This Had Oscar Buzz - 326 – The Dressmaker

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

As Lee-ver comes to a close (maybe?!), we decided to revisit a recent Kate Winslet vehicle that’s also a fun antidote to tHesE tiMeS. In 2015, Jocelyn Moorhouse (a director we love talking about here on THOB) returned with the TIFF premiere of The Dressmaker. Adapted from the Rosalie Ham novel, the film stars Winslet as a … Continue reading "326 – The Dressmaker"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Maryland Hack, Millen Hack and French. Dick Pooh Is that I remember that day She saw the whole thing

I think Tilly understands my particular body shape She certainly does Go on making their dresses Make him think they're classy They'll still hate you She murdered him He's curse. They'll never forgive me.

Why didn't you tell me? You're wasted here. I think we should run away together. This is just a pack of lies. I'm back, you bastards. Stop a charger. There's what. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast volunteering to go get more tequila so we can sleep with your husband.

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 red dress-wearing harlot who's interrupting the footy game. Chris File, hello, Chris. I'm big, you bastards. That's not even close to right.

Neither was Kate through most of this movie, so you're fine. Though, I am prone to during a sporting event that I don't care about. Likely to make it about myself. Like, what about, I know you're watching your sports ball, but what about me? Can I do a costume change? Will that get the attention back on to me? Okay. Let me distract both teams with my glamour.

A couple things right off of the top. A, was this your first time watching this movie? No, saw it in theaters. Oh, okay. My first time watching this movie. Oh, okay. I liked this more than the first time I saw it. I liked it more than I expected to.

My familiarity with this movie, the year that it played Tiff, I had dinner with a past guest of the show, Adam Vary, and Kate Arthur, who they were both working at, where the hell were they at the time? BuzzFeed? I don't know. Kate was at BuzzFeed at the time. And Kate had just come from seeing this movie, and she's like, can I please tell you the entire plot of the dress meet? because I need to tell somebody because it's insane. And so she told us the whole plot, and I had sort of, like, some of it had sort of drifted from my mind because when someone tells you the plot of something, it doesn't stick with

you as long. Sorry to say, all these 60-second plot descriptions in the world are not going to help you. I prepared mine today because after as soon as I watched it, I was like, Chris. So this is my week. I could see this going a disaster. and last week's episode, which we recorded, what, yesterday, two days ago? Yeah. I feel like we got so off the rails because we were so out of practice of doing just a regular normal episode.

Oh, we were discombobulated. I got to get it together, so I prepared today's. We'll see. The other thing I wanted to mention, though, is, and we love all of our listeners from all places across the globe. So, like, um, everybody take this with the spirit in which it is intended. Um, what's going on in Australia while the rest of us are living our lives and being normal? Because every time there's a movie where it's just like, we're going to be Australian as fuck. And it, like, it is the wildest shit is going on. I mean, this definitely is

an Australian comedy and its sensibility. in its sense of humor, in its tone. I don't say that pejoratively in NRA.A. But I also do think, you know, us being Americans, this does very much apply to small town American. Oh, there are, yes, absolutely. There are ways that this applies to sort of insular. I mean, my two comparisons, literally the thing that I wrote down was,

you know how they say like March. enters like a lion and goes out like a lamb, the dressmaker enters like To Wong Fu, thanks for everything, Julie Newmar, and exits like Dogville. Basically, yeah, it is the center of the Venn diagram of Dogfiel and Tuong Fu. 100%.

You wouldn't think there would be a center to that diagram, but the dressmaker has proved you wrong. But it's, yeah, but I think about like this movie, I think about Australia, I think about Muriel's wedding, because obviously P.J. Hogan co-wrote this movie. I think about even stuff like... Drag Race Down Under.

I haven't watched Drag Race Down Under, so I don't know. Again, with the spirit it is intended, I think you're fine to not watch Drag Race Down Under. All respect to those queens. I think about Wolf Creek. I think about, you know, it's just like, it's all breaking loose down under and more respect. But like, this movie...

it cranks up the dial way, way, way, way high in a way that I find really kind of bracing, and I was just like, oh, right, we're going for it. Let's do this fucking thing. It's broad in a way that you can understand

a North American audience bristling at it. I think we take ourselves too seriously for this movie. I think it's kind of no mystery. read that a lot of the people who enjoy this movie most are girls' gays and days. I also just think like

this movie was under you know, was slipped under the door of American the American marketplace. I don't think people had a chance to reject it because people, most people don't know that this movie even exists. But I do think we agree the audience

that saw that at its first festival premiere at that TIF. Fair, fair. Wasn't entirely fair to this movie. Though I don't know if you can It's a movie, I mean, comedically, I do think you have to meet it on its level. Yeah. You know, and it's not going to necessarily be a movie for everyone, and I don't think it's trying to be. Right.

But I also have a really good time with this somewhat messy movie. Well, it's messy. The stuff that I find the most sort of, like, legitimately flawed about it are the fact that, like, how many times do we need to sort of establish. the fact that these women in the town are, you know, awful, gossipy, judgmental. Like, how many times does Sarah Snook have to, like, go through the cycle of, like, she's bad, but she's, like, you know, getting costumed and she's coming around and nope, she's bad again. And like, now, but she needs a costume.

So whatever. And she's coming around. Nope, she's bad again. And it's just like, oh, okay. Like, I mean, there is, I mean, this is trying to be a broad comedy. So I don't know if it's necessary. if, like, human truth is the first goal of this movie. I don't know if it's necessarily even the fuller thing.

Sure. I just mean in terms of, like, a narrative, like, that plays, like, that exists unto itself, I think. There is a cluster. I do think Gertrude is an interesting character in this type of dynamic that we don't see in these, like, small town outsider movies. That is really honest, that you have these people who straddle the line, but ultimately will always fail you. Sure. Sure. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that's true. I think that's maybe giving the movie a little bit more credit than it deserves. You found it more annoying than I found it honest. I just found it to be like we're sort of spinning our wheels a little bit to get to the point where we need to be at the end where everybody in the town is bad. I also feel like the movie sort of threatens to become Shuck a lot at any moment to pick out another movie that this movie sort of felt like. It's the Venn diagram of two.

two wong fu dogville and shock a lot and shock a lot yeah and there's a lot of like shock a lot and two wong fu have a lot in common i sort of i i thought about making a listicle of movies where a charismatic stranger either comes to a town or returns to a town and you know changes everything um but then this movie does veer so far into like dogville territory then it's just like okay I also kind of feel, I feel tempted to talk about it in a queer context, which is hard to do when you have an actual queer character in the movie. But Tilly to me is like, you know, she, her, she goes by Tilly. Everybody still calls her, what is it, Myrtle. Yeah.

And I'm like, I'm not the one to call this transcoded. Oh, God, Chris. And just the whole, like, outsider of small town life and they ostracize you and they exaggerate the truths about your circumstances just so they can make you more of an outsider is inherently queer-coded, you know? Yes. Man, we're bringing the swear jar out back again. You thought it was done after we don't live here anymore, but the swear jar is back. That was the one thing I kept reined in in that episode. I could have had much...

You really could have... And we don't live here anymore episode, yeah. You really could have gone a full boat. But yeah, I was very happy to have, you know, enjoyed myself as much as I did with this movie. And I think there's going to be, you know, plenty of really interesting things to talk about with this movie, not least of which Judy Davis as Kate's mother in this movie, Molly Dunnage, like quite, like, that's the other thing. It's just like the names in this movie are Molly Dunnage, Trudy Pratt.

What's, oh, Marigold, Merigold Pettyman, you know what I mean? Like all this sort of stuff. It's just like, okay, there's a beulah in this movie. There's a town is called Dungatar. Seriously. Is Bula the other designer in the movie? I can't remember. I'm just looking at literally like a list of names.

Anyway, yeah, this movie kind of goes for it in a way that I kind of love. It's also our third Jocelyn Morehouse movie, which you wouldn't think possible considering Jocelyn Morehouse has not directed very many movies. Jocelyn Morehouse, a director who makes movies that I enjoy. Did you see The Fabulous Four this summer? I sure didn't. Everyone went real hard on that movie in a way that I found kind of unfair, and like, that movie was aesthetically a nightmare. Maybe some of the worst green screen I've ever seen. But I got a good time at that silly movie. Who are our fabulous for? It is Cheryl Lee

Ralph, Susan Stranden, Bet Midler, and Megan Mullally. I should have included that movie in the game I did for the one quiz where I had everybody put together. They're the lists of gal pals? I guarantee you. I will be playing it on the Cinematrix at some point. It's interesting, you know, it's... Number in title. It is a little paint by numbers of a movie,

but I think, you know, the jokes land in it, so who am I to say whatever? Megan Mullalley is basically a character who at every point is like, should we take edibles? Do you want to take some edibles? Let's have some edibles. We could smoke this. like that is all she does

and then Cheryl Lee Ralph is there to sing and then Bet Midler is like, wait I have to sing too Bet Midler is maybe really miscast in this movie but all that said I had a great time. Did you ever see the Tony Collette movie mental

that she did from the PJ Hogan movie that Jocelyn Morehouse oh she only produced it, PJ Hogan director Jocelyn Morehouse probably has produced as much as she has directed.

They're married, right? Jocelyn Morehouse and P.J. Hogan? They're sort of a... Oh, I didn't know that. I think so. Oh, they are married. Yeah. Because they like...

One will produce and the other will direct and then, you know, vice versa. And they obviously both were co-writers on the screenplay for this. And I enjoy their movies. Yeah, yeah. As do I. I think PJ Hogan sort of gets the

better filmography, obviously. he's got Muriel's wedding and my best friend's wedding. And I even thought Confessions of a Shoppollic wasn't that bad. Unconditional love. No, I've never seen Unconditional Love with Kathy Bates, Rupert Everett, Dan Aykroyd. I've never seen that movie. I'm in. He also did the Peter Pan with Jason Isaacs as Captain Hook. Jocelyn Morehouse's filmography is a little bit more sort of, spare, but we've done an episode on How to Make an American Quilt, and we've done an episode on a thousand acres. Neither one of those movies, sort of like The Dressmaker, you know, all of these movies kind of feel like

our culture was sort of like, set it to the side. Dressmaker is certainly the most unheralded of those three. Those two are probably closer to an Oscar nomination. than this was excluding costumes because people were predicting this for costumes up until the last night.

Well, it's a movie about costumes. I always say that movies about the craft that they are going to be nominated for are, do have an advantage. And, like, if this had gotten that costume nomination, it was also on the short list for makeup and hairstyling. So consider it would have been deserved. It would have been deserved for either of those nominations.

Would have been very deserved, actually. Who is the costume designer for the dressmaker? Hold on. I want to give credit where credit is due because, sorry, costumes by Marian Boyce and Margo Wilson and, oh, the makeup. See, IMDB does not do a good job of sort of letting you know who's in charge of the makeup department. Instead, they will give you, excuse me, instead they will give you 25 names. of everybody who worked on, like, the hair and makeup team. I'm going to also say this. The Academy has nominated much, much, much, much, much worse supporting actress performances than Judy Davis in this movie. I agree. We're going to talk about the 2016 supporting actress class.

