This Had Oscar Buzz - 363 – Super 8

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

In the 2011 summer movie season overcrowded with sequels and IP, J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 stood out as an original event film. Arriving with a mysterious marketing campaign that was the Abrams signature, the film follows a group of kids in the late 1970s who capture footage of an alien while shooting a monster movie in their … Continue reading "363 – Super 8"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. We want to talk to Marilyn Hack, Merlin Hack and French. Dick Pooh. Be good for you to spend some time with kids who don't run around with cameras and monster makeup. Could you close your ice, please? Yeah. And action!

Guys, watch out! Hello, and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast dressed up not as Barbara winning her Oscar, but as Catherine Hepburn tying her at home in our PJs. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong.

The Oscar hopes died and we're here to perform the autopsy. I am your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with my friendly alien who just wants to go home, Joe Reed. I just want to go to bed. Can we talk about, like, how all these, like, friendly alien movies are about, like, guys, the alien just wants to go home. And it's, like, deeply, deeply relatable. This movie is obviously very much, I wouldn't even say indebted to E.T. So much as like hearkening back to E.T. actively. So that makes a ton of sense.

We'll talk about the Spielberg. Yeah. You know. Yes. This was like vibes before vibes was a word of the youth. Like it's truly just chasing the vibe. Well, and that became so much part of that movie's narrative. And I want to talk about that in terms of why this movie was received,

the way it is. It's very interesting to watch Super 8 now 14 years later, where divorced from a lot of the narrative that was surrounding it at the time, you can just watch it as a movie for better and for worse, I think. I think it improves the movie a little bit. And it also sort of allows you to see the movie, see its flaws for just being flaws and not being flaws as related to Spielberg, as related to... As related to the expectations, as related to the marketing campaign. As related to J.J. Abrams as a, you know, an entertainment entity.

You know what I mean? Right. And J.J. Abrams, I think, is no longer in the position of being, quote, unquote, the next Spielberg. Right. So you can kind of see this maybe a little more. People can put their weapons down a little bit because of that. And that being said, A, I still like this movie. B, it does feel a little, I don't want to say emperor has no clothes,

but like emperor has no clothes in that way. I don't see, J.J. Abrams feels a little more director by hire in this movie, even though it's his own screenplay. You know, I don't see a distinct directorial stamp, even to the point where you see Spilberg gomage today, and it feels like a very specific lens on Spielberg. Yeah, I think the thing about J.J. Abrams, and this is a good place to sort of do pre-plot discussion as any, is I think J.J. Abrams has more of a distinct stamp as a TV person than he does as a film person. And I know that, like, those things tend to blend together. And when

people talk about J.J. Abrams, they talk about, like, the mystery box, right? The mystery box style of storytelling and whatever. And I guess that's part of it. And, like, as a filmmaker, people talk about the lens flares, and we'll certainly talk about that. Um, this is the definitive JJ Abrams lens flare movie, even more than Star Trek. We really do need to have, like, talk about it for this movie um but as a tv as a tv creator even like past the point when he leaves like because the thing about lost was one of the funniest things about lost is that you'll you'll still hear people complain about lost and they'll be like well just like all jj abrams things it doesn't end well and it's like that was not his baby j j j j abrams helped launch that show

and then left it in its first season. You can't really pin anything to J.J. Abrams regarding Lost after season one. Right. But what you can do is the way that Lost sort of formulates itself and comes together in that first season, I think does tie into a lot of his other TV shows. I think you can see a lot of similarities between that. early alias and, you know, even something like Felicity and just the way he builds multi-character sort of ensemble series. And I think it just in general, I think you can tell

a JJ Abrams TV show and you can sort of like draw those connections and draw those lines. And maybe it's that like his preferred sort of stable of actors. are mostly TV actors. And so that sort of, like, runs through. It's always so funny when, like, a Greg Grunberg will show up in one of his movies because it's just, like, it's one of his TV people or, like, Amanda Foreman or something like that. And even Carrie Russell, even, like, you know how much I love Carrie Russell, but, like,

carry Russell in big blockbuster movies, it always feels like you've brought in, like, this this TV presence, right? Like, she's so dynamic on television. And then you put her in, like, the last Star Wars movie. And it's just like, it's so distinctly her voice. But she's, like, in a helmet the whole time. And, like, you know, carrying on this weird sort of, like, romance with Oscar Isaac. And it's just like, what are we?

I mean, Rise of Skywalker, we almost shouldn't even talk about it in terms of J.J. Abrams. Because, like, you forget that he even made that movie. Because, like, that's... Oh, a lot of people won't. A lot of people in the initial reaction to that movie was like, see, J.J. Abrams is bad. Because look at this movie. And I think if you read between any lines whatsoever, you realize that that is not his problem. The business impulses that went into that movie are almost hard to.

And I feel like, and I mean, I am very much a Force Awakens is better than Last Jedi person, which I know that puts me on, like, the outs in the critical community. But I feel like Force Awakens is a movie that gives you a lot of the best of, you know, J.J. Abrams's filmmaking instincts. And I think the biggest criticism you can levy against Force Awakens is that it's just like, oh, it essentially recreates the framing of the original Star Wars trilogy. So you're just sort of like painting within those lines. And that's fair enough.

I think that movie and this movie are interesting to kind of compare and contrast. Because, yes, you can say Force Awakens is, you know, taking a blueprint and then just imprinting something new on it, much in the way that Super 8 is doing with a lot of these Spielbergisms and a lot of these genre tropes and, you know, like movie lore. Like so much of this is built around the lore. of Spielberg as a kid, you know, making movies with his friends. Yes. And I think, and again, this is going to sound like a harsh word, I still like this movie.

There is a hollowness to Super 8 that we'll get into that doesn't really earn the emotional resolution that it gets to. But JJ Abrams so obviously understands. how emotionally to get an audience to that point. But the story doesn't hold up to that because things are resolved. Like, whole, like, movies, the whole, you know, character arcs and conflicts that are built over two acts of the movie are resolved, like, in an instant in the third. And it's not satisfying. I don't think that that is the case for Force Awakens. I think Force Awakens is actually, like, building these character beats, following through with them in a satisfying way.

that's also going to make us show up for another movie, too, right? Well, but Force Awakens, yes, and Force Awakens, as the first chapter of a trilogy, you know, has the luxury of knowing that you'll be able to continue to see these characters, you know, evolutions. But Force Awakens also, very much like the very first Star Wars, comes to A, like, comes to ahead and has at least one very definitive resolution, which in the first one is Obi-1-Kanobi-Dying, and then that one is Han Solo dying. And so it does tell a, you know, more of a closed-ended storyline than a lot of the, you know,

Star Wars movies are able to tell. Well, and there's also this thing that ultimately gets carried through into Last Jedi that, you know, I think is more interesting and successful in Last Jedi, but is true of, well, What's the first one even called? Force Awakens? Force Awakens. The, you know, idea of, and especially where we were politically in America at that point,

the idea of history repeating itself is in the fabric of that, and it makes it feel purposeful of why you would so, why you would use the blueprint of the original A New Hope, whereas super one of the problems with super eight is like yes I think probably anybody who's watching this movie has seen a Spielberg movie before if you're not please get at us because I guess you have interesting priorities but you know I think for the core audience for this movie

you know we've all absorbed that over however long we've been cinefiles and we know those stories and we know the visual references. We know the story tropes that this one is, you know, kind of deconstructing and then building into, you know, what many could say is a quintessential, like, throwback Spielberg movie. And I find all of that stuff satisfying. It's just when you get to the third act of this movie, it kind of is, yeah, very satisfied with very little. Because I think it's the first, you know, maybe. hour and a half of this movie that I'm having a really good time. Yes. Yes. I think there's one moment in the finale, in the sort of like the final, you know, flourish, that lands. And it's because it sort of relies more on iconography than it does on necessarily

narrative and character. But the thing with the medallion, I think, lands. lands in a way that like not everything else does from you know the parental relationships to um you know this i this anything to do with the sort of the motivations of the creature and whatever um i do i agree with you that it all feels a little too sort of hurried and rushed to mean much of anything i also feel like the movie kind of struggles for me a little bit with the balance between the sort of terrifying violence of the monster attacks to the like, but it just wants to get home.

But he's friendly. Right. That, I think the terror and the violence gets very quick. This is a great example of what I'm saying. It's all kind of like, oh, but he didn't kill any of those people. He just took them to his cave or whatever. But then he also, like, re-kills the sheriff. But doesn't he like, it's fine, right?

Doesn't he re-kill the sheriff and the curlers in her hair lady, who is maybe Mary Lynn Ratchke? But I couldn't quite tell. I don't think so. I don't think it, okay. Well, regardless. But it writes that off so quickly because it's convenient, I guess. And I think also the two leads conflicts with their dad.

gets resolved truly just by Oh, everyone's together and safe, so we don't have any problems anymore. Yeah, yes. Sorry, I'm looking at the cast list right now as I was trying to see if it was Marilynne Reischkeb. I didn't realize that was A.J. Machalika as the sister, the older sister.

You do catch Dale Dickey, though, right? Oh, of course, I catch. Did you catch Katrina Balfe as the photo of the mom on the locket? No, I didn't catch that that's her. Yeah, yes. You get that checkdale, Dickie. Yes. No, there's a lot of, like, I had to, like, go back and be like,

was that really Michael Hitchcock playing the one, you know, cop? Like, that kind of stuff. There's a lot of performers who you're just like, oh, Glyn Terman, good for Glyn Terman. Glenn Terman, awesome. I was, like, hooting and hollering when I realized, oh, that's Glyn Terman. Okay.

