This Had Oscar Buzz - 401 – Playing By Heart

Episode Date: August 17, 2026

In the bygone moviegoing trend of “interconnected stories of Angelenos,” this week’s episode is a forgotten entry with a loaded cast. Playing By Heart from writer/director Willard Carroll follows multiple stories of romantic struggles, with Gena Rowlands and Sean Connery as a TV chef and her producer husband as the film’s epicenter. With themes of … Continue reading "401 – Playing By Heart"

No, the right house. I didn't get that! I'm from Canada water. I'm from Canada water. Dick Poop. I'm about to say that they love me. If you think you're getting out of this car, you're insane. You really didn't sleep with her.

Of course, I don't. And you didn't want to sleep with her. Oh, good God, yes, I did. Now, they're all about to come together in an unexpected way. I want to wake up where you are. are. I won't say anything at all. Gillian Anderson, Helen Burstyn,

Sean Connery, Anthony Edwards, Angelina Jolie, Jay Moore, Ryan Philippi, Dennis Quaid, Jenna Rowlands, John Stewart and Madeline Stowe. In a new film that proves we're all better off.

Thane by heart. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast. The only podcast dressed up like a polar bear in the middle of Idaho because Jenna Elfman invited you to a costume party. Every week on this had Oscar buzz we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had lofty Academy Award aspirations,

but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Joe Reed. I'm here as always with my ghost, who turns out to be your improv classmate. Chris File, hello, Chris. Yes, I made you the April Grace of this episode. Thank you.

I've never had a... greater compliment in my life. Of course. I think I spiritually remembered that April Grace was in this movie. But the second she showed up on screen on this rewatch, I was like,

April Grace. April Grace. Leo, Leo pointing at the screen. Of all the demented things in this movie, every shot of every pan to April Grace after Dennis Quaid has done

something demented and then left the scene. And just like pant April Grace looking like portentous. It's just like it's so weird. There's so many bizarre things about this movie. Welcome to the late 90s. You had seen this movie before, yes. I used to really, really love this movie. Imagine movie obsessed Y2K teen,

gay teen, loved this movie. That sounds about right. That sounds about right. watching it for the first time as at my age and current as the movie's almost 30 years old as this movie's almost 30 years old I was agog throughout

throughout first for one thing the movie I suppose it is what I thought it was going to be about in that like I knew it was going to be this like multiple interconnected sort of modern love stories now I didn't realize how Post

Robert Altman, you know Uh-huh, uh-huh. God, don't bring up Robert. I guess you have to, because Madeline Stowe really does make you think about Robert Alman, makes you think of like shortcuts and stuff like that. But this was like a trend in the late 90s of these large ensemble movies of interconnected stories that it doesn't necessarily

announce itself as how they're connected. Two days in the valley, that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you're totally right. I didn't expect to, I didn't expect the movie to take as long as it did to let you know that all of these are interconnected stories because I didn't watch the trailer before we're recorded and I always, I always try and do that. My recollection was that like the trailer or something like gave away the idea that all these people knew each other. Because like that to me wasn't a surprise and I don't think it was entirely just the,

the idea that, like, I've seen a movie before. I know that all these people are going to end up being connected. But it really does take you to the last possible moment in the movie before it pulls that curtain. To the point that one character is, like, just a neighbor. To the point where one character is just a neighbor slash priest. But that... Wait, is Anthony Edwards also a neighbor? Slash priest?

Yes, because, like, she runs into him in the elevator of her building, right? right, like, or runs into him. They like, that's where they have their encounters. No, Ellen Burstyn is the neighbor. Oh, well, but is also like, um, the, their ex-in-laws, her and Jenna Rowlands. Yes, yes. But she's a neighbor.

But, okay, wait, so like she lives next door? Is that, I missed that. Okay, I did miss that part. But yes, we'll get into all of that. I did not expect this to be a multi-pronged AIDS movie. did not expect that. Late 90s, AIDS movies. We'll talk about this.

I'm sure I will invoke rent. We'll definitely talk about rent and also other things because, yes. And what was the other thing? I mean, I guess I also just didn't expect the like minute to minute sort of insanity of the execution of this.

I guess I should have been a little bit more prepared because the writer-director Willard Carroll basically has no, is almost like a phantom to the degree that his resume is so incredibly Finn. He was an EP on like The Brave Little Toaster movies. He wrote and directed a movie called The Roonstone in 1991 that was a like update of the Ragnarok legend, the like Norse legend of Ragnarok starring Peter Rieger, Joan Severnson, William Hickey. Oh, wait, no, Mitchell Lawrence is the name of a sub-character, not of a soap actor, never mind.

But then, oh, and starring Russian ballet dancer Alexander Gudinov, very interesting. Part of the trend of 80s and 90s movies that starred ballet dancers, I suppose. Then seven years later, playing by heart, then something the very next year called Tom's Midnight Garden that starred Joan Plower. and then a movie in 2007 called Marigold that starred Ali Larder and Salmon Khan, it was a a Bollywood movie or a movie about somebody who's like really into Bollywood, if not perhaps both. Did Drie Larson also have one of these where it's like White Lady goes to, India. Yes, and she made it before

she broke through and got famous and then it got released, I believe, after Room. But yes. And that's the like extent of Willard Carroll's film career. I will offer you this paragraph

from his very brief Wikipedia page, which after a short paragraph about the Brave Little Toaster and a short paragraph about all his other movies that is literally like two sentences. An ardent fan of the land of Oz, Carol is recognized as having the...

We see you. We see you. Largest privately held collection of Oz memorabilia in the world, comprising more than 100,000 items. Several books, including The Wizard of Oz collector's treasury, and All Things Oz, have been published displaying parts of his collection, which includes The Wicked Witch of the West's Hourglass, from the 1939 film. He also wrote and produced the animated

direct-to-video series The Oz Kids, which to me just sounds very funny. We're going to do like Muppet Babies but with the characters from Oz. Dorothy is called Dot in that. Just to give you a sense of things.

This to me is so Smithers-coded. Remember that Simpsons episode where like it's revealed that like Smithers has the largest collection of Malibu-Stacey dolls in like the world or whatever. That was immediately the thing. Iconic gay guy Smithers.

Yes. So what do we... I guess knowing all of this, I'm like, okay, well, now it makes a little bit more sense that this movie is just like a like... Is reminiscent of other movies, but like is deeply weirdly unique and it's like bizarreness.

Like, I don't know if there's another movie I can think of that feels this... There's an element of. to moments strange. It is, on some level, a romantic comedy or romantic drama. Right. But I definitely think influenced by the 90s era of, you know, romantic behavior on screen where nobody acts like a normal person.

Like, everyone is certifiable in basically every rom-com in the 90s. So I think some of it is that. I think the other thing about Willard Carroll and, like, the kind of very very, odd resume that besides the Brave Little Toaster movies, this is the most significant thing on this kind of not small

resume. This movie is so like L.A. core to me of just like, there's these people who just produce things and make things and they live there and they are somewhat well connected and then sometimes they can just get

a movie like this made. Can I tell you how this movie completely broke my brain for a second though, is you're right? Is it the opening credits song cue that's like LA, LA, LA L-L-A, L-A, L-A, L-A?

Between that and then the like the floating letter font also. Oh yes, yes, very like Season 1 Sex in the City. Well, also like did Paul Hagus, was Paul Hagus a big fan of this movie before he made Crash? Because like this does seem to me like proto

crash a little bit. Yeah, this movie is crash is tethered and I say that as someone who I'm guessing likes this movie more than you do I think maybe I don't not appreciate having watched this movie but I think this movie is absolutely bug nuts demented Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah no one behaves like a normal person

in this movie but I do think I loved it so much when like Sure My movie brain was forming that you know when people talk about nostalgia for things like Back to the Future This is my back to the future That to me is... But you know what?

I can at least, you know, acknowledge its flaws, whereas when some people are like super nostalgic about the goonies and refuse to admit that it has a single flaw to it. I want them to re-release playing by heart into theaters and when they put the posters up, the only pull quote is, that to me is my back to the future. Chris Filed as Head Oscar Buzz.

Like, that's what I want them to sell it on. You know, a movie directed by the man with the large, largest Wizard of Oz collection. I think that that poll quote could happen for me. I think the gayness would be on my side. No, but the thing that broke my brain on the location front is, very early on in the movie, when Ellen Burstyn enters Jay Moore's hospital room,

he says, welcome to Chicago. Because everything in this movie takes place in Los Angeles, except for the scenes in Jay Moore's hospital room, which take place in Chicago. or they're just fucking with me. Because like they go from that and then like the next thing as I see is like a shot of the L.A. skyline. And I'm like, okay, but isn't this a movie about like how everybody in the city is connected or whatever? So like that to me, it took me a little, multiple scenes after that to confirm that everything else was happening in Los Angeles.

And then I was like, are they trying to like fuck with timelines or something like that? And they're like, it sent me down an odd conspiracy. path for a while. While you're also being like trying to figure out Dennis Quaid's whole deal and like trying to figure out which of the various pairs belong to Jenna Rollins and Sean Connery because it is fairly obvious that we're going to find out that like Jenna Rollins and Sean Connery, they mentioned the kids enough times that you're like, okay, like they're going to, they're going to be connected to all of these. Do they say the girls at one point too? I tried to remember that after the revelation and I couldn't remember.

I know they mentioned Jojo once we're getting closer to the reveal. When General Ones is like, we conceived our daughter that night, and he says, yes, our Jojo. And I was like, okay, Joan, you know, that's one figured out. But I was betting that it was going to be Angelina Jolie, Madeline Stowe, and John Stewart were the three kids. So I guess the curveball was that it was Gillian Anderson. I do think Jillian Anderson as the daughter of Jenna Rollins makes so much sense. The movie deserves so much credit for that genius casting. Yes, that actually does make a ton of sense.

Each one of them individually makes sense as a plausible child of Jenna Rollins and Sean Connery, but they don't make sense as siblings, which is interesting to me. But okay, we'll get into all of the various storylines and pairs as we go into it. I should also mention, though, cinematography by Vilmo Sigmund, and then the music is by both John Barry and Christopher Young, and I don't really know what the story was there. Somebody had, I forget what the order was, but one of them had an original score for the movie that got dropped. This was a Miramax movie, so you know that it was tinkered with into oblivion. What's the one thing that we know about this movie, that I knew about this movie going in for sure, was that it was not always called Playing by Heart, that this was originally titled. Dancing about architecture.

I believe in the EW fall movie preview for it, it was still billed as dancing about architecture. I think that's true. And in fact, this is what? Fall of 98. What would have been the fall of 98? That's practical magic, right? I think so. Hold on one second.

I'm going to blow your mind. Do you have it? I'm going to blow your mind with my organizational skills right now. Because you're not going to be able to see this, but it's too heavy for me to pick up with one hand. Hold on a second. Dainty wrist, can't pick up a magazine. Oh, I'm so... This is my

accordion file of EW issues that I have bought on eBay over the last several years. I need to get on it. I need to get it like a filing cabinet. So

I have them and also I have a list of which issues that I have laminated on front. Okay, so 1998 fall, that covers practical magic as I have listed,

okay, so bear with me, as I say, this is a... Worst case scenario, maybe it was a holiday movie preview, but... Hold on.

Because this was slated to come out in December of this year, which it did... And if they're changing titles, they could have also changed release dates. Well, I think that title change happened pretty late in the game, but let's see if they

have an entry for this in December. December starts with the thin red line, followed by stepmom. Don't you love when you can, like, listen to us, like, flip pages in a magazine? I love that. We have entire episodes of that. Ah, there we go. Dancing About Architecture. Read us the blurb, Joe.

If I remember correctly, the photo is Angelina Jolie and Ryan Philippi. It sure is. It sure is. With the early scene of them, when her hair is like that sort of blown out thing, where it looks like she's wearing a wig that's levitating, like, three feet off of her body. Okay. And now, for the strangest title of the season. Quote, I heard the adage talking about music is like dancing about architecture. And I thought it was something you could say about love instead of music, said Carol.

which, by the way, sidebar, the phrase isn't talking about music is like dancing about architecture. The phrase is writing about music is like dancing about architecture. Regardless. Willard Carroll, who subsequently set out to write, quote, A film about a group of people talking about the most important thing, our emotions. The chorus of talkers includes the distinctive sounds of Rowlands and Connery as a couple whose long marriage faces a crisis. The general perception, this is another quote, The general perception is that love exists and has its ups and downs until you're 40,

and then it quiets down, says Rowlands. People don't realize the battle goes on until you die. And then their little summary, the lowdown. Tough title. Here's another phrase, worrying about marketing. All right, EW. You shamed them into changing their title, apparently, because it was then subsequently changed to playing by heart a title that has absolutely,

no specificity nor resonance. So I think they would have been better off. Just at least dancing about architecture makes you be like, what is that movie about? Let me investigate further. It's also the fact that they repeat that phrase six times in the movie, twice at the beginning and then they replay the scene that they show at the beginning later in the movie.

