The Daniel Day-Lewis Hall of Fame

Summary

The Big Picture

Episode: The Daniel Day-Lewis Hall of Fame
Release Date: October 10, 2025
Hosts: Sean Fennessey & Amanda Dobbins
Guest: David Sims

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Big Picture is devoted to the Hall of Fame career of Daniel Day-Lewis. Sean, Amanda, and guest critic David Sims (Blank Check) dig deep into Day-Lewis’s method, myth, and performances. They walk through his filmography, discuss his impact, explore why his career is so singular, and construct a definitive Daniel Day-Lewis Hall of Fame. The episode is packed with cinephile banter, Oscars history, English/Irish cultural debates, and plenty of laughter.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Year in Film and Oscar Season (02:34–14:15)

• The panel briefly discusses the state of movies in 2025, describing it as a "weird" and "flop fall" for prestige releases. Many anticipated fall films have not lived up to hype, but festival hits from Cannes and select big studio gambles stand out.
  • Insight: “It feels like a weird year for awards movies, but maybe not a bad year for movies. It's just kind of settling in a way that it often won't.” — David Sims (03:23)
• Dissecting the rollout strategies for major titles—studios playing the wrong festival “games,” and how this affects Oscar buzz.
• Early concerns about Avatar fatigue ahead of awards and box office prospects.
  • Quote: "Slightest concern about Avatar... just in the races." — David Sims (11:21)
• The group’s festival favorites: Sinners, One Battle, Testament of Ann Lee, No Other Choice.

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2. Daniel Day-Lewis’s “Unretirement” & Anemone Review (14:15–18:32)

• Day-Lewis returns to film in Anemone, directed by his son; the panel deems it a family passion project but not a successful film.
  • Quote: “It is co-written by Daniel Day Lewis... Not a successful movie in my opinion.” — David Sims (14:25)
  • The only memorable moment is “the poop speech,” which all agree is the film’s highlight.
• Reflections on DDL’s press tour, his dislike of “retirement” questions, and career mythology.

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3. The Myth, Method & Britishness of Daniel Day-Lewis (18:32–38:46)

• Day-Lewis’s early career: classical British theater training, then shift to Method.
  • Discussion around his famous stage exit during Hamlet—possibly “seeing” his father’s ghost.
• Panel highlights that DDL never acted on stage again and almost never did TV.
• Debating what makes DDL unique:
  • Quote: “He tends to do period movies. He tends to do movies where there’s... a transformation.” — David Sims (30:29)
• DDL as a Brit who brought an American kind of “transformation” acting to the UK tradition.
• Comparison to Alec Guinness as a transformative British actor.

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4. Building the DDL Hall of Fame: Film-by-Film Breakdown (39:25–122:24)

Format: Each film discussed receives an informal ranking—“Green” (automatic Hall of Fame), “Yellow” (hall of fame contender), “Red” (rejected).

Early Films & Breakthroughs

• My Beautiful Laundrette (1985): A breakthrough, praised for its “punky” energy. (Yellow)
  • Quote: "He's got the punky thing in it... he never lets go of that." — David Sims (46:08)
• A Room with a View (1985): Beautiful and well-loved, but DDL plays against type ("priggish, uptight" foil). (Yellow)
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988): A major lead; notable for DDL as a Lothario. (Yellow)
  • Notably, after this, DDL rarely takes on explicitly "sexy" leading roles.

The Transformations and Ascendance

• My Left Foot (1989): First Oscar win, the template for DDL myth-making, the definition of “transformative acting.” (Green)
  • Quote: “It’s an impressive performance, but it has also become shorthand for the DDL thing.” — Amanda Dobbins (65:34)
• The Last of the Mohicans (1992): DDL as American hero Hawkeye, action star, sex symbol—a career pivot. (Green)
  • Panel: Peak “hotness,” intense physical prep.
• The Age of Innocence (1993): Underappreciated Scorsese classic, DDL perfectly cast despite not being showy. (Green)
• In the Name of the Father (1993): Second DDL-Jim Sheridan collaboration; intense, working-class role, political resonance. (Green)
  • Quote: “He is regular and regular-ish... but like a mythical historical figure.” — Amanda Dobbins (82:13)

Celebrity, Method, and Icon Status

• Gangs of New York (2002): DDL’s villainous “Bill the Butcher”—a voice, a meme, a legend. (Green)
  • Quote: “I think Bill the Butcher is one of the greatest Scorsese performances in the history of his movies.” — Sean Fennessey (97:24)
• There Will Be Blood (2007): DDL as Daniel Plainview; universally considered a defining 21st-century screen performance. (Green)
  • Quote: “If you just polled anyone ... what's the best movie acting performance of the 21st century? This is going to come up a lot.” — Sean (107:05)
• Lincoln (2012): Oscar #3; “presidential gravitas” and quiet comic genius. (Green)
  • Quote: “Lincoln rocks. It’s one of the funniest movies ever made...” — David Sims (114:42)
• Phantom Thread (2017): The trio’s favorite DDL/PTA collaboration; a darkly comic, layered final act. (Green)
  • Quote: “He finally can be funny... he knows he’s being funny.” — Amanda Dobbins (121:25)

Outliers, Misses, and Personal Projects

• Stars and Bars, Ever Smile New Jersey, The Boxer, Ballad of Jack and Rose, Anemone, Nine: All discussed as non-canon, “red” or “yellow” entries. Several are described as “buried,” “not talked about,” or "straight to homework."
  • Notable dismissal: Nine as a musical misfire. (“Should have been Banderas!”)

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5. Hall of Fame Selection: The Final List (122:24–end)

Automatic Greens ("In"):

1. My Left Foot
2. The Last of the Mohicans
3. The Age of Innocence
4. In the Name of the Father
5. Gangs of New York
6. There Will Be Blood
7. Lincoln
8. Phantom Thread

Final Audibles—“Yellow” Contenders

• My Beautiful Laundrette argued in for its breakthrough status.
• Final vote between The Unbearable Lightness of Being and A Room with a View—the former is included for being a rare DDL showcase.
  • Quote: “I just mean his part in it. I mean, he’s... he’s holding the movie.” — Sean (123:43)

Daniel Day-Lewis Hall of Fame (Final 10):

1. My Left Foot
2. The Last of the Mohicans
3. The Age of Innocence
4. In the Name of the Father
5. Gangs of New York
6. There Will Be Blood
7. Lincoln
8. Phantom Thread
9. My Beautiful Laundrette
10. The Unbearable Lightness of Being

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On DDL Method:
  “With him, the transformation is so obvious... it's about accent, you sense it, facial hair. And it's like—he and Meryl Streep were the kings of this when I was a kid.” — David Sims (30:44)
• On the myth of retirement:
  “Never say retired, I guess is the lesson. You can just sort of say, like, I'm taking a break.” — David Sims (18:43)
• On "Lincoln":
  “He brings presidential gravitas. Lincoln rocks. It's one of the funniest movies ever made.” — David Sims (114:42)
• On "Phantom Thread":
  “This is such a wonderful movie. It’s a comedy about being married and he finally can be funny.” — Amanda Dobbins (121:24)
• On the legacy of early roles:
  “I’m gonna argue for My Beautiful Laundrette. For sure. As an iconic early movie, as a breakout movie, as this well-remembered movie.” — David Sims (123:09)

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Other Memorable Moments

• Amanda buying a leather jacket on the subway (07:25), the “father of three” joke about post-show bar hopping (01:41), and the recurring “shoe-making” myth.
• Deep dives into British/Irish cultural identity, with sharp, humorous asides about English prejudice, Method acting, and the “beautiful whale” of Avatar.
• Lighthearted but insightful pop-ins about Mamma Mia, Peacemaker, and Merchant-Ivory’s oeuvre.
• Ongoing references to DDL’s aversion to comedy, his method prep, and how he’d never fit into “commercial Hollywood.”

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Tone & Style

This episode balances encyclopedic cinephilia, irreverent humor, and personal storytelling. The hosts riff on the absurdities of film festival strategies, nerd out over Oscars history, and drop hot takes while peppering their analysis with jokes, admiration, and a resolutely conversational style.
Signature Amanda line, on DDL’s essential chillness: “It’s just super chill.” (29:39)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:34] — 2025 Movie Year & Oscar Talk
• [14:15] — Review of Anemone, DDL’s “Unretirement”
• [18:32] — DDL’s Method, Heritage, the Hamlet Incident
• [39:25] — Beginning of DDL Filmography Walkthrough
• [65:34] — “My Left Foot” and the Oscar Myth
• [72:00] — "The Last of the Mohicans" & Action Star DDL
• [76:18] — “Age of Innocence” as an Underrated Scorsese Masterpiece
• [99:00] — Casting & Making of “Gangs of New York”
• [106:04] — “There Will Be Blood” as Canonical Performance
• [114:42] — “Lincoln” and Comic Brilliance
• [121:24] — “Phantom Thread” and Final Selections
• [122:24] — Final Hall of Fame Tally

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Conclusion

The episode encapsulates what made Daniel Day-Lewis a generational screen actor: total transformation, mythic selectivity, and collaboration on a roster of landmark films. The panel’s final Hall of Fame offers a definitive, lively summary of his impact, from British indie breakthroughs to legendary Oscar triumphs.

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For listeners seeking DDL’s essential films, you can’t go wrong with the ten selected here. For a podcast conversation both scholarly and fun, few match the chemistry and expertise of Sean, Amanda, and David.

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Transcript

[David Sims]

Foreign.

[Sean Fennesee]

I'm Sean Fennesee.

[Amanda Davins]

I'm Amanda Davins and this is the.

[Sean Fennesee]

Big Picture, a conversation show about Daniel Day Lewis. Today on the show, Amanda and I will build a shrine to the man many believe to be the finest actor of his generation. Joining us to do so, one of the finest podcasters of his generation.

[Amanda Davins]

Absolutely.

[Sean Fennesee]

From Blank Check, David Sims.

[David Sims]

Let's go.

[Amanda Davins]

And the winner. Yes, the winner of the most recent draft.

[David Sims]

That's right.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

Here for your victory lap. We didn't plan this, but we sort of did.

[David Sims]

Well, we planned like a week of us all together.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Like we're having. This is my second of four encounters at least one of you guys. I did win.

[Amanda Davins]

I did win.

[David Sims]

I didn't think I was. I was not playing to win.

[Amanda Davins]

But everyone I spoke to afterwards was like, I gotta be honest, I voted for David. That's not true. But my friends voted for me. But everyone else voted for me.

[Sean Fennesee]

My own niece and sister came up me in the eye and said, I did not vote for you. I voted for David.

[David Sims]

You went very male. I did, I think inadvertently. And you had like.

[Sean Fennesee]

It was advertently.

[David Sims]

Well, sure. But you had like, maybe not quite enough diversity. That's true of.

[Sean Fennesee]

I just kind of blinked a couple times and I was like, ah, Scorsese. Like, I couldn't really, you know, I couldn't think out of it.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I was talking about it like, it's like it was an overwhelming, like too many choices.

[Sean Fennesee]

There was a lot of choices. It was maybe too broad a palette. But you know what, it was a very fun draft. It was a great live show. Thank you to everyone who came. That was amazing. Thank you everybody who helped put it.

[Amanda Davins]

On you and Griffin for being part of it. I should have brought you crown now to be wearing. You know, I was sad I didn't have one in the moment.

[David Sims]

People kept being like, what did you win? And I'm like, just glory.

[Sean Fennesee]

Just a 12 block walk to a bar that you did not enter. That's what you won.

[David Sims]

That was. That's.

[Amanda Davins]

Look, man, you missed some jams.

[David Sims]

That's some father of three business where. I just took one look at that bar and I was like, you know what? I enjoyed the walk. I'm getting on the train. Queue's right here.

[Sean Fennesee]

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[Amanda Davins]

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[Sean Fennesee]

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[Amanda Davins]

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[Sean Fennesee]

I would be remiss if, having you here, we didn't talk about something beyond the topic at hand because you're one of the great working film critics. Thank you. And that's also not true. It's been an interesting year at the movies. We haven't really done. We're starting to do Oscar ranking stuff. We're starting to look at how things have been going, but we haven't spent a lot of time saying, has this been a good slate of movies? Are we really excited?

[Amanda Davins]

20, 25 movies?

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah. That's how we learn how to do it.

[David Sims]

I don't know if I'm coming in hot, but it's a weird year. I haven't seen everything from this sort of fall batch. Like, I still haven't seen Hamnet. Okay. I haven't seen Marty supreme or whatever.

[Sean Fennesee]

But just makes you like most other.

[David Sims]

Movies that are not coming out a fair amount of the fall stuff.

[Amanda Davins]

I've seen most of the Cannes stuff.

[David Sims]

I've seen all the Cannes stuff. And I've seen, Lucky for you, I mean, most of it, at least. It's a flop fall, right? We can kind of agree. Like, it's sort of like a weird festival year. It feels like a weird year for awards movies, but maybe not a bad year for movies. It's just kind of settling in a way that it often won't. Where I keep a running yearly list starting in January, right?

[Sean Fennesee]

I just start.

[David Sims]

I rank my movies and you keep.

[Sean Fennesee]

It public all year.

[David Sims]

Keep it public, and it's a living document. I'm kind of, you know, I'll settle on something and I'll be like, you know what? That's sticking with me. Let's bump it up. Or I'll see something and I'll be like. And often you'll get the kind of Sundance y stuff at the start and you'll watch it kind of get pushed down. Hasn't really gotten pushed down except by like, these sort of big movies that resonated with me, like these sinners, weapons, one battle, and 28 years later, which I think is sort of the underrated. Like, those were the ones where I was like, I can't stop thinking about those movies. Let me look at my list. I don't know. What do you guys think?

[Sean Fennesee]

I mean, this is very similar for me. That quartet. There are a couple of movies that I have really liked from the fall festivals that we haven't had time to talk about yet. No other choice. Testament of Ann Lee. A couple things that I know will be near the top of my list.

[David Sims]

Haven't seen Ann Lee loved. No other choice.

[Sean Fennesee]

But Flop Fall is interesting. I mean, you know, we went to the festivals and we wanted to be excited about as much as we could be.

[Amanda Davins]

And we tried.

[Sean Fennesee]

And there were some cool things. But I came away feeling like most of what was great was at Ken and in that cohort.

[David Sims]

The things I like the most are the sentimental value. And it was just an. Which were both Cannes. It's just an accident.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Is there anything else?

[Amanda Davins]

I mean, the problem is Flop Fall leaves out one battle after another.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Amanda Davins]

And the thing about it is that for me, with the exception of Sinners, it was a little bit of like a flap spring and flap summer. And I. And also Fair kept waiting for the. We had a lot of anticipation of the fall season because I think everything felt.

[Sean Fennesee]

You had Jurassic World Rebirth.

[Amanda Davins]

Where are you on Joanna? Jurassic World Rebirth. I was so angry. Oh, that's right. Because Alex Ross Perry.

[David Sims]

No, he does not influence me. No, no, no. That man has no sway over. No. I love you, Alex.

[Amanda Davins]

Hello, Alex.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Amanda Davins]

He recapped to me the interaction on your physical media. Oh, we have a little group chat about everyone else's hatred of Jurassic World Rebirth. And then Alex was like. But I told them that it's everything that's good about going to the movies, which I don't know if I think that. But it's still really funny that they put a giant dinosaur park in Cobble Hill. That's really. Here we are in New York City and I'm just like, that is expensive real estate.

[Sean Fennesee]

And when I saw that, I thought, we're in for a great time. And then we didn't get a great time.

[David Sims]

ScarJo is in Dumbo or whatever.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Like in her car going like, God, this traffic. Because the brontosaurus died. I gotta get to my job as a assassin. Like, whatever. Might specially. Isn't she like four, ten?

[Sean Fennesee]

She's a lioness.

[Amanda Davins]

Jonathan Bailey doing. Bringing up baby. Like, I'm here for it.

[David Sims]

It's good.

[Sean Fennesee]

I'm glad.

[David Sims]

Oh, that Movie stunk. It is the classic.

[Amanda Davins]

Did you know it was shot on film? Yeah, I guess so.

[Sean Fennesee]

Doesn't prove anything at this point, right?

[David Sims]

I mean, I'm always like with that. I'm like, yeah, dude, what's. I mean, like, you know, what's a bad movie? Tell me a bad movie from the 90s.

[Sean Fennesee]

Sliver.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it was shot. Well, that's a pretty good movie.

[Sean Fennesee]

That's a great movie.

[David Sims]

Sliver is bad. Jade is good. Sliver is bad.

[Sean Fennesee]

I agree.

[David Sims]

I think I'll go there, Right? Like, I bought. Yes, I bought the vinegar syndrome. Sliver.

[Sean Fennesee]

You know, I didn't buy that.

[David Sims]

Well, my friend Patrick say, of course.

[Sean Fennesee]

You gotta buy Jade, you know, Friedkin. But I did for the stack.

