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- [00:02]
Alison Wilmore
Do you ever look back on something you posted on the Internet and think, well, that was cringe? Yeah. I mean, I look back at that.
- [00:08]
Griffin Newman
Stuff and I'm just like, it's so.
- [00:10]
Alison Wilmore
Emblematic of the era. And it's also just like, why did.
- [00:14]
Griffin Newman
I think this would age well, like, in the slightest?
- [00:18]
Alison Wilmore
This week on Explain it to Me from Vox. What to do with your online regret. New episodes on Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:35]
Jesse David Fox
I'm Estet Herndon and this week on.
- [00:37]
Griffin Newman
Today Explained, I traveled to Minneapolis to speak with Attorney General Keith Ellison, who is suing the Trump administration over ice descending on his state. It would mean that we had federal active duty troops patrolling our streets, which is concerning because the way ice does its business is been proven over and over again to be deeply problematic. New episodes of Today Explained drop every.
- [00:59]
Jesse David Fox
Day of the week, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:01]
Griffin Newman
And you can now watch our Saturday interviews@YouTube.com fox a lot of the comedy movies that go over well with the Oscars are a director with a comedic bent successfully making a more dramatic actor funny. Yeah, they would greatly prefer a kind of, wow, did you see Cameron Crowe made Tom Cruise funny? You know, they made Clark Gable funny.
- [01:25]
Jesse David Fox
They made. I mean, that's the thing. It's like we talk about, like, oh, the academy doesn't appreciate comedy. But I think the most striking thing I keep on thinking about is like, Emma Stone is the most decorated actor of our generation. All those performances are comedic performances absolutely exclusively. If anything, it's actually striking how few just understate. She just doesn't do it. No, This is good one. I am Jesse David Fox, senior writer, Vulture, and author of comedy book why can't comedies win Awards? Essentially every Oscar season in my lifetime, the work of comedians gets relegated to hosting and passing out awards and not receiving them. It's a story as old as the Academy Awards themselves when comedians, be it the Marx Brothers to Steve Martin to Eddie Murphy to Jack Black to Will Ferrell to really any comedian you can think of, make a funny movie. It has been ignored by the Academy. Why is that? How did this come to be? Is it right?
- [02:23]
Griffin Newman
Is it wrong?
- [02:24]
Jesse David Fox
Personally, I think it is. To talk about this, I'll be joined by Griffin Newman, comed actor, co host of the Blank Check podcast, and Alison Wilmore, film critic at Vulture and co host of the critical Darlings podcast. So here are Alison and Griffin. I'm here with Allison Wilmore and Griffin Newman. Thank you for joining me.
- [02:40]
Griffin Newman
Thank you for having us.
- [02:41]
Alison Wilmore
Yeah.
- [02:42]
Jesse David Fox
So the Oscar nominations came out recently? What is your reaction? And more specifically, how do you think about these things when they come out as people who have consumed movies and Oscars? Starting with you, Alison, by the time.
- [02:54]
Alison Wilmore
They come out, I've already been so deep into all of these various narratives, have seen most of these movies at least once, if not more than have reviewed them, have watched the discourse ebb and flow already. And so I have no rational way of processing the Oscars. Like, I can only see them through all of this. No normal person would think about the Oscars the way I do. And so I feel like then to be brought on to be like, let's talk about the Oscars. And I'm like, do you know what's going on inside my head? But yeah, I thought actually this year's was a solid crop. You know, not all my favorites got in, but then they never do. But I think it was a pretty good year in terms of featur. A lot of movies that people genuinely really like or feel very strongly about that also got watched by a lot of people, which is not always the case with the Oscars.
- [03:41]
Jesse David Fox
How do you see it when they come out? What are you feeling?
- [03:44]
Griffin Newman
I think the older I've gotten when I was 8 or 9 and getting activated as a movie nerd for the first time, it was just Christmas morning. This is so exciting. And now I feel like, Allison, where more than anything at like 9:00am Eastern time on that morning, there's a sense of relief of like, this is over. And now it's winnowed down.
- [04:08]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [04:08]
Griffin Newman
And now it's a very selective, focused pull towards the one big night. It does feel like after running so many simulations of, oh, what's the nightmare scenario? If this happens? What's the best miracle that could happen on the morning? The nominations kind. You're like, okay, now I can actually just engage with reality.
- [04:26]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. Do you remember an age when you realize not to. Not, not, not to care? Because obviously I'm sure you care. But when you're like, well, the Oscars are a specific thing. This is not like a formula that answered, these are the best movies of the year. I should not be like, why isn't the Matrix winning Best Picture or whatever? Which is probably a thing that I've thought at that time. Do you remember realizing or just being like, how do you contextualize what this is a measurement of?
- [04:55]
Alison Wilmore
I think it took me a while because, you know, I was mostly ingesting movies, like, when they got a wide release enough to open in suburban California. So I think I thought of them as the Oscars the way a lot of people do, which is like, yes, these are the best movies of the year. And I had never been like, says who? You know? And then after a while reading Critics, which I read a lot, watching Siskel and Ebert, which I loved, I finally actually, like started thinking probably when I was like a teenager, like, oh, this is actually. These are people who make movies voting about what they think is best. They are also creating a self image, right? Like, they are being like, this is what we say is best. But it is also like, this is how we want people to think about Hollywood at this particular moment.
- [05:42]
Griffin Newman
I'll give you like a three year arc here that I think helped me understand both what the Oscars are and what they are not. For better or worse. The first year my parents, like let me come to the grown up Oscar party with them was the English Patient year. And there was a grown up betting pool. And they were like, do you want to fill one out for fun? And all I knew was that everyone was saying the English Patient was going to win everything. So I literally ticked off the English Patient every single category. And I came one away from winning the whole pool because other people were over strategizing and I just went, if English Patient's next to it. There we go. I just understand that this is the most serious movie the final year. I. The following year, rather, I got into the idea of there being a spoiler. I had started reading Entertainment Weekly and the idea of the odds and I was like, full Monty. If I'm right about Full Monty, I win this whole thing.
- [06:34]
Jesse David Fox
It would be the Full Monty, right?
- [06:35]
Griffin Newman
And my dad being like, you don't understand. Titanic is going to sweep harder than English Patient did last year. And I was like, but if I'm the only one who gets Full Monty, that means something. And I wipe out. And then the following year I apply the same strategy and I win with Shakespeare in Love. And everyone around me is so angry, not that they were beaten by a child, but the classic narrative of like, what the fuck? How did this movie, which was seen as more lightweight, you know, frivolous beat, Saving Private Ryan, this heavy work of art. And there was something in that, like, I've won in gaming something out, even though I didn't actually know what I was doing and didn't understand all the angles at play. And people in real time are just like, oscars are bullshit.
- [07:18]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. Then you'd eventually be like, I will grow up and learn. How many machinations are there? So Like, I remember working here and learning that the Golden Globes were a collection of people, just like they all are. But the Golden Globes is on television. They're all. They're all a collection of people. But this is a not that large collection of people.
- [07:35]
Griffin Newman
Yeah.
- [07:35]
Jesse David Fox
But it is partly because the name of it sounds fancier that you're like, oh, well, this must mean something. It's like it truly is like 90 European journalists or whatever it is. Yes. So we'll debate if comedy is or is not represented in this year's Oscars, but I want to tie in sort of Judd Apel's comments at the Goldman Globes, but she says, I've been boycotting the ceremony for about 10 years. It's been a very quiet boycott. No one seems to have noticed. But I've had a beef since my film Train Wreck lost best comedy to Ridley Scott's the Martian. You know, Ridley Scott, America's favorite comedy director, Director of such hilarious comedies as Gladiator, Blade Runner, and Alien. I can't wait till later tonight when best comedy is won by Hamnet. This got laughs in the room. So kudos to judge to coming in. I remember the year the Martian won. I feel. I remember so specifically doing a tweet that comedians rallied around. Cause I was like, this is what get nominated for a comedy. Do you remember when he said this? What do you feel about Judd's comments? Either of you?
- [08:33]
Griffin Newman
There was the announcement of Fox's submitting the Martian as a comedy. From that moment, it was basically a done deal, like, for obsessives like Alison and I. The second Fox announced that categorization and the Globes, the Hollywood Foreign Press association at the time accepted it. It was like, well, Damon's winning best actor in a comedy and the Martians winning best picture. And then when the nominations came out, more people got aware. And then when it won, more people were aware and outraged, but it was basically a done deal. Now I feel like Apatow has for the last 10 to 15 years, especially since the start of his kind of like the Apatow industrial complex, the 2005. If we start with Anchorman 4. But 07 is really the year it, like explodes. I feel like he's been banging this drum of how do you get the Oscars to respect comedy more? He's making comment like this. While also he spent the last decade saying the Academy should add a comedy category. Yeah, if the comedy category had existed 10 years ago, I bet you the Oscars would have given it to the Martian. As well.
- [09:34]
Jesse David Fox
That is a question I was going to end, which, like, would making a comedy category fix this problem?
- [09:38]
Griffin Newman
I don't think so. And we can get into it. I feel like that's the full episode, but, like, I think that's a good joke. It's an obvious joke to make. Of course it's going to play in that room. But the issue there is larger than just the globes.
- [09:53]
Jesse David Fox
Yes.
- [09:53]
Alison Wilmore
I mean, also, I think the thing that everyone who. Yes. Is an awards obsessive understands that might not make a lot of sense. If you are, though, I feel like Judd Apatow knows this too. He's just kind of playing into it a bit, which is that the divide, Right. Between dramas and comedy, musical is something that makes very little sense in terms of how that plays out. Things that are maybe, like, barely comedic get classified as a comedy because it's a better category. You know, usually slightly less competitive, but also things that are sort of musical. Like, what is. How many musicals are people making these days?
- [10:27]
Jesse David Fox
The Bob Dylan movie was a musical because there's music in it.
- [10:30]
Griffin Newman
I don't know if we're able to look this up, but if you zoom out in particular to the last 20 years of a musical comedy category since the kind of rise of the modern music biopic, it is fascinating which years the big dramatic music biopic runs as a drama versus musical or comedy. And it is always strategic based on which one has weaker contenders, because that if you are the Ray, the Complete Unknown, the Bohemian Rhapsody, the Walk the Line of any given year, you're a serious shot. You have a serious shot at winning in the lead category. And these movies play fast and loose, which is the same thing that would happen and does happen with comedy.
- [11:09]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [11:10]
Griffin Newman
But would happen if you include it in the Oscars, which is. Awards are, at their core, bullshit.
- [11:16]
Jesse David Fox
Yes.
- [11:17]
Griffin Newman
And any kind of argument about the lack of respectability that comedy gets is not considering that if you tried to create an opening for comedy, the same powers would pull whatever chicane reader could to just get whatever wins they wanted.
- [11:31]
Alison Wilmore
I think also what Apatow wants is a category that is just for what you would call. Right, like a hard comedy. Hard comedy and romantic comedy. Maybe. But, like, actually, I think it would make more sense to be like. Instead of being like, you know, these are the dramas, these are the comedies we want to be like, we need to create a specialized category that is solely for things that are undeniably comedic and that, like. And we'll get a panel together and everyone would be like, how much did I laugh at?
- [11:55]
Jesse David Fox
Just called, like, what is the funniest movie of the year? And then everyone be happy. Because I do think, one. I rewatched the Martian, and that movie is more of a comedy than many of the movies that get put in that category. It just is that the jokes are bad, but it does have a lot of jokes. It is also, like, they're like corny sciency jokes.
- [12:14]
Alison Wilmore
It's a lighter movie also, which is, I think, what they're trying to go for there. Which is like a different thing than saying maybe something is like a comedy.
- [12:20]
Griffin Newman
Yeah. Almost every year the Globes has one movie in there where you're like, what the fuck? And people were not as outraged about the tourists being nominated for best musical or comedy, best actress in a musical or comedy, because it was never gonna win those categories. But the Martian was so big. It was such a big hit, it was such a big moment for Damon and Ridley Scott, that the second it's nominated, people are like, well, now it's be real comedies. And there were real comedies and there were real comedies. That was the actual issue. There are more egregious nominations, but it becomes the kind of one that everyone points to for that reason.
- [12:53]
Jesse David Fox
So I think we should back up at this point, which is, what are we saying when we're saying comedy? The distinction between comedic movies, movies that are what we probably would call dramas, but what are comedic enough or could be really funny, but we think of as dramas, comedies, which is a genre that can mean a lot of different things. And what I think a lot of people in the world of comedy would call hard comedies or capital C comedies or real comedies or whatever. How do you both see that distinction?
