This Had Oscar Buzz - 297 – To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

Why not derail an originally planned episode to close pride season with a beloved queer 90s film with three praised performances? In 1995, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar spun a tale of three drag queens on a road trip that get stranded in middle America. Its headliners were two macho movie stars in Patrick … Continue reading "297 – To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hack, Millen Hack and French. I'm from Canada water. Dick Pooh. Wesley Snipes, he's been a killer and a commando. Patrick Swayze, he's been a heartthrob and a hero.

But these tough guys are about to face the most physically challenging roles of their careers. Let's give it to him, girls. Meet Vita Boem. Enchanté. Why are you crying? Maybe she just found out my nude on broke out. Miss Noxima Jackson. Jesse's daughter.

And their protege, Kiki Rodriguez. I'm the Latino Marilyn Monroe. I got more legs than a bucket of chick. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that sees twin twisters everywhere. It's twins! Twins! Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once

upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we are here. to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Joe Reed. I'm here as always with my Red and Wild co-host, Chris File. Hello, Chris. Red and Wild.

That's your theme. That's your theme. Ugh. First of all, just in the nick of time, happy pride, y'all. Happy pride listeners. Good afternoon, ladies. Are we going to have,

what is the term they prefer the ladies, a ladies afternoon? A day. A day for the ladies. A day with the girls. A day with the girls. What's a day with the girls? We're going to have a day with the girls. Melinda Dylan. Just, you know, Melinda Dillon, the most touched of all of these small town villagers. We're going to break. I think we want, we should break down the cast of locals in this movie at some point because they're worth it, is what I will say. This whole group of women is worth it. Yeah, just in time for the end of Pride Month, we decided to get our, we decided that, um, A Michael Shannon movie about paranoid schizophrenia was not enough to celebrate pride that somehow we needed to derail the originally planned end of June episode. Could not have been a straighter movie that we had slotted in here for the end of June. Spoiler for next week. We will be bringing that movie to you next week. But in the meantime, we decided, oh, right, we should do something fun and frisky and red and wild. and...

Listen, we did not plan June all... June was us collapsing on a couch after May. June was not busting out all over. June was imploding. Life stuff was going on... Yeah. Vacations were happening. Vacations were happening.

We were in and out of town. We were... We were... Fixing our schedules to match each other. But you know what? I moved. I am now... This is my first episode in my...

new setup listen i've tried to do everything i can for the audio if it's if it is red and wild audio this week do not tell me we're doing our best here at the set oscarus we're fine we're good we are we are on the ball we are uh in a convertible top car down the highway of america heading towards god only knows our map is in the in the on the road behind us And maps are cheating. We don't have a map. Okay. So we are at long last, I feel like, finally pulling out to Wang Fu, thanks for everything, Julie Newmar, a movie that at first blush, people would be like, I love those movies that people are like, that couldn't have possibly had Oscar buzz. And yet, I feel like up until the last minute, John Leguizamo was like in the mix for best supporting actor for this Oscar race, right? Quite possibly. I mean, an actor that, you know, coming out of the theater was taken very seriously. Certainly someone who I think his presence in this lended it some snob cred aside from- Yeah, certainly because like the way the movie was sold, if you check out the trailer at some point, it's very much like a clip from Roadhouse and then like Wesley Snipes and a clip from whatever action movie he had just been in. And they're like two of the toughest guys in movies. are now taking on their most physically demanding role yet, and then it shows them in full drag.

And so I think, yeah, Leguizamo was at least the, if not the snob cred, then at least maybe like, oh, people who are like plugged into a more of like the theater scene or something like that or something a little bit more edgy, we're aware of John Leguizamo at this point. So, yeah, I think that's probably behind why he, his was the standout performance. Also, his is really the one that you can point out as decidedly supporting among these three. And a supporting campaign is probably easier to push than something like a lead, even though one would have imagined that Patrick Swayze by this point in his career might have been able to have a really interesting narrative. for himself for this post Sam Wheat. Post Sam Wheat. Post-Dirty Dancing and sort of

he had made these very popular movies and now all of a sudden he's taking this role that's like out of his wheelhouse and whatnot. It's interesting. We're going to talk about his career and Wesley Snipes's career and Leguizamo's career and sort of these three guys who, I mean, in one of their cases,

never will have an Oscar nomination. Obviously, Patrick Swayze has passed away, but Wesley Snipes and John Leguizamo have to date never been Oscar nominated, and there are certainly occasions where they could have been, and we'll look through that in their past. So there's more to this episode than just the two of us sort of like going off on, you know, Alice Drummond at the Strawberry Social and being like, work, ladies, work. But we'll also be doing that. What a feel-good movie. I watched it, obviously, again, the other night. And, like, it's just, it's a, it's a good time had by all. It is a, I sort of, we'll probably talk a little bit about the sort of the dichotomy of this movie and the adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. These two movies sort of coming out around the same time. And then in the American media kind of twinned with one another, the two drag queen movies. And while I have endless respect,

and love for Priscilla. This is my go-to movie, and I've decided to... I think I have to agree. This is my favorite of the two of them. Well, Priscilla, which, like, we can just go off on Priscilla in this episode if we want to, too, because we'll never get to talk about it because we can't talk about it. Not an Oscar winner, so we can't even talk about Patreon. That's true. That's true. I do think that this is superior to Priscilla, a movie that I do also read.

love and get a lot of enjoyment out of to the day. I mean, like, you know, you can talk about the type of things, the cringe elements of it, the things do not hold up well to, you know, modern standards. Both of the movies have those things. Capital P problems, while also still being a wonderful movie around those capital P problems. There's like quibbles you could have with elements of Tuong Fu. Of both of them, yeah, sure. Toong Fu, I think, is a, specifically a 90s comedy that I keep returning to as like, you know, an element of frustration in that we don't really have quality comedies anymore, let alone comedies to begin with. And this movie just makes it look so easy, all of the, you know, that you can still find classic lines in this

or, you know, funny bits of business happening around like the fringes of the scenes and such. It is sort of deceptively easy seeming, right? Where it's just like, we'll just find, like, three incredibly charismatic actors who are willing to... Everybody has to try so fucking hard to make a comedy now. It's true. It's true. And it's like you have three people really working outside of their wheelhouse because, like, Likwasama was not in a lot of movies up to this point, or at least not in a role this large. And you have Swayze and Snipes who not only are, you know, straight, very, like, macho actors, but two actors who have never really done comedy, or at least

they've not had to be as funny as they are in this movie? Right. Like, Snipes has done, like, white men can't jump and stuff like that, but you're right. It's not quite to this extent. And, you know, Swayze has done ghosts, but it's like, Whoopie has to carry all of the comedic weight in that movie. Well, right. We'll talk about the fact that that movie was categorized as a comedy at the Golden

Globes that year, which I do feel like is slightly ridiculous, but we'll talk about it. Yeah, I think it's not only do you have this movie that has these, you know, three incredibly charismatic performances, but it's just like, oh, ho-hum, we'll get Douglas Carter Bean to do our screenplay. You know what I mean? Like that kind of thing. And there's a Douglas Carter Bean, who is, of course, a renowned playwright has done, help me out here. What's the one? The Little Dog Laugh to believe is the big famous one right right but also did the i think the books for sister act and zanadu hold on did the book for zanadu for sure um sister out jones was also kind of a little cult thing

yeah i think it was i think he like gave a pass or at a sister act or whatever um and then was also, I think, did the book for the 2013 Cinderella, the restaging of Rogers and Hammerstein Cinderella. I think there was a lot of like new material that. So anyway, a very sort of like modern theater person who would sort of come into his own with Broadway stuff in the aughts and the 2010s. But by, you know, in the 90s was doing off-Broadway stuff as Bees and Honeydrawn was a comedy of his that was, I think, just after to Wang Fu. So this is still very early in the Douglas

Carter Bean career. So I think it's a really incredible script, actually. For as much as it's very much like of its time, it is also a triumph of perspective, I think, at a time when pitching a mainstream comedy like this is you know universal pictures right this is a mainstream comedy about three drag queens where truly the butt of the joke is never on the queens you know what I mean it's a funny movie it does not hold back if the butt of the joke is ever on the queens it's queen on queen comedy you know right which is a very different thing which is a very different thing It's not, the butt of the joke is never, can you believe these, you know, these men in dresses kind of a thing. I think it is a movie that feels very, very much queers in control of this narrative, even if it's dated, even if it is now like using terminology that is outdated, even if it is using ways in which we think of gender expression that are outdated. dated, this is very much a movie where the three queer characters at the center of this movie

are very much telling their own story, even if it's not like with a voiceover. You know what I mean? While I also think it is still fairly usefully instructive for, you know, say, you're open-minded but uneducated and still supportive aunt. Like, you can put her in front of the Wesley's Times monologue that explains the difference between drag queen, transvestide, and trans person. Yes. When a straight man puts on a dress and gets his sexual kicks, he is a transvestite. When a man is a woman trapped in a man's body and has the little operation, he is a transsexual. I know that.

When a gay man has way too much fashion sense for one gender, he is a drag queen. Thank you. And when a tired little Latin boy puts on a dress, it's simply a boy in a dress. And it's still very helpful. Sure, as a stepping stone. A fundamentally 90s. Sure. You know.

