This Had Oscar Buzz - 293 – Hair (with Natalie Walker) (70s Spectacular – 1979)

Episode Date: May 27, 2024

The 70s Spectacular comes to a close this week with actress Natalie Walker joining us to discuss 1979 and Milos Forman’s adaptation of Hair. The brainchild of Galt MacDermot, Gerome Ragni, and James Redo, Hair took Broadway by storm in the late 1960s for its narrative and political audacity, presenting the free-love and anti-war hippie movement of the … Continue reading "293 – Hair (with Natalie Walker) (70s Spectacular – 1979)"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. We want to talk to Marilyn Hack, Millen Hacks and French. Dick Pooh. Get the sunshine in. The sunshiny. Let the sun shine in. Hair, the film.

Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that through circular logic can make it anywhere because we made it here. We didn't get into the lyrics of that classic song, but sometimes it's a little. You know, if you really break it down granularly, anyway, we're not Gary Mulligan here. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we talk about a different movie that once a lot of time had Lofty Academy. me award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we're here to perform the autopsy, and in the month of May, we're celebrating the Oscar era that was the 1970s. I am your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with my 16-year-old tattooed woman

who got busted for her beauty, Joe Reed. A hearty, glibby-glop, gloopy, niby-nabby-nuby to you, Chris File. Oh, good morning, Starsha. I think I've said that before to you, and you, who was the last. not as well-versed in this musical. I wasn't until now. No, it's a whole new me. Yeah. We can't wait to bring our guest in. Everyone, you know her and lover. Natalie Walker, Natalie Walker is here. Yay. Oh my God, I can't wait. I'm so excited. I was, I already was hooting and hollering at the invocation of Carrie Mulligan in shame, taking her sweet-ass time with those lyrics. So I'm very

I'm glad that I didn't have to hold myself back any longer. Excellent. Excellent performance that we didn't, I think, even mention in that episode. Natalie, we've talked for a minute about you coming on the show, and I think we got you for the perfect thing. Oh, it's absolutely flawless. For the listeners at home, my background is a photo of myself and Will Swenson at the stage door for the Broadway revival of hair that was on right after I graduated high school when I really thought I was going to become a hippie myself, absolutely go to a be-in with my friends. My friends and I

saw it and we were like, we're going to have our own being. I got so high I didn't speak for four and a half hours. I'm a big fan of this score and this was actually my first time seeing the movie. So I'm very pumped to talk about that. So I, my story with that revival is that I, that was at the Hershfeld on 45th. And I lived on 45th for about three years. But it was, we were sort of going and visiting the, the place when we were looking to rent it when hair was still at the Hirschfeld. And then by the time we had like signed the lease and gotten there, they were already on the way out, which is like I could have seen hair anyway. It's not like I needed to live across the street from it to go see it. But I missed the experience of the adoring stage door crowds. Yeah, being annoyed by the stage door, being annoyed by the lottery. Remember when people had to show. I could have been across the street from Gavin Creel that whole time. And I wasn't. So that's a little bit of a missed opportunity. But yeah, I didn't see that one.

I think I got scared away by the they're going to bring you out of the audience and onto the stage of it all. And I'm like, no. Only if you're in like the first 10 row. I know. I know it was irrational. I was also very, very like penny pinching back then where like I was not able to afford a Broadway ticket for a lot of things.

So that's fine. Freshly to New York City. I'm glad but unsurprised that this conversation is starting with that revival, which is I would still argue one of the best things. things I've ever seen. Oh, yeah, you saw it. Okay, nice. An incredible production.

Formative. Formative. Absolutely. And it's like you have young theater people like us being like, well, we're just going to be go and be activists now. We're going to go be hippies. Like, I'm going to put like Sondheim lyrics on a sign and then go to a protest, you know, as you do.

Yes. Absolutely. And the lotto tickets. We're in the front row as they tend to be because nobody wants to crane their neck up except, you know, a child that doesn't have any thoughts of cricks or sleeping weird and waking up with your body seized up. Yeah, you don't have bones at that age. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so I was just staring up and I was like, I'm in it with them. I'm so, like, you're talking about being anxious about having to go up, but at 18, you're just like, yeah, I'm part of this now.

Woo, me and Casey Levy are doing spaghetti arms. Oh, my God. And all of the media attention was on like the, oh, on stage nudity, blah, blah, blah, blah, which I imagine in the front row must have been all the more time. Which didn't change in 50 years. It's the thing that people talk about first when they talk about this musical. It's crazy. Listen, we are a Puritan country. We are obsessed with nudie parts when they happen.

Nudies. A genuine phenomenon we're going to be talking about this episode. But that whole dissonance of like theater kids being obsessed with this show, being about what it's about and the message that it has, if that seems silly at all, I think it speaks to the power of the score especially. But like the power of just like the stagecraft that is possible in this show that like you can really get wrapped up in it and you have this really dropped in experience with what. this show is trying to create or embody, um, even if, you know, you are not of the, you know, type of milieu that the show is presenting, you know? Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and I think one of the interesting things that we'll talk about when we get into the movie is, you know, dropping in from, you know, a different era.

And that, like, by the time the movie comes along, you're like a, a sign, not only like a dozen years away from the musical, but like a real significant dozen years. Like a lot's gone on and a lot's sort of been cycled through the culture by that point. So there's a sense of tourism to the movie. There's a sense of like, you know, the ride to it as you're just sort of just like cruising past it's like, I'll observe these hippies in the park. And my sense from reading about the musical is that that wasn't as much the case, certainly in the late 60s when that was on Broadway.

I mean, you look at the old photos, and I think I've even seen, like, video on, like, you know, old E True Hollywood story type programming, where it's like you have actual hippies who it's just like, the idea of getting actual hippies who are never not high on weed. on to a Broadway schedule and performing? How did they manage that? I can't understand it. But, you know, you see that and you have the old, like, late 60s theater ladies, like, slightly aghast but amused. I distinctly remember seeing, like, photos of that, like, from that production.

Because, like, the original production, which originated off Broadway, came to Broadway, was a sensation, became like a cast album that every household had, but also kind of a factory for people who would move out of, like, the hippie movement into Hollywood, most notably Diane Keaton and like Pete Paradine, really, really fascinating. Yeah.

Well, and it's also just like the, you know, the vortex of vortex is the wrong word, but the clash or combination, of theater kid energy and flower child energy is a potent. It's one of those things where it's like you're not supposed to mix like ammonium with anything or else like, you know, everybody will pass out. It's one of those things that's just like you really need to like ventilate the space when you get the theater kid energy and the hippie, which I guess is why they first produced this at the Delacourt because like they needed the open air to, you know, to really accommodate it all.

my metaphor got away from me a little bit there but you understand no i love it it reminds me of all those tweets that are like if we could mobilize all the swifties yes to argue for any political game yes if you could come figure out the climate crisis swifties oh my god they're in one moment yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah early 2000s theater kids could have stopped the vietnam war like absolutely the biggest class ever you're in town video on its own just yeah the energy that like requires the inner kids to like understand the secret codes to be able to watch like bootleg cast recordings on YouTube is exactly the kind of energy we need to like solve the Middle East peace crisis like 100% and climate crisis uh yeah

inflation the housing yes yes yes etc yeah yeah yeah all of it um I mean, the thing that I'm kind of struck by immediately for the movie, I mean, we'll talk about the, like, this movie's a little late when we get into that. But also, as a piece of adaptation, it's such a hard task, I think, bringing this movie or bringing this musical into the screen. Because, like, there's not really a lot of plot to hair. It's a lot of vignettes. It's a lot of stagecraft. You know, you have the core. relationships that for the movie, you know, to try to bring a plot and a story arc into it, they really change a lot of those relationships. They change some of the characterizations. They condense characters. Yeah. The movie adds a whole lot of like plot, plot that doesn't exist in the musical.

That when I went and read back, you know, what was added to it, I'm just like, oh, yeah, this is all kind of the stuff that I find. dissatisfying with the movie, right? Where it's just like, that pat ending, that sort of like wrapped up in roads, it's like, well, and that's, you remember the arrested development guy who's like, and that's why you don't roughhouse in the car, whatever, it's like, and that's why you don't take your friend's place in an army barracks, because like, that's what'll happen. Yeah. So the title song suddenly being a prison sequence. Yeah. But all that being said, I think because.

that the task is so hard. I still really like this movie and I really like respect how they adapted it even though I think it's missing something essential about what the stage show is and it doesn't translate that very well. Do we think it's possible to translate that

or is it so much dependent on having your audience be there in the room? I think it is very dependent on that being a shared experience because I, to your tourism point, I think it's about being dropped into this world. And we barely ever see any pushback on the world. You just are dropped in when you see it live. And it's just this is the world. This is how it works. And so you're so swept up in the fun of it that you're. that you aren't really thinking about how you might react to these people if you saw them on the street. You're just like, I'm with them. I'm one of them. And I think that's hard to replicate. It's kind of, I kept thinking it's kind of cats, the stage version. It's cats, but it's hippies. Because you're just dropped into the world. Right, right. You're like jellicles. Got it. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. Each hippie comes forward and is like, I'm a hippie and this is my deal.

No, I think that's a good observation because also when you have like straight society represented in the show, it's lampoonish, it's a satire, it's one of the tribe, you know, dressing up in drag as like basically a Dame Edna character to represent, you know, what those people are like. And then in the movie, you know, we're going into, you know, Upper West Side Mansions. Well, and that Beverly DeAngelo's character, like, starts as, it's like, in the stage version, from what I'm given to understand, she's just sort of, like, one of the tribe from the very beginning. And whereas this one, like, she's on the horse and she's, you know, she's having her debutante ball and whatever. And it's like, oh, they have to really, like, spend half of the movie pulling her out of that. And it's just sort of a lot of business. Whereas, like, right, if it instead, straight society was just like Mrs. Garrett, then, like, that would be fine. You know what I mean? Like, that's, you know, that's all you need. Boy, watching her hoof it on top of that table was worth the price

of admission. So thrilling. Watching her get the biggest kick out of Treat Williams shaking his little ass in her face. I mean, she is all of us, right? She's the audience surrogate right there. He's got life and he gave her hers. And I love that. I sent you all a clip last night that I found because I had to look up, once I saw Charlotte Ray, I had to look up the thing where she and Joan Collins got into that little tiff in the late aughts where

I can't remember the show, but like Linda Evans and Joan Collins were in some show on Broadway, and it was the opening night and Charlotte Ray is there on the red carpet, and she's just going, Joan Collins is a bitch. That's what everybody says about her. She's so difficult to work with in whatever.

And then Entertainment Tonight, being the little like rabble rousers that they are, like showed that clip to Joan Collins. And she's like, who is this awful cow saying these terrible things about me? And so this was years later, a red carpet reporter asking Charlotte Ray about that. And she's sort of explaining how like, yeah. We're going to get salacious here. They played it for her and she said, who is that old cow? And I really felt badly because I, I had a long siege of the flu, and it was my first night out.

I did write a note to her and had him slip in under her door, dressing room door. And I said, I apologize. You were excellent in the play, signed sincerely the old cow. And in the meanwhile, this poor man tries to, like, lean on the backdrop, thinking it's a wall. And fully just, just like, I'm going down. David Hyde Pierce. Step and repeats are not solid ground. Step and repeats are not your friends.

