This Had Oscar Buzz - 385 – Billy Bathgate

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

We’re journeying back to the early 1990s this week to discuss the forgotten failure Billy Bathgate. Adapted from E.L. Doctorow’s Pulitzer finalist, the film cast Dustin Hoffman as real-life mobster Dutch Schultz opposite a Loren Dean as the fictionalized street kid who falls under his wing. With Bruce Willis in a supporting role at the peak … Continue reading "385 – Billy Bathgate"

House. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Mill and... I'm from Canada Water. Dick Poop. Academy number one. So I'm the public enemy.

So what are? Public benefactor. To a kid from the streets. Hey, Billy! Dutch Schultz was everything he could ever dream of being. What were you? Billy Bathgate? You in a gang?

No, sir. I'd expect to learn anything. I think for the real training, you gotta go right to the top. So he was. watched. He killed that man. Forget it. He listened.

Why are you always listening to what he shouldn't be listening to? And he learned that you ever fire a gun. No, sir. Then you should learn. Hello and welcome to this had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that says welcome to the suck. And by that we mean a world where Peter Sarsgaard remains unnominated. Every week on this head Oscar buzz will be talking about a different movie that once

upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations. But for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died and we're here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with my gangster, who is technically 34, but somehow looks like 67? Joe Reed. That was a mean intro, but we got to talk about how Dustin Hoffman is old. Yes. Yes.

Well, is he playing 34 because the actual guy died at 34? And, well, I mean, given the events of the movie, then yes. I mean, even when he's playing Benjamin Braddock supposedly, what, like 24, it's like, sure. Sure, yes. He exited the womb at 57. I feel like, so I was Googling around for stuff about this movie. And I found a bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb. Yes, but, and one that I think people saw coming,

because there was an EW article from like the week before the movie opened, where Robert Benton was like, this isn't a troubled production. Stop saying it's a troubled production. Which is the surefire sign that it's a troubled production. Right. And I think one of the things that the article mentioned was disputes over whether Dustin Hoffman, Dustin Hoffman, who had worked with Robert Benton, of course, on Kramer versus Kramer,

whether Hoffman was too old for the role, and like, among many things, other things being that Dustin Hoffman reportedly wanted to have the same kind of relationship with Lauren Dean as he had with Justin Henry on Kramer versus Kramer, which was essentially... Lauren Dean was not eight years old. Well, this is sort of the thing where they were like, on Kramer versus Kramer, often Robert Benton would filter his direction to the kid through Hoffman so that the father and son could have, you know, this very close relationship, but ultimately the kid wouldn't be

getting, you know, wouldn't be hearing things from multiple people. He would only be hearing things from Hoffman. And Benton's like, you kind of can't do that with like an adult person, even if he is like kind of young. So. And ultimately, it just serves to make Hoffman sound like a control freak, as many reports will prove him to be. Well, and the other thing that Benton says, because there was also this, you know, rumors that he and Hoffman had a falling out. And he's like, Dustin and I are fine. We talk to each other on the phone. The last conversation we had was him asking if we could do reshoots and me telling him we couldn't do reshoots.

But we're fine. Which sounds, you know, fully non-macrimonious. Like, it's a very funny article. Can we do reshoots so that I can do what I want to do? No. Yeah. And then it's like, and that's the last. time we had a conversation.

And it's just like, it felt very like, I'm not owned. Don't type, don't, you know, don't type that I'm owned. So, yeah, Billy Bathgate, not like in an era where there were real, um, spectacular flops, the, the, the, the bonfire or the vanities, your Hudson Hawke, speaking of movies with Bruce Willis and them. This was not on that level, but it was definitely a real kind of,

a real kind of, you know, belly flop. There's the, the Wikipedia page has the Steve Bussemi quote where he says, Dustin liked to rehearse on camera, so he'd end up doing a lot of takes. Before we'd even do the tape,

we might discuss the scene for a long time. The crew would be waiting around outside, and we wouldn't even be rehearsing the scene just talking about it. So it sounds like it's a lot of that. It sounds like it's a lot of like Dustin Hoffman taking, trying to sort of, you know, take over. This was also right around the time that he had, he was doing Hook. Like I feel like also. It's the same year as Hook, too.

Yeah. Yeah. So. problems during Yeah, definitely, you know, among the most favorite of the Spielberg filmography. Yeah. I mean, people have been like pop-tomists about Hook lately.

Or not maybe lately, but maybe in the past decade. No, like for a long time, yeah. I definitely was kind of a hook kid. I remember the McDonald's toys from Hook. I had a Hook board game. We had Hook recorded from the Disney Channel on a VHS, and we watched it all the time. Like, I was definitely, you know, my brother and I and my sister, I think, too, were very, very much into Hook for that reason.

We were just like, we were part of that generation. Yeah. I need to watch Hook as an adult, and I've meant to for the past few years, just to be, just to figure out how I would actually feel about this. Because sometimes it does seem like the type of movie where it's a lot of things aligning for people to overdo it. on how bad that thing is. Because my perception, my expectation when I go back to watch Hook will be, this movie's not good,

but it's fine. It's not some disaster the way that it's blown out to be. Julia Roberts is not, you know, terrible in it, you know? Right, sure. X, Y, and C. I think also, though, that movie had so, such high expectations, given that it's Stephen Spielberg

doing a Peter Pan story, like Steven Spielberg, the literal like Peter Pan of Hollywood throughout the 80s, that was his whole reputation, was that he was, you know, this adult who was making, you know, bringing this like childlike sense of, you know, wonder and adventure into his movies and whatnot. Doesn't it feel like Spielberg, too, usually has a star in his movies, like a big, huge headliner, but not several of them? Because, you know, Hook, you got Hoffman, you got Williams, you got Roberts.

And that's three huge names of that moment. It doesn't really feel like Spielberg necessarily does that. Even with Disclosure Day, they're not the hugest stars in the world. Like, Emily Blunt is a movie star, but Emily Blunt is not a Robin Williams, you know? Right. Well, and also, like, movie stars back in the early 90s are not the same as movie stars. Correct, yeah. So it's that kind of thing, too.

No, totally. I think there is, how could it might be an interesting exception to do. There's too many Oscar nominations, though. How many did it get? I think it, no, it got like four. We've done movies with four before. Okay.

For some reason, I thought it only got like two. Hold on. That's something that would be interesting to talk about. Did it win one? Well, let's look. Okay, hold on. It was nominated for five Oscars. Motherfucker.

Okay, that is too many. For a really hated movie. Five nominations. Original song, makeup, visual effects, costume, art direction. So, like, all of the nominations that you get when you are a big movie that was touted to be one of the major movies of the year and was a flop. And they're like, well, we'll still give you all of these nominations. But that's five is two.

I mean, you see all, you see every penny on screen in that movie. You do. And it's all. On top of Dustin Hoffman's head. Man, though, that song is goopy and... I don't know if I remember the song. It's essentially... They essentially got a redo of the Home Alone nomination.

It's John Williams and Leslie Brickuse, and it's called When You're Alone. And it's the one that the little girl sings. And I'm pretty sure on the Oscars, they had the little girl from Hook sing the song. And it's like, folks, we already gave you one. for home alone. And that was a movie that was like, you know, a success. To bring it back a little bit to Billy Bathgate, there's something that I, it's something

that activated in my brain with like preparing for and then watching this movie. I don't know if we've ever talked about this, but like when I was a kid, I had a like big, like brick of a book that I wore out that was like nothing but like stats and trivia and like like the 10 the top 10 of like different things with like there was like science stuff never read those pages but there was like a whole entertainment section the great big book of lists yes yes and it was like you know the top 10 album selling albums of all time before the internet this is how we do what we did with lists and I wish that I had it but I know I remember that book like falling apart in my hands because I would constantly be opening it to the same pages, right?

Sure. And I only ever remembered Billy Bathgate because it was a footnote with Bruce Willis and Hudson Hawk being some of the biggest bombs. And it was like, it had to have been something to the extent of it. Oh, and he's also in Bonfire of the Vanities. I didn't even remember that. So, yeah, the Bruce Willis flop, flop era was significant. Right.

Well, it was some type of list, and of course there's like a blurb after it that, and at the time of publication, because I don't know if this is still true or not, it was like the biggest box office bombs, the movies that lost the most money. And number one, can you guess what it would have been in the time of my childhood? Number one money loser? Yes. I don't know. What was it? Cutthroat Island. Sure.

Yes. that was because that was around the time of Waterworld too and the thing with Waterworld was like well at least it made a lot of that money back because it did make a decent number but like Post Waterworld pre the Postman Cutthroat Island was like oh that all of the problems and also it's awful and also nobody saw it

Well and this was the thing when the first Pirates of the Caribbean came out right that they were like I don't know can Disney make money off of a pirate movie, these things are expensive and have been big bombs. But I remember Billy Bathgate being tied to Hudson Hawk. And I still don't know what Hudson Hawk is other than that it lost so much money. Hudson Hawk's one of those movies that I've seen the first five minutes of so many times because it like, if you're watching something on TV and you like roll into the next movie and you're like, this looks kind of interesting.

and I've seen like, and inevitably it becomes Hudson Hawk, and you're just like, oh, okay. And then you sort of move on to other things. But one of these days I will sit down and watch because I know that Hudson Hawk is a movie that has some principled defenders. And I want to sort of see, sort of like a last action hero style, like has principled defenders. And I rewatched Last Action Hero recently. I was a Last Action Hero kid. I liked Last Action Hero.

I think, I don't know if I would necessarily go so far as to be like, no, this is is like secretly a masterpiece. But like it's definitely a much more interesting movie. Speaking of like recently departed Tom Noonan, like Tom Noonan. Tom Noonan who was left out of the Inmemorium? Such a scary villain in that movie. Was he one of the people who was left out of the in memoriam? Am I crazy? I feel like I saw a list of people who were left out of the in memoriam and I think Noon is. And of course there's like a process like his people would have had to have submitted him. And he had died fairly recently. I think I had texted this. Um, yes, uh, notable emissions from the in-memorium segment this year included.

Lonnie Anderson, Brigitte Bardot, Robert Caradine, Richard Chamberlain, Bud Court. Well, fuck Brigitte Bartow. Well, yes. Um, Budcourt, though, Eric Dane, Samantha Egger, Hulk Hogan. Fuck Hulk Hogan. Fuck Hulk Hogan. Also. Polly Holiday.

