This Had Oscar Buzz - 324 – Devil in a Blue Dress (with Mitchell Beaupre!)

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

This week’s episode is a callback to our beloved 100 Years, 100 Snubs May miniseries: Mitchell Beaupre joins us to talk about 1995’s Devil in a Blue Dress! Carl Franklin emerged with the indie success of crime thriller One False Move and moved onto studio filmmaking with Devil in a Blue Dress, starring Denzel Washington as a veteran hired … Continue reading "324 – Devil in a Blue Dress (with Mitchell Beaupre!)"

roar, I'm a lion. I have clawed my way back to defeat the hedgehogs and echidnas of animation. Ooh, I'm baby girl. I had a zero percent drop from last week to this. Goo Goo Goo Gaka. Some interesting, I would say, some interesting box office stuff in that regard in the fact that, like, Sonic 3 opened ahead of Mufasa, but now Mufasa has had better legs. And baby girl, while still 16.1 QM after two weeks is not what I would want for it,

but it did manage to have a 0% drop from week to week. I mean, probably closing out $25 million, that's what I thought when I was like, this movie could make some money. I think, you know, that's a good amount of money. I think I thought somewhere between 25 and 50. I think I had higher hopes. I didn't quite have me. When you look at the history of A24, I think 50 would be a huge ask, but...

I know. I just thought this movie was going to be a really big deal, and it's only a medium-sized deal, and it's kind of a bummer for me. Anyway, Mufasa leads the day. You do get, finally, those number one box office points. It was kind of a bummer last week when Mufasa won the five day, but didn't win the three day, and so Sonic 3 still got those number one box office points. But now Mufasa gets number one box office points, so good for you. If you drafted Nosferatu, you're feeling pretty good about yourself. It's trucking on its way towards $100 million, I think, is the projection for it.

Wicked is still making great money, even though it's available on VOD. Yeah. Is it really available on VOD? Sure is. New Year's Eve. Wait, what is? Stupid. Wicked. Wicked. Okay.

Yeah. Sorry. I didn't hear you say Wicked. I thought you were talking about Nostferatu. I was like, wait a second, no. Yeah, Wicked is hit and is at 450 million and probably won't hit 500 domestic, but still is pretty good. Moana 2, also in the top 5, 425 million. People love their Moana 2.

Other notables on the box office charts, a complete unknown is at 41.7 total, certainly on its way to $50 million, which will be a nice bonus for. anybody who drafted that movie. Baby Girl, we mentioned, 16.1 million after two weeks. Gladiator 2 is at 168 million, and the fire inside, sadly, 7.1 million. Good movie. Go see that movie. We come to you. We're recording this on the morning of Golden Globes Day. So we fully acknowledge the fact that, like, these updates will be different, which is why we're not going to give you a leaderboard update, because they will be obliterated by the time the Golden Globe nominations, or did the Golden Globe Awards get handed out tonight?

We did enter the Rotten Tomato scores, though, at the end of last week. And you got 100 points if your final RT score was between 96 and 100, which means there were a few movies. I think Hard Truth was one of them. Hard Truth was like a 95. And it's like, ah, the difference between a 95 and a 96 Rotten Tomatoes is the difference between 50 and 100 points on this. And that is, Whatever random blogger who brought that, who killed a hard truth's perfect score, you will be dealt with. So there were 19 movies that got this 100 point bonus, including movies like Will & Harper and Thelma and Flo and Sing, Sing, and The Wild Robot, but also six movies had a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomato, so I did want to shout those out. All we imagine is light. Wallace and Gromit, Perse, or Vengeance Most Fowl, woo-hoo, no other land.

Daughters, Sugar Cain, and Chris, just for you, I am Celine Dion. I am Celine Dion. I am Celine Dion. Nine movies had the ignominious distinction of getting you negative points if you drafted them because their Rotten Tomato scores were so bad. So if you drafted, Borderlands, Madam Webb, Craven the Hunter, Uglies, a fray-eyed, The Crow, Rebel Moon Part 2, Pool Man, or the American Society of Magical Negros, those Rotten Tomato scores were all 25% or below, and thus you got negative points for that. I resent you informing me of what Uglies even is.

I think our listeners should as well. Uglies. A movie I, like, started to watch because it was falling asleep and needed something to fall asleep, too. And I was like, no, I can't even keep this. It's a very dumb little Y.A. presence. What if everybody was pretty, but nobody is pretty? And then you just... Stupid.

Not stupid, where the National Society of Film Critics, who chimed in on Saturday with their delayed but very welcome awards, they liked three movies quite a bit. They liked four movies quite a bit, actually. Nickel Boys wins their best picture and their best cinematography. All We Imagine is Light wins best director for Pyle Capod. and Best Non-English film. Harttruth wins Best Actress,

Marianne Jean-Baptiste, completing her sweep of New York, L.A., and National, and also supporting actress for Michelle Austin. Can't even express how happy I was if we have any members of the National Society of Film Critics, listening. You did good, kid. You did good.

And then a real pain wins supporting actor for Kieran Culkin, completing his sweep, and screenplay for Jesse Eisenberg. What I like about a national society is, at least per Wikipedia, they released the vote total. So we can see that Marianne Jean-Baptiste, for example, kicked the shit out of the competition and best actress, while screenplay, three movies finished within two points of each other for screenplay. Eisenberg for Real Pain, got 47 votes. Radu Jude for Do Not

Expects Too Much from the End of the World, which was a runner up in quite a few categories. Yeah, a lot of people I'm the person who didn't realize they canceled their qualifying release so that was on my 2023 list and a lot of people are putting it on their 2024 list. Radushu Days do not expect too much

from the end of the world. Great movie. If you have a good three hours to walk out your time and watch it on movie, listeners should do that. And then, uh, Anora, Sean Baker was at 45 votes. So that was pretty pretty pretty close.

Also close was best film not in the English language, where all we imagine is light eeks it out past. Do not expect too much from the end of the world. Nickel Boys ends up winning best picture by a decent margin over Anora and all we imagine as light. So good for Nickel Boys. And then Coleman Domingo won their best actor prize. Yeah, and Coleman Domingo wins Best Actor over Adrian Brody and Ray Fines. I think this is good momentum. I think Best Actor is still pretty up in the air this year. And I think the Golden Globe results will give us some clarity, but not all clarity. And we're going to see how it goes.

So that'll be fun. That'll be fun for everybody. Chris, anything else you wanted to say about the movie Fantasy League? No, that's quite a wide-sweeping range of points coming in this week, and then there'll be even more with the globes tonight. So, good update. Good update. We're going to update the scores with National Society and with Golden Globe. and globes. So like we said, the leaderboard right now is already passe. So we'll get back

to you next week with where we are at. We are heading on into the run-up to the Oscars two months of points, points, points, points, points. So get ready. And thank you. And on to our episode on Devil in a Blue Dress. Oh, wrong house. No, the right house. We want to talk to Mel and Hack. Millen Hacks and French. I'm from Canada water.

Mrs. Daphne, you're looking for me. I don't know if I'd think of you as a friend or as a private dick. Surrounded by lies. You can't trust me, Mr. Rollins. I am the next mayor, and luckily for you, a friend of the Negro. Seduced by power. Yes, I give the cops a killer by tomorrow morning. I'm going to jab. Easy Rollins is searching.

Not very smart talking about Mr. Carter's business. There's too much going on for me to give a damn about what you think is smart. For the truth. Who killed her? I don't know. Don't lie to me. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that owns the night like the 4th of July. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong.

The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Joe Reed. I'm here as always with my friend from back home, Chris File. Hello, Chris. And I promise not to just shoot our guest in the shoulder. Listen, your gold tooth is looking lovely today, so you're all set. As is our custom, we waste absolutely no time. We are frighteningly quick getting to our guests because we get far too nervous other than that.

Chris, anything else we want to say before we introduce our esteemed guest. Just the intro callback joke. I was like, what was that for a second? And then I realized what our last movie. Last episode was? And then I realized, oh, we haven't talked about a movie that is unequivocably good in several weeks. And so now I'm really excited to talk about a no questions asked great movie. Well, perfect occasion for it.

If you remember their Blockbuster appearance on the After Hours episode, you will be as thrilled as we are to have them back. Managing Editor for Letterbox, Mitchell Beaupray. Welcome back to this had Oscar buzz. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I've got my marble countertops all prepared. Oh, my God. He's going to take a hammer to them.

I'll be very upset. What a fantastic scene. Why do I have to be the one who's introducing violence? Listen, you plenty of times introduce violence into this podcast. I'm the loosest canon, I guess. You are. I do have a cute little hat, though. See?

Very good. Very good. A fine fashion sense. One of the things we discovered slash realized, as we were doing our pre-conversation for this episode was that we completely forgot to ask you, Mitchell, on your last appearance on the After Hours episode, your Oscars origin story.

So we'll get to that in a second. I do want to sort of, first of all, that After Hours episode sort of like looms large in my memory. I think it was because I had seen that movie for the first time and I was so sort of like gleaming off of that. That's what I love to hear. It was a very funny answer. As the hype squad street team for After Hours.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And then we, listeners to our May miniseries on the 100 snubs, or 100 snubs special, remember hearing you infuse about devil in a blue dress in that. So I guess the question of why. you would want to discuss this movie with us is kind of academic, but feel free to embellish why this movie is such a, is such a banger for you. Yeah, for sure. Top line.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think for me, it's something that I kind of like first watched when I was like a teenager kind of going through like big Denzel phase and like just devouring a lot of his stuff, the John Hughes, the Antoine Fisher's. and watch this and kind of like didn't like make much of like thought it was like fine but sort of just like a you know your typical detective story and it wasn't until later on I revisited it and realized just like how many layers are coming like through it throughout. I was looking at some letterbox reviews the other day of like people that I follow who reviewed the movie and Angelica Jade Bastion's review talks specifically about just how like how taking tropes that we. know and filtering it through a black lens specifically, like completely alters everything about those tropes. And I feel like you, you really see that in this movie through every single, like every single character, every dynamic, every plot development, the race element being

added into it at such a different layer. And then like another layer on top of that and another layer on top of that. And I feel like the more that I watch the movie, the more that I get rewarded with seeing how that filters through all the different elements of it. So it's really, like it's been one of those growers for me where over time it's where they just raise like higher and higher and higher and now it's one of my all-time favorites. It's definitely one of those movies where it did not take very long, I think, for this movie to kind of amass a reputation as a movie that the Oscars kind of overlooked, a movie that was sort of never quite positioned as sort of a

you know, the class of, of this year kind of a movie. I think a large part of it being seen that way fairly early on was due to the Oscars controversy that happened that year with just how alarmingly white the nominees were for the 1995 Oscars. And we'll definitely get into that. But yeah, very, there's like, there's no shortage of really cool topics for this movie. So we We'll definitely get into that. As for your Oscar's origin story, I am, first of all, sorry we forgot that. As Chris and I were saying earlier, as this podcast rounds the bases into 300, 350 episodes, we... With an episode on Zach Steiner, 300, right?

Well, yes, of course. Probably could have. But we are, our first time guests, we forget that that's our traditional question. So we forgot to ask this video. I think that's always a good sign of a good episode, though, is if we forget things like that. Because with the conversational nature that we try to bring to this podcast, that probably means we just got enveloped in whatever we were talking about and having a good time, talking about after hours conceivable. That's how I took it. I did, I did prepare my origin story, like in the shower before that after.

hours episode time. I was all ready to go. I was very excited for it. But I didn't take effect. Because the chat, you know, I just took it as a compliment. The chat was going so smooth. We didn't even need to do. We didn't need to pat out time or anything like that. I love the idea of like the after hours episode ending and the Zoom shuts down. And there's Mitchell just sort of like looking for Lorley at your pages of notes. And it's just like, oh no. Calling my mom. They didn't, they didn't ask. I don't. They didn't want to know. It's also it's the type of thing that as soon. as the recording ends, we remember that we forgot to do it. Just like how a few weeks ago, as soon as we finished recording Love Actually, we realized we forgot to do a six-timers quiz for Kiranette. For Kira Knightley. The second, we stopped

recording. I was recently worse than that is I was recently recording an episode of like a film stage thing that I did with Dan Mecca, Connor, Adano, Corey Everett, and Jordan Rout. And we heard of them. The legends. Yeah. We were like genuinely two hours into the recording and Dan, like, all of a sudden

was like, guys, I don't think I've been recording. this. My deepest fear. My absolute deepest fear. And he wasn't, but Connor, like, thankfully, Connor, you know, post-production King was, was backup recording and just in case that we were able to save it. But it was like, there was like two minutes there where Dan's like life flash before his eyes where he was just like, well, we've had fun. There have been times where if you ever notice going back, where I like say, just like jump in to say something and it feels like, well, that maybe didn't wasn't, why did Joe need to talk right then?

Sometimes it's just so that I can make sure that my little audio level bar is moving so that I know that like all my plugs are plugged in correctly. I'll tap my mic sometimes. Yeah, exactly. Just be like, oh, God, has this been working this whole time? Thank God. Okay, so, Mitchell B'Oprey. Yeah.

Oscar's origin story. Let us have it. Yeah. So my, my moment really was like the 2003. 2004 season. It was like a confluence of... We've been talking about that season a lot lately, by the way. So this is well...

Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You like, as we're recording this, you guys just dropped your matchstick men episode. Yep. From that year. And it's a great movie. I don't know.

I haven't listed to the episode yet. I hope you guys liked it. But I really like that movie. We had a very good conversation about it, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. You did not like the movie. No, I had a great conversation about that.

I kind of dumped on Allison Lohman a little bit. But like, no. Well, we most... There's some other reasons to the point. I maybe called her a manic pixie dream daughter. Yeah. I mean, that's what the character is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But my, yeah, so I was really into Spider-Man, the Spider-Man movies. Sure. This will all connect in a second. And so I started- Your web connects us all. Yeah. Perfect, perfect. I started like getting, I mean, around this time I was getting more into movies anyway.

But also, like, I noticed. Toby McGuire on the cover of a magazine at the store, and it was Entertainment Weekly. And so I started, I picked that up, started getting interested in Seabiscuit because I loved Spider-Man, so I was, like, obsessed with Toby McGuire. Everyone goes through a Seabiscuit phase. We've all done it. Yeah. So then, like, I was reading Entertainment Weekly and just, like, really enjoying, like, film journalism and everything. And so that sort of, like, led me a little bit more into that. I think the first, like, the next issue that came came out was the it list that year with like Hugh Jackman with his long Van Helsing hair like on the cover.