- [13:23]
Alison Wilmore
I find the comedic movie, the dramedy thing, I find that a little tedious to argue over because I feel like there are so many things that fall in that category. And being like, is this a comedic drama or a dramatic comedy is really difficult to parse and is really a subjective thing.
- [13:40]
Griffin Newman
Right.
- [13:41]
Alison Wilmore
And I think often it's just like what lingers in your head after you've seen it, which may not actually be how you feel when you're watching it. Right. Usually it's the note that a movie ends on that leaves you being like, that was funny or it wasn't. So I don't know. I mean, it's the same way. Horror fans will have the most annoying arguments over this. If something is art house horror and then it's not real horror, and then you're like, what is real Horror. And then usually it comes down to being like, it has to have someone killing a lot of teenagers with a knife. It has to be really bloody. And then you're like, okay, we're really like. But I think the distinction of also, like, the hard comedy, it feels more urgent in this conversation now because it has had such a hard time. Like, in terms of the studio comedy, you know, the thing that, like, sets out just to be like, this used to be an incredibly successful type of movie that was made regularly. Just isn't made in a theatrical sense much anymore. So it feels, I think, like when you listen to Apatow make that joke, you feel like the wound there also. Cause he's like, fighting not just for recognition, but for being like, this is like something that deserves, you know, more attention in general. Yeah.
- [14:44]
Jesse David Fox
And it's a thing that if we're celebrating movies as a genre, this is a large part of the history of film. And it makes sense to be like, why do we not see these things as cinematic achievements? I think it's. I think there are a type of comedy that the Oscars do like. Like everything every all wants is broadly comedic. Coda was broadly comedic. A real pain. Green Book. But also there's like, movies like all the Charlie Kaufman movies are kind of like these Oscar comedies. There's like the history of hard satires. Wes Anderson movies, I think.
- [15:17]
Griffin Newman
But Wes Anderson movies have traditionally not done well with the Oscars.
- [15:20]
Jesse David Fox
Well, and the other examples are the Coen brothers. Right. So it's like, I think Coen brothers are the closest to. And in many ways I feel like probably their push and pull is to if. If they do a comedy. And the Oscars being like, well, this is their comedy one. So this one doesn't count the three.
- [15:33]
Griffin Newman
Biggest Coen brothers movies with the Oscars.
- [15:36]
Jesse David Fox
The.
- [15:36]
Griffin Newman
The only three that got picture and director nominations are Fargo, no Country and True Grit. That's two of their harshest, most spare, kind of stripped down, western, existential.
- [15:49]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [15:50]
Griffin Newman
You know, and then Fargo, which is the perfect. I would argue, midpoint between their comedic and the dramatic instincts. I think an interesting analog. I mean, a. There are certain movies that at the time primarily existed as comedies. I would argue that in retrospect, somewhat because of being anointed by the Oscars, are now thought of as more dramatic than the other. Green Book is. I agree with you kind of primarily. First and foremost, a comedy is a comedy burdened with a sense of self important messaging.
- [16:20]
Jesse David Fox
Sure.
- [16:20]
Griffin Newman
And Driving Miss Daisy is kind of the same where you're like, at least half of that movie functions as kind of buddy comedy banter back and forth that then spends too much energy trying to make you cry at the end. But also Terms of Endearment is another one that you look at the way it was talked about at the time of release, and people were like, are we really going to give Best Picture to a sitcom? You know, the creator of, like, Taxi and Mary Tyler Moore has made, like, a slightly prestigious sitcom with a tearjerker ending. And the tearjerker ending is so huge in people's memories that that movie's kind of basically retroactively written off as a drama. A weepy. When most of it's like, funny banter.
- [17:04]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. When people talk about it now, they have to say it's actually surprisingly funny. You're like, it's now a surprise because we've, like, retrofitted what that movie was.
- [17:12]
Griffin Newman
The sad stuff in that movie is kind of a twist. It's. I would argue the kind of gut punch that won that movie Best Picture and made it a blockbuster is people were just having a good time watching a thoughtful human comedy, and then the last 20 or 30 minutes knock you out. I think that's often the kind of comedy that does push through at the Oscars. Something that is working as a very tight, effective, entertaining everyone at the top of their game. You know, kind of like skill piece, performance movies that then in the last 20 minutes, hit you harder than you're expecting. Yeah.
- [17:48]
Jesse David Fox
What we think of as comedy comedies, it's like a. You know, when you see. But also, like, I think it's probably useful for people to know that these are the movies the Oscars does not nominate, other than, like, the weirdest extreme example of or some narrative way things just happen. We can get into when that happens is movies in which it's not just funny things happen to characters, but, like, there is a desire to have jokes made or bits done. They are crafting scenes partly for laugh to be part of it. And they can be about serious subject matters or whatever. We know what comedies are, but, like, that is undeniably the people making it wanted at some point there to be scenes on purpose where we're making you laugh. And it's. And as a result, they are tied to talent that we think of as the comedy movie stars of the last however many years. And, you know, like, Steve Martin doesn't get nominated for any of these things. Bill Murray, until they do dramas like all the Adam Sandler movies, these Apatow movies, all the. All the Will Ferrell movies. It is like both obvious to us, like, of course they don't, but they. It really is. They just do not get nominated. And the only exceptions are periodically get a performance or I think historically they'll get screenplay if it feels like there's a societal reason why this comedy matters at this time. Right. So it's like, if you look recently, it's like the Big Sick was about something more than that. And then there was sort of narrative around it. The. The funniest example is Bride made Bridesmaids. The film itself is just about friends, but because it is a movie metatextually about how women are funny, that means the screenplay got. And look, I think it should be nominated for screenplay. Even though they improvise a lot of movie on set.
- [19:27]
Griffin Newman
And interesting things to both of those cases. The Big Sick is written by the two people. The story is about. There is this kind of like metatextual narrative. It made it really easy to be like, this is the kind of movie that's maybe gonna be number 15 on the best picture power ranking. It's just on the outside of these things. It's the kind of comedy we're talking about that is really funny and joke heavy and gets more emotional as it goes on. But it was easy to just go, can we just give Camille and Emily the tip of the hat? And Bridesmaids similarly, it's like your star co wrote this with her real friend.
- [19:59]
Jesse David Fox
Yes.
- [20:00]
Griffin Newman
The movie is kind of represented in the act of them writing the screenplay together.
- [20:06]
Alison Wilmore
I would also say those things help because it reinforces a sense of authorship. If it's not necessarily even like, these are like auteurists. They're all coming from the same director, a la like an Apatow kind of brand that later got established. But the idea of being like, these are the people who made this. Whereas I think that there is sometimes, you know, that is not always. You're not always clear who to assign, like, say, Billy Madison, you know, like, is it Tamara Davis? Are you like, who is like the person you're going to assign beyond the fact that Billy Madison was like, not considered at the time something that was ever in danger of getting nominated.
- [20:35]
Jesse David Fox
But like, let's say, like, if there was a world in which the Wedding Singer could have made a campaign, which I'm sure there was not, because a variety of reasons, it is this weird thing of like, one Adam Sandler in people's brains is the dumbest guy on earth. Right. So you can't be like, well, you can't describe authorship to this guy. And also Adam, for a variety of reasons, was not doing a campaign be like actually behind the. I'm a visionary.
- [20:58]
Alison Wilmore
Right, right.
- [20:59]
Jesse David Fox
And because he was also because Adam is pathologically unwilling to give take credit for things his friends do some of. Even though, like reportedly he co directs most of his movies, he just doesn't feel like doing that. So the thing about all of this is that we know is that all Oscar nominations are. Most Oscar nominations are the manifestation of an Oscar campaign. So when you have charming people going and it's like, it's that person, it's their movie, they're in it, I'm nominating them. I want them to get nominated for an Oscar is what it happens. It's not like, yeah, but we're not going to like put it in this.
- [21:33]
Griffin Newman
Other category because screenplay is the kind of safe place for them to give acknowledgement because it's basically admitting you wrote good jokes.
- [21:42]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [21:43]
Griffin Newman
And on top of that, we're putting you in this sort of rarefied air because we're saying that you built a respectable structure around those jokes. I mean, Sandler, to your point, I know this is the area in which you're a tenured professor, but I feel like in a year where Sandler six months ago was seen as maybe the favorite to win and now did not get a nomination, remains unnominated. I think Sandler's an interesting conversation point for all of this, but so many of the movies that Sandler wrote, he's not credit on as a writer. You know, if he had been made a co writer on Punch Drunk Love, even though that movie went fully unnominated, you're like, would they have been more willing to nominate Paul Thomas Anderson if it was also an acknowledgement of Adam Sandler going serious? I think sometimes when there's that cohesion of this is the one place we can give it to them. In retrospect, it's kind of surprising one that I remember being on the bubble and didn't happen, but fits into what you're saying. The Carell Apatow not getting a nomination for 40 year old virgin. It was not seen as societally important, but that movie was certainly seen as like a paradigm shifting moment in the industry. And that's a case where it's like you'd be nominating the director and the star and it's one fell swoop. That's your acknowledgement of the performance of the movie in total of all the jokes and is the fact that that movie was openly very Collaborative and improvised. A thing that kind of killed that campaign.
- [23:10]
Jesse David Fox
I do think it was, it is an interesting thing because like at the time people knew, oh, this is a paradigm shift in terms of like what comedies would be made. You would think they would all know that. It also, it was not like Judd, it was like, can I make movies that are like hard set piece comedies that are also like James L. Brooks movies. And I think he, I think the academy, broadly defined or whatever could have decided in that moment we are going to allow these movies to be seen. Like the modern day version of James L. Brooks movies where I think they're ultimately been like, no, these are the modern day version of like the Steve Martin movies or whatever.
- [23:41]
Griffin Newman
Right.
- [23:42]
Jesse David Fox
So all then as all those movies came out and up until Bridesmaids, it's just be like, well that's the aptow thing. Those are just like what comedies are nowadays. It's like Knocked Up. It's the same thing. Even though Knocked up was critically even more lauded as a more serious movie.
- [23:54]
Griffin Newman
About even more and was seen as could this break through at the Oscars. And then funny people felt more transparently like he's really gunning for kind of crow James L. Brooks vibes. And then that is not well received. And his response is to do this is 40, which I would argue is pushing that even further. And at that moment he like hits a wall and makes Trainwreck and then is angry that Trainwreck gets beaten by the Martian in his category.
- [24:15]
Alison Wilmore
Yeah, I mean it's funny, you know, like prepping for this, looking around for all of. There are so many pieces about like what is up with comedy at the Oscars. And they're all around Bridesmaids. Like that was just this moment where suddenly that was like the conversation to be had. And I. It was striking to me that that was, that that was the movie that had to like, you know, like it.
- [24:35]
Jesse David Fox
Was just, it just truly was, I don't know, millennia where people were like, women aren't funny. Even though there were female comedians in the 20th century and many very famous comedians, early comedians, there just was sort of this assumption and then they just, and they called their shot and were like, we're gonna do one with women. And then it becomes this huge international hit and is super funny and has all the other Apatow touchstones.
- [25:00]
Griffin Newman
It felt like the anointment moment of the entire Apatow wave up until that point. It was the highest grossing Apatow movie production up until that point. And in particular overperformed overseas and was so kind of like critically acclaimed. And then McCarthy gets the nomination, became this early critics favorite where you were like, this is cool, but are the Academy going to be cool enough to nominate this? That's a pure comedy performance that I think, ultimately, I think what gets her the nomination is she has the one scene towards the end of the movie that has more dramatic death. It also has 10 incredibly good, perfectly executed hard jokes within it. And her being able to hold that balance is, I think, what pushed it into. We can't deny this.
- [25:40]
Jesse David Fox
I wouldn't be surprised. I'm surprised there aren't more nominations like that, where a person comes out of relatively nowhere and is 100% immediately the funniest person in the world.
- [25:49]
Griffin Newman
There was a similar conversation, I'm sure both of you remember, around Tiffany Haddish that year. And I would argue that among other reasons, and I forget who gets in instead of her, but there's the scene in the bar between her and Regina hall that is very clearly trying to do the same thing as the scene in Bridesmaids. And I think that scene doesn't work. And I think you need a scene like that where Suddenly you reveal 25% more depth than the audience had expected until that moment. And you need to knock it out of the fucking park for them to take you seriously. I think there's always kind of that factor of even if you were just a comedy tornado, you rewrite the rules of funny. They want some piece of that. I think the other thing with Bridesmaids is that's 2011.