Tom Noonan, James Vanderbeek, Malcolm Jamal Warner, Peter Watkins, and George Went. Um, uh, there's some significant names. Budcourt might have been too soon. Well, Noonan and Court were both. pretty recent. So I wonder, and James Vanderbik as well. James Vanderbik, who's mostly known for television, but I say Varsity Blues was popular. Yeah, his one clip for, like, a movie would have been him saying, I don't want your life. I don't want your life.

Yes. Also, the Rules of Attraction was a significant text for recently coming out me. Also significant text, how anti-Vax he was. Anyway, So my surprise, I had always in, like, my concept of Billy Bathgate was, it's a Bruce Willis movie because it's the only way if it ever really presented itself to me. I had no idea he was in this movie. And he barely it. He has a few scenes at the beginning of the movie.

It's an odd length of performance for somebody who was that big of a star. It's not quite a cameo, but it's not a major. too. It's like he just walked out from the set of moonlighting. Was moonlighting still running at this time? I imagine so. There you go. The only other way I remembered this movie and I maybe want to save this discussion for the

plot description, but I've always remembered this as Nicole Kidman's first Golden Globe nomination. Yes, definitely. Oh no, moonlighting had ended, I guess, in 1989, so these just post-moonlighting. It does look like he wandered into the set off from like

a Golden Globe ceremony. Yeah. Then they tie a cinderlock to his feet and throw him in... They do, like literal cement shoes. Like, yeah, I don't know if I've seen that in a movie. So that's cool. Yeah, this cast is interesting. Dutch Schultz is a famous American gangster

who will show up every once in a while in, you know, in small roles in movies, where it's just like he's sort of the kind of the boogeyman off screen. Lucky Luciano is also a character who shows up in things like Boardwalk Empire and other things. But both of them were characters in a movie that feels like an absolute forgotten 90s movie called Hoodlam. Yes. Bill Duke. where it was about Lawrence Fishburn played this like, you know, and there were black gangsters around this time as well. And I believe it was Andy Garcia as Lucky Luciano and Tim Roth as Dutch Schultz.

But I want you to like check my work there and see if I'm correct. And Lawrence Fishpurn played Bumpy Johnson. I remember that. Tim Roth plays Dutch Schultz. And Andy Garcia plays Lucky Luciano. I should see this. I bet I would like it. I like Bill Duke movies.

Am I right? Yes. See? How about that? How about that from memory? Yeah, that was a movie. I remember, Hoodlam exists in the same bucket for me as like that movie Hard Rain with Christian Slater and Morgan Freeman.

Because they were probably in theaters at the same time and had very striking. And also, I remember being very, very, very excited to see them. And now, like, 25 years later, I'm like, Oh, nobody remembers these. These movies were absolutely, like, middle of the road, you know, not flops, not hits. And they were just sort of part of the, you know. Also, I say I like Bill Duke movies, but the only ones that turns out I've seen are deep cover and sister act too back in the habit. In fairness, both, you know.

Yeah. Near masterpieces. Wait, what? Oh, wait. Okay. No, that's acting. I was like, he directed Bird on a Warner. As a director.

Oh, wow. Yes. So I have seen Hoodlam, Sister Act 2. Yeah, same. You got to get to deep cover. You would like deep cover. It's so good. That's also Lawrence Fishburn, right?

Lawrence Fishburn's so hot in that movie. And then I remember hearing a lot about a rage in Harlem, obviously, because that was Forrest Whitaker and Danny Glover, I want to say. and that one that and Harlem Knights I think were around the same time I believe which was the Eddie Murphy

Richard Pryor I want to say like old school gangster movie I believe was Harlem Knights hold on now I gotta look that up man the early 90s were wild because like this was when I was too young to be like going to the movies but I would see all of these

movies advertised on TV. Harlem Knights, Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor. Yes. Tells the story of Sugar Ray and Quick Brown as a team running a nightclub in the late 90s in Harlem, or late 30s in Harlem while contending with gangsters and corrupt police officials directed by Eddie Murphy. That was Eddie Murphy's directorial. It's also almost as if we would rather talk about these much more interesting crime movies.

Because this is the thing about the bombing. of Billy Bathgate, it's not a very interesting movie. It's just kind of flat. It's really not. It really does hit a lot of the crime movie cliches, especially when you get into

the Lauren Dean Nicole Kidman relationship. I feel like I've seen this movie at least a half a dozen other more times when there's more chemistry and interest. I don't relish the modest amount of punching down I'm going to need to do it, Lauren Dean in this movie, who like... Not his fault.

This movie's not his fault. No, but he does not deliver a very good performance. And with the movie kind of hinging on that character, it doesn't help. It really doesn't. Well, let's maybe move towards the plot description. But before we do that, show, would you like to tell our listeners about our page? Patreon. Would I ever, we have a Patreon. We've had it for several years now. It is called This Had Oscar Buzz Turbulent Brilliance. It costs you only $5 a month. And for that $5,

you get two full episodes, bonus episodes every month that cover things that we don't cover on this had Oscar Buzz flagship. We do, the first Friday of every month, we deliver an episode called an Exceptions episode, which is, as we were discussing with Hook, a movie that had big expectations, but floppy results, and still maybe got an Oscar nomination or two or three. And these movies include things like The Lovely Bones and Cameron Crows of a Sky and Madonna's W.E. And House of Gucci. Good movies, great movies even, like Mulholland Drive and Interview with the Vampire and Contact. Legendary movies like when Harry met Sally.

Forgotten movies, like Barney's version. Very, very bad movies, like nine. So we've been amassing these movies for a very long time. The library is, as they say, open, but also as they don't say, full. Well, stuff. The library is full, quote, RuPaul. And then on the third Friday of every month, we give you an excursion episode. And an excursion doesn't talk about a movie specifically, but instead talks about some corner of the film or Oscar universe that Chris and I are obsessed with, whether it be Entertainment Weekly Fall movie preview issues of the past old award shows, little hyper-specific parts of the awards ecosystem like the Oscar nomination announcements or the I'm an actor.

at the formerly Screen Actors Guild Awards. It's going to take me a while for the Actor Awards to really set into my lexicon. Let's just reverse this whole year. Let's go back. This month we delivered our post-Oskers recap episode. We were Lickety Split, or was that last month? What month are people listening to this end? They're listening to it at the end of March.

Okay, yes. So earlier this month, we gave you the post-O Oscars recap. We put a button, put a bow, put a, put a end thing that you do at the end for the Oscars this year. An Oscars that I think all told, we were pretty happy with. Yeah. So, but we had interesting things to talk about as well. We weren't just, you know, gilding the lily or anything like that. Talked about the immemorial, talked about the new casting category, what that might look like in the future, et cetera. Yeah, so all of this and much more can be yours for the low low price of $5 a month. If you want to hop on board with what all the cool kids are doing, let's be honest, you can sign up at patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz. Billy Bathgate, directed by Robert Benton, written by Tom Stoppard based on the EL Doctoro novel.

We'll get into it. Now that's some pedigree right there, written by the late Tom Stoppard based on a novel about H. L. Doctor, oh, yeah. Starring Dustin Hoffman, Lauren Dean, Nicole Kidman, Stephen Hill, Bruce Willis, Stanley Tucci, Steve Busemi. Thank you the studio for correcting us all. I know. On the pronunciation, yes. Mike Starr, Morrickelly, Francis Conroy, Kevin Corrigan, Barry McGovern, and Zander Berkeley.

Zander Berkeley, who I am willing to bet was fully 80-yard in this movie. To make him seem more like... Cuck-like, I guess. Well, no, because he's gay. He's her gay husband. Well, yes, but Alexander Berkeley has, like, a baritone voice and not even, like, a gay guy baritone, like, myself. They gave him, like, a full, squirrely tenor. They did.

They really, really did. Also, when Francis Conroy shows up in that laundry with her heavy Irish accent. She never know when she's going to pop up, but she does pop up in a laundry. She does. She'll pop up in a laundry. in well with a heavy Irish accent and, you know, go to town. The movie opened wide November 1st, 1991. This top five is really interesting, actually.

Again, movies that I didn't necessarily see, with one exception, but remember being advertised incessantly. I watched Saturday morning wrestling, and the number of times we saw the trailer for Highlander to The Quickening, I can't even tell you. Joe, have you seen the Highlander movies? I don't know what the fuck they're about. They're about Scotland?

There's, I know, so I've not seen any of the Highlander movies, but I know certain things about them, one of which is there can only ever be one. There can only ever be one Highlander. And they live forever. I remember Christopher Lambert being in them. and they take place in Scotland because Highlands And apparently in this one Something happens really fast

And it's called the quickening It's called the quickening Yes, that's basically all that I know about that I also never saw House Party too I'm pretty sure I've seen House Party I need to watch the House parties Because the House part At least the original is now in the Criterion Collection

But it's also just like Remember when we had comedies? Well, they also repriezed it at City Center this week, and everybody was Instagramming their playbills from it. So that's a joke. That's a joke about the Wild Party. I'm sorry. I was hoping for it to land a little bit better. Is this the Lachisa House Party, too?

Yes, this is the Lachisa House Party that has been at City Center. I hate you. That took a second to land, but when it did land, I was very happy with it. Wow. And we lost all of our listeners with that, too. So if anybody stuck around, we're happy to have it. have you. I've never seen the people under the stairs.

The people under the stairs. Is it a people under the stairs? Is it a scary movie? Is it like a scary movie for kids? It's actually kind of like a horror comedy in a way. I think that was one of the things that I was surprised by it when I finally saw it. I never quite knew whether I was going to be scared by it, so I never saw it. It's also just like when you watch it, the idea of like the way people talk about like horror

comedies have never existed or anything. And then you watch people under the stairs and it's like, you guys. just haven't seen enough movies. Yeah. The People Under the Stairs is a lot of fun. I think you would like it. I did it for the first time that year, a few years back, when it was like, Peacock was the one that was crushing scary movies at Halloween.

Like, they had the best lineup of movies, and that's when I watched it. Yeah, it's, a kid is the protagonist, so it has, it has a, like, post-home alone. element to it, that it's just like... But it's obviously intentionally scary. There's a really smart social commentary that I didn't know was in the movie until I watched it, so I would like that to be unspoiled for you. Oh, okay.

People Under the Stairs is really fucking cool. All right, I'll do it this spooky season. The one movie from this top five that I definitely did see was Curly Sue. We were a Curly Sue household, which, feels demented. Like, I remember when I first became an adult and, you know, movies in the internet and there was conversation around Curly, like, anything you would see around Curly Sue is like, oh, that's like an evil movie. And it's also terrible. Yes, I think people really, really hate that movie.

