The Tenth Annual Blank Check Awards with Joe Reid

[00:00:17] David, this is a pre-roll before the actual episode. Wow. Because we have something special. An announcement to communicate about our show. Blank Check. Luke Griffin and David. Ten years. Decade. Of dreams. This March, coming up, is the anniversary month, and we want to do something special. Last year for our live show at Town Hall, we had our buddy Ollie Moss, the mad lad himself, make a beautiful poster. You might be seeing more of that artwork soon. Yep.

[00:00:44] And he sent us like six ideas, right? Of just like, here are ways I thought I could graphically represent the show. And his rough drafts were incredible. Yes. It sparked something in my head. Okay. We got all these amazing artists who we know listen to the show. What would happen if we perhaps gave those artists a blank canvas to see whatever crazy ideas they could come up with? Wait, I'm sorry. Griffin, did you have a complicated idea? Yes, I did. Exactly.

[00:01:13] Griffin's doing a lot of talking here because this was all his idea and I've not been involved with it. We're celebrating a decade of dreams with a special anniversary art show presented in partnership with Coda Gallery and Mutant. And who's invited? You're invited. Hell yeah. So here's the deal. Well, March 21st to March 23rd at Coda Gallery located at 210 Rivington Street, New York, New York, 1-0-0-0-0-2. The show will be open to the public Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

[00:01:43] This special event will showcase exclusive prints from Murugaya, Brian Gaja, Brian Lee O'Malley. Heard of him. Of course. Kevin Wilson, our buddy Joe Bowen. And we'll also have unique kind of one of one works from Brad Hill, Sarah Rubin, Abigail Noy, Truck Torrents. Just name a few. It's quite a list of contributors. And I've seen some some sneaky peekies of what they're working on. There's some really cool stuff. So we will have first run prints available exclusively in person at the show.

[00:02:13] If there is any leftover inventory, we will make it available online to those of you who cannot attend. And here's another thing. You could take a trip down memory lane, curate selection of blank check ephemera from over the years. Some some very important historical items may or may not be on display. The envelope, buried jeans, perhaps a full ass porch. I think it's gonna be a fun thing if you're a dang ass freak and a real nerd who likes this podcast.

[00:02:41] We think it's gonna be a fun thing to do. I think it's going to be very fun. I'm actually excited to see all this stuff that I've had no real participation in curating. Look, we make a mistake every year, which is planning a big live show in the same month we do March Madness and taxing ourself to the high heavens. Mm hmm. We will do a live show later this summer. Yep. But we wanted to do something special in March for the anniversary. And this was a fun idea to reserve a time to see the show. Go to blank check art show dot event bright dot com.

[00:03:11] So mark calendars, spread the word. We'll see you at the Coda Gallery, 210 Rivington Street, March 21st through March 23rd. And for more info, you can follow us on socials or visit the aforementioned blank check art show dot event bright dot com. A decade of dreams, David. David. A decade of dreams.

[00:03:42] Coming to you live from Brooklyn, New York. It's the 2025 blankies.

[00:04:15] Wonderful night for blankies, blankies, blankies, blankies. Who will win? And some of the possible nominees are. Oh, Amelia. Amelia Perez. Affirming your gender and singing. Oh, Amelia. You ran a cartel. Guacamole smell. Run a charity. I was very surprised that's what that movie is about.

[00:04:44] When the girl gets on top and she grinds till you pop, that's a Nora. When a rich Russian boy treats your heart like a toy, that's a Nora. Nora's a vampire now. I also did a moray for Minari, I believe. Yes. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Skip ahead. Conclave!

[00:05:10] When there's white smoke, it signals that there's a new pope. Conclave! Conclave! Ralph Fiennes leads the Catholic Church through changing times. Conclave! He sure does. I don't think you're ready for this shelving. No. I don't think you're ready for this shelving. I don't think you're ready for this because my style is too brutalistic for you, babe. That was a respectful nod from David.

[00:05:40] I'm watching Wicked tonight. I'm watching Wicked tonight. I'm watching Wicked tonight, but just part one. All I can say is that I like the real pain. That's what I thought, too. Colkin and Eisenberg stayed in their lanes. Yeah, that's good. He's a young Bob Dylan conquering the world of folk. Wants to go electric.

[00:06:10] Pete Seeger's saying no. He sleeps with a girl named Joan. Girl named Joan. Plot of a complete unknown. This is a danger zone. Okay, I was like, what is it? I was trying to find it. I got it. I got it. Okay. Here's the big one. What are the Nickel Boys? Nickel Boys. The school is real bad and real racist, too. Racist, too. They mess kids around. And then worst of all, worst of all,

[00:06:38] the film is all shot from their POV, POV. I see what they see. Empathy! Okay, I'm typed out. Oh, that was great. That was great. Thank you. Congratulations. Now, let's acknowledge. A thrill ride is awesome. For the first year for the 10th annual Blankies, we brought in our Bruce Valanche. Oh, yeah, that's right. And who's that? Sean Clemens of Hollywood Handbook. How many of those did he come up with? Almost all of them. Okay, great. Nickel Boys was all me. I did some adjustments on a couple of them. This was almost all. Last year, he was like,

[00:07:08] Hey, I heard you struggle to come up with the songs. I like song parodies. Feel free to activate me earlier. And I remembered to text him last night. So Nickel Boys to build me a buttercup. Yeah. I see what they see was the big... That came to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that was great. POV! The school's bad. Shut it down! I was trying to figure out how to fit that lyric in there. I was... Yeah, I want to make it clear. Close the schools. That's what we're saying. Shut it down! Close the schools. Yeah, close the schools.

[00:07:36] Nickel Boys because you don't like any schools. Yeah. Right. Shut them all! All right, Linda McMahon. Hey! Hello. Welcome! To the 10th annual... People are pointing out that this is actually the 11th year Blank Check. Right, but we didn't do a Blankies Award in our first year. Which makes this a 10th annual. But people are saying, Why are you talking about all this Decade of Dreams shit? This is year 11. Decade of Dreams is all about looking back. Much like the 10th annual Blankies,

[00:08:06] which are about looking back to 2024. Right. It's like we've done 10 years and one day and two days. Right. But still, it's a decade. It's a decade. I hate people listening to this show and commenting on it. This is how... Turn it off! It's also how birthdays work and have always work. It is how birthdays work. Thank you. That's how... And everything else. Check my watch here. Well, well, well. Uh-oh. It's my birthday today. What?

[00:08:32] Happy birthday, Griffin Newman and Blankie Awards. Well, well, well. And what a great gift I got this year. The episode that stresses me out most yearly. Oh, this stresses you out? You get too stressed out about these assignments. I get too... I get too stressed out of the words, body. They're hard out there for a griff.

[00:09:01] I want some of them. That's good. How is 3-6 Mafia doing? Great. They have three Academy Awards. They each have a trophy. What do you mean? Like, their last album was released in 2008. Okay. All right. Yeah, but you know what they can do? They can look on their bookshelf and see an Academy Award. It was a deserved win, as far as I remember. Good movie. I wonder if I would like it now. But I loved it. Oh, you know what? I actually didn't like it at the time. And now I'm curious if I'd like it more. I liked it a lot.

[00:09:31] I liked The Hustle. Maybe not so much The Flow. You weren't into The Flow. Yeah. Did you like Hustle and Flow, Ben? Did you ever see Hustle and Flow? I did see it. You know, it's hard out here for a film. It was... I liked it. I love a gritty movie about a bunch of riffraff. Maybe The Flow this time around can be a bunch of animals on a little boat. Hustling to make it through the floods. And you know what? I love to see scrappy audio production. Oh, well, I mean... That part of it.

[00:10:01] Make it work culture was happening in the studio right before we started recording. That is true. Ben Hosley. We had a little bit of equipment failure. But thankfully, we had an extra part. And we were able... I broke my arm. We were able to get things back on track. I Red Hulked out for a second there, I guess. I broke my arm. People might be worried that now that Captain America Brave New World has come out, and we

[00:10:26] as a culture have entered a Brave New World, that the Rolk reference riffs might end. Never. I want you to know, first of all, we have maybe six episodes in the can where we talk about Red Hulk. I can't stop thinking about him. I'm looking at him right now. Yeah. He's looming. He is up there. He is looming. Our friends at Regal sent us a Red Hulk popcorn bucket. Yeah, you eat out of his back? Oh, is that bucket connected to the Red Hulk? No. That is an Avatar bucket. Oh, okay.

[00:10:52] This is literally just a bust, a very detailed bust of Red Hulk Harrison Ford, and there's a slot in his back and you can reach him. Oh, God. God does not approve of that. Hey, our guest today. Hey. Returned to the show for the 10th time. Getting better with age? I think so. Yes. Had Oscar buzz. This had Oscar buzz. But you know, today we'll talk about things that also had Oscar buzz and it either- This has Oscar buzz. Came to be or not.

[00:11:22] He's also the godfather of the Cinematrix. That's true. I indeed am. Godfather? Father? Speaking of things that are turning one. Hey, today is also the birthday. I said last year when I recorded The Blankies was the very first day that Cinematrix went live. Everything's happening. Joe Reed, aka Reading Ranger. Thank you. A nickname that I solely uphold. The only person to call me that, and you know what? I appreciate it. Hey, that's what I'm here for.

[00:11:49] Guys, was 2024 a weird year for movies? Nah, you know- I'm just- I'm thinking about this. I'm thinking normal. For the first time. Yes. No, it was weird, right? It was an odd one. Very odd year for life. Mm-hmm. You know what? That's a good way of framing it. Bit of an odd year for movies. Why was it? I guess the strike that, you know- I think a lot of it is- A lot of weird stuff got kind of, like, gummed up. A lot of it's the strike. Release-wise.

[00:12:19] I think when things- What? The strike? The studios foolishly, hubristically thought they could avoid, and then went on so much longer than they thought, that when the machine started up, it was just like, we have to finish five temples. And everything else was just kind of, like, backlogged. You also hear all these stories of just nothing getting fucking greenlit anymore. And during the strike, there was a lot of talk of, like, indie waivers. Right. Well, the indies get to go. Right.

[00:12:47] But what people don't know, I had good friends who were ready to make a feature, and the strike happened. And I was like, well, can't you guys go? Can't you get an indie waiver? And they were like, the indie waiver list is so fucking backed up. Oh, wow. Right. Especially because all these stars were like, get me on an indie. Uh, A24 got a couple things through the pipeline. You know, like, there were things that happened. Yeah, things got approved. But, like, they needed to be one by one approved. And so even the indie offerings were backed up.

[00:13:17] And A24 had about 12 movies this year that you were like, well, this is probably going to be an Oscar contender. They had a weird year. They're all competing with the inside the same house. They had a weird year, and then they just bought something at. At the last minute. And just put everything on that. Yeah. Yeah. At Venice, I think, right? Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Both. Whatever. Who knows? Everything. Yeah. It was a weird year. I mean, that is the number one reason.

[00:13:42] And also, we've like, as we talk about every year, the last 10 years have been very transformative for the Oscars. And you now basically have this body that's like at war with itself and is like every year swinging back and forth on what it is. Yeah. They're so international now. They're so very much like, and now all of a sudden, this is why the Oscars are much more an extension of Cam than they used to be. And younger and artier, and that you still have old fuddy-duddies.

[00:14:07] And sometimes you have a movie that seems like a critics' darling art house festival play that then comes out bombs, and then the fuddy-duddies reclaim it. One of the weirdest award season arcs of all time, in my opinion. Yes. Especially in the fact that it seemed at times that, like, do you even know what you like about this movie? Because I don't know if you necessarily do.

[00:14:33] But Netflix definitely thought buying Amelia Perez, this is at least Anatomy of a Murder, best case parasite. They didn't think we're Green Book this year. Right. Right? Well, because it was like, listen, it's on the cutting edge of, you know, we are being radically inclusive. And we are telling, it's a trans musical drug cartel. It's in Mexico.

[00:15:03] It's all, it's international, yada, yada, yada. And every little element of this component, communities were like, don't want it. Just to be clear, we're talking about Hot Frosty. Yeah, we're talking about Hot Frosty. Netflix's riskiest bet. Do you like EP? So I saw it last night. I'd been putting it off this whole season. Okay. And I finally saw it. Here's what I'll say. Yeah. I did not like it. It's very French. I didn't. It is a very French movie. I didn't despise it. No. I don't know if that's because I have seen it so late in the bell curve that my expectations

[00:15:33] were most offensive, incompetent, incoherent movie ever made. It's a really bad musical. And I really don't like that about it. It is a disastrous musical. You could do a subcategory this year of like the broken musicals of 2024. Yeah. Amelia Perez, Joker Faliada, and Moana 2 are like three musicals in crisis where it's like you can't figure out why you're a musical. Yeah. I think Joker 2 comes out the best out of those three. As a musical or as a movie? Both. Wow. Okay.

[00:16:03] David's making a stinky poofeet. I would take Amelia Perez. I think I liked Amelia Perez more than Joker Faliada. Watching Amelia Perez made me respect Faliada even more. Have you seen Moana 2? The songs are so fucking bad. I know. I waited until the Oscar nominations and then it didn't get any. And I was like, that's a movie I do not have to see this year. I complained that Faliada, Todd Phillips didn't have enough conviction to really like own the cinematic language of it being a musical. And then watching Amelia Perez, I'm like, he went for it much harder than ODR did.

[00:16:32] That's a movie that feels embarrassed to be a musical in a way that is weird to me. Well, perfunctory more than maybe embarrassed. I just think they don't know how to sing. Right. That's like the major issue. The songs are bad and the numbers aren't shot in any sort of like. There's a couple. I disagree with that. I think there are two. Yeah. Yeah. Joker falling into stinks. The songs are so poorly chosen. I will not get on board with the like reclamation of that movie. It's so annoying to me. It's such a dull fucking movie.

[00:17:01] I have like it's better than Amelia Perez. That's fine. But like, I don't like either of those movies. So I don't, that's like not a conversation to me. But Amelia Perez is at least an original musical with songs written to match a plot. I'll give it that. Like that's, I can give it that. I don't like that movie. For me, I think it's also dull. Yeah. For a movie that's like so bananas. Like I found it like dreary, especially the last half.

[00:17:26] I think I just committed harder to the songs in the intro to the blankies than Amelia Perez does to its musical numbers. The actors can't sing musical numbers. So that's the issue. That's not the only problem. There are 10 issues. That's, but I mean, I'm just with the music. I'm just kind of like. It felt like watching the musical cut of I'll Do Anything. Right. Where I'm like, you could lift this and the movie plays the same. Oh God. For Amelia Perez, yes. Yeah. This was Ackerman's take, which I think is really dead on.

[00:17:52] Where he's like, it's single biggest issue in a lot of ways is it's like complete failure dramatically as a musical. In that the musical numbers, aside from the not being good songs, not being well staged. They're punctuation rather than like plot movers. They are just stating things. Like it's not the classic, the fundamental like musical should be this is the only way to express a thing that narratively pushes the plot forward. And the musical numbers are just characters restating things. I can't disagree with you.

[00:18:22] I also just think. Which is what I'll Do Anything feels like. It felt like watching that, it's so weird that that movie got fucking 13 Oscar nominations. That's mostly. I just feel annoyed that I had to discuss that movie at all. Like it should have been just like, oh yeah, that, yeah, well, that thing didn't really work, did it? Okay. Right. Let's kind of put that in the, you know, forgotten bucket. Richard Brody, I think hit the nail on the head where he just pinpointed it. It's fundamental issue being that it is a deeply incurious movie. Incurious.

[00:18:52] Which I was like, that's the whole thing for me. Incurious bastards. Right. But it's a lot like Green Book where I'm like, I don't find this movie offensive. I find it stupid and glib. I find the people who elevate it to profundity to then be offensive. Sure. Except I think one of the people elevating it to profundity is Jacques Odiard. Yeah. Here's the thing I didn't know. And also Carlos Fio. Until yesterday. Yeah. He's 72 years old. Yeah. Man's been around. He's been around.

[00:19:19] I spent literally like months evangelizing the Sisters Brothers though because we rewatched it. I love that movie. Oscar Buzz. And I was like, I fucking love this movie. I love almost all of his films. And I was so high on Odiard at that point. And then Amelia Perez came along and I was like, oh. He had like 20 years in France writing crime movies and stuff before he in like the mid-90s starts directing. Like he, his first writing credit is in like the 70s.

[00:19:43] And I don't really know like why he spent so long, you know, like not directing before he finally was like, you know what? Maybe I'll, you know, like, and then like started pushing out a lot of interesting movies. He's made a lot of interesting movies. He's also made, you know, a couple misfires. I'm going to call this one a misfire. Yeah, sure. I think that's fair. But have any of us nominated Amelia Perez for anything today? Zero noms. Goose egg. Ben, admit it. Sweet.

[00:20:13] It might appear in a category. So luckily we do not have to bow to the Oscars love of Amelia Perez. I'm discussing it too much, but you did see it. You did your homework. I did my homework. That's not good. No, it's not good. It's not. And you know, I watched a lot of these movies. Like 2024 is defined by me, like in the middle, my twins are born. I go on leave. Wait, I'm sorry. I miss. Thank you again. I'm hearing this for the first time right now. I go on leave. I miss like fall festival season. I miss all the awards movies.

[00:20:41] I catch up with them all like with their buzz kind of calcified. Right. You know, it's like, I'm just usually I'm taking the temperature with, you know, but like I go see a Nora just like in the movie theater. Like it was just kind of fun. I was like, great. This is great. I don't have to like worry about, oh my gosh, am I, you know, whatever. Like, am I going against the grain with this one? Or I go see a Nora and I'm like, oh, it was good. I can see what people liked about this one. Right. Like, yeah.

[00:21:11] But then like other things like Amelia Perez is going like, okay, I guess it's on Netflix. I guess I'll get around to this and just watching it be like, I don't have a lot of time right now. This is what I have to be doing with my time, which was Joker too as well. Sure. So we're here to do our Blanky Awards. Joe Reed is here. Have we? Reading range. Yeah. The reading range. Yeah. Yeah. I did it. Ben Hosley's here. Ben Hosley, the great Ben Hosley. He's just been. I got a box. I got a thing of peanut butter cups from Trader Joe's. Very nice. It's a bold move. Yeah. It's a bold move by me.

[00:21:41] And we should kick off. We don't need to do too much prelude, but we all agree 2024, weird year. Weird year. Yeah. Here's my one qualifier. I always resent doing qualifiers. I regret doing it immediately, but I'm going to throw this out. I have had a rule that I've enforced only for myself in every year that we've done this, that anyone who has been on the show is disqualified due to bias. Oh, okay. So who does that entail for this year? Well, I saw the TV glow was very much one of my favorite movies. Oh, just put it in your list.

[00:22:11] I have just, I have exempted Jane in director and screenplay. All right. You do what you want. Just the personal nominations. That was my one move I did. I get it. I get it. So just read into that snob as you will. I felt it was unfair. I put it in other categories. My close personal friendship with Ryan Reynolds has forced me to disqualify Deadpool and Wolverine and also If. If. My close personal friendship with the purple guy from If has caused me to also reject it. Isn't his name blue? Oh, man.

[00:22:42] I couldn't make it past the 30-minute mark. Can I tell you about movies that I haven't seen this year? Yeah, let's do that. One of them is If. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I also did not see If, which features George Clooney. We were all busy that day? Yeah. Somehow. If lagged out some box office, I will say. Like, it hustled through. It made money. It was the highest grossing original film in some year. I mean, we fight over this. There's some way, certainly, to be like. Yeah. Right? Like, it's based on no IP except ripping off other IP, I guess. Mm-hmm. Right?

[00:23:12] Let's see. Let's take a look. Because it's like. The whole box office list. Yeah. Because, like, Wicked, beyond it being based on a musical, it's like, it's also, you know, playing with toys we know. Absolutely. Yeah. It's based on a thing that's based on a thing. Right. That's based on a thing. It's an adaptation of a musical. It's an adaptation of a book that's an adaptation of the original books. Because the thing, it ends with us, Crush, but it's based on a book. Based on a bestseller. Right. And it crushed. We all loved it. I never saw. Yeah. Yeah. It did incredibly well at the box.

[00:23:41] Red One is based on Santa Claus. That's true. It's based on our greatest mythology. Right. It's also, right. It's also based on quality. The notion of a high quality product. Red One is falling just short of 100 million domestic is very funny. You know what? I hadn't been keeping track. 96. I gave up at some point. I was like, fuck, it's going to cross it. That sucks. I'm really happy it stalled out. Sorry, 97. The other one that stalled out that I kind of feel bad about stalling out is Nosferatu.

