This Had Oscar Buzz - CATEGORY IS… – Stunts

Episode Date: May 25, 2026

CATEGORY IS… comes to a close this week and we’re ending this May Miniseries by looking to the future. Next year’s 100th Academy Awards will bring the Academy’s first award to Stunts! This episode, we go into the decades-long effort to make the category happen, how we want to see the category presented on the … Continue reading "CATEGORY IS… – Stunts"

I'm from the right house. No, the right house. We want to talk to hell in heck and friends. I'm from Canada water. Dick Poop. Bring it to the runway. Category is stars, statements, and legends. In the name of all those stuntmen,

that they'll fight. And women. I know Kung Fu. Who kept defying busted bones. Blashtian heads. Shoot him in the hedge. To make pictures more real. I'm just a stunt guy.

And reality more picturesqueous. I smell a stunt. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that Shapoopoos down the river. Every week on this head Oscar Buzz we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died and we're here to perform the autopsy typically. Except here we are wrapping up our May miniseries talking about Oscar category. to come in reality and those we would hope to. And of course, we have to close it out by looking into the future.

Looking at the future. For the upcoming stunts category coming on the 100th ceremony for the Oscars. I am your host, Chris Fyle. I'm here, as always, with the Ethan Hunt to my Burj Khalifa, Joe Reed. Does that mean I'm stuck to you forever? Is that where we're going? I magnetized to you Until

Whatever Can't get rid of me Yeah As soon as like Katie Can break the Like internet connection

Whatever they Whatever they did To make him stick To that building Because there's the part Where it's like I think it's the battery's fading Or like his

The Wi-Fi to the glove stops working And only one glove is working They were solar powered And a cloud passed in front of the sun and he was fucked, yeah. It's only appropriate to start this episode with jokes slash conversation about the Mission Impossible series because I do think Tom Cruise and the Mission Impossible series specifically had a lot to do with this category finally being real, finally happening.

Yes, I think that's right. Because they're just like these very heavily publicized and plot-centric. Stunts. It's a series where... Plot-centric Brackets question mark? Yeah, as such as it is. No, it's, you know, one of the biggest movie stars in history essentially deciding over the course of a film series

that what he really wants to do is be a stuntman. What he really wants to do is die on screen. Right, exactly. In front of, you know, IMAX cameras and whatnot. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, can I say one of the things that got me most excited. I think I was already on board with the idea of this category. I think it's the one that's been the noisiest over the past few years,

which is kind of why I'm surprised that casting happened before stunts. The fact that it's happening on the 100th ceremony for the first time. Yes. Definitely gets me even more excited because you have that 100 looming and you want it to be special and you want it to be a spectacle. Yeah. And I think the promise of having stunts presented for the very first time on that 100th ceremony creates a lot of opportunity. Yes. Joe, how do you want to see stunts presented on this 100th Oscars?

Oh, I mean, the cliche answer. is someone repelling from like the catwalk of whatever. Are they, will they be in this new bullshity theater by the time the 100th comes around? When is the... I don't think so. It might be in the Dolby. Tom Cruise base jumps from the top of the Staples Center and like glides into the whatever, what is it called now?

What's the corporate, the Microsoft Theater? Oh, boy. Is that what it's called now? No, it's not the Dolby anymore? No, they're moving, remember? They're moving from the Dolby to what either is or was called the Microsoft Theater. It's the thing that's right next to the Staples Center. So it's in downtown Los Angeles, which from everything that I've heard about downtown Los Angeles is the place to be.

So, yeah, Tom Cruise jumps off of the roof of the Staples Center. Goes on like those flying squirrel wings. into an open window at the Microsoft Theater, lands on the stage, and hands the award to, so I'm looking at the films of 2027. And I'm trying to think of, like, what's the likeliest winner? And you have Andy Circus's new Lord of the Rings movie. You have Avengers Secret Wars. You have, well, the Greta Gerwig movie, the Narnia movie, moved into 2027. I don't know how stunt heavy that's going to be.

Obviously, they should be pushing back, stop that train into 2027. Obviously, of course. Because it's just filled with stunt queens. Passion of the Christ part two, Mel Gibson's follow-up to Passion of the Christ is going to be that year. Insert fart noise here. Jesus also base jumping off of the cross, gliding all over Galilee. or whatever. What else is there going to be?

The Zelda movie is animated, right? I literally was just looking at the Zelda movie. I don't think so. You'll have a new Batman movie. You'll have the reboot of the Mummy franchise. You'll have both of those things. You'll have the Star Wars movie, the Sean Levy Star Wars movie.

You will have... Um, gosh. Oh, the new Superman movie. Sure. Is coming in July. Uh, the Quiet Place, the threequel. I guess we're not counting day one as... It's a prequel.

Well, I guess. Um, Minecraft, another conjuring movie. I'm sure Tom Cruise can get one in there before. Just work on it, Tom. Obviously, the Nancy Myers movie with Penelope Cruz is going to be top of the list for me. You don't know.

Nancy Myers could direct like a car chase. Penelope Cruz just take a minute. She's like, I was in Ferrari. I saw what they were all doing. I know how to do this. She drove so many cars in Ferrari. There's also an untitled Daniels movie set for November. So that's, those are two guys who.

would have won the stunt category in their year. So. It's definitely going to be like stunt coordination of farts or something in that movie. You really are anti-Daniels slash everything. I'm kind of anti their brand of fart humor. They're not, point to me a fart. The entirety of a Swiss Army man. Well, there's farts and everything everywhere.

Are there? You can't just say Jamie Lee Curtis and then say, like, you can't just say, point to Jamie Lee Curtis and say there are farthest thing. There's definitely vaguely homophobic jokes in that movie. Anyway. Lord, okay. You can't. What else do we want in the presentation? So, like, if you have five actors presenting each of the five nominees for casting, I know that this would not.

Maybe they just end up doing something like that where it's from each of the nominees. I think it would be really cool to have five action stars present. Schwarzenegger. I mean, Cruz isn't going to present as one of five. But, like, you could do Schwarzenegger, Vin Diesel. Kianu, yep. I mean, I don't think Harrison Ford's going to present as one of five. either.

But you could do any number of Chris Hemsworth. Chris Hemsworth, who not only was in the Avengers movies, but is also in Furiosa and I think he'd be a good one. That's what I want in the presentation. I want a Mad Max Franken car, chitty, chitty bang, bang, through the whole theater. Matt Damon for the Bourne movies,

representing the Borg movies. Jumping through a window. Yeah. Any of the bonds, whether it be Pierce Brosnan or Daniel Craig. Maybe you have it presented by five bonds. You know what they're probably going to do. It's going to be presented by whoever new bond is. Well, yes. What they should do is they should have, like, Jackie Chan present it. You know what I mean? Or like Jet Li or somebody like that. Like, somebody who really represents... Actually, I don't like this. I don't like this. I don't like this. Jackie Chan will probably be. present that category because of the Trump-mandated rush hour sequel.

Oh. Oscar winner for stunts, the Trump-mandated rush hour sequel. Brett Ratner. We should make this the official title, the Trump-mandated rush hour sequel. Oh, yeah. No, that's what we're all called. In hopes of getting people to not see it. Yeah.

But no, I think something like that personal politics aside for Jackie. Jackie Chan would probably... We love Jackie Chan. We want Jackie Chan to make whatever Jackie Chan wants to make, not things that a dictator has said needs to happen. I feel like there was something in the news about Jackie Chan. Hold on. Well, here's an interesting...

In April 2016, Chan was named in the Panama Papers. Not accused of engaging in illegal activity. He was listed as having up to six different offshore accounts, likely for the purposes of serving his tax shelters. I think he's criticized protesters in China quite a bit. I don't know. I am not well-versed enough in Chinese politics. Not well-versed enough in Chinese politics to really dig into this.

I would be against any movie that Trump said needs to exist. If he was like, there must be a Seale Magnolia's sequel, you must green light Nancy Myers' next film. I would be against it. It's that simple. Wow. That is a... I mean, listen, we have... You gotta have principles and...

There it is. This is not a challenge... Has Trump seen a Nancy Myers movie? This is not a challenge to Donald Trump to support the next Nancy Myers movie. Like, do not make me have to make those choices. But anyway, yeah, we've got a new stunt category coming in a year after this one. And a long time coming. I like, it is kind of funny that like, well, we've had 100 years to think on it.

And we have finally decided that you can have your own category. Okay. But the first earnest attempts didn't start until 1991. 1991, I believe, was the first time that they like filed, however one does that, for a stunt category to happen. And it's been denied in the years since. And it kind of makes sense because I think especially in the, the hyper-conservative 80s, you have this influx of, like, macho action movies and, like,

action movies really take off as a genre, which, of course, happens because of, like, the death of the Western. And I think in the interim, you also have disaster movies happening. Yeah. Well, the 1980s were definitely the decade of the action star as, like, a franchise unto themselves, where it's Schwarzenegger, who has, like, and they can have all. also franchises of their own. But, like, Schwarzenegger has The Terminator movies plus other things.

Stallone has Rocky and Rambo and other things. But, like, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Dam, Stephen Seagal, Bruce Willis, you know, who am I forgetting? I'm sure I'm forgetting somebody. But, like, you know, those were kind of your major ones. And they, you know, Killed it at the box office. If you were, let's say, a gay guy growing up in elementary school through the 1980s, all of your friends. All of your friends loved all over those movies.

Let's just. And then there was I the one who loved the action movie queering the narrative Last Action Hero. Right. You're the one person being like, no, this movie rules. And all your friends are like, think I saw T2 in full until like college. Now T2 is the movie that I loved and secretly I was like, do I love this for like other reasons? Because it's about a lady. The protagonist is a lady.

Well, the protagonist is a child. No. Sarah Conner's the hero of that movie. Like. Yes, but the protagonist is a child. Sure. Yes. But if you're also 12 years old.

But that's why young boys love that movie. Well. Because it's about kids. But also, he was like, cute little floppy-haired guy. I was 12, you know, 11 and 12 years old. I was like, okay. Cute little John Connor. So, but yes.

So I'm not going to pretend that this episode is going to be the same level of enthusiasm that I have had for choreography and voice performances and casting, all of which really fall into my wheelhouse. Well, I think that, you know, there is probably, I think there's already an assumption about this category. I think there's maybe a right assumption that it's going to skew towards like Mission Impossible because, you know, I think at least in our consciousness, the idea is this category exists because the Mission Impossible movies exist. Sure. Or that it finally pushed it over the finish line to making this category happen after there's been like major stunt corps. coordinators, like, conducting the effort to make this happen.

