This Had Oscar Buzz - 370 – Looper

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

With a new Benoit Blanc out for you to devour, we decided it was a great time to talk about the great Rian Johnson. In 2012, Johnson delivered his genre hybrid Looper, set in a dystopic future where, through the magic of time travel, a hitman (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) faces off against his older self (Bruce Willis) … Continue reading "370 – Looper"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. We want to talk to Marilyn Hack, Millen Hack, and Crag. I'm from Canada water. Dick Pooh. In the future, time travel is outlawed, used only in secret by the largest criminal organizations. When they need someone gone, and they want to erase any trace any trace of the target ever existing, they use specialized assassins like me, called a looper.

You're a looper. You know what we do? And the only rule is never let your target escape, even if your target, is you. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that's getting an extra thick burr from Tulsi Town, no matter how snowy it gets. 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 blunderbuss, Chris File. Hello, Chris. I refuse to give a gay guy answer to that. Doesn't that seem like it would be, like, a cute term of endearment for, like, normie people, though? A blunderbuss? Yeah, my little blunderbuss. That's, like, a cutesy term for, like, you're really depressed for it, which I guess, is me for you? Like, not unfair. Um, uh, truth and fiction. Truth and fiction. I don't know.

Okay. Let's talk about the blunderbuss. Yes. The blunderbuss, as they call it, is just kind of like a shotgun, but like what makes it not a shotgun and makes it a blunderbuss? It's a, it's an actual thing that exists. Like, I think there were some reviews that I saw that sort of acted or talked like, Uh, this was like a thing that Ryan Johnson invented for this movie, but it's just essentially, it's just like a shotgun with a, with the muzzle sort of flared at the end, which I think just allows you to like load it with like buckshot or something. Like I mean, you could fit the amount that I know about guns into like the teen t-tintiest monopoly thimble. But like, it's like an old, there's, it's like an old timey. gun, I think. I don't know. We just saw the Jinks and Dela Holiday show this week, A-plus theatrical event, but there is also an A-plus gun joke in the show that I have not stopped thinking about.

Got to bring your gun jokes to Ohio now because it's solid red country, so yeah. Well, but it's, you know, there's a bit in the show, I don't want to spoil the show for anyone who might still be seeing it at this point, but there is a bit in the show that like one of the segments is like we live in hell basically uh-huh um maybe i'll tell you offline uh because it was again a plus theatrical i'm pretty sure that jinx indela played buffalo the night after they played columbus which made me think well you should have just hidden stowed away in their uh in their truck in their vans and then just like come and hung out with me the next day yeah that that's the holiday cheer I need.

The blunderbuss, though. Yes. It is basically kind of like science fiction shotgun. I don't feel fully equipped. This movie, without ever feeling overwhelming, has so much, like, cool sci-fi stuff going on. I really like the way that it renders the near future. The way that it... Yes.

Their version of the future is, like, There are sci-fi elements with, like, the telekinesis, and there are future, there's future tech, there's future advancements, but it's all within this greater context of shabbiness that just sort of like everything in the world has gotten worse. And it's not a dystopia yet, but it feels like it's kind of on the way. We're not in our, like, we're not in like the fully techy future, but we're on the way. And everything is just like, just a little disappointing, you know, maybe more than a little disappointing. And to credit Ryan Johnson, I do think there's, because this takes place in 2044?

The Joseph Gordon Levitt stuff is 2044. When we flash ahead to Bruce Willis, it's 2070, I want to say, or something like that. Yes. For basically a mid-movie, not side quest, but like, it. its own, you know, bottle episode within a movie. The version of what Ryan Johnson says 244 will be like, you know, 30 years from the movie, 20 years from now. Yeah. Feels so accurate in terms of where we're heading in terms of like science fiction movies. Even more so than it did probably in 2012.

I agree. And when you watch a movie that's 10, 15, 20 years old and what's. their version of the near future is it's like well we kind of had a little pivot yeah this feels you know smart in that way that like this does actually seem like where we might be developing towards and i don't mean time travel i mean all of the other stuff that i again feel ill-equipped to kind of go into because yeah there's just so much movie in this movie um and i think Ryan Johnson is at an interesting point in his career when this movie gets made because it does really feel like he's trying to get so many ideas into one movie, but it never collapses, at least for me. I'm sure that there's some people who are like, this movie needs chill. I definitely read some reviews that talked about how, for them, the movie falls apart in the third act. Oh, see, it comes together for me in the third act. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I'm much more aligned with you than I am with the notion that it falls apart in the third act.

But yeah, I think just I also love the details of like we have hover bikes, but there aren't very many of them, and they mostly don't work really well. And there's telekinesis, but it's just like dipshits floating quarters. Right. And there are, there are, you know, notes of societal collapse. Organized crime is sort of running rampant. The cities seem very run down. But down to, like, you go to Emily Blunt's farm.

And it takes place in Kansas, and she's not growing corn. She's growing sugarcane. And, like, I know about as much as farming as I know about guns. But I feel like that felt like a telling thing of like, oh, people have had to pivot to like other crops for reasons. And we're not going to really get into it. But like it's there's a reason why she's growing sugar cane and not, you know, corn. And that they're because why would you have a movie where people are running through fields of crops and have it not be corn? You would, you know, the difference.

And so it sort of feels like it's and even. the sound design on those sugar cane field scenes is fascinating, whereas corn is sort of lush and green and you sort of like move through them like water a little bit. The sugar cane is crunchy and rattley. And when they move through that, it just sounds very scratchy. Like you're getting injured to move through it. Yes, yes, yes, kind of exactly. And And it's that type of detail that I find really, really wonderful. And it makes me, and I know he's going back and doing Star Wars stuff. And, like, that, you know, is its own thing.

But I, it makes me want to see Ryan Johnson do sci-fi like this again. This sort of like terrestrial sci-fi, earthbound sci-fi. Well, and we're doing this because Wake Up Dead Man will be on Netflix soon. And that whole press sci-fi. is kind of happening now as it's about to hit theaters. And, you know, of course, there's talk of continuing the series. And at this point, I kind of want, you know, with maybe what is my favorite of the Benoit Blanc movies, I kind of want Benoit Blanc to be put to bed for a little bit because I

want Ryan Johnson to do quite literally whatever he wants. So I guess if that's a Benoit Blanc movie, sure. But it's going to be a, it's going to be the Star Wars, trilogy that he's doing though right is that still happening he had something else in mind too which like that's that's what i want him to do yeah you know something that is non-franchise related that like he just gets to get high on his own supply and do a genre mashup like this is again because looper one of the things that i think is so cool about it obviously with what's going on we would classify this as a science fiction movie but the genre keeps kind of shifting throughout the

movie as a lot of the plot developments come up because there's like there's maybe four or five moments in this movie where it's like hard pivot into oh this movie is this and then something else happens like oh this movie is about this and it all still blends together but like at certain points when the plot shifts it goes from being a noir to being like a neo-western into being a domestic drama into, like, all of these different things. Yep. And I think most movies kind of buckle under that pressure, but Looper stays very cohesive for me the whole time.

Yeah. I think the other thing that's going to be interesting to talk about in this is it's fascinating to sort of, that we're talking about Ryan Johnson, the way we're talking about right now, which is this incredibly, like, talented, universally sort of approved of director who were excited to sort of see, you know, go in whatever direction he wants to go. Whereas you go back to 2012, and when Looper was coming out, he was kind of, it wasn't fully like comeback project material, but like the Brothers Bloom was a pretty big flop when that movie came out in 2009, both sort of critically and financially. I really like it, but it's

Like, it is definitely, I don't know if I would say maybe an acquired taste, but, like, it's really heightened. You have to really be, like, willing to, you know, get on its level. That kind of only sells me on the movie because, like, you know me, I would rather be forced onto a movie's level than try to be like the movie needs to get on my level. You know, I'm just that kind of audience member. And even with Brick, I think for as much as that movie really, like, was a sensation, I think because it was such a sensation with the, you know, sort of film spotting slash, you know, draft house, Austin, you know, kind of set, I think there was, if not a backlash, then like a, I think people were kind of annoyed by how... much people evangelized that movie. I think if that movie worked less for you, I think people were, I remember at the time, like, I remember being like, I really like brick. And other people would be like, oh, or whatever. So this was around the time that Ryan Johnson had started to

amass a kind of more far-reaching respect. And it's through Looper, but it's also through, and we'll talk about this a little bit, his television work where he had directed an episode of Terriers. And then he had, by this point, I think, directed two of the three Breaking Bad episodes that he directed. And it was just three episodes, but they were all incredibly acclaimed. The very first one was this episode called Fly. That was a, I'm going to call it a bottle episode, and I'm going to let my colleague, Catherine Van Arndonk, hunt me down if I'm wrong. But I'm pretty sure it meets the definitions of a bottle episode, where it's just sort of, it's, you know, Brian Cranston and Jesse Plymins, not Jesse Plymins, Aaron Paul, sorry.

We talked about this last week about how Jesse Plymins showed up in Breaking Bad. But it's Brian Cranston and Aaron Paul sort of in this, in the new meth lab, and it's just the two of them, and there's a fly in there, and they become obsessed with having to, like, get this fly because it's going to contaminate the batch if they don't. And I remember that movie was like... This sounds like something I would run away from. But it was hugely, hugely praised, and Ryan Johnson got a lot of credit for being the sort of like the, you know, the cinema director who came in and really sort of like flexed his muscle. And that's when I remember specifically like that really is when like it started to turn towards the positive for him.

then Looper ends up being a movie that was very well respected, but also made a lot more money than it was initially expected to. I think he made this for $30 million, and it ended up grossing like 160, 170 worldwide or something like that. So it's a turning point for him in a way that it's always very interesting to sort of like see these directors at these turning points. Yes.

It's also a turning point in kind of a less fun way for Bruce Willis, but we'll talk about that and Joseph Gordon Levitt and we'll talk about that. I think the point in which looper comes

is actually a really interesting point for all three of its major stars for Joseph Gordon-Levett, Bruce Willis, and Emily Blunt, and we will have a good time I think talking about that. And I would like, if we have time, to talk about the 2012 Oscar race in big picture form, because, like, I don't think we have as much. And Looper not showing up in a handful of categories feels like a missed opportunity for the Oscars that year.

Yeah. I mean, I feel like you could contrast this almost with, and was this even the same year? You contrast it with something like Whiplash, which comes on strong at the end of the season as people are really... Whiplash was 2014, but... Oh, yeah, but yes. And Whiplash suddenly wins multiple Oscars, and it feels like Looper could have been that movie in its year. But you have so many heavy hitters in 2012, too, including heavy hitters who ultimately, at the last minute, gets surprisingly snubbed. I'm speaking, of course, of Catherine Bigelow, and people forget, but Tom Hooper.

Yeah. Well, and I think the 2012 Best Picture category is one that I feel like I was more impressed by then than I am now. I don't think a lot of it has – I don't know. I don't think I would say most of it has aged badly, but, like, it's aged interestingly, I'll say that. And we can, you know, maybe briefly. you know touch on that it's there's going to be a lot to talk about in this episode for sure but before we do chris would you like to tell our listeners why they should sign up for our patreon yes listener we have a patreon we call it this had oscar buzz turbulent brilliance for five dollars a

month you're going to get more of the show you love in the form of two bonus episodes a month on the first and third Fridays first of those episode is a centered around uh movies in general, but we call those episodes exceptions. These are movies that fit that this had Oscar buzz rubric, but manage to score an Oscar nomination or two. Episodes that we've had listeners from the very beginning of the show wanting us to do. That's why we call them exceptions. Earlier this month, we talked about James Cameron's True Lies with our friend Katie Rich

back over on the Patreon. on what other type of movies have we talked about as exceptions, Joe? We've talked about great movies that we love like Mulholland Drive. We've talked about bad movies that we don't love like Madonna's W.E. And then, you know, everything in between Stephen Spielberg's AI artificial intelligence, contact, interview with the vampire, the lovely bones, boo hiss. Rob Marshall's You know Unquestioned

Masterpiece Nine Other movies like Far From Heaven Yada yada yada My Best Friend's Wedding We've even done Ryan Johnson's Knives out With our friend Jorge Molina That was so much fun

We had such a good time with that one That was great There's so many movies Movies you want to hear us talking about And you can go and get them For $5 a month We got more than two years Worth of Banked episodes

You Want to go listen to But what about that? second episode. These are deep dives into Oscar nerdiness that we obsess about on this show called Excursions. We've gone back and recapped old awards shows like the Independent Spirit Awards, Golden Globes, MTV Movie Awards. We've done deep dives into Entertainment Weekly Fall Movie Preview episodes. We've done other weird divergences like talking about the SAG Awards. I'm an actor. Speaches. We've talked to about Hollywood Reporter roundtables.

