This Had Oscar Buzz - 366 – Foe

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

One of 2023’s most quickly forgotten buzzed titles just so happened to star some of the most heralded actors of their generation. Based on the hyped Iain Reid novel, Foe cast Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal as a married couple in the dystopian future whose lives are upended with a visit from Aaron Pierre as a corporate … Continue reading "366 – Foe"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. We want to talk to Marilyn Hack, Merlin Hack and friends. Dick Pooh. We're going to ensure Hen has company while you're away. We're going to replace you. I don't want a robot living with my wife. Do you really want to leave her?

I hear all alone day after day. He doesn't really see me anymore. Maybe I shouldn't be telling you this. I encourage you to use this opportunity to act on your instincts. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that's a sad, short, blonde actress from the 40s. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about. a different movie that once upon a time had lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some

reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Joe Reed. I'm here, as always, with my activating headlight flicker, Chris file. Hello, Chris. You think that there would be something different. Like, that, like, activate your clone AI, robot person. Notice how they never say robot. They never say clone in this movie. No.

It's an AI what did they say, they don't even say, they don't say replicant, that's Blade Runner. Hold on. Human substitutes. There we go. Human substitutes. Well. Like it's a different type, like it's oat milk. Or equal.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I, my sweet and low. My sweet, though, husband has arrived. It is technology that is enough, that is, like, so advanced that we could believe it to be a human being and develop emotional connections to it. And it's basically has emotional sentience of its own to have the intelligence. But it's also so retrograde that to activate this technology, you need car headlights to fly. to flash through a window to turn it on?

They seem pretty penetrating as far as the car headlights are considered. Here's the other thing, though, is Sersh's character, Hen, Henny, Henrietta, Buck, Buck, Buck, Buck, Buck. That's like being named Oxford and just calling that person Ox. Well, especially when it's like, and now your character will be a slow, trudging, beast of a person. It's just like, we're going to name your character hen, and then we're going to treat you as somebody who is stuck on a farm, as if, kept in a cage. Yeah, kept in a cage. She's a real keeper, as in a cage. But the thing with the headlights is, Surch's character knows what's going on. Surch's character knows that this is a clone, right?

So who are the, what is this headlight subterfuge meant to be? Like, who are we fooling other than like the audience? You know what I mean? So it's just like it's, it's one of those things that only exists because, you know, the audience needs a mystery. And I mean, the headlight thing doesn't, you know, that's not the problem in this movie. But it's maybe symptomatic of what is the problem in this movie? I mean, the problem with the movie is, for me at least, it's a couple of things, one of which is it's an intriguing enough idea that I am disappointed by the kind of smallness of the execution, or not necessarily the smallness, but like how much it leaves on the table, particularly when it ends up telling this kind of cliched story about,

um you know marriage gone stale and you know this i'm positive you could watch like five black mirror episodes exactly like this movie or you could watch any number of of movies that don't have anything to do with sci-fi that have this same i mean on swift horses was kind of this you know except for instead of um space technology it was gayness you know what i mean um but the other thing is that I think it's just ultimately a little too ponderous, a little

too you know sluggish. It's so lethargic. I don't care for a second in this movie. But I also just feel like there are possibilities in this movie that go unexplored and that is frustrating to me.

And we talk all the time about you don't want to review the movie that doesn't exist but like it's really, really hard for me to see the dynamic that exists when Aaron Pierre enters their space and be like, why was this not the movie? It's a part of the movie. It's an element of the movie, but ultimately it's a bit of a red herring. The sort of intrusion that Aaron Pierre's character is into their marriage is ultimately a red herring. And I'm like, no, make that the movie. I also wrote down, I said bisexuality could have saved this movie. Because, like, it's, it's so much more of

an interesting movie. I do love a movie where, like, into a seemingly, although this is not a functional couple from the beginning, like, this is, this is one of those things where it's a dysfunctional couple, but, like, into a couple enters a charismatic stranger and, like, upends everything. Um, I would have enjoyed watching Aaron Pierre, throw this marriage for a loop in a bisexual way. You want him to be their third. Or be with both of them. You know what I mean?

Separately. You know what I mean? Testing out the clones. It's not that I just want Paul Meskell and Aaron Pierre to kiss, although that would be lovely. But I just feel like it's a more interesting movie if it's not just her restlessness and his obstinence. It's too binary in that way.

Um, and it's very, there's just kind of cliches throughout, not just for this heterosexual marriage that's gone stale. And it's like, well, did they ever really love each other? Because, you know, he wants to put her in a box and she, you know, has nothing of her own really. And I think even the science fiction elements of it aren't, are pretty clear. shade too. The twist is bad. Or the sci-fi is too vaguely articulated, too. It's just like, it's sort of hand-waved. There are a couple really good moments. The moment where you see the sky, the night sky, that is now not only full of stars, but also spaceships and space stations and satellites and whatnot, that's a pretty arresting image, I think. But I think there are too few. and like those moments where you see that there are like government agents like hiding in the underbrush or whatever like those are effective but it's it's too vaguely articulated into the main plot to be there's there's a few um interesting visual elements uh particularly paul mescal being shrink wrapped like he's a hell of fresh package Yes, I did think that. He's about to be sousvied.

Like, yeah. It'll cook your Paul Meskel to the exact perfect temperature. It really is. It's, you know, that's an interesting image to look at, but it should feel, at that point in the movie, it should feel grosser. It should feel queasy, but you just don't care about anything that's like, well, there's no body. That's a cool visual idea, but, like, I don't connect with it. The movie doesn't really go into things like body horror or horror of any kind, really. It's much, much more of a psychological thriller.

Did you see this year, I know what the answer to this is going to be, but I'm going to pose this as a question because it's more interesting that way. Did you see the movie The Assessment this year? No. That's the one with Elizabeth Olson and Hamesh Patel and Alicia Vikander, which is actually like the most interesting I found Alicia Vecander in a very long time and that one, it's this again

sort of like sci-fi future and they're applying to be able to procreate because it's one of those future tales where procreation is very tightly controlled by the government or whatever and Alicia Vecander is the of like the functionary who comes to assess this couple's fitness

to be parents and and she she, you know, again, upends this, you know, couple's lives in a way. And it's not dissimilar to this. It made me, this movie made me think of that in a lot of ways. That was a movie that I also didn't really think I was enjoying until, like, the very end. And I'm like, oh, okay, this kind of now works for me.

And I thought Alicia, like I said, was pretty good. But, yeah, similar kind of thing where I'd be interested. to see what you what you make of that movie if you ever end up seeing it I believe it's an apple it might be an apple movie if it's not an apple movie it's like apple magnolia apple coated you know what I mean it's just like it feels like it this when you finally get to the twist it is a little bit like well yeah no shit it's not like everything has told you that this is what's happening the opening text on screen talks about how there are like human you know know, what did you say, human replacements?

Human substitutes. Human substitutes. So as soon as they tell you this, you're on the lookout for, like, who's the human substitute. So it's, it's, it certainly cannot be a surprise. I think in the execution of it, I think Meskell's really good in that scene where he's playing both the real, quote unquote, real junior and the substitute. You can't stop that beat. So. But that's all I'm going to be thinking in my head now. You're welcome. But I think him as the supposedly real junior watching, you know, Sershah essentially break down over losing the substitute. I think he does a very good job.

in that scene. I think the acting in general... The sugar substitute, to be clear. Yeah, I think the acting in general is pretty good in this movie. I just feel like the rest of the movie doesn't... I think the acting's fine. I think no one embarrasses themselves. These are three actors who I love that I like seeing in things.

I kind of thought that scene was a little silly for Real Jr., who's just like, sees a perfect. clone of himself looks and sounds exactly like himself and he's like, huh, I feel like it would break our brains to see our own clone. Well, but it's not like he's not, he doesn't know that that clone exists, though, right? Yeah, but he's like, you know, not even nonplussed. Like, he's not, he's just unfazed. Oh, I don't think so. You think you would be a little like, whoa, I I don't even know how to deal with this or something. I feel like you can see.

I think he's like going through it in that. Oh, see. I kind of, I got that he's just a little stone-faced. Interesting. And it could also be because that scene is edited so strangely that you at times can't tell. There are observers in the room and you don't really, you know that they're there, but they don't really ever show them. Yeah. Wait, which one is screaming?

Junior Senior is screaming. Oh, no. I mean the absurd. I mean the absurd. I mean the absurd. I mean the absurd. Oh, the absurd. No, I was talking about the, I was talking just about the multiple pauls.

Yes. Multipal. Multiple is, yeah, screaming in that. Also, tell me if you thought of this as well that, And maybe this movie just made me think of multiplicity multiple times. Oh, no. That's not good. You know, obviously Junior sucks in this movie, but just don't consider Junior.

Consider played by Paul Meskell. Married to one Paul Meskull. Nice work if you can get it. Yeah. What if you could have two Paul Meskills? Yep. Yeah, not bad. I mean, that seems like the easier life choice.

It relies on a little too pat of a morality, not necessarily a morality, but a, where it's like, Sertia prefers her human, or prefers the substitute junior, Paul, whatever, search's character prefers the substitute Paul Meskell character because he's he's essentially reminiscent of the version of more like the version of the man he married tries to work on their relationship tries to work on their relationship pays more attention to her they have good sex yeah yeah yeah then Paul Meskell at the end of the movie prefers the substitute Sertia Ronan, because she's happily on the farm, doesn't have any ambitions, only wants to, seemingly is only interested in, like, you know, making him happy. And I'm like, well, that's a little

easy to sort of... And not interesting. Well, and it's just like, okay, so, like, her preferring the substitute is virtuous. And him preferring the substitute is, and him preferring the substitute is villainous. And it's like, I don't need to have it be that cut and dried and clean. I would actually prefer it to be a little more complicated. I would like maybe make her a little bit more selfish and make him a little less, you know, wanting a barefoot and pregnant, you know, wife on the farm, trad wife. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, because it's, even though this is science fiction, it's said in the future, they live in this farmhouse and it is this cliche of

all she knows is the farmhouse and all he wants her to know is the farmhouse and, you know. Well, and I mean, again, I sort of laugh at her character being named Hen, but him, his character being named Junior, is also, it's like

he is the you know, latest in a long line of farmers. He doesn't want to leave the farm because his parents are buried there and his family They've had it for five generations, which this is set in 2065, so I was thinking about how long that was, that it's like, oh, they probably got this house in World War II. Well, part of the problem with the movie is that their characters are too young to feel like her being like, man, I remember when we first got married.

