This Had Oscar Buzz - 320 – Matchstick Men

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

After his comeback stretch of high grossers Gladiator, Hannibal, and Black Hawk Down, Ridley Scott returned in 2003 with a downshift into the character focused Matchstick Men. The film starred Nicolas Cage as a conman with compounding mental health issues who is then reunited with his daughter, played by Alison Lohman. With Sam Rockwell as … Continue reading "320 – Matchstick Men"

Joe, I am so pissed that I can't get interstellar points. I know that this is a 10- retroactive movie fantasy league prior to existing, but like, interstellar banging out those IMAX screens. Man, like, that's out-draftable. Once again, the dying theatrical movie art form, not so much if interstellar is,

packing them in iMacs like that's pretty rad i love that as i wrote for the daily beast if you didn't get a ticket already too bad yes also kind of at this point in the movie fantasy league if you didn't draft either moana too or wicked too bad at this stage of the game at least because they are stomping all over everybody's rosters and stomping all over the leaderboard right now very true well wicked wicked i think especially at the dollar price Right. The price that it was draftable for, I feel like Wicked is priming to be maybe the first points leader that is not guaranteed to be a Best Picture winner, maybe. Maybe. Like, considering what else is up for Best Picture, but the amount of money Wicked is making, Wicked could definitely be the biggest point earner already.

You were able to, if you were able to draft it at its going price, which was, I believe, $20 in, you could have had Wicked for the same amount that you could have had Joker Folly Adieu for. Like, talk about a sliding doors sort of a moment. Moana 2 was $30. Moana 2 was your third most expensive movie of the year after Gladiator 2 and Dune Part 2. There's going to be a lot of post-game analysis, I think, in terms of like, which one of the big ticket items, which one or two of the big ticket items, you picked this year and how that ended up um how that ended up faring uh amelia peres going off for twenty five dollars blitz going for twenty dollars um mate conclave might

end up being a bargain at twenty dollars you know what i mean like who the hell knows so there's a lot of game to be had a lot of game to be had it looks like wicked will get you a lot of points yeah moana crossed the three hundred million dollar mark as did wicked both of those movies actually crossed the three hundred million dollar mark obviously there's no extra bonus points past 200 million, but good for these movies. Another number one weekend at the box office does get you bonus points for Moana, too. Gladiator 2 is in third place, but is still, you know, move and move and moving. It's over 132 million.

You'll be getting those bonus points when it crosses 150 million. Red one, I have a feeling they are going to leg out to 100 million there. I think there's a point of pride there. And then one of the weeks, I think, biggest debut in terms of screen count was Y2K, which finished number eight of the box office with $2.1 million. Not great. So it's going to be a while, if ever, if you want to get that $25 million bonus from Y2K. Awards wise. Busy week.

Big week. You had your Gotham Awards. You had your New York film critics. You had your Independent Spirit nominations. You had your National Border Review. As we are recording this, Los Angeles film critics are currently voting for their best of the year. I think in general, I think top line, without getting into the eight billion types of points and whatever that we're flying around. Go to our Patreon and we'll tell you how all those points basically broke down because we've ran through everything that happened this week.

So that'll give you a better sense of where you're getting your points from. Exactly. But we can say just in general, a good week for the Brutelist, not a great week. had its ups and downs, but winning at New York film critics is definitely a plus. In terms of points, though, tons of points for Wicked for NBR and it's multiple awards, Sing Sing and Nickel Boys both got a lot of attention throughout all of these awards. So while they weren't some slam dunk at any of those awards bodies, even with, you know, things like a best feature nomination for Nickel Boys at Independent Spirits, the fact

that they showed up at a lot of them does well for it. And then independent Spirit Award nominations, Anora and I saw the TV glow both got a lot of them. So you got a lot of points for both of those movies. Obviously, I saw the TV glow was a lot cheaper

to purchase than Anora was. So if you picked up, I believe I saw the TV glow went off at $5. And if, I'm just going to double check and make sure that that is true, but I'm pretty sure that that is true. And And if that is the case, good for you, man, because... You got your points worth at $5?

Yeah. What could I cost... What could I saw the TV glow cost? Michael, $5? Yes, in fact, yes. After all of those points... Sorry, go ahead, Chris. I was going to say, with all that being said,

I'm going to predict the first real big shake-up on the leaderboard. We'll see in a day or so if that comes to fruition. but given we've got awards points going around. Golden Globes coming on Monday. We've got box office that's at least going to shake off those probable Venom and Joker drafters. Yes, yes, yes. Much respect to those early leaders in the leaderboard. I think those days are over.

So currently what you're seeing at the top of the leaderboard is the people who straddle that line. So number one right now is a line I mark with 15006 points. This roster has both Moana 2 and Wicked, the Newfangled Masters, and also Venom the Last Dance Smile to Joker Folly Adieu, which is the first wave of big points. So what this doesn't have is a ton in the way of awards points. So I feel like in this phase of the game, Aligni-Ni Mark is doing really well. I don't know if this is a roster that is primed to go the distance, unless Wicked really does just like sweep everything. I'm not entirely sure if I believe that that's going to happen. I don't know there.

Second place, Tim B, doing sort of the same thing. Mawanna 2, Wicked, Venom, Smile 2, Red 1, Joker. Tim B has Wallace and Grom at Vengeance Most Fowl, though, and also the fire inside, to sort of on the outer rim of contention, maybe at the moment, but with... Movies that need and deserve more talk around them. Good, good late in the year. The movies, yes, both very good. movies. I like them a lot. As for the Gary's

League, we have a new roster in first place. What in Tar Nation? Once again, never forget TAR, never let it go. Never stop making these references. 1213 points for what in TAR Nation for a roster that includes Wicked. Moana 2, Venom, Joker, Nightbitch,

which talk about... What the hell is going on with the box office reporting for Nightbitch? At this point, not even mentioned in Deadlines weekend recap. It's not in any of the situations, or not in any of the, like, estimates so far. If you've ever, if you've seen anyone this week enter a movie theater that is playing

Nightbitch, let us know because it feels like there were not too many people across the country. It's weird to watch Searchlight just truly dump a movie. Yeah. Well, as I think, as we said on our Patreon discussions, I think that festival response really led to them dropping that one like a hot potato. Second place, the Jolizance with 1153 points for a roster that includes Wicked 2. Sorry, Wicked 2. Wicked 2 is coming.

Moana 2. Wicked Conclave. We live in time, the piano, lessen the outrun, I saw the TV glow, and next year's The Life of Chuck. In general, things are moving. Things are in flux, like we said. Golden Globe nominations are coming soon. There's lots of moving parts. We have not gotten to the Sonic and Mufasa phase of the box office, so that will be another wave of box office points.

So between here and the end of the year, I think we're going to see the standings really every week sort of like move up and down and all around. It'll be very interesting to see where this game of musical chairs leaves off, I think, when we maybe calm down a bit in late January. So exciting. Busy week. We still got another busy week coming. We got Globe nominations. We got Critics Choice nominations. Indeed. Head on over to vulture.com slash movies dash league and you can check out the leaderboard, the prizes, the schedule of precursors, everything else you might need all there at vulture.com. Thank you. And we'll talk to you next week. Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. We want to talk to Mill and Hack, Mill and Heck.

I'm from Canada water. You're a con man? Con artist. Wow. Flam man, matchstick, man. Take your pick. And that guy, Frank? He's my partner.

Teach me something. Rule number one, never work near where you live. Don't... Rule number two, don't write anything down. You regret it? Exposing her to that. Well, you know, it was a little... It made me feel a little...

You know, I was a little... I really liked it. How much you think we can take that guy For 30 grand, more. $500,000? A million? Hopefully my tummy doesn't make any rumbly sounds because I have not had my breakfast yet. I'm cozying up with my tea. I have my little iced coffee.

I went to grocery shopping this morning, which the supermarket was already crazy at 10 o'clock in the morning. I believe you. But I got my cold brew and my creamer that I can make my own little cold brew rather than have to order out Tim Hortons, which is good. I'm going to buy you one of the things that Joe bought me, which is like a little cold brew at home kit. And it honestly makes better cold brew than... Oh, I'm sure it's better cold brew than bottle cold brew, but I also like, good enough is good enough for me. Do you know what I mean? Where it's just like... Good enough is not good enough for me for coffee. Really good is good enough for me with coffee. Although I'm starting to feel a little bit that way where I'll like, I'll have like a dunk in ice coffee and be like, Like, I don't know about this. Like, I wish we'd done the time off already.

Can we do a reverse time off so that we can keep this in the show? Listeners love coffee. We can probably, we can probably sync this up. You know what? Let's just sync this up and we can like, it'll backtrack. Yeah, so. Okay, okay. So I'll start us off with one.

Two. Three. Four. Five. Yeah. All right. We can do that. Listeners in real time, we've had several conversations in the past.

where we're like, we need to can it. We need to, so that we can do our sync up. You should have been doing this on mic, yeah. And now the topic of coffee. It's literally coffee talk with Linda Richmond happening right before your ears. If you're a topic. Yeah. Match stick men are neither match nor sticks.

My sense on coffee is that people tend to feel like Duncan does coffee really well. And I, no, they do not. Okay, see, this is what I feel like. Okay. They do not. They do not. And I'm here to say, they don't think. do they don't do bake goods well either maybe this is it's always unless you catch them if you

catch them like right when they are fresh they are good like a good they're the ones who do the like the big big cinnamon roll the big cinnamon roll and if you can catch that when it's fresh it's really good but that's the only time they all like they're not great donuts um I'm finding I'm willing to accept that this is a regional thing much like how yes when we go to Toronto the Timmy's is better infinitely better it's better i still love buffalo tinnies i'm willing to accept the people that are like in boston duncan is great i believe you i believe i believe you i believe but i'm just here not boston duncan here it's not it you remember your hometown before every don't all the donuts got sort of colonized by chains where you had like multiple donut shops like rather than

oh we still do we we we kind of do you really have to seek them out in Buffalo. There's Apala's donuts that has like really, really good donuts and they have like a couple locations. And then there's like a couple like, there's one Italian bakery in the suburbs here that I love. But it's just like it's it's hard to get to. Whereas like Tim Hortons is everywhere. But I remember we used to have like a place, a Mr. Donut that was really good. We had a Dickie's donuts that was really good. But also we had a superman. market near us that had a bomb-ass donut aisle. And every Sunday after church, we would go and we'd each get to pick out a donut after church. And Catholic-ass behavior. One million percent true. One million percent. But it was great. It was so. See, here in Columbus, shout out to Destination Donuts, my favorite donuts in the world. This is the donuts that I will sometimes send to you just like on Instagram. And you can tell that I'm going through a real bender.

And then shout out to Bakery, Fox in the Snow. Oh, nice. Delicious. This is the other one that I just send you things that I'm like, if you ever came to Columbus, we'd be going to these places. One of these days, I will. We're going to do an exchange program. Don't come to Columbus.

Well, then you come to Buffalo and bring your donuts with you. They're not going to hold up. They might. It's a short flight. Listeners, hello. Hi. Welcome to the This Head Oscar Buzz podcast. We don't normally do this, but here we are.

talking about breakfast. I hope you're listening to this. My tummy is so rumbly right now. No wonder I'm talking about breakfast. I've got my tea. I'm holding my one. Remember that 30 rock where Liz Levin is so hungry that all of a sudden, it's the airplane one. It's the one where Matt Damon refuses to pull the airplane back into the gate. And she's talking to him and she's like, just pull back to the gate where there are, she's like, where there are comfortable seats and turkey wraps. And you hear her stomach just go, turkey wraps. That's sort of how I feel like right now. I am very mom watching the kids open up presents on Christmas morning. I've got two hands on a mug.

Yep. Two hands on a mug because it's nice and warm and cozy. I am literally in my robe for this recording. I'm in regular clothes, but I have my robe over. Robe over clothes. Robe over clothes is an underrated marker of coziness. I really like it. Plus, the fact that you have headphones on to do your recording is like plausible stand-in for earmuffs.

So you do look like even extra cozy. I'm watching. the Christmas parade go by in front of my house or something. 100%. Oh my God. So I was talking, we were babysitting my nephew yesterday. And he would not stop talking about how excited he was for the Thanksgiving Day parade

and all the different balloons that there's going to be for his favorite cartoon characters. And we don't go over to my sister's house for Thanksgiving until like, obviously later in the afternoon. There's no reason to go like morning of Thanksgiving. But I might

try and, like, pop over there in the morning just to watch him watch the Thanksgiving Day parade because I feel like the Marisies parade. I'm saying, like, it would get me to watch it. It's gotten so bad. I love it still. Well, yes. Though this year, Coloskola will be in the Macy's parade. I'm sure. Also, my four-year-old nephew will appreciate. That will be weeks after the Macy's parade. I'm sure my four-year-old nephew will appreciate all of the comedic stylings of Coles Scola. Let's try this again. Hello. Hi, and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast inappropriately falling in love with our coach. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we don't talk about breakfast coffee in the Macy's parade, but we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, and for some reason or another, it all went wrong.

