EP.38 Meryl Streep

In this episode of the Newbies to Movie podcast, Tyler and Justin analyze Meryl Streep’s range by contrasting her performances in The Iron Lady and The Bridges of Madison County, highlighting her ability to portray both intense historical figures and intimate emotional drama. The discussion covers themes of duty and sacrifice before concluding with a draft of top family drama films, 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Hello, hello, welcome to Newbies and Movies. I'm Tyler. I'm Justin the Movie Guy. This is a podcast where we like to talk about new movies that we're watching based around like a theme, actor, actress, or director. With this week's theme being actress, uh, what are the goats? Meryl Streep herself. But before we get into that, we usually like to start off with other stuff that we've been watching this week. And then like a new segment that we started, which is like movie news of this week as well. So Justin, you want to start off with like what you've been watching this week?

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Yeah, I've been really face first into Invincible right now. It's been pretty nuts, especially because last week Big Bad was kind of introduced, and everybody was kind of like, oh, he's not really that big and bad. He's kind of just like a bitch. And then yeah, this week we we realized we were all talking shit about the wrong guy because he went ape shit and did a lot of bad stuff. Um, so it was pretty cool to see. Definitely they're they're absolutely screwed. There's no coming back from it. I don't think they ever fully recover, but pretty great show. I love it. Obviously, I'm a comic book nerd, but uh yeah, I've been really diving into that last episode of the season next week, so it should be interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Yeah, I've been hearing really good things uh from other people that have been watching it as well. Uh been pretty notable on this podcast that I never really got into it, even though I try I did try it out. I gave it like four episodes. Just wasn't for me, I guess. I don't know. I think it's just super comparable to the boys, and I guess I just like the grittiness of the boys a little bit more. I guess the nastiness is what you also could call the boys, because there's just straight up scenes and this boys that it's just nasty. Yeah. For sure. Cool. Yeah, so I went to the movie theaters three times this week. The first time on Monday, it was like a seen unseen thing by AMC, and it was the movie normal. Um stars Bob Odenkirk, who was in Better Call Saul. Pretty good, like action movie. It's from the same guy that made John Wick and the nobody movies. But I don't know what happened to make Bob Odenkirk, this guy in his 50s and 60s, all of a sudden an action star. Like he does not give off action star vibes, but he's in this like action movie. Uh it was pretty decent, not surprisingly. And then one of my movies that I really look forward to, as far as like a comedy horror, Over Your Dead Body, I saw on Wednesday night a week early, and it was really good. I gave it a four out of five stars. I really enjoyed the comedy horror part of it to where it's like it's not gonna try to scare you. It's just like parts of it's like super gross out and stuff, but it's about these family uh starts off with like this couple who go to this secluded place in the woods, and they like try and they both are trying to kill them each other um and get away with it, but then it turns into like this whole other scene with like robbers getting involved and all this. And then I saw the mummy on Friday, they crone into the money mummy, and that is probably the gnarliest film I've ever seen in my life. I mean, it's like if you like the Evil Dead movies, this movie is just on caliber of like just nastiness. I had to give it two and a half stars just for being literally the gnarliest movie I've ever seen. Where like everyone in the theater is like, ugh, it's just about a lot of the scenes, it's just nasty. Um, the plot has a lot of problems with it, but I just had to give it at least like a 50% just because I was like, this is like the nastiest thing I've ever seen. Don't recommend it to you if you like easily get startled up by that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

That's my problem with some of these horror franchises, I feel like, is like they're gonna remake the mummy again in ten the next 10 years, and they're just gonna keep doing it, and every time it's gonna suck. And I'm just like, at what point do we look at the story and be like, there's just not enough here to make a good movie?

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Yeah, the thing is like this is nothing connected to any of the other type of mummy movies. Yeah. It's like its own story kind of thing. It's just like there's like a part of it that's like kind of human trafficking element to it that you and I don't know, it just misses on that. It's just like fucking gnarly. I don't know how it's just nasty. It's like got skin ripping off, uh like fingernails like ripping off, like throw up all over, blood all over, grandmas with like stabbed through their feet. It's dude, it's crazy. But cool. Yeah, so then we'll just transition right into the news where I'll like give off some segments and then see what you think about it, Justin.

SPEAKER_04 4:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

So uh starting off, like this was CinemaCon this week, uh, which is where like a bunch of cinema owners like AMC regal people and these big companies like Warner Bros. Disney and all that, like kind of for advertise their films to these people that are spending a lot of money to put them in theaters, you know? Who pretty much are buying it from them. So that's kind of what it's around. But the first big news is Top Gug 3 is happening and it's like set to be with Tom Cruise and the whole ordeal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Yeah, I mean, makes sense, right? He's gonna make movies till he's dead, and that movie just made a billion dollars at the box office, so why not?

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Yeah. Um the Kacinski, the guy that made F1 as well, it isn't confirmed if he's directing or not. I feel like if he's not, it'd be questionable because I think he's really good at those like kind of epic acventure movies. I just don't know where they're going with the story at this point. You already did Russia, fuck it, let's do China at this point. Or you just have him go to the Middle East and you're like, alright. Um the next one, the Spaceballs, the new one has now been confirmed and it's gonna star Bill Pullman and his son, Louis Pullman. What do you think about this?

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Yeah, that's pretty funny. I've seen them I don't know where they were at together. Maybe as a red carpet event or something, but their banter is actually pretty hilarious as well. Yeah. So I can imagine that movie will definitely probably do well, especially for I know that's definitely like a cult classic kind of movie. Like there's a big fan base for that movie.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