But I don't necessarily just think that those are the movies that are going to be recognized. But it's also not necessarily going to just fall in line with Best Picture either because, like, hey, direct to you, Green Book is not winning a stunts Oscar. No. Movies like that. But unlike when we, in our choreography episode last week, we said that, like, you really didn't have a, a ton of, you wouldn't have, you know, an occasion to do a ton of overlap from Best Picture to a Best Choreography category. I do think there is more occasion to have an overlap. You look at this year's Best Picture category, and it's not everything, but like one battle after another,

F1, Sinners are all movies that, like, very likely would have ended up in a, you know, in a stunts category. And, like, you would even have outside options for things like Frankenstein and maybe even like Bagonia. You know what I mean? And final reckoning, of course, would be in there. Sure. But, like, and you can even just go through the last, you know, several years and, like, the substance. You know what I mean?

Even I think there is a, there's a decent chance that, well, here's where I'm going to stop myself mid-send, and reconsider, a thing I am prone to do. If you have it the way all the other categories are handled, where it is the branches themselves do the nominating, and then everybody else does the voting, what you could end up having is a category with maybe one or two best picture nominees, three, you know, more sort of mainstreamy action movies. And then once the greater the full academy votes, it's like, well, whatever's in the best picture category is going to win that category.

And I wonder, we'll see if that bears out when this starts to happen. I do kind of hope over the course of this discussion and conversation, we can kind of, you know, spread out what I think the conscious, what like, why the widespread assumption of this category will be, which is the things that we're talking about. Yeah. You know, the type of movies that we maybe not gravitate towards. But I do think that there's a lot of other, there's area for opportunity, just like we were kind of talking about with voice acting, how there could be documentary nominations

and narrator, narrators. Because actually, what I think would be the most recognized movie, the movie that would be like the front runner every year for this category, what it's going to. going to be in it's war movies. Yeah. Because, you know, you talk about this category taking so long to happen. And I think where some of that conversation kind of leads is you don't really see in comparison to some of the other conversations we've done in this mini series.

Yeah. It's harder to track the line back to the beginnings of the academy and like the full span of the past century of movies that we've had. I went through the best picture winners to try and pick out which best picture winners would have won stunts, and we'll talk about that soon. And I basically went as far back as Ben Her. And then I was like, I don't really need to go back beyond that because I do feel like, practically, this category wouldn't have, the earliest of this category could have possibly existed would have been Ben Her.

You know what I mean? Like, um, I, I mean, I thought of earlier examples too, but like all of the things that came to my mind, were like fire, you know, wrangling fire on set. I thought of Rebecca, I obviously thought of Gone with the Wind. Because I think part of in talking about the craft of stunts and stunts coordination, you do have to also think about part of it is achieving these feats that look incredible that you don't know how they did it on screen, but the knowledge that as they're producing this as they're filming it,

the priority is keeping people safe or the priority should be, you know, so that's some of it. Like, how do you achieve that safely? There is also a level of exponential leveling up in this field that doesn't exist in, say, voice acting. Like, incredible voice acting in, you know, early Disney movies and, you know, Sleeping Beauty and incredible voice acting in, you know, Lilo and Stitch are essentially on somewhat of a level playing field. They're both essentially playing the same game. Stunts in the 1950s and stunts in the 2020s, you're almost talking completely different language. Like everything, movie technology has leveled everything up so much that, like, anything that was, you know, impressive then is sort of

middling at best now. But then, but, you know, so as you work backwards, it is the kind of thing like, they rendered fire on screen? Like, give them an award. Yeah. Or you just have decades, like literal decades where there are a few exceptions where they're not recognizing Westerns. Right.

You know, and I think Westerns are the type of thing that could still be very much, like, easily make something a frontrunner in movies. Sure. because I guess when I say war movies and westerns, you're talking about movies that could also have some adjacency to best picture. Yes. Well, you also have, and, you know, we have examples in our current category, you know, lineup, where you get a sense of the kinds of action movies that the Oscar voters like. Because in categories like visual effects and sound, it's, there are tend to. we've been able to, you know, recognize not only the fact that, like, the Oscar voters love war movies. The Oscar voters are very impressed with, like, water effects. But also, it's like Oscar voters didn't nominate the Mission Impossible series until, like, two years ago. The Oscar voters are very selective with the kinds of Marvel movies. They nominate the Oscar voters love Star Wars movies and Star Trek movies. love Star Wars movies, like Star Trek movies,

couldn't give Hunger Games movies the time of day. Do you know what I mean? Like, they play their favorites. And I think you would probably find similar to that in a stunt category where you can go through in the years. The Oscars loved movies like The Matrix and the Bourne movies and the Indiana Jones movies. Those movies would always find a way to get nominated.

So it's really easy to extrapolate that those movies would have also been major players in a stunt category. Yeah, and I think because of that, it's pretty easy to, you know, do your retrospective, retroactive work of what the frontrunners would have been in a lot of those years, too. Yeah, like, I think it's pretty obvious Raiders of the Lost Ark would have a stunt Oscar of that category existed then. And I mean, I mentioned Jackie Chan earlier. It's nice to think of the idea that, oh, my God, if we had a stunts category, Bruce Lee would have been an Oscar winner by now. And it's like, or the Oscars would have been all the more infuriating for never having nominated a Bruce Lee movie or a Jackie Chan movie or a John Wu movie or a, you know, any number.

The Oscars, the Oscars blind spot for Asian cinema isn't going to solve itself just because there's a stunt category. So it's a question of what that branch, what the like makeup of that branch. is going to be and what the taste will be. Yeah. Because I do think that there is the potential to have its own sense of taste more than we maybe anticipate with something like casting. I thought casting went well, but it's not like, you know, they're making some leap for an independent movie that receives a nomination nowhere else.

Whereas stunts could, you know, like stunts could have been nominating a Jet Lee movie that gets no other nomination. Well, and now, the Academy that exists now, that is as international as it's ever been, and the way that world cinema is sort of the borders between that have, you know, historically separated different countries, cinemas are kind of, they're not going away entirely. But like, you are seeing movies from China, you know, have a presence at the American box office. And so does that start showing up in a category like stunts? Because, you know, stunt professionals are maybe, you know, found in, you know, different corners of the globe than just necessarily America. Right. I don't know. I don't know.

And I don't think you see that comparison, for example, with SAG's stunt ensemble category because that. because that is specifically voted on by SAG membership. Yeah. So it's a different awards body. Yes. Though there's not really an example of that in the SAG lineup. And the SAG nominees are all pretty franchise heavy. Yeah.

And they have only had four non-franchise movies win the category ever. Those are lone survivor, unbroken, Haxaw Ridge, and the Fall Guy. So three war movies, and a movie. movie literally about stunt people. Right. Well, and also, I mean, you look at the era in which that category has existed at the SAG Awards. Like, we have been in an era dominated by franchise movies, you know, forever. And, you know, I think the stunt category will be reactive to, you know, general trends in the overall movie landscape as, you know, as much as anything. Well, yeah, because also the practice of the academy is the branch picks the not.

nominees, but the entire Academy body picks the winner, which is why I do kind of have pause over, let's say it existed last year and last year was the first year, does potentially feel like it wouldn't have gone to a Mission Impossible nominee, especially because it was throughout the years the kind of most front and center champion of this is stunt coordinator Jack Gill, who has been like ready to do interviews to talk about this for many years with whatever outlet and what movie was he a stunt coordinator on last year? One battle after. One battle after another, exactly. Yes.

No, I think that's totally true. I think if you have a best picture frontrunner that has heavy stunt work, I think you are going to be heavily advantaged at the Oscars. That kind of makes sense to me. Critics' choice just introduced this category last year. Final Reckoning did win. As soon as they heard that the Oscars were adding a stunt category, and they're like, on it, we're going to do it, let's do it. I thought of it.

I was thinking of it the whole time. Yeah. Critics' choice. Other nominees were ballerina F1, one battle after another, sinners and warfare. Kind of what we're all talking about. So I went and looked at, to because Vulture had for the last several years, although I don't think we did it last year, did a whole feature on stunt awards. Like what we, you know, we presented our own stunt awards and like polled industry professionals and sort of like did it up real nice. Former guests, Roxanna Hadati and Bilga Abiri, big, you know, big parts of that.

And one thing reading through that really, you know, made really clear to me is that the John Wick movies are incredibly revered within the stunt community. Like even among, even more so than the Mission Impossible movies, like these, like, and so that would be interesting to me. if the John Wick movies, which have never been able to get Oscar attention, even though they have been largely very successful, is that is the stunt category where that franchise or other franchises that are like disproportionately loved by the stunt community more so than, you know, the general awards voting public. I would like it if those movies could peek into that category.

and mix it up with, you know, your best picture crossover movies and stuff like that. Because that, it's fun to me, the idea of that, you know, John, you know, ballerina from the world of John Wick and one battle after another would be competing against each other. Mm-hmm. I do think we would be naive to say that it probably all of these, you know, not, not, you know, creative. not, you know, actors, directors, designers of various academy branches, not movie fans.

Right. But, like, producers at the network of ABC executives have called for the popular film Oscar. Go see our excursion episode from this main miniseries over on the Patreon. Yeah. I do think it would be naive to also say that that, to not say that it. That helped push the stunt category to a reality just because of the type of assumed movies that would be nominated. It's a way to- Yes. It's a way to get nominations on the books for movies that people have seen.

I think that's right. Here's the- I'm using scarecloths, by the way, when I say movies that people have seen, just so you know. Sure, sure. Well, I mean, how much money did Ballerita make? I don't really... That movie kind of doesn't exist. Yeah.

I do have to pose the, like, hypothetical topic for conversation. In relation to stunts, do you think that there could be a bias towards more practical movies like the John Wicks versus franchises that are very CG heavy? I'm not saying this just to dunk on the MCU or DCU. No, but it's worth considering. I think if you are having stunt professionals doing the nominating, I would be surprised if that didn't present itself as a consideration. And I would hope it would. And I don't want to sound like the dumb dumb who's like,

well, if something is very CGI heavy, that means that the stunt work isn't as impressive or there isn't a lot of work that goes into those stunts. I just feel like when you have a ballot and you're looking at pixel soup versus two bodies that are like clearly just two bodies, not CGI enhanced, you know, in an actual environment. Maybe it makes it easier to see what the accomplishment is. Oh, sorry. True. Sorry. Maybe it makes it easier to see what the accomplishment is when it's practical effect.

