Critical Darlings: Hamnet And The History Of Oscar Villains with David Sims

16:47Griffin Newman:She might have been in there. Instead, she was in the control booth being like, I think we should have a map of where everyone sits and you see where they are in a dark room rather than a picture of their face. That's a good idea, right? And everyone's asleep. I'm doing an L and McKay bit. I know no one watched L and McKay. Everyone relates to this L and McKay. You're nuts about it. I saw it with you two at the Disney screening room. You two were asleep behind me. I had a little pen and being like, this is kind of charming. Your eyes were wide and glimmering. You're doing a wha-wha-wha horn every time someone said something.

17:19It was a bit... Every time someone said something, that would be tough. People say a lot of things in that movie. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think you didn't get my, when I leaned over to Esther during the IOC and I was like, is this going to be a murder suicide? It does. Briefly. I feel like it could go in that direction. Yeah.

17:35Griffin Newman:Look, there's a tension to the scene. I was on, I was on the edge of my seat. Maybe Brooks is finally going real. Because that kid, whatever his name, I forgot his name. Spike Fern. Sure. He is playing it. Like I'm like not in control of my emotions. And I always playing it. Like, what are you doing? With a change in score in music, it would be a whole different scene. But yeah, we were talking about, like, The Globes mattering, whatever. I think that the reason I saw at least some people being, like, worked up about The Globes as Oscar predictor this year was because, yes, One Battle won Best Comedy, and that is the presumed frontrunner for Best Picture.

18:14But Hamnet beats Sinners. Yes. And I think people really want it to be, understandably, a one battle versus Sinners kind of race to the finish. Right. But then Hamnet has been this like thing, this kind of a wedge all season long.

18:28Griffin Newman:But would Hamnet have won best drama if Sinners had not had this dumb other category that those dumb voters filled with golden brained heads had been like, well, I already voted for it. And doesn't that count as a best picture, too? And so Coogler gets up in the middle of the night and in the middle of the show is like, thank you. And they're like, all right, get out of here. And it's embarrassing for them because it would be, here's my pitch. I pitched this to Katie Rich, our friend. Like, you can't get nominated in cinematic and box office if you're nominated in Best Picture. Right. It cuts those all out.

18:59Griffin Newman:Because then F1 wins or whatever and everyone's happy. But I also, it's still unclear to me what that award is supposed to be. Of course it is. It doesn't make any sense. You're like, these are good movies that made a lot of money as opposed to the other good movies that, like, yeah. Like, the distinction is so, I mean, it's such a condescending. Because K-pop Demon Hunters was nominated, which barely reported grosses. It doesn't make any sense. It's so silly. That's not cinematically the achievement.

19:30Zootopia 2 has come home to Disney+. Let's go!

19:33Griffin Newman:Get ready for a new case. We're the greatest partners of all time! New friends. Gary the snake. And your last name? The snake. Dream team. New habitats. Zootopia has a secret reptile population. You can watch the record-breaking phenomenon at home. Zootopia 2, now available on Disney Plus Rated PG. And right now, you can get Disney Plus and Hulu for just$4.99 a month for three months with a special limited time offer ends March 24th. After three months, plan auto renews at$12.99 a month. Terms apply. So good, so good, so good. Spring styles are at Nordstrom Rack stores now, and they're up to 60 % off.

20:07Stock up and save on Rag & Bone, Madewell, Vince, All Saints, and more of your favorites. How did I not know Rack has Adidas? Why do we Rack? For the hottest deals. Just so many good brands. Join the Nordiclub to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you Rack. That kind of leads us into our, like, bigger topic of this week, which is, like, the idea of an Oscar villain. and it does feel like Hamnet, because of this sort of, it's Hamnet versus Sinners thing, has become that.

20:45Do you guys agree that like Hamnet -

20:46Griffin Newman:I think it was anointed that all the way back in the festival season. Joe Reed for culture wrote a piece in early November looking at how the early festival stuff was shaking out. And I remember I had this conversation with Sean Fennessy, another Oscar watcher friend, where I was like, you know, one battle's gonna take it, right? And he was like, I don't know, like Marty Supreme, one battle, Sinners, these movies, you know, they're not identical, but they maybe have a similar appeal and maybe Hamnet kind of splits through them because Hamnet's giving you something different. And I think I made a noise like, so that would suggest that I considered it a bit of an Oscar villain.

21:21Yeah, and it doesn't always have to be an Oscar villain. Sometimes I feel like some years we kind of force that narrative on things that don't really merit it.

21:29Griffin Newman:Can you define what an Oscar villain is? What was the Oscar villain like the Oppenheimer year? Like, was there one? Because that was another kind of juggernaut. I feel like some people would say it was Oppenheimer. I think some people would say, you shut up. But everyone was riding so high on the Barbenheimer thing that everyone was just happy that they... Right. Cinema was alive. We all win. Right. I mean, well, I think also, like, to Richard's point before about the Golden Globes influencing the Oscars, like, there is this point where you're like, oh, this is all vibes also. You know, like...

21:54It's all vibes. Like, the numbers part...

21:55Griffin Newman:Four things was the Oscar villain that year, I just remember. Oh, that's... Yeah, that's a good point. That's the answer. So I feel like the Oscar villain is something where the public and the media is convinced that this, a film is going to win and spoil like the narrative that we like, really. I mean, I feel like that's basically what it comes down to. And maybe it's undeserving, though oftentimes it's more just like, it's a boring pick, right? Like it fits into a tradition of an older Oscar movie that may or may not exist, but like that we feel is like the safe, predictable option, whereas we're always sort of rooting for like the Oscars to do something that confirms our own taste instead.

22:35Griffin Newman:I think there's that. I think there's now also, I have, and I think you guys might have, this concern of like the Oscars need to be relevant to continue to justify their existence at this point. It's no longer like, oh, this August body is handing out. It's like, no, no, no, the Oscars have to stay in the conversation. And if they're handing out Hamnet best pictures, that's a step back for them. Because 90 % of people in, this is my, you know, vibey, you know, take. Like, I might be wrong, but 90 % of people are like, can I swear? The fuck is Hamlet? It was interchangeable with Hamlet back in the day.

23:12Griffin Newman:And there's kind of, of course, I think to a lot of Oscar watchers who grew up, you know, I grew up watching the Oscars in the 90s, as you guys did, where it was hanging over the Oscars at that point that they had fucked up giving Paul Newman the Oscar too late, giving Pacino the Oscar too late, that they'd never given, right? That there were all these mistakes. And so then when a sort of like silly Oscar win would happen, it would be like, yeah, well, they're fixing their mistake. And so when something like PTA makes this big movie and it's sort of like time for him to win, I also have this thing like, you can't, don't, just do it.