It's essentially Paper Moon in the 90s, though, right? No. Is it not? It's Jim Belushi and his daughter. are both unhoused and... Running scams. They're like, they're, they're, uh, con artists. But, like, these rich people take them in, and then, like, the rich lady falls in love

with Jim Belushi. It's, like... I think if I watched it today, I would be a little, like, ooh. Wait, wait, wait, wait, but so what's the evilness? Where am I getting evil? I guess probably people don't like its politics of something, or, like, the fantasy version that it's presenting, but... Folks, folks.

It's also... It's Jim Belushi and his cute little curly-haired daughter running scams. And it's late John Hughes. And it's late John Hughes. Like, calm down. All I remember is the scene of poor Curly Sue in the bubble bath with her giant mop of hair that they're like... Somebody's trying to like wash her hair. I remember when the rich people hit Jim Balushi with their car or something and he passes

out and Curly Sue's like, you killed my daddy. Yeah, it's a classic scam, a classic flim flam, a classic gobly gobbledygook, I don't know, the lingo. Kelly Lynch, right? Is the rich lady? Yes. Yeah. That was back to like the very, very short Kelly Lynch era where she was in things. Wow, this cast is interesting, though. Fred Thompson, back in the Fred Thompson era. E. E.D. McClurg, as secretary, a likely thing for her to be. And Steve Carell in his film acting debut. As Wall Street guy, probably. Probably.

All right. But the thing is, Billy Bathgate, on top of the bad press about it. Did you see the original teaser poster that's like, coming in November? No. It's a movie. And it's like literally, like, it has that at the top. And then the middle portion is just filled with single. words. And the tagline was something like, it is a movie about deception. Oh, I see. Power.

Wait. Ambition, seduction, betrayal. Maybe the worst tagline I have ever seen. So it's like, okay, so it's about what exactly? Like, that doesn't tell you what a movie is about. Also, like, let's break this down. Okay, power. The kid really never has any designs on power. Ambition. kind of, kind of, sort of ambition. Seduction, if we're really expanding our definition of seduction, like there really is not a whole lot of like top-down action happening between Kidman and Lauren D. I don't know if it's necessarily, I would call it a seduction. Betrayal? Okay. Yeah, I guess I'll give you a betrayal.

This is like a Rupal's Drag Race, like, perfume challenge. No, it's like a perfume challenge. where the queens are just like saying words over B-Row. Oh, I see. I see. Power. Yes. Ambition.

Like, okay. It tells you absolutely nothing about the movie. And on top of that, you don't even see any of the stars in the poster. So you can't be like, okay, well, Lauren Dean is in this movie. That's why the second poster was very Dustin Hoffman forward. Yeah. Dustin Hoffman's face. But it also says coming November 1st, the motion picture event of the season.

I love when things are. described as the motion picture event of the season. That to me has gone out of style along with like, you'll laugh, you'll cry and whatever. And I want people to go back to earnestly teasing things as the motion picture event of the season. I love that shit. Joe, have you seen sent help? It is the motion picture event of the season. It is the motion picture event of the season. I would agree. Oh, I love that so much. Wait, there's another poster with a tagline. Hold on a second. We're going to...

In 1935, a New York kid was looking for a hero. He found Dutch Schultz. Is that also correct? That is not the plot of this movie. That's not the plot of this movie. At least in this one... Lauren Dean, holding out for a hero like Bonnie Tyler. This has like a...

Almost like a watercolor illustration of the main characters in this, if you zoom in. And Willis at least makes it on to, not his name, but his likeness makes it on to the rest of this. So he gets the and credit, which makes all the sense in the world. What makes less sense, though, is him even being in the Smithy? Yes, yes. It really does feel like he was walking down the street one day. And Robert Benton is like, you there. You there leaving the Golden Globes in a tuxedo.

So, we lost the costume and the actor. Will you just come over here? Uh-huh. I think also Billy Bathgate opening at less than the opening weekend of Highlander 2. Says a lot of diminished expectations. It's certainly not the kind of thing that the motion picture event of the season would do. So, yeah. Honey, the motion picture event at the season, Highlander 2, the quickening.

Highlander 2 going really fast. There's only one of them. There's no other Highlanders in his way, so he can go very fast. All right, all right. You've led me to, I'm going to look up the elevator pitch for Highlander 2, the quickening. The plot description is literally just going to be Highlander go fast. Oh, right. Connery is in this one.

Okay, yes, because Connery, right, I think it's Connery was maybe in the first one, and then Christopher Lembert is in this one. Ooh, Virginia Madsen's in this one. Who else? Virginia Madsen, Michael Ironside. Are you ready? Can you handle it? John C. McGinley.

Rusty Swimmer, who was on the pit this season in the role of mean old lady. Okay, so... Rusty Swimmer is what happens when you leave David Schwimmer out in the rain. I'm saying. Okay, so according to IMDB, In the future, Highlander Connor McLeod must prevent the destruction of Earth under an anti-ozoan shield. What?

Wait a second. That's the plot description for Highlander to the quickening. Climate change. You know, it's quickening. The heat of the earth, baby. The most unlikely climate change movie that has on its poster a giant sword with John Connery and Christopher Liff. standing underneath it. That's crazy.

An anti-ozoan shield. Are you kidding me? Highlander 2. Let's see what Wikipedia says. Highlander. You really can tell that we don't really want to talk. Don't be back in this episode. It's almost like we...

We'll get to the plot description and then we'll get to the movie. Hold on. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Oh, wait. There's a theatrical cut and then there is a renegated version with substantial changes. That's crazy. It goes even faster. Set in the year 2024.

Ooh. Set in the year 2020. Wait, Highlander 2 is about something significant that happens to the earth in 2024. This is a... It's about Beyonce showing up to a Texas rally, but not singing. That's when we knew it was doomed. Said in the year 20204, the plot concerns Connor McLeod, who, after regaining his

youth and immortality, sets out to free Earth from the corrupt Shield Corporation, which is operating an artificial ozone layer. Ha ha ha ha! This is great. I love this shit. We might need to do an exception episode that's just a commentary track on Highlander 2. Clicker mean.

Okay. So wait. So Highlander 1 must have just been, okay, Highlander 1 starred. Christopher Lambert. Highlander 1, semi-colon, normal pace. Highlander one, okay, follows Connor McLeod,

a Scottish Highlander who discovers he is immortal. I knew that part. And after centuries of clandestine duels confronts his ultimate rival in contemporary New York. It stars Christopher Lambertas McLeod and also features Roxanne Hart, Clancy Brown, and Sean Connery.

It is directed by blah, blah, blah. Okay, so I think his rival... How does he discover they are immortal? Sean Connery... I feel like the signs would be there. Okay, so Christopher Lambert, Connor McLeod. His rival, no, he's not the rival. He's

Clancy Brown is the nemesis. Sean Connery is the mentor. I'm going to read you the description. Sean Connery as Juan Sanchez Villobos Ramirez, an Egyptian immortal who has lived for centuries in both Japan and later Spain. A highly adept swordsman, he seeks out Connor and insists on taking

him on his pupil to defeat the Kergan, Clancy Brown, knowing that he must not win the prize. I'm so into the Highlander series now. If Highlander 2 is set in 2024, what is the prize? Is the prize, like, I don't know. Wisconsin Primary. Wonsonchez Villabos Ramirez, obviously played by Sean Connery. I am into it, into it, deeply into it.

All right. Okay. Okay, Joe, are you ready to give a 60-second plot description of Billy Bathgate? William Bathgate. William Bathgate. Yes. All right, your 60-second plot description of Billy Bathgate starts now. Barnfire of human charisma Lauren Dean plays the titular Billy, a Bronx teenager who is out juggling one day

and catches the eye of Big Shot Mobster Dutch Schultz. And it's essentially the episode of The Simpsons where Fat Tony hires Bart Simpson only instead of Principal Skinner getting whacked allegedly. It's Bruce Willis. and instead of Agnes Skinner, as the woman he left behind, it's Nicole Kidman, whom Schultz takes for his own mistress. Billy sees it all and predictably gets goo-go-eyed over Nicole's character. There is some business about tax evasion,

so Dutch moves his little crime group out to the sticks for a while, where Billy is to look after Nicole while Dutch is dealing with the feds. At some point, things go sour for Nicole and Dutch, and he plots to have her murdered at the racetrack by Steve Busami, but Billy secretly arranges for Nicole's gay husband to come and rescue her and fly her out of town to safety. Meanwhile, Dutch has run afoul of another legendary mobster, Lucky Luciano, who gets Dutch.

Dutch's lawyer to turn on him and ultimately arrange for a hit on Dutch's entire inner circle at a diner. Billy is able to escape, however, in part because Stephen Hill from Law and ordered the kind thing and fired him. Dutch and his people are murdered. Billy gets brought before Lucky Luciano. Lucky Luciano is like, hey, I know where you live and your mother lives and your family lives, and I know the Irish laundry where your mom works. So don't fuck me over and we'll be fine. And Billy is able to escape with his life the end. All right.

13 seconds over. All right, that's not bad. For a convoluted movie, not a ton happens. Not a ton happens at all. Everything you're describing is in the last half hour of this movie. The whole middle of the movie, I remember, as soon as the movie ended, I was like, what happened in the middle of this movie?

Like, kind of nothing. I still don't quite understand why Dutch wants to have Kidman killed beyond, like, plot. Like, we need to have a third act, so we need to have some big, you know, I was kind of out of sorts from the very beginning of this movie. It sets up a flash forward

to the middle of the movie. It's a weird... Yeah. But it also has this dropped-in effect where you're just suddenly seeing these characters interacting in a situation like Nicole Kidman is pulled up

from a basement and you know, Hoffman and Willis are... Billy's lurking at the shipyards and he like hops onto the ship and whatever. There's basically like a swinging light bulb illuminating both of the... Do you think that's because there was a studio note that was like,

we need to get Bruce Willis on screen in the first, like, 10 minutes of this movie? Or something to that effect, but there... Because he was, like, to be clear, Bruce Willis is a giant movie star at this point. Like, he's about to hit backlash phase with Hudson Hawk and whatnot and Bonfire of the Vanities. But he is, like, a giant. movie star. And I imagine that if there was, you know, studio wrangling with this movie, that might have been one of the things that the studio would have wanted, which was don't bury Bruce Willis in the middle of your movie for like two scenes. So this was maybe an effort to get, because it

essentially is like doubling up Bruce Willis's screen time by like showing it twice. So maybe, I don't know. And it's just the way that they communicate, it's hard to tell what is going on, what we're being dropped into. It almost felt like the dialogue was in verse or something. I was like, oh, yes, this is very based on a novel. That probably is more vibes than plot. It also changes the tone of the movie. Like, when Willis is on screen, there's a lightness to the movie, and it's not quite comedic,

but it's like, there is a tonal, you know, something kind of interesting where you're just like, oh, okay, like, this isn't necessarily just like, you know, grim, grim determinative mobster movie. And then when Willis isn't on screen, which is most of the movie, there's not really a ton of snap to it. And part of it is

that Hoffman is utterly at sea in his performance as Dutch shows. You can definitely tell this is a production where he was given too long of a leash or took too long of one, because I don't think he's very interesting. but he's just like it feels like an acting exercise, right? It's neither fish nor foul to an extreme degree. There is just no, I have no idea what he's trying for.

