This Had Oscar Buzz - 309 – Jeffrey (Patreon Selects)

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

We’re back again with another episode chosen by one of our sponsor-tier subscribers from Patreon, this time with a bit of 1990s gay cinema! Thank you Lance for bringing us all to 1995’s Jeffrey! Adapted from Paul Rudnick’s Off-Broadway smash play, the concept of an “AIDS comedy” made it difficult to get produced, but ultimately … Continue reading "309 – Jeffrey (Patreon Selects)"

Chris, the movie's fantasy league, is in motion. The wheels are turning. It's back. The teams are drafting. I want to say off the top, we did notice a couple of comments about the This Had Oscar Buzz League for fans of our podcast. We are called Garriators, and we are one word spelled G-A-R-Y-A-T-O-R-S. So, join up.

If it's going to be for this show, it's going to. going to be a pun and it's going to be stupid. That's right. That's right. So this week, very briefly, I want to go through some of the price points of the movies of note. These are movies that we'd like to bring to your attention and say, hey, Gary's, if you're drafting your teams, by the way, teams need to be drafted by October 3rd, if you're drafting your teams. That was going to be my next question for the audience. Yes.

October 3rd is the deadline. And that is when scoring begins to accumulate. So get your team done before then. But we wanted to talk about price points. Just as our little teaser today, we want to go through some pricing ranges, not to tell you how to draft, but to just, you know, give you some strategies to think about about these and various other films. Exactly. Exactly. All right.

Chris, why don't you start? Actually, why don't I start off? Because of the one of the ones that I picked out is our designated big ticket. item most expensive movie in the draft league this year, which is Gladiator 2, which we have priced at $40. So here's the thing with Gladiator 2 is, and I think it's the thing with this year in general, is we do not have an Oscar frontrunner going into the start of the movie Fantasy League for the first time since we've done the movie Fantasy League. So this year, we've got some questions. We've got some concerns.

Who's to say? And we've, who's to say? So we priced Gladiator this way because I do feel like it has the best combination for highest ceiling box office plus awards. I could see this movie making a good bit of money. And I could also see the sort of high production value, uh, Denzel Washington. Ridley Scott, like all of the angles of this really adding up to a lot of available points. I will share my league next week, but I will say, Gladiator 2, very enticing, very enticing for all the possibilities, even at the price point. What is your big ticket item that you want to bring

to our attention? I would like to bring just $5 down, Dune Part 2. Dune Part 2, $35 by, however, I know that you're saying, Chris, you're not going to get box office dollars for that. Why, I bring up Dune 2, I would like to percolate in your strategy the various ways that you can get points across the game. Not only for Oscar nominations and box office points, but you get points for the Oscar shortlists that happen. Keep in mind, Dune Part 1 is one of the biggest Oscar winners in the past 20 or so years. I would anticipate it showing up in some of those places. Yes. $35.

And it's also kind of a bona fide. Like it is something that it's like a known quantity. We know that critics liked it. We know that audiences liked it. There is not as much of a what if it's a disaster, you know, that some of these sort of November, December movies do hold that possibility. I want to talk about the $15. The Brutalist, which I'm seeing anecdotally a lot of people who are telling me about their lineups are picking the Brutalist, which makes sense to me. At this moment in time, it is an

incredibly buzzy choice. It has just recently screened for critics at the New York Film Festival, who then immediately took to social media and started talking about it. It has recently been acquired by A-24, who are pretty good at this Oscar campaign thing. It is of the hands. It is of the handful of very of the moment movies. Now, that kind of buzz is not guaranteed to last all the way, you know, through Oscar season. And there are elements of the brutalist that ultimately might make it a little bit more of a tough sell. It is not a particularly sentimental movie. I think there are ways in which, you know, other more sort of heart on their sleeve movies might be able to nip it.

I also feel like there's enough similarities in, if not scope, but in sort of in conception to Oppenheimer that sometimes you don't really see two movies back-to-back winning Best Picture that are similar in that way. But where do you stand on The Brutalist at $15? A lot of avenues for points with this movie. Also, a good amount of risk, but who wants to play a game without a little bit? Exactly.

My next one, I think people might think is risky, but I want to bring attention to the $20 buy for Mufasa. I mean, I think the bona fide here, you're talking about box office points. People are definitely looking for a movie with box office points. I think if I know that the word on Mufasa so far is not good in places like the internet, But I think if you don't think that movie's making money, you are being naive. Those Disney remakes always make money, guys. They really do. And especially if the tea leaves inside out two are any indication of, like, box office being back for legacy properties,

then I would expect good things for things like Mufasa and also maybe Moana 2 going into this season. What's your next? My next title is box office related. And it's Sonic the Hedgehog 3 at $10. And here's where I say, you might be able to take advantage of the fact that I'm a lot better at predicting Oscars than I have at predicting box office. I may be vastly underrating the appeal of Sonic All those Sonic movies make money. That's the thing. And I think I may have like priced this a little

bit low. So take advantage. I also point you towards a movie like Red One, which I saw the trailer for again the other day when I was at the movies. This is going to be, this is going to be one of those movies that's going to make a lot of money. And we're all going to be like, well, that's the death of culture. You know what I mean? I just, I can. I can. I I can't imagine that a movie about like... And Muface is it? Action Santa Claus. No, I definitely think you're right about Mufasa.

But I think action Santa Claus with the Rock will probably make money. What is your next one? I think this is one you might say is a little more risky. I feel like, you know, there's some safe bets in this as well. For $15, I want to point out a complete unknown, a movie that would have a lot of potential to get a lot of nominations. Opening wide at Christmas with Timmy Shallomay. Yes, I'm bringing up multiple Timmy movies for your attention.

Who would have thought that Chris would be the one bringing up multiple Timmy movies and not me? By the way, his latest red carpet look, I have concerns. Timmy, what are we doing? You look like a stepson. September 5th, speaking of the brutalist being very much of the moment right now, September 5th is a movie that just got acquired by Paramount. sort of acquired from itself. And it screened at the Venice Film Festival.

This is a sort of... And Telluride. A behind the scenes, this is the Munich Olympics terrorist hostage taking. Seen from the eyes of the ABC News and ABC Sports television crews that covered it, because it was at the 1972 Olympics. This is a subject matter that always fascinates me. I will watch any documentary about the Munich Olympics. I will watch, like, so, like, I'm definitely interested in this.

And the word on this from the people who like it is, you know, comparisons to things like spotlight, comparisons to sort of, you know, processy, very sort of engrossing a movie is Peter Sarsgaard's in it. John McGarro is in it. It's a $10 buy. It's a lot of could be a flash in the pan, could be not, but it might be worth taking a flyer. for the Oscar steak eaters yes my next one less for the steak eaters but I do think you know for certain dollar amounts a movie that has a very clear lane is not a bad bet when you're building your team and I would like to highlight of course I have to for eight dollars Mike Lee's hard truths yes your sponsored film of this award season this is brought to you by Chris five Listener, we're not only sponsored by Vulture. We are sponsored by Bleaker Streetville.

Honestly, Bleaker Street films. Though, if Bleaker Street films would like us to promote for that movie, we happily would. Listen, we're going to be talking about Mary Amund Shop Baptiste's performance all season. We'll hopefully be talking about more aspects of the films such as other performances and the contributions of writer-director Mike Lee. But for $8, I think that is a bet on a certain lane for a movie. to yield points. My last one I want to call attention to is down in the bargain bin, which is a $3 by for piece by piece, which is the Farrell Williams documentary as depicted by animated Legos, which sounds weird and could

very well be too outside of the normal realms of documentary for the documentarians, but it's also a thing that could be a very sort of, you know, recognizable title for a documentary that people would gravitate their votes to. I think in general, take a look at the documentaries on this list in terms of when you're looking at bargain buys. I would look at daughters. I would look at sugarcane. I would look at no other land, even though that doesn't currently have distribution. There are some ways to get points. Every year, I end up talking about a $3 or a $2 buy in the documentaries or animated feature realm that ends up getting you a lot of points. So speaking of which, Chris, your last pick. My bargain bin choice I would like to highlight for you, listener, is Flo.

You might have heard us talking about it on our TIF episode. Flow is a Latvia, an animated film about a bunch of animals escaping a flood. It is also Latvia's international feature submission, so there are several lanes to get points for a low dollar buy, and it's a good movie. Very good movie. Joe, I think we went a little bit longer than we expected to for this, but we do want to... Us going long, talking about movies, never. We do want to hype you up for the movie Fantasy League this year. Joe, tell them where they can go and sign up.

You can go to vulture.com slash movies dash league. There you can read up on the prizes, the scoring categories, and you can get links to both my draft guide and also the page where you can select your team. If you want to go directly to go and don't pass, whatever, go, no, that's the wrong term because it's directly to jail and don't pass go. Anyway, if you want to go directly to the page where you can draft your team, that is moviegame.vulture.com. But I would encourage you to read up on the draft guide, read up on the scoring structure, do your due diligence before you pick your team. Once again, the This Had Oscar Buzz League will be the Garriators, G-A-R-Y-A-T-O-R-S. You can capitalize it. I think it'll be fine either way.

But if you want to be teachers' pets about it, and you should. Gariators with a capital G. That's all. Have fun. Fulcher.com slash movies dash league October 3rd, on with the show. I'm from Canada water. Dick Pooh.

Jeffrey, you are being ridiculous. Can you tell if you're having a nervous breakdown? This sex thing has got completely out of hand. Dad, I've stopped having sex. Jeff stopped having sex. No sex? You mean just save sex. My dear, what you need is a relationship.

A relationship. And shoes. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast stealing stolen art in a mine cart. I did not realize that I made a rhyme, but every week on This At Oscar Buzz, We'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time

had Lofty Academy Award aspirations but for some reason or another it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died and we're here to perform the autopsy. I am her host, Chris Fyle. I'm here as always with the ghost of my dead

but somehow not homophobic Aunt Phyllis in an all white track suit, Joe Reed. Wait, that's not the Alice Drummond woman, right? That's the Mary Louiseberg. No, no, no, that's Mary Louiseburg. Okay, okay. Listen, two queens stand before.

