This Had Oscar Buzz - 300 – Collateral Beauty

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

We’ve hit another year of the podcast, arriving at our milestone 300th episode! No better way to celebrate that by finally revisiting one of the past decades most notorious bombs, 2016’s Collateral Beauty. Starring Will Smith as a grieving father, this all-star cast includes Edward Norton, Michael Peña, and Kate Winslet as his three friend who … Continue reading "300 – Collateral Beauty"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. We want to talk to Marilyn Hack, Millen Hack, and French. I'm from Canada water. Dick Pooh. Creative, charismatic guy. He used to love life. Right now he hates it.

I try to talk to him. I try to reach him, and he's not there. I miss him. He writes letters. Who are they, too? Howard doesn't write letters to people. He writes to things. Time.

Love, death. Kids write letters to Santa. Plus, it doesn't mean they're crazy. No, this is therapeutic. Who did you write the letter to? I wrote the letter to death. Nice to meet you. They've charmed, I'm sure.

No. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that sleeps in a pot of goo because it's the only way our back will feel good in the morning. 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 secret fourth abstraction. Chris File, hello, Chris. What abstraction would I be? Let's see, you're not time, you're not death, you're not love, you are... I'm vibes. You're vibes.

The only abstraction that matters, vibes. I'm Dululu. I'm... Uh, uh, faggotry. Um, yes, that's the secret fourth abstraction. Um, the secret fourth abstraction is LGBTQ. It's just like Georges, like duck walking down, uh, a street in the West Village and nobody can see. Okay, so who would be your three abstractions? I think Georgia should be an abstraction for truly everyone on the planet.

If George's was my abstraction, I would just like check myself into a hospital immediately. I'm like, I can't. This is everyone's fourth abstraction because Georges is the vibes abstraction. I actually, I shouldn't have brought up Georges because I really don't care for Georgius. I should have said that. I like Georgia. I like a nitra or something like that. She just shows up to you on a subway while you're like silently sobbing to yourself about your depression and it's like, hello this. Oh, no.

She just duck walks in like, I'm vibes. I'm the mood. I'm the feeling. Something, something, something. Something like that. Yeah. Your abstraction would be, I can't say you would be on Wii because that's Adelix or Coppellos in Inside Out 2. Is that true?

It plays on Wee? I guess the French of it all. Yeah, that makes sense. If you call me sadness because I'm dressed in blue right now, I'm going to murder you. But other than that. I do think we kind of backed ourselves into this movie kind of doesn't work because Inside Out are already exists. Inside Out was only the year before this, yeah. Um, well, how many, how many movies have tried to sort of do this kind of thing where they, like, wrap up the world into like neat little buckets where like everything is either this, this or this. And like inside out is like a, you know, cartoon or whatever. So like, well, this is the thing about this movie. Let's just say off the top. Um, first of all, listener, hello. Hello, welcome to our 300 episode. At long last. Yeah.

Our 300th episode, it has taken six years, has finally come to this. Here we are at Collateral Beauty. Here we are at Collateral Beauty. Finally, finally, we've threatened, and we've threatened, and we finally, like a parent who, like, finally realizes that they're going to have to count to five one of these days or else the kid is never going to know what actually the consequence is. And now the consequences here, we have reached Collateral Beauty. We'll see how long this episode is

I'm you know conservatively guessing a good five hour episode No the Here's what I'll say off the top of this movie What makes this We have seen movies that have these type of You know The swear word

The swear jar phrase for this episode Is going to be magical realism So get it out right now magical realism, magical realism. You know, we have these movies, you know, this is 20-ish years removed from the emergence of Charlie Kaufman, let's just say. Sure, sure. Where you're given a heightened reality to deal with these human psychological or emotional or abstracted concepts in, you know, some type of narrative dealing. with the everyday struggles of human life.

The reason collateral beauty is so insane, if you can just bog it down to one thing, it is with the utter banality with which it presents these high concept ideas. There's... The straight-facedness that this movie plays this, like it feels like it is a Charlie Kaufman script presented as a, straightforward hallmark movie. But it also doesn't do the work of like, it thinks it does the work.

It thinks it does the work of sort of exploring these concepts and how they relate to our lives, right? How, you know, what it would mean to refuse to have love in your life, right? To reject love anymore. Or to defy death or to, to, to, to. to waste the gift of time or whatever. And there's just a lot of yap, yap, yap, and a lot of talking around the issue, but it all sort of comes out as this, it's sort of just circular conversations.

And then when you get to the most infuriating part, which is the conversation between Will Smith and Naomi Harris, where she explains the titular concept of collateral beauty. And it's literally a hand- Explain it. Does she explain it at all? This is what I'm getting at. It's such a hand wave. She's literally just like, this lady told me to look for the collateral beauty. And it's like, what is the collateral beauty? And she's like, everything else. It's all the collateral beauty. What is the collateral beauty, ma'am? Yes. Yes. Right. Right. There's just, there's no real attempt to. And it's one of those things where it's like, well, it sounds good on a title. It sounds good. I'm shocked this wasn't a book because like this is. is, you know what I mean? It's, it's, it's, it's, and I'm also shocked that this isn't the Christian story, because it has that, it has that vibe of, you know, Christian movie, let go and let God. Academy Award nominee breakthrough. Sort of, yeah, it's like, it's, it's, it's this very sort of squishy, you know, non-denominational mysticism here, which is just, which is fine.

if you want to invest in mysticism, I'm all for it. But, like, this is all so ephemeral, and there's nothing to it. There's no guts to it. Here we are starting the episode at the end of the movie, but the utterly useless twist that the person who, as Naomi Harris's daughter is dying, says to her, make sure you notice all the collateral beauty, being Helen Mirren, serving ultimately no purpose narratively for this movie. Right. Well, I guess it's to underline in case you haven't picked up on the fact that like these abstractions pretending to be actors, that these are abstractions pretending to be actors pretending to be abstractions instead of actors pretending to be abstractions. You know what I mean? It's just like if you hadn't figured it out yet, that these were actually the real deal. But in the context of which she says it, which I guess, okay, let's be entomological, if that's what that word means.

I don't know. About the phrase collateral beauty within the context of death. So does that mean all of the things that are accidentally beautiful about a horrible situation? So like, while your child is dying, don't forget to notice the things about it that are nice and beautiful. 100% fuck off to the person who says that to you. But also, but if the meaning is, because I think when Naomi Harris talks about it, she's trying to sell it as, well, the collateral beauty is the things that happen around this horrible tragedy that help you sort of see the greater gift of, you know, the world around you.

And, like, that would work if this wasn't a movie about a man whose friends or all conspiring to gaslight him into the nut house so that they can take his business away from him so that he doesn't drive the business into the ground. Right, because they're going to lose the business or like this business is conceivably, this advertising firm in some like corporate overlord. They're going to whatever if they don't get rid of him first. So it's like rather than corporations are evil and, you know, dehumanizing. to people who are going through real shit. Right.

It becomes... Corporations don't give people the space to properly grieve because the bottom line is never stopping, never ceasing. Yeah. These trio of friends or this group of friends, this quad, this quad of friends is willing to become a trio by ousting him in the most evil way of, like, gaslighting him willing to go to use of AI to

enhance the lie. No, no, no. We can't wait. We have to talk about that later. We can't get into it now. But the idea that they can just like digitally alter video, like, just regularly like camera phone footage is very funny to me. We're going to get into the end out of it all. They're willing to

throw away so much money to get him out. Like, how much money are they actually making? They're all individually throwing in $20,000 to this acting troupe, so $60,000. Apparently, it only takes $60,000 to stage an off-Broadway show, which I would like to see the receipts. I was going to say, maybe we could turn the theater industry into something profitable again with this kind of economic model. There's so much to say. There's so much to say. There's no way to go about this linearly.

It's also the Cardinal Sin. You want to talk about the kinds of movies that we're going to. really get critics spewing venom, is it's a movie that purports to be about the goodness of humanity that actually is deeply ugly at every turn, but the film declines to explore that. Right. This is a fundamentally evil movie. Kind of. If it actually had, you know, if it was presented in a way where you are not watching reality, you know, you're watching some symbolism of reality, the way that Charlie Kaufman movies essentially work, it wouldn't be

evil because you wouldn't be watching the real actions of real people, but because David Frankl is kind of a journeyman director. I was going to say, I don't even want to put this on David Frankl's shoulders entirely, because like, I mean, clearly a job by hire for, you know, a script that's taking around with a lot of people. It's not like he's completely innocent here, but like. But that is the problem. not doing anything with it, morphs it into this thing that I don't think on the page it was

really meant to be. I think it was meant to be a little bit more head in the clouds and not presenting a reality. Permission to be very snobby for a second. Go off. This, and I mentioned the thing where I was so surprised that this wasn't a book. There is a kind of genre of story that to me feels very like target paperback. like a paperback novel that you're going to see on an end cap display at Target. And it's, it is, it's not always Christian, but it's like, it's, you know, a woman who's, you know, survives the death of a child and then, you know, finds that she has a secret connection to the person who's, you know, another person who had a child die in that same hospital, you know, that same day or whatever.

All of these sort of like the things, the, I think people have. have managed to monetize this idea of profound connection via grief that at one point or another, there were, I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but I'm like, there's, there were good works of art on that subject. But I think people sort of took the wrong lessons from it and learned that like, you really can monetize this idea, these sort of ideas of out of grief comes sort of profound, a profound insight into the universe, which is a very comforting thought for a lot of people. And if you do that-

Good example of this that I would throw out there. A movie that I believe was based on a book is one true thing, which, like, got Meryl the Oscar nomination, but, like, Renee is incredible in that movie, too. That's, like, I think not a rubber-necking piece of art about- But that's what I mean is... And like all of this becomes rubbernecking. Things like that, things like that get success and success begets success, but it all sort of like waters down.

And so then you get sort of publishing houses, looking for more stories like this, and you end up with, you mentioned breakthrough, you know what I mean, the Chrissy Metz movie that was an Oscar number for some. And it's all ultimately for people who have not actually gone through stuff like this so they can, I don't know, vicariously live through. Yeah, it's like an ugly thing about the human species. You know what's a good example is my sister's keeper, which is the movie, the book, it was a book first, but then it became a movie with Cameron Diaz about a family whose

daughter has some sort of rare cancer or something that they need like, you know, bone marrow donations or whatever. and they have a second kid so that the second kid can essentially provide these donations. And it's one of those things where it's a very high concept of like, oh, that sounds so heartbreaking. And I think it

kind of minds this parental, I mean, these things are pitched right to mothers. It's pitched exactly to women with children. And so what if this happen to your family? What if this tragedy happened and what if, you know, out of this tragedy came something really profound? I think the lovely bones scratches that itch for a lot of people.

You know what I mean? Certainly in the movie. And it just becomes this kind of gross thing that is definitely not for people who have gone through grief because, like, you throw collateral beauty at someone who's gone through circumstances like this. And it's insulting. It is, and it's I don't want to deny anybody their lived experience. I can imagine there are probably some people who would look at something like this and be comforted, and I am not about to tell them that they're wrong. But I do feel like if you look at something like collateral beauty and see a profound and kind of insulting emptiness, I'd say you have company. You know what I mean? You're in good company with that. It's just deranged. It is full-scale deranged at every level with absolute earnest. put behind it and but a kind of smarmy earnestness right a kind of yeah i mean i kind of question the cynicism of it i feel like this is a movie made by people who all really believe in what they're doing i don't fault any of the actors though like we'll have the will smith conversation but like

you're not wrong you're not wrong yeah drama thing like his movies and how they relate to tragedy and death always like, yeah, I don't know. It's not surprising after post-slap that it's like, this guy had some issues that he was working out for a very long time. Do you ever talk to somebody who recommends a book or a movie to you and explains it and the plot is something like this? And you can tell that they earnestly just really love it. And they know because you are into movies and books and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, TV and whatnot, that they feel like they are, you know, that they're really sincerely, you know, going to make a connection. And you're just like, oh, and in your head, you're like,

this sounds unbearable. But the person who's recommending it to you is so sincere. And all you just, you have to lie. There's a must lie situation where you're just like, oh, that sounds really incredible. Like, I'll have to check that out. If you want to talk about swear jar. If you want to count up with a coin each time I've ever said I'll have to check that out, I would be a million bagillionaire. It's a lie every time, but like I would be so wealthy. Me every time that I tell you, you have to watch The Beast. You're like, I have to check that out. Okay, that one I really do.

Is that streaming anywhere yet? I keep waiting for it to. It's rentable, but it'll be on the channel. Premium rentable or rentable? Rentable, like $6. Then I'll do it. Give it some space, though. Don't do that movie while you're busy.

Talk about lying, though. Oh, it's like 8 billion hours long, too, right? The Beast. It's like 220. Oh. Man, in wake of the movies that I've seen this weekend, where I watch Horizon and kinds of kindness on consecutive days, 220's nothing. 220's nothing.

