Critical Darlings: Marty Supreme And The Precursor Circuit with Griffin Newman

27:15This works as a clean entry point. It's a movie about two friends who are obsessed with their band playing at one venue. They want to play at the Rivoli. That's all you need to know about these guys. Before the lights went down at the South by Southwest screening, I believe you turned to me and said, what do I need to know? And I said, all you need to know is they want to play the Rivoli. They got to play the Rivoli. I've been to Toronto many times. Have you been to the Rivoli? Never. I've stayed on Queen West, though, and I've certainly walked by the Rivoli many times. And I've always been like, oh, yeah, the Rivoli.

27:43There it is. It's not Carnegie Hall. No, it's a fucking bar. And you never see these guys. What do you mean? It's the most important music venue in Canada. You never see these guys practice their music. But all you know is that every episode starts with, here's the plan. Here's how we play the Rivoli, right? We got to play the Rivoli. And this movie starts from there and explodes in unbelievable ways. I think this movie is truly like a magic trick. Beyond just how funny it is and for how much it's caked in the deep lore of this Nirvana, the band, the show universe that's existed for 15 years. You can just go in knowing nothing and be blown away.

28:16And for a movie that seems kind of slapdash and roughly made from the start, it starts to pull off genuine like cinematic magic tricks where you cannot believe how this thing was made. What was my letterboxd review, Griff? Did you see it? No, please tell me. LOL. How did they make that? Truly. That was how I thought. How did this get made? Serious questions. I was also just like, how did they make this? I don't get it. You don't understand how they're getting away with it legally. You don't understand how it was cleared for release. And there is a melding of scripted and non-scripted, them engaging with real people on the street where the line between what is planned and what is not boggles your brain.

28:57It was my favorite thing I saw all of 2025. And now it's coming out in 2026. Now, listen, I do have to do some talking points. Okay. Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie is in theaters February 13th. Get tickets now. We must say this. Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. They're very clear that we have to say the title of this thing a few times. Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. Why? It's a really simple, easy title. Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. It really is a kind of like going cold expecting something fun. I don't think you need too much more than that. No. I know it sounds unwieldy or whatever, but just like, I think you're going to have a pretty good time.

29:34If you trust our opinion at all, take this recommendation. Yes. Don't look it up. Go in. And I really, really doubt there is any chance you will be disappointed. In theaters, February 13th. Get your tickets now. Get your tickets now. Nirvana, the man, the show, the movie.

29:59if madigan is i think pretty far out ahead right now yeah in second place is tiana taylor who's so incredible in one battle after another the problem is she leaves the movie whereas amy madigan shows up in the movie toward the end so you get your last impression is of her whereas by the time one battle ends, you haven't seen Tiana Taylor, who's again, amazing in the movie. You haven't seen her on screen for about 90 minutes. This is a great conversation topic. And one I've pinned to all of our various planning docs is something I want to make sure is talked about at some point within the season.

30:32This feels like a good opportunity. The importance in where your real estate in a movie is for a supporting performer that I feel like very often it is easier for someone to score with a smaller part towards the end because it's about the immediate feelings as you're walking out of the movie. And weapons builds to her. You know, you have your couple of jump scare moments, but I think she really doesn't have a line of dialogue until the last three minutes of the film. She's the answer to all the movie's questions. Right. And it's so satisfying when she shows up and you're like, ah, okay, it's a witch.

31:06And the movie basically rests on the success or failure of her. Yeah. Right? It's all building to if this doesn't work. They fired Vikander after two days on set. But if this performance doesn't work, the movie's going to unravel. And not only did it not happen, but people really kind of sparked this. It's Deus Ex Madigan. I mean, she kind of read. Because I don't love that movie. And I think a lot of why I don't love it is because I think that it feels very like made up and sort of random. Like he's kind of just like, it's a witch. But she justifies that. Yes. You know, she's like, okay, I know that you, this is sort of just like, you had to come up with an ending and here it is.

31:49I'm going to sell it for you. And it works. Well, I think it's also, she, she is very frightening at first. And then she's very funny. You know, she's like sinister, but like very funny in the end. And I think the ability to emerge first as this kind of terrifying specter, like pop-up specter, and then to kind of cohere into this much funnier and kind of campier. Dimensionalized. Yeah, and it's also, it's, the more she shows, the more questions you have. It's an interesting performance in that it does feel very specific and considered. But there are still mysteries within it that I think help the movie retain some power.

32:31Tiana Taylor, the first wave of responses, as critics saw it, a couple weeks before it got wide release, I was seeing everyone just go like, well, I guess Tiana Taylor's winning. There was this presumptuous thing, right? And I remember being surprised when I saw the movie that the first 30 minutes are basically owned by her. But it almost feels like an extended prologue. And then she disappears. And she is fantastic in it. I think the saving grace only in terms of speaking in awards campaign language is that the movie circles back to her as an idea at the end of the film. Well, she looms over everything.

33:11it's Sean Penn's obsession with her that like drives the whole plot but I also think she comes, for anyone who has not seen one battle after another yet she comes back into the film in voiceover at the very end which I do think kind of pins you back pins her back in your brain a bit but I have felt this whole time that she was the assumed front runner that that was going to be a vulnerability to her perhaps and it's what you said It's the difference between a character leaving a movie and a character showing up. I mean, look, you have examples from the past. You know, what is it? Beatrice Strait from Network, who won a supporting actress Oscar.

33:52She has one scene, one monologue in the middle of the movie and then is not never seen before or after. That those days, I think are I think that would be really hard, especially when you have a lot of supporting performances or wins that are actually kind of co-leads. and you know. Judd Hirsch in Fablemans was that kind of nomination. That's right. Yeah. That was a good nomination for that reason. And he got a slot that was sort of assumed to be Paul Danos. Right. Who is bordering on a lead in that movie. You know, I think it still can happen. It has to be But the monkey, they were running in leads.

34:24So that was the issue. That was, yeah. I think it's rarer that it happens these days and the elements need to really align. And I think a lot of it, as you said, is sort of a category fraud issue, not to throw the big ominous words around. but I think William Hurt is kind of another one, but that was towards the end of the movie and also is now like 20 years ago. But like Alan Arkin winning for Little Miss Sunshine. Yes. A very surprising win. Because he was competing against all these little girls in this beauty pageant. Yes. Why is this old man? Whatever. And his dance was very risque. Oh, it was.

35:05Yeah. But that's a movie spoilers for 20-year-old Little Miss Sunshine in which he dies in the first act. And I remember seeing it in theaters and going, God, he's so good in this. It would kind of be cool if this was like an overdue Alan Arkin anointment moment. And when he died at the 30 or 40 minute mark, I was like, well, there goes that campaign. That's over. And then Eddie Murphy showed up and they were like, oh, well, clearly he's going to win for Dreamgirls. And that was kind of the narrative all season. And then Norbit came out. I think sometimes these things can betray their own logic of how they often operate.

35:38And Mahershala Ali in Moonlight is another one where it's a little similar to Tiana Taylor where it's like he's going to own the first chapter of this movie. And then he is gone. And his absence continues to echo. But you have to make a really, really strong impression to be the person that people walk out of the movie thinking about when there's been an hour plus of the movie after your exit. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yes. I also think like I would love to see more weirder smaller like supporting actors. I kind of almost want them to come up with a third tier. Yeah. Like lead either co-lead or supporting lead and then like bit part or whatever.

36:25Special appearance. Special appearance exactly like we were talking about secret agent there is an actress in that whose name I'm not remembering but her character is Donna Sebastiana She's this wonderful old lady. She's incredible, but she's only in like a couple scenes. I don't know that she would qualify as like a viable supporting run, but it's like, but there should be awards for that kind of turn, you know? Yeah. Or like my colleague Bilga has been talking up Matthew Lillard in Life of Chalk a lot. An incredible one scene performance. Yes. Like an astonishing one scene performance. He's one of the few good things in that movie.

36:57Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, we don't really have a space for that, I guess. No, I - We don't give it to - Well, maybe with the Oscars on YouTube, where they're not - caring about runtime. Yeah. We could just add a third. I mean, two more acting wins. I think we have like 20 more categories. Regina Hall. I love her performance so much in One Battle After Another, but it is by design a very small performance, a largely silent performance. She's around for a lot of the movie, but she doesn't get a big Oscar moment. And I think the work she's doing is so important. I think it's like important to the movie working, but it is kind of yeoman's work.

