This Had Oscar Buzz - 394 – Queer (with Mitchell Beaupre!)

Episode Date: June 29, 2026

Letterboxd head of editorial Mitchell Beaupre returns to us this week to close out Pride month with one of Luca Guadagnino’s most divisive films. In 2024, with audiences still under the spell of Challengers, the director also brought to the screen a long-gestating passion project: an adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ Queer. Starring Daniel Craig as Burroughs … Continue reading "394 – Queer (with Mitchell Beaupre!)"

No, the right house. We want to talk to Hill in heck and friends. I'm from Canada water. Dick Poop. It's a wise old queen who taught me that I had a duty to live. You know, to conquer hate with knowledge and sincerity and love. The difficulty is to convince someone else he is really part of you. What else should I be?

Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast with a nephew. Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lafty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Joe Reed. I'm here as always with my gun-toating, herb-smoking jungle lady, Chris File. Hello, Chris. The Come-On, Come on Callback actually got me. Sometimes he's actually get me.

First-ever podcast to have a nephew. Ever podcast with you. Yep. Yep. Thank you for, I feel so honored to be the Leslie Manville of this episode. You know how much I love that performance. We'll get into it. We'll get into it.

What do you queer? You know I love doing that old-timey. What are you queer? She's so good. As is our custom, we are going to waste absolutely no time welcoming in our guest for this. very pride-intensive episode of this head. Oscar Buzz, our annual Pride extravaganza. We are welcoming back from our After Hours episode.

What else? Is this? Devil in a blue dress I was on. Devil in a Blue Dress episode. Thank you. I think those are the only two that I've been on so far. Yeah. Well, two bangers.

So we're going to go three to three. Welcome back. head of editorial at Letterbox our dear friend Mitchell Beaupre Happy Pride Mitchell Thank you I

The we are recording this The most recent episode You guys have released I think was the BFG Right Which I think is Also an amazing pride episode The BFG

That's what BFG Stance for It's Big fucking gay The big fucking gay Yes exactly That's what they called me in high school

And I got through it okay. So, yeah. An interesting trilogy of episodes for you, Mitchell. After Hours, Devil in a Blue Dress, Queer, three movies about... This is interesting. I'll be very curious how you're going to tie these three movies.

Yeah, how am I going to tie these three movies together? Three movies about men who encounter interesting ladies. in the third act of movies? Um, I don't know. Help me out here, Chris. Uh, I mean,

these are all name, draw, directors and autours. Between Scorsese, Franklin and now Guadonino. That is true. We've done so many Luca episodes. This is,

I think, the first one we've done with a guest. I think you're right about that. with a guest. We've done a bigger splash, we've done Susperia, we've done the bones, and I think that was just the two of us, all of those. So I think at this point it's going to be good to get another person talking Luca with us because we're both highly pro-Luca, even on the Lukas that people don't like as much. Right. I guess you could say that all three of these episodes represent something of a travel log where you go from New York to California.

and now down into Mexico and now in the South America. So next time, we're going to either do a movie set in Tierra del Fuego or... Canada. I guess.

Well, yeah, maybe we'll find a Vancouver movie for you to do. The entire Western Hemisphere canon with Mitchell Boat Brain. Fantastic. Fantastic. Perfect. Yeah, so we kind of came to you with

this movie, but it's because I perused my letterboxed, as I often do. Very good. Doff my cap to the head of editorial. And I was like, all right, who that I know really loved queer? Because I know that I had a very sort of like mixed reaction to this movie. And I think Chris definitely I knew like did better than me, but with reservations. But I was like, I want to have somebody on who will like make the positive case for queer.

think you were the highest star rating of my friends for queer. And I was like, well, we haven't had Mitchell on in a while. And would love to, you know, I want to see this movie through your eyes a bit. Because even watching it again the second time, I was like, I appreciate where this movie is going. and yet I don't often feel myself being taken away with it. Yeah, I mean, why one appreciate coming on? I was like, it made sense to me when you asked me to come on for this. It was like not one that I was expecting.

I feel like, you know, after hours, obviously, like, Devil in a Blue Dress. I feel like I had even shouted out Devil in a Blue Dress in one of your special episodes as like, I think I shot it out like Don Cheatel as like a snub. in one of the like compilation kind of In the 100 snubs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly, exactly. And then when you said queer, I was like, great pride.

And then I was like, oh, yeah, like I feel like I probably, if you guys were like thinking, let's do an episode on Guadena's Queer, I probably was one of the people, like one of the people who most kind of it resonated for. I was really taken by it when it came out. I actually hadn't seen it.

This was a nice opportunity for me to revisit it too because I hadn't rewatched it since it came out. And it still really held up for me. I, yeah, to Chris's point about Guadigno, I am somebody who's very mixed on Luca. I adore challengers. I saw challengers eight times in theater.

I remember that. I remember all those social posts. Yeah. And like, and I love this. I love, um, have you guys seen the HBO series? We Are Who We Are that he did? That's like the thing I have to catch up with for Luca. It's phenomenal.

I saw most. I think I like it. I somehow never finished it, which is not a, which is, does not reflect how I liked it. Because I did like it. It was, I remember being, uh, for whatever reason I was like, that was a period of time where I had to like watch a lot of things for work. And so it dropped at a weird competitive time for TV. And I think it also dropped.

It was like early kind of COVID too, wasn't it? Am I, am I right about that? I think you're, I think you are because I feel like I, that, that show gets, is definitely, Definitely COVID-coded for me. Yeah, I remember watching it, like, separately from my partner, because I feel like we weren't, we still, like, weren't seeing each other again yet because we were living separately at that time. That show and the Justice Smith show.

What's the Justice Smith show? Why can't I remember that? The one where, like, Justice Smith is, like, the queer kid in high school, and I think it's Nathan Stewart-Jarratt is the guidance counselor, and it's like, oh, kids today are, like, It's sort of like proto-phobia. Hold on. I'm going to find the title of this thing. I'm literally rocking two different Wikipedia.

Generation. I've never heard of this. Genera plushion, yes. Which was a direct to HBO Max thing, which was in 2021. And then We Are Who We Are was September 2020 premiered. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That tracks.

All right. I am also a giant Jack Dylan Grazer apologist, so like I did very much. I'm very anti-Jack Dylan Grazer, but I think he's tremendous. Similar to, so I'm very anti-Timuthy Chalame, but I think, and call me by your name, he is so tremendously cast. It's a tough time for us, Mitchell. It's tough time for a friendship. It's everything's fine.

I get it, whatever. And here I am in the middle. I hope. Teams have fun. But like I think that, I mean, one of Luke's biggest gifts, I think, is just casting in general. Like him and the casting directors he works with. Like,

I think that he's able to utilize people. Dakota Johnson as an actor who I never really care for. I think she's utilized really well in a bigger splash. Like I think that he's able to find something in people. And we could, like Drew Starkey in here, I think, is, you know, not somebody I was familiar with before, before this. and I think he's utilized well but even I mean casting Leslie

fucking Manville in the role that she's in inspired who like that is such outside the box Jason Schwartzman The way he's like him Jason Schwartzman in this Based all of him like He loved Jason Schwartman and Rushmore

When it came out and he's like making this movie He's like Jason Schwartzman the perfect person for this Somebody I never in a million years Would have thought to cast in this Who I think like I think was all my critics ballot Like this year I would support that He's so good in this movie.

Well, Leslie Manville, who was supposed to originally be Francis McDormand, and it's like, well. Right. Yeah, yeah. It's so, that would be so perfect that it's like, you can't do that. That's illegal. And then Leslie Manville is so incredibly inspired that character is also originally male in the novel. It's, we can't get to love. I also love the, watching it this time, I think that I clocked that maybe you guys would.

I feel like you guys are among the few people that would appreciate this in the way that I appreciate. Leslie Manville, in the opening credits, her credit is and with Leslie Manville. I know if I've ever seen. Like, we have the and we have the whids. I don't know if I've ever clocked and with. Yeah, and introducing for sure. And with, I've definitely seen other times. I can't pinpoint what movie, but much more like old, not even old.

Hollywood. Yeah, right. Mid-century type of credit. Yeah, it's so fascinating. It's such an unusual credit. I, our mutual friends, DMEC and Connor O'Donnell, I, like, text them every day. I took a screenshot of that credit and sent it to them and was like, something wild's going on in queer guys.

I am at, here's my head canon now is that Leslie Manville has two agents who are pursuing the contracts independently of each other. And they both called on the same day and we're like, Leslie, I got you the and. Leslie, I got you the with. And they're just like, keep them both. If she would have gotten the with, who's the and? David Lowry? I feel like shortsman, right?

Probably is like the. And Drew Drogey as the siblings person. David Lowry popping up in this is I, like, I made it, in my notes, that's what I was watching. I made a whole separate note about David Lowry. One, I said he looks like Jackie Early Haley and Little Children in this. He does. Never let that man shave again. Oh, my God.

David Lowry would have filmed this right before Mother Mary, I think. Or maybe Mother Mary had already filmed at this point, the first stretch of filming, because they had to go back and do that whole other block last year. I'm not entirely sure. The filming for that movie sounds like it was interesting. I'm very pro-mother-Mary compared to most people. I still haven't seen it.

Well, then we won't get into it. I think that second block or most recent block of filming was all of the arena stuff, the stage performance. It would make sense to do the other stuff earlier too because it's all very condensed, just like the two, three of them, like whatever. And like the two halves of that movie,

which are of course, you know, edited over top it's, you know, it's not like, here's your first half of the movie and here's the second, but like it's occupying two different worlds, basically. That, like, yeah, that makes sense. So apparently, filming... It was maybe an issue

originally. Filming for queer began in April 2023. Filming for Mother Mary began in May of 2023. So right before you started? So right around that time. Mm-hmm.

Interesting, interesting, interesting. I mean, Mother Mary was filmed in Germany or something, and this was filmed in Italy, so, you know. Yeah, right there. Europe's smaller than you think. I definitely, obviously clocked David Lowry. Did not clock Omar Apollo in this movie. The tooth. The tooth did it for you.

Oh, the tooth. Okay. All right. Yeah, well, then there we go. Very fascinating cast Am I the only one of the three of us who did not read the novel? I hadn't read it. The only burrows that I had read, that I have read,

I read naked lunch in high school, but that's the only burrows that I read. So I'm not very up to speed too much on my burrows back. Naked Lunch, a movie I started to watch and then had to turn off because of the cockroaches. It's a lot. I'm going to return to it, perhaps, at some. at some point. But I literally

was like two like freaked out by the cockroaches. I had to stop. I read both junk which precedes queer and queer. A follow up. And junk is like literally just a travelogue of doing hard drugs. You know, it's it's from one episode to another of

doing hard drugs. But it really does kind of set the stage for queer, which is also this narrative in pursuit of hard drugs. But But reading those books both is and isn't helpful in watching and, you know, interpreting this movie. Because I think one of the things that's most fascinating about this movie is the idea of a Luca Guadonino Burroughs movie is so incongruous because it's so separate, you know, like our interpretation of Burroughs. is very like beat generation is that kind of heightened you know cronenbergian naked lunch and like but they're they are very different material it's just like on a sensibility level they're they're not synced and then that does play out in the movie because it's strange and luka had wanted to do this for more than half of his life you know this was kind of a dream project for him

but he seems so kind of disinterested in the burroseness of the text, you know, to the point where I think you do kind of have to understand Burroughs' life and the text to kind of understand the things that seem to befuddle people about this movie, the more like abstract stuff, you know. There's also the stuff that's literally pulled directly from his life that I feel like. That you would be totally lost. Doing, yeah, like, background kind of like research when the movie came out and like learning more about that kind of stuff because I wasn't, yeah, that's familiar with him and his story. The death of his wife, which, you know, Luca works into that, you know, final sequence of the movie and then things peppered throughout that are not so overt in the text. and, you know, we on a literary level can understand that junk and queer are direct reactions and responses to the violent death of his wife that he was ultimately responsible for, but also addiction and, you know, drugs and excess of alcohol were responsible for, that they fuel the work. So I like the way that Luca incorporates it, but I do think for people, who aren't aware of that background,

those sections of this movie really confused people. Yeah, I can kind of be like, what the hell is this? I, yeah, Chris, like, I really like, I think going into this, watching it for the first, like when I watched it the first time when I came out, my understanding of Burroughs was very much like naked lunch. And so, like, I had this perception of him as that kind of, like, Karawaki, like, Ginsburg-y, like, kind of guy.

and like feeling like the the interpretation of William Lee, right? That's the name of Craig's character. Yeah. Okay. And in the movie is like it's so effective because he is kind of posturing as this guy. He's walking around Mexico City with with the fedora and with like the nice suit that is just getting more and more kind of crumpled, which actually that's, that's a slight connection to after hours. That's true. Like white cream kind of suit that gets more and more disheveled over the course.

Men and suiting. He's got the gun on his hip. Like he is very much trying to like give off of this, this thing of a kind of like a cowboy kind of figure. Like a noiry kind of like figure. A very like macho man. But he has. Cowboy crossed with like college professor kind of vibe. You know what I mean?

Where he's like he's got, he's got office hours at this little cafe. but he also has a gun on his hip. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But he has like, like the, the kind of contrast to that is he's, he's really awkward. And, like, he has, like, not only, like, does he have the, these sort of, like, effeminate qualities, like, to him, but, like, it is more, like, the, he's not swab at all. Because no game.

