This Had Oscar Buzz - 357 – The Deep End of the Ocean

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

Michelle Pfeiffer is a favorite to discuss on This Had Oscar Buzz and this week we’re throwing it back to one of her late 1990s melodramas. In The Deep End of the Ocean, Pfeiffer starts as a mother whose young child goes missing. After years of traumatic aftermath, the child reappears in her family’s life, forcing … Continue reading "357 – The Deep End of the Ocean"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. We want to talk to Marilyn Hack, Maryland Hacks and friends. Dick Poop He's probably just some kid who looks like Ben When he saw you, did he... Nothing. He had no idea.

But he was three, and he doesn't know this house. Oh, God, Ben. You folks ready for this? You don't get ready for this? The fingerprints match. Mandalay Entertainment presents. You don't have to ring the bell. This is your house.

Okay. Could I have some milk, please? You do milk with pizza? Yeah. I like milk with pizza. A story about starting over. That was a great freak. Me and my dad have been working on it all year.

He doesn't know who we are. He doesn't remember us. Sam's gonna be fine. He's gonna get through this. It's you. The struggles that make us stronger. And I'm sick of this whole thing! How's it going with Vincent and Sam?

It's just gonna take some time. I don't even know who you are, Ben. Sam, whatever the hell your name is? Hell, your name is? And the love that makes us family. Are you remembering something? He loves you. Have you never seen the way that he looks at you?

All I want is for us to be a family again. You're my brother. I missed you. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that's bursting into vegetation because we drank the thick, milky substance from the tree of life. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host,

Joe Reed. I'm here, as always, with my millionth little piece. Chris File, hello, Chris. I didn't want to be like my long-lost son or whatever, so I just figured I'd do an Oprah book club. You let go of my hand and told me to get lost. I figured we're never going to do an episode on the Million Little Pieces movie anyways. Oh, I might as well use it there. So you're calling me a lie? a liar. I'm one of your many lies. I'm saying that you are akin to a has-been movie star

who with a mental illness who snatches a child from a crowded lobby. That's the crowd. That's the most crowded lobby I've ever seen in my entire life. First of all, that hotel you think that they're throwing that event in a hotel lobby. Open up your ballroom, fucking knockoff Radisson or whatever. Like, Jesus Christ.

I know that check-in desk is. losing it because no one hangs out in a lobby unless they're like waiting to check in and there's something going very wrong. If I'm that family, I'm suing that hotel for having an untenably crowded lobby. Like, I'm finding a way. All of these people are deranged anyway because who goes to their high school reunion. No offense to any listeners who have gone to their high school reunions, but I would rather, like, swallow a knife than go to mine. So it was their 15th high school reunion, too, right? So they were in their early 30s. Does that track with Michelle Pfeiffer's? Yes, he would be 33. Right, but I mean, like,

Michelle Pfeiffer at that point was, God, she would have been very young. But then she has to age another decade, so she has to be theoretically 42. That's a good point. But so I'm trying to think of like where I was for my 15th high school reunion. So that would have been the reunion where I was still, I was definitely still living in New York. I probably, I don't even know if we, if we had a 15th high school reunion, it was like so low key. Now granted, I went to a very small Catholic high school um but your 50 your high school reunion is at church it's just a sunday mass we weren't that catholic i people imagine that we're that i'm like in like okay yes we had a dress code we had to wear like shirt and tie um but yes we had to um do signups for who was swaying the little

ashes thing every week yes we had to those were the altar boys was the ashes for ash Yes, we did Ash Wednesday. Yes, I did. Yes, the nuns did hit us in the face with rulers. We didn't have any nuns in high school. We had a couple nuns in elementary school. I did. Yes, three-fifths of our class were religious studies, but we weren't that Catholic. Not three-fifths, but one class every year, every semester was religion. I did become a Eucharistic minister for a short period of time. So, like, there was at least one. Not that Catholic. Not that Catholic, by the way, listener. At least one family wedding, I was handing out communion with my gay little fingers. If only people knew, if only those people knew, the gay little fingers.

Everybody you gave communion to is now gay. Yes, exactly. The body of Christ. The body, adi-oddy-oddy of Christ. The body-oddy-oddy-of- Christ, great. Wait, why hasn't that been a track race challenge? Well, considering it's going on. with paramount right now.

Fair. Fair. That house is paramount. I don't think you'll be seeing that anytime soon. Anyway, my point is, the 15th high school reunion is maybe the period of time where people are least likely to want to go to their high school reunion because, like, they haven't really, like, super succeeded yet. You know what I mean?

Like, your early 30s, you haven't really, like, established. Like, there's very few people. It's the people who just want to, like, get together with their buddies who are already kind of friends with, right? And just, like, go and, like, drink beer. But, like, that kind of thing would probably happen at a restaurant. You know what I mean? It wouldn't happen at this, like, big hotel. You probably wouldn't have that many people coming in from out of town.

You know what I mean? And it's just, again, whatever. The nitpicks for the deep end of the – This is not going to be the Cinemasins Deep End of the Ocean episode. I'm just saying that, like – That hotel lobby was so fucking crowded. For all the blame that gets thrown around in this movie, there is no person that's like,

you know, you didn't have to go to your 15th high school reunion. Treat Williams has a lot of judgment for Michelle Pfeiffer in this movie, but he never quite expresses it that way. Also, though, where's the judgment for Treat Williams for not being there with his wife and leaving her to take care of three kids, including an infant daughter? on a out-of-town trip, like, sir, like... Is the baby there?

I don't think the baby's there. The baby is there, because remember, Brenda Strong has the, like, nanny or whatever. Oh, it's, like, showing the baby around, like, everybody cares about their house. And then her nanny, like, goes off to, like, park in the car and, like, takes the baby with her. And it's just, like, what is the childcare situation in this? But, no, suppose we're talking about a pre-Facebook time where people might be more impressed by this, rather than having to see everybody's, like, ugly baby every day. my sister take care of her one singular child, I'm always just like, that looks so exhausting

to imagine her on a road trip with two additional children, one of whom is in like infant age in like a carrier, absolutely not. Absolutely not. You kind of just wouldn't go in those circumstances. You're not going to have. I don't care how close you are with Brenda Strong and Lucinda Jenny. You are not making that trip. I'm sorry. Across state lines. This is my 20th year high school reunion this year. Haven't heard a thing about that happening. They either know or everyone's like, we got it. It's not happening. Oh my gosh. I, my last reunion a couple years ago would have been 25. Did you go? I did. Because I had just moved back to town. And, you know, I have a fairly interesting job. You know what I mean? It's one of those

things where it's like, I have a fairly interesting job. I have, since I graduated, come out of the closet. Like, there was, there's, there's at least a few things where I can be like, this is my life now. You know what I mean? I'm not like, I'm not, I don't relish the opportunity, but I also don't, you know, I'm not in fear of it. And it also, sure. Sure. I've talked about before I went to an all-boys high school, but the all-girls high school was only a few blocks away. So that reunion kind of combined, those two classes, kind of a combined reunion. Sure. So that was also kind of fun.

And there's definitely, there were enough people that are like, oh, I'd be interested to see that person. I have no animosity towards my old high school classmates. I wasn't bullied in high school. So, like... Too tall. Um, no. Well, you're too tall to be bullied. I guess, but I was fat.

Like, fat kids are bullied, man. You know what I mean? It's like, I was bullied for being fat more than I was for like people being like, you know, who's this, you know, probably gay kid. You know what I mean? Like that I sort of, you know, I code switched my way around a lot of that to my great shame. Anyway. You do have an interesting job, but was that received as such by your reunion mates? Because like here locally, whenever I tell people about any of like this stuff or any of the like,

professional stuff that I do. It's very fast that people just glaze over. I mean, when I get into the particulars of it, yes, it's the same thing when I'm like at any family function. And they're like, how's the job? And I'm like, I love, particularly nowadays, now that I'm working at Vulture, I'm like, I love my job. This is my dream job. I'm so happy to be there. Yada, yada, yada. And then like the next level of conversation is sort of explaining what I do because they're like, oh, so do you like review movies? And it's like, not exactly no. but like, and then I sort of like end up in this like, all of a sudden I blink and I'm four minutes into this into the weeds conversation where I'm explaining like three and a half of it has been about how nobody's going to be reviewing movies. Sometimes they're trend pieces and like I cover the I cover the awards beat and so like and then immediately I can see the look on their faces of like why would anybody want to read about that?

And I'm like it's a fairly niche thing, but like a lot of people do. I was like it's niche but like within that niche it's very popular. And then I try to explain the games aspect of it, like the Fantasy League and the Cinematrix thing. And that's when I just really have to like, there's a, there's an alarm light in my head being like abort, abort, abort, like get out of this conversation. You are, there's no way you are going to be able to explain this thing to somebody that like will, you know, that they'll, that they'll get it. And also you sound so boring. Like you're making your very cool job sound increasingly. boring, like, the more you keep talking.

So normally, I'm at, my ideal is the sort of, and it's ironic, because I hate having conversations when I'm, like, getting my haircut, part of the reason, one of the fringe benefits of shaving all my head off was that I never have to try and make small talk with somebody cutting my hair ever again. Don't lie, shaving your head is SponCon for your other podcast. It's true. I should have done that for GIG, and that would have been a stunt. But, like, that level of conversation where it's like, we're.

Where do you work? Oh, I work for New York Magazine. I'm like, I don't have to go any deeper than that. That sounds impressive. So it's like, that's a perfect level. You know what I mean? See, I say that to anybody locally. And it's just like the word podcast, freelance, sometimes even movie. It's like the steel curtain comes down. Because I think in my experience, when I'm talking to like family or like, or, you know, like old high school friends or whatever, podcast. still sounds a little like, oh, podcasts are so popular right now. Like, do you know, it's not like, nobody's ever asked me this, but it's one of those things. It's like, do you know Amy Polar? Do you know, you know what I mean? Do you know, uh, any of these people, because everybody listens to a podcast of some extraction

or another, so, um, usually after like, I explain any of that, there is a hard pivot away to do you have kids or are you planning to have kids? Oh, why literally it happens? almost every time. And, yeah. The last time my cousins were in town, my cousins from Portland, one of them was like, oh, I, like, ran into somebody who, like, randomly listens to your podcast.

So if you are in Portland, then you have mentioned to a relative of mine that you listen to this had Oscar buzz. Shout out to you. But that was fun. They're like, oh, my God. What's up? Because they're like, oh, you're like a weird celebrity.

And I'm like, no, I'm not at all. But like, and then I, like, then you have to sort of explain the whole like parasycial, like relationship with podcasters to you because it's just like. Or people are just very nice and listen to our show and appreciate the show. Yeah, but if I like, like, that doesn't make you famous. No, but if I ran into somebody and found out that they were cousins with like the guy who does the, oh, fuck, if books could kill or whatever or, uh, you're wrong. about. You know what I mean? If I ran into somebody who was like that person's cousin, I'd been like, oh my God, I listen to their podcast all the time. That's so cool. You know what I mean? So it's like they're not a celebrity, but it's like there's a notoriety there. Strangers know

who you are. A familiarity. Sure. Well, we know how you feel about familiarity with people who don't know you. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Um, all this to say. Nothing good happens out of high school reason. Certainly. Except for- Certainly the deep end of the ocean. Dances set to time after time. That's the only good thing to ever happen at a high school room. Romeo and Michelle in 1997 opened the book on high school reunions. Kidnapped Michelle Pfeiffer's kid.

Romeo and Michelle opened the book on high school reunions, and the deep end of the ocean slammed it shut. They're like, no. So many things about the deep end of the ocean feel like it should be, it should not be a 1999 movie, but maybe like a 1989 movie. or like a 1999 movie because so much of this movie I think down to the score like thematic content the plot beats in this feel very tabloid culture it's tabloid culture it's TV movie and I like I hate to say that it's a pejorative as I've just finished writing this whole long thing about like the evolution of TV movies and particularly prestige TV movies But, like, this feels very movie of the week.

Like, you would have, like, had a much, much less of a star, you know what I mean? Like some sort of Sharon Gless, you know what I mean, starring in a story about a mother whose child was kidnapped and then, like, a decade later shows up again. Like, that feels like, and the irony is, is that. And also, I think things like, this isn't a moral. panic movie, but it is a panic movie. And it's one of those things we're in the 80s where people were like, be careful about Halloween candy, be careful, stranger danger, all this sort of stuff. Some crazy ladies going to snatch your kid.