37:31Yeah. And it feels silly to even like present her into the conversation at some times where you're like well tiana taylor has like 40 minutes of being a whirling dervish that sets the entire movie into action and regina hall's just kind of like right floating her big moment is like one in which she is kind of reacting with like tears right like in this moment of kind of like crushing understanding of her own like inability to to kind of like keep going i i love her she is one of my favorite working actors i I think she is like long overdue for like a full kind of moment. New York Film Critics Circle gave her best actress for support the girls years ago, which I think started this kind of second wave of have we been undervaluing this person for decades?

38:11You know what I loved about that, by the way, is when because, you know, in my mind, I was like, that's such a cool win, which it was. And she's going to be so surprised and like it's going to be so great. When she showed up to accept the award, she was gracious and lovely, whatever. But she was also kind of like, yeah, thank you. Yeah, like about time. Yeah. And that was nice. Yeah. Yeah. But I think I saw the movie and said to my friend, she's so good in that. And it's to the movie's credit that it doesn't give her the big monologue that could so easily win her an Oscar. You're like, there's a version of that character that has a more explosive moment.

38:49And it would just need to be one basically sustained for 30 seconds for her to be a serious contender. and I think it makes the performance and the film more powerful to avoid that but also it probably has cost her being in the race. Well, it would be funny if she did have that moment and then it was a question of like how do we campaign Tiana and Regina? Because they're trying to figure that out with Benicio Del Toro and Sean Penn on the supporting actor side where the prevailing wisdom since September was like, well, Sean Penn is definitely getting nominated, could win. I mean, the scuttlebutt from L.A., Kyle Buchanan, other people out there are like, oh, no, Sean Penn is everyone's best supporting actor choice.

39:31And then Benicio Del Toro wins at New York Film Critics Circle. He won at National Society of Film Critics. Like he's kind of showing up more and more and giving a lovely speech, I thought, at New York. And it's like, wait, so now they have to kind of juggle those two campaigns but not, you know, slight one or favor the other. And I would love to see them have to do that with supporting actors. I mean, you're reminding me now, Critics' Choice Awards gave awards, lead awards to Jessie Buckley and Timothee Chalamet, who are basically considered the frontrunners. Buckley is many laps ahead of her competitors.

40:06I think Chalamet is maybe one. But I also, is Buckley still as far ahead of her competitors at this point? It's a question. I feel like a lot of people may be presuming that she was going to be the shoo-in for when we get to the biggest award. Well, she keeps interrupting stage performances, and it's getting on people's nerves. You know, she's jostling and yelling. I mean, at the morning we're recording this, we're a couple hours away from the SAG nominations getting announced. The Actor Awards? I'm sorry, the Actor Awards. The Actors. Be respectful. And that is always such an interesting bellwether, because it's the first time you're getting major nominations from people who also will vote for the Oscars.

40:46Yes. And from actors as opposed to like, so far it's been a lot of people who are like outside of the industry mostly. Well, horrible, wretched, gremlin journalists. Exactly. Emerging from our caves. Let's be clear. SAG-AFTRA, especially post-emerger, is a very, very large union. TikTokers are in there. TikTokers are in there. They're in AFTRA. Weathermen are in there. You know, it's a varied organization. But there is some overlap. and because the union is so big you basically get an email telling you you're part of the nom com, the nominating committee this year as if it is jury duty if you do it, you're out of the pool for like another 7, 10 years you can get out of it by saying you're racist they'll dismiss you it's a pretty small number who get the call every year and then you have to watch everything prove you've watched everything or as much of everything as you can you get to nominate and then the rest of the union votes for the final awards have you done this i i did it once yeah yeah and i have a friend who's been on it this year it's interesting i mean because i i think the names in the nomcom are made public or at least accessible to the distributors and the publicists so they can they can court you they can they can now i got it uh called to do it in 2021, which is just about the worst year.

42:13Yeah. I was not getting the cocktail party perks. No. No one was flying you to Hawaii for a special screening. Correct. But you got the vaccine earlier. Yes. Yeah. That was the benefit of it. So it's interesting because in some ways it's very indicative. There are always some real weird left-turn nominees, I think, from SAG. And a lot of that is the nominating committee is chosen early in the season. it feels like sometimes they will latch on to an earlier contender whose narrative has maybe already collapsed they're the last remnant of an abandoned campaign but it does start to I don't know show some more support and actors are the largest voting body within the academy so even if it's just sort of like here's a snapshot of the psychology of actors and what they're liking as a general group it does start to show strength not not just for certain performances, but certain movies.

43:11Amy Madigan, one supporting actress at the Critics' Choice. We're saying she's now possibly quite probably the frontrunner. Jacob Elordi, one best supporting actor for Frankenstein, which he has been in that. He's probably getting nominated, right? He seems like a pretty strong contender spot. I did the Ankler Pundits thing for our friend Kitty Rich, and I did not have Elordi in my best supporting actor five, and now I'm like, wait, why didn't I have that? Frankenstein was on all the Oscar shortlists, it clearly is a contender in a way that I refuse to believe after seeing the movie but I think also like he for acting awards he is but he's much easier it's a safer nomination than say Oscar Isaac who I think you can argue, I would argue is like miscast in that role you know he's still floating around as well but a lordy I think everyone can get behind to be like this is a good performance it's interesting because even I feel like the first reactions to the movie playing at festivals were pretty mixed and disappointed, right?

44:10But the takeaway was like, a Lourdes is really goodness. And it almost felt like maybe this ends up being a weird lone nomination. You know, his work in a film that doesn't quite work. You know, is this a Stanley Tucci, Lovely Bones? You know, whatever. To date, Stanley Tucci's only Oscar nomination is for us playing a pedophile murderer in The Lovely Bones. Right, right. It collapsed. A movie that Ryan Gosling gained weight for and then got fired from. Yes, yes. And then I was fat and unemployed, as his quote. But now that Frankenstein seems to have so much heat around it as a movie in general, he feels even stronger as a contender.

44:49No idea if that's a one-off and he will continue to just be a gracious nominee for the rest of the season and not win any other awards. But it does remind you that when you get into this, this time of year, right before SAG kind of kicks the next phase into gear, I would say, has been very front loaded with the opinions of critics. And certain contenders start to get a lot stronger. Right. Rose Burns gets a lot stronger. Vagnamore gets a lot stronger. Benicio starts to become a consensus pick. Yeah. But there are certain movies like Hamnet that just it feels like. They just lie in wait. Truly.

45:23Until it's time. Truly. Jesse Buckley has been having a lot of nice downtime. Yeah. And now is about to spend three months giving acceptance speech. Well, I remember last, was it last year, right? Or no, two years ago when Oppenheimer was, you know, sort of, it came out in the summertime. And then it kind of went quiet for a bit. And then, you know, New York Film Critics Circle gave it a number of awards. But the big question was like Robert Downey Jr. And during all the Critics Awards season in December, January, he wasn't showing up. He wasn't winning supporting actor. I don't remember who we gave it to, but like whatever.

45:59But do you remember who was starting to stack up the most? Who was? I don't remember. Charles Melton. Charles Melton for May, December. And he was a Critics' favorite. Yeah, he was Critics' favorite. Everyone was like, he is incredible in this movie. And then what ended up happening was Charles Melton didn't even get nominated. And then obviously Danny Jr. won. And the word from L.A. was like, yeah, idiots. He had won that award back in July. Like, there was no question. He didn't have to campaign. He didn't need to be at the New York Film Critics Circle dinner. It doesn't matter. I would say also, like, you know, there's this whole world.

46:35And I don't want to, like, make this seem like it is too much of, like, a way of, like, getting to, like, you know, glad hand with someone at a party or something. But like, obviously, like him showing up at an event and like people getting to talk to him as someone who has been like, you know, they have watched in movies forever and have like a long personal history with. And he can be really charming at parties. Like, I think that that makes a difference, too. You know, like if you're doing Charles Meltzer, you're like making this first bid for like being I am a serious actor. I am capable of more things like you are bringing a lot less kind of valuable history with you than someone like Robert Downey Jr.

47:10who, you know, people want to, like, want to salute in this way. Right. I think there's another part of it, too, which is, you know, for the Oscars, the nominations are done by branch. People nominate in their field. Yes. Oh, okay. He does all of them? All of them. Your favorite troll, the grumpy troll. Yeah, yeah. But it means that, you know, there's the cinematography picks are coming from cinematographers who have a real understanding of what makes work stand out. Right. But then when you get to the final votes, everyone votes in every category. Right. And sometimes I think especially with actors in the acting categories, what comes into play is how many projects those people have done, how many voting members they have worked with and their opinion of them.

