This Had Oscar Buzz - 281 – Fair Game

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

We return to the work of Naomi Watts this week for a discussion on 2010’s Fair Game. Costarring with Sean Penn for the third time in a decade, Watts starred as outed CIA agent Valerie Plame with the film detailing the leaking of Plame’s identity amidst her husband Joseph C. Wilson’s criticisms of the Bush administration. … Continue reading "281 – Fair Game"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hack, Millen Hack and French. I'm from Canada water. Dick Pooh. The Vice President has received a report concerning the purchase of material to build nuclear weapons. We need to get in close.

They turned to her husband for answers. It is my opinion. A sale that size could not have happened. I have teams in the field. They're all saying the same thing. But when the truth was made public, What do you think the White House wants to hear, huh? There was no nuclear program.

You need to change the story. They made her pay the price. Valerie, your name is in the paper. This is your CIA agent. Hello and welcome to the This Head Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that burned down the old mill and would do it again. Every week on this head Oscar buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we're here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with the man who leaked my name to the press, Joe Reed.

Listen, Bob Novak is a close personal friend of mine. Anything that I may have casually mentioned to him over dinner, I have no responsibility for. Valerie Plame, as Joe mentioned as we were getting on mic. Welcome to Fair Game with Valerie Plame. That sounds like a game, you know, or not a game, but it sounds like an interview podcast where Valerie Plame could interview fellow spies. Right. Or maybe she's just like, you know, into true crime or reality TV or something like that,

where she's just like pivoted entirely. The first half of the show, she just speaks extemporaneously. And then in the second half of the show, she has a form of. She has former spy to, you know, come on and complain about their spy. She has former spies on, and they do long-form improv comedy across the span of a podcast. Yeah. Yeah. It does feel like Valerie Plain could have a podcast.

Oh, like, I'm kind of surprised that she doesn't, actually. Oh, did you actually look this up? No. I mean, she could, actually. She might. As far as I know, she doesn't, I should say. Or as I text Joe, that. This morning, CIA operative drag queen serial killer, Valerie Plame, Jame, Gum.

Yeah. Psychopath. Wait, Valerie Plame Podcast. Let's see. Valerie Plame Jame Gum. There are podcasts about the Plame Affair. Oh, I'm sure. I have no doubt in my mind.

What's the one, it's not burn notice, but it's... Slow burn. I'm surprised there wasn't a slow burn season about the plane with fair. I would listen to that, honestly. Speaking of slow burns, the motion picture fair game about the claims. Right. Yes. The claims about the plames. Really missed opportunity.

Fall mainly in Spain. The blame game. Are we playing the plane game here? What's happening here? We'll play a playing game later. It's just a funny name. I don't understand why it's like, you know. Walla Walla Washington or Kookamonga or something.

It's just a funny name to say. Huda Marista. Plame. My husband always has the joke that if he showed up, I don't know if he stole this from somebody, but he says he always wants to say if you show up at a restaurant and put your name in, he wants to say the name is Huna Marista. I feel like that could be a stand-up thing, but he always said.

The name is what? Hunamorista. They ask you, how do you spell Hoonomarista? Like it sounds. It's phonetic. That works. I'm excited to talk about this movie. I'm not excited about this movie, if that makes sense.

There's a lot of ingredients in this. We're returning to Naomi Watts. We sort of, after we did a whole mini-series on Naomi a few years ago, we had made a kind of a gentleman's agreement to... you know, pump the brakes on Naomi, uh, since then, even though we've done our fair share of, uh, of Naomi movies since then. Um, this is not a movie that I feel like jumps out as like Naomi Watts movie, even though it definitely is. She's definitely the star of it. I think she's pretty good in it, actually. I think she's really good in it. Um, for like what the movie asks her to

do for what the temperature of this movie is. I think she's pretty good. And also, I think when you talk about this movie, you really have to talk about it in the context of the whole, I mean, like, this is maybe the last of them, but the whole post-9-11 war on terror. This is the like, the long tale of that. And I think also when you view it in that context, the movie comes off better than I think its reputation is. I think that's probably true. It's certainly better, less heavy-handed, though, like, not perfect, but of that array of movie, which, of course, we have done many on.

Rendition, Lions for Lambs, yeah, yeah, yeah. There was a lot of them. A lot of them we haven't gotten to yet. This is a much better movie than those movies. Yes. This movie comes within a lot of context, where it's like it comes a few years. after that movie, nothing but the truth, that also pretty much tells the same story, although it tells it from the sort of Judith Miller angle of it, which this movie doesn't

really touch very much. I don't think it mentions Judy Miller at all. It also is Doug Lyman, years later, put out a director's cut of this movie on Netflix, which I watched for one of my old jobs. The director's cut doesn't really alter the movie very much, which is very curious that he seemed so insistent on putting it out.

It's longer, right? By like five minutes or something? It's longer, I think, by like 15 minutes, maybe. It's a pretty short movie. The version on Peacock is like a buck 45. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think the director's cut clocks in a little bit

over two hours. But it doesn't really, it sort of beefs up the marriage between Watson Penn, Valerie, and Joe Wilson a little bit, but like, I'm not sure what, you know, how much that improves or changes what the movie gives us. But the main thing was because that came out in, when did

that director's cut come out? It must have been right in, like 2016 or right around then because it uh or no it's after it was like 2018 I think um where it includes a postscript that Donald Trump pardoned Scooter Libby that was the um that was sort of the main thing that it that it changed but um this also comes in the context of like Doug Lyman's career which I think is a really interesting aspect of it it's also like it's the third Naomi Watts Sean Penn movie that they did together or the fourth. Right, 21 grams,

The Assassination of Richard Nixon, right? Which I don't think I've ever seen. It's kind of boring. It's not bad, but it's like, yeah. They work well together. I have some interesting thoughts on their characters in this movie, actually. But it's,

it competed at can. Like, there's just, there's a, lot of context of this movie. Well, and we talked about this Cannes recently with our Patreon Selects episode on Certified Copy. Certified copy took another year to release in the States. But it's worth noting that Fair Game was the only American movie within the Cannes competition,

which I think is important context because I think, you know, here in the American press, it put a lot of pressure on that movie that was maybe not as fair. towards the movie, you know? Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. It's also just you mentioned that sort of the politics of the Iraq War and this feels like

one of those second wave stories of that war where we are now in the war this is stuff that's coming out after about, you know, whether the intelligence was

reliable or even whether certain people were misled by the intelligence or were just sort of cherry-picking whatever facts they wanted to justify the run-up to the war. And this was when the worm was starting to turn around

about the Bush administration. I remember at one point they show a clip towards the end of while now Bush needs to select his, the replacement justice on the Supreme Court for Sandra Day O'Connor. And I remember, that was, I think that was the one where one of his Supreme Court selections, he had to, like, withdraw.

Remember, it was that woman who, God, I wish I could remember her name. No, I don't really remember because we've had so much. He had picked, well, it's so funny to think about it. We'll talk about it as we go on, because I have, like, I have thoughts. about how different the world of the Bush administration was to the world now. Harriet Myers was her name, and Bush had nominated her for the court, and then, like, shortly thereafter had to, like, pull that name back because she was sort of seen as not sufficiently qualified for the position.

And, like, that was when, like— Because we drew up her old tweets or something. I don't even think it was that. I think it was just, like, she didn't have. like sufficient experience or something like that. Like the requisite experience that makes you eligible to be, uh, justice. And this was happening in 2005. So this was when, again, the worm was starting to turn on the Bush administration. And so the Plame Affair, I think, feels like a transition thing from

when Bush had this sort of, uh, carte blanche to do whatever he wanted after 9-11. And then as approval ratings were in like the high 80s. or something. And as the administration goes on and we get past the 2004 election, then I think public opinion starts to turn. But I also feel like this was maybe the last gasp of consequence in politics. And I want to get into that maybe on the other end of the of the plot description. It does feel like it was at least a time when there was rampant lying and falsification and bad, you know, like ill intent in government. But it still felt like the people who were doing these things were afraid of those things coming to light. And they

were afraid of consequence. And that's such a marked difference to what exists right now, which is anything can come out, any bad behavior, any, any illegal, whatever. Any of this kind of stuff that we talk about in this movie, if it happened now, it would make the news, nobody would be swayed by it, there would be some sort of token push to have somebody indicted, they probably wouldn't be, and we would move on to the next story in a week. And it's for as bad as the Bush administration was, and I know people are very, very much intent on not sort of whitewashing that administration. and sort of pretending that it wasn't as bad as it was,

but I do feel like we still at least existed in a world where people were afraid of these lies coming to light, and these days there would be no fear of that. Do you know what I mean? Well, I mean, it's like we live in the next stage of what the Bush administration was like, and that so much of the evils of the Bush administration are fully normalized now,

and it makes you, absolutely terrified of, okay, so what's the next stage of the current administration where the evils of the Republican Party will be then normalized and what else will we have to deal with them? Right, right, right, you're right. Anyway, that's sort of the stuff that was running through my mind as I'm watching Fairgame. So I'm trying to evaluate Fair Game as a film while also just being completely on a rail, you know, on a railroad trip to the politics of the odds.

You know what I mean? Bleakland, basically. Kind of, yeah. Well, I'm sure we'll get into it on the other side of all of the plot description and everything. But I think that this movie is an interesting time capsule for all of that. Much more interesting time capsule, even though it feels like, you know, it's a subchapter, not like, you know, one of the bigger stories of that administration, whereas other movies might be. or have bigger themes, but because this is a movie as much about a marriage as it is about the

circumstances of these real people at a certain time in history, it makes it much, it has much more longevity. Sorry, if you're picking this up, I have some car going off crazy. I can't hear it from my end, so. If we hear it, if we pick it up on your recording, then we'll just, you know, Listeners are harking back to when you were living in the city and had things like that happening on the regular. I'm not even by a window, so why can I hear that? Do you remember the one episode that I did? It was over pandemic, so I was in Buffalo. And I had my window open because it was so hot.

And I totally didn't realize that having my window open, we would pick up every bit of, like, pass-or-by traffic on the street. And it was just untow-tall. Was there, like, nice neighbor ladies being like, hey, girl. Probably. You probably would have been able to overhear conversations from, like, neighbors. It's also, God bless her soul, our across the street neighbor is so loud. And so she'll have like conversations with people in her driveway or whatever. And it's just like full volume. And like I can hear it from like the back of the house. It's very funny. Go off Denise. Nice lady. But yes, he's go off to. Joe, would you like to go off Denise about our Patreon for me? Hey, I sure would. This had Oscar Buzz, Turbulent Brilliance, is the name of our Patreon. It is a $5 a month exclusive club.