- [26:35]
Alison Wilmore
Yeah, it would be the 2012. The Oscars that happened in 2012.
- [26:39]
Griffin Newman
So the 2010 ceremony for 2009 films is the first year of the best picture 10.
- [26:46]
Jesse David Fox
Oh, no, it's the year after that. No, Bridesmaids. Bridesmaids came out in 2011. Came out in 2011.
- [26:51]
Alison Wilmore
And then the Oscars, the ceremony took place in 2012.
- [26:54]
Jesse David Fox
Right. And switch happened the year before that.
- [26:56]
Griffin Newman
So it's like two, three years into ten best picture nominees. And one of the great hopes of that wasn't just, can we get the Dark Knight and blockbusters in there. It was, is there a general diversification of genre? And I think people hoped, especially as like at that moment, that they make that ruling. Pixar is on a hot streak. Apatow is on a hot streak. It was like, can there be a default kind of automatic comedy slot? Pixar slot, blockbuster slot, superhero slot.
- [27:26]
Alison Wilmore
Yeah.
- [27:26]
Jesse David Fox
And then you look that year, that year, the artist wins. It's the Descendants, which Is a comedy.
- [27:32]
Alison Wilmore
It is a comedy. A movie that no one talks about, has never talked about ever again.
- [27:35]
Griffin Newman
I find it funny, but it is 90% comedy. I would.
- [27:38]
Jesse David Fox
The Descendants, which is a classic Oscar type of comedy.
- [27:42]
Alison Wilmore
Yes.
- [27:42]
Jesse David Fox
Extremely loud and incredibly close.
- [27:44]
Griffin Newman
Not a comedy. Their help, it is kind of an interesting tweener in a certain way is.
- [27:51]
Alison Wilmore
Obviously, I feel like it tilts a little more comedy than drama.
- [27:54]
Jesse David Fox
The most famous parts of it are funny.
- [27:55]
Griffin Newman
I guess I think most of the problems with that movie stem from it maybe not having the comedy drama balance. Right. In terms of too much silliness, but.
- [28:03]
Jesse David Fox
Yet, yes, Hugo, lovely movie, but, like, it was not a cool thing. But even Midnight in Paris.
- [28:10]
Griffin Newman
Comedy, hard comedy.
- [28:11]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, yeah. Moneyball, Tree of life warhorse.
- [28:14]
Alison Wilmore
Moneyball has touches lighter drama.
- [28:17]
Jesse David Fox
Like, I think what this will foretell is if you look at the years since. Since the expansion, a lot more comedies have been nominated for best Picture. They are not movies like Bridesmaids. They are movies like the Descendants.
- [28:32]
Griffin Newman
Yeah, yeah.
- [28:32]
Jesse David Fox
Like, that is like, truly, if you make movies of Descendants, that there's a huge space for it because there clearly is an appetite for movies that are slightly comedic and they end up being less polarizing than edgier. Dramatic works, probably.
- [28:45]
Alison Wilmore
Right. But it's also, I mean, that's like, you know, an Alexander Payne movie. I feel like you can't discount the fact that, like, these are. No, no. But I mean, like, you know what I mean, like, these are coming from, like, established directors who. And I think that is like, a huge part of this.
- [28:59]
Griffin Newman
There's a branding element of it. When certain guys become Oscar approved, it's like, well, you're your own genre now.
- [29:08]
Jesse David Fox
Yes.
- [29:09]
Griffin Newman
The pain thing or the Cameron Crowe thing for as long as that was working, becomes almost an exception to the rule 100%.
- [29:14]
Jesse David Fox
Like, David O. Russell has a version and Quentin Tarantino probably is the most extreme version. Like, all of his movies have very funny moments, but, like, I think a lot of them. Again, it's the same thing with the Golden Globes. They'll pick whatever is easiest for it to win. But like, well, those. That's. That you have to remember that the Oscars are always a manifestation of whatever the narratives of the thing. And then so it's like, oh, well, a great. This is part of a great director's work. Until you are considered that, your work almost can't be fun. You should not do comedies at first.
- [29:42]
Alison Wilmore
Right. Well, I think also comedy, like horror, like animation, is part of this world that is considered slightly disreputable. Is not the right word, but it's considered. To break into Best Picture, you have to be usually a certain type of elevated horror. Elevated like a really good Pixar. Beauty and the Beast. Like, it is an exception. Right. And so still, I think the academy looks for these qualities that mark you as just like, not just a kind of like straight commercial shot in these different genres that are often way more successful than these dramas. Right. But that you're showing whatever marker counts to make something elevated. And more than.
- [30:25]
Griffin Newman
The animated feature film is a very interesting analog because it's a category that has only been created this century that starts in 2000. The 2002 ceremony for 2001 films. Part of why it was finally added was because the amount of animated films had multiplied greatly over the previous five to ten years. It used to be you'd get one Disney movie a year and maybe some foolish studio would attempt to make their Disney rival and would fail. And then basically post Pixar, every studio rushes to have their own CGI division. The amount of American animated films goes way up. And as you get deeper into the 2000s, international films are getting wider distribution in the States. They basically needed to know that 20 animated films films were coming out a year to be able to nominate three. And then as more came out, they upped it from three to five in that category. But it started out as three because they were like, are we gonna have five good nominees or is it gonna be embarrassing?
- [31:23]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, yeah.
- [31:23]
Griffin Newman
We're certainly in a state now with comedy where you'd be tough to qualify to hit those numbers. And it would use. It would require a lot of very creative, if not tricky, categorization in order to hit those sorts of numbers. But also because animation is a medium and not a genre genre, the animation category certainly skews towards family and children's. But you've noticed over time they've gotten better at letting things like Waltz With Bashir and Persepolis, certainly in the international side, get in smaller things, independent things, international things. There have only still been three animated films to make. Best picture ever. It's Beauty and the Beast up and Toy Story 3. That's it. And as I said, when they added the 10, they were like, well, the best animated film will rise into this. It basically stopped two years in or two Pixar movies in. Rather, they ignored Cars two, gave it to Toy Story three, ignored everything. Since it would be impossible to kind of imagine them adding a comedy film category that didn't feel like some almost patronizing consolation prize. Yeah, versus the animated category. Feeling like a distinctly different thing. That also doesn't exclude you from jumping into the big leagues.
- [32:37]
Alison Wilmore
And it's also very clear cut. What is animation? Right. Like, there's no. You don't need to debate, like, is this funny enough? Is this.
- [32:43]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, because I don't think there is a. I mean, I think all it comes down to, there is so few comedies put out a year that you'd have to be nominating all of them every year.
- [32:51]
Griffin Newman
Yeah.
- [32:51]
Jesse David Fox
But I think it's useful to go back in the history, and this divide has existed in different forms. So we talk about, like, why comedies don't get considered to be Best Picture. And this has. There's been versions of this since the beginning of the Oscars. And. And it's partly because, like, as film was being invented as a medium, it was from the very beginning of film. They're trying to distinguish film to be like, this is why film is an art form. And so, as a result, we should not adhere to the sort of, like, dominant, like, entertainment forms of the time. So it's like vaudeville comedians were seen as, like, they were not making films. They were making extensions of sort of vaudeville, their vaudeville, live stage acts. The Marx Brothers were not nominated in for any of their movies. I think Groucho got a lifetime one at some point. But, like, and this is an extension of. Not to get too deep into, like, the invention of what we think of as highbrow and lowbrow. And comedy has often defined what lowbrow was. So when we're even thinking of what can be sophisticated, it means not making people laugh. And so it's like. But it's not just the Marx Brothers. It's Buster Keenan movies were not nominated. They were seen as just sort of like. Like, oh, well, he's just doing stunts.
- [34:00]
Griffin Newman
They wait to give him a lifetime.
- [34:01]
Jesse David Fox
Decades later, Chapman only gets it when. For the one that is, like, this is about Hitler.
- [34:06]
Alison Wilmore
But even though I think he was just nominated, he didn't. He didn't win. He, like. He got an honorary in, like, 1972 or something like that.
- [34:13]
Griffin Newman
And there's a crazier stat. I believe the only competitive Oscar he ever won was best Original Score for Limelight.
- [34:19]
Alison Wilmore
Yes. Which was, like, made in the 50s and then not released in the 50s.
- [34:22]
Griffin Newman
It was released, finally got released 20 years after its production. And they were like, I guess we can let this qualify. And then gave him a score award to basically say, look, we gave Charlie Chaplin an Oscar. But that's. I like that film. Quite a bit. It's his most maudlin comedy. And Chaplin was kind of the forebear to what we're talking about. I think he basically established the model for what becomes the Oscar friendly comedy. Even though they were really reticent to acknowledge it at the time. They would throw him a nomination if he tackled Hitler, but the nomination was kind of the winner. But he was making comedies that were incredibly emotional, that were socially conscious, that were deeply character and relationship based, that would have hard gags and then would build to kind of a gut punch ending. And even still, they're like, we're gonna make you wait till the 70s and give you a.
- [35:11]
Jesse David Fox
In those first few decades of the Oscars.
- [35:13]
Griffin Newman
Screwball.
- [35:14]
Jesse David Fox
Some screwball comedies. Ones that felt like extensions of the works of great directors or great actors, that felt like, well, these are movies, but not like comedy works are sort of seen as different.
- [35:23]
Alison Wilmore
I feel like we have to point out at the very first Oscars, they did do separate director awards, Right. They did best director for dramatic picture and best director for a comedy picture. So they tried it once. What? Judd apatow's dream in 1929, I think.
- [35:36]
Jesse David Fox
Came through ideas like he's using a time machine to go back to the 1930. Yeah. And then you're like, no, I'm bringing back.
- [35:42]
Alison Wilmore
Got it.
- [35:43]
Jesse David Fox
Right.
- [35:43]
Griffin Newman
Yes.
- [35:43]
Alison Wilmore
You guys never change anything.
- [35:45]
Griffin Newman
That's also famously the year where best Picture itself is kind of two separate awards where there's best Picture and best artistic.
- [35:53]
Alison Wilmore
Yeah. Yeah. It's not quite clear what's going on.
- [35:56]
Griffin Newman
Wins best Picture, but that's almost more award for impressive production and whatchamacallit. Not sunshine. The Murnau film Sunrise wins like, outstanding artistic achievement. It felt like they were playing fast and loose and trying to figure out. But I think you're onto something which is so much of comedy is about. I think the Oscars are about authorship. As you said, they give an award when they feel like you have come into ownership of something and you have clearly, like, marked your identity as an artist in whatever your field is. Comedy is also about authorship. But in what we think of as pure comedies and the most successful funny comedies, usually the dominant author is the star. Yeah. A comedy movie works because the star or the combinations of stars took hold and made this thing in their voice, and the director is seen as more of a helping hand. There are these cases we're talking about where those two things are linked. You know, it's a writer star and a writer director, and it's a sort of two Person team, sometimes that will get a screenplay nomination. But a lot of the Oscar movies that go over well, or rather a lot of the comedy movies that go over well with the Oscars, are a director with a comedic bent successfully making a more dramatic actor funny. They would greatly prefer a kind of, wow, did you see Cameron Crowe made Tom Cruise funny? You know, they made Clark Gable funny. They made.
- [37:23]
Jesse David Fox
I mean, that's the thing. It's like, we talk about, like, oh, the academy doesn't appreciate comedy. But I think the most striking thing I keep on thinking about is, like, Emma Stone is the most decorated actor of our generation. All those performances are comedic performances absolutely exclusively. If anything, it's actually striking how few. Just understatement. She just doesn't do it.
- [37:41]
Griffin Newman
No.
- [37:42]
Jesse David Fox
So clearly it's like, oh, well, she's.
- [37:44]
Griffin Newman
It's.
- [37:44]
Jesse David Fox
It's one. It's the balance. And look, she's incredible at doing both. And I think it is. They understand how to award comedic performance in the. In the narrative of an actor doing a thing, but not in the narrative of a comedian doing thing, because they think comedians historically are good at making. Making it seem easy to make people laugh, where it's actually a quite a difficult thing where, you know, actors. Part of the acting thing is like, look, Begonia. If anything, it's a movie about, look how hard I worked.
- [38:12]
Griffin Newman
Emma Stob is fascinating because I think she is sort of thought of as a serious actress first and foremost. And part of that's just that she has two best actress wins before the age of 40. But she's, like, introduced to us in comedies. Yeah, she starts off in comedies. It's a while before she starts making any dramas. And as you said, all of her nominated films are basically comedy first and foremost, even if they're comedy with larger ideas, Darkness, weight, what have you. But there is the classic Bill Murray, like, we're gonna make you wait until you can make us feel something. And then a lot of dramatic actors, they're impressed. We didn't know you could make us laugh. They don't want you doing what your core competency is. They want you showing that you can do the other thing.