Here's where I maybe want to start the conversation, have this conversation, we'll move into the setup and then the plot description, and we can talk more about the movie. I think one of the movie's other problems, the movie itself, you know, watching it a decade or so later, it relies so heavily on the marketing campaign for you to even know what you're watching. And when you're watching this, you know, opening weekend in the movie theater, maybe that's less. of a problem. But I think if someone who never saw that teaser, never saw the trailers, wasn't deeply enmeshed in like the online culture, the mystery box of like the J.J. Abrams thing, which of course this is also post-Cloverfield too. We'll have that conversation. It's Cloverfield adjacent. It's doing the Cloverfield thing. where it's telling you in the marketing that this is an alien movie

and you know that they're catching an alien on camera as kids you know then 40 years ago but now 50 years ago and if you weren't aware of that if you watch this today and you don't know you never saw that teaser it takes over an hour into the movie for it to tell you that it's an alien because it's not like you see a spaceship you don't see a landing sure but like you know it's a monster right you know it's some type of monster doing electromagnetic things sure yes so it's like you could maybe infer but it takes a long time for this

movie to tell you what's going on and like if i think if you're aware of how this movie is marketed, then you're getting those building blocks and you get the, you get the, it's fun to watch the movie as those, see all the pieces come together for the thing that you already know. But I think, I think it is a flaw of the movie because it is kind of, it's almost like television e, which like you watch it now and you're like, oh, stranger thing. Yeah, and also, the movie also does a thing. I want to sort of be careful the way I criticize this because I don't want to be just like this niger sociopolitical complaint. I think this is ultimately a narrative decision that backfires on the movie is it ceases to be about a group of friends who were making a movie and who accidentally got footage of this monster on their camera and transitions to a movie about a bunch of boys who have to save the girl from being captured. I think capture, I think El Fanning getting abducted by the monster and turning that into the motivation while allowing the, you know, the dads to sort

of get into it. I feel like I was, I was more, I would have been more excited for the group of friends that included El Fanning in the group, having to use the fact that they had. have footage of the alien to get to, you know, the right authorities and to tell them that they know something about the monster that everybody has to know or something. I don't know. I'm trying not to like criticize the movie that doesn't exist. Right. It's all that it just gets there too easy to the point where it's like the two dads who hate each other, one of whom is partly, at least, responsible for the death of the other one's spouse. Not responsible so much as Kyle Chandler blames him for, for, you know, grief-related reasons that, you know, and this guy's, you know, kind of a shit heel.

You know what I mean? But like, these are not people who would just band together because they're in a movie. Right. But, like, at one point, they both realized. their kids are missing. So it's like, well, let's go save our kids. And it's like, well, they wouldn't do that. But also, if you're going to do that, at least pay that off by, like, have them do something to save the kids, rather than just sort of walk up and find them okay at the end of, you know, whatever. Because a lot of the mystery of what's going on and the kind of,

like, town crisis part of the story all falls on Kyle Chandler, who, like you said, does nothing. And, like, not does nothing in the way that Bob Ferguson does nothing in one battle after another, and that's the point, because, like, all, Bob Ferguson's whole purpose is to just show up and hug his daughter. And that's all he needs to do. Eventually, he remembers the, the, the revolution will not be televised lyrics at some point. He gets it, finally. Yeah, it's more, I don't think that this movie realizes that Kyle Chandler doesn't do a damn thing in this movie. But we spend so much time with it. And in fact, the movie kind of fools itself into thinking it's partially about the Kyle Chandler character, which is just like, it's really not. And it's like, can we please get back to these kids because the kids are at least fun? I will say, I was really impressed with Joel Courtney after watching the movie this time in a way that I don't think I was the first time.

Like, I'm kind of surprised. It took a kid performance. I'm surprised that he didn't go on to do more as he got older. Yeah, he's doing like Jesus movies now. Oh, oh, right, and he was, he's kissing booth. Right, that's right. And I have not. Oh, he's a kissing booth? He's, he's, he's the kiss. He's the boy in the kissing booth. It's him and the Lordy are the two male leads and then Joey King is the girl. I love missing this stuff. I love not knowing shit about this Netflix slop. What's funny is, I was working at a place that, like, was definitely in on the kissing booth thing, like riding the kissing booth wave.

But that wasn't my responsibility, so I got to avoid that. He was also in The Empty Man, though, and I did really much enjoy The Empty Man. But anyway, of the young performers here, it's him sort of lined up against my mortal enemy, Gabriel Basso, in this movie, who I still cannot divorce from J.D. Vance, and ultimately... He's the one who has to suffer for it. Not anyone else involved. You don't blame anyone else. You blame Gabriel Batson. It's the power of the movie.

It's the power of the film as a medium. And then I look at him and I see J.D. Vance now. And I'm just like, son of a gun to the moon, Alice. Which is why I was so surprised that I ended up liking him in a house of dynamite. And I thought he actually did a good job. I think the red hair helps me not see J.D. Vance, to be honest. I can see where that would, where that would be the case. But anyway, almost always.

If Gabriel Basso had eyeliner on, I would maybe see it. I was impressed with him in a house of dynamite in a way I almost never am. In this movie, because his character is such a fucking whiny crybaby, I literally every single time, I'm like, shut up Gabriel Basso, every single scene. So we're still working through it. It's still a process. I do love that all of the kids get distinct, you know, personalities. the firebug. One is the director. One is the cry baby. The most erotic one is the actor, of course. Yes. I also did like the fact that the fat kid gets to be other things besides the fat kid. So like I'm grateful for that. We're like, it's not like, you know, this is not a chunk situation or whatever. He's also the director. He's also the one who like, I do kind of love that scene where he kind of yells at Joe for, um, because he had a crush on L. Fanning, and it's very clear that, like, Alice likes Joe,

and Joe also likes Alice. And what's his name? Charles? The director. Yeah. He literally is just like, he's just mad about it. And he knows it's not, you know, Joe's fault, ultimately. And he's just like, it's just because I haven't leaned out yet, but I'm going to, and I'm just like, God bless you, I wish you nothing but happiness in your future, Charles. I loved him. Um, all the kids are good in this movie. Yes, yes. All the kids are good in this movie. Even the one who's fucking from crazy stupid love, which is ultimately a bad movie. Um, which one was some crazy and stupid love? The firebug, right? Oh. Is that the kid? Or maybe I'm thinking of he's in This is Forty.

Who's the fucking kid in crazy stupid love? Who's all, I'm in love with you or whatever. I think I hate that performance and I block that. Yeah, I guess that's a different person. Well, I'm thinking of This Is 40 then or something like that. Whatever.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Joe, would you like to tell our listeners about our wonderful Patreon? Yeah, it's called This Head Oscar Buzz Turbulant Brilliance. It is a Patreon exclusive membership. You can pay $5 a month, and you can get two bonus episodes every month. They're really fun. We've been doing this for a very long time.

So if you sign up now, you will get a treasure trove of backlogged episodes. Again, we said two a month. The first one every month, which drops on the first Friday of every month, belongs to a genre we call exceptions, which is a movie we would normally have done on flagship this had Oscar buzz, except for the fact that, oops, it got an Oscar nomination here or there, but ultimately it followed the same pattern of great Oscar expectations, disappointing results. This month, we did the Gwyneth Paltrow non-masterpiece, non-masterpiece, country strong, a best original song.

It's not even like that type of bad movie. No, there's a reason why there's a movie where Gwyneth Paltrow plays an alcoholic country singer, and it is not like on gay guy music video nights or anything like that. It's because you'll, you know what, you'll find out why if you sign up for this at Oscar Buzz Tribunal of Brilliance and listen to our episode on Country Strong. We've also done episodes on a myriad of other movies, good movies, bad movies, good movies like Contact, bad movies like Charlie Wilson's War, worse movies like The Lovely Bones. We've done episodes with guests. We've had Katie Rich on to talk about Australia and Natalie Walker on to talk about Phantom of the Opera and Jorge Molina on to talk about Knives

Out. It's truly like, it's a ton of really, really fun movies. It's a lot of movies that we had been waiting to talk about for a very long time, but couldn't on flagship. So we were very happy. Third Friday of every month, we will give you an episode in the form of what we call on excursion, which is not about a film in and of itself, but about a aspect of our movie fandom that is unique to us and tends to have something to do with award season. We'll watch an old award show like the 1988 Oscars, the 1999 Independent Spirit Awards. We'll talk about old Hollywood Reporter roundtables, old entertainment weekly fall preview issues. This month, we did a a reformulation of a handful of best picture lineups that were only five movies, and we extrapolated

them out to ten movies. And that was a really fun little exercise. In that episode, we promised in the future that we would do a special on the best original song category and really sort of explore the space of original songs from those years. And I am already spreadsheeting up some possibilities. So I'm very, very excited about that. All of this can be yours, like we said, for the low, low price of $5 a month. There are certain coffee beverages that are more expensive than that. And you know what? Basically any coffee beverage at this point. And we will be less probably sugary than those. So we'll give you a little sweet. There's a little sweetness to it. That's what they say about this. This one has a little sweetness to it. That's what they say about us.

you can sign up for this at patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz once again it is called This Had Oscar Buzz Turbulent Brilliance We love it. You'll love it too Someone's saying this one has a little sweetness to it You got to do the little shi- That is coded homophobia

If anyone said that about it Well a straight person couldn't say that about us No no you have to be part of the tribe We are here talking about Super 8 written and directed by J.J. Abrams, starring Joel Courtney, L. Fanning, we'll get into it. Kyle Chandler, Noah Emmerich, Ron Eldard, Riley Griffiths, Gabriel Basso, Ryan, Lee, Zach Mills, Michael Hitchcock as a cop. Why? And Glenn Turman, the movie opened wide June 10th, 2011. Joe, when we give the top five box office for a movie we talk about, we're normally like, God, we used to have it so good. We used to have it so good. This is maybe the first time where we're like, oh, God, it's gotten better. Like, we used to bad.

Top five in this order, Super 8, opening to $35 million. X-Men First Class, The Hangover Part 2, Kung Fu Panda 2, and Pirates of the Caribbean on Stranger Tides. Well, and this is going to lend itself to one of the conversations that we'll have on the other side of the plot description, which is, Super 8 as a bastion of non-IP blockbuster cinema, which was part of the conversation then, I think, would be a much bigger part of its conversation now. I like X-Men First Class. I do, too. But I've always kind of been like, there's no really great X-Men movie. Oh, that's wrong.

The second movie is a great. I know people love X-2. Yeah. But great? I don't know about great. I do. I don't know. Trust me. Trust the Duchess.

I don't know how Alyssa Edwards' vernacular has been slowly creeping into my day-to-day now in 2025. I mean, I was about to pivot to Fergie. Oh, well, I imagine that's what that was a reference to. That's what Alyssa was saying. Who's the one backstabbing you behind your back? Wait, what? Alice Edwards says that. You were the one backstabbing me behind my back.

No, I don't remember. Makes no sense. Definitely the type of bullshit that would come out of my mouth. No, Trust the Duchess is during that whole, like, face crack of the century when she's like... Trust the Duchess when she says this. Don't thought y'all had packed me? It ain't over just yet, baby. It's the tucking head where she goes, if you want to be rowdy, rowdy, and a bouty, bitch about it, like, then be one.

That's great. All right. Anyway, I'm stalling because I did not prepare a 60-second plot description, and there's a lot of plot. Well, if you're ready, which sounds like you're not, your 60-second plot description for Super 8 starts now. It's 1979. It's Ohio. Joel Courtney plays Joe, a 14-year-old kid whose mother has recently died. His father is played by Kyle Chandler. He's a police deputy. He's not handling it quite well. And then there's an estrangement. There's a, you know, distance between them. Joe also makes movies on his little Super 8 camera with his friends, his little weird school friends, they're making a zombie movie. They get a cooler girl L. Fanning to act in one of their movies.