Well, and I think it is ultimately, like I said, it's still, it's still dated. It also sort of like brings up, it's interesting that a movie has that scene in it, where it very much, this is a movie that attempts very much to sort of define its terms as. they understand it at that time and yet has this sort of like fundamental disconnect of like these queens are just in drag all day and all night you know what I mean like these queens live in drag queens getting in full drag to be in a car all day to be in a car all day like can you imagine ruPaul is barely in drag on her show about being in drag you know what I mean like this is how times have changed wigs that you know you can go in a convertible with the top down and I'm saying I'm saying so anyway it's a fantasy right that's where it's like you know it's a movie you know it's not as it's not as fun if they're not in drag so of course you know it also doesn't you know adhere to the comedy conceit of what of this like road trip farce basically that we're on and like this kind of Americana story because it's it's it's

also in the tradition of not just old classic Hollywood comedies and old screwball comedies, but it's also in like Small Town America, William Weiler, Frank Capra type of storytelling. This thing where this small town exists, that's why it always seems to me, it's not surprising to me that it's written by a playwright, although it's a little surprising that it's not directed by a theater director because the entire scene in the small town once they get there feels like it happens in one sort of dirt road intersection, like there is just one little stretch of road in between four little stores or homes or houses or whatever. And every character of this sort of like wide expanse of characters all just seem to exist within this space and

nowhere else. There just does not seem to be the rest of, where is the rest of this town? Who knows and kind of who cares? I want to know how many buildings in this town set, could you actually enter, or how many of them were just... Are just facades. Like, the door doesn't even open, you know? Right. Because I definitely think that movie theater, like, you can't open that door. No, totally.

But wait, the other thing... There's a charm to it, and I think there's a comfort in it. And I think... Absolutely. There's an intentionality to that comfort, because I think for queer people, especially, like, there is... You know, queer people who come from... at least where Vita and Noxima come from, you know, they don't come from the city. I don't think we ever learn.

Is Chi Chi from New York City? I don't know. I think we can sort of assume that she has, especially because she's such a young queen. That, you know what I mean? Like, she's, you know, she describes herself as a Puerto Rican, a Puerto Rican girl. But she never, I don't think we know if she comes from Puerto Rico. Well, right. I think it's, I think it could just as very well be just like her family's Puerto Rican in New York. You know what I mean? And Nogs, or Vita comes from the suburbs or from whatever, like, you know, rich suburbs of subtown. And I don't know where Nogzima is originally from, if she mentions it at all. But one of the things I wanted to say. I think she does mention, like, life outside of New York City, though. But the thing is, like, I think for, you know, a certain part of queer people. people, you know, there is still that kind of push and pull for, you know, if they come from a home life or, you know, they come from a town like this, you know, more positive things. And I think that this movie does a good balance of finding that comfort without also, you know, being bullshit. Like, there's a certain level of the whole conceit of an entire small town rallying and doing the Spartacus thing for a bunch of drag queens is bullshit.

It's hokey, but it's a good kind of hokey. I find it very, I find it works within... The movie pulls it off, though, without being overly hokey. It doesn't feel like bullshit. Like, it does feel earned in this movie in a way that, like, you don't have to think about too much. And, like... Well, and, I mean, I think no matter where these girls come from, I think we can confidently say, like, from the perspective of the townspeople who they come visit, these are, as Yua Hamasaki might say, three New York. girls. But one of the things I think is interesting when we talk about, like, the fact that

they're in drag all the time, is other movies have done this and have, like, added this superstructure where they're on the run from something. That's some like it haunt. And that's Connie and Carla, right? Where it's just like they're in drag the whole time. Because they're in, they have to stay in disguise. And this movie could have done that, right? They could have been on the run from New York and having to like, you know, essentially like use their drag as their costume. And yet there's something more tied to identity for this. Why are they traveling across country in drag? They don't really say, but you can sort of interpret that it's just like, well, they want to feel fabulous. And that's why they get the convertible instead

of the, you know, whatever, the Toyota. And this is why they, you know, as soon as they enter this drab little, you know, motel room that Stocker Channing and Arles Howard run. That's why they, like, make it over, you know what I mean? And have that. It's because they want to feel... Living theatrically does not come without its blood, sweat, tears, and consequences. Sure. But like, they want to feel, you know, this idea of, like, feeling fabulous in a world that is, you know, determined to make you not feel that way. But also, I think it lends the movie's themes, something that goes beyond just we are trying to hide out. You know what I mean? And I think this movie is completely the opposite of that, the opposite of hiding out. The other thing

that I think this movie does along those lines is it is a movie that is a celebration of drag and queer identity and all this sort of stuff, while also it doesn't, like, my itself in the ugliness of the world around it, but it never ignores it either. Like, at every turn where these girls are traveling across the country, they are very aware of the danger that they could be in at any moment. Like Nagzima mentions it when they go to stop at that hotel along the road that turns out to be the convention for women's basketball players, which is like... The bit that I could maybe do without.

It has really nothing to do with the movie, but it's a joke that feels like it is... sexist and I thought it I enjoyed I enjoyed the silliness of it like oh where could they possibly feel like they fit in perfectly well you know well I I enjoy it for Noxema's basketball outfit of course half of my notes are just a list of Noxema's outfit Nagzima's what Nagzima's wearing the um the rhinestone eyelashes um all of it yeah um but so but I

but in general there you know there are scenes where there's the scene where, you know, all the rough trade of the town sort of like advance upon Chi-Chi before Jason London comes and saves her. And, but in general, there's, there's a, an acknowledgement of the fact that this is all, you know, fun and fabulous, but let's not forget that, like, there is threat to these women. And, and the fact that these women are carrying themselves the way they are is all the more impressive for it's being a defiance of that kind of threat. You know what I mean? Without like, without pressing on the button really hard, you know what I mean? The movie doesn't ever slow itself down to, you know, recognize this.

But like, there are, there's a pervasiveness of this around the periphery, all, you know, everything with the Chris Penn character. Um, so I think in addition, to being this sort of like light, frothy, silly movie also does not turn a blind eye to the world as it was then and as it, you know, continues to be now. The balance is kind of just right with everything in this movie. It exists enough in the real world. It is also a fantasy. It exists, you know, in the language of classic Hollywood comedies, but also, you know, in the modern 90s as well, you know, in a way that I think even we as gay people are like, oh, too Wang Fu, fun, silly movie, I love it, but I don't take it that seriously. And I think we could stand to take this movie a little bit more seriously.

Yeah, I think that's right. Including, like, just on an aesthetic level, not just the costume design and the drag of it, but like that town. and how it evokes a certain level of, like, old Hollywood melodrama, et cetera. Mm-hmm. I agree. All right. Let's get into the nuts and bolts of this. But first, we are going to encourage our listeners who may not already be signed up for our Patreon to do so.

So, Chris, why don't you take the stage, take your scepter and your crown and explain? Miss Drag Podcasting of America Contest. Miss Cocoa Peru has just crushed a martini glass in her hand, and now it is your turn to speak. The actual drag scenes in there, like, if you pay attention, especially even in the background, there is some very famous drag queens, not just the Rupal cameo in there. Oh, yeah. I've noted a few of them, but even like down to like Lady Bunny's there and Quentin Crisp is. there and, you know, among the judges at the pageant at the beginning. Yeah. So, listeners, we have a Patreon. You might have heard about it on previous episodes. Or if

you're new to us, come check us out at this head Oscar buzz turbulent brilliance. For just $5 a month, you're going to get two bonus episodes. The first of those comes out the first of every month. We're going to be changing that soon. We haven't had this full conversation yet because our lives are going crazy, but it'll be earlier in the month. You're going to get what we call an exception episode. This is movies that fit that this had Oscar Buzz rubric, but manage to score an Oscar nomination or two. Most recently, we've talked about W.E.

We've done listeners' choice episodes on movies like the Lovely Bones and Molly's game. We've talked about nine, Vanilla Sky, Barbara Streisans, the Mirror has two faces, always a good time with those. What do we have coming? We haven't decided. We haven't decided yet. We haven't decided yet. It'll be a surprise to us as well.

Listen, we're constantly just jumping on a series of already moving treadmills with the show. Eventually, we will find some stasis and normalcy. The second episode you're going to get every month, we call those excursions. These are deep dives into various Oscar ephemera. We love obsessing about on this show. Most recently, we've recapped the 1999 Independent Spirit Awards hosted by the one and only Jennifer Tilly. Jennifer Tilly. We've recapped MTV Movie Awards.

We've talked about Hollywood Reporter roundtables, EW fall movie preview issues. We're going to be doing an awards race recap before the season really starts in earnest next month. We got a fun surprise coming in August. that we think people will be excited about. But go and sign up for This Had Oscar Buzz Turbulent Brilliant over at patreon.com slash this had Oscar Buzz. $5 a month, cheesy gordita crunch, Baja Blast. For the price of that, you can support your favorite podcast host.

Exactly. Support the girls. We came up. We did something besides a cheesy gordita crunch. Yeah, I'm not sure. Listen, various fast food items cost $5. Pick your favorite one. Pick the one that most sings to you and sacrifice one of them a month for us.

I don't know. I don't know. It's $5. It's worth it. $5. We've got almost a year's worth of episodes over there if you haven't signed up. Yeah. Fuck yeah, man.

It's worth it. It's a lot. It's a treasure tro. is what I will say. Okay. So, Chris, I'm going to need you to limber up and stretch. It won't be the first time someone sold me to that on Pride, man. God. All right. Okay. Pride's almost over. I won't say thank goodness, but, you know. All right. This week we are talking about to Wang Fu. Thanks for everything, Julie Numar. A movie that has existed among multiple punctuation structures throughout its life.

It, in certain areas you will see it punctuated as just two wang fu, thanks for everything, comma, Julie Numar. And then I believe on the poster, it is, yes, two wang fu, comma, thanks for everything, exclamation point, Julie Newmar, which to me is, is, is, to the structure of what we're referencing, right? It's a two wang-foo. That's how you address, you know, a message with a comma after it. Thanks for everything.

Worth the exclamation point, because why wouldn't you thank someone for everything? And then Julie Numar is the signature. So, you know, I don't know. That's it. That's correct. All right. Directed by Bebon Kidron, we will talk about, I believe, Baroness, Bibon Kidron. we'll talk about it later, who is no longer a film director, but is a British politician and child advocate.