Let's talk about lying, though. Let's talk about lying. You sound like my therapist. Let's talk about lying. Tented fingers, tinted fingers. Yeah. you're not so much a liar as in you hold your cards to your chest and it's not like you may not give your full feelings about something but you're not a liar my friend no it was just your cadence your cadence but yes anyway let's talk about lying and by that i mean the marketing campaign for this movie

which this is a movie where it's about actors pretending to be these constructs the trick The trailer leads you to believe... Oh, the trailer's so aggressive. That Jacob Latimore, Kira Knightley, Helen Mirren, are anthropomorphized concepts of love, death, and time. Right. So the first experience of seeing this movie in December 2016, which, mind you, all I have to say,

this movie was released in December 2016, we were going through it. We were ready to be like, howl into the abyss with this movie. To go into the actual movie and be like, wait, I'm not seeing a fantasy. I am seeing a... A story about mean friends. A morbid drama that is a function of Lucifer himself.

It is so evil. Of like just really abhorrent human behavior done to this man. masquerading as kindness, right? Masquerading as softness. Like, these people, this would be such a better movie if this movie sort of allowed... If it was called Kinds of Kindness. Well, but if it allowed the Winslet and Norton and Michael Pena characters to be active, to be acknowledged as being underhanded and manipulative and bad, you know what I mean? At the very least, conflicted.

Beyond one scene of each of the two separate trios being like, is this bad? And everyone's like, yeah, but it's for a good reason. Exactly. Because you have Winslet being like, I don't think we should do it. And then immediately they're like, yeah, but we got to. And she's like, okay. And then feels kind of half bad about it. And then with the actors, you have Kieranightly.

Feeling bad about it, but like doing nothing to actually stop it. Yeah. Right, right. You have Kira Knightley, who's maybe the most like, this is bad and evil. And then Helen Mirren being like, no, this is what we're here to be actors for. This is the essence. This is the life. This is the yadri-ya-la-la-la-la-la.

And then Kira Knightley proves to be even more evil because she's like, oh, that means that I can flirt with you, Edward Norton, and you might go not be a deadbeat dad and, like, talk to your daughter at all. I'll do it now. Love is manipulative. What? Love is coercive. Here's the thing also. Here's the lesson of collateral beauty on a very practical level for people, which is, if you're going into a movie. where in the first 45 minutes something happens and you think, oh, wow, if that had happened at the end of the movie, my mind would have been blown.

If I would have found out that these were actors hired by these people pretending to be these concepts, and I found out at the end of the movie, that would have been a wild twist. If that happens in the first 45 minutes, please know that you are getting set up for another bigger double twist, right? Like, there is something else coming. That's even double stupid. It's double stupider, yes. But it also means that... You also bring up, like, that, the matter of perspective with this movie, too. Because, like, Will Smith isn't the lead of this movie until maybe the final half hour?

You know, it's kind of everyone else's story revolving around him. Because you can't ever find out too much about him or else you, the, the Naomi Harris twist would be spoiled. Which isn't a fucking twist. Like, it's so... Well, it is. The second we see it. Well, yes. I mean, yes, you definitely figure it out well before.

And it also makes her kind of evil. I have to tell the story of watching this movie because... And then we'll get into the plot description and then we'll move on. I saw this movie in December of 2016, not in a theater, but at a friend's apartment. at our friend and former guest, Kevin O'Keefe, had some people over because somebody, and I can't remember which one of us in the group, had a screener of it. So it wasn't me. I had a screeners for the...

So somebody got a screener, and by this point, there was infamy around this movie already. And my wonderful good friend, Ashton Evans, hadn't seen it already. So he's like, no, you don't understand. We all have to watch this. movie together. And so we gathered in a group and we watched it. And so part of the movie I'm watching the movie and part of the movie I'm watching Ashton watch us watch the movie because he's already seen it. And so he's sort of just like, oh, I got to see. As you do, you know, you've been in that position with like you've seen a movie and you're watching with people who haven't seen

it before. And you're like, oh, I want to see how people react to it. So all of a sudden, we get to the part. We're laughing it. Where's Waldo ass and Dow? we're going to get into it. Like secret, secret spy and Dowd, hiding in mailboxes and whatnot. Basically with like a joke store mustache and sunglasses at all points. And then she comes into the frame and takes them off.

And it's like, I've been here the whole time. Gene Parmesan, uh, uh, Anne Dowd, rest in peace. The cinematic universe of Ann Dowd lurking behind people between this and hereditary.

It's incredible. Wait, so, so we're having fun with that. We, you know, we get past the part where they're an acting troupe and we're just like, we're laughing and we're having fun and we're sort of mouths agape or whatever. And then all of a sudden, and I can't remember what twigged me on that particular twist, the thing where they're, oh, no, they're actually the abstractions that they are pretending to be. I sort of like gasp and I'm like, oh, and Ashton's like, don't say anything. And I'm like, okay. Okay. And then later on, or not that later on, because it was very early. I'm just like, and I literally, I figured out the Naomi Harris twist. And it's in a homewritten Naomi Harris and Will Smith scene. And so by that point, I just sort of like look at him and I'm like kind of like point to the screen and he's like, yeah. I was like, okay. All right. Okay, okay. I figured it out. I figured it out. One of the more fun screener experiences of my life, though, we had a hoot and holler watching collateral beauty. So, um, listener. I think this. At this point, if we haven't already had your head spinning around, like, Linda Blair on Poppers or something, shut the episode off and please go spend 90 minutes with this deranged motion picture. It's about to get wild up in here. It's not long.

It's 90 minutes. It'll feel longer than it does. Apparently, reportedly, they like gutted the movie right before release because it wasn't working. The test screenings were disastrous. You know what? I was shocked in doing my research and going back to, like, various articles, various reviews for this movie. This movie got an A-minus cinema score.

Honestly, doesn't surprise me. You know how we've talked about how cinema score is often about the... Expectations. Well, it's expectations, but it also is often about the note that it leaves you on as you were leaving the movie. And it leaves you on such a sort of note of uplift. And I do feel like I can see audiences being like, they're so clever. Those three people weren't even on the bridge at all.

Because on top of that, like, cinema score is all about expectations. And then if there's also, if a movie underperforms, like you have a lower sample, like a lower audience sample, it favors up rather than down. It favors also when the trailer tells you exactly what you're getting. and weirdly, the trailer is more honest than you even think it is, because the trailer ultimately is, as you said, selling these characters as the real deal, love, death, and time. And it turns out, after twist upon twist, that is what they are. So the audience is like, this is what I was hoping for.

This is what I wanted. So, yeah, I could see that. I could see that. Let's not get too far afield. No. All right, before we do the plot description, I'm going to ask you on our 300th episode to ask our listeners if they haven't yet to sign up for this had Oscar Buzz, turbulent brilliance. Turbulent brilliance, our Patreon and also an alternate title for collateral beauty. Look for the turbulent brilliance in your life.

And you know where you can find turbulent brilliance over on our Patreon left and right everywhere all about for $5 a month, the cost of a cheesy gordita. crunch. The cost of one item at the bodega that Michael Pena's character is shopping at at one point. And Helen Mirren hears him cough and she's like, oh, wait, you have cancer. It looks like a decently fancy bodega. The cost of funding an off-Broadway play. Just $5 a month.

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Patreon. Over at our Patreon. Yes, thank you. This, as we said, it's our 300th episode. We've got some great goodies coming up in this episode later on, including our traditional every 50 movies. We do an awards for those 50 movies, so we're going to pick the best films and actors and supporting actors and whatnot from those movies. We also have a six-timers quiz coming up for one of the stars of Collateral Beauty. So stick around for that. But first, Chris, you are going to sum up the plot of Collateral Beauty in a mere 60 seconds. Are you prepared to do so. My whole life has been leading up to this.

All right, this is the 2016 film Collateral Beauty, directed by David Frankel, we'll get into it, written by Alan Loeb, starring Will Smith, Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, Michael Peña, Helen Mirren, Kira Knightley, Jacob Latimore, Naomi Harris, and Secret Wers Waldo, and Dowd. It premiered, well, I mean, technically it premiered at the Dubai International Film Festival on December 13th, 2016, before opening wide.

Much respect to the Dubai International Film Festival. Not real. Not a real. Not real. No, absolutely. Well, as much as many parts of Dubai are also not real. Premier December 16th, 2016. As you said, a time when we were all feeling just free and easy and not a care in the world. What a, what a lark of a time it was for us. Okay. Chris, my stopwatch is ready, are you ready to begin a 60-second plot of collateral beauty? Sure. All right, start. All right, so we're following Howard.

Howard is a ad executive. He runs his own company, and apparently his ad strategy was everything is about time, death, and love. Anyway, unfortunately, his six-year-old daughter dies of a rare form of cancer, and what do his three friends who run the company with him decide to do? Not help their friend. They decide to oust him because his... depression has made him a liability to the company.

So what do they do? They hire a group of unemployed off-Broadway actors who are trying to start up their show to pretend to be Love, Death, and Time, who Howard has been writing letters to, how did they find out that Howard is writing letters to these concepts? Because they hired Ann Dowd, a private investigator, to break into mailboxes and such and steal these letters. So they each individually show up to Howard as Helen Mirren as Death. as Death, who then partners off with Michael Pena, and she hears him cough, and he's like, oh, you're dying, aren't you? And he's apparently dying and keeping it from his family. Love, played by Kira Knightley, who pairs off with Edward Norton, and they kind of flirt a little bit. And he's also a deadbeat dad. And because he, like, got a divorce because he cheated on his wife. And so, like, his daughter naturally is like, fuck you. And then Time, played by Jacob Latimore, who pairs off with Kate Winslet, who has, uh,

you know, focused on her career and did not have a child, and now she might go, you know, get a sperm donor, basically. Meanwhile, all the time, Howard is basically not speaking to anyone except for these concept people, but he does go to a grief counseling center led by Naomi Harris, who mysteriously had a six-year-old daughter die. In the end, these letters keep going back and forth. Howard leaves the company, and Howard eventually keeps pairing off with Naomi Harris and Naomi Harris gets him to basically say his daughter's name, which

happens to be her own daughter's name. Guess what? They were married and they had their child together and now they're somewhat reconciled, but it turns out that Helen Mirren spoke to Naomi Harris while their child was dying and said, don't forget to notice all the collateral beauty.

Is that an ending? Apparently it is. That is a full 75 seconds over the time limit for the 90-minute-long collateral beauty. Well done. Well done, Chris. Okay, so a couple of things I thought of while you were doing that. One of which is you mentioned the talk of this movie being cut down. Seems pretty obvious. One of the things I noticed, as you were describing that, is so much of the plot hinges so much more heavily on Edward Norton than the other ones where Ann Dowd is the private eye that they find because Ann Dowd was the private eye who

busted him on his affair that led to the end of his marriage. They find the acting troupe because he follows Kira Knightley from an audition. He's just very much the point person in this. And so I can imagine a- He probably has more screen time than Will Smith. Right. And I can imagine a version of the movie where he's sort of almost like a co-lead. There's the whole thing with like his mom, played by Marybeth Peel, who is, who has, you know, some form of dementia that you get like one scene of that and it's never really followed up on. So like there's a lot more to that character. You also, there's also the fact that there's literally no resolution for Kate Winslet's character's thing about wanting. Yeah, she might be getting a story. She doesn't

even have a scene at the end where she like, even like emotionally sort of turns the corner and makes a decision. She just sort of, we see her browsing the sperm donor site, and then Jacob Lattimore sort of calls after her at one point is like, there's always time. And like, you'll be a good mom. Yeah. And like, her whole story is like she wants to be a mom, which is so retrograde on top of everything else that is deeply retrograde about this movie. Also, it should be said because mentioning the limited Kate Winslet that is in this movie, Kate Winslet, who is the friend who like actually goes and shows up to Howard's place and brings food

and, you know, leaves food outside his door that has... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It has to be said with Kate Winslett and Helen Mirren. You know, I meant to go look that up

and I didn't... The trailer is also very much Academy Award nominee, Will Smith, Academy Award nominee Edward Norton, Academy Award winner, Kate Winslet, Academy Award winner, Helen Mirren. Academy Award nominee Cure Knightley

and, ironically... Jacob Latimore and Ann Dowd, we will get you there. Well, and Naomi Harris was about to get there because Naomi Harris would be nominated for her Moonlight Oscar this same year. Okay, so Naomi Harris was one of the reasons that we were like, so this movie is kind of having that expectation,

but like you knew that something was in the water for this movie when she shows up on the actress roundtable and is only promoting Moon Life. Oh, is that true? Okay, then yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was the failure, the stench of failure was all. already there. The thing about that revolution. Because I don't think, because this, the actress

roundtable, like, suddenly is way later than it used to be, because the actress roundtable at this point, I think, would have been in, like, Thanksgiving time. I'd forget the actual date. And maybe I'm completely wrong, but. Not to pull a thread on the plot of this movie and have this air, you know, watertight, tot story, like completely unravel. But after we get the, so the premise is that Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, and Michael Pena, are not only his business partners, but his, like, longtime friends, right? That they are not only business partners, but they are friends. And so, and that's part of the reason why this is so hard for them to decide whether to castellate their friend. But also, one would imagine that... It seems pretty easy for them.