A supporting actress class that I feel like is pretty strong from top to bottom. I don't think there are any glaring weekspots. But I do feel, I do agree with you that there are a few people in, you know, in 2016 who would have been worthy. insurgents to that lineup. I think Judy Davis, in the dressmaker, quite surprisingly to me, is one of them. Not surprising to me because I don't think Judy Davis has

the goods, because we'll also get into that. I do think Judy Davis very much has the goods. But I think despite the fact that she got onto the ballots of a handful of sort of smaller regional supporting

actress lineups that year, she wasn't really part of the discussion as much, which is too bad because she is quite good of this. And I think that's because she's so outside of the convert more than she should be. I mean, like, uh, this is also a movie that like straddles two years, sorry. Oh, God. No, I was going to say this is also a movie that straddles two years. So like it, you know, premieres at TIF in 2015 and then does not get released until 2016.

And I think a lot of the times of those movies, unless there is a. strong sort of, you know, top-down, like studio, studio-divised plan to really push something. Like the wife. Exactly like the wife. Those movies tend to sort of peter out, which is... Those movies tend to get his three daughters. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Judy Davis, though, I think with the exclusion of locked in gays like us, is someone who gets forgotten as someone who was very, very close to winning an Oscar. Yes, yes, she was. She was the one who was predicted to win the year that Marissa Tomei won, that she was kind of the consensus. I think some people thought that perhaps Vanessa Redgrave might get a, you know, a surprise sort of, you know, legend, second Oscar for Howard's End. But I feel like those were, Joan Plowright had won the Globe that year. I believe, and then who's your fifth nominee? Plowright, Redgrave, Judy Davis, Miranda Richardson in damage. For damage, yeah. Oh, she's so good in damage. And she's, she was repping multiple. That was her big breakthrough year where she's in that movie and Enchanted April and the crying game. So there was, there was, it's sort of like the year that Tilda Swinton one, where there was a case to be made

for everybody, which probably, again, I don't want to use the term split, because I know you object to it that way. But it, but it probably distributed the votes on a, on a more even level, which is how, you know, odd things happen sometimes. And I ultimately think Tilda wins because she has the benefit of being in a movie that everyone else really, really loved. Yes. But it wasn't going to win an Oscar elsewhere. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think that's true. So it's like it's also awarding that movie. Yeah. She also, well, I was going to say she's also the one. who had, like, the clip, but, like, Ruby D. also had the clip that year where she was, you know, the scene where she slapsed Denzel, that sort of became, you know. But anyway, we're sort of hopscatching around different supporting actors years. But yeah, Judy Davis for husbands and wives, Woody Allen's husbands and wives, was kind of the odds maker's favorite going into the 92 Oscars. And she has that moment. I'll always remember when Jack, Jack, is it Palance or Palisks? Palance. I know I've heard it pronounced. It has to be Palance. I think I've only ever heard

Patel. I think when Billy Crystal says it at the Oscars, he says Palance, but I'd seen so many other people say it as Palance. But anyway, Jack Palance, presenting, because he had won the year before and did the one-arm push-ups and made the hooker jokes and all that sort of stuff the year before. So he's presenting, and his joke, his sort of scripted banter joke is this is the first time in history that all five women are, I think he says like foreign or something like that, but all five nominees are, you know, come from different countries, four of them British and one of them from Brooklyn, because Marissa Tome is playing, you know, Mona Lisa Vito. And of course, Judy Davis is not British. She is Australian. And she visibly blanches when they cut to her reaction shot. She's like, no, the fuck I'm not. It's really kind of funny. Wrong hemisphere, friends.

And as somebody who has been known to blithely mistake both Aussies and Irish people and Scots for English, I understand it, Jack. You're not forgiven. Also, he didn't write it. whoever wrote that hung that man out to dry but I wonder if anybody got a talking to after that because Judy looked pissed and probably rightly so

but anyway, yeah, she had also been nominated in 1984 in lead actress for a passage to India a movie that unfortunately I don't love of the sort of EM Forster adaptations of the

80s and early 90s, I'm very much... Kind of a comeback for David Lean in a way, even though Ryan's daughter made a bunch of money, but Ryan's daughter is awful. It's kind of the last big David Lean movie, right? Like, what does he do after that? I think it's his last one. Is his last entirely just his last one? Give me a second. Hold on.

Now we're looking up David Lean. We're really going places with this episode. I love it. We're back, baby. Yeah. Passage India. final film, 1984. Hadn't directed a film since Ryan's daughter 14 years prior. Yeah, wow. Sad Trump. Oh, noise.

Yes, but yeah, I don't love a passage to India. If we're talking about the EM Forster sort of cinematic uvra, I am a Room with a View with a Howard's End chaser, and then passage to India is lower, let's say. Of the EM Forster movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that a passage to India often gets looped in with the Merchant Ivory movies because of its similarities to the for the E.M. Forster thing. Yeah, yeah. And the timing. And the people in it, honestly. What's your lean ranking slash have you seen summertime?

Here's where you're going to make me admit to how you, David, lean movies I've seen. Listen, listen, summertime is not going to take a whole chunk out of your day like Lawrence of a race. Arabia will, just go see summertime and try not to, like, just weep at the things that Catherine Hepburn's face could do. I've seen two David Leon movies. It's really bad. It's really bad. I've seen a passage to India and Lawrence of Arabia. And that's it. Haven't seen Bridge on the River Kwai. Haven't seen Dr. Javago. Haven't seen brief encounter. Yeah, you've got to see. Forgive me. Brief encounter and summertime. Just put those at the top of your list. I'm going to be potentially controversial and say, Dr. Javago is fine. Dr. Javago, how long is Dr. Javago? I think it's not as long as Lawrence of Arabia, but close.

It is. So the original cut, I apparently, 193 minutes, there was a 1992 re-released that added seven minutes. Thanks. It's a 200-minute movie, y'all. I don't know, man. The most interesting thing about Javago to me is, is that not the year that Julie Christie won for Darling? 65, yeah. Yeah, it's one of those things where somebody is in perhaps even a bigger movie, but they win an Oscar for the movie that showcases them better.

Oh, my God. It's written by Boris Pasternak. Were you on? No, this is the, the, to me, myself, and I episode that I recorded with Katie and Richard about the Vanity Fair cover. And I mentioned my grand theory of how I learned about things, which is I learned about world history through either The Simpsons. We Didn't Start the Fire or the Donald Sutherland monologue in JFK. Boris Pasternak, the author of Dr. Javago, is in We Didn't Start the Fire. It's one of the lyrics in We Can Start the Fire. So once again, Billy Joel comes through. Everyone goes to Demi, myself, and I over on Patreon. You'll be fine. You just had me on there talking about Demi's Oscar chances.

That's right. You're going to have me back on there soon. Yes, it's going to be great. It's going to be fun. But anyway, yes, I am shamefully deficient in the number of David in movies that I have seen. So, um, uh, let's fucking fix that, Joe Reed in the future. Back to Australia.

Back down on death. The dressmaker. Yes, dressmaker. Um. Driesmaker. The dressmaker. Uh, good movie. I don't care what anybody who takes themselves too seriously to enjoy this

movie thinks about it. I do feel like you're somewhat creating a villain that doesn't exist. I just think it, I don't, I don't think it was that people hated the dressmaker. I think nobody saw the dressmaker. But that leaves negative opinions about it to like, rise to the top. It's just sitting there on Amazon for y'all to check out eventually. It's there on Amazon. We know how we feel about Amazon on this podcast and how they handle their movies.

Yeah, it's absolutely insane. Jocelyn Morehouse herself described the movie. I'm getting this from Wikipedia, as Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven with a sewing machine, which I think is a very funny way to describe. She's not wrong. I mean, sure, but like... Dogville, if it was sponsored by, I don't know, Chanel. Well, there's not really a Chanel movie.

This is like Dogville sponsored by Balenciaga. You mentioned Kate Winsett saying, I'm back, you bastards. That's the first line in the movie. The second line, kind of. is Hugo Weaving, saying, is that Dior? I was like, well, I like this movie. So here we go. Hugo Weaving, who has made the best and most lucrative career for himself and never setting foot off of the continent of Australia.

Like, genuinely, he's just like, I'm just going to wait for the movies to come to me. You know what I mean? It's going to, you know, Lord of the Rings wants to come to New Zealand. I'll go to New Zealand. The Matrix wants to film in Australia. I'll do it. Like, that's fine. Just like, I'm not, you know, America's none of my business. You know, I'm just going to stay here. I'm just going to do Priscilla. And you want to bring the dressmaker to me. Great. You know, let's do it. Let's, you know, let's have a good time. Hard pressed to say what the best Hugo Weaving performance is because there's so many. Yeah. Hugo Weaving's incredible. It's probably Priscilla. It's probably Priscilla. He's maybe the third best of those lead performance. which is not an admonishment because that movie's great

and all three of those performers are great. Who is your number one in that movie? I mean, it's Terence Stamp. You think so? Terence Stamp, who, you know, is playing a trans woman, which, you know, in the early 90s. But, like, I think that's one that a lot of people speak of complimentary.

Complementarily? Complementarily? Hugo Weaving's the uncle of Samara Weaving from fucking Ready or Not and great I had no idea about that good for both of them I think she's a little overrated

but only because I feel like people overrated ready or not a little bit but you know good for everyone good for everybody I like that okay um yeah I think I just love Guy Pearce

in Priscilla so much so so much but yeah incredible three lead performances in that movie um Just to like maybe like get us back on the path of talking about this movie, this is maybe the closest or at least the first thing I can think of that is interested in making Kate Winslet a movie star. She gets that real movie star mid-century melodrama showcase at the start of that movie that I'm back, you bastards, while smoking, you know.

Yeah. Does every great. actress of the last 50 years need their Australia movie. Kate gets it, Nicole gets it, Merrill gets it, who else? It's Merrill's Australian movie? Cry in the Dark. Oh yeah. Isn't she a New Zealander in that movie? I don't think so. Hold on. Don't remember. I've only seen that movie once and didn't care for it. Um, I think she's tremendous in it. Um, A. Cry in the Dark, aka Evil Angels, but I don't recognize that as such. Sorry in the Dark, better title. Still vague, but better than Evil Angel. Yes, but all better title. Yes, they're camping in the Australian Outback. Another Fred Skepsy movie. Why were we just talking about Fred Skepsy? He had directed Roxanne. Right, we were talking about Roxanne. Also directed The Russia House, a movie that we could absolutely do for this podcast. Also directed six degrees of separation.