I'm like three years ago. Like how, like you guys are pretty young. Like, they're going through a little thing that it almost feels like a thing that a couple in their 40s would be going through, but it's like, I don't know. But, yes, like, there's, I actually think the most interesting moment for the Meskell character is towards the end. When he is sort of, he says, you know, I can't leave here. My parents are buried here. We've had this place forever. He said, he says something about, like, we've, you know, we've been on this land for a home.

however long, we should be proud of that. And I was like, okay, this is an interesting dimension of this character. It's not just that he's obstinate for being obstinate. It's not just that he's, you know, the man. And so, and thus like the villain, he feels like, he's frustrated with her that she doesn't feel an attachment and a pride in sticking it out the way he does. And it's just like, it's a different worldview. And it's like, okay, that I can work with, but we're throwing that in at the very end of this movie, and there's really nowhere to go with it, because the movie's essentially over by this point. There's a real lack of assuredness in when the story should be taking place.

And so it's like the rhythms of this movie are not just sluggish, but like lots of stops and starts and then, you know, pensive glances into the metal distance. When do you get to the meat of the movie? is an open question, I think even by the end of the movie. It's just like, what was this, what was the part of the movie that was like, ah, this is the, this is, you know, now we're into it. The foe that is better either ends with the twist or it starts with the twist. Because like, it. Particularly because we know the twist is coming.

It's like, well, where is the meat of this movie? And it's kind of all over the place. And then it makes the movie seem so hard to, like, get that motivated about it. It's not ever very interesting. Yeah. Well, let's get to the other side of the plot description because then we can sort of maybe talk a little bit more specifically, although that hasn't been stopping us so far. But before we do, Chris, why don't you let our listeners know why they should be signed up for our Patreon? Hey, listener, we have a Patreon.

You love our show, and we love you. So for $5 a month, you can get even more of the show you love, and we would be so grateful. Over at our Patreon, we call it Turbulent Brilliance. You're going to get two bonus episodes every month on the first and third Fridays, first of which is what we call exceptions. These are discussions centered around a movie that fit that this had Oscar Brothers, rubric but managed to score a nomination or two. Earlier this month, we are talking about all is lost, best sound editing nominee, and

Robert Redford Showcase. I thought that was a really fun episode. I thought we had a good time with that. Yes. What other exceptions have we done? Because listeners, ever since we started, have always been wanting us to do something like this, so we're working through a bunch of different titles, movies that we love and our masterpieces like AI Artificial Intelligence.

Feels like we're going to be getting into those type of conversations this episode. Mulholland Drive. We've talked about interview with a vampire, other 90s favorites like Contact. We've talked about not-so-great movies like Madonna's WE, The Lovely Bones. We've had guests on over there. We're about to have another guest coming on soon. We've done a couple of Sures actually, Lovely Bones and Mary Queen of Scots.

I know. Is this the first time we've talked about Sershaw on Main Feed? No, it's actually, I believe it's our... French Dispatch? French Dispatch. Hold on. I guess there's not much to talk about. Chuzzle Beach, Amonite, French Dispatch, and now Foe, yes.

So this is our fourth, Sersia. Yeah. So I guess it's maybe been a while since we've talked about Sersha here. Yeah. Yeah, certainly we didn't talk about her in the context of French Dispatch because she is barely in that movie.

What's the second type of episode you're going to get on turbulent brilliance over on the third Friday at the month? Well, that's our excursion episode. Every month we take the excursion episode to talk about a deep dive into Oscar Ephemera. We love to obsess about things like E.W. Fall Movie previews,

actress roundtables. We've done more experimental things. Like, we've had an all-games episode. We recently did an episode where we do what-if scenarios if they were Best Picture Tens in certain years. And then this month we're going to do another recap of an old award show, which we love to do. We've done MTV Movie Awards. We've done Golden Globes. This month, we're going to be talking about 2005 Independent Spirit Awards. Go over and watch them on YouTube if you want to watch before you. listen to the episode.

Yeah. But go on over to Turbulent Brilliant. Sign up for that $5 a month at patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz. Wonderful. All right, Chris,

you take a moment to prepare yourself to give a 60-second plot description of faux. While I talk about the specifics, this is the 2023 film foe that anecdotally,

I feel like not a whole ton of people. saw um partially because i think very immediately critics were like no like initially people were like why isn't that at many of the fall festivals and then it got dropped into new york film festival in their spotlight section which is not bad movies necessarily but it's the section that it's clear the programming team is like well we're playing these but this isn't necessarily what we're throwing our endorsement behind, as we would with the main slate. Yeah, it's, I'm not entirely sure what the official distinction is, but, you know, film festivals

like to have their sections. If you're a festival goer, there is no difference. Yeah, there's no difference, right. Um, directed by Garth Davis, written by Garth Davis and Ian Reed, based on Ian Reed's novel of the same name, starring Irish Sersheronan. Irish. Paul Meskell and English Aaron Pierre. I think Aaron Pierre gets to keep his accent more or less, but the other two are definitely playing. Sertia definitely sneaks in.

Well, yeah. It's kind of wild because it's kind of like implosion at the accent factory because I think of Sertia as like one of the most impeccable American accents. Certainly her and like Lady Bird is really incredible. And little women, she does it She does it very well, too.

Paul Meskell does the sort of typical tactic where, you know, he sort of, he chooses his American accent around a little bit, and there's a, you know, growliness to it, I think, which helps a lot of these English actors, or Irish actors in this case. Anywho, it's essentially the three of them. There are other people in the movie, but, like, I think they're the only three speaking roles. Premered on September 30th, 2020, at the New York Film Festival. Then it had a limited release in October of 2023, and then eventually makes it to prime

video on January 4th, 2024. So I would say an indifferent release, especially when you realize that, like, box office totals for that limited release were not shared, we're not made public. So this movie has no financial footprint domestically. I imagine those numbers wouldn't have been great. Anyway, this was distributed by Amazon MGM Studios in the first essentially month of Amazon MGM Studios being a thing. We'll talk about it a little bit later. Chris, I have my stop watch out. If you are ready to do a 60-second plot description of Garth Davis's foe. Yeah.

All right. Let's begin now. All right. We're 40 years in the future. We're told we're somewhere in the Midwest. We see this married couple named Hen and Jr. They live on this farm in a very desolate landscape. They do not have much going on.

They get a visit from Aaron Pierre, who plays Terrence. He works for this corporation where basically the government has said, you will go and go to our space station. You've been drafted, et cetera, et cetera. Aaron Pierre keeps showing up at their house over the course of years. 30 seconds. And Henn and Jr. are kind of trying to save their marriage, basically, and get back to the romance that they once had. Junior starts having feelings about being sent away against his volition, and he basically tries to kill himself by running towards a burning house. He tries to fight, not really fight, Terrence, but he like punches a wall because

he gets so mad about the intrusion of all of these interview questions that he and his wife are getting. And then eventually one day he comes home and he realizes, oh, he is actually the substitute and Jr. has already actually been at this space station. And then they send fake Jr. away. And Henn and Juno. have all the problems that they had when they first met Terrence because she was fixing her marriage with the substitute and then she goes away and then a substitute is sent for her and then they are happy quotes 35 seconds over not bad um not a lot of plot not a lot of plot so um you mentioned wait oh i should have jotted this down um because you mentioned something about when Aaron Pierre shows up. Shoot, I wanted to... He's forced to, like, this is something...

You're essentially drafted to go to the space station. Well, one of the things about this movie that I do feel like is... I don't think it necessarily does all that it can do with the isolation of, you know, of Sertia and Meskell's characters in that so much... much of all of this is going on in the world and where Terence is the only person who has any kind of information about we you know we we you know they've got the TV on every once in a while and you see a commercial for for this corporation right but essentially he's there's a lot of like his say-so going on in this and I kept waiting for the movie to sort of pull back a little bit. And, you know, since the twist of Meskell being a substitute was not much of a twist

because we, you know, knew it was coming. The movie essentially announces it. Yeah, like, why is Terrence sticking around for so long? We're led to believe that, you know. That's what I was going to, that's what I was going to mention is that the idea that Terrence would have needed to observe Meskell's character for two years and more before he sent him up. to the space station. I'm like, we're past the point of like plausibly fooling the audience at this point. Like once we get to the like the two years later, like the audience who has already seen the, you know, title card and whatever, and it's just like, we know what's going on here. We know that at this point, two years on, that Aaron Pierre isn't still like jotting down

notes for like, you know, acclimating Paul Muskell to the space station. We know that we're dealing with almost certainly the substitute Paul Muscle at this point. So like I kept waiting for there to be like a pullback thing where the space station, like where we find out that like Terrence isn't telling them the truth about what the government is doing with the space station or what's going on. I was like, well, maybe the twist is that this was all, you know, that that it's Sersha is the one, you know, that she's the one they've been evaluating because she's the one with ambition and, you know, a pioneer spirit and all this sort of stuff. But that never really happened.

Again, I don't want to review the movie that doesn't exist. But I kept waiting there for there to be like another gear for this thing to really kick into. There's a lot of monotony to this movie. To the point that it's like, what, an hour and 45 minutes? Yeah. And I'm normally not a clock watcher on a movie. Yeah. But I kept, like, being like, oh, my God, we're only 20 minutes into this movie. Oh, my God. We're only 40 minutes into this movie.

Oh, my God. There is still a half hour left in this movie. Yeah. Rex Reed. I read the Rex Reed interview for this. Which, by the way, I wrote down some quotes. He loved it. I bet he loved it.

No, he hated it. And he mentions at one point he's like, the movie gets so boring that I struggle to I struggle to stay awake and I'm not going to go see it a second time and it's like I think Rexery just fell asleep in this movie and he's just like and he's trying to be high and mighty about it basically like I fell asleep

three words but like I but the observers was very bored throughout the running time of the film and upon consideration I don't think I would watch this boring movie a second time. Just say you fell asleep, Brooks Reed. It's part of a larger New York Film Festival summation.