Sure. Sure. I'm over the time. Subscribe to Entertainment Weekly. And that's kind of what really led me into it. I was definitely also big on like Lord of the Rings, which obviously 2003 was like the big year of, you know, return of the king getting the big sweep and everything. But so following that year for mainly Lord of the Rings and Seabiscuit led to me like becoming interested in Mystic River and stuff like. that, like, other movies, House of St. and Fogg that were, like, you know, running that year and then just watching, like, all of the movies and then being like, oh, I like this Oscars thing. The first Oscars I watched was that year, which I was visiting family in England at the time. So I watched the morning. Oh, wow. Yeah. Commitment. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I was in. Once I discovered.

One in the morning until for something. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I was up. I was up. Wait, what was I got? So, yeah, there's, there's, you know, there's a reason we did the miniseries on 2003, which was a very first May miniseries. It's a very rich, rich text of a year, Oscar-wise, just because so many- The first big Peter Sarsgaard snub and Paul Giamatti snum. Yeah, there were very big snubs. Obviously, the Lord of the Rings was a big sweep, but, like, you had things like, city of God getting like this like hugely shocking you know a handful of nominations um in America sort of like dropping out of the race and then like roaring back at the very last second my contractually obligation I can't talk today I'm still sick uh my I'm contractually obligated

to mention cold mountain in this context I love cold mountain I love cold now and see very good Okay, excellent. I would love to see that four-hour cut that is definitely a better movie, but... Right. Now, I am also obligated to say that nowadays Cold Mountain would be an unbearable miniseries. It would just be... Oh, 100%. So long.

Yes, on Apple TV Plus. The amount of times that I open iTunes and, like, actors that I like are apparently in some show that I've never heard of that all the episodes are available now, like on... that's like inside. I'm working on a mid-season Emmys check-in right now for Vulture. And I'm like, I can't believe how many TV shows there just have been since June. I like don't follow television anymore. I watch like I watch Abbott Elementary and that's like the only and then like Survivor and shit. I feel like this is how I, this is the only way I feel like that Normies should be following, or like can possibly follow television is pick like two or three shows and those are your shows.

Yeah. That's it because like it's too much stuff. otherwise. I understand it. Speaking of Emmys and Apple TV Plus when actual Emmy's predictions come out, everybody is going to be predicting disclaimer and it's going to get maybe an Emmy nomination 1 million percent.

I feel this. Which of us? Which of us finish disclaimer on this call? Didn't start disclaimer yet. I'm going to because I'm writing this article, but I have not yet started disclaimer. Anyway, so yeah, 2003,

banger Oscar's origin story. Wait, there was something that you mentioned there that I was going to be like, oh, I'll circle back to that. And I've totally forgot. Story of my life with this podcast. Van Helsing hair. Oh, no, that's what it was. It was Van Helsing here. Okay. Love it. I, like, only Hugh Jackman would make Van Helsing. And they'll be like, so we're going to get this wig for you. And he's like, no need. I got this. I'm going to grow it out. I'm going to grow it out for Van Helsing. And I'm going to be that committed. into it. That's the, that's the theater kid energy. Not only are we not going to sex you up, we are going to cloak you in leather, but not in a sexy way. Here's a big trench coat, big hat, we're going to barely see your face. Don't worry, no one's

going to remember it. You'll be buttoned to the very top. No one's going to remember it because the CGI is going to be so bad in this movie. It's like, oh my God, just, uh, and you know what? That was, okay, so that's, it's a, it's a, Pivotal Oscars origin story a year for you. That 2003 is a year that I remember vividly to because I was writing, not working.

I will say writing because it was not getting paid for this website covering movies. It was a website that it started as a WWF, like, pro wrestling website, and then it had like a movies offshoot. So I sort of wrote for the movies vertical. And I just did like, I had a column every week that sort of covered the week's developments. in movie news. And so I would like scour dark horizons and chud and coming soon and I'll get a way back machine the shit out of this. Very, God, no, God, the quality of writing is going to be so bad. Anyway, so I remember very vividly the development of a very tight window of movies. And they were like Van Helsing's in that window.

Batman Begins is in that window. I'm trying to think of like, like, like what were, I think maybe the Fantastic Four movie was in that window. But it's this very sort of like limited set of time that I remember a lot about the development of a certain number of like big, big movies. Batman Begins obviously was like the biggest. I remember Entertainment Weekly being all in on Van Helsing. Oh, yeah. That makes sense. I had a cover story.

Cover of the it. It was like summer movie preview, I think. Yeah. That would make sense. Yeah. God. Stephen Summers, right? Van Helsing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there you go. Kind of a fun movie. It's kind of fun. It's fun in the way that like the like 2004 blockbusters are like entertaining now, watching them after you've seen the blockbusters that come out these days. Stephen Summers is one of those directors that every once in a while, I'll just like, you know, if I'm guesting on blank check or whatever, and I'll just be like,

you guys could do Stephen Summers. Yeah, that would be a fun series. It'd be very unwell. Kate Beckinsale has like 10% of her body weight. an eyeliner on in that movie. How can you not have fun? Yeah, it's the cave back and sale stuff has tough. She's in like a corset and like leather, like, leggings the entire movie.

That was also the era where they were like, we have found our new cinematic villain and his name is Richard Roxburgh. Nobody has ever written about Richard Roxburgh as like the, like, the pre, the test case for Christoph Waltz where they were like, when they finally did Christoph Waltz, they were like, we have perfected Richard Rocks. Roxburgh experiment at last, and it won two Oscars. So, you know, well done for that. Okay, excellent job, excellent work. Chris, before we get into Devil in a Blue Dress too much, and among other things, Mitchell delivers the 60-second plot description, would you like to tell

our listeners why they should, if they are not already, be part of our Patreon? Listeners, we have our Patreon. You've probably heard about it before, but if you are new to us, you can sign up for $5 a month. What are you going to get for that $5 a month? Well, the first Friday of every month we do what we call our exceptions. These are movies that fit that this had Oscar Buzz rubric of great expectations and disappointing results, but managed to score an Oscar nomination or two. This month in January, what are we going to be talking about?

we are talking about none other than best director nominee Mulholland Drive. If you're all excited about us talking about film noir on this episode, guess what? We've got more noir over on our Patreon. Really just with that episode. But what other except that episode is going to be Chris is going to pre-record his conversation with me and then lip sync to it as we talk. And it's going to be tremendous. That's going to be a great episode for the listeners who can't tell us apart, because halfway through, I'm going to pretend to be Joe, and Joe's going to pretend to be Chris. We really actually should do that as a bit. Just freak them out. What other movies have we talked about as exceptions?

Recently, we've done far from heaven, House of Gucci, things like Vanilla Sky, Pleasantville, the lovely bones, you name it. We're doing it over there and having a good time doing something. So, third Friday of every month, we're going to be doing what we call an excursion. These are deep dives into Oscar ephemera. We love to obsess about on this show. Things like EW. Fall Movie previews. We've recapped old award shows most recently. The 2003 Golden Globes. Indeed.

We've had a mailbag. Coming in February, we'll have our annual awards called the superlatives. We have not set what the January exception is yet. but more on that soon. So go sign up to This Had Oscar Buzz Turbulent Brilliant over at patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz. Beautiful. All right.

This week we are here to talk about the 1990 film Devil in a Blue Dress. I kind of don't want to waste any time because I feel like there's a ton of things to get into. And I'm excited to get into them. So this movie was written and directed by Carl Franklin based on the novel Devil in a Blue Dress, written by Walter Mosley, the first of the Easy Rollins series of novels, starring Denzel Washington as Easy Rollins,

also Don Cheadle, Jennifer Beals, Tom Seismore, Moray Shaken, Terry Kinney, Lisa Nicole Carson, Mel Winkler, Joseph Latimore. Sony Pictures released this, well, Sony Pictures first took this movie to the Toronto International Film Festival and premiered it on September 16th, 1995. then that movie went to Zipublic on September 29th of that same year. Opened number three at the box office behind the second week of seven, which is, you know, no shame in finishing behind the second week of seven. It also finished behind the first week of Halloween, the Curse of Michael Myers.

Is that the one with Paul Rudd? Yes, the curse of Michael Myers. The one that was almost entirely reshot, but still with a lot of the same cast, yes. I've never seen that one, but I always hear that it's bad. Yeah, this is right here. Devil in a blue dress finished third. Number four that week was the big green, the soccer movie, the youth soccer movie. I like that movie.

And then number five, second week of showgirls. I dipped into the Siskel and Ebert episode that they did on Devil in a Blue Dress and in their commercial bumpers. You know, and they would show you, like, they both liked seven. they sort of liked Unstrung Heroes and then comes up showgirls and it's two thumbs down. It's like, oh, they were not alone, but history has gone the other way on that one.

This really is one of those box office weekends that I always will like send to Joe where, you know, you see the grid of like the mall movie theater and these are the movies that they're playing. I was like, we're double featuring. The big green showgirls. That's hard though because just seven, Seven Devil in a Blue Dress and Showgirls being your options. It's like, which one do you drop? That's, that's kind of tough. Well, and if you were living in, you know, a city that had one of the 11 showings of To Die for that weekend, like, you know, you also had that. Moonlight and Valentino bombed this weekend. This was the movie. It was one, it was a female ensemble comedy. I remember this was like, I think it was like, when people talked about this movie, they talked.

talked about this and Boys on the Side, sort of like in tandem, and Boys on the Side was the one that, like, did well, and Moonlight and Valentino didn't. I want to say Moonlight and Valentino, and correct me if I'm wrong, Whoopi Goldberg, Elizabeth Perkins, Kathleen Turner, and Gwyneth Paltrow, I think, is the foursome. And that one was in both of those movies? Yes. Yes, she was. And the guy, or maybe it's Diane Lane and not Elizabeth Perkins. No, it is Perkins. It is Perkins. Yeah, I'm looking at it right now.

Okay. And then I remember John Bon Jovi was like the hot guy who like came to like paint. Yeah, I was trying to remember. I don't think I had heard of Moonline Valentino until recently. And I'm like, why did I hear about this recently? And it's because I was watching U571, which John Bon Jovi is in. And I was like, has John Bon Jovi been in other movies? Remember the very short period of John Bon Jovi, comma, actor?

Exactly. What a time. I was very into any movie that decided that its premise was going to be an ensemble of actresses, so I definitely had my eye on Moonlight and Valentin Valentin Valentin' Valentin'Rele at that moment. Persuasion also opened in limited release this year, and the Andy Garcia movie, Steal Big, Steel Little, where he plays twins. Oh, it's an Andrew Davis movie. I've never seen that movie. I didn't realize it was Andrew Davis. That's interesting.

Again, I either, something tells me that past and future guest Bobby Finger wrote something at some point along the line. about how like 1995 was this embarrassment of riches where it was just like it wasn't even just the fact that there were like top line like legendary movies. It was just that like the baseline every week that week. You would just like the absolute middle of the road movies were so good and so fun. He either wrote about that or we just like had a conversation about that that like exists in my mind as looms large. What a year. What a time to be alive. What a time to be in high school and getting into movies, which is what. occasion was for me.

Bichel, I'm going to put 60 seconds on the clock if you are ready to do a plot description for Devil in a Blue Dress. Yeah, let's try it out. I feel like, I can't remember. I feel like after hours I blew it, but. No, it's fine. Listen, we have really, Chris and I have obliterated any kind of expectation that we have for these things to come in under 60 seconds.

This is also like, I had to like decide. Like, I prepped myself for it. And it's like, there's a lot of plot in this movie. So, like, try to figure out, like, of the, the many mechanics throughout, like, what are the ones that I could, like, skip over? Like, what are the bare minimum that I need to, like, include to be able to explain the end and, like, where it all ends up? It's true. All right.

I'm about ready to hit the start button. If you are ready, 60 seconds on the plot of Devil in a Blue Dress and Go. All right. In 1948, Los Angeles, World War II veteran Easy Rawlins is a rare black homeowner who is recently out of work and laid on his mortgage, so he takes up a job from the creepy Albright, looking for missing white woman, Daphne, the fiancé of mayoral candidate Todd Carter. Easy follows her trail to a local jazz club where he finds Daphne's friend, Coretta James, has sex with her and is then picked up by LAPD detective soon after when Coret has been murdered. Released, but on thin ice, Easy is picked up by Carter's mayoral opponent, Matthew Terrell, who is also inquiring about Daphne. Oh, fuck me. At this point, Daphne reaches out to Easy, and they catch up on events with both now trying to find out who killed Coreta. Easy is in over his head with pressure and threats coming from any side, so he calls on his old friend Mouse, who we've gotten hints throughout the whole movie is a really dangerous wild card. Continuing to follow the clues, Easy discovers that Correa was in possession of photographs of Torel with naked children, which Daphne was going to use to Torel with photographs of Torel was going to use of Tarel with photographs of Tarel to get out of the race, which Daphne was going to use to his interracial relationship to his family and the press. Now the conflict is all about these photographs and Easy gets in a shootout with Albright and his guys taking them out.

Daphne pays easy for the photographs, which she will use to get Terrell out of the race and she thinks that Carter will now live happily with her. But Carter says they can't be together. Heartbroken, Daphne returns home and Easy starts to consider opening his own business as a private investigator. What's that like 120? Yeah, almost exactly 120. That's actually pretty good. Yeah. Especially with us lately.

Joe, I believe, was like three minutes over for Love Actually. For Love Actually? Yeah. Oh, I mean, Love Actually. you're trying to explain like a different plot. Exactly, exactly. It's either 10 seconds or it's 4,000 seconds. Yes, I opted for the latter.

Yeah, listening to you sort of like rattle off the plot details, it is very much like, we are going to tell a very sort of like down the middle. If you sort of like boil the plot down to its bare bones, it's very sort of like down the middle noir plot, right? Yeah, the bones are really, really, like, simple, structural, you know, kind of stuff. Guy gets hired by somebody to find a woman who's gone missing.

There are incriminating photographs involved. There are, you know, secrets involved. The mayoral race is at stake. There are, you know, organized criminals happening here. There's various thugs who, you know, show up on his doorstep. One of the things I was most struck by, this was the first time I'd ever seen this movie. I would sort of, it's one of those movies that I missed in its first go-round and then it had become such a like, oh, no, you really got to like check this out that I had then like, I kept putting it off for like, you know, the right time or when I was like fully without distraction, which is how I end up just having giant blind spots. This is, this is a recipe for having giant blind spots. But so watching this movie within the first like few minutes, you first, First of all, you get that voiceover narration, right?