Don't worry. I looked it up. I'm pretty sure she hasn't. She's a good kind of child advocate and not a turfy kind of child advocate. So, no promises, but thus far, I have not been able to find anything bad. The advocacy for protecting children from turfs. Exactly. We fucking need. Yeah. We have for real. All right. Written by as. we mentioned, Douglas Carter Bean, starring Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes, John Leguizamo, Stalker Channing, Chris Penn, Blyth

Danner, Melinda Dillon, Beth Grant, Alice Drummond, Marcelline Hugo, Arles Howard. By the way, before all of these names, I should be saying, like, the queen, including the queen, Chris Penn, the queen, Arles Howard, all of these. Jason London, Jennifer Milmore, Michael

Vartan, as the trade of the season, my goodness. RuPaul, Miss Cocoa, Reda Lettuce, Candace Cain, Naomi Campbell, Robin Williams, and of course, the titular Julie Newmar, showing up for a dialogue-free moment at the end of this movie. This movie premiered on September 8th, 1995. Chris, stopwatch at the ready. Are you ready for a plot description of two Wong-Fu thanks for everything, Julie

Numar? Yes. All right. Begin now. All right. So the movie begins, and we're watching a drag page in New York City. It wins with a tie. Boo, we hate ties. But honestly, it's deserved because it's Vita Bohm and Noxema Jackson, two of the most fabulous queens you've ever seen in your life. They take under their wing, a little Latin boy in drag who is crying, named Chi Chi Rodriguez. They, instead of, you know, using their plane tickets to take the two of them across the country to Hollywood to compete in the misdrag of USA. America, whatever, a weirdly named pageant, they decided to trade in their tickets with Robin Williams to get a car to go across the country and they can take all three of them. Meanwhile, they're like, Chi-Chi, we're going to educate you on how to become a full drag queen. Of course, the car breaks down in small town America. It's going to be a quick fix, but it takes forever to get the part. So they have to wait like a week while they're there. And Stocker Channing like boards them in her house. And her husband is abusive played by Arliss Howard. And he, uh, he, uh, is abusive. Vita eventually

like befriends Carol Ann and you know beats up Virgil, sent him out. Meanwhile, Noxima is making friends with the lady in town who normally doesn't speak, but through the magic of movie trivia begins to get her to speak. Chi Chi falls in love

with a boy who is also Carolan's daughter of undeterminate age is also in love with him, but she, you learn self-sacrifice by allowing those two to go be in love with each other. They throw a red and wild strawberry pie parade, and they leave the town, and then they go to the contest, and Chi-Chi wins. 43 seconds over, and I don't think you mentioned the continuing investigation of Chris Penn at all.

They're also under pursuit by... They think they've killed Sheriff Dullard and... And Virgil also rats them out to Dullard-Dollard. Right. Dullard, Dullard, the Victor Victoria over our time. Yeah, lots going on in this plot. You did make it to like 45 seconds before they even got to the small town. And I was like, okay, I know where this is going.

I know this is just going to be a leisurely stroll around the plot of Tuwong Fu. And that is fine. It deserves it. All right. So we mentioned this cast of stunning ladies as they enter this small town. Now, does every small town have a coterie of character actresses just waiting to be made over and turned into red and wild harlots the way that this town does? Maybe not, but we can all hope. We can all hope and dream that that is the case.

I'm not going to be so gauche as to ask you to rank the five sort of central queens, not stalker Channing, she's sort of, you know, aside. But let's sort of, you know, here's what I'm going to do. Let's give all of them their due at the top. Were they in a season of All-Stars drag race or like celebrity drag race or something like that? Let's go through where they would succeed. Blythe Danner as, oh, what is her character's name? I can never remember it.

It is Beatrice. Blythe Danner is Beatrice, whose character quirk seems to be that she's in love in some way with Jimmy Joe. He's in love with her. Well, but she has an eye for him. Yes, like they're kind of dancing around this flirtation. And she's kind of somewhat of a ringleader. She's a gossip. She has that scene where she sort of like runs down the whole town for the queens and gives them the lowdown on everybody else.

So she seems to be the gossip, which would make her good for, I imagine, like, the acting challenges. She would win a talk show challenge. She would win the talk show challenge. Yes. She would bossy Rossi or, you know, whatever, they do a morning show or something like that. Yes. I think that puts her. in contention for that. Now, Melinda Dillon, as Myrna, runs the beauty parlor. So this seems to me like

your makeover queen challenge. It's a formidable lady, right? Beth Grant as Loretta. Now Loretta, when it comes time for the makeover, chooses the most electric lime green boa you ever did see and feels like a stunt queen, if I'm not mistaken, right? Like, of these women, like, this is your stunt queen right here. This is the, she's going to turn out a lip sync. She's going to be your Lala, Lipsink Lala Perusa contender. I can go with this. I can follow this.

Marcelline Hugo plays Katina. Now, of course, if you don't know Marcelline Hugo, my name, she is Kathy Geis from 30 Rock. She was also on the leftovers. She's the one that in the makeover sequence of this movie, the little like makeover montage when they all go to Melinda Dillon's salon that seemingly has not been open in 20 years. Yeah. She has the little mini beehive. The little Eureka O'Hara loaf on the, yes. It does feel like when Melinda Dillon opens the doors to her salon in that scene, like that you almost expect her to like blow big piles of dust off of like everything.

It does feel like it hasn't been open in many years. Um, so, okay, so Katina, she might be like, she might be your first boot. Like, she just doesn't have a ton of storyline. She's one of those people who, like, in the first episode, you're like, we're not here. She's a, she's a, a jaslin fox. Yeah, she's a little bit of a jasmine fox. It was like, you love having her around, but. Yeah.

But you know she's not taking it. And then you have, who I think is your sort of stealth winner storyline. This is your your Aquaria, maybe, your, your Willow Pill, your, you know,

your snatch game winner, you're sort of, your quirky queen that everybody kind of like underestimates and doesn't really take seriously as a contender. The first time she shows up, it's like, what's this weirdos deal?

Alice Drummond is clear. It's just like, oh, she's not speaking. She's just sort of like, puttering around town. Okay, like, this one's not a threat. And then all of a sudden she comes out of her shell. And by the end of the season, she's wearing, first of all, the only one bold enough to wear pink to a red and wild themed strawberry social, which I love that. I love that, by the way. Of course, in this small town where, like, resources are going to be limited, someone's going to

have to, like, fudge the theme and just wear pink to the red and wild social. And I love that. Like, clearly, there was some intention behind that. But, like, you can see where, like, Rue would be, like, not everybody could have pulled that off, Clara, but you did, and I love, you were made for this. You were born to do drag. Let's also note that during the makeover montage, she's the only one in Pants on the Runway. Pants on the runway, those, that little hippie outfit that, again, you can see, imagine the other, like, Loretta in her interview is, like, Clara wore pants. I don't think that's appropriate for this challenge. It is not glam enough.

And then the judges love her for it. They love her boots down. And also silent queen who doesn't speak until it's nothing but movie trivia, relatable queen. She's the one who like pulls out a really interesting, like she panders to RuPaul's old Hollywood knowledge with her snatch game. Like that is, yes, I think that's right. Clara is your ultimate winner, and it's Clara and it's, and it's Carolan, of course, are your final two. Carolina, Carolan is the secretly well-funded queen, where, like, who was going to show up? Showing up in that giant red wedding dress.

Where was that hiding in this little small town, this giant blood red, not even blood red, but like, like, like, loud scarlet wedding dress with full. veil. She looks like the largest rose you've ever seen in your life and she's here to fucking kill you. So, like, Caroline came with outfits. Caroline came with all the outfits. And so that's your final two, is Carolanne and Clara.

And we've got to talk about that dress, though. It's so, like, that's one of the great things of this movie that the one person who really gets to show up the queens in this movie gets to be Stocker Channing. Yes. And it's like, her story is somewhat simplistic, you know. She literally

is just there to be, you know, an abused woman. She gets knocked around. But not necessarily because, like, she has this really interesting relationship with Vita. And I think there's also that scene that I would also tag to

the idea of this movie isn't being try hard, but it is a good bridge in terms of, you know, just vernacular and type of things. I love that how beautiful that scene is of the, you know, they're talking.

about Adams Apple and you think it might go in a certain direction. And what she says is, I feel very fortunate to have a wonderful lady friend within Adams Apple. And it's just like, it's just perfect. It's a great line. It's this bridge between like, that's why this movie can kind of thrive and exist of between eras, like as, you know, conversation has evolved and as terminologies have evolved and as we progress. And it's like, but it also doesn't feel like it's trying to do some middle ground in any way. It's trying to say the thing. Yes. Even if it's like, you don't want to use a hacky word like timeless, but like in language that still can apply to today. If, however many, you know, movies got costume

design nominations on the strength of one particular garment, which were that, would not be the case for two Wang Fu because there are plenty of fantastic outfits. But, But even if you just boiled down to Tuwong Fu to that red wedding dress, would be worthy of the knowledge. I was going to say, Tuwong Fu has like 17 of those one costumes that could have earned a costume. We'll get into, to, to, to, um, Naxima. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because it has 17 of those costumes and 12 of them are Naximas. I want to talk about before we get past the, you know, the ladies, the, you know, a day with the ladies. A little shout out to costume shop, entrepreneur Billy in this, who, again, has been running this, like, just garment shop this whole time.

And it does seem like nobody's ever bought from there before ever. And he's got an attic full of, like, awesome, incredible vintage clothes that just were going to get donated to Goodwill. And we do, there is some, like, intentional queer coding with this character, right? He's the one who, at the Strawberry Social, like, the other boys sort of, like, dress up in the colors, but are still very, you know, in, you know, they're not fucking with gender the way that, like, Billy has the, the feather boa and whatnot. And I think there is a way in which this movie's sort of, like, codes the, his, outsider status is having a stutter and whatever as like, you know, who's to say about, you know, Billy's sort of inner life. And like, this does not get a whole ton of like attention in the movie. This is me sort of fan-ficking my way through what's going on. But like, I think we can,

I don't think I'm out of bounds in being like Billy queer icon. Well, we also, I mean, like, that's one of the things about, I think, the script and the way that everything is played is like there's, you don't have a ton. of time with all these characters, but the way that each performer plays them gives some specificity, and then, like, the detail in Douglas Carter being script, you know, gives them enough life for those actors to then kind of, you know, take in a direction. I want to briefly, and I know that, like, I know this is a potential, um, area of battle for you and I. I think these, this is, uh, an area where you and I tend to disagree.