It seems pretty easy to do this to him. If they're long-time friends, one would imagine that they also are pretty familiar with his wife and are probably the very least friendly with her. If there is a rift between them, it is never mentioned. So, ergo, ergo's not the right term, but I felt like using some Latin, if they knew Naomi Harris and could, like, chat with her and knew what was going on with the fact that Will Smith doesn't know his wife and, like, doesn't remember being married and has disassociated to the book.

Yeah, because there's this whole illusion the whole time. Like, his daughter's death, we're supposed to believe, if we're piecing everything together, he had a psychotic break where he never recognizes his wife. So if this has already happened, why do you need to gaslight him? Just talk about that thing. Talk about how he's had a psychotic break and he doesn't know who his wife is. And his wife is basically playing into it, trying to get him to admit that he knows her and, like, admit to like their daughter's death like it it it completely that twist which is egregious because you don't really need to have that twist completely unravels for many reasons because the second

she's like I had a daughter who died at six we're like oh that's his wife of course but like it completely unravels whatever internal logic of what they are trying to do if they were so conflicted and they didn't really want to do this but they had to no you didn't like you had all the, you know, Mr. Policeman, I gave you all the clues. Mr. Advertising Professionals, we gave you all the clues. Like, just,

I don't know. It's a movie that completely sells any internal. Is there a line anywhere in this movie? I was waiting for it and maybe it passed me by, that she is some type of licensed therapist or mental health care professional. Naomi Harris? Yes.

I mean, she's running the support group, but she is not. She's, why is she running the support group if she's not? It is. I would imagine that there is a, it's not like support groups are like a medical practice, right? Like it ultimately is it's a group of people talking. And so. For Howard though, she's like giving him, she's like having conversations with him that only maybe a medical professional should be having with him, even though like she is his spouse.

She is his spouse, and I imagine she's had these conversations with medical professionals. She's gone through this Greek, too. She's also gaslighting him in a way, too, in a way that's kind of evil. She's floating on the delusion so that she doesn't, I guess, traumatize him or whatever. But, yeah, nobody's handling Howard particularly by the book, let's say. Like, we're supposed to believe that he's the most crazy person, and everyone here is absolutely. absolutely sociopathic and psychotic in this movie. Like, he seems like the, like, oh, your six-year-old daughter died, that's traumatic.

I feel like you are behaving as to be expected. And everyone else is a, like, demon from hell. Here's the other thing is so you have these three abstractions. Jacob Latimore is time. Kira Knightley is love. Helen Mirren is death. Helen Mirren, I will say, as death, is at least. halfway intriguing as a person. I sort of, you know, she's, there's a little sparked her. I like

the impishness with her where she's like, oh, time, time doesn't make sense without death. And love is always sort of going on these flights of fancy. Like, I could play all of these roles myself, like that kind of thing. And I like, I like that. But with the other two, I guess I understand maybe the conceptual idea behind, like, time is a young, skateboarding, you know, like heedless kid, right? Because, you know, that, that reminds you of youth. And there's nothing that will make you linger on the concept of time more than, like, seeing young people and just realizing how much time has passed. But then, like, and then you get Kira Knightley, whose only role is to literally just be like,

you can't live without me, Howard, you can't deny me. I'm in the fabric of everything. I'm, and then he's the maddest at her because he could see the love in his daughter's eyes and she betrayed. The big line in the trailer is him yelling at Kiry Knightley, you betrayed me. And it's like, I don't know if I follow that logic.

Like, I guess the idea that, like, the fact that he loved his daughter is, the thing that's making him hurt the most. So maybe, like, that's the thing. I do think, though, that, like, their scene together is the scene that maybe gives you an idea of what this movie could have been if it was good or more high concept. Because, like, this conversation of everything you're saying that is so painful, it is painful because I am there, you know, like, that's where it gets, you know, highfalutin in the ideas that. Like, it wants to be. That's the scene where, I guess, the movie becomes what it wants to be.

Even if it's still in kind of a greeting card way. It's such a huge waste to me of Kira Knightley, an actress who I really like. Yeah, yeah. And... Maybe it's just that she sells the thing. That's the thing about this movie. It's not any of the actor's fault. I think everyone is really committed to what they're doing.

Yeah. it's so dumb like sometimes you can get like i can get highfalutin about it i can sort of like come at it from that it's you know emotionally bankrupt and dishonest and whatever but it's also so dumb the whole idea of this is just brain dead and and like fake whimsical and just makes you feel like if you think I'm an idiot or something for sitting through this. And I will say, absolutely the most fun to be had watching this movie is very much watching this like a Where's Waldo book and just spotting Ann Dowd in the corner because she will be there. She like scampers into frame. Like at one point she has a kid with her. That's the funniest part. She's in like

a New York City buggy that does a full U-turn. The buggy at least becomes the focal point of the scene. And there's a scene where the one where she's got the kid with her, where it's like, Will Smith and Helen Mirren are just having a conversation on the sidewalk. And then all of a sudden, like, from the distance comes walking between them, this extra. And who's this extra? It's Ann Dowd. And she's just so, like, again, it's Gene Parmesan. She's just like, wherever you think, there's Ann Dowd with her camera phone ready to capture. All right.

Now we need to talk about the concept of digital erratic. sure of people. And what was possible in 2016? They pull Will Smith into the boardroom and someone's been filming all of these conversations he's having with the trio of actors and they have digitally removed the trio of actors both in the audio and the video to make it look like Howard's talking to himself like, you know, an unwell person on the street. Whatever money they think they are saving the company by ousting Will Smith, they have

blown on whatever cutting edge digital technique they have had to fully remove people. Like, you know how every once in a while, not every once in a while, kind of more and more often. You'll see these ads for phones where the camera can just like remove people from the frame, which by the way, I think is as almost as insidious as a lot of these AI things and nobody's talking about it. The idea that you can just like take photos and just like on your camera phone, like you don't have to have any particular skill. You just like remove people from frame. I'm always just like, yeah, but like something's got to go there. You know what I mean?

Like something's got to fill in that space. And the technology to know what goes there and to make it look seamless ain't cheap. And so they have this like wildly expensive, again, implement of gaslighting their dear friend, who they love. And it's like they could have just, you know, I realized they all personally built this company. But they could have, you know, just gotten another job. somewhere else that, you know, pays, they're currently in the hole for quite a bit. They are theater producers. They are, you know, AI entrepreneurs. And one of them, by the way, is dying. So Michael Pena is not even going to be around. So it's just going to be Kate Winslet and

Edward Norton at some point. Like, how long do you think this business lasts beyond the end of this movie? I'm going to say, I don't know, eight months. Like, I don't think this business is long for this world. Sorry people working in ad sales. Like, you know, whatever. That's the other thing. I mean, you could not have picked a more blatantly soulless. Sorry to anybody who works in advertising. You have a very good and worthwhile life and I support you. But like, um, sort of conceptually and, you know, this idea that like, what are we trying to save? We're trying to save the business, the business that we built together. What is this business you built together? An advertising firm. It's been our dream for all of our lives is to work together and sell bullshit to people. As it's framed in the

movie, you know, the opening sequence, the guiding light, the principles that are the foundation of this company are everything comes down to love death and time. And as Will Smith is explaining it, it's like, so this is how, like you're saying it in these greeting card hallmark channel type of rhetoric of like this is how we connect with people but I'm hearing it like no this is how you manipulate people of course it is in advertising that's the whole point of it yes also follow that logic down the road a little while and tell me you don't go insane how does first of all there is no actual evidence that love death and time are the three primary things that people care about you can punch holes in that as quick as money clearly well there's I can name three

people in this movie who give a lot of shit about money. Well, maybe they don't because they're throwing $60,000 away into off-Broadway theater. You keep saying off-Broadway theater, and I feel like I need to like step in here. Off-Broadway theater is like 12 levels above what these people are doing. These people are improv everywhere. Count the seats, baby. Count the seats. There's definitely more than 100 seats in there, and that qualifies as off-Broadway theater. All right. All right. Um, I couldn't tell what, where that theater was supposed to be. If I had liked the movie more, maybe I would have tried to investigate it.

Because a lot of my pleasure of this movie was sort of watching at things in the background of where they are at various places in the city. For all that theater is like PS 97 up in Washington Heights or something. The Paris Theater. It's like a high school theater. The Paris Theater is in the background. The Paris Theater Marquis is in the background of like several shots. They, I will say, for as frustrating as so many things of this movie are, It manages to pass the subway logic test in that Will Smith and Helen Mirren board an F train at Broadway Lafayette, and he gets out at the next stop at West 4th Street, which is accurate.

And movies so, like, by, you know, reliably just flaunt those rules, just absolutely disregard those rules. So I'm always very happy when a movie has internal subway consistency. So there's that. Chris is staring at me. It has to be consistent about one thing. Chris is staring at me with contempt whenever I talk about New York City stuff. Not contempt. No, I've just like, if you're going to give this movie credit for doing one thing right,

it's that he takes one subway station ride. That's right. And it's correct. And it's correct. The one thing I will give this movie credit for is I would empty my bank account for the coat that Howard wears in this movie. I love it. And I'm someone who, like, fashion-wise,

it's hard for me to like a coat, and I would wear that coat. So the thing about this cast, because I imagine that, like, the Oscar hopes, you watch the trailer, and, like, my favorite thing about a trailer that's going hard to the hoop for Oscar stuff is how aggressively they will sell

the Academy Award bona fides of its cast, the trailer for the judge is very, very much like that. This one, it's not only the fact that this has such a starry cast, but that the awards pedigree for this cast is all very recent, right? Like, Kate Winslet had just gotten back into sort of Oscars Good Graces with a nomination the year before for Steve Jobs. Edward Norton and Kira Knightley had both just been nominated for, are in 2014, Edward Norton for Birdman,

Kieran Knightley for The Imitation game. Weirdly, Helen Mirren and Will Smith were the two with like the longest Oscar droughts of the Oscar pedigreed people in this cast. Will Smith had been nominated for Ali and the pursuit of happiness and was very, very clearly going for a nomination with this. Part of the unfortunate narrative for Will Smith this year was this was also the same year. Suicide Squad, which, so like, both commercially and artistically, Will was kind of flopping this year.

Helen Marin had been like sixth place, like three times in a row, right, in recent years for Trumbow, Hitchcock, and something else. The woman in gold. She wasn't that close for the woman in gold, but she did get some precursor attention. Sag nominee. Yeah. So this was a very, very. very sort of of the moment

Oscar-e cast. You could tell like this thing got cast within the last few years basically by people being like, bring me lists of nominations this year and I will pick the cast for this movie. And this movie did not have some crazy budget too. So it's like you know all of these actors have back-end

deals on it. And you could also tell that something was in the water for this because no one did any promotion for this movie. I think it was like maybe Helen Mirren. Yeah. And So, where was I going with this? Oh, right.

So Kate Winslet, this would be her seventh. She was just on her seventh nomination for Steve Jobs. She was obviously an Oscar winner in 2008 for The Reader. We didn't do a Kate Winslet movie for the first 138 this had Oscar Buzz movies, which is kind of surprising. That's so wild. That's so wild. and that we're finally getting to her six-timers. Once we broke that seal, then it was, we kept going to that well.

So this movie is our sixth Kate Winslet movie, and I'm incredibly excited to do this. I think this is a really interesting sextet of movies that I'm going to quiz you on for this. As we do, whenever we do the sixth movie of an actress filmography, I give Chris a little quiz. the six movies and Chris as always I can I try to guess them for oh yeah yeah yeah because I was trying to rack my brain and I don't think I ever came to the six okay because it's so her reputation especially like she has like a magazine cover where she's like yes I want an Oscar like you know it's so weird that it's taken us so long to get here but I think it's fully because it took us so long to have any movie with her in it yeah um Ammonite, all the Kingsmen, this, obviously, the holiday. Yep. That's four? Yep.

What are the other two? Was one of them in the 90s? Do we have a 90s with her? Was it? No. Oh, Holy Smoke. Holy Smoke. Yep.

