Best Performances of 2025, Wake Up Dead Man and Hamnet Reviews

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Speaker 1: Film Spotting is presented by Regal Unlimited, the all you can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. Sign up now in the Regal app or at the link in the show description and use code film Spot twenty five. That's film Spot twenty five to receive your discount.

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Speaker 2: What kind of a show you guys putting on here today?

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Speaker 3: You're not interested in armed?

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Speaker 4: Now?

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Speaker 2: No, Look, we're going to do this thing. We're going to have a.

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Speaker 1: Conversation from Chicago. This is Film Spotting celebrating our twentieth year. I'm Adam Kempanar and I'm Josh Larson.

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Speaker 5: He's got more inside of him than any man I've ever met.

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Speaker 1: Who are you looking for? William Shakespeare, Paul meskal Is Shakespeare and Jesse Buckley, his wife and Chloe Show's Hamnet out now in limited release. Buckley seems like a locke for a Best Actress nomination, But will she be among our best performers of twenty twenty five?

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Speaker 6: Plus thoughts on Wake Up Dead Man, the Latest, Knives, Out, Mystery That and more ahead on film Spotting.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Film Spotting, Josh. We still have a fair amount of recording ahead of us in December, yet our Top ten Films of twenty twenty five round table is ahead. That's always an epic recording. And of course this show still to get into the can, so to speak. But we did cross a finish line. We have submitted our Chicago Film Critics Association ballots. The picks are in as people are hearing this. The winners have actually been announced. We'll get into all of that here in just a moment.

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Speaker 6: It has been a blur of a week for me, Adam. I imagine similar similar to you just cramming all these movies before that deadline. I think I think I saw a movie tell me of this tracks with Timothy Shallomey and George Clooney playing ping pong in a Moroccan desert.

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Speaker 3: Is that something I might have watched?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? I think it's my number three film of the year. Okay, good, You're exactly right. Among the films we caught up with in that Hayes before submitting our ballots, Ryan Johnson's Wake Up, Dead Man and Knives Out Mystery and Chloe Shows Hamnet. We will spend a few minutes on both of those movies later in the show. We will also have poll results. Listeners tell us their scene stealer of the year, and we will have a new poll question. In fact, you might say, Josh, the poll question of this year. We want to know your film of twenty twenty five. Is this a deeply flawed poll question. I mean, I don't want to spoil it. We only have two choices for the listeners.

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Speaker 6: Producer Sam is not messing around. He gets right to the point. And yeah, looking at the Chicago Film Critics nominations, at least, as you said, we're in the past here. We don't know the winner yet. But looking at those nominations, I think Sam was onto something with the two films he picked.

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Speaker 1: He was maybe a bit of four shadowing because he looked into his crystal ball or something. He put that pull together before that's all right, nominations were announced. A quick reminder, Film Spotting is now available as a video podcast. If you're a Spotify listener, you can toggle between video and audio. You can also watch the show on YouTube, YouTube dot com slash film spotting, and for a link to all of our episodes, you can go to film spotting dot net slash episodes.

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Speaker 6: Do you like Adam for the holiday mood, I added some decorp here. I don't know how often it'll show up on the video. It's got to go a little wider. But you know, now that we're a professional show, I thought i'd add a little.

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Speaker 1: Holiday spare it very subtle. I appreciate it. First up, we are going to share our favorite performances of twenty twenty five. We talked about earlier are Chicago Film Critics Association ballots, and this is how we approach this show every December. We don't just go through and five down to one or whatever mention all of our favorite actors and actresses lead supporting. We kind of go through our ballots and we share our picks. And one way I thought we might tackle it this year, Josh, we'll see if you are willing to play along. I thought that I would go ahead and list the nominees how the initial ballot came out in that Chicago Film Critics Association voting now Here again, listeners are in the future, we're in the past. They know the winners. You can go to Chicago Filmcritics dot org and see not only the fullest de nominees, but the winners, or you can find the link in the notes for this show, in the podcast description or at filmspotting dot net. But we are in the past. We only know the nominees, and at this point, as we're recording, we have maybe about forty eight hours left to do any final bit of homework and get that final ballot in. So we're gonna take supporting actress, then supporting actor, then lead actor, lead out actress, and I thought we would go through I'll mention the nominees, and then we can see where we diverge, see where we have overlap, and kind of highlight some of the key performances of the year. Does that make sense to you.

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Speaker 6: I love this because mainly it's going to keep this show from being five hours. Yes, I have so much to say about the great performances from this year. As I was putting my notes together, I thought, oh boy, here we go again. Look what we've done to ourselves. So yeah, this will streamline it. I might ask for permission, you know, to say a word or two about the nominees. If there's someone who isn't on that nominee list, of course, yes, make my ballot to throw in. Yes, you know, as far as the Chicago critics are concerned a belated nod to their performance. But yeah, yeah, I like this this procedure. Let's do it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we have some free reign here within the categories. But again, I thought we would start with the nominees here according to the Chicago Film Critics Association anyway, and we are starting with Best Supporting Actress. There are six usually five, so that means there was a tie. We have Odessa a Zion from Marty Supreme, Nina hass Heda inga Ibbs, doctor Lilias from Sentimental Value, Amy Madigan Weapons One, Me Musaku Sinners, and Teyana Taylor from One Battle after Another. Josh, the flora is yours?

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Speaker 3: All right?

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Speaker 6: Let me share quickly my picks in common with those nominees. Odessa Azion from Marty Supreme. Holy Kyle, I mean just leapt out of the movie. You could consider putting her in the poll. We're going to reveal the results of Seen Steelers of the Year. We hadn't seen this before Sam put together that poll, but I think Seen Steelers applies to her. She's so good there. I also had Wunmimsaku from Sinners on my ballot. The one I want to talk about quickly though. Here is another lister with these finalists, Teana Taylor in One Battle after Another. I think I said in our review Adam that I didn't quite know what to make of her performance yet. It was just one element that was still bewildering, but in an intriguing way to me. She plays Perfidia Beverly Hills, very controversial character. It's turned out in the months since the movie came out. She basically anchors the opening third of one battle after another her French seventy five revolutionaries. They're engaged in these guerrilla tactics to subvert an extremist US government. And she also plays sexual manipulation, especially against Sean Penn's Colonel perverted Colonel, which is one element that's been called into question by critics. So I want to heartily recommend a great article by Chicago critic Angelica Jade Bestian in Vulture on this topic. It's titled Black Actresses are Carrying One Battle after and we'll link to that in the show notes. Let me just read a little bit from this article by Angelica. This is Angelica. Perfidia is a contradiction nestled in thorns, selfish and prickly and bold, Taylor brings to life a kind of flawed rendering of black womanhood that I have longed to see in cinema. Then later, she writes this, Taylor's performance doesn't ask you to root for Perfidia so much as be galvanized by her. So I'm not the one to affirm or legitimize this take necessarily, but it did tap into a lot of what I was trying to wrap my head around while watching Taylor in one battle after another. I think this speaks to why the character is such a landmine, but also to how her explosive performance is a purposeful part of that unnerving, unsettling quality. So I didn't want Tana Taylor and her performance to get lost amidst all the debate and all the praise that's otherwise going around for one battle after another. It was extremely heartening to see that she did make the ballot for the Chicago Film Critics as well.

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Speaker 1: I have not seen that article yet, and I'm really glad that you pointed it out. I will be clicking on that link. I've been waiting for Angelica's take on that character and the movie that is the part of the film that controversy that I alluded to at the end of our review, but we didn't get a chance to dive into. Maybe we'll talk about it more. I'm guessing one battle after another will come up on our Top ten Films of the Year round table. My best supporting actress picks, I have three crossover choices with those six. I have Amy Madigan, she was number five on my ballot. I have IBB's daughter Lilias from Sentimental Value, she was number four on my ballot. And I have Nina Haas Josh from HETA. I'm not going to tell you where I have her just yet, but she's on the ballot, so do I.

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Speaker 6: I forgot to mention her as crossover picks, So yeah, we're aligned there.

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Speaker 1: So the two exceptions or the three exceptions, the three that are on the CFCA ballot that didn't make my ballot are one Meme Masaku, but I had her at number six, effectively Odessa A. Zion. I also really like Gwyneth Paltrow and Marty Supreme. I think they both deserve consideration, and yes, Teana Taylor. All three of those four, if you count Paltrow, were in my six through ten, so great picks there by our colleagues in the CFCA, the choices for me. The two that I had in instead, again we only submitted five were both actresses that I singled out back in July when we did our best performances of the year so far. This was a bit of bonus content that we shared exclusively with Film Spotting family members. I put Marisa Abela from Black Bag on my ballot's holding her own here, Josh, against Michael Fassbender and Kate Blanchette. You can start there, but in this whole ensemble, she's the standout for me, with Tom Burke and Naomi Harris. And I said it then, but the film's two best scenes don't just involve her. They're great largely because of her George that's the Fastbender character, and Clarissa Abla's character tried to adjust the satellites, and then her portions of the polygraph test that entire montage, which is so wonderful.

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Speaker 6: Have you ever physically assaulted a significant other during an argument?

00:11:34
Speaker 5: Oh?

00:11:34
Speaker 2: You know I have again?

00:11:37
Speaker 3: Yes or no?

00:11:39
Speaker 1: Yes?

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Speaker 5: Enthusiastically.

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Speaker 1: Credit has to go to David Kepp and Steven Soderberg here the writers and the director. I believe Soderbergh did co write it as well. I could be wrong. I'll have to fact check that Soderberg obviously directed Black Bag. But this combination of intelligence, the fearlessness, and it's not exactly vulnerable ability. I was trying to think of another word for what I think A Bayla shows as Clarissa, and it's a sensitivity. It's really a lack of inhibition. But she's so sharp and so memorable. That's why, even though this film came out so early in the year, she made my ballot. Josh, I think you fact checked me?

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Speaker 5: Am?

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Speaker 1: I am? I right? Did he co write it or just direct it?

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Speaker 6: Sodaburgh, Yeah, it looks like Kep has the main credit there, so Soderberg not listed. Yeah, because I as much as I love Black Bag, that was in the mix for the screenwriting category for me. So I remember looking up that as well, and A Bayla is great and it black Bag man, as I said when we reviewed it, maybe my favorite Soderberg movie in years, and was thinking it might show up on a lot of categories, and a lot of categories on my ballot. It showed up in a couple but a Bayla didn't quite make the cut for me, even though she is great.

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Speaker 1: It was tough to leave off one Mi Musaku for Sinners, but I did fine room for Hailey Steinfeld. I think I responded to something similar with a Baylist Clarissa in Steinfeld's Mary from Sinners. This intelligence, this fearlessness. She's uninhibited, but as there is more romantic entanglement there, she also exudes more actual vulnerability. And they are both women who make the very confident, very in control male protagonists of their films uncomfortable. They're disruptors, and I love that about both of these performances. They're very charged performances that I think are very different, but they're also perfectly pitched for their respective movies. And Josh, I didn't think about this at all when I was putting together this ballad. It really was only when I was assembling these notes and preparing for this show. But the last movie, I think the last movie I watched. So maybe a little bit of recency bias here, But I don't think you're going to question my pa. I know you're not, because she was on your ballot the last movie I watched before submitting my Ballot was a film you caught up with and recommended a few months ago when it came out. And that is Nia da Costa's heada. I just saw it, and Nina Haass I have at number one. I have her at number one, number one. So here again, fiercely intelligent as the Professor doctor Loveborg, seductive. She's a woman who makes every man around her uncomfortable in a very good way. Haas when she walks into a room, Haas with that dress. The costuming is so crucial to this film.

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Speaker 6: Specially that dress, agreed.

