This Had Oscar Buzz - 352 – Freaky Friday

Episode Date: July 28, 2025

You might not expect a family-friendly live action Disney movie to draw awards attention, but not all of those types of films star Jamie Lee Curtis. In 2003, JLC starred in a Freaky Friday remake starring then ascendant teen star Lindsay Lohan. The two spin comedy gold as a tenuous mother and daughter who wake one morning … Continue reading "352 – Freaky Friday"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Marilyn Hack, Merlin Hack and French. Dick Pooh. But on Friday. You think my life is perfect? You couldn't last one day in my high school.

Cookie. That's all about to change. There's things I'm going to get a little freaky. Why am I in Anna's room? This isn't mine? Those aren't mine? That's definitely not mine. Walt Disney Pictures presents.

So, you're in my body and I'm in your body. I'm old. I beg your pardon. Oh, I'm like the cryptkeeper. Freaky Friday. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that's staying together for the Baccarat. 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're here to perform the autopsy. I am your host,

Joe Reed, and I'm here, as always, with my ungrateful daughter, Chris Bile. Hi, Chris. Our year. Mom! Stop, stop, stop. Were you a teenager yourself when you watched this movie, or were you just out of as you were? Okay. So, um, it's so funny that I've never quite internalized the exact number of years between us, and I maybe never will. Um, were you more, more than, you more, you more, Did you find yourself more sympathetic to the Lindsay Lohan teen character then than you did this time watching it? Well, I'm a gay guy. I'm always going to be more sympathetic to the character actress, even in my teen years.

No. Fair. Fair. I just watched the first act of this movie, and I was like, shut up, Anna. God. Like, obviously, like, Tess is. you know, square and whatever. And, and, like, she's not even that restrictive, though, honestly.

Like, she lets her, like, rehearse her band with her friends for at least a time. Do you know what I mean? Like, she lets her wear ugly clothes. We're going to talk about the fashions, yeah. 2003 was wild, man. The way that this movie sort of, like, is a demolition derby of cultural references at a time when I feel like the culture, hadn't quite settled into what its new thing was going to be is very interesting. I mean, maybe this is also because this movie doesn't, like, even the non-body swap stuff

in this movie, the reality of what this movie is, like, is maybe not based in any type of reality. Sure. But, like, it simply must be said, this is a mom who's crushing it. Like, not only is she going through grief, having a full-time job, publishing a book, but she's like managing to like keep her children out of jail and rebounded from her husband's death taking them to school every day dealing with a sundowning parent honestly work this mom is crushing it like it's it's absolutely true and wait what was the other thing i was going to bring up and now i totally forgot it um it'll come back to me it'll come back to me but yes no you're totally right

Like, this is a mom who is doing all things considered really well, and she should be commended. At least temporarily keeping her children out of jail, because the little brother in this movie is a murderer, like future murderer. We'll be setting explosives in, like, high school gymnasiums or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. But hopefully by that point, Tess will have, you know, I don't want to say Tess will have, you know, died, but, like, maybe she'll have, like, passed into a phase of old age where she, like, doesn't have to be on the hook for this kid anymore. Sure. I don't know.

I do feel like Mark Harmon's going to have a lot. The untold story of this is that Mark Harmon, like, Anna's going to be the least of Mark Harmon's problems for the rest of his life. Like, it's that little kid. It's that boy. That boy is going to be a needy. issue and yeah yeah so the definitely pervy dad oh I think I love how like our guy I don't think he's pervy no the the grandpa oh the grandpa well the grandpa's thing is more

just like he's just you know his his his his hearing is going and he's constantly in fear of earthquakes which you know rightly so here we are starting the episode talking about the ending But the whole, like, tease at the end of this movie where it's like, oh, we could do a sequel where the son and the grandpa chain do have a body swap. And I'm like, I don't want to see that. I don't want to see that. I don't want to see that. That sounds creepy. That's why Rosalind Chow goes and makes a full diving tackle to save the day.

Queen Rosal Chow. Rosal Chow getting the last line of the movie before we get into the closing credits, Lindsay Lohan. starting her music career gambit is only right given how I'm not going to say shockingly because things were like that back then but like the Orientalism in this movie is loud and proud

and what's funny is I was like well clearly like I mean you know this is a remake you know they wanted to stay true to the original. And then I went back and watched the trailer for the original. Nothing to do with fortune cookies or anything like that. All they did was like made a wish that like, I wish I could like, and I'll talk about that. The difference between that movie where they both made a wish that they could be in each other's shoes. Like if they, you know, and this one is

definitely not something that the mom and the daughter wish. But like, no, they like added orientalism to this movie. Yeah, they were like, you know, how do we, how do we, how do we, how do we make this, how do we bring magic into this world? I mean, could we just, like, have, you know, could it just be something we ask the audience to buy that isn't racist? I don't know. And then somebody wielded a giant gong into the writer's room and was like, here, folks, I got an idea, gong, and yes. Like, it's, it's, it's pretty rough. And that it literally comes from a fortune cookie. Also, Rosal and Chow doesn't sound like that. Like, yes.

And again, like, none of this is virulent or, like, even particularly mean-spirited. It's just like, oh, like, it's very first thought, right? Like, oh, what could, it's very, um, how do they find a creature in Gremlins? Ah, they go to the old Chinese quarter of town, right, where an underground curio shop where this old Chinese man is there. It's just... Rosalin Chow thriving in this movie, though, because she does manage to get a last-minute catering kick out of it.

Good for her. So glad that the business is going well. She's wonderful. Love her. It's an interesting supporting cast in general, because obviously we'll talk about the, like, human time capsule that is Chad Michael Murray, but also Christina Vidal,

as Anna's friend, who is the lead singer in the band, who is, was this, like, child star and was in, like, a bunch of things, but, like, was recently in that Amazon Prime Show, Primo that I loved so, so much. She was the mom in that. That was canceled after only one season, unfairly so, because it was so, so funny. If anybody out there wants to go check out that show. But, like, Willie Garson's in this, and who else shows up in this movie?

Well, Rosal Chow's mom, Lucille Sung, is. was the grandmother in Fresh Off the Boat, the ABC series, among, like, you know, other things that she's done. And the other bandmate was Elizabeth Perkins's daughter in Wheat's. So, lots of going on. Oh, yeah. And, of course, Stephen Tubleski, like, playing a real, real shitty teacher. Yeah. Yeah, who just, like, hates all of his female students because girls were mean to him in high school.

Which, like, you know, it feels like a Disney movie tropey. That's a teen fantasy, right? Like, my teacher hates me for reasons that have, like, absolutely nothing to do with me. He was bullied by girls in high school. But also, it's just like, it's one of the things in this movie that I'm like, ooh, ooh, it rings a little different 20 years later because it's like, oh, we still have those type of people except they're the president. Like, yeah, it's true. Wow. A good connection.

Did you see also who handled the screenplay adaptation for this movie? No, go on about it. Screenplay was by Leslie Dixon, but also Heather Hawke. Oh, yes. Heather Hawk, who wrote the book for Legally Blonde the Musical, and then also, though, was a judge on Legally Blonde the Musical to Search for Elle Woods, the iconic seminal MTV reality series. Did you watch that show when it was on?

I got it through osmosis. I will posit, this is not me like gatekeeping or anything, but like I will posit that like osmosis was not sufficient enough. Like it was a cultural moment that you truly had to be there for. Legally Blonde a musical that Search for Elwoods. And those of us who were there are part of a sorority that will live forever. We are sisters. And, um, do we talk on Mike about my recent rewatch of the, um, the Nick and Nicole top model season?

We've talked, maybe we've definitely talked offline about it. So, um, yeah, yeah, yeah. But my great dismay that, like, the seasons I really want to watch are not available. Right. The Danielle season and the, also Nicole winning is like totally fucking erroneous and like, just like one of the worst winners of the show. What seasons are where? I think it's only, because a lot was available on Prime for a while. I understand that we're saying seasons instead of cycles, but I can't correct myself that much. If you can get Hulu to change it from saying season two cycle, I will say cycle again. Yes, it's like a gap of four to five seasons after that, which are like the best.

Like, that's when you got Carri D. like, this one you have Joni and Danielle, like, gone. See, my favorite seasons are the first five, but I respect your journey. I certainly still watched that next run of seasons. Like, is Jaseline in that run? Not, no, gone. Is, I mean, temporarily gone. They could bring it back.

It's just like, it's weird when you have. this small chunk of seasons, not available. Remember when they had the season with the twins and they were like incredibly uncharismatic? So you ended up with like double the uncharismatic where it was just like these two really bland twins and they're like, but they're twins. And the markedly better twin was the one who did not care about it. The one who wanted it was the like less talented Quinn. Of course, of course.

It's hard to not talk about like this type of pop culture, like The Search for Elwoods, when you're talking about this type of movie in this type of era. The Search for Elwoods is in the same bucket for me as when Bravo did that run. I was just talking to a friend and former guest Kevin O'Keefe recently about that run of Bravo shows that was like, Make Me a Supermodel, sheer genius A lot of those are on peacock Top design A lot of those are on peacock Not all of them but a lot of them

And then I think Sheer genius, great program Put some respect on Dr. Boogie's name Was it Bravo that did the Kelly Cutrone show? Kel on Earth, because I definitely watched that show. And then like oxygen was doing like the Janice Dickinson modeling agency And

VH1 Being mean to young women VH1 had that show with Jerry Hall, where she was auditioning for Kept Men, like, called Kept. Kept. It was called Kept. I remember. I watched every single second of that. Kept is a concept that we should absolutely be bringing back. 100%. Like, now that we're sex, now that we are incredibly sex positive and sex work positive, like we should absolutely be bringing back the concept of the Kept Man, like 100%. Make it Happen culture. All right.

Who's going to host the 2025 version of Kept? Oh, that's an excellent question. Who's like hot woman in her late 50s, early 60s? Right, right. That is famous enough to host a show like that, but is not like an Oscar winner because they would probably... Because they would probably balk at that, yes. And I liked the idea that, like, Jerry Hall was also British because that added an extra sort of, like, air of something to it. it's maybe like a Kate Beckinsale kind of a thing.

Ooh. Right? Kate Beck and Sale hosting Kept. Right? Right. Here's what's going to happen, Chris. Is she married? Well, she was dating Pete Davidson for a while, so unless she married somebody after that.

Oh, that absolutely it has to be Kate Beck and Sale. Yeah, this is what I mean. This is the kind of thing where in six months I'm going to be like, what was that episode where we were talking about Kept and how Kate Beck and Cell should host a second season of Kept? and I will never, ever, ever remember that it was the Freaky Friday episode because there's no connective tissue whatsoever. The connective tissue is the year 2003.

This is why we need to hire an intern to go through all of our episodes and, like, annotate, like, the conversations and give time to it. Yeah, if we have, we have an intern who just, like, we'll pop in for, like, three words every episode. That's like, that was the Freaky Friday episode. Oh, yes.

If we were a professional podcast with, like, a studio, and like somebody off mic who was like producer jimmy or whatever and then producer jimmy would be like that was episode 145 like yeah and you know why i don't want to i you know i've been like you know maybe we should hustle and try to make that happen for like years now i don't want to do it because you know why they'll make us do a video version of the show and i am not on screen talent i am like i'm not on screen talent either but i am already sort of like mentally getting myself in a place where, like, that's probably going to happen for me at some point. Uh, it's something. And you know what?

I hate the state of our affairs. I'm just going, listen, you are far more camera presentable than I am. So I will, we'll just say that. If you're looking for it. But I am also a firmer, no. You are the, you are a firmer. Then you are. You are. I am a, uh, when I am a no, I am a no. You are. Um, and I don't want to say it's going to hold you back in your career because I don't want that for you. It'll hold me back to my career. Um, Anyway, Freaky Friday. Maybe that's our Freaky Friday as we Freaky Friday into a world where you become me, less attractive but more willing to go with the flow. And I become you more attractive, but more adamant in my refusal to be on camera.