23:44Griffin Newman:Then you won't regret anything. Then like it's fine. Like then you handled that. You gave a very, very important generational director an award for his best or one of his best movies. Chloe Zhao has an Oscar. Like we don't have to make this mistake, but I'm sure there's some voters who are like, but the globe, the Shakespeare's globe, and the death and the suffering. And I cried. And I cried. Right, right. And it's the little movie that could, or whatever. I mean, I don't know. Also, it's funny because I feel like for, like, so much of my memory of paying attention to the Oscars in more recent years, like, the narrative has been, like, they keep giving these awards to movies that no one has seen, right?

24:19Right, that's right. Like, the box office for the, like, the winners has gotten smaller and smaller and smaller. Totally. And we're like, oh, does anyone even know what this movie is? Like, you know, like, when you tell someone Best Picture went to blah, blah, blah, like a person on the street. Right, CODA, which, well, that was an especially weird year. Yeah. or like I think people like Moonlight right like you're like like if you ask someone passing by because like the box office for that movie was so small at the time compared to like I mean these La La Land compared to La La Land I've been enjoying it also what we used to think about like yeah and so I feel like this is a weird year in particular because we're like wait there is like a kind of critically beloved but like also like like this movie with like big cultural footprint that people are fighting over that has like been an enormous financial hit It certainly has made much more money than like a lot of other recent winners.

25:06Griffin Newman:Got people to theaters to see a movie that's challenging, that has a movie star in it, yada, yada, yada. It is like commercial-ish as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think the Oscar villain, to me, like it really developed in like social media era, obviously, because like you said, it's vibes. And I think there are two peak years of it. Okay. I mean, I know. I know what they are. One is 2017 when Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri was threatening to win Best Picture over Lady Bird, Get Out, and Shape of Water ended up winning. And Del Toro basically saved that year because it was looking like Three Billboards, which has frequent use of the N-word and kind of plays fast and loose with other sort of offensive things.

25:47And people really were rallying against that movie. and then a couple years later Parasite was seen as the underdog to 1917 a stately war movie

25:59Griffin Newman:what was the other movie in 2019 because I remember 1917 came on late and it was Irishman I guess I'm trying to think that was such a weird Oscar year little women and the Tarantino and there was the Tarantino I was sort of like do you want to do that it's about Hollywood you know, made a lot of money, but they seemed a little... And then 1917 came along and there was that fear that they were just like, ah, World War I, we can all agree. And like that it was going to be this boring-ish winner. I mean, the truth... Look, there's two classic Oscar villains of pre-internet, which is Shakespeare in Love and Crash.

26:37Griffin Newman:And Shakespeare in Love is an unfairly maligned villain that was unfortunately gotten best picture by a very fairly maligned villainous person, Harvey Weinstein. but the movie itself is wonderful in my opinion I've rewatched it recently I think it's great like is it the best picture of an incredible year that is 1998 maybe not but it is one of the best pictures it's a worthwhile Crash and Green Book are both these movies that shook the Oscar you could tell it shook the voting body up where they were like oh what did we do they woke up the next morning being like did we really do Green Book let's do Parasite next year blood on their pants It's like, yeah.

27:16Griffin Newman:We maybe got out of hand there. Maybe we got a little too grumpy about, like, you know, the backlash to the backlash. And like, next year, let's do Parasite. Because what's up? Crash is 05? Yeah, beats Brokeback. Next year is The Departed. They're like, we're sorry. Yeah, sorry. We're cool. Here's Marty. And also, we're cool. We swear we're cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, but also, like, we're, like, the same thing with the Barbie Oppenheimer year and this year, where we, you know, like, every time they're like, are we going to save the Oscars by being like, we have to give Avengers Doomsday best picture?

27:43You know, like, something like that. Let's do it. Let's do it this year, honestly. Whatever. We actually have this year these movies that really were bigger movies that also are auteurist movies and also are commercially viable. And so it feels like the idea of Hamnet kind of creeping in there and winning, that is part of the weight on it. Just being like, wait, this is the thing that we said we wanted all along. Movies that feel like they're the product of a real artistic vision, but that are also like people wanted to watch them. And if they veer towards being like, no, we're going to give this kind of like very serious historical drama, you know, that it's just I don't know what you guys thought of Hamnet.

28:25Griffin Newman:I assume we will discuss Hamnet. It's a movie that like fundamentally at the end, I was kind of like, ah, it didn't it didn't click for me because the whole movie is about kind of like building to that building to this big end where it's like, and now do you see? And I was like, I actually am feeling a little grumpy. but most of the movie is suffering it's just so much suffering and you know it's like human relatable suffering it's not like it's not really over the top I guess right? you could make the argument that it is it's a little unrelenting and it's that kind of movie like you really have to earn my interest if it's going to be heavy on suffering and I never quite felt that it had earned my interest I will say also like I rewatched it you rewatched it recently I rewatched it yesterday like that the suffering is like it dominates the second half of the movie right but like the first half of the movie is just like this is their marriage the first act I think is that right is the woods and the trees yes the hog don't forget the hog and the hand fasting and then the stuff I like yeah and it's fine but I but I wasn't like you know like eyes dazzling like this is so swoony and brilliant.

29:42Griffin Newman:I was like, I was intrigued. Yeah. I mean, so the book that Hamnet is based on by Maggie O 'Farrell, I read the first 14 pages before this on an EPUB, so I very well were asked to talk about it. It notably does start with a scene that is almost exactly halfway through the movie, which is young Hamnet, who is the 11-year-old son of... Billy Shakes. Yeah, Billy Shakes. And his wife Anne Hathaway, who was in The Dark Knight Rises. Yeah. And that's in the film. That Nolan comes at one point and is like, I want you to be Catwoman. And she's like, okay. Would you want to become Jane? Yeah, it was an unexpected cinematic universe, but I pulled it off.

30:20Griffin Newman:Yeah, she's Agnes in the film. She was sort of interchangeably Agnes or Anne Happily. So Hamnet goes out to look for his mother because his sister is sick. Yes. And that's not a big scene in the movie. It's kind of the start of things tipping, right? But in the book, he keeps looking for everyone. No one's around. And his mother's not around. And that's something that will start to cause her guilt afterwards, that she was not there for this moment where probably she could not have changed what happened. But that she was like, you know, she wasn't there for him. But that's halfway through the movie.