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Speaker 1: Hawas, and that dress own every single space that she walks into. She's completely unapologetic and only someone I think, really with the presence and the command of Has could pull off Loveburgs as effectively as she does, but also as movingly as she does, because what Has also conveys is here, I'm going to go to vulnerability, but I'm going to push it farther. It's or push it further. It's it's fragility. Every step that she takes, every word that comes out of her mouth, every choice she makes, it seems like even though she does have that confidence in that bravado behind it and it's earned. It feels like she's on a precipice. There is a desperation about her, and it that desperation that has is playing. It can't override her power, but the power can't completely dominate the desperation either, And we can't see her as a pathetic character ever. It's a really tough balance. We have to be like image and Poot's character. I think thea in the film who's in love with her, where we're watching her the entire time, both completely in awe of her and also completely in terror. You wouldn't do as I say, not where that is concerned.

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Speaker 5: Now, I think you should. It's ridiculous, it's silly, critty. It's all right for fear, but not for you. You can write your books with them and teach with them at the university, and you might even be able to get jobs alongside them, but they never really respect you if they think you can't do a life of boy do please do sou Greenwitz face elier when you ask for a soft drink like a soft woman, what did you say?

00:16:27
Speaker 7: Condemned?

00:16:28
Speaker 2: Well?

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Speaker 6: And it's the journey of the performance as well. It's not necessarily linear, going from point a to point B. It's more back and forth along between these qualities you're talking about. But yeah, she arrives as a goddess descending from Mount Olympus, and then from that point on, it's defending herself against u Tessa Thompson's head, who's chipping away at that goddessness, you know. And so it's how she deflects and reveals her insecurities that were there all along. It's yeah, it's just it's an incredible performance. Can I give you my number one though, who is actually the outlier among my group, and that is Elizabeth Chisella from on Becoming a Guinea Foul. This is a film I praised way early in the year and will come up later in other categories. But Chisella plays and Sansa, the cousin to the main character played by Susan Charity. So these cousins are reunited. They're brought together for their uncle's funeral in Zambia. And what I love about this performance is it makes us not a similar transition, but it does make a transition that is along the lines of what I'm talking about with Nina Has in that she shows up as this comic relief you think she's going to be an abrasive comic relief. She's drunk in her first scene, She's got this dance sequence, she's joking around, and you know, conditioned to movies that are not as sophisticated as On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, you might think, oh, okay, I know where she's slotted in. As this whole film opens up to reveal dark secrets and deep meaning, and Sansa is a crucial character in that, revealing her own deep hurt, revealing some bravery along the way. And yeah, it's just there's something fun about performances like Hoss, like Josela and On Becoming a Guinea Fowl that flower as the movie goes on and keep revealing new layers. I think both of those do that. And so I had Chosella at the top of my ballot.

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Speaker 1: Top of your ballad. She also was in consideration for me. I have another list here of also considered. Jasela was there along with some other fantastic actresses like Son ye Jin from No Other Choice. We're gonna hear a little bit more about that movie, probably not only on this show, but on the Top ten show. Mariam Afshari from Jafar Panahi's It was Just an accident song sung Blue. I think Ella Anderson is a really crucial part of that film, the daughter character to both Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman's character their husband and wife team. And is this thing on the Bradley Cooper film Andrew Day really surprised me. There surprised me because I'm not really familiar with her screenwork, So she surprised me in that supporting turn as the best friend to the Laura Dern character going through a divorce and having our own marital difficulties with Bradley Cooper his character in that film. So if you're not following along with all these picks, we will list all of these picks over at filmspotting dot Net. Just go to lists and you can find all of our top fives there. All of our best performances will be listed. There any other choices, Josh under supporting actress that you want to make sure you mention, I.

00:19:52
Speaker 3: Think we're good.

00:19:53
Speaker 6: I mean I did have Amy Managan as well in my honorable mentions. And I'll just throw in Jenna Davis from Megan two point zero, just giving just bringing that Bonker's character to life in a non traditional way. Did consider putting her on my bellot to she didn't quite make the cut.

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Speaker 1: Okay, that brings us to Best Supporting Actor. Five nominees, no ties this time, Benicio del Toro, one battle after another, Jacob Elordi, Frankenstein, Delroy Lindo, Sinners, Sean Penn one battle after another, and Stellin Scarsguard sentimental value.

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Speaker 6: All right, I went three for five this time, rather than four for five, Benicio del Toro. I mean, I've praised this performance plenty since the movie's release. I also praised Delroy Lindo Sinners. I think we both kind of predicted this in our initial review. Adam so very happy to see him showing up here.

00:20:53
Speaker 3: Jacob Elordi.

00:20:54
Speaker 6: I don't know if we went into this enough in our Frankenstein review. I think we were both so enamored we might have said, let's just set this aside.

00:21:02
Speaker 1: And I thought we did a deep dive.

00:21:05
Speaker 3: Did we do a deep dive? I don't know.

00:21:07
Speaker 1: Maybe I did, Maybe you saved it, maybe you held back.

00:21:10
Speaker 6: All right, Well, bear with me if I'm repeating myself, but I know I did mention his tenderness. I know we touched on that, and mostly in his physicality, right, the fact that rather than raging when he's put in chains, the creature holds his head mournfully in his hands. I don't think I called out this moment. Apologies again if I did. But when he has been imprisoned in that mortuary at the bottom of Victor's castle and there's this gutter running down the middle of it, it's meant to channel blood basically when things get really gruesome, but the creature instead drops a leaf in the stream of water that's currently running through it and just watches it. And then it's not just the physicality though, because once language becomes possible with the creature, which is, you know, true to the book, not always true to most Frankenstein adaptations, he gets this plaintive speech about living a merciless life he calls it, and what it feels like to be feared, to be hated and a LORDI pulls that off as well, So it's not just this mute physical performance overall. I know I like Frankenstein better than you, Adam, but I fell for it. As Germel del Toro turning this Gothic novel into a romantic vision, and I think Elordi's performance.

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Speaker 3: Is key to that.

00:22:28
Speaker 6: So yeah, real quickly, I'll just round out the other two on my ballot here, Michael Sarah the Phoenician scheme.

00:22:34
Speaker 3: Holy moly, I.

00:22:36
Speaker 6: Mean, what a what a fun performance. I thought for sure he was a lot at number one until del Toro showed up, and then at number five, I have a sap rocky and highest Lois. I mean, do I need to say anything more except that he goes toe to toe with Dunzel Washington.

00:22:51
Speaker 3: That gets you.

00:22:51
Speaker 6: Yeah, that gets you a slot on my ballot.

00:22:54
Speaker 1: Okay, so we have three picks in common, and I have four overlaps with this. I had del Toro, I had Lindo, I had a Lord as well. I had him at number two, Josh, but I have I have a different number one than you, but a number one that is on the CFCA ballot. So I'll get to that here in a second. The exception here, the one that I don't have is Sean Penn. One battle after another, and I guess I'm I'm pointing this out to say I want to table it. I don't know how I feel ultimately, do you know how you feel about the Shawn Penn performance in One Battle. I don't think we really got into that. And I love Penn as an actor. I know he is. He is truly one of our great actors and maybe the greatest of his generation. And the more I think about that film and I try to imagine that movie without that performance, I don't know if it works. I don't know. I don't know if the movie works as well as it does without what Penn is doing there. So I guess on those terms, I have to give it all the credit that it's getting, and it deserves this spot. But there is something about it. There's something about that, that heightened caricature nature, cartoonish nature of the performance that is keeping me a little bit distance from it in relation to other performances that I that I like better this year.

00:24:22
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's the good caveat is. I don't think either of started saying it didn't work at all. I think you're onto something. It's not even on my I have a very long list of supporting actor candidates. Actually it's a really strong category, so that may be part of it. It never occurred to me to put him on there, even though I have no issue with the performance. I think if he had maybe twenty percent less screen time, he might have made my list. Does that make sense? There's something about that performance as it stands the amount we get, you need to dole it out carefully for it to be among maybe the best of the year, and perhaps it leans slightly towards we get too much of Sean Penn in that performance in one battle after another. For me, I don't know if that explains it, but I think that's where I'm at.

00:25:20
Speaker 1: The one that I inserted instead that I had on my ballot, and I want to wait to discuss this a little bit more when we get to this movie. I put on Paul Meskel for Hamnett, the one performance that I overlapped with the CFCA that I haven't mentioned yet I had at number one. And I want to talk just a little bit more about Stellin Scarsgard as Gustav Borg in Yokumtrier's sentimental value. I did just see this today, Josh, and this does seem insane. I would have never guessed this, But did you know that of the twenty three Oscar categories, there's only one that has never included a nominee from an international film and it's Best Supporting Actor. So when stellin Scarsguard almost certainly gets a nomination for this film, he will he will be the first in this category, the first international Best Supporting Actor.

00:26:17
Speaker 6: No, that's strange, Yeah it is.

00:26:20
Speaker 1: So he plays in this film a director who's a strange from his daughters, one of which is an actress, and he's hoping to make his swan song that will also serve as an opportunity for reconciliation with that daughter. Perhaps we have seen variations Josh on this movie hundreds of times, sometimes with a similar artist an actress, or director and actress like scenario, and the word sentiment is right there in the title. Fortunately, Yoakam Trier is too smart a filmmaker to fall prey to sentimentality, and scars Guard doesn't let any of it seep into the performance either. His character is distant, he's detached, he's certainly solipsistic. He exudes characteristics of a selfish artist, but he's also not cold. He's not unfeeling either. And despite knowing how good he is as an actor from other performances and my respect for Trier as a filmmaker, I somehow kept waiting for this character. And I suppose then Scarsgard's performance to fall into this cliche version of this character that I had in my head. Charismatic, the charismatic artist, the tempestuous director. He's arrogant, he's older, right, so of course he's probably too problematic, and he's embarrassing even perhaps, And I think you can argue that there are shades of all of those things I just said in this character, but that's just it shades. He's a very nuanced human being, and the performance that Scarsgard gives doesn't insist on his character's worthiness for redemption. That's what lingers with me about that performance in a film that is overflowing with wonderful performances.

00:28:29
Speaker 6: Man, Adam, I'm just gonna have to take your word on this one. I am so left out when it comes to sentimental value. Just cannot see it. There's no way for me to see it. Neon distributors are so good about giving those actual physical disc packages every year, which is wonderful, but that's sitting back home in Chicago and it's not playing anywhere here in Scotland. So I'm seeing all of these nominations from different critics groups rolling in and this is one man. By the looks of it, I'm going to even miss for our top ten show. So unfortunate. But everything you said knowing Truer or knowing Sky's Guard rings true to me.

00:29:07
Speaker 1: So you want me to check and see what the postage is on sending my kneeon box over to Scotland. Only probably two and fifty bucks.

00:29:15
Speaker 6: If the film spotting budget allows. I would love that.

00:29:17
Speaker 3: Yes overnight, O.

00:29:18
Speaker 1: Yes, overnight. Yes, I'll look into that. I'm sure that won't jack up the price at all. Are there any other names that we haven't mentioned that you don't want to leave out? Josh?

00:29:28
Speaker 3: I mean William H.

00:29:29
Speaker 6: Macy and Train Dreams was probably my number six, just a wonderful performance there. And the other one I'll through out there is Archie Mattoquay in the very small film Lurker, which is a Golden Brick contender. Actually he plays the pop star in that film and is quite good. So those were two that were kind of hovering around the edge, just outside of my final ballot.