All right. We said we were going to get back to The Dressmaker, and then I immediately took us down the road to Fred's skepsy. Do you not want to talk about this movie? No, I do, but I think this is one of those movies that sort of like takes us down some really fun and interesting tangent roads, which I do love. Do you want to maybe get us back on track by doing the plot description

and before that doing our tease for the Patreon? You know what? Yes. Okay. Listener, if you are new to us, if you are old to us but haven't signed up, we have a Patreon. It's called This Had Oscar Buzz Turbulent Brilliance, and you can subscribe for only $5 a month. For that $5, what are you going to get? You're going to get two bonus episodes every month, at least.

We'll get into it. The first of which comes on the first Friday of every month. These are our exception episodes. These are movies that fit that this had Oscar Buzz rubric but manage to score a nomination or two. We haven't planned what's coming up in February, but this month in January, we talked about none other than David Lynch's Mull Holland Drive. Hell yeah. I must say that was a really fun episode.

It was. It was a great episode. Our exception episodes are usually pretty fun. There are a good time. We've talked about movies like The Lovely Bones. The Mirror Has Two Faces, Pleasantville, Madonna's WE, Betcha forgot the Madonna movie, got an Oscar nomination, it sure did. Movies like Vanilla Sky,

recently How So Gucci, Hitchcock, Far from Heaven, my best friend's wedding, we've had Jorge Molina on for Knives Out, Katie Rich on for Australia. I just listed a bunch of movies. You can go start subscribing now for $5 a month and you have this huge

backlog of episodes you can enjoy right now. Then on the third Friday of every month, we have what we call an excursion. This is a deep dive into Oscar ephemera we love to obsess about and just, you know, off the path type of things for this had Oscar Buzz. We've done things like recapping old award shows like Golden Globes, MTV Movie Awards. We've looked at entire EW fall movie preview issues. You're going to want to subscribe for our upcoming excursion, which is the second annual This Had Oscar Buzz Superlatives episode.

where all of our Patreon Gary's are voting in a best picture ballot, and then we give our answers for some of the more nebulous, strange, and curious awards that are given out throughout the season. So that's going to be a lot of fun that's coming up in about two, three weeks. So go on over to patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz and sign up for turbulent brilliance today. Fantastic. All right, Chris, the 60-second plot description of The Dressmaker awaits you. But first, The Basics, we're talking about the 2016 film The Dressmaker, directed by

Jocelyn Morehouse, written by Jocelyn Morehouse and P.J. Hogan, based on the novel by Rosalie Hamm. Ham. Thank you. Starring. Kate Winslet, Judy Davis, Liam Hemsworth, Hugo Weaving, Sarah Snook, Caroline Goodall. Who else? I left out a bunch of the other, Sasha Horler, James McKay,

Rebecca Gibney, Shane Bourne, Alison White, Barry Otto. Carrie Fox. Carrie Fox is in this movie. Lots of folks. Darcy Wilson plays the young version of Myrtle, aka Tilly. Just lots of going on. Lots happening. All right. It premiered September 14th, 2015, at the Toronto International Film Festival, and then was not released until over a year later in limited release on September 23rd, 2016. This is sort of what I was talking about, about how these movies that straddled years often just sort of fizzle away. Chris, I have my stopwatch ready whenever you are prepared to deliver in 60 seconds, the entire overstuffed plot of the dressmaker.

Ready? Yeah. Go. After 25 years in exile, Tilly returns to our Australian village, Dungatar, to settle old score. The entire town blames her for the death of a child, and she blacked out the memory, so she doesn't know. Her mother, Molly, is mentally ill in the town outcast, so their home has basically

fallen into disrepair. It's kind of a hoarder house. Tilly has become a couture dressmaker and makes her return known at the town soccer match where she is blamed for distracting the team with her flashy gown, only for her to reveal into another flashy gown, distracting the opposing team and helping her hometown team win. Starting with Gertrude, a local kind of square nerdy woman, Tilly begins to be commissioned for dresses by the townspeople,

all while still being labeled a murderer. She befriends a local cop who also loves dressing in gowns and tells her the identity of her father and also begins a love affair with Liam Hemsworth, whose disabled brother is the only witness to the truth, which eventually comes rushing back to Tilly, that the dead boy was a bully who ran himself into a brick wall while trying to harm her.

Cue several tragedies. William Hensworth dies in a tragic attempt to show Tilly that she's not cursed. The cop gets arrested when Molly gives this town's woman a bunch of weed brownies, but really they just want to arrest him for being queer. Molly dies of a stroke, and the wife of Tilly's father murders him very gruesomely. Freed from her perceived curse, Tilly sets her family home, and then ultimately the town on fire, and she flees to Paris by train. Honestly, 23 seconds over is not bad for everything.

For as much as is going on in the suit. So lots happening in this movie. We, you, you know, you mentioned it, obviously, but you didn't really zero in on the fact that Liam Hemsworth dies in a tragic sorghum accident, which you just don't. Wait, is that what happens in witness? Who is the bad guy that dies in a silent? Really? In witness. I got a sea witness. Isn't there Danny Glover? He's the bad guy. Does he die in a tragic silo accident? But it's he the one that gets, you know, asphyxiated by silo. I just love that in the movie, they're like, he thought he was diving into a silo full of wheat. But it turned out to be sorghum. And as we all know, people sink into sorghum more so than they sink into wheat. I'm like, sure. You know what? Flower. Flower really isn't just flour. And, um. Liam's Hemsworth. Liam singular Hemsworth.

How old is everybody supposed to be in this movie, by the way? Thank you. Great question. Also, he doesn't have a name in this movie. He's just Liam Hemsworth. He's just Liam Hemsworth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. His waxed torso clinging onto the linen boxer shorts they give him in this,

see, in that, you know, suit-making scene. And that happens not so long after. the scene where Sarah Snook is just poured into this one dress that they have her in, where it's just like, va, va, va, voam. And it's just like, this is... After previously being introduced with a literal bow in her hair. Well, and a bird's nest atop her head, too. Like, her hair is just, like, absolutely just like, she's a real mess.

And then all of a sudden, it's just like, oh, no. Like, this lady has, like, the, like, the dangerous curves road sign accompanies. accompanies her wherever she goes. This is a horny movie for certain stretches, and I appreciate it. So, yeah. Sarah Snook, I think this is the first time that I had ever seen her in something, but I had known her since the casting of Lisbeth Salander, which I followed maybe too obsessively.

Oh, interesting. I think it came down to her Emily Browning and Rooney Mara ultimately. Emily Browning, sure, sure. And I think in the final season of Succession, Sarah Snook was finally asked about those auditions. Yeah. But at that point, I think she was mostly unknown, at least outside of Australia. It's so wild to me still. I'm knowing that she's like, even, I knew from pretty early on in Succession that she's Australian.

Her accent does kind of poke out every once in a while on Succession, which is kind of fun. But it's still so wild to me as somebody who knows her. primarily for Shiv Roy, to see her sort of speak in her native accent, I got to the end of Mary, not Mary and Max, memoir of a snail. And I was like, the fuck it was Sarah Snook. Like, what are you talking about? I think she has a pretty distinct voice. I was like, yep, that's Sarah Snook the first time. See, I'm still learning to recognize her actual voice. because I was absolutely and who's the brother

the brother is Cody Smith McPhee who was one of those people it's just like ah yes the highly recognizable voice of Cody Smith McPhee which is good for him in that case highly recognizable voice in that movie and Jackie Weber

pretty good in memoir of a snail also like the character design of that because it's stop motion that is a movie that like come to me come to me in a year and that movie will have, like, shot up my rankings probably. I'm still sort of, like, so kind of like, oh, my God, this movie is so fucking punishing

and miserableist. But I bet you, like, come back to me after a year or two, and I will think probably a lot better of memoir of a snail, because I do think it is very well done. It is just sort of, it's one of those things where it's just like, hey, we know it's stop motion animation, but that doesn't mean that we can't also be about. sexual assault. And it's just like, oh. Gay bashing.

Gay bashing. Fetishes that are bad. Like, just, oh, God. So, the dressmaker. So, Winslet's character, sort of literally, you know, this iconic stepping into town,

and back you bastards. Judy Davis is her mother, There's a good bit of business in the beginning of the movie where Winslet has to get Judy Davis to remember who, that she's her daughter. And you can't quite tell if it's dementia or she's just being obstinate about, you know, she doesn't want to, you know, acknowledge the fact that her daughter is back because she's mad at her. But she's also like the town eccentric, the town sort of outcast. You get these flashbacks to when they were younger. And she's just sort of like, the town harlot because she's the single mother and this

it's this very sort of like very old-fashioned you know reasons to exile somebody and it's especially because

her actual birth father has a position of prominence in the town which we don't find out till later later later in the movie but like even

just for the fact that like she's despised because she's a single mother and thus her child is also despised. And it's over the top in some ways, but it's also like, it's,

it is the Dogville thing of like, by being so sort of overt in its hatefulness, by the town being so overt in its hatefulness towards these characters, it really just sort of like makes the point, you know, that it's making about, you know, the ways in which people are ostracized in this way. Like, literally, this girl, young Kate White, Winslet gets accused of murder as a 10-year-old and then driven out of town as if she's like As if a 10-year-old child could break a mother child? Charles Manson or something like that. Well, that's the other thing.

And, like, the teacher is so, you know, vehemently hateful because you get the scene later in the movie where Winslet confronts her about her witness statement, which is completely fabricated. And she, like, makes up this whole story about, like, young Winslet grabbing a brick and, like, bashing this kid's head in or whatever. And ultimately, she saw nothing. And she's like, I couldn't say because it would have been my fault because I was supposed to be in charge. And his father was so powerful and whatever. And she's, like, scared for whatever.

But, like, even before that, we see her sort of, like, looking out the window, knowing that this boy is, you know, intending to assault her in somewhere or another. And she, like, sneers and turns away. So, like, clearly, like, she hated this little kid's ass. You know what I mean? It's just, like, the whole town, we see a flashback of, like, the kids in the schoolyard holding her up by her arms and allowing this little shit to, like, do, like, a Toro bull run into her stomach, which is what he ultimately tries to do later and she moves out of the way, and he cracks his skull, which, like, Darwin Awards, party of one.

Like, you know what I mean? Sometimes we're just too stupid and hateful and awful. live. Sorry, kid. But like, to have the town be so cruel to a literal 10-year-old child is so over the top. And yet, like, that's sort of what the, that's the point. That's the point. Yeah. The narrative intention of this is how simple biases and simple grudges and hatreds spin out into these things of massive consequence, especially when there's like power structures involved. Well, and especially when it's a small town where power structures can really sort of turn one person into, you know, the all-powerful sort of figure in the town so that everybody

is either scrambling to get on this person's good side or, you know, a target of his wrath. And like, this guy, what the fuck is his character's name? Pettyman? Fuck, whatever. Evan, right? Evan. Yes, her father, Evan Pedigman. Who, like, drugs his wife on the regular and then rapes her while she's asleep. Like, he's just, like, the most awful, awful man. And, you know, sees Judy Davis later in the movie, have a stroke in the town square, and, like, goes back to reading his paper or whatever, just like a hateful person. And then he gets, as you mentioned, in your plot description, murdered, he gets pet cemeteried, essentially. with his Achilles tendons being like sliced into and he bleeds out.

