The Top Five Performances of 2024. Plus: The Amy Adams Hall of Fame and ‘Nightbitch.’

25:00This is some like very different from anything he's ever done. I couldn't think of anything. I couldn't like studying like you, I think you'd have to see him do Shakespeare on stage, which he's done many times to maybe find something similar to this. Also on panel shows, like he'll go on Graham Norton and just like rip through monologues just to show that he can. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. but just that like really that combination of that Shakespearean kind of Stentorian affectation that he has in the film but also this like uh uh wiliness and yeah yeah and sort of like the obviously the sort of sexual fluidity that is sort of right underneath the surface of the movie too like he there's I couldn't think of anything that he had done you have to put a bunch of things in the blender like you have to put some training day in the blender with like some glory actually with some Right.

25:49And like the mighty Quinn. Yeah, yeah. Some of the goofier stuff he did early in his career. I feel like we don't see actors this late in their career do that sort of synthesis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like once you get to a certain point, it's like I'm playing the hits but I'm playing this hit and then that hit and then that hit. And he did, I mean, he's done plenty of that. He does that a lot. For sure. But to be able to pull things together and create something new out of all the elements that make a Denzel performance, that's art to me. I just thought he was incredible in this movie. It's so fun.

26:14I mean, it completely saves the movie. Yeah. he's phenomenal great pick my number two is a real discovery for me an actor that I don't remember ever seeing before I didn't watch Servant and she is one of the stars of the television series Servant she was on Game of Thrones was she in Game of Thrones? you'll have to tell me who she was I'm talking about Nell Tigerfree who is the star of the first omen who was she in Game of Thrones? she was the original Princess Marcella before they replaced her you're gonna have to tell me who that is who is Princess Marcella? I think she's the original unless she's the replacement don't fire me Mallory but she's one of the Princesses, Marcella.

26:48She's like... What land did she live in? She's Cersei's daughter. One of the Lannister blondes. The royal children. And she gets poisoned and dies gruesomely. You're referring to something that I experienced several lifetimes ago. It's insane how far I have to reach back to find that poisoning. Wow. That was Nell Tiger Free? Yeah. At least one of them. Shout out to one of the lives she led. One of the princesses, Marcella. In this film, she plays a nun. A nun who has been selected for a very important job by some powerful forces. And, you know, a lot of it is a... This movie is a testimony to a director with an incredibly strong vision.

27:29A vision I've not seen before specifically, especially in a horror movie quite like this. And an actor being on the exact same page and willing to go the lengths that the film needs to sell it. This film, actually very similar to Heretic to Me, where the first two-thirds, I'm like, is this my favorite movie of the year? Is this my favorite movie of the decade? I was so taken with what Arkasha Stevenson was up to in this movie, which is ostensibly a prequel to a 70s horror classic. And honestly, a horror classic that I don't really care about that much. I'm not a big omen person. It doesn't really mean a whole lot to me, so I wasn't entering it with really any expectations.

28:01It's not in your toddler canon that we're going to talk about later? Well, perhaps. You know, Damien is not quite a toddler. He's more of a seven-year-old, so he's kind of exited that era, but we'll get there. but Nell Tiger Free is just jaw-droppingly mesmerizing in this movie as a nun who is slowly becoming possessed I guess for lack of a better word by the church and by a higher calling so I really really really like this movie I'm very excited to see what Stevenson does next and to see what Nell Tiger Free does next and I'll have to you know my wife is a big Game of Thrones fan so I'm gonna have to be like we should watch this again because Princess Myrcella is in it before she was no no no the first one the first and or second one one of them Okay, let's do number ones.

28:43Rob? This was pretty easy for me, to be honest with you. My favorite performance in one of my favorite movies of the year, Josh O 'Connor in Challengers. Has an actor ever done so much with a smirk and or a thigh? And or a sweat. Whichever one you prefer, like whatever your mode is, he's delivering in this movie. Just like a perfect cad, a perfect shitheel, a perfect like dirtbag guy you kind of know. You have known someone like this, if not half this charming and half this. It really is like an undeniable performance. It's completely irrepressible. No matter what room, no matter how far you try to put him from Zendaya, it doesn't matter.

29:19Like, it just, it clicks. I think loving Josh O 'Connor in God's Own Country and then in The Crown and then seeing him do this very different mode cements for me that he can do anything. So versatile. I know. This is an amazing performance. The scene in the alleyway in which he confronts her is like one of my favorite scenes of the year. The gall of him asking her to be his coach. It's an amazing writing. I could watch that movie over and over and over again. I tried to watch it on a flight and they cut out. It's not like, honestly, I mean, mild spoilers for Challengers, I guess, if you haven't seen it.

29:53It's not like overt sexuality in Challengers. It's like suggestion and buildup. On this flight, for example, the famous threesome scene that's in the trailer, Zendaya sits down on the bed and then immediately stands up and leaves. Really? What? I don't know. I'm like, what did you need to cut? Were you flying like Russia or something? Where were you going? I don't even want to get into it. Okay. All right. That's very unfortunate. Perhaps we should present our number ones together. What do you think? I think that sounds right. So what did you choose? Coleman Domingo, the lead of Sing Sing. I chose Clarence Macklin, who is technically the supporting character, though I would say the co-lead of Sing Sing.

30:26Yeah. I guess we talked about it a little bit on an Oscar episode, but not too much, this movie. Which is a wonderful movie. I loved this movie. Yeah, you're in the hive. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's in my top five of the year. Is it? Yeah, absolutely. Well, then talk about Coleman. So Sing Sing, you'll talk about Clarence in terms of the fact that in Sing Sing, they used a lot of non-professional actors. So Coleman Domingo is surrounded by a lot of non-professional actors. So he is holding down the center of this movie. As a man who is in prison, as a man who is sort of the leader of a community and then has a crisis of faith and become, You watch him inside of a prison film where you're so used to watching people break.

31:11This is one of the hardest breaks I've ever had to watch. There's also a lot of business done with a small glimpse of the outside, a small window to the outside. That is something that he reflects on at a number of different stages in this movie that I think about over and over and over again. Colman Domingo is, I think, one of our great actors currently working. and I think it's amazing that he did this project given like the way that his star has been rising. You know, he could do anything and he did this and I think he's just stunning in it. I loved him. I agree. The movie doesn't work without him, but it also doesn't work without Macklin and the other actors, many of whom were actually incarcerated and participated in the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program.

31:57Macklin's story is really centered because Coleman Domingo's character essentially conscript Macklin's character Divine Eye to participate in RTA and to become a performer and to find a new pathway through his life by doing this work. You know, Macklin is not a professional actor, but he's a fucking good actor. He's great. And the two of them and the sort of the mannered stiffness of Domingo and the sort of actorliness of Domingo up against what feels like, it's kind of stupid to use words like authentic, but there is a kind of realness, like a texture to the sense of his own life and his own personality, which evolves and they become like this double helix in the movie where they sort of like are swapping places and swapping feelings about the world and swapping futures.

32:43That is like such a great piece of storytelling. And the sequences between them at the end of the movie are so powerful. It's a very, very, very good movie. It is a like Sundance weepy and, you know, like inspiring in some ways and a story about the resilience of the human spirit, but like in the best way possible. I was ready. I was braced for this to be incredibly like saccharine or clapping itself on the back for having made itself for any of that. And I just found it incredibly authentic and genuine, like earnest, but not too earnest. Agreed. You want to do some supporting? I loved making my honorable mentions here.

33:21Yeah. What do you got? Stanley Tucci and Conclave. Yeah. I loved both of the leads in Hitman Glenn Powell and Audrey Arjona Josh Hutcherson and The Beekeeper incredible pull love this really good one just the worst possible son you could have it's literally Hunter Biden and Don Jr. together legit you've brought up The Beekeeper a number of times this is like a big movie for you this year it's a fun movie Amanda just put it on her best movies of the year list I love it rightly so love it it was very very fun Willem Dafoe Nosferatu who honestly we didn't talk about enough on the forthcoming Nosferatu pod he kind of is just doing Willem Dafoe at this point in these movies where he's like there is a beast!

33:59But that's exactly what I want all the time. on Saturday Night as well. That's pretty true. He's kind of the Nosferatu of Saturday Night but yeah. Hunter Schaefer in Cuckoo who I was really impressed by. Like a more restrained kind of scream queen-y like anxious performance that I really liked. Dennis Quaid in The Substance who is eating shrimp like nobody's fucking discussing. Absolutely gross. Kirsten Dunst in Civil War and the Megalon in Megalopolis. Tell me it's not important. Did you tell me it didn't change your life? Did either of you guys like Megalopolis? What is it like? What is it like?

34:31Tell me. I had a great time watching it. Did you? I would recommend that people see it, and I will never be watching it again. That's how I feel. It was quite the experience. I'm glad we saw it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Got it. What are your also-rands, your honorable mentions? I've got Boyd Holbrook and A Complete Unknown as Johnny Cash. so technically this movie will not be out yet when we're doing when this episode is coming out but I texted Chris after I saw the movie Chris the largest holder shareholder of Boyd Holbrook's stock no that's you no we share okay you share oh okay and I just said huge winners of a complete unknown colon Boyd Holbrook and then I stopped sending messages but that's not actually how I feel but for his purposes he was like I saw this movie I saw this movie it was me and then it was Mallory Rubin and then it was Chris Ryan and then his lovely wife Phoebe.

35:26And every time Boyd Holbrook came on screen, Mallory elbowed both of us with extreme enthusiasm. He's great. And especially since we, Joaquin Phoenix so famously played Johnny Cash for James Mangold. It's like a lot to have to live up to. I thought he was wonderful. It's a very different Cash. Yeah. Yeah. Carole Kane in Between Two Temples, which is getting Oscar buzz now. New York Film Critics Circle supporting actress winner. It's starting and I feel like it could go. That would be cool. I love this movie. Yeah, I talked to the filmmaker and Jason Schwartzman on the pod. Yeah. To be more in the substance, again, sometimes you just have to state the obvious.

36:07Fred Heckinger in Heckinger, I always mispronounce his name, in both Gladiator 2 and Thelma. I love this kid. I love him. He's also a scamp. I watched him in a Q &A after Gladiator 2 with, it was Connie Nielsen and Paul Meskel being very restrained and professional. Denzel Washington trying to say as few words as possible and Fred Heckinger just being like, this was fucking crazy, dude. I was out there with Ridley Scott and Denzel Washington. We were hanging out. I got a monkey on my shoulder. He was great. I really liked him in Thelma too. Nick Holt in Nosferatu despite Sean's feelings about that.

36:45What do you mean? I don't know. I like him. He's good. He's a cock. He's the early cock. He is what he is. Yeah. That's okay. we all have roles to play in life we do Gabriel Labelle in Saturday Night Saturday Night not a film that I loved but I really loved his performance as Lorne Michaels at the center of it Ali 'i Cravalho from Mean Girls famously Moana but Renee Rapp is really the person who like walked out of Mean Girls but Ali 'i was fantastic she's great in that film and her song I thought was like the best part of that film did you see Moana too? I have not seen Moana too did it change your life?

37:22I mean, it will. Once hits Disney +, it'll be changing your life, I'm sure. It will change the way I spend my time. Yeah, the soundtrack's going super hard in the house. Okay. So Alice was on board. So Ali 'i is the star of the show in your house. You're in her voice a lot. Got it. Dev Patel, Monkey Man. That's our guy. Dev Patel... I like that he tried. I don't think it's a good movie. Yeah. I think that his performance is good in it. He is good. And I like that he nearly broke his whole entire body trying to make that movie. You know what he's giving me is Warren Beatty right now. where he's like, I can do it myself.

