This Had Oscar Buzz - 379 – Amsterdam

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

2022’s Amsterdam was a high profile box office dud from disgraced director David O. Russell with timely themes, a big budget, and a ton of stars. The film tells a (partly true) story about fascist maneuverings in America, with Christian Bale, John David Washington, and Margot as a friendship trio who sets out to thwart them after … Continue reading "379 – Amsterdam"

I'm from the house. No, the right house. I didn't get that. We want to talk to Maryland. I'm from Canada water. Dick poop. Like the scene. The killer pointed at us.

We didn't do anything. Why would you possibly think that was us? Well, there's not too many people that fit the description of a doctor looking for his eye on the ground with his black attorney. Columbia Law School. We need someone to help us to find the truth. My friend was killed. Because it's something monstrous that he had seen. This is all turning out to be a lot larger than any of us.

Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that spent the first bullshit night in Sucks City. 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 crafter of Glass Eyes, Chris Foll. Hello, Chris.

Sorry I was late. I was getting my face reconstructed. I thought your reaction was going to be me. Me. Jennifer Lawrence doing her De Niro impression. Me? So funny. They keep trying to get away with and credits for Robert De Niro in David O'Russell movies,

as if he's not significant characters in ever expanding ensembles at that. But this is kind of a classic and, right? Where you don't get him until the final, you know, stretch of the movie and he plays an important part. Like, this feels like classic and.

More so than like Silver Lining's playbook. I had to watch this movie on a library DVD as I'm holding up with my hand behind its influencer style so that my filter doesn't delete it. your filter is really playing havoc with the visual.

Let's take it back to phrases from 2020, from 2017, podcast or a visual medium. Joe, I watched this movie on a DVD from my library. How many names do you think are above the title? I should have actually made a game out of this, but we've got a game coming. That would have been a fun game. All right, so can I try and work it out? I would imagine Bayel Washington Robbie

Are you trying to do it in order? I don't need you to do it in order. I just need you to give me a number. Right, but I'm just going to try and count them on my hand and then give you the number. So bail Robinson, bail Washington Robbie, Anya,

Malik, De Niro, Rock. I'm going to say that's seven and with the rule that it's always whatever you think, plus like one or two, I'm going to say nine. You are way under.

You at least price has righted this. You know, you wouldn't be punished. Yeah. It is 15 names. Fuck off. That's so funny. Who gets the and? Who gets the and? Well, I know it's with Rami Malik and is Robert Demiro. Yes, yes. That is true.

It is in this order. Christian Bale, Margot, Rabe, John David Washington, Chris Rock, Ania Taylor Joy, Zoe Saldanya, Mike Myers, Michael Shannon, Timothy Ollifant, Andrea Rysbrough, Taylor Swift, Matthias Schoenartz, Alessandro Navola, with Rami Mollick and Robert De Niro. I think at that point it's a little ridiculous that it's and Robert De Niro. He has 10 times more screen time than someone like say, oh, Timothy O'Elephant. Well, yes, but also where I'm coming at this is fuck Beth Grant's drag, I guess.

I guess because she's maybe the funniest performance in this movie. I love her. She's so great. I mean, I always love her. When is she not amazing? We love Beth Grant on the show. Had you ever seen Amsterdam before this time, or was this a rewatch for you? Yes, I saw it at a press screening prior to its release.

The word that I had running through my mind the whole time watching it the first time, and it has since stuck with me. It's in my letterbox log, purgatory. Oh, that's interesting. I remember the, well, so, no, explain purgatory. Well, it just feels like it could, it feels like it could just go on forever. It feels like it has always existed happening. You just happened to jump onto the treadmill at that point that Amsterdam was existing, but Amsterdam has always been existing.

It feels like you are stuck in a time loop a little bit. I think that, I, There's a lot about this movie that does not work. There's definitely things to recommend it for, largely the actors. Yeah. But it does have this kind of meandering structure to it. Shaggy. The word I'm going to use is Shaggy. I think it's an incredibly shaggy movie.

But see, I think Shaggy is a word I would usually use to describe David O. Russell. and his movies that I would say is a compliment to those movies. You know, it feels uniquely shaggy in a way that's pleasant. This feels like you're kind of trapped on a roller coaster that won't let you off. So here's the gag. I liked it a lot better the second time, watching it this time. I definitely was able to let some things go with it. And I definitely think the last hour of the movie is better than the first hour in 15 minutes.

Well, yes. And I think the first time I watched it, I was in a real let's get this over with kind of place with it. It was like it had, it was such an afterthought. I didn't see it to like after, I'm pretty sure like after the Oscar nominations, if not like after the Oscars in general. Like it was already such like a dead duck by the time I saw it. And the buzz on it was so bad. And, like, the reviews, I remember the reviews being more uniformly negative. I read a couple of mixed to mixed positive to, like, generally positive.

Like, Richard Brody really liked this movie. Richard Brody did love this movie. And I would say maybe a quarter of, like, because I went through Letterbox and I was like, how rough were people on this movie? And I got the sense that I was one of the rougher opinions, but only about a quarter of, like, my, the people I follow had a positive read on this movie, but that still felt like a lot. I remember a bit of a sort of a general pile on. I think there had been sort of accumulating bad vibes towards David O. Russell for not only off-screen things, but like for his

cinematic product that I think had sort of reached a crescendo by this point. It's almost kind of impossible to talk about David O. Russell when talking about this movie, because he was like absent from the promotional cycle, but there wasn't much of a, this is part of the reason why I think it really settled in very quickly the negative reception around this movie is like, it kind of just got dumped into theaters, even though it's this very expensive movie, there wasn't much of a promotional cycle around it. And then it just died very quickly, you know, it left theaters fast. Plus, I think just in general, it's one of those movies that you watch a trailer for it, and it really sort of like leans into your sort of pre-existing negative opinion of like, it feels very antic, it feels very, you know, madcap and overstuffed. And in this way that sort of the American hustle to joy pipeline had become very much just sort of like, you're doing too much.

You know, you're just doing entirely too much. Well, and I think the thing about those movies, even something like Huckabees, which is so like all over the map, there is a real clear sense on where to enter the story and how to tell those stories, even though like all of the ornamentation

is shaggy, right? Yes. And kind of rambling. And that's not the case for this movie. This movie really kind of doesn't know how to structure itself, how to set up these characters. And I think that that's especially true in the first half of it. But I do feel like... Yeah, like, why are we doing time jumps?

Why are we going back and forth in time? It just makes it confusing. It doesn't help us, like, understand what's happening. I think it's really hard to tell what's happening until the finale of the movie. Well, yes, I think if you told somebody after 30 minutes of this movie, what the... end game of this movie was going to be, I think they'd be very surprised. Yes. But I also feel like, I don't know what you would expect it to be from the 30-minute mark

of this movie. I do feel like, thematically and, I guess thematically, I don't need to buttress that with any more than that, the movie does unlock itself in the portion of the film that is in Amsterdam in a way that I didn't really. give it credit for the first time. And you want more of that movie, too, right? One of my notes is friendship cinema, because, like, I do... Yes!

I do appreciate that angle of the movie. It's some of the best stuff about the movie, too. Friendship cinema and Antifa Cinema. You know what I mean? It's Antifa. And it's... And, like, those are the two things that I like. So I do...

Yes, there is a degree to which, especially at the beginning, it kind of over-complicates the setup a little bit. And because I do feel like when you do get that sense, I guess because there is no plot happening in the Amsterdam section of the movie, at some point somebody made the decision that we needed to set the stakes of the movie up front and then we can get into the whole why do we care about these characters kind of thing. but I agree with you that it really leads to a lot of like, okay, well, why did we put a pin in this, in this, to, you know, spend so much time in this flashback? Or if you're setting the stakes and you're committing to a flashback structure, shouldn't you maybe get some of the fascism stuff in there

where it's like the beginning of the movie is where we're at at the end and then you flash even further back and then you tell a linear story. Yes. Yes, I think that's true. I think that's right, especially because the Michael Shannon and Mike Myers characters

feel like such local color when you first meet them, and ultimately they end up being sort of functionary to where things end up going. For them to just be local color too, you spent a lot of time with specifically those two guys.

And I wonder if you grounded things a little bit more, then the Margot Robbie character wouldn't flirt so aggressively with manic pixieism in as the second she picked up that pipe, I was like, girl, don't do it. Don't, you know, you're, it's too quirky. It's too, it's too much. You even get fake out, uh, vengeance scenes with her where you eventually think that she shoots the bad guys and then it flashed like, I was just imagining doing that to them. It's like, we're doing this in this movie. Well, yes.

So this is a movie also that at various times I was like, oh, he's doing Coens. Oh, he's doing, you know. Howard Hawks. At various times, he's doing like. Tarantino. Yeah. It was a lot. It was a lot, a lot, a lot.

And yet, because I so locked into the friendship cinema of it, of that central trio, and because, especially in 2026, that. that last act going hardcore anti-fascist, I was like, oh, okay. Well, like, I'm a little bit more locked in. And, like, to find out that that was a true story and I, you know, got to read up on it, got to do a little bit of Wikipedia surfing after this. And I literally, my other note is, how was this never a drunk history? Like, it's crazy that there isn't a drunk history based on this thing that actually happened.