You just get to live in the realm of no. Like you just need to enjoy saying. Oh, perfect. Perfect. All right. Now, give me a Freaky Friday where it's like, I get to be on-screen talent for someone who you wouldn't think is, like, good at being on-screen talent or would be asked to be. Like, I just watched the reel of Richard Brody giving his favorite, like, films so far of the year, which, like, objectively, he has the right decisions, though I wish he would have said BlackBag. I love Richard Brody as an on-camera talent.

I mean, I love Richard Brody as a writer, but I love when they force that man to sit down in front of a camera, and it seems like he is very game to do so. I love that you are like the one Richard Brody fan girl, like Richard Brody video content fan girl, where you're just like, whee-hoooo! Yes, queen! Just throw in panties on the stage for Richard Brody, like, absolutely. Man, we really are going far afield. It's like we wouldn't, it's like we don't want to talk about this movie, but like I really do want to talk about this movie because I do. I feel like I am a little afraid to talk about this movie because like I slowly felt myself sliding into my sofa watching this that I was like, oh, I might make some of our listeners mad. Well, it's not a good, no, it's a good enough movie.

It's not a great movie. I will say that. If you have like grown up with this movie and things. like it's like, you know, seminal generational cinema, that I'll probably, like, poke a hole in your balloon for. But, like, as a watchable, you know, this is how mainstream family-friendly comedies used to be. And how they used to, like, look. Because I think, like, the aesthetic experience of this movie is like... The level of humor where, like, it doesn't really ever rise above sort of like cliche but it's fine you know what I mean like it's it's it's all fine and

in supposed to like this the whole episode I'm going to be that Miriam Margulies sound drop where she's talking where she's like dissing Harry Potter it's for children like it is for children it's for tweens it's like for tween girls the fact that Mark Waters and Lindsay Lohan the next year leveled up to mean girls makes a ton of sense you know what I think the fact that it's a Mark Waters movie is part of the reason why it's as good as it is, you know? Because, like, on the surface level of this thing, this is basically, like, giving you TV movie. But, like, Lindsay's incredible. Jamie Lee Curtis is incredible. And, like, Mark Waters is a very sharp comedy director. Well, let's, let's do the Mark Waters, um, you know, a filmography for a little bit because, um,

also it's, it's good to start with the director. We don't often do it. We usually start with, like, the last scene of the movie, which we kind of did for a second. But, um, breakthrough in 1997 with the indie comedy, dark, dark comedy, uh, the House of Yes. You go back to those reviews for House of Yes, and it's like, you guys need to lighten the fuck up. Oh, where people aghast at the whole, like, reviews. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yes, like, it is a dark comedy with like a significantly central incest plot to it, sure. Um, but, It's like Parker Posey is like an off-her rocker, like, you know, Jackie Onassis obsessive. You know what I mean?

It's just it's a, it's a balls to the wall sort of like extremist take on the like the family strife play that you will see twice a year on Broadway. Do you know what I mean? like those plays that like Judith Light kept winning Tony's for like it's a sort of more extreme version of that um or whatever the one was the next year and I by the way this is not shade I thought Judith Light was tremendous in both of those I will also there there's the one it's like all the plays that play at like the Samuel Friedman and I can't remember whether it's like New York theater workshop or whatever it's like the one Manhattan Theater Club thank you that's what it is Manhattan Theater Club is like notorious for just every year putting on a play that

is like white Upper West Side family has an argument in their, like, has a family argument where like secrets come to light. And it's like, I will eat that shit up with a spoon. I will, you cast that thing, throw in Jessica Hecht, throw in fucking, you know, the legend Jessica Hecht, whatever, Danny Burstein. Like, I will, I will attend and I will enjoy myself. But the House of Yes to me is like a almost a send-up of that where it's just like that, but it's like, we are going to make it. On Poppers. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I love the House of Yes. That fucking rules. I should watch it again. It's been too long. So funny. So funny. Parker Posey, like, deservedly, like, should have gotten Oscar nominated and was like

kind of notable enough that year where like, I bet you she was on the outer fringes of that conversation at least in 1997. Then he makes a movie called Head Over Heels with Monica Potter and Freddie Prince Jr. That is, it's in 2001. It is absolutely part of a genre of movies that was like cookie cutter rom-com. Freddie Prince Jr. was in a lot of them. Julius Stiles was in a lot of them. Exactly.

Exactly. Exactly, exactly. They all have very interchangeable titles. One of these days, I'm going to make, like, a whole, like, collage of them. And that was, those were the two movies he had made entering in Freaky Friday and then Mean Girls is directly after. And then since then, he's done a lot of, like, just like heaven and ghosts of girlfriends passed. And, well, those are the only two sort of, like, that fit into that kind of, like, rom-com realm. but both of those are like very like six and a half out of ten movies I would I'm sure some people think ghost of girlfriend's past is horrible but like it's deeply watchable to me I think as is just like heaven they're both disappointing and that like with the talent involved they could have been a lot better but like to me there maybe 5.5 5.5 out of 10 uh for both of those movies but that's speaking of poppers mr poppers penguins bad santa too show me that at market days where is this? that group costume. Mr. Poppers, Mr. Penguins' Poppers. And it's like, yes, that's the, no, the gay softball team should be called Mr. Mr. Penguins.

No, Mr. Pompers. No, Mr. Penguins' Poppers, is the gay softball team. Somebody make that happen. Spider-Wit Chronicles, a movie that, like, I don't know a single person who saw. And yet- Vampire Academy, I don't know a person living or dead who saw that. Can I tell you that John Say, is one of three credited writers on the Spider-Wick Chronicles.

Would that, would that blow your mind? It should. Okay, but if you go and you look at, like, what John Sales has been up to in the past, like, 15 years, it is wild because he has produced... John Sales can do whatever he wants. John Sales has made enough great movies. But, like, you have never heard of any of these. John Sales gets to do whatever he wants for the rest of his life. He's made enough good movies.

I mean, I agree. I would just like any of these to be available on the planet Earth, you know? Can I tell you the one that was like so disappointing was, uh, Mark Waters and then his brother, Daniel Waters, who was the guy who wrote heathers, um, or directed Heathers. No, wrote Heathers. Um, teamed up for a movie called Vampire Academy in 2014. And I was like, and I was like, fuck yeah, Mark Waters, Daniel Waters, vampires, I'm so in. And it was a complete. completely forgettable dud of a movie. And maybe part of the reason why I still haven't gotten on board with Zoe Deutsch.

Maybe that's my problem. I mean, you're the only person who saw Vampire Academy, so you're not allowed to really hold that movie against her. I like Zoe Deutsch. But since he's done stuff like, he's all that, and mother of the bride.

Straight to streaming movies. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So next year he's supposed to do a movie you're going to fucking freak out it is called Hershey it depicts the history of the Hershey Company starring Finn Whitrock as Milton S. Hershey

and Alexandra Dadario as his white kitty Hershey. Now, I don't know whether this is like the flamen hot of the chocolate world. Yeah, it doesn't sound like the Kool-Aid. movie from the studio. No, this sounds like something maybe in the Flamen Hot realm.

I love that in Wikipedia the Wikipedia thing says based on the Hershey Company by Milton S. Well, I mean, if that is like a trademark, if you can't say the word Hershey, you may have to

like legally say based on the Hershey. Well, yeah, that maybe. You know who's in this movie, though? Richard Kind and Helena York. So I'm going to have to watch this movie. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, but yes, wild. Anyway, Mark Waters, you've contributed so much to the culture.

Came on very strong early on. Yes. We believe in you that it can happen again. We believe in you. Maybe not with Hershey. Maybe not with Hershey. And yet, who knows? But yeah, so Freaky Friday is very much sort of emblematic of a kind of middle

of the road competence that I think was elevated by its two lead performances for sure. And I think that's the reason why it sort of became a little bit of an awardsy flashpoint was this was the movie that showed that Lindsay Lohan could be a star. And this was the movie that like reminded people nine years, eight years after True Lies, which was another movie that reminded people.

Like every decade or whatever, like, people had to be reminded that, like, Jamie Lee Curtis was this incredibly game performer who would, like, throw herself into these roles. And I know she's not like your favorite. But I think that is the quality that I think people really respond to with her. This is the thing. Like, this is the era of Jamie Lee Curtis where I think she's absolutely incredible. The, but it's interesting when you read, she's not my favorite because of the things I've heard about her. Well, she's supposedly, like, a tyrant. Like, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Not a nice person. Yeah. But, you know what?

But, like, when you read the reviews of this movie, it's like these critics who have seen her in movies are acting like she went away. Like, I don't know. I mean, I guess True Lies is eight or nine years before this, but that's not a long time, especially in the span of movies. Well, and. I don't know. I think she is somebody who, because she has such an iconic place in cinema history with Halloween and sort of becoming that sort of like, you know, the scream queen girl or whatever, I think as people who watch those movies have grown up, she's an actress who I think is really important for a lot of people. and which I think played into a big part of what played into her eventually winning the Oscar for everything everywhere at once was this idea that like, oh, she's had this incredibly long career. She has frequently been somebody who we've really loved in things, and she's never been rewarded.

And that Oscar story is one of my favorite Oscar stories, and it doesn't happen all the time. And the people who it does happen for, there's not enough rhyme or reason to it that, like, sometimes it can become very frustrating. It's like, why has this happened for Jamie Lee Curtis, but it hasn't happened for Meg Ryan? Like, why did it happen for Jennifer Jason Lee, but only to the point of a nomination? You know what I mean? Like, that kind of a thing. And then you can be frustrated by, like, oh, I wish this had happened for a better performance. I wish Jamie Lee Curtis could have had her Oscar moment for something like True Lies or Freaky Friday rather than everything everywhere at once, which I think a lot of people, you more so than me, but it's not like I disagree, think that is not a great performance that she won the Oscar for.

Yeah, I think it's an actively bad performance. I don't know if I would go that far. I would just think that, like, it's not what I love about everything. she could have gotten an Oscar for the last showgirl. Like, you know, it could be worse. We all avoided that. So that's good. But we'll talk about all of that when we get to the other side of this.

We'll definitely talk about the Lindsay Lohan of it all. I like the poster of this movie. It does the thing where it lines up the wrong actress name above, you know what I mean? Like Jamie Lee Curtis is on the left. Her name is on the left. Lindsay Lohan's name is on the right. but Lohan on the poster is on the left and Jamie Lee has unright and they're dressed in each other's clothes and it's like it's such a freaky Friday it's but it does also suggest that this is an you know even handed movie for both of these stars yes and I think to the movie's credit you know the movie's better for that and they're both giving really great performances yes I agree with that I agree with that I think there's a reason why the awards conversation sort of lingered more on Jamie the Curtis and it's for a lot of those reasons that we just mentioned um but yes, I agree.

Should also be said a $100 million grosser to, which should have gone more to Jamie Lee Curtis's credit for this movie. 100%. Like, yeah, she should have been able to make whatever she wanted to after this. And I think another thing that we'll get into is sort of like where she went immediately post this movie up until, I would say the Halloween reboot Knives-Out era, which happens right next to each other, that is then, that's when sort of, it's a, you know, step, step, step, step to the Oscar from there. I just kind of feel like it speaks to this whole thing of how her, a lot of these reviews are like she went away, but I think for audiences, that's not necessarily true. I mean, like Halloween H-2-0 was a hit for what it was, but it was still a hit.

and that's fair That was two years prior to this It's just like the critics didn't care about that Halloween H20 was five years prior to Freaky Friday It was 1998 Oh right okay Well still that's not that much time So it's like halfway between true lies and this

So yeah I understand what you're saying I understand what you're saying She definitely the gulf between Freaky Friday And you know The Halloween reboot David Gordon Green's Halloween abomination Is maybe a little bit more certainly on the film side of things. She definitely was like, she was on Scream Queens and she was, you know, in, she's not even actually in that much television, actually. She's doing Activia commercials. So, like, there's definitely more of a she went away thing in that period of time. But we'll talk about it. We'll talk about it.