And it's not, you know, lost in a soup of CGL. When you're on a set versus on a, like a green screen sound stage where it's all padded and, you know, when you're having to work with elements. Although you would think that would also be true of, say, the cinematographers. And the cinematography award has not really shown to be an award that has shied away from, you know, movies that. have had significant, you know, special, you know, CGI effects within the discipline of, of cinematography.

Do you know what I mean? Which, again, becomes like an apples and oranges thing, too. Because, like, what they do in the Avatar movies is that not kind of cinematography. It's just maybe a different method, you know? But looking at through. Yeah, it's not something I want to be stupid about, but I do also think that there would play out in this way where you might. might not see Wonder Woman or Avengers Endgame getting stunt nominations, but you would see things

like the John Wicks getting stunt nominations. Yeah. Well, the other thing is, you know, looking through those vulture stunt awards and whatever is there are, of course, you know, the movies that we all know about, you know, Furiosa and the Fall Guy and like, you know, Rebel Ridge and stuff like that, movies that are, you know, maybe we're not Oscar nominees, but are, you know, we're mainstream box office stuff. But there are a lot of movies that exist within the action movie realm that are paid attention to by a smaller community of people and that probably overindex on stunt, you know, the stunt community.

I think even something like Jason Statham's The Beekeeper, which, for us was like, oh, yeah, it was a movie in January. Some people I know saw it and liked it. And then here it's like, oh, no, like everybody who voted on these stunt awards was like all about the beekeeper. Or all about movies like life after fighting and monkey man and the shadow strays. And like, I'm just reading off titles because I don't know what these movies are because these are movies that exist to be stunt, you know, practical stunt and like action scene showcases and flight scene showcases. I never saw a monkey man, though I did hear a lot of people talk about the action in the movie and

we're really impressed by that. Yeah. And so that to me feels like, I'm trying to think of like what that would be analogous to. I guess maybe you look at the animated category, right? And there are, although the animated category is on a much smaller scale. And so you do tend to get maybe a nomination or two every year. that is like, you know, something, you know, sort of French or something that is maybe a little bit more mainstream. But you don't ever really get, like, how many, you know, Asian animated movies exist and, like, have started to make money around here that are just sort of like not really in contention at the Oscars.

The Crunchy Roll movies. Some of them make, like, a hundred million domestic. Right. And even that's not a perfect analogy because it's not just like animation dorks who go to see those movies. You're dealing with a smaller pool of movies. But it does feel like there is just a complete strata of movies

that are like, Lord knows what their release, you know, pattern is. Do they go directly to, you know, to streaming? Do they go directly to VOD? Do they play in small theater runs, whatever? But there is a full strata of movies that are seemingly like by and for like stunt folk or people who...

I think the animation category that's maybe the thing in animation that's the better comparison is something that's like a nominee that it's like well I guess we're doing this and it's not really respected.

Those smaller ones you can understand because they have pockets of support you know within the animation community and people like see those movies and they have a certain respectability. But then everyone, once in a while, they'll nominate Jimmy Neutron. You know, movies that, like, it's not like you don't understand why it's nominated,

but it doesn't also feel respected. Yeah. You know. Yeah. I think the fact that there are many, many, that, like, stunts exist in most movies. You know what I mean? Like, and that's not really, you can't really say the same about animated. So I just feel like you won't ever have a pool of possible nominees.

that will lead to a Jimmy Neutron level nomination for stunts. I just don't think. I think there's the potential for people, for there to be nominees for movies that we don't like. But I think it's going to, I can't imagine a scenario where a stunt nomination happens and we don't understand why. Right. I think what will happen more often is stuff that like surprisingly crosses over like

RRR will be like a slam dunk winner. Although RRR was the same year as everything everywhere all at once. And I do feel very strongly that that would have won a stunt category. But that's a whole other conversation to have. But that would have been absolutely a nominee. Oh, absolutely, yes. I think in considering movies that are previous episodes, that would not have been previous episodes,

something I thought of semi-on-the-fly is to Tom. considering the year that that movie occurred and how there might have not been as strong of a bench. One thing that I found myself thinking about when considering this was the Fast and the Furious franchise, particularly when that franchise was at its hottest,

like the fifth, sixth, seventh movies when they had become, they had this resurgence of popularity, but also of respectability. and that's a franchise that the Oscars have never nominated, not in sound, not in visual effects. But like, while they have visual effects, they're not really VFX movies.

They are, you know, they're racing movies. And racing is a lot more, you know, the prevalence of practical effects in racing is just like much, much more. And so I wonder if the Oscars sort of nose-snubbing of that franchise would have extended to the stunt categories because like there's just these just aren't movies that we respect or whether having a stunt branch that clearly, you know, does respect those movies, at least from what I understand, would have made a difference there. Yeah.

I don't know. Worth considering. I do think, you know, if we're talking about respectability, at this point. I do think that there still would be some type of snob factor. Could be. Not that, like, the fans of these type of movies would care at all, but, like, I don't think you see Liam Neeson, Randow, like, non-stop.

Direct-V-O-D stuff. Yeah. No. Getting nominated. Right. I don't think you see even probably taken movies getting nominated. Sure. Or, like, you know, Rando-Nichaelus Cage stuff that gets, like, panned and stuff like that.

No. Again, I think. there are enough movies that pass the snob test that also have significant stunt work that you would never see them dipping into stuff. Unless it really was like

the, unless the reputation for the stunts so over-indexed the reputation for the rest of the movie, you know what I mean? That it would, you know, that the stunt committee would be like, no, like,

we disagree. This is great. There's great. in this. And I just don't know. I think if you have a movie that is that respected by the stunt community, you will, that will translate into some degree of critical respect, whether it's, you know, what do you think, here's an interesting case to, and for the, we're kind of popping all around, but I feel like because we know that this is coming, it has us like spiraling on hypotheticals, which is fun. It's just, this is not my, this is not my milieu. So I am, I, I, I am flailing a little bit. What would you think of the jackass franchise in this regard?

I mean, the makeup branch nominated Bad Grandpa, but they nominated Bad Grandpa for, like, one of their, like, like... Bugaboo's favorites, which is, like, old-age makeup, even when it's bad. Yeah. I would be very surprised if the Oscars had ever nominated the Jackass Movies for stunts, but... Yeah, I don't really see the Academy recognizing the stunts of... of painting your penis to look like a rat, so a snake bites. But it is like the devil wears Prada in costumes.

It is a movie where the stunts are the content. You know what I mean? So I think this also goes back to my note about recognizing that their art is sometimes about safety. And I don't think that that is a concern. That's fair. Also, who's the stunt coordinate? Are you just going to nominate? I'm not in Johnny Knoxville for that.

Well, I do think if you have movies where the actors do their own stunts to a significant degree, I think those movies would definitely have an advantage in this category. Again, why I think everywhere all at once would have been a major contender because, like, your campaign is essentially like, look at what Michelle Yeo can do. Like, look at what Tom Cruise has done in the Mission Impossible movies. I think, you know, any time there is, you know, an actor did their own stunts, we hear about it. And so I think there has been a push lately to be like, maybe, you know, let's not give the actor all the credit. Even when they do some of their own stunts, they are likely not doing all of their own stunts. And even if they are, they are being trained and directed and coordinated and there are professionals and whatever. But I still feel like just in terms of like attention, I think if you have a movie where a big star,

is, you know, getting ink for doing their own stunts, I think that would be an advantage for a movie. I think when we think of this concept now, we think of Tom Cruise attaching himself to skyscrapers and old-timey airplanes. Jumping off of mountains. Large-timey airplanes. What other examples can we think of this?

Well, I was doing some of my, I mean, not to get ahead of, you know, some of my picks for later, but like I looked up the River Wild and like Merrill did a lot of her own rafting in that movie because she was and she had a stunt double for like some of the really intense stuff but as much as possible they wanted her on camera for that and so they had a professional you know whitewater rafting you know instructor who trained Merrill for all the stuff that she was going to do and then stood in for Merrill for all the stuff for all the stuff. that they needed a sum to double for. So I think just that kind of stuff would be, you know, the stuff of a good campaign. The Oscar campaign then is just like any other craft category. It becomes a conversation of other different, you know, crafts and artistry. You know, it's...

Also, think of boxing movies. Every boxing movie where... We haven't cracked the seal on this, but, like, I... plan to. Yeah, boxing movies, sports movies in general, I think, would be an interesting niche of the stunt categories. But I think, yeah, all of these, like, all of those creed movies, all of those stories about, like, you know, they taught, you know, Michael B. Jordan to essentially, like, box with a camera right in his face and all this sort of stuff. All that stuff plays into stunts and stunt work and stunt coordination. So those things, I think, would end up being, I think, boxing movies that the Oscar,

The boxing movies are a genre that the Oscars already love, I think you would see even more love for them with a stunt category. Yeah. Which, of course, like you just use Creed as the example, that's like stunts in coordination with cinematography. One of my things that I would like to see for this category is, just go with me here, just roll with it. Oh, whoa. Okay.

I want to see, like, hyperviolent horror movies in this in the lineup. Because, again, I didn't choose this one because I was like, well, they made this movie in France, so I bet it wasn't safe. Probably shot in Romania, so it's like safety protocols, whoop out the door. I thought of high tension, and you think about the type of on-screen violence that's in a movie. like that that has to look real, be done safely, but also is like the artistry and narrative point of those movies. You know, I just used Tatana as an example that could have been nominated. Here's a franchise that's been overlooked in every conceivable way and fits into that

the 28 Days Later franchise. Uh-huh. That has people running naked in the woods. Fast zombies are like, you know what I mean? Like that is, again, it plays into cinematography and whatnot. But like those scenes of, you know, of stunt coordination, anything with like a large number of frenzied people that you're not using significant. Like this is where I wonder about like the Lord of the Rings movies have it both ways where like there's a lot of up close action. So you're going to get.

But like obviously famously Peter Jackson was pioneering new technologies in terms of like C.G. dying large groups of warring peoples, right? But there's still enough, obviously, plenty of practical stunt work going on in that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lord of the Rings also brings up, like, the swords of it all. I think you would have a lot of those sword and sandals movies in Oscar history being recognized. But for a low-budget movie, especially, like, the first 28 days later, where they're still doing things like, you know, rampaging, rage zombies running through, like a tunnel or whatever.

or like attacking, like, the scene where they, like, come crashing through the windows and whatever and all that sort of stuff, like, that to me is, I mean, 2003, honestly, is one of those years where every time, we've done it in multiple categories of this, of this miniseries now, where I'm like, that would have been a banger year. And I look at it again this year. And like 2003, you would have, this is getting a little bit ahead of our. Cold Mountain War movie. Right, cold mountain war movie. No, but 2003, where did we write this down? You would have had, oh, well, this is getting into my own picks, but whatever. Like, Kill Bill Volume 1, The Matrix Reloaded, 28 Days Later,

return to the king, you know what I mean? And that's just like off the top of my head. Yes, Cold Mountain, throw in Cold Mountain, too. No, I'm kidding. 21 grams, no. But. I do. The thing that I, about horror as a genre, too, it's like, and you're talking about movies that have to depict on.

