This Had Oscar Buzz - 338 – The Death of Stalin

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

After passing off the reins of Veep, Armando Iannucci returned to movie screens with another political satire. Based on the graphic novel, The Death of Stalin farcically recounts the last days of the dictator and the scramble for power in the days after. With stars like Steve Buscemi, Jason Isaacs, and Simon Russell Beale, the film received … Continue reading "338 – The Death of Stalin"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. We want to talk to Marilyn Hack, Millen Hack and French. I'm from Canada water. Dick Pooh. I propose we call a doctor. All the best doctors are dead. I can't remember who's alive and who isn't.

It's comrade Stalin. I'll take it from me. We need to start bringing together a planet. How can you run? run and plop at the same time. You should get Stalin's children here. What are you doing to my father, your jackals? How old are you?

I'm old. You're not old. You're not even a person. You're a testicle. Everything's going to be fine. Not exactly fine, is it? My father's lying there with his head open. Hello, and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast,

the only podcast that continues to wander the streets of Oklahoma, whispering softly to ourselves. 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 hockey team killing fail son. Chris File. Hello, Chris. I am the Rupert friend to your Andrea Riceboro. That is true. That is true. My favorite line of hers,

they come back to back. The one is when she's walking into the mansion and she sees the herb garden, and she goes, does nobody eat herbs anymore? Do they only eat weeds? And then they say that they're getting Vasili to come to. And she goes, best to have some tea then and some, what does she say? And some buns to soak up the vodka. Just the way that she like offhandedly says soak up the vodka is so funny. They are, I think, the two funniest people in this movie. I think this movie has a lot of funny people, but I think I would probably agree with you.

I'm very mixed on this movie, but I'm very pro-Rupert friend and Andrea Riceboro. I know you are. We'll talk about sort of, we'll get into the cast in general, and sort of, I want to kind of get into, investigate your sort of Ayanucci feelings, because it struck me here that you also don't care for the personal history of David Copperfield. I really don't care for that movie. Right. So I'm, I'm interested to kind of get into all of that, like what all of this means. But, yeah, we're talking about the death of Stalin. I'm very excited. I've sort of, you know, talked for kind of a long time about what I, how much I like this movie. One thing I had forgotten was just how this movie exists in two separate years and two separate seasons.

I didn't realize how much, like, it releasing overseas in 2017. and then, like, being a BAFTA nominee, being, like, a giant, like, British, like, it's a BFA. It, you know, it touched the BAs. I tried to find the most nominated movies in Bifa history, and I could not find it, but this has, like, 47 BFA nomination. It's got so many BF nominations. And then it doesn't open in the States until March. And then in a meager way, it still sort of shows up on the year end awards a little bit in the end of, at the end of, at the end of, at the, end of 2018, which we'll talk about as well.

Well, and this was also, this is also one of those cases where a specific category is perceived as weak or that there is a lot in play for slots, maybe four and five, that all of the sudden you see a movie cropping back up on a lot of people's predictions because of a few different. You're sort of trying to find some way, you know, you have to scour the calendar a little bit more. to find a fifth nominee. And at the time, I was more of a doubter that this could be one of the ones to show up, the way that other people felt very strongly that this could be like the fifth place nominee in adapted screenplay. But I fully see the logic of why people were predicting this movie. Yeah, we'll do a little bit of a deep dive into adapted screenplay of 2018, because I do think there are some interesting things to talk about. Um, this is also a, um, you know, it's a comedy. I always like when we're able to talk about

comedies. This is a, um, and this is a comedy that like didn't get Golden Globe nominations. Normally when we're talking about comedies, we're sort of scouring the, you know, Golden Globe comedy lineup or whatever. Um, this was a TIF premiere. So we can, you know, was at that world premiere. Uh, yes. Uh, I was at a, I remember. this was the last movie that I saw at TIF 2018 before I left. I think I saw this even this might have even been like

go see it in the morning and then leave for the airport. I love those movies. It was Baby Girl for this year for me. Oh, is that true? I think I even took my suitcase to Baby Girl. No? What a thing to say. We've definitely done that before. Where it's like, I can cram this in if I bring my suitcase. Oh, that's interesting. I've never done the full, like, bring the suitcase to the screening thing before. But I've definitely, like, checked it at the desk of the hotel and, like, run back, grabbed it, hopped in a cab, whatever. It's the go-go lifestyle of TIF. We've already passed the point, listeners, where now all of our conversations will have a TIF element to it in one way or another, which will continue through.

through the end of the festival, whether we're like making lodging plans or we're talking about like submitting our, uh, for our credentials or whatever. We won't subject you to all of that. But I will just say that like, this is the point in the year. We're like, because you know, like, I love to plan ahead. I really do. Almost as much as I like, almost more so sometimes than I like doing the thing is like planning ahead for the thing. I like planning travel. infinitely more than I like actually traveling. And we're trying to plan an actual friend vacation right now. It's the thing about TIF planning is it is the Jacques-Lin-Follet.

I plan my whole year around this thing, you know, and we're so glad that you do. Speaking of The Devil Wears Prada, you didn't watch the diplomat, right? The Netflix Carrier Russell series. I've been catching up on that for Emmy purposes. Turns out I fucking love it. Talk to my. My husband. He loves that show. Really? That I absolutely will. We will have fruitful conversations about the diplomat. It is the perfect level of smart enough that I can feel like I'm watching this and I'm like, you know, I'm in with the, you know, the various sort of like diplomatic machinations. But it's, I'm not going to call it stupid, but it's not smart and not so smart that I ever feel like taxed in any way. You know what I mean? that they ever feel like if I can like, if I have to like watch it while I'm also like doing the New York Times crossword on my phone, like I'm fine. I'm good. Really fun performances. But so Alice and Janney shows up at the end of the second season, which is the one that just finished, as a sort of political quasi-rival for Carrie Russell. And the one scene they have where like essentially,

Carrie Russell is, they're trying to conscript Carrie Russell into like being a vice presidential candidate, but she doesn't, you know, present well. And a lot of that, so much of the show is about like trying to get like clothes for Carrie Russell, like, for her to like wear to certain events because she doesn't like to dress up and she's like very actively opposed to things like, you know, to sort of any kind of external presentment for her. She's, you know, she's serious about the job. She doesn't care about, you know, public appearances or PR or whatever. And Alice and Janney gives her this, like, come to Jesus speech about, like, you think that this makes you a serious person, but all it does is sort of weaken your position because of X, Y, and Z.

And it's so very serulian speech coded. Like, it's, like, it serves the same function. It has like some of the same beats and whatever. And I'm honestly, if you're going to crib from something, crib from the best. And Elyde and Bersh McKenna should send them a Venmo request for money just for royalties or something for cribbing from the Surrullian speech. But I loved it. Anyway, what got us on to Surulian? Oh, you mentioned Jacqueline Foley in passing.

That's right. That's all it takes. As I'm prone to do mention Jacqueline Foley. Someone says Jacqueline fillet and I'm like cerulean speech. What? Like tangent? Okay. I do kind of like how this will be my last thing about the devil wears Prada.

No, it won't. The cerulean speech used to be the like most memed part. Well, no. So the pop cultural journey. Yes. It used to be a cerulean speech and now it's the Versacee boots, right? No. Okay.

So the Versace boots is a whole thing. We should do a patron. had an excursion on the meme life of the devil wears Prada, because it's actually a lot of things. Because it's also the real villain of the devil wears Prada as her friends, is her boyfriend, slash her friends. No, the one that I see most often is the belts. Is the, uh, they're both so different. That's had a long life, though. It's so versatile, though.

I don't think the Versace, the Versace boots is definitely a post-COVID meme. And you do see that a lot. You're absolutely right. Are you wearing the, are you doing the, yeah, yeah. People are screaming at me if it's not for Sachi, but you know what I'm saying. No, I know exactly what you're saying. It's the, the, the, Giselle is paying her a compliment. Yes. No, but I'm doing Rebecca Mater, holding up the two turquoise belts of similar extraction. Lost cast member, Rebecca Mater. I feel like you see that the most often, currently right. now at least. Maybe we'll do that excursion, now that I've, like, joked about it. The Devil Wears Prada belts is what is depicted in this movie and the current American political system. Could we make a case? Well, you're not wrong there. Could we make a case for the Devil Wears Prada as an exception? Because there was buzz for it as a contender in supporting actress and screenplay, an adapted screenplay. I feel like that's something I would That's of the lines of something I would suggest to you.

And you would be like, but really? I know. No, I know. That's why I'm bringing it up because it did get, and not only the actress nomination, but it also got the costume nomination. Yes. You're right. You're right.

You're right. Devil wears, or not devil. Death's Stalin. Devil wears Prada. The devil wears Stalin. Yeah. Kind of, yeah. The devil is Stalin.

The devil is Stalin. Exactly. The Death of Stalin, a 2017-2018 movie, which is a large part, I think, in, well, I think it's a part of why it ultimately doesn't have Oscar success. But I also feel like this kind of-released by IFC as well, which, like, they're not. Also that. And I also feel like this kind of comedy, comedy in general at the Oscars is obviously famously a tough sell. But I think also, this. This kind of comedy that is arch and manic isn't usually to the Oscars taste. I'm trying to think of, like, what would you say is the Oscars taste in comedy besides just, like, James L. Brooks drama? You know what I mean? You know what I mean? I was really going to say James L. Brooks.

Neil Simon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or something that just captures a specific zeitgeist in, in a way, like Diablo Cody. right um like the broadest comedies we've had nominated in recent years and by recent years i'm gonna go so far as to be like the last 35 years um are things like bridesmaids tropic thunder in and out and in all of those cases they all feel very sort of like isolated to in two of those cases well like in the tropic thunder case it's you're literally not nominating Robert Downey Jr. the same year as Iron Man happens. You know what I mean? So, like, that's a huge part of it. But also, like, Tropic Thunder was a really big hit. And I think once there was a little bit of a snowball being like, because he's doing such a big thing in Tropic Thunder and like even like leaving the like black face of it aside. And it's like a joke on a joke, right? It's not like he's, he's whatever. But it's also just like. Bridesmaids had a thing of like it was actually, you know, an.

outside contender in other categories like Best Picture. And we don't think of it this way now, but, like, it was the kind of peak of Apatow produced comedy in, at the time, it was received within that wheelhouse. But now, like, you don't even mention Jed Apatow when you talk about bridesmaids. It had all of the, it had all of the benefit of being sort of, you're right, be kind of the, the, at that point, pinnacle of this Apatau comedy thing that had been so successful for so long, while also having a politically virtuous angle to it, which is that people could be like, well, I'm voting for women in comedy. I don't know about you. Do you know what I mean? Like that kind of a thing. And also being a great movie. Well, of course. Like that, but, I mean. But are we arguing that Tropic Thunder is a great movie?