[David Sims]

I did hit purchase going, this is a 3 out of 10 movie. Like, this is not a good movie.

[Sean Fennesee]

I watched it. I watched the first 48 minutes of it with my dad when I was 12. So not ideal.

[Amanda Davins]

I bought a leather jacket on the subway this morning for $70.

[Sean Fennesee]

On the subway? Human.

[Amanda Davins]

No, no, no, no. Like, I was on the subway train.

[Sean Fennesee]

Like, I have your jacket. I'm willing to pay you $70.

[Amanda Davins]

No. You know, the tape measure with shipping. So There we go.

[Sean Fennesee]

60 with shipping.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

Are you sure that's real leather?

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah, it's from ebay.

[David Sims]

You know, like, I'm here for the 20, 25 movies. It's just like. I don't think it's. Well, it's interesting because one battle is this totemic thing, and it is kind of the year of, like, hey, studios took chances on slight chances on slightly more original things.

[Amanda Davins]

And it worked in Warner Brothers.

[David Sims]

We mean the good people at Warner Brothers for now.

[Sean Fennesee]

Right? This is me knocking on board.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah. I can't even. Let's not.

[David Sims]

Soon we'll just say studio. We'll just be like the studio. There's just going to be one. Right.

[Amanda Davins]

And we'll be called the Free Press.

[Sean Fennesee]

It's trending in that direction right now.

[David Sims]

But, like, I don't. I do think there's a lot of sort of noble, interesting efforts, like J. Kelly, Smashing Machine, highest to lowest. Like, movies where I found a lot to like, but I was not, like, walking out.

[Sean Fennesee]

But it's not even your favorite movie from those filmmakers, right?

[David Sims]

Certainly not.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah, I agree. I feel very similar about all three of those where I'm like, there's stuff in all three of these movies I dig.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

It's not their best films. It's also all three of them kind of trying something a little bit different, and maybe not totally grasping everything that they went for, but I like them also.

[David Sims]

And this is inside baseball. But all of these movies, so many of these movies picked the wrong rollout. And it's like, that only matters to people like me. But, like, when J. Kelly's at Venice, I'm like, no, like, Toronto. Like, I need to. Someone just needs to put me on a chair. And the studios come to me and they're like, noah Baumbach film. It's kind of an insider Hollywood thing. It's set in Italy. And I'm like, I don't care that it's set in Italy. No, no, no. Italy will not like that. Guess who's gonna like that? George Clooney's in it. Toronto. You're going to Toronto, baby. You know, like, they're all playing games from, like, five years ago. They are all like, well, Lady Gaga rode a boat. I'm like, I don't care that she wrote a boat.

[Amanda Davins]

So do you care?

[David Sims]

Do you want to be. I mean, I do care that she did that, obviously.

[Sean Fennesee]

Let's talk more about that role that you could have.

[David Sims]

You got to find your audience, like, to hype up, you know, to get your momentum.

[Sean Fennesee]

Do you want to be a czar or do you want to be a backstage.

[David Sims]

No, I want to be right, like a shadowy figure. You want to be paid by the.

[Sean Fennesee]

Studios to do this, or will you do a pro bono?

[David Sims]

Do pro bono.

[Sean Fennesee]

Wow.

[David Sims]

No, I'm joking.

[Sean Fennesee]

Just. They'll just tell you what a movie is about, and you'll say, you go, here. This is your release date.

[David Sims]

But don't. You know what I mean? My days, like J. Kelly or even Smashing Machine, like, where you're just like. I think if you want to get some momentum, you got to, like, you know, you can't play to a European audience with some of this stuff because they're just not going to be into. I don't know, like, there's something like that.

[Amanda Davins]

I. I liked Testament of Anley, Aladdin. I'm really happy that Searchlight bought it. I watched more old Italian people walk out of that film, like, angrily than I saw at any other movie. And they. And you know, that's. And that's on the old Italian people, you know, who. It's their fault.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Amanda Davins]

But you're right that they're not really.

[David Sims]

Matching Eddington, a movie I liked. And I know Ari wanted to go to Cannes or whatever, but, like, that's not a Cannes movie.

[Sean Fennesee]

No, no.

[David Sims]

Those Frenchies don't want to hear that.

[Sean Fennesee]

No, that would have done great at Venice.

[David Sims]

Yes, it would have.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Anyway, who cares? No one listens to me. And these movies are here and it doesn't matter in the long run. We'll think about them later. But it does just kind of feel like if I'm like a median Oscar voter, all of that stuff's bouncing off me. All these sort of fall festival movies are not really catching. And so it will come down to these bigger movies, which is going to make for a kind of a different awards season, I guess. That's nice.

[Sean Fennesee]

Particularly if Wicked and Avatar are going in and then all of a sudden you have a race. That's Wicked. Avatar, Sinners one battle. That's a lot of bigger movies.

[David Sims]

Can I say something really foolish? Just foolish. I should not say this slightest concern about Avatar.

[Sean Fennesee]

Me too. I've been saying we've been keeping it.

[David Sims]

Out, not quality wise.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah, yeah. Just in the races.

[Amanda Davins]

Fatigue. I get it.

[David Sims]

Like the way they re released Way of Water this past weekend and everyone.

[Amanda Davins]

Was like, I mean we don't have four hours to.

[Sean Fennesee]

Right, right.

[David Sims]

I gotta go watch a lyric video.

[Sean Fennesee]

Taylor Swift put a bullet in the head of that strategy as well.

[David Sims]

Exactly right. And then she put a bullet in a couple heads. But like I'm just detecting like. And look, this happened with Way of Water a little bit where everyone was like, does anyone even care about Avatar? And it's like, you know what, it's Christmas and people want to go see a big movie and they have a good time. Yeah, that will happen again, I assume. Just slightly.

[Sean Fennesee]

I think it's going to do well at the box office. Not as big as Way of Water. I. Similarly, in the awards race, we're just speculating. Who the fuck knows? But it feels like it. Maybe you could have waited two or three more years so that everyone could forget a little bit more. And maybe we haven't forgotten enough how.

[David Sims]

Special these movies are. Happy that we have it. Like, I'm not mad that it doesn't.

[Sean Fennesee]

Look forward to it. I'm happy to watch it. What? I saw it CinemaCon. I was like, let's, let's go Light me on Fire Volcano. I'm into it. You don't care.

[Amanda Davins]

No, I don't. I mean I left before the Disney presentation and I do the Chris Ryan breakout video of. I've never seen Avatar. I don't care. Why are you spending your life on this? Like that got traction for a reason. Even among. I have seen both films in theaters and I'm like, wow, a Technical marvel. But like, I don't really care, you know, I sit down and watch them. I say, uh huh. Sigourney Weaver, that see you in, you know, different blue representations. And then I move on with my life. So it does. It just feels like Python.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah. The beautiful whale.

[Amanda Davins]

The whale was very beautiful. Was that whale before or after the powerful sea creature in the second Black Panther?

[Sean Fennesee]

I believe that came out.

[Amanda Davins]

Or was that an underwater world directly.

[David Sims]

After Black Panther was 22? What was going on right after? And that was the world. Aquaman had a powerful sea creature voiced by Julie Andrews.

[Sean Fennesee]

That's right.

[Amanda Davins]

Really?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Amanda Davins]

I'm just learning that right now. No one told me.

[David Sims]

Have you seen that movie?

[Amanda Davins]

I've never seen an Aquaman movie.

[David Sims]

Do you like Patrick Wilson?

[Amanda Davins]

I do and I have heard about that.

[David Sims]

How do you feel about Patrick Wilson? The Ocean Master? The Ocean Master, right.

[Amanda Davins]

You know, someone has to do it.

[David Sims]

That's his opinion. And I would put him others in the film disagree.

[Sean Fennesee]

I submitted my resume. Not selected for the role of Ocean Master.

[David Sims]

Sadly, I stan both of those without spoilers.

[Amanda Davins]

Great Patrick Wilson moment. Fall festival season.

[Sean Fennesee]

So I'm, you know, let's not spoil that for everybody.

[Amanda Davins]

I'm always happy to see him.

[Sean Fennesee]

I saw him in the trailer of the movie and I was like, don't do that.

[Amanda Davins]

I agree.

[Sean Fennesee]

Don't do that.

[David Sims]

Don't do that.

[Amanda Davins]

Anyway, a great reveal.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Sean Fennesee]

So the reason that we're talking about Daniel Day Lewis today is because he has a new film called Anemone directed by his son, which is a not great movie. It is co written by Daniel Day Lewis. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Has he ever gotten a writing credit?

[Sean Fennesee]

I don't feel anything. So it's obviously like a. This is a real family affair. Daniel Day Lewis has done a tremendous amount of press for this movie in support of his son. And so I'm loath to crush this movie.

[David Sims]

It's not even crushable. It's not a successful movie in my opinion. I don't know. What did you guys think?

[Amanda Davins]

1,000% agree.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's pretty. It looks beautiful. It's good looking, I'll tell you.

[Amanda Davins]

It's like fine. Guess what? Ireland is beautiful.

[David Sims]

I think it was Northern England.

[Sean Fennesee]

It was.

[David Sims]

Yeah. It's not Ireland. I thought it was Ireland too, until.

[Sean Fennesee]

I don't know where it was shot.

[Amanda Davins]

At some point later on in this podcast, we're gonna have like David's Alex.

[David Sims]

Try to explain the politics corner. Oh, sure.

[Sean Fennesee]

Let's talk Isles. DDL is perfect for that. Given his heritage as well, exactly.

[Amanda Davins]

That's what I want to talk about. And his.

[David Sims]

But yes, I had the Aretha Franklin, like beautiful moss, great moss. You know, like I was just like, here, look, all these trees look great.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah, yeah.

[Amanda Davins]

I would argue in another movie this, this fall.

[Sean Fennesee]

Oh yeah, the trees are everywhere.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah. And the, and the moss, like, you know, you haven't seen it yet.

[Sean Fennesee]

There's another one too though.

[David Sims]

There's two.

[Amanda Davins]

Oh, the trains.

[Sean Fennesee]

Jk. No, the JK has, has some. Has trees. Oh, memorable trees. Talking around. And that's not very nice. The thing about anemone, a film is very abstract until it isn't.

[David Sims]

Until they all say what's going on?

[Sean Fennesee]

And I would argue that they should have not told us and that you could have said this is kind of a, a sleepy movie that's hard to penetrate. But at least you were making a kind of gesture towards a certain kind of cinema. You could have been like, this is my Lynchian film. But then when the movie explains itself, I was like, I don't know that I really think that that makes. Was a good choice.

[Amanda Davins]

I would also argue that it does not explain itself very well.

[Sean Fennesee]

Plot wise. I think it does.

[Amanda Davins]

Like plot wise. I got the gist and I was really concentrating and I would say that some of the politics and the spec. The specifics were not nailed down for me. I got it on a big level. But the fact that they go into the specifics and I'm like, I'm a dumb American, you know, it sort of, I don't even think doesn't land it.

[David Sims]

That's part of it. But it is also just one of those movies where for 90 minutes of a two hour movie, that should be max 85 minutes, this movie. But whatever. For most of the movie, everyone's just like, yeah. And ever since the thing that happened, I've been living in this fucking cabin and showing me you fucking have. And I'm like, uh huh, uh huh. Eventually he's like, and by the way, just to explain the thing that happened is this thing. Let me talk about it for five minutes. And you're like, okay, we're finally saying you can't just talk around the thing that everyone knows, everyone in the movie knows what happened.

[Sean Fennesee]

Right?

[David Sims]

And so we're just kind of waiting for everyone to kind of pause and just recap for us eventually. It's not great plotting.

[Sean Fennesee]

I sound nitpicky, but it's not. And I think that that's part of why I'm trying to figure out why even this was the thing that pulled Daniel Day Lewis out of eight years of seclusion.

[David Sims]

It sounds like it was something he and his son, like, workshopped as, like, a character or a little story.

[Sean Fennesee]

And it feels like a theater sort of snowballed, right?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

Well, we couldn't see several monologues in the film. Many of them focused on Day Lewis character.

[David Sims]

One of them focused on poop. I thought that we focused on poop.

[Sean Fennesee]

I thought that one was great.

[Amanda Davins]

It's amazing.

[David Sims]

It's the most arresting part of the movie. Without a doubt.

[Amanda Davins]

It's memorable. And it's 20 minutes of him just, like, seeing Jimmy. And then. And then you're like, okay, now we're back in the woods.

[Sean Fennesee]

It does go back to the woods.

[David Sims]

Back to the woods with me. Can I swear? Is it okay?

[Sean Fennesee]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Okay. Okay. I always forget.

[Sean Fennesee]

Anyhow, it had been a long time since Daniel Day Lewis appeared in a movie, and part of what he has been confronted by in this press run is, why did you retire? What does it mean to retire from acting? And he is. You know, I. I think I get the impression he doesn't read a lot of press or consume a lot of content because he's like, God damn, I'm just getting this question every time. And I got to figure out an interesting way to answer the question of why am I not acting anymore?

[David Sims]

It sounds a little contrite and a little, like, abashed in his sort of way of like, yeah, everyone told me not to say anything, and I really was just not working, you know, versus retired.

[Sean Fennesee]

Right.

[David Sims]

Never say retired, I guess is the lesson. You can just sort of say, like, I'm taking a break.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yes. I mean, and he. When he did that, when he stepped away after Phantom thread, he was 60 years old and obviously among the most decorated actors of all time. So for him to just say, like, I'm good, that it actually is reasonable. I think it's because there is a lot of attendant mythology with Daniel Day Lewis that it came with more.

[Amanda Davins]

More baggage decisions, like just not taking on a job for eight years. Add to. So, you know, you get it.

[David Sims]

Yeah. The baggage increases. You're right. And I mean, he said, like, it seems very plausible to me that, like, he does Phantom Thread for whatever reason, it takes a lot out of him, probably because it's a demanding, difficult guy that he's playing. And then he's like. He said, like, I saw the press coming. You know, I saw the Oscar stuff coming.

[Sean Fennesee]

Right.

[David Sims]

And I just hate that.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And he backed off. Like, I feel like he was like, so you know what, I'm kind of retired, like before that even starts up. He's like, let the movie stand for itself and I'm going away. And I mean, his son would have been what, like 20 when that happened?

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah, yeah. And, and I don't know, I think it's sweet that he made a movie with his son. I really like that he did that.

[Amanda Davins]

It's nice.

[Sean Fennesee]

And his son's son's a 30 year old, first time filmmaker, you know what I mean? And you can tell, you can tell.

[David Sims]

I mean, God. At the press conference at the New York Film Festival afterwards, his son said something along the lines of like, well, I've loved Sean Bean since like I saw him in Game of Thrones when I was a kid. And Sean Bean like put his head in his hands. Charlemagne is like, that was like my third wave of my career probably, right? He's thinking like, I've been fucking acting since the 80s or what, you know? But that's the age he is.

[Sean Fennesee]

Okay, let's talk about Daniel Day Lewis. Daniel day Lewis, he's 68 years old. He was born in London, England.

[David Sims]

Well, his father was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. I don't know if you know that though.

[Sean Fennesee]

He was born in Ireland. Cecil Day Lewis. Cecil or Cecil. Where do you stand on that?

[David Sims]

Cecil? Cecil, I think, is how he's addressed.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yep. Immediately as a young man, went into the theater, studied at the National Youth Theater, the Bristol Old Vic, learned the classical methods of the stage, and then kind of midstream in his late teens, began to adopt the method, which I actually.

[David Sims]

I don't know how that happened because I do not think of that as British.

[Sean Fennesee]

I mean, it's so historically not right. And it's unclear because he historically has been a bit circumspect about discussing not just his process, but specifically working with the method. Until this year he's been talking about it and now he's been talking about it, which is so interesting. And I think he has been trying to demythologize it in part because of all the baggage that he now carries around because of his career. But he went from. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. He performed on stage routinely from the late 70s through the mid-80s until his film career really started to take off. And then he reduced the amount of time he spent on stage.

[David Sims]

Well, he reduced it completely. Yes. He didn't freak out on stage and then he never tell that story away. All we know is that his dad had died and that he apparently kind of Lost it in the middle of being Hamlet during a scene with the ghost and left the stage and never returned and has never acted since.

[Sean Fennesee]

Right.

[David Sims]

And the whole thing with Daniel Day Lewis, as you sort of think, is everyone obsesses over every detail of his career in this way of, like, that he's so unique.

[Sean Fennesee]

Right.

[David Sims]

That it's like. And that could only happen a day, that he was so in it as Hamlet that he saw his own father or whatever, you know, and like, he couldn't do it. I don't know. I think he's talked about it maybe a little bit in terms of just. He couldn't.

[Sean Fennesee]

He wasn't.

[David Sims]

Doesn't like the stage aspect as much or. I don't know. But, like, that's the end of it. He's never, ever touched the stage again.