When I, in very quick succession, screamed at my television, Mary Louise Burke, and then immediately after screamed at my television, Alice Drummond, you know, you know you're in for a good one. Yeah. Listener. Yeah. This is our first episode back after our visit to TIF.

However, we are recording this well before we are at TIF. Joe and I are a tad under the weather, and we haven't recorded in like two weeks. Yeah. after a marathon recording session. So if it feels like we're greasing the tires this week, understand that we are. Greasing the tires is a phrase?

Is that the phrase? I don't know. Am I inventing a phrase? I think you might be. Man, I think those two were greasing the tires the other night. I feel like that's the... We're trying to get the ball moving. We are.

Push the boulder up the hill. We are. We are starting the orange of this podcast. We are starting the orange. Are you inventing a phrase? What does that mean? You know, like, start my orange. You know how, like...

No, I don't know what that is. You know, when you go to, like, peel an orange and, like, the hardest part of peeling an orange is to, like, get that first little toe hold in there. And then you, if you don't have nails, you can sometimes, like, hand the orange to somebody with nails and just be like, here, start my orange for me. I didn't really think that that was a phrase, you know, that was you know.

I'll admit that I only ever heard in in a Janine Garofalo stand-up special. So she sometimes sort of like is evocative in that way. So maybe she just sort of like, this is going to be a good episode for you to be talking about Janine Garofalo stand-up. There's a lot of 90s-z-ness. Complementary, I will say. Sure, sure. We're going to have an interesting journey with this movie because this movie belongs to a subgenre that I often, give a lot of leeway to

and yet this particular movie I'm like why are you putting on airs like why are you trying to like what's going on here and like the more it puts on ears the more I'm just like no I maybe don't like everything about this movie so oh that's interesting to me see for me it was very

I very much enjoyed myself and then every once in a while there would be comic stretches that I was like, ooh, this is the type of thing where it's like, of its era, you can use it as an embarrassment of like, well, we shouldn't have been telling jokes like that then

and we can't do it now. And we shouldn't do it now. And it's like, ooh, this is maybe a textbook example of a few moments in this movie are that. But there's also a lot I loved in this movie. I don't think I've

seen this since like my freshman year of college. So also, this is the first time I've, me seeing this. I had never seen this movie before. Oh, got it. Got it, got it, got it. You're the connoisseur of the, you know,

attractive white guy gay cinema of the 90s. Wow. Drag me. I'm not dragging you. I'm dragging the films. Sure. The films. Very latter days, we've mentioned

Broken Hearts Club. Broken Hearts Club is my favorite of the bunch. There's also, um, Longtime Companion as an Oscar nominee. Sure. But again, Longtime Companion is another one that feels like it's got like it's putting on airs. We'll come back to Long Time Companion. In this bucket all over the guy.

Did you ever see All Over the Guy with a Movie That Exists Only as a Title. I tend to put kissing Jessica Stein in this bucket, even though that feels like a little more prestige, not prestige, but it has a little bit more of a presence. And that definitely did have... And kissing Jessica Stein is an aughts movie, too. That's a movie. It's too otsey to really be in this ilk of movie. Well, some of these movies were a little otsey. Like, some of these movies, like, the latter days doesn't happen until, like, 03, I want to say, or something like that.

I suppose that's true. So it feels like this era kind of spreads from, like, 96-ish to, like, 0, 405, I would say. Like, that's sort of the sweet spot of this. Right before Netflix starts. making a lot of different kinds of movies available and these movies became a little less special because what was sort of notable about this microgenre was that they weren't widely available but they were a little available like you saw like TV commercials for all over the guy and trick and you would sort of read about them a little bit in entertainment weekly

And you would, you know, something like Edge of 17 or whatever would get like Independent Spirit Award nomination or something like that. I didn't look into how much money the rest of these movies made, but Jeffrey made like $3.5 million, which for the mid-90s, that's pretty good. I have to imagine Jeffrey did better. attracted an outsized share of attention for this kind of movie for two reasons, one of which was the play was very successful off Broadway. And then the second reason is Patrick Stewart, of course, who by this point was next gen was over. Next gen was over, but next gen was like a thing.

You know what I mean? Like he was very well known for that show. And this was like Captain Picard is playing a gay, like what's going on. And specifically a gay, you know, not even a gay guy because, like, this is gay guy cinema, you know, because, like, we live in a beautiful world where there's a whole broad spectrum now. But, like, when I say gay guy, you imagine, like, Stephen Weber in Jeffrey, even though Stephen Weber is a heterosexual actor. And I want to talk a little bit about the evolution of these movies. And we can do that, obviously, later on in the discussion. And we'll obviously talk about Patrick Stewart as well.

But the evolution of from like movies like Jeffrey and Broken Hearts Club and whatever to movies like your, and I think as everything is now, like things are now like very segmented into buckets where you've got your single all the way, sort of direct to streaming. What was the Clea Duval movie, the Christmas movie with McKenzie? Happiest season. Happiest seasons. So you got those ones. And then you've got your bros and Fire Island and even something like Love Simon, which is like could not be more different thematically than those two movies.

But these are the movies. Red, right. The most impossible motion picture title. Wed white and whale blue. Wed white and royal blue. Right. Well, Red white and royal blue is an interesting sort of like. straddling of the lines

because that one of course was another direct streaming but it also had like this book that was incredibly popular which is sort of also a love Simon Hay. But those are those... But it also has like the veneer of junk

you know like but there is there is a certain veneer I think of modern gay guy movies not things not even things like bros certainly not fire island but things like wed white and oil blue it's like this is maybe for heterosexual women more than it is for gig.

Well, that was definitely the thing, that was definitely the thing that was put on both red, white, and royal blue and love Simon. And I think we'll end up being put on any movie that is based on a novel because the only people who read novels for straight women. You know what I mean? So, um, gay people can't read. Well, canonically, except for Song of Achilles. Song of Achilles is the only book that gay men know how to read. It's song of Achilles, a little life. Right.

God. What else do we read? But, okay, so a little life is... Cavalier and Clay. But the thing about movies like bros, love Simon, anything sort of today, that I think sort of miraculously, a movie like single all the way kind of avoided by being so very much a throwback to these kind of movies, these kind of like late 90s, early odds movies, is single all the way managed to, single all the way, by the way, if you don't know what I'm talking about, Michael Yuri goes back home for the holidays and falls in love with Luke McFarlane. That's basically that you need to know. And that I don't even think was the year

that it was like, Hallmark now has a gay Christmas movie. And all of the Channels had a gay Christmas movie. And I had to watch and write about all of them. All of these movies now, all of these movies now come accompanied with these annoying little Tempest in a teapot, like discussions we have to have about like is is bros you know what is bros saying about you know queer cinema and and the fact that like bros is the movie where everybody in the cast is gay and fire island is the movie where um it's incredibly accurate to like um queer party boy culture but also like how big of a how how how representative is that of you know queer culture as a whole and queer friendship et cetera. And Love Simon is a movie that feels like your main character is, you know, sexless and unrealistic. And so all of these movies have to have these big, huge discussions that by the time

people see these movies, you're sort of like entrenched into a intellectual position that you have to either defend or, like, overcome to watch the movie. Whereas back in the, you know, late 90s, early aughts, there were so fewer, I guess, I mean, part of the thing is I was watching these movies as a late teen, early 20s person who was not plugged into a community. Perhaps if I was plugged into like a friend group at the time, there may well have been more discussion. But there certainly wasn't social media where like these movies were battlefields upon which to be fought. And so you could have these sort of idiosyncratic quills. We're movies that feel a little dumb, you know what I mean, that feel a little broad comedically, that feel a little...

And of course, like, both in the era we're talking about and today, it's not, we're not talking about the full spectrum of queer cinema, too. You know, we're talking about a very specific, very white type of gay movie. And very male, you know what I mean? Like, there's a lot of movies, I mean, you just take a quick gander through what was going on in the 90s independent cinema scene in the terms of movies like the watermelon woman and um well i guess desert hearts is is earlier than that but still you know like there's a lot of other things going on this is very specifically um light rom-com you know and that realm was really sort of um the claimed by for but this like self-imposed burden of self-awareness seems to only apply to

comedies, you know, when we talk about queer cinema, like, in terms of dramas and such, you know, like it doesn't feel like, you know, pariah or Moonlight or Brokeback Mountain has this like self-awareness of, well, what does this movie mean in the culture or in the spectrum of gay movies? Those movies just get to be their movies. I find it very curious that it's comedies or lighthearted fare that really have this kind of. of burden they choose for themselves. I would also say, though, you look at movies like Weekend and God's Own Country and, you know what I mean? Like, there were definitely, like, there was definitely discourse around movies like that. And I just feel like that's a little bit sort of part and parcel of the times that we live in. Um, because weekend, of course, was like, remember the whole discussion about weekend of like, are we glorifying drug use in the community by supporting weekend? And even, something like all of us strangers last year, which was generally very well, I think,

well regarded within the queer community. There was a little, uh, there was a streak of, is this too miserableist? Is this main character not, um, do we still need gay self-loathing? Right. Shouldn't, shouldn't we be watching movies about, you know, queer characters who experience joy or whatever? And again, it comes down to the fact... Where is all this queer joy that everyone speaks of? It's a fucking fire island. Where is joy, period?

For straight people, for queer people, for any... Sure. But anyway, all of this is to sort of lay down the groundwork for where, you know, Jeffrey exists in my cultural memory, a movie that, like, very much I was a aware of and, and I mostly never saw it because it was never placed in front of me. You know what I mean? A lot of these movies they saw because HBO was airing them, you know, at 1130 on a Tuesday night or whatever. And, um...