And then somebody else is like, what's that that you always say about dancing about architecture? So it's at least five times. I'm so glad that I got to show you my accordion file of EW issues. Anywho, it's full to the brim, so I'm going to have to buy a new one if I want to keep buying new issues. File cabinet. Yeah, I don't know if I have room right now for a file cabinet, especially because I'm looking to buy a rotating bookshelf that I want to put in the corner of this one. But anyhow, yeah, so in EW, it was still called Dancing About.

architecture. And then they change it to the most vague title, and the movie kind of goes away. And the movie really goes away. Yes, they, Miramax sneaks it into one Los Angeles theater, essentially, as a qualifier, and then opens it a few weeks later, very, very small in, in mid-January. This is all while Miramax is all cannons forward for Shakespeare in Love. So I imagine resources for anything that wasn't Shakespeare in Love or Life is Beautiful were pretty scant at this point. And in the interim, Angelina Jolie gets a best breakthrough female performance. Yes, she does. At the National Board of Review.

Well, we'll talk about the era of like ascendant Angelina Jolie at this point. Very specific year for her because she bookends the movie. The beginning of the year is Gia and end of the year is this movie. We're also in an era where Jenna Rollins is a living legend by this point and works infrequently enough that every time she's in a movie, it's at least worth a look in terms of like, is this going to be like a supporting actress play? That was the case with Unhook the Stars. That was the case, I think, briefly with Hope Floats, even though that.

never really came to anything, although, as I note, on my outline, she did get a Blockbuster Award nomination for her performance in Hope Flits. And then Connery works more often. Connery at this point is reaching the tail end, but he's only a couple of years past The Rock by this point. And so the Rock, he's, you know, one of the top box office stars in the country by that point. But he was also a former Oscar winner and when he, his decision to make a, you know, sort of smaller, quieter movie about, you know, intimate couples. He worked for scale on this movie. Worked for scale on this movie and was by all, all quotes from Willard Carroll, a exemplary cast member. But, and he's only a decade out from his Oscar at this point. Like, that's like, that's like,

like Sam Rockwell. Yeah. That's wild, but that is the truth. And but just the fact that he's like, he's taking a turn away from, you know, the kinds of movies that he had been doing for the last decade. So like, it's enough to make you sort of sit up and pay attention as like, what's going on here? Also, Jillian Anderson is in the middle of her run of Emmy nominations. She had won the Emmy for the X-Files the year prior to this movie. And Angelina J. Jolie had won the, no, would win the Golden Globe for the TNT movie George Wallace that year.

So there's definitely awards conversation around these things. Also, like, Vilmo Sigmund is one of those, like, if you have some of the, like, Vlmo Sigmund on as your cinematographer, it's at least worth thinking, like, oh, this is, you know, maybe going to be something that is worth paying attention to, at least a little bit. So all of that ended up being foolsgold. And also, like, Ellen Burstyn, former Oscar winners in this cast, like that kind of thing. So it's odd how much of an afterthought Ellen Burstyn is in this movie. I mean, just in that one storyline alone, I think you get the full spectrum of this movie,

in that you have Ellen Burstyn to Jay Moore. Yeah. Well, and that's the storyline that is revisited the least. I really think we only get maybe like three scenes of the two of them together, all told in the movie. And then you get to see her once more with Jillian Anderson at the funeral, and then once more with Jenna Rollins. And as I wrote in my notes, a movie can be as fucking insane as you want it to be. If you end up with Ellen Burstyn and Jenna Rollins having a, you know, emotional embrace, I'm like, you got me at least a little bit. So, yeah.

That was lovely. Do you think when they were doing that that Ellen was like, I'm sorry, I beat you for the Oscar in 1974. And Jen is like, yeah, you did you, bitch. Like, yeah, something like that. I'm excited to get into this movie on a storyline by storyline basis with you, which is how I think we should tackle it after we get through the plot description. Because I'm very curious to hear, we don't have to do a performance ranking,

but I'm genuinely curious about almost all performances in this movie, what you think. Ranking, I think, would be kind of impossible. Well, no, nothing's impossible, and certainly I'm always up for performance ranking. But I think, yes, I think just in general, sort of evaluating these performances on their own merits is going to be an interesting task for us. I also have a game upcoming. We are resurrecting alter egos. last week's um

uh uh announcement that we are that we have sundowned the six timers club but we are and what a movie to like follow up the death of the six timers club with because i'm willing to bet we would have been close to hitting someone close but i don't think so um actually give me a second to look because i started to update that tab and i don't think i finished it

i think it was like our fourth jillian anderson movie because we've done it's our actually, that's our second Jillian Anderson and Jenna Rowland's movie after The Mighty. The Mighty, yes. Which was also a 1998 mirror maxman. Fuck, wow. Oh my God, it's all happening. Okay. Jillian Anderson, though, we timed this episode because Jillian Anderson back on our movie screens

with teenage sex and death at Camp Miasma. Yes. Which I'm so excited for. I am not happy that I am seemingly going to be the last person to see this movie. Well, I'll raise you. I don't think it's coming here until like three weeks after the... Oh, well, actually, because I'm going to be in New York next week, so I think I'm going to end up... No? Well, we'll see. Because there's the premiere on Wednesday, so if I can find a way to get into that.

But it's, I want your sex that I'm going to be able to see when I'm in New York next week, I think, which I'm very... I'm seeing that this weekend. I'm very, very excited. So, yes, this would have been our sixth Ellen Burstyn movie. So we will recognize and tip the hat to Ellen Burstyn and her six movies that we've done for her, starting with How to Make an American Quilt, When a Man Loves a Woman, Lucy in the Sky, Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood, The Fountain, and now playing by heart. Just very quickly. Obviously, we're not doing games anymore. What's her most impressive performance of those six? Now, none of these, I would argue, are very, like, feature her particularly well?

Because even Yaya, it... That's tough. She gets, like, big stuff, but you get more of Funula Flanagan and... Maggie Smith. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Than her. Yeah, totally.

Because they have the screen time with Sandra Bullock. Yes. I do think Ellen Burstyn is good in this movie. For kind of, like... Yes, I absolutely agree with you. I absolutely agree with you. They don't feature her a lot, but when they do... I think she's good.

I also... She has to carry the biggest emotional weight in this movie, I think. Yeah. I also recall quite liking her in how to make an American quilt. I remember thinking,

like, that whole cast was really good. I don't... One of those you named... I do not remember her being in... When a man loves a woman? When a man loves a woman, I don't remember her being in that movie at all. I think she's Meg Ryan's mom.

I'm pretty sure she is Meg Ryan's mom, and she's, like, unhelpful with Meg's situation. Lucy in the sky, I think she's... I recall thinking she was kind of bad. Maybe I'm misremembering. And then the fountain, she's just sort of barely in it. Right.

Lucy in the sky, doesn't she have that crazy line about... Yeah, about... You want to travel across state lines for Dick or something, for astronaut dick? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She has a very blunt use of the word dick. Astronaut Dick, specifically, I think. Yes. Yes, yes.

So there's that. But, yeah, why don't we kick it? to... Astronaut Dix making you soft. That's what she says. Thank you. Thank you. Jesus Christ.

Listen. Cinema. Some things you will always cherish, and one of those was seeing Lucy in the sky at Tiff together. Okay, so why don't you let our listeners know why they should be subscribed to our Patreon? And I will prepare the boilerplate for playing by heart. Listeners, we have a Patreon.

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Strap in for the turbulent brilliance. Okay. This week, we are talking about the 19th, 1998 film Playing by Heart, written and directed by Willard Carroll, the possessor of the world's largest collection of Wizard of Oz memorabilia, starring in alphabetical order, Jillian Anderson, Ellen Burstyn, Sean Connery, Anthony Edwards, Angelina Jolie, Jay Moore, Ryan Philippi, Dennis Quaid, Jenna Rowlands, John Stewart, and Madeline Stowe, also starring Patricia Clarkson, April Grace. Patricia Clarkson, by the way,

quiet, far from heaven pre-reunion with her and Dennis Quaid. April Grace, Michael Emerson, Alec Mappa, an uncredited Nastassia Kinski, our second Nastassi Kinski episode in a row quite accidentally. And then an unseen, at least by me, but they're in the IMDB credits. So Amanda, Pete, Jeremy Sisto, and Hilary Duff. Did you spot any of these ones? Their background performers. Are they really?

Okay. Fantastic. Okay, wonderful. This premiered, as I mentioned earlier, as a very, very perfunctory qualifying release in Los Angeles on December 18th, 1998, and then did not return to theaters until its limited release on January 22, 1999. It was distributed by Miramax, as I said, during the season of Shakespeare in Love. It's opening weekend on January 22nd, 1999.

The number one movie, there were no premieres in the top of, five at the very least. Varsity Blues in its second week. This is how January really did used to be. Nowadays, I feel like once in a while, they'll sneak something into January that's like a little bit, you know, promising, but like they really were not looking to program January back then. Varsity Blues in its second week. Patch Adams in its fifth week is number two. A Civil Action in its fifth week is number three. These are all 1998 movies now, the thin red line. its fifth week is number four. I would have bet solid money that the thin red line was never in the American box office top five during its run. So this is... And in its fifth week at that, can you imagine

a Terrence Malick movie doing that now? Yeah, I mean, all of these numbers, Varsity Blues is number one at the box office with 10.5 million that weekend, so like to give you a sense of... I imagine if the Super Bowl wasn't this weekend, then like it was right around this weekend. People were not paying attention to movies at this moment. Stepmom is number five at 5.1 million. I know. I know. noted that one of the other premieres, besides playing by heart, is the Sharon Stone film Gloria, the remake of the Jenna Rollins Gloria, which did end up outgrossing playing by heart. So Jenna Rollins was beat out by the Gloria remake this weekend. Playing by Heart clocked in at number 17 with $1.5 million on Route 2, I believe, just a shade under 4 million domestic.

I don't think there is a worldwide box office total for this movie, if there even was a worldwide release. So just under $4 million is the final number on this one. I think that's the long and short of it when it comes to playing by heart. Chris, I'm going to put Stop Watch Out. This is a lot. I'm not going to give you shit for going over. I'm going to keep. We'll go into all the storyline, so I'm going to keep it.

I'm going to keep it. I got a plan. Don't write yourself a check that your that your mouth can't cache. All right. Chris File, your 60 second plot description for playing by heart begins now. All right, so most of the movie centers around an elderly couple named Hannah and Paul.

Hannah is a TV chef and Paul produces her show. He has recently been diagnosed with a brain tumor, but they're also going to be celebrating a wedding anniversary that they're preparing for. And meanwhile, in the face of his death, she is dealing with an old possible infidelity that he had, but he eventually tells her that the infidelity never actually happened.

Then you have their three daughters, the first of which is Jillian Anderson, who was previously married to a man who was gay and is now dying of AIDS. His mother, Alan Burstyn, is watching over him as he dies in the hospital. She starts a relationship with John Stewart, though she seems very, very James. and hesitant to get into this relationship.

They can't even go on a fucking coffee date without them, like, talking about like they're going to be in a serious relationship immediately. Anyway, she goes to Jay Moore's funeral, reunites with Ellen Burston. Ellen Burston comes back to L.A. 2, and then goes to the... You'll see Ellen Burstyn again at the anniversary party. Second daughter is Madeline Stowe. Madeline Stowe plays Gracie. She is having an affair with a man who turns out to be a priest. And she, like, is very unhappy in her marriage, who she's married to Dennis Quaid, who we see going around to various bars and having all of these, like, kind of wild stories that he's, you know, monopolizing some person's, uh, time for the evening.

Be they, Alec Mapa, Patricia Clarkson, or Natasha Kinski. Uh, we later learn that he is in an improv class that was recommended to him by Hannah and Paul's youngest daughter, played by Angelina Joe. who's kind of very tempestuous and is trying her damnedest to get into a relationship with Ryan Philippi, a man with blue hair that she always sees Robin style dancing on his own at the clubs. He doesn't seem to want to get with her. She develops all of these different plans to try to date him and finds out that he is currently diagnosed with HIV because he had a girlfriend that cheated on him and did heroin. They end up together and they all, all of these people end up at the, uh, you know,

fuck, what's, I can, Val Renewal. It's a Val Renewal. Yes, the, the, the, uh, anniversary, vow renewal party. And even though all of these people have just been like dating for a week, including John Stewart and Ryan Phillipie, they're at this major family event, uh, the end. Minute 41 over. And you know, as I said, I'm not going to give you shit for that because that was very difficult. And I didn't stumble until I got to what the hell is an anniversary.

You know, you know, they've been married for a long time. Yes. Jenna Rowland's and Sean Connery have been married 40 years, yet what's what movie did their storyline remind you of a little bit?

I want to see if you and I are on the same page. Did it remind you a little bit of 45 years, just in terms of like the Central conflict there. Not really, no. Because that's also a movie that the central, the angst between the two of them is that the wife

is not convinced that her husband is over this past love of his, right? Sure, sure. And it's also complicated in this movie because there was also a professional component. This was one of their other producers of the show. So Jenna Rollins

is, I'm going to compare her to like a barefoot contessa type. Like she is a, she's not really a Martha Stewart lifestyle brand person. I think she's just like, she has a cooking show. She has sort of an at-home welcome to my sort of beautiful, I'm going to say Pasadena, although maybe they live in like Brentwood or something like that. I don't know.

