This Had Oscar Buzz - 312 – Labor Day

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

With Saturday Night currently in theaters, we are revisiting the films of Jason Reitman for one of his biggest flops. Adapted from the novel by Joyce Maynard, 2013’s Labor Day casts Kate Winslet as a grieving mother who falls in love with the escaped convict (played by Josh Brolin) who hides out in her and her son’s home. The … Continue reading "312 – Labor Day"

Chris, the Vulture Movies Fantasy League, is rolling right along in its earliest weeks. We have a live season on our hands. We have movies accumulating points. Not exactly starting with much fanfare as Joker Folly Adieu. Joker follies apart at the box office. Wow, someone's making a variety headline right there. There we go. You're welcome.

So we figured what we would give you the update on is we would give you the top 10 most drafted movies. And you can see from your leagues, if any of these are among yours, if you have decided to be special and maybe get points that other people are not going to be getting. I also have to do a quick box office Mia Kulpa, which is I didn't know about the terrifier movies. So I didn't make Terrifier three draftable. Not real movies. Except that this thing's making. Like $20 million this weekend, so I'm sorry. Nobody could drafts Terrifier for the box-ups points. Don't apologize. That movie is about her mind-hoffing its way into my life this week,

and that's all there is to it. Okay. Not real movies. They clearly are. Clearly lots of people are seeing them. I'm very distressed by this. All right. Joe, I have to say, I was not surprised to see the most drafted movie in the spot of most drafted movies. Anora is our number one with a bullet. We have a almost 15,000 entries, over 5,000 of them have Enora on them. So over one-third of rosters have Enora on them. I thought that the number two movie would be the number one movie. I thought that the Brutalist at $10 was going to be like the hot ticket. It's pretty hot. 4,228 rosters support the Brutalist. So if you have one or both of those movies,

you are in very good competition. I was surprised by the third one until I realized that like fans are fans. Sometimes you just want to have, you know, your favorite thing on your roster and for a lot of people. Sometimes box office points are a thing. Wicked, okay. People are going for them. This is the other thing is I think I may be underestimating how big the Wicked box office will be because so many musicals have disappointed recently. And I'm not maybe realizing that like Wicked isn't just a musical. It's also like Wine Mom Central. and it's not just like Broadway, like, theater kids. It's like, it's a wine mom movie.

It's toured the country seven times over, you know, people in Montana know what the wicked is. Everyone knows it. Everyone's seen it. Everyone wants to see this movie. So, and now they're finally admitting in the trailers that they're singing in it. So, my goodness, it's even crazier. Dune Part 4 is the pricest movie in the top 10. Gladiator 2 does not show up in the top 10.

Do you par what? Did I say Dune Part 4? At number four. Sorry, Dune Part 2 is number four on the list. And, yeah, the big sort of the priciest one in the top 10, Gladiator 2, just outside the top 10. But a lot of people saw Dune Part 2 and we're like, listen, we know how these tech categories work.

It's going to get all those nominations. Biggest surprise from me in the top 10 is Nosferatu at number 5. Robert Eggers' Christmas Day release, Nasferatu, on 3,014 rosters. At a what dollar buy? At a $8 buy, I'm pretty sure it was. I also think that's maybe a fan's going to fan. Maybe. But I also feel like.

I think there's just, there's a lot of possibility and like nobody's refuted that possibility yet because nobody's seen this movie yet. I think with that trailer, it looks way more. conventional than a regular Robert Eggers movie. So I think you're right on the possibility. I flirted with the idea of putting it on my own roster before ultimately deciding against it. Number six, Moana 2, which was, yes, originally going to be a Disney Plus movie and now is going to theaters. But people really like Moana. I think the success of Inside Out too is reminding me that like, if you give Disney fans and Pixar fans more of the thing that they already really like,

they're going to come back for it. And I also feel like this is a, you know, a contender for possibly a nomination for the animated Oscar, possibly. I know that these aren't Lin-Manuel Miranda songs in Moana, too, but there are still songs. So we'll see how they go. Saturday night, number seven. Currently bottoming out at the box office. I mean, that's not entirely a surprise to me. Not entirely a surprise, no. And this was another $8 buy, so it wasn't super pricey.

Conclave at number eight. Conclave, what did I say? Conclave was a $20 buy, I believe. I believe Conclave was in that range. So people are like paying a decent amount for it, but I think Conclave is one of those movies that is just going to like show up on long lists all through the season. I don't know how many things it'll win, but like it's going to be in the conversation, I think, throughout the season.

Number nine, the intrepid folks who drafted Joker. Folly Adieu, 2,738. Even when we first opened the rosters to be drafted, there was already bad buzz out of Venice.

So, God bless the faith that you folk had in this movie to overcome its initial poor reviews, but... Fortunately, drafting it

was a folly a you. That is the case. You're welcome. Number 10, though it's not, it's currently racking up box office dollars, but unfortunately it opened too soon to rack up box office points for you.

It's the wild robot. And so we are hoping that the wild robot is an awards contender throughout the season and that you can get points for that. So, um, how many of these are on your personal team?

I have a Nora. I have the brutalist. And that is it. What about you? I have a Nora. I have the brutalist. And I have the wild robot. You do have the wild robot.

Very good. What do I think this means for my chances? Not very good things. Because I do think there is some strategy that you want to have things that aren't as draftable because then you're getting points that other people are not getting. I think there's a delicate balance because as we saw in the stats last year, If you did not have poor things on your roster, you were toast. You did not, you know, it wasn't happening for you.

So I think there's- I don't have Amelia Perez though, which surprisingly, to me, is not on this top 10. It's just outside. That was another one that I feel like was in the top 15. I think that could be a big difference for you. I think that could be a difference maker for you. So best of luck to you. Listeners, feel free to comment back at us on what your

roster is, where you overlap with this, you can check out your team standings. There's currently a 2,738 way tie for first place in the Fantasy League, which is everybody who got box office points for Joker. I don't think that list will change because still the only thing that's earning points, I believe, I haven't, we're recording this on Saturday, so we haven't gotten the full box office report. We've got a week and a half-ish until Gotham nominations. Oh, God, it's starting so early, maniacs. You can go to vulture.com slash movies-league and check out where your team stands and follow us all along. You can also sign up for the newsletter that I send out every week and stay updated that way. And

now moving on to your regularly scheduled Oscar both. Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. We want to talk to Marilyn Hack, Millen Hack and French. I'm from Canada water. Hello, police looking for, Frank Chambers, an inmate at Stinchfield prison serving 18 years for murder. I'd be grateful if you let me stay till nightfall. Isn't it against a lot?

If someone were to come by, it would need to look like I kidnapped you. How do I know you won't hurt us? I'm stronger than you think. I've never intentionally hurt anyone in my life. Hello, and welcome to the This Had Oscar Bros. Podcast. the only podcast working through our maybe problematic script with our inner saboteur. 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're here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here as always with my surrogate pie daddy, Joe Reed. Let's everybody just stick our dirty hands into this pot. a peach pie goop. I could have called you like a New Jersey peach. Like, this takes place in like Jersey, right?

Or Pennsylvania. Well, they go to, um, friendlies, which makes me feel like it takes place in Massachusetts. But there are, of course,

friendlies. Trust and believe. I was like, they're at a friendlies. Oh, we have friendlies in, in New York State as well. But I feel like they're,

those restaurants are, um, they're symbol, symbol psychologically related to New England. Maybe this is like outer Syracuse or It's certainly wherever it is It's where they can drive to the Canadian border

In a day You know what I mean? So which makes me feel like New England's possibility But like there's no like accents to To contend with in this movie. You're saying they're too far away way for this to be Buffalo Corps? Oh, yes, except for the fact that, like, they'd be a lot closer to the Canadian border if they, if this was Buffalo Corps. If this is Buffalo Corps, you know,

you throw a stone and you're in Canada. So, um, but they want to go to Prince Edward Island, which, I mean, once again, we're jumping to the end before we do anything else. But yes, they want to go and live in Prince Edward Island, which of course is where all the Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea stuff was set in. So they want to go live there. They want to go live their Sarah Polly fantasy out in rural Prince Edward Island. Prince Edward Island, which as an acronym, spells what, Joseph? Pew, P-P-P-P-I-E. Oh, no.

I don't know how to read. Prince Island Edward, it sells pie. Honestly, though, what a serve that would have been if that would have been true. You better, Joyce Maynard. It's an anagram... acronym symbolic You know what?

I'm sleepy today. You get the number 23 somehow when you add up those letters together. It's fine. It's totally fine. I'm glad that you're sleeping. You know,

the chains that his prison chains is like the oceanic flight numbers. Right. It's notable that you're sleepy, because this is definitely a leisurely movie. This is a movie that's sort of... I'm not blaming my sleep schedule. I'm blaming this movie, maybe. I got a good eight hours of sleep.

It's not even a particularly long movie, but it feels like it just sort of meanders. And I think part of it is it's supposed to take place over the course of like a weekend. And yet time moves very leisurely, I think, partially because so much sort of happens across an emotional terrain in this movie that you're like, oh, like, all of this happens in the span of like three days, huh? Okay, interesting. Almost as if Jason Reitman is better at making 90-minute movies than two-hour movies. Sure, yeah. I mean, there's a lot that I'm kind of, it puzzles me why, what drew Jason Reitman to making this movie. I remember interviews at the quote, in, like, quotes at the time, he was like, well, I thought I would make a movie for my mom this time. Which sounds like such a backhanded compliment when you watch this movie.

When you watch the movie? Yeah. It's like, yikes, what do you think your mom's tastes are? And, like, I've read the Joyce Maynard novel this is from. And I don't think that the novel has necessarily the problems that the movie has, but, like, the structure of. of this movie is basically lifted directly from the book. And I think even Jason Reitman knows better that you can't just, you know, translate literally.

I'm sure it's not exactly to the letter. But, you know, these kind of ebbs and flows between these memories and when you get background information on some of these characters works so much better in the book. And the book is like, fine. I'm not saying the book is a masterpiece itself. I just, I, I, I struggle to imagine me liking this book because I genuine, like, it comes down to like, I don't find anything about this story particularly interesting.