[00:24:10] Because that got up to 95. What's it up to right now? It's still in theaters. Yeah. It's not. It's going to need to like get an infusion of something to get to 100 million. What? An infusion? Come here. But I think it's also hanging right. Infusion. It's hanging right around. It's a good bit voice. It will never get old. Has anyone called out that Nosferatu sounds like Watto? That it is dramatic Watto. You. You.

[00:24:40] What does it want to say? Mine tricks don't work on me. Only money. No money. No parking. No parking. No deal. It's a good time for sale. I would buy a ticket to Nosferatu, though. Yes. That is just the one. Nosferatu. A red de boy. Sebulba cannot be beaten. I wish Nosferatu. I wish that Graff were like complaining about Sebulba a lot more. I got so much money on that motherfucker. Sebulba. Oh, boy. You know what's funny?

[00:25:09] What? Sebulba. Sebulba is really funny. As someone who spends too much time doing waddo comedy. Do you for a comeback? Sebulba? Let's bring him back. I really... You know what? I thought it was brave at Brian Cox in that interview to say that it's time to uncancel Sebulba. Yeah, no. Brian Cox actually won't stop saying it. He's done it five times in the last two months. And meanwhile, Guy Pearce is like, I have some nails for a coffin for you. Look, I know he had his weirdnesses, but Sebulba's one of the great pod racers.

[00:25:37] I do have a waddo question for you. Please. Are you taking care of your voice? That's a lot of... It's a really well-trained muscle at this point. It sounds... It just sounds like it would hurt to do that much waddo voice. The answer is that at this point, I don't... I have found a modified version that is easy to sustain. Okay, good. Right? So I'm just like, waddo in the movie is like, eh, no money, no parts. Like, that tension would hurt to do for two hours. That sounds like a nodule. That's why I don't do that. That sounds like a nodule in the making. That's why I'm like, hey, hello, welcome to the George. Okay.

[00:26:07] It's much more triumph-y. I've gotten good at how to do it. Hey, let's start out. Best supporting actor. What should we do first? Best supporting actor. Let's mention that Nosferatu is hosting the awards on the year. Usually we have the past winners present this year. The ends of the Kodak Theater. It's five Nosferatus coming out to present each individual number. Can we present... Can we say

[00:26:36] who our winners were last year? Can we pull that up? Can we pull that up, Davey? I'm 100% sure that we can. But don't we usually start with like a supporting actor or whatever? Yeah, so I'm saying, why don't you pull up our supporting actress nominees? I'm going to. I appreciate this so much. Oh, so you want to know who won supporting... Right, who the... So best supporting actress last year. Wow, it is a real trip down memory lane because of some of these movies I haven't thought much about. This is why I like doing this. Griffin, who is Julianne Moore from May, December presenting your best... You know, who are you... What's she saying?

[00:27:05] Oh, okay, so we're going to... I'll say all for you. All right, fine. Mine is, of course, Mara Tierney from The Iron Claw. Of course. And Joe's, of course, was Penelope Cruz in Ferrari. Another person with a normal accent in the movie. Very much so. I was sort of coin tossing between Cruz and Moore and then once you picked that, I put my chips down. Okay, I'm doing this last second edit, which is just removing the person who got the Oscar nomination whose performance I love to fight for my guys. There you go. Best supporting actor

[00:27:35] in a motion picture. Supporting, supporting actor. And I'm just... I'm ready for right out the gate, David, to make a stinky poo-poo face. I'm going to be so angry about it. I'm going to be so angry. David, neutral face, please. That was the least neutral face I've ever seen. My nominees for best supporting actor. Tom Hardy in The Bike Riders. Okay, his face stayed still. I appreciate it. Mark Edelstein, Anora. That's his name, right? Does he have a longer name? Maybe. No, I think it's just... Yeah, you're right. You're right.

[00:28:05] He just has a lot of extra Ys in it. There's just a lot of letters in there. It's spelled in an interesting way. Right. Jack Haven, I saw the TV glow. Credited as Bridget Lundy Payne in the film. Citing this just for lack of... No, it's for clarity. Yes. Adam Pearson, A Different Man. Chris Hemsworth, Furiosa, Mad Max Saga. Now, he is supporting, right? I mean, I wondered about him because he's sort of... He's sort of the lead of like... Of the parts of the movie that are his. Right. But then he's also not in it for a while.

[00:28:35] It was obviously my least favorite movie of 2024. You hated it. You will see it receive six spiteful nominations for me this year. I saw it three times in theaters. Across the three times... With a grimace on your face every time. Across the three times, I was like, let me do the math. Not stopwatch, but like really feeling is he supporting our lead. The first act, he is absolutely like running. Right, because... He really disappears for like... Furious, it doesn't even really talk. The middle hour plus. I think it's firmly supporting. Much more so than perhaps

[00:29:03] the person who is about to win supporting actor at the Academy Awards. All right, I've come around on this. I think there is a... A solid argument to be made that Karen Culkin is supporting him. I mean, it's sort of a... It's a Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, like when you have a two-hander, someone sort of becomes automatically supporting. Yeah, I guess. I think you could almost argue that Culkin is more lead than Eisenberg, though. And I'm not stopwatching this. The movie's about Eisenberg a little bit more. And it's about Eisenberg

[00:29:33] taking Culkin in and trying to make sense of him, which is to me what makes the lead this supporting distinction. It does begin and end with Culkin. It does. Does it? See, the other thing is I saw that movie more than a year ago, and I do not remember it very well except for the only scene in the movie I truly loved, which involved Jesse Eisenberg. So I walked away being like, an Eisenberg dinner table. Yeah. You were calling that Eisenberg was going to win Best Actor. No, I was calling him to make The Five, and then I was kind of like, who knows? There was a while there where it seemed like that was a very good one.

[00:30:02] It was pre-Timmy, pre-The Dylan movie hitting for anyone where everyone was like, who's even getting nominated? There was this brief period where it was like, is this the weakest actor field ever? And then it kind of, everyone settled down. Sure. Right? Like everyone kind of settled down. They settled their asses down. Who's presenting Joe's nominees? Joe's nominees are, I said, Penelope Cruz. Penelope Cruz. Penelope Cruz is coming out. I will not be doing an accent. Weird. Weird choice. My nominees, Griffin, you will appreciate a lot of these. Mark Eidelstein.

[00:30:32] Hell yeah. And Nora. Chris Hemsworth in Furiosa. Karen Karagoulian in Nora. Love that guy. Love that guy. Baker is going to be making a fucking Marvel movie and he'd be like, there's a rumpled Armenian guy. Okay? Who's stressed out for much of this. He's showing up. In a relationship with his wife. That's the Captain America we need and deserve is Karen Karagoulian. Guy Pearce in The Brutalist and Adam Pearson in A Different Man. Guy Pearce was my last second ball. Right. I mean, that's a great performance

[00:31:01] and I think we all love Guy Pearce. Like, right beyond liking that performance, we're just like, it's kind of nice to have Guy Pearce landing a punch. It is certainly my favorite of the five nominees and the one I want to win. I bumped him just purely because we're going to talk about him. You bumped him out of spite. I bumped him out of spite. Yeah, Guy Pearce is interesting. So you like, I guess, wait, who are the five nominees? Because there's my five nominees? No, the five nominees. The five nominees. It's Pearce, Culkin,

[00:31:30] Edward Norton, who I do really love in A Complete Unknown. Jeremy Strong, who I also really love. It's a good five and Yoroborosov, who I assume we all enjoy. I like all the Anora guys. I just wanted to give the, because my thing with Yoroborosov is like, you know, he's already hot. He's already hot. This is the thing. God doesn't need to give with both hands all the time. He's already super hot. So let's give it to, I feel bad that Mark Eidelstein has been like the forgotten one. Like Karagoulian even at least got a couple of things. I think Eidelstein was so good at playing

[00:32:00] his character that everybody was like, fuck that guy. This is my take, but we'll get into this. I think you're right that everyone was kind of like, he's, is this just what this stupid kid is like? Right. I kept talking to people. Our friend Tim Simons was like, man, you're, you're, who's always got normal takes. Right. Perfectly dictated into his phone. With no mistakes. Yes. That's right. He was like, man, Yoroborosov's like amazing. And I was like, really, Mark Eidelstein's the one who like kind of blew me away. And he went,

[00:32:30] yeah, but isn't that just Baker finding some kid who's just like this? Which I guess is Baker's reputation, right? Totally. Yeah. And I kept hearing people say that. And Tim is such a great actor and such a good judge of acting. Right. But like that guy, but he's like a Russian actor, right? He's like classically trained. He is like the Timothee Chalamet of Russia. Yeah. He's like the big, young, leading man. This part is like totally out of his wheelhouse. And I thought it was like kind of the most electric, like a new to me performance I have seen in a very long time. Yeah. And the whole movie runs on the peaks and valleys

[00:33:00] of just also that. Yeah. It runs on Duncan. Yeah. But I, there probably was a lot of Duncan on that. Probably a dunk or two. Jokes aside. Yeah. They were probably done. That Brighton Beach Duncan was popping. It was a dunk contest, I think. But yeah, no, the whole movie hinges on being like, I can't figure this guy out. Is he for real? We love it. So my five nominees are... Presented by Mora Tierney. Mora Tierney. Oh, God. She comes out and everyone's like, God, she's so good. We take her for granted. Wasn't she good in something this year?

[00:33:29] I feel like I just saw her pop up in something again. I think you're right. What, what did Mora Tierney just pop up in? I was very excited to see her pop up in something. Well, what was, what was Mora Tierney doing the pop up in? All right. Um, Mora Tierney. I'm going to figure it out while you're not. you know what? I just saw her in the Criterion closet and she must, well, Twisters. It was Twisters. Yeah, you know what? Twisters. The only problem with Twisters is that it's not. It's clearly meant to be Helen Hunt's. Well, that's true. That is very true. Yeah. But it is not, and right, it wasn't Helen Hunt's thing. Like, well, actually I wanted to direct Twisters and they were like, well,

[00:33:59] we weren't interested in you doing that. Right. So, correct. My only problem with Twisters is it should be canonically in the movie, Glenn Powell and Mora Tierney have fucked. Yes. Even though it's obvious to. Right. Like, Glenn Powell and Mora Tierney have enough chemistry in that movie that you're kind of like, oh, I can go with it. But he actually should be like, oh, I know your mom. Yeah. It's like, all right. Biblically. My five nominees are, and I'm also, just for the record, kind of basically kicking Guy Pearce and Yerba Versoff out, who are both performances out. look, once again,

[00:34:30] like, it's just, why not take the time on these microphones to vouch for the people who aren't getting credit in other places? We're recording this at the tail end of Oscar season. But Guy Pearce would be my winner out of the five people they nominated. I think all five of those nominees are great. I do too. I really like Jeremy Strong. It's maybe the best lineup of the four acting categories. And yet, I think Kieran's gonna win, and I think he's my least favorite performance, although I don't mind the performance, and I like Kieran. I think the pendulum's gone, again, a little bit more against him than I think he should. The whole, you know, oh,

[00:34:59] he's just playing the same guy he always plays. Like, I don't know if I necessarily go with that. I love the guy. I've been holding stock for so fucking long. Yeah. It will surprise no one to hear that A.B. Goes Down left a very big impression on me when I was fucking 12. I keep trying to rope you in to do that to this at Oscar. Whenever you are ready to be on Zoom again, come on over. Yes, yes. We'll figure it out. My thing is, and I feel like I've said this before, with Oscar performances, I either want to see something

[00:35:27] I've never seen them do before. I understand. Yeah. I want to see them do the absolute best version of it they've ever done, where I'm like, they've never gone this deep before. I don't buy into the blankets just playing themselves because it's all acting. Like, Kieran Culkin's not playing himself. Acting is casting way more than people totally understand. He is doing his thing, which he has never had this good of a vehicle to do in a movie at this length. It suffers in comparison to him just having finished a five-year run

[00:35:56] of what I think is the best case of his thing, which he got a ton of awards for. So there's just the part of me... But not only at the very end, though. He was undervalued on that show for the first several seasons. The last season really put him front and center and he won his awards. He went out on top. Swept the whole... It just happened in the last year. Yeah. So there was the part of me that's like, he's undeniably good in this movie. I have nothing against him. I just sat there being like, I'm going to be blown away. This is sometimes how the Oscars work. Totally. Like, that's sort of, and again,

[00:36:26] we sort of push up against the Oscars that way. And the heightening of TV in sort of prestige has led to this thing where people get this sort of like, halo effect win of like, McConaughey being pushed over the edge in the Dallas Buyers Club year because of True Detective. Even a performance that I really love like Regina King in Beale Street was the culmination of her being like, great on like, four or five TV shows leading up to that. And I feel like there's another one I'm forgetting recently. But yes, it's starting to happen more and more. David.

[00:36:56] Oh, that's a good one. That's been an iron lock for you for like six months. Such a good fucking performance. Brian Tyree Henry and the Fire Inside. A performance that when I saw it, I was kind of like, I think this could like waltz to a nom. And now partly a strong field. Yeah. Partly I feel like the film kind of getting a raw deal in its release and stuff. Like did well at festivals, but then like, you know, kind of gets lost. There was festival, there was festival word for Brian Tyree Henry in Toronto. A beautiful performance from an actor who never, ever misses. One of her best. Yeah. Edward Norton in a complete unknown.

[00:37:26] The one nominee I cannot leave because that, he nailed me to the wall. Yeah, he's great. J. O. Sanders and his three daughters. David, I'm glad you did that. An embarrassing line spot for me. Winging in like a wrecking ball. A movie I know I would love and I never got around it. And a movie where you're like, oh, and does the dad ever show up? And you're like, oh, he shows up at the end played by J. O. Sanders and you're like, I bet that's good. Yeah. And David Weber in Hard Truths. The most undersung Hard Truths actor.

[00:37:55] This is the husband? Mm-hmm. Perd? Perd? What's the character's name? You heard of Perd? Is it Perd? It's Kirtley. Yeah. He's incredible in it. Incredible and the most incredible carrying a bathtub down the stairs action of the year. Yeah. Yeah. Just amazing stuff. Yeah. But no, just a performance where like the tiniest. Yeah. And going up against someone who's essentially playing like, you know, Nosferatu, right? And like the tiniest

[00:38:24] like ripples of emotion on his face. Why are you trying to sell me a couch? Pansy, you are so mean to me. Oh, well now he's Nosferatu too? Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. It's a family of Nosferatu. It would be funny, right? Pansy's like, why do babies have pockets? Why? They don't need them. What are they carrying? My winner, a late cut for me was Javier Bardem and Austin Butler in Dune Part 2, a movie that doesn't get enough acting acclaim for its great performers.

[00:38:54] Austin Butler was very, very close for me. My winner is Edward Norton though. I just could not believe how much I love that performance. That was, that movie blew me away generally in terms of like, I'm walking in going like, I hope this isn't long. Like, ugh! Yeah. I have to see this? What an obligation! We've talked about it so much, but the arc of Edward Norton is just so fascinating to me from being like, he is Brando, he is De Niro to being like, no one is better at playing kind of earnest, straightforward people than Edward Norton.

[00:39:24] The king of overcomplicating things in the 90s. Wes Anderson unlocked something in him. But it's incredible. I'm like, he went from being like, Stanley Kowalski times a million to being Howdy Doody. Yes. But I, but like, he's so good at it. I don't think you get this Pete Seeger unless you get him in like, Moonrise Kingdom. I agree. You know what I mean? Also, he was like, last second sub in. Like, Benedict Cumberbatch dropped out like a month before filming started because this was a strike delayed movie.

[00:39:54] Flumberbatch. Yeah, Flumberbatch. Which like, Cumberbatch looks more like Pete Seeger. He does. You could see that casting. Honestly, he's a good actor. He might have done a good job, right? But Norton gets the kind of like simplicity, the clarity. Yeah. Pete Seeger is a guy who's really important to me. Grew up with his music. Taught it was okay to be weird. He did teach me it was okay to be weird. And right, when I heard it was Edward Norton playing him, I was like, well, I don't like that. Like, that does not strike me. And so, I just, real, do credit to the guy. When did you ever think

[00:40:24] you would describe an Edward Norton performance as like, without vanity? Lovely. I think like, that's like, lovely. Lovely, right? Like, generous. Yeah. Like, yeah. No, I just like that he's got two modes now, basically, which are mocking his reputation as an obsessive, self-impressed, right, right, blowhard, or playing the nicest guy in the world. Yes, yes, it's amazing. Who are your winners? I think, at the risk of being sort of boring about it, it's Guy Pearce in The Brutalist. He really just sort of like,

[00:40:53] comes in that movie and like, just the, you hit another energy level with that. Hello, I'm America. I'd like to buy you. Subtly, I might be bad. There's a tinge of Plainview in there, right? It's great. Yes. My name is Colonizer Genocide. President Q Evil. Yeah. Yes, Guy Pearce for Joe Reed.

[00:41:22] Mark Elstein's my winner. You love that guy. It just kind of knocked me out. I was like, who the fuck is this guy? I just thought it was electric and also the kind of thing where I'm just like, I've never seen someone like this before. I've never seen a performance like this. It made perfect sense to me for a character that doesn't like, explain itself, all of his behavior, which I think a lot of people maybe wrote off as like, he found a guy who's quirky. I'm like, I think that is like very smart analysis, like behavioral analysis of the way this guy would act out.

[00:41:52] Well, and the way this guy sort of learned to operate in the world and the ways he's never, like, the parts of his personality that have never formed, that have never hardened into like, human being because he's never had to. He's just sort of been this little like, you know, rich baby. My other nominees, Tom Hardy and the Bike Riders. Welcome back. Just nice to see him doing fucking, there's a lot of really good acting in the Bike Riders too and he's really great. There's a lot of really good actors in it. Yeah. I'm a big fan. But I thought Hardy was great and it's like, this is the guy

[00:42:22] I was like all in on six years ago who has kind of disappeared down a well of jujitsu and venom. No. Yeah. Yeah. And I enjoyed him in the first Venom. I loved him in the first Venom. But like you look and you're like, he basically has done no non-venom movies since 2019. Yeah. It is a good welcome back. Yes. I like that. Jack Haven, I saw the TV glow. Great. Movie I think we all adore. Great performance. I love that performance. Yep. And it's kind of like, it's another performance that the whole movie hinges on in terms of the energy.

[00:42:51] It's a lot like Mark Edelstein where it's like, you have this main POV character who's basing everything off of the energy that this character is giving and the shifts they go through. Yeah. Especially their return later in the film. I found incredibly impactful. And has to be a little bit mysterious, right? Yes. A little bit unknowable. Yep. And does that very well. But played with specificity. Like what I look for in those types of performances is like, I can't pin this down but I have a sense that the actor

[00:43:21] has it figured out. They're not being vague in their choices. With Tom Hardy, it's like... It's been bad. If you ignore the sort of beautiful tapestry that is Phantom. And like, I love him in Dunkirk but that's, you know, a small supporting performance in a way. It's also his last Nolan. He hasn't done a Nolan since then. That was 2017. I know. Oh, I know. He was the explosion in Oppenheimer then. Yeah. Yeah. He was just going, boom! Boom! Yeah. It's like,

[00:43:51] The Revenant? Revenant? You're going over a decade back now. That's like, right? Like, and that was like his last performance that was sort of like, you know... When's the drop? I think he's very good in The Drop. The Drop is 2014. It's the year prior. They never see you coming, do they? Like, that's the whole thing. That kind of like, that run of like Bronson to, you know, The Revenant or whatever where it's like six or seven years like, man, this guy has got so much juice. Look, I don't like The Revenant, but like,

[00:44:21] I think he's great in that. I was so happy where I'm like, okay, we've broken the seal. He's a guy who's getting nominated now. Warrior is my favorite performance of his. But yes, that was my guy. When this show started, I was like, undeniably my favorite leading man. And it feels like he's on like the beginning of his elevation. Yeah. I hope so. Is there anyone else? Speaking of getting back, Chris Hemsworth taking the new male part and Mad Max, but doing an insane kind of inversion. Was that always him

[00:44:50] or did he get, did he replace him? It was always him. That was definitely always him. Tom Burke replaced Yaya Abdul-Mateen. Gotcha. But it was always Hemsworth. I desperately wanted to play Mad Max in Fury Road and hadn't yet popped. And you see in that performance, I think the energy of an Australian kid who grew up just being like, all I want to do is be in a Mad Max movie someday. And his lack of vanity. Yeah. Like you feel him being totally unleashed in that.

