This Had Oscar Buzz - 332 – Snowpiercer (with Bilge Ebiri!)

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

The beloved Bong Joon-ho is finally back in cinemas after his global success with Parasite, and to help us celebrate Mickey 17, we invited Vulture film critic Bilge Ebiri to discuss director Bong’s divisive Snowpiercer. Based on a French graphic novel, the film casts a global set of stars as the occupants of a train in the future … Continue reading "332 – Snowpiercer (with Bilge Ebiri!)"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hack, Maryland Hack and French. Dick Pooh. Passengers, eternal order flows from the sacred engine. We must occupy our preordained position. I belong to the front.

You belong to the tail. No, your place. K. Those bastards in the front think they own us. We'll be different when we get there. Watch you to say. We take the engine. We'll control the world.

When is the time? Soon. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that has terrible news about poor dear Pamela. 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 co-host who knows what kind of people taste the best.

Chris File. Hello, Chris. You had to start there. Yes. You had to start. You know, why not start there? The thing that I think people make fun of the most about this movie, and I think it's unfair. I think it's a normal line.

I can't wait to get into this conversation. Given the circumstances of this movie. I think it's a normal. It's a normal cool. It's a normal, not normal thing to say. It's a very chill thing to say, yes. No, I'm excited to talk about it because this was a movie that I had really not seen since the first time, but also, like, don't find myself thinking about as often as I think I probably would be warranted to think about because I do think it's like a pretty major movie by obviously a pretty major filmmaker. We get nervous when we have a guest and we wait this long.

truthfully, I don't know how I've waited this long, rather than trowing our guests, because I do get the jumblies. My wonderful colleague from Vulture, film critic, Billga Abbeyri, has joined us to talk about Snowpiercer. Bilga, welcome to this had Oscar bus. Thank you for having me. I've been following the travails of this ad Oscar buzz for some time, so it's exciting to finally be on. we had decided we wanted to have you on for any movie. We were really just like, let's just like get Bilga onto an episode.

And I think we kind of just figured like, snowpiercer seems like a good fit. And then we reached out to you. And like, as we were reaching out to you, I was just sort of like Googling around for snowpiercer stuff. And I was like, wait a second. Bilga's written about this movie kind of a ton. So it turned out to be like really, really perfect. What got you on the Snowpiercer beat so fervently back in 2013, 2014?

This is a good question because I'm trying to remember, well, the easy answer to that is that I'd been following Bong Jo's career for a while, and I'd interviewed him a couple of times already. So I was very excited for Snowpiercer, but I'm not quite sure how I wound up writing so many pieces. about Snowpierces. Ironically, I don't think any of them were for Vulture, which would have been my main outlet at the time. They were for like Rolling Stone and Bloomberg Business Week, which, you know, both places where I freelanced quite a bit. So I don't remember if these were assigned to me or if I was kind of pitching them because of sort of the weird discourse around the movie before it came out. I probably would have pitched it. I was also fascinated by this idea of, day and date movie releases, which at the time was kind of a novel concept. Now, admittedly, that that's not technically what happened with Snowpiercer, but it's close to what happened with Snowpiercer.

And at the time, that was seen as like the day and date, you know, theatrical online release was something that a lot of people saw as almost like a holy grail. Like one day, they'll be in theaters and they'll be on your computer or whatever. Right. And this was seen as, like, oh, this will be a good thing when it happens. Well, I remember as somebody who, like, obviously, like, grew up in Buffalo had been in Buffalo, and I'm, of course, back here, but, like, it had been here up until 2007. And so I remember when I was, like, I had gotten really into movies and especially, like, Oscar movies, which is a particular kind of hell when you are trying to watch Oscar movies. and you are not in a major market. So, like, I remember how absolutely agonized I was in 2006

that, like, little children just never came here. And I was just, like, this is absolutely unacceptable. And I remember thinking, like, the idea of something, that was when the idea of, like, something like day and date felt, like, this great thing with just, like, oh, my God, the access to these movies that I would just, like, normally never get. I remember when, and this was after I had moved to New York, but IFC channel would have a bunch of movies that they would have at their theater at the IFC Center in New York, but would also be available to watch on VOD. Yeah, IFC was kind of a pioneer of day and date.

I think Magnolia was in the early days, too. We've talked about melancholia before, melancholia. And this was like cable. VOD or whatever. And then, so yeah, so this was sort of the environment of like what, and it was very catch as catch can, right? It was very, you know, certain things and obviously not everything. And then the Netflix stuff was still kind of creeping along by this point. We hadn't, I'm trying to think of like when the first.

Well, at this point, Netflix is still. mainly known as a DVD service, right? I mean, that whole, I mean, you remember the whole Flickster thing, the Flickster brouhaha where they tried to name their streaming service Flickster and it turned out there was some dude who had. That's right. And it was a whole thing. It's so weird because during this period, I was working a day job in kind of the financial district. And I just remember The reason why I know this is happening around the same time is because I remember reading about the Flickster thing as I was walking to work and passing by Freedom Tower. I just have this very vivid memory of like walking on the street and like reading about Flickster on my phone, which is just such an absurd, gross thing to be reading about on the street. That is a very 2010 statement.

I know, right? I think we can chart this as the year before really Netflix is in this push and pull with. theatrical releases because Beast of No Nation is 2015. And that's, I remember that being its first real like Oscar push, but was that also just like in general, just like at the forefront of, because I'm, the Netflix thing, obviously, I remember it much, much more via TV shows because I remember like the House of Cards moment. I remember the arrested development moment when they rebooted arrested development. I remember even before that, when Party Down was in its first run, and it was a Stars show, but I only ever saw it because Netflix had kind of picked it up during its first season and was streaming episodes. You didn't have to subscribe to Stars. You could just get it through Netflix or whatever. So, but I definitely remember Beasts of No Nation being like a very early, like, oh, is Netflix going to get Oscar nominated? Is there, are they, is the Academy going to allow? that to happen. I remember

that was kind of like their first big prestige production. Yes. Yeah, yeah. And yeah. I mean, that was a moment. Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Because I remember it being a moment where I was like, yeah, but like, how are they making movies? They're just a video story. You know what I mean?

It would have been like, it would have been like Blockbuster video making movies. And I was like, that's not how that's not how direction it works and like obviously um this you know was would you know end up going in a lot of different directions and sort of like things you couldn't have imagined would become producers of movies sort of continue to make movies it's the thing i always tell people it's like you know when we think of types of stores that have died right yeah i mean they haven't entirely died but i think of you know i mean the sort of cliche examples of these are

video stores and bookstores. And the thing I always say is two of the biggest companies on the fucking planet. One is a video store and the other is a bookstore, you know? I mean, obviously, they're not. They're obviously so much more than that.

But that's how they began. And Netflix was a video store, you know? It's so weird. Well, and it's just, and it was that sort of great leap forward and convenience. I remember, I mean, we've talked about this, Chris, you and I on this show a few times.

The appeal of Netflix when it was just the DVD delivery service wasn't even so much the convenience of it because, like, I could get to Blockbuster. That wasn't a big deal. It was the selection. It was the fact that, like, I can get things on Netflix that I cannot get at Blockbuster because they don't stock it. And that was sort of the thing with day and date, which was I can see movies that I, you know, couldn't see where I was. You know, it wasn't a matter of laziness. It wasn't a matter of, I don't want to leave the house. It was, if I wanted to see this movie, I'd have to travel across time zones to be able to see it.

And then it morphed into this thing where all of a sudden, like, you know, a couple of decades later, it has trained, you know, its audience to expect to just have the entertainment sent to them. And obviously that was an objective of theirs, that, you know, they wanted to sort of disrupt the space and then, you know, replace going out of your house to see movies with, you know, having them deliver them to you. But at the time it was just like- But in the decade since this movie, you know, the conversation hasn't changed at all because Snowpiercer is kind of that first case of, well, you shouldn't be watching this movie on your computer. If you have the chance to see it in the theater, you should be seeing this in a theater. It's otherwise silly to be watching it on your computer for the first time if you do have the option, you know? Yeah. It's funny how, I mean, in that way, I think both Netflix and Amazon sort of trained us, or at least trained me, to just be so utterly suspicious of any company, you know?

Yes. Because when Amazon first started, I mean, I'm, you know, I was buying random books on Amazon in 1996, you know, and I, you know, every once in a while they'll do on social media or they used to, I don't know if they still do, but kind of, you know, name the first thing you bought from Amazon. And my first books from Amazon were like, like, really hard to find academic books, you know? Yeah, I bet you textbooks were the first thing that a lot of people got on Amazon. Or those textbooks are always so hard to find, especially cheap. like really obscure film theory books and stuff like that and stuff that I wasn't going to be able to find at any of the many bookstores that were near me.

So I, for initially, I did not think of Amazon at all as being a particularly nefarious entity. Sure. Same with Netflix was exactly as you say. I mean, I had video stores near me. I could have gone, I could have gone to a Hollywood video. I could have gone to a blockbuster video. I could have gone to like, I could have taken a train to Kim.

I could have, to multiple Kims, I could have taken, I could have just walked down the block to my local, very good mom and pop video store. I mean, or walked five extra blocks to another very good mom and pop video store that just happened to have a better adult collection, you know? Like, it was, you know, there's so many choices. But Netflix was the only place where you could find certain movies still. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, you think of these things as not just great conveniences, but also like real resources. I mean, it's almost like the library.

Yeah. And, you know, fast forward 20 years, they totally fucking suck. And I just want to burn their headquarters down. 100%. And that's like, and that's the economics of that, too, is just like, you know, we'll rope everybody in with our great selection. And then once we've got everybody, well, that selection doesn't do it, isn't benefiting us anymore. It's just inventory that costs us money to hold on to you. So we're going to get rid of it.

And I guess the slight difference in day and date is that it is truly, it's closer to the experience of buying a ticket. You know, Netflix is, you know, they just dump it on the algorithm. You see people all the time like this movie is on here. And I have to search for it. You know, the movie doesn't tell me that Roma is available the day that it is on the platform, you know, things like that. And this, you know, day and date more closely approximates, you know, showing up and buying a ticket in a way. Well, we talked about when we did French exit, we talked about how during the pandemic, there were certain avenues you could go to purchase a ticket and one of them was Film Society of Lincoln Center. I remember I saw first cow that way. And it was very much like you, you know, you bought a full price ticket and you had a real tight window that you had to, you know, watch it in. And it did very much at least try to hold on to the idea of, we're going to approximate the idea of seeing a movie because at this moment, you can't. And so, like, there obviously was a way to do that. The problem was just, like, obviously fewer people would have, you know, patron, you know, brought their patronage to that if that was the case because nobody wants to go jump through hoops for her stuff. Yeah, I mean, that was, I think it was Kino Lorber that sort of, I don't know if they pioneered it, but they kind of really turned that into a thing. I mean, right, like literally within two or three weeks of, you know, everything shutting down. They had this plan in place, and it was a way of helping theaters because, you know, you could attach your, you know, your purchase to a specific theater.

It could be your local theater. Sometimes it could be a theater somewhere else that you just wanted to help out. I remember I did this whole big interview with them and I was going to write an article about it and, you know, like many things that I started during the pandemic, it never actually materialized. Right. I'm sure the people of Kino Loe were still pissed at me because I did all these interviews with them about it. But yeah, and I think, I want to say maybe at the New York Film Critic Circle, we might have even given them an award that year for what they did. Oh, yeah. It's called Kino Marquis, right?

Something like that. Anyway, it's been a while since I've done any research into this. But, yeah, I remember this was a whole thing. And a very good thing at the time. And I think there was a concern, oh, like, what happens when things get back to normal? Is this going to be a thing? And I have to say they've been, they've done, you know, like Metrograph has the at-home thing. I have no idea if anybody's watching anything through it.

I assume they are since they've continued it. But, you know, some of the theaters have continued sort of this, like, digital experience or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, special award 2020 to both Spike Lee and also Kino Lorber. So there you go. Good memory. I think I was the one who proposed both of those at the producer. So I should remember this. Yeah. And then First Cow got Best Film also that year. Well, and also, you know, it evolved into the idea of virtual festivals, too, which as of recording, we're coming off of maybe the last virtual Sundance. Probably

And that's such a shame because Bilga, you got thwarted a couple of times By the pulling of movies It was fucking crazy because You know, so I went to the festival I was there And I did this last year too I realized once I was on the ground

I mean I enjoyed going to Park City I enjoy Sundance so that wasn't a problem for me But also it prompted me to watch more online When I got home because you're just in the mindset of the festival. You've talked to people. People have been telling you to see this or that. And suddenly you're like, oh, hey, it's right there.

I can watch it. And I noticed this last year. And so this year I was like, oh, yeah, I'm totally going to go again. And I went and I came back. And first movie, oh, well, the first movie I did, I rewatched Train Dreams because I loved it so much and I was going to write about it. And I'm glad I did that because they then proceeded to take it off the platform. last day, I think. But yeah, then the next day, I was trying to decide between Selena and Sorry Baby.

I decided on Sorry Baby. By the time I was done with Sorry Baby, Selena had been taken off the platform. And then I had to go, my wife and I had to go to a party that night. And my plan was I'm going to come home and I'm going to watch Twinless. That's another movie I heard a lot of my shirt. By the time I get home, Twinless is gone. And I was like, holy shit. Like, what is going on?