- [38:58]
Alison Wilmore
I also think there is something fascinating and weird about how your ghost Lanthimos became like, the Oscars chosen, kind of like, I don't. Edgy comedy guy, you know, like, especially this year with Begonia, which is like, not by any means my favorite film of his. I did not expect it to do as well as it did in the nominations. But you're also like, if you watch his early movies, like Dogtooth, which is like one of the most disturbing movies I can think of, though also like darkly funny. But you're like, what is it about this guy in particular where the academy is like, we are all in whatever you're gonna do. Except for maybe that three part, you know, kinds of kindness that maybe that's a little.
- [39:33]
Griffin Newman
That felt like a dare to them. Almost like, I wanna show that I can make like. But yeah, it's. Another guy became a brand name and now they're like, well, Yorgis comedy we get.
- [39:42]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, yeah.
- [39:43]
Alison Wilmore
Again, like it's that authorship thing.
- [39:45]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, it. He is. It's a fascinating thing where it's like, oh, that's the. We find this funny in a way that is more fancy. So the thing is like, there was this weird run looking where it did, where comedy comediers, comedy or comedies kind of did quite well. Which is essentially like the late 60s through like 1989. Like, there's a. It starts really with like Mel Brooks and then like in many ways Mel Brooks introduces like what we think of as like the modern film comedy. And I do think Mel Brooks and Woody Allen are examples we're talking about, which is like they invented a sort of brand name comedy idea and they're all that sensibility and they understood comedy through the lens of this sort of autort theory. But then if you look at the 80s, a lot of like, like funny light movies get nominated for screenplay or whatever. I mean, the example that I was most struck by is in 1984, both Beverly Hills Cop and Splash get nominated.
- [40:42]
Griffin Newman
Which is like for screen. They're both on screenplay.
- [40:44]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [40:45]
Griffin Newman
I mean, the Splash one is fascinating. Beverly Hills Cop is one of the weirder Oscar nominations to me because of how much the legacy of that movie is. They wrote what was largely a straight police drama with a little bit of comedy that was meant for Sylvester Stallone. He drops out of the movie like less than two months before filming because he doesn't think it's violent enough. And because Paramount has seen the dailies of 48 hours in which Eddie Murphy's supposed to be the funny guy in a serious movie. And they go, he's actually pretty impressive holding a gun and a badge in a scene he pretends to be a cop. Could we slot him in? And he basically rewrites the movie. He rewrites the movie on the day they're rewriting pages around what he's coming up with the other actors who were all cast thinking they were Gonna be in a drama against Sylvester Stallone or rewriting it off of him. Eddie Murphy obviously doesn't get a nomination, but that nomination feels like them being too scared to give Eddie Murphy a best actor nomination, which they should have 100% because the text of the movie is just about him being dropped as an artist into this project. The bones of that screenplay are fine.
- [41:55]
Jesse David Fox
It's also like the modern comedy movie star is being like. As we think of it, it's sort of post SNL. The modern comedy movie stars is. The 80s is really where they are born. The super comedy star of Chevy, Eddie, Bill Murray, Steve Martin, all those guys. In many ways, their rise, they're like, well, to contrast that, we need to nominate all these comedies that don't involve these comedians. It's not unlike the 1930s. So it's like movies that are undeniably funny. Like A Fish Called Wanda gets nominated.
- [42:24]
Griffin Newman
And that's a classic. They can give Cleese a screenplay nomination. You're the guy on scre. Yeah, the guy who typed the thing up.
- [42:31]
Jesse David Fox
There's a run where they're like, well, Kevin Klein makes the type of comedies that should be nominated for Oscars. Like, there's a few. It's. The thing happens the same with like Goldie Hawn. You're like, well, these are. These are what? These are like cinematic comedies for one reason or the other. And it is. And Tom Hanks is probably the other one where they're like, oh, well, Tom Hanks. That's comedy. But like, it's a Tom Hanks comedy.
- [42:48]
Alison Wilmore
I think also it was the 80s, you know, like the kind of like edgy 70s new Hollywood era was over. We haven't gotten into like the 90s, like independent film like classes that started coming up through Sundance and other festivals that would like then start to define a lot of the sorts of movies that do get nominated now. So I feel like you were in this era where there was just a lot of kind of very commercial cinema and they got nominated.
- [43:11]
Griffin Newman
I also think, you know, as we were saying, you can classify Dried Miss Daisy as a comedy, Rain man as a comedy. In terms of Endearment as a comedy. Tootsie doesn't win its year, but gets a tremendous amount of nominations. And a supporting actress win, maybe a screenplay win as well. That falls into the same. Look how impressive it is that you made Dustin Hoffman funny, even though he is similarly a guy whose career was launched comedy. At that point, he was seen as so self serious that to make a like, kind of skillful light comedy with him was triumphant. Like, even the comedies that had the privilege of being nominated and beaten were often beaten in these years by tonier comedies.
- [43:52]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, yeah.
- [43:52]
Griffin Newman
Or at least dramedies. Yeah, yeah.
- [43:54]
Jesse David Fox
And it's also like, Nora Ephraim gets nominated for screenplay for When a Harry Met Sally. So then she gets to be a person. Gets nominated. She gets nominated for Sleeping in Seattle, which leads to the Groundhog Day getting fully blanked. And they mounted a campaign for Groundhog Day. Like, it was not like, oh, it was a communal. And people. People at the time were like, we might have invented a new type of movie and maybe this could be a thing. And it completely. It'd be fascinating to look back on because it's just sort of like what happens after when that doesn't get nominated. What are the lessons that are learned? I mean, because if there's any one example of like, well, that movie is undeniably comedy. Comedy. But some level of greatness that the genre has done and that is usually the movie that did this is what beat out for Best Picture and Best Screenplay. And so we're gonna do a thing where we're gonna name all the movies that should be replaced by. So instead of Groundhog's Day, Schindler's List, the Fugitive, the Piano, the Remains of the Day and In the Name of the Father.
- [44:54]
Griffin Newman
It is a good lineup.
- [44:55]
Alison Wilmore
Yeah, yeah.
- [44:56]
Jesse David Fox
Shouldn't call the Groundhog Day. And it would make all those movies have done in the tale.
- [44:59]
Griffin Newman
So it is.
- [45:00]
Jesse David Fox
I mean, like, it's five. Like, I think if you polled, you know, like, it's hard with comics. If you polled people, people are like, well, of course, Groundhogs Day should be an incentive. A lot of these movies, people don't remember. Yeah. I think, like, in the Name of the Father is probably the movie. It's hard to. I do not remember the Oscar narrative at that time. I can imagine now from.
- [45:17]
Alison Wilmore
It was Daniel Day Lewis. It was like Daniel Day Lewis doing a lot of acting.
- [45:21]
Griffin Newman
He's back again. He's the best alive.
- [45:23]
Alison Wilmore
And reunited with Jim Sheridan, who directed by Left Foot. So, like, it was this kind of like, yeah. This pairing of a filmmaker and this actor and someone who's already getting anointed as like, the greatest actor of our generation. Like that. Like, so. So that's what you were battling there. Even if that movie may not feel like it has as much cultural footprint, certainly not compared to Groundhog Day now. But it was at the time, like, it wasn't just like, oh, this is not A movie that anyone likes anymore.
- [45:48]
Jesse David Fox
Right, right. Yeah. And then the screenplay, if it hypothetically got nominated for screenplays, it was the Piano, Dave, a Kevin Klein comedy. Their beloved genre of Kevin Klein comedies. In the Line of Fire, Philadelphia and Sleepless in Seattle.
- [46:01]
Alison Wilmore
Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah.
- [46:04]
Griffin Newman
I mean, in the Line of Fire fucking rules. But I would say that's the one. If we're gonna put like a commercial thriller in there, admittedly a well written one. Groundhog Day, as you said, is like, pretty groundbreaking and historic in a lot of ways. I know Murray has constantly for decade shit talked. Dave. Getting in over Groundhog Day and how similar that movie is conceptually to. I always get the title wrong, but Moon Over Peridor, which I think is a Paul Mazursky, Richard Dreyfus movie about a guy who looks like the prime minister of a South American country or something like that. So he's always. I mean, it's. What's interesting about Groundhog Day not getting in is that you have. Have two studio comedies getting made.
- [46:53]
Alison Wilmore
It's not like it was like, blank, because they were just like only serious movies.
- [46:57]
Jesse David Fox
It was clear that again, that they ultimately see that movie as a Bill Murray movie. And those movies are part of a genre that does not get nominated for one reason or the other. I mean, I think we probably should talk about what are the variety of reasons. It's not just narrative. I think also whatever the word cinematic means, like, a lot of the people that vote for Oscars are technical people. And like, part of it is the nature of how you have to shoot things for laughs might make it so, like, fewer technical people's like, well, the camera's not moving, whatever.
- [47:26]
Alison Wilmore
It's also what you were saying before. Like, we don't have a good way to wrap our heads around the idea of like, authorship coming from the star. Right. Like that. Even though that inarguably does happen, and it especially happens in comedy, that is just not how we think about, like, how film authority. And so it. To run a campaign on that means going counter to a lot of just like, the different ways we hold up being like, who's the person responsible for the greatness of this movie? If we're going to choose one person, you know, like, we. We want it to be the director. We're going to New Year, New Me. Cute. But how about New Year, New Money? With Experian, you can actually take control of your finances, check your FICO score, find ways to save and get matched with credit cards, card offers giving you time to power through those New Year's goals. You know you're going to crush start the year off right. Download the Experian app based on FICO's Score8 model offers an approval not guaranteed. Eligibility requirements and terms apply subject to credit check, which may impact your credit scores. Offers not available in all states. See experian.com for details. Experian.
- [48:31]
Jesse David Fox
It may not feel like it, but.
- [48:33]
Griffin Newman
Trump's approval rating is some of the lowest in recorded history. And it's fallen to new lows in recent weeks as the nation reels from recent killings of two anti ICE protesters in Minnesota. But not everyone thinks he's failing. This week we're hearing from Trump voters. It is very unfortunate that it happened, but it's also unfortunate that the ICE is being blamed for like just murdering.
- [48:58]
Jesse David Fox
Somebody who is just so innocent, which.
- [49:00]
Griffin Newman
Isn'T the case whatsoever. A, they were provoked. B, he got ran over and you know, it just, it's hard to tell what's real and what's not anymore.
- [49:09]
Jesse David Fox
He's delivered on virtually every promise he's made. The economy is booming right now. He closed the border. We're not getting any more illegals in. That has been done. That was a major promise. That's been done today. Explained. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts, go through some years. This is gonna be the stage of the episode where we just name movies. Cool. But we're gonna love it. It's the last 20 years of Oscars and we're gonna see if we can nominate any comedies for best picture. You two will decide what gets removed. I won't. I won't get any trouble. So 2006, this is one thing where I somewhere some of these might be the years the movies came out and some might be the year of the Oscars. I got very confused while I was searching and it became too much. But you'll get the sense 2006 or movies that came out in 2000. Crash, Brokeback Mountain, Capote, good night and good luck. Munich. 40 year old virgin is not nominated. Would you replace any of those movies and put in 40 year old virgin?
- [50:09]
Griffin Newman
So that's 2005 releases. I mean, I would certainly put 40 year old virgin in over Crash.
- [50:16]
Alison Wilmore
Yeah, that's like the easy.
- [50:19]
Griffin Newman
Yeah.
- [50:19]
Alison Wilmore
Yeah. I mean no one's, no one argues on behalf.
- [50:23]
Griffin Newman
Yeah.
- [50:24]
Alison Wilmore
It is a deeply unloved movie these days.
- [50:27]
Griffin Newman
But that, that feels like a year. If there had been 10, 40 year old virgin absolutely would have made it.
- [50:31]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. Yeah. And then it's almost like if there was 10 that year that gets nominated then. Then the. Then it becomes a thing where those films fill it out. Where instead, that is not the case happened. So then the next year, 2007 or again, movies that came out in 2006, I can't remember, the Departed, Babel, Letters from Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, the Queen Borat and Devil Wears Prada don't get nominated for best picture. Devil Wears Prada gets nominated for actress, Supporting actress, and Borat gets nominated for screenplay and wins.
- [51:02]
Alison Wilmore
Right. Does it win?
- [51:03]
Jesse David Fox
No.