Love Holy Smoke. And... cursed movie cursed movie cursed movie cursed movie cursed director and it's not this

um no david frankle does not not curse not curse but like him having no authorial voice

over this movie is I think oh a problem of the problem um I don't have it what is it carnage

carnage we totally did an episode on. Was that our first Kate Winslet? Those are second. All the Kingsmen, all the Kingsmen in Carnage were back to back. They were episodes 138 and 139. Right, right, right, right, right. Yeah. Okay, so Chris. Carnage, definitely one of those movies I forgot we even did an episode about. I, as always, encourage you to write these down so that you don't keep asking me to tell you which ones we're choosing from. So you have your six movies. Every answer to this

will be one or more of these movies. And as always, we start with the basics. Which one of these six movies is the longest? All the Kingsmen. No. The holiday. The holiday at 136 minutes is the longest of all of these. Nancy. Wow. All the Kings Men like biologically looks like a two and a half hour movie. I mean, it's long. It's just not as long as the holiday. Which is the shortest. Carnage. Carnage at 80 minutes, yes. Which has the best rotten Tomatoes percentage. Ammonite?

Not Ammonite. The holiday. Not the holiday. Holy Smoke? Not Holy Smoke. Wow. Is it Carnage? It's carnage.

That's right. Carnage is a not good movie. Carnage at 70% Rotten Tomatoes, yes. Which is a... It's still too high. The worst. Collateral beauty. No.

All the Kingsmen? All the Kingsmen at 12. Collateral Beauty is 13. So just eeked it out, all the King's men. Which was the biggest box office earner? The holiday. The holiday, 63.2 domestic. Which was the lowest box office earner?

COVID's own Ammonite. Ammonite, $160,000. All right. Which movie holds at exactly 50% on Rotten Tomatoes? Holy Smoke? Nope. Ammonite. No.

Damn it. The holiday. The holiday is exactly 50% on Rotten Tomatoes. There we go. All right. Which three of these movies were produced under the Sony Pictures umbrella? The Holiday. Yeah.

Carni. All the Kingsmen. Yes, correct. Very good. Which movie has the same cinematographer as the original Halloween? Oh, that's interesting. I'm not sure if I know by name who shot Halloween. Is it Holy Smoke? It's not Holy Smoke.

No, that's probably an Australian. Is it the holiday? It's the holiday. The great Dean Cundee did the cinematat artist for Halloween and also the holiday. So there we go. Which movie has the same composer as Mr. Magoriam's Wonder Impouring? Um. All the Kingsmen?

No. Collateral beauty. Nope. Damn it. The holiday. No. Ammonite. No, it's carnage. Carnage.

Carnage has a score? Alexander Desplah. Oh, God, Desplah did Magoriam. Jesus. Yes. Which movie has one of the same writers as the Irishman? All the Kingsmen. Yes, All the Kingsmen, written and directed by Stephen Zalian, who is one of the two writers on the Irishman. Which of these movies is a BAFTA nominee?

Carnage. Nope. Okay. Ammonite. Ammonite. Best costume nominee for the Baftas. All right. Which movie, one movie, was a teen choice award winner? The holiday. The holiday. Do you want to wager a guess at what category? Like Love Story, Jack Black, or something.

Sort of choice chick flick. Great. Fabulous. We need to add that to the superlatives ballot. Choice chick flick. Write it down. Jot it down right now. Yes, we have to. We have fun categories we're adding, too. We're going to have to figure out what's one's leave. I know. I like the idea that, like, we can cycle stuff in and cycle stuff back out. It'll be fun. Which was the only one of these movies to be released earlier in the calendar than November? Oh, only one? Only one. Collateral Beauty's December Carnage, I believe, is also just... Oh, it's All the Kingsmen, which was like end of September?

It's September, yep. Exactly, exactly. Well done. Which movie has IMDB keywords that include Female, Female Kiss, Sexually Frustrated Female, and Bucksum. Ammonite? Not Ammonite. Are you kidding me?

I'm kidding you. Holy smoke. Holy Smoke. Female, female, kiss, sexually frustrated female, and buxom. Which movie has IMDB keywords that include father-daughter relationship, Christmas, and crying? The holiday. The holiday, I thought I was going to get you to say collateral beauty,

but it is the holiday, in fact. Which two movies feature stars of the movie Atonement? Collateral Beauty. Kira Knightley, yep. And Fiona Shaw is not in atonement, so it's... You'll get there. It's not carnage. You're officially taking too long to get this.

Oh, okay. All the Kingsmen? Because there's a million people in it? No, I'm just saying that, like, you, like, it's, it's not, you're going too deep. Oh, okay. All the Kingsmen? No. No. Oh, Ammonite, duh, because Sersha. Sershah, yes. You sped past Sertia and went right to Fiona Shaw.

Yeah, yeah, I was only thinking about adults. Which two movies feature stars of Moonrise Kingdom? Um, uh, uh, uh, collateral, collateral beauty. But what because of? Norton, so good in Moonrise Kingdom. He really is. He really is. It's really weird that Edward Norton, I just got to take two seconds to say, because I don't know if it'll fit anywhere else. Edward Norton being in this movie and so few movies is crazy. I would love to have a conversation with Edward Norton about collateral beauty specifically and just sort of hear his thoughts on it. He's not one of those people who tells tales out of school. He's one of the people who people tell tales out of school about. But like, I would love to hear as demented as it would be, Edward Norton's side of all of these movies that he's done. You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would, I truly would. Where's that autobiography? All right, one more. Is it Holy Smoke for Kytel? Kytel's a scout leader when they go to the scout sort of. He's got like that one scene, but he is, he is kind of secretly a Wes Anderson guy. He is.

Harvey Kytel is secretly, like, banger in all of the Wes Anderson's that he's in. He's so good. Because he's got, like, a scene in the ones that he's in. He's so good as the voice. in Isle of Dogs, and it's so brief, but he's wonderful. Which two movies feature stars of Hitchcock? Collateral Beauty. Helen Mirren, yeah.

And all the Kingsmen. Anthony Hopkins, very good. Yeah. Which movie opened the same weekend as Jackass Number Two? Whenever the hell that movie opened. I don't think it's the holiday because that opened the same weekend as Blood Diamond. I know, because I don't think it's the holiday. I saw those movies back to back. No, I saw them back to back.

Well, you're demented for that. I spent like six hours in a movie theater. Is it carnage? It's not carnage. Is it all the Kingsmen? It's all the Kingsmen. You were right about the year. Just not the weekend. So, yeah, all the Kingsmen. Which movie opened the same weekend as Alvin and the Chipmunks chipwrecked? Which I believe is the third chipwrecked. So I think that's Carnage. It is Carnage. Very good. Yeah.

About which film did Entertainment Weekly's Owen Glyberman say, Eat Up Chick-Flickaholics, even if you know it's not good for you. The holiday. The holiday. Also, double birds. Fuck you, Owen. Double birds for that quote. Jesus Christ.

About which... Two birds from most of his quotes. About which film did Rex Reed say, a movie so loaded with charm that it makes you glow all over and puts a smile in your heart. Collateral Beauty. No, not collateral beauty. Rex Reed would love the shit out of this movie. Yeah.

The holiday? The holiday. Rex Reed loved the holiday. Rex Reed sometimes right. About which film did Rex Reed say, I'm baffled by the reviews I've read by critics who confess shock and awe over a couple of love scenes they consider daring. To me, the Sex Inn redacted, is nothing short of a yawn. Holy Smoke.

Not Holy Smoke. Ammonite? Ammonite, yes. Rex Reed, unimpressed by the sex scenes in Ammonite. About which film did the New York Times Manola Dargis say, The Five Stages of Grief Sometimes Seem Applicable to Movie Reviewing, except that I usually skip denial, rarely get around to acceptance, and generally just settle into anger, which is where I am with redacted movie title. Holy Smoke.

No. All the Kingsmen? Nope. The holiday. The Five Sages of Grief is how she begins. And Collateral Beauty? It's Collateral Beauty. Yes.

Okay. That is Manola's quote about collateral beauty. We should also say one of my favorite things that I dug up about this is an article on Vulture that Hunter Harris wrote that was the collateral beauty reviews. This is your biggest clue as to like where collateral beauty was in the zeitgeist at this point. This was the movie that like not only everybody hated, but everybody. knew that everybody hated and like that was the story was like this is how much everybody hates collateral beauty um did you pick out any particular lines from that piece that i read through them and i have to say all these quotes are going soft like though i mean peter travers hated it and if peter travers hates something it's a dog yeah he says uh the unholy mess that director david frankl and screenwriter ell and lobe have unleashed for the holidays, strands an all-star cast on a sinking ship that churns the waters from absurd to zombieified with frequent stops at pretentious. Snip, snap, Peter Travers. Yeah, this was a movie that was sort of loudly, loudly disliked. It opened on the same weekend as Rogue One, the troubled, but I would say still very good. Star Wars movie, particularly if you stop that movie before the last 10 minutes, it's great.

If you stop the movie before the ridiculous parts where Darth Vader and Princess Leia show up, it's wonderful. Yeah, you scratch the surface on Rogue One in terms of what the reshoot situation was like, and it kind of falls apart. Yeah, but I think just on its own, up until that part, I think it's a very, very good movie. Um, finished behind Rogue One, the fourth week of Moana, and most damning of all, I would say, the second week of office Christmas party. The fact that collateral beauty couldn't best office Christmas party's second weekend is kind of all you need to know there. Um, abysmal rotten tomatoes. It only made, it's 31, it's so funny to think of it now. Right now, 31 million at the U.S. box office, I'm like, all right. Not too bad. And like back then, it was like, what else do we want to say about this movie about the like you talk about i want to talk about the notion of good versus evil in this movie most most more so i want to say who is the least evil character in this movie and who is the most evil character the temptation is to say that will smith is the least evil character mostly because he doesn't know what's going on the entire

time and that's like fair enough and also he's a grieving father um but also i don't don't know if you can hang good or evil on abstractions like time and love and death. So, um... But there are real people making a real choice to do this evil thing. No, they're abstractions pretending to be real people, pretending to be abstractions. They're real people, Joseph. Wait, wait, wait. What do you think the ending of this movie is?

They're real people. They do the evil thing of like, we're going to go. go say, we're going to go see, like, when they show up on the bridge in Central Park, like, and smile over Naomi Harris and Will Smith. You think that they're actual actors

pretending to be Love, Death, and Time. Yes. No. It is a moment. It is a moment of whimsy for the movie that the movie doesn't know what it's doing. I don't think that at all says that they are real abstractions. I think it's just the movie being boneheaded.

No. Okay, well, this is part of the deficit of the movie. No, the whole thing of the movie is you think that they're actors playing these things, but they are actually the real things. That's why Helen Mirren shows up to Naomi Harris in the hospital. As like bag lady or whatever. I don't think you can really...

Like, I mean, maybe it's just that like no one knows what they're fucking doing with this movie. I'm shocked. Like, confusion is part of the... I just thought that that was. the movie being stupid frankly i mean it might be the movie being stupid but i also i'd never know because they play it as a twist i think they play that scene with naomi harris in the hospital with helen mirren

as like the big twist but it's a twist that doesn't serve anything i don't know it totally as it is a twist that says oh yes she is really death like it just doesn't go anywhere like she's there in the hospital not because she's death looming over whatever and like Naomi Harris has had a visit from the fucking grim reaer yes she has really just Helen Mirren yes dressed like I don't know dressed like uh she's not with like a cloak and a sith she's like in a shitty hoodie right that's the whole thing the death does not carry a sign like you think get death is an unassuming old lady Yeah, I don't know.

Wild. I mean, like, maybe that is the intention here, but because the movie is so, like, categorically clumsy in doing it. So you think that the movie is just showing that, like, ah, what a coincidence that this woman. Yeah, it's trying to do the 1990s everything is connected thing. Oh, that's so bad if that's the case. I don't know. I'm standing by my interpretation. Like, isn't it convenient that she was.

also there. That's even worse if that's the case. That's what I think they're doing. I think they're doing a like useless everything is connected bullshit. I don't think so. But okay, so if that's the case, granting your interpretation of this, which I don't. But that puts them eligible for most evil. But ultimately, well, is it better or worse that they're just like on a job? Also, on what level does that, in your interpretation, that just says that Helen Mirren is death. It doesn't say that Kira Knightley is love and Jacob Latimore's time. So, like, that also leads me to not read into it that way. Okay.

I think we are on opposites of this. But anyway, if going with your interpretation, I still say that doing a bad thing to save a theater is better than doing a bad thing. thing to save an advertising company. Very true. So they're not as bad. Part of me wants to say... Though Kieraniteley is maybe the most evil of them because she's like, well, I guess I'll do this if it means I get to flirt with Edward Norton. I don't think she wants to flirt with Edward Norton at all.

That's why I think she's the concept of love. Because like, it's so dutiful the way she is sort of going through those motions. I think under this premise, I want to say that Kate Winslet's the most evil because she's the one who makes a big show of feeling bad about it and yet doesn't do anything to stop it. And so it's very performative, have your cake and eat it too about it. I think maybe Edward Norton is the most evil. Well, he's definitely the ringleader. He's the ringleader of this whole thing.