I don't think they're that wealthy. It should be noted. Yes. Which we both wrote this down because we were talking about this because of the Misty Green trailer. Yes. She has Jenna Rollins' character. has three Emmys. It is crazy. There are like, the concept of a movie character who is an Emmy winner. We were talking about this on the group chat day of that trailer. We were talking about this in the

group chat after the Misty Green trailer. What are movies about people? There are plenty of movies about Oscar winners. Are there movies about Emmy winners? I did come up with being the Ricardo's as one of them. And I found a cut scene from Anchorman in which it is confirmed that Ron Burgundy is in fact a local Emmy winner, which makes all the sense in the world. Can we take two seconds to talk about that Misty Green trailer, which I don't think we talk? And how you just watch it, like, if you just let that trailer happen to you, you're like, normal movie. But if you pay attention to the details, crazy movie.

First of all, movie about an Emmy winner. Movie, not TV show. Movie about an Emmy winner. That to me wasn't. what was tripping me up. And also, I should say, as a person who's a big fan of slow horses, I really like Rosalind Aliazar. And I'm glad that she's getting a movie.

I'm not super thrilled for her that it's this one. For one thing, I'm getting so many red flags by the nature of Chris Rock's involvement in the story. Left and right. Chris Rock is writer-director. He's written and, he's made, you know, directing movies before. You are a particular fan of top five. I like top five. I know some people think it's a homophobic.

movie. I think that movie probably like... Either way. That movie sets itself up to succeed by casting Rosario Dawson. I think she's, yes, she's the best part of that movie. That movie didn't really make a huge impact on me, but I think the fact

that he's inserting himself in the movie as as a writer director. As a writer director, as a mentor and love interest. Isn't he like half of Rosalind Elizar's age? Or like twice her age? Almost. He's 60...

recent as early 60s, she's in her mid-30s. Regardless... Because it's like he's trying to cast her and date her, as evidence from the trailer. Also, she auditions performing one night only for a movie. So is fictional Chris Rock in this movie directing a Dreamgirl's remake? What is happening? Or he just loves Dreamgirl so much that he has everybody. Well, you know that as soon as like the note hit of her singing one night only, I went to the stratosphere because I was like, oh my God, yes.

It's kind of a perfect song for like, you know, the F.E. White version is kind of a perfect like gritty, slowdown trailer song. You know, it's like it's kind of a perfect choice. But then when you come back down to her, it's the most insane choice. Because then it suggests that she is auditioning for Dreamgirls. I want to put a pin in Audition Stories because there's one in playing by heart, and I want to get to that one. When we get to that storyline, I did write down the line

that made me check out of the Misty Green trailer, which was Anna Kendrick. Oh, it's bad. It's bad. Anna Kendrick describing the Rosalind L.A. as our character as riding the line between Ho and Hostess. I'm out. I'm sorry. Like...

You can't ask in that. You can't come back from that. You can't come back from that. Okay. So, yes, Jenna Rowland's a three-time Emmy winner. I do think she's kind of a barefoot contessa-esque-at-home cook in her beautiful home. And Sean Connery is her husband, and also it's intimated that, like, is a producer on her show. It's sort of, like, they've long time sort of, like, her career has been their shared project as a married couple.

And in the course, as you mentioned, in the course of, first, if you came into this movie 10 minutes late, you would never ever know that Sean Connery has a brain tumor. Like, they don't mention it. They do not bring it up again after that very casual mention of it right at the beginning. You could like. There's no moment when they're unpacking this old, almost affair that could have happened but didn't. There's no moment where he's like, so what's this really about? Are you just not able to deal with the fact that I'm dying? Right.

Nope. It never gets mentioned again. Well, and it also might make it a little bit easier to take because absent a reminder of that being the underlying case, it just comes across as Sean Connery being like unnecessarily honest in a way that like comes off as cruel where he keeps, she keeps. She keeps being like, okay, well, you were having this affair. And he's like, well, I never slept with her. And she's like, oh, good. And he's like, because I was so in love with her. And she's like, oh, and then he's like, but I, but she's like, well, at least,

at least you didn't want to sleep with her. And he's like, oh, I wanted to. Boy, did I ever want to. And then she's just like, she spirals again. And then she's like, well, you stayed with me. And he goes, well, I wanted to leave you. All that was in me wanted to leave you. It's like every time he's just like digging himself into this hole.

And it's, I suppose. Does it also create some confusion later? Like, did you think for a second? Because I remember being confused about this when I first saw the movie. Granted, as a child. Doesn't it create some confusion when Jenna Rollins and Ellen Burstyn are reunited? Like, don't you think for a split second, oh, is that the woman he almost left with? But it's not.

No. It's not. They just have this bond together. that, like, is never mentioned, like, they never mention each other. They used to be in-laws, though. Like, I, my-Nabors. My thinking was, oh, they probably had a big falling out when Jillian Anderson and Jay Moore broke up.

Sure. When he came out as gay and ended that marriage, I imagine that there would have been some bad feelings expressed between these two women. And that, to me, you know, maybe it's asking the audience to, like, recall too many things from this very widespread movie. But that was definitely foremost in my mind of like, oh, I bet these women haven't spoken in a very long time. But there's some suggestion that Gillian Anderson and Jay Moore stayed amicable. They did, sure. But like my sense is, you know, knowing parents and knowing particularly these two parents, I could envision a world. And that's, to me,

was a little bit of unspoken, and that, like, they didn't really know what to say to each other. They just, they came across to me as two people who didn't talk anymore and were sort of reconnecting. I would also believe that there was... Which gets very blurry when she's talking about a former female contemporary. I would believe that there is stuff that was either in a script but never filmed or filmed but cut that maybe, like, explained that a little bit more because it is such a big, moment by the end of the movie that is never really set up for specifically. You really have to do a lot of your own heavy lifting to get to the point of why that's such a thing. But yeah. So, but so the Roland's Connery thing, I think is particularly interesting because these are

the two most interesting cast members in terms of like, oh, Sean Connery and Jenna Rowlands are playing a married couple in this movie. That's, if I'm a person who, you know, is an adult and has watched movies my whole life, like that's going to get me interested in this movie, right? And it's, I'm not entirely sure what I make, of it unfolding the way it does. There's part of me that wants to really respect how, like, astringent it is and, like, not really in any way looking to be goopy.

It doesn't ever get you to a, like, you know, it's not her and James Garner in the notebook. You know what I mean? Like that kind of thing. Oh, just specifically this relationship. Just that relationship, yes. I do think that not the case for the movie as a whole in the past, in the last, like half hour, 20 minutes. And that's one of its problems.

But their relationship, no. They're... And it's not like playing to archetypes in a way, but I also think it's maybe the element of the movie that's most grounded where people are behaving like people, you know? Maybe like people who are in a comedy, but not... Yeah. No one's, you know, committing master manipulation on a direction.

on a deranged scale. But I also don't think that Carol does enough maybe to emphasize the comedy in, like I said, like Connery continuing to sort of like pull the rug out from under her in these like conversational ways that like there is a dark comedy to that. There is a, you know, he keeps being like, wow, was I ever in love with this woman? And it does, again, it. Because it's the comedic aspect of that isn't really pressed upon, it does sometimes seem cruel or just like, like, is this kind of a spectrum or something? Does he not understand the way that like human emotions work? What's going on? But it was nonetheless interesting to me to watch these two actors, you know, play off of each other.

and I can't really say the same about all of the other storylines. I think it's pretty easy to sort of play the winners and losers game in terms of like storylines. I think very, very, very far at the bottom of the list is the Madeline Stowe, Anthony Edwards. So boring. Like those scenes are, even once you sort of like connect the dots that she's going to turn out to be Dennis Quaid's wife, once you realize that like, Dennis Quaid's...

Because he sees her leaving one of the times that she's with Anthony Edwards. Yes. But like... And I like Madeline Stone and I like Anthony Edwards. I think they are both really good actors, but I think nothing in that storyline. First of all, as with most of the things in this movie,

so much of this movie feels like it should have been made five years earlier. And we'll get to that when we get into the AIDS storylines. But so much of this movie feels like it's like warmed over stuff from like, particularly with Madeline Stowe feels like, you know, warmed over stuff from shortcuts. And maybe that's because she was in shortcuts. But like that's when it was really reminding me of the sort of like the kind of determined infidelity, the sort of like, what you call it, unapologetic infidelity that she has. And that ideally in a movie like shortcuts would end up telling you a little bit about her. character. And in this, I'm not sure it really ever reveals a ton. I don't think we ever really get a sense of

what we know about what this woman is or wants beyond the fact that she's just like dissatisfied. She thinks her husband is boring. She thinks her husband is boring. We don't really know much about the relationship beyond that. And I think because of the device of what's going on with the Dennis Quaid character, we actually never learn really anything about him. Also, they don't have children, right? because she mentions that she can't have children. So it also, it then, you know, it recalls, you know, brings to mind the fact that, like, well, why doesn't she just leave him? There is no financial need to stay with him.

There's no familial need to stay with him. Why not just, other than the sort of very frustrating, very like you're watching a movie thing of, I can't be with you because I, you know, can't be happy. or something like that. Like, she doesn't want to just sort of, like, give herself over to Anthony Edwards, who clearly, you know, is in love with her in some way or another, right? And we find out at the end that he is a priest. He is a priest, although I think they refer to him as a minister. So I imagine it's whatever denomination allows priests to, you know, marry or whatever. But, like, he does seem willing to, he'd, you know, give it all up for her at any moment. And she's just unwilling to do that. And it's because, I guess she's just so emotionally reserved, which is a thing, but it is not a particularly interesting thing in a movie. Not as the movie portrays it.

And her husband, Dennis Quaid, who goes through these various scenarios, doping strangers into these improvisational realities where he's in an improv class and has to go out into the wild for a week. Oh, yeah. By the way, movie takes place over the course of a week. So the first, say, 15, 20 minutes of this movie, you get the passing comment from Sean Connery that he has a glioblastoma. You get the first scene with Jay Moore, where Ellen Burstyn, in full, um, Hannah Pitt mode,

um, shows up, uh, off of the, she's taken the flight in from Salt Lake City and doesn't wait more than three and three quarters for anybody. So has decided to, to walk. to the hospital room. And somehow has smuggled in a like old-fashioned rocking chair into that hospital room. But so she shows up and we find out, I believe within that first scene that he, I mean, clearly he's sick and dying of something, but I'm pretty sure we understand that it's AIDS by the time that scene is over.

And then you get the first scene of Dennis Quaid, who, you know, walks in out of the rain into this bar, finds Patricia Clarkson at the booth in the back corner, and tells her this story of this thing that had happened like earlier that night, right? That he had... Where he was... Was he drunk driving or not? But he basically...

He was drunk driving, I believe, is the story that he tells. He was drunk driving to get to his kids' baseball game or something and ends up in a car accident. He runs a red light, and he has a head-on collision with a night. another car that in the brief second that he can see the driver, he sees that it's his wife, and she also sees that it's him, and he, they are dead. The first thing he says is like, my wife and kid are dead. And Patricia Clarkson, God lover, is like, what am I? Like, it's,

it's overwhelming for her. And she's just like, you know, stay here and let's talk and you shouldn't be alone. And he said, like, I should be alone forever. I should be alone in hell. And it's so overwrought. And I'm initially... April Grace watches him leave. Well, I'm initially jotting down. And I'm like, brain tumor, AIDS, I killed my wife and kid. I'm like, this is going to be an excruciatingly annoying movie about like putting these people through excessive trauma. And like, and ultimately they dropped the glyhoblastoma story. And then it turns out that he's just this like recidivist liar. So it doesn't turn out to be that. But his storyline becomes all the more strange and

annoying once you find out that he's just like going through these series of bar encounters where he tells these women or in the case of Alec Mappa drag queen these ridiculous you know sort of story or not ridiculous but like um these tall tales of woe right he tells nastasia kinski that his wife was cheating on him with his uh NBC executive when he who canceled his show right just got fired for from working at ABC. Yes. And then he tells Alex Mappa, he's pretending to be gay at the gay bar,

and he tells Alec Mappa that he cheated on his wife with her brother. And Alec Mappa is the one who finally, at the end of their long night at the bar, is like, you know, you're full of shit. You're full of shit. And I can see right through you because drag queens have superpowers. But so where was it? I was going somewhere with this. I promise you.

Oh, right. You mentioned April Grace. So, yes, Dennis Quaid is leaving the bar from Patricia Clarkson, and the camera very awkwardly, I would say, pans from Dennis Quaid and turns back to see April Grace at the bar clearly paying attention to what's going on there. And it literally, I'm like, well, the first time you see her, you're like, what's going on there? The second time, then you see her again. She's at the bar at the restaurant where he's lying to Nastassia Kinski. And again, the camera pans to her. And I'm like, genuinely, I'm like, is this some like wings of desire type shit?