And I think it like, I mean, people talk, people sort of talk so pejoratively about like helicopter parents, but like this shit is why, this shit is why because like, because you had a decade or more of like TV movies telling parents that if you turn your head for a second, somebody is going to snatch her child away. You know what I mean? And just like sensational journalism. Like, I, 10 minutes into this movie, I was like, well, she's going to end up on People Magazine.

And then they end up on the cover of People Magazine. You know, where it's just like they make, they made news stories out of things like this. Of these horror stories that are just like, you know, made a culture of families be like. Terrified. You know, terrified. Well, because certainly, sometimes, do you ever get that fit? where you are, you have that thought of like, does this happen more often nowadays or do we just hear about it more often? Because I imagine certainly these things were still, it's not like people

became, suddenly became depraved with the advent of like mass entertainment, right? There were always kidnappings and these things would happen, but they would be disseminated through like the grapevine around town. Like how we always hear about like razor blades and Halloween candy, but all of the Halloween candy-related deaths are like people poisoning their own children. Right. Well, and then these very rare stories would sort of, you would hear about them through the grapevine, but you wouldn't hear about them through, again, TV shows and movies and magazine cover stories and Oprah Show episodes and that kind of a thing where I think that kind of stuff makes it all feel so much more immediate watching the terror on

Michelle Pfeiffer's face watching her sort of go through this is so much more impactful than hearing like, did you hear two towns over that like, you know, this woman, you know, was in a hotel lobby and then her kid got snatched. And I think it's like, oh yeah, no wonder, again, we have that parents are far more paranoid and perhaps overattentive, you know, these days, because this is what they were raised on. So it's fascinating. I haven't read this book, but I could definitely see it, especially the way Oprah sold it as the launching of the very first book club book. I believe we will get into it. That there is an intent behind this to take this type of sensationalization that's going on in the culture, especially with like domestic issues

such as this. And the intent is to show how behind all of that is huge. human beings going through, like, true experiences that are not, you know, bottled easily into these, like, horror story journalism, you know, check out Lane magazine covers. You know, because, like, this is a, ultimately about a family grappling with the real-life emotional and psychological circumstances of the type of story you would see as a headline. Right. but then never actually think about the human experience behind it. And I also have not read the novel, but I'm about to say the most obnoxious sentence ever,

but I did read the Wikipedia entry on it last night. Jesus Christ. Okay. Tell us how the ending is different. Well, from what Wikipedia says, there's just a lot more ambiguity to the ending and a lot more loose ends to it and about how it doesn't sort of wrap up quite so neatly. A lot of the characters are sort of still left. grappling with how they are going to, you know, repair this.

I don't believe that the Sam character ends up moving back in with them by the end of the novel. And just in general, it feels like it lingers on a lot more messiness. And I want to sort of get into some of that on the other end of the plot description. But the other thing that I wanted to say that is interesting when I was talking about the sort of TV-moviness of this is the irony is that this probably would have been a TV movie with, you know, a much more, you know, lower caliber cast. You would not have gotten Michelle Pfeiffer, as I said.

Sharon Gless would have been probably Meredith Baxter-Bernie, Valerie Bertinelli. You know what I mean? No shade against any of those women. There's TV actresses, Joanna Kearns, TV actresses of the time. That was just their gig. That was their gig. Judith Light. We love Judith Light, but she was a TV actress at that time.

And, but the irony is because of the popularity of the Oprah show and Oprah's book club in particular, there was this thought of, oh, this could be like a legit moneymaker. Let's turn this into a real movie. And then the double irony is. In addition to a prestige play. And in addition to a prestige play, all of a sudden now, because of the popularity of Oprah's book club, this could end up being like a real thing for Columbia Pictures. And then the double irony is, it's a big old. flopperoony at the box office and ends up, you know, not doing anything for anybody, except for the Young Artist Awards, and we will get into the Young Artist Awards.

Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. But they go back and, you know, reshoot elements of the ending, having to push this from being a fall release into a spring release, which effectively kills the Oscar chances. And then end up not using the reshoot, the reshot ending anyway, from what I read. I think that there is conflicting reporting about what happened, but this is at least the reason for the delay, yes. And, you know, test audiences didn't like the ending as was originally presented. I imagine test audiences would have preferred something like this, which is, you know, a happier, more pat kind of an ending. Test audiences are famously averse to loose ends and quote-unquote unsatisfying endings.

It's almost as if test audiences have to give an immediate opinion on something and not actually sit with what they watch. So, like, why do we do this? Almost as if that's not how movies should be experienced. Yeah. Yeah, with a dial in your hand. Yeah, exactly. I honestly think there's a lot of really interesting angles to this. And especially, I mean, seven years into the sky.

damn podcast. We're still finding, like, we haven't really talked about Oprah's book club too much. We haven't talked at all about, I'm honestly very excited to talk about young actor awards because we've, that's an interesting, weird little niche of awards culture that we've never talked about. I feel like those don't exist anymore, right? Because those are probably creepy events. And you still get things like the Critics Choice Awards, which gives out, you know, A young, best young performer, Adelix, our cup of low, as blue is the war with color. We'll talk about it. We'll never get over it. Um, but so, and of course, we're always happy to talk about Michelle Pfeiffer. Michelle Pfeiffer, um, the fact that Michelle Pfeiffer has not been Oscar nominated since her, uh, 1992 nomination for Lovefield, never fails to. A bad nomination for a bad performance. Never fails to scandalize me. Um, and certainly, I'm going to, uh, certainly, I'm going to, have, as I warned you last night, there will be Joe's soap opera corner in this

episode because Jonathan Jackson was not only a star of General Hospital at the time, and Emmy winning, multiple Emmy winning star of General Hospital at the time, but also like a formative young crush of mine, like one, like a real, a real big, you know, 15-year-old Joe kind of a kind of thing. From, from soap operas? What? You having a crush on a soap opera star? I know, I know, unheard of, unheard of.

Anywho Honestly, kind of a lot To a lot of things to sort of dig into And I'm very excited to do that Before we do so though, Chris Why don't you give us a zip through the case For why people should sign up For this head Oscar buzz turbulent brilliance

Hey, we have a Patreon Did you know that? If you listen to our episodes, you certainly do You can go sign up to this head Oscar Buzz Turbulin Brilliance for only $5 a month We've have, I think we're, yes, we just hit episode 50, which we did not even comment on. We didn't. You know what?

Contact was exciting enough. Or no, wait, it wasn't contact. 50 was the EW episode, yeah. Yes, yes. So we have two full years of episodes you can go and enjoy for that $5 a month, just waiting for you. But what are you going to get on a regular schedule? Well, the first Friday of every month, you're going to get what we call an exceptions episode. These are movies that fit that this had Oscar

Pras rubric of great expectation and disappointing results, but managed to score an Oscar nomination or two. Joe mentioned we recently did contact. Coming this Friday, as of when this episode drops, we will be talking about Steven Spielberg's AI Artificial Intelligence. Spoiler alert, that movie is a masterpiece. We will be having an exception episode on a movie we like this month. What other exception episodes have we've done?

done movies we love like Mulholland Drive inside Lewin Davis, my best friend's wedding, movies we have more complicated feelings about like House of Gucci, Vanilla Sky, and we've done outright disasters like Madonna's WE and The Lovely Bones. There's a whole lot of episodes. We've got a few guest episodes in there. We might have a guest episode or two of those in the fall. Exceptions episodes. Listeners always wanted them before we launched the Patreon, and now they have them. The second episode you're going to get every month that's going to be on the third

Friday of the month. These are what we call excursions. They're deep dives into Oscar ephemero. We love to obsess about on the show, things like Entertainment Weekly Fall Movie Preview episodes. We recap old award shows such as Globes, MTV movie awards, indie spirit awards. We talked about other magazine throwbacks like when Jennifer Lopez talked a lot of shit about people in movie line. And we're finally, for the first time in

over a year, which I was surprised we haven't done one in a while, we'll be doing this month the 2015 Hollywood Reporter Actress Roundtable. We love to obsess about actress roundtables. and we'll be doing the biggest one ever this month with eight actresses. Oh, boy, yes. Is it eight or nine? Oh, I don't think they've ever done nine. Nine feels like a lot. They should do nine actresses from the movie nine.

Film critics in 2009. Nine feels like a lot. Anyway, go on over to patreon.com slash this had Oscar Buzz and sign up today. All right. Now, Chris, crack those knuckles, get ready. I'm going to very soon have you deliver a 60-second plot description for the deep end of the ocean. We, as we said, have plenty of plenty to discuss here. This is a film directed by Ulu Grozbard, who is a name, as a director's name, I was unfamiliar, but I looked up his filmography, and I was like, oh, lots of stuff I know about.

So that's interesting. Ulu Grosbar's final film. Written by Stephen Schiff, based on the Oprah-approved novel by Jacqueline Mischard, starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Treat Williams, Jonathan Jackson, Ryan Merriman, Alexa Penevega, John Capellos, Brenda Strong, Lucinda Jenny, and Whoopi Goldberg as Candy Bliss. That is not the on-screen credit, but it really should include As Candy Bliss, because why wouldn't you? This was, Columbia Pictures released this movie on March 12th, 1999, as Chris mentioned, delayed from an original planned fall, fall 1998 release. It did not do well. Of the four movies debuting that week, it finished fourth among them, sixth overall, behind the second week of Analyze this, the first week of the rage carry two, the second week of cruel intentions, the first week of the

Corruptor, which I meant to look up what the Corruptor was, because I remember that... Is it a Mel Gibson movie? Isn't that Chow Yun Fat and Mirisorvino? That is the replacement killers, right? The Corruptor is Chow Young Fat and Mark Wahlberg.

Okay, okay, yes. The Chow Yun Fat, pre-crowching Tiger, Hidden Dragon moment in Hollywood history has kind of been forgotten, but he was in like a of things. None of which I saw because I wasn't really an action movie guy, especially like, you know,

cops, you know, whatever. The replacement killers always seemed interesting, though. I should check that out. Anywho. Baby geniuses. Mirisorvino, who I recently messaged you that I am devastated. I will not get to see play Roxy Hard. I know.

I know. God, Chicago stunt casting still giving in 2025. That's kind of amazing. the first week of baby geniuses also etched out the deep end of the ocean so it debuted in sixth place was not good made 28 million globally off of a reported 38 million dollar budget which it usually does not include marketing costs so by the way have you seen the did you see the trailer that i sent you yes and they wonder why no one showed up because here's the thing about the subject of this movie even Oprah when like selling the book to her audiences is like no no no no don't worry mothers you won't be traumatized by this movie you can read it right it is the type of thing that and this is why you know the like checkout lane journalism works for this type of thing is that it's great at grabbing attention but nobody really wants to like sit and think about this type of thing but you know this is it's it's repellent to the audience that it's made for this movie movie, you know. Do you, when you go to the supermarket, are there still tabloids in the checkout lanes?

I don't think so. I feel like usually not. Sometimes I'll see them. Sometimes I'll still see the like soap opera weekly or whatever, soap opera digest, soap opera weeklies in the in the checkout lane. I want to be more cognizant of that because I do, I do wonder if like the term, you know, supermarket tabloid has now outlived the actual existence of supermarket tabloids. Yeah, we don't have like us weekly anymore.

We have Dumois. Listeners, if you, if you, if you have bought a tabloid on from the aisle at the supermarket in the last five years, let us know because I'm fascinated. We will not judge you. I am fascinated. If you have Impulse bought a People magazine because you were standing. in the checkout line and you were like, oh, I want to read about this. Please, I want to hear about this. I did impulse by a Vogue and an L for my last flight. I do still love a magazine on an

airplane. Airports are a whole other different thing, but yes, you're totally right. The other thing I thought of, I mentioned this term to you the other day, the idea of a bathroom reader, a bathroom book, which is the idea of that people used to have like the runaway jury. little book racks in the bathroom that would be, no, runaway jury is more of an airport reader. That's the kind of thing I'm thinking of. But like Grisham was like also bathroom reader. But I think specifically, I think the term bathroom reader refers to things like, like those smaller little books that would be like, you know, a hundred, you know, a hundred different, you know, onion headlines or whatever. You know what I mean?

Those sort of like, the things that you would just be like able to sort of like browse and peruse while you're sitting on the can. And it became this weird little like, like, I remember seeing like joke books, like a hundred, you know, you know jokes to tell or whatever. And you would just put them in a bathroom. And I don't know if I've, I think that's a term that has absolutely outlived the last person to put books in their bathroom. It's almost as if people realize that their phones. That like book is filthy days. Well, and also... It is like, it is a petri dish.

