way that I don't think the movie intends to be. I think the movie intends to be somewhat frustrating. I think it's intending it to be frustrating to a degree, but not maybe in all of the ways that it actually is frustrating.

Yeah. I don't think it's a very good movie, but to kind of piggyback off of what you're saying, I think it's easy to forgive this movie its flaws because I think it is trying to do something and it's not successfully pulling it off. but also you can kind of question some of the way that it was produced maybe and that it's like well that's not going to create the best result for you like having Timothy Chalamay do the most harrowing stuff in this movie at the beginning of filming and you know the most harrowing stuff in this movie is across various different time periods And I think that's hard to create a consistent characterization. Yeah.

Spoiler alert, I don't love. Yeah, you don't like his performance in this movie. I think he's easily the best. I feel like I was more forgiving of it this time than when we first watched it. I think he's leagues better than Corell, I think is the problem. And I think I don't. They're very much. It's more of the problem for me than either of their performances.

is that you I never really believe them as a father and son not just like they look nothing alike and like Timothy shallamee does not look like the product of Amy Ryan and Steve Correll I could buy them as father and son in a comedy I don't know if I buy them as father and son in a drama that's this harrowing I don't know if that makes any sense but um sure sure I just you don't buy the relationship between the two of them you really and you really need to You really need to buy into this sort of bone deep. The other thing is, because it's a movie that takes place and hops back around into a lot of different time periods, there are like multiple people, including Jack Dillon Grazer, who play the younger version of Nick's chef. And because a lot of the emotion of the Corell's character is the bond that we see him having with Nick when Nick is that young. young, those aren't scenes with Sholomey. Do you know what I mean? So then it, I know we're supposed to sort of like, as a viewer, suspend disbelief and, and, you know, go with the flow and understand that, like, this is how, you know, movies work. But because...

Jack Dillon Grazer, though, is smart casting for young Timothy Shalame. One million percent. Especially in 2018. Yeah. But because so many of those scenes happened without Shalemay, those, you don't have the, that, you know, history, like intra-film history with those two characters when you really need it the most. And I don't know, it's tough. You can still, I mean, I still think that relationship can be more developed between those two actors. Yeah, that's what I mean. I think it needed to be.

Yeah, yeah. Even if you do have those flashbacks to the younger character and the movie. Right, you just need to invest more in it. at the beginning of the film is with those younger actors. Yeah. I don't know. I think some of my problem with that and what's not working here goes back to the adaptation process because it's adapted from both a novel.

Yeah. A not a novel. A memoir written by each of those characters. So you're trying to blend both of their experiences, both of their narratives, into one movie, and those two never really cohere, but also, I think, spreading that attention span across the creation of this really makes it incredibly unfocused. Like, I understand the value in showing both sides of an addiction narrative, you know, the person that going through it and the person who has to. go through them going through it. But it's not coherently done in the movie.

And I think the weaker of the two is obviously the Steve Carell side. And then the strongest part of that is Lisa Gay-Hamilton coming into the very end of the movie. In like what is the most emotionally effective monologue of the moment of the movie, but she's giving this monologue, half of which the camera is on Corell and not her. I think you're right that the weakest part is the corral narrative, but it's also the part that gets the most narrative attention. And I think the stuff with Nick suffers because not only is it like on a time basis, you don't get as much time spent with Nick,

but also the style of the movie feels very haphazard with Nick and not intentionally, like chaotic, but like, um, not as cared for. I think the stuff with, I think this feels very much like the father's movie, which is sort of reflected in the fact that like, you know, Shalame is pitched as a supporting actor contender. You know what I mean? It's not so much a true two-hander. And I think it would have required a much bolder filmmaking choice to be able to bifurcate this movie in a way that maybe it needs to be to really reflect. the fact that it's two separate stories, the first, the fact that it's the memories of two separate people whose view of, whose angle on this is so completely opposite. I think you needed to

be much more immersed into what Nick is doing. You need to see him. He's always talking. So many of this is like, I got to get back to New York. I got to go to New York. Like, we have no real sense of what his life was like in New York beyond the fact that like, we just assume he did a lot a meth, you know what I mean? We assume we take New York to be a shorthand for that's where our sons go to get on drugs, which feels like a very Marin County kind of, you know, perspective on things. And I think it would have taken a much, a bolder filmmaker and one that would risk disaster more. I think you risk having it seem cartoonish to be like, you know, happy family man and Steve Carell and like,

dark drug, you know, a teenager, Nick, but I think that's, if you're going to sort of synthesize these two memoirs, you really need to have something that feels like two very different yet equally represented perspectives. And I don't think you get that in this movie. Yeah, I, no, I completely agree. Uh, this movie, I think also, because apparently in interviews Felix Van Gronen and the director who will get into talked about having a seven-month editorial process on this movie and how they completely scrapped multiple edits of this movie and that it was tricky to you know land on a cut of the movie that was satisfactory

and you know this this was one of the movies going into this tiff that we'd heard rumors about that, you know, they were basically editing it up until the last minute. Yeah. And a couple other movies had that kind of gossip around them going into it, some of the, which turned out to, you know, beef or not were good movies. Other movies that had, I think, similar problems to this. And... That same TIF, you mean?

Yeah. Which were the other ones? A Boy Erased, and I thought Beale Street was the other one, which is like those. All these movies would make sense that, you know, however unfounded or founded those rumors would be, it's like these are all movies that are kind of in flux in time. So like, yes, it would require a very arduous and intricate editorial process for those movies. And sometimes it works like Beale Street. And sometimes it's, you know, half in, half out, like boy erased. And then sometimes it just flat out doesn't work like this movie. Right. Right. I think that's right. But when this did premiere at that TIF, it was like I forgot to pull up the schedule. I think it was like the Friday night and it kind of just instantly cratered. Well, but not as much, there were bigger craters at that festival, though, which I think sort of masked the fact that this movie did not land very well. But this definitely was one of those movies that had big Oscar buzz going into Toronto and much, much, much quieter Oscar buzz pretty much just.

relegated to Chalemay's performance after the festival. And you have, okay, this is, let's get into this in the early portion because I think this is interesting. One of the notes in the Miscellaneous section of our outline is you list all the TIF Gala's that were that year. And you talk about TIF Gala's a lot. Well, okay, so I feel like this is one of the. those things that we talk about as a shorthand

and maybe have never really explained like when you say typical TIF gala like what do you what do you mean because like you say that a lot I mean what are explain what the TIF gala are it's you only get a handful of them because it's one

it's the big premiere per night at TIF yes yes with giant red carpets sponsored events it's in the fancier venue which you know has more like sponsors dressing fancy even though like we're all just here to you know see a movie you know not everybody's in ball gowns but you know it has a more elevated status in that festival um and tend to be which makes the flops stand out a little bit more yes and there tends to be a decent number of flops within uh you know uh any lineup of gala or, you know, it's, it's movies that it's like, well, why is this really given the platform that it was? Going into this festival, if Green Book was talked about at all,

it was within that context, like, well, that's premiering on like a Tuesday night gala. It's probably bad. Turns out it was. It just so happened to be a best picture. We say that, though, because unless you have, if you're a Tuesday night gala versus like a opening, like, well, no, they don't do really have a really great track record with opening nights. But like... You have more eyes on you on like a Friday night, which I believe a beautiful boy was. And like it was a world premiere. It implies that it's one of the hottest tickets of the festival.

Sure. Whereas if you are a later in the festival gala, it implies that there's less enthusiasm for the film. When a lot of people who travel to come to the festival are gone. A lot of the Europeans and the Americans have already left. Right. And so you see that reflected a little bit in what the gala's were at the 2018 Toronto Festival, where, well, read them out. You went to the trouble of tracking these down. Let me get down to that spot.

We'll cut the dead air. No, we'll leave it in. So there are a lot of these gala that I listed, there's some disappointment around them. But, like, probably the actual hottest ticket is A Star is born. Was this the year that Outlaw King was the opening night film, by the way? I thought that was 2017, but maybe it was 2018. Okay. Outlaw King, a movie that no one had really any expectation going into, and then the only talk around it after the premiere was that you see Chris Pine's penis.

I liked that movie. It was 2018. So, yeah, that was the opening night film. Other gala's include First Man and Widows, Oscar disappointments. First Man won the Visual Effects Oscar, but I think largely we would say that was not as embraced as it was anticipated to be ahead of the festival's. Green Book, the Best Picture winner. Life itself, which when you mention, you know, there were bigger bombs at this festival. That's what I was thinking of.

You were thinking of Life Itself. See our previous episode on Life Itself. Yep. The Hate You Give, which I mostly remember. Oh, no, I have seen The Hate You Give, yes. Russell Hornsby's fantastic performance in that movie. Mm-hmm. And Claire Denise, High Life, which...

That's what Robert Pattinson will do for you in 2018. Inexplicably was... I think High Life has that reputation of, like, by the time the movie was over, it was like 40% of the theater was still there or something because all of these like fancy schmance you know sponsor people show up

being like oh Robert Pattinson in space having never seen a Claire Denny movie and not knowing all that was to come literally so yeah weird lineup of gala

and then you have this which should be a straight play down the middle. And, you know, there were respectful reviews for this movie. This movie's positive on Rotten Tomatoes, but it's like both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic are in the 60s for this movie, and that, to me,

is a sign of people being generous towards it. Sure. Yeah. But also, it makes sense. But a lot of the reviews, too, were sort of split reviews, where they're like, the movie's not great, but Shalami's amazing. like you got that in a lot of reviews so um it's tough to like is that a positive review is that a negative review like what's you know what i mean so um there's some middle ground there or the level of mixed where i mean i think i think maybe we're in this range you're it sounds like you're in this range of this movie has a lot of problems for it but i'm willing to assess it i'm willing yeah i think to give it a benefit of a doubt when i say i'm being kind of

to this movie. It sounds like I'm like surrendering my critical faculties. That's not really what it is. I think there's a generosity that you can have to a movie that doesn't really work for you, but you appreciate enough about it. And

I think there are movies that maybe deserve Venom more than others, and I don't think this is one that deserves you know, maybe it deserves a little bit better than the reputation that it has. I've seen some people sort of dismiss it out of hand as, like, trash, you know what I mean? And it's not, or just like, you know,

without merit. And I don't think it's that. Yes. While also not exactly being a fascinating failure, you know how I talk about, like, I love movies that are fascinating failures? This is maybe a little bit less interesting than that. So I wouldn't, like, go flock to this to be like, where did it all go wrong? I do think it's kind of an interesting place for both Corell and Timmy's careers, but we'll get into that later. Joe, would you like to tell our listeners about our Patreon? Absolutely, I would. If you are not already a member of the This Had Oscar Buzz Turbulent Brilliant's Patreon

community, I must say, as a completely neutral observer, I highly recommend it. It is for the low, low price of $5 a month. I think I described it as the cost of a cup of coffee. But, like, as I was listening back to that, I'm like, the rate. on what you could say is what constitutes a cup of coffee is so broad that I think that term is pretty much meaningless. So let's say for the cost of a decently like a Dunkin' Donuts breakfast sandwich. Let's say. The cost of a cheesy gordita crunch. The cost, for the cost of it, that's perfect. For the cost of a cheesy gordita crunch once a month, listen, you can

sacrifice one cheesy gordita crunch a month, I believe in you. And instead, you can get- Do you want to buy your favorite podcaster's a cheesy gordita crunch? Wouldn't you? Just put up a photo of me looking glum and being like, wouldn't you like to buy this podcaster on cheesy cordita crunch? Doesn't he deserve it? Now all that's going to happen is if we ever get to the position where we can do a live show,

people are going to bring us cheesy gordita crunches. Drowning in cheesy gordita crunches that are like- Cold, because. they've been like standing in line holding them, you know what I mean, in the middle of March or whatever, listen, we love you guys for your, for our completely fabricated behavior that we have you doing. Anyway, um, what are they getting for the cost of that cheesy gordita crunch? They're getting two extra bonus episodes a month at minimum. One of those episodes will be, uh, what we're calling exceptions, which we've been sort of teasing for

a while, uh, before we launched the Patreon, which is essentially, movies that are This Had Oscar Buzz movies, except for the fact that we can't talk about them on Main Feed because they got an Oscar nomination or two. Otherwise, they fit the This Had Oscar Buzz rubric perfectly. Movies like The Lovely Bones, which was a patron's choice episode that we covered. So we will also sometimes put up polls and let you choose for us. These are movies like Charlie Wilson's War and The Mirror has two faces. We talked about Australia with our friend Katie Rich. We just recently talked about the Paul Giamatti film Barney's version that got one Oscar

nomination for Old Age makeup, but otherwise, it's pretty wild that this is an Oscar nominee. So we definitely talked about it. By the time this episode goes up, we won't have quite gotten to Molly's game yet, or will we have Molly's game? No, Molly's game is coming soon. It's our next listener's choice. It's our next listener's choice. I cannot tell you how excited I am to talk about Molly's game.

So our second bonus episode, which drops at the 15th of every month, is what we call an excursion. So those are off format. We're not really talking about a movie. We are talking about things like Hollywood Reporter Actress Roundtables or we'll recap an award ceremony. We've done the 1996 MTV Movie Awards. We will dip in to talk about the state of the current Oscar. race. We just did our episode, our superlatives episode, where we gave our winners in various absolutely insane categories pulled from the various precursor awards. You don't want to miss

what our thoughts were on the National Board of Review Freedom of Expression Award. So join us and then go listen to our superlatives episode. We are... I think it's worth it just for that episode. I think that episode is the most unhinged thing. unwell. We're very unwell in that episode. Yeah. Yeah. On annual tradition has definitely begun. You definitely want to be a part of it. We also do things like we have a hotline, a listener call in line that you can, or whatever, a patron call in line that you can like call in, ask us a question. We will post our responses as we are able to get to them. So those will be a bonus. We have, like we said, we have polls. We will. We will. We've got some fun little, you know, things in the works coming up. So, again, for the cost of a cheesy Gordita Crunch, I think it's worth it. So this had Oscar Buzz turbulent brilliance. You can find us at patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz.

Come join us. Please do. Please do. Joe, we are here talking about the motion picture, beautiful boy. Directed by Felix van Gruningen, written by the, and Groningen and Luke Davies from the memoirs of David Schiff and Nick Chef, starring Steve Carell, Timothy Chalameh, Amy Ryan, Mora Tierney, Caitlin Deaver, Timothy Hutton, the aforementioned Jack Dylan Glazer, and Lisa Gaye Hamilton.

How many Caitlin Devers have we done? It feels like Caitlin Deaver. I think this was four. Caitlin Dover or Catherine Newton? What Catherine Newtons have we done? We've done... Maybe we haven't. I don't think we've done a Catherine Newton.