So Yeah. I think people that love the original, like I really like the original. I know our buddy Nathan loves it too. He quotes it all the time. Um Mel Brooks is one of the one that announced it at it, but like he's not directing it because he's 99 years old. But um it'll be interesting. I think a lot of people are gonna have their eyes on it, and like if it fails, it's gonna be a lot of hatred towards it because the original is so beloved.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Yeah, I mean, I think you there's been a lot of not so good Star Wars you can really rip up right now, so that's the other thing.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Yeah, exactly. Like the it's somehow Palpatine or is it mentioned? I swear, man, they're just missing an good opportunity. Um okay, the next thing is next the next Oceans movie, so like the the the Heist movies, is gonna star and be directed by Bradley Cooper, but bringing back like George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon are all coming back as well. Gonna be a huge movie.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Yeah, I mean, in the time of just rebooting every franchise ever, I see why this would be done. I haven't seen the original Oceans movies. Uh definitely need to check them out before this. Interesting to have Bradley Cooper direct, I think. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Yeah. Yeah. He's directed A Star is Born. He directed uh Is This Thing On that that came out this past year. I think he's kind of given up on the opportunity for an Oscar. I think he was obsessed with that for a while. Um I don't think he's just like, all right, it looks like it's not happening for me. So he's just finally just gonna take big paychecks and do some fun things now. Um and then the next thing is like there's been great reviews of the trailer for Digger revolving around like uh Tom Cruise and like environmental catastrophic event, but comedy, um, specifically talking about how like Tom Cruise is just looks really good in this and this may be his time.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Yeah, that's what I've heard too. The role is not something that he would normally play. So I mean, I think if the story's there, yeah, he could definitely get some Oscar love. I I could see.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Yeah. Uh uh Justin watched Tropic Thunder this week, and a lot of people are comparing his role in Digger to Lex Grossman. So like he's like kind of playing, bringing that kind of comedy out on him over a whole movie. It would be interesting to see how that works.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yeah, uh I didn't see the official trailer yet, but I did see people comparing it on Twitter. Well, X, which is pretty funny after after watching that movie this week.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Yeah. The next thing is uh Jeremy Strong as Zuckerberg is also getting great acclaim to where a lot of people are like, he's got the mimic mimicry down to like really good point. There's still questions about how the movie's gonna work. Yeah, but they say, wow, he looks and acts exactly like Mark Zuckerberg in like all the footage so far.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Yeah, this is for the next um social network movie, right? Yep. Yeah, social interesting.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Yeah, it's got a big thing to look for like to kind of get compared to because social network is like one of the most acclaimed movies of the 20th first century. So we'll see. The next thing is uh Clayface, the new the other DC movie that's coming out this year, is gonna be officially like rated R, and they're going full whore into this. I'm just interested what you think about this as like a comic book fan, but also like this seems like a really risky choice on like a new DC like universe.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Um so from what I've heard, they're stating that it's not set in Robert Pattinson's Batman, and it's not set in James Gunn's universe either. So it's kind of just like its own separate thing out there, and I think the studio does that on purpose, right? If this movie sucks, they can just be like, Yep, never happened. Yeah. But I think it is about time we get a true comic book horror movie. I can't really think back to one that was noticeable. Probably the Joker would be the best example. Exactly. And then that you know, that's a horror, but it's more like a psychological horror. I think this you can really go full like actual horror. And there was a lot of talk originally about multiverse of madness, the Doctor Strange movie getting into being like a horror movie. I'm in the beginning, and then that turned out to be shit. But yeah, I think I'm excited to see like how this can be done because I think it can, it's just gotta have the right people in the right place.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Yeah. No, I agree with um that like just overall, it could be really good. It could be super risky for them, and then it'd be a total miss to where like they have to like kind of objectively but imagine if Supergirl doesn't do well either, which like there's a lot of reviews of Supergirl coming out that's like really iffy about it. For me, I'm not really that impressed by the trailer for Supergirl, so we'll see.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Um it's like Guardians of the Galaxy 4, is just what it feels like.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Yeah, exactly. Doesn't seem like anything crazy for James Gunn, but this seems like a pretty interesting choice. So I'll probably definitely see it because horror movie and comic book is like right up my alley.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Yeah, should be good.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

And then the last thing is Thomas Crown Affair, which is about like a millionaire bank robber, is gonna be starring and directed by m the most recent Oscar winner, Michael B. Jordan, um, which I think is really interesting for him.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Yeah, that should be interesting. I mean, he took over on Creed 3, right? He was directing Creed 3. Yeah. Yeah. Um he made Creed III, yeah. That was probably my favorite Creed movie out of the bunch. I think I really enjoyed his inspiration uh with anime and the fighting style, so I don't know how the action will be. It sounds like there's gonna be some sort of kind of action involved in this. So I think he'll do a good job at that. Just hope the story's there, you know.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Yeah, yeah. It's a remake of a 1999 movie, but it sounds like that there he's taking a lot of like inspiration from it, but like not the same as a story, so not like a one-by-one remake. Interesting, you know, humming off an Oscar wind and like wanting to go into like the directing route. It seems like more so in his career at this point. Kind of like one of the guys that we're gonna be talking today along with Street Clint Eastwood, kind of did this at his point of his career too. He never won an Oscar like that, but or like as an actor, but it very seems very similar to like the age time when Clint Eastwood started doing that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Yeah, and I mean, you know, winning an Oscar opens up so many opportunities for you as well, as well as you know, not having to really have that pressure anymore to feel like you gotta go do it as an actor. You can try something else now, something you enjoy doing.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

I agree. Awesome. So yeah, that's the second time that we did like news. We'll see like if each week kind of warrants like a news thing, but this week definitely did just because it was a big Sen McConnell thing for it. So a lot of big announcements by these uh big companies. Cool. So yeah, the actress this week is Meryl Street, just one of like the really like well-known actresses. Um, she has a big movie coming out this summer, the Debo Wars Prada 2. Um, this is kind of in prep for that, but also I feel like she's just had to be somebody that we need to get on radar. I don't feel like we watched we have watched enough of her movies, and she's like a 24-time or like 21 nominated like actress for best actress and best reporting actress in in the Oscars like Academy, which is just insane. Yeah, a lot. 21 nomination. It's just no one else is that much, like not even close. Like, I don't think anybody is even close. Uh she has only three only three wins. So three out of twenty-one. I mean twenty-one is just impressive enough to like say how good you are as an actress. So, what do you think? First off, if you want to say about Mel Sheep.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Yeah, um, I didn't like you said, I don't think I've actually seen any of her movies coming into this week, which is might sound absurd. I just you know, she's in a lot of movies I'd never really had been interested in growing up. And I mean, I know that's the point of the podcast, right? You know, get out there, try some different things that we haven't seen before, and I'm glad we did. Definitely a great actor. Um I mean, we'll get more into the movies and her specific roles, but definitely highly regarded for a good reason.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Yeah. Uh yeah. I've only really seen the Debo Earse Prada movie, and I don't think I've really seen much more with her. I know my mom is a big fan of her, though. Um, so she watched a lot of her movies, and I probably was just watching them bicariously through her, meaning like I just walked by and I'm like, uh, it's a movie with her. I've also seen Mamma Mia, so she's also in that.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Uh and I know Justin probably doesn't interest him for Mama Mia, but I've seen parts of it, you know, when it's on the TV, that kind of stuff, but yeah, not really my cup of tea, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Yeah. Well, she is in one of uh your favorite movies of all time, Fantastic Mr. Fox. She does uh voice act in that one.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

But yeah, she she was really good this week. Like the movies we saw three movies with her, um, and we'll kind of get into that first, but we'll just like give a good background of like so she started off being like an Oscar or an opera singer, and then she went to Yale, though, and from there she kind of started off young in her actor's career. Like, I guess just choosing really smart movie choices because she chose the deer hunter and Kramer vs. Kramer back-to-back years to really start off her career. She won an Oscar in her like third movie ever, and the Deer Hunter and Kramer vs. Kramer were both best picture winners. It was just really smart choices to start your career, you know? And then just like kind of to direct your career into like stardom from that point. And then from there, she just kept getting nominated as felt like every other year from the 80s until the 90s. And then I think the most like publicly known role for her has been The Devil Where's Prada and uh Mamma Mia itself. But then she won her third Oscar in 2011 with one of the movies we did this week, The Iron Lady. Cool though. Um one of the movies that we did that we were gonna choose this week was Kramer vs. Kramer, because we were like, oh, she won her first Oscar for this. Let's check it out. But she's like a super supporting role in this film, so we ended up just bringing it to like just talk about it in general. So, Justin, you want to give a quick review of like what you thought of Kramer versus Kramer?