Before we keep moving on, before we get to the plot description, Joe, would you like to, tell our listeners about our Patreon. Hey, yeah, why don't I? So, if you want to hear even more from us, and you should, because we're great, and you're not already subscribed to our Patreon, which is called this head Oscar Buzz, Turbulant, brilliance, you really should. It is only $5 a month. The price of a, what's the new thing that we want to save it is the price of?

What costs $5? We haven't done this in a while. It used to be, we... God, what even is $5 anymore? What could it cost, Michael? $5? For the cost of less than things that should be $5. Right.

For the cost of three-fourths of a carton of eggs or eggs back down to normal prices now. Listen, we don't know. I just throw it on my grocery list and then I close my eyes and hit pay. For the cost of seeing a motion picture. Oh, no, that's not even true anymore. AMC used to do like $5 Tuesdays and now they're like 50% off. Off and people are up in arms because it's actually more expensive. Does subway still do $5 footlongs?

For the cost of a footlong subway at sub at subway at some point in the recent past. You could get two bonus. This had Oscar Buzz episodes every month. First Friday of every month, we are giving you an episode that we call an exception episode. These are movies that fit the usual. This had Oscar Buzz rubric. Great Oscar expectations. Disappointing results.

even though those disappointing results may have included an Oscar nomination or two, but still not what the movie was expecting. We have very recently, when does this go up? This goes up after our episode on, help me out here, what was our... Big Fish, also 2003 Cinema. Big Fish, thank you. Our episode on Big Fish, coming up soon, though. I think we can tease this, right? Coming up soon.

Yes, it'll be passed. this. Or it'll be before this, this episode. It won't. Well, no, not an exception. Our exception episode on contact won't happen yet, but we're going to have an exception episode. Oh, that's next month. On contact. And I'm very, very excited about that.

But other movies that we have done recently as exceptions, interview with a vampire, inside Lewin Davis, Mary Queen of Scots, Mulholland Drive. We did an excellent episode on The Phantom of the Opera with our friend Natalie Walker. Just tons and tons of good stuff. Years after years,

actually of content. So good for you. Sorry, I said content. Dollar in the content jar. Third Friday of every month, we have our second bonus episode, which is an excursion. What's an excursion?

Well, these are not so much episodes about movies themselves, but about the interesting and ephemeral things that we love, which make us obsessive little movies. freaks. Things like watching old award shows or checking out old entertainment weekly fall previews or Hollywood Reporter roundtables or giving out our own annual awards. We have very

recently covered the 1988 Academy Awards, which was the infamous Roblo Snow White debacle. We are also, we have a very recent episode. where we dip into the current year's Oscar race, and we give our thoughts and opinions on where things are, because we are nothing, if not respected, Oscar pundits in this space. So it's a good time. It's a good, we try and give a nice sort of variety of experiences with the excursions, and the one-to-punch of one exception and one excursion every month for, again, only $5.

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This is high enough for this had Oscar poster, really brilliance. $5 a month. You can do that at patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz. All right. Freaky Friday, directed by Mark Waters, written by Heather Hawke and Leslie Dixon, based on the Mary Rogers novel and the 1970. six film. The film stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Chad Michael Murray, Mark Harmon, Roslyn Chow, Harold Gould, and Stephen Tobolowski, opened in wide release on August 6, 2003, a Wednesday movie. Interesting, a Wednesday in August. We used to have Wednesday movies that were not like July 4th releases. Build that word about, baby. amazing. I love the top five for this weekend. SWAT. You could see SWAT, Freaky Friday, American Wedding, Pirates of the Caribbean, the first one, and then C-Biscuit. Or if you were in one of select theaters, you could have seen LaDivorce. We've got this weekend covered for you. Yes. In all sorts of ways. Yes, exactly.

SWAT. We used to make movies like SWAT. We sure did, man. I cannot imagine releasing a SWAT movie. No, not in the age of swatting. No, you couldn't do it. But also, that was when they were really trying to make Colin Farrell into a box office draw. Well, into, like, action movie guy. Yeah. Yeah.

Let Colin Farrell be a character actor. Yes. We've learned this in our current time, even though he is now, like, lead character actor. No, he's great. He's wonderful. I'm so excited. Joe, are you ready to give a 60-second plot description of Freaky Friday? Sure. All right, then your 60-second plot description of Freaky Friday starts now. Okay, so Tess is the mom and Anna's dad died several years ago, and Anna is a rebellious teen with a choker and smudgy eyeliner, and she's in a rock band with her friend, so obviously she and her mom don't get along.

And also, Tess is getting married on Saturday to Mark Carmen, who seems boring but in a nice way. Anna wants to skip out on her mom's rehearsal dinner to go to some house of blues audition, which leads to a huge argument at this Chinese restaurant, at which point Orientalism steps in and says, my Kung Pao. Tess and Anna opened mystical fortune cookies and then the next morning they wake up in each other's bodies. High jinks and sue. Anna has to live a day in her brother's shoes, which includes seeing her psych patience and evading kisses from Mark Harmon. Meanwhile,

Tess learns that high school is hard and full of mean blonde bitches and teachers who hate you for no good reason. Also, Chad Michael Murray and his pouty lips are there with Anna and Tess's body beguiling him to the point where he shows up to her house and sings baby one more time outside her window like the cultural signifiers in 2003 were wild, man.

So anyway, the old lady at the Chinese restaurant tells them that the curse or whatever won't be broken until they fulfill the fortune, in which this case involves an act of selfless love. For Tess, that means going to the House of Blues audition as Anna and faking her way through a guitar solo on stage, while Anna, as Tess shreds backstage. For Anna, this means accepting Mark Harmon into their family because she knows he's good for their mom. Luckily, all it takes in that regard is a loving toast at the rehearsal dinner, and they

switch back to the original bodies closer and more empathetic than they were before. The end, and then Lindsay Lohan does a rock song over the credits. All right, like 18 seconds over. All right. Cool. Bingo bingo. Again, it's for children. It is for children, yes. But, you know, the elements that make it rise above are very good. It's a good movie for, like, a mom and her daughter.

Like, you know, you hate to be so, like, literalist about it, but, like, this would be a good movie for, like, a mom and her tween daughter. to go see at the movies. And then the younger brother who likes to joke about farts, who gets dragged along to this movie. The younger brother who likes to joke about farts can go see Pirates of the Caribbean for the third time. That's fine. Please, for the love of God, don't send him in to see swat. We already have enough to deal with. No.

Also, that kid, the younger brother in this movie, does grow up to repeatedly swat people. Like, just anybody who pisses him off, he calls in a swap threat. Right. So Jamie Lee Curtis ends up, obviously, after the body switch, playing her teenage daughter, and Lindsay Lohan ends up playing her uptight mother. And I think both of them function really well in those roles. I think they both do a very good job. I think it is naturally, I think the more fun stuff,

it's done with Jamie Lee as the daughter because, you know, she's being wild and crazy. She's getting a makeover. And it's like Jamie Lee Curtis, like, you know, acting like a teen. You know, it's just like there's... And Jamie Lee Curtis knows how to make it very, very funny. But I would also say, like... Lindsay Lohan does a very good job where you watch it and it's just like, that's really good. Like, she's making some really good choices.

But, like, obviously the Jamie Lee Curtis stuff is just more fun because, of course, it is. She's the one playing the team. And we haven't really seen, you know, we've watched Jamie Lee Curtis for decades, but we've seen her even in comedies. But we've never really get to see her in this comedic mode. Well, and it was never her vibe even when she was younger. Like, Lori Strode wasn't doing this shit. You know what I mean? Like, this is very literally.

She's not the one who gets the best jokes in trading places or Fish Called Wanda, you know. Sure, sure, exactly. So that's a lot of fun. I think she's... I think the movie works as it is. I think it, you know, as a, you know, as an object, it, like, it all works. There's nothing about it that I'm like, this is this movie's fatal flaw. I do wish that the movie would have maybe, like, pushed both ends of the spectrum.

a little bit further and maybe into like a little bit more, not necessarily like wackiness. Like I know the original has like, I watched the trailer for the original as I said, and there's like there's a water skiing thing and I'm like, well, I would have kind of killed to see Jamie Lee Curtis water skiing.

Like that would have been kind of funny. But, and people can be like oh, it's so hackneyed or whatever and it's like this is a movie with like haunted fortune cookies. Like this movie doesn't care about hackneyed. Sure. So I think you know, it could have pushed it even further, the movie does kind of, I don't want to say get bogged down in the Chad

Michael Murray stuff, because, like, honestly, I think that stuff is kind of interesting, the idea that, like, you know, Jamie, like, Anna in her mom's body ends up sort of, like, beguiling this teenage boy for reasons that he doesn't even understand. There is a sweetness to the idea that this teenage boy could only be interested on who she is in the inside, you know, so much so that when the inside her is in another person's body, he's still drawn to her. Right. There is a sweetness to that, that I think that runs somewhat antithetical to the, like,

materialism of, like, teen romance. The other thing that I looked up, and I was sort of surprised because I didn't realize this was the timeline. I thought that Gilmore Girls would have premiered after this, but Gilmore Girls premiered in 2000. So, but I think there's, it definitely did remind me a little bit of that, this idea that like, oh, it's so funny. Like, the mother's the immature one and the daughter is the one who's like all together, right? Like, that was, that's the hook of Gilmore Girls, of course. So it's definitely like a, a concept, a conceit that is, you know, and obviously this is a remake.

So it's not like this movie invented the idea. of isn't it funny if the teen is the grown up one or whatever it's not quite a trope but it's it's a concept that's been used in the past but it is very Disney Channel like extreme like barely even adjacent like there's aspects of this movie

that if you told me it was originally meant to play on the Disney Channel I would believe you and that's kind of what I think holds it back. Also, just because it's a tone that, to me, I find a little cloying. I know a lot of people have nostalgia for that. I never was a Disney Channel kid. Sure.

I think, you know, by the end of this movie, you know, when they actually, like, kind of talk about their grief in a way, again, it's for children. But, like, it does have that bridge where it's like, if you're trying to appeal to an audience of parents and their children, it should maybe appeal. equally to the parents, you know? I think by the end, it does deal with the grief stuff in a way that bridges those two audiences very well. But I think the first, like, 75% of this movie is a little too Disney channel-y for me. It's like, I kind of don't buy that we would never hear her call her mom a bitch.

Like, I mean... When you're talking about, like, a bad teenager. Sure. It's definitely within PG-13. Was this even 13? It's PG. It's rated PG even though you see not one but two butts. It's true.