That, like, classic film noir voiceover narration from Denzel. And then the thing that made me almost jump out of my seat is you get a cut to a flashback that actually employs the, like, wavy screen, like, dissolved. Literally, Chris and I did the trivia thing last night where he had a question about Wayne's world. And all I could think of was Wayne and Garth being like, doodoo, doodoo, do it. Like, um, but I was just like they, they really, uh, Franklin really takes bold steps there to be like, we are establishing ourselves in that, in this genre. And then, clearly a movie that loves noir. And then from that point, kind of then moves to explore it and interrogated and obviously, um, the, the major kind of, um, thematic and narrative.

complication here is obviously the issue of race in Los Angeles in the 1940s. Very early on in the movie, Denzel's voiceover mentions the fact that his character is a World War II veteran who came back to the United States on the GI Bill. And that is this, a real, there's a lot of sort of unspoken or sort of like softly spoken undercurrents in this movie, but the one that really hit me was, this idea of the GI Bill, which is sort of, you know, which was a boost for veterans coming back from World War II, but in a more sort of holistic sense was this like implicit promise to the generation who went to war that like we will give you space to build, you know, a life essentially. Like not just like not just a handout, but just like literally we will boost you. And like it essentially like without. hyperbole, like, created the middle class in this country. And so you look at so much of this movie takes a moment to observe his neighborhood. You get a lot of really good shots of his house. And, and, you know, the yard, there's the great runner of the guy who, he has to keep chasing away, who keeps trying to, like, chop down trees in the yards, who is apparently Barry Shabaka Henley, who I totally did not recognize until I looked at the cast list. I did not realize until I saw the cast list.

But anyway, at the end then, you get the shot of him sort of like looking around his neighborhood. And it's this sort of like, first of all, Franklin photographs it gorgeously. But it's this really sort of idyllic middle class, you know, American neighborhood. And it absolutely has this like undercurrent of just like this. is the American ideal that then, if you know anything about like this country's history of things like redlining,

was sort of systematically denied. There's so much of this movie is he's got to take these jobs because he's about to miss his second rent, a mortgage payment. And there's that tension of just like, we have

this, you know, he's got this middle class existence and just sort of the tenuousness of it could go away. And it's a great, one of the many sort of like great, subtle touches that Franklin sort of includes in this movie that aren't really part of the narrative, but are part of sort of the greater story of this thing. Yeah, it's like making basically an entertainment a certain type of genre movie and by the context that it's putting it in, and then also on top of having this real trust of the audience's intelligence to get it without having to spell it out for the audience.

You know, it can just put this story in this context and then it opens it so wide thematically in a way that's just beautiful. Yeah. So well done. Yeah. And then into that, then, you get the noir elements. And it's, you know, it's a classic detective story. even though it's weirdly a detective origin story because this is... Where's the franchise? Yeah, this is the beginning of the Easy Rollins franchise where this is how he becomes a detective. He's not one.

He's just sort of a guy who's gotten laid off from his job at, I can't remember what the... It's champion aircraft. Yes, okay. He's working at the beginning. There we go. And he gets introduced to Tom Seismore, which, first of all, Tom Seismore in 1990.

between this movie and strange days. Not a guy you want to run into... What's that? Heat the same year as well. Shit, yeah, I didn't even think about that, but you're totally right. What a year for Seismore, Jesus.

Well, I mean, you cast Seismore and it's like, oh, this... This is Tom Seymour and the Tom Seismore role in all three of those. Yeah. That, I think, is so smart on top of, you know, we're never explicitly told that Denzel's character

is being used, here that you know um but i also think this thing about like detective origin story as you as you put it too it is kind of a commitment to the reality of what easy's life would have actually been you know that it's he's he's not a detective he's basically brought into this as if shit goes a ride the fall guy for this situation totally yeah and he like he has to take it on because of what you guys are saying like he's he's two two payments laid on his mortgage and so like for him like and that's one of the things that I love about it too where it's like he really is so many ways it's like the anti-noir hero where like he this isn't necessarily something that he wants

to do but he like by circumstance has to do it and is being taken advantage up to do it but also like his his friend Joppy the bartender who kind of points Albright towards him is a sense we also trying to help out his friend a little bit like knowing that he's hard on his time and, like, trying to get him this money. So it's, there's a lot of different, like, elements going into play that, like, pull him into it. But it also, that financial element is, like, that's the driver where, like, we will always understand why he's doing this, even when he's getting so in over his head. Like, he just, like, needs the money.

And then at a certain point, needs to, like, survive as well. The movie does a really good job of, um, it has all these noir archetypes without anybody being sort of professional at it. Like, he's, you know, he doesn't. do this for a living. Joppy is not like this practiced middleman or whatever. Like Jopi's got his lunch counter or whatever, his marble countertop that he protects with anything and, and sort of hooks up easy, as you say, as a favor, but also like knows more than he lets on, knows more about the case, essentially, if you can call it a case, knows more about the situation with Daphne

that he lets on and then ultimately Denzel busts up his marble countertop because at one point for, you know, because he's pissed that Joppy got him into this situation and then ultimately he gets killed by mouse

towards the end of the movie again kind of because he's gotten himself in over his head where just like he's not a criminal middleman. You know what I mean? He's not this like somebody who's learned to protect himself in this situation.

And what you end up with is this collection of wild cards and sort of novices at all of this. And even like Lisa Nicole Carson's character, which, by the way, Lisa Nicole Carson is a absolute firecracker in this movie for the, you know, few scenes that she's in. And it really reminded me, I'm trying to think of like, Allie McBeal started in 1997, so this is two years before Allie McBeal. And then she wasn't, so she had a guest-starring role on ER, but that wasn't even until 1996. She had a really, really rough go of it in Hollywood.

She was on Allie McBeal. She had to leave that show eventually. She was dealing with bipolar disorder, and I believe substance abuse. Like, don't quote me on that. And, but that was another one where, like, she's like the best friend in Allie McBeal. And she's like, she's hugely popping. And it's really, it's a, it's, I mean, to say it's a bummer sounds like I'm being glib, but it's just, it's sad to, you know, I see her in a movie like this and I'm like, damn, like, that's, you know, this whole thrilling career, you know, in, in Hollywood that she could have had. And it's sad. But even her character is in over her head, obviously, and is trying to sort of, you know, again, play at blackmail. You know what I mean? And ends up paying a price for it, obviously. But it's a really sort of interesting amalgam of characters. And because nobody, except for maybe Tom Seismore, is all that practiced at this, everybody's kind of making their own moves.

a way that that makes the plot kind of crackle I feel like yeah I think um play at is a is a really good phrase for what a lot of these characters are doing other than yeah like Albright I think mouse too once once he comes into the picture like he's somebody who is almost like so attuned to this a world that it's scary like it's scary like everybody else because it's like oh this is a guy that like you like this guy raises it to that next level where like this yeah it's serious now and that's what happens anytime like all Albright's in the room as well. Like, there's a whole scene where Albright brings,

um, easy to like the peer to like, for like a meet just to like establish some stuff. And like there are these like younger white people, um, around. Um, yeah, yeah, use. Um, and like they're hassling them a little bit. And like you just see like it's the kind of shit where I mean, especially just considering like race relations and everything at the time.

Like it's the kind of thing where like easy would like let it slide or whatever just kind of like let them go on their way. But Albright like immediately pulls out the gun. like dropped one of the kids to the ground and like basically like for like acts as though he's going to force him to folate easy which i as you know brings in its own sort of racial connotations of like this is the biggest right easy wants no part of it but tom size more albright size more is almost like using easy as a conduit of like in this very sort of like racist puppeteering kind of a way of just like i i am going to

use this man's body as a threat against this punk kid or whatever. Yeah. There's an assumption by the Seismore character that he essentially owns this guy, right? That he essentially because he's, you know, paying him for this job and because he understands the social position that EZ's in as a black man. He knows he's got this guy, you know, he's got this guy, you know, on a, on a string and takes advantage of that at every turn. Especially, like, the first, when he comes to Joppy's bar to, like, hire him, like, and Joppy, like, with pride tells him, tells Albright that, like, Easy is a homeowner. And Albright has his whole thing where he, like, mentions, oh, like, a black homeowner.

Like, that's pretty rare. But, like, you can feel, like, the condescension in him, like, saying that. And, like, like, you're saying, like, that's kind of a moment where he's like, oh, well, this guy who's not even a detective. as being like recommended to me for this job and like he's a homeowner like clearly he's in like these dire financial streets and so like I can work this guy well and then later on in the movie what happens is Albright and his thugs make themselves at home in Easy's house you know what I mean where it's just like it's the line from that you're exactly right to point that out where it's just like he's Joppy tells him that as you know to impress him and Albright takes that it's just like

This guy thinks he can own a house. You know what I mean? It's just more leverage. Yeah. Right. I'll walk into his house. I'll make myself, I'll help myself to, you know, the food in his fridge and that kind of a thing. But it's all done, again, really subtly.

Like Franklin really does not lean too hard on that. He really allows the audience to, you know, sort of like take it all in without ever being didactic about any of this kind of stuff. Without having to spell it out or underline. it for the audience. It's hard to imagine a movie today having that confidence in the audience to get it. Yeah. Yeah. Carl Franklin's an interesting maybe sort of entry point into the Oscar buzz of this movie. He had directed a movie in 1992 called One False Move, which I've still never seen somewhat to my... One False Move is great. It is, yeah, it is absolutely incredible. Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton, I can't remember who else is in that movie.

but it was a big it was a it was a critical you know cause celeb in 1992 yeah it was like it was supposed to go to it was supposed to go straight to video um and then like a lot of the chicago critics got their hands on it especially jean ciscoll was like hugely championing it um iber was big on it as well and kind of like from eber and ciscoll especially like championing it it got it like the like theatrical release that it got ciscoll ended up having it be his number one of the year i think um And so, like, it was one of those moments where, like, yeah, it was supposed to go straight to video. It was almost the take-in of it today where it was supposed to go straight to video. Sure. And then, like, it got picked up a much better movie than taken, obviously. But, like, was, you know, had this trajectory towards it. Slumdog was supposed to go straight to video, right? Slumdog Millionaire.

Oh, was it really? I don't think I ever knew that. Slumdog was produced by Warner and Apprehendant, and they went under. And WB was either going to release it, direct-to-video. and then they showed it to a few people and Searchlight bought it and very quickly put it in festivals. Yeah. It's crazy.

But Carl Franklin, for that movie, wins Best Director for Independent Film, Independent Spirit Awards. He gets the MTV New Director Award. Remember when we used to have those. And they actually gave it to, like, great people. The early... The early...

The early... The early... The early... ...the early TV Awards. They were very... They took their... their task for as much as they were handing out awards for most desirable male and most desirable female. They took their task seriously in terms of like their movie of the year in like 93 was

menace to society. You know what I mean? Where they were, they kind of took their task seriously of like we are going to thread the needle between, you know, actual sort of like visionary filmmaking and stuff that like appeals to our demographic. And it was like literally the first time I ever heard of Jackie Chan was at the MTV movie awards when Quentin Tarantino was presenting a Lifetime Achievement Award because at that point he hadn't really broken into the American marketplace with English language stuff. They were just rewarding him for his, you know, for his Asian films. And I don't know. It was just like, I'm so nostalgic. I mean, whatever. Scratch me and a Gen X nostologist bleeds. And it's just,

my feelings for early 90s MTV. But so obviously, Carl Franklin, by this point, by the time Devil in a Blue Dress happens, obviously the shine from One False Move is still very shiny. And so, which is why, again, you talk about why Devil in a Blue Dress did not do better in awards season. It's a little sort of galling in the fact that, like, normally when you have that big breakthrough and you're doing things like winning best director at the indie spirits. When you're winning the Los Angeles film critics New Generation Award or whatever, then your next movie should get the benefit of the doubt that it's going to be something that y'all have to pay

attention to. And the fact that, and you know, critics really liked the devil in a blue dress. But in terms of like the industry, we'll talk about the Don Cheadle Awards stuff because Don Cheadle was definitely in the mix for supporting actor, but in general, the industry did not treat Devil in a Blue Dress as the kind of movie that should be in the mix for awards, the way that, you know, other ones. And like, 1995, we have talked about this before, is a real sort of tumultuous Oscar year. That conversation was churning and twisting all the way through. There was definitely room for something like Devil in a Blue Dress to make its way. into the awards conversation at the highest levels. And not just for Don Cheadle at that.

Right, right. And it's kind of this falling domino effect of the movie is mismarketed, and then it doesn't do that well in the box office, and then it becomes like a critical rallying point to support something like Don Cheadle to elevate this movie. the marketing of this movie is very interesting. It's very, like, very leaning into era specificity in a way that the movie is just very organic.

It's gorgeous. It's not like an under-styelized movie, but I think the kind of period detail of the marketing materials for this leans into that kind of cliche. A lot of heavy sacks, a lot of, like, Denzel with a fedora, like, on the poster. Like, it's very, like, yeah, rustic kind of tone to the poster. It does really set you up for a different kind of movie,

though you can understand the type of thinking that went into those marketing decisions. It's also one month after Denzel coming off virtuosity, which I remember as being kind of, like, the first big Denzel disappointment, none of that being his fault. I did my... movie. I did my sort of alternate history article this month for Vulture about, which was

premised on the idea of what if Russell Crow doesn't win the Oscar for Gladiator and what are sort of the ripple effects of that. And Denzel Washington ends up intimately sort of wrapped up in that because then all of a sudden does Russell Row? One's different. Right. Does Russell Crow win for a beautiful mind instead of Denzel? And so watching that sort of wrap around and I'm like, oh, right, they're both in American Gangster together. oh right they were both in virtuosity together so like all of a sudden the like the history of the 21st century in movies in this article becomes this psychodrama between denzil washington and russell crow that's one of the things that i like gladiator two is like a fine movie that like very much like pales in comparison to the first one and like one of the big issues is like paul mescal just like isn't russell crow but i do like i'm firing all in the movie i think it's how the character's written it's like that's a big part in an underwritten character character a big part of the problem with gladiator two which we can get off in a second i didn't be to do like tangent to gladiator too but like a big part of the problem with gladiator two is like it's like

it's pulling so like it like doesn't come up with its own iconic lines it just tries to milk the the impact of like the originals which is like it's fine like temporarily in the movie but it's like it very much washes off of you because it doesn't have that same power but i do like with just like the Denzel Russell Crow like history. Denzel being gladiator too is like a fun like that was just like a fun part of like the casting for me and he's I mean he's the best part of the movie. He's having a blast

he's the best part of the movie. He's giving a mid-century Peter Eustenov performance. That's so good. It's so good. That's a really good comp. The line that everybody has sort of noted but I remember at the time I like cackled at is when he just goes and that's politics.