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Yeah, no, I think you know, obviously her winning a supporting role actress supporting is tough because so many times we've seen something like RDJ and Oppenheimer, like that was a huge role in the movie, but obviously the supporting role. And then you you see her in this, and I think I texted you like an hour in, I was like, dude, she's been in it for five minutes. Like, we gotta do something. We can't we can't sit here and talk about how great your acting was when we've barely seen her. And she definitely came around more in the end. So obviously, it's about uh, you know, a family of three, uh right? You have the husband, the wife, and the the child. Yeah. And so the she basically walks out on the relationship she's done with the kind of family life. She feels like she's not a good mother, moves out west to California, and it's it's more about the the dad, I'm blanking on the actor's name. Uh he's so great. Dustin Hoffman. Dustin Hoffman. He uh he's you know, it's about him and his job, him trying to raise his kid while also managing being a workaholic basically, and uh in his relationship with his son, who was very, you know, stuck on where's mommy the whole time. Um, and then kind of moving towards the end, it gets into like a custody battle in court. And then obviously that's when she comes more into play in about the last 30 minutes or so. But um it was a it was a really good movie. It was a fun movie, family movie, but also had some you know pretty deep themes that you know, unfortunately uh this world has a lot of you know split families and you know making sure that you just kind of have the the best thing going on for the child is the most important thing, and I think that's you know kind of what we get out out of the ending. But yeah, really great acting all around in that. And even with the kid, I don't know who the kid was. He he was really great and really actually hilarious throughout the movie.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Yeah, yeah. Um I really enjoyed the movie, but like you said, it's not a Merrill Street movie, it's a Dustin Hoffman movie for sure. I think it's really effectively done. I guess like during this time, like maybe dual parenting or like a dual joint custody. Yeah, joint custody wasn't like a really notable thing, I guess, at that time. Because like nowadays, like they didn't seem like they hated each other in the movie, so it was like joint custody would be definitely the route to go, but I guess during the time the film was made, it just wasn't really a thing or it wasn't as known, even though he had plenty of good reasons to hate her throughout the film. And she's kind of made to be the villain of the film, if anything. But yeah, I really enjoyed it. Um we're lucky enough to like come for families that don't have to deal with this, but reading a lot of the reviews, it's like raise your hand. Like, if you're a divorced like kid, this movie hits hard, and you're just like, and I'm like, oh, I bet I bet it does.

SPEAKER_03 18:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Um, because you just never know what goes behind the scenes and stuff as like a little kid.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Yeah, and it's so hard to grasp that as a kid, too, right? And I think we the child actor did a really great job of displaying that. You know, he had no idea what was going on most of the time, and so he's asking these very innocent questions, but it's just breaking apart Dustin Hoffman's character, which was really good to watch, really, really well done from both of them.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Yeah. And seeing him transform as like not just a dad, but as like a man himself, yeah. To where he thought like his career was like all that mattered, and then you could just see like him shift to like being like an actual full-on parent that he wasn't before, and like the scene of when he falls and he has to get stitches and he runs through like the streets for it was like a really emotional but also like uplifting scene for him as like a character study.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Yeah, very much so. I I was gonna tell you like on the side, but we definitely need to do Dustin Hoffman one week because we've watched Rain Man and Novice. And yeah, I need to see more of him, dude.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

He's really great. Yeah, because I I heard the graduate is one that we need to check out, so I feel like we gotta put him on the list because we already watched his for two movies that he won his Oscars for, so we already started off strong.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

But yeah, the movies that we ended up choosing this week was The Iron Lady and The Bridges of Madison County. So first we'll start off with The Iron Lady, even though it came out later. Um it's set in a time later, like earlier, kind of. So yeah, Justin, just get right into it.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Yeah. Um, I'm just gonna dive right into the plot. Uh basically, this movie is a Margaret Thatcher biopic, right? So really reflects on her life and her career as she kind of prepares to dispose of her belongings of her late husband. This movie's constantly jumping back and forth between uh with some sort of dementia, maybe Alzheimer's and late age, and then her like living out the past events that she had uh been through. Obviously, for those that don't know, Mark feel about her, which I get is a take in itself. You don't want to force uh any feelings on anybody, but make up your mind. If you're gonna do a biopic and you want to tell about her trials and tribulations to getting there, then do that. Or if you want to talk about her trials and tribulations of being like really hated and like looked at as a villain, then do that. It felt like this was a mix of of what three different movies should have been, uh three different tellings of her life. So overall with the plot, I gave it a four. I just think it was really messy, really rushed. And yeah, the the time jumping really killed me in this as well.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Yeah. I think the plot itself turns really into like a disrespectful take on her life, like one of the most prominent figures in like British hit history. And it's interesting that you say the reading of the reviews that people said that she wasn't. I think at the time when she got fired or replaced pretty much, yeah, she wasn't like very much liked. But then like 10 years later, she's looked at as like there was a reason why she was not like renominated three times, you know. She was probably one of the best prime ministers I've read of, like one of the most liked of all time in British history. Obviously, we were American, so it comes from a place where like we can only read so much. We don't we don't actually live there, so like you never know. But reading into like some her family, like really criticized the film and the depiction of her, and reportedly said that the film sounded like some left-wing fantasy and wasn't actually who their mother was and didn't really depict her like situation at the end of her like life accurate at all, and even like how she missed her like late husband, like was just very disrespectful. That's a lot of like reviews coming from her family itself.

unknown 21:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

I felt like definitely hit the nail on the head there. I don't I didn't know anything about this lady, and I immediately was like, How are they just like portraying her like visibly seeing her husband in the later parts of her life? Like they have no idea what was going on in her head, and they're just making Making that like such a huge plot point. That's just disrespectful in itself, making this lady seem like she's crazy and she might have not even been. Yeah. Like it's just kind of messed up.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Yeah, especially because the reviews are with her from her family being like, okay, maybe like the maids accidentally heard her like mistakenly say her like husband's name, Desmond, a bunch of times, but it wasn't like out of a place where like he was imaginary to her. It was like just like they lived with each other for so long. It wasn't like a hysterical thing that she was going through, it sounds like.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

No, I agree. Kind of getting into that with the characters. I thought the characters were lacking very much so, not to hate too much on Meryl Street, because I think she did act this well really roll really well. We'll get into that with acting, though. I think the character was done really poorly. I think the time jumping really messed with me a lot. You know, we start her as an old age, obviously clearly dementia or something like that. And she's jumping back and forth between like really important parts of her life, but those parts felt very short. It would jump to something that seemed very important, like the uh the Falcon Wars, and that maybe lasted three minutes of the whole movie between cuts. Yeah. If you cut it all together, and it was just like, dude, this is so rushed. And you're trying to tell this lady's whole life story in basically half a movie, because the other half is just her being old and senile. And it's like, what like it's just so poorly done and so rushed. Cool to see Olivia Coleman in this, obviously, another great British actor just playing her daughter, which was cool, but I mean the character itself didn't really matter. Her husband, I feel like every time he did appear in her head, they were just talking about how he he wasn't really there or he was really there. There was no actual like connection between them. There was no like deep dive and they're the character arc, nothing I got out of that relationship in the movie, which was kind of frustrating for me.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Yeah, I agree with you to where I think a lot of like the characters are very lazily done to where there's not like much to know about them. The only reason why I gave it kind of a positive rating on it was just because I think Meryl Streep's so excellent playing Margaret Thatcher, to where a lot of the good reviews, like or like a lot of the reviews about it, is like she is like reliably like perfect in that role. But it's mirrored in like a self-important, bland storytelling kind of uh review. And then Roger Ebert kind of made a good thing where she or good comment about when in his review was like she's all dressed up with nowhere to go in the film, and few people were like neutral in their feelings about her, except the makers of this picture itself. So I feel like she's just given like the one of the worst scripts, or like with one of the best performances. So it's like a really odd feeling about this movie where I feel so strongly about the performance, but I really just hate the movie.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Yeah. Tyler, how am I gonna feel about the cinematography here?

