Flyover Guys
Just a couple middle-aged midwestern fellas who are here to yap about pop culture and sports. Occasionally, we'll fly over some random, forgotten about topics from the past that we hold near and dear to our hearts.
Flyover Guys
Episode 24: Most Iconic Characters from Best Picture Winners
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Seth and Joel fill out their bracket of the most iconic characters from Best Picture winners in the last 50 years. We hope you enjoy and thanks for listening.
Welcome to the Flyover Guides, a show by two middle-aged Midwestern fellows who are just trying to figure out what was, what is, and what will be about aspects of American culture from our little flood soil here in the Heartland. So jump on board this week. We are combining March Madness with the Oscars. Great call, Seth. Great call. So I'm Joel, and I got Seth here. And are you ready to dive in?
SPEAKER_09Yeah, this is the best of both worlds, kind of just kind of uh a mash of basketball tournament and Oscar season.
SPEAKER_05So I would ask you what's your preference of March Madness for the Academy Awards, but even me, a movie nerd, it's a no-brainer. That's a no-brainer. It's March Madness. I mean, the Academy Awards are fun, but they're also just kind of stupid, too. Um okay, so let's explain what we're gonna do. We um we came up with the idea of only choosing best picture winners. So please keep that in mind. It is only best picture winners. And who are the most iconic characters in a winning movie for best picture? So that's gonna leave out a whole lot. Uh, in other words, there are tons of iconic characters. Um, Indiana Jones, uh Marty McFly. I'm just thinking off the top of my head uh other ones that are iconic, but that they didn't win best picture. So for our audience, uh, we are gonna go back 30 years. 50 to 1970. 50 years?
SPEAKER_09Is it 50 or 30?
SPEAKER_0550 years, thank you. This is why I'm not a math guy. Uh back to 1976. Uh so here are the best picture winners. We'll go through it quickly and see how many of these you've seen. 1976, Rocky, 77, Annie Hall, Woody Allen. 1978, the Deer Hunter, 1979, Kramer versus Kramer. 1980, Ordinary People. Uh, did you ever see Ordinary People? I did, actually. I watched it. Oh, that's impressive. Uh, 1981, Chariots of Fire. How did that beat Raiders of the Lost Art? 1982, Gandhi. How did that beat Tootsie? And E.T. Sorry, this is gonna take 30 minutes me reading it. 1983, Terms of Endearment. 1984, Amadeus, 1985, Out of Africa. That was a crappier notice when you look at oh my gosh. 1986, Platoon, 1987, The Last Emperor. Do you think of any iconic characters in the last one?
SPEAKER_09The last Emperor.
SPEAKER_05That's not Empire of the Sun. I was thinking Empire of the Sun. No, that's different. No, I don't know. That's Christian Bale as a kid, yeah. 1988, Rain Man. 1989, Driving This Daisy. No comment. Let it not do the right thing. 1990, Dances with Wolves. 1991, Silence of the Lambs. 1992, Unforgiven. 1993, Schindler's List. Which, by the way, I would say 1993, maybe the greatest year for a filmmaker ever. Because Spielberg released Schindler's List and Jurassic Park. That's an amazing one to punch. Uh, although maybe Jurassic Park should have got a little bit of love. Uh, 1994, Forrest Gump, 1995, Braveheart, 1996, The English Patient. 1997, Titanic, 1998, Shakespeare in Love, 1999, American Beauty, 2000, Gladiator. Alright, 21st century. 2001, A Beautiful Mind. 2002, Chicago. 2003, Lord of the Rings, 2004, Million Dollar Baby. Oh my gosh. Did you see Million Dollar Baby? Yeah. Oh, how did that uh oh no? That's a pretty bad year of movies, but Sideways is fantastic. But Million Dollar Baby, my gosh. 2005, Crash. 2006, they finally give Scorsese his Oscar with the departed, maybe his eighth best movie. 2007, No Country for Old Men. I would argue 2007 is the best year of movies into the 21st century. No Country for Old Men, Michael Clayton, There Will Be Blood. And the other one that's not even up for Best Picture, Zodiac. That year is stacked with movies. 2008, Slum Dog Millionaire. 2009, The Hurt Locker. It's a great movie, actually. 2010, now everything changes in After the Dark Knight. Everybody got in a stink, and so we went up to like up to 10 best picture winners. So starting with The Hurt Locker, from now on you have like 10 nominees. 2010, The King's Speech. 2011, The Artists. That is painful. 2012, Argo. 2013, 12 Years a Slave. 2014, Birdman. 2015, Spotlight. Fantastic movie that holds up Spotlight. Man, that movie. That's a good year of movies, too. 2016. This was the La La Land fiasco. When it was La La Land, never mind. Moonlight. 2017, The Shape of Water. 2018, The Green Book. Now, I hope the audience sees where we're going with iconic characters. We're going to struggle with Moonlight, The Shape of Water, Green Book, Parasite is iconic characters. Although 2019 Parasite is an amazing movie. 2020, alright, here we are. Nomadland. 2021, Coda. 2022, Everything Everywhere All at Once. 2023, Oppenheimer. And last year, 2024 was Enora. So this year, our best picture nominees are Begonia, F1, Frankenstein, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, Centers and Train Dreams. Is there an iconic character from any of these?