- [51:03]
Griffin Newman
He won best actor at the Globes.
- [51:07]
Jesse David Fox
And then Borat, too, won comedy at the Globes, which is cool.
- [51:12]
Griffin Newman
Both of them got screenplay noms. And then Maria Bakalova got supporting actress. Yeah. The Officers.
- [51:17]
Alison Wilmore
I mean, I feel like one I would throw out there would be, like, Babel, except Babel also. I mean, in this very crash way. Is like, this really what? Like, the Oscars are loving at that moment. Like, oh, there's, like, multiple storylines, and it's all about these, like, very serious ideas, and it's all woven together. And like, look at the profundity of the human experience. And it's, like, not a very good movie, but in fact, like, I feel like a really tedious movie.
- [51:42]
Griffin Newman
I would agree with that. Yeah.
- [51:43]
Jesse David Fox
Is that Inya Ritu? Yeah, big time. My least favorite director. Same of the 21st century.
- [51:48]
Griffin Newman
Director of one of Oscar's favorite comedies of the last 10 years.
- [51:53]
Jesse David Fox
Truly. I hate that movie. Agree. I watch a movie of.
- [51:55]
Alison Wilmore
I like it more. I like it more.
- [51:56]
Jesse David Fox
I think Al Stone is wonderful in that movie. She comes in and go, that scene where she gets nominated for an Oscar. Oh, no, she doesn't get nominated. But that.
- [52:03]
Griffin Newman
No, she did get nominated.
- [52:04]
Jesse David Fox
Okay. Yeah. Always.
- [52:05]
Griffin Newman
Yeah.
- [52:05]
Jesse David Fox
All mixed up. Which is the times where she broke through.
- [52:08]
Griffin Newman
That is a movie I think everyone is good in and is built out of dog. Out of dumb, smug dog. I was going to say Borat is another perfect example of what we're talking about where there was so much of a push to put him in the best actor lineup, and it was just people breaking down. Like, how could you argue there's a more skillful performance than this? What he did is a tightrope act. He had to stay in character for longer. He had to be more flexible. He had to adjust the amount of footage they had to shoot all this sort of stuff. And then it felt like the screenplay nod was their version of giving that to him because they almost see that as real acting in the same way. I think it worked in Maria Bakalova's. Favor that she was someone coming from no comedy background, that she was like an unknown dramatic actress plucked. And the nomination was. Could you imagine this person who doesn't have UCB training was able to keep up with this? Like that. I think her performance is incredible in that movie. But I do think also in, admittedly the weirdest Oscar year of all time, the 2020 LA train station OSC she gets in. But I think a lot of it was, I can't believe she knew how to be funny versus Sacha Baron Cohen, where it's like, well, isn't the credit. Doesn't that go to his writer's room? Doesn't that go to.
- [53:33]
Jesse David Fox
I think what it would come down to is like, truly the Oscars are not impressed at all when a comedian is funny.
- [53:41]
Griffin Newman
No, it is like they're done as a given.
- [53:43]
Jesse David Fox
Like, if they're funny through an entire movie, they've done nothing at all. Unless they also do are not funny through an entire movie. You're like, whoa, a comedian can do that. That's amazing.
- [53:53]
Griffin Newman
I had not seen Driving Miss Daisy until about a year ago, and I was kind of confounded by how bad it is. I always assumed it was gonna be like green book where it's like, this thing's insidious, but I get it. Cause it's watchable and it's slick and it's charming, but it's also retrograde and shallow. Green book, like eats Driving Miss Daisy's fucking lunch. Driving Miss Daisy.
- [54:16]
Alison Wilmore
I eat pizza that it folds up.
- [54:18]
Griffin Newman
It's like 75 minutes long and has like four scenes. And it's like about nothing. It's also way more about anti Semitism than anyone had ever led me to believe. But Dan Aykroyd's nomination for that movie is fascinating to me because I love Aykroyd. I love him as a comedian, a comedic performer, as a writer. I love him as a dramatic actor.
- [54:37]
Jesse David Fox
And as a vodka.
- [54:38]
Griffin Newman
I love him as a vodka salesman. I love him as a man who knows the truth about extraterrestrial life. But I'm always thrilled when he shows up in a supporting role as a kind of dramatic character. I think he nails that kind of stuff. And I was like, here's the one thing he's been nominated for I've never seen. And I watch it and he's fine in that movie, but it feels like the most condescending. We're ready to applaud you for being a grown up nomination. He is doing bare minimum, just, oh my God. You went a whole movie without doing funny voices or jokes kind of thing. Yeah, in a way that it does feel they'd rather see you strip everything back than be able to prove you can pile something on. I think that's like Jim Carrey in his 90s quest for the Oscar. Kept trying for the Oscar in a way that was very showy. And they kept being like, calm down. Eternal Sunshine's the one they probably should have finally nominated him for. Cause it's the one where he finally peeled everything back. And Sandler's done that a number of times now. And they keep. Keep not giving it to him. And then five years later going, we probably should have.
- [55:47]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, they kept on missing their window. They're just like, oh, now. Oh, right, right.
- [55:51]
Alison Wilmore
It'll come. But I think also, like, it is funny that for so many of, like, the dramatic roles that gets looted, like, we, like, people want, like, transformative, you know, like, oh, you were like, you wear a fake nose and you learn an accent and you put on weight and you are transform and you are basically doing an impression of this famous person. And like, that is. That is so often, like the kind of thing where, like, this is what real serious acting looks like. And it is funny how much, like, if you do that in a comedic role or like, nah, that's fully Eddie.
- [56:19]
Jesse David Fox
Murphy, there would be no second where people would be like, oh, it's good acting that he was able to play five people in a scene being all the funny people.
- [56:28]
Alison Wilmore
Right.
- [56:28]
Jesse David Fox
That means he has to know it's truly. No, it's like one of those things where, like, Eddie Murphy can do, blah, blah, and the other person gets, like, truly most dramatic actors could not place themselves. And he can just do it and be the, you know, like the scenes in welcome to America is welcome to America, coming to America, Coming to America, or obviously, like, Nutty professor wasn't gonna be nominated. But it is a thing where it's like, but it should have.
- [56:51]
Griffin Newman
Yeah, like, and I think it's almost like amongst Oscar geeks like us. And it helps that we grew up in the generation where we were seeing that movie and taking it more seriously than the Academy that was dismissing it out of hand. I feel like our generation all goes like, he obviously should have been nominated. If you could take that back to, like, 95, 96 he gets in. I'm sure you watched the Netflix Being Eddie documentary. And the way he talks about the Academy Awards is fascinating because he'll talk about walking out of the Oscars the year he loses and goes. He just says, like, look, I don't like going to those things. I never go those things. They kept pushing me. I didn't win. I didn't want to stay. I wasn't offended. It 20 minutes earlier in the documentary, he's like, name another actor in history who's done the things that I've done. And yet no Oscars.
- [57:37]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, I mean, I. I mean, the thing it's Eddie, is he understands that I think that he. I remember, I always read there's some. There's some other person who's successful, and they're like, are you jealous or what? Are you Pettis? Like, it's like, I'm not competing with these other people. I'm competing with Chaplin. I'm. I'm competing to be one of the greatest persons ever in the history of being funny. I'm, like, competing with, like, Shakespeare plays in his brain. Yeah. So it's like, the Oscars are for, like.
- [58:00]
Griffin Newman
Like, little peons, but yet you can tell he cares.
- [58:04]
Alison Wilmore
He flips back and forth.
- [58:05]
Jesse David Fox
Well, I also think a lot. It's like a mix of. You personally care because you want your work to be recognized. And I think Judd. Judd is a perfect example of, like, he personally cares. He thinks he's doing good work and.
- [58:14]
Griffin Newman
Was proud of him.
- [58:15]
Jesse David Fox
But Judd is a person who's like, he is becoming the avatar of caring.
- [58:18]
Griffin Newman
About history, of the embodies.
- [58:20]
Jesse David Fox
And you're like, I think if any of these. If Spy got nominated, right, the film Paul Feet does after leaving at analyst, that he would be like, all right, we're in the game. And then what happens next? The thing is, like, Judd. It's like, Judd did all that work hoping that then it's easier for whoever the next person finding that space.
- [58:38]
Griffin Newman
And, yeah, I don't think it's craven at all, But I wonder if part of Apatow's drumbeat for the Oscars need to take comedy more seriously. Do we need to have a category getting louder and louder every year? Is. Does the industry need that kind of incentive to even make comedies in the first place at this point? Yeah, Like, I do think that is part of it. And it's less about legitimacy with the audience and more about legitimacy within the industry itself.
- [59:08]
Jesse David Fox
Because that's one of the few things that actually makes the Oscars matter. Yeah, that they could make other movies get made because they're nominated for Oscar.
- [59:15]
Alison Wilmore
But they can direct attention to those movies. Right. Like, that's always been the case. You have a small movie that's like, Been watched by what, like, no one on the scale of. Right. And like, you get an Oscar nomination, you get a win. Like, suddenly a lot more people are.
- [59:28]
Jesse David Fox
I also, I think the sort of like, bargain that was built upon for comedy, which was like, well, you get the box office, you get to be successful, you get all that stuff. The awards are for our little movies. We need it. It's like. Well, now. Yeah, they don't. They don't. So it's like, if anything, the industry should. The cabal of the industry should gather. But, like, we need to like, kind of make it seem like comedies are important again because there is no. Got to get back to the theaters to laugh with together. And we'll talk about this year. There was an example of that.
- [59:57]
Alison Wilmore
Don't you feel that there, like, there is a bit of self loathing that's internalized? I don't know how you like Adam McKay's career. I don't know how you describe, like, the shift he made into movies where. I feel like, to have movies where you're like, now I'm gonna stop and I'm going to have Margot Robbie in a bathtub explaining to you, you know, the serious issues now, like, that's like the. The spoonful of medicine you get with like the sugar of the. Like. I. I think that there is something or, Or I don't know if you want to go back the day the clown cry, right? Like now I need to be like, to kind of like show or like Woody Allen making like interiors right after, you know, like any hall. Like, I think there is like, this is not just coming from outside.
- [60:39]
Griffin Newman
I've thought about this a tremendous amount and I have no answers. But it is a really fascinating chicken. The egg of. Is that something inherent to the comedic identity? This need for. Even if you make it to the top of the mountain, the fact that you're not taken seriously suddenly is the thing that has to drive you to keep you angry and on edge, to still keep you funny to a certain degree. You have to want to be taken seriously in order not to dull yourself as a comedian, even though it maybe gets people further away from comedy. Or is that based on the systems of outside recognition? Like, which one is pushing that further along? Because it is fascinating how few people get at least close to that mountaintop and don't even take a swing at that. Eddie Murphy even had his Harlem Nights, which feels like a kind of classic. Fine, I'll fucking write and direct a thing. It'll be more dramatic and it'll Be a period scale thing. And when that isn't taken seriously by the Oscars, he's like, family comedies. Fuck you.
- [61:35]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. Like there's so few examples of the comedian that gets like the dog that catches the car or whatever where it's like what happens if a comedian is gets the respect? Right? The anti dander fields, right? They get. Do they go like, okay, I guess I could fully retire. Right. It's like, does it break them in a way, right. I think like ultimately all comedians need to have some amount of an outsider's perspective, regardless if they need to be underdog. And so the more success they have, the harder it is to have that. But like the Oscars is one thing that still happens if you gave it to it. I think a person has to be like, I guess I cannot be a comedian anymore. Or you have to do the reverse, which is I need to now prove myself as a comedian. Now you don't think I'm funny. So you have to do like closer to like what Kamal did recently, which is like you now you only take me seriously.
- [62:16]
Griffin Newman
Totally. He's in that zone now. Even without winning the Oscar. I mean to cite another recent streaming documentary about a comedy legend and one directed. Co directed by the guy we keep invoking here. But the Judd Apatow Mel Brooks documentary, which I think is incredible, really kind of lays bare his career arc where it's like he's this TV golden boy but he can't make the jump over to features. He's got the 2000 year old man bip, but you'd have to think that was almost seen as the equivalent of being a big on social media comedian, a TikTok comedian. You know this. Oh, it's funny when they do the sketches on the late night shows, but that's not high art. He makes the producers. It's a giant flop and he wins best screenplay and it gets Gene Wilder a best supporting actor nomination. And that's kind of going against the public's reaction to the movie. It was not critically accepted at first. Then it kind of caught on in a second wave. It became a kind of critics darling into the Oscar scene and was not a crossover hit. He gets to make a second movie off of the legitimacy of, well, even if you're not profitable, you won an Oscar. You must know what you're doing. He makes 12 chairs, which is him trying to go more serious. Can I build a comedy inside the great Russian novelist. People hate it. It mega flops. Then he's like, am I washed? I've made two unprofitable movies in a row. He takes his first, like, assignment gig, which is, do you want to rewrite Blazing Saddles? He brings in a room of writers, he shapes the cast, he designs it for. He doesn't get, for different reasons, makes this movie on the fly. It sort of like 40 year old virgin is Day is another, like, paradigm shift. All of comedy now is before and after. Blazing Saddles is one of the most profitable movies in history. They do give that a screenplay nomination. And they give supporting actress nomination to Madeline Kahn. Yes. And then that's basically the end of his.