I still did manage to see a bunch of stuff. but I was just like, this is ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It does feel like I think if nothing else, I think studios are going to be probably too skittish to put anything of any, with any expectation, or not studios, but just like whatever, the filmmakers themselves. And nobody wants to get their stuff, um, pirate it. And it's a shame because Sundance's platform is really nice.

Like, they've done a very good job developing that. It functions pretty much the same. Like, the other thing is, you know, it's not, it's not changing every year the way so many of the other things do. That was actually one of the nice things about Sundance is they switched to their system and they stuck to it as opposed to like Cannes and Venice, which just change every fucking year. There's like a new system in place. But especially with their digital platform, it's with Sundance, it's really well laid out. It's a really user-friendly, it's a really good app. I'm so, I'm always so surprised whenever I go to that.

And not to, like, throw other apps under the bus, but, like, there are other screening apps that could really take a page out of Sundance's book. To sort of bring it back to Snowpiercer, though, and speaking of festivals, obviously, this movie played, well, premiered in South Korea in 2013, but then it played the Berlin Film Festival. But in terms of like... After Doville, though, I played Doeville first before Berlin, I believe. But even still, like, I think about, you know, the sort of... the, you know, major big sort of attention-giddy film festivals. And I imagine this movie would play really well at a festival because it really stands out from, you know, you talk about like,

you're seeing festival movies and you can kind of get into this rhythm of like, sort of slow, sad, contemplative, whatever. And sometimes that, like, you get a festival movie that's kind of brash and a little trashy and sort of just like energetic and it kind of shakes you, you know, a little bit. And it's like, I have to imagine that a movie like Snowpiercer would have had people really energized at a festival and gotten people talking at the very least. Yes, but also, I mean, remember, this was so much the appeal of like the new Korean cinema in that, you know, they came with all these sort of genre elements. I mean, think of old boy and, you know, the Park Chanwick films. Sure. And obviously the host as well.

The host plays Cannes, right? Did it play, did it play like, I want to say it played like directors. Can and I think Midnight Madness at TIF. Okay, yeah. So, I mean, that's one of the things about the new Korean cinema that I think really excited people was that they were like festival movies because they were thoughtful and they had, you know, some real kind of meat behind them, but they were also like gonzo genre. epics, really well-made

gonzow genre epics. So, and this is obviously, I mean, this comes out of that tradition and it's, you know, international production has a bit of Hollywood flair to it, although I know director Bong has never thought of it as a Hollywood movie, but so it, it sort of

straddles that world, but it still has that element. And obviously it's a very expensive movie, too, so it's like, you know, it's got the new Korean cinema genre elements, but it's also like, we threw a lot of fucking money. this thing, you know. I remember that was sort of the thing that sort of perked my interest beyond the fact

that, like, obviously, you know, the host and mother were very, you know, acclaimed movies that, that had people talking and the host even, you know, proliferated beyond that. But I remember being really intrigued by this idea of, you know, Bong Joon Ho sort of making his, you know, a movie that's his, but also then. You know, you've got Chris Evans, you've got Octavia Spencer, you've got, you know, Tilda Swinton. And it's just like, oh, this is, and it's sort of the same thing. I remember when, like, Nicole Kidman signed on for Stoker.

And I was like, oh, like, you know what I mean? Just like we're getting sort of like international all-star team kind of happening here. Chris, where did, where did you end up seeing Snowpiercer? I saw it in a theater, packed house, baby. Nice. I was lucky enough to have a theater nearby me playing the film. That's right. It would have actually, no, I'd seen the host at this point.

So it wasn't my first Bongchunho film. But I think a lot of this like buildup too, and I would even venture to guess the reason that you don't see it at a more major festival. Doville doesn't really get talked about because it occurs simultaneous to Venice and Toronto. But, like, that's where, you know, it really comes out that Harvey Weinstein is trying to push a different cut of the movie. Tilda's quoted at that festival talking about this. So, yeah, I think the fact that Harvey Weinstein buys this movie before it's finished. And then, you know, this is maybe the last case of the Harvey Scissorhands thing. I was trying to think of that whether there was any.

Well, Tulip Fever comes after this. Not Tulip Fever. And I remember that being the last one that had a big story behind it. Yes, yes. But I don't know if that was Harvey specifically or just like a Weinstein Company movie that had a lot of. Was that Weinstein or am I confusing that with? That was like the last Weinstein film movie. Yeah, okay.

Yeah. Because you can imagine, you know, there. There's certain things that, you know, Harvey was on the record about with this movie and Bongchun Ho have been about on the record for this movie. But if you know his history of how he's screwed over various filmmakers in terms of what cuts got released and how he would basically hold movies hostage, you can imagine that this, the radius plan and the day and date plan for this movie was not the initial idea for this movie. The, um, this is the year. So Snowpiercer is part of, I believe, the, the, I think it's the same year as the immigrant, right? Right. 2014. Right. 2014. Because, because the immigrant happens later. And this is a general thing. And I remember, I don't remember who said this to me at the time because I did a bunch of interviews around this because I was reporting on sort of the negotiations. And I wasn't really reporting on the negotiations, but I tried to report on the negotiation. Right. But I remember somebody I was talking to off the record, and it was, it was a box office analyst of some sort.

He said, I think Harvey is starting to falter in the way he reads the market. I think he's starting to, like, I don't think he's reading the market the way he used to be able to. And I think this is sort of the beginning of the end, in a way, for Weinstein. Well, he was, one of his things was always. Like, he was the Oscars whisperer, right? He could always pick out. He was the Oscars Whisper. I mean, he could always find a movie that was going to ride him to nominations,

even if it wasn't going to win anything. But the other thing, though, was, and this was built, I mean, this was built largely on the success of a couple of movies where, and this is kind of where the Harvey Scissorhand stuff came from, was, I mean, the big one was Cinema Paradiso, right? Simmon Paradiso premieres in, like, this three-hour, version. Harvey Weinstein buys it and like lops

off a huge chunk of like a third of the movie and this thing becomes a runaway success. It's like I mean, you know, it was like every girl's favorite movie back then, you know. And it's, I mean, I loved it. It wins Oscars. You know, it's like

a huge, huge phenomenon. And that was like, okay, this guy gets it. You know, like out of stuff, out of like stories like that, he built his reputation as, you know, You know, yeah, he's, he's an asshole, and he's brusk, and he'll come in and he'll cut your movie and it'll hurt, but like... But he cares about the art. He likes the...

He knows what he's doing, trust him, and it's like, some people did, a lot of people didn't. Some people didn't even know what they were getting into. But I remember, you know, when he buys the immigrant, I mean, James Gray had had to deal with Harvey Weinstein on the yards years earlier. And James Gray did not want to sell his movie to Harvey Weinstein. he knew what was coming. And, you know, but as so often happens, it's often not the director's call who, you know, the movie gets sold to. And sure enough, the same damn thing happened. I mean, in fact, it's a very similar concept, I believe, with Snowpiercer, because Weinstein comes in and buys the movie before it's made, really, before it's done.

Yeah. So he'd seen some footage, but not like a cut of the movie. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So then it becomes a whole thing. so he gets in on the ground floor and really fucks with stuff as opposed to a filmmaker being able to say well I premiered this at can at this length

and it won this award you know you have no you have no chance in a situation where he's like there all along the way but yeah this is 2014 so I mean by the time I mean by the time the stories about Weinstein come out

I remember I mean at that point there has been you know there have been a couple of Weinstein company releases that yeah I think maybe tulip fever was one of those where it just like vanishes off the schedule and you realize oh they don't have money left like they don't they don't have the money to market that was their big yeah that was ultimately yeah yeah and by the time the stories about winstein come out and I feel like it's weird because I feel like a lot of people of memory hold this because because it's like the stories came out and obviously it was such a huge you know still a shock

And not that everybody didn't know Harvey Weinstein was a shithead, but like what specific kind of shithead he was. That's sort of as how I remember it is that it was open secret, not even a secret, because obviously like you read, you know, I always talk about reading easy, not easy writers raising. Down and dirty pictures. Down and dirty pictures, the Peter Biscan book. And it's like, that's all right there on Front Street. But it was, he was physically assaulting someone during the purchasing process of shine was like published. news at the time. He was a bully. He was

physically imposing or whatever. It ultimately then when the accusations of sexual assault come out, you're just like, well, does not. I can't be surprised by this. But it's one of those things where the degree to which that kind of stuff was an open secret. I don't know. Have either of you

two seen chasing, chasing Amy, the documentary about chasing Amy? The a tremendous movie that's kind of like kind of made just for me to the Gritia which I talked about chasing Amy was like a big like

turnkey for me in terms of like getting into not only just like in terms of like you're not seeing gay movies but also just like getting into independent cinema getting into like Miramax specifically but the the highlight of that movie is this interview with Joey Lauren Adams

where she talks incredibly candidly about how making that movie, because she made that movie while she's dating Kevin Smith, and then that movie gets released after they've broken up. And it's just this really hard thing for her to sort of compartmentalize because so much of the text of the movie was sort of based in the fact that, like, Kevin Smith resented her for having, like, a sexual past. And so beyond that, though, she talks about promoting the movie at Sundance 97. And she's just like, Rose McGowan was up in a room somewhere getting assaulted, getting raped, you know what I mean?

And she's just like, and she's like, we all knew, and I don't think it was specifically like they all knew exactly what was happening at a proximate moment, but they're like, we all knew what Harvey was doing behind the scenes, you know what I mean? So it's just like, this was an open secret. So, obviously, oh God, we could really detour talking about Harvey. I mean, a monster in many ways. I assume on this had Oscar, but his name has come up. He's come up a few times.

Yeah. You know, the thing I was going to say, though, was the, but when the, you know, the stories about him like being an actual rapist came out, you know, he had really lost a lot of his power. And I remember a couple of people said at the time, you know, the reason why this is coming out now is because people aren't really afraid of him anymore. He's diminished. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I sense this, I mean, in a different way, you know, when I was trying to report out the story on kind of what was going on with Snowpiercer at the time, I was talking to, like, Harvey's publicists at the time, trying to, because I was like, hey, would he want to talk to me about this? And they were like, oh, maybe, you know, and there was this conversation around whether Harvey Weinstein was ever going to talk to me. Never really happened. But I remember talking to his publicist, and I remember, like, I would get calls in the middle of the night from them.

And one of them, at one point, one of them said, by the way, please don't call him Harvey's scissorhands. He hates that. But it wasn't a kind of like fun little aside. It was like literally, like literally. Someone's going to get something thrown at him. Yeah, it's like literally I am going to like have a limb removed if you wind up calling it. Like it was like there was terror in this person's voice. I can't imagine interviewing Harvey Weinstein and getting up the hutzpah to like even jokingly just be like,

Harvey Cisorhands, right? Well, I think they were worried I was going to call him Harvey Cisorhands in the article. Oh, well, that makes more sense. You know, but I was just like, you know, I was like, I'm fine. I'm not calling him. I mean, I was like at this point, it's a cliche. It's kind of like, it's the kind of thing you don't want to say just because it's boring. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But yeah, it's just funny how it's, yeah. I mean, and ironically enough at the time, you know, director of Bong was very diplomatic, you know, as much as he is kind of a, you know, he's a renegade, he's a brilliant. artist he also like knows how to play the game right i mean oh yeah absolutely he was like he's like no everything is fine you know we we came to an agreement you know there's no problem with the cut or anything like that and obviously later later you know he opens up about all the shit he had to go through to preserve his cut um but even when he talks about it later he talks about it with this sort of not detached necessarily but this kind of amusement where he's talking about like you know he's he was so proud of his cut he thought he was like he thought he really did something

thing there. And it was one of those things where it's just like, he's not even mad about it. He's almost just like this fool. Part of the process would be is like, Harvey would take movies into the editing room, lob off a half an hour or more, depending on what movie you're talking about, put it in front of a test audience and boast of whatever scores. And of course, there's a sell to it, right? You know, the idea of making a cut and then making it and testing it with a certain audience, it's like, okay, well, where, where did you test this? Oh, a mall in New Jersey. I didn't make my movie for a mall in New Jersey audience, you know, it's, it's a, it's, he could boast however he want and he could kill a movie if he wanted to through that process. Yeah, and Mangold talks

about this because, you know, he had to deal with what Weinstein on Copeland. Copeland. Yeah. And the thing he always talks about is, you know, he was a very young director at the time. So he was inexperienced. He didn't. But like, He would say that, like, Weinstein would, and first of all, it was always New Jersey, because I think he's from New Jersey, right? But he would bring in, like, people, like experts, quote unquote, to advise on cuts and things like that. And then later it would come out that these were like basically people that Weinstein sort of handpick to deliver the message he wanted. It wasn't like, hey, listen, let's get this outside person to come in and give us some advice. It's like, I'm going to call my cop friend to come in and tell you that, like, cops don't talk like this and cops wouldn't do this, so you revise your script. And Mangol, like, you know, he didn't realize this is, this was the game until later.

