Critical Darlings: Sentimental Value and Belated Oscar Breakthroughs with Joe Reid

5:56David Sims:she says like absolute cinema i think yeah practically see the cigarette smoke from the ashtray like right off camera yeah no good for her i mean i wish that we would do that with like

6:10Joe Reid:our you know elder discoveries you know in this country i know maybe i guess we have in the past

6:16Griffin Newman:maybe but where's june squib should be doing but she's but she's like getting busy yeah that is

6:20Joe Reid:true she's not in lacking work and she was just on broadway yeah going close for wendy's it's come to this yeah i mean you know maybe it is time to bring back the where's the beef

6:31David Sims:campaign uh well we've completely lost the taboo of actors doing ads anyway if you watch the super

6:38Griffin Newman:bowl like it's just like no do you know what have them do silly funny ones yeah no i'm just gonna

6:43David Sims:to say, time to bring back that taboo. Bring back many more taboos, and that's one of them. You want to preserve your movie star gleam? Yeah. You got to choose here about the, you know, I know we all have to make money. We all have to pay rent and or purchase a nice house on the hills. Yeah.

7:00Griffin Newman:Back to the area of Bill Murray doing Centauri Times in Japan. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I know. Because you can't do it in America. Well, that's the thing.

7:06David Sims:It's like you used to be able to kind of go to Europe or go to Japan and shoot commercials and no one would know.

7:11Griffin Newman:Yeah, a low-key movie that the kids wouldn't understand now because they're like, what? Why doesn't he just do ads in the American movies?

7:16Joe Reid:Why isn't she an implements her? Yeah. But it's also sucking up the work that the Snapple lady used to get and the Where's the Beef lady used to get. The guy who talked fast for Micro Machines. The dancing person for Six Flags.

7:27Griffin Newman:I saw a clip of him on the Oscars recently, actually, the Micro Machines guy, because they had him come out to read the— They used to have somebody come out before they realized that the Oscars had to be as short as possible. they used to have somebody come out and read the rules about like how movies are submitted to the academy and who votes for what and what committees and whatever and so they had the Micro Machines guy come out and like motor mouth his way through the rules.

7:48Joe Reid:Oh that's nice I mean would you say that the Micro Machines guy has some sentimental value?

7:52Griffin Newman:Oh perhaps for those of us who were there at the time. Yeah I mean I loved him

7:56Joe Reid:Yeah. So yeah we're talking about Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value a film that we've all seen and I think all liked Yeah we liked it yeah okay um and i had seen it at can and liked it but i was like so raring to go uh because of i'd loved worst person so much that i think that sentimental value on that first viewing was a little bit of a comedown but on the second viewing maybe it's because i had been like alone for days like it really affected me in a really strong way so i think allison you and i were talking about like how part of this podcast where we were re-watching oscar movies which i don't always do every year um it's it's nice because i i now have a deeper appreciation for this film than i did before that said i really wish that the attention that this has gotten at the oscars was what worst person had gotten yeah but sometimes that's just not how the academy works yeah it's

8:49David Sims:funny how often i mean at least anecdotally and maybe we can come up with actual examples of this it does feel like it is not someone's like incredible breakthrough right that is the film that gets rewarded, it's like then afterwards they're like, oh, we like this person. And then it's like maybe a slightly lesser film. And I do feel like Sentimental Value is, I do not like it as much as Worst Person in the World. I do like it, but...

9:13Joe Reid:It just doesn't have that same exciting verve in the way that like, well, I don't know.

9:19David Sims:His other films, some of which deal with some like kind of, you know, like deal with depression, deal with suicidal ideation. They have this kind of French New Wave-y energy that's kind of like propulsion and like youthfulness. Yeah. And this film is a more grown up film. It is as rooted in this kind of aging filmmaker, you know, father figure who is trying to reconnect with his children as it is in these two daughters, both of whom are adults. One for the boomers a little bit, a little bit, at least partially. I think so. Yeah. Like it is. Yeah. I mean, it's been interesting.

9:49Joe Reid:It's about people who own real estate. So that's not for. Right. That's not for us. Yeah, exactly. Generational. Generational real estate.

9:55David Sims:Though also an enormous pain point for them and carries some significant financial stakes as well.

10:03Joe Reid:But no, it is by some measures. I mean, there is that part halfway through or so where there's the kind of face montage where their faces keep changing that you're like, okay, this is more experimental in the vein of something from Worst Person would be. But, you know, it's a sturdy family drama. And I think it's just it's less exciting. And I think that I would say the same about other filmmakers who have made good work, but the Academy has either ignored entirely or given a courtesy nod here and there too. And then their more conventional film is the one that breaks through.

10:44David!

10:44Joe Reid:What? This episode... Don't act so surprised because it's a familiar friend. Oh, okay. This episode's brought to you by MUBI. Yawn! Just kidding. Comfortable. Secure. We love them.

10:56Griffin Newman:They are a global film company of champions. Great cinema. Iconic directors. Emerging auteurs. Always something new to discover with MUBI. Each and every film hand-selected. So you can explore the best of cinema.

11:06Joe Reid:Nothing more to say, I guess. Wrong! There's a new film coming to theaters.

11:14Griffin Newman:Yep, movie theaters. February 13th. The first Nigerian film ever in official competition again. That's pretty wild. This is a film by Akinola Davis called My Father's Shadow. It was BAFTA-nominated, poetic, tender portrait of a father-son bond framed within the political landscape of 1993 Lagos in Nigeria. It is about a father and two young sons as they journey into and around the vibrantly rendered Nigerian metropolis, reckoning with their relationship, navigating the city that's in the middle of a democratic crisis, written by real life brothers Akinola Davis Jr. and Wally Davis. Love it, brothers.

11:54Griffin Newman:Co-wrote this groundbreaking feature debut and you've got Sofei Dorisu. Oh, from Slow Horses. I love him. I hope I'm saying his name right. But he's a really good actor and he's the star. It's worth seeing.

12:07Joe Reid:It's in theaters. It's great to go to a theater. It's in theaters. We love that Mubi puts Mubis in theaters before ultimately ending up on their wonderful platform. dang right. I'm just looking at some of the stuff they got right now. Die My Love, of course. Yeah. An important watch, a necessary watch for any blankie. La Grazia, the new Paolo Sorrentino movie, which I missed in theaters. Good moment to catch up with it. The Great Shall We Dance. Oh, the classic? The original. Oh my goodness, that's fun. Like a restoration? Yeah, and look what they got a collection called Heartthrob Nicolas Cage.

12:44Joe Reid:It's young dreamy cage. Well, still dreaming to me? Hey, you're very open-hearted.

12:51Griffin Newman:Anyway, to stream the best of cinema, you can try Mubi free for 30 days at Mubi.com slash blank check. That's M-U-B-I dot com slash blank check for a whole month of great cinema for free. And then go see My Father's Shadow in theaters. Please, thank you for listening. Thank you. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

13:06Joe Reid:Thank you. Very kind.

13:15Griffin Newman:so obviously there is the like the yorgosy thing of like i'm picking up on this movie because it's after the breakthrough but could it also be something to do with the fact that this is about hollywood or not hollywood but this is about filmmaking and acting and the you know how hard it is. Sure.

13:34David Sims:Or just about the business. Very honestly. I mean, I think it is right. It has been long accepted, if not necessarily supported in terms of the numbers that Hollywood loves to award or like loves movies about itself. Right. And like, certainly there have been some very high profile movies that have gotten saluted. But like Ben Zausmer, who wrote this book called Oscar metrics, did a piece in the New York Times in 2020 and just kind of running the numbers about like, depending on how broadly you define, right? Right. Where you're like, is Marriage Story a movie that involves an actor but is not about, right?

14:15David Sims:Like is not necessarily about the business. Which is about an actress. Exactly. And I feel like even counting those, he kind of arrived at this, that like, no, we're not more inclined. Like the Oscars are not more inclined to give out in the words. and like of all of the kind of like best picture winners. I mean, like it's because I think we think about this because the artist and then Argo won. Yes, yes.

14:37Joe Reid:Yeah, it was those two years where it was like, wait a second, there seems to be a secret formula to getting this Oscar attention that maybe actually isn't. I mean, because if it was, then Babylon would have like 12 Oscars.

14:49Griffin Newman:The Stablemans is another one that I remember like going that and it's like, what does Spielberg have to do to win another Oscar? It's like, oh, be sentimental. and to make a movie about movies. And it's like, well, you did it. What else do you want? And people were like, eh.

15:02David Sims:Well, so that was another interesting, like that piece, the New York Times piece was from 2020 and pointed out even then that like, even though that statistically these movies are not more inclined, more recently, Hollywood has been more inclined to be interested in them in terms of awards. So like, yeah, you know, like, I mean, famously Singing in the Rain, never up for best picture, right? Right, right, right. But like, yeah, like it was the 2022, which was the Oscars in 2023. The Oscars that went like overwhelmingly to everything everywhere all at once. But that was the year of Babylon, Empire of Light, The Fablemans, Blonde, you know.