- [64:06]
Jesse David Fox
Young Frankenstein gets screenplay as well in the same year. Yes.
- [64:08]
Griffin Newman
Which is insane.
- [64:10]
Jesse David Fox
Yes.
- [64:10]
Griffin Newman
But that's the end of his Oscar run. And it's fascinating when you watch that documentary. They get to History of the World Part 1, and the critics have swung back against him so hard. What he was doing was seen as radical and, like, pissing on good taste from the outside, but in a way that was almost politically charged. You know, this man is, like, challenging the status quo. This is, like a striking artist, even if his primary weapon is comic. And by the time of History of the World Part 1, when most of the comedy industry now has shifted under his image, they're like, we get it. Poop jokes, fart jokes, making light of great, like, historical tragedies. And he has to go on these talk shows to defend himself in this kind of apatow way of, like, this is legitimate. And the other thing I found so interesting in that documentary is he keeps talking about how they're in the least poor me kind of tiniest violin way. He keeps talking about how he feels like he has these other ideas and stories in him that he's never gonna tell. A, because he's chosen comedy as the main language that he wants to use, and B, because at a certain point, he just accepts people aren't gonna accept it from him. He makes Brooks film. He gets Elephant man off the ground, hires David Lynch. He legitimizes David Cronenberg by hiring him onto the fly. Elephant man gets a ton of Oscar nominations. The Francis Farmer movie. And he was like, great. That's how I get these things out of my system, by finding new filmmakers, protecting them, getting them their Oscar nominations or wins, and then also pointedly took his name off of all the movies because he said, if I'm credited as a producer, people are gonna think it's a comedy. No one. I mean, I feel like Mulaney made this joke when he hosted the Governor's Awards the year that Mel Brooke.
- [65:59]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [66:00]
Griffin Newman
Because can you imagine not taking credit for a movie you actually did make in an industry where people are constantly taking credit for things they didn't work on at all?
- [66:10]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, there's many. Periodically comedians will voice a certain amount of resentment of this thing that you'll let us host the thing if we do it at the way you want us to do it. But like truly you see us as the clowns that you hire to host the birthday party. You do not see them as the star of the birthday party.
- [66:27]
Griffin Newman
And.
- [66:27]
Jesse David Fox
And it's not a huge deal. Like ultimately, like there's lots of things that also don't get recognized by the Oscars that are much more like societally important things. It just is a thing that has happened and it partly is a self perpetuating things of just sort of like, well, comedies don't do it. So whatever the new version of comedy is that can't make it unless we decide they're these. This type of person. And I do think it's fascinating to see how those narratives form. And it is Mello's example where they're just sort of like, well, just as poop jokes. Like, well, that's if this is the thing I always say, like if auto theory is real at all. Adam Sandler knows what Adam Sandler movie is and he makes those movies. So if you believe that is a value system, he adheres to that value system. Now that might not be fancy or whatever, you know, fucking the help. Has she pooped in a pie? That kind of.
- [67:13]
Alison Wilmore
Exactly.
- [67:15]
Griffin Newman
Everyone got Oscar nominations and wins for it.
- [67:17]
Alison Wilmore
Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think also with a lot of comedy you have that thing where we sit on the movie and now it takes like years for us to decide. Like this is like a stone cold classic. Right? Like this is in the canon. And I think it's like with dramas, I feel like sometimes it works the opposite way, right? Where you're like, this is the movie of the. And then we'll never talk about it again. So I mean I feel like that maybe it's the nature of comedy also where we feel like it needs to kind of like sit for a bit so that we understand that it is like lasting. You know, like it's not just like kind of like speaking to a particular moment. But obviously they get dinged for that. I think. I mean it's not fair but. But like I think that there are a lot more comedies that we like years later.
- [67:55]
Jesse David Fox
Like that was obviously my. The Galaxy Brain theory have on this, which I voice in the book. Comedy book in stores now or stores for the last few years, is they. These comedy movies get more steam as time goes on because they get less funny. And the funniness of this movie actually is what makes them seem less, like, substantial. You watch Groundhog Day now, it doesn't play as a hard comedy in the same way. You're like. All this movie, like, really makes one think about, like, what existence is, where it was doing that, too. It just sort of like, you saw these laughs, like, oh, this must be stupid. You know, it's like. And who knows? Like, that is a theory. But I do think there is a something of, like, good, hard comedies. You are laughing a lot. And though there's something beautiful about that and freeing it, there is a thing where you're like, well, this is not. I'm not being serious.
- [68:39]
Griffin Newman
I'm.
- [68:39]
Jesse David Fox
Seriousness is not like I.
- [68:41]
Griffin Newman
He is an audience member while watching this. I'm not being serious. No, I think that's a great, great call. I mean, I think a lot about the. Quote, Matt Walsh, UCB co founder Matt Walsh, not reactionary shitbag Matt Walsh has that comedy is the only art form other than pornography that demands an involuntary physical response from you. It is not something you're intellectualizing. It's either working for you or you're not. So to a certain degree, the more you're laughing, does that directly correlate to the less you're thinking about why what you're watching works? Egghead nerds like you and I, who are obsessed with dissecting the frog, of course, are going to think about that, force ourselves to revisit it. But a lot of these things that people look back on 20 years later and go, how did that not get a nomination for Best Actor? Supporting Actor, screenplay are things that they have watched in rotation on TBS or they own it on disc or on streaming. And it's the fifth time where the jokes don't surprise them anymore. They still feel warmth and comfort from the movie, but they're not being distracted by the laughter, because that's familiar, the actual hard jokes. And now they're looking at the craft, the structure, the skill, the precision. And then you go, oh, fuck. John Candy should have been nominated for Best Actor. Will Ferrell should have been nominated for Best Actor. Yeah.
- [69:59]
Jesse David Fox
All right, let's run through a bunch and see if there's anything that could. We want to bring it. 2000, I believe. These are movies that came out in 2007, a very famous year for Variety of reasons. Slumdog Millionaire, the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost, Nixon, Milk, the Reader. Comedies not nominated for Best Picture. Knocked Up, Superbad, Tropic Thunder. Tropic Thunder. Famously nominated for Supporting Actor.
- [70:21]
Griffin Newman
I gotta correct you. These are two separate years.
- [70:24]
Jesse David Fox
Are they?
- [70:24]
Griffin Newman
So Those are the 2008 films nominated in 09 versus the 07 comedy that didn't get nominated in 08.
- [70:32]
Alison Wilmore
It's a disaster.
- [70:33]
Griffin Newman
But I can tell you what the 07 lineup is. Sure the 07 lineup is, because Juno does get in, gets the comedy slot.
- [70:40]
Jesse David Fox
This is too confusing.
- [70:42]
Griffin Newman
No Country, There Will Be Blood, Michael Clone. Yeah.
- [70:46]
Alison Wilmore
That's like a major year. Yeah.
- [70:48]
Griffin Newman
You know, but Juno gets in there. And the biggest surprise was that Juno got the director nomination, which was the one that everyone assumed could not happen. That's a screenplay movie. That's a performance movie. And I think Juno benefited from the bump of the Apatow Wave.
- [71:04]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [71:04]
Griffin Newman
Cause Sarah, you have Knocked up and Superbad in the same summer. And Juno feels like, here's a movie on an Apatow wavelength with some familiar actors that also is a little more stylized in its direction. It's a little more visual.
- [71:17]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. Yeah. What do you think about that? Robert Downey Jr. Getting nominated for Tropic Thunder?
- [71:22]
Griffin Newman
It's pretty wild.
- [71:24]
Jesse David Fox
It's just like a wild thing to be like. And then you're like, well, if you're only thinking about this in terms of comedy, it's like, well, then that should have been nominated for more. Because that seems like a type of movie that would. But then you're like, well, the legacy of that. I don't want to get record defending a thing.
- [71:35]
Griffin Newman
I remember only as a hardcore movie nerd, was Robert Downey Jr. Was supposed to have three movies come out in 2008. That was part of a very coordinated. It's the comeback. It's the moment, you know, him and his wife planning the career. And it was. Iron man was going to be his big blockbuster hit. Tropic Thunder was gonna be his big comedy hit. And then in the fall, the Reader was gonna come out, and that was the one that was supposed to be his Oscar play. And the Reader got pushed to the following march, and they went, fuck, can we make Tropic Thunder the Oscar play? And part of him getting that nomination was the kind of acknowledgement of, he's back, you're back. Yeah.
- [72:12]
Alison Wilmore
But also, obviously, toss the reader.
- [72:13]
Griffin Newman
Yeah, yeah.
- [72:14]
Jesse David Fox
Out of here.
- [72:15]
Griffin Newman
The Reader. Reader.
- [72:16]
Jesse David Fox
I haven't seen the Reader.
- [72:18]
Griffin Newman
I joke that people remember more than.
- [72:20]
Alison Wilmore
More than the movie Itself. Yeah, absolutely.
- [72:21]
Jesse David Fox
This is from the Hugh Jackman monologue written by Ben Schwartz, Dan Harmon, and what's the Dan Harmon's Schrob, Rob Schrob. It's one of the great comedic things that has ever done. Correct me if this is the correct year. 2018, Shape of Water, Call Me by youy Name, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread, the Post Three Billboards Outside, Ebbing, Missouri. Not Nominated, Girls Trip, the Big Sick and the movie that probably would have the Disaster Artist.
- [72:50]
Griffin Newman
Yes. Now, you were hinting at this right before we started recording. If I am not mistaken. James Franco wins best actor at the Golden Globes for comedy or musical.
- [73:04]
Jesse David Fox
He was definitely push. Definitely was for him for actor.
- [73:06]
Griffin Newman
Yes.
- [73:07]
Jesse David Fox
And I think it's maybe in the best picture bubble as much, but it's definitely gonna be actor and definitely screenplay.
- [73:12]
Griffin Newman
Was the night that sort of starts his cancellation moment is the Golden Globe ceremony where he's on the red carpet wearing a MeToo pen talking about it to interviewers, and then a bunch of actresses who have worked with him start tweeting, how rich for this guy. And the downfall happens. I can't remember if he won that night or he was just nominated, but the Oscar voting, I believe closed the next day or certainly within a couple days. I remember talking to our mutual friend David Sims, my co host on Blank Check about God, this guy has basically gotten canceled in the three days between him seen as a surefire nominee and voting closing, is he gonna end up with a nomination that looks really bad because too many of the votes were already in. Yeah. So in history, it sort of feels like, oh, he would have gotten nominated. And then it didn't happen at the last moment because of the backlash. In reality, it was a little bit of a like. But that movie did get a screenplay nomination.
- [74:12]
Jesse David Fox
Yes. And I do think that movie, I have not seen it since, but I remember being good and definitely like, as I said, it's like the only possible Beck Fisher movie that has Hannibal Burris in it. Right. And like Paul Shears in it. You're just sort of like, this has comedy actors and Seth's in it. But it felt like this sort of mixing but somewhat an extension of sort of Judd Apto creation that it winning might have sort of shifted narratives around and whatever. I'm not like mad that it nominated.
- [74:42]
Griffin Newman
Early A24 movie when they were still kind of figuring out their thing. As you said, Lady Bird gets in there is obviously the comedy pick and is a more kind of melancholy comedy, but is like A pure comedy. Those are comedic performances. Laurie Metcalf is a comedic legend, you know, on top of being a Steppenwolf heavy actor legend. She's a one episode SNL legendary and you know, it's someone who a lot of her career was spent on, on stadiums and such. But I think Girls Trip is the more interesting one to consider in a certain way because it was such a big hit and felt like the last truly organic hundred million dollar domestic blockbuster based solely off of you need to see how fucking funny this thing is. And if you look at the list of live action comedies that have crossed 100 million domestic since Girls Trip, all of them have huge qualifiers. Yeah, you know, it's like the two daddies home movies which are like family comedy plays. There's like the Lost City, you know.