But, you know, the thing you were saying about how, you know, Bong represents wine scene as this guy who's almost proud of all this stuff, James Gray talks about him that way, too. I mean, James Gray is way more belittling of him. But also, you know, talking to Gray about this stuff, he was like, he would tell me about, like, he would do his imitation of, like, Weinstein calling him in the middle of the night to yell at him about different cuts and things like that. And he said, you know, he yelled at one point, I'm God's own editor, you know, like, like, I'm God's editor. Like, that was his line, you know, it was like he was so full of himself because he had bought into his own fucking press. Like, he had bought into this idea that, like, he had saved. these classic movies like Cinema Paradiso and all that from sort of, you know, oblivion and turned them into gold because he, I mean, clearly he was also a frustrated filmmaker.

You know, he thought he understood the stuff better than, you know, these directors and wanted to show that. And yeah, I mean. A sort of fascinating, you know, pathology, really, of so drawn to. artistic filmmakers, yet all at the same time seemingly so nakedly envious or disdainful of them for, you know, this kind of, you think you're better than me, kind of like I'm going to draw, you know, I'm drawn to all of these, you know, artistic filmmakers, but then I'm going to show them that like, you know, I ultimately have the last word over all of them. And it's, I got to see one side of how this could be rewarding for somebody. I remember at Sundance, I was at the premiere of Sing Street. Remember Sing Street?

I do. I like that movie. I love that movie. It's a delightful movie. But I was there at the world premiere in this, you know, John Carney, right? Who directed once. And I remember it was after, sort of right after the movie when the kind of the applause breaks out. Because this is the Eccles Auditorium. So this is the big premiere.

This is, you know, the front section of the theater is full of like people who worked on the movie. And I always sit near the front, so I'm always around these people. And Weinstein is sitting like five rows behind me. And at the end of the movie, when everybody gets up, because, you know, Sing Street is a musical, everybody's really happy. And, you know, ovation starts, everybody's up. And Weinstein is there. He is yelling. He's like, that's my director.

That's my director. And he's like hooting and hollering and cheering and clapping. And that was the one time when I saw it I was like I can totally see how I mean this must stroke your ego To such a great Because like Donna Langley at Universal isn't doing that You know like these other studio

Like nobody else does that This is right major Hollywood You know studio distribution guy You know kind of a legend up there Of the sort of the The bully sort of is that awful when he's said his sights on you. Yeah.

Like, you know, if the bully's in your corner, you know, you're a little invincible. It's like all the people that gravitate to Trump, right? I mean, it's like all the people who, you know, you'll see them criticize Trump four years ago or whatever. And then suddenly they become such devotees. And you hear people say this is like, you know, when you talk to him, he's so flattering that, you know, once he gets his paws on you, it's like, I mean, sorry, I don't mean to, you know, be that graphic.

No, we've already broken the Weinstein. You know, especially when we're talking about wines. No, but like, you know, it's like, I mean, yeah, it's not always nice when they get their paws on you. But like it is, but like, you know, once you're kind of in the circle, it must be, it must feel so rewarding, even though it's not rewarding at all. You're basically. Yeah, I was going to say, cut to six months later, Weinstein Coe totally whiffed the release of Sing Street. Yeah, absolutely. They flubbed that movie because they were running out of money.

Yeah. All right. Well, as penance for bringing up Trump, I'm going to make you sum up this movie in 60 seconds. But before that, Chris, why don't you tell our listeners why they should be signing up for our Patreon? Hey, listener, Gary's new and old. We have a Patreon. It's called This Head Oscar Buzz Turbulent Brilliance. For $5 a month, you're going to get two fun bonus episodes over at Patreon.

dot com slash this had Oscar buzz. What are those two bonus episodes going to be? Well, the first one comes on the first Friday of the month. This is what we call exceptions. These are movies that fit with this had Oscar buzz rubric of great expectation and disappointing results, but manage to score an Oscar nomination or two. We, at this point, do not have our March planned, but February we had a big old, uh, loud, fun month.

The February exception was none other than the Phantom of the opera, and we had our friend Natalie Walker on to talk about that movie. That was a good time. Other exceptions we've done before. We've done House of Gucci. We've done Vanilla Sky. We've done The Lovely Bones. We've done Knives Out with our friend Jorge Molina.

We've done Australia with our friend Katie Rich. Lots of other fun episodes. Madonna's W.E. Good movie. And then on the weird fucking movie. Weird movie. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. third Friday of the month you're going to get that second episode. This is an excursion. These are deep dives into Oscar ephemero. We love to obsess about on the show. We've done Hollywood Reporter Roundtables, EW Fall Movie previews.

We've recapped old award shows from the 2000s and the 90s. And in February, we did our version of an annual award show called the superlatives. Our listeners vote on what our best picture will be. And then we do all of the goofies. categories from the Oscar season, such as the Cannes Prize of the Youth, best grown-up love story, et cetera, et cetera.

So go on over to patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz and sign up now. Excellent. Yes, you should. All right. So today we are going to be talking about Snowpiercer. The 2014 American release was released internationally in 2013, directed by Bongos. Junho, written by Bong Joon Ho and Kelly Masterson, starring Chris Evans, Song Kang Ho, Ed Harris, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Ewan Bremner, Go Asung, Allison Pill.

It was distributed by Radius and the Weinstein Company, premiered, as I said, in South Korea on July 29th, 2013. Then the Berlin Film Festival, I messed up the festival, so I'm just going to, I think it played both. Well, it definitely did, but I thought Berlin was its festival premiere. Regardless, it opened in the States. Inlimited release day and date on June 27th, 2014. That same opening weekend, just to set you into time and space, Transformers, Age of Extinction, had opened $200 million. What?

Yeah. What? Yeah. 22 Jump Street, the, in my opinion, disappointing sequel to the quite wonderful 21 Jump Street was in its third week, was at number two, How to Train Your Dragon 2, another sort of disappointing sequel to a movie I liked very much was in its third week, think like a man to, which is a sequel to a movie I did not see, in its second week, and then Maleficent was in its fifth week. All movies we still talk about as much as we talk about, you know, all movies. that stand up to... I will say 22 Jump Street is on a constant loop at our house. Is it true?

Oh, wow. Okay. All right. And 21 Junction. I only remember... Age of Extinction opened to $200 million. Was it $200 million that they're open to? I thought you just said it open to $200 million.

No, I thought it was $100 million. But I will... I mean, that's not great either. I was going to say, that's not great either. All right, now I got to confirm it, though. This was the end of July. It would have been $100. Yeah, that was a fourth, right?

I think it was a hundred. That was the one, Francis McDormonson? You know, that's an excellent question. Do not ask about the character actors that appear in these. Yeah, it was, it was a hundred, pretty much 100 even, Transformers Age of Extinction. Ah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You want to know what number six was?

Jersey Boys. So, want to know what seven was? Edge of Tomorrow, an actually good movie. See, this is where it all comes alive. The six through tens are the ones that actually. remind me of what I was doing at this. It's edge of tomorrow, fault in our stars, days of future past, chef. Like, those were the movies that I saw.

I did not see. And which week is Edge of Tomorrow in at this point? Edge of Tomorrow's in its fourth week. I remember it felt like a civilizational push to try and get that movie above the 100 million mark. Yeah. It had gotten to, in four weeks, it had gotten to 84 million. And boy, did that movie not get treated the way I think it should have been.

It was that period when, you know, Tom Cruise had suddenly lost the ability to open a movie, even though the movies were really good. I'm somewhat resistant to the Mission Impossible and Top Gun movies. So this is in many ways the last real, like, truly good feeling I have about a Tom Cruise movie is at a tomorrow. Did you see American Made? Oh, no, that's none of my business. Oh, okay. I don't. No, I probably should at some point.

It's really good. It's really good. I like Dylan O'Brien, so maybe I will. Yeah, I'm the Inuritu Apologist. I'm going to be excited for this Inuritu Tom Cruise movie. When is that supposed to appear? 2026 now. They're going to be filming this year.

They're going to be filming forever. That's true. They are going to be filming forever. It doesn't take six months to film. All right, I'm pulling up my stopwatch, Bilga, and I am going to charge you with a 60-second description of Snowpiercer. If you are ready, sure. All right, begin. Okay, I have not prepared this, but in the not so distant future, the Earth has completely frozen over and humanity has basically died.

The only survivors are those who live on a speeding train that if it stops, they will all die. And the train is organized according to social classes with all the poor people in the back and the rich people in the front and the story of the film concerns a rebellion started in the back of the train that makes its way up through the various compartments and social strata of the train up to the locomotive. And wackiness and soos.

Wackiness and soos. All right. With five minutes or five seconds to spare. Lots of wackiness. does ensue in this movie. Okay, so I believe the year that they cite for this movie happening is 2031, which means that I believe then that dates the incident to being contemporaneous with when the movie released, right? The idea is that like, the, the attempt to-

The world is ending tomorrow. Right, right. I did click the hyperlink on Snowpiercer on the idea of, you know, of, oh, wait a second, it's stratospheric aerosol injection, which is the concept of the thing that they try at the beginning of this movie to reverse global warming. They shoot these aerosol devices, whatever, like into the stratosphere to supposedly cool the globe, and it works a little too well.

And it institutes a new ice age. But apparently this is like a thing that people have researched. as like a possibility should things get really bad? I mean, things are really bad. And I am increasingly of the belief that the only thing that will save the earth is going to be some kind of these, like some radical solution. Like not the sort of, oh, if we all pull together and we and we and we. And we can slowly slow, slow things down and slowly reverse and, you know, climate justice. We can donate our way through the climate crisis.

I was like, no, it's going to literally be like the Chinese are going to shoot something in the sky and they're going to try and like cool down. And it's going to work or it's going to not work. And it's literally going to be like, okay, all right, we bought ourselves some time or sorry everybody, you're all going to die in the next six months. Right. I mean, I actually have this, and I've researched this too. There's also, I don't know how far ahead this plan is, but somebody had this plan that I was like, hey, this seems like a good idea. It was like a fleet of ships to refreeze the Arctic. You know.

Honestly, I've not heard a better idea. No, I mean, there were plans for this, and I don't know if anybody's working on it or if they just decided that was crazy or what, but I'm just like, that seems like something we should try. I don't know. Everybody just fill up your ice cubes as many ice cube trays as you can and just throw them into a cooler and everyone get on a boat. It works with coolers. I'm saying. I'm saying. Yes.

Igloo stock is about to go through the roof. There are hockey teams that play in Anaheim, California, and Miami. And they are able to keep ice in their arenas. So let's extrapolate. Let's scale that up. Yes, humans possess the technology to freeze things. Let's scale that. Let's scale that right the heck out.

I think the air conditioning that it takes to ensure that that happens. Only way is through. Nope. The only way is through now. What is snow? This is why we're all going to die because we're not going to try it. So the other thing that I sort of noted on a kind of macro scale with Snowpiercer, because they talk about how, and obviously, like, we get this in the like the Allison Pills

scene in the school car or whatever, about like the great innovation that was Snowpiercer, the greatest train that ever was, the most, you know, indomitable and whatever. And I'm like, the building of the train with the like aquarium in it and whatever and the, you know, that's not the most impressive part. The most daunting thing about creating Snowpiercer would be laying the tracks that allow it to circumnavigate two oceans among other things. You know what I mean? It's just like annually. Yeah.

And it's just like that's the impressive thing. That's the thing that makes this thing, you know, obviously a fantasy. But like the train's the easy part. Building the train is no problem, ultimately. But Goodford, Wilford, Wilford, Wilfred. Wilfred. Wilford. Wilford. Wilford.

I did wonder, and I haven't read the comic book that this is based on. Yeah. I think I did buy it, but I never read it. And I haven't watched the show, but I don't know if it's ever actually explained why the train can't stop. Like, really, the chain can't stop just for like a few minutes? I imagine that it's like the cold is so intense that if the engine ever stops creating heat that it, that. the ice will take hold of it or something. Yeah.

It's a shark situation. If the engine stops, it cannot restart. And so, like, obviously this is a movie that, like, I'm tongue in cheek when I nitpick, obviously, because, like, the, you know, this is a movie that put, should make Cinemasons folks even more ashamed to do what they do. Because, like, what, what's the point of nitpicking a movie like Snowpiercer? But because I think ultimately, obviously it all falls apart if you pull any of the strings. But the point of it is that it is this kind of very elemental, iconic sort of idea of you're all on. So they call it an arc in the in the subtext at the very beginning, right? So it's, you know, it's essentially all of humanity is on this one structure and it's going round and round and it can't stop.

And it has enforced rigid, you know, structural rules about society because that's the only way that things will go. And also it makes for a real interesting parable when you decide to tell a story about all of humanity on one train and you have haves and have-nots. And yeah, I also appreciate the fact that maybe you guys can see it maybe a little differently. Yes, Chris Evans is the main character, but he's not like, a chosen one hero right yeah no i mean he's not to a certain degree though because he is kind of the protege of john hurt well that's true so maybe in as much as there is a higher power in this it's john hurt sort of anointing him as the he he's not a higher power but he he's kind of the it's a godless movie so right right what's the he's not in like a political stand

at the shoe of the train, but, you know, he is revered in a certain way that, you know, he's, Chris Evans being chosen by him, which, you know, ultimately has a larger implication by the end of the movie. Right. Does put, does give him a certain status that I think draws these other characters to him as someone to listen to. But it feels like he wasn't like marked as a baby or anything like that. You know what I mean?

