This Had Oscar Buzz - 317 – Chappaquiddick (Patreon Selects)

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

This week’s episode comes selected by one of our sponsor tier patrons over at our Patreon! The 2017 festival season brought us Chappaquiddick, director John Curran’s recounting of the titular incident where Senator Ted Kennedy was responsible in the accidental death of party secretary Mary Jo Kopechne. With Jason Clarke as Kennedy and Kate Mara … Continue reading "317 – Chappaquiddick (Patreon Selects)"

Chris, the Vulture Movies Fantasy League, continues to respond to the fluctuating fortunes of the box office. And our update continues with one of us saying the other person's name. I do not pay attention to that at all. That's so funny. Listen, I want people to know who I'm talking to. We got a good Christmas bomb to talk about. We do. And I will say, I ended up being more wrong about this one. I thought that this was going to make filthy amounts of money because who among our big populace is going to resist both The Rock and Christmas. But it turns out... In an anonymous movie that has been delayed because of several reshoots and has had bad press about Dwayne Johnson pissing into bottles. Sure. But how far do you think that that trickles down, so to speak? No pun intended.

Well, I'm sure that people that did show up to see this movie are. are the people that would not reach it, you know. That's the thing. And my thing was, I just figured there would be more such people. The other thing was, is this thing had been advertised up the wazoo forever. So, I don't know. I've luckily escaped a trailer for this Christmas turd. You got to be kidding me.

I saw this trailer so many times. That's so funny. I do feel like you and I have different trailer experiences because sometimes you will be like, oh, my God, this trailer won't leave me alone. And I'll be like, I don't know what you're talking about. I've only ever seen it maybe once. Anyway, Red One is none of my business, but if you drafted it, it is predicted to open somewhere between 30 and 34 million at this point, given that this movie cost over $200 million to make. Yes.

It's not so great. Well, the good thing about the, for the Fantasy Movie League purposes, is you are not paying for its budget. So that doesn't matter as much. But what does matter, I imagine, is that this thing is going to struggle to reach the $100 million landmark that you're going to want it to. So, I mean, who knows? Maybe this does end up having legs through Thanksgiving because who knows? But, like, I kind of doubt it at this point with this kind of an opening. But, you know, whatever.

It costs you $5, and here we are. Cost me, I think I'm pretty sure this is on my roster. I'm pretty sure I added this onto my roster. So this was my Cheebo box office sop, and I think at least, who knows? At this point, who knows what I picked? But regardless, yes. So other box office news, as we sort of make the quick peruse through what did well and what didn't well, Heretic continues to be like very midling.

Good for A-24, though, you know. It is in the 4A-24. purposes, yes. It will end up being a top 5, A24 movie. They opened it big and... You could say it's doing relatively well for a movie that almost no one likes. I've not seen anyone say anything positive about this. I've seen a couple people, but there's very few and far between. I kind of thought that the Hugh Grant star power would, you know, carry this a little bit more, but again... A real pain has expanded well, and it's going to continue to expand. It'll finish in the top 10, it'll maybe finish close to the top five, which is pretty good.

Crosses the million dollar threshold, so you are now earning money on a real pain if you've drafted it, although it did get a Gotham nomination, right? So you've got some... Colkin, probably. Yeah, I think so. I think. I could be wrong. Anyway, I think you have more positive fortunes ahead of you if you drafted a real pain, so things are going well. A movie you ended up really liking, much to my surprise, was here. And that's... That ended up crossing the $10 million threshold, so, you know, good for you if you drafted here. Zemeckis made a good movie. What can I say? All right. I will see it at some point. Venturing the leaderboard right now. Venturing at the leaderboard, we now are back into a situation where we have a tie for first place, which, you know, I don't love, but it's at least not the like, you know, 20-way tie we had through much of the season.

much of last season. So Luke Bart 07, who was in the lead all by their lonesome last week, has now been caught by Apolline B. Appaline B. I'm just going to pronounce it however I want to. With 569 points apiece, it is a deadlock. They are 12 points ahead of third place, whose roster is named Moodles, not Noodles with an N. but Moodles with an M. Brennan Klein sits in fourth place with 554 points,

and then Little Boston Oilers in fifth place with 552. As far as the Gariators go, our beloved hometown league for the Gariators, first place remains with Monstro Foblissa Sue with 474 points, getting points from Venom, Still, and Smile 2. We Live in Time has turned out to be decently beneficial to the people who have it. I feel like I've made note of it being like a difference maker in the early going. So good for you if you drafted We Live in Time. Maybe watch out for those Golden Globe nominations, though I don't really see much.

In the drama categories, although actress in a drama is decidedly. less competitive, I think, than actress in a comedy this year. So I could see Florence getting, you know, getting a little nomination there. You never know. Bafta Best British Film. Yes, there we go. Behind Monstra Thalblessasu, we have LV-426, who is waiting for points from baby girl coming up soon, waiting for some Blitz points, waiting for some Christopher Reeve documentary points.

So there we go. Oops all box office. I love the idea of Oops all Box Office, by the way. So this roster is currently in third place in Garyator's League. The roster is Moana 2, Mufasa, Joker Folly Adieu, which is not great. Sorry for that. Sime of the Hedgehog 3, Venom the Last Dance, and Smile 2, both of which are everybody who's doing well right now has Venom the Last Dance and Smile 2. Piece by piece and then Y2K.

So I'm going to keep my eye on how well this does. We love the name. Oops, I'll box outfit. Yes, 100%. I deserve this. Our Shirley MacLean tribute roster in fourth place with 416 points,

subsisting on points from Venom and the substance and Anora and is really hoping that Challenger's comes back, comes roaring back into awards season. So... I'm very happy, of course, for all of our, all of our Garriators teams, so. Next week, we'll be talking Wicked Dollars. We'll be talking Gladiator Dollars.

Where do you anticipate that shaking out? I'm very, very bad, as we've noticed, in predicting box office. My guess is that Gladiator 2 is going to be more long game. The tracking for Wicked is very, very high. Yeah. I think Wicked is going to blow it out of it. Wicked's going to be over $100 million. Yeah, which is great. Good time. Good for you if you drafted it.

It was a lot cheaper than Gladiator. That is true. That is true. And I am now, now that I've seen Gladiator, I am now... And Wicked. Yes, but particularly Gladiator, I am now maybe less bullish on the awards legs for that movie. You never know. You never know.

I also didn't like the first Gladiator, so who knows. First Gladiator's not good at one best picture. There we go. There go. But this gladiator is not good in a sillier, gayer way. Everybody seems so happy that it's so stupid, and this only makes me more excited to watch it. It should. That's how you should be approaching this, for sure. As always, you can go check out your standing at the Movie Fantasy League at www.vulture.com slash movies-league. You can see where you are in the leaderboard. You can check out the mini-leagues. You can check out

Links to where the prizes are, where the points will be coming from. Check out your fellow gariators. Check out your fellow gariators. Show support to your fellow gariators. And we will be back next week with another update. I'm from Canada water I'm from Canada water What do you tell the truth? We tell the truth or at least our version You've been diagnosed with a concussion

I haven't examined the patient yet These theatrics are not going to hold up In a corner of long I'm not going to be the one defined by my flaws If her family doesn't blame you Lashit America I want to be a great man

I just don't know who I am Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast The Only Podcasts getting kidnapped at a James Brown concert. Every week on this head 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 entirely wooden bridge that somehow cars are expected to drive over.

How does that bridge not just collapse? Please do something, Pete Buttigieg. Joe Reed. Were cars? expected to be able to drive over that? I feel like that was just a footbridge that they like ended up on through driver. It fits a car? Well, yeah, but just because it fits a car doesn't mean it should. I wouldn't walk on that thing personally. What am I, Indiana Jones? Have you ever been to the Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard area at all? It's a very sort of... A bit of Provincetown,

but not... Okay, that's enough. That counts. I mean, we went through Cape Cod to get there. Right, right, right. This vineyard seems nice. Also, can we talk about this little... You have to take a ferry to get there, but yeah. Martha's Vineyard vacation home that... I guess if you have to get a ferry, it's fairly private, but, like, major politicians just hanging out in a house

that seems very publicly accessible and not very private. I was very confused, though I guess the fairy makes sense. We're going to get into my Kennedy family whole thing. As somebody who grew up Catholic in the Northeast with Democrat parents, I have unsurprisingly thoughts and feelings on the Kennedy family that are complicated. So get fucking ready. If you thought that the Liberty Heights episode was Joe sort of revealing his boomer sympathies, get fucking ready to hear me talk about the Kennedys.

But yeah, they live in the compound in Hyannisport, which is on mainland Cape Cod, you can just drive up to it. And I know that because my family and I have done that multiple times on trips to Cape Cod where we're just like, let's drive past the Kennedy compound in Hiana's Port. One time we saw, I will shit you not, in one of the driveways to the compound, there was an owl, a giant fucking owl just sort of on a perch. in the driveway and all of a sudden, because I don't know what was going on, why which Kennedy

just is keeping a pet owl. But it was like flapping its wing, so it was like sort of like at full glory. And it was the weirdest thing I'd ever seen. Well, I think it's safe to say it's not RFK Jr. keeping a wild animal alive on the compound. Well, they also probably don't allow him on the compound anymore because most of that family does not speak to RFK Jr. anymore. Biblically accurate Simpson character, RFK Jr. Wait, biblically accurate Simpson's character. He looks like, you know how like biblically accurate angels are like fucking scary as shit? He's like a biblically accurate Simpson character.

He looks like the remains of Monstro-Elizus in a suit, like. Fantastic. Yeah, he's... Anyway, fuck him. It was only literally, maybe, like, less than two months ago that I first ever actually heard him speak, because I always, like, flip the channel or mute or whatever. I didn't realize he talked like that. He gets people, like, on board with wanting him to, like, be their leader when he talks, like, fucking Skeletor or whatever.

It's so... Like, H.G.H. being sucked through his straw. He's... He's a real character that RFK Jr. Fuck damn. Yeah, we'll be getting into the, we'll be getting into the Kennedys of it all. This is a movie that I didn't love,

and it sort of gave me a lot of occasion for my mind to wander and sort of think of other things and sort of, you know, ruminate on various things about Ted Kennedy's life and career and the Kennedys in general and their place in American politics and yada, Was this your first time watching the film as it was no it wasn't because- Did you see it at the 2017 TIF? No. So here's what happened was at the time I was working for a website whose audience who had a significant portion of their audience were conservative New York Post types, let's say.