Where she's just like... She is fate or something. Yes. Yes. Where she's just like observing him. And finally, the resolution of this turns out to be that she's his classmate from an improv class, that this whole thing is not him having some kind of like pathological need to lie to women or whatever, but that he is doing this as an assignment.

from his improv class that he has to go out once a week every night for a week, once a night every night for a week, and make up a completely fabricated story to tell a stranger. And, you know, it's an improv exercise, and they end up, and, like, that revelation is so ridiculous that it's not played for...

Los Angeles, man. That's the thing. You got to get out of Los Angeles, folks. Like, you got to, you can't keep doing this to yourself. But it's not... It's not treated as a punchline. And I'm like, well, that's insane. Because, like, this is genuinely an absolute infuriating rug pull and also so funny.

And then they have a whole conversation about, like, the value of the improv class. Because we don't see April Grace interacting with anyone because she's like, I'm so bad at this. I can do whatever in class. I can be Medea in class and I can't do this. And then he's like, I'm too good at this. I like this too much. I got to get out of this improv class because, like, it's turned. me into an absolute lunatic.

And yet, then he goes home to Madeline Stowe, and they have this series of, which goes up through and including this, you know, anniversary party that they're at, this series of halting not quite conversations that is, you know, this pregnant pause that always constantly lies in between them about like, will one of them make the first move to say, like, can we like, you know, be an actual couple again or something, whatever they need to do to get over themselves. When to me, I'm like, for God's sake, get divorced, just get divorced. Because why would we want to see this couple together? They've, neither one of them has given us any indication. Because it's ultimately a deeply conservative movie that's all about the institution of marriage. It is. It is. They

actually talk about how like Connery wouldn't leave Jenna Rollins because he didn't want to leave her and the kids that he, and somebody makes mention of that, right? That it's like, that it's a, you know, a very, the last of, oh, no, it was Ellen Burstyn, who talks about how she never loved, again, Hannah Pitt, I never loved your father for one minute of our marriage, but she stayed in the marriage because of course I never loved your father. You're being ridiculous. Yes. Being ridiculous. Yes. And, but that she's, she's the one about like, you know, the last of the generation to stay in a marriage for the kids, which is, again, very anti-Alice doesn't live here anymore. Um, But anywho, yes, it is conservative in that way.

And then we bop out, again, this is all, this is not happening sequentially. These are, you know, interconnected scenes. You go to Gillian Anderson, who is directing. This is the most frustrating storyline in the movie. It is. 1A, because she and John Stewart don't have chemistry together. And I'm not here to like bash John Stewart. I know that it is in many circles

sort of fashionable to bash John Stewart and whatever. But I don't think they have... He was maybe in the right vein to... He found something that worked for him. Yes. Because acting, I think, was a limited thing. He was never... Right. It was never...

Acting was never it for him. And I mean, he was a good talk show host back from, like, the John Stewart show. This was... This movie came out, Playing by Heart, came out the year before he... Well, this movie came out in January, and, like, he started hosting the daily show. took it over for Craig Kilbourne later in 1999. So this was a big year for John Stewart. He was also in the faculty at the end of 1999.

So, like, 1999 was the year for John Stewart. John Stewart was facial hair in that movie, also something that didn't really work out for him. That's how it ended up. You knew he was going to be a villain. Can you explain to me what the fuck this play is that Jillian Anderson is directed? Okay, first of all, she does theater in Los Angeles. No offense to people who do theater in all Los Angeles.

But, like, yeah, she, it's somebody. He describes it as like Moliere. Well, okay, first of all, like, even something like La La Land is like, you don't really do theater in Los Angeles. But she's like clearly in... That can't be like Mark Taper Forum or something

because like, yes, there is good theater in Los Angeles. Angels in America. Mark Taper, it did it at Mark Taper before going to Broadway. I do agree with you that like the sense that you can be doing small sort of black box theater in L.A. comes across as much, much, much more low rent than doing the same

in New York, right? Right. Like what? Well, and also, like, as Julian Anderson is presented as a successful theater artist in Los Angeles. But everything we see of this play looks like absolute devastating. Terrible. It looks like ass. They have a moment where they cut to black. At the end

of the play and they cut to black. He's like, I'm going to count my money. And then it's just like, what the fuck was this thing? Some shit that she's doing. So there's that. But again, the movie gives us no indication that it finds this humorous. The movie plays it absolutely straight.

And she gets flowers at the end of the curtain call. And like, we are just, by the film language is telling us, this was a successful opening of this play and it's good for Jillian Anderson. And me, who has two eyes in a brain and watching this. And I'm like, that looks absolutely. horrible. Even a movie like Beaches understands that like theater that is taken, like

theater as depicted in a movie cannot be depicted as you know, good on its face, even when like O industry or whatever they all, they all believe in O industry, but that thing is fucking... Yeah, this is not drive my car performing Chekhov.

Right, right, exactly. Exactly. So, but anywho, that play looks off. That all is like on the fringes and strange. Anderson, I think it's a very likable character in this movie, though. One of the most likable

She's a likable performer. That's the thing. I'm so excited for the Camp Miasma performance because she's not in movies a lot. She does theater all the time. She does a lot of TV. We don't really get her in a movie. And this is, by all told, a big swing of a performance that'll be thrilled to see.

With the exception of the 2X-Files future films that she did, this is probably well, no, that's completely wrong because she also did. As you'll remember from the mighty, I did not think she was very good in the way. Right. But like, but I'm forgetting that like she has the House of Murth. But like, it is rare that Gillian Anderson gets to be even close to being a lead role in a movie. And this is one of her rare ones. Um, House of Mirth was what, 2000. So not too long after this. Maybe. Maybe. I think so.

Anyway. Good episode. Um. But her whole deal is that she's been like, burned by love. She's her leading lady at the beginning of the movie is like... And it's so severe. It's like such this severe jadedness that in my memory

there was some like hidden trauma that comes out in the movie. And there's not. Well, Chris, it is the 1990s. I thought in my memory there was something like she had an abusive boyfriend or you know, there was some like

domestic violence situation. And I guess I just fabricated that because of the tone of her resistance to this guy speaks to something like that, right? If you were, if you, you know, your husband left you for another man, it was trauma. But even right, but it doesn't necessarily play it like that because it even says that they are amicable.

Yes. And she's just like jaded. She says it when she's telling, she ultimately ends up telling John Stewart about her, you know, her ex-husband and he turned out to be gay. And he's like, oh, I'm so sorry. and she's like, don't be like we, or, you know, he and, you know, we're still on very good terms and everything like that. And you connect the dots pretty quickly that it's going to turn out to be Jay Moore.

She doesn't say he's in Chicago and currently dying of AIDS and his mother's in his room with him, but like she, you can tell. And his deal, John Stewart's deal, is that he's too nice of a guy, which is just death. in terms of a characterization then and now. Like, now he'd turn out to end up being a serial killer because that's how we treat, like, nice guys now. Well, but also, he's very clearly, like, looking to settle down, which puts so much pressure, I guess, like, by explanation. But it still doesn't make sense.

It doesn't make sense. They are, like, they are having the, like, life conversation. He and Angelina Jolie would be a really good match in this movie because they both want to lock it down immediately. Like, they are... On site. On site. Yep.

Like, they can't even, like, get to know each other because it's like, it's getting to that level of conversation from the jump. That it's just crazy. This movie is set over the course of a week. If this movie wasn't set over the course of a week, maybe this relationship could make more sense. Yeah, this is a movie that should have taken place over the course of a year. To the point where they do...

ultimately, you know, I don't want to say consummate the relationship, but like they work through that very quickly. And like, he stays over and then she gets the news about Jay Moore and she goes to Chicago. And then she like, this is, this will be very confusing for Genzi who watched this movie. She calls her answering machine to get her messages. Yes. Which used to be a thing. And he's in her house because he was dog sitting for her. He was going to take her dog to his house

To take care of the dog Right, this giant beast of a dog He was going to watch the dog at his house But the dog didn't like it at his house So he brought the dog back to her house And he's staying at her place The idea of having someone dog sit for you Who you've gone on maybe two and a half dates with

And then you call and he's in your house Answering your phone Get out of my house But you're right in the fact that like Were this not a thing that happened over the course of a week their relationship would end up seeming quite sort of like good and normal and responsible to the point that it would almost be like, where's the conflict in this? Because like they do, they take it slow.

There's a little bit where it's like, is she going to end up pushing him away? Like you imagine she's done with all these other people before. And if this does take place over the course of the year, you're like, oh, okay. So like he was most, he was respectful of her and she was ultimately like receptive to, you know, a good... This is... There is also the very 90s thing that is seen very differently now,

which is persistence in romance back then was considered... At worst value neutral... At worst value neutral and at best, like, a charming quality. Right. Like, he's not going to let... her give up on herself, right? He's not going to let her push away this really good relationship.

And the movie, in the movie's, you know, language, he ends up being right, that they end up being a good match for each other. And she was, you know, pushing away something that was, that she ultimately was into because she was afraid. Like, but nowadays, we have a very critical, a particularly critical eye on that trope, that trope of not taking, I'm not going to let you say no to me, I'm not going to, you know, the Pepey Lapew syndrome or whatever.

But in the 90s, that was not really seen as a problematic thing. And I do feel like context matters in that way, whereas, like, it would be very easy to watch this movie and be like, John Stewart is toxic male entitlement, you know, personified or whatever. And it's like, yeah, if, you know... But you also don't learn enough about him to really anything.

All you know is that he's just... You know that he's an architect. And in your mind, you're like, well, they keep saying dancing about architecture. Is this going to be ended up a thing? No. It's not. No, in my mind, I was thinking of Andy McDowell saying I love having, I love fucking architects or whatever. But I do feel like at the end of the day, I'm happy for Jillian that she seems to have found somebody who she really likes. You know what I mean? It's just none of it makes any sense. To the point where in the span of a week, she goes from, even if this wasn't in the span

of a week, let's say it was in the span of a month, she goes from being like, I do not want a relationship, I will go out on a date with you, but then basically I'm cutting it off, to taking this man she met a week ago to a family event, to a vowel renewal. A year. A year is the right time span. I mean, like, half of the people in this movie need to just get on Lexa Pro, because that is not... Like, something's wrong. Like, that's a red flag if she goes from one to another.

A year. That would have made the most sense. All right. I'm going to ask you to go first on Angelina Jolie and Ryan Filiby. Because you know I have eight bagelian thoughts, and I want to get your take on them first. Okay, so this takes place over the course of the week. she is good for her

Brad Summer is in effect for this woman she is going out clubbing every night they're both going out clubbing every night she is under real derangement syndrome they meet while he's in line for the bathroom and she's on the pay phone awesome

going through a breakup a dividing of assets a dividing of assets that is that is including IKEA furniture and pottery barn assets. And William Sonoma.

Yes. Which are not the same thing. She makes... This is how the movie initially tells us this girl is a little bit of a mess. She shops at three very different furniture stores. Very different.

And none of them align with her visual presentation. Also, she's got that contested money. She is not buying IKEA furniture. That is true. Well, but maybe this is her, like, little rebellion against that Contessa money. Oh.

She's like... Nepo Rebellion, buying IKEA. Yes. So she immediately, before even, like, finishing the division of assets, decides, oh, this is my new boyfriend. She's seen him around. He's always in the corner watching you kiss her dancing on his own. Now, to be fair, he looks like that. like, at the very least, you can sympathize a little bit.

That, like, if you see an angel face in front of you, that, like, you know, the infatuation makes sense. Yeah. She's like, I've seen those. I know what you did last summer locker scenes. I'm locking this down. Well, she hadn't yet. No, she had.

I know what you did that summer was the year before. It was cruel intentions that was the year after. Sure. Yes. They also go on. She eventually convinces him to go on not a date, but, like, be in the same place as me. at the same time through her persistence. She's a little manic pixie dream girl,

even though she is the protagonist of this story. I will counter that. Even though she's kind of a lot in a creep. I'm making a note that I'm going to counter that. She invites him to go to a midnight showing of Texas chainsaw massacre in the middle of the week. In the middle of the week. Does that happen in Los Angeles?

Is that a Los Angeles thing that you can go see midnight movies in the middle of the week and it's sold out? I will say, I've been to the same. CVS next to that movie theater, but I've never been to that movie theater. Great. She plays off like her car was stolen. We, as the audience, can see straight through that, and we eventually learned that Julian Anderson dropped her off, basically, so that she could get...

This is really creepy. This is actually creepy. This whole ruse to get him to give her a ride home so she can get him in her home. apartment. Creepy. Gender swap that and write an essay about it, won't you? Yes. Yeah.

Yes. That she uns up, we find out to at the end that it's Jillian Anderson who boosted her car in order to perpetuate this ruse. Yes. I'm watching, I just started watching that Emmy Rossum show about the female serial killer. So now I'm very attuned to possible psychopathic behavior by women this time. Gloria Steinem is proud somewhere out there. I mean, psychopathic behavior by women,

Angelina Jolie in this movie, this character is... And, like, she, we know that she drinks too much. He basically, without even trying... He doesn't ask her to stop drinking. She decides to immediately stop drinking because she sees that it's unappealing to him. Well, he only orders a Diet Coke or whatever. He does not drink.