37:53Yeah. And I'm not sure if that is how it will continue to go. But, you know, classically handsome guy. Has accomplished a lot at a young age. It's often around good projects. And then at a certain point early in his career, he's like, let me take control. We'll see how it works out. Monkey Man. Not great. Wasn't quite what I wanted it to be. Yeah. A lot of promise. And then it was sort of whelming. And then Aaron Taylor Johnson. I came a hair from putting it on my too oh good pick in Fall Guy oh I like that this was such a good part what's funny is we're gonna talk about Amy Adams I literally watched I was literally watching Nocturnal Animals this morning that's a vibe and it was a bad idea but but in watching it I was reminded because he's kind of doing McConaughey in that too I was reminded of how good he is in his McConaughey impression in Fall Guy he was wonderful in that movie we were admiring his arch hamminess on the Nosferatu conversation.

38:51He's his mutton chops. I mean, the mutton chops are great. Do you feel like they used him the way they should have in Nosferatu? I mean, I feel like he's selectively deployed. He's really the ultimate wife guy in that movie. I guess. I just like Aaron Taylor-Johnson can do so much in a way that, again, to repeat with Lupita, someone that handsome should not be able to do. Someone with that many abs should not also have that many roles. You know what was a big revelation to me about him in Nosferatu is that he's a short guy. Yeah. Well, Nick Holt is also... Is he quite tall? Extremely tall. Okay, so maybe that's what it was.

39:23Maybe he's just average height. But Nick Holt is towering over him and there are a lot of shots of them in the frame where we've got an entire Holt head over Aaron Taylor Johnson. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like him quite a bit and I found Bullet Train almost unwatchable, but I loved him in it. He's so good. He's so good in that movie. Yeah. So, okay, those are good picks. I'll give you some supporting picks that I enjoyed as well. I think my idea here was only supporting characters. maybe with one exception. Sergio Castellito in Conclave, who is the Italian cardinal who vapes. He's great. That's my guy.

39:55I love that guy. That's when I remake Conclave in 20 years, CR will be playing that role. Jesse Plemons in Civil War, one of the most electrifying movie scenes of the year. Further confirmation, he can do anything and be quite scary. Landry being scary is just so fascinating that this is where we are in our culture. We were just talking about him in Breaking Bad. Yeah, perfect psycho in that show. That's right, of course, Todd was terrifying, but in a different way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The glasses game isn't as strong. No, no, no. I should have worn those red ones for this conversation. Dan Stevens times three.

40:25Let's fucking go. Dan Stevens, Godzilla, X-Kong, the new empire. He's playing, I think, an Australian monster dentist. I believe that's what his role is. You would have to tell me, because despite my love for Dan Stevens, I did not see Godzilla, X-Kong. This is a bridge you couldn't follow. No, I couldn't go there. Ridiculous film. He is introduced in the movie, swinging on a giant crane removing a tooth from King Kong's mouth. Yep. So super cool there. Did you see Godzilla? I did not. I've only seen the original or I guess the prequel. He's having a ball. He's having an absolute ball. He's also having a ball on Abigail where he's basically like in a Michael Mann movie that happens to have vampires in it.

41:05Yeah. Did you see Abigail? There's a perfect world where it is the Michael Mann movie and we think it's the Michael Mann movie and we show up and it's the vampire movie. That would have been so amazing. we didn't get that I enjoyed him and Cuckoo you mentioned Hunter Schaefer he's also having so much fun as an evil German doctor in Cuckoo like an absolute riot this is what Dan Stevens should be doing at all times and it often makes the choice to do that and then sometimes makes the beauty and the beast but he should be doing this he's mostly a nasty little freak and I respect it we stan our nasty little freaks nasty little freaks is correct for Dan Stevens Cuck is incorrect for Nicholas Holmes well we'll see the casting directors of America think differently speaking of nasty little freaks I also have Jeremy Strong from The Apprentice a movie that I'm kind of mixed on even though the two performances in the middle of it I think are awesome Jeremy Strong in particular as Roy Cohn one of the singular freaks of the 20th century certainly Vicky Crapes in The Dead Don't Hurt which is a movie that I like quite a bit that was a little bit underplayed she's technically the star but she doesn't quite get the same billing that her co-star gets I just wanted to give that movie a shout out I have another Aubrey Plaza movie that I want to give some love to.

42:15Megalopolis, Wow Platinum. She's amazing. Movie's kind of a car crash, but she's so fun. You simply have to say Wow Platinum as much as humanly possible. And then my last one is another both physical and vocal performance that we never see this actor's face. It's Kevin Durant who's also in Abigail in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. He plays Proximus Caesar who is the big bad of this movie. Another movie that I was very mixed on. I had high hopes for and didn't love, but I love what he did. and as we know as anti-circus fans if you can elevate the mocap performance style it's something to give a shout to that's a lot of performances I'm sure we left some stuff out I don't know I don't really care at this point no I think we got it I think we did it all I don't think there's anyone yelling at this podcast right now about anything we missed the big picture no people would never yell at that let's talk about Night Bitch so I you know this episode's coming out a couple weeks after the movie is released I don't think this movie's gonna burn up the box office nope what makes you think that well two reasons one it's about a middle aged woman yeah two it's being presented as a kind of genre movie and it is ultimately not really that it is a bit of a bait and switch wrong footing and I think it has been that for a long period of time when we first heard about the movie I hadn't read the Rachel Yoder novel but my I thought it was going to be like a universal classics monster movie with a mom yeah and that's not at all what this movie is it stars Amy Adams and Scoot McNary and it's a movie essentially about a woman coping and managing her life in the face of living almost entirely with a two-year-old and it's complicated because as I said I really love Amy Adams and I'm in the exact same phase of my life that this character is in obviously I'm not a woman my wife did watch this movie and I can share her thoughts about it as we go through it I want to hear them but I'll start with you Joanna What did you think of Night Bitch?

44:12I think I'm a lot higher on it than you guys are, and that is okay. I love Marielle Heller in general as a filmmaker. I don't think she's—her Mr. Rogers movie was okay, but everything else she's made has been, I think, a masterpiece. I don't have kids. You have kids. I'm glad you're here to represent the parents on this podcast. But some of the people that I feel closest to in my life, I have watched them go through motherhood is a weird way to put it. But like especially early motherhood and the alienation of it and the loneliness of it and the way in which you feel like your entire life is been taken from you in a way, even though there's so much joy and all the other things that come with it.

45:00So I really recognize this as something I have tried my best to understand happening for women I feel very close to in my life. And I love to see this. A film that it made me think of immediately was Tully, the Charlie's Theron movie. And that's a similar, like both of these movies were really educational for me in terms of like, as much as I can try to understand someone explaining it to me, having the experience of sitting in a dark theater and being put immediately in this POV. That's what film can do. That's what fiction can do. And I just, I love that this film exists. I do agree that like some of the, you know, either marketing or, you know, similar to what you said with my old ass, like I don't think you necessarily need some of the genre stuff that's in here to sell the story that you're selling.

45:51But I - I might argue you don't need them at all. Yeah. And that ultimately is like the signature flaw of the movie for me. I just think that like the idea of like, I feel like a literal monster is something that's interesting and worth exploring. It is. Well, what did you think, Rob? Because I think we should dig into that concept. Right. I do think it has an interesting perspective and thing to say about motherhood. I just think it has the one thing to say. And it wants to say it over and over and over in a way that felt because of all those weird genre trimmings, like a little ham fist. In the end, based on the total concoction of what it was, I felt like Amy Adams is going for it.

46:29And this movie is like almost scared to go for it to the extent that she is. It felt like really pulled back. Where I want more of the titular night bitch or none of the titular night bitch. I want this movie to be like a little smarter or much, much dumber. And I feel like we ended up in a weird middle ground with it. So I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who's a director. And we both have children that are three years old. and I think we were both having maybe a particularly challenging week with our kid and we often talk about movies and I was like, what are the, there are no movies about this.

47:05There are no movies about the, certainly this movie is tightly focused on motherhood, but just the experience of parenting through what is typically a fairly traumatic era of a young person's life because invariably, especially with kids in certain kind of households. This is an artistic household in this movie. There's an encouragement of like expression and being open with your feelings and also like a level of intelligence that is bred because of the way that the child is fortunate enough to be raised in where they can communicate really well and they're sophisticated in some ways, but they have no ability to modulate their feelings.

47:43And I think me and my friend were both going through this period where it was like, this is really, really hard. And I was like, how is, why is, why are there no movies about this? It's like, it's for millions of people, they go through this and people will, there are a billion movies about falling in love and fewer, but still a lot of movies about falling out of love and breaking up and there are movies about being parents. There are lots of movies about being parents. There are lots of movies about other people's parents and people dying. All of these like essential life experiences. I've not seen a lot of movies about what it's like to have a two or three year old in your house all day long.

48:16And like a week later, I saw Night Bitch and I was like, this is the movie. This is exact. And so the thing that I've been kind of toggling with through this is with the understanding that like I can't really relate to the motherhood aspect and some of the that alienation that you're describing it gets it so much of this so right the the profound repetition the monotony montage at the beginning like that stuff always it's just it's just and it's so right that just like you're hitting the same pre-packaged breakfast in the pan every morning like she just nails that stuff Mariel Heller has two young kids like she is clearly pulling from some personal experience to kind of visualize and literalize these ideas.

48:56And as I'm watching the movie and I'm kind of toggling as a huge genre fan with like her inability, I think, to really execute on the genre ideas, but the stunning way that she accurately represents some of the things I saw my wife go through, some friends go through over the years, but wondering like whether or not that makes for a good movie. And maybe that's one of the reasons why there are just not a lot of movies about this. I think some of it is because people try to like memory hole this period because then When your kid turns four and five and six and you're like, this is the greatest thing that's ever happened to me because everything is like fun.

49:25But this tight corridor of two to three and a half where everything is so challenging all the time, I think people are like, get me out of here a little bit. On the one hand, yeah. But on the other hand, I think because for decades this was considered a woman's struggle that people were uninterested in it. It's a great point. And I think, you know, increasingly, hopefully, parenting feels like a joint group project. and there's, I think this movie, I mean, were you telling me that you thought the characterization of Scoot's character was like cartoonish to you? He's got one thing to do and it's like talk down to Amy Adams at every single turn of this movie and be passive aggressive until he's finally confronted with the, it felt like a character that was being preached at the entire movie to me.

50:12What's so funny to me, Rob, and is that when I watched this, I was like, I actually think this movie is being very nice to this archetype. Really? I think I have seen in my life way worse versions of this. And so I was like, I actually think she's being kind of gentle. Oh, no, I think the character is being gentle. No, no, no. Do you think the overall treatment of the movie? Because like, and I like that about you, that you're like, this is the worst. And I'm like, this is actually kind of medium. And that's like kind of what's the worst about it is that he's like, he's not a villain. He's just clueless or can't possibly quite understand.

50:47or they've made decisions about who gets to leave the house and make money along a gender line that it's usually drawn in our particular culture. And I don't know. I thought that was really interesting. I was like, I feel like Mari Heller was like, let's tone it down a little around Scoot's character. I think that might be because she is a working mother and so is her partner, Jorma Tocone, who's also in the arts. I think you're both right. I think that there are some aspects of the way that that character is characterized. And you can imagine the level of self-identification, guilt, pain, trauma, sadness that I felt watching that character.