He wasn't raised to be. Yeah. And that, I think, works well with what I would say Chris Evans' general lack of charisma. Like, he's, he's, I mean, people follow him, but not, they don't really follow him because he's like a natural leader. I think there's just the sense that, I mean, he's, he seems a little dumb, which I think pays off at the end. He's a little reluctant, which is understandable. Um, you know, he's like, I mean, he's got two arms, which is more than most people can say, uh, you know, he's got two arms, he's got two legs. Which is a thing he later admits is due to his own sort of relative cowardice that he has two arms because he ultimately, uh, didn't have the guts to sacrifice one of them.

Yeah. So I sort of think of, I just had seen once again, uh, Blade Runner 2049, the other day was on TV. So I just sort of decided to nestle in and why. watch it. I think Chris Evans is a charismatic actor in certain settings. I think Ryan Gosling has a similar setting. Like everything that Chris Evans is charismatic in, I think Ryan Gosling can also be charismatic in. I think Ryan Gosling, though, can be compelling in stillness in a way that Evans really kind of struggles with. I think a character like this is so sort of quiet, And I think in something like Blade Runner 2049, I'm really into what, you know, Gosling is doing. All of those interrogation scenes where it's cells interlinked and whatnot. I'm just like, fuck, yeah, Ryan Gosling, let's like, deliver it to me.

I don't know why I landed on that beyond just recency, but I don't know. I will say as a non-Blade Runner 2049 fan, I don't, I mean, I don't dislike the movie. It's one of those movies We don't need... Different movie. Different episode. Different episode. Yeah, yeah.

But I will say you're right in this that, you know, Ryan Gosling is just inherently more interesting to look at. And he's so much better with Deadpan. I mean, he can do Deadpan comedy, which, I mean, look, Fall Guy was one of my favorite films of last year. Yeah, I love Ryan Gosling in the right moments. I actually really like Chris Evans as Captain America. The first Captain America, I think it's like one of the best Marvel movies.

these. But so he's very good as this kind of ordinary guy. I don't know that he's as interesting to look at. I mean, all these people are like super hot, so they're obviously interesting to look like. If they were sitting in my room, I would probably be looking at him. Chris Evans. He can do comedy, but not so much deadpan comedy. I thought some of the best stuff in Deadpool versus Wolverine, which is not a movie I particularly like.

A movie I watched. But I thought Chris Evans was really funny. They had him really hamming it up. And I suppose that, like, that was, I sort of felt, I was just like, man, like, you've made so much money, Chris Evans. You don't have to do this. Like, I feel, I felt a little bad there. But that movie kind of made me feel bad all over. So, yeah, I think he's, I thought he was really charming in those fantastic four movies that ultimately were pretty middling.

But, like, he was clearly the standout in those ones. And obviously, they kind of leveled him up to, you know. know, the next superhero franchise after that. But even in something like Sunshine, where I don't think he's bad in Sunshine, actually, I think it's probably one of his better sort of, like, dramatic roles. But he does get overshadowed by, like, a lot of people in that movie. A lot of people are more compelling. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, I think it's probably a very good actor, like, just on a technical level. Like, I think he's a talented guy. But he does seem like somebody who, like, you know, 10, 15 years from now when he really is like middle-aged, middle-aged is going to be a more interesting character actor, maybe, you know? Right, right, yes. I mean, he's not that young anymore, but it does feel like he's still kind of in that sort of, yeah, he's a leading man, but he's kind of not really a leading man because he's not that charismatic, but like, we're going to give him these leading man parts. Well, this is the problem with all of the Marvel actors, with the exception of Robert Downey Jr.

her sort of entered that movie with this sort of, you know, persona already intact, which is you're so subordinate to the character and also like the project. And like I am a Marvel apologist. I am absolutely like, ultimately, I like so many more of those movies that I dislike. But absolutely, when it comes to the greater project of like having movie stars, which is a thing I would like us to do, the Marvel movies have been really sort of, worked against that because it really de-emphasizes the importance of actually, like, having an actor who you will follow from movie to movie when you're just not following the actors. You're following the characters, the uniform. But it is funny, though, because I'm like, I think you're absolutely right. But then I look at the work that some of these people have, I mean, Charlotte Johansson is, like, one of the best actors in the world. That is, I mean, yeah, yes.

Mark Rovolo is, like, a really great actor. And he's actually a really good hug. Ironically, if he's like the one guy who didn't get his own movie because, you know, they had the experience of Edward Norton. Edward Norton salted the earth behind him when he made that movie. Johansen and Ruffalo, though, I think are actors who have maybe proven their bona fides prior to entering Marvel. Hemsworth is the one who actually grew during, like, actually became a better actor and a more interesting person during the Marvel. Yeah, and I like Hemsworth.

I mean, Hemsworth has been in like low-key, like, a lot of movies. I really love. He was in my best performances article this year for Furiosa because I thought he was just-made in Furiosa. I love him in Black Hat. You know, I mean, I love Black Hat in general. But, like, he's great in the Ghostbusters movie that's been. He's great.

I mean, he's great in these, like, comic parts. You know, the comic, like, throwaway parts. He's great in vacation. His scenes in vacation are fantastic. He's great in, in the Spiderhead, the Joseph Kosinski movie. I don't know if you guys ever saw that, but the one... No, I never saw that one. Netflix movie literally comes out two weeks after Top Gun Maverick.

Oh, get out of here. Gets terrible reviews. I really liked it. It's got Miles Teller and Chris Hemsworth. And Chris Hemsworth is really good in it. Wow. And I don't think I've ever heard of that movie. That's so weird.

Yeah, I don't... It's such a... Netflix. Yeah. Blinkin and it didn't exist anymore. It is amazing. It is amazing. It's like, you've got a movie.

directed by the guy who just released Top Gun Maverick starring one of the key actors from Top Gun Navvri. Right. Maybe find a way to capitalize on that at all. Yeah. No, just dump it. Great. Netflix was like, we got what we wanted out of this.

I don't know. I think some of the issue with Evans and some of the other Marvel people is when they have stepped outside of Marvel, they don't necessarily have directors who know what to do with them, which is why I'm really interested and curious about Chris Evans and the new Celine's song movie

that's coming out this year because she does seem like she might know what to do with this guy. Yeah. Anything, like, this has been the frustration with Evans of late, which is he just keeps anything he's done sort of post or even contemporaneous with Marvel.

It's like, what are you doing? Like, the, is it the gray man? Is that the one he's in? Or just like, all of these things that just, like, do absolutely nothing for you except for, like, feel like a pale, you know, comparison to the Marvel movies and just, like, work with some directors, dude, like, it'd be good for you. And the Grey Man is also Gosling, right? Like, they both vans in that movie.

Like, they, I mean, oh, that movie is like. Non-entities in that movie. It's like that you ever watch, you know, they've created, you know, a substance where you, like, you try and, like, hold it in your hands and it goes away, you know what I mean? Like, it's like, cool with space age polymer or whatever. And it's just like, it's gone. before you even try and, like, grasp it out. Except like Coolewip is delicious. That's true.

That's true. I don't think Evans is necessarily bad in this movie. And back to the I know babies taste best moment. I kind of feel like that's an impossible line to say as an actor. Oh, it's not his fault. I think it's a preposterous line to ask anybody to say. I mean, I think he's fine in the movie. I think what's interesting about it, though, is that he's, I think,

the movie uses his anti-charisma well in a way. Like it's like I think the film's own kind of forward momentum carries it along. It doesn't require us to kind of be so involved in his psychology, right? But like we're not really like I don't watch. I mean, I've seen

Snowpiercer enough times. I'm never watching it like hoping that you know Chris Evans' character makes it through. Like if he dies halfway through the movie, I don't think I would care. I'd be like, all right, well, Song Kang-ho. You've go, you go. You know, like, like, there's, I mean, and that is kind of the vibe of the movie. Like, they're all sort of parts of this mass and they're all sort of interchangeable. Yes. Jamie Bell falls by the wayside. Octavia Spencer falls by the way side.

And the way, you almost don't even notice when Jamie Bell falls by the way. They play it in such a way to make it, I mean, very consciously, they present his death as kind of, oh, yeah, by the way, he died. So the film has kind of, you know, assumed that. that point of view, the film assumed that sort of emotional distance from just, you know, the consequences of everything that's happening, which I love. I mean, I love it when movies do that. And it makes it clear that they're doing that, not like, like, Jamie Bell's death is glossed over, not because the director is an incompetent. It's because the director knows exactly what he's doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Intentional. And you do get the one emotional death with Octavia Spencer, too, which is like, well, that's the one.

That's the one you have to have the emotional one. We all love her. Well, and even like when John Hurt dies, which you, of course, know John Hurt's going to die because it's like the old man mentor at the beginning of the movie. John Hurt dies in everything. Yes, that is also true. That's, yes. I didn't accept when he narrates. I used to have this rule.

Like, I don't, years ago, I was like, Joe, John Hurt, he just dies. Like, he's, he's there to die. He's just like the most fragile. He also looks so fragile. I mean, even, I mean, he's like the best casting in alien. It's just like, of course. Oh, no, I'm always so happy when John Hurt shows up in something. But wait, so I was sort of taking it to the beginning, though.

One of the, I think, to me, the film's biggest strength is the fact that you set this thing on a train that can't, you know, can't ever stop. And it forces you to move your movie. Like, this is a movie that's over two hours, but it never feels. draggy because you always have to be moving forward. There is no, you know what I mean? Like, they don't ultimately take very long to get to the part where they start moving forward in the train. As soon as they've laid all the, like, these are the bad guys.

This is the, you know, this is what they do to people who, you know, defy them. And this is what they eat for food. And like, once those things are set up, then it's like, cool. Now we're pushing forward in the train. got our moment. It's sooner. It's sooner than what they would have wanted to do, but they have to... They burn through a lot of those train cars, the ones that you probably wouldn't have any questions about the world building, where it's like, oh, the richest people just sit around and do drugs all day. Got it. Great. Don't need anything else. And it does, I mean, that forward momentum and the fact that the train, like, it's established that the train cannot stop.

It imposes this subconscious structure on the whole thing because you're like, we're going to keep moving forward. The whole movie is going to be forward momentum because the train is forward momentum. But you also know in the back of your head, this movie is ending with this train stopping, you know? Yes. Oh, yeah. It has to. Yes. And so you have this question, even if you don't necessarily articulate it, but it is in the back of your head. How is this train going to stop? And what's going to happen? What's it going to take? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. So having spoken to Bong Joon Ho about this movie, as you have, what can you say about just sort of what is, what's he up to? to with this thing? If that's not too vague of a question, like what is ultimately, is he just sort of looking for some,

you know, spectacular action, you know, fantastic, was he drawn to the graphic novel? Like, did he want to say something about like class in society?

Like, what's going on? Oh, yeah. I mean, I think he's, he clearly wanted to say something about class and society. I mean, he,

the way he tells the story is that, like, he was in a comic book store and he started reading, the graphic novel or the comic book and and really um was just like and like he like read the whole thing right then and there he was so gripped by it but then um when he when it came to making a film he realized he needed a completely different story so i i gather that the story of the comic book is not the story of the film you know there's the train obviously and like the concept

of the train and the different cars and all that i'm assuming the social strata thing was there but you know his idea of this like revolution moving through the train that's that's all bomb and it's so clear when you look at i mean you look at a film like the host right where you know the idea of like american imperialism is this sort of symbolic thing looming over the film yeah and then you look at a film like um snowpiercer and it's become a lot more overt and it's like and then you know and then you get oak joe where it's like almost too much. Sure, I would say, I'm not the world's biggest Oakja fan. But like, and part of it is because there are certain parts where I'm like, okay, this is now become just like kind of a confused political tract. Yes, it's very, yeah. But then you get to parasite, which is like all, I mean, very refined, but a diamond, nothing but nothing but class warfare. I mean, articulated in such a like crystalline and compelling way.