15:41Joe Reid:A loving tribute to Hollywood. Yes, exactly.

15:44David Sims:I mean, or I mentioned like the India's submission that year was Last Film Show. So, Nope came out that year, did not get Oscars, but like was about. Partly about. Even like Panahi's film No Bears was about filmmaking. It was about him making a film. Right. But yeah, like when you read those, you're like, those are not the films that like went and like dominated that year.

16:09Griffin Newman:There is a little bit of Everything Everywhere that has a little bit to do with like, you know, one of her personas, she's an actress and they recreate the. It references her own. In the mood for love and that kind of stuff.

16:20David Sims:Yeah, well, and I mean, like, the kind of martial arts, you could say, are existing within her own personal film history.

16:26Griffin Newman:And I always think about a movie like The Shape of Water and the fact that that movie, I was always so impressed with the way that that movie was able to, that year, capture the, oh, we remember when Hollywood was, you know, old Hollywood or whatever, without, because that was the year B2 was happening. like did that without actually making a movie about a filmmaker or the studio system or anything like that. And that was a movie that felt like it was a movie about movies without actually ever being about that. Beyond the fact that like she lives above a theater. Right.

16:59Joe Reid:But the fish monster did represent CAA. Oh, yes. So there was some celebration happening.

17:05David Sims:I mean, a lot of the kind of hang-ringing pieces that I found that were about this topic were from 2020. Do you know why?

17:14Joe Reid:there was what movie yeah mink oh mr mink which did seem like kind of created yes to be like a

17:22David Sims:movie that we all talk about all the time with its enormous i did not love mink but uh it was like it was almost like a joke about oh yeah oh yeah i mean i the thing about like maybe i'm wrong

17:34Joe Reid:but do authors like of books get shit for writing about writers it's like well wouldn't filmmakers sometimes make something that's kind of out of our drive.

17:41Griffin Newman:Eight out of ten Stephen King books are about a writer. But that said,

17:45David Sims:I do feel like I personally complain about how many novels are set on college campuses. Oh, sure. Maybe adjacent. My professor's cheating

17:54Griffin Newman:on their wives. Yes, exactly. Maybe some adjunct

17:56David Sims:who is a novelist on the... You know, you're like, what are you drawing from here? Yeah. So, yeah, sure. I mean, I don't mind movies about movies. I think as long as they're not... I think the thing that made... As long as it's

18:07Joe Reid:America's Sweethearts. Exactly. Obviously, that's the pinnacle. The greatest pinnacle of the form.

18:11David Sims:I mean, the thing about that 2022 year is what was saying, that was not just how many movies were about movies, but how many movies were about these kind of incredibly bittersweet, but glassy-eyed cinematic experience. I think I wrote about it that year. Multiple of those movies started with someone explaining 24 frames per second and how that... Yes, I remember that. Multiple movies that year included someone giving that explanation for how we process that into the illusion of movement.

18:38Joe Reid:I mean, I will defend Empire of Light. Yeah, you love Empire of Light. You really do love that movie.

18:42Griffin Newman:Yeah. And that got one single solitary Oscar nomination.

18:46Joe Reid:Cinematography. Well, it's beautiful. Yeah. Should have been score too. I was always a little bit annoyed

18:50Griffin Newman:that Nope wasn't able to because my thing with craft categories is always like, if you make a movie about a fashion designer, you are probably going to get a costume nomination. You know what I mean? Sure, sure. And I always was like, Nope has a cinematographer as a character. Like, what else do they got to do?

19:04Joe Reid:I have bad news for Angelina Jolie's couture. Yeah. I don't think that's getting in there. It was a Toronto movie.

19:11Griffin Newman:Probably not.

19:11Joe Reid:Yeah.

19:12David Sims:But yeah, I know how many movies have not just like a cinematographer character, but one who comes on board with their like personal made like crank camera to explain. And it's like integral to the plot or whatever.

19:22Joe Reid:Can we do an experiment and we'll pull our resources and make a movie about like a sound editor. Yeah, exactly. And see if we can sweep those categories. Yeah, I know.

19:31David Sims:We can do it. We can do it.

19:33Griffin Newman:It'll be called like underwater or something. And they're like, they're an expert in like underwater. There's the podcast movie.

19:38David Sims:There is. There is also like, there is a horror movie about a sound guy from Not Look It Up. We'll just let it sit.

19:46Joe Reid:The podcast movie I did see at Sundance. Yeah. Also, I think I might have said this when I was back from Sundance, but it imagines podcasting as something you do at two in the morning for five minutes.

19:57Griffin Newman:No, but that's not the podcast horror movie because there is also a horror movie coming out about like, essentially, it seems like it's a haunted podcast. I'm not even making it.

20:03Joe Reid:Well, Undertone? Yes. Yeah, that was at Sundance.

20:06Griffin Newman:Oh, that was at Sundance. Okay, that's the one you're talking about.

20:08Joe Reid:And it's very bad. Okay. But it's basically just like, what if Hereditary had a podcast element? I didn't realize it was at Sundance.

20:14Griffin Newman:Oh, okay. Yeah.

20:15Joe Reid:But anyway, so I think that the podcast movie is still, we could still make it.

20:20David Sims:Berberian Sound Studio. Oh, of course. Yes, that's right. Yeah. Anyway. Yes.

20:25Joe Reid:What about a movie about a dedicated animated short filmmaker? How would that work?

20:33David Sims:What if it's about getting Film Board of Canada funding?

20:36Griffin Newman:Oh my, honestly, a worthy subject for me.

20:39Joe Reid:So in Trier's case, maybe it was the sort of filmmaking aspect that helped him. I mean, look, Worst Person got an expected international feature nomination, but a kind of more surprise screenplay nomination, which was pretty exciting.

20:54Griffin Newman:Yeah.

20:54Joe Reid:People I thought or hoped that maybe Renata Reinsfield, who also starred in that film, would get in, but she didn't.

20:59Griffin Newman:Yeah.

21:00Joe Reid:but like there I feel like there are other examples of this like why did Sean Baker after years of kind of not even I don't think he was knocking at the door I think people were knocking at the door for him

21:10Griffin Newman:yes

21:11Joe Reid:and then they were like okay Willem Dafoe is good in the Florida Project yeah and that was the lone nomination for that movie and then all of a sudden Nora like crashes through the side of the wall you know like the building yes why did that happen with Nora

21:22Griffin Newman:I believe I was on a podcast with you where I made the prediction that Simon Rex was going to get a nomination for Red Rocket I mean he's incredible in that movie I think so too. But after that movie really sort of got passed over, I remember being like even more sort of pessimistic about it. Like once Enora won The Palm, I think that made it something that you have to really pay attention to. And it sort of like demanded attention for itself. But that still is, it kind of runs counter to my sort of grand theory about this kind of thing. Whereas, you know, these auteurs will have an early movie that is obviously very specific, esoteric, challenging, edgy, the kind of thing that you're really only going to get like small financing for.

22:09Griffin Newman:pie from Darren Aronofsky or like, uh, citizen Ruth from, from Alexander Payne or something like that. And then as they sort of move up, they get more funding. There are more people whose opinions they have to listen to. They get bigger stars. You get about Schmidt for, you know, Nicholson. And I think then sort of inevitably, I think also there is an element of, um, just awareness builds, you know what I mean? More people know who you are. And I think so much of the Oscar race ends up being like familiarity. You have to be somebody who these voters already know about or else they're just not going to watch.

22:46Joe Reid:Or someone who hits that new factor exactly right. Yes. You know, which is really hard to nail that.

22:53Griffin Newman:I mean, like Shyamalan being an example. Sure. That wasn't his first movie, but like it was early enough that they really like got him on the up.

23:00Joe Reid:And I would say the Daniels to an extent. Yeah. Like they had other stuff, but like.

23:04Griffin Newman:Swiss Army Man was never going to.

23:05Joe Reid:He was brand, they were brand new to a lot of Academy movies. Yeah.

23:09David Sims:Well, I mean, you know, but it's interesting to look at someone like David Fincher, say, you know, and you're like, he's made these movies like Fight Club, like that feels like it has a larger cultural footprint, you know, but like was not like a kind of like an Oscar favorite by any means.

23:25Griffin Newman:And I imagine there were a ton of Oscar voters that year who just didn't watch it because they didn't want to watch a movie called Fight Club that all the previews looked like was, you know, bloody and ugly and they didn't want to subject themselves to that.

23:34David Sims:Yeah. And then he did Zodiac, which is a movie that you would think would be like a...

23:37Joe Reid:And if that came out now, it would get like 12 nominations.

23:40Griffin Newman:Because he wasn't in the club yet. That's the other thing.

23:44Joe Reid:And there was more to choose from back then from an Academy perspective maybe where they were like, that's a great robust movie, but we don't need it. Right.