He gets high-tensioned. Oh, yes. Well, also that. I always think of it as the little kid in Pet Cemetery with Fred Gwyn. In fairness, there's a lot of shit that goes down in high-tensioned. That could mean many. Yeah. So this movie becomes two Wong-Fu crossed with Chalkala, crossed with Doggill, crossed with Doggville, crossed with...

Crossed with High-Tensit of all of its political context. Right. Right. What was I saying? They're just so mean to this poor little girl. They're just so mean. So, like, of course, you're so, I like that Tilly comes back to town with the intention of getting her revenge through fashion. That is, like, she's going to use her talents, which, oh, also, this movie is a little bit.

Get yourself back up and make them eat it. It's a little Mrs. Harris goes to Paris also. There's not. Not that. Mrs. Tilly went to New York Silly. Revenge town. And comes back full of revenge and Hocator and decides to begin her revenge by offering her services to the women. This is where the movie sort of like feels a little sort of muddy to me, where it's just like, does she fall sort of backwards?

into outfitting the town. I thought for a second that maybe that the movie was going to become a little more shock a lot, a little more to Wong Fu, where all of a sudden she was going to initially seek revenge, but then she was going to find the healing powers of helping these women overcome the awful, awful men in their lives by liberating them through the forces of fashion. because, like, fucking Marigold Pettyman, who is the drugged wife of Evan Pettyman, the big bad. She's being victimized. All sorts of these other women are sort of, at the very least, being, you know, victims of the patriarchy in one way or another.

But the movie doesn't really feel like doing that. And I think, to its credit, I think there would have been a lot of fun to be had with a movie that does the two Wong-Fu thing of just like, we are going to liberate all of these small-town women through fashion. But the movie's just like, well, no, like, there are some- It states a revenge movie, and it gives you more reasons for her to seek revenge. Well, and Liam Hemsworth. I know what happens to her in this movie that she could get revenge just for what happens in this movie. Liam Hemsworth is ultimately a good man. Hugo Weaving is ultimately a good man.

The guy who Sarah Snook marries is like part of the town, so he's bad. But he's kind of like the least bad one of his family. Do you know what I mean? Like he's just, you know, he's certainly no, he's guilty by association with everybody else. But ultimately this movie is just like, man, you may want a side with these women because they're women. but like, these are fucking dicks. Like, they're just fucking jerks. And they ultimately, maybe that's the, the positive side of my problem with, you know,

the fact that Sarah Snook's character keeps sort of like going in this like curlicue motion is maybe it's making a statement of just like, much as me, we may give these people an opportunity to avail themselves of our talents and our kinds. and we may hope that that will be enough to get them to come around. Sometimes the allure of being part of the pack and being, you know, sort of hateful in our fear of other people is going to keep people from ultimately coming to our side. And maybe that's the lesson to be learned there, which is a grim lesson to be sure. But in 2025, as we sit on the precipice of a second Trump administration, maybe the lesson that people ultimately will disappoint you by not coming around is one that's a little applicable?

This is a very comforting movie for these times, I must say. If anybody feels a pull to go home and is like, you know what? No, this is a movie for you. Yeah, yeah. I'm trying not to. We were, we did, or I should say, I pushed us to be like, you know what, it's a good time to do the dressmaker because I was like, what if Lever does really take over the Academy, wouldn't it be hilarious if we had a Kate Winslet episode prepped and ready to go?

It still took me a good 20 seconds to figure out what lever is supposed to be. No, like literally you said lever and I was like, what is, what leave? Lea fever, baby, huh, sweeping the nation and the academy. I think Lee fever is enough of a funny term. Like, I feel like lever is maybe just like going a step too. It's Lever, baby. It's an extra step of stupid that is necessary. I don't think Lever is going to happen, but ultimately we stumbled into a movie that I think is actually very satisfying in terms of exactly what you were talking about. Yeah. Yes, I think ultimately it is. And it ends up being a very satisfying reverse. revenge thriller. It reminds me of Muriel's wedding, too, a little bit in the fact that we get to

see, you get the satisfaction of the townspeople squabbling with each other and, and, you know, undercutting each other that sort of bus ride to the drama competition, which, first of all, this is the other thing. It's so funny when they show up to the drama competition, and they watch those three women doing the Macado. And it's like costumes by Tilly Dunnage. And it's just like, no, it's so funny. The Macado, I am volunteering for dumb bitch duty in the fact that I fully admit that all of my knowledge of Gilbert and Sullivan, even before I ever saw. Is from Topsy Turvey. No, it's not even from Topsy Turvey because I came to Topsy Turvey late. It literally has been formed by the Simpsons and the West Wing.

So ultimately, when I see them doing Three Little Maids from the Macado, all I can think of is The Simpsons singing it in the car on the way to moving to Cape Fear in the Cape Fear episode. I will say,

this is a movie that is very pop culturally interested in a way that I found satisfying and enjoyable, but not crunchy. You get Gilbert and Sullivan. Yeah. Get Sunset, Boulevard. That's true. That's true. It's, it's Molly who's very... South Pacific. This is in this movie, paid for those rights to belly high, and they will use

them. Yep, yep, yep. It's Molly who's obsessed with Sunset Boulevard, right, in the movie? They go to, she's obsessed with South Pacific, I thought, because it's playing the record. Right. Where do we, where does, I know that a bunch of people are watching South Pacific, but I can't remember which character. Yeah, they go see South Pacific and Molly's like... Or Sunset Boulevard, but who's the ones who... Or Sunset Boulevard, yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay, they go to see it at a theater.

Okay. Yeah. Okay, okay. All right. And Molly's, like, trying to warn Bill Holden against Gloria Swanson. It's fabulous. All right. Let's talk about Judy Davis for a second, because we got into a little bit with her Oscar

nominations. Nominated in 1984 for a passage to India. and then sort of resumes making movies in Australia. I think people sort of underestimate the fact that, like, we are a global community and, you know, global travel is possible. But, like, Australia and New Zealand are still pretty far. You basically do kind of have to make your choice between, like, I'm going to live in Australia or I'm going to live in Hollywood. And you kind of can't be bicostal about it in a way. that you can with, like, London.

You know what I mean? And even people who live in London, mostly just sort of like, I'm going to stay in London. Like, there are people who just sort of like, I'm going to, I'll make a movie every once in a while, but I'm mostly going to live in Australia because, like, it's so fucking far. So she makes Australian movies. She makes kangaroo, uh, High Tide, My Brilliant Career. My Brilliant Career. Um, she makes a movie called Georgia that is not the Georgia.

with Jennifer Jason Lee, and then 1990, she's in Woody Allen's Alice, which is sort of, I know it's nominated for an Oscar for screenplay, but it's like very much a forgotten Woody Allen movie. It's Mia Farrow and Joe Montenia. William Hurt is in it. Blythe Danner is in it. June Squibb is in it. She plays sort of a smaller role. I've never seen Alice. Have you ever seen Alice? Alice is one I haven't seen. Alice is not. Alice is not. not the one that he completely reshot. I think that's the one before Alice. Okay. She's on the poster with a hat. First of all, as I sent as I sent to you last night, the dressmaker, truly the does anybody still wear a hat of movies that we have talked about, at least recently. She's in Barton Fink the year after that, the Cohen brothers Barton Fink. I love her in that movie. I think she's really fantastic. She's in Naked Lunch that same year. She's in Where Angels Fear to Tread, which is another E.M. Forster adaptation, the one I always sort of forget about.

Helen Abonham Carter is in that movie. Rupert Graves in that movie. Helen Mirren is in that movie. She, I don't know if she gets nominated for any of these things. Bart and Frank, where Angels Fear to Tread. Naked Lunch, but it's like a big breakthrough. Naked Lunch, I think, was a big fave of the New York film critics, so she

might have gotten something from them. Yeah. Possibly. It very much feels like a return to, if not like, Hollywood, Hollywood, because these are fairly indie. It's, you know, the Coens, it's Kronenberg. It's not like Hollywood studio films, but like

these are American Indies, Naked Lunch and Barton Fink. The type of thing that much as we hate to say, the Academy is not cool enough to, like, we don't like making those points, but it is a little maybe too freaky for them. And this is before really the Academy had truly embraced the Cohen's. Sure. In regards to Barton Fink, they still have yet to embrace David Cronenberg.

Michael Lerner does get the nomination for Barton Fink, the nomination that I, and a lot of people feel like should have been John Goodman. As much as I like Michael Lerner a lot, I think Goodman, it's baffling to me that Goodman doesn't get that nomination. And then Totoro is also so good in the lead role. John Totoro goes through this phase in the early 90s where the fact that he made it out of the early 90s without getting an Oscar nomination is so puzzling to me. The fact that he doesn't get nominated for Quiz Show is wild. Wild to me.

Anyway, husbands and wives in 1992, she played. plays Woody's X, right? There's, no, that's, I'm pretty sure it's Mia Fero that, like, because this comes out at the same time as the Sunyi reveal. One, Juliette Lewis is playing this like younger, it's very sort of like echoes of Manhattan, you know, in, in that relationship in the movie and it is quite uncomfortable. I forget who plays Judy Davis's husband, but she definitely has this big scene where she rips them to shreds. It's Sidney

Pollock, yeah. Oh, great. Huge. But it's a very big performance that ultimately the movie kind of forgets about her, but it's a big performance that especially on the heels of things like Barton Fink and Naked Lunch that maybe the Academy wasn't ready to recognize

her for, played into her status as kind of a front runner, on top of already being a previous nominee. She would go on to be in a bunch of other Woody Allen movie. She's in Deconstructing Harry. She's in Celebrity. She's into Rome with Love. 1994. Well, she's in a movie called

Dark Blood, which is not Australian. It's Dutch, but it looks like it... I don't know where it takes place. Anyway, oh, it takes place in the American Southwest, I guess. River Phoenix is in this movie. I've never seen it. Dark Blood. Oh.

I've never heard of it, actually. Interesting. Anyway, 1994, my personal favorite Judy Davis performance, because I am me. She's in the Ted Demi film The Ref, which is a legitimate Christmas classic. Dennis Leary plays a thief who is trying to hide out in this rich little Connecticut town and ends up in the home of squabbling couple Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey, who are like kind of on the brink of divorce, and he forces them to

claim that he's their marriage counselor to the rest of their family who shows up for Christmas Eve dinner. Their hateful and bitchy family that includes Glenys Johns as Spacey's mother and Christine Beransky as the sister-in-law, and it's so fucking funny. It's so... Christmas classic, the ring.

And nasty and funny, and it's wonderful. And Judy Davis is acidic and precise and so, so, so, so good. I absolutely love her. Jump forward a few more years and you get to my favorite Judy Davis performance. It's Life with Judy Garland, Me and My Shadows. My Shadows. Yep. TV movie that regardless is the cinematic bar for portraying Judy Garland.