I loved the little nods, not nods, obviously, because it's in the past, but the little connections you can find to parasite here. The idea of how much bong is kind of tickled by the idea of just like a face poking out of a, you know, a hidden structure or something like that. I love how much like the idea of just like these people hiding in these compartments that you never really knew were there until, you know, I was just like, oh, right. Like, obviously, you know, no wonder he got such a kick out of, you know, those eyes peering out of the hole in the floor in Parasite. Oh, yeah. No, he loves little compartments and things like that that's so clearly, you know, it's like, I'm sure that was, I can totally imagine like little Bong Joon-ho as a kid being like, you know, he was totally building the little forts and hiding out of like closets or, you know, cabinets and scaring his mom or. whatever um yeah but um yeah and it also makes me wonder because you know there's this sort of through line through his career of you know the the subtext becoming text you know over the course of his career i'm like what the fuck is mickey seventeen going to be like you know like

but it is very much a kind of just he's making this for a studio like the natural progression would suggest that it's basically going to be like even more class warfare than um yeah than parasite and who knows well well chris you you seemed like you had something you wanted to throw in here before i barrel no no no no no i was i was just yes ending ever all of that so because watching this obviously it's really impossible to watch something like this now and not sort of like draw allusions to sort of what's happening in the country right now but it's interesting to see what our vision of this sort of apocalyptic clash between, you know, a society that's, that's breaking apart, right? That is too stratified to hold on. And I thought it was interesting how you get, Chris, you mentioned the sort of the car that's full of just sort of, you know, a nightclub full of people who are drugged out and sleazily dancing with each other. whatnot. And that's luxury. That's like the highest class. That's like they have no concerns in the

world and they have to addle themselves in order to make their life interesting. And it made me realize that this movie comes out in the midst of the Hunger Games movies, which was another movie that sort of painted the wealthy class as, you know, painted faces and insane fashion and all this sort of like going to the club. The luxury of being able to sort of be decadent, right? And it's plastic surgery to make you look like, you know, animals and the sort of, and I was like, we really never quite assumed that the wealthy and decadent would be as boring as the tech culture has sort of assumed now. Like, you look at, you know, Elon Musk and his cronies and whatever, and you don't imagine this kind of like

wealthy decadence of like, you know. Yeah, it's a bunch of dudes and ill-fitting suits with like McDonald's stains on it. This whole idea that the upper sort of ruling classes would be more feminized and queerer and more sort of, you know, obviously into like, you know, drugs. Obviously, Elon's on drugs, allegedly, allegedly. But like this idea that that, that. you know, in the future, your ruling classes are going to be exactly the kind of thing that scares you. And I'm not like putting this on bong, obviously, because this is a thing that

has been the case for decades, right? This has always been our sense of what the, the future times would be. And now we're looking at it. And it's just like, oh, no, it's like kind of completely the opposite. Well, it isn't. It isn't. Sorry, go ahead, Chris. No, go ahead, go ahead. I was going to say, I mean, you know, if you really look at it as kind of the broader class perspective, you know, you have the people who are sort of, I guess, boring, sort of, you know, ill-fitting suits who are just, you know, playing video games all day long or whatever. But then, you know, I mean, we just had the Grammys, you know, and there were dudes there with, like, houses on their heads. I mean, so there is, that is the ruling class, too. Let's not forget, you know.

It's the ruling class, but it's also the class that's being kind of like targeted by the ones who are like, you know, taking over the government right now. I mean, the thing is, I mean, the wealthy are almost never fully targeted, you know, they can represent those who are being targeted. But the people who are being targeted are, I assure you, Taylor Swift and all those folks are going to be fine. You know, I mean, that is that is, and that is, I think that is a reality that. Bang Junho in kind of his sort of class dissections does get at, which is the sense that, you know, there can be wealthy people like this and wealthy people like that. Sure. You know, in the end, you know, wealth really does kind of determine so many other things.

So I don't think you're wrong, though. Like, I've, you know, it is funny how like we, like, the pop cultural idea of wealth is, extravagance and decadence, even when it's like historically, you know, like, I mean, you know, Visconti is one of my favorite filmmakers, right? And his portraits of historical wealth are full of just like decadence and people doing all sorts of crazy things and wearing crazy things and all that, you know, even the Versailles of it all. Yeah. Even when they're like Nazis, you know, and, um, yeah. And then when you're in the middle of something like that you're like actually the wealthy are kind of boring you know um and so i think i don't think you're wrong but i think there's there's there's some nuance yeah i i i gravitate to the

to the to the vymar of it all i suppose um but hunger games is an interesting comparison point just time wise for this movie uh because they're i mean like this is maybe the i i think people kind of nitpick this movie to death but this is maybe the bongchun home movie that you could criticize for being the most typical of, like, the genre or genres that he's doing, you know, these are not, this is almost why it's shocking that, like, Harvey Weinstein wanted to chop this movie to pieces because he didn't think people would get it. Like, this is a very, you know, these are a lot of sci-fi tropes that we've seen in other movies. And I don't think it's that particularly complex to understand.

I think he's elevating a lot of those. things. But some of this is also, you know, talking about the dissonance between what, you know, wealth actually looks like and what it's, as it's depicted in this movie. You know, some of this is just standard science fiction fair in a way. Oh, definitely. Like, that's, that sort of kind of was the point that I was making is that, like, these are, you know, tropes that have been honed through, you know. The other thing, though, was I think the thing that's most chilling in the movie to me. And I think that Bong definitely knows this, is that school car, right? It's the Allison Pill sort of, you know, reinforcing these cultish. And it's another thing that made me think of fucking Elon Musk. Like, I hate the degree to which I had to watch this movie and think about him as often as I did. But talking about how, like, he was this person who, you know, the governments at the time didn't want him to make his train. And he, they told him no. And then he went, uh, at all. And then he, uh, at all. And All I could think it was, like, fucking SpaceX and all this sort of shit.

The reason you were thinking of Elon Musk is Elon Musk would totally build a snowpiercer. One million percent. He would totally be the guy who's like, listen, we're going to let the Earth die, but I've got a solution. We're all going to get on the train and I'm going to drive it. And I'm going to be in the front. I get to be in the front. Yeah, exactly. But, like, you know, I'm going to be able to do G at the front of the train.

I mean, like, he would totally build a snowpiercer and see that as a perfectly. optimal solution to the world's ills. Same with like, hey, you know, you know, we're going to go to Mars. We'll be fine. It's like, we're not seeing Mars. Right. See, Allison Pill is like the your mileage may vary thing about this movie because I think if this movie loses people, it loses them at Allison Pill.

But what I almost find more chilling in this movie and the way that I find, you know, reverberations in our current times is that there is in the train strata, there is, This middle class of violent protectors of the order, you know, the, what would we call this one train where you have all of the hooded, you know. Yeah, your stormtroopers, you know, that there is a social strata built into the system for people like that. Rebellion quellers, yeah. Yeah, that I found more chilling in relation to current time. I think there's so many things. I think it's so interesting as they move up through the train.

And you see, you know, obviously, like, the aquarium is very impressive. But, like, the one shot of them moving. Fish. There's a social strata for fish. There's a shot of moving through where somebody's, like, going to the dentist. You know what I mean? It's just like that kind of stuff where I'm just like, oh, like, this is such an interesting statement on just sort of like, you know, Life goes on.

Ho-hum, whatever. We figured out a way to maintain your standard of living. And that standard of living includes keeping, you know, your teeth nice and orderly except if you're Tilda Swinton. Because in that case, you are here to be a joke on Margaret Thatcher, whatever the fuck's going on there. I can't believe it's taken us almost an hour and a half to get to Tilda. I know. I know. She's a hoot in this movie.

Bilga, her character is the most Okja of anybody. in this movie. So how do you feel about that? I love her in this movie. You know, doses of Okja are good, you know. Sure. A little bit of that stuff goes a long way. No, I love her.

I love Allison Pill. I was wondering, you know, has anybody actually, because I know, I mean, obviously, Bong has talked about the stuff that Weinstein wanted to cut. And you said that Weinstein wanted to add narration and, you know, wanted to cut out dialogue and stuff like that. And I know there's the whole anecdote about the fish scene, which is absurd. That's such a great scene.

Like, why of all the scenes in this movie to cut, would you cut that scene? But I do wonder about what else he wanted to cut because I wonder if for Weinstein, it wasn't even about length or pace or anything like that because the movie is perfectly paced and two hours is not that long. I wonder if it really was a tonal thing. Like, I can totally see him wanting to cut the Allison. pill scene as being too weird. I can totally see him wanting to cut a lot of Tilda's stuff because it's too, you know, campy or whatever in his mind. Like I can totally see that, like the tone being more of an issue.

Oh, I'm sure that stuff gave Harvey a rash watching that kind of stuff. I can't imagine him being. But like that to me is the stuff that keeps me on my toes with this movie. Not that I'm like at risk of being bored by the rest of it. But like, I think you hit that out, that school car and you're just like, oh, this is so sinister. This is so incredibly off-putting and sort of like even beyond

before you get the guns that come in the egg the egg buckets or whatever which if they had those guns what the fuck were the soldiers doing in the back of the train with the fake gun? Well that's the thing. It's like there's so many

you know it would have been not easy but but you can totally see a world in which this could have just been a dark, gritty, broed out action movie, right, with a little bit of last stuff sprinkled in. David Ayer stepping in. I think David Ayer is a more interesting director than he gets credit for, but yes.

I'll leave it alone. I'll leave it alone. No, no, no, but you're absolutely right. No, but I can totally see it being that kind of movie, and I can totally see Weinstein, despite the fact that Miramax and Weinstein Company released all sorts of, you know, interesting stuff. Like, I can totally see him wanting something like that because he would have thought this is going make more money in the year of our Lord 2014.

And what makes Snowpiercer so delightful is it's got all this great action stuff. And it is a totally broed out action movie on some level. But it's also full of all these great, bizarre, colorful, surreal touches because that's the stuff that makes you sort of almost step out of the movie in a way and start to consider what it's actually saying. and that's the stuff that you know like that I mean it's like I don't want to use the word Brechtian because it's not that but it is a kind of like this movie is doing something a lot different than what you may be expected to in the first 10 15 20 minutes and and it sort of seduces you into really expanding the way you think about what's happening and so that it really does become a microcosm and not just oh yeah they got to get to the start and there's that awesome scene with the torches and all that and it's like you know know, wait, Allison Pills just showed up and she's teaching a class and now they're pregnant. There's a scene where they all stop and like celebrate Happy New Year.

Like, what the fuck? Yeah. I also kind of, especially of the like, this is the substance of what this movie is, I can also imagine him wanting to cut portions of the third act because the third act of this movie.

Ed Harris shows up and there's still 40 minutes a movie left. But like that's kind of where. Thematically, at least, if there's something about this movie that is a little familiar, I think thematically it's more unique because the Chris Evans arc is, you know, what director Bong is saying is, you know, to move up in this social strata. If he wants to move forward in the train, literally, take over, and he's, you know, offered to take over evil mastermind at Harris's place, he has to essentially sacrifice any knowledge of what's going on in the social... I've seen the matrix reloaded. I understand what's going on here, yeah. He has to blind himself, basically, to the evils of class.

And, you know, the ultimate character arc is, yes, in order to free everyone, he does have to sacrifice his literal body by shoving his arm in the engine. of the train. I wouldn't call this movie formulaic by any stretch, but if there is anything that does make the movie feel like it would be, you know, mapped out over the course of like a Joseph Campbell or like something that just sort of like purports to say that like, there are only five stories in the world. And they all, you know, all the ones that like this sort of move. And it's from, you know, you meet God. You're disillusioned by God. God. I started off saying that there's no God in this movie. Of course there's God in this movie. It's fucking Wilford.

But God offers you the chance to replace him and he requires, you know, this sacrifice of your whatever. The sacrifice of your morality, your moral compass or your soul. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And or your arm. And or your arm. You've got to make the choice. But so if there's anything that I may be ultimately dissatisfied by this movie, it's the Eb-Harris character, not necessarily the performance. But I'm like, I don't know if this guy is the, you know, the train impresario, the guy with the kind of ego to have made this train. I think Harris plays him so, maybe I do take issue with the performance, plays him so kind of chill and so kind of like disarming in a way

that like it, you know, my expectations are, you know, sort of thwarted. here. But after we've had a train full of eccentricity, you know, that doesn't make him stand out in a way? It does. And I think that's probably the point of it. But like, ultimately, I'm like, doesn't he doesn't this guy need to track as like somebody with the kind of sort of unmanageable ego to have done this in the first place? Well, is it that is it that he has to have to have that kind of visionary quality or like godlike quality i feel like i mean i don't know if this is part of you know the films like i don't know how intentional this is but i always find that when you meet somebody who is really powerful you know or somebody like this like he didn't

build the train you know that's true that's true 800 i i like to play with the train like like you know like the people who build the thing they never they're never the ones who built the Barack Obama, you didn't build that train. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, like, like this, that train was built by a bunch of people who probably aren't even alive anymore, you know? Like, that's the thing. Yeah, ground into the gelatinous cubes. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah. Honestly, the one thing that I, the one thing that I take exception to with the movie is the fact that the gelatinous stuff is like insects. CGI cockroaches, Bilga, it's CGI cockroaches. Like, I just remember thinking, I mean, I, I. I think I thought this back then, too, and I think it, I'm like, that doesn't feel like that shocking a revelation. Like, I'm like, well, I'm also, there's people, people eat insects all over the world. Like, it's not, yeah. After eating babies, like, and it's traumatized you for whatever.

It's just like, yeah, you're just, I'll take the goo, the goo, the gillow cockroaches, right? What did you think it was? Right. Right. And, like, this is kind of the best case scenario of what you're eating. Like, there are way worse options. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. That, that, yeah, that too. Also, just like when they look in there, it really just does look like a very kind of just un-refined CGI, you know, in there. It's just like, I feel like just that could have been a more impactful for as much as we get the, like, you know, drawback of people looking in there. I mean, like, never tell anybody. Yeah, it's like, it's just insects. But the other thing is I'm like, there would be insects all over the train, too.

People would be eating insects voluntarily. Yeah, yeah. The richest people on this train are disgusting and unbathed. There would be bugs. Yeah, I was like, why aren't there, like, why aren't there more just like spiders on this train, you know? 100%. Totally. I think, though, what are the things that I really, again, I think the setting of this movie really, like, is the biggest asset going on and just like, what?