23:50David Sims:And so then instead, of course, they do give him nominations for the movie he makes the next year, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

23:57Joe Reid:which like you know i will defend that movie but like it is uh it is almost shocking for someone where fincher was at that point in his career you're like whoa you this is a this is a real right turn like yeah into really like oscar-friendly territory in a way that i did not think and you know look if there was a movie if the movie j kelly had been made and come out like just like you know hypothetical theorize yeah you know you would look at a filmmaker like noah bomb back and be like how did the guy who made the fucking squid and the whale right get to this point right whereas marriage story exists on this sort of crux where like it has that bomb back edge but it's just nice enough and then he tips way too far toward the oscar-friendly direction whereas fincher kind of pulled back almost immediately he was yeah he doesn't also ever seem like someone

24:45David Sims:who i mean aside from benjamin button he's not someone who feels like they're chasing and then of course the greatest film he's ever made but that was like for his dad like yeah but i mean

24:54Griffin Newman:I mean, Martin is also a movie that features, like, tiny old man Brad Pitt. You know what I mean? Sure, sure. It's one of those movies that when you watch it, you understand, like, the classic elements to it. But it's also one of those things, like, if I describe the plot of this movie to you, you're going to be like, what are you talking about? You know, a little Shape of Water-esque, actually, where it's just like, on paper, this is bizarre. But then you watch it.

25:14Joe Reid:I'd be like, go back to Julia Ormond in a hospital room.

25:17David Sims:Right. By the way, Fight Club did get one Oscar nominee for our favorite category, Sound Effects. Sound effects. Yeah.

25:23Griffin Newman:Fincher was good for like one craft nomination for like, I think seven got one craft nomination and probably art direction or something. Alien three got a visual effects sound, something like that nomination. So two part question. One, how much of these sort of catch up nominations do you think are attributed to people feeling like they got snubbed for their last movie? And I guess how do these movies get snubbed in the first place? Are people just not watching them? I don't know. Do voters actually watch all the movies?

25:53David Sims:Well, no, but it's also like, I don't know, like you look at like Chloe Zhao, right? Like the writer was never going to get a Best Picture nomination. No stars.

26:03Griffin Newman:Yeah. But it's her best film.

26:04David Sims:It's her best film. To date. Like it's and like it's like a stone cold. It's that and Eternals. Yeah, a masterpiece. The short of Eternals, of course, the greatest film she's ever made. Yeah, but you have, you know, like that film where, yeah, there's no stars. It's all, you know, like people who are not professional actors. and it was like this small film and that lived on the festival circuit and then the art house circuit. It's not even that these movies are getting snubbed. They just never entered into the conversation to begin with. But I think the people who do see them are like, well, this is someone to pay attention to.

26:35Griffin Newman:And then I think a few years later then, you've had enough people tell you, did you see that movie The Rider from last year? It was really good. And it snowballs a little bit. The attention snowballs and the prestige snowballs.

26:45Joe Reid:And more and more people want to see him in the know because I'm not saying that I, am just like so supernaturally aware of all filmmakers in any stage of their career. But having met a lot of these people at like, let's say out in L.A. who are a bit older than me, sort of like mid to late career, they are shockingly incurious about like the world of film.

27:07Griffin Newman:Yeah.

27:07Joe Reid:You know, they know who they know. They like what they like. And once in a while, they will pat themselves on the back for, quote unquote, discovering someone.

27:14Griffin Newman:Yeah.

27:14Joe Reid:And I think that they're like that Nomadland. They're like, well, look, I mean, I found this great new and it's like, but she did half this other movie that is kind of why you know about her. But you don't know that that's why you know about her. Well, and this is why

27:25Griffin Newman:something like The Golden Globes, which on its face mean nothing of value because the people who vote for it have no place within, like, the, like, Hollywood, like, the industry. But in attention economy terms, it's incredibly valuable because if you are making somebody with a, you know, we used to say a stack of screeners. Now it's, you know, an inbox full of screeners or whatever. give their attention enough to watch your movie, that's sometimes the best you can do.

27:54Joe Reid:Yeah. The problem that I have with this, it's not always, but sometimes is that the film that finally gets this filmmaker that kind of awards attention, which is not necessary to their career, but it helps, is oftentimes a lesser effort.

28:08Griffin Newman:Yeah.

28:09Joe Reid:Not always. I think that one example we talked about before we recorded was like, I mean, I love Bookie Nights. which was PTA's second film. Yes. And that did get Oscar attention for sure.

28:23Griffin Newman:But in that limited sort of like, we're not going to get you a Best Picture nomination.

28:25Joe Reid:Right, exactly. And then it took like a big American epic to in their worldly blood a couple years later to like, or actually almost a decade later. Yeah. And that's an incredible movie, but like I don't like it as much as I like Boogie Nights, but I don't know.

28:39David Sims:I think also like a lot of these films, they feel edgier. They feel more disreputable in terms of like what they do or what they're like. their tone and so like i mean the oscars now feel more open to things like that but i feel like not even that long ago yeah you would do uh like danny boyle you know where you're like what is a danny boyle film that gets in it is not the films that we think of right these enormously influential shallow graves not happening yeah right but uh some dog millionaire right like um yeah really edgy film i don't know what you're talking about um but yeah there's a kid in poop But yeah, you know, it's like when someone then shapes up and makes a movie that feels Oscar-y, oftentimes they get less interesting.

29:24David Sims:Right, yeah. They shaved, you know, they comb their hair and here they are presenting themselves to their peers.

29:30Griffin Newman:And sometimes there's a degree of like meeting in the middle. I feel like the Coen brothers had a little bit of that where like Fargo sort of met the Oscar voters halfway. It was still really idiosyncratic. The comedy was very sort of particular. but in a post-pulp fiction kind of a world, the Academy was moving towards stuff. But it wasn't so... It wasn't the Hudsucker proxy, right? It wasn't like the kind of Coen's movie that people are like, I don't know what they're doing with this thing. And then you get something like No Country, which is then...

30:03Joe Reid:Combining Western tropes that they know and like, but also this Coen kind of edge and perspective.

30:09Griffin Newman:Yeah, really prestigy, really.

30:11Joe Reid:I mean, look, Spielberg had to work for years before the Academy was like really took him quote unquote seriously as a best director.

30:18Griffin Newman:Mercilessly snubbed for Fellini back in 75. Right, right.

30:22Joe Reid:And like, and you see like, you know, Martin Scorsese winning for The Departed, which is a fun movie, but you could kind of feel that you're the Academy being like, uh, so we just look back at the records. We probably definitely should have given this to you earlier. Sorry about this. Here you go. Here's also while you're at it, here's best picture.

30:40Griffin Newman:actors I think get the oops we're sorry about that award much more often than directors I think with directors it's a little bit more complicated than that there are more sort of elements at play but yeah it definitely does happen although Scorsese had like multiple years of like well they're gonna give it to him for Gangs of New York cause they didn't give it to him for Raging Bull and like that didn't happen and then the next time it was like but the aviator it's so much up their alley and then they didn't for that either Kind of about Hollywood in part. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

31:18David.

31:19Joe Reid:Yep. You and I have a lot of shared interests. Sure. Common interest. Film. The movies. Comedy. Podcasts. Life. New York City. Bagels. Sandwiches. These are all true? Sleep. Oh, I love sleep so much. Sleep rules so much. It is kind of wild how sleep is constantly underrated. I don't think people give it enough credit. And it gets credit. And nonetheless. Even when it's bad, it's good.

31:50Griffin Newman:Well, I don't know. I don't think anything could really change how I sleep, though. Wrong. What? Wrong! What product could change my nights?

32:00Joe Reid:Lisa. Lisa can change your nights. You switch to a Lisa mattress. Griffin. What? I mean, it's just so true. It's true. I am living proof right now.

32:09Griffin Newman:You are. Because Lisa sponsored the show. And when they sponsored the show, they said, would you like a mattress? Sent over a big hunking mattress. And I was like, it's time. It's time. I'm switching to a king mattress. You're a king. I'm getting a bigger bed. My kids sometimes will pile into it. I need as much square footage as possible on this sucker.

32:30Joe Reid:Yeah, you need hop on pop space. I do. And so I got a mattress from Lisa. That is my favorite place to be.

32:39Griffin Newman:It is my favorite. I say this so genuinely. David Bigsame. It is so nice.

32:45Joe Reid:It is. It really... I'm laughing, but I'm emotional. It soothes the soul. It's everything. It's everything for me.

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34:30Joe Reid:And David, just because we invoked President's Day in this ad read, I do think we need to show our support for our president. Roelk. Thunderbolt Ross, the Red Hulk himself.

34:39Griffin Newman:Is he in prison?

34:40Joe Reid:Yes.

34:40Griffin Newman:Is he no longer the president?

34:42Joe Reid:Maybe in letter of the law, but not spirit. But here's the good news. While stuck on the raft, Marvel's high-tech sea jail? Yes. He's sleeping on a Lisa.

34:53Griffin Newman:I sure hope so.

34:55Joe Reid:A mattress fit for a Roelk.