51:28Some of it I think is a little bit broad. Some of it I think is frankly more generous than like maybe I have even been in my own life. So it was like a challenging movie to talk to my wife about. What does she think? I am a person that like has the job where I go into work every day and I'm out many nights and I travel for work and she doesn't do that. She still has her career. She hasn't given up her the way that the Amy Adams character has. But there's a very vitriolic fight that they have that leads to a real fissure in their relationship kind of in the second half of the movie. We haven't had that fight, but I think it was close enough to fights that we've had where she was just like, this is tough, man.

52:08And this is tough to be in this experience with these people. And I think the movie lets that intensity off the hook a little bit at the end. And it gives it a little bit of like a rounded edge. The big speech that he delivers at the end of this movie is like cringey. Like I think it's genuinely like undercut so much. Like that big conflict in the kitchen to me. There's some truth in there in the gray area. in the like, why didn't you convince me to fight for my own life kind of mess that any family, any couple, any pairing of people can get into. Where we get by the end of it for not a lot of discernible nudge beyond that point.

52:52How spoilery are we being with this discussion, I guess? If you don't want to hear any of the plot details of Night Bitch, which is not the plottiest movie of all time. It's mostly a woman and a two-year-old hanging out for long stretches, but go ahead, fire away. There's this big speech he gives about like, I am in awe of you. That I understand why there are women and mothers in the world who want that character to say that thing in that moment. I get it. But seeing it on screen after this movie, I was just like, why are we doing that? Like, why is that the end point for this? I think it's because I, and I'm curious what you think, but I think because it's so relentlessly straightforward about the challenges of the experience at certain times when you're raising a kid, that it felt like an odd...

53:36It's like she spit the bit at the end of the fight a little bit. Oh, yeah. I think you guys are saying slightly different things and I think I more agree with you. Amy Adams' character... Just selling me right out. I love you, Rob. I love you, Rob. It's good to disagree about something like this, though. And I also think there's something more complicated going on here than... Because she's an artist as well. And so I think we watch so many movies about men and their art and you know we can talk about what do you mean what's wrong with that should we talk about the brutalists for like three hours why not you know and often in those movies those artists are praised for being massive geniuses and like can I tell you something Rob gave me an amazing idea on the last recording we did which is that I should make the brutalist episode of this show the same length as the film with a blessed 15 minute intermission of course I think it will just be me singing the score in that 15 minutes but you're right that we bend over backwards to praise these great men.

54:34There are so many stories about men feeling disconnected from their art and reconnecting with their art and these are like award winning the most important movies of the year blah blah blah and this is about a woman who is a mother and also an artist and it's about her reconnecting with her art and I also love the way that her struggle is triangulated via these two groups she's got these the moms at the library who she who she initially sneers at and then finds common cause with. They are her pack in a sense and she finds things to connect with them about whereas before she was like sort of sneeringly their intellectual superior she believed.

55:14And then she's got her friends at what I will call the kale salad dinner scene. And that was hard for me to watch because as much as I've tried to understand friends who have gone through this, I am sure I have been the shitty person at the kale salad dinner. I doubt it. You know? I doubt you were even close to any of those people in that sequence. But like, unintentionally, it's so easy to just sort of like not know what you're bumbling into. And so, yes, at the end of this movie where people literally turn into dogs, there is some fantasy elements of I can have it all. I can be an artist. I can be a mom.

55:51I can have my husband come and tell me he's in awe of me. I can have my old friends come and see that I'm amazing. I can have my new mom friends feel seen by my art. There's a lot of fantasy at the end of this. It tightens the bone quite a bit on top of the present. She grabbed a piece of meat off of another person's table and gnawed it on her way out of the kale salad dinner. Or maybe didn't, I don't know. But then all of those people showed up at her art gallery in which there are a bunch of bones from animals that she, the human woman, may have just murdered. Well, you're getting into the genre aspect of it, which is the stuff that just doesn't work for me.

56:27As a metaphor, it's an amazing device. It's a good metaphor. But here's my question about the Brutalist. The Brutalist ends with... This is way too soon. Way too soon. I have not seen this. Cut this. Cut this. Cut that. Way too soon for that. I will say it more vaguely. Okay. I will say, we're talking about the Brutalist. The Brutalist has a very similar end point, I would say. There is a big metaphorical device in that film as well. And a laurel, giving laurels to the artist. in that as well. Without question. I'm not saying this is... We could argue which is more clever or more effective. The brutalist is better at it.

57:05I'm not saying this is as elevated as the brutalist is. I'm not trying to put them on the exact same level. But I think we often dismiss women's versions of stories that we celebrate men's versions of stories for. It's fair. I think that that ultimate point is 100 % right. I just think that Thank you. there's simultaneously too much and not enough going on in this movie. that there is like a tight psychological focus that is carried by, I would genuinely say a brave performance by Amy Adams who is willing to be frankly haggard by the standards of a movie star and not in the like Nicole Kidman wears a prosthetic nose way.

57:49Where just like Amy Adams just gained like some weight and wore no makeup and let her hair get a little bit stringy and unbrushed the way that you might be if you are raising a toddler and stuck in the house all day. She hasn't showered. You know, you can tell. Because you literally don't have time for a shower. It's like one of those things where if you don't have kids, you don't realize that you're like, you can't go anywhere. You can't go to the bathroom. Like you just can't go to the bathroom because you can't leave them alone because they're two and they could walk into the street. It's a very obvious, simple thing.

58:17And every parent is like, that's listening is like, absolutely. And everybody who doesn't have kids is like, I didn't really think that I will never be free for three years. But it is true. And so I think that all of that stuff is so... genuinely deep and honest. And the other stuff is movie making device work. Like, I feel like that scene at the end happens in part because they're like, we got to end this movie. What we can't, this, this can't be an ongoing portrait of a woman experiencing this phase of her life. If this were 1986, you might have like a, um, a series of films that would be tracking a woman at the state.

58:54You could, you could imagine Chantal Ackerman doing a series of films about a woman at various stages of motherhood. but this is like a Fox Searchlight movie with a big movie star and so they're like how are we gonna wrap this thing up how about an art show so I don't know I didn't love that and I didn't love the the animal murdering dog aspect to it but I don't know pretty oh yeah I will say the actual footage of the night bitch or night bitches if you prefer depending on what you think of the other moms at Book Babies running through the streets majestic absolutely majestic dog footage in this movie how much of your discomfort with this movie is because you're a dog guy.

59:32I wish there were more dog. But there's some tough dog stuff. There's some tough dog stuff. There's also a lot of cat who has a tough time. There's a lot of rodents and perhaps possums who meet unfortunate ends. It is a Fox movie with a movie star. It's also a movie with a bunch of big pussing wounds in it. You're not a puss guy? Only in the substance. Once a year. one pussing back wound a year. What about Nosferatu's exposed spaces? That's just who he is, though. That's not a state thing. This is who Amy Adams is in this film. What else can we say? I will say, as a genre, body horror is not my favorite.

1:00:16I'm not going to lie to you. There are moments in this film that I was struggling through, but I don't know. I love that Amy Adams exec produced this. I saw it at the Mill Valley Film Festival where she came and talked about it beforehand and talked about how much it meant for her to be able to tell this story as a mom and Mari Heller as a mom, to be able to tell this story, a story that they feel is really underrepresented. And I really agree with it. Is it 100 % successful in every regard? No, I'm not. I'm not going to lie to you. I think that there are things that feel shaggy, not to put an unintentional.

1:00:48I really regret it. I regret it. As it was coming out, I regretted it. But I'm just really glad it exists. I think the response we needed there was woof. Woof. Yeah. One other thing I'd just like to say very quickly about this movie is that this child is too nice. That this is a fairly well-behaved two-year-old boy and that's just not how it is. That kid wants two things. To sleep in his parents' bed and to eat hash browns every morning. That's it. That's really it. I mean, and paint on the walls. He does a few things that you're like, this would be very stressful. Sure. Parents have been there before but like his demeanor is very kind.

1:01:27Wait, can I? And that's not, that's just not how it is all the time. It's just not. If you were in a parallel situation, Sean, would you encourage your daughter to sleep in a dog bed? No, my daughter sleeps in a real bed and it's wonderful and I don't want anything to change about that. But like that's a real, obviously sleep is a real struggle in general for all parents. And the movie goes out of its way to be like, this is hard. The fight that she has with him about their sleep. Like I was like, this is journalism. Like what they're doing here is so sincere and accurate. The shot of him on the couch playing PlayStation talking about nitro boosters, I'm like, oh, no.

1:01:58Yeah, you knew that wasn't going to go in a good direction. What is a dog bed if not just a bean bag with a rim? It looks pretty comfortable. I think that's fine. I think it's fine to let your kid sleep in a dog bed in case you were curious about our tips. I want to go back to your—so your wife said it was tough to watch some of the fight stuff, but how did she feel sort of overall in terms of the depiction of motherhood? so she watched it on Monday Monday night what did I go do I'm sure I was out seeing a film she has access to the PGA screener portal so she's been powering through award season as well so you were trying to give her the most authentic experience by being out of the house while she has to watch you said don't worry later in the week I will babysit my own child what did I do I mean I did that plenty over the last few days I had a dinner I had a dinner with a friend actually a rare non-screening night for me so she fired up it was her choice I actually when I saw the film I was like caution this might not be the best experience you might not have a lot of fun perhaps you should try Sing Sing she said we talked about it afterwards but she texted me when she started watching and she said I started Night Bitch and I'm depressed about how sweet this kid is and then she wrote this movie is so rough lol I'm turning it off she did eventually finish it and I think she found some merit and meaning in the movie it's hard not to it's very it's a well made movie even if you don't necessarily love where it goes.

1:03:22But I think it's hard. And I think for some, parents will watch the movie and feel that swell of identification and power. And some will watch it and be like, I got enough of this at home. I'm good. You know, I got enough of that alienation and that evacuation of my own humanity at home that I don't really want to spend more time in the off hours engaging in it. But I bet it's like, if you have a 10-year-old, it's probably a good movie because you're like, I remember that. And then we're out of it. But in a distant way. Let's talk about Amy Adams. So, you know what? We just have not done very many halls of fame for actresses on the show.

1:03:54And so, I'm endeavoring to change that as much as possible. And you brought Rob, the speaker for the every woman. This is what I'm here for. To tell you about motherhood. To speak for the every woman. As I said, my two... Well, what I wanted was a prestige TV kind of semi-reunion on this pod. But we're also representing femininity. You know, it's just... Also, Amanda does not like Mariel Heller's movies. So, this is probably a relief for her to not have to participate in this. I love to help Amanda out. Amy Adams. Is she good? And if so, why? Come on. Come on. I'm a big fan. The way she is talked about at the ringer.com.

1:04:26Disrespectful. Incredibly disrespectful. I agree. I have tried to defend her over the years. I think her, some of the projects she's been in more recently have not always been as successful. I've not always hit for me. I think Night Bitch among them. But overall, in terms of the body of work, incredible supporting work. I think some of the, for me, one of the defining lead performances of the last 20 or 25 years or so Like, I think she has some real home run stuff. And to talk about her as if she's just like strikes and gutters, that's just not the reality of the situation. She's often, if she's in a bad movie or one that doesn't quite work for you, still one of the best parts of it.