And he's not even like failing big because it's not this like big outsized like Pacino type performance or whatever. It's just like it's at odds and ends with itself. It doesn't really take a strong POV on Schultz at all. And so he ends up being this kind of like, is he a monster? Is he smooth? Is he like, is he seductive in the way that like his making his, he's making his lifestyle very appealing to Billy? Like, I don't think I can answer yes to any of those questions. Like, he's not, he's just not particularly dynamic while at the same time kind of dominating the screen time of the movie.

And the... With these, like, monologues that just hold on his face and his very lights are on, but nobody's home. Because it feels like this arduous attempt to bring pathos, but not actual, like, characteristics. It's the most vague, like, mob boss early 20th century portrait you've maybe seen. Like, the thing where this movie feels like such a lesser version of so many other movies. I think really kind of lies in that Hoffman performance who it's like, you know, it's the type of character that you can kind of do whatever you want. And I know that this is not only based on history, but based on a celebrated novel, you know, doing historical fiction of that history. But like,

it's a mob movie. You can go big. You can be very specific. You can be weird. You can do all of these things. And it just feels like it's Dustin Hoffman spinning his tires to seem deep, but not actually telling us who this person is. Well, also, like, for a movie set in the 1930s, it's not particularly evocative on a, like, art direction, you know, time capsule kind of a level either. You compare this to another EL Doctoro movie from about 10 years before this, Ragtime, which was, you know, the movie ragtime, which has, you know, no songs in it, obviously, for anybody, you know, whose main point of reference is the musical. And that was nominated for a handful of Oscars. Eight Oscars. One of the most nominated movies ever to not get a Best Picture nomination.

Do you remember the most nominated movie to ever win, to not get a Best Picture nomination? So, ragtime had eight. There is one movie that's had more. I don't know off the top of my head. They shoot horses, don't they? Yes. That's right. That's right.

Also tying Ragtime, The Dark Night and Dreamgirls. I love this. I love when you break out Oscars trivia, because normally that's the terrorist action that I will visit upon our group chat every once in a while. As I'll be like, Oscar trivia time, and then I will just, like, derail an entire afternoon. That would never happen today, right? Like we're talking about in an Oscar year of 10, all four of those movies would be Best Picture nominees. Now I want to go and we, that was a trivia question that one of us posed this week was,

or no, we posed it in the episode, in the Jarhead episode, which was, have any movies been, what was the last movie to win? three Oscars but not be a Best Picture nominee and I went back Because of Memoirs of a Geisha is why I brought that up And I went back and it was born ultimatum But

Yeah Now I won three Oscars I did But now I want to go back and I want to find out What What are the most nominated Non-Best Picture nominees Of the 10 era

I have to imagine a movie has gotten like six nominations without a best picture nomination in this era. That was Carol, right? Carol, Carol, Carol got six, yeah. So I wonder how many others matched that. But, so, but yeah, but you look at something like Ragtime, and that thing is so evocative of an era, and like the, the production design is incredibly intricate. And in this one, there's just not a lot.

lot of effort made to, you know, invoke the era. And so again, it just becomes this, this, there's a flatness to it that the movie ultimately can't overcome. And there's a, there's a lifelessness to it that is not, obviously, it's not good. I was talking to our friends, Dan Mecca and Connor O'Donnell, because I was just on the B sides right before the Oscars. And I told them, I believe, off mic, that we were doing this movie. Oh, my God. And Dan was like, yeah. Hard to adapt Doctor.

Oh. I was like, yeah. Yeah. The receipts are there. This book was a Pulitzer finalist. Didn't win the Pulitzer, but obviously a very celebrated novel. So that right there creates a lot of expectation for this movie. Yes.

Yes. Absolutely. Robert Benton, to sort of, you know, start there, a very interesting, I think, career and one that intersects with the Oscars often. So he starts off as a screenwriter, gets the early nomination for, Bonnie and Clyde. Sorry, I'm just, I'm slow talking because I'm trying to bring up his, um, his filmography.

So, right. So Bonnie and Clyde is, I believe, his first screenwriting credit? That's kind of crazy if that's true. Um, What's Up Doc is the one of three,

uh, yes, one of three screenwriters on what's up, Doc, not including Bogdanovich's story by, uh, uh, credit. It's Buck Henry, David Newman, and Robert Benton. So that that indicates to me that that movie

had a rewrite process at some point. Well, I mean, Barbara talked about it in the book, too, that they thought that that movie was kind of a disaster, and then when they put it in front of an audience, people loved it and were laughing at all the jokes, and they were surprised. Well, it's a good surprise, I suppose. directorial debut is a 1972 film called Bad Company starring Barry Brown and Jeff Bridges which is

about a couple of essentially draft Dodgers during the American Civil War and goes on to direct 1977's The Late Show which is Art Carney and Lily Tomlin

I started to watch this recently and I got interrupted. This was an Oscar nominee for Best Original Screenplay. But it's a mystery. It's like Art Carney's private eye or whatever. And I got derailed and I never went back and finished it. I should go back and finish it. One of many people who had a hand in writing,

excuse me, had a hand in writing the Superman movie. again, this revolving door, etc. Yeah, which gives you a sense of like what Benton's role was in Hollywood around that time especially. He's likely a person who you're calling in to, you know, take a crack at a screenplay.

And Kramer versus Kramer then happens in 1979, and it is a huge popular hit and a huge Oscar. hit. Sorry. My voice. My voice, my precious voice. I should have never

visited that sea witch. So Kramer versus Kramer is based on a novel. Okay, this memory literally just entered my head because I'm looking at the poster of it. And the poster is, it's the big, like,

the Tug, Kramer's just Kramer, and then it's like a Polaroid almost of, or a photograph of Hoffman Street. and Justin Henry as like a happy family. And it's like, remember when this family was happy? Based on a novel and I, my aunt had the novel

in a like publishing after the movie had come out. So the novel, you know how sometimes the novel that would have the movies poster as the cover to better sell it after those copies. So I remember this. I had never seen Kramer versus Kramer until like only maybe five or so years ago. But my aunt

had this book and I remember this particular cover like emblazoned in my mind and I remember thinking this sounds like violent. I was like or this sounds just like Kramer versus Kramer because I didn't get the legal. Like they're in a boxing ring or something. Right. I was like, did they just

start like battling? Is this just like this crazy Kramer versus Kramer? And I was, God, it was so little. That memory literally just reentered. My aunt also had the novel of Beaches with the Beaches movie cover as that one. And that one I remember reading at some point. And there was, I remember that's the first time I ever heard the term getting laid as a euphemism for sex was in reading the novel of beaches.

Man, growing up gay is crazy. Okay. Right. So Robert Penton, Kramer versus Kramer, best picture winner, best actor winner for Dustin Hoffman. And after the sojourn into not succeeding with Still of the Night, which is a one of the real... Weird movie. One of the real lost Merrill movies. Like, Merrill did not make very many movies that, like, don't get talked about anymore.

Like she has a really, particularly in her early years, like her early filmography is incredibly sturdy with either Oscar nominations or movies like Heartburn that have a, you know, a cultural footprint of some kind. Yes. Still of the night is one of the exceptions. Falling in love is one of the other exceptions. But I believe I did watch this one. And I remember being like, well, this could be better. It's like a junkie thriller. Roy Shider's a therapist, and in like New York, and there's a whole thing with a patient of his, and it's supposedly this like thriller, but like it's not a particularly tight or gripping one.

So it tries to be like... For high pedigree, it's kind of, you know, not a ton to talk about. Yeah. But it's essentially the like chill-out movie in between Kramer versus Kramer and then Places in the Heart, which is another big Oscar movie. Sally Field wins her second Oscar. You like me right now. You like me. I feel like I am the only person, especially among like the Oscar nerd sets that ever even remember places in the heart.

It's a great Cinematrix movie, by the way. Great play for Cinematrix. So many people are in it. So many people are in it. Including both Amy Madigan and at Harris. Do we know if this is where they met? Hold on. Personal Life tab for Amy Madigan.

Let's go to it. I mean, like, this was one of the reasons why Amy Madigan was so thrilling when she showed up for weapons because it's like all of the movies that were staples in our home. Like all of my mom's favorite movies had Amy Madigan in them. Here's, well, Amy Madigan and Uncle Buck. Amy Madigan and Lori Metcalf fighting over Uncle Buck, hugely influential in my life. No, but so, okay, Amy Madigan married actor at Harris on November 21, 1983. So if they met on the set of places in the heart, they had a whirlwind romance.

My guess is they were probably already seeing each other by then, but who knows? The other thing I want to mention is, as the clip that I sent you in Katie this week, that I just came across, which was Amy Madigan had, having won a Golden Globe for the TV movie Roe versus Wade. I remember when Weapons was released that clip. Did it? Hit my feed at least then, but like it should have been during the Oscar race. She's so incredibly. And it's like it's a real, it's obviously, it's a real different Amy Madigan.

She's, you know, much younger, obviously. And she's got some like, you know, fire in the belly in that one. She's, she's, she's looking. cool. She's looking to like, you know, I think she says shit at the very beginning and they bleep her out. And then she's like, Ted Turner can afford it. Like, you know, can afford the fine or whatever. Because that was back when the Golden Globes were broadcast on TBS on the Super Station. But yes, Amy Madigan, Ed Harris, Lindsay Krause, who... Oscar nominated for the movie. John Malkovich, Oscar nominated for the movie while playing blind. Danny Glover. Terry O'Quinn is in. that movie.

Lindsay Krause, who is one of those people who, if you're a Buffy person, you're like, oh, whatever, Professor, whatever her name was in season four, who was Walsh. And then other people are like, oh, David Mamet's ex-wife, whose daughter is Sasha Mamet. But anyway, yes.

Places in the Heart is a movie that would make you think that Benton would do a good job with something like Billy Bathgate because places in the heart I think is to the extent that it is remembered as this like weepy melodrama.