Literally no game. When he's pursuing, uh, Drew Starkey's character, Allerton, like he, it is so uncomfortable. adorable. Like when he like comes across him in the little bar and he does like his little like bow to him as like he thinks it's some sort of like peacocking

maiden call and there's just no register for it, no reaction. And he kind of shrinks into himself. Like I love that quality of the movie where it kind of is like taking the perception of like this cool writer. Like I feel like even you know even like the drug

aspect of it like can be persona in certain film as like a cool thing. I feel like there are plenty of fucking men in high school and beyond reading Burroughs like, oh, this shit is so cool, you know, reading naked lunch, like, as like, as though it's something to like aspire to like that kind of lifestyle. And I feel like it, and not only like deconstructs like that element of it, but to kind of what you were saying too, Chris, like, I feel like the Luca of it is how much he, even like the drug addiction aspect of it, it's all in this pursuit of like connection. And it's all drawn from like

romantic longing and loneliness. And that for me is the stuff that I like connect so much with in this movie is it's the way that it expresses longing and the way that it expresses loneliness and the way that it expresses this like yearning for this person who's right next to you, who you like you can reach out in touch, but you're too scared to. Or like when you're able to, you don't even. And you can't even trust that, like, they appreciate your touch. You can't read them. And, like, they're so unreadable, too. That's the other thing is they make Drew Starkey's character.

So, which is why I think a lot of people were, you know, sort of pinpointed Starkey as a weakness. And I'm not sure if that's even the right way to, you know, go about evaluating his character. He's so by design closed off. It needs to be ambiguous. Unknowable. Yeah, exactly. You also have to be able to project whatever you want onto him to. And I think the difficulty in that role is you also have to be a specific.

You can't just be blank. You have to have a certain specificity that I think he does. It's not the type of thing that ever, you know, really gets people praise because. Yeah. And I don't think you really see much of him until, of course, the legend Leslie Manville has the complete accurate read on him. And then we get some kind of context for why he is the way that he is. Yeah, exactly. That scene unlocks so much of the movie.

And it's like, fair enough, you have to sit through almost two and a half hours to, like, get to that moment. But it fully unlocks, like, it's also the first time he gets to be, like, a character on his own merits rather than. like through the eyes. Yeah, right. That would be his, that's surely his first scene, right? Without, like in the whole movie.

Yeah, I think that's right. Well, and, you know, it's kind of the first time anybody talks to him about himself. And maybe it's also the one time he's willing to allow someone

to talk about him as well. Because, you know, the other thing about Lee, and this is true for like all characters Lee interacts with, he kind of just talks at them. Rather that, you know,

yes. Everyone is, is a blank canvas for him to kind of project upon. I think the other thing that's Luca-e about this is the kind of sublimation that happens of, I can't deal with this other thing. So all of that intensity is going to be an obsession into this other thing that I can maybe tame. You know, the, you know, grief and guilt over his wife's death that really only manifests in these abstract ways in the movie.

He can't deal with that. So he has to just like obsess over this young guy. And it's yeah. And it's like wanting to with that like you're actively going towards like this idea of wanting to control like something that you can't control. And like that's like part of watching a movie like this for me is like like if I'm that man in that world, Allerton to me is not, that's not desirable at all. Like you know, he's he's a very conventionally attractive man.

But like anybody who like, their or for me is just like, they don't fuck with me and they're not interested. I'm like, all right. See, like I'm not drawn more into that. But I feel like that is, that is part of the draw for for William Lee is like he just can't, he can't like get himself to grapple with the other things that are actually like the real shit that's like underneath him and you know, why he resorts to to the drugs to try and escape. And this is sort of like also a version of escape. also something that he just wants to like have that sense of control over and that sense of knowingness over too. I mean, so much of the second half of the movie is this pursuit of this plant that he thinks

is going to give him telepathic ability. And it's just like this idea of like needing to just fully feel like you can know the person next to you. And I just feel like that that really resonates too. To know the person next to you, but also I think there is definitely a streak. in this movie of that very particularly, you know, no pun, not even a pun, particularly queer, everybody rise and clap, thing where you are attracted to somebody, but you are also sort of in awe of them in a way that, like, projects onto yourself. Like, I am, do I want to be with

this person or do I want to be this person? And so I, and I think Luca gets at that in these really kind of, you know, very experiential and deeply felt ways in, you know, these scenes where Lee sort of looks over at Allerton, you know, sleeping and sort of just like takes in his form and sort of like reaches out to touch him in that kind of a thing. And like obviously it's sexual, but it's also, you know, it's acquisitional, you know what I mean? Where it's just like if I reach out and like, can I, you know, imagine being in this skin, you know what I mean, a little bit? And then I think you see that in the ayahuasca section when they sort of start, you know,

melting into each other and whatever. And it's this sense of like, you know, this other, you know, being with this person allows me to, however momentarily, imagine myself to be in the skin of this impossibly put together, not socially awkward, because he's socially closed off, you know what I mean? Absolutely, you know, desirable form of a person. So I definitely connected to that. But burdened as well, you know, not just because he's a much younger person, but and again, he's projecting onto Allerton,

we don't really know enough to understand what he might be burdened by other than identity matters. But he doesn't even seem to be particularly burdened by that. He seems to be completely unbothered by this kind of double life, this notion of a double life or whatever. So even that, I think, is so

baffling to Lee. All of this is like the things that I think a lot of people could connect to with this movie. And yet this movie has left a lot of people at arm's length, which I think is fascinating. It's all kind of, see, this was maybe the third time I watched it. I'm like, no, this stuff is like right there in the movie. And at first I thought that it was a little bit more buried. Maybe it's just because there's a lot going on. But there is a lot of remove for people.

in this. There's some, maybe some of it's the stylization. I think some of it is people's not an unalienating movie. A Luke of Guadino movie is that's titled queer. I think that didn't do it any favors. I think especially after like, like, Bones and All was such a specific thing. And then obviously Challenger's was like such a moment for like the culture that I feel like queer coming off the back of that really didn't do it any favor. Because people were going in like expecting a certain kind of thing and this is more like early Luca than like anything else where it has it can have sort of like it's interesting for me where like I feel like it can have sort of that alienate and quality to it whereas like

but like for me there's just so much that I connect with in this even this even the idea of like upset like being a queer person having an infatuation and being so obsessed with even the question of whether this person is queer or not, like whether or not their gay, like whether there's even a world where their sexuality would allow them to potentially be interested in me and not knowing like the answer to that and like having to try and like navigate it through like observing them.

Like I feel like that's something that like I've experienced so many goddamn times in my life. And I feel like it's rendered so effectively here. And like I don't know like how often I even really see that in queer cinema, like that, that question specifically of like, like, before you even get to the stage of like, this gay person, are they interested in me or not? Like, I feel like there's so much to everything and everything you guys were saying where it's like, I, I feel like this movie captures so much of like what I've experienced in longing and in like looking for like companionship, especially like queer companionship. And I it's a struggle for me to see how like it bounces off of people, but I like I guess I get it because of the way that it's like formed. But yeah, like I I don't know.

Like it really when I first saw it, I was like speechless for a while after where I was just like very emotionally. I mean, especially with like the ending like it's and the kind of this idea of just like longing and perpetuity for something that like you literally can never attain. It's really visceral. I'll say as somebody who is a little bit closer to the folks who were alienated by this movie, although not entirely. I definitely have like, you know, there's a lot of complicated stuff that I'm going with this with this movie. But I do feel like I think the nature of Craig's character and his performance in this movie, while not a criticism of that performance, like it is in its success naturally alienating. You know, he is not an easy character to watch operate in the world.

And then I do feel like not to be too reductive about it, but like once the ayahuasca trip comes in, I understand a lot of people being like, and I'm clocking out and punching my card. And that's all for me. That's me becoming the meme of leaning forward. actually no the moment that's the whole sequence is fucking transcend it like that it's great it is a dream but i hear what i hear how much i love my actual lean forward moment is the models of the cars on the freeway all of the miniatures i was like hell yeah the miniature of the plane taking up like all of the that was yes i think is exceptional i also really liked the um the use of the music in it in terms of

emphasizing so many ways in which Luca decides to emphasize the out of time, out of space, artificiality of the movie. Oh yeah, all the anachronistic, like soundtrack choices, I think are sensational. It's also not the anachronisms that you would expect this movie to have. I do think, and he's certainly not the first person to do something anachronistic in a queer context to say how, you know,

queer people are out of time and place in the way that they, you know, move through the world. But it's not kind of what you expect. Also, prominently using two bisexuals is really fascinating to me between Kurt Cobain and Prince.

I love that choice. Was Kurt Cobain canonically bisexual or are we all just sort of meeting... I thought Kirk Cobain was canonically bisexual, per his own telling. All right, and now I got to go read up on that. Maybe I'm the one projecting now. I was going to say, like, I don't know if people actually ever really talk about that that much, but maybe they don't for a reason.

Well, and Prince is probably even more debatable, but, like, but it's not like the Prince songs you would expect. And, of course, you know, it opens with Sheneid O'Connor doing a Nirvana song. But then the first, like, real Nirvana, you know, needle drop, I think was a point of contention for people. I think it's pretty brilliant. Come as you are? Yeah. Yeah, no, I think it's extraordinary. Also, though, Chris, we just played into exactly what Mitchell was talking about a second ago,

where we're both like, is Kurt Cobain queer? It was Prince a little bit? You know what I mean? It's just like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense in that way. I'm reading Kirk Cobain's Wikipedia under the sexuality section. It says that in October 1992 interview, he was asked, well, are you gay? and he replied, if I wasn't attracted to Courtney, I'd be a bisexual. And then in another interview, he described identifying with the gay community and said,

I'm definitely gay in spirit and I probably could be bisexual. If I wouldn't have found Courtney, I probably would have carried on with a bisexual lifestyle, which I feel like is, I feel like that's enough of a recognition. I mean, yes, well, with the caveat that like, Kurt was the kind of person to just sort of like say things. Yeah, sure. Give you an elliptical statement. Yeah.

But also, I mean, the other thing, and I say this all the time, and it makes me sound so reductive, but like one of the most beautiful rock stars of my upbringing was Kurt Cobain. Just like get lost in those crystal blue eyes. Good Lord. Anyway. Should we Press forward, Chris, through the,

through the Patreon and then let Mitchell have their way with this plot? You know what? Let's do it. We're closing out Preetamond.

Prejudment? Prejudgment. Okay. Whatever comes out of my mouth is whatever comes out of my mouth. Sounds, noises. Listener. Pride month.

We did, we're closing out Pride Month with our queer episode. We've done Pride stuff over on our Patreon. We call it This Had Oscar Buzz Turbulent Brilliance. For $5 a month, you're going to get more of the show you already love in the form of two bonus episodes.

First of which comes on the first Friday of the month. We call those exceptions episodes. Movies that fit that this had Oscar Buzz rubric of great expectations and disappointing results, but managed to get a few Oscar nominations Because it's Pride Month, what did we just cover? The Birdcage. A fun, rollicking conversation where Joe and I absolutely did not have any arguments about gay shit.

I got called old and out of touch in the comments on Patreon. And you know what? Not wrong. Not wrong. I'll own it. I miss that comment. I will go back and say, listen, he is very young. And experiencing touch.

Listen, what other exceptions episodes have we've done? We've talked about movies you love. Great movies like Far from Heaven, Mulholland Drive. See, both more queer movies. Great movies like When Harry Met Sally. We've done not-so-great movies like Rob Marshall's Nine. The Lovely Bones. We've done 90s faves, like Contact, Interview with the Vampals.

empire and everything in between like Madonna's W.E. House of Gucci. We recently did the American President. Exception's episodes. Always had people clamoring for us to do some of those before the Patreon and now the Patreon's here. We have years worth of episodes for you to go back and listen to. But that second bonus episode you're going to get, that comes on the third Friday of every month. Those are excursions. These are deep dyes into Oscary things we love to obsess about on this show. like EW Fall Movie Preview Issues, Hollywood Reporter Actress Roundtables,

we've done deep dives into most recently certain eras of categories. We did a whole original song in the 90s episode. And this month, we talked about, we recapped the 1987 Oscars where Cher got her Oscar. What's gayer than Share winning an Oscar? So go over to This Had Oscar Buzz Turbulent Brilliance for $5 a month and sign up. That's patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz.

Fantastic. All right. We are talking about this. Queer. 2024 film, queer. What are you queer? What are you queer? Directed by Luca Guadernino, written by Justin Karetskis.

Kyritskis. Karitsky's second pairing of that writer-director duo of that year, because they also Uncredited writer on the new Spider-Man apparently. Oh, is that true? Apparently. Maybe I'm a little bit more excited for Spider-Man. Starry. Ray on New Day, is that right?

Brand-new day. Yes. Of course. Spider-Man by way of God spell, I guess. Or the whiz. Oh, it's the whiz, it's the whiz. There's just like a whole chunk of 70s. Day by day is Godspell.

Day by day. I can't even tell a joke right. No, you can't happen in the right place. Karitsky's uncredited rewrite, but it's really just the scene where Spider-Man, Doc Ock, and Mary Jane have a threesome. Oh, in the motel, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Perfect. Starring Daniel Craig.

Drew Starkey, Jason Schwartzman as Stanley Tucci, Drew Drogy. As Stanley Tucci, as played by Michael Stoolbar. Yeah, the Stoolbar of it all, especially after Call Me, I was like, just playing the Stilbar role in this, and I love it. Ariel Schulman, Henrique Zaga, Andra, Ursaucha, Omar Apollo, David Lowry, as Jackie Earl Haley. and with Leslie Manville.

It premiered September 3rd, 2024 at the Venice Film Festival, took a tour through the fall festivals in Toronto, New York, London, etc. Made landfall as a limited release on December 13th, 2024, where it debuted in 12th place with $790,000 on 460 screens.