They're not to be trusted. But David Hyde Pierce then runs into the rescue and picks up this old man. We got to post this clip. It's the funniest thing I've ever seen. Yeah, absolutely, Mench. Also, serendipity in 1979, the Joan Collin's Camp Classic, The Bitch, in which she plays, the titular bitch came out. Tell me that God doesn't exist when that kind of, uh,

concurrence happens. That's fantastic. Madam Webb, I've never seen Mrs. Garrett's webb connects the mall. I love it. I believe in Madam Webb. Just Joan Collins drinking a code red Mountain Dew in the background. Oh, fantastic.

Well, okay, so 1979's the bitch. Let's talk a little bit about 70 cinema before we really get into the movie. Natalie, as our guest, we have been asking all of our guests in this mini-series, their favorite Oscar win of the 70s. We haven't had any overlap yet, so no pressure. I think it's kind of a given that Liza means the world to me. But I come to Liza more in the moments where she's having comeback. Like all of Liza's resurgence are kind of more important to me.

But I do love the Liza win specifically because it comes just under four years after Judy passes. And so there's an element to that win that feels to me in an incredibly earned on her own way as well. But I do also love it as the Academy going, we waited too long to give Judy what she deserved. And now it's too late. and it feels like a little bit of writing some wrongs involving the country girl. Grace Kelly, you are on notice. Yes. And I also just love the end of Liza speech, just the earnestness and sweetness of just you've made me very happy.

It really moves me every time. Yeah. The simplicity of it. I love that. but I also I'm a huge Nashville head and I love that I love that song win so much

because it kind of feels to me like a win for the entire set of songs I listen to that album like all of those people are real people all of those artists are real artists and I think it's like also such a such an award acknowledging

how fantastic it is and how brilliant it is that all of those actors sort of co-wrote at least their own person's songs to know your character that well that Altman can be like and you figure out what your person sounds like what your person's sound is and what they sing about I just love that so much and I'm easy I mean it it seems like such a simple song but it actually has to work as as kind of your eyes in rent level of difficulty in terms of, well, yes, because I think we talked about this on our call-in on the Patreon, that what's so amazing about that scene and that song is that every woman in the audience thinks that he's singing about them. Yes. It's ironic because he was singing about me, like, and I didn't even know it.

And nobody knows. And that's not even in the IMDB trivia. but yeah I think it has such a high degree of difficulty and Keith Keratin just clears it so easily no pun intended

and it's just it's so charming it's so lovely and yeah I watch it yeah I watch it same and I go is he singing about me

tuck my hair behind my ear on like yeah Keith there's people here Keith everybody can see Oh, my God. It's all right, guys. Really, really, really, really a phenomenal win.

Best movie. Best movie. That's a great pick, though. I love that. Who is your, we also got a question, since you're a Nashville head, we got a question about our favorite female performances in the movie. What's your top? What's the number one?

Oh, absolutely. Oh, I listen to the bonus. Thomas. Thank you for this question. Natalie gets it. I'm a huge Gary. I'm a huge Gary. So for all the Gary's at home, I'm trying to keep my voice in a listenable register for all of you because I would be annoyed at all.

If there's some shrill girl on the pod. But I, I, too, was gagged by Joe saying that Ronnie would not be in his lineup because. I did not realize it would be so controversial. I think Ronnie is my, Ronnie is my winner. I love everyone so much. Geraldine Chaplin's monologues on the tape recorder are so thrilling. But Ronnie doing that breakdown scene for all the talk about how Prussian Nashville is with regard to the John Lennon assassination, I think of that Ronnie Blakely breakdown scene every time Britney Spears posts an Instagram caption. Oh, my God. I read it all like that because it.

always like people are sharing it and it's funny and then it's the saddest thing in the world and I think that that entire sequence she is walking this razor's edge of it's really really funny and I'm so scared and it's kind of funny again and oh oh oh and it's and then sounds like a dream when she is singing like that do tape deck and his tractor into do's I'm I mean, I mean, it's... Luckily, I'm going to end up seeing Nashville like 10 more times. So, like, I will probably have a different ranking every... Yeah, I'm seeing it.

I'm seeing it tomorrow morning, tomorrow morning at the Paris. Where are you seeing it? Oh, my God. The Paris is doing an Academy Branch Selects series. Nice. And the casting directors branch selected Nashville to show. So every... That's fantastic.

I think it's Wednesday nights and Sunday. noon showings they're doing that. I finally got to see Now Voyager on the big screen for the first time because the costume designers branch selected that. So yeah, the Paris has really been great. Especially for Nashville. Like you want to start your day with Nashville. Absolutely. All the stuff where they're in church too, I'm like, yeah. I want to start my morning with Lily Tomlin singing gospel. You can just keep just like constantly just yelling mother at the screen and you'll be right every time. Yes.

It's great. Perfect. Especially for Karen Black. Karen Black showing up is when I'm like charging the screen, you know. Yeah. Well, Barbara Harris, like, clinging to Karen Black, like, it's, like, she's the young girl in opening night is also that I'm looking at both of them and I'm going, Mother, Mother, Mother, Mother, Mother, Mother.

Mother, Mother. Well, uh, speaking of her. Joe, would you like to let the listeners know about the Patreon? Yeah, think of me as Treat Williams in the park and approaching you for just some spare change. Just, just $5. If you have $5, you can become a member of the Internet's most exclusive club, which is this at Oscar Buzz, turbulent brilliance, our Patreon. For $5 a month, you can buy your favorite podcast hosts, a tab of LSD. That's right. A ride on a horse in Central Park. We have so much to offer on our Patreon. Again, $5 a month gets you two full extra episodes. That's 50% of your normal allotment of this had Oscar buzz that you get extra for this had Oscar Buzz turbulent brilliance. The first episode on the Patreon every month, we are calling an exceptions episode, which is a movie. that we would normally cover on this at Oscar Buzz because it's a movie that had great

Oscar expectations and disappointing results, except oops, the Oscar screwed it up and gave them like a nomination here or there. And so we can't talk about it on main feed, but we can talk about it on the Patreon. So such films have included already nine The Lovely Bones, Charlie Wilson's War, that misbegotten film, Vanilla Sky. The Mirror has two faces. Barbara's Insane Treatise on Beauty, The Mirror Has Two Faces. We just recently, for The Seventy Spectacular, discussed The Who's Tommy, which you can listen to Chris Fyle, yell out baked beans multiple times throughout that episode. Really fantastic. Second episode of every month, we are calling an excursion, which is an off-format, sort of not exactly but a movie, but we'll be.

talking about weird little Oscar ephemera that we like. So entertainment weekly fall movie preview issues. We'll thumb through those. We'll watch an old movie awards show like the MTV Movie Awards. Hollywood Reporter Roundtables. We give our own awards for the best of the year. We'll check in on the Oscar race periodically. We should do that once we get to, once we get past Cannes maybe and see what's going on there. For the 70s, we are branching out and trying our hand at a commentary episode, a live-to-ta-tape commentary episode on a deeply normal movie called Eyes of Laura Mars about... So normal. Fashion, murder, and prescience. And we like all of those things. So...

First time we're doing a commentary track. And what better for a movie that says fashion, but also serial killers, but also that's so Raven. Yeah, exactly. Exactly right. Plus, we have a hotline where you can call in with questions. that we answer periodically, we have a reader or listen to polls. We have comments on the Patreon that people can get into. That is

our first little dip in the toe of the community building. We'll see where that goes in the coming year. And it's all happening on this head Oscar Buzz turbulent brilliance. So go over to patreon.com slash this head Oscar Buzz. Sign up

for $5 a month. See how you like it. I think you'll like it. And we have a testimonial from our very guest, Natalie Walker, who will be one of your fellow Gary's if you decide to show up. Absolutely. All for the cost of having a couple flowers painted on your face at a Central Park being, you can join us.

Exactly right. It's exactly right. All of these episodes just waiting behind their enclosures in the arms of... I want to have a word about the horses for a second, though, because this is the second movie that I've seen in a month that has touched on the phenomenon that, like, people used to just, like, ride horses in Central Park. I saw a movie called Eyewitness with Sigourney Weaver and William Hurt from the 1980s that is essentially like a thriller, like a murder thriller, but it sort of has its

climactic scene at this just like there used to be stable. on 70-something street, 79th Street or something like that in the Upper West Side, just like this big building that is now a school that used to just have horses. The people would go and keep their horses there and then they would take them out and they would trot them down to Central Park and they would just go ride them along the horse paths in Central Park. And so this movie has William Hurt and Christopher Plummer engaging in a horse chase through the streets of Manhattan.

And it's quite something. And so this movie was like, wow, I'm really getting the education. of, and they showed it again, they showed that building where they just, like, they went and they got the horses, and then they wrote them down to Central Park. So, um, we obviously talk way too much about the signifier of wealth in New York City being having a car. The real signifier of wealth is having a horse that you ride around Central Park in various Manhattan locations.

I mean, what's more obviously bougie than like dressing up in your little dressage shit or whatever and just like, in Manhattan, this isn't Westchester. Exactly. Where do you think you are? This isn't Suffolk County. What's going on? And do they ride the horses from New Jersey into, it's so bizarre. I don't know how the horses get there.

Do they keep their horses in the city? I'm very perplexed by all of it. God, I looked it up when I saw this other movie. It was somewhere in the 70s, and it's just like just in the middle of a street. there was a giant building that were stables for horses that was there until like the 19 mid 80s or like almost to the 90s was crazy the most neurotic horses on the planet probably but the horses probably could tell you where to get a good thing the horses all had analysts and they would yeah um it's all very cosmopolitan yeah very good um so yeah anyway that's my that's that's horse time horse talk with uh joe read on this head oscar buzz before we really get into the movie and Natalie gives her 60-second plot description. Let's set the table. Listener, we're here talking about the motion picture hair, directed by Milo Schormann.

