This Had Oscar Buzz - 395 – Insomnia

Episode Date: July 6, 2026

After becoming a critical and arthouse sensation with Memento, Christopher Nolan leaped to studio filmmaking with American remake Insomnia. The film (based on the 1997 Norwegian film) stars Al Pacino as a corrupt cop sent to Alaska to solve a murder, only to be caught in the web of the killer (Robin Williams). Though a successful summer … Continue reading "395 – Insomnia"

House. No, the right house. I didn't get that. We want to talk to Merlin. Heck. I'm from Canada water. Dick Poop. Who am I speaking to? Can't sleep well? He will taunt you.

You and I share a secret. You know how easy it is to kill somebody. You will torment you. It can't be easy after three days of us. Do you see in things yet? Those little tricks are light. He will get inside your head. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast making extremely good decisions while on ayahuasca.

Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz, we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we're here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Joe Reed. I'm here, as always, with my friendly local bartender with a past, Chris File. Hello, hello, Chris. Thank you for making me the more tyranny of this episode. Of course. More tyranny with her constantly understanding face.

Also, like, 10% no bullshit, 90% you know. Yes. Pure understanding. Yeah, it's pretty good, right? Yeah, she's great. I kind of hate the existence of the character in this movie. In that she's so formulaic and that you don't really, she doesn't really exist as a person so much as like a,

a vessel for Al Pacino's character to speak expositorily to. But it's more tyranny, so I'm not complaining. She does really well. Yeah, she's one of those characters. I think it's been a while since I've seen this. It's maybe even been since theaters, you know, opening weekend that I saw this. and in the year since, you know, I've kind of stockpiled reactions to this movie, and I've seen, like, a lot of people say that it's like Nolan's hackiest movie,

and a lot of people kind of write the movie off and be, or say that it's not really in line thematically with the rest of his movies. I don't agree with that, but I understand what they're saying. It's the one kind of... agree with when it's like genre devices are like kind of everywhere in this movie,

including the more to your new character. Well, and it's also, is it the last movie that he directs that neither he nor his brother Jonathan have a hand in writing? Because he's co-writer on the Batman Begin script, and I believe ends up co-writer

on all of the Batman scripts. Prestige him and Jonathan Nolan, even though that's also adapted from a novel. Interstellar is both Nolan's. Dunkirk is just Christopher Nolan. Tenet is just Christopher. And then Oppenheimer was also just Christopher. And then the Odyssey.

I mean, that makes sense. This is him leveling up from Memento. Yeah. So, you know, indie filmmaker, you know, graduating to studio filmmaking. And you can understand, you know, the appeal for this because, like, Soderberg had been developing the remake from the, you know, European original. Yeah. And, of course, it's, like, slightly sanitized for American audiences. Sure.

And you could see why he would take it on. I kind of, I disagree that there's not parallels to, uh, other Nolan works. I do kind of feel like this. This cemented for me, you know that we love movies about women who lie to themselves. This movie kind of cemented to me that a lot of Nolan movies are about a man who lies to himself. Oh yeah. Perhaps about himself.

Yes. Uh, Memento, I really, really felt that on recent rewatch. So I'm interested to, well, I don't think that. This is a great movie. I do think that there's some interesting stuff to talk about that I'm excited to hear your opinion on. But yeah, I think for as much as Nolan has throughout his career, worked in adaptation frequently, has adapted, you know, comic books and novels and true stories and things like that. Because this is based on a fully formed other movie, with a screenplay adaptation by Hillary Sites,

who he does not ever work with again. This is probably the most kind of divorced from the material Nolan's ever got in his career. Because even with the Batman movies, like obviously Batman is a character of longstanding, both, you know, on the comic book page, but also in like the cultural imagination. But like Nolan really did really. remake that character and that lore in his own image, right?

He really did from, like, stem to stern. I remember, I've talked about this before, I remember, because I was writing a, like, movie news roundup column at the time. And, like, people were up in arms about, like, things like what the Batmobile looked like, when they first released, like, photos of that. And I remember I- The audacity that Rachel Dawes is basically an entirely original character. Sure.

And just like, even just like that whole, that conception of Batman, while it had existed in, you know, aspects on the page or whatever, like, no one really did go to great lengths to kind of like make those movies his own vision. And so. And they ultimately prove incredibly influential and people kind of take it even further in terms of the dark superhero. Yes. You know, interpretation. And of course, like, that Batman begins, Aronovsky was at one point going to take over the franchise. But it's, of course, this huge pendulum swing, a reaction to the Schumacher's.

Yes. And, like, in trying to save the IP, too, because Warner Brothers also spent, like, I think it was their highest marketing budget at the time on Batman begins. Yes. And you can see how a lot of... of that was to set the narrative for the audience that they weren't going to be getting more of what they saw, just making real sure that everybody knew the stuff you didn't like about the last Batman movies, or you thought were corny or whatever.

This is a different Batman. But even, I remember, and I mean, I could be wrong, but I remember even at the time, like, Nolan himself didn't seem particularly aggrieved by the Schumacher movies. I don't think Nolan's reason for making the Batman movies was to sort of rescue it from campiness or whatever. This was just sort of him following the path of, you know, his version of Batman as a urban crime fighter. You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah. He took the franchise because he wanted to keep making crime movies essentially. You know, that's my interpretation. That's not, you know, me misquoting him in some way. But, like, his version of the franchise, though, We disagree on Rises, so we don't have to get into it. No, right. Effectively, his version of the franchise is making these huge canvas crime movies.

Right, exactly. And, yes, so, like, this stage in his career, he really doesn't make, I mean, you can define the prestige, maybe broadly, as a movie where crimes take place, but I don't think you would call the prestige a crime movie, maybe a caper movie or something. like that. But, um... You wouldn't call Interstellar a crime.

Right, right. Um, well, Inception, of course, the crime, the scene of the crime is, is your mind. The human brain. Um, but, so I guess in, in, in some way, um, uh, crime is definitely a, hangs over a lot of his earlier room, but this is kind of his only, like, pure cop movie. You know what I mean? Uh-huh. Batman, his Batman is a cop.

you know, in many ways, but like it doesn't, you know, there's enough other elements that you wouldn't describe those as like a pure cop movie. This is his one pure cop movie, and it's pretty, it has all of the elements. And again, this is down to, you know, the source material and Hillary cites its screenplay and whatnot. But you have the police detective who's, you know, grizzled and long in the tooth and has, you know, regrets that are haunting him or whatever. The, you know, in this case, instead of like the mismatched partner or whatever, it's the partner who is at odds with him over, you know, a very specific thing, this internal affairs investigation or whatever.

But even if it doesn't present itself specifically as like a one last case kind of a thing, throughout the movie, you definitely get the real sense that this is the case that he's going to try and redeem his career, his life, or whatever. This is the last hurrah for him, because he might either be taken down by this IA investigation or, He might die of not sleeping. So you have that. You have a lot of tropes. You have the eager beaver young, you know, sort of like a cadet type character in Hillary Swank. The could give a shit, you know, old section chief played by Paul Dooley, so wonderfully.

The asshole bravado sort of like cop. You don't count. Nicky Cat for to play someone the audience is supposed to like. Boston Public's own Nicki Cat. Indeed. And then you have Robin Williams as like this movie's version of Kevin Spacey in Seven, sort of, except less, or like a Francis Dollar Hyde from, you know, Red Dragon or something like that. This boogeyman type character who, I think,

it's an interesting, you know, one of, maybe the most interesting choice in the movie is to have the killer reveal himself to the cop halfway through and then essentially put them both in the same, you know, ethical boat. So, or trying to like take the bridge between them and flatten them, you know, the unethical cop and then the extremely humanized psychopaths. path, you know. Yes, yes. And I'm sure we'll get into it even more as we go through, but like the choice to cast Pacino as the cop, which feels like such like intuitive casting.

You know what I mean? Like he's the, at this point, he's only seven years removed from heat. You know what I mean? Like this is, you know, this is the guy who played Serpico. This is, you know, this is not. outside the box casting for Pacino. And then, though, with the killer, you cast Robin Williams. I would imagine independently of one-hour photo,

because those movies both come out in the same year. So, like, I don't know how much of an awareness that Nolan had that Williams would also be playing this, you know, very creepy, obsessed character that he does in one-hour photo and both of those movies coming out in the same year. But obviously casting Robin Williams as a hermit, petter-assed, you know, a killer, you know, beat a woman to death kind of a character, and to be so emotionally level when he talks about it, you know what I mean,

to have no sort of outbursts of air. anger or anything like that or seem like a monster is obviously the movie's like most outrageous slash interesting casting choice. Well, it's still a fresh casting choice for Robin Williams at this point because this is a little bit before. This is the same year effectively that audiences see one hour photo, correct? So we're in it's the same award year. They're both in the same award year.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like he's trying this thing that ultimately would become kind of a moment of movies for him that ultimately, I don't, I can never tell if people like it anymore. What's that? The moment of Robin Williams playing murderers and psychopaths. Because he did, he did end up playing against type a good bit. I think now that he has passed, I think there's so much nostalgia for the Robin Williams who delighted us.

Right. You know what I mean? That we don't, maybe there isn't a ton of like, we don't feel the need for a ton of nostalgia for the Robin Williams dark period. We should also mention, 1994, he had played, he was on an episode of Homicide Life on the Street, which was the NBC cop series that Tom Fontana did, where he, for some reason, I had remembered that his character in homicide was the killer,

but he was the husband of a woman who was killed. And actually Jake Gyllenhaal played his son. But maybe I'm thinking of something else. Oh, okay, in 2008, he played, he was on Law & Order Special. Victims Unit. And I think this is the one where he plays a criminal of some sort. And he got nominated for an Emmy for that one. Okay. So regardless, so that's more of like, in line of the like Robin Williams' creepy aughts, you know, kind of a thing. And I think to what you're saying, that we have more nostalgia for

heartwarming Robin Williams' performances or, you know, the more broader comedic stuff. It's also probably because those aren't necessarily movies people really like. I remember our one-hour photo episode and I really hated the movie. Oh, yes. People don't seem to like this in terms of the Nolan filmography. You know what else also he does in 2002 is Death to Smoochie. So it's a real long.

Like, it's a real dark period. And guess which one I like the most, baby. And then in his next movies after this are that sci-fi movie, the final cut, with him and Jim Kivisel and Miriservino, that I genuinely don't, never saw it. So I have no idea. But I think he's a, he might be the bad guy in that. Honestly, who knows. but he's first build, so that would be odd. And then House of D, the David Dukovny movie,

which, again, didn't see it, have no idea. He's more of a supporting player in that one. Legendary House of D. Yes. He's a voice in robots in 05. He's, again, a, he's the Armistead-Moppan stand-in in the night listener.

in 06. I guess it's not till also in 06, he's in RV with the Barry Sondonfeld's comedy RV. So I guess that was like Robin Williams returns to comedy after about you know, five years.