[Sean Fennesee]

So he has been. It's cool. Primarily a film actor entirely. It adds to that myth.

[David Sims]

I don't think he's ever done television.

[Sean Fennesee]

Some four BBC project, I guess.

[David Sims]

Like TV movies.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah, I think he may have done one or two. Episodic tv.

[David Sims]

What's the best show he could join now?

[Sean Fennesee]

Like.

[David Sims]

Like season six of the morning show. It's just like, you know, like.

[Sean Fennesee]

I mean, I would like to see him a pit. I think that that would be cool because he would bring a. An intensity that is appropriate and it.

[David Sims]

Would just be like, he's just still an ER doctor. Sure.

[Amanda Davins]

But then think of the lives he's saving.

[David Sims]

You know, maybe they're all like, he's not that good. He's just an actor. All the. All the other pit ER doctors.

[Sean Fennesee]

That's true. Peacemaker season three.

[David Sims]

Yeah, exactly.

[Amanda Davins]

What happens on the Peacemaker?

[David Sims]

They make peace.

[Amanda Davins]

Sure. But who's.

[Sean Fennesee]

You know, there are heroes confronting fascism.

[Amanda Davins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennesee]

And reckoning with its toll.

[Amanda Davins]

Superheroes that make peacemakers.

[David Sims]

I mean, I've only seen some of season one of Peacemaker. I keep meaning to fill that in because I'm told it's very important to understanding Superman or something.

[Sean Fennesee]

There are lots of relevant things, but.

[David Sims]

He'S like a knockoff Captain America guy who's shitty. Right. Like, he's like a sort of patriotic guy. John Cena, and it's mostly about him. Like, I feel like the show. In the movie he was in, he was sort of a villain, but in the show, he's kind of trying to chart some kind of path beyond villainy. Right. Like, I think sort of they are.

[Sean Fennesee]

I think the scene took a really strong turn into white nationalism. Right.

[Amanda Davins]

I sort of stopped listening.

[David Sims]

I think I sucked Into a nationalist universe or something. It's mostly I'm seeing Twitter memes.

[Sean Fennesee]

I gotta turn this show into a Peacemaker show. Just only recap.

[David Sims]

Peacemaker and just like a DCU Rumors show.

[Amanda Davins]

Oh, yeah. Great. And then my buddy Jim Gumm could just come and feel every single one. He could come in and be like.

[David Sims]

It'S not a Superman movie.

[Amanda Davins]

Let's tweet live from this show.

[Sean Fennesee]

I'm glad we're talking about Peacemaker Batman.

[David Sims]

Down to 40 guys, and I'll show you the list. But only far away, like this.

[Sean Fennesee]

Could DDL have been Batman? I say yes.

[Amanda Davins]

Sure. Oh, yeah. Well, it is the Hamlet of the modern time. No, but, like, you're.

[Sean Fennesee]

Thank you for saying that out loud.

[Amanda Davins]

I've said that before.

[David Sims]

Isn't Joker the Hamlet of the modern time? Well, in that there's two Oscar winners who have played the Joker, the clown issues.

[Amanda Davins]

And, you know, I'm taking on the mantle, but, like. And I'm rich, but, like, I'm really not happy about it. And the women around me keep dying.

[Sean Fennesee]

My dad's dead, and I live in.

[Amanda Davins]

A cave and stuff.

[David Sims]

Don't you love how Clooney plays it, though, where it's like, the women don't. It's just. He's like, I just don't really want to marry Elle McPherson. That's the extent of his drama in Batman and Robin. Batman, yeah. Could he play Batman?

[Sean Fennesee]

Sure.

[David Sims]

I wonder. Like, I doubt there was never even the vaguest approach to him, even in his 90s Hawkeye era. I don't know.

[Sean Fennesee]

But we will talk about the 90s and what could happen to be the shadow.

[David Sims]

Like, you know, like, not even forget, even like a costumed.

[Sean Fennesee]

Here you get the impression that he's never been intrigued by anything resembling commercial Hollywood.

[David Sims]

Who's his agent? Like, how does it work with him?

[Sean Fennesee]

You make it sound like I know the agents of all major stars.

[Amanda Davins]

Now.

[David Sims]

Tell me now.

[Amanda Davins]

He does feel like it's sort of a Bill Murray, like, line experience, but it's like instead of like a carrier pigeon, you know, like circles around for a while.

[David Sims]

It always feels like, right. You get.

[Sean Fennesee]

Someone whispers in the wind, and it makes its way across the. Across the world. Right?

[David Sims]

Like it was. Right.

[Sean Fennesee]

It was.

[David Sims]

Michael Mann, when I interviewed him for Ferrari, said, like, oh, yeah. When I was in London, I got dinner with Dan, and you're like, right, he's around. It's not like he lives.

[Amanda Davins]

He's a person. The last eight years, you were like, he's been in hiding and it's like, no, actually, he's just been like, wandering around the West Village looking cool as hell, you know, like, it's like the West Village girly. It's like, maybe he's doing Pilates for all I know.

[David Sims]

I think he might be hot Pilates. But yeah, like. And I think it's like you get dinner with him and back in the day when he was working more, maybe you would be like, you know, what if there was like a really weird fucking dressmaker? And he's like, I mean, I don't know how it works.

[Amanda Davins]

Well, let's talk. Can we talk about the shoes for a second? Because this is not like the first time he's quote unquote, stepped away from acting.

[Sean Fennesee]

Sure.

[Amanda Davins]

And for a while, for three years.

[David Sims]

Post the boxer pre gangs in New York.

[Amanda Davins]

Right. He was like, now I'm going to go be an apprentice to a shooter.

[David Sims]

I'm a shoe guy.

[Amanda Davins]

Have we ever seen the Italian shoes that he made?

[David Sims]

No, they get on ebay.

[Amanda Davins]

I mean, but have they been released? Like, do we know what kind of shoemaker? Do we know the style?

[Sean Fennesee]

Maybe they're just for him.

[Amanda Davins]

But. Okay, is he gifts for his family? That would. I would. What I'm saying is, like, I could be a customer, you know, I would be interested. And I don't know enough about the shoes.

[David Sims]

I. Look, you're Googling now, but I mean, I think the whole thing was that he was like, I like her craft. I liked learning at the foot of a genius, like, how to do this.

[Amanda Davins]

Okay. Stefano. I mean, these.

[David Sims]

I mean, these look like very nice Italian leather shoes.

[Amanda Davins]

Sure. You know, like the Italian John Lobb or whatever. I get it. I guess this is not really. He could make a nice loafer.

[Sean Fennesee]

For me, what you're describing is the excursions during the long periods of time between acting roles, particularly in the second half of his career. Because in the first half of his career, he's more or less working every year, right?

[David Sims]

Absolutely.

[Sean Fennesee]

A staple of, I would say, mostly British cinema.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

80S and early 90s. And then in the 90s, he kind of sort of becomes a movie star. And we'll talk through each film and everything. But, you know, you can see he's resistant to it, though.

[David Sims]

He's resistant to it, but he is starting with. I mean, we should go through it to pinpoint exactly. But it's sort of around Mohicans.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yes.

[David Sims]

It's like, yeah, he's a guy where it's like you put his face on the poster, you put his name above the title. I don't care if it's an RDR movie. Like, that will intrigue people.

[Sean Fennesee]

So we will go through every single movie here in this conversation. So it's not that many. It's not.

[Amanda Davins]

And some of them are weird.

[David Sims]

And some of them are weird.

[Sean Fennesee]

Some of them are weird. I have watched every single movie.

[Amanda Davins]

I have not because I slept through my alarm. I'm sorry.

[David Sims]

It's totally fine.

[Sean Fennesee]

Some of them are very negligible. We'll get to those movies. But some of them are, like, some of the great acting achievements on screen over the last 40 years, legitimately, the whole thing.

[David Sims]

And we have to talk about, like. Well, we'll talk about lots of things. But, you know, when you. When we were thinking, like, okay, what's a podcast? We. I wanted to do a hall of fame, and we were looking at guys on the release calendar and girls. Guys and gals.

[Sean Fennesee]

We were.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And we hit on. Oh, no. And I was like, oh, let me see. Like, which I haven't seen. It was like, five movies. I've seen most of his movies.

[Amanda Davins]

There aren't. There are a lot, but there aren't that many. But they are, as you said, some of the great screen performances. But I wouldn't say that this is a hall of fame of, like, the greatest complete works.

[Sean Fennesee]

They're movies that were built around him. Yeah. And at a certain point in his career, there is where it sort of becomes like, well, you've got Daniel Day Lewis. And so with that, like, the bar has been raised in terms of how much you'll be able to make this movie work, even if the movie doesn't come together the way you want it to.

[David Sims]

He's in several. He's in a few, like, great, great, great films. But you're right that it's not right. It's. It's. It's often, well, okay, more of like a very good or very interesting. I don't know. He's in a lot of movies I love.

[Sean Fennesee]

What do you guys think defines him as an actor? Not as a star, but as an actor.

[David Sims]

It's just super chill.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah, well, we know.

[Sean Fennesee]

We know that he applies the method. Right. That he stays in character during. On set. But you wouldn't know that unless someone told you that. Right.

[Amanda Davins]

Like, but at some point, someone did tell us that. And I do think that we watch every performance now knowing that I can't divorce my, like, my understanding of him from.

[David Sims]

He's been shrouded in that for me since I was a teenager. Gangster New York would probably be the first movie he was in that I was like, you know, a plugged in film fan. Right. Like, but he doesn't play normal guys and we're going to talk about it, but like, this is a filmography. There's only a couple times he played kind of like a contemporary guy who like lives in a house and goes around being normal.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah, right.

[David Sims]

Yep. That's how it works.

[Sean Fennesee]

Just like me, a normal guy who goes around, lives in a house being normal.

[David Sims]

He tends to do period movies. He tends to do movies where there's. You can sense a transformation, even if it's like not as extreme. Like, even if it's not big makeup or like you can just sense that, like accent. You sense it.

[Sean Fennesee]

Facial hair.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And it's like he and Meryl Streep, I feel like, were the, the kings of this when I was a kid of like the two actors where you're like, they're always doing something and with Meryl it was usually a big accent or something. Or white water rafting.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah, yeah. And with him, river was wild.

[David Sims]

It was so wild. And with him it would be like, oh, he's going to do, you know, kind of like a quiet drama about like sort of what happened to the young people in the IRA who got out of prison. But he also fucking got ripped and is like a champion boxer now. You know what I mean? Like, it was like it could never just be this Anemone is one of the sleepiest, smallest movies he's ever made. And even then it feels he's immersed in it. I mean, he probably went off and lived in the woods. Has he talked about.

[Sean Fennesee]

I don't think he talked about the problem. I think he's maybe trying to avoid getting kind of bound by that. Yeah.

[Amanda Davins]

But this seems one of the easier ones of like he had a little house in the woods.

[David Sims]

Yeah, Sounds great.

[Amanda Davins]

You know, saw the, like, I understand how he made his food. You know, they have displayed all of that in the film.

[David Sims]

So I probably have to think about it.

[Sean Fennesee]

I don't know, maybe I'm maybe a little warmer towards anemone for that reason.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And not funny.

[Sean Fennesee]

Not funny. Not funny, though efforts toward funny in the filmography that maybe I wasn't familiar with.

[David Sims]

He. And he can be in movies that are funny and that kind of play off his seriousness in funny ways. I don't think he's particularly good at comedy.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yes.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah. And there is also, also true of.

[David Sims]

Meryl until she kind of unlocked it.

[Sean Fennesee]

Later in life for A long time. Yes.

[Amanda Davins]

So Meryl is a key reference point. There's a quote from Colin Firth, who stars in your favorite film, Mamma Mia.

[Sean Fennesee]

I haven't seen it.

[David Sims]

Worst movie I ever liked.

[Sean Fennesee]

That's how it is.

[Amanda Davins]

So at the end of Mamma Mia. I'm sorry to spoil this for you, Sean.

[David Sims]

Have we really not seen Mamma Mia.

[Amanda Davins]

Thorf.

[David Sims]

Now it's pretty easy.

[Sean Fennesee]

And we were not to interrupt you. We were talking about pop music and our kids the other day. And actually the one that my daughter does like in pop music is abba. That is the one.

[David Sims]

One time my wife was in the car with me. I'm sorry. And then you should. And was like, you know, I don't really know ABBA that well. And I was like, yeah, you do. And she was like, no, I don't. I was like, okay, well like Syria play abba. And we are gonna go through every song until we hit one you don't recognize. And it took like 14 songs.

[Amanda Davins]

It would have been really fun if your phone just started playing on right now. Anyway, so again, spoiler. After the dramatic events of the film have concluded, there is like a credits to act on scene where they are all in like the most bell bottom. See bell bottom.

[Sean Fennesee]

They're doing Waterloo.

[Amanda Davins]

And going for it. And. And Colin Firth is like, here's the thing about all actors, like in our essence, we just want to like dress up in like very silly clothes and like dance around to Waterloo. He was like, this has. And Meryl Streep is in it too. So like, there is something about being a theater kid actors that it's like, let's be smart. This is really what you want. You want to express yourself. And Daniel Day Lewis does not have that gene. Like, he's not trying to have fun to ABBA at like any point. There is nothing silly about.

[David Sims]

We're talking about the one exception. He tried it and it's very tough. Yes, it really did not work.

[Sean Fennesee]

He literally does sing and dance in a movie.

[David Sims]

He tried. He really gave it. And maybe he did it because he was like, I can do.

[Sean Fennesee]

I can try this.

[David Sims]

I've never done that.

[Sean Fennesee]

So your entry point was Gangs of New York. Do you remember the first time you saw him on screen?

[Amanda Davins]

Probably Age of Innocence, right?

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah. I was trying to think if I.

[David Sims]

That's why I quit my family.

[Sean Fennesee]

I must have been shown in the name of the father.

[David Sims]

I. I can't remember when I saw that. I might have seen like the Crucible in school, like something like that. But I do think Gangs in New York was probably the first time I was properly keyed into him as a movie fan. And then I went backwards and forwards, obviously.

[Sean Fennesee]

I would say that the My Left Foot year is probably right around an early intro to Oscars for me. Really? Because I'm so older than you.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

And so I'm like. I can picture my mom sitting on the couch thinking of talking about his performance, how he transformed, and that's, what, 89. 89.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

I was too young, so. Okay, well. Well, he's won three Academy Awards.

[Amanda Davins]

Sure.

[Sean Fennesee]

He's been nominated, I believe, for six. So he's won for My Left Foot, There Will Be Blood and Lincoln. That makes this a little bit easier as an exercise when you have three of these. I don't know if we've ever talked about anyone who has three acting awards for this.

[Amanda Davins]

Frances McDormand.

[David Sims]

Katharine Hepburn.

[Amanda Davins]

Katharine Hepburn, who I nominated. But we missed all the anniversaries, and Sean wouldn't make her brownies, and I.

[Sean Fennesee]

Said I would do her next year, though.

[David Sims]

Is she gonna, like, be 100 next year?

[Sean Fennesee]

No, there's no round number. We'll just.

[Amanda Davins]

And then is Meryl at three or three.

[David Sims]

And her third was so egregious, but.

[Sean Fennesee]

And Meryl will have a hall of fame when devil wears Prada 2 comes out.

[Amanda Davins]

Oh, that's very exciting. And let me tell you what should have gotten an Oscar. Is Devil Wears Prada one.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yes. And not the Iron Lady. She probably will get one for two.

[Amanda Davins]

You think so?

[Sean Fennesee]

No.

[Amanda Davins]

Okay, well, I just.

[David Sims]

Listen, maybe she's amazing at it.

[Sean Fennesee]

I don't know. She might be. Maybe.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah. But who else. Who else are we missing with this?

[David Sims]

There's not that many. I mean, I think there's that guy who did it three times early. Is it Brennan? Walter Brennan or what? You know, there's some character actor in the 30s and 40s who picked up three Oscars, but, you know, we don't think about him in the same way.

[Amanda Davins]

Nicholson.

[David Sims]

Nicholson has three for Cuckoo's Nest, Terms of Endearment, as Good As It Gets. That was good. Ingrid Bergman has at least two.

[Amanda Davins]

And then she has Murder on the Orient Express.

[David Sims]

Yeah, she did win an Oscar.

[Amanda Davins]

That's a choice they made.

[David Sims]

Guys, do it. She's all right in it.

[Amanda Davins]

Okay. I mean, she's okay, but, you know.

[David Sims]

She'S fine in it.

[Sean Fennesee]

Who's that?

[Amanda Davins]

Ingrid Bergman, Murder on the Orient Express.

[Sean Fennesee]

Oh, that's a phony win. But she's a genius. She's the legend.

[David Sims]

I mean, Obviously she doesn't deserve it.