She's also— Tammy Blanchard plays the Young Wizard of Oz era. Judy, that's also an incredible performance. Do they both win Emmys for that? Oh, I think they both do. I feel like Tammy definitely does, and Judy does, right? Judy either lost to somebody. no Judy one okay I think she's the one who beats Emma Thompson for Witt I could be wrong that makes sense with the timing let's see Judy Davis so aired yes some within a calendar year

of 9-11 if she beats Emma Thompson for Witt she beats Holly Hunter for when Billy beat Bobby when she played Billie Jean King and then she beats Judy Dench for a movie I've never seen but I always remember the title of which is the last of of the blonde bombshells. So Judy wins all of that, and then Tammy Blancher does win supporting actress, beating another Holly Hunter performance in Things You Can Tell, just by looking at her, which is a movie that we've done before, and Audra McDonald in Witt and Brenda Bleffen in the Anne Frank movie.

Yes, so they both win Emmys for that. Judy Davis has been nominated for six Emmys in her life, all of them as lead actress in a miniseries and movie. The Echo of Thunder in 1998, Dash and Lily, where she plays Lily in Hellman in 1999. Throat got herself, Nancy Reagan in The Reagan's, something called a Susan Sidelman movie, A Cooler Climate, starring Judy Davis and Sally Field. and then something in 2006 called A Thing Called Murder with her and Jonathan Jackson from General Hospital directed by Richard Benjamin. My God, what is this movie?

I've never heard of it. She's a con artist and a thief who has been preparing her son since childhood to be her accomplice. Oh, this is like the grifters a little bit. But she's sort of like, oh, I kind of love this. I'm kind of going to have to see this. Jonathan Jackson in 2006 is probably still Cute as a button.

Okay, anyway, sorry. So, yeah, she's gotten a- Dressmaker, she's now somewhat in the Ryan Murphy stable. She's in both Ratchett and Feud. Oh, yes, she's in, she was, well, she, yes, she was, what was her name in feud? She was Hed a Hopper. Was it Hed a Hopper or the other one who she played? I didn't watch that season of Fewed.

She's had a hopper. Yeah, she's had a hopper in feud. I, by the way, misspoke. She hasn't been nominated for six Emmys. She's been nominated for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 12 Emmys. Those were, so she's won three. She won for Serving in Silence, the Margaret Camemeyer story, where another miniseries that exists as a title,

where Glenn Close plays an American servicewoman who's a lesbian who has to come out. and Judy Davis plays her girlfriend. Her first Emmy nomination came in 1982 for a woman named Golda, a woman called Golda, sorry, where Ingrid Bergman played Golda Meyer, and Judy Davis played a young Golda Meyer. Incredible. She was nominated. She won a third Emmy for the starter wife in 2007. She was nominated for Feudbeddie and Joan. She was nominated for, that British political thriller, Page 8 with Bill Nye and Rachel Weiss. Do you remember that one at all? The David Hare. Yes, I did not ever see it.

The David Hare thing. So, yeah, 12, 12 Emmy nominations. Also, a bunch of Golden Globe nominations. She's won two. So, like, she's won a bunch of shit. But just, like, movie awards have been kind of the least of it all. But anyway, she still has been in movies. Most recently, Nitrum, the Cannes movie that got Caleb Landry Jones, the Cannes Best Acter Prize.

I never saw. It's still, it's not been on my list, but I've still never seen it. She was great in Marie Antoinette. Oh, yeah. Really, really great in Marie Antoinette. Very sort of officious and, you know, intimidating in that movie. But I still kind of find her, especially as a movie actress, underrated. I feel like the children don't know the greatness of Judy Dench, or Judy Deutch, Judy Davis.

I'm going to probably say that a few times in this episode. Because it takes you on the path to Judy Dench and then like veers you off at the last second to Judy Davis. Put them in a movie together while we still can. Truly. So yeah, she's really great as the mom in this movie. There are so many ways in which she could rely on. tricks or tics where she's playing a woman who's sort of entering the realm of dementia. She, you know, she can't remember. She's, you know, she's been ostracized by this community.

She's sort of the, you know, dirty outcast woman or whatever. And there are so many ways in which she could have played into the eccentricity of it and sort of ham it up, ham. And she doesn't. She very, very much decides to play into the humanity of this character, and it makes her really interesting as a result. I agree. Supporting actress that year is unfortunately kind of hard to crack, doesn't really move much as far as the main precursors. The nominees, obviously, Violo Davis wins for fences, Naomi Harris for Moonlight, Nicole Kidman for Lion,

Octavia Spencer for Hidden Figures, and Michelle Williams for Manchester by the Sea. With the exception of Octavia Spencer, who is Globe and SAG nominated, the other four show up at all of the major precursor. Everywhere that they can. The only places that they don't are indie spirits, where none of them are eligible.

This indie spirit lineup is like, A file read special. Really is, yeah. Molly Shannon wins for other people. Have you ever seen that speech, by the way? I imagine you did at the time, but have you ever watched it? Oh, wonderful. It's a really lovely speech.

And she's playing, of course, this is the, oh, why can't I remember their names now, the other people. Folks, Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider. This is Chris Kelly's movie. It's essentially based on his true story of his mother dying from cancer. So she's essentially playing Chris Kelly's movie, and she's giving the acceptance speech, and he's just like in the audience, just like in tears. And it's so, and she's like still Molly Shannon. So she's still like, you know, she can't suppress the Molly Shannon of it all. So she still is just sort of like, what? Like, but she's just, it's so funny and it's so touching. But yeah, this is a very Chris and Joe coded lineup. With one exception. Edwina Findley, free indeed. A movie I haven't seen, but I guess I have to catch up to because the rest of this lineup is for me. And then the one, two, three punch of nominees, I am positive was on both of our ballots.

Paulina Garcia, Little Men, Lily Gladstone, Certain Women, and Riley Keough, American Honey. Yes. What happens when little men meet certain women? I would like to know. I would like a movie. American Honey, happened. Across the event of the year happens. Yeah, love those three performances so, so much.

Definitely were on my ballot that year. The M4Gs could nominate Viola and Nicole Kidman, so they did. And they added to that Molly Shannon, Helen Mirren for Eye in the Sky, a pretty, like, decent movie for what it is. Isn't that a lead? Yeah, yeah. I never saw that movie. And then Sigourney Weaver for a monster calls, which. Sure, sure.

We love Sigourney. That's not a performance you nominate. And we love J.A. Bayona, actually. But, like, that movie never quite did it for me. Or at least I love J.A. Bayona. That's maybe the best, I think, Felicity Jones has ever been. I am not a Felicity Jones person. Yeah, I think that's maybe true.

Other sort of outliers, Bafta does not nominate Octavia Spencer, but instead nominates Haley Squires for I. Daniel Blake. I've never seen I Daniel Bo. I love Haley Squires as an actress. I think that's a good performance. I do not like that movie. Yeah. Critics' choice swaps out Janelle Monet in Hidden Figures for Octavia Spencer. And then because they have six nominees, they also add Greta Gerwig and 20th Century Women, who is my winner that year.

I love, love, love, love. First of all, 20th Century Women, full stop. But Greta Gerwig in 20th Century Women, I think is tremendous. Critics Prizes go to Michelle Williams. wins New York and National Society for New York. They claim her in Manchester by the sea and certain women, which I kind of love because I do love her in certain women. She's very funny and certain women. L.A. Critics go for Lily Gladstone and certain women. National Border Review goes for Naomi Harris. And I also sort of like jotted down a couple other people who I remember

getting some degree of buzz most of it early season. Lupita Njango in Queen of Cotway. Laura Linney as a telephone wife in Sully, Rachel Weiss in The Light Between Oceans. I promise you one day we will do The Light Between Oceans. Probably this year. We'll talk about it. We'll talk about it. We'll talk about it. But yeah, it's a pretty lockstep lineup. It's a very tough lineup to crack,

which is why people like Greta Gerwig and Molly Shannon and Judy Davis have a really, really hard time finding a foothold. And obviously, Judy Davis has a hard. harder time even than some of these other people. Who would you imagine was sixth place this year? I think Janelle Monet. That's what I was going to say to. Janelle Monet for hidden figures, right?

Yes, yes, because that movie came on stronger and stronger as the season went on. I'm sure if they had another, you know, week or two, that movie would have in the nomination phase, that movie would have had even more nominations. Even more nominations. The thing about Janelle Monet in Hidden Figures, and I really like her in Hidden Figures, but I like her. She's my favorite performance in the movie. I like her even more. Oh, I think Taraji is my favorite performance in the movie.

I like her even more, though, Janelle Monet and Moonlight that year. I love her in Moonlight. That's the Moonlight performance I would nominate instead of Naomi Harris, even though. Oh, I think that's crazy. I'm glad Naomi Harris got that National Board of Review win because she deserved to win for something like that. And I'm not the type of person who gets caught up in the narrative. I kind of get, I want it to be the performance that I'm kind of talking about. But the fact that she pulled off this massive decade-spanning character arc in, like, a week or something, that on top of the performance and what the performance is doing is incredibly impressive.

Did you just say you prefer to keep it about the performance and not the politics? Is that what you said? I do. Okay. No, I think Naomi Harris is good in that movie. I just feel like I, of the two, of her and Janel Monet, I think what Janelmona does in very, very, you know, just two scenes, essentially, communicates so much. And I do think communicating goodness is a little bit harder than communicating, it's not villainy that Naomi Harris communicates, but she communicates just this ocean of human flaw. what I mean, with her character. In a human way, yeah. Yeah, like, she does a very, very good job.

Like, this is not meant to slight Naomi Harris, an actress who I really, really love. But I think it's so, I think it's such a challenge to communicate goodness in a way that is interesting. And I think Janelle Monet does that in, like I said, literally two scenes. I think that's, I think that's all fair and true. And then I think, no spawn con, but I haven't seen any of these A24 movies that they're doing like One Night Only engagements in IMAX But they're about to do Moonlight And I may clear my schedule

To see an intimate character drama in IMAX Because I'm sure that that movie looks better than it's ever been before Moonlight's one of those movies That really Does give you something new Every time you've seen it And I've only seen it maybe like three times, maybe four times But

it's it's one of those movies that because it was so much of like the moment you know what I mean in the you know the moonlight versus la la land thing and and there was so much other stuff that was kind of annoyingly in my opinion heaped on to that Oscar race that didn't really and I think you got that when when they would talk to like Barry Jenkins and Damien Chazelle and stuff like that and they would be like look that's not that doesn't have anything to do with us. You know what I mean? Like, we like each other. We have enjoyed being in this Oscar race with each other. We have, you know, we respect and like each other's movies. We don't quite know, you know, what to do with this whole oppositional framing that, you know, has been placed upon us. And I think it didn't, ultimately, it didn't do anything. It didn't enrich us in any way. It didn't nourish us in any way. It didn't add to our appreciation of those movies. I think if you watch Moonlight now, there's a temptation

to be like, God, is it going to hit the same? Or did we sort of like, you know, work ourselves up into a frenzy? It still really does. It still hits so well. It holds up like tremendously well. Tremendously.