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Probably really low because it's super gray.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

Thank you, Tyler. This movie felt so dumb and washed out. Like I felt like I was I was watching the color gray. I get people say that Britain's like that, uh, 24-7, 365 anyway, so cool, but I just couldn't get anything out of it. And I guess if the director really wanted to sell me on it, they could say, Oh, this movie was gray because of her declining mental state. And then to that I would say, dude, write a better story. That whole plot point sucked.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Yeah. Now, yeah, it's a super bland way of cinematography, doesn't add anything to the story. I don't want to keep just reiterating how much I don't like this movie, but yeah, the cinematography's just boring, doesn't seem like anything special. Yeah, London's great, but not every day, you know?

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Yeah. I uh um I don't yeah. Yeah, it just didn't it didn't excite me at all. And you know, yeah, it was yeah. I don't I feel bad because I I keep harping on the bad things too, but it just wasn't a good film, I don't think. Getting into the dialogue, I felt like it was cliche. I felt like it was very Oscar baity. It really tried to like set up like scenes for her to like, you know, just like have like this big moment and tell everybody off, which is fine. One of them that really threw me off. It's a she said, watch your thoughts for they become words. And I said, I'd like to add to that quote. If you heat it up, it's gonna get hot. Just stupid quotes. Like, of course.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

Yeah, no, you're right. Where it and then also, like, I guess I see where the the director was trying to do something cool, I guess, where like it there's flashbacks of like her, like all the guys trying to talk over her and like these board meetings, and then it flashes to her young, like her older and younger, but it's like it just seems crowded dialogue, you know, yeah, like in her head to where you're like, you're thinking that like, oh, she's confused with like all these men trying to overspeak her, where like, but I didn't really understand what he was trying to say with that. It just sounded it just seemed really crowded to me.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

And I think what I was kind of getting at to earlier is like, I think if you take that first portion, right? With the the young actor Alexander Roach playing her, even if you had Meryl Street play it, that's fine too. My point is take that first section of her trials and tribulations into becoming prime minister. That's the movie. I don't need to hear about all the stuff that happened later when she was prime minister and how some people hated her. Take that approach. You want to tell a great, inspiring story? Tell me about how she got there. Make a sequel if you want to about her time in office or have somebody else direct it and tell that dark side story. But it you can't fit all that into one film, and that's just where it became too much. And that's where the dialogue got super crammed, like you were saying, all these jumping back and forth, and it made me lost.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Yeah. I think biopic movies that we've done in the past as well, is like trying to do an entire life of somebody is really difficult to properly do. And the most, in my opinion, the best biopics are ones that don't try to do that, they try to go after certain points in people's lives. I just think if Lincoln is like such a good example of like one of the most prominent parts of him being president is made into that movie, and that's why I think that movie is so effective. It's interesting that we saw this kind of biopic right before Michael comes out this week for us, the Michael Jackson biopic, to where it's trying to depict his whole career. And I just don't think it's gonna work, in my opinion. I I don't know. It looks like a great performance. I mean, he's literally related to Michael Jackson, he's literally his nephew, but I doing a whole career of somebody that big is just I don't know, man.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

It just doesn't seem like it can be a lot. And I think the one thing you do have with uh, you know, doing an artist is there is typically a beginning, middle, and end of their career. With this, it was, you know, her whole life. It wasn't spread across the 25, 30 year career. It was literally, I don't know how old she was. I'm assuming probably 80, 85 years from when she was a teenager until she was basically senile. And so that's a lot more ground to cover as well. You're right. Yeah, it could be a lot and it could be hard to do, so we'll see. Getting into the set design, I gave it a two. I thought it felt super shallow, all the sets, specifically the house, got really repetitive. I felt lost every time I was in there. Maybe they were trying to make her feel that way. I I feel like I'm reaching by saying that because we already knew she was kind of out of her mind at this point. Again, she probably definitely wasn't, but it's just that was what the character was building to, unfortunately. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

Yeah, and they spend like the this I don't even know if this is hard to set design, but the first 10 minutes is her trying to get milk, and they're like, Why did she go get milk by herself? It's like that used to be the prime minister of the of Great Britain. Chill out for a second, like come on now. Like you think like even like nurses wouldn't respect her at that opinion, like they were like, oh no, like she's a senior old lady. It's like, no, like she's probably like one of the most successful women of like any generation. And you're just like, no, she can't go get milk in her butt milk by herself. I don't know. For me, that I was like, alright. I also like I thought it was not streep at the beginning of the movie. I was like, oh, that looks like a way different older lady. And then it took like five minutes for me to be like, wait a second, that is her. Holy shit.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Also hilarious how she's like in a bodega getting the milk and just nobody recognized her at all, which is kind of nuts.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Yeah. Uh yeah, that was also insane to me. It's like, okay, maybe it was like 20 plus years ago, but that you guys never opened like a history book, I guess, like of your own history.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

Maybe Great Britain doesn't teach himself that, but like I mean, no, just consider like if you saw like a previous president in our lifetime that was president, like say Bush, you would recognize George Bush.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

Yeah, or Bill Clinton right away. I'd be like, oh yeah. Yeah, like I feel like that's like the I I don't know. It's like the head of the par parliament. I feel like that's like the equal to like the president. I guess like the queen too. Like no one would like miss out on the queen, but I feel like she's just as bit prominent if you're gonna vote her in.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

Um getting into the acting, I gave it a six. Meryl Streep really is carrying the six far. Pretty much just Meryl Meryl Streep. Even Olivia Coleman as playing her daughter, I thought was kind of weak. But I again I think it was just a poorly written character. Her husband's character was poorly written. He was just kind of like joking around the whole movie. I know he's doing a flashback, but every scene it was just him like messing with her, like banter like he's still alive. It was nothing like a serious connection between them, which kind of killed that character as well. Yeah, Meryl Streep did great in this role, but again, I thought the character itself felt thin and she did pretty great with working with the little.

SPEAKER_01 31:43

No, yeah, I I agree with that. Um I only rated it vitamin 9 just because I thought it was like probably one of the best like biopit performances I've ever seen from like an actress, and this is like the one highlight that I wanted to talk about. Uh because she did win her third Oscar for this, uh, and she was just really fantastic to where it would have been really cool if she actually did like a Margaret Thatcher film and like with an actual good story, you know?

unknown 32:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

With somebody that actually gave her some like context to work with rather than because she's like uncannily like so good and like mimics her so well. It's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Um getting into directing, I gave it a four, directed by Felita Lloyd, also worked with Meryl Streep and Mamma Mia. Supposedly, she was trying to get after a Shakespearean take on Margaret Thatcher's life. To that, I'd say go watch Hamnet. He would have hated this movie.

SPEAKER_02 32:35

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

Yeah, I did not read that. That is probably one of the dumbest things I've heard of my life, but alright.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Yeah, I don't I don't know really where that came from. I was just reading on Google about this director, and that's what she said. So I was like, okay, good luck on your next film if they call you back. But yeah, I just didn't get much out of this movie that I enjoyed besides the acting.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

Yeah. It's crazy how like Mel and Mia is a super successful movie, and I think I've done really well. So then like Hollywood was clearly like, oh yeah, you can go ahead and like do a movie, and then like after this, she only tracted one more movie, and that one movie also was a miss. So she hasn't done anything since. So like, actually, never mind. They're like, let's not give this girl a blank check ever again. Yeah, it's probably my worst rating I've ever given a director. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

Yeah. And maybe if it was a fun movie like Mamma Mia, that would be cool for her to do, but not this dreary, terrible film like Oscar Beatty film. Yeah. Another highlight I had, I thought the soundtrack was half decent. I gave it a seven. It was composed by Thomas Newman. He does a lot of Pixar movies as well, if you've heard his name before. I thought it was pretty decent. It actually caught my eye a couple times on this movie and definitely kept me awake. Um, that was the best part of it.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

Yeah. I guess that's what kept drawing me back in was the music as well. Yeah, Tom Newman does sound very familiar. I'm trying to see what else he's done. I know Nemo was one. I can look here. He did Shawshank Redemption, Little Woman, American Beauty, Barney Nemo, Wally, Skyfall, 1917. Yeah. All right, yeah, this guy's really good.