SPEAKER_09I think a no battle or one battle after another and I would say lockjaw. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05He's iconic. I think Sean Penn's lockjaw is iconic. But if that wins, it looks like the momentum's going with centers right now. Well, so that long-winded introduction was a chance for you to hear all the best picture winners. And now we had to come up with who were characters and uh only from best picture winners. So we struggled a little bit in the last 50 years because there are movies like American Beauty and The English Patient and Dances with Wolves Driving Miss Daisy that don't really have an iconic character. I don't sit here and think we talk about uh Morgan Freeman's character or Jessica Tandy in Driving Miss Daisy as iconic. So what we did is we actually cheated a little bit and we used multiple characters because some movies have such good casting that you could actually pull two or three out of a single movie. Uh all right, do you have the bracket in front of you? I do. You want to read off our seeding? Uh one to sixteen seeds. We got a 16-seeded bracket.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, so on the left side of our bracket, the one seed is Rocky, and the two seed is Frank Costello from the Departed. The 16. 16. Yes. And then 8-9 matchup, Amadeus and Raymond Babbitt. Rain Man. Rain Man, Dustin Hoffman's character. The 413, we have Maximus from Gladiator and Gollum from Lord of the Rings. The 512 to round out the left side of the bracket is Apollo Creed and Jenny from Forrest Gump. And then do you want to just start there or should we go through the the right side as well?
SPEAKER_05No, no, let's throw out the right side of the bracket too, and then we'll go from there.
SPEAKER_09Yeah. So on the right side of our bracket, we have the 215. We have Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs. He's the two, and Oscar Schindler is the 15. Seven is Clarice Starling from Silence of the Lambs and Buffalo Bill from the same movie as well.
SPEAKER_05God, I didn't I didn't even think about that. We have three out of four from that bracket from the same movie.
SPEAKER_09And then going to the bottom side, we have Forrest Gump as the three seed, and Charlie Babbitt from Rain Man. Tom Cruise's character is the 14. Robert Oppenheimer is the sixth, and Anton Shiger is the 11th seed, and he's from No Country for Old Men.
SPEAKER_05Alright, so we have three from Silence of the Lambs. We have two from Rocky. We have two from Rain Man. We have two from Forrest Gump. And I think that's it. Correct. I feel like that's it. And then everything else is a single. So are there any key omissions we made? Like, should we have put in Leonardo DiCaprio from Titanic? What's his name in Titanic? Is it Jack? Is that right? I don't know. And that's why I didn't put him in. Exactly.
SPEAKER_09I think all the women out there would probably, they're probably shaking their fists at us right now.
SPEAKER_05Um I I you know, I did I think maybe we could have put in Roxy Hart from Chicago. I think she was great. Uh Renee Zellweger was great. But I also think it speaks to the Darth of good roles for women. Because when you start rolling through uh the departed, slumdog millionaire, the hurt locker, the king speech, Argo, 12 years a slave, there's there's not wet roles for women in those. Uh even Moonlight and the Green Book and Parasite. No Man Lad was such a small movie for Francis McDormand where she is the lead, but I I wouldn't I don't know if anybody even saw that movie. It's so weird that that one best picture. So maybe an example would have been Michelle Yao from Everything Everywhere All at Once or Jamie Lee Curtis. So there is room to gripe. There is room to gripe, I agree.
SPEAKER_09I wonder what it'd be like if you took if you did the same thing, but with non-best picture winners, and you could only do like one movie from each year. Uh so you know, it'd be like Red and Andy Dufrain from Shawshank Redemption, and and you just, you know, you could I wonder how that would stack up. But anyway, that's for another conversation.
SPEAKER_05That's next year. Yeah. We'll visit that next year because then you get to throw in like if it was just up for best picture, then you get like you know, Top Gun Maverick and Barbie, and uh it definitely can start to become a little bit more uh strange how you would try to decide who's more iconic. Yeah. Because obviously it just comes down to preference. So here's how it's gonna work. We are gonna break down the bracket, and Seth has made his picks. I have made my picks. Uh, and then if we don't agree, we have um surveyed a number of people and that serve as our audience, and they are the tiebreaker vote for whenever we disagree. But that's only if we disagree. And I have a feeling we're gonna disagree.
SPEAKER_09So and so this is most iconic. This is not your favorite. This is what you think is the most iconic, but you may be a little biased. I I understood when I was kind of going through it as well.
SPEAKER_05Do you want to how how do you want to do this? Do you think that's just more iconic in society or one that you prefer?
SPEAKER_09I kind of looked at it as just more iconic in society. I I don't know. It was kind of it was kind of both.
SPEAKER_05It was hard to because I had my preferences on this, but well, we'll I'm gonna show you how difficult this is, and it'll start with our first matchup, and this will be good because I know I'm gonna lose, but that's okay. So in our first matchup, this is supposed to be the no-brainer Rocky Balboa versus Frank Costello. Frank Costello was Jack Nicholson's character in The Departed, uh, the 2006 best uh picture winner uh for Martin Scorsese. So what is it that's iconic about Rocky T?
SPEAKER_09Rocky is iconic because he in a way he almost represents just like America as kind of the underdog story. Uh, but he also represents the city itself in Philadelphia, and he has a statue there. Um and I think just the the theme song of Rocky and and how he just kind of become this figure where I think he's iconic because almost everybody knows who he is. If you just said who's Rocky, yeah. Or he and he's known by one name. It's not even Rocky Balboa, it's just Rocky. And when I was going to high school, uh our band always played the our pet band in the basketball games, always played the Rocky song, you know, uh Eye of the Tiger and stuff like that when we were warming up and stuff. Um I don't know. It maybe it's just in my life, he is very iconic.