It is within those parameters, and I will say I do hear you, but I also feel like parents, as I say this as somebody with square parents, parents can be square. And I could see a movie that is more hard-edged than this one is, like turning people off or being, you know what I mean? It's like... I don't want it to be too hard-edge. I'm asking for the more even Nancy Myers version than the, like, explicit Disney channel thing, where it's just like, you can't even say,

mom you suck you know it's like because that's too it's very rude you know i i i would just kind of like it to be a little bit more in the real world not in this like yeah while i don't even say oh shoot you while i agree with you i also feel like and again i you know a coin in the they don't make them like this any more jar for me um which at this point is a more is a more plentiful jar than your heteronormitivity jar. But I feel like you don't have this kind of middle level of movie anymore, which is decidedly family friendly, but not brain dead. And I think these days, if you, any movie that is, you have such a gulf between PG-13 sort of like rude, dudes and, you know,

and serious, like, themes. And then you have... PG-13 today, you're getting, like, come jokes, you know? And then you have just, like, direct-to-streaming dumb-dum shit, you know what I mean? And you just don't... I think that one of the things, not to praise, you know, Disney, which is a big corporation that doesn't need my help,

but, like, Disney used to be very good at this. Very good at giving you this kind of middle... of the road. This was the genre that it was pulling from. Was this like 1970s like that darn cat, Freaky Friday or whatever, which if you go back and watch from today's perspective, those all seem

very sort of like, you know, silly and goofy and whatever. But like Disney was able to evolve decently well with that kind of thing. And I think a movie like Freaky Friday is a really good

example of that. in a way where I don't walk away from Freaky Friday feeling like I've had a lobotomy as I do. I'm trying to think of other examples so I'm not just sort of like creating straw men out of, you know, the Nair, but like because like I've never seen Alexander in the

No Good Very Bad Day. And like maybe that movie is also like surprisingly good. What's the movie where the kid is like a tree? The odd life of Timothy Green or something. Which I've also never seen. So, you know, maybe I'm just sort of talking out of my ass. Well, those things are just like

streaming slop now. Like, those are not theatrical movies, so it's not surprising that you don't have an immediate example. Well, anything that, like, families are going to go see is going to be the Minecraft movie, the Super Mario Brothers movie. It has to be... It has to be... Well, even if it's not for boys necessarily, it has to be big.

It has to be bombastic. It's Barbie. And Barbie was for, you know, all ages and whatever. So that was not really a movie pitched only to kids. But, like, you know, Super Mario Brothers movie. is huge. Minecraft movie is huge. All of these movies have to be these giant things, and

Disney used to be very good at also giving you middle-sized things that would make a lot of money by just sort of giving you I don't want to just say nice movies because like there is a little bit of a

Disney Channel edge to this. You know what I mean? I don't know. I guess I keep trying to disagree with you, and I think I keep veering a little bit more towards, like, No, I hear what you're saying. And, like, to kind of refine what I'm saying is that, like, I think the, I think the, like, Disney Channelness of this is something that's holding it back. I think that there is a better movie that feels like just a step in the direction towards Nancy Myers or James L. Brooks, something like that. Just like a step. In a Nancy Myers movie, Jamie Lee Curtis ends up in bed with Chad Michael Murray.

And they're like, what did we just do? And that's a real freaky. It's a real freaky Friday. So Lindsay Lohan, on the other hand, this is her first movie since The Parent Trap. and speaking of Nancy which speaking of Nancy but also it almost makes that her first movie

right because like the parent trap she's a little kid and like Freaky Friday I think is probably the first time she's doing things like making choices you know what I mean making acting choices not that like you know she's sort of like being led around by the hand

in the parent trap but I'm just like kids that young are you know know, children. They're children. They're children. This is when I am contractually obligated to mention that just before the parent trap, Lindsay Lohan, starred for a few years on another world, playing little Allie Fowler. One of the few, like, children in soap operas who, like, yeah, I remember her, like, actually, like, having a storyline.

Usually the kids are sort of, like, you know, seen but not heard or around that age are, like, sent off screen to, like boarding school and then come back in a few years to 10 years older than they were when they left. But she actually had like little kid storylines and she was pretty good. Like she murdered a fellow beauty pageant? No, no, that would have been fun. No, that was one life to live had that. One Life to Live had the daughter of the town sociopath and the gold digger. And who ended up both being, like, eventually fan favorite characters. But their daughter ended up being, like, a huge troublemaker when she was a little kid.

She was, like, doing schemes and, like, trying to break up her mom and her new husband and, like, whatever. And then, like, she aged eventually into, like, you know, a heroin or whatever. But, no, like, Lindsay Lohan on Another World had, like, she wanted to get her parents back together. But she wasn't, like, scheming about it. She had, like, she had a crush on her aunt. husband and like it was like very like but like in a very like innocent kind of way or whatever you know what I mean but she wanted to get her parents back together so she found her twin and they did a scheme together yes yes exactly exactly um no alley on another world and of course another

world ended not long thereafter another world I think aired its last episode in 1999 so she was like towards the tail end of that um so she never that character never got to come back as like an adult um but she would have been too famous by that point Anyway, so Freaky Friday, I, for whatever reason, have always misremembered that Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen happened before Freaky Friday. No. But it's actually the next year. So it's like within very, very quick succession. It's Freaky Friday, then Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, which is like spring of 2004, February of early spring.

February of 04. And then Mean Girls is in May of 2004, late April 30th, even like sooner. So it's within literally a nine-month span. She's in those three movies, and she becomes the, like, biggest teen star in America, parentheses, unfortunately. You know what I mean? Just like... Unfortunately for her. Unfortunately for her.

The industry fully destroyed her. And you could talk about, like, the home life situation as well. But like... We did an episode on a Prairie home competitive. And by a Prairie Home Companion is the one where, like, she's already, like, blonde and very thin. And, like, Merrill has talked about, like, you know, really liking her on that. But, like, already by a Prairie Home Companion, I remember the story, the meta of that was, oh, I really hope this movie, like, does, like, does well for Lindsay. I hope, like, being with these veteran actresses really helps Lindsay.

And that is 2006, that is three years after Freaky Friday. That's how quickly this moved for Lindsay Lohan. And it's for as much as we all remember it happening, I think looking back at it with some perspective, it's like it's even more shocking how quickly we churned this girl up through the machine to the point now where. you know, she's in these movies like, you know, Irish Wish or whatever, or these like weird like hallmarky Christmas movies that she has. And she's almost this like, where she's going to be in Freakier Friday, right? Like they're doing, we'll talk about the sequel eventually. It's her return to being in a theatrically released movie,

which makes me want to support it more than I otherwise might. It does. But also, at this point, Lindsay Lohan is like a. novelty star, right? Like, she's not an actress. She is a famous person who's being put in movies. It's like, I'm not saying it's the same. But, like, functionally, it's similar to, like, putting Kim Kardashian in a movie.

And it shouldn't be because Lindsay Lohan is a real actress who has given really, like, real performances. But because she was churned up through this Hollywood, machine so thoroughly and spit out as this, like, broken person. Now, all of a sudden, in 2025, it's like, oh, weird, like Lindsay Lohan in a, in a, in a movie, you know what I mean? It's like in a theatrical movie. What an odd thing. And it's, I, of course, want, you know, want the best for her, want the best for this, want the movie to succeed, if only for her. But I also feel like there is a point in which, not to be fatalistic, but like, there is a point in which, like, people get broken, you know what I mean? And, well, I think it's like for some of us who lived through this era and, like, were interested in pop culture and such during this era, you know, you think of like the free Brittany movement, which is like we were not with those hardcore free Britney people.

But, like, as people who live through that era were like, yeah, we got to do something restorative about these celebrity culture. And I feel that way, even more so about Lindsay, because I feel like Lindsay in a lot of ways got it the worst, like just the worst moment for celebrity culture and how people were treated, you know, like I want to see Lindsay succeed. You know, I want to see her have some type of dignity back on her career after how she was just churned up and spit out by the industry, you know, at a very vulnerable time. By the industry and also by the public. Like, it was this sort of like holistic thing where, because the other thing I wanted to mention around this time, and obviously with, you know, she's in this movie with Chad Michael Murray. and then Chad Michael Murray is also right around this time, and I want to sort of get the timeline on this correct. He's in the next year.

He's in a Cinderella story with Hillary Duff. And I don't think he, maybe he did. I can't remember whether he dated the both of them, but I know they both definitely both dated Wilmer Volderama. But there was this whole like media created, or at least media enhanced. I don't want to say it was built on nothing because they were, you know, teenage girls dating the same guy.

Like, obviously they probably did not have, you know, great feelings about each other. But it was definitely goosed by the media, this idea of just like, you know, feuding teen queens, Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff. And it was, you know, encouraged. And so, like, her dating life was on Front Street. She was encouraged to sort of engage.

in this, like, you know, sort of catty feud with a fellow star, then, um, there was also the angle of people being like, Lindsay Lohan, like, is stacked, you know what I mean? Like, that kind of thing. Like, when does she turn 18 and yada, yada, yada, like, all that grossness. That's sort of, because also, like, 2000, mid-2000s is the Maxim magazine era, right? We're like, I was just on chasing Amy Adams talking about the Maxim era. And, like, A full rest in piss, Maxa magazine. Yeah. Just like a gross moment.

I am, I am very, very much more, I am, I'm well down the line of like letting, you know, straight guys be straight guys. But like that is definitely past the line of like, your culture disgusts me. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Like, when we get to that point. But so it's, it's, it was, it was just everything. And obviously then the TMZ of it all, where it became fascinated with the idea of, oh, is she going out? Is she drinking underage?

Is she partying? Is she partying with Paris Hilton? Is she in Paris friends? Are she in Paris not friends? Did Paris— I would never say that. Paris is my friend. Did Paris's boyfriend call her a fire crotch?

Remember that whole thing? There were, like, there were like TMZ news cycles about, like, about Paris's fucking gross-ass boyfriend calling her a firecrot. and all this sort of stuff. And it was... I am not about the rehabilitation of Paris Hilton. That is one where I draw the law. She's a bad person. She seems like a bad person.

She's always seemed like a bad person. Like, yes. And like, she loves Trump. Yeah. No. Like, no. It's... I think she's tried to like go back on that and say that she didn't.

But it's like, girl, no. Also, Kathy Hilton was never a good person. And we... Real House of My Vim's barely hells and I was as guilty as anybody. maybe got a little too comfortable with finding her. Just because you like Stars or Blind does not make Paras Hilton Queen. Also, Stars or Blind is not that good of a song. Like, Rumors – Lindsay Lohan's Rumors puts Stars Are Blind to shame, and I'm just going to say that.

I do have to agree with this. Rumors is fun. Rumors doing Rumors at karaoke? That's a good time. I enjoy that. Please respect my privacy. So, yeah, I mean, whatever. Gen X Millennial Cusper comes to the defense of,

Lindsay Lohan like shocker, but like, come on, come on. Like, we can all agree that, like, Lindsay Lohan got the shitty end of a deal. And, like, I'm not saying that, like, maybe with, like, a mother like that and, you know, parents like she had, maybe she would have ended up doing, you know, drugs and drinking and whatever at a young age anyway. But certainly we can agree that, like, having all of, you know, this stuff at her disposal by being, you know, by having money and having access and having the entire sort of like, you know, Hollywood, you know.

The apparatus, like, wishing for her downfall, like trying to make a spectacle of a downfall that they definitely partially engineered. But also then, like, that apparatus also was, you know, building her up and giving her the keys to the kingdom, too. Like, you know, she certainly, you know, got into all of these bad behaviors while on the up, right? Like, while she was riding high. And, of course, you know, that's a cycle that we're all very familiar with.

I, you know, weren't breaking no ground by talking about how, like, Hollywood likes to build people up and knock people down. And, like, like, obviously. Well, but I think when you watch a performance like she gives in Freaky Friday, it really still, I mean, again, millennial laments the downfall of Lindsay Lohan while praising her gifts. Shocker. She's so smart and funny in this movie in a way that the movie doesn't even need her to be. Like, this movie would be perfectly fine if Jamie Lee Curtis gives the performance that she gives, and then, you know, the teenager is secondary. But she's a really smart comedian in this movie.

She plays a whatever, middle-aged mother with such subtlety. Better than playing a teenager? Well, but with such subtlety. Honestly, yes. But, like, you know. I think they're both better when they have the switch in this movie. But can you imagine a worse actress, the over-the-top way they would play the post-body-swap character? And it's like, she does not do that at all.