I hate that it's something of an Oscar anomaly in terms of how that movie got its craftspeople recognized because it's not the type of movie that, you know, gets Joy McMillan an Oscar nomination gets James Lacksen a nomination. I mean, Nicholas Bertel is like one of the composers we talk about now. But at that time, like, it got Nicholas Bertel that nomination.

And like all of these crafts nominations that the movie got were so incredibly well earned. And for this tiny independent movie where the craftsmanship is so integral to the emotional impact of what it does. 100%. I don't, I mean, you know. The Brutalist is maybe not the good comparison here, but it feels like it's about to happen for the Brutalist, and Moonlight's a much better movie than The Brutalist, but a cinematography nomination for Lull Crawley

would have seemed impossible a year ago, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The other nominees in this field, Lyon feels like a movie that, like, we just don't talk about anymore. I remember being so moved by that movie when I saw it at TIF. And I obviously, I saw it at Princess of Wales. It was this, you know, it was the public screening. I remember because it was a Weinstein Company movie,

there was a sense of just like, you know, here comes Harvey again, you know, yada, yada. But I think it's a really strong movie. I've not seen it since then. So, like, I don't know whether it holds it. up, but I always, I felt at the time sort of being a little defensive of Kidman's nomination here, because she's, you know, she's the mom, she's, you know, she's got this sort of like Oscar bait storyline where she's, you know, ill and whatnot. But I just think she's, you know,

it's sort of runs counter to the Kidman narrative of, you know, taking these daring performances, whatever, and this is very much a comfortable type of role. But I have always supported this nomination. Yeah, I think she's good in the movie. That's a movie I think was much stronger in the first half of it than it is in the second half of it. Yeah, that's fair. But yeah, it's not really a movie we talk about that much. Let's talk about the costume design nominations in reference to the dressmaker.

Because the dressmaker absolutely kind of belongs in this. lineup. You have Fantastic Beast wins for Colleen Atwood, Allied, Florence Foster Jenkins, Jackie, and La La Land. And I remember at the time there being some curiosity and hand-wringing over what would win costume design. And ultimately, they did go with most costumes and Fantastic Beasts like coats, coats, coats across the board. It's such a, I find it irksome and not just because I didn't really love Fantastic. Although Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is so much better than Fantastic Beasts

The Crimes of Grindelwald. The second, is that the second or the third? I didn't see the third. I saw the second one and it's one of the worst movies I've seen in a theater. It's so, so inept and bad. It's like you wouldn't believe it. It's kind of falling apart at the seams. Yes. But who are the other four nominations again? Allied Florence Foster Jenkins, Jackie, and La La Land.

I think I would easily swap out the dressmaker for Florence Foster Jenkins. A movie I don't like, but I don't really remember those costumes. I feel like I'd swap out a few of those nominations, actually. Like, I mean, there were so many good movies that you're like. Obviously, like, La La Land makes a ton of sense for, you know, what we get in that movie. I think Jackie makes a lot of sense. I think Jackie's one of those things where it's just like an iconic costume, you know, already existed in the real world. But I also feel like there were other outfits in that movie.

And everything is based on, you know, you know, minutely observed. Like, they researched the fuck out of that movie. Can I take a small divergence and talk about Jackie a little bit? Yes, always. I don't want to be too shady. Oh, God. But I was having a conversation with a friend. recently in regards to our feelings about the diminishing returns of these Pablo Lorraine

famous figure movies. Okay. And I think Maria is ultimately fine, but from a bad script. Yeah. I feel like Jackie is a... The thing I said to a friend is, I feel like Jackie is a masterpiece, but more and more of these Pablo Lorraine movies that I don't like. my feeling is you kind of have to be a master to make a masterpiece and all respect to

Pablo Lorraine, but I'm thinking more and more that Pablo Lorraine is not a master and Jackie is the anomaly, because I think that is a bullseye five-star movie. I might disagree with you on a fundamental level there. I don't know if necessarily one does have to be a master to direct a masterpiece i might disagree i well this is something that i have believed in the past but pablo lorraine is maybe making me rethink it because jacky is so perfect it's a perfect movie so do me the dressmaker does get a nomination from the costume designers guild that year in excellence in period film it loses to hidden figures um not nominated interesting Are there any Oscar nominees in that category with the Costum Designers Guild?

Florence Foster Jenkins and Jackie are both nominated for period film along with Hail Caesar. That's another Mary Zofreys movie. Hail Caesar also would have been a great nominee here. Mary Zofre's wins for La La Land in contemporary film beating out Captain Fantastic, Lion, Nocturnal Animals. Arian Phillips, Nocturnal Animals, which is a movie that I find reprehensible, but, like, most costumes definitely does apply in nocturnal animals. And then Absolutely Fabulous, the movie, is the fifth nominee. Saw it in a theater. I am an Ab-Fab Stan. Sorry, I am that era of gay guy who will always love Absolutely Fabulous. You will pry it from my cold dead hands. Fantastic Beasts, the ultimate Oscar winner, is nominated for excellence in fantasy film, but,

to Alexandra Byrne for Dr. Strange. Interesting. Colleen Atwood is nominated twice in fantasy film for Fantastic Beasts and for Miss Peregrine's home for peculiar children. Kubo and the Two Strings, animated movie, is nominated for costumes, which I find to be very fun. A great call, in my opinion. Kubo got, they also got another craft nomination that year.

Visual effects. Visual effects. But yeah, incredible call. given the way that the movie is nominated in stop motion, costumes certainly applies. And I am long been a defender of Kublo and the Two Strings, a movie that kind of got hung up on representational grounds with, you know, white actors playing Asian, you know, playing Bromit roles in this Asian story.

It's not my favorite like a movie. I love it. I think it's so good. But my favorite Likas are not everybody's favorite Likas. I think that and the Box Trolls are my two favorite Likas. The Box Trolls is my favorite. The Box Trolls is kind of the forgotten one. It is kind of the forgotten one.

And it's great. And then the fifth nominee that year is Rogue One, a Star Wars story, which I have long said is my favorite of the modern-day Star Wars movies. Interesting. Even among those, if I'm going to pick five out of just those 15 movies, I'm probably going La La Land, Coobo, Dressmaker, Jackie, and Hidden Figures. Hell Caesar's tough, though. Hell Caesar has so many good costumes.

The thing about Hail Caesar is that art direction. Tilda Swinton alone is so good. The Alton-Anon-Aren-Ry. It was so funny in that movie. The Alton-Aren-Rae. Maybe that should be our May miniseries theme is just Tilda Swinton in dual roles. Wow. Yes. Could pull it off in several contexts. Enterprising podcast people. Get me on to talk about Tilda movies where she plays multiple people. Anyway, Hale Caesar is one of the unfortunate things of this season. The Coens were so over it in terms of awards.

It was also a February release. The fact that it got one nomination is kind of a surprise anyway. But it got released in February because they did. didn't want to play the awards game anymore, and you can't really blame them. Sure. But then that movie did not have a campaign whatsoever and still got a production design nomination. If Focus had lifted really a finger and the Cohen's had played ball even begrudgingly in any way, that movie would have several nominations. It would have a song nomination. It would have a cinematography nomination. It would have a costume nomination.

Hail Caesar rules. For a movie on first blush, I was like, I don't know if I liked that. And then as it sat with me... It's one of my favorite co-ins is awesome. It's my supporting actor winner that year. I think even beyond just the wood that it worked, would be a torso simple scene.

I think Alton Aaron Reich is a scream. He's so committed to that character. The scene where he's on the date, I think, is so fun. Yeah, I fucking love. Supporting actor ballot that year is like all Moonlight actors and then guys who are stupid because it's Alden Aaron Reich for that and Tom Bennett for love and friendship. Hold on. I'm looking up what my ballot was that year. I know I did Blankies that year. Sometimes I'll look and I'll see what I mentioned at the Blankies. And I'm like, I don't know at what point those settled to be my five because my lists are sort of ever shifting, which makes me annoying, but whatever. We're also both the type of people who like to spotlight people who haven't otherwise been spotlighted. So that could also be some of it with your Blanky's ballots.

Oh, man. My top five. Well, first of all, I mean, like, oh, God, my whole list is so it goes. It goes. Alden Aaron Reich, Tom Bennett, Lucas Hedges for Manchester, Andre Holland for Moonlight, Daniel Radcliffe for Swiss Army Man. That's the five. And then I know you have Ray Fines as a lead for Bigger Splash, but I have Ray Fines as supporting.

Mahershula for Moonlight. John Goodman for 10 Cloverfield Lane. Tracy Letts for... I have him as a split for Christine in Indignation, which I know is dirty pool, but whatever. Bridges for Heller Highwater. I have Zach Efron for Neighbors, too, which is a deeply silly thing, but I think he's very... Nerd. Nerd!

Simon Helberg for Florence Foster Jenkins, who I thought was very... very good. Channing Tatum for Hell Caesar, Michael T. Williamson for fences. I don't have Billy crude up for 20th century women, which is stupid because I absolutely should have him out with. Oh, shit. That throws a wrench into everything. Right? Right. I didn't know what to do with the the triple triptych of Moonlight people, so I put them all in breakthrough actor. I made a breakthrough actor. Yeah, because my supporting actor ballot, I thought was Bennett, Aaron Reich, and then Andre Holland, Trevante Rhodes, and Mahershal Ali. Can I give you my breakthrough actor and breakthrough actress? Because honestly, I kind of slayed with it.

Breakthrough actor. Ashton Sanders for Moonlight. John Early for other people. Michael Barbieri for Little Men. Timothy Shalame for Miss Stevens. I fucking called it. I have the receipts. It's right there.

And then Hayden Zetso for Edge of 17, the love interest in Edge of 17. Ashton Sanders is the thing where it's like, he's maybe the best performance in the movie. So why is he not on my supporting actor ballot? I don't know. Breakthrough actress. I have Anya Taylor, Joy, the Witch, Riley Keio, American Honey. Crescia Fairchild for Crescia, which is a very 2016 nomination. Riley Keio had been in other things, sir.

Not that I had seen... Had you... I never saw the girlfriend experience, first of all. Also, these are my awards and fuck off. Royalty High Tower and The Fits and Haley-Loo Richardson and Edge of 17. The Fitts, great movie.

Yeah. Based on a true life thing that happened not too far from where I live in... Shot in Ohio, baby. Where, like, that actually happened where, like, people were having... seizures and there was no medical and there was like a it was uh social contagion essentially it was a psychosomatic social contagion um yeah 2016 underrated banger year i always talk about like

these things were like the the movie years that people talk about your 2007s your 99s and i'm always like 2004 2016 um you know these secret years that are just like so like nobody really talks about how they go deep. Creating a ballot is like killing your darlings this year. 100%. 100%. Um, yeah. Oh, what a great year. Do you keep out, do you have ballots from 2016? I want to hear yours. Uh, no, that was, that, that, that's always a project for me to go back and do. My number one movie of the year is 20th century women, though. Well, I mean, I think we're both in agreement there. Come on. Well, my number one movie, that you're is arrival, but 20th century women is my number two.