SPEAKER_05How many movie characters set cultural trends like jogging? Jogging was not that big of a thing before the 1970s, and after the original Rocky movie, it becomes a much bigger thing in society, and that's weird to think that there is a connection there between the movie Rocky and Americans going out jogging. So I I agree with you. The the music, I mean the horns, uh I um just the horns themselves get you pumped up when you listen to the original Rocky theme. Um it is the American dream, it is the Cinderella story. But what's great about the original Rocky of the 1970s versus the Rocky of the 1980s is it isn't about winning, it's just about it, it's almost like the man in the arena, the Teddy Roosevelt quote. You're just putting yourself out there and you're trying and you're giving it your all. And he ultimately loses in the original Rocky movie. We're not allowed to do spoil alerts for movies that are 50 years old, you know what I mean? He he doesn't win. And so you could also say it's iconic because it does really, along with Star Wars, big time IP for sequels of the 1980s are all about sequels. So I that's why he's our one seed. Now, if we go to Costello, Frank Costello, why do we even put him in this bracket? What are your thoughts on Jack Nicholson as Frank Costello?
SPEAKER_09I'll be honest with you, I saw this movie one time, and I I thought it was I thought it was a good movie when I saw it. But like you said, I don't even it's not even my favorite Scorsese, you know, mafia movie.
SPEAKER_05He's a he's a real life historical mobster. It's Frank Castiglia, I can't pronounce his name, um, in New York. Now they moved this movie to Boston. Um, he was known as the prime minister of the underworld, and he was actually the primary blueprint for The Godfather. Uh whenever that Mario Puzzo wrote The Godfather. Um Jack Nicholson's portrayal is he's paranoid, he's manipulative, he's unpredictable.
SPEAKER_04A lot of people had to die for me to be me.
SPEAKER_08Do you wanna be me?
SPEAKER_11I probably could be you, yeah. Yeah, I know that much.
SPEAKER_00I don't wanna be you, Frank. I don't wanna be you.
SPEAKER_05Sort of like I think he's fantastic in this role, Jack Nicholson, and I don't know how many more roles we could probably point to for Jack Nicholson where he was this good. Um it's funny because I feel like our culture today emulates more Frank Costello than Rocky. Like we want Rocky to be the winner in this matchup, but the world has shown us that Frank is who we actually pick in real life. We pick the guy who will just get it done, and he doesn't care about the consequences, but he's got power and influence. And uh I was I was throwing out the 16-1 upset. I was willing to put Frank out there, but I didn't actually go through with it because everything you said is right about Rocky. That Frank Costello, there's not a statue for him in in in New York, or maybe there is, and I don't know about it.
SPEAKER_09But I yeah at the end of the day, I see your argument. At the end of the day, I was just trying to think of just being iconic with the public at large, and and and I kind of represent the type of film watchers that don't really know a ton, I guess you could say. And yeah, I think if I was to really think about Jack Nicholson characters, I would look at you know, one flew over the cuckoo's nest or the shining or a few good men, and some of those where he was almost I mean, if you showed pictures to people, um I don't know if it's just more iconic in some of those other roles, but he was great. But I I had maybe I just not the biggest fan of the movie, so it's it's immensely rewatchable.
SPEAKER_05I mean, it really is because you got Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon, and Matt Damon plays so against type as such a sleaze, and it's so fun to see Matt Damon do that. Um it's one of those I could watch once a year, and even though I know what's gonna happen. I think Mark Wahlberg actually steals the movie, he's so good in that movie. Um, but in our our matchup here, I don't think he's got the punch to take down Rocky. Um we did have some though put Frank over Rocky, okay, which was interesting because uh he is beloved. Let's go to our next one. Let's go to our next one. This is now, this is a much tighter race. This is uh Wolfgang Mozart Amadeus, 1980. Uh, was it 1984 best picture winner? Yep. Uh up against Raymond Babbitt, better known as Rain Man, or Dustin Hoffman in 1988, uh Barry Levinson Best Picture Winner. So uh make your case for either one of them.
SPEAKER_09I have I really enjoy Rain Man and so I have the nine beaten the eight seed here, but it's such a quotable movie to me. And I know looking back, it doesn't age well to have Dustin Hoffman play that character probably, but he just did such a I thought he did a phenomenal job uh with his mannerisms and everything. So uh just all the quotes, and we still I still quote this movie probably weekly. That's how sad it is, but what do you quote weekly?
SPEAKER_05What from this movie do you quote weekly? 97X, the future of rock and roll.
SPEAKER_09Just about Kmart and you know the uh phone booth scene and counting stuff and uh-oh, fart.
SPEAKER_11Yeah, Charlie Babbitt, I'll hold Did you fart right now? Did you fucking fart right? How can you stand that? I don't mind. How can you stand that?
SPEAKER_05Although, is this a great portrayal of what autism really is? Because this is more getting along to the lines of being like a savant. Yeah. Um, so obviously a high-functioning uh autistic person. Um, and I guess it brings autism into the cultural mainstream to a degree. At least people start to understand it a little bit. Um, you like that Raymond's not a stereotype, that he's kind of complex, and um there's a reason even why Tom Cruise is on here with Charlie Babbitt. There's a lot of people who argue that Char uh Tom Cruise should have won Best Actor and not Dustin Hoffman, and that he had a tougher role to play. Um I knew this was gonna happen. I knew you and I were gonna split on this because I went with Amadeus. Um because he's like punk rock Mozart. He is the Um he's vulgar, crass. His laugh is iconic alone. I think it's the greatest laugh, maybe, outside of Eddie Murphy, uh, in a movie. Is Tom Holson what he came up with. And no one in the world could do musical harm to the Princess Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_04Look, I must have pupils. Without pupils I can't manage.
SPEAKER_12You don't mean to tell me that you're living in poverty.
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_12But I'm broke.