But even by somebody who would say that as a pejorative I think it's emotion based, it's character based you get invested in a lot of different characters in that movie. And that's probably the primary way that Billy Bathgate fails for me. Like, I am not interested in any of these people. It's also a movie that got seven Oscar nominations, and I believe was, like, popularly considered the runner-up to Amadeus that year.

Benton wins another screenplay Oscar. Wins another screenplay Oscar. Her second acting Oscar. Yep, yep, yep. Tiff People's Choice Award winner, too. What's that? Places in the Heart, Tiff People's Choice Award winner. That's right, one of the very, very early ones, yes.

But you look at, like, New York Film Critics Circle also gave Robert Benton the screenplay award, and, like, Malkovich was their runner-up. L.A. film critics also had Malkovich as their runner-up. National Board of Review put that movie in their top ten and gave Malkovich. their supporting actor, uh, when, as did National Society of Film Critics.

So, like, this was not a movie that was like, this pariah. I think you're right, that in the aftermath of the Sally Field, you like me, right now you like me.

Um, I think the, the reverse reputation with it was just like, oh, it's this weepy, it's this driving Miss Daisy. Is this like, you know,

old fashion. for sure. But that movie was like well received. It also has like this is also probably why I say it's the type of thing that is currently out of fashion.

Like it also has this ending where it's like it ends in the church and everybody there is in the church and like the two people that it holds on are characters that are dead and like one of them killed each other. So it's this like spiritual forgiveness moving forward

type of like thing that absolutely is not given. in any latitude today. But in the 80s, that was like the type of thing that was winning Oscars. You know, this type of sentimentality that, yeah.

It's a movie about mutual aid. A bunch of people rally around to save this woman's farm. I think there's also a tornado in that movie. I believe it. This was also the year.

I was so terrified of tornadoes as a child. Maybe that movie was one of the reasons why. This was also the Oscar year where three of the five best actress nominees, played like farm wives. It was... This, the River, and Country? Country. Country. Jessica Lang was nominated for Country. I've never seen country. I've seen the river. I do want to see the river, A, because I love to see Spaceic. Spaceic's great, because it's Mel Gibson. I like Mark Bridel movies, usually.

Mel Gibson, it's his American film debut in that movie, and Gibson and Spacic play this like couple who own, whose, you know, house is right by this river in the Tennessee Valley that, you know, floods quite often. And they're, like, constantly having to try and save their house. So, like, this was, you know, farmwives who have to, like, save their homestead. And then country, apparently, like, rankled Ronald Reagan so much that he, like, took to his personal diary. and said that it was a blatant propaganda message against our agra programs. So, like, there's a lot going on with the farm movies of 1984. So, because it's all, like, you know, farm stuff, but it's like, you know, everybody's losing their farm because of the economy.

And, yeah, interesting. Interesting year that 1984. Anywho. This movie bombs, and then Benton, like, Ben has, like, back and forth swings, too, because, like, the final big, Benton movie is Nobody's Fool, which he gets another screenplay nomination, and it gets a nomination for Paul Newman. Yes. This is another movie that my mother loved that I wanted to rewatch.

Yeah. I want to rewatch it as well, because I saw it when I was like a teenager, and that's probably not the time where Nobody's Fool is going to make an impression on you is also a movie that Bruce Willis was in, by the way. Also a movie that when you think about it now and, like, my memory of certain, like, scenes from that movie and the performance that Newman gave in that movie, real surprising that

he didn't win for that. Because, like, today, that would be, like, an open and shut case that that actor at that point in his career would be winning that Oscar. I think the fact that he had finally won his Oscar and it had taken so long, I think there was a sense of, like, okay, you know,

there's not a whole need. It also really underlines what an absolute juggernaut Forrest Gump was. That, like, Forrest Gump was. That, like, Forest Gump. was just, like, not going to be denied. I think, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think Newman's previous win, you look at someone like

Francis McDormand, and, like, that didn't hold her back at all. I agree. I definitely agree. I would like to see where the jokes, where the votes had shook out that year, because also you had Travolta for Pulp Fiction, and then you had Freeman for Shoshank, and I remember that that had, like, a late, like, surge of support. Um, Benton's movie after Nobody's Fool is a movie that I've never seen, but I always sort of make a note of whenever I see it, uh, show up in a, in a filmography or see the poster, which is, uh, Twilight, the non-vampiour, other Twilight, uh, the Neo-Noir with Newman, Susan Sarandon, Gene Hackman, James Garner, Stalker, Channing, Reese Witherspoon. Like, I should watch this movie at some point. Um, uh, I wonder if it would qualify as an Oscar buzz movie.

It was a March release, but look at all that talent. The Human Stain is next. One of our earliest episodes, The Human Stain, reuniting him with Nicole Kidman. Yeah, it's true. Reuniting him with Edna. Not a good movie. Not a good movie, but a fascinating. That is a movie that nobody remembers, and it's too bad because, like, people should talk about what shit they try and pull off.

in the human state. Oh my God. Like, strap a Gen Z person to a chair, quack or orange style, and make them watch the human stain. Want to see a dead body? Yikes. You want to see a dead body? It's just like you strap in a Gen Z person to watch the human stain, and then you come in two hours later, and they're just like a skeleton sitting in a chair. They faded to ash, like someone in Julia de Kournows new movie.

Is that what happens in Julia to Karno's new movie? Like, there is like an ash. An ash person? Honestly, better movie than people give it. You keep saying, I'm going to give it a shot at some point. And then Benton's final movie is Feast of Love. Have you seen Feast of Love? Quite the cast.

Sure haven't. Morgan Freeman, Caneer, I want to say. Selma Blair, the great Jane Alexander. Roda Mitchell. Sure. No, have never seen Jane Alexander, speaking of reunions. back together with Robert Benton since Kramer versus Kramer.

Jane Alexander and Kramer versus Kramer is a really interesting character, I have to say, just to bring it back to that. But anyway, good Oscar nomination, I was glad. Billy Bathgate, I think safely the least interesting of all of those

movies that we talked about. And I don't fully understand why. I did have to cackle when they go to the horse track in this movie, because most of the time I was like, this is kind of like C-Bisket level, right? Where it's like it's a certain sheen

on a certain era but doesn't really gather as much human interest as it should be and then they show up at a racetrack and I was like yes, this is very C-Biscuit. Oh, interesting. I feel like I was more engaged by C-Biscuit. Just in terms of like a period movie is what I mean.

Yeah, I understand. I could get that. Yep. Yeah. So this movie opens on November 1st, which is like, obviously, Prime Awards season territory. Maybe less so then than it is now, but now we really understand the like late, mid-October to mid-December, sort of like sweet spot for releasing Oscar movies. does not land critically. The reviews are bad.

Ebert gives it two out of four stars. It's very notable for how much it costs, underperformed against its $48 million budget. And then classic Golden Globes. They're like, oh, no. is there an ingenue? Is there a star to hitch our wagon to? They were correct to do so.

They nominate Nicole Kidman for best supporting actress. She's the best thing about the movie. Shocker. Gay guy says Nicole Kidman is the best thing about one of her movies. I honestly, I loved Stephen Hill in this movie so much. Stephen Hill is really good, too. I don't know if my problem with Kidman is not on a performance level in this movie. It's just that like this character.

is written so vaguely. Yes, it's not an interesting character, but I do think it's an interesting performance when you think about where Kidman was at this point in her career, because at this point, people just kind of talked about her, like, she was almost a model or something. Like, she had to work really hard to be taken as seriously as she is today. And I think... She's this Australian import who was, I think most people probably hadn't seen her Australian

movies, even like Deadcom, which is a bit of a crossover, but probably is more notable after Kidman becomes, you know, famous. But like 1990 with Days of Thunder, like she was

a, I'm trying to like think of what I would compare it to for this era. It's like if the term industry plant had existed, I bet it would have been thrown at the way that she was talked about yeah because she's the like she's the love interest in days of thunder it is a i think kind of like patently ridiculous movie and she's like the um she's like she's a she's a doctor right she's a um she's a neurosurgeon that's what it is she's a neurosurgeon

that's what it is she's a neurosurgeon who ends up like fascinated with tom cruz's race car driver and they have this very sort of like Simpson-Bruckheimer-coated romance, right, where it's like Top Gun-esque, you know, all of Cruz's romance storylines in this era all had this feel to it. And then she and Cruz get together and they become People Magazine fodder. And, you know, she's then best known as the actress who married Tom Cruise. And she was very young at the time. She was only 23 when they got married.

Yeah. They also mentioned when they were, that article that I read in EW, I believe, they mentioned, Kidman wasn't available for reshoots for such and such, because she was in Ireland filming her next movie. And I'm like, I know what she was doing. I know what accent she was attempting. We know what bowl she was lifting. Yes.

So go listen to our Far and Away episode. We had a lot of fun with that one. I do think that there's, yes, she is playing an underwritten character in this movie. But I think in comparison to A, how she was discussed as an actress at the time, but also the type of things, the roles that she was, you know, afforded. Because she's talked about how to die for was hugely significant for her in her career because she was. she was getting to do like a full character. She hadn't really had an opportunity like that at that point in her career. And that's five years after this.

I think what you get in this performance is, you know, her at a time in her career where she doesn't really get to give this type of performance, but it does have shades of a decade later the type of performance she would be giving, if that makes any sense. You know, like it feels very emblematic of her choices as an actress and the way that she, you know, allows an audience to see into the head of a character, which, you know, again, she's working against a not very interesting script, a not very interesting characterization.