And on one night out when they're filming by the train yards, there's a horrific train crash and they all almost die. And they spot something escaping, something big and scary escaping from one of the train cars. And they see their teacher from the school who's dying in the... the car that derailed the train and he says, like, don't trust anybody. The government's going to kill you in your family. And so this sets them on a path to trying to figure out what's going on with this monster. They want to keep filming their movie.

Ultimately, Al Fanning, whose father is an alcoholic and was part of the reason why Joe's mother got killed for convoluted reasons that I don't have time to get into because I'm already have a minute over. She gets abducted by the monster. Other people get abducted by the monster. Nobody knows what's going on. Noah Emrick is there with the government, and they're trying to, like, capture this thing

because they ultimately, we find out it's an alien creature who they have been keeping prisoner for, like, decades and have been torturing. And Glenn Termin, who is the science teacher, was trying to help it escape because he knows it just wants to get back home. And the kids all find Al Fanning, and they rescue her and they liberate her and then Joel Courtney's like,

Alien, I know you just want to go home. Let's be cool about this. And so they help the alien escape and it reconstitutes its ship made from little, tiny little Rubik's cubes and it blasts off from the water tower and father and son and daughter and father are all reunited and everybody feels happier about at the end.

A minute and five seconds over. Yeah, I mean, there's no what happens You resolved your 60-second plot description as quickly as the movie does itself Well, because the problem is... Which does not speak well of the movie. Once you get past the...

We've seen the alien and Glenn Turman is like, beware. And then what happens between that... The alien mocap Bruce Greenwood, by the way. And yes, which is wild. And then... Which is wild because it just looks like the Cloverfield monster and like Optimus Prime had a baby.

I have so many thoughts on this and let's put a very, very quick pin in that because maybe that can be our first thing. But like I do want to say like in between them seeing, witnessing the train crash and then L. Fanning getting abducted, something should happen in between there to like advance the story, but it really kind of like doesn't, right? They're just like, oh, well, let's go back and like we'll film back and, like, we'll film back the crash again. And then there's a lot of, like, police business that happens with, like, Kyle Chandler getting big-timed by Noah Emrick. First of all, a movie shouldn't be allowed to

have Noah Emrick and Ron Eldard in it at the same time. And Kyle Chandler at that, because at this point, watching, Kyle Chandler has given this performance five billion times. I am not shitting on Kyle Chandler. We love Kyle Chandler. But at this point, I'm like, the movie is probably a little bit better if you get not Kyle Chandler in that role. Because we know exactly. what these beats are going to be, because you cast Kyle Chandler. Yeah, I don't necessarily disagree. I think he does a good job with, and I think where he was in his career, I think that's probably good casting.

I just feel like Ron Eldard and Noah Amric both sort of like shuffle between like these three different types of roles. One is like suspicious dupe. One is ill-intentioned. functionary. And then one is, well, mostly then, those are the two Amaric types. And then Eldard is like, um, sweaty alcoholic. S sweaty alcoholic innocent versus sweaty alcoholic malevolent. Like, you know what I mean? Like, and in this one, he's not malevolent. Sometimes it is. I have maybe never liked Duran Eldard performance. No, no disrespect, I guess,

to him, even though that's a very disrespectful thing to say. Um, I'm just always being like, what the fuck? Like, I don't know. Like, do better. I don't know. Noah Emric, I think, is a very good actor who constantly plays characters who I'm just like, get the fuck out of here. Like, he does that well.

But, like, even, like, the Americans where he's, like, completely in the right. And I'm always just like, fuck this guy. Go fucking away, Stan. Like, get the fuck out of here. Or, like, the Truman Show, too, where I'm just like, you're not his friend. Like, go away. Um, so, yeah. So, okay, so the monster. Okay. So in, and I think part of this problem is CGI. Part of this problem is that you're in this era now. You're in 2011 where if you're making a monster movie, you're making your monster via CGI. You just are, right?

we are past the days of animatronics and whatever um the degree to which Jurassic Park is able to create very lifelike dinosaurs is both expensive and outdated at this point so and I want to this is me speaking completely out of my butt and I could be proved wrong I want to say Jurassic Park is probably the last time that big, giant movie monsters were made in a way that was visually memorable, which doesn't count something like King Kong, which is harkening back to a monster that, you know, was invented. You know what I mean? It's just like King Kong has a precedent in earlier movies. Godzilla has a precedent in earlier movies. But I feel like the trend as of Super 8 is, well, you want to keep your monster hidden for as long as possible.

And what... Just like Cloverfield. And what the filmmaker, what the filmmaker justification is, is we want to, you know, what you don't see is always scarier than what you do see. And, like, Spielberg kept... Have fun, interesting visual ideas in this movie, like the rotating gas station sign that allows you to see, like, the fringes of what's happening. Yes.

But what I'm saying is movies were able once upon a time to create big monster villains that were iconic, that, like, that you could see and became these, like, iconic figures. King Kong, Godzilla, the T-Rex, fucking Jaws, the Shark and Jaws, which is, like, Spielberg always gets sort of blamed for, not blamed for, but, like, he's always held up. up as, well, you don't see the shark in jaws for the horse, whatever. It's like, yeah, but you eventually see the shark and it looks like a shark and it looks scary as fuck. Whereas like Cloverfield, Super 8, there's so many other movies that are not J.J. Abrams movies that do this. So I don't want to like lay this all at J.J. Abrams' feet. But it's a thing

where like once it comes time to actually it does this, once it comes time to actually see the thing, the design on it is so murky and non-specific and the camera never lingers on it, even when it shows it. The camera never like steps back to like behold this thing. There's always a moment in a Godzilla movie where Godzilla is standing still and it's like, and you step back and you see the fullness of Godzilla

and you're like, fuck, that's crazy. Yeah. Cloverfield sort of does this when you can see it walking, among the skyscrapers? Well, less that than like, you can appreciate the size of it when they show those scenes where it's like walking in between the skyscrapers. Well, this alien's not that big, too, it's the other thing. But like, you have to convey why it's scary. And I think modern day monster movies like this do not want to ever give the audience that moment of standing back and like beholding the thing because they can't deliver something that would live up to it.

movie, everybody's Spielberg face, right? They talk about the Spielberg face where they stand up here like, what the fuck? It's to the spaceship. It's because the spaceship is the thing that is because the spaceship is something that you can convey visually in a way that is impressive. And I feel like there is no moment in Super 8 where you're looking at that monster and you're being like, that's fucking crazy. Because you still don't know what you're looking at, really. I do you think you're, you get into a different. territory though when you're talking about alien movies because like even the alien franchise you know the xenomorphs are at least in the beginning you know largely in like in the shadows you know you do eventually see the xenomorph in its full thing but like even like close encounters people are like who cares about those aliens right but but but the xenomorph ultimately and where at what point is a humanoid it's it's it's it's of human scale. But ultimately, a xenomorph, if I showed you a sketch of a xenomorph on a piece of paper, you'd be like xenomorph. And if I'd showed you a sketch of the Super 8 monster, you'd be like, I don't know. And I just saw that movie. Right, right, right.

This is the HP lovecraftification of the movie monster. Yeah, the bad robot alien universe is too, like, Kutulu-based. Yeah, you know. Yes. But like the xenomorph is a person. example. That is a monster that moves fast and you sometimes see it and it's and it kills so quickly and then it runs away. But ultimately, the movie reaches a point where you have to face head on the alien and then you see it and you're like, that's fucking crazy. Especially in aliens too.

You get a really good. But see, aliens is a James Cameron movie. And this is why like I will always ride for James Cameron and I think gets at what your... He shows you the whole boat in Titanic. There's just like he understands visual language at a large scale that allows us to feel that type of awe that you're saying a movie like this is missing. You know, he understands how to, not to sound super basic, but like paint a large scale image that, you know, the audience can react, get that reaction from. Are you about to mention the fucking whale and fucking way of water? about to do. Paya Khan is my friend. It is too painful. Okay. Paya Khan is the name of the whale. What's the word that begins with a T an avatar that is like Toolcum or whatever. The Tulkun. The Tulkoon is the like raptor bird thing

from the first one. Got it. Got it. Okay. Okay. Paya Khan is the whale. Will the whale be in fire and ash? Or is that like, did they kill the whale? Yes, Paya Khan will return in fire and ash. Is that the thing at the end of the credits? I will always remember that tweet because I'm like, yes, Pia Khan is my breath. That was the last thing you saw in the credits of Way of Water was Paiacan will return in Avatar Fire and Ash. Even though at the time it was called, what was it going to be called?

Avatar. The seed bearer. And they said, nope. Nope. Too many gay people have seen these movies. We won't be able to get away with this. Hello, sister. Your son is beautiful.

Thank you. How is your baby? My baby is strong. My baby is fierce. My baby is slay. Mother, how is your baby? My baby is boots. Your son is housed down boots.

Thank you. How is your baby? My baby is fierce. Stupid. The tone of this conversation is me, brackets, compliment. You, bracket, disdain. Yeah, exactly. Wait, but so to back up then to the, because it's rare that we get to talk about like

monster movies on this podcast because most monster movies don't come with pre-sold Oscar Buzz. And the thing about Super 8 was, the thing about Super 8, you are right to bring up Cloverfield. Because the thing about Cloverfield was, it was a genuinely thrilling surprise when that movie turned out to exist. You know, there was that surprise trailer. I can't remember what... It was attached to, I think, a Transformers movie.

Probably why I didn't see it in theaters. But all of a sudden, it was like, it was so buzzy. There's a new movie. There's a new monster movie. It's a JJ Abrams movie. What's going on? And then people saw Cloverfield and largely really liked it. I loved Cloverfield.

But Cloverfield was very much just like a terrifying monster. movie. And so it succeeded to the hilt of what it was going to succeed at. And then all of a sudden, three years later, it's like JJ's doing it again, man. He's got a movie that's been kept under wraps. I feel like Super 8 was one of those ones that was like very, very

much kept under. Like, people didn't really talk about it a lot. The timing of that first teaser, I think, was very close to filming commencing. Yeah. So it was very early in the process. And I think we knew that it was Spielberg homage. I don't really know if we knew how much of a Spielberg homage it was

because like that is the foundation that holds up this house of a movie. Well, and it's also why we can talk about it in the realm of Oscar buzz because the word on this movie was this is J.J. Abrams going for the old school

Steven Spielberg kids, you know, kids and aliens movie that, um, you know, whatever, in this, in this moment of IP driven, whatever, whatever. And again, this movie comes out the year before the Avengers. So, like, we would not know what kind of era of IP we were getting into. This movie's IP is Steven Spielberg. Right. But so it was, it was the sense of he wants to, it's not, that he wants to make a new E.T. But that he's like, by paying homage to this classic era of Spielberg, he may be making the next classic in the genre, or like a classic in the genre. And so there was a lot of expectation on the movie that it could be like the summer movie that, you know,

lasts throughout the year and becomes, you know, particularly now we were in the best picture top ten era and all of this stuff. Um, it, as it turns out, 2011 would be a very odd and weak year for best picture. But I think then what happened was all of these, all of this marketing around this movie kind of curdled when the movie came out. And I remember the first wave of reactions to Super 8 were very positive. And people were very, very much like, oh, that's great. And then almost as quickly, people were like, was it that great?