We do our own annual awards every year called the superlatives. Be on the lookout for that. Joe, we're very excited for our new category, Queen of the Night. Who knows how that's going to go? Queen of the Night. I'm already starting to parse what I'm going to value when evaluating Queen of the Night. How much of it, how much is the knight of it all going to play into it? How much of a stickler am I going to be about a role being night-based or, you know, authentically knight?

You know what I mean? I want to talk about it. I want to discuss it. Maybe Queen of the Knight needs to be like our best director category. You know, like it's, if that's how you feel like interpreting it, that's, that's, that's, that's, That's, you know, absolutely up to you. Maybe we'll do something like that. Maybe Queen of the Night needs 10 nominees.

Oh, wow. How critics' choice of you. Maybe I'll say that offline. But anyway, go on over to support us at Turbulent Brilliance. It's Patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz. Indeed. All right, Chris. We are going to be talking about

the wonderful film Looper, 2012's Looper, written and directed by Ryan Johnson, starring Joseph Gordon Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano. I want to talk to you about how you liked Paul Dano in this movie. I love Paul Dano. You being a Paul Dano superstand. Piper Parabo, Jeff Daniels, I believe this movie is with, who gets the with? I I know, nobody gets the width. It's just and Jeff Daniels. Daniels gets the and. Noah Segan, Garrett Delahunt, Tracy Tom's is in this movie.

You know, the cast is, the cast is good. As I text you, how does Tracy Tom enter this movie? Bonjour, Joe. I like that. Yes. You sent that to me before I had watched it. And I was like, I don't know what the hell this means, but okay. And then, and watching it, I was just like, oh, okay, Dieter Ritz.

She enters the movie much like Dieter's. Bonjour, ladies. Yes. This premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 6th, 2012. Opening night film. Was it the opening night film? It was the opening night film. Remember when the opening night film was good?

I know, I know. Then opened wide on September 28th, 2012. It opened at number two that week, second to, Hotel Transylvania, which dominated that week. But Looper was a strong second. Also in the top five that week were Jake Gyllenhaal in the cop movie End of Watch. Amy Adams and Clint Eastwood in trouble with the curve, a movie that I would probably wager that 80% of people assume Clint Eastwood directed, but he did not.

We'll eventually do that. House at the end of the street, which was a Jennifer Lawrence horror movie? Yes. Yes. And then in sixth that week was the limited release on about 300 screens for Pitch Perfect. I'd forgotten that they platformed that. That's interesting. They did like a whole college tour for that movie.

That's actually, it's whatever they did, it worked because that movie was a huge hit. I also noted that won't back down the movie that people got very mad about because it supported charter schools opened at number 10 with 2.6 million. Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal in Wonk Back Down. So I believe that's what that movie was, right? I remember people being mad about it. I don't remember why because I'm like, well, I don't have children. I'm not going to have children. I'm pretty sure that's what it was.

It's like public schools are failing and what are parents to do about it. They're going to start their own school. I don't like that. I don't like that. I mean, within the context of the movie, the movie doesn't ever, like the movie is, is non-political it's basically like two women are you know taking on the system to you know support their kids it's when you sort of like it's when you zoom back and you're like oh this movie is a charter school you know what i mean it's just like um that's a quagmire i don't feel like getting into but like

we'll move on chris 60 seconds do you have 60 seconds worth of looper plot to give to our... I'm gonna like... I'm just gonna say up front, like I was saying, I don't feel super equipped to go into all of the sci-fi-e-ness of the movie. Feel free to glide right over it.

It's cool. There is so much plot in like the back half of the movie that feels like the real substance of the movie. So like I might jump towards that. Chris, I'm gonna let you cook. I'm just gonna let you, in whatever way, I'm just gonna let you cook already. Listen, last week,

you got a very difficult movie to condense down and you did it with only 20 seconds over. So that's a lot of pressure on me this week. Some of us are built different. It's fine. You do not have to live up to my standard. I'm just going to free you of that right now. So not everybody can be this good.

So, you know, it's fine. I'm trying to, I'm trying to poke at you and you're not taking the bait. I just know I'm not taking it because I know I'm not going to do well. I think you're going to do great. All right. I've accepted my fate of being bad this episode. All right, Chris. Well, to quote another 2012 movie, you can change your fate.

That's what they said in Brave, and that's what I'm going to say about you right now. So, are you ready? Turn me into a bear and throw a orange wig on you. All right. Your 60 seconds begins. I don't know why. I say it like that. That's the cadence of, I don't think so, honey.

you describe the plot now my 60 second plot description for the motion picture looper starts now now okay so we're 20 years in the future 20 years from now not from when the movie was made and we're following a hitman named joe basically like they use time travel to kill people including the hitman themselves and they get like silver bars of money to do that joe is saving that up basically we're going to skip over a bunch of like local color of science fiction Joe eventually gets assigned through time travel himself, played by Bruce Willis. We learn that in the future, Bruce Willis has kind of like left it, left the hitmanness because he falls in love with a woman who eventually gets killed because, you know, the other huntman, the other hitman hunt him down, blah, blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, there is also like someone who is hunting down the huntsman.

the hitmen are getting killed by someone called the rainmaker and we see some cool shade of how that actually works and like this one guy is like losing his body limbs as like the rainmaker is killing him. Anyway, both of the Joes go on the run. Older Joe is trying to find the rainmaker to kill the rainmaker basically and younger Joe ends up on a farm with Emily Blunt and her shotgun which is not a blunderbuss I don't think but anyway

she has a young son who doesn't think that that's his mother because, like, she was a part of year and was not a good mom for a while, but now she is a good mom. And, uh, anyway, it turns out the little boy is the rainmaker and the, uh, they go on basically a chase with the older Joe and blah, blah, blah, blah. He, uh, there's telekinesis, Emily Blunt, like, passed it down, but like the rainmaker is basically like a superhero who is evil. And to stop all of this from happening, because, uh, the, the belief is that the Rainmaker sees his mother killed by a hitman, and that's why he's killing hitman. Joe kills his own younger self so that the Bruce Willis doesn't exist anymore, and then it's a

happy ending the end. 54 seconds over, but you know what? There's a luck going on there. And it's just like kind of a very roundabout way of getting to it. It's, you know, it's not an easy task to explain the ins and outs of a Ryan Johnson plot. because it's such, it is this like Rubik's cube of like a perfect feat of engineering in how, you know, information is withheld until the most dramatic possible moment, but without a way that feels contrived. Yeah.

I especially feel this about Wake Up Dead Man. It also ends in a way where it. it takes away all straggler questions that you might have, where it's just like, well, he kills himself. So it's like, what happens with the time trial? It's like, doesn't matter. Everything's just like, Bruce Willis disappears. He just fully disappears. A couple notes from your plot description. You mentioned the guy who, future Paul Dano, whose limbs are being cut off in a frankly spectacular sequence. That sequence is amazing. He's running, he's on the run. He's trying to meet up with his younger self, following directions that have been scarred into his

arm, into his past self that are showing up. But like, he's just shedding body parts because someone is torturing young Paul Dan. It's not the Rainmaker, though. That's Noah Segan who's doing that. The Rainmaker is a different thing happening. That's not the little boy. Little boy is not the Rainmaker. Little boy is the Rainmaker. But the person who's dismembering Paul Dano is Noah Segan. Oh, that's not the Rainmaker? No. Okay, maybe I don't pick up all the information that's happening in this movie, but I like it anyway. We never see the adult Rainmaker.

We, that's, that's just Paul Dano who, or that's Noah Segan who has captured Paul Dano and is chopping him. Chopping him up as he's trying to get information from him. Yeah, older Paul Dano is like in a car driving and he's trying to step on the gas and he can't. Because he's no foot at. anymore. Yeah. It's insanely, absolutely just disgustingly creative scene. It's incredible. The other thing was you mentioned that the loopers, when they carry out their executions, they collect silver bars. And of course, all I could think of is Australian traders who compete for silver bars. That's all I think of whenever I'm watching Australian traders is get those

Silvabaz. Yeah. Not that I think that podcasts hosts are famous because I don't. But are we, like, famous enough to get on, like, Croatian celebrity traders? Because I feel like if we were there, we would just, like, even though that wouldn't maybe be the language of the show, we would be like, Silvabaz. Where on the globe are we famous enough to be on? are we

American Samoa traders? Are we Are we pulling numbers in Romania? Mauritius. Mauritius? Are we in the Seychelles? I'm naming like exotic places. It would probably be like Uzbekistan traders.

Uzbekistani traders. Or, you know... Whatever gets us on television St. Silva Bas. Exactly. Exactly. Come on Estonia, do a version of the traitors, and invite us. Okay. About the Silva Baz.

Yes. He doesn't, when he got, first of all, he hesitates to kill Bruce Willis because he's like, oh, fuck, is this me? Well, he doesn't have a hood on. He's like, that's the initial hesitation is why doesn't this guy have a hood on? And then he looks into his eyes and he sees his own eyes. And Bruce Willis has enough time for him to turn before Joseph Gordon-Levitt pulls the trigger. and he shoots the silver bars and he falls over.

So it's like the silver bars are effectively a bulletproof vest but I'm like, yeah, I think that would break his back. Well, in that case... That's my one cinemasin's about this movie. In that case, they're gold bars because the gold bars are the ones when you close your loop.

Meanwhile, you get the gold bar. You get the extra payout. Bruce Wells broke his back. You get the extra payout of the gold bars because that's your like pension, essentially. Yes, the one sort of time-travely thing, first of all, I think it's incredibly clever but also funny that Ryan Johnson has Bruce Willis be like, can we not talk about time travel? We're going to be here all day if we start talking about time travel. That's really fun.

But the one sort of time travel concept that they introduced that I think is really good and is important with the movie is once Bruce Willis, time travels, his memories become very fuzzy because the memories are now not things that happened, but now things that could happen. And the only things that he remembers, for sure, are the things, like once Joseph Gordon Levitt does them in this timeline where the two of them are together, then he remembers it. So I think in a scene like that, it's very interesting because he can, as soon as Joseph Gordon Levitt makes the decision to shoot him, he can remember it and sort of know when to, you know what I mean? Just like he is able, that's why he's able to sort of like stay one step ahead. And I think they use that to particularly good effect throughout the movie.

I think to start with, I want to talk about the facial prosthetics on. Joseph Gordon-Levitt because this was a big this was a big part of the sort of reaction to the movie the facial prosthetics were done by famous makeup artist

Kazuhiro who has multiple Oscars and this makeup work is like better than both of his Oscar wins combined. Okay I think there are two things at work here. There's better

And then there's, you spent so much time thinking about whether you could and you didn't think of whether you should. Because I do think there is an uncanny valley situation at work. The very first notes are shot on location in the uncanny valley. Because like it does feel like looking at Joseph Gordon Levitt's face and trying to sort of like pick out where he's supposed to look like Bruce Willis very much sort of like in that like no. The like half smirk that he does. And, like, the no upper lip kind of a thing. Just for that facial expression. But, like, does it take you out of the movie too much every time you see Joseph Gordon

Levitt's face and you're trying to, like, find his real face under the Bruce Willis face? I got to be honest with you. Not at all. It works for you. It works perfectly for me. Okay. It works for me not just because I think it's a fucking cool idea, but also. it's at times very funny and also

I think they just pull it off for me you know the idea of Joseph Gordon Levitt doing a Bruce Willis impersonation with facial prosthetics to make him look more like Bruce Willis is so galaxy brain on top of this movie's many many many many many galaxy brain choices that I just fully I fully respect it I fully respect it I think his Bruce Willis also

does bump up against his Robert De Niro at times, right? There's a little bit of like a, like that thing, like, oh, okay, all right. It's the diner scene where it's like, he's basically roasting Bruce Willis to his face about all of his different, like, performance tics. Again, that like half smirk, half snarl thing. Yeah. That is like, this is what Bruce Willis looks like when he is being pensive. is so good.