35:05Joe Reid:I mean, with Trier, you know, obviously he's a very different kind of filmmaker. He did not have a ton of American attention until very recently. Right. But he had made these two great films, Reprise and Oslo 31st August, that, you know, were in the festival circuits in the late aughts and early 2010s. And, you know, the Manola Darguses of the world were like super on to him and into him. I think that her lovely long quote is at the top of the reprise DVD or poster or something. And then he took this weird detour where he made a movie called Loud... He went English language, which is something that you always...

35:42Joe Reid:It was always risky for a non-American or non-English language director to do. Like, okay, I'm going to cast stars now. I mean, one of them was Isabella Pera, who's not a native English leader. But that movie with it's her, I think Gabriel Byrne, Jesse Eisenberg, that is a stinker. It is bad.

35:59Griffin Newman:That was one of those like, I mean, not legendarily, but like for me, that was at I believe it was at TIFF that year. And I remember people being like, don't see that.

36:08Joe Reid:Yeah, because it had premiered at Cannes. Yeah. And it was and I saw it there because I, I'll admit, at the time I had not seen Reprise or also 31st August. Yeah. But people like the Allisons of the world were like, oh, no, he's good. You should go see that. And then I was mad.

36:22Griffin Newman:It was like suburbicom levels of bad festivals.

36:24David Sims:And it was also like, you know, sometimes when something like that happens, you're like, oh, was this like a work for hire or something like that? Or is like, you know, working off a script from someone else? But no, like he co-wrote that with Eskil Vogt, his like collaborator, his longtime collaborator who's like worked on like almost every film with him. And you're like, OK, so can't even be like, oh, that wasn't his fault really. No, it wasn't.

36:44Joe Reid:Like it wasn't a paycheck gig. I mean, maybe it paid a little more. And then he made Thelma, which is this very strange sort of supernatural lake creature sexual allegory kind of movie. But also kind of YA-ish, right? And I guess you could maybe see him trying to establish himself more on a marketable standpoint or an international standpoint, which is like, you know, he's got to pay the bills. So I guess I get that. But it's just so interesting that after that, he's then like, this is not working. let me go back to Anders Danielson Lee who was the star of his first two films let's go back to Oslo like fully

37:23Griffin Newman:and

37:25Joe Reid:just start talking about life again and then it's worked so brilliantly for him

37:29David Sims:and Renata Reinsva was in Oslo August 31st you know and he made her the lead of worst person in the world and that really also introduced her like that was her international breakout film you know it was the first time a lot of us kind of were like oh she's amazing so yeah

37:45Griffin Newman:I have not seen any of his previous films, but you're talking about how he made an English language movie that maybe didn't work. There's a lot of discussion in this movie about whether the movie is going to be in English.

37:59David Sims:Is it going to be on Netflix?

38:02Griffin Newman:And because this movie is, I guess, more about the process of making a movie, do you feel like there's a lot of his experience about making films in this movie?

38:12David Sims:I would guess so. I mean, it is in particular about the idea of, you know, he's trying to make essentially like a Scandinavian art film, right? Like he's like this revered Swedish filmmaker, Stellan Skarsgård's character, and has this reputation that gets him invited to festivals. But yeah, like, you know, how does this Hollywood star played by Elle Fenning like notice him? It's because she happens to see him getting this tribute at a festival.

38:37Joe Reid:She's at the Deauville American Film Festival, which is a particular kind of film festival that she would be at.

38:42David Sims:And then she's like so moved by this screening, you know.

38:46Griffin Newman:That she defies Cat Cohen to go hang with him on the beach. Exactly. It runs off away from her publicist team.

38:52Joe Reid:It's like, you know, to me, more doing passion of mind. Like, you know, like there's a long history of actors being like, I'm going to seek out this like Euro director and they're going to really transform me. Yeah. And I think that partly that's the meta textualness of like Trier doing this story. I mean, you know, Scarsgore's character is significantly older than Trier is, but like, is like maybe him resigning a little bit to like, I think I'm good in this lane. Like, I'm probably not going to skip across the Atlantic and become, you know, Jan de Bont. I mean, I don't think he wanted to become that.

39:21Joe Reid:But you know what I mean? Like a European director who then goes and makes like a fortune in Hollywood. He's like, I'm good here and I can kind of work not necessarily in or out of one system, but kind of between the systems.

39:33Griffin Newman:all right we're going to talk more specific plot points and spoilers for sentimental value if you want to skip that you can fast forward 19 minutes and i think it is a bit about the kind of

39:44David Sims:like thrill but the terror of being like oh you know you have this major star on board does she actually fit into your movie you know like in ways that make sense you know even if she's incredibly game, you know, if she really wants to do it, like the vision that you actually have, like, can you compromise it in ways that, you know, make a film that you still think is your film? And I think in really delicate ways, you know, sentimental value is like, no.

40:12Griffin Newman:Right. Yeah. Well, and it also, there is a thread about sort of authenticity and how that matters for this movie that he's trying to make, where he wrote the movie for his daughter. She won't do it. So Al Fanning's character, Rachel, is so interested in him and so interested in making this movie. And yet he can't help sort of like he has her dire hair the same color as his daughter. And like everybody sort of sees what's going on. And it's all none of it feels very like manipulative or sinister. It's not like a vertigo kind of a thing. but Elle Fanning's character ultimately is like I can't I can't do this movie I don't feel like I'm right for this movie and you know that I'm not right for this movie we all sort of like can see this and ultimately it ends up working with the daughter and I think it's I kept going back to like why is you know what's the title mean sentimental value and this idea that like sentiment sometimes can work you know against something and sometimes it can you know sort work in its favor um and i like the way the movie does not treat al fanning's character as this like stereotypical actress while also letting you in on the fact that like you know she's not like the best actress she's not like the most you know intelligent or intuitive but she tries and she takes her craft seriously and it's right and that's ultimately i think what he respects yes you know

41:39Joe Reid:yeah and maybe he's being a little hyperbolic when he's like she's the best actress of her generation but like he sees something yeah i was white knuckling at the first time i saw this movie

41:47Griffin Newman:being like don't have them sleep together don't have them sleep together um yeah that's luckily

41:52Joe Reid:not a direction i i think trier would go in yeah at least if or if and if he did it would be done in an interesting sort of sensitive way yeah yeah was she expected to get nominated for this

42:03David Sims:l yeah i think she was in the mix like it wasn't a huge especially because people felt she got a little bit snubbed from a complete unknown last year um monica barbaro got the supporting

42:15Joe Reid:nomination for that movie instead so i think that l was kind of like she was they were like uh don't leave the building yet yeah let's just see how this year goes and you know i mean this isn't

42:24David Sims:actually a tricky movie uh i think kind of campaigning wise right because i don't know like as much as i would say if i were to pick one lead and i don't know that you can you can say there was maybe not one true lead in this movie, but I would say it's Stellan's character. But I think, like, on second viewing, that I felt like it was, you know? But, like, you know, they all share time. Like, Inga gets slightly less, but still has her own kind of, like, storyline there.

42:57Joe Reid:And it builds. She gets more towards the end.

43:00David Sims:But, I mean, that can make it really tricky to build an Oscar narrative, right? Oh, yeah. Because you have, like, different... And instead, like, this film did quite well by that. Yeah. Yeah. I do think, like, to bring this back around to the idea of, like, movies about movies, unlike J. Kelly, if they had ever made J. Kelly, you know, this is a movie where it is very, takes Kraft very seriously. It is also, like, look at how annoying actors can be. Like, I love the scene with Renata in the beginning having what is apparently, like, a regular burst of stage fright that she has every time. Yeah.

43:33David Sims:That involves them having to physically restrain her and like push her on stage at which point she gives a great performance. But, you know, it is it is very much like about like look at how difficult and like kind of abrasive and like sometimes like painful, like like trying to channel your truest self into your work or artistic work can be, especially when it comes to all of the ways you are worse at communicating those things in person. Yeah. Like these your loved ones.

44:00Griffin Newman:And the movie never stacks the deck against any of the characters. Everyone is, she's difficult, but also very sensitive and a good actor. And Skarsgård's character similarly is like a very difficult person. But the scenes where he is protecting Elle Fanning's character from the press and stuff are actually kind of moving. Kicks that junket guy right out of it.

44:25Joe Reid:And so you see these people. I mean, this film is really anti-press, which I don't like.

44:29David Sims:we we should be celebrated um yeah i mean i think the conversation the the conversation where he like his character and renata's character are just like riling he's like riling her up so much also where he is trying to kind of express that he's concerned about her but instead is just like coming across as like criticizing all of her life choices yes and she also just takes it all so personally immediately yeah i think it's such a great like it sums up like these years of like pain and miscommunication so perfectly in like a very small scene and i think scenes like that are one of the reasons that this film has done so well in terms of like

45:07Joe Reid:acting yeah and inga representing like i don't know maybe i'm speaking from personal experience being the sibling who has issues with parents but not the issues that the other sibling has where it's like, I know that like, my sister and my mom for years, it was like, whoa, they just cannot get along. And they're fine now, but like in those rough teenage years and I was the one, the pacifier or whatever and like kind of trying to like maintain the household harmony. And - Are you the older or younger? I'm the younger one. Yeah. Which is like -

45:39David Sims:It's a classic middle child thing, but also like it falls to the younger, I think in two siblings.