I wanted to watch it with like Casey Wilson being the you know whatever but yeah I was surprised how much

I was kind of dreading watching this movie I was like oh my god Amsterdam again I really did not like it You gotta dig through a lot of stuff you just do not care about to get to the stuff that's like

that stuff slid away a lot easier for me this time and I really like enjoyed myself so like I guess, and I, by however it happens, I like when that kind of thing happens with this podcast that I can. When you can feel better about something you expected to not. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Versus like last week when we did Being Flynn, where it's the type of thing that is completely forgotten and you really hope you can lock in and be like, actually, there's so much to talk about the end, but it's not true.

Talk to me in six months. I'm not going to remember much about being Flynn, unfortunately. I do think ultimately this is still a bad movie because of how much. you have to just log through to get to the good stuff in this movie. And I do think that the good stuff is like, thank God, when you get there. And I think that the good stuff in the movie is the movie that it's trying to be most of the time. And it's just like is really kind of lost in the weeds. And like also some of this stuff I'm like, this wouldn't be here if this wasn't a famous person. Like Zoe's Saldonja.

I love her. But, like, if she wasn't famous, she would have been cut out of the movie. There are movies with big starry cast where you understand that you're using, you're doing a big starry cast because you need smaller roles to really pop. And that's not entirely what we're getting here. It is in certain ways. And I mean, it's not like you're not, you know, breaking the star meter with Alessandra and Avola and Maitia's shown arts. And it's not even like the reason you would. cast those guys, right? But I

I think, especially, I think Navola is so funny. I'm always happy to see him, but it's just like, he's not even getting to do like a Navola thing. It's like, Matia Shonarts on Ozempic and Alessandro Navolo with a perm. It's like, what are we doing here?

The scene where he breaks the bowl and Andrea Rysborough is just so exasperated with him, I was just like, all right, this is good, this is funny stuff. Even Andrea Rysbrough, who, again, always happy to see her, she doesn't get to do like the weird fun stuff. You know who I think is the best performance of this movie? You know who I think is

winning the Rupal's Drag Race Acting Challenge that is this movie? Get it. Tell me. Annie Taylor Joy. Interesting. I think she is the person who is most locked in to exactly what the movie is trying to do, and I think she delivers that the entire time she's on screen. I like that she gets to

be a little bit of a weirdo in the character who is ultimately revealed to be the evil bad person. Yes. Because there's always something in her performance that's like that. And you think it's, oh, she's just like a weirdo. But it's like, no, she's the bad guy ultimately.

Well, and she does a decent job of sort of head faking you into like, oh, she's like, she's not a nice person. But like she does kind of fool you into thinking of like she's a different kind of bad person than what she has. Right, that she is on the right side of its true. That she's just like she's a social climber. She's, you know, she's unsympathetic to her sister-in-law, yada, yada, yada. And I think you do need some of that deception to work in this movie because it is, you know, being an anti-fascist movie and, you know, portraying fascism to the point where you get the three evil, like, basically billionaires. Yes.

Who it's just like, ah, got it. So Musk, Zuckerberg and. Sure. I mean, and I, yes. Bezos or someone. Right.

Well, and the movie, the voiceover is sometimes good, but sometimes does that voiceover thing where it's just like, you really can't resist sort of like spelling out. The whole thing of just like, these business guys weren't even, you know, they didn't even believe in this stuff.

They just, you know, would support whatever side made them the most money. It's like, yeah, we got there. We got it. We didn't need to, we didn't need the handholding.

The movie runs the risk of being that at all times. you don't have the like central bad duo ultimately that can, to some degree, pull the wool over our eyes, you know? Yeah. And be a different type of bad. I liked the thing at the very end where the voiceover, where Bail's voiceover talks about, I was going to stay in America and do whatever, do whatever I could do to make this country into a place that my friends could come back to.

I was like that's that's, that at least, I like putting that button on it. I liked bail in this. I don't always, as you know. And I liked, I thought John David Washington and Margot Robbie had really good chemistry together. It could be better, but, you know, I think this is one of the better John David Washington performances. Yes. I feel like the worm on,

And the worm has turned a little bit too far with John David Washington, where all of a sudden, I think everybody was just like, all right, John David Washington sucks. Like, he's not good. He's, you know, whatever. After, I think a lot of people sort of, after Black Klansmen maybe thought they had gotten, you know, taken for a ride a little bit and had to overcorrect. And I think maybe the pendulum has swung a little too far on John David Washington as a bad actor. Some of it's that he's getting miscast. He's like perfectly cast in Black Klansmen where he gets to do some broad comedy, you know. And that's not really the roles that he's taken since then. Right.

Piano Lesson, not so much. I like piano lesson. I like the piano lesson as a movie. I don't love his. I don't think he's the most interesting person in that movie. I think he sort of, you know. That's probably, I mean, that's fair. Margot Robbie, though, it feels like her preamble.

to Barbie, it's kind of like her Barbie performance on Wellbutrin. Like, it's, you know, it's a little more minor key than that. I think that's why- It's an interesting counterpoint to, because Babylon is also this year for her. Which is like 15 out of 10. Like, it's so good. Yeah. I really, we're going to have to do Babylon time to something on the Patreon just because I think that would be a great

conversation. I absolutely agree. And I think we're both pro-Bablon? Very much so, yes. I don't even know if anybody is anti-Bablon at this point. I think people were just, it was a bad time to make Babylon and get people to enjoy themselves with that movie. I definitely feel like it's become that like the pro-Babalan side is now maybe like overwhelming, but I definitely feel like there are still.

There's some people who are doing too much for Babylon. Let's not go crazy. I am sometimes a lot of them. But yeah, Babylon is good. But I like Robbie in this movie. I generally think the actors are good. The actors aren't the problem. I think the structure of it and the kind of two freewheelingness of this movie for the amount of plot it has to have, for the amount of characters it has to have.

It's just, it's constantly confusing. Yeah. Until we really lock into the finale and it's like the finale is in place and here we are. I think there's also something a little mismatched tonally to the movie to David O. Russell that maybe we'll talk about on the other side of the plot description before we just lay it all out there. Yeah. Okay. Well, then why don't we get there because, no, why waste time? So before we get into the plot description, before I tee up for that, why don't you let our listeners know why they should join the Patreon? A short answer because it's great. Long answer because all of the things I'm about to tell you. It is more of the show you already love because here you are listening to us.

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We have a good time. Patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz. Love it. All right. This week we are talking about the 2022 film, Amsterdam, written and directed by David O'Russall, starring, as aforementioned. Christian Bail, John David, Washington,

Margot, Rabe, Anya, Taylor, Joy, Andrew Rysborough, Chris Rock, Alessandro Navola, Matias Shonarts, Michael Shannon, Mike Myers, Zoe Saldanya, Timothy O'Elephant, Taylor Swift, Beth Grant, with Rami Mollick, and Robert De Niro. That is one, two, three, four Oscar winners. That's not bad. Could have been more. And more for the future, because...

How far out do you think we are from Margot Robbie's Oscar? Well, it's an interesting question. And whether will it come in Best Actress or as a producer? Or as a producer. I don't know. The fact that she didn't get the Barbie acting nomination gives me a little bit of pause, that maybe there's a contingent out there that isn't quite as sold on Margot. And yet she'll get nominated for something stupid like bombshell.

But, you know, I hope it's soon. I love her. I think she's great. I'm very excited to see Wuthering Heights. I'm already seeing grudging. No, we are a pro Wuthering Heights podcast. Not having seen it, but we are not one of the haters online. We are not haters.

How dare Emerald Fennell. I am on the record of saying this is exactly. what she should be doing, she should be making glamorous trash. Exactly, exactly. We've gotten faithful Wuthering Heights. We've gotten respectable Wuthering Heights. We've even already gotten, like, class-conscious and, you know, thinky Wuthering Heights. Now we just need trashy-hap people.

Yeah, exactly. Just give you that trash. Give me that trash. This film premiered on October 7th, 2022 to a wide release that did not work out, let's say, conservatively. 20th Century Studios opened it up against the second weekend of Smile and the first weekend of Lyle Lyle Crocodile, both films of which beat Amsterdam. Amsterdam premiered to $6.4 million on route to what did it end up getting? I can't look it up. I'm too busy Venmoing Katie Rich $5 because we said Lyle Lyle Crocodile on Mike. Listeners, remember, anytime you invoke Lyle Lyle Crocodile, you do owe Katie royalties.

Should have gotten the best song nomination. It made 14.9 million domestic. Ultimately, reportedly lost the studio $108 million, which ain't great. It's not good. You can look at this movie and at least see the $100 million. It's a lot of actors to pay. There's a lot of actors to play. Like, every scene is in a different location from any other scene.

Yep, yep, it's true. It's true. All right, Chris, I am going to pull out my stopwatch. Are you ready to deliver 60 seconds worth of plot for the film, Amsterdam? I got you. All right, begin. At the beginning of a century, Bert is sent by his affluent wife's family to go fight in World War I. While there, he meets Black Soldier, Harold, and they're feeling 22, and become fast friends before they are both injured, meeting trauma nurse Valerie. It's a love story, and John David Washington just says yes.