Like, was it ultimately that satisfying of a thing? You know, and then, you know, when you start comparing it to things like ET and close encounters and whatnot, it does not compare well. And then, you know, you would get these, you know, essays and whatnot on the JJ Abrams mystery box thing and J.J. Abrams and the lens flares. And I will say, for somebody who normally I'm like, stop talking about lens flares, whatever, it's whatever. I think, and you watch this movie. Well, I watched this movie. And it's just like, I watched this movie and I'm like, JJ, like, you can fucking cool it with the lens flares. Because at some point, it becomes J.J. Abrams

starts to, the thing about lens flares is, oh, we didn't get rid of a tape. that had a lens flare because the take was too good. You know what I mean? Like, that's ultimately, but it's like the, you know, blood on the camera lens thing. You know what I mean? And it's just like, the take was so good, we just left the blood on the lens. And then in this case, it's like, JJ, you're like engineering lens flares left and right. When there are shots of like a night sky and I'm just seeing like multiple blue lines across the entire screen, I'm like, we don't have to live this way.

Like, why is this your signature? Why is this your vision's signature? It's such a weird signature. I think for a movie like this in particular, it doesn't really add anything to it. And this is like, as much as, you know, we talked about the kind of scale of it and how a lot of directors don't get that. I actually do think that this movie, creature excluded. I think this movie does that actually pretty well. That train crash scene is incredible.

It looks so good. And it sounds so good. It's loud. It's violent. It's fast. and it's realistic. It's like it, and those kids, you know exactly where they are, like, geographically, even though there is chaos around them.

It's, it really is incredibly well done. It's the best scene in the movie as far as I'm concerned. The movie often looks really, really great, in my opinion. And it's like you don't, you don't need this flourish that just like makes it ultimately look like you don't actually have any visual ideas because you're just adding shit to the frame. The other thing we should mention is that Stephen Spielberg was like attached to this project as a producer too. So like this wasn't just like Abrams like dabbling in the Spielberg sandbox. This is like Abrams and Spielberg together.

And still then Spielberg ends up being the sort of like the specter that that fells the movie afterwards because like too many people are comparing it to, you know, this standard. that you can never reach. That's a hubristic thing about this movie of it's like you're reaching for something that's already so high. And I ultimately think Super 8, because like Spielberg definitely goes out of fashion for doing the Spielberg-y thing. Well, this is not a very good gear for Spielberg because he's got Warhorse and Tintin, two projects that popularly are seen as discipline. disappointments, even though you know how I feel about... They love my money, though. Well, in Warhorse...

Made $100 million, didn't it? No. Yes. Yes. All of those things. And War Horse is the Best Picture Nominy. But in terms of, like, reputationalally, a lot of people point to those movies as disappointments. Sure, sure. Most people hate War Horse.

Most people feel like Tintin was only for people who were already into Tintin, which is not most people. And so it was seen as sort of niche. and but things like Super 8 you know forwarding this status symbol not just as like a Titan in the industry but as a storyteller what are the you know Spielbergian storytelling tropes

those things going out of fashion I think a movie like Super 8 and some of the more milk toast questioning viewpoints helped exacerbate that against Spielberg which which uh specifically what just the the the idea of spielbergisms you know like and of course the culture shifted much i feel like this was around the time when people would start doing

like video essays on the spielberg face you know what i mean like that kind of a thing right yeah um and yeah i mean we're probably way a movie like super eight would probably be trashed today or even like two years ago. I feel like a movie like Super 8 would be like exalted more today because of the IP thing and because I think we are desperate these days for movies that have that kind of large scope but don't have any connection to IP. I do think like today in the late stages of 2025, I think we've turned a corner towards wanting emotional fulfillment and

like big feelings again. That's fair. But I do think the like emotional temperature of Super 8 five years ago, extremely not cool, not the vibe, people would be over it. Yeah.

I think that's fair. I think that's fair. I also feel like post Star Wars, um, people are so against J.J. Abrams. His name is kind of mud among, or at least is radioactive. You know what I mean? Among you can't have the JJ Abrams conversation without sort of reigniting annoying Star Wars conversations that you don't want to have. It's still so weird to me that you would look at a full-blown

disaster like Rise of Skywalker and be like, oh yeah, that's the director's fault and the director's fault alone. But the narrative was, but the narrative wasn't just the movie. The narrative was J.J. Abrams snaked Ryan Johnson and elbowed him out of the way to go re, like, retake the reins. Because wasn't the narrative that J.J. Abrams said to Ryan Johnson make any kind of movie you want, and that'll be great? I don't think it was J.J. Abrams. I think it was Kathleen Kennedy. But Abrams was a producer on that second movie. And I feel like the narrative, I know the Kathleen Kennedy stuff happens too, but I do feel like there was a lot of personalization of what happened with Ryan Johnson. And I think when J.J. Abrams went

and like reversed course on a lot of the storyline changes that Ryan Johnson made, I think Abrams was blamed for being reactionary and for being like, you know. To me, the evidence is more so that that was a corporate decision. Of course it was. J.J. Abrams was fully just a hired hand in that movie's, you know, creative invention. You know, essentially executing the will of the corporation, which isn't great. But, you know, I just feel like, I don't know. That's my interpretation of that movie.

That's the movie I feel like I saw. Where are we with this movie, this ghost right? movie that he's making with Glenn Powell and Jenna Ortega. Is that like filming? Did it film? Is it like ready to come out next year? Like, do we know what's going on? What does IMDB say?

Is it in post-production? I don't know. But Wikipedia says that principal photography began in 2025 and concluded later this year. Yeah, IMDB says it's in post-production. So. So Glenn Powell, Jenner, Jenner, Anna Ortega, Emma Mackey, Samuel L. Jackson. Is Ghostwriter like a thing?

Like a... Is this like a property that I should know? I don't know if it's IP. This is what I'm asking. The synopsis on IMDB said... This is very, you know, J.J. Abrams vague mystery box. A young newlywed couple struggles to survive against a supernatural entity. If this movie tries to sell us Glenn Powell and Jenna Ortega as a married couple, I will have some issues.

It could be Emma Mackey, because Emma Mackey is... Sure. And sell Jenna Ortega as their daughter? As a ghost. Believable. Oh, okay. Because I feel like Ghost Writer. Hold on.

Let me see what... It's Ghost Rider one word. I think the IP Ghost Writer is two words. Like the thing that existed. Ghost Writer. That was for, like, teens. Okay, that's maybe what I'm thinking of, is that 1922 TV series, Ghost Writer, One Word,

Children's Television Workshop. Oh, that was a children's educational show that I'm looking at. Guys, I don't know. Gary's, don't give me a hard time about this. Regardless, I'm excited for a JJ Abrams, the Glenn Powell movie. We're hopeful for Glenn Powell, generally speaking. I don't know why he's making it. this television show, even though people seem to say it's funny. I don't know why he's making

fucking the Running Man. Oh, I'm kind of interested. The problem with the, the Running Man trailer gives away so much. And I don't mean plot because, like, obviously it's based on not only a previous movie, but like a previous movie. It gives away like full action beats that I'm like, save it for the movie. That would be so cool if I didn't know that that was about to happen in that movie. Michael Sarah being in that movie definitely helps me consider. The thing about Glenn Powell is we need Glenn Powell to, granted, what are original movies anymore? We need Glenn Powell to be doing his own thing that is not the, like, football show that everybody hates or whatever. I don't think everybody hates it.

I feel like some people think it's very funny, but yes. Interesting. Yeah. movies coming out. You know what I'm saying, though. He's, he's, he is, apparently reviving a Alec Guinness performance that was really loved. Like, so it's like, I don't know. Today I learned it's not pronounced coronets. So there we go. I learned some, maybe it is coronets. I, listeners, let us know. All right. Let's talk about L-Fanning for a second. So, also got rave reviews from this movie

like eclipsing any of the other young stars she'd already been in movies yes well and also she's Dakota fanning's sister so she's a she's a known entity but so her kind of big scene is her crying at the home video footage of the lead character's

mother who has since passed and I remember my reaction to the love for her in this movie being like, yeah, she's good, but like her big scene is her crying about something that has nothing to do with her. I don't get it. And on this rewatch, I was like, oh, actually, there might be an interesting thing in this scene that's like first generation inherited trauma that she's actually responding to, not, you know, crying to something that has nothing to do with her. Her career up to this point, because she had been in things from like an incredibly

young age, where she was like, she played Dakota, Dakota Fanning's, the version of Dakota Fanning's I Am Sam character as a two-year-old. So, like, she was doing stuff back from them. She sort of alternates playing daughters to, like, you know, main character couples. She's in The Door and the Floor. She's in Babel. She's in Reservation Road. And then she's also weirdly in deja vu with Denzel Washington, which is a nice parallel

to Dakota being in Man on Fire. Love that goofy. movie. Dejaveau I've never seen. Deja vu is very kooky. I loved it. And then she's in Curious Case of Benjamin Button as the young Kate Blanchett character, where they put her in that very silly redwig. And to me, the breakout movie comes in 2010 with Somewhere. And

where she plays Stephen Dorse's daughter, it's really lovely. I think she ends up being like a very, you know, a good Sophia Coppola muse. She ends up working with Sophia again on The Beguiled. She's also in Francis Ford Coppola's Twix, which I've never seen. And then Super 8 is the next year following somewhere. And that begins, that's when she sort of like really becomes this very, very, very, castable, you know, she's very quickly gets, she's in, we bought a zoo, she's in Ginger and Rosa,

which is a Sally Potter movie that is very underseen, but I think is really, really good, her and Alice Englert and Alessandro Navola and Annette Benning. Maleficent is obviously her big sort of mainstream follow-up to Super 8, where she plays the young Princess Aurora opposite Angelina Jolie. But she starts doing a lot of very kind of indie slash, you know, artistically interesting movies. She's in The Neon Demon. She does that movie Three Generations, which I don't think ultimately is very good.