It's the Club 96 of Patreon memberships. I hope that we have an excursion episode that lands on 96, and what if we just did an excursion on Club 96? I think I could tell that was coming. Chris pitching a Club 96 episode. Best. Why not? No, for $5 a month, you will get two full episodes extra per month, one released on the first of the month, one on the 15th of the month.

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What's the exception that we have coming up? For April, Vanilla Sky. Vanilla Sky. God, we can talk about Cameron Crow. I'll be very excited to talk about that movie. So be sure to sign up and be here for that when that one drops. The 15th of every month, we will drop an episode called an excursion. And what those will be are sort of off-format trips.

into Oscar and film ephemera. We have in the past covered things like Hollywood Reporter Roundtables or other award shows, such as the 86 MTV Movie Awards. We have talked about the current Oscar race. We have done our own superlative awards for the end of the year. We have

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That, for some reason, had Bridget Fonda. front and center. And so lots of really fun stuff. In addition to those two episodes of every month, we also have a call-in hotline where people can send us questions, and we will post answers to that in short form periodically. We have polls. We can, you know, you can chat it up with other Garys on the Patreon comment sections, which I find incredibly valuable. We've got other stuff in the works. We have for our May miniseries. I'm going to say, we should tease this a little bit. For

our May miniseries this year, we are planning something big, and the Patreon will be a big part of it. And there is, you will be able to, you know, the May mini series will be enjoyable to anybody, whether you are a Patreon member or not. But I will say,

the full flower of the experience is what you will have if you have both the main feed and the Patreon. So if that, if nothing else, come join us again for $5 a month. It's like showing up to a restaurant and not getting your starter bread. That's true. That's true.

You want to get your starter bread. Or it would be like getting one of those like, you know, like restaurant week menus where it's like you get free courses and then the dessert. It would be like if they didn't give you the dessert if you don't join the Patreon for our main miniseries. And that's a good point because $5 a month. That's the cost of a fairly economical slice of, like, good cheesecake, right? A cheesy gordita crunch and a baha blast. For the cost of a cheesy gordita crunch and a Baja blast, you can instead sacrifice it once a month and just talk about, get on the, this head Oscar buzz.

Turbulent brilliance, Patreon. For that, you can go to patreon.com slash this head Oscar buzz. Come join us. We're having a good time. Joe, I'm glad that you hyped the main miniseries that's coming. Listeners, we are deep in planning. We know that you loved 100 snubs last year. We want to live up to that.

It's not going to be along those lines. But once again, we are changing the format. We are being ambitious. We're doing it big. We hope you enjoy it. The Patreon will be a part of it. And the Patreon will be maybe a little off schedule, we'll say, without saying what's the... Yeah, we'll get into the...

the details when we get into the details. But, uh, topic is. But, uh, in broad senses, it's maybe something listeners have wanted a little bit more of, but it's also maybe something general movie lovers also love to talk about. Exactly. Exactly. More soon. More hints to come. Yes. Joe. All right. Yes. The motion picture fair game. Yeah. I think this is a movie that, you know, it's,

not the most interesting movie in the world, but I do think that this movie is perhaps a little unfairly maligned or considered boring. I found much more interesting movie business in there. I really want to talk about Doug Lyman and what Doug Lyman brings or doesn't bring to this movie, perhaps. Oh, I'm excited to hear all of this, yes. I think that this is one that listeners should give a second chance to, I will say that. Fair shake. They need to give it a fair play. A fair shake for fair game, yes.

Yeah. This movie did not. I wonder how many times we're going to be... Punning the title. Fair in this episode. Listeners, we're here talking about the motion picture fair game, directed by Doug Lyman, written by Jez and John Butterworth. brother

screenwriting team Jess Butterworth also a playwright Tony winning playwright Maple syrup mavens part of the Butterworth dynasty of

maple syrup purveyors what else what if that was true what if they were like they were the heirs to the Mrs. Butterworth fortune

Yeah they were Nepo babies but for a different industry Yeah yeah exactly Right, exactly, like the Duponts or something like that, but they are, they're, they're, they're, they're, um, their long time rivals, the log cabins and they got to, they got to get them. Sorry. Their long time rivals, Fabio of, I can't believe it's not. Anyway, the script written by the brothers butterworth based on both Valerie.

Plains Memoir and The Politics of Truth by Joseph C. Wilson, starring our beloved Naomi Watts, Sean Penn, Noah Emerick, Ty Borell, Sam Shepard, Polly Holliday, Brooksmith, the living legend, Brooksmith. God, so good. Man of the hour, and by the hour, I mean the 20 teens, Michael Kelly, and Norbert Leopold. buts briefly. Jessica Hecht also, I should say. Oh, Jessica Hecht as well, of course. One of the dinner, dinner party friends. Also legend. Uh, premiered in competition at the 2010 Cam Film Festival, played none of the major fall festivals, but did some regionals. That kind of tells you how this movie left Kian, basically. And then opened limited in the first weekend of November of

2010. Indeed. A Summit Entertainment release. Joe, Summit Entertainment, coming off of their Hurt Locker Best Picture Win. But I always consider Summit, which I believe exists in some entity, but does not, you know, distribute movies in the way that they were. Yeah. But Summit to me is the house that Twilight made, basically. Oh, yes. They made the gamble for the Twilight rights and was the Twilight distributor. I still remember the innovation.

that Summit had, because Twilight came out when the DVR still sort of reigned supreme, right? And we were in the age of fast-forwarding commercials, and what Summit did with their Twilight TV spots is they put that banner at the top and bottom of the screen that said Twilight opens, you know, whatever day. So that if you were fast-forwarding through the commercial, you still saw that. You still saw that banner. And I was like, that's really clever. And you still see movies do that. It's actually kind of genius. I'd never realize that Twilight was the...

That was the first one I ever noticed for it. Here's my question to you, though, of the November 5th, 2010 release date. Do you think the depressed turnout at the 2010 midterm elections impacted the Fair Game box office? Oh, wow. You're really getting politics, Joe, in this one. I totally apologize because my like 75% well-informed political opinions are really going to hit the main street this week. Yeah, it is a certain thing of trying to get politically inflected movies out ahead of elections, which is always just like, and often it's moving. movies we don't want to see. I've pushed for us to do Oliver Stone's W and shows like,

ugh, every time you mention it. That's a thing I want to talk about. Well, but then I also then think about Tandy Newton as Condoleezza Rice. And then I'm like, okay, wait, we should do it. Well, you know, multiple, not just a D-Wa's performance, but many people's performance. That's the movie that she plays Condoleezza, right? It's not Vice. I'm not mixing that up. who plays Condoleez and Vice You might have mixed them up Hold on What year was that

2018? Adam McKay's Vice In Vice Who plays Ms. Rice? I'm pretty sure it's W. It's Lisa Gaye Hamilton who plays Condoleezza Rice The legend Lisa Gaye

Do you know who plays Scooter Libby in Vice? The great Justin Kirk Oh, that's good casting. And Justin Kirk has become shorthand for, like, evil Republicans of late, and he's so good at doing it. That's true. That's true. Both Succession and this. He also plays... Fucking Libby. Fucks Scooter Libby. Unidentified member of the Strokes in Molly's game. Have we decided? What did we decide? What rock started you decide? He's something like the strokes. I was saying he was Chris Martin.

Right, right, right. Chris Martin. I don't know. I don't buy that. I don't like Chris Martin. I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't. He's probably a composite. But, um, oh, God, this, yeah, this movie, the second that Scooter Libby comes up in this movie, I was like, fuck Scooter Libby, you know, first of all, much respect to any Gary's with the name Scooter. Sure. But like, there's only bad scooters, right? There's Scooter Libby, Scooter Braun. How dare you, uh, watch a Muppet show sometime, my friend. Um, well, I'll respect to that scooter. That's a different generation of scooter.

Well, it is. You're right. No, Scooter Braun's a pretty damning example. That's... Out, Scooter. You're a grown man. You're a grown man. Like, you have a real name.

You don't have to go by Scooter. That's such a Bush administration thing, right? It's such a fuck-ass Bush administration. Right? Like, everybody had some dumb corn-pone nickname or whatever. Like, God. Naomi Watts, by the way, has a campaign. in Vice as a news anchor.

She's uncredited, but she's... Sure does. It sure does. Yeah. Vice. You know, it's a good name, Valerie Plain. Valerie Plame is a great name. Truly a great name. You know what's a neutral name?

Joe Wilson. Joe Wilson is the... As somebody who has... Who knows the pain of an unremarkable first name, Joe. Joe Wilson is... as middle of the road as it comes. Joe, let's get into it. Would you like to give your 60-second plot description for the motion picture fair game?

Sure, I would. All right, then your 60-second plot description for fair game starts now. So in December of 2000, the Supreme Court ruled to halt the recount on the Bush versus Gore election, essentially installing George W. Bush's president of the United States, and thus began a years-long plan to avenge his father and find justification to invade Iraq. In the days after the September 11th text, the War on Terror was declared, and Bush found his pretext, and now it was just a matter of finding evidence that would justify an invasion of Iraq. And to do so, he needed to find evidence that they were trying to build a nuclear program,

even though that was ultimately false. And to do this, they had to trump up evidence that Iraq had been purchasing uranium from Niger. And to that end, they sent a diplomat Joe Wilson on a fact-finding trip to Niger. And he didn't find anything, but they used his findings and sort of perverted them as a pretext in the State of the Union in 2000-whatever, three. and then we invaded Iraq, and Joe Wilson was like, wait a second, I didn't do that, and they said, fuck you, Joe Wilson, we're going to out your wife, who's a CIA agent, and we are going to use our little crony, Bob Novak, who's looks like a fucking doorman and the river sticks door to hell, to do so. And we, Valerie Plame got outed, and it fucked up her. life and career, but mostly it was that we went into Iraq and killed a whole lot of people

in an invasion that was not justified the end. A whole 45 seconds over, it took you 90 seconds to say the words Valerie Plain. Well, there's a lot in her movie. But thank you. Thank you for that

context. Okay. Really, this is as much a movie about all of that as it is a movie about a marriage and how a marriage not only functions after this outing, but how a marriage would function, you know, working for the administrations that they do. You know, what's it like when one of a couple is a spy and they still have a family. And they, you know, have to live their lives and they have to have certain amount of secrecy around them and a certain amount of safety around them. Then what happens when all of

that is outed? Well, and also, and the movie gets into this to a degree, but this, this movie is also painting certain versions of these characters, right? And we see moments where Valerie in a CIA briefing with, I can't remember the guy, the little twerpy guy who's really, really insistent that these aluminum tubes were being used for, you know, weaponizing uranium or whatever. And she's being very critical and she's asking critical questions and she's refuting his claims and whatnot. So she's sort of being painted by the movie as being a, you know, she's a CIA agent, but she's not a war hawk, right? She's responsible. She's trying to do her best to get their, you know, sources to safety. So she's like, she's part of the military industrial complex, but she's like a good one, right?