The Oscar hopes died, and we're here to perform the autopsy. I am your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with my manic pixie dream daughter, Joe Reed. I'm going to This is going to be a top 10 Least Likeable Joe Podcast episodes for us Because first of all Thank you for calling it a podcast episode Not a podcast when you mean a singular episode

One of the things that sticks in my craw Me too You know I hate that You know I hate it too This is why we're friends I just I'm going to be such a curmudgeon about this Alison Lohman character in this movie.

And performance, thank you. Yeah, I mean, part of me feels like that there is some intention in playing this character to be off-putting. But yeah, you're right. Like, we should, we shouldn't be so, like, we shouldn't hate this girl this much. And I fucking can't stand this girl. I don't think she's supposed to be off-putting. I think she's supposed to be 12 years old and she's being played by someone in their mid-20s

as if they are 12 years old, which is never going to work in this movie. That is the grift, I will say. She's not really 12 years old. Like, that is the grift. But it's not a good grift. And it makes Nicholas Cage seem dumb for falling for the grift.

Yes. And also, it is insufferable throughout. That's the most part of it. It's like, yes, it's intentional. Yes, she's, yes, she is actually an adult character playing, pretending to be a teenage girl. But it's so irritating to what. What we're saying is the only acceptable thing for it to be correct to the script, but not annoying, is for you to go in a time machine.

Bring back adult Isabel Furman. going to say orphaned. And cast her in this role. Of course. It's very orphan coded. Because otherwise it's just not going to work. The other thing is, and we're going to talk about sort of the career placement of this movie's three stars at the time. All three, Nicholas Cage, Sam Rockwell, and Alison Lomond are all coming off of very good years for them. In two of the cases, it's breakthrough years for Sam Rockwell and Allison Lomon and for Nicholas Cage. It's sort of reaffirmation of his talent after getting an Oscar nominee. for adaptation.

I wanted... Nicholas Cage also bought this script prior to the book being published, so it was like it was intended as a vehicle for him. Yeah. I wanted the amount of Allison Loman we get in this movie is how much

Sam Rockwell I wanted in this movie, and the amount of Sam Rockwell we get in this movie is how much Allison Lohman I wanted. And it's just, it's flipped. And I understand why. it's flipped because, like, the story that, you know, they want to tell in this is about this, you know, man sort of finding, you know, sort of falling in love with his daughter and, and falling in love with the idea of being a dad. You know what I mean? As in a less sort of treakly way than that. There are good things about this movie. I don't not like this movie, but like, Loman really is a flaw. She really is. I'm excited we finally did this episode Because I wanted to see it

And I never saw it in theaters And there are a lot of very Intense fans for this movie That are people whose opinion I really respect And I respect anyone who really loves this movie But the Loman performance was a bridge too far I like this movie This is this is

it's the kind of Ted Griffin that I like. We talked about Ted Griffin when we did our rumor has it episode. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. But there's also like, when we did our rumor has it episode, I think we must have talked about Terriers, the FX TV show from 2011, that he co-created with Sean Ryan, which Matchstick Men reminds me a lot of. That's not a show. Terriers is not. a show about con men. It's a show about private eyes, but in many ways, it's the, the rhythms that you go through in a movie about con men partners is similar to the rhythms that you go through with the movie about private eye partners. They're both sort of enough off of the grid. They're sort of making their own, you know, hours. And they have this very particular bond with each other. And like, the parts of matchstick men that I liked were the parts that reminded me of terriers. And that was the, you know, Cage and Rockwell stuff. I think God loves a Terrier. God loves the Terrier. We'll talk about Cage. We'll talk about Cage's

character being beset by Ticks and the kind of permission slip. It sort of writes for an actor like Nichols Cage in this movie. We'll certainly talk about Ridley Scott. This is our sixth Ridley Scott film, so we will be We'll do our first time Directors six-time quiz. Have we had another director that we've done six of their movies? I don't think so. No, no, no, no, no, no. What about Lassa Hallstrom?

How many Lassa Hallstroms have we done? Lassa Hallstrom's just may be a director that it's very conceivable that we've done that many because all of their movies are perceived in a certain way. Please hold. We don't have in our spreadsheet, we don't have a column for director, which is just a failure of imagination on our part that we couldn't imagine doing this many. But this is also one of the things that I want to talk about when we talk about Ridley Scott is like, Ridley Scott occupies, you know, this place as one of the biggest directors across, you know, the past 50, 60 years. But as far as output. Ridley Scott is more prolific now than Ridley Scott was at, like, Ridley Scott's peak.

So we've done three, only three Lassa Hallstroms. We've done the shipping news. We've done an unfinished life. And we've done salmon fishing in the Yemen. Now, there are several more that we could do. We could do, we could do something to talk about. We could do Casanova, the Heath Ledger, Cassanova movie. We could do the hoax, the one with Richard Gere.

We should do the hoax. We can do the 100-foot journey with Helen Mirren. And I think I could make a case for us doing the Nutcracker and the Four Realms. I believe that movie was shortlisted for visual effects. Okay, see. All right. Otherwise... Nutcracker in the Four Realms, great Kira Knightley performance.

If you disagree, you are wrong. and probably heterosexual. We got to talk about it then. You've convinced me. You've pushed me into the realm of convincing me to do it. Well, we have to do the first three realms. Well, yes, that's true. We've got to work our way up to it.

We don't understand what we're talking about. You're right. You're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Yeah, excited to talk about Matchesickman. Excited to talk about Ridley. Fewer Precursor awards for this movie to talk about, but we'll get into that.

We'll obviously have a little bit on the M for G's. By the way, if you want to hear us talk about this year's M4Gs, you got to sign on and join our Patreon. We're doing up to the minute whenever award season stuff is happening, we've got news updates over on the Patreon. Doing little pop-ins. If Joe and Chris are talking less about the M-4-Gs, then you might expect. us to do on the main feed, guess what? We've got a whole... We got it all out of our system on the Patreon. Yeah. So... Go to that Patreon and check it out. Joe, why don't you tell our listeners more about the Patreon? Yeah, so besides the fact that we're

going to be doing little pop-in episodes throughout awards season about the various developments, we did one this week on, as we said, the AARP Movies for Grownups Awards nominations. You also get two... Several weeks ago when this episode airs, though. Oh, God, that's right. Yeah, well... But you can go over the... there, you'll hear, you'll hear us talking about the film critics, you'll hear us talking about National Board of Review. Our listeners are very smart. They understand how time works. They get it. But in addition to all of that, all of those pop-ins, you get two full-length

episodes every month, which I think is pretty rad. The first episode you'll get every month is what we call an exception, which is a movie that would have normally been a great fit for flagship that said Oscar Buzz, except for the fact that it got maybe a nomination or two, but it still had, you know, great Oscar expectations and disappointing returns. As you're listening to this, the Exceptions episode that just dropped

is our episode on Far From Heaven, where you'll get to hear us talk about just how close this movie came to being too embraced by Oscar for us to be able to do it as an exceptions. But it just, it just disappointed enough. I guess. So congratulations. Todd Haynes. Far from Heaven joins a incredible roster of back catalog movies that you can come and listen to at any point. We've done episodes on Hitchcock, the Anthony Hopkins Helen Mirren movie Hitchcock, House of Gucci. Hello, speaking of Sir Ridley Scott,

House of Gucci. Knives out with our friend Jorge Molina, my best friend's wedding, W.E., Vanilla Molly's game, The Lovely Bones, Australia with our friend Katie Rich. We did Barbara Streisand's The Mirror Has Two Faces. Just a ton of a huge catalog of movies to go back to you. So like, at this point, you're kind of, at this point, you're kind of conning us, you know, for only $5. You're getting, you're getting a lot. There are those listeners who subscribed from the very beginning and had to get the episodes that they happen for the same price now you can go and have a buffet listen but those people we love those people and and we love all of them we love all of our people second uh full length episode every month will be what we call an excursion where we go off format not talking

about a movie necessarily but about some element of awards watching that that awards watching life we about that life and um whether it's all you know talking about about old award shows. We talked about the 2003 Golden Globe Awards very recently. We've done game nights. We've done superlatives. We've done entertainment weekly fall movie previews and THR roundtables. Coming soon, we're going to have our latest mailbag. And right in time for the holiday season, we are going to have a mailbag just for our patrons. So if you want to ask a question and have it be pretty good odds that we're going to answer. answer you. Go join up in that, that, uh, Patreon subscription and ask us a question. All right. So to sign up for

this head Oscar buzz, turbulent, brilliance, you can go to our Patreon page at patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz. Sign up. The low, low cost of $5 a month. The cost of what can you get at Tim Horton's for, for a fiver. Uh, you can probably get a small coffee and, and, uh, that, Christmas tree donut that you sent me that I was like, is it filled? It's filled. Gross. Yeah, Chris has very particular opinions on filled donuts, which I don't like filling. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're missing out on one of the great things in life, my friend. It just makes me think of pus. I don't. It's like a puschule. I don't like it. You've watched too many, maybe too many pimple popping videos.

I do not watch those because that's disgusting. And you're like, wow, it looks like a filled donut. Sorry, now we've ruined filled donuts for anybody. Anyway, go sign up for our Patreon, $5 a month. We promise we won't talk about custard food. Down with big filled donuts. Big filling, yeah, Chris has taken a stand against big filling. Matchstick men.

What if there were a couple of matchsticks? Men who were matchsticks. Yes. What if there were sticks? Had you ever heard this term to refer to con artists? Sure didn't. Nicholas Cage at one point mentions this alongside terms like flim-flam man, which I actually have heard. Matchstick men, though.

Never heard it. But, you know, it has that jargon-y feel to it. You know what I mean? That kind of David Mamet-esque, you know, we're going to be using very insidery lingo. So good on the team of Ted and Nicholas Griffin for that. The third con is you're fired. Matchstick Men, as we mentioned, directed by Ridley Scott. We'll get into it.

Written by Ted and Nicholas Griffin from the novel by Eric Garcia. The film stars one Nicholas Cage, Allison Loman, Sam Rockwell, Bruce Altman, Bruce McGill. Just in case you thought a movie couldn't have two bruses. This movie is here to prove you. Buddy, you are wrong. We're here to tell you. The Laura Walters, Beth Grant, and Sheila Kelly. What a collection of character actors, just those last five names, Bruce Altman, Bruce McGillma, Laura Walters, Beth Grant, and Sheila Kelly.

Like, my God. My goodness. I mean, if this was a big scale Ridley movie, that would be like, you know, the therapist would be played by someone super famous that it's like, why are you in this role? You just want to work with Ridley Scott? Got it. Right. Vera Farming or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's the departed, baby. It is. The movie World premiered out of competition at the Venice Film Festival. It was a Friday night TIF Gala and then opened the next week, wide release on September 12th, 2003. Indeed. We're having a very 2003 month. We are. Much by our accident.

I have noticed that this month. It was not on purpose, but yes. But here we are. Here we are. Joe, are you ready to give a 60-second plot description of the film Matchstick Man? Yeah, we'll see how tightly wound I can make it. So we'll, we'll see. All right, then your 60-second plot description for matchstick men starts now.

Nicholas Cage plays Roy, a confidence man with barely medicated OCD and Tourette's, who runs mid-level scams with his partner, Frank, played by Sam Rockwell, which should have been his first clue. When Roy's pills run out, Frank sends him to a shrink he nose, played by Bruce Altman, which should have been his second clue. Altman gives him pills that are definitely not placebo and gets Roy to open up about his regrets, including his ex-wife, who was pregnant when they divorced. Altman connects Roy with his now teenage daughter from that relationship, Angela, played by 55-year-old Alison Loman, which should have been his third clue.

Roy and Angela begin attentive to father-daughter bond, and she ultimately convinces him to tell her what he really does for living, then cajoles him into letting her in on the scam that he and Frank are currently working on Bruce McGill. Alarm bells, alarm bells. The scam goes wrong, and Bruce McGill ultimately gets the jump on Roy, Frank, and Angela. Angela takes the gun she found in Roy's ceramic dog and shoots McGill, seemingly killing him. But once Roy sends Frank away with Angela and the money to keep her safe, McGill clobbers Roy sending him to the fake hospital where he eventually discovers that the whole thing

the shrink Angela, the shooting was a long con on Roy so Frank could make his one big score. Roy is more devastated about losing the daughter he never had than by losing the money. Cut to a year later, Roy is working in a carpet store when adult Angela appears with her live-in boyfriend. Roy and Angela come to terms with her betrayal and their mutual affection for one another.