And so I was encouraged to write. about the movie Chappaquittic on the idea that our readers would be interested in reading about a movie that sticks it to the Kennedys without putting too much of a fine point on it. So I ended up sort of- Stick it to the Kennedys? I don't know. It does in part. It certainly does not paint a flattering picture of Ted Kennedy. I'll say that. I think it's a- I think what it does allows you to see whatever you. want to see in it. Well, and our audience at that website that I worked for at the time definitely saw

what they saw, what they wanted to see in that audience. That was also, there was a time when, like, there were a lot of, any time that someone on the View did something we wrote about it, because that audience really loved a shit on the View. They loved a shit on Tina Fey. But anyway, so I watched the movie then, when it was like newly on VOD. and wrote about it then. I don't think it's like a piece of crap or anything like that.

To me, it's much more of a missed opportunity in that you can tell that this is a movie that has something of a POV on the Kennedys on this incident, but does not really sort of follow through with it enough. It's not interested in pressing its thoughts, I would say. I would also say as somebody who, like, had heard a lot about the Chappaquitic incident and a lot of what people know or believe to know about that has sort of become this not exactly urban legend, but sort of it's the details of that have been kind of calcified into a more sort of like a fable than anything else. It's a political fable of hubris and downfall and, you know, the Kennedy curse. And here's why Ted Kennedy never became president and yada, yada, yada, when really, to me, watching this movie, my main takeaway was, and, you know, I know it's obnoxious to watch a movie and be like, let me review the movie that this isn't and talk about what I wanted this movie to be that it is not. But to me, the more interesting story is how do you go from the Ted Kennedy of this moment, of, you know, weak and cowering and, and, you know, self-interested. and wearing a neck brace and, you know, wheezzling his way out of the Chappaquitic scandal. How do you go from that Ted Kennedy to liberal lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy, who becomes, by the time he has died, one of the most sort of, like, beloved and respected senators on the left? And, like, that, to me, is the interesting thing, is how does he go from one to the other?

because it's not it's not exactly a straight line from like villain to hero either like it's an incredibly and we're going to get we'll get into this after the plot description um it's an incredibly complicated and checkered legacy that he has that has some real genuine you know heroism for as for public service and some real rotten public your private life stuff and um this is not a very very this is this is not an easy historical figure to sort of wrap up in here's how we feel about this the package of the movie you know what I mean because like the thing you're describing of where the story is here is all handled in post script yes the I hate that I hate that the post script in this movie is doing some heavy lifting is when the post script is far more interesting than the movie I'm like god damn it and you're not see where the interest lies in the the movie that I'm not entirely sure that the movie gets that this is maybe it's subtly most interesting element is the way that when this tragedy happens all the men around

him jump into action to handle this situation yeah in a way that would enable him to you know try to weasel his way out of this as much as possible sure that to me was like interesting, but underdeveloped as just like the theme of the movie, as here's what the story is, that Ted Kennedy, in this moment, in this story, is a figure who was enabled by a very male system to protect his ill-doing. You get the conflict of, well, you can't make a movie about Chappaquitic without making Ted Kennedy, your main character. And yet, you're right in that, like, what's interesting is you have this circle of, it is mostly men, although you have the, like, Olivia Thurlby character,

who's also very much like springs immediately into action is like, how can we help the senator? But you have this circle of mostly men around him who spring into action to essentially get him out of this, but it's through a sort of interlocked system of self-interest, right? In that, like, it's politicians who don't want to, you know, lose their Democratic stronghold and whatever. It's people whose jobs depend on Ted Kennedy remaining a senator in good standing. It's people who are related to him. It's people who are genuinely his friend. And that to me would be an interesting movie is to do the sort of shoe leather, you know, ensemble movie about the inner circle around Ted Kennedy who had to work overtime to get their guy out of the Chappaquitic scandal and sort of what that means on a moral level, what that means on a political level, and what that means on this country's road to where. we are today where, you know, any political scandal is ultimately negligible because so long as you

dig your heels in and refuse to concede anything to your enemies, you will at the very least allow your opponents to punch themselves exhausted and you'll get past it. That is the lesson. That's truly the lesson of the Trump era to me. is one of the lessons, but a big one, which is we are now in the post-scandal era of politics where truly nothing matters. Truly nothing matters. A rape conviction does not matter. Corruption convictions do not matter. Nothing matters if the person in power does not want to resign. If they want to dig their heels in, we are. Well, and if they're, if they're base, also refuses

to capitulate. Exactly. Exactly. We are recording this from a time in the past, but also the future that we hope

we're entering an era where in the aggregate those things do matter. Anyway, I think also to like piggyback off of what you're saying, as a movie that enters

the festival sphere is intended to get a qualifying release and pushed for awards in 2017. That, you know, especially with that post script, that the message is essentially, or you're like kind of left with the question, is this movie trying to posit this as a first time that a scandal was not a political undoing for someone?

Which is honestly an interesting contrast to, the frontrunner, which would be the next year, which was very much a movie that was trying to be like, this is a time where media spin was someone's undoing and maybe it was unfair. I don't know. Again, that's also kind of a milk toast movie. I think Chappaquittic is a better movie. But also that vantage point, if that's what the audience is supposed to be left with, I think it's a little more frustrating and frustratingly inadequate. as a point of view on this movie. I can agree with that. Yes, I can agree with that. It's also the sort of the specter of, of, you know, obviously Watergate hadn't happened yet in the,

in the time frame of Chappaquitic, but obviously everything from that era sort of exists in the shadow of Watergate. Another thing where you, if such a thing had happened nowadays, would not be a blip on the radar, all the corruption and all of the illegal, actions that happened in

regard to Watergate. If that happened today, it would get two days worth of coverage, and that would be it, and it would be over, and how unsettling that is. Anyway, why don't we get to a point where we can actually dig

into this? Because I feel like you and I both will have some really interesting things to say about it. Well, we should mention, finally, this episode was brought to us by one of our patron sponsor tier individual. We have to say a big thank you to Meredith, both for supporting us and having us finally do this movie

because this is one in, I think, recent history. Like last week we've done fully forgotten movie Liberty Heights, and you know I love doing those movies. And this one is kind of lingered for several factors that we'll get into entertainment studios, motion pictures, one of my favorite punchlines. We'll talk about it. but Meredith

thank you so much for bringing this movie Meredith in Choosing Chappaquiddick says the movie was chosen not just because I'm the world's biggest

brackets only Kate Maristan but literally there's an article in the Hollywood reporter or variety something like that that had an article called Where's the Oscar buzz for these movies

and I immediately had my Thob radar or this had Oscar Buzz radar. You know I don't love Thob. Activated. Because great question. What creates Oscar Buzz or not? I can't wait to hear y'all discuss this. Meredith, thank you also for posing this question because sometimes I think it's good every once

and a while to do some table setting of what we do here, what we talk about. This movie, I think in particular, answers that question really well. Why would this movie be considered an Oscar buzz type? Oscar buzzy. Even if, like, you know, we who like recognize these things at a festival or something would be like, this might be B-tier Oscar-Buzzy. It's going to have to be really good. Or it's going to have to be a studio or a small distributor that picks it up and puts all of a energy towards it.

Entertainment Studio and London Pictures. Anyway. Here's a question for you before you finish that thought, though. On a sort of like philosophical level, does any movie that plays a major festival like TIF, New York, can Venice, does just playing that festival qualify for at least a low level of Oscar buzz? I think, I mean, it depends on what section it plays in. Okay. Um, because this was a TIF gala, we get into, right. Um, so that means there's going to be...

I want to make a list of the, um, it's like Chris Files enemies list or something, but it's, it's just sort of like the Chris Files shade list. And it's like the Independent Spirit Awards, um, Finn Wolfhard, Tiff Gallas, um, anything we're like, anytime you mention them, you're just like, but yes, but there is a, there's an implied judgment where you're like, well, because not all Tiff Gala's are made equal. Like a second Thursday TIF Gala, that's not real. Like, even when it's like Paul Schrader playing there, it's like, you know, that's when a lot of people have already left and, you know, Torontoians are like, have to work, you know. It's not, it's not, it's not a more. King Street is open to full traffic. Yeah, it's not as prestigious of a spot. I will actually look up when this Tiff Gala plays.

It was September 10th, 2017, if you want to just look up the calendar, 2017 calendar. But it was a TIF world premiere at this point. And like, we can kind of look skeptically at some of those movies. But, you know, there are also TIF world premieres that do very well. I mean, you look at something, even back in the days of like American Beauty, there is the opportunity for it to be a sensation. Okay, so this was a sun, the first Sunday. afternoon in Roy Thompson

Hall. That's a pretty prominent spot. That's like where maybe this year it was Wild Robot or something. Maybe. It's this year's Sunday afternoon at Roy Thompson. Hell of fine, though. Um,

but I also think, you know, something like Chappaquiddick where you're talking about famous politicians or famous figures. that instantly gets people talking about it. Yeah, not just famous politicians, but like American royalty. Do you know what I mean? Yes.

And yes, this was the same slot as Wild Robot was. Damn, you are good. That is a genre of info I would absolutely give up on ever knowing for myself. This is my damage. This is why I'm here. I love that, though. Because I have other damage. And so together we sort of Voltron our way into covering a whole spectrum of damage.

And I love that about us. But, you know, that automatically, you know, the things have changed. You know, when we started as like Oscar obsessives, you know, and the outlets we had for that, there was much more like conversation and talk around movies like this. What I think it is now is when a movie like this shows up at a festival, our eyes are on it, if not like the way that awards coverage happens online. Yes.

But then when this movie gets picked up out of the festival by a new distributor that, you know, my paranoid theory absolutely based in no fact whatsoever, is that it is the original catch-up entertainment. You can't just name a company. entertainment studios motion pictures call them tomatoes call them whole tomatoes and vinegar because they are the pre-catchup uh entertainment i'm saying we'll get back to it but to answer meredith's question yes you know i think i think this is kind of a quintessential example of that that like

the it comes back to the on paper potential is right there you know we'll talk about director john curran a little bit john curran i think is secretly a director whose name we've never mentioned beyond our painted veil episode. I was going to say we've already this head off or buzz director. Yeah, our second episode and won't be our last because we will end up doing, we don't live here anymore at some point. Right, right. And Jason Clark is very interesting in this way.

We'll talk about Jason Clark. We will. I want to take it back a little bit to something that Meredith just breezed right by. I'm taking it back now, yeah. Well done. Meredith, just so you know, you've caused Joe to do the cha-cha slide. Like, he's at a white person's wedding. Continue. Self-identified Kate Mara Stan, Meredith.