He's got issues outside of this whole gaslighting organization. He does. Like, oh, we should also mention, if you ever want to place this movie in time, it is at the moment where Hamilton tickets are. I noticed that. It's incredibly hard to get, but if you do get them, you're not cool anymore because there's a whole ploy where he tries to make his daughter happy because he has Hamilton tickets. And she's like, they were so hard to get. And she's like, I've seen it already. Well, but it also is like my new stepdaddy gets me things. I for, by the way, watching that kid who plays his daughter, I was like, oh, I thought it was Molly Gordon for sure. Like little tiny child Molly Gordon. It is not. but um she looked like her um this like i also love that they cast this like girl and give her the

the instruction of just like just be the meanest most horrible little girl ever just like she's so like that the way that the movie sort of frames that is just like she's awful and he has to like break through that awfulness to get to her because he's uh he's her parent and whatever i don't know I'm also willing to call Anne Dowd the second least evil after Howard. She's just doing her job. You know that she's had worse jobs than this. She does commit, as she notes, a federal crime, which really made me question. So do private investigators just, like, do whatever crime is needed to do to complete the job?

Because she breaks into a mailbox. She has the key made to open the mailboxes. Yeah. And she doesn't have anything to do with the digital removal. of Will Smith, right? That's their advertising firm technology that does that. I guess. So, like, she plausibly doesn't even know that they're gaslighting him to this degree.

She just thinks, like, she's, like, documenting, right? I don't know. I don't know how far into their plan she is. But truly, like, any scene on the streets of New York, she is, like, a where's Waldo. It's like, you're looking for the goggles, you're looking for the oxygen tank, and you're looking for Ann Dowd. it's fantastic street scene um i think i would put naomi harris on the end of least evil just because her emotional uh obligations are so complicated in this and that like she's going through grief as well she's also going through the grief of her husband has had the psychotic break so she doesn't

have her husband to you know help her through this she also is running a support group to help other people. So, like, she's, you know, doing good in the world rather than, like, coming up with ways to sell two brushes. Even if she is not medically equipped to be caring. I also don't think you need to be a medical professional to run a support group. Get at us if you run a support group. Yeah, I think she's like, she's probably second least evil. And then Ann Dowd, maybe right behind her. On the scale of most people in this movie are categorically evil, sure, she can be less evil. Michael Pena is also dying, so he gets the sort of, like... But then why is he doing it if he's dying? Like, do you have other priorities, my guy? Quote unquote, to provide for his family. He has to make sure that the business survives. Sure.

But, like, also, like... He's dying, so, like, I don't know, become a supervillain. He's dying full, like, girl with consumption in the 1800s. He is 17, like, coughing blood into napkins. A delicate napkin. Yep, yep, yep. I agree. I do think the most deranged scene is him and Helen Mirren in a fucking Zabar's.

And she just like looks at him sideways and is like, you're dying. Like, she can just tell. You know why she can just tell? Because she's the embodiment of death. She is not the embodiment of death. She is a weird character actress in the Lower East Side. They don't have superpowers to like detect cancer. She's a turquoise lady.

I'm right. All right. I want to talk about movies that have managed to do the thing the collateral beauty did not, which is ride the wave of magical realism into Oscar's success. It happens semi-often. I think some of the, I jotted down a few of the bigger examples that I could think of. I think Birdman qualifies in this realm, something like Life of Pie, certainly. I mean, you talk about a target paperback, Life of Pie, right?

The curious case of Benjamin Button, certainly something like Field of Dreams counts, where it's this sort of either mystic, like, this sort of, you know, non-denominational mysticism. Undefined mysticism. Yeah. Or, like, the world is just sort of off-kilter. A thing that you wouldn't think possible, like a person being born old and aging backwards, sort of exists. then that then becomes a prism through which the characters learn things about life. I think Birdman is that, but it is about art.

It is a prism through which people sort of make claims about art, you know, through this prism of, you know, Birdman is real and is, you know, visiting himself upon Michael Keaton's character and whatnot. I think alongside those examples you're doing, you also have to talk about Charlie Kaufman because I think this movie wants to be a Charlie Kaufman movie. Being John Malkovich, for sure. Yep. Yep. Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine.

Yes. Yeah. Although Eternal Sunshine is interesting. Even adaptation in a way. Eternal Sunshine is interesting because it's. it's magical realism that grounds itself in pseudoscience, right? Where it becomes, it's not magic. It is a procedure that sort of, you know, behaves as magic in this.

And then it sort of like opens the door. I think you're totally right about that kind of thing. I was sort of running down the list of Best Picture nominees, but that, of course, yeah, the Kaufman stuff definitely. I think there's a fine line. between what works for Oscar voters in this and what doesn't, I think you look at something like The Lovely Bones, which we talked about on a Patreon episode,

where that is very much this idea of there's, you know, a tangible afterlife. There is magic in that movie, but it's supposed to make all the other characters reflect upon, you know, life. And you in the audience sort of reflect upon life. And sometimes it just sort of doesn't connect. And when it doesn't, it feels very much, very frivolous. And when it does connect, like something like the very end of life of pie, where the end

of life of pie is like, was this real? Was this a story? Doesn't matter. And which would you rather hear? You know what I mean? Like that kind of thing. And like when it connects like that, then all of a sudden it becomes something that really moved you and you feel good about a movie that moves you.

I think ultimately that's what a movie with this level of magical realism needs to do is it needs to get to the end and have you feel good about being taken for this journey, which certainly something like Eternal Sunshine does. By the time I get to the end of that movie, I'm just like, oh, my God, perfect, right? And I think the danger with sometimes when it goes wrong is you get to the end of collateral beauty and you're like, what the bullshit was that? that I just sort of endured and went through. Because it's supposed to be a movie about letting the light in to, you know, use a greeting card phrase. But it's ultimately just like putting you through the paces of this like really dark human behavior that the movie refuses to acknowledge as dark, so dark that it's even like feels heavier than the fact that this is about a man grieving the death of a, child you know like where it's just like they're supposed to be this bonded group of friends that ultimately is willing to go to disgusting lengths to you know cast each other aside

and all for what and all for what exactly exactly um how do you think will smith fairs in this movie sort of subject matter aside as an acting performance you know it doesn't really feel like it's in service of anything and it's a it's weird as a star vehicle because there's so little emphasis on him there's so many other moving parts in this movie yeah yeah and i think we never really understand or get into howard's head enough beyond the most just kind of base level ways of grief And I don't think it's the fault of the performance. I think it's the fault of the script. I think it's the fault of the direction.

You know, again, I think no actors are at fault here. However, I do think while all of the other actors probably emerge unscathed from this movie, you know, not really having a negative impact on their career, I do think because Will Smith has so many, like, model and drama bombs to his... This is the thing. The thing about Will Smith, in terms of Oscar, and, you know, slap aside, we're not going to talk about that, is Will Smith as an actor and a movie star is somebody who, his best mode is action star blockbuster mode, right? His best mode is comedy action action comedy. Will and Men in Black, Independence Day, bad boys, you know, that kind of a thing, where he's, he lights up the screen, he's, you know, the A-ist of A-list, I guess.

And then he makes Ali, easily to me, the best of his Oscar nominations. Yeah. The one I would probably, of those five, I might have cast a ballot for. Although, God, I love Tom Wilkinson in the bedroom that year. That's a great best actor lineup. It's a great best actor lineup. I think Will Smith is incredible in an incredibly difficult ask of him to play Muhammad Ali. And I think he's wonderful.

But then you look at his Oscar nominations after that and including stuff like Collateral Beauty, which he doesn't get nominated for, it's all in this sort of proud dad. mode, right? Pursuit of happiness. He's, you know, he's a father who is going to fight by hook or by crook to provide for his kid. King Richard, he's the, you know, nobody else thinks he knows what he's doing, and he takes this unorthodox approach and ends up, you know, raising, you know, the greatest tennis player ever and one of the, and also one of the greatest tennis players ever in Serena and Venus. And then in collateral beauty,

it's so much about him as a father. And in this case, it's a grieving father. And I think what it is, is that because the Oscars are never going to give Will Smith a nomination, much less a win for Men in Black, you know what I mean?

For Independence Day, that he is, then like, okay, well, if I want to reach this sort of pinnacle, I need to, you know, take on these other roles and you end up with collateral beauties and seven pounds and a concussion, you know, concussion's not a movie about him being a dad, but it's also like, these are, what movies can we put Will Smith in that will show him as a serious actor, right? And to allow... Concussion, to be fair, is also a movie about telling the truth.

That's what it's about. Definitely, it is about telling the truth. So I think I don't envy that position to be like, well, to win an Oscar, I'm going to have to do maybe the thing I'm not the best at, you know. Well, and like, I think he's even kind of punished for some, not punished maybe isn't the right word, but like as far as public perception it goes with his dramatic movies, I think even. some of his successes are kind of held against him as like, well, we don't want this. Like, Pursuit of Happiness made a lot of money and got him an Oscar nomination, but I think it's a movie people would think of in step with what we're talking about with like a bomb. Well, it was not a cool movie for sure. You know what I mean? There is not any, I think if you are,

I think while I imagine a lot of critics loved it, I think younger and edgier critics rejected that movie. It sort of was seen as a very cloying Oscar nomination for him to get. So you end up with this kind of bifurcated career almost.

And it's something where you look at somebody like Tom Cruise who has a similar but not the same bifurcation. But the thing with Tom Cruise was, he took some chances early. He did something like Born on the 4th of July early.

He was in Rain Man early. Now, cannot be stressed enough the fact that Tom Cruise was afforded far more opportunities for non-action roles than Will Smith would have been because Tom Cruise is, you know, golden white boy. but the fact remains that Tom Cruise was able to manage to establish some kind of a foothold in a tourist movies that were well received. And so then he's able to, every once in a while, step back and do eyes wide shut, step back and do magnolia. And ultimately, Tom Cruise... Born on the Fourth of July. Born on the Fourth of July is a big one because it happened so early in his career.

But it's ironic that Will Smith ended up getting his Oscar before Tom Cruise has. And part of that is Tom Cruise has just stopped, you know, making those kinds of movies. Will Smith was hungrier for it. There's also an element to Will Smith, too, that we tend to, or we, the system, the machine of it all resents people who are so good at comic. being dramatic or like we tend to highlight when there's attention there whereas an action star like Tom Cruise who maybe even in the 80s when he was becoming famous wasn't quite yet an action star you know like risky business is not an action movie right you know right yeah it isn't until really the 90s like top gun obviously is a major step in that direction but I guess

it is until the 90s that sort of starts happening consistently And he would still be doing movies, obviously, like Jerry Maguire, well into, you know, the late 90s. And I don't know. It's just interesting. I think ultimately Will Smith wins his Oscar for King Richard, a movie, I think, is good. I don't really love his performance in it, actually. That's how a lot of people felt, yeah. But I obviously enough people, you know, felt good about it. And also, though, that was one of those ones where, like, on paper a year ahead of time, I'm like, keep an eye on this one. Like, this could be, this could be Will Smith's Oscar. And I think it was one of those things where sometimes it just feels like it's time. You know what I mean? That's the great tragedy. I said I wasn't going to talk about the slap, but I, you know, that's the great tragedy of what happened there is that like, this is this like pinnacle moment for Will Smith. You know, it.

all was leading up to this moment. And the King Richard Oscar isn't only a win for his performance, but it's a win for him as a list movie star, Will Smith. It's in some ways a career Oscar. And the fact that nobody's ever going to talk about it that way now is ultimately on his shoulders, but it's tragic that that sort of is how it shook out. Yeah. Yeah, we're both two people who, when it comes to the slap, we just have always felt like this is bummer territory.

It's bummer territory. It's, you know, you can't go around. He's clearly, like, you know, in the choices he makes for being a dramatic actor in terms of, like, material. And then, like, his autobiography came out at that time, too, and there was a ton of weird shit in that. And it's, like, he's obviously, like... He's an odd bird. You know what I mean? He's an odd bird. He was, he got famous. People don't talk about Will Smith as a child star because he didn't start when he was like 10. But like, Will Smith got incredibly famous at a young enough age that it like, it's going to warp your perceptions of things. And had a like massive pressure put on him for decades, you know, being a very popular black actor. And, you know, the machine of like what his public persona would have to be. And like, you know, the machine of like what his public persona would have to be. And like. the responsibility that was thrust upon him, like, you know, it can screw with someone's head.