They all form a trio, spending a brief post-war time as a pseudo-artist collective in Amsterdam. They're not really artists, but she is, whatever. Before Valerie runs off, leaving her scarf at his sister's house, but he's still got it in a drawer even now. Both men return to America. Years later, a senator mysteriously dies, and Harold recruits Burt for an autopsy, opening a can of warrants on a conspiracy, where a senator's daughter is shoved under a car in front of them by Timothy Oliphant with a middle part. The two friends go on the run, leading them to the wealthy Vos who surprise, surprise, are holding their sister, Valerie, for vague, medicated insanity slash epilepsy

reasons, DeVoses put the trio on the path of the general who was connected to the murdered senator. Meanwhile, Valerie's former artist patrons are revealed to be spies, trying to uncover a secret society, trying to align with the Nazis and take down America with the general as their pawn because the haters are going to hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. All of them try to take down the American Nazis at a veterans gala. Timothy Oliphon's middle part tries to assassinate the general, but he's detained. Three evil billionaire standings that are definitely not Bezos Musk and Zuckerberg are revealed at the core of it all,

and the voses are revealed to be secret American Nazis, and baby they got bad blood. With fascism solved forever, Bert follows his great love, the queen of the Omatikaya people, and Harold and Valerie leave the Christmas lights up till January back in Amsterdam. That's time. A minute 40 of just absolute hell. You know, after two weeks of under 60 seconds, me doing 40 seconds over is like the same thing. 40 seconds full of the sweatiest Taylor Swift's references. Admittedly, I could have done better.

Admittedly, I could have done better. No, that was fantastic. You maniac, you lunatic. I'm so glad that we didn't get into the Taylor Swift of it. ahead of the plot description. We should maybe do that now as little as there is to do. Mostly, it's just, it's so shocking that she agreed to do a movie where she shoved under a car on screen. Honestly, it's the thing about her performance in this movie that I give her the most credit for. I was just like, you know what? I like the sense of humor where she's just like, you know what? Yes, I will sign up to get shoved in front of a car. She had to know that would become a gift. She had to know it would be. become a meme. I was in that press screening. I was like, well, this is getting pirated. This is going to show up on my Twitter feed no later than 4 p.m. the Friday that is open. Do you

remember the Queen of Jordan episode of 30 Rock where Jack trips and falls and becomes a giff and spends the rest of the episode, like trying to like get back from that, like trying to recover? that's what Taylor getting shoved in front of the car reminded me of. I do think you're right to be like, to say, I respect it, Taylor. It's certainly better than the acting that she delivers. And I don't want to be like, be like, she's awful. She's just like, she doesn't. She's in two scenes.

She's in two scenes. It's probably it was also. She doesn't like exactly pop, though. You know what I mean? It's like, I think she's better in cats. And she's out of the movie. She is better in cats. That is not a read She's one of the best performers in Cats

Well, I don't know if I would go that far But she's definitely better than that far I would go that far I'm sure we rank Go back to our Cats episodes listener I'm sure we ranked those performances And I'm sure I said Taylor was great In that episode

We maybe did the most in that episode She's probably in my top 10 of performances in cats If I'm being honest If this is going to be If you know she's because in cats, she comes in and does a musical number and leaves. She doesn't really have to do non-musical actor. I feel like she's around for a lot of like the chillicle ball, though, right?

Like, no. She comes in and does macabody and I'm pretty sure like ascends and leaves. Oh, okay. Well, you know, good for her. Work. Honestly work. Honestly work. But yeah, this is, it's only two scenes.

It allows her to get her feet wet in just a, straight acting way. And she's brave enough to be like, you know, I'm going to be thrown under a car in this movie and I know people are going to make fun of me for it and I don't care. And they really, like, they managed to show her

like, bum, bum, bum, like under that car. It's a lot. Her legs end up sticking out from under the car in a very wicked witch of the east kind of a way. So yes. Also, why was Taylor not in the wicked movie?

I'm just saying. Why didn't she not show up as Dorothy? Who are we casting Taylor as? Well, I was, once I said, The Wicked Witch in the East, like, it would be funny for her as Nessarose, but obviously there are representational concerns about that. But, I don't know, make her anybody. Make her the fucking cowardly lion instead of Coleman Domingo. Taylor Swift, move it backwards, Chistery.

Stop it. What happens if Taylor Swift flip it around the upside down, what's an upside down T? I guess it's nothing. It doesn't work. You can make the T into an L. Well, yeah, it's true. L loser Swift. I don't know.

Taylor Swift twisted around Western Sky. All right. Okay. So you got everything in there in your extended. plot description. It's also impossible to probably say just the necessary things that happen in this movie, because by the way, I basically deleted Zoe Saldaanya from the movie in my plot description. She's what?

She's the medical examiner. She helps him do the autopsy. Yeah. It's so that because two people in this three-sum. Yeah, yeah. Like, he has to have a love story too, I guess. Well, it makes you feel better that he stays behind, right? at the end because...

I guess in a movie from the 1940s kind of way, sure, but like, do we really need it? I don't know. Probably not. He's helping all those veterans. We already feel good about him. We do feel good about him. Yes, he's not a character who presents as somebody. I guess because he's sort of, he spent so much time in this bad marriage to Andrew

Riceborough that, like, you want him to, I guess, have a win on that side of things at the end. I don't know. Let's not forget. This is not just an anti-fascist movie. it's also a veterans rights movie and it's a disabled rights movie a disabled rights movie it's doing all the things it's doing all the things listen if there's anything we can expect from david o russle it is um uh being a good person and and doing good things to the point where it is a little bit like he's try he's like look how hard i'm trying to be a good person and have the good i you know so here's what i so here's what i'll say about the sort of conception of the movie. This is based on a mostly, you get the very sort of Coenzy, you know, title card at the beginning of like a lot of this stuff really happened or whatever,

which it did in some way. This was based on an event in history called the business plot, which also, like, let's work on the name here, guys. It also sounds like this is closer to the truth of what happened than, say, American Hustle is, which is not at all. Right, right. Not at all. That's true. Lots of liberties. It is his third straight based on true events, and I'm doing sort of scare quotes. But yes, I think this one probably, he was closer than either American Hustle. I guess Joy was, well, I guess, I don't know.

I don't know how much Joy was mobbed up via her, you know, Isabella Rossellini character or whatever. like, I don't know. But anyway. Aversary in commerce. Everettian commerce. But so, yes, the business plots, which was a effort on the part of Wall Street business folk who were not happy with having, you know, Pinko Kami FDR as the president tried to initiate a, essentially a coup in the government where a fascist coup in the government where they, They would rally around disaffected World War I veterans who were not being given their due benefit from, it had been from the Hoover administration prior to FDR, that they would rally those folks behind a general. In this case, this guy's real life name was Smedley Butler, which go for it. You better work.

You better work, Smetley Butler. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the stage. You know, I need new help. We're really looking for a smeadly butler, you know. Last butler had two little smetl. Yes, no, yeah, you really want to up the smetl in this one. So yes. And fortunately, Smedley Butler was seemingly not having it. It ended up testifying in front of Congress to this plot.

And the, you know, media at the time called it a hoax and whatever. And there's, I don't know, read up on it. It's an interesting thing. But anyway, obviously, this version of the story is about an artist commune. Well, I was going to say, like, what if there were some... What if arts and science maximize their joint sleigh in friendship? Richard Brody sort of referred to it as a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern kind of thing of, you know, let's delve into these minor figures.

in this thwarting of the plot. And it ends up being Christian Bale, the, um, what is, he's half Catholic, half Jewish, right? Uh, half Catholic,

half Jewish, all unsuitable for Andrea Rysborough's parents. Um, her upper east side, you know, fancy pants, uh, parents who send,

essentially encourage him to go to the war, hoping that he'll die. And, um, he ends up coming back. He's a doctor. He mostly prescribes ever more exotic painkillers

to other veterans. He pisses off his in-laws by administering medicine to black veterans, so they kick him out of the Park Avenue, whatever, townhouse. And John David Washington

is like, he's a lawyer. Do we go any farther into that? Not really. He's just like, nope. It's just better to have a doctor and a lawyer as your two main protagonist, then that's fine. A doctor, a lawyer, and a woman who slays. A doctor, a lawyer, and a woman who slays. And she's interesting, because she's introduced, again, it's right up against the walls of manic pixie land where they think she's a French nurse, and all of a sudden she just like starts speaking American English, and she's just like, oh, I do that. And by the way, I'm an artist.

By the way, I pick out the shrapnel from the bodies of the people I tend to and collect it, and I use it in my art. And then she becomes a filmmaker, you know. She's a photographer. It's like living in the bliss of friendship. But it's like commune-like, right? I guess this is just what it's like to live as a European at this time. It really translates as commune to us now. has a lot to recommend it in terms of living expatriately in Western Europe, I suppose. Yes. But just, I mean, the basic idea is like, okay, well, Margot Robbie and John David Washington couldn't be together in America. Like, the, you know, the racial implications of that would be to oppose to them. And, but what I like of it is, is, is,

It's not just this like star-crossed lovers or whatever. And it is also, they manage to sell you on the idea of just like, no, we wanted to live differently. You know what I mean? We wanted to sort of experience life after having been through this awfulness of the war. She has this line that she says where, and I wish I had written it down, about just like, this is the good part essentially. She says it more interestingly than that, but essentially that, like, you know,

life has a way of sort of looping back on itself and it's cyclical and whatever. And this is the part that's good and we have to enjoy it because, like, it's going to get bad again. And I like that. I like the, you know, it's in a movie that doesn't feel stylistically bohemian at all, it kind of makes just sort of a flat rational case for

living this sort of artistic life, right? She has to have these kind of platitudes multiple times in the movie, and it's one of the things I don't like about this character. Because towards the end and the finale, she literally says something to the effect of art and love are the only reason we're here. Yeah. And it's one of my

big problems with the movie that runs. through all of it, even when I think the movie works, is that, you know, there is this kind of platitude, but also rose-tinted glasses, fairy tale-esque quality and tonal quality to the movie that I really do not think. I think this movie shows, oh, Russell does not have that in his in his... I think it sort of wave... It fluctuates back and forth between that and something that feels a little more genuinely romantic.