And then I also think Bruce Willis is maybe giving one of his best performances in this movie. Oh, that's interesting. I mean, I like him in this movie. There's less for him to do than Joseph Gordon-Lev. I think Joseph Gordon-Levitt's quite good, and I think neither one of them gives the best performance in the movie, but we'll talk about that later. Correct. But, yeah, I think this is a really, really good Joseph Gordon-Levitt performance that comes at a

I don't want to say at the tail end but like he's just about to like throw it all away a little bit because Don John comes the next year and I feel like that's when the worm kind of turns for Joseph Gordon-Levin a little bit but up until this point I want to sort of like track the career

up until this movie because I think it's a really interesting six years six or seven years right Mysterious Skin is a 2004 festival movie that that gets released in 2005 and then Brick is a 2005 festival movie that comes out in 2006 and I think between those two movies he was already known as this child actor right third rock from the sun he had been in angels in the outfield he had worked a lot if like you go back

and like he'll show up in like an old episode of Roseanne or like he dies first in Halloween H2O right he's in Halloween H2O I believe if he doesn't die first he's you know he's you know He's in early death in Halloween H2O. He's in 10 Things I Hate About You. In a decently, you know, a prominent role. He is in that movie Latter Days, the gay Mormon, I call it a gay Mormon sex movie, even though it is like, it's not a sex movie. It's a real movie.

But, like, for me and my purposes back then, it was a gay Mormon sex movie. Sure, sure, sure. But Mysterious Skin and Brick are where he... sort of levels up to, like, oh, like, this kid can really act. This kid can really, like, take on because, you know, Mysterious Skins the Gregoraki movie. He plays, you know, this teenage hustler who is essentially sort of like on his own in the wilds of the world.

And then Brick is the first Ryan Johnson movie where he, it's this, you know, high school noir thing that is so incredibly creative and then so he starts getting cast a lot, a lot, a lot. He's in the movie The Lookout in 2007 that he really liked, that was a independent spirit, best first feature winner.

He's in... It's a Scott Frank movie? Scott Frank movie. Yeah. Which is a like crime, you know, sort of like a crime thriller that I think is really good. Kimberly Pierce's stop loss along with Ryan Philippi and Channing Tatum they're like the central sort of trio I believe

of like Iraq War veterans We should do a stop loss episode We probably should A Miracle at St. Anna, the Spike Lee movie That is maybe the most memory hold Spike Lee movie People didn't like it People didn't like it and nobody saw it And it disappeared very quickly

It's very on like deep This had Oscar buzzed list, so I'm like, I never catch up to it because, like, well, what if we do an episode on it? Right, right. He's in the John Madden movie Killshot that always seems like such an odd thing to exist, like John Madden, the sort of, you know, the Shakespeare and Love guy is doing this movie about a sarsons. That's the Mickey Rourke, Diane Lane one. Yes. That, like, took forever for it to come out. Yeah, I never saw it. He plays Cobra Commander in G.I. Joe, The Rise of Cobra, which for all the ways in which that movie, did not work for me a childhood G.I. Joe obsessive. Its depiction

of Cobra Commander was just so odd, in part because for most of the movie, it seems like Joseph Gordon Levitt is playing Dr. Mindbender. It's a whole other thing. We don't have to get into it. That movie also really drops the ball when it comes to the Baroness.

Sienna Miller playing the Baroness in rimless eyeglasses? Like, What are we doing? What are we doing here? Sienna Miller did a G.I. Cho movie? Sure did. Playing the most, like, the most gay obsession-friendly character in the least gay

obsession-friendly way, like, there's nobody, yes, queening her version of the Baroness. Does she monologue about how warring alone is, like, warring with someone you love, the one that you wore with doesn't war you? But ironically, she does not do that, but she does not do that. Ironically, the character she plays is, like, canonically has this, like, thick Eastern European accent, and she plays her without an accent. Like, what the fuck, Sienna Miller? Anyway, then he's in 500 Days of Summer, which at some point, Joseph Gordon-Levitt becomes a horrooks for, like, millennial, I don't want to say, like, cutciness, and I don't want to say cuteiness, and I don't want to say, quirk, but there's something, he becomes kind of an avatar for a thing that a lot of people

find annoying. Like, 500 Days of Summer was a real inflection point where a lot of people really love it. A lot of people, it's sort of a, you know, sort of cornerstone movie, whereas if it's not like one of their favorite movies, it's at least like a movie they remember as being like a big deal. And then a lot of people were just like, fuck that movie. that movie, he sucks, she sucks, blah, blah, blah, this all thing. She's like, she's a manic pixie dream girl, and he, like, you know, is a weird, like, you know, nice guy, and it's...

I think if we want to talk about cultural shifts from, like, we used to be like this, and now we're like this, I think if there's five movies you can talk about, in terms of, like, this topic, 500 Days of Summer is, like, three of those. We should... We should do an episode on 500 Days of Summer and like we should raffle off who gets to be the guest on that because I feel like... 500 Days of Summer is absolutely one of those movies that we have done

this show for so long that if you like held a gun to my head and said, have we done a 500 days of summer episode? Yes. I would probably say yes. He's in Inception. He's sort of, he's you know, second banana

to Leo in exception. In Inception, I think he's really good in that. I really like him in 50-50. I know that is a movie that, like... Yeah. I just really liked that movie. That movie got nominated for screenplay or didn't get nominated for screenplay. Did not.

But, like, was on the cusp of me. Yeah. I feel like I could not be objective about it right now in my life. Certainly. Yeah, I get it. But Angelica Houston in that movie, man. Tremendous. Tremendous.

He's in the Dark Night Rises playing this proto Robin, who... The worst elements of that movie, not his fault. I am a Dark Night... I'm a Dark Night Rises defender, but the way that movie tries to, like, sneak Robin in under the gun at the end of there, I'm like, all right, guys, like, this is too much. Why? Why are we doing this? He's in the Bike Messenger thriller Premium Rush, a movie that I wanted to like more than I ended up liking it um and then he's he's young uh he's lincoln's son in lincoln in again maybe

the element of that movie that i think works least well um and then as i said in 2013 he directs don john and it immediately was like no too much no too far stop this don't do this why did you do this? And I think... I ultimately think it's not a good movie, but I still have a lot to respect about that movie. I don't hate it as much as other people hate it. I agree with you that it's like full stop, not a good movie.

I kind of am delighted by what Scarlett Johansson doesn't admit. She's incredible in that movie. Right? Incredible. Julian Moore is incredible in that movie, too. Also, the fake trailer with Anne Hathaway and Channing Taitam. Love it. Love it. Love it.

Yeah. Yes. I also think while it's ultimately not good, I think he's reaching for and trying to have a discussion about heterosexual masculinity. I agree with you. I agree with you. In a way that I thought was, while again, not being a good movie, productive and ahead of the curve before we're having discussion about these things. Like, I feel like if Don John came out today, people might be even more hostile to it because it would be more of a hot stove, you know? I agree.

But I think because the movie was not terribly well executed, it opens him up to what I think a lot of people were sort of lying in wait to pounce on him for, which is this sense of, you know, I'm using scare quotes pretentiousness or this sense of millennial annoyingness. Millennial cringe, millennial annoyingness, yes. And I know millennial cringe is a different kind of thing that now we look back, but like that was almost like millennial cringe happening in real time, right? So yeah, I think, and then you look at where he has, like, I want to sort of stop the career timeline thing now because we're at Looper. But I think it's one of those things where it's just like Where is Joseph Gordon-Levin now? He made that Uber series for Showtime that I thought was not only not really good, but like completely unnecessary. Why are we doing a, you know, an Elizabeth Holmes style series on the guy who did Uber? Like, does every tech startup need an origin story, 12-part series or 10-part series? But he's somebody who I, always found to be a fairly unique type of actor and that like I don't think you can find

too many people to replicate what the energy that Joseph Gordon-Levitt brings to a thing. For good or bad? I think people also don't know how to use him. I remember we did the Snowden episode and all I can really remember is talking about him being miscast. Maybe I did say this, but my memory says he is very miscast in that movie, and it is extremely

Iraqis as a desert planet, use the voice. But I also think back to him being on the Lady Gaga holiday special with the Muppets and him not singing well. And it's like, yes, Joseph

Gordon Levitt seems like he would be great in a musical, but he can't sing. He did that Saturday Night Live monologue where he did the make him laugh number from singing in the rain. And on one level, you're like, God,

like, he really does just sort of throw himself completely into this in a way that is really admirably unselfconscious, actually. And yet it is also there's a sense

of aggrandizement to it, right? There's a sense of like, I am going to pick up the mantle of Donald O'Connor. You know what I mean? On SNL, on this, on, you know, America's sort of like sketch comedy cathedral, I am going to step into the shoes of, like, you know, one of the greatest films and, you know, this performance in this film. He's, we also fail to mention The Walk.

I feel like Don John, the Walk, Snowden. Like, that's a, that's a tough, that's a tough trio. I had totally forgotten that he's the voice of Jiminy Cricket in the Robert Zemeckis Pinocchio. I had forgotten. I think everybody's forgotten about that. I mean, like, Cynthia Rebo is the blue fairy in that. And, like, no one of the most famous performers in the world right now. And, like, no.

That's crazy. He was in the Beverly Hills Cop reboot movie, which you could absolutely. And I know I've like. thrown that in his Cinematrix before and I still am surprised every time I remember that. So yeah, I guess he's

he's one thing to his credit and a thing that I will always say speaks really well of him is Ryan Johnson finds ways to have him around as much as possible. He, you know, he'll show up. He has weird little cameos

in the Benoit Blanc movie. He has his weird little voice cameos in the Benoit Blanc movies. He's done an episode of Pokerface. He's, I think he has a voice cameo in a Star Wars something, although, don't quote me on that, but I think so. But in terms of like him sort of like being an actor at the level that he was in the early 20 teens, things don't seem to be. He's got a movie coming up called Pendulum with him and

Phoebe Dinavore from Bridgerton and Fair game Yes, fair game That is directed by the guy who directed

Mark Hyman who directed I don't know This might be his directorial debut He was a writer on Black Swan and who all wrote Black Swan? That's interesting. How many writers?

Markheim and Andres Heinz and... Chikovsky. Chikovsky. Yes. All right. Anyway, we're going far afield. But anyway... Joseph Gordon Levitt, though, I feel like is...

As much as a famous person can be a victim to culture. But, like, a victim of changing tastes and changing tides at exactly the wrong point in his career. career. I still think Joseph Gordon-Levett, net good. As a performer, I like him. Here's a question I want to pose to you. And this is a purely, obviously, hypothetical we can never know. If I were to say, for $1 million, name one movie that Joseph Gordon-Levitt got at least one vote for in Oscar voting. And that, you'd be confident in saying mysterious skin. There's some, there's some crazy gay, there's John Waters voting for Joseph Gordon-Levin.

Sure, sure, sure, sure. Does that mean he was like 10th in the voting? Right, I don't think you can pick any movie that you could probably, you would say he was, you know, I mean, I bet you there were people who cast a vote for him in Brick. Maybe there were some people who. There's probably someone who cast a vote for him in Zawak. Like, again, like, I think the. things that turned people against Joseph Gordon Leavitt are not his fault

Zawak is not his fault even though he's not good in that movie but like again it's why would you cast him as fully pity like you know nobody knows how to use him I have the utmost confidence that Joseph Gordon Leavitt could at

any moment show up in something and be perfect and make people lose their minds he's also a two time Golden Globe nominee we should say that for film for 500 days of summer in 50-50. He's also won two Emmy Awards for his sort of more innovative TV stuff, the hit record, hit record hit record, hit record, stuff. And this show called Create Together, which is essentially a similar kind of thing of, I think that was a COVID lockdown thing for YouTube where it was just like, hey, everybody, like,

pick up your cameras and do a thing. And he got really sort of into that in a way that was, again, you can look at it as either admirable or annoying and sort of like kind of had it in his head that he was going to help pioneer this new sort of way of democratizing television. and it's like, okay, good idea. It came to nothing. Like, it really has just, like, kind of come to nothing. And as a result, he's not been, you know, he could have used, that could have been time spent really fortifying his acting career.