Because they knew those gay guys who just like were still finding their way. Gay guys don't sleep. It would be like, there might be a gay guy butt in this movie. I will watch this. And then what will sneak in there is like, this is why. I do feel like a movie like the Broken Hearts Club is better than its reputation is it sneaks in a few sort of, and Jeffrey actually does the same thing. If I had seen Jeffrey back at the time, it would have been fairly, you know, beneficial, is it sneaks in the sort of intra-community talking points. Talking points is the wrong thing because, like, you never feel like you're, you know, eating vegetables with a movie.

like broken hearts club it's all you know um sweet treats but there's things like oh do we you know are we fetishizing gym bodies is you know this is what happens when somebody starts hanging out with like party drug you know friends and this is the um sort of weird cultural politics of dating somebody who's recently out of the closet and you know all this sort of stuff and like that was kind of informational to me, you know, at that age. And again, a late bloomer, you know, that I was. And Jeffrey feels like, Jeffrey feels like an interesting starter pack before you watch the Angels in America miniseries. There was a few times watching this movie where I sort of felt that way, where I felt that like, oh, okay, like this is, this is existing in a continuum with, you can tell this was a play. Like this was a play that was written in the aftermath of what Cushner did with Angels in America because... Well, I believe that they were technically written around the same time. Oh, that's interesting.

We'll talk about the... It took a while for a production of the play to have... Okay. We'll get into it. I want you to continue what you're saying. No, well, that makes even kind of more sense in a way where it's like there's... There's dialogue of what's sort of going on within subculture. like what has been what what what is sex now what is the idea of this thing that was very casual and was very much about um expressing you know queer joy physically as was the style at the time and now has become so fraught and you're sort of does falling in love sort of uh sign you up for this inevitable not just heartbreak but like wrenching awful you know

premature, you know, emotional devastation. And what I think Jeffrey, what Jeffrey does is sort of follows down a logical corridor, which is, well, if this is what sex and relationships are now in the mid-90s, in terms of like mandated safe sex and the ever-present danger, regardless of the AIDS virus, wouldn't somebody just decide to not sign up for that? Wouldn't somebody just decide to upset themselves? Check out from all of this. And that, you know, becomes a fairly, you know, I don't want to say rigorous, but like it's a substantial way of looking at what was going on in the community at the time.

You know what I mean? So in a romantic comedy lens. What I find refreshing about this movie in the context of modern gay comedies is that it feels like it is engaging with what the conversation was in the real world, or at least in the world of New York. This movie feels very, very specifically New York. And I don't mean that negatively. It feels more engaged with the actual conversation. than this self-awareness of what it means that this is a movie, that this movie gets to exist for an audience, et cetera.

You know, like that I found very refreshing because it didn't feel up its own ass in that way. I also think I'm glad you brought up Angels in America because I watched it in this rewatch in that context too of they both had this very similar-ish comics, sensibility of, you know, basically kind of vignettes happening. There is, Jeffrey is borderline sketch comedy at moments in terms of like these kind of fantasy sequences or these farcical moments that happened.

He's always addressing the camera in a way that really to me announces the fact that like this was based on a play. It also announces this was made in the 90s. Jeffrey is basically an extension of the Sex and the City pilot. Kind of, yes. That's a really good point. Because all of the, you know, direct address stuff in Jeffrey feels like the first two, three episodes of Sex and the City before they're like,

this isn't working. This doesn't feel modern. And Paul Rudnick's comedic sensibility fits very, very comfortably within the Sex and the City comedic sensibility. When people talk about like Sex in the City as a show written by gay men and you could sort of like turn those four characters into gay men fairly easily, and Paul Rudnick's like, got it. I'm just going to cut out the middle.

man. And it's more like they turn Jeffrey into heterosexual women. The other thing, though, that I'm watching this is, and this is maybe less complimentary, is I watch this and I'm like, oh, I could, I'm in my head, I'm very easily watching the version of this where like Neil Patrick Harris plays Jeffrey. You know what I mean? And that's maybe like parentheses derogatory right now, because not that I think like Neil Patrick Harris is like bad or untalented, But he tends to, I think of that awful Netflix show he was on, where he played the real estate broker who was just out of this, like, long, long relationship. And it just feels like there's a smugness to that archetype that feels like, and I don't think that Paul Rudnick is a particularly, well, he can be. Paul Rudnick can be a decently smug writer when sort of writing about queer stuff.

Do you know what I mean? There's stuff in Jeffrey that's on the smug side, but it's still funny. Sure. Like, when he's basically making fun of, we'll get into it. Yeah. When he's basically making fun of like heterosexual AIDS benefit culture. Like, you know, or like motivational speaker culture. God bless Christine Baranski and her two to three year period where she was doing exclusively culturally questionable Native American pageants between this and.

Adam's Family Values, which was written by Paul Redneck. All right. If we're going to talk about a ho-down for AIDS, let's just talk about it now. Let's just do it. This is the quintessential thing in the movie that I'm like, oh, you shouldn't have been making this joke in the way that you made the joke. I think the joke is correctly positioned. I think the joke is on the people putting on this culturally appropriative page. far into making fun of this cultural appropriation that it engages in it itself.

You're not entirely wrong. Let's just keep pushing this joke and pushing this joke and pushing this joke for like a full sequence of a movie. You're definitely not wrong. And at first it is funny because Christine Beranski being like, welcome to a ho-down for AIDS. And it's like, well, the joke's right there. And this is how heterosexual people have behaved where it's like you can't just throw a benefit you got to make some type of insensitive in two different directions so before we get into things like the plot description we should mention this episode the someone started an

orange for us yes that's true glad you brought up that metaphor see see isn't it a handy metaphor this is our first patreon selects episode in a minute this was chosen by one of our sponsor tier Gary's. This was chosen by Lance just for us. Lance, we love you for choosing this movie, getting us to talk about it. So Lance says in the selection of this movie, it was the first piece of AIDS-era cinema I saw and the movie that had me thinking that Patrick Stewart was gay

until the early 2010. Lance, you're probably not alone there. Paul Rudnick is a genius and his script is amazing, even though there are parts of the movie that have aged poorly. Lance, we agree with you. I think it would be a great discussion, but I'm not sure if based on an award-winning off-Broadway play is quite enough to qualify as buzz, though looking at it now, it seems the Wikipedia page says that Patrick Stewart has got some Oscar buzz for the role, though there's no citation, and I'm unable to find any corroborating evidence.

This is the problem with, like, the 90s, but you can certainly, you know, it's interesting to talk about Paul Redneck, and I do think Patrick Stewart in this position would have, absolutely qualify here, and in this role. And it's interesting to talk about Patrick Stewart, who really, you look into the awards history of Patrick Stewart and you're like, oh, we really haven't like done it for Patrick Stewart like we should have. And maybe we never will. And you and I sort of like, you, well, I think we both to a degree scoff a little bit at the idea of an Oscar campaign for Patrick Stewart for a movie like Logan, even though I should, say our friend and former guest, Griffin Newman, put him on his ballot that year. And we love

an honor Griffin. I have no qualms about scoffing at that, of that would be nominated. Though it's like, yes, we should, Patrick Stewart deserves championing. He is a legend. This is sort of the thing. Multiple types of screens. Is that like he, it's, it is kind of insane that he's never been nominated for an Oscar. I guess irrespective of his, the types of movies that he makes, just like his stature as an actor at this point. Like, it does feel like... He doesn't have an Emmy. He has multiple Emmy nominations. Was never nominated for next gen, though I suppose, you know, if you're in the mood to talk about how genre filmmaking doesn't get the respect it deserves. And I think we're in a very, that's what the money is for territory when we talk about that. But somebody like

Patrick Stewart is definitely somebody who you could use in his example of that. Do you know what I mean? Yes. Yes. Let's put a pin in Patrick Stewart because we want to come back around to that when we're doing the full. Sorry, Patrick.

We're putting a pin in you. We're not putting a pin in our Patrick Stewart voodoo doll. We're putting a pin in the Patrick Stewart conversation. Patrick Stewart just threw up a little bit and he doesn't know why. It's because. Lance, for Lance's Oscar Origin story, I also realized too late we didn't ask Fran on the Peterloo episode. I know.

This is, Oscar origin was. We're on a custom. We hadn't had a first time guest in a long time. That's the thing. That's the thing. We'll get there. We'll get there. We'll get there. Lance's Oscar origin story though. He says, I'll keep it brief because it's a common one for people of my age.

Watching the 94-95 Oscars and hoping with all of my heart that Pulp Fiction would win Best Picture only to be crushed when Forrest Gump beat it. That's mine. Add in the weird vibes in the crowd from David Letterman's bizarre hosting choices, and that night ended up leaving an indelible print on my psyche. Lance, you are not alone, because Joe, that's your answer, right? That's very much my answer.

Yeah, that's my Oscar origin story. Two queen stand before me, both alike in dignity. Exactly. Exactly. Both scarred by Forrest Gump. You know what movie we've all stopped talking about in the fall festival discussion is Robert Zemeckis is here, which is still coming. And, well, because it's not going to be at any festival, unless they put it at AFI, which is quite possible. Yeah. AFI is in October. AIFI does not exist. AIFI is not real.

We're just not talking about it in a way that, like, I remember after the trailer came out, talking myself into like, this could be like a thing. This could be like boom or bait, you know what I mean? So who knows? Who knows? I was just talking about a friend. I was just talking about it with a friend. So trust. I was just talking about a friend.

How gossipy. My friend, Robert Seneckis, I was talking about Bob. No, I was talking about here with a friend, and trust and believe, I will keep the drama alive for... We're here, we're queer. Let's get excited for... Yeah. Yeah, here, queer, and Saturday night get used to it.

Perfect. Are there any other gay movies this season that we could just call get used to it? I mean, we can figure out something. We have... We have here and queer. we have the end and the friend, which may or may not be this year. The friend and the end are the two last thing on my schedule at Tiff. We'll see if that ends up, you know, playing out.

But I think that is wonderful, the friend in the end. The friend seems like something you are absolutely designed to hate. Well, except that it's Naomi Watts, who I love. Like, I know it's about a dog. But it's like, it's about a great dame. Maybe I'll like that a little bit better. Yeah, but she, like, her friend

passes away or dies by suicide and she has to inherit this dog and she learns to love the dog folks of the listening community of this had Oscar buzz I'm just going to tell you if you do that to Joe Reed he's giving that dog oh yeah don't do that

remember that Catherine Hegel Josh Dumel movie a few years ago where their friends put it in their will that if they died the kid's got to go to these two because they wanted to like teach them responsibility or something, and then it happened. That's a whole life. That's a whole child that you're writing.