- [75:43]
Jesse David Fox
Lost City made that much money. It did.
- [75:45]
Griffin Newman
It was like the first comedy back of like are these things not 100% extinct? Post pandemic at a time where it felt really.
- [75:52]
Jesse David Fox
When did the Jumanji movies come out?
- [75:53]
Griffin Newman
The Jumanji ones are the other ones. But a lot of these I'm like.
- [75:56]
Jesse David Fox
It'S IP action comedy.
- [75:58]
Griffin Newman
These are IP this and that. And also, also like huge, huge stars, like legacy stars at this point. People who have been stars for like two generations.
- [76:06]
Jesse David Fox
Minecraft movie I guess, similar thing.
- [76:08]
Griffin Newman
But most of the ones are like CGI heavy, IP related ensemble cast of a listers family friendly.
- [76:17]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, like we're all pushing this to get through.
- [76:19]
Griffin Newman
Girls Trip is an R rated comedy with like three known actresses and a breakout. But it is like here's the pitch. This thing's really fucking funny. You gotta go and you're gonna laugh really hard. And there hasn't been a movie that has pushed through at the box office in just that way since then.
- [76:34]
Alison Wilmore
I will say this about the Disaster Artist, which is not a movie I like very much. I feel like it has the shape of things that I would like. And like there's something that is a little, I mean beyond just like how kind of like how much it tries to polish Tommy Wiseau into someone much cuter. That I feel like it actually feels like it lands in the spot that you don't like, which is right like the of kind of the.
- [76:55]
Jesse David Fox
No, we have to. This is the thing that happens where people assume I. People have very various opinions. The comedies I do, I like all of it. I like the ones that are light comedies, but ultimately dramas I like, I like some dramas and ultimately a drama that has no comedy. And I'm like What's. What are we doing here? That's anyway. But also, people think, because I defend the bear, people are like, you hate actual real comedies. You only like these things. I like all of them. Continue.
- [77:16]
Alison Wilmore
I mean, that it falls into this realm of the kind of like slightly elevated comedy. You know, it's got this like a 24 branding on it. And also, so it is about filmmaking. It's about all like the kind of starry eyed idea of like, you know, and I feel like those are things that yes, absolutely would work in its.
- [77:31]
Griffin Newman
Favor in terms of awards, but also ostensibly a biopic. It's got some of the on paper elements.
- [77:36]
Jesse David Fox
That's why it did feel like they were. That's why I'm saying it's like it did feel like the movie that came out of the world of comedy that was like, we're getting as close. Can we. It's like, if this is the dividing line and like this is all comedy, this all drama, they're like, what if we. What if we're just. We're here instead of here? Can that happen? And I think like, that's the closest we got of that type of movie. There's like, there's obviously a huge exception. Coming up.
- [77:59]
Griffin Newman
My hot take on the Disaster Artist has been since it came out, that the strength of that movie is Franco's performance because of how deeply he gets Tommy Wiseau. And the problem with that movie is James Franco not understanding how similar he is to Tommy Wiseau. He thinks he's making this incredible transformation. And as the director of the movie, he's not quite distant enough to understand the guy. But you bring up the bear. There's an interesting conversation of what has happened to comedy awards in the television side relative to comedy not getting represented in the movie side of award shows. Because there used to be this delineation. It was very clear to know what was a comedy show and what was a drama show because they basically were different mediums. It wasn't about tone. It was, are you an hour long single cam or are you a half hour long multicam? And that's it. That's how it is sorted. It's the same as live action versus documentary, basically. Right? You didn't have to gauge how funny is it. And now it's just a free for all. Now you're just constantly going like, wait, so that's not a comedy? And that is. And it's gotten muddy in a way where every year people complain about it. You know, it just. There will never be a year where everyone's happy with both sides of that equation ever again for the rest of time.
- [79:21]
Jesse David Fox
No.
- [79:22]
Alison Wilmore
Well, also, this is the year that get out gets nominated, which is another, like, really interesting, you know, like, it's a horror comedy. It is, like, definitionally a horror comedy. Right.
- [79:31]
Jesse David Fox
But Jordan's campaign, or the campaign for that movie to get seen as seriously was. Was the moment it gets nominated for comic globes. He criticizes that.
- [79:40]
Alison Wilmore
Yes.
- [79:40]
Griffin Newman
It's not a comedy. It's a documentary.
- [79:42]
Jesse David Fox
And that immediately was like, that sealed the. I mean, it probably was going to be nominated for anyway, but that was a clear sign of, like, that that's. And that's what's why it's here, and that's good, and that's why it should be nominated.
- [79:53]
Griffin Newman
It's also a thing. That movie is incredibly funny. Seeing that movie opening weekend, it got huge laughs, even if it also got scares and people being, like, locked into the dramatic moments. But that movie has the juice of. Of, oh, wow, this is more serious than I thought it would be. From the Key and Peele guy, Even if it's funnier than most horror movies, it's the right direction of. He's going deeper than I expected from his previous work.
- [80:17]
Jesse David Fox
But, like, it needed to be and it's right. He needed to make it. So it's like, I'm not a comedy director. I'm not a comedy. This is not in the world of comedy. And then people like, cool. And now forever, your movies are nominated for Oscars.
- [80:27]
Alison Wilmore
Okay. But then also, it is, like, kind of reinforcing the thing we always say, which is like, oh, this is a movie that, like, you know, tackles, like, America's original history and therefore. Or it can't be that funny. Right. Even though comedy obviously can tackle these things as well in incredibly effective ways that, like, in movie form, we need to emphasize the kind of serious aspect of it to reinforce how seriously it is taking these issues.
- [80:49]
Jesse David Fox
So there's Crazy Rich Asians in the 2019 year, which is Green Book, Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Bohemian Rhapsody, the favorite Roma, A Star Is Born, Vice. Feel like people would be fine throwing out Bohemian Rhapsody.
- [81:02]
Alison Wilmore
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [81:03]
Griffin Newman
I'd also. I would throw out Vice, which feels like the worst example of what we're talk. Talking about someone trying so hard to push back against, even though that movie is still kind of a comedy.
- [81:14]
Alison Wilmore
Yeah, I mean, I would say it's a comedy, but it's a comedy. I don't think it's a very good comedy. Agreed.
- [81:19]
Griffin Newman
And it's a comedy made by people who are very at odds with being seen as comedy people.
- [81:25]
Alison Wilmore
And also so many of the kind of more recent, like, very didactic McKay movies. It's like the comedy cannot live with the serious ideas. They cannot exist together. Like, they. Like, they have to be side by side, and you have to cut one with the other. And I just, like. I don't understand that.
- [81:41]
Jesse David Fox
But it's literally like he. He forever was like, all of my Will Ferrell movies, they are about the things that he cares about. And then he seemingly realized no one got it. So I'm going to stop my movie periodically to tell people. And to his credit, that's exactly what the Oscars wanted him to do.
- [81:56]
Griffin Newman
They gave him the Oscar the first time he did it.
- [81:58]
Jesse David Fox
They gave Best Screen literally exactly what we've been asking for.
- [82:00]
Griffin Newman
Right.
- [82:01]
Jesse David Fox
Just tell us exactly what this is about. About and not have it be a sort of subtle comment upon the state of masculinity or whatever.
- [82:07]
Griffin Newman
There is a kind of positive enforcement that I think can fuck up people's careers. Sure. You know.
- [82:12]
Alison Wilmore
Oh, yeah.
- [82:12]
Jesse David Fox
Well, that's the thing about the Oscars is, like, it's not like this is the model of, like, what good film is. That's the part of. It's just sort of like. Because I like a lot of these comedies that didn't get nominated, and I don't know if it's a better. They're better for. They're better for being the movies they are than to being. Appeal to it. 2021, Borat 2, Palm Springs. I think, oddly enough, promising Young woman, which I do think plays kind of like a satire comedy, Golden Globes drama comedy. And.
- [82:40]
Griffin Newman
But here's a theory of mine. If that movie had gotten a traditional theatrical release, if the pandemic had not happened, you know, it played at Sundance, and people were like, this is like a really edgy comedy.
- [82:52]
Alison Wilmore
Yeah. No.
- [82:53]
Griffin Newman
When it becomes a movie that people watch alone at home in a year of tremendous strength, I think the drama jumped out to people more, the issues jumped out to people more. And I think a lot. I have a very mixed relationship to that movie, but I think its legacy is more complicated because it was presented as this is a serious issues movie with something to say. Whereas if that movie had just gone to theaters in, like, April of 2020, it would have been like, this is kind of an interesting, like, edgy genre. Fuck you, edgelord race.
- [83:25]
Jesse David Fox
I think it's.
- [83:27]
Alison Wilmore
It got settled, I think, with, like, more especially given, like, what had been happening in the World like it got settled, I think with like more weight in terms of like the heaviness of its issues.
- [83:36]
Griffin Newman
That movie never should have been taken that seriously. The worst thing that could have happened.
- [83:39]
Jesse David Fox
No.
- [83:39]
Alison Wilmore
Really?
- [83:39]
Griffin Newman
Yeah.
- [83:40]
Jesse David Fox
Though although she won, her entire career has been sorted as you're a serious. You get to make serious movies and when you make movies, they're serious. So the last movie I want to talk about and then I want to make one comment about this year and then we'll be done. This has been going on quite long. I'm having a great time.
- [83:56]
Griffin Newman
But this is the danger when you invite me onto it.
- [83:59]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah. Barbie. Yeah. So Barbie. I remember I one year I was talking to Judd about this and he goes, comedy claims Barbie. We have to claim Barbie or otherwise we have nothing. And so Barbie is a win for comedy. Barbie plays it has a lot of jokes. I think there are. How would I put this? There are movies that are not nominated made by comedy people that I think are better at joke craft than Barbie is though. Barbie has a lot of jokes and it is funny. Is clearly made by people who do not have a dexterity of different comedy types. But there's a lot of filmic different things that they do and it's nice and it's interesting.
- [84:37]
Griffin Newman
And I would also argue that like Bombach and Gerwig both are primarily comedic filmmakers. They make a very specific type of comedy. Yeah, but they are comedy first and foremost.
- [84:49]
Alison Wilmore
Yeah. I mean they make like like. Right, like art house comedy. But like that is comedy. Absolutely. I mean, yeah. Barbie is inarguably a comedy to me.
- [84:56]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, 100%. It. It is just an interesting case because I do think it for. For the reasons is does was able to be sorted to the Oscars as not a comedy that we don't nominate, but a comedy that we do nominate. I think it's like one. Greta has a history of like all the things she's doing. No, no. But also has that history history and it's makes a gazillion dollars and it's in conversation with Oppenheimer. So these are the two movies of the year. And it's a. It is the most about something a movie has ever been about something. It is like this is a movie about this thing. It might as well tell you at the beginning this is a movie about.
- [85:31]
Griffin Newman
Modern which for better and worse, the Oscars love. They love if they can spoon feed it to you. And there's no argument.
- [85:38]
Alison Wilmore
Yeah.
- [85:38]
Griffin Newman
And like what a movie's trying to say and.
- [85:40]
Alison Wilmore
And the Greta narrative Was incredibly strong. Right. Like, she is someone that like the Oscars have supported already, like as a. This like up and coming, like female auteur. And now she's making this like one of the most successful movies, you know, forever.
- [85:52]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [85:53]
Alison Wilmore
This like genuine like also cultural phenomenon.
- [85:56]
Griffin Newman
Right.
- [85:56]
Alison Wilmore
Of course they were going to not.
- [85:57]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, no, it's just sort of interesting to be like. And I do. But the hard thing is, I do think the lesson Hollywood learned from that is we should make more movies about toys.
- [86:04]
Griffin Newman
It goes back to Jumanji, Lost City, all these things where we're getting these comedies that aren't pure comedies, for lack of a better term. I'm not saying I. That as a judgment on my behalf. It's that there's something else. There's another prominent flavor or ingredient that allows the industry to take the wrong lessons. They keep extracting. Well, the reason this succeeded is because of X, not because people laughed. And every time one of these movies works, I am just praying that like the people.
- [86:39]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah.
- [86:39]
Griffin Newman
Something will click within the collective audience. Oh, you know what was fun? That I went out on a Friday night in a room full of strangers and we all laughed at the same thing. Yeah. And instead it becomes about We All Wore Pink or I love this actor. Even though the experience is primarily functioning as a comedy first and foremost in the moment, the industry doesn't see it that way. And audiences don't seem incentivized to seek out more comedies.