30:52You know, like to tell this story chronologically, the story that is, you know, about grief still. I feel like that just it sets me up in a way that like just was totally ineffective for me. like in terms of

31:06Griffin Newman:to just be like me and Agnes she lives in the woods everyone thinks she's kind of weird except for this one guy who thinks she's pretty cool and guess what his name is and guess what he likes to do and their parents are mad but then they're like okay you crazy kids and then you know well because I have had the book read to me by Jesse Buckley she recorded an audio version Against Your Will yeah no she recorded a new audio version of it and I listened to it for something and it's a beautifully written book But what you're saying about how it starts in Medias Reyes and we're in Hamnet's head and we're feeling for this scared kid and who's trying to help his sister.

31:46And then when you get to the courtship of the two, it's this dreamy lilt back into the past. And the problem, I mean, I like the ending of Hamnet, but it kind of sells the movie to me. But the problem with all the stuff that comes before it is like, I don't really know this kid. Yeah, exactly. Which Joop is he? Jacoby, right? Yeah, Jacoby Joop. Has like a great little face, like that little kind of perfectly round, like looks like the kind of face that you would see in a painting, like where a little kid is like dressed in like a, you know, weird, like kind of doubloon. Like a ruffle collar. Yeah, exactly.

32:21Yeah. No, perfect face for that. Is very good. But yeah, like I was like, I don't know this kid. Like, like, you know, like because also so much of the way the movie in setting up chronologically is like this is a story of a marriage, right? And in particular, this marriage to someone who, spoilers, becomes a really famous writer. Things are a well-known playwright.

32:41Griffin Newman:We call them computers. It feels like the balance is off, you know? I think that to be like, oh, by the way, this is a movie about grief, but we're going to start by being much more about this is a movie about this marriage. It's a huge problem. Yeah, it's I think something that just makes me feel totally not attached to what does happen. I think what, just a little spoiler alert for the ending. We're going to talk about the ending of the movie. Hey, Ben from the editing booth here. If you want to remain spoiler free for Hamnet, then you can skip forward about 12 and a half minutes. We get back to more general discussion of the film, Oscar villainy, and our Oscar predictions after that.

33:18Griffin Newman:I do think a core question with Hamlet is what is Hamlet about? And the answer ultimately is, well, actually it's about the play Hamlet and our take on what that's about. And that's not suggested in most of the movie. Most of the movie is about Agnes, obviously, and her relationship to the place she lives, the man she marries, the kids she has. And that's true to the book as well. Right. And then she goes to see a play. Yeah. And, like, I felt like I lost that character when she went to see the play. Yeah. And I was already kind of just like, look, I have three children, two of whom are twins.

34:02Griffin Newman:Yeah. And then an older daughter, which I believe is the configuration Shakespeare was in. His twins were different genders. I have two boys. But apart from that, like, so I certainly was not, like, super eager to watch the movie about one of the twins dying of the bubonic plague. Right. Like, and this is a movie with a lot of like child and sort of, you know, just general kind of like human suffering, like Ann Lee and if I had legs. Like movies, a lot of movies that I liked were certainly movies where I'm like, die my love, right? Where I'm like, okay, got to sort of like gird myself for this one.

34:35Griffin Newman:But this was the one that's certainly trying to put you in the like headspace of like parents losing their child. It was very hard, like in a way. But I actually couldn't connect to the movie very much. So it actually did not really lance me like I thought it might. Yeah, yeah. The ending works for me not really almost at all as a comment on the grief that Agnes and William Shakespeare are feeling. What I like about it is you are witnessing the birth of one of the most enduring pieces of art ever. I like anything with Shakespearean language. I like to see the globe. I like to think about how the plays were produced back then.

35:14Griffin Newman:All that is so interesting to me. Yeah, but also just like... Now, if there was a lady going like, who's he? Why is he calling him? It's just like a really... She's not allowed to come to any more. It would kick her out. After I saw it again yesterday, I left a voice note for a friend that was like, did you guys hear what happened at the show yesterday? So the boss's wife shows up. She's never seen a play before. She doesn't even know how they work. And then at the end, she grabs one of the actors. Yeah. No, but I just think that you're watching this personal tragedy transfer into a shared thing that will endure for half of a month.

35:45Which is so interesting. And I think that's really moving. But then you kind of, I left the theater in tears for a second time. I also got down the block and then was like, wait, but the movie that is behind that ending is not really adding up to that ending.

35:59Griffin Newman:So I had that feeling. And then I also was walking and I was like, but I feel like Hamlet might not be about that. Now, it's fine for them to just be like, well, we think it is. Like, we think that Shakespeare was processing his grief in writing Hamlet. is it a little annoying that they were like, for example, his child was called Hamlet. And also, there's ghosts in Hamlet and stuff. And people die. Ghosts are dead, yeah. And I'm like, and anything else? And they were like, to be or not to be? And I'm like, I don't know if you sold me on that. Yeah. Well, the arithmetic of, and she even says it, Anya says it in that final scene where Shakespeare himself comes out as Hamlet's father, as the ghost.

36:37And she's like, oh, he switched places with our boy or whatever. And you're like, right, but that doesn't really track because then Hamlet does also die. So that was two people are dead. I wanted to watch all his plays and be like, Jesus, a lot of dying. It also doesn't really address the fact that Shakespeare, like many of his plays, was dealing with an old, old myth, as the documentary The Northman shows us. The Hamlet story was around hundreds of years prior to Shakespeare's day. So was he just grafting his son's death onto this extant myth? It sort of feels like if Macbeth had been called Hamlet instead of Macbeth, we might be watching Macbeth.

37:15Griffin Newman:Right, right. Yeah, yeah. Or the Troilus. Yeah, no, the movie definitely like plucks a few scenes and is like, here we go. Let's ignore the rest of the play because there's a lot of other stuff going on. Where like Hamlet's like, I hate how my mom is fucking my uncle. It's like, but she watched those scenes being like, now I don't know how this connects. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now Polonius, is that Emily Watson? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Isaac Butler at Slate wrote a great piece about this. It's a really great piece. It grapples a lot more with the whole of the play and all of that. And I thought that was great.

37:46Honestly, I don't mind the fudging in theory.

37:49Griffin Newman:In theory, I could be on board with it. Right, absolutely. But I do feel like, I mean, I feel like that scene loses me also because I'm just like, what the final act becomes, which is what I think the whole movie should have been to really make this worth, is like these two people who cannot communicate about the fact that they are both grieving, but they grieve in very different ways, right? And because we're like grounded in Agnes, who is like played by Jesse Buckley, as this like kind of incredibly like almost like feral, like worthy. Creature of nature. Her emotions are like so right there on the surface.