Jason London and Michael Vartan in this movie Give your opinion if you have any Michael Vartan, you can disrespect me It'll be, it's okay, I'll let you I'm just saying it like the trade of the season My goodness, he's so Just dirty I'm personally affronted that Arles Howard

Has to be the bastard in this movie Because like Arles Howard normally very handsome man You forget that it's Arles Howard in this movie sometimes because it's like, oh yeah, this is that character actor that is normally like short and stout and cutie, but like... Well, it's his evil twin because he's got the classic evil twin goatee in this, so... Jason London, person who is literally born to be in a white fang movie. Jason London, who I could have sworn this was his twin brother, Jeremy, because I still cannot tell

the two of them apart. Jason London is the one who was in dazed and confused. Jeremy London was the one who was in party of five. But like, anytime I see them outside of those contexts, it's just flip a coin for me. So this is, I believe, I don't know. I don't know what other things Jason's been. But anyway, I think Jason London is cute as a button and his little outfit at the end with the sort of like the red and white vest that he's wearing. Like, well, perfect. Love it. Before we move on from the townspeople, I do have to correct you on something you said earlier in that you were saying that Marcelline Hugo would be the first eliminated of the town. It is absolutely Bobby Lee. What the fuck is going on? True. Bobby Lee is your Instagram queen. She's too young. She's an amount of homeschooling.

Like, Bobby Lee could be 12. Bobby Lee could be 25. Bobby Lee could be Clara kicked in the head by a horse from Light and the Piazza. Like what? I think I only noticed on this watch that she. She still has braces. So she's probably not adult braces. I think I only noticed in this watch that she's Stalker Channing's daughter in this.

Like, I never quite connected that. You never thought that that was her daughter? See, this is the problem with Bobby Lee. Bobby Lee is almost like, it feels like this is maybe the thing, the one thing the movie pushes on and that they're trying to be like, well, here's a very simple small town girl. Well, it also... The her impersonation of Ann Baxter is very funny. I also, I always forget that they actually show a scene. from the Ten Commandments in this. I'm like, this movie's so me-coded.

But the one sort of like regressive idea that this movie does sort of like lay in stone that I wonder if like we wouldn't maybe we wouldn't push his hard on in current day, and I did say hard on, but I didn't mean to, is the idea that, well, Chi-Chi, it's wrong of you to try and lure Bobby Ray away from his true path, which is to Bobby Lee, because these two young, straight, white people belong together. And for you to try and mess that up is just wrong. And I think if this movie were made today, I think you would probably have a little bit more of a sense of, like, Bobby Ray is stupid, but he's not stupid. Like, he knows there is something about Chi-Chi, and he knows there is something he is something he is attracted to in Chi-Chi that is not.

And so I think a more modern-day movie would probably feel freer to explore that and to sort of like muddy the lines a little bit, rather than just being like, Chi-Chi, back off. These two straight people are going to be straight together. And that's the way God intended it. The last thing we see of Bobby Ray is him realizing that Chi-Chi is a drag queen, basically. know, he, that he doesn't realize, you know, Chi-Chi's gender identity, whatever. Right. Maybe because the movie doesn't necessarily define things. But then by the time we get to the Strawberry Social, everybody has decided to sort of open up the, you know, the windows of perception in their own lives.

And they're all like, maybe I'm a drag king. I'm a drag queen. Spartacus, Spartacus, Spartacus. Work, work, work, work. You know what I mean? But like- This movie also does avoid the thing that I hate of like straight appropriation of like dragging queerness of like, not that there aren't like a fab drag queens, but like it does avoid the thing that I find annoying where it's like you find soccer dads being like work hunty that I hate. No, but what I think is, but some of the people who do sort of allow themselves to kind of blend in that way, it is like it's Jimmy Joe who like.

is straight in this movie, straight-coded in this movie, but also feels like, as is somebody who also exists on the periphery of this town. And it is also part of, I guess, the narrative of the movie that, like, their presence awakens this town. And, like, yes, some of this queerness and some of it is drag. But also, I think largely it's New York City because, like, the thing that... The towns people will talk to the queens about is like New York City, you know, that's the thing that makes them special. It's coded, but it's also like, it also seems like a very real thing of like, oh, this is how they do it in, you know, in New York and I want to put on airs. But there's also the idea that like most of the male characters in this town that we deal with who aren't Virgil, who aren't Arles Howard, are young, right? Our Bobby Ray, our Tommy, our Billy, who are also sort of all sort of young.

enough to be, to be, you know, more open to this kind of thing and have it actually, like, enhance their lives, right? And it makes them better people to be more, you know, to be less narrow in their perceptions of things and to be able to fucking dress up. Like, literally, it, that's all it takes for some people. It's just like, just feel free to, like, wear a pop of color and, like, and go from there. And it'll be fine. Before we fully move on from the townspeople, I do just have to say, it's like, but I need to know how old Bobby Lee is because this new watch is like, should we be having Bobby Ray try to date her? How old is Bobby Ray? Now I'm like, wait, should Chi Chi have been dating Bobby Ray? I can't tell, I can't tell how old these people are supposed to be. Were I to like, were I to make a guess, I would say that Chi Chi is like, 21, 22. That sure.

Bobby Ray is like 18, and Bobby Lee is probably 16, 17? I don't feel right about this. You're like, this doesn't sit well with my spirit. I don't know. Okay. Can we talk about Leguizamo in the scene with Bobby Ray, the scene in like the white nighty, the full outfit, Which first of all, like...

Calling that a full outfit is a little generous. It is a white knighty. No, this is the exact point I was going to make because the whole conversation at the beginning of the movie where they're like, that is just a boy in a dress where you really feel like Chi Chi might have just put this dress on and called it a day. But that outfit, there are garters, there are bloomers,

there is a headband. It is a full assembled outfit. There is eyelet in it's not just like a cotton nighty. There's, like, eyelid detail in it. There's ruffling. It's like, John, like, Guasama looks so beautiful and is lit so beautifully in that scene. That was one of the scenes where I was like, this looks like a fucking, like, you know, somebody trying to riff on a William Wyler movie. She just looks so beautiful.

One of the things that I like that is constant, though, about the, about Chi Chi in this movie is it gets referenced at the end when Chi Chi is, like, an I vow to find a foundation. that is closer to my natural skin tone because you look at her makeup in a lot of this movie and it does look like ghost makeup. It is very, very bright white on her face. But anyway, like five minutes to talk about the drag pageant at the beginning because of A, all the cameos, but B, we have not mentioned Rupal Charles as Rachel Tensions, the reigning...

In a Confederate flag dress that I will say would not be allowed today, but I think much to our, much to our detriment, because I feel like that is a serve and a half. First of all, to have your, if your drag name is Rachel Tensions, and then you are a black queen coming in with this Confederate dress, it is doing that thing that we say drag should be doing, which is making people kind of like confront things for a second. And like, wait a second, like, you know, what does all this symbology mean? what does the fucking with this symbology mean? And it's, I think it's a serve and a half. So, um, I'm into it. I don't know.

Still edgy and still funny in a way that feels useful. Yes. Uh, what did, how did you feel about seeing all of these sort of notable queens at the very beginning and the very end of the movie, uh, the ones I mean, the end of the movie is so incredible because it's just like, well, when you see Chi Chi, it's like, of course she won. But it's just like, the, all of these florals and the organics that, like, are clearly the inspiration for all these

looks. It's like any of those queens could have won. But then when is Chi Chi Chi at the end, of course, it feels so triumph. And she, this is Chi Chi's arc, you know, that she, you know, gets to be more thoughtful about her approach to things, her approach to herself, et cetera, you know. She gets to be a more fully formed individual. All right. So let's go through the leads. Let's start with Patrick Swayze. who at this point, I don't think he makes a more notable movie after this. Like, he's in Donnie Darko, but already, by the time he's in Donny Darko, which is only six years after this. It's a stunt casting when he's in Donnie Darko.

It's a very effective stunt casting. But, like, this is kind of the last major role in his career, which is too bad. because up until, obviously, you know, he dies way too young of pancreatic cancer in 2009 at the age of 57. But up until this point, he's sort of, you know, hugely prominent through the 80s. He's in outsiders. He's one of the, like, that, you know, vaunted cast of the outsiders, which was, like, half brat pack and half, you know, Tom Cruise is in it. Matt Dillon is in it. Tom Cruise's original teeth. Tom Cruise's original teeth. Exactly. Exactly.

He is in Red Dawn in 1984, which is a movie I feel like was on TV a lot, which was the sort of fictional World War II starts in, or World War III, rather, starts in Michigan. Dirty Dancing, 1987, couldn't be bigger, obviously. YouTube has started serving me up clips of Dirty. dirty dancing for some reason. And I'm like, okay, like, threaten me with a good time. Tremendous. He's in Roadhouse in 1989. And then Ghost 19. So Roadhouse, 1988, Ghost 1990, Point Break, 1991. Like, this is... As his star rises, the denim is shrinking. Fair. So he is nominated for Golden Globe Awards.

for, sorry, one second, three times. He's nominated for Dirty Dancing in 1987, Ghost in 1990, and then finally, Tuwong Fu in 1995. 1987, Dirty Dancing loses to his future Tuwong Fu co-star, Robin Williams, for Good Morning Vietnam, also nominated that year at the Globes, were Danny DeVito for Throw Mama from the Train, Steve Martin for Roxanne, Nicholas Cage for Moonstruck and William Hurt for Broadcast News. That's a pretty stacked category. That's a really, really strong lineup.

1990 for Ghost, he's nominated again in the Best Actor Musical or Comedy category. I believe we've discussed this before, but I will just reiterate the fact that Ghost is not a comedy with like serious moments.

Ghost is a drama with comic relief. And because of the fact, That the comic relief is for many people the best part of the movie or the best performance of the movie. By a country mile, it is better than anything else in that movie. Right. But that doesn't change the fact that this is not a comedy. This is a movie about a man who dies and haunts his killer.