And I think when it can land on romantic, it works for me. But I do agree with you. You mentioned Howard Hawks before. And yes, there is a way in which Russell seems to try to target that kind of Howard Hawks quality and does not have the... for it. No. And you can see that strain in the movie and it doesn't fit right.

I don't even think it's chops because I don't think it's an ability thing. I think it's just, you know, all directors have a certain vantage point and a certain worldview that they bring to a movie and certain things that they are naturally suited for. And I think this is Russell, we should stop calling him, oh Russell, it's not O. apostrophe Russell. It's O period. So it's like, that's like calling you What is your middle? I've always

It doesn't matter. It's like if your middle name is Michael, that's like calling you M. Reed. You got it. You nailed it. A Catholic and I got your middle name as Michael. I know. I know. Shocking. But it's him trying to do things that I think that he's not naturally suited

for. Yeah. And it shows a lot of drain. And it also just feels phony. I think there's a certain that that like rosy quality to it. You're right to pinpoint that when it's tips towards romanticism which is something that he has done

well before. It works. But when it's this optimistic, isn't life beautiful type of thing, he doesn't, that's not where he, maybe he's made a pivot that we don't know about because he did like no press for this movie.

Right. Because they were probably terrified, but I doubt that. You won't be surprised to find out that Jennifer Lawrence was originally considered for the Margot Robbie role in this. Like, a lot through this movie, I'm just like, okay, like he has once again written a, you know, Jennifer Lawrence role into this movie. I will say to kind of close the loop on him because we've done the David O. Russell thing plenty of times. And we will again, because we'll end up doing three kings at some point. I'm right. His, his Madden movie does sound like the night, to me, the nightmare that people imagine for like any day. I'm like, this is going to be terrible.

I mean, and I'm a football guy, and I look at this and I'm like, oh, oh, no, oh, dear, dear me, no. Yeah. Yeah. Originally, Jennifer Lawrence and, well, originally Jamie Fox was considered, but then Michael B. Jordan and Margot Robbie were announced as cast. And then John David Washington ended up replacing Michael B. Jordan. As much as I'd say I did, and I did like John David Washington in this movie, I really would have enjoyed seeing Michael B. Jordan in this. I think Michael B. Jordan, I think is a very good, actor who I want to see in more things outside of the Ryan Cougler umbrella. You know what I mean? It's been three Creed movies and two Black Panthers. And even though the second Black Panther movie, he's not really in a whole ton. And now Sinners. And it's been great. He's been great in that. But I'm excited to see him, you know, and then he's done, you know, he's doing directing on his own or whatever, but, like, be in another really good director's movie and, like, let them sort of

benefit from your talents and, and you sort of, like, learn from them and thrive under them, I think would be very exciting to me. Well, but also, and I mean, like, sinners made good on this promise, too, but just something that allows it to be about his natural charisma and his star power that's not within the language of a superhero movie or a sports movie. Right. It's like, we know how those movies work. Those movies are all basically kind of borrowing from each other.

He can carry a movie that's just a movie. Well, he's doing, and that's what we would rather see him do. He's remaking the Thomas Crown Affair, which he is directing. And again, like, that's great. Like, take the reins, do your thing. But it's still IP. It's still, yeah, well, it's even, I mean, it's a movie that's already been remade once. You know what I mean?

It's just like it does feel. And not particularly well. A little warmed over. Oh, I feel like most people like the remake of the Thomas Crown Affair better than the original Thomas Crown Affair. I feel like my sense. Maybe I should revisit, but I remember not liking. I do want to see that, the Pierce Brosnan and René Russo one soon. But, yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I don't want to be, like, condescending towards Michael B. Jordan, who is, like, talented in its own right. But, like, would you not, like, be excited to see him do, you know, a Sean Baker movie or something like that? Or, like, you know. I mean, I'd be excited to see him do any. This is the thing. When we talk about how the idea that there's no movie stars anymore, yes, there are. Michael B. Jordan is a fucking movie star. And I think a lot of the especially financial success of sinners proved that.

It's just we have these movie stars We have these people that are appealing And people like They're just constantly in these formulaic IP movies So it's like if you let them not be in those things You let them be in sinners Or they choose to be in sinners

Then we've got real like movies With real movie stars You know Meanwhile John David Washington I don't know No you're right You're totally right John David Washington doesn't have an upcoming movie listed on IMDB.

He's been doing theater, too, right? He has, but I just think it's interesting. But, like, you know, the creator and the piano lesson, I guess he hasn't had really a hit since Tenet. So, but he's only been in a handful of movies since then. I don't know. This is the first time we've gotten to talk about Margot Robbie, though, too. Is that true?

True? I think so. Damn. That's no. Well, she was in about time, but I guess we didn't really talk about her as much. And we did marry Queen of Scots on the page. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's such an interesting. She's someone who I think has juggled the IP and non-IP thing rather well. even if there are some notable non-hits there. Amsterdam last year's Big Bold Beautiful Journey. But it never really feels like when a movie of hers doesn't land, that she's the reason for that.

Big Bold Beautiful Journey is one of those things where it's like, I really, really appreciate that she made that movie, even if it does not work, even if I think it is ultimately, you know, real cringy, but, you know, I appreciate it. But she's also in the position, too, where she can kind of have her cream of the crop. And I think she can do probably whatever movie she wants to because she's also producing movies too. Right. And I think her presence in that movie, which I still have to see, does show that she's willing to take creative risks.

Well, and it's an original... Given the position that she's in. It's an original film directed by Koganada, who has, who had been a sort of, sort of bubbling under the surface indie director who had gotten, you know, praise for his previous movies. Like, that's exactly the kind of movie. That's like a Nicole Kidman move, you know what I mean? And I like that there are actors with clout who will do that.

And yes, and then with her producing clout also, she's doing stuff like my old ass, you know what I mean? Which I, that's a perfect thing to do with her, you know, producing clout. too. So, yeah, I'm very pro. I'm very pro, Margo. So. I'm not sure she's given a performance I don't like, too. Yeah, that's probably true. I was like Harley Quinn. I think she does a good job with that character. She's not bad in bombshell. She could argue she's the best thing about bombshell. It's a very silly Oscar nomination, especially when Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was right there,

and she's so good in that. Yeah. And there's just, better things for her to two. I've never seen... That movie doesn't serve her. I've never seen Focus, and I've never seen The Legend of Tarzan. So maybe those are the bad performances. But I don't know. Maybe she's good in those. I mean, they're a decade old at this point.

She is amazing in Sefer-Zaraa. A movie nobody... She is. I love Sefer Zachariah. Yep. No, I agree with you. Good actress. Should have got nominated for Barbie. Great actress in Astero. city in a way that

not enough people talked about how great she was in that one little bit. Yeah, that scene is really, really incredible. She's crazy in Babylon. She's so good in Babylon. It's so funny. Yes. Excited to eventually rewatch that. So, yeah, the Oscar buzz for this movie felt very...

Pre-release. It existed. It didn't exist at the same time, right? Because, like, obviously, David O. Russell's Oscar Bonafites had been so strong up until this point. He had, you know, in three times in four years, he had gotten best picture and best director nominations for his movies for The Fighter for Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle. Joy, there was already some fatigue, but even still, Jennifer Lawrence got a nomination out of that. And I do feel like, even though she got that nomination, it really did feel like if I could put a

million dollar bet on his next movie flopping like crazy, I would. Because it's just like the tide had really turned by that point. But, which is just like, why would Disney give him $100 million for this movie to only bury his presence in this? Because it felt very conscious, right? Because it's like, it's well documented the reasons why he's a bad guy and a problematic guy. Yeah. But then why would you give him a $100 million movie that you're just going to whiff on release? It's one of the, I think one of the most interesting things about this movie is. for our context is talking about it as a 20th century Fox movie or a 20th century movie. Because it is, I mean, I still don't understand what they exist for.

For Disney to release movies that are not specifically targeted towards families, I guess. They're sort of the new Touchstone. I guess, but they don't, Touchstone made, you know, small to mid-budget movies. And that's not obviously what they're doing. Or it's like, do they just going to, in the future, exist to release Predator movies? And by that, I mean the Predator franchise. Yes, thank you. Yeah, no, it's good.

It's really not a great time to have that be the name of your franchise. It's not, is really not, yeah. But it's very confusing. Like, you go back to our Widows episode, where we rail against the whole acquisition of Fox and how that movie got screwed by it. But now it just kind of, what are the, Fox movies that have hit. Was Bohemian Rhapsody, Fox?

Uh, give me a second to open up that page. I think it was. Um, are we just calling 20th century studios Fox because it's easier? Yeah, I would love to do that. This is also part of the problem. Yeah, I would love to do that. I don't want to have to deal with. The Poirot movies, I believe, are 20th century.