SPEAKER_03 34:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

Um, yeah, I I recognized that it was good music, and then I afterwards I when we were doing the notes for the show, I was looking it up and I was like, oh yeah, this makes a lot of sense now. Why I felt half decent about this coming in.

SPEAKER_01 34:25

Yeah, no, definitely really good. And again, if it was like framed around like a better plot line, it probably would have been like added really well to like the story itself.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Yeah. Um, for the themes, I gave it a hard two, and this is where my notes started tanking, and I started getting uh in a really bad mood. Yeah, this movie just framed a terrible narrative through her battle of with dementia. It felt really ghoulish. It felt like, yeah, just like a very bad exercise of how to frame a biopic. It really skipped over a lot of the major events in Margaret Thatcher's life, which I read about after the movie. The minor strikes was a huge deal. The Falklands wars, they touched on, but it's just like it was treated as like a backdrop of the overarching dementia case that we were going through. And I just feel like that's not a way to tell a story of somebody's life, especially a story of somebody as important as this. And even, you know, the idea of her being the first female uh prime minister was really like looked over. It was like a 25-minute thing max in the beginning of the movie. And I felt like you could have told a whole movie about just that and our trials and tribulations and getting there. So yeah, it just really went nowhere for me.

SPEAKER_01 35:37

Yeah, I gave it a one. So even lower than the two. For me, it was just yeah, I I just didn't really like the this is disrespectful, it seems like the thing about biopics is that I feel like as a director, you need to come into it of a frame of like people are seeing this film, and this is like their first insight about who this person is, really. And if you don't, if they don't really know much about them, you're pretty much telling the story for this person of like why should they care? Pretty much people coming out of this movie that don't know anything about Margaret Thatcher are gonna be like, oh wow, she was kind of a bitch. It's like I don't think that's a good representation of who she was as a person.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

Yeah. Well, and and that's the thing here too, right? Is in the beginning of the movie, it's hey, look how great and strong this woman was to overcome all the trials of being the first woman to do this, dealing with these the a whole men in parliament. And then by the end, they were like trying to make you hate this woman. And it's like, yeah, I want you as a director of a biopic to tell me what I should know about this person. Don't give me the actual information and just be like, you make up your own mind. Tell me how you feel about this person. This is your story that you're telling. And I just did not do that at all here. And getting into the editing, I gave that a one. Super disjointed, super nonlinear structure. I love nonlinear storytelling. This is like this belongs in hell. It was really bad. It was so poorly done. The jumping was a mess, and it was a nightmare to watch. It was it felt very pointless and contextless the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

Um yeah, editing was also like a one for me. It was really low just because this nonlinear like editing styles either really works or really doesn't work, and this was an example of it really not working.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Not in a biopic. It just doesn't seem yeah. I mean, I guess you could say it was kind of done in Oppenheimer that way, but there was still like a three-act structure that worked really well. This jumped between probably six or seven different acts throughout the movie, and it was tough watch.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

Yeah, it's a three-act structure, but all wrapped around for Oppenheimer one main idea while this is wrapped around like her entire life.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Yeah. Overall, I gave the movie a 3.6 out of 10 or a 36. I think I lost you. Oh, sorry. Yeah, I lost you. Wi-Fi Go Out. Wi-Fi Go Out. I'm back. Yep. Okay, cool, cool. Um yeah, so getting into the overall score, I gave a 3.6 out of 10 or a 36. Might be the lowest score I've done on this show for any movie. Just super disjointed movie, super terrible storytelling. Um, I was looking forward to learning more about Margaret Thatcher as a person and seeing Meryl Streep's acting, but yeah, it just kind of got ruined for me.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

Yeah, me too. What'd you give it again? 3.6. No way. I also gave it a 3.6. That's insane.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

We're doing this too much. Yeah. The minds are melding. Cool.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

And then the and then another movie. Another movie that we did this week for Meryl Streep, but before we actually switch over. Iron Lady won two Oscars, one for makeup and hairstyling, and for Meryl Streep performance. I think both are like honestly kind of well worth it. I mean, she looks uncannily like Margaret Thatcher, doesn't look like Meryl Streep. I don't know what else it was up against that year. Because it seems like not much very strong. Like Frank had signed one this year, and that's like a crazy makeup and hairstyling compared to this movie. But yeah, but yeah, the other movie we did was The Bridges of Madison County, um direct directed by Clint Eastwood, who we did a while back, and then we did and and then stars Maryl Shriepe as the other main actress. So I'll just get right into the plot. It follows uh Meryl Streep. Meryl Streep, who's this mother of the family as her family goes on like a trip away, she stayed back. And the photographer like kind of comes up to her asking for directions, and she leads him to like this bridge and and it starts in an affair, pretty much. But it seems like a very like romanticized they kind of are meant for each other kind of affair. And kind of kind of dissolves around into that. And overall gave the pot and I really enjoyed the story. Comparing it to the thing. Comparing it to the notebook, it's everything. Everything the notebook wishes it was, in my opinion. To where you could tell I didn't think Clinton's one of Mail Street would have kind of like like this chemistry coming into it. And they did. It surprised me how much chemistry they had. They were a lot more careful of romance films. Romanticizing cheating compared to a lot of other romance films, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 40:09

Yeah, I mean, definitely like instant soulmates, we kind of talked about earlier. Their connection kind of reminded me of Before Sunrise, uh, which we watched a couple weeks ago. Just kind of how they could basically just sit in a room and talk about anything for hours, and that's that's what it was. And that's kind of what uh I got out of them, right? Their connection was so deep. It wasn't them just hooking up to hook up, it was like an actual connection that they were both by the end of the week, by the by the time it was all over, both really, really torn up about basically having to move on with their lives and never seeing each other again, um, which was definitely interesting to see.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

But they kept like thinking about each other until she died pretty much, and that's why she wanted her ashes spread. Yeah, yeah, very like touching romance movie that we that we both agreed where we didn't like how it romanticized cheating. But I again I think a lot of romance movies sadly has like some cheating cheating in them, which I think has kind of made it into like popular culture and cheating is cheating is like happens. Happens more and more now, I think nowadays. I never really understand cheating from a personal perspective. I think it's just super disrespectful to anybody if you actually care about them. But I think this does do it a lot more carefully than most rain romance movies nowadays do it. Yeah, I agree. Characters, I gave it eight out of ten. I really like the the lead to I mean, we did Clean Switch a while back. It was interesting to see him in this role, way different than the other two movies that we did with him. He is like playing a really good, like dramatized, like love character. And then Mer Meryl Streep is playing this like kind of deep woman that like feels like she's misunderstood by her own family.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

Yeah, I would have never taken him for the other thing.