48:04Right. Yeah, for sure. Not in like a sort of cronyism way, but someone like Jamie Lee Curtis, who was not seen as strong of a contender. You're like, here's someone who for 40 years just has a really good reputation in the industry. And you're a sound guy and you're like, you know who's a class act? Jamie Lee Curtis. I worked with her like twice 20 years ago and I always really liked her. And man, she has put in good work, you know. And I do think beyond, sometimes you will hear people say like, they got to give it to Robert Downey Jr. Look at how much money he has made for the industry. as if that's what they're rewarding.

48:37And I don't think that psychology comes into it that much. I do think a lot of it comes into who did I like working with and who was difficult. Well, it's why Sylvester Stallone... It's the one I always point to. ...didn't win supporting actor for Creed, even though he was the frontrunner going into that night. And then Mark Rylance, who, granted, not a lot of people had worked with, but they were like, he was great in that movie. And also we were not voting for Stallone. Stallone was winning every single award up until that point until you let crew members vote. And suddenly Stallone collapses on Oscar Nights.

49:13I mean, Stallone has some of the most famous urban legends attached to him regarding his bad behavior with crew. That's the clearest example of that, I feel, like in recent memory. The more you guys talk about this, the more this just feels like you're talking about the Iowa caucuses or something. like the order of things, the way that people are jockeying for order and then the way that the actors have to glad hand and how they appear in, you know, around other people. It really makes sense why they call it a campaign. Yeah, well, I mean, also to Griffin's point, like, and Richard, like, we do kind of come at this from the outside in.

49:49So you start with a lot of critics groups and a lot of people who, like, watch a lot of movies but are not part of the industry. And then we get closer and closer. It windows down and then it widens again. Yes, but it is, you know, like ultimately you have different types of awards and you have the people who like kind of comment on film until we ultimately get the entire industry.

50:15David, yes. Happy New Year. Yay. That was a little party horn. Yeah, it's February, but it's still the new year. I mean, I liked it. I'm not going to call it out. But with the new year comes a kind of time for reflection, right? You think about the past year. You think about your aspirations for the year to come. Yes. And you start to think about your finances. It's true. But look, paying off debt, building an emergency fund, saving for something major like buying a home or college or, you know, retirement, stuff like that. Plan to do all three of those in 2026. You're going to go back to school?

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52:43Suko. He was the little Kong baby. Suko. Suko. Suko.

53:00oh my god hello creek hey how's it going and who are you mac black and what's that that's my name you asked who am i and that's my name what are you doing what do you what do you can tell from my general demeanor temperament and this hard hat here yeah i'm sure you've noticed the interruption the sound yeah i guess cameras boom boom boom boom boom boom in the building but i've been struggling yes this construction project's not going well i have no idea what's going on i explained to you my name is mac black i'm a construction worker i've been working in the building he's winding up dude he's winding up literally i don't know what's going on in your life.

53:47I knocked on the door. I open. I'm interrupting. I don't know what's going on in your life. You're struggling. What's going on? This construction project's not going well. Okay. Okay. I've been trying to build a better wardrobe. There it is. And so what you're referring to, of course, is the sort of furniture, the physical thing. Incorrect. That's a weird assumption for you to make. I'm talking about pieces that work together and hold up over time. Well, Mac, we've got news for you. Come on in. Take a seat. I have a pair of pants and I've been jackhammering them for months and nothing's coming together.

54:16We have ad copy people can't see with prompts that are a little esoteric. And one of the people who works for our show responds to those prompts in interesting ways. But nobody knows what like it's like going to an improv show where you didn't hear what someone yelled out. David, excuse me. I'm sorry to interrupt. Mac doesn't know any of that. He's living his own life. You're right. Mac is such a he's such a thoughtfully realized character. Thank you. I'm a construction worker, surly demeanor, hard hat. And I've been taking the jackhammer. Is Mac short for Macintosh? Absolutely. Macintosh, Blackintosh.

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56:40Thank you. We are gathered here today to talk a bit about Marty Supreme. But I think it's great to bring up campaigning because Timothee Chalamet, who did win at Critics' Choice Awards this past weekend, has he reinvented campaigning or is he just doing old school campaigning with a different kind of skin on it? Like, I don't know what he's doing, but it seems to be working this year. So I have, I will say, I think that we're looking at him at this point of transition. And I think the Critics' Choice Awards speech, which we can talk about, is like this tipping point. But I do think what he has been doing like previous to this, this almost avant garde, but also like incredibly like, I don't know, like game to do anything promotional campaign has been in service of like promoting the film first, right?

57:27Method marketing. And I think that's a great distinction to make is that Chalamet from what November through Christmas was not awards campaigning. He was promoting a movie. Yes. And there's a difference. And he has been very good at it in this incredibly weird way from going on Drewski, right? Like doing that, like doing pre-auditions for Drewski's video, including it's still like lodged in my head. The moment where someone like vogues up to him and then blows him a kiss and he catches it and says, received. That was Alicia Vecano. Yeah. She's so talented. He very clearly understands the internet in a way that isn't just generational.

58:06I think he has a famous Twitter lurker. Yes. Yeah. But a kind of supernatural understanding of that ecosystem and what catches on. Right. And I think you can tell the difference between he is driving these moments versus someone being told you have to go on chicken shop date. Yeah. You have to go on hot ones. Right. Right. The things he's picking are clearly things he's identified, things he likes, understands how he would mesh well in this world. Yeah. And I think, you know, there's been a two-pronged Timmy narrative this year, right? He almost wins last year is sort of the feeling. And I think the feeling is also should have won.

58:46Yes. You know, we talked about it. We've talked about it off mic. But, like, it was the moment that Adrian Brody threw his gum to Harvey Weinstein's ex-wife. Immediate buyer's remarks. You could see in the audience the Academy being like, goddammit, we voted for the wrong one. And that's before. And also, like, this again. This guy again. And then he gets up and makes a 20-minute speech. And it's also like vaguely offensive at points that it was just like a mistake just sort of made manifest. Yes. And Frisch, I don't know if you know this, but Adrian Brody still holds the record for the youngest best actor winner ever.

59:1929. If Chalamet had beaten Adrian Brody last year for a complete unknown, he would have claimed the record. By a couple months. Yeah. If Chalamet wins this year for Marty Supreme, he will be four months older. That's right. Yeah. than Adrian Brody was, I believe. Or, yeah, it's three or four months. Isn't it weird that women get to win Best Actress at, like, age four? Yes. Yes. It's a much-discussed thing of... Well, Cher was three when she shot Moonstruck and then four when she won. The amount of Best Lead Actress winners under the age of 30 versus literally one time it has happened in Best Lead Actor and he was, like, 29 in nine months.

1:00:03But this is the great question about Timothee Chalamet as an, you know, his first nomination was, God, I mean, like eight years ago, right? For Call Me By Your Name. And then hadn't shown up again until Complete Unknown. But the thinking about him has been for the better part of a decade, like, obviously, the industry likes him. He's a great actor. He's cute. He's charming. He can open movies, it turns out, like his movies make money, be they, you know, a Roald Dahl musical or a biopsy. biopic about a thing, you know, whatever. For such a specific, unconventional type, he found his two tentpoles where he was perfectly cast and they appealed to different audiences and suddenly you're like, this guy is doomed.

1:00:45He's like Paul Atreides and Willy Wonka. He's got like two kind of iconic characters that he can return to that can help sort of like hang the hammock of his smaller person. And actually lead in this kind of like real theater kiddie role as well. He's the titular boy in Beautiful Boy. But the thing about hanging over him is that, well, the Academy does not give best actor Oscars to young men. They want to make you wick. The rubric being the straight old men in the Academy, they vote for the woman they want to sleep with and the man they want to be. And they don't want to be a 28-year-old pipsqueak.

1:01:20If you think they view him as a threat. And before Adrian Brody, the youngest best actor record was held by Richard Dreyfuss. Right. who won, I think, at 31 or 32, but looked about 115. He was, like, the most middle-aged man from, like, 20 on. Where by the time he won, it was like, he's been around for, like, six decades. Right, right. I will have to say, though, like, shout out to how good Adrian Brody is in that movie, that despite how incredibly annoying he is. Yes. It was undeniable. It was undeniable. Like, you just, they were like, no, we gotta give it to him. And then, yes, immediately he goes up and is like, remember how annoying I am.

1:01:56Right. But Chalamet, I would say, had a really difficult challenge ahead of him. Going into this season, you have that energy of, do we already regret not giving it to you last year? So now we're looking for an opportunity to possibly give it to you again, right? Here is what is possibly the most expensive film A24 has ever made. It's not an obviously commercial project. He's staking his whole movie star persona on it. This can't just be, well, I do Dune over here, but I want this to win an Oscar. He needs this to connect commercially. And part of that is everything he's learned from Wonka and Dune and Oscar campaigning and just generally being a poster to figure out how to make this movie feel like an event to young people.