Listen, you're not the only Kate Mara. We do have questions. I also like Kate Mara, but you know who's a Kate Mara stan is Jamie Bell, her husband. So you are in good company as a Kate Mara. You know who else is a Kate Marristan, Elliot Page. Wait, what is the story there? There was this kind of, there was a like a triad friendship between Elliot, Kate, and Max Minghella. Oh, interesting.

And I believe there was a flirt. In the memoir, there is described a flirtation-ish. Cute. Memoir is pretty good. Page boy. Now at bookstores. All right. I'm taking it to, I'm going to choose to believe that Meredith, you were a ground-level House of Cards person before we collectively decided to forget about that show, because Kate Marr and Season 1 House of Cards is quite good.

She's quite good, yeah. Also good in any nomination for that? I don't think so. I think she was like the surprise snub. Yeah, I don't think so. also good in Brokeback Mountain Very good in Brokeback Mountain Kate Martin's pretty, I think,

is someone who has not really had opportunities to, she's worked a lot. Of the granddaughters of New York Giants, owner and billionaire Wellington Mara, she's the less heralded one. She lives in Rooney's bird-like shadow at this point. Rooney getting multiple Oscars. nominations. The thing that I love about Rooney and Kate Mara is they both bring such

different energy, such fundamentally different energy, which is pretty cool, I think. Less we forget, she was Miranda Speer in Tadpole. I'm making it my new goal to mention our Tadpole episode. You really have now two in a row. And of course, Kate Mara was wrapped in the awful Fantastic Four production. Yeah, her and Jamie together. And we haven't really seen much of her. We'll see her in friendship, the movie that neither of us got to see at Tiff, but the Tim Robinson comedy that got picked up by A24.

Right. I've heard good things. I have not heard. There was friendship and the friend at Tiff, and I saw The Friend, which is the Naomi Watts Great Dane movie. Coming soon from Bleaker Street. You know what? Get ready. It is the perfect spring movie.

I will say. I agree. I agree. I was like, this is the perfect movie to see on a March Sunday matinee. Mm-hmm. 100%. 100%. All right. Kate Mara. We love that you're a stand, Meredith. Meredith also shared the Oscar origin story, which we keep forgetting to do with new guests. I know. I know. Listen. I believe we missed it on two first-time guests. But as this, a Patreon Selects episode, we're going to get it for Meredith. Meredith says, my Oscar origin story, two words, Billy Crystal, the end, good night. Kidding, of course, this is my opening monologue, sit back as I work the stage, since it's a wonderful night for Oscar origin story. Who will care? I started watching the Academy Award ceremony when I was about 10 or 11. At that point, thanks to my beloved Nana, we love a

grandmother's story. I had seen my first Broadway show and been fed. a steady diet of every single movie musical from the 1950s and 60s, so I was primed to adore any exposition set to song. But more critically, my parents had five, later six idiot kids who exhausted them. They went to bed at 10 at night, so we had to be in bed hours before that. It meant that, to me, all of the major Hollywood award ceremonies were what I could watch in that first 7 p.m. Central hour. Oh, central time, Meredith. All respect to Gary's in Central Standard Time.

Is it Central Standard Time? What's the middle? I think, well, it's whether you're in daylight savings time or not. We are now back into Standard Time. Sure. I think. I think. Back to Meredith's origin story.

Yes. And if you were a 90s tween, That meant the Oscars were Billy Crystal. Absolutely correct. He made jokes that flew so far over my head. They were charted by air traffic control. But wow, did I appreciate how the audience lost their shit over his digs at Jeffrey Katzenberg? Did you know Billy Crystal took a swing at Donald Trump in the 1991 ceremony?

The man is a prophet. How the shots of actors and actresses in the crowd were always delighted, tickled, foe scandalized, or how he'd make a dig and then perfectly react physically, sometimes leaning into the deadpan, other times raising an eyebrow or mimicking a punch, widening his eyes or bobbing his head at someone he was staring at in the crowd, or laughing just a bit, enjoying himself, enjoying the audience who adored him right back, and me too. Billy was a matri-D to the most amazing insider, sophisticated club,

and for a kid stuck in rural Wisconsin, dreaming of something bigger and cooler and just anything more than miles of cow, and calling Freak in Milwaukee the Big City, Billy's monologue escorted me in on his warm and welcoming arm to someplace magical. Eventually, I was old enough and persuasive enough to argue I could watch the whole ceremony. And in college, I finally had the dysfunctional sleep schedule to stay up the entire way. And that was fun and fine, and I've for sure had movies that I would do basically anything for to see Win Spotlight.

Hi, that was me, practically sacrificing animals to get. you over the finish line. When it won, I jumped around my apartment like a triumphant Tracy Flick. Uh, I'm, we were both team spotlight. Were we? I was considering, well, were you team Mad Max? Actually, no, I was probably team spotlight a little bit over Mad Max. I, I think I liked spotlight a little bit more. I think I liked the, I think I was happy with any number of things happening in 2015. I, we, there's a sort of recurring meme that goes around every once in a while where somebody will be like, I can't believe Spotlight won best picture. And then a bunch of people will jump in and be like, stupid idiot Spotlight Rules. I am one of those people. Spotlight

rules. You're dumb. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you'll get the third wave of people being like, actually Mad Max was better than both that and the Revenant or whatever. And I always feel like, all right, pipe down. Let Spotlight have its moment. You know what I mean? Like, shut the fuck up. I love Spotlight. I think it's great. Deserving winner. Meredith says, but for me always, the Oscars live and die by the host, their monologue. Meredith, I am so sorry for the past, like, decades of Oscars, because those ceremonies have died, then. The red carpet, they roll out for those of us watching at home to come in and feel like we're a part of, not just the fun, but the no. To something exciting and exotic, an open door to this art form that gives energy and reflection to our lives.

Plenty of hosts are great. Plenty of hosts have been entertaining. But for me, it will always be Billy with his stick and song. You always remember your first. Billy, I don't need to watch the Oscars. Oscar, Oscars, to know that you are the one who won me over forever. Wow. Meredith, that is beautiful.

We love, okay, we love a tribute to Billy Crystal period from anyone. But that is... I think one of the most unique Oscar origin stories we've ever heard because it's not necessarily tied to a movie or a ceremony or... It's about the Oscars themselves. It's about the Oscars themselves, but it's about Billy Crystal as a host. And, like, we can't talk enough about Billy Crystal as a host. Billy Crystal's not my favorite host. My favorite host is Whoopie.

Because, I mean, Whoopie doing the costumes alone. It's like, okay. Sure. It's Whoopi. It's always going to be Whoopi. I was such a Mulan Rouge freak that when Whoopi came in from the ceiling in Satine costume... Sure. It's like, well, she's the one.

She got you. But it cannot be underestimated what Billy Crystal did for the Oscars as a phenomenon in the 1990s. Like, he turned it into a whole other thing. You know what I mean? It was an event. Well, and he's turned down... recent or semi-recent offers to do the show again. And, like, you can understand why. Well, the last time he did not really exhibit himself as being a particularly on the cutting edge of comedy or commentary the last time. He seemed pretty out of his time last time.

You know, I do think Billy Crystal is the mold we need to be looking to when we're, like, looking for the new generation of Oscar host. Because, you know, they've gone to. people who already host late-night talk shows, which, you know, I mean, they, they, it's not, that's not a new thing, you know, granted, like, Letterman was not received well as a host, but like you have Letterman, and you could make an argument for the late-night talk shows, talk show host being in the mold of Bob Hope, who, you know, hosted however many Oscar ceremonies too. But I think Billy Crystal is the mold we need to be looking to for, who should be hosting. Billy Crystal was already an established movie star when he started hosting the Oscars. This is the similarity between him and Bob Hope, is that, like, they were actors. They were in movies. They were, you know, Carson sort of was the one who set the template for, you don't really need to be known as an actor.

You can just be a late-night talk show host, and you can, you know, and you can do it that way. But you're right. Like, Crystal was not just this outsider coming in, which I think the Oscar producers have, you know, frequently. returned to. Kimmel fits that bill when they've had Chris Rock on, even though Chris Rock is an actor, but Chris Rock sort of takes an adversarial position to the Oscars. I would also argue he accesses it not as a movie star. He accesses his hosting gig as a stand-up comedian.

Yeah, 100%. 100%. Unpopular opinion, but this is why my gut instinct when they had announced Kevin Hart was, oh, great idea. And then, of course, there was all the outroar because Kevin Hart plus Brett Rattner is not a great, right? Wasn't that the producer? Oh, that was Eddie Murphy. Yeah. Brett Rattner, absolutely not should be. Another abandoned Oscars idea.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, I think that was at least a step towards making the right decision for a host in terms of sensibility, what perspective they provide, you know, and also how the audience. audience sees that person already, you know, we should, it should be someone we associate with movies. And, you know, the problem with this is any number of those people don't want to do it. Right. They don't want to do it. There's no benefit to them. Like, it's so weird to me. This is part, this is the thing I've talked to a lot with, uh, talked about a lot with past and future guest Richard Lawson, which is, um, it's insane that any celebrity.

are on social media at all when they don't need to be when, you know, they, they would be better off existing on a separate plane than all of it, but so many of them have such a need for validation that they, that they're on it. But like, it's, it's wild to me how much just the, the threat of being dragged on social media for your hosting job at the Oscars is enough to chase these insanely wealthy celebrities away from hosting the Oscars. And I know part of it is also that, like, it's a pain in the ass and you have to put a lot of work into it. And people would just assume not if their reward is going to be, you know, 12-year-olds on

Twitter dragging them. I also think that the Franco Hathaway year did a lot of damage. And honestly, not her fault. She, I think, did a good job. Let Anne Hathaway do it again, though she would never do. it. I think most people have come around to that opinion on that, yeah. But I also think because that went so poorly, I think that did a lot of damage for getting an actual, like, famous performer, actor, actress hosting it again. Kiki Palmer has said she would do it if she was asked, which

Kiki Palmer's on the list of people I would like to see do it. I would love to see Hugh Jackman do it again. I think he did a very good job the one year that he did it. I am always on the record. as saying that Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock should host together after the heat. I think in general, sort of that kind of thing of, like, famous co-stars who are funny and off-the-cuff with each other would be kind of a great idea. Every time Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wigg present an award together, people are like, why aren't they the host? Which tells me they do not want to do it.