Yes, he does not drink. He also barely speaks. And, you know... That works for Ryan Philippi because, again, he has that face. Yeah, yes. Well, but also, but he also is very, especially in that first encounter, that first non-date date, is very sort of like scowly. And like, he's just like, often you're almost just like, why are you here? He is kind of the Jillian Anderson of that, where, we're like, you're on this date, but clearly one of you doesn't

believe in dates right now at this stage in your life. So like what's going on? And he leaves that date being like, um, I'm sorry. It's not you. It's, you know, I just, you know, what is he, he doesn't say. He doesn't say like, I don't like people or something like that. But he ends up of being like your dog is very lucky to have, your cat, your cat is very lucky to have you. Because, right, Gillian Anderson has the big unwieldy dog and Angelina Jolie has the cat, with one eye. I'm not sure what... And Madeline Stowe has Dennis Quaid.

In Madeline Stowe has Dennis Quaid, exactly. So here's my thing about Angelina as a manic pixie dream girl is I think she's... She is in the packaging of a manic pixie dream girl. She's got the orange hair. You know, she's got the very sort of like, you know, quirky expression. She... Whereas the manic pixie dream girl is all... about fixing the guy and has no sort of inner life.

She's constantly, the imbalance there is she's the one who's constantly talking about her life and her problems and her wants and her, you know. So in a way, there is a, it's a little bit of an inversion of that, right? Where he ends up being the one who is... She has to solve him. No, she needs him to fix her. You know what I mean? Which, again, is like, it's not, you know, not great.

But she needs to figure out what his problem is, like, why he's so, you know, quiet or whatever. But ultimately, she's the one who has this sort of, you know, need to be with somebody. I don't know. I had just recently watched that movie Sweet November, which is the movie where, Elise Theron is the manic pixie dream girl and is also, also has a terminal illness. And Keanu Reeves is the, I'm going to say banker. It's only been maybe a couple of months since I saw that, and I already can't remember what it is he does.

But anyway, Philippi clearly has damage. And there is, yes, there is an excavation. And lives with his parents. We do find out he lives with his parents. Oh, he does mention that, yes. But there's an excavation period that ends up being, and again, very similar to the Gillian Anderson-John-Stewart thing, of like, is this person going to successfully push this person away

before they reach the inevitable point where they end up realizing that they're too in love with each other to be without each other, right? and it initially seems like he's going to be successful in pushing her away. But of course, we're watching a movie called Playing by Heart. We know that that's not going to happen. And so eventually, the pain behind his eyes starts to express itself in the form of little welling up tears. And he finally gets to where we all kind of expect, The part where we all expect is, and where she expects, where she's essentially, like,

you had a girlfriend. He's like, yeah, she's like, for about, for a year, right? He's like a year and a half. She's like, got it. Like, seen one, seen them all. And she's like, and he broke, and she broke your heart. He's like, yeah, he goes, she was seeing somebody else. She's like, heard this story before.

And what does he say? He's like, he said those friends shared needles. Well, yeah, but he said in a way of, like, men wasn't the old. weren't the only things she was sharing. And he was like, she was also sharing needles. And that's where Angelina's like, oh, like, oh. And then we in the audience are like, 1990s. 1990s shared needles.

She's been an asshole. Well, or just the fact that like I don't have this guy as sort of, you know, summed up as I thought I did. But of course, we in the audience are watching this. And we're like 1990s shared needles. like, I know how this story ends. So then he, you know, says that, you know, she gave him a parting gift. And he never says, of course, that he's got HIV.

But that's the implication. And so here's where I want to discuss the issues of timing with this. And, like, clearly, as a caveat. This is a post-rent movie. Well, quite a bit post-rent, right? rent, like two years, two years from rent on Broadway. Yes. Yes. Um, and clearly like, yes, this is like, this is the Roger story, right? This is the, you know, um, I had the ex-girlfriend. She cheated on me. We shared, uh, we were both drug addicts. We shared needles and, um,

and, um, and, uh, she died of AIDS and I have, uh, I have, uh, I have HIV. Um, obviously, AIDS in 1998, nor AIDS now is eradicated, right? But I think even from the period of like 19, so like, 1993 is Philadelphia. 1994 is the real world San Francisco with Pedro Zamora. 1996 is rent on Broadway. You know, during all this time, there are many other, and the band played on was the,

It was the HBO miniseries that was the early 90s. You had TV movies like in The Gloming. You had stuff like longtime companion, boys on the side were Mary Louise Parker. When was the Aves Quilt? Was that even before any of these? Yes. That would have been, I think, like, 92, 93 around that time. Because I remember at the end of Am the Band played on, they show documentary footage, I believe, of the AIDS Quilt.

And that movie was made in, like, 1993, I'm pretty sure. So in the five years that have, you know, spanned since then, advancements were happening. And like, by this point, Magic Johnson had been living HIV positive for about six or seven years. The, it just felt like the narrative and visual language of AIDS storylines by 1990. it felt like they were working off of a playbook that was about five years out of date. And through probably no, certainly no sense of malice or anything like that. But I did think it was interesting.

And it made me think of like just how quickly things move on that front in that, like, the idea of somebody being diagnosed as HIV positive in 1992 was like you were, you were making funeral arrangements in a movie. You know what I mean? And stuff like that. And by 1998, in the real world, I think, and even in, like, a lot of, like, current television and stuff like that, you were starting to get storylines. Okay, here's an example, and I'm going to be soap opera. Compassionate representation of an HIV positive person.

I'm going to be soap opera guy for a second. So General Hospital on the mid-1990s had a storyline with Stone. the sort of major teenage love story at that moment was Robin and Stone. Stone ended up being HIV-positive and progressed to AIDS during the span of like a couple of years. Like it's, you know, it's soap opera, so these things sort of like progress. And that was a major storyline, very big groundbreaking story. I think the first, I don't want to say the first, because that's probably not true. but like one of the first big major central to the soap opera storylines where everybody in the show had some sort of connection to this character.

He ended up, they took him, you know, through the progression of the disease. He dies, you know, at home in bed with Robin by his side. I remember watching it after school. It was very, you know, it was a big deal. And during that, I think just towards the end before he died, we find out that Robin also, tested HIV positive. Now, she is like a legacy character on this show. Her parents were like Anna and Robert Scorpio. They were like two of the big major, you know, they weren't quite Luke and Laura level, but they were like sort of adjacent to them a little bit. So she's a legacy character.

And legacy characters and soaps are very important. You have to be, you can't just do any old thing with a legacy character. You have to really like, you know, those storylines really have to be tended to. And her storyline, then, became about treatment, about living with AIDS, about, you know, she's on a cocktail, and she's, you know, they talked about, like, medication. They talked about managing the disease and how she would be able to have relationships going forward. And that, to me, was that storyline began around, like, I want to say, like, 95 and, like,

went to, like, by the time you get to that part, her part of the story, we're into, like, 97-98. And it does feel like that's where the conversation was at that point. We were getting into these ideas of managing the disease, treating the disease, finding, you know, we have found ways to live with it. Not that people weren't dying of AIDS still at this point, not that people aren't still dying of AIDS. But you understand what I'm saying about like, you know. Yes, it's one of the problems with, you know, filmmaking as a medium and not just with with this particular issue, but with, you know, any number of issues. Movies are slower to respond than TV.

Theater and television by the method in which those art forms are made. Movies are a slow method of like delivery to an audience. And so with something like this, you're right. That like naturally it's going to feel, and with something that moves as quickly as, you know, the medical advancements were in AIDS of. the time. And this movie straddles an interest. I think that this movie, in terms of HIV representation, is an interesting artifact because it does kind of straddle this line between representations of it being a death sentence and representations of it, not being a death sentence. And I think that also

gets complicated and like you could make this, you could make this argument about rent as well, that it's in straddling that line, it also straddles this kind of political representation line of the gay people are dying, but it is not a death sentence for the heterosexual people. That is very true and very important to note because, yes, because the gay characters... And again, not through any ill will on the movie's part, but that's just where culturally this movie hits the pinpoint on the math. If you want a celluloid closet it a little bit, I don't think. it would be unfair to note that, like, yes, Jay Moore's character and Jay Moore, you know, a straight actor playing a gay character, and that's, you know, its own little conversation. The sexless gay guy dies, but the sexually active, sexual people live.

Right, he has a partner who, you know, Ellen Burstyn, you know, refers to as, you know, your roommate. But that character has already died, you know what I mean? Like, it's, it's, that is, right, that's the kind of story that people were used to telling in mainstream stories about gay men with AIDS. And then, yes, I will say, I was about to give the movie credit, and I still will give the movie credit, for getting to a point in that Ryan Philippi, Angelina Jolie's story, where like, you see them in bed together.

Having some type of sexual interoperative. And they have previously had that conversation where he's like, we can't have sex. And he does literally, it almost sounds like a script note. He throws in the thing where he's like, I know that, like, you know, he makes a head nod towards, like, that safe sex is possible, that, like, you know, it is possible to have safe sex. But he's just like, that's my own personal choice. And that is, you know, very valid. And she, you know, is like, okay, it will be hard not to, you know, be with you physically in that way. But she immediately is like, there are other things we can do.

And then, you know, within a couple of scenes, you see them sort of in the post-coital. sort of afterglow of whatever they were, you know, able to do. And it's passionate and it's intimate. And it's all very good. But yes, you're absolutely correct to note that like that it's the, it's the heterosexual couple who gets to have that moment. Yes. And yet, you know, I who saw this as a young person, I know that that is a small, very small sample size. Yeah. It's small sample size of people who would have seen this, you know, in its contemporary, you know, right? lifespan. But like that it, that's why I

also don't want to come down hard on this movie because that does actually you know, inform your like sexual development of like, you know, how how people who are HIV positive should be treated, you know, and what the reality of

that diagnosis is you know, against what, you know, straight normative society would have led you to believe and like how difficult it still is to get, you know, positive information out there. I've talked before about this a little bit, about sort of growing up as Gen X slash Gen X millennial cusper, sort of, you know, during the span that I did. And during your formative years, when you are,

at the very least, internally coming into a sense of who you are, that the arts and entertainment and also news and also whatever around is communicating through a sense of responsibility, you know, a sense of sex is fraught, homosexual sex in particular, is fraught that the consequences of not being very safe and very careful, that the consequences of that are not only death, but like terrible, horrible, ugly, frightening death. it does fuck you up in a way that like and I understand that like sometimes gay folks my age get deserved you know in many ways in some ways deserved shit for being you know a little resentful of the generations that come after and that there is sort of like a culture clash a little bit

there is a sense of you just can't know if you grew up, if you were born, you know, after 9-11, you know what I mean, whatever. You can't really know, you can learn, you can, you know, be aware of what things were like back then. You can't know what it felt like to grow up with that kind of terror and that kind of just sort of in general worldview. fact that like just these are the facts of the case and well and a lot of the disinformation that got out there and took a long time to imagine we're living in a time where uh disinformation and uh you

know ridding disinformation is still difficult um the disinformation that you know took root yeah uh very quickly and stuck around for a long time and still sticks around depending on you know what audience you're talking about yeah uh is very formative yeah but anyway So I did feel like this movie did feel the J. Moore stuff felt very Philadelphia coded or like, like I said, I mentioned in the gloaming, you know, this kind of like gay man returns to estranged mother to repair that relationship as he, you know, there's no Adirondack chairs, but spiritually there are Adirondack chairs happening, you know, in this as they gaze upon the surf and, and he quietly dies. She literally is reading him. good night moon and cradling him in her arms when he dies, which is a incredibly sad moment. But it is, as you say, there is a little infantilization happening that it is a story told more through her perspective than his. It is a story of a mother who comes to terms, I would say, limitedly, with her son in the waning days before he.

dies. And the scene with her... I do think that there's an element of that character, though, that it is the interesting thing that sometimes your parents are more understanding, like, your loved ones are more understanding than you are, because she never got to meet his partner and says to Gillian Anderson, like, in an expression of frustration that she would have liked to have known his partner. Yes. Well, and that's another one where you see the thing that Gillian Anderson isn't saying on her face. It's a really good scene for Gillian because she's grieving at this moment. She's, you know, standing at the grave side of her first love. Jay Moore was, you know, her ex-husband, yes, but also her first love. And she's mourning this, but she's

also hearing Ellen Burstyn. And, you know, again, you can sort of write this history a little bit. You imagine that, like, Jillian Anderson was witness to, one imagines, a lot of the behavior that Ellen Burstyn expressed towards Jay Moore's character when he came out. You know what I mean? So she knows what the score was here, really, and that, like, you know, Ellen Burstyn expresses, I would have liked to have known him. And the thing that Gillian Anderson has on her face that she almost says, you really get the sense that she's almost saying. you, you know, you gave him very much reason to not let you in to this part of his life. But what she does say is, I think, really an interesting theme of the movie and also a well-delivered line. She says the thing about, we don't need to know everything about the people that we love.

and it's a little bit of an absolution, but it's also a little bit of like, you know, maybe let's not, you know, sabotage ourselves because there's a little mystery to... Ellen Burstyn miscast is homophobic. But I mentioned... I refuse to believe. But I did like that scene, particularly for Julian Anderson. I thought she was quite good. And then she... up to this point, Ellen Burstyn has been very sort of like... prim and kind of, you know, visually, her visual presentation is very sort of buttoned up and her

hair is in a spiritual bun, if not in a literal bun. And then the next time we see her, uh, when Gillian Anderson's like, stop by the house if you, you know, if you want to, her hair's like, uh, she went to, she had some sort of a hair stylist moment, right? Where it's like, it's very, her and right, she went to Ryan Phillipy's hairstylist where there's this like fashionable sort of frizz happening. There's fashionable sort of like, like messiness. Someone corralled her Sarah Goldfarb, a little bit. A little bit, which I thought was kind of funny because to me, my first thought was like, okay, like gay son dies and now mom's really hit in the town or something like that. But yeah, I thought that was, I thought

that was an interesting hair and makeup moment. To maybe loop it back to Angelina Jolie a little bit. Yes. Considering she is the, you know, one on the. award track for this movie. I think she's kind of incredible in this movie. She's playing an absolutely unnavigable cuckoo-bird character

who is a lot and yet comes off as nothing but charming to the point that the storyline works because Angelina Jolie is so good in this movie. We are right in the pocket of the Angelina Jolie ascendancy here. And that was a thing

that happened very quickly. And it is one of those sort of moments in time that you can really hold in your hand because it very much was, she was in Hackers in 1995, which was sort of like, I think, when people, she had been in other things before that or whatever, but like Hackers, I think was the, you know, sort of most mainstream things she had done to that point. Then she is cast in 1990, for the 1997 TV film, George. Wallace, where Gary Seneas plays Alabama governor and invenerate racist, George Wallace, and she plays his, I want to say, like, second wife or something like that.