1:04:59So I'm here for Amy Adams. I think she has pretty incredible range. I know we're going to talk through the entirety of it, but I love the variety of what she can put on screen. I think it's interesting. So I agree in terms of variety, but I think I was really considering this because I do love Amy Adams. I do not want to knock her in any way. I will say I don't think she can do everything. No. She's not one of those actors who can do everything. But the wide swing between the two things that she does really well is so stark that you can kind of convince yourself she can do anything. So that sort of like wide-eyed, innocent, bubbly thing that she does so well and she did a lot more early in her career.

1:05:34And then the hardened grief or trauma that she's done in a number of projects. and then somewhere in the middle there is this sort of like sex kitten through the lens of the bubbly innocent thing and so that's just like it's really only like three notes that I can triangulate on her performances but they are so again so different and she modulates the timbre of her voice when she does that she lowers the register of her voice for certain performances or pitches it higher for certain performances in a way that is just like, she's not a chameleon at all. She's always Amy Adams. In fact, and this is one of my, this is one of the most, I don't know, it's very interesting to me.

1:06:20She dyed her hair red early in her career. She says it changed her career because it changed the kind of roles that she was being offered. She was like a strawberry blonde. And so she's famous for being this red, like this redhead. and it's just not who she is. It's a performance in and of itself. And I just love that all, and she's not a celebrity. She's someone that does not like to put her business out there. And so all of her is, what we're getting is just this manufactured Amy Adams thing. And I think that's fascinating. It is really interesting. I think one of the reasons why she's come under fire here, so to speak, though not by me, is because she had a very, like an incredibly successful 15-year window in a window when a lot of actresses do, which is roughly 25 to 45.

1:07:15And she was in franchise films. She was in lots and lots of prestige films. She's worked with some of the most celebrated directors of her time. She basically was one of those performers who you were like, she's never bad. You know, she was like John C. Reilly, where you're like, thank God they're there. You know, and she, six Oscar nominations in like a 12-year window. she's just a very reliable performer until she wasn't and she's in this very intense five year rut now which I think Night Bitch kind of pulls her out of to be honest because I think she's very good in this film and even though I know you like it more I'm still ultimately pro the movie but she's made some tough choices and she got caught up in some really bad franchise stuff on the DC side that like sucked out a couple of years of her career and she's 50 now which is crazy to think of because she has always seemed like you say the girl from Junebug you know the upbeat innocent seeming young woman and she's not and she's now entered the phase of a career that Hollywood is often very hard on because they have really nothing for you to do between 50 and 65 until your grandma and so it'll be interesting to see how she navigates it because she does have this reputation as like god we gotta get this person an Oscar like we keep like dangling it in front of her face and we're not giving it to her and so she's taking on parts that it seems like she's going for it for some reason, even though the projects are bad.

1:08:35And then, you know, she's like, she's in the J.D. Vance movie, you know? And that's like, for some people, unrecoverable. And it puts a real We can't. That's a pallor on this conversation. We can't. We can't. I mean, we have to throw Glenn Close on the fire if we're going to do that. Are we doing that to Glenn Close? I mean, I've been doing it for years as somebody who's been making jokes about the wife. Yes. And I think Glenn Close is weirdly like an echo of what could happen to Amy Adams. Glenn Close is still a great actress and occasionally is in movies I like, but not often. So anyway, that's a kind of unkind way to present it because a lot of times if you're like, if you're Bradley Cooper and you're 50, you're like, you're just getting started, buddy.

1:09:12Good luck to you. You're going to win 10 Oscars. And now with someone like Amy Adams, we don't see her in the same light collectively. It's sort of why I wanted to bring up the fact that she produced Night Bitch because she was, you know, if you look at some of the films she's done in the last couple of years, Dear Evan Hansen or The Woman in the Window, Hillbilly Elegy you mentioned, A lot of them genuinely do make sense on the page of like, this is a very popular bestseller, or this is a huge smash musical, or this, that, and the other thing. It's not like I don't get why she said yes to some of these things.

1:09:44Who says no to playing Lois Lane, even if you're playing it for Zack Snyder? Well, when she was cast, I was like, that's genius. But I think her moving into sort of her producer era, which seems to be true for a lot of her upcoming projects as well, is an attempt similar to the way that like, you know, the women in the Big Little Lies universe like Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon are trying to sort of like carve out a path for themselves that Hollywood says doesn't exist. One of my favorite Amy Adams performances in the last decade is Sharp Objects, a TV show that not enough people talk about, but I think it's maybe my, we're not going to talk about it when we read the movies.

1:10:23I mean, it's a question of should we be including things like that? Because frankly, it will be an interesting challenge to get to 10 here. It might. I will make a strong case for the episode of Buffy she appears in, if that's what you would like me to do. I have not seen that, so I can't weigh in. It's wonderful. She's a witch bigot, basically. A witch bigot. Anti-witch bigot. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. It's true. It's tough. Unforgivable. But I mean, like, Sharp Objects is, I think, a really good example of something that, you know, 2018 is a few years ago, but like, a role you can find for yourself if you're Amy Adams and you have the pull and the ability to create projects that are of interest to you, Night Bitch being one of them, I think that's potentially very exciting.

1:11:04Nicole Kidman is a very good model. Obviously, Amy Adams isn't as glamorous as Nicole Kidman, but Nicole Kidman has had this fascinating balance between super commercial, kind of almost schlocky stuff and working with serious filmmakers and making this serious bid to work with more female filmmakers. And, you know, like you could see a similar arc over the next 10 years for her, but you got to pick good stuff and you got to work all the time, too. That's the other thing is you got to you got to like make the projects happen. So we'll see what she does. Let's let's talk about her films. Let's start picking our 10.

1:11:35okay she's got a long filmography took her quite a while to really establish herself as something beyond a supporting actor yeah um I dropped it gorgeous I believe is the first part she's ever been she's in a fairly small role in that movie which is a pretty fun movie she's great in it um I don't know if that feels quite like probably not meaty enough a part yeah I'm usually interested in the breakout but the breakout takes a long time for her is the question and I know I just always have this question when you do this segment is it the best movie or is it the best Amy Adams performance inside of a movie the answer is yes okay great and also the most important and also the highest grossing and also the awards I think we should consider Drop Dead Gorgeous but not firmly put it on that sounds like a yellow to me 2000 Psycho Beach Party funny movie haven't seen this in a long time it's kind of a satire of beach blanket bingo style films that's literally the name I have written down Psycho Beach Party ago.

1:12:34Did you watch all of these movies, Rob? No, no, no, no. How many Amy Adams movies do you think you watched? I'm not at liberty to say, but I did watch Hillbilly Elegy for science. Thank you. I watched it on the day of the election when it was released. Okay. Four years ago, not this year. I don't think Psycho Beach Party is in, even though this is blonde era Amy Adams. Many of these movies are blonde era Amy Adams. Cruel Intentions 2 from 2000. I was shocked to learn that this is actually a prequel and that Amy Adams is playing. Catherine. The Sarah Michelle Gellar. She's playing Sarah Michelle Gellar in this movie.

1:13:07I haven't seen this. Okay. Did you watch it? I watched clips. Let's just say it doesn't work. Okay. So Cruel Intentions 2 is red as well. Yeah. The Slaughter Rule. Haven't seen it. Don't know what this is. Also another very small part. Okay. Red. 2002 Pumpkin. I remember this Christina Ricci vehicle quite well. I don't think there's enough for her here. I agree with you. I would say the same is true for Serving Sarah. Correct. Which is a real time capsule comedy of my college years. It does introduce a certain Amy Adams archetype that she tried, which is hot mess Amy Adams for a while. Again, doesn't really work.

1:13:40Pretty small part. Don't see it for this. Yeah, there's a group of actresses at this time, what I'll call the American pie class. Tara Reid, Mina Suvari, Shannon Elizabeth, Alison Hannigan. Yeah. There's a whole Rebecca Gayhart is in this conversation. There's a whole bunch of actresses and they all kind of had to choose. They had to say, I'm a bombshell or I'm the girl next door. and it was very bifurcated at that time. And she kind of doesn't choose. She says, why not both? Yes. And I think that's one of the reasons why she has persisted. She's also just the better, I mean, Tara Reid is no Amy Adams.

1:14:14No. Wow, Rebecca Gayhart catching strays. I like her work to this day. No rest for the Noxzema girls. Only one of Amy Adams and Rebecca Gayhart are in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I'll have you know. That's true. 2002 Catch Me If You Can. This is a yes or no. I think this is green as well. Now, this is a very, very small part, but she is unmistakable in this movie yes Brenda who pops off the screen show me a better performance in braces honestly is this the only time she and Leo have worked together I think so because they got something cooking between them I would like to see them again it was she's phenomenal in this movie a movie that I love and she's wonderful in it I do too I think this is our first green 2004 the last run can't say I've seen it no 2005 the wedding date haven't seen it I have she plays a shitty sister a like thoughtless hot girl she's she's done that many times before she's trying to pull herself out of supporting bitch basically like that's a part she keeps getting cast and I guess because of her presentation 2005 the wedding date haven't seen standing still haven't seen I assume these are red yes and then we get Junebug in 2005 this is Otto Green as it gets Otto Green major breakthrough is Ashley the sweet innocent uh I guess is she the sister-in-law of M.

1:15:34Beth David's character who comes to stay with her husband's family in the South. In Tennessee? I can't recall which state they're in. Married to Ryan from the OC. Good pull. In the film. Pregnant. She's amazing in the film. Charming. Interesting that she's so known for being, I think she waited a little later in life to actually have children, but portrayed an expecting mother. This is kind of Night Bitch Closes the Loop on the Amy Adams arc. I hadn't thought about that. I really like this movie quite a bit and I think she's magnificent in it. Very funny and very sweet. 2006 Talladega Nights The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.

1:16:12I just completely forgotten she was in this movie. It's a classic comedy. I'm not sure if it really represents her at her best. No. Here's the thing. Sometimes I kind of disagree that Amy Adams is great and everything because sometimes she's just there. And I'll get to one of those films that I rewatched and I was like she's just aggressively there. Okay. And they had nothing for her. This sounds like a Bill Simmons critique. This is kind of one of his takes. He's like, what does she do? No, she does things, but not in every movie. She's not always given things to do. That was also a Bill Simmons-ism.

1:16:41She does things. She does things. She did the things. Okay. Talladega Nights, we'll say, is red. She plays the character of gorgeous woman in Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny. Fun movie. Not going in the Hall of Fame, of course. 2006 is The X. Remind me which movie this is. I cannot. What is this? Because after this movie, business really picks up. Yeah. The Amy Adams, of course I remember this now. This is the Zach Braff, Amanda Peet, Jason Bateman comedy. Of course you remember it. I saw this movie in movie theaters. That movie doesn't exist. I'm afraid to tell you. When his lawyer wife, Sophia, becomes pregnant, chronic underachiever Tom must take a job at his father-in-law's advertising firm.

1:17:23Tom has to adjust to the demands of a very high-powered job and he finds himself in an increasingly hostile office rivalry with Chip, Sophia's paraplegic former lover. Those are words. Okay. The X is not going in. So you say things pop off after this, which is true. It's because she gets nominated for June, but this is all within the same year. Talladega, Nice, and HSD, the X, is all, and she's nominated for Junebug, you know, for the 2006 Oscars, loses to Rachel Weisz and the Constant Gardener, and... Reasonable loss. It is a reasonable loss. But like that was like her major interest. Because she won an award at Sundance when it premiered at Sundance.