38:23Like she does not hide that.

38:24Griffin Newman:And she's a wonderful actor. I adore her. And I feel like she's capable of that kind of like feral, like this like kind of like electric performance in a way where, yeah, Even when you're like, why does she not understand what a play is? She's been married to a playwright for years and years and years. Why is she coming in there being like, why are they saying my son's name? What is going on here? What are they talking about? Sitting next to someone's kind of grandmother who is a little hard of hearing and is like, what are they talking about? I don't understand. Any Sunday matinee on Broadway?

38:54Who's this? Now what's he doing?

38:58Griffin Newman:Now this whole play is about chess? Now which of them play chess? sorry you guys got to see Chess I would love to see Chess I can't believe you guys like no one has offered to bring me along I'll bring you let's go we'll go back let's all go to Chess yeah we'll meet here next week just talk about Chess screw the Oscar nomination and I think it's also I think that Paul Meskel is very good in this as well and he has like the harder role because he's gone for a lot of the time but also like he like is we see him through Jesse Buckley's character a lot of the time and she does not understand him like she is not seeing his grief you know like she is not understanding that he is wrestling with it in his own way by like then trying to funnel it into this work of you know literature and art well she thinks he's off in london trip in the light fantastic yeah because you know london at that time that you know late 16th century what a fun place to be something else that drove me nuts the the sort of like married with children thing where she's there's sort of the implication like well you're always gone and i'm like it's the 16th century right people don't think that way.

39:58Griffin Newman:Like, it's not like I need you home with the kids. No. Like, that wasn't how things worked back then. He was making money and that was what was. Yes, and like, half of his life was touring, which I think, I mean, like, again, this isn't a Shakespeare biography, but like, it is so interesting that like, London would get the plague and it would be like, all right, then we're going on tour and he would tour around the country with whatever group he was in. But like that, like, what she thinks is going on in his life in London and like, how much she cares about that is like, unclear. and largely untouched on.

40:29Griffin Newman:Yeah, like in the movie she refuses to come. She just is like, no, we have to stay out here because this is best for my children and all of that. Well, she thinks he's making comedies. So she thinks that he's like just kind of yucking it up. A bawdy fool. And that he's like living in some swank place out there. Going to nightclubs and fancy restaurants. I mean, like she is, like they're shocked when they see him living in an attic, right? Like they're like. Kind of a really nice studio. I know. I was like, you know, that would run you like$5 ,000 a month. Especially the South Bank. I mean, it was really fancy.

40:58And in a way, you watch the beginning of the movie and you're like, couldn't it just be this? I'd be fine with this for 90 minutes. I'd be interested by it. But knowing that it's building toward this thing, it then starts to feel a little bit cruel. Because you're like, why are we all sitting here? Well, I'm defining this character

41:14Griffin Newman:by this thing that happened to her, this person, by the loss of her child. And first by the horrendous labor that she, we assume, went through, and then the loss of her child. Again, all we know is that he had a son who died. Right. Like literally, the Shakespeare facts are so, it's this much. It's like barely anything. They know almost nothing about her. And we know nothing about her except her family. And that she was older. And there's the famous thing that Shakespeare in his will left her his second best bed, which is this kind of classic joke where it's like, oh God, like the old ball and chain.

41:45Griffin Newman:But that's actually apparently a cultural thing of like, that was the marriage bed. The best bed is for guests. Right. And he left that, I think, to his daughter. But like, it's like, so in leaving her the marriage bed, he is, you know, he's paying homage to their marriage. Was Shakespeare like bisexual? Probably. Like, did Shakespeare mostly live in London and hang out with dudes and write sonnets about him? Probably. But like, is that in this movie? No, we don't have time for that. I love thinking about Shakespeare. Yeah. And I felt like Hamnet didn't think about Shakespeare much except as a grieving dad who happens to be writing Hamlet.

42:19Griffin Newman:Right. And does the part of To Be or Not To Be by the banks of the town. That was, yeah, that's the nature of it. In my opinion. I thought Meskel handled the language so well. Like, I love watching that guy act. Yeah. Like, and I really enjoyed most of it. Yeah. It's really also hard. He gets tasked with being like, you're going to say some of the most famous lines of all time. Ones that are so well known. The really memorable stuff. We can't hear them anymore as like sentences. Like, we can only hear them as just like familiar series of words. You are going to have to say them like someone who wrote them and is speaking them for the first time.

42:52Griffin Newman:Right. and is maybe telling an actor how to say them or whatever. That scene I think is great. It seems very interesting. I do think that to be or not to be on the edge of the water is just impossible for anyone. That's beyond anyone's skill. But I think the scene where he's auditioning or their auditioning I think is great. I think he kind of brings something to that. They wouldn't have auditioned though. It was a core group of players. Well, okay. If we're going to talk about also that, then you're like, no, no. I don't think you're wrong. But I think it is this kind of weird thing where you're also like, okay, realistically, people in this era would be much more used to children dying all the time.

43:26Like, Ava, it's brought up with the...

43:29Griffin Newman:You know, that's a very interesting debate. So I recently read, Peter Aykroyd wrote a biography of Shakespeare, and I read it. And it is, I don't recommend it, because there is almost no documented fact about Shakespeare, as you guys may know. So it is mostly him being like, well, someone this guy's age who lived here probably would have done this. Like, it's a lot of that. And then he gets to the plays, and that's more interesting in like the conventions of the theater at the time. But he does talk about his kid dying and like he gets into that debate of like should we think about people from hundreds of years ago as being a little more near to the death of children?

44:04Griffin Newman:Probably not. Like there's graves, there's art, there's remembrances of dead children that is clearly like very deeply felt. Like it's not like people were like, well, that's why you have seven. You know, but it would have been different. Yeah. It would have just been something that happened more often. It's not to say you were like, then people are like, oh, well, yeah, I have a few spares. But like, I mean, there's that there is that part where her mother in law, you know, she's like talking about how she's like buried three children. Right. Like lost three daughters. I feel like also I don't know, like the way that it's handled with the twin daughter.

44:37There is this weird like wrong kid died. Like where you're like, you're like, what is going on?