No. No. Well, this is the thing. It's just like, you know, when we talk about Oscars, you know, greatness is sometimes beside the point. There have been a lot of great comedies and not, and most of them have not been nominated. And I think with something like in and out, I don't know, really what got Joan Kusack over the hump beyond the fact that I think there was a little bit of a, I think that was a moment where people being like, man, we never nominated. Every maybe 10 years or so, the Academy is like, you know what, we don't nominate comedy enough, and then they'll nominate something from a comedy. But what I, my point with Death of Stalin is this never tends to be their wheelhouse, this kind of ensemble, um, farcical, farcical, arch sort of like, I mean, even the Christopher Guest stuff, you know, Mitch and Mickey's song, you know, accepted, never seems to really hit with Oscar, even though you would think that it is, you know, critically acclaimed enough to do so, to, you know, at some point, but, like, part of that is they never quite know whether it's appropriate to nominate something

with a significant degree of improvisation with, you know, for screenplay. There are no lead performances. There are rarely even supporting performances that everybody agrees is like the one to focus on. So those ones you don't really get. And I think Death of Stalin is certainly

more kind of pointed in the points that it's making. Pointed in the points that it's making. Obvious satire. How about that? Well, yeah. And sort of just like And it has some gravity to it because it is about Stalin, right? And it is a movie that does take pains to be like, we under, like, we are not gliding over atrocity here. Like, we are acknowledging atrocity.

And I think in some ways, for things that we'll get into, like, this movie exists as like satire and farce. Like, it's farcical even when it's trance. trying to be serious-minded, and, you know, it goes to these lengths to, you know, make buffoons out of these real, like, names in history that, like, anybody who took, like, a high school European history class recognizes these names when we don't maybe do it, we don't, in this type of farce, you know, you're dealing with less known people than Khrushchev. Right, right. But, yeah, I do think that this movie, and this is where I get into my mixed feelings about how successful the movie is, is it tries to be both stoneface serious and wildly farcical. I do understand watching it this time and sort of watching it, you know, this is maybe only the third time I've ever watched it the whole way through. Um, it does sometimes, I don't know if I would go so far as to say struggle, but there are moments where I'm just like, this is, this is kind of, we're grinding the gears a little bit,

trying to, uh, marry the seriousness of a character like Baria, the Simon Russell Beale character with the sort of tone of everything else. We'll get into that. Um, I also feel like it's a fairly particularly British way of, I think, for, I think the British sense of humor is a little less, um, is a little more willing to just sort of make fools of these figures in history and just sort of be like, well, you know, yeah, that's,

that's how we're going to, you know, come out of this. And here the American taste is like, but you're asking me to literally laugh at a pedophile. You're asking me to literally laugh at people who committed war crimes, and we maybe have more complex feelings about that. Yeah, I think it's just, I think in terms of just like a national, cultural sense of humor, I think this is, if you wanted to sort of pinpoint the point where it kind of diverges, then, you know, that. At the same time, I do have add, I think the movie is attempting something admirable. And maybe it feels even. more uh the movie feels prescient it feels more of today than it felt even almost a decade ago of yeah there is some truth in that like well the the absolute buffoonery is just like is constantly in a place of comedy while also having yeah horrendous circumstance and we're

talking about horrible people yeah um that it's like i i appreciate appreciate it for doing the swing of it could at any minute be incredibly funny or incredibly yeah uh terrifying and depressing right right well and it's the sense of like does making light does making comedy out of something like this make light of the circumstances or does it um make fools of the perpetrators. Do you know what I mean? And like, and what, and what do you value, you know, in a, in a commentary like that, in a satire like that? Do you value the, the, you know, attempt to kind of kick these monstrous figures in the balls? Or do you value, um,

keeping, keeping the, these, sort of this finger of accusation pointed at them without, you know, making them seem less terrifying. Does making them seem less terrifying take some of the teeth out of, you know, there's place in history. And, like, at what point are you kind of patting yourself on the bat for swinging at low-hanging fruit? This is also, I think, the complaint towards Adam McKay's work that people lob, you know? I always come back to... difficult to make Khrushchev seem fucking evil. You know, like a bad man of history who did a lot of bad things.

It's tough in any of these arguments to not sort of like do that. What's the law where it's like as soon as an argument has brought a Hitler comparison into the mix, then you've lost the argument. Right. But it's, I always, it's tough not to sort of take anything to the extreme of like, what if, what if about Hitler? What if about the Nazis? And I always think of the memes from downfall, the downfall memes, of, you know, Hitler in the bunker freaking out. But it's, you know, the translation is about any number of things. Right.

It's about like pop girl standing, you know. I almost always find those really funny. And it's, again, it's, you could make the claim that, like, are you making light of the Holocaust by turning Hitler into a joke? But it's just like, or... Are you just sort of like, you know, look at the, look at this, you know, furious, impotent, you know, impotent fury that he's kind of projecting and making it about something fucking stupid. To maybe keep us from going too deep into the movie. Us? Before the plot description.

Crazy. To bring it back to the Oscar conversation that we were kind of happening, having of like this type of broad. comedy and like this type of you know improvisational comedy to whatever degree it is actually improvised or rigorously scripted you know i think that's part of the part of the reason why this got so suddenly heavily predicted not just because the national society gave it a screenplay prize which we'll we'll get into but the somewhat surprised nomination that in the loop received because like in the loop was maybe even even further off the map.

I mean, it was an indie hit, but, you know, it was a summer release. It was even before Veep, you know, that was adapted from a TV show, a cult show. But then, like, Veep happened. So I understand the logic of predicting this movie because it's like, well, any argument you could claim against this movie of why it wouldn't be nominated is completely rebutted by the filmmaker's previously nominated script. Right. And his star has risen significantly since then.

Yes, yes, absolutely. We'll get into the Veep of it all. We'll get into the In the Loop of It All, one of my favorite Oscar-nominated comedies of my lifetime. A conversation that's unforeseeable. Well, I swear, I mean, we'll get to it. We'll get to it. I will just say that, like, current events don't not make me think of In The Loop somewhat frequently. Okay.

Before we get to any of that, though, and I'm going to find my stopwatch at some point to get ready for the plot description. But before that, Chris, can you tell our listeners why they should be hopping on board with our Patreon if they have not already? All right. So listen, we have a Patreon. We call it this head Oscar buzz turbulent brilliance. And for $5 a month, you can participate not only in episodes to come, but a whole backlog of episodes. We've been doing this for a year and a half, Joseph, so like you're getting a real steal. You can go and have some fun with episodes that are just waiting there for you.

What are those episodes going to be? What are you going to get in the future? Well, monthly, we give you two episodes. On the first Friday of the month, we give you what we call exceptions. These are the type of episodes that listeners had been clamoring for years for us to do. These are movies that manage to score some Oscar nominations fit the rubric of had Oscar buzz of like high expectations, disappointing results, but they have nominations so we wouldn't do it on the main feed. Earlier this month, we talked about the Cohen brothers inside

Lewin Davis. Everybody loves Lewin Davis. If you don't love Lewin Davis, well, come on over and argue with us about how we're wrong. What other exceptions are going to be waiting there for you? Tons and tons of other movies like Mulholland Drive, Mary Queen of Scots, House of Gucci, the legendary House of Gucci. We've even had guest episodes over there like Phantom of the Opera with Natalie Walker, Knives Out with Jorge Molina, Australia with Katie Rich. We've also done movies like The Lovely Bones, Pleasantville, Nine, Vanilla Sky. The exceptions episodes are always a lot of fun.

Yes. Then on the third Friday of every month, you're going to get what we call an excursion. These are deep dives into various. niche and broad topics we love talking about here. Things like Hollywood Reporter Roundtables. We've done old magazine issues where we deep dive into old EW fall movie previews. We've done the movie line Jennifer Lopez issue where she talks a bunch of shit about people. We've recapped old award shows like MTV Movie Awards from the 90s, early Independent Spirit Awards. This month, We talked about the legendary Oscar's greatest moments hosted by Carl Maldon, where we talk about not only Carl Maldon's scare quotes home, but the process of an Oscar recap TV special, basically holds a lot of place in both Joe and my memory.

Yes. So go on over to Patreon, sign up for turbulent brilliance at patreon. slash this had Oscar buzz and uh join us for the fun exactly okay chris i have my stopwatch in hand ready for you to limber up for a 60 second plot description on the death of Stalin before that i will give the particulars death of Stalin a as we said 2017 slash 2018 movie 2018 for american awards purposes directed by armando aeunuchy written by armando aianucci David Schneider, Ian Martin, based on the graphic novels La Mort de Stalin by Fabian Nuri and Terry Robin, Roban, I'm going to say, starring Steve Buscemi, Steve Buscemi. I've heard somebody recently was like, it's Steve Busemi, and it's just like, gavel.

And I was like, okay, starring Steve Busemi, Jeffrey Tambor, Simon Russell Beal, Michael Palin, Rupert friend, Andrea Riceborough, Jason Isaacs, Adrian McLaughlin, Patty Considine, Olga Karolenko, others, distributed by IFC films in the United States. This premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8th, 2017, and then did not open wide in the United States until March 9th, 2018. When it did open, it finished pretty far low down the box office ranks, because it opened limited. It didn't make a lot of money even when it had it opened not limited. The opening weekend was dominated by Black Panthers, fourth week, in which it was still number one, where it beat out a wrinkle in times first week, The Strangers Pray at Nights first week, Red Sparrow's second week, game nights third week. Honestly, not a bad weekend to hit the multiplexes. Some good options for you there. All right.

Two notes. One, cannot believe we're doing two Olga Karolenko movies in a row. Olga Kurolenko back to back, baby. I could not believe it, I will say. She's barely in this movie, though. She basically bookends the movie. If you told me that Olga Kurolenko had finished number third in the voting, I would not believe it. It's my favorite part of that whole scene.

Olga Karolenko, I could not be able. Olga Kurolenko finished number third in the voting. I could not believe it. And then my other note, Pusemi, Rihanna, Sarandon. And that's my last, my last note. That's all I want to say. Okay, except, no, you know what, I'm just going to let you have it. I'm going to allow you have it.

Is it Rihanna? It's Rihanna. That sounds so weird. Tell her parents that because, whatever. Take it up with Barbados. Okay, I have my stopwatch ready. Are you ready for a 60-second plot description of the death of Stalin? Sure.

Begin. So Joseph Stalin is listening to a live performance of a Mozart concert, and he calls the radio station, demands that they send a recording. The performance wasn't being recorded, so they perform it again and fake it being live upon delivery of the record. Star Pianist submits a note to Stalin wishing for his death and reading this. He has a stroke. In the morning, Stalin's Central Committee played by a host of various comedic performers,

accents, and nationalities, assemble around his body to find adequate medical and struggle to find adequate medical assessment, and Stalin ultimately dies. This sets off a play for power within Stalin's Central Committee, including Khrushchev and Beria, played respectively by Steve Busemi and Simon Russell Beal, battling to get favor of Stalin's children. Baria gets an upper hand when Malenkov is made chairman of the committee and is basically Baria's idiot flunky, Khrushchev plans Stalin's funeral, all while plotting Barry's demise and gains the support of the military imposing of a coup. Baria is then accused of a host of crimes, false and not, though, is proven to be a pedophile, receives a hasty trial of sorts and is executed Khrushchev usurps the position of, Malinkov to take control of the

over the Soviet Union, though as the epilogue reminds us, would install his own political usurper the end. All right, nine seconds and 45 Not a lot of it's a lot of people arguing and throwing insults and punchlines at each other because this is a what?

Ionucci movie. Yes. So, you mentioned the thing that I wanted to sort of mention up top. The fact that the concept of this is this is obviously a piece of Russian Soviet history that is being performed by mostly English actors, but also some Americans. And as Karolenko, is there a Russian?