All the reactions to that were like, don't ever do this. Like, this is a terrible. Like, don't do this to your friends. That is me with like the dog. Don't, don't will me your marmaduke. I'm just saying you are going to sit through this whole movie and be like, well, just give away the dog. Just give away the dog.

That's going to be you. I understand that people don't want to do that. I understand that pet people exist. and have loyalties to their pets. I just don't feel it in my bones, is the thing. I feel like you could actually be a big dog person, but, like, small pets, you would not care. But, like, a big marmaduke great deign of a dog,

I do actually think will suit you. Here's, okay, we talk about sidetrack. We're going to do this, and then we'll promise we'll get into the plot of this movie. My thing, my grand unified theory of pets is, I understand dog people. Dogs are fun. You play with dogs. They seem to have these very sort of like personalities are out on front street.

And I understand people like falling in love with the dog as part of the family because they really do feel like they have these like personalities. I less understand that with cats, even though I. I've, like, known, like, I know so many cat people, including both of my sisters. And, like, the cats being so aloof to me, I guess, is a personality, but it's one that's, like, harder for me to understand why people are so, like, psycho about their cats, which makes me feel like the whole thing about that toxin that exists in cat poop that drives people crazy is a real thing. It's the cat's way of making you care about them. The toxins that are emitted through their boobs are like brainwining you. That's, I honestly, that's, that is a conspiracy theory that I definitely believe. This is like two steps away from being anti-fax.

No, no, no, it is not. It's not two steps away from being anti-vax. It is more than two steps. It is definitely at least four steps away from being anti-bac. But it is definitely of the same flowchart of not believing your own science. But the thing about cats that does appeal to me is there's a set it and forget it nature of cats that it does appeal to me where it's just like I don't want like dogs require a lot of maintenance and cats require less than that. And so I enjoy the fact- Dogs can be as demanding as a human in terms of personality, need for attention.

Which is why the thing that drives me the most crazy is a needy cat because like why be a cat if you're going to be needy. Like, isn't the whole thing about cats, like, if I come over to my friend's house and they have a cat that they go, like, hang out in another room forever and I never see them, like, isn't that supposed to be the whole deal with cats? Like, that's, to me, my thing with cats. So there we have. Here we come. I've never owned a pet in my life. This is, I understand this is a me problem more so. What is your pet situation? What was your, what is your pet history?

Oh, I love animals. I am just deeply allergic, so it's not a... To both cat and dogs. Interesting. So even as a child, you never had a pet. Oh, I had them, but I was also miserable. And then when I went away to college and I was like, wow, I like feel. You're like, what is the sense of oxygen in my lungs?

What's going on? My voice has changed. I can breathe. Maybe it was also like, I don't know, being a free roaming gay person. But like, no, when I wasn't in a living situation with animals around, I was like, oh, so this, like, I can breathe now. Yeah. You get to exhale now, Simon. You get to...

That's the commercial for antihistamine. You get to exhale now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. So, Lance, we thank you for giving us this episode. We hope you're enjoying it. I hope you're enjoying the perks. Joe, our listeners need to hear about our Patreon,

since Lance is a sponsor to your patron. That's true. has subscribed for enough time to get to choose this main feed episode. Some people are certainly confused to be like, wait, you have a Patreon? What's over there? What's going on? People, come sit with me. We're going to have a little talk. Yes, we do have a Patreon. We're going to talk about pets and we're going to talk about Patreon. I was going to say, are you sick and tired of me talking about dogs and cats? Because I'll stop. I'll talk about instead. This had Oscar Buzz turbulent brilliance, which is our Patreon. It is only five

little dollars a month, and for that amount, you will get two bonus episodes of this head Oscar buzz every month. One of those episodes will be what we have been calling an exception episode, which is sort of what it sounds like. It is a movie that fits the usual this had Oscar buzz rubric of, you know, a film with great expectations for awards and disappointing results. And then, surprise, surprise, that movie got an Oscar nomination or two still in the end. And so we can't talk about it on our flagship show because we have rigid standards. And so we throw those episodes onto the Patreon. And they're really fun movies. We have been... I would not describe our standards as rigid. No.

Exacting. Is that better? Is it the double entendre nature of rigid that you object to? Or the fact that we have standards? I watched the deliverance before... Don't tell me anything. I haven't seen it yet. La la la la la la la la. And half of the movie I really, really enjoyed before it pissed me off. All right. Maybe we'll do the deliverance for when it gets its one Oscar nomination. We'll do it for this head Oscar by his trivia on brilliance.

But exceptions that we have talked about in the past include films like Knives Out, which we did with our friend Jorge Molina, Australia, which we did with our friend Katie Rich. We have had listeners' choice episodes, Knives Out being one of them, The Lovely Bones, being one of them, Molly's Game, being one of them. We've talked about films like Vanilla Sky, and The Mirror has two faces, where we got to talk about the various psychoses of Tom Cruise and Barbara Streisand. We talked about Aaron Sorkin multiple times between Molly's game and Charlie Wilson's War. There is more Sorkin to come. We will eventually do the American president. There's just No end in sight of the cool little movies we can do as this head Oscar buzz, turbulent, brilliance exception. Then, the second episode of every month is what we call an excursion, which is we don't really talk about a movie so much as we talk about a corner of the awards psychopath universe that really appeals to us. So there are things like Hollywood Reporter roundtables that we've talked about. There are things like old award shows that we will watch and comment on, like the MTV Movie Awards or the Independent Spirit Awards. We'll look at old Entertainment Weekly Fall preview issues.

We did a whole episode just on games that was so much fun. I was so worried people would be like, what is this? And everybody enjoyed it. Thank you, everyone, for being into that. Yeah. So just lots going on, lots to have fun with. We are having a good old time on Turbulent Brilliance. So if you would like to have a good old time with us, you can sign up for This Had Oscar Buzz Turbulent Brilliance on our Patreon page at patreon.com slash this had Oscar Buzz.

Once again, it's only $5. There are various fast food stuffs that you can get that are probably going to cost you even more than a subscription to this had Oscar buzz. I imagine the good chicken sandwich at McDonald's is more than $5 these days, not like the shitty chicken sandwich, but like the one was like, oh, we got you the good chicken. We got you that good chicken with. I think they only have one chicken now. No, I think they brought back the McChicken for like $2.99 or whatever. Interesting. We'll see. But anyway, you know what I'm talking about. The like the Whopper, not the junior, but the Whopper is going to cost you more than $5. Honestly, we're going to give you a little less exhausted reflux at the end of the day. So, enjoy. I don't know. I don't know. I just said I really liked half of the deliverance.

All right. Jeffrey. No, it's Joe. Your friend. The motion picture, Jeffrey. Joe. Okay. I'm only going to make that joke once.

I don't like this joke. I don't endorse this. Listeners, go sign up for Turbulent Brilliance. October is going to be Ho Wild. You're going to get a very Lady Gaga month for Joker Falio-Doo. We will be doing House of Gucci, and our listeners selected the 2018 Hollywood Reporter, Actress Roundtable. So get ready for something. Speaking of the deliverances, Glenn Close.

Exactly. We can't refer to her as such. but maybe we will start referring to her as The Deliverance is Glenn Close. It's a very specific Glenn Close in that movie. It might be like Mary Riley Glenn Close, which you know I mean compliment.

I do too. This is why I'm excited for that movie. This movie, Jeffrey, the motion picture, Jeffrey, directed by Christopher Ashley, translating his directorial efforts from the stage to the cinema written.

by Paul Redneck adapted from his play. We will get into it starring Stephen Weber, Patrick Stewart, Michael T. Weiss, Brian Batt, and with several guest appearances from Deep Inhale, Sigourney Weaver, Christine Baransky, Nathan Lane, Olympia Dukakis, Hallis Drummond, Robert Klein, Victor Garber, Kathy Neummy, Deborah Monk, Mary Louise Burke, J. Smith, Cameron, Cameron Mannheim, Kay Todd Friedman, Michelle Pock, Gregory Jabbarra, and Kevin Neeland, along with various other New York theater actors lingering around in the frames of the scenes. There's a lot of people.

There's a lot of like, it feels like a lot of like favor calling in or people who like saw the play and loved it and were like, I want to be part of this somehow. And exactly that. Exactly that. Well, because all of these roles on the stage,

it also has that Angels in America thing where it's like, it's a repertory of people playing multiple characters and yada, yeah, all the female characters are played by one person who, in the original production, do you know who played all those female characters? All right, I'm

trying to think of who in the early 90s would have played all of those people. I am going to guess that it was Linda Lavin. Great guess. However, it is incorrect. It is Harriet Sampson. Oh, perfect. Of course.

Not Sampson. Sansom. Harriet Harris. San Sons. Harriet Harris, yes, is yes. I can never say it right. The motion picture premiered and limited release August 4th, 1995. Mr. Joseph Reed, are you ready for a 60-second plot description of Jeffrey?

Absolutely not. Let's go. Let's do it. All right, your 60-second plot description of Jeffrey starts now. Stephen Weber plays Jeffrey. He's, I don't know, 30. I don't know how old people are. He's sick and tired of the safe sex era of the,

the AIDS epidemic. Also, he's sick and tired of the fear of losing lovers to AIDS. And so he decided to stop having sex altogether. This is complicated by the fact that like the next day he meets this super hot guy Steve at the gym and who's like super into him and he pushes this guy away. At the same time, his best friend is Sterling, a interior decorator played by Patrick Stewart, who is dating Darius, who is in the chorus of cats. Darius is HIV positive. And, Sterling has a really healthy attitude about the whole thing. Jeffrey sort of encounters eight billion things in the city that are pushing him towards being in relationships and stopping his silly little embargo on sex.

And ultimately he finds out that Steve is HIV positive and that makes him even more scared to do all of this. But then, Darius dies and Sterling gives Jeffrey tough love and Jeffrey decides to let the twinkling piano tunes of Mother Teresa allow him and Steve to have a romantic encounter and they get together at the end. 23 seconds over. Yeah, I had no idea where my ship was headed in this.