1:18:02And then she got the Oscar nom. And people are like, who is this girl? So was this, did you think these jobs, she got these jobs after the nom? She probably got it all before. I think she did these before. And then Enchanted is what she did after. So let's talk about Enchanted. I'd never seen it until a couple of weeks ago. Really? Even though it was a hugely successful movie. You know, I was 25 years old when this movie was released. And not going to see Disney Princess movies? Didn't go to see Enchanted. I did watch it with my daughter who was utterly mesmerized yes and now is in a canon of her own I like this movie indisputably in the whole fame no question yes it's one of her biggest hits it is entirely built on her charm yes and you can see how they saw her in Junebug and built this for her the naivety engine of Amy Adams is like in full effect yeah yeah but also Marsden almost steals it it's Marsden it's kind of Marsden's movie She's really, really good.

1:18:57Marson's so good in this movie. The question is, as we're zooming out on the ripple effects of these things, if we look at the state of live-action Disney movies, and I'm kind of bummed that this is the way it went. She's the first live-action Disney princess in a lot of ways. Not from harnessed IP, but if you look at the reason a live-action Beauty and the Beast movie exists, you could probably trace it back here. That's an interesting point. I think that, obviously, it's quite depressing that this was an original movie that is almost like an active satire of all of the Disney movies that came before it.

1:19:27And the sort of like, what if a Disney princess was made manifest in our world is the whole concept of the movie. But they don't do original live action movies like this anymore over there. So that's a real shame. I think the original sin for live action Disney is Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. That's where it all went real bad for everything. We're on the precipice of Mufasa, Cole, and the Lion King, which is, I guess - Your most anticipated movie of the year? We're talking about it soon. We'll talk about it on the pod. Yeah. I invited Van to that pod. Are you okay with that? That's perfect.

1:19:59Okay. 2008 Charlie Wilson's War. This is the one that I rewatched. I like Charlie Wilson's War. I rewatched it and I was like, Amy Adams sure is in this here, in this movie. They don't do anything with her. What? What is her part? I've seen this movie like 10 times. She plays his assistant. Right. Charlie Wilson's. So he's got a bunch of hot girls in his office and she is the hot girl who is played by an Oscar nominated actress okay I remember Emily Blunt being very alluring in this film yeah she sure is salute to her there's a sequence on a veranda of some kind that I recall yeah correct quality work this is great a great Philip Seymour Hoffman vehicle but Amy Adams never ever sick at sea I've heard but like Amy Adams there's a part where they you know are visiting a war zone essentially and she has Is this a moment with some...

1:20:51And I was like, oh, is this why you put Amy Adams in this role? Turns out, no. There's no reason for them to have swung up with that particular part. Not so much. Okay, thank you for reminding me. So that's going to be a red on Charlie Wilson's war. No, it's just a fine film. A fun movie. Speaking of Emily Blunt, I believe she's in this film as well. Is she not? Sunshine Cleaning, which was a Sundance breakout and was very well reviewed at the time and I think was one of those movies that had like a$10 million acquisition price. And then nobody went and saw. No, not so much. Oh, I saw it. What'd you think?

1:21:22I love it. Is this, this is yellow. Is it yellow? Are you arguing green or do you think yellow? No, yellow's fine. Okay. But I love this movie. This is a movie about two women. Do they own or work at a cleaning company? The star one. Their sisters. Yeah. And Emily Blunt's like the fuck up sister. Right, right, right. This is so archetypal, Sundance. Yeah. But I remember liking it at the time too. I've definitely not revisited it in 15 years. We'll yellow that. Miss Pettigrew lives for a day Green, green, green Wow So green So green Go to bat Go for it Maybe as charming as she's ever been in a movie Had you seen this movie before?

1:21:59I hadn't This was a new one for me I almost pitched it the other day For our World War II pod Because it's like Low key Nazis in the background Kind of movie This for one May have been the moment The singular moment in time That Lee Pace imprinted On a generation of interested parties Correct But Amy Adams is so good and just like a bolt of energy through this entire movie. It's mostly a two-hander with her and Frances McDormand. They're both great in their own ways, but she's asked to be the live wire and she's asked to be the sort of like incorrigible flirt throughout this entire movie. And she's so, so good at it.

1:22:33She's so good. She plays, her character's name is Delicia LaFosse. And she is a film ingenue. Yes, a wannabe film ingenue. A wannabe film ingenue and a nightclub singer and has sort of betrayed her true love and like her true self for fame. And so she's just coming across as this like bubbly confection of a girl. And Frances McDormand is here to teach you the true meaning of Christmas. And by true meaning of Christmas, I mean. Sort of the anti-bubbly confection. Which of the three boys you should choose. Yeah, yeah. But just sort of, she's just, yeah, bubbly. And she's so good in this. I got to say, we're further along in the Hall of Fame than I would have thought at this stage of her career.

1:23:12So that's encouraging. 2008 doubt. Yeah. Is it though? Really? Well. I'm not sure. Wow. To Joanna's point about what does she do. Yeah. I'm not sure that she's really given enough to do. I mean, Viola Davis has one scene. Viola, Meryl, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. And then Amy Adams. Yeah. In that order. Yeah. I don't disagree. I think her role in that movie structurally is really important. Right? Like, if it is just the point counterpoint of investigating Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl, I think that works. You need someone to be like looking to sweep shit under the rug at first opportunity.

1:23:49And this is her playing like naivety mode yet again. But as a nun, I think she just fills a role that the movie needs really well and pitches it at a really, really high level relative to what that role can be. I think that's generous. I'm going to yellow it. I have the same reservations that Joanna has. You have such doubts. Night at the Museum, Battle of the Smithsonian, which I think is the second of the Night at the Museum movies. I'm not going to agree on this but I just need to tell you she's actually great at this movie. She's good? Yeah, she's really good. I haven't seen this movie. She plays Amelia Earhart with a lot of moxie and it's just quite fun.

1:24:24But full disclosure, I watched all of the Night at the Museum movies on a plane, on a really long plane ride. Had a great time. Did they make the Ringer's plane movie list? I didn't even see. I don't think they did. But I put it on my long list. Good for you. I'm going to read it with no disrespect to you or Amelia Earhart. I just wanted to mark that she did more with this than she needed to. So this movie just came up in a conversation we were having the other day on the pod. Julie and Julia. Yeah. Which is a, I would say, complicatedly remembered Nora Ephron film that is one part historical drama and one part coming of age dramedy smashed together.

1:25:00I believe you were referring to the Julia Child aspect as being the good half. I think that's universally accepted. There is literally online a cut of this movie that is just the Julia part. The child cut? Yeah. Because Julie Powell with love and respect to her is an intolerable character. And I hate that part of the movie. Okay, so that means red? I would red this. Yeah, her part doesn't work. Doesn't work at all. Is it Adrian Breguet? Is he the... It's Messina, isn't it? Is it Messina? Oh, it's the partner of Messina. Okay, what movie am I thinking of? The Intern? Devil Wears Prada. Devil Wears Prada, thank you.

1:25:35Yeah, I tend to get those confused. Your Merrells. My Merrell movies, yeah. Yeah. 2009 Moonlight Serenade. What is this movie? Are we sure it exists? I'm not sure it exists. I'm going to look up the description. I love to read the description. Well, that's not, that's the Glenn Miller song, Moonlight Serenade. That's not what we're referring to. Moonlight Serenade is a 2009 musical romance film directed by Jean Carlo Tayarco that stars Amy Adams as Chloe. A piano player discovers that the girl at the co-check of a jazz club is a talented singer. She persuades him to form a musical act together.

1:26:14What is this movie? Who's the hymn? Alec Newman? Oh, no. What happened? Was this movie made in like 1999 and then released 10 years later? I have no idea. Terribly confusing. Released by Magnolia. That's read. That's not going in. No. 2010 leap year. It was all there on the page. Like Amy Adams, Matthew Goode, Irish countryside. attempting to go to that Hugh Grant place. Attempting. Yeah, and yet. My friend calls this movie, Amy Adams is going to fuck a stranger. We have for years called this movie that. Yeah, it's a no-go. Leap Year is definitively read. I know there are some people who really like it as a piece of cheese, but that's all that it is.

1:27:01It's a piece of cheese. Another one of these very weird movies that I've never seen. This is a direct-to-video movie from 2010 called Love and Trust. that stars... Distrust. Excuse me, love and distrust. Get it right. That stars... Listen to this cast. Are you ready? Robert Pattinson, after Twilight, Amy Adams, Sam Worthington, after Avatar, Robert Downey Jr., and James Franco in the peak of his Franco Rogan-ness. Yeah. And a post-Iron Man Downey. Now I feel bad for not watching this movie. This is an anthological movie with directed segments by six different filmmakers, including Lorraine Bracco.

1:27:38This is that era. A lot of anthologies going around. What the fuck is this movie? Which is her segment and what happens in it? Let's find out. Amy Adams plays Charlotte Brown in Pennies. Charlotte Brown is a waitress and young single mother who will do anything for her daughter Jenny. And when push comes to show, she does. With a menacing figure on the other end of the phone and a time limit of two hours, she must raise enough money to ensure that she sees the smiling face of her child again. We have that movie. It's called Phone Booth starring Colin Farrell. Is this is this in the like Parisia 10 era?

1:28:13Yes. Very Scottish. Okay. So that movie is out. Love and Distrust. 2010 The Fighter. It's gotta be green right? I think it's gotta go in. Now she's Oscar nominated for this portrayal. I think this was like a big eye opener for people because she'd never done anything like this. Scrappy. When you go back and look at it do you think this is a great performance? It's a little cartoonish to me. I think it's a good performance. It's an accent performance. It is an accent performance. But in terms of, I was trying to analyze the case of why Amy Adams doesn't have an Oscar, and I'm not agreeing with Bill that she doesn't do anything.

1:28:49No, she does things. We know that. She does do things. I mean, she wails on the sisters. That's what I'm saying. I think this is the closest she got, but Melissa Leo, unfortunately, staged a tremendous campaign that year. Yeah, yeah. An infamous campaign that year. but this is the close she got to having a reel that you could play at the Oscars where you're like I get it because usually her performances even like the bubbly flirty ones but those are the ones that are not usually getting nominated are pretty understated that's sort of her vibe and so you don't have something for the reel whereas in this one when she punches the shit out of a woman for calling her a skank on her porch play it on the reel for the Oscars isn't it Conan O 'Brien's sister who she punches I think Conan O 'Brien's sister famously one of the sisters in this movie wow I think she and Wolberg have genuine heat too between them I think they're very good together I think the movie is okay it's a very very traditional sports movie in a way that I find kind of bland but anyway it's also more of a Bale movie than an Amy Adams movie for sure it worries me like this is a pretty good era for her overall but it is a bit of a wives and girlfriends era of roles we're going through some of those right now The Muppets which is the James Bobin directed Jason Segel authored Muppets reimagining in which she plays a girlfriend named Mary.