00:29:57
Speaker 1: I'm glad you said that you had such a long list. I think this this is the category where I had my longest list of people that I was at least giving some consideration to. And when I look at these next six choices here, Josh, the honorable mentions, they could be my top five. It kills me. When I saw Train Dreams, I was sure that William H. Macy was not only going to be on my Best Supporting Actor ballot, I thought he was probably going to win it. And now here he is at number six, and he's in this grouping with Andrew Scott from Blue Moon and with Yes. I think he's that good in this film, a movie that everybody overlooked this year except the two of us. We'll see if we give it enough credit here at the end of the year. Fully, Joel Petrichis in his film Volcani Zadora is really really good asap Rocky, Josh, I'm with you. Not only good and highest to Lois, but in if I had legs, I'd kick you. I didn't even recognize him at first when he appeared on screen, and he's great there. I like Michael Sarah, you know, I like him as much as you do in that film, even though you like that film a bit more than I do. The Phoenician scheme and We're going to talk about it a bit later, but I'm gonna go ahead and throw Daniel Craig for Wake Up dead Man into this category. My favorite turn by him as Benoit Blanc. I think he's worthy, okay as well. A reminder, you can see all of our choices over at film spotting dot net slash lists, and we do have more picks ahead movies you might be able to check out for free right now as a Regal Unlimited member. Marty Supreme number nine on Alison Wilmore's list, an eleven through twenty. Pick for me incredible performance from Timothy Shallomey that is playing right now at Regal. And we've talked a little bit about some of these picks. We've highlighted some of these repertory movies, the limited engagements Josh that has been showing at some of their theaters, and I'm looking at rgmovies dot com and they have a limited engagement right now for It's what is it? It's fortieth anniversary. It's thirtieth, Okay, only thirty years. Shouldn't age it like that thirtieth anniversary of a movie? I somehow I can't believe I've been admitting this. I have somehow never seen this film, despite the fact that it stars two incredible actresses, including one who I've always claimed to be a huge, huge fan of. And I may have to rectify this now by seeing it on the big screen. Getting a chance to see it on the big screen at a Regal Cinema. Sense and Sensibility.

00:32:48
Speaker 3: Angling way to do it.

00:32:49
Speaker 1: Great director too, Kate Winslett, the actress I'm referring to, the great Emma Thompson. Never seen Sense and Sensibility. And if you're like me, maybe you're embarrassed about it. You can check that out now at Regal Cinemas and maybe see it for free with that Regal Unlimited membership. Regal Unlimited is the all you can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits, and Regal is offering film spotting listeners endless movies for less. All you have to do is sign up using the code film Spot twenty five. That's film Spot twenty five, and you'll get ten percent off a three month subscription. It is the only truly limitless movie subscription pass. And you don't just save money on tickets, you also save on snacks. You get ten percent off all non alcoholic concessions. You get see any standard two D movie anytime, no blockout dates or restrictions. We encourage you to sign up now in the regal app or just click the link in this show description and use that code film spot twenty five to receive your discount.

00:33:58
Speaker 6: For giving out accolades this show, Adam, let's give out some thanks as well to our Film Spotting Family members, especially family member Laura who's in Paris, France, for joining the Film Spotting Family. Now, Laura's letterbox handle, this is getting a little tricky. It's it's with a W. It's Laura with a W. So lauwa lawa?

00:34:21
Speaker 3: Is Is that?

00:34:22
Speaker 1: Like? Sure?

00:34:23
Speaker 3: Perhaps how she pronounces it?

00:34:25
Speaker 1: I don't know.

00:34:26
Speaker 6: We should probably move on before we make Laura mad. Here are some of the comments that she shared when she did sign up for the Film Spotting Family. I've been listening to the podcast for about fifteen years. I think I discovered it via the A V Club's recommendations. Film Spotting is one of the first podcasts I ever listened to, and it remains one of my favorites. Intelligent reviews, fun banter, incredible tension, with film spotting, madness and awfully cruel and entertaining feature of the podcast, and always pushing me to discover new films and directors. The best cinema podcast on this planet.

00:35:02
Speaker 1: Wow, Wow, We're on a T shirt or billboard or something.

00:35:05
Speaker 3: No kidding.

00:35:06
Speaker 6: We asked what movie do you credit with becoming a Cinophile? For Laura, easy answer, two thousand and one, A Space Odyssey I watched in the cinema at fifteen years old.

00:35:16
Speaker 3: I already loved.

00:35:17
Speaker 6: Cinema by that point, but two thousand and one was a complete sensory and emotional revelation I had never experienced anything like before. Since then, cinema has been one of the most important things in my life, something that can touch me to the core, rip my heart open and put it back together. As far as books about movies or movie making that Laura appreciated, she said, I'll name too, the Stanley Kubrick Archives, published by Cashion. It made me understand how Kubrick worked on his films, how meticulous he was, and how he made use of every potentiality cinema can offer as an art form. More importantly, how filmmaking is a collective, essentially practical endeavor, far from just the realization of one genius idea.

00:36:01
Speaker 3: It could not.

00:36:01
Speaker 6: Exist without the equal contribution of all its participants, and Kubrick reminds us of this constantly. Another book Laura mentioned is Roads to Nowhere, about Kelly Reikert, one of my current favorite filmmakers, and insightful exploration of her work. I can't recommend it highly enough.

00:36:17
Speaker 1: How about that I didn't know there was a Kelly Reikert book out there. It doesn't shock me. I just wasn't aware of it, Josh, and it seems like one that maybe we should pick up. We do. Thank Laura for being a family member and for all of those years of listening and for the hyperbolic comments about the show. In addition to keeping us doing what we're doing, membership comes with perks. You get to listen early in ad free, you get our weekly newsletter, you get exclusive opportunities like being part of the Film Spotting Family discord, and you get our monthly bonus shows this month here in December, once we finish recording that Epic Films of twenty twenty five round table where we share our top ten movies of the year, just for family members. You're going to hear me and Josh and producer Sam, well, well, the two of us, we're going to share our eleven through twenty and then producer Sam's gonna jump on and he'll regal us with whatever he thinks are his favorite films of the year. I don't know if he'll get to twenty or not, but he'll certainly have strong opinions about his favorite films of the year regardless of what number he gets to.

00:37:19
Speaker 6: Yeah, that'll be fun to do with Sam. And this is new for us, and you know what I like about it, Adam, After we decided on it, It's given me some relief about that number nine to ten choice for my top ten list because now I have a place to talk about those movies that are getting cut in the eleven to twenty and we can share that with Film Spotting Family members. I just I feel much better about those those movies not making the you know, official, completely arbitrary ten.

00:37:47
Speaker 1: There you go. More about joining the Film Spotting Family is at Filmspottingfamily dot com. And there is another way you can help this show, an independently produced show which Film Spotting is Take a minute to go to Apple podcasts or Spotify and give us a quick rating or give us a quick review. You don't even have to say those super nice things that Laura did. You can just give us a rating if you want. It doesn't matter if you're brand new or you've been around for all twenty years. It may help us reach new listeners. Thank you again to all of our family members and hopefully to some future family members. I have a purpose.

00:38:26
Speaker 2: Okay, let me ask you something. Do you make money at this little table tennis thing? Not yet?

00:38:33
Speaker 4: Do you have a job.

00:38:35
Speaker 1: No, we're getting back into our picks for the best performances of twenty twenty five. That's a clip from Josh Saftie's Marty Supreme. It doesn't come to theaters until Christmas Day, but you heard star Timothy Shalomey. He's already in the Best Actor conversation the Chicago Film Critics Association. Josh has him in that conversation. When you look at the list of nominees, they've got him there with some other formidable talents. This is another one like Best Supporting Actress, where there were six finalists, so a tie doesn't usually happen. And here we have two categories with six picks. Chalome is right there at the top. Well, we're going in alphabetical order, but Chalome for Marty Supreme, DiCaprio, one battle after another, Joel Edgerton for Trained dreams, Ethan Hawk for Blue Moon, Michael B. Jordan for Sinners, and Vadner Mora for The Secret Agent. So where did you have crossover, where did you diverge? What would you like to highlight from the best actor category?

00:39:41
Speaker 6: Josh chal May is on my honorable mentions, Adam. I think everyone who got a nomination from the Chicago Film Critics is on my honorable mentions. Actually, I went in completely different directions. So let me just run down from from five to one.

00:40:00
Speaker 3: Here.

00:40:01
Speaker 6: I had at the number five slot, Sargi Lopez from Sirat, which is a movie that hasn't come up at all. I think it opened in the States in November.

00:40:14
Speaker 3: At some point.

00:40:14
Speaker 6: I just caught up with it in this blur, this recent blur, and I'm still wrestling with the full meaning of this existential exercise, to be honest with you, but I do know. Let me tell you what it's about. For listeners who are like, I've never heard of this movie, It's about a father who goes to a rave in the Moroccan desert in search of his missing daughter and he ends up on the road with this caravan of itinerant partiers. So yeah, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around everything. But what I do know is that Lopez as the father, he's bringing a human gravity to this story that is crucial for me.

00:40:53
Speaker 3: It's anchoring for.

00:40:54
Speaker 6: Me because this movie heads towards more becomes more metaphorically abstract as it goes on. Still hypnotic, that's a word that comes to mind for me with Sirat. But the thing I'm anchored to right now, to the point that he made my list was Yeah, Sergie Lopez in that performance as the father. Okay, My number four is Theodor pellerin from Lurker, which I mentioned earlier, a Golden Brick contender. He's the sort of stalker of the rising pop star that Archie Mattocoy plays. When I talked about this on the show earlier in the year, I described his nervous, needy intensity, and it was strong enough and potent enough for him to that performance to last for me to the end of the year. Here Number three Denzel Washington and highest to lowest. I think people are writing this off as an old man performance and kind of corny. I don't like to do this, but it's that's part of the point, you know. It's like, yes, the point of this movie is this losing his touch music mogul, getting shocked back to life by this kidnapping, and then finding his artistic integrity again regaining it and Denzil I think brings a lot of subtlety and dexterity to walking that line between corniness and awareness.

00:42:09
Speaker 8: On the coorus, ad lib a little bit, lay it a vocals differently, something like where's my money? I got the four pound of sit in right head.

00:42:19
Speaker 3: I don't try nothing funny.

00:42:20
Speaker 8: Something like that, you know Nazia ninety three, ninety four, all that, ohs, we're talking about nine.

00:42:26
Speaker 2: It's something all like I got the blicky omiog, so don't try nine tricky omiog.

00:42:32
Speaker 8: I got mine too, young g nine millimeters and a lot of reasons why you shouldn't with me Ei the young G. I'm the one that can pay you. I don't need to be the one that's going to slay you. Is this a battle right now?

00:42:42
Speaker 6: Number two Robert Pattinson. I have not forgotten about Mickey seventeen. I know the movie year has moved on. A lot of people didn't like it. I loved it, largely because of Pattinson's Three Stooges inspired performance. He's still in my number two slot, and I've been trying to rush through this at him because I know we're going to talk about Wake Up dead Man. But we've promised each other we're not going to go super long because we're trying to keep this show relatively tight. So give me a moment here to talk about Josh O'Connor in Wake Up dead Man, A Knives Out Mystery Father jud the Watson to Ben wi blancs homes in Ryan Johnson's latest Knives Out Mystery. I thought Adam, knowing he was in this, this was going to be the fun Josh O'Connor performance in twenty twenty five, right the light counter say to very good serious work like A History of Sound, which he's fantastic in and I liked quite a bit. Turns out, yes, he's hilarious in Wake Up dead Man, but plain by the way, we should say he's hilarious because he's playing this foul mouth priest who's got this violent past, and nonetheless he's still trying to uphold a vision he has of Jesus Christ as a healer in a world that is, to his eyes, trying to claim Jesus to justify political violence. I mean, this is an incredibly political film. We might get into more later, but as far as O'Connor is concerned, the key to me for this performance is that Jud isn't a saint, so he's preaching this forgiveness because he's still wrestling with accepting it for himself being forgiven himself. There is a greaterly scene in which Blanc and Jud engage in this theological debate. Blanks, you know, not just a skeptic, but you could probably call him an avowed atheist, and so they have this nice exchange, and as Jud offers his side his testimony, these tears start welling up in his eyes and we know, at least this is how I took it. Thanks to the depth of O'Connor's performance is that it's not so much he's trying to convince Blanc of anything. I think he reads him as a lost cause right away. It's because he's trying to reassure himself and bringing that level to this performance on top of all the solid laughs he delivers.