A Russian or Ukrainian-born French actress is what I... Ianucci, we should mention, is a Scotsman. He is, yes. I Anuchi is a Scotsman, all the other actors, and I looked this up to make sure, even Patty Considine. Patty Considine, being English and not Irish, was surprising to me. Patty Considine, I love when he gets to be funny. because Patty Considine is usually, like, in the most harrowing circumstances on screen, but then sometimes gets to just be a nice guy or a funny guy, and I'm always so pleased about.

I know you didn't watch House of the Dragon, but Patty Considine spending the course of the first season of House of the Dragon, like, just progressively, like, having body parts sort of slough off of him from like just disease and decrepitude is just he's very good in that but it's also it's rough to watch he's just by the end of he dies in that season like literally just because it's like too many body parts have fallen off of him for to like continue existing as if IP television is a scourge on the culture okay all right um but yes I agree with you the patty Considine and a comedic um context is very good I really do enjoy enjoy him in a movie like Hot Fuzz.

But yeah, really, the cast is, I think, instructive. It almost sort of reminds you of, or at least me, of like, and maybe it's the Michael Palin connection, like a Monty Python kind of thing, where it's just sort of like, we've gathered this group of, you know, mostly English actors to play out whatever piece of history. It's like a pageant, you know what I mean? It's essentially just like an English comedic pageant of this piece, this sort of crucial window into Soviet history. And it uses, then, the Britishness, because it doesn't even like, it leans into it in a way that I think enhances the comedy, right? Yeah, it's part of the comedic tapestry of this that no one's doing a dialect really.

They're all kind of speaking as they speak in maybe a heightened manner. Yeah. Yeah. There's a moment where they're plotting in the woods where I forget who Khrushchev is talking to. I think it's Kaganovich maybe, where it's the one that leads up to the guy going to Khrushchev. How can you run and plot at the same time? But Khrushchev sort of points out on the other, you know, across the clearing, Beria and Malankov are talking. And he's like, what about those two? They're like Abbott and Costello over there. And I was just like, okay, so we're just like, throwing out cultural references, you know what I mean? Just like, doesn't matter. We're just doing like full on just... Well, like, I mean, this movie definitely invites you to compare this to contemporary figures, obviously. Absolutely.

Yeah. And, you know, that resonates probably more than it did in 2017. Uh-huh. Sure does. Even though those figures were still around in 2017. But it's a different, it's a different tenor. Even more ghoulish. Yeah.

But it also allows. these really talented actors to just sort of lean into this comedy in a way that I find really, really incredible. Patty Considine, you mentioned, but, like, and he has a very relatively small role, but, like, Jason Isaac's in this movie. And maybe I'm just sort of focusing on him. Jason Isaacs gets to be the one who goes, like, big, big. Jason Isaacs, I love in this movie. It's just he, like, doesn't show up until the second half of the movie. So he's playing General Zhukov, who is the head of the Red Army, who comes in and he's just like, he absolutely does not give a fuck about any kind of like restraints on his authority, right?

He's very much just like, when's the coup, when are we, you know, but he's also, he's got this Yorkshire sort of North England accent, right? He's very kind of, you know, this, somebody you would expect to see, like, somebody you would expect to see, like down at the pub being like two, pulls you into like a headlock instead of a hug. You know what I mean? Like one of those kind of people. Um, incredibly funny. So incredibly, you know, just sort of

off the chain. Um, I think every, he's such an incredibly versatile actor. We're talking about this right after the White Lotus season three has finished. Um, I thought he was incredible in that. I think if something like this. Who's getting that Emmy? Him or Goggins. It's a good question.

It is a good question because Gagins has been obviously Emmy nominated in the past. He was nominated just last year for Fallout. And yet, I think Isaacs has the more interesting character arc and is also, I think him being English does kind of help in that regard. But I haven't really taken a survey of that category yet, so I'm not in a half. This is assuming that either of them would win their categories. Another program could win that category. It could, although it's correct to assume that the White Lotus will dominate the supporting categories as it has for its first two seasons. I do think Goggins' character arc is a character arc we've seen on other shows and in other movies before.

Yes, but that does not mean that the Emmys won't go for it again. Like, the Emmy voters are not guaranteed to, you know, They're not as snobby as the Oscar voters. I'll say that. So anyway, I'm hesitant to make Emmy predictions yet because I haven't really... And there are no nominations. Dug into them yet. Well, yes, but I mean, like, even for, like, nominations-wise.

Jason Isaac's wonderful on this season of White Lotus, which as we, you and I have talked about... I've spent the better part of a week. I enjoy the season far more than other people. I'm glad to have this perspective in my life because I'm getting a lot of the other perspective. And I'm glad that I'm seeing a considered positive perspective rather than what I'm also seeing on Twitter, which is just like, well, I guess you can't just enjoy something. Like, I guess you can't just turn off your brain and enjoy something. And it's just like, if that's your only defense of something, then like, step out of the way and let somebody

who actually has a brain, like, defend the show. I mean, that's, you can say that about literally anything. Anything. It's the easiest thing to say. And sometimes I will say it. And sometimes I do feel like it is true. But, like, it is not as widely applicable as some people seem to think. Like, a lot of people seem to think, like, we should be turning off our brains about every single television show we watch and just sort of vibing with it. And it's just like, well, no, like a lot of these... That's what I watch crap competition shows for. Right. Right. And even those have satisfying character narratives and such, you know? No, but I would much rather listen to you defend the White Lotus

season three because you have actual you know you have actual things to say about it and I appreciate that but yes I think we both agree

that Jason Isaacs was quite good on this season post hog like that's right well if you believe I'm so he does not want us

to talk about that though I have become the fucking Oliver Stone of penis on screen where I just I believe like every it's all conspiracy

it's all a conspiracy It's all sacred until proven... I am on the ground level of putting that into your brain because my Ben Affleck gone girl conspiracy... I know. Now I don't trust anything anymore. Completely unfounded. This is how people become Alex Jones. This is how Alex Jones began was not trusting Dong on screen.

Well, we shouldn't encourage that at all because he's an evil force in the world and he should be deep-platformed into... It's crest. very applicable that I could make an Alex Jones joke and we have to then police it for it's seriousness. And you're just like, you're the sasha velour like, don't joke about that. I'm not saying don't joke about that.

I'm just saying I have to say I think he's despicable. Of course he is. Of course he is. But we're also talking about a movie about despicable people where we're invited to laugh about them, so that's okay. You could have called Death of Stalin, Dispicable Me, but you could not have called despicable me, the death of Stalin. Think about it. Think about it. Going through the other cast members, I want to get through the other English ones first, because Rupert Friend, at this point in his career, did we think Rupert Friend

could do comedy, or was this the sort of revelation point for him? Because I'm trying to think of, like, how I found out about him. Obviously, I think the first thing I ever saw him in was Pride and Prejudice, but maybe the first thing I ever noticed him in, like, actually, like, made note of the fact that, like, this is an actor named Rupert friend, was Cherie, the, Michelle Pfeiffer, Stephen Freer, Stephen Freer's movie. Because 2009, he's in Cherie, and he's in the young Victoria playing, pardon the expression, Prince Albert, in that same year. And then he's, at some point, joins the cast of Homeland. Oh, that's not until 2012. Okay. So he joins the cast of Homeland in 2012.

That's sort of, I think, that's sort of the level up for his career, because a lot of people did watch that show. And he was nominated for an Emmy for guest actor once, so that's cool. But I do feel like The Death of Stalin. He's in things like Hit Man Agent 47, where he plays the titular Agent 47. He's in starred up. God, start up. You've seen that movie, right?

He's in start up. I don't remember that at all. So I guess that's kind of the Jack O'Connell. Well, it's also the, like, he's the third lead in that movie. So it's Jack O'Connell, Ben Mendelsohn, and then Rupert Friend is third build. I would have to go back and watch the movie to sort of, is he the antagonist? Is he, I don't know. Is he some type of prison guard?

Um, hold on. Oliver, Oliver, Oliver, is the volunteer prison therapist. I got to watch Startup again. It's been a minute. Good movie. David McKenzie, good director. But anyway, I do feel like this is the first time that you've seen him in a context that is comedic. And, of course, now he's kind of joined the West Anderson.

Yes, he's in the West Anderson stable. We just talked about the French dispatch. We didn't really talk about him because he's in it very brief. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very, very, very briefly. Though him in the role doll short made me love Rupert Friend. I still haven't seen that one. Ratcatcher, are you talking about? He does this voice, this like little bitchy kid voice at some point that immediately my brain locked in that I was like, oh, I love, I love this man. This man is very funny to me. I really, really like him. I think he's very funny. He also, what did I? I just see. Pretty sure he's in the Phoenician scheme. Did I, did I, did I tell you when I realized that Tilda is not in the Phoenician scheme and my heart sank? I feel like the Phoenician scheme does not have as, as deep of a cast, or as big of a cast as the last few movies that he's done. I feel like Asteroid City. It's a pretty deep bench, but I think there's some significant Wes Anderson performers that are not there. I even think, though, that just like on a numbers game, because Friends Dispatch and Asteroid City had such giant casts.

Like this one, you're right, of the regulars, because if you look at this cast, Mia Threpleton is new to Wes Anderson, Michael Serra is new, Riz Ahmed, I believe is new. I don't think, no, was Riz Ahmed in any of the... I think the doll shorts, yeah. In the doll shorts, okay. Hanks is only in his second one. Richard Iowaday, I don't think, has been in a Wes Anderson before, or was he in the doll shorts as well.

I don't think he, I don't think this is his first time. Is it Sarah's first time? That doesn't feel correct, but I guess it is. I think it is. And then, but even if you're getting things, Charlotte Gainsborg is in it. This is her first, uh, uh, one. Scarlett Johansson has been in a couple, but not a ton. Same with Jeffrey Wright.

Same with Hope Davis. So, yeah, you're missing some of your like long time regulars. There's no Adrian Brody. there's no Owen Wilson, there's no Tilda, there's no, like Murray's in it, but I think you're, no Angelica Houston. Do you know what I mean? So, yeah, you are getting a pretty big cast, but again, it's not like you're getting, um, is Defoe, DeFoe is in this, right, okay. But he's, yeah, he's, you know, he's definitely one of those. Excited to see Rupert friend in the film. Yeah, definitely. He seems to, he seems to, he seemed to be. decently featured in the cast. I'm interested to see if Mia Threpleton, a.k.a. Kate Winslet's daughter,

is how she is in this. I hate to put it all on her shoulders, but when you get the lead role in a movie as the first thing I'm ever seeing you in, I'm sure she did make me laugh in the trailer. Yes. Honestly, yes. She was also in Oh, she was in Firebrand. which I didn't see.