And he chose not to do that. Being a character actor. Yeah. He's also a five-time MTV Movie Award nominee, twice. for best kiss. Would you want to guess what his two best kiss nominations are? Ten things I hate about you and 500 days of summer? Neither one

of those. Neither one. Interesting. Don John and... Don John, yes. It's one that you're not going to expect, but once I tell you... If it's noted, I'm going to lose my mind. It's not anything you would expect, but once I tell you, then you'll be like, oh,

that does make sense. Is it like premium rush or something? It's Inception. It's his, him kissing Elliot Page in inception, that thing where... Right, because there's the joke where they end up kissing to avoid detection or something. Yes, exactly, exactly. And it's funny that, like, a Christopher Nolan movie has a nomination for Best Kiss, which is... Because, like, that's always been the joke with, like, Nolan doesn't really, you know, understand romance in any kind of way. I think he's quite good in Looper to bring it back around, to loop.

it back around as it were. I mean, definite contender for his best performance. Yeah, yes. In a very different kind of way, even from something like Brick, but definitely a different kind of way from something like Mysterious Skin or 500 Days of Summer. I think he holds the center of this kind of I mean, it is a little bit of a cliche, right? This kind of, you know, not a whole lot to say. he's, you know, sort of quiet and scowly, you know, an action thriller hero. But he's also channeling Bruce Willis. Yes, yes, yes. And like Bruce Willis's whole vibe and like the concept of a person like Bruce Willis leading a movie like this.

Would it be funnier? Stoicism incarnate, you know. What's the version of this movie where instead of that, it's Bruce Willis channeling Joseph Gordon-Levitt? and imagining what an older Joseph Gordon-Levett type would be. That is a musical. Now, that is a musical. Bruce Willis is also really great in this movie. I think Bruce Willis is such an interesting actor to go to

when I think your primary theme of the movie is how men process trauma and male violence. And, you know, because where the character is, eventually goes, is after he loses this woman he loves, he ultimately becomes even more morally reprehensible than he was before he turned his back on all of that. He's going around hunting children. And you also get the backstory that is delivered by Jeff Daniels. First of all, I think the casting of Jeff Daniels as a mob boss is really great because

it's, it's perfectly in line with that sort of like sci-fi future thing where it's like Everything is just not quite what you think it would be, including the fact that your mob boss is played by Jeff Daniels in what looks like a futuristic, a terracotta collared bathrobe. And I like how he keeps being like, I'm from the future. Like, you have to know, this is all so fucking stupid, like the way you're dressing and then the, you know, all this sort of stuff. Well, Jeff Daniels, I mean, Ryan Johnson just casts so brilliant. He really does. Like, he just understands performers and, like, who is the right person for things. I know we said we don't want Ryan, we want Ryan Johnson to be able to do anything else that's not a franchise movie up this point.

But, like, Jeff Daniels is really someone that should be in a Benoit Blanc movie. Honestly true. Honestly true. But so Jeff Daniels sort of. lays out the back story for the Joe character, the Joseph Gordon-Levin character, where he was essentially a foundling that was taken in by this criminal organization and sort of raised, essentially raised to be a looper, to be a hitman, which I think is a thing that, like, gets kind of dropped, but, like, the implications of that are really

kind of chilling, that, like, Jeff Daniels sort of, like, brings in this kid, has some sort of, you know, paternal feeling for this kid, and yet places him in this position where not only are you going to be an assassin, but you're our brand of assassin where we make sure that we kill you in 30 years after you're retired, which sort of tells you a lot about what the Jeff Daniels character is. But so he's, this is. This is. This is, a person whose soul has been corroded basically from the beginning. And when we meet him now, he's this very kind of like emotionally on keel slash deadened kind of person. He's hooked on whatever kind of eyedropper narcotic he's hooked on. I love a movie that says in the future

we do drugs through our eyes. We do drugs through our eyes, man. And yet in the future, future, it's back to needle injection. Because you see future Bruce Willis, whose addiction progresses where he's just like shooting heroin just as normal. But, and there are some cliches thrown in there with, like, young Joseph Gordon Levitt, where he's, you know, he's carrying on a relationship with an exotic dancer, Piper Parra, or whatever, where it's just like, oh, okay. like we're just pulling that straight out of the like hard-boiled you know playbook or whatever um but it's there's there's really there's already so little morality to him that when you see what bruce willis you know becomes and that plays into again you talk about how great the diner

scene is how willis's frustration with his younger self is really really great is really like he's so like you don't even know you dumb fucking kid like you don't even know how much this woman is going to like save you from your dumb fucking self from your self destructive fucking self and and he has so little patience for everything that his younger self doesn't know which is a great beat for the movie but it is also like a thing that like jumps off the screen and feels very sort of like applicable in general to people and and i think this type of like hard-boiled noir or you know hard-boiled science fiction doesn't always go towards that like real relatable human element right and use it in a way that's so smart yeah yeah yeah yeah i agree

it's always a little bit of a bummer to talk about bruce willis's sort of career in in uh general, especially this part of Bruce Willis's career. Our last Willis movie was unbreakable, I believe, which we both really like. And I think that was definitely a, you know, one of the sort of career best performances from Willis. 2012 were right at the opening of this Red Box run for him that would last the the final decade-ish of his career. By this point, 2011, he's already made... 2011, he made two movies set up with 50 Cent and Catch 44 with...

I looked that up, Forrest Whitaker. Look up the poster for that movie with Forrest Whitaker, dressed as like an old West Sheriff. Both of those movies were produced by Randall Emmett. If anybody listening is a Vanderpump Rules person, Randall Emmett is that one, the one who was in a relationship with Lala Kent, the kind of, he was this, you saw him on TV, and he was just this like prototypical, sweaty, sleazy, Hollywood, you know, Hollywood-type pejorative. And he and his production company ends up having this really predatory relationship with, Bruce Willis for the last 11 years of his career, where Willis made 23 movies for Randall Emmett's

production company between 2011 and 22, at which point his family stepped in, and he was diagnosed with aphasia and he retired. But he was essentially sort of brought in, walked through these like barely their performances they put his picture on the poster and they tried to you know squeeze some money out of it and um he got paid you know what i mean he was getting paid for it but but he's still absolutely being exploited he's absolutely being exploited yes especially at a time where his health is failing and you know it it when we talk about dementia there's you know, many different ways that people get exploited and, you know, dehumanized. But like,

here's one of them, you know, talking about a very, very famous person. And it's, it's just very sad. And it's, uh, it's just sad to, I, I, having, you know, uh, extended family members who have had that actual diagnosis too and kind of like knowing not just what that person goes through, but knowing what like the family members around those people have to go through. So it's very sad, like, to the point when during the substance Oscar run, when Demi posted, you know, a big, like, family day with Bruce, I, like, immediately start sobbing. It's so wonderful. It really is, like, you know, to the degree to which you can feel invested in a family via their social media output, which, you know, I advise everybody at all times to take a grain of salt with all that stuff. Right. I mean, we do not know any famous people, but they have an imprint.

But within those parameters, within those parameters, it really does feel, for as heartbreaking as it is to see Bruce Willis sort of go through this, it is really lovely the way his family has been able to rally around him in this way. And that this sort of like this blended family where like to be is, you know, seemingly very, you know, close with Bruce's current wife and, you know, this whole thing. I want to talk, though, about his career sort of before this, you know, Red Box run begins post-unbreakable, where, and I, like, I listed all of the movies that feel like they are significant for him. There's also interspersed in this a lot of cameos and, you know, voice performances, because, like, he's this iconic, you know, figure. So, you know, having him show up for, like, a voice cameo or something like this, you're getting Bruce Willis, but you're also getting sort of the Bruce Willis iconography, right? So he's very, very much sort of in demand. But so post-unbreakable, he makes bandits with Barry Levin's. which is very well received and we still got to do bandits we do hearts war which is the one

with him and Colin Farrell I believe um tears of the sun in 2003 which I don't remember who directed that but that was somebody right that was um fucking is that another McTiernan hold on I think it is a McTiernan I think no it's a Fuqua oh well there we go it's a fouqua um the whole 10 yards, so he had already made the whole nine yards. So the whole 10 yards is 2004. Sin City in 2005, which I feel like was a pretty big one for him. It's that huge ensemble, but he's fairly prominent in that ensemble. Joseph Gordon Levitt's in the second one, right, but not the first one. Oh. Don't, don't swear me to that. I don't know. But yes. He's an alpha dog in 2006, a movie that to me is notable for A, Sharon Stone, and B, Justin Timberlake and nothing else. So

Lucky Number Slevin, a movie that I have seen and remember very little about other than the fact that every time we do a number in the title category on Cinematrix with one of those actors, somebody tries to convince me that lucky number Slevin should count. And I have to respond with Slevin is not a real number. Please understand this for me. What is a real number is 16 blocks, which was actually the first movie that he made with Randall. in 2006. Fast Food Nation in 06. Perfect Stranger in 07, which is this thriller with him and Hallie Berry.

He's in Planet Terror, the Robert Rodriguez half of Grindhouse, in 2007. Live free or die hard, which is his, I believe, last diehard movie. Is that the Mary Elizabeth Winstead one?

I think so. I'm going to tell you something. I've only ever seen the first diehard. Like, I don't even think I've seen. the second diehardt. I've seen parts of the second diehard, but I've only ever seen... You gotta see Vengeance. Vengeance is so good. Okay. I probably did back then, and I just, like, haven't internalized any of it.

I'm sure I did back then, but... Vengeance is fun. Go watch Vengeance. Surrogates in 2009, which is this sci-fi clones movie, I think. Sure. Cop Out in 2010, which is the Kevin Smith movie, that I believe was... an incredibly fraught production, and Kevin Smith has sort of, when he went on his, you know, sort of TED Talk tour for like several many years, he talked a lot about how tough it was to make Cop Out. That was also a movie that was being shot in Park Slope when I was living in Park Slope, which was kind of interesting. Red in 2010, the geysers in action movie in, you know, Conceit, Expendables, which he's in the

cameo in the first one, and then he shows up for real in the second one. He's in a movie called Lay the Favorite that I believe is about poker and stars Fomka Jansen, among other people. And then 2012, in addition to Looper, is Moonrise Kingdom. So 2012 is really like this list. late career kind of high point for him, where he gets the Independent Spirit Award nomination for Moonrise Kingdom. Deserved.

And then he's in Looper. And I don't, I mean, he just doesn't hit this career peak again. As we mentioned, it's sort of, you know, the exploitation era sort of begins thereafter. Willis has never been my guy, I'll say. um nothing particularly against him but like i like diehard i respect diehard i think it's a great movie but like die hard's never been like my action holy grail as it is for like a lot of people um he was just never like the guy for me i get it if he is the guy you know for you uh the universal you. But, so it sort of, it maybe means a little bit more to me when I really like him in

something, like Unbreakable or like Looper. I do like him in Moonrise Kingdom. He's like, I like a lot. I think other, I like other people maybe more than him in Moonrise Kingdom, but like I still think I come back to Moonrise Kingdom as my favorite Wes Anderson. Oh, that's cool. That's nice. I like that. I just think it's so perfect. Like this, the sense. is so precise, the jokes are so precise. Like, the idea that Tilda Swinton plays a character named social services is like the quintessential Wes Anderson joke for me. I also think the aesthetic, this like mid-century children's book, like, palette and

aesthetic is so, like, maybe the most specific, like, milieu that, you know, that, Wes Anderson has ever done. It makes a ton of sense for him to make a movie about kids. All the stuff with the junior scouts having to seek out the main character, whether to rescue or to further bully him is kind of, you know, a little middle ground there. The triplets. The triplets, baby Lucas Hedges, all this sort of stuff. Yeah. And Willis is very good in that.