There's also like a great middle of this movie where like I realize that as I'm trying to like, what happens in the middle of this movie? It's just sort of like a succession of little vignettes of like Sigourney Weaver is a whatever like motivational self-help schister, not schister, uh, um, uh, uh, grifter. Um, Nathan Lane is a, so funny in this movie. Nathan Lane is a horny priest. There are little moments of people in a, uh, sexual

compulsives, um, support group, including J. Smith Cameron, uh, looking incredibly youthful. This is a very early, might be the earliest thing I've ever seen, J. Smith Cameron. Ann. Olympia Dukakis shows up with her trans daughter, played by Gregory Jabara, at a some sort of...

It's a pride. Oh, right. That's right. That's right. It's a pride in Central Park, basically. Olympia Dukakis in this movie, dead naming her daughter, and being like, in mind. It was a different time. It was a different time. It was a different time.

It was a different time. We had different Yes, very much a different time, but also she's like, I love my child, and I'm in giant Gucci-eering. This is what straight support looks like back then. Also, so many of these gay movies, and I will also rope in the American Queers Folk at the time, all had these characters who are like, I am the extra super supportive gay mom. And it's what's her name? Who says gay slurs? Sharon Gless in Queersfolk. Right, but they say it as a way to show how comfortable. they are with their queer son. And so it's, and a lot of the, I can't remember which one, it might be all over the guy who's like, my parents are therapists.

So they get it, but they like, they get it too much where they're like, honey, have you thought about, you know, investigating the BDSM community? You know what I mean? Well, there's the, there's the same bit in Jeffrey, basically, where Debra Monk. Monk is the mom that she's like, what about jerk off clubs? Are you a top or a bottom? Have you ever wanted a soundbite of Deborah Monk saying, are you a top or a bottom? It's available to you, people.

I don't know why we keep falling upon the same five or six tired memes when we have something like Deborah Monk asking, are you a top or a bottom out there and nobody uses it. So truly, what are we doing? Remind me what Victor Garber's role in this one is because I literally saw this yesterday. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Also, Cameron Mannheim plays just like woman emerging from an office who, like, um, latches on to Jeffrey and Steve's burgeoning relationship. Um, I should say, you mentioned Mary Louise Burke as the ghost of his aunt Rose or whatever. I go and look up.

I think when I am faced with, with the end of my days and I see the tunnel at the end of the light, I too will be visited by Mary Louise Burke and Alice Drummond. We're so tantalizingly close to a Mary Louise Burke six-timers club. We are... We're one away. And I literally, because before we do it every episode, I go and I check the cast and I see how close we are with all of these. It really is shocking that we're not doing a six-timers club this episode for someone. For someone. It's...

And we're not. And there we have it. Okay, can we talk about Sigourney Weaver's single scene in this? She's so funny. So, what's Paul Rudnick's connection? Did Paul Rudnick write a movie that she was in? At this point, Paul Rudnick, he'd had I Hate Hamlet on Broadway, which is this play about an actor who has to play Hamlin

and is visited by the ghost of John Barrymore. And then Jeffrey happens. So Jeffrey, apparently, I don't know the amount of time that Rudnick had tried to get a production done of it, But there was a lot of reticence to produce this play because the idea, the simple idea of AIDS comedy was seen as inappropriate, gauche, and insensitive at the time, you know. Which is funny because... Which is very interesting because I think that while there are areas where this movie in play are not very sensitive, it is actually a sensitive portrayal of that time. Very much so.

Like, people did have complicated feelings, and, you know, there were essentially, in especially the New York theater, there was the, like, moment of the AIDS play where you have things like, obviously Angels and America, obviously the normal heart, but other plays that were dealing with AIDS because guess what, theater is more reactive to the way we are in the world than movies are. By the time you get the Jeffrey movie, Rent would have premiered. Yes. So you get also that. It's interesting to watch how queer culture sort of ebbs and flows for this kind of thing, because when you mentioned the idea of the AIDS play, of course, I thought of that other two episode, which is Carrie and Brooke go to an AIDS play. And it's, they see the thing that is, that it's an amalgam of Angels in America and the

inheritance and one other thing, which now I can't remember what it was. but Emmy nominated TV episode that was I miss the other two so much you know what? Here's what I say I support you can this is my new rule you can support one Scientologist

you can support one toxic workplace as long as it's not like actual anybody being assaulted and so I think one toxic workplace is worth it to have the other two. Where people are like just shitty to each other? Right or like

I was so stressed out my entire time that I was working there. I was like, oh, a job? Like, fascinating. Yes. You can support one screaming boss. Exactly. And would you like to support Scott Rudin? Or would you like to support the people who made the other two?

I know what my choice is in this regard. But yeah, and Jeffrey very much, I think, I don't want to say that the, you know, rom-com plot line of it basically is shoehorned. into it. But I definitely think Jeffrey is as interested, if not more interested, in being a satire of

you know, the culture at the time around AIDS. Because, like, so much, so much of the humor comes from, like, making fun of these try hard benefits that are still doing good things and raising money, but

they're also doing a ho-down for And like motivational speaking, that's entirely proprietary on people who need it. Right. You know, therapy talk basically becoming more normalized to the point that it's performative. Things like that. As much as it is, you know, genuinely concerned about like, well, how do we not only have sex while this is, you know, becoming a real danger within the community and within the world. also like how do we make ourselves vulnerable to romance and love the idea of a dark and painful end right and i don't know geoffrey has a lot of tones to it you know but it doesn't ever feel like it's swinging from

something too serious to too far school it never feels like it gets maudlin and it never feels like it gets, I mean, it approaches Manick a few times, but it never quite does that, you know what I mean? So, like, that's, it also doesn't not feel like the, the natural prequel to Will and Grace in a way. Will and Grace is not a show that ever really addressed the AIDS crisis, kind of at all. but in terms of the way that it presented sort of, you know, gay men, white gay men, you know, at that sort of age and... Gay guy trademark. Right, where it's just like, oh, we have to, like, navigate the gym and what is that, you know, culture, and we have to navigate, you know, the various sort of foibles within the community. Jeffrey premieres, at least as a play the same year that Rudnick has, does the screenplay for Adam's Family Values, too.

So you wonder if that type of, you know, Hollywood cachet helps with getting this play produced. Rudnick's screenwriting career is interesting, where he starts off sort of script-doctoring certain things, the first Adam's family movie and the first Wives Club, which I don't think he's credited specifically on either. He also had this whole thing with the Sister Act movie. When we talked about Sister Act back in the day, we mentioned... Also a Patreon Select episode. Yes, that's right. That movie was originally intended to be a Bet Midler vehicle. And when it was, Rudnick was the one who wrote the screenplay. And then that movie went through its various changes, and by the time it became the version that was making it to the screen, he refused to have his name associated with it.

It feels like he and Bet Midler have this, like, longstanding professional relationship because he also wrote the screenplays to the screenplay to Isn't She Great and was one of the many people with a hand in the Stepford Wives remake. And then she was also in that awful, awful COVID-era TV movie that he did for HBO called Coastal Elites, where it was like her and Issa Ray and Sarah Paulson and Dan Levy and everybody was like on Zoom. Remember when we were so bereft as a culture that we just made it okay for people to just like film whole movies on Zoom? Or like, remember that, listen, I love everybody involved. with Father of the Bride, but remember when we allowed them to just like do Father of the Bride Part 3? And it was like an hour long on Zoom. And it was like, people, we can do other things. We could, you know, like, literally I'm so the last person to say this. But like, you could read a book. Like something. We don't have to be doing this. Joe is literally like, what is the last resort

that I can do? I could read a book. I didn't, but I could have. No, what I ended up doing was getting really into YouTube rabbit holes of weird, various things. What am I really into on YouTube today? I meant to mention this to you. Oh, did I, I might have, this weird, straight couple who like goes to mini golf courses all around the country. What? What?

plays miniature golf. I don't know. Are you watching that? Because it's soothing to watch people play miniature golf while I'm trying to, like, decompress from working. Actually, that tracks, and I don't judge you, because you love all of those little marble maze videos. I love the Marble League.

Like, let's put some respect. You with the Marble League is that one British woman who watches all of the stuff gets smashed by the smashing machine? I've seen those. So I don't, I'm canonically anti- TikTok, except for the fact that on Instagram, I will just, like, watch reels, which is essentially like TikTok six months after the fact. But I still won't watch. Like, I'm, I'm digging my heels in. I won't download TikTok. But yes, of course I've seen that woman who's so satisfied by watching

things get crushed and smashed. It feels like it's not quite ASMR, but it's like, and it's not quite fetish porn but like it's it's again it's not too far where she's watching like a stack of um like squishy gel toys get smashed and she's just like she's like oh that's the stuff and it's just like love it love it no no no no no no no no why would you do this yeah love her so much. And it's also not front-facing phone camera comedy, which I despise. I do too. Unilaterally. All right. I'll write thinking of people. The worst thing about TikTok is that everyone in the world thinks they're fucking funny now and they're not. No, here's

the other worst thing about TikTok. This is where I will not come down. And if I pissed off any listeners saying that. You're absolutely right. But here's the other worst thing about TikTok culture, which is fakery, which is people doing very obviously fake things and trying to sell them as spontaneous things like for some reason for oh right before COVID the woman that sang shallow in the subway and like that's the least of it totally stage what one of the things that i've been served up recently is like people having righteous confrontations with people like in front of their home or whatever or like somebody who's like who like claps back

against a Karen or whatever and it's like this is a sketch like you have written Like, this is not real. This is absolutely completely faked. And it's not... I just don't want to watch people scream at each other or watch a Karen. I don't need to vote me. Even if you were the kind of person who got satisfaction out of, like, seeing somebody get their comeuppance, it's so obviously fake and it insults me as a person that you would think that I wouldn't understand the fact that, like, why is this being filmed?

You know what I mean? Like, oh, it makes me mad. Especially when it's like things that have been filmed that are real. that, like, actually can maybe do some good, some... But also, what the fuck is this dumb-ass algorithm that would think... Attention. That thinks I would want to watch this. I want to watch Marbles.