SPEAKER_05The fact that this whole story of Amadeus is told through the loser in the contest of musical genius of Solieri and how he just looks at Mozart is just this how can somebody be who's so childish, so irreverent, so hedonistic, how can God plant this gift of musical genius in him and not me? That's kind of what Solieri's staying. And I just think that that the idea of the this idea of a tortured or a flawed genius, that stands the test for me. But I that's my personal. Yeah. Now if I get to who's more iconic, I don't know. That's why it's an eight-nine seed. And so this is kind of bad. We went to the I went, we have to go to the audience now. Okay. And you know what the audience vote is? Six to six with one abstention. Seriously. Somebody didn't fill that one out. I knew this was going to happen. I don't think it really matters based on the next round matchup. I'm going to concede Rainman, uh, Rain Man because he won Best Actor for it. But it was literally tied between these two guys, even in the audience. Well, you did a good job seating then, because that was the 8-9 matchup. I guess. Coin flip. Yep, that is a coin flip, but we're going to give it to Rain Man. Rainman moves on. Um all right, now we got the 413 match. The 413 max. Um, do you know Maximus' full name? No, I know. He says it once in the movie. Maximus Decimus Meridius. Okay. I know he said it like once in the movie. But uh, alright. Maximus vs. Gollum. Who do you want to argue in favor of here? I chose Maximus.
SPEAKER_09Do you remember the time that uh or I know it's kind of a generational thing where people create these films, but was there anything with Gladiator anything near this, or was this the first one in a while? Can you remember any other Gladiator movies that really came out?
SPEAKER_05There was a movie in the 90s called Gladiator, but I feel like that was Jean-Claude Van Damme. Oh. Yeah, I don't even know. Something along that line. Um, and I know um there was another one after, but uh nah, that was more like MMA fighting. Yeah. But uh you're right, I think you're right. This is there's not much ancient going on at this time.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, this was like our generation's you know, big gladiator movie that we had, and and I just think Russell Crowe was kind of at the height of his powers at this time. And I I like Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and stuff, but I just think that Glad Maximus, the character in Gladiator, is just more iconic.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, um I think it's cool that he dies in it too. I I almost like think that was cooler that he dies in it than it than L sometimes. You're like, no, I don't want like I really think Star Wars screwed up the whole Han Solo thing. I get Harrison Ford didn't want to play him anymore, but they just kept trying to bring him back. And uh certain shows do that where they're where you're like uh this would give us depth or something. Um but for Gladiator, that was that was the right call with Maximus. And um what is that line he says, What we do in life echoes in eternity. I mean, you get so much of this supposed gravitas here of Maximus. And where Gollum, it's it's honestly the performance of Andy Circus, uh, that stop motion acting, or you know, that motion capture acting, where I guess you can see, say it's kind of how he's the metaphor for greed and obsession. But uh and he has he has his line, what is it, my precious or something like that? So I guess he has a little bit of a catchphrase, but um, I know more literate people out there would be furious with how I'm summarizing Gollum, but I'm looking at it just through the lens of film, and I don't think he really This could have been a 215 matchup, honestly. Uh I think uh yeah, I think Gollum gets the floor wiped with him by by Maximus.
SPEAKER_09Shaquille O'Neal, when he does his uh TNT and now it's ESPN, he does his MBA uh commentating, he says, Are you not entertained? And he always says that, you know. That line hangs. Yeah, so it it is. It's it's one of those lines that's kind of in our zeitgeist still.
SPEAKER_05So you're right, that line sticks. Um okay. 512. These are the dangerous matchups, these 512 matchups. Did uh so we have did the other people choose Maximus as well? Yes. No, we actually uh it was seven, it was nine to three. Nine to three in favor of Maximus over Gollum. We actually had somebody who had Gollum as the champ.
SPEAKER_09Okay.
SPEAKER_05Um, somebody tried to took Gollum all the way to the championship, which that's cool. I mean, that's what I mean. You it some characters hit people different, so I'm good with that. That was the biggest nerd that you gave that to, whoever that was was the biggest nerd. I think I remember I will say she's amazing, she's awesome. 512 Apollo Creed. So we're back to Rocky, and now we're introduced to our first female character, Jenny from Forrest Gump. So what do you got?
SPEAKER_09I'm a big fan of Robin Wright, and I actually had Jenny beating Apollo Creed. This was a heavyweight matchup, but you know how in every tournament there's a 12-seed that beats a five-seed, and and this was my 12-seed that uh knocked off, you know, kind of the underdog story here. But I just think Jenny was kind of 1-A to Forrest Gump and or 1B, excuse me. She was right there uh as far as being an iconic character from a movie that kind of swept the whole country. Uh the it is one of the movies that I can recall people would go and watch many, many times in theaters. Yeah. And I remember a lot of the people um were just kind of drawn towards her character and whether it's positive or negative, the the impact that she had on Forrest Gump and how manipulative she was and stuff.
SPEAKER_07You can't keep doing this, Forrest. You can't keep trying to rescue me all the time.
SPEAKER_03They was trying to grab you.
SPEAKER_07A lot of people try to grab me.
SPEAKER_06Just you can't keep doing this all the time.
SPEAKER_03I can't help it. I love you.
SPEAKER_06Forrest. You don't know what love is.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, she is the messy side of life in Forrest Gump, and Forrest kind of represents the innocence. Now, of course, she also has that iconic line, run forest run, which is said a lot still. People will still say that, run forest run. And in a way, that's actually a description of her life. That she obviously had a very rough childhood, and she spends her life running, and she's hanging out with drug dealers with the Black Panthers, and I mean, it's actually a really tragic character because it looks like I mean, I think, tell me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the movie intimate that essentially she acquired AIDS? Yeah. And so um yeah, uh, I she is a tragic character. Now, you're putting her over Apollo Creed, I am is what you're telling. Apollo Creed, the King of Sting, the dancing destroyer.