And then romance is his wife from Beyond the Grave. Like, this is, it's a romance, it's a drama, it is a whatever you want to call it. It is not primarily a comedy. So, I've said my piece once again. If there were a way to separate actors from the same movie and allow them to compete in different genres, fine. Then allow Whoopi to compete in comedy and everybody else to compete in drama. We'll be supporting. There is no, it's all one comic.

I know, there's no way to accommodate for this. But anyway, so he is up against, he loses to Gerard de Pardue for Green Card. This is when America was Gaga for Gerard. Also nominated Johnny Depp for Edward Scissorhands, the obvious deserving winner. Sorry, I know I don't like Johnny Depp any more than you do anymore these days, but like facts are facts. McCauley Calkin for Home Alone and Richard Gear in Pretty Woman. That's a pretty stacked lineup, too, though. I mean... Sure, in terms of like, you know, where the media was back then and where, like, the attention

economy was at that. I will say, I would not just so quickly jump to say the obvious. winner, Johnny Depp, because I don't know, maybe Patrick Swayze good. Good enough for a globe. Give Patrick Swayze a globe for Ghost. Like, that's why the globes exist. Here's what I'm going to say. Give Patrick Swayze a globe for Tu Wong Fu. So Tuong Fu, he is nominated, once again, Best Act of Musical or Comedy. John Travolta wins for Get Shorty, which is a movie that people loved and which is a good performance in a very fun movie, but it is mostly a... I think that's like a single digit this had Oscar Buzz episode. said. I think it is too. I think it is mostly a good for you for following up Pulp Fiction with something that is going to keep your career going. Like it is, I think it was very much the post-pulp fiction halo effect. Harrison Ford is nominated for Sabrina. Okay. Michael Douglas is nominated for the American president, good and rad. Steve Martin is nominated for Father of the Bride Part 2, which feels uninspired to me. You can't tell me in 1995. You couldn't have found somebody else to take that. It should be Wesley's.

Well, that's one billion percent true. We'll get to Wesley Snipes in a second because truly justice for that man for this performance. But anyway, yeah, Swayze or Snipes should probably be your winner there. Much love to Michael Douglas for the American president, but he's had his flowers. He's fine. All right. Wesley Snipes. My favorite performance in the movie. He's so, okay, so here's the thing that I sometimes wrestle with. And like, it's not because of the movie. But, like, you really want to avoid being like, thank you, straight men, for playing these queer characters with dignity and for not condescending to them and for, you know, imbueing them with basic human dignity. You don't want to set the bar that low. But here's what I will say is, this is a comedy. This isn't just a drama or whatever. This is a comedy. And for actors in a comedy, you got to find the laugh. And these two, these actors do find the left somewhere, and they do it without selling out their characters.

I am nodding my head vigorously through all of this. Because, like, also, you know, I also think these are three performances that, sure, they're in a comedy, sure, they're in a broad comedy. But I don't ever feel like they're towing the line between what is acceptable and what is parody or what is offensive. And I never, I don't. It doesn't feel like a too cautious. performance. It doesn't feel like they're being reticent. They are going for it. It doesn't feel like they're adding behavior, you know? Right. It feels like it's all coming from this organic source within, and it's coming from a place of not only respect for, you know, queer people and how queer people express themselves, but also for the art of drag as well. You know, I mean, I think especially when it comes to Snipes and Leguizamo, and it may well be for Swayze as well, I feel it most especially with Snipes and Leguizamo. I'm like, you guys have queer people in your life who you are, you have, you know, as an

actor sort of like observed behavior and observed intonation and things like that and have not only, you know, taken notes as like an outsider or whatever, but like, you know people. I would, I would place money on it. Like, you, there are people in your life who have, you know, made you comfortable with this type of expression, right? And so. And you have a deep respect for those people. And you have a deep respect for those people. And it's, it just as you said it exactly right, it feels like it comes from within rather than without, which is such, you can tell.

You know what I mean? Like, this is why I think. oftentimes queer people have problems with certain straight actors playing gay is it's your James Corden deserves to go to the Hague for the prom kind of a thing, right? It's just sort of like, but it's that kind of performance, right? That feels like, oh, you are like, you're throwing some extra mustard on this. God love him. I think he's, well, okay, the Andrew Garfield example I was going to give was him in

Angels in America, where... Which I never saw. He's very good, but you're not the only person I've spoken with that says that it felt like an additive performance. It does. I think he's very good in it, but I think there are queer affectations that feel like they were sort of piled on. And I think by the time he does tick, tick boom, he's playing a straight character,

but like the, like, you know, queerest straight character ever, right? Right. And I feel like that feels like a more, you know, lived in kind of performance. So I struggle with that. But anyway, no such struggles. You didn't include Swayze in this. And, like, I kind of understand it because Vita is such a different character and Swayze is such a different actor from those two other actors. Vita is very legal.

Vita is very very put together in a way that, like. Vita is very haughty. Vita, I mean, like, Vita comes from money, we know that about Vita, and, you know, she's a little more stilted in expressing herself and giving her opinion. Yes. So, like, that kind of gives some halts to Swayze's performance in that way, but I do still feel like it's coming from a source within rather than... It's that early scene on the stairwell, right, where Vita goes, Nogzima, why is there a little Latin boy? crying. And then Hazima just goes, little that boy, why are you crying? Why are you crying? And it's so funny the way that like the two of them in, it's almost like an acting exercise, right, to hear the two different ways that they say it. But it's so funny. I just think the three of them have such great interplay with each other. There's that scene where Vita and Chi Chi are arguing and they're really insulting each other. And every thing.

time Vita says something that's like walking up to the door of like, you know, calling her like Puerto Rican trash or whatever. Daxima just goes like, careful Vita or whatever, it's just like, don't go there, don't do that. And it's a scene that sort of allows them all to be kind of freely vicious with each other, but in a way that sort of shows you how close they've become. Well, and Swayze, because there was the thing recently that Leguizamo was on Watch What Happens Live, and it felt like it got misqu—or, like, twisted if you go back and watch the video, because he doesn't really say anything, but, like, Leguizamo has this more improvisational style, was much more comfortable with what was funny and finding the comedy of it, and Swayze was very strict to the script. apparently and didn't want to go off book and like and you know wanted to stick to the comedy as it was written and find what was funny in the preexisting words which like sounds like a normal process to me well certainly especially with legozamo coming from the dynamic of the characters like and legozamo coming from the background that he was coming from from one-man show theater

you know what i mean like that makes total sense to me um i want to go into wesley snipes's career, though, for a second. So he kind of comes to prominence, his first sort of role that I think people really take note of him in as Major League in 1989. But then 1990, he's in King of New York, the Abel Ferreira movie with Christopher Walken. He's in Spike Lee's Mo Better Blues in 1990. And then in In 1991, the real breakthrough for him, I think, is in Mario Van Peebles' New Jack City, which is a pretty huge movie in terms of, you know, its cast and the way that it sort of imprinted itself on the culture at that moment. Black American Independent Cinema. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, exactly. He is, he wins the NACP Image Award that year for outstanding.

Manning lead actor for New Jack City. Then, after that, or that same year, rather, he's in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever. The next year, he is in the independent film. The Water Dance gets an Independent Spirit Award nomination for that movie. He is in a wheelchair, I believe, in that movie. Loses to Steve Bishemi in Reservoir Dogs at the Independent Spirits that year. Then he, White Men Can't Jump in 1992, which feels like another leveling up in terms of mainstream popularity. That's a hugely, like, I imagine that movie made a good bit of money.

It almost makes $100 million worldwide. But I think beyond that, I think it's just a very widely publicized movie. I think that title sort of jumped out for a lot of people. It's also a very fun movie. The two, it's Wesley Snipes, Woody Harrelson, Rosie Perez, like the three of them, I think, are so funny. He's in Passenger 57. Then he's sort of like, This is then Action Star Wesley, right? Where it's like Passenger 57, Boiling Point, Rising Sun, opposite Sean Connery, Demolition Man, where he's essentially in drag again, but it's like future macho villain drag. He's so over the top in Demolition Man, but like, so much fun to watch. another crime drama in 1994, Sugar Hill.

And then 1994, he is in an action thriller called Drop Zone. Sure. And then 1995, Tuon Fu. So by this point, he has made like six action movies in a row. What's that? A million movies and five years. And they're all action movies, right? He's an action movie star back when we had like multiple action movie stars.

But he is, like, he has established himself in that realm. And so this is very much a sort of like screech the brakes, what's going on. And again, there is absolutely no reticence to this performance. He throws himself into Nogzima. And Nogzima is so fucking funny and fun in this movie. Because of the action star thing, I mean, obviously Swayze was a beefcake too. Yes. because of the action star thing

it feels like a stunt casting that really ultimately worked because I think Wesley Snipes gives maybe one of the comedy performances of the 90s like up there with Robin Williams and Mrs. Doubtfire level funny funny enough both drag performances

it was like a drag humor was just like there but yeah Wesley Snipes is so funny And I think for someone who is not known for comedy performances to just kind of not, I mean, I also don't want to do the thing of great job, straight actor, putting yourself out there playing this role. But like, putting himself out there in multiple ways and really making it look so easy. Here's the other thing is, while I feel like obviously you could absolutely get three. queer performers to do to Wang Fu, and it carries it off just as well, you know,

maybe in some ways better. But I think for this movie in this particular milieu, the fact that it is three straight actors and two of them being action stars does play into the sort of baseline comedic concept for this, which is that, like, it's so funny. that most of the women in this town don't seem to clock, that they are, that they are not biological women, you know what I mean? And that Chris Penn can't tell until he, you know, gets in too deep with trying to aggress Vita. And that that sort of instills this kind of magical realism within the movie to a degree, which I think is where you sort of get your

kind of William Weiler allusions to it, right? I also ultimately think that casting to, well, I mean, three, because there's Leguizamo, we just don't think of Ligua in action movies up to this point. We think of them in theater. Right. But specifically with Swayze and Snipes, there is, I think, some brilliance in casting these physical people, because, like, drag is obviously very, very physical. The opening sequence of this movie, which, I mean, we don't see Chi-Chi.