She's incredibly subtle, but in these really telling ways. And I think, obviously, as I said, Jamie Lee Curtis gets all the fun stuff to do. But Lindsay is really impressive when you pay attention to how she's playing Jamie Lee Curtis. And it's maybe even funnier than what Jamie Lee Curtis is doing at moments. Sure. It's, yes. It's just definitely, you know, not as, not even as interesting on a storyline wise. Like, obviously, the interesting part is Jamie Lee Curtis as an adult woman in a teenager, or a teenager in an adult woman's body on a date with Chad Michael Merritt. You know what I mean? Like, that's...

Right. Or, like, we're trying to, like, give advice to her psychiatry patients or whatever. It's a more interesting thing to play to be the teenager who, through... Inhabiting your mother's body has to realize the ways that you need to grow up. Then it is to be the adult who realizes you need to lighten up on your kid. Right, right, right. Does she really need to lighten up on her, though? She got an F on a test.

I mean, granted with her... did not earn that F. No, I think it is important. I think that kind of stuff is good for like a parent to sort of realize that like, you know, I would not want to, I mean, this is also a cliche, but like I would not want to re-experience high school from, I think any parent thinks back and is like, like, I could probably do high school again if it was the same parameter. that it was when I was in high school. You know what I mean? I could not do 20, 25 high school with, you know, everything that involves today. It's terrifying to imagine. It's almost like there's a reason every child in America has unbearable anxiety. Well, and is also like, you know, becoming weird, having weird social stances and whatnot. Like, everybody is sort of, you know, I mean, the darkest thought that I have very often is, like, are we just going to have to, like, write off that, like, two or three year COVID generation entirely and just, like, start anew with their younger siblings? Because, like, I do feel like that is a broken generation that is just, like, absolutely hopeless and we'll never be able to be able to be able to be.

Previous generations have been broken by other things. It just looks different. Yeah, but COVID lockdown was a rough one. Like, they all definitely seem to have emerged. as, like, insane. Like, they've, they just incapable, insane, absolutely. I don't know, whatever. This is old-boiled as social. Can I mention something as I'm looking at the Wikipedia page right now? This is not a thing that the IMDB agrees with, nor do I think it's in the movie.

The Wikipedia page has Mark Harmon's character as named Ryan Volvo. Now, they have a Volvo. like her car is a Volvo in the movie So I wonder like if that's what But like multiple times You're just like so Tess is engaged to Ryan Volvo I'm like I don't think that's true

Ellen But it makes me laugh Uses the actual like End credits Well he's just credited as Ryan Like I don't even know if we ever get his last name But Ryan Volvo also just like sounds like a fun Middle age man named Ryan

It's like when Ryan O'Neill was like 60 it's like okay Ryan that's one of the things that I actually um that those little touches that make mean girls sort of a cut above everything else is that they give all of the characters last names that in a way that like you would sort of like Seth Mosikowski is maybe my favorite like rando name and in in mean girls because it's just like oh yeah like everybody went like all these sort of like very like Hollywood names or whatever just like Aaron Samuels and whatever It's just like, it's all very nice and very clean. But, like, we all went to school with, like, Seth Mosikowski or just, like, you know, I don't know.

Do you know what I mean? It just has an air of authenticity to it. Sure. I like it. Anyway. We've all read Lois Duncan books. Wait, which ones were Lois Duncan? I know what you did last summer.

Oh, there we go. Though, like, the book of a, I know what you did last summer is absolutely nothing like the movie. Is that true? What did they do last summer? They just, like, hung out? No, they kill someone. but like the way that it like there's no like serial killer with a hook um well then what happens there's also somebody's writing them notes and they got to find out who's writing them notes wait what about

witness protection there's the i forget what the lowest duncan book is called that they the family enters witness protection was lowest Duncan also killing mrs tingle yes hold please looking up teaching mrs tingle is the movie because we can't have have an adult society anymore. Killing Mrs. Tingle. Killing Mrs. Tingle. Wait, that was an original screenplay? How is that not based on a book?

That's crazy to me. Okay. You go off, Kevin Williamson. I'm doing the ungovernable thing and looking up Lois Duncan. Well, now I am, too. It's just like, don't have... Become ungovernable. Don't read the politics tab.

You never do it. Don't do it. If you have nostalgia of... for something. Don't do it. Wait, wait, wait. Lois Duncan was killing Mr. Griffin. Oh, maybe that's what I'm thinking of.

Okay. Lois Duncan founded a research center to help investigate cold cases. That's not bad. Good for you, girl. Good for you, Lois Duncan. You go, you go Lois Duncan. Which one of these is the...

Wait. In 1989, the youngest of Duncan's children, Caitlin Arquette, was murdered in Albuquerque, New Mexico at 18 years old. I knew this, yes. She released, she wrote a book called Who Killed My Daughter, I think it was a book, and that her, she said her dream was to write a sequel to Who Killed My Daughter, to give our family's true life horror story closure. Sad.

Oh, that's sad. Yeah, yeah, that's one of the things that she, like, writes books about murdered teens. See John Walsh from America's Most Wanted? Like, some people can, like, respond to horrible family tragedy and not because. weirdo, like, right-wing lunatics. Oh, sister, this is the one. It's,

unless I'm wrong, don't look behind you because I remember this cover. Don't look behind you is the, I think this is the witness protection one. Wow, she also wrote Hotel for Dogs. That's crazy. Let's see. Don't look behind you is not the witness protection one.

Am I totally just like conflating another book to be a Lois Duncan book? Hold on. No, don't look behind you is the witness protection one. Yes, it is. The cover of Don't Look Behind You features a young woman's hand holding a crimper, crimping iron, I believe, and then a gloved hand grabbing. No, it's a phone. Oh, is it a phone? A phone.

Oh, okay. Don't look behind you. Very scary book cover. It is. Okay, well, that makes more sense. I don't know why I immediately went to. crimping iron, I think, because it was published in 1989. Anyway.

Please look up the cover of Summer of Fear. Let my... Just me. Let my gaff there, though, about the crimping iron, give us a window into talking about the 2003 cultural references in this movie, because it's all colliding. First of all, I don't think I knew that Chokers came back in 2003 after being... Like, chokers are very much a 90s signifier for me.

I hate to say it, but they are coming back again. That doesn't surprise me. Things are coming back now. Fashion is coming back to a really interesting place right now, actually. Interesting. Is that in scare quotes? No. I feel like tacky is not a bug.

It's a feature for some of these people. No. They want to attack. Did you see that one? You did because I know I sent you photos of it. That one fashion show were like Josh O'Connor and Mike Feist and all them were them. And they were wearing like crisp khakis and like button downs. And of course, like, they're all hot.

so, like, they're buttoned down, like, farther, whatever. But I'm like, they're dressed like they're going to their little sister's First Communion. And I'm like, my aesthetic is back. My aesthetic is back. Normie, like, it's like, obviously, it's like the hot version of it or whatever. But it's like, I, oh, man, nothing bugs me more than, oh, I'm going to get in trouble if I say this.

It's not nothing bugs me more, whatever, but like, men going for. too much with fashion. I don't know. Oh, there's a tryhardness. I don't know about it. Great right now. This is where I'm like, just let straight guys be straight guys.

Straight guys being try hard about fashion is, it's always like, oh. Thank you. Thank you. Timothy Sholome accepted because, like, Timothy Sholome can do it everyone. But he doesn't seem try hard about it.

No, he's just genuinely like a strange person in some ways. Or like a little bit of an odd person. Have you seen, by the way, this cash app commercial. Have you seen at the movies? No. Oh, my God, he's in this, look it up after this. He's in the weirdest cash app commercial

that, like, for the first three quarters of it, I'm like, is this going to end up being a crypto commercial? I didn't think celebrities did crypto commercials anywhere. I thought that was definitely Passet. I thought Matt Damon was the cautionary tale for that. And it's not, but it's for cash app. But it's very much just like, he's at this

like gas station mini-mart that is owned by this older guy And his, like, son or grandson is there being, like, because the older guy is, like, only accepts, like, strange forms of payment, like, a bag of rice for, like, you know, whatever this guy wants to buy. And he's just like, no, like, you can't be afraid to, like, change with the times, man. And I'm just like, oh, God, is he going to, like, try and convince his grandfather to get into crypto? But it's no, he's just telling him to, like, accept payments on cash app, which is weird enough. It's the weirdest ad.

Anyway, back, back, back. fashions of Meek of Freaky Friday. So she's got the choker. It's a lot of aggressive fashion choices on Anna at the very beginning of this movie. She's got the choker. She's got the pink mesh long sleeve top over the tank top look. Bear Midriff, obviously low-rise jeans because those were definitely like the fashion. Super smoky eye.

Like this, the fact that her mother let her go to school looking like that tells you that she's way more lenient of a mother than the movie's getting credit for. And I guarantee you. I do think Avril Levine broke the brains of many, like, creative heads of studios like Disney and like, you know, stylists, corporate stylists to, like, film sets. Yes. Everlevene broke them. Yes. But it was 2003 is

post post pop explosion. The pop explosion happens from like 97 through 01, up until like maybe like 9-11. But that's Spice Girls in first,

but like Backstreet Boys, in sync, Britney, Christina, that whole thing. By 2003, Britney is enough of a Pre-in-the-Zone album, in the Zones 2004. They're already listening to, like, punk rock covers of Baby One More Time. Like, she's already, like, is it, like, lame that I like, baby one more time?

Because it was, like, like, y'all, that song was, like, four years ago, five years ago, I guess. And now, in 2025, people will try to be ironic being like, you know, what's the greatest pop song? Baby, one more time. How many times are we going to have to go through that cycle? Like, that cycle has repeated itself. billion times. I will tell you. I will tell you. All of my stories that I tell like this, I'm like, I'm way too old to be behaving like this, but I was out of college already by this, and I was at a friend's house. Or no, I was hanging out with a friend at some friends of theirs

house, whatever. And you were like, you know what a great pop song is, baby woman. No, not a, I, whatever it was, it was in the era of fallout boy had just gotten popular. So that would have been like 05, 06, or whatever. So I'm mid-20s. I'm too old to be what this ends up being. So it wasn't quite level below a party, but it was like maybe 15 people sort of just like hanging around or whatever. And the one guy picks up the acoustic guitar and he does a slowed down acoustic guitar baby one more time. And I remember watching that and being like, ahead of the curve. That's so cool. And I'm so embarrassed of thinking about that now, because I'm like, first of all, you're too old to be falling for something like that.

Second of all, it would become such a cliche, the idea of... Yeah, but when it first happened, though. Also, Chris Allen hadn't happened yet. So maybe it was, shut up. You shut up about Chris Allen. Chris Allen was great, and he deserved to win American Idol. But, like, I remember having that thought of just like, what an amazing idea to take a podcast. to take a pop song and to like to like showcase that it has these like you know strong it has strong

structure to it's strong enough that it can hold up to an acoustic guitar like so cool and I cringe I full body cringe thinking about that now also I was still closeted and like it was a cute guy so like whatever like my whole my six my circuitry was I think you I think you should release your cringe about that I constantly release my if you're placing it in time and it's not cringy. I didn't become... I didn't become... Grinchy?

No, I've always been cringy. But I didn't attain a level of protective irony at all until I, like, maybe left for New York City. Until you were surrounded by gay-blank. You could argue that I've never attained a proper level of, like, protective irony. But I certainly at least did not attain my level of like knee-jerk suspicion of things until definitely until I left for New York City, which I was almost 27 years old when I left for New York City. So everything that happens to me, everything in my life, like mentally subtract five years and like that's where I should have been in my life when experiencing those things. like almost everything. But, you know, maybe I should just start doing that and just like overtly lying about my age and just overtly being like, well, just turned 40, you know what I mean?

Like that kind of a thing. Because honestly, that feels. This is your 41th birthday. 41th. 41th. 41th. 41th. 41th is coming up in a month.