[00:45:19] I know some people ding the nose and I think we said this in the episode. I think the nose allowed him to be freed of being Chris Hemsworth in a way that unlocks that performance. Nose is great. The nose plays. I historically approve of Weird Noses in movies being The Hours' number one fan. So I get it. Adam Pearson, my last nominee. It's just like fucking funny performance. It's so good and it's such a it's such a like unshowy energy performance because the whole movie once again hinges on when this guy enters,

[00:45:49] you immediately go, oh, Sebastian Stan could have been happy. Well, this guy is so effortless in his sort of like joie de vivre. He can't be too effortful. He can't be too big or else the comedy really falls apart. You really need Sebastian Stan to fall to pieces over this guy who is just being himself, but like cool, like chill and cool. Which is what's unshowy about it because you don't want it to be like Owen Wilson meet the parents like, oh, fuck this guy. Yes.

[00:46:19] This guy's too slick. Right. You have to have the plausibility of like if he knows what he's doing, he's doing it really like slyly. The movie basically hangs on him entering and you immediately going, oh, Sebastian Stan's character sucks. You don't like have contempt for Adam Pearson. You're like, this guy we've been hanging out with is a bummer. It's a great movie. Do you gentlemen want to run through other nominees? Oh, J.R. Sanders, I already shouted out. Check out that movie. That's another movie where it's like, I saw that like a year and a half ago

[00:46:48] and I like that movie. I think it's good. His scene just kind of, you know, is the showstopper for me. Don Johnson, Rebel Ridge would be so easy. Surprised he wasn't your winner. Dorton came in and snatched it. Snatched it like Aaron Pierre snatches the gun out of Don Johnson's hands in Rebel Ridge. Have you seen Rebel Ridge? No, I still want it. You'd really like it. Netflix. It's the Netflix product. I know. The same with Daughters. I'll watch it at some point. Netflix to the point of like, Rebel Ridge is getting nominated for like TV awards.

[00:47:17] Like as a, it's being considered a TV movie. What are we doing? Which is so fucking dumb. Can I do my impression of Edward Norton snatching the award away from Don Johnson? Well, excuse me. Let me just take this win quickly. There we go. Can I also just say about Hemsworth because I, I, I, I, I, The most gentle yoink of all time. I'm not the Furiosa fan that y'all are and that's fine. Um, I'm going to give myself permission to do that. Um, yeah, let everyone get angry at you instead of pretending

[00:47:46] that we hate the movie. Wait, do they think you hate the movie? We hate the movie. Go on, Joe. I'm sorry, guys. I listened to that podcast and I'm like, they're being real fucking lenient on fucking Furious. What were you going to say? Um, the thing I was going to say about Hemsworth is I thought he was getting real lazy in the last few Thor performances. And, uh-huh. I was worried that this was just going to be an extension of that. And I think somewhat like Tom Hardy, I saw him sort of get reinvigorated by this. In a way that like, we sort of like,

[00:48:16] we kind of infused Hemsworth with, with more of that like, that movie star energy that we love. And then bombs and the following Tuesday they announced that Chris Hemsworth will be the live action lead of the G.I. Joe Transformers team-up movie. Wait, is that real? Yeah. I mean, there's been no further updates since then. I know Transformers beasts teased that, Rise of the Beast ends with a business card that says G.I. Joe on it. Hollywood's working so hard. Movies are good. Wasn't Hemsworth the voice of Correct.

[00:48:45] Optimus Prime in Transformers 1? I'm like, a great performance. Yeah, he was good. He was locked in. Yeah. I mean, I guess. But I'm like, we're failing this guy. He's trying to evolve. I know, I know. I feel like there's another thing he just announced he's doing that I'm like, okay. Chris Hemsworth has tried. He has over his entire career worked with major directors to make non-franchise stuff like Rush and In the Heart of the Sea and stuff and it's just often just not hit.

[00:49:19] rolled on his name. Like, he's not doing weird indies but he's doing weird studio movies and then he retreats back to like Men in Black International. The other one he's doing is the fucking live action Prince Charming movie directed by Paul King. Well, that sounds fun. Sure, but I'm like, Paul, Paul! No, I'm disappointed in all those people. Anything you want to do, I will see. My arms were on my arm. But I also, like, I had that same reaction to Wonka. I was like, Wonka, and like, I fucking love Wonka. but also,

[00:49:48] as I texted to David the other day, if Paul King had stayed on Paddington 3, maybe the pandemic wouldn't have happened. Well, you know, it's just funny that we're all like, I wish Paul King had made a sequel, right? Like, we're like, how dare he try to do other things? Back to the Blankies after these messages. David, February,

[00:50:18] time for February movie preview, okay? And I gotta say, it's a pretty interesting February we have coming up. Yeah, what do we got? Da Monkey actually called The Monkey, new film from Oz Perkins, whose long legs I loved last year, starring another one of our friends past and future guests, Tatiana Maslany. That's right. And looks very, very funny and cool and scary. Also, and very intrigued by this Martin Campbell action or cleaner

[00:50:47] with Daisy Ridley. starring Daisy Ridley, someone I've always had very, very calm opinions about on this podcast. I'm very excited for, it feels like she's kind of ramping up her movie career again. Here's the thing. Oh, and then there's The Day the Earth Blew Up. I was gonna say, if that weren't enough, February ending with the first original feature length animated Looney Tunes movie ever that I have heard is excellent. And here's the thing. The Day the Earth Blew Up and a Looney Tunes movie. What's awesome about all this is that there's lots of interesting different kinds of movies in theaters

[00:51:17] that you can go see. And with Regal Unlimited, the whole point is you sign up and seeing three, four, five, six of those movies is easy and affordable. And I find that once, you know, you have the Regal Unlimited, right, you know, sort of the option of basically like, let me pop over my theater. I have three free hours. That's what's nice about it. You do it more. You do it more. Go see the movies. Go see the movies. Sign up now on the Regal app. Yes. Or at the link in the description in our show notes

[00:51:46] and use code BLANKCHECK to get 20% off your three month subscription. And then you're going to be in the Crown Club. You're going to get rewards. You're going to build up points. You can get free popcorns and sodas and upgrades. 25% off candy on Tuesdays, 50% off popcorn, discounted ticket, all this stuff. Go to the Regal Crown Club website. And as I said, it's a little deep. It's a little buried in here. There is a section where you can redeem your points for old promotional movie memorabilia like Red One socks. Right. Follow the link in the show notes.

[00:52:16] Go to the Regal app. Click on the Unlimited banner and then follow the instructions to sign up and enter promo code BLANKCHECK when prompted to receive your discount. And look, I'm just going to say it again, David. Signing up for Regal Unlimited or maybe gifting a membership to a moviegoer in your life. Sure. Great way to support the show. This is a dream advertiser. Yes. A dream partner for us. We want to keep this going. We think it could benefit everybody, especially the movies.

[00:52:50] And we're back to the 2025 Flankies. We have to move on. Okay. Because as usual, we're taking too long. John Johnson, I just wanted to say, could have played that one dimensional. Doesn't. Watch that movie. He doesn't play it one dimensional at all. And you've probably not seen The Fire Inside either, you little twerp. I haven't. I miss that. Because it was when I had my fucking dental surgery when I was in recovery. He blames the dentist. Well, that movie was like in theaters out of the movie. It was. It was very quick.

[00:53:20] I'll say this. My little cousin George, our second finest movie critic, took him to see, maybe it was Sonic 3, and we walked by the poster, and he went, is that Creed 4? And I said, what? And he said, isn't the next Creed going to be the daughter? I forgot that the Creed movies are setting up that the daughter is going to be a boxer. Oh, I didn't see the last two Creed movies. But I was like, no, that's like another movie. It's supposed to be good. And he was like, really? Because it looks like a Creed ripoff. And then I looked at the poster, and it is Amazon MGM

[00:53:49] who released the last Creed movie. Yeah. And I was just like, they are in the marketing making this look like Creed ripoff. Amazon's not very good at marketing. Right. I think they totally missold that movie. You keep bumping Lights, Cameron Jackson, down the list of our finest film critics. He's going way down. He's just getting... Yeah, an alarming speed. Yeah. All right. Should we move on? Oh, the blankies. Oh, no, or I'll give you the blankies after the choice. The reader choices. Listener choices. Jesus. After we do supporting actress.

[00:54:19] Best supporting actress. Do you want to hear who our supporting actor winners were last year, Griffin? I would love nothing more. Okay. Well, apparently Griffin's winner was Ryan Gosling and Barbie. Hell yeah. My winner was Awuga, Honk Honk, Get Your Goggles On, Colin Farrell, Robert De Niro in Killers of the Flower Moon. Taking the 430 auto gyro to Prussia. Yeah. Um, and Joe's winner was Charles Milton in May, December.

[00:54:48] Three of the big performances that year, I feel. So, who is Ryan Gosling telling us about Griffin for supporting actress? My nominees for supporting actress are Alicia Witt in Long Legs, Alison Pill in Trap, Renata Ronsva in A Different Man, Ramona, excuse me, Ramina De Ugo in I Like Movies, and Michelle Austin in Hard Truth. Now, what is I Like Movies? I know you like this movie.

[00:55:18] The Great Chandler Levick. I Like I Like Movies. Canadian filmmaker. Yeah. Uh, a movie that played at TIFF like two years ago and finally got a very limited release but is watchable on PVOD and is like a great uh, sort of inversion of the kind of Romana Clef uh, autobiography. Canadian kid works in a video store but he's also man coming of age. It's a huge pain in the ass. Yes. It is like, it is the, um, the incredible kind of like response film to a lifetime of special little guy

[00:55:47] movies. Yes. That I grew up loving. Have you seen it? Yeah. I liked it. It's excellent. She's amazing in it. Yeah, I like her a lot. She has that incredible monologue she gives in the video store where she explains her history. It's the best Maria Dizia performance not given by Maria Dizia. Correct. That's a great way of putting it. Uh, this was an actress I was not familiar with before uh, and it knocked me out. Yeah, no, I really liked that movie. Knocked you out because he a doctor. My nominations are Michelle Austin, R-Truth, Dolly DeLeon in Ghost Lights.

[00:56:18] Oh, there you go. You know what? A late, a late fill-in for, uh, uh, someone else. Borderline insane. I consider Dolly DeLeon for Between the Temples. Oh, nice. She is insanely good. She's very good in that movie. Yes. Uh, Elizabeth Olsen in His Three Daughters, Tilda Swinton in Problemista, and Emily Watson in Small Things Like These. I'll say the Tilda in Problemista was on my long list and I was like, Joe's gonna cover it. I don't need to do that. I had the exact same. Yep. Yep. And I really liked that performance. Yeah, she's great.

[00:56:49] Uh, okay. That's, that's great. Your nominees did? My nominees are Ingenue Ellis Taylor in Nickel Boys, Michelle Austin in Hard Truths. The only one in all three? Yeah. I mean, undeniable. Sophie O'Connor in Janet Planet. Also strongly considered and left off because I knew you'd go. Yeah, I had that one covered. But one of my favorite. I had that one covered. Yeah. Uh, Monica Barbaro Phoenix herself in A Complete Unknown. Uh, a movie where these guys ended up getting the noms,

[00:57:19] but I'm still just kind of like, yeah, for you in your big Studio Bob Dylan movie. Yeah. Hey, but I liked it. Yep. Um, and, you know, it's like, do I go weird or do I go normal? No, I'm just... Go weird and then tell us the normal you like. The normal one is Ariana Grande in Wicked, who I really think deserves, you know, a firm handshake for the great work that she did in Wicked. But not even having heard the weird one yet, I feel confident in telling you to go weird. I don't know. I can't... Who's your weird? Oh my God,

[00:57:47] stop yelling at me. Like, you guys took my two weirds, I will say. Which is great. You took Alison Pill, a performance I really like. Uh, and you took Tilda Swinton. I mean, nobody took her. Nobody can ever dare take Tilda Swinton. She can't be taken. Tilda takes. She's given. Tilda takes you. Yeah, exactly. Um, so I guess like at that point, I gotta go with Grande. I mean, you know, I don't know. I mean, I could go with like, no, I don't know. I'm going with Grande. I will say, I went into Wicked as a real sort of bitchy little

[00:58:17] I don't like Ariana Grande person. And I walked out of that movie being like, well, she's the best. Like, she's so fucking entertaining in that movie. She's very good at the comic stuff. I've always been neutral on her, I guess, would be my, yeah, my Grande take. Mm-hmm. Right? Sure now. Yeah. I, yeah. I like the movie okay. I know you do. You like it okay. Yeah. Oh, the movie's got its ups and downs. Yeah. I'll say that,

[00:58:46] but like, she's definitely an up. She's a big, she's a big old up. Ups and downs. I thought it defied gravity. I'm like, you know, it should be staying in one place right in the middle. You know, I'm looking at my other choices here and it's just, you know, like my other kind of options. I had Renata Reincev very close. She's good. I like, I mean, I love her to be, obviously love Renata. My, my three people I knocked off, but, but I was like, that felt like a pretty strong five to me. It felt pretty locked in. Joan Chen and Dee Dee, a movie I know I like a lot more than you do, David. But it's a lovely performance.

[00:59:16] A lovely performance. I, I thought she's great, but like the movie itself didn't entirely do it for me. Ayla Brown and Furiosa, who's young Furiosa. I kind of, one of those things where I'm like, right, is that a great performance? Is that just great direction of a kid? Cause she's so quiet and intense and yeah, she's great. Here's one I could. I thought about like Sophie Thatcher or Chloe East and Heretic, both of them I think are good. But they're both kind of the least. I was gonna say. You know, like it's, you know, so I couldn't really. Can I throw out the one I couldn't quite justify, but I was seriously considering?

[00:59:45] I think Zoe Deutsch in Juror Number Two is one of the best making something out of nothing performances. She's really working with very little. I have seen in a long time. She is working with very little. And I love her. It is, I love her. I'm in the bag, but it's like such a stock character. You know that Eastwood's giving her half a take. And she's playing. That was his direction. Yes. And he's doing that in the middle of the take. Uh-huh. Into a microphone. Right.

[01:00:13] I just think she is playing an internal conflict. The scene with her and Toni Collette is better than it needs to be. Yeah. I had a hard time sort of figuring out what I wanted to do with the three actresses and his three daughters. A movie that I really loved. Like, loved, loved, loved. Yeah, it's a good movie. And they're all good. And that's, they're all really good. They're all plausibly leads. They're all plausibly, you could do, they're all leads. I think like, Kuhn is undeniably a lead. And I think Leone is a lead. Olsen is the one where I'm kind of like,

[01:00:43] she's sort of more supporting. The Julianne Moore in The Hours, where it's like, the less, the less of equals kind of thing. Yeah, or the Shailene Woodley in Big Little Lies where you're like, she's like a lead, but she has this sort of, this sort of thinnest arc, I guess. Yeah. But when she has her couple moments in that movie, she really nails it. As a spoiler, I had similar issues. Well, I had issues with the Enora guys and also the three people in Challengers. There's a lot of movies that's here. I was like trying to like sift through. I did as well. Loved Renata Reince

[01:01:13] of a different man. She almost made it for me. Loved Anjanue Ellis Taylor in Nickel Boys. It's the hug of the year. I mean, come on. I love, I love a good hug in a movie. I shouted out Maria Dizia already, but like Maria Dizia and Christmas Eve and Miller's Point is so good. I like that movie. Yeah. I like that movie. Yeah. And she's really good. You know what? She's always good. She's good in My Old Ass as well. Yeah. All right. I think that's that. And that movie just, I had to read My Old Ass out at the New York

[01:01:42] Film Critics Circle voting a bunch. You know, like, My Old Ass and everyone would laugh every time. You can't help but laugh. Have you seen it? No, I haven't seen it. I'll say this. That was a movie where people kept telling me it was good and I was like, yeah, yeah, I get it. Like, I was being very snarky about it. I know what that movie is. Sure, sure, sure. And then I watched, in my post-dental surgery phase where I was like, what do I want to watch? Let me just watch, like, coming-of-age movies that mostly went to streaming that I missed out on. Yeah. And I watched that and it kind of,

[01:02:12] David, call a doctor, knocked me out. It was, it's a much, like, wiser, deeper film than I was expecting. You know what? I'll give Supporting Actress my fifth slot to Sienna Miller for Horizon American Saga Chapter One. Like that, and I'll say this, David, that investment will pay off when you see Chapter Two. Oh, that's right, you saw Chapter Two. I have seen Horizon in American Saga Chapter Two and she's really, she's got a fucking barn burner monologue done. Okay. I love her. For an actor

[01:02:41] who's given bad performances and, like, for a long time seemed like a total zero, right? Like, it was like, oh, they tried to make her happen and it didn't happen. Yeah, no, I think she's very good She's really given some good performances. Have either of you two seen Ghost Light? No, that's a movie I haven't seen because it's seen, I know it's gonna be good, but it seems like it's gonna bum me out. I think it's the kind of movie that both of you would really like. It's also, Kelly O'Sullivan is the writer and co-director who did a movie called St. Francis. St. Francis I loved. Oh, sure. Yeah, which is incredible. And I was

[01:03:10] on the Gotham's jury for many years on their first film jury and that was a first film that I would not have seen if I had not been serving on that jury and I loved it. Gentlemen, who did you pick as your winners? My winner is Michelle Austin for Hard Truths. Great pick. Joe? It was very close between Michelle Austin and Tilda Swinton for me, but I think I go with Michelle Austin. A byproduct of us now having done this for 10 years is we've started to develop our own internal overdo. Oh, you're like, right,

[01:03:40] I haven't actually given the trophy, the Griffey to X. My winner is Renata Reinsville, which I think is my favorite performance of these five, but also I did just double check and I gave Best Actress to Rebecca Hall for the night house that you're over worst person in the world. A choice I defend and stand by, but I think Renata Reinsville is so good in A Different Man. I think the, like, the whole movie, it's another hinge performance, but that's kind of what I like in these supporting performances.

[01:04:10] The whole movie hinges on him reappearing and her suddenly presenting an entire different backstory and changing all these details to him and the realization of, like, what the fuck is going on with her, which the movie never quite answers in a way that actually says a ton, if that makes sense. She plays a villain in a really, um... It is not a judgmental performance at all. It is not a judgmental performance. It is a very recognizable kind of, like, familiar villainy,

[01:04:40] which is just sort of like she's taking shortcuts and she's sort of, she sees an opportunity to succeed in a way that sells out somebody. And she's a quieter version of what's going on to him, which is just, like, everyone has an idea of how they could reset their life and reframe themselves the way they want to be and she does that in a way that she doesn't understand is so fucking painful to him because she doesn't know who he's talking to. Yeah. Yeah. The blankie voters, the listeners of the show have a 10,

[01:05:09] you know, person list for best supporting performance that I will now read from bottom to top. So, 10. Mike Feist in Challengers. Mm-hmm. 9. Ariana Grande in Wicked. Mm-hmm. 8. Margot Qualley in The Substance. 7. Kieran Culkin in A Real Pain. 6. Jack Haven in A TV Glow. Hell yeah. 5. Adam Pearson in A Different Man. Hell yeah. 4. Guy Pearson in The Brutalist. Hell yeah. 3. Yorobursov in Anora. And now I have to say hell yeah for everybody. Sure. 2. Hemsworth and 1.

[01:05:38] Josh O'Connor in Challengers. Now, hmm, that's not a supporting performance. A big cocked eyebrow from old Griffey News. So, that got run, I think maybe MGM's are not only ran all three? Or do they run Zendaya's lead? No, they ran Zendaya's lead because she got the Golden Globe nomination in lead. All three of them are leads. Comedy, which is another conversation I didn't need to have. Feist is the one you can make the argument if you want to spread it out. But I think O'Connor is unquestionable. It's a three-some movie. Put a pin in this

[01:06:08] and get to it I think the pin is planted. And look, we can look at you know, MGM, Amazon's award strategies askance, but I think we can all agree it paid off beautifully for them checks notes here blanked at the office. Zero nomination. What a fucking disaster. Well, they did release my favorite movie of the year. I guess I'll give them that. Pinn in that as well. They released two of my five favorite movies of the year. Okay, so let's move along to what should we do? The screenplays? What should we do here, guys? Yeah, sure. Let's do screenplays. Fine.