Oh, well, there you go. And Moonlight's number three, and American Honey's number four. 20th Century Women, Arrival, Moonlight, Jackie. Just like movies that are these miracles of construction, the way that those movies are assembled, the way the narrative plays out, are just, like, I don't know. More and more, I'm beginning to think structure. is the thing that makes me, like, really freak out over a movie. Can I read you my supporting actress ballot? It's so badass.

I love it so much. Go. Greta Gerwig and 20th century women. Paulina Garcia and Little Men. Michelle Williams in Manchester by the sea. Lily Gladstone and Certain Women. And Tammy Blanchard in The Invitation. Boom.

Nailed it. Fucking nailed it. Tammy Blanchard. You've seen the invitation, right? I've forced you to see the movie. Yes, we've talked many a time about the invitation. Tammy Blanchard's so good in that movie. She's so fucking good in that movie.

I love her so much. Oh, my God. Anyway, there's also Olivia Coleman and the Lobster that year. Who would have been on my ballot? Naomi Harris would have been on my ballot. Julian Moore and Maggie's plan. I know you love Julianne Moore and Maggie's plan. I do.

I don't think she made my ballot, but that's... She's on the top time. People don't talk enough about how Julianne is a very specific type of comedian. when she is given the opportunity to be funny. And I say when she's given the opportunity to be funny, unless it's evolution, she is funny. The next time they're both involved in the Oscar race, I demand that Julian Moore and Greta Gerwig be put into an actors-on-actors situation

so that they can, at some point, detour into talking about Maggie's plan. Leave, leave. I also want to say Viola Davis was on my lead ballot because that is a lead performance. same performance. She's my runner-up for lead. Lead actress that year. All right. Now we're just getting into 2016. And I've said many times that I'm like, she still would have won the Lita Oscar if she'd been campaigned in lead. Lead actress on my ballot that year is Annette Benning and 20th Century Woman is my winner. Viola Davis for fences, Natalie Portman for Jackie, Amy Adams for a rival. Those four are uncrackable. You cannot back that. My fifth

slot is up for fucking grabs and it's so many banger performances. Kate Beck and in love and friendship, Susan Sarandon and the meddler, Rebecca Hall and Christine, Isabelle Upaire in L. Those are the four. And then it's like Haley Steinfeld and Edges 17 and Emma Stone and Lola.

Mine's pretty uncrackable too. It's I think the only Oscar nominee I have is Portman. It would be Portman, Benning. Benning's probably my winner. Amy Adams. Violet. A pair, but for things

to come. Mm-hmm. and then Viola Davis for fences. I honestly, I have Uper for L and things to come, and I might actually lean more towards things to come, actually. That's a good idea. I remember everybody being like, at the time, there were people that were like,

people who think that Uper is better and things to come. It's like, we get it. You're different. And it's like, no, actually, fuck you. It's an even better performance. The thing is when you think, don't, do you have space for me to start talking about Uper? The thing about L,

is that, like, yes, it's this new career peak for her that, you know, is definitive for a lot of people of who she is as a performer and what her skill set is. She filmed things to come after L, so it's like, I kind of feel like... The culmination of... It's the culmination of something.

I also... There's things about her things to come performance that, speak to me very personally, for reasons I won't get into, that I just think it's this, if Elle is this distillation of who she is as a performer, things to come is a complete freeing of that. And I think things to come is really emblematic of her performance style and her ability and her ways of getting under a character's skin and presenting an emotional truth that people don't talk enough about. And there are other performances of hers like that, you know, where she's not playing a sadist. Right. Can we get... That are just so

impressive to me. Can we get, in terms of, now that I'm programming award season content, can we get a Mia Hanson-love-specific roundtable that is Isabelle Uper, Rediker, Mia Vassikowska and Leah Seidu? I mean, you know I want this. Those are four performers. That's file core. That's file core. That is full file core.

The women of Mia Anson Love movies. Right, right. Wouldn't that be tremendous? Yeah. All right. All right. Back to the dressmaker. We've really, we've strayed.

How dare you leave Vicky creeps out of this? Oh, for, um... Wait, what's the... Bergman Island, also with Mia. Oh, doy. I always think of Mia first, but you're totally right. Vicky Creeps. I'm sorry. Apologies. Well, I mean me as the performance. The performance in that movie. But no, that's your five. What a great five that would be. God, somebody make that happen. Good Lord. Wouldn't that be great? Okay. Dressmaker. My other notes for Dressmaker, okay. Such a horny movie, complimentary. Does anybody still wear a hat? Oh, the line at the end of the movie where she sets the top, first of all, she sets the count ablaze by burning her home at the top of the hill and then rolling down a bolt of

red fabric like a red carpet into the rest of the town and then pouring gasoline down that very Melanie Laurent and glorious bastards coded that's the other that's we'll add that to the Venn diagram she has a message for Germany she's on the train and the guy's taking her ticket and they look out and they see the fire and the guy says something's like, you know, there's a fire over there and he says, burning their rubbish looks like or burning their rubbish looks like they over did it and then Winslet just looks out into the middle distance

and goes, you've never met the rubbish and that's the end of the movie and ba-pah-pah-da-dress maker pen-na-na-na-na-na-na. Like, it's very fun. What are your fleeting stray thoughts

on Zedress Maker. Well. How do we like Winslet in this thing? We haven't talked about Winslet so much. Have we recently talked? I mean, I like her. I feel like it's her giving a movie star performance, and I don't think. We talked about Winslet in Labor Day recently, so let's talk about her in a movie we like.

It feels like Winslet is herself intentionally allergic to being intentionally allergic to being. allergic to being a movie star. Like, she wants to be a character actress in lead roles, I kind of feel like. But this makes her feel like a star, you know, and maybe it's just because the broadness of the movie, I think she's fun. I wouldn't nominate her for best actress, but I like this performance. It's a different kind of role than we've seen her do. I'm trying to think of, like, other roles from her career that I would compare this to.

where she gets to play kind of bulletproof. You know, she has her scene where she sort of remembers everything. But, like, she plays kind of a Valkyry in this movie. And I don't, I'm trying to think of other movies where she sets that same kind of posture. And I'm having a bit of a hard time doing it. But I kind of love that about this performance, though.

It kind of, like, stands. I guess there's a, well, I mean, you talk. about Australia. Holy Smoke. Maybe it's the Australia that brings it out into her. I love Holy Smoke and I love her in Holy Smoke. Go back to that episode.

We also didn't talk about Liam Hemsworth other than how much this movie ogles him. And granted he doesn't have much to do, but I do think we didn't talk about this movie as a period piece too. And I maybe think that Liam Hemsworth in this

movie is the quintessential iPhone face. Case example. You've heard of the concept of iPhone face, right? It is, I don't believe that this person has never seen an iPhone before, you know, when you see someone playing someone in the past, when you see an actor in a period piece and they don't make sense and it's because they have iPhone face. I don't know if I necessarily think that about Liam in this movie. I feel like he's just, I think I can see him, you know, throw a beard on him. I mean, maybe it's the, Maybe it's the waxed chest of it all that makes it feel.

Maybe he has iPhone chest, a chest that has never not known an iPhone. I think he's already. This movie, he makes me, thinking about him and his character, makes me think of just this movie's creativity with how people die, where you have one child sort of running headfirst into a brick wall. You have another one diving into a silo of sorghum. You have another one getting his legs slashed by his wife. There's just, there's a, not grotesquery necessarily, but there's, this is what I sort of mean when I'm talking about just like, you know, the Aussies are just sort of letting it all hang out there. It's not the Kelly Gang movie, the Curzel Kelly Gang movie recently.

Yeah. Doesn't have a ton in common with this movie, and yet there is a spirit of sort of wildness. It's the dressmaker for boys. Yes. I've always said true history of the Kelly Gang is the best Kurtzell movie. I love it. I think it's great. S.C. Davis and that movie would fit in perfectly well in the dressmaker.

I'll say that. God, we've done some really unwell Winslet movies recently. Our last few were Labor Day, Collateral Beauty, Ammonite. We deserved the dressmaker. We really... We love Kate Winslet. We will never judge her. We will never question her.

She is hungry for a war. You will never make us hate Kate Winslet, but yes. Yeah, you can never make us hate her. I also wrote down Super Bowl halftime show Queen when she shows up in that red gown. Oh my God. Australian rules football, a sport thing that is none of my business. I have no idea what the Australian rules are for football, but it's very different. But I do appreciate when she shows up not only in the red dress, but then costume change midway through. But she's very strawberry social coded at the beginning of that scene and then becomes funeral social. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, but do you know who the first Super Bowl halftime queen was in real life? Do you know this?

Mary Magdalene? No, who are you saying? Where are you breaking out? It's Carol Channing. Oh, the actual halftime show for the first Super Bowl. Yes, I did actually know that somewhere in my life. Along with Marguerite Piazza, get Nelania on that. The four?

Do you know who the second Super Bowl halftime queen was? Because it started all with like marching bands and stuff. marching bands, and then it becomes sort of like an up-with-people kind of thing for a while. But then, yeah, there's a lot of like theater performances or like very sort of like, you know, production numbery things. No, who? Anita Bryant. Oh, I did also know that. I did a whole thing for-

The NFL is homophobic. I did a whole thing on NFL's not homophobic on Super Bowl halftime shows for Prime Timer a couple years ago. So I did know that. The four Super Bowl halftime shows from the, the bills, because you know the bills went to four, you might not. Bills went to four Super Bowls in a row and lost all four. That's sort of one of the things they're infamous for.

The first Super Bowl was the Whitney Houston National Anthem Super Bowl, the one that everybody sort of knows it. New kids on the block were the halftime show there. Second Super Bowl they were in was Gloria Estefan in a headlining

a tribute to many things, but also a tribute to the Winter Olympics. because the Winter Olympics were going to be on CBS in a matter of... Is this when she first debuts REACH? No, because REACH was for the 96 Summer Olympics. And that was a few years after that. Michael Jackson was the halftime performer at the third Bill Super Bowl at the Rose Bowl.

That was in his heal the world phase, his sort of post-free willy, heal the world children's choir thing, which is not cringy at all. And then the fourth Super Bowl halftime show was this like country music spectacular that included the Judds and Tanya Tucker and Travis Tritt and Clint Black. And it went on for fucking ever. And the bills carried a lead into halftime. And by the time that endless halftime show was over, they came back out flat as a pancake. So thanks very much country music. You let Tanya Tucker do whatever the fuck she wants.