Really, really it was since like Patch Adams, since he had played like a Robin Williams type role because 99 is also Jacob the Liar. So and then doesn't make another movie besides artificial. Oh no, 99 also Bicentennial Man, which also feels like a Robin Williams.

It's a lot of movies people didn't like. But it's a lot of movies people didn't like. Yeah. And then it's still stuff like Man of the Year and World's Greatest Dad in 2009. Like, I guess it's the Night at the Museum movies where he's mostly back to playing funny Robin Williams besides like, you know, the animated movies that he's that he's a voice of. I think he's really good in this movie, though.

I do think he achieves quite a bit by doing very, very little, which is not something I would say. I would say in one hour photo he's doing actually quite a lot. Too much, yeah. It's too much. Whereas this, it just feels like the actor just has to show up, bring what they naturally do in their kind of, you know. aura, for lack of a better word, and kind of say, just say the words.

And it's enough, which not every actor can do. Not every actor is compelling. Yes. Well, also, if I had told you before you had seen this movie, and even like, you don't really know a ton about Christopher Nolan, he's only made Memento. But if I had told you that there's... And following, but at that point, no one had seen following. Right.

If I had told you that we were going to get a movie where Rob, Robin Williams plays opposite Al Pacino. And just what tenor, what temperature in your mind? You know what I mean? It's just like, you're just imagining these two actors who can go really big. You know what I mean? Who have it in them to go really big. And Pacino in particular is coming off of a string where he's done heat in 95,

which is so well regarded, but like he's not playing it subtle. You know what I mean? devil's advocate in 97 and then any given Sunday in 99 and I'm going to set aside the insider for a second because I'm going to talk about the insider because I've seen it again recently and it's my favorite movie of the last 20 years

I'm honored it's going to be my number one movie of 2026 even though it's a 1999 release but so you look at like that through line of like heat to devil's advocate to any given Sunday Puccino is not afraid to go real fucking big and so, and he does have that moment

briefly in insomnia, but mostly this is a movie about him being like he's sort of he is half asleep sort of like textually in this movie like so much of his dialogue in this movie is spoken

through this kind of like woozy, you know, am I awake, I'm a sleep thing? And Williams, then also, despite playing a, you know, psychopath, is playing it real steady, real low-key. Clear-eyed, direct. And I would, I'm credit, of course, to these two brilliant actors, Oscar-winning actors. But also, credit to Nolan, who at this point doesn't have a ton of clout, you know what I mean?

He could very easily have been bowled over by these two guys. And, like, credit to Nolan for having everything on the same page, from the atmospherics to, you know, the performances are calibrated, right? Like, it is, I would say, for a young and, you know, mostly inexperienced director, certainly inexperienced with working with stars on this level. Good job. Like, real good job for, like, keeping... This movie is nothing, if not tonally consistent. It probably speaks to the level of respect that Memento got very, very quickly, and the amount of industry and critical support that got behind that movie.

Yeah. Especially for someone like Pacino who has done those type of movies before, that you could see him being like, oh, this guy's the real deal. Yeah. But then you, that's juxtaposed, you know, the respect for Memento among the like crew of people he amasses for this movie or that he, you know, get in part just gets hired to do with the audience reaction because I, as a teenager, loved Memento so much. My world, my, like, world was blown by that movie the first time I saw it. And so those are the kind of people I'm looking for reactions to with insomnia that also were like fans of Memento. And people seem to be disappointed at the time with insomnia because it's not doing any type of tricks.

You know, it's a pretty straightforward. Yes. I mean, as much as Memento very much is a noir, like insomnia kind of is, it doesn't have a lot of the noir tropes that would immediately like, to, you know, there's no, like, femme fatal here. Nothing stays secret for very long in here. We know immediately who has killed Martin Donovan. We know, like, Pacino's such a good cop that he immediately sees through to the truth of the boyfriend and what the boyfriend is guilty of and not guilty of.

He sees right through to the truth of the best friend and what the best friend and the boyfriend we're doing together. Like, all of his hunches essentially are correct. And it's, you know, because he's such a good cop. But, like, you know, there are not, there's not a ton of surprises. The biggest surprise is when Martin Donovan gets shot. But, like, again, like, that doesn't, we don't, it's not like he turns up dead and we have to wonder, did Pacino do it? Did this killer do it?

And then all of a sudden, you know, Hillary Swank figures it out, you know. So it's not a movie where, wherever. surprised by anything. Robin Williams confesses to the killing. And even now watching it, and I had seen the movie before, I'm like, I'm trying to remember. It was like, is this a thing where like, we think he's the killer? And then we like find out that it's like Nikki Kat or something like that later on. And I'm like, well, he just confessed. I'm like, but is he trying to play mind games? Is this a thing? And it's just like, no, no, he's the killer. Like, there's just, it's not, it's not looking to pull the rug out from under you.

And I would also add even Pacino's confession later on of, you know, internal affairs, manipulating and planting evidence, and that's what the investigation is about against him. It's kind of like, well, we already know that information. That's not a revelation. We know he's guilty. Like, we don't know what it is he's guilty of, but we're not surprised to find out that he's guilty of it because, like, he doesn't seem to ever really protest it when he was talking about it. Yeah, but we could put those pieces. together. That's why it's not super revelatory. We know that

obviously at this point we're well aware that he and Martin Donovan have that contentiousness and ultimately he kills Martin Donovan and the whole movie is kind of like it was that intentional or not did he know he was killing him or shooting him and then like before he says that about that

specific case we've already seen him plant evidence to save himself. So we know he's capable capable of that. Of doing that. Yes. Yeah. And the movie never presses down too hard on this idea of like Pacino as like the bad guy, right? But I think the movie is fairly staunch in its morality and straightforward in its morality by, you know, by the end where Pacino, you know, stops swank's character.

from fucking with evidence, you know, because it's the same thing where she's just like, I know you didn't mean to kill him, even though you're not necessarily, you know, even if you aren't sure. And so she's tempted to do the same thing, which is make the evidence fit what she knows to be true. You know what I mean? And he tells her to stop doing that because, you know, once you start down that path, you know, there's no going back and that kind of thing. So this is a movie that has its morality sort of like on its sleeve. And it's satisfying, I think, in that way. I also, though, watch this movie, and I'm like, I'm not surprised that this movie didn't last from May until the end of the year in terms of like, oh, we've got to like remember this movie for awards.

by the end of the year. It really was just sort of like it was very well reviewed. It made, for what it was, for the kind of movie that it was, it made okay money. You know what I mean? It wasn't some kind of a flop. And yet, I think by the end of the year, this was of course 2002, famously one of those years that was heavily weighted towards what released in December. So like releasing in May, you might as well have released it in 1980.

You know what I mean? But the very few movies from that year that did last from earlier, and I don't even know what those would even be. What performances that year were nominated? I mean, you could make a case about the pianist because that was a Cannes movie. But nobody's stateside side. That even was stateside released in the Christmas window. Unfaithful.

Unfaithful is the one performance. Diane Lane and Unfaithful. That movie was released in the U.S. in May, same as insomnia. That's the one performance that they really sort of like hang on to from the beginning. Paul Newman wrote to perdition is another one.

Because that movie, I believe, was June or July. It wins the cinematography Oscar, too. That was another movie that disappointed a lot of people. It did. It did. It ended up getting sort of the Newman nomination and the cinematography win are almost like respectful nods to this movie, you know what I mean,

rather than genuine enthusiasm, even though I think that's a really good movie. But yeah, O2 is very, very heavily weighted towards the end of the year, and so it is ultimately not a surprise that insomnia can't, you know, resurface towards the end, which I think is kind of too bad because I would have loved to see Robin Williams get some supporting actor support.

And I wonder if, you know, the presence of one-hour photo prevented that a little bit. You know, you can kind of spread your appreciation for that. And he was Critics Choice nominated for One Hour Photo. Yeah, yes. He definitely was, if he was campaigning for something, he was campaigning for that. Like in a world where only insomnia, his insomnia performance exists in this moment, he would have had a much better shot. Because I think it's the stronger performance than the stronger movie. Yeah.

Yes. Agreed. And I also feel like, I mean, there are certainly technical elements. Like, Wally Fister's cinematography in this movie is absolutely unreal. All of the, I was curious that. the fog sequence, which is just incredible, and so tense and so, like, beautifully done, to what extent they were creating or filming in actual fog or was CGI or was it enhanced by CGI? Regardless, it's such a compelling sequence.

Yes. filmed in, not surprisingly, British Columbia, which is actually, for a movie filmed in British Columbia, that's probably the closest geographically it'll get to being accurate is for a movie, British Columbia standing in for Alaska. Just looks beautiful. Like when they, that scene at the beginning of the movie where the plane sort of like it starts to descend into the town,

into the little, you know, village up on the lake. Really, really beautiful. Christopher Nolan loves a landmass of ice. He loves an ice formation on celluloid. Sure. Obviously, we're doing this movie now because of the impending Odyssey that we're all going to try.

check out and see. You have your tickets. I have my tickets. Everybody... I do have to say, as someone who has not... I've never been Nolan averse, but I've never been a Nolan guy. I think the last few years have been like your most pro-Nolan. Like, you've, you've behaved more pro-Nolan in the last several years than I think I've ever noticed you before. And I think part of that is, uh, I thought Dunkirk was... an achievement that deserved better than it got. And it did, you know, it did well. And I thought you really liked Oppenheimer, though, right?

I do really, not to the degree that some people love Oppenheimer, though, I do have to have complete respect. And I want to pat everybody on the back for their good taste for basically a psychological drama slash biopic getting the level. of respect that it earned because it's just like you can't make that movie and make it as huge as it is and then have the success that it has if you're not Christopher Nolan and that's kind of depressing to me because there's nothing there's not much in that movie it's just so well made and it has so much of his fascinations to it but it's just like it is just a psychological drama

a biopic. Sure. It is in some ways his absolutely most intimate movie that he's ever made. That we all watched on giant IMAX screens. Right. You know. And I think that like scale, that level of it really allows the themes. Again, some of this goes back to the male masculine self-delusion that I think is in the

core of that movie. But the magnitude of the themes and our global construed. concerns around them, the scale of that movie allowed that movie to become about that. Yeah. You know, these huge, you know, ideas and global concerns. And that, I think, is kind of one of one. I can't really think of another movie that does that in the way that he did. I also thought watching insomnia, I, of course, made the connection that I had completely forgotten when the Oscar were handed out that year, that Pacino, star of insomnia, presented Best Picture,

to Oppenheimer. In character is Will Dormer, apparently. That's the connection that I made. Still hasn't had a wink of sleep. Still has not had a wink of sleep since 2002. Yeah. My eyes see Oppenheimer, and they do not see the back of my eyelids. Yeah.