And then Roy goes home to the checkout lady from the supermarket who is now pregnant with his child the end. 14 seconds over time. Hey, not bad. Did you, did you appreciate me calling out 55-year-old Elson Lump? She, well, she shows up in the movie, not with a skateboard, but like carrying a bag that could mask a skateboard. It is very Steve Bishemmy, hello fellow youths. Yes.

Here's my thing. Here's my thing with the sort of the central conceit of the movie. And I'm not going to do cinema sins. and ultimately I am willing to suspend my disbelief mostly. But like, and I understand that the point is that Roy wants Angela, wants this relationship with Angela on some deep down level. He wants to believe. He wants to believe. So he looks past some things.

But like, he's a very good and practiced con artist. One would think that he would be on the lookout for this. these very, very obvious, and not just the fact that she's, you know, too old to be a teenager, but the idea that, like, she can't go into her house because there's a car in the driveway and where she keeps sort of like showing up on his doorstep at the most convenient moments. And conveniently, Frank has sent him to this shrink who, you know, conveniently finds his daughter for him, even though a shrink would never do that. You know what I mean?

It feels like Roy ignores red flag after red flag after red flag. And of course, it's easy for us to say because we know we're watching a movie about... In a certain way, the bad performance kind of masks it that it's like, oh, she's just bad in this movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But even if she was good, he should have been able to pick up on, you know, the signs. But again, he doesn't want to. He wants. But then when the twist happens, it's kind of like, oh, so no, actually, she's bad and I don't like this.

Yeah. I don't like this twist. And meanwhile, I wish we had gotten, again, I wish we had gotten more of Frank because that to me is as big of a betrayal, if not more. And again, the movie's about what it's about. The movie is about a father and a daughter, daughter in air quotes, bond. But he also has this partner who he's been working with for a very long time. Whose betrayal, I think, is pretty significant, you know what I mean? And we don't really get con men movies where, you know, partners are pulling one over on their fellow partner before.

So I feel like this movie has a little bit more responsibility to show their relationship. in order to pull off that double-cross. And the reveal comes... ...pull off that betrayal. Via a note. So, like, we don't even get to see Sam Rockwell act his sort of, you know, coming clean to Roy about that. And... Yeah, he gets the $100 bill in the safety deposit box that says, I'm sorry, I can't, don't hate me.

Basically, yes. Essentially, yes. Yeah, I got broken up with by a post-it. I guess... To begin, though, well, I guess let's talk about the, how do we want to begin? The script, the directing, or the acting. I'll leave that question to you. Because I feel like we've had the Ted Griffin conversation.

So I don't know if we necessarily have to, like, reiterate it. Go back and listen to our rumor has it episode. He's a really interesting writer. He's had his story in trying to get rumor has it made is the story in and of itself of, you know, having. Projects taken away from you and whatnot. But he's sort of this, like, classic Hollywood. Like, he was, you know, born in Pasadena and grew up in L.A. And has sort of written a bunch of really, you know, interesting movies,

not least of which was the Ocean's Eleven remake for Steven Soderberg, which is, I think, such a triumph of adaptation. You know what I mean? And obviously a lot of that adaptation has to do with, you know, direction and tone and the cast and whatnot. I think what I will say for the script and the screenplay is I do actually like this story. I just think there's a couple hot potatoes in this movie that bring the movie ultimately down. It's that we don't get enough with Sam Rockwell just as a character. and that, you know, the, the, the, I like thematically what it's doing with this parent-child story.

Yes. But the kind of, not even fast one that it's trying to pull, but the, the plottiness, the twistiness of it, I think is something that's never really going to work on screen, unless it's this. It's this incredible performance and probably by someone we haven't seen before. And I don't know. I kind of also wish that the DaughterCon, which sounds like, you know, some type of fan convention. I'm going to St. Louis for DaughterCon this year, and it's just going to be, it's not even dads and daughters, it's just daughters. It's just a bunch of people being like, well, we're doing daughter shit. I don't know what daughter shit is, but we're doing it.

They're all single children because then it would be sister con. What if, though, it's a John Mayer fanatic convention and it's called Daughters'Con? Ooh. Ooh. I don't want to go there. Uh-uh. Pass. Wait, wait, or it's a Teresa Judice convention and it's called DaughterCon.

and it's and it's Teresa and her daughter's, you know, being celebrated. There's a lot of ways we can go with this. Anyway, daughter con. I think that that ultimately distracts from where thematically this movie is trying to come from in regards to Cage's character rather than helps it. But all that to say, I am net positive on this movie. Yeah, I think same. But I think you make a good point about how,

the daughter con maybe works better on paper than in practice in this movie. I think it's in practice in the movie, it's a little too obvious. It's, and again, I've seen this movie before. I don't think this is a movie that needs to be this twisty. And I don't think Ridley Scott is really a twist director. I think if you are having a movie about con men, you almost have to have a twist, though. I do feel like you do. But then the twist is his partner betrays him.

I mean, that's not, I mean, I guess unless you're talking some of the more violent example of con movies, you know, that's not something that we see all the time that we're going to necessarily expect it from that character. But as you say, sort of, the thing with the daughter does work on paper. Thematically, yes. Like it, I just feel like as it plays out, her character is so baseline irritating in every possible way. And his character is already sort of besieged enough by his own ticks and twitches and, you know, Nicholas Cageiness that plays into all of that, that you're just like, I am on 10 out of 10 stress. levels every single time both of these characters are on screen and not in a good way. Not in a not in a like, oh, the tension you can cut it with a knife. It's like I want to get as far away from these two people together as I possibly can.

It's just not not how I want to choose to spend my evening. And meanwhile, Sam Rockwell is off screen being completely appealing and and funny and, you know, mysterious, and it's just like, y'all, like, you have this, you have this, you know, natural resource right here, and you're not really using them, and it's, it's too bad. And then, yet, when you talk about net positive, I think this is a movie that has sort of good vignette moments. I think the con that they pull on, Beth Grant, is a really fun sort of sequence. Nicholas Cage making her give the money back is also, you know, a sweet little twist. But God, Beth, it's so interesting. It's so odd seeing Beth Grant playing a

woman who isn't inherently suspicious and mean to people. A woman who doesn't have everyone's number. It's the absolute opposite of the Beth Grant type, where she's like credulous. and sweet and, you know, sort of open-hearted about it all. And it's just like, of course the one time Beth Grant gets to play that. She gets taken for a ride, you know, unfair, unfair. She's great in that scene.

I love her. National Treasure Beth Grant. How many Beth Grant's have we done? I think four. Have we hit six-timers on Beth Grant? No. We have... One of our greatest living.

Hold on. Beth Grant is... Oh, no, wait. I'm looking at the wrong tab. Hold on. Elizabeth Grant. You know what I did? You know when Vulture did the character actor week and we did the ranking of character actors and I did the write-up on Beth Grant that she, like, wrote a very, like, sweet note in response to it.

Or it was maybe a tweet, talked about how, like, how much it meant to her to have that. It was very nice. She was very lovely. This is why I could never write one of those things. I'd be too afraid of the person I'm writing about, even in the positive. You really have to push it out of your mind. I'm just like, no, this is. I'm in my bubble.

You really have to push it out of your mind. You really do. Okay, we've done three Beth Grants. She was in 1,000 acres. She was, of course, into Wang Fu. Thanks for everything, Julie Numar. And now match sick men. So three more.

I can't believe this. This is only three? But it is five. Maybe we just talk about her all the time. Well, we do. We are on five Bruce McGills, though. We are on Courage Underfire, Elizabeth Town, fair game, a perfect world. And now match sick men.

So the next Bruce McGill movie we do will be our six timers for Bruce Miguel. I love a character actor six-timer. It's very fun. Was the first character actor six-timers? We did John Carroll Lynch. John Carroll Lynch, we did. I mean, I guess J.K. Simmons is technically borderline a character. But he does have an Oscar. But that's not what we mean when we say character actor. Yeah, John Carroll Lynch, I think, is the one we're talking

about. We're about to hit our next Dean Norris, our next Bob Gunton. Phil Bosco. What's that? Was Phil Bosco close? I don't think so. What are you thinking of? What did I think Philbosco was? What Philip Bosco movies have we even done? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

No, our next ones are Dean Norris and Bob Gunton. Those are the next two. There we go. The character actor six-timers, and I will be psyched for it. What else? What else? What else? Oh, okay.

So, 2002 is a big year for all three of these actors. So they're all in. the Oscar race on some level or another, even if it's just sort of adjacent. Alison Lohman has her breakthrough role in White Oliander opposite Michelle Pfeiffer and also Renee Zellweger and Robin Wright. She probably got nominated for some of those younger actor awards. Now I want to sort of like look her up and see. God, it's so long ago that we did that movie.

I know. I think we did that movie in like 2020. It was during the pandemic, I remember. Yeah. But, yes, so Alison Lomans Awards tab, let's see. Wow, Hollywood Film Awards, 2003 winner for Supporting Actress of the Year. Okay. Read me, bitch.

The Hollywood Film Awards. Show West Convention, winner of female star of tomorrow. Young Hollywood Awards, winner for Superstar of Tomorrow. nominated by the Phoenix film critics for Best Newcomer that year. So there was, yes, so there was a lot of sort of Ballyhoo about Alison Lohman in that performance. She's quite good in that movie, I feel like. Sam Rockwell, who was an actor who had been around for a while and was sort of a face you maybe knew and recognized. He's one of those, he had been up until that point, one of those character actors who doesn't look like a character actor because he's very handsome.

Do you know what I mean? But he, he would sort, that was sort of the career trajectory that he had at that point. He's in movies like, he's like a thug in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, right? He's the super racist guy in the green mind. Yes, that's right. That's right. Yeah. He's in Woody Allen's celebrity as like one of, I think it's DiCaprio's entourage. He's a thug in Basquiat. You know what I mean? He's just sort of, he's in, to do, do, do, too, too, too, to do. Anyway, so it's a bunch of just like through the 90s or whatever. He's in a movie called Lawn Dogs, where he's the star of that one, which was a, indie movie from the mid-90s with Misha Barton in it. That was one of the sort of like, you know, I remember Misha Barton things. And that one sort of made the festival, the sort of like lesser festivals run in 1990. But so he's in a Midsummer Night's Dream. He's in Galaxy Quest. I feel like

is one of the ones where people are like, oh, I remember him from Galaxy Quest. For me, it's Charlie's Angels. He plays the bad guy who you don't know is a bad guy until pretty late in the game in Charlie's Angels. And his turn comes where is it Drew Barrymore he's in the room with when he turns? I think. I think it's only one of them. And all of a sudden he starts like dancing while he's like making a cocktail and he sort of like goes from this like guy they're trying to protect to the sort of like very sort of like cocky villain. And I remember, in that moment being like, oh, this guy is something. Like, this guy has it. And from that moment, for me at least, from Charlie's Angels, I was like, oh, I'm paying attention to him. But so in 2002, he stars in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which is directed by George Clooney.

It's George Clooney's directorial debut, which already, that's a lot of attention on it. It's a Charlie Kaufman script. So this is Charlie Kaufman, after being John Malkovich. He has two scripts in 2002. He's got adaptation, which we'll get to in a second, and then Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. This was a sort of off-kilter biopic of the gong show host Chuck Barris, based on his autobiography, where he claims that he was, in addition to being a game show host, a undercover assassin for the CIA. which feels like comedy,

but this movie sort of takes it as a like, what if? You know, what if this was actually true? It's very dark comedy. But it was also, you know, B-tier Miramax Awards player. Yes. Didn't really get a great push. But like... Though I think some notices were...

I think Sam Rockwell might have won like a breakthrough prize with National Board of Review, something like that. In a strong year for Best Actor, this was the year of Daniel Day Lewis and Gangs of New York. and Jack Nicholson and about Schmidt, Adrian Brody wins the Oscar for the pianist. I would have had Sam Rockwell probably as one of my best actor nominees that year. I think he's really good. I don't think I've seen that movie since theaters.

So I would have to see it again. I would have to see it again, too, because it's been forever. But I remember it being quite fun. So that's a big one for him. That sort of, you know, establishes him as sort of an indie film leading man who can play you know, in the big leagues. And we mentioned Charlie Kaufman, so adaptations his other movie that year with stars,

Nicholas Cage, as Charlie Kaufman and his fictional twin, Donald Kaufman. It is a really very, very funny movie and a very clever movie and also a movie that kind of sneaks up on you with its humanity. The version of Charlie Kaufman that I often find get frustrated with

is the, I'm thinking of ending things, Charlie Kaufman, where I feel like he can sort of fall back on a very easy sort of, um, maudlin misanthropy, kind of in the room. Whereas something like adaptation does not feel like it is falsely, I mean, adaptation is a movie about neuroses, right? He's, he's wrestling with himself as he's writing this movie. He's wrestling with his instincts into what kind of story is. He's wrestling also with his own profession and what the industry expects of him to do in that profession in ways that are absolutely brilliant. Where does adaptation sit for you on the sort of the Charlie Kaufman?