1:30:09And you get why because like why not get Amy Adams from Enchanted to do the Muppets movie? We're bringing the Muppets back. Good idea. We're bringing it back. This movie doesn't matter in the grand scheme of Muppetry. Anything with a Muppet in it matters. I mean it has an Oscar which it has Muppets matter so much. This movie doesn't. It might be outside the top 10 all-time Muppets movies though which is like maybe an episode I should be doing honestly. Well one Christmas Carol we know it it does the people are saying it I'm with you original Muppet movie Muppet Take Manhattan The Great Muppet Caper those three are all better for me are all above all better than Carol I didn't even hear Muppet Treasure Island so this is fucked okay this is like really the very narrow space of age difference between us Sean and I are the same age and so I feel betrayed in this moment I think Muppet Christmas Carol and Treasure Island and In Space and all those movies are all fun and good fine this movie is okay And I really love Siegel.

1:31:05And Siegel, after forgetting Sarah Marshall and the Dracula musical, I was like, this will be the best film ever made. This guy who gets puppets like this guy. And he's going to bring them back. And then he didn't. But Burt McKenzie did win an Oscar. So there's always that. That's true. That's a good point. It's also tough from an A.B. Adams perspective. Like her literal role in the movie is that she gets forgotten. So how could we possibly put it? Okay, we're writing the Muppets. What about On the Road? Have you seen this? I have. this is the Walter Salas adaptation of the Jack Kerouac novel yes which I remember being a lot better than I was told it was going to be am I crazy it is it just doesn't have anything for Amy Adams it doesn't no but it is better than I just googled on the road like a fucking idiot like of course I'm not gonna get the movie on the road it's a novel When I Serenade is a song yeah I remember there being like some like amazing sequences with Garrett Hedlund and Kristen Stewart in this movie that's all like That's what my memory is.

1:31:59But there's nothing for Amy Adams. Nothing for Amy Adams. Okay, so that's read for Amy Adams on the road. 2012, The Master. Have you guys heard of The Master? Yeah, briefly. Have you heard the good word? Vanishingly. Yeah. If you're interested in The Brutalist, I would watch The Master first, think about The Master and how maybe these things are correlated to each other. She plays Peggy Dodd. It is a wife part. Sure. But I would say she's doing significantly more with it and is showing us a version of Amy Adams that I like to see. Yes. A woman in control. at times overwhelmingly in control. And a woman with a defined point of view about how the world should work.

1:32:33Would you like to expand on this at all? Are you in a minor in this? No. A woman who can just sit in the side of a frame and like... Control a sequel. Have ownership of it. Because I do like to play What If on the Oscars, right? We talked about Doubt, which she gets nominated for. Penelope Cruz wins for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. We talked about, of course, Melissa Leo winning for The Fighter. the master year she lost to Annie Hathaway in Les Miserables I will not be taking an Academy Award away from my beloved Anne Hathaway I also will not take it out also she's cooking in that movie she's wonderful in Les Miserables I would never this is tough I didn't find other than Melissa Leo which I'm just right did she deserve to win anywhere else right yeah that's an interesting question that maybe we can get into I mean the thing is that she's not nominated for a movie that's coming very soon that she should have won for in my opinion but we'll get there spoiler were we misled by Chris Ryan Chris prepared us to have to fight for that movie we'll find out definitely not no that's just it's an order of magnitude in terms of importance to those folks The Master is Green Trouble with the Curve straight up a terrible movie that I watched for the first time for this podcast directed by Robert Lorenz who is Clint Eastwood's long time producing partner stepping behind the camera in Clint's stead more or less to make a baseball movie is it Ryan Phillippe who's the male lead Justin Timberlake he rolls up in a convertible listening to The Walkman that is so bad that's red Man of Steel I think is an absolute fucking abomination and I'm sorry to say I hate that movie I will not allow it in the Hall of Fame I was gonna maybe argue Yellow just based off of like career importance in that it helped to torpedo her career you know I mean if you're telling the story of Amy Adams' career the DC Project is part of it it is I think we should Yellow it and come back to it.

1:34:25I will yellow it and come back to it, but I will not be letting it in. I'm sorry to say. Okay, that's great. 2013, Her. Kind of a weird nothing part. Again, this is, there are a number of great films that have nothing for Amy Adams in it. Bill's not right, but... But not wrong? But not wrong. Hear me out. Like, Joaquin Phoenix interacts with very few actual humans in this movie. One of them is Amy Adams. Well, I'm just saying. You know, the movies, one of the points of the movie is obviously like, simultaneously open to the idea of falling in love with something that is not human form, but also like, hey, have you noticed that there's like a really cool, normal woman who lives next door to you, who's interested in you, and she represents that.

1:35:04And I think that that's often her role in a lot of movies is like Amy Adams is quite beautiful and striking, but she's like, she's regular. Achievable? Yes. Okay. I wasn't going to say it, but you said it. I'll say it for you. Yeah, a woman said it. It's okay. The I can lock that down of famous female actresses. Not that I can, but that's what I think the movie is trying to show you. So Her, I think, is red, even though it is an excellent movie in my opinion. Now, American Hustle is a movie I really don't like, but I would say it's automatically green for Her. Automatically. Wow, you're upset about the Her generation?

1:35:40You don't like American Hustle. This movie barely exists. Like, if you ask someone on the street who had seen this movie when it came out to try to recount literally any details of the plot of American Hustle. It kind of doesn't matter. She's cooking in this movie. She's fine. I will say, I will say, I'm sorry we didn't record it. Rob and I had a really fun time trying to remember the plot of American Hustle. Anything at all. I was like, Jennifer Lawrence definitely starts a fire in an electric oven. This was the year that Cate Blanchett won for Blue Jasmine. So that's a pointless win. She already had one.

1:36:14She already had an Oscar. Blue Jasmine is fine. This is where I would put it. I would definitely put it for that film you alluded to that she should have been nominated for and won. Yeah. But I would definitely say Kate does not need her Blue Jasmine Oscar, and I would give it. I mean, look at this roster of people that year in 14. It's Cate Blanchett wins, Amy Adams, Sandra Bullock in Gravity, which is fine, but she's in the spacesuit the whole time. Judi Dench in Philomena, which is a complete Harvey Weinstein concoction. Weisdeen, boondoggle, yeah. And Meryl Streep in August, Osage County, which is like, it's again, okay, and kind of ruined source material in my opinion.

1:36:48So, I don't know. It's very silly. I agree. I think you might have to be right because this is also one of the most financially successful non-franchise movies she's ever been in. It was a smash hit. David O. Russell really was running a con on everyone for a while, I have to say. It was the most nominated movie of that year. It had 10 Oscar nominations, one each in all four acting categories. And she is doing the part within a part within a part thing layering lots of accents in. I respect the overall bit of that character. I really am not fond of this movie. But I think it has to at least get yellow and not green.

1:37:26I don't respect for Man of Steel. We'll yellow this as well, but I'm almost certain we're going to come back to greening it. I think we may. I think also if you're nominated for an Academy Award for a movie, in most cases, it has to be a green. 2014 Lullaby, I don't know what this is. Nor do I. How can that be? What is Lullaby? This is the most I've ever had to Google a series of films. It's like a tiny little indie, I think. Okay. I guess that's fascinating that she's been doing that in that time. Yeah, she's got a very small part in this movie directed by Andrew Levitas, which I think it's saying it's like a TV movie?

1:38:00It feels like a favor. It does feel like a favor. So the Lullaby is out. Let's talk about Big Eyes briefly. Guys, I watched it for the first time for this. I don't understand the appeal of this film. or her performance in it. Was there a lot of appeal? Like, is this a movie that's super highly regarded? She was nominated for Golden Globe at the very least. It was relatively well-reviewed, I would say. It was a thing. It was, thank God Tim Burton has put the toys away to make a real person's movie again. And it is a movie about an artist. Yes. And it's a movie about someone who's been alienated from an artistic community that is very much in keeping with like the Edward Scissorhands style film that Burton was quite famous for.

1:38:43I don't know. Let me... It's not even a good Christoph Waltz performance. It's just a little cartoony at times. I think we have to yellow it out of respect for its awards affectations. Yeah, that's tough. Okay, you can yellow it, but I refuse to let big eyes into this. We're running out of titles, guys, and we don't have a ton of locks left, so let's keep going through it. 2016 Batman vs. Superman, Dawn of Justice. That is a red. If Man of Steel is not getting in, nothing else can. That is the reddest red you can be. I fucking hate those movies. 2016 Arrival. Let's look at the 2017 Academy Awards.

1:39:22Do you have that pulled up already? Who was nominated in Best Actress that year? It was, so Emma Stone won for La La Land. Okay, good win. Isabelle Huppert in Elle. Ruth Nega in Loving. Natalie Portman in Jackie. And here's the kicker. Meryl Streep and Florence Foster Jenkins. Yeah, an absolute joke. An absolute calamity. Yeah. How did this happen? I honestly don't know. Again, I wouldn't take an Oscar for Emma Stone, though if I had to take her Oscar and she could get it, you know, a little later on, which she does, then I'd give it to... Amy Adams should have been nominated and won for Arrival.

1:40:02End of story. Why did Ciara tell us we were going to have to fight you for Arrival? Because Amanda and Chris are obsessed with Arrival and think it is like a five star all time classic. Like in the conversation with like 2001 or whatever. And I'm like, it isn't that. It's a very, very, very good movie that I like a lot and I liked a lot when it came out. But I just don't have the same level of adoration for it. But in the context of Amy Adams' career, it might be the best movie she's made. It's the number one. So clearly the number one. So I have no issue whatsoever with automatically greening it.

1:40:30That's a pretty competitive Oscars best actress. Not bad. Group of performances there. But still she should have gotten in there. She's acting opposite a fucking window. I know. I know. She's great in that movie. Again, a weird way to talk about Jeremy Renner, but okay. But I think that Meryl nomination is just so embarrassing. It's a joke. I hope Meryl's embarrassed. I think part of it is that this would have been six nominations in nine years for her. And I think people were a little like, ugh, her again. Well, it's also the genre bias. You're right. For sure. Science fiction movie, absolutely.

1:41:00But now we look back, we're going to look back on that movie and be like, this is kind of where it starts for Denis because of the direction he's taken his career. Like, Sicario is the breakthrough, but this is really the one that shows us who he wants to be. Yeah. So I think you're going to look back on that movie in 15 years and be like, you know what? Maybe it was 2001. No, I mean, if 2001 is a five, then I would put this as like a 4.8 or 4.9. Like, I don't think it's like quite, I don't think, but maybe in 10 years I'll make it a five. I would say not right now. I wouldn't make it a five. I think it's one of the best movies of the last decade.

1:41:32I think this is one of the best performances of the last decade. and it is 80 % her and an octopus behind a piece of glass. Like, that's crazy. But how good was that octopus? The octopus was great. If you want to do Octopus Hall of Fame, I'm here for it. But like, it is a hugely emotionally powerful movie because of her. Inkblot Hall of Fame. I'd show up. We have seven greens and one, two, three, four, five yellows right now. We're going to make it. Yeah, I'm not worried about it. We're definitely going to make it. 2016 Nocturnal Animals. I would love to hear the Joe take about this movie. Oh, well, the problem is this.