We'll get into it. Written by Michael Weller, based on the musical by Galt McDermick, Jerome Ragney, and James Rado, we will definitely get into it, starring Treat Williams, John Savage, Beverly DiAngelo, Annie Golden, Dorsey Wright, Don Dacchus, Cheryl Barnes, and Tonya Ray, Nell Carter. Beechman has a cameo. Twyla Tharp has a cameo. Michael Jeter has a cameo. Michael Jeter's tiny little bum is in this movie. It sure is. Oh, Michael Jeter, clap, clap. The motion picture premiered March 14th, 1979 on the brink of the 80s. Also played can out

of competition later that May. Natalie, as our guest, you are charged to give a 16th. second plot description. Are you ready? I am. I'm going to go over and that's going to be okay. And it'll be beautiful. Everyone does. I've never not. Time is a flat circle, especially when you are having a bad LSD trip. So your 60 second plot description for hair starts now. Place, America, time, Vietnam Times. Young Claude Hubra Bukowski leaves his family in Oklahoma for his draft board. appointment in New York. While exploring Central Park, he happens upon a group of hippies singing,

dancing, and doing mirror exercises with police horses. He is instantly entranced by them, and how could you not be when their leader is treat Williams as George Berger as the ghost of Christmas present in the Muppet Christmas Carol if he was young, dumb, and full of calm? The age of Aquarius has dawned on Claude, and in fact, on us, the viewer. A series of peekersque adventures ensues, starting with some good-natured harassment of three Prissy Patrician equestrians, one of whom is Sheila Franklin, a debutante with a horse girl pedigree in a breck girl package. Sheila's not like the other girls in that she's titillated by the idea of some countercultural tourism. Despite all the fun drug-fueled hijinks, Claude is still committed to enlisting and he leaves

for basic training in Nevada, which I learned how to say from Veep. The tribe heads west to surprise Claude. Burger cuts his hair to take Claude's place at headcount so Claude can go meet up with Sheila at all for a picnic. But, oh no, senselessness of war alert. The head count while Claude is gone, gets interrupted by the order for all soldiers to immediately ship out to Vietnam. Burger tries to whimper a few protestations, but it's too late. Eyes look your last on sweet treat Williams because months later, we are letting the sunshine in on Burger's Grave at Arlington National Cemetery, where the tribe has gathered for a full-scale peace protest. In conclusion, wrong kid died. Large applause. I think that's the best 60-second description we've

ever had. Well done, Natalie Walker. Two things I want to bring up in there. One of which is kudos on, if not coining, but certainly now popularizing the term equestrian, which I will absolutely be using for the future. Wait, what was my second thing that I was going to mention? Five minutes ago, Horse Girl, now, Priyenne. Yes, exactly, exactly right. Oh, there was a second thing in I totally can't remember. But anyway, that was fantastic. That was wonderful. Thank you. Well, done.

I'm sure I'll think of it. My first note, starting at the top of the movie, who the hell is named Bukowski living in Oklahoma? Correct. Yes, I have questions. I have questions and concerns. Yes. Yeah, exactly.

Unless they, you know, the family came direct from Poland to Oklahoma. Right. Yeah, for the American dream of living in Oklahoma at that time. They had heard tell of the streets paved in cold in Oklahoma. Right, right. They were in the land rush with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in foreign ways. And the streets are paved with cheese. Indeed, yes, yes.

Oh, this was my other thing that I would thank you for, I don't know what that jarred loose, but it did. I love that this is a movie that its ultimate most tragic plot twist is essentially the thing from home alone where she's counting all of the kids. and the one neighborhood kid is there and, like, rifling through the van and she counts his head as, as Kevin's, and that's how Kevin gets left there. That's essentially sort of how Treat Williams ends up going to Vietnam. Yes.

It's just sort of like, well, you're there where Bukowski should be. Nobody, not a single person, is like, well, that's not Pukowski. Like, no, like, I don't understand. I guess they, it seems like, like an effort to make the movie plottier than the stage show is because Claude is the one that gets shipped off to there's no there's no reversal Claude just ends up getting shipped to Vietnam and dies the show or at least the revival ends with you know the stage basically

goes dark you have snow falling and you see the tribe and they're singing let the sunshine in which is like known as this very celebratory joyous song but like in that production, it was truly like a funeral, um, that song. It's so despairing. And then as they like leave onto, in through the audience, you see behind them, Claude is laid dead on an American flag. And it's just like this very simple, perfect image that's very despairing and like gets the whole message of the show. But in the movie, they end with like convoluted twists and turns that I'm not really. sure. I mean, I guess

we like Burger way more than we like Claude in the movie. But like it's such a... The stage show is very challengers. Like it is this like love triangle between Claude Berger and Sheila. And that's enough for the show. Right. Yes.

But also the way you're describing the end of the show there, even just the imagery of it, there's power and almost agency in it in that like we are confronting you with this image of like, what happens to young people on the, you know, being sort of sacrificed on the flag. And the way that the movie presents it is this almost like moralistic way of like,

see if they weren't fucking around this whole time. Like none of this would have happened. You know what I mean? And there's just this sort of persistent sense through this movie of just like judgment. I don't know. There's a, there's an undercurrent of, you know, oh, these silly hippies, look at how they used to be. and tourism right yeah yeah and then you get to the end and they're just like wow what a tragedy but it's this sort of like mistaken identity thing where it's just you know there's no

agency i get as i come back to that where it's just sort of like there's no in the stage version it was these characters even in death sort of making a statement about the war and in this one it's just sort of like something that happens to him By happenstance. Movie business. By, yeah, by movie business, by dumb coincidence, by whatever. And there's no power in that. There's no message in that at all.

And it changes everything, I would say, about it, like on a really fundamental level. Yes. The only thing is that I guess I don't read as much into it the judgment. What I got from the amount that they're showing us the hippies. in more straight-laced worlds, I feel like Foreman is kind of daring you to identify more with the normals a little bit. Like, I feel like putting, like,

watching them sort of harass the equestrians, watching them crash the debutante party, I think it's kind of he's going, are you going to be this buttoned up man calling the cops on peaceful people that are just like kind of fucking up a party or are you going to be Charlotte Ray? Right, exactly, exactly.

Have you gone with them a little bit. Left up your skirt a little bit. But yeah, I do agree that ultimately I think the ending, despite how much it really worked on me the first time I watched the movie because I think Treat Williams' face as he's marching away is so harrowing and devastating. But then on second watch,

I was bothered by the lack of agency of it that no one chooses. Claude chooses, you know? Right. The choice may have been mistaken. The choosing was not. He still goes and then he dies, but he chose to do that and make a statement and basically, like, give his life. Yeah. To the war machine to sort of show how horrible it is from the inside, I guess.

Yeah. And that part of that choosing is through an arc of real confusion about what he's supposed to do because, like, the system, America, his parents are telling him all the things that he has to do or has to be and that he really doesn't even know what the right thing is to do. And ultimately, he does make that sacrifice as, you know, you could interpret it several different ways, you know, that he falls victim to all that confusion or that he is. is making a conscious choice to, you know, sacrifice his body as a form of protest. Yeah. John Savage, by the way, I should mention, and I don't know if I kind of doubt, I think I'll be the only one here who watched Carnival, but John Savage was on Carnival as, uh, uh, avatar of evil, I guess, uh, Henry Scudder, who was the, um, the father of the Nickstall's

character. Anyway, I watched a lot of Carnival in my opinion, makes, uh, Henry Scudder, who, in my opinion, makes complete sense for the clod that this movie imagines, like this person from an Oklahoma farm dropped into New York City. I think he plays the arc of it, but, you know, what's in the stage show and what's in the score is so top of mind for me when I watch this that I'm like, he's at a disadvantage because he's also not a singer really. And like, he makes sense as the movie's version of this character, but I also want these songs to be sung better. Well, Treat Williams blows him up the screen too.

Absolutely. And you also want a little more, even though he is in this movie, the outsider, the white cat coming in to the preceding. I thought of Stonewall more than once. I was like, oh, Jeremy Irvine, you don't belong here. You want a little more joie de vivre by the midpoint of the movie. And he seems like he's sort of with everybody, but doesn't really ever. get as joyously intimate with Berger and with the tribe, for lack of a better word. I also found it interesting looking up things about the making of the film that Brad

Durif was Foreman's first choice. Oh, yeah, sure. And Brad Durif was also Michael Chimino's first choice for Deerr Hunter for John Savage's Roland Deer Hunter, which reminds me of something Julie Klausner said about Carrie Mulligan on how was your week like 12 years ago and I've never forgotten it. She said, Carrie Mulligan is like defanged Michelle Williams. And I don't know if I agree at this point in either of their careers, but at the time I was like, that's it. And now I'm going, is John Savage Brad Duriff defamed? Yeah. I mean, I can.

I can see it. I can see it. I think there's a lot of ways in which he's at a disadvantage in this. But yeah, it's also the fact that like up until they have the LSD trip, it's treat Williams and Beverly D'Angelo who are, you know, sort of in this heavily flirty kind of relationship. And then they have the LSD scene, which is when Bukowski and remind me of Beverly DeAngelo's name again. Sheila. Sheila, thank you. Bukowski and Sheila sort of then all of a sudden after that it's like, well, they're the ones who are faded for each other. And it's like, well, A, okay, I don't think you sold me on it. And B, everything with them is like the volumes turned down a little bit. And it's like, but I was enjoying the sexual tension with Treat Williams over there. And there's so much sexual tension between Treat Williams and John Savage that they don't ever like they sort of eventually put. that on the shelf. Even though they completely change these characters' backgrounds and what their relationship is, they do still try to preserve the dynamic of like, well, all three of these people are attracted to each other. Yes. But I just think that Burger gets backburnered after that point, after the skinny dipping and sort of all of that. I don't know. The skinny dipping, the rare visible full frontal nudity in a PG-rated movie. Full frontal nudity from the back, kind of, because, like, you don't see him until he, like, dives in, and it's, I don't know.

I would have paused this movie a lot as a teenager. Much like Avita, there is visible nudity. They're sure in. I love to, God, we need to talk about Annie Golden at some point. Annie Golden in the skinny dipping scene is so fucking funny, where she's just, like, observing it all, and then, like, plays the little prank on, or, like, is laughing at the little prank about Sheila's clothes and... Living legend, Annie Golden.

Every single time Sheila looks at her and you can tell she's just like, what is your deal? Like, it's very funny. I love Annie Golden so much. What do we think of Sheila in this movie? Because I've, it's, I think the idea, I understand the logic behind. Let's make one of these characters, a high society person who ultimately goes through the moral hoops of not just being drawn to these. these people, but, like, I'm going to try to go against my background and...

A traitor to her cast. Yes. Sure. It's very cast. It's very cast. The, like, I understand the logic in that, but I don't find her a satisfying character for most of the movie because, like, you just brought up the skinny dipping scene. She's kind...

It's just like, well, why are you there? and then why is the scene ultimately to kind of humiliate? I never quite know why she does the things that she does. I don't know why she goes with them when she goes with them and resist them when she resists them. That doesn't seem to be a ton of rhyme or reason to it. Yes. Yes.

So it's... I like Beverly DeAngelo. I think she's a little not dynamic in this movie. It doesn't help that she doesn't get to sing until the end of the movie. Yeah. Yes. Totally. And then when she does, it's gloopy, glop, gloopy, which I'm sorry.

You hate that song. It's so, it's not that I hate it. It's just, it tips the balance of ridiculousness a little bit for me. Right. Just like, you know, I don't know. It's also when it's the only thing she sings. Go ahead. When it's the only thing she sings and you've kind of been waiting an hour and change to be like,

is she going to sing anything? She's ostensibly the female lead of the movie. What's on your mind, Sheila? What's really going through that head of yours? And then the first thing. Yeah, when you feel too much, you must sing. And so she finally sings, and it's glibing love agluby, gleaming of nivie. Yeah, it's delightful, but also, I think taking I believe in love and ease and be hard away.

Meanwhile, I'm like, Annie Goldwyn, what's on your mind? And she doesn't get to sing. And I want it. Well, that's the thing about the Sheila songs in the original show. They're like some of the hardest songs in the score, because it's, It's like, easy to be hard, gets given to HUD's fiancé we didn't know about. Don't love that plot point that they just invented for the movie where it's like, ah, yes, the one black tribesman, he has abandoned his family.