Fun movie. The Catherine Parr movie. Anyway, anyway, anyway. We're sort of moving off of, right, Rupert Friend. Rupert Friend is so funny in this. It's so fucking funny in this movie. Like, my God, he's so funny. The part I always talk about, which I've forever, him in the hockey practice,

yelling at the hockey players. First of all, before he even calls him clattering fannies, which is the funniest line I've ever seen. but when he's just going, pass it, hit it, shoot it, like that kind of thing. And then as he's being carried off to go to his father, he goes, I'll have you. Something like, I'll have you murdered and he calls him, you rude fucking pies, which I also think is really funny. And then there's the part where he is being held down and he tries to spit on whoever it is, barrier or whatever holding him down and the spit just like goes and lands in his own hair is so like i don't

know if they planned it that way but if they did bravo because i mean the second that happened that was the shot that was going in the movie 100% it's so good um and then andrea risebrough as svetlana his sister who some type of large bird species um she's also very funny in this movie She should get to be funny a lot more. I enjoy her as a performer. We've talked about her Oscar nomination. I don't love that Oscar nomination. I'm glad she's an Oscar nominee.

She would probably never be nominated for a performance like this. Which is too bad because she's worthy of it. She's so fun. Right, right. The thing where she keeps like getting on Khrushchev about how he keeps saying, I won't let any harm come to come to you. And she's like, who mentioned harm? Why do you keep saying harm?

And then after Vassili gets the shit kicked out of him, she just points at him and she goes harm. I would call this harm. Like, this is harm. It's so funny. Who else in the cast before? I want to get to the Americans kind of last. Michael Palin. Michael Palin.

Incredible. The Python member. And I was going to say Monty Python brings a lot of that gravitas with him. And I think one of the remaining Monty Python members who are not annoying and problematic. was going to say, maybe he is, we just don't know about it. Maybe he is just quietly so. Yeah, I was going to say, do I click on him? Do I see any, uh, what are his Wikipedia headers? Anything that says like controversy or like, political views. Political views, right. I don't seem to see. So, uh, good for you, Michael Palin. Yeah, I think he's incredibly funny. Um,

Simon Russell Beale. We got to tell him. We love. We love Simon Russell Beale. One of our favorites. Also, like, an actor who I'm trying to think of this and the Deep Blue Sea are probably the two movies that sort of made me start really paying attention to him. And this was also around the time that he was on Penny Dreadful on Showtime, which also sort of made me start paying the degree of attention to him where it's like, now I know his name. But like, unbeknownst to me, because I am a dumb fucking, you know, American, whatever. whatever. He's, by this point, is like a legend of British theater by this point. It's just like eight bagillion Olivier nominations and whatnot. And he finally wins a Tony Award just a couple years ago for the Lehman trilogy. And it's just incredible. And it has the most daunting task in this movie, because Beria is the most tricky character to portray. Because of all of

these people. His, the depths of his villainy is what this, this movie sort of comes back to most often. Stalin is dead for most of this movie. So we don't really get into, like, we talk about, you know, the, the murders he orders, but, like, that's also all filtered through Baria, barrier. We see at the beginning of the movie is, like, handing out the execution orders for, like, it does seem like these happen, like, on the weekly and, like, this is this week's execution. But as he's handing them out, he's like, kill this one in front of his wife, kill this one, you know what I mean? Just like specifying the cruelty of it. And the movie does, tries very hard to balance the, to, you know, balance the absurdity of his validity that it is so sort of over the top and, and, you know, despicable and whatnot with things you can't really make light.

of, which is we see him sort of procuring young girls to rape, you know what I mean? Like, and we don't, obviously, these things all sort of happen behind closed doors and off screen, but they are not, you know, they're not, they're not, the reality of it is, is there. I mean, I think that's one of the things that makes him the best performance in the movie or the strongest performance in the movie is that he is actually succeeding. at this tonal balance in his performance that I don't think the movie is always succeeding at of the grave seriousness but then also the farcical comedy.

He's able to pull off both in his performance and I don't always think that the movie is pulling that off. It's a hard task. I will say that. It is a hard task, especially because the coup that happens in this is a coup against him. So all of a sudden

do you, but it's, you know, You don't want to sort of valorize the coup in this also. Do you know what I mean? Right. There's very alien versus predator, whoever wins, we lose. Yeah, yeah. And you see, like, it's obviously satisfying after knowing all the things that he did to see him sort of get comeuppance for that. But it is in the context of this sort of lawlessness that is existing at the top of the pyramid here in the Soviet Union. And so much of the movie is, and again, I think this movie does a good job of making farce out of things like, you know, lists of execution orders, right? Like these kind of things.

The whole thing with Michael Palin's wife, where years ago she had been carried off by, you know, the committee or whatever, because she was for treason reasons. to Stalin order her execution. Beria had sort of kept her alive secretly. And then now that Stalin is dead, he returns her to Palin in the middle of him being like, so about your wife. And Palin's like, just like, oh, awful cow. Like she was a traitor.

I hate her. I whatever. And she just sort of like walks into the frame. And he's just like, she's back. And again, the movie sort of gets to the absurd. of that in a way that felt very in the loop, felt very veep in that way. All of these evil people are also incredibly stupid. And also just their morality is so like not, there's no spine to any of it so it can

flip at the, at the, you know, moment. I think Malenkov is a perfect Ianucci character in this way because he just sort of, there is no, there is no there. he's only there to sort of sway with the breeze. Right, right. The defining characteristic is not any type of moral compass or code or even lack of ethics. It is all ego. Yes, yeah, yes.

It's interesting to watch, we've talked about Jeffrey Tambor in other movies we saw him in Win Win, a person who has done awful things in his, both personal and professional lives and has not been let's say a model citizen in any way and is not somebody we seek to praise and yet in almost every context whenever I watch like an old

arrested development clip or I'll watch a movie like this and it's just like fuck he's so fucking funny and it's just like what a fucking waste you know what I mean to have all that talent I do think that there's a lot of time I spend with this movie that

the movie is telling me what is funny about it, but I'm not laughing. And I get that, like, yes, this is, this is a decent joke, but I still just don't laugh. And I do think that comes down to the American performers. I laugh. Interesting. A lot less than I'm told to at Tambor and Busemi for some reason. And I think it's also they, they lean more heavily to either end of the spectrum of comedy and seriousness. that it's just like maybe it's because the balance isn't there. Interesting. Compared to what they have to play. I thought they were both tremendously funny in this. Not, you know. I don't love their performances in this movie. Interesting.

And it kind of, their stuff is the stuff where I'm like, this is a long stretch of the movie where I'm not laughing. Okay. I don't know. I don't know if I agree with that. But, you know, that's, again, probably plays into... I know I'm more grumpy about this movie than other people. Other people find this movie funnier than I do. But it's probably that it gets to.

But it's also, it, their stuff is playing to the joke. Like, it is telling you what the joke is and what you should be laughing about. And that tends to make me not laugh. I guess, but like, is, I don't know. I feel like, I mean, whatever, we're ultimately going to not agree on this. But, like, I think, I think of scenes. Like, the thing where Khrushchev tells his wife all the things he said the night before when he was drunk and then has her sort of read them back to him the next morning as he's, you know, trying to make sense of the things that he said. I think he plays that off very funny.

I think him scrambling to get dressed in his, you know, put on his suit over his pajamas is really funny. I think him, again, sort of like running through the woods plotting. I don't know. I'm not going to point out every single thing. thing I think he does in this movie that's funny. I also do feel like he is another character, though, who Khrushchev is the one character that, like, I think even people with a more casual read on American history, sort of, besides Stalin, Khrushchev is the only other character

that most people, or at least many people will have heard of. Name recognition, too. He's sort of one of these, you know, through American history, he's sort of a villain figure in American history because of course he's the head of the USSR during things like the Cuban Missile Crisis and all this sort of stuff. So I do feel like there's a little bit of degree of difficulty there where all of a sudden he has to then play this character

that then you can sort of hand back off into the annals of history once this movie is done. But anyway, I sort of, I'll, I'll, you know, I'll take that disagreement and we can agree to disagree on it. So in terms of, though, sort of bringing it back to Ayanucci, who does get the nomination, he's sort of, it's another one, it's a group writing nomination for In the Loop, which he wrote along with. So that nomination So this is sort of the Veep crew It's Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando I and H.E. Tony Roche,

who are the writers free in the loop. I had no idea of the thick of it back then. That is a show that I don't even think was ever available. I don't know if it's ever been available to watch in the States. It might have been the type of thing that when there were shows on the Sundance Channel or IFC would broadcast them in America, but not public. But I always think of it as sort of like back when, you know, when people were like, oh, well, have you seen the British office or whatever?

It's just like, and it's all just like people who just like torrented shit. And it's just like I never forented. So I never forented. So in the loop was sort of this new thing for me. And I found it so incredibly funny. So sort of that style, this was sort of my introduction to this kind of Armando Ionucci style, which is a lot of characters. sort of spread out, the humor comes from this, like, shockingly, like, you know, profane, these shockingly profane characters, um, not only, like, your Peter Capaldi is who is just, like, a fire hose of, um, you know, insults and, and nasty things, and incredibly creative ways

of, like, describing people, because it's not just sort of like, fuck your mother or whatever. It's also like him calling Gina McKee Lady from the Crying Game and like that kind of stuff. It's just like it's it's it's pop references or whatever. But then you get into like all of the characters sort of share this kind of amoral sort of withering disdain for each other. But they're they're written about very distinctly, right? So like very distinctly and also and with specificity into these specific ways that

people are stupid and that they are ill-equipped to manage public life, but then also just kind of these absurd humiliations that happen. Like, the funniest thing in that movie, to me is Mimi Kennedy's teeth bleeding. It's so good. But also just like, okay, so here's where I'm going to mention the whole thing with the fucking signal, was it, right, the, the text. fucking disaster with the with the

secretary of defense and all this sort of stuff that happened seemingly ages ago, but it was only like a week and a half ago, was so in the loop coded to me, was so very much like Mimi Kennedy trying to find out where the meeting for the future planning committee is or like people just sort of like gossiping and back channels about fucking whip-pip or whatever. It's, it's perfect. The emojis of it all? Yes, yes, exactly.

That is so in the loop. But the other thing that in the loop is, you know, I think is notable for it is you get this character. Like Tom Hollander plays the UK MP and he's a fucking ignoramus, right? He's a fucking dunce. He's so stupid. And he kicks off the whole drama because he mentions, you know, that he says the wrong thing in front of a microphone and sort of inadvertently. like the vague word soup answer. And then

ultimately, and then accidentally sort of commits English forces to you know, a possible invasion in the Middle East. And most of the movie is people trying to walk that back. But so he is the stupid fucking idiot

and that yet even he then will dump on the Toby character who is you know, a rung lower on the ladder than he is. And Toby's the one who's, like, cheated on his girlfriend, whatever, and, like, and everybody kind of dumps on him. And it's just, it's just, like, it goes round and round. Anna Klmsky is, like, tormented by Zach Woods, who just, like, keeps, like, making fun of her for her career being over because she's written this position paper that has placed her on the, the unpopular side of the current, you know, political landscape.

And, but, like, then she's firing back at him. It's just this, like, absolutely, like, circular firing squad in all directions of the most hilarious insults. And it just... Right. That's kind of the Ionucci vibe, right? Yeah. That's consistent through all of his work, except for maybe David Copperfield, that it's just, like, majestic insults, you know, just, like, real breath-catching cruelties. Incredible.