Pirates of the Caribbean, also that year. Pirates of the Caribbean. And X-Men 2. As an O-3 movie, not as horror movie. No, but the O-3 movies, also X-Men 2. I think the idea that I'm trying to just forward, I guess, is that horror movies would have certain degree of difficulty points that I do think could be overlooked and not in like a snobbery way, but it's just a matter of like what would be the criteria that they're recognizing when things like,

you know, war movies stunt driving might call attention to themselves more often than something like you got to have knives and stuff. Well, right. Similarly to the way we talk about the sound categories and like movies that are like bullet movies versus that are water movies versus that are like song or like music movies, right? Right. Are they are, you know, do the Oscar voters end up liking punchy, kicky movies better than shootouts, better than wire work stuff, better than sports stuff?

There's just any number of types of action that could really reveal. you know, if there are tendencies, if there are, you know, particular things that the voters gravitate to, that I find interesting. We don't really have to get into the differences between choreography and fight choreography. I kind of feel like we unpacked it. Though, like I said, I was initially thinking I was going to pick, bring it on here, because things like tumbles and throws. Yeah. I don't know if that would categorize as choreography or as. as a stunt. Well, I was going to bring it up as we, as if you listened to the last week's episode,

I brought it up in choreography and I put the brakes on it so we could talk about it in stunts. I think it is an interesting like, um, riding the line of both, right? Mm-hmm. So that might just be an example that if you nominated it in both categories, you would be correct. Wait, bring it on. Incredible stunt work. Incredible choreography. the casting is bang on.

Is there voiceover work to really, to like, to make it our May miniseries a grand champion? Our, what's the, the, who's the head of a parade? Who's a grand marshal? You're just going to be getting Gary's asking us to do a bring it on episode. The grand marshal of the May miniseries is bring it on. If we can think of one performance. The Clovers and Toro. Yeah.

Ooh, what would this be? Gary's Get At Us. What's a movie that we could recognize in all four categories that we're talking about? I guess, I mean, I guess, again, not to jump ahead, but is there dancing in Kill Bill?

There's not really dancing. Hmm. There's got to be. I don't want to give up on this so quickly. I guess sinners. No, does sinners have a voice? performance. It has a narrator in that prologue, right? Does it?

Is that someone from the main cast? That I don't know. This is fascinating, though. I do feel like Tarantino is a good vein for this, because, like, Pulp Fiction has dancing

has some degree of action, although not like... Guns and stunts. Guns and stunts. Yeah. Casting, obviously. And who's the, like, voice? There's like a radio DJ voice in that, right? Or something.

Something's going on. Again, Gary's... Oh, no. I have it. I have it. I have it. I have it. I have it. I have it. Do the right thing. No, because you see Samuel Jackson. We talked about this. We talked about this. I know. We talked about this. Yes, we did. Um, no, there's something. We'll think of something.

Gary's, in the... Pick a movie that could have worked for all four of these categories. Yeah, that's your... Bonus points if you can also get it for the Patreon category. Yes. Yeah. Well, we cheered for it and it's a fan favorite. Those are not difficult categories to land. But you got to get a weird score category in there, too.

Oh, right. Yes, a weird score category. All right, well, the task is yours, folks. Okay. Is there a Wes Anderson that this would work for? Rushmore? Best stunts for his weird plays. His weird plays, yeah.

Life Aquatic. He does the little, like, he does the little, when he's listening to his headphones. You're going to give that a choreography Oscar? Yes, yes, I am. Fight me. No, we'll think of something. Gary's get on it. Okay.

Is there a war movie where there's dancing? Well, Gary's, get on that. Give us a war. That's all I've ever wanted, Chris, is a war movie with some goddamn dancing. West Side Story does not not count. Knife fight? Dance, dance, dance, knife. I mean, the line between choreography and stunts is, you know, quite,

in there. Okay. When I mentioned that, like, I probably wouldn't have envisioned this category existing long before something like Ben Hur. But, like, let's talk about the, like, 19, late 60s into the 70s era of, like, the disaster movie. This, to me, feels like a golden age for the stunt category. You wouldn't get one for the first airport because that one, like, is not really, it's a disaster movie. It's a comedy, right? Yeah. It's kind of like, it's, airport is weird.

Yeah. It is, like everything and nothing happens in that movie, but there's not like chaos the way that there is in like earthquake. Right. Airport 77 is the one that I would call out because that's the one where the plane goes into the water. Is that the one with Karen Black? Yes. Oh, please.

I think I've only seen P.S. of Airport 77. Because the one is the one where Karen Black is the stewardess and she's flying the plane. Hold on. Let's see. Is Airport 77 one of those movies that's like not actually in 1977? I think it was released since then. No, she's in Airport 75.

Which what's, what is that? What's the, what's the flavor of that airport? In the way that the Mission of Possible are the one with the Burj Khalifa, the one with the plane. This is the one where Helen Reddy was nominated for Most Promising Newcomer at the Golden Globes that year. Awesome.

Charlton Heston, this is the one where like, it's a red-eye flight. There's, I think, um, let's see. Do, do, do, do. It's essentially where like all this shit goes wrong. and she as the stewardess has to, like, land the plane, which is, like, one of the elements that they parody in airplane. And 77 is the one that they crash into the water.

And then the next one, which I don't think has a year attached, and I think was actually a TV movie. Mm. Can I read you some of the cast members of Airport 75? Please. Charlton Heston, Karen Black, George Kennedy. Just to start. and ready. Linda Blair.

Sid Caesar. Mernaloy. Jerry Stiller, Norman Fell. Gloria Swanson as herself. This has got to be the one that like airplane... We really could just have bullshit like this. This has got to be the one that airplane mostly like parodied.

Because like, there's all sorts of stuff. Eric Estrada. Tiny Zeus Lister? Why can't we have? shit like this today, where you just have this random assortment of people who are... We talked about it last week in the choreography episode. We need a Gold Diggers franchise, and we need an airport. We need the airport franchise. Both of those to come back. We also

need Christian Wagan, Annie Momolo, to do the airport movies as well, though. They need to be the central... Okay, but like, what's the air... You can't do airplane disaster movies anymore. I wonder why. But also, it's just like, Airport 27 would just be like... like a Karen takes over. It would be that one video of that one lady who's like, that motherfucker's not real. Yeah. Damn it.

That's what the new airport movie would be. The modern world is fucking bullshit and sucks. Airport 26 is about how Spirit Airlines went under and it would just be like, no, here's what I'm going to say. The disaster is a plane goes off the grid because it was Spirit Airlines as they, you know. That's bullshit though, Chris, to say. that we can't make airplane disaster movies now because they were making airplane disaster movies in 1975 when like airplanes were getting hijacked on the regular. You know what I mean?

And they still made airplane disaster movies. So we should not be deterred by bad taste. So what you're saying is that we can't make airplane disaster movies because of W-word. Woke? Is that why? We can't be because of woke? No, because of like- I hate because of woke jokes, but you are quite literally saying that we can't do that. them because of... But what was your rationale for saying why we couldn't do them? Well, I guess maybe it's just that we don't. But we do need large ensemble disaster movies.

Yes, 100%. We need a towering inferno. We need... Like, all of those movies uniformly suck, but I would still go see... They did try to remake the Poseidon Adventure with Fergie as a main character, and we let it flop. So, whose fault is that? That movie sucks. Sure.

But like, it's not like the... But at least maybe make them with like the Joad de Ville of an airport set of. Jois de Veeve, that's what we're missing. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the stage. In all fields, all fronts, all cases. How would you spell Joadaviv as a drag queen name? Like, Z-H-W-A-D-A-V? Wouldn't it just be like Joey DeVive?

No, I would want to do it as stupidly... As stupidly phonetic as possible. I would just be like... You would probably just spell it the way you spell Chois de Veeve. Well, that's the classy way to do it. I, again, want to be as stupid as possible. I would spell it completely phonetically. Oh, okay.

You know, for the French, the way that you spell it is phonetic. That face. Don't start with me. What if your drag queen name was Chois de Vivian? Yeah, that's not bad. Schwa de... VV Brooks. Stop.

Davenport. Gabonport. Extravaganza. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Back to stunts. Back to stunts.

Well, different kinds. We stayed on stunts, just a different type of stunt. Yeah. Would you have nominated Paris's Burning for stunts? I would have nominated Paris' burning in all categories. Well, yeah, that's true. Wait. choreography, stunts.

casting. Can you cast a documentary? Yes. You absolutely can. I mean, you're, you're, you know, you're selecting who's going to be in it. Yes. Uh, is there a voiceover? Is there, uh, I don't know. I think you can end up seeing everybody who's calling the categories. Almost. Three out of four. Let's talk about some iconic showdowns. Okay, let's talk about some iconic shows. Starting with those disaster movies. I think the first one shows up with 1972. the Poseidon Adventure versus Best Picture nominee, deliverance, two very different types of stunts. But both aquatic in nature. But like above the water and below the water, right, exactly.

Two very different vessels. You know what's a fun movie to watch on Saturday afternoon on cable television? Not deliverance. No, not deliverance. The Poseidon Adventure. The Poseidon Adventure is a goddamn hoot. And it's so star-studded. It's just, people forget.

Phobic-ass movie. What's that? It's a fat-phobic-ass movie. Listen, Shelley Winters holds her own and then some. So we'll be happy with it. Poseid Adventure stars, okay, how many Oscar winners do you think are in the Poseidon Adventure? A good 17. Gene Hackman, who's got two.

Ernest Borgne has one. Shelly Winters has two. Jack. Jack Albertson has won, right? I believe. He was nominated for, oh, I'm not going to know. He was nominated for, I think he won for the subject was roses, but hold on. Hold on.

Academy Award Best Supporting Actor for the Subject was Roses. He won. Well done. Who else is an Oscar winner? Unfortunately, Leslie and the Lille. Not, but he's also in that one. Still, that's a lot of Oscar winners. That's a lot of Oscars.

Roddy McDowell, I don't think ever won. Red buttons, I don't. Let's see. Awards and honors. Yes. Best supporting actor for Sayonara. Add another one to the list. So there we go.