But so, like, I don't know, I'm like, I like that this is, that Looper is a movie where I can be as enthusiastic about Bruce Willis as everybody else seems to be about, like, literally everything else he does. The thing I think that's so interesting about Bruce Willis, that really distills in his Moonrise Kingdom performance that, you know, has been touched on in other things like maybe what, his work with Shyamalan, is as much as, like, McLean is the defining Bruce Willis character, you know, even when he's in action movies that are not diehard movies and still like, well, he's Joe McLean, right? He's Joe McLean. But, like, there is this softness to Bruce Willis. There is this, like, core of, you know, good guy and sensitivity.

Tarantino taps into it a little bit. Smart directors have tapped it. In Pulp Fiction. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shamelon is a good thing to bring up because that's another instance of late career Bruce Willis getting a major movie, which is he shows up at the very end of Split in that, like, bonkers cameo that freaked everybody out. I remember being at the press screening for Split and watching everybody figure it out at different moments. Like some people, like once they started playing the unbreakable score, people caught on.

to what was about to happen, and some people had to, like me, had to wait till Bruce Willis says, well, once they showed Bruce Willis, I was like, oh, fuck. But then they make glass, and I think it's, I think it's me too, and I think it's really uncomfortable watching Willis trying to, to headline a movie at that point in his career, where it's just, the juice is gone. just making the wrong creative decision at every turn every turn every turn every turn the Sarah Paulson stuff in that movie is so bad I agree I agree I agree um but regardless um we haven't talked about the movie's best performance I don't think we've even said this performance name well she doesn't show up until like literally the movie makes a turn halfway through after that diner scene then they the the the new objective of the movie because you you assume that And it's certainly from watching the trailer, you kind of assume that the objective of this movie is going to be this cat and mouse game where Bruce Will or where Joseph Gordon Levitt has to hunt down Bruce Willis and make the decision whether he's going to execute his future self or whether they're going to team up to like fight the future or whatever. But what it ends up being after that point is there's this, you know, master criminal in the future called the Rainmaker and he has essentially like taken over all.

organized crime seemingly globally, and that's the syndicate that killed Bruce Willis's wife and, you know, sent him back to the past to be executed. And they need to stop this guy who is, essentially it's, they're trying to kill baby Hitler in 24, right? And Bruce Willis has this, like, list of... If Hitler was killing, you know, assassin. Yeah. Sure. But, like, it's, I guess it's adjacent to the idea of would you kill baby Hitler. It's the dilemma, right? It's the would you kill baby Hitler dilemma. But it's so in one of the things that I love that is absolutely just not even explained is Bruce Willis comes back from the future with this like, whatever, 11-digit number. And that's all. He's like, this number is a key to finding the rainmaker.

And it's like, how did he get that number? Somebody called him on the phone and told him to it. What was that about? Who the fuck knows? We don't know. There's no more explanation to kids. Keep it moving. Let's go.

Let's go. And it turns out to be a birth date and a zip code. And so Bruce Willis tracks down the three young boys who were born on that day at the hospital in that zip code. And it's just a list of three kids. One of whom ends up being Piper Parabo's kid. which I was like, Ryan, that's a little too, a little too convenient. That's maybe like a little bit too much like, all right. Doesn't like ruin anything for me.

But I'm just like, we're taking a shortcut there, for sure. But one of them ends up being this kid who lives on a farm and whose mom is Emily Blunt. Emily Blunt, I of course remember being in this movie. Remember being, you know, very well liked in this movie. Because this is even before Edge of Tomorrow? It's the year before, I believe, Edge of Tomorrow, or two years before. What are we calling it today? I'm just, I will never not call it Ed of Tomorrow.

Edge of Tomorrow, period, semi-colon, live-die repeat. Live-period, die, period, repeat, period, Redux. Never stop, never stopping. Yeah. From the second she speaks in this movie, I'm like, oh, she's done. into something that I don't know if she's revisited since this point. Like, I would not, I would not venture to say that, like, Emily Blunt has become a worse actress, because, like, she's still, like, I think she's fantastic in, like, The Quiet Place

movies. I liked her in Oppenheimer, to a point. I don't think she's ever been good in this way as she is in Looper since then. She's so... Even in edge of tomorrow. It's a different kind of thing. She's phenomenal. It is a different thing, sure.

She's phenomenal in Edge of Tomorrow. But like this particular type of character, this really flinty and hardened and you really, really buy her as this like, just like she's tough in... She shows up and you believe her to be more competent with a shotgun than any of these men. Yes. Yes, yes, that. But she's, I think she, I just think it's really, really quite incredible, particularly because she's at this point in her career, mostly done just like rom-coms and period pieces. And this is just something totally completely different. Your sister was this year?

Was... Not happened yet? Your sister's sister, I believe, was a festival movie 2012 and released in 2013 or a festival movie 2011 and released in 2012. One of the two. She's tremendous in that, too. But so Devil Wears Prada is her big breakthrough in 2006. And then the run of movies from there, it's Jane Austen Book Club in 2007. I posted on my Instagram, her horrifying Bob Whig from Jane Austen Book Club.

Dan in Real Life, in which she's like the also-ran woman in that movie, right? Where she's like, you get to be with Dane Cook because Steve Corell gets Juliet Benoche, essentially. I believe is what happens. I thought Julia Epinosh was with Dane Cook in that movie. To start. The whole insane thing about. Yeah, but then, like, Steve Carell falls in love with her, right? So, like, they end up together.

I don't, you know what, don't quote me on anything of this. I mean, given the choice I would choose Steve Correll 100 times out of 100, of overdate code. Yes. She's in Charlie Wilson's War, playing essentially like a sex reward for Charlie Wilson, essentially in one point. She's in Sunshine Cleaning, where she and Amy Adams play sisters. She's in that movie The Great Buck Howard, which was Colin Hanks.

is directorial debut. She's in the Young Victoria, a movie that gets multiple Oscar nominations. Conceivably, six or seventh place and that best actress. Conceivably. She's in the Wolfman. Gross. She's in Gulliver's Travels,

which is notable only because that's the movie that she had to turn down playing Black Widow in the Marvel movies to be in, which I'm sure her bank account regrets to this day. Um, that's maybe a counterfactual I should pursue for vulture sometime. What happens? What happens to Emily Blunt?

Yeah, you maybe have to do that. Because what becomes, who is Scarlett Johansson married to now, um, uh, instead of Colin Jost and this is, is, does Emily Blunt leave John Krasinski for Colin Jost in the world in which she's in the Avengers movies? Stay tuned. Um, salmon fishing in the Yemen of this had Oscar Buzz, uh, certified movie. Your sister sister, Lynn Shelton's, your sister's sister, where she in Rosemary DeWitt, play sisters, and it's wonderful, and I love it.

And then 2012 is also the five-year engagement, which is a Nick Stoller movie, I want to say, with her and Jason Siegel that I thought was pretty good. I remember thinking this is a pretty good movie. But it's like it's rom-coms and period pieces, folks. There is absolutely nothing that, again, great casting decision by Ryan Johnson to see this performance in her because she's fucking great and like everything that like emerges

she's got this kid he calls her Sarah you know you wonder for a second because we're in this like sci-fi you know thing is she lying is she you know we momentarily sort of wonder is like is she up to something um no

she was just young and addicted to drugs and had a baby and dropped the baby off at her home where her sister essentially raised him for his first couple years. Her sister gets killed, mysteriously. We find out later. And then she comes home, gets her act right, steps in to, you know, be the mother of her child, and he, even at this very young age, holds this resentment for her, which is, you know, how we definitely know for sure that he's the one who grows up to be the master criminal because

it's all this, you know, kind of... It's the lore of the character. The pop psychology, right. Sees his mother murdered, becomes hardened. And then the rest of the movie is sort of like... From sound hitman. Fleshing that out, too. Right. Where eventually it's like, oh, right. He saw his mother murdered by a looper, so he's going to, you know, grow up to kill all loopers.

It's interesting that he's not like... He doesn't end up, like, ending the war. world with his powers. He doesn't end up, like, accidentally launching all the nukes with his telekinesis. He just becomes the most powerful mobster ever and ends up killing all these other mobsters and, like, consolidating power among the criminal underworld, which it kills Bruce Willis's wife, so you see why he's after her. But it also gives you a little bit of perspective of just like, we maybe don't have to, like, burn everything down to, you know, to root out this kid who's ultimately going to be like the world's greatest criminal mind you know what i mean um it's also this

moment where we're questioning okay so what if what if superheroes were real but then what if superheroes were real and they did bad stuff with their powers you know but very terrestrial chronicle yes yes yes um because effectively that's what the rainmaker is that's what this child Sid is treated as with his telekinesis. His telekinesis is so developed that he becomes a superhero, like functionally a superhero. But he's not like a superhero. Again, his his, his evil means are these very kind of pedestrian. He's going to become the leader of the yakuza. The yakuza writ large. He's going to make Garrett Dillahunt bleed out as like Dillahunt is prone to do when he shows up in a

great scene. Garrett Dillahunt is at an interesting point in his career too because I believe this was

just after or not so long after Deadwood and Deadwood of course he famously shows up

in two consecutive seasons as two different characters he first plays as two different very Garrett Dilla Hunt

type he plays the coward who murders Wild Bill Hickok in the first season and then he comes

back as this like really nasty villain who ends up like torturing and murdering all these prostitutes and it's he's frightening in that second season. Deadwood fucking roll. One of the great things

of movies in the aughts and movies in the 20 teams are like you get these type of movies where there's always some guy who's like a real Garrett Dillahunt type and then you know when they were going through the of all of these movies.

They're like, this is a real Garrett Dilla Hunt. I wonder, is Garrett Dillahunt available? And it always turns out that he was. Usually was. Yeah. He's real good in this, I will say.

I really love the scenes, though, on the farm. I think Joseph Gordon-Levin and Emily Blunt are really good opposite each other. We get a scene where they have sex just because it will feel good? Like, when was the last time you saw that in a movie, where it's just like...

And it doesn't feel like a studio note? Because most of the Piper Parabo stuff does feel a little, like, we need a hot lady, here's a studio, like, as a studio note. Here's a sex scene because the female character was feeling horned up. Like, yeah, man, like,

do it. If I had Joseph Gordon-Levin hanging around downstairs, I'd hit that little owl frog buzzer thingy majammer that someone, comments him, too. Especially a decade later, how sexless all movies are. This is what I'm saying. Like, it really did feel, when that happened, I was like, why am I so surprised to be seeing this? But, like, I am. Because when do people have sex for pleasure in movies anymore? They don't. When is, like, the, Hamnet feels like one of the first PG-13 movies where there is a sex scene in years. It's pretty good, right? Hamnet has one. It's pretty good. So, yeah, I really like her character. Her kid, we sort of, they dole out the info that the kid is telekinetic and also has a rage problem.

They make you wait for it, which is interesting because, like, obviously this was my second time watching the movie, so I already knew what the deal was with the kid. But I imagine the first time you're watching this movie, once you show up on this farm and you see there's a kid, knowing, that they're already, like, elsewhere, Bruce Willis is hunting down potential rainmakers who are children. Like, well, obviously it's going to be this one because Emily Blunt's mom. Like, you know, because we're watching a movie. Because we're watching a movie. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Um, but I don't think that ends up being a detriment because I think the slow burn on that kid ends up letting Joseph Gordon Levitt get to know him and feel a kinship towards him and you feel you get a little bit more into this kid's head. He's angry, but he's not

just like angry because he's a supervillain. He's angry because he couldn't, he remembers his mom dying when he was like a toddler and he couldn't save her. And he resents Emily Blunt for not being there and then coming back. And she's trying to teach him like multiplication tables. And he's just like, fuck you. Eight times three is 32. But see, like this idea that like we know that this kid is probably going to be that, first of all, Ryan Johnson's giving us so much information that it's like, even in the back of our mind, we're like, yeah, we know that that's what that kid is. We're dealing with so much other information that it's like, you can't really focus on that anyway. So it's like it is the Ryan Johnson thing of withholding information until it is the most dramatic point to give you that information. but it's also the moment when it's the most satisfying moment

to give you certain pieces of information. Yeah, no, I think that's right. I also think keeping Willis on his weird little side quest allows the parts of the movie with Joseph Corden Levin and Emily Blunt to breathe in a way that is, you can imagine there would have been a note somewhere being like, you got to get to the showdown faster. You got to get to get back to the part where they're, you know, having this final face-off with each other. And ultimately, it's not even a face-off, right?