And I, I think the way that Reitman makes it doesn't help, but. It's so overwrought. It's so like trying to ring meaning and tension out of everything. moment in a way that like if this was a 90 minute movie where you could just get in get out get done and i remember the book being relatively short as well you know rather than just like making us marinate in all of this overwrought feeling that's like yeah how many times do you see the shots from from uh josh brolin's characters past where you know the the the you know the the the leaky ceiling and the you know the shot of him carrying the baby like we're watching a j

j horror movie or something some more like samara is about to crawl out of the well well and it's sort of it seems to be promising this sort of like grand reveal and it's like it's it ends up being kind of this most pedestrian of sort of you know this awful thing that happened and it the movie sort of writes his character like it like it it puts the bumpers in the in the gutters for the bowling alley of this character where it's just like um nothing about this character can be interpreted as bad because it's you know his circumstances sort of you know he had a he had a faithless wife and um he you know he didn't mean to hurt her he was pushed to the edge and you know and this baby that he thought was his died and you know all the ways in which

you are being pushed to feel sympathy for this person so that you can then feel like you know feel you know emotionally attached to this relationship that winslet's character has with him and like ultimately he's such a construct that i don't ever get a person out of him, you know, even down to the relationship he has with the kid. We're like, I'm going to teach you how to, you know, hit a baseball and we're going to teach you how to like, you know, change attire and all these very sort of like, you know, I wrote down in my notes. I was like, won't somebody teach this poor fatherless child how to be a man, even though like he's not a fatherless child. His dad's just sort of like living with another

family right now. And, you know, I think... I think Winslet and Brolin are innocent parties here because I think they're bringing something to the table that I don't know if Reitman really knows what to do with. I think this movie is Reitman kind of reaching to be a censorialist or a sensualist filmmaker. And he's just absolutely not. He's not suited for it. Yeah. Yeah, and it's like they're performers who certainly can be and have proven to be, but it's just so like... I don't think I blame Winslet and Brolin for this movie being bad, but I also don't think there's anything in their performances that particularly rises up.

Even Kate Winslet, who I think is like good for what she has to do in this movie, we've seen her be so much better that like, it's tough for me to be like, Winslet, you know, This is, you know, anything, when you talk about her career, if you mention Labor Day, you've, you've done something wrong. You've taken a wrong term. Or you've spent a lot of time. Yeah, I was going to say you're in hour two of your dissertation on Kate Winsland's career if you make it to Labor Day. So, yeah, I think it's funny. I had seen this movie when it originally came out. I'd seen it at a press screening. And how did that go? Well, it was, it was sort of sparsely attended. I don't remember if anybody I know was there. So, but I think the consensus after was just pretty quickly was just like, well, that was not good. And in watching it this time, I wanted to sort of like, at least investigate that and just be like, what about it? Because I think this movie was sort of dismissed immediately out of hand. Because it was one of, it was definitely a movie that like, sight unseen, it was an Oscar.

contender, because by this point, the bloom hadn't really fallen off of the Reitman Rose yet. He had done young adult, which didn't get any Oscar nominations, but I think most people sort of chalked that up to the fact that it was about, you know, this really sort of unlikable protagonist and this kind of thing. And I misremembered before prepping this episode, I thought in my mind that men, women, and children had came first. Me too. Me too.

And then this was like a stumbled attempt to get back on the horse. And no, it's the opposite. It's the opposite way around. And men, women, and children, I think is objectively worse than this movie. Yes. Though I think some people treat this like they're on the same level and I don't. I think this is someone trying to make a movie that they are not suited to make whatsoever. And men, women, and children is just an outright disaster.

I think people sort of looked at this movie and were like, Reitman's, you know, adapting a novel, you know, like he did with Up in the Air. And that was an adaptation of a novel, right? And I think he was still sort of seen as this, you know, he was a two-time Best Director nominee by this point. He's working with Kate Winslet, who was very recently an Oscar winner. Josh Brolin had very recently sort of gotten his breakthrough Oscar nomination for milk and on paper this had all the ingredients and it was being released in in December so it had all of the ingredients as a real contender and then I think as soon as people saw it people were like yeah that's not going to happen did you see it at a TIF press screening or just a regular

press screening just a regular New York City press screening how hostile was your So these particular types of press screenings, I'm trying to remember exactly, it was in one of those sort of midtown screening rooms, those ones you don't get much reaction either way. You know what I mean? There's, you know, I think people sort of shuffle in to see them and they shuffle out and nobody really, like, nobody wants to like say anything on the way out because like the publicist for the movie is probably still there. And once you're sort of out, everybody sort of goes their own way. So there's, it's tough to get the like the sense of what it was like in the room unless you're there with somebody you know who you can sort of like talk to about it afterwards and I wasn't um but my memory of this movie was it was one of those like declining festival reactions at every festival it played because yeah this is also how you know like no one says what they feel negatively about tell your ride because the telluride reaction and I think that this screened like the first like this was the first big screening of Telluride and everyone was like, you know, okay, it's okay. And immediately

in Toronto, people were like, no, this movie is not happening. This is a piece of crap. And I saw it after all of that. So already the word of mouth was bad. Yeah. And then the, from there with the regional festivals and like festivals like London, it got even worse from Toronto. I remember scoffing at the pie-making stuff. I think there were some, like, titters at the, the scenes of them making the pie and the sort of, like, you know, pie-making as stand-in-for-sex kind of was... Right. And it comes so early, too.

It's not, like, you know... There's also the stuff with the narration, with the Toby McGuire narration. Homer Hickham himself, like, ugh. Well, and it's one of the... of those things where I think there are certain things that you can get away with in a novel that you really can't in a movie unless you're really, really good. And one of those things is sort of drawing elliptical connections between your mother's sex life and your relationship to your mother. And, yeah, and like, you yankin it. Like, ew.

Is that what, is that the, is that what we're supposed to get out of that team? I think that's what we're supposed to think. Ooh. Not like because... But even still, it's just this like sort of like ruminating voiceover that Tobin Maguire is giving about like... He has a vocal quality

that does not help this movie out from being too rosy. Like he's just the wrong choice. Just the wrong choice. But he's talking about how like I knew that like the role that I had played in my mother's life. There was the one thing

that I, there was the one, you know, role that I couldn't fulfill in her life. And now she was having that role fulfilled. And you can hear it's just like, bang, bang, bang, bang. It's almost, it's, it's not meant to be funny, but it is, you know, it makes you laugh a little bit because it's just like, oh, God. I'm just listening to his mom have sex with this fugitive. I ultimately, we're doing a lot before we get into the, before we do the plot description. we should move it along. Labor Day. This movie takes place, like you said, it's over the course of three days,

but it could also be over the course of three months. It takes place in the Labor Day of the Mind, much like Baby Girl takes place in the holiday season of the mind. My favorite thing about Baby Girl still is that, like, the holidays take six months. It's so good. It goes from the very first holiday part, to New Year's Day.

And it's just like, it stretches out the season. You know, the leaves are falling outside. People are in bathing suits, and the Christmas trees are still up. It's like six months of Christmas, which is really all I want in this world. So naturally I was on board. Yeah. Labor Day of the Mind, it's three very, they pack up at a whole house in like a day. A whole house that.

This is the other thing. The absolute fallacy. And they're doing it in the summer heat. Excuse me. Absolutely. Three people. Three people. And he's doing like yard work. If you've ever moved, if you've ever moved, you know that that is impossible. I'm sorry. Like, where are they getting the packing supplies? They show her like wrapping up the dishes very delicately in like newspaper. It's like, I'm sorry. Where is your like fifth trip to target because you didn't get enough bubble wrap? Where is you're like, oh, we ran out of like packing tape. We've got to go make another run to the store. Like moving. is just an endless series Where'd you get these boxes? Exactly, exactly. Thank you. Did you just have them lying around?

Also, like, in decades past, people just didn't, like, pack in boxes. People just owned many, many suitcases. Who are these people that do not just, like, destroy, like, keep a suitcase until it's on its very last legs? Well, and these people back then, I mean, the way we watched this, She's getting her groceries delivered in crates.

You know what I mean? It's not like she has Amazon boxes lying around here. It's a complete fallacy. It's a movie takes place in the 80s, in the 80s. Is that when it takes place? Yes. Because it takes place in one of those small towns where like. The small town of the mind.

Like, you know, where it's like, it's constantly in everybody's business. The shopkeep is like your mother needs a lady raiser, not a mail raise. or not a mail raiser, son. It's just like, why don't you mind your business, Frank? Or whatever the fuck. He's like, make sure you keep the guard on this. Actually, Frank is Brolin's name. Why don't you mind your business, Edward?

Checkout guy. The checkout guy who like knows way too much about this child's puberty development. Exactly, exactly. You're not shaving? Mind your business. You're practicing to shave? Like, leave this fucking kid alone. He's already embarrassed enough that.

this runaway prisoners putting the bolts to his mom like Jesus Christ put the bolts not put the bolts fetch the bolt colors honey like Jesus this poor kid

for you to be calling boot knocking do you think Jaden Lieberhair watches this movie and was like if only I was if only no I think he looks at this movie and it's like this could have been my moment I could have saved this movie I think mine Lieberhair is like bullet dodged.

It does feel like, I mean, it's funny that Lucas Hedges is in this movie, and it does feel like surprising that this wasn't like an actor kid who then like went on to, you know, become like, this is, and this was the movie that starred a young, you know, Logan Lerman. He grows up to be for a brief couple scenes, Dylan Manette. So that I'll, you know, there's at least that that we sort of. Young Jack on Lost. Everything's coming back to Lost this episode. Oh, right. You never watched. Is he Young Jack, or is he Jack's son?

I think he's... He's young Jack. I don't know if Jack has a son on Lost. To me, he's the 13 reasons why I kid, which I know you did not watch that show. But he's also in like several other things. He's in the Scream movie that you also hate. Is he in that one? He is in that one.

Yeah. He's what's her name's kid, right? He's Heather Matarazzo's kid? No. No. He's someone, his mom dies. There's whatever. Scream 5.

Right. But he's the one who's like his mom dies in the house. He's Marley Shelton's kid. Ah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's what it is. Bad movie. Did not.

I'm going to have a lot to say about this kid in this movie to all respect. to the actor Gatlin Griffith, who I do not think is good in this movie. No, but I feel bad. He's asked to do just the corneous shit in this movie. It's a very specific type of teen or pre-teen. We're also going to, after we talk, we get to the other side of the plot description and whatnot,

talk about my favorite character in this movie, who is chaotic, mean girl. Oh, Brooks Smith, of course, but like... Well, Brooke Smith is not the best character in this movie. 11-year-old with eyeliner girl, who we will definitely get into. 11-year-old with eyeliner, but no shampoo. No, absolutely no filter. We'll get into that.