00:44:57
Speaker 3: It was like I was already in the.

00:44:58
Speaker 6: Bag for Josh O'Connor, and then this movie came around. It's I'm hopeless at this point.

00:45:03
Speaker 1: I'm with you, And first I want to say, I'm so disappointed because you make my list look so pedestrian and boring. You go completely off the grid. And here I have four crossover picks with the CFCA. I had DiCaprio, I had Shalome, I had Ogner Mora, I had Ethan Hawk as well. But I want to say this about O'Connor. I had him at number five on my list, Josh, and he could be higher. Again, ranking is so hard and arbitrary with these lists. I had him at number five up until the very last minute, I mean right up until I hit submit on my ballot, and I could have just stuck with it because I knew that DiCaprio almost surely DiCaprio was going to make it whether or not I voted for him, and my pick for O'Connor probably wasn't going to put him on the ballot, so either it didn't really matter. But I then had that little that little voice in my head that was already the voice that came out of me earlier this year, maybe maybe actually out loud, or it was just via slack when I said to Sam, I think it was producer Sam, maybe you as well, Josh, I said, you know what, we just at this point take Leonardo DiCaprio, for granted. I think we just assume that he's going to be great every time, and he is, and it seems so boring to praise him, and it certainly seems, almost like Meryl Streep, so boring to give him awards. I'm bored. I'm bored with the thought of giving him awards. I don't want him to get I almost don't want him to get an Academy Award nomination. I didn't want him to get a CFCA nomination. That's where I was, and then I just I couldn't do it. I said, wait a second, No, this is absurd. He's great, He's great in that film, and I'm putting him on. But my point is I love Josh O'Connor in that film, and we are going to talk more about that film here in a little bit. So my exceptions Joel Edgerton on the ballot and Michael B. Jordan sinners. Those are two honorable mentions for me. Those are two six through ten choices for me. So here again I am I guess in lockstep with the CFCA. My pick. The choice for me that was not among the Chicago Phone critics final picks is Lee Byung Hun from Park Chenooks. No other Choice, I said on letterbox, just a quick comment that Park Chenook was. You know, if you talk about tone management, Park Chenooks the president and CEO, you know, forget the manager of tone, like nobody does it better than him. Well, you need an actor that can also carry that, that can perform, that can walk that tonal line and have us reckoning with the moral weight of the choices that he's making, that that character's making, and then maybe even one second later, have us laughing at the utter absurdity of the choices that that character is making, and all the while he can't ever lose that man's humanity. If we can't see ourselves in this person, No other Choice does not work as a film. And as it is, it's one of the best films.

00:48:25
Speaker 3: Of the year.

00:48:25
Speaker 1: And I do think that He's a major reason why. So I had to make sure he got some credit on my list.

00:48:32
Speaker 6: Yeah, and that's when I do still need to see So yeah, I just had to prioritize a few others before I could get to it. But glad that you're giving it some attention.

00:48:41
Speaker 1: I had Ethan Hawk from Blue Moon at number one, and nobody needs to hear me whax more poetically about Ethan Hawk. So I do actually want to talk Josh a little bit about Wagner Mora in The Secret Agent, because I don't know if this is a film that's going to come up on our top ten films of the year. Is this a movie you were able to catch up with.

00:49:01
Speaker 6: Nope, it was the next one up and then time just got away from me.

00:49:05
Speaker 1: So I know he's getting a lot of love. I know when I put the screener in or when I clicked on the link, I knew he was getting a lot of attention, and so I had I had high expectations. It was kind of like show me, you know, show me what all the buzz is about. And man, did he not disappoint. As I'm watching it, I'm thinking this, this feels like a new face to me, and yet he's somewhat familiar, and so afterwards I looked him up. I never saw Narcos, so I didn't have that to go off of. Turns out he was in The Gray Man. But Josh, that Netflix movie, I barely remember that Ryan Gosling was in. He was in Civil War. He's Joel. He's the colleague, the journalist, colleague to Kirsten Dunt's character Lee. And that now that then rung a Bell or whatever the visual version of rung a Bell is. I saw that face in my head once I saw that on the on the page, But otherwise I don't know his work, and I'm thinking back on the character he plays in this film, and it really is it really, for the most part, is one character and one performance. We spend the bulk of the film following Mora as Marcello. This is a film said in nineteen seventy seven. He's a professor, teaches technology and he has to move from Sao Paulo to a smaller city during Carnival. We don't really fully understand why. At the beginning, we have to start putting together the pieces. We understand that he's running from something that seems pretty heavy, and it does have to do with this dictatorship and the pressure and the violence that may actually be coming for him, and that was previously coming for some of his colleagues. At the end, though, Josh, this isn't a spoiler. At the end, it does become a double performance. And I'm going to suggest that it's really a triple performance because we learn that Marcello is really Armando who we meet in flashbacks, and this is a secret name, of course, that he's using to protect his identity. But the man that he is now and the man that he is in these flashbacks, they're not just different in name and in hairstyle, and the hairstyle is very different. Moura really just very subtly distinguishes them by how they carry their weariness, how they carry their understanding of the depth of the corruption that they face, and their fear and how they're trying not to show that fear. Carlos Agiar did a really nice profile of Maura in the La Times that we'll link to, and he describes the performance as simmering, and there really is no better word to describe a man who's filled with rage towards this fascist regime. But is powerless and has to really focus only on staying alive. If I'm going to put it in those stove terms, Josh, Armando is always set to medium maybe maybe maybe medium high. You know, he's ready to flip t high. Marcello's a notch below, he's he's at medium low. And then this final character we meet, that Mora plays, he's maybe not even at a boiling point. And if if you see the film, when you see the film, you'll understand why, and and that that arc, that that historical arc and the jump that the film makes is really significant, and that that jump in temperament is significant to the film as well. There's a scene about halfway through this one, Josh, where Armando Marcello, but reflecting on his his time previously, has to tell his story to a couple of new characters that we meet, which in turn means of course that he's now filling us in as the audience on his story that has been elusive up to this point. And I remember thinking, Okay, this is going to be really tricky because for the filmmaker here, which is Cliber Mendonka, Philho and I'm sure I just pronounced that very terribly. I apologize, but I did my best with the name. I thought Filho has a really tough task that he's given himself because this is essentially an exposition dump. This is the point where we are going to get all of the backstory on this character, all the political backstory that we need. And I thought, even if it is that exposition dump, I'm okay with it because I'm so curious and I'm so in on this film. I want to know, but I still want it to be as acutely handled as everything else has been up to this point. And it is just as intense this conversation Josh, and the way it's it's shot, the way it's handled, the way the way Maura portrays it, the way he acts the scene is as intense as any other scene in the film, any other sequence in the movie. And he just doesn't embellish anything. He doesn't need to burnish the wickedness of the events that he's recounting. It's it's almost deadpan how how he recalls some of it. And there's a great line where he's he's talking about this one man in particular, this one evil man, and he says that I'm not a violent man. But but I'd kill this person. I could kill this person. And one of the guys that he's talking to says, do you carry a gun? And and he says no, He says no. He says, for this man, I would kill him with the hammer, is what he says about him. And the guy he's talking to, he says, do you carry a gun? And he says no, But I but I do know how to use a hammer. And and you know, that's that's an amusing sort of line, but it's not said with any sort of amusement whatsoever. It it's said by a man who fully understands the complexity and the and the weight of what he's saying there in the moment and what he as a character is trying to navigate emotionally politically in terms of his family, everything that he has been through at this point. So highly recommend The Secret Agent. If it's a film you haven't all everyone listening, not just you, Josh. If it's a film you haven't been able to see yet, And the Wagner Moorra performance is everything everyone has been saying it is.

00:55:41
Speaker 6: Yeah, I definitely saw that praise going around, and it was it was like I said, the last one I could have watched before the deadline, it would have been the second film of that day. And I think it's like what two twenty to forty something like that, and like, yeah, it was like, oh, okay.

00:56:01
Speaker 1: You know what, Josha totally And we've both been honest about this at various points over the years when we're when we're in this haze of trying to prepare for the top ten films of the year, and not only are we hoping for movies that are under two hours, more often than not, I know, I'm often hoping for movies that are just lighter. I you know, we're watching enough heavy Star exactly right. And so The Secret Agent is one I put off quite a bit because I knew what the subject matter was and it was two hours and forty minutes, and I knew it was going to be difficult treading. And all I can tell you is I still put it on one night. This was my mindset. I put it on one night about ten or ten thirty, and my mindset was only, let's just see if I can get an hour done, because if I can get an hour or so done, and if I have to return to it the next night to finish it. At least I've made progress. I watched it the entire way through. I had no I was that transfixed by the movie, despite the heavy subject matter, despite the length, I couldn't stop watching The Secret Agent.

00:57:10
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'll get to it at some point. And it's funny when you talk about what it's like this last week. I think in that mix for me was also, we have not only CFCA, but we have our Golden Brick, you know, award that we give out and want to fit in some that listeners have been suggesting to us. So I did what I did instead was knock out a couple of animated films. I was a little short on that this year, and some Golden Brick crossover there. So yeah, we've got to make We've got to make hard choices, and you feel bad. There's always going to be like two or three movies no matter what you do, no matter what you prioritize, by the time we get to our top ten show two or three movies that we wish we'd seen.

00:57:50
Speaker 1: That is definitely the case that brings us to our final performance category, Best Actress. Here are the nominees, at least according to the Chicago Film Critics Association, Jesse Buckley and Hamnett rose Byrn If I had legs, I'd kick you, Jennifer Lawrence, Die My Love, Amanda sayfre The Testament of Ann Lee, and Tessa Thompson for HEADA Josh, What's say you on Best Actress?

00:58:16
Speaker 6: All in contention for me? That is a strong nominee list I have in common, rose Byrn, if I had legs, I'd kick you. This is you know, another I think we can call it a mom going through it as you and Mariah Gates called it for a Top five earlier on the show Adam Yes, and she is my goodness. This movie opens, so she's playing a mother, I should say, of a child who's seemingly suffering from an extreme meeting disorder to the point that her daughter has to have a stomach tube. And you know, Burne has some big breakdown moments in this movie. A lot of them are darkly funny, But the film opens with her face almost entirely filling the screen, and it's because that's how close the camera needs to get to register the astonishing subtlety of her strained performance here as this mother. I think we hear offscreen the daughter saying something like, is it Mommy is stretchable, describing her mom to like a therapist. Mommy is stretchable. And when we hear that, we notice just this, the slightest of tremors going below Burn's eye. And so yeah, the levels of register, the registers of this performance are what are incredibly impressive.

00:59:44
Speaker 1: I try very hard to be in control of her and everything, but amaze, I'm not I can get it at all.

00:59:50
Speaker 2: I don't like hell what feels are my sort?

00:59:53
Speaker 8: Okay.

00:59:54
Speaker 6: I'm also all in on Jesse Buckley and Hamnet. She here in this clog out along with Paul Mescal. They really anchor the movie. And I don't know that I have to get dig into what people are hating about this movie so much, because I know they are, but until I had processed it myself, I didn't want to look yet.

01:00:15
Speaker 3: So I'll get.

01:00:18
Speaker 1: Fascinating. Oh yeah, ok, yeah, yeah.