[01:06:38] Best original screenplay. Best adapted screenplay. I got six in both. I got six in both. I got six in both. Right. All right. So original screenplay. Here are my original screenplay winners. Then this is obviously being presented by the winner of adapted screenplay last year, isn't it? So that would be, oh, Eric Roth shuffling out. Perfect. Get Eric Roth out there. Let's see. Who are my adapted screenplays? And he wrote so much of that movie. Yeah.

[01:07:09] My adapted screenplay nominees appear to be, I'm worried I like didn't give this a once over. Dune Part 2, Hitman, Fire Inside, Furiosa, Nickel Boys, which is my winner. Spoiler alert. I'm going to stand by this. My adapted screenplay nominees are Sing Sing, Furiosa, Nickel Boys, The People's Joker, a radical act of adaptation. Right. Haven't seen it. Is that sort of just nominally adapting

[01:07:39] like the character of Joker? It is undeniably an active adaptation and a movie about that in a way. And my fifth nominee, sometimes I think about dying. Is that based on something? It is weirdly based on... It's based on a thought that you sometimes have. It is weirdly based on, I believe, a one-act play that is just... I can see that. But here's what's weird. It was written by someone else and the one-act play is just about the party scene

[01:08:09] playing murderer. You know what I'm talking about, David? Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. And then that was like optioned and then a new writer came on and was like, what if I spun this character out and that scene becomes the centerpiece? I love that film. There's a movie I saw two years ago, I think, but I like that movie. But yeah, it came out January... 2023 at Sundance. Right. It played January 2023 at Sundance. It was released theatrically January 2024. Right. So even you saw it a long time ago. Even I saw it a year ago. But yes, I give it more credit

[01:08:38] as an active adaptation because it is unfurled from such a weird specific piece with a couple different writers. I thought that I was seeing that movie and the movie that I actually saw was the feeling that the time for doing something has passed. A movie I have not seen. A movie I did not care for. Okay. So, Joe, your nominees. Screenplays. Conclave. Conclave. Conclave. Conclave! Peter Strong. Dune Part 2. Denis Villeneuve and... John Spitz. John Spitz. Spitz. It does sound like you're just sort of supposed to...

[01:09:08] Seeing a third name listed here. Mouab Adip. Mouab Adip. That was close. Nickel Boys, Ramel Ross and Jocelyn Barnes. Sing Sing, which is screenplay by Greg Quedar and Clint Bentley with the story credit to Quedar Bentley, parents Macklin and John Devine G. Whitfield. And then Small Things Like These who's Enda Walsh and Claire Keegan. You know, I got sent that book by the swag team behind Small Things Like These. They did not. I'm going to read it. It hurts good. Yeah, I mean, the movie's great. Yeah,

[01:09:38] I didn't see it. Too busy! But you saw the book, the cover of it. There it is! Sitting on my desk. And who's your winners, guys? I forgot to ask. Oh, first for Adapt. Yeah. I mean, it's got to be Nickel Boys. It's a really, really interesting way to adapt that book. The only one all three of us nominated. Is that your winner? No. David, what's your winner? Nickel Boys. I think my winner is People's Joker. Sure, great. Between that and Sing Sing.

[01:10:07] I adore People's Joker. I strongly implore people to seek it out. I went to see it assuming it was just going to be like a fun act of cinematic fuck you. And what I love about that movie is it really is kind of an argument for why, like, I refuse to call it IP. But it is worth adapting works and reinterpreting them through different prisms. It's sort of a movie about, like, there's a reason we go back to the same stories because we find things that we can only express through those sets of characters

[01:10:36] and it makes you frustrated about how often these things are rebooted in the same derivative ways over and over again. But I think it's like an incredible self-reflexive piece of adaptation. The Blankies picked Nosferatu 5, Furiosa 4, Nickel Boys 3, Conclave 2, Doom Part 2 was their winner. Great. Doom Part 2 is a sneaky, like, really interesting adaptation. And a really complicated thing. They really, like, what he's not. Yeah, yeah.

[01:11:05] They move it around in some different ways. To end that movie on the note that it ends on is pretty ballsy. What he did with Chani is impressive. Yes, that's specifically, yes, Chani's character. Yep. Best original screenplay! Uh-oh! Uh-oh, SpaghettiOs. My, of course, adapted screenplay winner last year was... I know I already did this wrong. Okay, yeah, my best original screenplay winner is Wes Anderson. So here he is. Hey, look at that. What a delight. My winner last year was... Uh, it looks like it was...

[01:11:34] Uh, Wes Anderson. Yeah, I also want Wes Anderson. Okay. Astrid City, great movie. Joe went with... What did I do? Joe, you went... Your adapted screenplay winners, by the way, were Blackberry for Griffin and Barbie for Joe. Hell yeah. And Joe, you went with May-December, a great screenplay for original. Um, so my best original screenplays of 2024 are Annie Baker for Janet Planet, Justin Karitsch is a potion seller for Challengers, Jane Schoenbrunn for I Saw the TV Glow, Mike Lee for Hard Truths, and Ryusuke Hamaguchi

[01:12:04] for Evil Does Not Exist. Joe, mine are Challengers, Justin Karitsch is A Different Man, Aaron Schimberg, his three daughters, Azazel Jacobs, I Saw the TV Glow, Jane Schoenbrunn, and Problemista, Julio Torres. My nominees for screenplay are A Different Man, Aaron Schimberg, Challengers, Justin Karitsch. You want to speak up a little bit? Yeah. Well, I'm just realizing I'm going to forget the names of some of these people. Just keep going. Keep going. I can tell you the names. Thelma. Oh, I don't know who wrote that. Oh, well,

[01:12:34] Mr. I can tell you that. Thelma was, of course, written by Josh Marklin, who I believe also directed it. Yes. Hard Truths. I forget. Oh, that's who wrote it. Okay. And Hundreds of Beavers. Oh, who wrote that? Is that a screenplay movie? Mike Cheslick and Ryland Tews. I'm going to make the case. It is a silent film. It is a pure silent film. Okay. It is like one of the most beautifully structured films. You watch it. I'd heard a lot of hype. I'm so resistant to this movie, Griffith. This movie is so fucking good.

[01:13:03] You guys are going to eat shit when you watch it. Well, now I really don't want to watch it. I sat there and I was like, people have told me this is fun. It starts and I'm like, is it really going to be this the whole time? How long is this thing? Like 72 minutes? It's like two hours long. It not only doesn't run out of steam, it grows. There are like concepts in that movie that are so fucking complicated that are communicated with such elegance and wit, it blew my mind.

[01:13:32] I've seen it twice in theaters now. It plays like a fucking rock concert. I hope it is a movie that will continue making the rounds theatrically for years because it feels like a perpetual midnight movie touring thing. And it is, it's incredible to watch with a crowd because it starts basically with silence of everyone reacting the way I did. And then by the end, it's undeniable. My worry is that watching it with a crowd will make me like it less. I think you're wrong about that. Okay. I don't, my only question is how it plays alone. Sure. My winner is Annie Baker.

[01:14:02] Who's your winner? My winner is Azizel Jacobs for His Three Daughters. It's a screenplay movie. And I'm not saying that to, to, to, to save the directing. I think I saw a lot of like this play, this feels like a play. And I'm like, to me, I'm like, that's fine. You know, that does not diminish my enjoyment. Feels like Griff's picking beavers. I'm a little inclined to do beavers. There's, there are three other things that are in there that I also know are going to win a different award for me. So I'm like, is there a spread the wealth argument? I think challengers is a really,

[01:14:31] really intelligently constructed screenplay that really nails the ending, which is the hardest thing to do. And that was his ending. And he, you know, insisted on it. That's my, I think I saw the TV glow is brilliant. I exempt it from this category. Okay. Yeah. He exempts it. Exempted. But Annie Baker, she's my favorite living writer. And she wrote a movie for me and I got to watch it. She gets the trophy from me. I'm going to do beavers here because this is the one place where I can kind of make the case. That makes sense.

[01:15:00] Although I will say it also should, uh, have been nominated for best original song. Oh, there's an original song. There's an original song. No, it's not what you think. Original song nominees are such a disaster. you think you know what it is and it's not what you think. I honestly don't think I know what it is. Yeah. The score and the, and the, uh, the song in that film are, uh, But yeah, no, hard truth, challengers, different man are all kind of fucking a hall of famer scripts for me. The blankie picks. That I will give roses in other places. Five, brutalist four, I saw the TV glow three,

[01:15:31] Anora two, and challengers one. Back to the blankies after these messages. David. Yes. Here's an impression of me going glasses shopping before Warby Parker. Ah! Oh no. Okay, now here's a new impression

[01:16:01] I've been working on for my mad TV reel. Okay. This is me glasses shopping since I've jumped over to Warby Parker. Oh! Sounds like someone's having a lovely time. An incredible time. I love it. Well, why do you love it? Is it because Warby Parker uses nothing but premium materials in each frame? That's a big part of it. Designing them in house? That's huge. They've got silhouettes, colors, and fits made to suit every face? Yes, but also Warby Parker

[01:16:31] has done some good work over the years cutting out some of the middlemen, making glasses more affordable and sturdier. They last longer. I'm less worried when it comes time to replace them. It feels like less of a holistic life commitment. Yeah, they're also cheap. This is what I'm saying! And not cheap and like, oh, they're cheap. No. They're inexpensive considering the quality. They cut out the middlemen. But that's the thing. It used to be, I'd go like, oh my God, new glasses. They cut out the middlemen! They cut them out with giant scissors.

[01:17:00] I'd go to old-fashioned glasses stores. Right. And I'd go like, Dr. Glasses. This is Dr. Glasses, who by the way was a jerk. Had terrible bedside manner. But I'd go there and I'd go, look at these prices. I'm going to have to commit to this for 10 years. That's a strong look. I'm wearing these things on my face every day. Warby Parker makes it really easy to go in person to one of their locations, try on a bunch, or you can pick a couple online, have them ship them to you so you can try them out in your daily life, or you could do

[01:17:29] the virtual try-on. Yeah, you take a little picture. They're versed. It's flexible. Look, you should get started with Warby Parker's virtual try-on. You can try on glasses and sunglasses, seeing the realistic color texture and size of each style from home right now, or head over to warbyparker.com slash check right now to take the home try-on quiz and pick five pairs of frames to try on at home for free. That's warbyparker.com slash check, warbyparker.com slash check. Can I say a couple quick things? Just add on?

[01:17:59] Just put a little, put some sprinkles on top of this. They have over 250 retail locations across the United States. Their glasses start at $95 with prescription lenses, anti-reflective scratch, resistant coatings. Many of their locations offer comprehensive eye exams starting at $85. You add a pair and you save 15% when you purchase two or more prescription pairs of glasses or sunglasses. So once again, head over to warbyparker.com slash check right now to take the home try-on quiz

[01:18:29] and pick five pairs of frames to try on at home for free. That's warbyparker.com slash check, warbyparker.com slash check. David! Yes? Going online without ExpressVPN, I like to say it is akin to driving without car insurance and that is an experience I know all too well. I did that once by mistake. Oh.

[01:18:59] Lapsed and I didn't know it. What did it feel like? I felt bad to get a ticket. On edge, unprotected, paying unwanted fees and worst of all, you had no way to watch the British miniseries cuts of Michael Winterbottom, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon's The Trip. That is a great example of what ExpressVPN brings to the table. I like ExpressVPN. I think they're fun. Intro number one, car insurance metaphor.

[01:19:28] Intro number two, flight safety. It's like going online without paying attention to the safety demonstration on the flight, right? Intro number three, phone case. Going online is like not having a case for your phone. We get it. Intro number four, saving report. Remember the good old days before autosave, your document goes missing. I didn't ask you to read all five. Because I need to set up how big of a swerve intro number five is. Intro number five, going online without ExpressVPN is like having sex without a condom. ExpressVPN goes there.

[01:19:58] Okay, well. You're honest. Look, every time you connect to an unencrypted network, cafes, hotels, airports, your data's not secure, hackers can get access to your, you know, personal data, passwords, bank logins, credit card, all that stuff. Doesn't take much knowledge to do it either. Just need a little bit of cheap hardware. Any 12-year-old could do it. Any smart 12-year-old. And most of the time you have unprotected sex, you might be fine, but the repercussions could be huge. Do you really want to raw dog the whole internet and it says underneath rephrase or ad lib as needed?

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[01:21:32] And we're back to the 2025 Lankies. Next, last time, was the best animated feature, so let's do that again. Best animated feature, guys. Can I say it? What a year for animated features. Stinky poo poo. It's a bit of a tough year. I limited myself to three. I have five. I couldn't do more than that. The highest grossing ones were almost the worst ones in my opinion. Mono 2 and Inside Out 2 and Minions 8 or whatever. Yeah, and I feel like there's another one that did well that I didn't care for.

[01:22:02] Let's see. Certainly, right, like, it's not like, I mean, Inside Out 2 smashing through every record was the moment every, like, the entire industry sort of trend line went from like, God, this year's a disaster to like, oh, I think everything's fine. Like, it was so crazy. That's why I'm like, I'm grateful for Inside Out 2 for that. But it's also funny that it was Inside Out 2 that did that. Yes, yes. Which I thought was fine. I think I liked it more than you. I don't, I think that movie kind of profoundly doesn't work.

[01:22:32] Let's see what the other big anime is. Here are my five nominees. Yeah, give me your nominees. I gave a proper five. Kung Fu Panda 4 must be the other one. Yeah, yes, right. I started, I mean, it's white, right. It's a two, two twos, two fours. And what's the other one? I don't know. Of the highest grossing? Uh, Moana 2, Inside Out 2, Despicable Me 4, Kung Fu Panda 4. Uh, I don't fucking know. There's one other one we just listed. I forget. I don't know. Whatever. Who gives a shit? Fuck you. The Garfield movie's up there. That movie sucks.

[01:23:02] It sucks. I regret to say, at a certain point, I was like, let me go through more of the qualifying films because maybe there are some hidden gems here. And the deeper I dug, the less I liked what I found. Garfield being a movie about reconnecting with his deadbeat dad is almost as infuriating as Super Mario Brothers being about Mario proving to his parents that he could... He's a good plumber. Yeah, he's a good plumber. It's almost like the people who run these animations videos have bad relationships with their fathers. Almost like, almost like... Don't respect them going into animation. I'm good at cartoons, dad!

[01:23:31] Sonic 3 is the other one that maybe you're... That's not an animated film. I didn't see it. I don't know. Joe? How dare you? I'm surprised you would talk so rudely about Vic, my favorite character from the Garfield strips. We all love Big Vic, Garfield's dad, an important character. My five nominees for Best Animated Film are Memoirs of a Snail, which, spoiler, is my winner. Flo, which I admit is undeniable, but also had the most ill-time bathroom break of my movie-going career. No! Oh, what, like, you come back and, like,

[01:24:00] it's the apocalypse or whatever? I came back to the director's credit on screen. Oh, no! It's not a long movie! No, but I was like, it's hard to pin how long this has been going on, and then I saw another wave coming, and I was like, oh, feels like there's maybe another 20 minutes left. Let me run to pee now, and I came back, and the movie had ended. Oh, disaster. I later watched it. The Wild Robot, Transformers 1. Oh, okay. Which I think is far and away the best of the animated IP slop, if I can call it that. Yeah, no, that movie rocked. And Look Back,

[01:24:30] which rolls. What's that? Oh, that's the Japanese movie. I haven't seen that yet. It's like 52 minutes long. Okay. Whoa, sign me up. Wait, that sounds great. You can watch it three times. You can watch it right now. Just play it while we do this episode. But Memoir of a Snail was my favorite. I gotta see that. It's really, really fucking good. Did you guys have voiceover performance nominees? I can do that in a sec, but...

[01:24:58] I can do that in a sec, but I can do that in a sec. It's a step. Oh. But I could have done with it being better. Do you agree with my note? Yeah. What's your note? It is the one Wallace and Gromit movie that isn't actually about their relationship. Sure. And at the very end it tries to pretend it is. Yeah, it kind of tries to squeeze it in there. I mean, but also it's like, what's there to say left about their relationship, I guess? That's kind of the thing. I mean, I liked it more than the bakery one. I fucking loved Vengeance most well. I loved Vengeance. I find it very entertaining. Yeah.

[01:25:27] I also think it's at the exact wrong size between being feature and short and it kind of can't decide. I think Inside Out 2 is my fifth nominee by default. That's insane. I mean, I don't think I saw any other animated movies. Joe, your three? So my three are, oh, I saw War of the Rohirrim, but that thing is pretty... How was it? I heard such bad things about it. It's a homework-ass movie. I was excited for the concept of it and then I heard just the worst things about it. I was just like, if you're going to make an Ashcan movie,

[01:25:57] you could still make it good and it's like not. It's very, very... Do you guys know about This Christmas? Is that what it's called? I think it's called This Christmas. The short? It is a Netflix feature film in which Brian Cox is the voice of Santa Claus. I'm Santa. Ho, ho, ho, fuck off. And it's based on three different Richard Curtis short stories. That's right. That are kind of really mushed together. Wow. It's like trying to do animated Love Actually with children. I'm going to watch that next Christmas.

[01:26:27] But this is like one of the... This looks like trash. It's bad. This is what I'm saying. I was like digging and I was like, Garfield's from Mark Dindle. Is there anything here? There's a reason that Flo rose to the top. It's like, you know, there was space for a movie like that to break through because all the animated offerings were kind of whatever. Yeah. My three are Flo, Wallace and Gromit, Vengeance Most Foul, Justice for Feathers McGraw, the greatest character in cinematic history. And then The Wild Robot. My thing with memoir... Wild Robot's good, by the way. I dig that movie. I really love it.

[01:26:55] Wild Robot is a manipulative movie that I was very happy to be manipulated by. I was just like... That's a good way of playing. Bring it on me. I think Memoir of a Snail is a very well-made movie that to me is excessively miserable in a way that I did not appreciate. It definitely is and I think it is reflective of the way you and I differently respond to miserable movies. That makes sense. Yeah. I called it the A Little Life of stop-motion animation and I stand by that. Yeah. I'm definitely not watching it now. I'm back to that 52-minute movie. To that degree of just like

[01:27:25] pile it on, pile another one on. Yes. Like, yeah. He has his thing that he does and it works for me and I could see it being cilantro for people. You know who's great in Transformers 1? Brian Tyree Henry. Brian Tyree Henry. I had no idea Transformers 1 was good. I totally ignored it. The whole thing with it is... That's one of the things I don't have to pay attention to. Directed by Josh Cooley who made the great Toy Story 4. Okay. Yeah, I love Toy Story 4. It's one of those things where it starts where it's like, we're just two Transformers and my name is like Optimus Prime, you know, Berg. Like his name's a little different.

[01:27:54] Your name is Megatron-essence or whatever, you know, right? And we're just... Gotta get those cogs. I wish I could transform one day. Right, yeah. We'll never do anything. What the fuck is this? By the end of it, you're like, I can't believe Megatron would do that! I'm gonna check it out. That's crazy. Truly. What a betrayal! There is that moment where you're like, I am angry this movie has like... So this is like Childhood Friends, Optimus Prime, and Megatron kids. It's an origin story for them, although I think Transformers lore

[01:28:24] is so like deep that it's kind of like a reboot of the lore. Transformers lore is so deep is a sentence that is both incredibly true and sounds insane. And just to be clear, I don't like fuck with Transformers lore at all. I don't know it. I love to throw out random Transformer names that I think are funny, but I can't track any of this shit. I think the whole thing with Transformers stuff is just like no one was really minding the shop, right? So like someone else would come along and be like, I'm gonna do this and everyone would be like, that's fine, we don't care.

[01:28:53] Overwrite whatever has been written. I like everything this movie's doing. It also looks good. It does. Here were my five nominees for voiceover performance. Oh yeah, go ahead. Jackie Weaver, Memoir of a Snail. I give you that. Which is my winner. She's an un-fucking-believable in it. She's great. Maybe the most emotionally affected I was by any performance this year, possibly. Maya Hawke, Inside Out 2, compelled to make her my winner. I think she's the only reason that movie even partially works. I think her character though is a huge problem, but her performance is quite good.