But also, people are just on their phone. You know what I mean? The smartphone has absolutely killed the bathroom reader. Anyway, Chris File, I'm going to pull out my smartphone that I used to browse the internet while I'm on the can. And I'm going to put 60 seconds on the clock. And if you are ready, the plot for the deep end of the ocean, a go. All right. We're following the Capodora family.

They have three small children. The wife Beth takes these children to her 15th high school reunion and in a busy lobby loses the middle child, three-year-old Ben. There is a large pursuit to find him, and there are no leads, even though Whoopi is their head detective. You would think Whoop is on the case. Whoopi does her best. She is a lesbian. 30 seconds. But nothing happens.

Flash forwarded a decade, the family moves to Chicago, and the husband, Pat, is opening a new restaurant. One day, a boy named Sam shows up at their doorstep to cut their lawn, and immediately Beth and Pat think, this is my child. There is an investigation that goes on. They find he has the same fingerprints, and it is her child. Meanwhile, there is a whole lot of family strife going on. Pat and Beth really struggled to get along and see eye to eye on basically anything.

The oldest child, Vincent, is very troublesome. He gets into a lot of crime. And the youngest, she's like a little girl with a spice girl's poster. Love that queen. But there is a lot of strife with Sam over, you know, this is a child who was raised by the woman who kidnapped him, which was Beth's classmate, and her husband who had no idea about any of this

because she married him after he was kidnapped. After the son was kidnapped anyway. Ultimately, Vincent goes to juvenile prison in Chicago, and this allows Sam and Vincent to reconnect, and once he is out of jail, the family agrees basically that Sam can go with his original father, but then Sam's like, no, I'm going to stay with you guys, just because, even though this is very traumatic for me, and he tells his brother that he tells his brother that. that he basically forgives him for losing him, the end. A full minute and five seconds over... For so little plot. For so little plot. Here's what I think is...

Well, you mentioned quite a lot that I want to get into. It's not the relationship dynamics, which I don't really even think I did that well. But, like, Vincent's a bad kid, and ultimately, in the last scene in the movie, we're like, oh, it's because he blames himself. He told his little brother to get lost, and then his little brother did get lost.

And that's fairly... obvious. Like, there's a lot of reasons for Vincent to be, you know, an angry, disaffected, you know, teen, beyond the fact that, like, teens are very often angry and disaffected. But, like, he was, you know, neglected by his parents after what happened happened. He had to, essentially, like, pick up a lot of the slack for his mother, who was sort of a walking, walking comatose. Space cadet. For so long. And also, he does have this guilt, even though we never saw him tell the kid to get lost. Like, he. he was supposed to be watching his brothers. Like, we could infer these things. There's a lot of stuff that you imagine could be sort of more satisfyingly conveyed within a novel. I think you, when you read about the novel, you see there was a lot more that was made about the fact that the, what is it, Castellano? The Capodoro? Yeah, the Capodoras.

The Capodoras are, obviously, this Italian-American family. We'll get into the fact that, like, Treat-Williams could not... And Michelle Pfeiffer married into it, at least. But, like, Treat-Williams could not seem, like, more or less of an Italian- A married Nordic household. As somebody who's, I was just at a wedding that was half, like, real authentic Italian. Like, this is, it does not, it does not scan. But also the fact that, like, the father who, you know, unwelcome.

wittingly raised Sam, the former Ben, was Greek. And so the kid grew up in these very sort of Greek-American traditions in the book, I think, deals a lot more and sort of uses that kind of culture clash and Sam's, you know, inability to move from this one, you know, sort of ethnic American tradition to the other as shorthand, or as a, you know, as a symbol of his difficulties in sort of moving from his old family to his, his old, new old family to his old new family, right? And, but I also feel like a skilled filmmaker could incorporate that more. We see that a very little bit in the movie where they do the traditional sort of like Greek circle dance at the one function. But that almost feels like it's, it's low, it's almost feels like local color and it feels

to feel good. It feels too pat. It does not communicate a struggle in that way. And I feel like. It doesn't communicate it like an identity, you know. Struggle. Sure. And I think a skilled filmmaker could make that work on a, because you wouldn't have to even

make it so textual. You know what I mean? you would be able to, and I'm not saying that Ulu Grosbard is not a skilled filmmaker, because we'll get into his filmography, but I feel like part of the reasons why the deep end of the ocean feels unsatisfying

is that there are ways in which this movie could have been deepened at kind of every turn, and it feels very surfacy and very committed to a kind of, you know, it feels like timid

almost, like it is afraid to go too hard into this traumatic like it's afraid of turning off the audience I think. It's too... It's so hyper aware that the audience that they are directly trying to appeal to is an audience that really doesn't want to deal with this story. Well, I'll give you a prime example. So we find out

after they discover Sam and find out that he's their kid and they go over to the house And this is where Michelle Pfeiffer sees on the wall a photo of her old classmate, the Cecil, she said, which is so, I always think Cecil is such a funny name for like a lady kidnapper. Lady? Well, but also like a lady kidnapper, Cecil. Why is Cecil on the wall? So this classmate of hers who was this like, you know, almost had a career as an actress and then was thwarted. And then we find out through exposition that this woman had a miscarrier, or the, you know,

had a child who died shortly before this reunion. Would have been Ben's age. Would have been Ben's age. Goes to the reunion, sees this, like, you know, half a minute opportunity to snatch this kid, does. Raises him. Nobody sees it happen. Raises him. Marries John Capellas, who has no idea.

John Capellas is maybe the best performance of the movie, by the way. Yes. Oh, yes. I think Fifer's very good. I think Jonathan Jackson's very good, but Capellas is really, really very good as well. And has, well, whatever, we'll get into it. But my point being that, like, we find out that this woman then several years later commits suicide. And so we, Sam says at one point, it's not my mom's fault, she was sick, and I shouldn't have to, you know, and I shouldn't have to, you know, pay for that or whatever he says.

The movie really goes to great lengths to show how untramatized by anything until this real alignment that Sam is. He's not, doesn't have any like real lingering trauma from the kidnapping, doesn't have any trauma from this being raised by an emotionally disturbed woman who eventually killed herself. Yeah, he has, he has, from all indications, he had this idyllic childhood because that fits that. the conflict that the story needs to have in the second half, which is, I can't believe we're taking this child from this home where he's happy in back into our incredibly traumatized home, which is, so like that's then the conflict that Pfeiffer and Treat Williams have to go through. But it's a wild leap to imagine that this kid's life was so idyllic given the circumstances. You know what I mean? And it's, and it's so convenient. It's way too convenient.

It's way too clean. I would argue that the way to make the, the like instant solution that allows so much of this movie to be better is to start from the point of the nine years later. You know, you don't see the kidnapping, you don't see any of that because the movie is so sluggish and drab and like tire spinning until you get to that point of the movie. I would maybe argue the last 20 minutes of this movie is pretty strong for what it is, but it takes a long. time to get there. Even with the shoehorned in happy ending at the very, very end, yes, I would agree with that. Right. I mean, like, it finally at least finds its pulse in that stretch of the movie, you know, it's so lifeless in the beginning. But I would argue that I imagine from, I think the hook of the movie marketing-wise is the, it could happen to you angle of you could turn

your back for a second and your child is gone. Like, that is the hook that I imagine they would not have been willing to get rid of. The interesting part is the child comes back. That's the like, that's the prestige. You know what I mean? But like, sure. And like all of the stuff of this family has not dealt with any of what happened to them, has not processed any of it. And it's left all of them pretty damaged. That's what the movie is about. And I think the movie doesn't really know what it's about in the section that's dealing with the actual kidnapping you know like in

and that stuff feels very limp and it's very standard set up the rest of the stuff very well it's very standard TV movie it's you know we've seen we can follow the beats of she blames herself she cuts herself off she snaps at family her friends can't reach her

her in-laws say the wrong thing and bring a Christmas present and lead to a blow up and stuff like this all of those things feel very, you know, standard, paint by numbers, like these kind of things. The stuff where it becomes, again, more interesting and more unpredictable is in that sort of final third that you mentioned, where all of a sudden, Pfeiffer has to approach her husband with the idea that, like, we need to give him back. And, and yes, like, the Cinemason's little bug in the back of my brain

is like, this should have been a shared custody agreement from the beginning, you know what I mean? It was, it was no, you know, you, the absolute wrong, you live two blocks away from each other. There should not be, this should not be that difficult. Let him continue to live where he's been living, but then, you know, he has dinner with you X number of times a week. You do. He's also six years away from adulthood, too. Like, at that point, he's going to be with whatever family. This is the thing.

So, like, you shine it on for six years. years of like living two blocks away from each other and like doing cookouts together as this weird little extended family. Is it ideal? No, but like, you know, what happened was the worst thing in the world to have happened. You know what I mean? Make me, make me a social worker in this fictional universe. And I would have this wrapped up in a second. Right. And I don't think that the movie knows how to make the beginning portion of the movie interesting. And like I said, I think it's like actively afraid of its own subject in that stretch of the movie. But I do think that there is interesting stuff that's played well at the end.

Like the dynamic of Beth and Pat just wants to like knock heads as soon as Vincent is in jail. But it's this kind of awakening to Beth that it's like all of this, all of his bad behavior, all of this is happening because of the trauma of losing his brother. and us not caring for him appropriately. It's also convenient that treat Williams and Jonathan Jackson have this really, really bad relationship when what we've seen up until then was that these two essentially had each other to lean on when Michelle Pfeiffer kind of checked out. You know what I mean? I would have, and not, again, psychology is a wild beast that can go in many different directions. And certainly it doesn't seem unrealistic that this team. would become sort of lashing out at everybody in the family. These things do not have to be rational.

But I also, maybe it's a little bit more interesting movie if when this kid's a teen, he hates slash distrusts his mother and, you know, sort of reflexively takes his dad's side. And then, you know, I don't know, there are more, there are family dynamics that could, that are left unexplored. We really see almost nothing about what this younger daughter, you know, where her sort of place in this is. She's listening to the Spice Girls in Hanson. Well, that's true. She's listening to Spice Girls in Hanson.

I just, it all feels too pat, too clean. And again, from what I read about the book, it's not like the book goes like radically more messy, but like the explanation of the book that I read mentions that the kid expresses suicidal thoughts to his mother at some point. And the Sam kit, the youngest. Girl, no shit.

And it's just like, this is traumatic for this child. And the movie really glides. He has that one weird moment in the cemetery where he says something about like there are worse things than being dead or something like that. And she sort of like gives him a look and that's all we get. And it's just like the movie really does, as you say, seem really afraid of these to explore these kind of darker corners. And the book, at least, from what I, you know, have been given to understand, seems less afraid of that, if not, like, completely, you know, radically different.

Well, and I think, like, if you cut off that first portion of the movie, which is, like, 45 minutes of the movie, you have more time to dig deeper into these relationships after the event. Yeah. You know, again, deeper feels like we're doing a pun, but, you know, rather. than it being as surfacy as it is. But then you also get the benefit of you don't have to show the audience the thing that you're so afraid of them, well, that you maybe smartly assess. They don't want to watch that. The other thing, and Ebert's review really went into this, is Ebert's contention, Ebert did not like this movie at all, gave it a star and a half. And Ebert tends to be, when I sort of explore, you know, these movies that are sort of like famously set aside.

Ebert is often more generous, but Ebert really did not care for this movie. And his thing was, in the second half of this movie, this should be about the John Capello's character. Like, that is the more interesting character. That's the person who is going through the most complex, you know, or the most sort of harrowing time. He really kind of, Ebert really resents the fact that that character is kind of brushed aside. And you do see his point, which is that, like, this person's entire world, comes crashing down around him. The scene that I think is so effective is when we find out that the kid has been sneaking out of the Michelle Pfeiffer's house at night and going to, you know,

sleep in his old house two blocks away. And John Capellos brings him over and they're trying to sort of discipline him. And this is when the kid is like, you know, I hate all of you and sort of runs to his room. And Capellos says, you know, we've got to do something about this. This is a kid who's never been sad for more than a day in his life. And now he's sad all the time. And I imagine that's terrifying for somebody who essentially raised this kid every day to not only have to let go, but send to see that now you are seeing him turn into this, you know, sad sort of devastated kid.