SPEAKER_09Um if you pulled the audience, I think I think people would think that she was more iconic than him, but I don't know. That's just my opinion.
SPEAKER_05He is he is the movie version of Muhammad Ali, though. That's my thing.
SPEAKER_00I got hold of every worthwhile contender, and they all say the same thing. Five weeks just isn't enough time to get into shape.
SPEAKER_04Oh shape, nothing, man. They're afraid. Well, they know everybody in the world's gonna see this fight, and none of them gotta pray out whipping me. So they're making excuses so they don't have to be the chump to get whipped in front of the whole civilized world.
SPEAKER_05He's initially a villain, but then you grow to love Apollo Creed. And then uh then he's like a mentor. So I yeah, I man. The other thing that where I struggled with this one is By the way, let's just get it out of this way. You're gonna win this one again. Alright. Jenny upsets Apollo Creed, even by the audience. But there's all these movies now named Creed. Yeah. And that obviously says that something resonated in culture about him as a character in the 80s, 70s, and 80s. And I don't know if you've seen any of these new Creed movies. Um I've watched two of them, and they were pretty darn good. Yeah. I mean, really good. Michael B. Jordan was a stud in him. So there's no Jenny movies out right now.
SPEAKER_09Obviously, the plot of force kind of eliminated that. If you would ask me when I was eight years old, obviously Force Cump wasn't out yet, but Apollo Creed would have been a slam dunk at that point in my life. But I'm I'm voting for the masses.
SPEAKER_05That's what I'm trying to do. Okay, you're voting for the masses. Well, the masses agree with you. I will say that when Apollo Creed is killed by Drago in Rocky IV, I remember being in the theater at Town East. This was Town East when they had the indoor, the two movies inside, and I was like scarred as a child. I might have been like 10 years old. And so now, whenever Rocky IV is on, I can't watch that part. I just like I leave the room. I can't see Apollo Creed get killed.
SPEAKER_09So it was like when it's like when Optimus Prime died in the movie.
SPEAKER_05Tearjerker. Yeah, man. No kidding. Rocky should have thrown in the towel. Come on, Rocky. Um, all right. Other side, so on this side of the bracket, uh, we have Rocky squaring off against Rain Man, which just sounds weird. Uh Edwin, we have Maximus dueling Jenny. That seems wrong, too. All right, she's had enough abuse in her life, and now you got her up against a gladiator. That just seems mean. Other side of the bracket, we got Hannibal Lecter uh against Oscar Schindler, our 215 match. So uh what do you have to say about this one?
SPEAKER_09I didn't even have to think twice on this one. It it was definitely Hannibal Lecter. I think he would eat Oscar's liver with the bullet key, Anthony.
SPEAKER_08Jack Crawford must be very busy indeed if he is a recruiting hub from the student body. Busy hunting that new one, Buffalo Bill. What a naughty boy he is. Do you know why he's called Buffalo Bill? Please tell me. The newspapers won't say.
SPEAKER_09I don't know. Oscar's been through enough. Come on now. Yeah, but as far as iconic, I don't even think it's a it's a concession.
SPEAKER_05It's even a stretch putting Oscar Schindler in this in this matchup. I wonder if he should have even been in it. I maybe Roxy Hart, but then again, we'd have Hannibal Lecter eating Roxy's heart. So I mean, I don't know, but either way. Let's just move on from this one. That's a Hannibal Lecter, and that's a no-brainer. Um, okay, so now we got a little incestuous one going from a movie. We have Clarice Starling and Buffalo Bill. Um now, do you remember the name of his character in Silence of the Lambs? I didn't remember this. I had to look it up. It's not Buffalo Bill.
SPEAKER_09It's James Gum, right?
SPEAKER_05Dang, that's really good. I didn't remember that.
SPEAKER_09No, I remember that. That's pretty dang good. This is one of my favorite movies of all time. And I will tell you this. I think I mentioned this before, but I like I don't watch all the horror movies out there, but this movie I consider Buffalo Bill one of the you know worst characters that I've ever watched on film. I I am so just frightened by who he is and his his house and his basement, especially. And if we're gonna look at this, I mean these two squared off in the in the actual movie. So, and Jodie Foster was great. Um, but but and this is another movie that I quote with my brothers and some other friends.
SPEAKER_01Um it rubs the lotion on its skin, it does this whenever it's told.
SPEAKER_07Mr. Mapam will pay cash. Whatever ransom you're asking for, they'll pay it.
SPEAKER_01It rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again.
SPEAKER_09Buffalo Bill wins this, in my opinion. He he even though he lost in the movie, I think in this contest, he is more iconic.
SPEAKER_05Okay. I had to double check our audience on this one because I Ted Levine's portrayal is it's it's crazy. It's like it's so good. Um at the same time, I don't think it's aged really well for him, for the way we think about certain issues. Um I would say when we talk about tough female characters in films, you could go to Alien, Sigourney Weaver, Ripley, and I then uh probably uh Terminator. Terminator, yep. And I might put Clarice Starling in that category. Yeah. I think she's on the Mount Rushmore of because she's not uh traditional, she's she's vulnerable, she's flawed, she is traumatized by what happened to her in her youth, and she stands toe-to-toe with Hannibal Lecters to the point where he actually respects her. He's like, Man, this she she's uh grounded, I guess it might be the best way to say this.
SPEAKER_10Death of my father.
SPEAKER_08Tell me about it, and don't lie right now.
SPEAKER_10He was a town marshal, and one night he surprised two burglars coming out of the back of a drugstore. They shot him.