Bong Joon-ho does with it in the fact that it's just in the action, sort of going back to like Harvey wanted more action. And it's like, one of the cool things about this movie is, is that like because of the setting, the action is forced to be this kind of closed quarters. You know, you don't get to have these big spectacles. Everything has to be very up close, very sort of like, you know, or when it's not close up, I love the scene where, Evans and the bodyguard, the bodyguard who's sort of like coming up through the train. The major assassin

in this movie is a real Stellan Scars. Very sort of. And they've both sort of punched the hole through the glass on opposite cars and they have to wait for the moment that the train is at the right alignment for them to take their one shot as it's going through the curve. That's so, it's so good. And then it doesn't happen

because like ultimately, but it's just like. Because they're too busy staring each other down. But I love that where it's just like you ultimately do not get to have these big sort of like, you know, giant spectacle battles or whatever because the quarters are too tight. Ultimately, you have to deal with, you know, that, you know, a tunnel going through a tunnel is going to be like the most consequential thing that's going to happen because half of you can't see anything now. And that big action sequence happens relatively early in the film, which I... I love when action films or ostensible action films kind of play around with structure like that, where it's like, that feels like a climactic scene, but it comes relatively early on. And I think it builds up an anticipation among some viewers, probably that there's going to be even more like,

oh, the subsequent action scenes are going to be crazier. And they're not. I mean, they're crazy in a different sense, but they're not like as sort of conventionally, you know, scaled up as you might expect. And I find, I mean, I love it when films do that, when they confound expectations like that, when it's like, you're going to get some crazy shit, but you're not going to see this type of scene. Like, this was, this was the big action melee. And now you're going to see like these weird little, you know, you're going to see Allison Pill with machine gun, you know. With a machine gun. I want to talk about Song Kangho and Koa Song in this movie because they obviously...

play in so, you know, importantly towards the end game of this movie. I like the reveal that, like, you think they've been just sort of fiending for this drug this whole time. And it ends up being because this drug is made up of like industrial waste or whatever that, um, that people sort of consume and bliss out. And ultimately, they've been collecting it to, you know, form this plastic explosive. Um, but that, you know, their sort of presence, they kind of hang out at the margins and they're always sort of, there's a lot of reaction shots to them, right? A lot of cuts to them sort of like looking at what's going on, even when they're not like mixed up in the fighting, which they sometimes are. But I like what element they bring to it because ultimately, I think the movie kind of deftly threads in this idea that like, because you're sort of wondering like, how are they going to end this thing? Like, obviously, like, the thing you say, Belga was just like, at some point, this train is going to have to stop because that's, you know, how movies work. And it's just like, what then? Is this going to be some sort of nihilistic, like, you know, it all sort of like dies? And like, no, they have to. And you end up having almost this, I mean, I brought up sunshine. You know what I mean? Sort of like this Danny Boyle-esque final thing where like it's the two survivors out in the snow. And it turns out that like the world's warming up a little bit. global warming, you can't keep a good man down.

Like, global warming is going to come back. And it ultimately gets, you know, you see the polar bear as this sort of, you know, vision of the polar bear and then you see the Coca-Cola ad come in. Yeah. Well, it's, it is funny how seeing the polar bear is like a sign of hope. I'm like, you've realized, like, the polar bear is going to eat you. Like, you were literally the only organic food for miles. Well, apparently, I read that, like, in the.

like graphic novel sequel to it like it starts with them like having to survive a polar bit the polar bear attack or whatever um so apparently they they uh they took that into into account this could be yeah that polar bear hasn't eaten for a while that the kevin's fit version can have the polar bear that that polar bear story has the happy ending of just like this train crashed and there's these two people now i can eat yeah yeah it is it is a bit like it's a bit like wally right what year is wally oh eight oh eight okay oh no yeah because wali allie allie allie allie allie also has the whole like earth has died but look there's a plant starting to grow humanity can come back you know like it's very much that concept except the plant eats wali right right

yeah i was glad to sort of revisit this movie i have to say this is a movie that i sort of had thought that because that was the other thing there was so much excitement for this movie i think because it was inaccessible for a while i think because of the fact that like it had premiered in South Korea so many months before it came to the States that there was this sort of withholdingness to it and then the Harvey Weinstein stuff. So it became not only this thing we couldn't see, but this thing that was being kept from us because, you know, it's being fucked with. And we want to, you know, be able to see it in the version that it was always, you know, it to be seen. So I think there was a ton of excitement for this movie. And then I do

recall sort of a, not necessarily a full-on, like, critical backlash, but I remember remember there was, you know, after the sort of initial, um, wave of excitement that there was this kind of, you know, well, actually, like, this movie is, you know, maybe not as smart as people think it is or whatever. And I think maybe that kind of contributed to, this movie was ultimately going to be a tough sell for like award season for a lot of reasons. And I think ultimately, closest to got with, was Tilda. Tilda got a couple of nominations for critics' choice and for movies for grownups, which I was very happy about. Was that, was that because, I mean, that was also because she

had a number of other movies, right? Right, right. Because, like, L.A. Film. Moon Ice Kingdoms this year. Grand Budapest, I think, was this year. Grand Budapest. Oh, no, wait, it's Grand Budapest. And the Jarmouche, um, the

Only Lover's Left Alive. Awesome. So, because I think she wins, like, L.A. Film Critics, I think, best supporting actress. But, like, the way the critics groups works, it's, she wins it for, really, for one movie. movie, but they, you know, add the other... Not this year, at least.

Let me check if it was the next year. I thought it was for this year, but... I mean, she's working. She works. She's great. All the time. So, like, she's always got multiple... This year, she has, you know, multiple awardable performances, I thought, in the

Almoda of our movie and in Problemisto, who I think she's tremendous a bit of movie. And the end, right? And the end, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think, I mean, this is also sort of during the rise of Tilda, like, when she starts to become kind of a really... I mean, at this point, she's already won an Oscar, I think, but she is kind of becoming this sort of, you know, everybody sort of understands that Tilda is like a thing. When is the fake Tilda Swinton Twitter account? What year is that?

Oh, shit. That's definitely odds. That's like the one where she's, like, tweeting about the moon. It's early teens or late odds. I believe somebody I know was the person behind that, although I can't, like, I can't swear to it. But I thought early Twitter, early Twitter was good for the fake Tilda Swinton account and the fake Michael Hanukkah account. The fake Michael Hanukkah account was great. Wait, speaking of Werner Herzog, Bilga, I know you saw, I'm going to detour into Sundance for half a second.

I know you saw Bubble and Squeak. Oh, yeah. Matt Barry's doing a Werner Herzog thing in that. Absolutely. Okay. I've seen nobody else is talking. about that and I know because like the movie's because everyone hates the movie well right but just like but at least talk about that thing which I think is like clearly like the most delightful thing in the movie it is yeah I mean it's Matt Barry so I assume uh vulture will have like 75 articles about it at some point Vultures patron saint Matt Barry yeah 100% he's he's fun in the movie I mean the movie is terrible he's he's fun in the movie is terrible but like he's he's completely in essential but like he's just like do an avert or her talking person like the supporting cast is I mean the movie is terrible but like I thought Dave Franco was fun in it day Franko is always a hoot to me. DeFranco is so funny always. I love him. I want to know nothing more about him. I want to know nothing more about his life. No, he and Allison Bree seem very happy together, so that's good. Wait, backing up, backing up. Tilda, Tilda. Tilda. Tilda. So she's not really had much occasion to talk about Tilda, and she's one of my favorite. I think it's only our fourth Tilda that we've ever done. Really? Yeah, surprisingly so. Because she's, you know, she's attached to a lot of.

of these movies that, like, do end up getting nominations. And, like, some of the other stuff that she's in is just, like, it's tough to make the case that, like, you know, young Adam was ever going to be a realistic Oscar movie or, you know, the techno lust or something like that. But that's the amazing thing of Tilda, especially at the time period we're talking about. She's working at all levels, you know, and she's continued to, you know. She still does Wes Anderson movies. She'll still show up in a co-ends, but she's also, you know, going and making Wirasatako movies.

Oh, yeah. Oh, I mean, she's... You get her talking. You get her talking, the first words out of her mouth are Derek Jarman, you know? Like, she's someone who absolutely has not forgotten her roots and still seems to be looking for people who can, you know, fulfill that creative need.

But also, she's like a brand name. So she can get movies off. the ground. Like, she's a star you can use to, like, you know, get a movie made. She does seem to be somebody who is genuinely engaged with not only the work that she is doing, but the work that other people are doing. She was easily, for me, the best part of the Hollywood reporter actress roundtable this year because she's so into what everybody else is doing. She was at the Sony Classics dinner. This was the year at Tiff, the first time I've ever gone to the Sony Classics dinner. And my table was facing, my seat was facing,

the table that they put Tilda at. And so our friend Shirley Lee, her back is to me. But I'm watching Tilda engage with Shirley, which is like 10 times more interesting than anything's going on in my table. So like I constantly find my eye just sort of like, and she's so, Tilda's just like so engaged. And so like clearly she's talking about something that she's passionate about. And I like have still never asked Shirley what exactly she's talking to Tilda about. But I want to, when we get her on to our show, Chris, we'll have to ask her what was going on. future guest, Shirley Lee. But I've always loved that about Tilda, that she just seems to be, because, like, if you've only ever seen her in movies, you can imagine her being this incredibly aloof and sort of like, you know, disdainful person or whatever.

And every time. Not at all if you watch any interview with. That's the thing. That's the thing is she's so incredibly engaged and personable and sort of, like, enthusiastic about whatever you are asking her. her about or whatever like she's being you know sort of tasked to discuss at that moment and she says I mean in interviews I think she said this when I interviewed her for this movie you know she wanted to make a movie with Bong Joon-ho you know it was very much a kind of listen she knows movies she knows she really knows her stuff she loved this stuff and she was just like whatever you want just you know

and this character was originally written as a man you know oh yeah I could say that you know but She was just like, yeah. Did Bong Joon-ho talk at all about that characterization and whether that was, because I do feel like I get Thatcher from her, but maybe that's just from her, sort of the voice that she's pulling off. I also get John Hurt from her. I don't think I talk to him about those, like the actual inspirations, but I would not be surprised at all if he brought a bit of the Thatcher stuff there, too. because she was... She's so disdainful of the poor people in this movie. Yeah, but she's also...

I mean, Thatcher was also such an iconic villain in so much of the world. Like, in Turkey, I remember, like, you know, Thatcher was somebody who was always, you know... People talked about Thatcher more than they talked about Reagan, you know? Like, she was just like, you know, a global bad guy. Yeah. So I would not be surprised if Bong Joon, you know, as a generation X, Korean. Yeah.

of the left persuasion, you know, has memories of Margaret Thatcher as, like, a looming demon in the 80s, you know? That purple suit she wears is so Thatcher, just like the presence of that color on her body in that last car of the train is so profane. Yeah. That's true. She stands out so incredibly. She does. Yeah. Yeah.

Costume nomination would not have been out of line. Oh, yeah. alone. So that year in supporting actress, that's the year that Patricia Arquette ends up sort of like running the table for boyhood. A very good performance. Laura Dern shows up nominated with no precursor whatsoever. For Wilde, which is a performance I really liked. Um, Kira Knightley's nominated for the imitation game, Emma Stone for Birdman, and then Merrill Streep for Into the Woods. I love Merrill, but that is not a terrible movie. Yeah. So I think there's a lot of action. I think there's a lot of action.

I like in this category this year, but maybe not too many performances. I think Kira's good in the imitation game, but that's not like, I don't know if she's being asked to do anything that would probably rise to the level of a supporting actress nomination, sort of same with Emma Stone and Birdman, who I think is very interesting in that movie, but like, Jessica Chastain gets snubbed sort of last minute for a most violent year, and like, I kind of love what she's giving in that. I'm trying, I'm looking at the, I'm looking at the, I'm looking at the films that were sort of contenders that year,

because it is kind of a weird year. I want to bring up what would mine have been that year, because Renee Russo was kind of last minute close. Renee Russo is great in Nightcrawler. She gets that BAFTA nomination. She wins the movies for grown-up supporting actors pride. Much more so. I remember people were very, very angry that Jillon Hall did not get a best actor nomination for that.

I was much more sad that Renee Rousseau never quite got traction for Nightcrawler. All right, let's see, where am I, 2014? That's the Whiplash year. That's the Boyhood, Birdman. A lot of movies that are just kind of like, I mean, I actually do like Birdman. I'm not a big Eniou fan, but Birdman, I'm like, nope, Birdman's good. Yeah. But, I mean, Carmena Jogo is good in Selma.

Carmen de Jogo is good in Selma. I have on my list, Marissa Tomei, in Love is Strange, who I think is wonderful. Um, Kristen Stewart and still Alice, which is, I think, an underrated movie. Agatha Kulaita and Ida wins the Los Angeles film critics. Sure. Sure, sure. That's the year that, like, both of those supporting actresses and Gone Girl, I think, could have credibly gotten in there. Whether it's Kim Dickens or Carrie Coon, I thought were both quite good in that movie.

Julianne Moorne maps to the stars. I probably also have Suzanne Clement from Mommy on my ballot. sure yeah yeah mommy apologist logging in same i love that movie oh i actually have i have a ballot here that i can look at because oh my god look at it well because i was a scand i'm a scandy voter and that is actually a year that the scandy's website has the participant ballots for and i have 10 what is scandy again oh the scander halim the mike d'angelo's annual movie poll that he's been doing oh nice 30 years at this point i saw some absurd embarrassing number of years my votes that year My two big supporting actress votes were

Mini Driver and Beyond the Lights And Catherine... I was just about to mention... And Catherine Waterston and Inherent Vice, which is an absolutely... Oh, okay. Yeah. But my...