But let's... Well, before we do that, why don't you tell our listeners about the Patreon? Hey, guys, we have a Patreon. It is called This Had Oscar Buzz Turbulent Brilliance. It is available for $5 a month, and you get two bonus episodes per month. beyond all your good, this head Oscar buzz goodness, you get two more episodes. One of those episodes is one where we talk about a movie that we can't talk about on the This Had Oscar Buzz main feed because it had all the ingredients of a This Head Oscar Buzz movie, but it got a

pesky nomination or two. So we call those exceptions and those movies include stuff like Knives Out or Vanilla Sky or We or Charlie Wilson. War or the Lovely Bones. The most recent one that we have put up is one of the quintessential perfect for this had Oscar buzz except it got a nomination movie, which is House of Gucci, which we had a very good time talking about Patritsia Regiani. Remember when Lady Gaga made movies that failed their Oscar expectations and yet were still fun? House of Gucci. Good times. Second episode of every month that you'll get is called an excursion episode, And that's one where we will go off format to talk about various pieces of Oscar ephemera that appeal to us.

These include, you know, old award shows will, you know, discuss. We'll talk about old EW fall movie previews, Hollywood Reporter roundtables. We've done a, this had Oscar Buzz game night. We've done this had Oscar Buzz year-end superlatives. Just, no, coming this week. week this Friday, is our episode on the 2018 Hollywood Reporter Actress Roundtable. Once again, is the very Gaga October here, where this is the one with everyone's in red, and Lady Gaga and Glenn Close are in some sort of cold war of attention seeking between them. And meanwhile,

off in the corner, Catherine Hahn and Rachel Weiss are just, you know, making out. and whatnot. It's incredible. It's a very good time had at the roundtable. So we will be talking about all of that. There's literally no better time to join this had Oscar Buzz turbulent brilliance that if you want to hear us go in on the sexual powers of Rachel Weiss. She really is. I interpret everything now with Catherine Hahn through like a witch's lens, but like Rachel Weiss really does seem plausibly like a person who has like a supernatural ability to sort of just like, draw women to her midst. It's really incredible. If you've ever... One of the, like, it's, it's genuinely one of the most enduring viral tweets I've ever done is when I tweeted about those two. And, like,

every once in a while, I'll get another sort of flurry of people finding that and liking it. And it's all just absolutely crazed queer women who are just, like, feral for Rachel Weiss. And I get it. I can't talk about her and Daniel at the low show and what they were wearing, like they were showing up to, not only, like, they're understudying for Billy Eilish. Like, you know, we can't, we can't get into it. We'll save it for that episode. Anyway, if you go to patreon.com slash this head Oscar buzz, you can, again, for the low low price of $5 a month, get all this extra goodness. You can, you know, comment on the episodes on our Patreon page. the comments of those are always a real good time.

It's fun. Who are you to resist it? This had Oscar Buzz, turbulent, brilliance. Go check it out. Come join us. Come have fun with us. All right. We have come to the holiday weekend in Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York.

American Northeast, yeah. Prince Edward Island, which is an acronym for pie, because I said so. Labor Day, written and directed by Jason Reitman, adapted from the Joyce Maynard novel. Talk about that. Starring Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin, Gatlin, Giffith, Clark, Greg, Brooks Smith, J.K. Simmons, because it's a Jason Reitman movie. The monstrously pro-Trump, James Vanderbeek, Tom Lipinski. Wait, is he really pro-Trump? Sister, yes.

I missed all of that. He is crazy. Oh, God. Oh, Vanderby. He's posted, like, a bunch of crazy. Like, first of all, like, team Pacey all the way. Well, sure, of course. Nobody liked that.

Well, yes, but, like, we don't need another reason to be team Pacey, but here we are. But, like, wasn't he on, like, don't trust the B in apartment 23, and people were, like, ready to, like, have a Vanderbik, like, renaissance, and then, like, way to piss all that. Never again, baby. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Tom Lepinski, Micah Monroe, which I was not ready for. Nor was I, actually. Lucas Hedges, Dylan Manette, and Homer Hick.

Oh, sorry, I mean Toby McGuire. Narrating and then opening a pie shop. On, like, that was, I had forgotten about that. The whole thing where, like, at the end, he is a successful, runs a successful chain of bakeries. I also want to shout out. Micah Fowler, who plays Brooks Smith's kid in this movie, who was in a TV show in the 20 teens called Speechless on ABC, where the one that Mini Driver was on, if you remember that at all. It was a really, really good show, and I really liked it, and he and everybody else on that show was great. The Motion Picture World premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, had a qualifying release starting December 27,

2013, before having its wide release, January 31st, 2014. Hot off of a Golden Globe nomination for Ms. Winslet. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about it. Yeah. Joseph. Are you ready to give a 60-second plot description of the film Labor Day? No.

Too bad. Your time starts now. So, yeah, it's the 1980s. This little kid named Henry. is like 13 years old. His parents are divorced. His mother is Kate Winslet. She is depressed to the point where people actually like mentioned it as depression, which in the 80s I imagine is pretty significant. His father lives with a different family and he sort of has become his mother's surrogate like the man of the house for, you know, for good or for ill. And then into that world

comes this escaped convict, named Frank, played by Josh Brolin and he hides out in their house and he's got to, you know, just avoid the, the fuzz, and then he'll be out of their hair in a day or so or whatever. But in that Labor Day weekend, Frank and Adele, who was the Winslet character, fall in love, and she finally has a man there to treat her right, and he has flashbacks of his, you know, horrible circumstance where he accidentally killed Micah Monroe, who was the mother of the kid he thought was his baby, but maybe not. And so they all make plans to move, run away to Canada and Prince Edward Island. And the kid is like, cool, except maybe not. And this weird girl with eyeliner is making me feel like I should

kill this guy because he's going to take my mother away from me. And then Clark Greg is my step is my dad and Officer James Vanderby goes on to us. And then ultimately, you know, the cops descend and they arrest Josh Brolin and the kid grows up to be Tommy McGuire and he has a pie shop and then in their old age, um, after he gets out of jail, old ass Josh Brolin and vaguely older Kate Winslet get together and are together. Sure. The end. 45 seconds over. Much like the movie, I think that could have gone much faster. No shade to you. You are just adopting, you were just adopting the pacing form to function. in that it's like, I think we could have gotten that in quicker.

Yeah. Well, I think the movie is sort of just like Moses's its way on to this ending where it's just like, there are so many ways where this movie could have ended sort of poignantly or bittersweetly or whatever. I think it's so weird that this movie decides that it needs to have this happy ending in this like aged- Directly lifted from golden years. Oh, I'm sure. Like, this is the thing.

I don't think I appreciate the fact. that you thought the book was better, I don't think I would like this book either. I think it's just a dumb story. I also think the epilogue is one of the things that are done most expeditiously. You know, like the rest of the movie should have that pace.

If they cut like a third of these reaction shots and cutaways that we don't need. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not even the flashbacks, but just like... The pie-making scene is like so much coverage, so much so that we get the point that we get the point that this is vaguely sexual and that like they are learning to trust him and it's not some type of gaslighting or you know patty hurst syndrome situation but this

is the biggest problem with the movie to me is there is no there really is no darkness to this josh brolin character like he even when he like you know will like pull it you know, pull a gun and whatever and like, you know, grab the kid or whatever, there is at never any sense that this is going to, that this is a bad idea to have this guy in the house. He's very much this sort of like romantic fantasy kind of right from the break and there's no, the only sort of questions. He like shows up and starts cleaning their gutters. Right, right, right. That's the things. Just like, you know, thank God. There's, and it's this very sort of gendered in a way that I find

very hokey. This, you know, finally a man around the house. Finally somebody to teach this kid how to hit a baseball. Like, thank God because this kid was going to turn into this like really fucking weird kid if he became, you know, if he had to, you know, go for

any much longer without a dad. If he had to take care of his mother, God forbid. He had to be a care. I mean, like children shouldn't be caregivers, but like she was teaching him to dance. yeah she would you know thank god she didn't turn him gay like it and like you get that scene sort of later on where like you said it so i have to bring it up because like had her

normativity talk with chris file go we need a jingle we need a jingle whenever we get to it but no this was this was my thing about the movie because before we even meet josh brolin they're in the store and like he goes off to sneak away from his mom and he go where does he go when we used to have these things he goes straight to the magazine rack and it's like he's looking at like Cosmo and Women's Magazines and the instinct is like

not oh he wants to look at boobies or see the word set He wants to be Diana Vreeland He wants to be Diana Vreeland I was like oh I forgot that this is like a movie about a gay kid That's great But it's not supposed to be

It's like we're It is that he was looking at at Cosmo because he's like curious about boobies and like, is this a, okay, this is my genuine question to you. Is this a thing that we bring to these movies because we are who we are? Or is the fact that like any sensitive little boy in a movie is gay coded in some way? Heterosexual little boys do not care about folk. Like they don't. They don't. They don't care about Mademoiselle. They don't care about L. They don't care about L. They don't care about Harper's Bazaar.

Maybe they care about Cosmo because Cosmo would have the more suggest. It was the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue was in its full flourish. Like, you know. That's what it's looking at. Like, yeah. I, yes, like, I don't want to define sensitive little heterosexual boys out of existence because, like, they exist. You know what I mean? Like, that's a thing.

But it is, every time. you get to one of these movies and it's just like sensitive little gay kid like I see you I see you and you're just like oh oh he like he likes this weird girl okay all right yeah he's never he's never explicitly I think defined as gay in this movie that's just a weird moment that made me misremember what I thought I remembered about the movie right but like yes the whole the like I talk all the time about like antiquated heteronormitivity, but like this movie is out of the 50s. It's truly like... It's insane that it takes place in 1987. He has to show them how to fix cars, play baseball. Is there a like plot reason why it has to be the 80s or is there just like, I don't think so, right?

It's not like anything that happens hinges on or even like thematically wise. It's not like, oh, this was, we, this movie sort of, you know, graphs on to Reaganomics in some way. I was going to say, like, if you muted this movie throughout, you know, the main timeline of the movie, and I, like, turned the movie off at the end, and I looked at you, and I said, who is the president during all of the, all of this action taking place? You would be like. Eisenhower clearly. Yeah. Grover clearly.