No, but that all like makes more sense on a, this kind of makes sense. This will be easy to remember that I'm talking about this shit on a freaky Friday episode. because it's very much about, uh, but, um, yeah, the, the, the only problem is, I'm not going to live to be five years older than a normal lifespan. You know what I mean? It's just like, I will die before I have reached my full potential. So, um, I'm, I am the, I'm the absolutely, like, brooding fatalist who's like, yeah, we're all gonna, like, at this point, like, you know, I don't know if you've stepped outside late. it's so fucking hot

Jesus Christ I don't know I think you should release that cringe I think you should free yourself from that cringe because I don't think that it's cringe whatsoever Well regardless I also have to give a shout out

I know speaking of cringe I know Chad Michael Murray is like shorthand for like the guy we should all be embarrassed about thinking was cute back in the mid-aughts and Chad Michael Murray was again I say having a moment because he was in this, he was in a Cinderella story.

He was on the first season of Gilmore Girls. He was on one tree hill, maybe already by this point. Chad Michael Murray, a proud son of Buffalo, New York, so I have to shout him out. I didn't realize he had married Sophia Bush. That's crazy. And is currently married to Sarah Romer, who was in Disturbia. way. Sophia Bush is just much respect to this woman, one of those names that I'm like, oh, y'all are in a soup and I just have no, I have, there's no stickiness to where I know that

name from whatsoever. It's like the Bella Heathcots. See, Sophia Bush, I like quite a bit more than the Bella Heathcots, even though I never really watched One Tree Hill regularly enough. But she's one of those people who like got into like the Dick Wolf Chicago verse where like for like 10 years, in like Chicago PD, Chicago Med, all of these things. And now, she's got a recurring role on Grey's Anatomy right now. That's crazy. Good for her. You know what?

Good for her. She keeps playing doctors and police detectives, too. That's cool. In the good for herness, let's bring it back to Lindsay a little bit. Lizzie, who won the Breakthrough Female MTV Movie Award for this film. Good call. The lineup is Jessica Beale for the Texas Chainsaw Masker, a terrible movie and a not good performance. Fun movie, good movie. Scarlett Johansson for Lost in Translation because they like to have the one Oscar. Well, she wasn't an Oscar nominee. But like, you know, it should have been spiritually like that. Kira Knightley for Pirates of the Caribbean, Curse of the Black Pearl, and Evan Rachel Wood for 13, another Oscar adjacent MTV.

Honestly, not a bad call your shot category from MTV there where like if Jessica Beale is the first. floppiest of them. That's still a decent call. Like, Jessica Beale is still... And they're still going to make that call every single time. Like, they're never not going to make that call. But in terms of just like career longevity, all of these people, Scarlett, Kira, Evan Rachel Wood have all like had careers that persist to this day. So good call there. Two of them... And Lindsay's great in the movie. So there you go. No, Lindsay absolutely deserves win. And also, she's the MTVest choice for good or ill. I think I think that was part of the, you know, maybe her downfall.

Jamie Lee, though, gets, like, legitimate, like, best actress buzz. And it's the rare thing that happens where, because normally, there are people who get nominated for a Golden Globe musical or comedy acting award that I can still feel like you can look at it and be like, yeah, but like, was that really buzz? Like, we did an episode on Under the Tuscan Sun, and I'm glad that we did. But that is like the outer fringes of like did under the Tuscan Sun really have Oscar buzz. Less than, I mean, certainly less than Jamie Lee had. And the best actress race this year is so spread out. That's the other thing. This is the famous 2003 best actress year where like shit was crazy up until the moment that nominations were announced.

Yes, yes. And then, I mean, I think when you look at the whole field, it's like you can understand how the race shaped out that way. But when it's so widespread, which like just doesn't happen anymore, you do still have to consider names like Jamie Lee Curtis. And Jamie Lee Curtis, who, and you could maybe argue that this would mean more today than it would have in 2003, was headline, was getting these reviews in headlining a movie that made $100 million. Yes. This is a hit movie. Well, the other thing is there was a period there in the 80s where Jamie Lee Curtis, was getting awards, buzz, and, like, precursor stuff for movies like Trading Places and a Fish Called Wanda,

even though she was, as you mentioned, not the, like, forefront of the buzz for that. Obviously, Eddie Murphy is the, you know, the big star of Trading Places. Obviously, Kevin Klein is the one who wins the Oscar for a Fish Called Wanda, but also, like, John Cleese was getting nominated places. Michael Palin was getting nominated places. But, like, Jamie Lee Curtis, in terms of, like, career. awards, had a little moment in the 80s. And then she kind of, I mean, I know we sort of take issue with the idea of like went away. But like, she like, she did TV for a while. She did that

sitcom with Richard Lewis. And she did, hold on a second. Let me look up trading places because I know. So she won the BAFTA for trading places. She, I guess that's it. But like, she won the BAFTA for trading places. She was nominated for the BAFTA. for a fish called Wanda. Like, the Basta does kind of fucking love her. So we maybe shouldn't have been so surprised that they nominated her for the last showgirl last year. But so I think having her in this lineup, though, especially for a movie that could very easily have just been like, you know, kid stuff or whatever. But it made a lot of money, which really helped.

And so she's nominated along with, as you said, Scarlett Johansson for Lost in Translation, Diane Lane for Under the Tuscan Sun, Helen Mirren for Camer. Calendar Girls, future this had Oscar Buzz movie. We should do Calendar Girls, this Head Oscar Buzz. And then they all lose to Diane Keaton for Something's Got to Give, who was for a brief moment there, the frontrunner before that still came out, that onset still from Monster came out, and everybody was like, Charlie's there on what's going on there?

I do think you could really make an argument that Jamie Lee Curtis was not nominated because you do have a comedic performance in the running. Not to be, there can only be one, but the Oscars can kind of be there can only be one about comedy. This is one of my favorite Golden Globe acceptance speeches, Diane Keaton for something's got to give. She's got the like full on like head to toe gleaming white, you know,

it's like a trench coat kind of a thing, right? Where it's just like she's got a white suit. And then I feel like she's also got like the long gloves and whatever. It's a whole look for Diane. I loved it. But this is the one where she's like, she's like, and then when just when I thought my career was over, Nancy comes along and gives me a role of someone to love. It's just, it's so funny.

And Nicholson's in the audience sort of doing that thing he sometimes does where he's just like sitting back and raising his eyebrows like, this is a lot. But it's great. The thing where she ends up, she ends the thing where she's like, she's like, can you believe that we had a romantic comedy where the combined ages of the two leads was like a hundred and fourteen or something like that? She's some whatever exorbitant number. And Nicholson literally just goes like, cut it wrong.

It's great. Why don't you read this Lisa Schwartzbaum quote, though, from energy? I did want to pull this because I thought that this kind of distilled the tenor of the reviews for Jamie Lee Curtis. Lisa Swartzbaum from Entertainment Weekly Who we love and love to quote And we love a Lisa drag It's not a drag this time Even in her prime sex pot years

Maybe that's a little yikes Lisa Jamie Lee Curtis Anti Jamie Lee Curtis's anti-vanity Has been a great part of her appeal But something wonderfully liberating Has happened now that the 44 year old actress Has looked Hollywood Middle Age in the eye She's glorious and Freaky Friday

a funny, shrewd, noble family comedy about the relationship between mothers and teenage daughters that allows Curtis the comedian to remember her days as a slinky starlet while making use of her wisdom as the mother of an adolescent girl herself. It's a good line, and it is indicative of the fact that reviews were definitely singling out this aspect of the movie, the idea that, like,

Jamie Lee Curtis is sort of a middle-aged revelation in this movie. What I think is interesting is I don't think there's much of her that is, like, slinky sex pot, right? I think she's definitely thinking about true lies, which, spoiler alert, you will want to subscribe to the Patreon this year. Yes. But, like, I think one of the funny things that Jamie Lee does in this movie is, and it is a little bit of what she does and everything everywhere all at once to a different degree, but sort of makes herself ungainly. You know what I mean? She, like, the idea of part of her conception of a teenage girl in her mother's body is she doesn't quite know how to, like, stand. You know what I mean?

Like, she doesn't know how to sort of exist in this adult body, which I think is like, again, better acting choices than the movie is really asking for. But I think that's some of the reasons why people really like this movie is that, like, both Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan are giving you more than what is being. asked of them as actresses. And I think that's really good. I think she does a really good job of indicating discomfort in a way that is odd to watch, but in a funny way. And it makes it all the more goofy that Chad Michael Murray ends up being like, you know, gaga over this woman who like can't seem to stand, but like she loves the fucking vines. So she's so into the yeah yeah yes oh that's the other thing we didn't mention i didn't mention in my plot description the weirdest part of this movie were like mark harmon as a surprise was like surprise i booked you

on this local talk show to talk about your psychiatry book or whatever and it's like he do first of all don't do that like men do not take it she's not media train mark harman is a good man in this movie and is a fine husband to be but like don't ever do that don't ever surprise your your wife with a surprise television appearance in the middle of the day. Joe, I agreed for us on Oscar nomination morning to give an on camera. That would be the end of this podcast. It would be no more. Surprise, you're on camera.

No, thank you. But so she goes on to this talk show with a talk show host who I was certain was what's her face from somebody somewhere. the sister on somebody somewhere Mary Catherine Not Mary Catherine Gallagher, obviously Why can't I remember her name? Who plays the sister on somebody somewhere?

Yes, Mary Catherine Garrison I thought it was her for a second You will sometimes stare at me and not bail me out In a way that I'm just like, help me for Roxanne! I thought you had it! No, I didn't. I'm like, I know you know this. So, no, that's okay.

So she's... And Catherine Garrison in the third season of somebody somewhere. It's just like, it's absolute... At this point, the Emmy nominations will be out. But, like, it's absolute lunacy that we're not, like... That that has no shot at a... I mean, I think the same about Jeff Hiller and Bridget Everett. Like, I think...

I mean, I think it topped down. But even when you hear people talk about somebody somewhere, they don't talk about her. No, it's true. I even fall victim to that, too, because I'm like, I'm so... enamored of the two leads. Anyway, we are about to, this Tuesday's Emmy nominations will finally close the book on our hopes and dreams for somebody somewhere, which is too bad because it was one of the great shows. Anyway, but I don't know about that. Jamie Lee Curtis in this movie is so good. And also, like, I don't know. There's a certain level that people are kind of surprised

in this performance. And I don't know if, like, in 2003, we didn't really have her fully figured out yet because it's not like this is the first time Jamie Lee Curtis was funny in something. Like the 80s, she spends in a lot of comedies and, like, famous comedies at that. Granted, like, you don't maybe think of her when you think of those comedies, but she's funny in those movies. Why does Jamie Lee Curtis's Wikipedia page not have the word Activia at all? I wanted to know when she... Oh, that is intentional. Somebody scrubbed that out.

But, like, I wanted to find out when she started doing Activia commercials, because, like, that did for a while there. That's kind of what she was known for, but maybe that was after Freaky Friday. She's known for poop yogurt. No, but like she did kind of, her career had kind of moved into something else, though, by, by, so, fish called Wanda's 1988. Then she does the Catherine Bigelow movie, Blue Steel, which again, has been kind of memory hold. The thing that I first knew her from was the Dan Aykroyd's girlfriend in My Girl.

My Girl. Like that was definitely the first thing, but she was also on this ABC sitcom called Anything But Love from 1989 to 1982, which was like her and Richard Lewis were this sort of like, you know, Will there, won't they couple.