Must have been a blast. to write. To be able to, like, write that movie and then get an Oscar nomination for it does feel like it shouldn't be legal to be, to, you know, to seemingly have that much fun writing something and then to get awarded for it. So good. So that gets nominated the year of, it's so funny that, like, to have the same conversation where we're talking about in the loop and precious, you know, it's just like completely different universes that those two movies seem to exist in. And yet loses adapted screenplay to Precious. Which, like, that year just felt so Oscars Wild Westy, too, because that's also

the year of, like, District 9. It's the first year of the top 10 best picture category. So then, like, they're like, yeah, you know, District 9 is a sort of unexpected August box office hit. And they're like, hey, we have all these extra Oscar nominations to have. Let's throw some to District 9. And that's one of those movies that I feel like, even just with a couple of years of hindsight, people look back and they're like, her?

Like, you know, like really? District 9 of all things that they could have nominated? It's funny that the J.J. Abrams Star Trek was also very close. Very close to a nomination. Producers Guild nominee? Yes, I believe so. And was kind of elevated there for similar reasons, which is we have this new directive with the new best picture category to nominate more popular movies.

Well, we have a popular movie, and the critics really like it in this new Star Trek. And District 9, I think, gets the edge over it because it is not American. You know what I mean? It is sort of, it has a little bit of a snob cachet in it is slightly more because it's not based on a, you know, popular television show. And it is not this American popcorn movie. It has a little bit more of a snob appeal. And yet, if you look back, I think it would probably have aged better to have nominated Star Trek instead of District 9, if not, like, neither of them.

But if you were going to nominate one of them, I think Star Trek maybe ages better than District 9, which District 9 just seems to me like a B, B plus kind of a movie. Well, that director's reputation has sank further than maybe that Star Trek franchise's reputation has sank further. Maybe, yeah, I think that's maybe. I'm a fan of Star Trek Beyond, but I know that other people don't. I like Star Trek Beyond. on quite a bit. I think it's very fun. With the exception of the

exclusively gay moment in there, where all of a sudden they're just like, and Sulu's gay, like that kind of thing. It's just like, you know, cough and you'll miss it. But yeah. Other nominees that year in adapted screenplay were an education and up in the air. I feel like up in the air was the one that most people thought was going to win. Adapted screenplay and then precious sort of nips it at the finish line? And I think the immediate response was, oh, Jason Reitman lost that Oscar because he was annoying. But I actually think the Academy just liked Precious more than...

I think Precious had the better narrative, right? Where, like, Precious is also not... It's not not a movie that has some degree of Oscar buyer's remorse in that way. where I feel like Precious is not a movie that is as well regarded today as it was in 2009. You know what I mean? I don't know where your feelings stand on that movie, but I think that's a movie that I don't think I've seen it since 2009. I mean, same. But I think even just like in retrospect, I look back and I'm like, we maybe like overrated that movie a little bit, at least elements of that movie.

I still stand by the Monique Oscar win. I think she's really, really, really good in that movie. as is Gabby. I'm less, I'm sort of less. Paula Patton was also really good in that movie and got no credit for being good in that movie. Yeah, well, the curse of the second best supporting actress in a movie with a first,

you know, a first best performance. That's that good. In The Loop is also nominated for two BAFTAs, another Adapted Screenplay nomination up in the air won that BAFTA, and then is, nominated for Best British Film. That year is won by Fish Tank.

Keep that in memory because those are the exact same two nominations that a Death of Stalin will end up getting, though those many years later. And then I think in the loop is one of those movies. Sometimes you get this, where a movie's reputation is enhanced by, or is enhanced by the thing that the creator or director or whatever, does next. And I think the success of VEP then sort of turns in the loop into something that is even

more, you know, valorized, which is the predecessor, the precursor. Were you a VEP person? Did you watch all seasons of VEP? Not live, but yes, I've seen most of VEP, yeah. Where do you come down on VEP? Big fan of VEP. I was re-watching VEep last year. can't, you know, cannot confirm when I stopped watching VEEP last year, you can deduce.

Um, VEEP is just so fun. It's so soothing listening to people insult each other. Like, I feel like it activates a certain part of my brain that like Springer activated, you know, of just like, or reality TV does. But it's actually like exquisitely crafted and just like perfect jokes. Perfect jokes. Left and right. Everybody on that show is good. It also pulls Anna Klemski in. from in the loop, obviously, playing a very different character in Amy. Kloombsky never got an Emmy for that, right? No, she was nominated a bunch, but she never won't. So rude, like. It is. It is rude, because I think she was incredibly funny in that. I think her performance is so essential to the comedic balance of that show as well. Yes. I think one of the, I was, I was talking to somebody the other day, and I

I was like, one of the things that Veep was able to do that's so underrated, because it, like, you know, was so praised for so many things, it successfully gaslit me that Tim Simons was some big, goofy, ugly person instead of, like, the stone cold haughty that he actually is. Like, if you ever, like, see Tim Simons now, or, like, in, um, fucking, uh, the Netflix show that he's on now where he plays, um, Adam Brody's brother. Um, he's just fucking hot. And, like, and watching Veepe for all those years, I'm like, Jonah, you big fucking goon of a guy or whatever. And it's just like, oh, no, right. Like, he's just like tall and handsome. Great. All they had to do was just like not comb his hair. The one of all the like ridiculous insults in that show, and there are plenty of them. The one that sticks with me with him is when Selena calls him, uh, uh, what does she say? She's like, it's not go fuck yourself, but it's something similar. And then she calls him long

tall Sally. And... Because sometimes the best insults are just like a stupid assemblage of words, but they're also perfect. She says, go shit yourself.

Go shit yourself, Long Tall Sally. And it's just, it's so perfect. Tremendous show. And that is a show that, like, dominates the Emmys, right?

Julia Louis-Dreyfus wins, like, six Emmys. And, like, people are, like, it is objectively not as good anymore. Right. But I think that's a show that ends well.

I will say, I think the series finale of Veep is really good. It wins Outstanding Comedy three times, 2015, 2016, 2017. So, like, you're walking up the steps to Death of Stalin. So, like, you would not have been, you know, you would have been within your rights to point to that as a reason to have high Oscar hopes for Death of Stalin, for Ayanucci specifically. the movie premieres in Toronto is like a Toronto world premiere.

What is your memory of how that movie sort of landed at Toronto? Because I don't remember it being like one of the top buzzed about premieres there or movies there in general. Well, they screened it a decent amount. I think. But this is the year that, like, Lady Bird took a lot of the, what wins the, oh, three billboards, right?

So this is the year of three billboards and Lady Bird. And I'm trying to think of the other sort of big movies that took over. Well, it played their platform section, which is like. like TIF's still like only a decade old competition program that never really gets a whole lot of heat, though I think it was the first year or maybe the second year, that they had Jackie and Moonlight in there. Right. And I believe Jackie won the prize. Well, Jackie would have been the year before. Jackie was 2016.

Right. Right. Yeah. And Death of Stalin does not win that prize. usually the movie that does win the prize is not something that's made a whole lot of waves at that TIF. But I think platform winner that year, as I'm looking at the TIF page, was Sweet Country, a movie called Sweet Country. Oh, the Warwick Thornton movie. Yes. But if you look at the people's choice, three billboards wins people's choice, but runner up is I, Tanya, which is another movie that made a big splash at that Toronto. And then call me by your name, which was a Sundance Permit. of course, but call me by your name was the second runner-up.

Oh, and that was also Faces Places, which won the People's Choice documentary award. This is a good TIF, damn. My first TIF. This was one of the first things I saw at Tiff. Because I think this was like a Friday night premiere, so it's also the type of thing that people are coming into the festival with movies that they're more excited to see. So, you know, playing early in TIF is not always helpful to... And yet, with all of that, do you remember what the opening night film was that year? Is this Outlaw King?

Is this the year? Outlaw King was the year after, was the next year. Is this the one of the many hockey movies they've done? No, but it is a sports movie. Oh, is this Borg McEnroe? This is Borg Maconroe. Yes, indeed, it is. Sure.

An A24 direct TV movie, if I am correct. So the gala's are interesting because the gala is this year. are a lot of like this had Oscar buzz type movies. We've done Darkest Hour, or not Darkest Hour. Darkest Hour is one of them, but that actually does get. Is the Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy, Breathe? It is. Dandy Circus directed.

But like Chappaquittic was this year as a gala. Film stars don't die in Liverpool. The Leisure Seeker was a gala. This is another TIF movie. Future TIF movie, The Mountain Between Us is a gala premiere. David Gordon Green's Stronger with Jake Gyllenhaal, Neil Berger's The Upside, which was the remake of The Intouchables that starred Brian Cranston and Kevin Hart, of course.

And then doesn't get released for like another year. Jessica Chastain in Woman Walks Ahead. A 24 DirecTV movie. Halle Berry and Kings. Oh, that movie is bad. That movie is bad. I've never seen it. I've never seen it.

The Billy August movie, 55 Steps, with Helena Bonham Carter and Hillary Swank. Helena Bonham Carter, I believe, as a disabled person in a possibly problematic way. I think that's possible. Haifa al-Mansour's Mary Shelley with El Fanning that I've never seen. D. Reese's Mudbound, at least, got some Oscar nomination, so there's that. But yeah, but the gold in this are found in the special presentation. right, where you get, you know, obviously you get carryovers from Sundance and Cannes, like you get, we've mentioned, call me by your name. BPM was that year. I don't remember where a Fantastic Woman premiered. Was that also a Cannes premiere? Berlin. Berlin. Okay. But there's some really, like, this is where a lot of the really good ones, Sebastian Lelio's disobedience was in this, Sean Baker's Florida project. I Tanya, as I mentioned. killing of a sacred deer was this year. Lady Bird, Lean on Pete, Molly's game. Mother, of course. This was the big, my first viewing of Mother. So wonderful and good. Chloe Zhao's the rider. Roman J. Israel Esrile Esquire. Rumen J. Israel Esquire. They, like, brought as a semi-work in progress because the cut that they screened at Tiff was not the version that was released.

Good point. Good, good, good note. But yeah, just a really, really good, good and fun year. And like, you know, disaster artists, which is a complicated Oscar story there, but that's a Midnight Madness movie that year. First Reformed played in the Masters section, Faces Places, Places played in the master's section. It's really, really good and satisfying Tiff. And so trying to... Death and Stalin did kind of get buried a little bit. A little bit. For a lot of people it had, I think it was firmly pro on the movie, but there was this like patina of disappointment for a lot of people. The reviews were stellar. 94% rotten tomatoes. I know it's like grain of salt rotten tomatoes, but like 88% Metacritic.

But I think you're right. The fact that it got a little bit swallowed by the bigger, by the ladybirds and I tanya's and three billboards is probably a big part of the. the reason why it gets pushed to 2018 for an American premiere. It's movies most vocal fans were like upon release, not at that festival premiere. Yes, agreed, agreed. I think it's a slow, it was a slow burn of buzz for it. Then, yes, I think you're right. Which I think that makes it all the more impressive than it is able to survive to the end of 2018.

and get, even if just a few nominations for, like, or like shows up on the NBR top 10 independent movies, gets a Critics Choice nomination for Best Comedy, gets a handful of best screenplay notations, including the National Society of Film Critics, which is the least influential on award season. Because they're so late. Because they usually opt for advocacy. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. So I want to dig into 2018 Best Adapted Screenplay for a second because I think it's, it's an interesting one in that it's the shape that a lot of Oscar categories sometimes take, which is four locks and a total toss-up. So in that case, this is the year that Spike Lee wins finally, his first Oscar for Black Klansman. This was the year that he gave that line on the red carpet about how Green Book wasn't his it's not my cup of tea. Are you British? I'll give you a British answer. It's not my cup

of tea. A delight, Spike Lee. So he wins. He jumps into Samuel Jackson's arms. It's a wonderful moment. The other nominees that year, and they showed up basically everywhere, can you ever forgive me if Beale Street could talk and a star is born? We've talked before about the struggles that if Beale Street could talk had in showing up across the Oscar ballot, even sometimes with Regina King, who, like, doesn't get a SAG nomination. I think that's part of their... And, like, that's a whole big candleworms about Annapurna that year, because they were going into distribution, not just production.