We see Chi-Chi once Chi-Chi's, you know, going to the pageant. Chi-Chi at this point is running down a street in New York with Ornacia in hand and ready to get to the pageant. But that opening sequence, which is also one of the things that I think makes this movie so celebratory of drag in a way that a lot of lot of its contemporaries, including Priscilla, never really achieved, because, like, Priscilla gets the performance aspect of drag, but the, like, preparation and the care and the beauty and glamour of that getting ready sequence feels so celebratory and tells us what we're going to do, but also, like, we see their male figure as they are putting on all of the drag, too, and it feels like it's celebrating their femininity.

and masculinity in a way that's just like you get this beautiful gift from having these action stars yes and like there is physicality in drag too they have to be so physically aware of their body uh do you think Cameron Michaels watched to Wong Fu and was like me I could anyway um before we get off of the Wesley Snipes thing I want to sort of talk about later later moments in his career where he sort of have had brushes with award season. He makes the Mike Figgis movie One Night Stand in 1997, him and Nastassia Kinski. He wins best actor at the Venice Film Festival that year, which is a thing I don't know if I ever really knew before I was doing research for this. And then in 2019,

he has a bit of a comeback movie with Eddie Murphy's Dolomite is my name, ends up runner-up, I think second runner-up or third runner-up to Brad Pitt for once-up the time in Hollywood at the National Society of Film Critics for Best Supporting Actor there. I thought he was great. And Dolomite is my name. He's sort of coming back from, he has had, you know, problems with the IRS and taxes and whatnot with the government. He's certainly been told to be, you know, there's stories going around where he might be

a piece of work, but he might also be clashing with producers that are not taking good care of him. The Blade Trinity story, which makes for a very, very strange movie when you watch it because he barely speaks in the movie. And that's because of contract disputes. And he basically would show up to set and, you know, while this was going on, and they would, you know, show up and shoot scenes around him without, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Is he one of the vampires in that episode of what we do in the shadows who shows up at the vampire council?

Calling in by a Skype, we have Wesley over there. The day walker. Hey, Mesley. Look at him then. God, not this fucking guy. He is a vampire killer. Hey, he is half a vampire. His opinion still counts.

Yeah, well, I'm only listening to half his opinion. Look at him in the sunlight. Sharing off. Desley, can you hear us? Can you hear me? This leg. The Skype seems glitchy. Hello?

Push the mute button. It looks like a little microphone. It's got a ring around it. Can you hear us now? I can hear you. Dog greetings. Okay. Because I think it's that it's Tom and Brad are the ones who they say wouldn't show up. But I think it's, I think he shows up. He's the day, they call him a day walker. I'm pretty sure. So he has, you know, he's, you know, having fun with his old roles and stuff like that. The thing about Wesley Snipes is he's just an incredibly charismatic screen presence, especially in comedies. And he didn't really do enough comedies. You know what I mean? And you sort of wish he had done more. Because I think he's so. He not even had, like, a supporting role in a comedy before this, like...

Well, White Men can't jump as a comedy, but he was a lead, obviously. But, yeah, I think by this point in his career, he had really sort of, like, gone hard towards action lead, which I imagine those roles paid well, so I would have, too. You know what I mean? Certainly probably paid better than supporting roles in comedies. Let's jump over to John Leguizamo, though, who at this point, we... you've mentioned before, is already a Tony nominee, is he, or is about to be a Tony nominee for Freak? I think Freak was sort of the big breakthrough for him on Broadway and the New York Theater stage. This is this one-man show sort of talking about his life and gets an HBO, you know, gets the performance.

gets recorded for an HBO production and essentially does the same thing a few years later with sexaholics. And it's just sort of, he's, you know, he's doing voices, he's doing characters, he's playing all these people in his life growing up or whatever. Hugely, again, like, pops off of the screen, pops off of the stage. He's his obvious choice for, we're going to try and make a movie star. How did this guy, right? And so what do they do? well, we're going to make you Luigi in the Super Mario Brothers movie, you and Bob Hoskins, natural Italian cousins, if we ever saw them. And, or sorry, brothers, Super Mario cousins.

I don't know what I'm talking about. Anyway. Super Mario roommates. But anyway, could not have been more natural playing brothers, John Leguizamo, and Bob Hoskins. Anyway, but he's in, like, he's in Carlito's way. He's. in, he'd been in a bunch of things in, like, tiny little roles before them, but, like, he really is only kind of just starting to show up in movies by the time Tuang Fu comes along. And so it's less of a, I can't believe we're seeing this familiar face that we know in drag. And kind of allows him to chameleon his way into this role a little bit more, yeah. nominated for the Golden Globe that year was in the Oscar conversation for supporting actor kind of throughout this season.

That Golden Globes, it's the classic, what I used to find to be the classic Golden Globe split of in the supporting categories, one of the awards is going to go to the person who eventually wins the Oscar. The other is going to go to the person who is more famous than the person who is going to win the Oscar. Oscar. And so in this case. And younger. And probably like a hotter, you know, prospect. And so in this case, it's Brad Pitt for 12 monkeys, who is very much giving his, you thought I was just a pretty face. Watch how weird I can be. I love him and 12 monkeys. I love 12 monkeys. But like, that's very much the vibe. I don't love 12 monkeys. Whatever. I'm right. beats Kevin Spacey for the usual suspects, who goes on to win the Oscar, Ed Harris for Apollo 13, who was very much a big part of this award season. I think Ed Harris wins the SAG, maybe, anyway. And then Tim Roth for Rob Roy, who would also go on to be an Oscar nominee. So it's basically Pitt, Harris, Spacey, Roth, and then Leguizamo,

at the Oscars is replaced by James Cromwell for Babe. Two very similar performances. So your other contenders that year, the SAG Awards nominated Kevin Bacon for Murder in the First, where he plays somebody on Death Row, Kenneth Branagh, Asiago in the Othello. I'm pretty sure that's the Othello where Lawrence Fishburn plays the title role.

And then Don Sheetle, who was winning a bunch of stuff, this season for Devil in a Blue Dress. He had won the Los Angeles and National Society Awards for Supporting Actor. He ultimately, this was the year that Spike Lee made a huge, huge fuss after the Oscar nominations about essentially how white the awards were. And you look at all of the, like, contenders who missed despite having buzz before the season. And you're like, oh, yeah, I get it. because, like, he was, I think that got boiled down to mostly people thought he was talking about waiting to exhale because, you know, none of the actors for that get nominated. And I don't even think the song got nominated for that. So, um, but also you look at people like Don Cheadle, like Delroy Lindo for Spike's Clockers, who was, um, I believe he was pre-nominated for something. He was sort of like in the, again, in this conversation.

So you kind of, you know, you'd get where he was coming from with that, for sure. Alan Rickman had been a BAFTA nominee this year for supporting actor. Gene Hackman, forget Shorty, was in the conversation. Spacey won a couple of the Critics Awards for, it was one of those, like, for everything you've done this year, because he was also in seven, and he was in outbreak and swimming with sharks. So it was a busy. supporting actor field this year, that I feel like competition for that fifth slot was probably

very heated, right? You had Leguizamo and Cheadle and Cromwell. And as I recall, Kevin Bacon was like predicted by a lot of people. So I think there was a lot of probably churn for that fifth slot. And ultimately, James Cromwell is the one in the Best Picture nominee that everybody loved at that moment. So it's not a surprise. Yeah, it boils down to the thing that it often does boil down to and who is in the Best Picture nominee. Right, right, exactly. But wouldn't trade a James Cromwell nomination for anything? Because I think that's his only nomination. Yeah, I mean, it's a very strong field in that, like, I think Ed Harris is very good in Apollo 13. I, for his, again, can't defend the man now, but like Kevin Spacey and the usual suspects, I think is a very

indelible. It's a lead role, though. That is true. It is. But I've seen Rob Roy way back in the day. I could not tell you whether that performance holds up or not Tim Roth's performance. I've seen pieces of it because that's a movie like my mom loves. But I don't think I've ever sat and watched all of Rob Roy. If you have, if you've recently watched Rob Roy, is Tim Roth's performance, does it hold up to scrutiny now? And you and I again, we differ on Brad Pitt. and 12 monkeys, but, uh, I don't think I just like Brad Pitt in that movie. I just don't like that movie. Well, that's just a silly thing to say. Um, my twist. I very feel, I, I feel very Iroly about it. Sure. It is very much like, eh, eh? I'm like, okay. Yeah, okay. Um, yeah, so, uh, Leguizamo ultimately ends up winning a special Tony Award in 2018 for his, uh, contributions to the American Theater. He is an incredibly, I would say, singular

talent in that way, certainly is kind of, when you think of a certain kind of one-man show on Broadway, he's the one I sort of think of, right? I know, obviously... Lainstitch at Liberty, too.

Well, and also, but like, I think even more so like Whoopi Goldberg's stuff, where it's like playing all of these characters. I think Elaine Stritch at Liberty is like, it's memoir. But I think with Legu Zamo, what I think of is like, now I'm going to be my dad, and now I'm going to be my uncle, and now I'm going to be my friend. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And obviously, people like Anadivir-Smith, you know, do character work and stuff like that, and Lily Tomlin. So certainly it's not the only person, but I think there is a particular sort of, like, high-energy, you know, multi-character memoir piece that he does that I feel like is, was oft imitated after him, is what I will say.

I kind of jotted down a kind of history of queer Oscar nomination, queer movies getting Oscar nominations throughout the 90s, which is like by no means comprehensive. But I think somewhat instructive in that there were movies that would get sort of top of the ballot nominations. And there were movies that would only get bottom of the ballot nominations. And without being... We're not about to do what I think you're about to do. What? top of the ballot nomination. No, I don't do that.

