This Had Oscar Buzz - 311 – The Lady in the Van

Episode Date: October 7, 2024

We wanted to take this week’s episode to tribute the recently departed Dame Maggie Smith and finally take a look at one of her final awards contenders, 2015’s The Lady in the Van. Reprising the role she played on the stage, Smith stars as the titular lady, who lives in a van that just so happens … Continue reading "311 – The Lady in the Van"

Hello, listeners, and what's that sound, Joe? Did you hear that sound? I think it's the starting gun. Bang, bang, bang. My baby shot me down because it's the... Bang, bang into the room. It's the Vulture Movie's Fantasy League. It's the starting gun of the Vulture Movie Fantasy League, at least.

And much like Seabiscuit, we're off to the races. Right. Since this is the first week of the game, listeners, we're breaking in. We don't want to get too in depth with where the points are just yet, Because guess what, as you might predict, Joker Folly A Pooh was number one. But if you drafted it, you might be getting box office points. But drafting, it might turn into your own Folly A Pooh. We'll see how long that movie sticks around.

Probably won't be getting awards points. Joe, what do you have to say about Joker Folli a Pooh-Poo? I mean, worse, I still haven't seen it. But the reception is worse than I could have. imagined. And certainly, we priced this thing well before the Venice reception and even like bumping it down a little bit. I think we didn't really have any kind of sense of how poorly it would go with audiences and, you know, critics. This is getting a D-cinema score. The box office receipts are very, very small. It's being compared unfavorably to Megalopolis,

which is not where you want to be in the current discourse. Well, I think the thing there is that Megalopolis at least has its fans. Nobody likes this thing. Though I kind of am like, well, and you can tell me if you disagree, do we think the clocks a tick in on the fanboys who are going to be like, no, it's great, it's great, because it's a middle finger. I was talking, I was DMing with our friend Dave Gonzalez literally yesterday about this very thing, where I was like,

these people are going to have to try and save face somehow. So it's either going to have to be, like, that the movie is, like, a secret, like, cool middle finger to the establishment, to studio filmmaking or whatever. And they're going to try and make, like, WB the villain for something, which, like, WB is the villain for a lot of things. Dave Gonzalez's iconic letterbox log for Joker Folly a Poo-Poo. What did he say? Hey, I missed it. He's basically like, this is a piece of shit. I'm giving it five stars because I'm in a bet.

I mean, it's, it's, um, it's kind of a fascinating thing. And we want to sort of keep this briefly as possible. So, um, I'm not going to get into it too much. But like, it'll probably already end of the line for Joker. Kind of. It's, which is kind of too bad because like, or not, it's kind of too bad that the discussion is going to die. Because I do feel like maybe we, we owe this movie like a good, you know, hearty, like what, what happened here and what's going on. Because at the very least, this is a movie that wasted Lady Gaga's precious time. How they get her to say yes is my only question. Yeah. Like it's just like if this is a movie that Todd Phillips wanted, like didn't want to make or like decided to make as like a fuck you to the

people who liked the first one, then like leave Lady Gaga out of it, man. Like, you know what I mean like give us our interesting pop star slash actresses back and and let her make something give her her moonstruck but as joe mentioned we're not here to talk about the folia do we are here to share at the beginning of the vulture movie fantasy league our teams just so you can play along you can know what how the stacks are chipped for your two favorite podcast hosts joe yes tell i'm very excited. I don't believe I've had the spoiled for me unless I forgot. What is your team this year? My team is called, oh, wait, I was going to call it the brutal list, but then I saw that somebody else had chosen that name. So I decided to call my team Fred Heshinger Hype Squad,

and I sort of waffled back and forth as to whether I wanted to do like all mid-range, like $15 buys and really come up with like the all-star team of, you know, $15, $10 movies. And then I was like, no, I think there's a chance that Gladiator too could really like, you know, talk about bang, bang into the room. So I got that for $40. You followed that up with Enora, because I do feel like a Nora is going to be, like, it was one of those things where I was like, do I want to be here in the first week of Critics Awards, not having Anora when Enora ends up like winning a bunch of critics awards? So I was like, no. There you go. I also picked The Brutalist, which I think is going to

probably end up being this year's poor things in terms of like a mid-priced thing that everybody at the top of the charts is going to have. I went for one more box office thing, which was like, I almost forgot to draft this one. And then at the very end, I was like, oh, right, I think Red One is going to make a bagillion dollars and everybody's going to be so angry about it. So I picked up Red One for $5. I did- Your Taylor Swift vote this year. I did the trio of specialty movies. It was like a flight. It was like a flight of specialty movies for $3. a piece. I did the documentary daughters, the animated movie flow, and the foreign language film I'm still here. So this is, I think, the perfect strategy for your single digit, you know,

draft picks. You know, you're getting broad possibility for points throughout the season, but also at the finish line. I feel good about all three of those. My biggest takeaway from yours is this gamble to pick red one. Amazon's red one. Even though yes, it is coming into theaters. Every time I see a trailer for it, I'm like, this looks so fucking stupid. So many people are going to go see. It's going to be like a big, I think it's going to be a big like Thanksgiving, you know,

Thanksgiving weekend performer. My last word, by the way, is I took a flyer on the substance for $5 because I think that those points could yield. Red One being $5, I'm like, okay, if Red One was $10, I would be like, what are you doing? Yeah, for $5. $5 for money is, you know, it's not going to get Taylor Swift money, but, you know. I also think there will be a divide. Like last year, was it, there's people who drafted poor things and people who didn't draft poor things.

I'm willing to bet there will be people who drafted Gladiator and people who didn't draft Gladiator, and that's going to be. And whichever way that movie falls, it'll be, you know, that'll be the side that you're on. So, yeah. I myself did not draft Gladiator, though it was sitting there for a while. And I was like, I just don't, I don't think this is my strategy. I don't know how this works. My team name, I had this very early, and I'm very proud of it. It is Mike's Hard Truves Lemonade.

It's a good name. I also drafted Anoran, the Brutalist. I think that those are going to be, those are both. going to be the poor things on there. Yeah. I went with Amelia Perez, no box office dollars, but we already know we're going to be talking about this movie a lot. I did the Wild Robot. That's where I think my box office points could lie. Yep. And then my single digits are... Well, box office, you're not going to get box office points for Wild Robot, though, because it's already... Oh, right, because

it opened. Um... I'll get there are awards points to be had for that movie. Uh, my single digit buys. I chose hard truths for $8 for $5.00. Janet Planet And for $3, flow and on becoming a guinea fowl. Now, the On the Becoming a Guinea Fowl news right before I drafted kept me from drafting it because we were, the deadline for submitting international feature movies had passed.

It could be submitted but just not announced. Right. Because there's still announcements rolling in. Because the UK declined to submit it. And we were hoping that Zambia would, but we have not heard as of yet. Correct, correct. Come on Zambia. Make it happen for us.

Was it the best strategy to draft Wild Robot and Flo? I say yes. Given the dollar spend that I have on both of those movies and I think where the spread of that could be, you know. Also, if Flo gets an international feature nomination and animated feature, that's a lot of points for $3. You're going to need Wild Robot to show up on, like, top 10 lists or, like, get, like, nominations elsewhere, which are very well good. Janet Planet, I think, is maybe one of the best potential on paper, because if you're talking Gotham's, indie spirits, and a lot of critics prizes for Best First Features, yeah, it'll be a lot of points. Yep, yep, yep, agreed. and be our top 10 indie films, like that kind of a thing.

Exactly, exactly. Very excited to get this started. I'm going to have a newsletter that will go up at the, I believe we're going to probably and get this out on Tuesday of every week from Vulture about talking about the previous weekends box office and also any developments in the awards race, sort of various discussion topics, which you can all, you can, you know, subscribe to the newsletter and follow everything that's going on at vulture.com slash movies dash league.

We'll have a leaderboard up there. You can follow the podcaster league of which the Garriators are looking to defend their title as the best mini league. And there are prizes for the mini league this year, which you can also check out at vulture.com slash movies dash league. their prizes for the best performing mini league and we have faith in you. Go team. Yes, exactly. All right, we're all going to see how

this turns out in the weeks ahead. But for now, we hope you're playing along. We can't wait to hear what you've chosen for your teams. On to the episode. On to the episode. Oh, wrong house. No, the right house. Oh, I didn't get that.

We want to talk to Marilyn Hack. Millen Hack and French. I'm from Canada water. An educated woman and living like that. Merry Christmas! Shut the door! I'm a busy woman! Jackson Pollock himself could not have done it better. I am not the carer. I am here. She is there. There is no caring.

Would you like to push me out the street? I got a whiff of her when I first came. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that is goofing on Elvis, hey, baby. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Joe Reed. I'm here, as always, with my prissy little playwright Chris File. Hello, Chris.

Uh, which one? Am I the prissy little playwright, or am I the inner saboteur prissy little playwright? Oh, I've divided my. My persona and Twain, what shall I do? The first time that the divided persona is in, like, shadow. So I couldn't tell if that was a second actor or if they, or, like, for the first scene, or at least the first half of the first scene, I couldn't tell what was going on. It's, part of it is also the fact that, like, the lead actor, Alex Jennings is one of those

people who, like, I've definitely seen in things, but I, like, isn't somebody who I would, like, pick out of a lineup and know his name. Like, before we did this episode, I really would have been like, oh, you know, that guy who's in Lady in the Van. I don't remember his name. And conceivably has played a villain in something where homosexuality is intrinsic to his villainy.

I want to say he played Edward in the crown, like abdicator Edward in the crown, but I like could not be positive. I'm only just now that the crown is over. realizing, oh, that person was in the crown, that person got famous from the crown, that person got famous from the crown, including my Joshi,

because I had to do the backwards work. I was like, did he just materialize, or did he come from something? It was also God's own country, and the fact that, like, every gay guy had seen Josh O'Connor have sex on screen before they even knew who he was because they had all watched at least that clip from God's own country. So, you know, gay guys at least were primed for the Patrick Zweig of it all.

Yeah, the crown is very much a, especially for somebody like me who like really drifted from the crown, like even before the second season was over, I want to say. So, like, I know Emma Corrin was on the crown, but I did not see Emma Corrin in anything until, the Brit Marling show that I really, really liked. Much like all gay guys were introduced to Josh O'Connor through gay sex and God's Own Country. I was only, I never watched The Crown. I love Olivia Coleman. You cannot get me to watch that show.

I never watched The Crown, but I was introduced through Emacoran, the one clip where they're just, you know, the eyes are going everywhere. and then the chin is like, you know. Yes. So, yeah, interesting, you know, introduction to Alex Jennings in this movie, but, like, good performance. Good performance. I'll be interested to see where you come out on this movie, a movie that I was surprised to see got a better critical reception that I remember because all I remember was like everybody I know. know making Lady in the Van jokes back in 2015. And so I remember watching this. I watched

this. This was like a group watch that we did. And I can't remember whether we got together to watch Lady in the Van or we were all sort of like gathered together and decided to watch Lady in the Van. But I remember Richard Lawson, our friend and past and former guest was there. I think Bobby Finger was there. And I just remember snacks being on the table. And we were watching the lady in the van and just sort of like having a laugh at the sort of like the weird conceit of the movie that like it's it's very very much sort of indebted to the play that it's based on which we'll talk about it's secretly a gay guy movie it is secretly a gay guy well it's secretly it's mostly like an alan bennett navel gazee kind of a movie for and then which then

becomes a movie about him wrestling with the fact that he has sort of decided to use this homeless woman's life as fodder for his play, and then the play is about him hand-wringing over whether he should have used this homeless woman as fodder for his play. So it's sort of an oeroboris of, you know, writerly impulse and also guilt that's sort of just just goes around and you kind of wish it was also a reckoning with like this form of entertainment because there's a chunk of the movie where you know dame maggie's character the titular lady in the van it becomes about her and it becomes this filamina lee thing of you know she grew up in a nunnery basically she was a skilled pianist etc etc and went through trauma

in her lifetime. Do you ever think about the fact that for a very, very small and narrow subset of people, Philomena was like a hugely impactful. Excuse me, the real Philomina Lee. This is what I mean, though, that like for a very small subset of people, which is like us and people like us, you can use Filomena as shorthand for like four different things. You know what I mean? Including using real people on the Oscar campaign trail, including like...

just say Philomania, and people will, like, know what you're talking about. It's so upsetting that I cannot find a jiff of him saying Philomania. Do I have to do everything myself? It's him, and I want to say Zoe Saldania. She is the, she is the Chris Pine to his Cheryl Boone Isaacs in that, in that clip. I'm pretty sure. Please sound drop Philomania, so everybody knows what we're talking about. Philomania goes on the list with Mark Wahlberg saying women are talking instead of women talking when he's in the sad words that one year when he's reading the nominees Women are talking

And now all I will think of when I think of that movie is like I'll be like oh we're watching women talking and then my mind will go like Women are talking. So, just again, we are, we are, we have brain disease in that like the smallest little things, you make one flub and then like for the rest of your life, a small subset of people will never, ever let you forget it. It's just, you could call those people podcast listeners. You could have called those people. Not Gary's. Today we call them podcast.