My eyes think I see my partner through the phone. Until I pressed play and Pacino's name showed up on screen, I was like, my God, my I see Oppenheimer. Uh-huh. Yep. Yep. That was a reunion of sorts, and we didn't really acknowledge that. Didn't really acknowledge it. We had all, it flew over our heads. Yeah. I'm sure somebody did out there. Somebody out there is going to say that they caught it right away. I'm good for you.

I think also one of the things that to you comes across as me being more pro-Noland than I've ever been is that it really did settle in for me that Interstellar is his best movie. go on what made you what made you think that I think just like a rewatch the movie

really finally clicked for me yeah and I think there's a number of other people that I've spoken to that they've come around to that as well a lot of people think that

yep well and I mean that it was his in the ways that insomnia is his post memento movie so you can kind of never live up to that

particularly with a like very direct straightforward forward movie like insomnia after, you know, everybody was so wowed by the, uh, structural, uh, like box that is memento. Yeah. He was never going to satisfy people immediately after doing the Dark Knight trilogy, especially with this kind of heady, like heavy science, but also woo-woo sentiment. Can I play armchair psychologist for a second with you? Sure. I think it is, Are you armchair, psychologizing me or Nolan?

You. Okay, great. I'm all for this. I think it's easier for you to appreciate Interstellar because it's the movie that his fanboys most didn't appreciate right away. Wouldn't that be me being like following is amazing, though? No, but following is you couldn't make a straight-faced case for following being his best movie. I think you can make a straight case. I mean, I'm not just being...

Plus, his fanboys don't, you know, don't really talk about that movie. But I think... I mean, his fan boys do not talk about Dunkirk either. Well, do you like Don Kirk? I do like Dunkirk. Yeah, this is what I'm saying. Like, I think it's easier for you to get behind those movies because you feel like you're not getting in bed with these film bros who discussed you so much.

That would be entirely subconscious. It's not... Sure. No, I don't mean it's conscious. But I do... But I think, because you know all of my complaints about Rises. I think our subconscious minds play into these things probably more than we think, you know, all of us.

You know, Batman begins. I rewatch that this week. That's also pretty straightforward. That one, I flipped for it when it first came out. And now it feels a little like vegetables. Yeah. And I think I was overlooking some of the complaints about. it when I first saw it. Nolan

doing the Bruce Wayne origin, watching the Waynes get killed yet again on screen. Yeah. It just really does not seem like he is interested in telling that story and is being forced to. Yeah. Well, the one that I really want to rewatch

in full, because I always like catch it in parts on television, but like I really do want to do a full Dark Night rewatch like Stemstern. Because that is a movie for me that I really liked at the time. And then the whole brouhaha with the Oscars made me feel a little bit like, all right, like, I get it. This movie should have been nominated for Oscars, but let's all stop acting like it's the biggest travesty in the world that it wasn't.

I also really, really love the prestige, and the prestige feels like the forgotten child of the Nolan filmography. Yeah. And in part because it was a Disney release or Touchstone, it was Touchstone, right? God, I... So it's like, it never gets packaged with the rest of the Nolan stuff because so much of it is Warner Brothers and now he's with Universal. The prestige is great. I think the prestige pulls off all of the like twisty structural stuff incredibly well. it's one of his best-looking movies.

I think it's one of his best-performed movies. That was the movie that really put Rebecca Hall on the map for me. Yeah. The Nolan movies that I love, if we're going to play armchair psychologist, for me, are the ones that everybody else, not everybody else, but there are a strong subset of people who call these movies stupider than they come across, which are... Oh, you like Inception and Tenet.

Tenet. Yep. Yep. See, Tenet's the movie that I'm like, he's pushing it way too far into the science that like, I'm sure all of that is sound and everything that there is not a compelling story. Let it lap over me, like the tides on the beach. The stuff I love about Tenet is like, what if they were two guys and they were friends? That is what I love about that.

That's inextricable from the other stuff, though, because you have to just fully vibe out with the other stuff in order to get to what's great about those two guys. Inception is a great time to watch. I think that's a fun movie. I think it looks incredible. The whole cast is great. Every time I've watched it, though, since release, I'm like, yeah, but this is pretty stupid.

I think it's brilliant. I have a great time, but I do think that's a dumb movie. You do remind me of that every time I say that Inception is my favorite movie. You just say, that's a dumb movie. I don't think you're dumb to love it. No, I don't think you're saying that. This is a goofy movie. I just think it is very consistent.

But every time I mention I love Inception, you're just like, I love that movie. It's so dumb. What? We're allowed to like dumb things. I know. I'm just saying. But anyway, that's where we're at with no more. I guess this is just my party line on Inception.

It has nothing to do with you. Now, where do we think the Odyssey is going to maybe land on this, you know, spectrum of Nolan? Because here's the thing about The Odyssey. I find myself increasingly excited to see it because of the Nolan of it. I think every, the more I see of Anne Hathaway in these successive trailers, the more I may be thinking she might be like doing something really fucking fantastic. in this? Oh, as if one of the greatest living actresses is going to give us another good performance?

No, but in that role, I was very, like, when I found out that that's who she was playing, I was like, oh, she's wife at home. She's not going to get to have any fun. Yeah, but like, the more I watch these trailers, the more she's seeming like a, you know, a real co-lead in the movie that we're going to be getting a lot of

her. I think we would be foolish to not expect some type of weird structural thing going on here. I don't think it's just going to be a point A to point B to point C type of narrative from him. Can I tell you what I love about it, maybe most of all, and even though this isn't surprising with Nolan, but I love that it's not the Odyssey Part 1. Oh. Because it very easily could have been, like, split into two movies.

And we're getting one movie that's going to tell The Odyssey. And I love that. And I mean, aside from anything else, I love that a certain scale of movie making is dying. And even what is at that scale, the way that it is done is not dying, but extinct. And he is taking this moment to make that type of movie. with like The first time I even heard it I was like come on man

Like the crustiest thing And it's the Odyssey And no With the bona fides we already have He's making like One of the oldest stories In you know Human existence

Into this really fucking cool thing But also it's just That he's taking this moment Right now in his career To do all of those things When no one's going to tell him no to anything and just making a real case for not only his bona fides and the status he's earned, but for the existence of a movie like this.

Yeah. If Christopher Nolan says my next movie is going to be the Old Testament. Yeah, the Bible. Right. Like, what would your first reaction be? Because I would kind of be like hootin and hollering a little bit. I kind of would too. That would be interesting.

The story of David. He does the entire stem to stern story of King David. I would rock in my socks. I would be so excited. That would be great. Do it, Christopher Nolan. I mean, he can kind of do whatever he wants. I think after this one, because while we should expect him to not just do a straightforward

on its face version of The Odyssey, I do kind of think there's a zero percent chance that it's now do a weird one, like Tenet or Inception. And I do, even though I don't like those movies. Well, I like Inception. I like Inception. He admit it. Now I'm the Tim Robinson guy. I can say that I like something, but that I don't think it's great.

Oh my God, he admitted it. I don't know why this is some type of win. in some way. No, I'm just... I'm just... I'm just... Josh. Yeah.

The... I think that's what he needs to do after the Odyssey. He needs to do another or one of those... Real flights of fantasy. Now do a silly one. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just also...

I think he's not going... Not going to just do the, like, granola and vegetables, straightforward, like, structural thing with the Odyssey. I also think... There's definitely going to be some type of... of thematic reason, his own point of view to it, that is going to be interesting. Yeah, totally. And hopefully not just like another movie about a director who feels guilty about not

being home with his wife and kids. Sorry, that's what works about me, works for me, about a nesteller. Yeah, well, there you go. Can I say something else? We're nearly 50 minutes into this episode, and we haven't done. on the plot description yet. So let's move towards that. I'm going to get my stopwatch

while you tell the listeners why they should be subscribed to our Patreon. Listeners, we have a Patreon. We call it this had Oscar post, turbulent brilliance. And for $5 a month, you're going to get more of the show

you love already in the form of two bonus episodes. First of those bonus episodes comes on the first Friday of every month. We call those episodes exceptions. These are movies that fit the usual this had Oscar buzz rubric of great expectations and disappointing results, but these manage to score an Oscar nomination or two, unlike the movies we do here on the main feed that earned zero Oscar nominations. So coming this month, we're doing an exception episode on Saving Mr. Banks. This is a big one for the exceptions.

This one's been lingering for a while. I think this is the type of movie that when we talk about it. our show and we've, you know, bandied about the exceptions. People have asked for that episode for a long time. And saving Mr. Banks. Score nominee. And we recorded it for a long time. Because of technical issues.

Yes. And score nominee, very nearly a best actress nominee. Outsider Chance at a supporting actor nomination. But what other exceptions have we done recently? We've done the Birdcage, the American Prize. resident. We've talked about movies that I'm sure many of our listeners love, like Contact, my best friend's wedding, AI artificial intelligence, masterpieces like Far from Heaven and Mulholland Drive, non-masterpieces like The Lovely Bones, House of Gucci and Nine. There's

two and a half years, well, there's several years, two years, two and a half years, I forget when we started at this moment, but you have a lot of exceptions episodes, movies you're going to want to hear us talking about. Yeah. The second bonus episode every month, this is what we call an excursion. It comes on the third Friday of the month, and we do deep dives into things we as Oscar nerds love to obsess about, things like Entertainment Weekly Fall movie previews. We've recapped old awards shows from the 80s and 90s, including last month where we recapped

the Oscars, where Share won her Oscar. and then a bunch of people from the Last Emperor won theirs. This month, we are doing our first Hollywood Reporter Actress Roundtable in a minute, but we're going to be talking about 2012. We're excited to do one of those again. We haven't done one in a while. But go sign up for This Had Oscar Buzz Turbulent Brilliance over at patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz.

Chris, in August, we will be celebrating our third anniversary. for the Patreon. That's how long we've been doing it. Three years. So yes, two and a half years. We kicked it off just shortly after the 100 years, 100 Snubs miniseries, which was in 20, 23. All right, Chris. Well, now we're going to talk about the plot.