01:00:20
Speaker 6: There's there's some real anger about Hamnet. And you know, we're going to talk about this a little more, but I'll say now, as far as Jesse Buckley is concerned, from the world melting smile, she gives to to Paul Mescal early on, during the romantic sections to the roaring anguish she shares later. It just sucked me in. I think without her balance of loveliness and tenacity, I don't know that the emotional climax of this movie would work. It does for me, maybe it doesn't for others, but I think that's largely due to her. And you know, Buckley is interesting for me. I've I've been an admirer of her from a distance, I'll say, when others have been deeply smitten for a long time. Now, this one made me a true believer, so I'm all in at this point. I'll go quickly through the others here. I've mentioned Keiky Palmer earlier in one of them Days. She made my ballot at my number three actually this hilarious buddy comedy she's opposite Sizza's roommates facing unfair eviction in an la apartment. And yeah, I've talked about just how she's balanced not only the laughs, but made a real character in Drew, who she plays there Ava Victor. Sorry, baby, I mean talk about tone management you were mentioning early, Adam. This is a Golden Brick contender. She's the writer, director, star, and she handles the tone in all three facets. She's playing a literature professor in this small town at this small town university who's attempting to move on from a traumatic experience, and just the way she balances wit deep emotion and she generates a lasting empathy here. So you're going to be thinking about Agnes, this character and how she's doing for.

01:02:08
Speaker 3: A long time.

01:02:08
Speaker 6: You're just gonna wonder, is is Agnes okay? Like she's still okay? And that's all due to Victor's performance. My number one though, Adam, I'm going to go back to on becoming a guinea foul, And this is the lead performance by Susan Charity, who is, you know, a relative newcomer to acting, and here she's returning to contemporary Zambia for this multi day funeral for her uncle.

01:02:35
Speaker 3: She's very reserved.

01:02:36
Speaker 6: It's a quiet performance, but I don't think that's because of her inexperience. It's because of what the character needs, and her reticence opens up as we learn more about her family and her deeply conflicted relationship with them. And Charity is another one of those who yeah, like Agnes and sorry, baby, you're like, is she better now? Like it's been it's been six eight months since I've seen that movie.

01:03:04
Speaker 3: Is she is?

01:03:05
Speaker 6: She doing a little bit better maybe than where she was when.

01:03:08
Speaker 3: I saw it.

01:03:08
Speaker 6: So so those are my five.

01:03:11
Speaker 1: I had three crossover here again with the CFCA, I never had any fewer than three. I had Sey Fred for the Testament of an Lee. I had Jesse Buckley for Hamnet quite high at number two, and Nina Haass was number one Josh for Best Supporting Actress for Heda. I ended up being quite a fan of Tessa Thompson for Heda as well. I think I think there's a lot to that performance. I had her at number three. I think that that that very precise, kind of overly staccato annunciation that she gives that character is actually really effective as someone who It's not that she's not not comfortable in a way with who she is, because she's she's always it's seems in control or feels like she can be in control, but she is always playing a character of sorts, and I think that that is really really perfect for Heda. That element that Testa Thompson brings just in terms of her voice alone, but there's a lot of other wonderful aspects to that performance. The two exceptions, the two them that I didn't have Jennifer Lawrence. I love as an actress, but you know, I'm not as in on that film Die My Love as some others are, and I then am not as favorable on that performance either rose Byrne. If I had legs, i'd kick you. That performance is definitely one I had in my six through ten. And you mentioned the camera and how close it is. One thing you realize about Mary Brahunstein, what she's doing with the camera in that film. There are some exceptions to this, but very few, Josh. And if you talk to some moms, they rarely get a moment to themselves, and even when they have a moment to themselves, it never really feels like psychically they have a moment to themselves. In this film, the camera smothers rose Byrne in a way that makes it feel as if there's no escape. It feels exactly right, and I think it is a wonderful performance. I'm with you on Susan Chardi, though I had her at number four on my list, my number one, someone who was not among the final five choices. I'm going to go back to the movie you haven't seen, Josh sentimental value. It is Rinada Ryansfa. I'm going with that pronunciation. I got corrected on letterbox, Josh, and I hope I'm I hope I'm saying it correctly or closer to correctly.

01:05:51
Speaker 6: Wait, wait a minute, how are how are you mispronouncing things on letterbox?

01:05:55
Speaker 3: What's going on here?

01:05:56
Speaker 1: Well, letterbox is just the venue they chose to see. They chase, they chased you down exactly. No, they has a lot of added audio video. I know exactly. You can chase me down anywhere. I'm I'm happy to get scolded that. That's completely fine. The director I mentioned earlier, played by Stellen Scarsgard, the daughter that he is round about hoping to reconcile with that he's written this movie for, is played by Ryanzvah And of course listeners may know I have been smitten with her as an actress ever since Yokum Trier is the worst person in the world. There there is the opening of this film, I believe it is the opening. There there's kind of a prologue, but then the actual opening of the film. Josh is her and this is a theme of the year that maybe we'll get into a little bit in the top ten. Something I'm noticing here at the end of the year. A lot of performances within performances, and she plays this actress and she's she's about to go on stage to do a theatrical production, going through a bit of not a bit, going through a major freak out, having some major anxiety here on opening night. But when she finally gets on stage and she has to deliver her first her first line, it's really more of a sound. It's been a while since I've seen it. But when she lets out that sound the way Ryansfah delivers it, you just know the force that she carries as an actress. And then what's so interesting about it is that for the rest of the film, when that character is not on stage, she's so she's so largely withdrawn and closed in and all of the emotional angst and there is a lot of it, all of the turmoil that that character is experiencing, and it's it's the it is the conflict that inner turmoil is the conflict that's driving the film. It it is all something that she is she is largely just wrestling with internally and the way we see that and feel it. We understand that, and yet we as viewers still do understand and we see it the way she is processing it and the subtle way that Ryan's fah does it. There's a scene in the movie, and it's one that's available online. We'll link to it in the show notes so people can watch it. Sam may include it here in the show, but of course it's not in English, so I don't know how many of our listeners, Josh, we'll get much use out of it. But there's a scene in the movie that just encapsulates so much of what makes this performance great. Where she's talking to her sister and she's already turned down her father. This is early in the film. She said no to this part. She does not want to work with her father. She is not interested in reconciling. She can't work with him. This is all in the trailer. And then all of a sudden, the dad shows up at the house with el Fannings character, this famous American actress who who has taken on the part, who's taken the part, He's gotten financing for the film. She thinks this is all gone through, Josh, that this has all fallen through. That when she said no, the film fell through and it was not going to happen. And within a sixty second span, all on, mainly just on Runs's face, you see that character, the trajectory of her character having to reconcile feelings of jealousy that that or later jealousy that the film is getting made without her, that the part that he wrote for her, even though she turned it down, that it is getting that it's getting made without her after all that that, she then is disappointed in herself for feeling that way a little bit, and then she has to try to get herself over it in the moment instantaneously, and then when the actress and her dad show up at the house and are about to walk in, she actually, there's this bit of physical what I thought in the moment, Josh, when I watched it originally I thought was physical, where she actually she's so she's so petrified by it that she stumbles backwards and almost trips and has to has to run out of the house. She won't she won't let herself be seen. And when I rewatched it just earlier today, I realized there's really nothing funny about it. She's legitimately terrified. It's it's actually something that is. It feels more like something that is, that's anxiety, that's that's eating away at her. And the thought of the thought of them walking into the house at that moment, it's as if she would It's not just that she's she's nervous about it or she would be embarrassed. It's as if she would, she would maybe dissolve in front of them. That's how That's how much it would it would hurt her if if she was seen in that moment. Again, it's about a sixty second scene, and yet you feel all of that just within the performance. Even though there's there's there's not there's not a lot of dynamic in terms of the volume to the performance. I just think I think she's a force as an actress, and I love the film and it's another one of those movies that we may hear more about. Is the Month goes on here on film spotting.

01:11:15
Speaker 6: You know, you'd think the fact that I'm partner Ourwegian could have got me at least a screening link at him.

01:11:21
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, no kidding, Are you in Trier like old friends at this point or something?

01:11:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sure I were probably related.

01:11:28
Speaker 1: I was going to say somewhere down the line, right, well, those are our favorite performances of twenty twenty five. Again, you can look at all those picks, maybe view some of the scenes we've talked about over at film spotting dot net slash lists.

01:11:51
Speaker 8: Everyone thinks I did it, I didn't do it.

01:11:54
Speaker 3: This goes way beyond normal police work.

01:11:57
Speaker 2: This is something even.

01:11:58
Speaker 8: I've got experienced, a perfectly impossible crime.

01:12:06
Speaker 1: This case is solvable. Time I'm incapable of not solving a crime, or you'll see it's fun. Daniel Craigs Ben wil Blanc is back in Ryan Johnson's Wake Up dead Man the Third Knives Out mystery among the suspects, this time Josh O'Connor, Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, and others. In addition to being well crafted mysteries, the films have been used by Johnson for some playful satire. The First Knives Out in twenty nineteen tapped into issues of class and race. The follow up Glass Onion in twenty twenty two satirize the ultra wealthy, and now Wake Up dead Man takes aim at the church, specifically here a Catholic church in Upstate New York, but more broadly Christianity and the way it intersects with politics and society. I don't know. We might throw just Maga in there as well. Josh, what did you think about Wake Up Dead Man? We know you love Josh O'Connor's performance, and he is a major, major part of this film, so I'm guessing you were a fan of the movie overall.

01:13:00
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'll let that speak for itself. My choice for him is the best performance by a lead actor this year. And I've appreciated the satire in all of Ryan Johnson's Knives Out films, but this is the one that hits very, very close to home. I did not expect it. I knew Josh O'Connor played a priest, I'd seen the trailers, but maybe I should have knowing that he likes to weave in some satire here. But man, was this potent on point what we need? Throw this in the group of wake up movies in twenty twenty five, trying to shake those who still need to be shaken about what's going on in this country. And yeah, it is absolutely perceptive. It's let me just say quickly, also very fun in twisty murder mystery. It's hilarious, but it has a provocative claim at its center. Interestingly, Johnson's a filmmaker of incredible talent, so he wraps this up in a potent image right away. What do we see at the beginning of this movie, Adam in this church the fate outline of a cross. So imagine, like you know there's a picture that's been hanging on your wall for fifteen years and you take it off and you've got that outline. That's what's in this church. There's no cross there, there's the outline of it. There are practical plot reasons for that, but this is the symbolic statement the movie is making that something is missing, something essential is missing from the most prominent expressions of American Christianity these days. And that's where the Maga comes in, which is not Christianity, but it's claiming it. And Johnson knows this and has built a fun, twisty murder mystery around it. That's what kind of just knocked me out about the film, maybe simply because it was unexpected, and I just want to keep emphasizing people are going to see this. They love these movies. So I don't need to encourage anyone to SA but I do want to emphasize how fun it is. This is not a dry theological treatise, right, I mean, no, it is not. He's also having a ton of fun with the religious setting, sets up a ton of sharp gags. The title alone hints at all the resurrection imagery he's going to play with here. O'Connor's performance is very funny. So many performances are funny. But yeah, it's it's just the the wisdom at the center of this is what I'm going to treasure about wake Up Dead Man the.