And I think would be obviously seen as problematic these days. she's in 20th century women which I think she's really Everybody in that movie is really really good Her included Live by Night The Van Aethnic movie As I said she's in the Beguiled

She's in that movie Mary Shelley Playing Mary Shelley That I don't think anybody saw That made the festival rounds And Lord knows when it actually like came out But I remember it being at TIF That I think is like an IFC movie That immediately went away

And then she's in, um, wait, no, teen spirit isn't the one that you like. You like how to talk to girls at parties. Yes, I like how to talk to girls at parties. Teen spirit is, um, I don't think gay people know that there's a movie where El Fannin covers Robin, but there is. That's sure is. That's right. That's Max Mingela's movie. Yeah.

It's kind of a nothing burger, but like El Fannin can sing and she does like dancing on my own. Yeah. You know, so. Um, and then up it up. to then last year she's in a complete unknown kind of gets usurped for the Oscar buzz by Monica Barbaro

that's maybe happening to her again this year with sentimental value although I do think there is a world in which both she and it's it Inga Ibsotter Lilias? I think it'll be both of them they're certainly both

in the race right now. Al Fanning plays in Sentimental Value which is the new Joachim Trir film that had such a good reception at Cannes. The thing about both of them is that, like, they both absolutely crush their final scenes. And, like, the movie doesn't, like, come together without both of their final scenes. I think that's right. It's kind of the surprise of the movie. And that's why I think they'll both have a strong chance of being nominated.

Elle plays – she's playing an American actress. I'm not making that up on my head, right? an American actress. No, because if she was Canadian, they would be like, we'll cast Sarah Gatton. American actress who, Stellan Scarsgaard, who's playing a sort of veteran, long veteran filmmaker,

wants to cast in his movie as a essentially stand-in for his daughter. So... It was mother, but he originally asks his daughter to take the role. Yes, it was the role that he wants his daughter to play.

the role, right, is based on his mother. So there's a lot of... Intergenerational drama swirling around it. And she's largely outside of it, but also then she gets sort of, gets it kind of placed upon her. She ends up having a really interesting relationship with the Scars Guard character that does not go to the places that I was sort of expecting it to go. And I think to the movie's benefit... I think she's quite good. I think Inga Ibsda-Lylius, because she's, she was unknown to me, is the more impressive

one to me because I'm like, wow, like, man, she's great. I love that performance. But I think Elle, especially you're right in her final scene in the film, is really, really good. And so I will be bummed if Elle Fanning, you know, goes two years in a row getting, getting, the cold shoulder from the Oscars, despite being the more famous person than the other person in her movie. I think it came down to it being her over L. Fanning, because Monica Barbaro sings. Well, she's also playing Joan Baez and people know and like Joan Baez.

And L. Fanning's playing a composite. Yeah. Ultimately, I mean, I've had my say about a complete unknown before, a movie I like, but I think the weakest parts of that movie are the parts with both of their characters. both her and Monica Barbaro's characters. I think the movie does not do romantic relationships as well as it does everything else that it does in that movie.

Monica Barbaro sounds beautiful. She sounds nothing like Joan Baez. Yeah, I don't know. She didn't really make it for me as an Oscar nominee in that movie. But anyway. El Fanning, though, I feel like, you know, there's...

I can't decide what of the acting races this year are competitive and what are thin. We've had this conversation recently, though, off mic, about best actor, where you were like, no, best actor is very busy and crowded. And I'm like, it's crowded and busy with a lot of performances people don't seem to be enthusiastic about. But supporting actress, I think. Well, supporting actress, yes. There's a lot of possibility. I feel like there's more possibility than lead actor.

And I think now that Chase Infinity has moved up to lead actress, I think maybe even more. more so because I think it then like it opens up a lot more a lot of people I've been seeing still predicting Regina Hall to get nominated for one battle after another which I think is kind of funny because like I don't think that role gives her enough good material to warrant it despite the fact that I think she does great with the material she has um I think there's a lot of I think when Regina Hall was announced first like she was the second cast member announced after Leonardo DiCaprio. So I think a lot of people got it in their heads like, fuck, yeah.

Regina Hall is going to be the female lead in the Paul Thomas Anderson movie. And I think people have really clutched on to the idea that Regina Hall is going to be an Oscar nominee for this movie for so long that they're having a harder time letting go of it. And I'm not saying I would rule her out at this point because she is very good in that movie and people really like that movie. And we are against ruling people out at this point, too. I'm trying to get on board, very hard. She's currently sitting like sixth on the totem pole in terms of awardable performances in that movie. And it's just, it's tough for a movie to get six acting nominations. I don't think any movie ever has.

Is five the limit? Well, how many did Tom Jones? Well, I'm trying to think of like Godfather part two, which had three supporting actor nominations, plus Talia Shire, plus Al Pacino. So that is still only five. I don't know. Godfather Part 1 had three supporting actors plus Brando, which is only four. And no supporting actress. And no supporting actress.

That's something we should look up. But back to Al Fanning for a second. Who I love. Great performer. One of the things that I think is very fun and interesting is she's somebody who I went through Elle Fanning's awards tab on IMDB. Do you want to take a guess at how many different movies she's been nominated for or given an award for that have specified younger actress or breakthrough actress? Oh, God, it's probably a dozen. I will say a dozen.

It's 10. A dozen would be, like, I, 10 is still a fucking lot. And a lot of those were like, she got a billion breakthrough or younger actress nominations for Super 8. She got a ton for somewhere. So there's a lot of, like, overlap in there. But the 10 films, the 10 different movies are Mary Shoehl, Shelly, something called Phoebe and Wonderland, Somewhere, Trumbo, Maleficent, Super 8, Nutcracker, The Untold Story, Babel, Daddy Daycare, which she was nominated for the ensemble, but it was for Best Youth Ensemble from the Young Artist Awards, and then Ginger and Rosa. She's been nominated three times by the critic's choice for best, wait, whatever. is Critics' Choice Best Younger or Best Breakthrough?

Some of those are fully random, too, because there's movies like We Bought a Zoo that are not included in that list. Right. Critics' Choice has nominated her three times for Best Younger Actor or Actress. She was nominated one, two, three, four, five, six times by the Young Artist Awards. She was nominated as Actress of the Year by the Young Hollywood Awards. She's just been the younger actress of choice for like a solid decade there. I think she's finally emerged from it. It's sort of like how, who did I just make a note of the fact that, like, oh, Miles Heiser is playing a high schooler on a high school graduate on this Netflix show where he goes into the Army.

And it's like, man, that kid has been in high school. What's that? Boots. Boots? Yes. I've seen a lot of people like boots. I need to watch boots. I don't not like it.

It's a show about a gay kid who goes into the Army and I've seen the first two episodes. and I'm like, I know where this is going, because it's based on a memoir also. And it's like, I'm really not interested at this point in time watching a gay kid go through the crucible of like basic training and then be like this movie, this process made me a better person. Like, not interested in it. But anyway, he's been in high school on television or film for like legitimately 10 years. But anyway, I think Elle's very good in this movie. I think she's an actress who it took me a little bit to come around on liking her. I think because she has such a very different vibe than Dakota.

You know what I mean? Dakota is much more verbal and precocious and do you know what I mean? I wonder if some of this also has to do with El Fanning being in much more esoteric movies. Oh, it makes so... That are probably not going to be your cup of tea already. It's not necessarily that it's not my cup of tea. It's that Al Fanning, it makes so much sense that Al Fanning is the one of the Fanning sisters that Sophia Coppola, you know, drifted towards. it's a it's a much more of a placid um you sort of imprint upon you know that character i think

she um fits in very well to that world and yes um yeah the fact that she's in like nicholas vending reffin movies and stuff like that where i'm just like okay um but i also feel like by the time you get to things like 20th century women and whatnot there is a i think she has now a I read some of that, the Vanity Fair piece on the sisters, the fanning sisters, and I want to read the whole thing. But it's interesting to see them interact with each other as much more similar people because, like, their screen personas are so very, very different. But I think that kind of placidity with L has now kind of evolved into, a wiseness. I wouldn't say like a world weariness, but a worldliness that comes across in her stuff. And I find that even in something like sentimental value where she's playing somebody who ultimately

isn't quite sure of herself in this movie that she's making with Stell and Scars Guard. But there is a presence and a self-possessedness to her that is that she utilizes very, very well, I think. Yes. Does that make sense? Yes. I maybe disagree that that's something new for her. I find her to be very interesting. I mean, again, it's maybe some of these are, you know, movies that I am more inclined towards. Yeah.

Like how to talk to girls at parties. What did you think of? I have a lot of patience for the neon deepens that a lot of people don't have. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I also feel like I'm always going to probably drift towards the one who is talkier. You know what I mean? And I think Dakota is definitely the talkier of the two.

Although she's become more, less that as she's gotten older. I don't know. I think they're two very fascinating people. And I think watching them do. like, do stuff like that interview together and whatever. First of all, the fact that the Nightingale is still happening is crazy to me. Like, that movie's been in development for a decade or more. Find another property.

But to hear the two of them interact with each other, I'm like, oh, I kind of love them. You know what I mean? They did. Oh, absolutely. Also, the video that came out recently where they're asking Kirsten Dunst, like, who does she like to talk shit with and she said the fanning sisters. I was like, this speaks so well. Kirsten Dunst saying that article said was just like Kirsten Dunst is close to them. She considers herself the third fanning sister. I'm like, isn't she already the third Rodarte's sister?

Like she's really like Kirsten is a real girl's girl in that way where she's just like part of the group. Like maybe she'll be the fourth time sister at some point. Maybe that'll get Paul Thomas Anderson to cast her in something. What do you make of this the still of Alonaheim in the black wig becoming this meme? I saw that and I'm like, man, we will figure out a way to meme literally anything.

It's literally just Alonaheim in a wig. Shout out to my friend who enlisting the things that he loved about one battle after another was quite literally Hi, M3 with a gun. No, it's great That Alana Haim showed up for like four days And that movie and said, yes, let me put on the switch

She's just around, it's fine, they're friends All right, Super 8 Let's do the quiz Oh yeah, El Fanning, right, we did all this talk about El Fanning This is our sixth El Fanning movie And so she joins our illustrious And increasingly very crowded Sixth Timers Club We first did an El Fanning

movie way of the heck back in our 14th episode with the door in the floor. Followed that up with Sophia Coppola's Somewhere. The iconic this had Oscar Buzz movie Reservation Road. Ben Afflex lived by night. Cameron Crows, we bought a zoo. And now her other 2011 movie, Super 8. What if there was a Super 8? So traditionally, I gather information about these six movies, and then I present Chris with a quiz about them.

Chris, have you written down the titles of these movies? Sure have. The answers for these will be one or more of these six films. Are you ready? Let's go. Let's go. Which of these is the longest? We bought a zoo.