Well, this is also the thing is like they don't need to host. All they need to do is show up, present one award. do their thing for five minutes, leave, and they get all the benefit of what they would get from hosting an awards without having to do months and months of work. Yeah, because that's the other thing. It prevents these people from doing other jobs because it's actually a very time-consuming thing, whereas they do these late-night hosts because, like, you have a whole writing team already, and it's like it just gets to translate into that, you know.

But, Yeah. Meredith, you are an icon for getting us into this deep Oscar hosting conversation

just by your Oscar origin story alone. Well done. Well done. And more on Chapaquitic. Yeah, we really got to get into

Chappaquittic because leaned over to my date and said that's Chappaquitic. Idiot. Before we get back into Chappaquitic, Joe, would you

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Commentary. Dialogues on current events and very artistic renderings of discussions. Right there on Patreon. Chapa Quiddick. Chapa Quiddick.

Chapa Quiddick. Directed by one John Curran, written by Taylor Alan and Andrew Logan starring James. Just four full first names wrote this movie. Absolute chaos.

Just four first names. They needed a third co-writer who has three first names. Wow. Right. Truly. Like Peter Michael James. Whoa.

Yes. Corey Michael Smith. I don't think they let you in the writer's guilt. Smith, Jared, was a person on sex in the city. So Corey Michael Smith counts. This is a three first name person. Starring Jason Clark, Ed Helms, Jim Gaffigan, has to be our first Jim Gaffigan, right?

But you never know when the man's going to show up in a drunk. It's true. It's true. He just is there. The aforementioned Cape Mara, Olivia Thoroughby, Clancy Brown. And a silent cameo, but still ends up on the poster. Not silent enough, rooster. The absolute Arsenio Hall dog pound, whoop, whoop, I did when Clancy Brown showed up.

up in this movie. Clancy Brown, like, the movie, he shows up in a movie. He kind of steals the show. Yeah. And, like, the movie gets better by like... 100%. Yeah.

100%. It's great. It's super great. I love to... Have we done? How many Clancy Browns have we done? Because Clancy Brown feels like a conceivable character actor that will get a six-timers club. Well, he hasn't done enough that I've even added him to the spreadsheet yet, so which means he's

no more than two. Because we have John Carroll. Lynch. Who else? Someone's close. Oh, character-actor-wise? Yes. My favorite thing is when we are very close to doing a six-timers on a character actor. Bob Gunton

is at five? Guntin. Do we consider Toby Jones a character actor? Toby Jones is at five? Toby Jones has been leads in movies is the thing. It's true. It's true. What other one? Scott Glenn, we're at four. Scott Glens. We are

at how do we consider Sam Shepard at this point? Oh, Sam Shepard, Sam Shepard. That's not a character actor. He never really led movies, but he's Sam Shepard. Scott Glenn is interesting because Scott Glenn kind of had a star on the rise thing. Like he was billed above the title in Silence of the Lambs for playing Jack Crawford. And like, you go back and you read Silence of the Lambs reviews from the time.

and they're like spending copy space talking about his performance. All due respect to Scott Glenn in that movie, no one has talked about that performance. Were you the one who texted me recently and was like, Jesus Christ, Jack Crawford's so terrible at his job? Oh, yeah, that was while I was watching Manhunter or while I was watching Silence of Lambs.

I don't remember. Jack Crawford is bad at his job. I laughed and you said that because it's true. He really is. He's bad at his job. It was when you were watching Silence of the Lambs. because you were also sending me Frederica Bimmel's friend.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What does she know? Big dummy. Big dummy. Mary Kay Place is at five. Clark Gregg is at five. David Pamer's at four. So we've got some character actor six timers coming up,

which will be fun, fun, fun for us. Maybe we'll make a month of just making those happen. That would be fun. I would enjoy that. Give me a little bit of notice because I have making those quizzes. When we don't have like current people in the Oscar race to talk about. It's a January project, if I ever heard one.

I don't know. I have a different idea for a January project. Some things we've already talked about, we'll talk about it. We'll talk about it. Maybe February, because we love character actors. Maybe, maybe. We'll see. We'll figure it out. Or because it's the shortest month, and so we'll give them short trip. Chapa Quiddick. World premiered at Toronto, 2017,

picked up by Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures. I will keep saying it until the day that I die. I'm going to just let you monologue at some point on Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures. Oh, it's happening this episode, baby. Planned for a qualifying release that December, the qualifying release gets canceled and opens limited April 6th, 2018. Joe.

Yes. Forty-five minutes into our recording. Are you ready to give a 60-second plot description of the motion picture Chappaquitic? The answer is no, but we're going to do it. So just let's do it. All right, then your 60-second plot description for Chappaquitic starts now. So it's July of 1969. The moon landing is about to happen.

And there's a regatta on Martha's Vineyard. So U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy is throwing a party on Martha's Vineyard for his various friends and relatives. and people who were on his brother Bobby Kennedy's presidential campaign, including a group of women who were known as the Boiler Room Girls, one of whom is Mary Jo Kepechnie, who he has a seemingly flirty relationship, Jesus Christ, seemingly flirty relationship with the details of which are kept sort of purposefully vague by the movie.

They drive away one evening. Nobody knows how much anybody has had to. drink. They make a wrong turn and they go off the bridgeway. Shut the fuck up. And they end up in the water and Mary Joe Keckney drowns. And Ted escapes and doesn't do anything and doesn't call anybody for a while. And nobody reports it until the next day, including his cousin played by Ed Helms and the Massachusetts state's attorney or whatever played by Jim Gaffig. I'm going to go like three minutes over. What's fine? Keep going. going. So then it becomes, how do we get Ted out of this without ruining his political career and the, the wagons circle? And meanwhile, like, Mary Jo Kepakeney's body is found. They figure out that, like, she had an air pocket for a while. She could have been saved, actually, if Ted had gone to the police. Ted is making dumb decisions about how to create sympathy, including wearing a cheesy-looking neck brace.

to the funeral. He's being advised by his half-dead father, Joe Kennedy, to do the most underhanded thing at every turn. He basically is exposed as a real crumbum, and Ed Helms washes his hands of the family. And ultimately, he makes a last-minute decision not to resign from the Senate, but to defend himself. And he stays senator until essentially he dies. many, many decades later at the end. 78 seconds over. We should do any of these movies where we talk about politics.

We should do, like they should do for the debates and cut each other's mic off when our time is over. Fuck off! If you ever cut my mic off, I will quit. Mary Chokey was not dead until 57 seconds into the 60-second plot description. On that note, I think

this is the time for us to say, clearly you have some things to say. Go off on the Kennedys. Okay, so as I said, growing up Irish Catholic in a very Irish Catholic neighborhood to Democrat parents and grandparents, like my grandfather was a big union guy. I'm in the union now that I'm at Vulture. And I always think it's kind of funny that, you know, my grandfather was in the Carpenter's Union. He was sort of a, um, he was very prominently involved in the Carpenter's Union. And like, if he could be around to see his grandfather or his grandson take the reins of like, yes, also a union guy. I'm in the, um, uh, internet writers.

You know, fucking poindexter ass. Um, but anyway, um, so, yeah, so the Kennedys were, um, incredibly highly regarded. If you want to look for like the demographic that would be most, susceptible to sort of idolizing the Kennedys. That's us. My parents have always sort of spoken glowingly about JFK, about especially RFK. I think it's one of those things where like they were young when John Kennedy was assassinated, but by the time Robert Kennedy was assassinated, they were in that sort of perfect, you know, college-aged demographic. They were the sort of the anti-Vietnam generation. So, like, that particular death, I think, hit people harder or the sort of the one-to impact.

And, of course, RFK dies right around the same time that Martin Luther King dies. So there was, it's interesting to think about, you think about the political chaos of this particular era that we're in. and it always feels like very unprecedented that we are living in unprecedented times. Yes, I would love to have a vote that's not the most important vote of my lifetime, et cetera. Totally. But then you think back to like the 1968, 1969, where like political leaders were getting assassinated on the regular.

You know what I mean? Like that, like it's to have that happening while also, you know, civil rights demonstrations are happening and riots are happening in the cities and whatever. like that. I imagine that that time also probably felt very like end timesy to people or to you know, unprecedented certainly. But anyway, back to the Kennedys. So the Kennedy family then sort of bit sort of takes on a different thing, this sort of like American royalty. My my grandparents had a big sort of like a big two-car garage that they never put cars in. So there was just like there was a bar in there and there were tables and that's sort of where people we would gather for like family events and whatnot, especially in the summertime.

And all over the walls are family photos and various sort of like, you know, accomplishments and like, you know, bric-a-brac on the walls. And there's one photo of like my uncle, uh, who. was working security for a Frank Sinatra concert. And so there's a photo of like him standing behind Frank or whatever. And it's like that kind of thing. But one of those photos, all of a sudden I remember looking at one day. And I'm like, is that Ted Kennedy? And it's just like, it's just a photo. It's not even like particularly great in focus of this guy, this sort of like chubby guy in a polo shirt and a hat. And he's sort of like wincing and waving at the can. camera. And my dad's like, yeah, um, your grandparents were on vacation in Cape Cod. And they were driving past the Kennedy compound. And they saw him just sort of like walking around on the, you know, in the front yard. And literally like rolled down the window. And I think it was my grandfather. He yelled, hey, Teddy. And someone snapped a picture of him just sort of like waving at the camera. And so that photo has had been on the walls of my grandparents' garage for like my entire

childhood. First of all, Chaparone would have a lot to say about your grandparents. But so every time I've gone to the Cape with my parents, we'll like, if we're driving around and we're near Hyannis, we'll just like drive past the Kennedy compound. Because it's like a really interesting little sort of like secluded area. And you can just drive up past, you know, the house. it's it's kind of wild um i would not i am not a politician i am not famous i would not be kind to someone rolling down their window and yelling their name at me but i think that's i think you get the sense of just how they were appreciated yeah yeah in that section of the country especially that they felt fine with that because they weren't getting like you know republican

throwing garbage on their lawn, they were getting people like my grandparents who, like, were fans. So anyway, it was sort of that level. And by the time I had sort of become old enough to pay attention to politics, Ted Kennedy was the sort of the liberal lion in the United States Senate. And I sort of, I did a little quick, I didn't want to sort of speak completely out of my ass about, you know, Kennedy. But one of the things I think is interesting when you get to the end of this movie, and again, we talked about the postscripts and, you know, the duality of this family in general.