I mean, at the very, very top. It's hard to say like what... Nothing beats eternal. How do you rank a Charlie Kaufman film? Is it anything that he has written or directed? Is it, you know, Is it, because there's also the Charlie Kaufman scripts that it's, were kind of like abandoned projects for him that are not, you know, like, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is not one of the ones that like anybody ever asks him about because that's just a script that was sitting around, I guess. But, I mean, adaptation is kind of the one, I think. I also really love Synecichy, New York.

That's a movie I wrestle with. That's one that you don't like. Well, it's not necessarily true. It was a movie that I reacted very poorly to initially. For, excuse me, that's a movie I reacted very poorly to initially for reasons where it was like, fuck you for making me feel this depressed, Charlie Kaufman. I come to you with an open heart. And I do feel like it does touch on some of those aspects. of Charlie Kaufman, I think on some level he is a little bit in love with his own melancholy

in a way where I find it a little solipsistic. And obviously, that movie is about that. But I also think the movie is about that. Yes. You know, it is as self-wrestling as adaptation is in a lot of ways. I think, you know, if there's there's a difference there in quality between the two movies, is like Spike Jones had, you know, in addition to making previous feature films, had also done various different types of film projects, too. It has a hand of how to make a movie. And I think Synecichy is very happy to be an unwieldy object where, you know. Synecichy can wallow, I think. That's maybe the difference between a movie like adaptation and even Eternal Sunshine and being just,

on Malcovic, all three of those movies have sort of, you know, significant quantities of misanthropy and also self-hatred and anxiety and whatnot. But there's a, there's a refusal in all three of those movies to wallow. I think there is something in Synecichy and I think I'm thinking of ending things. I can't, I don't want to speak on anomalies too much because I forget a lot of sort of. I don't care for anomalies. Kind of same. But the thing about synecdochie is there's also really brilliantly affecting stuff in there. And it almost works better for me as a series of vignettes that I can sort of dip into and out of rather than like a full experience that I ultimately feel like is a little overwhelming. But like I can appreciate that. I watched the like the scene where like Diane Weist narrates his death. You know what I mean? And it's just like, oh, wow, this is incredible. I remember I watched that a lot after Philip Seymour Hoffman died for, you know, obvious reasons.

But I remember thinking, well, this is like really quite beautiful. And I think there are, that's a movie that I haven't revisited in its totality since I initially saw. And I wonder if I maybe should. So we could do an episode on it. We could. We could. We should do it. Because I think there's a lot of avenues to talk about there.

I also think it's an interesting piece of art about how our. never stays in the hands of the creator. Eventually, it has to be taken over by either the audience or other creative forces specific. Just in that scene you mentioned is interesting. And I think Synecichy has had a really interesting life recently in that it feels like it's a movie that's been very influential thematically on what a lot of directors that we get very, very worked up about talking about, I think that's been an influential film for a lot of very modern filmmakers, people like Ari Aster, et cetera.

Definitely, definitely, yeah. But back to adaptation. So, yeah, that movie stays interesting. Back to adaptation, because this is, adaptation is a movie that I think came around for Nicholas Cage at a very opportune time because he had won, he wins best actor for leaving Las Vegas in 1995, and that was a movie, that was a performance that was fairly widely acclaimed. I feel like critics really, really loved it.

There was not much of a sense of suspense as to who was going to win Best Actor that year. That was kind of a steam roll year. And he had, you know, whatever, his career up until that point had been kind of like ups and downs and whatever, but he was... well-regarded enough as an actor that when leaving Las Vegas comes it was seen as a leveling up

but not this like, oh, we never you know, we never expected, you know, this from Nicholas Cage. I think a lot of people sort of sensed that he might have that performance in him. But the run he then has from leaving Las Vegas in

the next few years, there was a little bit of... He basically immediately cashes in on that Oscar. Yes. And becomes, you know, know, a hitman. He's like, all of these movies are hits until they get very dark. And then he makes some more hits, too. It's, it's a, he goes on his sort of Brookheimer run, right? Where he's in The Rock. And then he's in Conair and he's in face off. And then, um, well, City of Angels is a, is, you know, obviously a different kind of movie. Snake Eyes is to Palma.

Eight millimeter is, I've rewatched eight millimeter for the Schumacher draft that I did recently. And it's still so upsetting. So incredible. A grim object. Bringing out the Dead with Corsese, which is a really interesting one. And then Gone in 60 Seconds, which is sort of back to the to the Bruchheimer of it all. And the other thing to say is even while these movies are making money, they're not getting particularly good. No, many of them quite bad reviews.

I think a few. So it's like he becomes a reliable box office star, but his star is also some. somewhat tainted in terms of, well, Nicholas Cage is in a lot of crap, is the perception. And it's interesting from this current perspective, because almost all of those movies have been reclaimed in some way. Faceoff got reclaimed the quickest. Faceoff became sort of a cult, like, oh, this is a masterpiece. Not too long after it first came out. I think there was an initial sense of like, well, this is, you know, this is not, this is, this is silly junk.

Low. Yeah, right. It's, it's, you know, they're swapping faces. It's John Travolta being incredibly over the top. And Nicholas Cage being like, no, I can be incredibly over the top. One of the greatest teasers of all time. Sure. Yes. But I think The Rock has been reclaimed by, you know, the sort of the Michael Bay optimists is one of the great, you know, Michael Bay movies. I think the Rock has its moments. Snake Eyes was another one where anytime you have a De Palma movie, you will have your contention of people who's like, who are like, this is dumb garbage. And then you'll have people being like, yes, and that's why it's brilliant. So it has the... Comment on dumb garbage. I haven't revisited snake eyes, though I am very curious to, as someone who is often a

diploma apologist, asterisk, depending on the movie we're talking about. Bringing Up the Dead, which we've done an episode on, ages ago, is one of those Alt Scorsese movies where it's never going to... Secretly great. Right. It's never going to be on the list of greatest Scorsese movies, but it's one of those ones where it's like, ah, I'm going to be my alt Scorsese choice is bringing out the dead. It's probably my favorite of the Scorsese religion movies. Well, there you go. He also makes the family man with Brett Ratner, which I don't remember if I ever saw.

I wish I forget that's a Brett Ratner move. Yeah, I don't know if I've ever seen it. It explains a lot that that is a Brett Rat. I confuse that movie with The Weatherman quite a bit, which is a Gore-Vubinsky movie. The Weatherman's after this. Oh, the Weatherman's is a good few years later. City of Angels is a Brad Silberling movie. We've done Moonlight Mile, which was another Brad Silberling movie.

City of Angels exists to me as a soundtrack, of course. This is a delivery system for both the Goo Goo Goo Dolls and Alanis Morissette. But it is also a movie. City of Angels a movie we could do, or did it get some random cinematography nomination? Let me look at it. I feel like if we could have done this. City of Angels by now we would have, right? We can do City of Angels. We should then. We should. We haven't talked about Meg Ryan in quite a while. That's a movie I definitely saw a few times. And it's one of those movies. It's a remake of Wings of Desire, which, you know, talk about putting yourself. It is a very Hollywood.

Talk about putting yourself behind the eight ball. You know what I mean? We're going to do a Hollywood remake of Wings of Desire. You think critics are going to like those? Good luck. But also, because of the way of the way. We're going to do. We're going to do. We're going to do. We think critics are going to like those. But also. But also, because of the way. We're that movie ends, audiences hated that movie. Yeah. Even though that movie made money. Yes. It really pissed off people who just want to go see a romantic drama. Yeah. Yeah, it really is. But to me, it ends with... Exactly as it should. Well, it ends with uninvited. And I'm just like, okay, well, then it ends perfectly. So you don't know how many times I've gone on YouTube and just looked up and I go, like, City of Angels ending. And they'll show me the real ending. I'm like, that's not what I want. City of Angels end credit. And then I just sort of, I watched the credits scroll and listen to...

My dude, you know Spotify exists. No, Apple Music is different. It's a different experience, Chris. It's a very different experience. Gone in 60 seconds and Conair are the two that I feel like have never quite been reclaimed. I saw Conair on hotel TV recently. People are optimistic about ConAir. They shouldn't be.

They shouldn't be. Conair is a... nasty, shitty, little movie that, like, on multiple occasions, sort of joky jokes about Steve Bishemi being a child molester and murderer, sort of free among the gen pop. And yet all the Red Staters love Conair. Gone in 60 Seconds, to me, is the one that I would be optimistic about. It's like, it's dumb. Also a movie that exists as a soundtrack. But, like, that is a movie with a really fun cast. You're never going to get a movie with Nicholas Cage, Angelina Jolie.

Robert Duvall, Delroy Lindo, you know, Giovanni Ribisi, Scott Kahn, Will Patton, like, Con at 60 seconds, is fun. And it's also, it's like, it's one of those things where in the universe of this movie, there is nothing more important

than stealing cars. People, you know, have these very sort of high-minded morals about it. They have a very, like, ethical code about stealing cars. They also, like, it turns them on. It's like a fetishized thing All of the cars are women

It's a whole fucking thing Dominic Sena You're on What are the other Dominic Sena movies? Swordfish Okay California Season of the Witch

Speaking of Nicholas Cage Season of the Witch I remember seeing Gone in 60 seconds And Gladiator in the same day That summer And being like Well those were shit Yeah

Those sucked And then in 2001 he does Captain Corelli's Mandolin, which is one of our earlier this had Oscar Buzz movies, kind of a definitional this had Oscar Buzz movie, right? Your classic example. So by the time we hit 2002, it's not like his career is in tatters because a lot of those movies made a ton of money. But the Nicholas Cage, who won an Oscar for an acting tour de force, was. was pretty far in the rearview mirror. And one of the things that adaptation does is kind of, it serves as a reminder that, like, oh, Nicholas Cage, when given, you know, the material to do some, like, real serious acting,

can still deliver. And so you were back to a place of Nicholas Cage, you know, great actor when Matt Stickman comes along. Matchesickman, I think, gives you a little bit of the other Nicholas Cage, which is, all right, all right, sir, you can do twitches, you can do facial ticks, you can do Tourette's, so you can do your thing where you, you know, shout certain words at random, and it's a thing that he has kept with him. What did I see recently, Caller out of space, where it's just like, my friend, you don't need to shout every fourth word. just for emphasis but man I want to put a pin on talking about those type of cage performances

because we should talk about that but I'm going to have to dissent with you on his performance here I think he's pretty good in that talk about it talk about it I don't think he's bad but talk about like I think you like it a good deal better than me I absolutely understand where you're coming from

in terms of the tetchiness the tickiness of Cage, but I think A lot of that. Because I, my, my, my, you know, my barometer like shut up almost immediately

in this movie for like, uh-oh, what's happening here. And I kind of quickly caught myself saying, okay, that's, that's a performer. He eventually evolves into, but I don't think what doesn't work about a lot of those performances for me

wasn't necessarily present here. I actually think there is a good amount. Given what this movie could have been, I think there's a good amount of taste at play here in his performance and that it doesn't go too far. But I also just think the human stakes of it, the human psychology of this character, he does such a good job. He holds on to that. He definitely does. You're absolutely right. Yeah. And like, it is still a very mainstream, cozy presentation of that type of move. Like, the, that type of psychosis, you know, in this movie.

It's not actually going, I think, for all that much reality. But that being said, I think... Yeah. There could have been a lot more problems here in terms of dealing with this type of diagnosis on screen. What was... And I think... I think Cage is pretty grounded in this. I feel like we did an episode, not very recently, but at some point, somewhat recently,

that was, that sort of dabbled in that genre of skepticism for psychotherapy and skepticism for, what the hell was that? I remember talking about that. Was it collateral beauty? It wasn't, but you could probably, you know, mix that into this stew as well. I'll think of it. Matrix Resurrections, maybe? Well, no, I don't think that's the one, but like, Metrix Resurrection definitely plays into that.

There's a genre of movies, especially that existed in the sort of early 90s that felt like it. Maybe this was the thing I just talked about on podcast like it's or something like that, that played into this idea that, like, psychotherapists are not to be trusted. They're sort of like inherently manipulative medication for... Right. It used to be some type of boogeyman in the movie. Medication for mental illness is a numbing agent that ultimately is going to rob you of living an authentic life and whatever. A lot of like, just very like skeptical. It felt very Scientology-coded in a way of just sort of like skepticism about psychotherapy.