SPEAKER_01 42:35

Kind of like a memey image at the end of like him sitting in the rain crying, but it is definitely emotional. Um, but pretty much, but pretty easy to make memes out of. But uh cinematography, I give it eight out of ten. I really enjoyed this to where I just like the natural beauty of like a Midwestern place, you know? It kind of gets romanticized. Is it wed west light life, I guess, I guess, in a in a sense in a sense, to where a lot of people like it kind of makes you look beautiful, you know, and like a nice small town feel to it that I really liked.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

Yeah, no, definitely had that small town feel. And I think it was captured overall really well. A lot of good imagery, obviously, with the bridges being the title of the movie. Every time you saw him taking pictures around a bridge, you know that it had some sort of significance into the overall arching plot, and you know, that's where she ends up uh getting her ashes spread. So really beautiful uh way to tie up all together, but really great cinematography all around.

unknown 43:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

Getting into dialogue, I really enjoyed like a lot of the like just conversations that they had with each other. Again, again comparing it to like before sunrise. Very romanticized in a way that you could just tell that there's a connection there that is deeper than just a lustful connection that I think comes off of a lot of other romance movies about cheating. It seems more lustful kind of love. Well, this one seemed a lot more of like a connection of like two souls. I really enjoyed. And that's what usually my favorite romance movies are like a connection of souls more so than that lustful kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

Yeah, I mean it was so well done, right? You Clint Eastwood's just sitting there talking about all these amazing stories about him traveling the world and you know somebody who feels like she's been stuck in the same place her whole life, getting to hear about all these amazing things. How exciting is that, right? And now she's stuck and has to look forward to either spending the rest of her life there still or kind of moving out and doing that all those amazing things with him as well. The dialogue was so well done, specifically in that that sense, it really made you feel for her kind of being stuck there as well.

SPEAKER_01 44:42

Yeah, because there is definitely like a point this is set in the 60s where you feel like you need as a mother or like as a woman that you need to get married, you need to have kids by a certain age, and you're just kind of stuck like that. Rather, and like you give up like your personality and your own personal goals, it seems like, and that's what she kind of deeps dives into it. Like you don't under she says throughout the movie, she's like, I didn't really I made this choice, but I didn't really know think I would ever have a love like this happen to me. And now that I have it, I want to keep it forever, but I can't just give up my family that I created at the same time. And it leads to him to say like a really memorable line of like I don't want to need you because I can't have you. And you can just feel that how sad he is.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

Yeah. Oh yeah, it's super well done in that sense.

SPEAKER_01 45:29

And then getting into acting, I give it a nine out of ten to where I didn't expect the chemistry to come off the screen to me between them. Because it just doesn't seem like it would work. Yeah. You got it's like gritty cowboy like Clint Eastwood, and Meryl Street Poop plays super serious roles of like drama roles, and it just works. Uh it just surprised me. It works so well.

SPEAKER_00 45:54

I didn't know this movie existed before this week, and I would have never connected these two actors in a million years. You know, there's like people that you could be like, oh yeah, they would fit in a scene well together, but never would have got this, and it was really well done.

SPEAKER_01 46:08

Yeah. I definitely limed light on Mel Shriep herself. I think her accent's also really well done in this movie. Um, to where like accents sometimes are hit or miss, but I think it's really well done. Reading up on her as an actress, a lot of people say that usually her accents are really good. And like she really does like curse research into it and doesn't like try to half-ass like accents to really just limelight's like even more on Clint Eastwood. I was shocked. I don't know. It's on the Billy Dog, playing like a dramatic role, but it still gave off like this gritty cowboy. Cowboy esque like kind of character. There's like no cowboy-esque to this kind of guy. It's just like a photographer that there's nothing that about him about him that gives off a vibe of like I could kill you with a gun right now.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

Yeah, definitely not. He's playing kind of like a wanderer, like a curious mind, right? He's just ready to see what's around the next corner at any turn. And being a photographer, you have to have that open-minded um kind of view. But yeah, he portrays it really well. I never got that sense of him at any point in time. Yeah. No, really impressive. In fact, he was being the nice guy. We talked about Yeah, yeah. He was being like this one, and then like so caring.

SPEAKER_01 47:22

You can see why she fell in love with him because I just said he'd listen. Which she seemed like she never got from her husband at that time. Which is unfortunate. Which is unfair because that's just like a different type of love that she had with him. Um anticize the cheating fact. It's just like she was understood in a different way from him compared to her actual husband. Uh sound effects. Sound effects for me was the only like middle ground thing to me to where romance movies for the most part don't have this very effective sound effects. And for me, that really hits where it's just middle ground. Middle ground for me. I gave it a five.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

Yeah, nothing special, and the overall soundtrack does well, I thought was just fine as well. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

Um set design, set design. I gave it out of two. Midwest feel really beautiful, and I really liked the bridges in Madison County. Bridges plural when it's like really based around one bridge. But uh I like the I like the bridge. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:27

Yeah, I mean, I think if you said the bridge in Madison County, it feels more like uh it's a story about like building a bridge or something. So I kind of get it. Yeah. It's a metaphorical bridge is true. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 48:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:41

I think it's metaphorical, not just to her, but also like the other woman that's kind of cheated on for like the technicality.

SPEAKER_01 48:48

And that's why. And that's why it they're like so. They're like so careful about like being public around each other around each other. Yeah. But all it took probably was one person driving up on that bridge and being like, what are these two weirdos doing taking pictures of each other?

SPEAKER_00 49:02

Real, real creepy, like um no, great set design though. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:09

Directing, I get it, I get out of it.

SPEAKER_01 49:11

Just cause I think this is just a different movie for Clayton Eastwood than the other ones that we saw. Like Grand China was like very way different. Like more gritty and then Million Dollar Baby, gritty. All these movies in the 2000s, Battles of Iwo Jima, just gritty. And this one is like a romance film, totally out of the like left field for me compared to like all his other movies.

SPEAKER_00 49:33

Bro might be a playa, dude. He was 20 years older than her when they filmed this. A little creepy. Uh great movie, though. All of a sudden he wants to do a rom-com. Like, come on, man.

SPEAKER_01 49:49

Hey, Clay. Even though he was old as hell, they were still like I guess. He was still probably editing. I gave it an eight out of ten. There's nothing like crazy special, but I still think it's effectively done of like cutting back and forth to where you aren't confused as to where each character is. Like the biggest thing about Iron Lady is like you're just you're just confused at where where we are in the story, you know? Yeah. Um this one. This one you never feel confused because it cuts back to like the kids. You're like, oh, okay. Now they're now reading about this and all that and all that.

SPEAKER_00 50:22

Yeah. Yeah. I would say this is like an averagely edited movie, but the shit feels like a 10 out of 10 after watching Iron Lady. Yeah.

unknown 50:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:32

I may have like high high high rated it just because compared to the other movie.

SPEAKER_02 50:37

I was like, dude, this is actually really effectively done, like cutting cutting different different different times. And then last theme I gave an eight out of ten just hit off points because it's such a weird way to tell the kids that you had an affair.

SPEAKER_01 50:57

I'm like, those poor poor kids. It's just like not just if you die, but they just get to read up about how you're making love to this dude in like a week that they were all gone.

SPEAKER_00 51:07

It was giving incendies, but uh I just I was having sex at the photographer, sorry. Yeah, with the sexy photographer.