Yeah. Like that is just sort of like just like hisses it and he's just essentially it's the confidence of just like Ridley's going to let me go with this like it's fine like it's cool um I somebody I saw I can't I might have been on letterbox honestly it might have been somewhere else where they were like it's wild that Ridley decided to make Gladiator 2 as a Tony Scott movie um which it's not quite that actually there's not like there's the Tony Scott version of gladiator 2 would actually be like a billion times more interesting

I think ultimately Gladiator 2 is a very silly movie but I am also of the opinion that Gladiator 1 is a very silly movie and Gladiator 1 is a little more pompous about it and Gladiator 2 is a little bit more just like hey, like here's a monkey and I'm just like okay

the severed head shit that happens at Gladiator 2 that would not have happened in Gladiator 1 and that's like a ball in two I love that moment. Well you look at the sort of evolution from you know Joaquin in Gladiator 1 to the psycho-quequeer, syphilitic Joseph Quinn and baby boy Fred Heshinger in the second one.

I'm just like, okay, like this is an instructive, but it's even stuff like the fucking bust of Marcus Aurelius that looks exactly like Paul Besskel. My colleague and Vulture Bilga Ubiri wrote a whole article about this one line in the movie that he could not stop, where they flashback to when young Paul Meskell is trying to make his escape from Rome when they send him away. And he's sort of like the Roman, whatever, authorities are trying to track him down. And they ride up to this one little village and all of a sudden you hear the one guy say, have you seen this boy? And Bill goes like, what is he showing him when he says, have you seen this boy? It's like, did somebody chisel out a bust of this kid? And he's just like showing it.

It's like, what is what does that mean? Have you seen this boy? Um, like he's Robert Patrick and fucking Terminator 2 or whatever. Um, as someone who likes neither Gladiator movie, I at least appreciate the absolute brainworms of the second movie. But the thing, like, uh, what I said about Denzel Washington's performance in the movie, like the comparison point is, I do kind of feel like it is more going for this very silly heightened, uh, studio epic of like that mid-century period too where it's like those movies were all pretty stupid and like gorgeous to look at uh i saw a letterbox log that said like the the movie was set decorated by like t j max or something this movie doesn't look great but like it is kind of

going for that and that scale and i can at least appreciate that it's uh you know consciously yeah the cinematography and the first gladiator definitely feel like it is going for more than the cinematography and Gladiator, too. We'll see at the point that this episode drops where Denzel is in the race. I think probably

because that movie has faltered a lot, it means he's not going to be getting his third Oscar for this movie. It was so funny when the first reactions dropped and, like, first reaction social media is like the ban on existence, but like, word salad. Nate Jones at Vulture wrote like a really great, like, his like, weekly, like,

update on the race like a few weeks back. I think with the Gladiator 2, maybe first reactions, he wrote a really great piece, like dissecting the sanity and the inanity. Yeah, what are the first reactions? How can you translate that? That was a great piece. But yeah, I remember

like the first reactions dropping and like people being like, Tenzel is getting his third win and it's like, well, maybe he's not getting his third win. Like it'll be nice to get a nomination. I don't think he's getting a win for sure. Well, certainly as, because as Gladiator 2 has sort of underwhelming. at the same time, Kieran Culkin is like amassing power in the North or whatever.

And he's just like, he's just becoming this unstoppable force. So now it feels like, well, now Denzel's probably not going to win. He still seems like he's a good bet for a nomination. But now it's like, well, if he's not going to win, like, what are we doing here? You know, Denzel's going to show up to the Oscars as a nominee for Gladiator 2 and then sit there for the movie. And then what's going on? The Culkin thing is coming from nobody really knows what. they really want to do here what the passion play is and Colkin is the down the middle consensus

choice that everybody's like yeah he's really good people do really genuinely like that movie and that when I that movie like is like underrate that that movie to me that movie to me is like it reminded me of like Sundance movies from like the mid 2000s like early 2000s like the ones that like really like capture the balance of drama and comedy so well that it's like station agent station agent station that's that's a really good comment like you can count on me like is like a good comfort as well like we're like it really captures that thing where like you cry you feel emotional but it also is such a crowd pleaser that like it's yeah it's so easy to root for and like when i saw it at sundance last year like i definitely like felt like colkin was like

gonna be a pretty safe bet for a nomination but i assumed i falsely stupidly assumed that they would run him in lead as they should because he's because he's a co-lead yeah yeah Yeah, it's, like, crazy, but, like, it's such an obvious, like, category fraud move to put him in supporting that, like, I should have seen that coming a mile away. Yeah. Also, though, Denzel, the same year as, as Virtuosity and Devil in the Blue Dress, he's also in Crimson Tide, which is kind of an underrated movie for his star sort of trajectory. Obviously, he was already a big star when he made Crimson Tide. But I think that movie doing as well as it did was the number 11 movie of 1995, but it's also Denzel and Gene Hackman sort of toe to toe in this way that really feels like it's, you know, the movie star or one of the movie stars of the 90s, obviously, like Tom Cruise was still obviously a huge thing. And you got your, you know, your Hanks and Schwarzenegger's and whatnot. But like Denzel going toe to toe with Gene Hackman kind of. crystallized what kind of a-list movie star

Danzell Washington was, where he would make these movies that were like action, like, not like, he's not an action movie star, but it's sort of like, what if instead of an action movie, you kind of lifted the dial a little bit and it turned it into something a little bit more, um, I don't want to say high-minded, because like there's not like a lot that's like highfalutin,

about Crimson Tide. But it's like, it's a political thriller on top with like action movie bones. Do you know what I mean? Where, yeah, I mean, so much of the movie is just dialogue. It's just back and forth dialogue. Like there's not really much action in it. Like it could be like a stage play. And I think it's like written to be that. And like having Denzel and Gene Hapkin going like, you know, toe to toe is like that to me is so much more energizing than any amount of blowing shit up in any action movie could possibly be. Well, and that ended up being, like,

that would be Denzel Washington's sort of niche. To call it a niche is kind of interesting because it's such a broad, you know, he had a lot of territory that he could cover with making those kinds of movies. He's more of an action star now

than he was in the 90s. Right, yeah. He wasn't doing equalizer in the 90s. The one that's close, that's least like action adjacent. Like, I think that's a more appropriate term than action star at that time. And his most, like, action-center movie is virtuosity.

Yeah, yeah. He had a movie in the 90s where he was in a, in a, in a, in a bed. In a hospital bed the whole time. Right. Well, yeah, you look at this, this series of movies, right? He's in Crimson Tide. 1996, he's in, well, he's in the preacher's wife, which is obviously a romantic comedy. But he's in Courage Under Fire, which is sort of a political drama, very sort of, like, high-minded Edwardswick.

I believe a single digits this had all. Oscar Buzz movie. Yes, very much. But like 1998's The Siege is sort of what I'm talking about. The Bone Collector fits into this. John Q fits into this. And then like all of these, oh, out of time was another Carl Franklin movie. He does in 2000.

Fantastic. Very much sort of like a, you know, a low to the ground kind of like more of a thriller than an action movie. And then it's like all the Tony Scott movies, right? Man on Fire and Deja Vu and. and what are the other Tony Scots? Taking of Pelham, one, two, three was Tony Scott?

Yeah, Unstoppable. Which was the last one. But he's like, that's his, that becomes his sweet spot, especially into the 2000s, is this kind of movie that's like, some of them are like, taking a Pelham, one, two, three,

I guess is like an unstoppable are technically action movies because there are like, big trains, you know what I mean? Like, at play. But ultimately, these are, you know, sort of like lower-to-the-ground thrillers, and they depend so heavily on the star power of the person at the center of them to carry them through. And that is what he becomes so super reliable for. And, you know, this is, you know, continues on through like the Equalizer movies nowadays, right? You know what I mean? And it's, but I feel like Crimson Tide feels like a little bit of a, of a, of, a, of, a, turnkey in that in that particular you know stage not even not stage of his career but like

element of his star yeah i mean i think that crimson tie is definitely like the and like maybe pelican brief like a little bit before but like i leaned him into that like that macho kind of genre but still like being able to play in the macho genre in a way that's really appealing to like both men and women because he has like such like a magnetic sex appeal to him yeah even when like in And, you know, plenty of his movies, like, he is, like, he, he doesn't have to lean too hard into that. Like, Pellingham Brief is a great example where, like, he, like, very directly, like, didn't, you know, he really advocated for him and Julie Roberts to not, you know, be romantically entwined in that movie. But there is, like, such, like, a sexual charge in that movie still, which I think he just brings to the screen whenever he's on. I think that he's maybe my favorite actor, if not, like, one of my favorite actors, because no matter what movie he's in, even if it's, like, Book of Eli.

which is a movie I would not rate very highly. Like, he just has such charisma to him that I feel like anything he's in is worth watching just to see him on screen. Our greatest living actor. One of the things that's notable about Devil in a Blue Dress is the fact that he has, first of all, this, like, you know, sex scene with Lisa Nicole Carson's character

and then ends up having... He hit her spot. Sure did. As we were told later in Baltimore. As we were told multiple times. And then he has... this sort of, like, great charge of chemistry with Jennifer Beals when they ultimately meet each other in this very sort of noir way, we're like, she's technically the femme fatale, but there's like not a ton of fatale to her. She's just got a lot. She's got the secrets, right? But she doesn't really happen. I want to talk about her performance, too, when we get really into the performances of this movie. We'll get into it. But one of the things I thought was notable was you look at Denzel's career. And it's a lot of movies where he just does not have a romantic.

storyline or like a even when it's like female leads it's like Angelina Jolie and the Bone Collector and um I'm trying to even think of like there's a lot of movies where you look at and it's just like who is the female lead in this movie um you kind of don't remember it's like he doesn't have you know a romantic interest in inside man or man on fire or you know any of these movies which I think feels like um not a requirement for sort of the leading man into the 21st century, but you feel like Tom Cruise sort of felt that way, too, that like in the 80s and 90s, Tom Cruise had to have a love interest. And now you get into the Mission Impossible movies. And it's like, is Rebecca Ferguson a love interest for him? And it's just like, kind of. It's like, that's what I like about like those kind of movies where it's like they're not.

they're not putting such a pin on it where like it has to be that but like I feel like like it's interesting because Tom Cruise kind of like notoriously doesn't have amazing chemistry with a lot of like his female like leading co-stars through throughout his run but his chemistry with somebody like Rebecca Ferguson or Haley Atwell in the most recent Mission Impossible is like so electric that like it feels sexual even though they never like make it explicitly sexual like they're just sure they're both so competent and like pair with each other so well that I think it has that energy to it. And I feel like that works so much better than, you know, like explicitly trying to pair him with, you know, whoever throughout the like the 90s runs, the 80s runs, unless it's like

Renee Zellugger, he's obviously great with. Right, right, right, right. Or like Nicole Kimman, their like anti-chemistry, which is ironic is like so great. And I suppose that. Right. Right. But you even think about like back to things like, you know, cocktail or whatever like that. Yeah. And Elizabeth's shoe in that movie. So obviously it does feel like there would have been room for Denzel Washington. He's also coming off of getting passed over for the best actor Oscar in 1992 from Alchem X. It's only a few years before this. You would think that there would have been a little bit more, and you know, you saw that with the Pelican Brief as well, although the Pelican Brief had its own set of problems. Denzel Washington was like such an afterthought for

that movie because of how much Julia Roberts was like in the media for so many things. And similarly, Philadelphia is the same time. Philadelphia is the same year, which like he Like, that's one of Denzel's best performances, but obviously Hank just, like, completely took everything for that. So, like, it's, yeah, two films that same year that he kind of didn't get the recognition he deserved for. And then the really fun role in much ado about nothing, too, the same year as well. Yeah, we did an episode and much ado about nothing. But it's, I always talk about how Thelman Louise was the last movie to get nominations, multiple nominations in elite acting category for the same movie. And that, and that, and that, how. that because they both lost to Jody Foster and there was a lot of, you know, speculation at the time about whether they had split, you know, the Thelman-Louise vote and, you know, sort of hurt each other's chances that fewer and fewer studios even try putting multiple leads from the same movie. And I feel like Philadelphia is maybe one of the earliest examples of that where they're just like, we got Hanks, we're going all in on Hanks. And it does, right.

Yeah, because that's only a decade removed from Amadeus. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, I feel like in Philadelphia, for as great as Hank's is in the movie and he is, like, Denzel does get forgotten in that mix, and he's so, so incredibly good. But it is, you know, it's frustrating that I also feel like, I don't know, maybe you guys can talk to me about this.

is there a sense that like because this movie was so sort of noir forward and obviously noir has this like great storied history when you like look back at the Oscar or at Hollywood or whatever but like was there maybe a sense in 1995 that like this just isn't like an Oscar genre it's not a true story it's not something that has like a lot of prestige to it well the Oscar history with noir is spotty yeah and I say that as someone who's not necessarily a noir person Sure. I definitely think that mismarketing this in a way that's like fetishizing period, for lack of a better phrase, doesn't do this movie any favors. And I also don't want to be like, well, this movie was too. I hate when people are like, well, this movie was just too smart for X, Y, and Z. But it doesn't really feel like the studio has like the type of confidence in the audience that the film making. does. And that kind of, to me, creates the domino effect of this movie kind of getting screwed, getting screwed at the box office, getting screwed in like an awards reception atmosphere.