1:02:39To have this play like a mainstream blockbuster film, which it has done up until that. That was that was mission A. And then immediately after mission B, which maybe I don't know how much he cares about it, but like was OK. Now we're switching into awards mode. So it was very interesting at the Critics' Choice. I thought he would be doing the goofy theatrics, the kind of arch, internet-y, whatever. And instead, he shows up, yes, in a pinstripe, double-breasted suit that was, you know, calling back to the 1950s era of the film, and his pants were a little baggy. He wasn't orange. Yeah, he wasn't orange.

1:03:12We had joked that it was basketball mesh, you know. And then gave this kind of halting, genuine, grateful speech. And it was like, oh, so he wasn't planning on doing the braggadocious Marty Supreme thing the whole season. He was just getting the movie sold. It was the interesting question of how will he handle that pivot? How gracefully will he pivot? and will people hold against him the campaign to sell the movie to audiences making him feel less serious? And I think he made the movie a hit. Yes. And now he, like, in one speech is like, got it. That was to sell the movie. Now you're a real guy.

1:03:56And also, like, now I'm talking to you guys. Like, I'm not just talking to the public, including, like, this, like, much younger audience. You're not going to throw your gun to you. Now I'm a humble young man. And, you know, Eddie Redmayne, I've said this on a zillion podcasts in the past, but like I was with Great Kitty Rich, The Year of Theory of Everything. And we went to it near times for whatever reason, hosted a party for that movie, like early in the season. It was probably September, like right after TIF, Toronto. And we watched Eddie Redmayne, who no one knew the fuck that was. I mean, unless you'd seen Savage Grace, which, of course, I had at IFC, but most people hadn't.

1:04:29He was sort of an unknown. And I watched this guy, this young guy. He was pretty young. He's one of the youngest, too. Shake everyone's hand, kind of do the, like, but, like, in a very polite Etonian, British way. Charm everyone in the room. And he had to do that for four months or five months to win that award, but he did. And I don't think that Chalamet is going to do that exactly. But he does know how to, Leo DiCaprio style, flip the switch into humble young man meeting his elders and his idols and saying, gee, thanks for letting me into the club. I will also say this. Everyone, I think, in Hollywood is aware that they're kind of hanging the future on Timothee Chalamet.

1:05:09If there's anyone who is going to be an actual A-list leading man, something that has started to seem like maybe is done, in terms of being able to open a movie, in terms of having that kind of recognition with younger people, he is your guy. The Glenn Powell faction tried their candidate. It didn't really work. Yeah. But whereas I think also with him, all that he needs to do, he cannot be like, you should give this to me because of that. But like to allow that to be part of his narrative, I think without like bothering people about it. He's the Dauphin, you know, and they just, he has to be humble about that.

1:05:44I mean, that's my thing also like the role he plays in every movie also. So like, yeah, he is the princeling. And this is, I think also like this is an even better narrative in fitting in for that than say like being, playing, you know, the biopic. Like the standard, like give me an Oscar. I mean, because this film and this performance feel metatextual. Yes. It's kind of a right movie to give him an Oscar for because it is fully exploring what his thing is. Yes. You know, and kind of owning it. And I think the Brody win is such an outlier. You know, there's this fascinating stat that in that year, he's up against four previous winners.

1:06:25and he sort of after being seen as like lucky to be nominated the whole season became a default like do we need to give jack nicholson a third daniel day lewis a second yet michael cain a third nicholas cage a second or here's this guy who gave an undeniable performance in a film that really surged late within that season and he did have kind of that reputation of very humble hard-working actor's actor in his 20s and also had this weird like he was in thin red line but all of his dialogue was cut out this guy can't catch a break but everyone is like if you work with him he's got the goods right chalamet is in a whole different sphere where he has to handle the pressure of being a guy that the industry rests on commercially while also seeming serious enough as an artist, right?

1:07:20That he could be rewarded so young. And you comp him to like Cruz and DiCaprio. I was going to say Cruz in particular, yeah. Who are also guys who had that kind of thing and the Academy made DiCaprio wait quite a while and is still making Cruz wait. And they really made him wait. Really? It felt very pointed. They were like, hold on, kid. You can't have everything yet. Not too fast. You're dominating too hard, right? But both of those guys, for how great they are at selling their movies and how much power they carry, were from the playbook of the more famous you are, the more mysterious you need to be.

1:07:53You choose your words very carefully. You choose your appearances very carefully. Your power is just standing somewhere. You need to keep a wall of unknowability. And Chalamet is like sharing the drafts folder with us because he understands it's a different world. It's a different landscape. If he wins, it does feel like there's a giant shift happening, not just within the academy, but like within the industry of what we expect out of our major kind of industry carrying movies. Yeah. And I also I am curious about how much the industry will register that what Chalamet has been doing right now when he like does videos where he's stalking around Times Square with like a bunch of guys in, you know, orange ping pong heads.

1:08:35That that is actually our equivalent of like Tom Cruise flying to every country to glad hand with fans, you know, like like that. This is what that is now. Yeah. Like it is the equivalent. It looks a lot weirder. Yeah. But like it's the same thing. It's the equivalent of Melissa Leo taking out ads that say consider photos of her. Yeah. In the big jacket. Can we run down some of his shenanigans? Yeah. Like what's he been up to? And then how has that, what's the shift been? Yeah. Well, he did a basketball event with Adam Sandler in LA. The weekend of the Governor's Award. So everyone was in town and there were sort of eyes on that.

1:09:07Yes. He did the podcast you talked about with the voguing. He has done a few, he did like a kind of fake Zoom video where he was like pitching kind of cringey ideas. It was like cringe comedy. It was a marketing meeting with the A24 team that I think was key to the whole campaign. And he very bravely was like, I know that this could be clipped out of context and people will actually think that I'm being this bunch of an asshole. But that's OK. It was treated as if it was a leaked video, but it was clearly constructed, written or at least deliberately improvised sort of like meta piece of him strategizing about how they need to sell the movie that set the tone for the whole thing.

1:09:47and also like laid bare his ambitions of I'm going to do everything I can to make young people give a shit about this film, you know, because it matters. And DiCaprio, I heard a fascinating stat about, you know, when one battle after another got greenlit at 120, 30, 40 million dollar budget and people were saying that's insane. A Paul Thomas Anderson movie has never worldwide made half of that. How is he getting this jump up? Right. the pocket watchers who like to act like uh their executives online right it's not your money why do you care right putting aside the fact that he deserves this as an artist that we want should celebrate that he's getting to paint his sistine chapel or whatever people were saying like where does the math add up on this and what i heard was that a big part of the reasoning was they the comp they studied was that i think it's 90 or 95 percent of the time when leonardo dicaprio has made a movie with the director that is their highest grossing film yeah and is their highest grossing film by a mile right and in fact if they have other films that are close they're usually the films in the afterglow of the leo movie that elevated them and that he would do this he would pick someone who was a great artist but wasn't necessarily commercial or mainstream and his power that he would sort of apply to it and the importance of if dicaprio is making a movie it It means something.

1:11:13This guy doesn't make wanton career decisions. He's choosing everything very carefully, a power that Cruise had for so long. It becomes transformative, right? And I think what Chalamet really wanted to test is here is a movie that doesn't have Dune, Wonka, Bob Dylan attached to it, right? His three— Wait. No, they're all in the movie. I forgot. I'm sorry. They are all in at the— Cameo roles. Yeah. But it doesn't have any sort of other name that you can point to. No. Those were his commercial breakthroughs up until this point in time. And he wants to be the guy who can say, if I decide I'm making a movie with Josh Safdie, Josh Safdie's budget is about to multiply by four.

1:11:52Yeah. Because now people assume that I can help make this movie crossover into the mainstream. This was like a seven-year plan. Yes. Because Josh Safdie and Chalamet met during the Call Me By Your Name year. Yeah. Because Safdie had a movie that year. I think it's the good time year. Yeah, it was a good time. And they talked then, and I mean, I don't know the actual history, but the sort of understanding is that like Josh Safdie basically was like, all right, kids, start learning how to play ping pong. Yeah. And then we're eventually going to make this movie. And then it just so happened that Chalamet, maybe Safdie kind of saw this in a prophetic way, became a movie star enough to get this grand ambition funded.