SPEAKER_01 51:15

Like it was just I was like, oh okay. That's a little bit weird. Um and then like yeah, anyway. Any movie with the affair, I just don't think I couldn't. Just because I don't know. Again, I just I just don't really agree with cheating, but it does see you understand. Obviously, it's set during a time in the 60s where it's just social culture is just a little more judgmental back then of people, you know.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

Definitely, and uh you know, you could definitely tell like leaving her family wasn't an option for her. I understand, you know, where we're coming from too on the the cheating thing, not an acceptable acceptable thing to do, but I think it was just mainly to really get into the idea of you know going and living the life you want to live versus the life that somebody else wants you to live, which was society at the time. Um which in that sense it was really well done, and that that internal struggle was really well done with her character.

SPEAKER_01 52:16

Yeah, I agree. Um I gave it 8.0 out of 10 or 100. I really enjoyed this film. So like a four-star film to me.

SPEAKER_00 52:25

Yeah, I gave it a seven point nine. We were right there. Almost did it again. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 52:33

We were really close to getting exact for both of them. That would have been insane. But um, definitely definitely, definitely demonstrated what Male Keep could do with like a really good story, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:47

You really one thing I'd like to notice particularly, I didn't bring up during her acting, you really felt her falling in love with him. Even when she wasn't narrating herself, you could still feel it like by her body language and everything like that, which stood out for especially an old movie too. It's easy to see like tell body language in movies nowadays with the high-def cameras, but even as such an old movie, she really sold her her body language and could tell she was falling in love with them right there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:15

Yeah. She's really good at acting with like her body language as well throughout all three of those films. Even like Kramer vs. Kramer, even though it's not like she's not all that much. Like even like even like the court scene, you could feel it without like her saying stuff, you know. Um that film, essentially. But yeah. Really effective actress.

SPEAKER_04 53:43

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:44

So I think we think we definitely need to come back around to her being like a Merrill Street Part 2 in like a year or something like that. Just because she is like one of the biggest actresses of all times. We'll watch Mama Me. Or I'll try to convince you to wear the Double Wars Prada. Um we'll we'll see. Yeah. Maybe watch it before the second one comes out, because I really like the Del War Prada, the first one. I think it's a really rewatchable movie. We'll see how we'll see how the second one goes.

SPEAKER_00 54:15

But I don't know if I uh will have an option with number two coming out. I'm sure Madison will have it on at some point.

unknown 54:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:21

Yeah. She'll be like, alright, yep, we're re-watching this, and you're like, alright.

SPEAKER_02 54:28

Yeah, yeah. But because we haven't watched enough about Mercury Motor, we decided not to do like a ranking for her this week.

SPEAKER_01 54:34

But instead, we're gonna do a draft that's kind of focused on a lot of the movies that she does. She does a lot of family drama films. So we're gonna do it.

SPEAKER_02 54:41

So we're gonna do a family drama draft.

SPEAKER_01 54:46

So the categories are gonna be Oscar nominated, Family Secretary. Family secret, emotional struggles, trauma, trauma, uh, relationships, relationships, struggles, struggles, science fiction, science fiction, ensemble cast, ensemble cast, and wildcast and wild card.

SPEAKER_00 55:05

I've been picking up some devious stuff, Tyler. If you say Lolaland, I'm gonna go. You're gonna hate me by the end of this one. I don't think you'll hate me, but some of these you're gonna be like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 55:18

Because you say that, I I don't really care who goes first because I don't think there is like a 101 pick. Yeah. So you can just go first.

SPEAKER_00 55:30

I'm gonna oh dude, where do I want to go with this first? Give me give me Oscar nominated and I'll take Hamnet. Okay. Uh we'll call it Best Picture, I guess. Um This is what I'd call our 101 because I know we both really love this movie and you know, recency bias and all too. Um a really great family movie just about family trauma and then Shakespeare in general, but yeah, really well done too. Beautiful movie.

SPEAKER_01 55:57

Yeah, actually crazy good movie. Had me balling my eyes out in the theater twice. So any movie that does that, I'm like, I feel like I have to give you a five star. Um I love love Hammett. It was definitely on my short list. I'm gonna one upbeat with you with just a best picture nominee. The best picture winner parasite. Yeah, that's good for Oscar Nom. Yeah, yeah. It's it's I mean just a whole family. Two different families about about Diamond Struggle. Diamond struggles, but just like how like one is like kind of keeping a secret from the other. Societal societal problems, super complicated movie. Kind of broke. Kind of broke like the international movie record with like winning best. Winning best picture. Yeah, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 56:42

I think I mean I think there's a lot of argument for best international film of all time up there. Yeah. People still talk about this movie like it came out this year today.

SPEAKER_01 56:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 56:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 56:53

So number one pick for me by far. Yeah. For me, for the next one, I have a lot of people. I have a lot of other ones. The ones also they're being not as for me was relationship struggles. And for the there, I'm gonna go with marriage story. Yeah, yeah. Adam Driver and Scarlet Johansson probably their best work for both of them, in my opinion. They're just so good in it. And they just you can tell that they loved each other at one point and then they just absolutely hate each other. Really, that's really like sad view of you of like divorce too.

SPEAKER_00 57:25

Yeah. Alright, let me see here. I got dude, there's a lot of really good ones for this category. Um, I'm gonna go family secret, and I'm gonna go incendies. The one we watched on the podcast. Um, really good secret, dude. That movie uh is dark, it'd tear you apart. Um, I was talking about it with a friend this week. Yeah, just really amazing, well done movie.

SPEAKER_01 57:48

Yeah. No, that was definitely on my short list as well for about secret and so good. We already did it on this podcast. If you want to go check out the Denny episode, we'd we go pretty in depth about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:59

Um let me see here. This is tough. I think I'm gonna go uh relationship struggles, uh, a little bit different one, but I love this movie. I'm gonna go with the iron claw. Obviously, you know, the main relationship struggle here was um between the kids and their father. Obviously, a lot of societal pressure as well, but mainly coming from their father and and you know being wrestling and a wrestler. Um and you kind of see the the kids fall one by one because of that. But just such a well-acted movie, such a great movie. Really see Zach Efron shine outside of you know what he would normally do was pretty amazing, and I hope he does more of that to come.

SPEAKER_01 58:40

Yeah, one of the biggest snubs of the 2020s for him not being at least nominated for an Oscar. I think it's just because he's Zach Efron, that's the only reason why.

SPEAKER_00 58:48

Yeah, that sucks though, man. That was a good movie.

SPEAKER_01 58:51

Okay, so for me, I'm gonna go with emotional struggleslash trauma, and I'm gonna go with Manchester by the Sea.

SPEAKER_00 58:58

Damn. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:02

Um I think this I think this is like when it came out to emotional struggles and trauma. I was like, this is the first movie that came to my mind. Casey Apple's. So like it breaks yourself if you want to cry. If you want to cry, this is definitely a movie to put on. But if you want to cry, but if you want to be happy, do not watch this movie. Okay, so next for me is gonna be science fiction. There's a there's a lot, a lot of family drama science fiction that I said I could try to pull. But I am your father. I'm gonna go Empire.

SPEAKER_00 59:34

Okay. I thought I was gonna I thought that was gonna be outlandish for me to say that.

SPEAKER_02 59:39

That's good. I mean I mean the main plot point of that movie. I could have picked it Family Secret is also on my list for that.