Like Joseph Gordon-Leveth late to getting to Bruce Willis, he is going to, he's not going to be able to get to him in time, which is why he ends up killing himself at the end. But I think it's really effectively done. don't think it works entirely without Emily Blunt being as good as she is. And this is not the kind of movie that gets acting award attention, which is too bad because I think... Certainly in 2012, it wasn't. Right. This was the stage where, like, Emily Blunt was starting to be like, which is why when she ends up getting... Sorry, that's a half a thought that I totally abandoned. This is the stage of Emily Blund's career where she starts giving these really great performances in genre movies, Looper and Then Edge of Tomorrow, which is why when she ends up

getting that, she ends up winning that SAG Award for a quiet place. And everybody was like, this is weird and stupid. I'm like, but you know what? She's had this coming. She's deserved this for a while. And I thought it was, you know, at the very least, I couldn't get that mad at it. Loper ends up sort of on the periphery of a bunch of awards categories, nothing major, obviously. It was never really in like the best picture conversation or any of the acting conversations. Although it does get nominated for a couple of these like bullshity Critics Choice action movie acting awards. This was when Critics Choice was really, really thirsty. I don't think they do actor and actress

in an action movie anymore, do they? They do their own separate awards. That's what they do. But this was when they really were desperate to get like the Hunger Games and Marvel movie audiences. So Joseph Corn Levin... It's also like the last gasp of some of the bro-eer sites that if they still exist anymore, they're not,

we don't see them in the conversation as much. But, like, this was the rallying movie of, like, well, if the Oscars were good, it would be, you know, Emily Blunt winning an Oscar for Lupa. Right. But so it ends up getting nominated for a few of these action movie categories, loses them all. Well, it loses best action movie to Skyfall. Joseph Gordon-Levitt loses best actor in an action movie to Daniel Craig in Skyfall. And then Emily Blunt loses best actress in an action movie to Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games. It is also somehow also nominated for Best Sci-Fi Horror Movie, which it wins over the Cabin in the Woods and Prometheus.

And then it's nominated in an actual category at the Critics' Choice, which is Best Original Screenplay, where they nominated the five movies that were eventually the Oscar nominees, which is Django Unchained, Flight, The Master, Moonrise Kingdom, and Zero Dark 30, and then Looper was the sixth. So that's one of the categories in which Looper is at the periphery of is screenplay. The one I was surprised wasn't more on the periphery of is makeup, but we'll get to that in a second. Because back to screenplay, though, it wins the National Board of Review Award for Best Original Screenplay, which is pretty surprising. I will say this was one of those years where the balance of Best Picture was fairly heavily on. adapted, where it's, you know, your Argos and Silver Lining's Playbook and Lincoln and the Beast of the Southern Wild and, you know, Life of Pie are all, you know, adapted. But so it really was just these five movies.

It was, you know, Django and Zero Dark 30 and The Master and Moonrise Kingdom. To the point where, like, I imagine in a stronger year, flight would not have been quite so much like the automatic, you know, mark it down the movie. I wanted to sort of focus on the screenplay race if you will follow me down this path. I will happily. So it's those five movies, but then I was like, okay, well, what else got like the stray noms somewhere else? And it really, it isn't much. Looper gets a Critic's Choice nomination. Amor, and again,

Looper also wins NBR. Amor is nominated at BAFTA. The Golden Globes have their singular screenplay category. They don't differentiate original and adapted. And the only two originals that they nominate are Django and Zero Dark 30. Moonrise Kingdom gets an Indy Spirit nomination.

Celeste and Jesse Forever gets an indie spirit nomination for first screenplay. Safety not guaranteed wins first screenplay at independent spirit. And that's kind of it in terms of like the stragglers. Like it was those five sort of locked in there. So what I did is I gathered a smattering of original screenplays from that year that I also wanted to list out. And I want to get your thoughts on like whether any of these deserved to be more in that conversation. So there's Arbitrage, the movie that starred both Richard Gear and Graydon Carter, Cabin in the Woods, which was a summer genre hit, compliance, that of the And Dowd, self-financed supporting actors campaign, with Stillman's Damsels and Distress, which start Greta Gerwig, among others, end of watch, the David Ayer movie. starring Jake Gillen Hall and Michael Pena, and somehow Anna Kendrick,

Magic Mike, heard of it, promised land, which we did an episode, the Gus Van Sant movie, which we did an episode on ages ago with John... Neither of those are based on, like, articles. I don't believe so. No, Magic Mike was based on Channing Tatum's, you know, real-life experiences. Journals. Rampart, the Orrin Moverman, the cop movie with Woody Harrelson, Rampart. Seeking a friend for the end of the world, the, um...

Lorraine Scafaria. Martin McDonough's seven psychopaths smashed the, um... Oh, who's that director, who I really like. James Ponsult. Judd Apatow's, this is 40. Woody Allen's, to roam with love, Lynn Shelton's, your sister's sister. I mean, Lynn Shelton should have been in the mix there. Absolutely, I agree with that.

But, um... You're not going to like my answer, but... I would also say Paul Thomas Sanderson's the master should have been in this conversation. Well, it was. The master was nominated. Oh, sure, sure. But like, it's the one that's lingering at the top of my mind. Oh, yeah. No, I'm just in terms of

like who else should have been on the periphery of those Oscar nominees. This is what I'm saying. Because, yeah, Django wins. Quentin Tarantino wins and becomes the sweatiest Oscar winner ever to accept. He's so have you ever seen that gone back and looked at that speech?

He's so disheveled. Like Quentin, my God. But yeah, I just think it's so interesting that like it's so concentrated on those five. I think you're right about your sister's sister. I would have considered smashed. I would have thrown,

it's surprising that like Magic Mike doesn't show up anywhere because it was both a sensation and also I think people really respected it. Seven Psychopaths is another one I'm surprised, didn't show up somewhere because I feel like

Martin McDonough was very much a kind of hot commodity following in Bruges and certainly like obviously all the theater work. Damsels in distress is a movie I stick up for with Stelman's Damsels in Distress.

I think that's a very fun movie. I just, 2012 is a really interesting year for me, and that none of the best picture nominees that year surprise me, Argo, Lincoln, Life of Pie, you know, even Les, Zero Dark 30. The way it all shook out, though, is still fascinating. It's very fascinating. And as I brought up in the group chat, a decent example in a couple directions of how weird stuff can happen and, you know, especially,

We were talking about this best director race of, you know, you have two previous winners expected to be nominated in Tom Hooper and people forget about Tom Hooper and how much money Le Miz made was expected to be nominated as well as Catherine Bickle. Life of Pie also made like so much more money than people realize, right? Yeah. Like that movie made how much worldwide? $609 million worldwide for Life of Pie. Angley fully wins Best Director for a movie that, I mean, I really liked Life of Pie. I was maybe like one of Life of Pie's biggest supporters. I threw it into our trivia quiz.

If there are zero Life of Pie fans, you have died. I clipped the Irfan Khan monologue from late in that movie for our latest trivia round. As soon as you announced that trivia around, I was like, well, Irfan's going to be here. Oh, once I said it was going to be about expressions of gratitude and thanks. Yes, I was like, well, I should just like type life apply. What's funny is I didn't remember to include that until very, very late in the trivia making process. So you were ahead of me almost there.

But Angley wins his second best director, two best director wins and zero best picture wins is an interesting bit of trivia for Angley. But for a movie that at no time did it feel like there were these, like, crashing waves of adoration for Life of Pie. You know what I mean? That is a movie that people respected, stop. You know what I mean? Like, respected, period, the end of that conversation. And he wins a full Best Director award because Ben Affleck and Catherine Bigelow were snubbed. And people were sick of giving a award.

awards to Steven Spielberg, apparently. They were just like, yeah, let's not. And... Movies like Lincoln don't really win directing Oscars in the past, like, 20 years, though. It's so talky. I mean, yes. I mean, like, even I, who is, like, among the, like, highest of the Lincoln fans, credit that movie as much, if not more to Tony Kushner than they do to Stephen Spielberg.

I think that was a part of it, although Tony Kushner also doesn't win the Oscar. because everybody had to give an award to Christaerio. I remember, God love him, Mark Harris, was so salty that entire Oscar season about Argo. You know what, Mark Harris was about Argo and Cristerio. And trying very much not to be, but like was salty. So, yeah, I, yes, you're right in that a lot of the ways in which that stuff, those categories shook out. supporting actor that year was this, you know, free for all between five actors who had all won Oscars before. And it ends up going to Christoph Valtz, who was a lead, a lead in that

movie. That's a movie with two lead actors, him and Jamie Fox. I know we've had the argument before that I also think Philip Seymour Hoffman is a co-lead in The Master, but we'll agree to disagree there. Yeah, just a lot of interesting. And of course, this was, as I've mentioned before, this was the first year where I was writing about movies professionally during the Oscar season. So, like, that was very fun. So this year feels very kind of special for me.

I think it was also the first year that I had watched every single Oscar nominee before the Oscars, although I wasn't writing about it. it. So I, like, literally watched Contiki, the Norwegian foreign language film nominee, like, the morning of the Oscars, and I was like, I made it. But,

yeah, that was a real interesting year. What are your memories of the 2012 Oscar year? Generalized dissatisfaction. Did you, like, really, like, not care for Argo?

Like, did you just, like, not care for Argo? at all? No, I was pro Argo. I mean, Argo, as soon as I saw it, I was like, well, that's winning best picture. It doesn't matter what I think about it, which tends to be my thought process on things. I was at my most Joe Reed this year, though, because I was just so happy at the time that Ben Zitland got nominated that I was like, it doesn't matter. My work here is done. I can be happy with anything else. I hated Les Mis so much, so I was happy Tom Hooper didn't show up there. I never got off

the Hathaway train, even though this was a very tough time for us. I was going to say, hating Le Miz, but loving Anne Hathaway is a feat that only you and select other gay guys could really pull off. Well, I was very much like, I can pretend

this is for Rachel getting married. I can pretend. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What else do I want to talk about? The other thing about the National Board of Review is that Looper ends up on the top 10 films of the year that year, which is a list that starts very normy and does not end that way. So Zero Dark 30 wins their best film of the year. And then their top 10 is like, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Le Miserab, Silver Linings Playbook. Then Looper, and you're like, oh, we got a fun one. That's a weird one. Do a silly one. Do looper. perks of being a wallflower and promised land. Now, we've done our episode on Promise Land, a movie that I do, if you asked a hundred thousand people if they remember what Promised Land was, single digits.

Would you get single digits? Anyone that says yes listens to our show. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And even those people are like, maybe, that was a long time ago, guys. Perks of Being a Wallflower, at least, was, like, on the periphery of the screenplay, adapted screenplay conversation. And even, like, I remember, like, Ezra Miller being on, like, long lists. Like, long, long, long lists for supporting actors. I mean, perks of being a wallflower is not an unreasonable, like, wasted in a race.

It could have been a nominee if it wasn't so loaded. like you mentioned, the weight of best picture was definitely shifted towards adapted. Yeah, if that was one of those years where, like, adapted is the weaker of the screenplay categories, you could see something like Berksut being a Wallflower getting through. Where else? Oh, can we talk about that TIF lineup briefly? Because you said, Looper opens the festival.

That's the year that Silver Linings Playbook wins people's choice. And that definitely, Silver Linings Playbook definitely is one of those movies that I remember as being like TIF launched it into the conversation. I feel like people weren't really talking about that movie very much. And then all of a sudden it wins people's choice at Tiff. And people are like, oh, this could like win best picture. Because David O. Russell had already broken into the best picture sort of, you know, broken through that glass ceiling with the fighter a couple years before. um and had bradley cooper attained respect at this point yet or was that was this the movie no because this is his first nomination this is the movie that did it okay um i still like silver

lines playbook but jennifer lawrence oh i do too we i we both rewatched it for some screen drafts thing we were preparing for i think it was best actress right um because jennifer lawrence right had broken through with winter's bone a couple years before and then um so anyway this was you know And I also feel like Argo, which had I believe premiered at Telluride, but like... Argo is one of those movies that was supposed to be Toronto's movies, but then it was a sneak preview at Telluride. That's what it was. But I still feel like... And Tiff got mad about it.