1:12:33And he's also, Safdie has talked about just like seeing him. I think there was some, it was like a New York film, like a festival event or something where he was like so kind of wound up. He like fell off his chair, like doing a Q &A. And he was just like, this is like, there's that kid, like he's going to be the guy. And I think also understood a quality about Chalamet, about like this kind of the cockiness, but also the like wanting greatness so badly that just kind of like informs this movie. as you said, this is a movie about Timothee Chalamet. The cockiness that is you gotta give it to him, well founded because there is talent behind it that's true of Timothee, that's true of Marty Supreme there's a part of me, I rewatched the movie recently I had seen it back in October at New York Film Festival and appreciated the craft but didn't connect to it maybe and I still sort of feel that way about it but like, I was watching it recently and I was like, wow this is it is again a new version of how to campaign for these things that like Chalamet in this movie is not playing anyone heroic he is playing a real asshole and I think it's very interesting that on top of everything else we've talked about in terms of what Chalamet is doing is that he's also selling a movie that is long difficult, abrasive almost irritating by design loud, people are screaming all the time it is aggressive towards the audience which is one of the things I really like about it.

1:13:57And if he manages to win in March, that is a real magic trick because that's the kind of movie that is supposed to really turn the blue hairs in the Academy completely off. So can I throw out a theory that's been starting to coalesce for me? Hit me. Talk about the Mel, right? A concept our friend Calp can and created of, we look at the Academy as this golden thing, but really it's largely decided by guys named Mel in their mansions in Malibu. You know, old Jews who had a credit 45 years ago, you know, directed three of the Police Academy movies, but not the ones you think of. Right. And I think, you know, the Academy has made major efforts and major strides to not just diversify their membership, but get their membership a lot younger.

1:14:46Getting into the Academy used to be a kind of gold watch for a career unless you were an absolute titan within your field. Otherwise, you basically only get kissed in after you turn like 60, right? Yeah. And it was a real thing. And they've been reaching out to not just diversify, but go people in different genres, different spaces, different styles, different ages. Different countries. Right. And it has changed the kind of things that we now consider could be Oscar worthy, you know, because the narrow line of what kind of movie hits the median taste is no longer as clear. But I think for a lot of time, a lot of our lifetimes in tracking the Oscars, what we considered Oscar bait was, you know, 90s, 2000s, slightly into 2010s kind of prestige film that feels like a throwback and elevation of a kind of 50s or 60s.

1:15:45There's a modern tweak on it, but it is the same. earnest studio drama because the people making the decisions are people who think that that was the best the industry ever was. They want the movie like The English Patient that reminds them oh, Dr. Zhivago that was a picture, right? And the things that have happened the last 30 years I'm trying to ignore. And there are aberrations and there are exceptions. Did Dr. Zhivago ever have an English Patient? He must have. And if he didn't we should look into that. Grounds of discrimination. Or we have a movie. Dr. Trivago meets the English patient. Versus the English patient.

1:16:21Yeah. I saw Marty Supreme with my father. You happen to be sitting directly behind the two of us. I saw Marty Supreme with you and your father, yes. And my father was vibrating the entire film. My father is 72 years old. Is that right? Yes. Three. He's vibrating the entire movie, laughing hysterically. the second directed by josh safty shows up on screen he grabs me by both shoulders leans in and goes griffin that is one of my 10 favorite movies of all time ah all right so it works on the males kind of this is my take right i was like in that moment i clocked for the first time my dad is kind of a mel and what we think of a new york mel he's a new york mel but what we think of as a mel has changed because the mel is now people who think the best it ever was was the new hollywood 70s.

1:17:11Yeah, you're right. It's Popeye Doyle. Very much from that. You know? Yeah, this is a movie very much of that. It's like, you look at that era in Midnight Cowboy and you're like, these are scuzzy, scumbag kind of stuff. Abrasive movies. Challenging main characters. Unconventional leading man playing unlikable dudes, you know? Yeah. Also, like, a lot, I mean, this movie gives so much of this. There's just so much, like, kind of texture in terms of, like, just outrageous characters, right? This movie is, if there were a bit part Oscar, this movie would, like, be all of the five nominations would be from this movie.

1:17:42You look at the 70s as a decade in acting nominations, and there are so many cool bit part nominations. Beyond Beatrice Strait winning, you have like Jane Alexander, the incredible one scene performance. Well, no, but also in All the President's Men. Right, yes. Her character doesn't even have a name. She's librarian. And Sylvia Miles in Midnight Cowboy, You know, and there's a kind of like we're circling back around to that was now the golden age that people want to be reminded of the oldest members of the Academy. And that was a tougher time and a more challenging time in film where those movies crossed over and became mainstream in a way that Marty Supreme is kind of becoming now.

1:18:29And it's griminess as an asset that. Absolutely. So I think this notion of, well, this doesn't really smell like an Oscar contender. it's like no you have to chart what was 50 years ago now whereas like hamnet which is made by a filmmaker who is you know in has been regarded in the past with past films as like the picture of a certain kind of modernity you know the writer is like using non-professional actors and so is nomadland and now hamnet arrives and it's this it from a certain vantage point is this lumbering old-fashioned cut maudlin thing yeah modern style on a very kind of classic hollywood That Marty and one battle to an extent can bounce off of and be like, well, I mean, come on.

1:19:09Like, that's that's one battles in this exact same conversation, you know, even sinners to a degree. Like these are the movies that are pushing through, you know, are like is sinners an analog for the exorcist, you know? That's interesting. Yeah. I think also this is this is a particular year just like looking over the people who are in in the race still. Like, this is a real year for, like, abrasive performances or performances that are not necessarily characters who you would describe as likable, you know, like that really are challenging. Frankenstein. Frankenstein. No, he's likeable. I mean, the monster is very likable.

1:19:51He is. Like, he has a lot of pathos. Dr. Frankenstein, I have some issues. Yeah, he's basically like an incel. Did you know that actually Frankenstein is the real monster? Oh, there we go. the turn in that movie where all of a sudden Victor hates this creation based on really no behavior is crazy to me it's like build to that like he should love him at first and then hate him is there a missing real movie well where you're like it just feels like there's 10 minutes that clearly Christoph Waltz is holding it hostage needs to happen you must cast me again it's just also like it is funny where you're like he's just like a parent who's like why isn't my kid better at soccer like it's just really like you're not You're not getting it together quickly enough, monster.

1:20:34This is a question. Alordi and Benicio are both giving very sympathetic performances, right? I think Alordi is playing that role with such pathos that even if you dislike that movie, you're sort of giving him even more credit for like, oh, and you had to put up with the indignity of this film as well. And if you love the movie, you're like, look at how much suffering was imposed upon this character in universe, right? Right. And that is like a kind of conventional, easy to root for Oscar performance. And Benicio is just, everyone circles back to, it just, it feels good. It feels good spending time with this guy.

1:21:11It is. You love him. Yeah. But also he's so heroic. Can't we have more people like this in the world? Sure. Well, yeah, but is that the divide this year? The lead performances are like Rose Byrne doing this, I think, incredible, but like really deliberately abrasive and computational performance. And if I had like said kick you, I mean, if she sticks around like Emma Stone, the kind of like journey that character takes in Begonia or Amanda Seyfried in Testament of Anne Lee, like a really kind of like amazing, but like alien performance, right? Like one that does not offer you a toehold really to be like, I, you're like, I can kind of like appreciate what this character is going to.

1:21:48I do not be like, I also relate to me. Right. I mean, Annie Madigan is, is literally a supernatural horror villain. With layers. And Tiana Taylor is, the whole movie hinges on, is this a good person? Right. You know, in so many ways. I mean, like, I was, it's not as much in the race, but like Tessa Thompson and Hedda, that character is like incredible. You know, like this, like. You meet her when she's holding a pistol and gazing down at servants with a sort of like leering grin. Yeah. And she just like kind of tortures people for fun, like socially. Yeah. Yeah. And an incredible performance. Is there something to the politics of these movies, I think, especially Marty and One Battle, that feel like confronting maybe all of these terrible people in our politics, in our lives that won't go away?

1:22:33Well, I think Marty, it's also, it is interesting because he is simultaneously, and I think in his own head, he is an underdog. Like his, I mean, like he is like a Jewish American man, like in the post-World War II. Like, you know, like he sees himself, like when he says like, I'm Hitler's worst nightmare. He's like not joking about that, even if also he exists outside of the direct kind of contact with, you know, like the Holocaust that his friend and kind of ping pong partner, you know, has in that kind of like honey, the flashback of the honey was like so kind of evocative and so also distant from Marty's actual experiences.

1:23:09So he is like simultaneously this, he sees himself as the underdog and yet he is also like this kind of emblem of like cocky American exceptionalism, right? Like of when at all costs anything is worth it to kind of prove greatness. I think he's both, right? Like he contains both at the same time.