And he, where he talked about, he liked the zone of interest, and he liked, he loved Maestro. Thought Maestro was the one masterpiece at that year's in New York Film Festival. He mentions a hateful and pretentious load of pornography called Poor Things that trashes the career of Emma Stone. Well, I hate to break it to you, Rex. Yeah, Emma did okay. He then says, oh, one of the things he says about foe,

you never know which is the original junior and which is the robot. Not true, Rex. Like, I think you were sleeping through that part. Yeah, you kind of always know once the two of them are there together, which one is the real one, which is the robot. I think as soon as Aaron Pierre shows up, you know. He also says, written and directed by Garth Davis

from a 2018 novel I never want to read by Ian Reed Foe is not just a bad dream it is a colossal nightmare Honestly go off Rex Like you hateful old man If that was by like Amy Taupin I'd be like you better work Amy

Yeah I was gonna say yeah if that's a If that's a Lisa Schwartzbaum Pam You're like we're including the whole thing We're reading this whole thing Okay so it's also that the boringness of this movie and the clichés that are throughout

and just like the kind of very untextured world that we're supposed to believe in you know it's set in the future based off of the landscape you know this was filmed in Australia with like you know the red desert

and we're supposed to believe it's the Midwest and like we're supposed to interpret that the landscape looks like that because some shit went down right in the span of 40 years you know and this is supposed to be like evocative of you know Americana farmhouses right okay so where did all of those like villages go they don't have that anymore they're isolated in a way that feels that felt intentional and that felt like symbolic right but i'm just like i was waiting for it that to cash in again Again, it's just, it feels like it's a lot of symbolism, right? He works at the industrial chicken farming factory because there are no more, Aaron Pierre's character when he first shows up, sort of makes like kind of a dig. And he's just like, but you don't farm this land, right? Like, because there is no, there is no farming of this land. The land is bladed.

I've been, by pure coincidence, I've been watching, I paid for the PBS add-on to Amazon Prime. to watch, I can't even remember what it was for to watch something, but I was just like, I'll keep it. And I've been watching The Dust Bowl, the Ken Burns, The Dust Bowl, which this movie, foe, does make you think of interstellar in that, you know, the land could not be, you know, cultivated, and we have to go to space because Earth cannot provide for us anymore. But of course.

It makes you think of a dozen other movies. Including multiplicity. Yeah. Yeah, what movie makes you think of multiplicity and interstellar? It's full. Full. But when you murder your queen, you murder your full. You murder your full.

But, of course, Interstellar uses footage from specifically that Dust Bowl, Ken Burns, documentary at the beginning, interspersed with old Murph. Ellen Burstyn is Old Murf. but one of the great things about this PBS add-on is I watch it when like I'm you know I'm doing other things or like especially when I'm ready to go to bed and there is nothing more soothing at the end of the day than Peter Coyote talking in you know very calm tones about American history even when it's stuff that's like really really bad as the Dust Bowl it also makes you wonder it also makes you realize that like, and this is weirdly a comfort to me sometimes, it's when I think of like all the assassinations in the late 1960s, and I'm weirdly comforted because it's just like, oh, like, the country, you know, persevered through that. You need Peter Coyote and Ken Burns to make you feel safe again. Well, it's literally, it's just like, imagine living through a period of history, which lasted

for a decade in which, like, the very soil of the earth. rose up like thousands of feet in the air or whatever hundreds of feet into the air and came at you like a wall and like blanketed like blotted out the sun and like blanketed you know your town in dirt or whatever and it's like you must have really thought that like the world was ending and um i i am comforted weirdly in these times that there were other times in American history where it must have felt like it's all over. Like, we're so, like, the, the non-existent social media at the time would have been full of, we're so cooked.

We're so, like, it's so over. So I am comforted by that. Here's why you're not panicking enough. Panicking enough. Right, right. Exactly. Yes. But anyway, this did make me think, I think it was kind of ironic that, like, you'd get a

full-on, like, duststorm, like, in this movie that is quite terrifying. I really need to look into this because I have another. friend who's been doing Ken Burns deep deaths into stuff. And, well, I've never watched. I feel like the PBS add-on would be worth it just for the Ken Burns stuff. That's exactly right. There's so much Ken Burns stuff. And I- He makes like 50-hour documentaries.

And I've never, I've seen none of them. I know I'm aware of all of them. I've probably dipped into from time to time a little bit of Vietnam, a little bit of the FDR one, a little bit of baseball. but I've never, like, watched any of them in total. And so I'm like, there's so many hours of Ken Burns' documentaries that I can just watch. It pays for itself. It's like, you know, AMC Stubbs.

Right now, in this moment, I want to go off the grid and have nothing but Ken Burns' documentaries. Highly recommend it. And I will not surface until I have done them all. Also, the American Experience New York City documentary. What? There's an American experience. Yeah, from like several years ago. That's like an eight part.

It was actually produced right before 9-11, and then they added a post-9-11 episode because they couldn't just like, you know. But it's like it's eight episodes, and it's like from Peter Minuet through fucking, like, September 11th. And it's, so I'm only through one episode. And that one is narrated by the American Experience guy, not the, um, um, whoever is that narrator. It's not Peter Coyote. But it scratches that same itch, my man. Like, I just got through. We are now through the Erie Canal has just been, has just opened up New York City to the West.

And I am just like them talking about the majesty. First of all, it's also a pre-Hamilton, like pre-Lin Manuel Miranda's Hamilton. So like they're telling you all this stuff about Alexander Hamilton because most people didn't know. about it. And I'm just like, right, right. Yeah, his son died in a duel. Yeah, isn't that ironic? Like, all this sort of stuff. It's like, um, but they're very, it's, they're very, very, um, complimentary of Alexander Hamilton. But the part in the New York, the New York City documentary where they explain the majesty of the grid system and like what a like literal revolution that was in terms of like, and a democratizing influence. And I'm literally just like this. I'm just like hand on chin or head on chin or whatever. chin on hand, being like, tell me everything.

I am so, so, I, I want nothing more than just to, like, to disappear into these documentaries. Long form. Could not be long enough for me. 25 parts, sure, give it to me. Yeah, faux is like 110 minutes, and we're like, get this shit over with. And meanwhile, I'm just like, a hundred hours of Ken Burns. thousand and 72 hours rubs hands together but to bring it back to foe to take us back into the dust bowl take us back into foe yes yes is like foe just presents all of its you know world building so flatly and without like detail texture you would think that a movie that's a psychological thriller would want to be like mysterious in some of those ways and it really really, the movie is so boring that all it does is create all of these questions in your mind.

You feel so much time and space with this movie to be like, okay, so why does the American Midwest look like that? Was there some type of nuclear fallout? Was there X, Y, and Z? Is it a climate change thing? The movie gives you none of that. The substitutes, are they a biological being? Are they farmed and harvested? is this a robot or like it's all very vaguely none of it and it just kind of adds to the boringness of this movie because there's just nothing to hang on to it's all very hand wavy a complete world there's a moment where you hear a TV in the background talking about some sort of protest slash concert that they literally because I was watching this with captions on, as I do. And I understand

that some people find that anathema, but like the way that the sound on today's television's work, even with a sound bar, I need to have captions, whatever. But they mention how, like, not since the live aid concerts of the 20th century

or whatever. So I'm like, oh, clearly. And I was like, are they setting us up for a thing where, like, substitutes are like an oppressed class that there is an awareness of that people are, like, fighting for, because they mentioned, like, you know, exploitation and, you know, of whatever. And I'm like, oh, interesting.

Like, maybe that's a thing where, like, you know, outside of this isolated farm area, there is a world in which, like, the creation of human substitutes in order to do labor and to be exploited has become a lightning rod of, you know, criticism or whatever. I kept waiting for some other, for it to hit some. some other next level that like something else in the greater world was going to exist. And like the movie is really, really steadfast about like keeping it just to, it's almost like, you know, it's a snow globe, it's a dust globe. You know what I mean? It's just like, yeah, nothing else is happening but here. And it enhances this sense of this movie exists as symbolism, as allegory or like

whatever, or just sort of, um, I don't know. But, it enhances this thing of like, well, ultimately we're just sort of talking about, you know, talking about stuff, you know what I mean, talking about, you know, about, you know, a dying marriage and whatever. And it's like, okay, well, I'm sorry that she feels so stifled after four long years of marriage or however long they've been married. I think also, like, as a post-COVID movie, it's like, is this secretly the movie? movie about all those couples who couldn't hack it in lockdown and got divorced. Honestly, I would respect it more.

I would respect it more. Like, they're not, they have not been married for long. Couldn't have been. No. They also have no. What do you think that concert was, 40 years from now? Who was in it? Yeah.

Well, what was it? Is it like Chapel Roan Farewell Tour? It's all clones of the current Pop Gurillies. It's, um, it's, it's, um, it's, um, It's, it's, what's a, what's a, what's a good name for a duelipa clone, like a Tuolipa? Toa, yeah, sure. Yeah, it's the Chapel Rhone farewell tour. Yes.

Yeah. Little mix, reunited. Have you seen Begonia yet? Not yet, no. Once you do, remind me that I have a take on why using Good Luck Babe is like secretly even more clever than it is. I had a read on this from the trailer that I'm like, oh, they're actually like doing a twist on the lyrics. I just, I'm not on that path right now of...

Let me know once you've seen it, because I have a thought in that. It's certainly not profound, but I do want to share it. But I don't want to spoil you on anything. Well, you know, I love a needle trap. It's a really good needle drop as long as I can. It's one of those ones where it's like they use it in the trailer. And the way they use it in the trailer, you know it's going to be used in the movie, and you're just like, this is good. But there's a needle drop in Bagonia that is even better than that. And I'm excited for you. You might not love it as much as I do, but for me especially, I was like, fuck, yeah, this is great. Is it the Green Day song that was used in the first trailer?

Oh, I didn't realize there was a Green Day. Yes, it's a Green Day needle drop. Yes, and it rules. It's so good. Yeah. But the way that is in that first trailer, I was like, all right. This is good. I didn't realize that. I'd only seen the trailer with the Chapel Rhone. Anywho, we keep going off of the subject. I can't imagine. So, okay, the why did foe have Oscar buzz?