Hold on. Okay. So, 2020, all right, hold on. God, I hate when they spread it in between multiple. Okay, 20th Century Studios. So recently, well, send help currently in theaters, 20th century studios. But, yeah, Predator Badlands, Ella McKay was 20th century. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Did you see? No, we talked about the thing where Ella McKay is popular in France. No, we haven't talked. Oh, that was a different. Yes. God bless the French.

God bless the French. Never change French people. Yeah. Never change. And I guess that's where Avatar is getting released through two is through 20th century. So, and again. West Side Story was 20th century. I think that's correct.

Yes, yes. Death on the Nile. But it's also just like some of the... Barbarian. If it doesn't have a box office chance or it's not super expensive, they just kind of dump a lot of their stuff on Hulu, too. There is a lot of that. Even stuff that's good, like, Predator...

What was the Predator one that was on Hulu? Before Badlands. Prey. Prey. Yes. Which they were kind of surprised by. But it's just like, it's kind of... kind of existing for the franchises that would seem inappropriate to throw a Disney banner on it,

like the Planet of the Apes movies, the Alien movies. The Avatar movies, yeah. I guess Springsteen was 20th century this year, but some of that, if I'm correct, the production history of it was like the transition over in the studio heads. It would have originally been a Searchlight movie, and now it ended up being Fox because of of various realignments, et cetera. Yeah. But it's still just like,

it is interesting for a movie like this, that it feels a little bit caught in the tide of, you know, development changeovers or something like that. When a company like Disney, like encompasses Lucasfilm and Marvel and Hulu and, you know, 20th. and all the different, and, you know, Pixar and their own stuff and everything under that same umbrella and sort of the differentiations. Like, obviously, like, Star Wars stuff is going to be Lucasfilm and Marvel stuff is going to be.

But, like, it leads to, I mean, there is an unavoidable degree of brand collapse. And I think we're, you know, sort of living in the age of brand collapse with all of these, you know, consolidations and mergers and whatnot. And there are already so few brands that really stand up. You know what I mean? Which is why I'm so constantly worried about, like, HBO. Because, like, HBO is one of the few remaining things that has, like, a really strong brand identity. And 20th Century Fox was, like, like,

was from an era where all of the studios kind of had their own identity, even if it was imperceptible to most lay people who were just like going to see movies, which didn't really, you know, a Paramount movie from a Columbia movie from a 20th Century Fox movie. Like, it didn't really make much of a difference. But like, there were philosophies and strategies and tendencies and tendencies. that differentiated Fox from Warners, from Paramount, that kind of thing, and people, and you know what I mean?

And personalities. And you're just, it's all, you know, kind of collapsing. I just recently finished reading the big, famous book about the making of Heaven's Gate and how it brought down United Artists. And there's a lot of United Artists history in there. Yeah. And it speaks to this exact thing that even if it was

transparent to the consumer United Artists' identity was always filmmaker focused and filmmaker first. Yes. You know? And that ultimately was part of what created the situation around Heaven's Gate that allowed

for the downfall of United Artists. Yeah. You know, anybody who's read this, you know, come to my corner and we'll talk about the perspective of which that book is written from. I would love that. It's fascinating. I'm going to probably buy it and put it on my shelf and, you know.

Well, it's decorative. You don't know how to read. You never learned. Every once in a while, I'm like, oh, my God, I want to go. I want to finish. Because, you know, I have a permanent bookmark in the middle of Easy Rider's Raging Bulls, and I'm just like, I just want to, like, I want to finish that one. And then I want to go on, and I want to read the one about the bonfire of the vanities. And I want to read the one about Heaven's Gate. And all of those, like, Hollywood, like, stories, obviously are catnip for me. And I can't just... What I would say about Easy Righter's Raging Bulls, and I was having this conversation with a friend recently, is that's the more famous one.

And it's partly the more famous one because so many of those famous people that are in there have tried to discredit what he says. Yeah. Yeah. And I believe that there's a lot of embellishment there. But the better one is down in dirty pictures. That's the better Biscuit book. Well, that's the one I read, like, Lickety Split. Well, but it's also better sourced, too.

Well, probably true. But I love that book. Like, I, you know, you know I sing that book's praises. But anyway, back to, you know, the Oscar buzz conversation for Amsterdam. The other thing about it was everybody involved in this movie had other stuff going on. You know what I mean? and so even like Even Bale?

What's it Bail? Well, Bail had Thor, Love and Thunder, which like, I guess you could say that like that wasn't really, you know, and then John David Washington, this was his only movie that year, I guess. But he was doing the piano lesson on Broadway at that time as well when this movie was coming out. But like Margo had Babylon. And then Christian, I mean, Christian also had the pale blue eye. But I, this is the.

movie he's also producing. So I guess this is probably Christian's, you know, priority, I suppose. But Christian Bale's an interesting figure as an Oscar guy, right? Because he doesn't get nominated until the fighter in 2010. And for so long, there was this sense of Christian Bale as like, the best actor to have never been nominated. Or like, you know, this great actor of this younger generation who, you know, was such a great chameleon for a while and, you know, American Psycho and the machinist and these, you know, things where he's, you know, altering his body and all this sort of stuff. And then he gets Batman. And so now on top of all of that, now he's making like crazy box office. He's, you know, this hugely bankable star, at least in these things. And like his

recognizability is off the charts. And then all of a sudden, he wins the Oscar on his first nomination for the fighter. And then it's like, well, now he can't miss. And now he's getting nominated for things that I would maybe rather he wouldn't, like American Hustle and like Vice. I don't mind that he's nominated for the Big Short, even though I think there are about four other people in the Big Short, I would give that supporting actor nomination to instead of him.

But I understand why he was nominated for that. He just very much feels like the type of actor who the Academy rewards or recognizes for not their best work. Sure, yeah. I know that the fighter is a divisive movie and a divisive performance, but I never got really on board with that whole narrative. But there he is also the quintessential actor who it's like the first time. they get nominated they'll win. Philip Seymour Hoffman was the same. But I think even in Amsterdam, he's as interesting as he's ever been in a David O. Russell movie, to me.

I agree with you. I really like him in this movie. I like him a lot. I like this movie and him in it both better than American Hustle, like for sure. I would say The Fighter as well, but I don't love, I mean, I love Amy Adams in that movie. I think the Fighters are really great movie. I love his stuff with Amy Adams, but like, I. Yeah. I don't know.

What's interesting about Bail's career, though, is the three movies that he makes in 2022, Thor, Amsterdam, Pale Blue Eye, are the only non-English dub movies that he's, that have come out for him since the pandemic. That's interesting. Like The Bride and Madden will be his fourth and fifth movies since COVID. Doesn't that surprising? We have two of the three Amsterdam leads, uh, about, to be or currently in theaters.

That's interesting. I didn't think about that. Yes. I'm very, as you know, I'm very much locked in on The Bride. And have the trailers done anything to assuage your... I think the trailers have made it worse. Have made it worse for me. I'm all for Maggie Jelenhall taking the money and running.

I'm all for that. Do whatever you want. Take their damn money. But I don't think it looks good. I am excited for it. It looks too suicide squady. Speaking of Margo, it looks too suicide squatty to me. I don't...

Honestly, Jesse Buckley doing a suicide squad movie that doesn't have you know, the DC universe in it. Like, I'm fine. I'm good with it. Doing a Frankenstein movie after Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein that I hated so much.

And this is the thing that I've said gives me a little pause because I... We know how I feel about Frankenstein, but... Like, fuck it up. Just like fuck this narrative up. I love it. That shot of Annette Benning looking fucking crazy in the science lab or whatever, I'm just like, yes,

absolutely. Absolutely. I am in. Do you know Magaro's in that movie? Yes. Fuck, yeah. Hell yeah. You know, Macaro's in the big short, too. It doesn't make me like the big short. Fine.

Magaro Bale movies. That's two of them. We'll see if there's any more. Okay, yeah, Madden, of course, I'm dreading like crazy. But Amazon also bought that. There's a very likely possibility that that movie plays three theaters and is then just dumped on the platform for whoever to... Which appears to be the Amazon M.O. For movies that seem like total fucking nightmares.

I'm not speaking about any documentary in particular. I don't even know what you're talking about. That's fine. The bail thing, though, I don't know if I even have heard a narrative as to why he's working so rarely. Like, he had made a ton of movies in the 2010s. You know what I mean? He was churning him out on an average of, like, one to two movies a year for the 2010s. And I don't know what I'm.

else he's doing. But I don't know. I don't know. I suppose He's a parent. Maybe it's something to do with, you know, his kids are hitting a certain age and he wants to focus on that. I'm not sure. Yeah. But anyway, super excited for him in The Bride. Do you actually like him in Amsterdam. Never saw the pale blue eye because it was a Scott Cooper movie. That's the other thing. That Amazon did not give a fuck about.

Sure did not. Sure did not. Did I say Amazon? Netflix. Netflix? Yes, sorry. Barely let people know that that movie existed. Well, the thing about bail, too, is almost from like the time that Batman, no, I guess it's after the Oscar, right?

Where he almost alternates like movie you've heard of to like weird Oscar buzz sinkhole that like never goes anywhere, right? where it's just like, dark night rises out of the furnace. Like, American Hustle, Night of Cups. Like, the big short,

The Promise. Do you remember The Promise? I sure don't. The Terry George movie? Yes, the promise is him and Oscar Isaac, right? Sure is. Yeah.