She's like the good military industrial complex, which, you know, fair enough. And there's, you know, there are certainly good people in, in, you know, all ranges of government. But on the other side of that coin then, you have Joe Wilson, who is a, seems like a career DC guy, right? He's a diplomat, but he also, you know, he's probably got his fingers in a lot of pots, but he's also certainly somebody who was not shy about writing op-eds or speaking to, you know, college groups or going on television, speaking out about the president. So my guess is, politically, this was probably more of a conflict in their marriage than we are even, you know, led to believe in this movie. permitted to see in this movie.

Right, that she was probably more of a, you know, government, you know, if not apologist, then certainly, like, that was the side she was working on. And Joe was very much a... That's effectively her boss, you know. Right, right. And Joe's more of a critic of the Bush administration, which is certainly why the Bush administration was so eager to jump, jump all over him, you know, and try to assassinate his character. because he's a, you know, he's a critic of the president.

And what people don't, I mean, like, now, you know, now it's very different. But at the time, like, if you went, if you went after the Bush administration in dissent, especially at that time, you know, you hated the troops, you hated the flag, you hated Apple Pie. You were anti-American, like, I think, you know, younger listeners who were. not of a certain age at that point might not realize what the culture was like you know it's like i i was in high school and early college for most of this that it's just like and i was in a fairly conservative high school and you know anti-bush and you know critical of what we were doing overseas despite you know what our country had gone through and you know it was just like i had

You know, classmates calling me anti-American and shit like that. If I were in high school during that whole thing, I was in college. I was sort of well into my college career by that point. If I were in high school, I would have been a real pariah. I feel like over this kind of thing. Well, I'm being in closeted, too. And it's just like, that was shitty enough and that was tense enough. And I'm just some stupid high school kid.

I'm not saying that I had it all that bad. But, like, people with real stakes involved, there were consequences. There were consequences in the public sphere. There were consequences professionally, you know, so it's like, if it sounds like low stakes when we describe the context of this marriage or specifically Joe Wilson, it's not low, it's not as low stakes as it maybe sounds quaint today, but that's not what culture was at the time. Yeah. And also, like, the, you know, the wounds of September 11th were very fresh. So it wasn't just like name-calling or whatever. To be called anti-American in the wake of September 11th was the implication was that you did not care about the attacks, that you did not care about the victims of 9-11, which, you know, that was a, those attacks hit everybody very, very deeply.

And so it wasn't just sort of, oh, God, I'll be labeled anti-American by the Bush administration, whatever will I do. It, you know, it struck to the heart of these, you know, real emotions that people were feeling back then. You didn't want to be seen as, you know, anti-American. You wanted to, there was a hope for solidarity. And I think one of the things that was particularly pernicious on the part of the Bush administration was the way that they weaponized. people's genuine, honest desire for a national coming together as a, as one of the pretexts to, as one of their weapons to, to get everybody on board with an invasion of a country that had nothing to do with the September 11th attacks. I'll get off my soapbox. Yeah, yeah. Well, and the idea that, like, you, someone calling you anti-trups and you say that, like, you are, you know, you don't want to see troops sent in and sacrifice their lives for their. wrong reasons and like that's too long of an answer chris that's very much too long of an answer yeah falling on full deaf ears it's like you're you know reading stereo instructions to people yep yep yep yep yep

yeah oh that's the cultural context for this movie yeah and to bring it to like a movie conversation I think we haven't done one of the episodes on the many many many many unsuccessful movies arounding all of this surrounding all of this ethos. We haven't done one of those in a long time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, like, and I don't think it's just because of, like, that dynamic we described, but nobody wanted those movies

because it was just like, it wasn't even, like, hot potato. It partly was hot potato. But some of it was just, like, a lot of those movies were very, very self-serious, very ineffectively righteous. I mean, look at Lions for Lambs as, perfect example for it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That it was just like, well, none of these movies are very good. And you could say the Hurt Locker is the exception to that. But like Hurt Locker, I understand how people have a varying range of political perceptions on that movie. But it's certainly more, I would say, condemning than something like, condemning and accepted than and successful than Lions for Lans. Oh, definitely. But also, like, the politics, the way that the Hurt Locker handles politics is, in a very sort of non-didactic way, it allows the events of the film to sort of make its case for it. You know what I mean? It's not, you know, Robert Redford sort of monologuing to a class or anything like that, you know what I mean? Which you do get- And then probably the most successful of all of these movies is still to come at this point from the year we're talking about, but it's American. sniper. And what they were able to get a

audience for is a lot of middle America. Ura. Yep. But even stuff like Jarhead, which was sort of you know, uh, you know, uh, uh, uh, uh, and whatnot. We got to do that movie. We do have to do that movie. Um, but that movie also just like really flopped. I think that was a too soon kind of a thing. People were just like, that was not the entertainment that people wanted. Um,

I'm interested, though, to hear your thoughts on the, well, let's do the Doug Lyman conversation and then maybe transition into your thoughts on what he brings to this movie, because I'm really interested. Doug Lyman's career is one of the true sort of, like, high-profile journeyman careers, where he's done just so many different types of things and has never been pigeonholed, really, but he also seems to be, like, on the fringes. of a lot of these major trends in Hollywood. So his big breakthrough movie in 1996 is Swingers. And it's very interesting to think about Swingers in retrospect, because back in the day, Swingers was like indie sensation, sort of a cult movie, but like not really. It's sort of like played at being a cult movie.

But it was this very much like MTV Generation was very into it. You know, everybody started momentarily saying, you're so money baby and whatnot and you know all these sort of like obnoxious phrases but like it was several several careers that's the thing it's directed by doug lyman it's written by john favro it stars favro and vince vaughn and it launched all of their careers all at the same time and i honestly often forget that it's directed by doug lyman because it feels so authorial to favro yes that like when we talk about it we talk about favro we don't talk about Lyman in a way. Well, and it's funny to

look back at that, you know, then, and it's just like, what are they doing now? Well, like, you know, Lyman's still doing his like journeyman, like, but like big sort of like hefty, you know, muscular action adventure movies, you know what I mean? A lot of shit that has not been successful in a while

will get into it. Favreau has made a buck ton of money doing incredibly popular studio, you know, IP-driven movies for you know, usually the Walt Disney Corporation.

Vince Vaughn has become this sort of like, he had a, like, a mid-aughts career as, you know, comedies Everyman a little bit. And then transitioned now into this sort of like Shadow Mel Gibson, quasi-conservative, you know, putting in a... Making chum for Red States, basically. Uh-huh, uh-huh, exactly. And so it's, it's

just wild sort of how this says where this has delivered all these people. So on the heels of Swingers, Doug Lyman makes my favorite Doug Lyman movie, which is Go, which at the time, and still kind of today, is seen as a Pulp Fiction Tarantino knockoff, which I always thought was underselling what Goe delivered, and I definitely still think that does. there are elements of course of the sort of Tarantino indie I think there's also elements of like you know Robert Rodriguez stuff and and you know just in general the sort of 90s indie stuff along with it's a culmination of a certain type of taste in 90s American independent cinema multi characters multi timelines a lot of different you know siloed stories some of which come together

also then with this like patina of late 90s rave culture um and it's such a time capsule but it's so well written that's john august i think is the screenwriter of go i believe yeah um tremendously funny um and gives a lot of really good actors some real fun opportunities sarah polly really comes alive in this movie i love it so much i really do love katie holmes's performance Timothy Oliphant Timothy Oliphant as a hot drug dealer in a Santa hat

which that photo which I had printed and framed and now it's going up somewhere in my office and now it's going on the ceiling over Joe's bed shut the fuck up

but also not wrong I love Goh so follows up Go with the born identity which the born identity was successful ultimately

ultimately In theaters, it was considered a disappointment. But then when it hits, remember the rental market when movies made money on rentals? I mean, see, the rental market still exists. It's just, it's all digital now. And I think the major difference is those numbers aren't reported. The numbers used to be reported because Born Identity was this, like, massive hit at Blockbuster, where it's like, they reported it as it was the, everybody's, like, second choice, because when you go to a movie rental store, you get two movies.

And, like, the born identity was the perfect middle ground second choice for a lot of people. But in theaters, it wasn't the, like, major success the way that the franchise became. And partly, that's because it was so expensive because the production in the press was painted as a disaster. Well, whereas several series of reshoots, you know, before reshoot. were just, like, every day. And also, Matt Damon was at a career ebb at this point. Like, the Bourne Identity was the thing that helped sort of boomerang his career around. But so by the time the Bourne movies become this successful and beloved franchise,

they'd been passed off to Paul Greengrass. So, Lyman gets a producer credit on it. But that's basically it's Doug Lyman, and Moby are the ones who just, like, keep showing up as ghosts and the further born movies without doing any additional work. 2005, sorry, you were going to say something else about the born. No, I was just going to say part of the thing about the born identity that I think is an interesting transition and you almost kind of wonder why swingers and go he was handed this massive kind of ocean liner of a movie in the born identity where it's like you're

filming in different countries, different continents, even. And just like, of course, you know, someone who's used to working in independent productions, it might be a difficult shoot and they may have to be figuring it out as they go along. And there were constant rewrites, several series of reshoots, there were reported bad test screenings for the movie. And, you know, it really kind of. of put a stain on Doug Lyman for a minute because at least, I remember, I think I read like a big giant premiere expose. It was definitely an EW talking about the trouble production

of this movie. Yeah. And it's like, it was all kind of pinned on Lyman, but it doesn't really seem necessarily like it was his fault. Yeah. Well, and then he follows that up with Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which is another movie that absolutely, whose legacy absolutely gets taken away from him. In this case, it's because this is the movie that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie got together on. And so that movie became overcome by its own press, even though it did well, right, as a movie? Like, this was a successful movie, and it's a good movie. I think Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a very fun movie. I don't think it's great, but I think it's quite good.

And I think Lyman does a very good job with it. So it's not like Lyman suffers, but he absolutely gets eclipsed. His accomplishments in this movie get very, very much eclipsed by the Brangelina and the, you know, Jennifer, poor Jen, the Brangelina slash Poor Jen of it all. And then he follows that up with what is objectively, I think, his sort of biggest bomb to this point in his career, which is Jumper, which has, I think, a lot of high hopes as an action-adventure movie. This was the movie that was maybe going to rehab. Poor Hayden Christensen's career after the Star Wars movies. They spray-painted Samuel L. Jackson's had silver for nothing. And, you know, a jumper is not a terrible movie, but it's really, it's not a very good movie.