What's wrong with you? I don't do that, Chris. I don't, I don't sanction that buffoonery. No. No, but what I'm sort of, what I'm getting at, and this is probably overly simplistic, but maybe not, is if you sort of look at it and the types of movies through the years. So, like, 1990, Bruce Davison is nominated for Longtime Companion. Now, this is a movie about AIDS and, you know, his character is

Is it his character? His lover is dying. His lover is dying. He has the scene where they're, you know, in the hospital together and he can let go. He, you know, he's grieving with dignity, basically. Grieving with dignity. 1992, we've talked about the crying game, a movie that I like and that I think is complicated beyond, I think, a lot of people's desire to sort of dismiss it out of hand.

But it's complicated. But anyway, the Crying Game gets a best picture nomination, wins best screenplay. But it's definitely, you know, it's there at your top of the ballot. Orlando in 1993 nominations for art direction and costume design. Philadelphia, in that same year, gets top of the line nominations, including a best actor win for Tom Hanks. Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert in 1994 wins for costume design towards the bottom of the ballot. Birdcage is a nominee for art direction in 96. In-N-Out, 97 gets a supporting actress nomination for Joan Cusack. As good as it gets, 97 gets a supporting actor nomination for Greg Kinnear. Velvet Goldmine, costume design nomination in 1998. And then Gods and Monsters in also 1998, nominated for Ian McKellen and the winner for Best Screenplay. I think by the time you get to Gods and Monsters in, 1998, I think you get a little bit of a fusion of something that feels, my, my, my, you know,

dime store thesis of this is, you're more sort of like outwardly celebratory or, um, avant-garde or fun or challenging even movies. You're sort of, you know, Velvet Goldmine, the Birdcage, Priscilla, Orlando are all getting art direction and costume design nominations. And then your stuff that's like noble suffering, like longtime companion or Kinnear in as good as it gets, or an outside looking in sort of perspective, like sometimes I think in and out can be kind of like, in and out is maybe the version of two Wang Fu that I'm glad that didn't go that way, whereas in and out often seems like straight people peering in at gay culture and being, like, curious that they behave this way.

Gay sex or gay people having any type of gay sex. So, I think maybe by gods and monsters, you get a little bit of that fusion of, like, well, we have a queer protagonist who has personality and dignity and, you know, is a real person and this kind of thing. I don't know. What do you feel like as we sort of like track the journey of queer movies across the 90s? I mean, in some ways it's better, but it's also worse because, you know, I'm not someone who's high on something like longtime companion, though it had its place. You know, I think it's not aged particularly well, whereas things with its subject matter, there's other things that have. But, like, we definitely had way more fun, not only in the things that we were offered, but also the things that were rewarded ultimately, you know, and to Wong-Fu, obviously, because we're talking about it here, is not something that got, like, a costume design nomination. But, you know, the fact that Priscilla Queen of the Desert has a costume design Oscar win is like, we maybe used to do things, certain things, a little bit better.

We used to have a little more fun. That said, are we making movies like The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert and To Wong Fu anymore? We're most certainly not, no. I feel like, and it's not one of those things where it's like, don't you wish you could trade in our, you know, increased standing in the entertainment industry for times when we had fewer opportunities, but we're more fabulous with them. Like, no, but it is interesting. No, because this is a movie largely made by a lot of straight people. But I do feel like we may live in more subdued times in film, at least. Do you know what I mean?

Maybe we as a species just used to be smarter. Because I look at a comedy like this, and I'm like, this is a smart comedy. This is how this movie knows how comedies work, like function on a molecular level and plays to that. but then also does a number of key things really, really well. Whereas, I mean, most comedies today look like shit. They are not particularly made all that well, or there's not the same amount of resources that are being put into them so that they can be made as well.

I also feel like there's maybe... These are the complaints I have about movies and Joan. There's maybe something to be said also about how queer entertainment these days, seems to be plugged into the discourse to a detrimental degree. Whereas, like, Tu Wong Fu seems to be aware of, you know, these things that are impacting the queer community, but is it necessarily arguing with itself in a way that, like, a movie that I like, bros does? where, like, Brose seems to spend half of its energy arguing for its own existence,

like, pre-engaging in the discourse that will greet it when it gets released. Do you know what I mean? That there are these movies that are like, don't, like, don't bitch about this because we are addressing this and we are, even something, again, that I think feels a little bit more free, like Fire Island, still also feels like, but just that, like, you know, don't worry, we are making this statement. and we are covering our bases here, and we are making sure that, you know, we are bulletproofing

ourselves to a degree from whatever thing that you are going to say about us once we, you know, put our movie out there. And I think there's part of me that is like, you know, to Wang Fu, yes, a movie made by straight people, largely, felt a little bit more free from the sort of insular discourse monster that we have now. I also feel like there's a certain level of, we're at a certain saturation point, not saturation point, but we're at a certain point of,

I don't want to drag any allies, but there's a certain thing where it feels like a lot of gay shit is more for them than it is for us. And it's just like, that's why I'm so thankful but the moment in this movie where she's like, I don't think of you as a woman, and I don't think of you as a drag queen. I think of you as an angel.

I don't love that line. Because Stalker Channing is so good in this movie, like, it does have a certain, it does actually have a better, and it doesn't just feel. Don't like that line. But that Vita gets to follow it up, like, what's the actual line? I wrote it down. She's like, I think that's healthy. Yeah.

It's just like, you know, it gets to maybe. She's like, that's fine. Yeah. A certain level of heterosexual sentimentality that is not particularly. useful to queer people in a functioning way. Speaking of not particularly useful, maybe my least favorite scene in the movie is the one where Chris Penn is at the bar and starts talking about how disgusting, you know, gay men are and then sort of like breaks into this reverie monologue of like what it must be for two men to be together enjoying each other's bodies. And it's like, it does sort of... gets to the point that he's like basically gooning, you know? Right.

Well, and it's, and it engages in this question if he's getting turned on by what he's Yeah, it engages in that very sort of like, you know, annoying to me thing of like, ah, the biggest homophobes must be secret closet cases all along. It's like a lot of the biggest homophobes are straight people who just fucking hate our asses and maybe that can be acknowledged. You know, who are trying to, uh, you know, enforce a social order of men be men, women have babies, blah, blah, blah. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, I do feel like Tuang Fu does a good job of sort of marrying homophobia with misogyny in a way that not every movie sort of instinctively does. So I think that's good. I think in general, I mean, it's a great movie. It's a great, great movie. I think some of what you're saying and, like, the struggles of other movies, too, you in recent years is I think there is a certain level

where we've forgotten that the first priority is to be funny because the first priority of two Wong-Fu is to make you laugh. But it helps that Tu-Wong-Fu is also good at making you laugh because, yes, it has to be, the priority has to be funny, but then it actually has to be funny. Well, and I think that's where you really want to, you know, credit Douglas Carter Bean for giving you such a good, strong, you know, very funny screenplay. And then it, you know, casts this tremendous cast to pull it off. So also, again, you don't

want to slight the director, the Baroness Bebon Kidron, who also directed before she moved on to her political career. Let's see. Well, Bridget Jones, the edge of reason, which Not the superior Bridget Jones movie, not even the middle Bridget Jones movie. But also that movie swept from the sea that I talk about every once in a while. The Rachel Weiss, Vincent Perez movie swept from the sea. That at one point we will cover, even though people would be like, what movie? Also, the movie Used People. Do you remember the movie Used People starring Shirley Maclean, Marcello, Mastriarne?

Jack nominated Shirley MacLan, I believe in that. Gold, I think Globe. Kathy Bates is in that movie, Marcia Gay-Hard and Jessica Tandy. Yeah. There's also with, I feel like this is probably maybe along the lines of what

got me even Cadron out of the industry because of the woes with this movie. Do you remember the several seasons of hippie, hippie shake is coming? No. Echillian Murphy, Sienna Miller. No. What was it? It's like 1960s, UK.

It was filmed in 2007. And then I don't think was ever released until like five years or so later. Oh, wow. It had a lot. And I think there were reshoots and such. This is like one of those movies that

when we've talked about movies before, that it's like, The pre-production makes it feel like a thing that exists, the floor of plums, et cetera. Oh, screenplay by her husband, Lee Hall, of Bill Elliott, the musical fame. Hippy, Hippie Shake exists somewhere, but I guess was such a disaster that, or there might be legal things. I don't think there's a team Marguerette for Hippie Shake out there, but it's along those lines. So our British listeners can, hopefully, kindly, fill us in if we are, if there is more to know. But from my quick, you know, skimming research into Bibon Kidron seems to be a politician and child advocate complimentary, I think.

She seems to be looking out for kids for, like, you know, keeping internet marketers from exploiting them and, like, selling shit to them, like, that kind of a thing. Or, you know, not, like, keeping kids safe from queer people. It seems to me. Seems to me. So people can update us if we are missing some stuff there. But anyway, seems fine. So good for her. Okay.

Checking my notes, the only thing that I failed to mention was that, first of all, this is a movie with multiple makeover montages. And we love that. There is one set to Paddy LaBelle when they are in the costume shop. But there is also the one where they make over their little room upstairs at Stocker Channing's place with set to the Wonder Woman theme that has this sort of like very silly and fun and freewheeling way of filming it where all of a sudden it's just like, It smash cuts to, you know, someone like blinks at a wall and it gets better. There's also the moment after the Spartacus scene where the queens are sort of hiding out in their room and one of Stalker Channing's daughters goes to look for them in their room and they're seemingly not there and she shuts the door and Chi Chi is like hanging to the back of a door like a hang in their kitty poster and Vita's got like a lamp shit. over her head, hiding in the corner, and Nagsema is under the bed looking just like a wig on the floor. It's so, there is a sense of humor to the way this movie is filmed that I find really delightful. So it's, nothing but compliments for me. I really love it. Anyway, any last thoughts from you, Chris? Several. I'm going to get into my notes. Okay, I'm going to give the top five Noxema Jackson

looks. Yes. Because every single look is amazing. With the exception, you know, she had to take her foot off the gas a little bit. She had to be like, you know what? It can be everybody else's day. You can all look great.