I want to be specific. Not, not our lovely listeners. Listen, we have a whole, like, we use a dick. poop sound drop in our intro. Like, we are, we emblem, oh, so not, not podcast listeners, podcast hosts, yes, exactly. To errant

homosexuals. Uh-huh, uh-huh, exactly. Exactly. I feel like my, this was my first time I watched the movie. Because by the, this was a typical Sony classics qualifying release that, you know, by the time it would reach people

like not in New York and L.A. And maybe Chicago or San Francisco or D.C. You know, this is the gamble with a lot of qualifying releases, is that by the time it actually reaches those people, it may be completely out of the race entirely. And this was one of those. So it's like I didn't get to see it. And my conception of this movie had been

that people mocked it and hated. it for being just like pure middle brow and that's not this movie's problem and I'm sure we'll get into it but like the middle browiness I kind of enjoyed with this movie and then it kind of falls apart and falls

off the rails. The thing about this movie is not to invoke Kamala Harris again but it does exist in the context which is this era this era of Maggie Smith where she was

on Downton Abbey, and at some point, fairly soon in that show, she just became kind of a one-liner machine where it was just like, what's a weekend? But like, you know, like eight billion variations on that. And there was no one better in the business at it. Two best exotic Marigold Hotel movies where her role was like, started as like mean old racist and then became like nice old former racist. She was in a movie called Quartet that only exists to me as Kristen Wigg and Will Ferrell saying the courtet.

She was in a movie called My Old Lady the year before Lady in the van. It's all of this together sort of combined to create this like Voltron of old ladiness that like

then felt like it was coming to this globe glorious apex in Lady in the Van where she's just like, oh my God, Maggie Smith, how many ways are they going to cast this woman as like the oldest woman you've ever seen in your entire life? So old, she is titularly old. She is the eponymous old. She kept on chuggin for another fucking decade, man. Like while we were in Toronto, I needed to just throw something on Netflix to be on while I was like doing other things. I definitely chose the Miracle Club

in which she again plays old lady like that's you know in that one she's at least has a little bit of like old lady with regrets you are an old lady What is that? That is Nini Links too I believe

It's an apprentice quote I apologize it is Nini Likes too I'm yelling at Star Jones Pretty sure Latoya Jackson Why you've gotten this far as because of your your last name, and you faked it for 50 years. You are very old, and you need to play your age and not 12.

You are an old label. Listen, Nini had her moments on that show. We'll say that. When she said to Star, she's like, where she's like, Barbara Walters isn't here. But she's yelling at Star Jones. Anyway. The Miracle Club, a movie that much like the substance, is defined by a yellow coat. Very true. Very true. Honestly, you know who's good in the Miracle Club is Laura Lynch?

You know who's good in the Miracle Club? Everybody's good in the Miracle Club. Listen, I am not going to shit on the middle brow delights that is in the Miracle Club. Did the Miracle Club come out on the same weekend as Barbenheimer? Yes, it did. Did I go that weekend? Yes, I did. Kathy Bates's Irish accent in that movie is an absolute disgrace. Excuse me, who are we to shit on Kathy? We're not doing that here. That's not our business. I love Kathy Bates. And like, listen, if she wanted to like, it felt like somebody who was like, when am I ever going to get to attempt an Irish accent in a movie again? So I'm just going to do it.

And it's so horrifyingly bad. It's so horrifyingly bad. It's cartoonishly bad. It's, I think, horrid. But, um... Everyone, you can go watch The Miracle Club on Netflix right now and make up your own decision. Make up your own mind. Netflix, which is like the streaming distributor eventually of all Sony product, including

Sony Classics, which I'm sure movies like The Miracle Club are getting seen by more people on Netflix than they are in theaters, unfortunate all hail Sony Classics go see their movies This is a Sony Classics movie If you live in a place that like Sony Classics doesn't make it to your movie theater though

Like this is where I do feel like at least I feel like you can watch a movie like living On your television And I feel like you're getting Most of the correct experience Right? I didn't see how many theaters the Miracle Club played, because it definitely went wide. They put their movies wide.

Who knows how wide, but wide. Technically textbook wide. Miracle Club topped out at 678 theaters. Okay, that's not bad. That's more than 12 theaters a state. It's more than 677 theaters. All right, anyway, back to Dame Maggie Smith, who, as we are recording this

died about a week ago. A week or so ago. We're recording this maybe the soonest we have ever recorded an episode to dropping in a very long time. Though I think we did it semi-recently, but... We're white knuckle on it, my friends.

I was like, you know what? You know what? We're doing this one last minute. We should talk about Dame Maggie since we have some recency to it. I will talk about. I don't know what your experience. of sort of social media after Maggie Smith died.

But like the the sort of percentages for what people were posting, right? Was like, I would say admirably, I was seeing like 70% prime of Miss Jean Brody. Maybe weirdly like 20% First Wives Club. And then like the rest of the two. There were a lot of gay guys coming out being like Gwynilla. Like, and it's just. Yes. It was, like, it was, it was kind of funny.

There's more. There's more. And then, like, in my, in my, then circles, the rest of the 10% was some combination of sister act, McGonagall from Harry Potter, California Suite for like the real, like. For the people that are like, did you know Dame Maggie says the F slur in this movie? Yeah, exactly. And then, um, not as much Goss for. Park, as I would have expected. Obviously, like, a good deal of, I should say, I should take back some of that 70% because there was a good deal of Downton Abbey, a lot of what is a weekend, a lot of, like, that was

your sort of like mainstream choice. But like, what were, where were you seeing people sort of, you know, throw out the love for, for Damon? I mean, I was the only person I knew who put out still from Clash of the Titan. And I posted her very recent photo spread for Lowe where she's just fabulous in a fur coat with a handbag um listen it i mean this this was the thing like sometimes it sounds like people are bullshitting online and it you know with the condolences which is fine it's you know a polite nice thing to do but i do think that dame maggie smith is somebody who really did

touch everybody and like everybody has a true cultural reference point for it as much as we're like stop you know pinning her with airy potter there's other things and i'm like the niche thing of like all of you gay people yes she's great in first wives club find another reference um you know but the the truth of it is and i think the wonderful thing about her career is that she really did touch so many people and i think she's also one of those special cases that was someone who got to be a leading lady and in these character parts you know the type of things that do really reach people and, you know, stay in our memories and be like an intrinsic formative part of our, you know, movie history for everyone.

Well, this is why I can't really like begrudge wherever people are sort of approaching their Maggie Smith thing, even if it is just like, I understand the thing where people are annoyed that like so many people just sort of default to Harry Potter because that's what they watched when they were kids. But, like, she was a formative, that was a formative, you know, character for people growing up. And, like, it's, you know, there are plenty of people who I, my first association with, like, these great actors are a thing I watched when I was a kid. I'm sure there were people who, like, mostly were introduced to Elizabeth Taylor through the Flintstones movie. Yeah, like, a lot of us were introduced to Diane Weist in Edward Cisorhands.

Like, you know. Or all of us goofballs who. who like, I still will see an old-timey actor and be like, oh, like from that Looney Tunes cartoon that I watched when I was little. You know what I mean? Like that's sort of, that's me with fucking, who's the guy in the Maltese falcon who, um, shit. Is it Claude Raines? Who's not, no, that's not Claude Raines. It's, um, I think I've seen that movie like once.

Hold on, hold on, hold on. It's, um, is the guy with, he's always playing creepos in, um, hold on James Mason No like I'm like I clearly have not seen the Maltese falcon in long enough time to be like oh Peter Lori is you know that guy yeah

but Peter Laurie was like in all of those Looney Tunes ones and I was like I could not believe that that like in real life once I saw Peter Lorry in a movie I was like oh no he's exactly like the cartoon that they did of him um anyway but like yeah it's just like people

sort of experience these that's why these are you know they're gateway movies they're they're you know and maggie smith had plenty of those she was in she was granny wendy in hook you know what i mean like there's just there's no shortage of ways maybe you were a you know a death on the nile you know fan if you were you know a little bit older or haven't we talked on mike since i did watch evil under the sun no tell me about holy shit evil under the sun is unquestionably the best poor row movie and Dame Maggie is a huge reason for it. What a fun movie.

Have you seen Evil Under the Sun? No. Oh, you should watch it as soon as humanly possible. Peter Eustanov, huh? Okay, interesting. Yeah. Oh, and Eustanov is so great. Jane Birkin, who I just recently learned is the, like, namesake of the Birken bag.

Yes. I had no idea. Varda subject. Even with like the Harry Potter and as Miriam Margulie says, They're for children. Even with that, I think, you know, there's a lot of other access points that there's almost no wrong answer for Dame Maggie because it's all great. She was always great, though, of the posting to like close the loop on the posting and the well wishes sent to her in her passing, the best among them were posting tea with the dames and her appearance on Carol Burnett. the tea with the dames clip which by the way even before she died i had sort of trained my

instagram reels uh to constantly give you to constantly give me that clip and literally anything of joan rivers on the tonight show like that's what my instagram reels are um but that clip of tea with the dames where joan plowright can't hear what is going on and and maggie smith is needling Judy Densch for getting all of the parts that, you know, they all want. She's getting first dibs at them. And Joan Plowray says that hilarious story about her agent saying, we'll get you a nice cameo that Judy Densh hasn't gotten her paws on. Judy Densh said no, too.

It's great. Terrific. Also go back and watch the Carol Burnett clips. They're so good. I haven't seen any of the Carol Burnett clips. She does a whole, like, musical number with her, teaching her how to do a cockney accent. Oh, amazing. Tremendous.

Tremendous. Old Carol Burnett is good for old clips. Have you ever seen the clip, the one I post it constantly, so maybe you have, of the woman in her audience, who was a dead ringer for B. Arthur as Maud. And then she, like, comes up onto the stage. It's like, I'd like to sing a song, if possible. And it's like, because it was this other, watch, I'm not going to, I'll send you the link to it. I'm not going to rob you of the experience of watching it. It's so fun. Carol Burnett is also one of the things we lost when it's like we no longer have old things on Nick at Night.

Do we have Nick at Night anymore? I could not tell you. I'll just say not having Nick at Night. But like the Nick at Night we grew up with because like I remember a whole summer where my mom and I would watch Carol Burnett like every night and that's nice. Pea laughing. I mean, it's great stuff. I will still watch and you know, this is stuff from before. This is why I still.

I can't abide, you know, whatever, Joe complains about young people, corner, can't abide these people who are like, I don't know what that is. I was born in 1998 or whatever. And it's like, we, you're, you're still responsible for knowing about culture from before you were born. You fucking monster. I will still go and just like watch clips of like Carol Burnett show outtakes, you know, from years. before I was born because like, because it's fucking funny. Like Tim Conway fully shoving his hat in his face because he can't keep it together because Carol Burnett is so bad. There's the one Mama's, the famous one, the Mama's family sketch, where Tim Conway goes on for like 10 minutes spinning out this story that he's just like improvving on the spot, has completely gone off script. Carol Burnett is like, can't show her face and finally Vicki Lawrence as mama

at a break in the story just goes you sure that little asshole's done yet and the entire including like Dick Van Dyke who's like filling in for for Harvey Corman at the time just like literally falls on the floor laughing. It's so funny.

How did we get on this subject? Maggie oh yeah teaching Carol a cockney accent yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no I will watch I will watch evil under the sun. Remind me when this is done, I will add it to my list.