Jumper is the type of, I mean, like, you talk all the time about movies that they just, like, don't make this level of movie anymore. But it's such a mid-range action-adventure movie. That's also, you know, trying to reach a very wide audience. Yeah. But like you can tell, it's like B-Team Blockbuster Hopeful or C-Team even. And it's like those movies don't happen anymore. Like the movies have to be so huge and so big, like this middle-range action movie. Yeah.

Or else they do happen on Netflix and nobody cares about them and nobody watches them and that kind of a thing. Sorry. Sorry to Zach Snyder trying to claim. that 90 million people watched Rebel Moon. And if they are, if 90 million people watch Rebel Moon, they are the most discreet 90 million people ever because they have not peeped a word about it to anybody. The most discreet 90 million and then the most loud 100,000 of the Snyderheads.

Right. Anyway. Did 90 million people watch that or did 90 million people have it on in the background while they were on on their phone? I also love Zach Snyder being like, so Netflix says that for every, for every whatever click, they assume that two people are watching it together. And I'm like, that is one hell of an assumption, sir, that like, you assume that everybody watching Netflix is this sort of like, you know, neat and tidy little couple. Single people don't exist. Snuggling up against whatever.

Just like, you are probably in for a, that, oh, God, what wacky math. Anyway. Just imagine. Valerie and Joe watching everything together. Fair Game is then followed up in 2014 by what I would say is his career pinnacle, which is Edge of Tomorrow, the Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, original sci-fi. It's original, right? I don't think it's based on any kind of, like, obscure...

It might be one of those things that it's, like, loosely based on a Philip K. Dick story or something. It is actually, I'm totally wrong. it's based on a Japanese novel called All You Need is Kill. So, egg on my face. One of the many titles they tried to have for that movie, because I think it was initially titled All You Need Is Kill. And then it was Edge of Tomorrow. Now it's Live, Die Repeat.

And it... I hate Live Die Repeat as a title so much. I can't even tell you. It's so dorky. It's so too clever. What's wrong with Edge of Tomorrow? I understand that, like, it didn't... Edge of Tomorrow's...

box office disappointment is genuinely one of the, like, worst things that's ever happened in the film industry, and I really don't think I'm being hyperbolic. I don't think I'm being hyperbolic. It created a lot of stupid behavior around that movie, like trying to resell it as livid, I repeat. Well, but also, though, it gave Hollywood all the wrong impulses. What it did was it scared the studios away from doing any kind of non-heavily. IP inflected. I know that I just looked up and this is based on it, but like, for all intents and purposes, this is an original, in that it's not based on a television show

or a comic book series or whatever. Being based on a book is not, I mean, technically it is IP, but when we talk about I. Not the way we talk about it. Right. It's not the same. It's not the same to say it. It scared Tom Cruz into only ever doing Mission Impossible movies after this. It

it sort of denied a, and I know certainly it would have become a franchise, all the, you know, all the quicker. So, like, it would, it would then not be seen as an example of original filmmaking. It would have just been just another franchise. But also, just, like, it helped hasten Hollywood's retreat into this very sort of, like, we only do one thing anymore. And it was an example of theater audiences being unwilling to take a chance on something

that they didn't know about, even though that. movie starred the biggest movie star in the world. You know what I mean? It's just like it's it it helped sort of kill the notion of the movie star. Like so many things I genuinely believe would be better today if the edge of tomorrow were a mega hit at the box office in 2014. So. But Tom Cruise is also making Jack Reacher movies at like the same time. And those movies don't make any money. They are. Well, they also contributed to that. I also sound like an asshole because I'm like, Jack Reachers are based on books. But it's

like, it is a franchise character name. You're right. No, you're, no, you're, you're right. People can like nitpick the like letter of the law with what we're talking about, but like we're right spiritually. We are correct in our feelings. But so,

but the problem with all of that is like Edge of Tomorrow is a financial flop, but it rules as a movie is the other thing. It's like by far my favorite Tom Cruise thing in It's a very fun movie. I think people do a little too much for it, but I understand why. I think it's wonderful. I think Emily Blunt's fantastic in it. I think it's a very fun movie. I think it has a great sense of humor. And it deserved a ton better than it got. And then from there on out, it's just Doug Lyman with these either snake-bitten productions or movies that, like, I really don't have a ton of interest in. I had to watch the wall for work. I didn't like it. It was an Amazon movie.

It starred. People I like, you know I love my Aaron Taylor Johnson. You know, he's one of the people that I like. But that was an Iraq War movie that was not very good, and nobody paid attention to it. He reunites with Tom Cruise for a movie called American Made that has, again, Donald Gleason. I do love Donald Gleason. It has Caleb Landry Jones for me. Jesse Plymonds for you, and neither one of us saw this movie, so what does that say?

I don't know. Some people like American Made. I did not have a ton of interest in it. And then the pandemic happens, and he makes that, by all accounts, terrible movie locked down with Anne Hathaway. All of three people watched this movie because it was like, it was a truly like a pandemic lockdown movie where it's like, I think a portion of it was shot on phones, probably. Yeah, yeah. Nobody wanted to, no, like, we wanted to be done with that.

We didn't want to watch that. He had also spent the better part of a decade trying to make an adaptation of this novel, trilogy of novels, Chaos Walking, that was in development forever, basically forever. And it comes limping out in, finally, in 2021. And talk about reshoots because I think the, I'm going to look up when this originally shot. I think it originally shot in like 2018, maybe 2017. It finally got released in March of 2021, which to give you some context, is like right around the time I got my first shot of the vaccine. So like people are still, you know, waiting to get their vaccines to be able to sort of like reenter the world.

It's a terrible time to be releasing something like this into theaters. Original production was 2017. Right, right. Oh, every year when I would make my year ahead preview, it would be Chaos Walking is on the docket for, you know, whatever. It's, it was a mainstay. And so that thing, like, limped upon, limp, upon limp. So we're talking about this movie right now as his latest movie is getting, it got bullied into theaters, right? People were like, you better release it into theaters.

You better not just put it on Amazon. For Roadhouse? Yeah. Uh, I don't think it's going to be in theater. it just premiered as we're recording this at South by Southwest, which... Well, then there was an attempt to bully it into theaters. But it sounds like hell. It sounds like a not fun experience.

Here's what I will say. I love Jake Gyllenhaal, and I will even... I certainly have no philosophical qualms about Jake Gyllenhaal doing a big, dumb action movie. The problem with everything that I've seen... And of course, I love a bunch of... of other people who are in this movie, like Billy Magnuson and, like, you know, Jessica Williams and whatnot. But I watched the trailer, and I immediately, I did that, what is it? Is it the Rita Moreno gift from one day at a time where she, like, just closes her laptop? It seems like it's a two-hour

advertisement for UFC. And, like, as somebody who watches as much NFL football and all also is as fond of professional wrestling as I am, this probably seems very hypocritical. I find UFC and, like, mixed martial arts. Apporient. Gross. Like, I, I, I, I'm sorry. It probably makes me seem deeply uncool. But I find it all, like, the most problematically macho, the most problematically violent.

It's, it's rubber neck. Probably a lot of anti-back sentiments. Well, yeah, the guy who runs UFC is like a fucking pro-Trump maniac, first of all. And like, and not even first of all, it's just like the sport itself, I find just deeply repulsive. And so, and that's my thing. And that is why I won't be watching Roadhouse. As someone who likes watching people fight generally and also can enjoy watching boxing. Yeah, UFC is disgusting.

Yeah, I find it abhorrent. So sorry, Doug, I will be on board for if you can make this Matt Damon, Casey Affleck Hong Chow movie happen about a robbery that goes wrong. That's in post-production. It's called The Instigators. One thing I'm very curious about that happened last year, he had that surprise documentary show up at Sundance about Brett Kavanaugh. That supposedly, you know, revealed major information that was supposed to be very damning. People ultimately said it wasn't very damning and it hasn't seen the light of day since that Sundance. Interesting. He also did a bunch of interesting TV stuff during that point. He directed the first two episodes of the O.C. ever. He did a television show for MTV called I Just Want My Pants Back that I remember being a thing just because it has such a show. a silly title that was around the time that like awkward was on do you remember that show awkward on

MTV I really by name but not by anything else um he did uh directed he was no he was an executive producer on suits um there's just a lot of uh of Doug Lyman's fingers are in a lot of pots anyway talk to me about what Doug Lyman does on fair game that you were so impressed by you know the first half of this movie when it's like you don't want to say jet setting for what this plot is but like it's hopping around continents

it's international you understand why Doug Lyman for this movie but when it becomes more of a relationship drama in the latter half of the movie he just seems very ill-equipped to

make this a serious relationship drama it feels while I think this movie is watchable and not as bad as people say that it is, you can see the version of this movie so clearly that is great, and it doesn't feel like Doug Lyman

is able to cross that finish line with it, you know? It's what the movie calls for isn't this type of international intrigue. I mean, like that's a part of it, but you have to get the character

dynamics and you have to understand these people in a more interesting way than I think he's ultimately able to achieve. You basically need a Sidney Pollock, not a Doug Lyman. Well, I think there are a couple different ways to make this movie, one of which is to make it as hot-shot spy gets her career ruined, which is sort of, I think, the movie that Lyman wants to make. You can make the movie about, like, political machinations test the strength of a marriage, which is also what Fair Game seems to want to be about.

And maybe that's the script by the Butterworth's, the Butterworth Hears, the Brothers Butterworth want to do. But there's another version of this is maybe the version that I'm more excited, would be more excited about, which is, and maybe that's the one that nothing but the truth tried to be, which is a journalism movie. It's amazing how little of this movie is actually about journalism, because so much of this story swings on, you know, names that were leaked to Robert Novak, who wrote a column. It swings on Joe Wilson writing an op-ed.

It swings on, you know, Judy Miller getting sent to jail for 12 weeks for not naming Scooter Liby as a source, yada, yada, yada. I think actually Judy Miller is probably the least interesting. I think the version of the movie that I may be most interested in is the one that maybe features Novak the most, because, like, he was so brazen in leaking these things and then trying to claim that, you know, he didn't know that this was bad. This was Scooter Libby outright lying and saying that he had first heard of Valerie Plame from Chris, not Chris Matthews, Tim Russert when he was on Meet the Press, and like,

that was a lie. So maybe that's, and again, that's not the movie that we got. I think the movie that we got is interesting. I think the marriage angle of this movie, the fascinating thing about it to me is that They cast Naomi Watts and Sean Penn, and maybe this is just a me thing, but I know it's also a you thing, where if you give me Naomi Watts and Sean Penn and give me even a modicum of conflict between them, I will be siding with Naomi Watts against Sean Penn for like a number of reasons. But I think by this point... I more so am like, so who among us has 21 grams nostalgia? Like, let's see them back together again. I would believe that this movie got cast completely independent of that kind of thing.