A lot of Oscar winners in the Poseidon Adventure. And at an economic 117 minutes, let me also say. I do think the Poseidon Adventure wins between those two, because if you told me that someone nearly died in the filming of deliverance, I would say which one? Wait, what do you mean which one? Who among this cast nearly died? Oh, okay. Because it could conceivably be any of them. Yeah, yeah, I can see that.

I also, I agree. Also, I think just the scale of the Poseidon adventure makes it seem more impressive just for a lay person. You know what I mean? Two years later, disaster movie Showdown, the Towering Inferno and Earthquake. Towering Inferno is another one that's the best picture of me, right? Yes. Okay. That movie sucks.

I've heard this. That movie really sucks. But this is another one that's like completely, this might even be more star-studded than the scientific adventure. Because this is the one with it's William Holden, right? It's, hold on. Steve McQueen, Paul Newman. and William Holdman, William Holden,

Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Richard Chamberlain, Jennifer Jones, O.J. Simpson, Robert Wagner. Oh, God, multiple murderers

and multiple Oscar winners in this movie. Crazy. Who else? Dabney Coleman, neither an Oscar winner nor a murderer as far as we know. John Crawford is in both

the Poseidon Adventure and the Towering Infirm Now that is, deserves some kind of an award. Maureen McGovern, who I think is the one who sings the morning after in the Poseidon Adventure and then sings, we may never love like this again, in the towering inferno. Again, like, we used to, we used to have entertainment. We used to have entertainment. Susan Flannery as Lori, Susan Flannery, legendary days of our lives and the Bold and the

beautiful actress. Daytime Emmy winner multiple times over. iconic short-cropped butch haircut Susan Flannery. We fucking love her. What a great cast. Now we get into a period that I'm going to call

Vietnam in space because Apocalypse Now versus Alien. Alien. Oh, wait. Alien, right. I was looking at Alien singular. Yes, right. Apocalypse Now gets alien singular. I think Apocalypse now gets the advantage of being about a war movie, a Best Picture nominee,

a Francis Ford Coppola movie, all of the advantages. But is one of these movies the same year, is this the same year as Superman? The first Superman? I think the first Superman is 77. Hold, please. Hold on. Superman, 78. 78.

Just misses it. Okay. So Superman defeats coming home. Deer Hunter. So I guess you could still say Vietnam in space. Yes, you absolutely could because what does Superman? Where does Superman go to space? Turn the planet backwards.

Space. Honestly, best stunt for 1978 is Jill Claiburg carrying that giant canvas across Manhattan. I knew you're going to do something stupid like that. Fantastic. Okay. But then 86, even more interesting. Platoon versus aliens, plural. Now, aliens is the much, much more action-heavy alien movies.

Yes, you have a lot of, like, weaponry and a larger... Exoskeletons and whatnot. You have multiple xenomorphs. Mm-hmm. So, and platoon, here's what I'm going to admit. I haven't seen platoon. So it's not good. But is it more contemplative and less?

They're significant, like, shoot-out stuff. Yeah. You know. I still want to say that aliens would have had a chance to win this one. I think Alien singular would have lost. Aliens, plural, would have won. Hold on.

Isn't this the year of Top Gun, though? It is. Thought Top Gun was 87. No. Okay. Here's what I have. say about the top guns, because I guess we've talked a lot about Tom Cruise, and we haven't talked

about that movie. Stunt people love those movies. They really do. And it was a song I'm going to sound ignorant. It's fine. What stunts are they doing? I guess you have people flying actual planes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Do you? Yes, you do. Because, like, in my mind, it's just like...

It's not like B-roll that they get from, like, the Air Force or something like that. But it's not Tom Cruise flying a plane. No, but... I still think. Because I was thinking, even aligned with, like, the Star Wars movies, when it's all of those air raids or, like, space raids, I'm like, it's just a bunch of guys sitting in a plane. Put a pin in that.

Put a pin in Star Wars. It's not the same thing as, you know, actual combat. But I guess the first top gun does have all of that footage. But, like, are those stunt people or are those actual military personnel flying those planes. Coordinated by stunt professionals. Do you just basically give a stunt Oscar to our armed forces? This is, these are probably things that we don't know enough,

haven't investigated enough to talk about. I'm willing to accept that I'm stupid. I just don't want to, I have no expertise in this. This is why I am. All this to say, I don't think that the Top Gun movies would be the threat in the stunt category that people might think they would. I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. 1991.

1999 is a blowout that I think is interesting to talk about anyway. T2 Judgment Day versus Hook. Hook, which has way more Oscar nominations than you remember it having. But didn't T2, like, win multiple? Blow up half of the city of Los Angeles, yes. Sure, but, like, I feel like T2 won, like, three Oscars. I think it won the Visual Effects Oscar, but it had multiple Oscar nominations. I don't think it won multiple Oscars. It won four Oscars. Oh, well, never mind. It won

sound, visual effects, makeup, sound editing. Sound effects, sound effects, sound, visual effects, and makeup. And then was also nominated for film editing and cinematography. Honestly, it worked. Like, that movie deserves. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That movie deserves it. The thing, what I think is an interesting thing here, because I think we would both say T2 is winning. Yeah. Yeah. But it, it does kind of highlight how this could sometimes in the future be a real apples to oranges. Totally. Type of category because like Hook, you have children. Not only fight choreography, but you have all that wirework. Wirework, but also children. You're working with, you know, your characters at least are, you know, kids barnstorming the Jolly Roger or whatever the fuck.

T2 is a lot of on-location shooting and hook is all of these elaborate sets, you know, and what are the, you know, unique difficulties to each of those jobs? You know what else you have in 91 that I would have been interested to parse what is visual effects versus stunts is backdraft? Yes. Which has... How much of that fire is real or is it a, you know... Well, at least some of it, I believe, was real. And also, again, working with fire as a stunt discipline, I think, is different than working with wirework than is different than working with, you know, motorcycle chases.

It's just a lot of different stuff. Why are you laughing at me? Why are you laughing at me? Memoirs of Agacia, Chutuby's Journey, Working with Fire. I'm like, working with fire sounds like the subtitle to something. It is the subtitle. Well, it's the title of Sean Colvin's... Working Girl, Two, Working.

working with fire. Third studio album, working with fire. Um, all right, moving on. This is an interesting one. 93. Oh, 1993. Jurassic Park versus the fugitive. Again, two very different types of stunt work. One of them not being a Best Picture nominee and one being a somewhat surprise Best Picture nominee, at least in hindsight. Both of them are stunts in conjunction with big visual effects work. The train, the runaway train and the fugitive is the big set piece there. Obviously, the T-Rex and the other various dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. But like, there's a lot of

chasing in both of these things. Hanging off of things, jumping off of things. And they are both movies that did obviously very well with the Oscars in general. Jurassic Park won multiple Oscars. The fugitive is a best picture nominee. Yeah, that's a good matchup. I like that matchup. Well done.

1996, Independence Day versus Twister. I was trying to think of something that I'm like, that would have a legitimate shot at stunts, even though there's a lot of CGI, and I did come up with Independence Day and Twister. Yes. Twister, a whole other factor we haven't talked about. Wind turbines.

Got to operate those wind turbines. These are two movies that definitely have a lot of VFX. And here's a wrinkle I'm going to throw in with you. The English patient would not have been a non-factor in this category. Right. Plane crashes. Because the plane crashes, yes. So that's worth thinking about.

I think that's probably the only of that year's best picture nominees that would have been a consideration in stunts. But that movie was a near sweeper. So, yeah. The next one I included in our outline, just because I do want to talk about this franchise, The Matrix versus Star Wars episode one. Obviously, the Matrix would win. Obviously, yes, the Matrix was another one of those movies that was, like, nominated for multiple Academy Awards. And also, this particular matchup is like, The Matrix was the unexpected success that people would point to when they talked about increasingly what a misfire the, the fan.

Phantom Menace was. Here's what I will also say, though, and I rewatched it today to make sure... Phantom Menace has more Oscar nominees than you think. It does. But also, we talk about, like, you know, Star Wars movies and it's, you know, whatever, the little kid sitting in the seat in the Padres or whatever. But, like, that lightsaber battle with Darth Maul against Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor fucking rips. It's so good. I would obviously, you know, stand by and The Matrix. And The Matrix is like... genre-defining stunt work. And that's also... Throughout its sequels, too. Yeah. Well, and I'm going to talk about Yen Wuping eventually,

but that is, like, one of the great stunt, you know, masters of the genre. But the Matrix, all of the Matrix movies come during really banger years. Because, like, I'll talk about when I, you know, I'll be talking about another one of the 2003 movies later. But, like, Matrix Reloaded is a movie that, like, was kind of notorious for being a disappointment, but... So good. It's so good.

It's... I will say, elements of it are fucking phenomenally fantastic. I love that highway chase scene more than most movies in general. I think other elements of the stunt work in that movie and the CGI work are overrated. The brawl between Neo and 100 Agent Smiths. Every time I watch that, I get annoyed by it. I think it's ugly. I just think it's ugly to look at. There's, there is one specific fight that I remember in the press.

Keanu Reeve talked a lot about how in a single fight he had to choreograph something like a hundred moves or something. That would have been that one, I imagine. Which is also an interesting conversation to say. It is. How is that not choreography? But then you have to draw the line of. Well, but also, again, go back to the Phantom Menace. That lightsaber battle, it's stunt work obviously.

But it's like, it's also choreography. It is, you know, any kind of sword fighting is choreographed, you know, choreographed movement. So, but yes, 1999, I imagine the Matrix, you know, cleans up there. But just worth, I wanted to mention the duel of the fates thing because it's so good. 2000 is a really interesting case. And I feel like we could go on opposite sides here on what we think we would win. but Gladiator versus Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Yes.

I agree with you. I think you can make cases as to why either one of them would win. Obviously, Gladiator winning Best Picture is probably a good indicator that it might have won the stunt category. It was also celebrated for being like the second coming of Ben Hur. And Ben Hur is considered one of the great sort of stunt, landmark stunt movies of all time. You have the swords of it. You have war sequence. you have animals.

But then when you look at Crouching Tiger, you have not only this beautiful fight choreography that's so incredibly iconic, helped really sell that movie, really, like, drew a lot of different audiences. Was the first time a lot of American audiences ever saw that kind of stunt work and fight choreography? And, of course, like, you know,

there was, like, a kung fu movie cult in America. But then, like, through this stylization, it also drew in, like, an art house crowd. Arthouse crowd. Mainstream crowd. Like, that movie made a lot of money. You know what I mean? We don't talk enough about how Crouching Tiger made $100 million in the States. Like, that's a huge movie.