Right. And, like, they bounced around the release of Beale Street a ton and then kind of whiffed when they did release it. And, like, yeah, it has this spotty awards run on the way to Regina King's Oscar win. On top of it, should have been nominated for a lot more. A lot more things. Right. But it shows up everywhere for screenplay. It gets pretty much all of the precursor nominations. But like, pundits were still treating it at the prediction stage like it was a, like, it could just not show up there because the campaign was so volatile.

Right. And I think general doubts around Star is Born, too. Right. Right. But again, a Star is Born also shows up everywhere. So it's those four. It's Black Klansmen. Can you ever forgive me? If Beale Street could talk, a star is born. If Beale Street could talk is the only adapted movie in the Golden Globes screenplay because the Golden Globes combine them. They do four originals. They did Green Book, Roma, the favorite, and vice. Green Book winning, of course.

And then Beale Street's the only adapted. But like Bafta, which had the year before nominated Death of Stalin, because for them Death of Stalin was 2017. But Bafta gives the award to Black Klansmen. And then their fifth nominee was first. man. Writers Guild gives the award to Can You Ever Forgive Me? And their fifth nominee was Black Panther. Critics Choice gave their award to if Beale Street could talk. And their fifth nominee was also Black Panther. Um, uh, U.S.C. Scripter Award, which like, I don't even

know if that's a major thing anymore, but like I wrote it down here because it's just another data point, uh, gives their award to Leave No Trace, which is interesting. Leave no Trace, for a movie that, like, I remember as being, like, a complete, like, off-the-path movie, what, like, also one, like, best director at New York film critics that year, which I totally, for, or L.A. film critics, one of the two. If that wasn't a Bleaker Street movie, that would probably have Oscar nominations. You and your Bleaker Street. All respect to the good people at Bleaker Street. But USC Scriptor Award also nominates, can you ever forgive me, if B.L. Street could talk and Black Panther.

New York film critics gave their screenplay award that year to First Reformed, which is an original. L.A. film critics gives theirs to Can You Ever Forgive Me, National Border Review, gives theirs to if Beale Street could talk, and then National Society of Film Critics, to Death of Stalin. So if you're looking at, again, the four locks, and then your fifth ones, your fifth options were in some configuration or another. First Man, Black Panther, Leave No Trace, Death of Stalin, and then the one that ultimately does get the nomination that showed up nowhere on the precursor season is the Ballad of Buster Scruggs, which to me is just the Oscars being like,

we don't know, we like the Coens, you know. And the Coens did not campaign for that movie. But Netflix did. Netflix's, like, fifth priority. But this was the year, so this is the Roma year, and this was the year that they had hired, Lisa Tayback, and they're like, we are getting serious about, you know, we are so sick of, this was two years after Amazon had beaten them to the punch of major Oscar nominations for

Manchester. And Netflix was kind of embarrassed, and they brought in Lisa Tayback. And they got real serious. You know, they got Roma right to the precipice of winning Best Picture this year. I would be very interested to see, this is one of those years I want to see the best picture, bake-off, or whatever, the ranked voting process for this year. Preparational ballot. Because I would have been very interested to see how this ended up shaking out. But anyway, so even the stuff that wasn't, like, I think Netflix was aggressive about everything this year.

I think Netflix really wanted to. Roma is famously the most expensive Oscar campaign of all time, though numbers differ on how much Netflix actually spent on the awards campaign for that movie. What are the other Netflix nominees this year besides Roma and Buster Scruggs? Well, mudbound. Mudbound, right, which gets supporting actress for Mary Jane Blige. And a song nomination and a cinematography nomination, though I'm not sure. Was that not adapted from a book?

Mudbound? Mudbound in screenplay races. I thought that was based on a book. Hold on. Hold, please. Please, hold, hold, please. No, wait, Mudbound was the year before. Sorry, Mudbound was 2017.

Oh, never mind. Oh, right. Duh. I'm sorry. That's my fault because I was like, well, we were just talking about it at that Tiff. And, of course, we're also talking about how this movie's delayed a year. Sorry, I side practice. Never mind. What are the other, I guess, maybe.

Private life. Right. Right. Which was less of a priority than Buster Scrudge, probably. Right. What was their documentary that year? Wasn't free solo. It wasn't Hale.

County. Minding the Gap was Hulu. Maybe they didn't get a documentary feature nomination. Anyway, maybe they did just put all their eggs in the Roma basket. And so Buster Scruggs, which also did get a song nomination, does become its sort of de facto second movie. I'm famously a little sort of sour on the ballot of Buster Scruggs. I think there are good moments in it, but, like, ultimately, I'm not too jazzed by it.

And I think the nomination, the supporting or the Adapted Screenplay nomination when you could have nominated something like the Death of Stalin or Leave No Trace or, honestly, Black Panther, you know what I mean? Like, there are, there are, you know, challenges that Black Panther was able to, you know, surmount. as an adaptation, as a work of fitting this specific story within the greater context of the MCU that I think was pretty impressive on a screenplay level. I think for first man, the screenplay is not the first place I would go to for that nomination. No, I think that's probably a better directed movie than it is written. Even acting. I would go for Gosling in acting even before script. But I think aside from the Cohen'sness of it, though, and I like Scruggs way more than you do.

It draws as a piece of writing. It draws attention to the writing, which helps it in a nomination, you know, just by the nature of its episodic structure. I think you're right about that. Yep. You know, its source of inspiration, like what it is actually adapting. You know, it draws attention to itself as a piece of writing. I also just wanted to shout out because there are movies that we, We're never really in the conversation that nonetheless I would have liked to have been in the conversation, including but not limited to Paul Dano's wildlife, Alex Garland's Annihilation, which I think is...

Annihilation. Across the board was underrated. David Lowry is The Old Man in the Gun. We've done an episode on that. I love that movie. Ali Abasi's Borders is that year, which does get a makeup nomination, but was an adapted screenplay. the movie We The Animals, which,

whose director I'm blanking on at the moment, you know I'm not a Paddington person, but Paddington, too, was this year. And, you know, if you wanted to, you know, throw that movie a bone, you'd be within your rights. But anyway, I just feel like

there were ways to go. You know what was a Netflix this had Oscar Buzz movie that year? That we've all completely memory hold. I don't think many people watched this July 22nd. Oh, which I stick up for and nobody else does.

Do you remember who plays the mass shooter in that movie? Anders Danielson Lye. Yeah. Wildly, yes. Yes, yes. And it's quite good. But so, yeah, this is a year where I think these years

where it's one total wild card are often very fun because then all of a sudden the conversation stays a conversation for very long, all of a sudden, and it's like, and what constitutes being a contender can stay kind of loosely defined for very long, which is nice. They often sort of end this same way, which is like maybe the least inspiring option is the one that the Oscar voters go for,

which, you know, whatever it happens. I would have my nominations this year for adapted screenplay were, can you ever forgive me if Beale Street could talk the death of Stalin, we the animals, and border. So, um, it's a good, it's a, it's a, it's a good year. I also wanted to, while I'm looking at my own ballot, um, because I also would have had Simon Russell Beale in the mix for Death of Stalin, but like, this is a surprisingly, not maybe not surprisingly, this is a banger year for, um, for supporting actor.

Like, I sometimes, especially in my younger days, would sort of shit on supporting actor, because, of course, in a very sort of move I'm gay kind of way where it's just like, get out of here, actors. I want to talk about supporting actresses. But some of that comes from Academy tastes or the things that are valued by the Academy,

the industry. And I would even extend this to critics sometimes. Yeah. that is valued in supporting male performances. Not always the most interesting. Yes, no, you're not wrong at all. So I had a bit of a time. Joseph, did you say that widows would be on your ballot,

or did you just totally overlook widows as a support as an adapted screenplay? Is widows adapted? From a miniseries, yeah. Right. Then, yeah, I totally, I forgot about it, or did I put it? No. I just didn't have it because I didn't, I didn't. realize or remember that it was adapted.

I mean, I think it is, it is technically adapted, but it is extremely loosely adapted. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but that's a really good point. But I had a bitch of a time coming up with five supporting actor nominees because I had to whittle it down from like a list of 11. So my list for that year is Richard E. Grant for can you ever forgive me? who was obviously an Oscar nominee. Stephen Young for Burning.

Alex Wolfe for Hereditary. Burning would have been on my adapted screenplay. Oh, is that also an adapted? So yeah, same here then. I believe, hold on. I don't have you. I trust you. Or do I?

Well, I only have like my top 10 pulled up. I don't have. Like, I don't have ballots for years. I should make. that a year-long project. Yes, it is based on a Murakami. This is also the last year that I have in my Word document before I started transferring these things to Google Sheets. So it's possible that I have not given this particular year the once-over that I normally do. Stephen Young and Burning, Alex Wolf and Hereditary, Brian Tyree Henry, and both widows, and if Beale Street could talk.

But if in this case, I would probably have said Beale Street, because I think he's so moving in that movie. And you can nominate Kaluya for widows. That's exactly right. Kaluya's on my list for widows, Simon, Russell for the death of Stalin, Rupert friend for the death of Stalin, Josh Hamilton for eighth grade, Nicholas Holt for the favorite, Sam Elliott for a star is born, Michael B. Jordan for Black Panther.

Like, that's not even digging too deep. You know what I mean? Like, that's sticking pretty, you know, close to the surface. And it's already that's rich of a category. So, You know what I have on my top films list that is going against the grain of a particular allergy is blockers.

Oh, sure. And it has Ike Barronholz in it. You and your Ike Barronholtz allergy. I will say, Ike Barronholtz in the studio plays a fundamentally objectionable character in a way that is really charming. And I think he's very funny on that show. He and Catherine O'Hara are maybe my two favorite performances on that show. Although Seth Rogan, I think, is really funny. I am very curious about this show.

I think you'd like it. I do think you'd like it. Power through the first episode, which I found obnoxious. Also, the first and last episodes are very Brian Cranston heavy, but the middle of the season is not at all. So you can feel safe. You can be marked safe from Brian Cranston. I wonder if this would still be my... Top five. The current top five I have on letterboxes, let the sunshine in, can you ever forgive me, the favorite shoplifters, and then Beal Street.

So Widows doesn't make your top five that year. Interesting. I have it at 10. I have it at 10. My top five is Widows, Annihilation, Beal Street, Hereditary, Can You Ever Forgive Me? And at this point, I would probably move Can You Ever Forgive Me up to two. So widows Can you ever forgive me? It's not moving. That's fine. Mine, yeah, so mine's widows, can you ever forgive me Annihilation, Beale Street, hereditary.