Yeah, that clearly has, you know. And that goes beyond the, you know, the slap of it all. Like, Will Smith is a, is an odd bert, you know, he really is. And like to, I guess, close the loop on it, it's like, I don't feel like this movie is his fault, but because, like, he is the top tier star who has had similar failures like this movie, it feels like he bears. the brunt of its failure in a way that none of its other stars do. Do you think that collateral beauty is one of these projects that sort of was making the rounds in Hollywood? I just, I want to imagine the conversations that agents were having with the talent where they're like, this is it. This script has the magic. This is going to be, this is going to have audiences eating out of its palm because, like, I don't, what's the momentum where you sell this

movie to Kate Winslet and Helen Mirren and Edward Norton and Kira Knightley. There was definitely some of that because this almost was filmed with Hugh Jackman would have been the lead and it was

Alfonso Gomez Rejohn who directed me and Earl and the dying girl at that point and then would go on to do you know he had a ton of TV Ryan Murphy shows did me Earl and the dying girl was going to do this movie, it fell apart with Hugh Jackman.

And, like, if you had Hugh Jackman, you know, I would not say as famous as, like, you know, could get a movie made as Will Smith could. But, like, that would have drawn A-list talent. Runei Mara was supposed to be in it. We would assume playing the Kear-Nightly role, maybe. They have a, that's a real specific vision for that character that I'm, I'd love to dig into somebody's brain to find out why. Why does love have to be a Rooney Mara Kieran Knightley type? I don't necessarily, you know, love can be anything. Love can look like anything.

But it's very interesting. Yeah. What a weird movie. All right. I can't imagine the movie, all respect to this director, and we will eventually do the current war. I can't. All respect to this director.

I cannot imagine that the version of collateral beauty directed by the director of me, Earl, and the dying girl is better. Well, no, no. Here's the thing about- I'm starring Hugh Jackman, especially Hugh Jackman, since we've seen him in something equally, like, emotionally abhorrent and offensive with good intention still as the son. Hugh Jackman and Will Smith are weirdly real similar kinds of actors. in a lot of different ways. Will Smith doesn't have the affinity for musicals, but, like, there is a lot of common ground

between Hugh Jackman and Will Smith. Hugh Jackman also a particular bird. Also, Hugh Jackman is corny as shit sometimes in a way that, like, I know some people use the term corny as this sort of, like, unforgivable sin for people. I often enjoy people when they're being corny. But, like, there is definitely a, a, again, watch Hugh Jackman in the YouTube videos of him doing the rehearsal performances for

Greatest Showman songs. And it's like, the man is making himself cry. And like, I love that about him. I love what a completely, like, corny actor he is. Um, but Hugh Jackman is definitely not the person here, like, bring him into collateral beauty. That'll give this movie some gravitas. Like, not in the way you wanted to. So, um, Yeah. Okay. So any last sort of... Oh, I did want to say about David Frankel, because we mentioned him a couple of times. Not an autour. But if you look at some of the movies that he's directed, so obviously he directs the devil wears Prada, which is very much a movie that most people are like, yeah, Merrill Streep and Anne Hathaway conjured that movie from a pile of dust and turned this into this like, you know, iconic comedy of the aughts. But, like, certainly David Frankel was a good enough guiding hand that The Devil Where's Prada is a hit and a movie that we still remember today. And he probably should have kept making movies like that, but we basically, we, like, we are a part of this, but Hollywood essentially stopped making movies like that. That's the thing.

Because his filmography is so fucking weird. Marley and me in 2008, which I am not a pet person, so that movie didn't really speak to me. but, like, a lot of people really were into Marley and me. That was a well-received movie that, like, you say that movie to certain people and they will just start crying at you on the spot. Sure. I really liked Hope Springs with Meryl and Tommy Lee Jones and, you know, sort of recapturing the spark in their marriage. I don't know how you feel about that movie. I don't know if we've ever discussed Hope Springs.

We should do an episode on it, and I can figure out how I feel. Okay. And then a movie I've never seen, but the one I always... know as the movie... Taylor Swift Golden Globe nomination. The Taylor Swift Golden Globe nomination for the movie about Paul Potts, uh, one chance in 2013, that like had, you know,

there were... I think it had that Golden Globe nomination, and then they still didn't put it in theaters for like... It was an odd story about one chance. Every once in a while that happens, where the Golden Globes will nominate something, and then it doesn't get released. Holly Berry nominated for, what is it, Frankie and Alice? And I think it didn't get... A real release until like two years later.

Many years. So I'm not here to say that David Frankel is this great artiste, but like I could see where you would be like, let's hand this movie to a guy who knows how to make a movie. You know what I mean? Or a guy who knows how to direct a certain level of star even. That's a big part. Yep. If you can discern a sensibility from his filmography, even his television filmography, it's not what collateral beauty is trying to deliver. No. He's not an auteur in that way. He does not have a artistic, I don't want to say he does not have an artistic sensibility. That sounds unnecessarily mean.

For the flights of fancy that this movie probably needs to just land, to just land, to just be the thing that it wants to be. He seems like an odd fit, and like, well, I don't, you can't, blame is just not the right word, but his approach to the material is categorically wrong. But what other approach to the material, given his resume, do you think he's going to give to it? Like, the decision to have David Frank will be the director of this is wrong. Sure. Can you think of off the top of your head a director who might have salvaged? something from this or even the type of director that might have salvaged something from this besides like spike jones yeah but spike jones wouldn't touch this with a 10 that's is what

i sort of mean but like the answer is basically spike jones spike jones makes this and it's a masterpiece is this like me me leader doing making up for oh if me pay it forward we want we want good things of course well that i don't after pay it forward i don't think so friend um but this is what i mean like who do you who do you give this movie to it's a you know clinn eastwood i don't know maybe a younger director with flights of fancy who has something to prove rather than someone who's going to show up get the job done yeah and get out like show up get the job done and get out that is uh what you're going to do if you ever decide to watch collateral beauty you're going to show up get the job no you're not you're going to

to have a hoot and holler in good time. Yes. Watch it with friends. Yes. Be incredulous. This movie reverse engineers you exiting the theater and living your life with more integrity. Stop. Because it thinks it's going to

be the movie that shows you the human heart and the human experience and then you leave a better person to be more gracious. And no, this is a movie that in actuality shows you the darkness of human behavior. and self-importance and self-preservation, and then you leave going forth being like, well, I don't want to be like those people.

This is a movie where pairs of friends walk in with the hope of seeing something inspirational, and they walk out arguing about whether the trio of people are really the embodiments of time, love, and death, or are just actors, and they squabble for the next day, and that's, that is the collateral beauty. That's the collateral damage, but it's also the collateral beauty. all right chris i'm going to let you take the reins on this one um this is our 300th episode and as has become our custom with milestone episodes every 50 episodes we look back on the previous 50 movies that we have covered and select our favorite films and performances from them and i'm going to tell you And we get to just talk about the last year on the show, which hopefully is a nice little recap for listeners or any new listeners gives you some, you know, episodes to go back and check out. Exactly. Exactly. All right. So. I feel like this snuck up on us this year. It did. I had a real bitch of the time trying to come up with these lists. I think not because I was, I did not have enough to choose from, but because I had quite.

frankly, too much to choose from. Give me any list of... We always say we're going to do worse movies every year to make this more interesting. We did a bunch of really bad movies, but also we did a bunch of really good movies. As we've mentioned, I think, before, every once in a while we'll just be like, oh, like, my life is frustrating me. Can we just do X, Y, and Z movie? And it's just like something that's fun. It's just something that I like.

Yes, we will... This is what happens when you get a problem. podcast of two workaholics who do like multiple jobs and then their podcast you know and then we're just like can and also go through life shit and yeah you know have to deal with stuff sometimes we're like can we please just do a nice we've got listen we just did collateral beauty for you so we've definitely got some garbage on the on our lists that we can definitely dig it to and will you mentioned what did you mention sir uh the current war that we can do so uh but one but one example okay so so So, take it away.

How do we want to start with these superlatives? Do we want to work top-down? Do we want to do best films? And then we'll do the acting categories, director category. I didn't come up with any fun options this year. But hopefully this episode made up for that. Let's do a silly one nature of it sort of got taken care of by the fact that we were doing collateral beauty. I think also let's do a silly one is.

being taken over by our superlatives too. Also true. Also true. If anybody wants like two and a half hours of let's do a silly one, go over to our Patreon and listen to last year's superlatives episode. And get ready for next year's superlatives episode. We're going to have a good time of that. We're going to go off.

Let's start maybe from the top. Why not? Let's do... Sure. Because honestly, that makes supporting actress the last category and that's the most fun one anyway. So, um, all right. I will read my best picture top 10 from 10 to 1, though.

I will do it that way. So... Do it. Number 10 is the Ritz. Come on. It's the Ritz. Go off. I love it.

Tell them about the Ritz. The Ritz is the movie that we covered in our 1970s series about a, based on the Terrence McNally play, about a gay bathhouse in pre-AIDS, 1970s, New York, where a man on the run from his murderous brother-in-law. decides to hide out among the sexed-up towel-clad or whatever patrons of a bathhouse called the Ritz. Rita Moreno plays a Bett Midler-esque performer and gives it her all plus a million.

Treat Williams has a squeaky little voice. There is much sort of farcical chasing happening going on. The towels are tiny, the comedy is often broad. Jerry Stiller is there a lot. We talked about this movie with our friend Christina Tucker during our May miniseries, and it's just so much fun. Cannot recommend it highly enough. Go listen to that episode, and we had a really good time. Number nine, also from the 70s series, Hal Ashby's Harold and Maud. What a lovely movie. What a wonderful story. I'm going to, I assume, that that's on your list, so I'm going to let you talk about that. Number eight is Michael Mann's Heat, which we talked about with our guest, Roxana Hadati. Bangor of a movie. A movie I really maybe appreciated to its fullest for the first time before watching it this time. It was probably the third time I had seen Heat. It really kind of came together for me, watching it with intention for this episode, so I was very happy about that. Number seven, Yorgos Lanthamosus

The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Go out and see kinds of kindness in theaters and appreciate sicko Yorgos and everything that he gives you. Number six is Sean Durkins the Nest, a what if capitalism was a haunted house movie, and all that that entails with Carrie Coon and Jude Law playing a married couple in the 1980s. Number five is another movie from our 70s miniseries. don't look now, Nicholas Rokes. Seventies really kind of skewed this in a way. Don't Look Now a movie about grief and terror and little people in raincoats. Number four, hereditary.

It's one of, every time I see it, I think I like it a little bit more, a true banger. Number three, Kill Bill Volume 1. I had to really figure out because we did Kill Bill volumes 1 and 2 back to back. I had to kind of like, for the most part, funnel all of my enthusiasms into one, and I like volume one better than volume two. So I went with that. Although, as you'll see later, there are... I think we said in those episodes, too, we would have to consider them as two different movies for this purpose. They are two different movies for this purpose. But ultimately, I decided rather than have both of them on my top ten, which I conceivably could have, I just am going to go with volume one. Number two is a pure pleasure pick, which is nope. What a great movie.

Modern classic, instant classic. I think my favorite Jordan Peel. It's so wonderful. And then number one, Abbas Kyristami's certified copy, Julia Pinoche, and an iconic bra strap, and also a lovely walk around the city with a man who may be a stranger, maybe your husband, maybe both. Who knows?

Earrings dangly one cinema. A whole shoebox full of them. That's what certified copy has. Yeah, that's my top ten. Any of those that surprised you in that list? Surprise that certified copy was the number one, especially given we had a lot of options of, you know, that tier of greatness.

surprised but happy. Love seeing that call out. Yeah, a lot of 70s, which makes me feel good about the decision. Like, we love to spread the wealth here. I don't think Joe or I are people who want our ballots to be the same ever, even if we think that our personal ballot is unimpeachable. I still want to see, you know, give the room for some shoutouts to some other things. Exactly. I did all of mine in alphabetical, but then I'll say with one pickings. I love that. I love that. Very national border review of you.

Well, if it was national border of view, I would be allowed a top 10. And then an 11th number one, right? Yeah. And then I would be able to do five in each category and a number one. Yes, exactly. Maybe, can I be the National Border Review for this episode? Sure. Go for it. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. I won't do it. I won't do it. I won't do it. I won't. listen I will deny you nothing so do what you want because then it's like undo it it's frustrating when the National Border Review does it like so I'm not going to do it um I'm glad a bunch of 70s is there because I felt like well you know they weren't all great movies in our 70s miniseries I do feel like some of the movies that are there it does skew this a little bit and in the efforts of fairness and like nothing's hurting the legacy of those movies let alone our little podcast

So I'm going to try to limit the 70s in them. I don't want any, like, you know, maybe reserve a slot for one of them to show up. It just doesn't feel balanced to me. So my top 10, in alphabetical order, Luca Guadernino's a bigger splash, a movie about what if hot people wielding their hotness was evil. My favorite Guadino We'll see what happens with queer, though We'll see, yeah Joe's number one, also on my top 10

Abhiski Arstami's certified copy Next, the deeply departed Terence Davies, the Deep Blue C An episode that I forget if we recorded it right before or right after he died. Either way, it was after. It was, we planned the episode before his untimely passing. One of his many great films.