I like when that question is very easily answered, because this is directed by Garth Davis, who we've done a Garth Davis movie before. We've done Mary Magdalene. The long, the long, whatever, not gesticulating. What's the word? I'm... Delayed? It wasn't really delayed. It was just delayed in the States because it was one of the ones that was like getting ready to be released as Weinstein was going down. Right, right.

So the movie was released internationally and people had seen it and, you know, word was out on the movie. And then... Well, and it's marked as a 2018 movie, but I'm pretty sure nobody saw it for like another... year or so. In the States, right, yeah. But anyway, go back to that episode. Was an Oscar nominee, was directed Oscar nominated Best Picture nominee, Lion from 2016, which had six Oscar nominations, which I think people don't remember it as being quite that successful with Oscar, but like it really was. Two acting nominations for Dev Patel and for Nicole Kidman. I remember seeing that movie at the Princess of Wales premiere at Toronto, which I believe was its world premiere. I think it world premiered at Toronto. And I remember thinking, like, oh, like, they've got one here. Like, it really, the audience was really, really into it by the end of that movie. A lot of sniffles towards the end and that kind of thing. It's a very sentimental movie. I actually think it's a pretty, for being as sentimental as it is, I think it's really solid.

The first half of that movie is really, really great. Does not get a Best Director nomination at the Oscars, but is a nominee at the DGA. Now, the Oscars nominated Damien Chazelle for La La Land, Barry Jenkins for Moonlight, Kenneth Laughan, for Manchester by the Sea, Denny Villeneuve for Arrival for a rival. All four of those men were all nominated by DGA. Oscar went with Mel Gibson for Hacksaw Ridge, is their fifth? I feel like we'll give this one to the DGA. I don't know if, I don't know if Garth Davis would have been my choice among. everybody, but in the binary of

Garth Davis or Mel Gibson, I'm going to give it. I'll give it to Garth Davis. What would have been of the best picture nominees that year, which would have been your fifth best director nominee after? Okay, so give us the movies.

We've got hidden figures. Hidden figures and fences, which I will, unfortunately, always remember together because of hidden fences. Lion. Who said hidden fences? Lou, it was somebody on the red carpet, I want to say. I think it was a red carpet guy.

It might have been Ryan Seacrest. Hidden Figures, Fences, Hacksaw Ridge, Lion. Two more from 2016. Arrival, but we already mentioned that one, so. Right, right. So it's La La Land, Moonlight, Manchester Arrival. That's four. Hidden figures, fences, lion,

hexar ridge that's eight um and so there's one more and it was trying to run through the acting nominees yeah is there an animated nominated that year no i don't think we've had an aminated animated animated nominees since toy story three um i'm just going to look it up in the in the interest of moving us long it is of course hell or high water. Which I should remember in tandem with Hexow Ridge because it's the 2H movie.

Haxar Ridge, Heller Highwater. So of those six, fences, Hacksaw, hell or high water, hidden figures, Lion, or of those five,

which is, which one would you have given a director nomination to? Um, even something like fences that I think is really good, I would not necessarily be giving it directing nominations. I probably pick Lyon from those because the first half of the movie is so strong.

Yeah. I might do Lion. I really, I like Heller Highwater a lot more than you do. And I like David McKenzie in general, I think a lot more than you do. So I would probably go with David McKenzie. But, um, yeah, certainly it's interesting. Hidden Figures is so popular. And yet, like, Ted Melfy,

is never, never, never mentioned in conjunction with that movie, like at all. It's really kind of amazing. Which, you know, that's the way it goes. All right. So the other thing about Garth Davis I didn't realize is that, well, not only is he a DGA nominee. He wins the DGA for first time feature, which is a real interesting lineup. Is that the first year that they did that? It might have been. I don't remember it being even that old. I think he's one of the few that's gotten nominated, gotten both nominations since it happened. Yeah. Kelly Freeman Craig is nominated for the edge of 17, which, and then she's the one who did, Are You There God, it's me, Margaret, right? Yes. Interested to see what she does next. Um, because that's two for two as far as I'm concerned.

Tim Miller for Deadpool. Deadpool, an unnervingly present movie in that year's awards conversation. Like, every time it showed up. Golden Globe nominated Best Picture Deadpool. Remember when people were like, no, this could be a Best Picture nominee? And I was like, and I would be like, no, that's stupid. And then in my mind, I was like, except it might. Like, I was, I wouldn't, I wouldn't allow myself to say it.

But, like, in my mind, I was like, oh, God, what if? Dan Tractonberg for, it's, I wrote down the edge of 17. It's, of course, 10 Clover Field Lane. Good call. Good call. Love that. And I think Dan Tractonberg has since sort of shown himself to be a very interesting filmmaker. And then talk about dating yourself, Nate Parker, the Birth of a Nation, which I think is so funny, because the birth of-

still made that call. The birth of a nation was a movie that had insane hot Oscar buzz at Sundance, and then within a couple of months maximum, that had died out because of the, you know, the stories had come out about Nate Parker and the sexual assault allegations and all that sort of stuff. The extent of the stories, I don't think were out there, but like it was out there about Nate Parker already and just not everybody knew. But this is months later. Like, Birth of a Nation Oscar buzz was dead and buried by this point. And the DGA was still like, well, we need a fifth. So I think that's kind of wild. But so I imagine Garth Davis being the only one of those people who was also nominated for the feature film DGA was a no-brainer to win there. And the other thing that I didn't realize about Garth Davis was that he directed half of the episodes of the first season. season of Top of the Lake, like he and Jane Campion sort of traded off. The other thing I didn't realize is that there are two versions of that season, one of which is six episodes and one of

which is seven episodes. And the one that is seven episodes reconstitutes the season so that, like, a lot of those episodes are credited to Jane Campion. and Garth Davis because it's parts of separate episodes that are in, which I think is just so odd and so strange. But anyway, top of the lake, one of those things that I always assumed I should like and get into, and I tried to watch the first season and I lasted maybe an episode. That was a show that came at the end, maybe not the end, because I feel like this is a trend that has continued. But like, there were a couple of really heavy, um, girls are getting murdered shows in succession. And what's funny is that this came before True Detective. And I think it took

True Detective to like, it took me a second to realize that like, oh, I want to watch True Detective because it was doing something so, um, interesting, I think, atmospherically. But, like after the killing, after broad church, and then it's Top of the Lake, and there might have been another show in there where I was just like, I don't know if I can do another show about like young girls, you know, and like, you know, sex workers and, you know, girls are off the grid or whatever, and they're ending up dead. And I'll be honest, Top of the Lake is not a show that I can understand the grimness and the subject matter, people being like, that's not going to be for me, but thank you.

I don't think that show has sat as well for me in my mind as it has for a lot of, like, you know, the highbrow TV. Yeah. Surprisingly. Critical Mive, you know. Surprisingly, the first season of True Detective, which you would think would have also been a fast fade because it was such a flash of hype. I watched, I rewatched that for a season a year or so.

goes up like I really really think it's like it stands up and I wonder and I imagine that mayor of Easttown would also I've wanted to rewatch mayor of east town because mayor of east town starts as kind of that and it ultimately evolves into something that's so much more than you think it is on its face but like not in the way that it's doing a pivot it's like it makes you realize it's been about this all along. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Sertia Ronan, I think,

is an even more sort of cut and dried. Why did this movie have Oscar buzz? Because by this point, 2023, she's a four-time Oscar nominee and kind of like, she became a four-time Oscar nominee in the most, like, all four of them

are best picture nominees. Like, there has been, no, even with like Michelle Williams, and this is not a light against Michelle Williams. But like Michelle Williams was getting nominated for like my week with Marilyn, which, um, feels like a little bit of a stretch to say that that's one of the like five best, you know, performances of the year or whatever. Um, whereas like all four of Sersha's nominations, perhaps with the possible exception of Atonement, which was, you know, a novelty nomination in that she was, she was a kid. Um, but like Brooklyn, Lady Bird.

little women, all of those nominations seem to be like, well, yeah, she's the lead actress of a Best Picture nominee. Like, this makes all the sense in the world. So she got to four nominations without a whole lot of like stress or sweat, right? And now all of a sudden she's a four-time Oscar nominee. And now all of a sudden, the question almost like descends upon us without even having to like, you know, stretch for it, which is, well, at some point she's going to win. Right. I don't think you're wrong on this best picture assessment, but I do think they may be undersell those nominated performances because she doesn't have a bad nomination. Oh, that's literally, or even a weaker nomination.

I absolutely agree, and that's not what I'm saying. All I'm saying is that, like, all of those nominations feel like you don't have to, like, hustle to get those nominations. To understand the logic of it. Right. And I think it's one of those things that it comes a lot easier to actors because most best picture nominees historically have been actor forward rather than actress forward. But so I think at this point then, once, you know, certainly, you know, in the realm of 2023, but, you know, for, I think for the continuing future, anytime Sersha Ronan stars in something, it will have a modicum of Oscar buzz. because of this very reason. And one of the interesting things about foe is

it's kind of the third in a trio of disappointing, like she's on a bit of a cold streak at this point in 2023. I would be so interested to like hear her talk about what motivates her for some of the projects that she's been in. Because she's, it's also this mode of like being, in, with the exception of Blitz, more minor key movies like this, the Outrun, See How They Run. Well, The Outrun almost felt like a small little comeback, right? Because she does Ammonite in 2020, which we've done an episode on that one. See How They Run in 2022, which is not very well

received at all. And then Foe. And she's the lead or co-lead in all of those. And there's also French dispatch. She's in that movie for two seconds. Half a second, right. Yeah, that barely counts. And then you're right. Blitz, it's a, I mean, it's a supporting performance, I guess, technically, in that, like, that's where they were going to campaign her. And because that movie is sort of divided up into different perspectives or whatever, you could make that case without, you know, too much damage to your credibility. But I also feel like in all of the parties, of, it's sort of like a Dev Patel and Lion thing, right? In all the parts of the movie that are her, that are, you know, that her character is a part of, she's the lead of those parts of the movie. So, this year, and I don't know if this is technically a 2025 release, because I think it's just a festival release, she was in that movie Bad Apples, which is a bit of an odd choice in that it's this very indie, and I don't know whether she has like a relationship

with the filmmaker or the screenwriter or a producer or something, it's this really indie dark comedy where she plays a teacher who has one particular problem child in her class and through a series of misadventures or whatever ends up keeping this child. child locked up in her basement. And sort of it goes on from there. Not a bad movie. I think she's pretty good in it. But it is not a movie that I think in any, even in the rosiest of outlooks for that movie would be an Oscar nominee.