45:44Joe Reid:But what I think that Inga's character also knows and sees is like after that kind of bickering moment, you know, the other two go out and smoke cigarettes and kind of like conspiratorially smile at each other. And it's a lot like that scene in The Fablemans where the creepy uncle Judd Hirsch comes and has this weird conversation with Sammy Fableman where he's like, they don't get it. Like we are artists and it's going to be painful for the rest of your life and you're going to have to alienate your family if you want to choose this art. And I think that Skarsgård's character and Reinspawn's character understand that in each other, even if they can't get along.

46:21Joe Reid:And in another way, the other person in that family unit is on the outside, even though she gets along with everybody. Right.

46:29Griffin Newman:Well, the other thing that I thought watching it this time and this sort of goes to my like, you know, this would appeal to boomers is this idea that this screenplay finally Inga's character says to Nora is just like, just read, just read it. You know, you don't have to do the movie, but just read it because I think this is about you. And I think this is ultimately, you know, him finally apologizing to you through this script. And it's not about his mom.

46:53Joe Reid:It's about you.

46:53Griffin Newman:But he still will, throughout the movie, even when given ample opportunity, just refuses to give her an inch. Every time she calls him on the carpet for not being there for them, he has this defensive, like, everybody's piling up on dad or whatever. And it has this very thing of just like, I can only apologize to you in a way that feels like, you know, this one particular way. Do not ask me to actually say the words, I am sorry, but I will, you know, do this. And that to me felt like every Oscar voter whose kids have a problem with them and they don't want to admit anything. But like, but can't you see that through my work?

47:32Griffin Newman:Sure.

47:32David Sims:It's really romantic, right? That idea of being like.

47:35Griffin Newman:Yeah. Finally being seen through your work.

47:38David Sims:Like I, like maybe a failure in so many personal ways, but like in my art, I can like communicate something like more true than I ever could.

47:48Joe Reid:Like, does Christopher Nolan's daughter eventually see Interstellar and say, I guess this is an apology for missing all of my school plays? Supposedly, Jay Kelly is also about this. Allegedly. Or was supposed to be about this. Right, right. The trades were reporting that, but then it obviously never got made.

48:05Griffin Newman:It is amazing that they both have, like, two daughters. Like, they're so structurally, like, they're begging to be compared. And it just turned out so nine nominations for one.

48:15Joe Reid:What I think that Sentimental Value does better than a lot of those director apologizes movies, and there are a lot of them, writer apologizes, you know, whatever, is that, like you said, it gives equal weight to everybody. It understands where everyone kind of fits in this ecosystem. And I think it also has something really beautiful in the way that it is kind of almost resigned to kind of like the way that the generations tumble through time. You know, one of the sort of closing, you know, sort of turns in the plot of the movie, you know, is that like, oh, another generation's getting into this.

48:50Joe Reid:you know the grandson is going to be in the movie and this never ends and like did being in the movie harm Agnes so much no not necessarily but it did change the course of her life pretty irrevocably and it was like an

49:03David Sims:example of like this pain at the heart of her relationship with her father which is like when she was doing the thing he cared about like he had all of his attention and as soon as she was not and she was just a regular person again that the light was not on her anymore

49:17Joe Reid:and yet something in her as we all do maybe you know with a fair amount of hopefulness or foolishness is like it'll be different the next time it'll be different for him because I'm around I can make sure this doesn't happen what happens you know I'll always love him even when he's not starring in my dad's movie or whatever but you also know that there's a gamble there there's definitely risk there and I think that what the movie says about like how much you can change family trajectory and how much you kind of have to deal with what is innate and almost kind of inevitable, I think is really, really well done.

49:52Griffin Newman:I also wonder if part of it is the fact that this is ultimately not Joakim Trier telling his own story.

49:58Joe Reid:Yeah, so Trier has two kids who are relatively young, I believe. And so maybe he's sort of almost anticipating what he's going to visit upon them. Right, right, right.

50:07Griffin Newman:There's still enough of a remove, I suppose.

50:10David Sims:Yeah, I think he said he had become a father when he started writing the movie, and then learned his second childhood on the way, and the same kind of spacing as the two. women. Right. Grown women. Right.

50:20Joe Reid:I gotta say like, and look, he's not the only one doing this, but I really do respect a filmmaker sort of on the younger side of things. I mean, he's what, like late 40s, early 50s. But on the younger side, who is like, he's writing outside of immediate lived experience, which is like kind of increasingly rare. Like I feel like everything in this sort of auteur era, it's like, why is that horror movie this? Well, because my mom got sick when I was gay. And it's like, okay, okay, that's a perfectly valid thing to make a movie about, but what if you just came up with a story

50:52Griffin Newman:that had nothing to do with it? Poor Ari Aster's real mother is getting dragged through the mud with every movie.

50:57Joe Reid:The poet who lives in Westchester, who sounds terrifying, yeah. You know, there is sentiment, as the film's title would suggest, but I think there is also a really respectable and interesting amount of darkness. Like, watching it for a second time, I was like, oh, this is a haunted house movie. You know, this is a movie about people contending with a spirit or several spirits that are like filling this space and infecting their lives. And Elle Fanning is this kind of like final girl-esque person who shows up and is like, oh, this house is fucked up. Like that stool, like what she thinks was used for this terrible thing, you know?

51:30Joe Reid:And I think that it's, that maybe I have issues with the very end of the movie where there's this knowing look exchange between father and daughter and it feels a bit like on the nose. But for the most part, he really resists getting anything sort of sappy in there at all.

51:46David Sims:Yeah, I mean, I think that is what makes this movie feel less maybe like gooey than, yeah, like, you know, movies that are very, like, have this very kind of wet-eyed idea about the process of making movies or something like that. Like it is, it is very much like the family drama comes first, you know, like the kind of filmmaking is the mechanism through which the family drama continues. But also it is like, it is about like a work, right? Like workplace, like issues in a lot of ways.

52:20Griffin Newman:The fact that it ends with them on the set rather than filming in the house also feels significant.

52:26David Sims:Well, and also the house is gone, right?

52:28Joe Reid:Well, the house has been renovated. And I think that that's such a crucial little bit of footage in that the very end of that movie, it's never commented on. But it's like, oh, look at all the new modern trappings, the fancy stove and all that. This house is now changed and it's going to be someone else's and we have left the building. We have then instead safely recreated our version of the house in an environment that we can control. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

52:52Griffin Newman:And there's a crack in the foundation, which is at the very beginning. And I sort of wonder at the end, by selling the house, are they repairing that crack or are they passing it on to someone else?

53:04David Sims:I do appreciate that the remodel is like your standard, like bland, colorless. It's so much better. Yeah, like it's just like, oh, it's the regular remodel. They do this in Norway as well. I do, I will say, my favorite parts of this film are the bursts. And this is like very much like brings you back to Trier's earlier films, like the bursts of flashbacks into the house, like the past, you know, like from when the women were children and then from previous generations, like the part that just like runs through, you know, from like Gustav's childhood into like the aunt inheriting the house, like the kind of lesbian aunt when it was not acknowledged.

53:45David Sims:and then like into growing parties at the house. Yeah, like passed on and on and this kind of like the ways in which there's like enormous bursts of history that are like just I love his like his montages of those. And I there's this kind of energy to them that I wish some other parts of the film had.

54:04Joe Reid:Yeah, that's fair. I think it's great. It's fun to watch him like be like, oh, he's really going for it. He's going to do the house up in period detail and he's going to have actors in period costumes. Like even if it's only for 20 seconds of footage. Like, I think that's cool.

54:18David Sims:And it, I mean, it reminded me of a film that I actually liked more than this this year, though, it didn't go anywhere. Sound of Falling, which was like the German's mission for international film, which it didn't get nominated.

54:29Joe Reid:It was too much of a slapstick comedy. It was, yes. Hilarity all over the place.

54:32David Sims:Yeah, you know.

54:33Griffin Newman:No sound nomination for a movie about the Sound of Falling.

54:35David Sims:Yeah.

54:35Joe Reid:There's a lot of good sound in that movie.

54:36David Sims:There is. So like, this is a, it's a German film that takes place entirely on this one kind of farmhouse over four generations. So like basically covering a century and skipping between these four generations and these different four families gets into some really dark territory. Also drops you in and really does not extend a hand to give you any guidance for a long time.

54:57Joe Reid:It's alienating. Yeah. It is.

54:58David Sims:It's a tougher set, certainly, though I thought it was incredible. But that is a film that is entirely... The axis of the film is this physical space, is this building. And I feel like the parts of Centermont of Value that did that, I loved. Yeah.

55:15Joe Reid:And I think that the device of having characters listen through the little the stove.

55:19David Sims:Yes.