SPEAKER_08Was he killed outright?
SPEAKER_10No, he was very strong. He lasted more than a month. My mother died when I was very young, so my father had become the whole world to me. And when he left me, I had nothing. I was 10 years old.
SPEAKER_05If we're going with a horrible killer as a boat, I actually it's coming up in our bracket. I would go elsewhere, a better portrayal. Now, I I it's not saying love buffalo bill. I went with Clarice Starling. Okay. Just because I think the whole Mount Rushmore of toughness of women, I think Jody Foster just I mean, she in and of herself is an iconic actress. If you go back to Taxi Driver, um she man. Uh, and so I had to look to the audience on this since we're what'd they say? The audience was uh seven to five in favor of Clarice Starling. Yeah. It was close.
SPEAKER_09So I get that one. You have to be a sicko like me to really enjoy Buffalo Bill. And I can't remember, I can't remember what the song is or the music that is played. Uh, there is one really creepy song, and I don't even remember who it was or the name of it, uh, but it was when he was like doing that like Tuck thing and he Yeah, doing his dance.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I know what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_09And but if you think about when the lights went out and he had on those night vision goggles and all the moths flying around and stuff, she should go on because she took him out and killed him. And she figured it out in the movie, so I think she earns the right to go on.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Uh and if you want to listen to that, it's Goodbye Horses. Oh, yeah. By Q Lazarus. So have fun with that song. Um, that's the moody kind of techno dreamy weird song. Yeah, I know exactly. Yeah, that song, if I hear that, if that song came on, I bet I'd never have heard this song outside of that movie. But if that song came on, I would start to be like chilled.
SPEAKER_09And he's like sewing his skin suit with that music on in the background.
SPEAKER_05Okay, next category. All right. Uh so Forrest Gump and Charlie Babbitt. Um, this is another one that I, you know, it's too bad because Tom Cruise is iconic in and of himself. He is an institution. He's a um, but he also's not necessarily always in the most prestige films. And so, in a way, that kind of hurts him. He was in the 80s, too. I mean, like this in Born on the Fourth of July. That's a back-to-back one-two punch. And I am kind of excited that later this year he's gonna be in an Alexander uh Ineratu film. It's called Digger, it won't come out until October. I would love for Tom Cruise to move away from Mission Impossible movies. Because he's actually a really good actor, and it would be fun to see him really sink his teeth back into roles like this. Um, Charlie Babbitt is such a jerk. But then as the movie unfolds!
SPEAKER_11What difference does it make? What difference does it make? Where do you buy underwear? What difference does it make? Underwear is underwear! It is underwear wherever you buy it, in Cincinnati or wherever.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, there and it's not a huge character arc, which is great. Um, like originally Steven Spielberg was gonna do this movie. I think it actually was better served by Barry Levinson. He he he grounded it a little more. I think it would have been too melodramatic. There would have been a bigger character arc for him. And I liked like the most touching moment of that movie is when they touch heads together at the end. And I don't know if Spielberg would have been able to do something that subtle. And I just thought that was Tom Cruise was fantastic. Now, against he's up against the Goliath of of Tom Hanks, though.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, I had this is the battle of the toms, and I don't know who who's had a better, they were both their careers. Man, I'll tell you what. If you throw like Denzel Washington in there, at the time I don't know who was bigger. Um, but I had Forrest Gomp. And again, this is this is again, we have an actor who's portraying um a character where I don't know if it holds up as far as I I don't know the alternatives, but Tom Hanks, I think, uh made that character iconic and hungry, but thirsty, and number two, they was free.
SPEAKER_03I must have drank me about 15 Dr. Peppers.
SPEAKER_09Uh tell me the Bubba Gump shrimp, the actual restaurant. Yeah, that's still a thing. That came after, right? I mean, that didn't proceed. Okay. Yeah, that came after um so yeah, this this movie has just become a phenomenon, I think, with Forrest Gump. Everybody knows who Forrest Gump is, so that's why I had him move on.
SPEAKER_05And thankfully they never did a sequel to this uh because it was talked about, but I mean he remains our symbol of being honest, kind, a simpleton, uh, an underdog who succeeds, and just being uh humane with others. Um it wasn't my favorite movie of that year. Um, I still would fight for Pulp Fiction or Shawshank Redemption. Yeah, honestly, you know what movie holds up really well is Quiz Show, uh the Robert Redford film. Um but I think the power of that character and the screenplay, um it was so you're right, it was such a cultural force that. It's pretty cool nowadays to say, oh, Forrest Gump, it should have never won. Pulp Ficture was much cooler or stuff. Or Shawshank's just a better movie. I get it, but in the moment, just John Q public, everybody was all over Forrest Gump. And nobody saw Shawshank Redemption in the theater. And Pulp Fiction was so controversial that sometimes people don't recognize the cultural force of a movie for a few years. That's the most influential movie of the 90s, probably. Right. But it didn't mean that that was the audience's favorite movie of that year. And I think it was it was Tom Hanks' performance.
SPEAKER_09It had nostalgia going for it because it really appealed to the generations that it went through, kind of marched through time and showed you all the different events going on, and a lot of people could connect to that and they're like, and the music, you know.
SPEAKER_05Well, and this gives us our last opening round matchup. We know this is going long, um, but we also knew once we got through the first round, we would just make our quick picks after this. So if you're thinking, oh my god, this is going to be a three-hour podcast, it's gonna go pretty quick after we dissect our uh our initial candidates. So J. Robert Oppenheimer by Cillian Murphy, uh, Chris Nolan's Oppenheimer that came out a couple years ago. And we're going back to 2007. Uh and uh yeah, 2007, Anton Shagur played by Javier Bardeem in the Cohen's brothers, No Country for Old Men. So a six versus eleven seed. I think that almost be it might be misseeded. But what are you thinking?