It feels like a movie that will be a direct to Hulu kind of a thing. Which is not necessarily indicative of its quality, but it's not like, it's not a revelation. It's just movies like that, that's what, that's the type of avenue to get them out into the world these days. I think she is, she is by a wide margin, probably too good for a movie like that. I think she probably shouldn't be making movies like that. Like that's a movie for a Tuppens Middleton or a, you know. Oh. Not, I mean, whatever.

Tupin Smiltern has been in good things. but she's also at this stage of her career like I saw people saying not that about the outrun but you know adjacent things about the outrun and like that's a movie that she developed I believe she's a producer on that movie well there were some people who thought like personal like project and that movie had its fans like that movie really did have a pocket of people who really rode for that movie and for her performance and especially that was a sundance premiere um i think that is more of like it's not like she shouldn't be doing indies it's that i think if she's doing an indie it should be worthy of her you know bringing you know her

her her talent and also her star power very clear connection to right um the interesting thing about us doing obviously a surcheron and paul meskell movie right now is that they are both committed to the great project that is Sam Mendez's Beatles movies. I think you are hugely opposed to, and in a way that I find I am largely agnostic about. I am very much in a wait and see. I could see me enjoying these. I guess I want to give you a moment to air out what exactly it is about these movies that causes you to exhale, so.

I mean, I went into Springsteen, deliver me from nowhere. I will say the contractually obligated title, even though it's stupid, but of course nobody would have known that was a Springsteen movie. I was optimistic about that movie, maybe because I like Springsteen,

but I just think we're done here. We gotta stop doing this. We got to stop making these movies. Wait, what do you mean by these movies, though? These musician biopics, and, like, I understand the ambition and the scope of what Mendez is doing. He's doing four separate movies, one each about a different member of the, one focused on a different member of the Beatles. Obviously, they will all, from their perspective. They will all cross over into each other's movies.

And they're going to be filming for a year. So obviously, it's not going to be for someone like Sersha, the commitment that it's going to be for Paul Meskell, who's going. going to be a significant player in all four movies. And I don't know if we can expect that from someone like Sershia and who she's playing. But it's just like, do we really want Paul Meskell to not be making anything else in that time when he's so exciting right now? But you said it's only a year, right? Yeah. I think.

And then he's going to have to do a year-long promo for that movie when it gets released. And he's just one actor in it But it's like these are actors who it's like We should be I don't know how Joseph Quinn's doing it While he's also in the MCU Well right now it's just I think the MCU is in enough flux

That right now we only really know for sure That he's in the two Avengers movies Right and right now it's just Tuesday Which we don't think are coming out When they say they're coming out right They don't seem to be moving as swiftly as they would maybe need to be. But so, Paul Meskell is cast as Paul McCartney,

Joseph Quinn, as you mentioned, George Harrison. Harris Dickinson will be John Lennon, Barry Keogun as Ringo Starr. Sir Sharonin will be playing Linda McCartney, so she and Meskull will be married once again. Anna Sawai from Shogun will be Yoko Ono. James Norton will be Brian Epstein, Amy Lou Wood cast as Patty Boyd.

it's kind of an all-star cast of the hot young actors of the moment. Not all of them. Like, you know, Allorty is not part of this and, you know, whatever. But it's certainly a snapshot of who are the most sort of highly castable young actors right now. I'm excited. I think some of their peers are going to eclipse them because they're going to get to go and do other interesting work while these four actors are filming for a year and then probably promoting for a year.

Yeah, but also, like, there's a very good chance that these movies are going to, like, be huge. Because... Oh, of course they will be. The Beatles are still one of those bands that, like, you know, they have translated to younger generations. I don't know if necessarily, like, they're a, you know, gen alpha thing right now.

But, like, certainly, the Beatles had filtered down through the boomers into Gen X, into the millennials, you know what I mean? Like, a lot of, you know, people have, you know, your Beatles, you know, a moment where you sort of discover them anew. And I think it's one thing to sort of, like, quote unquote, sort of like, you know, waste, you know, all this time on something that's ultimately going to not come to much of anything. But, like, this could end up being a huge boon to all of their careers, even beyond where they're at right now. And they can probably use that to get other things made, which is great. But, I mean, for me of this, you know, generation of actor, Josh O'Connor is the number one with a bullet greatest. And because he's not sidelined with these movies, that status is not going to change. I will be very surprised.

Well, I mean, he's got the Spielberg coming next year. That dude deserves a break. He's been working a lot. He's been working a lot. Yeah, he deserves a break. But, you know, I just don't want to see those actors so sidelined by something right now. I don't, I just, I don't think it's going to take as much of a chunk out of their careers as like a Marvel contract, which is, three movies over the course of six years.

You know what I mean? No, no, I agree with you on that. And, like, yes, it obviously will have long-term potential for them. I think there's also just, like, really, in my eyes, not a high degree of potential for these movies to be great. Well, I think that's the thing. Given Mendez's... I think that most people... Because I think your sort of exasperation or hand-wringing about this is the general tenor that I see from a lot of people that I know about these movies.

And I think part of that is the Sam Mendez of it all, who is not a filmmaker who is particularly revered by the cinephile crowd. And I mean, it's tough to – what – how do you? do I feel about Sam Mendez. I always tend to feel like I'm defending him, and yet, like, I'm trying to think of, like, what are, like, there are certain Sam Mendez movies that I genuinely really, really love, like, a way we go. That is a movie that, like, a lot of people really don't care for. Revolutionary Road. See, I'm not a big revolutionary road person, but I'm also opening to revisiting that. We should do that as an exception at some point soon, because, because I think that would be fun. But, like, certainly, obviously American Beauty is very divisive. I tend to stick up for Road to Perdition, but I also haven't seen that movie in full in a very, very long time. It's really good.

Jarhead, we will do as of this had Oscar Buzz entry at some point. So we can talk about that. I think of his Bond movies, because I am not a James Bond person in general, I have. less of a problem with him sort of taking the Bond movies into a different direction, a more sort of narrative, you know, lore-heavy direction. I like everybody. I want a junkie bond again. What's that? I want a junkie bond. Not like a stick in a needle in his arm bond, but like a...

Yeah, I want... I'm just saying... Joseph. It's what I thought when you said that. No, I want Golden Eye again I want Tomorrow Never Dies You want a

You want a You want a man-hor Winky Martini-swilling Campy Just to the edge of campy James Bond Right?

Like generally I feel like That's the kind of I think that's But I think I think it's one of those things Where after the Christopher Nolan Batman movies People were like

We need to have a Batman That has fun again and all this sort of stuff We need Adam West Batman Right I think it's a pendulum kind of thing And I understand that I was never

Again a huge bond person I just thought Skyfall was a really great Action blockbuster I thought spec like everybody else I thought Spector was a hunk of junk And I thought No Time to Die was pretty good With No Time to Die is my favorite of the Craig Bonds

And I gather that that is wildly not a popular thing to say I thought that was okay But anyway, regardless, that wasn't to Sam Mendy's movie either, because Sam Mendy's by that point was doing 1917, which was a, people forget how close that movie came to winning Best Picture over Parasite. Best thing for that movie that it didn't. Right. So I never, I never got on board with that movie. I liked that movie better than a lot of people did.

Empire of Light, I really wanted to love, and I was disappointed by. Yeah, you can tell that it's a deeply personal movie. It just never, much like Foe, just never kicks into the gear that it needs to. Yeah. But anyway, I am in general, I don't, I'm not a knee-jerk Sam Mendi's skeptic. So I think I'm probably more open to these Beatles movies than most people, with the caveat that, like, I do agree that, like, the musician biopic is a, is a pit of quicksand that can really, I think structurally, they're really, really hard to do well. I think one of the things that we've seen recently is so many, not so many, but a handful of these biopics

are taking the tactic to do the limited biopic, right? We are not going to do a, from cradle to grave kind of thing. We are going to focus on a small window. That's what a complete unknown did, I would say, pretty successfully with Bob Dylan. I think it's what the Springsteen movie tries to do, but I don't think Scott Cooper has enough of a sort of galvanizing idea about the period of time in which Springsteen was making Nebraska to make it work as well as it could. I also feel like that movie has a tolerant at least. best relationship with the Nebraska album, I came away from that movie, like, why does this movie hate this album? That, like, it should be celebrating this album. And it, like, passes, it tries

to pass it off as, like, Springsteen having a depressive episode. And, like, it's a thing that exists, but is not anything, not, doesn't illuminate anything about the guy's career. And, like, that's not the movie you should be making about that album. I enjoyed the parts. That was sort of one of the things I did like about that movie was how much of that movie was Jeremy Strong and David Krumholtz in an office being like, and Jeremy Strong's like, trust me, I know. Like, let's just put this record out. And like, I do, I do think it is. It's a masterpiece. Like that album. I believe you. I am the person watching that movie, though, and being like the best part of this movie about. Nebraska is the scene where he performs Born in the USA, which is... And that's true, and that's a problem. It is a problem, but it's also the part where I'm just like,

fuck, yeah, this song rules. I was sort of raised on Born in the USA. That was the first Bruce Springsteen album I had any awareness of, and that album just has a huge, huge place in my heart. But yes, that is a movie that I think it's a better... I think if it can have more of a POV about what Nebraska means, positively beyond just the fact that

it's the album about where Bruce was dealing with stuff with his dad you know and it just doesn't if that all is conveyed very vaguely and I think the stuff that is conveyed I think more that has more of a pop

to it is the stuff where Jeremy Strong is trying to go to other people and being like Bruce is on one with this but like let's just stick with them and we'll get to board in the USA, which is the one that will make us all all the money and will, you know, I think the movie sort of feathering its nest and being like, don't worry, we all know born in the USA is lying on the other side of this hill. We just need to like surmount this hill.

This hill with a mansion on it. Right. Yeah. We got to get back to phone, but I do want to like close the button on the Springsteen movie of just saying that I didn't dislike the Jeremy Strong stuff, minus the Gummer, who, as other people have pointed out, plays wife on phone, but in person. Life on phone, but in person. Yep, yep.