I also feel like it probably should not be underestimated that in 95, and maybe this is how we'll sort of ramp up to talking about the Oscar controversy 95, I think it's probably appropriate that will save Cheadle for like late in the episode discussion since he shows up so late in that. But I feel like one of the ways that Devil in a Blue Dress maybe becomes a sort of best of the year Oscar contender, something that like goes into that conversation is if you have an industry ready to receive it that has a lot more black voices for lack of a, for, lack of subtlety to it, that so much of what sort of elevates this movie is the way that you add, you know, this, the, you know, the black American experience onto this very traditional and revered Oscar genre. I dipped into the criterion essay from 2022 that Julian Kimball wrote about the movie, he quotes Carl Franklin from a New York Times interview in 1995 where Franklin

said, I love film noir, but this film is really social realism married to film noir. And I think it's that perspective that really might have unlocked something where you, you know, I think there is something to Oscar movies that you have to have that little bit of something. thing extra that makes it like, well, what, you know, elevates this movie above, you know, just your regular, especially in the 90s, like, there was no sense of like they don't make them like they used to anymore. So, like, just making a very well-made, you know, 1940 set detective story was probably not going to be enough. But I quoted, this is a sort of block quote, so like, bear with me from Kimball's essay. But he says, devil in a blue dress explicitly confronts

the racialized implications of classic noir's dichotomy between politely. society and dark, shadowy underworlds. Its social critique is brutally honest and sharply targeted. Race is both the organizing principle of its power structure and its central mystery. By revisiting the period in which noir originated and making this story about black people's quest for equality following World War II, Mosley and Franklin illustrate just how conditional black people's freedom was more than 80 years after the emancipation proclamation, but still roughly a decade away from the acceleration of the civil rights movement and the passing of any concrete legislation to protect those rights. They depict

the overt racism that was acceptable at that time and also expose the specifically racial nature of the structural inequalities, sorry, inequities, that classic noirs such as double indemnity, the Big Sleep, and Sunset Boulevard, driven by more psychological motivations, merely gesture at. which like it's you know it's one of those just like it gives you a lot to think about but I think it gets to the sense of it's not just like one thing about this movie that it kind of it is a sort of social reality that you layer on top of this story and it changes everything obviously like the Jennifer Beale's character being a you know a woman who has a secret biracial sort of of, you know, identity that ultimately becomes a black male secret in this, you know, mayoral election because she's having a relationship with the mayoral candidate, but then ultimately becomes the thing that the Terry Kinney character cannot get past, right, even when everything has worked out well for him. So, like, that's very plotty. But, like, all of the other,

you know, stuff is just, it feels, it again... There are so many moments where Franklin very, you know, directly, but but still pretty subtly, reminds you that Easy is a black man operating in, you know, a very regimented white world, the thing where he's got to be taken up the back stairway in the hotel by the friendly sort of porter because he's, she's staying in the white, only section of the hotel. There's a moment where I can't remember who he's going to meet with, but he's in this very sort of like official building. He's maybe in the city hall or something like that. But you see him going up the stairs, this like marble staircase or whatever, talking to the one guy. And he's getting looks from all the people who pass him because obviously like, you know, there's this, you know, black man in this environment that you don't really see Black Men.

Franklin makes sure to sort of like, you know, pepper that stuff in without really, again, lingering on it. But it changes, as Kimball's sort of notes in this essay, kind of changes everything about what the story is. And I do feel like if there had been more an apparatus, more of an apparatus in 1995 to point these things out and to kind of note these things, maybe it doesn't. help, you know what I mean? But it, but it, at the very least, um, gives people who are voting

for awards more to chew on and more to sort of go on than what they may have initially sort of like dismissed this movie as, um, you know, it's a studio movie with disappointing box office. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think all of that's true. I also think, you know, that yes, they would have at least given this movie more of a platform to be discussed and, you know, not have to be, not have to be rediscovered a decade later, you know? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Which, I mean, I think we're in a really good, fun, and cool time of rediscovering specifically the 90s and aughts movies that, you know, for a time really went away because, you know, the rental market went away. but I also think in terms of Oscar not recognizing this about the movie

regardless of what type of apparatus was there to help you know to get people to realize what was so good and smart and well observed about this movie you know Oscar and especially white Hollywood still has an issue of framing stories that deal with racism through not only white perspectives but also you know especially when you look at the stories

that are honored by Oscar that are talked about by the Academy those are all southern set stories it's not just that oh we're not doing that those people this is behavior those people exhibit it's also not

this is a problem in our in our ecosystem it's a problem in their ecosystem so like I also think that this is a really interesting Los Angeles movie

and like we know Los Angeles people love Los Angeles movies and I think it's a real I mean like obviously Justice is being done for this movie because it's being talked about and appreciated so much more now but I think that is the context that helps

make this movie so very interesting and why like Oscar should have recognized it because like it is about the environment that a lot of Oscar voters live in. Sidebar, but have you, either of you seen the documentary Los Angeles plays itself? Not yet.

I saw it a really long time ago. Really good. Like, I love a movie that is essentially just like a series of clips of other movies. Like, let me marinate. But there is such a chip on the shoulder of not only the movie itself, but like, well, it's the movie itself mostly because it's a very sort of like, it does not, doesn't not come across as a video essay. But there's such a chip on that movie's shoulder about being L.A. and just be like, listen, we may not be as, as, you know, culturally, you know, hegemonious as, as New York.

It's very sort of like, listen, I know a lot of movies happen in New York, but a lot of movies happen in L.A. It's just very funny to watch it in that way. I think, I think, too, just in terms of, like, how the Oscars received the movie, I think, like, a very interesting comp. is L.A. Confidential, which was just two years later. Thank you for bringing this up. Yes, yes, yes. Yes. Noir being brought back into like, with like a modern, you know, punch to it, but still like of the time period. And LA confidential, huge at the Oscars. And like also like L.A. Confidential, like, it had Kevin Spacey, like, who's, you know, fresh off like, Usual Suspects and Seven and like James Cromwell and like supporting roles. But like, its leads are to Australian due to have like no real

imprint like on the US. Like they're not Denzel Washington. you know, but it still does huge at the Oscars. If I were a person who had some sore feelings about Devil in a Blue Dress being passed over for the Oscars, L.A. Confidential would have stuck in Mike Crawford for a few different ways. Both Spacey and Cromwell getting into the supporting actor race in 95 and not Giedel exists there. The thing you've said about the two Australian leads, just obviously like, you know, L.A. in the 40s and corruption all there. It's like, oh, now. And double in a blue dress is such a more interesting genre exercise. than LA Confidential. I've never been fully in the LA Confidential tank, so forgive me if I

really like that movie, but you're not wrong about the genre. Yeah, exactly. Like, I love, like, L.A. Convidential is like one of my favorite movies as well, but it, like, it very much is like, it's like, it's like in your face. It's got a lot of adrenaline. To your point, Chris, about the marketing. Like, it has a much more modern lens on the marketing. The trailer's really punchy. And it's, but it's not like, there's very few characters of color like in LA Comedential at all. Like, it is a much. a very white LA being depicted. It's not getting into, you know, that, that sort of like class hierarchy realm and like, our race hierarchy. And like, I mean, what class comes with that.

But like, it's, it definitely like isn't going super deep into the social realism kind of lens, the Joe that you're talking about with like what devil in a blue dress. It doesn't have all those layers. And maybe to what we're all like talking about, like maybe that's why LA Comedential is a lot more palatable to Academy voters than Devil in a Blue Dress where it's like, oh, we have to think a little bit deeper and maybe look at ourselves in a way that doesn't feel great because Academy voters love anything

that makes them feel good about themselves. Yeah. Well, and it's not just the Academy, too. It's the critical establishment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because LA Confidential was, like, a critical sensation. And it was a box office success, too. Like, audiences liked it, too, and Devil and a blue dress didn't catch on with audiences at the time. I think it's also

just, it starts with, you know, even the, what you call it, like, subject material, whatever, the books that they were from is the thing that I'm trying to say, why can't I speak to them? Right, right, right, yeah, James Elroy. The Dewey Decimal System. James Elroy is this sort of, like, revered, you know, author and sort of like rarefied or whatever, and then, like, Devil in a Blue Dress comes from this, like, series of detective novels, and, like, detective novels and mysteries, and these things sort of

are kind of, as somebody who's... And Walter mostly is a popular. author, but I think more intellectually received than El rolling. Well, and like as somebody, as a person have worked in a library experience, detective novels and mysteries are sort of the

they're not the chum of the literary world, but they're sort of like, there's just like there's a, there's a bulk, you know, there's a lot of them, right? And sometimes they just sort of like... There's a reason they got him at the airport, you know? Yeah, yeah, like that kind of a thing. There's not a there's no snob appeal to them.

All right, let's talk about Cheadle, who shows up about halfway through this movie, is there's a long sort of carpet laid out for this character where there's a flash of, you know, there's a quick flashback that Easy talks about where it's literally a flash. It's literally just like, something happened. Something happened with his friend Mouse back in Houston and somebody died. And he mentions Mouse a few times. and he's even like, I put in a word to my friend Mouse, maybe he'll show up later, who's to say? And then he shows up, of course, at the most climactic time when he's about to get his neck slashed

and a mouse shoots the guy. And it is very much like, and he's here. Like, everybody, ladies and gentlemen, Don Cheadle. It's, you know, it's not that the movie is at fault for not having that character sooner, but it does feel like as you're going through there's this kind of missing link and when Cheadle show,

like there's this missing, like all of the danger is so sublimated and suggested throughout and then when he shows up, it's like, well, of course, this is the thing that is going to really kick this whole story into high gear, this live wire element.

Yeah, I, um, I, I've seen this movie so many times and for such a long time I especially from like my first viewing when I was like a teenager to like watching it like kind of rewatching it for the first time many years later like I I had this memory that Don Cito was in

the entire movie because he makes such an impression from when he shows up to the end and like I was watching it and was like when does Miao? He really does the show up until like over halfway through it's like an hour into an hour and 40 minute movie and it's like but yeah he just has such a massive

impression when he comes in that it completely changes the temperature of the whole movie and like I love I love that that what you're saying about like the carpet setting like he does kind of hang like a specter throughout the movie

where it's like you know very much like Chekhov's mouse where like he's got like he's not going to be brought up you know but then like when he shows up it really is like it's hard to live up to the expectation of how easy is like laying the foundations of this dude that like easy only speaks about almost in like whispers like he's almost too scared to like talk

about this guy because of this thing that happened in Houston with them that's kind of like hanging over him um but then Mao shows up and it's like this guy not only like doesn't fuck around but like like is also so much fun and that's the thing where like like I when the criterion came out I interviewed Carl Franklin um about this movie for um the film stage and like great interview by the way thank you and one of the things that he talks about with Cheatel because Cheeto originally thought that he was too old for the movie. Franklin, Franklin and Cheeto went back. They did like a student film together. I think when they were both at like AFI or something like that. And Franklin's like memory of Cheetah was also that he was like too old and maybe like a little bit too serious for the movie. But like, Cheeto coming in completely changed the energy of the character of Mouse and like made him a lot more fun and like kind of leaned more into that like darkly comedic sense of Mouse that he like, he's a guy that loves being in this world. world. Like he loves the danger that he brings to this world. He loves like being at risk. And I think that that that's something that really also like a movie like this, a lot of noirs, the more that

you get into like the plot machinations and everything as you're getting towards like the climax, they can kind of like peter out a little bit and get a little bit too like into doldrums. But like mouse coming in exactly when he comes in gives this movie like the upswing that keeps you like driving towards the end. And I think really helps with that pacing to make it like such like an adrenaline fueled rush towards the end too. Well, and what? One of the things that Franklin does, and obviously this probably comes from the source material, by the way, is the phrase that I couldn't come up with earlier, is the idea that Easy's got a lot to lose here, right? That he, you know, he has a space in sort of whatever version of the American life, you know, exists in this moment. And he's a World War II veteran.

He, you know, he came back on the benefits of the GI Bill. He has, he's behind on his mortgage, but he's got a house. You know what I mean? Like, he's got, he's got things that he needs, he wants to defend and protect any sort of a life in this way. And Mouse is just like, I don't give a shit about any of this. I wasn't in the war. You know what I mean? I don't have a house.

I am, you know, I'm a little bit, I'm more reckless about that. this, but it's also, he doesn't seem to have a chip on a shoulder about it. He's just sort of just like, well, you know, do what you got to do. And why are we wasting time not getting to the extreme of, you know, how this situation is probably going to end up. The line that, you know, I always remember, is after it's all done and Denzel comes back to the car. And Mouse is like, well, there's a joppy hope. over there. And he's dead. And Denzel's like, I just wanted you to like make sure he didn't go anywhere. And Mouse just goes, if you didn't want me to kill him, why did you leave him with me?

It's just sort of like that's like the best lot. Like that is like the defining line of that's that character. Yeah, exactly. It encapsulates that character. So well. I sort of in the outline, I sort of glibly noted that Don Chiedel star of TV's Golden Palace because it really was like he was not a movie star by this point. I knew him from he was. He was. So after the Golden Girls ended, there was still, you know, juice to be squeezed from this Florida orange. And so on CBS, CBS did a spinoff of Golden Girls without B. Arthur with Rue McClanahan, Betty, and Estelle Getty, called Golden Palace, where they become owners or managers or something of a hotel in, I believe they're still in my house. Miami. And then the manager of that hotel was played by Don Cheadle. This was the first time I'd ever seen Don Cheadle and anything. Watching the Siskel and Ebert episode on Devil in a Blue Dress, I was also reminded, though, that at this point, Don Cheadle was also on picket fences. He was at, he joined the cast of picket fences midstream as a, I believe, a district attorney. And so, but like he was a TV guy. You know what I mean? He was best known for these TV roles. And if they had only. also cast Roa McClanahan and Devil in a Blue Dress somewhere.

I feel like maybe that was the missing ingredient. She could have pulled off Albright, I think. Yeah. Or, you know, have her be, there was that moment where he walks in and he says something salty to the one secretary about, you know, your boss or whatever. And the guy's like, don't go, like, mouthing off to the secretary. And he's like, I am not getting, you know, he's just like, I am not in a position. to hold my tongue about anything, but just like, have Rubiklanahan be that lady. Maybe if he had his oceans dialect.

Oh, that's the missing. Cheadle? It's the missing ingredient really in every movie. I had a three oceans. A friend of mine at the time became obsessed because of that with rhyming slang, the whole idea of rhyming slang. And he had, like, spent a couple months in England right after we graduated at college. And it's it's one of those things that is so deeply I imagine people like from actual England like of course the one that they always look to is Dick Van Dyke and Mary Poppins where there's like the worst possible. But like I imagine that like Don Cheadle in the Oceans movies is probably up there with like we cannot countenance this accent. It's also the kind of thing where like it's it's so funny the um.

Elizabeth Olson in like the MCU movies where like she has like such a deep accent in the first like one that she appears in a which and then just like gets rid of it. But like, the ocean's movie is like the first movie like that accent was received so poorly. But it's like, well, he's doing it. He's doing it already. So like we're doing two more movies. I'm like he's just going to have to do it again. Yeah. Yes. No. Well, it's, uh, Elizabeth. But it at least makes sense with Elizabeth Olson where she's just like, yeah, she's living in the States. You know, it's been a long time since she lived in. The great Americanization of Scarlet Witch. Honestly, yes. It's the opposite of Kate Winslet and Steve Jobs, where her accent gets more Polish as that movie goes on. She's just throwing umlots every which way. Oh, my God.

Tremendous, tremendous performance. So Cheetahles ends up getting a bunch of prizes, actually gets the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, name him best supporting actor of the year, as does the National Society of Film Critics. He is the runner-up at New York film critics for supporting actor, losing out to Kevin Spacey, who was awarded for usual suspects and seven. And is it swimming with sharks? I think much sharks was out this year as well. Which is a movie I've never seen.