Like, it's, that's heart-rending, and the movie just kind of, like, brushes that aside. Like, literally brushes that aside. That maybe is the last time we see that character in the movie. I don't think we see him after that. I think it might be the last time he speaks, but I do think we at least, like, see him. And people talk about him, too, like, at the very final scene, he's like, yeah, my dad helped me bring this cinderblock suitcase over. Yes. The casting of Ryan Merriman, you do really have to, like, applaud that, you know,

know, casting supervisor or whatever, because that is absolutely a child that looks like could be the sire of... The midpoint of Treat Williams and Michelle Pfeiffer. Yes. It's... I do think Fyfer, I mean, I very rarely think Fyfer is bad, certainly in this era of her career. Her career, we'll double back to Oprah in a second, but I want to just sort of like linger

on. So I mentioned, Fyfer has not been nominated since the Lovefield nomination, and she goes on a run of movies through the 90s where she rarely makes an unimportant movie. And when I say important, I just mean that has some kind of an impact. We've covered to Jillian on her 37th birthday, which I believe is probably the most inessential movie she makes in the 1990s. But after Lovefield, she makes The Age of Innocence with Scorsese. I think certainly her performance gets overshadowed by Winona Ryder, who gets the Oscar nomination. But, like, Pfeiffer is Golden Globe nominated. I think that movie, we both, I mean, we've talked about this on other podcasts, too.

We both agree that that movie is tremendously underrated within the Scorsese, you know, filmography. I think people... I think that's the performance of her career, too. She's really, really wonderful in that movie. Wolf in 1994, which is, it's not good, it's not bad, it's just Wolf. It's, you know, it's... What if there was a wolf? It's own thing.

Mike Nichols, Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, everybody's freaking it in Wolf. And... Have you ever seen a movie fueled entirely by cocaine? Dangerous Minds in 1995, which I've certainly talked enough about. I've seen that movie 100 times. It was on television. Hearing reports that there are no... victims in this classroom.

Which, again, problematic as all get out, and people sort of try to misremember the fact that, like, everybody thought it was fine then. No, people pointed that out as problematic back then, too. Like, the white saviness of that movie was too big to ignore in that movie. And yet, I still think she's good in that very problematic movie. I enjoy that very problematic movie. Up close and personal, 1996, which, if you've ever read the book that Joan Didion and and John Gregory Dunn wrote about it.

I believe it's John Gregory Dunn wrote it. Yes. Wrote the book. That book is awesome. It's called Monster. It's called Monster. It's about just their struggles in trying to sort of write a movie for a studio. And in the 1990s, and you see the interference and the compromises and all the sort of stuff.

It's kind of amazing. I believe John Gregory Dunn and Joan Didion also wrote the screenplay for an Ulu Gross Bard movie. And give me a second because I thought it was very interesting that it was, hold on. I don't think it was falling in love. No, that was a Michael Christopher script. Is it true confessions? It is true confessions. Fesians, starring Robert De Niro was a priest and Robert Duval as his brother.

And, yes, so anyway, kind of fascinating little. Anyway, so Michelle Pfeiffer makes up close and personal in 1996. Again, a movie that went through a lot of iterations ends up being, I believe it was a hit, and also certainly the Celine Dion song, Oscar-nominated Celine Dion Diane Warren's song, is a hit. but not what it could have been for Fyfer. We've done an episode on To Gillian. That's probably the least visible. One Fine Day, which I think is a perfectly good romantic comedy, perfectly good 90s romantic comedy.

Do you like One Fine Day? Do you remember much more? I need to see it again as an adult to be able to say. You know she won a Blockbuster Award for it. So you know it's good. It's Fifee and Clooney. I think Fifee and Clooney have great chemistry together. she's the voice of

I'm going to say someone in the Prince of Egypt we've done an episode on A Thousand Acres which was a much hyped disaster for kind of everybody involved even though Lang gets the Golden Globe nomination critics as we mentioned in our episode on it were super mean to it

really really hated this movie about three ladies you know what I mean? It was the animosity was a little bit outsized, I'm just going to say. And then 1999, she's got three movies of, I'm going to say, none of them hit. It is a movie of the year where you could look at it and be like, what a disaster year for Fyfer.

Because the deep end of the ocean is a financial flop. The story of us, the Rob Reiner movie she makes, where it's her and Bruce Willis, is a flop. I don't remember what the reaction to a midsummer night's dream was, other than the fact that, like, it kind of fizzles and goes nowhere. But, like, did people think that was a bad movie? We should do an episode on that. We've talked about doing an episode on that for a while.

It's kind of entirely forgotten, even though it is so star-studded. Tucci's in it. Kevin Klein's in it. Callisto Flockhart's in it. We should look into that at some point. If you've been a guest on this podcast and have an affinity for a Midsummer Night's Dream, hit us up. We'll talk about doing our Midsummer Night's Dream. But, so what do you make of that run of movies for Fyfer?

Well, after that, I have to say, thank God, there's what lies beneath, which is a great movie, right after that. And White O'Leander a few years after that, which also we've done an episode on. Which she's great in. It is an interesting run. You can kind of see why. I mean, Fyfer's always been not, you know, doesn't play the game of, like interviewing and schmoozing, she does not like to that part of her job. And yet she will reliably show up, she will reliably show up to an award show, even if it's

just David E. Kelly getting nominated for things. Like, she was, she was a good award show partner for David E. Kelly. Honestly, Michelle Pfeiffer should, when they do all those reunion, like, presentations for Best Picture or whatever, they need to find one for Fyfer. What would your Fyfer selection be to like Daniel D. Lewis and Manona Ryder? Yeah, but it's easy. But also you could do

Her and Clooney. You could do her and Her Tevito and Keaton would be really cool. Oh, girl. Like, yes. My goodness. I think people would enjoy that. But I don't know if she really wants to do it. Does she talk much about playing cat? No, she posts

about being Catwoman. Yeah. Her George Zunza and Courtney B. Vance to do Dangerous Minds reunion we've all been waiting for. Her and Coolio, presenting Bestor Richelso. Coolio has passed, right? Wait, has he? Oh, I might have missed that.

Have I, did I kill Coolio? Hold on. Yeah. Joe Reed, killed Coalio. No, Coalio died in 2022. Oh. Sad. So, no, in fact, we cannot get

that's a bummer that's sad um anywho sorry one second oh god he died of a fentanyl overdose oh no maybe we should cut this we might um god we're cutting a lot out of this okay that's a bummer town that is bummer town okay anyway back to so yes um who would the the deep end of the so michel fifer treat williams and Whoopi Goldberg. And people are like, why these three? Like, don't announce them as the stars of the TV. Just be like, now to present Best Cinematography, Michelle Pfeiffer, Treat Williams, and Whoopi Goldberg.

And the two of us are like, what? And then everybody else is like, I don't understand what this is. Well, Treat Williams has passed. Fuck. We keep doing this. God damn it. All right. It's just Michelle and Whoopi.

It's just Michelle and Whoopi. What a great pair. You know what? Michelle Pfeiffer and Whoopi Goldberg. Put them in another movie. Make that, have them present best picture just because. Just fucking because. Michelle Pfeiffer and Whoopi Goldberg, make it happen.

All right. Yeah. So I think she's quite good in this movie, despite the fact that it's not the most, that is, there's a more interesting version of this movie that exists somewhere. Yeah. And I think if the movie's more interesting, it allows her to performance to be more interesting. She certainly is up to the challenge that this movie offers her and would have been up to the challenge of an even more interesting movie. Do you notice, by the way, that the way the sunlight is hitting my face, that I have like a half a joker mustache, or a half a joker smile?

Isn't that weird? Isn't that weird? Why so serious? Anyway. So, I think she's quite good. I think Treat Williams is unfortunately unable to surmount how many problems there are with that character. Do you disagree? Well, I think On one level, they're very smart to cast him as an actor. He's incredibly likable, and I don't think that this character is very likable at all. To the point where if you have maybe a less likable actor, it just creates problems for the movie because you're like, why doesn't she just leave this guy? His anger, though, ought to be understandable.

Do you know what I mean? His anger by the end of this movie ought to at least be understandable. because of everything that he's gone through. And I don't think it is. And I don't necessarily think that's treat Williams's fault. I think the movie has not sort of buttressed that angle for him. But like a better movie makes you understand why he's so angry. And instead we get him doing, you know, saying things like, you know what your problem is.

you're addicted to the misery or something like that. You always choose to be miserable when, first of all, we don't see any evidence of that. It seems like, that seems like of any of the critiques you could make of her character in this movie, that seems to be one that is entirely off base. Yeah, very erroneous. So he seems just like, so he just seems like an asshole when, like, there are, you know, this thing got dropped on his head, you know what I mean?

it's even understandable for him to hold some kind of animus towards her for quote unquote losing their child. It's not rational, but it's understandable that a character in his position would have that irrational reaction through grief or whatever. But I think to come out at the end of it and be like, you can't let go of the misery of this is so off base that you're just like, fuck. off. That is not a fact's not an evidence friend. You know what I mean? Just like, um, well, and that he's also really never at any point being an emotional parent in the way of he is never thinking about what his child is going through in all of this, what any of his children are going through and all of this, what it must feel like to be them. So he's not even like being a good dad. That's why I feel Like, if you see, if he had a closer relationship with Vincent, you'd maybe understand that a little bit more.

Maybe that. But, like, he's the one character where I think I'm pissed at him in a way that, like, in a better movie, I would, I would understand that character more. Whereas, like, Vincent is also behaving like a real fucking piss pot, to quote my parents. You know what I mean? Like, that's a, that's a term that my dad was fond of. You're behaving like a piss pot. but you understand it, you know what I mean? You at least understand what that character has been through.

The movie has shown you plenty of stuff within his childhood about, like, you know, why that kid would have grown up to be this, you know, angry and messed up. And even the movie then sort of like, he's not on hard drugs. You know what I mean? He hasn't done, he does these really sort of like softcore crimes. He goes to the one juvenile facility, apparently in the city of Chicago. They aren't in- They say it's Cook County. They're only incarcerated pretty white teens in Cook County, apparently,

in the version of the deep end of the ocean. Also, I don't know Chicago this well. Are the suburbs still Cook County? I don't know. I don't know Chicago that well enough either. But I just, it's, it couldn't, it's this, it's the most lily white juvenile prison you've ever seen in your entire life. And it's just like, this doesn't seem realistic to the way that, like,

the system works. Well, because the movie is at every turn. trying to present the circumstances, but they also want to present them as not as bad as... Nothing too bad. The, like, worst version in an audience member's mind or something, you know, because they're so afraid of the audience. So that character is just behaving like a little teen jerk, but it's like you get it. Whereas, like, treat Williams, I feel like it's, I don't know. I find there to be a...

There's a difference there to me. I think Pfeiffer and I think the Vincent character are the two that the movie takes the most care to present their emotional, you know, state and their emotional, what got them to where they are emotionally, if that makes sense. Yes. And I think that's why those are the two, you know, most impressive performances in the movie, with the exception, John Capellas, who's also quite good. But a moment to talk about Whoopie and her character in this movie. The ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, Candy Bliss. Candy Bliss is such a great drag name. I can't, I imagine there are drag queens out there who are named Candy Bliss.

If you are a drag queen, she says I'm not a stripper or I'm not a pole dancer or something in the movie. Does she say stripper? It's, it's, those were the jokes that you, that's the joke you would make in 1999, but like, it is 100% of drag queen name. Anyway, you mentioned that she is a lesbian. Both Stephanie Zaharan, not Stephanie Zaharich, Lisa Schwarzbaum and Roger Ebert took particular objection to the moment in the movie where she announces that she is a lesbian because they were both, they both thought it was gratuitous and both thought it was, there's no storyline reason for her to say that. And I'm like, that's an interesting way to sort of object on sort of white night crown. but I wonder if maybe that comes around in 2025 to seeming a little bit backwards. Like, why does there need to be a storyline reason for her to be a lesbian?

You know what I mean? It's not, I mean, like, I can understand the, like, blunt, having an issue with the blunt nature of how she's just, like, info dumping on Michelle Pfeiffer at a maybe inappropriate moment. But that scene is probably of that portion of the movie, the best scene. It's, like, just two human beings talking to each other. I just think it's interesting, like, in 1999, they're like, well, it's virtue signaling to just have her be a lesbian. You have to, like, you have to have a good reason to have a lesbian in a movie. And it's like, you really don't, you really don't need to have a good reason to make a tertiary character a lesbian.