No. Oh. Oh, no. we live by night is like nine years long. It is very long. It only beats we bought a zoo by five minutes, but it's five crucial minutes. 129 minutes long, live my night. Which two movies tie for the shortest?

Somewhere and Reservation Road? 98 minutes apiece. Very good. Wow. Which has the best rotten tomatoes percentage? Super 8. Super 8, 81%. Which has the worst rotten tomatoes.

percentage. Reservation Road. Surprisingly no. Wow. I'm going to double check this. Yeah. By 3% Live by night? Live by night. It's 35%. Reservation Road is 38%. Biggest box office success. Super 8.

Super 8. $127 million domestic. Lowest box office domestic. Reservation Road? Reservation Road at a shade under $122,000. Yes. Barely into triple digits. Which two movies were directed by people who have never won an Oscar? Super 8 and the door and the floor?

That's correct. Sophia Coppola is a screenplay winner. Ben Affleck is a screenplay and Best Picture winner. Terry George won a short film Oscar. Terry George also directed. Nope. That's Gavin Hood. Never mind.

And then Cameron Crow is also a screenplay winner. Which four movies were directed by someone who's acted in an Oscar-nominated film? Not Super 8. And not we bought a zoo. So Reservation Road, live by night, door on the floor, and somewhere? You got two of them. Somewhere is correct. Live by night is correct.

So, oh, that's right. J.J. Abrams is in like six degrees of separation. Among other movies, he is in six degrees of separation, which is an Oscar nominated movie. Yes. Cameron Crowe acted in a movie? Yeah, Cameron Crow shows up in among other movies Minority Report, which is an Oscar nominee. He's one of the cameos in that film. Like the top half of Cameron Diaz's face.

Right, exactly. Where are we? Which of these movies has the same cinematographer as The Game, The Yards, and Margot at the Wedding? Which is Harris-Savidus, which is somewhere? Very good. Which movie got it for you? Margo at the wedding. Which of these movies has the same cinematographer as 8 Mile Alexander and Argo? Is that Robert Richardson? It's not Robert Richardson.

Eight Mile. Robert Richardson saw it live by night, so it's not that. I'm just going to guess it's Reservation Road. It's not Reservation Road. Is it the door and the floor? It is not the door on the floor. Reservation Road was John Lindley's cinematography. Door in the floor was Terry Stacey.

Okay. So we bought a zoo. We bought a zoo. Rodrigo Preeto shots. We bought a zoo. Which of these films has the same costume designer as the Bangor Sisters, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and the Tree of Life? That's not like Trish Somerville, is it?

Nope. I'm going to guess the door on the floor. Not the door on the floor. Good guess. I'll give you one more guess. Reservation road. No, not Reservation Node. It is Live by Night. Jacqueline West did the costumes for Live by Night, the Banger Sisters, the Leave Extraordinary Gentleman, and the Tree of Life, among her many. Jacqueline West, Tree of Life excluded, you've got better things to do with your time.

Listen, Bangor Sisters had some good threats, I will say. Sure, sure. I'm sure that took up very little of her time. Which of these movies has the same composer, as Sin Nombre, Enough Said, May December, and Remember Me, Secret 9. 11 movie, remember me. The May-December score being the... Re-worked version of that... Yes, of... Is it the go-between? I think maybe.

Yeah. How interesting. Yes. Live by night? No. I believe this composer also did the reworking of the Swan Lake score into the Black Swan. score, if I'm not mistaken. Oh, so Clint Mansell. Nope. That was Clint Mansell. And I'm thinking of somebody else. Never mind. Okay. Yes,

never mind. Not Clint Mansell. Reservation Road. No, it's the door on the floor. It's Marcelo Zarvos. Oh. Oh. Which three of these movies were released on Christmas week? We bought a zoo, lived by night, and somewhere. Yes, very good. Yes. Which movie was released in Libra season. So now you know. Reservation Road. Yes. Reservation Road. You're one of three. Which movie was co-written by the screenwriter who wrote Morning Glory. Speaking of Diane Keaton, rest in peace. Live by night. Excuse me, no. I believe Live by Night was solely Ben Affleck writing.

Reservation Road. No, it is We Bought a Zoo, which is co-written by Cameron Crow and Aileen Broche McKenna. Oh, I didn't realize that was her. Yes. Which two movies are the only ones that came, only ones of these six that came from original screenplays? Super 8. Yep. And somewhere.

Yep. Other four adaptations. Which were the only two movies to play at any of the major film festivals? Somewhere. Yes. Yes. Venice. And Reservation Road, which played at Tiff.

Yes, correct. Which two movies feature L. Fanning's face on the poster as conveyed by IMDB? We bought a zoo. Nope. Oh, interesting. Somewhere and Live By Night? Somewhere and Live By Night. You see her back on the Super 8 poster.

Her and Jill Courtney are facing the thing, so you don't see her face. And also, it's very clearly not her. It's very clearly like a, you know, a CGI, whatever. depiction of her. Where are we? Which of these movies featured the tagline? The Most Dangerous Secrets are the ones we're afraid to tell ourselves. Reservation Road.

No. You fell for my... Door and the Floor. Yes, the Door and the Floor. Which of these titles has the largest possible Scrabble score? I'm going to keep doing this just because it's very fun. Reservation Road, lots of letters. We bought a zoo.

has a Z in it. I think a B is also a... And you're just saying, like, just the actual score. It's not if you're counting in triple letter, triple word... Right. As a baseline score. Yes. We bought a zoo.

It is We bought a zoo. That Z really helps you out. Door and the floor... The B, the W, and the G, too. Door and the floor puts up a good fight. We bought a zoo is a 30. Door and the floor is a 27. Which movie has IMDB.

keywords that include saggy breasts, male rear nudity, and stitches. Door in the floor. Door in the floor. All of those things are in the door and the floor. Jesus Christ. I know.

IMDB keywords, get it together. We don't need keywords for saggy breasts. Which movie has IMDB keywords that include widower, love at first sight, and babe scientist. We bought a zoo. We bought a zoo. Also could count for Super 8.

Glintermann. Babe. Which movie got an MTV Movie Award nomination? Super 8. Super 8. Yep. Which two of these movies received special recognition for excellence in filmmaking from the National Border Review? Somewhere and door in the floor.

Yes, correct. Very good. Which two movies were AARP movies for grownups nominated? Sorry. Which two movies were AARP movies for grownups nominee? Live by Night and Door and the Floor? Door in the Floor, yes, for Best Actor for Jeff Bridges nominee. Then the other one is We Bought a Zoo.

Yes, for Best Director Cameron Crowe. Which three of these movies were Critics' Choice nominees? Super 8. Yes. Live by Night. Yes. And We bought a zoo. No.

Somewhere. Yes, somewhere. Very good. For Al Fanning? Somewhere was for Yes, for younger actress. Yes, El Fanning, very good. Where did we go?

Scrabble, saggy breasts, MTV, A-R-P, Critics Choice. Which two films feature stars of true grit? Door on the floor. and oh we bought a suit yes that's pretty easy jeff bridges matt damon which three films feature star no sorry i'm going off of an old uh which one film features the stars no sorry which two films that's the way these questions work which two films feature stars of the film infinitely polar bear Reservation Road

Mark Ruffalo And Oh, live by night, so he saw Donia I can't believe you know a second person Who is in Infinity Polar Bear That's amazing Have you seen Infinitely Polar Bear? No, but I've seen like production stills.

She's on the poster I don't think I've ever seen the poster For Infinity Polar Bear I'll tell you that Or if I have, it's washed over me Like water over a rock Which of these films did the New York Times's Manola Dargis call

a grim mechanistic thriller about death and suffering, life and healing among the civilized. Reservation Road? Reservation Road. Yes. About which of these films did Times Richard Corliss say, there's a word for the strenuous,

shameless plucking of an audience's emotions that this movie traffics in. Cornography. Wow. Um, we bought a zoo We bought a zoo, correct. About which of these films did our friend Rex Reed say? Deluded critics praise this director's style of moment-to-moment realism with a stripped

bare minimum of action plot, camera movement, and camera development. Trouble is, the moments said director chooses to show are not the moments worth watching. Somewhere. Somewhere, yes. Once again, fuck you, Rex Reed. And about which of these films did Rex Reed? read say, watching these youngsters following their dream against all odds, I found myself getting some of my inner child back and laughing out loud at the same time. Super 8. Super 8. Rex Reed, a super 8 fan.

Champion of the middle brow, Rex Reed. Not that he's wrong about Super 8. One of these times I'm going to do a full-on Rex Reed quiz, and we're going to go through, and we're going to try and I'll have you guess. I'll give you a title. You're going to see how long it takes me to burn the building town. No, what I will do is I will be like, I'll give you a movie title, and you'll tell me whether or not Rex Reid liked it, and you will fail, because he's so unpredictable. I actually don't think that would be that difficult. That would not be difficult at all. I'm going to, we're going to do it.

That'll be. Maybe we'll do it. Maybe we'll do an excursion on the Patreon that's just me shitting on Rex Reed. It'll be the Rex Reed, Owen Glyberman, and who's your, I was not going to invoke a living person. Is Rex Reed alive? Oh, yeah. Maybe I just did the ultimate dunk on Rex Reed, and I'm like, this dead bitch who's alive. Yeah, I also hate Owen Gladrowman, sorry.

We'll find a third one. Okay, so what else do we want to talk about? Wait, I want to bring up my notes because I definitely do have notes. The young performer Critics Choice nominees this year that Elle Fanning was nominated. There were six nominees. Also, Asa Butterfield for Hugo. Ezra Miller, we need to talk about Kevin, Sertia Ronan for Hannah, Shailene Woodley for the descendants who you would think would be the winner, but the winner was Thomas Horn in

extremely loud and incredibly close. Boy, people, I remember people really hating that performance, too. That's so funny. Shailene Woodley really felt like a slam dunk at about the October, September October portion of that year. Potential winner. And then her stock sank like a stone. And I genuinely don't remember, because I remember there being backlash against the descendants, but it wasn't against

her in any way. And yet she seemed to be like... Yeah, people who didn't like the movie liked her, including me. And yet she seemed to be like the person, the only person who sort of suffered for that downturn in momentum for the descendants in terms of like nominations. Like ultimately, Clooney doesn't win best actor probably because of that downturn.

Certainly, I don't know if the descendants ever could have won best picture, but it didn't. So, 2011, man. What a weird one. I guess the descendants could have won that year.

There was no, the artist did not have to happen. The artist was not an inevitability. The artist doesn't happen if it's not pushed by Harvey 1 Man, different times, man, different times. Speaking of different times, this was a time of two phases of shortlist for various categories, including visual effects, of which Super 8 made the first short list before being cut down. I'm going to give you all of the titles that were nominated to then the various short lists.