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1:24:07movie it's very short and then come back and listen to the rest of this episode my my grand theory of the movie is that marty is even though it's set in the 1950s marty is really a creature of the 1980s sure sure he's like he he has this number of speeches about how he's you know gonna do whatever he's gonna do he doesn't consider anything else and it it made me think of a quote from Karl Rove in... This is why we have been. In the run-up to the Iraq war, he says, and you can hear Marty Mauser say this, when we act, we create our own reality, and while you're studying that reality, judiciously, as you will, we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out.

1:24:51We're history's actors, and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do. Like, that sounds like a Marty Mauser. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It really does. And it just feels like the way that he just goes to Japan, this humiliated nation, and sort of dominates them. In the face of this, one of the actual heroic characters in the movie, the Japanese ping pong player, who's played so wonderfully. Great performance, yeah. I don't know. There's something to me about, something sour about that whole thing, even though it's triumphant for the character. Oh, yeah. I think it absolutely is. But yeah, like that ending, even I, I mean, what I love about it is that he is so committed to this idea to need to win and prove himself and to like redeem, in his eyes, redeem himself, even though he's ignoring the context with which that match takes place beyond just like the fact that it's not meaningful in his kind of like professional like chase.

1:25:47It doesn't get in anything. Yeah, it doesn't get in anything. He loses money, actually. He gets stranded, potentially, with no way back in, like, halfway around the world to prove himself in this. In front of an audience of crying Japanese people. There's a very strong argument that he ends his entire professional ping pong career in that moment. That he cares so much about winning a symbolic victory. That's symbolic really only for him. Only for him. With, like, zero impact. And I love the moment of him falling to his knees and crying like he just won the Olympics. Right, right. In front of a crowd of like a few like hooting like American servicemen and everyone else just like devastated.

1:26:24And you're like, you've alienated everyone you've ever spoken to. And this was your final straw. And do we then see the closing, so again, spoiler, the closing shot or series of shots of the movie are, you know, this baby in the maternity, old-fashioned maternity ward where he's behind glass. And Marty, you know, having just kind of arrived from Japan through the circuitous route, you know, kind of makes up with his girlfriend. Let's also acknowledge his love interest, who is married to another man, is pregnant, and he has spent the entire film denying parentage. Yeah, exactly. It could even possibly be his.

1:26:58And that's why that Maury Povich cameo is incredible. So well-timed. No, but like, so I don't know, I guess from an interpretation of like, he knows he's destroyed his career. He's just kind of gotten this sort of Pyrrhic victory in Japan. Is he then kind of gazing at his son, his newborn son and being like, well, I have advanced our cause this far and now it's up to you to do, you know, is it like a generational kind of thing or i am fascinated by how wildly disparate the takes and interpretations on the ending yeah are the that i have seen uh i i had a very specific takeaway from it which i'll get into but i have seen people so confidently argue specifically and intentionally it should only be read this way and i can't believe anyone would think otherwise and i think there's an interesting kind of it's almost a kuleshev effect as much as uh i think shalom is giving a very specific performance in that moment there's something really hard to read of why is he crying yeah while looking at this baby something has unlocked in him but it says a lot more about the audience member, what they perceive that to be.

1:28:20I certainly think certain people who perhaps want this movie to have a happy ending and really want their characters to be redeemable have read it as, and at this moment he sees the child something bigger than himself and he grows up. And he's crying because in this one moment he has gained complete emotional maturity and intelligence. And has been humbled in the right way. Or achieved the right thing. Yes. I've seen people both say that as a testament to the movie's power. It builds to this beautiful ending that actually really makes you feel something. And people also accusing the movie of being insincere in trying to elicit that emotion.

1:28:54I see the ending more as for the first time in his life, he is face to face with something bigger than himself. And he cannot process what is happening. I don't think he is having a coherent emotional thought. It's part of what I think Timmy does so well. Timmy, who's one of our best on-screen criers. Yeah. And you look at the difference. From the beginning. Truly. Yeah. But like, you know, Call Me By Your Name is sustained end credits, just kind of slowly, quietly. Me at the Eccles Theater at Sundance yelling at people who were trying to walk past me, being like, the movie's still happening. Look at those tears.

1:29:27But he's doing like a real kind of like contorted, Julianne Moore-esque pained cry, where you can tell that he is surprised and embarrassed that this is coming out of him and he can't stop it. Right. And I don't think he knows how to process what's happening other than that. There is now a child in front of him that he in this moment now accepts some ownership for. And the rest of his life is defined by this. Right. I think if you want to believe that this is the moment that he goes, fuck, OK, I got a child to support. I got to get a real job. I got to clean up my act. I got to become, you know, maybe more of a Mr.

1:30:06Wonderful. you know or he will be defined by this is bigger than me I can't handle this I'm running right like his own father is sort of absent never even mentioned right we never hear where what became of him or is he gonna tell himself that he's a good father but really his head is always in five other places trying to get a new thing you don't know and I don't think he knows but I have also seen people so confidently not just one I was fascinated once I saw it to see if it was isolated. And I've seen it pop up in so many places. People who are adamant that the reason he's crying at the end of the movie is because the baby looks so much like Emery Cohen that in that moment, he is recognizing it is not.

1:30:49What? And I saw one person say that. I went, what? And then I saw, obviously. All babies look like Emery Cohen. Yeah, that's true. My exact one. He is, I know. He has a strong baby quality. He does. And he's got a shaved head in this movie. But it's so funny that people are like, of course that's the ending and here are the moments of foreshadowing leading up to that they're like easter egging i bring this up just to say there's something in that ending and it's unreadable yeah quality despite everyone watching it and very strongly feeling something yes whether they're accepting that or rejecting awards wise that's a great asset because it's it sends people out of the theater voters out of the theater being like well something significant happened at the end.

1:31:32And that's up to them to determine what that something was. You're kind of seeing what you want to see. And if you like the movie, it is the culmination of everything that worked about the film for you up until that point. And if you dislike the movie, that is the thing you point to and go, here's my proof that this movie isn't sincere. And it's just enough ambiguity where enough voters who would care about such things are like, but he was humanized at the end. That was, yeah, yeah. I feel like if someone, and I've talked to so many people who have struggled with him as a character just because he is so kind of like chaotic and self-centered and so like bent on this vision that no one else shares and no one else cares about.

1:32:09But I think that if you give, it gives just enough that if you want to latch onto it to be like, here's this moment of redemption, here's this moment of change. This is actually not just this kind of like wild, indescribable romp, but a story about someone coming of age that you can put that on there and settle with that. And it's much more comfortable. Yeah, I mean, my feeling is he is a character who treats everything like a game and a hustle, right? The stakes never really feel real for him. The only stakes that matter to him are his sense of self, his ego, his reputation. But otherwise, he just kind of like Tasmania devils around with impunity, right?

1:32:47And I just think that moment captures the first time he is up against something bigger than himself. It's also what I think the film is about at large. As you were saying, this very specific cultural moment of young second generation Jews in America who have a kind of reverse survivor's guilt, which he verbalizes. I mean, it's made into explicit text in the movie that, you know, I didn't have to serve in the war. I was a little too young for that. My family planted their roots here. So I wasn't in one of the countries where I was getting hauled off, right? And now we've defeated the bad guys. Who can fucking stop me?

1:33:27Everyone else suffered in order for me to feel empowered in this moment. I get to have fun. And you talking about Bennett feeling very tied to the 80s, Josh Safdie's been talking on interviews that the 80s felt like the first time there was a palpable nostalgic culture. And it was going back to the 50s. That there's a tying of those two areas. But there's not any movies about like Michael J. Fox movies about that. I mean he's like literally one of the defining movies of the decade is textually about that Marty but there's something there right and these are the people for better or worse and I'd say largely worse our world is still kind of largely run by Martys right they go legit or they don't but either way that attitude that spirit of this is sort of the first generation that's going to let people have an adolescence fuck around.

1:34:22There's disposable pop culture. There's processed foods. Growing up is a choice. You get to decide whether or not you want to do it. That final moment of him seeing the baby is him realizing that the choice exists. I don't think he makes a choice in that moment. That's my personal interpretation. It is more him being emotionally overcome by, holy shit, this is the first thing that is actually real. This is the first thing I have to I cannot deny has real world consequences that is partially because of me. And it's why you couldn't tell that story about really any other sport, you know, or it would have to be equal or lesser because like ping pong is sort of, and, you know, that's even a derisive term I learned watching that movie, you know.