Mastic men doesn't like crusade against this. But it plays, it dabbles in these, in these, you know, in this sense of, well, what's really wrong with Roy is not necessarily brain chemistry related. It is because he has these regrets and, and guilt, guilty feelings about what he does for a living and regrets from his life that he needs to work his way through. Now, ultimately, we find out that that is. advice given to him by a sham shrink who is working in cohoots with Frank. But it does, the movie does make the point that, like, he got these placebos, these menopause supplements that, that Bruce Altman was giving him. And ultimately, what made

him feel better wasn't the pills, obviously, because those were placebos. It was, you know, forming this bond with his daughter and sort of getting his head right that way. So this is a movie that definitely kind of indulges in this idea of you don't need medication to correct your mental illness. You just need to like get your head on straight. You know what I mean? And I don't love that. I'll think of the movie. I don't either, but I, it's not like it's, again, don't think this is some. Yeah. No. The nefarious movie. I feel like, if anything, it's just clumsy in getting there. I don't think this is a movie that would outright, you know, go against medicine. No, but I did find it notable in that way.

And that, like, if you have this character who is so heavily, you know, that's such a big part of his character is, you know, the OCD. We see it's this classic sort of movie OECD. CD, he has to, like, turn off the faucet five times and all this sort of thing. And, and that is combined with this ticky Tourette's thing where he's, you know, making outbursts and twitching and whatnot. Matrix Resurrection definitely does also dabble in that in a way that, like, again, it's not like making a statement against therapy, but it's also sort of using the tropes of that to be like, you don't trust.

this son of a bitch and neither do we. You know what I mean? Like, we don't, boo, boo this character. I don't think it's boo psychotherapy. No, but it's booed this. It's booed this guy. To misunderstand.

No, right. But it's just, again, I just feel like these things can be, you know, these things are coded sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just, I make note of it. Cage, though, I do think is good in this movie. Wouldn't have given him an Oscar nomination, as Roger Ebert said.

Ebert loved you. Roger Ebert, like, says that he's on the same level as leaving Las Vegas. I would rather watch this movie again than ever watch leaving Los Vegas. I've watched so much leaving Las Vegas in my lifetime for various projects. Oh, really? And I maybe hate that. I've only ever seen it once.

And I remember being like, they're both very good, but I don't need to ever see that movie again. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of at a loss for what the love for that movie was, other than I can only say that just must be a movie of its time. I think it's one of those things where I think the the Cage performance so impressed people

that I... And the shoe performance. Like it almost seems like the love for that movie is bred of condescension. Well, and the 1995 Oscar race was very much a study in contrast between very serious movies with serious intent,

leaving Las Vegas, Dead Man Walking, Nixon, you know, these, these, you know, and great movies that they ultimately don't take seriously for various reasons, the sense and sensibilities, the babes. And then what you found that year, because yes, you're exactly right, sense and sensibility and babe,

and, well, the American, American president, and that didn't turn out very well, you know. But I've been talking about this to you and Katie quite a bit lately because when I was doing all my research for my best picture piece for Vanity Fair, that if it's not out now by the time of this. It'll be out now. Dropping. That whole year is very fascinating to me because Apollo 13 not getting that director nomination for Ron Howard, kind of. It kind of sends the whole season into a tailspin. It 100% does. And like what people don't realize about Braveheart, Braveheart is the lowest grossing best picture winner of the 90s. People think it wrote in there as a blockbuster.

And it wasn't. It was probably a blockbuster on video. And like, you know, this is the mid-90s. It had a cultural footprint. It's not like it bombed, but it's not. It had a big cultural footprint, too. Like people talked about it. Yeah.

Yeah. And I do wonder what happens if Ron Howard misses the director nomination, but Aang Lee gets in there. Maybe they take sense and sensibility a little bit more seriously. Right, right. But what you saw that year was you had your, you know, sense and sensibility and babe on one side of things. Then you had Dead Man Walking and leaving Las Vegas, both of which get director nominations, but not picture nominations. So there's a sense that, like, the directors appreciated the more serious things that the academy members at large opted for slightly lighter fare and that Braveheart ended up being the silly, serious movie. Because there's like, there's, you know, Braveheart's a very, you know, heavily dramatic movie.

He, like, dies of torture by the end of it or whatever. But. Terrible movie. It's silly. You know, there's, there's a silliness to it. There's a, you know, boy, did everybody... I also wonder what happens if leaving Las Vegas gets a best picture nomination, which it was probably sixth place for?

Maybe. Dead Man Walking also could have gotten a best picture nomination that was up there. This was also... Dead Man Walking was such a late release was the thing about it. But also, like, this was the year that, like, Harvey Weinstein decided to just sort of, like, stick his big, dumb nose in it and, and force through a nomination for ill Postino for no good reason except for the fact that he couldn't stand a year going by without Miramax getting into the best picture race. I don't have anything against Il Postino as a movie.

I feel like it had no place in that Oscar conversation. And it took the place of other things that felt like they had more of an impact on that movie year in America. Do you know what I mean? My last note on that best picture race in doing my research for it. I was reading something that called that movie The Postman, and I was very confused because what is this person saying that this Kevin Costner movie got a Best Picture nomination? And then I was like, oh, they mean I'll Postino. Don't call it the Postman.

It's Ill Postino. What are you talking about? But that was part of the marketing. And I think that was a Harvey thing, was you don't want to turn people off by giving this movie a foreign title. So in many ways, it was called Il Postino, parentheses, The Postman. So I think they were very cognizant of not wanting to, which is so funny, because it's just like, Il Postino is not that difficult to figure out, guys. Just like look it in context for like half of a second. But they wanted to make sure. So, you know, the Postman was there right there on the trailers

and the TV commercials and all that sort of thing. All right. How did we get here? Which is really good in leaving Las Vegas. I would take his Oscar win away for nothing. And I would rather him have an Oscar for adaptation because he would, without reservation, be my pick that year. Oh, interesting. That's a good, that's a very competitive year. It's a very competitive year, a year that he should have had more of a shot at winning, and he was fourth place safely. That was the year where the conventional wisdom and one, and, you know, what.

wisdom that I agree with, states that Nicholson for About Schmidt and Daniel Day Lewis for Gings of New York essentially split the vote evenly enough that Adrian Brody was able to sort of sneak in there and eke out a win over a lower threshold, which to me makes sense the pianist was very much a late-breaking. I just don't think there's a split vote with Oscar. I just think it was that close generally for those three. What do you mean? you don't think it was a split vote.

You don't sit down with your ballot and, you know, they're like, these are the five nominees, but you're voting for Jack Nicholson or Daniel DeLewitt. Like, no, no, but what I'm saying is because they were so neck and neck. They were so close. When you have that neck and neck thing, the threshold for winning is naturally, if your votes are 51-49, you know what I mean, rather than 70-30, your threshold. hold for winning is 51 rather than 70, so.

I guess I'm just getting into the semantics. Sure, sure. Understand. It's just something that I'm like, that's not what it is. But yeah, I love Cage that year. Let's talk a little bit about how we consider Nicholas Cage now, because this is one of the, the A reason for us doing this episode is Ridley Scott, and we'll get into Ridley Scott shortly.

The B reason in terms of this season is. is all of the people, I keep saying, I keep seeing say that Nicholas Cage is in the supporting actor race, four long legs, to which I want to say, shut up. I don't know if I want to say shut up because... No, he is not. Listen, if we want to have that conversation, I am not one to, especially at this stage, we're still in, as we record this, it's still November. Right. He could, there could be a Golden Globe nomination by the time this episode drops.

Even if there isn't, let's keep the conversation going. Let's have a wide enough net as possible at this point. I am normally with you in the like we're not saying no to anybody at this stage, but we should be saying no to that. It's not going to happen, but I think if you are, well, I was Adele for a second, I think if we're talking about Nicholas Cage. So long like this weekend. It was gross.

I don't want to watch that. It's very, very frightening. Quite frightening. I think if you think that what, and he's definitely like giving a performance, and if that thrills you, and if you want to, you know, throw his name, throw his hat in the ring or whatever for long legs, go for it. Listen, spoiler. Spoiler, I don't know if my vulture performance ranking is going to be out by now, but like, I'm putting Hunter Schaefer on my list for Kuku. Like, you know, you don't necessarily have to, you know, these movies can, you know, you can get a great performance from wherever, but I understand what you're saying. I'm never opposed to anyone saying in their favorites of the year picking something that I disagree with. It should be reflective of your taste. If you want to have Nicholas Cage on your personal ballot, go on. I do agree with you that this certainly seems to be the longest of long shots.

This is like me being like Angelina Jolie was a supporting actress contender for the Bone Collector. Honestly, she could have been. Where are you? Okay, so, but this is, maybe this can enter us into the sort of the Nicholas Cage of today question

because. The wacko performance. He's one of these actors who works a lot. It's not quite that like Bruce Willis level. It's not quite Vivica A-Fox level. Once again, I encourage people. people to go and check out Vivica Fox's filmography. It is a trip and a half. But he makes a lot of movies, many, many movies. In 2004 alone, he's made three movies and the only one you've heard of

is Long Legs, but he was in a movie called The Surfer, where he plays the Surfer. It's a psychological thriller. Can Midnight movie. I don't think it's been released in the States. Oh, okay. And then there's a also post-apocalyptic thriller that played South by Southwest called Arcadian, that I believe was released. Ty Sheridan? It is, no, Jaden Martel. Oh, my Leberhair, yes. So that was apparently, that was released in theaters.

But so you go back to 2023, you probably remember that he was in Renfield playing Dracula. You probably remember that he was against his will, dragooned into a cameo in the flash. You probably, at least maybe. remember that he was in dream scenario because there was a little bit of an Oscar campaign for that. But did you ever see that movie? Dream scenario? Yeah, I didn't care for it. I hated it. I don't know if I hated it. It just like never really coalesced for me. It never really came together in a way that I, that I wanted it to.

But yeah, but then he's in a Western called The Old Way. And then he's in a psychological thriller called Sympathy for the Devil. And he's in a crime comedy called The Retirement Plan. He's just like, he's in twice as many movies as you remember him being in. You know what I mean? That's just sort of how he's been working. And so. And they all make money on VOD. And that's, you know, the purpose of it. But so every once in a while, a performance like pig will pop up or a performance like people really like Mandy. I've never seen Mandy. It looks insane and intense.

Mandy's not for me. Mandy is not the type of manic cage performance that I would say is great. I understand why people love Mandy. But Pig, you mentioned, I think is a great example of why I just kind of refuse to write Nicholas Cage off, even with all of these junkie movies. Yeah. Because, I mean, I think you and I are both people who would have had them on our best actor ballot that year. For Pig? Yeah, I think he's incredible in that movie. I think he's so good in that movie.

And I just think he's still such a powerful actor who can command the screen. He's so funny. He's so funny and Into the Spider-Verse playing noir Spider-Man. I think that's a great use of Nicholas Cage. Like I said, this past Halloween season, I watched Color Out of Space, which is a sort of Lovecraft adaptation about... Midnight Madness movie. That is essentially, the story is kind of the same as annihilation, but it's gaudy and not good. Like, it's not, I don't, I didn't like it.

And in particular, I thought Cage was doing the Cage thing to his and the movie's detriment. Didn't love it. It's one of those things where it's like, I can kind of appreciate the swing. Mom and Dad is a movie where I appreciated the swing, where it's him and, Selma Blair in a movie where, um, what is the thing that happens? Instead of like, it's sort of like, a signal goes out and parents start trying to murder their children. And it's just like, okay.

Selma Blair is fun in that movie. I thought that movie was abominable. I, I had a good time with a lot of junk in that movie is sort of where I came out with, with mom and dad. But it's a lot of, you know, it's, it's, you got to pick, you got to pick through the detritus a little bit. And I have yet to sort of be recommended one of these VOD movies by anybody who's like, you know, it's a VOD, it's a NICLAG VOD, but it's worth checking out. It's like, nobody says that. Like, as a pop-tomist as people want to get about Nicholas Cage, nobody says that.

Didn't one of the Nicholas Cage VODs, though, give us the thing in the actors' roundtable where he's talking about the horse? I think that was that, no, that would have been, well, would it have been that Western in 2023? When was that? Conceivably. Conceivably. The old way. Yeah. What was the name of that horse?