I want to watch... Joe wants to watch Marbles go down various slides and hit various, like, zylophones to make it sound like my heart will go on. Three Australian straight bros who just, like, shove things off of the sides of cliffs and watch them roll down. Like, that is my speed. Like, that's what I want. Oh, my God.

God, these fucking doofuses. There are these three bro-y, dumb shit Australian guys who literally are literally like, what if we just like launched a thousand soccer balls down this ski jump in the fucking like Alps or whatever and seeing how many can like go into a soccer goal at the bottom of the hill? It's so fucking dumb. And yet like, again, it's very much brain turn off time where it's just like, okay, like I'm just going to watch like them like I take it all back I take everything I've ever said back we shouldn't ever judge what anybody ever watches ever all right all right how did we get here anyway Paul Rudnick we should also mention fucking awful COVID movie is how we got here oh and how stupid our viewing habits became yeah but the things that Paul Rednick wrote that were incredibly valuable valuable to the screen in and out both and

Adam's family values and in and out, which are queer in their own way. Like, Adam's family values is not in any way canonically queer, and yet. It's mostly about how when you go away to camp, you can maybe, like, fall in love with the weird person, you know what I mean? We're like, the whole David Crumholds, Christina Ritchie camp romance is a queer romance in disguise. Like, I will absolutely, I will absolutely stand by that. And also, the Joan Cusack character is a drag queen. Like, like, these things I know are true.

So the whole, the scene where she's got everybody tied up, and she's showing them slides of her, um, of her various, like, misdeeds and the various husbands she's killed. And she's just like, no. No Debbie. We used to have cinema. No Mercedes this year. We have to set an example.

So she just goes, set this. And she turns a student into like the house is ablaze. I love her. I love her in that movie. She should have been nominated for an Oscar. She was so good. That should have been. The Steppford Wives is remains one of the most fascinating thing.

Fascinating failure of a movie. I need a top to bottom oral history of the Stepford Wives. I would write it if I wasn't terrified to interview people. The thing about it is, we will never get the top to bottom. Or maybe Paul Rudnick would talk about it. Maybe Paul Rudnick would be like, you know. Frank Oz is going to be on his deathbed and he's going to tell all his tales. It's just going to be like his last dying breath and he's just going to like give all the details of all of his.

I wanted to be one of those people that defended Stepford wives when I most recently rewatched it. And there is so much that's so fun and so stupid in very gay. that movie, and that thing is just, like, literally falling apart at the scenes. Here's what I will say, though. The queer politics at play in the Stepford Wives is more interesting than in, like, most queer-themed... Of the gay movies that are recent that we've just talked shit about on this episode? Yeah.

I don't think we've talked shit about any of those queer movies. I think all of those movies I love in their own way, in their own, with their foibles and all. Like, this is the thing I want to make perfectly clear, is all of these queer rom-coms, from, you know, stem to stern, I love them all in their own way, and I would not trade them for anything. And I find their various, you know, shortcomings and foibles and whatever, incredibly interesting and endearing. And Jeffrey is no exception to that. But anyway, yeah. Right, right. The thing about the gay politics of Stepford wives, that is, like, explicit in those gay characters in that film that Jeffrey does get a good job in is heterosexual

acceptability among gay people like as a status as a like achievable goal like we can become mainstream if straight people just like us enough and if we seem straight if we can integrate into straight society enough yes so this is where I want to talk about Patrick's Stuart's character, Patrick Stewart's character, who is in many ways, again, we talk about like proto Will and Grace. In many ways, he's the Jack in that he's like somewhat ridiculous and somewhat like sort of heedless about like doesn't care about how anybody else sees him. And so he can be very sort of like, and all of his, all of his like responses to everything when they do the fake game show or whatever. And all of his responses are like the most,

like dumb bitch responses to things and he wins and it's just like yeah like that feels real like within the community like yeah like if you can just like actually give the like funny dumb bitch response to things like people will most like he said they he's like what's who's what's the sex question and his answer is he would have sex with yoko oh no right just to see the apartment yeah yeah exactly and it's just like you you're sort of avoiding anything actually sort of real and substantive but like you know giving the queerest possible answer And so he's dating Darius, who is currently at that time on Broadway production of Cats, played by Brian Batt, who most people know from Mad Men.

And I hadn't seen Jeffrey. So I, of course, had I seen Jeffrey, I would have immediately recognized him on Mad Men. Fuck, what was this? Brian Bad is so good in this. We do have to say that maybe best performance in the movie. I love him in this movie. Wait, I'm trying to give me a second to Seth. Sal Ramano and Madman, who was the closeted Sterling Cooper employee.

Tremendous in this movie. Very funny. Very. And in a way that, like, of course, the stock character is the, like, you know, the chorus boy. Cats is, of course, going to be the punchline that they use because... All of the Cats jokes in this movie are good, net positive for the movie. They are all funny. punchline out of the cat's tagline, which is escaping me right now.

It's like now and forever or whatever, right? Now and forever. Something to that effect. Also, you know, you see him in his cat's costume and they're like, they just let you leave in costume between shows or something at home. And then when you see him in the like heaven tunnel or whatever we want to call it. He's in the cat's costume and it's all white. Yes.

Yes. But he still has the cat collar. But that relationship is, to me, worthy of its own sort of, you know, film, you know what I mean? Like, this is a really realistic, like, this is a relationship that feels realistic to not only that time, but sort of, you know, any time in that it's, you know, older man, younger man, but it's this very, um, Patrick Stewart is older and wealthy. He's got a townhouse, right? He's a little fabulous. He's more than a little fabulous.

There's this sort of intellectual gulf that they talk about between these two characters where Sterling is very sort of, you know, he's Patrick Stewart characters. So he's, you know, cultured and he's, you know, has access to all of these, you know. Sounds like a euphemism for British. Kind of. And then Darius is like dumb little course boy. And then when you see them together, they're perfect with each other. They don't, you know what I mean? Like this golf sort of goes away and they and they meet in the middle. And Darius isn't as dumb as his, you know, reputation might suggest. And Sterling is not, certainly not like a snob to the degree that he would like, you know, not see this, you know, wonderful person in front of him. And they clearly love each other. And they are. clearly the example throughout the movie. Like, the movie does, if the movie has a major fault in that, like, it's so

screamingly obvious where things are headed in terms of, like, Jeffrey needs to be able to see that, like, this example of how to navigate a life and a love story with, you know, within this, you know, milieu of HIV and AIDS is right in front of him, is Sterling and Darius. And ultimately, that ends in, you know, sadness and, you know, the way that so many of those stories ended. But it's not like Sterling would have traded that. It's not like Sterling would have felt better for not having that. And Sterling ends up in a scene really mad at Jeffrey for feeling like he can step outside of this. And the one line that he says, to him, where he's like, this has nothing to do with you. Like, you have, you have made the decision, because Jeffrey at this point has made the decision, he's going to leave New York City, and he's going to go back home, and he's going to be, you know, essentially like, hang up the, hang up his cleats and just sort of like, stop being an active member of the gay community,

uh, as he has known it. And Sterling, after he loses Darius, is like, you don't get to try and participate in my grief, because you have decided that you have, that you, you know, you are now separate from this. You have, you, you know, this is no longer your life. And he's, you know, and it's the grief talking, of course. Sterling doesn't hate Jeffrey, really. But he, but his frustration. Does tell him that Darius thought that Jeffrey was the saddest person he'd ever met. Yes. Which is so. like cutting and useful to be like well you're just choosing not to really live in any way that scene is so good Patrick Stewart is so good in that scene and this is where I want to bring up long time companion because that Oscar nomination is one that I for Bruce Davison in 1990 yep yeah which you know when people bring up the like straight actors being rewarded for gay characters, which, interesting enough, okay, the sidebar that I'll bring in for Patrick Stewart is, my husband is a truckie. When he saw me watching this movie, he was like, what is this is. Patrick Stewart talks about it in his book. I was like, okay, so tell me everything he's said in this because I'm not going to go read this book for this episode. And Patrick Stewart

apparently says something to the effect of both A, his good, his good Judy, Ian McCullen convinced him to take the role. And that Patrick Stewart doesn't know if he would take the role anymore because of the ongoing conversations about straight actors playing gay. Patrick Stewart, I think, gets a full free pass if anybody wants to be pissed. Did you hear the deep breath that I took when you said the conversation about straight people playing gay? Do we want to have that conversation or no? I mean, it's just like anything else. There's things, there's performances that I would never make that. criticism towards. And then there's things like, I'm sorry, Bruce Davidson and a long time

companion where it's just like you're asked to be a sexless saint martyr that's not a real person. Here's the thing. Versus like what Patrick Stewart says in this movie going through the same situation with a loved one and is able to say something that I think is not, you know, basically curbing to a straight audience. I think in as we anything, everything is far more contextual and circumstantial than people want to talk about. There is no way to divorce anything, like, not to, no coconut tree, but like, there is no way to divorce anything from the context in which it exists. And so performances like this are a perfect example of that. And that's why I agree with you is that I don't think.

You're saying we need to become unburdened by what has been this conversation. This is the thing about that turning into a meme is that like no lies were told like Kamala like mailed it actually um but the the um that's why there are exceptions across the board to this rule and that's why i have never been a fan of you know i understand the frustration on one side of the coin though i understand the frustrations i understand the fact that we have an actor of the quality of Michael Yuri, who can really, like, knock a performance out of the park and has probably been, you know, denied more of a mainstream career because he loses out on roles to straight people. I understand that frustration. I also, on the other side of the coin, like, not to, like, get into, like, Scarlet Johansson, I should be able to play a tree. But, like, she kind of should be able to play a tree. And, like, there is, there is, there are lines that you should not cross in acting. And I, and I, and I, and, And I think for everybody, maybe that line is at a different place. But I think, like, acting has to be, in part, a medium where you step into the life of somebody who is nothing like you, and you perform that.

And you find, and that's where a lot of the times the artistry comes in, right? And so I don't, I don't feel like we, that if we get to, as if we march towards, you know, this, and this may be a straw man argument, but like this, this future where nobody can play anything but their own specific experience, that's boring to me. You know what I mean? I mean, in some way that argument is an ideal to me and maybe not the reality in all circumstances, too. Like, I don't necessarily think that's where we're at or where we're going. But I also think, you know, if the argument for this conversation is like, well, there are gay actors not getting gay roles. I'm not fully on board with that. It's not the same thing as, you know, trans actors, not getting to play trans roles and cis actors. It's not the same thing.