The plot for Christopher Nolan's Insomnia from 2002. Directed by Christopher Nolan, as I said, written by Hillary Sites, adapted from the 1997 Norwegian film, Insomnia, written and directed by Eric Skoldberg. I'm going to say that that's how we pronounce that. Starring Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Hillary Swank, Martin Donovan, Moratirney, Paul Dooley, duly appointed Federal Marshal, Paul Dooley, Nikki Kat, Jonathan Jackson, early Joe Reed Crush Jonathan Jackson, and Catherine Isabel, premiered May 3, 2002 at the Tribeca Film Festival,

the very rare Tribeca premiere that we get to talk about on this podcast. That would have been, I imagine, the first Tribeca Film Festival because it came about in the wake of 9-11. So opened wide on Memorial Day weekend, May 24th, 2002, and honestly opened pretty well considering that. It was behind the second weekend of Star Wars Episode 2, Attack of the Clones. which finished in first place, with $60 million that weekend. Spider-Man, the original Sam Ramey Spider-Man,

in its fourth week, finished in second place with 35.8. But Insomnia, a movie based on no IP, with a still fairly, you know, new director, opens to $26 million. Not too bad, I would say. In fourth place was the opening weekend of Spirit, Stallion of the Simmeron, future Oscar nominee. animated movie where Matt Damon voices a horse.

And number five that weekend was the opening weekend for enough. Enough. One of the more entertaining Jennifer Lopez vehicles of that era. Enough. You know she means business when she gets a shag haircut. And she puts on those little box. The little fingerless gloves. She's ready to go.

She's ready to pew, pew. Do you remember who her best friend in that movie is? Juliette Lewis. It is Juliette Lewis. Yes, very good. All right, Chris, I am going to pull out my stopwatch. You're going to have 60 seconds to describe the plot of insomnia. Are you ready?

Yeah. Okay, and begin. All right, Al Pacino stars as Detective Will Dormer. He arrives in Nightmute, Alaska, real name of a real town. With his partner in tow, they are investigating the murder of a young woman. who is a high schooler, and he and his partner are clearly acrimonious, then his partner is going to be contributing to an investigate against him so that he can have immunity. While they're on pursuit of the killer, they go into a bunch of fog,

and Dormer is chasing after the killer, but then he shoots and oops, shot his partner, and his partner dies. He then goes on a spree while also, investigating the murder of trying to cover up shooting his partner. And Hillary Swank, local police officer, is, you know, writing the report for this. And he's, while he's trying to evade capture, he's also like, you know, you should actually trust your instincts and do whatever. Meanwhile, the killer contacts Dormer and is like, ha ha, or does he find, either way. He ends up in like this kind of relationship that no longer is cat and mouse with the killer.

and they have like these long conversations, the killer videotapes, or not video, sound, he records the conversation to basically use it as blackmail against Dormer. They chase each other over some logs. And ultimately, Dormer confesses to Moratirney, who runs the local lodge,

that he has planted evidence on a pedophile to help get the pedophile locked up. And then ultimately, both Dormer and the killer go down in a shootout and Hillary Swank is going to tell the truth. The end.

The end, 42 seconds over. Not too bad. Not great. Not great, but, you know. For a not particularly ploddy movie, too. Like, I think you're dead right to say, this movie doesn't really have any secrets at any time. Right. You know, it's not withholding any information that you probably don't understand already.

Right. Yeah, even with the revelation of the killer, it comes probably halfway through the movie. but you're basically expecting not to find out who the killer is until the end of the movie. So even that is coming much, much, much sooner. And Robin Williams as Walter Finch, who is the killer, does he's a writer of like crap thrillers, basically? Yes, like, yes. And developed a relationship with the young woman because she also wanted to be a writer. and ultimately

he murders her because he makes some type of pass and she laughs at him. I will say there's a and yes, and not to be glussed over there too because yes, this is a movie about the sort of all too terrifyingly familiar

notion of how vulnerable women can be if they can damage the fragile feelings of aggressive men. But it is interesting to me that they're going through, they find this knapsack of hers with all her belongings in it, one of which is this paperback novel by this guy. Who, one of the cops, because Petino's like,

who reads this shit? And one of the cops is like, I do. And so he tosses a tomb and he's just like, you know, read it through, look for underlined passages, whatever. And this is ultimately the cop who ends up getting shot by, is it Finch? His name is Finch. Yes. Who actually does end up getting shot by Finch in the foggy chase.

And so maybe that impacted his police work a little bit. But I'm like, it shouldn't have taken them very long to figure out that, like, the author of this book that's in her backpack is local, like, lives in the next town over. Nightmute Alaska. How many novelists live in that fucking town? How many fucking people live in that town? Right, I'm saying it. It looks like the 2000 census was 200 people. He lives in like the next town over.

Why would you be sending a cop from Los Angeles to this town as a fave? They want to get him out of. But they do explain to us a solid. They wanted to get him out of L.A. to get the heat off of him a little bit and Paul Dule knew him and whatever. So like that they did explain. case, etc. Yes.

But Nightmute Alaska. As soon as that showed up on the movie screen, I was like, that is a little hilarious. Because this is also a town where the sun never goes down at this time of year. That's the whole conceptual. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he can't go to sleep and that, you know, affects his, like, guilt and his, you know, his struggle with his surroundings. No.

And I immediately looked that up. And I'm like, oh, real town. And that is the name. Yes. Yes. Too good to be true. But yes, so the whole idea that this is, they are in one of those towns that are northern enough where day lasts for six months and night lasts for six months and whatever.

Or not quite exactly that stark, but like there have been other movies made about this 30 days of night, which is, you know, a vampire movie made in a town where it's never, it's never day. Joe, what would be harder for you, the six months of day or the six months of night? That's an interesting question. not to be like, you know, both sidesy about it, but like I can see like pluses and minuses to both because I can, I can sleep during the day and I can be awake at night. Like my circadian rhythms are fucking horrifying. And so like, I would probably be- You don't say. I would probably be, shut up. I would probably be better suited to living in a town like that than most people because I would just be like, okay, like, You need me to sleep when it's perfectly bright out. Like, that's fine with me.

You need me to be awake at all hours and whatever, like, live like a fucking, like, you know, bat. Okay, I can do that too. So I'd thrive. I'd thrive in Nightneut. I'd be the mayor of Nightneut. This would be great for me. I would be way better in six months of darkness.

Yeah. I know most people would probably say six months of light. I can't, I'm not a napper. I can't sleep while the sun's out. That's not something I'm capable of. doing. So in that, in that aspect, I felt for Dormer. Yeah. I was like, I hear you, brother. I would not be able to do that.

It's a fantastic device for a, this cop is unraveling psychologically due to external factors and internal factors. He's feeling guilty. He's, you know, he's worried he's going to lose his job. He's worried that all of these, you know, cases that he's, all of these, you know, criminals that he's put in jail are all going to end up getting let out. now because of, you know, he's going to go down in disgrace. And so it's a perfect sort of natural accelerant to that and also a thematic thing of just like, he can't sleep. He can't sleep because he's guilty, but he also can't sleep because it's fucking light out

all the time. And like, he can't, even with a little bit of light peeking through the curtains or whatever, it's going to keep him awake. So it's rather ingenious in that way, and it's simplicity. And I guess we can't credit that to Nolan because that was the idea of the original filmmakers. But it's a good one. So Christopher Nolan at this point, Memento comes out in the festivals in 2000, but is an American release in 2001. It does really well during award season for a movie of that size, and I think that had come out pretty early in that year, too.

Ends up with two Oscar nominations, one for Best Original Screenplay, where it loses to Gosford Park, and then one for Best Editing, which is one of those things that feels very intuitive, and yet the Oscars don't do enough of, which is taken. movie from, you know, the class of films that are not going to be Best Picture nominated and give it the craft nomination that really speaks to what it does well. You know what I mean? Where you would think that would happen. It happens most often with stuff like costumes and production design, but it doesn't happen often enough, in my opinion, with categories like editing and sound and that kind of thing of like a movie that is just like, if memetum, Memento weren't well edited, it wouldn't be, it wouldn't exist. You know what I mean?

Like the whole thing. Well, because the challenge, I mean, you can make the argument that the structure of Memento is on the page and not in the edit room. But the challenge I think of the edit on that movie is to get the audience to understand not only the rules, but where they're at in the story at any given point. the degree to which the audience should and should not be disoriented at any moment. Yes. And the degree to which you are ahead of the audience. Yes. Because I think one of the things that works so well about that movie is we're constantly trying to understand where we are in the story and the movie is giving us that information.

Yeah. So much so that our minds, our brains are already working so much that our minds can't ever get to the point of, Okay, so how could this device be exploited? Yeah. And then at a certain point, we're like, oh, this is how other characters exploit it. And then the ultimate rug pull of the movie is, here is how the protagonist has exploited himself. Yes. For lack of a better term.

Yeah. Yes. The version of the protagonist who remembers is exploiting the version of the protagonist who doesn't. Yes. Right. Loses that award to Black Hawk Down. So that's one of, you know, the more interesting editing wins is that that's not a best picture nominee, although it really shows you how close Black Hawk Down probably did come to being a best picture nominee that year.

Nolan's also nominated for the Director's Guild Award for Best Director that year. Ron Howard wins that for A Beautiful Mind, en route to his Oscar. So do you think this all amounts to Memento probably having been successful? place. What do we think about that? It's tough to say. I recall we've talked about this on a previous episode because I do remember having the discussion about whether Mulholland Drive could have possibly been a lone director nominee that doesn't make the top 10 la Pavo Pavlovakowski at all. Bennett Miller. Right. Although Bennett Miller was when it was only eight or nine nominees in 2014. But the fact that we've still had loan director nominees in an age of 10 is really something.

Remains fascinating. It's somewhat harder to see now the way that, you know, everything has kind of metastasized around Best Picture. Yes. I think definitely, though, you're probably strongest contenders for six and seven are Blackhawk down and Memento, if you're looking at it that way. I think, honestly, Shrek is probably a contender in that, in that regard.

I think Amalie is probably a contender in that regard. And then you start talking about movies where, if it's a top 10 and the conversation is more expanded all year, is something like Monsters Ball, something that ultimately ends up as a contender, is I would think Ali, you know, something. I have a harder time seeing a training day or a sexy beast, you know, or an I Am Sam as getting in there. Training Day might be a movie that is very different if the whole year has a known Best Picture 10, you know, and there's the room. But I think the same is true for Memento.