So I hear my 10 votes that year. Mini Driver, Beyond the Lights. Catherine Waterston, Inherent Vice. Patricia Arkhead, Boyhood. Miriam Bocaria in Bloom. Jessica Chastain and Interstellar, which is a great performance. Good call.

Heather Graham and goodbye to all that. I don't remember that movie. but I guess she was really good at it. Agatha Kulisha in Ida, Elena Liadova in Leviathan, the Ziyadh in Seville, Melissa Suzanne in Winter Sleep, and then Tessa Thompson and Dear White People, which is actually a really good question.

Oh, that's a great call, actually. Yeah, she's great on that movie. Yeah. Also, very, very down far on my list. I have, speaking of 22 Jump Street, I have Gillian Bell in 22 Jump Street, who I thought was very funny. So, there we go.

Yeah. Yeah, 2014 is a very strange year, especially when you talk about the Oscars, because you have, obviously, Birdman, I thought, was very super divisive. Boyhood is this, like, very early, early on in the year. The arc of Boyhood as an Oscar movie was so funny because I believe it was a Sundance premiere. Yeah. And it was sort of like, everybody loved it at Sundance. And everybody was like, yeah, but like, the Oscars are never going to go for that. And then all of a sudden, it's just like, as the year goes on, people are like, maybe the Oscars will.

go for that. And then as soon as it became a frontrunner, then it was like, something's going to take this down. It's just like, then all of a sudden, everybody started looking around for something to take it down. And it ultimately, to me, at least, and landed on either Birdman or Grand Budapest. And I think with Grand Budapest, I think all those nominations were sort of seen as like the prize. Have you watched Grand Budapest recently? I just watched it like a month ago or two months ago. I watched it a year or so. I can't, I did a performance ranking for for

Wes Anderson movies when Asteroid City came out. So I rewatched it then. And I the first time I saw Grand Budapest Hotel, I was not fully on board with it. And I liked it a ton better the second time I saw. I really liked it at the time. I think it didn't make any of my lists or was all called. It was kind of hovering on the edge of them. And then watching it again. And I'd seen it at

least one more time in between, but watching it again a couple of months ago, I was like, oh, this movie fucking rocks. Like this movie. I mean, same with Moonrise Kingdom, which is a film when I first saw it. I was like, oh, this is great. And then it kind of, you know, it's like other stuff gets in the way. And then you watch it again, you know, like, this is still great. Like, we really do take Wes Anderson for granted.

Yeah. Yeah. His movies rewatch very, very well, I think. So, yeah. Yeah, interesting here, 2014. Okay. What else do we? want to talk about. I don't want to, like, leave... National Board of Review, top 10 independent

films. This is actually a really interesting list that Snowpiercer is on from National Board of Radio. Hit me with that. I always... For as much as we make fun of NBR, I do love that they do this, like, secondary list of, like, independent movies just because it's like, it's a good, it's good scrapbook material. Like, what were... Oh, yeah. What were the Indies that people were kind of talking about? This is maybe not the list that you would expect them to come up with. And also, like, an interesting year for National Board of Review because they give, like, half of their prizes to a most violent year, including Best Picture. So the top ten independent film list is Blue Ruin, Locke, a most wanted man, Mr. Turner, obvious child, the skeleton twins, the aforementioned snowpiercer, stand clear of closing doors, which was a spirit nominee, start up and still Alice. Wow.

There's a real range of movies. A couple of those movies are not films I remember being good. Stan Clear of the closing doors I saw at Tribeca, I remember. And I haven't thought about that movie in years. I'm surprised that it like rose to the level of an NBR nominee. Because it's so small. It's just about a kid. I think it's like about this like latchkey kid.

I could be totally wrong. But autistic child, right? Yes. Yes. I did see this movie. yeah um yeah i don't love everything in this list but i i commend that they got a range of movies in here totally absolutely um yeah love uh blue ruin as one of those nominees i remember being like deeply deeply enthusiastic about that movie um jeremy solnier i love that like after wait fuck i can't remember

now the title of his movie this year that he really liked rebel rich Rebel Ridge. After watching Rebel Ridge, and everybody sort of, like, got on board with Solnier and, like, watching people sort of praise Salnier as one of those, like, you know, doesn't miss. And then they're like, well, hold the dark. And I'm just like, hold the dark is not great, but it has one incredibly memorable scene in there, the sort of the siege on the, whatever, the compound, a wildly violent scene. I'm just like, well, I'm never going to forget this movie. The rest of this movie is kind of like gobbledygook, but that at least, like, he does not make a boring movie, Jeremy Solnier, I'll say that. The first time I saw Macon Blair Blue Ruin, and Macon Blair is an interesting guy. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, people dogged on his, yeah, yeah, totally. What's the name of his film that won the top prize at Sundance?

With Melanie and. With Melanie Lanskiy is incredible in it. It's like, I don't want to be alive anymore. What is it called? I don't feel at home in the world. Yeah, okay. Any more, yes, yes. I liked that movie.

It's not, it's not bad. And now he has this toxic adventure movie that's been waiting forever to. For ever and ever. Yeah, the remake. Yeah. Um, all right, sort of, I guess maybe we can get into kind of closing thoughts on Snowpiercer unless, um, anybody else has anything major. I just, uh, Song Kang Ho is so good in this movie and so sort of intriguing and appealing.

And I'm so glad every time I see, you know, watching this movie again that that Parasite really just sort of like gave him that, you know, showcase. This is an interesting moment for Song Kang Ho because this is relatively close to Thirst to Park Jan Wook's Thirst, which I love. Which I've still never seen. Oh, I love that movie. This is just when like Song Kang Ho is just playing a hot weird guy. Yeah. Yeah. He's a hot priest and thirst. What do you think that 10-year-old cigarette tastes like in this movie?

He's smoking these 10-year-old marlite. The last two marblesites in the history of the world. Yeah. I love that when he does smoke that, that like, everybody kind of like just smells the smoke and gets that sort of like, you know, nostalgic way. If everybody was old enough to remember cigarettes. If there hasn't been a luxury like a cigarette in a while, I'm sure it's. 10-year-old cigarette is divine, but in our world, what would it take for you to smoke a 10-year-old cigarette? I mean, it's probably not great, I'm going to say. I'm going to say it's probably not great. He makes me want to, like, go and do the, like, the big sort of backlog of Bong Joon movies I've never seen, and Park Chan Book movies I've never seen.

Have you seen memories of murder? No, I haven't seen it. I know, that needs to go directly to the time. I know. You should watch you. Non-parasite, it's my favorite Bong Joon-Ho movie. That movie is incredible. I know.

It's on my list. It goes higher on my list. Yeah. I like how we use a song Kang-ho in this one because, I mean, you were talking earlier about how they're so kind of, you know, the film keeps cutting to them and they're very watchful, but it also, like, it seems like they're sort of baked. And it's a clever way to use, I mean, look, it's a international production Korean director and, you know, and they find a way to get around sort of the language stuff. But this is also a way to get around the language stuff.

Well, the Korean characters aren't going to say that much, you know, but they're there. Like, they're there. They're kind of the conscience of the movie in a way. But, like, you know, this is for the, this is for the U.S. market. This is mostly going to be in English. They're just going to sort of sit back and watch. and they'll play key roles when their moment rolls around. But also it's like, you know, San Kang Ho can be really cool without saying anything.

I mean, that's sort of like some of the best, some of the great, you know, charismatic performances in movie history are like people who don't say anything, you know? So he knows how to use him really well there. Did we know he's going to be in season two of beef? Yes, I think. along with the cast of it is very Oscar Isaac, Carrie Mulligan, Charles

Melton, Kaylee Spaney, Yun Jung. There you go. It's not bad. It's not a bad cast. I didn't love that first season, but it was like intriguing enough, and I watched it at a very bad time personally, where I was sort of going through some health stuff and everything about that movie

just made me feel more anxious and more, you know, sort of it. I was just like, I can't watch this. I can't watch anymore of this TV show. So I kind of bailed, but I'm interested in, you know, anything with a good cast. I didn't watch the first season, so I have zero thoughts on it, except that when I hear beef, I always think the bear. No, I always say. And now I'm thinking, Song Kang Ho should be in the next season of the bear.

Song Kang Ho would be great in the bear, but I've always said that the bear and beef should switch swap titles, that the bear should be called beef and beef could be called the bear. I guess to close the loop to tie things together for some of what we started the conversation with, I almost feel like this is the one of the most interesting time capsule movies we've ever talked about, not just because of the day and date stuff we were talking about and the harviness of it. I mean, there's, like, imagine saying to somebody stepping out of this movie theater, you know, in five years Harvey Weinstein's going to be in jail and Bong Joon Ho is going to direct a best picture

winner. Yeah. It's kind of wild. But I also think, you know, it makes total sense that Bong Joon Ho would be the director to do that because this movie, despite any quibbles anyone wants to have about it, it does have a vision that kind of predicts the future

of this like global film community and globalization of like film. projects that have mass appear around the world, you know, just in casting alone and some of the creative decisions that go into it, like we were just saying, oh, they're not going to speak that much or they're going to have these devices that translate for them. Yeah, this, I feel like, is a very special movie in that regard. I do. It does make me wonder, I mean, we talked a little bit about this, but the whole, you know,

the idea of trying to release this film, well, not day and date exactly, but like theatrically and then two weeks or three weeks after it comes out, it goes, you know, digital. And ironically enough, like so many movies that are now seen as films that are getting quote unquote proper theatrical releases

wind up going on digital like three weeks later. I mean, that's basically what, you know, Universal does with movies that don't open under a certain amount of money. Yeah. So it's prophetic in that sense. But I do wonder, I mean, and obviously we know now the backstory of the reason why it wound up being released like this is because Harvey Weinstein was pissed off that Bong Jo didn't let him do what he wanted to do.

You know, sometimes I wonder about like if, you know, one were to write like an alternate history, not an alternate history, but like in an alternate timeline. Because the film is really strong. I mean, the film is really strong. The film could have been a hit. Yeah. I do wonder, like, is there a universe in which Harvey Weinstein does not try and interfere, or Harvey Weinstein, you know, doesn't let the fact that he doesn't get his cut interfere with what he envisions for this movie? And could he have, I mean, could this film have gotten a proper release, been an actual hit?

And then Weinstein could have, like, muscled his way into the Oscars with a movie like this. I don't think it would have won or anything But like it's a mainstream film and a really effective one Yeah Like you could I can totally imagine this film at some point Having gotten like a best director nomination, you know I mean like Terry Gilliam movies had already had Oscar nominations too Like you can yeah

You can totally see the world where beyond just like performances Because Tilda got the furthest with this That this could be a screenplay nominee or a production design nominee I don't see it as a visual effects nominee I mean, yeah, like, it's no, no visual effects movie from 10 years ago or earlier. Right. I was going to say, I remember this being like my main quibble about the movie at the time was that the VFX were bad. Yeah.

But now it looks like anything on Netflix. Yeah, exactly. My thing with the Oscars, today especially, but even back then, is I don't think there's, there are very many kinds of movies that are like categorically on, you know, out of the realm of possibility for the Oscars. I think it all matter. It's how you package it. It's how you sort of sell it. I think you can, if a movie is, you know, has the goods enough and is able to, you know, appeal to audiences, then it only is a matter of how it's packaged and the narrative that's given to it.

Like, Awards is all about narratives, right? And I think that's, I remember when Get Out first came out. Now, Get Out is a movie that, like, from the trailer, I think people were like, oh, this is going to be, you know, this really interesting horror movie or perhaps a comedy or perhaps both. You know what I mean? But it's coming out in February. And ultimately, if that movie just sort of, you know, it releases, it is very popular. it stays in February, ultimately award season goes on to other movies by the time you hit the end of the year. You would look back at that year and be like, get out was great, but like, you can't expect this movie to be an Oscar contender.

It's in February. It's horror and comedy and whatever. But because they were like, from the break, they were like, we are going to package this correctly and put it in front of the right people and say right from the break that we think this is an Oscar contender. we have a plan for this. And all of a sudden, then you get to the end of the year. And it's just like, you know, he's winning the screenplay award. And a lot of people are like, this movie should be winning this picture. And it just is a matter of, and obviously, these things fall apart if your movie sucks. You know, you can't play ultimately.

But like, in terms of what kind of movie, I think almost anything is possible. Well, and it's also like, get out as an example of a movie that's already fully proven itself before the award season has really begun. You know, the reviews were through the roof. That movie made so much money. You know, that's another thing that we're seeing in later years that, like, movies that come out earlier are doing better than they used to a decade or two ago. And that's because they've already proven themselves in the market.

They've proven themselves critically. And people like the movies. But it's also, like, you know, I mean, everything you say about Get Out is true. But then also now, it's like when he makes a movie, people actively get upset when it's, like, not nominated for Best Picture. I know. I mean, look at the, like, look at where we were 10 years ago, like, the idea of a genre movie, even a thoughtful genre movie, you know, being a contender was seen as, I mean, obviously it happened, but, you know, and now it's kind of like, like, where are the nominations for Nope, you know? We did an episode on Nope, and half of that episode was just me being like, you don't deserve a movie like this. You don't appreciate it.