You know, for your Halloween watching, it's your hollow watching, let's stop saying spooky season, everyone, please, for the love of God. No, I just say October horror. That's a thing where I become Miriam Margulies. It's for children. I'm just glad people aren't saying spooky anymore. Remember when people were saying spooky instead of spooky? Well, we couldn't tell if spooey was like a poop thing.

like oh god um that's why i think it died slash didn't really take off beyond gay people um uh yes added to your Halloween season stuff because like people put murder mysteries on Halloween and normally I'm like why are you doing that I watched Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie yesterday for the first time ever great movie great movie I was not prepared for how sort of lurid it would become in its final he's a dirty man it's a per it's a but it's one of those things where it's like the at the last 20 minutes of marney you have seen replicated in like eight billion movies now and depicted far more sort of like grimally and more explicitly and yet it's lost all power and now you watch something like that in the context of a movie made back then and you're like oh people must have been like so incredibly like put out and and scandalized by just, you know, depicting that subject matter in that way back then. So I'm highly, highly happy that I finally saw that movie. My early days of Halloween watching this year have gone really poorly,

though I did watch Christine last night. And I just think much to my surprise, I am a carpenter guy. That's cool. That's fun. Like, I, I mean, and of course. list for this month. So I may watch it. Christine, I'm like, ah, this movie is all about masculinity and performing masculinity and masculinity as a toxicity. And so, of course, I like it. I finally watched Eden Lake after years and years of like, I should watch Eve. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. This is a rough one. It's, it is, but I was like, I was, I mean, the cast is honestly great, because it's

Michael Fastbender and Kelly Riley and Jack O'Connell. Yep, and Jack O'Connell. And I'm like, it's, you know, it's people getting menaced by, you know, shitty kids or whatever. And then last night. Yeah, it has some prescience to it, too, in terms of being a movie about a trademark society. Well, it's too much about that. It's like, we don't, this is too close to home. Before I watched it, I had read a bunch of, like, reviews.

where people were like, oh, people were mad about it being like, uh, classist. And I was like, that's dumb. I don't think so. I'm going to watch this movie. Think about, um, think about what you're watching in any terms. But then I watched the movie and I was like, oh, no, this is mad classist. Like, this movie is like crazy classist. The thing were at the end of the movie where they were like, we poor people, like cover up murders because we're poor people.

Like that kind of thing. I was like, oh, okay. Like, I mean, I guess I kind of see it more in the abstract. of how it's like groups of society especially when you're talking about young heterosexual men will be...

Oh, see, you're bringing sexuality into it. That makes sense. There are a bunch of straight guys who kill people and they're like, it's fine. We as society will wipe over it. They kill other straight people. I also watched last night in a violent nature, which

I liked in concept and less so in execution. It's, the execution of it, like, absolutely destroys your suspension of disbelief, like, on the regular. I agree. On the regular and takes me completely out of the movie. And it's just, like, it's too bad because, like, I like the fact that it's mostly just, like, a rip-off of the Friday the 13th concede. And just, like, follow that muse. And, like, stop doing these things that, like, completely take me out of the movie because I know it's wildly fake.

Right. Like the slight pivot on the POV of a Friday the 13th movie is interesting, but the movie does not make good on like that conceit being interesting in any way. I will say the one really crazy gory scene worth any amount of money that you pay to watch that movie. But it's so fake. It's so like. But it's so disgusting and like balzy in a way that like I have not seen a movie. try to reach for that level of gore in a lot. Sure. It's just like, to me at some point, I'm just like, I'm just watching, you know, a dummy. You know what I mean? Sure, sure. But I mean, like, I guess that's also where the movie is, so your mileage may vary thing. I am surprisingly a gore hound. And I am too. That at least satisfied me, though nothing else in the movie satisfied me. I'm not really a gore hound, but like, I appreciate good gore. I just need to, the thing that I mostly need to do is just like be stuck.

I need to feel trapped inside of a movie like that. And I feel like that movie kept giving me outs because it kept reminding me that like, oh, no, this is just a movie. This is... And you need it to be a real movie because like those fucking terrifier things, those are not real movies. Those are

incompetent, not good, not scary. Explain to me what you mean by those terrifier things. The terrifier franchise. Oh, I don't know that. You know the terrifier movies. No. They've become this big thing. It's like the the white face mask clown with the like giant grinning teeth and he's got like black teeth and none of my business keep it none of your business um anytime i have someone

recommend it to me i'm like i love that this is never taking a recommendation from you ever again on the maggie smith memorial i know if we're catching any new listeners who want to listen to just like a nice movie with maggie smith in it we're talking all right movies for a minute Before we proceed and go back to the Maggie Smith of it all, why don't you let our listeners know why they should sign up for our Patreon? Listeners, we have a Patreon where there is more fun to be had by all. We call it this had Oscar Buzz. Turbulent brilliance for $5 a month,

you're going to get two bonus episodes every month. What are those two bonus episodes going to be? Well, on the first Friday of the month, we do what we call exceptions. These are movies that fit that this had Oscar Buzz rubric, but managed to score a nomination or two. Most recently, this month, we have done what else? We have taken out the trash. We have praised father, son, and house of Gucci. We have been both ethical and fair people.

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These are the types of movies you're going to find over there. Movies that you might have forgotten managed to get an Oscar nomination or two. but guess what they did, so we're not doing them on the main feed. Second episode you're going to get every month, we call it an excursion. These are deep dives into Oscar ephemera we love to obsess about on this show, be them, EW Fall Movie Previews, looking back at old award shows and recapping them. We've had our own game nights. We've done our own award show.

We call the superlatives. And then later this month, we're going to be doing another Hollywood Reporter, actress roundtable which one did our listeners select they chose 2018 so we're keeping the gaga rolling we're keeping the glen close rolling we're keeping the katherine hann getting into lesbian parisocial relationship with rachel vice going i was going to say very applicable right now to what she's laying down on agatha all along so we're going to have so much to talk about that's currently happening there's gaga there's nico kidman who as i have said i think think is winning best actress this year. It's a lot going on. There's the great Regina King, who we miss and won back. It's true. But go on over to patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz and sign up for turbulent brilliance.

That's Patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz. That's right. All right. So pivoting back to The Lady in the Van in a few short moments, I'm going to ask you to give a 60-second plot description. of The Lady in the Van, while you limber up your vocal chords for that, I will remind our listeners that we are talking about the 2015 movie The Lady in the Van, not my old lady, but The Lady in the Van, directed by Nicholas Heitner, written by Alan Bennett, based on his own stage play, starring Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings, Roger Allum,

Deborah Finley, Gwen Taylor, Jim Broadbent, Claire Foy, Prize Claire Foy. Never know when she's going to show up. The entire cast of the history boys, and I'm not even joking, like, the entire cast of the history boys, including but not limited to- Had Richard Griffith passed away at that point? Because I meant to look that up and didn't. I think I saw him in the cast, but like I don't remember seeing him in the movie.

Maybe he had got a scene cut. Maybe. Including but not limited to Francis Delator, Dominic Cooper, Russell Tovey, and James Corden, premiered on September 12th, 2015 at the Toronto International Film Festival, followed by a UK premiere on November 13th. And finally, a limited United States release starting on December the 4th. Chris, I'm going to pull out my stopwatch. Are you ready to deliver a 60-second plot description of The Lady in the Van?

I know saying this has gotten me into trouble before, but there's not a ton of plot. I think I'll be fine. Famous last words, and begin. All right, we start following playwright Alan Bennett in the early 1970s. Yes, that Alan Bennett, who wrote this play. He develops a relationship with Mary Shepherd, who lives in her van on his street. He eventually gets her into the driveway, so she has somewhat of a safer space to do this, but also the neighbors have been, like, rejecting her.

Along the way, across several decades where she is living there, we discover a little bit more about Mary, including that she used to be a talented pianist. She used to be a nun at the convent basically down the street from them. And all of the while, Bennett is conflicted over whether or not he should write about Mary because they have an interesting relationship. She's an interesting person. And eventually he does write about her. And eventually she does pass away.

And in the cemetery, we see the heaven open and we see Jesus look down upon them and smile. And then heaven closes And I guess he writes his play Wow, with a second and a half to spare Chris Fyle comes in under budget. Look at that. We're tightening our belts here And Chris comes in under time.

Very good. Can we do what we usually do And start at the end? Because this is my problem with the movie. The movie kind of falls apart in that There's only a certain degree. This type of middle brow formula of, like, yes, it's about this,

very filaminali. It is about this person. The titular character is who the story is about, but you could maybe make an argument for the protagonist being this other person and their relationship to that character. Which, you know what movie does this, Chris, that you like? Probably several.

Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Yes. Yeah, brilliant. way to do that but then you also get into the dangers of like well it could also be green book and i don't think that this movie fully dodges complaints in that area but i think it kind of mostly does and at the end i think that balance just kind of gets like thrown into turbulent seas and you know we maybe find out a little too late mary's back But it also kind of...

Except we always kind of knew what it was because they show you very early on in the movie the sort of like the less specific version of the car accident that's sort of like... She thinks at one point she was the perpetrator of a hit and run, though because she flees the scene, doesn't find out, no, she would not have been at fault over what happened. We find out at the end of the movie what the full story was, which was essentially. Eventually, like, some cyclist ran into her car and smashed into her and died. And we find this out via the cop, played by Jim Broadbent, who essentially... Constable Broadbent.

Decided to railroad this woman for no reason. This guy who's like, oh, yeah, I know that she didn't hit this guy, but she fled the scene of an accident, which is technically against the law. So, you know, I decided because I'm a stickler for the letter. of the law that I was going to, you know, hound this woman for decades and, and essentially, like, force her into a life of poverty and, and shame spiraling and whatever. And it's like, cool story cop. Like, it's, it's, I, this is all meant to be memoir. This is all Alan Bennett writing based on his own life. So, you know, there is, of course, every, every chance that that is actually a thing that happened, that this cop showed up at this woman's funeral to brag about having, you know,

how did her into her grave by talking to Alan Bennett, you know, at the, so like, I don't know how much, you know, poetic license was taken with that. But it's also very possible that the clouds opened and Jesus himself smiled down upon them. It's not Jesus. It's God. It's big beardo God. It's, um, it's the Monty Python. It is a little Monty Python and it's not, probably intentionally so, considering, you know, the source, considering that it's, you know, British filmmaker. And it's kind of untethered to anything. I would not say that this is a movie particularly interested in magical realism, even though we have inner saboteur, Alan Bennett. Like, yeah.

Yeah, because he's constantly like in dialogue with himself, a split self, you know. Which is kind of my problem with him. movie, which is, I think I can see where this works a lot better as a play. And from what I understand it in the play, so this was originally produced on the West End in the late 90s, with Dame Maggie. This was, I think, one of the earlier collaborations between Alan Bennett and Nicholas Heitner, although I think the first one was the Madness of King George, which on stage was the madness of George III.

But anyway, on stage, from what I understand, and there's not a ton of information, weirdly, on this play. I kept looking for, like, reviews from the, like, West End production, and I couldn't find them. But I guess that the Alan Bennett characters played by two different actors in the stage show. But one of them was Alan Bennett, I thought. I thought Bennett played himself. I think in certain productions of it, yes, because it also, like, transferred to Broadway. And I think he definitely played one of the versions on Broadway. But regardless, I think that sort of accentuates the sort of, you know, two separate people aspect of it.

I think I think what probably works on stage as an actor sort of monologuing his way through this relationship he has with this woman, to me then, turns into a movie that is just constantly ringing. hands and constantly sort of being like, should this be the movie? Should I like, I'm going to sort of chastise myself for talking about this woman's life, but then I'm going to talk about this woman's life. And I'm going to sort of make the case that I'm honoring this woman, but I'm going to also acknowledge the fact that I know that that's plausibly self-serving bullshit, yada, yada, yada. And to me, I'm a little bit just like, just fucking make a movie or don't make a movie, dude. Like, I don't need, I don't need this sort of, like, you know, therapist couch, like, you know, am I being exploitative or whatever?

Like, ultimately, take a confident step forward and make a movie about this woman who you knew, or don't. Or, or feel like it is too exploitative and don't, you know. And I do think on one level, it is much more about her than it, you know, it's about her as a. person rather than within a system within like a society that you know restricts her or ostracizes her you know this you know beyond her her she as a person in her pathology in her emotions we don't you know see things societally beyond the neighbors being shitty to her you know we don't see like social systems collapsing or not getting funding or not being accessible to her. You get the one social worker character, but that's basically all you see of that. And it's Claire Foy and very early on.