[Sean Fennesee]

No, no, no, no. But that's a. That's a. That's a silly, silly.

[David Sims]

It was a bit of a sort of like, oh, my God, you're still here. I mean, I like that movie. Okay.

[Sean Fennesee]

She should have won for. What's the Rossellini? Journey to Italy. That's an incredible performance.

[David Sims]

That is one of my favorite movies of all time.

[Sean Fennesee]

Such a great movie.

[David Sims]

And that's when she was. She was tarred and feathered because she was, you know, cheating on her husband.

[Sean Fennesee]

Cheating on. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Okay. The Big Tuna. That's what I call Rossellini.

[Sean Fennesee]

The Big Tuna.

[David Sims]

Well, he was a big guy and he made this movie, Stromboli, which is all about Tuna hunter. Sure. I call him the Big Tuna Hunter.

[Sean Fennesee]

Okay.

[David Sims]

The Big Tuna.

[Sean Fennesee]

I like that.

[Amanda Davins]

You were talking to me about the other night. Oh, my sister in law, Ruthie was. Because she was in Sicily. And then she's like. And then I watched Stromboli.

[David Sims]

Stromboli rocks. She did?

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

That movie rocks.

[Amanda Davins]

Shout out Ruthie.

[Sean Fennesee]

Ruthie, a woman of taste.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah. I didn't get to shout her out during the live podcast, but I shouted out her parents.

[David Sims]

So I said hi to her backstage.

[Sean Fennesee]

Ddl, also nominated for in the Name of the Father, Gangs of New York and Phantom Thread.

[David Sims]

And that's it. It's six total. That's interesting. I probably so I'm like, I'm wondering.

[Sean Fennesee]

Because I do see him in this tradition of great English actors. Laurence Olivier, the kind of Richard Harris, Richard Burton, Robert Shaw, Oliver Reed, that whole wing of guys. And then John Gielgud, this whole histor historical run of folks. Peter o' Toole, I think is a good.

[David Sims]

Almost everyone you're naming is the other kind of actor. Where they're like, I get shit faced until they call action. Where DDL is like, I learn how to make houses out of trees and live in the woods for a year. Peter o' Toole is like, I go to the bar and I load up, like. And then I'm ready to be fucking, you know, that's how I podcast.

[Sean Fennesee]

There's nothing wrong with that.

[David Sims]

My favorite.

[Sean Fennesee]

That's my message.

[David Sims]

And it's just so interesting to think about those guys because you think about Olivier. The famous thing with Marathon man where he to Dustin Hoffman, he's like, why don't you just try acting? Dustin Hoffman's deep in the Method. And Olivia's like, what is this? And that's why Daniel Day Lewis sticks out to me as a Brit. Because I feel like Brits usually don't tolerate that kind of tomfoolery.

[Sean Fennesee]

So I think there is one common, and it's an unusual one because this is an actor who is known for franchise work and comedy. But I think Alec Guinness is actually an interesting match for him because Alec Innis was a Transformer. He was a person who turned into characters and disappeared and used prosthetics and changed his facial hair. Right. And he fought the Decepticons and he certainly did that. Bridge.

[David Sims]

I said this on Blank Check recently. I think he is one of the. You can easily make a case. Greatest screen actor who ever lived.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah. There's more varied filmography and achievements in every decade.

[David Sims]

But he couldn't beat Darth Vader.

[Sean Fennesee]

He. He couldn't, but his spirit did. Okay, ddl, let's, let's talk about the films. So we're going to go through every movie, I want to say, Is it roughly 20 films? I think it's 21 films. The first two are very easy to discount. Yeah, we can be a little. The thing is, is like when you've got like seven bang on classics.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's like 22.

[Sean Fennesee]

22.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

There is some TV stuff. I actually did go back and watch a couple of the TV films that he made which are. You can see what his screen Persona. My brother Jonathan is one of the first. It's like a miniseries that he made for the BBC.

[Amanda Davins]

I was like, you don't have a brother.

[Sean Fennesee]

My brother Jonathan.

[Amanda Davins]

Hi Kyle.

[Sean Fennesee]

And all that stuff is interesting. Prior to all of that work, he has a walk on part in John Schlesinger's Sunday Bloody Sunday, which is fascinating because I guess Peter Finch is maybe another guy that he has some things in common with.

[David Sims]

I bet you Peter Finch was something of a, you know, idol or not like a model. Yeah, right. Another like mega intense young British actor who like sort of was like startlingly emotional on screen. And he's in. Yeah, yeah. That's an interesting comp.

[Sean Fennesee]

Then in 1982, 11 years later, after he has been studying and working on stage, he gets a small one scene part in Gandhi where he plays a man named Colin, a racist thug on the streets who insults Gandhi.

[David Sims]

Mahatma Gandhi.

[Sean Fennesee]

Mahatma Gandhi. And I tell you what, he sticks out in the movie. It's a very memorable two minutes in this film.

[David Sims]

It's actually really. Yeah, it's an affecting scene. Do you like Gandhi?

[Sean Fennesee]

I don't.

[David Sims]

Gandhi's a movie that like, I grew up in England. You're Shown that film in school because it's like this very kind of straightforward, kind of like, here's this guy's life. You need to know about it. Movie. And I have a bit of a soft spot for it because I love those. Like, just everything is on screen. You know, it's so many people like the.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah. The scale.

[David Sims]

But it's a pretty. Yeah, it's a straightforward movie. It's not the most.

[Sean Fennesee]

It is one of the early examples I could think of of a movie that. That starts at the end.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

And then goes. Because it starts with Gandhi's funeral. And then it's like, how do we get here? Let's go back to the very first day of this guy's life, basically. And then it walks for three hours. And his life is remarkable. There's no doubt. And it is worthy of a movie.

[David Sims]

Is amazing.

[Sean Fennesee]

He's great. He's phenomenal. You know, a very famous Oscar win for him there. A somewhat controversial one. Okay. So Gandhi, obviously not going in either because of the. The size of that part. 1984's the Bounty. I just watched this for the first time. So this is the third Hollywood remake of Mutiny on the Bounty, and I would say a fairly successful movie.

[David Sims]

It's a pretty. Is it Donaldson?

[Sean Fennesee]

It's Roger Donaldson.

[David Sims]

I watched it a few years ago. I did a podcast where we were drafting. They were ripping you guys off. 80s. God bless. They're nice boys. 80s Cannes blockbusters. And that counted. It was basically like big budget movies that were at canvas. Right.

[Sean Fennesee]

80S cannon.

[Amanda Davins]

That's really specific.

[David Sims]

And I had to watch a bunch of movies like that that were sort of a little lost to memory. Like, it's a total. It's what? So it's Anthony Hopkins.

[Sean Fennesee]

Anthony Hopkins. And Mel Gibson.

[David Sims]

And Mel Gibson.

[Sean Fennesee]

And two tremendously intense performances from Hopkins and Gibson.

[David Sims]

The whole thing with Mutiny on the Bounty is it's just. It's a great opportunity for like a little bit of an older guy, a little bit of a young buck and.

[Sean Fennesee]

A big stack of ham. Like, you can just bite right into it.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Put him in their navy whites and their hats, and you have him in the courtroom going like, well, I never did a Mutiny on the Bounty. And then you cut to the Bounty. I'm gonna do a Mutiny on the Bounty. And it's fun. It always works. They could do it again. Who's that now?

[Sean Fennesee]

I mean, it's still Anthony Hopkins.

[David Sims]

He's just asleep in a chair. They're like, we gotta kick this guy off.

[Sean Fennesee]

The young guys. The Harris Dickinsons and the Paul Mescals. They don't want to yell back at their elders. That's the gladiator. Exactly.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah. They're getting stoned and being the Beatles.

[Sean Fennesee]

That's right.

[Amanda Davins]

Which is fine.

[David Sims]

I thought I was supposed to meet.

[Amanda Davins]

You in the Criterion closet.

[Sean Fennesee]

Right. Daniel Day Lewis in the Bounty plays a man named John Fryer. He's essentially one of the first mates. The sort of like lieutenant to Captain Bly. No, but he's not a bad guy. He's like. He supports Hopkins character, and it's just kind of like he's like the Bebop and Rocksteady to Shredder, you know, like. And it's a. He's. He's fine. I thought this was a pretty good Mel Gibson performance.

[David Sims]

Yeah, well, those 80s, you know what.

[Amanda Davins]

You have been saying? Like, we forget we've been saying that, like, a lot on the podcast. And listen, it's not an endorsement of anything that comes out.

[Sean Fennesee]

Seems like a horrible person, but he was a really good movie star.

[Amanda Davins]

Just like. Well, this was pretty charming.

[David Sims]

When you see 80s Gibson, right, it's the mix of, like, man, the guy looks great. He's super charming, but. But also just raw nerve stuff pops off the screen. You can understand why everyone was like, give me that gum. Get that guy.

[Sean Fennesee]

Okay. 1984's the Bounty. Red.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

Okay, so we got three straight reds. 1985. My beautiful laundrette. So this is the breakthrough, right? This is the. Who's that Stephen Frears drama that I think is now probably best known as a Daniel Day Lewis movie to most people. Even though he's like, maybe the third.

[David Sims]

Lead, he's almost supporting.

[Sean Fennesee]

I mean, he's.

[David Sims]

I would call him. But yeah, because Roshan Seth, the. The guy who plays the dad is. Is. Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

Kind of also has a big heart, right?

[David Sims]

Yeah. Yeah, but he. I mean, that movie rocks. That movie's pretty canonical in Britain. I don't know. I guess it's not.

[Sean Fennesee]

Not as much here.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah, not as much.

[David Sims]

Like, that's like a pretty classic, like, sort of breakthrough indie sort of dramedy, whatever. Like, obviously it's an early story, like, gay story in British cinema, like, you know, earlyish. But. And it's.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

I guess it's mostly famous because he's just so good looking. Like, he's just so charming and handsome in it and, like, again, like, raw nerve kind of stuff. Right. Like, I don't know, he's a challenge.

[Sean Fennesee]

To the protagonist kind of throughout the movie and, like, activates the movie halfway through. I.

[David Sims]

You didn't like.

[Sean Fennesee]

No, I did. I'd seen it before. I'd seen it some years ago. I don't know if it's yellow.

[Amanda Davins]

It.

[David Sims]

I think it has to be yellow.

[Sean Fennesee]

And it for sure will be green.

[David Sims]

I think it will be. Well, we're dealing with this thing with. It's top heavy with him, though. Sorry.

[Amanda Davins]

No, no, no. It's just, you know, you do like to honor the breakthrough.

[Sean Fennesee]

I do.

[Amanda Davins]

So this is the breakthrough. We can yellow it. There's another 1985 movie that we should. That I would like to talk about.

[David Sims]

We should talk about that. But just last long. It's like he's got the punky thing in it. Right. And I feel like that's something. He never lets go of that. Even when he's mostly doing period pieces and stuff. Like, he always has that kind of, like, weird outsidery.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, when you're considering the. The arc of Daniel and to your.

[Sean Fennesee]

Point earlier, like, one of the few contemporarily set.

[David Sims]

Yes. One of his own.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah. Okay. Yellow for my beautiful Laundrette. We will come back to that 1985 a room with a View.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah. Which you just saw for the first time three weeks ago.

[Sean Fennesee]

No.

[Amanda Davins]

And he was like, it's fine.

[Sean Fennesee]

I thought it was.

[Amanda Davins]

I know. Thank you so much. Thank you. It's so beautiful.

[David Sims]

It's one of my favorite movies.

[Amanda Davins]

During the pandemic, you had a bunch of filmmakers on to recommend, like, one Criterion type thing. And who was it who was like A Room with a View? That's. That's where it's at.

[Sean Fennesee]

I can't recall. But you're right that someone did recommend.

[Amanda Davins]

It and someone was like. That is what, like, swooning sex appeal is all about.

[Sean Fennesee]

But might have been Barry Jenkins.

[Amanda Davins]

It is not located in the Daniel Day character, you know, which is interesting.

[David Sims]

To twin it with Laundrette, where he's so sexy and he is like the most dickless.

[Amanda Davins]

This is like the priggish, uptight, you know, which is like another vein that he kind of skirts back and forth with throughout the career. I mean, it's like. It's not his movie, but he is.

[David Sims]

So good in it.

[Amanda Davins]

He's great in it.

[David Sims]

But yes, he's sort of a antagonist or problem character. I don't know how to describe him.

[Amanda Davins]

I mean, that just sucks that you don't like it.

[Sean Fennesee]

I didn't say I don't like it.

[David Sims]

Where are you on Merchant Ivory?

[Sean Fennesee]

Generally fine. And by no means an expert. I haven't seen all the 70s films.

[David Sims]

Like should we meet in a year and just have done them all. Like.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yes, I've seen most of the. I've seen all of the 90s prestige. Sure.

[David Sims]

Right. You've seen the Big boys like Howards.

[Sean Fennesee]

Remains for years on the show. This was a big open spot for me that I had never filled. And I think it's just one of those things where there's a weight of expectations. Right. When someone like Amanda is like, this is one of the best films of that decade. One of the best films in this style. Not like a huge E.M. forster fan. So like, that's not really like my favorite style of storytelling.

[Amanda Davins]

Sure.

[Sean Fennesee]

I thought it was good.

[Amanda Davins]

He doesn't really relate to like young women trying to break out of the strictures.

[Sean Fennesee]

No.

[David Sims]

He thinks stay in their place. Just keep them right there in the home until they get married and put them in a brand new kitchen.

[Amanda Davins]

Right.

[David Sims]

They can't leave down on any of.

[Sean Fennesee]

Them floors that are cleaned every morning.

[David Sims]

It's just a. I mean, it's a.

[Sean Fennesee]

Weird for him though, because it is. Yeah. He doesn't come in until 45 minutes in. He's playing off of the Julian. The allure of the Julian Sands character.

[Amanda Davins]

Which is the late, great Julian Sands.

[David Sims]

Which is interesting because. Right. Julian Sands is playing a role that Daniel Day Lewis can play or probably. Probably was aspiring to do more of.

[Sean Fennesee]

But he's the buttoned up, he's the glasses.

[Amanda Davins]

But this is also period piece, like very mannered, which is something that he gravitates towards. So it's not DDL's movie, but it is a DDL esque movie, 100%.

[Sean Fennesee]

He fits perfectly in the movie. But he's usually playing the sans character. He will play the sans character in a couple of examples.

[David Sims]

DDL is. He is default. A reedy guy with kind of this thin English face. He's so English. And then you see him like resisting that. Being like. No, no, I'm. I am Irish too. My dad, you know, like my heritage. Which is understandable. But then you'll see him like change his body and try to like. But you put him in a little Edwardian suit or whatever. He looks the part.

[Sean Fennesee]

He does.

[David Sims]

He does, yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

So what do we do with this?

[David Sims]

I think it should be yellow just because. Right.

[Sean Fennesee]

One of the best movies he's ever been in. Canonically.

[David Sims]

I would say maybe. Yes, but.

[Sean Fennesee]

Right.

[Amanda Davins]

But he's out of respect. You can yell at it.

[Sean Fennesee]

Okay. We will yellow and return to it so much.

[Amanda Davins]

I love it, too.

[David Sims]

It might be my favorite. I think it might be Merchant Ivory.

[Amanda Davins]

I don't know.

[Sean Fennesee]

I don't know.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

It's got the more kind of early Merchant Ivory where it's just a little more romantic. The 90s ones where it's, like, all about, like, one tremor of emotion every two hours. You know what you admire?

[Sean Fennesee]

The scene in the lake when they're all stripping down and chasing each other.

[Amanda Davins]

I was like, this is.

[Sean Fennesee]

You don't usually see this. No.

[David Sims]

That's what Rocks about.

[Sean Fennesee]

But I haven't seen, like, the Bostonians, the Wild Party. Like, I haven't seen any of those movies.

[David Sims]

I mean, I need a reason to see some of them. Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

1986. This is a very. I think this is a hard film to find. It was a hard film to find on physical media. It's called Nanu. It's a French romantic drama, sort of. Sort of dramedy.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

And again, Daniel Day Lewis plays a very strange part where he plays the boyfriend who is, I guess, being cuckolded.

[David Sims]

Sure.

[Sean Fennesee]

Or is going to be cuckolded. And the film is sort of about this challenging decision for the female lead, Imogen Stubbs.

[David Sims]

Imogen Stubbs, who is kind of like. She's like a big British theater actor. She was kind of like a medium deal. You know what I mean? She's in the Twelfth Night, Trevor Nunn movie. She's in Sense and Sensibility, but she was never quite on the level of an Emma Thompson or whatever. The big crossover Brits were a rare.

[Sean Fennesee]

Example of a film written and directed by a woman in 1980s England. That did not happen.

[David Sims]

You're not happy about that.

[Sean Fennesee]

Why were she not on those linoleum floors? Is what I said when this film was announced in 1986.