We talk about Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon a lot. And still, somehow, we should probably talk about it more. It is one of the landmark films of our life. Of our lifetime. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Especially because, like, the makers thought that they had a disaster on it.

And like when you show that movie to Eastern audiences, they don't like angry. Yeah. They catch things that we don't have. And it makes us sound kind of like dumb Americans, but like how nobody has the right accent for the movie. So it was like laughed at by it. But that's like cross-cultural differences like that exist all the time. We're still laughing at the French for thinking that Jerry Lewis is a comedic genius.

You know what I mean? It's just like this is. Totally. Yeah. Totally. And like, you know, a French audience may not pick up on things that. that we laugh at where it's like, well, this person sounds like a hick and they're playing a New Yorker. Like, you know, there's cultural nuances that we're kind of, you know, glossing over here.

But either way, we're talking about the choreography, not the, you know. 2000 is an incredibly interesting year for a lot of different categories. I think we've brought it up in every single episode in terms of, like, things that would have been major contenders. So, yeah. I do think Crouching Tiger would have taken it. I do too. That would have been. Okay. Then we agree. 2004 is an interesting one.

Another clash between a Best Picture winner and very wire heavy action, you know, spectacle. This one from director Zhang Yimu, who did the fight choreography on House of Flying Daggers? Was that also? Yon Wu Ping, hold on. Ah, here we go. Action choreographer is Sutong Ching for House of Flying Degger's. daggers. Also, that same year, Spider-Man 2, which has a ton of big action set pieces. Mm-hmm. And I think Spider-Man 2 is an interesting one to think about in terms of the CGI of it all, you know, and like the green screening.

But you still have enough, I think, practical stuff to, if you wanted to make a case for it, you could. And then still, I think, I could see a world in which they just give it to a million dollar baby because it's the best picture frontrunner. And they love, they love boxing. They love boxing in every way. So, yeah. Well, one that I was including in here as an FYC, this is the year of 300 in 2006. But just taking into consideration the, like, feat. And also I didn't include it in my, you know, five winners or five ones that I would call a winner.

Children of Men, where you have bombs, Warner shots, you know, composite shots. Also, we just passed 2004, another one to add into 2004 as the Born Supremacy, which was that year. So that would have been a very crowded category and very interesting to see where that shook out. Speaking of Wunners, also in 2015, I brought up the Revenant versus Mad Max Fury Road. Yes. Both, you know, presumed runner-ups to best picture. But you have Mad Dash editing with these, like, real, like, Cirque de Soleil level stunts.

Which I think is what probably puts it over the top for Fury Road, I think, as a winner. Right. But with the Revenant, you have these long takes of, like, battle shots and, you know. Yep, yep. Violence. I think just, again, again, maybe it's just where I am replacing my own taste for. the academies. But I think Fury Road has just action at scope, like action in wide presentation, that I find to be, you know, incredible. And again, going back to that the Vulture Stunt Awards thing,

those stunt professionals all voted Furiosa as their movie of the year that year. Like, there is a ton of respect for, you know, the kind of stunt work that goes into those movies. Yeah, we're maybe underselling Mad Max Fury Road in this discussion, but like it just feels so kind of obvious to the discussion. But it also feels just like one of those movies that when it happened alongside the Borns, alongside Terminator 2, where it's just like, so these movies are on, are like huge parts of the lexicon. you have the average movie goer talking about stunts. Yes. And it doesn't make the category happen. It's just interesting.

It is. Yeah. It would be, again, we talk about, like, the butterfly effect of having these categories around for a very long time. And you wonder if having a stunt category for decades and decades ends up, you know, sort of providing more. respect for stunt-heavy movies just in general. Although, again, well, wow, I just had a whole three-sentence conversation in my head.

I was thinking of the VFX category and like, well, the VFX category has existed all of its time. And you don't really necessarily see, you know, VFX movies as more respected. But maybe you do. Like, you know, there are certainly more VFX movies in Best Picture now than there were in, let's say, the 90s. There's more VFX in general now, too, though. Yeah, sorry, I totally kombucha grilled out on you for a second. Should we get into our picks that we would give a stunt Oscar? Yes, let's.

All right. I'm kicking it off with the first thing I thought of. I realize that this is kind of a remake, but this is the one I'm going for. I chose William Freedkin's sorcerer. In terms of a feat that I think of a stunt, and I have no idea how they shot that and pulled that off and did it safely, knowing that it's Friedkin, they might have not done it safely. And it's obviously the truck sequence across the wooden bridge, which, like, yes, that's all. also in wages of fear. But that sorcerer sequence is really just such a standalone.

And I think, again, on degree of difficulty and safety, I don't know if it wasn't so safe. Lord knows, we all know what William Freak did to, you know, Linda Blair's spine. That sequence is just so stunning. And again, it's one of those, like I've mentioned in a few other previous episodes where we're doing this, where it's just like it's so many craft fields working in tandem to make a really singular cinematic experience. You know, it's the stunt work, it's the way the movie is shot with the cinematography.

It's the way that that sequence is edited and it all creates this moment where you're completely lost in this physical feat that you're watching. Yeah. Yeah, Sorcerer fucking rules. Have you seen Sorcerer? No. I'm sure you've seen like the stills of this sequence because you look at that and you're like, so someone died making that movie, right? Sorser's been on my list for a while. I think ever since Friedkin died of movies I want to see.

And so I kind of run away whenever I see anything about it because I'm like, no, I'm going to see it at some point. I wouldn't want to know anything about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not really the movie you maybe expect when you see those stills. Yeah. But, I mean, the movie and the movie and the movie. that sequence itself. Yeah.

Speak for itself. The stunt coordinator for sorcerer is Bud Eakins. I want to call out the actual stunt coordinator. Let's go, bud. But also, I mean, I think I just wanted to think of an example where stunts aren't necessarily the physical person, a physical body, but like, you know, the vehicle of that is itself a stunt. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cool. My first pick is, I don't have as many, like, you know, rarities on mine. Some of them are a little obvious, but like, whatever. And real Joe Reed specials, but. Okay, yes. Starting with Return of the Jedi, which I have long angered people by saying that Return of the Jedi is my favorite Star Wars movie. and I will fully chalk it up to the fact that, like, it's a juvenile choice. Return of the Jedi was my favorite as a kid.

People, when I say that, people shit on the Ewox, and they're wrong. Here's the thing, though. EWox are cool. People assume that when I say that it's my favorite and it was my favorite as a child, I'm there being like, oh, yeah, well, naturally the EWX. I'm not even, like, I don't dislike the EWACs, but the EWACs are not the reason why I love this movie. You just live for the Dagaba System. I live.

No, Dagaba System is more. mostly in Empire Strikes Back, although it is in a little bit in Return of the Jedi. No, Return of the Jedi has the whole scene in Tatouine where they're on the, like, pleasure barge. This is a great call-out. And particularly for stunts. It's got, you know, Luke springboarding off of the thing. They're fighting on the pleasure barge, like Leah's choking out the big giant Jabba the Hutt penis puppet. Like, there's so many moving parts to that scene.

It's really incredible. Then when you get to Endor, you get the chase, the like whatever. I can't remember what they call those little scooters that they're on, the air scooters, Leia and Luke, the chase through the forest. You do get the Ewox, but like you get the battle for Endor that includes like little teddy bear puppets and also Harrison Ford and also big giant clanking, you know, machines or whatever. It's all practical in some way or another, like on the. the Endor stuff at least.

And then up in the fucking Death Star, you get a lightsaber battle between Luke and Darth Vader that also incorporates like old ass emperor and whatever shooting lightning bolts. And there's so many different elements to what goes into the stunt work in Return of the Jedi. I think it is the most multifaceted of that original trilogy. stunt-wise. And it's the ground where I feel, it's the firmest ground that I feel like I can argue the supremacy of this movie. And so I will absolutely take it. I think it's so much fun. And people do forget about maybe the first act of that movie when they dunk on it. You know, because it's like they dunk on the same three things. And then they do overlook that portion of

the movie. Yeah. And yes, again, Okay, yes. The Death Star is a rehashed, you know, whatever. It's almost as if that franchise would rehash itself again. Almost. But yeah, no, I fucking love it. It's so good. Stuck coordination by Glenn Randall Jr. I did my very best to try and actually because, like, IMDB often lists multiple folks as stunt coordinators. Sometimes there are people who are listed as fight choreographer.

sometimes it's action choreographers. I did my level best to pick out who was the person. It was easier to do it for this than it was for some of the other episodes. Did you find that? I found it more challenging, but... Oh, I found it actually pretty easy. But maybe it's just what I pick. Okay.

What's your next one? All right. I have to do... I think this is probably one of my obvious ones. Or like, I think this is maybe my obvious one. Or maybe I'm just sticking in the lane. of genre. I chose stunt coordinator, Jim Nickerson, for Raging Bull. If we're going to be talking about sports movies and boxing movies, we have to talk about the champion among them. And I also

think those fighting sequences are, I mean, they're the gold standard. It's the movie that everybody's chasing. And again, this is, you know, multiple art departments working in tandem. The stunts look as incredible as they do, but then it's also the way that movie is shot and edited as well. That's, you know, making those stunts seem so impressive. But I do think, and it's not just the amount of blood that goes into those sequence, the way that the fight choreography is working in that movie make it feel really aggressive and violent and like, you know, spiritual. Yeah.

Spiritual violence on top of the attacks on the physical body that are happening on screen. Yeah. Which, of course, all goes into the. like psychosis of this, you know, awful character that we're spending our time with. I don't know. I mean, I guess this one just kind of is among them that speak for itself that I'm like, if you're going to have a sports movie, then the obvious one, like the one that all of these other boxing movies are chasing is Raging Bull. So I had to do Raging Bull. Yeah. All right. My next pick is... It's so good. It's a very me pick. And it's also one that I didn't think of until

like the last possible second, and I'm really glad that I remembered it. My beloved Home Alone from 1990, stunt coordination by Freddie Heiss, you don't think about this movie off the top of your head when you think of like stunt spectaculars, because it's not an action movie. It is a, it's a comedy. It's a holiday comedy at that, but the... I do think we maybe missed some opportunities to even talk about things like comedy stunts. I did intend to initially to at least bring up the Buster Keaton, Marks Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, Three Stooges of it all.

Those are all, I mean, you talk about a niche of things that are like not in my wheelhouse and I have no real standing to like talk about. I never watched any of those movies growing up. But even like in the 90s when you have things like Jim Carrey in the mask, you know. The East Ventura movies, all that sort of stuff. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Slapstick comedy. is definitely, and I imagine, I mean, that's the last thing that people need is another excuse to say that the Oscars don't respect comedy enough.