A-24 had a lot going on that fall, we'll talk about it, that fall and winter. That weekend's box office is kind of an uninspiring, like, we're not going to, you know, I guess we'll give Craven the Hunter it's space to fail. So number one in the box office that week was the third weekend of Moana, too, followed by the fourth weekend of Wicked. Craven the Hunter debuted in third place with $11 million, gladiator two hanging around in fourth place. and fifth place, Lord of the Rings,

the War of the Roherom. This is not even two years ago, and it feels like 800 years ago. The animated Lord of the Rings movie we were all excited about it. And I was excited about it, and then all I heard was, it's awful.

And I was like, God, I feel like I never heard anything about that. I mean, I never heard anything about Moana fucking two. Well, I also read that that was bad. We're all excited for the live action ones. Oh, certainly. We're going to hear so much about that.

People already can't stop talking about live action. I keep seeing ads for it in my like Instagram like feed just being fed into me. And every time I'm like this does look like a. I'm not one of those people that's like everything looks like I have, but like it does look like AI. It's the one to punch of everything looks like AI and then the rock. live action character looks like SNL making fun of that character. Yeah, that's actually, that's probably more accurate than anything. That it's...

The other thing with Disney sort of determined to push through all of these live action remakes, you didn't see the scare quotes that I put up in there, but I did. Is the fact that you have, like, when my nephew went through, through his Lion King phase and is now not entirely out of it, but has moved on to other things. Disney Plus provides the entire

Lion King buffet for you, right? Lion King. Lion King 2, Simba's Pride. Lion King 1 and a half, which is the like Rosencranton, Guilden-Sern or Dead version, which towed by the POVE of Timon and Pumba. The Lion Guard, which is like the TV series. Never heard of that. What?

And then, oh, Lion Guard's cute, actually. It's like, it's Simba's kid and his friends are like the little, like, junior league, like, we're the Lion Guard. We're going to, like, patrol the Savannah. It's very cute. My name is Ray Skywalker. Basically. The Lion King below decks. The Lion King, Hollywood Bowl concert, which is very important to my nephew.

And then the John Favreau, again, scare quote, live action, Lion King. And he watched all of the Barry Jenkins. And Mufasa. Oh, right, right, that's right. In the style of Mufausa. In the style of John Favro, Barry Jenkins doing the Lion King. Yes. I really hate that there's a Barry Jenkins movie that I've not seen.

No, wait. I might not. Favro did the Lion King. Jenkins did Mufasa. Yeah. Yes. Okay. I have not seen Mufasa is what I'm saying.

I love Barry Jenkins. I don't think I would be seeing in Fossa at any point. The only good thing that came out of Barry Jenkins doing Mufasa is Aaron Pierre going down the spirits on all to Aaron Piers' Mufasa, which lives in my brain forever. The I always wanted a brother song I think is very well done in the movie. And I think it's very cute. Regardless, my nephew watched all of them. Like, again, the buffet was there, and he partook of all steam trays available. And then he watched Luca Guadino's queer.

But, like, he absolutely... And he was suddenly like, you know, it doesn't really seem like Luca Guadonino is interested in William Burroughs at all. I will get out of this cul-de-sac eventually, guys, I promise. But just my point with regards to... He watched that and was like, Challenger's is better. Fuckers. I will abandon this point if you guys keep making fun. Oh, please, please, please.

We love you. Oh, with regard to the Moana thing, though, is eventually the things that he gravitated towards most often were definitely not the live action remake and were also not the Mufoc movie. I'm interested in that, yeah, because I, like, I feel like the last live action one of these things. God knows why. I went by my fucking self to go see the live action Aladdin in theaters.

That's a rough one. As like a 30 year old, I don't know what was happening. That's what those movies are pitched towards. Yeah, that's the thing. It's like that movie. It's not for the kids. I went there and it was, there were so many kids there dancing in the aisles and whatever. And, but like, my thought is like, how.

many of them are now that all these movies are on Disney Plus because the thing too is like when when we were younger like they had all these things locked in the vault right? They had to open the Disney vault to re-released Snow White I remember yeah once once a year they would like re-release

one of these movies you know on on VHS or DVD or Blu-ray or whatever I worked at a movie store in like the late aughts early 2010s and like it was like a store where people could trade and use stuff we had new stuff as well, whatever, but like you could trade in stuff and we sold, like, used movies

and new ones, whatever. And every day, every day people would, like, families would come in asking for, like, the list of, like, the Disney movies. And we would, like, never have them because anytime somebody traded in, like, one of the Blu-Raeys of Lion King or Aladdin or Little Mermaid or whatever, somebody would buy it immediately. And it was, like, such, like, an in-demand, like, hot property kind of thing. And I feel like that also, like, that created a world where these things were really, like,

prized special things. And, like, you know, I think there's a lot of issues with that. I think the sort of gatekeeping of access to these things is like insane. And, like, doing it to do a re-release of, you know, the 30th anniversary where you could just charge people, you know, another sum to buy the same thing that they've already, you know, died a bunch of times. But I, like, it's an interesting world now where it's like all of this stuff is on Disney Plus, but you're putting live action Moana in theaters, which I'm sure is going to make a

boatload of money, but how many of these kids are going to return to that at home on Disney Plus when they can just watch the animated one instead? Just watch the actual animated more fun and looks better and is the one that they love anyway. Right. It just... And it's the thing that actually ignites

their imagination rather than contains it, you know, which is what all these live action pieces and sets these like parameters to their imagination. Whereas like you watch Beauty and the Beast and it's just like, it just like fires off all these things in your imagination. and you can kind of run wild with it.

I know that might sound pretentious to some people, but I do think it's... No, that's really, really well-set. I think the replacement of the, you know, the idea of the vault and, you know, people being willing to spend so much money on something while they have that access to it, that's been replaced by the way that Disney Plus is the last app.

Any of those households will, ever get rid of, like that type of dominance, right? You know, it's the one that they go to and they'll watch whatever new stuff is on there, even if they maybe don't care. Yeah. Well, that's, yeah, it's a very set and forgetted kind of a thing of just like, it's that and PBS Kids, which was like, what can we just like sit him down in front of that like you'll watch it's like those two.

But the other thing about the Disney vault, like, even before the like, you know, the Blu-ray and DVD thing of it all was like, you go back that, that box. office game that you can play online. My favorite thing of that is when it's like a year in the 80s and you can see something and it's like it's in its, you know, 894th week of release. I'm like, that is a Disney re-release. That is they brought, you know, Sleeping Beauty back from the vault for this week. But those movies would end up in the top five, you know, rely on.

That's the thing. Yeah. People would go to that stuff versus now. I mean, they still go to them now, but I just feel like the last. impact of these things is completely nil, like, at this point. Well, and does it affect the way that, like, maybe the

answer to this is no, but, like, does it affect the way that those movies are going to be remembered in 25 years? Right. Where... Like, does it sully the reputation? Like, Levo and Stitch had plenty of time to, like, become people's favorite movie long before that live action remake. But, like, putting only a decade

in between Moana, it's crazy. And then the remake of it in this way is, I think maybe fucking with the way that that movie is going to be remembered. I don't know. Maybe just generations turn over more quickly than that. I feel like it has to because it's like you have that, then you have the sequel that like nobody talks about and that, which made a billion dollars, but like nobody talks

about it. And then the live action thing. And then they'll probably have a live action of the sequel or like, or a series or something like soon. It just, it speaks all like all around to everything. happening with this. The fact that like Mandelorian and Grogu barely made anything like at the box office because

it just is this is the thing that we have at home. So like why are we going? Mandolian and Grogu getting bodied by obsession is so funny. Yeah, it's so telling. Both times I saw the Mandalorian trailer in the theaters people made reference to it being a new season of the show.

Yeah. Yeah. Like I this is the thing I was saying to some friends recently where it's like you used you know when the Force Awakens trailer played when the last Jedi trailer played people lost their minds like like it was you know back when the the original sequel trilogy was coming out and like everybody was like ecstatic about that stuff now mandolorean and grogoo trailer played to cricket anytime i saw it in the theater same with the Avengers dooms day trailer like I just feel like the the actual specificity of these like event things has been so deep eventized by everything that they were running. And I feel like Figuis like talked about like how they made a mistake by doing, like, I feel like he's, right?

He's like open recently said. Fagie definitely is talking like somebody who really wishes he could put a few genies back in the bottle and just sort of like recreate some kind of scarcity, you know, some kind of anticipation that just is going to be. Yeah, that's the thing. Yeah. Very difficult to redo. do.

I'm going to be really, really curious to see how Doomsday does. Like, I think that's one of the more interesting, like, box office stories of the year because Doon 3 is going to be fucking huge. But, like, Doomsday, like, how much are people going to go to that? I'm still amazed that those things are just bound and determined to just release on. I don't understand what they're doing. I genuinely am like, like, I don't know, man. Like, I heard the thing, and I don't know whether this ever got.

that this ever got followed up on and it's probably now, maybe even too late in the game to do it. But that Marvel was going to essentially like make up their own version of like VistaVision and have like make up their own premium format to display. To not have IMAX.

Doomsday in so that they can bypass the IMAX thing but still get the kind of opening weekend numbers for a large format release, which when AMC already has like including iMacs four or five premium formats in some theaters it's what are we doing here you're just trying to price gouge people at this right right and like again I am rooting for doomsday

at least on like a creative level I want to really enjoy that movie it's really hard to be optimistic for it at the moment but The obvious solution here is we need an animated remake of queer. All right. Thank you for bringing it back. Thank you for bringing it back. All right. Mitchell, I'm going to pull up my stopwatch.

I'm going to prime you with... We already did the boilerplate. Okay. So, reset. All right. 60 seconds to give a plot description for queer. Are you ready? Yeah.

Yeah. You seem like you were mid-sentence. Oh, no. All right. And go. William Lee is a gay writer living in Mexico City in the early 50s. There he meets Eugene Allerton, a chilly younger man of ambiguous sexuality, Lee becomes infatuated with. To establish a sexual relationship, the one with a clear power imbalance where Lee's head over heels and Allerton remains a distance. They travel to South America where Lee hopes to find a plant and he believes will get him telepathic abilities.

Eventually, they make their way to an Ecuadorian jungle where, a woman makes ayahuasca from this plant that the two men take and find themselves connecting and intertwining with one another in a way beyond language. The experience seems to slightly terror. 30 seconds. Fucking shit. Okay. The experience seems to slightly terrify Allerton who disappears from Lee's life soon after. Two years later, Lee returns to Mexico City and has a sort of 2001 beyond the infinite fantastical journey that revolves, that resolves with him as an old man in the same hotel room longing for an Allerton who will never come.

The end. With 10 seconds to spare. I do think that you getting to the jungle before the 30 second mark is the most Herculean effort. I just wasn't expecting to hear words. I was trying to get through it. I would have hit 30 seconds at about the time I was still describing what Drew Drogey's role in the ecosystem of this movie is. This is my third time on the show. I've learned what are the details I can cut to because I feel like after.

Three hours and devil in a blue dress I failed miserably at. I feel like it was like I was getting a 30 second warning. There is no failing when you're stacked up against Chris and me who. I do think this maybe gets at what a lot of people have reservations around this movie. There's not a lot apply. No, not a lot happens. And then when stuff happens, a lot happens at once. Like the whole trip into the jungle, he goes through like a detox kind of, uh,

through heroin. And then, you know, you have these more abstract sections again. You know, it's kind of pings people around in a way that I think they're not expecting. And I think particularly, like, the audience that was maybe expecting Luca Guadino to do another call me by your name feels really alienated by this movie. The great irony of this, of course, and I am not the first person to point this out, is this is the movie that um

is gives you the explicit sex scene that people maybe wanted from challenges and bitched about yeah well bitched about and call me that like that you know they turned that he turned his camera outside the window because he didn't want to really show the truth about like gay sexuality or whatever and then this movie they literally he literally looks out the window and then goes back to watching them in multiple sexes yeah

In multiple different sexes. To which point I want to say to all those people that it, you know, it pans to the window and call me by your name. I'm like, maybe there's just a motif. Maybe it's not, uh, it's not that he's doing anything. It's just like it's a signature for him. I would be willing to bet that you have a shot of a window in one of the like conalinga scenes in a bigger splash. I also, yeah, I feel like with call me what also I feel like makes that effect. is that it is, it's a coming of age story about somebody kind of coming into their sexuality at a young age.

Like I feel like panning away, it, it's a smart move to kind of like allow us to put ourselves like more in that moment and have it be like whatever it is for us because I certainly had that experience. And when I'm watching that movie, I'm thinking about my first sort of queer sexual experiences. Right. Watching this, it is more about like the journey of the character. And I think having it be so on screen is really important. for the characters in this because you're seeing you're seeing exactly what lee is giving to Allerton and then you have the moment where Allerton finishes and Lee thinks that they're done. Like he has given him the service.

He's given him pleasure. He feels like that's the end and he's content with that. And then you have the moment that is so revelatory for him that that is then reciprocated. And the way that like Craig's, Craig responds in his. his performance to that is so effective because we've seen that whole journey, like, explicitly on screen. So, like, we've seen what the acts that he's performed and then that surprise that he has of kind of getting that reciprocated.

I think that's not affected if you, you know, pan away, like, look at the camera. But I feel like it's just, it's such different things. It's, I, yeah, that you're using, call me criticism is so insane. Well, right. But it's, you know, the. the visuals and the whatever like shot selection serves two different stories. And it's just like if you are, you know, not, if you are looking for, you know, something out of your movie that doesn't serve that, then like, sorry. It's the type of complaint that I always think of my mind as most annoying person in honors English class.

You know, that's how I always feel complaints like that are. Yeah. The other thing, though, Mitchell, you mentioned with that is that also comes up in the late after the later sex scene, the after the anal scene, where Lee is like, I mean, what? How would you like me to describe it, sir? Where Lee is like, is this enjoyable for you? Yeah, oh my God, that fucking breaks. Yeah. That line breaks my goddamn heart.