[David Sims]

Connie Templeman, the only movie I think she ever made.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yes. Ultimately, it's a French film. It's not. There is English language in it, but it feels French in its pacing and its style. And it has been kind of disappearing from the Daniel Day Lewis history, even though it comes in the aftermath of two big British classics. And it's not going in.

[David Sims]

It's gonna be a red.

[Sean Fennesee]

He's fine. It's not. It's barely. It relates to.

[David Sims]

Yeah. A movie we're gonna discuss soon.

[Amanda Davins]

So you hate women and fake people.

[Sean Fennesee]

I don't hate anyone.

[David Sims]

Has he been in. How many other movies has he been in? Directed by a woman? Is that the only.

[Sean Fennesee]

Well, his wife directed.

[David Sims]

His wife did direct him that's right. I think that's the only other one.

[Sean Fennesee]

I think that's it.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Amanda Davins]

Yep.

[Sean Fennesee]

1988'S the Unbearable Lightness of Being.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

Okay.

[David Sims]

So I'd never seen this movie.

[Sean Fennesee]

I probably haven't seen it in 20 years.

[David Sims]

I had watched, and I remember this very clearly, about 45 minutes of it in a Virgin Megastore once, where it was just playing on a TV and it had boobs.

[Amanda Davins]

Okay.

[David Sims]

I was probably about 14 or 15 years old. And it was also a movie.

[Sean Fennesee]

They were playing this movie on the uk. There's a couple of sex scenes in this movie that are really intense.

[David Sims]

Absolutely.

[Amanda Davins]

But in the uk.

[David Sims]

But Divergent magazines were so cavernous, and you would just sort of find yourself in the art housey kind of, and there would just be, you know, stuff playing on the. You know.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

And I remember watching it for a while but not really knowing what was going on.

[Sean Fennesee]

Sweet Jesus.

[David Sims]

Well, the whole thing with this movie is it's about the gals. Like, it's about Julie Pinoche and Lena Olin. And this is like, his first big lead in a way, legitimately, and he's totally fine in it, but he feels like, a little, like, anonymous.

[Sean Fennesee]

Well, so I haven't read this novel. This novel is a Milan Kunder novel that is hugely celebrated and is the way it was described. And what I was reading about it last night is that it is simultaneously this kind of sweeping romantic drama set during a time of great historical change. A very common setting for a big story that's during the Prague Spring and the kind of retrenchment of Communist power inside of Czechoslovakia. And also, you know, a film about educated people being kind of, like, stripped of their livelihood during a time of revolution. But that the novel itself is kind of almost like, self aware of its own tropes. And there's a kind of knowingness in the writing that makes it a standard bearer of, like, postmodern fiction as well as historical fiction. And that the movie is just an adaptation of historical fiction. Right. It's just a romantic drama.

[David Sims]

It sheds a lot of the literary. You're right.

[Amanda Davins]

I did read this novel, like, freshman or sophomore year of college, which, like, time wise, you know, in my journey. Exactly. And it was like, handed to me as someone who was, like, exploring the metatextual aspects of literature, but also, you know, was in 101, so. And then I think I did see the movie then as well, and this was the one that I was gonna rewatch this morning and didn't get to but yes, it is. The movie is sort of like the English Patient. It's just the plot, not any of the structure and the linguistic and the literary aspects of the movie.

[David Sims]

Philip Kaufman movie.

[Sean Fennesee]

Philip Kaufman.

[David Sims]

It's his follow up to write stuff.

[Sean Fennesee]

Right.

[David Sims]

It's like he makes Wright stuff and he's like, okay, baby, I get to do my Czech sex movie. Well, check sex.

[Sean Fennesee]

It's a weird thing in Kaufman's career because in the 70s, gets fired off Josie Whale and he bounces around in terms of the kinds of movies that he makes where he makes Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake, which is fabulous. Great. Minnesota, Northfield Raid.

[David Sims]

Awesome movie.

[Sean Fennesee]

He makes the Wanderers, a movie about gangs, leather boys. Not cruising leather boys, but leather boys. And he seems to have this interest in a lot of different kinds of stories. Raiders of the Lost Ark. Famously contributed, didn't contribute. And then after this movie, he makes a bunch of movies like this movie.

[David Sims]

What does he make?

[Sean Fennesee]

He makes Henry and June.

[David Sims]

Oh, yeah, right. He goes Euro.

[Sean Fennesee]

He makes quills. Yeah, he makes Rising Sun.

[David Sims]

Well, that one's.

[Sean Fennesee]

These are all, like, erotic.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

Foreign thriller dramas.

[David Sims]

Yes, yes.

[Sean Fennesee]

Hemingway and Gellhorn.

[Amanda Davins]

Oh, sure, yeah, yeah. That's Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

And this movie kind of just like resets the course for him. And I don't know if that's the stuff he could make because of the underground, terrible lightness of being or whatever. This was a very celebrated movie in its time.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it got Oscar nominations. Yes. It was a thing. I feel like it. It launched both Lena Olin and Juliet Binoche is like, sort of pseudo Hollywood people. Like, they were kind of like half in Europe, half in Hollywood people. They're the things. He's a hot doctor who.

[Sean Fennesee]

I. I think he's good in this because he's good. I don't think he's really ever done this, except for maybe one other movie where he is just like the heartthrob. Like, he is just like. Like bagging women and like, with a look. You know, the film opens with him saying, you know, take off your clothes to a nurse in. In a hospital whilst there is a surgery happening in the room next door. And he's a doctor.

[David Sims]

Yeah, but.

[Sean Fennesee]

Right.

[David Sims]

It's about a guy who's kind of like, I'm just here to fuck. And like, as, you know, the weighty events mount, he's eventually confronts, like, maybe I'm not just here to fuck.

[Amanda Davins]

Right, right. But all of his other characters, he is. It's the anomaly because the rest of the time. It's like, he's like, I would like to fuck, but I have other things going on. You know? And this sort of. You're, like, pulling me away from.

[Sean Fennesee]

Right.

[David Sims]

He's rarely sex forward.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah. And like, even Phantom Thread is about the way in which, like, I think, is it, like, about Daniel Day Lewis and his appeal to women characters and the, you know, it's like, it's complicated.

[Sean Fennesee]

He's withholding his essence in that movie. And in this movie, he's like, let me get my essence on you.

[Amanda Davins]

Which is.

[David Sims]

He's got bucking and everything.

[Amanda Davins]

That is like, part of his, his thing.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yes. And I wonder if he maybe very purposefully was like, no more Lotharios after this.

[David Sims]

He may have found it whatever, like, a little uninteresting or. I did that already, I guess, like. But I do. It's a, It's a pretty good movie.

[Sean Fennesee]

I agree.

[Amanda Davins]

Style irl, you know?

[David Sims]

No.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah. So that's the other thing, right.

[Sean Fennesee]

Like, I don't.

[David Sims]

He dated Isabella Johnny for years, and then that relationship fell apart and he met Rebecca Miller, I think, when he was doing the Crucible. Right. Like, he meets her through Arthur Miller. Arthur Miller was like, hey, meet my daughter. I get.

[Sean Fennesee]

Right.

[David Sims]

Like, that's the. I believe that's what happens. And, like, that's all I know of his love. Like, since then, he's just been married to Rebecca Miller. And, like, so, yeah, him and Isabella Johnny. That doesn't sound like a chill. Those are two very intense, cool, serious actors. Like, what did they. Did they do the crossword together? Like, it's hard to imagine you'd be surprised.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah, I guess, I guess.

[Sean Fennesee]

So Amanda does a crossword. You know, she's an intense type.

[David Sims]

She's just a ball lightning.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah, I, I do spelling be.

[Sean Fennesee]

But spelling be great. I think the unbearable being will go in.

[David Sims]

But I, I, I think we should yellow it just, just because we're just feeling.

[Sean Fennesee]

Have you ever gotten this far without a green?

[David Sims]

I just feel like we're anticipating all of the juggernauty things, but there aren't that many movies, I guess.

[Amanda Davins]

Newman.

[Sean Fennesee]

Maybe we did go a few.

[Amanda Davins]

We went like a. There was like a. Yeah.

[David Sims]

Because he's got a long run and.

[Amanda Davins]

You were itchy because you kept being like, no, no, no, no. But we need to have the first one.

[Sean Fennesee]

What was the first one? Hustler? I can't remember what the first one was.

[David Sims]

You were like Paris Blues. Paris Blues. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

Definitely not the Silver Chalice. That didn't that didn't go in. No. Yeah, okay. 1988. Stars and bars. Now, I had not seen this before.

[David Sims]

This was the one I was pumped for. I hadn't heard of this movie, but I had read the book.

[Amanda Davins]

What, William Lloyd.

[David Sims]

I read this book because my mom. I've never heard of Void, who wrote lots of this kind of stuff.

[Amanda Davins]

One of Juliette Lemon's favorite authors.

[David Sims]

Kind of light comedy stuff like Antic, usually about being a sort of transatlantic person, which is what he was London, New Yorky kind of guy. And I just would. I read this book when I was a teenager, and it's like a Farsi kind of book about, oh, British guy ends up in the south, and he's an art dealer, but in the south, they all just make barbecue or what. An evolved look at American. The American South. I don't really remember it. And then I learned that, yeah, they had made a movie of it with Daniel Day Lewis. And this movie kicks off. Did you watch this movie?

[Sean Fennesee]

I did watch this movie on the plane to New York.

[Amanda Davins]

Sure.

[David Sims]

Did you watch this movie? I mean, that's fine. It's not good.

[Sean Fennesee]

It's bad. Would you agree with me?

[David Sims]

It was quite awful? It was directed by what's his name, Pat o', Connor, who's like, a guy who made a lot of, like, okay, movies. Like, I should. Look, I should just triple check, like, his resume.

[Sean Fennesee]

But it's like January Man. Zelda. Circle of Friends.

[David Sims]

Circle of Friends.

[Sean Fennesee]

Inventing the Abbotts.

[David Sims]

He went through the whole 90s making those kinds of movies.

[Sean Fennesee]

Dancing at Lug Nassau.

[David Sims]

We're going to the mat for Circle of Friends.

[Amanda Davins]

We're going to the mat for Inventing the Abbot.

[David Sims]

Inventing the Abbotts is a cool Tyler.

[Amanda Davins]

Joaquin Phoenix was powerful stuff.

[David Sims]

They were hot. They were hot. But it's like one of the, you know, he would make kind of like, you know, mid budgety kind of drama, right. Stuff with young stars. But I want to read the cast because it's crazy. Did you have this experience when the. Just the credits were rolling?

[Sean Fennesee]

I only knew because I looked beforehand.

[David Sims]

Daniel Day Lewis, Harry Dean Stanton, Maury Chaykin, Joan Cusack, Keith David Spalding Gray, Glenn Headley, Laurie Metcalfe, Deidre o', Connell, Will Patton, Martha Plimpton. You know, like, it was. I was just like, how bad Steven Wright's in it? You know, like, this will be fun, right? Like, look at all these heavy hitters.

[Sean Fennesee]

It sucks. It's really not good. And it is in part because it is meant to be a fish out of water. Comedy day. Lewis isn't very funny. He's just not very funny.

[David Sims]

It's the one thing I watch. Like, he's really bad in this. He's mismatched or whatever. He doesn't have a handle on what he's supposed to be doing. Every scene is just him going, oh, yes, well, I suppose so. While someone is like, hey, hey, partner, how you doing? He's like, oh, dear, oh dear. You know, it's just that over and over and over again.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah. I hope you bring back more of your DDL impressions throughout the rest of this episode.

[David Sims]

Obviously he had played sort of stiff upper lip British guys before. Mostly Rumor.

[Sean Fennesee]

The View. Yeah. Not modern guys though.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Sean Fennesee]

This is a contemporary movie as well.

[David Sims]

It is. But I mean, like, the movie itself is kind of so half assed that you're like, maybe there wasn't anything for him to grab onto, but he's bad in it.

[Sean Fennesee]

It's so fascinating though. It's been buried like that. He. First of all, it's never discussed. Yes. No one ever talks about it. I don't think it was. I don't even know if this movie was released on vhs. Like, I couldn't find it anywhere.

[David Sims]

I watched it on Plex and it.

[Sean Fennesee]

Is, it is well done. I rented it from itunes. So you can still do that.

[David Sims]

Yep.

[Sean Fennesee]

I mean, it's sandwiched between the Unbearable Lightness of Being and My Left Foot. Yeah. Which is just the craziness of how life in Hollywood and filmmaking and acting careers go.

[David Sims]

Right. Cause you imagine his agent, whoever this imaginary person was being like, yeah, yeah. You're the star of this movie. It's a fun comedy. It's got actors in it. It's based on a book that I think probably sold well. Of course you do. That movie. He. He's like, what if I pretend to be paralyzed? Like I can only move a foot? And the guy's like, that's kind of a risk. Yeah. Is anyone going to want to say that? It's like that was the right move for him.

[Sean Fennesee]

And the funny thing about it is that My Left Foot is much funnier than Stars and Bars. Yeah, you're right. And is not.

[David Sims]

It has like earthy humor. You're right.

[Sean Fennesee]

You're right. And it has a reputation as a very serious biopic about a disabled man and his struggle. Right. That's the framework of the movie. Movie.

[David Sims]

But it's kind of an Irish comedy.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah, yeah. And it's a slice of life. Yes. Yeah, yeah. And it's kind of Uplifting. And you can kind of hear the. The Irish singing on the soundtrack. And it's an interesting thing because as I said, I was probably. I was 7 years old at the. Probably 8 years old during this Academy Awards. And an introduction to the idea of the Transformer. You know, the person who becomes someone else.

[David Sims]

You can't believe what this guy did because he was beating. I feel like some pretty big performances at the Oscars.

[Sean Fennesee]

I can look it up and look at what it was in 1990.

[David Sims]

Like when. Look at. I just feel like it's. A couple times I have watched some movie, loved a performance and been like, how on earth did this guy lose? And you're like, ah. But everyone was freaking out about Daniel Day Lewis.

[Amanda Davins]

Well, Tom Cruise, Born on the Fourth of July.

[David Sims]

That's the one where you're.

[Amanda Davins]

He should have an Oscar for.

[David Sims]

And it was kind of.

[Sean Fennesee]

That was similar kind of performance, a transformation. Yes.

[David Sims]

And that's the big one. Yes. And Tim Branagh.

[Sean Fennesee]

We didn't mention Kenneth Branagh as a kind of antecedent to ddl, but they're correlated in some way.

[David Sims]

And that's Branagh's breakout year with Henry.

[Sean Fennesee]

V. Henry V. And Morgan Freeman for Driving Miss Daisy. Robin Williams. Williams. Or Dead Poets Society, which is Williams.

[David Sims]

Having his, like, I'm stepping into drama and it's working thing. I mean, we. Yeah, that's. Yeah, that's an interesting counter to. But yeah, like, it was just what you're saying. Everyone was like, I don't understand how he did this.

[Sean Fennesee]

So My Left Foot is.

[David Sims]

It's the first Miramax triumph.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yes.

[David Sims]

It's the original Harvey Weinstein Oscar triumph.

[Sean Fennesee]

That's right.

[David Sims]

Taking a tiny Euro movie and God, you know, whatever. I like the movie, but like cramming it down people's throats on the back.

[Sean Fennesee]

Of a strong lead performance that you can really sell against. And say, you have to see this because of this incredible transformation actor who's.

[David Sims]

A little bit of a name. It's not like he was a total.

[Sean Fennesee]

I know, right, right. First time he works with Jim Sheridan, the great Irish filmmaker. And I like this movie. I don't love it. It's not like a personal favorite of mine. It's very impressive what he has done in terms of just transforming his body and the things he learned to do with his feet and that he has said that the reason that he wanted to do this was the challenge of it. I'm sure he connected to the story and it was a meaningful one to him. But that the idea of Making your foot your only workable appendage. Exactly. To communicate, to make art, to write.

[Amanda Davins]

It's an impressive performance, but it has also become shorthand for the DDL thing. It's like, oh, right, okay, so now you are completely becoming someone else, like, with great, like, physical challenges. And it is showy, you know, it is, hey, look over here. We're acting 100%.

[David Sims]

Whereas everyone else in the movie is not. Brenda Fricker won an Oscar. Like, everyone else feels like these nice, lived in British Irish performers, you know, like, Fiona Shaw is really good, generous.

[Amanda Davins]

In the sense of what I think is really impressive about the Daniel Day Lewis performance. It, like, is because it is so physical and, like, showy. He does make it look natural, you know, like, he is. He's acting. But there is a naturalistic quality to, like, his presence that makes it also, you know, this could be really insulting in almost like anybody else's hands or body.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

Gone wrong. It would be terrible.

[Amanda Davins]

Totally super. You gotta hand it to him. But it's like the performance announces itself. You gotta foot it to him. That's right.