But I do think that there is a performance style that is very familiar to, like, someone who loves her work, especially her work, like I said, a decade later. If we can say that Nicole was pigeonholed in this sort of era in her career, this early 90s era, it was in playing, she played a lot of like wives and love interests who were sort of boxed in by their circumstances. I feel like dead calm. That certainly is a thing. Billy Bathgate, it's a thing. Far and away is less of that, but like, malice where she's, you know, at the mercy of this, not only this, you know, doctor, but also this legal procedure. My life, which is this, like, extreme weepy about, like, Michael

Keaton essentially preparing his wife for his imminent death. So she plays the wife, and it's, you know, again, very much she exists in relation to her husband. Then what is the two-fer of movie the two movies in 1995 who break her out of this. Dr. Chase Meridian, baby. Dr. Chase Meridian and

a meteorologist, not really, Suzanne Stone, and to die for, right? Those are her two 1995 movies, which bust all of that shit completely wide open and sort of set the stage for the actress that, you know, that

we have today. So The Gold Globe nomination, though, she's nominated against four women who will be Oscar nominees, including the winner, who also wins the Globe. That's Mercedes Rule. Mercedes Rule for the Fisher King, a movie that I have not seen in forever. But I remember Mercedes Rule being very, and this is also coming off of a few years after married to the mob and big. And then she also had like a big, I think Lost in Yonkers was around this time too. I think Lost and Yonkers is after this maybe, but she was doing that on Broadway, and I was going to say, I feel like, yes, I think she was on Broadway with that. I want to say she had a Tony nomination in there, but give me a second awards and nominations. She won the Tony Award in 1991, so this same year for Lost in Yonkers, yes. So there we go. Other nominees that year, Diane Ladd would get her second consecutive, the recently departed Diane Ladd would get her second consecutive Oscar nomination the year after Wild at Heart,

this time for Rambling Rose. Have you seen Rambling Rose? I don't like it. I don't either. The performances are good, but I don't like the movie. The performances are good, but, like, I don't think I'd go out of my way to nominate. I understand Laura Dern getting nominated in a. very kind of like, here's a new actress on the scene kind of a thing.

I don't know if I necessarily think Ladd is doing Oscar nomination, you know, worthy stuff in this movie through no fault of her own. Juliette Lewis and Cape Fear, who is the sort of the token young, right? The, you know, teenager performance who has to essentially go toe to toe with Robert De Niro and holds her own. And then Jessica Tandy and Fried Green Tomatoes, the token old. And the Halo nomination. Halo nomination.

For post-driving Miss Daisy. Not the performance we would be nominating from that movie. Who is? If you had to nominate. Now, here's a double-sided question. Who would you nominate in supporting actress? And are any of those women, who would you call the lead actress of, of fried green tomatoes.

I mean, she's, I guess, so passive to the action, but it's hard not to say Kathy Bates. I agree with you, which then would put both Mary Stewart Masterson and Mary Louise Parker. I would also be willing to say Mary Stewart Masterson is a lead, but I would understand somebody saying that she's supporting performance.

I think I'm with you. I think I'm with you. But do we both nominate Mary Louise Parker and supporting actors? Yeah. She's really good. She's great. Yeah. Ruth. I nominate Cicely Tyson, just for the line reading of Secrets in the Sauce.

Secrets in the Sauce. So anyway, the Oscars bump out Kidman and nominate Kate Nelligan for the Prince of Tides. Big performance. Big performance. Yes. This is a category I feel like I might, I'm trying to think of who I would nominate from the movie. of this year. Because so this is the, this is the year that I'm kind of fascinated that Annette Benning does not get

nominated for Bugsy. And you look at the Golden Globes this year and she's nominated in lead actress. And I'm like, maybe that's the problem is that they were pushing her as lead when like, I feel like she'd have been a shoe in for a supporting performance or for supporting nomination for Bugsie. Yeah. Given how successful that movie was. I know you don't like that movie.

nominee. Right. Like, I know you don't like that movie, but I feel like across the board, that movie was a success. Um, you look at the other big movies this year. Silence of the Lambs doesn't really have, well, Brooksmith. Honestly, you know that I would nominate Brooks Smith. You know who I would nominate. Frederica Bimble's friend, you know that. When did she know? Big dummy. You could also nominate Casey Lemons for the line reading of Hot Damn Clarice. He knew her. Um, but I would nominate Brooksmith for-T. Baltimore. Oh my God, yeah. Actually, honestly.

So you got Brooks Smith. Me being the sicko that I am, I would nominate Lori Menka for JFK because I just love her reading of exposition, but I understand that she's just like she's just reading exposition. I mean, CESAX is in JFK significantly. She is, but I don't

know if I love that performance. She's essentially just like the like the drag of a wife who's just like, Jim, why do you got to be a conducting this investigation. There's no such thing as a bad Sissy SACC performance. I'm going to need to move on if you're going to start dragging Sissy Space.

I don't think it's a bad performance. I just think that character is just very... It's my least favorite part of the movie is that character. I would maybe go so far as to consider Christina Ritchie and the Adams family. I'm just looking at other movies that were nominated by the Golden Globes this year. What else do we have? There's got to be some... I just like, do you agree with me that this feels like a kind of an anemic

supporting actress collection? Mercedes rules sort of notwithstanding? Yeah, I mean, there's people who really don't like that Kate Nelligan performance. I mean, isn't it Melinda Dillon? That's also in the movie. That's really good. In The Prince of Tides? Yeah.

Hold on. Is it Melinda Dylan? It is, yes, it is. As, now, Kate Nelligan plays The Mother. The Mother, and Melinda Dillon is the sister. Okay.

Right. I should watch The Prince of Tides again. It's been a minute. 1991. You could also nominate multiple actresses from Mike Lee's Life is Sweet. Oh.

This year. Okay. Who would you nominate from Life is Sweet? I mean, probably Jane Horrocks would be the easiest one. She won critics' prizes for that movie. She did. She definitely did. What else do we have? Naked Lunch was that year.

Are there any supporting women in that? Judy Davis? Judy Davis, but I don't know if that's really, you know. What? Realistic. Because it's not only Cronenberg. No, but I mean what? would we, what would you and I? What would, what would our, you know, replacements be for these?

Oh, I would definitely do Claire Skinner and Jane Horrocks from Life is Sweet. From Life is Sweet. That's what I, that's what I'm sort of going after. Can't really pull anybody from... Have you seen Life As Sweet? You would love Life is Sweet. I haven't. I haven't. I have you to do a quick search of what Timothy Spall looks like in that movie, and you'll be like, of course, Chris likes his movie. Okay, Timothy Spall. Life is Sweet. Image search. Chris. Oh, my God. With the fucking Giants jacket and the hat.

Oh, my God, in the glasses. He looks like fucking, like, he's trying to be Spike Lee in the commercials. That's so funny. Wait, let me just scroll through. I'll be done with this in a second, and then we can move on. but I want to see if there's any other supporting actress folks. I want to call out here for this year. Judy Davis and Barton Fink?

Sure. She's pretty good. She's pretty good in that movie. Barton Fink, a really good movie. John Goodman, by the way, was nominated at the Globes that year for Barton Fink, and then the Oscars swapped him out for Michael Lerner, which I don't know if I was a nominated. Yeah, I think.

like that's Goodman's so fucking good in that movie um oh Angela Bassett and Boys in the Hood I would consider oh of course I think she's really good also I mean

she's probably too small of a role but Regina King also in Boys in the Hood um Linda Hamilton's the lead of Terminator 2 Judgment Day I would 100% have nominated her

for best actress that year um Ruby D. in jungle fever? Ruby D. Holly Berry and jungle fever. Yeah. Whoopi Goldberg and soap dish. Never know. Ask gay guy questions, get gay guy answers.

Well, if you want to say gay guy answers, you would get Madonna's backup singers and Madonna Truth or Dare. 100%. Yeah. Very possible that both. for our ballots could be all actresses who were not, well, no, that's not true, because there's not a world where I'm not nominating Juliette Lewis for Cape Fear. Yes, that's the thing. She's so good in that. Yeah, so anyway, an odd year for supporting actress, this is the thing is, sometimes you go back

and it's like, there's just a dearth of, like, good female roles in big mainstream Oscar contenders. Like, the Oscar contenders of 1991 are Bugsy JFK, the Silence of the Lambs, and even something like Thelma and Louise, which is such a, like, great movie for women. But, like, yeah, Beauty and the Beast. Like, Thelma and Louise doesn't have supporting actress contenders. You know what I mean?

And then, which is why they, I'm not surprised they turned to the Prince of Tides, which at least has, you know, supporting female roles. And, yeah, I'd have nominated, I'd have thrown in Mary Louise for, for fried green tomatoes. Fucking do it. I don't know.

One of the ladies, what are the women in the commitments? One of the members of the commitments. The one who sings fucking, oh, what's the one. Oh, no, I'm going to forget. The one performance in that, that the female singer

and the commitment sings. I don't know. Now, I'm all over the place. I'm all over the place, Chris. What's going on? Speaking of all over the place, we got a giant quiz to do still. Oh, okay. Do you ever think it's odd that this book was the runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize?

No, that sounds right. EL Doctor-O making a book in the 80s. Okay, but like, this book obviously was better than the movie. But, like, I would imagine it would need to be, like, significantly better as a book. Oh, you're saying the distance between, well, this is, like, our show, right? Like we've done previous Pulitzer winners that end up being quite terrible movies. I'm just like this story. I'm like, what do you do to this story to make it interesting enough to be a Pulitzer?

Well, I mean, that to me, I mean, having not read Dr. Rose book, that to me says that it's all in the language. Yeah. In the tone and mood that's conveyed, the feeling that you have with the book that, you know, that's a writer's prowess. not, you know, the plot of what happens. I feel the same way about movies sometimes, too, that it's like it's not what happens that makes a movie interesting. It's the telling of the thing, right? Yeah, yeah.

And I don't think Benton here really has a particular point of view on this material. If anything, everything's kind of sluggish, you know? If the, if this is a, I know that Dr. Rowe really did not like this adaptation. So it's very possible that the substance of the book is not in the movie that there were changes or that, you know, something integral is missing. Yeah. But even so, there's not much feels very intentional here. This is a very sluggish, laid back kind of movie where nothing happens. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. I mean, yeah, even just sort of like reading the description of the novel. There's stuff that gets lingered on here that doesn't really... About, you know, Billy, you know, taking the surname of Bathgate, that in this movie feels like kind of random. And in the book, it has to do with, you know, him being an Irish boy working for a Jewish crime boss and this kind of stuff. That it just feels like there's a little bit more interiority to the Kidman character.

and if the book is much more interested in these kind of identity dynamics and these cultural identities, the movie is like not at all. Unless it's getting mentioned, it's not something you kind of even think about when you think about these characters. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's a good point. So, yeah, we have a ultra-rare triple six-timers happening here. This is our sixth Dustin Hoffman movie after I Heart Huckabee's Stranger Than Fiction, The Myerwit Stories, Moonlight Mile, The Holiday.

This is also our six Stanley Tucci movie, because Stanley Tucci is the one playing Lucky Luchiano in this movie. This is definitely Stanley Tucci... I mean, we can, you know, have a discussion about how long the Stanley Tucci Babe era

lasts. But this is like, Stanley Tucci like Svelts hotty just beginning to have his receding hairline Just beginning to have his receding hairline The Pelican brief is only a couple years away

This is when he was in that show Murder One On ABC Although that would maybe have been closer to mid-90s This is when he's When does he do Frankie and Johnny On Broadway?