God damn it. I keep forgetting. It's a funny name. It's not like Jean Jacket, but it's, it's, but he's talking to. to, it's Jonathan Majors, right? Isn't it? Father, son, Holy Ghost. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's a very, but it's, he was great on that roundtable. Nicholas Cage, uh, underrated roundtable. Which is also why it's surprising that that movie, this is the thing. Like, for every movie in the pandemic years that got ahead, because it was a pandemic year and it wouldn't have gotten ahead otherwise. There's so many movies also that it's like, well, this just didn't get ahead because it was a pandemic year. It's so, like, I can't wrap my brain around it other than it just is what it is.

Because, you know, pig got seen on Hulu. Rain Man. Rain Man was the name of the horse. There you go. And Nicholas Cage thought it wanted to kill him. I love it. I love it. Anyway.

Imagine. Nicholas Cage spooked a horse. Like, apparently that movie that he had. Why I don't fuck with horses. That he worked with Rain Man on was called. called Butchers Crossing, which he did in... Also a TIF Gala. Was it really?

Yes. God. You have such a better memory for that. Yeah, so that was in 2002, Butchers Crossing. Yeah, I'm glad that you sort of gave Cage's performance in this movie a sort of a good assessment, because I do think you're mostly right about that. As we said, this is our sixth Ridley Scott. I don't, what, I feel like one of the things that we're talking about in the wake of Gladiator 2 is this idea of maybe not like a bifurcated Ridley Scott, but sort of the Ridley Scott who did House of Gucci was definitely the Ridley Scott who directed Gladiator 2. And the Ridley Scott...

The Ridley Scott who directed a good year is definitely the Ridley Scott who directed Matt Schickman. We'll talk about it. Okay. But like that's sort of like the Ridley Scott, I remember in 2021, the last duel in House of Gucci feeling like two very different directors. And it's part of it is because I liked the last duel a lot better than I expected. And I liked House of Gucci less well than I expected. The director who directed the counselor is absolutely the director who directed Prometheus. Sure, yes. But that's the other thing is like, so like he does Prometheus and Alien Covenant,

which feel like very, very different versions of the guy who did the Martian, you know, in that same kind of time span. And maybe this is just a director who likes doing different kinds of things, and he maybe does not, you know, have as much of a, signature stamp that he that he puts on these movies but like what what do you feel like in matchstick men feels particularly sort of a tourist or um i don't know it feels very early 2000s much more so than yeah it feels specifically early 2000s ridley scott because there's like the bleached out visuals.

There's, you know, just the way that this movie was cut together. Early 2000s, Ridley felt very tony, Scott. You know what I mean? Like, it felt like he was sort of, he was going a little bit closer to his brother's vibe a little bit. This is our sixth Ridley Scott movie. I don't think it'll be our last because you look at this. We can still do body of lies.

We still do, did Robin Hood get any nominations? I doubt it. So we could still do Robin Hood. We could do, I don't know if Black Rain necessarily had Oscar bows, but, you know, there are things that we can do. And I'm going to be doing G.I. Jane for the Demi. Podcast, and I'm very much looking forward to that. I think my stomach just growled so loud that the mic picked it up. Turkey raps. Okay.

So as we do with actors, the six time we talk about them on the podcast, I do a little. quiz. And so, Chris, this will be a quiz for you, the answers of which will we be one or more of the six Ridley Scott movies that we have done. So I'm going to reiterate them. I am, as always, going to encourage you to write them down. Can I try to guess them? Yeah. Okay, so match Sick Men. 1492 Conquest of Paradise or Conquest Four Paradise? It's of Paradise. Do you want to take a guess as to how early of an episode? That's like episode eight or something. It's episode six. there we go um 1492 conquest of paradise which ridley scott of course is threatening doing a director's cut of because he will do that with all of his movies that are not thelman louise um four hours of that movie don't think i could do that um and apparently he wants to dub over gerar de pardue because part of the problems with the movie where no one could understand what he would say um okay those two the counselor exodus gods and kings a good year.

Yep. And what was the sixth? Or did I say six already? No, you said five. What a minute? Franchise movie. A very highly publicized casting change from the previous movie. Someone gets eaten by feral hogs in this movie?

Oh, Hannibal. There you go. Hannibal also very early. 19th. Episode 19. All right. So, the answers to these questions will be one or more of those six movies. Are you ready?

Yes. Which of those movies was the longest? Exodus Gods and Kings. No. Oh, 1492 Conquest of Paradise. It's very close, but 1492, 1596 minutes. which was the shortest. Uh,

matchstick men? Match stick men by one minute. Match stick men is 116 minutes, and the counselor is 117 minutes, and a good year is 118 minutes. So very, very close. Which has the best Rotten Tomatoes percentage? Is it Matchstick men? No, Matchick Men is high. Matchick Men's in the 80s.

82% yes Yeah because it has an 80s Rotten Tomatoes but like a 61 Metacritic which makes Yeah that makes sense Makes perfect sense Worst Rotten Tomatoes Percentage

1492 Conquest of Paradise You would think but no Fewer critics back then so I feel like True Exodus gods and kings You would also think but no Damn then it's the counselor It's not the counselor

Wow. I also think of that, yeah. So it's a good year? It's a good year, 26% for a good year. Wow. That's a little harsh for a good year. There's things to like about a good year. Yeah, yes, you're not wrong.

Biggest box office, domestic. Biggest box office domestic has to be, it's not match sick men. Is it Exodus, gods, and kings? No, it's Hannibal. It's Hannibal. I was going to say it's not close. Yeah, Hannibal is like the only actual it of the $165 million. Yep.

Lowest box office. A good year. No. Conquest of Paradise? Conquest of Paradise. Seven. Conquest of Paradox is 7.19 million. A good year is 7.4 million.

So they're very close to each other. Which three movies were distributed by 20th century Fox? The counselor. Yep. Exodus Gods and Kings. Yep. And a good year. Yes.

Very good. With directors, it's easier. You can just sort of like, you know, cluster. And the rest are, this is Warner Brothers, 1492 is Warner Brothers, and then Hannibal is MGM. 1492, I believe, is Paramount? Yes. Yes. And then Hannibal is MGM. Yes, you're right.

Which movie has the same cinematographer as the Grandmaster? Ooh, that's Christopher Doyle? Philippe LeSword. Philippe LeSour. That would be a good year? Yes, very good. Yeah. Which movie has the same composer as Talk to Her?

Ooh. Alberto Igles... That's Sexodus Gods and Kings? It is, Xxidus Gods and Kings, yes. You did seemingly pronounce that as Sexodus Gods and Kings, which is the porno adaptation of that movie. That's the director's cut. Sexidus Domes and Kings.

Ooh. Right, right? I might have a future in this business. Definitely a better movie. Which movie has the same composer as Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse, speaking of Nicholas Gade? Which is, who was that? It's not Hans Zimmer, which many of these are Hans Zimmer. Yes.

So I'm just, it's not Vangelis, which is 1492. I'm just going to guess that it's the counselor? It's the counselor. It's Daniel Pemberton. There you go. I like Daniel Pemberton. Me too. Which movie has the same screenwriter as the girl with the dragon tattoo? That's Steve Zalian. So it's 1492 Conquest of Paradise? It's not. It's Hannibal. It's Hannibal. Stephen Zalian and David Mamet were the two credited screenwriters on Hannibal. Fully well, fully an indicator of a smooth adaptation process that your two credited screenwriters are Stephen Zalian.

and Dave from Mavitt. Which two movies were nominated for Satellite Awards? Matchstick Men. Yes, supporting actor in a comedy for Sam Rockwell. And Exodus Gods and Kings? No. The counselor? No.

A good year. Yes, a cinematography nominee at the satellites. Which was the only one of these movies to have gotten a Golden Globe nomination? 1492 Conquest of Paradise for the Vangelis score? For the Vangelis score, yes. Which two of these movies were MTV Movie Award nominees? The Counselor? Yes, Cameron Diaz for Best WTF Moment.

Stupid. And Exodus, Cots and Kings? No. 1492 Conquest of Paradise. No. Hannibal. Hannibal got three. Wow, for Best Kiss.

That's right. One of them was Best Kiss. Wait, I want to look it up. I bet you Anthony Hopkins was like best male performance or like Best Villain. Best villain or something like that. Yeah, okay. So hold on. Hannibal.

MTV. The MTV Girls. Best action sequence? Best movie. Wow. Best villain for Anthony Hopkins and Best Kiss for Anthony Hopkins and Julian Moore, a reprehensible nomination when you consider it in context. Anyway, da-ta-da-da-da-da-TV. Which movie was the only one of these six to be released in Sagittarius season?

So that's December. That is Exodus Gods and Kings. It is Exodus Gods and Kings. I never think of that as a December. movie, so good on you. Which movie has IMDB keywords that include adult actress plays teenage girl, eating ice cream from the container, and prescription medication? Matchstick men. That's matchstick men. Which movie has IMDB keywords that include reference for Aristotle, severed head, and ambush? the counselor No

Hannibal No There's no severed head in that 1492 Conquest of Paradise 1492 Conquest of Paradise Yes very good Which two of these movies feature stars of the assassination

of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford Sam Rockwell's in that movie Yep Is it Matchstick Men It's two movies Yes but it's Matchstick Men one of them Yes. Okay.

Um, and then the counselor. The counselor, Brett. Yeah. Yes. Which two movies feature stars of darkest hour? Um. No, not a good year. Hannibal?

Yes, Gary Oldman. Mm-hmm. And 1492 Conquest of Paradise? No. Um. Exodus Gods and Kings. Ben Mendelssohn. There we go.

Exodus, Godson Kings and Darkest Hour. Which two movies feature stars of nine? The counselor. Yes, Penelope Cruz. And, oh, going through the cast of nine, Judy Dench. Oh, a good year. A good year, Marianne Cotier. Which movie opened the same weekend as Saving Silverman?

Oh, okay. So Saving Silverman, I believe I was in high school. It's not this. Is it that Match Sick Men? No. It's not Matchesicman. Hannibal. Hannibal, yes.

There we go. Which movie opened the same weekend as Inherent Vice? Exodus Gods and Kings. Yes, very good. You remember maybe too much about Exodus Codson Kings. I'm just going to say. I'm going to declare it to be suspicious. I'm the only one who remembers more than two things.

About which film did. Richard Roper say, there are some pretty funny things in there. A good year. Yes. I don't know if that's necessarily true. I guess, maybe. About which film did Leonard Malton say, tidbits of trashy eyebrow raising fun, but the characters aren't very bright and the movie gets even dumber.

Hannibal. No. The counselor? The counselor. Didn't know Leonard Moulton was still reviewing movies at that point. Apparently so. About which film did Roger Ebert say, The Screenplay as an Achievement of Oscar Calibur,

so absorbing that whenever it cuts away from the plot, there is another better plot to cut to. Matchstick man. That is matchstick man. Yeah, Roger really, really flippered. Love this movie, four-star review. Yes. But not on his top ten of the year.

Oh, that's interesting. I wonder what his top ten of the year was. Because when I read that review, I had to go and look. His number one movie of the year is Monster. Oh, yes. I remember that. Yep. I was like, this has got it.

Maybe he came back down to Earth on this movie. Maybe he thought O3 was a great year. A lot of people thought O3 was a pretty bad year, actually. I remember that being a big part of the narrative was that O3 was a bad year for movies. I don't know if I necessarily believe that that's true. But, yeah. Besides Roger Ebert, this movie's biggest cheerle leader was the AARP and Movies for Grownups Awards.

This nomination. Well, not this nomination, but this lineup, the winner of this category. I hooted, I hollered, I fistpumped. I had no memory of it whatsoever. Yeah. It's awesome. Read them, read them out, read the nominees and then read the winner. Objectively cool.

Hold on. Let me get down to this point in the, oh, no, wait, I have that open in the tab. Nominees. Clint Eastwood, Mystic River. Oscar nominee. Alan Rudolph, the secret lives of dentists. The aforementioned Ridley Scott, matchstick men. Jim Sheridan in America.

And drum roll, please. The winner is Joel Schumacher for phone booth. Hell. Joe Schumacher for phone booth. Yes. Awesome. Objectively cool win. On a permanent basis, the most, the most,

award for, you know, per minute of any movie, Phone Booth. It's very, very short. Very true. It's like an 80-minute movie. That's a wild. So, because here's the thing. Phone Booth is a movie about a young hot shot, you know, Hollywood exec who is getting in trouble because he is cheating on his relatively young wife with an even younger woman played by Katie Holmes. I don't know. I know that, like, Joel Schumacher fits the bill for over 50 when he directed that. Nothing else about phone booth screams AARP to me. And yet, they loved it.