1:35:09But like, it's so sidelined in American culture that like, his dream has to be built around this, you know, sort of useless, ephemeral thing. Right, right. This guy is hustling so hard, but part of his hustle is I'm the Michael Jordan of ping pong and I see the future and ping pong's as big as basketball. And he's wrong. And we know he's wrong. He's empirically wrong. We live in the present and we know it will never be taken as seriously as it was in that moment. Not even more seriously. And then pickleball. That's the peak, right? So everything he's doing is in the name of something that has a very, very low ceiling.

1:35:48And like Blackberry was one of my favorite movies of the decade. And I think it's another movie that beautifully uses, that film's more fact-based, that you know they're on the Titanic. That they're doomed. That everything these characters are fighting for is going to butt up against the outcome that we've all lived through. None of us have a Blackberry anymore. Everything they do, every symbolic war they think they're fighting, ultimately is irrelevant because the iPhone will exist. and table tennis will never become a mainstream sport. In America. Yeah. Or really anywhere, I guess. No, that was the peak.

1:36:21Damn. And I think that's part of it. And I think, you know, there's certainly, as much as the film is about Chalamet, it's also, I think, a major piece of self-reflection by Josh Safdie. I know this is a big part of your read of the movie. Yeah. And I think, to some degree, it being something as kind of silly as table tennis is important because it's kind of a guy looking back at how seriously he took the stakes of I'm a filmmaker and I'm intense in my 20s. Yeah. Right. And that he's sort of looking back and going like, Jesus. Well, and I think this is a thing that a lot of straight male filmmakers do.

1:36:58And I don't begrudge them that. But like sometimes I get a little bit like, you know, like watching Interstellar and you're like, Jesus, Chris, just spend time with your kids if you feel so guilty about being away shooting movies all the time. I know that shooting the movies is what, you know, gives them a good life and you can pay for college and all that stuff. Yeah, but other things could also be for college. And I kind of felt a little bit about that with Marty Supreme at that ending. I mean, my sort of first read of the thing, it was like Safdie almost apologizing to his young children for like being away making his movies or whatever.

1:37:28And I'm like, just shoot an Acura commercial and then be home more often. Can I throw out some timeline stuff, real world timeline stuff that I find interesting? So he talked about, in a lot of ways, the movie is about the years of him trying to get Uncut Gems off the ground. Uncut Gems was the project that they wanted to make that then got interrupted by Heaven Knows What. It was too big of a jump up in scale and budget. So they had to make a smaller film to show that they could do it. Good Time is the midpoint film. You know, they wanted Sandler forever. They couldn't get him for years. They developed a version of it that was Jonah Hill, other versions of it.

1:38:04they finally get Sandler. The movie comes out at the end of 2019. It is, at the time, the highest grossing film that A24s releases. The first A24 movie to cross $50 million domestic. It's like, you won. It doesn't get any Oscars. It doesn't get any nominations. But it's sort of immediately treated as the egregious snub in many areas. And solidified the A24 sort of branding like right this is the kind of movie we make right and sort of like the academy isn't cool enough yeah to give it to uncut gems an absolute triumph for everything that he spent 10 years investing in the importance of pursuing right right i i so steadfastly believe this is the movie i have to make and he talks about the movie comes out all of that happens he feels nothing yeah and he goes what the what the what was all of this for right and then pandemic yeah he doesn't make a film for six years and the world stops yeah and stops him at a moment where he's also in a place of self-reflection and then he gets married and has two children in quick succession right so the movie isn't i'm apologizing this is my read no no no you're right for not spending time with my kids It is a movie about a guy having kids and then being like, what was all of that?

1:39:25And it's very much a film that's in conversation with the films, the previous films he made with his brother. It's not like it's a radical departure. But I think there is the gained self-awareness and self-reflection. And then also the larger kind of historical and cultural context he can put on it by making it a period piece. And looking back to his father, his grandfather's generation and understanding the lineage of the Jewish American experience and the sort of feeling of needing to be a perpetual underdog, but being told that you have to achieve great things. Yeah. Well, I will say also for me, that ending just it does not work unless you understand it as both like this incredibly sincere reaction from that character, but also that the next day he could be either a deeply committed father or knocking on the door of like the table tennis association wanting back in.

1:40:16Like I think that both of those things have to be as likely and never see either of them ever again, even though five minutes earlier he goes, I'm here, I'm staying, I'm never going to leave. And I think the thing is, like, what is so real about that moment for me is that people do have these incredible, sincere emotional epiphanies and then don't change. You know, like they don't necessarily become a better father. They don't become they can weep over their child and then not be present. And the tenuousness. I think that, you know, I'm someone who, like, at a certain point in Quentin Tarantino's career, I was like, can you just do something sincere?

1:40:48Like, like, yes, Beatrix Kiddo crying on the floor of the bathroom, like at the end of Kill Bill 2. I was like, OK. okay, and then there's a little Inglourious Basterds and then it sort of goes away again. And so I liked in Marty Supreme that there are moments where Safdie is showing a slightly softer side. There's that beautiful shot of Gwyneth Paltrow back to the audience on Broadway, smiling when they applaud and being like, I love this. But then he undercuts that a few scenes later with her weeping because she got terrible reviews or whatever. So he's not going to let it last too long. So I think to your point, Allison, like, yeah, it's totally believable that he has this genuine cathartic moment viewing this child through the glass, but the child stays behind that glass for him and he just kind of bails.

1:41:35But versus everything else he's been up against in the movie up until that point in time, if he bails, he is defined by being an absentee father for the rest of his life. You know, whether or not he wants to actively be a father and that's what's changed to him now. That is his identity and how he handles it. becomes almost his defining attribute as a man. Yeah. I think also it's worth mentioning Daddy Long Legs, which is the Safdie Brothers movie that they made starring Ronnie Bronstein, who is the, you know, kind of like now the third Safdie, maybe like - He's still giving a speech at the New York Film Predict Circle there, by the way.

1:42:09It was a verbose speech the two of them gave. Those guys like to talk. That movie is about their childhood and is Ronald Bronstein playing a character very closely modeled on their father. Yes, and he was just like both like a loving and incredibly chaotic, destabilizing presence. You know, someone who is just, like, bringing that chaos that, like, marks their movies. Like, you're like, oh, this was the source. Like, you know, like, someone who kind of, like, chases things on whims, like, kind of can be incredibly fun and can be, like, a kind of someone you're like, oh, he should not be in charge of kids.

1:42:38Like, and I think there is also a version of Marty where you're like, this, is that the person I'm going to be? Is that the parent I'm going to be? Someone who is, like, loving, but, like, loving does not mean that you are. An incredibly hands-on, dysfunctional father. and someone who never quite figures it out. Yes. Right. Or there's a version of him that just goes fucking corporate. Like it's what's interesting for me to consider. And that moment is just something has broken in him and how he rebuilds is to be determined. I think it's a credit to Chalamet's performance that he could have just played this role as a straight con man.

1:43:12Yeah. Because Marty, what Marty does is he cons constantly, but he does play it with that sincerity to the point where you can empathize with him. And it makes that last moment possible. Exactly. And cynically enough, you know, to bring it back to award stuff, like that is what I think is the crucial selling factor, you know? And I think that, I think there's a ton of humanity in Sandler's performance in Uncut Gems, but I think the Academy as it existed then, the pump was not primed enough for, you know, for that to be, and also it was a little too irredeemable. He gets shot in the head at the end.

1:43:48like whereas this is like the next evolution of a saftian protagonist and there's just enough of that chalamet sort of warmth underneath it to sell it and i like the thing that makes it for me the thing that sells it for me as a performance are those moments where he it's not just that it's the hustle it's like also where the hustle is sort of working but he can't help but push it further you know and like and he pushes it into chaos and like that is weirdly the most humanizing moment because it's not just that he's always in pursuit of his goals it's also like he courts being like Like, let's see what'll happen.

1:44:19He got the necklace that was going to take him to Japan, but then he had to go hook up with her in the park. It's the key moment of the movie for me. If you just say thank you for the necklace and walk away. Or like when they've hustled the guys in New Jersey and they're celebrating. Right. And the guys find them. And instead of just like winding up the window and driving away, he's like, let me, I want to talk to them. And you're like, what would you possibly accept just to see if you could talk your way out of it? Yeah. I think there's something interesting you're bringing up here, Richard, which is, and we saw this last year with Enora.

1:44:50Yeah. People who have no history with the Academy and suddenly culture catches up to them. Right. Right? Right. Like, absolutely Uncut Gems felt too bracing, too odd, too extreme for the Oscars in 2019. And in the six years since then, Safdie has become shorthand for a type of thing. It is used in pitch meetings and log lines. It is a vaguely commercial term that you can use to describe an energy. And now it's like, well, of course, this is in the Oscar conversation. I find it interesting that Josh seems to be directly on the bubble for best director. Yeah. But it does feel pretty set in like five, six other categories.