SPEAKER_09Oh, okay. I don't know which way you're going, but again, just like Buffalo Bill, I think Anton Shager is one of the scariest characters I've ever seen. And yeah, just the look, his hair, how he kills people, and just his like simple you know message. And I haven't even watched this since we read in our old book club, we read the book and then we watched the movie, but that's the last time I've I've watched it.
SPEAKER_12Oh well, I need to see about closing and see about closing. Yes, sir. What time do you close? Now we close now. Now is not a time. What time do you close? Generally around dark. At dark. You don't know what you're talking about, sir. You don't know what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_05It's weirdly so rewatchable. I I never think would think something so bleak would be so rewatchable. But I'll come back to this just to watch specific scenes. Some of them by Tommy Lee Jones, and then the others, of course, by Javier Bardim. Um I'm going with you on this. I think this for me, that's why I think I might have missed seeded this. I don't know if he should be an 11 seed. Um, because uh Cillian Murphy was great um with Oppenheimer. I get that he portrayed kind of this haunting moral ambiguity and guilt about developing atomic weapons. And uh yeah, I mean, I I don't want to take one moment to badmouth that performance. I just think in terms of iconic, this might be the most clinical look at a sociopath. More so than Hannibal Lecter, more so than than Buffalo Bill. I think this might be the greatest um sociopath to like on film. Right. That's so intriguing to look at in terms of his just coldness, uh a total lack of empathy. Um there's no over-the-top Hollywood kind of, you know. A little bit of the a little bit of the Hannibal Lecter like the Chianti and Fava Beans. I don't know, you know, the right that none of that. It's it's just his moral code.
SPEAKER_09You know what he is? He is the he's the Western version of Michael Myers. Yeah. Just slow and methodical. He if he's gonna come for you and he's gonna kill you, and you can't stop him.
SPEAKER_05Uh although he gives us dialogue that gives more depth where Michael Myers is just vacant. It's true. So to hear him speak about this coin was brought here or something like that, or or when he talks to uh Llewellyn's wife at the end when he's sitting in her bedroom and he's just sitting here, and she's the only person who really calls it out. I'm like, I'm not calling it, I'm not calling heads or tail. It's not up to the coin, and that really annoys him uh because he has his little moral code to go by. So yeah, I'm gonna go Anton Shigur. And if you have not seen No Country for Old Men, oh my uh go race to see that movie, and do not expect any type of standard narrative because part of you when you watch it again and again, you part of you think this movie's really about uh Ed Tom, uh Tommy Lee Jones character, that he can't begin to understand, he can't function, he can't comprehend this type of violence, and thus the title. Uh the the type of people he evil he represents um is something it's it's tough to wrap your head around.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, I will say one last thing. Um I think it would have been a lot closer if we if we could actually have cheated and and used uh Cillian Murphy's character Thomas Shelby from Peaky Blinders. I I think that is much more iconic, and I loved I loved him in that show, uh, so I'm eager to see the movie that comes out later this year.
SPEAKER_05That's right, that's right. Okay. Um, so we're gonna do a speed quarterfinals round. We're just gonna not knock these out speedy, and then we'll maybe linger a little bit more on the semifinals. Um, but it may go quicker than we think. Um so Rocky and Rain Man.
SPEAKER_09I could only imagine. That would be like who's on first in the ring, right? How crazy. But I got I got Rocky winning this one.
SPEAKER_05Uh yeah, Rocky and round Rocky and round like four. It takes him a little bit. Rain Man uh will annoy him long enough, but uh probably Rocky and round four. I got Rocky too. Okay. Um Maximus versus Jenny.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, I have Maximus one in this one. I again I'm going for iconic, and I just think Rocky and Maximus are very iconic as far as just characters.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Well, I I don't think there's a lot of debate on that one either.
SPEAKER_09Did did you see are we in agreement with the third party there?
SPEAKER_05Did the the other group agree with us or right now in the semifinals we have everybody put everybody but one put Rocky in the semifinals? Because one person knocked Rocky out first round against Frank Costello.
SPEAKER_09Right.
SPEAKER_05Um and eight out of twelve have Maximus in the semifinals.
SPEAKER_09Okay.
SPEAKER_05So yeah. I think we matched the audience pretty well there. We have three who have Gollum and one who had Frank Costello. So we've matched that side of the bracket pretty well now that I'm looking at the audience. Yeah. So we have the one, no real upsets there, the one in the four seed. Yeah. Uh the other side of it, Hannibal versus Clarice, they get to square off again. Um, so where do you stand on Hannibal versus Clarice?
SPEAKER_09I have I have Hannibal Lecter moving on in this one, which in in mine I had him facing Buffalo Bill, but either one of those characters. It's such a good movie that I think it's fitting that all three of them were kind of battling out, but I had Hannibal Lecter moving on.
SPEAKER_05Now, I'm gonna argue the other way, but let's just be clear the audience went with you overwhelmingly, so you're gonna win. Here's why I'm gonna argue, Clarice. If you ever get a chance to see Manhunter in the 1980s, Michael Mann's version, it's the first time Hannibal Lecter's put on screen. It's with Brian Cox.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, I watched it.