55:20Joe Reid:And the first time we you know, we see Nora telling her nephew about it. And she's just showing it to him. And then she puts her ear to it. And then all of a sudden, she hears her father's voice. Yeah. And she didn't know he was going to be there. And it's like and you can almost see her calculating like, is that a ghost? Like, what what's going on? Am I hallucinating?

55:37Griffin Newman:Yeah.

55:37Joe Reid:And then to have that come back where it's another a relative listening as her mother is sort of being taken away. You know, like, like, I think that Yeah, the house stuff is really interesting. And the movie, I think, does sag a little bit when it leaves the house. You know, there are great moments. But I think that the stuff with Anders Danielson Lee is a little bit more schematic. Like, oh, he's left his wife, but now he doesn't want to be with me. Like, that's a little bit.

56:00Griffin Newman:Feels a little leftover from Worst Person in the World vibes a little bit, too. Even though I love seeing Anders anytime he's in a movie.

56:07Joe Reid:Oh, yeah. He's incredible. And also a doctor. Yeah, he's also a drink doctor. Yeah. He's a doctor. You should really re-watch Oslo 31st August and Reprise because he's very handsome in them and very good in them.

56:19Griffin Newman:I was bummed it didn't get a production design nomination for as much as cool as I thought the house was.

56:25Joe Reid:It's interesting that it got that editing nomination, which the editing is interesting and good, but it's like, okay, if you're going to go that deep on this movie, then let's keep going. Cinematography and production design.

56:35David Sims:Do we know if it's a real house?

56:37Joe Reid:Can we visit? That's a great question. It is a good question. I'm assuming that at least the exterior would be real. Maybe it's a house he's walked by in Oslo and is like, I want to make a movie about that house. I don't know. Or maybe they built the whole thing. I genuinely don't know.

56:48David Sims:Yeah, I have no idea either. So at the end of this movie, when they're on the set,

56:55Joe Reid:Betria is careful to show the old cinematographer sitting to Gustav's left. Yeah. Are we to take that that means he dropped the Netflix and so he was able to hire who he wanted to hire? So we think the Netflix has been eschewed, right? Yeah. I mean it's been a return to yeah

57:13Griffin Newman:the fact that he got he got he got to make the movie he wanted to make his daughter's in the role and yeah yeah so Netflix

57:19Joe Reid:probably left with Rachel yeah

57:21Griffin Newman:isn't the presumption that he sold the house in order to finance the film

57:27Joe Reid:maybe yeah

57:28David Sims:they never say it right that would make sense though yeah

57:32Joe Reid:also do we think that she she did hang herself at the end of this movie within a movie oh like in the movie when she shuts the door yeah I don't know, though. Oh, I assume. I think they're maybe trying to, like, cure the past a little bit there. Oh. Maybe I'm wrong.

57:45David Sims:I feel like the, maybe it doesn't.

57:47Joe Reid:You don't hear the chair fall.

57:48David Sims:Yeah, but I also felt like it would make sense for her reenacting it to also then feel like it's closing the door on, like, her own depression, right? And her own kind of, like, ideation that she's, like, struggled with. So that would make sense as a kind of exorcism.

58:04Griffin Newman:Yeah, that's true. To reenact it. To my embarrassment, that fooled me. that scene where they pull out and it's just like oh they're filming a scene. I was just like dummy, of course they're filming a scene.

58:14Joe Reid:It's a very blue sky outside those windows.

58:18Griffin Newman:I'm like she was babysitting the kid. What are you talking about?

58:38Griffin Newman:But she doesn't earn.

58:39David Sims:No. The movie we all like a lot, though not our favorite of his movies. But it is in a particularly difficult race for international film this year, I would say. You know, it's going up against, it was just an accident. The first film that Jafar Panahi was able to make since a ban on filmmaking was lifted, even though he was making films that whole time, kind of in secret. The Secret Agent, which we talked about in the last episode.

59:21Joe Reid:And it's gaining tons of momentum.

59:23David Sims:Tons of momentum. And it just like feels like this just incredible, like enormous swing of a film. then you've got Surat this kind of like very jagged interesting movie that feels like it speaks to this moment of like things like the kind of like like structures that we previously saw as kind of like stable crumbling or in the background and then the voice of Hendra Job which is you know has this like kind of like enormously heartbreaking story that it is reenacting and that uses the real audio from the death of this child.

1:00:00Joe Reid:Yeah, I mean, sentimental is the only non-political one. I mean, you could make it, and there are politics in that movie, for sure, but it's, you know, the other four are...

1:00:07David Sims:They're significantly more minor scale than these others. And the movie,

1:00:13Joe Reid:its awards sort of positioning is strange. I mean, because it did, you know, it played very well at Cannes. It won the Grand Prix, I believe, which is the second prize, or third prize? Second. And And so it had like great momentum coming out of that. And everyone, and I actually wasn't even that sold, but I was there with a former colleague who's a big like Oscar predictor. And he was like, oh yeah, that's a lock for these categories. And I was like, really though? I mean, I don't know. That seems far-fetched. But he was right, it turns out. But I think it hasn't quite, despite over-performing arguably in nominations, I think it hasn't held on to that momentum or that sort of heat.

1:00:51Joe Reid:Because I think what you pointed out just now, Alison, And it's like it doesn't have that extra hook of urgency.

1:00:57David Sims:But it also really overperformed at the Oscars in terms of nominations.

1:01:02Joe Reid:Yeah.

1:01:02David Sims:I mean, it's possible that it will then go on to not win anything. But I was surprised by how many nominations it got.

1:01:09Joe Reid:There was a time when it was like, oh, Skarsgård is winning. It's for both a great performance in one movie, but also a career Oscar.

1:01:16Griffin Newman:And that got resurrected at the Globes a little bit. Now we're like, we're still now.

1:01:18Joe Reid:And then the BAFTA is where I thought that's where he would repeat if he was going to repeat in the lead up to Oscars. It didn't go his way. And I was like, oh, I guess maybe he doesn't have this sewn up. And what Kyle Buchanan, our friend and colleague, has been saying for months now is like, no, no, no, don't pay attention to what's happening before the Oscars. Sean Penn is winning that Oscar.

1:01:36Griffin Newman:The extreme degree of confidence Kyle has in that is both worth listening to and also love you, Kyle, has me rooting against that so hard because I'm just like, you're so confident. I just need it to be wrong.

1:01:48Joe Reid:Do you have any thoughts, Joe, on whether or not there would have been any wisdom in running Stellan in lead?

1:01:55Griffin Newman:I mean, it would have been more honest, I think. And I sort of felt the same way about Paul Meskel, who ended up not getting nominated even for supporting. So oftentimes this is the, it's a, you know, it's a strategic calculus, right? You're keeping them out of best actor in part because best actor tends to be filled with often bigger stars. And certainly Stellan Skarsgård has been, you know, a character actor throughout his career and whatever. but it's also performances where you know michael b jordan is playing twins the two twin leads of the movie timothy chalamet is playing marty mauser in marty supreme he's the sole focus of that movie dicaprio is a little bit more has to sort of like share the spotlight a little bit more but like wagner mora ethan hawk like it's as much about um it's as much about being the focus of your movie i think every time this is studios seem to think they can get away with it when it's like yeah but the movie's not really just about them it's about you know it's it's it's jesse buckley's story it's renata reint's story they're the leads um there's this you know this fallacy that drives me crazy when people are just like you know um but there's only one lead of the movie it's like no there are movies with two leads they're often there are movies with four leads there are movies with zero leads sometimes you know what i mean um but j kelly because they never made they never made it.

1:03:20Griffin Newman:Sometimes New York is the one of the ladies. That's your main character.

1:03:24Joe Reid:And you know what, like Donald Sutherland, New York has never been nominated.

1:03:28Griffin Newman:Nor has Tiffany New York Pollard, unless addressed that.

1:03:31Joe Reid:Not yet.

1:03:33Griffin Newman:But I think that's sort of what you're getting in the case with. If you put Stellan in lead, it's very, it would have been very, very difficult, I think, for him to be as impressive, you know, and to stand out to voters for, you know, for as much as I think it's a really great performance, I think if you're looking at it strategically, then you're thinking, well, in a supporting category, then you're putting him up against other people who are sharing their movie spotlight a little bit more.

1:04:02Joe Reid:And it would have meant no Ethan Hawke, presumably. Right.

1:04:05Griffin Newman:Which I'm so glad that that happened.

1:04:06Joe Reid:That's a nice nomination. Although, I don't know. I kind of think this is a bit of a digression. But I kind of, I was thinking about it the other day. I was like, maybe it was Baffler related. I think that DiCaprio might be in fifth position. I think he might be the weakest.

1:04:20Griffin Newman:He's definitely, a lot of people are still framing this as like Timmy versus Leo. I don't see it that way at all. It hasn't been that way, if ever. It hasn't been that way for a long time. I feel like he was never the favorite.