Like, I never saw this, but, like, I remember that, like, she won the Golden Globe in 1997 for supporting actress on a TV show. And then I believe Mayor Winningham, who I think played his first wife, do not quote me on any of this. Again, did not see this movie. Mayor Winningham wins the Emmy, though. So it was one of those, like, you know, co-star kind of leapfrogs for the Emmy. Then, the very next year at the Golden Globe,

she's in the lead actress in a TV miniseries or movie category for Gia, where she plays Gia Karanji, a highly acclaimed performance, probably the single most formative thing for making Angelina Jolie, Lee, the superstar, more so even than Girl Interrupted. I think Gia is really the formative thing for the Angelina Jolie legend. She wins the Golden Globe for that.

I want to very quickly look up and see who she lost the Emmy 2, because I think she was for a while there. Isn't it another biopic performance? Is it Judy Davis in me and my shadows, or does that come later? I think Judy Davis also lost. Hold a second. Maybe I'm wrong. Because Angelina Jolie has never won an Emmy.

She was nominated for both George Wallace and Gia, and she did not win either one of them, which means even though she has a Tony Award for producing the Outsiders, she's only halfway to the Egot. She loses to Ellen Barkin for Before Women Had Wings. Okay, that's a strange one. And Judy Davis is nominated but for something called The Echo of Thunder. This is an interesting lineup. Angelina Jolie for Gia, Ellen Barkin for Before Women Had Wings,

I want to say that was an Oprah Winfrey produced ABC TV movie. Don't quote me on that one, but I think that's true. Jamie Lee Curtis in a TV movie called Nicholas's Gift in which... Hold on. All right. Nicholas's Gift is a fact-based drama about an American couple, Jamie Lee Curtis and Alan Bates, on vacation in Italy with their two children, who are attacked and shot by highway bandits.

Shortly, they discover that their son is brain dead. The parents are then faced with the hard decision to donate the boy's organs, which ultimately led to saving the lives of seven seriously ill Italian patients. Folks, when I tell you, these movies were... This is what TV used to be like, girl. Like, this used to be television. Just the most trauma dump shit you could imagine. One billion percent.

What network did this air on? on. CBS, baby, network television. Also nominated Sigourney Weaver for Snow White, what is it?

Sorry, I'm going backwards in... Snow White, A Tale of Terror. Scary Snow White in which she is the evil queen. Are you on Wikipedia? You probably have an easier time finding out. No, I'm on IMTP.

You are? Okay. And then Olympia Dukakis for More Tales of the City, which I believe is the second Tales of the City. And Judy Davis in The Echo of Thunder, which immediately Judy Davis in something named the Echo of Thunder, I am on board. This was a Hallmark movie.

Hall of Fame. Yep. Her and Jamie Sheridan. She is in very short, spiky hair in the poster for this movie. A young girl goes to live with her father and stepmother in the Australian outback after her mother's death. Stars Judy Davis and Jamie Sheridan from Hallmark. Hall of Fame. So a very interesting Emmy's category for Angelina Jolie. But so regardless,

she wins that Golden Globe. She won the Golden Globe three years in row because then the very next year, 1999, she wins the Golden Globe for Girl Interrupted. She goes on to win the Oscar for Girl Interrupted. She dresses like Mortisha Adams and she kisses her brother and it's off to the races from there. But like, during this band. She's in that movie Pushing Tin. She's in The Bone Collector with Denzel Washington. She's just like, she is the next big thing in a really, really major way. And it was almost entirely this like undeniable charisma. Like you think about Angelina Jolie as in the last 20 years as this sort of like UN ambassador, sort of like maternal figure, very calm, very graceful.

The whole Angelina Jolie thing was the wild child. She was the, you know, she was the ungovernable sort of like raging. Wearing vials of Billy Belthorton's blood. She was the raging id of the like the young lead actress in 1998. But on screen it was charisma. Like the Angelina Jolie of playing by heart, we have not seen in a very long time. And I would love to see more of this, like, super charisma. If anything, like, after winning an Oscar,

it's almost kind of immediately a pivot to screen presence, which is not quite the same thing. And I do think she's, like, a really, really great actress. So I don't want this to come across as, like, sliding her in any way. But it's more relying on her screen presence than her charisma, which are two different things. To the point that I think maybe since we've only gotten it from her as Maleficent, in a way.

And I like her in those movies. Even Maleficent is still very statuesque, very sort of like posture forward. It's this like middle ground between the two. The one that I think of, and I'm not sure you saw this movie, because I think this was Taylor Sheridan thing, was the one where she played the like, the firefighter. The Firefighter. Yeah, the National Park Service Forest Fire. That to me, and again, we've seen Angelina Jolie in sort of like action star mode, right,

with like, you know, salt and, you know, the Tomb Raider thing. So it's maybe it's not quite that, but like there's a little bit of a spark to her in that. I agree with you, though, is like the Angelina Jolie of playing by heart, pushing Tint. Girl interrupted. Girl interrupted. We haven't seen that in, you know, she sort of, she transitioned away from that. And maybe that was just sort of where her life's journey was taking her. And maybe at some point, you get married and have kids and you can't access that part of you, you know, in the same way.

way anymore, that that's a part of you that it's when you were a certain age, and when you were younger. But like, we haven't seen her have to wrangle dialogue in the way that she does in this movie. And she, like, kind of crushes this movie. And the dialogue, by the way... Playing a very

absurd character. The dialogue isn't great. Like, the dialogue is a lot of, like, talking in circles a little bit around, you know, these... I think the, the idea... It's very, like, 90s... charm. Like, it's, it's this circular, like, hip way of speaking that was so specific to the 90s that now just make someone sound like a crazy person. Yes. I also feel like, I am on the record

as saying this movie should have stuck with the Dancing About Architecture title, but one of the things about having that title is it kind of writes a check for the movie that the dialogue can't really cash. Because if you are going to make the bold statement that, you know, talking about love is like dancing about architecture, you are kind of implicitly being like, but this movie is going to make a real good crack at it. And like, we are going to have really interesting dialogue on the subject of love and relationships. And the movie doesn't really live up to that in any way. So I will say, just on a visual level, Ryan Philippi and Angelina Jolie create a somewhat ungovernable lip situation that I just

it's it almost like there's a singularity that happens when they kiss in this movie finally and you're like oh that's so much lip like there's in both directions it's really um quite something I was so I'd never seen this movie originally on IMDB the version of the poster is this sort of like stack of Polaroids thing

but there was another poster and I'm going to try and find it on the the home video poster where it's a bunch of them standing around Angelina Jolie is like laughing while she has her hand up Ryan Philippi's shirt a true moment in happy traildom You say standing around

and that's a little bit of a mislead because while John Stewart, Jenna Rollins and Sean Connery are definitely higher in the frame not a one of them is like touching any kind of ground in any kind of like traditional way. They are, they are photoshopped in... How many of these people were in the room at the same time?

Only people who were in the same room at the same time. Maybe Jillian and Madeline Stowe together, and then Angelina and Ryan. But yes, Ryan's lying on his back on the floor. His head propped up on Jillian Anderson's lap. By the way, Jillian Anderson... No blue hair, to be clear. He has no blue hair, and Julian Anderson has her Dana Scully red hair, and she does not have that in the movie either.

And Angelina Jolie does not have her... orange hair in the movie. She has her regular dark hair. But regardless, so this poster is a, you know, there's a lot. It's a fiction. It's a fiction. But Angelina Jolie, uh, hooters sort of at the ready, um, with her hand up, up Ryan Philipie's shirt to the, to the nipple. Like as high, like, you can see, like, she's really making some progress. Um, he's got his happy trail on full display, along with the waistband of his underwear. To let you know that this is a seductively funny movie. White boxer shorts and he's got the one arm sort of like back.

So like he's wearing a t-shirt so you can't see his armpit, but you can't see some bicep. He has a wrist cuff on his one wrist. There's a lot of visual stimuli here for me in 1998. What department store is this for? Like, Angelina Joe Lee and, you know, the three sisters in Ryan Philippi is giving Calvin Klein. But then, you know, Jenna Rollins is, she's got her sassy. There's very lame for, for Jenna. Yeah. John Stewart is giving you, um, looking around Jenna Rollins in a look that can only say, we're going to Macy's. Um, John Stewart gets, gets called out at one point for wearing an

Armani suit. Uh, is Armani exchange sort of like the more discount Armani? Is that, uh, I have no idea. I have no idea either. And then Sean Connery is dressed like an undertaker in this, in a, uh, a very dark suit, popping an eyebrow, and literally stroking his chin with his hand, looking like a supervillain in this. Jenna is, I'm a little teapot arm on her hip, leaning in, looking a little sassy. To let you know that the movie is, as the poll quote says, hilarious. Angelina really is, she's got her eyes closed and she is laughing at something. Whatever she's found up Ryan Philippi's shirt, she is.

delighted by. She is absolutely having a time. The chest that makes you edge bowl. She's touching the chest that makes you edge ball. I do want this poster maybe filmed and put in my office. There's just a lot. There's a lot happening.

But anyway, yes, Ryan Philippe's Happy Trail was very important to me at age 18. I'm just going to say. So what else? We didn't really talk about, well, we talked a little bit about this era of general rule. where I sort of track it from something to talk about in 1995, where she plays Julia Roberts's mother, through the skeleton key.

So that decade, right, mid-90s to mid-aughts. Something to talk about. She's in the neon Bible, the Terrence Davis. What are you laughing at? Chris says we've lost Chris. Oh, no. I need to close this tab with this poster on here because I keep looking at them.

She's touching the chest that makes you edge bowl. she really is just absolutely delighted okay I'm closing I'm closing it I apologize no that's fine I was like I don't think the neon Bible is that funny she's in the neon Bible she gets a SAG nomination

for Unhook the Stars is Unhook the Stars another Nick Cassavetti's movie yes because she's so lovely in 1997 which is definitely a Nick Casavetti's movie somehow she's in the 1998 movie Polly about a parrot. About a bird.

As I said, 1998 Hope Floats. She plays Sandra Blocks' mother. She gets a Blockbuster Award nomination for her trouble. 1998, she and Jillian Anderson decide to spend the year together and do The Mighty and playing by Heart. 2003, she's in the HBO TV movie Hysterical Blindness as the mother of Uma Thurman's character, directed by first. Queen Mother of New York City, Mirra Nair. She wins an Emmy Award for her trouble in that. I remember her getting nominated.

I didn't remember her winning. Then 2004, she's in both taking lives and the notebook. She wins the Movies for Grownups Award for the Notebook for Best Grownup Love Story. And then 2005, of course, she plays a Bayou creepy lady who ends up being the reincarnated something or something. in the skeleton key. What's the story in the skeleton key? Isn't that the deal

where there's like an evil spirit that is like possessing her? It's like voodoo, right? It's hoodoo in fact, but yes. I remember that specifically where Kate Hudson's like voodoo and she's like, no, it's who do.