Yeah. Catherine Newton isn't in men, women, and children. Timmy's in men, women, and children. Timmy and Caitlin Deaver are both in men, women, and children. Yeah. Caitlin Deaver, I believe this is our fourth. Caitlin Deaver, after, she's in J. Edgar, which I totally, she must have been a child in that, or a baby. Men, women, and children, and then the frontrunner.

So this is our fourth. This is, what did I say, that this would be our fifth, Corell? This is our fifth, Steve Correll. after Crazy Stupid Love Welcome to Marwin The Way Way Back and Battle of the Sexes and I want to say it's only our second

Timmy episode after men, women, and children, so... Not a lot of movies for Timmy, to be honest. There are some we can move into. We can do, I think, going forward, the king is a possibility. Definitely we're going to do Wonka, and when that becomes available.

If we end up having to do Steve Correll for his six-timers for Asteroid City Steve Carell of all people in that movie I think he's very funny but he He's barely in it, Bill Murray at the last minute Oh, is that true? I don't think I knew that. Yes, he did. The story is he replaced Bill Murray

because Bill Murray got COVID, but stuff was also going on with Bill Murray at that time. You are much more plugged in than I am. That's good, it's good goth. But Steve Correll, constantly basically walking around with a martini to hand someone, I love him in that movie. Wow.

So I guess Caitlin Deaver will do a Caitlin Deaver one before we do a Catherine Newton one. My hope for when we do Asteroid City is that we have to do like seven six-timers class. We're also not, I'm saying it right now. We're not doing, Madam Webb does not count as having Oscar buzz. So we cannot do Catherine Newton. Catherine Newton's in Madam Webb, right? I think you're thinking of Sidney-Sweeney. Isn't there a third though, isn't it, Dakota Johnson?

who's her thing in Madam Webb? A secret, isn't there a secret third actress in Madam Webb? I thought there was. There's three younger actresses, but Catherine Newton, I do not believe, as well. Oh, Catherine Newton's committed to, she's, she's, she's in Lisa Frankenstein right now. She's in Lisa Frankenstein is what I'm thinking of, but she's also Aunt Man's daughter. So wait, so who's, hold on, I'm looking at Madam Webb, which I'm seeing, I think, later this weekend. Even though last time we talked, I think I was adamant about not seeing Madam Webb, but the, the horribleness of the reviews.

I am, and this is just so rude. The reviews have been so bad. got to see what the fuss is. I'm going to have a good time. I'm going to have a good time. Isabella Merced is the third, is the secret third actress in Madame Web. There you go. Wait, Emma Roberts is also in Madam Web? Carrie Bichet? I am, I'm definitely seeing this movie now if Carrie Bichet is in it. All right. All right. Oh, so I got to do a plot description. Right. Okay. The movie had a world premiere as a Tift Gala, opened in limited release, to be 12th of 2018, and continued to...

It took a long time expanse. Like, it really took its time, which was maybe smart, because I was a little surprised to see how much money this movie made. But its wide-ish release was November 2nd, 2018. Yes. Joe, are you prepared to give a 60-second plot description? of Beautiful Boy. If you're asking whether I prepared anything, no, but I think I've got it.

I think I've got it under control. Your 60-second plot description, A Beautiful Boy, starts now. There isn't really much plot to Beautiful Boy. Steve Carell plays David Sheff, who is a writer whose son, teenage son, Nick Chef, played by Timothy Shalameh, becomes addicted to meth and goes through a increasingly harrowing cycle of addiction and rehabilitation that seems to have no end. He gets put in facilities, and it looks like he's recovered, and then he relapses and puts the families.

His younger two siblings go through it. His stepmother, played by more tyranny, is going through it. Amy Ryan is his mother, who is, like, living in L.A. He goes to live with her in L.A. for a while, and that seems like it's going to work, but of course, that doesn't. And he relapses again. And much to David's frustration, he cannot find a way to help his son. And ultimately, we are left with a postscript that says that Nick is eight years sober,

but that all seems very hard and tenuous. And without this cycle, does not seem to have a clean ending the end. Eight seconds over. I don't know what a- It's like of a plot description for this movie than to just say broadly what it's about because, you know, time is truly the flat. What is the plot in this? You know what I mean?

What are the plot points in this? Like, he, you know, he steals money from his little siblings. He, he meets Caitlin Dever and they go and, you know, shoot up and she seems like she nearly dies. And it's just sort of this, like, these cycling things of, like, bad things. He ends up in the hospital. Karell is constantly sort of, like, on the phone with people checking. It's just sort of this, like, it's this cycle, and it's intentionally frustrating.

This movie's on the right track in trying to show contrary to other movies about addiction, which, you know, everybody's seen after school specials. Everybody's seen the, like, Hollywood version of addiction stories where they have clear narrative arcs. You know, this movie is on the right track of being, like, the narrative arc of addiction is a Mobius strip, you know? You can't draw a clear through line of, you know, crescendo and resolution because that's not how addiction works. And that's not how the, you know, people, the emotional arc of people who care for people of addiction go through their own process either. I think one of the smarter... It doesn't do it very well. I think one of the smarter decisions the movie makes is it doesn't show you.

when he starts to do meth really you know what I mean all of a sudden it's just like because the movie starts media res and then sort of flip flops back through time but never really gives you that scene of like somebody at a party being like you ever try this man it's really good and him being like I don't know I'm you know I have good parents I wouldn't do something like this you know and then on top of that I think the movie is on the right track to not say like well he does drugs because of this happening in his life or this type of damage. While also giving you

hints of letting you draw your own conclusions maybe, we're like, there is pressure from his dad for him to be, you know, special or extraordinary or something like that. There is divorce in his family, which is like not the most, it's not

exactly acrimonious, but it's not the most copacetic divorce, right? There's resent there. I think where other movies would be like, he's addicted to drugs because his parents divorce. I think this movie is more so trying to say there's things that make this so much more complicated. And addiction gets wrapped up in all of those feelings rather than that thing that happened

is an inciting event to someone's addiction. And it also... That is all smart. It's just how it goes on. And because the movie... as I said before, is a little bit more weighted towards David's story. You get stuff like, oh, here's a flashback to the time when we smoked a joint together, because you know, and the movie doesn't really press too hard on this, but you know that, like, clearly David is thinking, like, did I

fuck up? Did I gateway drug my own son? You know what I mean? Into, like, that kind of a thing. On top of all of these other reasons of can he reconcile the idea that he didn't cause his child's addiction in some way. Right. And that he can't sort of will his son, he can't love his son into recovery. I think this movie has a lot of ideas, and I think that's maybe one of the problems, is it's maybe too scattered with ideas, because then you also get into the thing of like, David is studying up on the medical effects of what meth does to the brain.

to meet Timothy Hutton, who is a, you know, a doctor who helps him learn about the physical aspects of meth. He's taught, there's that scene with him in Moratirney where he's like, new study says that you can, you know, repair your fried, you know, nerve cells in your brain or whatever. And it sounds like, it's almost like a Lorenzo's oil sort of like he's doing his own, you know, research kind of thing. That's one of the things I think that makes it not work is like, it's a approach to an addiction story is not the cliche, but a lot of the pieces that it does to achieve that approach are.

I don't even know if I would call that cliche. I just feel like it's not really like it's sort of left to flap in the breeze a little bit. Like I don't know where that angle of the story goes. And it either needs to be. It's being pretty shaggy in a way, too, because it's like that flattering in the breeze vibe. Whereas if this was maybe a tighter 90-minute movie, you wouldn't, you know, you wouldn't be able to wander. There's also the sort of macro thing around the movie, which I don't necessarily think is a flaw of the movie, but probably needs to be addressed to some point, which is part of, there's an undeniable racial and class element to this movie, which is this movie is essentially one of the things. the movie is saying, like there's no really getting around it, is, can you believe that

this beautiful, like it's in the title, right? Beautiful boy, right? Can you believe that this, you know, that this boy who grew up with money and privilege and he's white and he's handsome and he's talented and he's got all these advantages? Even that could succumb to. to meth addiction. And there's a degree to which that's sort of a noble thing, which is to say maybe stop assuming that your children are safe because your children are privileged. But also, there is a flip side of that, which is to say, so are you saying that it makes more sense that people who are not white and not rich? Like those people make sense to be drug addicts. And my son does not make sense to be a drug addict. Like my, my, my

story is special because my son shouldn't have been a drug addict. And the unspoken thing is maybe your son should be a drug addict. You know what I mean? Maybe it's more understandable that your son who doesn't have these qualities to him. So there is that. There's also the aspect of, and I know that this is based on two memoirs. So like it is sort of two sides the story. But, like, were I Nick Chef and my dad wrote a book talking about my drug addiction? I don't know how I would feel about that. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. There is some sort of sense of... Which is probably some of the impetus for him to write his own book and talk his own story. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. But just this idea that, like, just because my dad is a writer,

I am, like, fodder for his career. I don't, I don't know. I don't know. It makes me, me, it unavoidably makes me not love the David character, knowing that he wrote this memoir. You know what I mean? Right, right. Well, I mean, there is a level of trying to assist other parents of addicts or, you know, loved ones of addicts and getting them through the process of understanding addiction and your non your essentially your helplessness in other people's addiction you know sure there's only there's really and maybe this is something that nick was totally on board with i'm just saying

that like from my dumb outsider's perspective i'm like god like right right there's an arrogance there's an arrogance to david that i don't know how much of it is intentional within Correll's performance And maybe that's just something that I'm bringing to that But like Correll's performance doesn't help

Because Correll is only I would argue Occasionally an actor That lets you in As an audience member And that can lead him To come off as a little cold Or a little

Um Heart Maybe not heartless But Yeah We talk so much about, in, like, I'm saying this after a year's worth of everybody, including myself, sort of psychoanalyzing Bradley Cooper for every decision he made, making Maestro and his career and whatever. We maybe don't talk enough about, like, the psychology of Steve Carell, this, like, very gifted comedic actor, incredibly funny guy who's been very, you know, great in all of these contexts, who seems bound and determined to be a dramatic actor. for reasons.

You know what I mean? Dot, dot, dot. And I want, like, it's interesting that we put all of this sort of like armchair psychologizing onto Bradley Cooper and not onto somebody like Steve Carell who is weird. It's more broadly famous because like the reach of the office is insane. I could have a conversation with like my mom about Steve Correll. I don't think my mom really would care to talk about Bradley Cooper. And I think the thing about Steve Carell where like he's on the office.

all this time. He never wins an Emmy. It's sort of like, it's a story, but it's not a big story. It's not like an Angela Lansberry style, like never won an Emmy kind of story. But like it definitely exists. They definitely did bits about it on the Emmys where like John Stewart and Stephen Colbert would be up there with like their armloads of Emmys and be like Steve and Steve would be like or like Ricky Jervase like shows up every few years and wins an Emmy for like. Steve Carell never won even like a writing Emmy for the office, right? I don't think he's won anything. Like, feel free to look it up, but like, I... He won a globe for the office, but he definitely won a globe, but like, it was very definitely pointed that he never won an Emmy. And so I, again, utilizing the same armchair psychology that you use for Bradley Cooper,

you then say, oh, okay, well, then Foxcatcher maybe makes a little bit more sense in context. Maybe, um, free held makes more sense in context. Maybe these sort of like, these kind of ill-advised dramatic, I guess, let's do the Steve Carell Fomography. Maybe this is the right time for it. Okay, one of the things I want to take it back to before we start talking about these projects is two hops this time, Steve Corell was very early on

in becoming famous, positioned within comedy as kind of an every man. And I think that that naturally kind of lends its Are you talking about pancake face? When we think of an every man in terms of movies, we think of dramatic actors. We don't necessarily think of comedic actors, even like someone like Tom Hanks, who started as a comedic actor and then naturally transitioned into drama. It's been harder for someone like Steve Correll.

And I think because of his limitations, respectfully, the, you know, I think that's where what you're talking about. talking about comes from. And Beautiful Boy comes at an interesting point because he basically stops making movies after this year of three not well-received movies. And this is probably safest to say, the most well-received of them. Primetime Emmy Awards 0 for 9 for The Office. And then he also lost one for the morning show, making him 0 for 10. And that includes like outstanding comedy series nominations for The Office when he was a- If he'd won an Emmy for the morning show. It would have been.

Never won for the office. So, all right. So yes. Give me a second. Let me bring up. So the first thing I ever knew Steve Carell from was on the Daily Show. He was a correspondent on the Daily Show. He had this great sort of segment with Stephen Colbert where they aped Crossfire, where it was essentially Stephen versus Stephen.

Tonight's question, reality-based TV. Does America really need more? Yes! No! Yes! And they would just, like, yell at each other, personal insults about whatever topic, and he was very funny.

And then, so his first big breakthrough in terms of post-daily show stuff, he was also on, oh God, he was on that show watching Ellie with Julia Louie Dreyfus. Did he play her? Who did he play on that? that. Hold on. As I read the plot premise description, doesn't say who his character was. He played Edgar on watching Ellie. Anybody who watched Watching Ellie for any of its 19 episodes. Holy shit, that's so many more episodes than I thought. If you watched Watching Ellie, comment, tweet at us, and let us know what the nature of Steve Carell's role on that show was. But the big breakthrough for him was

Evan Almighty. So that's the follow of Bruce Almighty. And then Almighty came away. But right. Yes. Bruce Almighty first. That's right. I'm sorry. Because Evan Almighty comes after a bunch of other things. So he's in Bruce Almighty. He's the Weatherman?

Whatever. He's Bruce's nemesis. And so that's his first big sort of movie role. Then the year after that is Anchorman, which sort of cements him as a person to know for a wide demographic. He's, you know, everybody's saying loud noises and everybody's, you know,

Brick killed a guy with a trident. Anchorman, I will say, as much as I try to be like, boy, I was probably a big dumb dumb, you know, who like, you know, was quoting Anchorman all the day and like, you know, But if you go back and watch it, it's like, oh, no, this movie's, like, legitimately incredibly funny. We got to give Anker Man, like, another three years of quiet. Like, we're out of the weeds of everybody quoting it all the time. If we just let it lie dormant, for a few more years, we're going to go and revisit Anchorman

and have a great time. Yeah. But, like, we got to let the well fill all in that movie. So, 2005, then, he's Uncle Arthur in the. misbegotten Nora Ephron version of Bewitched. He's playing the Paul Lind role in Bewitched. He also

has a small role in Melinda and Melinda. So maybe that's already he's like looking to break into something with a little bit more dramatic respect. And of course, 2005 is the year that the office premieres. And that's sort of where it all breaks

open for him. But in that same year, it's the office. It's the office. and also 40-year-old version. So, like, Steve Corral could not be a hotter ticket comedy-wise, right? Because 40-year-old version also, like, changed the game in American comedy. $100 million grosser. Turns Apatow into an adjective. Like, it absolutely, like, sets the template for what comedy was going to do.