The Spacey thing, as an immediate comparison for this movie, I think also kind of contextualizes the way crime movies were received, both by audiences and with awards bodies that, you know, for these type of crime or crime-adjacent movies, you know, there has to be some big twist or some things. big subversion of genre or it has to be pushing it in a certain direction, whereas devil in a blue dress by comparison seems so much more straightforward. And it's not to shit on those movies, but it's also sometimes maybe we need the reminder that the straightforward thing can be

just as impressive as the thing that does something different. I've talked about the usual suspects before. Usual suspects, they'll never make me hate you. I still love that movie. I feel like I am, as the years go on, more and more looked down upon for still loving usual suspects, but that's fine. Kevin Spacey super sucks as a person, as a human being. I genuinely still, I do stand by that performance in that movie. He's magnetic and electric, and that character is indelible for a reason. He's also really good in Seven, Surprise, Surprise. Yeah, I rewatched seven last night, and it's like, God damn. I know, I know. Notice that Seven has secretly shown up on the iMacs website for some like showing in january if yeah they're re-releasing it in january and

the it's coming on on 4k blu-ray like the same the same time in january happy happy day what a great movie what a great feel bad movie um so spacey ends up um winning the oscar obviously that year but like along the way that was a really kind of diffuse year uh uh brad pit wins the golden globe for 12 monkeys and then goes and it's not even nominated for SAG. This is early days of SAG when SAG was like smoke them if you got them. And they're nominees in

1995. Ed Harris ends up winning for Apollo 13. He and Spacey are the only two Oscar crossovers with this SAG lineup. Otherwise it's Kevin Bacon for Murder in the First which is a movie that's been completely forgotten. Nobody ever talks about murder in the first.

But that was an Oscar campaign that was like really kind of hot and heavy. And I remember Bacon, of course, has still never been nominated for an Oscar. It's kind of the closest he got, right? It's the closest he got. He was really on a upward trajectory from things like JFK and a few good men where he's obviously in roles that are too small for Oscar consideration. He's so good in a few good men.

He really is. The more that I watch a few good men, the more that, like, he really stands out to me as, like, kind of one of the secret weapons of that movie. I mean, I'm, talk about origin stories. My, like, human origin story so I'm super like that's coming up soon in the Demi podcast and I cannot wait I got the I got the is it movie line I think wait was movie which one was the Jennifer Lopez article where she talked about it okay then it's the premiere magazine cover story on a few good men that I bought off of eBay I've become weirdly obsessed with getting magazines now that I've been doing this to me podcast I maybe dumped like a hundred dollars of random Todd Haynes stuff on I'm so, so, so super. Like, I need that a few good men episode has to be perfect because, like, my reputation depends on it. So Kevin Bacon for murder in the first. And then Kenneth Branagh for Othello. Now, when we talk about in a second, we're going to talk about the Oscar, the attempted boycotts of the Oscar that year because they did not nominate any black people. Othello is one of those movies that I forget was part of the awards conversation, in part because it's sort of, it only kind of was. But this nomination, this Kenneth Branagh nomination for Othello, is a reminder that, like, it definitely was in the conversation. And Lawrence Fishburn played the title character in that movie.

And he was only two years removed from his last Oscar nomination. So he's definitely somebody who was on people. people's radar. So that is instructive. Ed Harris ends up winning the SAG. I think that was a big part of the reason why people thought he might also win the Oscar. This is sort of one of those where you look back and it's like, wow, Ed Harris, four-time Oscar nominee and he's never won. Did that Harris also win SAG for Truman Show? I don't know, but he definitely won the Golden Globe for the Truman Show. Who won SAG? I feel like there was like a secret third thing. Didn't like Robert Duvall maybe win

a sag for a civil action that year, hold on a second. Because Ed Harris was like second place twice. Definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought he would. Like, Coburn winning was an upset. Coburn won because Nolte ultimately was

not going to win, but was such a strong... Roberto Benini stole Ed Harris's Oscar. Roberto Benini is the reason why Ed Harris doesn't have an Oscar today and you can quote me on that. That's all Ed Harris, that. 1998, Robert Duval wins the SAG for Civil Action.

Yeah, so there was, like, Ed Harris not nominated for SAG that year. SAG was like, we got you a few years ago. We don't have to nominate you this year. We're going to instead nominate David Kelly from Waking Ned Devine. True story. True story. Sags sometimes is wild.

Let's see if we have wild SAG nominees. Mid-90s SAG is tremendous. 1995 SAG Awards in general. Wait, I just want to, like, give a, This is the second ever year that they did SAG Awards. So, top line, yes, Nicholas Cage wins for leaving Las Vegas and Susan Sarandon wins for Deadman Walking. Kate Winslet wins supporting actress for Sense and Sensibility, but Mira Sorvino is nominated. But here are the outlier nominations that we get.

We get Angelica Houston for the Crossing Guard. Stockard Channing is nominated for Smoke. Is it Wayne Wang? Smoke. Joan Allen for Nixon is a lead actress nominee. I totally forgot that that happened. James Earl Jones is nominated in Best Actor

for Cry the Beloved Country. And then your nominees for Best Performance by a Cast, which is essentially their best picture. Apollo 13, sure, and it wins. Sense and Sensibility. Yes, definitely. Nixon, of course.

Oscar nominee and has a bajillion people in that cast. How to Make an American Quilt, which we definitely talked about this thing when we did our How to Make an American Quilt episode years ago, and get Shorty, which we also did an episode about years ago. That gets a shorty episode so fun. What an interesting set of five nominees in a year where like Braveheart wins best picture. You know what I mean? It's just it's wild. Okay.

So Cheatel ends up on the outside looking in. That is one of the more high profile. examples when after the fact there was a people cover story that essentially was just like, Hey, Oscars, what the fuck? The cover story,

first of all, it's so indicative of the fact that like, it's so weird that people is the magazine doing this because the top line inserts on this cover are a farewell to Minnie Pearl. Mini Pearl had just recently died. And Marcia Clark's New Life

and rock and roll bow. And it's like Marsha Clark with her like makeover or whatever. So like, but like the cover story is called Hollywood blackout. And it's about, uh, it says the film industry says all the right things, but its continued exclusion of African Americans is a national disgrace. The 166 nominees at this month's Oscars include only one black and none of the stars at the right. Now the stars at the right on this cover were Denzel Washington, Angela Bassett and Whitney Houston, who were both in waiting to exhale, and Lauren Prince Fishburn, who, as I mentioned, was an Othello. Waiting to Exhale is an interesting example from this because, and it's sort of noted in this

article, I don't think Waiting to Exhale is that great of a movie. I don't think Terry McMillan's a particularly, you know, great. Controversial, thank you. Sorry, but also the fact that, like, one of the things about Waiting to Exhale, and, like, for as much as I don't think Waiting to Exhale is great. I think Angela Bassett is giving, giving, giving, giving. The thing about waiting to exhale is much like the thing about any movie with friends all having different stories is that there are big leaps between what is great and what is not great in the movie. But one of the things that this article, and I think it's this article, is there's an article and then there was a new Republic article in 2016 that sort of flashed back to this because it was in the wake of the Oscars so white. scandal from the 2015 Oscars. But one of the things that, like, they try and say it without saying it, but they're like, listen, movies don't have to, like, you don't have to be the best movie of the year to get an Oscar push. They were like, they sent out screeners of a

walk in the clouds in 1995. You know what I mean? But they didn't send out screeners of waiting to exhale. And that's kind of the point that, like, you know, movies without black people get to be mediocre and get nominated for Oscars. Like, can we, like, we can at least afford the grace of, like, equal opportunity that, like, if you are a movie with a bunch of big stars and are in a Oscar-friendly genre, you get a campaign just like every other Oscar-Bate movie gets a campaign. Need we remind listeners, this is the year that Braveheart won best pick. Yeah.

But Cheeto ends up being... Mediocre at best. Cheeto ends up being the actor who... just from looking at the precursors kind of came the closest to getting nominated, you imagine. And so he's definitely

very much part of this conversation. This was a very kind of fraught thing, this idea of calling out the Oscars this particular year for being anti-black, essentially, because Whoopi Goldberg

was hosting this year. Quincy Jones was producing the Oscar this year. So, like, both of those people then became right under the spotlight. And, like, whoopee especially, I remember watching that Oscars a little bit ago. And she's super salty about it. Like, she, uh, she, you know, mentions like, you know, I, you know, I wanted to talk to Jesse, but, you know, he's not here anyway. He's not, he's not watching anyway. And, um, she ended up having to sort of, like, defend her position. I think a year later, she even still looked back and was just like, what was I supposed to do?

All of a sudden, Jesse Jackson is calling for a boycott, and now I look like I'm kissing up to Hollywood. She's under a contract already. Right, and Quincy Jones is doing the same thing. And, like, there were, you know, black people who, black stars in Hollywood, who had a little bit more of an equivocating stance. I think there are quotes from Morgan Freeman, where he's like, look, like, Hollywood goes where the money goes.

And, you know, these are sort of. like the uncomfortable realities of it, but it's notable that this was, this sort of hung over the Oscars this year. And it's a thing that like people who remember this year of the Oscars remember. And it's something where when all of a sudden. It's a conversation we have to keep having this conversation. That's the thing. All of a sudden when 2015 happens and it's a complete, you know, white out for the second year in a row. And all of a sudden, these articles are being written about it.

Then all of a sudden, you flash back and just like, right, this has happened before. And, you know, it's depressingly cyclical. It does feel like, as with many things in America, like, things get better and circle back and things get a little better and circle. You know what I mean? It's just that kind of a thing. Well, and the other thing, too, like, you can understand the outrage. I mean, you just look at the best picture lineup, and it's, you know, it's not all. Hollywood. There's sense and sensibility. There's Ilpostino. They're not just looking inward.

And of course, a lot of this comes down to marketing. And like, I'm not shitting on sense and sensibility. Since sensibility is a great movie, but that's, you know, a Taiwanese director of a British film that was released by a studio in the States. But like, this isn't, you know, Hollywood is looking elsewhere. And when you look at this lineup, no, Hollywood is not just following the money so it's just like they're just it's showing a lack of curiosity and certain types of film yeah so like you understand the outrage i think to um one thing in reading that the new republic article especially um which kind of like focuses on the response to the people article it is interesting seeing how the response to that article was um like how that response

was compared to kind of the 2015 like Oscar So White where like the response back then was like basically everybody was pissed and like not being shy about being like variety like the LA Times like put out articles basically

like saying this is like bullshit and like saying like protests are like passe and like just putting down like Jesse Jackson and like Saturday Night Live like made like a whole thing like mocking it like it like it's like a whole thing of like nobody really taking it seriously which is very different I think to the 2015 response where there was a lot more like recognition of like this is a problem like you know not as much recognition as there should have been not as much like you know like

it still is like recognizing it's a problem is one thing um but like it still at least wasn't like lambasted like so vocally by like the industry and I feel like especially 20 20 and like the Black Lives Matter protests and everything had a more demonstrable change on like trying to take more action towards like things like we all watch like Survivor and stuff like that like the the fact that like those shows like in the CBS like umbrella have like actual quotas now where they have to have like 50% like bi pock cast on every one of the seasons like that's such a huge thing that like never would have happened in like 1995 um but it still just is really interesting like how like how the conversation continues like how it continues to be a thing that happens it the response to it changes some but like it's still just a thing that has to keep happening and it like it happens in certain years like this this year and the new republic article like they talk about like it happening because the like the guy who like ran people was like at one of these events and noticed that like every like the previous Oscars was at the Oscars was at the Oscars yeah and like noticed that like even the seat fillers were white like everybody

in the audience was white and that was kind of what like germinated like the looking into it um but then like two years after that like all the nominees like as like it mentions the people article like this is not a novel thing like you know the years surrounding this like the the amount of black nominees like across the Oscars ranges from like zero to four on like a lot of these years so like this is not like a one year thing where they're like pointing it out in this one year it's like a recurring thing i did find it fascinating in the new republic um article where they talk to Landon Jones, who was the editor at the time of People magazine, and he talks about how they had to look into it, which, like, because, like, IMDB and shit didn't exist back

then. They literally had, like, the whole staff calling every single nominee and straight up asking them, like, if they're black or not. Are you black? Which is, like, a fascinating, the quote that Landon Jones gives is so funny, where he's like, we know Merrill Streep is white, but we had to, like, we had to, you know, do diligence on all of this. And he said, the reporters hated it when I said that they had asked all these nominees if they were black but that's how it had to be done. It is

fascinating like what a what a you know. Because also it's like your calling people and like like so like one of these people responded and was like yes I am and everybody else is like no I'm white. Why are you asking? It was a short film director I believe. Yeah yeah live action short director

yeah Diana Houston I think was the name but yeah it's like It's just, like, fascinating, too, like, I'm so curious what the response is these, like, reporters got, like, calling all these white people and being like, why are you asking me if I'm, if I'm black? Yeah. Well, we're writing a story about how your industry is a nightmare. I always think of the footnote of the Oscars so white controversy in 2015. One of the offshoots of that was Chris Rock was hosting the Oscars that year.

And it was that year, right? It wasn't, no, because it was Kimmel hosted the year after, because the year after was Moonlight. But one of the jokes that he made was that Jada Pinkett was boycotting the Oscars because Will Smith wasn't nominated. And he made that crack about like, nobody wants you here anyway. And that was like block one in the slowly building escalating stare at least. That was block like 85. well but that but that was like that was a big one that was you know this very sort of like public calling out like that's a huge huge huge part in that was also the the

stacy dash year right the happy stacy he like chris rock brought stacy dash out and happy black history months god i forgot about that that was like one of the most awkward moments like i've ever seen the officers like dead silence like in the auditorium the day that i realized Stacey Dash had gone full right wing was such a bummer of a day because like she was like my thing with Stacey Dash was forever

was just like man she's been in high school for like 20 years like she was cast as a high schooler for like a good decade and a half and the Allison Loman of her day exactly exactly to kind of pull it back to devil in a blue dress

it's interesting how not just you know the evolution of, you know, conversations around representation, especially with Oscar, but also how tastes change, because you watch a movie like Devil in a Blue Dress or One False Move Now,

and it's like, that's the taste of, you know, awards conversation movies. Like, One False Move would be a multiple Oscar nominee. Yeah, you look at, like, Hellar Highwater or something like that, you know, like, that's like, one false move is in a similar vein, just like stylistically to to something like that which like did huge you know yeah yeah and it's just interesting because carl franklin is like one of these voices we talk about when we talk about

uh you know when there's like movies that are finally getting some level of widespread appreciation and that like sometimes you know the taste just kind of catch has to catch up to what some people are doing and carl franklin is so prolific now because you know make five movies in the span of about a decade and then has worked on quite literally all of your favorite TV shows in the 25 years since. Emmy nominee for House of Cards. Emmy nominee for Dahmer Monster, the Jeffrey Dahmer Story, one of the most cumbersome miniseries titles ever. One of the things I noted going through is TV history directed four episodes of House of Cards, including the season two premiere, which I noted because that's the one. Speaking of Kevin Spacey, that's the one where that episode ends with Spacey shoving Kate Mara in front of the train or whatever.