Okay. Thank you, Kate Hudson. Thank you, Kate Hudson. And then the Connery run, I also find to be somewhat fascinating in that, like, he worked a lot more

in that, decade after his Oscar win for The Untouchables than I remember. And often quite successfully, where like, and even when it's not successfully, he's like, he's doing a Sydney Lumet movie. He's doing, you know, a Philip Kaufman movie. He's doing a Bruce Barrisford movie. He's playing King Arthur to Richard Gere's Lancelot. First of all, I find that incredibly funny that, like, people don't.

didn't live as long as Sean Connery was at the point where he's playing King Arthur, right? Like, all of those stories are about, like, guys in their, like, nine, they're like 19 and 25, right? It's like, that's the range. And it's like, no, like, this is, you know, your grandpa, King Arthur. He's the voice of the dragon and dragon heart. He's, uh, and I think it all sort of kind of culminates with the rock where say what you will about Michael Bay. he gives you probably the single best,

well, Hunt for Red October is pretty unfuck-wittable, but one of the best movie star, you know, platforms for Sean Connery of this stage of his career, right? Where it's just that movie sort of builds a temple to Sean Connery, even though that is a movie with, that's a real homophobic movie for a little stretch there. A prison movie homophobic?

You don't say it's not the prison stuff. It's, you know, Sean Connery escapes via exploiting the Faye hairdresser that they hire to, you know, to cut his hair. Regardless, the rock is incredibly successful. And he's almost like at the top of the pyramid again

at that point where it's just like Sean Connery, man, you know, and then 1998, other than playing by heart, his other movie is The Avengers, which is... He's the bad guy, right? He's the bad guy. Poster certainly insinuates he's the bad guy. He is. And then that

movie takes a big old fucking dump on the floor, and everybody hates it, and it's a huge failure. And even though after that, like, he has entrapment, which I recall being like a hit. A great movie. Finding Forrester's a big old flop. And then 2003, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a somewhat legendary flop.

And that's kind of the end of the road for Sean Connery at that point. And I mean, he had had a full and successful career. It's not like, you know, I don't think we can say that like, oh, the career that ended too soon or whatever. But it is amazing that, like, he only has a handful of movies after The Rock that people even, like, saw. You know what I mean? So, I don't know. I find it interesting. I love entrapment.

What a strange movie. Sure. It would be discourse to hell now because there are several decades between him and Captain Zeta Jones in that movie. But without that movie, we would not have gotten him presenting her the awesome. by saying Catherine and her saying, you know, my Scotsman when she accepts the word. As my friend who I worked with at the time said, at the time, you know they fucked. Like, she's like, that sealed it right there, that interaction, that sealed it. Anyway, this was a Berlin Film Festival movie after it had premiered.

this used to be a thing that movies that would premiere late in the States, late in the end of the year, would also go to Berlin. That was movies like there will be blood, the hours, did that, you know. It doesn't happen anymore. In 1999, the thin red line wins the Golden Bear after it had already opened in the States in January. And interesting, I sort of took a small collection of the movies that opened at the... this Berlin Film Festival 8mm, Breakfast of Champions, speaking of flops,

Robert Altman's Cookies Fortune, David Cronenberg's Existens, which probably would have been my vote for the Golden Bear, were I, had I vote. The Stephen Frears movie, The High Low Country, which also shows up in that NBR

that Angelina Jolie wins breakthrough actress. Billy Crudeup wins breakthrough actor for the High Low Country. Have you ever seen that movie? No. Nor have I, but it's Billy Crudeup and Penelope Cruz.

I should maybe check it out. right? I love them both. I do love them both. Okay. I forgot that I have a game. So we're going to have a game and then we're probably going to do IMDB game not too long after. But you know what? This is going to be a little bit of a long episode. Does that bother you? No. Okay. I'm bringing back Alter Egos because I wanted to. And Alter Egos is the game where I quiz Chris and I give him the name of three movie characters from three different movies. And Chris has to figure out what actors, played those three characters, and then what single movie all three of those actors were in together. The theme for this Playing by Heart episode, Playing by Heart version of Alter Egos, is movies with body parts in the title. So, we're going to start off with Raina Boyanov, Smarty Pants, and Paddy Cakes. Patty cakes is Danielle McDonald Smarty Pants

Raina Boyanov is Roseburn So this is if I had legs I'd kick you So Smarty Pants is a Christian Slater character Smarty Pants is Conan O'Brien's character in Toy Story 5 Oh Of course Conan, so good in that movie

Yes If I had legs I'd kick you very good good. All right. Next question. Solomon Northup, Gretchen Carlson, and Tinkerbell. Solomon Northup is Chitual Edgia4 in 12 years a slave. Oh, Tinkerbell is Julia Robertson Hook. What was the Nicole Kibman character that you named? Gretchen Carlson. Is bombshell and this is the secret in their eyes. Secret in their eyes. Yes, eyes being the operative body part. All right. Next one. Marty Mouser, Thomas Boulin, and Larry Gopnik. Okay. Thomas Boulin has to be, um, was it Jim Sturgeus in the other Boulin girl?

Is it Sturgis? It's Jim Sturgis. No. That's not Jim Sturgis's role. He is in. Oh, it's Andrew Garfield. It's not Andrew Garfield, Ivan. God, Thomas Bolin in that movie. Oh, it's, um, God, why am I forgetting his name? Give me the other names again? Marty Mouser and Larry Gopnik. I know those character names. Marty Mouser is Timothy Shalame in Marty Supreme.

So, is that Rylance? Mark Rylance is Thomas Pallet. Mark Rylance is Thomas. The Father. So is this Bones and All? This is Bones and All. Larry Gopnik is Michael Stulbarg in A Serious Man. A serious man.

Larry. I did not order Santana Abraxas. Okay. Next one. Yes. So, yeah, that movie is Bones and all. The bones are the operative body part. Next one.

Frodo Bagan's, Armand Goldman, Goldman, and Dr. Van Helsing. Frodo Bagan's is Elijah Wood. Dr. Van Helsing could be a number of people like Anthony Hopkins, could be Hugh Jackman. What was the second name? Armand Goldman Goldman. Oh, Robin Williams in the bird cage. Is this a different Frodo Baggins, maybe? because what are Elijah Wood and Robin Williams in together?

That's also a body part. The third name was... Dr. Ben Helsing. Dr. Ben Helsing. Wow, that's not really ringing a bell. So... Oh, um... No.

Elijah Wood and... Robin Williams. Am I wrong about Frodo Bat, Is it a different... No, it's Elijah Wood. It's Elijah Wood and Robin Williams. An Oscar-winning movie. Is it animated?

Are they voices? Oh, okay. Oh, shit. That I guess... Is it Anthony Hopkins? It's not Anthony Hopkins. Okay. Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Dr. Van Halen.

Is Elijah Wood, like, the titular role? There is no titular role, actually. Oh, well, duh, because it's a body part. Hey, it could have been Stomachy, the... The eyes of Frodo Baggins. It's not Osmosis Jones. It's not Osmosis Jones.

It is an Oscar winner, which was not the case with Osmosis Jones. Right. So it's an animated Oscar winner. Did it win animated feature? Yes, it did. Okay. Weird.

It's not pictures. are. So it's late. Who are your other Van Helsings that you were thinking of? Hugh Jackman. Yes. So it's Hugh Jackman, Robin Williams. What was this? Think of body parts.

External, not internal. Arms, legs, feet. Happy feet. There you go. I've never seen the Happy Feet movies, I don't think. All right. Next one. Joe Gideon, King Henry the 8th, and Dr. Leo Marvin. Richard Dreyfus is Dr. Leo Marvin. That's what about Bob.

Henry the 8th is that Eric Banna, the other Bolin girl. It is not Eric Banna. And the first name was... Joe Gideon? That's a classic character name. Yeah, you love that. That's like from an adaptation, right? Like a literary adaptation?

No. It's from a movie you love, though. With Dreyfus in it. Yeah. Well, no, the character from the first one is a movie. This is Jaws. Is that Richard? Yeah, that's Roy Scheider and all that jazz.

And all that jazz. King Henry the Eighth, you want to take a stab? Robert Shaw in like an of a thousand days or something. It's Robert Shaw in a man for all seasons, in fact. There it is. Yes, yes, Jaws. All right, Murphy Cooper, Peter Parker, and Pamela Duncan. Pamela Duncan is Cherry Jones from Aaron Brockovich.

Yes, I was so glad you got that. Peter Parker, we have multiple options. What was the first name again? Murphy Cooper. What is Cherry Jones going to be third build in? With either Andrew Garfield, Toby McGuire, or Tom Holland. I'm guessing it's not Tom Holland. Murphy Cooper, explore the space with that name.

Murphy's Romance, which I believe would be James Garner. Or maybe just like nicknames that one might have if that were their name. Is this Jessica Chastain? As? In Interstellar as Murph? Yes. Jessica Chats. Oh, is this, oh, no, this is the eyes of Tammy Fay.

This is the eyes of Tammy Faye. Peter Parker is Andrew Garfield. And Cherry Jones' third build as her mother, I believe. All right, next one. Iqabod Crane, Paris, and Amy slash love. Love in quote marks. Iqabod Crane, is it Johnny Depp? It is.

So Amy slash love. That's... And then the second one is... Paris. That's not going to be helpful. What's a Johnny Depp body part movie? What's a movie where a woman named Amy might also be known as, quote, love? Chasing Amy.

No. Like an alternate reality movie where people are playing multiple. Multiple characters. It's not that they're playing multiple characters, but that they are... Representation of love... What is that movie? It's like love, death, fear. What is...

I know that this is, like, obvious, but I'm just... My brain's not... This always gets me in my... Chris, you're forgetting. You're forgetting to notice it. Oh! Oh, of course. It's Kira Knightley.

Oh, this is Pirates of the Caribbean dead man's chest. Chast, yes, there we go. Walk us through. It gives me Iqabod Crane is Johnny Depp in. Johnny Depp in Sleepy Hollow. Pamy Love is collateral beauty. Paris is Orlando Bloom as someone named Paris. In Troy.

In Troy. In Troy. In Troy. Okay. Next one. Troy, a movie about Orlando Bloom's Fupa. Like, yes. Um, next one.

Jesus Christ. That movie loves a male pubic mound. That's what that movie is about. Uh, next one. Anya Shakespeare, Prince Hamlet, and Rota the Hut. Anya Shakespeare is Jesse Buckley in Hamlet. In Hamnet. Hamnet, sorry.

Rhoda the hut? Yes. I believe that that's how it's pronounced. Second, what was the second one? Prince Hamlet. That is Paul Mass... No?

Is that Paul Mascal? This is fingernails. Oh, it's Riz Ahmed in Hamlet. Yes. Yeah. It is fingernails. Do you want to guess who Rhoda the Hut is? This was a fairly notorious voice role this year.

In, like, Mandalorian? Yeah. This was Jeremy Allen White. Oh, sure. In Grogue. All right. Next one. Maui, Charlene Seherlis, and Queen Clarice Rinaldi.

Maui is the rock in Moana. Various Moana. Yes. Charlene Seherlis and Queen Clarice Renaldi. So these are at least two women in the other roles. Is this the skeleton crew? Didn't he do like a football movie with the word skeleton? He might have, but that's not what I was thinking of.

Okay. Not skeleton. What other rock movies can I think of? Because those names are not doing it for me. Somebody who played, famously played a queen who is perhaps arriving soon. Queen Charlene. Clarice. Claireise.

Of a perhaps fictional land. Country. Waukanda? No. Genovia? Oh, this is the tooth fairy. That's Julie Andrews. It's Julie Andrews as Queen Claritius Menaldi and Princess Diaries.

That's not her name. Her name is the Queen of Genovia. Okay. Charlene Seherlis is Ashley Judd in Heat. I tried to find a... Sure. Even in something like a fucking novel-y nation, she's not an interesting character name in that movie,

where the heart is. You know, everybody? Everybody in where the heart is has some, like, cracked out name. And, like, no, not her. Next one. Macbeth, Laura Croft, and Motermouth Maybill. Laura Croft is Angelina Jolie. Motermouth Maybel is Queen Latifah.

And Macbeth, conceivably, this is... Oh, no, this is Denzel Washington. This is the bone collector. This is the bone collector. Very good. You got it exactly right. Okay. Next one.

This is a tough one. Finian McLaughan, Gigi, and Bertie Koonen. I don't fucking know. Work out the names. Finian McLonergan, Gigi, and Bertie Kuhn. Stick with the first two. Gigi is Leslie Kouran? Okay, wow.

Finian. Finian's Rainbow, who is in Finian's Rainbow. Uh, very famous, beloved actor slash dancer. Mikhail Baryshnikov? No. Classic Golden Age Hollywood actor. Uh, Gene Kelly. Nope.

Fred Astaire. Yes. Oh, so American. No. Fred Astaire, Leslie Caron, someone named Bertie from a famous movie. Uh, Ann Margaret. If you don't know it from Fred Astaire and Leslie Corone, you're not going to get it. I thought maybe you would have a connection to this movie.

The movie's called Daddy Long Legs. Oh, sure. Nope. I have not seen it. Okay. Last one. Dr. Alan Grant, Duke Lato, Atreides, and Moses. Dr. Alan Grant is Sam Neal.

Yes. May he rest. Yes. Jurassic Park. Yes. Moses and who? Duke Ledo Atreides Sure

Um Oscar Isaac Not Oscar Isaac Who Um Which one is this Josh Brolin? No

Who's Lato Atrides Oh Phone a friend to my husband Um Moses. Who would have played Moses? Charlton Heston. Yes.