Yeah, no, it's, it's, remember in 20th century women, obviously, you remember in 20th century women, how they, you know, they're watching, like. Jimmy Carter gives speeches, and it's very, very much tied to that time in American history. And all I'm imagining in this movie is them watching, like, Michael Dukakis campaign speeches or whatever. And it's just like, it doesn't really have the same effect on this, like, weirdly, like, golden-hued. And again, it's also shot like they're in fucking Iowa. And they're not. They're in either, they're at most Pennsylvania. You know what I mean?

As you mentioned, they're either in New England or New Jersey or Pennsylvania. Like it's one, or maybe Hudson Valley, New York, or something. It's very small town America, you know, and like this movie isn't about class or, you know, finances. But this isn't a family that has money. So, yeah, their stuff would be older. But they definitely also have older ideas of the world in a way that it's not just like, well, yeah, this man is 20, 25 years older than this child. So, like, his, you know. Yeah.

Yeah. But it's also a movie about how a big burly, you know, fugitive from justice comes and saves this depressed woman from her life of, you know, warping her child into being someone who dances and, you know, takes care of her, you know, and I don't know, man. There is, I think there is an element. element towards the beginning, you know, where it's at that pivot point where it's like, oh, this isn't an entirely scary guy, but he's still a little scary. There's a point where the movie could stay in this interesting place about masculinity that is both a, like, that is able to hold violence and threat, but also tenderness and scariness, you know. But, like, the movie, like, really pivots hard away from that. And it's like, that could have been the more interesting movie about, you know, that's all kind of held there in, like, the shot on the poster where he's, you have to interpret, is he holding her out of care or is he holding her out of violence? But, like, here's a good example.

So, it's never interested in that level of examination. Late in the movie, we get two appearances in this movie by the great Brooksmith. And they both are very much just like sit down F slurs, Brooksmiths in the room, you know, that kind of thing. But the one where she happens by with the plate of cinnamon rolls and he's there and she sees him, the fact that that doesn't end up with her like tied to a chair or something like that is indicative of what I'm talking about is just like, so he's just a sweetie pie. He's just the kindest, you know, gentlest.

But it's just like, this woman's going to, like, blow the whistle on you, dude. Like, at some point, the story has to acknowledge the fact that he's like, he doesn't have to be a hardened criminal, but like the man was in prison and, like, is now, like, an escaped fugitive and, like, he doesn't want to go back. Like, is there no point where we're going to acknowledge the fact that, like, this person could be a danger to. anybody and no he like even like or that he wouldn't just flee in that moment when the cops come for him the thing where you don't even see him surrender they cut to him getting handcuffed it's as a sort of like it's a um he ties them up to keep up the ruse that you know they were not harboring right that's the thing he only does that to keep them safe to keep you know to keep them from getting accused of being accessories or whatever but like it's so

unrealistic. It's, you know, it's a construct of a person rather than a person to me. And that to me then keeps me from investing in whatever relationship he has with Kate Winslet, who is not exactly playing the deepest character either. I was going to say she's as much a construct in a way that I have ickier feelings about because we learn very late in the movie that she's gone through several miscarriages including a stillbirth which is like traumatic and awful but are those supposed to have happened after she had henry or i yes because you also see the photo of young henry with her while she's pregnant oh right right um maybe some of the miscarriages happened prior to him i i don't know if the movie gets that specific but maybe the book does and it's just like that's a horrible thing that

of course certainly people in the audience are going to relate to but the movie just really reduces her to this like sad sack in like in a constructy way like you were saying with the other character in a way that I'm like I don't I feel like you're

playing a little bit with fire here like there's just certain things that like you should develop a character out and not you know reduce them to these very simple talking points um yeah And, like, I don't blame the performance for that because it's not like Winslet has really given much latitude to show much depth.

You know, this is a very fabulistic story that its makers don't realize is a fable. Like, it's... And that puts then a lot of weight on the kids' shoulders in a way where, like, this is why I don't really want to, like, shit talk this kid too much because, like, he's asked to do... very much sort of similar to the movie, he's asked to do too much, right? We are asking too much of this kid. Unless you have found, I mean, it is interesting to think of, like, what if you had just sort of, like, put Lucas Hedges in this role? Because, like, you know, at the very least, there's a possibility that, you know, the actor that that that guy is could have existed back then when he was that young. It's interesting that baby Lucas Hedges, like, played mean

kids almost exclusively it's really really interesting um it's in this it's in moonrise kingdom um what else let's Lucas the Lucas Hedges uh filmography um his very very first movie is Dan in real life is uh is pancake pillow um the movie um then Moonrise Kingdom then a movie called Arthur Newman with Colin Firth and Emily Blunt um Which I sort of remember. Real movie was in theaters. And then in 2013 comes Labor Day and a movie called, oh, that Terry Gilliam movie, The Zero Theorem, he's in that.

And then he's also in Grand Budapest Hotel. He's in a movie called Kill the Messenger with Jeremy Renner that I feel like I watched and don't remember very much about. Also real movies saw theaters. Yeah, well, it was a... I think it was based on, like, a true story or something like that. I don't know, whatever. Conceivable.

And so, like, so Banchester by the Sea is his breakout movie, obviously, is 2016. The very first thing I saw him in was the slap. So that's 2015. So this is just a couple years before. What's that? Is he a mean kid in the slap? He is a... who is he fuck i god i should remember this because i literally he's not the kid that gets slapped

he's not the receiver no he's definitely not the kid who gets slapped he's um i want to say there's a gay kid in the slap and i don't remember whether that's him or not there's like a gay best friend of um of one of the daughters a gay best friend on an NBC program i'm shocked Right. So there's the babysitter, and then he's the babysitter's best friend. I don't know, man. Maybe I got to rewatch. Maybe you've got to rewatch the slap. Hold on. See if there's any kind of description. How many episodes has it been since we've mentioned? the slap. It feels like we need

a swear jar for the slap. Honestly, kind of true. Every time Joe brings up the slap, he has to donate $5 to Hurricane really. Okay, so apparently the thing about the slap is I maybe never finished it because his character is like, his character's name is the title

of the final episode of the Slap. So I think he ends up being like very integral to the way that they this whole thing shakes out. I just want to say, for the record, I proposed that we did an excursion episode on the Patreon just about the slap. And Joe was like, what are you talking about?

That makes no sense. Why would we do that? I was like, you have no idea how much you bring up the slap. It is basically a core piece of ephemera on this show. Yeah, but we still can't. I still feel like we shouldn't do a TV show. We can't do a TV show. just to highlight how much we talk about the slap.

Anyway, so Lucie Hedges is in one whole scene, so that's why we talked about him for an entire segment of this podcast. At a Friendly's. A scene at Friendly's. More movies need to take place at Friendly's. Couple things about this. One, more movies need to take place at Friendlies. Maybe if more movies set scenes at Friendlies,

we wouldn't have a situation where there's like one remaining Friendly's restaurant in all of New York State. Like, this is a fucking, like, it is... How do we shoot a movie at this one remaining friendlies in New York State? Why are there no more friendlies? Why, like, bring them back, y'all. Like, I know that the company, like, I think the company went bankrupt. But, like, why did we allow this to happen in America?

We prop up airlines. We prop up banks. Do we not prop up friendlies? What the fuck is going on in this country? The other thing... Joe wants a friendlies buyout. One million percent. Like, would...

Something. Um, there's nowhere else you can get chicken fingers and a hot fudge sunday. Chris, you're being facetious, and I'm going to need you to stop doing that because you're disrespecting friendlies. Um, we see them. I would never, ever disrespect the wood paneled halls and gilded, uh, every once in a while, you'll see benches of friendlies. You'll see an establishment that clearly used to be a friendlies because it's one of those things like a pizza hot where it's like, The exterior all did the same. There was like the big, like, the sort of like the weather vane at the top.

Nineties Taco Bells, too. Also that. Um, they cut to the scene in the Friendlies and you see Henry and then the Lucas Hedges character, who are like stepbrothers, um, side by side drinking fribbles. Now, fribles are what they call milkshakes at Friendlies. Here's the thing about the frivol. And like, it's very well branded. When you order a fribble, you get it in a glass that says fribble on it.

um in the classic friendlies font um the thing about the frivol is it's a waste of ice cream because if you're going to go to friendlies and you don't get an ice cream sunday particularly the ice cream sunday with the ice cream cone on top of the like as like the clown face where like it's you know the ice cream cone is the hat and the face is like Reese's pieces or whatever what are you doing why are you going to friendlies if you're not getting an ice cream Sunday. Their ice cream Sundays are the fucking best. That's the reason to go to friendlies is you get your chicken fingers and your grilled cheese and all these things that you so rudely slighted friendlies for. I did not slight. I did not slight. I was dragging you. The fribble. It's like you can't get a milkshake and then get an ice cream Sunday. You could, but like. Why not? I mean, it's a little much. I don't know. That's like saying you can't get a grilled cheese and a bowl of soup. This is maybe, like, fat kids self-shame talking, but I'm like, I would be really embarrassed to order a milkshake and then an ice cream center. Then get your milkshake to go.

Oh, it's possibly true. But all I'm saying is I will almost always issue the fribble for the peanut butter, Reese's Peanut, Rees's Pieces, sorry, Rees's Pieces Sunday. And everyone, please make sure that you are supporting small... Support your local friendlies. If you are fortunate enough to have a friendlies within your area, you better fucking make sure that that place stays afloat because you won't be able to... It's not repulable. The friendlies has bad politics.

Please do not tell us. Don't ever tell us. I don't ever want to know. Here's the thing. When a Friendly's closes, it's not like you can be like, well, I guess we still have Applebee's. Applebee's has its charms, but it is not the same thing. You do not, you cannot replicate friendlies in any other way. Applebee's also, I'm pretty sure, only cooks things in microwaves now.

Like, I'm not, that's not a joke. That's like they only have microwaves. I would believe it. The quality of Applebee's foods has really, to talk about another tangent, we could go down. The quality of Applebee's foods has gone down significantly in recent years. Yeah, like, to any of our West Coast listeners, because I assume that Friendly's is an East Coast thing

or any of our international listeners. Friendlies, okay, so like imagine an Applebee's, take out all of the, like, kitsch, fill it with wood paneling. Turn the lights up a little bit. Like, you know, Applebee's is very sort of like bar lighting, you know. Yeah, all of the old stained glass lighting, amp that up, but take out anything

that was produced post-1973. One million percent, yep, yep, yep. And, like, give it the feel of an old, like, ice cream soda bar, vaguely. And your menu for food is, like, you're real, it's just the classics. It's burgers, maybe you're going to get, like, a mushroom and Swiss burger, maybe. Like, you know, a chicken melt, you know what I mean? You can get, like, you know, one of those things, a turkey melt, a turkey club sandwich. Ellie at a state fair.

Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah. It's, but it's, it's perfect. It's just perfect. Anyway, um... Back to Labor Day. Back to Labor Day.

Are you sure? Can we keep talking about, please? Um, back to Labor Day. So, um, did you applaud when Brooke Smith first... Of course. And then she slapped her disabled child. And then I was like, Brooke, we can't. Joyce Maynard.

what are you doing here yeah um but i think that's also supposed to show right that like that you know kate winslitt's character may be depressed and maybe warping her son with all this dancing but um but she at least you know doesn't slap him brook smith said not my son brook this is by the way this is where lucas hedge is being on this movie this is where he got the idea for the slap he went to his dad and was like what if there was a show about a slap slapping a child. And then Peter Hedges was like, I heard in Australia they like had an idea for this.

This is a good idea. I'm doing a quick check that we're not missing a six-timers club for Brooke Smith. You know I will be so happy when we get a six-timers, Brooks-Smith. You're poking at a vulnerability in me, which is that like I've gotten behind on updating the tab for six-timers.

And I didn't update it with anybody from this movie, but I don't think we've done our six-timers on Winslet. We did a quick check for Brolin. We're just a three for Brooks Smith. We're just a three. Thank God. If I had found out that we were in her shoes and fair game. Where she's kind of playing the same character in both of those movies, which is literally just like, honey.

Weirdly. What are both movies? She slaps a kid. We should be laughing about that, but yeah. So, all right. So who else in Labor Day could we possibly, I can't imagine we're at six Clark Greg movies. Oh, where are we at J.K. Simmons?

We've done J.K. Simmons before. Okay. Because we've done two other Reitman's. But, like, where are we in terms of like, oh, right. Okay, so we're past six timers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We've done. This is our eighth, J.K. Simmons.

Okay. He's going to hit 10, baby. We're going to have to do a tenor on a... I don't even remember what we do for ten. Winslet has hit ten, right? Or is she getting it? No, this is... Winslet just had hit six.

Because Winslet, we weirdly didn't hit a Winslet episode until like a hundred or something. Who are we close to... We are about to hit ten for Ruffalo, Dench, Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Julianne Moore. Okay. So...

And Susan Sarandon. So, here we go. We got to figure out, I think we still haven't landed on a good format for 10-timers. I think it's just like it's been a different thing every time. Let's quickly go through Josh Brolin between his Oscar nomination and this, because I do think it's interesting. What if for 10-timers you quiz me? Okay. Sure.

Sure. That's the difference. I quiz you on six-timers. came up with something. I just forget what it was. We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. All right. Anyway, you were about to bring us back to the movie. So, strangely, does not get the nomination for No Country for Old Men, though it's like, you know, all of the people didn't know what to do with Tommy Lee Jones in that movie. So it just really made it easy for all of the attention and devotion to be put on Bardem.

Well, and Brolin's character is, I guess, the closest thing. that movie has to a lead, but he's absent for huge chunks of that movie. Well, and also the way the third act of that movie works, too. Right, right, right. Remember how mad the ending of that movie made people? Yes, it's insane to me. What a good ending for that movie. I mean, I would be willing to bet that there are people who would never confess

in the rest of their lives to being one of the people who were upset about the ending of that movie. and they walk among us, you know, reading comprehension is an all-time low, and it was in 2007 as well. I'm still a little mad that Kelly McDonald didn't get more attention for supporting actress that year. Beth Grant, baby. Well, I mean, Beth Grant is a classic Beth Grant cameo, but, like, Kelly McDonald, if not, I'm going to bring up Isabella Rossellini and Conclave a lot if she gets nominated. But, like, if Isabella Rossellini gets nominated for a very, very short scene in Conclave, And Kelly MacDonald doesn't get nominated for, didn't get nominated for multiple scenes, but ultimately that really bangor one at the very end with her and Bardem. Like, what the fuck?

What the fuck is going on? I'm ready to get my No Country for Old Men, Criterion 4K, coming this holiday season. Anyway, that's what I get when I win. It's going to take longer to, you're not going to, no. I'm going to buy you something you don't want to watch. if you win this. We agreed that that wasn't going to happen. We made a gentleman's agreement.

I'm just angry. Brolin. Brolin. So not nominated. Doesn't really get any attention. He might have gotten like a critics choice nomination for that movie, but like really under like underrewarded for that performance. And that real comeback that he had. Next year though gets a nomination for milk probably partly.

I remember people being like they're not going to nominate him for that. though he's great in the movie. Because he's the villain. I remember one of my big Oscar misses in my career that I remember is being so, so, so certain that James Franco was going to get nominated for milk, like, at the beginning of that year. He's not in that movie. He's not. Well, this was before I had seen the movie, obviously.

But like at the beginning of that year, I'm like, James Franco. Because it was like, his career, was so hot at that moment he was coming off of um or i think that might have been the same year as pineapple express right oh eight anyway um i was wrong also in oh eight brolin has w which we're gonna have to eventually do i don't want to do it in the immediate future i have gone through waves of being like no we have to do that movie and being like nope not touching that if we make it through this election our reward to ourselves is getting W off the books

Getting W off the book Much like we felt in 2008 After that he's in a movie I've never heard of called Women in Trouble 2010 Do you not care Wait a second

Do you not care about women And whether they are in trouble Do you not care about Moviegoers didn't because they did not flock to that movie Carla Gagino Adrian Pallickey Connie Britton Marley Shelton

Garcel Bovey I care about all of those women. All of those women were in trouble, and you didn't care. Elizabeth Berkeley is in that movie? I love all those women. I don't have to keep saying it. Joseph Gordon Levitt plays a sex blogger in that movie? I don't want to watch that ever.

2010. Not a great year for Brolin, but he's still like cashing in on the Oscar nomination, cashing in on No Country for Old Men. He has, I believe, the villain part in Wall Straight Money Never Sleaps. One of the Woody Allen's that everybody rejected outright called You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. And notorious bomb Jonah Hex.

He's Jonah Hex in Jonah Hex. And this was the movie that was supposed to make him a leading man in, you know, in franchise starter. And that movie could not have bombed harder. I don't know if necessarily he's blamed for it, but definitely studios are like, Well, we don't have to try and make Josh Brolin an A-list leading man anymore. End of the year, true grit happens. Massive hit, massive financial success for the Coins.

And no one really remembers that Josh Borland is in it. Exactly, exactly. People talked about, obviously, Bridges and Steinfeld got the nominations. People talked about Matt Damon being really good in that movie. People don't talk enough about this movie. I've said at times, it's my favorite Coens. You love True Grit, yeah. It just like, it always, like, knocks me sideways.

It, like, rips the feet out from under me. And I feel like it's not cool to talk about how good that movie is because it made so much money. Stop it. Nobody talks about true grit. Nobody talks about that movie. That, it may be the case that it's under discussed, but it is not an uncool Cohen's movie. There is no uncool Cohen's movie. Like, it, I mean, it may be intolerable.

You're not an icon. I'm not saying I'm an iconoclast. I'm not saying I'm an iconoclast. I'm just saying this movie deserves more appreciation. And it feels like nobody's at a rush to do it because it made so much money. Right. This was a big success. Yeah. But nobody really talks about Brolin in that movie. He's the villain. Right. And like, teeth stuff going on. This says, yes, it's the ugly him up in the. He's not really. I mean, I don't think he's bad by any stretch. But he's not the first ten. things you talk about about what great is movie um takes a little break comes back and men in three men in black cubed yes doing i will say from and i've not seen this movie but i've seen enough of it in like clips and trailers um a good young tommy lee jones impersonation like and you wonder whether you know he had been in several movies with tommy le Jones he was in both No Country for Old Man and in the Valley of Ella.

So he had probably studied the old man and got a pretty good impersonation out of it. It was funny enough for a trailer, not enough to get me to watch that movie. No, and I feel like that that's not a movie that people like very much. Or also talk about. Yeah. And in 2013, before Labor Day, still not great. Gangster Squad and the Old Boy remake. Boy, okay, you talk about a movie from a venerated filmmaker's filmography that nobody likes is Spike Lee's old boy.

Who, like, I don't know, a single person. That's another movie I remember seeing in theater, and it was. Not good, not good. And yet, I am still very excited for Spike Lee to be doing another remake next year. Have you ever seen Gangster Squad, by the way, the other, the famous. theater baby other Ryan Gosling Emma Stone movie that is that's how this movie exists for me as like the answer to a trivia question you've seen it yeah it's what is it like yeah remember they delayed it back because of the theater shootings is that true the I thought it was pushed back because the dark night rises there's a theater shooting in the movie god there the things that that studios and production companies and whatever choose to

pull back in the wakes of these things are really, it's, it's so surfacy. It's so much, like, well, to show our sensitivity for this, we are not going to show this Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode. And it's just like, guys, like, first of all, the genies out of the bottle. Second of all, I don't, I mean, whatever. It's so, it's so cosmetic to me. Whatever. Who cares? Who cares?

That's Brolin between his Oscar nomination and Labor Day. Brolin's kind of, you never know where he's, I mean, all of the Thanos of it, too. Well, this is the thing. Taking up a lot of his time. But you still, like, never know when he's going to crop up. It's interesting. So he makes his first on-screen appearance as Thanos the next year after Labor Day. He's in the post-credit scene of Guardians of the Galaxy. But he had been announced for that, like, must have been, I imagine, before he, because, like, the Avengers happens. I feel like in the, at the post-credits for the Avengers, you see Thanos, but it is not, like, it's not Josh Brolin Thanos.