They loved it. So there you have it. Yeah. Anything else we want to say about Matt Sick Men? I mean, this is coming off of a hot Ridley streak. So you can see this movie only makes 36 million that automatically kind of position. and sit as a disappointment. I kind of, I, watching it, I aligned this a lot with a good year in that the movie

didn't make a whole lot of sense to me as a movie Ridley Scott would want to make. And then when you read the behind the scene stuff, a good year makes more sense. It was just like, he was tired of traveling and wanted to shoot close to his home. Yeah, exactly. You know, Ridley Scott, of course, when we think of him, we think of these like, large scale epics and I ultimately think even as a con movie matchstick men is pretty chill there's no set pieces it's con movie as con artist not like uh the con film festival or daughter con or daughter con right there's a lot of cons going on yeah so it it doesn't feel like a fit for him you know he's there's movies that he's certainly done

better with these character-focused type of stories. And there's certainly movies that he's done worse. Yeah. It's not quite a fit, and I think maybe that's part of the issue for this movie. I also think for in 2003, there were other options for movies that had a comedic bent to them. You know, obviously lost in translation. Yes. You know,

it was up against some competition for better regarded, better performing movies. I wrote down what horrible luck to have a needle drop for more than this in a movie in 2003. I wrote that down, too. Like, sorry, you got, you got bodied on that one month later. Yeah. Although a movie that also has a kid rock needle drop deserves to get bodied on. Yeah. I also wrote down the kid rock needle drop.

You know that that's a top. But again, you know exactly what year this movie was made in. So I literally wrote down one of the movies that I was trying to think of about like psychiatrically skeptical was Garden State. Because this movie comes the year before Garden State and that's another movie that is very, very concerned with people being overmedicated. What movie do you think does OCD in film better, this one or as good as it gets? Uh, girls. People always talk about that. They always cite girls as being very good on OCD stuff.

Want to talk about Gladiator 2 for a couple minutes before we move on? As of recording, I haven't seen it because as I text you, my screening of it was getting a little hectic. And it was a half hour past the movies. supposed to start and I overheard the publicists say, yeah, we don't know when this is going to start and they still haven't downloaded the file. That was my cue. As I text Joe, I don't wait more than three and three quarter hours for anyone. The Hannah Pitt in my life, Chris File. I'm also the Hannah Pitt in your life because I'm homophobic to you. I don't want to like get into Gladiator Part 2 then without you having seen it. You can get into it.

I've had, not only will I be the last person to see Gladiator 2, but I will be the last gay guy to see Wicked, so I've heard it. When are you planning to see that? I don't know. It's going to depend on how much work I get done this weekend. Understandable. Okay, so Gladiator 2, I am also coming at this from the perspective that I also thought Gladiator 1 was a pretty silly movie, and I think Gladiator 1, to me, sort of gets hung up on its own self-seriousness. I think a lot of the parts of Woofews. and Gladiator that I sort of roll my eyes at are the, you know, sort of portentous flashbacks that he has to his wife and child and the golden wheat fields and Gladiator 2 sort of indulges in a little bit of the golden wheat field imagery. But in general, Gladiator 2 is a movie that indulges in its own silliness in a way where I'm like, well,

at least I'm laughing. I think they're both pretty silly movies. But at least I'm laughing. I think Denzel Washington is over the top in a way that I am very much welcoming. It very much reminded me of the, you know, Joel Schumacher telling mini-driver, well, you know, honey, nobody ever paid to see somebody go under the top. You know, I love my psycho baby Fred Heshinger, who is even more, he and Joseph Quinn, even more extra than you've been led to believe. there are two separate showcases for monkeys in this movie. The action scenes are very kind of whatever to me.

I kind of don't care. I kind of don't care. I thought Paul Meskell did a decent job of holding up his end of the film, even though his end of the film is definitely the weakest on a story and theme level. I've had other people disagree with me that they don't feel like Paul Meskell has enough presence in that regard to hold up to that. So grain assault there. I think Pedro Pascal once again sort of proves to me that he's a TV star, which is fine. We need TV stars. I don't think he's a movie star, and I don't find him

particularly captivating in this. For the Ridley of it all, though, I think it's interesting that he would want to sort of revisit Gladiator in this way. and then be so sort of goofy with it, you know what I mean? There's, there's moments of reference, I guess. He is in it like a goofy stage, though, because even something as broodingly serious as the last duel has some pretty silly stuff in it. And like you look at something like Exodus gods and kings, and you're like, and you think to yourself, thank God he's being goofy. because when he's taking himself too seriously, it sucks, you know? Well, and I do wonder if just, like, he wants to keep sort of pushing the envelope about, like, what can I get these studios to pony up for?

You know what I mean? And while I don't think Gladiator 2 looks quite as good as Gladiator 1 did, it definitely has a lot of money, you know, put into. it. So, yeah, I don't think I'm going to be talking up this movie as an awards contender outside of Denzel Washington, who I absolutely could see as a Best Supporting Actor nominee and even winner. If he doesn't win, I'm not going to, you know, take it as a tragedy, I think. We really went from, I think, as more and more, especially people in the press saw this movie over recent weeks to this week. We're recording this the week that it releases.

It really being kind of out on the conversation for Best Picture, even as a nominee. And I think there was some talk of, well, maybe with the race being so diffused and so, you know, kind of all over the place, maybe they'll give it to the legend who never won it before. And now I think it's probably safe to say unless this movie even outperformed. what it's expected to, that this is not a director nominee. I also feel like, whereas both halves of the Barbenheimer equation helped each other, the phenomenon sort of helped lift the tides of both of those boats, I do feel like Wicked's box office take this weekend, and I'm saying this, you know, a day and a half before we find out what that is,

is going to sort of sap Gladiator 2 of one of the best cards in its deck, which is it is going to make a lot of money. It's just not going to make wicked levels of money, I don't think. And because of that, I think that takes away one of the sort of narrative threads for Gladiator 2. I'm really skeptical that either of those movies will get a director nomination that would help it be a best picture player. Here's what I'm going to say about Wicked, a movie that I liked quite a bit and quite a bit more than I expected to, and yet I'm sort of watching the reviews roll in. And again, my, you know, little curated bubble is very gay guy coded. So like great assault there. But I've seen a lot of people talk about this as a best picture contender. And I'm like, it's not that I can't see it because like there is precedent there. But I'm going to. need to sort of

marinate in that reality for a while before it really sort of like settles in to this being a best picture contender, a best director contender. Obviously, for as much as I scoffed, you remember when I sent you that text, you and Katie, that text,

I scoffed at the idea of Ariana Grande as the best supporting actress contender. And now it's one of your favorites of the year. It's a great performance. I don't know if I put her on my supporting actress ballot, but she'd be close. And I certainly can see her getting nominated there. And I feel like the worst thing that could have happened to Selena Gomez, unfortunately, is Ariana Grande sort of like bowling into this supporting actress

conversation. But this is like both of these movies kind of on equal footing, you know, potential picture nomination, harder uphill climb for director. nomination and then a bona fide supporting nomination. True. And I will say, I don't know if we can necessarily assume that the directors are going to go all snooty. You know what I mean? Yes, I feel like Brady Corbe has a better shot there than some of those other folks. Yes, I feel like, certainly Sean Baker, you can etch his name in stone, probably in that category. And I feel like folks like John Chu and Ridley Scott will be harder, but like harder, more of an uphill climb. I think you also have the, we think it's junk, but we like it and it's good junk vote going on with Conclave right now. And do I think they're getting ahead of Edward Berger? I don't.

Okay. You will see I feel differently after seeing both of these movies, but. I kind of feel like staking, putting my steak in the, um, in the ground for Best Director. So give me a second and let me look at the list and let me see. Okay. So, ooh, that's an out of date one. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Best Director.

Come on, Golderby. Help me out. Okay. So. We definitely agree on Sean Baker, Jean-O-D.R. And I don't necessarily agree on Jacques Odiard, yeah. You think it's that far out. I don't think Shock O'Diard is necessarily the director winner this year.

Like I was like, here's the formula and this is what's going to happen. Amelia Perez is in a interesting position right now because normally all of these takedowns that happen online for movies, they don't have any effect on Oscar, though this one does feel. little different. So I think right now, if I had to put three at the top of my list, it would be Brady Corbe, Sean Baker, Edward Berger. Yeah, agreed. Then I think Odiard is a very, very maybe to me. And like, I think it's just going to see, it would be a matter of how far does Amelia Perez fall from the perch that, you know, a lot of us had put it at. I think he's still there. I still think the people who were always going to vote for Amelia Perez still will vote for

Amelia Perez and my fifth place right now which I know you disagree on this but again in the spirit of we shouldn't be ruling out names we should be putting in more names I think the foundation is there for the substance to outperform our expectations

and I think there's a shot for Corley Far Shah Corley Farja is currently number seven on the gold derby chart. Oh, really? Yes, which I think is kind of crazy, but you know what? It's my kind of crazy, so I'm into it. This movie at this point is a global success, and when we talk about the type of global contingent of the academy, they're more likely to have seen and liked the substance than hereditary.

You know, it's, I think the immediate comparison for the substance has been other horror movies, and I have an inkling that that's not how it's going to play out. So here's how I, here's where I currently stand on Best Director. As I said, Brady Corbe, Sean Baker, Edward Berger, I feel like those are my one, two, and three. Odiard is in a sort of like limbo unto himself at the moment, so I'm just going to put a pin. And then I think, whether it's two or three slots remaining, I think you have two buckets. I think your one bucket is box office successes and how much we're going to value those spectacles. I think you have Ridley Scott and John M. Chu. You also have Denny Villeneuve for Dune Part 2, which I do think is going to do very, very well with the technical categories.

And if a complete unknown becomes a hit at the end of the year over Christmas, I wouldn't rule out James Mangold, who has never been nominated for Best Director, but has had multiple projects in contention over the years. I think your other bucket is your artsy-fartzy bucket, right? That's where you could find. Hold on one second. Was Mangold not nominated for Ford versus Ferrari? No. Why do I keep remembering that as such? Maybe I just, I ate, who hate that movie?

No, your nominees that year. Just see that as a movie that's wildly over-performed with Oscar. Your nominees that year were... Bongchun Ho, Montes-Azee, Todd Phillips, Mm-hmm. Um, Quentin Tarantino, and... This is why it's harder to remember the newer stuff than the older stuff. It is.

Wait, it wasn't Greta for Little Women. it wasn't Tyca for Oh, it was no, it wasn't Noah Baumbach. Wasn't Noah Baumbach? No. Um, I don't think it was a loan director. I don't want to have to look this up.

I'm looking it up right now. Are you? Okay. Because it'll drive me crazy until we just know. It wasn't two popes. It wasn't, um... Wasn't Judy. It was the second place, the likely second place.

It was Sam Mendes for 1917. Oh, for 1917. Okay. Wow, I wonder why we forgot that movie. I think, because it's not very good. No, and I think it is good. Anyway, your artsy-fartzy bucket, which I think will probably produce at least one nominee. There's where I've got Rommel Ross for Nickel Boys.

There's where I've got Coralie Farge for the substance. I am currently not ruling out an insurgency for Paiol Kapadia for All We Imagine's Light because... This keeps getting talked about, and I think ahead of Critics Prizes, it is definitely a possibility. This movie doesn't show up with Critics Prizes. I think it's less likely... I agree, but I feel like there is a narrative where All We Imagine is Light wins every single Critics Prize for Best International slash Foreign Language Feature because it was shut out. of the Oscar race. And then I think in that case...

And I generally think that people are kind of uninspired with the international offerings this year. And so I feel like there's a universe in which the directors maybe can get behind that. I'm not saying it's most likely, but I think she's on the list. Yeah, absolutely. Mike Lee is on this. And also speaking of international feature, I would put Walter Sells on this list for... For I'm still here, which I think is an incredible movie.

So I think it's pretty, I think it's a pretty wide open. Also, Mohamed Russell for, for Seed of a Secret Fake. Although that is a movie that like, I think you were people talking about. Nobody seems to like it as much as we're supposed to like that movie. Agreed, agreed. Right now, I don't, I think the fact that Blitz has no box office presence is doing that movie no favors. I think the Apple TV plus of it all is really, um, is robbing that movie of a narrative, which is too bad.

I don't think it's the best movie, but I think it's a really interesting movie. Yeah, that's going to be a movie that, again, I also don't think that's the best movie, but I think the degree to which it's going to be pushed aside is going to be unfair. I agree. I think it should be part of the conversation more than it currently is. But anyway, Best Director, really interesting. Ridley Scott could get a nomination. Maybe.

maybe, maybe not, I think, at this point. Isn't that the trenchant insight you come to this podcast for me saying maybe, maybe not? No, because more people should be saying maybe at this point of our recording, even at this point of the episode area, we should be saying more maybes and we should be more comfortable saying maybe than all of these people making declarative statements. Declarative? Fuck off. I live in Ohio. I love that that's become your, like, all-purpose excuse to just like, listen, is Ohio, man. We say things differently here.