Okay. Wow. Charlton Heston was with Sam Neal in... Oh, boy. In the mouth of madness. There you go. In the mouth of madness. Very good.

Yes. Duke Lato-A-Trades in the David Lynch version of Dune is Yergen Procknow, who is... Sure. I never would have gotten that. And in the mouth of madness. All right. good, another fun trip through Elter Egos. Was that

torturous for you? It was hard, but it was fun. Okay. Anything else we want to mention about playing by heart? I brought up Crash. This is, by the way, Patricia Clarkson in the same year as she did high art, which to me was a oh, in the same film, we get shots

of Jay Leno and Bill Maher on TV. Jay Leno doing Viagra. jokes on TV. Let's see. Oh, when the bookshelf falls on Jillian Anderson and she makes the joke that she landed on a stack of George magazine.

So there's lots of padding. Plenty of padding. A lot of George magazine happening in my culture this year. Jillian had just won her Emmy for the X-Files. Oh, I wanted to look up if Mayan was a real dance club.

back in the day. Love a movie from the late 90s with a raveer culture, at least nodded to. I feel like Ryan Philippi is sort of a raver adjacent. We get some interesting soundtrack cuts, including Moby's porcelain playing. I know. I was like, this is the most

pre-play Moby movie. Yes. There's also a Bonnie Raid needle drop. in the movie. Yep. A song that I thought was live, but it turned out to be just Ed Kowalchuk from Live, and there was somebody else who was on the track with him, Nana Cherry, I believe.

Ellen Burstyn smuggling a rocking chair into the hospital. Angelina wouldn't be caught dead in the Madonna parking level of the Sunset Five. This would have been right after Ray of Light came out, so they should have known better. This movie shouldn't have known better. Um, one of my favorite scenes in this movie is she's talking about how she's preparing for an acting class, she's delivering a suddenly next summer monologue,

explains a plot of suddenly next summer to Ryan Philippi, and her teacher gets up there and says, if one more person is going to do the native boys, ate my cousin Sebastian monologue, I'm going to puke. Which to me is like, I get the joke Ha ha ha it's a joke

But like Is that a like Off to used monologue in auditions? Like I feel like Maybe in the late 90s it was If you're gonna do a Tennessee Williams I would imagine that like Blanche Dubois is the one that

Yeah but she's not gonna be Cast as Blanche Dubois So she's not gonna be playing Blanche Dubois in an acting class Fair fair There was one point where I paused it To go use the bathroom And there was 40 minutes left

And I literally was like What the fuck? Fuck, there's 40 minutes left in this movie? I think it's kind of a kindness that this movie is only an hour and 45 minutes. It helps it go down easy. Gillian Anderson's character at one point mentions that having somebody watch her brush her teeth on the intimacy scale is up there with her. Somebody seeing her on a Sazirac swing? I don't know what that is.

And I tried to look it up. And they just gave me an image page full of like Sazirac beverages. Beverages. Yes, whiskey. So, like, I imagine it's a sex swing, but, like, I don't know. I've never heard of specifically the term Sazarex swing. Gary's, get back out of us if you know what a Sazer X-Rang swing. Don't, if it is a sex swing.

Well, or just be like, you know, head nod toward it. You know what? No, don't be ashamed. Listen, loud and proud if you're into Sazer X-Rex Wings. Sure, sure, sure, sure. It becomes Sibling cinema by the end of the movie, which you would think I would be really two. And I do... Though they make no sense as siblings.

They don't. But the scene where Gillian Anderson and Angelina Jolie are sort of like talking conspiratorially, I'm like, oh, I'd like to see them in a movie as siblings. That seems fun. Madeline Stowe, as with everything in this movie, could really take relief. But those two, yes. Also,

there are several ways in which this movie kind of like ends, right, when things are getting interesting. I think one of those things is Angelina Jolie and Ryan Philippi's relationship. Whereas, like, I would like to see how they, like, negotiate this, you know, relationship between the two of them, and maybe that's an interesting movie. Also, now, like, getting to see Julian Anderson and Angelina Jolie be sisters. I would like to see more of that. Was that whole deeply demented movie worth it for that Ellen Burst in Jenna Rowland's embrace?

I don't know. I don't know. But I definitely wrote it down as a possibility. Yeah. Joe, what are the three best performances in this movie? Angelina Jolie, for sure. I do think Ellen Burstyn. I think you're right about that. And I'm not going to say April Grace. I can't do it. You know spiritually I want to say April Grace.

I know. I know. I would say Jenna Rollins. I do think she gets super funny. No, Jenna Rollins is good. Jenna Rollins is definitely good. I don't necessarily think anyone's bad in this movie besides Dennis Quaid. I was going to say I don't buy Dennis Quaid in this movie.

It's just too ridiculous. It's too ridiculous. To the point where when Alec Mapa, you know, calls him out, it's like, thank God someone is calling his bluff on this. I do feel like if that, if you cast somebody else for the John Stewart character, you could improve upon that character. Yeah. And it really isn't Madeline Stowe's fault that her character is written so incredibly poorly. But like, I also feel like Jay Moore is a character as an actual. who I've never really cottoned to.

So, like, that's also another role that I think you could have improved with some... Oh, no, it's Jillian Anderson. Is Jillian Anderson is my third best performance? I think she's actually really good. I think that character is so frustrating. I'm a little surprised that she took that role because I think she's a great actress and interesting, and she makes it as interesting as she can. But, like, I think the role is beneath her.

I think the role... I think she and Madeline Stowe both have really poorly written roles. I think Gillian does a better job of making that into somebody I'm at least interested in watching. But I agree with you that Jenna Rollins is also good. So, yeah, yeah, there we have it. There we have it. Okay, so why don't you tell our listeners all about the IMDB game, and I will... 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 mentioned that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. If that's not enough, it just becomes a free-for-all of hints. That's the IMDB game. We love our free-for-all of hints.

So would you like to go first, give first or guess first? I was already tortured, so I think you have to be guessing first. All right. it to me. So I went into Willard Carroll's filmography and on top of that we have the Brave Little Toaster franchise as his most recognizable properties. From that

voice cast I went to the first Bill person who is voiced as radio John Lovitz. Nope. We both picked the same person. Oh, that hasn't happened in years. You've really did want me to sweat today because it's really hard. You would have done well with it though because it's movies that are

attuned to you, I think. But anyway, I never in a million years would have guessed loaded weapon one. Well, let's save it in case we want to give it to a guest at some point, but yes. All right, we will take a second to find alternatives because our brains are the same type of demented.

All right. Okay. Ready. Okay. So for you, I have selected. Angeline Jolie, as we mentioned, won the breakthrough female prize with the National Board of Review in the year that

their best film was Gods and Monsters. From the cast of Gods and Monsters, I have selected Brendan Fraser. Brendan Fraser, okay, you dick. After I thoroughly slandered him

on our crossover episode. As if I didn't also slander him. Well, we don't do like that crossover episode we did with Prestige Junkie, the second part of which you can listen to on our Patreon feed. Okay, Brendan Fraser. So I'm going to say the whale is probably on there. Incorrect.

Good. Small justices in this world. Yeah. The mummy. The mummy is correct. The mummy, too? I'm going to need a full government name. The mummy returns.

The mummy returns is correct. Okay. Um, I, I kind of don't think it's going to be Encino Man. Georgia the Jungle. Georgia the Jungle is correct. Okay. I'm just going to say Encino Man. Encino Man is incorrect.

Okay. What are we got? Your year is 2004. Okay, 2004. His most recent film on his known for. Oh, that's interesting. Is it Journey to the Center of the Earth? It is not.

Is it... Journey to the Center of the Earth was after this. Wait, is Crash listed as 2004? It's Crash. I would have thought you forgot he's in Crash. Son of a beach. He's Sandra Bullock's husband in Crash? He is. He's like the District Attorney of Los Angeles.

Cursed-ass movie. Yes. All right. Who do you have for me? Well, so this movie was once called Dancing About Architecture. What other movies are there about architecture? Well, The Brutalist.

Megalopolis is what I landed on. Oh, fabulous. Which is, I guess, maybe more about city planning, but he's an architect in that, right? Like, sort of. Yeah. Anyway, the woman who played Wow Platinum in Megalopolis herself, Aubrey-Laza.

Any television. There is none. Okay. Uh, Ingrid Goes West. Yes. Uh, is that movie called the To Do List? It is, but that's not on her list. Um, I think that's...

Life After Beth. Hold on. Um, Life After Beth, Incorrect. Oh, damn. I thought that movie was called the To Do List, but anyway, whatever it's called, it's not on here. Okay. So, you get years. Your years are... 2012, 2016, and 2022.

Oh, okay, so very recent movie. What movies was she in recently? 2016,

2012, and 2022, you said. Yes. Okay. 2022. Are these all

comedies? No. One of them is not. Okay. Oh, is, um,

is 2022, was it called Black Bear? No. the one with her and Christopher Abbott Um Hold on I'm not sure what movie you're talking about

Yeah I can't look up Christopher Abbott to get to that movie Because there's probably other Aubrey Plaza movies in there Yeah let me look up Christopher Abbott and see what you're talking about Um Okay Is one of them a horror movie? No.

Okay, so what's the drama? I'm just forgetting. Black Bear 2020, yes. It is, him in Aubrey Plaza. I think I'm gonna need some hints. Let me look up the to-do list. Um, to-do list starred. Yeah, it was back in 2013.

Wow, okay. Um, God, that poster looks demented. Anyway, okay, some hints for you. Okay, so it is a, uh, two comedies and a drama. One of the comedies, the 2016 movie, is a comedy that there are three movies in the general sort of 20-teens to early 2020s,

like very early 2020s range, that all have very similar verbiage. They have one word in common, and there is an actor. who was in two of three of those, but that's not a very good clue at all. Okay. It's a generations-spanning comedy between... Oh, is my old ass 2020?

It's not, and it should be. Okay, wow. Never mind. I was like, oh, I just forgot this. No, generation-spaning between a younger man and an older man, one of the older one is a two-time Oscar winner It's kind of depressing that this movie exists Um

Two-time Oscar winner The adjative, the mad lips of it is like adjective family relation Oh, like crazy uncle Or Yeah, go along those lines Dirty Grandpa There you go, dirty grandpa Oh, she's a dirty grandpa

Apparently, she is in Dirty Grandpa. Yes. Her and Zoe Deutsch, apparently. Is that 2022? That's 2016. Oh, wow. 2020 is the drama. 2022, I believe she got an independent spirit award nomination for it.

Damn. This was like one of the best like per, like points per dollar values in the movie Fantasy League that year. Right. Because it was like a dollar movie and got something. You maybe didn't see this movie or if you did, I don't, I think you maybe didn't think it was. that good, but it got very good reviews. But it's not my old ass. No. It's also a Sundance

movie, though, I believe. Damn, why can't I remember whatever this is? Character name and title. Is she the titular character? She sure is. Charlotte Gray. It's very like... Um...

Like, oh, this is how things are nowadays. Very, um... ordinary person goes to extraordinary lengths because of dire economic need. Oh, Emily the Criminal. There you go. I did not like Emily the Criminal.

Yeah, I like that. She's good. All right. Last one. Unconventional romantic comedy. I didn't particularly love this, but it got an independent spirit award for, I want to say, first screenplay. Is it like they came together?

It's not they came together. But I bet you it shares an actor, or maybe two. No, don't quote me. Maybe not. There is, her co-star in this is sort of synonymous with a microgenre, but this movie is a little bit more mainstream. microgenre like

mumblecore is it like Joe Swanberg It's not Joe Swanberg but you're in the right ballpark Deplace Is this like drinking buddies Not drinking buddies, no It's more high concept than that

Oh safety not guaranteed Safety not guaranteed Yeah never think about that movie I don't like it I don't think it's very good I think it writes itself I use this metaphor like three times today, writes itself a check that it's ass.

Can't cash, but it is true. Okay, there we go. That is Aubrey Plaza. Aubrey Plaza. Justice for her known for. That's not a, that's not a, that's not a known for her. Well, I think Ingrid goes west in Emily the criminal, yes. But I agree with you that like life after Beth, probably, my old ass, definitely.

People don't like life after Beth, but it's just weird because she's the titular character. Scott Milgram is a movie that, like, people know her for. I get it's a limited series. but she is great on White Lotus. Well, and also, like, Parks and Recreation is, it is crazy. Parks and Rec shows up for, like, no one, though. Well, you know, it's the TV thing. It's the TV thing. She's also really good in The Little Hours, that Jeff Bainer movie Little Hours,

where she and Alison Brie are nuns. All right, that's it. That's our episode. Folks, we went long on Playing by Heart, a movie that really encourages a lot of puzzled conversations. So that is our episode. If you want more at ThisHad Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this hadoscorbuzz.tum or our Instagram at This Had Oscar Buzz. Chris, where can the listeners find more of you? Letterbox and Blue Sky at Chris V File. That's F.E.I.L. Yes, I can be found at Letterbox and Blue Sky as well, at Joe Reed. Reed spelled R.E.I.D.

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