She can just be a lesbian. It's fine. We don't need to find out that she has, like, you know, a hard time at work about it or whatever. Although she does mention the fact that, like, you know, she's a black woman lesbian. And so she has to be. Detective. So she has to be perfect. basically. She has a drawer for a gummy bears, which does make her perfect. So she's not wrong about that. She's an interesting character that you can, again, imagine in a novel, you would just get more of her. She would be like a more constant presence. She would be there for Fyfer's character a lot. She and this sort of like shows up whenever Fyfer needs a little bit of emotional support or an update on the case. And because it's whoopey Academy Award winner,

giant movie star. You sort of want there to be more of her. It's interesting that this is the same year that she's in Girl Interrupted, where she plays a really kind of similar character, except in that she's a nurse. But she's, you know, an administrator at this, you know,

mental health facility that Winona Ryder is in. And she is emotional support. And she's everyone's, you know, she's the tough love. for Winona's character in that movie. And narratively functions as a sounding board for the, you know, protagonist to explain how they're feeling to the audience. Right. It is a, it is a trope.

It is a, it is a trope that sort of boxed in a lot of black performers back in, you know, especially in this era, but I imagine continues to happen. And this idea of, you have a white character who leans on, you know, this rock of a, of a, you know, of a character who is, you know, in many ways, the, you know, does not have a story of their own, but are there to support the white character. And so you get these roles played by Whoopi Goldberg. There's a Viola Davis. I want to say it's, is it, EPR-Love? Yes. Okay.

again, yes. So yes, it's a trope, but I'm never mad to see Whoopie Goldberg on screen. Whenever she shows up in this movie, I'm like, I'm happy. I'm happy Candy Bliss is here. What an insane name, though. Jacqueline matured, what were you thinking? They send Candy Bliss into a time machine into the future, and she has a new partner on the force, and who is that partner? officer Theodore Rex. I just want to believe that Whoopi is also playing Candy Bliss and Theodore Ricks. See, I go the other way is you send her into a time machine and all of a sudden she's in swinging London in the 60s and her partner is won Austin Powers. Like, I feel like that's the other way you could go with this, right? It's her, it's Felicity Shagwell.

Should we shag now or should we shag later? Austin, I'm a lesbian. So should we shag now or shag later is probably how Austin. Austin never really had to face a lesbian, did he? I don't think so. But imagine... It would not go well for all. Austin would embarrass himself.

Imagine the spinoff that is Felicity Shagwell, Foxy Cleopatra, and Candy Bliss solving international crime in... There's your Charlie's Angels movie. There's the Charlie's Angels movie that really... Not that the Charlie's Angels movies didn't work, but anyway. Where were we? Oprah! Let's go back to Oprah! Speaking of Austin Powers, my name...

What's the... What's the name that he gives, the fake name? He goes, My name is Ritchie Cunningham, and this is my wife, Oprah. Oprah's Book Club kicks off in 1996. And if you've never heard of Oprah's Book Club, which, first of all, may I introduce you to a woman named Oprah Winfrey? She was the biggest TV star in the world by 1996.

She is, you know, she's a... everywhere. She has legions and legions of fans. The funniest thing about the clip, I watched the clip where Oprah introduces the book club in 1996. And obviously, her audience was, you know, incredibly diverse. But in this particular episode, the shot that they showed of the audience was a whole lot of white ladies in mid-90s fashions. And it was, I'm not even going to, you know what, mid-90s fashions is too cutting edge for this. This was a very mom-coded

audience, right? So it's white ladies in probably late 80s fashions. Sponsored by Chicos. Queens all. Much respect, but sponsored by Chikos. We love them all. So anyway, Oprah's, this is a very

Oprah idea in that like Oprah enjoyed, I think, I think doing these very kind of like normie coded things, but in a way where she could harness her reach and her giant audience to sort of do these things on a large scale that became very impressive. And Oprah's Book Club, I think, is a prime example of that

where she just decided, I like the idea of reading a book that I'm really interested in. I mean, the thing about Oprah is, the fantasy of Oprah is, What if you had enough money to just do the things that pleased you? You know what I mean? What if you had enough money to just read for pleasure and, you know what I mean? And have the, you know, the time and the luxury.

What if you had enough money to shop at, you know, crate and barrel to your heart's content? You know what I mean? To sort of just like to get gadgets for all of your friends for Christmas. You know what I mean? That's the Oprah fantasy. So the book club is we're. going to read this book that I find very interesting, and then in a month, we're going to reconvene here at the Oprah show, and I'm going to, like, do a segment with, you know, a dinner,

and we're going to invite the author because I'm famous. And the thing that I love about this clip is she's like, one of the things I like to do when I read a book that I really like is all just call up the author and leave, you know, and be like, hi, this is Oprah Winfrey. I really loved your book. And I'm like, you know what? If I was as famous as Oprah, I would do the exact same thing. If I was Oprah, any time I liked something, I would call them up and I'd be like, hey, this is Oprah. Pause for reaction.

And then just be like, I just saw this thing that I really liked. I just read this thing that I really liked. I hope you have a really good day. You know what I mean? Just like, boom. That would be my whole day. And so, she starts this book club. The deep end of the ocean is the very first book that she chooses. And

you know, as it happened, And she's like, we're going to all read this book and we're going to come back in a month and we're going to talk about it. And the one thing that she was totally on target with was people are reading less in the culture. This is the thing that is sort of like people are reading is not in fashion right now. And God bless her, Oprah made reading, if not cool, because like Oprah was never cool. The Oprah show was never cool, but it was deeply popular. and lucrative for, you know, a certain segment of the audience. And so immediately this thing became so popular.

So many people went out and bought this book and borrowed it from their local library. I know because, as I've mentioned, I worked at a public library when I was in high school. And this was during the advent of the Oprah Book Club. So, like, I clicked on the link to the chronological list of Oprah's Book Club movies, and these first, like, 12 ones, like the ones through 1998, I, like, all of these ones have this sense memory of, like, oh, God, I remember having to, like, check out. Deep End of the Ocean, Tony Morrison's Song of Solomon, the Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton, she's come undone by Wally Lamb.

She's come undone by Wally Lamb had, like, a reserve list a mile long for people. waiting for that book in the library. The Rapture of Canaan, Songs in Ordinary Time, A Lesson Before Dying, Ellen Foster. All of these books, I didn't read a one of them. You know what I mean? But, like, they were flying off of the shelves. People were reserving these things months in advance. The new Oprah book, when we got copies of the new Oprah book, it was like the new Backstreet Boys album hit the record store. You know what I mean? It was like that level of like moms just being like we had a new Oprah book um do we know if Oprah even received a cut of these book sales because I don't think she did she just boosted boosted the popularity at a time

when you know reading was losing its popularity and it's not like she's just picking like book of the week new releases you know she's picking Tony Morrison books she's picking William Faulkner books right she's picking you know uh Gabriel Garcia Mark kez books like books that already existed toll story those things the falkners the toll stories whatever that came several years later for initially i think the the song of solomon being um an exception the song of solomon was from 1997 but in general that first maybe like that first several years were also we're all um new books and books that she kind of discovers and i think that was part of the appeal to it for her was, is I can, I can surface, again, no pun intended

with a deep end. I can surface these books and I can sort of, you know, give these books an audience that they wouldn't normally have. And I think one of the things that led her to kind of having to change the format at some point, what had been, you know, that she'd been do, she would do this every month. Like, 1997, there's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Well, three of those ten. Um, so it's essentially, because three of those ten were Bill Cosby books. Um, but she's essentially doing on a clip of like eight to ten books a year. So like almost more than, you know, almost every month. And she eventually had to slow down that pace and then move also into doing, classics, partly because she's like, I can't, I don't have the time to like do the research for this. I don't have the time to like read through as many new books so I can, so I find that I'm really like, you know, doing the thing that I, that my purpose for this was, which is I, you know, there's this book I can't get out of my head. I want to share it with my audience, which I genuinely,

for all the stuff that you can be cynical about Oprah with, I do feel like I've always found that to be a genuine thing of a lot of. of the Oprah show was Oprah wanting to inform her audience about these things that were, you know, she was enthusiastic about, that she was genuinely enthusiastic about. For as much as you, like, it's very easy to be cynical about Oprah's favorite things. But I do think at the very least, the inspiration for that was Oprah being like, I love this fucking kitchen gadget. I want to tell my audience about it. And rather than brag to my audience about this thing that I have that they can't get, I'm going to give them, everybody in my audience, one of these.

So it's like, there's a push pull. I wrote down a thing that I immediately was like, well, that's not right. But I did write down, is Oprah's Book Club the only positive legacy of her empire? Now, that's obviously not true. There are other good legacies for her empire. And it ultimately becomes something that gets shit on, even by people who are selected, like Jonathan Franzen. Now, Jonathan Franzen is a known and noted blowhard, even though I like, quite a number of books.

He was a dick about it. He was a dick about it. Are two giant celestial beings that are bound to clash. Like, they do not, like, there was not a world in which those two, you know, were going to mesh super well, you know what I mean? Right, right. There was also, obviously, the controversy with a million little pieces where she, um, she platforms, oh, what the fuck was that?

James Frey. James Frey and ends up, he ends up having, because it was. It was a memoir about his dealing with drug addiction, and then so much of that is proved to be untrue. And I think that kind of burned Oprah much in the way that, like, the beef lawsuit did where she felt burned in a way where she's like, well, this isn't worth it. You know what I mean? What is this? Why am I platforming, you know, risking, you know, risking my reputation for some of this stuff? why don't I just, like, talk about Faulkner and Tony Morrison and Gabrielle Garcia-Marquez and these, you know, the established authors.

Although she does, even in the final years of the Oprah Book Club, because the thing, it has gone on into newer iterations after, but, like, for all intents and purposes, the classic Oprah Book Club ended when the Oprah Show ended in 2011. But even in those later years, she had Cormick McCarthy on and had the rare Cormick McCarthy interview for The Road, and The Road became this huge bestseller, which I find to be deeply funny. That, again, I've never read The Road, but having seen the movie, I'm just imagining all of these, like, Oprah moms reading the desolation of the road. Jeffrey Eugenity's Middle Sex, though, was another movie. I mean, everybody read that damn book. but like middle sex is a really like imagine like my mom was never did not like read the Oprah books but like you know is in that demo and I'm just like wow like that mom demo reading middle sex that's really interesting you know what I mean like that's that's open your eyes to you know lots of other things moms and that's very cool and then when you get to these books being adapted into films in this era, it lends an immediate sense of prestige to it in the way that some of the noted like book awards do or, you know, I wouldn't say it's the same thing as like a Pulitzer or a Tony,

but it's this pre-built-in prestige of a sort that brings more attention and expectation onto movies like this. Can I tell you a thing I learned yesterday? Sure. That the reader was... Is the only Oprah book adaptation to win an Oscar? Well, that the reader was an Oprah book to begin with. I never knew. Oh, you didn't know.

I never knew that the reader was an Oprah book. But, yeah, so I made a list of the sort of the most prestigious. There are several Oprah books that were made into TV movies, but like I noted only the ones that were made into HBO movies because those are more prestigious. Well, and they probably didn't talk about it much during the movie promo of the reader because by that point, I believe the James Frey thing had happened. Oh, you didn't want to have that. The end of the prestige for that. So 1997, HBO does a TV movie of A Lesson Before Dying that, I believe, wins the Emmy for Outstanding TV movie. I know this much is true, which did not become a HBO miniseries until 2020, but that was another Wally Lamb novel after she's come undone.

She's come undone. Incredible limited series. She's come undone is the rare Oprah book club novel that I did read. it's very tough. It's about an overweight woman, and it's a lot of humiliations, sort of... And sexual abuse, right? Yes, it's tough. Yeah.

It's very tough. Where The Heart is turned into a feature film in 2000, starring Natalie Portman. The Reader, as I mentioned, Best Picture nominee in 2008. White Oleander, another Pfeiffer movie, was turned into a feature film in 2002. A Map of the World was a feature film in the same year as The Deep End of the Ocean, 1999, starring Sigourney Weaver and Julianne Moore. House of Sand and Fog, another Oscar nominee in the acting categories was a Oprah book. Obviously, nobody remembers it, but a million little pieces was turned into a film starring Aaron Taylor Johnson that hit the Toronto Film Festival. And then, I believe, like two years later, made it into some sort of.

sort of distribution in the United States. And then, obviously, I mentioned The Road, which was turned into a film. Wait, who directed The Road? Hillcoat, John Hillcote. Fiego Mortensen, starring in The Road. So, yeah, and again, a bunch of other of those books were turned into TV movies. Also, some of the sort of more classic books had previously been turned into movies. But these are the ones that, like, I feel like,

had the Oprah's Book Club to the movie theater sort of pipeline. And none of them became big box office hits. I feel like I don't remember how well where the heart is did. But like in general, these were all very sort of like muted. A lot of them very indie. Obviously, a map of the world is an indie movie. White oleander was a wide release that I think just did not do as well as, I think it may be deserved. I think that's a better movie than...