1:45:32And I think it's gonna be really telling whether he gets in there. And that's a full acceptance of this is part of the firmament of what Hollywood represents now. Or if it's still one step too edgy in a way where like Scorsese doesn't get a director nomination for Taxi Driver. Spielberg doesn't get a director nomination for Jaws. We acknowledge that you are the future and your movie has changed things. But a little what we're talking about with younger male actors. Hold your role. We're not ready to anoint you yet. But I remember watching the trailer for Marty Supreme that I guess must have come out late summer of last year.

1:46:05And not I had read the log line. It was about a hustling ping pong player in the mid century. Gareth Paltrow shows up. Timmy has a little mustache or whatever. And thinking it was going to be another little scuzz bucket movie from, you know, this very talented director. And then the trailer dropped and it was like, oh, no. He's going for big, sweeping Americana. And that is part of a narrative of a director who's been on those sort of indie fringes, inching toward the mainstream, saying, no, now I have this big grand vision with lots of background extras and budget and all that. And the Academy in the past has really embraced that.

1:46:47Especially when the elements line up and that leveling up from the artists is concurrent with the culture catching up to their thing. We're ready to see you go big. We weren't quite ready for you before. We're sorry. Here we are. You have our attention. And if you can pull off that kind of like step, major step up the ladder, it is the kind of thing that the Academy tends to like fall over themselves. And the tragedy is if somehow we could rejigger the timeline and Uncut Gems was the Marty Supreme follow up. Yeah. Sandler absolutely gets nominated for it. No question. He probably wins. Yeah. Yeah.

1:47:23I also think it's interesting that going into the season, even basically looking at it like a year ago, right? January 2025. It was like, OK, well, we majorly keep our eyes on Chalamet in the ping pong movie and DiCaprio in PTA. Those feel like if they're not serious contenders, something's gone horribly awry. But going back to sort of Wagner Moore, suddenly seeming really, really strong in the best actor category. Jeremy Allen White in Springsteen. But that hasn't come out yet. Dwayne Johnson in The Smashing Machine. George Clooney in Jay Kelly. I feel like I'm even forgetting a couple others.

1:48:02There was like a sense of we're not going to have room to fit all these guys. These are automatic lock nominees. The conversation all the way up to like the first premiere at Venice of any of these movies was like best actor this year is stacked. Yes. Oscar Isaac, you know, all these people. And then it was like just people fell by the wayside left and right. So many of them fell by the wayside. Yeah. Right. That you're like it is an odd kind of unsubtle category in which you have, you know, Blue Moon, a movie that you were bemoaning to me in September. It's a shame. Yeah. That in a just world, he'd be in the Oscar conversation.

1:48:36No one's going to see this thing. And you're like, Ethan Hawke feels about as locked as he could possibly be. Vagnamore feels about as locked as he could possibly be. A lot of these, in a cool world, this guy would get in. Those are the guys who are on solid footing. And a lot of the, like, assumed industry favor, an obvious kind of Oscar appealing role, big project things have just flatlined. And Chalamet and DiCaprio are the two that are, like. Straddling it somehow. It's commercial. It's big. It's America. But the films are odd. But it's also edgy. The performances are weirder than you would expect.

1:49:10And then you compare it to George Clooney and Jay Kelly. And it's this, I mean, not to be too dramatic about that movie, but almost this hideous object. Because you're like, this is what Noah Baumbach was building toward. This goopy, sentimental, Hollywood, glitzy reflection on itself. Totally unconvincing. Yeah. And it seems so out of step. even though just six months ago on paper, it seemed like, yeah, sure, of course. Well, I think also, I don't know, maybe we're at this moment where I certainly feel conscious of this and I wonder how many people in the industry do too, where to be like, you have to have a lot of kind of interesting friction to have any staying power out there.

1:49:54You can't just be, here's the formula for a kind of prestige movie, a movie that we celebrate as important and all of that, because those things come and go. like those things it's why Hamnet is having trouble like when I say having trouble I mean like in the court of online opinion you know like people are really hammering that movie from different directions I think it's pretty impervious to that because the Academy doesn't really pay attention to internet discourse but I think that it's because it doesn't have the traction that these other movies have where they are like yeah we have problematic elements we're prickly we're weird but that gives us a foothold in this whereas Hamnet is just this kind of smooth perfect you know object that is sort of designed to win awards.

1:50:34And that feels kind of like anathema to the system right now. Yeah, we're looking for something else. Even though One Battle felt anointed earlier than most Oscar contenders or most eventual best picture winners, right? And everyone's just assuming we've been on a walk of inevitability. It will be nine months of, yep, absolutely, we all know where this is going. It is a movie that is still generating think pieces. It is a movie that people are still debating, even though there's like a kind of insane, overwhelming consensus, a unifying of like most people coming to the center and being like, this is just an important object.

1:51:15Right. And an important career and all of that. It is still a movie that you can't totally figure out. And Nor is another film that much like Marty Supreme had an ending that people read wildly different ways. and I think that movie doesn't win Best Picture without that ending because that ending was a thing that people couldn't stop chewing on and these seasons get so exhausting that you need a reason to keep thinking about a movie rather than just going like, oh yeah, I guess I did like that back in September. All right, well, Griffin, thank you for being here. My pleasure. It's been so nice.

1:51:52We come back anytime. I mean, you're our boss, so. Yeah, you're kind of, you're here anyway. Yeah, yeah. But we want to end each episode with either a sort of like, you know, goodbye to something in memoriam for something that a campaign that has failed or a winner. We'd like to be celebratory as well. Allison, do you have a candidate for either of those categories? Yeah, I would like to present an award for ethereal glow to Wagner Mora's white suit that he wore at the New York Film Critics Center. Yeah, look it up on Getty Images, folks, because the pictures are out there. It was like an all-white suit, black shoes, but he just really, under the light, it was like he just had this, yes, he was attracting light to himself.

1:52:33And he gave a great speech. It was very heartfelt, but it was also very sincere and felt unpracticed. He was talking about the direct translation of Obrigado and how it means to be indebted. And it was a lovely speech that made me really think like as watching him also there be like kind of ethereal and incredibly handsome. Be like, oh, you are the guy that Timmy has to beat. Like you are the one who could challenge him. And I want that speech. I'm sure people filmed it. I want it to go out into the Internet because the Brazilians, they know what to do with that. They'll make sure people see it.

1:53:08Yeah, they're ready to go. Yeah. But I was like, that could be it. Like he could be the guy. If it's not Timmy, the upset would be him. Yeah. Yeah. I would say my in memoriam this week, going back to Critics' Choice Awards, is RIP my hope that Frankenstein wouldn't be part of this awards conversation in a meaningful way. Six feet under. But you know, the funny thing is, I say that, and yet, when Elordi won at Critics' Choice, and he gave a very gracious speech. He is apparently a genius. Did you know this? He's very, very smart, Jacob Elordi. And he's really into film, specifically film. I was like you know what that actually would be kind of fun because like Del Toro and Sean Penn already have three Oscars between them you know that's kind of boring like here would be a first timer so weirdly I'm putting my hope that Frankenstein would not be a thing that I have to deal with for months more to rest but I'm also saying you know what Elordi I could deal with yeah I'm big here for Elordi between Frankenstein and Avatar Fire and Ash I mean I know he's not in it but he is in a V yeah yeah very tall very tall no his parents are he was born here second generation but he spent summers there sort of like J.D.

1:54:20Vance in Appalachia right yeah that's how they put him in the Avatar tank to get him into the Frankenstein exactly which saved him a lot of money it was a tribute to his heritage really yeah I like that cool alright well thank you again Griffin for being here my pleasure on this so excited by this morning. Whole project. I cannot wait to get back into bed. Oh, yeah, right. Exactly. By the way, before we go, I wanted to thank Joe Bowen for the wonderful art you see behind us. If you're watching video clips of this. And to announce that next week, I called it, I think, a round, perfect, shiny object just about half an hour ago.

1:55:01We're going to talk about Hamnet, and I think we're going to sort of focus on, in some ways, the topic of backlash, because I think of any of these best picture contenders, Hamnet is the one suffering that the most, and we'll get into why next week.

1:55:22Critical Darlings is a Blank Check production in association with Vulture. Hosted by Allison Wilmore and Richard Lawson. Produced by Benjamin Frisch. Executive produced by Griffin Newman and Neil Janowitz. Video production and distribution by Anne Victoria Clark. Wolfgang Ruth and Jennifer Jean.