Because obviously, like, you know, John F. Kennedy is not the, you know, the political saint, you know, that everybody thought he was. And R.F.K was not. And certainly Joe Kennedy. I feel like even the most like Kennedy loyal of people I grew up around never was. like Joe Kennedy, great man. Then RFK Jr. is Pizza the Hut. Well, yes, exactly. But, like, I grew up in a family where my mom would just be like, that Rose Kennedy, all she went through, like, that kind of thing is just like, you know, the, you know, people like Maria Shriver who sort of like end up with like a level of trust because, you know,

part of the family. But anyway, Ted Kennedy maintains his Senate career after making the decision he makes at the end of Chappaquittic. And it is a selfish decision. It is a self-protecting decision. It is a decision that does not respect the life of Mary Joa Kepechnie at all. And yet, you look at his legacy throughout his Senate career, championed universal health care long before it was trendy or before it was feasible. even. He was supporting universal health care in the Reagan administration. He took a lead role in the left's anti-apartheid stance on South Africa, actually overrode a Ronald Reagan veto at one point for a vote on South Africa, opposed the nomination to the Supreme Court of Judge Robert Bork, which was a huge thing with like long-lasting consequences for the way that the Supreme Court.

court justices are handled, did legislation for anti-discrimination in housing, was instrumental in passing the Americans with Disabilities Act, was instrumental in supporting funding for aides opposing Senator Jesse Helms on certain things, was instrumental in getting the Civil Rights Act of 1991 passed now? All of that stuff is like, not only like good stuff, but like remember when government actually like accomplished things and we're able to like do things and like all of that that's that is a legacy worthy of 10 politicians and yet at the same time he has the personal demons he's you know essentially varying degrees of functioning alcoholic and the the we can be charitable

and call it womanizing you know what I mean how much of that is a euphemism for darker you know things. We don't entirely know. We certainly know that when his nephew, William Kennedy Smith, was arrested and charged with rape in Palm Beach in the early 1990s, which was an early sort of pre-OJ televised trial. If you're, if you are old enough to remember, the woman who accused William Kennedy Smith when she testified, they blocked her face out on camera with a blue circle to maintain her anonymity. That was sort of like a court TV thing at the time. But anyway, that all happened because Teddy went out at, you know, on the town with

his young nephews in Palm Beach. And the degree to which Teddy kind of looked the other way was always in doubt. And because of that particular scandal at the time, he was politically discouraged from taking a stronger stand against the nomination of Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court and was discouraged from being more supportive of Anita Hill during that. And that was seen at the time as being sort of instrumental to allowing Clarence Thomas to pass through to Supreme Court. So, like, these are personal demons that don't stay personal. These are personal demons that end up adversely affecting the country.

So my thing is, how do you assess a man like that? How do you assess a life like that? It's an incredibly complicated and complex thing. And I think that, to me, is great fodder for a movie. And that is why I think the untold story here is the interesting one, the one that runs from Chappaquitic up through his death, essentially. You know what I mean? Up through the sort of like last days of.

his life. And he is both at the same time. Hold those two things in your hands at the same time. Hold those two ideas in your head at the same time. He is an uncommonly virtuous public servant and also a significantly fallible and perhaps worse human being. And those two things are not separate. They are intertwined. And so I think it's easy to be knee-jerk on either side. It's easy to be like nothing that he did in his private life matters. He was a great public servant. He was a great man.

Or Ted Kennedy is bullshit. He's, you know, he killed that woman in Chappaquitic and done untold things. And the Kennedys are all monsters and blah, blah, blah. And I think the truth really does lie in the very complicated middle. and that is my boomer-adjacent, liberal centrist, not centrist, because the Kennedys are not, like, people sort of try and paint that as like, they are decidedly liberal, neoliberal, who's to say? But that's my, that's where I stand on the Kennesies. I mean, I think this is all very crucial to discussing the movie, too.

First of all, Joe Reed, thank you for the report. My book report. This has been a special Joe Reed report on the state of liberal politics rooted in the upper Great Lakes portion of the country. The Irish Catholic contingent. Uh-huh, uh-huh, exactly. The Irish Catholic report. See, this illustrates my frustrations with the movie and maybe makes them even more pronounced because I could, I. I hear you on saying Chabaquatic is the beginning of the story in terms of examining his character and his, you know, the, how not conflicted, but how, uh, uh, tormented, I guess, for lack of a better word, of a public figure, um, he is and how belligered, yeah, I kind of, I, I, I would understand why you would tell,

this story because I do think all of that kind of lies within this moment of his political career and his personal story. My frustration with the movie is that it's not really threading those things. It's not working to be representative, like using this story as representative of personal failings, you know, moral fault within someone who, has a trajectory and career of doing some actual good while also being a bad person. You know, it's not, it doesn't, I think it allows the audience to see whatever it wants to see in him and what it wants to see in the circumstances, which to a certain degree, I understand an artistic point of view that is like, you know, not trying to tell the audience how, to think or feel. Yeah.

But ultimately, like, there's so much left on the table with this movie. Like, in the end, it's like, all you can really say is the acting's kind of good in this movie. And I do think, I do think the element of, you know, the forces mobilizing to protect and preserve his public standing is an interesting thing about this movie that, yes, sure, could be developed a little bit more. And, like. And you see how. an outsider voice in that is systematically

sort of crowded out. Ed Helms plays essentially the descending voice for virtue in this, and you watch him literally be like elbowed out of the way and forced to hold cue cards for, you know, when Teddy discards his advice and opts for self-preservation. I also think there's the, the, if it has any perspective on Ted Kennedy, specifically

Ted Kennedy at the point of this story, it's that it's trying to position him as someone so traumatized by the Kennedy curse, the assassinations on multiple members of his close family, that he was operating from a place of trauma, basically, in how he responded to this circumstance. And especially given his whole life career and the things that he would do that were objectively bad in the future to that, I say, well, no, to this perspective. And it's like, I think it's ultimately, as it's done in this movie and just as kind of a point of view, period, I find pretty facile. I find I think everything to do. I think everything to do with Joe Kennedy in this movie, sort of placing him in the movie as this literal gargoyle who, you know, points his crooked finger at Teddy and says, alibi or whatever, as this, well, you know, Ted's father never loved him and never believed in him and compared him negatively to his brothers, and that's sort of why Ted is like this. to me, that's not only wildly reductive, but also sort of short changes anything interesting to say about Ted Kennedy, because then you can just be like, oh, his father was a creature out of a gothic horror novel, and that's sort of all there is to it, when to me, yes, the more

interesting story is the way that, like, the self-preserving perpetual motion machine of political power, where everybody's so, the worst case scenario for everybody is to lose that political power. And so those ends, preserving those ends, justifies whatever means. And to watch that sort of inaction among people who individually would want to do good. You know what I mean? That individually, perhaps, they want to do good. And then collectively, it becomes, becomes this sort of, you know, imperative to hold on to that power. And I think it's dishonest to solely present Ted Kennedy as someone who had the hammer wielded against them in that way. Sure.

And the more honest, more interesting, more complex way is that he, You could even say he is someone who had that hammer wielded against him and then became the person who wielded that hand. As is often the case, you know what I mean? As is very often the case. Yeah, he's the person who had the people sweeping in to, you know, preserve his standing and then would sweep in to preserve other people's standing with extreme consequences. Well, he was a huge defender of Bill Clinton, you know, of course. And that is another complicated issue where it's like two things, again, hold two truths in your head. A, Bill Clinton was, you know, a rotten creep of a person, while also Republicans were seeking out to railroad him from the very beginning before they even knew the wrongdoing was happening. Both of those things are true.

But with regard to Chappaquittic, the film, I do feel like, and maybe this is a point of disagreement. between the two of us. I do feel like the movie is sort of not really being all that ambiguous about being coming down on the side of Ted Kennedy, if not being a bad guy in general, being a bad actor in this particular circumstance throughout. I don't think this movie leaves much room for the case for a virtuous Ted Kennedy in regards to the events of this I mean, I agree with you for the general running time of the movie, but the thing we're left with is he did a good thing by owning up to what happened and being honest. Is he honest, though? I feel like it's a very manicured version of honesty. I think the movie wants to present him as accepting a certain level of responsibility about what happened.

I think the movie is fairly open eye or fairly clear-eyed about the fact that he's. only accepting a limited amount of responsibility as a way of being politically expedient. But when the option is accepting no responsibility. Well, sure, sure. He takes that, he takes a- I also think the movie presents. He takes a middle path, I suppose, in that direction. Can we talk about Jason Clark for a second in this-

Good actor. I like Jason Clark, actually kind of quite a bit. Jason Clark's an interesting person because for so long he played grunts, grunts and like low level contemptible people in movies. He's, you know, he's a torturer in Zero, Dark 30. He's a, who is he in public enemies? Is he a cop or he's a criminal? He's a bank robber in public enemies. Yeah. He was in Rabbit Proof Fence. I can't, he was a constable in Rabbit Proof Fence, so I can't imagine he was a good guy in that movie. He also, one thing I didn't realize until I sort of like took a real gander at his filmography, he kind of shadowed Jessica Chastain's big I'm in Everything a couple of years where he's in a lot of movies with her. Texas Killingfield's Lawless, formerly the Wettest County, and Zero Dark 30, back to back to back. I will never stop referring to Lawless as formerly the Wettest County because

just the craziest possible name for movie. And I know that's what the book was. I went on a whole rant yesterday about Killian Murphy's movie small things like these and how studios have to stop titling these movies these vague ass collections of non-specific words. Nobody can remember them. And somebody was like and rightly I suppose, they're like

well, it's the title of the book so they want to capture the people who read the book. I'm like people change the title of from books to movies all the time. Well, but also my complaint then goes to the people who titled the book. Don't title your book that way either. You know what I mean? Like nobody's going to fucking remember it. What was the

Mark Ruffalo Netflix series this year, again, that nobody remembers where it's like All the light we cannot see. That's a very

beloved book. But name of memorable. All the light we cannot see is more specific than small things like these. By a fraction of a of an instant. Like all the light we cannot see,

what does that tell you? What is that, what picture does that put in your mind about what kind of thing you're about to watch? There's at least a verb. There are nouns and verbs in that title.

But like just, soup like of nouns and non-nowns, like it got you out on. Well, you were, it wasn't, it was, as a point well taken, you made me think about it because you're like, is these a noun? I'm like, well, these is an adjective, but like in the context of small things like these, it is functioning as a noun. So I don't know how that works grammatically. And I'm not going to say anything more about that with, and defend myself. But like, all the light we cannot see, the light between oceans. little fires everywhere.