[David Sims]

Sorry. That's insensitive to Christy Brown. I'm really sorry.

[Sean Fennesee]

My left foot is going in the Daniel Daylos automatic.

[David Sims]

I think even though it is not a film. I've seen it like once, and I think it's quite good. I like Jim Sheridan and I think that's such an interesting run of films.

[Sean Fennesee]

I agree.

[David Sims]

That's kind of starting here. And it's also very interesting how it ends. In America is kind of the last movie of consequence he made. I mean, the brothers remake is okay, but he went on from making these, like, incredibly soulful, clearly personal movies to being like, I don't know.

[Sean Fennesee]

Hollywood jobs do it.

[David Sims]

50 Cent needs an eight miles. Let me add them. You know, like, it just became kind of like a journeyman.

[Sean Fennesee]

Mortgages cost money, you know.

[David Sims]

Absolutely. And I don't. You know, it's fine. But, like, this is not the Jim Sheridan movie I really love.

[Sean Fennesee]

Me neither. We will get to that.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah. Here we are back right where we were one year ago. 1990. Ever Smile, new Jersey, a movie that no one has ever heard of.

[David Sims]

I do not know what you're talking about, to be honest. And it's thinking about my Wikipedia page.

[Amanda Davins]

I'm sorry, here's. Here's the first sentence, the first two clauses. Fergus o', Connell, an itinerant Irish American dentist from New Jersey.

[David Sims]

Sir.

[Amanda Davins]

Offers his services free of charge to the isolated rural population of Patagonia in Argentina.

[Sean Fennesee]

The film is written and directed by Carlos Sorin, an Argentinian filmmaker. This is also very clearly a personal work for him. Do you think no idea how this even hit Daniel Day Lewis desk. Well, good point.

[David Sims]

But do you think this was a pre My Left Foot situation? Probably because like you think about My Left Foot is the beginning of like, okay, from now on, if he's making a movie, you're getting quite a package. You're getting a transformation from him. It's going to be kind of a story, right? Like we're no longer doing a Stars and Bars. Hey, and look, maybe for Stars and Bars he spent six months, you know, selling art at Sotheby's. I don't know like what his prep was for that movie, but it does feel like My Left Foot on is like the method Mystique begins.

[Amanda Davins]

I'm sorry, go ahead. Nevertheless, Fergus decides to continue with his work on the prevention of tooth decay and dental health education.

[David Sims]

I watched this homework movie.

[Amanda Davins]

I don't know how I feel about dentists, but they prevent disease. And that is the best dentist movie.

[David Sims]

Is it the Alan Rudolph film the Secret Lives of Dentists.

[Amanda Davins]

Catch me if you can. He's a. The Amy Adams's dad is a dentist.

[David Sims]

Martin Shirley Sheen.

[Sean Fennesee]

I'm not sure if that's someone's a dentist.

[David Sims]

He's a lawyer. Martin Sheen's a lawyer.

[Amanda Davins]

So is someone a dentist? Or there's a hygienist. Maybe there's dentistry in Catch Me if.

[David Sims]

You can is a serious man. The best dentist movie. The goy's teeth.

[Amanda Davins]

Catch me if you can.

[Sean Fennesee]

Martin. Comedy Novocaine.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah, that's funny. There were a couple.

[Sean Fennesee]

That movie's not very good. No, no, not really. Been a great dentist.

[David Sims]

Has there ever been a movie about a dentist who's a hero, much like this, this film? You know what I mean? Like, usually if you're a dentist in a movie, you're playing like kind of.

[Sean Fennesee]

A weird question, right?

[David Sims]

Like it's kind of like, ah, you, you know, yeah, go to your job. Being a dent. Fiddling around with teeth all day.

[Sean Fennesee]

A little weird, respectable upper middle class station in society, right?

[David Sims]

But it's kind of like a thing. It's like, ah, you got a boring job. A little shot of horror is another iconic.

[Sean Fennesee]

That's probably the best dentist movie, right? Is that dentistry? You know, one could argue it's torture.

[Amanda Davins]

When you Google Catch Me if youf Can Dentist. It's very confusing results. So it's like a lot of people.

[Sean Fennesee]

Like, I just want to Tell you guys I watched Ever Smile.

[David Sims]

Did you like it?

[Sean Fennesee]

I know it's really bad. I did think he was kind of charming in it. And is it like a parody of.

[David Sims]

This kind of movie?

[Amanda Davins]

You have to be charming as a dentist because you gotta get people.

[Sean Fennesee]

He's trying to convince children and he's.

[David Sims]

Making this movie sound.

[Sean Fennesee]

It's a very odd.

[David Sims]

He's in like the wilds of Patagonia with like toothbrush.

[Sean Fennesee]

It's in civilized society. He's in classrooms. He's not like in the jungle.

[David Sims]

I'm imagining him in the jungle, just arriving at settlements, being like, I bring Orel B.

[Sean Fennesee]

There's an important note to this.

[Amanda Davins]

Well, there is a thing in the plot summary that's about how for a while capitalism takes over his work. And he's like, I don't know whether I'm compromised by oral B or whatever.

[David Sims]

It doesn't say oral B, but whatever.

[Sean Fennesee]

Big, big, big, big dentite. Miramax also produced this movie. Oh, interesting. And so I wonder if there was a little bit of one and one.

[David Sims]

Here, like, hey, my dude, Sheridan's movie. If, yeah, someone I know, some sort of package has got this dentist project.

[Sean Fennesee]

Ever smile, NJ will not be okay. And then here we go with.

[David Sims]

Here we go right now.

[Sean Fennesee]

It's like an insane collection of films over a 10 year period.

[Amanda Davins]

He wins an Oscar for My Left Foot and then, you know, it takes off.

[Sean Fennesee]

Three years go by, though. Three years go by because he has.

[David Sims]

To go live in the woods.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah. It takes a while to become. What is Hawkeye. Is that his name?

[Sean Fennesee]

In Mohicans 1992, to David's point, There's.

[Amanda Davins]

Just like a lot of people in Last of Mohicans, you know, and a lot of horses and other stuff. So it takes a while to have real people and things in your movie.

[David Sims]

Is this his peak hotness? Yeah, right.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

[David Sims]

This is peak, like marquee idea for him. A status he avoids.

[Amanda Davins]

Yes. Listen, it's. Great job.

[Sean Fennesee]

So it's a really fascinating pivot moment in Michael Mann's career as well, because he's made Thief and Manhunter and then he goes off and makes Miami Vice. Right? Yeah. And he's on Miami Vice for a stretch of time. He hasn't made a movie in six years between Manhunter and this movie because he's been working in tv and it's.

[David Sims]

Intensity plus intensity, like man plus dd.

[Sean Fennesee]

Exactly. The masculine forces coming into the. But also a very firm rejection of a certain kind of like contemporary crime movie that he or crime TV show that he is getting known for. And for Daniel Day Lewis, it's an American movie and he's playing an American character sort of set in a Native American world.

[Amanda Davins]

Right.

[Sean Fennesee]

And so it's a huge. It's a major transition away from the fusty buttoned up guy or, you know, the Irish artist. Like, it's a. It's a big change.

[David Sims]

But it's the kind of American he likes playing, which is an American from more than 100 years ago who has something of an accent, like something of a voice that he can do.

[Sean Fennesee]

Right.

[David Sims]

Like, he's not going to just play, you know, Joe.

[Sean Fennesee]

Joe Cos play David Sims.

[David Sims]

He could try.

[Amanda Davins]

Well, even there, that's going to have to put on the UK for some time.

[Sean Fennesee]

Some English heritage.

[Amanda Davins]

We're getting there.

[David Sims]

We're of a young boy.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah.

[Amanda Davins]

We're going to do Politics Corner shortly.

[Sean Fennesee]

Would that be a good film? Young, Young David. The life and times of young David.

[David Sims]

There's moments you could dramatize. I guess you could give it. Give it your best shot.

[Sean Fennesee]

Last of the Mohicans is also a proving ground for Daniel Day Lewis as action star. Because that's the other thing, is that this is an action movie in so many ways. And he's terrible. He's incredible.

[Amanda Davins]

He's running when he saves Madeline Stowe. Madeline Stowe, you know, at the, like in that final battle and is just absolutely. He's landing the punches. He's, you know. And you, like, see the choreography, but also he. Again, he has learned and lived the choreography enough that it is credible.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Again, right. With my left foot. The transformation is so obvious. And so with this. Obviously, he looks great and he's got the hair and he's got the body and stuff. But, like is where you start hearing about, like, oh, no, no, no. He, like, made camp in upstate New Indians and he learned to build fires and carve wood and like, you start to hear this sort of mythic stuff about him.

[Sean Fennesee]

Right.

[David Sims]

My favorite story from this movie, we did this, we did Michael Mann on Blank Check years ago, is that Michael Mann was also insane. And there's a moment where they're like shooting through the night for some big battle sequence or. And then Michael Mann starts yelling like, turn that light off. What's that light? Like, who turned on a light? And they're like, the sun is rising, Michael. The day is beginning. We cannot control the sun itself.

[Sean Fennesee]

That's incredible.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it's the best.

[Sean Fennesee]

This has never been a big Michael Mann movie for me. In my Michael Mann rankings, this is not in the top five. I think it's very good top five.

[David Sims]

But it's a pretty great rewatchable rip. Snorting adventure.

[Sean Fennesee]

Totally.

[David Sims]

It's a.

[Amanda Davins]

And when we did top five Michael Manns on Big Picture, I gave away my fifth spot to Chris to pick it. Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

Okay.

[Amanda Davins]

Because I was like. And we put in last on the weekends, so I think Chris loves this film. I felt that I needed to speak for Chris Ryan.

[Sean Fennesee]

It's very good. I'm not criticizing it. It's just not specifically what I connect with the most about Mann's films, which is. I think he's, like, obsessed with the surfaces of contemporary life. The way that, like, we're all inspired by this.

[Amanda Davins]

I mean, these are some narratives. Battle sequences, though. I watched this on the train, like, on the Metro north yesterday, and I was like, oh, okay. So there goes someone's head, you know. Sorry.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah, it's incredibly intense. And Daniel Day Lewis is very good. And this movie made $150 million and announced him as a big star.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And it has to be green for sure.

[Sean Fennesee]

1993, one year later, his first collaboration with Martin Scorsese. The Age of Innocence.

[David Sims]

Yeah, baby.

[Amanda Davins]

Green. Green.

[David Sims]

One of the great films of the 90s. And, you know, it's so interesting because it was a movie that was. Got an underwhelming reception at the time. And I think there was partly this sort of, like, automatic bias against, like, oh, Marty, you can't pull this off. Wrong, Wrong. And I think there was a little bias against maybe Daniel Day Lewis to the head mount. I don't know. Because it's a movie, I feel like it arrived at its masterpiece status a little later. I agree. It's just because it's a quiet movie. It's unrewarding in a way. You know?

[Amanda Davins]

Like, it is about restraint and respect.

[David Sims]

Right. It's about people not getting what they want after.

[Amanda Davins]

For Scorsese, I mean, like, pretty soon after Goodfellas and.

[Sean Fennesee]

And it is obviously a kind of. Not a rejection, but sort of like, I'm zagging.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah. But also emotionally and textually and same for DDL and Last of the Mohicans. Like, he's not slashing people, but he's, like, looking longingly in, like, an opera box.

[Sean Fennesee]

I cannot recommend the Mr. Scorsese documentary that Daniel Day Lewis wife Rebecca Miller made. More.

[David Sims]

So excited.

[Sean Fennesee]

It's so good. But it's a movie that. It's a doc that takes time to spend seven minutes explaining why the Age of Innocence Is such a triumph and an incredible conceptualization in a novel like this.

[David Sims]

And she's like, and Daniel Day Lewis, this guy really wrong.

[Amanda Davins]

He's great in it.

[Sean Fennesee]

I mean, I mean, one of. Up until this press run for Anemone, you know, he has just not given very many interviews in the last 25 years. But he has featured prominently in this documentary. And speaking really, like, just sincerely about how much he loves Martin Scorsese and loves working with him, but also just like got his head blown off by Taxi Driver and whatnot. Anyway, I liked it.

[Amanda Davins]

Big silence guy.

[Sean Fennesee]

I mean, you might imagine I would.

[David Sims]

I bet you he probably vibed with silence. Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

The Age of Innocence is wonderful. It's definitely going in so good. I mean, he's good in it. You know, he's not sure that the movie, like, he's obviously the essential performer. But I don't know that if you had a different actor, it couldn't work. It's not one of those kinds of performances. You know, I think a lot of his movies, you'd be like, if you take Daniel Day Lewis out, this movie falls apart. That isn't really true for this one. Like, if you had put. If you'd put like a young Rert Everett, would this still be a good movie?

[David Sims]

No, because you named an actor I don't love and I like him, but.

[Amanda Davins]

Rupert Everett, I like him.

[David Sims]

What about like Colin Firth?

[Sean Fennesee]

He's a little guy again.

[Amanda Davins]

Like, they are people with this silly strain. Right. You know, they are like. I mean, and I think also the Michelle Pfeiffer DDL chemistry, which is like wordless but, you know, by nature of the project is amazing and powerful and he doesn't always have that kind of chemistry with other women's stars.

[David Sims]

She's also so the best and is like still in her absolute groove. That kind of laid out like married to the mob until I don't know where you cut it off. To me, you would cut it off.

[Amanda Davins]

The one fine day stand up against in a way that like, I think Colin Firth would get blown off the screen by Michelle Pfeiffer.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah, sure. You need someone with a lot of on screen integrity. I mean, it is most. I. I love. I like him in a lot. But it is a fight for writer, you know, like, that's where you come away.

[Amanda Davins]

Well, sure. Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

Right.

[David Sims]

Thinking about them the most.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

But maybe it was also just like there were too many costume dramas, like, because he went again, I think about, why did this bounce off people a little bit at the time was it just like we just had. We have all the Merchant ivories. We had Dangerous Liaisons. We're getting too many of these. Could be. I don't know. But it stood the test of time. Okay, Green, green, green.

[Sean Fennesee]

Age. In the Name of the Father. The same year as the Age of Innocence. And this is his second film with Jim Sheridan. This is. I was just listening to. To a guy named. I believe his name is Brian Flanagan, who runs Largo in Los Angeles.

[David Sims]

He's on wtf, wtf, Right?

[Sean Fennesee]

And he's a legendary figure in Los Angeles because he's been running Largo for all these years. And he's Northern Irish. And he said he lived through the Troubles. And he said, this is the best film about the Troubles.

[David Sims]

This movie rocks.

[Sean Fennesee]

Amazing film.

[Amanda Davins]

It's a great movie.

[David Sims]

Yeah, it is undersung to some extent now.

[Sean Fennesee]

It is. Why do you think that? Why do you think it doesn't have as much of a strong legacy? Because in the 90s, 90s, it felt like an announcement in my Irish family, this was a very big film.

[David Sims]

Well, I would also just say the 90s were the peak of, you know, like the. The final, like, era of The Troubles, number one. Like, I remember we moved to England in 1995. The Docklands bombing happened shortly thereafter. And I was like a 9 years old. They were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's still like bombs that happen. And as a kid I was like, huh. Like, you know, like. But there was just that wave of Irish, like, present, you know, political, like the Sheridan movies and the Crying Game and, you know, all the, like, it was this, like, wellspring of creativity and obviously there was so much like human suffering and injustice to document. And this is just like a really great sober look at it, you know, like. And like, at sort of a narrative that I feel like anyone can understand. I mean, I don't know what.

[Sean Fennesee]

It's a very quick turnaround from Gerry Conlon's autobiography, which it's based on, which is called. Called Proved Innocent, about his wrongful conviction, along with his father in 1974, of a bombing linked to the IRA and the dispute at that time in Northern Ireland. Right.

[David Sims]

It's about the seventies, to be fair. It's not.

[Sean Fennesee]

But it is also, for lack of a better term, a regular guy role for Daniel Day Lewis. Obviously he's playing this kind of martyred political figure.

[David Sims]

He's playing a working class guy.

[Sean Fennesee]

Working class guy. A normal, normal dude. And is very, like.

[Amanda Davins]

Hangs out and smokes weed and.

[David Sims]

Yes. You know, Gets in a bit of trouble. Like his whole. The whole way they get him, right, is that he's already. He like, robs of an apartment or something, right? Like, you know, gets in a little bit of trouble.

[Sean Fennesee]

And it's funny because we've. In recent years, we've seen Belfast and say nothing and like, this storytelling about this time in history is back in the news, I suppose. But this was. This was one of the signature works of art about this time in history. And it was like hugely lauded, right? It was like Best Actor, Emma Thompson was nominated. Pete Poster wait was nominated Best Picture, Best Director. Like, it was a huge deal. And it doesn't feel like it is in quite the same conversation with the most iconic Daniel Day Lewis roles.

[Amanda Davins]

I mean, he is regular and regular.