[01:29:23] Yeah, she's like, we need to do it. She paralyzes the kid with anxiety. She can't play hockey. She can't play papers over the fact that the script was not figured out. Right. I think she plays incredibly well. I'm going to give it after, you know, I so rudely snubbed him for best actor when you guys gave him the flowers years ago and I think this is the time to properly give him a sort of career achievement. Oh boy. A Return of the King style nomination for best voiceover performance. I'm nominating Tom Hardy as Venom in Venom The Last Dance. That movie

[01:29:53] is kind of garbage. Yeah. But like anytime he's talking, I was like, right, this is the whole thing. Just do this. It is. Lupita Nyong'o for The Wild Robot. Yeah, really great. She's fantastic. I was very compelled to also put Pedro Pascal in there who I think is incredible in Wild Robot. Could not place him in that movie. He's the fox. Oh yeah. Doesn't sound like him. It's transforming. He's really good and really funny. But it felt a little silly to do double nominations so I, in my fifth slot, put in Robbie Williams

[01:30:23] as the narrator. Yeah, Robbie Williams deserves it. Is that how he's credited the narrator? Well, so. He's the monkey, isn't it? The singing is his old recordings. Right. The character of Robbie Williams is voiced by the actor who did the mocap performance. J'ama Frey, I believe. Oh, that I did not know. No, the J'ama Frey is the cinematographer of Nickel Boys. Who am I thinking? But his name is Jono. That's why I'm confusing it. I'm looking out. Yeah. It's Jono something.

[01:30:52] Jono Davis. Davies. But Robbie Williams is specifically just doing the narration which I thought was excellent and we'll talk about that movie. Robbie Williams is so overflowing with charisma. Like, he's so good at getting you through that movie if you're like, what is going on? Anyone complaining about I don't know who this guy is, I'm like, his narration alone is explaining to you through the energy why he became such a big deal. Robbie Williams was not as famous in America as he was in Britain. That does not mean that he was not famous in America.

[01:31:22] He absolutely was. He wasn't that famous in America, right? but I feel like he was more famous. He was famous enough to like, remember who he was. But famous for sort of not happening. A lot of people at TIFF were texting me like, can you explain who Robbie Williams is to me? Including, I believe, Joe Reed. Me and Katie, but we were not asking, we were asking, explain the Robbie Williams extent of the Robbie Williams phenomenon. This is what's so crazy, right? That this guy is so big in England, so big in Europe, he comes to America and no one like gives a shit about him, right? And this movie's based on true story

[01:31:52] and people were like, shrug, I don't care, I don't know who he is. And I'm like, this is incredible that this really happened. That there was a random monkey born who could sing and dance. It's true. And became a pop star and a sex idol? You'd think more people would have remembered that. That's a fascinating story. Britain's always got shit going. It's like, what's up with them? They all like a monkey. I was like, yeah, it sounds like something you'd do. Sounds like great. I've been sitting on that bit for two months. Great bit. I'll nominate. I like all your, Jon Hamm is great and Transformers 1 is the villain. Orion Pax, maybe? Sentinel Prime.

[01:32:22] Sentinel Prime, of course. Orion Pax, I think, is Optimus's name before him. That's correct. And of course, Brian T. Irie Henry is D16. He's not called Megatronicus or whatever I said before. I would also say if we're doing narrators, Isabella Rossellini in Problem East is an incredible narrator. She's great. Incredible narrator. Almost just a layup for Julio to use hers. Oh, totally. But it's so perfect. Again, casting is often more than that. I just love Paul Walter Hauser in Inside Out 2. He was great. Who was he in Inside Out 2? He's an embarrassment. He doesn't really. Can I do my impression?

[01:32:54] Did the blankies pick anything there? They... I don't think so. You fucked up, blankies. I don't see it here. Okay, so... Can I just, while I was on the subject, give out best CGI monkey in a movie to Better Man? Great. Sure. Do you have a winner? There was a stiff conversation. Oh, you should. Oh, yeah. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes? I was going on for a while. Wicked. The VFX Oscar category could have been five monkey movies. It could have been five monkey movies. And it was... That Gladiator 2 monkey needed a couple more go-rounds. You can't deny there were a lot of CGI monkeys. Well, Gladiator 2 had two different monkey entities.

[01:33:24] One real and then a bunch of them CGI. Well, let's move on to... Well, before we get on to the big performers, do we want to do like music or cinematography or ensemble or anything like that? I did write down cinematography nominees because I always feel like I'm caught shorthanded with that. They seem to be pretty obvious ones. I have Nickel Boys, I have Brutalist, I have Challengers, which is actually really tremendous tennis match photography that culminates in a moment that just could never actually happen

[01:33:54] that I find like incredible for the movie. But the thing where they're volleying back and forth like a foot apart of each other, I'm like, that is not possible. That doesn't happen. But it's fine. They want to do it because they want to kiss. They make you fall for it. Dune Part 2 and then my one stop to the Oscars, Maria is not a good movie but Maria's cinematography is incredible. Yeah, I would put TV Glow in there but I think that's an excellent five job. I got Nickel Boys, Dune Part 2, Trap, Brutalist,

[01:34:24] Janet Planet. But Trap, of course, is shot by the guy who shot Challengers in one of the most versatile like DP performances of the year. Do you guys have music picks? Oh, the blankie cinematography picks were not Nosferatu, very dark, Nickel Boys, Brutalist, Drop it down, Challengers, and Dune Part 2, Anamorphic. No, Hundreds of Beavers,

[01:34:53] I put music because that's a movie that really has to be carried by. It's music. Can I say a thing that might turn you on to hundreds of beavers, David? It uses 8-bit video game language in a way I think is really smart. Sounds cool. I'll see it. It's like we are conditioned as a generation to understand things visually minus dialogue from video games in a way where that's a cleaner kind of jump to aid silent comedy. You got any score?

[01:35:23] Are there other score picks, though? Challengers score. Challengers, Brutalist, I think, I think Wild Robot's a really good score. The Furiosa score is once again fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. I also had, I like the I Saw the TV Glow score a lot by Alex G. I love that as well. I like the Nosferatu score okay. Yeah, I don't know. This is a really, really bad year for original score or song at the movies at the Oscars, but it could have been quite easily better if they just, like,

[01:35:53] Last Showgirl's not a movie that I liked, but I like that Miley song in it quite a bit. There's a song on Wild Robot that they could have nominated, and it could have been, like, you know, an okay year for a original song, and so they opted for, like, a really bad year. Yeah, they're starting to make the argument themselves for taking that category out behind the bar. And they had rehabbed it for a little while there. They had gotten it back to, like, C-level. They'll never kill it because there'll always be a year where, like, Taylor Swift wins, and they're like, we can't get rid of this! And then there's, like, two bad years again. Last year, where they're like,

[01:36:22] we can have Billie Eilish and a whole big, another Barbie number on top of that? Can we say it? Okay. Does it feel like Diane Warren might win this year? That's crazy. I feel like it's gonna really depend. Amelia Perez, isn't it? For which fucking song? I don't fucking know. I don't remember the names of those songs. All the songs are bad and two of them are nominated and no one can tell the difference between them. It does feel, so if you look at the FYC stuff that Amelia Perez has been sending out, El Mall, which is the Zoe Saldana number. That's the number at the, like, fundraiser dinner?

[01:36:52] Yes. Where she's in the red and she's doing the, yes. Where she's like, fuck you. I mean, that song sucks. She just dances well. She performs it very well, but that's the one they're going with. I think that will win if a song wins. Am I wrong and also feeling like watching this movie less than 24 hours ago, I was like, all these songs are 55 seconds long. And they do feel short, although... They don't linger at all. Which is part of it's, like, embarrassed at being a musical where it's like, don't worry, we'll get this over with. Yeah. I also threw down some needle drops. The tattoo needle drop in Anora is one of my favorite things

[01:37:22] that happened in the movie that used this year. Baby Girl also has several incredible needle drops. I just think Diane Warren seems to be campaigning harder than usual this year and is campaigning with a very smart strategy of, come on, guys. Right. And it's sort of like... But, like, is her song this year remotely good? No. I listened for the Tyler Perry movie? I listened for the Tyler Perry movie. That's awful. Yeah, it sounds fine. Whatever. It doesn't matter. There's no stronger nominee. No, I understand... Even if you like Amelia Perez. I understand the argument. Yeah. But Joey sent me a link from, like,

[01:37:50] a clip from the 6888 and it really, like, his movie's really... It's so bad. Because now he attracts this, like, top-shelf talent, I guess, because he has a budget and he's like... But it's also weird that it's like he used to make three movies a year. Right. Right. And they were made at the level, like, the correct level. You know what I mean? Right. Like, his style. But now he makes, like, one movie every three years and it's worse. They're bad because, like, he's trying to make an Oscar movie. But also he's, what, single-handedly,

[01:38:20] quote-unquote, writing and directing every episode of television himself for, like, 20 series. Yeah. I'm sure they're so good. I'm sure they're so good. I love his annual pile of scripts post. I don't even know what that is, but I'll check it out. Every year he's like, here's everything I wrote this year and it's a pile of, like, 40 different episodes and then a bunch of guys in the comments are like, hey, thanks for not crediting me for hiring, like, scab writers and not letting them into the fucking union and not giving us credit. How dare you?

[01:38:49] Should we do best actor or best actress? Tyler Perry's never done anything wrong, I'm sure. Uh, let's do best actor first. Best actor. Best actor first. So, best actor for 2024. Your winner last year, Griffin, in Actress was Lord Calamie in Full Time. What a good pick.

[01:39:19] Good movie. I picked Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon. The Oscars did too, I'm pretty sure. I won't check my notes. And you picked Margot in Barbie. Do you remember that? I do. I was mad that she didn't get nominated. I thought Margot was great in Barbie. She was not nominated. You and Hillary were fighting that fight together. Me and Hillary always, like, arm in arm. Yeah. But this year, I can go first. I've been making Griffin go first. Poor Griffin. Justice Smith and I saw the TV glow. Josh Hartnett in Trap. Aaron Pierre in Rebel Ridge. Nicholas Holt in Jurer, number two.

[01:39:49] And Sebastian Stan in a different man. Which rhymes when you think about it. In fact, it does. My three are my five. Yeah, just do three. No, I'll do five. Mike Feist in Challengers. Wow. Kellyanne Murphy in Small Things Like These. Josh O'Connor in Challengers. Justice Smith and I Saw the TV Glow and Sebastian Stan in a different man. Okay, I'm gonna do this because you nominated Josh, right? I nominated Josh Hartnett, yes. And you nominated Josh O'Connor. He's the best.

[01:40:18] So then I'm gonna drop Josh Hartnett because at least someone else called him out. My nominees are Josh O'Connor in Challengers, Glenn Powell in Hitman, Sebastian Stan in a different man. Oh, is this a crush list? Justice Smith and I Saw the TV Glow. Shooty Brigade? Wait till you get to my best actress picks. Oh boy. Justice Smith and I Saw the TV Glow and Coleman Domingo in Sing Sing. Coleman Domingo had very close six that month. Very good performers. Yeah. Because you guys didn't nominate Glenn, right? I didn't. No, no. I enjoyed that performance. I put him in there so someone called him out and I didn't put him

[01:40:48] in a screenplay. I love him. That was my sixth pick for screenplay. I saw that movie at a WGA screening where I was in plus one where the Q&A afterwards was with screenwriter Glenn Powell and it was moderated by our friend Esther Zuckerman. Glenn Powell walked out looking like eight trillion dollars. He can do that. I was like, the movies are alive and well. And then proceeded to talk so fucking intelligently about story in a way that wasn't

[01:41:18] like save the cat bullshit in a way that was like interesting and challenging where I was like, oh, this was probably largely a Linklater script that he like jumped onto and hanging out. And it made it so clear it was the other way around where he was like, Rick, can you help me hear his thing? And everything I like about that movie came from him on the screenplay level, which is why, of course, I'm nominating him in Best Actor. It's undeniable movie star performance. Yes. But also at one point in this Q&A, he went to Esther.

[01:41:47] He reached out. I think he might have touched her hand and said, sorry, I cut you off. What were you saying? And Esther went, and look, Esther is a pro at this stuff. Yes. She is unflappable. Yeah. I watched her melt and I walked out and I was like, buy all the stock you can. This guy is running. He's going to be the president of fucking Hollywood. I'm all in. Hitman is just a fucking show reel for him in so many ways, but God is compelling on that front. Another movie that Netflix put on Netflix

[01:42:17] and then a bunch of people watched it on streaming and were like, I don't get it. And I'm like, see it in a fucking theater then. I saw it once in theaters and certain plays like gangbusters. Yeah, I saw it both times in theaters, but the first time was a TIFF where no one knew it was going to happen. Played like rock. And it really did. Like the scene, the iPhone notes scene really played like just screams and yells. So wait, all three of us nominated Stan and Smith. We love the guys. Yes. And then you didn't nominate either of the Challengers boys. No, but I like them both.

[01:42:46] I've been a Justice Smith fan for like a long time ago. I always tell the story he was in HBO used to do this series of little short documentaries on young arts, which does a mentorship thing where they put five, like select five people. Is he in it? He's in two separate ones. Wow. He's in the one with Anna DeVere Smith where she has them interview each other, also play each other in the like Anna DeVere Smith, you know, one woman show style. Um, he's incredible in that.

[01:43:15] He's also in the Alan Alda one. Um, so I've like had my eye on him since that, since he was just like, this is his best performance. He's so fucking good and versatile and like, uh, just has to do, has to tackle so many different, really specific emotional states. It's also, it is like a performance that is painful to watch. And it is, in a way where when it starts, I was like, is it just gonna be hard to make it through this movie with this character? I also think he's like,

[01:43:45] he's so constrained and tight in it and he's playing it sort of like so small and pulled back that you're like, is he doing something accurately that will actually be to the fault of the movie in like pulling back too much? And he just like makes it fucking work. Well, he does the thing that the movie does really well, which is like through specificity, it gets at something that is universal. So let's talk about Sebastian Stan. This fucking guy. Fucking love that guy. Talking about people. Fucking love that guy. Mayors of Hollywood, right?

[01:44:15] Some people, Sebastian Stan, you guys may or may not know, plays Bucky, aka the Winter Soldier in the Marvel films, right? Now, he's in The Martian, he's in Ricky and the Flash, he's in I, Tonya. He's in movies where people have said to me like, well, I liked him in that one and I've always kind of been like, not me, bonk. Has been my thing. Never disliked him, but was just sort of like, he doesn't really pop. Bonk. Yes. And then there's other stuff I'm looking at here, like he's in Destroyer, the Karen Kusama movie. I saw that movie. Yeah. I did not remember he's in it.

[01:44:44] Oh, he's good in that. Yeah. I don't, I believe you now. I am one of those people who you've been bonking away for years and years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Totally. You know, the USA original series, Political Animals, because John Griffin, the NBC, I know you were in that one, but the NBC series, Kings. Kings. Two separate shows where he plays the gay scions of political dynasties. Kings was one of those, right. Kings was a show where everyone seemed high on goofballs and you were kind of like, I can't believe this exists. And they got canceled and you were like, of course it got canceled. Of course it did. Bye bye. This has been around

[01:45:14] for like 20 years. Right, because he was in Gossip Girl way back then. And Black Swan, he of course originally tested for Captain America and was one of the finalists and then they found out he was not USA born. Right. He's Romanian. And so they were like, we'll give you Bucky as a consolation prize, right. My big takeaway from this year, besides just him like totally coming into his own, proving himself, two movies that clearly got financed like on him, right. Like off his attack. You can get a little budget because you have

[01:45:44] Sebastian Stan. Totally. Those are not big budget movies. Now I'm suddenly like all in on him as a guy. Anything he wants to attach himself to I think is interesting. These are both like bizarre Thunderbolts, baby. Challenging movies. Well, look, honestly, like I'm like not immediately excited, but I'm like if he's in it, I'm suddenly more. I have heard from and I don't even know if this is from Reputable or whatever, but like I have heard that it's like the best of this next crop, which is like you know, it sounds incredible.

[01:46:14] So it's a three out of ten. It's such it's such faint praise, but like I laser targeted David with that one. Jesus Christ. Have you seen you still have not done a 40X. I have bought tickets to enter the Brave New World this Saturday. His scene in that film is. Oh, he's in it. He shows up for one scene. OK. And as people have pointed out online, but it's still insane. Bucky is apparently running for Congress. Bucky, who I believe canonically assassinated JFK. He's running for Congress.

[01:46:44] Also like assassinated T'Challa's dad. He assassinated Howard Stark. Like it's like you couldn't be a famous dad in these movies without Bucky blowing your damn skull open. Here's what I want to say about Stan. He's like, I want to represent the good people of Michigan or whatever the fuck he's doing. Here's what I want to say about Stan. He is. His one scene in Brave New World, you're like, God damn, like this is more interesting than anything else I'm watching. He's just figured it out. I think he's figured out himself as a performer. He's figured out the kind of material he can get excited about.

[01:47:14] He brilliantly fucking navigated this award season where it felt like he was going to get double snubbed. He did some of the savviest campaigning. He fucking gave his deserved Golden Globe speech for a different man as if he'd won for The Apprentice. Right. Knowing I think that like, well, that's my Oscar play. So I really should shout it out, too. Right. You know. But my big line on him is he's arguably number 16 on the list of Marvel actors relative to the juice they carry.

[01:47:44] Right. Like he's like the 16th most important Marvel character at best. Uh, sure. Yeah. I mean, certainly not top 10. Yeah. If everyone fucking above him was using their juice the way he is right now, we'd live in a much better fucking era for movies. He's good in those Marvel movies. Sure. He's pretty good in them. But I'm also like, Chris Evans, not to constantly back on him. He's finally this year like doing the fucking Cohen-Tricia Cook movie and the Celine Song movie. Celine Song movie, right. And I'm like, this is

[01:48:14] what I'm talking about. Can all you guys fucking do this, please? I don't dare you. Also, Sebastian Stan revealing that he's been attached this whole fucking time to the Elaine May Dakota Johnson movie that can't get insurance. Uh, yeah, the Elaine May can't get insurance just because Elaine May is 4,000 years old and is never seen in public. It's weird. I hear she mostly eats powder. Wait, can I? I'm not joking. I've heard that. That she eats bags full of powder. It's like, I'm going to live forever. What powder? It's funny.

[01:48:44] It's a good bit. Guess what color the powder is? I don't know. Not normal ones. That's what I thought. This ain't your normal colored powders. Uh, Sebastian Stan very good in a different man. Um, yeah, Hartnett's my winner. Hartnett's very good. Hartnett was on a long list. I want to sort of make my justification for challengers. Um, no, I don't think any justification is required. They're obviously the leads. They're obviously the leads. It's about them. I also, though, like Josh O'Connor fucking rules in that movie. This guy's on fire.

[01:49:13] So I don't watch The Crown. No, I didn't. I stopped watching The Crown before he showed up. He's fine in The Crown. He's good. Luckner's, embarrassingly, one of my biggest blind spots of the Oh, he's so good at that. I feel like there was one other thing he was in that I didn't see. So I've just seen still pictures of this guy and everyone telling me he's like a heartthrob and then he's got. Oh, that's interesting. You're going in like really dry. Yeah. How am I going to go in really dry as Josh O'Connor in God's own country? That is true. That's the other one I hadn't seen. Yeah. So like I was just like, I don't know if I'm buying this Josh O'Connor

[01:49:43] thing. He walks in two seconds. I'm like, this guy's a fucking movie star. This guy rules. This is Challengers is a movie that Emma. Did you ever see Emma? No. Oh, yeah. I've missed like all of his shit. He and Callum Turner are both in Emma. And for most of that movie, I kept being like, which one is this guy again, which is no slight against either one of them because I actually think they're both really good in that. Challengers is a movie that gets types of tennis players. And I think they get the tennis dirt bag and the tennis sort of

[01:50:12] professional really well. Because everybody's like Patrick Zweig box. His job is to be the unshowy one. His job is to be a little boring. Fucking good at that. And I also. It's kind of yeoman's work. And I'm kind of also the person who's like justice for our Donaldson because he put in the work and he's the best tennis player in the world. And like he won all those grand slams and he deserves it. So no, I love him. And I've loved him in West Side Story. I loved him on stage in

[01:50:42] Evan Hansen. He plays a great little journalist boy and bike riders. Yeah. I'm all in on fights. He's got a good stash. Did you run through all your nominees? Cillian Murphy, Small Things Like These, which I was going to say, I'm sort of carrying the banner alone. But like that is one of those movies where I watched it and I'm like, this dude just won an Oscar and I just now saw his best performance the year after. Not no slight at all against his Oppenheimer performance. But he's in a very different type of movie. Very like it's this is

[01:51:12] about he's he's lives next door to one of the Magdalene laundries. And sort of takes in this girl who runs away and he has to make this moral decision of like, am I going to allow this thing to go on by just sort of looking the other way or am I going to like, you know, step good. Yeah. And Emily Watson plays like the terrifying nun who runs the orphanage. You're currently doing a better job advertising this movie than anyone. I'm saying you're making

[01:51:41] both of us get activated. Yeah. Like check this movie out. Yeah. Rad and he's awesome in it. So it was a Lionsgate film. I'm sorry. Blinker Street. I didn't mean to follow you there. Just kind of felt like a Blinker Street. Yeah. It's got huge Blinker Street in it. BSE. Oh boy. Okay. So you finished your five David? I just want to, I mean, Aaron Pierre start making stuff in Rebel Ridge. Oh, Nicholas Holt had an amazing year, but I do think like I'm always really great Clint performances given how, like, as you said, was I Deutsch, like

[01:52:10] how little they're probably being told to do. Yeah. Like we agree on Holt being amazing in that movie, right? Yeah. Look, I think that is his first successful leading man performance. I think there has always been a divide between when the thing is put on his shoulders and he's sort of being positioned as like conventional matinee idol. I think he tends to go a little blank and he's always good playing weasel. What are you thinking of in that? Jack the Giant Slayer. I don't find it very compelling in the X-Men movies. Yeah. No, I like him in warm

[01:52:40] bodies, which is old. Yeah. I would not see. I'm like Renfield and warm bodies are getting closer to how to make him work as a leading man, which is like he needs to be a likable weasel, but he's best as weasels and cucks. That is what he is great at. Sorry, Nick. It's true. This year was like king cuck shit for him getting cucked by the law, getting cucked by Nosferatu and getting, of course, cucked by his cat Garfield. Lest we forget that Nicholas Holt is the voice of John Arbuckle.