And then the office, which was sort of a slow bill. comes, I guess, technically, after that... The season one is a mid-season replacement. Season one is not as well received as the rest of the show would be. They make major changes to season two. And it really starts to work. And then, so you get into 2006, he's a supporting role in Little Miss Sunshine. I think he's tremendously good in Little Miss Sunshine.

Would have nominated him more so than Arkin, even though I think Arkin is also... Like, I think everybody in Little Miss Sunshine is good. I'm a big fan of that movie. Where do you come down on Little Miss Sunshine? I have to rewatch it because I'm, I... Were you a haters now? It's been long enough that I haven't seen the movie, that I can't really speak on it. But in times of most recently seeing it, I didn't necessarily see what the big deal was, even though I'm not negative on the movie.

I'm trying to see now that I have his awards tab. up to when was his first so he gets his first primetime Emmy nomination in the the fall summer to fall 2006 so right with that second season um 2007 is where like we hit some rocky waters right this is Evan Almighty which is the uh sequel follow up spin off to Bruce Almighty where he takes no one really asked for no one really asked for and that thing bombs um I don't think it bombed. I just don't think it was. It was like an April movie. For a $175 million budget, it made worldwide 174. So I imagine with like, it lost money. And like critics hated it.

Hated it. Why would you make that movie that expensive? Yeah, yeah. He's also in Dan in real life, which gets like, it's not like a disaster for him, but like forever and ever, everybody's just going to make fun of pancakes. I was going to say it's a movie about what happens to a man when he falls into pancakes. Yes, exactly. When he sleeps on a bed of pancakes, yes.

And then 2008, Get Smart, which is also a movie that does not succeed the way people want it to, right? I kind of liked Get Smart. I remember so little about Get Smart. I know Anne Hathaway's in it. I know there's... They're a bad romantic pairing, but I think they're both funny in the movie. Okay, that is a weird. Get Smart is one of the few movies I've seen with The Rock in it.

Right, the Rock is in it. Because I just don't see his movies, but he's in that. That's directed by Peter Siegel, who directed movies like Anger Management and Fifty First Dates and Nutty Professor 2, The Clumps. Come on, the Clumps. So still has the office, though. That's the thing is like, These movies may be flopping, but he still has the office. And then 2010, it's, you know, he's in date night, which I think does well, right? Even though, like, people are mixed on that, but, like, that's a six, that's a hit. That's a hit movie. It's like a friend does well movie.

I don't, did that movie make a hundred million dollars? It might have. Hold on. Worldwide it did. Look up the, yeah, look up the box office for date night. But that's also the year that he's. He does Dispicable Me, and that is a good, like, that's a low-key triumph in terms of... Date Night, just shy of $100 million.

Domestic. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, and I think it's like $150 worldwide. Despicable Me is going to keep his great-great-grandchildren, you know... Swimming in vats of money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even though that same year...

The dinner for Schmucks is also that same year. Yeah, but it's so easy. It's so easy to brush for schmucks aside when you have Dispicable Me, right? Right. And then we get into, like, comedies where he's playing a little bit more of a dramatic, you know, he's in seeking a friend for the end of the world, he's in crazy, stupid love, supporting role in Hope Springs. These are all comedies, but these are all comedies that have a, that are sort of yearning for respectability in some way or another, right? The way way back feels like it's distinctly, it's him reaching for not funny because he's playing the bad guy in that movie. I don't think he has a single joke, if I remember correctly.

I think that's right. I think that's right. And it feels like he's reaching for something. And around that same time, he leaves the office. People don't, maybe not, I don't know, people probably do remember. But it's worth remembering that he leaves the office a couple years before that show ends. leaves in 2011, and it sure seems like is taking a

intentional pivot towards stuff that's more romantic, while also making, like, the incredible Burt Wonderstone, which, like, talk about Flop City. Like, check your, check your address. You're living in Flop City. And then 2014 in Foxcatcher. And I think that's the, like,

That's one of the big kind of Rosetta Stone moments for Corel, which is, like, he plays this, like, not only a dramatic role in a dramatic movie, but like facial prosthetics, you know what I mean, transformation, and a voice, and he's playing a villain, and it's just like all the elements, and he gets the Oscar nomination for it, even though I would put him decidedly third a month. the three leads of that movie in terms of performance quality. While saying I am not negative on that performance, I have to agree. I don't love the performance. I have to admit. And then... That should be Channing Tatum's Oscar nomination, but I agree. That he is third.

2015 comes, and free-held is such a disaster, and he's so bad in free-held. We ought to do free-held. We do. I'm not relishing it, but, like, yes, we do have to do free-held. Um... I remember I went to the free-held party at Tiff, and already the buzz on it was so bad that nobody was talking about free-held. I don't think any of the free-held people, like, stuck around the party. Like, that's the one where I sort of, like, famously, Katie Rich introduced me to Brie Larson.

And, but, like, Brie Larson didn't have anything to do with free-held. People were just sort of, like, at the free-held. Isn't the, that, like, did you get Getty image? We were on Getty image as Brie Larson, uh, Joe Reed. and a friend as like literally I was like Katie's plus one to that party so like I was absolutely the hanger on and because I was the one who talked to the stringer who was like we need to get people's names I'm like oh you know Joe Reed and they never got to talk to Katie so they never got Katie's name because Katie was already talking to somebody else important you know what I

mean like that's yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah anyway yes how embarrassing and then he's in the big short I think he's good in the big short I know you hate that that movie. Hate that movie. Hate that movie. I think he's good in that movie. Bale is the one who gets the Oscar nomination, but I think Karel gets the second Globe nomination.

Don't they both get nominated for the globe? Yes. Yes. I think they're both nominated for, are they both nominated for lead, or are they both nominated for... Both nominated for lead in a comedy. Right, right. And Bail's nominated supporting it the Oscar. Gossling's performance in that movie, while enjoyable, is very much like Ryan Gosling is doing

a parody of other characters that he's done. You know what I mean? It's very much like Ryan Gosling in quotation marks is what you get in the big short. He reunites with Woody Allen in 2016 for Cafe Society. One of the late stage Woody's that I actually liked, I thought Cafe Society was pretty good. I didn't like the movie, but Blake Lively is good in it.

Blake Lively is very good in it. Who's the other one? Is it Kristen Stewart? Who's the other? Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg, because that's like the secret third thing in the Kristen Stewart, Josie Eisenberg. That's right.

God. I don't remember. Karel from it very much at all. What do you, I know we did a whole episode on Battle of the Sexes, so it's weird that I'm asking you this, but like, what did you think of him as Bobby Riggs in Battle of the Sexes? I don't remember. If I'm going off of memory, having not seen that movie since we did it, there's probably really good stuff and not so great stuff in that, but like he was almost Oscar nominated for

that movie. He was, yeah. But, I mean, positive on the movie. That same year, he's in Richard Linklider's last flag flying, which, which is. which is a movie we should do for this podcast, but I'm so, it's such a bummer, nothing of a movie? You think he's good at that? It is such a nothing of a movie, but I do have to say. Is he the best one?

He, I mean, it's hard to be the best one in any movie where Lawrence Fishburn exists. Right. But the thing I hate about that movie is Cranston. I know. I know. Always annoying to me. Yeah. But Corell's actually, like, doing the understating.

thing maybe better than he's ever done. So you've never seen... It's just the movie's a

nothing burger. Sorry to go back to Cranston for a second. So you've never seen Breaking Bad.

I saw the first season of Breaking Bad. That's not the best exposure to Breaking Bad. It definitely like...

Breaking Bad is one of those shows that takes... Probably just not for me. Probably. But I think it definitely will

change your perspective on Cranston if you ever did because like, I think maybe While that, you know, obviously catapulted Cranston, I think it's maybe, it maybe is, like, disastrous for his choices as an actor because he is always...

Emboldens. One thousand times too big. Yeah. Always surface deep for me. This is me and my thoughts. Well, you're not the only one. I think most people really don't like his film output at all. I will say, loved Cranston in Asteroid City.

Because no one is bad in Asteroid City. Oh, yeah. He's actually great in Astroids City. He's exactly what he needs to be in. He's the Alec Baldwin and Tenen Bombs, except you see him. I think Alec Baldwin and Royal Tenenbombs is the absolute gold standard in terms of like narrating an arch movie and doing it perfectly. Top two narrator performances in film. Alec Baldwin in Royal Tenenbombs and Joanne Woodward in Age of Innocon.

One million percent true. narrators. Can't touch him. Can't touch him. That's perfect. All right, back to Correll. So, last flag flying, you know, blah. 2018, beautiful boy, which I don't love him in. Vice, he's Donald Rumsfeld, where he's literally playing Donald Rumsfeld, kind of as his anchorman character. Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes. And then Malcolm to Marwan, which is another movie we've done. We've done two of the three. We've done the only two, 2018. Carrell movies we can do. Again, I mean, welcome to Marwen feels like his bid to do another fox catcher, right?

Where it's like deeply dramatic. He's like injured, right? He's like, it's, I think he's, you laugh, but like, that had, that's why we covered it for this episode, for this podcast. I know, I know. It had ambitions. God, we covered that years ago at this point. I know, I know.

I think we covered that during the pandemic. We actually sat and watched Welcome to Marwin. We sure did. We sure did. Then 2019, The Morning Show, where he essentially signs on to play the avatar of the Me Too era villains, where he plays a television anchor who had a sexually coercive relationship with an employee. I can't remember, God, I can't remember the specifics of it, whether it was like, I think it was actual sexual... I think it was sexual assault in that show.

Although, God, I can't remember. I don't want to be wrong. I do need to get on board with the morning show, but it's almost more fun to hear... I do, too. I know. I know what you mean. Obviously, Christina Tucker is, like, the poet laureate of talking... We should have Christina on the Patreon to just, like, tell us everything about the morning show.

And just, like, just listen to her talk about it. I think it would be amazing. I read her morning show recaps and don't watch the show. I've been avoiding all recaps because I'm like one of these days I'm going to go back to the show. Because like I drifted in season two. I watched the season two premiere, which literally ends with somebody in Times Square at New Year's 20, like when 2019 going into 2020 new years, and literally the end of the episode, somebody goes, and like that's the end of the episode. And it's like, that's COVID has arrived. Yeah.

Well, and it's also the element of like Rees Witherspoon's character, if you're suggesting that this is all happening within real or within the true timeline of the show, within like nine months she goes from obscurity to being on this television program to being at the Capitol Riot and like being there on January 6th to be. being in space, all in the span of, like, a year. I, all right, now that I, now that I'm sort of transitioning to this new, uh, uh, employment era of mine, I'm going to watch, I'm going to make a, make a, make a determination to catch up on the morning show. I'm going to do it. Um, he also in 2020, speaking of the pandemic, stars in Space Force, the Greg Daniels. It was the big Greg Daniels, Steve Carell reunion, you know, stars, star in one. creator of The Office.

It was not a one-season wonder. It was a two-season wonder. It got a second season that aired in February of 2022. Yes, seven more episodes of Space Force. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. So in the meantime, he's in, speaking of things that nobody liked,

the John Stewart film Irresistible that I have not seen but literally I haven't spoken to a single person who could stand that movie I think everybody really unwatchable I would call it it it has like nothing but talented

people associated to it and the movie is Rose Byrne Mackenzie Davis Natasha Leone Chris Cooper yeah nothing but bad things then though 2023

as you mentioned passing out cocktails at the, at the motor lodge in Asteroid City, and good for him. We liked him in that. And then coming up, he's, oh, no, every time I see this movie's title, I think, oh, this is like an M. Night Shyamalan thing. I'm going to be really into it or whatever. Yes, I also was, because I thought during the Super Bowl, we were getting the M.

Night Shyamalan trailer, and no, it's this movie If, which is animated. Which is the John Krasinski. John Krasinski, Ryan Reynolds, have, like, combined their forces to play, to, to, to, Krasinski's directing it. And it's, what if there was an imaginary friend? Like, that's the if, right? It's, um, uh, Krasinski, I think, provides the voice of the imaginary friend. Ryan Reynolds is the dad to the kid who can see the imaginary friend.

eight bajillion people provide voices in this, including Steve Correll. I have very little interest in seeing it, but it really looks like, okay, the talent behind this, like, it's, you know, Krasinski writing, directing, whatever, and producing. It's, you know, triple threat. Janush Kaminsky is doing the cinematography. Michael Giacino is doing the score. Like, they're really, it seems like paramount. Oh, it's not animated? I thought this was animated. it's harsh no it's like real life oh it's Roger Rabbit imaginary friend yeah um it seems like

it's you know it's a May release I think Paramount's really like putting their ass into this so I think they really want it to be a big big hit and you know if it is it's not like you know Karell as being one of the voices of you know animated characters is going to you know

it's not going to be like the Steve Karell hit if but Uh, besides Dispicable Me, that's the other thing that's on his radar right now. Despicable Me 4, uh, the return of Gru. What if Gru had a baby? I've never seen the Despicable Me. Even though we've already seen Gru as a parent from the beginning. I've only ever seen the first Despicable Me.

Um, I'm not a Gru head. What would you call Gru-Groonitics? I'm not a Grunitik. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but good for hip. I will say Oh, he was also in that show

The Patient Which I kept wanting to watch Because it's Dom, it's Dom Gleason Oh, right, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. We're like, he's the shrink And Dom Gleason is the psychopath Who like Kidnaps him or something, right?

It was an Apple TV That was an Apple show, right? No, FX on Hulu God, why did I not watch that? I should have. Maybe I will. only 10 episodes Dom Gleason And Linda Eamund is in it as well

Shit Well now I really got to watch it People seem to like that show okay I don't know if people like raved about corral or anything like that But people seem to like that show So I think that was one of those shows that got like lost in the glut Of remember how like

There were so many prestige streaming shows in 2020 That one spring that they just decided to put all TV shows on Yes maybe that was then Anyway, all this to say, to put the bow on the Corel conversation. I feel like we've dogged on him a little bit, but this is still a performer I think of positively. I wish he would just, I wish, I hate, this sounds so fucking shitty of me as somebody who does not have talent. But like, I wish he would just do comedy and stop trying to be a dramatic actor. I mean, he's such a talented comedic actor.

And it's just, I don't know, there's a fine line and so much of it pushes him past that line of what's within his range. Yeah, yes, which on some level is an admirable thing. He's challenging himself, right? We always ask for actors to challenge themselves. We don't really talk about so much as like we just assume that when actors challenge themselves, they'll succeed. Sometimes they don't succeed. And maybe that's the, you know, that's the Steve Carell story, is he's willing to challenge himself to a point where he won't always succeed. And maybe that should be a little bit more admired than shat upon by J-Holes. Like, me. All right, everybody, put down your meth. I don't know. Joseph. Well, what else am I going to do? Like, stop talking to Moria Tierney.