44:41Griffin Newman:The creepy, unsettling, sort of mega tragic. Right. Like notion they have that the boy kind of steals the illness from the girl to protect her. And again, I feel like the fact that we're just debating all these points and nitpicking suggests to me that the movie doesn't completely work. Because it should just transport me. And I should just be lost to the romance of it and not worrying about any of that stuff. And instead, I kept bumping on things. And is it because I went in being like, well, let me see this Oscar villain. It better impress me. I don't think so. I like all of Chloe Zhao's movies.

45:18Griffin Newman:I liked Eternals. I'll admit it I loved The Rider I watched that movie with you Allison at the Magno and we both walked out in tears and then Nomadland that movie is so lost in COVID for me but I remember being impressed by it at the time it got a little swallowed up it became something of a villain although again we had all lost our minds

45:50Griffin Newman:Monster Energy. Everybody knows White Monster Zero Ultra. That's the OG. It kicked off this whole Zero Sugar Energy drink thing. But Ultra is a whole line up now. You've got Strawberry Dreams, Blue Hawaiian, Sunrise, and Vice Guava. And they all bring the Monster Energy punch. So if you've been living in the white can, branch out. Ultra's got a flavor for every vibe. And every single one is Zero Sugar. Tap the banner to learn more. Protein is now at Starbucks, and it's never tasted so good. You can add protein cold foam to your favorite drink or try one of our new protein lattes or matcha. Try it today at Starbucks.

46:35Given everything we've said about the movie, how we feel about it, is that why it's an Oscar villain? Are people actually making those principled sort of qualitative arguments against the movie, or is it more just how it sort of sits?

46:48Griffin Newman:They're putting it against their favorite movie of the year, and they're like, well, it didn't measure up, so now you're my villainous. I haven't seen it yet. That's true. I mean, we are still, it still is not playing everywhere around the country. I think they did sort of a weird job releasing it. They probably should have just. Because it was like a tiny release, and then it got bigger, and then it sort of went away, but now it's coming back, right? They're bringing it back, I guess, hoping that the wave of Oscar noms will draw new eyes. But they sort of abandoned what looked like it was going to be a traditional slow expansion.

47:17If it was just Jesse Buckley, who basically from the Venice Film Festival on, was like the frontrunner to win this actress, there's no doubt in anyone's mind. There's no one to compete with her. Rose Byrne, I think, has come up steadily on her. But like Rose Byrne winning an Oscar for that movie would be really unusual. Yeah. Like, I love that movie. Do you think if it was just Buckley as sort of the sole representative of that movie and, you know, maybe like cinematography, maybe Meskel gets a nomination, whatever, but it's not this best picture thing. Do you think it would have the same kind of backlash?

47:47No. No. Probably not. No, no. I mean, we also, like, we're, I think we're much more at peace with the sort of movies that are like, oh, this is just, like, this is here as a platform for this major performance. Like, that's fine. We're like, we'll move on the movie, but, like, the performance is incredible.

48:01Griffin Newman:And the classic, like, Oscar thing of, like, with lead actress, not lead actor, only with lead actress. Like, oh, you're in your mid-30s, you've put in some work, and it is time for your final anointment as, like, a sort of major, you know, actor because you suffered on screen. like and there's so many lead actors lead actress winners who'd like suffer and win and she is good and i i've liked other performances by her more but she's good in the film but um you know like are people going to look back and be like and yeah hamlet like that was her best work i don't know are they going to look back and be like hamlet she sure like cried the most yeah right yeah possibly i mean i do think it is maybe qualms that we might have about that the movie like i I think it is an interesting sign of some kind of progress or maybe just, I don't know, that it used to be that, you know, the actress would suffer.

48:55She'd win an Oscar. But a lot of the times the movie she was in would not get nominated for Best Picture. Right. You know, like you have the Still Alice or whatever, that kind of being with the Judy Garland movie, you know, Judy, like with Renee Selweger. Judy. And now it's like, well, not only is the actress suffering and probably will win for it, but like, you know, its director is in contention. it's certainly a Best Picture, it's going to be a Best Picture nominee. That might tell us something good about the way the Academy is thinking, because that did not used to be the case. There were years where all five Best Actress nominees were not in a Best Picture nominee.

49:30Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think also, I don't know, maybe this is a good time to talk about Chloe Zhao also, who is, I think, part of the reason there is a backlash against this movie, is that people feel really divided on her for ways. Some ways are maybe earned and other ways are just like out of nowhere or just like cloaked misogyny. Rank sexism, I would say.

49:49Griffin Newman:She's an odd customer. Like she definitely has like a particular sort of way of like talking about her work that I guess set some people off. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, she's definitely, I mean, she is kind of a woo-woo. She's a bit hippie. She's pretty upfront about it. Yeah. She like, you know, was like living in Ojai and she let everyone in breathing exercises before screenings of Hamlet. When I interviewed her, she was talking about her chickens a lot. She had like multiple chickens and we discussed her chickens. Yeah. This was for Nomadland. She got like two dogs that she got when she was shooting The Rider.

50:19They were just like, you know, like she adopted them. She's got, yeah, like chickens everywhere. She, you know. Just like you said, like kind of an Earth Mama vibe. And I feel like. But has a background. Yes. Like her familial, her family background. She's from very. Sort of seemed to belie that, right? Like because. Like her father invented aluminum or something. I don't really know. No, he's definitely like. He's industrialist, right? Yeah, yeah. Like a steel, like, yeah. So she's, like, rich. She came from a rich background. Like, do you feel like we can't figure out, like, what makes us really angry about that?

50:49Right. You know, where you're like, yes, like, in a general, rich people are very angry at them. I fully do not care.

50:55Griffin Newman:But many people do, I know. I feel like the layers of it are, like, on one, like, we hate rich people and we want to eat them. Sure, let's eat them up. Fair, let's eat them up. And then past that, then you're like, OK, there is a lot of structural unfairness in this already like brutal industry, you know, that was like never easy to get into anyway and never fair. But that like now more than ever feels like it is like closed off to people that do not come with like financial padding or connections or both. So like that is I think like there's that there, though. I feel like hanging that on any one particular person is like unfair.

51:27Griffin Newman:As a critic, it feels like a fool's errand. That's why I don't like to think about it very much. I feel like... Trying to think about the work you made. Yeah, and I feel like that's the point where it is valid to bring up is just when you're like, this person does not know how to make movies about this subject matter because... Yeah, it might happen. And I feel like that is where it is valid to me, though I don't really agree with it applied here. I don't necessarily feel that tension in her movies. Some of the criticism around Nomadland, I felt was like, wow, just out of nowhere. It was just like...