Oh, no, I was talking about the other woman, the black woman who comes to. Yes. Who sort of like. Oh, yeah. She comes throughout. But. Wags her finger at Alan Bennett and is like, you're not taking, you know, good care of it. And there's, I think, things about that that have faults. And there's, I think, things about that that have faults. things about this that ultimately do get more at the person than like the person's place as

a, you know, a woman who lives in her van, you know. So it's flawed, but it's not the movie's biggest problem. The biggest problem is, why does this movie open with a Monty Python? Why does this movie close with a Monty Python

opening the heavens and? What do you make of the fact that, especially in the beginning of the movie, so many, there's so much time spent describing and showing people reacting to how offensively this character smells. Like, it's, it's one of those things where it's like, you're spending a lot of time on this. And I understand we're like, this is the thing with, you know, homeless people. This is the reason why a lot of people don't, you know, want to keep, you know, these people at arm's length. Part of it is that they don't want to, you know, be confronted with

the fates of these people, but it's also the fact that, like, aesthetically and, you know, sort of all factorily, these people drive people away. And it's one of those things that's just like, whatever, that's even like, it's, that's placing, you know, the blame on the person. I don't want to do that. But it is a, it is a thing. And it's a real thing. And it's one of those things where it's acknowledging the sort of like uncomfortable fact of the situation. While, also certainly then the movie sort of goes on and just be like there's a person, you know, beneath all of this. And, and that's maybe the lesson to be learned. But like, I don't know. What did you make of all of that? I mean, it, that's true of, you know, a middle brow taste, aesthetic and point of view. Yeah. But I don't necessarily think of that as a whole cloth problem for this movie in terms of the repetition of telling us that she smells awful yeah it feels easy you know in terms of just trying to send the idea that you know people don't want to be around her or that people view her as a nuisance um without getting at her humanity but like the

movie over the course of the movie gives her humanity throughout and in a way that like she gets to show that herself you know not like someone bestows humanity upon her i think because of the fact that at the beginning of the movie the bennett character goes so deep into like describing the sort of the bouquet of you know different sort of it was just like it kind of just makes me think like he's an asshole you know what i mean like it just kind of is just like all right like any kind of kind of is. Let's not linger on it. Right. And so then the journey of this movie becomes not only finding out about this woman, but also sort of the journey of Alan Bennett from being an asshole to being a nice guy. Right. And it's like, I don't know if that's super

compelling. Again, you talk about like the inner saboteurness of it and, and, you know, will Alan Bennett finally leave his desk and live life? And it's just sort of like, okay, except he becomes famous for being a playwright. So it kind of like, you know, being at the desk is sort of his life, is sort of him triumphing. It's not like this person went out and became like a mountain climber or something like that. You know what I mean? I don't know. It's, it's, I was surprised to see this movie get as good reviews, like marginally good reviews as it got.

I mean, if it had opened three years later, it would have gotten significantly less reviews. I think the taste for something like this has gone down. But I do also think, you know, when we talk about this type of middlebrow aesthetic, middle brow point of view, I do also think that those movies aren't as good as they were even five, ten years ago. Like, this is a passable movie. I think this is a passable movie. But I understand your surprise at the level of reviews. But maybe you also think you were surprised by the reviews because you thought it was worse than I thought it was.

Maybe. I also, I'm realizing now that I put the wrong Rotten Tomatoes score on the outline, it got an 89% Rotten Tomatoes, which is like... Oh yeah, it's like certified, baby. It's, but like hugely so. And I just don't remember that reception to it at all. I also don't remember her getting both. Golden Globe and BAFTA, you know, they made nominations. It's surprising she wasn't SAG nominated for this movie, too, because, like, this is the kind

of thing that would play well for SAG? Was this the year of, like, the weird Sarah Silverman SAG nomination? What was the weird SAG for that SAG? Hold on. All right. Hold on. We should do an episode on that movie, though I cannot imagine watching that thing. I smile back. We actually probably should, though. Okay, so 2015 It was the year that Sarah Silverman is nominated for Ice Mileback. But it also is the year that Helen Mirren was nominated for The Woman in Gold. So it was... We have done an episode on The Woman in Gold.

That was a year where it was like, Brie Larson for Room, Kate Blanchett for Carol, and Sersher Ronan for Brooklyn were like, that was your nucleus of Best Actress. And then around that sort of flitted Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren, Sarah Silverman, And then the people who ended up getting nominated were Jennifer Lawrence for Joy, who wins the Golden Globe for comedy in a very sort of not super competitive year. We're going to get into that.

And then Charlotte Rampling for 45 years, who was one of those people, sort of similar to Emmanuel Riva a few years before, where people were like, oh, this is a great performance. Will she, you know, will this sort of older, you know, woman manage to get in, past these maybe sort of like glitzyer performances and I remember thinking like well yes she will and um she kept showing not showing up in things and finally I was just like give it a second like hold on like it'll happen and then it happened she got the nomination and then said something really weird about me too a couple years later no it wasn't Charlotte Rampling didn't say

something weird about me too it was about she was talking about Oscar so white that's what it was In, like, a deeply European context where it's like, of course, Europe's going to Europe. No offense to Europe. But she said that it was racist to whites. And then she... That's what it was. And then everybody was immediately like, what the fuck? And she was like, oh, yeah, that's bad.

I shouldn't have said that. But this was then followed a couple years later. By Catherine Deneuve and Genevieve Buzold both saying ridiculous post-me-to thing. and that was when I made my grand unified theory. You scratched the surface on French actresses and me too, and they've mostly said, everyone will disappoint you. Benosh will disappoint you, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know who won't?

Isabella Luhr. I will give you that. Isabelle Huper has stayed pristine. I still would not ask her questions about it, just to be safe. But yes, that was sort of when I grade my grand unified theory of like, don't ask a French actress unless you want to find out something fucked up. You know what I mean? Just like leave it alone.

Anyway, yeah, so like, Lady in the Van better reviewed than I remember it. Maggie, more intrinsic to the best actress conversation than I remember her. I want to sort of stick with the movie a little bit more before we get into like the awards and the affirmative role because there's definitely a lot to talk about it there. I, and I want to sort of, like, try, I don't want to be too much about, like, this was the version of the movie that I would have rather seen. But I think this movie gives you little, like, pokes into the rest of the community. You get, you know, Roger Allum and Deborah Finley and Francis Delator. And there's a version of this movie that is about the way this sort of, like, block reacts to this woman. And, and, because there's just one point in the movie where Alan Bennett sort of realizes that, like, everybody started being nice to this woman except for him.

You know what I mean? Like, he's the one who is sort of, like, dug in his heels. And I think maybe my problem with the movie is that it's so focused on Alan Bennett, the character, that it just feels a little, a little navel-gazy to me. And I think Alex Jennings is giving a good performance, but not a particularly like-old. character? I think it's a much better. I, you know, this isn't a dig against Alan Jennings, but I think it's a much more enjoyable and likable performance because it's not a movie star.

Alex Jennings is, you know, a character actor, and I think that's to the benefit of the movie rather than having, you know, a Rupert Everett, a Colin Firth type of actor. type of actor. You could easily see Colin. Someone who we've seen as a leading man before, even a queer leading man. And I also feel like the movie and the play is Alan Bennett sort of holding his own feet to the fire

and trying to make sure that he's being his own harshest critic. I'm like, I get that. Or at least attempting to. Is it always successful? No. Whereas I feel like, though, like Alan Bennett and Nicholas Heitner, obviously their most sort of notable other project together was the History Boys, which was a Tony Award winner.

Bennett wins the Tony for Best Play. It becomes a movie that takes the entire stage cast, and Heitner and Bennett are together again. We recorded a full-ass episode on it in our first month of existing and then scrapped it because the audio was so bad. But that's a movie I really like. And I think that's a movie where I never got to see the play, unfortunately. But I think the movie has its, like, plenty of sort of touchy, like, oh, like this is, you know, endorsement is not, or whatever depiction is not endorsement kind of stuff.

But I think the movie sort of plays a little fast and loose with, you know, issues of, you know, sexuality and, and, you know, predatory stuff in a way that is most. mostly finds a way to be energetic and lively and sort of brash about it all in a way that, like, I don't, I sometimes find, you know, myself a little like, oh, I shouldn't be enjoying this movie as much as I am, but I am because like, I just think there's a lot of energy to it. And I think the lady in the van, because it's most, it's more about Bennett's life, is more hand-wringy about a lot of that kind of stuff. there's a larger distance between like when you watch the history boys and you see ah this is so much more on the stage and the lack of the the presentation the venue in which this story is told loses something by being on the screen i think there's a even bigger mileage with lady in the band um and i think i think you do kind of keep some of this buoyant see and lightheartedness through all of these cameos that happened throughout the movie. You know, that kind of keeps the audience a little on their toes in a way that's fizzy and fun and keeps the tone light and comedic without always resorting to the type of dehumanizing humor that, you know, I think we could definitely see the American version of this movie that is much worse and much more offensive.

Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Wait, there was one more thing I was going to say about the cast, and now I can't think of it. Anyway, maybe we'll go back to it. Is there anybody else that we missed besides Richard Griffiths that's not in this that was in the history boys? I was trying to think. So give me a second to find the cast again.

Because I kept being like throughout it. I was like, well, surely Dominic Cooper is not going to show up. Dominic Cooper shows up. Dominic Cooper shows up. Corden shows up, Samuel Barnett. Stephen Campbell Moore shows up. Jamie Parker is the estate agent. One of them is an EMT, I think, who shows up at one point.

Or a doctor of some sort. Russell Tovey shows up as he is wont to do as a trick. You think you're getting out of that movie without seeing Russell Tovey and it's just like, nope, there's Russell Tovey as a trick. I'm sure maybe some of the less famous younger actors for the ones who become less famous. My favorite running joke in the movie is that Mrs. Shepard, Miss Shepard, Maggie Smith's character, constantly refers to the people that Alan Bennett, the men who Alan Bennett has come over to have sex with as communists, and that, you know, you're having meetings with this. Not far off. Listen, they're communing in some way. So yes, I just thought that was funny.

I thought that was a nice little, you know, humorous runner throughout the movie. When we talk about why this movie had Oscar buzz, obviously Maggie Smith is at the forefront. And so it gives us a nice chance to talk about her as a sort of, you know, holistic career. I'm curious to find out what was your first Maggie Smith. Like, where did you enter the Maggie Smith? I mean, it had to have been Hook. I was the weird kid that liked Hook before it was cool to like Hook. I remember thinking, I remember recognizing her in Hook as the nun in Sister Act.

So I must have seen... I guess it was probably Sister. Hook was the year before, but I feel like maybe I saw that movie and didn't really clock her. And then I saw Sister Act a subsequent like 20 times. Although I saw Hook probably also nearly as many times. But it's those two movies in tandem. 1991 and 1992, she's in Hook and then she's in Sister Act. She, she's one of those people who's just like, oh, I probably thought she was like 80 years old in Sister Act. And she would have been, let's see, late 50s. Okay, so Maggie Smith was born in

1934 so 1990 she's like so yeah late 50s late 50s yes um yeah so i like that was one of those ones i was on my demi podcast chris rhodeson and i were talking about how william hickie when he was nominated for prissy's honor was still in his 50s even though like he seemed like he was a hundred years old uh even back then the thing with dame maggie though in sister act is just like maybe this is maybe our bias especially as dirty americans we just like We see a nun and we age them up 15, 20 years. 100%. Like, those were the nuns that you, like, I went to Catholic school.

We had nuns teaching, you know, some of our classes. Like, they were the oldest. Girl, Sister Prejohn's in her 30s. They were, right, right. But, like, they were the oldest people I ever knew. Like, Sister Mary Michael, who taught us math in eighth grade, was the oldest person I had ever seen in my entire life. So, like, that was that.

Can I ask you a maybe personal question? Yeah. Did a nun ever hit you with a ruler? Or did, like, a nun ever hit you or slap you? No, no. That would have, we were, I was, I was, I was, I was, I'm not that old that it was, that that was okay. There would, that would have been a problem, um, if the nuns would have hit. Did you ever have a nun that was like, well, in my day, I used to be able to slap the shit out of you kids. Uh, probably not so explicitly, but like, I, we definitely heard from, like, I wish I could just slap you still. We definitely heard from our parents generation about how, like, the nuns and the priests were allowed to hit you and were allowed to, like, smack you. And then, and the story, the way that some would tell it was just like, you know, if you wanted to act sort of like, you know, back in my day, talk about it. It was like, you know, if a priest smacked you at school and then you went home and you told your, you know, you told your mom about it and your mom would smack you for getting, you know, for running a foul.

Having a nun, yeah. Yeah. So, um, different time, different time. Different time. Different time. Different time. Just curious. No, we had, so we had three nuns growing up, one of whom was the principal.

one of whom was the very, very nice nun who was my fifth grade teacher, who I really, really liked a lot. And then one of whom was the math teacher in eighth grade, who was, like I said, a billion years old and would like, and was like ornery. You know what I mean? She was like super old and ornery. But also like everybody like made fun of her. Like it was like the kids were eighth graders and so mean. And every time she would turn around, people would like, you know, make faces and yell fing. and whatever. And she was like kind of deaf. So like she couldn't really hear very well. So it was a lot of like people trying to like say, you know, awful things and like, you know, she couldn't hear it. But everything you're saying makes me love her more and I hate your classmates. Well, they weren't me. They were mean. I was, I was of course like the one who was good at math. So I was, you know, the goody tissue. I've always, this is the thing. I've always been good at math and I've never liked it. You know. what I mean. Like, I've always gotten good grades at math. How is this not something that

aligns us? Because I was good at math. It's because I don't like it. I never let, I got good grades, but I never liked it. And I stopped taking math classes as soon as humanly possible. I never took, like, precalculus. I never took, um, anything in college. Like, my math requirement was taken by, like, very, very, like, non-mathy math, like, courses or whatever. All this looping back. The dream is not, you know, to get hit by a nun. The dream is to get hit by Maggie Smith in a habit. Right, right, exactly. But like

Maggie Smith, you look back at Sister Act, and it's just like, she's just doing her job. She's just a professional lady who's trying to keep this failing church parish together, and she is the Democratic part. The priest there is

they're just trying to get progressive change and she is keeping status quality. Kind of, yes. Like, the priest is the one who's just like, wouldn't it be nice if we, like, got younger people in? And she's like, this place is falling apart. I can only do so many things at once. These fucking nuns are mutineying on me.