And it's like vaguely religious. It's, yes, it's a love triangle between those two and Charlotte LeBahn. And it takes place in the Ottoman embers.

The Ottoman embers, of whenever then. Who I would like to talk about that also hasn't really worked that much in recent years is Lubesky. Oh, I wrote this down

because yes, this even shocked me even more. Because Lubeski, yes, there was song-to-song came out in 2017, but was filmed years prior. But since the Revenant, otherwise, he has not worked. The first movie he made. There's also song to song released years later. And then since then, he's made disclaimer with Quaran.

And then he'll have the Inuritu movie this year. Digger. And that's it. Yeah. That's kind of wild. It is. Disclaimer, I never finished. I watched the first episode.

I barely started. you're done here. I did the same thing. I watched the first episode and I'm like, I'm good. Yeah. No, it's crazy to me. Like, he won three Oscars and then he's like, well, now I will take a decade-long vacation. The Revenant broke him.

Did you know the Revenant's getting put for like a one-night only in IMAX? I'm going. Are you really? I'm absolutely going. I mean, I'm more pro the Revenant. I'm not, you know, I'm not calling an ass to be. I should probably give that thing a second chance. maybe not in IMAX, but like in some.

I was just so, I remember thinking at the time, I was like, it was such a, it felt so showy to me. It felt so, um, and maybe it was part of like the whole like DeCaprio Oscar narrative or whatever, but it was just like, look at these hardships. And to a certain degree, it's very okay. Right, right. You know, two would end. It's punishing.

I'd watch it again to see. Donald Gleason again and Tom Hardy. That'd be fun. Lubesky is also, the idea of Lubesky doing a Russell movie is interesting. And I do think Amsterdam looks beautiful. I don't really know why you need to have the Lubesky thing in this environment other than, you know, he's someone who, a lot of his work is meticulous, but he's also worked in these improvisational environments as well, where you can have a camera that just rolls and rolls and rolls and is working with multiple actors and has that type of choreography. What I think is so interesting is because the other thing about Lubesky is at some point,

he really locked in on like three filmmakers or three filmmaking entities, right? It was Malik. It was Quaron and it was Iniarut. and with, I guess, some Coen's thrown in there, but, like, it was mostly, it was, I guess, just burn after reading. The Coen stayed with Deacons for the most part. So it was, yeah, it was Quaron, Malik, and Iniaratu. And since that third Oscar, he's made, well, song to song, as you mentioned, like film before, but like whatever, has released a Malik movie, is going to have released a Niyaratu movie. And to have the sort of outlier in there be David O. Russell, of all people, like I am going, like, I'm not going to work very much, but when I do work, it's going to be for this like notoriously hard to work with person. And it's just like, I don't know, Chivo, like, do your thing. But, sorry, I'm disregarding last days in the desert, the, the Rodrigo Garcia movie where you and McGregor is Jesus. On some level, he is one of the this had Oscar buzziest cinematographers because previous this had Oscar buzz episodes shot by Chivo.

Yeah. Great expectations. Meet Joe Black and things you can tell just by looking at her. Yes. I had to go look and see. And to the wonder, to the wonder too. I had to go see who did the cinematography for the way of the wind. The ephemeral.

The Jesus movie that we will not see until Malik is dead. That is never going to get released ever. We'll see it when he dies. That's my theory now. Yorg Widmer is however we. we actually pronounce that, is the cinematographer, and that is a person who does not have a Wikipedia page. I wonder if that is one of Malik's students or something.

There's probably someone who is on, if you look it up on IMDB. Who did a Hidden Life? Oh, also he did the cinematography for Hidden Life. Okay. Well, there you go, so he's not one of Malik's students. Lubeski is also, per IMDB, signed up to do El-Lee's next movie. Do you know the title of this movie? Does it have a title?

Apparently. What? Gold Mountain. Wait, what? I think either one of two things. You can't do that. Or we are now contractually obligated to have bold Mountain. Oh, Gold Mountain.

Sold Mountain. Okay, Tyra. Mold Mountain. Stop, Tyra. Mold Mountain. What's your favorite kind of cheese? Rolled Gold Mountain. Do you eat pretzels?

when you watch movies. Bold Mountain. What's your hottest take? Listeners are like, fuck this. These idiots, these fucking idiots. Hold Mountain. Are you a hugger? Lulled Mountain.

What made you laugh today? Thold Mountain. Do you make your bed every day? Idge Bold Mountain. Stop it. Nope. Can't. Can't do itge Bold Mountain.

I won't allow it. I won't allow it. fucking Christ All right Anyway Yeah Emmanuel Lebeski Honestly if he's doing movies for

Iniaratoo and Angley coming up Then like I have no complaints Do it Gold Mountain We're complaining about all of these Top Tier actors You know Not working with like

New directors Why we should be like Lubeski Go make a movie for a first time director I suppose so Although sometimes it's like That's an awful big weapon to wield For somebody who's

You know, doesn't know how to use it maybe I mean David O'Russel is not a first time director Any time he directs the movie We gotta jump into De Niro though Because this is our sixth De Niro Yes, yes I think De Niro in this movie is good And also is kind of just playing the hits

But like that's fine I like seeing De Niro as a figure of pure integrity in this because I do feel like he has maybe it's just Killers of the Flower Moon that's just like oh my God he's playing like the worst person where it's nice

to see him in this movie and he's just like nope I am taciturn and soft spoken but I have integrity and seemingly a functional marriage to Beth Grant what was the thing she says

she calls him You refers to him as the general, and he's like, you call your husband the general, and she says, only on weekdays. And then bail goes, what do you call him on weekends? And she says, that's a very personal question. And then immediately De Niro opens the door and he says, she's always joshing people. It's my favorite thing about her. It's great. She's so wonderful. All right. So, six-timers quiz, Fort Robert De Niro. We started off with flawless. That was our first De Niro, followed by He followed by New York, New York for our 70s spectacular, followed by great expectations, and now we have just done a back-to-back Robert De Niro with Being Flynn and Amsterdam. So in my eternal quest to shake things up quiz-wise, I am not doing the trailers quiz that we've

done more recently. I wanted to do something short and punchy, because as we've talked about before. We have a lineup of like 40 actors who are about to get their six-timer. So we're going to be trying some stuff. So this game for Robert De Niro's six-timers quiz is the parental guidance game. And so what I have done is I've gone into IMDB and I've picked out one parental guidance notification for each of these six movies. I'm going to review those and then you are going to, one for each movie. And so you are going to, as we go through them, assign it to one of the movies. And then once they're all through, I will give you one chance to sort of shake up your, to, you know, make changes. And then I will declare you right or wrong on all six. Okay. So you have

your titles written down? Yes. Okay. Once again, for the listeners, Flawless, the Joel Schumacher movie, Michael Mann's Heat, Martin Scorsese's New York, New York, Alfonso Quaron's Great Expectations, Paul White's being Flynn, and David O' Russell's, Amsterdam. Okay, the first one, under the heading of alcohol, drugs, and smoking, which has been deemed moderate in this movie, quote, a man snorts cocaine in a couple scenes. There are many people who drink a lot in scenes. A few men smoke crack, including protagonist. Am I giving the movies up front or are we doing these?

I'm going to have you guess as you go along and then at the end I'm going to let you, you know, give a second opinion. You know what I mean? Like, you know, straighten them all out. This is Being Flynn. You are saying Being Flynn. All right. Second one, under the header, frightening and intense scenes, mild. Quote, there are a lot of scary slash intimidating scenes where the male lead threatens the female.

lead physically and emotionally, and they could be intense for anyone with these triggers. That is New York, New York. New York, New York. Third one under the header, profanity, which is deemed severe. Countless F words in its derivatives, anatomical terms, especially dick and cock, homophobic insults, many uses of faggot, and two clear, aggressive uses of cunt. This is flawless. flawless. All right. Number four, under the header Sex and Nudity, which is deemed mild.

I'm redacting character names. Redacted and redacted start kissing in the rain, and then they are shown in his apartment, kissing passionately, about to make love, and she tells him, I want you inside me. They are both nude, but nothing is shown. Later, she is seen nude from behind, glimpse of her breast. This is great expectations, though I wouldn't necessarily call it mild. they sure like detail a lot to declare it mild she also spends a lot of that movie naked for it to be called mild there's a lot of well I'm not going to go into it sex and nudity is the next one sex and nudity which is deemed mild a man and woman kiss each other it cuts to them in bed the next morning while she is still sleeping it's implied that they had sex

no nudity I only have heat in Amsterdam left or one of the other ones that you were wrong about. Hmm. Yeah. Well, that could also be flawed. Maybe the language one is heat. And this is flawless.

All right. Yeah, that's what I'll say. All right. Once this is all done, you can go through them all and straighten them out. All right. Finally, under the header of violence and gore, moderate, woman shoved in front of car, run over, body smashed underneath car. Not New York, New York.

This is Amsterdam, for sure. All right. So I will run through, again, I will say them all, and then you can give me your one through six. Number one, alcohol, drugs, and smoking, moderate. A man snorts cocaine in a couple scenes. There are many people who drink a lot in scenes. A few men smoke crack, including protagonist. Being Flynn is the only one that I remember people smoking crack.