Reviews that were... I remember from our episode, reviews were harsher than that movie. Deserved. I agree with that. Though it's not a perfect movie, but... Which then sort of gives the Oprah, you know, calling a movie, you know, an Oprah's Book Club type of movie is not a compliment in 2025. You know what I mean? There is... It brings up this idea of this kind of middlebrow... kind of movie, obviously, any movie that is specifically marketed towards women is going to be seen as a pejorative.

And it makes me reflexively want to defend these, even though they're not all my favorite. Obviously, like, I'm no fan of the reader, but like, white oleander is a very good movie, a map of the world is a very good movie. House of Sand and Fog has its problems, but I think in general is a good movie. Um, for what it is, I think where the heart is is fine. You know what I mean? Um, and it's also just like the, the, I, I can understand why maybe somebody would, uh, exclude, you know, preexisting masterpieces from the Oprah book club. But also, it's just like Oprah did choose some really great books and draw people's attention to it. And like, Drew, people's attention to, like, difficult material and brought it to an audience that otherwise maybe wouldn't have touched it. I can't remember who said this, but there was a stand-up comedian who would pop up in my Insta stories for a while, and she's incredibly funny. She had that

really good joke about, like, she's like, I still fuck with Lizzo. Like, you know, how dare you white women abandon her? She was your spirit animal for five fucking years, and now you abandon her. She's like, no wonder, she's like, she's like, people want fat women to be jolly. We're not jolly. We're fucking bitches. Like, that can think. Anyway, she had another, I believe it was her who had the joke about like, Oprah's the only reason white women read. She's like, we're not ready to have that conversation.

But like, Oprah's the only reason white women read. But it was, you know, it's, it was a phenomenon. And I think it got turned into a, people tend to sort of look back at that as a fad. And I'm not quite sure I would dismiss it quite like that. You know what I mean? It was a moment. It was a moment in time. Listen, if people were still reading at the clip that they were reading Oprah books in the late 1990s, we'd probably, we'd be no worse off than we are now.

You know what I mean? Certainly. Couldn't hurt. So I have a very complicated relationship with Oprah's legacy. You know, I think you look at the world and you see the Dr. Phil's and the Dr. Roses and these, there's, there's, you know, it's a complicated thing. But I think the Oprah Book Club for, you know, as much as you can pick it apart in certain things, and obviously it had its moments with your James Fries and whatever, I think in general was a net positive

for the culture. Absolutely. I agree. Can we talk about Ulu Grosbard for a second? Did you, were you familiar with this director before we did this episode? Yes, because I have seen a number of these movies. I've seen at least two of them. I mean, of the ones I've seen, Deep End of the Ocean is definitely the weakest. I would say the best is Georgia. Georgia is secretly great movie.

You know, got one Oscar. Yeah, and it's... Oscar nominee Mayor Winningham. Should have been Oscar nominee, Jennifer Jason Lee, even though we've talked at length before about what a strong year for Best Actress, 1995 was. It's further off the beaten path than what we normally do for exceptions. For exceptions, but it's a movie I like enough that it would be interesting to talk about as an exception movie.

Lulu Grossbard. I wouldn't really relish talking about Jennifer Jason Lee right now. Why? Has she said things? Yeah, she's adding her name to list. Certain lists. Okay. Yeah.

Not great, fam. She's going a little wild online. Actors are eccentric, yeah. And it's, because it's Jennifer Jason Lee, it's like, well, that's a fucking, man, man. So Ulu Grosbard, for people who don't know, was a Belgian expatriate director. He worked in theater a lot in the early days, had a professional relationship with Dustin Hoffman that led to a couple of different movies, including who is Harry Kellerman and White. is he saying those terrible things about me, a movie that both exists as a title and also as an Oscar nomination for Barbara Harris.

So I will always notice it when it comes up on Oscar lists like that. Directed, this thing I was really surprised, after having directed the theater version of the subject was roses, directed the film version of the subject was roses, a movie I... Patricia Neo, the subject was roses. I was going to say, a movie that exists. within Ingrid Bergman's accent, but also not only was it a best actress nominee nomination for Patricia Neal, Jack Albertson, one supporting actor for that movie, and that is a movie about

a married couple played by Patricia Neal and Jack Albertson. Jack Albertson, if you don't know him by name, he's Charlie Bucket's grandfather. Grandfather in Willie Wonka in The Chocolate Factory. But it's a married couple whose son, played by Martin Sheen, comes home from the war and suddenly has ideas and suddenly has, you know, sort of a perspective that doesn't, you know, doesn't jive with them and they have to. There's a lot of reckoning that happens. It very much feels like a play turned into a movie, but it's pretty well done. I saw it on TCM several years ago.

1978 co-directed a movie with Dustin Hoffman called Straight Time. 1881 made a movie with Robert De Niro and Robert Duvall called True Confessions 1984 made the Robert De Niro Merrill Street movie Falling in Love that is one of the sort of holes in my Merrill Street filmography. Have you ever seen Falling in Love? Yeah, it's a likable movie. They play people who are married to other people who meet and maybe mom. Yeah, and because it's the two of them,

it creates this weird dissonance that's like no fault of the movie whatsoever but it comes off way more minor key than you would ever expect a movie for the two of them to be but it's a watchable like decent movie but there's this weird like why is this so chill

for these two performers Streep and De Niro are still I believe friends to this day I will always remember the episode of The View that Meryl and Anne Hathaway were on, promoting The Devil Where's Prada, where they talk about their,

Anne Hathaway talking about how jealous she is of the A-list-level charades running game of charades that happens with Meryl and her famous friends that included Nora Ephron and, you know, all the sort of the usual New York City muckety-mucks, and Merrill has the one thing where she's just like, you know, who's the worst at

charades, the absolute worst. And she's like, oh, I can't tell you, I can't tell you. And everybody's like, no, no, no, tell us. And she just goes, Robert De Niro is the worst. That's not surprising. I'm sorry, Meryl. That it's not surprising that Robert De Niro shows up to Game 9 and it's like, I do feel like De Niro would have been fun, though, like to know, like back when he was a little more of, you know, an animated sort. Anyway, Georgia then in 1995 and then the deep end of the ocean is his final. Georgia is great. Georgia is the type of thing that you could see critics, especially male critics dismissing, but actually like really packs a punch. I'm not sure. Like, I believe this man passed in 2002. Is that correct? Hold on. I thought it was.

closer to like 2010. Oh, okay. 2012. Oh, 2012. Okay, that's what, all right. One digit off. Ten years off, but one digit off. Yes, 2012. So, Deep End of the Ocean is his final movie. There is a anonymity to the directing of this movie that I feel like

as part of is one of the weaknesses. I don't want to sort of, you know, pile indignity on the memory of this man who made some, you know, very good and interesting movies. However, like the crafts crew on this movie is surprisingly robust. You have an Oscar-winning editor in John Bloom, the movie that is shot by Stephen Goldblatt, who, like, the quintessential. Two-time Oscar nominee. And the quintessential

like Stephen Goldblatt aesthetic is Angels in America to me. Yes, but like Stephen Goldblatt's two Oscar nominations are very funny to me because it's The Prince of Tides and Batman forever. And then, like, has this amazing career that you're like, he wasn't nominated for this. He wasn't nominated. Did a bunch of, I should say, the fact that he did a lot of HBO movies is really telling it to me. I do feel like the absolute best version of the Deep End of the Ocean is as a high-end HBO TV movie.

Like, it really would have. Or a limited series, to be honest, where you can really get into these characters. But with the, like, the fact that Angels in America was able to exist as a six-hour a miniseries was very much the exception to the rule in 2002. Right, right. So the limited, the miniseries had been sort of dying a protracted death that did not really get reversed

until Downton Abbey and American Horror Story turned the minis series into the limited series and then made it, you know, turned it into a more booming industry. But like, Angels in America, Mildred Pierce, Band of Brothers. These were like once every few years

movies that like only really HBO could put together. Bloom and Goldblatt are both late career Nichols people. And then the score in this movie is by Elmer Bernstein, who Elmer Bernstein has way fewer and very interesting Oscar history than you might expect. The score to this movie, though, is so close to the Far From Heaven score. Obviously not as good and not as lush. obviously pastiche-y as, you know?

And the main theme too far from heaven has this kind of bolder, more emotional resolution to it than this one does. Because they both have the similar do-de-do-do-do-do-do-do-d-but-but-but-but-but-but-but-then. Far-from-Haven goes into the ba-da-da-da-da-da. I do love when scores for different movies by the same composer kind of rhyme. together. As a Thomas Newman fan, I can't not because like Thomas Newman, definitely, Thomas Newman, who did the score for Angels in America, among other things. So, yes. That's my favorite Thomas Newman score. Is that yours? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Angels and America is up. I have spoken before how much I love the Road to Perdition score. But like those are, and again, those are two scores that very much rhyme with each other. So, yes, great stuff there. can we talk about the youth

the youth okay so again you mentioned that like this is certainly it's among the sort of less prestigious corners of the awards ecosystem but that's why I find it

so interesting and we never talk about this so this movie was nominated for three different younger actor awards which is why I was like okay we have to talk about this. It was nominated for, first of all, the Young Artist Awards, which is the sort of

that's the granddaddy of the mall. That's the one that is still around that is, was founded in 1978, presented by the Young Artist Foundation, which is a nonprofit that is intended to, quote, honor excellence of youth performers and to provide scholarships for young artists who may be physically disabled or financially unstable. So this is the good one. That is opposed to the Young Hollywood Award, which seemed to be a short-lived, although it lasted 15 years, but it was broadcast on Fox. It had deeply, deeply on serious categories. So we'll get to that in a second. And then the third one is the Young Star Awards, which only lasted from 1995 until 2000. Those were presented by the Hollywood Reporter and were voted on by a poll of

3500 entertainment industry insiders who read the Hollywood Report. order. So that's your ecosystem here. The Young Artist Awards, we'll start with those. Again, granddaddy of them all. They nominated Ryan Merriman, and who won, Best Supporting Actor in a feature film that year. He tied with, which I think is so funny, Reeve Carney for Snow Falling on Cedars. Had to have been one of the few things, the Snow Falling on Cedars is. See, Snow Falling on Cedars is another movie that, like, it's so smaller than what we normally do for exceptions, but maybe we need to like break into doing exceptions on movies like that. Maybe we do. Other nominees that year, the one you've know about, the one you've heard of is

Joseph Gordon Levitt for 10 Things I Hate About You, which is he's sort of the celebrity of that lineup because he had been on Third Rock from the Sun by that point. He had been the year before he was in Halloween H2O. He had been in Angels in the Outfield. You know what I mean? He's definitely the De Niro of that category. right there. And older than all of these actors, I believe. Yeah, I think that, I think the Young Artist Awards cap it at either 18 or 20 or something like that. But yes, older by this point, he's playing a high schooler. But so, Ryan Merriman and Reeve Carney, a tie for that one. Other nominees in that category were Miles, Marisco, and Stuart Little, Cody McMains in Tumbleweeds.

The Girl from Tumbleweeds won the supporting actress in a feature that here. And then Kyle Sabeehi for Analyze this. All right. I want to talk about the Young Hollywood Award, which is, it's broadcast on Fox, and when I read you the list of categories from 1999, you'll understand why. Jonathan Jackson is nominated for breakthrough, or does he win this one as well? Hold on, hold on. Sorry, I should be more prepared. I prepared so much for this, and then this, I'm dropping the ball. Jonathan Jackson wins the Young Hollywood Award for Best Breakthrough Performance Male. And we'll get into Jonathan Jackson in a second.