Maybe now I'm less sympathetic to her than I was literally 30 seconds ago. But, like, she's a bureaucratic villain in that movie. She's very much. She's a bureaucratic villain. She's, you know, this woman's coming in. She's sort of set up to be the nurse ratchet. But in one flew over the cuckoo's nest. Nurse Ratchett turns out to be a sadist.

And in this one, Reverend Mother is just like she's just trying to keep everything together. But in both of the cases, this outsider comes in and, you know, shakes up the apple cart. And ultimately, in Sister Act, Reverend Mother is appreciative of it. And they get the Pope to visit at the end. I think it was Gosford Park where it's sort of like the Maggie's, Smith's sort of career then took a turn into what would be like the final act of her career, which is imperious, old, often wealthy, often sort of upper crust, you know, Dowager Countess types, right? And like, and even when she's not playing wealthy, she's in Best Exotic Marigold Hotel as being sort of like. Rascal racist. Right, right.

Like, but still kind of imperious, still kind of like, you know. Hardy. Right, right. It's because she can land a line, man. This is the magic. This is the superpower of Maggie Smith, is she can fucking land a line. She, even when you're, you would hear, you know, all those, the, the Ian McKellen

clip that got shared a lot after she died when he was on the Graham Norton show, talking about how, when he was up for his Academy Award, for the fellowship of the ring. And he wore this like medallion around his neck. And he's talked about seeing Maggie Smith on the red carpet. And she goes, what's that? And he goes, oh, it's a medallions for good luck. And he said he saw her after the show, after everybody for Lord of the Rings won except for him.

Giving him shit about it. And she sees him and she goes, didn't work, did it? Like, but it's just like, it's just like she fucking like, she. nails your ass with these kind of lines. Also, looping back to the sharing cycle when she passed, I sent this one to you. It's Ian McCollin being Maggie Smith on Weekend Update. When she talks about, like, Fat Little Judy Dutch. Her Oscar predictions.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. And again, it's because all, this is the thing about all of these English actors is you don't understand that, like, they all know each other because of, decades of all starring in the same theater productions. They've all done Shakespeare with each other. They've all done and then if you look at the movies, they're all in the same fucking movies together. They're all in merchant ivory shit. They're all in like, they're all in these, you know, Kenneth Branagh movies and they're all just like, they're always in the same

stuff. So you look at like Maggie Smith and Judy Dench, we're in like eight movies together. You know what I mean? Like Bill Nye has been in, you know, several movies with these people. Ian McKellen has worked with these people a bagelion times. Go look up the Macbeth clips from Judy Dench and Ian McKellon. Ooh, Judy Dench's Lady Macbeth. I'm saying.

I'm saying. There are fewer performances in this world that exists. It's all there for you. If that one doesn't. So they're all sort of like intimately like friends but also like they'll needle each other and they'll just

sort of like poking each other. discovering with Maggie Smith's Gosford Park nomination that this was her sixth Oscar nomination and ultimately final one, although she came closer for Best Exotic Marigote Hotel than I remember at the time. Absolutely. Closer than Best Exotic than she did

for like the Downton Abbey movie. Right, right. But like, so she was a six-time Academy Award nominee. She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for 1965's Othello opposite Lawrence Olivier. Have you ever seen that one? Haven't. Haven't.

I haven't watched any of the old Olivier. No, that's not true. I watched his Hamlet. Which, I was, okay. 1969, she wins best actress for the prime of Miss Jean Brody. An incredible performance that I still think feels like a kind of an unlikely Oscar winner given the time period that she won. She was considered an unlikely winner. What happened?

I know this. Because I was going to say, bring that research. So she was considered a surprise nominee, but during the time period of the nominations and, you know, the final voting, she was on stage in Los Angeles with, I believe, the National Company, if I'm remembering, the National Theater Company at the time, too. So it's like, that was the SNL hosting gig of its day. guess, where it's like you have theater companies coming through Los Angeles. Still a great win, though. What a fascinating character. Who was expected to win that year?

Was that Genevieve Buzold for Anne of the Thousand Days? Yeah, but Anne of a Thousand Days had that, like, at the time, ridiculous campaign that they spent so much money on and, like, people, like, look down their noses at that campaign. The Miraback's of It's day. I'm well okay so the the quote that goes around about an of a thousand days or whatever that boring movie is called it's that they were throwing like prime rib dinners to voters and like now it's like well yeah you gotta feed people if you want them to show up to your event you got to give them some food like listen I got I went to the Sony Pictures Classics dinner at Toronto this year for the first time ever and I had to leave I had to leave early to make it to the Almodivar movie, which was one of the movies being, you know, celebrated at the Sodi Pictures Classics dinner. But, like, Tilda and Julianne had to leave early to go to the premiere and, like, all of us who were going to that premiere had to leave too. And I literally left this giant rib-eye steak on my plate at the steakhouse that they sell, you know, whatever.

You're not better than anybody. Just wrap it in a paper towel and put it in your bag. Somebody said it's just like, just bring it with you. And I can imagine myself in like the lightbox theater just being like gnawing on a fucking giant steak. Max Katie over here. Literal steak eater, literal steak eater, Oscar demographic talking about it. But anyway, yes. So they're still feeding people steak to butter them up. So there we go.

Her second win for California Suite, which was, I don't know if she's the first. She can't be the first. She can't be the first person to play a fictional Oscar winner. Well, no, because I think Michael Cain wins the Oscar in that movie. Regardless, they filmed at the previous year's Oscar ceremony. So it's like you go back and you watch her and Michael Cain presenting together. Right. And they're in the costumes from the movie.

Yes, yes. So she wins for California Suite. And I feel like she was not the one expected to win that year either. Correct me if I'm wrong. Let me go look up what that lineup is. She was up against Meryl and the Deer Hunter, Maureen Stapleton, and Interiors, Penelope Milford in Coming Home,

and Diane Cannon and Heaven Can Wait. If it would have been anybody, it would have probably been... Diane Cannon is good in Heaven and Wait a movie. Heaven Can Wait a movie I don't like, but I love Diane Cannon. It was probably Maureen Stapleton because I think she won maybe, like, New York.

Okay, and she had won for Reds yet. She also had, like, you know, a legend reputation. She eventually wins for Reds. And she's sort of, she's a bulky supporting actress nominee for interiors. Like, she is a very important character in that movie. I haven't seen interiors in a while, but my last real memory of that movie is when I'd seen it as a kid and I was, like, a very serious teenager and was like, that is my favorite of Woody Allen's movies. Yeah. I remember being like, what's the big deal about Maureen Stapleton in this movie?

And then when I saw it later, my last lingering memory of this movie is like, oh, no, she's like next level great. She's great. Yeah, she is. Anyway, her other, Maggie's other nominations, she was nominated in 1972 for Best Actress for Travels with My Aunt, my Aunt, loses to Liza Minnelli for Cabaret. She is nominated in 1986 for Best Supporting Actress for A Room with a View, a movie where she plays, to me, a quite irksome character who, like, keeps, like, screwing things up for Helena Bonham Carter in that movie, like, with the best of intentions, but, like, is sort of, like, in the way a lot in that movie.

But, like, the dames in that movie. Oh, my God. Very rude that Judy Dench was also not nominated for that movie. Judy is, but, like, who in that movie? I love Judy in that movie. The dames in that movie is our future. Like, this is what we're going to be doing. Like, 100%.

100%. This is who we are. And then she's nominated, of course, as I said, in 2001 for Best Supporting Actress in Gosford Park. She and Helen Mirren together were nominated for that. They both lose to Jennifer Connolly for a beautiful mind, a role that is sort of like borderline lead. I know Connolly was nominated at SAG for lead, and that's why Helen Mirren won the SAG

award for supporting actress. Yeah. I remember, though, critics loved Maggie Smith in Gosford Park that year. Like, they flipped out. Damn Helen was winning critics prizes for it, though. And it's because, you know, Maggie Smith had two Oscars, Helen Mirren had none. Yes. But, like, and I get it.

I get it. I get it. I think Mirren's great in that movie. I think a lot of people are great. I mean, she's very good. I also would have nominated Emily Watson. I think Emily Watson's so great in that movie. Maybe I'm a plebeian. Maybe I have basic tastes.

But I don't really understand how you can come away from that movie with more to say about Helen Mirren than you do about Maggie Smith. Like, this is, this, like, you know, it gets credited, I think, to Down Abbey more. But, like, this is the performance that's like, oh, yeah, she's still, like, giving this great characterization, like, toes to hair follicles. of like who this character is and then slamming those lines perfectly. Like, it's,

like, the Gosford Park is the performance that's like the reason for the next 20 years of her career. The thing about the Helen Mirren thing is

she's much more, that character is much more intrinsic to the plot such as it is of Gosford Park where all of a sudden, like, the big sort of reveal

that happened. The third act hinges on her. At the end of the, at the end of that movie sort of hinges on her. I think she carries that off quite well. Like, I do think they're both really, really good. But, like, yeah, like, Maggie Smith's performance in that movie is, like, that tees off the last 20 years of her career.

You know what I mean? Like, that sort of sets the template for the last 20 years of her career. And, like, for an Altman movie, she's such a quintessential Altman character, too. There's that line that they use for, like, every trailer for the movie where they're asking the film guy about his movie. And she's like, well, none of us are going to see it. He's like, well, I don't want to say too much. And she's like, oh, none of us will see it. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, yeah.

Like, I feel like that is so much of my personality where I'm like, yes, tell me about this awful thing I don't care about. Like, tell me. I think the other, if you look at, like, you talk about like the back of the baseball card stats for Maggie Smith. They're pretty gaudy. It's like 13 BAFTA nominations. She wins five BAFTAs in her career.

12 Golden Globe nominations. She wins three. 11 SAG nominations. She wins five. These are including ensembles. for daytime or sorry for primetime Emmy Awards three of which were for her performance

in Downton Abbey it is it's a formidable formidable career and best of all this is our sixth Maggie Smith movie that we've done

this is why I was like we gotta do Dame Maggie now so as we do anytime we reach the sixth movie for an actor on this podcast. I will devise a little quiz that I will give to Chris. Chris, I'm going to quiz you on the six movies that we've talked about with Maggie Smith. If you want to write these down, because one of the answers will be one of these six, one or more of these six. So we talked about ladies and lavender on

episode 69, nice. Tea with Mussolini, episode 131. Divine Secrets of the Yeah, Yeah, Sisterhood, Episode 1098, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Episode 233. Sister Act was episode 270, and now, Lady in the Van, Episode 311, we're down, down with the lady in the van. That was their song, right? 311 was down. No, that we have always been down, down, like that one. Is that 311? Yeah, I think so.

We had this whole conversation, listener, before we started. We did. We did. Of, like, is that a music group? Is that like a ska group? And then I was like, no, there's an R&B group that starts with a three. And we at least got to 112. 112 at 7.02 are both groups, but they're not 311.

Listeners. Maybe it's a song that starts doing that three. Hit us back with other songs and or groups that are just three digit numbers. And we'll see how it goes. All right. Chris, if you are ready, I'm going to give you. give you the Maggie Smith quiz. Are you ready? Very ready. Can I get the movie titles and can the listeners get the movie titles again?

Yes. Ladies in Lavender. Tea with Mussolini. Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood, the best exotic Marigold Hotel, Sister Act, and The Lady in the Van. What a lineup, to be honest. A lineup. A lot of words. A lot of wordy titles there, which I like. Also, like one of the biggest banger lineups of a six-timers we've ever had. Usually there's just like, For at least one forgotten crap. I mean, certainly the crap in this list is not forgotten, so we'll say that. Which of these is the longest? Marigold.

Marigold, 124 minutes. Which of these is the shortest? Cisteract. Cisteract in 100 minutes. Yes. Which of these got the best rotten tomatoes score? Is it also Best Exotic Marigold? It's not.

a pretty high one. It's not Yaya that got trashed. I'm willing to bet it's not Sister Act, though when you go that far back it's... Is it Lady in the Van? It's Lady in the Van at 89%. Wow. Crazy.