That's a round I was in high school when that happened. So that's in the early aughts. Okay, that's early aughts. All right. Anyway, hot Stanley Tucci playing Lucky Lichiano. That is his sixth, the set outscarba's movie after the fifth estate, burlesque, the terminal, the Pelican brief aforementioned, and Mrs. Parker in the vicious circle. And somehow, we have made it to six Lauren Dean movies.

After 1492 Conquest of Paradise, How to Make an American Quill. conviction, The Mule, Mumford, and now Billy Bathgate. Is that the most demented six-timers lineup we've had yet, those six movies together? I mean, it includes 1492 Conquest for Paradise, so absolutely. Yeah. So instead of doing three separate six-timers quizzes and making everybody want to jump off of a ledge, including myself, I decided to combine all three of these together into a six-timers quiz. I'm going to sort of revisit an old format a little bit.

I have gathered certain statistics for these three, and I have run the numbers and put them in order. So for each of these, I want you to give who is first, second, and third place in these following criteria. That is based on each of their, you know, this had Oscar was for Marmar. I'll walk you through it. Okay. Who's this head Oscar Buzz filmography has the highest domestic box office? Tucci. Walk me through it, though.

Because give our listeners a little something to chew on here. What does Tucci have that makes you think it's got the most? I mean, you already have to rule out, I think, Hoffman because none of those movies really made a ton of money and Meyerowitz made zero dollars because it's a Netflix movie.

Can I tell you what made more money? I don't want to influence you at all. Can I tell you what made more money than I thought? Stranger Than Fiction made $40 million. It sure did. That's crazy. From a 20206 perspective... That's the highest grocer on the... Well, there's the holiday.

From a 2026 perspective, a movie like Stranger Than Fiction making $40 million is... Impossible. Impossible. It's so wild. But Tucci also has... I mean, Hoffman does because of his holiday cameo.

Wait, no, the holiday didn't make $100 million, right? I don't think so. I have all of my notes written down somewhere else, but... But Tucci, I believe, is the only one with $100 million grosser, and that's the Palekin brief. Yes. Although the terminal made also more money. I mean, the terminal is one of those ones.

It's like, if you're a failure, yeah, you're a failure, but you're a big, you're a big ticket failure. Anyway, yes, you're correct. Who do you think is, so a total box office for Stanley Tucci movies is $236 million. Who is second place? I do think it's Hoffman, even though he has a zero grossing movie. It's actually Lauren Dean. It has to barely be Lauren Dean.

How much money did the Mule make? It's the Mule that gets you. Because the mule, I think, is $100 million movie. Oh, okay, never mind. So, sorry, I should have kept all of my notes, but individually. But, yes, I think the mule is like $101 million. If I'm a stake in. Hold on.

I actually think that's the highest grossing of all of these movies. The mule. Great movie about a shoe. Shut the fuck out. The mule. Oh, no, wait. Oh, yes. So the mule worldwide is 174 million. Domestic 103. Yes. Okay. So, um, sorry one second. So yes, your top three in order. Tucci with 236 million. Lauren Dean

with 158 million. Dustin Hoffman with 136 million. Next, Golden Globe nominations. Who had the, whose movies collectively had the most Golden Globe nominations. Of the movies that we did for the show? Yeah. Okay. All of these will be determined by this six movie sample for each person. And again, walk us through it a little bit, just so the listeners.

I think it's too cheap because Berliske had multiple, no, maybe, Berliske had a song nomination for sure, plus the Bathgate nomination for Kidman. Well, the Bathgate, it's a wash. because Bathgate is for all of these. Well, that's true. So don't even need to consider it. I don't think the Pelican briefed it. Maybe it's not too chi.

But then for Hoffman, actually it might be Hoffman. Because you're talking a lot of comedies, like Stranger Than Fiction, The Holiday. Meyerowitz and I don't think Huckabee's got one. Huckabees, if it did, it was for Jude Law. but Lauren Dean, it might be like Sam Rockwell for conviction, 1492 for the Vangelis score,

and how to make an American quilt, I think, was a SAG nominee, not a Globe nominee, so I'm actually going to say Dustin Hoffman. It is Stanley Tucci. Stanley Tucci five total. One for Billy Bathgate, one for Mrs. Parker in the vicious circle. three for burlesque. Because three songs? No.

Because I believe it is two songs and then Best Picture. So my instinct was right, yeah. It was, yes, because it was the Diane Warren song. It was the Christina Aguilera song, and it was Best Picture Musical or Comedy. Still so good. Bound to you was the Christina Aguilera song. See a song. written by Zia. Oh, yes, it is. Yes, you're totally right. Yes. Both of them should have been nominated for the Oscar that year. I will have no...

You know what, meme? I just got put back in my feed. The time that Sia on Twitter was like, I love everything. And someone responded to her, even cock. And she responded, love cock. Have you seen that before? I haven't. That's great. All right. Average Metacritic score. I averaged them because... because sometimes movies don't, a couple of these movies don't have Metacritic scores, which is not. And I'm willing to bet that Lauren Dean probably has multiple that are not. But see, some of these people are

harsher than they need to be, like Pelican Brief and burlesque. I kind of have to say, especially because I think Meyerowitz is going to have the highest of maybe all of these movies,

I think it's probably Dustin Hoffman. It is Dustin Hoffman. Average Metacritic score of 62. Yeah. This is not very high. Who do you think is second among Lauren Dean and Stanley Tucci? Lauren Dean. Average metacritic score of 57.

Stanley Tucci's is 53. Yeah. Fifth Estate and Berliske are really going to pull those down. Yeah. And the Terminal even. Yes. I tallied up the total. total trailer views on YouTube for the highest ranking version of the trailer of each of these movies.

Talleyed them up. Whose six movies have the most viewed trailers on YouTube? This is definitely interesting. See, Hoffman has something like The Holiday that I'm willing to bet has a lot of views. I mean, gay guys probably give burlesque trailers views, but I don't know. about the gen pop. But there's a lot of stars in all of the Tucci movies.

You got Denzel, you've got Cher, you've got Julia, you've got Tom Hanks. So I'm going to guess Tucci. It is not Tucci. It is Lauren Dean, and I'm going to tell you why. One of these

movies absolutely broke the scale in terms of trailer views. It can't be 1492, right? Because that's like such an iconic teaser. It's not 1492. It's the mule? It's the mule.

The mule's trailer has 17 million views. What was it in the trailer that we were making fun of? I don't know. But like most of these movies have like between half a million and three million trailer views.

And the mule had 17 million all on its own. So Lauren Dean smashes with total accumulated 19 million, 19.8 million. Who do you think is second? Tucci and Hoffman are very close together. Tucci. Tucci. For all the reasons I said. Tucci.

Tucci. I, sorry, trailer views, 5.8 million. Dustin Hoffman is 5.2 million. So, all right. Average letter box rating of the six movies. Now, this is where it gets different. I'm willing to bet that... See, I think the mule is still pulling Lauren Dean up here,

because I don't think that those other movies are going to be well regarded by the letterbox community. The holiday for Hoffman is definitely pulling that up. And honestly, Myerowitz, people like Stranger Than Fiction than I do, but people like Huckabee's Less than I do. Natucci, Berliske is going to take a hit to his general number, as is the terminal in the fifth estate, but the Pelican brief is there. I'm going to say it's Hoffman. It is Dustin Hoffman with an average letterbox rating of 3.4.

The thing that I found in doing letterbox ratings is they obviously very much hugh towards the middle. So there's not a ton of big difference, but it's all the reasons why you say are why Hoffman comes out ahead there. Second place, it's a difference of a tenth of a star. Probably Tucci? Tucci, 3.4 average. And then Lauren Dean averages a 3.1. Next category, my letterbox ratings.

You're throwing the fiver at Pelican Brief. And you're rating burlesque better than most letterboxed users. I don't know. It could be Hoffman again, because the only one I think you don't like in those movies is stranger than fiction. It's definitely not Lauren Dean. Oh, you don't think so? You don't think the 1492 and the Mule and conviction.

in conviction in the mule. No, it's not him. I'm going to say Hoffman again. It's Hoffman by a lot. Average 3.8 to Tucci's 3.3 because Tucci, you're right about B'Ast. The Fifth Estate is terrible. Fifth Estate is really bad. I do not like the Terminal.

And I like Mrs. Parker, but not on like a, you know, five star. Yeah, you're not throwing a fiver at it. Right. So you got it exactly right. Meyerwitz is a fiver for me. Huckabees is a fiver for me. I am very Moonlight Mile, uh,

uh, whatever. Apologetic. Apologetic. Thank you. Uh, love the holiday. So yes,

Dustin Hoffman is, uh, owns this category for my letterbox rating. Running time. Oh, God. Um, total running time for all six movies.

Pelican brief might be the long, well, 1492 is pretty long. If I remember correctly. but I don't, I think the shortest, no, well, oh see, this is tough. Yeah. Hoffman has the holiday at definitely over two hours. Pelican Brief for Tucci.

And then 1492 in the Mule for Lauren Dean. And I think maybe the shortest is going to be Mumford. So I'm going to say Lauren Dean. It's not Lauren Dean. Lauren Dean is second by about 35 minutes. Then I'm going to say Dustin Hoffman. Nope. Hoffman is third, 691.

Stanley Tucci, 747 total minutes. A lot of that is the Pelican brief. But the terminal isn't short. The fifth estate isn't short. See, I thought the terminal was like 100 minutes. Maybe the terminal should just be 100 minutes. The terminal. is two hours and eight minutes long.

Wow, I did not remember that. Yeah. All right. Next one, Scrabble score. Total Scrabble score for all six months. I forgot that you love doing the Scrabble score. Yeah. Well, 1492 Conquest for Paradise.

Please clarify if you are counting that as numbers or if it's the letters in 1492. I don't count. 1492 at all. Like I just am just doing Conquest of Paradise. I should also say that it's just the Myroit stories. It's not new and selected. Yeah. Well, Lauren Dean has the two shortest titles in Mumford and the Mule. Um, but he does have how to make an American quilt. That is, that's a long, long, the longest title maybe. Yeah. Meyerowitz is definitely pulling a lot of points on a gravel board. Mrs. Parker and the vicious circle is as

well. Burlesque has a cue. Yeah, yeah. Focusing on the big ticket letters, too, is the other thing. I mean, Myerowitz has three big ticket letters alone. But

I'll say Tucci. Fs are worth a lot. Vs are worth a lot. you are correct. It is Stanley Tucci. Berlask is a secret banger for a one-word title. You get a lot of bang out of burlesque because of the Q. Mrs. Parker in the vicious circle is giving you

quite a bit. Pelican Brief is like sneaky good because it's got a P and a B and an F and a C. Hoffman is not too far behind. Hoffman is only three behind. Myrowitz Story is really as a banger. Like Myrwood's story is a good scrabble. And Lauren Dean is only 12 behind. So it's a pretty close scrabble lineup. Finally, average IMDB rating, which I will say these are three tenths of a point separate these three, which is why I almost didn't include it because it was like, eh.