Quit making out with Caitlin Dever fully clothed in a shower. That's true. Quit doing that. We're going to talk about the Vulture Movie Fantasy League. We are going to talk about the last time we talked to you about the Fantasy League. we were talking to you as the BAFTAs were just beginning. The BAFTAs have now officially ended. And they were only interested in like four movies this year.

The Rauna BFTAs did not care to spread the wealth at all. It was essentially an Oppenheimer or Poor Things party with a little bit of extra love for the zone of interest and a little bit of extra love for the holdovers. and that was pretty much it. That was... Don't forget the adapted screenplay win for American fiction. That's true, which as that happened, you texted Katie and I, and you seem to think that the category was wrapped up. I think I agree with Katie,

which is that, like, the absence of Barbie in the BAFTA category does present a wild card that... But I had seen some other people who expressed the same opinion that, like, well, American fiction's pretty much got it wrapped up now. I'm not sure. I kind of feel that it might, just because it seems like, there is a lot of passion for American fiction. Yeah.

Like getting especially that score nomination. Also, Anatomy of a Fall won the original screenplay category. I do definitely think that's wrapped up. Anatomy of a Fall winning original? Yeah. You've been of this opinion for quite a while. I've been kind of dragging my feet on it. I had thought that the holdovers had a bit of a chance.

I think I'm sort of coming around to your thing, especially because this is a way for them to give Justine Tray an Oscar. And it's not... And the movie, too, which is a very popular movie. Right, right. The two things that most people came out of the Baft is talking about, though, well, the supporting categories do seem to be as locked up as we've had them for a while. I feel like this is feeling very, like, 2003, although better than 2003, but remember in 2003 how, like, Tim Robbins and Renee Zellwecker could not have been more certain for, like, that whole season. There was just nothing budging them.

And I feel like our DJ and DJR are locked and loaded to win their Oscars. And I'm fine with it. I'm good with it. I, you know, I've had my ups and downs with Robert Downey Jr. I'm enjoying him on this awards march. I think there are other. in his category, I would probably vote for ahead of him, like Mark Ruffalo. But it's an incredibly interesting career. And I like the idea, I like having the little bit of ammunition for all

those people who were, I've mentioned this on the podcast before, all those people who were whining about how Robert Downey Jr. deserved essentially a franchise-long Oscar for Avengers endgame. And I was like, wait till he gives a performance that, you know, requires a little bit more. You know what I mean? If some of that sentiment was, you know, coming from a place of when the Oscars honor someone's career, it tends to not be for the greatest performance or the greatest movie, I think one thing that does make me like this inevitable Robert Downey Jr. is like, this is going to be a good one, though. This is going to be a...

A good one for a good movie for a thing where he's sort of, like, rediscovering acting again. Like, he's been up front, I think, about the fact that he, maybe not upfront, but like, it has not been a secret that those last few years in the Marvel machine, Robert Downey Jr. was coasting. You know what I mean? And he's talked about how he sort of recharged his crew. career with this role in this performance, so I'm very, very fine with him winning. Divine Joy Randolph is a delight. She was a delight in the Vanity Fair videos that came out with the cover, the Hollywood issue, the cover of that. My confession of this season, if I don't have another one, I probably said many. But one of my

confessions is the holdovers team got me to listen to Marin. I was not. I know Marin is monoculture. But, like, Dave I enjoy Randolph on Marin talking about throwing discus, I ascended. Like in school? Like she was on the Jack and Field team? I did not know that. She had to choose between sports and performing, like singing and sports. Everyone, go listen to Dave, I enjoy Randolph on Marin. She's amazing. The thing in the Vanity Fair videos, when she's talking to Jenna Ortega about their first auditions, and she said my first audition was for Broadway. and her take is like, what happened? She's like, I got it. Is she talking about Ghost? She's talking about Ghost. That's wild. Also in her Baptist speech. The thing that she got Tony

nominated for. She's like, I feel this feels very full circle because my first acting job was in London and was when she took over the role in Ghost. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Amazing. But anyway, my main point before I got detoured by the supporting categories was now the big news seems to be we've got a race in each of the lead acting categories now. That it's that Killian Murphy winning best actor has basically put him and Giamati neck and neck. And well, by the time you're listening to this, the SAG Awards will have happened. And will they? Yeah, they're this weekend.

Oh, okay. Why do I keep thinking the SAG Awards are during the week? Anyway, keep going. But anyway, so we'll know a lot more. I think by the time we get to that point, whoever wins the SAG will be the frontrunner. But I think there is still reason to feel like this is a race, especially if Giamati wins the SAG and then Murphy has won the BAFTA. Like, there's some real competition there.

I do think Giomadi is winning SAG, just as the American performer who, you know, I think they might be more responsive to his narrative. Has SAG shown an American bias over the year? Well, I mean, it's an American group. It's, you know, SAG AFDRI. includes American TikTokers. Well, so's the Oscars, more or less. True. That one, I think there's more things that could happen.

I do think if the BAFTA lead winners repeat, then it's probably no longer a race, and it's probably over. You think it's all over? All right. Interesting. Probably. I wouldn't see Paul Giamatti only winning Globe and Critics' Choice and still winning an Oscar. I could. I could.

I think there's enough X factors in there. But the thing that I was sort of thinking of as I've, because now after the Critics' Choice and the Globes and Giamatti sort of being incredibly charming over this award season, I'm so on board for him to win. And now it's like, oh, Killian Murphy might win for Oppenheimer. And I'm like, wait a second. When I saw Oppenheimer, I was like, it'll never happen, but Killian Murphy gives the performance of the year. He should win the Oscar for it. And so it's so funny the way that. like award season does kind of warp your brain a little bit. And you have to kind of check

yourself. And like, wait a second. Killian Murphy, of all people, winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for playing an emotionally reserved, very sort of like, heading. Dandy. Like this, what an incredible thing to have happened. And Oppenheimer is my favorite movie of the year. So like, what am I complaining about? I shouldn't complain about anything. And I won't now that I've thought about it for half a second. But, like, I will have some sadness if Paul Giamatti doesn't win the Oscar, because I really do want him to have that moment. In Best Actress, Emma Stone has got the momentum.

As Girls 5Eva might say, she's got momentum. Yeah, it's her moment. And I think I put her ahead of Lily Gladstone at this point, even though, again, when I walked out of Killers of the Flower Moon, I said, Lily Gladstone has got that Oscar right. up so like right i don't i i i mean this i feel like is more of the is more of a race but i mean if if the emma stone winsag i i i think it could be really really sealed up i think that's that i'm definitely more inclined to say if emma stone winsag i i would be i would easily

put lily in the underdog position at that point right right and it it it I don't be so bummed if she doesn't win. But, like, it is, does seem to be a thing of Scorsese movies winning or losing momentum throughout the season. And I think it's because as revered as he is, there is an underestimated thing about Scorsese. Well, they're like, because everybody's like, well, he's Scorsese. He has everything already.

And it affects everyone else involved with the movies, you know. It's Leo not getting the best actor nominee. There does seem to be a current of backlash brewing among online folks in our circle. I don't know how far that extends towards the possibility of Emma Stone winning her second Oscar over Lily Gladstone because Lily's got such a powerful sort of story and narrative about, you know, how often are actresses from her background going to get that opportunity or have, you know what I mean? The historical imbalances and all of that beyond the fact that she gives a great performance. Now, I also think Emma Stone gets a stunning performance.

I don't think either one of them winning is, is obvious from a talent or performance standpoint. I think either one of them could win, and I'd be like, yeah, they deserve it. think anybody nominated in Best Actress this year. Well, not in that. No, yeah, thank you. I was going to be like, excuse me, sir. I forgot. I forgot.

I forgot. I forgot. But like, you know, if Sandra Hewler wins, you know, then, then yes. I think everybody who was saying, everybody, at this time of the year, everybody always wants to be like, actually, a vote split could happen. It's like the Adrian. I am that person, usually. I'm usually that person.

I'm usually that. Rotted people's brains to think that this is a likely possible thing. to happen. This guy. And everyone was saying that there would be a Sondra Hewler win based off of a vote split. That really made no sense. But I think her not winning Basta kind of put that to bet. You thought this was Zondra Hewler's best chance to win.

Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. But anyway, so Oppenheimer's win in this whole moment. Basta definitely loved poor things more than Oscar is going to love poor things, I think. Well, Oscar nominated poor things a lot, though. You know what I mean? But is it going to win five Oscars? I don't think so.

Probably not five. But like the fact that it won all of we've, you and I, all right, grain of salt, everybody, this is more facetious than it sounds. But I'm just going to say, I've had this thing with Chris where I talk about the boy techs and the girl texts in the craft categories and how there are these sort of these craft categories like cinematography and editing and sound that tend to go to these. We talked about this on Mike before. Have we? Okay. I'm sorry. I repeat myself. These sort of big, muscular male director movies. And then the movies that win costume and makeup and production design are like,

girls can have, like movies about girls can win those awards. And this year at the BAF does, it was the most stark thing I'd ever seen in my life. Because on the Wikipedia page, they're lined up side by side. And it's like, one column is all the Oppenheimer's and the other coms, all the poor things. Poor things did win visual effects at Bafto, which it is not nominated for at the Oscars. I always think, and visual effects is, is, is unbound by all of that. I always feel like visual effects doesn't pertain to any of my arguments about craft categories. I don't know why I say that, but I do.

But anyway, um, it's going to be interesting to see what does win that Oscar, though. Visual effects? Yes. What would you say if you had to bet right now? I mean, I feel like if I'm placing my bet, I'm putting it towards, like, giving a little, you know, goodwill and good luck into the ethos, and I would put the money down on Godzilla minus one. I would love it, of course. I don't know if it's going to. Part of me is just like, I'll give it to Napoleon.

You know what I mean? You know what I mean? The Galaxy is not going to win. Marvel has never won the visual effects category. Right. It could be the creator, but it feels like no one saw that movie. I think the creator would be a perfectly worthy winner. I agree.

I think the visual effects in that movie are very good. I haven't seen The Society of the Snow yet, so I don't know what the visual effects are like in that movie. Is it nominated for visual effects? Isn't it? I don't believe. Hold on. There's, um, what's the one I was just going to say? sorry it's okay

yeah you're right it's mission impossible right mission impossible doesn't really feel like it's going to win that and then you also have Napoleon which had like a camp it's one of the few movies that had like a real campaign in Best Picture

that feels like there's a lot of foundation there for a win in that category. It's the one of that category that has the most total nominations. It's got three. All the other ones have one or two. Creator has two, right? Yes. So does Mission Impossible.

But are they going to give it to Nepal? Is that where they would place a Napoleon vote? I don't know. Give it to the exploding horses. Why not? Why not? No, vote for Godzilla minus one. I would be an advocate for giving it for Godzilla.

Yeah, I agree with you. We should bring this around to the Fantasy League, though, because with the latest score update, as I put in the newsletter, if you subscribe to the newsletter, the Oppenheimer rosters are now within striking distance. They are within the sort of margin of error where there are five movies that contain Oppenheimer that are within, I think I said 350 points of the leaders. just as a thought experiment I went through. And if Oppenheimer wins the same awards at the Oscars, then it won at BAFTA, it would pick up 475 points. So, like, that's, it's, you know, well within the margin, even if it, you know, loses some points to other movies.

So with that said, I, you know, taking a look at what some of those Oppenheimer rosters are, it's going to depend on movies like does 20 days in Mario Poll hold on and win the documentary Oscar that would help one of the Oppenheimer rosters. None of those top

Oppenheimer rosters have the holdovers. That's something that that like seven-way tie logjam at the top, they have the holdovers and so that would help them out. I think this is going to come down to a real, like, maybe last minute kind of a thing. I don't know. I can't quite forecast it.

What's not going to is Katie Rich overtaking me in the podcast? It's going to happen with the next update, I imagine. Exactly. Yeah. She's seven points behind you right now. And I am 150, 160 points behind you. Get out of our race, Joe Reed. Listen, I'm on my way.

What do I have that's going to push me besides Oppenheimer? I got to have something else. Maybe I don't. You don't have something. I can't beat Katie. That would be in the shocking scenario where perfect days would win international. Well, then that's it. That's what I got to hope for.

Even if I think that happens, I think I can't. So anyway, Katie's going to at least beat me. So Katie's got the driver's seat to win this whole thing. should be interesting. But what I did notice, though, is if you look back and you look at the way the leaderboard exists right now, you've got a seven-way tie followed by a three-way tie for, that would be eighth place, followed by a two-way tie for 11th, followed by another two-way tie for 13th. So what I'm saying is, go back and check your confirmation emails from when you signed up for the

league and see what you answered to our tiebreaker questions because I have a feeling they may end up being pertinent. You're the tiebreaker questions. Joe, what are those tiebreaker questions? I'm so glad you asked. I definitely didn't have to go back and look them up because I definitely didn't forget what they were. They were three, you had to answer us these questions three, like the bridge trolls that

we are. How many mentions of Barbie will occur across the entire Oscar ceremony? So not including pre-show, but like from when the, the, the ceremony starts proper, to the very end. How many times will anybody say the word Barbie on Mike? I answered 11 on a low ball. I decided to be conservative. That was sort of my version of saying $1 for Price's Right Rules, even though this is not Price's Right Rules. I think it's closest no matter what. What did you answer? I did not account for, oh yeah, they're going to say the title of the movie, when there's a nomination listed, and I said seven.

Barbie has more nominations than seven, so I will not be winning that. They'll also say, like, from Barbie, Margot Robbie, when Margo Robbie comes out to pronounce. Singing the song from Barbie, Billy Eilish, so there'll be a lot of that. I also low-balled on that. I think I'm going to be way, way low. I think you're going to look at an answer probably in the 20s, maybe high 20s. something like that. Second question. How many people will be commemorated in the in-memorium?

Was I a psycho and did I go back and watch old in-memoriums and count up how many were in the old ones to get a ballpark figure? Wasn't there a recent year where people were like, they didn't have enough people in there? Yeah, I definitely remember that. The people complained that they did a real... Well, they always miss somebody. It's so funny to me.

Every year they miss at least a handful of people. How is that not the easiest thing possible to just, like, put one employee on there and it's like your job is to like triple quadruple check that we haven't missed anybody major? My question about this is like, do they just go through membership rosters? Like, people were complaining. If they do, we know it. And I was like, I bet they weren't an academy member and that's how that happened. No, because they honor way more than just academy members. And I think if that was the case, we'd know it by now.