[01:53:09] The weirdest shit. Wait, when you say cucked by the law, do you mean in juror number two by the legal system? Do you mean by Jude Law in the order? That as well. Good in the order. Great call. Yeah. Here's my impression of Nicholas Holt in the Garfield movie. Garfield, what are you doing? Sounds good. Why did what? Why is Nicholas Holt? John Arbuckle. Because Illumination is addicted to casting British people as like American icons for some reason. It's so fucking bizarre. Who else do you want to shout out, Griffey Poo?

[01:53:39] I feel like you guys covered all my nominees. My winner is Coleman Domingo. I caught up with Sing Sing very late. It was another movie that I was sort of cynically like, yeah, I'm sure it's good. And then I saw it and it is just like it. It's the best version of that kind of a movie. It avoids all cliches. It is just like elegantly intelligently made and told. And in a way, I was like, I love Coleman Domingo. He's a guy that I've like long been like, is this

[01:54:08] guy quietly the best actor alive? I'm glad he got this nomination after getting the nomination he got last year for Rustin. I couldn't feel good about that one purely. I feel the same way. And I feel great about him being a two time nominee. 100%. Like he's in the firmament. It's not a fluke. Absolutely. But I also think this is like a deceptively difficult role to be the one actor mostly working against these real guys playing themselves and to like not stand out in either direction.

[01:54:38] He's his character stands out, but in a way that I think benefits the movie where he's really elegant. This guy like he you see the you see where he phrased at the edges as the movie goes along. But he's a he's a really elegant kind of character calling him beloved like he's he's very smartly. Yes, he is quietly kind of this elitist who's like I'm not like these other guys. Yeah, right. Yeah, like he he is propping himself up in his own mind as part of the program. I don't belong here. I'm not like them.

[01:55:08] Look at my empathy and connecting to them. But he thinks he's more like the Paul Racey character who is also incredibly good in this. And then yes, to watch his like unwinding in the final 30 minutes of the movie. We know spoilers and it goes through multiple arcs. But like this guy finally gets pushed to a breaking point and emotionally kind of like unravels. And he's he's just phenomenal. He's one of my favorite actors. And I think this is the best work I've ever seen him do. Yeah, very good actor. There's a moment I almost just spoiled that I just

[01:55:36] was devastated by his silent reaction shot to it is in his parole meeting. I think you guys can probably guess which line I'm talking about. And they ask him a question and his face response to it. I literally gasped. He's incredible. David, your winner? Josh Hartnett, baby! Josh Hartnett. High Wire X! Oh, I love him so much in that movie. I do want to shout out. Nobody mentioned him. You said your winner was? Oh, my winner is Justice Smith. That's another great performance. I love.

[01:56:06] We're spreading the wealth. We're doing good work here tonight. I almost nominated Magaro for September 5 because I really, really I'm just a Magaro fan. Still haven't seen it. I saw someone on the Reddit say recently that they genuinely thought it was me until the end credits. More like September 6 out of 10. You know, that's I David. Over the shoulder from behind! Shattered the backboard! I just thought that movie was okay. And then, have either of you seen Woman of the Hour, The Anna Kendrick? I have not.

[01:56:36] Was busy that day. I was busy that day and the subsequent 14 months. Sorry to be rude. No, I understand the reticence to it. It's so much better than you think it's going to be. And the guy who plays the killer in that movie, Daniel Silvato, is terrifying. He's like giving D'Onofrio. I'm very pro-Sovato. Yeah. He was in the rowboat with me in the chiller original 4th beneath. We were fighting that killer puppet

[01:57:05] fish together. But he's also in Station Eleven. He's the kid who grows up to be the cult leader in Station Eleven. Yeah, I've never watched Station Eleven. He's really good. He's an excellent actor. Yeah, I like him a lot. Let's see what else he's saying. He's in It Follows? He's in Lady Bird apparently. A chiller original. Oh yeah, he's the guy who's Jonah Ruiz. He's the band that Benin. I think he's kind of the off lead in The Pope's Exorcist. Anyway, which I saw. He breaks an oar in half and tries to stab the fish with it. Watch Women of the Hour if you haven't.

[01:57:35] I'm going to convince these guys. We'll fuck it up. Sassy little nobody. Sassy little nobody. Yeah. Okay. Back to the blankies after these messages. David! Yes? Are you ready to optimize your nutrition this year? I am, but who's I'm challenging you. Who's this? This is

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[02:00:17] Best actress. My best actor winner last year was Jason Schwartzman in Asteroid shitty city. Wow, Jesus. Shot by dick poop, I guess. RIP. We can still make that right? RIP, more like CRAP. I'm sorry. Come on. Schwartzman had another great year between the temples. Great. I really enjoyed his crazy work in queer. Put a pin in that because I have a bespoke notice for him. What was another?

[02:00:47] I feel like he had another thing this year that well, Megalopolis, he. Hey, man, he was there. He was there. Along with everyone else. He did the pre-recorded audio for the part that someone stands up to do. Yep. My nominees for best actress. Oh, can I just call it two best actor also runs very quickly? Ethan Harisi and Nickel Boyz. Yeah, I mean, those guys are both amazing. And it's, you know, a little tough because by the nature of the performance, he's not on screen that much, which is maybe the only reason I

[02:01:16] caught him. But I think he is so fucking impactful, especially when we wait so long to see his face. And the moments he has has to like sell you on the idea of the ripple effects of this guy's presence over decades, not to spoil anything in the film, kind of knocked me away. Isaac Yang and Didi, a movie I liked quite a bit. And I was like, oh, this is like a good got a teenager and gave him a natural awkward performance. And then I dug in this guy's a fucking chameleon. I keep forgetting

[02:01:46] this is the same kid, but he's good in everything. He's in Walt Becker's Clifford the Big Red Dog. He is in Good Boys where he plays the cool kid. Yes, yes. Jacob Trombley's Good Boys. Yeah, correct. He was the best voice in Raya and The Last Dragon. He's just like a really, really good young actor who I'm very excited by every time he shows up. Apparently he was in The Santa Clauses. Yeah, I haven't seen it. Wouldn't know. No, my nominees for Best Actress.

[02:02:16] Marianne Jean-Baptiste for Hard Truths. Mikey Madison for Honora. Julianne Nicholson for Janet Planet. Ilinka Manolake. I have no idea if I pronounced her name right. For Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World. And I gotta give it to her. Naomi Scott for Smile 2. Oh my god, I almost did Naomi Scott. Wonderful performance. That's a great nomination. Wonderful performance. She will never be speechless. Smile 2 is such a jump up from Smile. It's amazing.

[02:02:46] Yeah, I mean, for me it was a jump up from like a two and a half to a three, but I thought she was really good. I could not believe how good she was. There are sequences in that movie that are like, there's some real good fucking sequences. There's a lot, though, of where she thinks she's like, why are you smiling at me weird? And then everyone's like, what are you talking about? And then they do that 18 more and yet every time she had me on the hook. One of my main complaints about the first smile was that there wasn't enough smiling. Like, there weren't enough moments of like, there's a lot of fucking smiles. That's a pretty good sell. Yeah.

[02:03:16] Best actress, Joe. All right, I have Marianne Jean-Baptiste in Hard Truths. I have Demi Moore in The Substance. I have Hunter Schaefer in Cuckoo. I have June Squibb in Thelma. Then I have Fernanda Torres in I'm Still Here. I'm Still Here! And Little Loopy. I will admit that like, Cuckoo just missed me entirely. I did not care for I just like, did not get it. I like Hunter Schaefer a lot. I think Hunter Schaefer, I like Hunter Schaefer better than I like the movie, but I like the movie pretty well. I liked Hunter Schaefer in that movie.

[02:03:46] I also thought that movie looked good. I just thought it was stupid. It is stupid. I hate to say this. No, it is. Again, though, a movie with like two or three really, really rad sequences, one of which is unfortunately given away in the trailer. Um, and, but I think just like she does not only the final girl thing, but also has like really amazing sister energy. Can I give out an award on behalf of Ben or maybe it's in tribute to Ben? I'm sure Ben will have his own awards. Can I give Dan Stevens

[02:04:15] the DAF performance, the DFA award, the Dang Ass Freak award for performances most like directly targeting Ben Hosley. Dan Stevens is a German, you know, fully German, like, uh, well, whatever the fuck he is in Cuckoo. Mad side. Hotelier. This is a collected award for 2024. And then also as like a Godzilla dentist. A monster dentist. Godzilla X-Kong. And then an Abigail, a sleazebag. And like, hey, I'm from the Bronx. Oh, yeah.

[02:04:45] What's the matter with you? I got sunglasses on inside. Dan Stevens and Melissa Barrera carry that movie on their shoulders. That is not a movie I liked, but I also think, uh, Catherine Newton, I think, is really good. I think everyone's good in it. Yeah, everyone's good. I just am frustrated by that movie. Ben, am I correct in thinking you saw zero of those three movies? Correct. Those are three performances of Dan Stevens yelling and waving his arms and going, Ben, pay attention. I'm your favorite actor. Well, you know what? He's on my radar, so I'll have to check out his work. All three of those movies don't work for me,

[02:05:14] but what he's doing in them, you'd be into. It's just like, if you saw that guy in Downton Abbey, you know, 15 years ago going like, oh, I sure hope that I get to be part of Downton Abbey. And I was like, yeah, this guy plays like a Bronx cop who fights Dracula's daughter. This is why. The same year that he pulls Kong's tooth. Yeah. This is why The Guest was a very important and impactful movie. That movie is, and I will say this with respect, pornography.

[02:05:44] Yeah. My Best Actress nominees. Yes. And I'm wiping my glasses here because for this lineup, I could mistake it for Tuesday night at the Olive Garden. Oh, oh, oh. If you catch my draft. Pasta dinners galore. Best Actress. Zendaya and Challengers. Saoirse Ronan and The Outrun. Daisy Ridley and Sometimes I Think About Dying. I'm front-loading the three pasta dinners. But here are two more pasta dinners coming. June Squibb and Thelma. Marion John-Baptiste and Heart Trace. My winner is Marion

[02:06:14] John-Baptiste for Heart Truths. Oh, I mean, yeah. We're unified in that. That felt like immortal luck for all three of us. Yeah. That's the performance of the year. It is. Yes. The most egregious snob. It was a performance that was so much the best performance of the year that it almost got nominated in a way that like, well, of course nobody's going to nominate. Like, she's so, like, she's so, um, she's pushing you away so hard. It's flooring. Yeah. And it's like, of course, people are voting for awards aren't going to do this. But like, they almost did.

[02:06:44] It came pretty close. I feel like. Yeah. Yes. And with that thing getting like a very limited, very late release from a smaller distributor, it was fighting a lot of uphill battles. Uh, and I thought the work was so undeniable that it was going to punch through. Um, but yeah, it's, I mean, it's incredible shit. Uh, it is. It's the most incredible screen performance of the year. I'm realizing I probably should have nominated it as Zendaya, but I gotta give it to Naomi Scott. I put her in there. Yeah. Um,

[02:07:14] no, I, I saw that. The TV glow? Uh, I saw that. Oh, I'm sorry. Your actor winner, by the way, was Killian Murphy and yours was Koji Yakushuko, uh, Yakusho, Yakusho, for Perfect Day. Who is yours? Jason Schwartzman, maybe. Oh, right, yeah. It is, uh, it did not get a very wide release. I feel like a lot of people didn't get the opportunity to see it with a crowd. It was kind of fascinating to watch how much of that movie successfully plays as a comedy,

[02:07:43] where you like watch it and you're like, where is this going? At first, you're like, am I really gonna spend the whole movie with this woman isn't this gonna get exhausting? The biggest out loud laugh reaction I've heard, I heard in a movie this year was the what's a baby need pockets for. The middle chunk of that movie, it's like everything she's saying is like fucking Bernie Mac Def Jam, like just like three point shots, right? And then it makes it all the more astonishing when the bottom can totally fall out in the last act and like really make you

[02:08:12] kind of like interrogate this person how she ended up like this. And I think it's really smart about like the answers it provides and the clues it gives and the things it leaves unexplained and yeah. Absolutely. I mean the way that you know, Wade Lee works, the creative process of his, you know, the actors are very, have big stakes in the story being told. But it's a performance that shouldn't work. Sure. You're like, it should be repetitive. Yes. It should be alienating. It is kind of crazy that you're right. Like you're never like, I fucking get it. I get it.

[02:08:41] She's mentally ill and really, really difficult to be around. Yeah. It is a performance that should make the audience act the way David acts when episodes have hit three hours. Where he's yelling like, Basta, enough. Basta. Yeah. David just checked the clock. Mikey, oh, I love to check the clock. We're doing good on that. I gave Mikey the nod. Obviously, she's the breakout star of the year and she's got Oscar noms and she won a BAFTA. She was on my short list. Yeah. It's funny that that's the one the BAFTAs were like, oh, we don't care for Nora much except for you, Mikey. You were making a prediction

[02:09:11] right before air. Do you want to say it here or do you want to save it for another episode? Yeah. No, I'll make it here. My thing, well, this award season has been so goofy. So insane. So with the, obviously, bottom falling out of Amelia Perez. Unsurprisingly goofy given that there never was the movie. Correct. Right? Like, so it is a movie where the buzz just ping pongs. Yeah. Can I say one thing about the Amelia Perez bottoming out? Yeah. This same kind of thing. Do you think it has to do with those tweets that lady said? Not as extreme, but this is the exact

[02:09:40] same point that Green Book was at in the arc before it then won Best Picture. But nothing like that happened to Green Book. Nick Vallelonga had the fucking tweet where he said, I saw Muslims cheering on that. I did not have the kind of purchase that this one did. I agree. I said not the same scale. Gav Khan was posted. It was one of those things where like, is there something she didn't post about? No, everything. I said not the same scale, but I went back and read some of the articles post the Vallelonga tweet and people being like, I guess that's it. Green Book's done. No. And people forget

[02:10:09] that also Mahershala Ali, who later went on to win Best Supporting Actor, at one point issued a press release basically apologizing for being in the movie. Zoe Saldana didn't do that, but she also has been like very skillful about like distancing herself. Here's the thing about Green Book. Amelia Perez is Green Book times 10? There was also a weirdly like 2024 election-esque like thing with Green Book where people were like, I'm going to silently push back against

[02:10:39] people being like, Stop telling me I can't enjoy that. That's exactly, that was, and I don't think you're getting that with Amelia Perez. Amelia Perez has always had a more polarized like fan base or whatever. Like there's some people who just love it. I just refuse to believe it's 100% dead. Oh, I think it's dead for best picture. It's the way you feel about John Wick. Where you're like, they're going to bring him back to life. I need to see that body cut into pieces and spread around the earth before I'm like, he's dead. They had him, what, sit on some stairs? I'm like, he's alive. I don't care. Yeah, fade to white. Yeah, exactly.

[02:11:08] But so the state of the race currently is Enora wins PGA and DGA and everybody's like, done. And the critics' choice. And the critics' choice. Well, nothing can be more important than the critics' choice. But it was somewhat surprising because it was similarly kind of like, it didn't win anything else. It only won best picture. Right. Kyle Buchanan tweeted, or whatever, blue skied, is Enora ever going to win anything at one of these televised awards minutes before it won best picture? And I literally like, Kyle, you turned around this entire Oscar season with that tweet.

[02:11:38] It was weird. And I went on Katie's podcast and was like, it's too good a movie to win best picture. It's just not going to happen. And it peaked too early. Right. Yeah, exactly. It was kind of the first one. Right. And so that hurt it. But it was like weird that it's winning zero precursors and then suddenly it starts winning everything. And it's only got a handful of nominations. So my thing that I want to get on, but it got more than I thought it might. Like it got that Boris up. It did get that Boris up. Say your thing on Mike because then I'm going to put out the counter and I think this is an interesting thing to pin at this moment in time. I'm saying there is a non-zero chance

[02:12:08] and like I'm putting it out there that I think it is possible that Enora does a grand hotel of winning best picture and nothing else. I last night was like that idea hit me and I was like, I could see that happening. I could see Corbet getting director. I could see Demi getting actress. I could see anything else getting editing. I think editing is totally up for grabs. Yeah, and I could see Real Pain getting screenplay. Yes, me too. Well, Real Pain got the BAFTA screenplay. Yeah, but I think it'll end up I'm not saying it's the

[02:12:37] most likely scenario, but I think it is. it could happen. It's weird. What's interesting is Fantasy on a Recent Big Picture called out that Sean Baker stands to be the single person to win the most Oscars in one night for one movie. Sure, right. He could win for picture director, screenplay, editing. Screenplay and editing. Cuaron had this chance, you know, it's happened like a couple times. It's when you edit your own movie. You know, Cameron won three Oscars for Titanic. He didn't win screenplay, obviously. And like the only

[02:13:07] sort of asterisk, Disney won four in one night for different films. He doesn't count. Yeah. And Bong, there's the international award that doesn't technically go to the director. Go to him and to Korea. He accepted four times on stage, right? I could see Baker winning all four and I could see a Nora only winning best picture and I could see equally likely zero. Equally likely. Yeah, right. It's like it feels so random right now. I would. I'm betting on some flip of a Nora and brutalist for picture and director, but it does feel like

[02:13:36] it could go any of those ways. Speaking of the Oscars, I have a current best actress front runner to me more in the substance. That's your winner? I don't know how either one of you guys feel about the substance. Am I like on Treacherous Ground here? No, no, I love the substance. Here's the thing. I'm like, that's a movie I would have nominated in like six categories and then when the Oscars went towards so far, they don't be my favorite. It didn't make me like, well, it's obvious now, but I was just like, cool, I can open up space for something else. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[02:14:05] No, that movie totally works for me. I think she's very good and I know you love Demi. I do love Demi. I've been doing this little side podcast on Demi. The funny thing about it is I'm not doing this podcast because she's like my favorite actress. She's just so 90s coded that like, and that's a period of filmmaking that I love thinking about and talking about. I just remembered I wanted to do a song parody of Just Dance for Substance. It's going to be okay, Griffin. It's going to be okay. Put that gringo into your spine.