[Sean Fennesee]

Ish.

[Amanda Davins]

Like a mythical historical figure, right? And then, I mean, this is. We love a courtroom drama, you know, but like, this is a like, very vintage 90s. They don't make them like this anymore.

[David Sims]

They're so satisfying and so satisfying.

[Amanda Davins]

But for whatever reason, in, you know, the letterbox halls of fame, that's not what we. It doesn't live on with the same weight as, you know, the other. The big scale. Look at all of these people getting their heads chopped off last in the Mohicans.

[Sean Fennesee]

I wonder if also it's because of what David was saying about Sheridan before, which is that he doesn't have this hallowed run in the 21st century.

[David Sims]

He's a vaguely forgotten. I think it's also. It's like again, 1993, it's like the Conservatives are still in government in England. England is still. I mean, of course, England now has no problems.

[Sean Fennesee]

Britain right now seems like it's going.

[David Sims]

Great country, smooth, running smooth. But like in the 90s, it seems so like Britain is the evil people who perpetrated, like, the evil government that perpetrated a lot of stuff is still basically just in charge and quite hostile to Irish independence and like, you know, Northern, you know, like, it's. It's hostile, like. And so there's still this kind of urgency, right, Versus, like, you watch Belfast now. Well, that's a bad movie. But, like, even say, you know, where it's like, no, now it's a period piece.

[Sean Fennesee]

Flanagan was very upset about Bell Belfast. Why are the streets so clean in this movie? The streets of Belfast are not clean.

[David Sims]

I am something of a branded defender. Like, I like him as like a goofy kind of high, you know, energy. Like, I. I just. He cannot do gritty realism or whatever the hell that movie's going, who does.

[Amanda Davins]

He play in Oppenheimer?

[David Sims]

Niels Bohr.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah, it's great when he shows up like, and is basically a psychic. I enjoy it. I mean, we'll never forgive him for the Emma Thompson stuff. But anyway, I mean, I think, yeah.

[David Sims]

Kevin Brown, a bit of an. Sorry, but like, you know, as an.

[Sean Fennesee]

Artist, I don't know the man. I have not spoken with him.

[Amanda Davins]

You know, it's like I, Like, I. I am. I am Team Mr. Forever. Can we, can we just. Can we talk about Daniel Day Lewis? A very English man just being like, being Irish, being like the pride of Irish. Pride of Irish. And I know that that's.

[Sean Fennesee]

He's of Irish descent. Sure. Look, and.

[Amanda Davins]

And we claim him. I claim him mostly because he like, works with Jim Sheridan over and over again.

[Sean Fennesee]

I think it's because of those three movies that he made where he plays three very famous Irish figures. And his father was born in Ireland and he wasn't. You know, I think Cecil moved at a very young age to England and then became, as you said, the poet laureate. So he's considered like an English icon.

[Amanda Davins]

Right.

[David Sims]

This is when I wanted to triple check about Cecil Day Lewis. Cecil Day Lewis was Irish and born in Ireland. Some of his family, you know, did trace back to England, but, you know, he was.

[Sean Fennesee]

That's true of all Irish, right?

[David Sims]

Well, I mean, you know, these islands are very near each other.

[Amanda Davins]

Right. And it's fraught, you know, like, I get that it's fraught, yes.

[Sean Fennesee]

I mean, I think it's because he plays boss.

[David Sims]

We moved to London at the age of two. But look, you know, English, when I lived in London, you would meet these Londoners whose parents had lived in London for a long time, but say one of them was Scottish or whatever, they'd be like, I am Scottish, by the way. You know, like. And it was so vital and I understood it.

[Sean Fennesee]

Identity bound.

[David Sims]

Yeah, yeah. And also England sucks. Scotland and Ireland rule, like, you know, and like, I remember as a kid, you moved to England and there's such insane prejudice towards people with red hair there, partly because it's a small provincial country. And then like I said to my mom, I was like, we call this kid like a ginger. And it's like, it's like loaded in a way that confuses me. And she's like, David, it's like a thousand years of anti Irish and Scottish. You know what I mean? Like, what you are experiencing, experiencing is like 12th century hatred of like Celtic people.

[Sean Fennesee]

If you're wondering why I never left this country sometimes.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

I am from a long line of men and women who are like, what the. Get out of my country.

[David Sims]

And I, as this outsider who lived in England, I found the royal family to be like this goofy institution that was kind of amusing and interesting. I did not have that, like, understandable, like, thing of like, why do they get to be in charge of me, even if in a ceremonial way anyway? So, like, I understand, like, he has that connection to the country and it matters to him. And he's good at doing Irish accents. Like, he's good at doing Irish accents.

[Sean Fennesee]

He's so credible in this movie. And in the Name of the Father, I think is going in automatically Oscar nominated. A great film.

[David Sims]

Yeah, for sure. But I think on Harold's a bit on her.

[Sean Fennesee]

People will watch it now.

[David Sims]

Worth watching me, really.

[Sean Fennesee]

It is my favorite of the Sheridan films, though. It sounds like.

[Amanda Davins]

Yes. And it is really watchable also.

[Sean Fennesee]

You know, it's 90s conventional, but serious and moving.

[David Sims]

I have a very soft spot for In America, which is not a perfect movie, but has like these transcendent moments in it. But obviously Daniel Day Lewis is not.

[Sean Fennesee]

In that resonates very deeply right now. Coming to this country as an immigrant. 1996, the Crucible. This one, this is a tough sit.

[David Sims]

So I call this movie Straight to Homework. This is the kind of movie I call Straight to Homework.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Like, where it's like the movie comes out. It doesn't resonate with me. It got an Oscar nomination or two. I get it. But like. And then the studio's like, it's fine, it's fine. It'll just play in schools for the rest of our life. You know, like, that's what this will be now. This movie kind of sucks. Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

I'm trying to look up. So in 2014, I went to England and I saw the Crucible at the Old Vic. Who was Richard Armitage was John Proctor.

[David Sims]

Sure. I could see him doing that.

[Sean Fennesee]

And you know, it was in the round and there was. The production design was incredible and it was astonishing. It's one of the best theater going experiences I've ever had in my life. A woman named Samantha Colley played Abigail, who I was not familiar with, who I guess works in television in England. Stunning. There's like a brilliant and.

[David Sims]

So you've seen the Crucible work, Right, Right.

[Sean Fennesee]

And you know, I read it in school like everyone else, and I think it's a profound work of art.

[David Sims]

You know.

[Sean Fennesee]

Metaphorical story.

[Amanda Davins]

Here we are again.

[Sean Fennesee]

I got it. I loved it. I think it's an essential text to understanding allegory for young literate people. But I had never seen it staged because. Is there another film adaptation? There must be another film adaptation.

[David Sims]

I think there might be one from right when it came out, but I.

[Sean Fennesee]

Actually, it's kind of surprising if there isn't.

[David Sims]

Let's see.

[Sean Fennesee]

See, but this is not, not a great movie.

[David Sims]

No, there's, there's a French one from 57.

[Sean Fennesee]

Okay.

[David Sims]

But that Crucible. No, I, I, but maybe there isn't another film version that I'm. Yeah, that's it. This was the first. And of course, Miller did. He wrote the screenplay and got an Oscar nomination, which was kind of one of those, like, we're happy to not honor a legend.

[Sean Fennesee]

It's nice to have Arthur Miller at the Academy Awards.

[David Sims]

Sort of around the same time that Branagh gets the his Oscar nomination for adapting Hamlet, a movie where he caught zero lines and they gave him a best adapted Screenplay nomination.

[Sean Fennesee]

Now, here's the challenging thing about this. Nicholas Hytner directed this movie. You know what else he directed?

[Amanda Davins]

Yes. Madness of King George and Center Stage.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah, yeah. So. And the Object of My Affection.

[Amanda Davins]

Right. And the history, which is, you know, another adaptation.

[Sean Fennesee]

I'm kind of a Dobbins guy to it.

[Amanda Davins]

Yes. But this one doesn't work.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah, Heightener works.

[Amanda Davins]

I mean, casting Winona Ryder in your movie can really be a mixed, A mixed situation.

[David Sims]

And it's sort of at the end of her.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah, but it is the end of her.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, it's, I don't think she is totally wrong in this. And she is bringing something to the Abigail character that is like, you know, addressing sexy can be really annoying. So, you know, respectfully, I was one once, so. And unbelievable. And she, so there is, it's playing with the text a little bit. But does she, like, stand up against Daniel Day Lewis or Joan or Joan Allen?

[David Sims]

Joan Allen is really good in this movie. And it's that era where she was good in everything and was like this supporting reli. I think that he is just fine. I mean, like, he's all intensity. I just never really feel like he finds a guy in it. He's just delivering the lines with like a ton of roaring passion.

[Amanda Davins]

It's like, it's all, he's fine. Righteous and no. No person.

[David Sims]

Yeah. It just feels like they were like, can you do Last of the Mohicans guy? Can you do, like long haired kind of raw energy guy? I mean, I don't know what they said to him. They probably said more than that. I mean, they certainly said, meet my daughter, Rebecca.

[Sean Fennesee]

I didn't. I didn't revisit this film.

[David Sims]

I did, because if I had seen it, it was in school and I.

[Sean Fennesee]

Have no memory of it as well.

[David Sims]

I can't remember Nicholas Heitner, to shout him out. Did make a lot of good movies in the 90s. Became the national theater director when I was a teenager. London's national theater artistic director, taking over from Trevor Nun, who is this, like, very divisive, in my opinion. Good, but interesting kind of guy. And, yeah, the history, like, you know, spearheaded a lot of.

[Amanda Davins]

Still never seen Center Stage. He's never seen Center Stage.

[David Sims]

Center Stage is a blast.

[Amanda Davins]

It's so good.

[David Sims]

Yeah, that's a fun one.

[Sean Fennesee]

That'll be really good. And he was really center stage and Mamma Mia. In succession. It's kind of weird.

[David Sims]

You've never seen Mamma Mia.

[Amanda Davins]

It is.

[David Sims]

Have you not seen Here We Go Again?

[Sean Fennesee]

Well, that would be an odd choice, right, to see Here We Go Again.

[David Sims]

Mami is a. It's a calamitously made film. Everyone in it is good because they're having fun. It is a film that looks like it was directed by, like, Ascension Jet Ski. Like, it's just like every shot is framed in a bizarre way. The lighting is like, what happened?

[Amanda Davins]

They are in Greece. And they look like they are on, like, a soundstage in my backyard.

[David Sims]

So bad. And then Here We Go Again. It's one of those things where you're like, jesus, they already burned all the good stuff. Songs. They're doing this weird Godfather Part two, like, narrative. Like, I know. How could this possibly be good?

[Amanda Davins]

Excuse me. Excuse me. And then Cher shows up.

[David Sims]

No, no, no. The whole thing is. And then that movie is 40 times better than the first one. It's so good. Yes. So much.

[Amanda Davins]

So you're a Lily James person?

[Sean Fennesee]

No.

[David Sims]

Well, I mean, I like Chloe J. Red Blooded. Red Blooded American Man.

[Amanda Davins]

No, no, no. I.

[David Sims]

No, I just think that movie kind of rocks and is way better made. And like, I. That movie's good.

[Amanda Davins]

It's okay. I mean, the original one has Meryl Streep screaming the Winner Takes it All. And here's Brosnan at the bottom of, like, you know, on their way to.

[David Sims]

A church singing like he's being attacked.

[Amanda Davins]

Like he sounds like a donkey in duress.

[David Sims]

There's like eight people on, like, holding him while he's like, you know, like. You know what I mean? Like, then someone's trying to Drag him into heaven hell.

[Amanda Davins]

Right. But, I mean, the winner takes it all scene is just one of the most incredible things that's ever happened. And then the second one, and I'm sorry to spoil this for you, the second one, when Cher sings Fernando.

[Sean Fennesee]

That's amazing.

[Amanda Davins]

And Andy Garcia's Fernando, like, I'm sorry, that is. To me, that is cinema. It's so wonderful.

[David Sims]

I always say Andy Garcia plays a sentient bottle of red wine, but, like.

[Amanda Davins]

That is so much more fun than the Crucible, you know, like, it's definitely.

[David Sims]

Better than Crucible to bring it back.

[Sean Fennesee]

Thank you for bringing it back. Red. Red for the Crucible, 1997, the Boxer.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Sean Fennesee]

This is the third and final film with Jim Sheridan, and it's his first retirement.

[David Sims]

It's his first, like, I'm going.

[Amanda Davins]

I'm going to make shoes.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yes.

[David Sims]

And it was that. I was 11, I lived in England, and it was. I remember the mythos of, like, he, like, learned to box. Like, look out, he's boxing good in this movie.

[Sean Fennesee]

And then.

[Amanda Davins]

Do you box?

[David Sims]

Me? No, not yet. No, I haven't. I haven't tried that one.

[Amanda Davins]

Have you ever been in.

[Sean Fennesee]

I did box in high school, but not since. It's become like the cool workout thing, right? No, no, just like, recreationally at school. So the boxer, he did learn to box. This movie is kind of an inversion of in the Name of the Father, where he plays a provisional IRA volunteer who goes to prison. And he gets out of prison.

[David Sims]

He's going straight at, like, age 19. As a kid, like, he was right.

[Sean Fennesee]

And he gets out and he's trying to go straight and he's trying to stay out of the fight.

[David Sims]

Yes.

[Sean Fennesee]

While fighting. Right.

[David Sims]

And it's about, like, in personnel warfare within the ira, which is like a big thing. It's a real thing, like. Of, like right there, how there were splinters in the IRA versus, like, how hard do we go? How, you know, how do we fight for independence? Like, how, you know, how much sort of terrorism do we do versus, like. And that's all interesting. It's not an uninteresting movie. It's sort of like a solid, relatively engaging.

[Sean Fennesee]

I think it has a great final reveal. You know, like, the ending is very exciting, but it is the. It is lesser than in the Name of the Father to me. That being said, I don't know if you, you know, when you look at the hall of Fame.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

Is this one of his best performances? Because of the transformational aspect.

[Amanda Davins]

Whatever.

[David Sims]

He's pretty good in it.

[Sean Fennesee]

You Guys, are you're gonna. Okay, Yellow, yellow.

[David Sims]

The box. Emily Watson's good in it. Sort of nice to remember her peak. Like, right. This is right right post Breaking the Waves. She's quite lovely in it. But I couldn't really tell you much about this movie that. And I rewatched it.

[Amanda Davins]

I didn't revisit it.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Like that really stuck with me. And it was. I do feel like everyone was a little sick of his shit at this point.

[Sean Fennesee]

I think you might be right.

[David Sims]

Like, it's like playing these like very serious, very intense men and, you know, like he wasn't finding maybe the most engaging project and then he's like, well, I'm not going to act anymore. And everyone's like, all right, sorry.

[Sean Fennesee]

Five years go by before Gangs of New York. So he returns a decade later to work with Martin Scorsese again. This is a Martin Scorsese dream project. He's been trying to get off the ground for 25 years.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Who are other guys who would have been Bill the Butcher?

[Sean Fennesee]

I think De Niro would have made.

[David Sims]

Sense in the 80s because there's so many versions of this movie that were theorized or whatever and never got funded.

[Sean Fennesee]

Right. I mean, there are. There is obviously something to that voice that he brings, which is this interesting kind of new century American. It is not because he is not doing the British guy voice. He's doing the over enunciated American voice, Bill the Butcher.

[David Sims]

But it's the first Daniel. He's like Bane or whatever. People are like, wait, what's this voice? And then people start doing the voice because they're like, I never heard anyone talk like this. Look, I am a passionate and humorous defender of this movie. I think this movie is incredible.

[Sean Fennesee]

Some things in this movie are incredible.

[David Sims]

Minute 172, for example.

[Sean Fennesee]

So again, I will redirect to the Mr. Scorsese documentary where there is a lot of discussion about the ways in which the script is changing every day on this movie.

[David Sims]

It had so many passes over so many years.

[Sean Fennesee]

And there's. There's a version of the movie that Jay Cox wrote in Whatever, 1982. Right. That is a world like an all time masterpiece. But then it's a movie that was always going to cost an enormous amount of money to make because it's of its scale and it's never. In my favorite Scorsese movie conversation. I will say I think Bill the Butcher is one of the greatest Scorsese performances in the history of his movies. You don't look at it.

[David Sims]

Have Y' all seen this movie 20 times or am I the only one?

[Amanda Davins]

No, you listen. I got a Cameron Diaz thing, and Charlie's Angels was her last good movie.

[David Sims]

If you've got a Cameron Diaz thing, this movie is like poison to me.

[Amanda Davins]

Exactly.

[David Sims]

This is her triangle.

[Amanda Davins]

Sorry. Charlie's Angels was a masterpiece. And. And then. And then I had to get off the train.

[David Sims]

It's kind of right.

[Sean Fennesee]

Cameron Diaz, she's just a miscast.