Like, somebody would have said that. But that has to be the foundation for it, right? Like when it started. Get at us. Yeah, I don't think so. I think it's just people who in the film industry. I don't know. But every year.

Anyway, I said 58. What did you say? I said 33. You said 33. We'll see who's right. And then finally, which award categories winner will have the longest speech? So if you think that – this is sort of a nice little two-tiered thing where it asks you to try and think of who you think will win that category that year, and then whether they are a long speech giver or a short speech. Can you imagine if you were, like, tied for the lead in the thing, in the fantasy league, and you guessed, like, best supporting actor.

and then you get a Joe Pesci speech to start, and you're just like, God damn it! And you just have to throw tomatoes at the screen. I said Best Actress just on the, like, that's playing smart darts. That's as far as I mean. You just, like, the lead actress is going to go on and on and on, I feel. I said Best Supporting Actor being like, oh,

Robert Downey Jr. He's going to get the career Oscar this year. It's going to be a moment. Not realizing, that's not necessarily. Robert Downey Jr.'s, M.O., he'll go up there, start it with a joke, name jokingly, a bunch of people that he worked with on the movie, people he's worked with a long time, his wife, and tell another joke and probably leave. But I don't think that will be the winning category for you. I think you have a better chance than I do if it's like Emma Stone winning

her second. I don't think Emma Stone on Oscar number two is going to be all that. that long-winded, whereas I think I could see Robert Johnny Jr. basking in his moment, a la like a Julia Roberts kind of a thing, and really hamming it up and, you know, talking to people in the audience and making jokes about Christopher Nolan and, you know, you know, cracking a joke at Mark Ruffalo. It's going to be in one of these top categories, though, because, like, they open the shark tanks on the craft categories. Yeah, yeah.

So they're not allowed to go. You'd be foolish to say documentary short, because, like, those people barely get 10 seconds before they're like, get them off on the stage. Nobody wants to see that. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, what else is to be said about the

Fantasy League? By the time you're listening to this, the Independent Spirit Awards and the SAG Awards will have happened. So it's just the Oscars left to go. So check those scores and see where you're at. See where you're at in your own little league. Gary's, you continue

to make us proud. And we've been talking for 25 minutes, so I think we're going to kick it back to our old friends. Beautiful boy. All the beautiful boys in the world, we're going to be talking about him for the rest of this episode. Bye. All right. Would you like a palette cleanser, Chris? Yes, please.

Because I have come at us with a game for a beautiful boy. This is a new one. We haven't done this before. But one of the things that, because Beautiful Boy and Boy Erased happened at the same festival as First Man, I think we all got into the habit of our... Beautiful Boy is back. Well, and Ben is back, too. Right. Beautiful Boy Erased Ben is back.

We're at the same festival as First Man, where Claire Foy gave my favorite line reading of her entire career. All these protocols and procedures to make it seem like you have it under control. But you're a bunch of boys making models out of Balsawood. You don't have anything under control. As the like spittle comes unavoidably towards the camera with all those. I think viewers who saw First Man and 4DX were soaked. That better have been part of the 4DX experience is Claire Foy's spitting on you when she says, bunch of boys.

You're a bunch of boys. So anyway, I decided to make a game for you, for A Beautiful Boy, called A Bunch of Boys Making Movies Out of Balsalwood. So this is a mashup game. So every answer will take the form of a mashup title of three movies mashed up into one. And I'm going to ask you to sort of play along and try and mash them up as, you know, don't just give me three movie titles. want you to like play the game of mashing them up. What I will give you to start is the prompts will take the form of you'll get an actor, a year slash genre, and a writer or a director or sometimes writer. So we'll go through the example slowly. But I'll essentially say

ex-actor stars in a drama from 1902 directed by Mary Pickford, right? You know, know what I mean? And then if you will then synthesize those three titles into one sort of like mashup title, if you want a hint, I will give you then the stars of the other two movies. Got it. Do you know what I mean? So we'll walk through this first one slowly. And then once we do it, you'll understand. So the first question is, Lucas Hedges stars in a 1995 comedy directed by Michael Bay So All of these titles

that we're mashing up have boy in them That's the thing I should have probably said at the beginning So that's the game Everything has boy Everything has boy

Okay So boy or erased I'm guessing for Lukie Comedy from 95 With Boy in the title Directed by Michael Bay is bad boys

Bad Boys Erased Hmm Would you like the hint? The 95 comedy I feel like I might be able to get With Boys in the title You're not talking about boys on the side, are you? Bad Boys Erased on the Side?

Incorrect. Would you like your hint? Yes. Your hint is that it also stars Martin Lawrence and Chris Farley. Oh, bad Tommy boys erased. Bad Tommy boy erased. Yes, very good. Bad Tommy boy erased.

So now you get the game, okay? So, all right. Next question. Bat Midler in a 2001 dark comedy directed by John Singleton. It's for the boys, Boys in the Hood, dark 2001 comedy is the dangerous life. of Alter Boys. That's a very good guess, but that is not correct. All right, your hint is, I'll do this.

When you give a wrong answer, that'll trigger the hint. Okay, it'll help move it along. Hint is also starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Cuba Gooding Jr. Boo. From 2001. It's not Donnie Darko, obviously. Bubble boy. So, for the bubble.

boy from the hood? For the bubble boys in the hood. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Very good. Good job. By the way, would watch Bet Midler in a 2001 dark comedy directed by John Singleton. May he rest. One million percent. That's just drowning Mona. Question number three. Noah Centineo stars in a 2023 sports drama written by Neil Simon. Uh, Sunshine Boys is Neil Simon. in 2023 drama, you said? 2023 sports drama. Sports drama.

Boys in the boat. I have to confess that I don't know a damn thing Noah Centeno is in. Well, the hint's not going to help you because that's, the hint was just going to give you the other two actors. So boys in the boat, uh, and the sunshine boys in the boat. It was a Netflix movie. Oh, for all the boys I loved before? synthesize it For all the Sunshine Boys in the Boat I loved before

It's two all the Sunshine Boys in the Boat I've loved before But yes, yes, very good, very good Next one Jeff Bridges in a 2015 erotic thriller directed by Neil Jordan Um A 20 what erotic thriller 2015 erotic thriller

Hmm Wow, this one's heart. Neil Jordan was the Winslow Boy. David Mammon is the Winslow Boy, but you're on the right track. The, the, not the Baker, ooh. Not the Baker, but like you're out, like, go to your nursery. The butcher boy. There you go.

The butcher boy. 2015 erotic thriller. There were so few of those. and Jeff Bridges Jeff Bridges is fabulous Baker Boys

So the fabulous butcher boys Does the erotic thriller start with boy Yes Boy, you know exactly what you did on my book?

Would you like the hint? Yes Ryan Guzman and Eamon Owens Yemann Owens is Butcher Boy, so your hint is Ryan Guzman. Who plays the titular boy? There's a bigger star in that movie. Who's got a movie out this weekend, though not in theaters.

Oh, it's... Dakota. Oh, out this weekend, not in theaters. Not in theaters. But it's definitely making the social media rounds and clip form. I haven't watched it yet. Oh, oh, I wouldn't have categorized this as an erotic thriller, but... I wouldn't either, but that's what it said when I looked it up, so...

Well done. It is the fabulous butcher boy next door. The fabulous butcher boy next door. Very good. Yeah. Jennifer Lopez, this is me now. I cannot wait to watch that. Cannot wait.

First edition of the Iliad. Yep, exactly. Yes. All right. Next question. Don't you love this game? Don't you already love this game? Don't you already love this game.

The fabulous butcher boy next door. Every time I remember first edition of the Iliad. I just can't help but giggle. It's so stupid and funny. All right. Question five. Kiefer Sutherland in a 2022 animated short film directed by Tony Scott. Um.

Tony Scott was... Did Tony Scott do one of the bad boys? I don't think so. He didn't. Um, 2020 animated short film was, I'm assuming it's one of the Oscar nominees. Um, I just forget what they are. Um, what was the first piece? Keyfer Sutherland.

Key for Sutherland, which is, um, no, I was thinking of young guns. Um, hmm, this one's hard. It is hard. I'll take some hints. Okay, so your hints are also starring Bruce Willis and Jude Coward Nicol. Okay. So the Bruce Willis one, oh, it's the last Boy Scout. Mm-hmm.

Uh, Tony Scott's the last Boy Scout. You definitely remember the 2022 animated short film. You've just kind of memory-holded it. But remember, we had a vested interest in that category last year. Right, because that was my year of Dix with Pam. So why were we so mad about how that category shook out? Oh, because it's the boy and the, the last boy and the unicorn and the platitude and the bullshit. All right, so what's the key for?

Think 80s. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, um, um, shit, uh, why is it? Speaking of memory hole, it's right there. Joel Schumacher vampire movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Has a Peter Pan. The lost boys.

There you go. Sorry, I should have had that way sooner. The last lost boy scout and the unicorn and the platitude and the bullshit. All right, yes. As I wrote it, the lost boy scout, the mole, the fox and the horse. There we go. All right. You're not giving me enough credit for going off in this game.

That was maybe the hardest question you have ever given. Thank you. Jacob Trombly in a 1998 sports comedy directed by Franklin J. Schaffner. Jacob Tromblay is, obviously there's room, there's wonder. there is not a Star Wars movie because they never let that child have the Star Wars movie that he wanted.

This was a movie that I don't think you saw, but I think it made a decent amount of money. I could be wrong. This is also Dr. Sleep, where he has a cameo that he shows up to only be savagely murdered. A little more than a cameo, I would say. But yeah, that is...

Unsettling. No, this was a... The Trombie thing is a comedy. I think it had a red band trailer. Oh, Good Boys. There you go. Good Boys. 1998 Sports, you said?

Sports comedy. Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner. Would you like a hint? I would like hints, yes. Also starring Gregory Peck and Adam Sandler. Waterboy. Yeah. Gregory Peck movie with boys in the title.

Omen, the worst boy. I'm not sure you've seen this movie. I haven't either, but it's been high on my list of movies I've wanted to see for a while. Yeah, maybe I haven't. Also starring Lawrence Olivier? I actually don't think I've seen any Gregory Peck movies, which... Also starring Lawrence Olivier, I believe? has a country on the title?

The country boys. The boy from a country. Yeah. The boy from Lawrence Olivier, Gregory Peck. Yeah, I should probably know this is. It's about Nazis. The boy from Germany?

The Boys from Brazil. The Boys from Brazil. Oh, yes, I know that title. The Good Water Boys from Brazil is what I had. The Good Water Boys from Brazil. Great. All right. Next one.

Lucas Haas in a 2023 animated feature written by Shia LaBuff. Okay. The Shia LaBuff is Honey Boy. What was the middle thing again? 2023 animated feature. Got it. So last year with... Boys in the title

Obviously not an awesome Oh, the boy in the heron They, okay And Lucas Haas Uh Not witness The Amish boy Witness alternate title

The Amish boy The Amish Witness colon The Amish boy The Witness cinematic universe Which honestly would have Absolutely Popped off

Lucas Haas. Okay, so the hint's not going to help you because you already got your... Lucas Haas is the second lead of this movie. The lead of this movie is an actress who was huge in the 90s. This was sort of one of her mid-90s movies. This was not a hit. But it's definitely a movie you know of by title. It's also like the most basic title given what our game is. The Boy. No, but, like, work around that. Brahms the boy. Not Brahms the boy. I really tried to do Brahms the boy in this, and I can't make it fit. Katie Holmes.

Is Katie Holmes? That's true. But I tried to make the actors the ones who played one of the titular boys. The boy. Right. So my movies were The Boy and the Haren and... Honey Boy. Honey Boy.

The Honey Boy. Your hint would have been also starring Noah, Jupe and Soma Santoki. Yes. Lucas Haas, mid-90s, I don't know if you, maybe you don't remember this movie. He's in a movie called Boys with Winona Ryder. Oh, right. I wouldn't have known that he was in that movie.

So the Honey Boys and the Heron. The Honey Boys and the Heron, exactly. All right. Question 8. Nicholas Holt in a 2006 British comedy drama directed by William Friedkitten. About a boy, the boys in the band. What was the middle one again? 2006 British comedy drama.

Hmm. That's not also about a boy? That's 2000. It is, but yeah, different here. The history boys. So about, what did we say the last one was? Directed by William Friedkin.

Oh, about a history boy in the band. About the history boys in the band. Yes, very good. All right. Final question. Question 9. Matthew McConaughey and a 2018 crime drama directed by Richard Linkletter. Richard Linklater is boyhood.

Matthew McConaughey is, um... Oh gosh, what's that Richard Linklater, uh, Western? Um... I guess that's two Richard Linkliders. The Sunshine? No, it's not the Sunshine Boys. It's... Oh, the Newton Boys. Is he not in that?

Yes. He is. Okay. So the Newton Boyhood and 2009 crime drama. 2018, 2018 crime drama. Oh, 2018 crime drama is the boys in the court. Duh. Would you like a hint?

Yes. Matthew McConaughey and Matthew McConaughey. What was his 2018 crime drama? That's the Lincoln lawyer. Well, no, it's Lincoln lawyers before that. It's, what was that man up to in a courtroom? This was another TIF movie that I don't think either one of us saw. 2018.

Yeah. So the same TIF that we're talking about. I will also say, I didn't have boyhood, but you're totally correct. So I can't ding you for that. So there's a secret fourth movie out there as well. I believe it. So Matthew McConaughey, 2018 Tiff courtroom movie with Boy. Not courtroom, crime, not courtroom.

Oh, crime. Oh, that is white boy Rick. So the Newton white boyhood Rick. Yes. So I didn't have boyhood. What I had was white Newton boy Rick on the side because he's also in boys on the side. Tortured, yes. Convaluted, yes.

That's what I came up with. Yes. Okay. I'm glad. I hope you had fun, because it seems like you were... Listeners come here for Demented Games. I'm glad you could deliver it, even for a beautiful boy erased his back. There's so many movies with Boy in the title, you guys.

You don't even know. Dogtown and the Z-boys. I should have done Broms the Boy, too, and just, like, bit the bullet and said, like, whatever, like, year horror movie. I should have. God damn it. So mad. All right, anyway. Back to...

We should have our Timmy conversation now. Yes. I think by nature of this coming off of hit, this being his follow-up to his massive breakout success. Yes. In 2017, instantly kind of put this movie on an Oscar map. What's wild is he shot this basically right after,

call me by your name, premieres at Sundance. Mm-hmm. I even like went into his filmography because he has this, huge 2017. Obviously. Yeah, where does Lady Bird come in terms of filming that? Lady Bird was filmed in, I believe, August of 2016. Okay.