At 89% you said, right? Yes. Worst Rotten Tomato score of the six. Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhead. At 44% which is higher than I would have thought. Biggest box office domestic. Sister Act.

Sister Act, 138 million. I will say worldwide, best exact Merigold. Almost all of these movies, by the way, made a ton more money in overseas than they did in America, which makes a lot of sense when you look at what these movies are. Because they're all star vehicles. Even Lady in the Van is like her star. And it's like she's so, like these movies clean up in England. But anyway, yes, Sister Act, 138 million domestic. Lowest box office total domestic.

Lowest box office is Ladies and Lavender. $6.7 million, yes. All right. Even $6.7 million for that movie. Yep, yep, yep, it's amazing. Which movie was produced under the Disney umbrella? Cister Act. Cister Act, Buena Vista Productions.

Which movie was distributed by roadside attractions? Roadside attractions was... Distributed in the United States, I should say, by any roadside attractions. This is Sony classics. Mirigold is... Fox Searchlight, Disney is Sister Act, Warner's is Ya, yeah, yeah, so that leaves Ladies and Lavender and Tea with Musilini. Tea with Musilini was Lionsgate, so it's got to be Ladies and Lavender. It is Ladies and Lavender. Very good. Well deduced. Which movie has the same director as Mad Money?

Mad Money is, is that Nicholas Heightner? is it is it is it is it lady in the band it's not the lady in the band it's not okay mad money is who directed bad money is it tea with musilini not tea with musilini it's not a franco zeporelli movie although franco zeporelli's bad money would have been amusing um oh god then is it it it's is it sister act it's not sister act Damn. It's not John Madden. No, it is John Madden. It's, it's, it's, no, it's not John Madden. So that leads Ladies and Lavender and Yaya. It's Yaya? It is Yaya sisterhood. Callie Corey. Callie Corey directed that. I forgot she directed, um, well, I guess both of those movies. Yes, yes. Um, which movie has the same composer as Forget Paris?

Oh wow I love Forget Paris So that's a 90s movie We're probably getting close to the 90s So I'll say Ladies and Lavender It's not Ladies and Lavender Is it Lady in the Van It's not Lady in the Van

It's it Sister Act It is Sister Act Mark Shaman does the score Oh Didn't know that he did Forget Paris Mark Shaman did like

when Harry met Sally and like Yeah Which movie Did you see that? Those are the earrings I wanted Which movie has the same

screenwriter as Ticket to Paradise? Oh God Best Exotic Miragold Hotel Best Exotic Miragold Hotel Both written by Oll Parker Old Parker also directed Ticket to Paradise

Which movie features songs performed by Alison Krause Macy Gray and Tony Bennett, all produced by T-Bone Burnett. Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sister. Very good. What got it for you? T-Bone Burnett. Well, I mean, Alison Krause, but T-Bone Burnett.

Which two movies were not nominated for AARP Movies for Grownups Awards? Sister Act. Yes. And Best Exotic definitely won. Lady in the Band was nominated. Yeah, yeah, was probably nominated, and probably for Maggie. So I, I think Ladies and Lavender could have been, too. I guess I'm gonna say, ladies and Lavender?

Not Lady of Lavender. That was nominated for movies through Grand Ups. Ladies and Lavender was nominated for Judy Dutch. Yeah, yeah. No, yeah, yeah was nominated for Maggie Smith for breakaway performance and Ellen Burson and Jane's Warner for Best Grown Up Love Story. Um, what is the title that I am forgetting that we did then? It's not, it's not Marigold, it's not this. Or is it this?

No. This was nominated for, a lady in the van was nominated for, oh, I didn't write down what it was nominated for. Intergenerational story. But I think it was just for Maggie. I think it might have just been for Mac Yeah This is what happens Halfway through the game

I keep saying one movie This is why I tell you to write these down Because if you had written these down I usually do It's tea with Mussolini Which I think Tea with Mussolini Too early for the other 90s movie

I like that movie Which movie had five BFA nominations Best Exotic Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Yeah. I just wanted to say Bifa. Which movie was a teen choice award nominee? Best Exotic. Was not Best Exotic. Oh, it wasn't? No. It was the sister act? No. Teen Choice Awards did not exist in 1980. Yai. Yeah, yeah. Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood is nominated for Sandra Bullock. Yep. Yeah. Which movie was the only one of these six that was not released in either Taurus or Gemini seasons?

Lady in the Van. Lady in the Van. Lady in the Van was released in December. All of the other ones were released between April and May in the respective years. Which movie has IMDB keywords that include playwright, friendship between women, and religious confession. Divine Secrets of the Yeah, Yeah, Sisterhood. Very good. I thought I was going to fool you with religious confession and friendship between women, which are both Sister Act coded, as far as I'm concerned.

Which movie has IMDB keywords that include Smith and Dench, Art, and Male Nudity? Tea with Mussolini. Tea with Mussolini, again. I can't fool you with these. Son of a bit. You fooled me with that same movie earlier. I guess.

Which two movies feature stars of Alice doesn't live here anymore? So, Diane Ladd, Harvey Kytel, Jody Foster. Ellen Burstyn, obviously. So it's got to be Yahya. Yeah, yeah, Sisterhood is one of them, Ellen Burstyn. What's the other one? Um, Tuesday, uh, da-da-da-da-da.

Um, oh, Sister Act, because Harvey Kytel. Yeah, you sort of sped right past him. Which two movies on this list feature stars of Hope Floats. Uh, yeah, yeah. Sandra Bullock. And Harry Connick Jr. isn't in any of these? Is he a ladies in Lavender? Um, who else is in Hope Float?

Who's the mom in Hope Floats? I haven't seen Hope Floats maybe since college or high school. It's got to be whoever plays the mom. It's not. Jenna Rollins plays the mom. Oh, okay. It's great. It's someone who, even if you haven't seen the movie, is in the

trailer. Do you remember the trailer for Hope Floats? I weirdly have watched the trailer for Hope Floods a lot. Director Forrest Whitaker. Director Forrest Whitaker. So do you remember the setup, what the setup is for Hope Floats? Her husband cheats on her? Yes, but how does she find out her husband has cheated on her? She walks in on them?

It's a very 90s concept. She goes onto a talk show. Voicemail? Oh, a talk show. And her best friend reveals to her that she's been. So her best friend who I think is played by Rosanna Arquette reveals to her that she's been... And the host is...

And the host of the talk show is... The co-star who would conceivably be in... Not to you with Mussolini. Not Ladies and Lavender. Is it Sister Act? Yes. Do you want to take a guess? Kathy Nogimmy.

There we go. Yes. Bizarre. bizarre way to begin your movie, but is so nice, he's coded. Is it though? Is there anything here that's not conceivable? Well, what do you mean?

I mean, maybe for what the movie eventually reveals itself to be? It's just like it's so, it's such a 90s. It's so like, it's such a 90s way of beginning of your movie. It's just like, you know, remember when all these talk shows. Anyway, which two movies on this list feature stars of Mamma Mia? Here We Go again. Okay. Oh, here we go.

go again, specifically. Obviously, T with Mussolini and Share. And is Lily James in one of these? Is Lily James in Not Best Exotic? It's not

Lily James. It can't be Lily James. Julie Walters is got to be in one of them. You would think. It's not Julie Walters, okay. Um, I can't think that it's one of the guys. Is it one of the guys?

Colin Furfiz. It's absolutely the person you forget was in these movies. Oh. So it might be a guy. Yeah, but not the ones you're thinking. Not the dads. It's... Dominic Cooper is in Lady in the Van.

There you go. Dominic Cooper is in the van. Which of these movies opened the same weekend as The Avengers? Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Iconic counter-programming. Best Exotic Marriott Hotel. Which movie opened the same weekend as Triple X State of the Union? Lady in the Van.

Not Lady in the Van. Triple X State of the Union would have been an aunt. I guess maybe Yaya Sisterhood. Not Yaya. Sisterhood. Okay. Ladies in Lavender. Ladies and Lavender.

Hon, what do you want to see? Triple X State of the Union or Ladies in Lavender? Ladies and Lavender every day of the week. I'm just imagining the negotiations happening between married couples. About which film did Roger Ebert say, The trailer has high energy and whammo punchlines. The movie is sort of low-key and contemplative and a little too thoughtful. Yeah.

Not Yaya. I can't imagine anybody calling Yaya sisterhood low-key. Lady in the van. No. Best Exotic Miracle Hotel. No. Ladies and Lavender, I can't imagine punchlines in a... It can't be sister act because anyone calling it low-key is insane.

Is it sister-act? It's sister-act. Isn't that a wild thing... Is that a wild thing to say about... Easter act? Roger. Too contemplated? Roger, what are we doing? What are we doing here, man?

Which of these six films did Rex Reed call? A film of unusual elegance and artistry? Ladies and Lavender. Yeah. Good for you, Rex. About which film did Lisa Schwartzbaum say, not one character in this ovarian jungle

is particularly likable. Yeah, yeah, sisterhood. Lisa, come. I love Lisa so much, but sometimes it's like Lisa. Ovarian jungle. My goodness, Lisa Schwartzbaum. About which film did Peter Travers say,

Maggie Smith can do anything, even save this rickety vehicle from a case of the terminal cutts almost. Best Exotic Maravode Hotel. No. Lady in the Van. The lady in the van, in fact. And that is the conclusion of our Maggie Smith quiz. Well, we did it.

We love you, Dame Maggie Smith. So she's nominated for the Golden Globe Award. in a real all over the map kind of a category that year. She's nominated alongside Lily Tomlin in Grandma, who was the representative of the older woman self-actualizing genre that year. Amy Schumer in Trainwreck, who is the sort of like, Amy Schumer and Trainwreck and Melissa McCarthy and Spy, who sort of are both the box office success mainstream comedy,

nominees. I think Amy Schumer was the one who got all of the attention or more of the attention because she's in the Apatow movie. She's the hot comedian at the time. I think Melissa McCarthy in both the heat and spy is like got a lot of attention and is still somehow wildly underrated as like a comedic showcase. Like those two movies back to back were she's so fucking good. in both of those movies. Like, I can't even, I can't even. We don't talk about the heat at all. And we should, because she and Bullock fucking rule in that thing.

Like, it's so good. And then the whole, the category is one by Jennifer Lawrence in joy, a performance that I think is good, but also at the time, people, like, that was a punchline of a movie and a performance. People were so sick of people, when I say people, I mean, people. people you and I know and follow on social people were sick of David O. Russell. People were sick of the tandem of Jennifer. More than the people we know were sick of this. This was yet another movie where Jennifer Lawrence was seemingly playing a character who was a good, you know,

five to ten years older than she was. And five. Five. Well, she sort of starts younger in this. I feel like this movie. Well, that's fair. That's fair. That's fair. It's not as bad as American Hustle where I feel like she's definitely playing somebody who's like quite older than she's. I mean, Elizabeth Taylor and who's afraid of Virginia, well, 15 to 20 years too young, and it is the best screen performance of all time. I think Joy is a fascinating failure of a movie. I don't know if I've ever really talked to you about Joy very much. Joy is way more interesting than I think we gave it the latitude for. I wouldn't even go so far as I say failure.

I think there are things about Joy that really don't work. I think Lawrence is holding up a lot of that movie with both hands. Like, I think even though the one clip that my friends and I always sort of. talk about it on a one group chat. The one where it looks like Jennifer Lawrence is actively forgetting her line. Where she goes, like pulls in a close-up. Do not speak about my business.

Never speak on my behalf. About my business again. Too much, like, without me. Like, she like takes a pause and she literally like finds the line in the middle of it. It's really, really funny. It's really, really funny. And yet, this is also a movie where Isabella Rossellini says to Jennifer Lawrence, it's essentially like inside you are two wolves.

But it's, she gives you that she's just like, You are in a room and there is a gun on the table. And the only other person in the room is an adversary in commerce. Only one of you can prevail. Yet, you have protected your business and Morris is money. Do you pick up to gun, Troy? I will never forget the phrase adversary. I'm just saying if people think that there is not enough screen time for Isabella Rossellini this year in Conclave, a movie I have not seen.