It's, like, pure, just, like, CGI based on nobody. And I think when that movie premiered, we at that point didn't know that Brolin was cast. So I imagine somewhere around 2013, they announced that Brolin would be playing Thanos. And by that point, everybody knew that this was going to be like the big villain of the MCU. And I feel like there was a lot of, not necessarily because of Brolin, but I think there was a lot of skepticism as to what this character was going to bring. I think this was when we started to see the first sort of shades of a little bit of exasperation among people, where it's just like another one where they find an infinity stone in the post-credit scene, like this kind of thing, like, how long are we going to

just be like collecting infinity stones? And like, it's all leading up to this Thanos person, like, you know, give me a movie without a post-credit scene with Thanos and it, yada, yada. And then I think Brolin through the course of the, you know, small handful of movies that he was in, which I think were, what you call it, Avengers Infinity War, Avengers and Ven Game, but also he's in, I think he's in another one of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, maybe. Anyway, kind of like one over not only the most, Marvel fandom, which is not exactly hard to win over, but, like, actual skeptics who were like, you know what, like that, that character ended up being like a real solid villain. And it's one of those things now where you look at where Marvel is now. And you're like, one of the big problems is they don't have this sort of, you know, the central villain to tie it all together. So I think Berlin ends up getting not only just like a whole bunch of money from being in Marvel and a whole bunch of, you know, um,

a raising of his general profile. But I think, like, there was actual, like, respect from, you know, a good section of movie critics for that performance in that. And now he has his Dune book about the making of Dune, where I believe he has poems about Timothy Salome. He's the J.R.R. Tolkien of this, or he's just, like, writing down Hobbit songs, and it's great. And good for Josh Rowland. We should also mention, without sort of, like, delving in. to it because obviously, we only know so much. But, like, his personal life was not exactly great.

I think that's one of the things that sort of... He had addiction battles. Makes this movie a little, you know, on a meta level, a little harder to take. There was an incident of domestic violence when he was married to Diane Lane. He got, as you mentioned, like, battled addiction. He's reportedly been sober since. 2013 since right around this time. And, and, you know, and good for him for that. But obviously, it's tough to see a movie where he's playing this, like, you know, savior of this single mother.

And you think of like, I, I mean, it's, it's tough to put out of my mind the thing where it's just like that, you know, that he got violent with Diane Lane. I don't love that. But these things are always more complicated than. then you really know, I guess. I guess, I don't know. Addiction issues. Addiction issues are rough. A wrinkle that, you know. Yeah. I think it's easy to draw a line in the sand on, you know, violence.

But, you know, again, these are things that we know very, like a fraction of the facts of. What else do we want to say? To move on to Winslet, I guess, in this time, because we do have to talk about her Golden Globe nomination. Yes, we do. After winning her Oscar, granted, also thinks we don't know a ton of details about. She divorces Sam Mendez, and, you know, they kept that pretty private with their family so you can see how she's maybe focusing on her family. But she kind of goes away between Labor Day and her Oscar. There's only, in fairness, two and one, one hundredths of a movie between Carnage Contagion and...

movie 43, and she does Todd Haynes' Mildred Pierce miniseries, which is Masterpiece Television, some of her best work. Yeah, yes. And another one where people, I think, were skeptical that, like, you're remaking Mildred Pierce, this, like, kind of, you know, classic movie, and you're stepping into Joan Crawford's shoes and whatnot,

and trust Todd Haynes, let him do whatever he wants. Well, if more people in Hollywood could follow that advice, we wouldn't be in the situation. reportedly going to work together on another mini-ser off of this book, Trust, that, like, won the Pulitzer and is, like, on all reading lists. We'll see if it happens, but, you know, HBO, just give them the money. Todd Haynes deserves a win after what happened this year.

Give him money, no, questions asked to make whatever he wants after wasting all of his time. Wasting teachers precious time. That was the latest, that was the latest thing that Christine Vashon said is, like, he's in his 60s. There's not, there's a finite number of, of projects he can make, and this one just wasted his time. That's exactly, and that's exactly the thing.

I remember when I read that, I was just like, exactly Christine, where it was just like, you know, that's the biggest, you know, obviously people are going to, they're going to, you know, pay everybody who needs to get paid and everybody's going to end up whatever, and that'll all get me right. Joaquin is going to end up paying those people. One would hope, take that man to the cleaners. But the thing that we won't be able to get back is the fact that, like, Todd Hans wasted a year of his, of his career.

something that won't come to fruition now. Kate Winslet's Golden Globe nomination for this is one of those ones where it's a very sort of like globes are going to globe kind of a thing, right? Which is a phrase that I tend to, I use sparingly. I think sometimes people use it sort of a little too freely. And it's just like, yes, yes, yes. The movie was already basically dead before this Globe nomination. I think this movie...

They resurrected this movie from the grave. It put a little gas in the tank. Yeah. But it's one of those ones where it's just like you really couldn't find a movie with a pulse to it to throw a nomination to. But instead... And this is why, Chris, and I know that you weren't able to see this movie this weekend, but this is why I would not rule out Kate Winslet getting a Golden Globe nomination for Lee this year. Because...

Best actress in a drama, best actress in a drama is thinner than people realize this year. All, a lot of the big contenders are going into musical or comedy. I wrote this down, wait. This is why I wouldn't be surprised if Mikey Madison go, if they run a Nora as a drama, though I think Mikey Madison is. I think she, her performance is much better served if you put it in comedy. That's a comedic performance, I think. And I don't think, I don't think she needs the, um, the help as much. Wait, where did I, like, wrote this down.

I waffle on how I feel her performance falls in the ranking. Well, yes. You're, you're, you're more of a skeptic than I am. Okay, so Golden Globe's drama this year. Nicole Kidman for Baby Girl is going to get in. Yeah. Angelina Jolie for Maria is going to get in. I think given how, uh, how, how,

I don't want to say weak because there is no such thing as a weak best actress year for anything. It's just where it spreads out in comedy musical. Sersha Ronan for the Outrun is far more likely to get a Golden Globe nomination than she is an Oscar nomination. But I think getting the Globe nomination is going to really help her. She's going to absolutely be like ensconced in this, in that race. Which leaves then Tilda Swinton for the Almodovar movie, which I think. We all sort of assumed she was going to go supporting. She is going to go lead.

I think she's got a decent chance at a Golden Globe nomination. And then you get this sort of like, who's the fifth? Is it Florence Pugh and we live in time? Is it Julianne Moore in the room next door? Is it, oh, what's the woman's first name from I'm still here? Fernandez. Fernando Torres? Is it Zendaya from Dune 2?

You know what I mean? Or is it Kate Winslet? Are you naming Zendaya for Dune 2 before saying the words Marianne Jean-Baptiste? Well, I think Marianne John Bept, I have Marianne John Baptiste right now in comedy. I think, while I think there is a lot comedic about that movie, I feel like it might be a mistake to run that as a comedy. We'll see where they end up positioning. Just for how people are responding to it. Right now I see comedy as being Mikey Madison, Carlos Sophia Gascon for Amelia Perez.

Amy Adams for night bitch Marianne John Baptiste for her truths and then it's going to be either I think Demi Moore for the substance Cynthia Revo for Wicked or June Squibb for Thelma and right now I would probably

give Demi the edge but like do not underestimate them just nominating Cynthia Revo for Wicked and you don't think challengers will be run as a comedy I don't know what they're going to run challengers as if they run it at all I don't think I don't think challenges as a comedy.

Give us an answer about challenges. I will be annoyed if they run Challenges as a comedy because I think it's what it communicates is that any drama, any drama that isn't about quote unquote important subject matter is a comedy. And it's like, no, this is a drama. It's just a drama about sex and tennis. And like those things are still dramas. What the fuck are we talking about? You know what I mean? Okay.

Okay. you might be converting me here. I would normally say the substance should be run as a comedy. Yes, it's a comedy. Strategically, I would not be against it being run in drama. But I do think Demi Moore has a good chance at a Globe nomination, which, like, if we can get nothing else for Demi... Exactly. You know, at least we get what we can for DeMe.

Exactly. I think strategically, it would be better to run that as a drama. I mean, strategically, yes, but that movie is a comedy. That is a horror comedy. It's just... Yes. Is the industry going to get the humor of that movie? I don't know.

Well, and it's maybe, again, strategically, it's probably better to play into the horror of it all because what you want is for actresses to see that movie and be like, what we do to actresses in this business? Click Demi More. You know what I mean? Like that.

So, which again... What we do to ourselves? Honestly, these things are all just, true, by the way, and the substance rocks, and to me, should be nominated for an Oscar for that. I'll be happy wherever she's nominated. Even if she doesn't make my ballot, I'll be very happy wherever she's nominated.

But also, to loop it back to Kate Winslet, don't rule out that cuckoo-loco nomination for Lee that could very likely happen. If it happens, this is me planning my flag, like Helen Mirren for the leisure seeker. If it happens, you have to remember that I said it. 2013 best actress is an interesting one in that I think at the beginning of the year, people were looking at things like Sandra Bullock and Gravity, Emma Thompson and saving Mr. Banks, Merrill, of course, in August Osage County. I think at the time people were thinking about Merrill and Julia Roberts, both as leads. I don't think it was so defined, especially during the festivals of who would be run and supporting.

I think for whatever reason, Blue Jasmine kind of snuck up on, I think maybe that was like a late announced release date or something like that. For whatever reason, I remember. But it's also still in the culture that we're like, oh, that movie came out in the summer, it's going to have a harder time. And I think I remember at one point, and maybe I was talking to, because I think Katie and I saw Blue Jasmine together. But I remember sort of at one point we were sort of talking and both sort of realizing it once, it's just like, oh, like Kate Blanchett and then Judy Dench and Philomena are going to be like, you know, two giant contenders in this. And I think by the time people had seen Blue Jasmine and seen. the Blanchet performance. I think people were already sort of chalking that up. And then I think the surprises in this race were, I think most people assumed Amy Adams and American Hustle would go supporting. And then they saw the movie and saw that she, you know, was plausibly a lead in that movie. And then August Osage County happens and a lot of people don't like it. And Streep and Julia get those nominations anyway on the on virtue of their star power. Merrill Streep is Globe comedy nominated for August O'Sage County, which like August

Osage County is very funny, but like given the nature of that performance and then that nomination, it's just like, well, this was this was one of those years where you look at the Globe Comedy movie nominees and it's American Hustle, Her, inside Lewin Davis, Nebraska and the Wolf of Wall Street. Now, all of those movies, you can make a credible case for those being comedies, but every single one of those... Lou and Davis is a musical, too. Right, but yes.

But every one of those movies is at, like, is the kind of comedy that if you make actual mainstream comedies, you look at that and are just like, fuck the Golden Globes for that, you know what I mean? Because it's like, it's essentially the major Oscar contenders sort of, you know, of like finding, you know, five extra slots to get best picture nominee, you know, best picture nominees. I mean, two of those movies made over $100 million.