But I have a feeling that comedy stunts would not be as well, you know, as well recognized with this Oscar category. But anyway, yeah, Home Alone, the stunt, the marriage of stunt and comedy and how much mileage Chris Columbus is able to get out of really sharp stunt work. It's not just that, like, Harry and Marv are stepping on things and slipping on ice and falling down, whatever. It's whoever they have, whoever was the guy who, when Harry steps out that back door after having endured that basement house of horrors and he finally gets out the back door and he shuts the door and then all of a sudden he just goes zoop and he just like zips down to the, like, It's little stuff like that. It's the way that the Joe Peshy stunt double, like, or whether it was, I don't think it was Pesci, but like, I could be wrong. Who does the full gainer, like, flop onto his back, like the full wrestling fall?

It's so fucking funny. All of that, all of that stunt work is just really precise and really sharp and really funny and deserves to be recognized. And can I tell you what joke I would like to retire? Kevin McAllister is a sociopath. Oh my God. He's like, he's a murderer. He's a sadist. He's a horror movie violence should be recognized by the stunt category. It's essentially live action animation. Can we all be adults about this for half a second? Like, yes. Yeah, it's loony. It's slapstick comedy. Like, go and watch a Three Stooges movie sometimes. You know what I mean? It's just like, as I just admit that I never watched Three Stooges movies. But you know what I mean? Like, it's also a hacky joke at this point. Yes, yes. Kevin McAllister. He's going to grow. He's going to grow. up to like, you know, have a torture, have a torture basement or whatever. Like, shut the fuck up. It's not funny anymore.

What's your next one? It is, however, still true. Speaking of horror violence, I was really trying to come up with an example of something that says what I meant that doesn't also get me run out of town like high tension would have. I even thought of, like, Texas chainsaw massacre. But then when I'm like, well, safety is a factor in this. And I'm like, well, they shot that movie for $5.

Can I give you a very recent example? Weapons. Sure. All of those children that they have to, you know, have tear amymatic into pieces. But the example that I came up with, which, again, is also still not in the Oscar wheelhouse, but I think helps illustrate what I'm saying is a nightmare on Elm Street. Stunt coordination by Anthony Sassar. I was thinking specifically about the sequence where Tina is basically ripped to shreds across the entire room. Because, of course, that also is in coordination with, like, the art department because of how they have to shoot that.

But also making it safe for that actor to do it. But it is incredibly effective on screen, and it can be like a simple stunt. But then there's also things, other things in Nightmare on Elm Street that are like really effective, like, lowbrose. budget horror stunts. Like, is the first one, the one where she walks into the stairs and it's basically like marshmallows? I can't remember where she gets stuck in the stairs. But Nightmare on Elm Street, the original. Of course, you know, you have the sequels where people are turned into bugs. Right. So I love the cockroach one. The cockroach one is great. That's in four. I'm going to tell you, I've not seen all of the Nightmare and Elm Street movies. And I don't have an

encyclopedic memory of them. They are not all good, but they are never not good in the way that some of the Friday the 13ths are, because some of those are just like a chore. Yeah. They're a fucking chore. And like not really anything redeemable. The nightmare on Elm Streets are always constantly trying to top themselves

in creative ways that it's like, they get ridiculous. Sure, sure. Yeah, but I mean, the first one has a lot of different types of like, really terrifying stunts that I think have become like movie iconography. Yeah. That also illustrate the thing I'm trying to add. No, totally. I think that's a fantastic pick.

At first blush, I thought it said the nightmare before Christmas. And I was like, huh, like animated. You thought I was going to be like, well, stop motion is a stop. I mean, well, like, I literally was like, I had that thought when we did choreography of like, yeah, they're animated movies, but you have to like devise the movement they're doing before you draw. it, right? Like, I wonder what animated dancing, like, how much of a... But that's animation. It's not stunts, though. Well, no, no, no, no. I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm

particular. Volume 2 also has some really fantastic stunt stuff. All of Tarantino's work in general has great stunts, has very eye-popping stunt work in some way or another. But Kill Bill, volume one, is the gold standard. It's Yun Wuping, who did the fight choreography for the Matrix movies and for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and is like for, you know, a lot of those, like, drunken master, you know, Jackie Chan stuff. It's just like a legend. in the business. The House of Blue Leaves multiple fight scenes,

because it's not just the Crazy 88, it's also the Gugu Yubari scene that the bride has the fight. And then the fight in the garden with Lucy Lou. This movie also has that knife fight between the bride and Verneeda

that is so fast-paced and so incredible. It just goes from like stunt set piece to stunt set piece. And it is incredible shit every time. There are tables breaking. There are glasses breaking. There is sword play. There's knife play.

There's like up close action and also sort of like more wide action. People are like running along banisters and whatnot. And you're also dealing with like geysers of blood. You know what I mean? You're dealing with. a camera that's moving around, it's all so, it's just really incredible. And, like, there were other Tarantino things I had considered, I had thought about deathproof, the car chase in deathproof with Zoe Bell on the roof of the car, or on the hood of the car,

rather. But Kill Bill, Volume 1, this is also another one where it's a movie we've done, this had Oscar buzz that wouldn't have been eligible were there a stunt category in its day. Because I do feel like that, you know, it was not recognized anywhere else. It absolutely would have been a nominee in stunts that year, I think. Right? Oh, absolutely. Couldn't have.

Yeah. Even I think with when you're talking about the, it's one of those things where it's like most costumes or best costumes. Sure. Yes. It's kind of hard. It would be hard to avoid kill bill volume one being nominated because it's most fucking stumps. Yeah. It puts the-

And sometimes maybe we'll get nominees with like most stunts is not necessarily a bad thing. It puts the volume in Kill Bill, Volume 1 because it's just like the absolute amounts of stunts. What's your next one? My next one is another obvious one. I mean, like, some of these feel obvious because I feel like it's really easy to, you know, reduce the stunts category down to different genres they would recognize. But I do think we have to call out Saving Private Ryan, who Simon Crane was their stunt coordinator, just because, again, it kind of feels like a most stunts thing.

And I know a lot of still, you know, we talk about saving Private Ryan in terms of, we talk about the D-Day sequence and then we maybe overlook some of the other stuff. I don't think that the stunt work in the rest of the movie doesn't deserve that credit because that's something that stays impressive throughout the movie. Whereas, like, I like that movie less and less as it goes on. Count me among its naysayers a little bit. But the D-Day sequence, it's just like the amount of, and this was another movie where I was like,

safety is so important to, like, execute this movie because you have a huge amount of people. I'm sure there's certain, amount of CGI elements going on. But you know, you're dealing with explosives. You're dealing with artillery and like water, you know. Because isn't one of the like more horrifying of that sequence aside from when the bullets are ripping through the water? Yeah.

The bullets through the water. So you have like to make it look like that's happening. But like the people who are getting crushed and like buried underwater. Yes. Even that's even less horrifying than the people who are getting like pushed into the muck on the shore like underneath the like, oh God, it's also stressful. And like I think almost more than any of the options that I picked like the idea of safety in this one, I just can't wreck my brain around how they even approach just the stunts for this sequence, let alone like the shot coverage, you know. the amount of work that had to go into this movie in that sequence. Yeah, no, it's incredible. Great choice.

All right, my next one, this is another one where I probably, there were probably multiple Nolan movies I could have chosen from, any of the, you know, the Batman movies that he did. I went with Inception, which is always a sentimental favorite of mine. This is the one with like the one standout scene that everybody mentions. the hallway, the zero gravity hallway scene. That was one where Joseph Gordon Levitt did all his own stunts, in part because they really couldn't cheat it so much

because of the way they were filming it. They had to build this entire, like, rotating thing inside an airplane hanger, then, like, built two separate sets inside that so that he could go from a hallway into a room, a hotel room. and it, you know, I mean, there's, you know, directorial elements, too, of just, like, had to figure out how to light it, how to figure out all this stuff. But, like, within that, to have to, even when it's Joseph Gordon Levitt, who's doing his own stunts, first of all, that just makes him a stunt performer.

You know what I mean? Like, he's a stunt performer as much as anybody else. But also, you are training him. You are because, like, again, you can't cheat that scene as much as you can in other ways. So you have to make sure that he's, like, got that. got that scene down. There's so much intensive preparation and training and also, you know, wires and literally the set is moving around you. You know what I mean? So again, safety being a concern. This is the same thing as your nightmare at Elm Street thing of like you are changing

the gravity of the room as you film. So it's incredibly involved and delicate. And it, the result of it is something genuinely that, like, you haven't seen on screen in that way before. Like something that's genuinely unique in filmmaking. And I think, I mean, there's other stuff in Inception 2, obviously. There's, you know, multiple locations, multiple sort of like setups. So much of it is also like character intensive, you know what I mean? Between, you know, you have to use a lot of these stunt-heavy scenes to advance character beats and just all very, very impressive. I tried to figure out who was like the guy. AMDB listed multiple stunt coordinators, Tom Struthers, Cy Hollins, and Brett Woolsey. I imagine possibly they were like different people were in charge of different locations or stuff like that.

I don't know. They were on slopes. They were in airplane hangers. They were in, you know, whatever, reconstructed Paris, all this sort of stuff. All right. What's your next one? My next one, I was thinking along the lines of what is something that I watched and I had no idea how they pulled something off and especially safely. and sorry to do a director twice on my picks, but I chose Scorsese's silence, specifically for the crucifixion sequences with the waves and other especially drowning sequences in that movie. The crucifixion sequences,

I really don't know how they were able to keep those actors safe, given the footage that we have. Yeah. And it's just, it's so harrowing when you watch it. I know that some folks, silence is like one of the vegetable Scorsese movies. That is not true for the hosts of this show. The stunt coordinators for that movie are G.A. Aguilar and Victor Pagia. And also it's just, it's the type of thing that is like very physically taxing and you have to do safety with actors.

but it's outside the realm of shoot, shoot, bang, bang. Yes. That, you know, I would advocate for in this category. Yeah. I like how focused you are on safety in yours. And here I am being like Kill Bill, like, notoriously like movie that we know had at least one unsafe moment. I'm, uh, I'm dad here and you are ill-behaved younger brother. Fair.

I'm like, everybody just be safe. And I'm like, fun! Yeah. Well, more fun to be had. This one was post-COVID lockdown fun that I desperately wish I had seen in a theater. I think I brushed up against this when I almost picked it from my choreography category. The 2021 James Wan movie, Malignant, which I'm not going to spoil that movie because it's, It's culty enough that I think there are still people who haven't seen it.