And that at some point they just realized, oh, it's the same guys as 21 grams. Or I feel like, you know, they cast Naomi wants and they want to cast her opposite someone that she has a strong working relationship with before or already has like a developed rapport so that it helps make this marriage seem more believable. But so because casting has so predisposed me to supporting Naomi. Watts and not supporting Sean Penn because I do find Sean Penn to very often play characters who I find knee-jerk unlikable. It surprises me how much as I'm watching this movie and I'm like, it sort of has to like, I have to rewire my brain and be like, no, like I kind of side with him more than her in this argument that they are having, this idea that she wants to be able to you know, beat these people in this with like quiet righteousness and to sort of put her head down and know that they're not going to break her and she will get through this, but she also knows better than to take on the White House and the court of public opinion. And Joe Wilson's thing is this is how we make sure they don't get, they can't get away with this, which is we have to get on as many, you know,

in front of as many microphones as possible, and because nobody else is willing to say it, nobody else is willing to say that they're outright lying. And it's, to me, we've talked about the Michael Moore getting booed at the 2002, or, sorry, 2002 Oscars after winning for Bowling for Columbine. And then the next year, we just talked about this on the Vanity Affair podcast, the next year, all these sort of like offhanded mentions about how Bush lied in the run-up to the Iraq war are getting like, you know... In the crystal montage at the beginning, he gets squashed by a Lord of the Rings elephant, and it's supposed to be like a laugh moment.

Right, but all, but then, but then he goes on to make, you know, jokes at the expense of the Bush administration and the audience is giving expected laughter. Like, it's, it, there were, there were so few people in the actual, you know, in the time frame where things. could have mattered who were saying this stuff is a lie. And then all of a sudden, once the deed was done, and we had, you know, blown through Iraq with shock and awe and all of this, then people were free to come out of the woodwork and say, oh, yeah, like, that intelligence

was bad. Oh, yeah, like, that was probably, you know, not supportable. And so I think that what Joe Wilson's argument is, to Valerie in this movie, is like, right now it's just us. And right now we need to get in front of as many microphones as possible and say it so that we can get other people, you know, to feel comfortable and to feel comfortable enough to say it. Yeah. And so like on a pure, and again, it's hard for me to watch this movie as a movie and not as politics because that's just sort of like how my brain works. I sort of get, you know, fired up about this kind of thing. I am. I think that's true of a lot of people and that's why a lot of people didn't see these movies. Probably. I try very hard to. to feel, not to feel more cynical, because that's not, that's not the truth. I don't want to feel more cynical. But I try very hard to be less naive about this kind of stuff. But like, I have a tendency towards, I have a tendency, this is why I do still, like, you know, have a little bit of nostalgia for something for a decade as awful as the odds because I do feel like there is a sense of there was a time when these evils in government were easier to combat because there was a

shared sense of right and wrong still like yeah like that sounds very naive but like that's it's this very sort of like west wing thing where i'm like that the it's that the clarity not the clarity is not the right word but the way that public discussion and discourse and people's priorities right and wrong it's not that they matter less it's that they are not as effective and a an argument like you know you can't because everybody can now just point the finger and be like well you're morally wrong and you're morally. That's what happens when we try to go toe to toe to with these Trump idiots. Everybody has retreated to their corners. Right. No amount of facts. The fact that like Scooter Libby got in so inarguably correct that these people are in the wrong and it doesn't

matter. But the fact that like Scooter Libby gets arrested in this movie and like the maddening part is that he ultimately gets, you know, pardoned and whatnot. But like just the fact that there was a consequence for somebody. It wasn't for the right person. And it wasn't for, and it didn't stop the war or whatever. And so a lot of people will be like, well, then why do you care and nothing matters? And like, I, I'm the person who is like norms matter. You know what I mean? Like that is the most sort of like cheesy. And because I've, and people will say like, well, it's just a, it was just a facade and those norms never existed anyway. And it was theater. And I, and I'm the person who says the theater matters. Because ultimately, if you have to

at least make a show of sticking to a norm, you are still make, you still have to make that effort. Do you know what I mean? Like, you still have to. And it's still an ideal to be strived towards. And right now, there are no ideals to be strived towards. We are living in a time of absolutely unmoored, uncentered political chaos. And it is so hard to live in that world. because like there's no there's no ground you know what I mean there's there's no actual ground I find it so frustrating and um disheartening and scary yeah to take it a little bit back to your thoughts on Sean Penn's characters and the perspective and like yeah you feel like you're siding with him I'm team Joe in this movie I don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing

structurally for the story that they're telling, regardless of whether or not it's based in fact, and that's how both of them separately approached this situation. Right. Because, like, you put all the balance where we're supposed to feel in the audience towards the character, that's the spy, and then it's just that person's story. But this is the story of a marriage. I think it is equally both their story, their experience, their point of view,

which, I mean, like, she, She's the one who is the outed spy, so, like, I would understand someone wanting it to be more so just her story. But I think that's what makes it ultimately more interesting, a movie that you can still watch today with some interest where it's like you can't watch rendition today with really any sense of interest in things other than Reese Witherspoon ascending the decibel scale. right right um and yeah i mean in one way when we were talking about our beautiful boy episode a movie that was also based off of two memoirs and tried to blend those together into one story that i don't think is successful at all this i thought was much more successful in taking multiple pieces of source material from two different perspectives yeah and blending it into one story and being able to fairly tell both of it being able to tell both of their stories in a balanced way.

Yeah. I want to talk about Naomi Watts' performance in this movie, but quickly just sort of like, her aughts, she's, she comes into sort of most people's recognition through Mulholland Drive, which is right at the beginning of the decade. She has Mulholland Drive, which she's highly acclaimed. She doesn't get nominated for an Oscar for multiple reasons. all of which are annoying, mostly the fact that they couldn't decide whether to campaign her as lead or supporting, which I think is insanity, that's a lead performance, and doesn't get nominated, but benefits a whole lot from, oh, this should have been nominated. You know what I mean? Like the best performance of the year that didn't get an Oscar nomination, that kind of a thing. And then she follows that up with the ring, which is a huge sort of like,

popular hit and, you know, kind of a decade-defining horror movie. And so she's off to such a great start. And then from that point on, I mean, we talked about this when we did our miniseries on her, where it's just sort of like all of these projects that look good on paper, but don't deliver. And I'm just going to rattle them off by name because we have done episodes on them. Go back and listen to our Naomi Watts episodes. They're really good. We did episodes on La Divorce and the painted veil and what were our other, um, Diana. Diana and St. Vincent, less we forget St. Vincent. Yeah. She's reuniting with Bill Murray, apparently. I was like, great, the St. Vincent reunion that we've all been waiting for. But it goes beyond that, right?

We mentioned the assassination of Richard Nixon, which was a re-teaming with Sean Penn. The year after 21 grams, which she gets an Oscar nomination for 21 grams. Her role is very small in that movie, if I remember correctly. Right. It's mostly his movie. Yeah. Her nomination for 21 grams really felt like squeezing blood from a stone, though. They really had to, like, wrestle to get that nomination, it felt like. She only missed the globe, though. Right, but it felt like... But 21 grams was a hard movie for people to watch and to love. It's not a pleasant movie. Yeah. I don't really know what it's served. Right. We both, I think, have a soft spot for we don't live here anymore, but that is a movie that sort of exists in mid-aughts indie film land and doesn't really exist

anywhere else. We both also outright love her and I Heart Huckabee's, but that is, that was a movie that I think probably rightly took a while to sort of like find its people. And for a lot of the time when it first came out, there were people who were like, I don't know what this fucking dumb movie is talking about, and I hate it. But it's all over the place. It's like maybe the type of movie that David O. Russell should be making in that it's more, you know, it's not interested in keeping its feet on the ground, but, you know, something like maybe American Hustle requires it to keep its feet on the ground to fully work.

She has some successes during the odds. she's in King Kong, which is a successful movie in the costume of certain unsuccessful things. Like, I remember for as well as King Kong did, there was a lot of, oh, but it's not this and this and this. And I think there wasn't a lot of consideration for her performance, even though I think in retrospect, people really came around to how good she is in King Kong. I remember her of getting good reviews for that movie. and maybe the most unanimously accepted as good thing about that movie.

She's definitely in the conversation that year. But then it maybe just gets taken down by the fact that people were only into King Kong for a little bit. I think that's a movie that... I think that movie is probably ripe for revisiting.

I think it's a really, really impressive movie that like I, you know, even I probably didn't give its entire due to. She's also in Eastern Promises, which is a very successful movie, but just not for her. That's Vigo's thing. But otherwise, it's movies like Stay, Mark Forster Stay. Remember that with her and you and McGregor and Ryan Gosling?

Or the American remake of Funny Games, which is received with very sort of like ambivalent reviews. she's in the Tomtick of her movie, The International, with Clive Owen, that mostly people remember for the scene filmed at the Guggenheim, but not really much else. Rodrigo Garcia's mother and child, which I think is a better movie than it gets credit for, but it's like tiny, tiny, tiny. One of the most forgotten Woody Allen movies of that decade, which is Yulamita Tall Dark Stranger, and that's kind of, that's the most forgotten Woody Allen movies of that decade, which is Yulamita Tall Dark Stranger, and that's kind of, that's, That's kind of the Naomi Watts thing is throughout this decade is good movies. Working with the right people at the wrong time. Working with the right people at the wrong time in the wrong movies. And also just like when the movies are good, they're either somebody else's success story

or there's a, you know, there is defeat to be found in the jaws of victory kind of a thing. And so she's coming off of what I would imagine is a fairly frustrating decade. while watching her, you know, BFF Nicole Kidman sort of come into her own, right, as a newly liberated actress, and the odds are quite good to Nicole Kidman, especially at the beginning and the end of that decade. But anyway. She also unfortunately has had some real disasters on her resume, like The Book of Henry. Oh, lately, yes, yes.

The 20 teens are kind of really bad for Naomi Watts. Even though, again, she's got highlights, right? Birdman, but that's not her success. Luce, I think, is a good movie that she is good in, but, like, there's people doing, you know, she's not the story you come away talking through that movie. Like, Octavia Spencer is incredible in that movie. And then she'll do stuff,

like the American remake of Good Night Mommy that like absolutely doesn't exist. It's just like or like the Glass House, which was Glass Castle. Glass Castle, sorry, Glass House is a different movie, Glass Castle, which was Destin Daniel Creighton and Brie Larson getting together after short term 12, but after her Oscar then. She's sort of reunited with, you know, her director. and that movie makes no impression whatsoever. Lord knows we joked enough about Penguin Bloom during the 2020 festival season, but like that movie didn't really happen either.