But I still feel like Argo's awards thing, like the awards momentum did still feel like it came from Toronto that year. I feel like Toronto was a... 2012 was a big Tiff year. in terms of both Silver Linus Playbook and Argo, going from not in the Oscar conversation to very much in the Oscar conversation after that festival. Yeah, yeah. So, gala presentations, you mentioned,

Looper is the opening night movie. The closing night movie was, I don't know, I don't see it here. You know what? It's fine. Argo was one of the gala's Robert Redford's The Company You Keep The movie with him and Shial Abuff that I did not see A Dangerous Liaisons A Chinese adaptation of Dangerous Liaisons

A movie called Emperor By Peter Weber that starred Tommy Lee Jones and Matthew Fox as Douglas MacArthur and, oh, I lost it, Matthew Fox playing somebody else in World War II, crazy. No, thank you. Let's go down. Mike Newell's is Great Expectations that starred Jeremy Irvine and Helena Bonham Carter and Holiday Granger. Do you remember that one?

Your good close personal friend, Jeremy Irvine. Roger Michel's Hyde Park on Hudson, very, very early. Biss Had Oscar Buzz movie. Billy Bob Thornton's Jane Mansfield's Car, a movie that exists as a title and nothing else for me. Liz Garbis's Love Marilyn, which was a Marilyn Monroe documentary.

Mira Nair, speaking of... We were speaking of Mirra Nair before, right? Were we? Sure. I mean, we always are. With her being the first lady of New York City now,

or whatever, the queen mother She's the queen mother of New York City now. Not the first lady. The reluctant fundamentalist was that year. Kate Hudson, of course. We all remember Kate Hudson in the reluctant fundamentalist. A Royal Affair, which ended up being an international feature nominee. As I said, Silver Linings Playbook.

That movie What Maisie knew? Where Julianne Moore and Alexander Scarsguard are going through a divorce of some sort? Through the eyes of their young child. Yes. So, as a TIF gala pejorative skeptic, thoughts and thoughts of words. It comes off okay. There's a lot of forgotten stuff. I mean, this is a pretty lit TIF year. This is the year that Cloud Atlas is a TIF premiere. Was Anna Karenina a TIF premiere? Or had that already been a Venice month? I don't know if that was at Venice or not. I forget.

There's a lot of previous TIF episodes at this Toronto lineup, you know, movies such as on top of the master. I believe the master was also at Venice. Movies like On the Road, Rust and Bone, to the Wonder to the Wall. The Impossible was a TIF premiere that year that ended up getting a best actress nomination for Naomi Watts. Francis Ha was a Tiff movie this year would not come out until the next year but that I believe was a Telluride premiere that might have been another one of those that got like nipped

nipped in the bud by a telluride Place Beyond the Pines was another one that premiered at TIF and then did not make it into theaters until 2013 The Sessions which got Helen Hunt

Well, that was a Sundance movie that year But that was a carryover Sarah Polly's stories we tell Was that a TIF premiere? It's a Sarah Polly movie So I just assumed that it was. No. I think that was a Venice.

God, what a great movie that was, though. I mentioned this every time that movie comes up. But it's so good. I will have lifelong devotion to Sarah Polly regardless of what she puts out just because of that movie. I want to see what the Midnight Madness movies were that year.

Interesting. ABCs of death. Barry Levinson's the Bay, which is actually like a pretty gnarly movie for a Barry Levinson horror movie. Isn't that like a bug movie? It is. It's like a waterborne. There's something in the water in the Chesapeake that ends up infecting people. And I saw it, I believe, at maybe Tribeck the next year.

I don't remember, but like whatever. John dies at the end. I remember being like something of a thing. Movie that exists only as a title. Rob Zombies, the Lords of Salem, which I did not see, but was supposedly like horrible. And then Seven Psychopaths was apparently a Midnight Madness movie that I'm pretty short. No, it was a TIF premiere. I was going to say Martin McDonough is so Venice-coded for me.

But, yeah, apparently that was a TIF premiere. So one of those, this would have been, what? What, two years before I first started going, I would have really, really enjoyed myself at this TIF. The last time we talked about, Tiff in this way, we talked about what would have, if we had placed ourselves back in our version of ourselves that existed then, what would have been the movies?

You would have been like, oh, I got to make sure that this is on my schedule. I do feel like Looper would have been high on my priority because I was such a fan of Brick and also Brothers Bloom. Loper would have been really, really high on my list. I mean Cloud Atlas. Cloud Atlas and Amore, probably, for me. Yeah, yeah.

That makes a ton of sense. That makes a ton of sense. Also, Joe writes Anna Karen and I, because I was such an Detonement fan, I would have very, very much been rabid for. And Francis Ha, I was always really, really, really excited for that movie. The reaction to the Paperboy would have been like, well, I got to see the Paperboy with a crowd. Also, certain... Previous episode, The Paperboy. Yeah.

certainly any the master was a movie that was like at the top of everybody's list particularly because that was a movie that through its production phase had attained this moniker of like Paul Thomas Anderson's Scientology movie Paul Thomas Anderson's Red Vines

Aaron Hubbard movie so I was And it was also presented in 70 mm at that festival when like the master really was the one

that brought people don't really talk about it in this way but it was the movie that brought back film formats as they were like this is when film formats

are basically going away I think was Wolf of Wall Street like one of the last no it was the first movie that I believe if I'm remembering correctly and it might have just been

for paris amount, not for all movies. That was only made available digitally. So, you know, film formats are effectively not being presented in theaters or they're like at the point where it's like, it is dying. But 70 millimeter, I don't think it had been years since something had been presented in wide enough release or in a limited release in a 70 millimeter format. So the master brought it back. That's exciting. That's interesting. You know, it was also an interesting TIF premiere. Hotel Transylvania, TIF premiere, in the TIF Kids section that I, we got to have a gala at noon on a Saturday. What are we going to show? But no, they had a selection, the section

called Tiff Kids that year that was four movies. It was Hotel Transylvania, Ernest and Celestine, a movie called Igor and the Crane's Journey, and then Finding Nemo 3D, apparently. rounded out the TIF Kids section that year. So funny. So interesting. Anything in Discovery? Aliche Winokers, Augustine, was that year in the Discovery section. Anywho.

Why don't we clear out our notebooks and then move on to IMDB game? But, like, in general, very, very happy to revisit Looper. A movie that people don't talk about enough today. And will let people throw that phrase around a lot? but I really mean it. People do not talk about Looper enough today. Not to invoke a topic of disagreement between the two of us, but we haven't mentioned the Last Jedi at this point.

I think Looper is not to like rehab to that conversation. We've had 1,500 times on this show. But I do think Looper is exactly the type of movie that like someone with an actual vision and ideas like coming out the wazoo. It's no surprise to me that this is a movie that gets somebody a gig making a Star Wars movie. Yes, I agree. And I think it's rewatching it kind of recertified for me why it is so shitty that they basically, like, threw double birds at him after hiring him to do the thing that he does with Last Jedi. They panicked.

I mean, they did not. Yeah, they panicked. They did not perform. They did not behave honorably on a corporate level. but they definitely like they fucking panicked they really did um um because like of course he goes and makes the last like you all saw looper of course the last Jedi is the movie that he makes like uh anyway we don't we really we don't have to the disagreements we have about that movie um but yeah i love ryan johns wake up dead man what do you want to say about wake up dead man we're doing this time to

that that is a movie that When I saw it, I had to kind of take a moment with it. I think because Glass Onion was such an immediate and, like, really hilarious experience for me, I really, really just, like, laughed my ass off at that movie. And Wake Up Dead Man isn't that. And so I initially was just sort of like, huh, where do I sit with this? But that is a movie that has stuck with me, has stuck with me a lot since that. that movie. I think Josh O'Connor is

tremendous. Best performance of the entire story. I will be very, very surprised if he doesn't end up on my best actor ballot. And he's in your supporting actor predictions, which I know your predictions are

more about like, let's get more people in the conversation, but like he has more screen time than Ben Woblan. I'm just which is a point of contention for people and I think that's... If he were in the, if he were in the drop down for Best Actor, I would have put him in Best Actor. It's just like, that's just where he's being, that's where he's being campaign. I am, I am nobody who's going to, I will not

defend Category Fraud. Of the two of us, you are the more lenient than I am on the subject. Am I? Am I? I'm the one who's like, Stell and Scars Guard is a lead. What are we doing? Well, that is true. You always tend to shoot me down, though, whenever I start to complain about category fraud. You're always just like, ah, we shouldn't talk about. No, I think that I, I, I'm not at this place any more, but like a few years ago, I'm like, complaining about category fraud is annoying. Well, now it's righteous. I do think it's Emma Stone and the

favorite that broke me, that I'm like, that is, that's the, that's the protagonist of the story. What are we doing? All right. My stuff. Oh, sorry, are you still going through stuff? Well, I was going to say with Wake Up Dead Man, I think a lot of people's complaints

about it are annoying. What are, and specifically what? What are people's? People were like, it's not a fun ensemble. movie. The ensemble doesn't have anything to do. And I'm like, but the trade-off is this really fantastic and like this episode is airing before it hits

Netflix so I don't want to go into too much detail. And like not going into too much detail is part of the reason why it's been hard to talk about. I will say though, as somebody who like that when they cast Andrew Scott in that movie, I was like, fuck yeah, Andrew Scott in a Ryan Johnson movie. And that character

really just does not get a single interesting thing to do in that entire movie. So, like, I get it. I think it's laugh lines. Eh. I think, I don't know. To me, it's kind of the most interesting. I think it's interesting after these two movies that are, like, more eat the rich minded,

that this movie is, like, rather than just rehashing, like, that totally. You know, I mean, like, these are all three. It goes in a really different direction, and is a lot more sincere. Yeah, all of them are different directions. And that, I think, is what we can appreciate about this. And that's one of the things. I think that he understands about Agatha Christie best is that like they're all their own kind of beast, even though culturally we lumped them into being one thing. But I think, you know, this movie takes a much more like soul searching approach to where we're at and contemporary politics as like, you know, where we're at culturally and the division that we're at in a way that actually moved me.

and I think it's kind of without question the best of the three Highest recommendation to see it If you have a chance to see it in a theater Try and see it in a theater But if not it'll be on Netflix Mid Later this week

Oh wait it's Netflix later this Oh as where as December 12th Friday There we go that's what I said Mid December Okay You know how much I appreciate smoking in movies Not only does Emily Blunt smoke

after banging Joseph Gordon Levin in this movie. She also has a tremendous scene earlier than that where she's pantomiming smoking a cigarette on her front porch, which is such a good character detail where she's not smoking because she's quit smoking, but she still really wants to have a cigarette. And so she pantomimes, like, packing the cigarettes and, like, pulling it out and smoke.

I was just like, God damn it, Emily Blunt, you're killing it. Nathan Johnson's score is so good in this. Nathan Johnson, Ryan Johnson's brother, I believe. Not sure. But I believe, or good score. Really good score. Always shows up with a good score for a Ryan Johnson movie.

The shut up about time travel scene in the diner. Daniels with the and. Sugarcane Fields. Oh, I kept thinking, this is one of those things where I'm watching this movie the second time, and I'm like, I don't know whether this was ever, this happens or not. not. I kept waiting for the reveal that Jeff Daniels, because we know Jeff Daniels is from the

future. I kept waiting for the reveal that Jeff Daniels was older Noah Segan in this movie because he's mean to Noah Segan in a way that Bruce Willis is mean to Joseph Gordon Levitt where he's just like, you fucking idiot, you don't know shit for shit. And that just like never happened. I really liked Noah Segan in this movie. He's one of those actors who has just sort of like he's been Ryan Johnson's, like, you know, little collaborator, little sort of, you know, mascot a little bit. And his... I think he's the funniest thing about Glass Onion.