She was also in the TV movie of the Heidi Chronicles in 1995, which I believe she won an no she didn't win an Emmy for Tom Hulse won for supporting actor but like

wow she wasn't even nominated she was nominated for a Golden Globe but not for an Emmy rude anyway she was not she was in the Heidi Chronicles but then movie wise she's in like I said she's in Blue Steel

she's in My Girl she's in Forever Young the Mel Gibson movie she's Elijah Woods mother and I think the romantic interest in that She's in this, like, really, like, creepy psychological thriller Mother's Boys where she, like, ends up, like, terrorizing the new wife of her ex-husband because, like, she doesn't want her raising her children or whatever. Go off, queen.

She's in that movie House Arrest, where it's, like, all the kids lock all their parents in a room to, like, figure their shit out for whatever reason. And like, she's in that and Jennifer Tilley's in that and whatever, Caroline Aaron. She's in the... This is where the bombs start happening besides Halloween H2O. Fierce Creatures, which is the sort of like spiritual sequel to a fish called Wanda that does not do anything. Halloween H2O, which is a banger, but I feel like was kind of underrated at the time, even though it like made decent money and was like certainly part of. of a, like, good trend for dimension films and the, like, post-scream sort of teen horror era.

She's in that movie, Drowning Mona that I've never seen, that, like, every once in a while somebody will, like, advocate. A drowning Mona, good movie. But, like, wasn't that, like, a D-Cinema score or something? People hate that movie. Oh, sorry, Drowning Mona might have been a D-Cinema score. Halloween Resurrection. The virus is also a bomb.

also one of the worst Halloween's, Halloween resurrection. Oh, yeah, yeah. And that's at the point where she's like, no, you're going to, if I'm going to be in this movie, you're going to kill me and you're going to kill me right away because I'm done here. So, like, it was definitely a career slump that had lasted 10 years at least. I'm going to say 10 years at least, certainly. And back then, 10 years felt longer. Like, time wasn't as accelerated as it is now.

I fully... I suppose. I think if you're positioning her in a career slump, it comes after Freaky Friday, which is... That's the more baffling one, that she ended up, like, immediately... And maybe it's, like, all the fault of Christmas with the Cranks, which is a horrible movie. With her... And also just Hollywood sexism, too, because she's in her mid-40s at this point. Sure.

People stop knowing how to... But her next five movies after Freaky Friday are Christmas with the Crank. which is her and Tim Allen decide that they hate celebrating Christmas and want to go away, but they can't go away. So they end up staying home but not decorating their house and their whole neighborhood revolts against them. The Kid and I, which is a Penelope Spiris movie that was written, produced, and starred Tom Arnold.

So, no. Penelope Spiris, it's so interesting to me that it's just like, she goes from doing these punk documentaries into movies with kids. But Wayne's World was the one in the middle. She really kicked ass with Wayne's World. That's good. Also, Jamie Lee Curtis is barely in that movie, so we really shouldn't hang that up on her. But she's in Beverly Hills Chihuahua.

She's in You Again, which should have been better than it was. That was the movie where her and Sigourney Weaver were like best friends turned enemy. and then their daughters, played by Kristen Bell, and Odette Annable, Odette, what was her name back then, Odette Yistman, also now, like, hate each other or whatever, and our enemies. Should have been good, was not. She was the voice dub in the Ryoko Matsuzaki from up on Poppy Hill. She was the FBI director who wanted to.

to hire Kristen Bell in the Veronica Mars theatrical movie. Like, this was, those were the highlights of her entire run from 2003 to 2018 theatrically. Now, on TV, she has, I mean, it's not a ton. She's in nine episodes of NCIS. She's in six episodes of New Girl playing Zoe Dishanelle's mother. And then she's on two seasons of screen. Queens, which is a show I watched the first season of, and I liked a lot of elements of that

show, including both Kiki Palmer and Glenn Powell. Jamie Curtis is not my favorite element of that, and although she got like a Golden Globe nomination for it or whatever, but like, I didn't love her in that. So anyway, like, that's the extent of it. that's where her career is following, again, this great, hugely acclaimed Golden Globe nominated, made money, Freaky Friday. And it's kind of fucked up. And if it feels like we're sort of overrewarding her now, okay. You know what I mean? That's why I'm never going to be so mad about her winning the Oscar. Because it's like, and again, whatever, like, she's supposedly

not a very nice person. And like, I would like it for everybody who wins a an Oscar to be a very nice person, but we can't. Sure. We can't always have that. But I will never, I won't begrudged the fact that she wins what is essentially a career Oscar because. Because she's in the best picture frontrunner, which is just, that's just kind of how it works. But I think she's also giving an actively bad performance. Yeah, I think I feel like it's less.

I feel like it's just sort of. She's nominated against a significantly better co-star. That I will agree with. So it's like if you're awarding someone for being in the. movie you like the most. Well, you have a better performance right next to hers that you think so. Stephanie Schu does not have the, you know, the good vibes that other people have in Hollywood for watching Jamie Lee Curtis and things. And I, you know, you can't argue with that. So, um, I'm glad that. And on a certain level, like, you can psychologize some of this stuff

that, like, when people are voting for Jamie Lee Curtis, they're voting for themselves being in that same situation, you know. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, wishful, it's a hopeful vote for their own careers, you know. I don't like her in The Last Showgirl. I do think she's bad. I was very, very glad she did not get the nomination for that. She was also in that reportedly terrible Eli Roth movie Borderlands that I definitely did not see. But she's in Freakier Friday now, which is coming up in August.

Is this going to get a theatrical? It is a theatrical. Yes, it's theatrical, which is like, again, kind of big for, low hand having a theatrical release. I think after Lilo and Stitch making so much money and being a nostalgia play for

a similar era, I think Freakier Friday stands to make a decent amount of money, but then I went and watched that trailer and oh boy, it looks terrible. Oh, it does. It does look terrible. It looks objectionable. And I don't know why we have to do like a double body swap.

Oh, is that what's happening? The daughters are also swapping? It's Lindsay and Jamie Lee Curtis, but then there is also... Julia Butters is Lindsay's daughter. And then future stepdaughter? Right. Something along those lines. There's four body swathes.

Lindsay is getting married to Mani Jacinto. And Mani Jacinto has a daughter who he's bringing into that marriage. And I think it's the two daughters that body swap. Love Julia Butters was wonderful And Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Although I think it's interesting that both Chad Michael Murray And Rosalind Chow are both back And yet, tellingly, it also credits

Oh, and Christina Vidal is also back, that's wonderful Vanessa Bayer is credited as fortune teller Yes, because Vanessa Bayer is Because they were like, oh, maybe it used to be racist Yeah, I can't do that. Yeah, Vanessa Bayer is the one who basically is the fortune teller who creates a body swap based on the trailer. Interesting, interesting. It does not look good.

It doesn't. And yet, you know, I don't know. We only want success for Lindsay. In the words of Meryl Streep, I pray for Lindsay. But then she's also, Jamie Lee, is going to be in this James L. Brooks movie Ella McKay. that I thought I had heard bad buzz about. But after that, after I had heard that, they changed the release date from earlier in the fall to December 12th,

which to me is a show of confidence in this movie. Is it, though, that's the same weekend window that how do you know opened? I know that how do you know has its fans. It's also the weekend before, like, all movie screens are going to be taken over by Avatar 3. Well, I don't think that Ella McKay has any kind of like, you know, financial, you know, hopes to like compete whether or not Avatar is happening. But I just feel like a move to December feels like they are going to make a go of an awards push for it.

And Lord knows I want the James L. Brooks movie to succeed. It's called L.M.A.K. Did I say that? It's called L. M.A.K. starring Emma again an illegal movie because you cannot have Emma Mackey as Ella McKay yes it's but it sounds like so the premise of it is um idealistic young politician uh juggles family issues in a challenging work life while preparing to take over the job of her mentor the state's long time incumbent governor it sounds like Jamie Lee Curtis maybe plays the mentor the long time incumbent governor or else Woody Harrelson does one of the two um But anyway, I hope for success that cast is kind of rad.

You also have Iowa Debris and Albert Brooks and Jack Loudon and Rebecca Hall and Julie Kavanaer and Becky and Baker. Oh, also Troy Garrity. Remember when Troy Garrity was in things, Jane Fonda's kid? Anyway, so I root for Jamie Lee, weirdly, even though I know, again, allegedly not nice. Bring the whole fucking thing. You're going to hate this show, then. I think as close as she got to a nomination for Last Showgirl, it's reasonable to suspect that she could still get that Halo nomination for something else.

I think that's true. I am petrified, by the way, speaking of Halo nominations, maybe save this for the Patreon we're going to record, of a Brendan Fraser halo nomination. Yeah, we should save that. I can't get into this. We've been talking about it. about things like kept on this episode. I can't.

Okay, wait, I want to go through my thing. Choker, come back, Christina Vidal, Heather Huck. You like the Hives? I love You Like the Hives as just like a signifier of where we were in 2003. Isn't the Hives? Didn't they have the song from Disturbing Behavior in Katie Holmes? Is that the Hives? Is that the Vines? Well, famously, the Hives and the Vines were so interchangeable that they performed at the MTV Movie Awards on a revolving stage. where one of them performed like half of the song and then the stage revolved and it was the other band

and I was like, what the fuck is the idea here? I would be so mad if I were either one of those bands. Right. I don't, all right, now I'm going to look up. What did you say? Disturbing behavior? Disturbing behavior had... Got you where I want you.

Well, got you where I want you was neither the hives nor the vines. That was, oh, got you where I want to be. There's a secret third thing? Yes. Hives and vines didn't happen that early. soundtrack got you where I watch was the flies you're thinking of the flies The hives and the vines were sort of

In that like The hives, the flies, the vines, the hives Were in that sort of like Posts, not post strokes But like that's strokes era Where like rock has come back And it was also What was the band that was like

I believe and think I love? Like that one The darkness That was that era The flies were definitely A good five years before all that The flies were sort of like Remnants of like

The Verve pipe era of like 90s alternative. My notes. How do people sleep in those like ghost nightgowns? Jamie Lee Curtis is in a full like prairie woman nightgown for the first like 15 minutes of this movie. I don't know how people sleep in those. I wrote, I had a lot of fashion notes including Von Dutch ass movie. Wait, where was the Von Dutch just in her whole get up?

I think Chad Michael Murray might have a. a Von Dutch shirt, but, like, just generally, the vibe is Von Dutch. He felt a little bit more weirdly as a biker guy, but, like, clean cut than Von Dutch to me. Von Dutch has a very, like, Ashton Coucher, uh, aesthetic to me. Lindsay wears Caprize during gym. Uh, the Lilix cover of what I like about you, um, uh, which to me, very era-defining also ended up being the theme song for that sitcom with Jenny Garth and Amanda Bines. The trailer for this movie features both Le Freak and Garbages When I Grow Up,

which to me is like better music than was in the movie pretty much entirely. So that was fun. I enjoyed that. Again, no water skis in this movie. This is also, like, in the era of jokes about thongs and thongs place in the culture. There were multiple thong jokes. Now I feel like thongs are taking a place in gay guy culture. But, like...

I will say. I'd say I appreciate a thong, a thong thirst trap more than I do a jockstrap thirst trap. Interesting. I appreciate Cynthia Revo going extemporaneously about Cisco's vocal on thong song. That entertainment weekly deal that's going on? Can I tell you, Cynthia Arrivo during her Oscar campaign last year, came across to me. as so humorless and so absolutely uptight about everything,

I thought one of the, like, low-key, undiscussed things about the holding space thing, like, we all rightly, like, dragged that reporter or whatever for the holding space thing. But Cynthia Arrivo also sucks in that moment because she takes it so seriously. I mean, I think she's trying to be present to whatever the journal. I think she's trying to, like, be nice. She's being incredibly pretentious, and I think she was during a lot of that press tour. But ever since then, I'm working my way up to a compliment. Ever since then, like post Oscars, she's completely turned me around on it.