Right now, though, as we're recording, all episodes have aired but the finale of Capote v. the swan. How far have you got? I've got to catch up. I was going through career adjustments when that show was airing. So I have to, like, I'm going to just take a day and watch all of it. I'll be curious what you think about it.

I found it very repetitive throughout. Yeah. Well, you didn't even like the first episode, though, and I really liked the first episode. Well, the first episode, I will say, has way more of the swans than the later episodes do. I really wish it had centered the swans versus Truman Capote, which, you know, It, the, the Truman Capote's story that is trying to tell ultimately becomes very repetitive. It is not enough to fill this many episodes. Right.

I don't think Tom Hollander is that good. However, I think all of the swans, including Naomi Watts, are very good. I really, there's times that you feel like it's, you know, kind of a two-fer, like, this is the Betty and Joan, her as Babe Paley and Truman Capote. Yeah. Because it is clearly the, like, kind of guiding light relationship of the season. And I would say the best scene of the season is between the two of them, but it's earlier on in the season. Yeah. I think she's really good in it, but I'll be interested to see how it fairs moving forward in terms of things like Emmys and such.

Sure. Because it could as easily be something she gets rewarded for as it is her being good in something that is not well received. Sure. What are your thoughts on her in the upcoming remake of the French erotic drama Emmanuel? I don't want to see this movie. Did you watch Audrey Duwans Venice winning movie? I did. I thought it was good.

I don't think it's as. I don't think it's a Golden Lion winner. Okay. I think as like experiential filmmaking, it's strong, but I did not come away from that movie feeling like I understood much internally about that character. So it had a ceiling for me. The thing about Emmanuel that I think is so funny is it was this kind of, um,

before erotic cinema was more accessible to people, it had this sort of reputation, this sort of like Red Shoe Diary is kind of reputation. It also very much now, though, exists to me as like, it's Rochelle, Rochelle from Seinfeld, right? Like, that's the inspiration that they were talking about, right? So there's a sense of comedy to it to me that I don't know. is going to be in this movie. But it's Naomi Watts and Naomi Merlant and Will Sharp

from White Lotus, who I will follow to the ends of the earth at this point. I'm interested. He's very good in a very limited role in the Jesse Eisenberg,

a real pain. Looking unrecognizable beneath nerd glasses. He looks exactly. They're the same. But they, no, they put him in nerd drag in that movie. Yeah, they're making, they're making them into a dork rather than a stud. That's a good movie, though.

He's really good in that. But anyway, we- See when they release that. We wish for the best for Naomi, as always. I think that was our refrain through most of the mini-series that we did. We wish for the best for Naomi. I think she's good in fair game. I think she's, there's a, there's a steeliness to her that I,

Like, I would have, it's funny watching Fair Game in the wake of Homeland. I think so much of watching Naomi Watts sort of operate in this movie as feels like, oh, right, and Homeland was like just premiering around this time. So I think Homeland is sort of the more Hollywoody version of this. This feels, Fair Game feels almost restrained in the way that it shows Naomi Watts going about her job, which I imagine is a lot more true to life than the sort of hysterics of homeland, a show that, like, I found very fun and then kind of, like, grew weary of after only a couple of seasons. It did not seem very for me. Yeah, I mean, I think you would have enjoyed a lot of the performances in it.

I think Mandy Patinkin was pretty tremendous. Claire Daines was very good. It just sort of wore me out after only a couple of seasons. but um i do like her performance in this movie too i think i think along with sean pen i will say like i can enjoy sean pen in this mode yes he is not you know going to the histrionics i think he's very kind of is that yellow cake uranium in there yeah i think um I don't know if I necessarily, and maybe it's because his off-screen persona is so eclipsing this, you know, type of person he's supposed to be playing. It's almost like Noah Emerick should be playing this role, not the one that he plays.

Yeah. You know, make them switch roles or something. But, yeah, I think Naomi Watts is really good in this. It's also, she's in the 2010 best actress lineup, which is why I think, you know, she's completely. with oh okay right right right you're talking about when she gets her next nomination right or that's when no i'm talking about this oh sorry sorry sorry you mean in the in the race i see right yeah yeah she no her 2012 nomination i feel like and i'm sure we talked about this on the miniseries what that feels like the 21 grams thing too of like yeah she's getting a lot of precursor

nominations, but they had to work for all of those nominations because the impossible was not as much of a factor as it could have been. Right. Good movie, I would say that. No, in 2010, I think, you know, in fair game, she's giving this understated but direct performance that I think is really good, but is not the type of thing we give awards for in a year that's like an uncrackable best actress lineup. Right. The 2010 best actress lineup rules. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think one of the things that makes her good in this movie is just this level of believability and competency that is probably harder to achieve and not a lot of actresses could really do it.

I don't think Nicole Kidman could have played this role, where we have to believe that this character is a spy and is good at that job, but then can also navigate, you know, the bureaucratic role. part of her job, but then also the D.C. Dinner Party circuit. Exactly. And like, I don't know if I believe Nicole Kidman in a role that has to do both. I believe her in a role that can do either or. Sure, sure, sure. But Naomi Watts, I think, is very, very believable throughout and without, you know,

being performative or, you know, indicating. I think also, I think she does, she and Penn do work very well together, and they get the points in which their characters need to clash, right? And it is in this, she is, she's the one who's, you know, it's the, it's the thing where it's the duck on the water surface, right? Where on the surface and up, it's placid, it's not moving, it's whatever. And then below the surface, the legs are just like kicking and kicking and kicking. And it's, Valerie is, to all outward appearances in this marriage, almost apolitical. She's, you know, she's the quiet one in the marriage.

He's the one sort of giving people what-for at the dinner parties, and he's loud, and he's sort of, you know, demonstrative about all of this. And then, meanwhile, she's working harder than anybody knows to, you know, get things done and to sort of, you know, and so that ultimately becomes a point in this marriage that clashes, which is he's getting all of this sort of like, you know, the TV time and he's, you know, all of this is playing into his, if not ego, then at least like more demonstrative personality. And she's like, all I want to do is work this thing from the shadows. All I want to do is work this thing outside of the spotlight. And the worst thing that could happened because, like, I got burned, I got blown up. And because of that, all of these assets that I have in the field are getting kidnapped and killed and I can no longer guarantee

anybody's safety and all this sort of thing. So it's, it's just, they're working different levels of the greater sort of problem. You know what I mean? The greater. The greater. sort of like socio-global problem. I mean, yeah, and it has to have that balance between the global story it's telling and the very internal story that it's telling. And I don't think that that is an easy thing to pull off. I mean, people might want more fireworks than this movie offers. I do think that the movie really kind of truncates its ending in a way that isn't super

satisfying and maybe also is limiting to what the performance can achieve. Yes. But, like, I do think that she's testifying in front of Congress. Like, it's, it is, it's weird. Yeah. And we don't see any of that. We just see the real footage. Right.

There's no drama to that event. Yeah. Agreed. So, yeah. You can understand why this wasn't really a huge. This wasn't a movie that was like setting, you know, the award circuit. Right. Well, and certainly that she even gets more attention for mother and child than she does for this.

which it's so funny. If I were to go right from this recording to Twitter and be like, did you know there's a movie in which Naomi Watts and Nat Benning play secretly Mother and Child and, you know what I mean? It's called Mother and Child. And everybody sort of would freak out and be like, what? Because it's funny that that movie exists. And it's not like on every actress Twitter, you know.

Because it's a Rodrigo Garcia movie. Yeah, Rodrigo Garcia movies do tend to just. sort of exist in the background. Do they not? Yeah. What, uh, this movie's, uh,

award success along the season, it was a nominee for what else, but best grown up love story, which I will say, good nomination. It lost to, yeah, the kids are all right.

Also nominated were another year. Love that nomination. Uh, a movie called City Island and the lightkeepers, starring Richard Dreyfus as basically an old lighthouse man who does not like the ladies in his town. Wait, so who's the love story? It's Richard Dreyfus and the lighthouse?

Sure, sure. It's Richard Dreyfus and his little carved mermaid doll that he jerks off with. No. You had to make it bad. You had to make it dirty. You know what, the lighthouse. Good movie. City Island is Andy Garcia.

and Juliana Margulies? I think. I thought to me more, maybe. Maybe. I could be wrong. It would appear that Bly the Danner is Richard Rifis' love interest of the light keepers. I love it. Very good.

A Mamie Gummer joint. A Mamie Gummer joint? Wait, really? Yeah, she's in it. All right. Into it. Into it. Also, fair play, one, along with conviction and howl.

Uh, what? No, you said fair play. You got, you got, uh, Aldenara and Reich Pell. Really, this whole time we've been talking about the Cindy Crawford, Stephen Baldwin. Um, no, fair game, along with conviction and Howell won the National Board of Reviews, Freedom of Expression. A lot of expression happening in 2010. So much expression. Uh, we have used this category on our, this had Oscar Buzz superlatives over on our,

on the Patreon. And now I have devised a game. Oh, Chris. Around the National Board of Review's Freedom of Expression Award. Oh, boy. Okay. Okay. Joe Reed, you're going to be tasked to guess various winners of the Freedom of Expression Award.

Okay. You're going to get hints in stages. Okay. And we'll see how long it takes you to guess these movies. Okay. First, I'm going to give you the year. Okay. I'm going to give you the number of Oscar nominations that movie received.

Okay. Then I'm going to give you the number of wins it received. Okay. And then the categories, however long it takes you to get there. Okay. If a movie received zero Oscar nominations, I'm going to give you an alter egos for that. Oh, I love it. I love it.

A lot of moving parts to this game. Okay. So for each movie, your first hint is the years. Yes. If you can't get it from the year, I'll give you the number of nominations and wins. If you can't get it from the nominations and wins, I'm going to give you the categories they were nominated in. Are you ready? Okay. The first film I have for you is 1996.

Freedom of Expression, 1996. So to play, not to like, you know, buy my time with philosophy, but like the point of this game is to try and, like, figure out what, would count as like an admirable freedom of expression that you're like what you know it's not going to be a movie that shows up on their top 10 but they still want to like give it something but it's got to be something that like speaks to a current event or something I'm going to say 1996 the crucible incorrect okay you have two Two Oscar nominations, but zero wins. In 96.

I'm going to look up these years for you, too. And no, this movie was not on their top 10. Yeah, I figure. Okay. Two nominations, zero wins, 96. Um, The People versus Larry Flint. Correct. Yeah, all right, all right.

Your year for the next movie, the second of 20. I have 20 movies for you. Your year is 1999. 1999. Famously Good Year for Movies. Freedom of expression. Boys Don't Cry. Incorrect.