And I know fires is like a dynamic word. But like, so that's at least a little bit better. But like, stop it, stop it, stop it. Call your things the wettest county. I'll at least remember fucking the wettest county. We say this as if lawless is a very specific title. It is not. They turned, they went from a very like memorable title to a less memorable title

because they didn't want people making wettest jokes. Lawless, colon, the wettest county. No, Lawless needs to be preserved for the eventual Lucy Lawless biopic that focuses on the one week that she was on Saturday Night Live, and she did Stevie Nix's Fahita Roundup, and that's what Lawless needs to be. And that's only what Lawless needs to be. Lawless, colon, the wettest County, Dash, an American saga. Can we talk, I sent you the poster for Lawless before we started recording, which is one of those like composites. of three separate publicity stills. It looks like, can you imagine if they did character posters for Lulles? But it's almost as if they took three separate character posters and overlaid them over each other. And one is Shia LeBuff looking down at his rifle.

And one is Tom Hardy with his fedora down over his eyes. So you can tell he's a bad guy because you can't see his eyes. And then in behind the both of them is Jessica Chastain wearing a velvet, maroon velvet frock of some sort with her hand on her hip in the sassiest little pose you ever saw. I'm a little teacup short and stout, but like

I can, you know, she's up to something. She's got something going on. Jessica Chastain. Go look up the Lawless poster, everybody. Like you came home too late and she's like standing there looking at you like, I suppose you want some pie. Right. So the

story of Lawless is apparently that they are three moonshining brothers in... Yeah, the Wettest County is not like dampness. It's about, it's not about the water supply. Right, it's about bootlegging. So Shia LaBuff, Tom Hardy, and Jason Clark are all brothers, and Jason Clark's the oldest one. I don't know if I...

I buy Tom Hardy and Jason Clark as siblings. I don't know if I buy Shia as also... Shiaabuff, I think, replaced someone in that movie. Lawless, if I remember correctly, a movie I really didn't like, but was one of those things where it's a cast of several male actors and everyone's like talking about Tom Hardy, talking about Shilabuff. And here I am being like, actually Jason Clark is the best. Oh, you're one of the, yes. I feel like the first time I ever saw people making note of Jason Clark was Zero Dark 30 because he makes a real impression. He's the torturer in that movie.

And then on the heels of that, he gets cast as George Wilson in The Great Gatsby, which is not his best work. Well, it's also not a major role, but it's a memorable role in that, like, the Great Gatsby has essentially, like, eight characters who are fairly dynamic just because of the stature of that novel. You know, you do an adaptation of Great Gatsby, and you're not only like, who plays Gatsby, who plays, you know, Nick Carraway, who plays Daisy Buchanan. You're like, who plays Jordan Baker? And that actually did a good job to launch Elizabeth Debicki. Debicki. Debicki's so good in that movie. Who plays Myrtle Wilson?

Who plays fucking, who's the, the Meyer Wilson? Myrtle Wilson is Myrtle's. No, I know who her character is. Yeah, Ila Fisher. No, but I was like, who plays Meyer Wolfsheim. But like all these sort of like, it's a deep bench of memorable roles in that. And so Jason Clark plays Myrtle Wilson's husband. in that one. So then it's sort of like he's in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, where he's

one of the major characters. I think he's married to Carrie Russell in that. I remember nothing about that one. I don't know why, because I think I like that one the most. It's the one I like the most. But I don't remember anything about it. I remember it in the negative in that it's not the one with James Franco and Frida Pinto, and it's not the one with crazed militarist Woody Harrelson. It's the good one. Or not the good one.

I think those other ones have their moments. It's the best one. He's also... War is like so bleak that it's just like, I can't do this. This is too much. He's in Night of Cups. We've talked about how we've got to do one of those... Malix.

Malics. Maybe it's this one. Maybe that'll be the May miniseries. We do just that Malix. All the mallex. Bale, Blanchet, Portman, Banderas. West Bentley, Image and Putes.

That's why we were talking about it recently. Image and Putes is in it. Frieda Pinto is also in that one. The Frida Pinto era. Wait, Cherry Jones, Dane to Han,

Thomas Lennon, Jason Carter. Nine of Cups is good. I stand by it. I've never seen it. So there we go. Michael Wincott. The great Michael Wincott.

It's all happening. Okay, anyway. Terminator Genesis happens, and that's not good for anybody. He plays John Connor, but like... John Connor turns into a

A Terminator? I don't know who's a good Terminator and a bad Terminator in Genesis. I'm just going to admit it. Did you ever see Genesis? I never saw it. It's an excellent question.

It's Schrodinger's maybe. Like I have no idea whether I have seen or not seen Terminator Genesis. Maybe. I know everybody's shit on Jason Clark for that, or not Jason Clark,

Jai Courtney for that movie. But like, honestly, there were problems with that, let's say, before we even get to the fact of Jocortney. We talked about Jason Clark in Everest where he got to

speak his native Australian tongue, even though like that movie was not sold for Jason Clark. He plays the, oh no, he plays a New Zealander in that. He's an Australian actor, but he played a New Zealander in that. So that's clearly the fraught nature of getting that accent, right? I'm sure was whatever. He's in Mudbound. A movie, I think, is incredibly underrated, kind of in general.

Everyone's great in Mudbound. Everyone's great in Mudbound. And people really, Mayor J. Blige gets the Oscar nomination, which is interesting, and she's not bad. But, like, I think Carrie Mulligan is great in that movie. I think Clark is great. I think Garrett Headland is great. Rob Morgan.

Rob Morgan is great. Yep, exactly, exactly. Chappaquitic happens sort of right after Mudbound. There was a minute there when Chappaquittic premiered at Tith, where people, I remember very briefly, there was entertained the idea that Jason Clark could make a run at the best actor race in 2017 for Chappaquittic. And it was sort of snuffed out kind of quickly, even though Chappaquitic was received pretty okay. But I think maybe it was the entertainment one of it all. Yeah. Entertainment Studios, sorry? Entertainment one is also a thing, right? Entertainment one is a

European thing. Yes. E1. Okay. But anyway, so the Chappaquitic Oscar Buzz sort of dies down. He's in first man. Is he one, no, Kyle Chandler is the one who gets yelled at by a bunch of boys, right? I think Jason Clark is one of the ones who dies in First Man. First Man is so good. We did First Man dirty. He's the abusive husband in Stephen Knight's Serenity. File Corps Serenity. He's objectively bad in the movie, I will say. Well, the thing about Jason Clark is what is bad in Serenity? Like, what what does bad mean in the context? Anne Hathaway's Incredible in Serenity. Sure, yeah.

But I think that Serenity is a good example of when he is objectively evil, mustache twirling villain, it makes sense that you would cast him in those roles, but he's actually not good at it. So it's interesting what you say about Clark playing sort of the mustache twirling villains. what is how does that impact how you feel about his performance in Oppenheimer he's good in Oppenheimer there's I think he is good but he's like the sort of he's a real dick in Oppenheimer he's he's the guy who's who's interrogating Oppenheimer in the sort of a small conference room tribunal that has been set up and he's definitely the bad cop if like Tony Goldwyn's the good cop he's definitely the bad cop I don't think he's bad in the movie, but I think, and this is

like not to be mean to Jason Clark an actor I like. I think if you put him in your top 15 performances in the movie, you're wrong. Well, there's a lot of very good performances in that movie, yeah. Television-wise, he was on a series,

I believe this was a showtime series called Brotherhood that went from 2006 to to 2008, three seasons on Showtime, and it was him and Jason Isaacs as a pair of Irish-American brothers, and one is a politician, and one is a mobster, co-starred, who was the cast in this, Jason Clark's, Anna Beth Gish was on the show, Phanola Flanagan, Ethan Embry, Brian Frienne, Imagine, a movie about Irish Americans. And Brian F. O'Bern managed to be in that one. So he was on that television-wise. He was on a show called The Chicago Code. That was a Fox drama that only lasted 13 episodes, him, and it was a cop drama with him and Jennifer Beals. And he was in the Catherine the Great miniseries.

the Helen Mirren, Catherine the Great miniseries, playing Grigory Potemkin. And he, oh, right, he was Jerry West in winning time, the Lakers series on HBO, which I know you didn't watch. But there was a little good bit of controversy in that one because he, so Jerry West was this legendary player for the Lakers. The thing about Jerry West is, If you can picture the NBA logo in your head, if you've ever seen, the NBA logo is like a silhouette of a man dribbling a basketball.

That's apparently the legend is that's Jerry West. That was his silhouette that they used for him. But then he became a coach for the Lakers and then a general manager for the Lakers and general sort of just like an executive for the Lakers. And so he's portrayed in this series by Jason Clark as just the angriest person ever, sort of like, just given to fits of rage at the slightest provocation, and it's really, really funny the way it is presented in the show. But in real life, the real Jerry West was like, hey, that's not me. That's really, like, that's, that's inaccurate and, like, threatened to sue the show over it. So there was, there was a whole, like, you know, controversy over that, but in a very

funny way. Anyway, um, Jason Clark, an interesting, um, uh, interesting actor has never been like my like tippy top fave, but like he is a reliable, um, role player, I think in a movie. I think I would probably not go running to a Jason Clark film. You know what I mean? Uh, but he's consistent. He's consistent. Chappaquiddick at least is something he's allowed to do.

things that I hope he gets the opportunity to do in a better movie. Certainly better than Pet Cemetery, the remake, which he's the lead role in, and that is a movie I pretty well hated. I could not stand. Paramount Plus Original, or am I... No, I saw that one in a theater. It was pre-pandemic. It was 2019.

Oh, there you go. Yeah. Just bad. And also, I love the original Pet Cemetery so much. So he was in this movie called The Aftermath. With Kira Knightley. I saw that. Not a good movie.

I remember nothing of this movie. This was... Searchlight movie. James Kent directed this movie. Who was, oh, it was a TV guy. Why am I thinking of... Who's the Theory of Everything guy? James Marsh.

James Marsh. Thank you. Okay. Yeah, I remember nothing of the aftermath, which was also pre-pandemic, but I've gotten its memory hold in a way of it. It's like a spring. Searchlight movie that it's like, oh, by nature of Searchlight, putting this in

February or March, you'd have bigger hopes for it. Yeah, it's telling you something. All right. What else do we want to say about... John Curran. Will not be the last John Curran movie we've done. We could definitely do an episode on We Don't Live Here Anymore. We could do an episode on Tracks, a movie I never saw, because in the trailer there's a giant snake crawling over me of Ossikovska, and I said, well, I'm not seeing that until I have to as a person who is very afraid of snakes.