01:15:29
Speaker 1: Most, the wisdom. That's a really interesting point, and I don't disagree, though. I think it's something else that I'm going to or that I am treasuring most about this film, even if it's it's a word I don't know that I can completely put my finger on yet. We'll see if I can. I can get to the right word as we talk about the film a little bit more. It's unfortunate in a way that these movies always come out around Thanksgiving, because even though we have reviewed given a full review to at least one of the films previously, sometimes we aren't able to give them the full film spotting Linky discussion treatment, and this is an example of that. Here we are, we're already doing our top five or we're doing our best performances of the year, and we're kind of just sandwiching in this conversation. We've both alluded to this already. There is so much that we could dig into with this film, not just culturally and politically and in terms of the satire, but in terms of visually, in terms of the writing and the gags and the performances. I said it before, Josh O'Connor, I think is so good in this film, and why I say he's so good gets at what I really want to try to underline about what so surprised me with this film. And it's been a while since I've seen the other two films, and I didn't look at my notes either, so maybe I'm not doing these films justice with my memory. Though I want to be clear, I'm not saying these films had to deliver anything more than they did. Not only did they give us some really potent, fun playful satire, they worked as the murder mysteries, the really smart murder mysteries they needed to work as ye full stop. That that's what made them very good films that we both positively, very positively reviewed. And I was really expecting nothing more from this film. And not only did we get the very pointed and very playful satire and the very smart, fun murder mystery, but I got something that hit me on a very very odd emotional level. And I can't I can't. I can't fully unfortunately articulate it because it would involve me, it would it would require me to get into spoilers. But what what isn't a spoiler is to say that, of course this is this is a murder mystery where you know that Benoi Blanc is going to reveal the killer and there's going to be a confession. That's how these movies work. We are going to eventually find out who the killer is and the killer is going to explain something about why they did what they did. I don't remember previously in these films, not that there wasn't depth, some depth to it, or some drama there to it, maybe or in other murder mysteries like these films, but watching this one, Josh, that final scene between O'Connor and this performer and the different directions it goes both intellectually and emotionally hit me in a way that I want to say I could have never expected, but of course also is completely in line with everything I saw for the previous two hours. It was the perfect culmination of the film that I saw, except or all I'm trying to say is I didn't expect that murder mystery. I didn't expect a murder mystery to be able to do that. Somehow, I'm still trying to figure out how Ryan Johnson made this fun murder mystery satire that left me, that left me actually getting a little bit a little bit teary eyed watching a killer confess at the end of the film, because of the different ways a person the two the dynamic between the two characters in the scene, the levels that they are, the layers of that scene, and where they go with each other. I think that's what I'm trying to say, Where they go with each other in that scene. It's a surprise moment to moment, and I loved it.

01:19:52
Speaker 6: And I'll just add that you're right about the ways it works. It works on the level of the film's theology as well. I would also argue, and maybe we can dig into this further. It sounds like you have a potential most moving moment from Wake Up dead Man for our year end wrap party. My for sure most moving moment is coming from this film, but it will be from an earlier scene in Wake Up Dead Man. So yeah, maybe when we get to that in January, we could talk about these in a little bit more detail.

01:20:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, and maybe I can articulate everything I was trying to say a little bit better. Then, speaking of moving and emotional, let's talk a little bit about Himnett.

01:20:41
Speaker 3: Dream again, likening.

01:20:46
Speaker 1: He does?

01:20:50
Speaker 6: That's well, okay, yeah, this uh yeah, this was a lot. Hamnet is the adaptation of the twenty twenty novel by Maggie o'ferrell. Paul Meskill Here is Shakespeare. Jesse Buckley plays his wife, and we should also note this comes from co writer and director Chloe Jau, a favorite here at film spotting. The movie is about these characters meeting and their marriage, and then it goes on to deal directly with the death of their only son, Hamnet, and what came from their grief, including the play that is his namesake. So, Adam, what do you say? This is gonna be difficult because we've already touched on this. You weren't aware at all about the pushback to this movie. It sounds like I am only vaguely aware by seeing star ratings and Angry Blue Sky references to it. I don't know in detail, but there is some pushback from people. And how would you pre defend Hamnet, because I do know that you're a fan.

01:21:59
Speaker 1: Well, I like the movie. I don't love the film maybe as much as I thought I would, considering the talent that's in it and the director and everything about the creation of art. You know, is usually going to be a subject that is going to appeal to me, and it does appeal to me here. But I also think it's a limitation of the film, as I'll get into here in a moment. I'm not sure exactly what the hang up is, other than maybe folks find it a little bit too too demanding of our emotions, wanting too much to ring every last tier out of us. I went into it knowing very little about this movie, honestly, other than the basic the basic story that you mentioned there, Josh. And if we gave star ratings based on how many minutes we spent crying during a film, then I would give himn It twenty stars and it would be the greatest movie I ever saw. Okay, I'm telling you my experience with the film, and I'm I'm not I'm not trying to suggest that I am somehow some virile man who watches films and never gets emotional. But when I watch movies, I can get a little a little, you know, a little teary, or I can I can feel emotion welling up and I have to stifle back tears.

01:23:33
Speaker 8: I don't.

01:23:34
Speaker 1: I don't often, Josh, that I can recall actually cry. You know where I'm I'm actively sniffling and like the tears are, you know, rolling down my face. And there's there's a twenty minute section of this film where it it nailed me and and and that's that's what I was doing. I was. I was sitting on my couch watching this film crying. So if you're a person who maybe wants to avoid material, especially if you are a parent and thinking about dealing with a movie that's going to depict the passing of a child and and having to watch that kind of grief portrayed, maybe maybe the movie isn't for you. It it was for me an emotional watch. But that's that's a that's not something that was then a negative about the film, Josh. It also isn't then the basis for my positivity on the movie that it got an emotional reaction out of me. I think that the first half of this film, when we're especially getting to know these characters, Paul Meskal's Will, who I love how the movie doesn't call him Will or refer to him as Shakespeare until near the end of the film very clearly by design, they just call him husband and they call her Agnes, and you if you came in with no knowledge of what this was really about or that it was going to lead to the production of Hamlet, you you wouldn't.

01:25:11
Speaker 6: Know hand raised that was me. But go on, okay, think that's me. So I like this movie so much, but go on.

01:25:17
Speaker 1: There you go. You could come into it and not know that has anything to do with Shakespeare for a very long time. And and I love that aspect of the film because I think Shao does a very nice job of balancing this relationship and making it about both Agnes and the husband and making it about Buckley and Mescal, but still the emphasis, Josh, and I like the movie most when it's about Buckley's character. Yes, And the movie then at some point has to become the movie. It has to become it has to become the Shakespeare movie. It has to become the William Shakespeare movie that's about the production of Hamlet. And you said this earlier, and I agree with you because of Buckley's performance and also very much because of Paul Meskal's performance. The moments that the movie needed to deliver emotionally still very much delivered for me in the second half of this film. But that turn that the movie needs to make, or that it does try to make, I never felt. I never felt completely in lockstep with I never felt like that turn to then becoming the Shakespeare movie was as satisfying as the Jesse Buckley Agnes film I was getting up until that point.

01:26:39
Speaker 6: I think that's totally fair, and that may be part of the pushback that this movie is getting, which I could understand as I was just saying, I went in totally blind.

01:26:48
Speaker 3: I heard this was Chloe Shao. Had these two.

01:26:51
Speaker 6: Actors somehow related obviously from the title to Hamlet. I'm in don't want to know anything else, and so I really did go in blind until I was like, oh, okay, he's Shakespeare. Huh interesting, and then you do start to get the easter eggs. I was fine with it. I think there is a scarecrow moment that that would be, you know what they're doing in.

01:27:12
Speaker 3: Wicked for Good?

01:27:13
Speaker 6: I got it, but we could talk offline maybe about what we think that is. But other than that, I think it handles it fine. The transition overall, i'd agree with you to the crying question. I don't cry interestingly, the well I should say, I don't cry during movies very often.

01:27:31
Speaker 1: The last fist interjected, but I let it go.

01:27:35
Speaker 6: The last film I probably did was another Paul mescal film, after Sun, where yeah, things got wet, but yeah, I usually. This is what's interesting about Hamnet Adam is that movies like this, where you can sniff out early on that they want you to cry, No way is that going to work. The defenses come, the gates go up. It's like you try, no luck, and maybe.

01:28:01
Speaker 1: The movie's being manipulative. Did you feel like what I'm saying, the subject matter is the subject matter.

01:28:07
Speaker 6: This is what I was going to say is that. I think it's a credit to Hamnett that it is so explicitly emotional, and I still found it to be that, maybe not to the point of tears, but my defenses did not go up. I never felt like I needed to protect myself from the manipulation of the movie, because again, the performances are genuine, and I think Jow's conviction behind the camera is equally genuine, and so I didn't feel manipulated. I maybe didn't get to the emotional point you did, but I was on board with this movie all the way through to that ending, the climax, which you know, was fairly profound. I feel like in the term in terms of the communal compassion it evokes out of.

01:28:52
Speaker 3: This work of art.

01:28:53
Speaker 6: And so that's where I am with it. I'll dive into what some of the other objections are. I think I'll probably be able to understand just about all of them, honestly, as they might relate to the emotionality or the you know, the use of Shakespeare and the Shakespeare Easter eggs or whatever you want to say. But for me, it all worked pretty well.

01:29:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, it worked pretty well for me too, And it is largely because of those those performances, and not just Buckley and Mescal, Jacoby Juup as the young Hamnets Oh wow, gosh, and the stunt casting if you will, if you will, but but so smart to cast Jacoby Jeep and his brother Noah Juup, who you may know from the Quiet Place movies. That's his brother who we meet later in the film. And it makes sense whether you know that or not, and I didn't at the time in the moment watching it, but you feel it. You feel it in a way that you need to feel it, and that's all that really matters. And Mescal I already I already said something about this or or hinted at it. But the moments of performance within the performance that maybe we shouldn't be so impressed with because that's what that's what actors do, that's what they get paid to do. But when you have to deliver some of these lines on a stage and we know the weight that has to be carried by them, and and the the entire movie Josh is is really being balanced on the emotional Catharsis is The construct of the film demands that at a certain point Paul Meskal is able to deliver lines that we feel the totality of the of the crushing profound the fundity of what his character and not only even his character, his character within a character is expressing. And if it doesn't work, if it doesn't work, the whole ending fails. And if the ending fails, I feel like the movie, the movie then doesn't work. And maybe that is part of what's not working for people. But because of Mescal's ability and Buckley's ability to make those moments that have to be transcendent actually be transcendent, Hamnett does succeed.

01:31:38
Speaker 6: Yeah, without these two actors with far lesser talents, it could have been disastrous.

01:31:44
Speaker 3: It really could have.

01:31:46
Speaker 6: But I think they manage it quite well.

01:31:49
Speaker 1: Hamnett is currently playing in limited release and will expand throughout the month. Next week here on Film Spotting, it is that best of twenty twenty five around on table. Michael Phillips will join us, as he has every year since I don't know, at least two thousand and seven, and for the first time ever, how about this back. You know, even before COVID Josh, we used to try to get her in the mix. She's part of the Film Spotting family has been forever, and there was even a time where she was scheduled and then it fell through it the last minute. Well it's not falling through now. Knock on wood Vultures Alison will Moore formally a film spotting SVU. She's gonna be here as part of the roundtable. Can't wait.

01:32:34
Speaker 6: Super exciting. We've done at least two live shows that Allison's been involved with, maybe more, And yeah, she's incredibly fun, incredibly perceptive and has a very interesting top ten list that we've already gotten a sneak peek at, and so yeah, I can't wait for her to be in the mix for this great show, which is, honestly, you know, one of our favorite to do, favorite to do every year, And I got to ask you a question, Adam. Also on the docket for this show is our Golden Brick finalists.

01:33:08
Speaker 3: Right.

01:33:08
Speaker 6: We usually announce those films from new or upcoming filmmakers that we've been excited about from this year under seen Films, and we nominate them for the Golden Brick. Can I throw in at least one one more here before? Okay, so this was part of my cramming session. I mentioned how I needed to pick up my animation game for this year, and so I did watch Boys Go to Jupiter, which is directed by Julian Glander. It's sort of a low fi animated effort about a bunch of teenagers, including like a grub Hub gopher, essentially hanging out in Florida, and I can't say much more about it except to say that it is a strong shot at being in my actual top ten this year.

01:33:59
Speaker 2: It is.