All right. So you're locking in being fun. Number two, frightening and intense. There are a lot of scary, intimidating scenes where the male lead threatens the female lead physically and emotionally. They could be intense for anyone with those triggers. This is absolutely New York, New York. You're locking in New York, New York, New York. Number three, profanity, countless F words and its derivatives, anatomical terms, especially Dick and Cock, homophobic insults, many uses of faggot, and two clear aggressive uses of cunt. One of my favorite sentences.

Especially Dick and Cock is the name of our post. Whenever this has Oscar buzz shuts down, we're just going to do a show about like male nudity on screen or something and call it especially Dick and Cock. This is heat. All right. You're locking in heat. Number four, redacted and redacted start kissing in the rain. They are shown in his apartment kissing passionately. I want you inside me.

Nude but nothing is shown. She is seen later from behind glimpse of her breast. I'm pretty sure in the great expectation. episode. We even made fun of her saying, I want you inside me. All right. You're locking in... It's just like, ew, icky, icky, icky. Locking in great expectations. Number five, sex and nudity, a man and woman kiss each other.

It cuts to them in bed the next morning while she is still sleeping. It's implied they had sex, no nudity. This is absolutely De Niro and Daphne Ruben Vega and flawless. Locking in flawless. And finally, woman shoved in front of car, run over, body smashed underneath car. Amsterdam. Locking in Amsterdam. All right. Out of six, you got

four correct. What, how? Which once did I get wrong? You were initially right about flawless, and then you moved off of it. Flawless is the one with dick and cock and faggot and cunt. And a man and woman kiss each other, cuts to them in bed the next morning while she is still sleeping. No nudity is

heat. Wow. I was very wrong, especially about the dick and cock. Especially Dick and Cock has a fun with Dick and Jane sort of. Right, right. This is the gay fun with Dick and Jane, especially Dick and Cock. Especially Dick and Cock. And it's like Dick Sanders and like Jimmy Cocklestein or whatever.

And it's a buddy cut movie, especially Dick and Cock. But queered. All right. Well done. Yeah. Especially Dick and Cock. And you did it at my birthday. All right.

Well done on the Robert De Niro Sixth Timers Quiz. That was fun. and brief. This movie got a BAFTA nomination. For costume design. For costume design. It lost to the buzzsaw of the costume category, as always. Catherine Martin for Elvis, you weren't going to fucking beat Catherine Martin, you fool. You absolute idiot. Can I make a case for a movie that

for a category it should have been Oscar nominated? Hit me. I actually did like the costumes in this. I don't mind the costume nomination. It should have been nominated in makeup and hairstyling. Yeah, there's good makeup. A lot of good scars. It did make the short list. Did it? Okay. What else was on that shortlist? The actual nominees, which the whale wins.

Listeners know how we feel about that. Also nominated All Quiet on the Western Front, the Batman, Black Panther Reconda Forever, and Elvis. The shortlist is Amsterdam, Babylon, blonde, crimes of the future, and emancipation. Remember emancipation. Sure don't. Absolutely don't. Even having never seen emancipation, I'm going to say that the five potential nominees that were shortlisted but not nominated. It's a better lineup than the actual lineup.

Probably true. Certainly, I would imagine Amsterdam, Crimes of the Future, Babylon, at the very least. I mean, crimes of the future should have won. But Amsterdam, I do think, you know, it's a lot of those facial scars and such making us believe that, you know, Christian Bale has a glass eye. It would also be a nomination from Mike Myers wearing Cocoa Montreys contact lenses. And also, whatever they did to Ollifant to make him look like Crispin Glover. Yeah, to make him look like Dawson Leary. with, you know.

With Crispin Glover's fate. Yeah. Yeah. Dawson-Leary Center part, Crispin Glover face. No, I think you're totally right. I think there were some other little, like, rando precursors that, but they were, like, either regional critics or, like, the Yoga Awards. I think it got a yoga nominee.

The Yoga Awards. We used to have fun ones with Yoga Awards we could bring up on. Recently, it's just felt like whenever it shows up, it's, all right, all right. Speaking of the BAFTA's, though. So this year, this year, 2025, the BAFTA nominations were announced the week after the Oscar nominations. It's the first time I, in my experience that that has happened. It may have, they may have used to do that before. But what did you think of seeing the BAFTA nominations after the fact?

And in particular, I brought this up in the group chat, how freaked out we all would have been with Amy Madigan not showing up and supporting actress. Yeah, that absolutely would have sent everybody into a tailspent. I think it would have also made people even angrier that Chase Infinity showed up here and not with Oscar. I think that's more so just a sign of how close it was. Oh, because she did get the BAFTA nomination? Yes, yes. And though it also would have made us even more. excited for that Delroy Lindo nomination

because it really did come out of nowhere. We're like... Because he doesn't get the last nomination. He didn't show up anywhere, anywhere, anywhere. Their supporting actress is honestly, even if I don't fully agree with all of these choices, I think it's a really interesting list. Well, first of all, Carrie Mulligan gets nominated

for the Ballad of Wallace Island, which is crazy. Not that she's bad, but like Ballot of Wallace Island is just not very much of anything. IMO. But it's... I do love when the BAFTAs just decide that they're just going to, like, zero in on something incredibly UK, and we're just going to, like, go for it. They should.

Every individual group should be doing their own thing. Not like you're consciously, but in an age where groups, like, I don't know, certain precursors, really just feel like they're doing the thing that they're trying to predict the Oscars, which I sometimes think is a thing. sometimes don't. But I do think, you know, idiosyncrasy is a good thing for any voting group to have. BFTAs nominate Peter Mullen every year. Just do it. You know what I mean? That's your thing.

I love it. I think this is great. Now I want to check out this movie, I swear, which, like, I had never heard of before. Opens in April from Sony Pictures Classics. But, like, a sporting actress, Bafthas, Odessa ASEAN for Marty Supreme, Ingah, Ibsda, Lilius for sentimental value, not L'Fanning.

So that would have been another one where I think people would have been like, you know, even more kind of pleasantly surprised by that L. Fanning Oscar nomination. Wunmi Musaku for Sinners, who turned out to be like fucking rock solid

all season in that category in a way where like, I remember Even though she missed the globe. That is true. It's I guess everything since the globe. But like otherwise, like I remember being like very, very like hand-ringy about like, oh God,

is when Moonsaco gonna make it. So, sorry, go ahead. No, I was gonna say, Carrie Mulligan, as we talked about. Carrie Mulligan, Ballad of Wallace Island, Tiana Taylor. Emily Watson for Hamnet, who I think we were both really happy to finally see show up somewhere. I love that nomination. I think she's so good in that movie. I understand why she sort of is not talked about as much, because, like, you do get overshadowed,

especially as the movie sort of moves towards the end and she's not around towards the end. But, like, I think she rocks in that movie. Yeah, and it's also, like, we're always kind of rooting for her as an actress. Absolutely. And I feel like she's been on a heater a little bit the last few years because she was in... Chernobyl. She was in Chernobyl. That was so good.

She was so good, I thought, in small things like these. And then she was in that movie, is it God's Creatures that I still haven't seen, but is supposedly really good. She's so good. With Paul Mescal. She is so good. Yeah, I gotta still see that. Another movie A-24 tried to pretend didn't exist. And then she was in that Dune Prophecy Show, which I thought she was, for as much as that show didn't really do anything for anybody.

I thought she was good in it. So, like, good for Emily Watson for, like, you know, getting that nomination and capitalizing on the last few years of, like, being fucking rat and stuff. So happy about that. And then Tiana Taylor shows up in this category. Tiana Taylor. showing up here, Amy Madigan not showing up here, is the kind of thing that I needed to finally feel safe and comfortable that Tiana Taylor is winning an Oscar, and I'm so happy. I don't know if I would lock it down, but I definitely feel like she's definitely the favorite.

She's the odds on favorite, for sure. 100%. I do feel like supporting actor could go goofy this year. It could be anybody. I do. To the point where I'm like, I'm not counting out. Delroy. Like, I'm really not. Especially because I do feel like, as I've said previously a couple of times, in so many of these categories, I think it's just going to be sinners or one battle. And I think with the two one battle guys splitting their votes, I think you could really see

a world in which Delroy Lindo wins that Oscar. And I think that there is a lot of sentiment and a lot of favorability around that ensemble. and I think that Delroy Lindo is kind of in the best position to win of that lineup. Yes. Although the love of the ensemble.

Of the sinners nominated actors is what I mean. Oh, yes. Yes. I agree with that. Yes. I think Stellan is going to win because I kind of feel like... Yeah, I think that's the smart money right now. Well, and I think that he is that movie's best... Is that movie's maybe clear as path to a win,

even though supporting actor does feel like it could kind of go in any direction. I do kind of feel like the heat is off of a lordy in a way. Maybe not if Wuthering Heights is huge, huge. Yeah. Because it just feels like the heat is off of that movie a little bit. They're not going to give it to Salomey and a lordy, though. Like, that's, that's, Oscars tendencies against giving Oscars to young men is not going to bend that much. I think if they're...

I understand the logic of that. I just don't know if the average voter is going to tie that together enough. I don't know if they necessarily even need to. I think it's just like they're stepping out of a tendency to award Chalame. I just don't know if they would also step out of a tendency to award the Lordy. But we'll see. We shall see. The nice thing about these Oscar nominations this year is that, like, most of them are really good.