SPEAKER_05It is it's fan. I think his portrayal of Hannibal Lecter is fantastic. And then when I read that he said, I decided to play him like a naughty British schoolboy. Um, and it's like, okay, I see where you're coming from. And I just thought his interpretation was terrific. And so that's not to take away from Anthony Hopkins. Um, it just for me, Clarice Sterling sits in the Mount Rushmore, like I told you, uh, of strong, complicated women who I find to be underrepresented in in films. And so I just think that she stood out to me. Whereas not that he doesn't, of course, Hannibal Lecter is one of the all-time great villains. Um, I just felt like Anton Shager, for me, he was even scarier than Hannibal Lecter. Um, so I I went with Clarice, but again, it doesn't matter. Um, Hannibal Lecter is gonna win this one, and I get it because he is the amount of shows made. I mean, we had TV shows made after him, and how many movies after this uh are the focus of him? So the same thing. He definitely lives on in the cultural zeitgeist, probably more than Clarice Sterling, but yeah. Last one, Forest and Anton.
SPEAKER_09It's very sad that I'm kind of upset with myself because I looked at I I kind of paid attention to the seeding in the first one, but not really. And now that I'm looking at it, I just feel like one of those people that's just going with the steeds and I have forced gump going on, so I have the top four steeds moving on, which is not going out on a limb here. Um but I think if I was doing it just with my own opinion, it would be totally different. I was just trying to try to go with who I thought society thinks was the most iconic characters. So I have Hannibal going up against Forrest Gump here.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and again, I would rather choose uh Anton Shager. But again, I even if I do, I still lose because this speaks to the power of Forrest Gump. I mean, what is it? 11 out of 12 have him in the semifinals. So I just don't think Anton Shagur is known. When you even say the name, the intention was to create a last name that was meant to be a little disturbing or a little off-putting. Whereas Forrest Gump, it's so just basic. So even in the name, we you could say force gump to 10 random people, and eight of them will know what you're talking about. You say Anton Shagur, maybe one or two, yeah. It wasn't mainstream. Yeah, you're right. It wasn't. So now we get to our semis. Um we have the fighters on one side, and then we have the killer and the idiot on the other. So uh Rocky and Maximus.
SPEAKER_09So I'll just I'll just get cut to the chase here. I have Rocky versus Forrest Gump in my finals.
SPEAKER_05You have Rocky versus Forrest Gump, and I have Rocky versus Hannibal. Okay. So we agree on Rocky, we can go with that. Um he lasted longer than Maximus, I guess we can just say that. Um whereas Forrest, why would you think Forrest is more iconic than Hannibal?
SPEAKER_09I just think he's more just more memorable in general. And all of his sayings and and how he acted and and was I don't know. I I just think I just think the name Forrest Gump and if you pictured Tom Hanks in that character, I think a lot more people would be able to, like you said, identify who he is or could identify the name more than Hannibal Lecter. That's what it came down to to me, as far as like iconic.
SPEAKER_05I and I get that. I I I agree with your line of reasoning, and yet I still went with Hannibal Lecter because I feel like we have such a darkness that runs through our culture that I need I feel like Rocky represents hope and underdog and opportunity, and Forrest does too, uh, in a way. He represents the underdog and hope. And in a way, I I think that we have a really like if we were to look at all of our people here, Anton Shager, Oppenheimer's mixed, Buffalo Bill, Schindler's mixed, Hannibal's Dark, uh Jenny's mixed, Apollo Creed's mixed, Maximus, I guess he's good. Um Costello's bad. There's just a lot of evil there, you know what I mean? Uh the icons of evil versus the icons of good. And I just feel like Hannibal has endured weirdly in an affectionate way with people, and I find that disturbing. It's kind of like the Joker. I don't know why we're so obsessed with his character to the point that we these latest movies almost sympathize with him. But uh that's that's the way our culture's rolled. There's a reason why Superman's not as popular as Batman. Uh, we like the moral ambiguity of Batman more than the just the true goodness of Superman. Um, alright, so I'm gonna say Hannibal and audience. Sorry, I gotta look. In the finals, we have eight people put Rocky, six people put Hannibal, five people put Forrest. Hannibal by a vote.
SPEAKER_09Okay.
SPEAKER_05Alright. So it is kind of boring in the sense you get the one and the two seed. But maybe it works because you get the underdog uh goodness versus the evil darkness. Um maybe on this one we just go with what the audience says.
SPEAKER_09Okay.
SPEAKER_05I mean do you have a preference? Do you have a preference on Hannibal versus Rocky? Uh I put Rocky was the winner. Four to three is what the audience said. Yeah, even that one was close. Yeah. Yeah. So they're pretty close. And it's interesting because they they represent two such different kinds of um impulses in society. I mean, because I I really do think of Rocky is like a Cinderella. Yeah. Uh I would look I look at them in that impulse, and obviously I would never look at Hannibal Lecter in that in that vein. But um it's a fun exercise to look at what are the characters people like. And I agree with you. Maybe what we should do is we should just next year for the Academy Awards, uh, we look at maybe casts or um for just nominated, best nominated films. Because I think that could be that could be a lot of fun to consider what would be the casts. Um but this was yeah, I'm glad you suggested this. I I definitely enjoyed this. Who do you think is gonna win best who do you think is gonna win best picture now? Do you think it's gonna be centers or one battle after another? If I had to choose, it would be one battle after another over centers. But me too, but I think sinners is I guess I think the momentum is going with centers now, but I actually think one battle after another, uh I pre I I I enjoyed that one.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, I wouldn't be disappointed either way. I mean, I don't I liked them both. I enjoyed them.
SPEAKER_05So well everyone, we hope you enjoyed our bracket, uh, our time at the movies and prep in preparation for March Madness. So once again, good wins over evil on this podcast. So congratulations to Rocky Balboa. You will be getting your championship though in the mail. Um, but thanks again, everybody, and we will be seeing you here in a week. We are the flyover guys, and have a wonderful week. Thank you for listening.