52:00Griffin Newman:It felt very rooted in like, well, you grew up rich, so what do you know of a poor person's journey? And also like Amazon. Everyone got so crazy about Amazon. As if people don't work there. Right. I didn't feel like Amazon looked like a really nice place to work there. They did not come off well in that movie, in my opinion. There was no aspect of that that was like, well, I'm going to go work in that. But she's somewhere where I'm like, I'm very interested to see what she does. I was excited for this movie. Yeah. And I'm excited for whatever. What's she doing next? We don't know. Eternals 2? She's doing the naked gun sequel.

52:39Griffin Newman:It's going to be really beautiful. The writer, too. And I think that the things about her filmmaking approach that I liked are in the first act of this movie and the nature stuff in this sort of, like, tactility of their home. Like, you know, where I'm like, yeah, she's always been really good at that kind of observational, sort of, like, quiet, you know, intimate stuff. But any Shakespeare movie has to be a fantasy. And this is like this sort of tragic, sad fantasy of his family. Shakespeare in Love is this like swoony romantic fantasy of uninvented relationships. It's also fun, though. That was, I mean, anytime anyone was like, could it be the Shakespeare in Love to one battle's Saving Private Ryan?

53:16Griffin Newman:I was like, those four movies don't relate to each other, apart from William Shakespeare being a character. Like Shakespeare in Love won because it was bouncy and light and like zippy. and I guess everyone, I mean, it is, to this day it's insane that Sam and Trevor Ryan didn't win Best Picture because like D-Day veterans were like sobbing in their seats being like, it's like I'm there and like Oscar voters were like, but Shakespeare fell in love. There were people who knew Shakespeare and were crying and saying, it's like I'm there. But like even as a frothy movie, it's like Tom Stoppard wrote, you know, it had the classic Tony.

53:50You're right. I also, sometimes I've rewatched Shakespeare in Love many times but like sometimes I will just go to YouTube and watch the ending because it has a beautiful ending where she walks across the beach and he's writing Twelfth Night. And it kind of brings me to a hamnet question which is, is part of the, or how much of the movie's success thus far and its Oscar chances, whatever, are because it sends you out of the movie feeling, like for a lot of people feeling that way. I think it's a huge thing. The last five minutes, who cares what happened in the previous hour and change, you know?

54:22Griffin Newman:If you destroy an ending like that, just like annihilate your audience like that? Yes, that's a huge benefit. Whereas Saving Private Ryan ends with old man Matt Damon going like, was I good? And I think everyone was kind of like, Spielberg, too many extra endings. Not to relelegate the 98 Oscar race. No, but there are parallels for certain. There's a little bit of a parallel, but I think Hamnet is more the kind of Oscar winner that was, like I said, defined by big acting, crying, suffering, things like that. You know, like weighty ideas, death, loss. There are other movies this year about women suffering and in pain.

55:02Griffin Newman:Yeah. Testament of Anne Lee. Yeah. Which is actually sort of similarly about childbirth. Yes. So much of that. And then Die My Love, which is a lot of one woman suffering in particular. Yes. Why is Hamnet the one that, you know, is like speaking to people the most? It's classy. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's the thing is like it does have, I think to its detriment, it is like very strenuously like prestigious, like not maybe in the kind of older, like kind of costume drama way we tend to associate like, right? It wants to be earthier. It feels more lived in a bit, but it's also, I don't know, it's it feels very airless to me.

55:40Like it wants so badly to be this kind of like beautiful, like kind of like artistically aware work. like the shots, all of the shots of the attic, you know, like where you see the beds the children are in and then the camera pans are around to like show, you know, the status of the family. There's a lot. It works very hard to kind of transmit its like prestige. And I think it labors under that a lot. But I think that's also what has made it like what has made people take that work for some people and doesn't work for others. I mean, the backlash to Hamnet, the Oscar villain sort of narrative for it is largely pinned to that.

56:16It's like, oh, it's just shameless Oscar bait. You know, I don't think that Chloe Zhao makes shameless. I don't think that that's her intention.

56:23Griffin Newman:But this is similar to the Oscar villain thing. Yeah. Where every year there's debates over some movies where it's like, well, they're just trying to win an Oscar. And I'm like, everyone wants to win an Oscar. Everyone's trying. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. You know, not every movie. But like, yeah, like that, like that was somewhere in Paul Thomas Anderson's head. It had to have been, even if it was subconscious. I think about that all the time because you always hear those stories after the fact when someone wins an Oscar of like, Bob Evans came over to me and said, you're going to win the Oscar for this picture, you know?

56:49Griffin Newman:And I'm like, yeah, I bet you he said that to a bunch of other people who didn't win an Oscar. It's on a lot of people's minds. Yeah. I mean, it is true. Also, we, we don't like it. It's unclear how the Academy feels about it, but like, uh, it's debatable. We don't like it when people try too hard though, right? Like they want it too much. Then we're like, especially I think with women, uh, you want it too much. And that's like off putting the people you know like you you you everyone can want an oscar everyone can work really hard for an oscar but you're not supposed to like make it make people feel it right i also think that why a movie like hamnet is succeeding where die my love or something is not is that like hamnet kind of different from the book really makes a lot of room for shakespeare's grief whereas like a die my love or you know uh if i had legs i would kick you is not the men aren't aren't really No, if I look like Kikyu, the hamster is the number two software.

57:44It's an incredible performance, too. He took one look at them and was like,

57:48Griffin Newman:yeah, I'm getting out of here. And that still is, I think, you know, a bridge too far for some of the, you know. But a bridge too far didn't win any Oscars. I know, it should have, though. Oh, well.

58:04Spring starts at the Home Depot, and we are bringing the heat to your backyard this season. Fire up the flavor with our wide variety of grills for under$300. Like the next grill four burner gas grill that's perfect for hosting your spring cookout. Then set the scene and turn your outdoor space into the go-to spot the patio sets for every budget. Bring it this season with grills that deliver flavor and patios that set the vibe from the Home Depot. Start your spring with low prices guaranteed at the Home Depot. Exclusions apply to HomeDepot.com slash price match for details. Get in the game with the college branded Venmo debit card.

58:39Wreck your team with every tap and earn up to 5 % cash back with Venmo Stash, a new rewards program from Venmo. No monthly fee, no minimum balance. Just school pride and spending power. Get in the game and sign up for the Venmo debit card at Venmo.com slash college card. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank NA. Select schools available. Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply at Venmo.me slash stash terms. Max$100 cash back per month. We should probably, before we wrap up, address the fact that this is the last episode of this before the Oscar nominations are out. We are presuming that Hamnet will do quite well.