I feel like Trax was one of those movies that was like, it was going to, it was impending for like several years. Like, like, Tracks is going to open. Yeah, it was like, it changed hands. It was on a shelf for a while. I remember the thing about the snake. I remember there being sort of like, oh, and Adam Drivers in it. Right. Mandy Walker

Cinematography Like there's some reasons Maybe I'm misremembering But I do remember In our Painted Vale episode Being like actually This movie's kind of good Okay

All right I think we liked it Or maybe I liked it I've never seen tracks So I wouldn't No painted veil Oh Painted Vail I remember kind of liking Painted Vail

I do remember that That was a movie With a great Alexander Displas score However you pronounce that Nittman's name Great score Oh he wrote

The Killer Inside me. That was not a very well-regarded movie, as I remember. Michael Winterbottoms, The Killer Inside Me. Then there's also Stone. You know what's a good title for a movie? The Killer Inside Me. Take note small things like these. Call that movie The Killer Inside Me, and the Killer is just Nuns. And that works. That works better. It's a good movie. Anyway, Stone. Entertainment Studios, Motion, Pictures. Wait, can we just for half a second talk about Stone being the movie with Edward Norton and Cornrose. Edward Norton, Robert Teniro, Miloiovovich.

It's a movie about a convict. I don't know, man. Things are happening. Isn't there like a twist involving Milojovich? I've never seen the movie, so I don't know. I know. There are some prominent heterosexual male critics, I believe, that love that movie. Prominent heterosexual male critics should be people's bios.

Social media. All right. Talk about entertainment studios, motion pictures. they only release 13 movies with their fake name name them they it's like they stop they they it's like an affiliate of a larger corporation they own a bunch of tv stations and such but entertainment studio motion pictures they do not exist anymore you know they this is the time where they're making plays to like get uh major They were, like, one of the major bidders for birth of a nation. And, you know, we've seen, this is an era where it's like, A-24 is established by this point. A-24 has the best picture winner at this point, but, like, neon starts up around this time. STX, like, is dying out at this time.

Excuse me. So it's like, you shouldn't just outright be like, where is this studio, who are they coming from? But when you name it Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures, that's like naming your movies, small things like these. Yeah, you know, you're not wrong. You're not wrong. Have the courage to call it American Zoetrope or get the fuck out of here. And like almost none of these movies that are released are like things I even know what the hell they are.

But they do the 47 meters down. Saw it in theaters. Saw it in theaters. One of the worst movies I've seen in theaters. Oh, I thought it was fun. What a hateful piece of junk that, like, shot so poorly. Shark cage. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, not a shark cage.

47 meters down, though, I believe was a movie that, like, sat around for a while unreleased and they bought the rights to. And then, hey, it's the movie that made them the most money of anything they release. Also, in 2017, they do picked up from the festival circuit, just like Chappaquittic. They do a qualifying release for hostiles. I never saw Hostiles Scott Cooper's Hostiles Scott Cooper's Western

With West Judy and Christian Bail And Rosman Pike Ross Pike Jesse Plemons Ben Foster You know It was a movie I mean that movie looks beautiful

Timmy is in this movie right Timmy has like a peach fuzz mustache In this movie It's very funny Teeny baby Timmy Yep But You know hostiles

They do actually do the qualifying release for it. So you can kind of envision that probably what happened was they only had so many resources and hostiles as the movie they went with and Chappaquittic got, you know, pushed back. Chappaquittic, I still think, you know, for what the movie is, released in the spring, it does like $17 million. I think that's pretty good business for this movie. Sure.

Yeah. Why not? Hostiles, though, especially with Christian Bale, Rosamine Pike shortly after her Oscar nomination. there's a good narrative there for West Studi you can see why they went with that movie I've ever seen this movie replicas with Keanu Reeves and Alice Eve? I think that's one of those things that got like a barely existing release

and is supposed to be like one of the pieces of junk that like Keanu 11% Rotten Tomatoes. Barely did. Yeah, yeah. Now I've never seen replicas. The wedding year, Robert Lucetix, the wedding year with Sarah Highland,

Tyler James Williams. It's a very televisiony cast right there. Nothing. I got nothing. I got nothing on the wedding year. Arctic Dog? Stop naming your distribution companies fake things. Can you look at the poster for Arctic Dogs and tell me that isn't just like somebody's like

film school, like first year film school project, like my very first Cracket animation. Wow. Voices by Jeremy Renner and Heidi Klum. I will absolutely be playing this. Okay. I've showed you that clip from John Mullaney and the Sacklunch Bunch, right? Where they, it's the focus group for

the animated movie with all the little kids. And they're, they actually do the joke about like, did you notice who played the such and such the wombat in that movie? And everybody was like, I couldn't, I knew it was somebody, but I couldn't tell. And then he just goes,

it was Jeremy Runner. And they're like, oh, like that. And like, this is the actual, in reality version of that. It's like, it's actually Jeremy Runner playing Swifty, an Arctic Fox. Okay. Do you have any notes on the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival? My first TIF. Oh, bitch. I got to look this up now. Chappaquitic was a gala, as we mentioned. Yeah, this is, this was our first, uh, uh, uh, TIF. We, we saw, that was when we saw that a Michael Hanukkah movie with karaoke. What was it called? Oh, with Franz Rogowski doing Sia at karaoke. That's right. At the end, good movie that

too many people dismissed. This was the TIF that was at the end of the summer where I had mono. I sound like the most boring person every time I'd bring up, but like the summer that I had mono was like the scariest thing ever because I thought I had cancer. And I thought I had at one point, doctors kept making me think I had horrible things wrong with me. And it turned out to just be mono. That's not 2017. That was after it then. No, 2017.

Really? I thought you were very well-established friends by the time that you thought you had, that you had mono. We texted all the time. Like, we had already been, you had already come, we had already seen Great Comet together. We just hadn't tiffed together yet. But no, I remember it was 2017 because one of the things that happened at the tail end of it, like the day that I had the doctor's appointment where I finally found out that

what I had was Mono was the day that they sent me the mother heart cake, the promo mother heart cake to the office. And I had no appetite so I couldn't eat it, but I took it home with me because I'm like, I will eventually have appetite and I'm going to have some of this cake. Anyway, so I get to Toronto. I'm mostly better. And then the first day I'm in Toronto, I start feeling dizzy and nauseous and sick to my stomach. And if you remember, what was the thing we did that first day when we got to Toronto, before the festival started. We saw Lady Gaga in concert. Oh, we did go to the Joanne tour. So I almost bailed on that because I was like, I'm feeling sick. I don't want to be sick for this festival. What if I rest up? What if I whatever? And I sort of

literally like pushed through it. I was like, no, I'm going to go to this. I'm going to go to dinner with you and Katie and Nick Davis and Nathaniel. And then we went to Gaga. And I was so glad I did because I had such a fun time at Gaga. And then I felt fine for the rest of that festival. No, I didn't because I did end up catching a cold halfway through that festival, but that had nothing to do with the mono or anything like that. I just had a cold. So that was, that was a, I remember that being a pretty fun festival. What did I see of the major ones? I really liked darkest hour. That was when I became like a darkest hour, Stan, Joe Wright's movie. Somehow did not see the leisure seeker at Tiff

that year. The Tiff Gala. Somehow did not see Fuck Mountain that year, even though that also played Tiff. We kind of do a Fuck Mountain episode. We do. Did not see the wife, even though that was the original year of the wife. So I didn't see kind of any of the gala. The only gala that I

saw was Darkest Hour and film stars don't die in Liverpool. Those were the two of the gala's that I saw. Everything else was special presentations. So I saw what was that year?

Call me by your name. Call me by your name was the first thing I saw at that festival and it was my favorite thing that I saw. That was when I saw the Florida Project that was the year of Killing of a Sacred Deer. That was the year of Lady Bird, of course, where Lady Bird was a complete unknown quantity and by the end of that festival was a sensation

because that very first screening, that very first press screening, they had to turn away so many people that they added new screenings like almost immediately. So I saw it. I think that's how I saw it as well. Molly's game was that year.

Mother, of course. Speaking of Mother was that year. Chesel Beach, I saw at that Tiff, for sure. God, Suburicon. No, I didn't see Suburicon at that Tiff. Because at that point, we'd already heard what a turd it was. I had been turned away. I saw three billboards, though, at that TIF. I saw, what was the Midnight Madness stuff? Disaster Artist was a big one. We saw that together. We saw that together and had a hoot and a holler of a time before then that movie got neatly sort of tucked away in the James Franco scandal pile.

What were your favorites of Tiff that year? I mean, Lady Bird was a big one. Lady Bird was the last movie I saw of that festival. movie I saw of that festival was BPM, which is also one of my favorites. Did I see, I think I saw that one pre-TIF. I think I got into a pre-Tiff screening of that one. But I remember really, really loving it. Of course, you know what played that TIF that I didn't see there was, we just talked about this on another podcast, X Libris, the Frederick Wiseman. Yes. Yeah. The thing about seeing a Wiseman at TIF is not only can it fit in your, like, what does it do to your schedule to see that movie. But then also you have to hustle for those tickets because like it's hard to get a ticket to a wise minute tiff. Well, especially if you don't, if you can't make this the press screening work. Yeah. Well, and the press screening is always in some small room that fills up. So it's like, and you were on, you were not on a press pass, right? You were doing just tickets. Not my first year, no. So, okay. I was doing like that weird voucher thing they used to do where you still have to sit outside for hours on end. I found my letterbox list. So I,

included BPM, even though I cited a pre-Tiff screening, and I included Mudbound, even though I got a screener link to it just before the festival. But they were sort of part and parcel. So my top 10 that year, call me by your name, BPM, Lady Bird, Darkest Hour, Mudbound. Three billboards, which I remember quite liking at first blush. Florida Project, a fantastic woman, mother, and then the death of Stalin, which was the last thing that I saw. I ended up, I didn't rate shape of water as high and killing of the sacred deer. I would have bumped the two of those ones up, as well as Molly's game. That was the year of itanya. That was the year of disobedience. Disobedience. Yes, very good movie.

What was my least favorite thing? Downsizing. Remember we saw that movie The Lodger. that very, very... That I've forced you to see with me because I like Haunted House movies. And as do I. It was like, in the program notes,

they were like name-checking Shirley Jackson. And I was like, oh, well, they just got me to see this movie. It's the most... It's the most, if you've seen one of these kind of movies, you've seen them all. Right, right, right. Where it's just, there was nothing... It's not a turd, but it's like...