Okay. Motion picture with seven nominations and zero wins. Okay, so it's not the Cider House rules. Is it the Green Mile? It is not the Green Mile. Okay. So I'm going to give you your categories. Picture, director, actor, adapted screenplay,

cinematography, editing, and sound. This was also in the National Border of Review's top ten movies. Picture? Oh, the insider. The Insider. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The year 2000. The year 2000.

Freedom of Expression. The contender. Incorrect. This movie received zero Oscar nominations. All right. In the year 2000, zero Oscar nominations, Freedom of Expression. It was also not in the National Border of Review's top ten. Okay.

2000, what movie has a little bit of like a political angle? to it. Shoot. Pay it forward. Yeah, the freedom of expression to call all angels. So you're getting your alter egos. This is going to be very easy, but this was too fun to not do this. Okay, okay.

Your alter egos are Blank Man, Rome, and Roshan. Blank Man, Rome? Yes. Like, R-O-M-E? Yes. Well, Blank Man is Dam-O-M... Oh, it's bamboozled. It is bamboozled.

Who are Rome and Roshan? Rome is Jada Pinkett Smith's character and Magic Mike. Oh, right, right. And Roshan is Tommy Davidson in Booty Call. In Booty Call. Okay. Bamboozled. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Okay. Your next movie, guess what?

We are saying in the year 2000. Oh, another one. Okay. All right. Um. What the hell was going on in 2000? Um, traffic. Incorrect.

Yeah. This movie received one Oscar nomination. Zero wins. And it was in the National Board of Review's top 10. Okay. Before Night Falls. Before Night Falls. Correct.

For your next movie, we are staying in the year 2000. All right. Freedom of expression. Honestly, there is no movie that felt freer to express itself than Quills that year, so I'm going to say Quills. Quills is correct. What? No, really?

Yes. Freedom, right, all that shit on the wall. Oh, my God, are you kidding me? That's crazy. Your next year is 2003. All right. O3. Freedom of expression.

Trying to think of the, like, because O3 was another one where a lot of big contenders didn't quite make it. There was a lot of indie consideration that year. There was shattered glass. Incorrect. Okay. You are looking at one Oscar nomination with zero wins. It was not in the National Border Review's top 10.

Hmm. 13? Incorrect. Uh, your category is best original screenplay. Okay. In 03? Yes. Um.

I don't see dirty pretty things as a freedom of expression. Well, no, maybe, because there's like, it's about immigrants in England. I'm going to say dirty pretty things. Dirty pretty things is correct. Yay, okay. Your next year is 2004. All right. Freedom of expression in 04.

O-4 had such films as, oh, God, Born Supremacy was that year. I'm going to say Maria Full of Grace. Incorrect. This movie received zero Oscar nominations, and it was not on the National Board of Review's top ten. I wonder if we did an episode on this. We did not, and I do not want to do an episode on this. Is it the Passion of the Christ? Oh, you motherfucker, you got the next one.

I also have the Passion of the Christ, but it was the next one. Passion of the Christ received three Oscar nominations. Oh, right, it did receive three nominations. And it was not on the National Board of Reviews. But the National Board of Review gave a shared Freedom of Expression Award. Freedom of Expression Award to the Passion of the Christ. And Fahrenheit 9-11. There you go, Fahrenheit 9-11.

That seems very National Border Review to do. to split that hair that way, yeah. The alter egos that I had for you for Fahrenheit 9-11 were Walter, Batman, and boys' music video performer. Oh, my God.

For when Britney shows up and cold. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay. All right, your next year is 2006. 2006. Freedom of expression I was going to just say notes on a scandal, just to be funny. Babble. Incorrect.

This movie received one Oscar nomination, zero wins, and was not on the National Board of Review, top 10. Okay. One nomination in 06. Flags of Our Fathers. Incorrect. The movie was nominated in Best Foreign Language Film. Oh, in 06. Fuck.

Okay. Wait. Sama Hayek voice. You'll get there. You'll get there, baby. I know listeners is screaming. Wait, is it water? And from Canada water.

Really? One national border. Wow. I was like, is it the lives of others? I was trying to, like, get all five of them. It's the lives of others, Pan's Labyrinth. Water, um, from Denmark. The Lives of Others.

From Algeria. Shit. Anyway. Anyway, uh, guess what? Your next movie is also in 2006. Okay. Um. incorrect. This movie

received zero Oscar nominations and was not in the National Border Review's top ten. I love that I just quickly am incorporating this into this game. Yeah, no, that's good. Oh, six. No Oscar nomination, so it's not

an inconvenient truth. It's... Was Fast Food Nation that year? uh it might have been but this is that is not the correct movie okay some of these years i didn't pull every single movie so if i'm like no that's not right it could have won this but it's not the sure thing that i pulled uh this movie receives zero oscar nomination so you're getting your alter egos that's the next clue okay your alter egos are rani camerary jesus martinez and lill lill lill lill lill lill lill lill lill lill

Will. Fuck. Ronnie Camerre, Jesus Martinez, and Lil. Oh, God. Start with the first one. Say it again. Ronnie Camerari. R-O-N-N-N-I-E. R-O-N-N-Y.

Camereri. Camerary. Spell Camerary. C-A-M-M-A-R-E-R-I. Uh Should I know this off the top of my head? You should know this. You'll get there. Ronnie Camerary, um,

you might know him, uh, for his looks, perhaps a specific feature or disability. Oh. Ronnie Camerary. The love interest to a very, Iconic performance? Ronnie Camerary, love interest, iconic. Knowing that this is a 2006 movie that received zero Oscar nominations,

I don't think you'll need to get the other alter egos to get this, but. Ronnie Camerari is really bugging me, because it is familiar to me. Is it Specific disability. From a movie that a lot of people watched during the pandemic. Oh, from Contagent? No. From...

People watch this movie as like a feel good. Like, there was a lot of people gathering around this movie. Oh, oh, oh, that's his name in Moonstruck? Yes. Oh, okay. I totally... Okay, very good. So you have Nicholas Cage. I lost my hand

I lost my bride Okay Nicholas Cage in 2006 is If it's the wicker man I'm gonna shit Is it It's not the wicker man

Nicholas Cage in 06 Is it Port of Call New Orleans Is it bad lieutenant port of call New Orleans? Incorrect You are working way hard What do what type of movies Have we talked about on this podcast? This the podcast episode

I should say Political movies. Nicholas Cage doing... Not necessarily political, but like what era of the movie? Oh, oh, World Trade Center. World Trade Center. Jesus Martinez was Michael Peña in The Lincoln Lawyer? And Lil was Maria Bello in Coyote. I knew Lil was familiar to me.

I probably would have gotten Lil at some point, but probably wouldn't have gotten World Trade Center for Maria Bello. Your next movie is 2007. 07 freedom of expression goes to 07. I'm going to feel free to express myself in 07 on the subject of... Type of expression in the title of the movie. Oh, really? Um... type of expression.

Like laughing or crying or... God. I'm just going to throw away a guess on Michael Clayton. Incorrect, not Michael Clayton. This movie received zero Oscar nominations and was not in the National Border Review top ten. Okay. All right. Um...

Cry Freedom Boys Don't Cry The Beloved Country Um You're not getting the type of expression You have not said the type of expression Okay All right

Um Zero Oscar nominations O7 Um What What, what, what, what, what, what, what, Oh, God, um Freedom Land

I don't know Incorrect. Your alter egos are Macbeth, Edie Amin, and Tashon. Macbeth, uh, Denzel Washington, Macbeth. Correct. Of Forrest Whitaker. And what's the third one? Tishon. Is this the great debaters? It is the great debaters. Tishon is Kimberly Alisa's character in the, in the excellent iconic. Set it off. There you go. Yeah. All right. Your next year is 2009.

2009, freedom of expression. The Messenger. Incorrect, this is a motion picture that got two Oscar nominations, zero wins, and was in the National Board of Review's top ten. Oh, nine, two Oscar nominations. Give me a second. Revolutionary Road. No, that's 08.

Revolutionary Road also only received one Oscar nomination. Wow. No, Deacons was probably nominated for that, so it probably did get two. Oh, 9, 2009, 2009. Is that your answer, though? Sure. Because I'll give you your categories. Actor and Supporting Actor.

Oh, in 09. Invictus. Invictus. Your next movie is 2011. 2011. The hell. Incorrect. This movie receives zero Oscar nominations.

Well, how rude. 2011, zero Oscar nominations. But got an NBR, um, Margin' call got a nomination. Uh, Tinker Taylor, Soldier, Spy got a nomination. Um. Freedom of Expression. Shame.

Incorrect, not shame. Your alter egos are Annel, Grace Jones, and Hap Jackson. Annell is Daryl Hannah. Incorrect. Remember, this can include television. Oh, Anel. Grace Jones and Hap Jackson. Somebody played Grace Jones? Uh-huh.

Oh, fucker. Is Anel, whoever played Anel in the TV version of Steel Magnolias? Yes, but I can't tell you who it is. No. I know. What year is the NBR movie again we're talking about? 2011. 2011.

Is it for colored girls? Incorrect. What is it? It is pariah. Oh. And Peridia played Annel in the TV Steel Magnolias. Kim Wayans, iconically played Grace Jones on In Living Color. And Hap Jackson is Rob Morgan in Mudbound.

Okay. All right. Um, all right, hit me with the next one. Next year, 2012. Um, uh, Beasts of the Southern Wild. Incorrect. It receives zero Oscar nominations and was on the National Board of Review's top 10. Zero Oscar nominations, but was on the National Board of Review top 10.

It's, um... Oh, I feel like I can get this. 2012. Zero Oscar nominations, National Board of Review. Put this on their top ten. Go off, I guess. Oh, God. Okay, that feels like a little bit of a clue.

Bad movie. 2012, top ten. Give me the next hand. All right, you're going to get your alter egos. Your alter egos are Linus Caldwell, Fern, and Jack Ryan. Matt Damon, someone, and... Ben Affleck? No.

No. Harrison Ford? No. God, all right, wait, Matt Damon... I can include TV. Oh, God, Promised Land. Promised Land. Caldwell is Matt Damon in the Oceans movies.

Fern is Francis McDormon in Nomad Land. Right. And Jack Ryan is John Krasinski on that terrible TV show. Right, right. Your next one. 2014. 2014, NBR, Freedom of Expression Award goes to, um, the imitation game. Incorrect.

This movie received zero Oscar nominations and was not on the National Border Reviews, top 10. Okay. A most violent year? Incorrect. Your alter egos are Arthur Leander, Mum, and Christian Avasarala. Oh, Christian Avazarala is Shori Agadashlu. Whose Arthur Leander is... On the Expanse, yeah. Gaila Garcia Bernal in Station 11.