He's also directed four episodes of The Leftovers, including maybe my two favorite episodes. Certainly they're up there. Guest, which is the best Carrie Coon episode of the series, and then Certified, which is the one that I always go and watch and cry, which is the scene with Carrie Coon and Amy Brennamen. You have to tell them I did this. Give me a dollar. I only have hundreds. Give me your cigarettes. Congratulations, Anders.

Tourning officially my budget. Tremendous episode, tremendous episode. And then Mind Hunter directs the final four episodes of the second season, which is this arc where that show delves into the Atlanta Child murders and it is an incredible arc and super well directed.

He's kind of in the Fincher stable, too. I remember Fincher doing press for House of Cards and talking about Carl Franklin specifically. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, I mean, obviously, like, Fincher getting such a boost of CRED in 95 for 7,

I imagine that, like, you know, Devil in a Blue Dress being such a big thing this year, there's maybe a little... They probably had a crossover at events or like something. 1995 passed over. It's funny, too, because, like, Denzel was, like, offered set. Like, that's, like, kind of, like, one of the few things where Denzel, like, mentions having a regret that he was, like, offered seven and, like, didn't do it. And that's kind of why he did, um, Fallen, right? Oh, that's... Fallen is a poor man seven is a really interesting note.

Speaking, though, of seven, I wanted to very quickly shout out the Chicago Film Critics Association Awards from this particular year from 1995. I feel like we don't really talk about the Chicago Film Critics Association Awards anymore because the proliferation of other awards has kind of made it feel a little bit redundant. But like Chicago stuck out, Chicago and Boston, I remember, in a big way. In the late 90s and early aughts, they were sort of the, you know, second. tier critics awards that were reliably, would reliably sort of go outside the consensus a lot. And Chicago would have a full set of nominees where, you know, New York and L.A. and Boston and all those cities were doing just, you know, winners and runners up. So this particular year, Denzel Washington gets nominated by Chicago Film Critics for Best Actor. Other nominee, Morgan Freeman, is also nominated for seven.

That year alongside your more typical Nicholas Cage, Sean Penn, Anthony Hopkins. Best Actress, they nominated Kathy Bates for Dolores Claiborne. Bigger nominations. And then Rina Owen for Once Were Warriors, which is a movie I have not thought of in forever. Seven wins Best Cinematography. Darius Conjee wins their Cinematography Award. Cinematography that they gave. It's seven beating out Apollo 13, Heat, The Secret of Roe,

and Inish, which is a John Sales movie, Haskell Wexler doing the cinematography for John Sales. And then Strange Days, oh, strange days, and a walk in the clouds. Daniel Lubeski, those screeners paid off for Daniel Lebeske getting a Chicago film critics nomination. Best director, Oliver Stone wins

for Nixon, over Clint Eastwood for Bridges of Madison County. Mike Figgis for leaving Las Vegas, Ron Howard for Apollo 13. Scraise for Casino and then David Fincher for seven. What are some other? Well, Their best picture went to Apollo 13, but other nominees are Crumb, Exotica, Nixon, and Heat. That is a film festival.

This is exactly what we want. That is a film festival for freaks that I'm super, super, super would love. Their screenplay nominees, Exotica is nominated for screenplay before Sunrise is nominated, which is a nomination that probably felt people maybe scratched their heads back then and now seems incredibly oppression because it's like they got it. So, Spacey won their supporting actor for usual suspect still, but Cheatel's nominated for Devil in a Blue Dress. Gene Hackman for Get Shorty, which I love because, like, I often feel like I'm the only person who would, like, nominated Gene Hackman for Get Shorty, but like, he's so funny in that movie. Get Shorty, good movie.

Delroy Lindo for Clockers, which is another great one. That's an incredible performance. Ed Harris for Apollo 13. Then in their most Chicago choice, and this is defensible, I'm not saying this is a bad choice, but Joan Allen wins supporting actress for Nick and I'm like, Chicago. Chicago takes care of their own, and I like that. Kathleen Quinlan and Miriservino, who are nominated for Oscar, and then Kira Sedgwick for something to talk about, and Diane Vanora for Heat.

Everybody who says that Heat got ignored by the critics, well, the Chicago critics had you. And then their most promising actor, it's so funny, they give it to Greg Kinnear for Sabrina. Sure. I had a chitel for Devlin, a blue dress, Benicio for usual suspects, Tamura Morrison for once We're Warriors and Mackay Fyfer for Clockers. Most promising actress, mini-driver for Circle of Friends, ahead of Tony Collette for Muriel's wedding, Salma Hayek for Desperado, Rina Owen for Once Were Warriors, and Alicia Silverstone for Clueless.

Legends, legendary, legendary nominations all. Chicago was on point in 1995, and I think we should just recognize that. Anything else anybody wants to say before we wrap this up? I can go too in depth into performances just to like, I guess, Ty of Bo on Denzel Washington. Not only is he so hot in this movie. Well, yes.

Invented the A shirt. But he's just like he's the most relaxed leading man that we've had in our lifetimes and the best. This is just such a good, confident performance that is so. I think easy to reduce as like Denzel doing a Denzel thing of like star persona, but I do think it is so character focused and allows us really to think about easy as a person in a way that

I think a lesser movie and a lesser performance wouldn't make space for. Oh my God, oh my God, I can't believe I just said make space. An ironic makespace. Excellent. Send me to the gulag. And then I want to talk about Jennifer Beals, who, like, to loop back to this whole thing of it is playing within a genre, also doing social realism, but it's trusting the audience and it's not pressing too hard on genre. I think she, her performance is maybe the best, like, on Front Street indication of that. I think she's so good, like, immediately. because it takes a while until we see this character.

This is another character that we hear a lot of before we ever get to meet her. Immediately kind of sparks that femme fatale thing and then is constantly, you know, complicating that or making us think about the traditions in a very different way. But I also just think just such a performer who, you know, we think of

in iconography because of flash dance but also maybe never really got to do this level of complex work and even so this is still a pretty small role I think she's just incredibly magnetic in this movie yeah I couldn't agree more I think um one of like the biggest and best things about it is like as much as easy is like the anti noire hero like Daphne is like the anti like femme fatal like she she's introduced that first scene that you're talking about where she gets introduced like she comes in in the blue dress and like she is you know lounging in this chair like she's very like luxurious she's very sensual like there is like such a charge between the two of them and she like leans into it a little bit because she's trying to play the role but as like

we see more and more of here there like there's the first time she sees a dead body she runs for the hills like she it's like too much for her she is like not equipped for this world that they're like navigating in and her end is like really tragic and sad and like heartbreaking and like it really is the more that we see of her character the more human she becomes whereas I feel like a lot of times femme fatals they're like introduced as very like compelling they often like they play down their like deviousness like no barber stanwick and like double indemnities like she's very like approachable at first and then it's like the more that she's around the more you can just see like how insidious she is whereas this is kind of doing the opposite um and i just yeah i think

she's she's so good in this and credit to to carl franklin to um one of the things that he did so in the book in that initial kind of set up they um daphne and easy like have sex and he felt like that would be a betrayal of her character because so much of her character in the movie is she's in love with carter like that's like everything she's doing is so that him and her can be together and that by having sex with easy it would be like betraying that and the audience wouldn't buy that as much and so I feel like that that's a really smart choice from from Franklin to cut that they even like shot that scene and he cut it out of the movie and you don't lose anything by losing that because the chemistry is so palpable yeah exactly

exactly yeah well and the denial of that for an audience is sometimes more compelling and is hotter you know um yeah she's she's she's constantly kind of as much as Daphne is a character who is performing she is performing that she can exist in this context that she is capable

of handling this type of violence and constantly is revealing that she really doesn't fit in in the circumstances she's been Yeah and she really convincingly plays that idea of somebody who is existing like in a sort of purgatory between worlds like Joe

mentioned earlier when she when that first scene happened she kind of instructs easy to go around the back so she like she knows how to operate in like white society where she's passing but she also has all of this like you know secret like shame over being a mixed race woman and like knowing that if the secret comes out like it would really damage her so she knows like partly how to operate in both worlds without ever feeling at home in either one and that's sort of like a really subtextual thing that's lays through the performance without ever really being like super explicit super she's not having a monologue, you know, giving all the details about that. Right. Right. Or even down to the fact that, like, the two things that are used as material for blackmail on this movie are photos of, like, child sex abuse and a secret, you know, a secret black past or whatever. And it's just like, these are the things that were morally equivalent back in. Right. Yeah. That's a good point. I mean, even back to like the more, the most basic thing, like the title itself is kind of, uh, hidden thing like she is the devil in a blue dress but like that's just kind of a noiree title and like

she's constantly showing us that she's not really right the devil she's she's the one who like out of anybody has like the most like pure heart yeah exactly like pure intentions with what she's trying to get out of this to the point where I'm watching the movie and kind of being like is she going to do something what's going on and ultimately she's stays pure. The title is also a lie because she does not wear one blue dress, she wears multiple blue dresses. The devil in blue

dresses. The nice lady in multiple blue dresses was rejected as a title for Carl Fornickland's movie. Can I bring up Tech Fujimodo for a second as I am off game? Yeah. One of the great sort of like outrages of my

Oscar watching history is every once in a while I'll be reminded that Tak Fujimoto has never been nominated for an Academy Award. And I'm just like, what the fuck? Looking at his filmography, obviously, it was a huge Jonathan Demi guy. The Silence of the Lambs is probably the, would be the apex of anybody's career. And it's certainly, I think, the apex of Tak Fujimoto's career.

I mean, I think especially Silence of the Lambs is crazy, because, like, that's a best picture winner. And the cinematography is, like, bangor as hell. So, yeah, that really is throwing me for a loop right now. The thing Silence of the Lambs wasn't nominated for Oscars for is kind of extra wild because I think, like, Howard Shore wasn't nominated for that. I think you're right. But, like, just for that final scene alone where it's the Night Vision or whatever, where he's right behind her, and then the scene where the light comes crashing through the window after it's been shot out. The cinematography is such, like, a defining, like, essential Silence of the Lambs.

Like, it is, like, very, like, text in Silence of the Lambs. Like, it's crazy to not nominate that. And then later on, kind of hooks up with M. Night Shyamalan is the cinematographer on The Sixth Sense, and signs, good Christ, designs a gorgeous looking movie. I always forget, though, that, like, Tak Fujimoto is one of the three cinematographers on Badlands. um the terence malick sort of runs off the first two he's the second of two cinematographers who get run off of badlands um and then that next year hooks up with demi for the first time so um also an alan rudolph movie in there uh Mitchell we just talked recently about an Alan Rudolph movie this one he did remember my name uh cinematography also and then a bunch of like pretty and pink Ferris Bueller's Day Off cocoon the return um remember my name Singles.

Yeah. I've never seen that one. We were talking, we did a whole nice conversation about my ignorance of Alan Rudolph and Mitchell was. I shout out that and choose me as like his, my two favorite Alan Rudolph's. So anyway, justice for, Justice for Tak Fujimodo. Elmer Bernstein also does the score for this movie. I mean. We talked about Elmer Bernstein when we did our far from heaven episode, but like, you know, incredible.

I also noted the Edgar Allan Poe Awards, which I feel like are like, you know, the Saturn Awards, but with more self-respect. Although they, like, again, it's sort of like what counts as, you know, for genre, I guess the usual suspects being a sort of hard-boiled crime thriller is a genre that wins the Edgar Allan Poe Award that year over Devil in a Blue Dress, Get Shorty, Dolores, Claiborne, and to die for. I'm glad to see some of these awards folks were giving Dolores Claiborne some love that year. Good movie. We've done a lot of 1995 Oscar buzzed movies, Chris, as I'm looking through a lot of these lists of precursors. Get Shorty, Dolores Clayboard.

And I probably should on leaving Las Vegas every episode, so here it is. Yeah, really true. Yeah. I think that's all I got. Oh, the other thing I noticed, is when I was making my notes of like classic noir elements, there's a moment where he picks up a pack of cigarettes,

which is a clue to something or other. And I was just like, is there a more sort of like down the middle, traditional noir element that like somebody finds a pack of cigarettes? And it's, well, this was the one thing I wanted to note is I'm watching the trailer for one false move and then watching this movie. There is a,

there's a way in which there's a version of like this is what making a movie this is what a movie is, you know what I mean, especially in like 90s is like, you know, a man's getting railroaded by, you know, by a criminal element and he's got to like, you know, figure out the truth of this thing and, you know, pack up your gun and we're going to go, you know, figure the shit out. It feels like this is in a sort of very kind of,

of, you know, I'm writing, I'm writing my great, you know, screenplay to get into Hollywood. And I feel like back in the 90s, it was all these sort of like crime thrillers, you know, these very sort of stylish crime thrillers. And now that like these things are a little bit more of a, of a, of a, not a museum piece exactly, but sort of like much more of an anomaly in, you know, I think the indie revolution sort of changed the face of what, like, writing your great American screenplay is. It used to be this, right? It used to be, you know, a man's operating outside the law and he's got to like figure it out. I mean, not wrong, especially for the 80s into the early 90s. I mean, the Cohen's probably being the most famous case, you know. But the Cohen's like arted it up, right? The Cohen's like brought in and intellectualized it a little bit and kind of brought humor to it. But the infrastructure also used to be so different that you could go and do that. And then your follow-up would be a studio-financed movie where they still kind of let you do your own thing. Like, this is that. The Cohen's had that. And now that doesn't

happen anymore. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like the Wachowski's like bound was like they were a proposition to make bound so like specifically as like their test run to get funding to do the matrix. Yeah. Yeah. He'd make this like little crime, you know, noir. thrillers so that you can do literally the thing that you are trying to like get funding to do specifically that's like your thing it's that thing they say every once in a while tom colicchio is so fond of saying this on top chef where he's like if you can make a roast chicken you can you know you can make anything and that's sort of like it's the roast this is the genre is the roast chicken of you know top chef also says this about eggs well also true listen anything that comes from a chicken

as applies. Mitchell, anything else you wanted to throw in about Devlin a Blue Dress before we move into the game? I think we're solid. All right, awesome. Chris, do you want to tell the listeners

what the IMDB game is? Every week, we end our episodes with the IMD game where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try to guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for. Then if any of those titles

are television, voice-only performances, non-acting credits will mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. That's not enough. It just becomes a free for all of hints. Yes, it does. That's the IMDB game. That's the IMD game.