Next up, Stanley Kubrick's, the, not the eyes wide shut, but eyes wide shut. The eyes that happened to be closed. The eyes of wide shut. Much has been said about the film. I feel like when we recorded that episode, we were both like, well, we said we were going to do this. People want us to do this, but like, what can we say that hasn't been said about this movie um yeah i feel that way now but it is also a masterpiece and often you know scratches its way to be my number one kubrick um but i don't know if i'm still

there who knows um as you mentioned hal ashby's harold and mod it is taking my placeholder for the 70s miniseries in my top 10 very definitive movie for me um even though, you know, it has the makings of the, well, of course, white dudes love this movie, but I do also think there's deeper and more casually impressive things about it. Definitely. Ruth Gordon Legend. Spike Lee's Inside Man, a movie that on the rewatch for this podcast, I was like, oh, no, this is maybe like genre masterpiece of like fully, you know,

definitive directorial vision applied to something that could have absolutely been junk and now it's on a tier of greatness also from Joe's list

Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Volume 1 Joe said a lot of the reasons for it to be there Steven Soderbergs let them all talk a movie that on this rewatch for the podcast I was just like

you know what I'm just going to allow I'm going to allow myself to slam the fifth star on this. Like I've always felt about it. This movie is Fialcore. It is just far more exceptional with a lot more going on. And just like the quintessential like Soderberg off to the races, it's up to you in the audience to catch up with its wavelength. Great movie. I also included Jordan Peel's Nope.

I also think that this is my favorite Jordan Peel movie. A great movie. Go back to that episode. I think that's one of the best episodes we did in the past year. And then also Selen Siamas Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which was selected by one of our sponsors over on the Patreon. Love that movie. A movie that Joe and I saw together.

And I think the only movie on this list that we saw together. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So we have, by my count, four in common. Certified copy. Nope. Kill Bill, Volume 1, Harold and Maude. Yeah. And then a bunch of yours that you said were definitely on my very close runners-up. Porto of a Lady on Fire, let them all talk, a bigger splash. I also had the sisters brothers in my runners-up. That was definitely close. I'm surprised that killing of a sacred deer didn't make your top 10.

Killing I was so close in a lot of these. I think it was one thing I was willing to let go because I was like, well, Joe, we'll probably mention this. That was sort of me with Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Exactly. Exactly. Now, how did you decide to do Best Director? Did you just sort of, these are my top five, or like, I get a little crazy with Best Director. I sometimes just, like, want to mix it. it up?

I love that you want to mix it up. For me, it was thinking a lot about how this would not be the same movie if someone else had made it. And that kind of led me down the path of where I was going. All right. So since I went first for picture, I'm going to have you go first for director. Perfect. All right. In alphabetical order, and I will say torturous to me that I couldn't include Luca Guadonino here, but we're going to have more opportunities to talk about his movies coming up

both in new releases and episodes we could do on the show. So my five, Terrence Davies, the deep blue sea. I think he is just flat out a filmmaker period that none of his movies would be the same movie in anyone else's hands. Still very sad that he's gone. Stanley Kubrick, eyes wide shut. I just kind of felt like I couldn't not. And just like, you know, go back and listen to that episode. I'm sure we said smart things about Kubrick.

Spike Lee for Inside Man, which, you know, maybe not everybody would make that call for Spike in this movie, but I do really, and like, thinking about Spike, too, because I think we're going to have to really have the conversation. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the high and low remake next year, which, like, I would normally be like Kurosawa remake. I don't think

so, friends. But for Spike, and with the cast he has assembled, I think it's going to be very interesting, but with Inside Man, he's taking a genre and elevating it in a real way that I think we didn't appreciate at the time that we really should have.

Jordan Peel for Nope. Like I said, go back and listen to that episode. And then Celine Siamah for Portrait of a Lady on Fire. These are all movies that I think have a definitive stamp by their maker, you know, that are clearly their movies. I absolutely agree with you. I think these are excellent choices. I had a little bit of a, not a hard time, but like, I wanted to make my best director picks. with some sort of, with the intention of not only are these great movies,

but these are movies that really, like, showed me something about these directors that I find particularly revelatory or impressive or something like that. In no particular order, actually. Abbas Karistami is on there because Certified Copies my number one, and I think it's an incredibly formally playful and interesting and romantic and rewarding movie, and I think it's an incredible feat of storytelling, and I love it for that reason. Jordan Peel is on here for Nope. I think not only the things that he does with the notion of spectacle in this while also delivering A-plus spectacle is...

It's kind of his, it's sort of becoming his calling card, right? This idea of, I'm going to give you something that is incredibly satisfying while also making you think about what it is about this that is satisfying to you. Do you know what I mean? Really incredible. Sean Durkin for The Nest. I'm just going to keep hollering about Sean Durkan until people with awards-giving capacity agree with me. I think he's so talented.

I think he has such an interesting sensibility. I think he does such really, really cool things in The Nest. Talk about a movie that makes you think beyond about what the movie actually is and what's doing. Jacques O'Diard for The Sisters Brothers. I'm so glad the Sisters Brothers showed up somewhere. What a great American sort of debut to do this Western that is incredibly thoughtful. and, you know, well done, and the acting is all so good. And he does, you know, such good work with the actors there.

And speaking of which, I put Steven Soderberg on my list for Let Them All Talk, because... Loan director nominee on Joe's ballot. Truly. Well, Odiard, too. I guess it's 2001, because there's multiple loan directs. Steven Soderberg, I was just so happy to see that, like, he was. was still doing something like this, something that I could like so unreservedly loved. So I was very happy with that. A lot of good directors. A lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of good directors. All right.

And we only overlap on Jordan Peel. Oh, that's interesting. Would you like me to start with Best Actor? Uh, yeah. All right. In alphabetical order, my best actor list is as follows. Hayden Christensen for Shattered Glass Colin Farrell for the killing of a sacred deer Daniel Kaluya for Nope Wesley Snipes for two Wong Fu

Thanks for everything Julie Numar And Gregory Peck for Moby Dick That's a very fun list Thank you I think for my Fun was the concept there Yeah yeah yeah for my acting ballots For the past year of episodes

I think my priority in assembling them, while, yes, I concede that there were maybe some nominees that I was willing to let go because I thought they might show up on yours. Most notably immediately off the top of my head for this category, apologies to Jude Law for the Nest. I thought Joe was going to go. He was my close number six. Yeah, I thought Joe was going to go for it. And for that reason, I was willing to let him go. but really the priority for my five in each of these categories was trying to find some type of variety

while also having passion plays. Yes. Here's my five. Yes. Paul Dano, Love and Mercy. Very good. Colin Farrell, the killing of Sacred Day. File core to its utmost is Paul Dano for Lovenworth.

What were you saying? I said file core to its utmost, Paul Dano and Love and Roe. I'm a simple man. Colin Farrell, the killing of Sacred Deals. I am a simple man. Ray Fines, a bigger splash, Paul Giamatti, win-win. Very good. And Wesley Snipes, Two Wong-Fu.

Thanks for everything, Julie, Numar. I love that our common ones are Colin Farrell in the killing of a sacred deer and Wesley Snipes in two Wong-Fu. Put those two characters in a movie and just see what happens. Just see what happens. I'd be excited. Yeah, really good category. I think among my runners-up, I had, you know, I mentioned Robert Teneiro and Heat, Adam Driver in a net. I, for as.

Same. I have both of those. Weird and goofy as that movie is. I think Driver is doing something really amazing. John C. Riley and the sister's brother is so wonderful. Use my last cut. All right. Would you like to lead in Best Actress?

Again, a real kill-your-darlane situation. Very much. My lead actresses, my top five from the past year of episodes, Juliet Benosh, certified copy, Carrie Coon, the Nest, Whoopi Goldberg, Sister Act, Liza Minnelli, New York, New York, and Rachel Weiss, the Deep Blue Sea. Very, not heavily on musicals, but certainly two musicals, so very good. Fiochort, to a T.

But, like, killing certain darlings of, like, Tilda Swinton in a bigger splash, uh, umathurman. Merrill. Merrill. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, the port, the, the lady's on fire in that portrait. Yeah, Del Honel.

All right. Mine are, we have, I will say, three of five overlap. Oh, not what I was expecting. Juliette Bonotion certified copy, of course. Tony Colette in Hereditary Carrie Coon in the Nest Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act

and Ruth Gordon in Harold and Mott See here's apologies to Uma I really thought she were going to pull for Uma but Uma was my number six You know me well

In that like Uma was very very Very very close Love that you have Ruth Gordon there too Another darling that had to go What a lovely print I love that we both landed on Whoopi though, because deceptively

banger performance. And Kiki, we should say Kiki Palmer, too. Yes, Kiki Palmer's on my list of runners-up. Rachel Weiss was also UMA, Annette Benning, film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool. I had on there. Liza was on my list of runners-up. All right. So then I'm going to lead in Best Supporting Actor.

Yeah. All right. So, Okay, sorry, I was making some very last minute changes. Ray finds in a bigger splash. We did discuss, but we can maybe discuss a little bit more. Barry Keoghan in The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Michael Wincott in Nope.

Oh, the alphabetics are totally off-rod. Sorry, Michael Wincott in Nope. Alex Wolf in Hereditary and Simon Russell Beale in the Deep Blue Sea. I know. Chris is shocked because I put two people. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, do not, do not, do not think you speak for me. Okay, okay, okay, okay. We'll get into the ballots.

Okay. I love your ballot. Your ballot, what was missing that I expected you? Figured Barry Keogan would be there, Barry Keoggan. I had two last minute cuts, so I'll be interested to see if you can guess which two were the last minute cuts. I mean, some of these are going to be like, again, I am a simple man. I am not strong.

My ballot, alphabetical order. Simon Russell Beal, the deep blue seat. Yeah, man. He's so good. I love him. John Leguizamo, two Wong Fu. Thanks for everything, Julie Numar. Uh-huh.

I am a simple man. Austin Pendleton, the front page. Oh my God, that's such a good one. That's such a good one. I love it. Peter Sarsgaard shadowed glass, and fuck yeah, Michael Wincott for Nope. Michael Wincott and nope. Listen, it was a one-eyed, one-horn flying purple people. We're going to have to wait until after supporting actress at this point, but we need to go back and give our winners, too.

We will. My two last-minute cuts were Simon Helberg in Annette and Ben Washaw and Bright's Head revisited. Twink Wrights, maybe not so much, as I say. F. Murray Abraham and the Ritz was on this list. John Legu Zahmo, Peter Sarsgaard, Val Kilmer in Heat was on this list. Val Kilmer and Heath was on the line, too. David Caradine, and Kelbyl, Volume 2. You had Ray Fines in lead. I had Ray Fines in supporting. I think we're both valid. I think because he's gone from the last half hour of this movie, and also, I just think he's much more of an object than a subject in this movie, is why I put him as supporting, but Like, I support you. I support you in your lead designation. And then Alex Wolf, I always, people always yell at me.

You were going to make that call. I knew you were going to make that call. He was on my ballot that year. He's, in my ballot. He's so fucking good. You are also a simple man. Well, yeah, but that's not, no, I like, I think Alex Wolf is like one of the best actors of his young generation. And I think this performance says it all. So, all right. supporting actress I started us off with our The category The

The ultimate This is going to be Very file core I just have to say Okay That's so pretentious That I say that But like

I There is There is A vein You know That's like Yes You know

Okay All right Anyway It won't be Too self-referential Anyway Okay Candus Bergen

Let them all Talk. Yep. Isabel O'Pair, eight women. Obviously. Rita Moreno, the Ritz. Vivian Pickles, Harold, and Maud. Oh, nice pick.

Oh, my God. That's such a good pick. Amy Ryan Win-Win. Amy Ryan, Win-Win was my number six. A heartbreaking cut for me. And Isabella Luper was my number seven. Lucy Lou was my sixth, and I feel bad for being so willing to cut Kill Bill Volume 2.

Maybe it's just that I'm like, Kill Bill has enough. Like, yeah. Well, stay tuned. All right, my five are Candice Bergen, let them all talk. Jessica Chastain, take shelter. Good call. Daryl Hannah, Kill Bill, Volume 2. Rita Moreno, the Ritz, and I got it.

This is Reed Corps. Mary Wicks, sister act. That's the best call on our whole ballot. The queen, the queen stays queen, Mary Wicks, sister. Uh, Sister Mary Lazarus. I liked my convent in Vancouver. Out in the woods. Wasn't all modern like some of these newfangled convents.

We didn't have electricity. Cold water, bare feet, those were nuns. Sounds wonderful. It was hell on earth. I loved it. Let's go back up to the top. You already gave your number one. I do want to mention a couple of supporting actresses, though.