And he assumes that the answer is going to be no. And what I love about what Allerton's response to that is, is he's like, yeah, of course, I like it. You know what I mean? Yeah. And but doesn't give him any, it's not like this like, oh, babe, like, I, you know, I love how I feel when we're together, whatever. He's not giving him any kind of like anything more emotional reaction, but he's just like,

yeah, I like it. You know what I like that kind of thing? So it's like Lee is, Lee's assumptions that, like, like, you know, everybody feels awful and debased by, you know, these actions is wrong. But he's also just like still getting nothing from this guy. I also, okay, I had two questions that I wanted to sort of flow out there before we dive back into the actual, like, you know, story. They're more about the packaging of this, one of which is the font. that Luca uses both, not just for the poster,

but for the, like, chapter titles of the movie and whatever. Should be said, same font designer as the call me by your name font designer. Oh, that's fascinating. But it's obviously, it's another sort of, like, anachronistic thing. It's this very kind of, like, uh, shot, like, quickly, like, rendered, like, chalk, you know, sort of script, uh, thing in this, um, you know, sort of, like, violet shade or whatever.

And the other thing is the one poster for this, which is not the one that they use on IMDB, but it's the one where it's, you see the millipede necklace around Starkey's

neck. I literally spent way more time than I should have, trying to be like, what's the significance of these things? Like, what is, like, what am I supposed to get out of this beyond just the, you know, the shock of the anachronism of the font and then the sort of spiked allure of, you know, this, you know, creepy crawly thing on, again, like a fetishized, you know, body part of this gorgeous man.

It creates a primal reaction, you know. Yes. Yeah. I don't know. Am I like, is there anything to? to be gleaned off of that, or is it just sort of just like, Lucas doing this thing? I don't know about the font.

The, the millipede, I'm trying to remember, I didn't write it down. There's like a 30-ish minute, like, behind the scenes, like, featurette thing on the, the 824 Blu-ray that I watch. And he talked about it specifically in that. And he talked about how it, like, I can't remember exactly what he said,

but he said something about it like representing like repression and like kind of it being used to highlight the the repression of like all the characters are feeling both both lee and allerton and sort of like how that like comes through in them and he he talked about the there's like the scene too with like the the snake eating itself like he he kind of talked just like about the insect kind of stuff throughout the film um but i i remember him talking specifically about repression with the the millipede the centipede whatever I wish I wrote down exactly what he said But I found it interesting Because it was the kind of thing That similarly when I watched the movie I was like There's clearly a reason for this But I'm not 100% sure I'm parsing

Like the fact that they put it on a poster Means it's like it's meaningful You know what I mean in that way And like not to pick this too much apart But about the font too Because it has this you know Inky or maybe even like charcoal quality Where it looks like pieces of it

being broken off. Yes. Charcoal, I think, is a good way of experience. Yeah. That feels out of place or natural. If it was black, it would make sense. Like, we would get that that's the source material. It's an out-of-time color palette, yeah.

Not just out of time, but like, out of the, how do I even describe it? Out of the, like, language of the font that we're looking at. Not literal language, but the spiritual language, you know. There is no charcoal. We see a thought like that, and our mind thinks, yes, it's black because that's ink or that's extra, like, charcoal chunks. But, like, neon blue is not what we would think. But it's also the fact that, like, it's so counter to the visual language of the movie. Love, like, what we're seeing, too, in these, you know, in Mexico and Ecuador and all these kind of places.

Well, yeah, I feel like there's a lot of that kind of through, like, the general aesthetic of the movie. too, like the fact that like the whole like set design of the movie is deliberately very artificial other than when they're, I mean, even when they're in the jungle, there's a little bit of like a stage kind of quality to it. Like it feels a little bit like on a stage, but I feel like less so than in Mexico City, which feels very like, yeah. Have you guys seen Rainer Werner Fastbender's movie Queryl? Yes.

I haven't. That is a great. It always reminds me so much of this. Like the, that sort of like, like that movie uses more like Matt paintings and stuff like that. Right. But like this, the architectural design of this is so like it's shooting in Italy, like you said, like shooting in Italy for Mexico City. But like what is actually on screen is like feels like something that's completely fantastical.

Like, you know, without being deliberately like this is, you know, science fiction. But like something that no no place has ever looked or felt exactly like this. And I feel like that it's such an interesting technique that kind of like throws it like it draws us in, but it throws us a little bit as well. sort of similar to like what's happening with like Allerton with with Lee where it's like I am so like intrigued by the visual design of the movie and like really leaning into it and trying to unpack it while being like it it unsettles you a little bit from what you expect this movie to be going into it. The other scene that I thought sort of similar to that was is in the epilogue when they flash forward. and Lee comes back to Mexico City and meets up with Schwartzman again. And they're clearly in like a place that has, you know, a renovated place from whatever, the last cafe that they met in. And it weirdly looks like a sub shop, like a modern day like Jersey mics or something like that.

Like it looks that sort of brass and crazy bikes. for a $5 foot long. Right. Right. Tuesday is Meatball Sub Day. Yeah. The color palette wasn't right for Subway, so I can say, but just like something like that.

Yeah, it's very like white, like tile. Too modern. I mean, I guess it's an obvious reference. There are giant, you know, portraits of lettuce and slices of tomato on the wall. But that sort of leads me into one thing I also wanted to talk about, which was maybe my favorite thing about the movie is the anal sex

Yeah The anal sex You can't stop talking about Joe Stop saying anal on our podcast It's gonna get us banned Yeah this episode's gonna get shadow band on Apple Because you keep saying anal

All the time No but the The glimpses that we get Of Whatever Passes for community like queer community in Mexico City at the time, which I find to be fascinating.

And we get it sort of on the margins of things, again, like anytime Drew Drogey sort of like swans in and makes some sort of bitchy comment or whatever, like he's always looking across these cafes at like other guys like chatting in a booth or whatever. And he, you know, Lee is on the outskirts of this, but he's also, you know, very good friends with Schwartzman, and they always have the gossip on, you know, someone or another.

And I somewhat predictably am like, okay, like, I get that that's not exactly what this movie's about, but I do kind of want to watch that movie, the movie about the sort of like queer expatriate community in Mexico City. I feel like that movie is even a little bit more, like the queer L kind of aspect of it all. That really is like the communal aspect and, like, how all. these different people are like interacting with each other i the the shorts shorts shortsman like continually recounting bringing men back and like that's so something bad is gonna happen everything's like yeah he's always getting wrong yeah he deeped me up but what he's also like yeah

exactly he's always he's fine with it like it's so good like he saw my shoes but like i wasn't gonna not sleep with him well and then the anecdote at the very end where he mentions that like Drew Drogey went back to the United States to because to be with his ailing mother and died. But all these sort of stories about like, you know,

talking about other, you know, these other men who, and it is very much they are living, you know, it is very expatriate. It is very, like, somewhat like refugee community. Yeah. These people who left, you know,

have a wife back home, have a mother, back home who doesn't approve of this lifestyle, you know, that kind of a thing. And here, I guess, nominally they are, the movie never really indulges in anything so pat as to be like, here they are free or whatever, because here they are also sort of like hedged in by the fact that like they're gossiping about this guy's mom or they're gossiping about, you know, you know, these guys' lives or whatever. So like, it's not quite freedom. It is. It is. is still, you know, Jason Schwartzman, you know, getting to have anal. You know what?

I'm going to say it. I'll say it. I'll be brave enough to say it. But also then... You should be that brave. But also then getting robbed in the same night or whatever, you know. So it's... It is fascinating.

And the way in which Lee maybe doesn't want to fully be a part of that community because of how he views himself and how he views... you know, queerness or whatever. But I think it does, I'm fairly sure that's probably not what Burroughs had in mind by calling the movie queer, but like from a present-day perspective, the idea that queer is this more sort of inclusive terminology and less, you know, less alienating makes it kind of an interesting lens to, you know, look at that stuff through, I thought at least. Well, I mean, so much of it is around.

Lee's, like, perception of things. I mean, like, we talked about the kind of heightened aesthetic of the movie, but there is a certain, like, we don't see him do heroin until fairly late in the movie. And it's very clear that he's been doing it the whole time anyway, but we don't actually see it. Because we don't see him in those interactions and in those social settings through the context of him doing hard drugs. we see him basically every time he walks into a bar he does three shots of tequila before speaking to anybody but you know for everyone else it's not just that he's doesn't know how to engage with them

but it's also they're like here's this guy who's a drug addict and we don't necessarily see through druggie's character that way you know yeah yeah even Schwartzman too yeah like I think that there's less of like a there's a quality to leave that I think to your point Chris is like repelling to other people around them and it is like for him because we're seeing it through like so much his perspective like we're not seeing him doing the drug so it's like yes it's just this thing of like people just like

don't vibe with him but like he doesn't even fully like recognize why because like for him it's just like a lifestyle thing he's just doing it for himself I I love the choice to not really see it until the scene where they play, leave me alone by No Order. And it's just like that extended like long take of him just sitting with it. I think that's that scene is incredible. I think corrects performance in that scene is incredible. But yeah, I think again, to the burrows of it all.

Like I wonder, Chris, did you, you said earlier that you've read the book? Mm-hmm. Is it in the book, do they like go into more detail of like the, like him using drugs throughout? It's definitely clearer, but I also read it straight off of reading junk, which is just like almost a log of just like, here's all the drugs I did and when and here's how here's how I had to like move from place to place to be able to just do drugs all the time. It's a fair. What's interesting is like it is a pretty faithful adaptation while at the same time it's clear that Guadonino is interested in. pushing it in a certain direction or focusing on certain elements and obscuring others. Yeah.

The other thing is, on the poster, it says a Luca Guadino love story. Is that just Luca being a little bitch? Or like, is... I think so, right? Right? It's got to be a provocation. I think it's a little bit like Gregoraki calling the Jim Generation a heterosexual film by Gregoraki. I think it's leading it to...

Yeah. And who knows? Like, I wonder how much that's like 824 marketing, how much it's like Luca being, like, I have this great idea. Like, let's put this on the poster versus like 824 being like, hey, what if we did this? I imagine he at least had to sign off on it. He's short, yeah, surely he signed off on it. Yeah. I think one of the things that is constantly kind of misunderstood or misinterpreted about Guadonino and his movies,

is that he's often not quite making the movie, and I think intentionally so, that people want his movies to be. This is kind of why I think people gravitated so much towards challengers, because I do think challengers is him giving you not just the movie you want, but the movie you don't even know you want, or the movie that we've maybe been denied for a long time, whereas, like, Bones and All is not really a zombie vampire,

movie that you expect it to be Susperia is not the Not at all Spiria. Yeah, yeah. Even a bigger splash, I feel like. Oh, God, yeah. A bigger splash, too.

After the hunt, like, really, like, people did not seem to understand that, like, he wasn't making the, like, Me Too movie. He was making something else set within the context of Me Too. And people were, like, pissed for it not,

you know, saying the things, they wanted it to say when it's like, he's clearly interested in something you know, like this backdoor approach to a subject matter. And I think queer is like that too.

Backdoor does not get to... Just say the word, Chris. Just say it. Don't be repressed. But I do think that's kind of his approach to movies. And I don't necessarily think it's petulant. Maybe after The Hunt is a little petulantly trying to be a different movie set within that. I think he sometimes has a little bit of a smirk on his face with he's making some of these things.

But yeah, because I do feel like, I can't imagine the purpose of this movie is to tell a love story because I think so, again, going back to, like, how... remote the Starkey character is in this even so the movie is somewhat two movies um it becomes something very different once they hit the jungle and more specifically once they do the ayahuasca um how much does the relationship between those two characters change via doing the ayahuasca, even if it's only, like, within Lee's perception. Because I think at that point, once they do the ayahuasca, I do somewhat feel like Allerton's character ceases to exist for real with Lee, at least.

He has the one scene with Leslie Manville. But, like, everything of the two of them together, to me, is just, like, pure projection. After they've had this, like, truly kind of... connective experience I mean displayed on screen in literal terms connective experience

you know where they are finally in sync with one another but do you think that is the two of them being in sync with one another or do you think that

is just Lee sort of you know oh like is the trip just his experience of the trip and not the reality of the trip not to be like it was all a dream or whatever but like you know what I mean

I feel my my my feeling at least i think it's an interesting question and my my interpretation watching it is that like this is the moment where they they both have finally like unmoored themselves from the things that have been holding them back and they both have finally sort of become this like symbiotic thing and like achieved this like transcendent sort of connection that lee had been longing for this whole time that allerton had been really resisting this whole time and then And the fallout from it is that Allerton's not ready to be there.

Like he hasn't accepted his queerness. And like as Leslie Mamma will kind of like provokes in him, he's terrified of it. And he runs away from it. He doesn't want to be around me anymore. He never sees him again. So for Lee, it's this devastating thing of finally sort of achieving this like state of nirvana with another person that you were after. And that you get it for a, you know, a fleeting moment.

then it's gone. Allerton, what we learn is that he, he left, but he returned, like, later without, right, and disappeared into the jungle and, like, with someone else, with another guy. So it's like, I feel like he, he was afraid of it, but then was still, like, searching for it in some kind of a way, um, that, that experience again, um, and, and sort of lost himself to it. And it's a kind of eritacy illusion, too. Because, you know, he, you have that scene with Manville after the trip scene, and it's the closest thing to vulnerable that we see of him, certainly, you know, we might ask for more vulnerability, but it is to him vulnerability.