Oh, did you go from one to five and I went from five to one? Yeah, I went from one to five. Oh, I went from five to one. Interesting. Good year. 2018. We've talked about it a lot, but you know what? It's a really good year for movies.

It's a really good year for movies and people don't talk about it very much. Okay. What else do we want to talk about with regard to this? I wanted to sort of talk about this in regards to TV, right? This idea that I wrote in the outline here about how sometimes we assume that people who see huge success in TV will automatically be able to level up to film success. And I think, I imagine there are examples in the past that sort of prove this correct. Um, but maybe, you know, think of something like Mary Tyler Moore getting the

nomination for, you know, ordinary people. I mean, Regina King, I mean, Regina King, who started in film, but then we really had an awards rise in television shortly before Beale Street. And she's originally a TV person because she started in 227. Like she, you know, that was, um, I guess when I think of like her debut, I think of like Boys in the Hood. Of course. Sure. But 227. Justice for 227. But yeah, she's definitely somebody who, like, if you, my examples, though, are like, everybody sort of assumed that John Hamm would take film by Storm. And it's not like he's stopped being cast in movies. But, like, at some point, I will convince people that I am right that John Hamm is not a movie star. And it's the thing I'm currently saying about Pedro Pascal. And I am on board with that. He's a TV actor. And he's fine. Like, he's, he's in his, you know, you watch The Last of Us. He's, like, perfectly calibrated for The Last of Us.

Like, it's- I'm willing to, I'm willing to, um, be proven wrong by materialists, though, because I guess I'm, like, the only person who was pro on that trailer. Oh, that trailer gave me bad vibes and I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I was like- You do not seem to be alone, but I am ready for this movie. I'm, of course, going to keep an open mind, but like, I don't know. And I loved. I was a big, big, big. fan of fucking wait why I'm liking on that title

past lives I was like it's not private life yes past lives and past lives I was pro but everybody's like you know fawning was a little lost on me right right just because like I just

nothing about the romance of that movie worked for me like I like that movie more so as like acknowledging like past versions of yourself and you as a person are constantly in a state of... I don't think my appreciation for that movie depended on me getting swept up in that romance because I don't think I was either. In fact, I was, you know me. You know who I was riding for in that movie. I was a justice for John McGarro person. Like...

I mean, he's so hot in that movie. I can't believe anybody would... Tayo is hot in that movie, too. Everybody's hot in that movie. I'm like, these guys are so hot. I should be way more Movies that should, by all rights, end in a threesome, which past lives was, program that movie in rep with challengers and just saying, just like, let the energy transfer from one to another. People love their threesomes. It's so muchy. But I think, I think you sort of go through this with your, you know, TV actors. Lord knows, I think James, the late James Gandalfini is a tremendous actor. always was. But James Gandalfini never had the impact in film that he did on The Sopranos.

Somebody like Dennis Franz, who was such a dynamic TV performer. Like, oh, it's obviously the example, it's Clooney, is everybody's chasing what Clooney did, of course. I'm an idiot for not even thinking about that. But like, everybody's chasing the George Clooney ideal, which is you're on a hit TV show for a few years, and then you level up because you are, um, handsome and, you know, let's be honest, white. You know what I mean? And so Hollywood now will fall at your feet. And I think that's what everybody assumed was going to happen to John Hamm. I think you do have counter examples. Regina King, you mentioned. Helen Hunt is a good example of somebody who was a dynamite TV actress and won a bunch of Emmys for Mad About You and then

was able to immediately just like level up into movies and like, and win an Oscar. But that didn't last, right? That, you know... How fast we forget that Jennifer Lawrence was on a Bill Engval TV show on, like, fucking CMT or something. But I think that's a little bit of a different conversation. Well, it's a different conversation because no one watched that show. Right. So it's not in our memory of Jennifer Lawrence being on television. But like Helen Hunt's a counter example, but also somebody who then hurt wasn't able to keep the heat of a film career. Brian Cranston somewhat similar, right?

Where, like, he is able to get the Oscar nomination for Trumbo. But I think there's not been a, you know, success as a consistent movie star. Alison Janney is able to move into movies and get the Oscar, obviously, for Iitania, but now has returned to what I think is her ideal state, which is TV star. Kieran Culkin's an interesting one because he was. was a movie guy who then dipped into TV for Succession. He's never really done much TV outside of Succession, so I don't know if we really even count him as like a TV star.

Well, I think the people who most successfully navigate, you know, the various forms of entertainment, because some of these people we're talking about are also theater performers as well, are character performers, you know, they're not stars, you know. And now the lines between TV actor and movie actor are so blurred. Like, you wouldn't call Brian Cox a TV star. He was somebody who was in, like, movies, movies, movies, and then, like, moved into Succession.

But now most people know him for Succession, or if perhaps the McDonald's commercials. So the lines at this point are very blurry. But I just want, like, there is a difference. So I think when we're talking about something like, you know, Ayanucci or like Julia Louis Dreyfus, who is, you know, I think one of, you know, the greatest television actresses of my lifetime. But just when she's in movies, they're small Nicole Hollif Center things rather than, you know.

But she's incredible in those things. Yes, she is. You know. But then I think you're getting into a slippery slope of what even is a movie star anymore. Well, I know. It's two slippery slope conversations. It's what is a movie star and are there TV and movie actors anymore? Or is it just sort of one big soup?

Now you kind of have to do both, which is like everybody dogs on Nicole Kidman for like we don't want or doing these shitty TV shows or shitty TV movies anymore but it's like it does kind of feel like

we're moving into a place where in order to be famous you have to do both and yeah well or or to sort of maintain your level of fame or your level of success

in between successful movies unless you're on the, you know, franchise train for something. I want to just sort of empty out my notes here a little bit. So I'm in Russell Beale being so fucking good. Let's see. This is such a terrible, like it's a good line, but it's so despicable. The one when they decide to, they need to, one of the sort of master strokes of

it's so absurd that it had to be true is this idea that Stalin has this stroke and they can't find the doctor to come treat him because he sent them all to the gulag considering our current state of things, believe. Yeah. And so they have to like round up the like, this motley crew of doctors who are left who are like old elderly retired doctors

and like, you know, med student like children or whatever, which leads to a bunch of really funny jokes about people busting on, just like, you're, you're not even a person. You're a, you know, you're a, uh, you're a, uh, you're a zygote. What is, what does the silly say to the one, um, I don't know, the one just looks like an absolute madman. Um, but, uh, the one, uh, advisor, whatever member of the, of the, of the committee goes, and if it goes badly, we pin it all on lady suck, suck. Oh, right, because the, because, because, because the, because the, because the, because the, because the, because the, yeah, it makes the joke about, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um. the one woman who named names to the other doctors, and he says something about like was exceptionally skilled at fallatio, and so the other one calls her lady suck-suck, which is, again, despicable, but also a good line. When they're running to Svetlana is so funny. It's when they're trying to race to get to her first. And Simon Russell Beale is just like screaming, like Svetlana.

It's wonderful. Play better, you clattering fanny is the line of the decade, as far as I'm concerned. Oh, also, Bouchemmy, Khrushchev calling the one guy helping him plan the funeral, Slim Hitler, is, again, a perfect tossed-off Ayonucci line. You know what I mean? Where it's just like, that's an in-the-loop level insult right there. what else did you have to say about I got through all my notes in the episode so I think we've arrived

All right, all right So why don't you let the listeners know About the IMDB game and we can move into that 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 will 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. Heck yeah, that's the IMDB game. Chris, would you like to give first or guess first? I'm going to give first because I'm not going to be nice today. I've been going, in my opinion,

very easy on you lately. Much like Stalin, he has chosen violence. Wow. The Stalin of this had Oscar buzz, Chris Files. Maybe not the last time that you compare me to evil dictators. All right. Let's see it. So I went into the Veep cast on my favorite presences on VEP.

It's Mr. Gary Cole. Okay. I've chosen for you, character, actor Gary Cole. All right, Gary Cole. Any television? No television. Great. Is one of them the Brady Bunch movie?

Incorrect. No Brady. bunch movie is one of them all though office space office space is correct okay okay so at least there's that um Gary Cole not any Brady Bunch movie or at least not the first Brady Bunch movie Brady Bunch movie's too gay for the for known for it's we're the people keeping that movie alive maybe um All right, Gary Cole, where can I picture his face in movies and not television shows?

I mean, it's got to be comedies, although I wouldn't rule out him being in a drama, because he obviously has, like, drama face, even when he's in comedies. They get the, you know, the fun of it is how dramatic he can be. I'm just going to say Brady a bunch, too, and then give me years. A very Brady sequel is incorrect. Your years are 2002, 2004, 2006. 2002, 2004, 2006. 02, 04, 06.

He was on an every other year plan to show up in something. Are they all comedies? No. The one that isn't a comedy is a comedy is a, former this had Oscar buzz movie. Oh, okay. 0-204. Is he, like, deep in the bench

of all three of these movies? Okay, I'll just say the O-2 movie is the former this had Oscar buzz movie and it is a drama. And I I'll pull up how build he is. He's definitely not more

than fourth build. All right. O2 movies. Is he in secretary? He is eighth built on IMDB. It must be in order of appearance at a certain point. I guess secretary would be a comedy. Is he in one-hour photo?

One-hour photo. Really? Yes. So, O-4 and O-6 are comedies. One of these movies, I forget for who this would have come up, but it did very much trip you up. Is he an anchor? Man? Possibly, but Anchorman is not correct.

Okay. One of these movies you struggled to get on a fairly recent IMDB game, if I'm remembering correctly. Is that part of why you picked him? Uh, maybe. I also just felt like this was difficult, and I've been easy on you for a while. A lot of a gun. Okay. Um, 4.06 comedies.

Like, are we talking like Starsky and Hutch territory? No, definitely both of these made way more money than that. Okay. Are they Apatow, though, like related? I mean, I don't know to what degree, but, like, he's probably in the ether of these movies. One of them he plays, I believe, the father of a titular character. A titular character implies that they're. There are multiple titular characters in...

No, there's only one titular character. It's not walk hard, right? No. Okay. Is it, um, uh, fucking hot rod? No. I've never seen Hot Rod. Nor have I.

Um, is it a male character? Yes. Is it an actor? Who I like? I have no opinion. This is not a movie I could imagine you sitting down and watching, though this is an incredibly popular movie. Oh, God.

I don't think you would talk dirty about this movie, but I cannot fathom you sitting down to watch this movie right now. Talk dirty about me can stream comedy. Or is that Def Leppard? None of my business. Talk dirty to me, I believe, is poison. I think you were right about that. None of my business.

They both had behind the musics. They very much is your business. Okay. Mainstream comedy is an 06. I'm just, like, all it is is I'm thinking of, like, Apatow shit. Are they, like, in any way IP related, or are they original? They're both original. They both have a semicolon in the title.

Oh. So is it like the goods, live hard, sell hard, or whatever the fuck? Shittiest like that. No, because you said they made money. And one of them you struggled to remember this comedy recently. But that's not going to help me because if I struggled to remember it before, I'm going to struggle to remember it now. Is it like, no, all I'm thinking of is like dumb shit like Dickie Roberts' former child star.