Right. Barely worth it. But anyway, average IMDB rating. factoring in IMDB Raiders sexism and racism

always but it's like that does rule out a decent number of movies so because like Tucci again is hit by Burlesque

probably hit by the Fifth Estate uh Hoffman is probably hit by the holiday and Moonlight Mile Lauren Dean is hit by How to Make an American Quiltern Conviction and 1492, no way that has a good rating.

I still think it's going to be Hoffman. It is Dustin Hoffman. Average rating 6.7. I also think Hoffman, I think the holiday being such a populist movie. It's probably a little bit better than you would expect, even if a little bit better

than you would expect, is like a 6.8. Yeah. Second place, who do you think? I'll say Tucci? Nope. Lauren Dean, 6.6 and then Tucci in third with 6.4. Was this a fun quiz? Who's to say? But we got it knocked out. Triple-six timers. Joe, what are your last thoughts on Billy Bathgate?

I mean, I feel like we didn't talk as much about the movie itself, but I think there are reasons for that. We talked about the performances, though. That's really all you kind of have to hang on in terms of discussion around this movie. I really did quite like, I thought Bruce Willis, when Bruce Willis is on screen briefly, I'm leaning in a little bit. I'm like, what's going on? The tone is, like I said, a little bit interesting. I also really liked Stephen Hill, Law and Order Stephen Hill in this movie. I didn't like Hoffman. I didn't like Lauren Dean. I, I, I, I think Kidman is hemmed in by the weakness of her character. It's an odd Golden Globe nomination, but in a way that I appreciate. I like when the Golden Globes do something very globesy and let us into in on a little

window of like where celebrity was at the time. I like that we got to talk about Robert Benton, a director who I don't think we really talk about at all. It kind of makes me want to go watch places in the heart again, to be honest. Well, you know, I've been wanting to watch, but that's also like kind of touching a hot stove. Sure, sure, sure, sure. But yeah. It's not the most interesting interesting movie to watch, but, like, I think it does allow us to talk about these actors. Moira Kelly's showing up as, like, kid's sister. I thought it was, like, of course you are. She was, like, halfway to, like, wearing overalls and, like, kicking a rock down the street or something like that.

Yeah. She's at my room where she's like, hey, Billy, what you doing? You know, like, oh, nuts, that kind of thing. Kevin Corrigan has truly always just looked like that guy. Just always looked like that, whether he's young or old or whatever. Here's what I will say. Kidman's character being like totally cool with her gay husband, just like hanging around the apartment with his lover. Like, that's cool.

Good for her. Good arrangement. I love a good arrangement. It's a vague crime story. It is a very vague crime story about real people. Yeah. I'm rewatching Game of Thrones and I'm into the season two thing where we're introduced to Marjorie Tyrell. And Marjorie Tyrell being so cool with Renly being.

and her gay husband. Good for her. She was very cool. I mean, good for her. Yeah. People had arrangements. All right, anyway. Would you like to move on to the IMDB game? I'm ready. Alrighty. Would you like to explain the IMDB game for our listeners?

Oh, sure. Would I ever? Nothing I like better than explaining the IMDB game. Every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game, a game where we challenge each other with the name of an actor or actress, and then we try and guess the top four titles that IMDB says there. are most known for. If any of those titles are television shows, voice-only performances, or non-acting credits, we mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, the guesser gets the remaining titles release years as a clue. If that is not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints. All right. That's the IMDB game. How are we playing today? Do you want to give or guess first? I'll give first. I'll give first. Who do you have? Well, places in the heart, as we mentioned,

a star-studded affair, one of those actors is Danny Glover. The great Danny Glover. The great Danny Glover. So that's who I'm giving you. And they're all acting roles. There's no producing credits on here. Correct. Okay.

See, Danny Glover is tough because Danny Glover has had a long career. He's had lead roles. He's been in franchises. He's been in smaller character roles. Always happy to see Danny Glover. lover love him. The question is, which lethal weapon would I guess

first? I guess I just have to guess lethal weapon, right? Lethal weapon is correct. Okay. The color purple. No. No color purple. What? I know. I know.

That's crazy. This whole, like my whole, everything's going to be bad now. Yeah. Because I'm not. going to be able to get. This is how I play. I guess the one, like, obvious thing, and then it's not there. And then it throws you up my whole

game. Yeah. All right. So maybe this just means that it's boy movies that are going to show up. Because maybe it's another lethal weapon? No. You know what franchise? No one talks about anymore. Lethal weapon.

Okay. I will say I'm too old for the shit has endured. Oh, is that where that comes from? Yeah, that's Danny Glover's character. Great. I'm getting too old for the shit. Fine, I'll say Lethal weapon, too. Lethal weapon two.

Okay, I was really doing that to just get my ears so that I can move past this. Fine, fuck it, lethal weapon three. Lethal weapon three is on my word. Oh, my God. Okay, so this is why we've never done Danny Glover before. At this point, I have to say lethal weapon four. Lethal, you've got it. What?

Hold on. I need to actually pull this up right now because I have to see this for my eyes. Yes. People don't even remember that their fucking was a lethal weapon for. I know. It's the most demented thing. Danny Glover has done other things. Oh, my God, this is real.

Except the order is crazy. Well, that is true. true, that it's one, three, four, and two. Maybe somebody with the Algo was like, I need to give you my lethal weapon ranking, and I'm going to do it with Danny Glover's known for. That's nuts. It is. It's very well nuts.

He's been in so many movies and all that his, wow. I have to say, you got it in a very, in a way I wasn't expecting, which is you were trying to burn movies to get to your hints, and you instead just got four in five guesses. I was kind of hoping that this would be like, we'd be 12 movies deep, and you'd be like, what is this movie? 1998? Oh, my God, blah, blah, blah. So I'm impressed that you got it this way,

the sort of backwards way. I objectively, justice for Janney Glover's known for. I know. Where's the Royal Tenembaums? Where's the color purple? Where's to sleep with anger? Beloved. Where's beloved? Oh, to sleep with anger. so good. It's a lot of good movies on here that he could have had and instead four lethal weapons.

Wow. I've never, we've never seen that before. I don't think we've ever had anybody. Almost Christmas, a movie I know about for. I love that movie. I love that. I love that movie. Um, great Christmas movie. All right. Also from Places in the Heart for You, I chose someone we've done before, but literally in the first year of the show. Oh. Sally Field. Miss Sally Sally Field Okay Mrs. Doubtfire The most like rewatched cable movie

of all time Incorrect No! That's crazy! All right We're recalibrating We're recalibrating Good, I hope this throws you off

Like it momentarily Groom me off Um Norma Ray Also incorrect Come on! Well the thing about Norma Ray is

And we talked about this in our 70 miniseries on top of talking about how hot that movie is. Uh-huh. A movie has no business being that sexy, and it is. No, it's incredibly sexy. Norma Ray has, like, not been the most available movie to watch. Well, but now I'm reticent.

I'm reticent to pick places in the heart. Well, I have to give you years first. Oh, yeah. Oh, right. Yes. Years will very, very heavily help me for Sally. 177, 1989, 1994, and 2012. 1989 is Steele Magnolia's

19-week 94 is Forrest Gump 2012 is Lincoln Correct 77 Is that one of the Smokey and the Bandits I'm gonna need a final answer Is it Smokey and the Bandit? Correct

Okay See it's like she's one of those people That the years get you there The years make it very easy But yes It is really surprising That her only Oscar nomination is Lincoln Though it's not surprising

That movie is there nomination of hers on her known for you. I'm not surprised places in the heart isn't there. Seal Magnolias, I should have guessed before Mrs. Doubtfire. Right. She should have been Oscar nominated for Steel McNolias. Who else can pull off that funeral scene? Nobody else could have done that.

I just want to hit something. I want to hit it on. I could run a marathon from here to blah, blah, blah, blah. My daughter can. She never could. Oh, my God. No. All right, wait.

Rank the five women in that scene. In just that scene. In just that scene. Well, Darrell Hannah is last because I don't even think she speaks. Or no, she does. She's the one who's trying to be like, everything's good, Malin. She's, but she also does the thing at the end. She's the one that it starts by Malin, like chewing her out a little.

She's the one at the very end, though, who says, Miss Clary, that wasn't very nice. And Clary goes, Anel, you got to lighten up, Annelle. Like the quote that I use all the time. You got to lighten up and now. Yes. So yes, Daryl Hannah, fifth, I would say, yes. Dahlie Part and Fourth. Shirley, Olympia, Sally.

It's really hard with those top three. Because here's the thing. Obviously, Sally's got the legit dramatics. But Shirley both has, are you high, Claire? and also you are a pig from hail, which I say Is that in that scene? Yes.

That's what she's all done and she starts to stop off and she goes, you are a pig from hell. But like Olympia Dukakis and her bogus Louisiana accent in that scene is going off when she goes, Hannah Malin,

we'll sell what do you say? We'll sell T-shirts. I slapped Wiza Boudre And then she goes, and then when the line that gets her laughing is when she says, Melin, you just passed up the chance of a lifetime. Half of Chickapin Parish should give their eye teeth to take a whack of wheeza. And she like barely gets through that line.

I love that scene so much. You know, I love, respect, admire, and adore Julia Roberts. I know I'm not the only person who has said this. It's weird that she's the nomination out of that movie. It's not weird. It's wrong. It's wrong. It's wrong. I mean, like, she gives a great performance, but. No, we talked about this in a hundred snubs. What's wrong is that that that movie has only one Oscar number of performance. We talked about this in a hundred snubs. If that movie only gets one supporting nomination, it should have been Shirley McLean. But, like, Olympia Dukakis is so fucking funny in that scene. I can't. Daryl Hannah's amazing in that movie.

I mean, like, the best Daryl Hannah stuff is the first section of the movie. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Totally. And Dolly for not having like a signature scene or a moment is so fucking solid throughout that whole movie. Yeah. That's great. Anyway, our Billy Bathgate episode, we end on talking about Steel Magnolia's gay guy behavior. That's our episode. If you want more, This Had Oscar Buzz.

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