Like, he has to go back into the, like, the jungle, as far away from his real world as possible to be able to experience. that vulnerability again. Even if he's chasing it, he can't do it in what is for him the real world, you know? There is also the very sort of human tendency to, you know, you have this experience with someone, and then they, you know, turn away from you and then run away. And you're like, I guess they just weren't able to accept this about themselves. And then it's like, or they, you know, want to, you know, experience this, but just not with you.

You know what I mean? Just like, which is a, you know, tough pill to swallow, I think. And sometimes we choose not to do that. Yeah. Yeah. But. We should talk about Craig's performance. Yeah, let's talk about Craig's performance.

Because as much as this was also the year of challengers and, you know, we spent time talking about Luca Guadino. I think the thing that kept this in the actual Oscar conversation until the very last minute was David Craig in this actor. Yeah, he was basically the entire, you know. He was like six basically, right? Like, because he got, what did he get? He got SAG, right?

He got SAG, right? He got SAG, he got Critics' Choice, he got Golden Globe nominee. So, like, he got like, everything except for BAFTA. And yet. I was the least surprised person in the world when he ultimately doesn't get the Oscar nomination. I still think I wasn't even predicting him for the Oscar. Like it seemed very, very obvious that that five was going to be that five and that he was going to be, well, not necessarily. I don't, I feel like I was still resistant to predicting Sebastian Stan, but I might have been, I can't remember who I, who else I would have been predicting.

So I must have. It was that type of situation that when you're having conversations and everybody's like, so fifth is, this or that and people are like Yeah Well it's Sebastian Sand and you're like but And then it's like okay so then who is it Daniel Craig and you're like no It's probably Sebastian yeah

It's like that right I think I was maybe playing the like Wishcasting Maybe it'll be Sebastian Stan for a different man Like that kind of thing I have like thoughts about that Well I mean classic that is very classic you know Oscars too

of just like you have this breakthrough year for an actor, you have this performance that like, you know, is at least on enough people's radars that like he wins the Golden Globe musical or comedy award for a different man.

And it's like, nah, we're going to give it to him for... And I think to... You kind of like soft tease it earlier, but with A24 Slate, like I feel like one of the things that... Yeah.

Drives me up the goddamn wall with A24 and with neon is every year they buy so many movies that they plan for awards they see what are the ones that are that they feel like are the best shot and then they just abandon like the other ones and I feel like queer releasing with a limited release like mid-December like it just feels like this movie got left behind by them to focus on other stuff but a different man just as much like a different man on my ballot that year sebastian Stan was my number one for a leading actor for a different man Like him getting nominated for the goddamn apprentice. Like for so many different reasons. It's just like, guys, like he, like we could have done something special here. The A24 roster, as you referenced it. And it's like this isn't even the complete A24 roster for 2024.

This is just like the stuff that I think was still probably alive in the October to December range. It's the brutalist. Sing, a different man, baby girl, Heretic, we live in time, and then also queer. And so we live in time drops off pretty quickly, but that's still a, you know, fall premiere or whatever. Heretic and Baby Girl were like on the fringes for kind of a while. We're never really like, I guess maybe not likely,

although I remember being incredibly bold and foolhardy and being like Antonio Banderas is getting nominated, for supporting actor. I would have loved that. That's like, I literally was like, this could get two supporting actor nominations. I was really over my skis on Baby Girl for a minute. It was really interesting that people just kind of shrugged their shoulders at that movie,

ultimately at the end of the day. I know. I think it's at least more fun than that. I think people were looking for that movie to be, this is not at all meant pejorative towards that movie. I think they were looking towards that being a more serious movie. and I think that's a fun movie. But they ultimately get two

Best Picture nominees that year with The Brutalist and Sing Sing. I think there is a degree to which I would buy the idea that they maybe were not expecting the Brutalist to be received as well as it was, particularly at Venice. I feel like that reception was... Well, they bought it out of Venice.

Oh, they bought it out of Venice. They bought this and the Brutalist out of Venice. Though there had been rumors that they'd are. already picked up this movie well before Venice, but they at least did not say that they picked it up for distribution until Venice for this movie. Because the Brutalus being the surprise out of Venice is sort of a thing. And like my Venice perceptions are not to be trusted because Venice is happening while I am like getting into Toronto. Yeah. Like I literally just like off out of

pocket. It did not. No. Yeah. And like as as yeah like the Brutalist was like the huge moment of Venice where it was like this movie that wasn't super on people's radar, I feel like, is now like the movie to be coming out of Venice. I love that the, um, uh, queer is an odd adaptation of a book that does exist. And the brutalist is like a rock solid adaptation of a novel that doesn't exist. Yeah, because it, it has that whole like great American novel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But the reception for queer at Venice, like, immediately people were reporting on all of the, like, homophobic reactions and jeers that it was receiving in screenings in Italy.

Very, unfortunately, still very patriarchal society, Italy. And then the press conference, they were asking, like, Daniel Craig questions about nothing but bond. And then all of these, like, kind of homophobically tinted questions to the point. Do you guys remember Luca Guadino doing the pose and being like, guys, can we be adults? I don't remember that, but that's incredible. That's Luca responding to us making the queer episode in part about the Disney Vault. Can we be adults? But so, yeah, you're right, though, Mitchell, in that, like, yes, A-24 and Neon does the same thing of sort of like...

Well, because even... Sorry, even the Sing-Sing of it at all, too, like, is, like, it was a summer release that they had picked up from TIF, like, the previous year, like, it, it's kind of like an odd one that ends up doing huge, but also not as huge as I feel like at a certain point. Like, Clarence Macklin for like a while seemed like he was like the frontrunner for supporting actor, like to win and never even got nominated. Like it, Sing Sing Sing went through like such a strange kind of journey. Because when they first picked it up, I was like, why are they not even, like, in 20203?

I was like, why are they not releasing it like this year to like build off that momentum? I think they expected a box office hit. And when it wasn't, it really kind of threw the whole equilibrium off of that campaign. But I mean this says no shade against Enora. But like, this is the year where Enora ends up winning best picture, which says to me that like a lot of things could have won Best Picture that year. Yeah. And like, I remember thinking that about Sing Sing a lot was just like, if they really put their

shoulder into this thing, like I really do not see why Sing Sing couldn't win Best Picture. That's what drove me crazy. Singh could have like, like these are obviously extremely different movies, but like Sing Sing 100% could have gone the route of a CODA or everything everywhere all in once, where like, you get that crew into the right rooms constantly across a word season, you are getting people wanting to vote for everybody on that movie. Yes. Yeah.

So it's interesting to think back. But yeah, I think queer was ultimately never going to be able to. click with a wide enough Yeah, it's too esoteric, I feel like to... But I think Craig definitely could have gotten a best actor nomination if the film were maybe a little bit more celebrated or wider scene or something like that. I have to add something cynical that I'm thinking in the most...

Like, this thought is forming as we speak. Oh, I love that. And I don't want it to come up. across is disingenuous because even if it's still not a fully formed thought. I don't mean it in that way. I love a walk-up. The reticence for him to talk about James Bond, I appreciate it, I respect it. It runs counter to the way successful Oscar campaigns happen.

Because if it would be, the way that historically this would work would be like, you loved him as James Bond, he will answer any of your James Bond question. and look at all of this artistic growth that I have gone through from being James Bond to now I can do this. That's how Oscar campaigns work right now. I don't love it. I do think it's realistic to say that that's how that works.

Yeah. But he doesn't always want to talk about it. And probably because that's all they ask him about. It is striking that your Oscar winner this year is Adrian Brody, who is like a two-time, two-time winner in the regret Olympics of, he gets two Oscars and then within a very short amount of time, people are like, could we have gone the other way on that? Like, maybe we should have. Second, he hands his wife to his gum to his wife.

But it's like, but for those six months or whatever, he's able to be charming enough that, people are like, let's give, you know what, let's give him that second Oscar, let's do it. And I think you look at the other nominees, obviously, like, Coleman Domingo was made for this. You know what I mean? Like, Coleman Domingo was made to campaign for awards. Like, he's so charming. Ray finds somewhat famously not so. But yet, like, Conclave was such a thing.

even beyond queer shit posters Concliffe was a thing And Ray Fond I feel like Even though he has You know a certain demeanor I feel like he's He's a little bit more

To Chris's point willing to play the game Like during the season And like do the like Sell Me Out Like this kind of thing Like he tries to work a room He's not great at it

Like he's not as good at it As somebody like Coleman Domingo But he at least tries Whereas Daniel Craig I feel like is not he's not trying. And this is the most that he's done in that regard too. And Sebastian Stan, when given a very

difficult task of trying to thread the needle of I'm playing Donald Trump in a movie, I thought did a very good job of not taking a wrong foot in that case. And doing it for who put out Apprentice was Briarcliffe catch up one of the like for like a studio that is.

Catch up. For like a studio that is like not. Yes. Not, you know, does not have the money to like really put a campaign. Right. Like it,

I feel like that's him doing a lot of work. And like the lift of like people like wanting to make a statement by nominating like the, the anti-Trump movie kind of thing. But like I also feel like Stan does a lot of work that also helps get Jeremy strong like, you know, the, the momentum that he gets. Yes. Jeremy Strong is not working. Right, right. No, I think, yeah, you're right.

I think Stan does the heavy lifting. I'm about to throw some bait out to Chris. Do you think Conclave could have finished second in that Best Picture voting? Yes. I think it was. Yeah, I feel like it was for sure, right? Yeah. I think it was probably the brutalist in second place, ultimately.

Just because of, like, type of movie, the reception. I think the Brutalist was second place in a lot. Uh, because, like, that movie is also still that movie. Like, it, it's, it's, this, like, Porterhouse movie, but it's also, like, coming at it somewhat abrasively in a way that, like, the establishment is never going to get fully behind a movie like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not, I'm not negative on the brutalist. I'm, I'm a little chillier on the, like, Hosanas that movie has received. Yeah, I recall.

I'm the same as you. I'm, like, a, like, I gave it, like, a four on that airbox. It's, like, a, it's like, a, like, a. solid like four but it's like the the idea of like the next great american masterpiece in quotes like i'm just i can't get there with it like it feels too much to me like it is presenting itself as though it has already been anointed that like from the approach yeah yeah yeah and i mean there's certainly some scenes in that movie that do get there for me i do think the score is doing like the score is doing so much lifting for like the the circumstances

of that movie. I think that score is tremendous. It's my favorite score of that year. But I think without that score, I think you're losing a lot of the loftiness of it. I was worried I was going to click onto my list and see that the Brutalist was my number one. It was my number two.

I think to put maybe a finer point on what I was saying about the Brutalist, everything you can say is greatness in the Brutalist, just as many people can probably say is pretentious about the Brutalist, and that's probably why it's always second place for everything,

including Joe's top 10. What was your number one, Joe? Problemista. Oh, sure, okay. Another 824 movie. Yeah, another 824 movie. The 824 movie of that year as far as I'm concerned. As far as we're concerned.

Well, that and a different man. I still haven't seen Problemist. Oh, Mitchell, you've got to see Problemista. Oh, it's good. It's really good. My top five for Problemista, Brumann. Routelist, his three daughters, challengers, and a different man. So I had three of five. And yeah, Challenges and a different man were in. What was my top five? It was my number one was evil does not exist, the Hamaguchi. Two were challenges. I still haven't seen. So amazing. We'll have an exchange program, Mitchell, where we can watch each other's number one movies of 2024.

Two was challengers. Three was Robert Zemeckis is here. Um, four was Horizon in American Saga chapter of all. That's your date for Chris. And then five was a different man for me. I love that year. Duh, of course we know what my number one was this year. It's Hartruths. Oh, yes. Which the performance of the year is Mary and Jean Batiste and Hartius. My top five, number five, a different man. Number four, the room next door.

Number three, Dahomey. Number two, The Beast. And number one, hard truth. Do we all have number five a different man? I was just about to say it. I love that. Yeah, that's incredible. Fantastic. That's really funny.

So Daniel Craig does not ultimately get the Oscar nomination. He, as of now, has zero career Oscar nominations, despite the fact that, like, even well before, you know, queer and even the, you know, Ben-Wall-Blanc movies, has been Oscar-adjacent in quite a few things. He was, I still think of his breakout role as being in Road to Perdition, although he was definitely, like, in Things. He is fucking tremendous in Road to Perdition. Oh, good. That's still, honestly, that still might be my favorite performance of his. If that movie was received

better and was like a best picture nominee kind of a thing, I could have seen a world in which he gets a second supporting actor nomination. Right. Gets in with Newman. He's also in Munich, which beyond the fact that like Eric

Banner was the lead of that movie, I genuinely can't remember what the hierarchy was in terms of like, was he like second banana on that crew? Was Daniel Craig? He was like the other like hot guy kind of thing. I feel like Kieran Heinz was kind of like pretty central for like the...

Yeah, he's like the elder character role in that. But then wasn't Matthew Almorique winning like critics prizes? Was he really? Is that true? Yeah, that's very interesting. I think he's great in it, but that's surprising. People were just having an Amarique moment. There was an El Marique moment for a minute there.

Oh yeah, because that was the same year as Kings and Queen, right? The Disflession. And then Diving Bell and the Butterfly was a couple years after. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. An Amarique moment, a phrase that will only ever be said on this podcast. Charlie X, X, X, X, this movie is the animated remake of the moment about... I had a Matto-a-Morik moment. There's a movie called, like, Heartbeat Detector that came around that same time that I watched specifically because he was in it.

I was, like, for, like, five years, I was, like, give me chicken with plums. Yeah, my most anticipated of the year, because he's the lead in. All right, when we do our main mini-soumins. series on Machu el-Maric, we are absolutely inviting you back. Just get me on every single episode for that one. 2006, he's obviously makes his debut as James Bond and Casino Royale. The Bafton nomination sometimes gets like, I mean, and not maybe unjustifiably, gets passed off as like, you know, Brit nonsense or whatever.