1:42:03I love Tom Ford. and I love Jake Gyllenhaal in sicko mode this movie is bad what? yeah this movie is bad I think it's pretty I think it's pretty bad too I think it's very entertaining because you're like look at all of these incredibly skilled actors debasing themselves in this trash and it's a kind of knowing trash Michael Shannon got nominated for this movie Aaron Taylor Johnson I believe Aaron Taylor Johnson won a golden globe yeah so it was a big deal at the time it was Ford you know famous clothing designer coming off of A Single Man which is a very good movie I love A Single Man and he's like I'm gonna dig my teeth into like basically a Daniel Steele novel on steroids and she's okay she's basically miscast she's basically just reading the whole movie she's reading and taking off her glasses and rubbing her the bridge of her nose I don't want to run through her importance in this entire movie but like her reading is pretty critical to the whole exercise of what we're doing here.

1:43:08That's true. That is fair. I really respect how fucking mean this movie is. If you're talking about Jake I might say yes. I think Jake's great in it and like I just really I really respect that it sinks its teeth in that it doesn't pull punches that I it terrifies me. I think about this movie all the time. Do you? I cannot drive down a dark county road without thinking of this. Is this a Texas thing? This is a thing. Y 'all have to spend on enough farm-to-market roads to know. I just got hit with it, y 'all. Y 'all, come on. We did, we did. It's a Texas thing. Okay. This is also, and I just want to represent my pal Mallory Rubin here, just a critical debut for the Aaron Taylor Johnson six-pack in this film.

1:43:47I believe there's a long sequence in which he's taking a shit in this movie. Yeah, he's just naked on, he doesn't have a shirt on, he's just naked on a toilet. Very cool. So green. Very cool. It's a yellow that's going to be a red. Correct. 2017 Justice League should be in jail. That's red. 2018 Vice. Are you going to go back on what you just said about Oscar nominations should automatically get in? I am going to break my rule and say that this movie is not going in her hall. Get it out of here. She plays Dick Cheney's wife and honestly not even that well. No. So, I don't know Lynn Cheney. The fact that she was kind of an odd nomination.

1:44:23I feel like she was nominated because they were like sorry we fucked up with the rival. It does. It is a bit of a makeup call. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, just in case you care, Regina King won for if Beale Street could talk that year. So even if she were great in that movie, I would not take Regina King's Oscar. Yeah. I am a fan of Adam McKay's movies and I spoke to him on the show for this movie. I think this movie is an interesting experiment and ultimately only half successful. I didn't have the same political confusion where I was like, why are we creating empathy for Dick Cheney? That wasn't really my concern.

1:45:00It's just like, it's a movie that kind of can't decide on the tone that it wants to take. And I think it's an interesting representation of the way that McKay has kind of twisted himself in knots as an artist to try to figure out like how serious he wants to be versus how much fun he wants to have. And like Sam Rockwell is just having like way too much fun in this movie about something that isn't that funny to me. So it's just kind of a mess. It's a really tough like here are some things that happened movie. You know what I mean? And that's just like it didn't have, I guess clarity is what, I thought it didn't have anything to say.

1:45:27you're saying it was maybe trying to say too many things at once I suppose but like either way it doesn't work I watched this movie resentfully because I knew it was going to be in the awards conversation and I had a bad time with it we haven't really talked about her like bail thing like she's in opposite him in a bunch of different movies I mean not not usually as a charged couple necessarily she's also opposite Batman a few times also opposite Batman a few times like mostly just like yelling at Christian Bale across various movie properties and I think she does that well but this she does it really well in The Fighter she's very well to her greatest possible effect yeah and in American Hustle she's a great they're great together yeah there are things that happen in that movie that's for sure it's so funny I really don't like David O.

1:46:13Russell so it feels odd to be defending that movie but you know what sometimes these are the positions we put ourselves in I'm gonna deliver to you guys a quintet of films that are coming in the immediate aftermath of her Academy Award nomination for Vice that are I would argue catastrophic and again 2018 Vice and Sharp Objects I just needed to like put it in maybe that's what she got her Oscar nomination for was her performance in Sharp Objects Hillbilly Elegy in 2020 Zack Snyder's Justice League which was released during COVID and we recorded a four hour podcast watch along The Woman in the Window a adaptation of a bestseller that was like relentlessly worked over and reshot and mangled Dear Evan Hansen which is just nightmare fuel for me as a movie and 2022's Disenchanted which is a sequel to the beloved classic Enchanted that like is a perfectly fine sequel but nobody is so bad Disenchanted was so bad that I could not even bring myself to consider the Hocus Pocus sequel because I was just like if they did that with Disenchanted I'm uninterested in what they did with Hocus Pocus they did do one thing which is they rectified the fact that in the original they cast Idina Menzel and then didn't let her sing in a musical which is a choice that you can make as a filmmaker one could do that one could do that they rectified that but it doesn't work at all.

1:47:27Would you put Night Bitch in the convo? Well, that's what I wanted to say. So I think all five of those movies are automatically read without conversation. The movies are not good and I would argue that her performance particularly in The Woman in the Window which is a movie that on paper Chris described a movie yesterday as Fincher Methadone which I loved. What movie was he referring to? I can't even remember. Maybe it was Red Rooms. Red Rooms. Thanks, Jack. Which was just an awesome CR turn of phrase. And this movie could have been that as well and is just so deeply not that. And part of it is because she's not able to give you the performance that you need in the movie, among many other problems.

1:48:04That movie was, that book was so popular and for why. So, yeah. And it was at the same, roughly the same period as The Girl on the Train, which is another mangled literary adaptation. Correct. Starring an Academy Award nominated actress who I almost always like that like the movie didn't work at all. Anyhow, they're all red. Night Bitch, I just think it's one of her best performances. so it should be in the conversation the movie you know we may end up having a bunch of movies and maybe we don't even like that much but they go into her hall of fame so to answer your question earlier about what is this exercise it's kind of everything you know how many greens do we have let's do the math we're going to yellow night bitch for the sake of conversation Jack and then that's going to mean that we have one two three four five six seven yellows and two four six seven greens so what we need to do is green three of the yellows.

1:48:55And we're going to green American Hustle. Well, I'll read the yellows. I'll read the greens. Catch me if you can. June bug. Enchanted. Miss Pettigrew lives for a day. The fighter, the master, and a rival. As you know, I love to rattle off the names of films on this podcast. The yellows are drop dead gorgeous, which is not going in so we can read that. Okay. You think it should be? No, no. Okay. 2008 doubt. I'm not sold on doubt. No? I'm not. 2013 man of steel. I'm not sold on Man of Steel. I can't even put my heart in it. American Hustle is definitely going to be green. Fine. Out of respect for you, Rob, we yellowed it.

1:49:32But if it were just Joanna and I sitting here, it would have been an auto green. Well, then you better agree Nocturnal Animals. That's all I have to say about that. I would be willing to give you that. I agree. So that takes us to nine. For you and the state of Texas. I'm so moved. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. Now we have one more to go. And I kind of sort of think it's Night Bitch. I think it's Night Bitch. We're going Night Bitch over Doubt? Yes. I really thought you both were going to come crawling back to me on Doubt. There is no movie without her in Night Bitch. In Doubt, it's like, that could have been Anne Hathaway.

1:50:05It would have been fine. She does go absolutely feral on a meatloaf. And again, the commitment of the performance is unquestionable. It does all hang on her. She's looking straight down the barrel of the lens, delivering a lot of Night Bitch. And again, in the sort of representative of her career, this idea of the producer era. I'm going to, fine, I'll do it myself. Amy Adams. Her Thanos? Yeah, her Thanos era. She's in her Thanos era. Where does that bring us back to her? Back to Night Bitch. So right now, on Variety's prediction of best actresses, where do you think Amy Adams sits for her performance in Night Bitch?

1:50:45Out of the top 20. Oh, based on the response to the screening I went to, I would say, and this is Clayton Davis putting this together, right? Clayton, where would Clayton put her? In the tens? Yeah, I was thinking teens. I'm going to say 14. She does not appear in the top 20. That's tough. Well, is that because the movie's not out yet? I don't think so, because there's plenty of movies like Baby Girl that are not out yet in the room next door. I mean, this is just a look at the top 10. Right now, Cynthia Erivo is in the first position, which is not accurate. Angelina Jolie is number two. Mikey Madison is number three.

1:51:21Marianne Jean-Baptiste is four. Carla Sofia Gascon is five. And then the next five are Nicole Kidman and Baby Girl, Fernanda Torres and I Am Still Here, which I just saw. I'll talk about that later on the show. Tilda Swinton, The Room Next Door, Saoirse Ronan for The Outrun, and Demi Moore for The Substance. With love and respect to Variety and Clayton, sometimes those lists are a little wonky. A little wonky. I don't think she's getting nominated, but I wouldn't be shocked if she got nominated. I would certainly not be shocked if she got nominated for the Globes. Yeah. Would this go into comedy?

1:51:55Yeah. This would go into comedy and she would get nominated for the Globes. We're going to be talking about that very soon. We are. And if that Globes nomination starts a different conversation, that's the thing that the Globes can do because of your double actor nominations. Someone starts being in the conversation who wasn't in the conversation before. Okay. Well, this is turning into an epic episode of this show. And it's because I put more on your plates than I needed to. I think I'm... So it's between doubt, big eyes, and night bitch. It's not big eyes. I think it's night bitch. Look, you were both so charitable with nocturnal animals that I'm willing to play ball here.

1:52:35Okay, then here is the Amy Adams Hall of Fame. It's Catch Me If You Can, Junebug, Enchanted, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. Oh, yes. The Fighter, The Master, American Hustle, a rival, Nocturnal Animals, and Night Bitch. I would ask you to show that to Bill and ask him, would you not say that Amy Adams has done something? That's a body of work right there. That's an incredible body of work. There's no doubt about it. She does things. She does do things. You guys have done great things on this podcast. Thanks, Sean. Thanks for having us. Thank you so much. Really enjoy potting with you as always.

1:53:04Let's go now to my conversation with Pablo Lorraine.

1:53:21Very happy to have Pablo Lorraine here to talk about Maria and his work. Pablo, you've obviously been working on this accidental trilogy of films, but I'm curious about your relationship to Maria Callis. Is this someone that you have been interested in for a very long time? How did she become the final piece of the trilogy puzzle? Oh, well, I think it's... I'm an opera fan. I grew up going to the opera with my mom, mostly, as I grew up. And there was always this kind of mystical figure, Maria Callas, and her voice and her life, her work, her impact in culture, her impact in society, her impact in music.

1:54:03He probably changed the history of opera forever. And for some odd reason that I don't completely understand, And there are very few movies about opera, given that there's so much in common. So I thought to try to do it, try to find an angle where we could almost make an opera and shoot it and make a movie that feels operatic, not in the dramatic way, but in the real operatic meaning. and bring those two elements together and try to understand a little bit more about her figure and how and why it became so, so relevant for the history of music and particularly for the second half of the last century.

1:54:50Can you talk about what that meant to you to make a film feel operatic? You know, like what decisions you make to render that? Yeah, I say that there's a distinction because it's often that people could describe or a critic, a reviewer could describe a movie as being operatic, meaning that it has a lot of ideas and it's baroque in its intentions. I'm using that term because I think that what we're doing here is a movie that is an opera but in movement, in motion. It's a moving proscenium, it's a moving stage that we are capturing with our camera, capturing with our point of view. and it's a movie about about a singer that has become the sum of the tragedies that she played on stage for so many years and all those characters are somehow inhabiting her simultaneously up to the point that this is also a tragedy but at the same time it's a celebration of her life and work so it's all combined And I think we want to be in her perception of reality.