Literally holding a cup of tea. Yeah. I liked, I kind of liked the Jeremy Strong stuff because it felt like it was the closest to what that movie needed to be. I just think it needed to be either more of it or less of it. And I think we're... Right. As I told you after I saw it,

What I wanted, and I know that this is going to like make people cringe, but the movie I wanted was the Aaron Sorkin version where Jeremy Strong is giving 15 monologues about the nature of art versus commerce and how masterpieces don't have space in the world of commerce because everybody at the top doesn't know what fucking artistry is. That's the movie I might have wanted. My name is John Landau, and I am Bruce Springsteen's manager. Yeah, like... Exactly. And your 15 minutes are up. Yeah, exactly. You see, when you are a musician.

And it has for 20 years given me no piece to know that for you, Steve, the worst. All right. So we got to talking about this because Sersha and Paul Meskel will be playing... Here's how I will bring us back. Paul and Linda McCartney. That's how we got into this was... Paul Meskell as Paul McCartney, I will give them credit because that is kind of perfect casting. I'm excited for it.

He has a similar facial structure as Linda McCartney gives me hope that that character will be a character, will be like an actual, like... Right. You know, I imagine that the Paul movie will be fairly significantly about their story. I mean, who knows? The structure of this is going to be interesting because it is just, is it going to be four movies that retell, is it going to be Rashomon with the Beatles? Or is it going to be where, like... I think that's the intention, yeah.

I don't know if I love that. But, like, we'll see. Again, I'm open to it. But, like, maybe it's more interesting if, like, you get the, you know, George Harrison stuff about the band coming together and then, you know, the McCartney stuff as the band's getting popular. Who knows? Whatever, whatever. Um, Meskell, though,

that assent happened so fast as someone who did not watch normal people, um, and first fell in love with Paul Meskull, uh, being awkward on the Zoom globes. Uh, I love Paul Meskall.

I remember seeing him in The Lost Daughter and being like, very kind of similarly to seeing Jacob Allorty in, the Ben Affleck Anna Armist movie where I'm like, oh, that's that Jacob Allorty that everybody's talking about.

I remember watching The Lost Daughter and being like, oh, okay, this is that Paul Meskell who everybody's making such a fuss about in normal people.

And then he's very briefly in Lost Daughter, but he's very charismatic in that movie. And then, of course... Good in the Emily Watson film God's Creatures. Right.

But the big one for him, obviously, is Afterson, which is his to-date only Oscar nomination. That was one where I saw that movie and I'm like, I am so invested in this Oscar nomination happening. And it was one of those things where up until maybe mid-autum, it felt like a long shot. And then all of a sudden, the race sort of broke.

And it's like, oh, there's some room here. And in fact, he showed up at, he was a BAFTA nominee, he was a Critics' Choice nominee, he was Indy Spirit nominee, I don't think, I guess he wasn't a Golden Globe nominee, but he showed up a lot. Him and Bill Nye also for living were the sort of indie contingent of that best actor field actually does not have a ton of best picture correlation, right? Because that's the year that Brendan Fraser wins for the Whale, which was not a best picture nominee. Austin Butler is nominated for Elvis, and Colin Farrell is nominated for

for Banshees of and a Sharon. And those are the two that have Best Picture Crossover. I know that speaking somewhat cynically about these things is, you know, 50% of what we do here, but Paul Meskell getting nominated for After Sun really truly feels like one of the nominations of our lifetime that is really like just about the performance like the performance and not the politics yes um that you know it gets in purely on the strength of the performance you know because it was a small movie it certainly wasn't age 24's biggest priority that season was he the only nomination or did that get a screenplay nomination as well

i'm pretty sure it's just him let me see i'm excited to see what charlotte wells does again That's another one I want to sort of dig into maybe after we're done, is to see what Charlotte Wells is working on. After Foe, Paul has Gladiator 2, and everyone was too mean to him about it. That was not his fault. I will say, though, we skipped past all of us strangers, though, which I think is really interesting in the context of Foe, because they both come out in the same autumn, essentially. All of Us Strangers was one of those movies that I think once it initially screened, I think a lot of people really thought it might get to a bunch of nominations. I think Andrew Scott was in the conversation for a very long time.

Meskell got a BAFTA nomination, and he actually won the Bifa. We know we love the Bifa. We love a Bifa. Love to vacation in a Bifa. I hate you with all the passion in my soul. All of Us Strangers is an interesting counterpart to Fo, though, and that it is a movie about essentially a couple that sort of exists in isolation to the greater world. They're living in this high rise where essentially for all intents and purposes.

They're the only two people there. Their relationship is sort of happening amidst a, in all of us strangers, it's a supernatural sort of thing. There are ghosts and, you know, crossovers to the past and whatnot, whereas foe, it's more of a sci-fi thing. But essentially, it is a relationship drama amid extranormal circumstances, right?

I think all of us strangers succeeds a lot more. I know a lot of people, or at least a number of people feel like that movie maybe doesn't fully pull it off. I think it does. And I don't know, it's interesting in my head to contrast that with, you know, foe, what does that movie do better with foe? I think one of the things it does is it deals with its sort of extra normal circumstances head on and continuously. So that you're not... Yeah, the kind of off-handedness of the, I guess, for lack of a better expression. Genre elements in all of us strangers is so

blasé but specific. You know, and foe lacks specificity in kind of every turn. Both of those movies have a third act twist involving the authenticity of the Paul Meskell character, which I think is interesting. I think Meskell, too, in general, in all of us strangers. For, you know, Andrew Scott, I think rightly got the lion's share of awards buzz for that.

But I think Meskell is also, like, really, really good. The scene where he sort of, the scene where he shows up at the door and they're, you know, they're flirting, but there's a desperation to Meskell, obviously, and that plays into what we find out about him throughout the rest of the movie. I think they're pretty incredible together. in that movie. He's also really incredible in Hamnet and I feel like... Yes, let's talk about it. Yeah.

Already the way that conversations are shaping up not just around that movie but the supporting actor race that now that he is officially going supporting. I don't know. I think he'll get nominated, sure, but like

I don't... I hope there's still space to celebrate what he is doing in this movie because I think it's really special. I think Even if you take it outside of the context of Shakespeare, which I think the movie asks you to do to a certain degree or at certain moments. Yes. He's playing someone who has, like, all of the, it's a certain type of a person who has all of, like, all of, like, language as a tool,

but through a certain context, not, you know, interpersonally. So he struggles to express himself emotionally in certain harrowing circumstances that the world expects you to behave in certain ways. And not all of us have that capacity. And I think he plays that in a way that's so interesting. I think he's really wonderful in that movie. I think there are certain moments that are really transcendent. I think the scene where he's rehearsing the actors. through the one scene from Hamlet, where he's being very exacting of them.

He's really, really good. I think the big climactic scene of the performance of Hamlet, he's tremendous. There are cuts to him sort of backstage while things are happening that just, like, absolutely break me. I think, unfortunately, I do sort of see in the tea leaves that I think the dominant narrative for him throughout this award season is going to be the fraudulence of the supporting actor designation.

I can already see that that is sort of the first thing that people are now bringing up about his candidacy. I mean, I would call it a lead performance. I think it is a lead performance. I think there is way more fraudulent supporting players that he will be nominated and possibly lose to that are absolutely leads of the performance. movie like who who are we talking about scars guard oh that's interesting he's a lead i mean that

movie really kind of spreads out it's it's you know but i think if you say that like there is no lead it's a shared weight type of thing then ranada rindsvis a supporting performance like um you're i guess i i i don't disagree enough to to have a discussion about it but i i think more so the fact that we are coming off of a year where last year supporting actor winners in both categories were leads of their movies. So I feel like people are very sort of sensitive to that. I think also in, I think it's part of the sort of more general, I'm going to say project, even though project suggests an intentionality that is maybe not there, but I think the broader project of fitting hamnet for the black hat of this award season where

So many people are riding so hard for either one battle or another or sinners that the possibility that Hamnet, which is seen as smaller, more feminine, weaker in like it's more sensitive, more emotional. People are going to try to reduce it to just another costume drama. Or just a weepy, just to like, you know, well, sorry. that, like, you know, one battle or another are sinners isn't making you cry, but they're actually masterpieces. Like, I can already... I mean, I cried at both of those movies. Well, yes, but you are not the control group that I feel like people are talking about.

Right. Which is exactly what I would say to that person disingenuously writing off Hamnet is that, well, I did cry it all three of those movies. And I feel like, despite my best efforts as now a temporary... tastemaker in the field, I think I'm not going to be able to stem that tide of, I think, pre-resentment, I think a lot of people are going to resent that movie before they even see it, and thus are going to approach it with crossed arms and are going to emerge from that movie being like, I don't know what the big deal is. And I think I'm not relishing that. And I think mescal is going to be, I think there is a degree of undeniability.

about Jesse Buckley that I don't think will be afforded to Paul Meskell and I think there are going to be a lot of people who are going to sort of cry fraud at him in a way that is going to bother me I think it's I think it is a category fraud first of all I should say but I also feel like

I understand why Focus is doing it because I don't think he would be nominated in lead actor through no fault of his own I'm not sure I agree interesting okay We should also mention history of sound this year. Should we? Which he is very good. Did I like it more than you?

I think I liked that movie more than anybody else. I can't say because you know famously, my screener expired in the middle of me watching it, so I still have to finish it. Oh, okay. Which I can't believe that that, by the way, is a thing that happens. And again, I know you hate when we complain about anything to do with screeners. because it is a privilege, and I understand. But it is wild to me that if I start a screener before the deadline and midnight hits,

and they're like, movie ends. The only people that are good at telling you that is festivals that still do that, because I'm pretty sure Sundance says you have to start the movie by this time. You have to start the movie by this time. But it's not that you have to finish the movie by this time. And that's the thing that wilds me out. is that if I start the movie before the deadline, I only get to watch it until the stroke of midnight.

It's very Cinderella. It is very like, now you are watching a pumpkin. And anyway, so I need to go back and finish. My thing about History of Sound is that, much like many other gay romances, people, I think, just want to think about them and engage with them and be satisfied by them as gay romances. There can't be gay romances that are all.

so about this other thing and maybe even more so about this other thing. As far as I got into... And I think the other thing that History of Sound is about, to me, I was satisfied though it's like, it's a bitter pill of a movie, so I get why people...