The thing that gives me pause about Memento being sixth place, though I guess this would also be true of Blackhawk Town. is that DGA nomination, and Blackhawk Town was also DGA nominated. Yeah. Because 25 years ago, that probably meant something more significant for a movie's best picture chances than it does now. Yeah. I wouldn't rule out any movie that doesn't get nominated for DGA today. But in 2001, a movie that gets nominated by DGA has a real, real shot at a best picture nomination. The other movie I would throw in there as a movie that in what our version of the top 10 looks like today would be a real contender is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stone, which was such a financial success and so popular.

And I think it would have been probably pretty irresistible to put that in there, sort of piggybacked on to the Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring story, that you have these two big kind of fantasy. based on books, you know, properties that are launching franchises. And I think that would have a better chance than something like Pearl Harbor, which was a movie that I think in the early part of that year, people were like, is this finally going to be the Michael Bay Prestige Project that will, you know, get him a nomination? So yeah, I think it's a crowded field where you're looking, I'm looking at my little, like, jotting on the back of a napkin count. Memento, Black Hawk Down, Shrek Amelie, Monsters Ball, Ali, Harry Potter, Mulholland Drive. That's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 movies 4, 6 through 10. Like, that's a crowded year. Like, 0-1 is kind of, and like, I'm not saying

that all of those are movies that I like or love, but, like, O2 is an underrated banger year. because this is, like, we're not even talking about some of my favorite things from that year, which include, and hold on a second, because I had just pulled this up and now I can't find it. My 01 is like Royal Tenenbaum's is in there, and, uh, Tedwick and the Angry Inch. Headwig and the Angry Inch is in there. And, um, sorry, one second. Royal Tannenbaum's Hadwig and the Angry Inch Oceans 11 is this year The Cohen Brothers, the man who wasn't there, is this year.

Is Waking Life this year? Yes, it is. Ghost World is this year. Donnie Darko is this year. The Others is this year. 2001, a very underrated movie for both Oscar movies and stuff that like the devil's backbone or session nine

or stuff that like wouldn't ever be Oscar contenders, but is stuff that I nevertheless find really, really good. So, yeah, yeah, really solid year. That would have only made the Nolan heads more aggravated about his lack of a best director nomination, if Memento was a Best Picture nominee, though, because he doesn't get that director nomination until Dunkirk. Until Dunkirk in 2017, yes. I do you think the Oscar would have happened for him for Dunkirk in, like,

like any other year. I think... Maybe not like 2019, but... He would have won for Dunkirk? I think that movie has the goods for that, especially... You know, that's such a stacked year, and he was never going to be the most interesting narrative that year. But I think if that's a 2015 movie...

What was best picture in 2015? 2015 was Spotlight over... Spotlight, yeah. Max and Revenant. I think the thing about Dunkirk that has always sort of not stuck in my craw necessarily, but like held me back. And I think I was not alone in this. Is that like it's such a depersonalized movie.

It's such a movie that like de-emphasizes character as, you know, for the sake of this collective, right? This sort of like, you know, full picture. and I think that kind of a movie is never going to be as successful with the Oscar voters. Right. It's a director movie, not an actor movie, for sure. Though I still kind of push back against that. I do think you get real, like, an emotional foundation from someone like Rylance in that movie.

You get pockets of it, yes. I think Jack Loudon is incredibly underrated in Dunkirk. I mean, I'm always going to love Jack Loudon. But I think the stuff that really ends up hitting is the Brana of it and like the The speechification of the movie, yeah. But I think Oppenheimer doesn't happen if Dunkirk doesn't happen. You know what I mean? So like that is, I think, a big thing.

I want to also mention that talking about, you know, the pedigree that the Memento brought to insomnia was Memento, rocked the Indy Spirit Awards that year. It won four awards, including Best Feature and Best Director. Best Feature, He Beats. This is an interesting list. It's Headwig and the Angry Inch, L.I.E., the Brian Cox plays a pedophile movie.

Waking Life, and then Things Behind the Sun, which is a movie I have not seen. And then in Best Director, it's John Cameron Mitchell from Headwig, Michael Questa for LIE, Richard Linkletter for Waking Life. and then Cheryl Dunya for Stranger Inside, which is also a movie I haven't seen.

So once again, the Indy Spirits give me things to add to my list. Robin Williams for his insomnia performance is a two-time Saturn Award nominee in the same year. I'm willing to guess that he's not the first actor to be nominated for multiple films by the Saturday. The Saturns tend to cast a wide net. So, but he's nominated for a supporting actor for Insomnia, loses to Andy Circus for Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers,

because that was the year that Andy Circus was kind of on the fringes of, should we nominate a mocap performance? Ultimately, the actors were like, no, we won't. And then he's nominated for Best Actor for the Saturn Award for one hour photo, where he did win, beat out Pierce Brosnan, as James Brasman, James Bond and Die another day. Vigo Mortensen as Aragorn and Lord of the Rings of Two Towers, Tom Cruise in Minority Report. Clooney and Solaris and Toby Maguire in Spider-Man.

The only category where you're going to get George Clooney for Solaris up against Toby McGuire for Spider-Man. And I don't know. I think that's probably indicative of where the appeal for this movie ultimately was in terms of awards conversation was it was limited to Robin Williams and ultimately secondary to one-hour photo Robin Williams that year. I want to talk about Pacino briefly. So good in this movie.

He's so good in this movie. I'm in a very pro-Puccino pocket. I mean, I always am. He's Al Pacino. To quote Lady Gaga, he's Al Pacino. Don't make him take his glasses off. He's Al Pacino. Fantastic.

His post-Oscar run, though, I think sometimes the narrative has been that, like, Pacino wins his Oscar for perhaps his most sort of over-the-top, least subtle, least calibrated performance incentive a woman. I can't disagree, and yet I find it wildly watchable. Like, I find him in that movie in particular, wildly watchable. I think the movie itself is lugubrious and, and, you know, whatever. But, like, I am a red-blooded American boy, and I am, there's only so much I can resist Al Pacino, thundering away at James Rebhorn on the board of this fusty private school or whatever, and calling him bad bums. At the beginning of the 90s, though, it really is Pacino in,

movie star pocket, you know, including something like Dick Tracy, which is also wildly outlandish, but incredible performance. It should not be as good as it is doing what he's doing, and yet, here we are. He's playing a man named Big Boy Caprice. He knows what he's doing. I mean, the same for something like the devil's advocate. I don't think we're giving him Oscars for things like the devil's advocate, but it's probably better in the devil's advocate than he is incentive of a woman if we're

being completely fair. It's an argument that could be made. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also, I think, like, the reputation for Pacino post-Oscar, I think sometimes gets misremembered as, like, well, then Pacino just started, like, being self-indulgent and everything that he's doing. But, like, post-Oskar, it's Carlito's Way, 1993, heat in 1995, city hall in 1996, which

is a movie we could probably do for this had Oscar buzz, but, like, it just kind of feels like boring. you know, the prospect of it feels kind of boring. Donnie Brasco in 1997 was people forget how popular that movie was and how much that, how instrumental that movie was to sort of growing Johnny Depp up from being a sort of heartthrob 21 Jump Street type to a, you know, adult actor of, you know, adult roles. The Insider in 1999 as well as any given Sunday. and then in 2002 it's insomnia, but also Simone S1M0 N.E.

I just want to take a couple minutes to talk about The Insider. When was the last time you saw The Insider? Maybe during COVID. It's a great movie. He is incredible in it. It does feel like this era for him, the insider, and I would even say Insomnia, though I think The Insider is a much better performance. It is a much more nuanced.

Monced Pacino. Yes. Even something like heat, I would normally argue, is... He dabbles in nuance, but then there's, of course... He has moments of incredible subtlety in that movie, but they are peppered by in moments of, like, off the chain, just like, she had a great ass, like, that kind of stuff. We've all seen that clip. But, like, it's there, and it is consistent.

And stacked up against De Niro, who I do think is the superior person. performer if we have to choose one of the two in that movie. I think De Niro's giving the performance that I gravitate towards at the very least. But the insider is an example of the kind of thing that happens every once in a while where a movie is a success with the Oscars and it succeeds everywhere. It's got, you know, the insider didn't get nominated for best supporting actor for Christopher Plummer, but it was certainly campaigned throughout the year, and he got precursor nominations and stuff like that. Russell Crow shows up for Best Actor Everywhere.

He's kind of like in a year where it ends up being Kevin Spacey or Denzel Washington, Kevin Spacey for American Beauty or Denzel Washington for the hurricane. Russell Crow was kind of the critics pick that year for the best, and yet I don't think Pacino got anything in the way of precursor attention. Sometimes that same year was being John Malkovich. And QSAC kind of got the same treatment in being John Malkovich. We're like Spike Jones is getting nominated. Charlie Kaufman's getting nominated.

Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, John Malkovich is getting Oscar buzz and whatever. And like no one's talking about QSack, perhaps because people don't like him in real life. That's always been the rumor about QSAC, allegedly, allegedly. But like QSach's phenomenal in that movie. playing a really unlikable character, but playing them very well. And I think just sometimes you do sort of speed right past the, you know, incredibly strong performance at the lead because so many of the things at the fringes of the movie are working very well. And certainly that is the case.

I'm not surprised that people jumped to Russell Crow, partially also because he's a new talent at that point. He's, you know, still relatively, you know, new to. American audiences. And like, Plummer is fucking doing tricks in this movie. He's so fucking good. It's infuriating to me that he doesn't get nominated, particularly this being a year, and this is no shade against either Michael Kane or the Ciderhouse rules a movie I like better than most people do. It's fucking crazy to me that Michael Kane ends up winning the Oscar in the year of Christopher Plummer and The Insider. Like, talk about a movie that like, talk about a performance

that leans on sentimentality versus a performance that is so aggressively hostile to sentimentality while also it's not necessarily even this ex-posé performance. So it plays into the like even the more annoying and base level

Oscar narratives that we don't love but like it's just kind of like if you're not even going to fall for that in this great performance. What I love the best about Plummer is Mike Wallace in that movie. Mike Wallace is here and I'm living. Which is your joke.

A joke for two people that I will never let die. It basically had to say to... It's so good. But it's not a like, doe-eyed, you know, celebration of Mike Wallace as a journalist. It's also not a, like, vicious takedown.

It is a very balanced, you know, portrait of this person who could be vain and blustery, but also a good journalist, but also somebody who, like, shows self-preservation, you know, over the truth when it, you know, when the rubber hit the road. And just an incredibly nuanced and complicated performance, but, like, truly Al Pacino in that movie is playing, you're tempted to call it a thankless role, but I don't think it's a thankless role. I think he gets, like, a ton of really great stuff to perform. He gets to be righteous. is he gets to be, you know, questioning of himself and his role in that whole thing.