The nominees that year are Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Hugo, which one, real steel. Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Transformers Dark of the Moon. Real Steel being an Oscar nominee is one of those things that I now have imprinted in my brain because of Cinematrix. Because now whenever I do a Hugh Jackman grid with Oscar nominated movie on there, I have used it enough now where I'm like, right, real steel was a nomination. Okay, yeah. Rise of the Planet of the Apes not winning, too, because they love those movies. They'd already done, it's always been an interesting conversation around mocap and Avatar had just won this category, but like you don't really just award Avatar for the mocap, though I think the mocap is more impressive in the Avatar movies than it's ever been. But Rise of the Planet of the Apes is like right there behind it.

So it's interesting that Rise of the Planet of the Apes did not win, and they gave it to Hugo, a movie that I think its visual effects are fine. But it's the only best picture nominee among those nominated, so that, you know, it makes sense from that. It's the only Martin Scorsese movie that doesn't get talked about in Mr. Scorsese. I will not let this go. But once again, when you're talking about Oscar voting, when you get into the final stage of voting for winners, the whole academy is voting. And so you have most people who don't really know the intricacies of VFX and what. whatever, they're just voting for their favorite movie of those five. Right. Which I think the first short list shows you, because that short list included

Cowboys and Aliens, Sherlock Holmes, a Game of Shadows, Sucker Punch, Super 8, and Thor. And then the next short list that made it further past those movies was Captain America, the First Adventure, Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol, Pirates of the Caribbean on Stranger Tides, The Tree of Life, which, Best Picture Nominy, and X-Men First Class. What are the interesting things about Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol? And in general, the Mission Impossible movies up until very, very recently, not finding any purchase with the Oscars, is you would watch a movie like Ghost Protocol. And I think I would be like, wow, the visual effects, because they in the Sandstorm. Well, and also because within the movie, some of the things that they do are in text visual effects, right?

The thing in the hallway that they do. And, like, even the, like, you know, climbing up the Birch Khalif and stuff like that, it's so incredible to watch. And, like, and, of course, some things like that, it's like, how much of that is Tom Cruise doing his own stunts? I wonder if, like, Tom Cruise emphasizing doing his own stunts took away some of the possibility of a VFX nomination because they're like, Isn't he just like raw-dogging all that stuff? This is an interesting question, I think, between stunts and practical effects where you have to really designate what you're talking about. Because like, a visual effect can be like, we knocked down this wall for this fight scene. Right.

You know, something like that. But I also, but I just feel like in general, the VFX praise never went to the Mission Impossible movies as much as you would have thought. would because they emphasized the practicality so much in the marketing of that movie. When in reality, I imagine a mix of practical and special effects, you know, happened quite a bit. Is the Tree of Life on that short list just for the fucking dinosaur? Well, also, you know, the like birth of man part of that movie, if you want to call it that, those are also like practical effects where they were doing, you know, chemical reactions. under a microscope, which is, you know, a practical effect.

I think you can ultimately get a better list of five visual effects nominees than the ultimate list from these 15 movies. What movies specifically would you elevate? Super 8, for sure, if nothing else, for that train sequence, which I think still looks great. A tree of life, I would put in there. Would you really? Yeah, just for the overall. impact that it has on the movie, for sure. Those fucking dinosaurs.

Nothing turned me on that movie more than that scene. I was just like, fuck it, I'm out. I fucking hated that shit. I really did. I'm sorry. It's a great movie. I think you need to give it another chance. I'm trying to think if there's anything specifically visual effects-e

in either Captain America or Thor that I want to make a case for. because I know you won't do that. Captain America, I would put... The first Captain America, yeah, put it in there. There's a lot of stuff with, like, the Tesser Act and stuff like that, and like, that looks very cool. A lot of, like, of the chase scenes along the ice and whatnot. Absolute most visual effects. Who cares?

Yes. Harry Potter getting through there is, like, people trying to make a best picture nomination happen for that, which was never going to happen. just like it was never going to happen for that Spider-Man movie. I will say, though, that final, the final sort of battle of Hogwarts or whatever in that movie, yes, it's just sort of like people shooting, like, wand beams at each other. But, like, I think, and part of it, I guess, maybe is the direction. I think that movie pays off really, really well. So I'm fine with that nomination.

Rise of Planet of the Apes, yes. Hugo, sure. Real steel I've still never seen, so I can't say. and then Transformers Dark of the Moon, I can't remember whether I've seen, but, like, all of those movies are bad. But, like, I didn't like Cowboys and Aliens. I thought Sucker Punch was so ugly.

I'd probably give it to GoTo Call just for the hallway, the hallway scene. And I'd probably, yeah, either Captain America the first. You know what? I'd give it to Thor because everybody was such a bitch about Thor that I'd just be like, fuck you, Thor. um fucking hymdahl and the fucking rainbow transport or whatever do it any last notes on super eight yeah um the michael giakino score is really great and i understand that it's i was gonna say

this too it's very john williamsy but like okay see i i kind of don't think it's super john williamsie at least at the beginning i feel like the stuff you get right at the outset i feel like is very aggressively John Williamsey, but like, that's not a comparison. For me, the score was one of the things that I felt like distinguished it from just basically trying to riff on Spielberg. Yeah. I like the scene with the cute teen at the gas station zoning out to Heart of Glass. That was fun.

I guess we talked about Cloverfield, right? And about how people thought this was maybe going to be a Cloverfield sequel, that this was going to be because Cloverfield had been, well, but like that this, because Cloverfield had been a similar kind of like, you know, sprung upon. And like, and there were, I mean, the fact that multiple movies ended up being Cloverfield, secret Cloverfield movies, told you that like, clearly there were ideas for doing a secret Cloverfield movie in the ether as far back as this point. But I do love Cloverfield. Again, I think that movie, has similar, like, can't what, you see the monsters thing, which is why some of the most

effective monster stuff in that movie is the stuff in the subway with the tiny little, the tinier monsters, the little, because you know the whole thing about those is they were... The bites making you explode. Well, and they're, the whole idea is patterned after these, um, these sea, these, whatever, like, mollusky sea creatures. That was the big monster. And then the other ones were these, like sea lice that would come off of the creature. And like those were essentially like giant lice that were like coming after those people, which makes it even grosser.

Oh, the other thing I wanted to say about in terms of like movies making the decision to show or not show their monsters, Independence Day is a movie that handled that kind of thing very instantly, interestingly, where the iconography is not the monster, it's the ships. But those monsters are still real fucking scary and gross. Right. But they're smaller than you think. And so I think in terms of a movie trying to do something that is, like, big and scary, they're like, well, we can't do it with the alien. We'll do it with the ships.

And, like, that's, like, you need to give some sort of wonder and awe. I wrote down bad things happen and then, oh, that's the thing that he says, right? That's the thing that he says to the alien to, like, forge a connection. That whole scene does not work for me. Okay, we should talk about this. The third act of the movie is like shortcuts left and right to get to where it needs to go. They find the aliens layer where it's keeping all of the people and also TVs and microwaves and whatever that it's abducted. And Joel Courtney, Joe, instead of, they can't run away from the thing, so he turns and faces it.

And the thing picks them up, which, by the way, is a little bit of a cheat, because every other time it's picking. picked up anything. It's like violently, like, run away with it and whatever. But this time he picks him up and sort of looks at him. And I really, really, really hate movies that establish the fact that there is a communication barrier between two creatures. And yet they eventually, the hero communicates to the thing by speaking words. And I'm like, you've established... By nature of them being the hero of a movie. You've established the fact that this alien can't understand words. So you've got to find another. way. And, like, they've also established the fact that, like, contact allows understanding.

Because Al Fanning has that thing where she's like, I, I, you know, it touched me and I sort of, you know, I got a flash of, of its mind or whatever. But so then show me that rather than him talking. Him talking is for the audience, right? Him talking isn't for the alien. But you're playing it in the scene as if him talking is for the alien and it feels cheap to me. And then you do something dumb like bad things happen and it's like this this shouldn't work you know what i mean like it's dumb that this works because bad things happen isn't for the monster it's for us in the audience to be like oh he's talking about his mom um and the alien doesn't fucking i guess maybe if the if the alien sympathizes with joe because joe lost his mother the aliens like yo

bro. But you need to show that visually. You can't just have him say that. So that to me was very, very irritating and annoying. And I do feel like... On the cutting room floor, they didn't have enough time for the visual effects. You see a flash into the alien's mind where the alien's mom also dies in a workplace-related incident. And then alien OSHA shows up. It's not alien OSHA. But so I do feel like part of the reason why after Super 8 came out and there was a, I don't want to say backlash against it, that critical and sort of a tastemaker opinion turned against that movie was because I think people sort of stepped back and kind of realized that there was less there than they thought there was, that there was ultimately a dissatisfying. core to the narrative of this movie and sort of it is ultimately not as satisfying because it's a lot of early movie bravura that ultimately does not pay off either narratively or I would venture to say like the stuff with the ship creating the spaceship out of the nanocubes and whatever

and turning the water tower all the stoves and it like crushes the water tower so everybody gets sort of like rained on. Yeah, the local water supply is fucked for a while. Sorry, guys. Yeah, sorry, everybody. You're going to have to shower two towns over. But that scene was okay, but ultimately, we don't, we haven't come here to watch

a spaceship get pushed together, put together. Well, and I think all of the things that are impressive about that scene are emotionally resident, we've seen in other movies. I think this kind of goes back to your thoughts of J.J. A. being a better TV guy where what's good and what's fun and what like absorbs you about Super 8 is all of the like mystery and world setting stuff and all of the like foundations of conflict between these characters which I think the movie actually does very very well but like when you get into the final 20 15 minute stretch of this movie it's it's it's shortcuts.

left and right to get conflict resolution. I would so much rather have Kyle Chandler not even be in that final scene where it's not like father and son resolve their tensions over, you know, letting go of this necklace together because it doesn't feel like it's earned that. It feels like there's three or four scenes missing until you can get to that point. And it, you know, And I do feel bad because I do feel like Joel Courtney and El Fanning could have done it, right? They were strong enough in this movie that they could have pulled that off. And they just aren't... Why not kidnap the other friends instead of kidnapping El Fanning, you know?

Why not kidnap the two dads? And they have to rescue their two dads. Joe said, take these men away. I'm done with them. Were you ever as... The Dick Smith Monster Makeup Handbook. I need to know if that's real. I will say, the zombie movie that they were making was pretty impressive.