He's so funny in Glass Onion. Oh, my God, I love him. Those jokes are really good. But I really like him as the sort of, you know, impotent gangster, you know, wannabe gangster. I don't know. really liked him in this. Oh. Closing the loop has now become, you know, all of our trauma in terms of, like, corporate email

speak. Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm like, it's called closing the loop. And now I'm like, ah, ah, you're like, ah, it feels like professional emails that are annoying. If you got, if you got a hall of silver bars every time somebody said they were going to

close the loop on something. I would have many silver cards. You'd probably have less of an aversion to the phrase. Can we also talk about very briefly the old-timey safe that Emily Blunt has in her closet that she climbs into

whenever Sid is going to go off on a telekinetic rage to keep her safe? Where did that, where did she arrive at having, was that like a family heirloom? Was that always on the property?

because a farm needs a safe for... There is a lot of talk about, like... She got it on Facebook Marketplace. She did. Whenever somebody tells me they bought something on Facebook Marketplace, I'm like, why are you even looking there? Why would you... I would never possess it.

I shouldn't... Respect to anybody who does it. I shouldn't say this, but I know she doesn't listen to this, so I can say. My mom got scammed on Facebook Marketplace one time, and she got... Yeah, it just seems like a place that exists to scam. people.

Did you ever see that or to like have a weird social interaction that is not worth whatever deal you're getting? Do you ever see the SNL sketch where Adi Bryant shows off her living room which is painted in Farrow and Ball paint and it's like

so incredibly expensive and Kristen Stewart and Beck Bennett are like how much did you pay for this? And then Kyle Mooney shows up like with sweatpants and no shirt and it's like who is this guy? And she's like that's my boyfriend we met on

Facebook Marketplace and I don't know I just love that joke used blunderbuss still in working condition best offer in the next 24 hours must come pick up

right right exactly but yes I was I was fascinated I guess they talk about like you know these roaming vagrants who are dangers to somebody like that so maybe she acquired but it's the old timeliness of the safe that I find fascinating.

What a what a find. What a yard sale find that must be. And then... Paul Dano's mini low pony. Oh, yeah. We didn't discuss. 60 seconds. Paul Dano is great in this movie, but like he goes away, like, when the movie kicks into high...

How, on a scale of 1 to 10, one being, or whatever, On the scale of your normal attraction to Paul Dano, is he, like, above, below, like, where does this movie push him along that line? The ponytail is interesting. Because on any human being, I'm like, ew, that's disgusting. But you're just like... You should be in a casino and Reno with that. But Paul does it. It is...

It is pause in terms. it gives me pause where I'm like how do I feel about this maybe maybe I feel the full spectrum of yes to know the full I do like the idea that in this movie's spectrum you're hot for Paul Dano and I'm hot for Noah Segan and and that's fine and we're both hot for Emily Blunt because she's fucking scorching in this movie yeah all right um do you want to tell our listeners what the IMDB game is. Listener, Gary's one and all. Every

week we end our episodes with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try to guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for. If any of those titles are television, voice only performances, or non-acting credits will mention that up front. After two wrong guesses

we get the remaining titles release years as a clue, if that's not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints. We love it. All right, Chris. you get the choice to either give your clue first or to guess first. I'll guess first, why not? All right, so I followed Ryan Johnson down the path to poker face, which we haven't talked about poker face, which...

Fun show. The recent announcement... Well, yes and no, right? Wasn't the announcement that like pokerface is done, but Ryan Johnson would like to do another series where somebody else plays Charlie Kale, which is so funny to me because it's like, tell me you didn't super get along with Natasha Leone without telling me you didn't super get along with Natasha Leone. But, I don't know, we'll see.

Anyway, one of the stars of particularly the first season of Poker Face was Benjamin Bratt. And we have not done Benjamin Brat. I will tell you he has one television show and one voice performance in his known for. this is going to be so hard and I went easy on I don't know if this is particularly hard but but okay what even was that TV show

was it the I can't be that person I mean I got a perfect score last week I was going to say like it's fine it's fine Gary's aren't judging you can be challenged because like I can't be the first person to get like TV way wrong.

Like we've had wrong guesses, but it's usually people who've done a lot of TV. But like, I don't remember what a show was. And it wasn't like the practice, but I want to say the practice. I know that that's not him.

I know that that's... I will tell you it's not the practice. Not to give you hints unnecessarily, but it's not the practice. But it is a show like that. I'm just not even going to go. I'm not even going to go there because we'll get

there when I'm getting years and such. The voice he's like a dad to the protagonist in something. Maybe I can't even get that. Is Miss Congeniality

one of them? It is. Miss Congeniality is one of them. So you got one. His Oscar Buzz Vehicle, Pinheiro. No. It is Not Vignero. Okay.

One strike. I can't even remember Benjamin Brat vehicles. Apologies to this man. What has he even been in recently? He was in a Soderberg, wasn't he? Was he in traffic? Traffic, is correct. Okay. So now, here I am. No wrong guesses.

No, one wrong guess. And there's a TV show. You guess Piniere. Oh, okay. Okay. Is it like despicable Me Too? It is not despicable Me Too. Okay. So that's two wrong guesses. So your years are 27. Well, I have to differentiate it. So your movie is 2017. Your television show. Now, it lists the years. no

oh it lists the year span that he was on this television show but I think it also includes it must also include later guest when he wasn't on the show well no but like it's it's the year he started

to the last time he like showed up as a guest on that show so it's 1995 to 2009 okay is it is it like law and order it is law and order that's the movie or that's the show that like he got

fine I was wringing my hands over nothing do you remember when he and Julia Roberts were dating and she guest starred on law and order because they were dating it's weird yeah all right

your voice performance 2017 is that like Toy Story 4 it is not Toy Story 4 is like 2018 2019 something like that okay Um, is it... Would you like a hint?

Yes. Oscar winner. Oh, for 2017. Okay. So, this is the year after Moana, which didn't win. 2017 was...

not spider verse not Pixar right not Pixar do you want me to tell you yes um sorry one second

um uh yes Pixar Coco Coco Coco is he a dad in Coco is he a dad in Coco I don't think he's the dad

but he's like Is he the villain he's the famous musician who Gail Garcia-Bernal's character looks up to that I think turns out to be... Who, spoiler alert is the villain. Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right.

Great movie. Yes. Yes, and it also wins Best Original Song that year, right? And I believe making Robert Lopez double E got. Yes, that is true. Is that when he double E got it, or was it one of the other ones? Doesn't matter.

Double E got. Doesn't matter. Double E got. Yes. All right. What do you get for me? Oh, okay. So for you, I went into the Benoit Blanc casting.

Again, me saying it is annoying when people are complaining that the ensemble doesn't have as much to do. I specifically was like, all right, when I saw someone complain that this person doesn't have anything to do. Someone who I think other people just like more than I do about this ensemble member. Kaylee Spaney Oh, I thought you were going to say Carrie Washington Okay, Kaylee Spainey No, I like Carrie Washington Kaylee Spaney, I try not to hold it against

Kaylee Spaney that she has multiple times played Gen Z characters Who I'm just like, ugh It's mostly just from the fucking I think Kaylee Spani is a good performer It's just Often playing passive character

Yeah, I like her in Wake Up Dead Man actually All right. Kaylee Spaney, one of them is going to be, oh, what's the fucking, well, Priscilla. Priscilla is correct. No television for Kaylee. No television. Okay.

Here's where I'm going to run into the problem where I don't know if I know four Kaylee Spaney movies that don't include Wake Up Dead Man. No, what was... See, I told you, I went easy. What was the fucking title of the The Alex Garland movie that she's in With Kirsten Dunst Where she's so fucking annoying

And I can't give you titles No you can't give me titles No but all of it's because warfare is clogging my mind It's Civil War Civil War is correct All right Nothing Burger movie She's her character is so fucking annoying

in that movie god um okay Kaylee Spaney Spaney huh she's not in like bodies bodies bodies is she is that a guess or is that uh

that's a guess that is incorrect she is not in bodies bodies bodies okay is she in um um um

Oh, is she in Alien Romulus? Alien Romulus is correct. Okay, okay, all right. I believe her highest grosser? Probably. Hate that movie. Do you really hate that movie? I hated it.

The way that people just like get a real be in their bonnet over Prometheus, that is me about Romulus. Well, I really hated particularly the Ian Holm stuff in that movie I thought was outrageous. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, one more Kaylee-Spainy movie. You know, I'm just going to say Wake Up Dead Man because it's played festivals. Wake Up Dead Man is incorrect. Your year is 2018. This is maybe where I was being a jerk.

Baby Kaylee. Not her first credit. Really? She is in two other 2018 movies that made more money. What's a 2018 movie that would have? children in it. Is she... She is definitely someone's child in this movie.

Oh, God. Though, given that this is a movie that spans a decent amount of a life... At least probably a decade of a certain person's... A very famous no longer living person's lifetime. Is she Little Liza or Lorna Luft in Judy? No. No, that's 2019. A famous, is she in Bohemian Rhapsody?

No. I would be willing to bet that she is a teenager, not a child, in this movie. Okay, okay. But it spans a decent amount of a famous person's life. Probably a decade of this person's life, at least. Maybe 20 years. A famous performer? No.

A famous political figure. Yes. Vice Not Vice Though she is in Vice Shut the fuck up Who is she in Vice She is

Mary Chaney Seven literally credited as 17 year old Lynn Vincent Oh Oh Young Amy Adams Lynn Vincent

That's that She's credited as 17 year old Lynn That's gotta be 17 year old No hyphens by the way What's wrong with you people Okay

That's wild that I guess. So, 2018, she is playing the child of a very famous political figure who is no longer living on the opposite side of the aisle. Okay. We have not done an episode on this, but we could. Oh, interesting. We don't want to. Famous political figure on the other side of the aisle. Who's got a famous teenage kid?

I believe this person had multiple children. Wow. What a, what a... Watch me be wrong, and this is like flashbacks of her young mother or something played by Kayleen Spainee. But I'm positive. Modern day political figure? This person's no longer living, but like, what do you mean by modern? The 20th century or forward? Yes, was a political figure in the 20th century, absolutely.

21st century too American? Yes 2018 We could do an episode Is this the Ruth Bader Ginsberg movie? I'm gonna need a time. Yeah, on the basis of sex?

It is. She plays Jane Ginsberg. Jane Ginsberg, okay. All right, we should, we should. I know it's, whatever, chomp, chomp, that movie is just really, really... Chomp, chomp, flesh eaters in that movie. But, like, we...

Okay, when has... It's such a nothing-burger movie. When has really boring stopped us in past? I think the fact that you've already seen it does make it an inequitable choice, and that, like, I would be making you see it a second time. Yeah, because you have more curiosity for it because you haven't seen a movie. Yes, yeah, I think that's right. All right.

That was tough. First of all, how dare you yell at me for giving you Benjamin Brat when you're giving me Kaylee Spaney, one of whom is on the basis of sex? How dare you, sir? Have you no decency? All right. Yeah, but, like, on the basis of sex is the oldest movie on her known for by a span of five years. I was asking you to remember obscure things like law and order and academy, two-time Academy Award winner, Coco, and oh, miscongeniality, and oh, um, traffic. And you're asking me to remember.

For Benjamin Bratt. Still. Now, Benjamin Bratt would be a great reverse IMDB game. Oh, well, we blew it there, didn't we? Yeah. I'm excited to play a reverse IMDB again again. Coming up soon, I would imagine, right? Sure.

Let's do it for next week's episode. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, that is our episode, folks. If you want more of this head Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz.com. Chris, where can the listeners find more of you? Letterbox in Blue Sky, Chris V-File, that's F-E-I-L. I am on Blue Sky and Letterboxed at Joe Reed,

read-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. I am also on Vulture every single day doing

award stuff, doing Cinematrix stuff, doing movie Fantasy League, having a good old time over there. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Mievous for their technical guidance. Please remember that you can rate, like, and review us on

Spotify, Apple Podcasts, else you get podcasts. A five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple podcast visibility. So lock yourself and your old-timey safe for a while and compose something nice about us, won't you? That is all for this week, but we hope you'll be back next week for more bucks. Thank you.