1:04:27David Sims:Yeah. And yeah, now it feels to me much more like Timmy, Wagner,

1:04:33Griffin Newman:Timmy and Wagner. Jordan, yeah. Probably Ethan, and then, yeah, I would say Leo's, because that's the other thing, it's like, they're given so many other things to one battle after another. They're not going to go out of their way to give Leo a second Oscar when there are other more attractive narratives or performances.

1:04:52David Sims:And also, like, that role is kind of deliberately this, like, diminished, non-heroic, you know, like, that's the point of that role, is that, like, he's this kind of fool, you know, running around trying to help and not actually accomplish it.

1:05:06Griffin Newman:Designed to be more appealing to critics' types, like us, who look at that and be like, look at what he's doing playing a non-dynamic character and stuff like that. It's like awards voters just don't operate along those lines. Yeah. Do you think having Elle in this movie helps everyone else? If you're making a foreign film, it's probably easier to get attention if you have a big American star in it.

1:05:29Joe Reid:Yeah, I think it for sure helps. I mean, it's definitely, I mean, Trier is a lock to direct the next Predator movie with Elle. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was just exciting.

1:05:37David Sims:Everyone loves that Predator movie. It's really good. It is good.

1:05:40Joe Reid:It is a queer YA about a young gay alien finding the story.

1:05:46Griffin Newman:And look who else plays twins in that movie, Al Fanning.

1:05:50Joe Reid:You know who loved when I said that in my THR review is all the men on Twitter. I was going to say, Badger. They really enjoyed that take on their beloved predator. But no, I think that at something like Cannes, after Worst Person in the World, Trier had no problem getting attention there. But having Al Fanning and still in Skarsgård in it, like, bumps it up that one extra level where it's not just winning awards at Cannes, but then it has like a hope of a life past, you know, that festival. Well,

1:06:19Griffin Newman:and one thing I wanted to mention about the international feature race too, is it's so interesting in part because the, the Academy has become more international and thus the best picture race overlaps so much now with international feature where like, you know, multiple international movies are now nominated for best picture. And so those movies, their buzz in their story sort of evolves over the course of the the season in a lot more interesting ways whereas like you remember like the sag nominations happened and none of the international movies got anything from there and the and with the with the dj and pga too i feel like right like it was a thing like what's the problem well they're not in our union so i mean some of them probably are right but i think and so that then plays into a best picture nominee like Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent in ways that wouldn't happen in the past when you didn't have any international movies.

1:07:17Griffin Newman:And so the narrative with Sentimental Value and It Was Just an Accident is also really interesting because Sentimental Value, it seemed like the favorite going into Cannes or one of the favorites to take the palm. And I feel like It Was Just an Accident kind of leapfrogged it there. And they were sort of seen to be jostling with each other for a little bit.

1:07:38Joe Reid:There are some thoughts about, I mean, I think this is unfair. It was just an accident because that's a brilliant movie. But like there were some thoughts on the ground at Cannes at the closing night party where when we weren't staring at Oliver Lachey, the director of CERAC.

1:07:53Griffin Newman:Staring up and craning your neck.

1:07:54Joe Reid:Binoche, Julia Binoche was the president of the jury last year. And she had worked with Kirastami who was a close colleague of Panahi's. Yeah. And she knew Panahi for a long time, was really close with him or to some extent that they were like, oh, if his movie was even halfway decent, there was no chance that anything else would win. I think that's probably unfair because the movie is really good and like, but I think it was also the vibe at Cannes this year and maybe it was Binoche kind of leading that charge was like, we're not giving top prize to something that does not respond to the political times that we're here.

1:08:28Joe Reid:And sentimental value does not do that, which is fine. A movie doesn't have to do that. Neither does Hamnet, whatever. But like, but yeah, that was kind of the...

1:08:36David Sims:I mean, I, when Worst Person in the World was out, I definitely remember times on Twitter where I got the feeling from like, you know, when, yeah, you know, when you discover that someone halfway across the world has followed your career long enough to hate you really passionately. And in like very specific ways, but like had like, like responded to something, but like describing Worst Person in the World and like Trier's films in general as like white person problems. And I'm like, sure, certainly on a global sense, they absolutely are about white person problems. I mean, I was thinking about that with the Dreams trilogy, you know, also from the Oslo.

1:09:10David Sims:Which are lovely. Lovely films that are also set in Oslo. We were like, oh, these films are able, these characters are able to embark on these like very delicate explorations about their identities and sexuality and their gender and about like what they're looking for in terms of romance. In part because they seem to have like a really solid, you know, stable platform.

1:09:31Joe Reid:Beautiful stained wood floors underneath them. health care blah blah blah all this other stuff one of them is like

1:09:38David Sims:a chimney sweep and seems to have this incredible middle class life off of yeah

1:09:43Joe Reid:maybe that's the subtle politics of these movies they're like see how it could

1:09:46David Sims:yeah yeah like look you'll have all of this time to like then you know have a broke like a class with your daughter at revenge by casting an American star

1:09:55Joe Reid:in the role she turned down or wistfully ride the ferry and flirt with a man exactly which is one of the other ones

1:10:00David Sims:but I do wonder if that is something I mean like this is yeah a film that broke out into the larger like kind of like nominations pool but like uh i do feel like in a year where it feels like there is a lot of urgency uh even if the berlin film festival and no one wanted to you know talk politics uh including you know yeah like that that there is a lot of pressure to be like yeah something that that that or to uh award something that feels like it has some sense of urgency.

1:10:33Joe Reid:Especially because, like, last year, you can certainly, there are definitely politics in Enora, for sure. But, like, that also is a really fun time. You know, it's lighter than some other things. You know, maybe they were just like, okay, now this year, though, with everything, like, we need to go this direction instead. Which is kind of why I was holding on to the Skarsgård thing as being like, well, but that sort of can exist outside of that concern. And he can just win for a great career. And he was so good on Andor recently. And he's great in this movie. And people like him. And he's basically sired the next generation of actors.

1:11:12David Sims:Right, right.

1:11:13Joe Reid:So he's contributing to the economy in that way. But I don't know. I just don't feel it right now. The Globe thing felt very like Globe's gonna Globe. And the BAFTA thing, I was like, that's where I really thought he was gonna get it there.

1:11:29David Sims:but yeah all of the acting categories feel very unsettled now three of the four i think yeah

1:11:35Griffin Newman:yeah jesse buckley is still pretty but even that one she's been so locked in that one that it feels like well we just like haven't talked about best actress kind of at all right if something crazy happened i mean we wouldn't know because like nobody's talking about it yeah um but yeah supporting actress supporting actor and best actor all feel excitingly my worry is that like the SAG, sorry, the actor awards are going to happen, genuflect when you say. But, and then like, my worry is that like, well then, whoever wins those is just going to win the Oscars and it's going to seem in retrospect a lot more boring.

1:12:08Griffin Newman:And I hope that's not the case. I hope, my, you know, my hope is that like, well, you know, different people who's won everything else can win at, you know, at actor awards. And then all of a sudden it's just like, well, we're going in there and like, nobody has a precursor advantage And that's kind of the dream for an awards nerd like me. I'm like, yes.

1:12:28Joe Reid:We were talking about this with our EP, Griffin Newman. And he was saying, oh, it reminds me of the year that when Tilda Swinton ultimately won for Michael Clayton. Yeah. Everyone else had won in a different award show. Right. There's also the Marsha Gay Harden year to consider there.

1:12:44Griffin Newman:Yep.

1:12:45Joe Reid:And that's exciting. It's a thrill, in fact, as Marsha said. I do think that like Inga and Elle probably will split that vote a little bit. I don't think they're at the front of the pack. I agree with that.

1:12:57Griffin Newman:But like Winmi Misako winning the BAFTA is really interesting to me. And Tiana Taylor still, I would probably place her at the head of that pack. But I think those two and Amy Madigan are pulling votes and we'll see how it shakes out. Are these ranked choice?

1:13:14Joe Reid:Not for acting.

1:13:15Griffin Newman:Not for acting, just for Best Picture. So it's first past the post for acting. Yeah.

1:13:19Joe Reid:Yeah. And they never will show us the numbers, even though that's the great wish of all people.

1:13:24Griffin Newman:I keep sending them envelopes full of money.

1:13:25Joe Reid:It's like, how close was Blank?

1:13:26Griffin Newman:They're like, you're not wealthy enough to sway us.

1:13:29Joe Reid:Well, someday we'll do a heist of the Academy Museum and steal all that data.

1:13:32David Sims:Yeah, and be like, we don't want to know who's going to win the next Oscars. Just give us the data.

1:13:37Joe Reid:We'll be really mean and call up Glenn and Annette Bening and be like, look, do you want to know how close you were?

1:13:43Griffin Newman:My proposal is that...

1:13:44Joe Reid:Because I have good news and bad news.

1:13:45Griffin Newman:Yes. My proposal is that we treat it like the Warren Commission reports and just like after a certain number of years, like this year gets declassified. So like we won't be able to find out anything that we remember from our lifetimes. But like the 1964 Oscars, now we can.