I cannot believe that you are naming things like, Dickie Roberts. Dodgeball, a true underdog story? Dodgeball, a true underdog story is one of them. The other one has a titular character that I cannot believe you are naming titular characters like Dickie Roberts before this. In comedies that don't have anything to do with Jud Apatow. No, I think it does, but it's not like, nobody would be like, that's a Jud Apatatow movie. When you talk about, like, what are the Jud Apatow movies?

No one would say this movie. And it's a male character, you said. Yes. Played by an actor who don't know. Oh, God, I forgot. I forgot. We mentioned this director earlier in the episode. Okay.

He indeed plays the father of the titular character. In 2006, a box office success... Possibly Apatow-related now that we're walking back. He might have produced it. He's not accredited writer. He didn't direct it. Okay. What directors have we mentioned today?

We've mentioned... Directors of satires. Directors of satires. So, like, for example, James L. Brooks. Not a satire. No, I know. I'm just trying to think of, like, directors we mentioned. today we mentioned satires i don't like

this is probably this director's best movie no question and you don't like it no i i like it fine i think it's very funny i don't like it to the degree that like you know target t-shirt movies oh god target t-shirt movies um give me another like every straight man probably loves this movie

See, the problem is... But I do think this movie's very funny. There are so many movies that you describe this way, so I can't, like, narrow down to... This is maybe a movie that we have talked negatively about because of an MTV Movie Award nomination for it. That I'm positive happened. What are MTV Movie Award nominees we don't like?

The Hangover. No, no, like a type of nomination that we don't. like in a category that we love. Funny gay kiss. Exactly. This movie, I believe, has a funny gay kiss. Talladega Knights, Blades of Glory. Taledega Knights is correct, directed by Adam McKay.

And he plays the titular Talladega? Talladega Knights colon the ballad of Ricky Bobby. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Okay. Talladega Nights is one. Is that a colon? Is that a semicolon? Doesn't matter.

Hold on. I'm looking this up. First of all, I've never seen this movie. I don't acknowledge this movie. Oh, I didn't know you hadn't seen it. Oh, right, Adam. I can't imagine you watch it. Yes, Judapetau is absolutely a producer of this movie.

I said he might be a producer. He is not a director-accredited writer on the movie. I went fully down the wrong path by not thinking of Apatow movies. And I couldn't get back on the path. Nobody thinks of this when they think of Apatow movies. Yes, they do. They think of knocked up, 40-year-old virgin. Well, yeah, but then after those ones.

I don't know. this fucking movie fucking scourge on my life um oh so you do hate this movie without ever seen sight unseen yeah exactly no fuck that um

fuck NASCAR sorry you know you know I like sports yeah this movie thinks fuck NASCAR I think a lot of people who love this movie don't get that it's saying fuck NASCAR but I don't need to I don't need to deal with a movie that is trying to be better than its own subject matter

is the other thing um no you know how much I like sports in general I am a I have... Right turns are not a sport. I have some money on the master's, it's the degree to which I watch sports. I do not acknowledge car racing as a sport. I'm sorry.

All right. Amy Adams has an incredible monologue in the movie, one of her best... I always hear this, and it's still not enough to make me watch the movie. Could not have less interest in F1. Could not have less interest in Joseph.

Yeah, that's not for me. Joseph Kaczynski's Lest, or F1, just less one. Maybe I'll call it less one. All right. That is the known for Gary Cole. For you, I also went into the cast of Veep. And I picked somebody who you like because I am a good friend. It's not that I don't like Gary Cole, but you know what I mean.

Because I am a good friend. It is wild to me that Gary Cole is not, Veep is not on his known for because you say Gary Cole to me. say office space veep. You picked somebody who has Teledega Nights on their known for, whereas I picked a lesbian for you. So you're welcome. I went with Clea Duvall. So give me the known for Clea Duvall.

The faculty. Yes. I hate when you get off to a hot start. One movie is not a hot start. It is a hot start. Girl interrupt. Does she hit girl in her up? I miss Girl Interrupted.

I love that you are playing this by chess rules, which is so long as I have not finished saying the name that it doesn't count as a guest. Fine, I'll say it. This is you, like, keeping your finger on the pawn, like, until you are ready to make the guest. I said Girl Interrupted. Wrong. Wrong. One straight.

I'm so happy about that. She also directs now, too, which makes it really interesting. Oh, all act credits. Cameo, but Zodiac. No, but good cameo. She's very, very good in that movie, as is everybody, of course. All right, so that's two strikes. Your years are, for the three you don't have, 1999, 2003, and 2012.

Okay, so what's the other 99? 2012 and what? O3. O3. Is the 2012, I could be way off on the heat. Is that the intervention? No. Good movie.

Good movie, but a very small movie. That one, she... She directed it, though, right? That's why I thought, you know... Yes, wrote and directed that movie. And basically, like, cast all her friends. It's like her, Melanie, Jason Ritter, Natasha Leone. We need more of those movies.

I'm sorry. Yeah. That movie's fun. I enjoyed that movie. 99. So what's... Faculty's 98, though, right? Yes, it is. Yeah.

Faculty, a Christmas release, I believe. Yes, I saw it on Christmas Day. Yeah. Phenomenal. So is it... It's got to be another teen movie of sorts. Yes, it is a teen movie of sorts. Is it...

No, she's not in that one. is it now I'm like which one I will say I just gave you a bevy of hints I know accidentally a few minutes ago maybe a minute ago oh really

whoops didn't catch what that could have been it's what we were talking about in your previous guess the faculty Christmas release it's No, your previous incorrect guess. Oh, Girl Interrupted.

Yeah. The incorrect guess you had after Girl Interrupted. Great. Oh, all of her friends. Yeah. So, is Melanie Linsky in this movie? Yes. Okay.

Which one is she in in in 99? Not limited to Melanie Linsky. Okay. Oh. Like this is the origin story of all of those friendships. The, oh, okay. It's, um. Oh, it's but I'm a cheerleader?

It's but I'm a cheerleader. Yes. Right, right. Great movie. Okay, so 2003. 2003 and 2012. 2012 is going to be hard. Um.

2003, conceivably could still be teenish, but I don't think it is. Is it a horror movie? 2003? I would say it's on the edge of horror. I would say thriller more than horror. Uh-huh. I would have been in high school. Is it, is it like serial killer?

Yes, there is a serial killer in it. There is a serial killer. killer in it is not the same answer as, yes, it's a serial killer movie. Well, a serial killer movie sort of takes a particular form, and this, there's, there's, there's another thing going on. It incorporates, it incorporates a serial killer. Oh, wow. I have no idea now.

Oscar nominated director, though not for this, obviously. Of serial killer. adjacent things. No, very much not. Oscar nominated director who already had an Oscar nomination? No, very much not. Okay. Ensemble film

with like a lot of like recognizable names. Uh-huh. And this is a movie I think I like more than you. I think you don't like this movie. I think you think this movie is dumb dumb. And I think this is, I think you think this movie is dumb, derogatory, and I think this movie is dumb, dumb, complimentary. It's not like Valentine, is it?

No, Valentine is a terrible movie. That's like, capital-ass serial killer movie. Yes, yeah, that's a horror. That's a slasher. That's a slasher, yes. Okay, how does a movie even have a serial killer going on, but it's not a serial killer movie? It's like Radio Land Murders, like, what the hell is this?

There is a there's a twisty conceit to this movie. Okay, so we think it's a ghost movie, but there's actually a killer on the loose. It's not, it's not ghosts, and it's the opposite of what you just said. Oh, you think there's a serial killer, but it is ghosts. But not ghosts. It's vampires. No. it's

it's not like the game situation where these people aren't actually dying. No, all right, it's not horror. It's more of a thriller, but like, what's a, what's a sort of recognizable format to a thriller?

If you were to sort of, what's like a... What form could a thriller take that is very sort of like classic? A whodunit? Yes. Okay, so an O3 who done it, like identity? Identity. 2003 is identity.

Do not remember her an identity. Yeah, she's part of the ensemble. Do you see what I mean now about it being a serial killer but not a serial killer movie? I hate that movie. I know, and I like that movie quite a bit. That movie sucks. The movie's fun. I like it.

All right. Stupid. twist. Stupid basic twist. Complementary. I liked it. Okay. So your remaining movie is 2012. There's an easy hint that I could give you for this

that I'm not going to give you because then the game would be over and I like the game right now. She is a supporting player in it. This is another movie that like it has obviously a star, but then it also has this like deep bench of supporting players, including, including Clea. Like a real deep bench of supporting players.

Is this like a major director ensemble piece? Uh-huh. Is it like a Scorsese? No, not that level. No, that would have to be like Hugo. Right. Um. Um.

Spielberg? No, not that level of major director. When I mean major director, I mean just like a name, a recognizable name. Yes. But it's like a star vehicle that also has a major ensemble in it. Yeah, yeah. Who else does movies like that that Cleo Duval would be in? It's obviously an American movie.

Yes, it is. It's probably a drama. Yeah, with, yes. Is it a biopic? No, but it's a true story. Okay. If that makes sense as a distinction. Uh-huh.

So it's not like, you know, it's not about a rock star. It's not about a major American figure. It's, is it like shattered glassy, but bigger? It's bigger than shattered glass. It is a less well-known. sort of event like people remembered the like steven glass thing whereas this movie is like this thing happened you wouldn't believe but this actually happened like that kind of thing was it pretty contemporary or is it a period piece period piece okay no oscar nominations oh i would not say that at all oh so it is oscar nominated in 2012 yeah okay very much for the lead performance no but okay for a support Yes, that, but also, like, yes, the lead performer was not a lead performance nomination. Oh, actually, the lead performer was not nominated.

Well, no, I guess so. It's a whole thing. The lead performer was nominated in supporting? No. They were nominated for a different movie. No. Okay. Not sure what you mean.

Okay, so this is an Oscar nominee from 2012. What year is that? That's, oh, it's Argo. It's Argo. See what I mean when I couldn't say that Ben Affleck was nominated, just not in best actor? And I couldn't be like, well, it's a best picture movie from 2012 because you had to have it right away. It's stupid that Argo is on her known for. Honestly, she's pretty good in Argo.

She's a very small role in Argo. She's never not good. It's also the most well-known movie on her filmography by like a large margin. But like, known for? I know. There are, there are weirder, there are weirder known for movies. Wow, I shouldn't have struggled as much at that, but I'm just going to come out and say bad known for Clea Duvall. What's your known for Cleo Duvall? I mean, I would put her directing credit on there. Like, I mean, like, unfortunately, probably closer to the turn of the century.

Would you do that one or would you do the other? No one is known for Argo, except for. Argo fuck yourself and Ben Affleck showing his tities, like, for no reason. Like, it's a best picture winner. I know, but that, like... I would say, I think you're right. If you want to, like, populate her known for, I think you're right to pick some other things.

I think Girl Interrupted is a very good choice. I think Girl Interrupted should be there. What other ones, though? It's an interesting filmography. It really is. She's in 21 grams? That I didn't know. All right.

Anyway. Well played. That was like a half hour long. We both struggled for very different reasons on that one. Listeners are going to like see how much time is left on this episode. I'll be like, oh, fuck. I bet you that is a thing that people do when it's like time for the IMP game. We are both getting yelled at this episode.

Oh, 100%. 100%, which is always fun for us. So that's good. Listeners, that is our episode. If you want more of this had Oscar buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz.com. You should also follow our Instagram at This Had Oscar Buzz. And, of course, you can sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz.

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