1:56:07And that's how we can let the music get in and the opera get into the story. So unlike Jackie and Princess Diana, Callus is an artist. And so capturing an artist at work is complicated. And obviously you've got an actor who's got to portray someone who's extremely one of the most famous people of the 20th century and who is an incredible performer. So what do you do? How do you make that feel viable, real, accessible, textural with the actor and with the sort of moving proscenium that you're describing? Well, I don't think I have a very clear answer to that. It's a good question. I think that probably, obviously, the actress is very, very important.

1:56:55Obviously, it defines, they carry the movie on their shoulders. But I'm fascinated by them, by each of them. And as you well said, this is the story of an artist. And I think that I was very lucky because I am very into music. I really love music. And I think I'd likely probably know more about music than cinema, I think. And so there was an opportunity to express myself with something that I truly, truly love and to film the life of someone that I have been for many, many years. So it was a little bit less of a research, you know, like in the case of Jackie and Spence of Prince Diana. It was more a movie that I have in my blog stream since many, many years.

1:57:45So it was a little bit easier for me to recreate it. But I guess the biggest challenge is to understand or try to understand her ghosts, you know, what's going inside of her, why she's so mysterious, why there's nothing that you could really do to completely understand her, and why music can really explain something or express something about her that is completely indescribable with words. you can use music and moving images I think and that is just a very interesting advice you know it's a good thing to have that it's just wonderful materials to work with Angelina Jolie of course is also a world famous incredibly glamorous person like the person she's portraying and so I like that self-reflexive quality is that something that you at all talked about when you talked about doing the part with her that she could connect to this character in any particular way given her experiences Well, I don't think you need to talk to her about it.

1:58:49It's so lazy. But again, look, we're just talking about it. I think there's something incredible that I've read a lot of biographies about her, you know, scene documentaries, all of her interviews on the internet and read and study a number of things over the years and made this movie. And I'm not entirely sure who she was. And I think that's something that also happened with Angelina, I think. Maybe because she's so well known, has been in the spotlight for so many years, a lot of people might assume that they really know her. And I don't think that's real. Once you really wonder what people might think about Angelina, that it's likely to be very far from who she is, you know.

1:59:39And not that I do know, by the way, but I think that that is sort of the enigma that they carry. And that combination of enigma and magnetism that could find in someone like Angelina, you could also find her in Maria. So I thought it was a good match. It was something that Angelina could do to carry that weight of something that at some points you get to understand and know and feel because she's somehow sharing with you. But then when she doesn't want it, you could be completely disconnected. And that is a beautiful exercise where the audience becomes very active, I think. You make this bold choice to, very early on in the film, show a performance of Ave Maria and to show Angelina in close-up.

2:00:30I was wondering if you could talk about why you wanted to start there. Yeah, it was something that I've been thinking for years, even before we had a script. And I mentioned to Angelina, to Steve Knight, everyone involved, this is how we're starting. I wanted to defeat not just for the audience but also for us the ghost this idea of oh it's Angelina so well known she's not an opera singer she's going to play an opera singer she's going to sing when she's going to sing how she's going to sing what is she going to sing why is she singing and all that is going to be successful it will feel believable it's going to be what a karaoke session what is this so I was like okay let's just you know train really hard especially her and do an excellent and magnificent job.

2:01:19And let's just let me film you in a close-up. You will be looking at the camera on a tight shot. Your face is going to be on a very large screen. And we will see you singing. And people will, yeah, will look at your lips, will look at your face, will look at your eyes and see how it's going. And we're going to defeat the problem in the first minute of the movie. And I think we do. I think she succeeds on that. And I think she becomes callous. And I think we drop quickly Angelina out of the equation. She's the actor. She's the character that she's representing. It was bold, but I felt it was necessary.

2:02:00And also, I think it's very important for the movie because, and this is probably the most important thing of everything, is that it's an elegy. It's like a prayer. It's like she's singing Ave Maria that comes from Othello, from opera's Verdi Othello, and she's praying and asking for help, for protection, for some sort of spiritual connection to something that's bigger than her at the beginning of the film with such a beautiful melody. It's a very moving melody. And as we're singing, we go and kind of see fragments of her life to introduce the character to everybody. So I think it works in multiple layers, but I really love that we did it, and I love how it works in the film.

2:02:51I wanted to ask you about the structure in relationship to Jackie and Spencer as well. You know, none of the three films are standard biopics in any way, and they all are these kind of... these memorable figures captured at a very important, critical stage of their life. but this one is the most expansive in terms of how much of the figure's life that you show whether through flashback or them talking to this character that Cody Smith-McPhee plays you know I'm curious like what the conversations were like with you and Stephen Knight and why the decision to kind of capture so much of her life but also not do your kind of standard cradle to grave approach to that story well first of all I think biopics are a cultural fantasy I don't think you could actually call a movie or anything a biopic I don't think you can actually capture anyone up to the point that you go out to the world and say look, this is who this person was with responsibility and the only way to do that it's probably with the person itself but however I think it's true this movie this movie shows the very last week of her life and it's the moment when she decides to conduct her life by herself and for herself.

2:04:12And in that exercise, we thought it was important to look back at how did she get there? Why and how? And so the fragments, I think, this is a movie about perception and we try to inhabit her reality with perception and with her own memory. and kind of, you know, in an angle, in a perspective that I would like to call it a poetic memory, we could travel with her through the music to different moments and different fragments of certain ideas that can be more abstract. Some of them are more concrete and more specific, but they're all building a character that is celebrating her own tragedy. And I think that's where we try to lay our energy, especially when having such a beautiful and out-of-this-world music that she sang for us.

2:05:20I love this intersection of Onassis and Kennedy and the fact that you have this sort of expanded Pablo Lorraine cinematic universe happening now too, and the fact that these tendrils of history are all starting to touch each other in a way? Like, is that something that is appealing to you about telling these kinds of stories? Well, I'm not into the multiverse of these people, but I will say that it's a generation, you know, and I think there's more people involved that if you keep digging, you will get to a number of people of that generation that happened to be in certain cities like, you know, or certain countries, mostly in Europe, England, I would say New York, where people related to certain families, royal families, powerful families, wealthy people, obviously artists they all got together and and and sort of somehow um reorganized culture and and and society in certain such an element of such a socialite you know and that that that happened in between the 50s and the 90s i would say where all these people knew each other where they interact with each other in a world that wasn't very responsible.

2:06:45They were just living the life, taking care of the family, of their business, and interacting with each other. And there's a number of people who were close to each other, and this is just one of the other cases, one of them. And that's something very interesting, I think. Do you feel like that's impossible now because of the way that famous people, well-known people are expected to live um i think it's very different i think i think um i think that world is over i think that that idea of style fashion certain cultural connections to art cinema theater literature with an idea of a grandiose kind of glamour and it's gone.

2:07:38I don't think that, and if it ever comes back, it'll come back in a different form. But that combination of people, art, culture, money, politics, I don't think it'll ever be back again. And I think it's just interesting because we look back at them towards mostly fashion and culture in many, you know, in many ways nowadays. And I was interested in these three women that somehow were able to be who they were, no matter to which family they were related to, which man, which fortune, with whatever. and they were they were able to stand by themselves and leave a huge footprint in culture throughout their own identity and like inner strength which is just beautiful and fascinating I like that you also show in this film this sort of almost like touchability of Callas just dining at a cafe and being someone you could just see in the world and walk up to and speak to and even though she has this kind of defiant presence that she still was a person living in the world not somebody who was just locked away all the time too that also feels like out of time in some ways it's an era where certain people like to be connected with with her fans in a physical connection nowadays everything happens through a string you know Kallas was singing they were on the street, they were on theaters there are a number of things that are happening you know, very

2:09:27where there's a lot of human interaction nowadays are, you know, the people that has you know, the people listen to Spotify podcast and they go to Instagram and see the people that they admire and the interactions and we have influencers and whatever's going on today but I think it's a more abstract kind of communication. It's different. And I think back then everything happened more face to face. But at the same time, there was media. There were paparazzis. There were, you know, probably Maria Callas and also Jackie Kennedy and for sure Diana Spencer. Prince Diana was likely to be the most photographed woman of the 20th century.

2:10:09So there were also media icons, but they were more tangible. And I think that's a big difference. I really love what you and Ed Lackman have been up to on the last two films. I so admire El Conde as well. And I was wondering if you could just talk to me about how you guys came together. And maybe what was the same and what was different about working on that film and this film. Of course, Ed is a master. I wanted to work with him for many, many years. And we had the opportunity to work first in El Conde and then now. They're very different movies. Iserconde is a black and white kind of gothic expressionist kind of photography and cinema.

2:10:50And this is more like a movie that we wanted to make it look like it was shot in the 70s. Ed is someone that works throughout color. It's very unusual. I think most photographers work throughout lighting texture and lighting color temperature. I think Ed is someone that is very determined to work throughout color and to light in a movie like this, to light in the way that they used to light the film sets in the period. it's someone that is fascinating, has an incredible amount of good stories to tell and has a gorgeous sense of the aesthetics and how to truly look for the characters and their emotions.

2:11:42He's trying to capture that emotion and the truth of the soul that we are picturing with the lighting. So he's part of the overall process as it should be. I think that is very important on a movie set. Some people could be surprised that maybe it should be like that, but I don't think you should take that for granted. It happens often there's people that are just caring about their own duty, their own craft, and they're not necessarily connecting with what everyone else is doing. And I think it's in the center of that idea, and I really appreciate that. When you say he works through color, does that mean the costumes and the production design, or is there something else?

2:12:25Well, because it's, I don't want to bore anyone, but we shot on film. So when you shoot on film, you could probably combine certain colors that would have a very, like, live color as you're lighting. That would, because of that combination, it would create a different color result once it's shot and filmed. because the film would react differently to those colors. So it's really beautiful and weird because you're on a set, you're seeing something that is leading in a way. You see it through the camera and then after you shot it, it's processed and you go and see it and it looks different. He's messing with the negative.

2:13:17He's seeing the reality through what a negative can do. Been doing it for 50 years so he knows what he's doing. But it's just very interesting how he can create a world where the colors are only created through a film, a cinematic process. And that's what I mean by it, if it makes any sense. It does. It's incredible results. Pablo, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they have seen? Have you seen anything that you've liked recently? Well, I haven't seen much because I am doing what I'm doing. I'm traveling a lot. But from this year, I really, really love Anora.

2:14:07I think Sean's movie, it's beautiful. I thought it was very moving. I think Mickey does a beautiful work. I've been, I know Sean for many, many years. and I love when someone is just like stays on the track of what what they do and then eventually gets a lot of recognition but I'm sure Sean is going to keep doing what he does you know and he's been doing this for many years in many movies and now he made a movie that is not only very beautiful but it's also getting a lot of recognition by a lot of people who won the Pandora and Cannes and I think he's going to have a beautiful award season. And I'm very happy for him.

2:14:52I think it's a beautiful, beautiful movie. If you guys have not seen it, please go on and see that movie. Hopefully you could find it on a big screen because it's very beautiful. And it's a cool, interesting, funny, crazily funny film. Very moving and very well made. So that's those are my two cents. That's a great recommendation. Pablo, thank you so much. I'm such a admirer. Thanks for doing the show. Thank you. Thank you for the invitation. Have a good one.

2:15:26Thanks to Joanna and Rob. Thanks to Pablo Lorraine. Thanks to Jack Sanders for his work on this episode. Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner, as well. Later this week, we're digging into the most underseen and underappreciated movies of 2024. We'll see you then.