She was great hosting the Tonys. She's been really fun doing press stuff now. The thong song, the ode to Cisco's vocals in the thong song was incredibly, like, endearing and fun. And she is objectively right, too. Yes, she is. If Cynthia Arrivo can, like, be fun on. on this new press tour, if that can be her new thing, being fun, instead of being, like, aggressively unfun, I would welcome another nomination for her.

Like, I was definitely dreading. Like, we have to do this whole thing with Wicked Again with the Oscar nominations. Like, okay. But, like, if Cynthia Revo's going to decide to be fun this time, then, like, yes, great, absolutely. I, who was Wicked Net Negative, but then I think I tried to say I was Wicked Net Positive. I'm wicked net negative. Yeah, don't lie. You don't have to lie.

Neither of the star's faults. I still think I was more pro Cynthia than everybody else and chillier towards Ariana. That's fine. That's fine. Ariana had the benefit for me of like surpassing my expectations so much. Yeah, because you were, you were objectively not having it. Well, and I think I was correct because we can all agree that like the press materials and the trailers and everything for Wicked were all really bad. And I think she really surpassed my.

That's not why you were negative. You were negative because you wanted to be negative about Ariana Grande. Well, that's not untrue, but I definitely, you agree with me that, like, nobody, a lot of people agreed with me. Did not think she looked good in that trailer. I did not get a lot of pushback. Nobody thought anything that looked good. That's what I mean. That's what I'm saying.

You don't have to disagree with me on that. It's almost as if it's, like, a hideous to look at movie. But she surpassed my expectation, so I think that helped. Now, I think the fact that I like that. her so much in the first one is going to limit my appreciation for her in the second one, because now all of a sudden she's not going to be surpassing low expectations for me. But Cynthia now could surpass low expectations from me on the personality front. So, because I didn't really like Cynthia's performance in the first wicket if I'm going to

be totally honest. I did, like her in that movie. I thought she did, she, she nailed the handful of notes that she needed. Part of it, part of the problem for me was the way that that movie. fucking chopped up defying gravity nonsensically to the point absolutely killing its momentum at 30 second increments

It was the TikTokification of defying gravity And that like it gave you that song In exactly like you said The flashback to her child self At the end of that number As if we in the audience are too stupid to get it No we get it And it made it so you could present that song

On TikTok in like distinct little like snippets separated from each other. It was so dumb. Anyway, how did we get on the topic? What you're saying is you need Cynthia and Ariana to do a body swap wicked movie. Oh, we got into this topic via the topic of thongs. That's so funny. All right. But there's like thong. There's multiple thong jokes.

There are. There's jokes about Jamie Lee Curtis wearing a thong. There's jokes about that little brother having a thong duct taped to his head. Which is not even a thong. It's just a pair of like briefs. It's a pair of gray briefs, guys, like, cut it out. Is Harold Gould the same guy who played Miles on the Golden Girls? It is. Okay. Yes.

The guy who played her, like, on again, off again, boyfriend, Miles on the Golden Girls. So there we go. Joe, any last notes on Freaky Friday? I didn't not enjoy my time watching it, I will say. I, you know, it's not a movie that's for me, but that's, fine. They don't all have to be. And Mark Harmon, we should say, handsome guy, very TV actor, but like that's fine, and is probably like wealthier than anybody else in that cast because he's been making CBS network drama money for like 20 years doing NCIS. So good for him. Also, he's a

Harvard Westlake guy, so maybe I don't like him as much now. That's fine. Would you like to explain the IMDB game to our listener? Wait, he's related to the Nelson's? The like Nelson's, Nelson's? That's interesting. Huh. Anyway, yeah, the IMDB game. Every week we play, we enter episodes with the IMDB game,

where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try and guess the top four titles that IMDP says they're most known for. If any of those titles are television shows, voice-only performances, or non-acted credits, we will mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we will get. give the remaining titles release years as a clue. And if that is not enough, it just becomes a free for all of hints. All right, that's the IMDB game.

Are you going to give first or guess first? I'll give first because I'm slightly worried that we might have picked the same person. Oh, no. Okay, go ahead. Because you were so like, oh, this is going to be fun. And I was like, oh, no, I think mine's going to be fun. So, wait, let me take a sip of my water. And you can live in suspense.

So I talked about the 1976 original. By the way, it's wild to me that Jody Foster did Freaky Friday and Taxi Driver in the same year. Like, people don't talk about that enough. But in the original Freaky Friday, she switches bodies with her mother, who is played by Barbara Harris. And normally I wouldn't give you an old school actress like Barbara Harris, but you've talked about her enough that I feel like you could do well. I'm going to need, like, extreme hints, I'm willing to bet. Is Freaky Friday on there? It is.

Okay. Is Nashville on there? Obviously, yes, it is. Is breaking away on there? No. Is that the wrong? Is that not Barbara Harris? Hold on.

What year would breaking away have been? 1979. Oh, wait. Breaking away is the one I really like. That's Barbara Barry. Yeah, that's Barbara Barry. Yeah, no. No, not breaking away.

Okay. I'm just going to say, like, something with a giant ensemble airport. No, not airport, although that's not a bad guess. Okay, so your two remaining years are, it's another 1976 movie and 1986. Okay, so. My big hint for you off of the bat is that it's two all-timer legendary filmmakers. Well, it's Jaws, right? No, not Jaws.

No, not Jaws. so 76 Shaw's is 75 right especially after we did the 70s miniseries I'm like placing things exactly in the 70s

is not possible because we also did that entirely out of order we did we did yep um we recorded them out of order of this too absolutely legendary filmmakers

neither of them is maybe going to be Spielberg unless because I think close encounters is They're two legendary filmmakers from two very different eras. Well, sort of. You never sort of think about that as contemporaries. Would we include either of these movies as part of their legend, or is this like pre or post legend?

One of them is definitely post legend. One of them is one of this director's maybe eight to ten best movies, but like people are often, it's like, did you remember that this director, director, director, that movie. They've both directed, like, if you were to make a list of, like, the top 10 AFI movies ever, they would each have one, at least one on there.

It's not going to be Spielberg. No, it's not Spielberg. It's not going to be Coppola. It's Coppola? It's Copeland. 76, 86. what's that 86 movie

is it the 86 movie that's Coppola or is it 70s 86 is this the like Robert Duval movie no no no 86 movie got an acting nomination oh Peggy Sue got married Peggy Sue got married yeah okay so you're 76 I haven't seen that in so long

I know Sam your 76 movie somebody post I can't believe you wouldn't have seen this movie I'm sure I have Just given the filmmaker but also like the cast I've never seen this movie But like looking at the cast I really would like to It's definitely one of this person's

Later movies if not like Maybe their last And I guess it's the year after Nashville It is their last movie Oh wow, yeah Ooh, who could this be I love that this director has an upcoming projects. I don't think so, guys.

Because this director's dead. Oh, yeah. Has an upcoming project as in something that was just like shelved for forever? No, don't even think about it. I'm sure it's just a glitch on, or maybe it was a thing. Yeah, it was an abandoned project. That's funny. Where it was like filmed and just never. I don't even know if it was filmed. It's not like the day the clown cried.

No, no. We're talking about Jerry Lewis. No, okay. Okay, so AFI top 10 filmmaker probably, well, I can't remember exactly where the AIFI list landed. Is it like Billy Wilder? No, not Billy Wilder. Last movie was 1976. Is it like John Houston?

Nope, not John Houston, but like that's... John Ford. Nope, no, no, no, no. Right era, like, you know. Capra? Has a ton of movies. Famously, only one of them ever won Best Picture. Famously.

Oh, Hitchcock? Is it frenzy? It's not frenzy. It's the other one. It's family plot. I like family plot. That's what I figured. That's what I figured.

I figured you might remember her from family plot. It's her, Karen Black, Bruce Stern, William Devane. I guess I didn't remember that that's her. Yeah. I want to see this movie. Is it fun? Yes. Yes.

All right. So, okay, was I wrong to give you Barbara Harris? Was I mean to give you Barbara Harris? No, no, it's okay. I can sweat a little bit, you know, seem less cool. For you, not that I've ever seemed cool, but you know what I'm saying. You always seem cooler than me, so that's fine. Well, for you, I also chose a Freaky Friday mom.

Freaky Friday was also made for the Disney Channel in the 90s. Okay. or made for television starring one Shelley Long. No way. There is one television. What year did Shelly Long

play in Freaky Friday? That's like 80s? Oh, please. Or maybe early 90s? It was the 90s because her child is played by Gabby Hoffman. Oh, okay.

They do not scan as mother and daughter. I will tell you that. Shelly Long and Gabby Hoffman. It was 1995 between the Brady movies. Okay. So did you say how many television shows for Shelley? One. Cheers. Cheers.

Correct. Okay. So now we get into the surprisingly plentiful filmography of Shelley Long in the 80s. There are, I'm not going to guess that it's any of her, like, post-80s stuff, like, well, it could be the Brady Bunch movie, actually, not you mentioned it. But I'm going to first guess Troop Beverly Hills. Troop Beverly Hills is correct. Good. I'm going to guess.

Okay, so I'm going to, like, walk you through my process. So the other 80s movies that are, like, in my head are the money pit, irreconcilable differences, outrageous fortune. Outrageous Fortune, by the way, a big video store fave of this guy right here. A big grudge with Bet Midler. I saw yet another real show up in my timeline. Bat Midler on Oprah. Yes. Where she's like, yeah, no, I hate working with her.

Yes. And it's like, I have a hard time believing that Shelley Long is the assholes here. Well, I think there's probably both, because, like, I think both of them have had, like, historical, like, beefs with other people. But remember when, like, actresses used to just, like, go on talk shows and just say who they didn't like? Remember when, like, obviously, Betty Davis was long past the point of caring when she was just like, Faye Dunaway, awful person. Anyway, so we got Troop Beverly Hills, we've got Cheers. You have no wrong guesses yet. I'm going to guess the Brady Bunch movie.

Brady Bunch is incorrect. I do think that's a little wild. But it's an ensemble. Yeah. Those movies have been reclaimed. The Pretty Bunch movies are great. Okay. They're so good.

I'm going to guess the money pit. The money pit is correct. Okay. And then I'm going to guess irreconcilable differences. Irreconcilable differences is incorrect. Okay. Your year is 1987. I know that that helps you so much.

Is that outrageous fortune? No. No. Okay, 87, Shelly Long. Is it hello again? Hello again. A movie that exists only in my mind as a VHS cover. 100%.

Also, I confused that title with Dead Again once. And I went to, and I brought my dad the video to go check out of Dead Again. And he's like, are you sure? he's like, what is this movie? I'm like, oh, it's this thing with Shelly Long. And he was like, no, that's, that's, you're thinking of the wrong movie. Hello again, the log line is, A Suburban Housewife Chokes to Death and is brought back to life by a spell cast by her wacky sister.

I wonder who plays the wacky sister. That's-Judith Ivy. Perfect. Perfect. No notes. All right. You got to admit, that's kind of impressive that I was able to do as well as I did. You did a good job.

You did a good job. Thank you. That's our episode. If you want more ThisHad Oscar Buzz, you can check out our Tumblr at this hadoscopuzz.com. Also follow us on Instagram at This Had Oscar Buzz and on Patreon.com slash This Had Oscar Buzz. Joe, where can the listeners find more of you? I am on Letterboxed and Blue Sky at Joe Reed, read spelled R-E-I-D. I also have a Patreon exclusive podcast on the films of Demi Moore called Demi Myself and I that you can subscribe to at patreon.com slash Demi Pod. That is D-E-M-I-P-O-D. And you can find me on Letterbox and Blue Sky at Chris V-File. That's F-E-I-L. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork, Dave Gonzalez, and Gavin Mevious for their technical guidance, and Taylor Cole for our theme music.

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