SPEAKER_01 59:47

But I think I have a one that I really want to pick for that one. But I mean one of the most famous lines of the movie history is is Luke I and Your Father. And then they make the whole series about that. Like they make a whole prequel about it, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:01

Um yeah, and hear me out, man. I'm gonna take Interstellar.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:10

No, that's definitely family drama.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:12

I mean, the whole 4D thing is revolved around that damn book where the father and the daughter was such a big plot premise. Um yeah, I mean, honestly, I had only watched Interstellar about a year ago, and coming into it, I I would have never taken away like I would have never said there was like gonna be such big family themes and you know, love and passion between family members, but yeah, that's a huge plot point of the movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:36

So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:38

Pretty much pretty much the critical note of the movie. Yeah. Let me see here. Go two ways here. I can go two ways here. Okay, I'm gonna take prisoners for emotional trauma. Yeah. Obviously another great one. Yeah, just you know, the trauma of having a child missing. I'm sure that is a lot, and we really get to see that displayed by uh Jackman. I think he was amazing in that film and playing a really amazing father in that film. Not the best dad in the world, but yeah, seeing the struggles a father goes through.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:08

Yeah, yeah. I think we did this for the Jake Gyllenhaal episode. I think so. Yeah. So if you want to check out our review on that one. Same with Ender Steller, we did that with the Chris Nolan uh episode too. But yeah, I really like prisoners, you know that as well. Hmm, okay. For me, I still think you're gonna pick my family secret. I'd be very surprised. And you already've got a family secret one. Ensemble cast seems like that seems like a really short short, but I feel like I just had to go with like I'll be my favorite movie out of them, and that would be Little Woman.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:43

Yeah, I think there's a lot of ways you can go in that category.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:47

It's just like notably. Notably like one of my more favorite movies. Favorite movies. It's a really comfort movie for me that makes New England. Makes New England like really look really look cool, but also just like really cool to see like family relationships with the girls.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:03

Family secret, I'm gonna go with get out.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:07

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:08

We don't really know as if you think something's off like the whole movie, but the secret. But the secret is that they just are sealing like like African Americans. African-American souls to like pull insert themselves into them. Um episode just to like dive deep into his movies, even though we've seen them, just because his movies are so deep in so many other ways.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:31

Yeah, for sure. Um let me see here. I wanted to take something with Meryl Streep this week. You know, one of my favorite movies of all time. For ensemble casts, I'm gonna take Fantastic Mr. Fox. Um, obviously George Clooney, Bill Murray, Meryl Streep, uh, Willem Defoe, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzmann. Pretty good cast there.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:54

Yeah, no seriously that's a good thing. Seriously that you took it as like a voice acting role too, not like uh, you know, like them acty acting, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:01

Yeah, yeah. And then I guess I'm on my last one here. Hmm. Let me take I want to take one. I'll probably just leave it for no, I'll take it. I'll take it. Um, because it definitely has to do with it. So for wildcard, I'm gonna take one of my favorites from this year. I'm gonna take train dreams. Obviously, you know, not necessarily about the family as a whole, but more about the trauma within the family and losing family. Such a big thing, kind of similar, I guess, to Manchester by the Sea in that sense. Just seeing that trauma and breakdown and you know, kind of how that affects the rest of your life. Um, I really like that movie this year, and I wish I would have got more love at the Oscars.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:39

That we talked about this movie a good amount of times. I wish it came out. I wish it came out like in the theater rather than coming out on Netflix. I think it would have done pretty good at the theater and it would have been really cool to see on like a big screen rather than at home. My last pick. Um I'm gonna go with another movie that we've done, Arrival. Um just because you know it's a family drama, but like the whole movie ends, and you're like, wait a wait a second. Like one of crying, but also like this had something to do with like her family the entire time. That was her. That was her husband. That's just insane. Such a good movie. I feel like I had to say it.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:15

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:15

So uh my team was for Oscarnum, I took Parasite for Best Picture, Family Secret, I did Get Out, Emotional Trauma, Manchester by the Sea, Relationship Struggles, Marriage Story, Science Fiction, Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Ensemble Cast, Little Woman, and Wild Card Arrival.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:35

See, the Iron Lady just gets me so upset and angry. I end up picking all these sad movies. Yeah. Oscar Nam, I picked Hamnet for Best Picture, Family Secret, I picked Incendies, um, Emotional Trauma, I picked uh prisoners, relationship struggles, I picked Iron Claw, uh, sci-fi, I picked Interstellar, Ensemble Cast, I picked Fantastic Mr. Fox, the the the sun in my in my draft, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:03

Yeah, you're literally the only happy movie. And then wild card uh train dreams. Yeah. Holy crap. Yeah, you have the most depressing team. And Fantastic Mr. Fox is just like kind of just snuck in there as like a I got here's some happiness, but just holding me up.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:20

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:20

Thank God for West Anderson. I feel like I did a good Yeah, I feel like I did a good job of like equaling out like the sad ones with like really interesting movies. Because to be fair, I think Manchester by the Sea is probably the saddest movie out of like the whole group. Just like the theme of it all terrifying. Yeah.

unknown 1:05:38

Cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:38

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:39

I'll do like some honorable mentions. I have a bunch.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:43

For Australia, Australia. It's a wonderful life. Toy Story 3. I think that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:52

Extra E T, extraterrestrial as well. As well. A sneaky one that I don't think you've seen, but. You really like because it has a unit, Minari. It involves this like green family that moves to Arkansas and like tries to make a life for themselves. I think you were really like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:08

Yeah, I'd have to check that out. Family Secret.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:13

I had The Prestige as well. I don't want to say the the thing that's revealed because you haven't seen it. So but if you know, you know. Emotional struggles, trauma, the pursuit of happiness. Oh, dude. After what a good one. I can't believe I forgot that. After Sun as well. That's some trauma that's been related to that movie. Relationship struggles. I had a Nora. I thought it was like kind of a relationship struggle. I don't know. I mean I feel like family drama is quite good. That's why I didn't.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:49

I guess technically her family, but she doesn't really know them, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:54

Yeah. Yeah. Starsborn is another one for relationship struggles. That movie gets really sad really quick out of nowhere. And then the most recent one, the drama I also had in there. Feel like it came out too recent for me to compete, though. I really liked it. Science fiction. Science fiction. I had Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse. Again, very going out. Very going out there for family drama. That's why I didn't like it. And then the Incredibles as well. And then Ensemble Kill.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:23

And then Ensemble Kills. Little Miss Sunshine. With XT Pro. Paul Dano. The World Tanaboms. Also West Anderson film.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:35

And then Extra Warrior. Another movie that I've shot shouted out before on this with the guy from Train Dreams. And as well as Tom. Okay. Cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:49

I had a couple honorable mentions. Yeah, some of these were Reaches. La Land. No, I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:55

I didn't I didn't have that on here.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:57

Obviously Kramer vs. Kramer, which we talked about this week, uh, was a big one. Uh I had There Will Be Blood. I mean, if we count the real dynamic between him and his son, I think that's the main family portion. Uh there is other portions of that movie that are really good as well. Place Beyond the Pines, I know we just watched that a couple weeks ago, uh, had a huge deal with uh generational trauma in a family. I had Spirited Away too. I know we watched that a while ago. We kind of determined that there's a lot of different things you can take from that. One of them being her family, you know, instantly turning into pigs and her being left alone and scared. That was a big portion of it. So I guess you could count that as well. Yeah, some really great family dramas that when I was looking through these lists, there's so many that you can kind of relate to that.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:40

Yeah, that for sure. Awesome. Well we'll send it out there and see you you guys vote who won uh this draft. Awesome. Awesome. Thanks for listening to this. Thanks for listening this week to the Mayor Street episode. Um