Like, that's how much they love James Bond that they're like. I think he deserved an Oscar non for Casino. I think he's great in that movie. And I also feel like, I mean, we're going to end up doing Casino Royale for this podcast at some point. And I think it's really fascinating that that movie ultimately gets no nominations. Oh, wow. I don't think I ever realized that.

I didn't even get like a sound or anything. Nothing. Got straight up nothing. But it was received so well, too. Yes, like that's the thing. And then Skyfall then gets a bunch of nominations and comes very close to getting Best Picture nominated. So I wonder if that's a little bit of like we were maybe late to the party on Casino Royale. and now, I'm like, I love...

And they couldn't do it with Quantum of Solis. They really nobody liked Quantum of Salas. I love Quantum of Salas. I've still never seen... With Matthew Amarie. Yes, bring it around. Bring it around. I've still never seen Quantum of Salas.

I am really not a Bond guy. I'm not either. The most Bond movies I've ever seen have been, the Craigs have been, you know, Casino Rail and Skyfall and Spector in No Time to Die. I do kind of want to go back and do all of them because they're blind spots, but I don't know what they, like, I can't, I certainly saw more James Bond as a child, but it's to the point where I can remember fragments of things, but could not tell you what Bond movie it was. You're just going to end up. Yeah, right, which one's which, yeah.

Yeah, you're just going to end up, um, Leo pointing your way through all of the Alston Powers references. Or I'm gonna, in very typical me fashion, come away from a full James Bond rewatch and be like, best bond, Lazz and B. Oh, yes, that's, that is definitely the Chris Files. I know there's a lot of people who like the, who like, Honor, Magency Secret Service, right, is his one. I know that there's a lot of people who really like that one. I've never seen, I haven't seen that one. I've seen like some of the Connery, some of the Moors. I've seen all the Brossens and all the cracks.

But I, yeah, like, similar to Joe, like, I'm just not really like a. I'm not a big bond person. I like the crags. I can get worked up about it. But like it feels like watching the older ones and then watching the crags. It does feel like the crags are a different thing. Yeah. Oh, sure.

2011 Girl with a Dragon tattoo, Rooney Amara gets the Oscar nomination. He's like never in the conversation. He's never in the conversation, which is partially, I think, is the nature of those, excuse me. Partially I think that's the nature of those two roles where she's obviously, you know, so much of a, like, you know, of a presence in that movie, and he's the workman, like, he's the straight man, you know what I mean? He's the kind of, you know, but like, I think he's really tremendous in that. And then Skyfall, and then you get into, like, the Benoit Blanc movies where he gets a Globe nomination for Knives Out. He gets another Globe nomination for Glass Onion. I don't know how close he ever would have gotten to the Oscar top five. for either one of those, but I think particularly, I mean, I don't know, I think he's great in both of those, but particularly knives out with the novelty of it.

Like, I would have really appreciated him getting a nomination for that. I feel like the nominees that year were super weak, too. It would have been nice to, other than Banderas. It was, walking Phoenix and Adam Driver. It was... Banderas and Pain and Glory. Vendaris and Pain and Glory. But then it was Jonathan Price in the two popes.

And I, as a person who enjoyed the two popes, I can't stand by that as much. Yeah. And what would have been the fifth? That was also just a career recognition thing. Yeah. That was Leo. That was my, maybe my favorite Leo performance. It's maybe mine too.

I love Leo in that mode. That's usually when I'm getting most excited for Leo. That's why I also loved him in one battle after another. Yeah. I like Leo in the comedy kind of vein. That's why my favorite, my favorite Leo, is Catch Me If You Can. And he also, like, similarly, like, he's, like, oscillating.

You know, he's on that line. Yeah, I think he plays best, like, in that kind of a register. But so now that Bond is behind Craig, and now that it does seem like we are in the diminishing returns portion of the Benoit Blanc movies, at least from an awards perspective, that he didn't even get nominated for Wake Up Dead Man. Wake Up, that man, getting dust. The best one. But it's also the least.

Benoit Blonkey of the three of them. Like, that's the one where like... That's what I said. Joshua O'Connor kind of is the lead of that movie. They campaigned Josh O'Connor as a supporting actor, but like that's Joshua O'Connor's movie. Yeah. Craig doesn't even show up until like 45 minutes into it.

It's like the most thematically interesting of the movies. I think it's easily the best of the three. I got to watch them all back to back to back and find out my opinion because I famously texted Chris and Katie after watching it and being like, I think it's my least favorite of it. the three. And like, it's definitely elevated

in my head since then, but I am also famously a Glass Onion apologist. So, um, I think Glass Onion's I think it's, I think Glass Onion is as good as Knives as. I think they're basically all kind of, you know, they're all good. People have retrofitted Glass Onion to be like a piece of shit movie and I just like cannot agree with that. It's good.

I cannot get on board with that. What are we doing? Um, what do you think though is going to be what it takes to get Daniel Craig his first Oscar nomination? I think the same thing as anybody else. He has to be the lead in a best picture frontrunner. Yeah.

It's always my boring answer. That's always your boring answer to this question. I always ask this question and I'm like Lucy with the- I mean, this is not to say that any of these performances it might be true are bad because I don't necessarily think. I don't think that about this example I'm about to give. The concept of being the lead in a best picture frontrunner.

I mean, that's that game. gave Mikey Madison the edge, and that's part of why you could argue she was ultimately, she ultimately won that Oscar. Great performance. Like, my favorite thing about that movie. My mystification with why Anora ended up being the Oscar success that it was is in no way meant to be interpreted as me, like, not liking Anora or not that evenora is great. I just think as an Oscar winner, to the degree that it was, I still think it's a little

inexplicable and I'm fascinated by that but I'm also kind of puzzled by that. An interesting thing with, I agree with that, I agree with that too, but I also don't like Nora. But an interesting thing with Craig too is that looking at like his filmography, the man like does not do biopics. I feel like him playing like he did the Guinephaltaelso Sylvia maybe like way back one. But like it's it's kind of, you know, to.

like a complimentary to him like he he really just doesn't go that route and i feel like but i feel like maybe that's a route where he could secure a nomination if he it leans a little bit more into playing you know do get some makeup on and do a care like do like a real life figure or whatever let's see that scrant movie starring daniel craig would rock um yeah play play play some historical figure with burdened with great purpose or whatever. Yeah, yeah. He's in Damien Chiselle's next movie.

So maybe that could be... Oh, that sounds exciting. And he's the lead in it, too. What's the log line for that thing? It's like a prison drama, right? It's him and Killian Murphy. It says, said in the 1940s, a prison warden attempts to discipline

a defiant inmate within a brutal correctional system. As tensions rise, the relationship evolves into a psychological duel. And it's Craig, Killing Murphy is the inmate. Michelle Williams plays Craig's wife. And then Mia Threepleton plays Killing Murphy's daughter.

Interesting. Mia Threepleton. Coming for... I saw the... Obviously, Mia looks so much like her mom, Caitlin's so much. But I finally saw a photo of the son, the one who wrote Goodbye June.

I can't remember what his name is That is a mirror image Like he has his mother's face It's kind of amazing But fascinating for the Lil Winsley He has his mother's face Said in the voice up he has his father's eyes He has his father's eyes

Yeah exactly Do you like What have you done to his face What do you guys think about Craig? in queer because I like personally I think he's better than any of the nominees that year like I think that it's I've always loved Daniel Craig I love him in I think he's amazing in the bonds I love him in like character actor kind of mode I like as we said I think he's tremendous in Rotter British and he's very funny too is the other thing he's really good in Logan Lucky yes I was just so goddamn good

and Logan Lucky he was in this movie called the mother um that was like a small like British like around the same time as Redition. Yes, with Anne Reed, that I think he is similarly phenomenal in that. He didn't movie called Enduring Love that I think he's really good in. That's a wacky movie. I love that movie. I really like that movie as well.

Like I just think that he, he kind of, to me, like he's almost like the, I was going to compare him to somebody like a Colin Farrell where like he kind of gets boxed into like the leading man thing now, but I don't think he really. fits that but I actually think Craig is pretty good at the leading man stuff I you know I think he's a great bond I think he's really good and girl with a dragon tattoo but I just think that he has so much

more like depth to him than that and I think that doing doing queer right off the back of ending bond I think is such a bold kind of move as an actor to do and like it's so clearly like I'm shedding the hell out of bond yeah um that I really respect it um and I think that I mean I I I think that like what he's doing in this performance, the way that he is able to like pull back the, the kind of like, sexual, the, like, raw sexuality that he has and, like, be somebody who believably is, like, somebody who would be unappealing to some people, but draw in enough that, like, Allerton is still going to go along with him. He still has, you know, this friend's circle.

Like, there is, like, a gregarious kind of quality to him that is really appealing, even if he is somewhat of an outcast, even within this community of outcasts. It's such a like a delicate kind of performance to weave. But the fragility of it too, I just think, is really like exquisitely communicated too because it's not to Carrits's credit and to Guadino's credit and to Craig's credit.

They're not like pushing too hard either on like the heartbreaking qualities of the character, which maybe if they had, maybe he would have been able to secure the nomination. But like it is very, really, it has a little bit of that kind of distance and quality to it, where you are just, like, really embedded in his perspective.

So, like, he's not going on these monologues of how hard his life is or whatever. Right. I do feel like, though, and this may be sort of exposing myself as a little bit dumb, dumb, coded, but, like, it is a little bit, a little bit

of an alienating performance for me. It is a little bit, perhaps, a little... Remote's not the right word. but like there is just something essentially distancing about it, which is not my way of saying it's a bad performance. I think it is definitely a good performance, but it does not surprise me that like I gravitated more strongly

to, you know, several other actors that year instead of him. And maybe that's just sort of like my own personal tastes coming to the floor. You said it earlier, like the nature of the character I think is very intentionally that way as well. And I think also the fact that like the movie does kind of lose me once the ayahuasca kicks in and that's also just sort of like, you know, perhaps more of a me thing. But I, you know, perhaps if I had connected emotionally more to the last third of the movie, I also probably would have been, you know, charging out of that theater,

evangelizing that performance a little bit more. I don't think it's a showboaty performance, but there is I can see the reality of this performance existing in a different movie from a different filmmaker

and not liking it as much because, you know, he's playing addiction, he's playing social awkwardness. There's many ways you could say that this is a big performance. But like, I also think,

It's a performance of highs and lows. And because the movie is interested in the interiority of the character, we can kind of get the full performance. If there was, if this was a, this performance existed in a movie that wasn't so nuanced, wasn't so interested in the like type of emotions that you can't really express and giving that actor that space. And it was maybe relying more on the like bigger moments, you know, where he's kind of falling over himself in those first scenes. or the really verbose thing where it's like, he's just kind of talking at people. I could see the version of this exact performance I like less, but otherwise I think he's very good in this movie.

And I do hope ultimately one day soon, he does get a role that clicks with Oscar voters. I also do. It's crazy to me that he doesn't have a nomination. I could see him getting like a Sam Rockwell-style supporting actor, you know, Oscar or something like that, Whereas, you know, he's a quasi-co lead of a movie, but they're like, you don't do co-leads anymore,

so we'll bump him down to supporting. And as an actor, like, that's a decent comparison, I think. I also think of, maybe not Brad Pitt, but there is this thing. I was thinking about Brad Pitt earlier when I was saying the Colin Farrell thing. Yeah, like there's this tension between character actor qualities and leading man qualities and not every filmmaker knows what to do with that sometimes. It is interesting to watch all the work he puts into what you were saying before, Mitchell, about making that character believably, you know, not on appealing exactly,

but just sort of like, you know, not somebody who somebody would necessarily automatically go for. And then you get to the sex scenes and, like, the clothes come off and you're just like, oh, right, like, he still was like, okay. Like, yes. Which I don't think is necessarily a detractor, but it is funny. Where it was just like, oh, right, like, that was there all this time. So I do think, I will say, like, Guadino is still very, very good at shooting intimacy and shooting, you know, sort of like closed walls, you know, moments of

intimate contact that is, you know, not just sex scenes, but also just like, you know, intimate longing, like two people in a room and, you know, the spaces between them. The kids are all into liminal spaces these days. Full of liminal spaces, it's just in the, you know, the crevasse between, you know, one person's fingertips and the other person's, you know, shoulder or whatever. All those scenes where Craig is sort of like astral process. projecting out of himself to caress like the back of

of his head or something. I love that technique. Like when they're in the cinema and like they're doing that. I think that that's so. Well, I mean, talk about watching something and being like, I've been there, man.

Exactly. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. I have more times than I can count. Watch the movie. All apology. Zoom's turn. trying to censor me from telling my romantic tales. I wanted to briefly mention the bugaboo that I had this year, which was my interpretation,

which was sort of backed up by like back channel stuff I was hearing from people, that Luca did not want to campaign challengers for awards because he only wanted a campaign queer for awards. I had heard that too. And I was so far up about it because I loved challengers and like queer was definitely like a lesser movie for me and I was... This was also like, not again, no pun intended. There was also the challenge I thought of that cast's availability.

Availability, yeah. Well, and again, it was a weird because it was supposed to come out the previous year and then it, you know, got moved into, when it come out April, like it... It came out in April. Yeah, I got moved into the next year and so then it's like... It was going to open Venice 20203. And then the actor strike was happening. the cast going to promote it.

But it would have been able to open Venice and then I think go directly to New York where the U.S. Open was happening. And like they would have been like the kings and queen of New York City. And it would have been really, really, really great. And then it would then go right into award season. And I think what a world to imagine. I know. I know.