Well, here's again, my moral judgment thing. Where, like, you know, again, it feels a little bit like, you know, silly flower children. Here's what they, here's the dark side of all this free love. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And not really super purposeful beyond, you know, letting Cheryl Barnes Park and Bark and do a great job with the song. But that's originally Sheila's song to kind of describe the dynamic between this like love triangle that they have.

And then of course there's the I Believe in Love number which introduces Sheila in the show. And when we were talking in chats before the recording, I set the Shoshana Bean version of that song, which is just like whistled. Whistle Tone, excellence. Was this year Shoshana Bean's first ever Tony nomination? Second. She was nominated last year, too. Oh, okay. Okay. Because I made the joke on Twitter

about, like, wow, they really did just nominate all the alphabas this year, but like they did kind of nominate all the alphabas this year. It's kind of where it was like, it was her, it was Lindsay Mendez, and there was somebody else. Eden Espinoza got nominated this year, right? Yes. Yes. Ms. Lampica herself.

Ms. Hippie Life from the hair hair concert, cut song. Oh, there we go. Okay. Yeah. She's wailing on that. She's belting high age for days on hippie life. It's wild.

The, uh, the, we talked about the era of the actors fund benefit concert cast recordings. Well, in just those concerts, too. We talked about the Dreamgirls one, but go off on Laura Benanti doing initials. Laura Benanti on initials is everything about Laura Benanti that I love. It is such a funny performance because she's doing initials as a Julie Andrews-type Do-Ramee experience, but she's just dropped some LSD. Well, she asks if anyone has a lozenge after the first verse, and then they give her a tab of LSD. I don't know how drugs work. I feel like I'm talking about the second mark.

They give her a portion of LSD. Yes. And then she starts like seeing colors and she does this extended coloratura, all of these cadenzas. And it's just, it's both so funny and really virtuosic singing. And she and she and Chenoweth are really the only, the only girls that are really that funny and that gifted. in terms of both the voice they were given and the rigor of like really honoring the classicalness of it, the classical style, and just going. It's so, it's so thrilling to listen to. It's truly one of my favorite performances of hers. And that is not an easy bar because she's so good in pretty

much everything that. But that one's special. Special to me. I'm glad you bring up initials because one of the things I did write down was much like Alana Smorecette, all of so many of these songs are in list form where it's just sort of like, now I'm just going to like recite all the dirty words. And now I'm going to recite all the drugs. These are all the drugs I know. La la la la la la la. And it's just like several, several songs like that. Not a critical. Sodomy just let's list sex stuff and look at your reaction to it, which then it's tough because then I'm like, in terms of being really sexual and trying to push people and dare them to get offended, I'm like, well, all that jazz does that better with the extent. Right, right. This is the same year as all that jazz.

Yeah, exactly. I did expect a little more queerness in this movie, although who's the canonically queer character in this? His name is... Queerness is really standing down wherever they can except for the... It feels like

they kind of pigeonhole it into the white boys black boys sequence which I don't understand what's happening I don't know what's going on I know Melmarder is belting.

I know that. Yeah, I get a real kick out of that sequence for many reasons but as in the greater movie I'm like I don't know what this is saying. Right. Right. Yeah, because it's all of the like inspectors where it's like you show up

for the draft and like they have to look at you naked and it's all of a sudden all of these people who are doing that are like horny for these recruits. I did think of the headwig movie more than once in this movie. That was one. And the other one was during the actual song hair where I'm like, oh, wig in a box is kind of like has a little hair moment where again, headwig, is laundry listing all the different types of hairstyles in the bricks to wigan a box. Hair, by the way, tremendous song. Just a banger of a song. And yet, I have to take issue with, I love everything about how proud they are of their hair.

And it should be flaunted. A home for fleas and a hive for the buzz and bees is not what I want out of my hair. No. Like, that's maybe the step too far. But everything else. Joe. They don't shower. I guess, but like, man, like, keep the bees away. They want that repulsion out of you. The hippies were also trying to challenge you. They're trying to shake me out of my priors. I get it. They maybe don't want fleas and bees in their hair, but they want you to think that they do. They want me to confront why I'm so afraid of having bees in my own hair. What's holding me back. I get it. I get it. Yeah. Yeah. Woof looked to me like if Mike Feist was Austin Pendleton. Mike Feist in a production of hair, singing hair, is all I ever want out of this world right now.

Like, make it happen. Rallis-Bars' version of hair in that concert is very hot as well. He has like shirt unbuttoned all the way, I believe. Oh, he might be shirtless even with like a little vest. I think that actually might be what he is. And he, like, comes up from on, like, an elevator beneath the stage. It was 2004. It was definitely a vest.

I mean, it makes perfect sense. It would be a little vest. Little vests. Little sexy vests. The thing about Will Swenson and Gavin Creel in the same production is, especially at that time, obviously, Will Swenson, married to – I love this photo, by the way, that Natalie is just showing off. The stage door photo. The stage door photo of Netflix.

he brought me up because there's a bit in hair where burger is like, oh, my mom's here. And he pulled me up from the lotto row. And so I went to the stage door and I was like, I was your mom. Fantastic. But Gavin Creel and Will Swenson. So Will Swenson famously married to Audra McDonald. And then at the time, Gavin Creel was dating Jonathan Groff, who had been in the production. The Delacourt production. The Delacourt production. So truly, my mind was kind of spinning at that time of just like, oh, like, there's all sorts of intrigue happening here. Yeah. What a time to be alive, the Gavin Creel, Jonathan Groff, brief era. Anyway, what was they going to say? Hair.

Oh, we should talk about Treat Williams. This is our second Treat Williams movie in like a couple of weeks as we're recording. this. We also did the rink. We also, the Ritz. God. Or the Ritz, not the Rink. That's not the first time. I've implanted the rink in your head now after all of this recent talk. I've named drop the rink a few times. No, yeah, between the Ritz and hair, Treat is really covering the gamut between, I don't know, like, queer adjacency.

You know what I mean? where he's just like, he's, he's a high-pitched private eye in a bathhouse, and then now he's... Constantly ascending and descending the Kinsey Scale. Yes, now he's a sexually free man who is in, who should be in a thruple in all, if everything was right with the world, that these three should be together. He's tremendous in this movie. Just tremendous. He really is. He loses the Golden Globe for best new star of the year to Ricky Schroeder for the champ.

And I just got to say, history has not looked kind on that decision is what we did that one wrong. He's almost entirely nominated against like children and teens because it's Ricky Schroeder, Justin Henry. Speaking of like justice, poor Justin Henry could not win an award. Spare that kid, like, this is why you don't nominate kids. Like, spare that kid all that heartache and, you know, he doesn't know. He wouldn't have known if he didn't get Oscar buzz. Like, just don't start that, don't start that ball rolling down the hill. He was eight.

Can I also say, though? Melvin Douglas's, uh, quote, or was it Melvin Douglas didn't even show up. He wasn't even there. Yeah, because he's like, this is ridiculous. Me against an eight-year-old. But, Dynast Christopher for breaking. away, I have to say. A. adorable in that just an absolutely darling. Okay, you guys both like breaking away. Go off. It's such a field of movie. I don't understand what your resistance is to

these charming cyclist boys who are, uh, whatever, stone builders in Indiana. I'll give it another shot. I just didn't care that much. Were you the Paul Dooley being like, get a job? I'm always, What are you talking about? Paul Dooley is so good in that movie. He's so good in that movie. Oh my God. He's really bummed. After watching the movie, I was like, how did he not get a nomination? I'm like happy for Barbara Berry, original Sarah and company always. But Paul Dooley, I'm like, come on. The 1979 best supporting actor category is now on my shit list for like has gone before this 70 series. I never gave that category a thought. And now. I'm like, how dare they nominate Mickey fucking Rooney for the Black Stallion? And Justin Henry, no offense against that kid, but like Justin Henry would win. You got Paul Dooley breaking away.

You got Ron Liebman in Norma Ray, can we say? Like, I know. We've got to thank Katie Walsh for bringing Ron Liebman in Norma Ray into this had Oscar buzz before. Like, he's so handsome, but also great. Like, my, my rabble-rousing, you know, Union King, Ron Lieman, my goodness, have never in my life thought, oh, Ron Lieman probably was hot when he was younger. And now I'm like, fuck, yeah, he was. No wonder he and Marlo Thomas created Rachel from Friends. Like,

that's sort of, you know, that's how it happens. By the way, well, wait, that's a whole other, by the way. Wait, Natalie, go off on both breaking away in normal. Murray, because I talked too much about it. Oh, well, first of all, I do want to say Paul Dooley married to Winnie Holtzman, who wrote the book for Wicked. Oh, is that why he's the dad in my so-called life? He's the Best Armstrong's dad in my soul-called life. That makes all the sense of the life.

God, I love it. Absolutely. So good. Breaking Away is a movie that I had resisted for so long because it is a movie. that my dad talked about all the time growing up and would always go, Natalie, you're getting into movies. You ever seen Breaking Away?

A great movie about a group of boys. They're going on their bicycles. And I was like, this sounds like the most boring movie ever. I know. I always thought it sounded boring. I resisted it so hard to the point that I had still never seen it until last night. I was like, I guess I'll finally watch Breaking Away and tell my dad about it. And then I watched it and I went, this is great.

There's stuff that's just for me. Opera, love to see that. Yes. He's obsessed with being Italian. Pretentious high school kid who, like, annoys his parents. I love that. That's great. Absolutely.

And it's really, Barbara Berry has so many great little deadpan line readings that are so fantastic. And the heart to heart between father and son after he has all of his illusions shattered about how cool and nice Italian people are. That entire sequence. and Barbara Barry's reaction to it at the very end is so wrenching and beautiful. I just really, I was very charmed by it. I was like, well, I guess I have to tell my dad he was right for once.

The 70s were all about freeze frame endings and breaking away has a doozy, which is essentially it ends on a Paul Dooley double take freeze frame. It's so great. It's so wonderful. Perfect. No, I just find it, it's like, it's true. charm. It's charm in a bottle, that movie. It's just very, I really liked it. And then Norma Ray is as relevant today as it was back then, if not more so. Like, they should show that movie

in schools. That's my take on Norma Ray. Is every high school should show that, wheel that shit in on a cart, on a TV on a cart, and show these kids, Norma Ray, and like, create union, create union kids instead of whatever kind of monsters we're raising in this country these consumers. That's nice. Absolutely. And especially to have re-watched Norma

the week of the, I think the Kandei, NASC. Yeah, the contract. They just, yeah, they just came to a deal. And so that was very exciting. I actually, there's a Norma Ray musical that they've been

working on for many years. It's been in one of these development hell things. I auditioned for it. I saw every, every woman in the world was on that sign-in sheet. You've got Diana from Diana. You've got

everybody showing up. I mean, that is a Tony Award in the making. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. But then what's crazy about it is then I looked up things

about that project and apparently their original casting director got fired from the project for trying to organize a casting director's union, basically. What? And so, yeah, and so if you look it up, she, like, gave interviews about it.

Do people understand how that works? That's crazy. Nope. Nobody does. But, yeah, Norma, so, so terrific. Rewatched it yesterday. The chemistry between Liebman and Field is just something to behold. and I love

Bo Bridges' performance. A movie that like twins sexual chemistry with like respect, professional and like personal respect, be still my heart. Like that handshake, that the handshake at the end

is, oh, it's so good. Oh my God. You like me. Ron Lieman in that last scene. Again, respect to Katie Walsh for bringing this topic to the podcast. Ron Leapen, I think, I think if the people people, this is one of the other crimes about this movie not being more available.