But other awards that year, Breakthrough Performance Female, Mina Suvari for American Beauty and American Pie. They had to, you know, include both. Best on-stream chemistry, West Bentley and Thoroughburt, American Beauty. Best Bad Boy, Timothy Oliphant, in Go. Now, how old is Timothy Oliphant in Go? Now, how old is Timothy Oliphant in? Co. An excellent question. He is an adult drug dealer in that movie. That is his character. Timothy. And like, I've literally, if I look to my right, I have a framed photograph of Timothy

Oliphant in the Santa Hat in that movie. Timothy Oliphant was born in 1968. So he is a 30 years old. 30 years old in that. So like already you are seeing the bullshittiness of this best bad girl, Jody Lynn O'Keefe. She's all that. If I'm I'm going to be talking about soap operas, Jody Lynn O'Keefe, an alum of another world. She's the mean girl, and she's all that. Best ensemble cast, American Pie. This is a very popular movie. Best New Stylemaker, Amanda Pete.

What was Amanda Pete doing in 1999 that she's Best New Stylemaker? I find that to be fascinating. I want to read into that. Best song, Kiss Me from She's All That, another very popular movie. Best soundtrack, American Pie. Exciting, New Face. Just the face. Just their face.

Just their face. Selma Blair. An exciting new face. Female. Exciting new face male. Paul Walker. Joe, we're adding these to the superiors. Exciting new face female and male? 100%.

Please write this down. Do not let us forget this. I cannot argue with Paul Walker winning an award for exciting new face. He had a tremendous face. What a beautiful face. We should just do one exciting new face. Non-gendered, we don't need to do multiple. No, I love exciting new face.

Yes. Superstar of Tomorrow, female, Lee Lee Sobieski. I don't know if that happened. I don't know if that turned out. Superstar of tomorrow, male, Joshua Jackson. Seemed like it wasn't going to happen. He's back. He's back in things. We like Joshua Jackson. Maybe not superstar, but a star. And then a couple, then they were like, oh, shit, we're going to seem unsirious. Let's give best director and best screenwriter to Kimberly Pierce for Boys Don't Cry. The youngest director we could think of Kimberly Pierce was probably also 30. 100%. And then the coup de grace, the Young Artist Awards, presented by Fox Television, are giving the role model award to James Woods. Pause for reaction.

Now listen. James Woods, I will grant them that James Woods's new life as a professional online crank was probably not in full. bloom by 1999, but James Woods was certainly known as, at the very least, a, like, mean asshole drug user, you know, back then. What is he even in that would have appealed to the youth? Because if they had given this to, like, Eugene Levy, who, like, made a big splash in American pie. If this is because he was the dad in the Virgin Suicides, if this is because he was the

dad in the Virgin suicides, I will be very, very, like. But the Virgin suicides premieres in 99. It's not even in theaters until 2000. Maybe they were trying to be forward-thinking. But maybe they were trying to be forward-thinking. I don't know. It certainly wasn't like vampires, John Carpenter's vampires or wherever like that. Like, I don't know, man.

I'm going to guess that, like, Fox was just, like, picking names out of a hat, figuring out what adults would show up. This is the most chaotic thing I've ever heard. Good for Jonathan Jackson for winning that award. And then finally, the Young Star Awards, which again, only lasted from 1995 until 2000, nominated both Ryan Merriman and Jonathan Jackson, but they both lost to Joseph Mazzello for Simon Birch. Joseph Mazzello, who you will know as the kid, Tim, from Jurassic Park,

was also the non... Was Joseph Mazzello just winning Young Star Awards every year? Maybe. He does not play Simon Birch and Simon Birch, but he's the other guy. Other nominees that year are Heath Ledger for a movie called Two Hands. Jake Gyllenhaal and Chris Owen for October Sky. I like that they tried to hedge their bets on October Sky. guy. They did get one of them. And Jake Lloyd for Star Wars episode won the Phantom Menace,

which bless his heart, and I hope he's happy now and not. But any awards body that nominated Jake Lloyd for Star Wars episode won the Phantom Menace reveals themselves as unsurious. Yes. All right. Anyway, we're going to back up the truckload. Well, first of all, your thoughts on these nominees from this year for the young artists, but also in general, young artist awards, as they continue to this day. Anytime I hear of a full award show for young people, the hair on the back of my neck stands on end, and I just want all of these. I want them all to be taken care of.

I don't want the darkness of Hollywood descending upon them. I feel like the most I ever engage with young performances specifically in movies is when our friend Katie Rich is filling out her critics' choice ballot and we'll inevitably text us and be like, I've got to fill out the younger performer ballot. Like, who am I forgetting? Like, throw me some names, make sure I'm

like not forgetting anybody. Because The entire cast of Asteroid City. Well, that's one. And certainly Jake Ryan is one of those like, you know, younger performers. That's where I'm like, oh, a young artist award would make sense because that kid,

he was really good, he was also in eighth grade, is really good, is never going to end up in the Oscar conversation. And yet, it'd be nice to recognize the fact that he's quite good. I agree with you that, like, there's an element of throwing these kids to the wolves

to throw them into an awards context. That we've heard enough stories of that it's just like, now in hindsight you just like look so skeptically at these things. These things that we can sort of take with gentle good humor for adults where when we apply them to kids feels a little cruel to sort of like pit them against each other.

That all being said. I believe Jonathan Jackson is a three-time Daytime Emmy Award winner and was by this point in his career winning best younger actor, the Daytime Emmys. I believe they still have it.

I don't think they've discontinued it. Had outstanding younger actor and younger actress. I believe they have since combined it into just one non-gendered award, but I do believe it still exists. Anyway, younger actor, which had the same sort of like, are we, you know, how, what's the age cut off here? Because sometimes you would get people winning younger actor who were in like fully adult

storylines where they're like the third spoke in a love triangle that broke up a marriage, right? Shout out Sarah Brown for her phenomenal performance as Carly on General Hospital. But Jonathan Jackson was a legitimate kid actor. He had been in that movie Camp Nowhere. Do you remember that movie? Sure. St. Christopher Lloyd.

So he's the main kid in Camp Nowhere. And around that time, he gets cast. So General Hospital is bringing back Luke and Laura. Because for as much as like, if you don't watch General Hospital, Luke and Laura was the one sort of storyline that broke into the mainstream. It was, you know, their wedding in the early 80s was this like television event, Elizabeth Taylor guest-starred. Everybody was sort of obsessed.

It made the cover of People Magazine. It was this big, huge deal. And then in the interim for like the rest of the 80s, they were not often both on General Hospital at the same time. I remember when I worked at ABC, I heard the rumor was that they did not get along. By that point, by the 2000s, by the 2010s when I worked at ABC, the rumor was that they did not get along. But so anyway, throughout the 90s,

Laura had been presumed dead. I think Luke got other love interests. Luke became the mayor of Port Charles, blah. Then Luke left. And then the actor who played Luke then played another character who, like, was revealed to be like Luke's cousin, who like, you know, whatever, like,

looked, you know what, soap operas. We love them, and I do. You could be making all of this up right now. I'm just telling. I'm just telling you a story, but I'm also telling, you know, this is for our audience as well. Then in around 1993, big news, Luke and Laura are coming back. And I think in storyline, Laura, who had been presumed dead, returned to Luke. They had this reunion.

and then kind of immediately they go on the run from the mob. Because their storylines were all very, like, they were in these adventure storylines. They were, you know, foiling the Casidines plan to, like, use a weather machine to freeze Port Charles. They were on the run from mobster Frank Smith. So they were, they finally returned to Port Charles from being in exile, I believe,

when they were reintroduced in storyline, they were living in a, they were operating a diner outside of, of Rochester, New York. Port Charles is canonically in the sort of Rochester-ish area of New York State. So they come back to town and they have a son now, Lucky, who is, you know, heretofore, he's a new character, right? And so he's played by Jonathan Jackson. And so he is this very sort of like, now he is like, you know, the sion of Luke and Laura. He is immediately this fairly important character. And he embarks upon, like, little kid storylines on, you know, on, you know, soaps. And so Amber Tamblin famously played young Emily Cordermain. And, like, the two of them were in, like, sort of youth stories. And then as he got older, he got more, there was a lot of, like, him sort of, like, getting mixed up in, like, his parents' hijinks and whatnot. And then as he got older, I think there's a sense of this actor is really good. He's really

capable, we can put him into more sort of serious storylines. He gets into a storyline where this, you know, girl who's, actually he was sort of pining after her sister. Well, whatever. Pining after her sister, the bad girl sister gets raped, which, harrowing as it is, he's there for her. They become this like very sort of iconic couple. And via the vector of that, then they decide to write it into General Hospital, the storyline where Luke and Laura, also sort of famously, begin their relationship where Luke was a bad guy and Luke raped Laura, like at the beginning of that relationship, which is the thing that like, when people talk about Luke and Laura, they're like, oh, by the way, the problematic origins

of this are this was a storyline where he raped her and then it was retconned into, it wasn't a rape, it was a seduction. So at this point then in the 1990s, they're like, no, we are going to unpack this. And we are going to sort of through the vector of their kid who finds out from a, you know, from Laura's other son from the Cascadine family. And I'm not going to get into that because that's an old other thing. Finds out. It's a whole up, there's whole other things here. There's so many other things, Chris. But so lucky finds out that this was the sort of origin of his parents. And he is not only sort of horrified on the merits, but also the fact that his girlfriend now had just gone through this rape. So he, you know, has this, you know, and he and his

father had been, like, you know, thick as thieves. And so he has this huge sort of falling out with his father. He's also upset at his mother because, like, how could you, you know, go back to him and all this sort of stuff? He's, you know, he ends up running away. And that ends up being how they end up sort of writing this character out, because by this point, he'd won three daytime Emmys. He wants to try other things, such as being in a movie with Michelle Pfeiffer. So they write him out, and he sort of dies in a fire, and then he comes back as a different actor, maybe a year later. But so Jonathan Jackson then was off of General Hospital until the 20 teens, when he comes back now every once in a while. they've whatever that character gets played by different actors every time they bring him back kind of um but anyway at the time teenage lucky spencer was very very much a formative crush of mine and so by the time he's in the deep end of the ocean i'm very very invested in him even though he's like weirdly like religious was in this sort of like christian rock band with like family members of his when he was younger now he has since i read this um

he has converted to some sort of Eastern Orthodox Church of some sort or another, that like... Interesting. Which I don't know is particularly problematic, but also it's just like intensely religious people make me nervous. You know what I mean? Just in general. So I've always like, Jonathan Jackson, I have put in a... He was also on Nashville for quite a while. Jonathan Jackson's an actor who I've put in a box of, he will always be precious to me, to the childhood.

version of me. You know what I mean? To the early formative version of me. And so I watch a movie like the deep end of the ocean. It's just like, oh, man. Like, you know, right. This was my, you know, this was my one of my first crushes. I will always be probably a little bit more impressed with him than normies are. I think you kind of have to have that history of him. Because like genuinely, for a younger actor on General Hospital, I know soap opera acting gets, you know, the backhand a lot. And a lot of soap opera actors. you know, have a particular style of, you know, comportment and sort of over, over the topness and whatever. But, like, there is really good acting under very, very hairy circumstances that

happens in soap operas for the pace that they work at. And this kid fucking delivered. Like, this, there were some really, really amazing, amazing, you know, storylines and, and episodes and scenes with this kid. And, like, was sort of richly deserved all of the praise that he's got in addition to the fact that I had little hearts in my eyes for him. So I watch a movie like The Deep End of the Ocean and part of me it's just like I'm proud of my I'm proud of my little friend

but also I think he's good in the movie I think opposite Ryan Merriman though who's like kind of perfectly cast in a couple different ways they're supposed to only be four years between them and Jonathan Jackson just seems so

much older than he's supposed to be, which is just, like, that's normal for a movie with teenage characters, but the disparity between those two actors and, like, some of the most key scenes of the movie are between those two characters.

Yes. And that's where, like, the final emotional sort of crescendo happens is that, like, the younger brother sort of very easily forgives the older brother. And, it's one of those things where I'm glad that there wasn't some sort of operatic, you know, moment where it's like, you know, Vincent breaks down in tears. And I think there's quite a few scenes where you see Jonathan Jackson sort of get emotional without sort of going over the top

that I think is quite impressive. But while I was glad to see that the kid, the younger kid, Merriman's character is like yeah so you told me to get lost like you know get lost like whatever you're like I like the low keenness of it it does not make it a super satisfying end button to the thing and yet Sam is often the most he is like the voice of reason at any given point in this story like he is the one who is behaving and sees behaving most normal and like sees which I think is a weakness for the movie because I do feel like the fact that that just makes it too easy but but yes he is in the confines of this movie

he is that character yes also like why would they not immediately put that child in therapy once they discover this situation I'm doing the Alyssa Edwards like untucked like pointing my hand at you why why is no one in this movie in therapy. Why is not everybody in this movie should be in therapy. Candy Bliss, you should have stepped in

and forced everybody to go to therapy in this, 100%. Yeah. So, yeah, I think these are two really good performances. Ryan Merriman, I remember, for a moment after this movie

sort of did the Tiger Beat thing. I remember he's in the ring, right? Or in the ring two? He's in the ring two, I believe. But he would sort of pop up and sort of like smaller

roles and stuff like that. What else was he in? But he kind of went away, you know, what is he doing now? His Wikipedia photo is a photo of him from the 2012 film Cheesecake Casserol starring

Oh God. The Irish pizza sequel. Yeah. Do you know any of these people, Tori DeVito, Britt Morgan, Paige Howard. I don't know any of these people. Tori DeVito is one of those names that I feel like I should know about. They're probably all WB people. Anyway, what's the most recent thing Ryan Merriman has been in that has a hyperlink?