Oh, I thought you were chalking it up to the fact that your state went Republican again for that one. Sorry. Listen, New York is a decent chance. New York's going to have a Republican governor in the next 10 years, and then the joke will be on me. So anyway, on that note, maybe we should move on to the time. trying and we failed. Should we move on to the IMDB game? Yeah, let's do it. All right, every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game

where we challenge each other with the name of an actor or actress, and then we try and guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for. If any of those titles are television shows, voice only performances or non-acting credits, we mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release

years as a clue, and if that is not enough, it just becomes a free-for-relevance. I was closing some of my tabs. And I forgot that I wanted to say, my meanest thing that I will say on this episode for a film that premiered out of competition at the Venice Film Festival. Oh, yeah, we didn't talk about Venice that year. Well, it's out of competition, you know. And we'll have other opportunities this month to talk about the Toronto lineup. The, this jury that, granted, I don't think this is the most inspiring competition.

lineup. A competition lineup that includes movies like 21 grams. You know we don't like that movie here. Yeah. They didn't give a single prize to Siming Lang's Goodbye Dragon Inn. To which I say, what are you there for? You are given a stone cold masterpiece, a like one of the greatest movies of this century. And they're just like, nah. I've never seen it. I'll see it. I think you, I mean, it's also like, Simon Lang, one of my, a director that I love, like, that's like the accessible one. That's also like the one that like you can put anyone in front of and notice its greatness. Isn't that always so frustrating when you like love a director who's very sort of artsy-fartsy and they make like their most accessible project yet and people still ignore it?

And you're like, no, this was the one for you, you, you'd dumb luck. It was for your benefit. It was done for you. It was done out of love. Listener, if you know what we were just doing, you're a real one, thank you. Real ones, no. All right. IMDB game.

Who's going first? You're going first. Okay. All right. So, for you, I have chosen, we talked about Ridley Scott. We talked about Gladiator 2. I've chosen one of the stars of Gladiator 2, somebody who, as I've mentioned here before, my number one takeaway is that she looks amazing in this movie.

Nope, nope. We can't do this. Did we do the same one? Did we pick the same one? We pulled the same person. We both pulled Connie Nielsen. No! Oh my God.

It sucks because this would have been so fun. Listener, go look up Connie Nielsen's known for and try this on your friends. Fuck. Give us a minute. We got to go back and find. We got to go find somebody else. Damn it. All right.

All right. You know what? This is going to be hard, but it'll be fun. All right. All right. What are we doing? So one thing we didn't talk about was the opening weekend for Matchstick Men in which it opened number two at the box office, one slot ahead of Eli Roth's Kevin Fever and one slot behind Robert Rodriguez's once upon a time in Mexico. I saw all three of those movies in the theater. What a time. That opening weekend? I don't think that opening weekend. I think I saw Matt Stickman a little bit later. But I definitely saw both Once Upon a Time in Mexico and Cabin Fever opening weekend, for sure, for sure.

Lost in Translation, I already also opened that weekend, but not in Buffalo. It didn't. So that took me a little while longer to see that. But anyway, one of the actors in Once Upon a Time in Mexico, who we have never done for IMDB game, is the great Danny Trejo. And so I'm going to give you Danny Trejo. four are movies. None of them are cartoons. Machete. Machete. Machete kills.

Machete kills. Hmm. What's next? Do I want to guess a spy kids? I don't think I do. Um, I'll say once upon a time in Mexico. Not once upon a time in Mexico, but good effort.

uh spy kids 3d not spy kids 3d damn that's the one i feel like shows up is he not in that one um let me see he's in honestly so many things what year would that have been no idea okay hold on spy kids he's in spy kids four damn it in Spy Kids 3D. So, yeah, Spy Kids 3D, game over. Yes, he is playing machete. So there we go. Oh, I didn't realize he was that character in the Spy Kids movie. I did not, either. I know too much about the Spy Kids movies to have never seen a Spy Kids movie.

I know very little, except they show up all the time when I'm researching Cinematrix stuff. Exactly. Yeah. Okay, so anyway, your years are 2000, or sorry, 1996 and 2010. It's 96, uh, from dusk till dawn. From dusk till dawn, yes. Okay. And you said 97?

No, 2010. Oh, 2010. Okay. So is that Grindhouse? It's not. Grindhouse is 07. Okay. Or, yes, 2007, yes.

Um, this is a movie that I doubt you have seen from a franchise that doesn't have a ton of connective tissue to itself. Like the installments of this movie are tend to be fairly... Dissociative. Is it a horror franchise? Yeah. But yes.

It is. Because I, why did I think he was in like a saw movie? But you're saying, yeah, meaning that it's kind of horror. It's definitely chalked up to horror. I find it more sort of, um, monster. Yeah. Is it one of the Hellboys? It's not one of the Hellboys, no.

Is it one of the Godzilla? No, that's too early. Not one of the Godzilla's. This was a movie. This franchise got sort of revived in the last couple of years with a, again, sort of like a very loosely related sequel. Is it one of the Planet of the Apes? No. Okay.

went in a fairly different direction, and in a way that I found pretty exciting. This is a franchise that got its start in the 80s in a very sort of like typical 80s action franchise way, with a very typical 80s action franchise star. So it's like action that skews horror. Yeah, it definitely began its life as a franchise as an action franchise that has become more horror. as it's sort of like zombies it's not zombies um hmm who are like the big action action the big action stars are the big action stars of the 80s yes Sylvester Stallone no you see then you went you got Minnesota a little bit too much there it was uh is this a Terminator no but what are the what are the other movies

that he... The other... It's a predator. Yes. Is this Predators? It is Predators. 20-10's Predators, yes. That I think this is the one that Adrian Brody is in, if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah, the one that Adrian Brody got, like, jacked for. Lawrence Fishburn, Tofer Grace, Alice Braga, Walton Goggins. It's a good cast. And the poster is just a predator, too, in like, one of these. Okay, well, you just made a very obscene gesture as far as I can tell. No, it's... No, I know, but it's a predator flexing. It is.

It is. But the way that your arm and hand were just out of frame were... Okay. Okay. Did you see prey last year or two years ago or whatever it was? No. It was good. I know.

I would probably like it by the sounds of it and the people that I know that really like it. Yeah. I really quite liked it. I'm also kind of waiting for one of those things because they're apparently doing another one and it will be theatrical. So I'll watch it when this movie plays in a movie theater. It's a good idea. It's a good idea.

All right. Anyway, good job with Danny Trejo. So from Match Stick Men, I went to the cast of Match Point. And for you, I have pulled Emily Mortimer. Oh, the queen. Careful my bones. Emily Mortimer. Emily Mortimer, who co-wrote and will be starring in the next.

Noah Baumbach movie. I didn't know she co-wrote it. Yes. Very exciting. What the fuck is going on with my accent right now? Fascinating. God. All right.

Emily Mortimer is one of... Emily Mortimer's tough. No television. No television. RIP, the newsroom. Okay. Emily Mortimer is tough because she's in smaller roles in anything that's like sufficiently big.

and her bigger roles are movies that are pretty small. I'm going to guess Scream 3. Incorrect. Fuck! I'm going to guess Lars and the Real Girl. Correct. Okay. She's so good in Lars and the Real Girl.

I love her and Lars and the Real Girl. She's really, really great. That's a movie I would like to revisit. Because I remember... We should do it for an exception. Valentine's Day. Yes. Okay.

We'll see. I love talking about... We're way ahead of the curve as we need to be right now, but I'm not about talking about February episodes right now. We're going to have a summit for 2025. Don't worry about it. Okay. Lovely and amazing? Incorrect, though. That's a great cast, because what critics prize did she win? Or no, she won the Independent Spirit Award for that, right? Did she? I think. Good. She was great. Your years are 2005, 2008, and 2018.

Oh, 2018 is Mary Poppins returns. I almost guessed that. It is. I would have guessed you to have forgotten that. No, I almost guessed that first, actually. And I should have, as it turns out. 2005, 2008. 2005, Emily Mortimer is probably, no, that's not her.

I was going to guess Junebug with that, Zembeth Davids. Um... 0.5. Emily Mortimer. Is it like an... You're smiling a really... Knowing smile at... I'm doing nothing. I'm doing nothing. Is it a movie that I really like?

I have no idea, to be honest. Okay. I know. It's like, it's right on the... I'm right on the cusp of it, I feel like. And what's the other year? 08? 2008. This one's probably...

Probably tougher. Okay. She's not in Synecdickey, New York, is she? I don't believe so, but that's incorrect. She seems like she could be. 2005's going to make you mad. Fucker. Okay. 05. What's happening in 05? Why would it make you mad? What consistently makes you mad when I give you a name in this game? Oh, well, but Gossford Park is not. Oh, wait, it's match point, of course. It's matchpoint. It's match point, yeah.

I was like, she's not in Crash. Gosford Park's not that year. No, you're right, it's Matchpoint. Okay. 2008 is a movie that I would be willing to bet that you have never seen. This is a movie that exists only as a title, even though it is only one word. Oh. No, it's an American movie.

Or at least I assume it's an American movie. Is it genre? It's not said in America. As the title will tell you, it is not set. in America. Is it Zathora? No. Zathora is not set on Earth.

Emily Mortimer's second build in this movie where Woody Harrelson is built first. Wait, who's built first? Woody Harrelson. I didn't know Woody Harrelson was in this movie. Okay, so it's not the messenger because he was definitely remembered as being in that movie. This is one word title. It's a location that is not in the United States. Um, Paris, London, Milan.

Think more general locale than city, country. Asia. Not continent. Equator. Oh, oh, oh, is it like Sahara? You're getting closer, but no. Much colder than the Sahara. Antarctica.

No, that's a continent. Is it a continent or is that one of those things that we don't call that a continent? Arctic. Kind of. Well, North Pole is two words, my friend. We are in the holiday season. If you are listening to holiday radio, you will definitely hear... Polar.

An orchestra of this titular kind. Siberian. Trans-Siberian. Trans-Siberian. I've seen that movie, but I remember very little. It's about a train, right? Why did I think that this was a David Gordon Green movie, which I guess I'm thinking of Snow Angels. It's a movie about... It's a thriller on a train. It's a thriller on a train, yes. It's a Brad Anderson movie. I definitely saw it. Don't remember Woody Harrelson or Emily Mortimer, more to more. Ben Kingsley, Kate Mara, Thomas Cretchman, sure. Yeah, I definitely saw Trans-Siberian. I remember very, very little about it.

Thank you for the clues, though. Christmas season, you listen to an orchestra like this. Can we talk about how much I hate the Trans-Siberian Orchestra? Do you not like their Carol of the Bells? It's like Red Steak. Christmas music. I hate it. Stop with your Red State Christmas. It's like, macho Christmas.

And it's just like, I'll listen to my drag queen Christmas music. I will listen to DJ play a Christmas song. I will listen to... Oh, boy. I will listen to Bing Crosby. The patriarchy has claimed another victim, and it's the Trans-Hiburian Orchestra. And everyone who likes it. Whatever you do.

don't look at the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's likes. Why is the Trans-Siberian Orchestra faming RFK Jr. tweets? Like, what's going on there? Suddenly, Trans-Siberian Orchestra is advertising raw milk? Oh, no. Trans-Siberian E. coli happening over here.

All right. All right, that's our episode. If you want more ThisHad Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at thisheadoscarbuzz. at Tumblr.com. You should also follow us on Instagram at This Had Oscar Buzz and on Patreon at patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz. Joe, where can the listeners find more of you? You know, much to my surprise, we made Blue Sky happen as a culture. And I'm so boring. It's so boring. I'm having more fun at Blue Sky than I did. And partially, that's because all the gay

slots are there now. So that is also fun. But I'm actually like, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, sort of weaned myself off of Twitter almost entirely. And now I'm just Did you delete the pod account yet? No, not yet. You should just before, like, because you got to, you got to deactivate it if you're going to leave, leave

because we don't want people to be like, why are you tweeting all of these things? And we've been hacked, but not using Twitter for years. Like, just deactivate it. No, I know, but we've had this conversation. We need to set up other contingencies before we do that. We need to set up other accounts.

We'll figure it out. Blue Sky and Letterboxed at Joe Reed, read spelled R-E-I-D. I would also encourage you to check out my Patreon podcast on the films of Demi Moore, called Demi, myself, and I that you can find at patreon.com slash demipod. That is Patreon.com slash D-E-M-I-P-O-D.

And you can find me on Letterboxed and Blue Sky at Crispy File. That's F-E-I-L. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork, Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Meevius for their technical guidance and Taylor Cole for our theme music. Please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get those podcasts. Five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcast visibility.

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