[02:14:35] Substance. Oh, you're doing Bowie and I was doing Gaga. Sorry. Sure. You can do either one. Yeah. But I think she's really fantastic in that movie. I love that she's getting an awards narrative when she never, even when she was at the height of her popularity was never an awards actress. Yeah, I also think like all of the kind of like, I say this lovingly, but the like mad TV aspects of the performance, I'm just like, I never knew she had this in her. I never knew she could do like Grand Gagnol. She gets to play so many

[02:15:04] different phases of the character. And then on the opposite end of that, just like her standing in the mirror wiping the makeup away is probably why she's going to win the Oscar. It is so sticky and it is just an actor tapping into a moment that feels so poignant and resonant and is done wordlessly that there's just such range in that performance from an actor who I've always kind of liked, but I've never seen her do either of those extremes before. I agree. I agree. I'm going to reach across our divide and say thank you for doing Thelma. Well, thank you for doing June Squib and Thelma. Hey, I mean,

[02:15:34] she fucking rules in that movie is charming. It's so charming. It's so charming. It's the most charming movie. It's incredibly charming. I came very close to putting Fred Heshinger on my supporting actor. Is he incredibly good? Because I do love him in that movie. Heckingger. Is it Heckingger? It is. All right. And Browntree also R.I.P. Great performance. Oh, Browntree's so good in that movie. Oh, my God. Parker Posey's really funny in that movie. Yes. There was... I'm going to say this. There's maybe half a second and it got foiled by scheduling

[02:16:03] where I was going to play Malcolm McDowell's grandson in that movie. Really? And I was just like, I just kind of can't make it work. It was like right around the same time I did the movie Turn Me On, now available on PVOD, directed by Michael Tversky. That's the only reason I wasn't in Thelma, basically. A much bigger role is... Yes. ...in Turn Me On. But when I saw the movie, my biggest regret was fuck. That was my one opportunity to get punched in the face by Richard Roushey. Oh, my God. It was R.I.P. Unless you build a time machine. Dine out on that forever. Unless I build a time machine.

[02:16:33] Yeah. Yeah. I'd be really good on that set. You know what that movie needed? More white guys in position to power. Griffin Newman. Didn't like John Garman direct that? I don't remember. We talked about it. Directed by a white British man, whatever. The Lanky's picks for lead performance, I'll go from 10 to 1. Coleman Domingo, Ralph Fiennes, Conclave, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Joshie Hartnett, Zendaya Challengers, Justice Smith... People forget that her last name is Challengers. Go on.

[02:17:04] Sebastian Stan, Adrian Brody, and The Brutalist, a performance I really like. Yeah, yeah. He's great in that movie. Yeah, it's undeniable. I think none of us actually mentioned him. Nope. Demi Moore, in the substance. Mikey Madison and Anora is the winner. Ah. She's great. The Blanky's loving Ingenue. Do the Oscars, maybe she'll win. Yeah. Well, except this year they didn't love Ingenue Ellis Taylor. Which, honestly, they fucking fucked up. They did fucking fuck up. Now, before we get to picture director... Yeah, some bespokes. What are some other things we want to shout out? Well, you called out

[02:17:34] right before we started recording. I put you in a panic. Hard to pin down on putters and murmurs. I have one! I have one, too. I looked at the list while we were recording and I was like, wait a second, why didn't this jump out to me immediately? What's yours? Hiding in plain sight. Timothy Chalamet as Robert Zimmerman in a complete unknown. If fucking Bob Dylan himself is not the king of puttering and murmuring, and if Chalamet did not invoke it well, then what are we even doing here? Hey, Woody. I was very proud

[02:18:04] of Timothy's work. I'd like to make a buzz light year to your Woody. Says that in the movie. Who's your putter and murmur winner? Bill Camp in Drive Away Doll. Oh, wow. I think I've given Camp a P&M before. Of course! The man is practically guaranteed a nom every year. But he is so... I mean, for one, Bill Camp not getting famous earlier, he deprived us of him being in a lot of Coen Brothers movies. He would have been really good in pretty much any Coen Brothers movie that ever existed.

[02:18:34] I made this point on Vulture Slack yesterday, in fact, literally yesterday. You know nomative determinism, the thing that your name determines your personality? He's the opposite of that. He's the least campy actor. He's the least campy person in movies. That's a great take. Just to show you, he plays Curly, the owner of the Drive Away, you know, have you guys seen Drive Away Dolls? Yes, I did. I did not really care for Drive Away Dolls, but Bill Camp is great. I both stan Drive Away Dolls and love his two scenes, one where he's with the girls

[02:19:04] and then after, he says, won't somebody save Curly is his line delivery. Coleman's also great in that. He is, very funny. I consider both of the female leads in that movie. I really love Geraldine. I love Geraldine. It's fun with him. Margaret Qualley is dropping jars of mustard on him. Wally's a lot of time. He gets big swings, but it works for me. Wally's a lot. It works for me. He's got a cricket bat. Yeah. That's the kind of swing she's taking. She, I, I, I, you know what? She's got like a kid's plastic hollow, like big slugger bat. Yeah. She's having fun. She is.

[02:19:34] Who else, though? Putters and murmurs. So. Puttersers and murmursers. I have, as I tend to do, sort of a lead up. Um, I think you could plausibly say that Monstro Elisa Sue in The Substance. Is a putter and murmur. She's, she's. Is that not more of a a sputters and bleeders? Sputters and bleeders. She becomes sputters and bleeders. Yeah. 100%. I also thought you could do a thing where you combine Sebastian Stan in the first act of A Different Man

[02:20:03] and Justice Nathan the last act of I Saw the TV Go. Yeah. Into, um, a little combined putters and murmurs. None of these are your winner. This is all. No, this is all. Yeah. Leo Harvey Eldridge. Eldridge as Liam Gallagher in Better Man. Slurs and sneers. Here's the. Better Man. Watching that movie as someone who is not deeply entrenched in British pop. That's like the most shocking twist I've ever seen in a movie. No, that was news to me is I knew that they hated each other, but I didn't know that it was like over the girl. I think Better Man works better if you don't know any of it.

[02:20:33] Kind of. Um. I'm pro Robbie in that fight. Isabella Rossellini in Conclave, copies and curtsies. What a great curtsy she was. I, look, I was like, she's almost a putters and murmurs. There's something there. Yes. Because she, she takes a long time to speak up. June Squibb and Richard Rountree in Thelma, snazzies and jazzies. They're on their little jazzies. Mm-hmm. I had Todd Phillips in Joker Folly Adieu just puttering his way through that movie and making it. I think he murmured most of his directions. Murmured most of his directions.

[02:21:03] Just absolutely, just zero effort. My pick is Dave Bautista in The Last Showgirl. And when he putters and murmurs, it's good. Blade Runner 2049, good. Yes. I have not seen it yet. I will watch it before. SAG voting this weekend because of course it's been nominated for two awards for SAG. That is the one reason I'm looking forward to watching it. He's the best part. Not to be rude. Yeah. And I'm all here for the Pam revival campaign. Very excited for her being a naked gun. But Batista in a drama, I'd love to see it. There's an obvious winner

[02:21:33] but it's in a film I guess neither of you saw because I think a lot of people did not see it. Anthony Hopkins in One Life. One Life's a good movie. The James Hawes true story movie. It is a good movie. It's a great example of that kind of movie. You are correct that we didn't see it. Right. This is a movie about a real guy who did a thing that's interesting to think about and important to honor. But also the first 20 minutes of that movie is hopping and going, where did I put that mail? Yeah.

[02:22:04] When are we going to flashback to the young guy who plays me? Your letterbox log of this movie really stuck out to me. Let me find it. Very much the classic original Griffey Noom's definition of putters and rumours. Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying. It's actually straight down the line. Mr. Holt. My letterbox was, sorry, but if you have Anthony Hopkins in a slow-moving English drama that builds to a quiet but devastating emotional climax, I'm going to like it. It's exactly right. You're exactly right, David. Yeah, that is sort of the... You know, Samuel L. Jackson

[02:22:33] in The Piano Lesson is a putters and murmur. It's the other thing I need to watch before SAG voting. I liked that movie. I do too. I liked it better on Broadway. Talk about a movie that just like evaporated in the race. If you're... Netflix. It's fucking Netflix. I know. It's fucking Netflix. I know. But he is kind of right. You know, he's playing... I think a lot of people are surprised by that performance assuming, oh, Samuel L. Jackson in August Wilson. Is he going to have like tons of crazy loud monologues? Well, he was nominated for a Tony also. Right. He's good. He might have...

[02:23:03] I don't think he won the Tony, but he was definitely nominated for the Tony. But he's really good. But other bespoke awards. Okay, here are some other bespokes. Okay. Best Godzilla. Okay. Of 2024, I'm giving to Bisexual Lighting Ozempic Godzilla and Godzilla X Kong. I'm going to give it to Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Hard Truth. Biggest Mistake of last year's awards, I'm going to give to Forgetting to Do the Best Godzilla category in the year that Godzilla Minus One came out. Biggest Mistake of this year's awards, I'm going to give to Making the Bisexual

[02:23:32] Lighting Ozempic Godzilla and Godzilla vs. Kong joke. It's just kind of an easy joke. It's sort of dumb. Have you guys seen that movie? Best Power Gave. I haven't. End of it on TV. Godzilla gets all like pink and blue and skinny. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, my Sergeant Shroom Award, named after Vin Diesel's performance in Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, it is performance that I most wanted to give a nomination to and I can't quite sell it. Now, usually, it's more of a like, there's just nothing there. Sight unseen,

[02:24:03] I wanted to believe in it. This is someone where I'm like, the performance is really good. If I put it in and not included Adrian Brody, who I'm already snubbing from my five, people would have asked for my head on a pike. Give him to Michael Keaton and Goodrich. But a good performance. This is the thing. It's genuinely a good performance. Me putting it in the five would have been overselling it a little. Best Airplane Movie, as in movie to watch on an airplane. Giving that to Goodrich. Goodrich, two wins in one year. Wow, I gotta see that movie. Best Performance

[02:24:32] by Megalon in a Supporting Role, I'm giving it to Megalopolis. There's nobody in Transformers 1 called Megalon. It's funny that Megalon is just kind of a thing in that movie. Yeah, what do you mean? It's how they make buildings and stuff. That's not the main thing. It's how they feel skin. It's just one of the many things that movie is throwing out. Megalon in a Supporting Role. Best Thriller where the villain is time, Saturday Night. I don't know if you know this. That movie's not a comedy. TikTok. It's a thriller where the villain is time. And most destructive movie.

[02:25:02] It ends with us. Talk about just fucking like, it ends. Everyone. Well, that's true. Everyone who saw that movie in theaters had like a curse upon their family. I heard that Lorne is going to fire Jenny Slate again. Oh, no. Yeah, I have a couple bespokes. I don't want to step on Ben's toes at all. The bespoke keys. The bespoke keys. Best Conveyance of Information by an Object in a Film, which is a little busy, but hang with me. No, I like it. The flyers for Horizon in Horizon and American Saga Part 1.

[02:25:32] The photocopies in Conclave. Uh-huh. The portrait of Bill Clinton in Longlegs, which tells you exactly when this movie is taking place. It is taking place when Bill Clinton is president. It does get bigger every time they cut back to it, I believe. I firmly believe. Obviously, the notes app in Hitman. Can I just call a shot quickly off of what you said? I want to pin praying that it gets a qualifying release. Ribisi might have next year's putters and murmurs in the bag

[02:26:01] for Horizon Part 2. The thing I'm most excited for in Horizon 2 is Ribisi, to find out what Ribisi's going to do. Here's a spoiler. You're not going to find out a lot. It's the... He is not on screen much, but most of it is puttering and murmuring. It's the little Yakuza boss in that Simpsons episode where the Japanese mafia comes after Marge Simpson in her pretzel wagon is you just want to see what he's going to do. You know it's going to be good? I would have been so angry at how little he has to do in the movie if the end didn't stick the landing so fucking hard. Okay.

[02:26:32] You seem genuinely enthused in Psych about Horizon 2. I was so thrilled by watching it and just immediately being like slot machine payoff. It's like the movie starts at minute two. Can we please not do this? Come on. Let's stop talking about a movie no one has seen that didn't come out that year. I said I'll wheel it into relief. It'll come out. Don't worry. My fifth nominee and best conveyance of information by an object in a film is obviously the tennis ball against the neck of the racket and challengers. A neck movie. Best necks. Best necks. Challengers.

[02:27:02] Very good. Some napes in that movie. People like to think screenwriting is about dialogue. That is a screenwriting decision. That is like beautiful like structure and set up and pay off. Yeah. That whole last match is no dialogue and it's perfect. When he did that move at the end of the film in a close up and you know he's going to do it the crowd I saw it with burst into applause and it was the most ecstatic. I had that reaction. I had a movie theater last year where all of us were responding to like fuck. Good story. Yes.

[02:27:31] That's why. Yeah. Like nothing throws me more than when a movie can build it's sort of like it's obstacle course so perfectly that at the end one single image can mean 20,000 things without any words. Yep. Yep. And we just all know it. Almost as if Challengers was a great movie and its director should have stood by it more in its award season. Luca is a really normal and not ornery guy who makes normal decisions. And also to be fair in his defense he could only stay above water on ground

[02:28:01] for so long before he was going to get caught for being a sea monster. Why are you waiting for a bike race? He couldn't campaign for two movies and also check in with his fish parents. That's true. With Maya Rudolph and Jim Gaffigan. There you go. The most Italian sea monsters. Good movie. It is a good movie. That movie rolls. Movies for cool kids. My other bespoke category is best performance. Wait, who's the winner in that category? Oh, sorry. My winner in that category It's the tennis ball. It's the tennis ball. Yeah. It's perfect. Which is kind of a huge upset

[02:28:30] because like I did not think anything was beating notes after I saw Hitman. By the way, good category. I think that one's a perennial now. Thank you. Best performance by an actor of another actor. Austin Butler playing Stellan Skarsgård in Dune Part 2. Pretty good. Nicholas Podani is the guy's name as Billy Crystal in Saturday Night. I went to see this film. It's such a subtly accurate portrayal. That movie is quietly a thriller in the villainous time. What? But it's my favorite secretly a western of this year.

[02:29:02] I, he comes on screen. There's a lot of people playing famous people in that movie. He comes on screen and says two words and I went like holy shit. I was thrown back in my chair. I can't believe he's nailing young not famous crystals. And I'm also like soap era Billy Crystal. In real time, like I've never heard anyone do a crystal. Right. I guess. Right. Well, I hear someone do it at the top of a blankie's over here. But this is what I'm saying. Like that's what I'm expecting. I'm like some guy's going to come on and be like, Sully! Yeah. Mickey Mantle.

[02:29:33] He is like stunning. He's great. He's great. I love him. Aaron Taylor Johnson doing Matthew McConaughey. By the way, that's become the new guy who beats me out for every role I want. Go on. He's a great actor. He's good. Aaron Taylor Johnson is Matthew McConaughey in The Fall Guy. Endlessly amusing. I thought it was. Yeah. Talk about another guy who needs to not be a leading man. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh, he's so great when he like shows up at a like pinch hitter kind of a. Did you like him in Nosferatu? I did like him in Nosferatu. He's like, Enough with this Nosferatu nonsense! Yes! I fucking hate this shit!

[02:30:02] You know what I didn't like him in? What? Craven the Hunter. Yeah. I haven't seen that one. You should go hunting. I tried. I tried to. I fucking was texting Showtimes to Alex Perry as they dwindled rapidly. As they pulled them from the site. As it became like 10.40 a.m. or bust. Yep. And then he was just busy and then that was that. I was gonna go with a crew to see it in 40X and we all got a head cold and all canceled. Like 10 of us had bought tickets and canceled tickets. You would have been the only box office for that movie. Yes. And then it was gone the next day.

[02:30:33] And then it was gone. There was one performance in that movie you will love and I bet you can't guess who it's from. Iron and a Bose? Who else is even in there? Russell Crowe. Oh, I'm sure I love that. Of course. You're gonna fucking eat that up. I assume he's much like with Thor and everything. You know, he's just playing another Greek diner owner. No, he plays a Russian monster. But it's always Greek diner owners. Yeah. The Last Exorcist is very much a Greek diner owner. I'd say it's a sensitive thought. Joe, sorry. Go on. Two more. Jason Schwartzman playing Stanley Tucci in Queer.

[02:31:03] Interesting. Jason Schwartzman. Who knew that Jason Schwartzman playing gay is just Stanley Tucci? It's fantastic. Okay. And then Jodie Comer playing Bill Swartzky from the Superfans in The Bike Rider. A very, a very close best actress candidate for me. She's good in the movie but the accent is insane. She's absolutely, she sounds absolutely insane. She is fucking so bad. She's so good and it's high on crack for not respecting art. I like Jodie Comer though. She's wonderful in that movie. It does make me sound insane. Yeah, good.

[02:31:34] I feel like I'm sitting back in the multiplex. I feel like I'm sitting back and closing my eyes and dreaming of other things during that boring ass quailoon of a film. I'm leaning in. Yeah, I'm leaning in and falling out of my seat. You can't do both directions. Because I'm asleep. You can't say you're asleep in both directions. Yes, I am. That's the one movie that made me asleep in both directions. Movie's good. David's rude. Jeff Nichols, keep making more movies. Thank you. Keep making those C pluses. C pluses.

[02:32:04] There's no director you're rude to. That guy is a cheap supermarket because he's C-town. Wow. Wow. Is that going to travel or are there only C-towns in New York? I've never seen a C-town outside of It's a Northeast supermarket. I did my best. Do you guys want to give me your best directors or do we have any more No, I'm out of bullets. Yeah, you know, best going live on Instagram goes to Lady Raven for trap. Yep.

[02:32:35] Over Zachary Levi? Zachary Levi, of course, gets best crayon. I don't know. I don't know what to give that guy. We need to give that guy something. Yeah. Can we find five other nominees fast? He needs some medicine. Can we lock him out? Yeah. There's no one who's more anti-medicine where I'm like, you might need some medicine. You need to go to the doctor. You are following the exact wrong path. Zachary Levi showed up at the fucking Horizon

[02:33:04] chapter two premiere and I was like, don't make me feel like I'm not allowed to like this. He was jump scaring people there. He's just so tall. Yeah, he's very tall. Ugh, that sucks. Yeah, that's why he gets to play fucking Shazam or whatever. Best normal chills sculpture to have in your house, Oddity. Did you guys see Oddity? I liked Oddity. I swam see Oddity. Wooden Man and Oddity. That's definitely the best part. I think it's, is it Australian? I think it's Australian. Is it not Welsh? Might be fucking Welsh. I don't know. It's something or other. Something.

[02:33:33] No, it's Irish. Maybe it might be Irish. I think it is Irish. It's a horror movie about someone who gets the most fucked up sculpture in the world and puts in their house and they're like, I don't think anything's going to go on with this. Don't kill a witch's sister is basically the lesson of it. A best exposition about the past and mythic stuff. Ty Olwen Faurier in both The Watchers and Tarot shows up in both movies

[02:34:03] to dispense, here's the lore of the movie. Is that the old lady? Yeah. She's good. She's good. The Watchers is not a good movie. No, The Watchers rocks. I'm pro The Watchers. Did you see The Watchers? I still haven't seen it. Check it out. Yeah, I don't know. Best Baseball Cap, Jason Bateman and Carrion. I still haven't watched that either. You just said that like, I can't watch that, buddy. Hey, buddy. And I haven't caught that one. Yeah, I don't know. Is there anything else we want to shout out?

[02:34:32] That's stuck in the Netflix pit for me. Yeah. Look, I'm happy Claude Sarah's back. What was the thing I saw? Best movie that for 10 minutes, you're like, we are fucking cooking. And then it kind of gets a little boring. Natalie Erica James' Apartment 7A. Oh, I didn't see that. Which like, and we all love the first Omen directed by a friend of the show, Arkasha Stevenson. And that one similarly, you're like, oh, she's doing stuff here. Like, this is actually more than just like a sort of wrote TV

[02:35:01] prequel to Rosemary's Baby. Has this amazing sequence in the middle of the movie, but some of it's a little boring. There was something I saw. What was it? Now I'm trying to remember, but it was, oh, oh, you know what it was? It was Flight Risk. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, of course. I'm like, if Clitzer directed Flight Risk, it would be winning Best Picture next year. It was just directed by some bum called, oh, Mel Gibson. He's an Oscar winner I'm seeing here. No, I checked the poster recently and I think it's from the director of Apocalypto and Hacksaw Ridge. No name needed. Uh-huh.

[02:35:30] Uh, who are your best directors, guys? Best director. My best director nominees are Luca Guadagnino. I was thinking about making another Pixar joke and why I put that word disrespect on his name. George Miller for Furiosa, a Mad Max saga. Oh, sorry, I'm reading off the wrong list. Worst directors of movies I hate. Mike Cheslick for Hundreds of Beavers.