And I want you to go see it and check it out. Well, when you chose Inception, I almost chose Inception too. But I was like, well, really, you didn't do Tenet and like doing Malignant, in a way, it's kind of picking Tenet. A little bit. Yeah. Tenet's another, yes, another Nolan I definitely could have picked. Malignant has, I mean, Malignant is a horror movie. And, like, horror movies have, you know, multiple arenas where stunt work is very important.

But in particular, it has one scene in a women's lockup that is so spectacularly carried off on a hand-to-hand fight coordination level. That is, it's so bravura, it's so incredible. And that it also is the moment where, like, the audience is like on their feet screaming. at the like the reveals that have gone on in this sequence. It's so fucking bonkers. And for being so bonkers and like campy in its way to also have the grounding of like, no, this is like a plus level stunt work going on in this scene. It really like it's it's not Uncanny Valley.

It's maybe like the photo negative of Uncanny Valley where it's just sort of like it is both like the ridiculous and the sublime all at once. and I fucking love it. I want to watch it. I was in a bad mood. You definitely did not react to it the way I did. Everybody definitely has more fun with what the twist of that movie is because, and maybe it's because I caught on very early what it was.

And I was like, if it's going to be this, I'm going to be so fucking mad. But I think also, the movie is so ridiculous even leading up to that. Like, it's so over the top. The whole thing where, like, you see this, like, asylum that, like, is teetering on the edge of a cliff. It's so great. Such a fun movie. God, I love that so much.

And such a surprise, because, like, I genuinely, I knew people were talking about it, but, like, I didn't know what flavor of fun horror movie it was going to be. So, like, I was hooting and hollering. It was great. I had such a good time. I have a shit ton. I have a shit ton of vulnerable mentions.

I've mentioned a couple of them, so I won't, I mentioned the River Wild. I almost had, a late cut for me was the John Carp movie they live, which has the famous extended brawl, parking lot brawl between Routy Piper and Keith David, which is so good, again, hand-to-hand combat stuff. I think the Scream franchise in general is very satisfying on a stunt level.

There's a lot of chases with, like, people falling off of things. But in particular, scream to the Sarah Michelle Geller sorority house Chase is so much fun and like

so well done on like a stunt level. It's just really, it's great fucking stuff. And Sarah Michelle Geller, you know, we're a movie podcast, obviously.

But like, Sarah Michelle Geller is almost an emissary from the world of like great TV stunts because like Buffy the Vampire Slayer was always on the like cutting edge of like really fantastic stunt scenes. So, um,

good to have her in there. I wanted to mention, I haven't talked a ton about sports movies, and I wanted to mention the cutting edge, which Moira Kelly and D.B. Sweeney trained to do a lot of their own skating, but they didn't do it all. They had, you know, a pair of ice skaters doing their stunt stuff for them, and I thought I had written it down, and I didn't. But in particular, you've seen the cutting edge, right? Yes. Not since I was a child.

But the thing at the end where they do the move where he's like, he's got her by her ankles and he's swirling her around and spinning and then he tosses her in the air and whatever. Like... Just like in Matilda. Wait, is that what happens in Matilda? In Matilda, the trunch bull takes the pig-tailed girl and swings her around by her pig-tail. Wow, pig-tail Pamchenko. That's crazy.

Anyway, the Bond movie is just in general through the years. but I think once you hit the Daniel Craig gears, the stunt stuff really hits another level. Casino Royale, the, um, uh, what's the, uh, the CBT scene? No, what's the, um, the type of the, uh, you're running up walls and shit like that. What is it called? Oh, park.

Parkour. The parkour stuff in Casino Royale, like, really felt like a, um, a, um, a moment where, like, oh, I'm seeing something new and really kind of wild. And like, there are chase scenes in Skyfall that are absolutely great. That's the one I think where he like lands on the train, right? He's like motorbiking through a city and he like lands on the back of a train or whatever. It's incredible. I mentioned death proof.

Oh, here's two movies I paired together for fun reasons. Great call. Eastern Promises, the David Cronenberg movie, East. and no hard feelings. So these are both excellence in naked fighting. Vigo Mortensen in the, it's a bathhouse, right? Where he's in a fight with a bunch of Russian gangsters, completely in the buff. And then no hard feelings, Jennifer Lawrence charges out of the ocean from a skinny dip

and like beats the shit out of a bunch of annoying kids. and both boldly, both actors boldly showing it all in service for genuine, like, practical stunt work. We love them both. David Fincher, I think in general, is like a lifetime achievement award winner in terms of like movies with great stunt stuff. Obviously, Fight Club and the scenes there. The game has some incredible stuff, including like people just like diving off the roofs of buildings. And then... That one fight late in the killer

is so good. I kind of wish I'd pick the killer for that. The killer is so good. Shout out to Wendy Williams, the killer. We haven't mentioned John Wu also, but like, and I haven't seen a fraction of the John Wu movies, but like obviously known for, you know,

this belletic gunfight stuff. But like face off, really incredible. Mission Impossible 2. Because it's the least, it's the worst reviewed of the Mission Impossible movies, people sometimes gloss over it, even when they shouldn't. And like stunt conversations are ways in which they shouldn't. Like, yes, Tom Cruise did the wire hover scene in the first Mission Impossible and the DePaulma one. But like the thing where he like free solos up the side of the mountain and whatever. and then does the thing where he like grips it backwards and he shows off his arm muscles. That was the seed planted that ultimately, that's the little domino that leads to the big domino of like Tom Cruise jumps off of the moon and lands on, you know, a spot in Peoria, Illinois or something like that. And then also we mentioned it briefly, but the fall guy. the Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt movie of recent vintage,

that was not only possesses great stunt stuff, but is also an homage to stunt performers to the point where they make a like straightforward appeal to having an Oscar for stunt performers. And it worked. So well done.

And the tip of the hat to the fall guy. In general, Ryan Gosling's contribution to movies that feel like tributes to stunt performers is very high because obviously Place Beyond the Pines also feels like, you know, an ode to stunt guys. Mm-hmm. His reckless motorbike stuff in that. What about yours? That's a good honorable mention.

Yeah. I mean, some of my obvious honorable mentions are things that we talked about. One that we didn't talk about, and I honestly didn't pick it because I thought we would spend more time on it because it did have a lot of Oscar nominations that people forget. I think it was a four-time Oscar nominee, and that's Die Hard, which, you know, diehard probably ushered in a lot of the type of genre movies that we don't necessarily care for. But Die Hard's still a good movie. And I think even some of that stunt work is even this like really incredible. simple simplicity that we feel on a visceral level, and it just goes down to, like, John McLean having to walk on glass, you know. Yeah.

Well, I think of that when you mention Diehard, I, of course, think of diehard on a bus, which was speed. The moment in speed where he and Sandra Bullock have to get on the little, the piece of the door on the floor of the bus and then, like, skid off under the runway. really cool looking scene that I imagine was very carefully filmed as a stunt In terms of like careful choreo I was thinking about things that were CGI heavy and how

in terms of like the stunt coordination has to be precise because of the technological needs I thought of death becomes her which has some fun fight choreography Oh her Merrill and Goldie they literally do like an on guard thing where like one has a shovel and one I think they both have shovels right because someone was digging a grave yeah and Merrill throwing the the broken javelin stick through her the hole in Goldie's stomach fantastic stuff and then one that we both put on our long list for honorable mentions that I kind of wish one of us had picked and that's old boy specifically for that extended fight sequence that's a big one oh like demolish is all of those guys on that one take. I think that is also...

No. I thought that was also Yen Wen Ping, but I don't think it is. Never mind. Listen, we definitely admit to having some blind spots given to things like taste. So I haven't seen the Raid movies. The Raid movies are a big one. Yeah. I haven't seen them, so I can't call them out.

I'm sure we have other things that listeners might... The Aung-Bok movies, the Tony Jaw movies, like that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yes, there are, again, this is what I meant when I talked about, like, there are whole, like, subgenres that exist out there that are very stunt-heavy, action-heavy, fight-heavy movies that just sort of bypass me in general. And, you know, I will, you know, we all have our genres we gravitate to and don't gravitate to. And there's nothing, I have no, you know, animus, in sorts of any of these movies. I am just, I'm not a, it's funny because I watched pro wrestling a lot

during my, like, formative years. And you would think, that's like gay. Well, as it turns out, yes. But, like, I didn't realize. I just thought it was just like, oh, like, you know, whatever. But, like, Hulk Hogan's not gay. Hulk Hogan's just, you know, quite not. Quite not. Yeah. So it just never translated into like I never, and like, I could have watched the John Claude Van Dam movies. I keep wanting to call Jean-Claude Van Damme, Rob Van Dam, who is a pro wrestler.

I never, I could have watched the Jean-Claude Van Dam movies for prurient reasons because like Jean-Claude Van Dam was very hot. But like. Very naked. Very naked. And I didn't. And I didn't get into those. I was never a, I was never one for the, the fight franchises, for whatever reason. But I'm glad that they're getting their... The stomach is growling. All right, let's move it along. If that's being picked up on my... Hungies.

Turkey raps. One of my favorite 30 rock jokes. Okay. All right. That's the end of our main miniseries, Joe. Another one. It was nice to be speculative. Yes. To be very extemporaneous.

We really... We were free as a bird. We were Lucy Goosey. We danced. We sang. We talked about our favorite movie stars. And then we talked about our favorite movie stars punching and kicking and shooting things. And truly, that's the cinematic experience.

And that's our episode. That's our main mini series. If you want more ThisHad Oscar Buzz, you should check us out on Tumblr at thisheadoscurbuzz. On Instagram at ThisHad Oscar Buzz and on Patreon at patreon.com slash this head Oscar buzz. Oscar buzz. Joe, where can the listeners find more of you? I am on letterboxed and blue sky at Joe Reed, read spelled R-E-I-D. I am also on vulture, doing vultuary things. And also just this is a nice, you know, an annual reminder to thank the Gary's out there for another year well spent with us.

We don't tend to, this isn't really our like birthday, but like I tend to do like mile marker stuff at the May mini series. And we even, it's a reminder. We'll have a 400th episode coming up soon. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. 400. Turn me to dust. bury me in the ground.

I'm so old. Okay. But yes. Carry on. You can find me on ladderbox and blue sky. Chris V. Fy.I.L. We'd like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork. Dave and Zolles and Gavin Medius for technical guidance when we need it because we're dumb and Taylor Cole for a theme music.

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