01:34:00
Speaker 6: It's kind of a kinder, gentler, South Park variation on what it's like to live in the United States today, with some incredible electronic songs also, as far as I can tell, written by Julian Glander, that make this like eighty percent of musical that I've already been listening to just outside just doing regular work, because they're so fun and witty and smart as well.

01:34:30
Speaker 2: Eggs again. I think I'll have eggs again.

01:34:39
Speaker 4: There's so many different ways to have eggs, you could have a different way every day.

01:34:48
Speaker 6: So Boys Go to Jupiter I absolutely want to throw in. It's Glander's featured debut as a Golden Brick contender. And then another movie I want to throw in because we both loved Rose Byrne and if I had legs, i'd kick you. This is I think the second film from director Mary Bronstein, but the first we've seen feels like something of a breakout beyond Burn's performance. Do we want to throw this in the mix as well?

01:35:17
Speaker 3: Where are you at here?

01:35:18
Speaker 1: Yeah? This is tough. It's a case josh I threw out via Slack a couple of weeks ago. What do we do with Bronstein? I feel like she probably does belong in contention if you look here again. At the Chicago Film Critics Association, they have a Breakthrough Filmmaker Award and Bronstein is among the candidates there. And I put Bronstein on my ballot. She's on my top five. Now, we don't have to have exact crossover with the Brick and Breakthrough Filmmaker Award, but they are very similar. And I will tell you, in having some conversations offline with Eric Childress from the CFCA, who puts those ballots together, I don't say this in any way disparagingly. He's in the same boat we are, which is we're all just making it up as best we can. So it turns out, you know, there's no hard and fast criteria. It's not like it's not like there's there's exactly a set of rules that means you qualify as a breakthrough filmmaker. And the CFCA is largely thinking in the same terms we are, which is, does it feel new to us? Does it feel like it has been a breakout whether or not they've made previous films before. Are those movies that maybe were not just shorts, but were they movies that maybe only played the festival circuit and really didn't get a release. That's one thing the CFCA really considers, and that does seem to be the case with Mary Bronstein. What's harder is when you talk about a breakthrough or a merging filmmaker and they have films that go back it's twenty twenty five and Bronstein's where it goes back to two thousand and eight and two thousand and nine. Is she a breakthrough filmmaker? But there again, if it's just fest ull circuit stuff and this is where we're really encountering her work for the first time, then she does seem to fit that part of the criteria. Well, then what about the fact that it's an a twenty four film and it did play in a lot of theaters. Is that too big for our Golden Brick. It's very tricky, And I suppose at the end of the day, I do think that the movie is still one that most people listening to us right now probably didn't get a chance to see. And Mary Bronstein's a filmmaker that most people listening are just like us a month ago, not familiar with. And those two things being the case, if I had Legs I'd Kick You should probably be a Golden Brick nominee.

01:37:45
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's where I fall too, on the whole way. Yeah, for the long list for sure. The whole idea behind this is to highlight underseen films and up and coming filmmakers, and I think that applies at this stage to fired Legs I'd Kick You. So let's throw this on. Let's throw boys go to Jupiter on. And we have a very healthy list of contenders at this point to whittle down to our finalists, which we'll reveal on our next show.

01:38:12
Speaker 1: You can look at that list, that very healthy, long long list over at filmspotting dot net. You can go to the Golden Brick page. It's available at film spotting dot net.

01:38:22
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01:38:51
Speaker 1: A few notes housekeeping here. Josh our producer Sam recently appeared on the podcast of our friend of our show, Aaron Neworth. The podcast is out now with Aaron and Abe. They talked about Noah Bombo's Jake Kelly. I don't know if that's a movie that's gonna get much discussion here. I don't know is j Kelly gonna make your top ten Josh spoilers.

01:39:12
Speaker 6: Uh no, it won't. Though I'm a mild fan. Could I say I'm a mild fan?

01:39:17
Speaker 3: Me too.

01:39:18
Speaker 6: I know that I know that Sam is a much bigger fan, So I'm sure that's a good conversation he's having there with Aaron, and yeah, he'll be able to sing the praises of j Kelly George Cliney, Yeah, didn't come up on our performances list. Though George Cline's fine in it. Adam Adam Sandler is excellent in it.

01:39:42
Speaker 3: Could he have used a little.

01:39:43
Speaker 6: More Adam Sandler I would have liked, considering the great work he's doing there. But yeah, definitely check out check out Sam on out Now with Aaron and Abe and yeah, you can find it wherever you get your podcasts real quick.

01:39:57
Speaker 1: I think there's some interesting things to discuss with Cline. Sam and I were having a discussion offline that I have to find a way to bring online here to the show about the only other actor that could have played the j Kelly part and and would have made the made the film better. Oh, there is one other actor. I think. I think Sam and I are onto something. Yeah, I think there's a well because Clooney, I mean, if you think about it, and I know a lot of people are saying this, but Clooney anyway fits the part. The every shot in that movie of the of the posters of the the classic Hollywood movie star and when he when he looks himself in the mirror at one point, yeah, and says Gary Cooper, and he and he recounts the names and Jay Kelly. You know what, Clooney's face fits the bill, He fits that bill of those types of movie stars. I think we can see him in that, in that litany. But there's another actor. It's not just that they're a better actor, Josh. It's about the persona in our relationship to that actor and that actor's relationship to their persona and their work. That would have made j. Kelly a very different film, but maybe a better one. So that's a discussion for another time.

01:41:13
Speaker 3: It is.

01:41:13
Speaker 6: I'll just add I don't think it's necessarily a Clooney issue, because Clooney is capable of something more than what we what I got here exhibit at Michael Clayton. I think it's more an issue of how j. Kelly is envisioned from a conception standpoint than how he's necessarily performed.

01:41:33
Speaker 3: See, we should have reviewed Jake Kelly. This is a crazy year. Too much going on. This is ridiculous.

01:41:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I you know, you know, I'm usually a no abound back guy, and I am because I like the film. I do like it, and I do recommend I think that it's I think it is worth seeing.

01:41:47
Speaker 3: But it's worth seeing.

01:41:48
Speaker 1: I have some reservations.

01:41:49
Speaker 6: Definitely worth seeing, all right, but we have to move on. I have to move on. I have to get up in like five hours to catch a flight to London, Adam, because and only because only because there's a film spotting meet up in London. I would not be going otherwise. But no, I cannot wait for this. It's going to be a lot of fun. I'm also seeing the Wes Anderson exhibit at the Design Museum in London. Great couple of days, including an evening with film spotting listeners. You know what, Why am I saying all this? It already happened by the time people are hearing this. Here's why I'm saying it. Here's why I'm saying it. I'll report on how fun it was. I want to do another one, and I want to do one in Madrid, So please let us know if we have film spotting listeners in Spain, preferably around Madrid, and you're available, let's say mid January, That's where I'm looking to head out to those parts. If you could let us know by emailing us, feedback at film spotting dot net or through social media. You can find Adam at Film Spotting. I'm at Larson on Film bunch of places, and yeah, if you're out there, let us know and I'll try to put together another meet up next month in Madrid.

01:43:05
Speaker 1: That'd be fantastic. You know that, I looked up via our back end system that we have downloads this past year in Spain, so we do. There have to be some listeners out.

01:43:16
Speaker 6: There, absolutely, yeah, so let's make it happen. Quick note also about our sister podcast, The Next Picture Show, looking at cinema's present via its past. They've got a new pairing for you right now. It's their Eternal Question pairing. Speaking of the onslaught of films coming at us this time of year, Adam, here is one that I'm only vaguely familiar with. Eternity sounded vaguely intriguing, as so many movies do this time of year. The Next Picture Show hosts they're going to dig into it in depth, and not only that, Parrot with a movie that I like quite a bit and can't wait to hear them discuss. That would be here at Kazu Karta's nineteen ninety eight film After Life. You can get new episodes of the Next Picture Show every Tuesday and find them wherever you get your podcasts. All right, it's time now for Massacre Theater, where Adam and I perform a scene and you get a chance to win a film spotting prize. Last time we massacred this scene, you sell out, So.

01:44:22
Speaker 4: Push it off it the cabinet, Minister. The whole business got us here today at dirty Brook. Look, we just stopped the major invasion and three days they'd have been across the border with this stuff. Why because nobody else could have pulled it off. You pissed about the cover story. I knew I couldn't get you in here without it.

01:44:38
Speaker 3: So what story did you hint to Hoppa? Look, we've been looking for this place for months.

01:44:43
Speaker 4: My men were in that chopper when it got hit. Hoppers orders would have go in and get my men, and he disappeared. He didn't disappear. He will skin alive, and my orders would have get somebody, and who could crack these bastards? So he cooked up a story and dropped the six of us in a meat grinder?

01:45:00
Speaker 3: What happened to you've dinner.

01:45:02
Speaker 6: Here?

01:45:03
Speaker 3: Used to be somebody that could trust?

01:45:06
Speaker 2: I woke up.

01:45:08
Speaker 3: Why don't you.

01:45:10
Speaker 6: That's Carl Weathers and Arnold Schwarzenegger in nineteen eighty seven's Predator, written by Jim Sorry, I know Predator people take seriously. I just chuckle whenever it comes up. It was written by Jim and John Thomas, directed by John McTiernan. The massker was part of our Running Man show a couple of weeks back, which also featured a review of Richard Linklater's Nouvelle vag There's always a tie in, So why that scene from Predator?

01:45:36
Speaker 1: Apparently there were a lot of tie ins. Here's Pavla Masic writing from Toronto, Canada. That might have been my favorite Masacer theater performance. I instantly recognized it. Maybe that's because I've seen Predator dozens of times, but more likely it was the spotless Austrian accent. Was a spotless job, thank you.

01:45:55
Speaker 3: Yes, I worked for weeks.

01:45:57
Speaker 1: Uh huh. It was an utter delight to hear this movie receive your attention. While I would not count it among my top ten movies of all time, seeing it on the big screen with one thousand like minded fans who all quoted, if it bleeds, we can kill it and get to the Choppa in Unison is a top ten movie going experience. Tie into the episode, see you need that experience? Josh, Yes, that's that's the key. Tie into the episode with Bill Lesser Schwarzenegger Vehicle of nineteen eighty seven being the original and Sorry Edgar Wright Superior The Running Man. Yeah it's true. Jesse Ventura was also in both films that year with Arnie. He was Captain Freedom and Blaine. There are also connections to Nouvelle Vahaugh Okay. Richard Linklater also directed Running Man twenty twenty five star Glenn Powell in The Wonderful hit Man, a connection you may have touched on in the episode and earlier in Everybody Wants Some. Link Later also director Laurence Fishburne and Last Flag Flying, who notably appeared in Predators with Adrian Brody. Wow, yeah deep. Here other interesting connections. Jean pelpel Mundo, you're gonna tell me? He was in Predators, aren't you was a boxer before becoming an actor, and of course, Carl Weathers, who played Dylan, also played the great fictional boxer Apollo Creed after boxing in college before focusing on football and playing in the NFL, and served in the French military in Algeria before training as an actor. Jesse Ventura served in the Navy during the Vietnam War. Insane, can't wait for the next performance. Thank you, Pavla.

01:47:31
Speaker 6: I'm that was dizzy, dizzy populaz. All I have to add to all of that is Predators good film.

01:47:40
Speaker 1: Of course, Josh loves the sequels way more than the cheesy originals.

01:47:45
Speaker 6: Always all right, here's one more comment. This comes from Dan p in Hillsboro, Virginia. Kudos to you guys for a fantastic Massacre theater. No more than a month goes by where I don't casually slip get to the Choppa in cash conversation. Much to my wife Sugar in so, I knew this one the moment Josh said Jabba.

01:48:05
Speaker 3: But if that.

01:48:06
Speaker 6: Hadn't sealed a deal, the name changed to Apollo would have cinched it.