Because if the people saw this, we would be buttoning our shirts two buttons lower. Right. It would not be acceptable to wear more than one button closed in a shirt at any time. It's absolutely. When he shows up in his little slut top to the vote, I really gassed. I was, I was shocked and odd. I was thrilled. It's the equivalent of like a ring girl at a boxing match

where they just sort of like they put on the teetop and they're like round one except it's like Ron Lieben being like Don't mind if I do unbutton another button Like and instead of round one It just says union union yeah exactly That's what Ron Liebman is giving in that movie Yeah and he's so her suit

That you first are like Is he wearing a shirt under Oh no he's just so manly That's the people's guest on right there I think every episode we've talked about Norma Ray Which is just so fitting We'll talk about it for 78 when we record that We got into this whole

By talking through supporting actor And like I guess we can also talk about actress Through the performance that I wanted to mention But Frederick Forrest in The Rose is a nomination I would not lose for the moon I think he is so good That performance is not the type of thing that gets acting nominations, and I love Frederick Forrest. And Frederick Forrest was someone who, like, all respect to John Savage, rewatching it this time, I was like, this should have been Frederick Forrest. I bet Frederick Forrest could sing. And Frederick Forrest is like a haughty.

Oh, yeah. What other things was he in, though? Because I feel like he's one of those people who, like, his, like, existed just in the 70s. Well, he was also in Apocalypse now the same year, which, you know, we know. know, there's all the stories about Apocalypse now. We kind of can't not talk about Apocalypse now in this episode, even though like the production of that movie is well, well documented and, you know, if listeners haven't

heard about all the insane shit going down, definitely read into it. But like, Apocalypse Now would have been shot. I also believe in 76, 77, took forever in post production. Hair apparently was also like filmed in 1977, so

not only was it like, if they had released it in a normal schedule it still would have been too late. It's interesting. It took Milosh two years after Cuckoo's Nest to even get this movie produced, let alone released. Watching that Oscars, it did feel like Robert Duval thought he was going to win that award. I don't know how that sort of season went and how dominant or not Melvin Douglas was for being there, but like Robert Duval in that audience sort of had that look of like, this is my moment, this is happening for me. And he hadn't won yet, so. Well, and all the advance word was kind of around Mickey Rooney to, you can definitely see how this was

a fairly close supporting actor race, which maybe is the result of someone who already has an Oscar like Melvin Douglas winning. Frederick Forrest was definitely fifth place. Mickey Rooney presented like art direction or something with Anne Miller at this Oscars. And Anne Miller comes out, first of all, in, like, head to toe rhinestone sapphire and the spit curl, as always, and, like, face beat for the gods. Like, genuinely, it's just like, like, Trixie Mattel at your heart out is just sort of just like, it's just like all the makeup is on her face. And she and Mickey Rooney proceed to have a psychological battle of wills for who is going to get to speak every single. single part of this presentation. And it's so fascinating because, like, of course, the visual is and, like, Anne's got her heels on or whatever. And she's so much taller than him. And she's sort of

this, like, very, like, brassy. Like, if you don't know Anne Miller, you've probably at least seen her in Mulholland Drive because she's the landlady in Mulholland Drive. And it's like, it's exactly the same kind of thing where she's like, honey, welcome to the apartment, like this kind of thing. and yeah she feels like a blueprint for a lot of Kristen wing characters it's so it's so funny to watch her like Mickey Rooney is like old Hollywood personified where he's just sort of like he's not giving an inch either and it's very funny yeah they kind of feel like that that year's version of Fay Dunaway and Beatty presenting to the best picture Oscar totally absolutely um what else about this year's. So I rewatched Kramer versus Kramer last night. First of all, what a

picture. Second of all, obviously Streep was going to win. I think that movie, she elevates that movie to what it is. Like Hoffman's great and the script is great and whatever, but like it's those few scenes of Streep sort of like streeping it out that really, I think, elevate that movie from like good to great and and I love Jane Alexander is the other it's like I love Jane Alexander too. Streep is obviously supporting because she's not in most of the movie like when she is she's behaving like elite actress and she's the only thing you can pay attention to but you couldn't nominate her in lead because that would be dishonest but you really do feel bad because like

Jane Alexander is like backboning a lot of that movie and she's wonderful the scene where they're at the kitchen sink after the kid has fallen and off of the jungle gym and got his stitches or whatever. And she's so, you know, guilty about it. And she and Hoffman just have the scene where he's like, if anything happens to me, I want you to take care of Billy and whatever. And all these, they have a very, like, there's as a friendship that has a very, like, tactile component to it where, like, she's always, like, putting an arm around him or, like, he's like tapping her on the shoulder or like leaning on each other it's just a wonderful story element and she's so good in that i love her the elevator scene where merrill's trying

to just like leave and get in the elevator yes fucking devastating yes she's incredible she's absolutely incredible the um what was i going to say we haven't talked about all that jazz we got to take a two uh two minute detour into all that jazz because yeah because yeah because Because Kramer versus Kramer, I, Kramer versus Kramer is hard for me. I'm trying to become better at separating the art from the artist. Yeah. But I hate Dustin Hoffman. Sure.

And the specific stories about Dustin Hoffman during this, not only the physical, the physical sort of violation with the glass and things, but the psychological torture of invoking John Kazer. I think is like it's so hard for me to watch this movie that is a lot of it is about like oh this guy like he's kind of bad at the beginning but also he's learning to like be really cute with his son and look how much he loves his son and we love him for that that it becomes hard for me it's why my favorite Dustin Hoffman performance is ultimately Master Shifu Kung Fu Panda because I'm like I don't have to look at his face um but yeah So Kramer versus Kramer is hard for me on that level. I can appreciate it that obviously it's a great movie,

but all of that jazz really, oh, and rewatching that this week, I was like, this is a movie for me to be obsessed with. Well, yeah, no shit this man had a heart attack making this movie. Like all of the coverage and these dance sequences. And it's just like, what's so, what stays fascinating to me is like the idea of being an original artist with like original ideas is so uh like given so much credence when we talk about like great filmmakers and great like cinematic you know creators of masterpieces innovators etc all that jazz is like one million percent a felini ripoff

and like Fossi acknowledged like yes he's getting a lot of his ideas from Fulini but like it it doesn't matter like he's so clearly influenced that and it's like he's very liberally like rips off structural things he rips off like visual ideas from felini and yet this is so very obviously of Fossi and like not just because it's autobiographical but it's just like I mean you watch that movie and the credits roll and it's like well yeah this this man had a heart attack you You know, this man is, you know, not physically well after making this movie. Yeah. Yeah.

All that jazz fucking rolls. And, like, all that jazz is an interesting counterpoint to what you were saying about Kramer versus Kramer in terms of, you know, at least the character depiction part of it. Because one of my frustrations with Kramer versus Kramer, while, like, I fall into all of the emotional trappings of that movie, hook line and sinker, is like, it gives. it gives her this like emotional space to like win us back because she's been so villainized and like we do ultimately understand her and we appreciate her but then at the end of the movie it's just like whatever he can have the kid and it's very frustrating to me as a viewer and like but it's still her decision though i understand that like the movie it's absolutely taking his position and the movie is on his side at all times and like that's not that's not up for

debate, but it does at least give her the agency to, like, make that decision on her own. And it's not, like, the court is deciding that, like, you know, she's a bad mother or something like that. But, like, all that jazz is about, is entirely about what a bastard this guy is and how he has ultimately, like, wasted his life and not done right by any of his relationships. It's celebrating him, too, though. Like, sure, sure. Um, and, like, I think, I mean, a lot of it comes down to the final shot of the movie, too, where it's just like you have the whole bye-bye love sequence that it goes crazy, and it does feel like it's celebrating this man.

And then you have that immediate, like, hard cut, sobering idea of, well, what the fuck is all that for? What is all that celebration for? And it's for nothing, you know, like. Similar to Nashville, all that jazz is a movie that I could make best supporting actress just out of them. I think Leland Palmer is so... The scene where Leland Palmer is rehearsing

and also talking through how horrible he's been is so... That is wild to watch. It's so thrilling. In terms of a child performance, I know we've been saying don't nominate children, but also the daughter and all that jazz

airs, Sebette, I don't know how to pronounce it. I'm butchering that. But she's so devastating and beautiful and also holds her own dancing with Leland Palmer and Anne Ranking. And Ranking legs for days. I wish you weren't so generous with your cock line reading, given Oscar just for that. But just, oh, and Debra Geffner as the, in that, like, tiny, tiny role, but I think about her face when he humiliates her at the, at the rehearsal. And then he goes over to her and the way the entire room erupts when she finally sort of gets it better the next time and her face when that happens. It's so, so beautiful. So I do have a bizarro world supporting. actress lineup for that year. That is Leland Palmer, Ann Rankin, Erzabeth Foldy, Deborah Geffner, and

Bernardette Peters in the Jerk. Perfect. Honestly, a better supporting actress. And then Bernadette wins a Marissa Tomey style. One of these things is not like the other kind of. Absolutely. In line reading Oscars as well, that Bernadette, I did have in my notes up, I have to talk about the line reading of, I don't care about losing all the money. it's losing all this stuff. It's so...

So good. People talk about... In terms of like the 70s, it's a whole, people talk all the time about the 75 best picture lineup, the 76 best picture lineup. The 79 best picture lineup is one of the great sort of like something for everyone's, right? Where it's like, Kramer versus Kramer, all that jazz, apocalypse now,

breaking away being like the, you know, the crowd pleaser. and then Norma Ray, there is like a breadth of, of, you know, different styles of film and audiences that are being served. Back at the time when, like, audiences weren't really that regimented either. So, like, you, like, everybody saw Kramer versus Kramer, everybody saw, you know, breaking away. And I just think it's a really underrated best picture lineup now that I have seen all of these movies. And one of these, I will say, I am the bad gay that like, ever, I'm going to keep watching all that jazz until it clicks with me. I don't not like it, but it like, it, I haven't become the creature that everybody else has become in my life who has watched all that jazz and are just like, you know, snap, snap, snap, like that, you know, from, um, uh, but one of these days, it will, it will fully land with me. And that will be a great day indeed. Natalie, what do you think about the rose? The rose, okay, I've never seen.

Oh, okay, that's fine, that's fine, that's fine. It'll save it time. I know. Gladly see it, though, and, like, incorporate the title song into, like, the next time you go sing somewhere. Because, like... Oh, oh, absolutely. My elementary school chorus was absolutely rocking out on the rose. Same.

Same. Some say love. It is a river. 100%. Yes. Yeah. Watching the rose, it's amazing. think that Bet Midler ever

was able to sing in tune again because it's like you watch that movie and you're like, I am watching someone do irreparable damage to their vocal cords. Yes. I adore that movie. I mean, like, it couldn't be more simple in what it is, but I think the power of that performance, the power of the visuals.