So. After he films, Calmed by your name was already filmed. Yeah. At some point, he's filming the Scott Cooper film Hostiles. Which I've never seen. I mean, we could do an episode on it. It would, you know, I mean, we're making a fun episode out of this in this movie's Bummer of the of the scott cooper movies we could do i'd rather do that than black mass so there's that

or out of the furnace out of the furnace is actually a movie i hate it out of the furnace oh i hate it out of the furnace so much i mean it's it's so like oppressively bleak but i do think there's positive things about that movie i would vote for hostels but that's maybe it's so that i want to watch a movie i'd rather watch a movie with timmy in it than then watch out of the furnace or Blackmas again. Ross Pike. Ross Pike, West Dutty. And it's a movie I've never seen before, so I wouldn't be re-watching a movie that I already know I don't like. Right. Sure. That's sometimes how these things go. Yes, exactly. All right, but yes. So previous to call me by your name, he's in a brief arc on Homeland, on Showtime. He's in men, women, and children,

a movie we've covered on this, although doesn't really get, uh, if anybody, it's Ansel, Elgort who gets, and Caitlin Dever, who get, you know, the shrine off of that movie, because Timmy's just the guy who gets punched in the cafeteria. He's young Casey Affleck and Interstellar, which is hilariously bad casting, because I would have never, like, but he's, you know. I just recently rewatched Interstellar. Favorite Nolan. Favorite Nolan.

It's not my favorite Nolan, but it's like, it's all fucking amazing movie. Like, would not have guessed it from my initial reaction to that movie. Yeah, I've always, favorite Nolan. I always assumed you were an interstellar, very divisive movie when it came out. If you don't like Interstellar, go revisit Interstellar. It's so good.

It's so good. There will be one thing that they come away with more positively than they did on their first launch. At least, yeah. He's in a movie called The Adderall Diaries that feels very much like wants to be, um like the the basketball diaries for a new generation i've never seen it it's a james franco movie um he's in a little film called love the coopers my friend who baby who baby tell us a little bit about now that you've seen love the coopers famously tell us a little bit about charlie cooper the character he plays in love the coopers all thanks to uh i'm pretty

sure it was friend and former guests matt jacobs who wrote about love the coopers this year I think that's right. I hope I'm not wrong. Yeah. But genuinely, the most bat-shit Christmas movie I have ever seen.

And I know that that is saying a lot. That's a high bar, yeah. It's not even the evil tethered to the family stone. It's like the evil tethered of love actually. Like, it is kind of American love actually in that every single one of its

stories is absolutely ludicrous and maybe a little evil. What's his story? Who is he? He's one of the young and he's like one of the young kids. Does he rap in that? I forget if he raps or not. Like honestly, the Timothy Shalamey stuff is

the the least wild. Does he have like a love story? Is that like a love? He has a crush on Molly Gordon and he's like trying to figure out how to go flirt with Molly Gordon at her job at the mall. Nice. Classics. Listeners, just mark it on your calendar for like November 30th this year. If you haven't seen Love the Coopers, you're going to go watch Love the Coopers. I'm going to do it. Because there is such unexpected insanity in this movie that I really wouldn't want to spoil it for anyone. And especially the Olivia Wild, Jake Lacey stuff, which is just... I believe this was a one and a half star movie that you were like, see this.

movie immediately like that it was one it was one and a half star and a heart yeah it was that's that's the vibe uh the marissa tomey anthony macky stuff is crazy uh um the it's also like every single one of these plots is enough for one movie and there are maybe 12 11 plots happening simultaneously in I love it. There are 11 separate stories. It's like Magnolia, but one family at Christmas. And also, there may be all bad people. Not all bad people. Yeah. Because like June Squib's there and June Squibb is like always saintly. Yeah. Always of the divine. Um, so moving on if we have to, because we probably have to. Moving past Love the Cooper's, go watch Love the Cooper. The first thing that I ever really made note of, even though I definitely saw him on Homeland, but I did not really make much note of him. Was an indie dromedy, directed by Julia Hart, called Miss Stevens that had starred. He's so good. Lily Raib.

The reason why I watched this movie is like, oh, I'll watch a Lily Raim movie. It was a South by Southwest premiere. She's a teacher. She chaperones this, like, group of, like, gifted students to a gifted student competition. Whatever is it, debate? I can't remember. It's something. And it's, what's her?

name from hustlers Lily Reinhart someone else and then Timothy Shalame plays the sort of oh it's a it's an acting right he does a monologue he does a yeah yeah yeah yes of course performance um that's right it's a they're doing monologs

from from a place and he is sort of he's not like troubled but he's like sort of like he's cocky and he's difficult and he's, you know, clearly incredibly talented. And he's challenged, he sort of challenges the Miss Stevens character. And he's so, like, within just the span of this little, like, 80-minute indie movie, I was immediately like, I am on board with

this kid for whatever he wants to do after this. Like, I was so into this performance. He's so incredibly like effective and electric and like completely like owns every scene that he's in in this movie you've seen a few months later yeah call me by your name so then all of a sudden I'm like previewing the like Sundance slate I'm not going to Sundance but I'm like sort of like picking through everything I had never read nor really heard of this book call me by your name but I'm sort of picking through it the lineup and I'm like oh Luca Guadino new movie that's interesting. And by that point, I had only had, um, uh, what's the Ray Fines Tildes Swinton movie? A bigger splash. Had that already happened by them? Yes. Okay. So by that point,

Luca was like one for two for me because I really didn't care for I am love, but I loved bigger splash. And so I'm like, oh, okay, Luca, this is interesting. And I'm like reading the cast list. And I'm like, Timothy Shalame, I know him from Miss Stevens. I think he's great. And then I read the plot description, and I immediately texted our friend Richard Lawson, who I knew was going to Sundance. And I'm like, this Luca Guadino movie sounds really interesting, and he's like,

ah, yeah, like, and Richard, of course, like, knows about the book, and like, Richard just like, you know, so we sort of, like, enthused about it on the, um, text for like an hour or whatever. Um, and then it became like, smash hit of that Sundance. Expectations went through the roof.

All of a sudden, it was like from January, until September when Toronto happened it's just months and months of I think this movie one of the problems with Call Me By Your Name was, and it wasn't a problem

with the movie, was it went through the entire churn of the cultural conversation before 90% of people saw it. Like the vast, vast, vast majority hadn't seen it. Like, not the usual. It's usual.

The cultural turn usually happens with the majority of the people talking about the movie, not having seen the movie. That happens for movies that are in wide release. You know what I mean? But for a movie, like, call me by your name, that only the people who were at Sundance had seen. And so all of a sudden, it's like six months of conversation or more before anybody else

had seen the movie. And it's like, by the time. And then Sony Pictures Classics slow rolls the release. And it's like, this movie lived eight lifetimes, including. like annoying ass audiences got to see it. Anoying ass cycles about like you know

does it show enough explicit you know sex scenes? Is this a movie that is there is the age gap problematic? Is the like you know eight billion different like you know think pieces and hot takes and whatnot before anybody had seen the movie

it's a miracle to the point where it's like we keep we've heard since January especially you know some of us who had seen like the other movies like knew about this performer but like the second it premieres at sundance there's constant talk of be excited for this young actor hot new thing to the point where everybody who's anticipating this performance everybody talks about sees him first in ladybird right where he has a supporting role that he's and thank god he fucking rules in ladybird he's so goddamn good in that movie not a bad performance i mean like it's not even not a bad performance in that movie. There's like not a not perfect performance. Everybody is great in that movie. But like he especially just nails

that character so perfectly. So funny. He's so funny. So every little line reading is so funny. I still think of the way she tries to pronounce his band's name. I like your band with Jonah Ruiz, Len Fence Knew.

Not Falson. Well, I saw your Thanksgiving show. My name's Lady Bird. It's weird to shake hands. Yeah. I'm friends with Jenna, and she's always talking about how great your band is. So I wanted to check it out.

Yeah, Jenna's all tight. Yeah. And the way he corrects her and says LaFonseigneur is so, like, fucking smug, but also, like, faux-humble and, oh, he's perfect. Also, just the shitty teenager thing of, like, I haven't lied for two and a half years. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Like, yes, you're keeping track of you. Uh-huh. It's great.

It's so good. It's so good. The other thing I wanted to say about, like, Sundance, 2017, that's also the Sundance that Get Out premieres. But Get Out had the good sense to then open in February. So that movie then had all this conversation based on, you know, people actually were able to see it. And so Get Out gets, wait, call me by your name, got the best. picture nomination, but only that and Timmy and screenplay

and that was it, right? Yes. So like Get Out. I think maybe there was a fourth nomination. Keep talking. But anyway, I think Get Out becomes a much more pervasive cultural object for like very deserved reasons obviously. And then Call Me By Your Name is

niche, but then it's still able to launch Timmy as this like major new star. And part of that is Hollywood has never met a cute, young, white kid that it didn't want to commodify. Like, that is absolutely true. You know what I mean?

Like, but at this next stage, I think, for him, he very successfully transitions into a major movie star. 100%. Absolutely. Like, he's made really good career choices, which is funny because I think for a while there, he had the reputation of not doing that. And I'm not sure where that exactly came from. Maybe it's just that people didn't like Beautiful Boy.

and then he makes the, you know, memory holds Woody Allen movie a rainy day in New York, so there was that stuff. And then the King, the David Michaud movie, The King, that was a Netflix movie that didn't get publicized very much, nobody watched it, and the critics who did watch it didn't like it very much. So, like, boom, boom. And if they did like it, they liked Pattinson much more than they liked Sholomey. So it felt like...

There's a wide range of perspectives on that Pattinson performance at that. Sure. But I think if you saw them enthused about, there was a lot of, here's Patinson. If you saw anyone saying anything in the other than. He's taking, again, taking chances. You know what I mean? But then. But then at the end of 2019, he's back with Greta Gerwig and Little Women. A performance I think he absolutely should have gotten nominated for the Oscar for. I think he's tremendously good as Lori and Little Women. Where do you come down on that? Oh, I think he's amazing. I mean, I normally hate Lori. sure, of course. He's a hateable character. Reading that book, previous versions of the movie, I don't like Lorry, and he made me like Lori, which just felt like this Herculean achievement to me. Yeah, yeah. What a great adaptation.

That's a movie that got nominated for Oscar and got not, like, you know, Florence Pugh and all that stuff. And it still feels like, I still want to be like, we have not given that movie it's due because we kind of haven't. It's so, it's good past the point of what people admitted. You know what I mean? It's all the glory that that movie got. It's better than that, I think. It had such a weird life, too, because that movie

was ready for that year's Cann and Cannes apparently wanted the movie, and they held it back. Interesting. You kind of, I don't see that as a movie that gets a warm reception at Cann. No. I think holding it back from Cannes

the good idea. The right choice. Yeah. Why would you, why would you take that, even the type of creative risks that that movie does with the source material, why would you take a movie? Yeah. That kind of source material. Yeah. And American production to can. Like, it's just not going to be the warmest place for that movie to be received. Nothing for Timmy in 2020. And then, so his 2021 is very interesting. And I want to hear like, so the three movies in 2021, he's in. He's in Dune. He's the lead role in Dune. This is like his big step up. This is franchise potential. This is major like budget behind him. A lot of, you know, this is resting on his shoulders. He's in Dune. He's in the French dispatch and he's in the one the, well, Dune is obviously Best Picture nominated, but also Best Picture nominated is Don't Look Up. Well, it's actually probably not very many people who are nominated and who are in multiple best. Best Picture nominees in the same year.

He's probably on a pretty short list. Anyway, what are your opinions on those three movies and also performances? I need to re-watch the French Dispatch. I think a lot of people's opinion was his portion of the French dispatch was the weakest. I'm not, I don't know. I mean, it wasn't my favorite. I really don't love the Benicio del Toro, Leah Seedu portion of that movie. I think that movie starts off very slow.

for me because of that. I remember feeling more positive about the French dispatch than a lot of people were. I am too, but it's for the other parts of it. I think it's a pretty funny movie unilaterally, but I don't really know if I have an opinion about him in the movie. I don't know if he's the most natural West Anderson performer, or at least in the role that he was in. Watching it a second time really enhanced his performance for me. I think he's He knows how to clip his line readings in a way that works for Wes Anderson. I think he and McDormand are interesting opposite one another, even when the story sort of takes these odd turns into them becoming lovers and whatnot.

I think he's good. I think I come down at Timmy Good. I also think he's maybe the – he and Jennifer Lawrence are the two things that I like about Don't Look Up. that's that's probably fair i mean he doesn't show up in that movie until like that's a very small part in that movie but i think it is good dune while i think it's not his fault and i think he's really smartly cast in that role as paul atrates i don't think that character is developed all that well to me that's my hold out about dune is that like paul is not interesting and paul is not developed well, but I don't think that that is a problem. I don't think that's the fault of the actor.

The development of that character happens very heavily in Dune Part 2. And then I was reading because the spoiler, and I'm using scare quotes here, it came out that Anya Taylor Joy shows up in the movie and has been cast in the movie. And everybody's like, spoiler, don't say anything about it. And it's like, there's one major- Saying that a known character that has been in previous adaptations of this source material, and this is a character that exists in the source material, just because they held out the casting notice for a long time does not make it a spoiler. It's the only...

Even if, like, the... She doesn't show up until the last frame of the movie, and then you're like, oh, it's Anya Taylor Joy. Casting her in a known character does not make it a spoil. We are of one mind on this. I imagine that it'll be a thing where, because, like, there's one thing. major female character in Dune that had not been

cast. It's obviously Alia. Alia is born in the second movie. And so I imagine it'll be a younger actress playing the character as a child. And then Anya Taylor Joy will show up at the end when Alia is

older. And then Alia has a major part to play in the further Dune, book slash movies. So it's almost Like, if you've cast Anya Taylor Joy, who is currently being invested in as a leading actress because she's in Furiosa as Furiosa, that's the biggest indicator to me that, like, yeah, we're getting Dune 3. Like, we're absolutely 100% getting Dune 3. And then I was reading up on, this is I'll bring it back to Shalome. I was reading up on, because I've seen the, my only familiarity I've not read the books, even though I, for a while there, I kept trying to read Dune. And one of these times they really will. But I've seen the Children of Dune miniseries that sci-fi did, the one that starred James McAvoy. It was the first thing I'd ever seen James McAvoy in.

But, so I'm reading up on Dune Messiah, which is the next book, Children of Dune, the miniseries was based on both Dune Messiah and Children of Dune, which are the second and third books. The Paul Atreides character gets so fucking annoying in Dune Messiah. and I'm like, I'm wondering how Timmy is going to play that transition. But anyway, a lot of characters- Paul Trades is already annoying. He is kind of already annoying, which is why, like, when he gets even more annoying in Dune Messiah.