Noxima doesn't look so great at the Red and Wild. It's not her best look. It's not her best look. This is why she doesn't win the season. This is why Clara ends up winning. Yeah. Yeah. Even though Claire doesn't have her best.

So the number five, I'm going with her gold look at the beginning, the competition look, including the, you know, I mean, it's just too polished. It's just too perfect. Number four, the flame outfit after the competition, where it's like the long jacket and the hot shorts. And it's like a flame print. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. The green, I think it's like a silk, see-through nighty. Okay. Like, Emerald Green in, like, the pajama sequence, you know, when they do the sway on the balcony. Yes, yes, yes. What a lovely scene that is when the Johnny Mathis song is playing or whatever. Isn't it so good? Like, you know, what an earned little everybody gets to dance.

Kind of like magical realism in this, you know, in this setting. Yeah, yeah. Number two, the orange T-shirt underneath the long, printed straight dress with the cap that matches. The one where she... That's the one. Aggresses Michael Vartan. Good afternoon, ladies. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then number one, the crop top and skirt fringe. Fringe. Thank you. You've made the right decision. You've made the right decision. Yes. 100%. 100%.

How old are Bobby and Bobby? Oh, Noxema giving the advice. If you want to let them know, there's steak for dinner. You've got to let them hear it sizzle. That's true. Noxema Jackson, drop. The Letterbox, Noxema Jackson, host TCM Fest. Noxima Jackson, a guest judge drag race in character.

Please. Oh, yes, absolutely. The absolute subtle shade thrown at Eartha Kitt because they... Yes, the only true Catwoman? Only Catwoman. I'm saying. Wow. Okay.

So rude to Earth a Kit. I mean, it feels like at the time, obviously, they would have been like, Michelle for us nothing on Julie Newmar. Do you know what Eartha Kitt's... Do you know what Eartha Kitt's reaction to that one was? No, what she said? Ha ha ha ha ha, ha, stupid. Do you remember that clip?

Did you watch that clip? Stupid. Stupid. Yeah. I hate the league's basketball scene. I can't... That's just funny that you hate that scene. I think it's so silly and fun.

Well, it's just like, it just feels like, well, this feels like, like, Like, it's not nice to women or drag. I don't know if that's true. There are women basketball players exist and they're statuesque, much like Miss Julie Newman. The body beautiful sequence. I'm not sure any of these contemporaries luxuriate in the process of drag as much as this movie does. Where was my one last note that I wanted to say? Oh, you kind of see most of Patrick Swayze when he steps out of the shower at the beginning.

I know. It's almost penis. My, my. PG-13 movie. Almost penis, the prequel to Almost Famous. I should be a professional John Jacob Jinglheimer-Schmidt. I don't really know what his job is. What is his job?

What is his deal? It's just being able to use various prizes as currency. Professional facilitator, John Jacob Jekyllheimer-Schmidt. He might be a drug dealer. Might be. I feel like just calling him John Jacob Jiglheimer-Schmidt feels like code for like... I would be the worst drug. This is a drug dealer.

It would be stressed out all the time. Not like I'm not already stressed out doing what I do. Oh, this is it. This is it. The line that, I hate when it's just like we have notes and we're just reading lines. No, I like it. We mentioned Rupal and the line that I think we should start saying more about like, you know, hymboes and such. I don't know who he is, but if there's a snowstorm tonight, he's going on my tires.

He's going on my tires. I love it. Yes, that's my line for all of the Pride Month photos of just like boys and harnesses for literally no reason, just because they wanted to wear a harness. And honestly, God bless you. They're going on my tires. Okay. Chris, why don't you explain to our listeners what the IMDB game is? And I will prepare my choice for you. All right, listeners, every episode we end with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try to guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for.

If any of those titles are television, voice-only performances, or non-acting credits, we mentioned that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. That's not enough. It just becomes a free-for-all of hints. Sure does. All right, Chris. it is your option to guess first or give first.

I'm going to guess first. Okay. So I, this cast being so incredibly dense with talent, I feel like I am safe in picking someone just from this cast. And I don't think you'll have peeped their IMDB. But maybe if you have, let me know and I can pick something else. I have decided we have never. I have not looked up any of the character actors in this movie. Well, we've not done, I don't think we've ever done Melinda Dillon before, and I'm going to have you guess.

Melinda Dillon, the original honey from the Broadway production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Wool, placed by Sandy Dennis for the film, that is. Melinda Dillon, there's a lot of ways this can go. She's in a lot of movies, but I'm positive Harry and the Hedrus since is there. That's correct. I thought that would be the hardest one for you to get. That is impressive. Oh, really? That's a good sign.

I haven't seen Harry and the Henderson since I was a child. So maybe I just like, I remember Lithgow being in that movie much more than I remember. We watched that a lot as kids. Okay, okay. A Christmas story. Yes, an annual tradition for many. Okay, so. Two for two.

Do I think, I think Magnolia is there, Magnolia. Three for three. my gay ass would get a perfect score on Melinda Dillon during Pride Month Okay This is also a comeback for me Because I've been doing... You've been doing poorly

I really want this for you I want this victory for you You say that it's going to be easy for me It's not going to be too wang-foo I'm not saying I just thought that Harry and the Henderson's would be the hardest I'm not I am giving you no no hints towards this other one whatsoever.

Oh, close encounters. Close encounters, four for four. Explore Melinda Dylan, baby. Yay, well done. It's been a long time. I was like, why is he not thinking of close encounters, which would have been my first guess? Well done.

All of those are moms. Yeah, is true. All right, Chris, who you got from? So, as we've said, it's been a, rough go of it for me in the IMDB game of late, so I decided to be an asshole, and I'm going to go a little... Be a bitch to your closest friends.

This pride, says Chris Fy. So, Tu Wong Fu was nominated for Best Outstanding Film at the Glad Media Awards. Not that we're loving glad or anything, but, you know, they lose to boys on the side. Joe loves that movie, but also

nominated was the motion picture Carrington, and the motion picture annual rewatch as well, home for the holidays, Who plays the father? Who's daddy in Home for the Holidays? Mr. Durning. Mr. Charles Durning. Mr. Charles Durning.

During the 70s miniseries. Okay. The thing about Charles Durning is he's been in roles from like the 70s up until the 2000s. Sure has. And they've all been the same kind of level of like, of, of prominence in the movies. You know what I mean? But I'm going to say one of his Oscar nominations,

which I believe was for, wait, it might not have been. But anyway, I'm going to say Dog Day Afternoon. Dog Day Afternoon is correct. It is not one of it. Right, because Chris Sarandon was nominated. He should have been nominated for Dog Day Afternoon. He's wonderful in that. Nominate Gazelle.

Best Little Horror House in Texas? He was Oscar nominated for Best Little Horhouse in Texas. It is not on. Boo. Is home for the holidays, one of them? No. Okay. So your years are 1973, 1973, 1979, and 1980.

Oh, boy. Okay. So one of these is going to be his other Oscar nomination, which I can never think of. Has he had two or three? He has had two, including Best Little Horhouse in Texas. Right. So there's the other one, which I can never think of. 73, 79, and 80?

Yes. Oh, boy, oh, boy. Is one of them... Oh, gosh. Is he in the sting? The sting, correct. Okay. All right.

So that's your 73. 79 and 80. He's not in Kramer versus Kramer. He's not In, I don't think ordinary people. Um, Charles Durning. Mr. Durning. I might need some hints, but.

Uh, 79 is a very famous movie, um, very beloved movie. Multiple Oscar nominee. A movie that people cite, how does this not have an Oscar? It doesn't. But it was nominated for a bunch. I was nominated for two. It was nominated for something that people- Oh, the Muppet movie.

The Muppet movie. Yes, of course. Okay. 1980, I have never heard of it. Fuck you. It's his other Oscar nomination, though, right? No, it's not. His other Oscar nomination is Mel Brooks is to be or not to be, and it's not in his

number four. Yeah, okay. What a random nomination. Yes. 1980, you've never heard of it. 1980 is like an action, not war movie, but takes place on something that involves war. Takes place in something that involves war? I'll read you the logline. A modern aircraft carrier is thrown back in time to 1941 near Hawaii, just hours before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Is this like the Philadelphia experiment or something like? No. It's a the something. The something name. It shares a name with a very famous sportsy song that you will hear at probably any sporting event. The shout? No.

The Seven Nation Army? So when you go down to the more like this tab in this movie's title, the first movie that comes up, The Philadelphia Experiment. The Charge. The series,

it stars Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen and Catherine Ross. Durning is sixth build, and it shows up on his known for. It's a sports song? Like, yeah, you definitely hear this at any major sporting event.

That's not, like, tennis or golf. You might hear it towards the end of the game. The, we are the champions. The we will rock you. The na, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, hey, hey, hey, hey, goodbye. What about when the game is close to being done? I just said, na, na, nah, nah, hey, hey, goodbye.

Okay. No. When the game is close to being done. This is like rock anthem. Okay. So there's 30 seconds left on the clock. Yeah. What's happening?

It's going from 30 to 29. The final countdown? The final countdown is the name of this one. You could have just been like Joe from Arrested Development as intensely related to this song. Oh my God, the final countdown. I hope that's where the song comes from. Charles Dernie. Are you happy? Do you feel better about yourself now? You went four for four and you tortured me with Charles Durning. Have we recalibrated? I think, yes, we've recalibrated. We're at stasis. Okay. We're at stasis now. All right, Chris, what a fun way to end this month of pride here at this head Oscar buzz. Thank you all for all of our listeners. Every

letter on the LGBTIQIA plus alphabet plus straight allies, you know, we'll let you have this one too. So, um, you can take if you show up in a giant red wedding. I was going to say you have to be on theme for the red and wild strawberry social or else we do not thank you. So other than that, I should have come up with, I'm literally wearing every color, but red. What am I doing? Do I have my, I don't really, red does not look great on me. I don't have. I don't have. a ton of red. Here, my scatigories dice is red. So let's put it right there.

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