59:17I don't know. I feel like Chloe Zhao has not really been brought into the director conversation much, weirdly.

59:21Griffin Newman:I think PTA is the sort of guaranteed winner except for some sort of insane, like, you know, Jafar Panahi kind of groundswell, which seems to have maybe abated a little bit. Not that he would be a very worthy winner. But like, I think there's sort of like, well, PTA is the great d 'artore and we will honor his long career with a Best Director win at minimum. Yeah. Yeah. Or whatever. Yeah. It's also, you know, we didn't talk about the Actor Awards or the DGA Awards, both of which were announced in between our last episode. But yeah, what I'm curious about are like the incursion of the neon films, the international films.

59:57None of that, like the Actor Awards and the DGA Awards, not go for any of them. They were very America-first. Well, because they're guild-focused and they're like, well, I don't know a lot of these people. Those weren't union films, you know, so I think they're resistant to it. But it does keep those movies then out of a narrative for a few weeks because they're not showing up at those, you know. Right. But like I can see for like Best Director, I mean, there are a lot of, you know, like international filmmakers who have made incredible work who also do seem to have a lot of push behind them. And I feel like that has made it even harder for Chloe Zhao to be in that conversation.

1:00:28Right.

1:00:29Griffin Newman:And the Oscars these days tend to go more Euro than the precursors. And I think that's what I've been sort of trying to anticipate. And it's harder this year because there's sort of like three to four neon movies, whatever, you know, canned favorites. And everyone thought it was just an accident was sort of going to be the big one. And now it seems like The Secret Agent just has a ton of juice, despite being, I really love that movie, but like, it's inscrutable. It is a weird ass movie. Yeah. Baffled that it is basically become everyone's like box check for like three major awards. Like not because of his quality.

1:01:03Griffin Newman:It's an excellent movie. I was just like, oh, wow, this transit. I perhaps, you know, I underestimated, you know, I was like, that's going to be that's too esoteric. It's too, you know, difficult to tangle with. But I guess not. I mean, but this is I've gotten bad at this because last year I spent all fall being like, ah, Nora is just a little too spiky. Like, it's just it's not going to. Oh, I was dead convinced. I was like, the Academy Awards will never give anything to a Sean Baker movie. And I'm sure Sean Baker would have agreed to you up to about the moment an Oscar went in his hands. Yeah, exactly.

1:01:35Richard was wrong. That was his first thought. It was a weird speech, but, you know. And I think that, you know, it makes prediction harder to do. But also, you know, back to the Hamnet thing, it's like, that's another reason why it's sort of an Oscar villain is because progress is being made. in this would seem like this huge backslide to like, even though I think it's crazy to call a Chloe Zhao movie, like a backslide. She's a pretty forward thinking filmmaker and, you know, was greeted as like one of the new auteurs just a few years ago. Yeah. I mean, and this is also like this, there's miles between this in terms of like kind of aesthetic choices and storytelling choices and like, say, like Sense and Sensibility, which I love, but like is, I feel like always in my head, the classic like, like costume drama, you know, movie that the awards would love.

1:02:18Yeah. So, yeah. I don't know. What I am curious about is Sinners, because I am sensing that that momentum just is, whatever momentum it had feels like it's kind of fading. In terms of like, I mean, I'm assuming it'll get Best Picture. It did well in SAGs. Sure. Or Actors Awards. I feel like that is my big question. Are any of the cast, is it going to get Acting Awards?

1:02:39Griffin Newman:Well, I think Michael B. Jordan will be nominated. And then it feels like everything else is a little up in the air, because the SAG Awards, they had it in almost every category, right? Yeah, like Miles Keaton, Wami Masaku. Linda did not get in for supporting actor. Right, which was weird. What did he do? Did he run someone over? Why ignore one of the great unnominated actors in Hollywood alive currently? Well, go ask Donald Sutherland's great. I don't know. I think Sinners will get a bunch of nominations. I have no fear about this. My big thing is I think I want it to win screenplay because I want Ryan to win an Oscar.

1:03:21Griffin Newman:Hopefully that's how that goes. But maybe it won't. And maybe we'll walk out of, you know, Oscar night being like, it's kind of a bummer that Sinners like got tossed like one design award and like was largely ignored by the Sinners. Or like cinematography, which feels like a thing it could definitely. Which it could. And that's fine. Like, that's, you know, it had great. It looked. Yeah. I don't know. This is, I mean, particularly bad news for me because that was one of my big spends in the fantasy. fantasy draft and uh well I think it's gonna rack up like a dozen plus nominees I think it will be well recognized especially because of the technical side of things I do wish it was being discussed more but whatever no Marty Supreme will get a bunch of nominations but it's really only an actor play I feel like look if you ask me as much as we just discussed Hamnet you know Marty Supreme and Hamnet's awards are earmarked actor and actress like take your prize right do we think okay before we close do we want to like does anyone have like a prediction for like a surprise nominee a surprise snub that they've been kind of mulling over Ariana Grande could be a surprise snub I think I think that's yeah I think there's a good chance that's true if she gets nominated that's insane and I'm not saying I think that performance is pretty fun and I think she kind of I mean that horrendous movie for good you know the second movie she's kind of the only one who emerges like basically unscathed.

1:04:46Griffin Newman:But how many people have been nominated for like in that way? Like anyone ever nominated like back to back for playing the same character twice? I like Christoph Waltz. And even him, there's a couple years between them. Like we might look back on that being like, the hell, what? Like we needed to give her another nomination? Yeah, yeah. Like I think Blue Moon is getting a Best Picture nomination. I don't think that but I think that's a distinct possibility I like that it's like a sneak into 10th kind of because something's going to sneak into 10th I have weapons there right now that's another fun possibility I would love that I feel like I don't have a good surprise one my main snub feeling is that feeling that Sinners is going to end up missing out on if Coogler doesn't get a director nomination that would be very bad but I have been feeling like I have been getting that feeling I mean I feel like that's it will get nominations but I feel like it'll get probably it'll get best picture but like I can see a world in which yeah like these other like director even screenplay like it's just these ones where you're like suddenly like yeah but this one made this movie where does that feeling come from?

1:06:02it's all vibes

1:06:03Griffin Newman:it's an April genre movie and there's always been that fear of like do they at the end of the day get distracted by newer stuff. And it's very American. And the director's branch is one of the most international branches that does nominating. And they're kind of, they can be less interested in those American stories than... Warner Brothers has had a lot of horses this year. So they haven't been able to just be like, we're all in on Sinners this year. Like they had to be all in on a bunch of stuff. Yeah, and I think that... Although weirdly my favorite of their movies, the Alto Knights, goes on campaign.