It's just, I cannot recommend. That was a movie that I saw probably when it first came on DVD in 2000. And I remember watching it and being like, yes, everybody is correct. This is a good movie. And then I kind of put it away. And then for a while, I did that thing I sometimes do with Michael Mann movies, where every time everybody is like, Michael, man, yeah, blah, blah. And I'm just like, you people, you're also, you're also Michael.

man-pilled. And then I now I would, I, now watching it again, I'm like, well, fuck, they were right. Like, fucking hell of this movie is like one of the best movies of its era. Absolutely. I'm the same, I'm, I'm, I'm that way with the 98 and 99 Oscars, because whenever you talk about the night, we just did this, uh, when we were on screen drafts again, uh,

98, it's always Shakespeare in love, saving Private Ryan. And I'm the person that's like, Guys, the thin red line is right there. And then in 99, it's like, American Beauty, Cider House Rules, also a tiny bit of six cents in there. And it's like, guys, the fucking insider is right there. Yep, yep, absolutely, absolutely. But anyway, I had to get that off of my chest. That was a movie I watched purely because 60 Minutes was in the news, the whole thing with, you know, the Barry Weiss of It All.

and what's his name who quit righteously? Fuck, I'm going to forget it now. Too early in the morning. Too early in the morning. Too early in the morning on Pride Weekend. And I'm not a capacity. But like I watched it just because I wanted to watch a movie, which I am able to do so infrequently now between podcasts and TV I have to watch for work and stuff like that.

Like being able to just like sit back on a Tuesday night and watch a movie just because rewatch a movie. That's the other thing is being able to re-watch a movie felt like such a luxury. How decadent. How wonderful. And, oh, did it pay off? Anyway. And then the Hillary swank of it all in this movie. Okay, A, to start with, what do you think of her character as written and her performance

of set character? Because it's a little bit of a stock character, right? The sort of, like, the newbie, she's green. She's really, like, she idolizes. that whole deal. I do think what she and Pacino bring to the table make for a really interesting chemistry and energy. I don't know if there's really a ton for her to do really on the page. It's just it's interesting watching these two actors together in this context.

She gets a little bit of the thankless role of investigating a crime that we already know what the answer did it. who committed that crime. She's investigating the Martin Donovan shooting. And so it's not really fun for us to watch her, like, figure it out. Because A, we know the answer, and B, we know the answer is Pacino, who we like. I think she comes through in the end. But I will admit, I found that character a little irritating. Perhaps by design.

Well, perhaps by design a little bit, but she's just like, it's a little too stock character. It's a little too, like, she... You know exactly where the story's going to go. She whiz Detective Dormer. Like, I've read all your case files. Like, you're... Such and such case was my dissertation at the Academy and whatever, and it's just like, all right, all right. And it's almost like you can map out where this is going.

She's obviously going to be the one who has... has to end up calling him on, you know, this shooting and whatever. She has to, the scales have to fall from her eyes a little bit, and she has to, you know, the halo has to come off of Dormer for her. But I think because she's kept to such a back burner for most of the movie, that it doesn't have the impact that it might have. I also, here's where I, you know, do my periodical, periodic, you know, I have loved Hillary Swank in a handful of roles.

She is not somebody who brings it to you every ball. And some of that, too, is I don't think people really know how to use her in a movie or what she's appropriately cast for. Her three roles after she wins her first Oscar are the gift where she plays an abused housewife in a very small role. Sient mullet. And you can argue that is probably, I don't know the exact timeline, but you can argue that is she did not have an Oscar by the time they made that movie. Right.

Given the timeline. Yes. It's that. It's the affair of the necklace and this. She doesn't work. And then after this, she does the core. Yes. And it's not like she's doing a bunch of like TV or theater during this era either.

And I forget, she was supposed to be in the miracle world. on Broadway. Oh, is that true? Oh, maybe I'm right. And it got, the production got canceled. Like, they decided not to move forward with the production. Got it. I forget when that happened.

That might be a few years after this. It might even be after her second Oscar. Because her next TV project isn't until 2004, where she's in the HBO movie. What am I going to say? Iron Jod Angels. Iron Jod Angels, where she plays Alice Paul among sister suffragettes, Francis O'Connor, Julia Ormond. Angelica Houston, Molly Parker, Lois Smith, Vera Farminga,

Brooks Smith, Margo Martindale. And then they allow a couple of men in there, like Patrick Dempsey and Bob Gunton, and that's fine. And that movie got some Emmy nominations and whatnot. Didn't win any Emmys, but got some Emmy nominations. And then she wins her second Oscar for Million Dollar Baby, and her follow-up to that is The Black Dahlia, a perfectly normal performance.

Totally normal. in a fully normal context doing fully normal things that you would normally expect Hillary Swank to be asked to do. And then it just feels like a million dollar baby is the one where it feels like she wins that Oscar and she's like this one I'm going to use to like work. And she like accepts like a whole shit tunnel rolls, right? Because it's like Black Dahlia, Freedom Riders, P.S. I Love You. that horror movie The Reaping that was really poorly reviewed. Really bad.

Amelia, conviction, you know what I mean? And what was that moment in that roundtable that she's the 2010 roundtable where she's there representing conviction, where she's talking about, just the way she's talking about that part in people like us, which eventually goes to Elizabeth Banks.

Yes. But at that point, she, Amy Adams is sitting at the table being like, professional. Yes. Hillary Swank's like, yeah,

I pursued this movie from the guys that made the Transformers thing. And it's a really great role and blah, blah, blah. And it's really hard to blah, blah, blah. Amy Adams saying nothing, being stone-faced, it's fine. And then Helen of Bottom Carter is like, aren't you getting that role, Amy? Everybody, half of that table are,

such fucking shitsters. It's like the Helena and that Benning, Natalie Portman, end of that table are like absolute shitsters. It's so much fun. We talked about that on a Patreon episode early on in our, in our, the existence of our Patreon. I don't know if we did a Patreon on that, or if we just talk about that all the time. That might actually be true. We might not have done a specific, I know we've talked about it at length. At length in some associated episode. Yes. But anyway, the way... Maybe conviction. The way she talked about going after that role really did feel like she was at a point in her career where she was really aggressively trying to get roles that were probably going to better regarded actresses.

And so she was really trying to just get in where she could fit in, right? And so there was a little bit of a, I don't want to say desperation necessarily, but there was a zeal to the way she talked about going after these roles that you could feel like she was really trying to like harness the glow still of this like post million dollar baby Oscar, which at that point for conviction was like six years ago. She's somebody who I think can often be, and I am guilty of this as anybody, a little bit of the butt of a joke for being a. two-time Oscar winner who's not really regarded as like one of the greats. But I do feel a good deal of sympathy for her as somebody who just seems to be sincere in her desire to seek out interesting work, do good work, you know, and is maybe not as successful at that part of the job, or is not able to be as successful. at that part of a job, because also there's a finite number of really good roles for women, especially at that time.

And she's for whatever reason never felt comfortable or was never, you know, super castable in like the indie realm. So she really was just looking for a real slim, you know, avenue of roles, which was good. female leads in studio dramas. And it was unsurprisingly hard for her to find, you know, enough good ones to really keep her at the top of the pile. RIP Alaska Daily, that felt like the avenue that it would have worked and then it lasted. You are not kidding. Like, there is nobody who I would have been, I remember when that, that shows. came out, and I remember it had a little bit of success at the beginning, a little bit of a spark.

And I'm like, this is perfect for Hillary Swank. She should be the lead of a network procedural that lasts for seven seasons. That lasts for seven seasons. And you're like, it's on year two, right? And you're like, no, it's on year eight. And it's, you know. It just hits syndication. Yes. Like, that to me, like, that is no shade when I say. say that, but like, she should have been the Marg Helgenberger on a CSI somewhere. You know what I mean? Like, that would have been really great for her. And I think she is occasionally capable of pulling out a million dollar baby or a boys don't cry. But I think more often than not, you know, she's not really hitting that mark in film. We're going to talk about another Hillary Swank movie

later on this summer too, that we'll have more occasion to talk about her as a leading person. But her role and her performance in this movie are maybe not my favorite. Yeah. Yeah. It's not her fault

in this movie. I don't know if I think she's miscast. I almost feel like it should maybe be someone who's very fresh or conceivably very like someone maybe a little younger to get the actual dynamic that's here.

But then again, Pacino's in his 60s in this movie. So it's not like he's not old enough to have this like mentor, mentee type of vibe. She's in her late 20s when she makes this movie. Yeah, I guess she is the right age. I guess you could have cast it as like a younger 20s or whatever, but then you'd really be getting into like Jimmy Olson Cub Reporter kind of a thing. Um, so... The movie's ultimately not that interested in her beyond, you know, having some type of foil.

They need to have her there for the end of the movie. They need to have a figure... And to push the movie along to, like, have a narrative arc to it. Because, again, there's no secrets in this movie. There's nobody else in this movie who would function at the end of the movie for him to sort of bequeath his, you know, better nature, too, than her. So you need to have her there. But, so, yeah, I think ultimately, insomnia is incredibly well reviewed.

Like, 92 Rotten Tomatoes and 73 Metacritic is, I mean, or 78 Metacritic, is really, really good. And, like, $67 million domestic for this movie. I think is really good. Even back then when like, you know, I mean, this was the summer of Spider-Man. This was the summer of Attack of the Clones. Like, you know, this was never going to, you know, surpass those kinds of movies. But I think ultimately it just sort of got packaged in the aftermath as like, oh, that was a summer movie. That was a, you know, summer counter-programming.

And good for Christopher Nolan that he had a solid follow-up. and we'll see you for your next one. And then ultimately, this was enough of a good solid follow-up that he was able to parlay that then into Batman. And, you know, but was not yet an Oscar guy, even though Memento was an Oscar movie. Nolan hadn't yet gotten to the point of like, ah, you're already in the club, my friend, you know, that kind of thing.

So there you have it, ultimately. And now, I think we would be foolish. I mean, when do people really hit with Oscar back to back? It's not common, especially for someone who works at the regular clip that Nolan works at. Because that's another thing about Nolan is he makes more movies than someone like a Fincher or a, who's another contemporary we would probably think of because he pretty much is a movie every three years. Yeah.

Well, he sort of rose up in the age of, it was like him, Fincher kind of, even though Fincher hit a little bit earlier than him. Aronovsky, you know, came up around that general time. I'm sort of looking at the like, you know, who else got a like early, screenplay nomination. Quaron is actually an interesting example.

Sort of. He had his sort of like early, you know, failures, the great expectation of it all and whatever. But like Alfonso Quaron gets nominated for the screenplay for Itumama Tambien, gets then immediately sort of like Nolan-esque, like, now you may do a franchise. And he's, you know, does his Harry Potter movie. He makes children of men off that and that is a movie that I think we both agree did not get nearly what it deserved as you know, check out our Patreon episode on it.