And I'm going to be happy with pretty much anybody who wins an acting award this year. Like, it really, there are very few people nominated for acting who I would be, like, upset if they want. And if it happened, like, it's down to like... In the realm of reality? Right. Like, if Emma Stone somehow won for Bagonia, and I hate, I hate... The one thing that I do hate about all of this is that it really is forcing me to be, like, meaner towards Emma Stone than I want to be, because I love her. And I think she's so talented and she's so good.

But no, Emma Stone... And she's great in that movie. If Emma Stone won an Oscar for Bagonia, I would be really... I would be upset. But, like, everybody else nominated this year is so good, and I really, really fucking love all of them. I love Kate Hudson. Nope, I would be so happy.

I love Kate Hudson. I love people's love for that movie. If she won, I don't know if I'd love it. I'd start a great mystery. I don't know if I would love that. I would love it. I would absolutely. Not because it's her, but I don't know.

I'm happy for her And I'm happy for people who are happy for her I would love it All right Anything else we want to say about Amsterdam Before we move into the IMDB game Let me check my notes Yeah I'm gonna resolve

I said friendship cinema I mentioned the Andrea Rysbro Alessandro Navola scene Which I thought was so funny Still wish this had been a drunk history Oh it reminded me a little bit of the Brothers Bloom A couple of times With the whole you know

Which I still need to see The triptych of it all. And also the eccentricity of that triptych. But, you know, it's a different movie. I don't know if I have much more to say. It would just be more of what I've kind of already asserted. I do think that this is not, it's certainly not boring. It's certainly not boring to talk about this movie.

Yeah. I think it has a lot in its favor that people may not realize because people either have forgotten that this movie exists or didn't like it. Yeah. But at the same time, most of what's happening in this movie is not working. I like it better than you, I think. I think that's fair to say. I don't think it's perfect, but, like, I was really, really happy with how much I enjoyed it this time around.

Yeah. And I think we agree on the things we like about this movie. Yeah, I think that's true. I think that's true. Yeah. All right. Can you tell the listeners, what is up with the IMDV game? Hey, 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 that they are most known for. If any of those titles are television, voice only performances, or non-acting credits, we 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. Sure does. That's the IMD game. Sure is.

Okay. So, with that in mind, what you like, to give first or guess first. I'm going to go first just in the fear of we might have picked the same person, who I was surprised to find out that we'd never done before. Okay. Interesting. Maybe that's one of those clerical errors, and we have done this before.

Who you got for me? I chose the adversary in commerce herself, Isabella Rossellini. I don't think we have done her before. You know what the shame is? Her Instagram is not in her known. It's too bad. All those bug videos. All those bug videos.

You made us live here among the goats. That's Isabella Rossellini's roommate. All right. Isabella Rossellini is interesting because, like, there really is a breath of ways you could go with this. I'm going to say to begin with Blue Velvet. Correct. I'm going to say Conclave? Conclave.

All right. Her Oscar nomination. Her Oscar nomination. Okay. I do feel like joy is a possibility. Are you guessing joy? Not yet. What does possibility mean? No, I'm just putting that on a, on a, on a, on a woodcut in my bathroom.

Joy as a possibility. So that onto a pillow. This is your transcendental meditation phrase that you need to repeat to yourself 50 times every morning upon waking. Joy is a possibility. No, I'm going to say death. comes her. Correct. Okay.

All right. Three, three. You're at, you're knocking on the door of a perfect score. Okay. So. No television, too. So damn it, Johnny, you know. My big be from chatter.

God, that's two 30 rock references in one episode. I think that's the 30 rock reference we've done most on this show. And by that, I mean, we mention it every other episode. I love it. That's so good. Okay. So I just want to make sure that I'm not missing any. anything like hugely obvious from the like 80s or early 90s.

What are you laughing at me for? Damn it, Johnny. I love my big beef and cheddar. Because it's a funny joke on its own. And she doesn't like biting her. It's the context of who you are asking to say those words. Yeah. And that's what like shoots it into the stratosphere.

Yeah. The idea of Isabella Rossellini having a big beef and cheddar. I know. She loves it. Ugh, big beef and cheddar. Disgusting. But also. I may have never.

have actually had Arby's. And I love a roast beef sandwich, but, like, we have too much, like, actual roast beef places in, or, like, places you can get a roast beef but it's, like, it's hot roast beef that's been sitting out for a while. Yeah. But kept hot

and then put on, like, a soggy bun with barbecue sauce and cheese sauce. That's gross. I mean, you're giving me back with the barbecue sauce and cheese sauce. But, yeah, no, but it's just, like, I could get a good, I could get a good hot roast beef sandwich at so many places around here.

Like, I don't need a lot of Arbyes. Anyway. I'm going to say joy. Joy is incorrect. Damn it. No perfect score for you. Isabella, Isabella, Isabella, Rossellini.

I feel like I'm missing something like Obvi. Us. Um, Big Knight. Big Night is incorrect. Your year is 1993. Oh, God, is it fearless?

It's fearless. I literally had the thought of like, it's not going to be fearless. Like, that's such a small role and nobody remembers that movie. She's good in that movie. No, Lachimera. No Problemista. Isabella Rossellini is very good and fearless, and Rosie Perez is even better, and that's why, and she got the Oscar nomination. But, like, I always felt a little bad that, like, both Jeff Bridges and Isabella

Rossellini probably could have also been nominated for that movie. It's very good. Anywho. Isabella. Isabella. Okay, so for you, I went down the Margot Robbie route through the cast of Babylon,

and who's there, very briefly, playing a cop in Babylon, but baby boy Patrick Fuget. Oh, I forgot that. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. This is going to be a little difficult.

Almost famous. Yes. Is skin? on there? No, what's skin? Jonas Akerlin's like meth Oh, that movie. Skin? No, not.

Not that. Okay. Do you mean spun? Spun! Yeah, it's not spun. Yeah. Not skin, though. There's definitely a movie called skin.

There is. That's the guinette of movie, right, though? The one about J.B. Bell and the one that was the awful short movie that won the movie that won the Oscar. The movie that thinks that it's like. like being good and anti-racist, that's actually, like, bad. I guess I have to say Babylon.

No. Okay. So that's two strikes. Did you get... Oh, fuck. One of my favorite movies. I know it's going to be there. Just give me my ears.

0-4-06, 2014. 2014. 2014 is gone girl. Yeah, sure is. Yeah. What are the years again? He's so funny and Gone Girl. He hates...

Well, if Tiffany says... He hates... He hates Affleck so much of that movie. He and Kim Dickens are a great. The part of the movie where she looks at him, she's like, you really don't like him, D. Yeah. So great. Very meta.

All right. I know that we're like, Patrick Fugge's so great. And I'm like, here's a bunch of things Kim Dickens says. No, but she's also, like, the two of them together are great. All right. So of these two movies, I think one is easier to guess than the other. One of them exists, to me at least, is just like exists as a title. Okay. And it's 06. And 04. Yes, you're 06.04. What would he have been in?

Because this is an awkward time for him. He's in Spun. Yes. Not the greatest time for anyone who is in Spun. One of them, okay, so neither one of them is like exactly on the Spun wavelength. Spun is more of a havoc. Is one of these a horror movie? No, neither one of them are horror, although one has. like supernatural ghosty thing. Sort of, yeah. They both have a little bit of like an ecclesiastical bent, actually.

Oh, so they're both like religious. Sort of. But not like that you would avoid. But they both have like their own like have to do it. But it's not like

the order starring Heath Ledger. No. Okay. I believe they're both comedies, although one is a darker comedy than The other one. Is one, like, wrist cutters?

Wrist cutters a love story. In fact, it's the 06 one. So that's the one I was, I said, was just existed as a title. I've never seen that one. It's the other one like down to you. No. The other one's more of a comic. So is it like an afterlife comedy?

It's not about the afterlife. That's not the, that's not the angle. It's pretty good cast in this thing. The director, I don't know if he ever went on to do other things. The main star, like, he plays, like, the love interest for, no, again, it's 04, so, like, it's a comedy, but, like, what were comedies like in the odds? Teen comedies. Yes. It's a teen comedy.

He is, oh. It's not the girl next door. There are five people on the poster. Two of them are related to Oscar winners. One of them played the younger version of an Oscar winner in a movie. Is one of them Emma Roberts? No, but that's a very good guess given those clues. One of them is a pop star.

And was a pop star at the time. Mandy Moore. Mm-hmm. Okay, Mandy Moore movies in 2004. Mm-hmm. What am I with an ecclesiastical bent? Yeah. Yes.

And punctuation. Oh, saved. It's saved. It's saved. It is. It is. Duh. I know listeners are screaming saved at me this whole time.

Jenna Malone played the young Jody Foster in contact. McCauley Culkin and Eva Amurray are both related to Oscar winners. It's all happening. It's all happening for saved. I think that's it. Good episode, everybody. All done. High five.

All right. Listeners, if you want more of this at oscarbuzz. You can check out the Tumblr at thisheadoscarbuzz.tum.com. You should also check out the Instagram at this had Oscar buzz. Chris, where can the listeners find more of you? Letterbox and Blue Sky at Chris V-File. That's F.E.I.L. I'm Letterbox and Blue Sky at Joe Reed, read spelled R.E.I.D.

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From now until the future. Not just a plot thematic joke. Exactly. That is all for this week. But we hope you'll be back next week for more buzz. Thank you.