[02:36:00] Rommel Ross for Nickel Boys. Michael E. for Hard Truth. It's a very hard truth. It's the hardest truth of all. He's a nominee. Yeah. Uh, my list is Brady Corbet for The Brutalist, Luca Guadagnino for Challengers, Julio Torres for Problemista, Rommel Ross for Nickel Boys, and Matthew Rankin for Universal Language. Oh, I need to see that. I think you will both like it. Now in theaters, a Canadian-Iranian film that I've been told is really, really good. My nominees are Annie Baker

[02:36:30] for Janet Planet, Radu Judeh for Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, Luca Guadagnino, all three nominees for Challengers, Mike Lee for Heart Truths, and Rommel Ross for Nickel Boys. My winner is Rommel Ross. My winner is Rommel Ross. My winner is Luca Guadagnino for Challengers. Yeah, well it's a great movie. And you know what? I'll say you can feel the presence of a director on that movie. Oh, interesting. But not in his other films. No.

[02:36:59] Not a showy filmmaker. Should we just go straight into Best Picture? Because I feel like these are overlapping conversations. Yes, you should. I will say I watched his first movie, The Protagonist, because it was on Mubi. You know how like Luca kind of tried to make good movies for 10 years before he suddenly started making them? I didn't see any of them before I Am Low. Same. No one has. Yeah, that was the first. But they put the protagonist from 1999 with Tilda Swinton on Mubi and I'm like how bad could it be in 10 minutes? And I was like oh, it stinks! Oh no! Whoa! But hey, isn't that part of the fun of doing this podcast when we see someone come out of the dirt?

[02:37:29] But you're like I don't understand how the filmmaker I love like it's trying stuff so you're kind of like I guess he was trying stuff and not doing a good but whoa! I mean Park Chan-wook's another example Stanley Kubrick's another example where the first movie almost feels like they have to do every single thing wrong to then by process of elimination emerge like seemingly fully formed. I'll give you the Blanky's nominees were Ramel Ross 5 I'm going from the bottom up Ramel Ross Sean Baker for Nora Jane Schombra and Danny Villeneuve Luca Guadagnino

[02:38:03] Best Picture So your top 10s for the year basically is what we're gonna do next for Best Picture Do you want to do them bottom up? I'm gonna do bottom up Okay, you go first Number 10 Better Man Wow Loved it Monkey Loved it Monkey Loved it Number 9 The People's Joker Number 8 Hundreds of Beavers Number 7 Long Legs This is a griff list This is a real griff list Number 6 A Different Man

[02:38:32] Number 5 Furiosa Mad Max Saga No, number 500 Oh yeah, sorry Number 4 Hard Truths Number 3 I Saw the TV Glow Number 2 Nickel Boys Number 1 Challengers At the end of the day I just like That was the most transcendent experience I had watching a movie And I kept being like Is that still my number 1? It feels kind of poppy to be my number 1 Open that pop God I love soda Exactly Drink that bubbly soda Starting from number 10

[02:39:02] My number 10 is I Saw the TV Glow Number 9 is Nickel Boys Number 8 is Universal Language Number 7 is Hard Truths Number 6 is I'm Still Here Number 5 A Different Man 4 Challengers 3 His Three Daughters 2 The Brutalist And my number 1 movie of the year which I watched this morning just to make sure was Problem East Wow What a great movie I love that movie Possibly future guests I'd love to get Julio back Why not? I think I recently It's really easy to schedule Yeah I think I recently realized

[02:39:31] I somehow don't have any of his contact information But what was this And I was like How did we get him on the first time? Did we literally like whisper into a pigeon's ear? It kind of was We did basically whisper into a pigeon's ear or like write something on a Lego brick and leave it on the subway Like we DM'd him I think we like there was a Twitter Someone had a Twitter And he was I mean I've known him for a while Of course I swear at one point I had some direct contact But I think it was a social media contact Like I don't think we ever had a phone number

[02:40:00] because I'm not even convinced he has a phone No No No nothing about him would indicate that he would have a phone He's got a pocket full of precious gems I mean You know What was the movie that he Edward Scissorhands Oh wow One of those episodes where like the day before we were like are we just gonna do that one without a guess and then we were like hey I'm coming Right I feel like this year we were like fuck that'd be a good time to get Julio back and we talked about it and then I was like I actually don't know how to reach him I love Julio Torres as do you as do I think everybody here is a great guy

[02:40:30] but I was really blown away by how like emotionally intelligent and beautiful problem he's talking about I will say this I obviously did not like as much as you did and I was like this is like a good first movie he's like working out some stuff and then like the last 20 minutes I was really impressed by how hard it all paid off there are certain ways in which I think it like the setup is almost to the movie's detriment it needs to hold back on certain things in order to make that payoff work

[02:40:59] but I was like the last 20 minutes of it worked for me so fucking hard there are so many ways that he could have just sort of rested on quirky strange you know I'm Julio Torres I love shapes like that kind of a thing I think it's an incredibly funny movie is the other thing though it's like there's so much like actual overt like out loud comedy and then to pull it together and really sort of like there's a lot of good insight in that movie there's a lot of insight in that movie to

[02:41:28] the human condition his specific experience and like the specific experience of people trying to emigrate to the country and like stay in the country but also every single character in that movie is so well observed yes and like Tilda Swinton's character who is like simultaneously a dragon lady cartoon and also admirable in certain ways and understandable which could just be a kind of offhand note the amount of time it spends in investing in this character

[02:41:58] who's gone yeah David you're 10 my 10 are from bottom up Red Rooms number 10 which I haven't mentioned on this podcast I should have fucking nominated Juliette Calarelli in Actress but I had to give Naomi Scott her flowers but a great insanely freaky Canadian horror film that I think a lot of people are discovering including me late in the race number 9 Evil Does Not Exist number 8 Trap number 7 I Saw the TV Glow 6 Dune Part 2

[02:42:28] 5 Janet Planet 4 Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World great Romanian movie that everyone should watch you should you'll like it Griff it's got a view of society that I think you'll respond to 3 challengers 2 hard truths 1 nickel boys director was so overflowing with people I wanted to nominate for best director I thought so many of these I don't always subscribe to the best movie is the best directed movie always

[02:42:57] at some point I love the movies that I love so much and certain movies feel like they have more of a directorial you're taking a little bit more of a chance as a director or you're like taking on maybe a bigger sort of project but like Aaron Schoenberg for a different man Jane Schoenbrunn Coralie Farja obviously Villeneuve and Sean Baker and Walter Sells for I'm Still Here have you guys seen I'm Still Here? I saw it last night I liked it I really was so engrossed by that movie I thought I was just like it really does

[02:43:26] like you know grab you by the shoulders I'm gonna say this and I don't mean this in any backhanded way but this was like my profound takeaway from watching the movie in a certain way right the Academy's changed so much it's gotten so much more international it used to be so rare that a foreign language film crossed over into any other categories now it's obviously more commonplace right and it used to be that when it would break through there was this air of like this is the kind of shit that could never get made in America right

[02:43:55] not that it was like the studio system would never support this it's so foreign right these other countries are artier and whatever and I watched that and I was like this is the kind of movie that studios used to be great at making for 30 years yeah sure and then for 30 years after that it was supplanted by like Focus and Searchlight and the mini majors making them and now it kind of like we need to import our like incredibly sturdy intelligent political family dramas it's been happening since you know the Miramax year of the 90s

[02:44:25] and all that and it feels like much like last last year this was um uh what's the cooking movie The Taste of Things yeah every year there's a movie where I'm like Harvey Weinstein wants to break out of prison to run the Oscar campaign for this movie he's like I'm gonna call a congressional hearing I'm gonna have a press conference that's so true about The Taste of Things have you seen it The Taste of Things was I was like are we sure Harvey's in jail and I love that movie to be clear I'm just talking about the kind of sort of middle brow uh adult foreign drama

[02:44:55] that like Miramax loved I'm not saying that I'm still here is middle brow but I'm saying there's a degree of being like it's not high art yeah it's it's incredibly well made it's like a very affecting story uh the the the casting at the end is very impactful not surprising to me I also saw it like maybe two days after the election so the what uh yeah there was a there was an election um it hit particularly hard certainly harder than when I saw

[02:45:25] um Doctor Strange the day after the last time yep I did one of those give me the news look it's a good time for movies at the top and there's lots of interesting stuff in the middle this was not my favorite movie year wasn't my either it was not my number one favorite movie year of all time which of course was 1928 what a great year but I do feel like people sort of I've heard quite a few people calling it like a bad year for movies and I just can't I can't get I don't think there's ever a bad year for movies is the thing no

[02:45:54] not really if you just slice off the top except for 2011 like that's the only bad year for movies um but no I think there's yeah you slice off the top wasn't 2011 Margaret and Moneyball or was that 2012 no you're right it was Margaret it's a really bad Oscar year it's a very bad Oscar year but 2011 yeah my top 10 is Margaret Moneyball certified copy Tree of Life certified copy so good Girl with a Dragon Tattoo Ghost Protocol Uncle Boon Me Archipelago Tinker Tailor Fast Five that's a great top 10 I mean Fast Five was obviously my 10 I'm trying to remember I feel like I had

[02:46:23] my top 5 were all in movies and now I'm trying to remember what the other ones would have been but it was definitely off the top of my head Margaret is up there Martha Marcy certified copy Hannah Joe writes Hannah is that year Hannah um War Horse of course there's some positive takeaways from this year as we said the Inside Out 2 lesson David's doing a slide whistle oh it's my penis on the mention of War Horse going first of all that was kind of impressive

[02:46:52] David mined a slide whistle really well I had to get my lip but he was doing the motion yeah it was good good improv yeah um yeah there was there was good stuff this year and I think there were good takeaways and I feel like as you said there was like a this this feeling of catastrophe when all the May movies underperformed and then immediately it was just like no people showed up in fucking droves for Inside Out 2 and Twisters and Deadpool and Wolverine and it ends with us

[02:47:22] and some other things movies of the exact same level look you can't automatically trick people into fucking a blockbuster anymore you have to give them something they want to see and if they want to see it they'll show up in droves and I think the things that people are showing up for is diversifying a little bit it's not just the same couple fucking tentpole franchises and I think also that all that doomsdaying was forgetting that like Dune and fucking Godzilla were just like genuine blockbusters in the first three months of the year the thing I'm always pointing at is like January

[02:47:57] domestic is this close from a hundred million domestic and like Mean Girls and Beekeeper were supposed to go straight to streaming and I was like here's the lesson make more movies like fucking this make mid-sized films well the things that encourage me is Nosferatu 95 domestic complete unknown 71 domestic like you know those kinds of movies are still getting you know they're not you know knocking it down like Oppenheimer did David and I were talking about the sort

[02:48:27] of like rise of like quote unquote auteur horror which is like the horror which used to be this autopilot every horror movie opens to 20 and makes 50 basically had like more kind of like actual flops but the through line is like movies are being sold on Oz Perkins on like Damien Leone you know like all these people which is like exciting it's like it speaks to a culture that is engaged with the idea of like movies are made by people and visions and all that sort of stuff all that

[02:48:57] sort of stuff uh movies are good Ben can you save us yeah Ben do some stuff you got some stuff planned right yeah uh so it's that time in the episode of our blankies episodes where I uh relaxing I do some of my original categories so to start things off as I do every year we have of course the right the slickest flicks of the year I love when he says slickest

[02:49:26] flicks of the it's the movies that soak through what splished what splashed right okay good questions good question who dunked rub a dub dub I'm taking a bath I don't think I quite understand the parameters of this category can you explain it's the wettest films all right so number one twisters okay not only is there rain okay which there's an abundance of rain that's true but Glenn he's not

[02:49:56] just giving my man's pouring out riz this is true oh you're so you're saying his his acting is so charismatic that he's wet it's dripping riz he's glistening with riz I like this okay number two the substance yeah it's a squishy movie it's just there's so many fluids being represented in this film various colors a rainbow of fluids going in going out like yeah number three challengers

[02:50:27] sweaty a lot of beads very sweaty but in the best way right often on the show we label movies as sweaty because it's just like a sauna scene half baked right a lot of on court sweating yes but yeah the actors are hot right not only are the actors are hot but I walked away perspiring after seeing that okay number four we live in a time oh the um we live in time excuse me so now

[02:50:57] when I say that I ugly cried during yeah you shouldn't have seen that one Ben honestly I would have kept you away from it ugly like Donald Trump's heart ugly wow that's getting political destroyed truly destroyed clean up on aisle my ass okay well okay and then number five unfortunately is Moana 2 no that's not a lot it's wet it's extremely wet yeah please it's a movie for losers

[02:51:26] but it is wet the young woman in the sea which I know you haven't seen oh yeah that's a swimming movie I missed that one I think you'd like it yeah well if you like wet movies flow is very wet flow flow I can't believe you haven't seen right you'll enjoy that friend of the show Jordan Fish had suggested it I think you'll really like it's a cat in water I know I know you'll cry but there's a bird you'll cry at like very bad it's not we live in time crying you'll cry at moments

[02:51:56] of like oh my god the cat is scared you know sure you'll cry at moments of intimacy okay I'm surprised you didn't include well may I just finish my point on Moana 2 and then yes please I just wanted to though say can I get a Chi Ho has maybe some of the sweatiest lyrics of all time that's a song can I get a Chi Ho it is indeed a it's a rap song performed by Dwayne Johnson built around

[02:52:25] his famous catchphrase which you remember definitely was there in the first movie he does say it in the first movie does he I've seen Moana you know one to two hundred times yes he says it he says it eight hundred times in this movie he more I would say he probably says it like three times in Moana he says it when he's about to turn into something okay because in this it feels like a Marty McFly chicken thing sure we're like you're telling us this was your deal the whole time the song sucks but what are some other films that look Flo is a big snob but you just haven't seen it yet rude to

[02:52:55] pool man he hasn't seen I'm not gonna go see fucking pool man it's wet I'm sure it is that guy's fishing out leaves the whole time yeah also Ghostbusters Frozen Empire well the water is frozen in that one yeah but imagine what happens at the end of that movie honestly they stop the day it's gonna start melting city's about to get wet as hell you know I saw that movie and I could not tell you a single thing that happened in it it is gone I remember being like this is better than I thought

[02:53:25] I don't remember it it's gone I almost Slimer almost is a putters and murmurs what else he got Benny okay well I think I've sort of decided that you know of course there is the films that should be remade with and then I you know pick out all of these kind of absurd clown babies yeah right but again I'm gonna say like I did last year I just I'm sick of remakes I'm sick of just everything being so IP driven that as in a protest

[02:53:55] I will not continue to generate more content I like that also saves you some time that's right okay but moving right along we have of course the um no thank yous number one at the top Amelia Perez never before have I avoided something that somehow also doesn't exist it's as if the culture is telling me look go ghosts exist and I'm like sorry what because I'm wearing noise handling headphones number two blink twice

[02:54:24] I did and suddenly the movie stopped playing because I had left the theater oh there you go wow got out of there fast yes I did that movie's not very good not very good and with a horrible ending I would agree with that I'm sure Arjona it's kind of incredible in it though half consent nominating no she's very good she's very good number three The Apprentice me thinks no one asked for this I do think it's quite a good film but I made I made the in retrospect great choice to see it four days

[02:54:53] before the election I could not imagine watching it now yeah yeah number four Nosferat Hunk Shoe boring how dare you call my movie boring and you try to sleep with me atop you like a what a beautiful looking movie sure like great costuming it's fucking dirty and shit sticky but it was boring no come

[02:55:23] closer take 20 minutes to come closer oh slow down slow down not that fast do you want to open my coffin you can take your time sorry that's fine okay and then lastly thinking about how sticky that mustache would be with all the blood yeah blood the bugs yeah there's a lot of stuff in that okay so lastly I really struggled and it ended up just kind

[02:56:10] well because at least there you can put on good plays I have also not seen any of those movies I think red one is my dead bottom of the year it has to be I think it's one of the

[02:56:40] I thought it was good I had fun with Saturday night I will agree with you back okay it's not like reinventing the wheel it's a stupid predictable biopic but fuck it I liked it it's because I think more as a thriller who's the villain there sorry I mean I didn't care for it this is carrying over from last year I guess it's become now a new award Violator Achievement Award movies that remind me the most of the relationship between Violator and Spawn

[02:57:10] last year the winner was Boy in the Heron who had Violator energy this year is Kieran Culkin in a real page my friends he's not wrong what an absolute monster of a person and of course when I saw Jesse Eisenberg come on screen in that film I went man this guy's got huge chains and ectoplasm energy before as a character felt more like the prince of hell himself no I think you're right Megalopolis I love

[02:57:39] when an artist sees through their vision uncompromised by coherence vision doesn't need to make sense agree especially if you lose one of your eyes crazy put the wow platinum in the world that you want to see wicked little letters fucking steaming bag of fun you saw that I did some of my favorite insults include you really are a tricksy old fucker you belong in

[02:58:17] love it's it's fucking delight it's Olivia Coleman and Jesse Buckley writing mean letters to each other in like an English town it's so good I almost made it my annual Tiff cozy watch when I'm too far into Tiff and I'm too stressed and this year was the Steve Coogan movie with the penguin I was about to ask I saw a trailer for that yesterday before I'm still here that's the Sony

[02:58:47] that's crazy that literally never happened my dad told me about it and I realized this is a major like my dad was like I saw this really funny movie you need to check it out and it's very my wife and I debated seeing that film and I think picked something else I have not gotten around to did you see it in theaters no okay other just swear words to

[02:59:17] this is all in that movie correct and I'll leave you with you mangy old titless turnip wow god are we gonna have to this

[02:59:47] decade of dreams continues Joe thank you for being here every year I have such a good time with this hey Joe thank you for being here it's me Bob Dylan and that's actually a shockingly Timmy I'm really excited about our guest we have here today he loves to give out awards and talk about Oscar fuck you Pete shut up I'm gonna play this guitar

[03:00:17] mouth it really worked I literally walked out I texted people I'm like I liked it I don't know if other people are gonna like it but like I think I liked it and then other people also liked it I was happy

[03:00:47] before I got to drop it for more than like 10 minutes but also you not knowing the most famous conversation and then getting brought into it that couldn't have gone any better it was so organically funny because I did not know what you were talking about that I listened to the episode and my reaction that it's bubbling up two hours later it was great Gerdner and Weiger texted each other and were like I have a conspiracy that Griffin came to LA with the explicit goal of recording the longest episode of each show and I said to you in confidence my goal was like I want to be on really

[03:01:17] good behavior I want to come in tight on rails deliver normal episodes and silence the haters and I fucked up well I fucked up you fucked up you fucked up I fucked up I do want to also Snake is more famous than Pokeball if the blankies want to sign up for another Patreon hell to me myself and I chugging along three episodes a month for five dollars on Patreon I've got some blank check familiars

[03:01:47] there I just had Fran Hoffner on the Scarlet Letter Katie Rich is yeah the end it was bad the early part she was raking in money hand over fist so yeah I'm really close to Count Von Count I realize one

[03:02:17] two Cookie Monster and Count Von Count combined is kind of the I have killed Mr. Noodle Ben next week on the calendar is next week on the color purple next week next week I'm losing my Spielberg the film after E.T. the extraterrestrial is surely color purple Indiana Jones with Olivia Craig an episode that will make certain people very

[03:02:47] angry at us for being dismissive I don't like the movie that is annoying I feel like that's the Indiana Jones movie most anyway it's a fun episode we talk about a lot of stuff I promise this we talk about a lot of stuff in that episode and it's on topic we recorded that like I don't know

[03:03:16] I don't fucking remember when we recorded yeah listening to you guys these days is really a journey to the past kind amazing anyway decade of dreams hey this episode will be coming out kind of quickly after we record we recorded yeah that's a quick turnaround yeah yeah good job everybody

[03:03:46] I love you guys all I love you Joe and and Paul King not making Paddington 3 we have our culprits it would be another five years before we could do the 2020 blankies true but I do

[03:04:15] feel like I hear cries for people begging us to go backwards and to maybe in a future year do a 2000s and that stretches back into the 90s I stayed on text edit for too long yeah oh I know I'm in the process of trying to transfer to Google Sheets

[03:04:45] and it is a process now I use the notes app which is better you are my affliction thank you all for listening please remember to rate review and subscribe didn't you pre-record that shit and so we don't have to do it anymore yeah but this is the one part I say at the end this is how I don't credit everybody the crediting of the people who work on the show happens in a pre-recorded segment you keep not having the confidence that I know how to end the episode

[03:05:14] which then stretches the episode out longer count just so you know that we haven't locked those credits in yet oh great so I'm the one who fucked up it's quite alright okay well let me go die on a bed of fire but not before snacking on a dep and as always let me snack on a damp Thank you.