But, like, Dune, what we're going to get in Dune Part 2 is the part where we're supposed to, like, really go for what Paul, like, this is where Paul sort of goes from, you know, son of a Dune. to, you know, actual, like, leader of people and whatnot. I don't think you're wrong about the Paul Atreides character. I do think a lot of it is in the casting. That's just the casting feels right with him as Paul. So I think that works.

I do know a movie that we're going to both agree on, which is his 20-22 movie, Bones and All. Maybe we'll save that for a Bones and All, Maybe we will, but let's just say... You know, I have strong feelings about Bones and All. I really like him in that movie. Entirely unshocking that I love Bones and All. No, absolutely.

I also love Bones and all, by the way. Another Luka movie. And then, 2023, we've talked about Wanka enough. I really think he's wonderful in that movie. I think he... I'm glad that Timmy is a proven, bona fide box office draw. 100%. Big hit.

Did you know it's all... I know we've already done Timmy on IMDB games? So it's not a spoiler to say. It's already in his known for, Wonka. It's not a lot of movies. And, like, Love the Coopers is not going to be there. Justice for Love the Coopers. I'm sure his known for is probably Dune, call me by your name, Wonka.

And then, is it one of the Gretta's, or is it maybe even Bones and all? It is. not Dune. It's call me by your name, Lady Bird, Beautiful Boy, and Wonka. Beautiful Boy does make sense because this is where we need to talk about this. Beautiful Boy does make sense because in terms of a search engine optimization type of thing, that it probably affects this algorithm, he was nominated everywhere. It's truly one of those cases that he showed up everywhere and missed it Oscar.

Or at least everywhere he was going to show up. He didn't get critics prizes for it. No. But the critics prizes were heavily for critics' prizes were kind of all over the place, right? New York went for... The big ones were pretty split between Richard E. Grant and Stephen Yun for burning. For burning. God, Stephen Yun was so good in burning.

I know that would have been a really tough sell for Oscar voters because that movie didn't really land in... the states, beyond, like, festivals, but fuck he's good in that. And critical circles. And critical circles. Ugh. Um, that's what, that, I think that went a long way towards Stephen Young getting the nomination for Minari is because he wasn't just this, like, guy from Walking Dead or whatever. He had really established himself with a role.

To wildly different performances, too. That's also that. Yes, absolutely. Um, I think the obvious thing about the 2018 supporting actor, race is, I think we all kind of resigned ourselves to the fact that Sam Rockwell is going to get the Halo nomination for Vice, even though nobody wanted it to happen, playing George W. Bush. Vice was not a movie that people liked. Vice was a movie that was like experiencing it's one real good run of attention and publicity exactly when the Oscar voters were

voting, and I think you give that another few weeks, and Rockwell maybe Faye? I don't know. Here's what was kind of going on with that supporting actor race. You have Mahershala Ali winning all of the major precursors, which I think at the beginning felt somewhat surprising because he was such a recent winner. But I think, you know, before for those of us who didn't realize how strong that movie was or wanted to doubt how strong that bad movie was. I think that was a sign of that movie's strength. I think Mahershal is also very good in Green Book. For as much as Green Book is not a very good movie, I think Marhershal's performance is very good in that movie.

I would characterize it as a lead. I think that is a very classic two-lead performance. A two-lead movie. Before Meherchle won the Globe, though, do you remember whether people thought that Richard E. Grant was going to win? people thought that Adam, like, who did the, what was the scuttle butt there? Well, those were the other two who showed up everywhere that, you know, by Oscar nomination morning, it really felt unrealistic that they wouldn't have shown up. Right.

I, I kind of don't ever remember someone, I don't remember the tenor ever being that Adam Driver had a shot at winning, really at any point of the season. The nomination was the victory for him, because it was a story. first nomination. It's him sort of like turning the corner from being the guy from girls to being somebody who is now a bona fide. All the major directors want to work with. Exactly. Exactly. Richard E. Grant felt like... Richard E. Grant felt like there could have been for the length of his career and this also being his first nomination, initially in the season, it felt like there could have been a shot. But that movie also kind of, unfortunately,

fell by the wayside, and it ended up just being the screenplay on the performances for that movie. God, what a great movie. But, like, those are the, obviously the top three within this category. And then I think you have three people jockeying for two spots between Chalomey, Sam Rockwell, and Sam Elliott for a Star is Born. Sam Elliott missed more than I realized looking at this chart that you made. He did.

He wasn't Globe nominated. Bafton nominated. I'm really glad he was Oscar nominated because I really liked that performance a lot. He had also never had an Oscar nomination before. But if you have three people jockeying for two spots, it's regardless of any other narrative, it's unsurprising to me in the current Oscar era that we're in where Best Picture favors kind of everywhere that the two who do make it through are in Best Picture nominees. Are in Best Picture nominees. That's right.

Even one that seems widely loathed like Vice, and, you know, we've said before, if there was one or two weeks longer left in the voting period, Vice does not have as strong of a showing as it did. But I also think Timothy Chalemay is still, you know, because he shows up at all of precursors. Isn't Spirit nominated, but I wouldn't be surprised if Beautiful Boy actually had too large of a budget. Maybe. And it was an Amazon production, which doesn't always seem to. be a factor of like Amazon or Netflix being considered a studio, but like it's ridiculous that they aren't. Yeah. But Beautiful Boy had a $25 million budget, which is a little shocking. By 20, it might not have been eligible. By 2018, we're already well into the era of

acting categories have one non-best picture representative. Like this one, Best Actress did have two. It had Glenn Close and the wife and Melissa McCarthy and can you ever forgive me, but otherwise, it was Richard E. Grant in supporting actor. It was Regina King in Beale Street in supporting actress. And it was Willem Defoe at Eternity's Gate in Best Actor. Otherwise, all of your acting nominees. So that's a grand total of five versus 15 acting nominees who represent the Best Picture Condenders. This is the thing we've talked about. This thing I'm going to be writing about soon. This is a frustration of mine. And this is not a thing that was happening as much when the, when the 10, the era of the 10 first happened, certainly in the craft's categories. But you look at like 2009, which is the first year of the Best Picture 10. And you look at in Best Actor.

Crazy Heart Not a Best Picture nominee Jeff Bridges gets a nomination A single man, Colin Firth Invictus for as much as we could say about Invictus So that's already

Three in Best Actor who are not from the Best Actress from the Best Picture List You look at Best Actress Helen Mirren from The Last Station Merrill Street from Julian Julia So we're already up to five Best Supporting Actor

Matt Damon and Invictus Woody Harrelson in The Messenger Christopher Plummer in the last station, Stanley Tucci and the lovely bones. Maybe the only time I will ever point to Stanley Tucci in the Lovely Bones as a positive. That's four out of five.

Positively. Four out of five in Best Supporting Actor. And then you go to Supporting Actress, Penelopee Cruze and Nine, Maggie Jillon-Hollin, Crazy Heart. So you got two, like, that's the most unbalanced towards Best Picture

and any of them is only three out of five in supporting actress. So it's so much, It's narrowed so much more in the span of 13 years. You know what I mean? 14 years. And it does not properly reflect, to me, the breadth of good work being done in films across the year. I think that's something.

Well, and I think also the depressing thing is that it really strongly indicates that they're watching fewer movies than they ever have. before um absolutely or they're seriously considering fewer movies than they ever have before it could also be somewhat of the side effect of you know i've said this before you know taste tend to flatten as you know more votes are cast yes um but yeah i think the depressing thing is that they're watching fewer movies i agree with you and i don't like it and i would like I wonder if, and again, I've always, I'm the one who's always saying you can't legislate taste, but I don't think this is taste. I don't think, I think, you look at like this, you know, this correlation, and this doesn't seem to be taste to me. This seems to me something that you can

maybe structurally work, you know, around. Maybe there's, I don't know, maybe, but yeah, I guess you can't. I mean, if there's structural work to be done, I think that's around a campaigning thing and what movie studios are pushing, because I do think that there has been a shift towards, you know, if a movie doesn't have a best picture chance, then those movies fall by the wayside in terms of what studios are emphasizing. Well, and now you look at you. We have fewer major studios, right? Like Disney bought the 20th Century Fox. So all of a sudden, that's two major studios who now have the same brain trust doing awards campaigning, right? Right. So they can, you know, streamline it into...

We're looking for... There's possibility for more consolidation happening, which is just like... Great. We're getting to the point like we were close to 100 years ago when the government had to declare monopoly and split up the studio. Well, and I don't think we can... Time is a flat circle. And I don't think we can trust the government to do anything at this point because there's so much gridlock and whatever. God, we can't drift into Joe talks about government gridlock. We can't do it. We can't do it.

To maybe put the button on the supporting actor talk, I do think there's a level of Chalemay not getting this nomination because this is a movie that's steadily diminished across the season in regard. And also, I think one surprise because, like, it is this really narrow field for supporting actor, which happens a lot for this category. And you could look at Chalemay as another example of, even though he was nominated the previous year, that was kind of a miracle because they don't recognize. I recognize actors of his age. But the other one person, who I'm surprised actually didn't get further in this field, is Michael B. Jordan for Black Panther, who was nominated for Critics Choice. I was very vocal that year about wanting Michael B. Jordan to get a nomination for Black Panther, partly because it would have felt a little bit less like, well, we'll give Black Panther a best picture nomination. but we still are not going to take it seriously as a movie that could be capable of having award-worthy performances.

I think that has a lot to do with why, because you can totally see that if they were going to recognize a performance from that movie, it would have absolutely metastasized around him. He's by far the most dynamic. Because he'd never been nominated, because he's a younger actor, they're more willing to look at it as just a superhero. a thing, whereas you contrast it immediately with Angela Bassett, who's a screen legend, who's, like, doing a big performance. Right, right. It is, I will say, frustrating to look at, you know, and again, I don't think anything falls on Timmy's shoulders here, but the fact that Shalame gets his big breakthrough role and immediately

gets a nomination for Call Me By Your Name, while somebody like Michael B. Jordan in his Creed performance and his Black Panther performance is just not, and his, frankly, Fruitvale Station performance, which, like, I don't think I would have nominated Fruitvale Station for major awards, but that's a Weinstein Company movie that the Weinstein Company kind of actively dropped the ball in campaigning. I know Octavia Spencer was, you know, being campaigned. She was the best chance for that movie.

But, like, I think now, like, this is, if I'm Michael B. Jordan, I'm looking at my career and being like, look at all these other people who have gotten Oscar nominations for like one good performance. And meanwhile, Fruitvale Station is well received enough

and certainly, you know, positioned well enough for Oscars. The Creed performance is widely acclaimed. The Black Panther performance is widely acclaimed. And none of those, it's not like he was close for any of those. He doesn't get anything.

for any of those. He doesn't get Bafta. He doesn't get SAG. He doesn't get critics. He might have gotten a critic's choice because they're like that. For Black Panther, are you saying? For anything, for Creed. Well, I'm thinking for all of these.

You know what I mean? Sort of together. Yeah. But like, he doesn't really come close for any of these. And if I'm him, I'm like, I got to get new rep. You know what I mean? Like, I got to get a new publicity team or something. But that's got to be frustrating, is all I'm thinking.

Right. Other contenders that year, I'm looking at your chart again, Lord knows an 8th grade is a screenplay nominee. So you wonder what it would have taken in, you know, what kind of butterfly effect could have worked to get Josh Hamilton some traction for 8th grade, because I do think he's so wonderful in that movie. I love that Rao Castillo has the indie spirit nomination for We The Animals is incredible in that movie. I love that actor. Rao Castillo is incredible. He's great. But that movie, even more so than the performance, having the movie, is just really great. I highly recommend We The Animals. And I've never seen Monsters and Men, but John David Washington got the Spirit nomination for Monsters and Men. Good for him. We should also wrap it up on the movie. We are past the two-hour mark, which I did not expect for this movie.

I swear to God. I think one of my major complaints we hadn't brought up, and to the point that it actively, I think, works against maybe the best scene in the movie, the absolutely bombastic music choices in this movie. Yeah. I like one of them. From the jump, like five minutes into the movie.

Yeah. Not good. You can see how this was initially a Cameron Crow project because of all of the music. that was involved. And the most Cameron Crow moment, though. It's weird to think that maybe the Cameron Crow version of this movie is much better, but it might be much better.

The scene that I think it really derails and it's doing some of the best stuff in the movie and I think the best performance in the movie is the scene with Mora Tierney getting in the car to chase after Nick when he tries to break into that, or does break into the house. Yes. Moratirney is so good with so little to do in this movie. I know. They really needed...

That scene plays so much better if you get more of her character earlier in the movie, because then it's paying off something rather than just sort of like, oh, this is a window into just how much this character cares about him. And it just... And the whole, like, portrait of the whole family and how everyone is really involved in this situation. Because, you know, I think on paper, you... And just in the narrative of what the movie is and who...

the movie cares most about. You expect Steve to Correll to be in that car. What's the soundtrack choice? Is that where they use that song that sounds like Rush, but isn't Rush? I think so. But it's just like, you don't, you really don't need that. It's not, it's not necessary. That actor is giving you everything you need.

Yes. And like that's the scene that makes me the most emotional and partly because of what Moratirney is doing. Van Groningen has this impulse with his movies. Did you see Broken Circle Breakdown? I did. Which he directed before this and was a foreign language nominee. I really don't like that movie.

I wanted to like it a lot more than I did. It's like non-stop music. Yeah. And like it's a music-based movie. The characters are musicians. Like that makes more sense. Yeah. And then did you see, you did not see the Eight Mountains?

I didn't. Which he co-directed, along with Charlotte Vandermere. Are they all musicians? Is that why they're Eight Mountains? They're in a band together. Eight different musicians. Eight Mountains was a... It's a better movie than this movie is.

I see why some people really like it. I think it's the most Bonnie Verre movie I've ever seen without featuring a single Bonnie Verre song. Sure. But at any minute, a Bonne Verre song can happen. And, like, I do really like that. lead actor that's in it Luca Marinelli. It was also great in Martin Eden.

I had limitations with that movie, but like this musical impulse... Well, the one moment I really liked, and it's mostly because I like the song so much, is the Heart of Gold scene, the Neil Young, Heart of Gold team. See, I even feel like, oh, you don't need to

leap to Heart of Gold. And I mean, I'm not wrong. I love that song, too. I love that song. But like, you don't got to lead to that. The moment where it goes from being a flaw in the movie to outright ridicule, and I do feel like this is the moment where the people who hate this movie really went from, this is a flawed movie to this is an embarrassment, is fucking sunrise sunset? Like, you can't do, is this the little boy I carried in this movie about, is this the little boy I carried? It's so fucking on the nose and it's so cheesy. And it's so, it's played, it's not even played subtly.

leap, too. It's so loud. A fairly straightforward drama, and then to make the choice to use a very, very specific musical theater song, it has to work. With very on-the-nose lyrics. Yeah. It has to work incredibly perfectly, and it doesn't. It feels cornball. It feels satirical.