And I do not care if I do not like it or not. Way more screen time in Joy than she did. Just roll in the Joy screen time to that. Like, nominate her for Joy for Conclave. Play the clip from Joy did the Oscars when you nominated her for Conclave. It's fine. It's just so brief in Conclave. Like, I love her.

but like, oh my gosh. Anyway. Let her bring her goats to the Oscars. Anyway, Lawrence wins the Golden Globe en route to getting a Best Actress nomination. And I think a lot of people kind of bitched about it at the time. I can't remember who was the person who didn't get nominated who. The 2015 Oscar race for Best Actress was so weirdly complicated by the fact that Rooney

Mara and Alicia Vakander were both straddling the lead and supporting line. So I'm just trying to think. of like who else. People were bitching about it because they were like, well, maybe they would have been nominated and leave. They wouldn't have. Maybe V. Cantor, but at that point, here's my thing is that my best actress, who I would have given the award to that year, is Runeumara and Carol. Like, that would have been my win that year. And maybe that's me being contrarian and me being like- I generally agree, but like sometimes it's like people also just don't accept things for the way that they are currently

working. Totally. But I also feel like, I think it's somewhat galling to look at Carol and be anything like, this is a movie with two lead actresses. You know what I mean? I know it's called Carol and like one of them is

Cape Blanchard, who's a bigger star and a bigger presence. The closing emotional arc more so belongs to Carol than it does for Therese. Like, sure. It's bullshit, but it's following. a certain logic that I don't agree with, but it is. Like, it's not as egregious as, like, Emma Stone and the favorite.

Like, that is, like, that is the bar for egregious to me. Oh, I, we should maybe do... She's a protagonist of the movie. We should maybe do a page... I know you hate talking about category fraud, but we should maybe do a Patreon episode that is dedicated to, like, the most egregious to least egregious. Like, I definitely think she's the lead of the movie, but I feel like, in terms of, like, most egregious, I think of things like Jamie Fox and collateral.

for Haley Joel Osment in the Sixth Sense. You know what I mean? Like that kind of a thing. Haley Stein. I think Emma Stone is as egregious, but more than those. I mean, she's definitely the lead of that, one of the leads of that movie. I mean, the Jamie Fox one is like, wouldn't it be fun if we gave him a second nomination this year? Because we know he's winning so much, which is like true, but they were never going to give him the win.

So it's like, whatever, it's fun. Dumb Dumb Brain. He's more of a lead in that movie than Tom Cruise's. Like, it's dumb, dumb, brain. Anyway, Ethan Hawken Training Day. Ethan Hawken Training Day, totally. All right. At the BAFTAs, once again, it's a sort of like, as it was at the Sags,

Brie Larson, K. Planchett, Sertia Ronan, are the core. And then Alicia Vecander, as she was at the Globes, is nominated in lead again. So Alicia Vakander doesn't show up as a supporting actress until, I guess, SAG, right? She must have been nominated in supporting it SAG. Critics choice? Who knows? Honestly, who knows? No one knows.

It's the Wild West. No one can ever know. But so Kate Winslet, who was my choice to win best support post-supporting actors that year for Steve Jobs, was like every time that Alicia wasn't in the category, Kate was like, I'll take that. I'll take that golden gloat. Joe, it's because when you are a father. It is supposed to be the best part of you. And it is, wait, it's the first part of you. And it is, wait, it's, it's the funniest construction of that sentence.

It has taken me, it has taken me 20 years of heartache to find out that for you, Steve, it is the worst. A great performance, a great performance captured on camera of someone who just so happens to be forgetting their line. I love you, Kate. We love you, Kate. So anyway, Maggie Smith for the lady in the van is probably, I would say, anywhere from 7th to 10th on this list in terms of votes, right? Probably closer to 7th, to be honest. Probably. Probably so.

It just depends on where you feel like the split in votes for Rooney and Elysia ended up. Alicia probably because she had the ex-Machina performance, she's nominated for Bafta in both. She's nominated in lead for the Danish girl and for supporting for ex-Machina. I think the better... Did she have another? It was testament of youth. that year. Testament of you.

Axe Machina, I think, is her better performance. I think that's a movie. I saw it again recently in the last couple of years and like, oh, this movie holds up. Good. I'm glad. And I think she's quite good in it. I think she's, I mean, there's a lot of things wrong with the Danish girl. She's certainly not like an exception I would make to what's wrong about the Danish girl.

It's a weird. It's one of those Oscar wins that you can sort of easily put. point to and be like this was a bad one just because like nobody likes that movie and her career and that win has nothing to do with that movie and her career stalled out after that so it's like it's very easy to just be like why why does elisa vicander have to have an oscar she doesn't wouldn't it be better if runny mara had an Oscar wouldn't it be better if kate had a second Oscar one that people wouldn't hate like wouldn't it be nice if she would have won an Oscar the same year as leo yeah well yeah that's true

That would have been a good photo op. Anyway, what else to say about that best actress lineup before we move on to the Heitner and Bennett of it all? I don't know if the bench is so much, like, small or if it's just diffused? Because, like, there is a world that exists where Lily Tomlin gets nominated for Grandma. Not in this year. Not really in the realm of possibility that year. but, like, there's a realm that exists. I'm surprised that there wasn't...

Who distributed Grandma? Because, like, I'm surprised at... Sony Classics. Sony Classics in the summer. Okay. Because, like, there's a way in which you package that as a career honor for Lily Tomlin. I swear to God, if Grandma is not a contemporary movie, if Grandma is a period piece, even if it's said in, like, the 80s, I wonder if she's got a better chance. I think there is a bias sometimes for contemporary.

comedy because it feels a little less there's less snob appeal. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I think you're on to it. I still think that movie needs to be better for her to get nominated. So my best actress list that year, he's a lot close, decently close to the Oscar. I have Kate Blanchett. I have Runei Mara. I have Charlotte Rampling. I have Brie Larson.

I have search is on that list as well. Jennifer Lawrence is sort of down that list. Two that were definitely in the conversation. I don't know how high. Nina Haas and Phoenix, I think, was mentioned a lot. Critically, but I don't know if that was ever a real thing for awards. I agree.

The big question mark, I think that just really didn't actually show up anywhere except for critics' choice. that was like, well, where did they rank in the in the voting is Charlie's Theron for Fury Road? Oh, that's one that kept showing up in like articles when people would be like, would talk about like. She got a Critics Choice nominated. She did get Critics Choice nominated, but in a way where it was like,

that was, that's an example I would show of like Critics' Choice not being as on the pulse as they thought. I think that's a, that's one, that's a, that's a nomination you get by looking at the charts of who people thought were like in contention because she didn't really show up anywhere else. Yeah, but I would also believe a world where because that's a movie that was gaining momentum up until the very deadline of final voting, I would believe that she could have made a run for like sixth place for that.

I think six is a little high, but I also don't know who else I would say is in six. I also feel like somebody who was in the sort of miasma of that, that I don't know where they would have placed. is Emily Blunt and Secario. Sikario was a movie that was sort of all over the point. She got like nothing. She did, but that movie was constantly in the conversation on the edges of a lot of different categories. So, like, I could see her being somewhere on there.

In terms of, like, movies will probably end up doing on this podcast at some point that, like, didn't really go anywhere. Sandra Bullock for Our Brand is Crisis. Somewhat surprisingly, Juliet Benosh didn't get much. much traction for Clouds of Sils Maria, even though critics really loved that movie. Tao Zhao for Mountains Made Apart, I loved that year. Who else is on my, my, I'm Blythe Danner, and I'll see you in my dreams. I fucking loved that performance.

We'd probably be on my ballot. Bleaker Street movie. Greta Gerwig for Mistress America. Again, these are not things that I think anybody voted for, but I think I wanted to shout them out. Margo Robbie for Zeves for Zachariah, Sinsay, by bet canudson for Duke of Burgundy. There were some very good actress performances.

There's a not zero chance. There is a higher than zero percentage possibility that sixth place was Helen Mirren in Woman England. Honestly, you are right. That is, I agree with that. I agree with you. Yes. Call us crazy.

No. I think we probably said as much when we did our episode on Women and Gold. Nicholas Heitner and Ellen Bennett. it. Less so because we are here in America, but I imagine in England, this is a sort of synonymous with like theater success tandem, right? This is a playwright and director who have collaborated many a time to great success, obviously, you know, winning big with the history boys, but it goes back to the early 90s for the madness of George the 3rd, which was turned into a film called The Madness of King George,

which was nominated for four Academy Awards, Best Actor for Nigel Hawthorne, supporting actress for Helen Mirren, her first Oscar nomination. Nigel Hawthorne gets outed on the campaign trail for the movie. How did that happen again, remind me? I forget. I think it was just like passive reporting basically said that he was gay

when he was never in the public, though I think he had since come out and said, I was kind of prepared for this to be revealed. build over the process. Do you remember which one Oscar the Madison of King George did win? Art direction. Yes, art direction, very good.

It also won the Bifa for outstanding British film. We love a Bifa. Theater-wise, though... A mirror-in-one can, best actress. They had... Nicholas Heitner had been Tony nominated for directing Miss Saigon, which was a 11-time Tony nominee

that still lost Best Musical to the Will Rogers Follies, which to me seems so weird in retrospect. Miss Saigon is such one of those, like, big, huge musicals. But there was, like, mounting dissent against these massive musicals, too, because I don't think Le Miz might have won best musical, but, like, it starts with Le Miz and Phantom. They're like, get that giant helicopter off of my stage. Do we want something?

We want Follies. We want Real Rogers Follies. He's, Hightner's nominated. for the Tony again in 94 for Carousel, which was Audra McDonald's first Tony Award. If you ever want to play trivia, Broadway trivia, Nicholas Heitner directed Audra McDonald to her first Tony. Alan Bennett, meanwhile, writes the 1990 play version of The Wind and the Willows. He writes a play in 1992 called Talking Heads, 1999, The Lady in the Van. So Lady in the Van predates the History Boys by, you know, five years, has also written plays like The Habit of Art and People and Cocktail Sticks and Chris, Alleluia, the play that would go on to be adapted by Richard Iyer for film in which fooled us into thinking at Tiff that one year that it was going to be a chill, nice British movie.

and it ended up being about Jennifer Saunders' murderous... Just one of us spontaneously go, no, when it happens. Yes, it did. When the shift happens. Nicholas Heitner, as far as a film director, though, it's a more interesting filmography. Like, you think this is not somebody you know. And then, beyond the madness of King George,

he directs the adaptation of the Crucible in 1996, which had huge expectations. We should definitely do an exception on that movie, just because of where the expectation. It only gets two Oscar nominations. It was expected to be a major contender in 1996. So I think that probably hurts him. Although he then makes the object of my affection in 1998, which I never realized was a Heitner movie.

Center Stage, I totally had slipped my mind that he's the director of Center Stage. And then the History Boys in 2006 and The Lady in the Van in 2015. Thoughts on the Heitner filmography in general. Fascinating. Fascinating, right? Because he's not really, he's not known as an Autour. He's known as somebody who works with an Autour. He is in a sort of

professional partnership with Alan Bennett, but it's not like Nicholas Heitner is making Nicholas Heitner movies. And yet he's working in the types of films that are often auteur driven, which is sort of

award. Theater adaptations. Awardsy movies, theater adaptations, or like, romantic. comedy is like, you know, the object of my affection or something like that. So it's... I remember nothing about the object of my affection, Joe. Could you give us 30 seconds on how the object of my affection stands up as a gay guy movie? I haven't seen it since 1998.

Like, genuinely haven't seen it since it was brand new. But this is the movie where it's essentially Jennifer Aniston is best friends with Paul Rudd, who is gay. And then decides to try and turn him and it works. And I think it's one of those ones like, what if you could like... Oh, so it's not going to hold up well. What if you could like, you know, have a relationship with your gay best friend? But it's like, it's treated very sort of romantically. As far as I remember it, I would be...

Also, who wrote that? Hold on. I feel like that might be a Don Roos. Also, the object of my affection does sound like a gay guy way of saying boyfriend, girlfriend, like... Sure. If you don't want to say significant other... No, no, God. It's a Wendy Wasserstein screenplay adapted from a book. So it was Stephen McCauley wrote a novel called The Object of My Affection that Wendy Wasterstein, who, you know, the Heidi Chronicles is Wendy Wasterstein, adapted.

She's another theater, has since died. And then Nicholas Heitner directed it. So like, this is a very interesting pedigree. I might need to watch this movie again because I maybe don't remember it. Also, Nigel Hawthorne is in this movie. 100% likelihood that it is on Hulu right now. It's very true. It's very possible.

Listen to this cast. Paul Rod, Jennifer Anderson, Alan Alda, Alison Janie, Tim Daly, we talked about wings recently, Steve Zon, Nigel Hawthorne, Gabriel mocked, other suits from suits, who's married to Jacinda Barrett? Hayden Panetteer. The credit is Hayden Panetteer as mermaid. She must have been like a teeny baby Audra McDonald as wedding singer I'm fascinated I gotta see this again

It's been too long All right To pull us back We gotta talk about the movies for grownups Best Actress lineup Obviously This is 2015 is like The Olympics of movies for grown up

Best Actors nominees Unfortunately they're all white But like truly like It was a year to be an actress of age I see you correcting that in the spreadsheet right now I cannot have a typo in my own listener instead of woman in gold

it said woman I'm gold which I need to say I just said woman in gold like I'm German or something like that Shrecken or whatever Woman in gold but um no I've read it as woman I'm gold it needs a comma and apostrophe but

woman woman I'm gold what is the plot of woman I'm gold It's a self-actualizing It's a self-actualizing man Who sort of Liberates himself From a toxic A toxic marriage

And comes out and says Woman, I'm gold You may be silver, you may be bronze But woman, I'm gold I feel like it's a self-actualizing Retreat Of self-actualization for women to self-actualize.