Like, for kids, like, for being able to, like, the stuff that they were able to do with, like, editing and stuff like that. Like, for being dumb fucking kids, they were doing a pretty good job. Well, that's what's supposed to make El Fanning seem so impressive, is, like, she takes this script where she's, like, wife on phone, but in person, where she's, like, something bad will happen. How dare you mention the Grace Gummer character in. fucking

house of dying away something bad will happen I don't want you to leave and she finds gravitas in that scene and it's like whoa we got a real actress

what was it even that Grace Gummer was in that I was like wife on phone but in person the Springsteen movie the Springsteen movie right right she's Jeremy Strong's there's got to be other

we'll find other examples of wife on phone but in person in person Springsteen, a movie that I ended up really liking, not really liking, I ended up liking, probably more so because I'm a Springsteen fan more than anything, but yeah. See, this is why I think I'll like it. I think that's... But then again, Springsteen fans have seen it and they're like this fucking movie. Well, I think you, if you are a Springsteen, if you are a fan, if you're a Nebraska fan, maybe...

Which I am. Well, then maybe you might be dissatisfied by it. because it's, um, it, it's purporting, obviously, to like, you know, tell the story behind Nebraska or whatever. We're ultimately, I'm just like, he sings born in the USA and it's awesome. Like, it fucking rocks. Um, but we'll see. I mean, yeah, but Bohemian Rhapsody, he sings, uh, whatever the fuck that movie ends with.

He thinks, he sings, la-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. I'm Rami Malik. give me an Oscar anyway have you seen lately the clip of Annie Lennox and David Bowie doing under pressure rehearsing for not the no but I should watch this because I'm not even the main clip but like the scene of them rehearsing for the Freddie Mercury tribute thing and it's Annie Lennox and David Bowie and then you see like the members of Queen there and of course Brian May is getting his face on frame because of course he has But then they'll cut to like George Michael off to the side, just watching them rehearse and like singing along with under pressure. And it is incredible. And it's one of those things where it's like Bowie's dead, George Michael is dead. Annie Lennox is still with us. But when it- Protect Annie Lennox at all. But like at some point Annie Lennox will not be with us and I will not be able to watch that clip anymore because I will just like be an absolute puddle. But it's really. You know what's going to be bullshit? Brian May is going to out last... One million percent. Of course he will.

Fucking cockroach. My last note is that, and I text you this, it's supposed to be set out of outside Dayton. Oh, yeah. Give me Ohio shit. Yeah, tell me Ohio shit. And I was like, okay. That region of Ohio really doesn't look like this

because you have like wooded mountains. and like hills and valleys and like yes Dayton is in a valley but it really regionally just does not look like it this is the most annoying complaint in the world and I'm not really I love local complaints about shit no bring it on I love the shit

I'm not complaining I was just able to regionally spot where they filmed this movie because I was like that's not really the topography of outside rural Dayton that's more like West Virginia South

West Pennsylvania is what that looks like. Looked it up. They filmed in Northern West Virginia. You called it. I am the asshole who will forever talk about how Kate Blanchett's psychiatrist office in Nightmare Alley is located in Buffalo City Hall, because that's the building that they filmed for the exteriors for that. Nobody else is, that's not interesting to anybody. That's not interesting information, and yet I will say it every single time because, like, that's my city hall. And there we have it.

No, you're fully justified. Would you like to explain the IMDB game? Yeah, every week we do the IMDB game, wherein we challenge each other by picking a name of an actor or actress, and we try and guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for in that little section that says known for. If any of those titles are television shows, voice-only performances, or non-acting credits, we will mention that up front so that the other person, has a sporting chance. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. And beyond that, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints and frustration and recrimination and fun. That's the IMD.

Would you like to give a guess first? I'll guess first. Okay, so we talked, you mentioned the upcoming JJ Abrams film, Ghost Writer, whether or not it is IP for Ghost Writer. And the star of that film is one, Mr. Glenn Powell. Glendon. Glenn Powell. Any television. No television.

Sorry, Scream Queens. In which he was wonderful. Okay. It would be wild if Scream Queen showed up for quite literally anybody. It was on for a couple of seasons. Okay. Listen, Glenn Powell, Kiki Palmer, Nisi Nash, like, that show had some folks. But even, like, Ariana Grande is probably more likely to have

a music video on her known... Or her, like, Nickelodeon show or whatever the fuck. Sure. Whatever it was. Okay. Glenn Powell. Everybody wants some. Correct.

Yeah. Great performance. Fuck yeah. Oh, what's that rom-com he did with Sidney that everybody hated but made a lot of money? Is it Anyone But You? Anyone But You is the title of that movie. It is not on his notes for.

It is not there. Okay. Top Gun Maverick Insert Fart Noise here, correct All right, so I've got two correct guesses I've got one strike against me

Is it Hitman? Hitman, the rare Netflix, that is correct. Okay, one more for Glenn. Hmm, hmm. What other Glenn Films. Can I get

What was that movie? Shit. You know, that one movie. You know, no, it was like a kind of a shabby action blockbuster. Am I on the right track? You can't give me hints. I haven't bottomed out yet.

Glenn Powell, Glenn Powell, Glenn Powell. What's something that I can just even fucking throw away at this point? Because the thing about Glenn is that he hasn't really ultimately been in a lot of movies yet. Is the thing with him. And yet, you would think I would, you know what, I'm just going to say the, fucking um yes yes

yes is he in like Godzilla king of monsters or whatever he is not okay can that be my guess so I can get a year yes your year is 2016 oh okay so

everybody wants sometimes um that was the same year is everybody wants some, right? That was also 2016? I think everybody wants some might have come out in 2017, but they are the same year in IMDB. Okay. So, oh, is it, um, is it, is it that other Netflix movie where it's like, um, it's definitely not a Netflix movie? So it's not the one where they're both personal assistants and they're trying to fix up their bosses. Um, is that set it up? It is set it up.

Set It Up was 2018. This is a Oscar-nominated film. You may not remember that he's in it, because, like, when the cast was all, like, out and about, I don't ever remember him being with them. He's not in... Maybe I'm wrong, but I do not remember. He's not in, like, La La Land.

No, not La La Land. Okay, Oscar nominated for acting? Yes. Okay. There was an acting nomination for this movie. He's not in Lion. he's not in fences

he's not in oh he's played John Glenn because I remember Taraji being like John Glenn when they did the it's hidden figures

hidden figures Yes it's hidden figures Yes I should have remembered He never was on the promo tour with that movie was he No but it sounded like they all enjoyed working with him from the way they all talked about it

I feel like he did maybe did a little promotional work Anyway that's good That's a good spread for Glenn Powell. No twisters. I imagine in several years, oh, right, Twisters is maybe the one I was thinking of, the blockbuster that he didn't like. Okay.

For you, we've talked about JJ Abrams as a TV guy. He did Alias, which is a show that is very, very close to my heart. Obviously, he helped launch lost. But before Alias, there was the TV show. that gave rise to alias because his pitch to alias was, what if this main character was actually a spy? I'm talking about Felicity. And as Felicity, I'm talking about Kerry Russell.

How much television is in there? One television. Wow. So it's either the Americans or Felicity. It's definitely not the diplomat, because if there's only one television show and it's the diplomat, we're all fucking up. I like The Diplomat, I will say.

I haven't watched the news season yet. Yeah, but like over those two wildly beloved shows. Could also be the Mickey Mouse Club. It's true. I'm just going to throw a movie out that I know that she's in the upside of anger. Incorrect.

I mean, yes, she's in that, but that is not one of her four. One straight. Well, then this is going to be rough. Title character of Felicity but I think it's the Americans I'm going to say the Americans

Incorrect So it's Felicity It is Felicity And so your years for the other ones are 2006, 2007 and 2014 Wow I really don't think I can remember her

In another movie Um Sorry to this woman Well, start by following your priors, following what you do know about Carrie Russell and maybe who she's worked with. J.J. Abrams. So she's in a J.J.A. Abrams. Oh, Mission Impossible Three. Is your 2006 movie. Right. Because they were like, oh, she's going to be the female lead of this movie, and they kill her right away. Your other two movies are both Oscar nominees, but not in major categories.

Oh, right. Well, I also got two wrong guesses. So do I get my... Oh, you gave me the years. 2007 and 2014. Okay, so say that again? They both have Oscar nominees? They both have, I believe, exactly one Oscar nomination. Let me double check on this one. Yes. They each have exactly one Oscar nomination. Neither one in a major category. Okay. But also not in the same... category or even like the same genre of category so these are craft categories i'm guessing that

it's going to be like sound or visual effects one of them is uh in that realm yes um and in fact um it's not a movie that we've talked about in this podcast but it is uh a relative to a movie that we've talked about in this podcast. So it's a sequel? Yeah. To... Is she in like a Sherlock Holmes? No, but you're in the part of this episode that we were talking about.

The Visual Effects nominees or... Yes. It's a sibling to... Oh, it's War for the Planet of the Apes. It's not War for the Planet of the Ypes. Oh, what's the second one? Dawn. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

The best of the three of those, as far as I'm concerned. All right. 2007, one Oscar nomination, you have absolutely forgotten it almost certainly, even though it's nominated against a movie. against, I believe it's just two other films in that category. Is it a makeup nominee? It is not a makeup nominee. Is it visual, it's not visual effects, because you kind of hinted that not both of them would be visual effects.

Right. Sound effects editing? Nope. Song? Song. Okay. 07 song nominee because we just talked about song recording country strong it's all out of my brain the 07 song nominees would have been now in what occasion would there be only two other films nominated in a category like best original song oh is this august rush it's August Rush.

There we go. Nominated against three songs from Enchanted, and then the winner, which was once, which was falling slowly from once. August Rush. Who plays her husband in August Rush, you ask? Jonathan Rees Myers, I respond. That is a movie about their child is a music prodigy, but also maybe autistic. And, no, he's an orphan. and he plays music in Central Park with a homeless man played by Robin Williams.

Folks, we nominated things for Oscars back then. Adam Levine performed the song. Every single Carrie Russell movie, if you look on IMDB, includes a photo in the photo section where she's looking like the most beautiful person you've ever seen in your entire life. There's the shot of her and Jonathan Rees-Myers just sort of like looking at something off-screen that it's just like, that is

fucking stunning. Just like absolutely goddamn stunning. All right. Well done. That's our episode. If you want more This Head Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz.com. Follow us on Instagram at ThisHad Oscar Buzz.

And on Patreon at patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz. Joe, where can the listeners find more of you? I am on letterboxed and blue sky, both at Joe Reed, read spelled R-E-I-D. I am also, I do a Patreon exclusive podcast on the films of Demi Moore called Demi, myself, and I that you can find on Patreon at patreon.com slash Demipod. That is D-E-M-I-P-O-D. And you can find me on Letterbox and Blue Sky at Chris V-File. That is F-E-I-L. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for our fantastic artwork, Dave and Salas and Gavin Mevious for technical guidance when we need it,

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