There are lives. We're very much talking about a movie where the one trans character is played by a cis actor. Right. like um it's so that for me is i you know i understand but i also think if this is the thing that's grinding your gears that's maybe your efforts could be placed towards well why aren't we getting gay creatives being able to make gay stories like that's more of the and i understand the frustration in that too because if you're a gay screenwriter i imagine you have faced a lot of You know, this is this, this is all sort of like top down and maybe the people who we should be, you know, angriest at are the, you know, gay executives who are not, you know, green lighting gay project.

Or maybe like if the conversation is, you know, it is very, and I agree with this. It is frustrating, stupid, and othering when people are saying, look at this, look at how good someone is at being gay or like look at the career risk of something for being gay. That's not the actor's problem. That is that journalist's problem. That's that editor's problem. It's that publicist's problem. Because here's the other thing. Actors are going to accept the praise that you give to them.

And so if you tell Tom Hanks in Philadelphia that his performance is so brave, he's going to say thank you. And it's going to sound like, I agree with you. This was very brave. But it's, it's, you know, you are the one who is bringing that context. Very brave. Very. Right. Right.

And yet again, You look at the cast of Jeffrey, Stephen Weber, straight actor playing Jeffrey, Patrick Stewart, straight actor, playing Sterling. And then who do you have 18 spots down the list? Who was closeted at the time? But, like, you look at like Nathan Lane, you know, who gets his big role, obviously, the very next year with the bird cage. But- I wouldn't say Nathan Lane was closet-ted. He was closet-tish.

Like, Nathan Lane's a very interesting. Nathan Lane, like, but he's talked about how, you know, there's that story of him and Robin Williams being on Oprah, and he didn't want to, you know, he did not want Oprah to ask him that question because he did not want to be publicly out in that way. And it's not, it's not something I blame Nathan Lane for, like circumstance, again, you know, context and circumstance dictates it. Look at how people are still acting today with anything gay in, you know, popular entertainment. and he was a voice in a Disney movie. So, like... We are actually, though, in a golden age of... And this is where I...

God, this is going to make me sound like a dumb bitch. We're kind of in a golden age of every young actor in a certain age demo has to, like, or plays at least two big queer roles in movies. You know what I mean? Like the Paul Meskell, Josh O'Connor, you know, the strata of... roles. And like, within that strata, you have folks like Matt Boomer and Jonathan Bailey and Andrew Scott. So, like, we are getting towards a more, you know, Jeremy Pope in the, in, what the fuck was that movie called that I wanted to like? The inspection. Um, that movie

should have gotten him. Justice Smith. Twelve other roles. Justice Smith. Oh, my God. Great. Yes. So there are, we are, we're moving. in a good direction. There's more material out there. There are more good scripts. There are more good movies. There are more queer actors who are getting roles. I, is there a point where it's like, well, we're good. Well, we have solved it. No, but like that's also the human condition is to like, we're always moving. We're always striving. You know, uh, speaking of angels in America, the world is, is moving, you know, only moving forward. But this idea, of like, well, anybody could play anything.

It's like, well, yes, but also, like, it's somewhat divorcing from the reality in which we live. What I would love to see, what I would love, love, love to see is queer actors doing great job at playing straight and being like, you know what, they did a great job playing a straight person. How brave, how virtuosic. See, and I look at that, and I'm like, what a waste. What a waste of everybody's time.

To make a movie about a straight person. Why are we doing it? You know, it could have been interesting, but it was about a straight person. I'm saying, like, come on. Jay Robert Oppenheimer? Straight? There's just a ceiling on the intrigue of heteronormitivity. You know, you say that as a joke, and yet...

And yet. Okay, remember how at the very beginning of this, I said, let's talk about Sigourney Weaver, and then we immediately stop talking about Sigourney Weaver. Let's talk about Sigourney Weaver. Sigourney Weaver in her Dave hair. In her Dave hair, playing a self-help grifter who we all know the type. We've all seen that thing where we leave the cable channel on too long after the movie. And then what happens?

Oh, no. We're stuck in an infomercial. And the infomercial isn't for something fun like, here's the thing that chops vegetables really interesting. We're like, here's a thing that makes Panini sandwiches. No, we are into an hour-long infomercial where somebody tries to sell you on the power of changing your mindset or something. And she plays... Sigourney Weaver and Kathy Nogimi should have done more comic bits together. They are both so separately funny and...

Kathy New Jimmy, who is after two sister acts worth of movies, Paul Redneck is like, come to me to my other... Sigourney Weaver is like, yes, and I'm here to help you. And she's like, yes, please help me. Like, my life has been so horrible. And Sigourney Weaver's like, yes, your mother used to, like, abuse you. And she's like, yeah, yeah, she did. So Gorni's got the cadence right, though, of this person who's like, who kind of bulls over her audience with declarative statements and declarative sentences.

And is fairly loathsome of a person, this Deborah Morehouse. Um, but she like, she just like, snake oil salesman. She jumps right into it, man. She's, she's very fun. Of the sort of, uh, cavalcade of cameo appearances, I would put her at the top. I, you know, Beranski obviously is right in her bag. I think, um, she, this is right around the time she is cast on the CBS sitcom Sybil, in which she immediately wins an Emmy award.

and in doing so, sort of sours her relationship with Sybil Shepard, who found that her TV show was getting, scenes were getting stolen from her by Christine Bransky. Christine Bransky, by the way, clink, clink, two coins in the swear jar. Christine Bransky is Buffalo Excellence, and I will always shout her out for that. My swear jar is full this episode. I have used the word head.

Yeah, you really have. You clink, clink, clink, clink. Yes, exactly. Excuse me. But who else do I? Listeners, tell us what else should be in our swear jar. No, God. No, I do not need to feel self-conscious about people being like, you know a thing that Joe says all the time?

What if we had a really homophobic listener? If you are a really... Who's like, well, actually. If you are a longtime listener of this at Oscar Buzz and you are virulently homophobic, we're kind of intrigued. by what's going on there. So don't, don't, don't, if you are a long time this had Oscar Buzz voter, a long time this had Oscar Buzz listener and you're also virulently homophobic, you may be an independent vote.

You may be. In which case, contact CNN. They have a focus group that they want you to be a part of. The New York Times would love to have a really, very deeply anecdotal quote from me. Yeah, 100%. Speaking of sitcoms, We, much like the culture, have not mentioned Stephen Weber as a cast member of Wings. Oh, Wings.

Yes. So, okay. Remember Wings? Remember Wings? Remember her? Um, yes. So Wings goes from, hold on a second. I'll find it. I'll find it. Wings was on forever. So Wings went from 1990 to 1997. If you don't remember Wings, if you're too young to remember Wings, here's the plot of Wings. There's a tiny little airline that operates out of Nantucket. And they fly flights in and out. And it's, uh, the two pilots are brothers played by Tim Daly and Stephen Weber. Now, Tim Daly is the sort of steady eddy.

And Stephen Weber is the, if in the realm of Voltagios, Tim Daly is the Brian and Stephen Weber is the Michael, right? He's got the little bit longer hair. He's more of like, uh, you know, hit it and quit it with the ladies. And he's like flying in and out and he's got, you know, a different girlfriend every week and this whole kind of thing. And so completing this triumvirate is Crystal Bernard, who is their childhood friend, who is like, she runs the, like, lunch counter at the little airport.

But it's a whole, like, everyone's a character, right? We're like, Thomas Hayden Church is the mechanic, and he's dumb. And Tony Shalub is the cab driver who, like, and he's Italian? You know how the thing where Tony Shaloo, can play like 20 different ethnicities because you know right right right that kind of thing there's an older woman who uh essentially is like you know the the the woman at the ticket the desk and she's very sort of spacey and like occasionally cutting and then there's the like mean guy who uh sort of uh i don't know he's the mean older guy um that show was on for like eight seasons and

And during this time, Stephen Weber and Tim Daly would just sort of like, do other TV movies or whatever. Like Stephen Weber was in the TV movie miniseries of The Shining, the Stephen King approved one, where he played Jack Torrance. And Tim Daly was in movies like Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde. But the whole thing about Wings was canonically, like it was like these two. hot brothers running, you know, these two hot brothers who are airline pilots, and they are the most, like, middle of the road TV, like, they are the mathematical mean of attractiveness on television. They are by no means unattractive. But it's very funny to watch, like, this show that, like, acts like Stephen Weber is, like, the hottest thing that's ever hit Mantucket Island, an island that has seen multiple Kennedys. in its entire, you know, lifetime. Like, that it's just, it's very funny

because they are like the most midpoint of any of this. By the way, Stephen Weber played John F. Kennedy in a miniseries called the Kennedys of Massachusetts that aired on ABC in 1990. So based on Doris, Kurtz, Goodwin's,

the Fitzgeralds, and the Kennedys, there we go. So, Stephen Weber would like continue to like be a big, TV star throughout the rest of like to this daily was on Studio 60 on the sunset strip. He was on once and again. He was on, uh, like has two episodes of Will and Grace. You know what I mean? Like, um, he's just, what is he even on now? I feel like he's on something now. He was just recently on Celebrity Jeopardy, where apparently he was not very nice to Katie Nolan. And you can

see it sort of on, like, on air where he's like kind of a snippy bitch to her. And she talked about afterwards, Katie Nolan, who's like a sports podcaster or whatever, talked about after the fact that, like, he was not happy that I was beating him. He was like a very sore loser, which is very fun to think about. What is your emotional reaction to Stephen Weber as an actor? Stephen Weber, I was a child who watched a lot of Dracula dead and loving it. Who was he in that? Is he Renfield? No, he's like the Keanu Reeves. Oh, that makes sense. I should watch that movie now because, spoiler alert for next week's episode, it was a movie that I watched a lot when I was young and thought it was a masterpiece. We'll talk. Dracula Dead and Loving It. I feel like that would be a movie that I would be like, well, this makes sense that like a nine-year-old loved this movie. Speaking of, though, the NBC and the 90s.