Tanya Tucker can do whatever she wants, as can Naomi Judd. But, like, Travis Trit can rot in hell as far as I'm concerned. Well, true. Anyway, that's your little bit of Buffalo Bills trivia. I'm getting very, we're heading into the playoffs soon, and I'm getting, talk about you've got to pump it up. Just like it's my brain. My brain can think of nothing. Would the bills take the substance?

If it helped them win the Super Bowl, I would want them to take the substance. Actually, who's our, like, oldest, player who, like, could use the rejuvenation of the substance. Yeah, if, like, our linebacker Matt Milano, who's been rehabbing a biceps injury all season, could take the substance and sort of turn back the clock about five years. That'd be great. That'd be fantastic. Look up Matt Milano. He's so fucking hot. Anyway. The dressmaker, but they take the substance and Elizabeth Sparkle is Molly, Judy Davis's character. And Hugo Weaving is the gay guy. Yes, who lives in of her.

Oh, he's the, he's the, um, the, the, the, the, the nurse who, yes, um, Hugo Weaving's character in this movie, okay, what is this movie have to say about queer people via the lens of Hugo Weaving's character? That they are so fun and they are wrongly ostracized. That they will ultimately, heroically fall on the sword for the fabulous women in their lives and go to jail for them. He's not not gay guy as accessory

in this movie. But I'm not going to chastise this movie for doing that thing I hate. Listen, you know my thing with pop girlies. Hugo Weaving in this movie behaves like gay fans of pop girlies where he's like, I will go to jail for you. I will throw away my life

to defend you. Because you have been unfairly maligned. Yeah, his pop girlie is a fashion girlie. Isabella, yeah. Yes. He also goes to prison dressed as a Matador, which feels a little bit like a cop-out in the fact that, like, wear something more femme-coded if the whole idea is that, like,

you are finally going to, I don't know, maybe he just likes dressing up. But, like, wasn't the whole thing that he wanted to be, like, dressed up in a femme way? I know if Matador's are fancy lads, but, like, I don't know, man. Maybe I'm making too much of this. Do you think I'm making too much of this? I might be making too much of this. All right. Um, should we do the IMDB game? Hey, Lutz. Why don't you tell our listeners all about it? Every week, we end our episodes with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try to guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for. If any of those titles are television, voice only performances, or non-acting credits, we mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. That's not enough. It just becomes a free-for-all of hints. That is the IMDB game.

Chris, you get the choice of giving first or guessing first. I'll give first. Okay. All right. So we mentioned Jocelyn Morehouse's most recent film The Fabulous Four. Among that cast, I was going to give you Cheryl Lee Ralph because that's so fun. But there was a movie in her known for that even, I have never heard of.

Okay. So I wasn't going to be fully mean to you. Okay. So instead, I chose for you the anthropomorphized weed gummy herself in the film The Fabulous for Megan. Megan Malalley. How much TV? There is one television show. William and Grace Stiffer.

Correct. All right. Three movies is one of those movies. Oh, God. Megan Malalley in movies We literally Natalie Walker and I did the About Last Night episode

on the Demi podcast And I went through that whole movie Not recognizing Megan Malalley Because she had big crunchy hair She had big blonde crunchy hair In that movie I don't think about last night It's going to show up on there

Is It's such a small movie But I love it so much And I love her in it so much And maybe Is GBF one of these four movies? GbF is not. She's so fun.

Did you ever see that movie? I did not. She plays the mom of the main gay character, and there's a scene where... Conceivable. She's like the supportive mom of the gay kid, and they're watching... They're watching Brokebeck Mountain together, and there's just this one moment where they're watching, it's clearly the sex scene, and he's incredibly uncomfortable watching this with his mom, and she's just like so into it. And she finally, she's sort of, like, taking it in from, like, an academic perspective, and she's just like, wow. you know, necessities, the mother of invention, they say, and it's just like, it kills me

that line. Anyway, there's a scene, there's a movie where she and Nick Offerman are both in it, but they're not playing a married couple, but is it, oh, oh, what's the movie with Nick Robinson? And it's like, it's not Boys of Summer, but it's something. Do you know what I'm talking about? We're not at the point I can give you hints. Fuck, what is it called? It's called... Is it called Boys of Summer?

It's not. Fuck. I will say the movie is not called the Boys of Summer. The Boy of Summer? Summer Boys? Fuck, what is it called? The... It's the Something of Summer?

Yes. The... Why can't I think of it? The... Oh my God. I think I'm just going to give it to you because it is correct, and I don't think that anyone would normally guess this

in her known for. It's the Kings of Summer. Oh, my God. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I liked that movie. I thought that was good. So you have two right guesses, one wrong guess. You'll get your years after the next wrong guess.

Okay. Um... Megan Malali. I'm just going to guess about last night. About last night is incorrect. So your years are 2016 and 2017. I would be willing to guess one of these movies I have not seen. I'm willing to guess that it is Karen Walker and three moms.

Okay. Can confirm she is a mom. Is she in Fun Mom Dinner or something like that? Isn't that what that's called? Fun Mom Dinner. is incorrect. Isn't that the one with Bridget Everett? Do you know what I'm talking about?

Is that what that's called? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Um, what are the years again? 2016 and 2017? 2016, 2017. Is it? No, that wouldn't be... One of these movies we saw together.

Oh. At Tiff? It would have to be. Yeah. Yes. 2016, 2017. It's a comedy. though, right?

Yes. All comedy's on Megan Malawi's known for. I know that will shock you. 2016-2017, Tiff. She definitely plays the mother of the second build character, who's probably actually the protagonist, but the first build person

X, X, X, X, X, um... Shia? No. Very canceled individual, but got awards buzzed for this movie. Oh, disaster artist. Disaster artist. She plays Mrs. Cistero, knowing that Dave Franco plays Greg Cistero. I don't remember Megan Malalley in this movie, but I'm guessing she's... Dave Franco's mom.

Everybody, I remember everybody in that movie being very funny. Okay, so 2016 movie, it's a comedy... I have not seen it. You have, have I seen it? I have no idea, but that same individual is in this movie. James Franco? Yes. Is it like one of the, this is the end or sausage party or...

No, it's 2016. This movie definitely came out at like Christmas time, has a terrible title. Is it like Why Him or something like that? Why Him. Yeah, I've never seen it. who's the who's the girlfriend is it like zoie deutch i believe she plays zoe deutch's mom yeah yeah yeah and brian cranston's the dad yeah right that movie's not real right i mean no it's one of those movies with a title like that yeah no um i get it confused

with the one with will feral and mark walberg which got a sequel um daddy's home daddy's home yes all right um poor megan malalley give her a better known for or let her have happy endings on there or something. All right, for you, I feel now less bad of what I'm about to do to you. Okay, I went the Jocelyn Morehouse route, as I often do with the director. Her two movies that we've talked about on this podcast are A Thousand Acres and How to Make an American Quilt? I thought, well, how to make an American quilt has a bazillion people in that. How about we do Anne Bancroft?

Well, we've already done Anne Bancroft. How about we do Ellen Burstyn? Well, we've already done Ellen Burst. And how about we do Lois Smith? We've already done Lois Smith. You know who we've never done, and kind of, understandably so. Claire Daines? Maya Angelou.

Oh, okay. Maya Angelou, one non-acting credit. Oh, like a voice performance? No, director. Oh, it's down in the Delta, obviously. I was going to guess that anyway. How to Make an American Quilt. Yep, two for two.

And the rest are performances. Yes. What else was she in? Good question. And they're not voice performances. They are... They are acting... Live action movies, acting performances, this.

I know I'm not at the point of asking questions, but I'm not... I can't, like, ask you this directly, but I just want to say for the listeners, I'm not ruling out that she is in her known for a performance where she plays. She plays herself. Here's what I will say. Well, I guess now it's a clue if I give it to you, but whatever. The two characters she plays are both named after months. Oh, okay. I don't know if that helps me.

Okay. Because it's like June. It doesn't help you at all. But I just think it's interesting. It does help you in the fact that now you know that she's not playing Maya Angelou and either one of these things. Right. but she could also conceive of be like cast as Maya Angelou to play not Maya Angelou.

Well, and that's a possibility in one of these because I haven't seen one of these. And there's no TV. No. So, ooh, I might need years just to get to clues. I didn't say, I don't have a wrong guess, right? I just have the two correct guesses. Fun to get something in there that someone's,

Credited as a director, though. Yeah. Is she in, like, Kingdom Come? What year would that have been? She's... That's, like, 04, or O2. Yeah. No, but I'll accept it as a guess.

So, strike one. Okay. Here's the thing. She's not in very many feature films. So this might be, like, she might be credited for, like, all of her feature films in this. that's interesting I feel like they're posts

how to make an no yeah she's credited for three of her six feature film acting performances in this that's kind of funny and I think how to make an American quilt is the most like substantial

she's playing a real like character and not just a brief appearance in a movie so that's what makes this really really hard but I have to imagine that they're like ensemble things in that

content. According to IMDB, she's sixth build in one of these and she's... Well, but she's Maya Angelou. She's super famous. Well, and also her name comes at the beginning of the alphabet, so if at some point you start to go off. I'm just going to... I'm just going to throw it out there just for the chaos pick and say

the player. No, but honestly, honestly, very fun. Okay, so those are two strikes. So your two missing movies are from 1993 and 2006. Okay, so I was right that How to Make American Quilt is between them. Yes.

93. What's going on in 93? 93 is like Philadelphia, right? 93 is Philadelphia. It's not Philadelphia. It's not Philadelphia. But it has a connection to Philadelphia in a very,

one fairly specific way. A fellow actor? No. Director, Jonathan Demi. No. It's named after a city. No. Awards-wise.

Oh, so it's an acting nominee. No. But what else? Awards-wise, where else could you go? Screenplay nominee. No. Song nominee. Yes.

And it's not a voice performance, so it's not an animated thing. Right. Philadelphia had two song nominations. Yes. Nineties, 93. It's not like Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, which I think is 91. It is 91. We should do that as an exception soon.

directed by an Oscar nominee. That year or... No. Hmm. It's not going to be... I'm fairly positive. Oh, is it poetic justice? It is poetic justice.

Poetic justice, baby. She plays Aunt June in poetic justice. Probably Tupac's aunt, but maybe Janet's aunts. Not entirely sure. Yes. Okay, so your 2006-1 remains... Um You've probably never seen it, but you've also definitely heard of it.

Is it like woman thou art loosed? No. Is it a dire of a mad black woman? No. Is it Medea goes to jail? No. I'm on the right path, though, right? Yes.

Okay. Is it... I'm going to make you go through all the titles. The family that binds, or the ties that bind? The family that prays? No, it's not the family that prays. Is there one called, like, Daddy's Little Girls? I think so, but it's not that.

I'm remembering all. Oh, is it for color girls? No. Oh, my God. Remembering every time. She's somehow not in for colored girls. You are going a direction that you should go the opposite direction. It is a Medea movie, then.

Yes. But it's not Medea goes to jail. Medea family reunion? Medea's family reunion. There we go. Maya Angelou plays May in Medea's family reunion. Very good. Excellent.

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