1:06:36Griffin Newman:Well, so far. So far. There's still time. That's my surprise pick. I just love thinking about the first three months of Warner Brothers where it was like Mike DeLuca is being taken outside and having a bag put over his head. And then the Minecraft movie came there like, oh, forget it. I took a friend to see Alternates because I had to see it for work. And we were supposed to hang out that Sunday anyway. And I was like, hey, do you want to come? It's, you know, it's like Barry Levinson. Like, it's like. How bad could it be? And then afterward, he like blinked at me kind of wordlessly. And it finally was like, what the hell did you just take me to?

1:07:07And I was like, I don't know. Genuinely. It is funny to also have that be followed with Sinner's another dual role movie, but like one that like is so good with it.

1:07:15Griffin Newman:There were a lot of dual roles and a lot of twins and a lot of that going on. It was when I interviewed Coogler and I was like, why twins? And he was like, twins freak me out, man. I think twins are freaky. He really copped to it. He was like, they fundamentally just kind of scare me. he screamed in terror as jesse buckley gave birth to twins and hamlet there's two in there yeah um well also do we have any awards to give out this week i mean i would give out the award for to to nikki glazer for uh kind of nailing the golden globes for the second year in a row which is tough yeah i mean amy and tina have done it but also in a weird way to the Globes for at least making one good choice you know because I think and kind of the most fundamental choice like that you gotta nail that more than anything else and if the host had not been great which they've definitely had bad hosts in recent years what?

1:08:11who? well you know just a few people then that whole ceremony would have been with the poly market like the cinematic award whatever like it would have been a really bad night and so I think that like yeah Nikki Glaser I think kind of saved what is the most crucial Sunday of four seasons?

1:08:29Griffin Newman:The Globes largely made very good picks. The thing about that show was just like, right, host good, picks, like, you know, your picks were good. The speeches were largely pretty great. All the other stuff, I was kind of like, no, not trying. I know. But like the fundamental stuff was solid. It worked. Yeah. I would like to give an award out to the aforementioned Astra Awards, my favorite for the awards, for being the only group, as far as I know, or Orto, to bite at the chance to give a novelty win to Indy the Dog from Good Boy. They gave an award to The Dog for best performance in a horror or thriller, beating out Ethan Hawke and Alison Brie and some other people.

1:09:14Just imagine going there. And they're like, bring the dog up! Is it really a horror movie, though? Yeah, I think it's about the horror of the past, such of time and irrelevance. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I just, the kind of shamelessness of that I appreciate, you know? Yeah, yeah. I mean, that dog is good to watch in that movie.

1:09:34Griffin Newman:Can you guys tell me what won the AARP Best Movie for Grown Ups this year? Which is another long-running award ceremony. It's 25th or 6th edition. Let's see. Best movie for grown-ups. According to the... Hamlet Moon? Hamlet. Oh, no, that's it. Oscar Villar. Wednesday Stakes. As goes AARP. so destination but give them credit for giving best supporting actor to Delroy Lindo and best supporting actress to Regina Hall oh that's cool they made some cool picks like generally did Clooney win for J. Kelly? he sure did I mean he's a grown up has there ever been a movie more for grown ups? that's a grown up performance and then Laura Dern won for Is This Thing On another movie about a tired grown up well there are so many retired volleyball players on AARP yeah they're like wow it's me on there this is my story best intergenerational film which is sort of their MTV movie award best kiss you know the one where they're like this is kind of us went to Sentimental Value a movie about interdependent I think Sentimental Value could perform really well next week in nominations that's a real coin flip where like it's juices seemingly been kind of like missing but like that could have changed very quickly because it's felt like an Oscar movie all year also I have to like I'm doing the Ankler Pundits you know for Katie Rich at the Ankler I'm doing it too except I haven't updated it I updated it in like mid-December I think I have House of Dynamites still getting like four awards.

1:10:53I took that off in December. But I kind of am like, do I take J. Kelly off all predictions? Jelly. Yeah. Jelly's last jam was the ARP. Yeah. All right. One more. Do we know what won the Rotten Tomato Awards presented by avocados from Mexico? I'm sorry. Wait. Tomatoes were presented by avocados? What's going on? It's confusing. It's confusing. Add some lettuce. Some bakers. As sponsorships go, the Golden Tomato Awards presented by avocados from Mexico. by Avocados for Mexico is confusing.

1:11:24Griffin Newman:You're halfway to a salt. Is this a juried award or is this to like the highest rated film? Like what? Asking me how. Okay. All right. I'm sorry. A committee assembles in Oslo, Norway. Right. Train dreams. I don't know. No, it was sinners, which unfortunately also feels like the equivalent of the box office award. Take your tomato avocado. Yes. So, you know. Take your one golden tomato and your ceremonial box of avocados. They throw the award at you, though. It's kind of painful, actually, because it is a heavy one, too. Yeah. All right. Well, all will be revealed next week. We should also say that next week's episode is going to come out a little bit later than usual, just because of how the Oscar nominations work.

1:12:07But don't worry. We will be covering it. David, thank you for being on the show. Where can people find you? Oh, well, I'm the host of Blank Check, which you can listen to, I guess, on this very few.

1:12:18Griffin Newman:I'm a film critic at The Atlantic. so you can see my review of 28 Years Later, The Bone Temple, which is better than Hamnet. Have you guys seen it? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I like it. It's so good. So that's the main way places. I deleted Twitter, so I'm not on there. That was for the best. I guess I'm on Blue Sky. Is anyone on Blue Sky? Sure. Allison, we're going to be behind you. I don't know. Allison, come on. I don't know. All right. Well, I'm just Premier Party newsletter. The only reason I asked you two is so I could say my thing. Sign up for his newsletter. So good. Yeah, TikTok just served me the clip again.

1:12:50Griffin Newman:It's from an old, old Graham Norton where Julie Walters is sitting with, I don't know, whoever else is there. And Graham's like, Julie. And she's like, what? And he's like, how did you meet your husband? She's like, I don't know. Leave me alone. It's the most incredible rejection of the talk show format. She's just like, shut up. He's just there to relax on that. It's so funny. So that's Allison. I'm like, where can we find you? I'm like, you can't find me. I can't be fair. Yeah, I'm running away from you right now. All right, well, you're going to go to L.A. and announce the Oscar nominations at 5 in the morning.

1:13:20Yeah, I've been practicing. Can't wait.

1:13:47Ruth and Jennifer Jean.