I will counteract you there. I only really feel like fuck the Golden Globes over Nebraska. I don't, I don't know if I I don't know if, you know, if you know, box office is sort of, you know, plays into my, my argument there. I think it's just a matter of the fact that like,

I think the people who are, who get mad at the Golden Globes for for nominating dramas that are also that have some funny stuff in them rather than like pure comedies. I mean, her is a drama. Right, that's the thing. Her is a drama. American Hustle is a drama with ludicrous elements to it. I think Nebraska.

But it's a comedy. But you understand what I'm saying. It's like it's a comedy in the way that like the bear is a comedy. You know what I mean? On television. No, no. It's way more obviously a comedy than the bear. I get what you're saying.

I'm just saying I don't necessarily fully agree with you. Yeah, okay. But this year, I think especially is the fact that, like, there is no, like, token apatow comedy, right? There is no token. Like, this is, like, this entire Golden Globes lineup is packed with Oscar bait for less, for lack of a more, you know, discerning term. And you get that in the acting races, too, where even the, you know, actress and a comedy, they're sort of going to the indie movies, which again, like enough said is a comedy. But it's like, you know, it's a Tony, you know, it's an alcohol hollafs near movie. It's like it's bespoke comedy. It's a Greta Gerwig and Francis Ha, obviously a comedy. But it's, you know, it's a black and white, Noah Baumbach. You know, it's a comedy for cinefiles. And I don't know how I would. characterized before midnight in the comedy or drama sort of spectrum. There are lines in that movie that's some of the funniest shit I've ever heard, but I would

still say it's a drama. That's the thing. And I think this is the thing with Golden Globes is if you're a drama that has enough moments that make you laugh, then the studios are like, push it as a comedy. You know what I mean? And we'll, I do feel like we're getting out of, I like the fact that comedy actress this year is more competitive than drama actress because we are getting, we are in now the era where there's enough sort of genre meld that comedies are maybe more powerful, you know, than drama, certain years. And it's not just like, you know, best picture is just like the five best dramas of the year. Do you think this is, I understand why you think that way, but I really feel like, Like, that's just a factor of two movies, though.

Like, maybe the two front-runner movies are in musical or comedy this year. But I don't necessarily think that, like, musical comedy is running the race this year. Especially this early. Well, but, like, what is running the race? We kind of don't know. But I think the fact that Anora and Amelia Perez are two, you know, such major contenders that... A complete unknown could also be run as a musical, too. We don't know.

Exactly, exactly. So I just think it's, I think it's interesting and I think it's also probably more and more frustrating, again, for people, especially as, you know, the movie studios make fewer and fewer theatrical, broad comedies. You know, and so you can see that area of the market getting squeezed out. Where are your Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama's or where's your Sandra Bullock and Miss Congeniality? where are those nominations they just well they're also like at this point in time 2013 that's when they stop making these movies like they still have like apatow comedies but they don't have broad studio they also usually don't have lead actresses in apatown comedy's train wreck uh being an exception that we talked about last say that um but i don't know it just think i think 2013 i always point to as a year where it was just like, oh, like, there was, there was no room for anything but the Oscar bait in the, in the Golden Globe nominations. Over in the drama lineup, though, Winslet is, I think, the obvious fifth place, you know,

we were all kind of a little surprised that it still showed up even. Who would have taken that fifth slot, if not for her? I was trying to think I was sort of going into the other one. So BAFTA had Blanchet Adams, Bullock, Dench, Emma. Screen Actors Guild had Blanchet, Bullock, Dench, Streep, Emma. Critics' choice had Blanchet, Bullock, Dench, Streep, Emma, and then Brie Larson for short term 12, which I think would have been a better choice than, you know,

than Winslow. She was also Spirit-nominated. I'm trying to look at what my list would have had. Blue is the warmest color. I wouldn't have been surprised if that had actually shown up there. Amanda Seifred and Loveless, you know what I mean? Denai Guerrera was in a movie called Mother of George that year. That was really good, but I wouldn't have expected the Golden Globes to go for that.

Paulina Garcia and Gloria would have been a comedy. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I still feel like... The field was kind of locked up early. Yes. And I think... You probably get a Julie Delpy nomination either way that that campaign would have been run then.

Yeah, so like just put before midnight in drama, you know, and then free up the comedy. They probably thought they could get a Best Picture nomination. in comedy. Yeah, well, yes, that's, that's, that's, you're not wrong. And even you get, you get stuff like, um, the spectacular now, I feel like was a, was a decently well-reviewed indie drama, that would have counted as a drama. I really liked that when I first saw it, but I don't think I've seen it since theaters. I haven't.

I wonder how much I would like it now. We've stopped really talking about it. I think because James Ponsholz sort of like disappeared from, uh, movies. I think he sort of got caught up in the TV thing. and then hasn't really emerged from that, which is too bad. This is also, by the way, why, if you had just, like, made August Ossach County a drama. I know, I understand why that it's like, it is both comedy and drama, but, like. Well, and the tone of the movie itself is borderline farcical.

Yes. Yeah. Julia Roberts is very good in that movie, and Julia Nicholson is excellent. in that movie. I don't mind Streep in that movie. I know it's because I haven't seen the stage show and I don't have anything to compare it to. Should have been Sissy Spaceek.

It's interesting. That would have worked. All right, what else would be talking about with regard to Labor Day? I mean, we mentioned Lee. We could maybe mention Saturday Night since we're doing this around the release of Saturday Night, a movie

that I think is perfectly fine and everybody, I think I understand actual complaints about the actual substance of that movie. But I do think that some people are not some people are already making up their minds about the movie which like they do that about movies all the time

but I had fun with the movie. Yes, the final like big monologue is a lot. Corey Michael Smith is excellent. I think I would rather see... It's interesting. I think this movie compares to another Reitman movie we've done before, the frontrunner, in a real interesting way. And most people didn't even see the fucking frontrunner to be able to draw this comparison.

But it feels like Reitman, when he's not doing worthless Ghostbusters movies, is like... You only did one worthless Ghostbusters movie, and I saw the other one. the other day, and it's a better movie than Beatlejuice, Beetlejuice. And is in the way to like... The one that he did not direct? Yes. I haven't seen Bealbius. The one from this year.

Or the worthless Ghostbusters movies he has done or not done. Yeah. He's interested, he seems to be interested in, like, ecosystems now of, like, all of these people. And maybe he's just trying to do Nashville and it has, like, does not have the depth to do Nashville. But I don't think Saturday night is trying to be Nashville. But it is like, how do all of these people who work

within a system, how are they connected and like trying to find the camera thing that we're going to move through the studio and we're going to, you know, peer in on this conversation and we're going to peer in on this conversation. And I think all of that stuff, I like

that structure. I think it's good. I think I think the writing at the core of it could be better. I genuinely, I generally liked Saturday Night and I like a lot of the performances in it. I think the writing could have been tighter. I think there are some people for whom treating Saturday Night Live with this kind of reverence is always just going to like brush up against their sensibilities. And I'm one of them. Like, but I still think the movie is fine. Which is why I'm surprised that you liked the movie actually. Yeah. Well, I mean,

I think it's as much a movie about the impossibility of creating something, you know, in a corporate climate as much as it's about anything that is or isn't Saturday Night Live. Yeah. And like I understand people who are being like, okay, but Saturday Night Live ultimately does become the corporate thing that it

proposed, the movie proposes against it. And I just don't think the movie is that interested in that. Like I'm willing to mean this movie on its level than I think a lot of other people seem to be. And even meeting it on its level, it's like yes, there are flaws, but it

can at least be an entertaining movie. I mostly walk out of this movie with the demand that we make a movie for Gabriel LeBelle and Cooper Hoffman to star in together, like, several other movies. Give them, you know, not a series, but like have them, you know, be in a movie about, like, you know, two lifelong friends who do a thing. I don't know. You know what I mean? It's just like they have really good chemistry together.

I really like them as a duo. I will once again say, as I have said online, casting Dylan O'Brien as a young Dan Aykroyd is the nicest thing anybody's ever done for Dan Aykroyd in his entire life. He got the voice, though. I swear, I was like, it's ridiculous watching him try to be Dan Aykroyd.

But then when he opens his mouth, I was like, he showed up to an audition and had the voice nailed down and got the part. Yeah. I thought Matthew Rees was very fun, George Carlin. I thought Tommy Dewee was really good in this movie and just should, you know, give him more movie roles. He's mostly been a TV guy. Andrew Barth Feldman, once again, knocking a awkward comedic role out of the park. We love him. Yeah. Lamar Morris is great. I'm going to see it again for with a better, hopefully with a better sound mix because a lot of those, a lot of that dialogue was lost to the poor. sound mix at the Princess of Wales

Theater, unfortunately. One Nicholas Braun performance is unquestionably better than the other. That's true. Get on the Corey Michael Smith train now before it leaves you behind. Yeah, he's great. He's great.

The John Pettice score, I think, is really, really good. It's just cranked up too loud. That's my only problem with the John Patees score. He's shaking your fist at the sky. Yeah. The guy who plays Billy Crystal is really good. I thought Kim Matula as Jane Curtin was really good,

even as all three of the women from the cast of SNL were poorly served in this movie. Yeah, it's not a great barometer, but she definitely has the best stuff of all of the women. I feel like we did a lot of this when we did our post-TIF episode, so we don't really have to like that. That was a whole ass month ago.

It was. But anyway, yeah, so I'm glad that at least, well, at some point, I think Reitman's probably dealing with the death of his father in these last few years, obviously trying to do, you know, trying to bring Ghostbusters back, trying to do this, like, you know, ensemble comedy thing about a lot of these actors who his dad worked with, you know, that kind of a thing. And I still weirdly have, you know, some faith.

He has made some movies that I've really, really. liked. You know, they were all with Diablo Cody. But I don't know. I want to believe that Jason Reitman can still sort of evolve into a more interesting filmmaker

than he currently is. Not every director and not every comedy director has to write their own scripts. Also that. Also that. So... I mean, unquestionably, his best movies are not written by him. And up in the air, I think, is really good. I would still

stump for up in the air. I haven't seen it since that year. And there was, I feel like there was a lot of, that movie came out as my dad had gotten laid off from his long-time job. So I feel like I had a lot of, yeah. Right. It was, it was harder for me to sort of like be, you know, it was a movie that like, I cried when I watched it, but it was mostly just because of that stuff. It was mostly because of personal stuff and not because of the movie. And I think I maybe sort of like, you know, kept the movie itself at arm's length. But also, maybe it's just not a movie that I think is very good. Who knows?