No, it's just like very typical. The square was also at that tip. by the way. I did not see that at that tiff. I definitely did. Anyway, in general, a good tiff. I remember, I liked that. I liked the apartment that I was in.

I was down King Street, so I sort of had a little bit of a walk. You were even further away on King Street than I was, too. By like half a block. But there was a really good pub there that I think is not there anymore that had maybe the best French onion soup I've ever had. And so I had that, like, multiple times on that trip, and I very much enjoyed it. What else do we want to say about Chappaquittic? Anything, let me go through my...

We want to say thank you, Meredith. Thank you for bringing this episode to us and to the listeners. We finally did Chappaquittic. I wrote down, I could watch Clancy Brown yell at Ted Kennedy all day. That was very fun. There was that one scene that was just him yelling at. I don't watch Clancy Brown yell at anyone. Did you notice?

I don't know if this is ever a character who we meet. but they referenced Ted Kennedy's press secretary whose name was Dick Drain, and they mentioned it a couple of times. Go see you're a urologist, honey. That's it. That's the end of my notes on Chapoquitic. Not a great movie, but like not a bad movie. It's very in the middle for me.

I was glad it gave me occasion to sort of read about and think about my thoughts on Ted Kennedy. I think it's a movie that becomes worse in your mind. because the better version of it is so clear. Yes, I agree. So clear in your mind of how it becomes a better movie. Agreed. Joe, we're doing something fun at the end of this episode. Every week we'll be under episodes with the IMDB game,

but every once in a while now we're going to do it a little bit differently. We're doing reverse IMDB game, the rules of which are, we haven't written these down, so I'm not reading from a script, so give me a second. And so the rules of reverse IMDB game, instead of giving somebody a name and they guess who the known for an IMDB are, instead we, one by one, parcel out the four known for projects, either films or television series, and then at each stage, the guesser gets a chance to guess. If they get it on the first crack, it's four points, on the second crack, it's three points. On the third crack, it's two points, and on the last crack, it's one point. Have we, we should be keeping score. We are not currently keeping score.

But if we can, like, we've only done this once before. So we should, I'm going to put a tab in here. Listen, in the very first episodes, we used to do double IMDB games, where we did four people. So it's like, we're working out the kinks of this, too. We are. We did with regular IMTB game at the very, very beginning. Yes. Give me a second to see if we noted when we did reverse.

Yes, we did, because you noted them in gray. Very good. We just didn't note how who scored well on that. So I'll put that in for... I believe I did very well with Matthew Almorick. I think you, no, you got him on like the second one. Hold on. Reverse IMD. Because Matthew Almorix was like Grand Budapest and Diving Bell in the Butterfly, I think.

Yes. So. Yeah. Yeah. So you got, um, hold on a second. Give me one second. So you got three points for Amalric. And I got, I needed like the whole boat for Max Mangela.

I feel like, right? I think so. So the score at this point. is Chris leads three to one. We'll keep this as a running tally. All right. Anyway, I've basically explained how the whole game is play. Yeah, I get it.

All right. I have one person chosen. You have one person chosen. Who wants to go first? You lost last time, so why don't you go first? So I will quiz you. Sure, let's just do it down. Oh, you meant the other way.

Okay. I don't care. I'll guess. My answer is I don't care. Okay, you start. You quiz me. All right. For the person that I've chosen for you, the first film is I-Robot.

The thing about I-Robot, a movie I've definitely seen, is I don't remember anyone in it who isn't Will Smith or Alan Tudick. So I'm going to say Alan Tudic. It's not Alan Tudic. Okay. Your next motion picture is the core. Oh, good movie, good, bad movie. Okay, the other thing is, as I have to now try and game this to see if you connected this person to Jason Clark or anything to do with Chappaquitic in any way, which is interesting, maybe John Curran. Okay, so the core, I'm going to just think out loud.

None of these are my answer. Delroy Linda. Richard Jenkins, Tucci, Swank, Eckhart. Is it Aaron Eckhart? Final answer? Yes. It is not Aaron Eckhart. Damn it! Okay.

I rope it, the core, and the third movie is 2009's Star Trek. Oh. All right. Star Trek. Chris Pine. Zoe Saldanya. What's His Face? Siler from Heroes.

Gay guy. John Cho. Three genre films. I think it's safe to say the core is equally action adventure and science fiction. Definitely. Anton Yelkin. Eric Banna. We should spread a Q-Anon rumor that you can actually do what they do in the core.

that the Earth's core is slowing, yes. And it's because of reincarnated. It's because of vaccines. Vaccines are making the Earth's core. Woke has gone too far. It is slowing the spinning of the Earth's core. Winona Ryder. Leonard Nimoy.

Where am I going to go with this? Carl Urban? Is Carl Urban your final answer? Yes. For I-Robot, the core, and Star Trek. Uh-huh. Carl Urban is incorrect. Damn it.

I'm realizing also that what's fun about the reverse IMDB game is I'm sure for regular IMDB game, listeners like pull it up on their phone and they play along to see. And now it encourages people to play blind. Yeah. Now you're truly playing blind. It forces the listener to play alone. Welcome to hell. Now you're in here with us.

Yes. Yes. Okay. Your fourth motion picture after I-Robot, the core. The core. And Star Trek is 13 days. 2000s. Oh, a Kennedy film, say.

Um. A motion picture about a Kennedy. So, Costner is not in the old. other three things. The guy who played Marcia Cross's husband on Desperate Housewives, as I don't think and all of those things. I'm having a real hard time remembering who else. So let's go back. This actor was definitely Oscar buzzed for 13 days. Oh, oh, well that got it for me. Thank you for that clue. It would have taken me a while. I don't remember him in the court at all. This is Bruce

Greenwood. It's Bruce Greenwood. Who played. JFCK. Who played JFK? Who played Pike in Star Trek? I don't remember him at all in the core, and I don't remember anybody else in 13, or in I Robot, rather. In the core, he plays someone called Commander Richard Iverson. Sure, I believe it. And Lawrence Robinson, an I robot. What a missed opportunity for him to be titled Lawrence Robotson. Okay, for you, I feel less bad about this one because I I initially felt bad about this one, but anyway, so for you, your first film is on Her Majesty's Secret Service. Well, that's a Bond movie that I've never seen. Aha, I figured. So, I mean, that's a 60s Bond movie or like early 70s. I'm pretty sure that's a Connery. Um...

I know that this is wrong, but I will just say Ursula Andrus. Not Ursula Andrus, but well, well guessed. Your second one is Game of Thrones. Okay. Well, the thing is, my hunch is that this is going to be someone who is a Bond girl. It could be a Bond villain. But, you know, Game of Thrones, that's several decades between when that Bond movie would have been, and then Game of Thrones airs on TV. And because I didn't watch Game of Thrones, but, like, I've seen the memes.

And I think that this actress is who the meme I'm thinking of. But is it Diana Rigg? You're too good at this game. Yes, it is Diana Rigg. You are, your brain works in a really, really way, and it is really conducive to this game because you figured it out exactly right. And I don't think I could have done better

because the other two options, would you have had a harder time if I had said last night in Soho next? No, because she's the older person. Right, right, right, right, right. Yeah. I thought I was going to get you in your Game of Thrones ignorance.

I thought I was going to be able to pray upon that. Yeah, but she's like, one of the most popular memes. And then the last one would have been the TV series, The Avengers, and I feel like that one would have... This is my thing that made me, for a split-second question, if it was Diana Rig, but I knew I didn't have a better answer, is it is very strange that she did The Avengers and was a Bond Girl? Ah, sure, yeah. That would not happen. Two parallel tracks.

She would not be allowed to do that, like, how people who've been in vampire movies can't be another vampire movies. can't be another vampire movie. So you have now jumped out to a commanding six to two lead in reverse IMDB game. I don't know how far. Maybe this one will go up to like 25 every time and we'll reset. And maybe this will be another criterion thing. Yeah, let's do this every episode so I can get some. No, no.

We're only doing it every. This one ends up being, it's literally 10 episodes since we did it the last time. Maybe we do it every 10 episodes, it looks like. We did it in 308 for Monuments, man. Yeah, but then there was a TIF episode. So, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. No, this is the tenth one since then. Oh, okay.

Every ten episodes. Sounds fun. I'm going to make you work for it. I'm going to make you work. I will show you no mercy. Now that something's on the line, are you kidding? Now that I got Diana Rig. I want you to buy me that Black Christmas 4K is all I got to say.

So I got to work. I got to get into fucking gear for this one. I've already pre-bought you the criterion that I'm going to have to maybe get you for the Patreon game that we play, because you are currently mounting a commanding comeback. So, um, anywho, that's our episode. I like reverse IMDB. Thank you, Meredith. Thank you, Meredith.

Thank you, life. Thank you, love. Thank you, Meredith. There must be some Merediths in this city. That's our episode. If you want more This Had Oscar Buzz You can check out the Tumblr

At this had oscarbuzz.tumbler.com On Instagram at ThisHad Oscar Buzz On Twitter It had underscore Had underscore Oscar Buzz Yes To weird

To underscores yes Patreon.com at slash this had Oscar buzz Joe where can the listeners find more of you? I'm on Z socials at Joe Reid Read spelled R EID Depending on the outcome of the election

I might not be on the socials. At one point, that could be a moment for a pause. We'll see. Hopefully I won't need to. I'm also hosting another podcast, a Patreon exclusive podcast called Demi, myself and I, where we make our way through the films of Demi Moore. We are reaching the early 90s, which is a sweet spot for the Demi films, but we're having a grand old time there. Chris has already been on a couple of different times to talk about various movie movies, and he'll still be back. His first choice is still out there and waiting to be discussed. So I've got some great guests.

We've got some great movies. We've got Bobby Finger talking about ghost. We've got Natalie Walker was on to talk about about last night. I had Sarah Bunting to talk about St. Elmo's Fire. We just had a, it's a cavalcade of fantastic guests. So come and join me. It's a good time. It's only $5 a month.

You'll enjoy it. You'll find me on Twitter and Letterbox at Chrissy File. That's F.E.I.L. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Tate Gonsalus and Gavin Miebius for their technical guidance and Taylor Cole for our theme music. Please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get those podcasts. Five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcast visibility. So go give us that five-star. Keep us in the Senate.

even if you didn't like this episode or you thought this episode was bad. That's all for this week. We hope you'd be back next week at this buzz. Who would dare think about?