I still think challengers is a little bit of like not, exactly to Oscar voters taste But like that's how I feel I feel like it's just not really like an awards kind of movie It even surprised me that I got like the globe nominations that it did Like I it just feels like it's not that kind of movie So like for me it almost like It feels more appropriate that it came out in April

And like it was able to just kind of exist on its own And like generate the like the cultural capital that it got From like taking like this cultural moment with it that I think it maybe wouldn't have gotten if it was released in like the thrust of award season and kind of like overshadowed with some of that other stuff. It got to be a victory as a spring sensation rather than a like, oh, I couldn't quite, you know, hack it. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I have to talk about Leslie Manville. Oh, please. We have to do this. First of all, I'm dropping a photo into the chat because if Luca Guadino tries to tell me that she is not designed after this scary stories to tell her to dark character, he is lying.

I'm dropping it in the chat. If you have not seen this character before, it is what Leslie Manville looks like in the movie. Oh my God. Jesus fucking curse. I don't care if people are like, what the fuck was that? Like, huge.

She's going for it. She's going big. And it's great. It's also contextually great that it's Leslie Manville doing that. If it was Francis McDormand, as it was originally intended, it probably wouldn't be as impressive. It's just that she has the breadth to do what we already know her for,

that she can be Mrs. Harris and, you know, the swamp woman. Yes, exactly. Mrs. Harris goes to Keto, yeah. I remember the first time that I watched, having no, like, having not read the source material or anything, I remember the first time I watch it, like, thinking regularly throughout the movie like, when is Leslie Manville gonna show up? Did I miss her somehow?

Yeah, exactly. I remember in the buildup to it, it was like, mentioned that Leslie Manville was in it. And people were like, what? Who's she gonna fly? There's no, like, lady. Is she gonna be the one who Allerton

just like plays chess with? That's what I thought. That's what I thought when I first watched it. I was like, because like you also like don't get a great view of that woman at first. So I was like, is that Leslie Manva? Right. Right. Right. But then like that's, they cast Leslie Manville for that?

Right. But it's also this performance where she's doing, you know, uh, bounty hunter swamp creature brandishing a shotgun, but that she can also cut through the shit enough to be the only thing that breaks through to Allerton in any way. It's just like, well, that's why you cast Leslie Manville. Recent Tony winner, Leslie Manville. Gitchie, get she, Leslie Manville. Yes, absolutely. Oh. What a tremendous thing.

Okay, so the gitch-gitch-gitchie-git-Carrie-cun of it all, how is it that Pink was able to do the Angela Bassett did the thing, but like in a way that we're not really... We're, like, laughing with it rather than... Well, I think she delivered it better. I think an underrated part of the Ariana Dubos thing is that she was, like, out of breath for most of that and was trying to, like, catch up.

It's a tough performance. There was slop sweat all over that, which is, like... And I also just feel like... The production value of the Tony's thing was also, like, really impressive in terms of just, like, how they utilized the space at Radio City and, like, all of the other folks that they got to participate. And it really does work. It really works. Squibby, squibby, squibby, june will be in my head forever. I don't think that we should be having pink on things in Broadway.

let this be a flash in the pan, but also let's get all very deranged brain Tony host options moving forward. Because whose idea was this, if not pinks? But, you know. Yeah, crazy. It was great. I loved it. Um, I, uh, I, this has nothing to do with anything we've been talking about, but I did write down in my notes. Um, the short sleeve sweater that Drew Starkey wears in that one scene in the cafe should have been enough to get this a costume for Louva. I love all of the um, all of the like slightly translucent like button of such Dr. Starkey wears in it. I feel like are really cool.

And like, and so like fittingly like on character of like this man you can see, but you can't like attain like that kind of like a knowing quality to him. And like being able to dress Drew Starkey. and like ensembles that are only made to like drive an older homosexual man crazy is like a really enviable like dossier to just be like this is your job for this movie and you're just like I'm on it. And then you also have to dress Leslie Manville in like pee-poo-poo singlets like just like dip in in a vat of like of cow urine. and just like, well, get the counter. God. What else did I write down?

I just drew a heart next to Jason Schwarzen giving Stanley Tucci voice. I love Jason Schwartzman, and it's so good. So good. Really tremendous. It's just like the perfect example of a performance that is so

crystalline perfect existing as it does, but it also feels like it's from some other movie. Like he dropped in from another planet as a fully formed being in this movie. And I should kind of hate it because it is this, it is a lot. They put him in a fat suit. I don't like the fat, yeah.

I mean, I never like it's like a bad one too. And it's like a knowingly bad one. Yeah. But he's so great. That's the thing. The performance, like the performance somehow exists beyond the things that like to, from it.

But yeah, like I, that also, like, that character, like, I know that guy. I have met that guy, like, so many times. You know, I've been friends with that guy. Like, it just feels so, like, how, like, you know, the, all of the discourse around the gay for pay stuff, which, like, I do not, I can't stand that shit in general. Like, if you're believable as the character, you're believable as the character. Like, when it comes to that stuff. And, like, this is exactly the point to that.

Jason Schwartzwood in this movie is that gay man. Yeah, yes. I mean, again, it is cult acting. You know what I mean? Like, that is the name of the game. Two AARP movies for grownups nominations for this movie, Daniel Craig was nominated there to go along with all of his precursor hall. He was nominated.

Loses to Adrian Brody for the Brutelist, which I always feel bad for the people who get the M4G nomination, and then they just, like, lose to the eventual Oscar winner. It's like, that's not what these are for. Coleman Domingo and Ray Fines also nominated there. But so was Jude Law for playing a gorgeous hunk of beef in The Order. The Order, that's fascinating. Jude Law and the Order was on my critics ballot for that year.

He's really good in that movie. I think that's one of his best performances. And then Leslie Manville. An aged rib eye of a performance. That mustache is doing a lot of work. And then Leslie Manville is nominated indeed in Best supporting actress where she loses out to Joan Chen for Diti, which is exactly what Oh, amazing.

Yeah. Isabella Rossellini gets nominated for Conclave. Connie Nielsen for Gladiator 2. Why? Sure. In the Sigourney Weaver in Avatar Fire and Ash nomination of this year, Connie Nealston. Sigourney Weaver, I feel like I've probably said 15 different things about this. They're all true.

They're all how I feel. even if they are in conflict. Sigourney Weaver shouldn't be nominated for an M4G for Avatar Fire and Ash because she's playing a teenager. Doesn't the character also have to be older than 50? Listen, you take it up with the M4Gs. And then on to Nuelis Taylor

gets nominated for giving great hugs in Nickel Boys. What a wonderful scene that is in that movie. But this is, This is also queer is a National Border Review top 10 film. Daniel Craig won their Best Actor Award, which I do feel like NBR is reliable every year for handing out a lead actor award in either actor or actress to somebody who's just absolutely not going to get nominated.

I think also that same year, they gave Best Actress to Nicole Kidman for Baby Girl. Yeah, there you go. I'm glad. They also gave Best Picture to Wicked. To Wicked. I remember when that news drop happened and everybody just thought, oh boy. But this top 10 for NBR is very much like regular, regular weird, regular, weird,

which is just like anora baby girl, a complete unknown conclave, Furiosa gladiator to juror number two. Yes, yes. People love juror number two. In my top ten of that year. Oh, where do you all come down on both Furiosa? and Juror Number 2 and Gladiator 2, honestly, getting nominated for top 10 this year.

I mean, juror number 2, yeah, is in my top 10, I think it's one of Clint Eastwood's best movies. Are you, you're a, you're a pro. Clint Eastwood as a director

is like top three all-time directors for me. So I'm very in the tank for Eastwood as a director. And I think juror number two is exceptional. I, Furiosa, I really liked. I, at the, I haven't watched.

since they came out. At the time, I was on record saying I liked it more than Fury Road. I don't know if that opinion would hold up to scrutiny, but I was, I think maybe part of it was going in with very low expectations and being like really, really wowed by like some of the set pieces. Tom Burke in Furiosa was like just outside of my supporting actor lineup. So hot. So hot. We do this thing on, like, Letterbox, Jeremy. and all of like um it basically is like our like alternate like Oscars thing where we just like make up like bullshit like silly categories um and like to know like who like the winner is and for i

remember that that year i did best goth boyfriend and gave it to tom berk in curios gladiator two i think is uh as an extremely mid movie and i think i think the only thing that should have come anywhere near any nominations for that is stanza washington who i think is fantastic in it, but it's like kind of in a much better movie than the rest of that movie. I mean, I'm also on record of like, I'm, I don't think Paul Meskell is a movie star. I don't think he's a good actor. Oh. And I think that gladiator too is.

See, that's where I'm at with Pedro Pascal. So we are. I also am 100% on board with that about Pedro Pascal. I don't think either of those guys have any screen presence. Oh, wow. And I think that like Paul Meskell in Gladiator 2, I think is like one of the clearest examples. of somebody who was not a movie star being put in a movie star role.

And when you're also stacked up against Russell Crow in the first Gladiator, which I think is one of the definitive movie star performances of all time. Like, I think that... Meskell's also given an underwritten character. Well, that's... I think the worst thing about Gladiator 2

is any of the stuff that tries to connect to the first Gladiator. Like, any of that is just like... The statue? You're not saying you don't like the... Russell Crow as... statue. I think like the Joseph Quinn and what's what's

the other guy's Fred Heckenger? Fred Hecinger who I love. Baby boy Fred Heckenger? My son Yeah. In Thelma Amazing. I love that kid in like everything. He should have been nominated this in 2020 Yeah. Those those two Like those two just being like deranged Mad Kings I think phenomenal

Incredible and then Denzel so good like all of that stuff I think works so well but yeah all of the like stuff trying to tie it to the first gladiator. I think you're not doing yourself any favors. I threw on David Erlick's top 25 video after I watched queer because the one shot of the

lady who Starkey is talking to popping her eyebrow at Daniel Craig. I'm like, where have I seen that before? I'm like, David Erlix's top 25 video. So I watched it again. Incredible as always. But he had put both Furiosa and Juror number two in

his top 25. I know that he's part of the NBR. so now I'm looking at this top time. There you go. I know whose voice. I know whose voice was heard. And they love, they love Clinton in general, too.

They had Richard Jewell. Like, they like kind of regular. Oh, they have long established his loving plant. I think they were the first ones to, you know. Didn't Letters from Yuji won't win them? It's very possible.

Is that true? Hold on. See, these are my people. Hold on. National Board. I feel like, I feel like they also nominated letters and flags in that same year. I think you're right.

Quite possible. Hold on. 2006. Letters from Iwo Jima is there, I believe their number one movie because everything else is alphabetical. Yes, letters from Yuma, Babel, Blood Diamond, the departed, the Devil Wars Prada, flags of our fathers. See, they were right about the World's Prada. They were right. History Boys, Little Miss Sunshine, notes on the.

scandal and the Painted Vale. That is a... History Boys. Really fun top 10. Painted Vale is a wonderful nomination. That movie did not get the flowers it deserved. How many this had Oscar Buzz movies in this? We did Painted Vail. We did the History Boys. We can't do any of these other ones, I guess. But we could do

an exceptions episode on Flags of Our Fathers. We can do so much from the 2024 lineup. Yeah, we could do a lot from the 2024 lineup, actually. And we probably, be the first of many, I would imagine, because we're definitely going to do a baby girl episode at some point. We're definitely going to do a juror number two episode. Get me on that fucking jur. Okay.

All right. Locking you down. Locking you down. All right. Anything else that you guys want to say before we venture into the IMDB game? No, I thought it was just in doing research. I found that Steve Busemi was like trying to do an adaptation of queer in like the 90s. I thought that was interesting.

I feel like that would have been to what Chris and I were talking about earlier, the more like the more burrosy kind of like version of that, I feel like. And I'm kind of glad that we got what we got instead. And then he wasn't on the road with Hugo Mortensen playing Burroughs, a movie where Steve Bousami gets what? Anal from near headlands. Which we could all be so lucky. And on that note, we're going into the IMDB game.

Chris, can you explain to our listeners what the IMDB game is? Every episode we end with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try to get the top four titles that IMDP says they are most known for. If any of those titles are television, voice-only performances, or non-acting credits, we mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. And if that's not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints. That is the IMD-B game.

We love a free for all of hints. All right, Mitchell, as our guest, you know the drill. You've been here twice before. You get to make the choice of whether you want to give to Chris or give to me and then whether you want to go first or last. I never know how to explain this without sounding very confusing. You understand. You get what I mean. I will go last.

I feel like last time I was here, I gave. to Joe so I think this time I'll give to Chris Chris give to Joe go go give to me okay so so you will start off by giving to Chris okay so last Chris what first of all this is becoming increasingly difficult as you guys know increasingly difficult so like I I kept thinking of people that I was like oh this would be great and then I would search in the the spreadsheet and realize that like oh like either like a recent one that did this or like like like, this is what you guys did on, like, episode like 80, whatever. Like, what?

Well, if you want to re-dip into anything that we've done in those first, like, 250 episodes where, like, feel free. I'm going to, I'm going to go with a new one that I came around on, which kind of one of the issue blind spots I found is, like, more like classic people. I feel like I haven't dipped into quite as much. And so, Chris, who I will present to you with is Kirk Douglas. Oh. Oh, okay.

Love this. Kirk Douglas is going to be hard because, like, pinpointing. I haven't seen a ton of Kirk Douglas. It's just one of those people I have a lot of blind spots for. Spartacus, for sure, is there. Spartacus is in there. Title character. Everyone is a title character in that movie, though.

They're good. There's got to be. I mean, I think. he was in like multiple war movies what major directors did he work with? This was a good avenue. I mean, Gubrick, obviously.

The excited to start giving you him some of us. Oh, okay. Yeah, Kirk Douglas has never been my guy. So this is somewhat tough for me. I will just guess what I'm trying to think of like him on screen with other stars. Though there's got to be something that is more recent.