So it's not really until gravity that he is like fully welcomed into the fold. And that has a little bit of a Nolan-esque like delay to it, right? Where, you know, it takes a little bit to, to, you know, finally get him to that point. think, who else could we say that of? I guess it's a little true of Noah Bombach who, you know, gets that screenplay nomination for the squid and the whale and then takes this kind of circuitous route before ultimately getting into Oscars Good Graces with... And I still don't think Bomback's been a director nominee yet, right? I guess that's true. Hold on, award the nominations.

Yeah, that is true. Yes. Three-time screenplay nominee. One-time Best Picture nominee, but no director nominees. And all this to say, this is my circuitous way of saying, I think we would be foolish. We'll see how the reception is in a few weeks, but I think in early predicting we would be foolish to not expect the Odyssey to be in Oscar contention. It'll be in the conversation.

I do not think we're guaranteed another Oppenheimer. I think there are, it's harder to, because the thing about Oppenheimer, it was not just this spectacle. It also, and I'm going to use semi-scar quotes here, had something to say. You know what I mean? And I think it's going to be harder to retrofit, not retrofit, but to fit the Odyssey for a has something to say, even though I'm sure it will have something to say, literally. It's going to be too easily reduced for a lot of people and a lot of people who don't think too hard about it as just Christopher Nolan doing The Odyssey.

It's much easier to be like, yes, the movie about the guy who invented the nuclear bomb has something to say about the world and, you know, geopolitics and things like that. And it's going to be harder for people to be like, oh, the movie about the guy, you know, sailing home from the Trojan Wars or whatever has, you know, pertinent lessons to teach us or whatever. But yes, I do think it will be at the very least in the conversation for, you know, no one's directing the cinematography. The fact that the popcorn bucket is an IMAX camera, I'm like, Hoytiva and Hoytima is going to the hoop for this cinematography Oscar this year. So, yeah, I'm very much looking forward to. Besides Anne Hathaway, who are you most excited to see perform? If we don't get a Robert Pattinson nomination for Sump thing this year,

I'm going to flip a table. I feel fairly confident that the way that they are already promoting this to catch a predator movie that he's in, I think that's going to be his best actor push this year. I'm saying this all about movies that I haven't seen with the exception of the drama. But between the drama, The Odyssey, Doon 3, and Primetime, it's just like if we can't make it happen for Robert Pattinson, now. When might we? I think primetime. That's what I would be guessing right now.

But, you know. And I think the promise of four incredibly different performances, I just think that's exciting. And there are four different performances that are very easily funneled into one, where it's like he's not going to be pulling votes from himself for the drama, even though he's very good in the drama. No one's going to be voting. for that movie. He's probably not going to be pulling votes away from himself for his performance in The Odyssey. You know what I mean? I would be surprised, like, the way that Dune has performed at the Oscars for the first two movies, I would be surprised if we got like acting award consideration for his performance for that character in, um, in Dune 3. So it's very easy to see that all of that

goodwill could be very easily funneled into that one very Oscary performance or Oscary role because we don't know what the performance is. Oscar role in prime time. When the math is mathing that instinctually, sometimes I distrust it. You know what I mean? Sometimes I'm like, it makes so much sense on paper. How is this going to fuck up? You know what I mean?

Like how? Well, and it fucks up because we care and we care. we are more invested in Robert Pattinson than the industry is. Absolutely true. Yeah. Yes. No, the industry is invested in him. Because he can still make money for a money.

Not the way that we are invested in him getting an Oscar nomination. Because it makes sense. It makes our world make sense, essentially. You know what I mean? Yes. So one thing I wanted to also just sort of take a little, little detour through. is this trend of American movies based on Scandinavian... I ended up saying properties,

because it's not just other Scandinavian movies, but it's also Scandinavian novels and whatnot. I started somewhat cheekily. I mentioned that Last House on the Left, because the Last House on the Left is based on a Bergman, the Virgin Spring, that film. But, like, obviously, this is a 2010's trend. let me in in 2010. Matt Reeves has let me in based on Let the Right One In. Finscher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in 2011, which was based on the novel, but in between that novel and Fincher's version, there was also the European version, the Swedish version.

Prince Avalanche I never realized. David Gordon Green's Prince Avalanche with Paul Rud and Emil Hirsch is based on a Scandinavian novel. It is based on an Icelandic film called Either Way. So interesting. That's a movie I cut. Did you ever see Prince Avalanche? I did not. I saw it at Tribeca that year. And it was good.

I thought it was pretty good. Obviously the snowman, Mr. Policeman, we gave you all the clues, is based on a Swedish crime novel, Norwegian crime novel, of course. My mistake. And, sorry.

after the wedding, which was based on the Susanna Beer film of the same name, which won the Oscar? No, was nominated, but lost to... From Denmark after the wedding, lost to the lives of others. Thank you, Salma Hyke. Adapted by Bart Freundlich for his wife, Julianne Moore. Did you ever see that movie? Did you ever see the American... I haven't, but I've heard...

Michelle Williams is really good in it. The performances are really good. Her and Julian Moore, but yes, I think Michelle Williams especially, the movie doesn't ever really cohere into anything super special, but like, it's not bad, I would say. It's not bad. Downhill, which was the American remake of Force Majure, which was kind of doomed from the start, both because it was so soon after Force Majure. And once you get into the 2010s, you're no longer remaking Scandinavian movies that nobody's seen.

You are making Scandinavian movies that, like, actually more people than you think have seen, not just critics, because it's getting easier and easier for these sort of Cannes movies to get seen by American audiences. So I think that's not surprising then when you get into things like downhill, being so poorly received, even though I think that movie's not that bad. That premiered at the Sundance just before COVID hit. And it was in theaters right before COVID shut everything down. Speaking of COVID, The Guilty, which was a Netflix COVID movie starring Jake Jalenhall that I really didn't like. That was Antoine Fuqua, right? Uh-huh.

I didn't like the original either. Never saw the original. And then a man called Otto, which was Tom Hanks in the American remake of a man called Ova, which was... Is it called Ova a makeup nominee or something, or was like makeup shortlisted? It was nominated for Best Makeup and Hairstyling. It was that... That was part of the like multi-year trend where... Hold on a second.

A hundred-year-old man who sat on an elephant, whatever... The 100-year-old man who climbed out of the... window and disappeared was nominated in 2015. A man called Ova was nominated for makeup in 2016. El Devo was nominated in 2009. But yes, this is during the sort of mini era of movies that end up on the shortlist for makeup. And you're like, I've never heard of that before.

It's definitely getting nominated. And it's all old age makeup, too. Border is also a makeup nominee in 2018. It sort of fits into that, except Border, I think. think is a really good movie and probably deserved nominations beyond just makeup. But like, and that's not old age makeup so much as it is. Character makeup. Character makeup.

Right. So that's an interesting. When was the last time that we had one of those kind of nominations? Because we've sort of gotten away from that a little bit. Kakuo is sort of like that, but not quite. But Kakuo is a movie Ugly Stepsisters also kind of like that, right?

Where like, it shows up on the shortlist and you're like, what's that movie? I maybe haven't heard of that. And you're like, well, clearly, if it ended up on the short list despite having, you know, that's such low profile, clearly they really like it.

I don't know if Ugly Step Sister is because that had definitely been seen by especially horror fans because that's a Shudder movie. Right. Shutter fans, horror fans, yes. Mainstream folks, though, no. So it certainly is a little bit closer to a man called Ova than something like, you know. And it's closer to border because those are both genre movies. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was a larger contender elsewhere, but you could make the case for, like, the smashing machine. Yeah.

Because it's just like, let's change the rock's hairline. Yes. But what do you... And then when we shave his head, we'll be like, you look unrecognizable. And it's like, that's the fucking rock. What are you talking about? Is there anything to be gleaned from this kind of trendlet of American movies that are sort of mining the Scandinavian films? Didn't make for a lot of great movies.

It didn't. In fact, at least one or two really famously terrible ones, the Snowman. The Snowman, which was a troubled production. Yeah. Yeah. Let me in, I actually think, is really good. I've still never seen that one. I understand why people think that it's lesser to...

Was it Thomas Alfredson who did the original movie? Yes. I think they both have... really strong qualities and go in different directions with that material. It is Thomas Saffinson. I do think the Matt Reeves is closer tonally to the book. Oh, you'd read the book. Got it, got it, got it.

Yeah, I'd read the book too. Dragon Tattoo in basically every way is better than the original. Yeah. Fincher's kind of polishing a turd there. Thomas Alfredson going from having his original remitial remit. remade in America, then becomes the director of the Snowman, the American adaptation of the Norwegian novel. And it does not go well. It does not go well for him. So what's he doing these days? Thomas Alfredson. Isn't he doing the seance on a...

Seance on a wet afternoon. Yes. With Rachel Weiss, Matthew McFagin. be extremely curious about that. I think I would be less curious if it was a different star. Go on. Very, very curious to see what Rachel Weiss is going to be up to in that remake. Why is she an odd fit? Oh, no, I'm not saying she's an odd fit. I think she's probably a really, really smart fit.

Oh, okay. Cool, cool, cool, cool. But yeah. What's that book about? I don't know if it comes from a source book, but it was an Oscar nomination for Kim Stanley in the original version. It does say here that it was based on the 1961 novel by Mark McShane. There you go. Kim Stanley is incredible in that original movie.

Got it, got it, got it. I'm going to open my notebook, if you don't mind. but obviously if you have anything else you want to mention I don't think so I think people are maybe a little too harsh on this movie

I don't love this movie I definitely think it's bottom tier Nolan though not his worst movie but I do think some people are a little harsh on it because I think the whole like studios used to make a bunch of these

largely predictable type of thrillers that, you know, are at this level of like kind of junkiness. But I don't think they were made at the level that Christopher Nolan does and having a real distinct visual approach. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's never going to be a movie that people are bringing up to talk about interesting character dynamics or themes in regards to Christopher Nolan. but I do think it's an incredibly handsomely well-made movie. Yeah. The chase scene over the logs.