1:13:59Joe Reid:How close was Marsha Mason when she was. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Those burning questions. All of those Peter O'Toole losses. And then when we're very old, they'll finally like slip like, oh, Lang almost lost for Blue Sky. Right.

1:14:12Griffin Newman:It's the Tontine from The Simpsons. It's like the last remaining 1968 Best Actress nominee has finally died. We can reveal these totals. So they have that data. Oh, yeah. Somewhere. In a vault somewhere. Either at Price Waterhouse or in some academy office somewhere.

1:14:27Joe Reid:Unless there was some sort of suspicious fire before it was all digitized. The Watergate of the...

1:14:32Griffin Newman:Now I'm going to write that movie. Damn it. All right. There we go.

1:14:34David Sims:You know, we've talked about... Last time we talked about the increasing kind of like international focus of the Oscars. But how much do you think, like, I mean, the actors who got breakouts in international films and then have come and worked in English language films, like, we're seeing that a lot more, too. I mean, like, Wagner Mora, we talked about. Lee Bung-hun in No Other Choice did not end up getting nominated. But, like, I feel like his visibility in a flash of, like, mostly unfortunate Hollywood roles. you know like he was like a known commodity even for people who did not actually pay a lot of attention to South Korean cinema and then like Renata now Renata Reinsva has like started to make some of American films

1:15:18Joe Reid:she has not like dove full force into some like she's doing like interesting kind of smaller things

1:15:24David Sims:yeah but like things that people have seen right like people have liked A Different Man for instance I thought she was so good in that

1:15:31Joe Reid:yeah and she's got some

1:15:33David Sims:she's going to be in Back Rooms the A24 movie being directed by a teenager. 20. He's 20. Sorry, now he's 20. Why are they doing that? I don't know.

1:15:41Joe Reid:I mean, maybe this kid's brilliant, but like, I don't know. Anyway, whatever. Yes, just going to be an ad. That'll get more attention. He's going to have some Family Guy, like, GIFs, just like, cutting.

1:15:53David Sims:That would be really good, like, the jump scare at the end.

1:15:56Joe Reid:The top of the screen's going to be like someone doing a playthrough of a video game. The bottom screen's going to be like, yeah, Family Guy, like they do on TikTok.

1:16:02David Sims:And then Renata is just going to be acting over in the other corner. Yeah.

1:16:06Joe Reid:And then she's going to, yeah, keep saying, let's go!

1:16:10Griffin Newman:Horrifying. She's in one of my most anticipated movies coming up, which is Fjord. She's going to be, she plays the Fjord in Fjord. No. Her and Sebastian Stan in the new Christian Munju movie. Oh, right. The English language.

1:16:20Joe Reid:That's assumed to be at Cannes. Yes. Which would be interesting. I think it's English language.

1:16:25Griffin Newman:I could be wrong about that, but it's certainly Christian Munju working with Hollywood folk for the first time.

1:16:30Joe Reid:You know, my hunch would be that, you know, Ryan's vote, who, by the way, watching the movie again. What a face. As someone who has rosacea and my face often looks very flushed, I appreciate that that is also true of Renata. I don't want to make any comments about her appearance. I mean, she's gorgeous. But I was watching the movie again and I was like, yeah, same girl. Yeah, yeah. I look very red-faced a lot of the time, yeah. Just that sort of placid but thoughtful. There's something so just fascinating to watch about her. I think that she will have a nice career, be it in your art house, maybe an occasional sort of dip into something Hollywood adjacent.

1:17:07Joe Reid:Inga, Ives' daughter Lilius, like I hope the same for her. My hunch is that she'll probably do more Norwegian TV, theater, all that stuff. Like everyone will be like benefited by this. But unfortunately the sort of global film economy seems to, that is governed by the U.S. sort of interest will like, in some senses, will probably be like, we're going to pick one or one of you every couple of years. We're not going to let you all in. Come on, like that's too much. But yeah, and I think that Renata is that one.

1:17:35Griffin Newman:Renata Reinsfah in a Mia Hansen love movie. What would you do to make that happen?

1:17:39Joe Reid:I mean, I would fund it. That's what I would do. I would rob the Academy Museum. Sell that data. Yeah, that'd be great. She'd be perfect.

1:17:48Griffin Newman:Before we go, I thought it would be funny to check in on the Vulture.com Instagram account, which... Oh, wait, no. Why are we doing that? This is too funny. Well, first, for people who aren't, who haven't been following us from the beginning, our friends at Vulture. They are clipping video of the show and putting it on their Instagram and other social accounts. And for last week, they clipped us talking about Wagner Mora's wonderful performance in The Secret Agent. And what do you know? You're looking through the comments there. And it's almost entirely in Portuguese. I was going to say, Brazilian flag, Brazilian flag, Brazilian flag.

1:18:25David Sims:Brazil film internet represents.

1:18:27Joe Reid:This is becoming like the new sort of like put the number, like put a listicle in your headline and or whatever and you're gonna get traffic it's like

1:18:33Griffin Newman:just the last two years um you know you on oscar nomination morning you sign on you pull up the youtube and then they have the chat there and the last two years i signed on and i click it and it literally is just like a rapidly unfolding list of what is this the azores it's just it's that over

1:18:50Joe Reid:and over and over again but now the crucial i mean it's it's it's they're very active the crucial question has been are the comments have like are they favorable oh yes there's a lot of okay a lot of pro-Wagner, um, the actor, not the composer.

1:19:07Griffin Newman:Although there might be

1:19:08Joe Reid:some of those, it is, it is comments.

1:19:10Griffin Newman:Um, where are we going next week?

1:19:12Joe Reid:Oh, yeah, so we, uh, are leaving Norway and flying back to America, but also back into the past of Sinners.

1:19:21David Sims:Yeah.

1:19:22Joe Reid:Which I think you can probably find, they might, it might be on movie. I don't know, it's a pretty small movie, but let's try, seek it out. If you get a black, you know, like a black copy of it.

1:19:32Griffin Newman:So long as you're doing video for Instagram, you're going to break out your Irish jig, I think, at some point, right?

1:19:39Joe Reid:I mean, it was inevitable at some point. Okay, looking forward to it. Yeah, so everyone, if you haven't yet, watch Sinners or re-watch it, which I'm excited to do. Yeah, me too. I haven't seen it since the spring of last year. And we'll see you back here. And Joe, thank you for being here. Thank you. How many more nominated films do you have to watch?

1:19:57Griffin Newman:I have three short films still to watch. That's it? That's it, yes. Oh, wow. Kuhuho was my last feature that I watched yesterday. So yeah, I'm just not moving for short.

1:20:04Joe Reid:Can you give us any kind of tease about what might be toward the bottom or toward the top?

1:20:08Griffin Newman:I watched a movie about dinosaurs the other day that I didn't really care for. So that could be near the bottom. I will say the Best Picture nominees this year...

1:20:19Joe Reid:That's a really, really mean description of the Diane Warren documentary.

1:20:24Griffin Newman:The Diane Warren documentary is going to be higher than a lot of people want it to be. And by that, I mean it's not in the... It's not in the bottom five.

1:20:30Joe Reid:Okay.

1:20:32Griffin Newman:Yeah, I think the Best Picture nominees are all generally towards the upper half of the list. It's a good year.

1:20:38Joe Reid:Yeah. Well, people should look out for that on Vulture.com. And also, while we're plugging, Joe, what's coming up on this at Oscar Buzz?

1:20:46Griffin Newman:This at Oscar Buzz, we just had an episode go up on Robert Altman's The Company, the ballet movie. He followed up Gosford Park with him and Nev Campbell.

1:20:55Joe Reid:Made what, 400 million worldwide? Oh, yeah.

1:20:57Griffin Newman:It was a huge blockbuster. and then coming up soon we did an episode on the Don Roos movie Happy Endings

1:21:04Joe Reid:Maggie Gyllenhaal got an Independent Spirit nomination well because she sings songs beautifully, Billy Joel songs

1:21:10Griffin Newman:one of my things we talked about there was like why did she never just like record a cover of Billy Joel songs an album of Billy Joel covers

1:21:16Joe Reid:I had a non-ipod, non-Zune I had some other secret third MP3 player that could fit about 40 songs and two of them were Gyllenhaal singing Billy Joel from that movie.

1:21:28Griffin Newman:She's got a great voice.

1:21:30Joe Reid:Okay, well, I'll be here to listen to that. While we're plugging, also, people, please subscribe to PremiereParty.com, my newsletter, doing fun things there, including, coming up, my recap of the Oscars from 20 years ago, which will include probably hundreds of gifts, which I have to make. I always look forward to that. All right, we'll see you next week.

1:21:50Griffin Newman:Critical Darlings is a Blank Check production in association with Vulture. Hosted by Alison Wilmore and Richard Lawson

1:21:57David Sims:Produced by Benjamin Frisch Executive produced by Griffin Newman and Neil Janowitz

1:22:03Joe Reid:Video production and distribution by Anne Victoria Clark Wolfgang Ruth and Jennifer Jeanne