I mean, Mark Rydell, I think, is a really underrated director. Definitely seek out the rose. Yeah. This is also to hear that. Can we also relitigate It Goes Like It Goes versus the Rainbow Connection for perhaps the last time? It goes like it goes is a great song. And do we include Through the Eyes of Love, love theme from Ice Castles in this debate?

Like, is that a third party? No, not at all because Drop Dead Gorgeous hasn't come out yet. That's true. It's only important to me in context of Drop Dead Cortez. No, wait, that one is Don't Cry out loud. You're thinking of Don't Cry out loud. Which is a... No, through the eyes of love, she signs.

Oh, is they both? She signs and the light falls on her head. I haven't seen Drop Dead Gorgeous recently enough. Okay. I'm so sorry. I can't believe I tried to flex on you with Deptad Gorgeous and fully face-planted. I always think of Don't Cry Out Loud first, though, because, like, that's my scene in that movie. Oh, it's so dark and incredible.

Dark, it's so dark. It's so dark. Everything involving that character is so dark and could never. happen now, but so really, oh, makes me laugh. I was ready. I mean, you can't do it. And yet it's the funniest thing in the world. It goes like it goes, sung by Jennifer Warnes.

Jennifer Warrins, you can't mistake that voice. Yes, and her first single, I found out, her first ever single in 1969 was easy to be hard. Oh, wow. It comes around. From an album that is titled, see me, feel me, touch me, heal me. She is the 70s. Jennifer Warren's, her web connects them all.

Her web connects the mall. She is Madam Webb. Oh, my. Yeah, Jennifer Warns, you cannot mistake that voice from the second she starts singing it goes like it goes. You're like, oh, our girl is back with a movie song. Absolutely. I love that opening of normal.

array. Yes, it's so good. It's so great. It's also just like that song is very short and to the point and very sweet. That's also what you call it? David Shire's Oscar, so there's also that. Very awkward acceptance speech where he talks about his wife

Talia Shire months before they get to four. Yes. And who did he marry? I don't, I keep mentioning Didi Khan in the series and his second wife was Didi Khan. DedyCon is the secret. third thing of this. She,

she, I would be remiss not talking about Jill Clayberg's Halo nomination for starting over, a movie that I really don't like, but she is like, she is, she is giving, like,

roses. Just, like, to this, like, script that I really hate. Like, she gives some of the greatest snot acting I had ever seen. Screamplay by James L.

Brooks, by the way, that script you really hate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Natalie, have you seen an unmarried woman? Yes. Oh, I adore an unmarried woman.

And she is, and I wished, that was one of my sadnesses about the company revival and the fact that they chose to update it because I was just like, no, it let it be a woman, but let it be an unmarried woman in, in 1970. I want to see the like Paul Masersky, Cassavetti's version of this world. I think it's like, yeah, I don't want to watch her be swiping on Tinder. I want the dial tone. A company movie in the 1970s would have been incredible. I'm trying to just like, just to cast it from like all the people that we've been watching in all these movies. Like throw Glenda Jackson into a company movie, like literally give her her pick of whatever role she wants. Absolutely.

Who's Bobby in a 1970s company movie? Male Bobby or Bobby? B-I-E. Mail bobby. Hmm. Hmm. Who could sing being alive, yeah. Yeah.

It's one to chew on. Yeah. It's one to chew on. Anyway, think of it. Speaking of musicals, it's our exercise for our list. It'll come to me as soon as we stop recording. Wait, what did you say, Natalie?

I said, it'll come to me as soon as we stop recording. Yes, exactly. I'll have a perfect idea. Yeah. Yeah. Chris, what were you saying? Oh, the score adaptation category, which we've talked a lot about, and there was all types of stuff going down with the music branches in this decade.

But Hair does not get nominated there where I, when we were preparing for this, I was like, surely it got nominated in this category. No, it's all that jazz wins. Breaking Away is nominated in the Muppet movie is nominated. And Ben Vareen was hootin and hollering when All That Jazz won was Ben Beren. I was in that movie. Absolutely. And Dolly Parton presenting. And by the way, I watched the Johnny Carson monologue, which by the way is watching old Oscars monologues is such a great way of being like these were all the like things that people just sort of casually. There are jokes about and I wrote these down. This is pretend I'm singing a song in hair and I'm just going to list things. jokes about the Pinto, jokes about Mount St. Helens, jokes about Jerry Brown's presidential campaign, Anwar Sadat, Britt Eklund's memoirs.

Like, there's just like, but one of the things you remember watching this Oscars is, and this would persist for like a good decade and a half, is nobody liked doing anything as much as they liked making jokes about Dolly Parton's boobs in the 1980s and 90s. they were the height of comedy and just everybody had everybody had a joke about and she like and she played into it and it was I remember how many of you have seen the movie Straight Talk from the 90s with oh I've definitely seen it just not as an adult. Dolly Parton plays a regular person who becomes a radio advice host even though she like she's she's mistaken for a psychologist, right? And they give her, like, a doctor, you know, faux, Dr. Laura kind of a show. But she's, like, she's given, like, down-home country advice, and she's very good at.

And there's James Woods is the male lead. So your romance in this movie is Dolly Parton and James Woods. Oh, no. And I'm going to need everybody to sit down. Oh, no. No, I don't want it. I don't want it. So there's a scene where, like, the first time they sleep together, they're like, you know,

she takes them back to her place. or whatever. And they're going into the bedroom and you don't see them in the bedroom. You just see them like exit from the hallway. And then all of a sudden, you see this comically large bazaar get tossed into the hallway. And you hear James Woods being like, it's essentially the continental. It's just like, wow, wow, wow, wow, like that kind of thing. And it's so, it's just like, oh, right, because Dali Parton's boobs are just ginormous. And that was the thing you knew about her back then it took me a decade to learn anything else about dolly pardon a songs that she sang movies that she was in it was just like she was the country lady with the big boobs and you know

there it was yeah my notes app from when i was watching this oscars i just have leave dolly alone written like interspersed in the bullet points just like every three bullet points it's just leave dolly alone leave dolly alone for god's sake yeah and when he brings her up in the monologue was nine to five out yet or No, he brings up in the monologue. Dolly Parton is set to make her film debut next year in a movie called Mammery versus Mammery. That's his big joke. And then I looked up, I was like, is that 9 to 5? And it was.

She was about to start filming 9 to 5. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Freaking. She's so goddamn good at 9 to 5. Relax. The fact that this year is Muppet movie does make me think about that prompt where people go, what movie would you want to remake with all Muppets? one human actor, and I do think it's all that jazz with Roy Shider giving the exact same

performance. You just have sexy Muppets. Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's hair with all Muppets except for Annie Golden, who is... Oh, she's so good. I just adore her. Every time they show her, I was just like, oh, I love her. Living legend, Annie Golden.

Chris, I messaged you before we recorded today that I wanted to add one thing. to the docket, which is, I wanted to rank the best hair of all of the 70s movies that I've watched as we've been doing this. So some of these are ones that we did episodes on. Some of these are movies that I watched while preparing for these. I'm going to have to throw out a number one as well. And if it's not on your list, close to the top, if not the very top, I will be very upset. Throw it out because I know that I am probably missing some. So feedback, welcome. And I mentioned my number one in a previous episode, so it's probably not going to be a surprise. But anyway, number 10, Warren Beatty and Shampoo.

And I'm sort of on the record as being a little ambivalent about Shampoo. So this doesn't go any higher than 10. I weirdly think the hairstyling in Shampoo for being a movie about a hairstylist is oddly underwhelming, where they sort of like, they stack the deck with giving Julie Christie this, like, awful wig to start that movie. And then he basically rescues her. he kind of invents the Rachel in this in this movie where he sort of like, you know, gives her this very, you know, symmetrically framed face kind of a cut and whatever. It's like, okay. Like, that's all right. Um, but, you know, it weren't to mention. Uh, number nine, I know Chris

and I, we don't like this movie, but like Glenda Jackson's Bob in a touch of class is sort of you could cut glass with that thing. Like, it's so, um, sharp and severe and definitional. We'll give it to or for that. Natalie, what do you think of a touch of class or Glenda Jackson in general? Oh, I love Glenda Jackson in general. Like, a run that is heretofore unforeseen and unprecedented. A touch of class, I do agree with the Patreon question. I think there was some episode where you were like, a touch of class, I don't know. I would take, I have thought about a touch of class in terms of, I mean, this isn't one of her greats. It's not a great movie to me.

I take away Glenda Jackson's Oscar for a Touch of Class. Give it to Ellen Burst in for Exorcist so that then Ellen's Alice doesn't live here anymore. Oscar goes to Jenna Rollins for a woman under the influence. That is in my notes for this episode. I was like, this is what I have on a touch of class. Yes, perfect. Number eight, kind of a requisite, Carrie Fisher in Star Wars, the cinnamon buns. You got to go for that.

Too iconic to not. Number seven, perhaps controversial, Henry Gibson in Nashville, which is. Oh, my God. Excellent choice. It's happening. It's all happening. Should have been nominated, Henry Gibson. What a performance.

What a performance. What a picture. Number six, Ron Liebman and Norma, Re, parentheses, chest. That's my number one. Is it your number one? That was my number one. Fantastic. I'm a simple band.

Number five, Mary Kay Place in New York, New York, which I wasn't expecting until I watched it again. And then, you know, the cute little 1940s hairstyle, very into it. Number four, Karen Black in Nashville, which, especially the one where her, the one scene where her hair is looking particularly high and close to God, very good. Number three, Alan Bates and Women in Love, parentheses, all, where just sort of, wherever hair shows up on that man and women in love, it is worth being. on this list. That is number three. Number two is treat Williams in hair. It has to be recognized. That is a that is a main right there. And the brows. It's deeply sad and tragic.

And then my number one, I mentioned this in one of our previous recordings, but it's a movie from 1979. Al Pacino in And Justice For All, a on its face, terrible movie. But Pacino's hair is rocking and rolling in that movie. It is lush and lustrous and unkempt, but in like the best way. All you want to do is just sort of reach out and put your hand in his hair in that movie. It's so wonderful. I love El Pacino. And Justice For All does end on the worst freeze frame. I think I mentioned this before, the worst freeze frame in all of the 70s. It's so cartoony. It's so television. That movie feels like a two-hour television pilot for like, a middling cop lawyer drama, which also has, like, a couple parts where it's like,

is this David E. Kelly? Is this like the first thing David E. Kelly ever wrote? It's not, but it feels like it could be. Like, it could be like very proto the practice. Um, which is not necessarily, I wouldn't normally use that as a pejorative, but like, and justice for all is so silly. Um, but anyway, kudos for Al. I have to be the basic gay who, uh, counters your list with a honorable mention for best wig of the 70s? Yes. Obviously,

Shelley DeVall in Nashville. Yes, that's... Well, I could have... I had a lot of Nashville because I had to cut Keith Caradine's hair in Nashville also because it's... That's a Joe Reed, man. That is like a Joe Reed... Keith Caradine's hair in Nashville is my beating heart.

Anyway, thank you for indulging me. Those are Joe's hair rankings in the 1970s. All right, so I guess to wrap it up and to bring it back to hair, this is the same year as Apocalypse Now, you know, if we think that Hair was too late as an experiential, you know, entity, musical. It is wild that this movie is coming, like, on the eve of the 1980s.