Even in the amount of that movie that I saw, I was surprised at how directly it took on the broke back mountain of it all, that it actually did send them to like camp out into... on a mountain up there. I was like, Oh, okay. And not even being glib about it. I was like, that movie, like, directly calls itself into comparison to Brookback Mountain in ways in which I, you know, I don't know, I was not, I was not anticipated.

Let's maybe take it home a little bit and talk about Aaron Pierre, who I think is fucking great, usually when I see him. How far away? Rebel Ridge palatable to me, a movie that everybody likes more than me. geared towards your sensibilities in kind of any way. I think that movie kind of rocks and rolls, and I think he's the highlight of it, for sure. He's great in this movie called Brother that I saw one Tiff. I never saw that movie, but I remember that being a thing. Who's the other brother in that? I forget.

Lamar Johnson's the other brother. It's, you know, Aaron Pierre is the, like, you know, focal point, not the protagonist, but the focal point of the narrative and, like, has a really great performance. Speaking of brothers and great performances, he was one of the, I can't, I don't remember which of, uh, Mufasa or Scar he voices in Mufasa, he's Mufasa, um, Kelvin Harrison is then Scar. Um, that is still not a movie that I have seen, despite the fact that, um, my nephew is a freak for all things Lion King.

Don't let him. Oh, I'm sure. I think he's definitely watched it. I just haven't watched it with him. Participate in the raising of him in a world where that movie doesn't exist. No, well, here's, I'm going to stick up for at least one element of it because I think a lot of people, you know my thing that I hate is when people post clips out of context to make fun of parts of a movie. people posted clips of that I always wanted a brother song to clown on it

and I'm like it's a genuinely good song and it's probably better than four-fifths of the actual best original song field that year so like But he is a Barry Jenkins guy because he also was in Underground Railroad

and great in it I never saw Underground Railroad but I will take your word for it yeah I He has the most interesting character to play in this movie too because he gets to be the person who's showing up and rattling things just by, like, kind of very slowly twisting the truth in this situation.

Oh, he's incredibly, incredibly compelling in this movie, and I definitely wanted there to be more to that character, ultimately, as I mentioned. And I don't want to dunk on Paul or Sershah in any way, because, like, obviously, I love them as performers, but, like, these are not great roles that they're given, and, you know, Aaron Pierre, at least kind of does, something. He's the single best element of the movie. He's the free radical that sort of shows up to bust up their normalcy, and I feel like that makes him. But I also feel like it's, it creates an opportunity for the actor, and he really, you know, steps in and really

does very well with it. I think I'm ready to say we are at most five years out from Aaron Pierre getting his first Oscar nomination. He's one of those actors who feels like, you know, he's cuspy. He's on the cusp. All right. And he will be in this Star Wars movie. Oh, yes. That's right. With Ryan Gosling

and like that cast is actually kind of a banger. But I will say, it's just one movie. They did not announce a trilogy. And I think that is at least a step in the right direction. We are taking things one at a time. We are not

promising a trilogy so that we to like map out a whole fucking saga, we can just make a movie. And that is, listen, Andor has sort of, you know, given me renewed hope in, uh... You think Sean Levy's going to give you Andor? No. That's, to be clear, no. But Andor has given me hope that that the Star Wars Enterprise can still, you know, go in some directions. Obviously, this is going to be a very different direction. And yeah, the Sean Levy of it is a solid point. I sometimes, I still, I am, this is one of my more childlike aspects, that I still look at a cast and be like, but the cast is so good. Whereas I think a lot of other people are like, that poor cast,

because they look at the director first, which they probably should. I often think the, like, we need to resuscitate Amy Adams' career thing is mean and misguided. But then when she was in this, like, oh, no, we maybe do actually need to resuscitate Amy Adams. Well, at least she'll be back to, like, being in a thing that, like, a lot of people will see. So, why did foe fail? I feel like we've talked about our creative problems with it. I think in general, 24% Rotten Tomatoes, 44 Metacritic, no box office to speak of. And anecdotally, it really just felt like I did not ever speak to a single person who liked this movie. So that's not great.

It doesn't work. That's not a good movie. Also, its premiere status, you know, being its world premiere is the spotlight section of New York. I was thinking a lot about anemone, which did the same thing this year. I also have not spoken to a single person who thought anemone was a good movie. Because it's not going to it. No, yeah, you're right. We can sort of wind into the home stretch, but I want to speak very briefly of Amazon MGM Studios,

which becomes a thing essentially in October of 2023, the same month that Foe, at least makes its little, dips its toe into theatrical, whatever. Amazon Studios had been a thing since the mid-2010s, and famously, you know, gets a best picture nomination before Netflix does and, you know, wins major Oscars for Manchester by the Sea and all that. And then almost immediately after Manchester by the Sea happens, they forget how to do Oscars. And they have this sort of like string of buzzy movies that did not come to anything.

Last Flag Flying and Wonder Wheel and all the sort of stuff. They also had some, I feel like Amazon, it's not just Oscars, it's also Emmys. They have, like, pretty noteworthy, surprising poor Emmy showings for something like the Underground Railroad. Yes. That should be, like, winning every Emmy. But while that is happening, though, like, they're winning Emmys with Mrs. Maisel and they're, you know, there are successes. there that are, you know, Amazon's interesting. You want to sort of brush them off as inept, and yet, like, they will have successes. I think Amazon MGM is one is a particularly interesting

case in this regard where you look at so many of their movies that, I mean, I'll read the list in a second, but, like, one of the things that I'm struck by is, that they distribute more movies over the last three years. Essentially, it's been two years. It's been essentially 24 months exactly since they started as the combined Amazon MGM Banner. They've released a lot of movies relative to one's expectation. They've also been admitted into the Motion Picture Association, so they are essentially

considered one of the major studios. But anyway, some of these movies, like, you know, a lot of these are studio pickups, whatnot, but like Cassandro, nothing really comes of that. The Burial, which was that Jamie Fox, Tommy Lee Jones movie, that, like, people actually genuinely really liked. And I think it was one of those things where it's like, well, nobody saw this, but like the handful of people who saw it really, really liked it. But then you have something like Saltburn, which is kind of a phenomenon of the attention economy. if nothing else, right? It becomes a very buzzy movie. And then that same year,

2023, like, they get a Best Picture nomination kind of right away. It is via, it's in partnership with Orion for American fiction. But Orion distributes that movie through Amazon MGM.

Also, George Clooney's The Boys in the Boat was 2023. So that's their 2020. Made money. Made money. 2024, speaking of made money. Like the beekeeper, the Jason Statham movie, The Beekeeper, I remember being like a modest success.

Made money. Jennifer Lopez's This Is Me Now, a love story, seen by all homosexuals. Was that in theaters? I don't... I think that was just in stream. But it's distributed. But that's part of the Amazon MGM Studios thing is are they a streamer? Are they a theatrical?

They sort of, you know, pick and choose. A number of these movies do really straddle the line. Roadhouse, the Jake Jellon Hall Roadhouse, the idea of you, the Anne Hathaway movie, The Idea of You, which I don't know if that was ever

actually in theaters. But then they also have challengers, you know what I mean? Which is, you know, and we talk about the sort of the challengers getting blanked by the Oscars thing in relation to Luca Guadino

you know, opting to promote queer instead. But like, I think it's fair to say that, like, Amazon MGM probably should have done a better, done better by that movie. But that same year, they get a Best Picture nomination for Nickel Boys, which I don't think was the easiest thing to do. So we got to tip your hat to them. They also have a theatrical success on a smaller degree, but whatever, with my old ass. I think my old ass is a point in their favor. They also have a lot of people like that movie.

They also have a theatrical disaster in Red One, which made money. like, was clearly meant to make much, much more money. Yeah. Also, they have blink twice. The Zoe Kravitz movie has blink twice that I think is pretty bad. But, like, you know, got attention. And then they'll release the fire inside, which I think we all thought was a pretty good movie that did not deserve more attention.

It was probably not released at the right time of year. So, again, you're ups, your downs. This year, they started with the Reese Witherspoon, Will Ferrell, your quarter, originally invited, which seems like, I still haven't seen it, seems like junk, but I have heard from at least a couple, a handful of people who have said it's better than you think it's going to be. The Nicole Kidman horror-ish movie Holland that I haven't seen, that I don't, I feel like doesn't exist, which is odd to say for a Nicole Kidman horror movie that actually, like, did get released in theaters, I believe, limitedly. The accountant, too,

which just does not feel like an Amazon MGM movie. Another simple favor, which I think went direct to streaming. The Bing Liu, who was the documentary filmmaker who did, what was the title of that movie that I really liked? Mining the Gap. His movie Preparation for the Next Life, which I haven't yet seen, but I'm interested to see. I want to catch up to that. And then very recently, Luca Guadino's After the Hunt, which we talked about in our Bones and All episode, you can go back to that and hear our thoughts on After the Hunt. And then the Nia da Costa movie Heda, which

actually surpassed what I thought for myself were pretty low expectations, but like surpassed them and I think is a more interesting movie than I was expecting. So there is no real easy takeaway from what do we think of Amazon, MGM Studios in that I think they would probably do well to figure out what their deal is. Their deal is trying to figure out. what the hell they're doing with Bond. Well, that is true. Now that they have De Neville Nove. Yeah, that is true.

Which talk about things when I just don't. We're not getting, we're not getting fun, silly bond when it's De Neville Nove, too. No, I know. That's the one where I'm more, I think I'm in the Beatles, I'm in the Sam Mendy's Beatles place with Denny Villeneuve and Bond, where that's the one where I'm like, oh, my God, how many years of how many Dennyville Nove movies that I would have normally. been excited to see, are we not going to get because he's making James Bond.

We're never getting a rival ever again. Yeah, it sucks. It's too bad. I mean, I like Dune, but... Well, and I have a few... I imagine also that, like, after this third one, further Dune movies will probably go to other directors if he is doing Bond.

But, like, I have liked almost every single Denny film movie movie. And it's a bummer to me that now he's just going to be strapped to Bond, a franchise that I don't really care about. I think the thing with Amazon MGM is, I don't think it's necessarily a bad strategy that they have certain movies that are direct to Amazon Prime and certain movies that are theatrical. And when they do theatrical, they seem to have, it's not like the Netflix thing where it's just like have your qualifying window, you know what I mean? And like filmmakers have to essentially like blackmail Netflix. Netflix into letting them have a more robust, you know, theatrical run.