Go for it. Ashley Judd in Heat. So good. Stockard Channing into Wong Fu. Yeah. And then Dakota Johnson in a bigger splash. Dakota was on mine too and got cut. Sexual menace.

Sexual menace that she is. All right, yes, I said certified copy is my number one best picture. You said that your number one best picture was... I feel inclined to give to Kill Bill Volume 1 because I was cutting it everywhere else. But, like... Mm-hmm. It's such a... I can't say eyes wide shut.

That's such a boring answer. Say it if it's real. If it's real, though, say it. Can I have a tie? I don't want a tie. I hate ties. You are the person who like rails against ties. Okay, it's not a tie.

It's not a tie. I'm just going to break format. Okay. Grand Prix, Nope, Palm Door, eyes wide shut. Okay. All right. There we go. Eyes wide shut.

I love that Nope is our number two, is both of our number two. All right, fantastic. Best director. Who's your, who does your award go to? I'm roll your eyes, listener, I don't care. I'm giving it to Terrence Davies. This world was cruel and did not give enough to Terrence Davies. It's Terrence Davies. It's a great pick. I like it when picture and director don't match, so I'm going to say Jordan Peel for no. Maybe that's just what I should have done. best actor for me is so tough i didn't think about having to pick one winner um honestly i'm just gonna live in my truth it's wesley snipes and too long i'm glad you're i'm glad you're gonna go there um in the effort of spreading the wealth and living in my truth it's ray finds a bigger splash

very good very good all right who was your pick for best actress this is hard this is rough. Yeah, it's Juliette Binoche. Certified copy. Mine as well. Julia Pinoche. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

I like that we share that one. All right. My pick for Best Supporting Actor. Simon Russell Beal. It's a great pick. I love that. Simon Russell. Mine is Alex Wolfe.

There you go. All right. And then... Supporting actress is even harder. Especially because, like, all of minor comedy performances. I've got a lot of comedy performances. My pick is Rita Moreno for the Ritz. My pick is Candace Bergen.

Well done. Well done. 300 episodes, Chris. That sounds absurd. But also, we have no intention of slowing. You know what I mean? Like, that's the thing is. We have so many, already, there are two episodes coming up that I'm very, very excited for

everybody to listen to. Our Patreon has some really fun ideas. I'm already churning on next year's May miniseries. I think we had, we had a good idea for the May mini series this year that we were like, we don't have time to prepare for that, that I think we should really consider doing. We'll have our May miniseries meeting probably. Well, we'll talk at TIF, And then that'll be, that tends to be our first sort of May miniseries meeting is we should, but we should like schedule like. If it's basically a general conference for a lunch. We should talk, but we should like schedule a like a time that we're not seeing anything and just do like this had Oscar Buzz planning. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A little peek behind the curtain from us to you. Listeners, we cannot express our gratitude. There's no way. There's no way we would have gotten to 300 episodes. if we didn't know that we had this rad audience out there who expresses their gratitude and their enthusiasm. And every time I ever hear from somebody out in the wild that listens to our podcast, it's the same feeling of like, I can't believe my good fortune that I get to, you know, that I get to hear that kind of stuff. So it's great. We love you all so much.

strive to be as, you know, be as good as we can on this podcast. All for you. And I'll, like, break my usual behavior and just say, I've had a really hard year and being able to have, like, this foundation that, like, I feel like I've kind of dropped off the face of the earth, but having this foundation of just, like, my best friend, who I love so much. Being able to be a support system, but also an oasis of being fucking stupid, you know, every week together. And being able to do it with all of our listeners and getting the support from our listeners,

we are very humbly grateful for everything that you bring to us by just participating in the show. Chris, you're the best. Listeners, you're also the best. You know what, special prize. The Gary Prize, and every single listener has won. You have all tied for being great. It is the only tie that I will accept. That's true. Yes.

All right. Again, 300 great ones. Here's to 300 more. Listen, I'm in if you are. All right. Any last collateral beauty notes before we get into the IMDB game? I worry that I worry that I didn't make it sound. as disaster piecey fun as it is.

It is a hoot and a holler. You were right when you said that. Like, it's a good, dumb time at the movie. The only way to properly unpack this movie is to take 48 hours of nonstop talking about everything that's insane about it. And that's just not possible. Like, we were never going to. Go see it with a friend and then plan some time to, like, sit down at a really unwell restaurant, like an IHop or an Olive Garden or something. something where you can just really carve it up and just be like what the like sit down like you will not

your never ending salad and breadsticks will serve you well because collateral beauty semi colin when you're here your family very much so all right chris do you want to explain to our listeners for the 300th time what the i mdb game is uh well let me go through my notes first oh shit i'm sorry um i think i actually randomly hit all of them I think I wrote several times of I wrote this is evil

this is objectively evil Helen Mirren is evil oh also that he has to do an apology tour effectively when they are firing him after you know doing irreparable psychological damage

to him is also swear jar clink blink evil um collateral beauty too is just will smith's character in therapy just like dealing with this betrayal that his friends put him through this gaslighting yeah there's the potential for like all of these people to be santa claus i wrote like this is this is a christmas movie where it's like the santa claus is you know take any like country kitchen words as decoration thing

like love time death you know and like it is a country kitchen i'm going to buy you a country kitchen woodcut that says love time going straight in the trash baby um all right the i mdb game every week we end our episodes with the i mdb game where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try to guess the top four titles that i mdb says they are most known for if any of those titles are television voice only performances or non-acting credits. We'll mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. If that's not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints.

Joe, for the 300th time, would you like to give or guess first? I'll give first. All right. So we didn't talk very much about screenwriter Alan Loeb. And his decently unwell set of screenplays, to his credit, movies like Wall Street Money Never Sleeps, and The Dilemma, Ron Howard's The Dilemma, he was sort of a screenplay fix on Rock of Ages, The Film, Things We Lost, Was it Things We Lost in the Fire? A movie we should absolutely have already done. Right. I think it was. Yeah, Things We Lost in the Fire. should have been like one of the first movies

we've ever done on this podcast. Somehow we've made it 300 without doing it. We should do it. It's because it seems like such a bummer. But one of his more recent ones, the one he followed up collateral beauty with, was a movie called The Space Between Us, which is a movie about a

little boy who was born on the planet Mars, because his mom was an astronaut. And so he can't go. I didn't see movie. I think he can't go back to Earth because like Earth's gravity would kill him or something. So he like communicates. It's very much the inverse of the. It's going on, man. You know, it's the, it's the inverse of those movies where like the girl has a disease that doesn't allow her to leave her home. It's the Rapunzel fantasy. Where like all of these YA movies, all of these YA movies are about girls who can't leave their home because of a disease and a boy comes and like, uh, show. shows up at their house.

And so the space between is the boy who can't go to Earth, but communicates electronically with a girl on Earth. And the boy is played by none other than Ace of Butterfield. I was going to say, that's Asa. I feel like I'm going to give you a challenge. And so the challenge is do Asa Butterfield's IMDB game. Ender's game. Ender's game is correct.

Hugo. Hugo is correct. The Omen remake? that's Asa Butterfield, right? No, no, that's not Asa Butterfield. No, take that back. Take that back. I didn't say it. I didn't say it. This is this had Oscar Buzz Christmas. This is episode 300. You have to, this is a time for giving. Okay, I'm just going to say, you saw the expression on my face. I didn't stop my threat of speaking. I feel like that should be a rule. Is that like a thing where you make a chess move? It's like I didn't take my hand off of the chess piece. Exactly. Okay, so I said, Ender's game, Hugo. Is there TV? No TV. No sex education. That's because Netflix shows aren't real. People like that show.

My husband loves that show. I'm looking up the O-Men. No, that's not him. It's not. Well, I just wanted to make sure. Space between us is definitely not there. Unless it is, the space between us. Space between us is there.

Oh, my God. Three first three. three with an asterisk goes Chris File Fine. If I get a perfect score, you can call it not a perfect score. Though this is exactly what happened last week, where I got three titles, and I'm so thrown by

I almost have a perfect score that I'm like no other movies exist. Like, I'm already there. Yeah. Pick a fourth Asa Butterfield movie. You literally cannot. Um, well, they would have liked to have

had more Ender's games movies for Asa, but, um, alas. Alas. Asa only had, no, because Asa does have a British dialect in, um, sex education. When has Asa had an American dialect? Probably Anders game. Uh, uh, Asa Butterfield. was also Um

Asa Butterfield I just met her Um It's got a great Body Butterfield I was going to say how do we use Butterfield Like Butterfields? It's a great farm

Butterfield Um Yeah This is literally happening again. This is my curse. I can't get a perfect score because when I get three and no wrong guesses, this is what happens to me. This is my brain. I shut down.

This is your brain on IMDB. This is your brain on this head Oscar buzz. Jesus. What are even movies that Asa Butterfield is in? This is a very good question. Never went back to Scorsese. Too young to go back to Scorsese. You mean he wasn't in the Irishman playing Robert De Niro's colleague?

He could have been like a friend of... There's got to be another dumb teen thing. It's probably another thing where he's a child. Isn't he a child in... I think Ender's game is the only, like, franchisey thing, but there's got to be another. I'm just going to, I'm going to get the years, and we've got to get to hints. So I'm going to say the Omen and Sex Education, even though I know they're wrong. Wrong and wrong.

This can't take forever like it took last week. It's 2008. 2008, so younger than Hugo. All right. Let's get into some hints. Okay. This is a movie that is definitely, I remember showing up on. somebody else's

IMDB game For children It's not like a Nanny McPhee Is it? No, although I think he is in one of the Nanny McPhee's. I think Nanny McPhee's like

2009 anyway. He's in he's at least in Nanny McPhee Returns, which is 20-10. But that's not the movie. 2008. I believe

he's the titular role, I think, or else he's he might not maybe maybe someone else's the titular role but he is it like like Hugo it's just one name or is it

first name last name? It's not a name oh so it's like the blank like the oh that's hard have I seen this

I genuinely don't know You might have Let's see Let's look at the poster The poster has No I don't think he's the titular character I think he's the person on the poster Who is interacting with the titular character

So it's like an imaginary friend situation Or like a hero situation Is it the boy with striped pajamas It is the boy Striped pajamas Yeah I think he's the other boy I've never seen that movie yet don't think. Okay. I have not either. So there we go. Well done eventually getting

Asa Butterfields known for. Who else had that movie on their IMDB? I want to say... Via Farmiga? Via Farmiga, I think, is right. Yes. Yeah, I think that's right. Wild. Okay. What do you got for me? For you, we were talking about collateral beauty. I want to talk about the collateral damage, the phrase that also was in a movie that maybe made us more confused or maybe helped us figure out what collateral beauty was. We're obviously talking about Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Have we never done Arnold?

We did very, very early, but it was just too tempting to not do it again. I mean, at this point, we did it more than five years ago. I was going to say, I certainly don't remember it. All right, Arnold, the Terminator. Correct, the Terminator. Total recall? Incorrect, not total recall. That was a little bit of a chance.

All right. Arnold. I almost don't want to get ears because once I'll get years, it becomes a little bit too... Does it, though? I feel like Arnold is kind of a morass of... Well, it depends. If it's like later Arnold, then, yeah, it would be harder. Is Terminator 2 Judgment Day on there? It is. Okay, so two terminators. I don't think you would have given him, me, Arnold, if it was three Terminator.

So I'm going to put the terminators away. Is Commando on there? Also incorrect. So you are getting the years. The years are 1993 and 2000. okay so 1993 is last action hero last action hero wow have you seen that movie recently not as an adult loved it as a kid because we had it on VHS and I was like what are people talking about this is great it's about movies it's so weird it's worth it for a Charles dance is so good great movie villain Tom Noonan is fucking scary Tom Noonan is very scary um the kid in it is so bad so like fatally the my girl too bad is it the my girl too kid yeah he's in my girl too oh he's i feel bad um uh i hope he i hope he's happy um in his life but man so bad okay um so what did you say 2000 2000 so it's not the movie is collateral damage the movie that was was pushback because of 9-11 yes So it's not that one.

It's not Eraser Baby Eraser. That was earlier than 2000. Is it like end of days? It is not end of days. That was 99, I want to say, maybe. Oh, maybe. Is it the sixth day? It's the sixth day.

This is why I pulled Arnold because what the hell did we have that I was like, is it the sixth day? Like I just pulled it out of my ass. and it wasn't the sixth day. But when I saw it on his IMDB, it was like, I have, we have to do this. What the hell?

Why is the sixth day there and it's not total recall? Predator. No total recall. No kindergarten cop. No twins. No fucking, I don't,

just Batman and Robin even. Ridiculous. Ridiculous, ridiculous. Ridiculous. All right. Excellent. Excellent IMDB game. Good episode, Chris.

on a deeply demented movie. That is our episode, our wonderful listeners. If you want more, This Had Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at thisheadoscarbuzz.tumbler.com. You should also follow,

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