Like, it's so too late. It's crazy. But it's even too late for the Oscars because, like, at this point, the Vietnam movies that they're recognizing are Apocalypse Now, which are these, like, or even coming home, giant, yeah. Yeah, the previous year, you have coming. Coming Home and the Deer Hunter, which are like the emotional plays, which is like, if Oscar is going to recognize a topic, the first time they're going to recognize it is, of course, in the, like, straight to the heart type of things.

Though, I mean, like, coming home, I don't want to disregard because, like, I think that movie is as good as it is because of Hal Ashby and what Hal Ashby brings to it. Yes. The rest of it's pretty straightforward to me. But yeah, it is wild, especially that this basically sat on a shelf or post-production took so long that this, you know, they shot it in 77, which still would have been too late. And, like, you know, this being the follow-up to Milosh Foreman's win for One Flew of the Cuckoo's Nest makes sense and doesn't, because, like, Cuckoo's Nest is considered, you know, a countercultural allegory. and, like, that's certainly the basis in the original novel. But also, it's like, at the same point, they couldn't be any more different material requiring different approaches.

Yeah. What's everyone's favorite song in the score? Mine is not in the movie, or it's like in the background. Oh, well, I'm at a disadvantage there. I've only seen the movie, but you guys go. What is your, what's the song? Frank Mills is my favorite song in the score. It's just, it's fully a song that it's, when you,

see it in the stage show, it's like, oh, okay, everybody needs a break before they come back on and do the act one finale. And it's just this like two-minute song because half of the songs in the score are like a minute 90 seconds long, much like Cowboy Carter, most of the songs in hair are a minute 45. I love that we've now used the broach the phrase much like Cowboy Carter, the songs in hair, and like anything could have followed that. the, uh, but it's just this really like beautiful, sad, almost lullaby that, you know, sir is more functional in the score than anything, but I just, I love it so much. Um, and, you know, I, there's nothing but bangers in this score. Yeah. At the risk of being

very pedestrian, I'm just going to say Aquarius, I love, uh, it's, it's, for a song that's so very much tied to a specific moment in history. It's surprisingly durable as just a song to listen to. I can really just sort of bliss out to Aquarius. It's very fun. Well, and representative of the moment, too. That's the thing about hair so much of this music. Like, in the cultural lexicon is a placeholder for hippies, for, you know, the anti-Vietnam War movement, et cetera. Yeah. Can we talk about how Aquarius is filmed in the movie, which like the swirling image of the soloist is incredible, but you also have like hippies doing dance moves and then the police horses do the same dance moves. Do the dressage moves? Yes. Kind of suggesting that the hippies are also witches. Or that the horses are just

hippies at heart and I've been waiting for their moment to break out. It is very like morning Tai Chi in the park now though. Right. Like it has that kind of. Kind of feel to it now. Yes. Yeah. The horses want to be hippies and they've been forced against their will. They're not class traitors like the Paw Patrol, you know? A-CAP does not include police officers.

Exactly. Yeah. I love, I mean, the Actress Fun Recording, White Boys is truly, that arrangement goes so crazy. those women go so nuts on that song. It's Lettucey, Shana Steele, and, oh, who's the third? Brandy Chavon Massey. Brandy Chavon Massey. Yes.

It came to me. I was like, don't do any of these women dirty. They have given too much of their larynxes for your little enjoyment. I love that. In the movie, I love Betty Buckley. on walking in space. Betty Buckley does that voice on walking in space and it sits in, oh, just like a pristine part of her range.

And it's so thrilling but also easy and free. I don't know how she does it, but she manages to belt her tits off in the freest seeming way where I'm like, oh, if I tried to sing that high like that, it would not be free, free, easy LSD. vibes. But yeah, I love that. Only Betty Buckley can do what Betty Buckley can do. Absolutely. And I also love Melba Moore on 3500.

I think that the way that that song starts and then once we get to like seeing Melba Moore just absolutely destroy with that song, I think it's really really powerful. But yeah, the whole score. So, 00 is so strange in the movie. because that's like the training sequence. Once Claude is at the, like, military training camp, I think the movie does kind of fall off the rails a little bit. Just, like, in terms of visual inspiration, connection to the actual songs.

They're, like, aside from Good Morning Starshine, there's not a whole lot of music at the end of the movie because I think it commits to doing this reversal as like a gotcha on the audience unnecessarily. It becomes a caper. Yes. It's weird. Yeah. And they can't get the songs in there.

And part of it, I think, also is, like, in the stage show, the bad acid trip is basically the entirety of the second act. And they move it towards what would be the first act when they're all in the park. And there's just so many, there's so much you could do with that material. Like, you could almost do, I know you didn't like it, Joe, but you could do something along the lines of what Ken Russell does with Tommy. And do essentially, like, really, like, wild vignettes that go for it. And the choice that this movie makes, I don't love while I still think I understand

where they were coming from adapting it this way. The college course I want to see somebody teach is New York in film, as presented surrealistically, from hair to Godspell to the whiz. Like one of those, you know what I mean? Like one of those things, because, like, in continuum, I find that fascinating the ways in which sort of New York as playground for my little theater production and just like the entire city is the stage. And it's happened quite a few times. Yeah. And I find it fascinating every time.

Any last thoughts on hair, this Oscar year, anything else we want to put out there. Anne Miller. Merrill's saying holy mackerel when she wins the Oscar, because that's... Went central Merrill. We, my nephew, one time, we were watching something, and he said, holy shit, because his parents, he learned it from his parents. And so we've been trying to steer him away into other things. So I keep saying, holy mackerel, which he now says holy macaroni all the time. So any kind of holy mackerel, holy macaroni, I'm very into.

Also, the glitter background at that. Academy Awards. Bring that back. Bring back the idea of the Oscars happening in the back room at Barracuda or something like that. Just some sort of very tacky that turns into something good. I was very into that. Yeah. That's all. That's all I got. I was going to say it's a it's a bummer that they don't introduce the makeup design Oscar until 81 because all that jazz, the makeup design, and all that jazz from the like very similitude of like the sweat on the dancers, seeing real sweat on the dancers, and then in all of the fantasy sequences, I mean, the makeup design in that like penultimate stretch of fantasy when all the, all the women in his life are doing their numbers

is breathtaking and so, oh, just so exciting to look at. And, um, and. Oh, I was going to say Melvin Douglas not going, and his quote about not going reminds me of Sylvia Sidney a few years earlier when she is nominated for supporting actress alongside Linda Blair and Tatum O'Neill gives one of my favorite elder actress quotes ever. She goes, they'll never give me the damned Oscar. They'll give it to one of those rotten kids. What a Scooby-Doo villain thing to say? The Miss Hannigan jump on up. I was going to literally say Miss Hammock. My last note on hair is sticking with musical theater history.

The follow-up to hair, notorious bomb, which I guess maybe didn't help the movie get made. Hair closes. They come out with a follow-up called Dude. It was their cowboy Carter. It was a country musical that they guise. the Broadway theater filled it with dirt so that like if there was it like they they had to shut it down after they first move in because like any moisture turned all of the dirt in this historic theater into mud and on top of that it's a country music circus musical that nobody understands what the hell is going on in it they separate the orchestra to different parts of the theater so like the strings can't hear the brass part of the orchestra and no one in the audience can hear anything they can only hear that part of the orchestra that's by them yeah uh and i think it closed after like two weeks a complete and utter broadway disaster i think it was the first musical to lose a million dollars wow partly because they had to like gut the theater to fill it with dirt Always a great idea. Fill your theaters with dirt. I remember the Jake Gyllenhaal off-Broadway play that I saw where they flooded the stage, and that's the first time I'd ever seen anything quite like that. And I was so anxious and tense about like, what do they do between shows to like to fix this? They're flooding. The whole thing is flooded. The whole stage is flooded. It was crazy. All right.

Should we move on to the IMDB game? I was going to say, Chris, that's your thing to say. So why don't you tell our listeners what the IMDB game is? Sure, every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with the name of an actor or actress, and we try and guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for. If any of those titles are television shows, voice-only performances, or non-acting credits, we will mention that up front.

After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. If that is not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints. All righty, that's the IMDB game. Natalie, as our guest, you get the privilege of saying if you want to give her guess first and deciding the order of the game. So would you like to guess first? Would you like to warm up? I think I would like to guess first and get my humiliation over with so that then I can just enjoy watching the two of you. There you go ahead. Okay. Yeah. So is Joe giving you a name or am I giving you? Oh, I'm so scared. Chris, the dogs look so friendly. You wouldn't embarrass me.

I have to tell the listeners that I did have a literal nightmare that I got caught cheating on the IMDB game. And Joe and Chris, instead of, like, putting out the episode just, like, posted on the Patreon, like, this girl cheated on the IMD game. That's our burn book. Natalie made our burn book for cheating. So I promise listeners, I will not be cheating and it will be very obvious when I... We give you a lot. We try to make it easy on you, you know. We like to throw out the hints.

I think the IMDB game really does stress out our guests, Joe. More so than I've ever really realized until we've done this. Having the 70s series be back to back to back to back guests, we are getting the impression that, like, everybody's scared of the IMD game. Well, especially for a Gary. because you're such a backseat player where you're like of course when you're just like

listening while you wash dishes you're like it's blah and now it's going to fall apart for me this is when I'm like this is when Joe gives me as he gave me earlier this week Tony Goldwyn

and I'm like I just go into the space I'm like scandal scandal it's that one designing women episode yeah nothing else comes to you but no for you

you, I have, uh, I had to go back to the original Broadway cast of hair. Who else could I choose, but Diane Keaton. Oh, one of the original black boys singers. Oh, right. Oh, right. Can you imagine Diane Keaton just singing this incredible. There's got to be, it's got to be on tape somewhere. Diane was apparently one of the people in the original production that was like, I don't want to get naked. I'm not going to do that. It's so great. Just imagining Diane Keaton. Like, It's so funny to imagine all the tribe naked and Diane Keaton dressed like Diane Keaton just in the midst of them. Men's suit and a hat. Yeah, full time.

Yeah. Annie Hall. Correct, Annie Hall. Uh. Hmm. Something's got to give. Also correct. Nice.

I feel like First Wives Club has been put forth for people in First Wives Club that it should be there and it's not. So I'm scared. But First Wives Club? Your First Wives Club is correct. First Wives Club is not there. I think First Wives Club is missing for like Bet Midler. Yeah. No, that's wrong for everyone involved.

I'm sending a strongly worded letter about it. Okay. You are doing very, very well. You know more movies than this. Manhattan? Manhattan is not there. Also from 79.

We didn't really talk about it because it ultimately was just like kind of an Oscar also ran. But no, not Manhattan. So your years are, Okay. 1981 and 2005. 2005?

1984. I guarantee you you've seen the 2005 movie. Yeah, I can feel it in my bones. Oh, my God. 2005, um, family comedy? Family, I can, I can see a poster. It's a movie that people watch annually. Oh, Family Stone.

Family Stone. Oh, yes, yes, okay. 1981, she is Oscar nominated for. If you haven't seen this movie, you gotta see this movie. Yeah, it's really good. Yeah, it's really good. Yes. My favorite Diane Keaton's stat was that for her first four decades of her career, essentially,

she was nominated once in every decade. She was nominated once in the 70s, once in the 80s, once in the 80s, once in the aughts. And then the teens broke that streak. She's incredible in this movie. She's starring opposite somebody she was dating at the time, right? That was... Yes, yes.