It feels like you're, like, making fun of, you know, your own movie. It's ridiculous. Yeah. A couple other notes that I had. Well, you said you hated the everything, everything thing. So talk about it for a second. It's just... That's their way of saying, I love you.

It's their little family way of saying, I love you, is he says everything, and the other says everything, and you finally get the scene where the origin story of everything, everything, where it's like, I think we got it. I think we can understand, like, I understood what that, you know, I could extrapolate. I can, you know, I'm smart. It's a big ass It's cheesy Even if it's something that these two real people had

When you frame it in a movie It takes you out of the movie Did you notice the one point There's a lot of shots of like David's wall of accomplishments He's got an article he wrote about Steve Jobs and whatever And then at some point there's an article There's a wall with Nick's stuff

And one of them is a letter from Keith Herring. Did you notice that? No. Yes. That it was like, you only see it for a second, but there's like, the letterhead is like a Keith Herring drawing. And then it's like, Nick. And, you know, it's just a, you know, it was, you know, it was nice seeing you.

And, you know, thank you for sending me this whatever piece of artwork you sent. And it's like them talking as familiars. You know what I mean? And I was like, that's got to be obviously taken from real life. Nick Chef must have, you know, known Keith Herring in some capacity when he was in New York. But again, like, it just made me be like, I wanted more of his life in New York, if we're supposed to, you know. But anyway, the other thing that I wrote down when I looked this was researching this movie was a quote about the book, about the David Chef Memoir, Beautiful Boy, Starbucks picked it as one of the few books it would sell in its coffee shops. Oh.

So, there you go. That's it. I think that's all my notes on. Last note, I would say, because we have frequently dogged on Amazon as a campaigner and having some flop product this year. It's not a great Oscar year, though they got one of the big surprises, I would say, of this current era, which was getting Powell Pavlovsky the Cold War Best Director nomination. Right. that was some more ended up being when everything else was kind of

out of the mix and a flop Oscar-wise they ended up That was a determined and skillful campaign that basically like you know time to make the donuts you know that kind of workmanship

went into getting that nomination for Pavikowski so good job They also had obviously the big flop with life itself and Suspiria which I remember that Tiff like one of the movies we were most sad. We wouldn't get to see at the festival was Susperia. And not taking Susperia to Tiff was a smart choice. Yes. I remember even when it premiered at New York Film Festival.

There was a lot of puzzlement even at New York Film Festival, which is a much more friendly landing space, I think, for a movie like that. I, of course, love Susperia. We've talked about this, we did our episode on it. I was a little among the befuddled at first, but now I love that movie. Yeah. And of course, I love Luca. Yeah. I would also say, and we can save talk for this, when we do an episode on this, because I will absolutely strong arm us into doing it this year. They had Peterloo that year. And it kind of got a non-response at Venice and Toronto. And then they ended up, like, not really announcing a plan for it all year and then kind of dumping it in 2019. Yep. We love Peterloo so much you can call us Peter Pals. And that's all I

will say about that. All right, beautiful boy. Joe, would you like to explain the IMDB game to our listeners? Would love it. Every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with the name of an actor or actress, and we try to guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for. If any of those titles are television shows, voice-only performances, or non-acting credits.

We mentioned that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. and if that is not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all-of-hits. How are we kicking this off? Are you giving first? Are you guessing first? I'll guess first. All right. So one thing we didn't really mention is that Beautiful Boy is a reunion from the office between Amy Ryan, Steve Carell. What have I done? I have gone into the cast of the office and chosen none other than Mr. Craig, Oh, I was wondering where you were going to go with the cast of the office.

Okay. No television. Craig Robinson. Hot tub time machine. Hot tub time machine, correct. Hot tub time machine, too? God damn it. Yes, correct.

Okay, it's good, because I don't remember that one Sundance movie that he was in that people really liked him in. I don't remember the title of it. He got the Sundance acting prize that year. He did. And I think an Indy Spirit Award. Can you tell me if it's that one? one, I'm just, I'll count it as a wrong answer because I can't remember the title, but is it that? Morris from America?

Yeah. Incorrect. Craig Robinson. He's always in, like, ensemble roles or, like, Huh. I don't know. This is why I jouts it. It's difficult.

Uh-huh. And no voices in animated anything's, right? No. Okay. Craig Robinson is in... Ensemble people are the most fun to do for this game. It could be a million people. It could be a million different movies, a million different movies.

And when you think of them as an ensemble player, a lot of those things tend to just blur together. 100%. Um, Where have I seen him recently? Um, God, I'm going to burn an answer, and I'm just going to say, even though I don't think he's in this, rat race. Incorrect. Your years are 2008 and 2013.

Well, 2008. So, like, that's in the thick of, like, early office. This is a romantic comedy. mostly starring vehicle for two people, but I would say that there is a strong ensemble behind them, of which he is among them. Is it like a romance for the central couple? Yes and no.

This is a director who we kind of just don't want to deal with, though I know you have some things. Roman Polanski. Not that bad. Okay. Craig Robinson and a Roman Philansky. Listen, I don't know. You said,

This is a movie that I think is more known for its title, and people would probably be like, oh, yeah, that title and not realize that it's from this director. Hmm. Michael Bay? No. Wrong genre. Craig Robinson is in this.

I know. Craig Robinson could be in a Michael Bay movie. That's possible. Michael Bay is not making a romantic comedy. Well, that's true. All right, romantic comedy, but like... I'm pretty sure this was meant as a pseudo-comeback for this director who had done some notable bombs semi-recently to this movie, but the bombs, I don't think... Is he a notable romantic comedy director, a notable comedy director? Notable comedy director, specifically for the 90s, kind of revolutionized.

comedy in the 90s. Okay. Mike Meyer? No. I think low budget. Oh, Kevin Smith? Yes, Kevin Smith. Zach and Mary make a porno?

Zach and Mary make a porn. Okay. I definitely saw that movie. And then the last one, it's an ensemble comedy from 2013 that people loved at the time and now really just don't want to deal with. Really? I'm not going to guess Woody Allen again. What was this 2013 movie even? I don't know. 2013 summer ensemble comedy. Summer ensemble comedy.

What, can you tell me what year? High concept at that. High concept. Can you tell me what year Hot Tub Time Machine was? Hot Tub Time Machine is, let me go back to that tab, 2010. So this is between the Hot Tub Time Machine. Between the Hot Tub's Time Machine. Okay. Is it a Apatau

Adjacent? Is it not Pineapple Express That comes earlier, not Role models? No, higher concept than that. Bigger, much bigger cast than that. This is the end.

This is the end. Okay, for God see. With everybody credited as themselves. Yeah. Is he one of them who's credited as himself? Yes. Okay. He's on the poster.

Sure. I did not care for that movie. I know Rihanna's in it. That's one of the things I remember. And Michael Sarah's like a dick or something like that. That's... All right. Craig Robinson.

I went too easy on you with this one. I went through Dune Part 2. Dune 2, as they say. Tune. Tune. One of the many, many cast members, I believe he gets a with on this poster. I think it's with this person with Charlotte Rampling and Javier Bardem, I think, is the way that this movie goes. It is...

The original Dune, Dune, not Tune, is with-with-and, I think. Right. This is another with-with-and, but it's a different... Although I think Charlotte Rampling is with and both of them. And Bardam is the and In both of them No, I think Oscar Isaac's the end in the first one. Really?

I think it's with Bartum. I think it's with Bartum with... Now I'm looking it up. Dune poster. I think it's with Bardem with Rampling and Oscar Isaac. Dune poster. I want to get that Dune popcorn bucket so bad. Okay.

Let's see. Open image a new tag. For eating popcorn or not eating popcorn? Did you see the video of Becky Ferguson responding to the Dune Popcorn? No. She's very funny woman. Why she has not been cast in a comedy is a mystery to me. Okay, you're right.

It is with Charlotte Rampling. with Jason Mamoa and have Irrbardam. The thing I also had to remind myself is that Mamoa's character dies in the first one. Sure did. Because Mamoa will be back in June 3 is what I will tell you. In some form or something.

All right. Nothing is a spoiler. These books have been around forever. Okay, so anyway, I'm giving you Stellan Scarsguard. All that ramp up to say, I'm giving you Stellan Scarsguard, The Baron Vladimir Harkinen in Dune. You say that's easy, but this man has been in a million different movies. I didn't say it's easy. I said it's easier than Craig Robinson.

And he's been in a billion ensemble movies. No, this is kind of hard, actually. This is, I'm happy that this is hard. I'm happy after. This is going to be so hard, though I do think Mamma Mia's. We've already done the other two Scarsguards. So this completes the Scars Guard loop for us. We've done Alexander and Bill.

Mamma Mia. No. Okay. Strike one. Homophobia is alive and well among our ranks, especially on IMDB. This is an unwell notes. IMDB has truly been one of the most homophobic websites in existence, part of the reason why they shut the forums down. This is a deeply unwell known for, I will say.

God, there's so many things. it's just girl with a dragon tattoo I would have said that too but nope two strikes all right no here are you I think he was like third build in that movie here are your years 1997 1997

2013 2013 okay um so 2013 after girl with the dragon tattoo after Ramamia I'm willing to

bet that these are all going to be Hollywood movies. Two 2007 2007? 97. 97. Ninety seven. One of them's, no, that's not breaking the waves. That's... 96. Yeah. Um... So maybe one of the 97 is not American.

Oh, man. Okay, so 2013, what's going on in 2013? That he is adjacent to it could be he's not in like wait is he in a Spielberg he has to be in a Spielberg

but Spielberg 2013 is like after Warhorse it can't be the BFG I think BFG is 2015 oh Oh, man.

BFG is 2015. Thank you. Is that Tintin? No, Tintin was the same year as War Horse. Yes, it was. He's definitely in a Spielberg, though. Um, okay. The difficult thing is like, what the hell?

97, he's probably in American movies at that. point. He's probably in British movies at that point. What? I'm trying to even think of Oscar movies because he's certainly been in Best Picture nominees before that aren't Dune. 97 is like

Oh, Goodwill Hunting. There you go. I was waiting for it. Yes. Goodwill Hunting. The like most underrated cast member of Goodwill Hunting. He's very good. He's very good in that movie. Yep. Okay, but is the other 97 movie going to be American as well? Except what would it be?

Is he in the original insomnia? But I think that's earlier 90s than 97. It's not insomnia. What's the 20? He's been in Nolan movies before, I think. But I don't think Nolan has a 2013 because it's, 2012 as dark night rises and then 2014 is interstellar

Is he in 12 years a slave? He's not. I don't think... I didn't think so. It could have been, but no, he's not. You thought this was easy, but like, the years, honestly, I feel like is what's driving me crazy. It's definitely not easy.

This is what makes it harder. I just said it's easier than... This is the first person I feel like getting the years is making it harder. I know, it is. 97 is it something like Armageddon is 98 so it's not Armageddon but it has to be a movie like an Armageddon

what would that have been in 97? Not Titanic, he's not in Titanic. I need some hints. Okay, you've mentioned two directors already in your debates that definitely that will get you the answers. I mentioned Spielberg and Nolan.

One of them is Spielberg. Is he in the lost world? He's not in the lost world. The other 97, I think, is Amistad, and he's not in Amistad. Is he an Amistad? He's an Amistad. Amistad is on his known for?

Yes, isn't that insane? That's crazy. Absolutely crazy. So... Amistad, like, I don't even know who he is in Amistad. I don't think you've mentioned the other director by name, but you mentioned him by project in a way that, like,

you should revisit that. No. Um. You sort of ruled this out because it was the wrong year, but, like, stick with that filmmaker. Von Trier. Is that a nymphomaniac? Is it both nymphomaniacs?

It's both nymphomaniacs. Isn't that the wildest known for? Goodwill Hunting, both Nymphomaniacs and Amistad. Wow. First of all, that that's the Vontrier that shows up twice. Uh-huh. In that wild? Nymphomaniac volumes one and two.

I'm glad I got there, but. What a road. What a road getting there. I just, it was so funny that you were like, it's got to be a spieling. What was the 2013 Spielberg? And I'm like, this is great.

My logic was good. It was good. It was good. It was good. It was good. It was just, first of all, you never would have gotten to Amistad. No. No.

Because I don't remember him in the movie. No. I genuinely don't. It's wild. Okay. So like, Stell and Scars guard's known for should be at least one mama Mia. The girl with a dragon tattoo. maybe like Avengers you know what I mean if we're going to like talk about that or like

Thor the Dark World right he's in the Thor movies right um maybe breaking the ways he's in a lot of American studio movies is the thing that's the thing but like it's wild to me that it's Amistad and the Nymphomaniacs when you think about the things that get you like get a movie onto the known for what it seems like the algorithm rhythm is like bowed. He's in two Pirates of the Caribbean movies. That's right. I didn't guess Pirates of the Caribbean either. He's in the weird Antoine Fukuwa King Arthur. Dogville, if you're going to do Avantrear, do you know what I mean? Yeah. Breaking the waves if you're going to do a Monterre. But there's like movies that show up in other people

known for. Yeah. Like so why, like Goodwill hunting, I guess, makes sense. But the other one... In the grand scheme of it. He is, by the way, in the insomnia, the original insomnia that's directed by Eric Scholdenberg. Literally one of those

vowels is that A and E that are the same fused together thing. The conjoined twin A and E. Scandinavia. What are you doing? We got to get out of here. We got to get out of here. Listeners, thank you for listening.

That's our episode. If you want more, this had Oscar buzz. You can check out the Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz.com. You should also follow us on Twitter at had underscore Oscar buzz on Instagram at this had Oscar buzz and on Patreon at patreon. com slash this had Oscar buzz. Joe, where can the listeners find more of you? I'm on the socials at Joe Reed.

Read spelled R EID. Find me on letterbox. is probably the best place to find me right now. I am still on X, but, like, probably shouldn't be. Don't call it X. I mean, I'll do the Bob, the Drag Queen. You can call it that if you do the Bob. I'll do the Bob the Drag Queen, X in front of my mouth.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, right. No, I shouldn't call it X. It's stupid to call it X. You're right. You can find me at Kris FiFile. That's F.E.I.L. We'd like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork,

David Meebinole's for the technical guidance, Taylor Cole for those theme music. remember to rate like and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Play Stitcher, wherever else you can get your podcast, five-star review in particular, really helps us out with Apple Podcasts visibility. So give us not one, not two, but multiple nymphomaniac, hardcore five stars. Don't know where I'm going with that. But that's all for this week. If you want more, we hope you'll be back next week for more buzz. More buzz. Bye. Thank you.