Like, you know what I mean? It's so mad. I was still so mad. No, but it's like, but it's, it's, I mean, that's the thing. Like, I mean, even, you know, this is going to be interesting. I mean, I don't know what Mickey 17 is going to be like. Maybe it'll be good. Maybe it'll be crazy.

Having that expectation on is going to be interesting. Yeah. Like, now it's like, I mean, this is literally the movie he made after Paraside. Like, I mean, it's been six years. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah, it's the longest gap between movies for him since he's been making movies. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think ultimately that level of expectation doesn't ever really do any movie any favors. I'm hoping that, and that's the other thing is, like, you sort of, in the fog of Oscar, you sort of forget that, like, this is Bong Joon Ho. He does not make, you know, his movies have jagged edges, like purposefully so, right?

Like, this is not going to go down smooth, no matter what it is. You know what I mean? It is probably going to be tonal. a lot. You know what I mean? And I'm already kind of bracing myself, but also that makes me more excited about the movie. That makes me feel just like, okay, like bring it on. What is this going to be? Like, I'm down for it. So we'll see. We'll see how it goes. My last thing that I wanted to mention, I'm sort of going through my notes.

Oh, wait, where did I write this down? Oh, the moment where Octavia Spencer cracks the egg on the little blonde girl's head in the school car is so funny Octavia doesn't get like she's decently down the cast list in terms of like importance or whatever I think she shows up to work in this movie

I really like to turn in this better than at least one of her Oscar nominated supported performances I'll say all right Chris do you want to tell our listeners, how the IMDB game works. Listeners, 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. If that's not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints, and that is the IMD game. That's the IMDB game.

All right, Bilga, as our guest, you get the choice of whether you want to give your clue first or you want to be the guesser first and in what order we want to do this round robin. So if you choose to guess first, you pick who you guess from. Oh, so I would, okay, so I will choose to name the actor first. Okay. And who are you quizzing, either me or Chris? I'm going to quiz you, Joe. All right, so that I will quiz Chris, and then Chris will. So this was hard because you guys have done, like, everybody.

And I had to do, like, the, you know, Control F search. I hope I got it right. I hope this, like, this name wasn't misspelled or something like that. No, I'm sure you're good. Charlie Sheen. Oh, we've never done Charlie Sheen. Okay. We've done Martin Sheen.

and you've done Michael Sheen, but, you know, not this. I'm going to guess. Do I, sir? One of them is TV. I will tell you. Okay. Thank you. So is that two and a half men?

Yes, it is. Okay. Is one of them platoon? No. Okay. This is how the IMDVN gets you. Okay. Is one of them Wall Street?

Yes. Okay. All right. So I got two of the four. Is one of them? them Hot Shots. Part one. No.

All right. So now I get years. So now you give me the, of the two that I'm missing, what are the years? Oh, wait, hang on. I got you. They're both 1993.

Okay. So is one of them hot shots part? Do you? It is. The superior hot shots. It is. The more memorable hot shots. It's so funny.

I haven't seen it in forever, but I watched the scene with Rowan Atkinson again the other day. And it's so funny. I don't remember a single thing from Hot Shots, but I remember many scenes from Hot Shots Part 2. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Gabriela Sabatini joke in Hot Shots Bartu

is one of the best jokes I've ever seen in the movie. Okay, so 1993 for the other one as well. Charlie Sheen in 93 is doing the Hot Shots movies. He's... odds are I probably saw this movie is the thing. um i'm willing to bet you have seen this movie yeah probably but it is surprised this was the one that surprised me which made me think that he that it was here a good one you know yeah um is he the lead he's first build yeah i mean yeah so it's like a it's a group it's a group

and he's one of the group it is definitely a group okay he's not in airhead He's... Is it... No, is it a Young Guns movie? No. Okay. Is it a comedy? It has humor.

Okay. Oh, is it Loaded Weapon One? National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon One? Not that much humor. Or perhaps even more weapon than that, more humor than that, but, but it's not, it's not a comedy, comedy. Okay, all right. I have so, every, every clue I could help you with, I think, is just going to give it away. Go to give it away.

Is there like another genre besides comedy that's sort of like. Yeah. Attached. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Comedy. Sci-fi comedy. Sports comedy.

Uh Action comedy Sure Yeah All right I can give more I can give more Genre hints if you would like

Sure Period action comedy Period action comedy Okay Like Like How far back Would we allow Charlie Sheen to go into history

Is the question They let him go back too far Do not ask yourself this question Because it is farther than you might think. Oh, no. Oh, no. It is tough to imagine that we did this once. Oh, no. Is it like Civil War times?

Oh, baby. Go back further. Is it like revolutionary wartimes? I think it's also not just when we were placing Charlie Sheen, But where we were placing Charlie Sheen? I can give you another hint, which might help. Okay. You mentioned Young Guns. It actually co-stars another Young Gun.

One of the Young Guns? One of the Young Guns. Is it him and Kiefer? Yes. Yes. Okay. Charlie Sheen, Kefer Southern. No, it's not the Cowboy Way.

They're not Young Guns, but they definitely kind of iconically have a different type of weapon it is it is probably at some point somebody probably said it's like blank meets young guns and some executive said are they in like china like are they in a little it's not it's not problematic it's just bad and stupid i would not say i would not say bad this is not bad not bad that we put charlie sheen here's a here's a hint that might help it's a good movie like this is a film I would say, was well-liked and is still by those who remember it, regarded as... I don't know why I'm blanking on this. What's interesting is that it looks like it's not available.

I would have thought that this was on, like, Disney Plus. So, okay, is it like Old West? Is it like... No. No. Okay. Maybe this will be your big hint. This is the hint I've been sitting on, and I thought it might be too obvious.

This movie has an original Brian Adams song. Oh, is it the Three Musketeers? There you go. Of course. I always forget that he's in that. Okay, yeah. We just put him in 17th century France. Man.

I don't think we should do that. And somehow it worked, though. That movie, I love that movie. And I haven't seen it in a long time. I certainly did when I was a kid. I certainly loved it when I was a kid. I will say that. And also, I mean, the biggest, the most surprising thing about this movie is that it shows up on IMDB as something he's best known for.

Because I forgot who he was in it. God, that's incredible. All right. Thank you. That was rigorous, and I appreciate that. Charlie Sheen. Okay. Chris, for you, I went into the cast of Mickey 17.

Great. And I picked somebody who I just saw in a Sundance movie. I believe you did two in Sorry Baby. Naomi Aki. Oh, okay. Naomi Aki definitely Rise of Skywalker. unfortunately. Yes.

I would not have remembered that she was in that. Lady Macbeth. Yes, Lady Macbeth. Oh, you might run the table on this, honestly. It's got to be too soon for blink twice to be on there. I'll just say blink twice.

Blink twice, you're three for three. Wow, okay. If I get a perfect score on Naomi Acky, that's going to be wild. Though I may be struggling for another one. I like Naomi Aki. Yeah. It's got to be another British movie is next.

I may just burn. Maybe I'll burn them and I'll say sorry baby just to start getting hints. It's not sorry baby. Because I know I'm not getting a perfect score. All right. So that's one wrong. I'm guessing the fourth one has to be like a British independent that I did not see. Maybe she's in another, I'll just say,

another star, well, no, because there hasn't been another Star Wars movie since then. Go see a Star War. Thankfully. Here's $5. Go see a Star War. I'll just give you the year. So I think you're going to regret giving up on the perfect score too quickly.

2022. Okay, so. Shannon, 2022. Is that the same year as Rise of Skywalker? No, Rise of Skywalker was. was 2019. 2020. It is a movie that kind of came and went,

but I know you like it. If you didn't see it, if you didn't see it, I imagine you still had your eye on it at some point in its development. We could definitely do it for this podcast. Hmm. In 2022.

It is a very specific type of movie that the Oscars like. Costume dramas. No. More specific than that. What's an easy way to get an acting nomination? Oh, buy a... Oh, it's I want to dance with somebody.

Jesus. You gave up too early. I gave up too early. I forgot... It's not as bad as my feelings for the Back to Black movie, but I... Did you see it? I did kind of dodge. I want to dance with somebody.

I think we should just let... I dodged. Whitney, rest of peace. I do, that's my feeling as well. Did you ever see I want to dance with somebody, Bilga? I did not. Yeah. I think a lot of people avoided it for sort of that same reason.

I was just like. I mean, I think I like biopics for the most part. Like, I like seeing biopics because I'm always fascinated by them. Yeah. And I had, you know, I had every intention. Casey lemons. I always forget that. Yeah, I want to support Casey Lemmonds.

And it was Anthony McCarton, the sort of the musical biopic musician biopic. Because I was like, not from the Bohemian Rhapsody writer. I'm out. Yeah. All right, Bilga, for you, I went into the award season for this season. Let me just say, I'm going to be terrible at this. I am very bad with titles and names and faces. Well, I chose a fun one for you at least.

Tilda Swinton nominated for an AARP Movies for Grownups Award loses to, Renee Rousseau. For you, I have selected René Rousseau. Okay. Is any of them TV? There's no TV, no voice talkers. Okay. I am going to, well, Thomas Crown Affair?

Correct. Okay. In the line of fire? Incorrect. Okay, one of my favorite movies. Rune Rousseau. Gosh. Um,

Nightstocker? Is that one? Nightcrawler? Nightcrawler, sorry, um, I told you I was bad with titles. Um, I'm trying blanking on,

like, how Renee, like Renee Russo, I remember when she first sort of burst onto the scene. And I'm blanking on what movie, look, um, you know,

hmm. That's a good avenue to go down, though, from one of these. Yeah, no, I feel like this is something I'm going to be like, oh, right, of course. But at what point do I start asking for instance? We can give you years if you want. You're a guest, so you can me whatever you want. 1996 and 1998, one of these is a franchise. Oh, gosh.

Yeah, one of these is a later installment in a franchise. franchise later installment in the franchise yeah it's not her first installment of a oh yeah it's not her first appearance in it i think she started appearing in the second or third one yeah 1998 you said yes yeah um both of these movies have the same male co-star for her she's romantically involved with the same co-star in both of them um but they're not both from the same franchise Uh, is it an oceans movie? No. No, vaguely warm because this, it does have a starry cast in this one.

This is a highly, highly canceled, even though he is still working and still making things we will not want to see, uh, co-star. Oh, gosh. I'm going to feel like an idiot for this one. Nobody really talks much about this franchise anymore, even though it was very popular. It's one of those franchises that, like, added a new cast member with each sequel so that by the time to get to the fourth one, there's like five people on the poster. And it's like when we used to have franchises that it was not superheroes, it is... Oh, lethal weapon? Yes.

Yes. Lethal weapon four, 1990. Right, right. Where they added Chris Rock to the game. Right, right. Okay, yeah, it was Joe Pesci and then Chris, yeah, okay. 1996 is your last movie. It is also a Mel Gibson movie.

Oh, um, where she, uh, I'm sure I've seen it. Because I've seen, like, all the Mel Gibson movies. One of my favorites of the, of the Mel Gibson. Former this had Oscar buzz episode. Yeah. Probably, did we say that this was the, The director of this movie is one of his best movies. Ransom?

Ransom. Ransom. Yeah. Ron Howard's Ransom. Yeah. Yes. I like that movie. Well done.

Good job. Well done. I can't. As I was saying Oceans, I was like, that is the wrong decade. But. René Rousseau would be awesome in an oceans movie. Only three years off, actually, for being the wrong decade. It's surprising that lethal weapon and the Oceans movie is only.

missed each other by three years because they do feel like they're from completely different eras of yeah and i have to say i think as much as i as much as i did like mel gipson once upon a time as an actor i think i missed like the last two lethal weapon movies yeah that was not a big fan they got very diminishing uh returns i feel like um all right well uh bilga thank you so much once again for joining us this was super fun uh where can the listeners i mean i know where the listeners can find you in your style. Find me at the same place they can find you. Vulture.com. Yes, that's right. All right. Um, listeners, that is our episode. If you want more ThisHad Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at Thisheadoscarbuzz.com. You should also

follow our Instagram at This Head Oscar Buzz and our Patreon at patreon.com slash This Had Oscar Buzz. Chris. Chris. Where can the listeners find more of you? You can find me on Letterbox and Blue Sky at Chris V File. That's F-E-I-L. I'm on. Blue Sky and Letterboxed at Joe Reed. Read is R-E-I-D. You can also subscribe to my Patreon-exclusive podcast on the films of Demi-M-M-M-M-M-M-R called Deme, Myself, and I, at Patreon.com slash Demi-P-O-D. I had a fantastic time talking about We're No Angels with our guests today, Bill Gough-A-Berry.

We had a very good time. So I had wonderful multiple good times talking to Chris here about movies. And there's one coming up next month, I think, as you're listening to this. So the fun never stops, truly, to me, myself, and I. So, and as you're, you listening to this in the future, you know whether that is a podcast about an Oscar winning actress or merely an Oscar nominated actress. We don't know that yet. So we'll see. We'd like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork, Dave Gonzalez, and Gavin Muvius for their technical guidance, and Taylor Cole for our theme music. Please remember, you can rate.

and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get podcasts, a five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcasts visibility. So take out your Wilford textbooks and then write something nice about us on them. Be a shoe. Be a shoe. Be a shoe and write us. See, you're better at this kind of stuff, Chris. Be a shoe and write us something nice. That is all for this week, but we hope you'll be back next week for more books. Thank you.