Or had recently dated. And there's a lot of other stars in this movie that also got Oscars and Oscar nominated for. Mm-hmm. Actor Director Very famous actor director Reds Reds Yeah

Okay Very good I said it But then I didn't think I don't think the mic picked it up And so then I Oh no

We must not have heard you I'm sorry If the audience is listening to me Go red Red Red It'll get picked up on the recording So we're going to sound

like we're totally ignoring I was so worried that it was wrong And that the audience was going to be listening to me going No stupid. Stop saying the same one expecting a different result, idiot.

You have you have survived. You have survived. Well done. Oh God. Oh God. Immediately out the braid. My favorite Reds thing is that apparently when Sondheim was writing the score, Warren Beatty would just like sit while Sondheim played music for him and would just shake his head and go, no, no. Like imagine just sitting while Stephen Sondheim is. He's like, here's some tunes that I wrote for your movie and you're Warren Beatty, and you're just going, Wow. No, do better. Write better music, Stephen Sondheim. Jesus. Every detail I learn about Warren Beatty, I'm like, because I started with Warren Beatty when I was first, like, watching his movies. And then even as I've, like, grown as a cinephile, I'm like, I don't understand everybody's deal about Warren Beatty.

He just seems like a regular, like, ego maniac like everyone else. And then every detail is like, no, no. That? No, there's more. So that means whoever you have pulled is for Joe. Great. I have pulled, and hopefully you haven't done her before. I was looking into Milo Schoorman, which led me to Amadeus, which led me to

original star Meg Tilly, which led me to Jennifer Tilly. Jennifer Tilly. Fabulous. Professional Pokers own Jennifer Tilly. I can't believe we did not even mention Amadeus up to this point. Amadeus. Rocks. Rocks.

Absolutely rocks. Meg Tilly has a YouTube series while going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole about this. I find Meg Tilly has a YouTube series called Tea Time with Meg where she just tells stories about her career and she's pretty much retired at this point so she really doesn't care. She doesn't get the fuck, yeah. She talks so much shit about F. Murray Abraham.

She hates F. Abraham so... I fucking believe anything she says. Oh, absolutely. She apparently, like, apparently F. Marie Abraham once she got, once she got injured and had to leave

production, she found out that F. Marie Abraham went to her husband and was like, your wife and Tom Holst are having an affair and like just made up this lie and she was like it really fucked with my marriage for a while because he wouldn't tell me why he was mad at me all the time and so I was just really depressed having lost this massive job and my husband was being kind of curt with me all the time and then he told me that and it wasn't true and man that's how after Murray Abraham gets into character he's like I'm playing a manipulative

villain okay yeah just go fully yeah yeah Go mode. Yeah, awful, awful. And she still hates him. Someone submitted a comment that said, like, he has since talked in interviews about how he wishes he was better during that production. Blu-blah, does that change how you feel? And she's like, nope, he's never apologized to me. Next question. Good for you, Meg Tilly. Absolutely. All right. So Jennifer Tilly, I'm going to guess her Oscar nomination for Bullets Over Broadway is there. Oh, wait. I forgot to actually go. get the IMDPU, a fool. I'll pull it up to. Unfortunately, a very foolish girl.

I was so excited to talk about tea time with Meg. Okay. Yeah, I got to check that out. Yes, Bullets Over Broadway is there. Okay. Got it. Ride of Chucky. Seed of Chucky?

Yeah. Oh, my God. Wow. Okay. Now, the pressure is on, perfect score, how long has it been since we've had a perfect score? I don't know. Okay, so there's one more Chucky movie that I can't remember the title of at the moment, but it also, it might not be the third one or the last one.

But what other Jennifer Tilly bound? Yes. Yes. Perfect score. Okay. It happened. It happened in this miniseries. We had to make it happen. Yay. Oh, my God. I can't believe you got seed of Chucky because when I pulled this up. That's wild. I know those movies are so popular. Those movies have fans on fans on fans.

The culture, especially the gay culture that has like really brought Bride of Chucky to the forefront. Yes. Finally the time is come. Listen to the screen drafts listeners, listen to the screen drafts on the Chucky movies. our friend Louis Pitesman is on it and... Bride of Chucky is the best Chucky movie. Very good. Okay. Chris, for you, so I went down, also went down the Mules Schoorman rabbit hole. And his next film After Hair was 1981's Ragtime.

Also a musical, but not yet in 1981. This was just when it was based on the EL Doctor novel. Better as a musical than the movie. Yes. So one of the stars of that film is one of my faves. And so I am entrusting you with the IMDB game for Miss Debbie Allen. Oh, yes. True. Here's what's interesting about the Debbie Allen known. This is not going to go well. Two television, three producer. So it's three producers. Three producers, one movie, two TV shows, two movies.

I know that you love her so much, but I do think this is one of the most evil things you have ever done. Because, like, her credits are so far reaching that, like, it could truly be anything. But think about Debbie Allen's career for a second, and I will, I'm going to impress upon you that this is not as hard as you think it is. One of the producing credits is Amistad. Yes. See? You're already. What are the other ones?

There are two more producer credits and two more TV shows. They are the same ones. So there's two TV shows that are both producer credits. Okay. So she's not starring in them. That producer credits does not exclude starring, but they are credited here in the IMDB as producer. So you think you can dance.

It's not possible that it's there, but I'm going to say so you think you can dance. It's not even though I would hoot and holler. if that was the guy. I figure that was one of the reasons why you might be pulled this. No, no. None of them are just starring, though. The movie is just starring. I don't think she had a producing hand in the movie, but like... So is it ragtime? It's not ragtime. So those are your two strikes. So, okay, so your years are, the movie is 1980. The one TV show is 1983 through 1985. Is it the fame TV show and the fame TV show and the fame movie. It's the fame TV show and the fame movie. See, see, see, see. And then the other TV show is 2015 through 2024. Now, that's when her years were on the show. Those were, yeah, as a producer.

Wait, what show is she on right now? What indeed? I'm only think, I just thought in my mind a video showed up in my feed of her in Sweet Charity. And I, I hope I sent it to you because otherwise I'm going to have to dig for it because it's also Adam is just insane. Adam Grossworth sends me every video of Debbie Allen doing any kind of performance. So you're covered there. Adam knows how much I love Debbie. No, so listen to the years, 2015 through 2024. And I will tell you that like she came on to that show in midstream. Got it.

So what does that tell you about the show? What's been running for 10 years? It's not, it can't be like the voice. No, it's not a, it's not a reality show. It is a dramatic, uh, scripted show. Is it like a law and order? It's not a law and order. Do I watch this show?

No, but like, no, but you know, you know of it. You know of it. Um, I guess I don't know of her being on it. what has been on for this curb your enthusiasm? Nope, not a comedy. Okay. Oh, right, right. It's a drama show.

Yeah. Grace Anatomy. Did you not know that Debbie Allen was on Gray's Anatomy? I don't know what's going on in that damn hospital. She's my favorite part of Grey's Anatomy. She's the best. Oh, are you still a Grey's lifer? I only really drifted from Gray's like a year or so ago. And there's every chance that I might just like hop into the new season.

Who knows? Well, there you go. As long as Debbie's on it, there's a chance. Yeah, like, you know, like, when Debbie Allen got her Emmy's Lifetime Achievement Award, that I was, like, literally, like, Nelson from the Simpsons at the Andy Williams concert, just being like, I was so happy. That was my favorite thing. I love Debbie Allen so much.

Natalie Walker. Yes. This has been such a joy. Thank you so much for wanting to come on the show. Tremendous. Thank you so much for asking. me. I have not been on a podcast in many years. I took a long hiatus because I started realizing, oh, I hate the sound of my own voice. And I would listen back. I think at the start of lockdown,

I like heard a snippet of myself on a podcast from a year before. And I was just like, I don't think any of those things anymore. And then I was like, no, I've been dipping back into iconography episodes, it's Natalie. So I've been checking those out. Somebody mentioned, I can't remember what it was, but like, oh, it was somebody mentioned David Sims' as Colin Farrell episode of iconography. So I went back and listened. And I'm like, well, now I'm just going to like, every once in a while just like dip into an iconography episode. Oh my God. That thing, though. Better download all of that before iOS people. You really should download all that and like make sure it like doesn't go away. It's going to be. Yeah. Listeners. It's so good. Iodabry.

before it all blew up. Leave Isle alone, too, for things that she said on podcast. Let her have her takes. Let her have her old takes. Absolutely. But yeah, so it was a long time of going, I don't think I want to share any opinions publicly anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then the idea of talking to you was too exciting. If you want to hate the sound of your own voice and then be afraid of your own opinion, like just like have a you know that's the way to do it listeners have a podcast you will hate the sound of

your own voice very quickly and you will hate all of your opinions very quickly the thing about iconography though is that like io and olivia are like kind of chris and joe coded in that like they like are not afraid to just take opposite tracks on things yes and i love that it is not always interesting to listen to people agree for an hour and a half yes Right. And you believe in their friendship and yours enough that you're not feeling like, ooh, mommy and daddy are fighting. Right, right, right. We had a comment recently that it was like, oh, in this episode, it sounded like they were like actually upset with each other and angry. Listener, I want you to know we're always angry with it. We always mean it. We're always angry. Shout out to Olivia Craghead also because she participated in one of my trivia nights one time. And that was very fun.

She's amazing. Well, again, we thank you so much for coming, Natalie. This is so much fun. But that's our episode. If you want more, This Had Oscar Buzz. You can check out the Tumblr at ThisHadoscurbuzz.com. You should also follow us on Twitter. It had underscore Oscar Buzz on Instagram at This Had Oscar Buzz.

And on Patreon at patreon.com slash This Had Oscar Buzz. Natalie, where can the listeners find more of you if you wish to be found? The listeners can find me at NWox. on Instagram, not on Twitter. I left, like, Nicole Kidman from her divorce proceedings. I used to be extremely on there. I think there's, as they say in company, there's a time to come to Twitter and a time to leave, and mine came. Mine came and went. You've gone to Cape Cod, which in this case is Instagram. Exactly. Exactly. Joe, where can the listeners find more of you? Well, unfortunately, I'm still on Twitter because it's the

only place I can feed the engagement need, I guess. I don't know. And also letterboxed, letterboxed at Joe Reed, read spelled R-E-I-D. Also, check out Cinematrix on Vulture every weekday. I am gritting it up and seems to be going pretty well. So I'm very happy with it. It rocks. Thank you for all you do on Cinematrix. It's my favorite thing. I love waking up in the morning and going right to the Cinematrix. That's so good. love that. And then you can find me on Twitter and Letterbox at Krisvi File. That's F-I-L. We'd like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and Kevin Mievous for their technical guidance

and Taylor Cole for our theme music. Please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcast. Five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcast visibility. So let the sunshine in with a slew of American Tribunal Love Rock five-star reviews. That's all for this week. That's all for the 70s. And we hope you'll be back next week for more buzz, not in a single decade. Joe, we made it. We made it. We did it. Congratulations.