01:48:10
Speaker 3: Adam.

01:48:11
Speaker 6: I think we can all understand and forgive you breaking character on this one. Thank you guys for years of entertaining movie commentary.

01:48:19
Speaker 1: I'll take it. I haven't forgiven myself, Josh, I really haven't breaking character unforgivable And it's the context in which Dan is constantly talking about Choppa's just heliconp you.

01:48:32
Speaker 6: Need one all around?

01:48:35
Speaker 3: Do you really need one? I don't ask.

01:48:37
Speaker 6: We'll have to ask Dan's poor beleaguered wife.

01:48:41
Speaker 1: Yes, let's do that sometime. Okay, reach into the pretty brimming film Spotting hat because our listeners have really good taste and they love this film and pick out this week's winner.

01:48:51
Speaker 6: Our winner is speaking of film spotting meetups. A regular at the Film Spotting Boulder meetup, Jonathan Anderson. He's from Denver, Colorado.

01:49:00
Speaker 1: Congratulations, Jonathan. We will say that when we saw your name come out of the hat, we both immediately assumed you've won this at least like seventeen times before.

01:49:08
Speaker 3: This is true.

01:49:09
Speaker 1: Yes, I can't find proof of that, and you're our winner now, So congrats. You win your very own film Spotting t shirt or tote bag or trial membership to the film Spotting family. Yes, friends, Mascer Theater will return whether you like it or not in twenty twenty six. Jonathan email us feedback at filmspotting dot net.

01:49:29
Speaker 3: Okay, forgive me, we have not met? Is that why?

01:49:33
Speaker 8: No?

01:49:33
Speaker 7: I don't think so.

01:49:34
Speaker 4: Okay, phew, because I was relatively certain i'd remember.

01:49:40
Speaker 3: I know, I've met.

01:49:41
Speaker 1: Let's wrap things up with some poll results. A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to name your scene stealer of the Year. The way we phrased it, not their movie, but they made it their movie. The options we gave you were Amy Madigan, Weapons, Benicio del Toro won Battle after Another, Marisa Abela black Bag, Michael Sarah, the Phoenician Scheme, one me, Mosaku Sinners, Ray Fines twenty eight years later as well, or you could write in other Now, every one of those names Josh, except for Ray Fines, who I do think is quite good in twenty eight years later got mentioned previously here on the show. Either actually is a Chicago Film Critics Association nominee or someone who one of us felt should be. How did the results come out?

01:50:30
Speaker 3: Well?

01:50:30
Speaker 6: First off, validation for Sam, I mean, come on, listeners give him crap about his polls, calling them flawed all the time. I think this shows how strong of a poll this was. And yeah, let's look at some of these results because it's pretty tight until we get to the winner. So other four percent Marisa Abaela from black Bag five percent would mean Mosaku from Sinners seven percent Michael Sarah nine percent for his performance in the Phoenician Schemeven percent of the vote went to Ray Fines. In twenty eight years later, we jump up to a nineteen percent vote for the second place, actor Amy Madigan in Weapons. But no one was going to take this from Benicio del Toro. In one battle after another, he won the poll with forty six percent of.

01:51:18
Speaker 1: The vote, almost fifty percent of the vote, Josh, despite all of those really strong candidates, Eleanor Dodson says, I feel like the answer is always Benisio del Toro. Maybe Sam should just put Benicio in regardless of what the question is.

01:51:31
Speaker 3: From now on, let's see what happens. I love it.

01:51:34
Speaker 6: Here's Rory Dunn while del Toro is rightfully running away with this. I still want to give Michael Sarah his flowers. He was the best part of the Phoenician Scheme, standing out amongst greats like Tom Hanks and Del Toro and made us all realize that he should have been in every Wes Anderson film since the Royal Tenenbaums. To avoid spoilers, I'll just say that the scene in which he reveals a truth about himself maybe his best moment of acting in his career. You might not be wrong about that, Rory.

01:52:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, he might just be right. Here's ken Link. I looked at this not just as the scenes or movies being stolen, but the actors from whom it's being stolen. Okay, By that metric, Marisa Abaila takes every scene that she is in out from under actors who have commanded the screen while concealed beneath crime scene scrubs. Blanchette Knight of Cups. That's a reference, I guess, Josh or a paper mache head Fastbender, Frank, I get that one. Taking focus away from these two attention magnets is like taking gold out of Fort Knox Man.

01:52:31
Speaker 6: I think we got to add to this Odessa Azion in Marty's Supreme. I know this performance came too late to be included in the poll, but I mean, she kind of.

01:52:43
Speaker 3: Takes that movie.

01:52:44
Speaker 6: She takes her scenes. Let's just say she's Timothy Chalomey's equal in every sequence she's in with him, if not more.

01:52:53
Speaker 3: All right.

01:52:53
Speaker 6: One more comment from Trent rob I voted other for Taana Taylor in One Battle after Another. I thought her section of the film was the best and the film suffers when she is no longer in it.

01:53:05
Speaker 1: Here's Holly Boyd. The correct answer is probably del Toro. Oh, I love this, but I have to mention Patrick Kennedy's wonderful turn is Ebe White and Blue Moon. Maybe more the perfect scene partner to Hawk than a scene stealer, but his warmth and presence is crucial to what makes the film work. I completely forgot about Patrick Kennedy, but called out that great performance during our review.

01:53:28
Speaker 3: We both did.

01:53:29
Speaker 6: I considered him for my ballot, but the whole Stuart little thing.

01:53:32
Speaker 3: I know we differ on.

01:53:33
Speaker 6: It, but I just and it's not not careless, not Patrick Kennedy's fault.

01:53:40
Speaker 1: That of all the things to be saying, screenplayer.

01:53:43
Speaker 6: Needs to go that direction. But it's you know what it cost him. It cost him my ballot at him. That's all I can say. Our final comment comes from Devin Super. A lot of very good options this year, even going by my own standard of cameo performances, are similar. All I considered John Carol Lynch and sorry, baby Oh, that's a good one. Ultimately, I want to throw my weight behind Bridget Everett and wake up dead Man.

01:54:09
Speaker 1: I know how you feel about this, Josh, Oh, are.

01:54:11
Speaker 3: We gonna spoil anything?

01:54:13
Speaker 6: I okay, I'm gonna be careful reading the rest of this comment from Devin. I was on board with the movie before she showed up, but she instantly grabs attention and reveals the film's beating heart. It's a small demonstration of what she does so well on HBO Somebody somewhere, pivoting from broad comedy to heart wrenching drama without breaking a sweat. Honestly, it's miraculous. I can't at this business time, Adam, I can't comment any further.

01:54:39
Speaker 1: Okay, I got it. You're you're saving it. I understand. We have we have a few weeks left, at least a month until our end of year rat party. We mentioned him earlier, but I think William H. Macy in Train Dreams is an appropriate choice for this for this poll because he does feel like almost more of a scene stealer in Train Dreams, and we talked about Ja Kelly earlier. You know who almost fits in this category as well is Billy crud Up. He has two scenes in that movie, Josh, here again, performance within a performance and he has to nail it, and boy does he have fun with those scenes, those those one or two scenes that he gets in the film once again?

01:55:25
Speaker 6: Are we gonna have to do a j Kelly bonus episode for the film Spotting Family at some point maybe in January?

01:55:31
Speaker 1: Did Billy crud up in J Kelly Josh?

01:55:35
Speaker 6: I know that's not what I'm saying, but his character, Uh huh. It's coming back to the it's coming back to the screenplay. If only we had, if only we had more time.

01:55:50
Speaker 1: Okay, well, we have just enough time to give you our final deeply flawed film, Spotting Pool for twenty twenty five, even though I think we're going to contend that it's not deeply flow at all. We're asking you to choose your film of the year, and yeah, we're only giving you two options. Though I suppose the flaw is that that's not true because we are allowing you to write an other. In this case, it's not a Redford poll where we only gave you, truly those two choices. Though we could. We could usurp Sam Josh like we are wont to do. We could take out other.

01:56:21
Speaker 6: You know what he's he's he did so well with the scenes. Stealer's pole and this I think is really good. I don't want to step on his toes now he's he's riding high. He's on a hot streak.

01:56:33
Speaker 1: Okay, so here it is your film of the Year twenty twenty five. The options are one.

01:56:39
Speaker 6: Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle after another, Ryan Coogler's Sinners, or yeah, Sam is allowing you to choose other you know what, It'll be interesting for comments. I see Sam's logic, his producer mind at work.

01:56:54
Speaker 3: I get it. That's that's good.

01:56:56
Speaker 6: But really, okay, come on, you got to choose between those top two.

01:57:00
Speaker 1: One Battle, Sinners or take the field. You can vote in that poll and leave a comment at filmspotting dot net. We will share the results and your feedback on next week's Best of twenty twenty five round table show. That is this show Josh.

01:57:17
Speaker 6: Until then, if you want to connect with us on social media, you can find Adam and the show on Instagram, Facebook, letterboxed, and YouTube. He's at film Spotting. I'm at all those places. As Larsen on film we are independently produced and listeners supported. You can support the show by joining the film Spotting Family at film Spottingfamily dot com. If you do that, you're going to be able to listen early ad free. You'll also get a weekly newsletter, monthly bonus episodes, and access to the entire show archive. For show t shirts and other merch go to film spotting dot net slash shop.

01:57:52
Speaker 1: In the film Spotting archive, you can find reviews of Ryan Johnson movies like Knives Out the other parts of that Mystery Saga seven point fifty five, which we put back in the main feed this week. Glass Onion episode eight ninety eight, and of course we've talked about Brick before Josh going back to two thousand and six Chloe Show. The best Picture winning no mad Land was episode eight oh five. We also shared our top five Francis McDorman performances. We talked about the writer on episode six seventy nine. Wake Up dead Man is on Netflix now. We suggest that you see it in limited release. Dust Bunny, an eight year old girl asks her scheming neighbor for help and killing the monster under her bed that she thinks ate her family. It stars Mad Nicholson, Mad's Michelson and Sigourney Weaver, and our friend at rogeriber dot com, Brian Talerico, says this is going to be a future filmmaker's favorite movie as a kid. Interesting. The Shining is getting an Imax re release. This got the Sacred Cow treatment from US way back episode four nineteen.

01:58:57
Speaker 3: Merry Christmas, Everybody.

01:58:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, no kidding. In wide release, you can see Ella McKay. This is James L. Brooks's first film in fifteen years. He of broadcast news as good as it gets, terms of endearment as far as Ema Mackie, Jamie Lee Curtis and Woody Harrelson, and Yes, Merry Christmas. Indeed, Josh Silent Night Deadly Night, a remake of the cult eighties film that terrorized kids via it's VHS cover. That was enough for me.

01:59:26
Speaker 6: Let me just try to pull this. I've never seen this film. A stocking on an.

01:59:31
Speaker 1: Axe, you guys has to be. That's what I'm seeing in my head too. Okay, we have to be right. Next week, Michael Phillips will be here, Alison Wilmore will be here, and we will share our top ten films of the year.

01:59:45
Speaker 6: Film Spotting is produced by Golden Joe Deso and Sam Van Halgren. Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show wouldn't go. Our production assistant is Sophie Kempanar special thanks to everyone at WB easy Chicago. More information is available at wbeazy dot for film spotting, I'm Josh Larson.

02:00:02
Speaker 1: And I Medham Kempinar. Thanks for listening.

02:00:04
Speaker 2: This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Good fine.

02:00:25
Speaker 1: Film spotting is listener supported. Join the film Spotting Family at filmspotting family dot com and get access to ad free episodes, monthly bonus shows, our weekly newsletter, and, for the first time, all in one place, the entire film spotting archive going back to two thousand and five. That's a film Spotting Family dot com panically