So scary. It's so scary, but also so creative. Like, what a great use of the local, specific local environment to put a new spin on, you know, your classic chase scene, right? Really, really well done. Really loved that. The line, I think it's Pacino says, this to Williams' character, where he says, you're as mysterious to me as a bleached,

or as a blocked toilet is to a fucking plumber, which is almost a parody of like hard-boiled cop dialogue, but like in a way that I kind of really liked. I also wrote down the Moria Tierney line towards the end, where she tells him, it's about what you thought was right at the time and what you're willing to live with, which feels like

as close to a thematic you know button to put on that as possible I like how Nikki Katz character invented the

what has two thumbs and loves blowjobs joke I think that might have been the first time I had ever seen that depicted anywhere

so there is that oh I mentioned it a little bit when I was mentioning the cast but we talked enough about probably Jonathan Jackson

and my early general hospital crush on him when I was a tween. He plays the boyfriend of the deceased girl who was definitely beating her up, but did not kill her. And Al Pacino realizes this immediately. I think he's good in his couple scenes in this movie. I always think he's good. I think he's really tremendous. And then Catherine Isabel playing the sort of shitty best friend who had been, you know, having sex with this girl's boyfriend, who famous for mostly Ginger Snaps.

Like it shows up in like a bunch of other things, but like is the girl from Ginger Snaps. And extremely 2002 presence, Catherine Isabel. You know, Catherine Isabel is apparently in backrooms. Wait, really? Where? I, I, that's, that's what the internet told me. I do not remember who she might be playing. Is she the woman standing in the corner? Is she the woman standing in the corner? Maybe, I don't know. Because you never really see her face. That's interesting. Um, that's good casting. Like, Catherine Isabel definitely feels viby to that whole, you know, that whole scene. Um, excuse me. Um, yeah, anything else before we want to do IMDB game? I don't think so. All right. We got it. Why don't you let our listeners know what we do with the IMDB game?

Every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game, where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try to guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for. If any of those titles are television, voice-only performances or non-acting credits, we'll 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'll just become a free-for-all-hens. Yes, that is the IMD-B game.

Chris, who? Who have you chosen? Or which In which order do you want to do this one this time? I'll give first. Why not? Okay, do. I went into the Nolan stable

of the very, very, very, very large ensemble of the Odyssey, and I polled for you, Logan Marshall Green. Ah, Tom Hardy's tether. Tom Hardy's American tether. Logan Marshall Green,

any television? No television. So know the O.C. Or anything like that. Okay. Is one of them Prometheus? No. Fuck you. Okay.

Jesus. Is one of them, my beloved, The Invitation? The Invitation is correct. That's why I had to pull this for you. Karen Kassama's The Invitation. He's so fucking good in that movie. I love that movie so much. Karen Kassama's The Invitation

Could have been called Raise the Red Ler lantern, but raise the red lantern, could not have been called the invitation. Okay, Logan Marshall Green. What else? Oh, God, he was in one of those movies where, like, he becomes a, like, optimal assassin or whatever, right? He, like, gets, like, it's not Hit Man. That was Timothy Oliphant, but it's, like, optimized or something. like that. Not quite that.

Am I on the right track? We are not in the stage where I can be giving you hints. God, God. Wink, wink. I know. It's that, but like, oh, I can't remember. It's a single word title. I'm pretty sure. Okay.

Other things, other things that I could guess for Logan Marshall Green. Optimize is not a bad guess for what the actual word is. You are in the ballpark. Yeah, I know. I'm going to try something else. I'm sure this word would be in the the thesaurus for Optimize. Okay. Like, not primed.

There's a Beyonce song that I'm thinking of. Well, irreplaceable, certainly. Oh, upgrade. Upgrade. There you go. Thank you. Sorry, I gave you a hint too early, but... No, that's all right, because I'm going to be at sea with these other two.

You were there. You were there. Yeah. The problem with Logan Marshall Green is he shows up in so many movies where he's like eighth lead or whatever. Mm-hmm. And he's been doing that for a long time. Is one of them, like... I imagine it's like some kind of an American cop movie

Like Neither of these are cop movies Great Oh I imagine he's in a horror movie though Yes, one of them's got to be horror Okay So is it like The Evil Dead remake

No This the horror movie was very much sold on the name of a producer enough that it was like trying to deceive people into being like that person directed this movie, but this person did not. What are the years by the way? Because I get years. Oh yes. Your years are 2010 and 2017. Okay. So it's a, is it a remake though? I don't believe so. Okay. One of them is a franchise movie and one of them is a horror

movie. Is the 2017 one trying to be the one that's trying to be a producer? No, that's the 2010 movie. Okay. So who would have been a hot enough horror name at the time to, is it Carpenter? Is it Craven? No. Not in the right ballpark. Got it. Is it another Ridley Scott? No. No. Okay. 2017 one, is that also a horror? No. That's the franchise movie. Franchise movie in 2017.

Is it like one of the Transformers? No. 2017 horror movie, I'm pretty sure... One of our most beloved franchises. Oh, interesting. Beloved by you as well as other people? Or... How do I say this without giving...

I think by the masses, absolutely on name appeal, one of the most popular. Oh, it's one of the Planet of the Apes? No. No? Incredibly more popular than the Planet of the Apes movies. Though, Planet of the Apes is a franchise that's gone through many iterations. Oh, okay. And revampings.

So it's not a Mission Impossible. It's a, well, Spider-Man's have also gone through revampings, but it's not a spider-men. man um this is the year 2017 yes is it a first in a rebooting of this property yes okay what are you do why are you talking like that like i'm stupid for not knowing it yet no you you've maybe led yourself down the wrong path led myself down the wrong path 2017 2017 was wonder woman that's not Beloved. 2017 was...

We keep making multiple attempts to revamp it. It's not Spider-Man, though, right? It is Spider-Man. It's Spider-Man Homecoming? Correct. Really?

Yes. Who does he play in Spider-Man Homecoming? James Bryce slash Shocker number one? Jesus Christ, he deserves better on his known for. Okay. 2010. Horror movie. Sold on the name of a director

who was the producer on the movie, not the director. Ramey. No. It's a big horror name, though, right? Yes. Um, Carpenter Craven.

A director who was supposed to have a movie coming out this year, but now it's coming out next year. Greta Gerwig. This is too early for Jordan Peel, obviously. Fuck, I feel so very stupid. Horror director. I don't remember if I've seen this or not. I know you've seen this movie.

It is, it's a horror movie that takes place in a very specific place. and taking place in that place is also how the movie was marketed. Okay, so it's like... Don't think of place like... Antarctica. That's not... Okay.

What I mean by place. You mean like purgatory? No. Or like, oh, okay. Like a place in a building. Oh, is it the parking garage movie? No. Okay.

A place in... Oh, is it the elevator movie? The I'm Night Shyamalan elevator movie, which was called Devil. Devil. Devil is correct. I definitely saw that movie. I remember him in that movie. But that's exactly the thing with Logan Marshall Green.

Is that, like, yes, I saw that movie. I remember that he was in that movie. But, like, I'm not going to, like, come up with it off the top of my head ever. Yes, devil. Okay. Jesus Christ. Yeah, his movie's not coming out until next year, which is too bad because I'm very much looking forward to it. Shama on with Nicholas Sparks, though.

I don't know. I'm intrigued. I don't know. I'm a little intrigued. I don't know. All right. Anyway, so I went through, what route did I take? I tried to go Alaska Daily, and then it didn't happen.

So anyway, I went through the route of screenwriter Hillary Sites, who, Ultimately doesn't have a ton of screenplays to her credit. One of them is Eagle Eye, and one of them is an immediately forgotten movie from 2021 called The Unforgivable, which starred Sandra Bullock. Oh, yeah. Which was a Netflix movie. She was a woman released from prison. Was that directed by Susanna Beer? It was directed by Nora Fingshank. Oh, right. System Crashers. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But one of the co-stars of this movie besides Sandra Bullock is one, Vincent Donofrio, who we have not done in many years on this. Oh, interesting. So, no animated, no television. Full metal jacket. Yes. I believe he plays Orson Wells in Ed Wood. Yes. Yes.

There's a lot of eras of Dinoffrio, too. And I have to imagine something newer is there. I guess maybe I have to think of something from like the 80s or 90s. Wasn't he in a vampire movie of some kind? Am I just thinking of Kiefer Sutherland and Lost Boys? Hmm. He's never been nominated. So, what are like 90s Indies that he's in?

That's maybe... Oh, Men in Black. Men in Black. Plays Eger. Eger and the Eger suit. Sugar. All right. So you're three for three.

Could you get a perfect score? The way that these things go, one of them has to be more recent. Because 1997 can't be the last thing that's on there. That's really uncommon. So is it something like NARC? Is that your guess? NARC. It is not NARC.

Okay. Is that even him? I believe it is. 2002, that was... Um... No, I guess not. It's Jason Patrick and somebody, but it's, I guess not him. Leota?

Yeah, it is. It's Leota. Yep. Okay, that's fine. I might throw something out to get the... and start getting clues. Has he been in a Wes Anderson? No.

Has he been in like an Oliver Stone movie? Sure. I'll just say JFK. That seems reasonable. He is in JFK incredibly briefly. He is a person who witnessed the assassination from the lawn. And he's very briefly on the news in a news clip. But that's all you see of him in JFK.

That is not, however, on his known for. So your missing film is from 2000. That's what I figured. Okay, so 2000. That's gladiator. Castaway. He's not in traffic, though that would be believable. This has got to be like an independent movie, probably, no.

I don't think so, but let me look. I want to say this was like New Line. Yes. Okay. This isn't the anniversary party. It's like... Huh. That's not like Nurse Betty. I'm just trying to think of the types of movies

that he would be making in 2000. We mentioned earlier a tagline for a Christopher Nolan movie. This movie has a tagline that is not dissimilar. Oh, is the tagline, don't think about it, feel it? No. No, what other, what in, what, um, uh, Nolan movie did we talk about where I mentioned

the, the tagline for the movie? Was it Inception? Yes. So, oh, wait, no, this is taking lives. It's not taking lives, although I believe he is in that. Um, but it's something about going inside the, oh, it's the cell. Jesus Christ. Wow.

Wow, the weird gays who love the cell are so disappointed in me. His mind is her prison, the tagline for the cell. I really couldn't get to the cell for Vincent Dinoffrio. That's crazy. It is kind of crazy. The cell, a movie I saw a couple years ago on the big screen, highly recommended if they ever play this movie in Repertory near you. Oh, see it. It's so fun. It's so good. Yes. So...

We did it. Well done. We did it. That is our episode, folks. If you want more, this had Oscar Buzz. You can check out the Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz.com. You should also check out our Instagram at ThisHad Oscar Buzz and our Patreon at patreon.com slash This Had Oscar Buzz. Chris. Chris Hussarbus. Chris Fee I-I-O. Letterbox on Blue Sky at Chris V-File. That's F-E-I-O. I am on Letterbox and Blue Sky at Joe Reed. Read spelled R-E-I-D.

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