Even with like classic stars, you'll see things like later in their career. And also I just kind of want to burn some answers. Is it runs in the family in there? No. Okay. That's probably for the better. Although I am discovering he played a character named Mitchell

and it runs in the family, which there you go. Uh Your line of like major directors he worked with is definitely Um Yeah like to what Joe said like a smart line of thinking mileage out of that yeah So

I'm wondering if it's like I'm also thinking of a ton of Steve McQueen's like thought of sandpebbles Thought of Uh, Great Escape Um the fighting for my life um i'll just throw out something dumb like uh i don't even remember if he's in this i know steppe queen is uh towering inferno no okay good i don't i don't get to my years

okay so what is it just give years for the three that are remaining yeah yes okay so one is 1951 one is 1980 and then one is 1956 okay so the 80 is definitely the late

career yeah that was that was a good instincts trying to think of 1980 movies god bless you

I've never heard of this movie no save I would advise saving this one for last I would also advise you

perhaps venturing back into movie watching projects you've done in the last two years. Yeah, this is what I was thinking. Perhaps for another podcast. Yeah, I think he's in one of the Monelli's. He's definitely in more than one Monelli,

but one of them is on this. Oh, um, Four Horseman? Not Four Horseman. What's the... He's playing a very famous person in this. He was nominated for an office. Oscar.

Douglas was nominated for an Oscar for this movie. Douglas was, yeah. This is the 1951 movie. This is the 56, which I think on the screen drafts you were on, I'm like 99% sure that this was not played. It's not one of the menelies that I typically think of. That's why I thought of that other one, which I didn't like. I know people do like that movie. But my guess is you probably watched this in preparation.

No, I watched, I think, every, every Manelli. Playing a famous artist. Oh, it's lust for life. Correct. His boys then go. Yes. Which interesting. One of his three nominations that he ever got.

The 51 is directed by a very, very famous and prolific director of that era. It's not Hitchcock. Who we talked about, we didn't really talk. talk about this person on a recent Patreon episode, but we did a Patreon episode where this person was talked about in the thing that we watched. The Oscars. Yes. Norman Jewison.

No. There was a presentation made. Oh, and in Memorium? To this person. No? Oh, Billy Wilder. Yes. What Billy Wilder was he in? 51.

Okay. It's not like Mr. Robert. That's not a Billy Wilder. Wilder, but I almost said Mr. Roberts. What Billy Wilder is he in? Oh, is it? I just had it and it left. It's not like

1, 2, 3. It's not this is going to be a really famous movie. No, but if you're playing cards instead of 1, 2, 3, what would you say? A run. No, what would you say instead of you wouldn't say 1, 2, 3 in cards, you would say,

you wouldn't say I have a 1, a 2, and a 3 in my hand. An ace. Yeah. Ace in the hole. There you go. Ace in the hole. I haven't seen Ace in the hole. Oh, you would love A's in the movie that neither of you have heard.

Yeah, I don't like, I don't know how to give it. Is it going to be like a horror movie? It's like science fiction war. I've, I'm excited to read the premise of this movie because I've, is it like Saturn 3? Heard of this. No, but that's, That's, I think, a good line of thinking.

That might be like George. That sounds insane. It does feel like a, like, vestigial tale of the, like, disaster movie genre where it's like... Towering Inferno wasn't, like, super far off. Martin Sheen's in this movie. Catherine Ross is in this movie. Charles Durning is in this movie. But it's like science fiction inflected.

Like, are they astronauts? They are sailors? There's sailors and there's time travel. Yes. I'm just going to read, Mitchell, read the long line because it's not going to be like any extra help. The premise of this movie on IMDB says, A Modern Aircraft Carrier is thrown back in time to 1941 near Hawaii just hours before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. You know, that famous 1980 movie where an aircraft carrier is transported.

Back to Pearl Harbor. The tagline on the poster says, Trapped outside the boundaries of Time and Space, 102 aircraft, 6,000 men, all missing. That has nothing to really do with the title. The title is the same title as a song. Oh, okay, yeah. That is used for comedic effect on Arrested Development.

Imagine Joe's... imagine Job on stage. Oh, I can't remember. Is it like... It's used in one of the Rocky movies very... Or, right. Is it? Or maybe...

No, I'm thinking of... Living in America. It's not called Living in America, although that would have been a good time. Not I of the tiger. I have the storm. Eye of the Beast. Is it Eye of the...

No, no, no. I was thinking... The song I was thinking of was I of the Tiger, which is not the song, like the song that Joe was referencing with the rest of development. But it sounds like I of the Tiger. Yeah, I always confuse the two songs. So if you're transported back in time to 1941, just hours before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. And when that happens to you. And things are getting, you know, you're getting down to it.

And you know exactly when this attack is going to happen. And you're looking at the clock. Countdown? You got one of the three words in this title. The final countdown. There you go. We got it. We got the final countdown.

And you did it without any hints. That's crazy. Yeah, that's amazing. Well, it's amazing. Well, it's good. I got it from all of my experience of going back in time tonight's 41 hours before the Japanese attack on pro harbor. You're like, this is cut. This countdown is final.

We're not fucking around. All right. Chris, well done. You can now. Thank you. Quiz me Mitchell, I'm so glad you brought up That Busemi tried to get this made into a movie

Because Joe, who have I chosen for you, but Steve Busemi Wow. Done. Okay. Reservoir dogs? Correct. Fargo? Correct.

Ghost World? Correct. Oh, yeah. Oh, bitch. Okay. You could get a perfect score. I don't think you're going to get a perfect score, but I will love it if you do. Okay.

So, now to do. try and play this intelligently. There are bigger movies that he's in or like popular with the IMDB crowd so like Big Lebowski

Con Air Armageddon. There's also something like Trees Lounge where he's the director and sometimes we notice that like those things can get prioritized.

There's also, I'm trying to think of other movies where he would have been like close to the top of the call sheet, which is tough with Bussemi because he is a very character, actor-coded guy. I'm just going to say Trees Lounge. Trees Lounge is incorrect. Yeah, okay. Also, while you were spinning your tires and figuring it out, I was thinking to myself, I know that the fucking poster, for the final countdown goes. So let me pull this up. Look it up.

In fact, it does go. It does go. I know this puzzle is going to be great. The only thing it's missing is the like seven box of like headshots. Yeah. Yeah. Also. It has pretty good ratings.

I'm kind of tempted to watch it. The, uh, the like auto play trailer that's on IMDB is like exclusively B-roll military. All right, I'm just going to throw out Lubowski and then I can get my years. Lubowski is wrong. Your year is 2017. I do believe that that is not the U.S. release date. So it's 2018. Yes, 2018 in the U.S.

Boos, what you doing in 2018, buddy? You know, because we've done an episode on this movie. Really? Okay. 2018 he's not in private life he's not in uh hosslers

he's not no one's in hustlers in 2018's 2019 2019 sorry I'm in the wrong year um 2018 harder to get a handle on what was going on

extra Oscar wise Well, he's not the lead in this, I would imagine. Difficult to say who the lead is in this movie. This is an ensemble movie. Oh, it's Buster Scruggs. Incorrect. He's in that, though, right?

He seems like he would be in that. Well, that's crazy. Coens, go remake Buster Scruggs and put him back in it. He got a Bifa nomination for this movie, if that helps you. He went to a Bifa? That's amazing. It's nominated for a Bifa. Lost the Bifa to his co-star.

Mm. His less famous co-star, who we love. Oh. Younger or older. Indeterminate? That's a good question, yeah. Probably a little older. No, Bussemi's older.

He's got to be older. But we love this person. So double, Bifa nominated. Oh, like mega Bifa nominated. It had... But like in the same category. But okay, tons of BFa nominations.

2018, tons of BFA nominations. Did it get any Oscar nominations? Zero. We've done an episode. Oh, right. You said we've made an episode. Thank you. The BFA, I think, is the huge hall with no corresponding kind of Oscar nominations.

I think is also a good indication of, like, Busemi being a, an American, like, in this movie very much, like, not common for, like, unless I miscounted 13 BFA nominations. Wow! A very beloved

British filmmaker. Yes. Who's had some crossover success, mostly on television. But a previous Oscar. Oh, oh, oh, oh. I love this movie, and you don't so much, right? I'm fine with this.

It's the death of Stalin. It's the death of Stalin. It's the death of Stalin. So good in that movie. Fuck. I should have got that. The 13 times nominated death of Stalin. So the person nominated with him

was Simon Russell Beale? Yes. Who won? Was Andrea Reisbrough nominated for that? She sure was. Good. She deserves it. We love Simon Russell Beale

because of Terrence Davies. Yes. I mean, I've loved Simon Russell Beal just independently, but yes. Okay. Okay. My turn. Chris.

For you. Nope. You're giving them to Mitchell. Mitchell. For you. No, we're going to keep quizzing Chris because we're going to keep bringing up. Chris, it's Kirk. It's another star.

It's another cast number from the final countdown. Weirdly, it's another movie that's, you know, set in a tanker going back. The other movie. Oh, my God. No, it's the first. It's the first countdown. So it's the prequel to the final countdown. It's a movie, an aircraft carrier at Pearl Harbor.

It goes forward in time. All right, Mitchell, for you, wait, how did I get here? Let me breadcrumb my way back through here. So, oh, right. So one of, I was like, hmm, let me go into and see what Drew Starkey is doing these days. Enslot. In production on a Sean Durkin movie called Deep Cuts. that I am interested in, despite the fact that Kaylee Spaney is at the top of the call sheet.

But one of the actresses in this movie is one, Jennifer Jason Lee, who we've done, but not for a long time on this podcast. So, Jennifer Jason Lee. Okay, hateful eight. Yes, her also. What else would it be? Existence? No, but I love you for guessing that. Yeah, I'm just biased.

Picking and picking face. I love that movie. Yeah, me too. I wonder. I feel like this is probably too small, but Margo at the wedding? No, but another great guess. If only. All right, so your three years are,

This was 1992, 1993, 1995. So we're really locking it in. Okay. So she really had a run. Okay. Is the 95 Dolores Claiborne? It sure is, yes. Okay.

An accident to Loras. I feel like, okay, is the 93 shortcuts? 93 is shortcuts. Okay. Very good. 92 Jennifer J. I feel like Mrs. Parker in the vicious circle is 94.

It is. Okay, what would she have been up to? This movie stylistically is far from Mrs. Parker in the vicious circle. Interesting. Okay. Okay, that's actually helpful. Far.

I feel like Rush is 91, so it wouldn't be... I think you're right about that. also would be wild if Rush showed up on anybody's known for it. Yeah, I wonder what Jason Patrick's. Yeah, honestly, I take that back. It could be on Jason Patrick. We'll save that for a future. NARC.

What? So stylistically very different. Is that like it's like a genre-e kind of a movie? It's not like super genre-e, but it's definitely like, there's more genre to it than shortchance. You could easily classify it among the blockbuster shelves of what section

it's getting shelved. If Mrs. Parker is highbrow, this is a lower brow. Oh, what we're like... It's also like the thing that like probably like made her the most famous. It was probably the thing that gave her that was dumped in fame. Extremely obvious, and I'm not clocking it. Like, I feel like this is probably, other than Hayful A,

is probably, like, the most obvious one. I think of what I could. Yeah, like. It's not a horror movie, although I've seen it listed on, like, lists of, like, greatest movie, like, scares or, like, greatest. Great movie scares. Or like, there are like scary elements to this, but it is not, I would not consider it a horror movie. The thriller.

It's a thriller. Yes. Oh, okay. Single white female. Single white female. Yeah. All right. There we go.

Yeah. Yeah, which I think would be the most obvious one other than he played. There's a stiletto that ends up in a character's eye. Like, I was trying to think of like how to. Oh, yeah. Hell yeah. I love single white female. Yeah, that's a good movie.

No. I showed my roommate, um, Hannah that Rocks the Cradle for the first time, like, two months ago. I was like, we have to watch this. So problematic. It's the most insane movie you've ever seen. Yeah. Oh, my God. I remember, I told this story on this podcast before, but like, that was one of the first,

if not the first R-rated movie I ever watched. Wow. That's, I mean, that's an introduction to our movie. And I remember we, like, I can't remember how we ended up renting it, whether it was like, it might have been a thing where. like our aunt like had rented it and just like was out of the house and we like popped it into the the PCR or whatever like an illicit my cousins and me yeah and so I embedded in my mind now is the scene of Rebecca de Morne miscarrying and like her gown is just like covered in blood and I was

like that to me was the thing that I was just like I'm not prepared for this and then the rest of the movie And then the rest of the movie happens and it's just like, oh my God. But yeah, what a special movie. Mitchell Boparee, thank you so much for joining us again. Third time. I'd say third times was the charm, but it's not like the first two times weren't also. Yeah, they're all charms. They're all charms.

Thanks so much for having me. We're making a little charm bracelet. We will definitely mark you down for our eventual juror number two. episode. That will be fantastic. Where else can our listeners find more of you? Letterbox, just look at my name or I think my username is just Mitchell on there, Instagram, Mitchell Beaupre. Check out Letterbox Journal. We have cool stuff being written there. Awesome. Yeah. Fantastic. Folks, that's our episode. If you want more at This Head Oscar Buzz, you can check out the

Tumblr at this at oscarbuzz.com. Our Instagram is at This Had Oscar Buzz, and our Patreon is at patreon.com slash this had Oscar Buzz. Chris, where can the listeners find more of you? Letterbox and Blue Sky at A-N-A-L. Crispy-File, that's F-E-I-L. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Meavius for their technical guidance. Please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get podcasts.

A five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcasts visibility. So quit doing stuff and write down a nice review for us about us. Thank you. That is all for this week. But we hope you'll be back next week for more about us.