All right, Mitchell, as our guest, you get the option of, do you want to give your clue first or guess first, and then in which direction you want to give or guess? Yeah, I will give first. All right. Um, and last time I gave to Chris, so this time I will give to Joe. All right. Um, and I believe you have not done yet Jude Law. Oh, shit.

Okay. That's fun. Um, I got to imagine that talented Mr. Ripley is on there. Correct. Okay. Now, I'm trying to think of like what Jude Law leading. Man performance. Cold Mountain?

No. Okay. See, I've already run into trouble. Okay. Because now the only other lead performances I can think of for him are like Alfie and Sky Captain in the world of tomorrow. And like, obviously his 2004 movies are fraught so much. I am going to guess Alfie, though.

No. time for the years The disappointment in your voice saying The disappointment's about to be in your voice, Joe All right, give me the years All right, so one of them is 2014 The other two are both 2004

Oh God, okay Is Iard Huckabee is one of them? Fuck, is it SkyCaptain in the fucking world of tomorrow? So SkyCaptain is one Which is the main reason that I wanted to do Jew law Because I felt like that was why I never would have SkyCaptain Also, I love Sky Captain in the world tomorrow.

I've only ever seen it the one time. He's the titular Sky Captain. All right. So, 2014, I'm going to leave the other 2004 one, put a pin in that one because there are two more options. Oh, no, wait. It's closer. It's closer. Objectively hilarious that the last 2004 Jude Law movie, you guess, was closer.

No, because I still have the 2014 one. No, but you guessed all of his other 2004 movie where you got to close. Aviator and Lemony Snicket. Oh, my God. Yeah. Big year, big year for two. Um, 2014,

Jude Law. So Anna Karenina's 2012. Great movie. Captain Marvel's not till later. Um,

not contagion. Is it, um, No, I think side effects. It's not side effects, is it? That's 2013, right? Yeah, side effects is 2013. Okay.

I don't think it's another Soderberg. Um, God. Wait, no. It's too early for Voxlux. Is this something that, like, am I missing something very obvious? it's just like weird For this game, yes For this game?

Yeah, it's kind of like It kind of like to Like for me when looking at like letterbox stuff Like it's like one that You would assume based on Who the director is that like It's basically like one of the most popular movies That like anybody who's in this director's movies

It's always going to be like one of their most popular But he also. Yes. For this game I genuinely forgot Jude Law was in this movie Like it's a small part. Oh, okay. Um, I do think that this movie has shown up for other people who have even smaller parts.

Yeah, I would assume. Is it an American movie or is it an English movie? American made, yeah. American made. Okay. But not set in America. Okay. Okay.

Oscar-e movie? It got a lot of nominations. Oh, it's Grand Budapest Hotel. Of course, yes, this shows up for so many people. And I always forget, but yeah, yeah, he's good in that movie. Yeah, I forgot. He is, yeah, he is good in. He's very good in that movie.

He's in that, like, nesting doll of, of, you know. He's with F. Mary Abraham, right? He's paired with that section, yeah. Yes, yes. Okay, so excellent job. Well chosen. All right. Chris, for you, I followed the Carl Franklin route down the rabbit hole to

my beloved leftovers and now it doesn't matter of who I am going to give you from there I have a few options and I think what I have decided to go with is Amy Brennaman One television show

three films And the television show is not the leftovers It's judging Amy Correct. Heat. Correct. Um, what was?

Now it gets interesting. Yeah, now it does get interesting. I think she's like Paul, not Paul Reiser's ex-wife in Can't Buy Me Love, but I can't imagine that she's in here. She's in a movie like that. It's not called Can't Buy Me Love.

It's called Bye-bye Love and it's not. Bye, by Love. I'll give that. I'll give you that one for free, that it's not that. I once tried to convince a group of friends in high school to go see bye-bye love at the theater, and it did not go well. Nobody was interested in seeing bye-bye love. Quite literally true among the populace.

Okay, so not the leftovers then, but, and that's it for TV. my guess is that one of these two movies is one that you'll remember her in and one of these two movies you have probably not seen probably because it's for boys so I will go that route and say she's not going to be in a Fast and Furious movie no she could be

and like yeah she should lead those things she should be like Vin Diesel's love interest um uh uh I think she, I'm just going to say, like, Taken 2. Um, not taken 2. Sorry, I was just, you mentioned the Fast and the Furious and I wanted to make sure this is correct.

The interesting thing about this is that the one movie that I don't think you're going to get is directed by the director of the Fast and the Furious. Oh. Um, the first Fast and the Furious director? Yes, yes. Who did the first one? Not a very well-respected director. Second one is Singleton. Yes, second one is Singleton, and then we move into Justin Lynn territory.

Yeah. Ooh. Is it like Joe LaTier? Louis LaTierreier? No, Louis Littier did the most recent one. Oh, okay. It is. He did the most recent one.

Yeah. Bad. Yeah, I kind of fell off watching that. Yeah. Um. The, uh, sort of like, actually, I mean, this person has a, uh, But they, oh, that's, sorry, I'm looking at, she's, she's like, she's like Liam Neeson or someone like Liam Neeson's wife and something like the gray. Is it the gray? It's not the gray. Okay, so your years are both 1996. Oh, okay. So, 1996, what would have been? One of them is, she's opposite, like, Mel Gibson and something? It's not that. She's playing the mother of an eventual Oscar winner in one of them.

What does that say that again? She's playing the mother of an eventual Oscar winner in one of them. This is the movie that you have definitely seen. It's about like sick children. It's not about sick children. It's about what if your daughter is dating someone. Oh, is this fear? Fear.

Yeah. There's just too much information. I forgot she's the mom. What if your daughter was dating? What if you, I didn't want to be like, what if your daughter is dating a psychopath because that was too easy,

but it was already too easy. What if your daughter is dating Mark Wahlberg? Okay, so your other one. It is a, it's a disaster movie, but it is a very sort of like contained. Oh, no, no, no. I have seen this movie.

Have you? It's not hard rain. It's daylight. It's daylight. Celeste Salon and Daylight, directed by The Fast and the Furious is Rob Cohen. I would never have imagined that daylight was in her note. A movie I definitely saw and remember zero things about,

including the fact that Vigo Mortensen's third build. All right, all right. Well done, well done. So, Chris, complete the circle. All right. So I was looking at contemporary noir movies that people like. One of those is Brick from the cast of Brick. I have chosen Lucas Haas.

Oh, Jesus. Decades of cinema to draw upon, I apologize. So, okay, yeah, that's weird. Inception? Inception is correct. These are not the four that I would have guessed. Oh, crap. Okay, I'm trying to remember, like,

Lucas Haas' movies that aren't Don's Plum. Is it a single seen Don's Plum? I haven't. Has anybody got in their hands on that? His presence in Don's Plum is probably instructive to getting one of these three remaining ones. Okay. That makes sense. That is helpful, potentially.

Is Witness one of them? Witness is correct. Yeah, now it's where it'll get tricky for me. His presence in Don's Flum. What? Fuck. Is he in Basketball Diaries? Basketball Diaries is incorrect.

He's also weirdly not in that, which is surprised. Yeah, that's what I was. I'm trying to remember, like, other Toby or Leo ones that he's even in. This is a good road to go down. He's so good, by the way, in Brick, can I say? Yeah, he's really good in Brick. It's the pin. I love Brick, too.

I do, too. What a great movie. Brick should be in his top floor. It's wild that these two are there, but brick is not. Oh, interesting. Okay. I feel like, I don't think he's in any other Leo movies. Oh, well, I'm going to look from suggesting that I'm wrong about that. I don't remember him in this movie, but he's...

Is he in Romeo and Juliet? No. Incorrect. So you'll get your years. Your years are 1996 in 2015. I will say one of these is a Leo movie that I think he dies in the first real of. Is he in the Revenant? He is in the Revenant.

And the Revenant is correct. Okay. So you still have 1996. Yeah, I never would have remembered him being in the Revenant. 1996, Lucas Haas is arguably the lead of this movie. and yet probably like 12 filled. Not name on the poster. There's a million names on this poster.

Oh, okay. I was not what that Winona Ryder movie he is. I would have guessed boys and it's not boys. It's not like 92? Probably right around 95, 96, yeah. This movie I constantly am like, I should watch that again as an adult. This is something that I think people have gone back and tried to ride for and end up being like, it's just okay. How does this movie not have an and credit, by the way?

That's, that's, it has to really. It's just not on the poster, at least, yeah. So according to the poster, Lucas Haas is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11th build. Yeah. And it's like, wow, Jesus. He is built behind. And he's arguably the lead. He's built in between two Oscar winners.

Yeah. One of whom is a Vegas headline. Wait, real? No. In the movie? Are we looking at the wrong? Are we looking at separate posters? I'm looking at the poster where, oh no, no, no, you're right.

Sorry. There is somebody in between the one Oscar winner. A real life Vegas headliner. Right. He's in between a Vegas headliner and an Oscar winner on the poster. Sorry, I overlooked somebody. He is arguably co-lead. Poor Mitchell.

We are, we are scrambling your brain. No, no, no. It's all, it's all fine. I'll also say it's a comedy. A comedy. That's interesting. It's not. Very starry comedy that has a real-life Vegas headliner.

It's not everyone says I love you, right? The Woody Allen. No, but that's the right year. Yeah. Infamous? Infamous comedy. Yeah, people hated that. People rejected this movie when it.

But it has gotten a big, There's a big contingent of secret masterpiece people out there, or at least, like, secretly good. I feel like everything that you said should make this very obvious to me at this point, but this is a director who has never been really fully embraced by the Oscars, never nominated for Best Director. eventually, we think, kind of stopped trying. But has directed one Oscar-winning supporting actor performance? Yes. Yes. What the hell?

Okay, okay. 1996. This is like, this is a bomb. Like, critics really hated this movie. It has a ton of A-list stars in it. It's a genre. comedy, too. Yeah.

Genre comedy. It's not like, no, it wouldn't, none of the other hints. I don't even think idle hands came out the same year.

No, it's like sci-fi, um, sci-fi comedy. It's not like, it's too early for the faculty. It is.

Think more into comedy than sci-fi. More into comedy than sci-fi. Okay. Yeah. It's not. Maybe I'm speaking too much that.

Lucas Haas is the secret lead of this movie because I'm scrolling through all of the all of the IMDB photos and there's very little

Lucas Haas. Yeah, he's like he's this movie has a lot of it's very segmented There's a lot of You could probably say Lucas Haas is the hero of the movie. Hero of the movie.

It's also heavily heavily referencing both like old-timey like sci-fi cheapy sci-fi movies, but also, like, the biggest movie of 1990. No, of that year, right? Oh, motherfucker.

It's Mars attacks. It's Mars attacks. It's amazing how much Mars attacks maps onto Independence Day, considering they were both released in the same year. Yeah, I have not seen Mars attacks probably since, like, around when it came out, and I did not remember him being in that movie. From your perspective, as a letterboxed person, what is the level of Mars attacks reclamation

that's... I think it still is fairly low. I feel like I remember doing like doing a thing like showing where like when

Beetlejuice 2 came out like showing Burton's like filmography like ranked by like letter box average rating and Mars attacks I feel like

was still pretty low like on time. Yeah it feels like the type of thing that people have tried to it's like to and they're like every time I see it 30 people on

film like Twitter like every time I see it I'm like here's where I'll get it because it seems like a movie I should like and I should appreciate and then every time I watch it I'm just like it is not coming together for me yeah on letterbox it's out of his like 20 feature length movies it's ranked 15th okay all right so kind of on the lower end well there's some there's some low lights in that filmography so yeah I got to say that's that's not speaking well of Mars attacks, but Mars attacks is definitely better than... That's what, like, it's, like, lower than, like, Charlie in the Chocolate Factory and, like, big eyes, which I would say that it's definitely got to be better than those stories.

Um, all right, well done on that. Mitchell, once again, uh, only, only appearing for banger episodes on this head off of us. So, um, your, your betting average is pretty high. Um, thank you so much. And, uh, listeners, that is our episode. you want more at ThisHad Oscar Buzz. You can check out the Tumblr at this head oscarbuzz.com. You should also follow our Instagram at This Head Oscar Buzz, and you can sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com slash this head Oscar Buzz. Mr. Beaupre, where would you like to direct our listeners to see or read more from you?

Sure. First of all, thanks so much again for having me. Very happy to be on Big Fan of the show. So always a pleasure. We love you. You can follow me on Letterbox. at just Mitchell is my username, Instagram and Blue Sky, Mitchell Bea Prey. As I mentioned earlier, I did, around the time the criterion for this came out. If you like this movie, I interviewed Carl Franklin

for the film stage. If you wanted to check that out, I also... We'll link it. It'll be on the Tumblr. Thank you, thank you. I also last year for Pace Magazine, I wrote an essay about Out of Time, which is the other Carl Franklin Denzel collab, which is another movie that I love very much. So if you wanted to check it out. I've never seen that movie. I should check it out sometime. It is a blast. Nice. Nice. All right, Chris, what about you?

Letterbox and Blue Sky, a Chris V-File. That's F-E-I-L. I am also on Blue Sky and Letterboxed at Joe Reed. Reed spelled R-E-I-D. You can also subscribe to my Patreon exclusive podcast on the films of Demi Moore called Demi, myself, and I. You can check out an episode on the film Mortal Thoughts featuring Mitchell Beaupray right here. We had a lovely conversation about that movie and about Jersey accents. and about why rat poison is so very prominently labeled and also other things.

Also, like, a genuine, like, education in Alan Rudolph that I got. So thank you very much for that, Mitchell. You could find that at patreon.com slash demipod, D-E-M-I-P-O-D. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork, Dave Gonzalez, and Gavin Mievous for their technical guidance and Taylor Cole for our theme music. Please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get podcasts, A five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple podcast visibility. So I forgot to write a line for this.

So how about you find the devil in a blue dress in your own life and introduce them to this podcast? And then you can both write nice reviews for us. That is all for this week. But we hope you'll be back next week for more bugs. You know,