of it all. So Michael T. Weiss, who plays the, you know, the hot guy who Jeffrey is in love with in this movie. By the way, this is also maybe the Achilles heel, potential Achilles heel of Jeffrey, is they fall in love very quickly. Yes. Like, they decide. We're supposed to just go with it that they have a spark and like, you know, the romantic comedy is not

will they fall in love? The romantic comedy is will they get together. Right. Right. They already love each other. Now will they decide to be together? He was on a show in the late 90s called The Pretender on ABC, where he essentially, like, he had this various sort of skills. It was, I think it was supposed to be, like, a McGiver-type show, but he was also, like, part of it is that, like, McGiver crossed with the $6 million man in that, like, he had, like, skills, um, implanted in him, or so I don't know. Various abilities. But so this aired on, like, Friday nights or Saturday nights on NBC back when, like,

networks not only, like, had people watching them, but had people watching them on nights, like Fridays and Saturdays, which is kind of amazing. But also, the thing that I didn't realize until I was looking this up is he's a Days of Our Lives guy. He played Dr. Mike Horton on NBC's Days of Our Lives. So he's really an NBC lifeer. before, just before I started watching it, because by the time I started watching it, there was a different actor playing Mike Horton. But so, um, he was, I don't think the original, because that was one of those characters who, like, was born on the show and, like, was been played by various children. But like, he was the, like, college age, Mike Horton on, on days of our lives. So there's that. Um, I find him to be, uh, fairly unremarkable in Jeffrey. And I kind of, very hunky. Very hunky, but like, I kind of wish maybe. they had cast somebody with a little bit more of a personality in that role.

I don't know. I don't know what hunky, hot gay guys you know that have personality. Wow. Coming out swinging. Normally I'm the cynical one. I don't mean that. Okay, all right. I don't mean that.

I maybe do. We've obviously talked about Patrick Stewart. We've talked about the, what else have we? what else have we not gotten into wait let me dig into i did write down a few things just in terms of like the very 1990s of it and like um the fact that there are multiple mother teresa jokes is deeply funny thank you for bringing this up the mother teresa jokes place it in time so specifically but also every mother teresa joke is funny it's just like mother teresa helps him on the street when he falls down and then just just like walks away there's also a point where

Jeffrey compares Patrick Stewart's character to Martha Stewart, and then Patrick Stewart has to explain to Brian Batt who Martha Stewart is. And I couldn't tell whether that was a Brian Batt is stupid joke or a Martha Stewart hasn't, is still, like Martha Stewart is still in the, if you know, you know stage of her. Darius is too young for Martha Stewart in the 90s. Except that like, when did Martha Stewart become like a like household name? probably around this time. I feel like the Kmart thing happened in the 90s, like late 90s.

I still feel like this feels like around the time, like it feels like the level of like a Marie condo mention, you know what I mean? Well, I mean, this is set in New York City, you know, it is set at the, you know, pulse of culture. Sure, yes, exactly. But this is, you know, this is sort of what I mean. I also wrote down that they mentioned that they're going to something for gay pride Day. Gay Pride Day. Just one day. Rather than like the month-long assault on my psyche that is now Gay Pride month. On your psyche, taste, and with you. Where I start to wonder, like, where do, like, how much money does everybody I know have to be paying like for $100 circuit parties and also big expensive concerts?

What does everybody you know going to circuit parties? Some of us love to stay. Listen, and I appreciate, I appreciate that more than you know. No, it's just like this is gay pride on social media very much as an act of where do you people, like where, again, where do people find the means to be at Fire Island multiple times during the year? I don't understand it. I don't understand it. I think there is some type of thing of benevolent overlord. of that specific island just being like, yeah, you can just... So old, old rich...

Old rich gays bringing hot young gays to the island for purposes? That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying benevolence. I'm saying benevolence. I aim to be old gay benevolence, non-creepy. Non-creepy. Perfect. Okay.

What else do I wrote down? Deborah Monk asking, are you a top or a bottom? important. Darius isn't. The funniest joke in this movie to me is that Darius was too happy to be cast in Le Miz. Like his

type casting is too cheery to be in and he makes the joke he's like he spends, all this happens to him for some toast. Yeah. This guy steals a bread. This guy steals a loaf of bread and then he's

miserable for the rest of his life. He's like, all for toast? All that? toast. He's great. Brian Batt should have been lauded, lauded, I say. Patrick Stewart also makes a joke about a gay superhero, and I'm like, oh, Patrick, if you only knew what the rest of, that the rest of your career would be very much intimately involving many gay superheroes. One in particular, who we still. You might run a school for gay superheroes. Yeah, well, exactly, exactly. Okay. What do you got? What else do you have?

I think that's it. Should we say thank you, Lance, and head into the IMDB game. The IMDB game. Hey, everybody. Every week we play the IMDB game, in which we end our episodes. Wow, that was, I got ahead of my skis. Hey, everybody, it's time for the IMDB game. Every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with

the name of an actor or actress, and we try and guess the top four titles that IMD says they are most known for. If any of those titles are television shows, voice-only performances, or non-acting credits, we mention that up front. After two wrong answers, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. And if that is not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints. That is the IMTV game. All right, how's this going to go today? Are you going to guess first?

Are you going to give first? I'll give first, since it's hot out of the oven that I just found this thing. So I followed down the rabbit hole of Paul Rudnick to the Steppford Wives, a movie, as we said. It's kind of interesting. Fascinating. Not great, but not at all easily dismissed, I think. If you ever want to watch a movie that it is very perceivable that everyone involved hated each other. Watch that.

Fair. All right. in that cast we have one Mr. Matthew Broderick If you can remember us doing Matthew Broderick recently I can pick somebody else

but I don't remember I don't think it would have been recent Matthew Broderick Ferris Bueller's Day Off Yes Election No Wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow Inspector Gadget

No fuck Inspector Gadget showed up for someone else when we were playing recently and it's not for Matthew Broderick fine fine you're missing years are this is an interesting spread

1983 1996 2006 2005 83 96 2005 2005 2005 are any of these voice no I mean he has a voice

in these but that's not that's not what I meant wasn't it 83. No, it wasn't the Lion King. Lion King also was none of those years. I don't know when Ferris Bueller's day off is, so I can't tell if this is before Ferris Bueller or...

I can tell you, you've guessed it, so I can tell you it's 86. Okay. So he's like baby, baby in 83. Yes. Amy Grant. Probably a hit right around the time of Jeffrey. I'm talking Matthew Roderick. Stop for me.

on Spotify's going to come for us again. The 83 movie with a very young Matthew Baradric. Is it, it can't be too early for like Biloxi Blues, is it? It, I think is, it is too early for Biloxi Blues. Okay. Is it like weird science? No, but. It is a John Hughes?

It's not a John Hughes. And it's not a comedy to that degree, but, like, it's, there's, there's similarities of, like, character type. And also, um, first letter. J or W. Oh, War Games. It's War Games. There you go. War Games, yes.

96, you said? 1926. 6. So around the time that he is also Zimbab. Yeah. So this is a movie with two male leads, but like he very much exists in the shadow. Oh, it's the cable guy. There you go. Yes, the cable guy. People completely forget that Matthew Broderick is in that movie because Jim Carrey is so... Cable Guy Goop movie. 05 is a movie I thought might have been your first answer. Like Ferris Bueller, of course, makes a lot of sense that this is your first answer. And not election and not the Lion King. I will say in the realm of his career, this movie is, well, bigger success for him than election.

That's interesting, though I don't think he really got much of a boost from election. What movie am I forgetting? That's 05 Matthew Broderick. Sort of like, just place yourself within Matthew Broderick's career. This is after, oh, it's the producers. There you go. The producers. Yes, the producers. There you go.

I think that's a pretty decent, you know, I understand the election thing, but like, I think that's a pretty decent survey of Matthew Broderick's career. Wargames was the thing that, like, made him a big deal among young actors. Then Ferris Bueller's Day off, paid that off. I guess I can't think of a single person that the Lion King shows up for. That's interesting. And we've definitely done actors. It's got to be.

I don't want to ruin Ernie Sabella for a future. but he's got to be he's got to be all right maybe james rle jones but i don't know yeah i don't think it would be on anybody's all right um okay so for you i just went into famous jeffreys various jeffreys of acting variety and i chose jeffrey dean morgan motherfucker i knew you're gonna one television show walking dead correct even though he's been on there was a there was that one year where he was on like eight television shows, including dying on weeds and Grey's Anatomy, I think, in the same calendar year, which is crazy. All right, Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

Oh, he's in one of those awful Hillary Swank movies. I think it's P.S. I love you. Is that your guess? Yes. Incorrect. That is Gerard Butler. Yeah, but I think he's also in that. That's not legal.

Well, he's in one of those movies like The Losers. Is that you guess? Yes. Fuck you. Yeah. I was like, it's either that or Biker Boys. The Losers shows up for everybody that's in that movie. That's not real.

And I hate it. He's in Watchman. Watchman is correct. You cannot not even get to years on Jeffrey Dean Morgan. I will be so mad. You cannot read the doll. I really don't care for him. Anything that he's been in recently.

I feel like he's such a TV actor. Is he also in Biker Boys? Is that your guess? Yes. Biker Boys is incorrect. Your year is 2018. If you have seen this movie, I will be like, please make better choices.

No, no. But how far down is it? Is it a transformer? It is not a transformer, though you are in the right vein of dog shit. Is it a franchise? Is it part of a franchise? No. No.

Though maybe the headliner is themselves a franchise. Is that a Dwayne the Rock Johnson movie? Yes. Is it San Andreas? It is not San Andreas. Is it skyscraper? It is not skyscraper. Is it, um, Rampage?

It is Rampage. They're all the same fucking movie. Jesus Christ. Rampage is the one with the gorilla. Sure. And skyscraper is the one with a skyscraper. What is your point? They serve the same fucking function.

Oh, boy. All right. Good times, Jeffrey. Good times. Rampage. Rampage. all right all right

that's our episode thank you so much Lance for picking the movie for us we hope you love this episode listener we had a fun time who did not choose this episode

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