Who knows? Should we move on to the IMDB game? Yeah, why don't we? Why don't you explain the IMDB game to our listeners? Every week we end our episodes with what we call the IMDB game. We are very clever when we named that because it has to do with IMDB. In this game, we challenge each other with the name of an actor or actress. try and guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for.

If any of those titles are television, voice-only performances, or non-acting credits, we mentioned that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue, and if that is not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints. That's the IMDB game. How do we want the game to play today? Why don't I quiz you first? Cool.

because I was a little stinker with my choice. I might have been a stinker too. That's fine. If we ended up choosing the same stinker choice and it was as in the weeds as I got. Oh, I think I went in a different stinker direction that you did. Oh, okay. We just finished talking about Saturday night, a cast of many, many, many performers. One we didn't mention is a certain.

of yours, and I thought it would be funny to make you guess the known for for Finn Wolfhard. One of which is television. And one of which is a voice performance. Stranger Things. Yes. The voice is...

Oh, man. The voice is the hard one, I will say, in this... I would not have gotten. because it's it's not Pixar it's like unless it ends up being like boy in the air and

um no um I'm not going to guess that I will say what's the name of the Eisenberg debut it's when you finish saving the

world. It's not when you finish saving the world, but that's a good guess. It Chapter 1? Yes. Okay. Which is just called it in IMDB, but yes. Which is also all those kids show up again, but

would I guess it chapter 2 for that? I'll say it chapter 2. Not it chapter 2. No. Okay. So those are two strikes. Your remaining two movies are from 2021 and 2022. Well, which one's the voice? 2022.

2020 is... 2020. 22, 22, 22, 22, 22, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Yes. What were the animated features of 2022? It was not the year after in Canto. So, but the year before, um, is this like a Netflix animated movie? Not a Netflix.

Not a Netflix. Well, wait. Where did this movie get distributed? Hold on. Which tells me it's not like a DreamWorks. Um, oh, it was distributed by Netflix. That's right. Wow. Okay.

Oh, so was it like, when was Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio? Was that 21 or 22? I will guess that movie. It is. In fact, Guillermo del Toro is Pinocchio. There you go. He plays Candlewick. Sure. Sure. Okay, so the 2021 movie, which would have been, oh, that's a Ghostbusters.

Yes. I should have just guessed that right off the... Yes, you should have. Do you remember the title? I'm not going to make you say it. Ghostbusters, semicolon, useless. Semicolon afterlife. Yes.

All right. See, that wasn't so hard. You did pretty well. For you, I went into, as we discussed, Labor Day comes from a book by Joyce Maynard. Oh, yeah. We didn't really do the Joyce Maynard discussion. Yeah.

From Joyce Maynard's work is the great masterpiece To Die For To Die For Features a great ensemble cast I'm sure we talk about many of them in our episode on To Die For However, today I have chosen from the cast of To Die For

For you, the great Dan Hadea. Yay, okay, this is what I was hoping. All right, Dan Hadea, no television. No television. Is one of them the Adams family? Green legend. No, the Adam's family is not there. No!

right? He's so good in the Adams. He really is. He's genuinely very good. First thing I ever saw him in. So everything subsequently, including like when he was on Cheers or whatever, when I would watch Old Rearons Cheers. I'm like, oh, it's the guy from the Adams family. Is one of them clueless? Clueless is correct. Okay. So at least there's Mel Horowitz. Is one of them, he's like so far down the cast list in this, but it's a major movie. Is one of them the usual suspects? Correct. The usual suspects is on there. Okay, it's him and Giancarlo Esposito are, like, working on the case with Chess Palmy and Terry in that movie. God, we used to have actor names Dan Hedaya. Chas Palma. Carlo Esposito.

Yeah. Chas Palman Terri. That's a cast, baby. Now we've got fucking, I don't know, what's a dumb actor name? Finn Wolfhard. See, now, Finn Wolfhard fits right in with all of those other. Absolutely does not. You are, the degree of hateery happening with you for that child is...

You cannot say that the name Finn Wolfhard is on the same level as Chaz Palm and Terry. It's genuinely just a different ethnicity. No. Where's the Zaz? Where's the Zaz? Where's the Zaz in Finn Wulfard? This is, I'm now I'm imagining you as like, um, the performing art school teacher who, like, Finn Wolfhard is like, this guy will not cut me a break. And finally, you're like, he's like, what's your problem with me?

And you're like, where's the zaz? I need some zaz. I get no zaz out of you. All right, anyway, back to Dan Hodea. Only one incorrect guest so far. Yeah. You're not getting clues. But you do have half of them already.

Is he in Casper? I believe he is in Casper. Casper is incorrect. Okay. What are my ears? Is he the goon to Kathy Moriarty? I don't think that's him. Okay.

Yeah, I am not seen Casper. What a fun movie, Casper. Give me my years, anyway. All right. Your years are 1985 and 2001. Wow. Okay. 2001, is he in like Ghost World or something?

Ghost World is incorrect. 2001 Oscar nominee The man who wasn't there? Incorrect. So decent guess. I can follow the logic to that game. I could picture him in that movie.

All right, Oscar nominee in a major category or in craft category zone? Major category. Major category. Well, we all remember Dan Hadea's role in the Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring.

I would like Lord of the Rings more of Dan Hadea was in it. as Sauron. Dan Hadea as Sauron. Dan Hadea is not usually... No, I want... You know the thing where everybody's like, take a movie and make only one character and actor in the rest of Muppets?

I want that, but I want Dan Hadea to be, like, Galadriel. Dan Hadea as Sauramon in Lord of the Rings. Gandalf the Grey has come to Eisenhower. Um, okay. 2001 major Oscar nominee, I'm going to... Major category. Major category.

A beautiful mind. Incorrect. Um, I don't want to just like willy-nilly guess... nominated in one of the categories that A Beautiful Mind was indeed nominated in. Interesting. Okay. Okay. Um...

Wait, is he an Ali? He might be an Ali, but Ali is incorrect. Is that the right category? Is that, am I in the right category? You're in the wrong category. All right, I'm going to put a pin in that. I'm going to move to 1985. 85 is way harder.

85 is way harder, you should say on 2001. Really? So it's not like a Beverly Hills cop or something, like, obvious like that. It is not Beverly Hills Cop. All right. Stay on 2001. Major award category. I can't imagine he's in Bridget Jones's diary.

He's not in... Bridget Jones's diary was not nominated in a category that a Beautiful Mind was nominated in. Oh. Good call. He's not in Gosford Park. He's... Is he an in-the-bedroom? He is not an in-the-bedroom.

If he's an iris, I'll shit. He's not an iris. Okay, I don't think so. You've narrowed down the categories, except for this category. Is it best actor? No. You said it's not best actor? Is it best director?

Yes. What's the... Is he in Black Hawk Down? He is not in Black Hawk Down. Oh, he's in... Mulholland Drive. I'm so stupid. He's in Mulholland Drive. I knew that. I knew that. That's so dumb that it took me that long to get to Mahal and Drive. How, okay, you mentioned Adam's family off the top of the bat because obviously this movie didn't come out in 1985. I just have to talk about it now. Look, I get it. We all love Mulholland Drive. But if there is any... I don't like that in this world that thinks about Dan Hadea in Mulholland Drive before they think about Dan Hadea in Mulholland Drive before they think about Dan Hade. Dea and Dick, I don't want to know what you think about movies. Like, why is Dick Notton's known for?

I totally spaced on guessing. I should have guessed Dick before I guess. You know, like, yes, obviously Mulholland Drive is the better movie of those movies. But like, if we're talking about Dan Hadegh. This is the fault of the Algo. Like, the Algo rhythm is fucked on this. All right, 1985. Is it a movie I would have seen?

I bet that you've seen this. Is it a movie that, like, a kid would have seen, or is this a movie for, like, grown-ups? I'm sure kids did see this, but, like, this is a movie intended for grown-ups. This is a genre that people are like, whatever, we'll just take the kid to see this. It's a movie for dumb adults. Yes. Is it an action movie? Yes.

This is a star vehicle that absolutely nobody talks about this movie when they talk about this star. Is it like a Stallone Schwarzenegger, Willis, one of those. It's one of those. Which one? Stallone. No. Schwarzenegger.

Yes. 1985. 85 Schwarzenegger. Is it like Red Sonia? No. I think Red Sonia is before this. Is it one of the Konans? No.

Dan Hadea and one of the Konans would be very funny. Conan the Bumpere. That's a terrible Dan Hedaya, but you can hear it. You can hear it. Wait, so is it a franchise starter? No. This would have been the year after the Terminator. So not Predator, not Commando.

Not, oh, it's Commando? Are there sequels to Commando? I don't know. I guess maybe not. I feel like people still talk about Commando. Never seen Commando. Nobody talks about Commando, especially when you're like Schwarzenegger movie. Straight men talk about Commando.

I guarantee you if like the big picture did a ranking of Schwarzenegger movies they would talk about Commando I have never I mean like I know enough heterosexual people who like these movies

that I have never heard them talk about Commando I think it's definitely like a tier below your major Schwarzenegger's but like it's a tier below the Conans like

I think it's on the same tier as the Conans straight people get at us but because it's a franchise it makes people talk about the Conans more I'm just talking purely about, like, presence in the culture.

Sure, sure, sure. Commando doesn't have any. Again, straight people, if you're out there, straight garries, get at us. Straight males, straight male garries. It's going to be like, yeah, man, I watch Commando all the time. By the way, Chris, you're right. Heterosexuality is a disease. Is Andrew Dice Clay a gary now?

What's going on? Maybe, I mean, maybe Stephanie got him on to it on the set of, Star is born. Who knows? Checking you went up the hill. They went to watch Commando. Oh. I don't know, man. I don't know. I've got to get out of here.

Yeah, that's our episode. If you want more, This Had Oscar Buzz. You can check out the Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz.com. You should also follow us on Twitter at had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz on Instagram at This Had Oscar Buzz. And on Patreon at patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz. Joe, where can the listeners find more? of you talking about Commando. I'm walking here.

I'm watching Commando here. Oh, I'm on Zis Socials at Joe Reed, read-spelled R-E-I-D. I am also on Patreon hosting the Demi, Myself, and I podcast three episodes every month on the films of Demi Moore.

We're going in chronological order. We are just getting into the late 80s, early 90s of it all, which means you will find me there You will find Chris there You will find We're creeping up on ghosts We're creeping up on the golden age

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