Amazon MGM seems to understand that a handful of these movies will play well in theaters and they will, you know, position them and promote them and push them accordingly. And then other movies are Ricky Stinnocky and, you know, you're cordially invited. I don't even know what Ricky Stenicke. That was the Zach Efron movie. I didn't see it. Candy Cain Lane was the Eddie Murphy one. Some of these movies are just going to go right to streaming.

And I think they are being more or less decently intentional about that. So I have less of an annoyance with Amazon MGM than I do with something like Netflix. So, yeah. I think ultimately it's an inexact science. I think they are going to have movies that they can't quite find an audience for, but I think I like the fact that they're trying.

The fact that they can make some money with a movie as nondescript and not well received as the boys in the boat is a feather in their cap. If they can do that for a movie like Hedda, you know, that would be great. That'd be cool. Who knows? Who knows? All right. Should we move on to the IMP? Yeah, let me just sort of empty out my notebook for a second of, I mentioned the sky full of satellites shot that was really good.

The needle drop of that I'm a lonely frog song, which of course made me pause the movie and go look up Madeline Khan performing that song, which is highly recommended to all. They also needle drop that don't they know it's the end of the world song that always makes me think of. Britney Murphy's character, her death in Girl Interrupted. Calling her character Hen is annoying. Oh, Katie Walsh's review for the, I believe it was for the LA Times, pointed out that the title, Foe, is a double entendre, is a, is a, can be also interpreted as foe like fake. um yes never caught that thank you

f a u thank you katie for that um bisexuality could have saved this movie and the corporation is called outer more which sounds very like Taylor Swift album I didn't think of that folklore and outer more yeah obvious boo hiss for the person I'm going to invoke but it made me think of potter more And, like, there have been fewer, there have been few pop cultural happenings in the past, what, 15, 20 years, more stupid than Pottermore. Well, the thing about Pottermore, too, is it's the part of the wizarding world universe, and I use scare quotes around that, because I think it's such a silly name for it, that is unencumbered by say actors you like. Or, you know what I mean?

It's like the theatrical, the stage show, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, you can be like, well, yes, this is annoying that it's J.K. Rowling's universe. But those actors are giving such good performances. And, you know, obviously the Harry Potter movies, whenever they like in their blanketed on cable. So, like, I do come across them.

I did literally last night, watched some of, The Deathly Hallows Part 1 And I'm like Honestly like these movies are well done They just are Whereas like Pottermore You're like there's no There's no thing where you're like

Well you gotta hand it to him Like they did a you know This is no stupid as hell Yeah there's no actual art to it For all of her like By the way this character Is that you don't care about Is I am retconning them as

I don't know A vaccine skeptic. Yeah, all along, all along, Matt I. Moody was a vaccine skeptic. And, um... Honestly, that would track. But also, Outermore for this, it sounds like, it sounds like the container store or something. It sounds so accidentally innocuous. Yeah.

Yes. outermore sells rain slickers and ponchos and like um it's like if you need those just coats outermore yes it's yes it's coats it's slickers it's blazers it's like paos but also like hip waders or like rain boots galoshes the galoshes are making a comeback where are they making comeback at outermore um outermore the your one stop shop for protecting yourself from the elements umbrellas trench coats

yeah yeah yeah yeah we can make it we can make a go with this all right weirdly no hats Chris why don't you tell the listeners what the IMDB game is every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try to guess the

top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for any of those titles are television voice only performances or non-acting credits will mention that up front After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. If that's not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints. And that is the IMDB game. Chris, would you

like to give first or guess first? I'll guess first. All right. So we talked about Garth Davis directing certain episodes of Top of the Lake. That first season, the designated A-list gray hair

in that movie was played by Holly Hunter. We have not done Holly Hunter for the IMDB game in six years. So I believe we have allowed this to replenish. Holly Hunter's IMDB game has one animated

title. The Incredibles. No. Whoa, okay. What is the other one then? See, this is what happens when I so confidently guess something incorrectly It just, like, blinks out my mind for all things.

And I know that this is obvious, and listeners are like, it's this. I want to get some right answers on the board before potentially getting my years. So I'm going to say the piano. The piano is correct. Raising Arizona. Raising Arizona is incorrect. All right. Oh, fuck me.

Your years are, 1987. 2003 and 2018 87 2018 almost almost perfectly mathematically spaced out 1987

87's broadcast news 03 is 13 is 18 the Incredibles 2 exactly right broadcast news 13 Incredibles 2 the piano you got it The Incredibles 2 but not the

Incredibles isn't that interesting Is it because Incredibles 2 she's a more prominent character you would think, like, the, I don't know why the, how the algorithm would intuit that. It could just be that it's the more popular movie for some reason on IMDB. Maybe. Recency popularity. It did make more money than the original. Because, you know, inflation, I imagine.

Sure. Yeah. But yes, so not a particularly arduous known for, but, you know, you got it. Fun nonetheless. Fun nonetheless. I also chose for you someone that we haven't done in years. believe this was, uh, this person was drawn on like episode 25 or something. Oh, wow. Okay. Uh, we didn't talk much about the novel that Foe is based off of. Right.

Written by Ian Reed. Same spelling is also wrote, I'm spelled the right way. Ending things. Yeah. Another, uh, credit for Ian Reed. Uh, Ian Reed starred in the film Fingernails. We all remember Fingernails. Apple TV Original film Fingernails. Among the cast members of fingernails is Luke Wilson. Sure.

Okay. All live action acting. Yeah, no voiceovers. Royal tenem-bombs. Correct. Okay. Okay. Old school? Old school is correct.

Okay. I was hoping I was remembering correctly that he's the milk toast main character in that movie that is eclipsed by the other folks in that. Okay. I imagine there's a good chance that there's another Wes Anderson in there. And I think that would be either Bottle Rocket, Rushmore. I'm trying to think of what, I mean, anything else beyond Tenen Bounds, it's a really small role, if anything. I'm going to say Bottle Rocket. Bottle Rocket is correct.

Are you going to get a perfect score? Ooh. Okay. So, Luke Wilson, the sort of heyday of Luke Wilson. Family Stone's a possibility. Charlie's Angels is a possibility, although he's kind of way down the cast list in Charlie's Angels. And Family Stone... Cameron Diaz's love interest?

He is, in fact. And if Family Stone is alphabetical... by billing, then he's probably far down the list of that. There's stuff like home fries that, like, I always think of, even though I don't think I've ever actually seen that entire movie, but for whatever reason, Drew Barrymore's awful wig in that movie sort of stands out. Oh, no, it's Legally Blonde. Legally Blonde is incorrect.

Oh, my God. How was it not? Okay. Well, now that I've gotten one wrong, I'm just going to throw it out there and say HomeFries. HomeFries is incorrect. Your year is 2007. I don't think that the year is going to help you on this movie. This, like, type of movie is definitely in a soup of the entire aughts. Like... Is it a dumb action blockbuster that he's somehow in? No. Okay. Okay.

Is it a comedy, though? It is not. Oh. Is it like an indie? No. So a mainstream drama. No. Horror action.

It's a horror movie. It's a horror. Oh, is it vacancy? Vacancy is in his known for. That's crazy. I believe that's like the only horror movie ever did of any, right? I can't think of any other horror movies. Not a single romantic comedy in his known for, but

vacancy is. I don't know about all that. Maybe spooky season has elevated it to momentary promise. You see what I mean, though, that, like, 2007 does not help you get vacancy. Well, except that, like, weirdly knowing the genre, I was like, oh, right, like, that was around that, like,

because that was, I don't know if vacancy is torture porn, but, like, that was the heyday of Saw Hostel, Eli Roth era, like, the aesthetics of that era of horror movies are not my jam. I caught probably the last third of the original Saw movie on TV the other day. The aesthetics of that movie are so fucking junky that, like, I respect the, like, the plot and the sort of, you know, even the audacity of, like, having this thing, having this, uh, concept that is essentially just like forcing people to like

saw off their own limbs and like do these horrible, awful, you know, disgusting things to each other or whatever. It's so crazy that Danny Glover is in that movie. It's so crazy that Danny Glover's in that movie. But I would be fine with all of that if the aesthetics of that movie weren't

like horrible limp biscuit music video aesthetics. Like I really, really I have a hard time. I've never fucked with the saw movies. As much as I am like a gore hound and I love a gory movie yeah I don't like the saw movies interesting not I remember a couple years ago when like everybody decided to like watch the saw movies as a project I was like what are you guys doing I was weirdly jealous because I was like oh like that seems

like fun to like track because that is a that is a series that has like a lot of lore I was talking to friend and past and future guest Louis Pitesman um because he's of course a huge horror person and And I know he's seen all those movies. And I'm like, some of those movies happen, like, within the time frame of other movies. That, like, he's, like, not quite, but sort of. It's just, like, like, I feel like that, the timeline of that series is always, like, looping back on itself. And, like, part three happens during the first hour of part one. And then part four happens between part two and part six.

And, like, you know, I guess part four would happen between part two and pro six. But you know what I'm saying? Part six happens... Saw does have a good twist, though. The first one? Yeah. The first one. Great twist.

But it's drowned out by these horrible aesthetics. This is what I mean. It's just like the actual, like... And I, again, James Wan is a director who... I have liked doing other things. I liked his Fast and the Furious movie. Okay. I really liked the fucking...

Oh, what was the movie with the... the woman with stringy hair and the face on the back of her face. Um, malevolent? Was that what it was called? No. Maybe. I didn't like that as much as everybody else liked it.

Loved that. Um, uh, maybe. We should, we should get out of here. Okay, yeah, we should get out of here. All right.

Uh, folks, that is our episode. If you want more of this had Oscar buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz. Tumblr.com. You should also check out our Instagram at this had Oscar buzz. Chris, where can the listeners find more of you?

Letterboxed and Blue Sky at Chris V-Fileile. That's F-E-I-L. I am on Blue Sky and Letterboxed at Joe Reed, Reed, spelled R-E-I-D. You can also subscribe to my Patreon-exclusive podcast on the films of Demi Moore called Demi, myself, and I at patreon.com slash Demipod, D-E-M-I-P-O-D. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork

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