Yeah, yeah. All right. Anyway. Okay, so the nominees were, obviously, Dame Maggie. Lily Tomlin wins for Grandma. Blyde Dana, I'll see you in my dreams. Helen Mirren, woman in gold, and Charlotte Rampling in 45 years. Who's your pick?

Who do you vote for? I mean, my pick is Charlotte Rambling, just on the level of performance. But I don't think it's spiritually right to do the, like, critically correct thing. You don't want to give your vote to the only Oscar nominee in the... Yeah, yeah. That's not what these awards are here for. Honestly, I'm giving it to Blythe Danner because that's a great performance

in... That's who I'm voting for. Movies for grown-ups bait. It's kind of... I love Lily Tomlin in grandma, and I love Lily Tomlin in general. It's kind of spiritually and cosmically wrong that Blythe Danner did not win an AARP Movies for Grownups Award for I'll see you in my dreams.

That is the ideal state for that performance. So, alas. A bittersweet movie about what it's like to fuck Sam Elliott. Like, I want to fuck Sam Elliott. Before we move on to the IMDB game, I think we have to answer the question that I don't think either of us have answered, which is, is Maggie Smith good in the lady in the van? Yes, she is. Just give me like two sentences on like the quality of her performance, because I don't disagree with you.

Would I give her an Oscar nomination no, because I would give this movie zero Oscar nominations? complimentary, but I do think that, like, there is a taste line where this becomes offensive, like, on one side, like the movie becomes offensive and on the other side, it's the movie trying to be the movie it's trying to be. And I think that she very comfortably sits in the movie trying to be what it's trying to be while also giving a full portrait of this woman who at times can be tragic and scary and sometimes can be. funny and can be smarter than everybody else in her community and all of those things. I don't think that's as easy as it might sound to be, but one of the great things about Dame Maggie Smith, she made these roles look so easy, and she is one of our great screen stars and screen presences of all time. I think because of this movie existed in the sort of Dowager Countess era of her career, I think I think for a lot of this movie, I sort of look at what she's doing as, you know, sort of easy old lady burlesque, you know, a little bit in a different way than she does on Jonathan Abbey.

And then there's a point in the last sort of third of this movie where, you know, we see her playing the piano and then we see her in the van talking to Alan Bennett about how she used to be able to play and how. you know, she has this line which she said, I had it in my bones and this sort of like, it's completely red meat for me. Like, I love shit like that. I love people talking about like, you know, um, I used to, I used to be great. You know what I mean? Like that kind of a thing, I love shit like that. And she really knocks that scene out of the park. Um, and that sort of like helped me characterize the rest of the performance. Uh, I think she is, uh, I would say she is quite good. And again, as you say, that's sort of what she was delivering. throughout her whole career. She was an actress who could, you know, play a lot of different

tones and, you know, one of our best, one of our best actresses. All right, Chris, why don't you tell our listeners what the IMDB game is and how we play it? Every episode, we end with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try to guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for. If any of those titles are television, and voice-only performances or non-acting credits will mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue.

If that's not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints. Joseph. Yes. How are we doing this round? Well, I'm going to give you the choice to give first or guess first. I'll give first this time.

All right, you will give first this time. A guess second. Who do you have for me? As I quoted earlier in the episode, I have chosen for you, noted shit-taker on the Harry Potter series, Ms. Miriam Margulies. Okay. Excellent interview guest. Yes. I'm going to guess Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stone. Incorrect.

I'm going to guess the Age of Innocence. age of innocence is correct which she thought she should have been supporting actress nominated can't doubt her for it can't like fault her for that um thinking that winona is the lead of the movie i think is a stretch but yeah um all right miriam margolese i'm not going to guess any of the other harry potter movies although there's a chance that it's she's mentioned for the second or third one um You know what, no, I am going to say Henry apart in the Chamber of Secrets. Incorrect. What are my years? Your years are,

oh, I apologize. I should maybe give you a second chance before giving you these years because one of these is a voice. Oh. We just blew straight into it. I apologize. Is it James and the Giant Peach?

It is James and the Giant Peach. So we'll say that that counts before you got your years. Okay. Your two years are 1996 and 2011. Okay. 96 and 11.

Is 96 like Emma? No. 2011. 211. 96. 96. Is 96? I'm trying to think of like other...

Is it... No, that's 95. I honestly thought this was going to be the first thing you were going to guess. Really? Okay. Yes. Which in and of itself should be a hint. It should be. Um...

Miriam Margulies, 1996. I imagine it's like an English costume drama. Yes and no. Is it... It's English but not a costume drama, or it's a costume drama but not English? Yes and no What the fuck? I would have thought this was the first thing you would guess because it is Joseph Reed Corps.

It is like... Really? Yes. Yes. What are my 1996 Joseph Reedcore movies? I mean, of maybe the five movies, I would say first, are like Joseph Reed core. This would be in the top five. 96

Where am I 96? Oh boy I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I need a hint I need a hint You're maybe thinking you're this is the problem You're thinking on the right lines But you're thinking on the wrong lines maybe Of the tenor The

The kind of movie you expect her to pop up up in is both correct and incorrect for this movie. So it's not like a, it's not like a Tony, you know, well-regarded. It's not The Age of Innocence. It's Casina? No. No. That's 95.

You said Emma first. Emma is by one of the most famous authors of all time. Uh-huh. But I would not compare this movie necessarily to that author. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I got it. I got it. You're right. I just, I think of so many other people in this, but she's great in this. It's William Shakespeare's Romeo plus Juliet. I'm sorry, could you please give the government name of this? Oh, are you saying that I need to say it's Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's

Romeo plus Juliet? Well, I was waiting for the plus. Oh, I said plus. Oh, I didn't hear the plus. Sorry. I will never not. Last movie, 2011, you're going to be so mad. Because it's like ridiculous that this is in her known for? Oh wait, is it a later Harry Potter? Is it fucking like Deathly Hallows Part 2? It's Deathly Hallows Part 2. Mother. I'm pretty sure the one that she shows up in is Chamber of Secrets. I mean, she shows up, she definitely shows up in the first one. She has a little bit more to do in the second one. I think the thing with Harry Potter people that you maybe can't tell what they're in is you just guess Deathly Hallows Part 2. I think that's true except for the fact that like I wasn't sure if she was in Deathly Haller. I guess

they bring everybody back. But I think... She would be very dismayed regardless for this movie showing up in her known for, though, because as she said, Deva Children. Yes. All right.

So, for you, interestingly enough, I chose one of Miriam Margulies' arch enemies. I went down the Nicholas Heitner road. Winona Ryder. To The Crucible, and we've never done Winona Ryder before, wildly enough. Oh, wow. Okay.

Winona Ryder currently has a ton of movies on the channel. She has her own little page and everything. I was like, Joe's going to be so happy. And I sent it to him, didn't get a single damn comment. I probably missed you sending it to me. So send it to me again. Winona. This is interesting because do I think her Oscar nominations are there?

I should put a pin in that. And I'm going to say Beetlejuice. No. Not Beto juice. Heather's. No, not Heather's. Strike, strike. Wow.

So your years are 1990, 1994, 1997, and 1999. Wow, so not even Black Swan. Right. 99 is Mr. Deeds? No. Okay. That was like post-2000, I think.

Can you give me those years again? 90, 94, 97, 99. Our quintessential 90s child. Is Mermaids, 1990? Yes, Mermaids is the 1990. Okay. 94 is not age... No, age of innocence is 93.

Little women. Little women, 94. Okay. 97 and 99. Too late for reality bites. Wow. It's like so much of the good stuff isn't there. Black Swans, not even there.

It's weird. No Edward Scissorhands. What did she do in 99? That's so interesting. It is interesting that with 90 and 94, you guessed correctly both of those times when you could just as easily have said, Edward Cisorhands and Reality Bites. Exactly. And those aren't there. Weird that none of the Tim Burton's are there.

Very. What the hell is her 99 movie? It's not Mr. Deeds. I'm trying to think of 99 movies. I will say she's overshadowed in both of these things, but they're not obscure. At that point, definitely. But they're not obscure.

They're not, like, obscure by any means. But, like, she's overshadowed in each of them by, like, one co-star. Well, in one of them, I'd say she's technically overshadowed by two co-stars, but we'll get into that. God, neither of them are lost souls. No. See, 97, I'm just like not even placing anything. Is it like Boys? No, Boys is like

95, I want to say. Yeah. These aren't independents. They're studio movies. She's first filled in one and second build in the other. Yeah. Is one of them a rom-com? No. Oh,

August in New York? No, that was like, oh, that was 2000. 2000. Currently on the channel, August in New York. Okay, what am I forgetting? One of them is an Oscar winner. Okay, in 97 or 99. It's got to be the 97 is an Oscar winner?

It's the 99. No, nothing won Oscars in 97 besides Titanic and... That's, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So 99 Oscar winners. It's not Cider House Rules. It's not American Beauty. It's what else would have won? It was in that year.

Was it winning? It was obviously winning below the line, yes? Or is it supporting actor? Support. Oh, it's Girl Interrupted. did. Why did that take so long? Because she's so overshadowed in that movie by Angelina Jolie. She's on the damn, the poster is half of her face. But she's, but people remember that as an Angelina Jolene movie, even though like Winona fought for years to get that

movie made. Maybe I should check myself because you say that she's overshadowed and I am immediately thinking of movies with men. Oh, oh. Well, the movie you're missing is not a movie with men. It is a movie with two women first build. Ooh. This is like pre-practical magic. Two women above the title. This is just pre-practical magic. Practical magic was 98. But is it, is it Halloween-y? Is it fall? Is it? It is, but not in the way of practical magic. Yeah, it's not witch. You would watch it. You would watch it. It would fit in well with a Halloween horror watch.

because it is a horror movie. Yeah. With two women. Yeah. With Winona. Oh, God, I'm so close. What is this? I think the original idea for this movie was for Winona to sort of take the hand off of a franchise, and it did not work out.

Oh. That I don't know if that'll help. Because it's It's not IP, but it's based on a book? No, it's, it's a venerable franchise. There was a installment of it this year, in fact. Oh. Is it period?

Not, no, no. Is it on period? No, it's, I mean, it's not said in the present day, but it's not a period piece. Sure. And there was a version of this IP made this year as a movie. What movies in the vein of what I'm describing would have had female leads? Nancy Drew. No, no, no.

What did I say about October? Monster movies. Yes, yes. Monster movies with two women That had Winona Ryder in it It's not Godzilla Godzilla was 98 anyway It's not that kind of a monster

Well Oh is it a it's It's too late for Bram Stoker's Dracula Right But is it a vampire Is it a werewolf It's not the mummy It's

But it is like a classic universal monster. No. Nope, nope, nope, nope. But it is a brand of monster. It's not a period piece because it's not said in the past. It's set in the future. Yeah. Oh, she's in like, oh, it's Alien Resurrection.

Alien Resurrection. Yes. Yes. I hate that that's on her known. She's overshadowed by both Sigourney and also, I would argue the weird, awful alien hybrid creature with human eyes. It's horrible, horribly, that gets referenced in Alien Romulus this year. You liked Alien Romulus, sort of, right? No.

Oh, okay. I was bored. I mostly didn't either. I didn't like it. All right. That is our episode, interesting IMDB game for Winona. I would not have chosen. We both had major stumbling blocks, which I think is most fun to listen to.

So there you go. All right, listeners, that is our episode. want more. That's Had Oscar Buzz. You can check out the Tumblr at ThisHadoscarbuzz.com. You should also follow our Twitter account at Had underscore Oscar Buzz. Our Instagram at This Had Oscar Buzz and our Patreon at Patreon. Chris, where can the listeners find more of you? You can find me on Twitter and Letterboxed at Chris V File. That's F-E-I-L. I am on Twitter and letterboxed at Joe Reed, Reed, spelled R-E-I-D. I am also hosting a podcast called to me, myself, and I, where I am going film by film. through the career of the woman who brought Elizabeth Sparkle to vibrant life on screen, Miss Demi Moore. The podcast is available exclusively on Patreon, so you can and should go subscribe at patreon.com slash DemiPod.

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