- [87:05]
Alison Wilmore
Yeah. Well, and on that note, it's funny how much horror is like the last thing that everyone agrees, like people want to go see in theaters because of the collective experience is so exciting. You know, all shrieking at like the jump scare together. Why we cannot also be like this is why I've seen comedies together is like powerful.
- [87:21]
Griffin Newman
It's completely disappeared. And a fascinating example that I think about a lot with relation to that is the first Megan movie, which was this sort of online viral sensation in the marketing of are they in on the joke or not? Going to see that opening weekend and having that thing play like a comedy. That thing's PG 13. It was neutered. Once the tracking went through the roof. They took all the blood out of it. Cause they knew needed 13 year olds to see it. And that movie worked pretty well as a comedy. It does not work well at scaring an audience. But I think there was a little joy in going to see it and being like, hey, this movie's kind of in on the joke. It's. It's landing jokes that it is Intending to make. It's not snakes on a plane, right? And then I said, well, this thing makes $95 million in January. I went to see this with a sold out crowd that was laughing at everything in a not mocking way. Isn't the takeaway from this gonna be, we miss this experience? And instead the takeaway is, let's lean harder into self aware comedy on Megan 2. And Megan 2 collapses. You couldn't replicate it and there was no lesson that worked.
- [88:29]
Jesse David Fox
It brings us to. This is a side note. I think Kevin Archer had been nominated for an Oscar for Jumanji won. But that's. He's so. He does that moment where he has to do all the characters in it and you're like, that guy. No, it's a shame that he got to be a movie star at the exact wrong time for a person like Kevin Hart to be. He should have. It just sucks that he did not live in the 90s. He would have been late.
- [88:46]
Griffin Newman
He and Melissa McCarthy were the last two through the door who were given the ability to actually be comedy movie stars. And they both succeeded and failed in interesting ways.
- [88:58]
Jesse David Fox
So this year there's really like, I think two comedies that are released really to have any conversation. There's one in the Days and Naked Gun both do a good bit of business. I think Naked Gun makes enough money and I think both of them make enough money where people are like, make some money. It's not. No, it's not Austin Powers 2 or Hangover 2. But the thing always with comedy is the sequels make more money because people are like. It just sort of catches on. And I do think I like, in my world, if I'm charge of the Oscars, Naked Gun, at least get the screen play.
- [89:34]
Griffin Newman
Allison and I are very united that Liam Neeson should have been seriously considered for best Actor.
- [89:39]
Alison Wilmore
For best Actor. Yeah.
- [89:40]
Griffin Newman
And I felt that 15 minutes into watching the movie.
- [89:43]
Alison Wilmore
No, I think he's incredible in it. It's just a perfect performance. He's so funny. He has the perfect, like just straight face the whole time and the deep conviction that he's, you know, honed over all of those geriatric action movies or whatever they're called that he made for years.
- [90:00]
Griffin Newman
And in, in a stupid Oscar y way, you can't deny that what he's doing is acting. It's not just, well, he's naturally funny. How many of these jokes is he writing himself? You're like, you know, he didn't ad lib shit. He is applying peak Liam Neeson intensity to the silliest shit in the world and grounding it. And as someone who's kept up with too many of the late, late stage geriatric Liam Neeson movies, he is so much more locked in on that. It's not just him transferring his presets over to an Akiva Schaefer movie. It's the most alert. He's been in like 15 years.
- [90:32]
Jesse David Fox
I mean it is. Why the. The thing that I think it's like to me, if you have a book like Hamnet about Shakespeare's son dying, it's. If you do the job, that movie will be nominated for best picture. Like, it's not hard to make that into what is considered great. To me, the work of Naked Gone is really, really hard to do that at any moment audiences will be like, this is fake. This all. He just did something stupid now. But like to mo that line is one of the hard is impossible to achieve. If it was easy, a lot of people would be doing that. But that there's a moment very early in the movie where he shoots someone with his handgun. Yeah. And at that moment you go, there's no rules to this movie. There's no stakes. None of this matters. I'm going to stop watching right now. But people. But you don't. Because of. They just know what it is. And that is the thing that, like, to me, that is greatness, that is cinematic achievement. That is honoring the history of film. It's what all the things that could be nominated and I think should be. But it was not at all in any kind though it Even in the mix.
- [91:37]
Griffin Newman
Critics choice nomination for comedy movie. Yes.
- [91:41]
Jesse David Fox
Which is still something.
- [91:42]
Griffin Newman
Yes. But like what is the point of the Golden Globes having a best actor in a comedy category if you don't nominate Liam? Yeah, it's. It's kind of absurd. I think that movie did well and especially did well enough overseas in a way that non effects driven live action comedies have really been struggling to translate. But it didn't make an undeniable amount of money. And even like as annoying as it is, the difference between it making like 60 domestic and 75 domestic.
- [92:10]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, it made 90 something. It was a 90 something.
- [92:13]
Griffin Newman
It cost 100 worldwide.
- [92:14]
Jesse David Fox
Yeah, yeah.
- [92:15]
Griffin Newman
But.
- [92:15]
Alison Wilmore
But it costs like 40 million to make. And it's also like.
- [92:19]
Griffin Newman
And it also, it's helped by being a franchise legacy movie. It's hurt by that as well because people are willing to extract some of the credit from how much of it's that they like the old ones. And also I've Had a series of annoying conversations with people I respect a lot and separate multiple people who are like, I liked it. I was just a little disappointed. I wished it was. Was like 10% funnier. And I my response to that is if it was 10% funnier, it would be one of the 10 funniest movies of all time. I too wish it was the funniest movie I've ever seen.
- [92:51]
Alison Wilmore
It's so dense with jokes. It has.
- [92:54]
Griffin Newman
It has to settle for being 90% towards being one of the funniest movies I've ever seen.
- [92:58]
Jesse David Fox
And if anything, it was a decision. Like I do think Aiva was like, we can't make Airplane anymore. Audiences are too savvy. They want would riot. They'd be like, well, this is stupid. Or I'll watch it in spurts. I'm punched out. Like, that's the thing of like comedy. Directors now have to realize, like if you just hit home runs nonstop, the audience will like after 20 minutes be like, I'm gonna go get popcorn. Just tap back into this movie.
- [93:20]
Griffin Newman
Yeah.
- [93:21]
Jesse David Fox
The reason that movie works is you care enough about them two together and just like whatever the crime is matters enough and you're. And that allows you to laugh at a full movie non stop. You're just laughing at the end.
- [93:35]
Griffin Newman
It's a skillful movie. It's a well crafted movie. It's a movie that understands it to look like a real action movie in order for the jokes to work. It's like incredibly well shot.
- [93:42]
Alison Wilmore
Well, I mean also like a lot of the action jokes are about like kind of staging and choreography and like framing in ways that I.
- [93:50]
Griffin Newman
The gun cartridge bit like that's like a technically complicated sequence.
- [93:54]
Alison Wilmore
It's a coffee being handed through the window when he's on the freeway.
- [93:57]
Griffin Newman
And those are movies, right? The nature of those jokes and how that film is constructed, it is not something where, well, they rift a bunch of things and just compiled it in the edit. That's like kind of intricate, tiny puzzle piece comedy because you have to make.
- [94:11]
Jesse David Fox
It so the audience does not know the rhythm of. Because otherwise you can't be like, okay, they're going to say a word and that's going to be set up. It's like some points you don't know when which words is a setup or not, because any word can be like a tangent.
- [94:23]
Griffin Newman
But also when's the next gag going to be visual versus verbal? Is it a background gag? Is it a foreground gag? Like all these things are really like.
- [94:30]
Jesse David Fox
Avatar level execution of a vision of A thing.
- [94:34]
Alison Wilmore
I mean, I've said this before, but my favorite part is still, like, when he's like, I guess you really can't fight City hall. No, it's a building.
- [94:42]
Griffin Newman
No, sorry, what were you.
- [94:43]
Jesse David Fox
I just watch it again. And he builds to the big fight scene. He just punches him once in the stomach.
- [94:47]
Griffin Newman
So nuts.
- [94:49]
Jesse David Fox
And that's the end of the movie. So at that point you'd be like, cool, I get it. I'm laughing. But no. And it's not. And that there's a Will Rogers quote, which is an onion can make people cry, but there never has been a vegetable invented to make them laugh. And I do think it's sweet and. But it's like, truly.
- [95:03]
Griffin Newman
It's a good point, Blake.
- [95:05]
Jesse David Fox
I cried at reading the synopsis of Hamnet. I could. I was like, wow, that's beautiful. The idea of that movie. But like, if you were the description of Top of Naked Gun, you'd be like, well, that's not funny.
- [95:17]
Griffin Newman
Have either of you seen Nirvana? The Band, the Show? The movie?
- [95:21]
Alison Wilmore
Yeah.
- [95:21]
Griffin Newman
For my money, that is the funniest film the last 10 years. And naked Gun is very close to it. Those are the two that gave me the experience I wanted in the last decade. The experience. I wake up every morning, go to sleep to every night begging the gods for it. Right? And I think that's an astonishing movie. I think it's an astonishing comedy. But it's also like a miracle of filmmaking in a way that is very unshowy. It is working hard to make you think it is far less sophisticated than it is. I have seen it twice now with a crowd, and it just. The place, like, comes down. It is the experience, the way people describe missing, longing for the Hangover, opening weekend, anchorman, any of these. But it is a movie that is really hard to market even from the title. It's hard to explain to people, impossible to explain. Neon's putting it out next month, but it's clearly they're trying to figure out the word of mouth angle on it, which is one of the reasons I am naming it. Anytime I'm in front of a microphone or a camera to any degree. But that is a movie that I'm just like. I laugh every five seconds. There are types of jokes in it I have never seen before. There are jokes of construction. There are jokes of perspective. There are jokes that are just. Just funny rhythm. The end of that movie gets me choked up both times I've seen it. It is not a thing you could write down in a Wikipedia Synopsis and convince anyone, let alone me, this would get you choked up. Because it's not the end of Hamnet. It's not. Well, of course that's dealing with a profound thing, but it's almost more miraculous to me. Cause it builds a movie around incredibly stupid ideas, and then by the end of the movie, has a kind of, like, surprising but inevitable final grace note that in is reminding you how much they've made you invest in and give a shit about something that's super fucking stupid. And that gets me, like, choked up.
- [97:06]
Alison Wilmore
Yeah, well, it's also. It is a movie that is based on having just like a decade of footage, like archival footage of themselves sitting.
- [97:13]
Griffin Newman
Around, which is like 20 years of bits.
- [97:15]
Alison Wilmore
Yeah. Like, like. Like just an indescribable resource where you're like, who has that as like a filmmaking kind of resource? Almost no one. Right.
- [97:23]
Griffin Newman
Above all else, it's kind of a movie that's like a testament to. To having a dynamic with someone else.
- [97:29]
Jesse David Fox
Right.
- [97:30]
Griffin Newman
Like, it's like the indescribable feeling of when you have a friend you can riff with. Yeah. And this movie's a monument built to that.
- [97:36]
Jesse David Fox
And it's almost like, I mean, there's no chance it's gonna be nominated for best Picture, but it's like if at the beginning or periodically throughout, they were like, this really is a testament to what it means to have friendship in a time where masculinity is in crisis and male loneliness. Academic in many ways. This is cure the cure. If they had, like, if they say that every 15 minutes, I would. Would be like, this really is saying something.
- [97:57]
Griffin Newman
And beyond that, almost everyone I know who's seen the movie has asked me, knowing that I'm, like, blowing the trumpet for it constantly. Do you know how that was made? This movie, like, boggles people's brains and the things in it that are cgi. You don't accept it. It feels like it has to be real. No one will ever take it seriously in any major awards body.
- [98:18]
Jesse David Fox
And ultimately, that's okay.
- [98:20]
Griffin Newman
That's okay.
- [98:20]
Alison Wilmore
That is okay.
- [98:21]
Jesse David Fox
Thank you, guys.
- [98:22]
Griffin Newman
Thank you.
- [98:23]
Jesse David Fox
Thank you. That's it for another episode of Good One. Good One is produced by myself, Zachary Mack, Neal Janowitz and Anne Victoria Clark. Music Composed by Brandon McFarland. Write, review and rate the show on Apple Podcasts. Five stars, please. I am Jesse David Fox and you can follow me at Jesse David Fox. Buy my book, comedy book, wherever books are sold. Thanks for listening to Good One from New York Magazine. You can subscribe to the magazine@nymag.com com pod be back with a new episode next week. Have a good one.