Yeah. So it's, um, Gael Garcia-Bernal in 24. What's the middle name? Mum. Mum. M-U-M-M-M-A-M-A. What was Gael in 2014? Zero Oscar nominations. Right, right, right.

Is it like... This is a directorial debut that people at the time were like, Oh, this is going to happen. And I was like, ah! Oh. And, yeah. A directorial debut starring Guy-L-Garcy.

I believe it's a directorial debut. Gail Garcia-Bernal, Christian of Osseralla, or that's Shorak, Doshley's character, and someone listed as mum. Is it like Jackie Weaver? I'd have recently played a mum. Is it like Jackie? recently. Jackie Weaver, Emel de Staunton. Um, no. Um, um, but along those lines? No. No. Okay. Why am I not getting this? This is so dumb. Um.

This was a directorial debut of someone who was, uh, at this time, very famous for being a television personality, leaving their television. Oh, I saw this movie at fucking Tiff. It's the John Stewart movie. It's the person's name, right? You got it. It's Rosewater. Good Lord.

And Mum is Claire Foy and all of us strangers. Fuck. Wow. Guess what? We're staying in 2014. Another 2014 movie. Okay. Oh, heck.

let's see 2014 movie and I guess if I would have guessed the imitation game before it would have if it was this one Not the imitation I would have told you I would have yeah Yeah okay then It's going to be

Oh what was that Reese Witherspoon movie that I loved At that festival Um The Good Lie Incorrect This movie received two Oscar nominations and one win. Oh, okay.

Well, that's interesting. That's a horse of a different color. I can't imagine. Well, no, Whiplash got more than just the two. One, one. Is it Still Alice? It is not Still Alice. Still Alice only had one nomination.

It's categories. You're going to get this. Best Picture and Original Song. Oh, God. Of course. It's Selma. Selma. Famously, best picture, but only two nominations, yes.

We're, uh, we're at the, we're at the home stretch, 2015. Beasts of no nation. Beasts of no nation, correct. Okay. No Oscar nominations was not in the National Board of Review top 10. The alter egos that I pulled for you are Knuckles, a. Brown, which Abraham O'Tah plays in Spider-Man movies.

Okay. And then Q's assistant for Kurt Egyoan in Skyfall. What was the Idrisalban name that you pulled? Knuckles from Sonic the Hedgehog, too. I really wish we could have gotten there because this would have made you so mad. You idiot. Okay. Your next year is 2019. A bombshell.

Incorrect. This movie receives zero Oscar nominations was not on the national Board of Review top 10. In 2019. I also definitely saw this at that TIF, and I don't think you did. The report. Incorrect. Your alter egos are killmonger, Curtis Taylor Jr. and Ma. Just Mercy.

Just Mercy. That is correct. Is Octavia Spencer at Ma in Just Mercy? No. Ma is Brie Larson in Rooms. Oh, a lot of Ma's. A lot of possible Maas. I know.

I was trying to deceive you. Yeah, you deceive her. Okay. Your next year is 2020. Oh, God, that cursed year. Ammonite. Incorrect. Three Oscar nominations.

Freedom of expression. Amonite. How dare you? Three Oscar nominations, no wins, not on the National Board of Reviews, top ten. Three nominations, no wins. Is it like News of the World? Incorrect. All right.

I think News of the World got like five nominations. Yeah, it got a lot. 2020 Oscars, a weird time. Three Oscar nominations, no wins. Is that what you're saying? Correct. Minari. Incorrect.

That had more than three. Are supporting actor, adapted screenplay, and original song. All right. So supporting actor in 2020, it was two from... uh uh judas and the black messiah it was one from chicago seven it was oh is it one night in miami one night in miami is correct leslie odin jr final movie yes 2021 freedom of expression award in 2021 went to um Huh.

201. This is the thing of like Oscar years that are 10 and 15 years older. We can remember those better than last years or two years ago. It's the goddamn truth. Being the Ricardo's freedom of expression. Are you kidding me? Well, no, it's freedom of expression to tell

Desi Arnaz to stop gaslighting you in those words. No, three Oscar nominations Zero wins was not on the National Board of Review's top ten. Three nominations Zero wins in 2021. Okay, so what was happening in these categories in 2021? It was... The Lost Daughter?

Incorrect. Your categories, this is going to get it to you immediately. Animated feature, documentary feature, and international film. Wait, that title, shoot. It was the only film to get nominated in all three of those categories. I loved it. It was so good, and I can't remember the title of it now. One word title.

Right. Four letters. Right. Um... Oh, my God. You have it, and we've been going long, so I'll just give it to you. Yeah. It's Flea.

Flea. Thank you. Flea, incredible movie listeners, if you have to catch up the flea. All right. Joe, you did it. Oh, my God. You broke my brain. You broke my brain.

What this was interesting to realize, unless something slipped by me, the only National Board of Review Freedom of Expression winner to ever get an Oscar is Selma. So basically, you want an Oscar. You do not want to win the Freedom of Express. expression of war. True. Yeah. Cursed.

We're going to remember that next year. Any last notes for fair game? Yeah, let me pull up my, let's see. Oh, that it opens with guerrillas, Clint Eastwood, which is like, sign of the time, man, sign of the time. Also, the vocal cameo from somebody playing Chris Matthews doing perfect Chris Matthews's shouty voice is made my day. that was so funny. That's it. All right. So let's move into the IMDB game, Joe. Would you like to explain that? Yes. Why don't we move into the IMDB game? Every week, we end our episodes with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with the name of an actor or actress and try and guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for. If any of those titles are television, voice only performances, or non-acting credits. We mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. And if that's not enough, it just becomes a free for all of hints.

We love that. Joe, would you like to give her guess first? I will guess first. All right. So you mentioned earlier in the episode that Fair Game came out in the same year as you will meet a tall dark stranger. I chose from that film. We have surprisingly not done Josh Brolin. Oh, that's interesting.

Um, Dune. Stepson to Miss Streisand. Yes. Dune is incorrect. Fuck. Milk. Milk is incorrect. Mother fucker.

Right off the top, you're going to be getting your years. 2007. 2014, 2018, and 2019. 2007 is no country for old men. Should have guessed it. Correct. What's the other one? What are the other ones?

2014, 2018, 2018, 2019. Jesus. 2014, Josh Brolin. is that you do not like this movie i don't no oh i like this movie you do not like this movie interesting was it an oscar was it an oh inherent vice inherent vice um what are the other two years 2018 2019 adventures infinity war avengers endgame correct there you go there we go there you go Okay. Finished it strong.

You just immediately got those years, and I was like, he is not thinking about Thanos. Yeah, no, no. All right. So yours I pulled from the cast of Go, because of course I did. And we've never done a known for for Katie Holmes. So I am going to ask you for that. No television? One television.

Dawson's Creek. Correct. Uh, the dark night Um, no, incorrect Wow, uh, wonder boys No, incorrect, but also I'm going to ask you to reflect on why the dark night is incorrect when I give you your years. Your years are 0, 0.05, and 2011. Dark night was 05?

No. Why are you incorrect for the dark night? Oh, God, God. I, that, oh, man. I just totally just, like, spit that out there without even thinking... I was in my mind thinking Batman begins. And I just... And the Dark Night was what came out.

Idiot. So Batman begins. And don't feel too bad. I feel like I should get that. That's what I meant to say. Here's what I'm going to tell you. You weren't going to guess either one of these other two next. So you would have gotten to your years anyway.

So I guarantee. Fine. What are the years again? 04 and 2011. All right, so not disturbing behavior is 04 First Daughter? Yes. There you go. 2011.

Placing that in time for her. God, she was in... I think there's another big ensemble that she's in. That's... Uh... Damn it, after the last episode, I should have just came out with First Daughter because after the Prince and Me for Julius Stiles...

Yeah, there you go. There you go. Prince and Me has the same fucking font on the poster as First Daughter. It's that sort of, um... Oh, what's the... It's like, it's not aerial. These movies are like secret,

like this is one of the secret things that get you through in a known for because I guarantee you change. Lacing Liberty is on Mandy Moore's. Yeah. I'm going to ask you to look at the poster for First Daughter once we're done with this, though. And you're going to know exactly the font that I'm talking about. It's that like Adam Jones.

Well, she's also doing the stance with like her head cock to the side and one and her hands on her hip. One eyebrow up. Yeah. Poster pose. 2011, Katie Holmes. She had another big movie. It's not a Katie Holmes movie. Here's what I'm going to tell you.

It's not a Katie Holmes movie. She's definitely, like, the thankless love interest. She's the thankless love interest for an actor who has a ton of beautiful A-list actors playing his thankless love interests throughout the years. Right. Is it Tom Cruise? No. They weren't in a movie together. They were just promoting movies at the same time.

No, this is a movie that every once in a while. has a viral moment sort of sweep through because of a supporting actor a scene of a supporting actor in this movie. Goes viral complimentary or derogatory? Complementary, but also like ridiculous. Oh, okay.

I find it deeply funny, but... Oh, man, I know this is right there. This actor is... This actor is a franchise unto himself. Right. Not like Statham or the Rock. No, you're in the wrong genre. You're in the wrong genre.

Okay. Comedy. Yeah. Will Ferrell. Nope. No. But like you're, you're circle in the airport. Right there.

You're circle in the airport. Right there. Um. Steve Correll? No. No. No. Um, franchise.

Deverted to another airport. Franchise unto himself, um, sort of like makes whatever movies he wants to make. Every once in a while. Sandler. Oh, this is Jack and Joe. There you go. Jack and Jill.

Jack and Jill. How do you feel about the Dunkicino, uh, when Dunkettino commercial goes viral every once in a while? I like Dunkettino. I find it very funny. Oh, the Chino. It's not Al anymore. It's D.

Don't mind if I do. What's my name? Dunkinio! It's a whole new game. Dunkin'o! You want creamy goodness. I'm your friend. Say hello to my chocolate blend.

We did it. We did it. We did it. All right. Fair game. That's our episode. If you want more, this had Oscar Buzz. You can check out the Tumblr at this had oscarbus.ttumlr.com.

You should also follow us on Twitter at had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz. Please also follow us on Patreon at Patreon. on.com slash this had Oscar buzz. Joe, where can the listeners find more of you? Oh, the socials, letterbox, that kind of thing. At Joe Reed. Read spelled R-E-I-D. And I am also on Twitter and letterbox at Krispy File. That's F-E-I-L. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork, Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Meevis for their technical guidance and Taylor Cole for our theme music. Remember to rate, like and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Play, Stitcher, wherever else you get your podcast, not Stitcher. That's dead. I still

need to be a copy. Five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple podcast visibility. So please express your freedom for expression and give us a five-star review. That's all for this week. We hope you'll be back next week for more fun. Thank you.