Let's see. He was in, God, nothing, no television credits since 2019. He's had some movie credits, but nothing anybody has ever seen. He was in 42, the Jackie Robinson movie. So there's that. I don't know, man. A child actor who, you know, stopped being in things. He was in Halloween, or Halloween resurrection, the canonically worst Halloween movie.

Until David Gordon Green got his hands on that. I do not think even, I don't, I think evil dies tonight is still not worse than Tyra Banks in Halloween resurrection. It's bad. He was in the ring two. He's in Final Destination 3. That's his most well-known thing. He's the main guy. Him and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are the two.

Maine folks in Final Destination 3, which is the roller coaster one if you're trying to place it. That's the other one. That's the other big thing. If you're trying to remember, why do I know that name? That's why. Oh, here's interesting. He played the lead in the original pilot presentation for the CBS series Harper's Island,

but was replaced by Christopher Gorham. Did you ever watch Harper's Island? What a fun junkie network TV series that only lasted for a summer. And it was dumb, but it was fun. I enjoyed Hyper's Island. Anyway, um... Should we move on to the IMDB game? Let's, let's do that.

Why don't you let our listeners know what the IMDB game is? All right, every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game, where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try to guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for. If any of those titles are television, voice-only performances, or non-acting credits will mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. and if that's not enough, it just becomes a free for all of hints.

That's the Mdb game. Can I very quickly just, there were a couple things in my notes that I didn't get a chance to mention. Sure. Do not need to be lingered on. My literal first note was Brenda Strong, this hair. It's a real helmet. I made a comment about her power earrings. It's a real helmet of a hairstyle the first time we see Brenda Strong.

We do see young Vincent playing a Game Boy, first generation Game Boy, sign of the times. the first time we see grown or whatever, like Sam, the Ryan Merriman version of Ben, and he comes along offering to mow the lawn. He's, you know, mowing lawns for money. There's a full like two minutes where he's in the backyard pushing this mower that is not working while she's taking photos. And I'm like, is he just going to push this like non-running lawn mower for the whole he finally starts it, but I was like, wow.

Treat Williams playing a Dide in the Will Italian is so funny. Oh, so I mentioned the trailer. Have you ever seen Rudy, the film Rudy? Yes, of course. I went through high school in the late 90s. Okay. Because that is the score that they put over the trailer for Deep End of the Ocean. And it is so bizarre.

I love, again, you know one of my obsessions. are trailers that misrepresent the movie. Well, because it makes it seem like a thriller in most of the trailer, like you're about to see Eye for an Eye or something. But then that music is so uplifting. It looks like you're about to watch a triumph of the human spirit movie. And like, that's also deeply wrong. Deeply, deeply, deeply wrong for this movie.

Anyway, I am a TV game. Other notes that I had, Oh, the first timeline of Pfeiffer is it the first time she's ever. had not amazing hair in a movie Brenda Strong's power earrings oh a lot of this

a lot of my notes were era-based for this movie salmon colored home phones single a single earring as a signifier

of bad kids in Cook County still in the suburbs yeah oh was this movie funded by big pizza because there is definitely a super cut of this

movie that is just 20 minutes of them Talking about ordering pizza, ordering pizza, having pizza. This is the most pizza movie I have ever seen. The 1990s, the 1990s were a very pizza forward decade because two of the movies that kick off the decade are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which like really, really like established pizza as the home base, you know, for those superheroes. and Home Alone, where the first 20 minutes of that movie involve a pizza. Did someone order me a plain cheese?

A stack of 12 boxes of pizza, which, again, movies are wish fulfillment fantasies. And I swear to God, for as much of every, like, Home Alone's a wish fulfillment fantasy movie anyway, because it's about what if I had my whole giant house to myself and nobody telling me what to do. But it's also adds to that by the wish fulfillment of what if there were 12 pizzas that came to your house at the same time. Would that not be amazing? So, yeah, there's a lot of pizza going through the entire 90s, and so it's appropriate that it ends with the deep end of the ocean, also being like pizza means family.

So, yes. IMDB game. Are you giving or guessing first? I'll guess first. All right, so I went into the Oulu Grossbard filmography, Oscar nominated for the Motion Picture, Georgia. Mayor. Mayor Winningham. Great in that movie.

I thought there are two deer in the yard next door as I'm looking at. One of these are, um, one of these is absolutely impossible. I've never heard of this in my life. So I will give you a ton of hints, but I wanted to do. No television. No television. Is one of them Georgia? None of them are Georgia.

Well, great. Is one of them St. Elmo's Fire? St. Elmo's Fire is correct. Okay. Um, oh my God. All right. What else has Mayor Winningham even freaking been in? Mayor Winningham is hard because, again, it's a performer that's been in a million different things in similar types in small roles.

So it all blends into a soup when you get it for IMDB game. So I'm being a little tough on you. All right. What's another? I keep picturing her as the real estate agent in Beetlejuice, but that's not her. I'm going to guess... I don't even know if she's in this movie, but I'm going to guess Can't Buy Me Love. Can't Buy Me Love is incorrect, so you're going to get your years.

It starts with 1988. 1988 is the movie I've never heard of. 1989 and 2013. Is she in like Uncle Buck? Is she one of the many phenomenal character characters? It's not Uncle Buck, but carrying her spiritually with Amy Madigan is absolutely correct. Amy Madigan and Lori Metcalf and Uncle Buck is a cultural moment that deserves to be revisited right now. Yeah, where was Mayor Winningham?

Where was Mayor Winningham? Okay, so 88, 89 and what? 8889, 2013. Great. 2013. 2013, you absolutely do not remember that she is in this movie, but you have talked about this movie recently. 2013? Yes.

The Wolf of Wall Street? No. Though it is a Best Picture nominee. Twelve years of slave? No. Filomena? Philomena. Fuck off.

Filomena is on Mayor Winningham's known for. Guys, the most recent episode of Big Brother involved somebody voting out her crush and then immediately saying, Filamina, I'm sorry, and having no context for that. So I thought that was just funny. Filamina, I'm sorry. Okay, so we got two. Fucking Philomena.

1989 is a movie What do I say? She is the romantic lead of this movie, though given the title of the movie, you would not, she's not part of the twosome you would think. What's in 1980? So is it a title of like blank and blank?

Like Turner and Hootch or something like that? Um, um, it might be, very much like Turner and Hoot. Wait, is it Turner and Hitch? It's Turner and Huch. Get the fuck out of here. She's the romantic, she's the veterinarian in Turner and Huch, and she's the romantic counterpart to Thomas.

Amazing. Amazing. Okay, so 1988 8 is the one I'm never going to get? Yes, okay, so she is second build, as she is in Turner and Huch. She is second build opposite Anthony Edwards in a movie that I will give you the logline, for a young man hears a chance phone call telling him that a nuclear war has started and missiles will hit the city within 70 minutes does that sound familiar is that like red dawn or something like that no two word title not red dawn but very close in rhythm to that something morning something not morning day this zero day it all this title makes you think like you're going shopping on vacation Like, this is definitely the name of a shopping center. The name of a shopping center.

So the, like, Playa Vista. You're getting further away. Yeah, I'm getting further away. Is there a day part in the title? No, but there is a sports movie type. title in the first word of the title. Caddy day. Single title sports movie is the first word of this title.

Same sport, same sport, but not slap shot. Miracle. Miracle. Miracle Day. Miracle. No. Miracle is the first word? Miracle is the first word.

Miracle Mile Miracle Mile is the title of this film that I've never heard of Sure You can watch it on MGM Plus All right That is cruel Service that no one has

That is cruel and unusual Chris File I can't believe you I got it I did When you hear who I'm giving you You are going to feel You're going to feel bad You're going to feel

You're just giving me like Michelle Pfeiffer No We talked about general hospital and I talked about Luke and Laura, and I mentioned that a very famous guest star on the wedding of Luke and Laura was Miss Elizabeth Taylor, who we have never done for an IMD game. Now, don't you feel bad, but also, now I'm going to say the bar for impressing me is higher because, you know, there's a lot of well-known Elizabeth Taylor movies. There sure is. Well, who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? Correct.

Cleopatra. Incorrect. Honestly, that being incorrect is correct because Cleopatra has such dominance over her legacy, and I think as a performer, it should not have such prominence. Suddenly last summer. Yes. Incredible movie.

Maybe not the most Elizabeth. Taylory movie? I feel like... No, she's immense. No, it's not the most Catherine Hepburny movie. That's what I usually hear. Yes. I mean, it's a co-lead, but like Catherine Hepburn descends from the ceiling in single chair elevator. It's a pretty Catherine.

The fact of Catherine Hepburn in that movie is maybe more impressive than like what Catherine Hepburn gives in that movie, if that makes sense. No, Catherine Hepburn's incredible in that movie. What are you talking about? All right. A cat on a hot tin roof. Yes.

another Tennessee Williams, Cat in a Houghton Roof. So you are three. You have not a perfect score because you guess Cleopatra, but one to go. Well, this is where there's got to be a weird one, right? Like, there has to be, I mean, I want to say the weird one. I'll say. But like, it's all relative when you talk about Elizabeth Taylor. But yes, this is the sort of one of these four is not like the others.

A little bit. Is it the Flintstones? No, it's not that. It's not that different. Okay. Okay, so now you get a year, because you guess the Flintstones. It is 1967. Is this reflection in a golden eye?

It is not, although that's a good guess. The year, I think, is actually going to be harder for me to place. Two Oscar nominations, but none for acting. Okay. It is directed by an Oscar, a two-time Oscar-nominated director, although that not for this movie. Although one of this man's Oscar nominations sort of is connected to this movie in a, in a sort of direct line kind of a way.

Like his Oscar nomination was with a star who was also in this movie. Not the star, but the, uh, the, no, I don't want to make it too easy. It's not like boom, is it? No, no, no. Boom is a wild movie. It is, of course. Her co-star is somebody who she acted with quite often.

Richard Burton. Yes. Is it the VIPs? It's not the VIPs. What other Burton am I missing? It's not the Sandpiper, is it? It is not the Sandpiper. The director is Italian.

And it's still not the Sandpiper. Who directed the Sandpiper? Vincent Minnelli. Oh, right. So, I mean, he's like, finger quotes Italian. Which one am I forgetting? This director's most famous movie and this Elizabeth Taylor movie are based on works by the same author. Oh, okay.

This should get it for you. Same author. Playwright? Yeah. Author. Okay. It's not another Tennessee Williams. No.

Is it Shakespeare or is this taming of the shrew? It is the taming of the shrew. Shakespeare's taming of the shrew directed by Franco Zeporelli, who directed, of course, Romero and Juliet. Yes. Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton. I never would have guessed that The Taming of the Shrew was on her known for. Michael York is in that movie. I bet he's handsome.

I haven't actually seen this one yet, but that's... I've never seen it either. I've also never read it. My familiarity with The Taming of the Shrew very much is 10 Things I Hate About You, unfortunately. What do you think it's two Oscar nominations were? Costume and set design. Those very same.

Both Burton and Taylor were both nominated for BAFTAs, however. So there is that. All right, Chris, a good, robust episode on the deep end of the ocean. I'm proud of us. We tend to it. Folks, that is our episode. If you want more of ThisHad Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this head oscarbuzz.com. You should also follow our Instagram at This Head Oscar Buzz on Instagram.

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Things are getting weird. Things are getting weird and wild and willy. You can sign up for that at patreon.com slash Demi-M-P-O-D. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork. Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Mavius for their technical guidance and Taylor Cole for our theme music. Please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get podcasts. A five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcasts visibility. So forgive your brother for letting you get kidnapped and then write something nice about us.

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