[David Sims]

She's a miscast in the movie. It's in this run of interesting, like being diminutive Vanilla Skies the year after or the same year, but, like, where it's just like, whoa, Cameron Diaz is doing something right. Like, there were, like, a few years of that, but that's not. This movie gets drowned in, like, the Leo hype. And the movie only gets made because.

[Sean Fennesee]

Of Leonardo DiCaprio, because he wants to make a movie with Martin Scorsese an opportunity. Yes. And that leads to this long running relationship between the two of them. And it is Leo using his powers for good. I mean, that's really what it is. Even if the film doesn't totally come together, it's him doing this thing that we've been litigating this year with one battle after another where he's like, I kind of only want to make movies that I want to see with directors that I think are interesting.

[David Sims]

I'm no longer making strategic. Yeah. So De Niro at one point, I think Malcolm McDowell way back in the day, but I think he may have been considered for either lead role. Like, I don't know.

[Sean Fennesee]

But yeah, he would have been a good Bill.

[David Sims]

The Butcher.

[Sean Fennesee]

Right. Like, there's definitely some Alex from Clockwork Orange in there, that kind of sadist intensity.

[David Sims]

But he's, to me, young David. I was like, I can't. Who is. Like, I knew who he was, but I was like, he lived up to the hype of, oh, you don't understand. This guy's like a cage tiger. And, like, he's back and he's playing the most ridiculous guy you ever saw to. To flash to the future. He's kind of, in my opinion, playing evil Abraham Lincoln. He's got a big stove, height, hat. It's a Civil War movie. And he's just like, I hate everyone who's not me, you know, like, and I'm okay.

[Amanda Davins]

I'm. I'm okay.

[Sean Fennesee]

I mean, it's definitely going down. It was always going in.

[David Sims]

He was gonna win the Oscar.

[Sean Fennesee]

The America's speech is like one of the great scenes in the Scorsese filmography. It's to me, it's just like a really, it's a Frankenstein of a movie, but at a young age, it makes sense that it would just like overwhelm you because of it's so big and so intense.

[David Sims]

But it was like he was going to win the Oscar. Right. It's that year where everyone in the, everyone in Best Actor, he wins like a lot of the precursors and stuff. Everyone nominated for Best Actor had won an Oscar before, except for Adrian Brody, who wins. Right. Am I getting this right?

[Sean Fennesee]

Interesting.

[David Sims]

It was the year where DDL was the fave and you had like Nicholson in About Schmidt, Cage in Adaptation, and there's a Michael Caine in Quite America.

[Sean Fennesee]

Very good.

[Amanda Davins]

Wow.

[Sean Fennesee]

That was very impressive.

[David Sims]

Thank you. And, and I think because all those guys were these like veterans, like, and because Agent Brody was so, you know, and the, the penis just came on late and all that.

[Sean Fennesee]

They had all also very recently won.

[David Sims]

Yeah. And so Adrian Brody wins. But it was supposed to be his third Oscar. Not like in some grand narrative way, but everyone was kind of like, oh, I guess get out the way, like Daniel Day Lewis is back.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah. And it's interesting that he's nominated for actor because I'm not sure if he is the leading actor of this movie.

[David Sims]

I think they probably ran him and Leo. But you're right. I mean, it's sort of Chris Cooper.

[Sean Fennesee]

Wins for Adaptation and DL might have won there, you know, if he had run in there.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

Category fraud will get you everywhere until.

[Amanda Davins]

Until you win because of it.

[Sean Fennesee]

That's right. Another three years go by. He makes a film with his wife called the Ballad of Jack and Rose. He's since married Rebecca Miller. She writes and directed, directs this small drama. It's very unlike any other film he's ever made. Kind of a, kind of like a curious. What is a reverse Oedipus situation?

[Amanda Davins]

No.

[David Sims]

Electra.

[Sean Fennesee]

Electra. Thank you. Starring.

[David Sims]

She does fight a guy whose tattoos come to life.

[Sean Fennesee]

That's right.

[David Sims]

That does happen in the film.

[Sean Fennesee]

Colin Farrell, Sundance movie, small film. Didn't make like a ton of waves.

[David Sims]

I hate this movie.

[Sean Fennesee]

Do you? Really sucks.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I kind of like this movie.

[Amanda Davins]

I don't mind it.

[David Sims]

I, I there' about it. That sets my teeth on edge. There's. It's so interesting that the two times he's collaborated with a family member, he's played an off the grid guy. Like he did this with his wife and then right. Like 20 years later, his son is like another guy off the grid. And he's like, yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

Love being off the grid. I love when you can kind of like, read into the circumstances a little bit there. Why are they writing these parts? For the.

[David Sims]

It's good.

[Amanda Davins]

A man apart.

[David Sims]

This is a. Much like anemone. An anemone. You know, he's playing a guy who's haunted by sort of specific circumstances. This is like Irish Mosquito coast, where it's just like, why is this guy like this?

[Sean Fennesee]

Yes.

[David Sims]

He's just kind of a pain in the ass. And his. His family needs to be shot of him. He's charismatic in his way.

[Sean Fennesee]

I'll tell you what. I see it as a kind of like post 60s retreat, you know, like, we're talking about Bob Ferguson. Captain.

[David Sims]

Fantastic. Right? Was that. That one, too?

[Sean Fennesee]

Very good comp. Yes. Very similar. Sort of like the world in the 70s broke my heart, and I am retreating from it and I'm going to protect my family. But sometimes that isolation breeds a kind of bizarre closeness that is a little bit toxic.

[David Sims]

You know what the best version of that movie is?

[Sean Fennesee]

I really like this movie. I'm surprised to hear you say that.

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

Okay.

[David Sims]

Sorry. But you know what the best version of that movie is?

[Sean Fennesee]

What is it?

[David Sims]

M. Night Shyamalan's the Village. One of the great movies.

[Sean Fennesee]

Well, it's about a community and not a family, but it's the same thing.

[David Sims]

It's about that thing of like, can I protect my kids from the world?

[Sean Fennesee]

The heartbreak of the Weather Underground. Yeah, yeah.

[David Sims]

By building a fence. You know, the answer is no.

[Sean Fennesee]

Did they come out in the same year? When's the Village similar?

[David Sims]

I think village is 04.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah. Okay. I don't think it's going in because it's not considered one of his great performances.

[David Sims]

No, it's pretty forgotten. It is, yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

And it was not Camila Bell.

[David Sims]

Very winsome, young, effective.

[Sean Fennesee]

I don't know.

[David Sims]

She was around for a while.

[Sean Fennesee]

Horror movies, right?

[David Sims]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

Wasn't she. Was she in the When a Stranger Calls remake? Yes.

[Amanda Davins]

Yes, she was.

[Sean Fennesee]

She was.

[David Sims]

That's right. And she was in one of the sister ones. There was one with sisters or something.

[Amanda Davins]

Not from Prada to Nada.

[David Sims]

Probably not.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

I haven't seen that.

[David Sims]

It sounds like a horror film in a way. I would hate to go from Prada to Nada.

[Amanda Davins]

I'm surprised you would.

[Sean Fennesee]

That would be terrible.

[Amanda Davins]

I'm at Nada, so I'd love to go to Prada. I haven't heard of most of these films in the last 10 years. They seem to be Netflix originals.

[Sean Fennesee]

Jack Sanders has already greened There Will Be Blood.

[Amanda Davins]

Sure. Yeah. I think I correct.

[Sean Fennesee]

2007. He's probably got his pick of projects at this point. Multi Oscar winner, multi Oscar nominee. And Paul Thomas Anderson writes for him. There Will Be Blood, his story about an oil man.

[David Sims]

He's an oil man. Was he resistant to it? I can't remember if there was that in the backstory of PTA being like, I wrote this for you. And him being like, well, don't write things for me.

[Sean Fennesee]

I'm done. Bill Simmons show. We asked him about it and we tried to get him to come kind of demythologized PTA and not Paul Thomas Anderson. Yeah. Not Daniel Day.

[David Sims]

Daniel Day Lewis doesn't want to talk about, like, this or.

[Sean Fennesee]

I mean, it seems like he would have today.

[David Sims]

Celtics.

[Sean Fennesee]

Well, you never know. I mean, you never know.

[David Sims]

I don't. He likes. He's a Millwall fan, which is really.

[Sean Fennesee]

Interesting because Millwall, that's a soccer club.

[David Sims]

Millwall is a soccer team in East London that is, even by British soccer team standards, notorious for hooliganism. Interesting. And really intense fans. Their stadium is called the Den. They're not usually a Premier League team. They tend to play more in the second tier. And that's one of those places where it's like, yeah, you go there if you want a stabbin, you know, and so it contributes to, like, this intense image you have of him of going to Millwall and, like, drinking Bovril and screaming.

[Sean Fennesee]

Well, there may not be a more intense character on his CV than Daniel Plainview.

[Amanda Davins]

I mean, this is it. This is the calling card.

[David Sims]

Yeah. This is a guy that it would be tough to, like, get a cup of coffee with. Right. Daniel Plainview.

[Sean Fennesee]

Well, he could be charming in a paternalistic way when he wants. Wants something until he kind of loses his mind. But you see, in the part of. What I think is interesting about this performance is it is a true spiral, like you from start to finish. He's obviously a man possessed from the very first time that you see him. But he does have to use his wiles to get into these communities and get the things that he wants until it goes batshit.

[David Sims]

The heartbeat of the movie, the tenderness with the boy and then the way it changes and I mean, it's such a good movie. I haven't watched it in a few years. I figured I didn't need to revisit it to agree that it is a green.

[Sean Fennesee]

We're being confronted by what is the best Paul Thomas Anderson movie because we've been doing 25 for 25.

[David Sims]

All right, mine's coming up in this discussion.

[Sean Fennesee]

Okay, that's exciting.

[David Sims]

All right. But this is his opus. This felt like the kind of like he's got the early messy masterpiece kind of things. Then he does Punch Drunk Love, and everyone's like, weird and like. I mean, I love that movie, to be clear. But like, you know, and then he comes out with this, and everyone's like, yeah, yeah, whatever. Canonical American, great director. But you're not going to be deposed from that kind of rank now.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yes.

[David Sims]

Yeah. I think like a movie about America, you know?

[Sean Fennesee]

Right, right. It is a. It is a capital T themes movie that also features. I think if you just polled anyone who would define themselves as a movie fan, what's the best movie acting performance of the 21st century? This is going to come up a lot.

[Amanda Davins]

Of course.

[Sean Fennesee]

It's obviously Otto Green.

[David Sims]

It's also a capital M Memes movie, though. It's like. It is like a people. Younger people on the Internet, it are like this voice, these lines, the milkshake scene, like, whatever. Like, there's stuff that younger people are responding to.

[Sean Fennesee]

There's nothing I like more than Give me the blood, Lord, when he's, you know, receiving the body.

[David Sims]

Do you like this movie, Mando?

[Amanda Davins]

I like it. I admire it. I accept it as a masterpiece.

[David Sims]

But it's not like, well, we did.

[Amanda Davins]

PTA rankings and it's not, you know, updated PTA rankings and it. It doesn't speak to me the way, like, the back half of the career does that which, you know, features women. This is.

[David Sims]

This movie is light on ladies.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah, it's pretty. It's pretty closed off. It's like. And again, it's a masterpiece. But sometimes I'm like, that seems like a you guys problem, you know, so. And it's like, all right, so it's going to be interesting what we decide to do on 25 for 25.

[Sean Fennesee]

It sure is.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

2009. Nine. The film is called Nine. Yep.

[David Sims]

Yeah, of course. Is a sequel to Eight and a Half, Baby. That's why it's called that.

[Sean Fennesee]

Right?

[David Sims]

You guys know that, right?

[Amanda Davins]

How does.

[Sean Fennesee]

Is it a sequel?

[David Sims]

It's not the title. 9 is a jokey reference to the fact that it is Eight and a Half as a musical. Yes.

[Amanda Davins]

So talk me through this.

[David Sims]

Well, so I really Love the Musical 9. I'm a Broadway musical nerd.

[Amanda Davins]

All right. Do you also like Wicked?

[David Sims]

I do. I am not a huge fan of that show, but I do kind of salute its enduring power In a way, I enjoyed the movie.

[Amanda Davins]

It means a lot to a lot of people.

[David Sims]

Yes. But nine. I saw Antonio Banderas play this role in the Broadway revival. The original was Raoul Julia, who. It was in the 80s. I'm sure he absolutely freaked it. You can listen to recordings, but Banderas did it in the early 2000s, right around when I'm sure this started to generate and fucking rocked. That's the one with Jane Krakowski. She won a Tony. And why not just. I remember when this movie got announced, I was like, antonio's right there. You can use him. He good at it. Instead, they cast Daniel D. Lewis. I think he was a late addition. Right. Like, wasn't something. Maybe someone dropped out. Like, there was a bit of a weird genesis to it. And this movie's directed by Rob Marshall.

[Sean Fennesee]

The men in contention for the role were George Clooney, Javier Bardem, Banderas and Johnny Depp.

[Amanda Davins]

On May 14, 2008, Variety reported that Daniel Day Lewis was in talks to star as Guido Cantini, the film's lead character, after Javier Bardem dropped out due to exhaustion.

[Sean Fennesee]

Sure.

[David Sims]

Okay.

[Amanda Davins]

Sure.

[David Sims]

Yeah, I. I think it must have. Right? It's some. For some reason, Day Lewis caught wind of this and wanted to do it. And I'm sure when Day Lewis wants to do a movie, it's like when Katie and Kyrie Irving joined the nets, where I think the nets were like, we didn't realize we were evening, but like. Okay, you know what I mean? Where it's like, oh, Daniel Day Lewis, okay. And maybe no one thought to sit him down and go, like, do you like singing and dancing around?

[Sean Fennesee]

I don't even really think that's the problem with the movie.

[David Sims]

No, it's not. Right. I was going to say the main problem with this movie is that Rob Marshall directed.

[Sean Fennesee]

I was going to. The problem with the movie.

[Amanda Davins]

Say yes to Rob Marshall.

[Sean Fennesee]

That doesn't. It makes no sense. This movie is. This musical is adapted by Michael Tolkien and Anthony Minguella. If you just let Anthony Minghella make this movie, I would agree with that. A much better film.

[David Sims]

Well, Minghella died. When did he die?

[Sean Fennesee]

He died right before.

[David Sims]

It's right around right this time, which was very sad. He would have been better. He would have been perfect. Had Marshall just done Chicago and Memoirs of a Geisha, Is there a. Yes.

[Amanda Davins]

No.

[David Sims]

So, like, obviously he had success.

[Sean Fennesee]

More credible than we think.

[David Sims]

Exactly.

[Sean Fennesee]

View him as now.

[David Sims]

Very successfully brought Chicago to the screen. I'm not denying that that movie's enjoyable. Memoirs of a Geisha is a trash fire.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

But I guess it had made some money and was a big Tony project or whatever.

[Sean Fennesee]

Nominations. Yeah.

[David Sims]

He comes to nine, which is a musical I really adore, and he's like, what if it's like what I did with Chicago, where it's like a bunch of fucking catwalks, you know what I mean? Like, he has no further take. I feel like visually. And you're. You're doing a musical that is related to Eight and a Half, which is a fairly visually dynamic movie that's kind of well regarded in the cinema. I don't know. Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

I mean, the ingeniousness of making Eight and a Half a stage musical, I understand completely.

[David Sims]

It's a really fun music.

[Sean Fennesee]

As soon as you make it a cinematic experience, you are burdened by the history of eight and a Half and you have to try to reinvent it. And the problem is his conception of reinvention is an artificial. That looks cheap. Yeah, yeah, the movie looks cheap.

[David Sims]

It looks really junky. He can't, weirdly, he can't shoot musical sequences. It drives me crazy. Because he's a great choreographer and like Chicago again, I will sort of put aside. But ever since then, he cuts into the action constantly. He won't let you, like, enjoy choreography, which makes me so crazy.

[Amanda Davins]

It's insane.

[David Sims]

He gets handed $200 million budgets by Disney every few years to make dog shit. I'm really going after. I've talked about every single person I've ever interacted with who's interacted with him is like, he's a really nice guy.

[Sean Fennesee]

Of course everybody loves him.

[Amanda Davins]

Everybody that works with them, but they don't look good.

[Sean Fennesee]

His last few movies are the Little Mermaid, Mary Poppins Returns, into the woods, and Pirates of the Caribbean. On Stranger Tides.

[David Sims]

When Mary Poppins Returns is your best of your recent efforts. You're in trouble.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah, sure. He's a nice guy. Yeah. This is not going in at all.

[Amanda Davins]

Not going in no.

[Sean Fennesee]

2012 Lincoln.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

What a banger. It really is.

[Amanda Davins]

It's a banger.

[Sean Fennesee]

What a banger. I told this story recently. C.R. and I went to Ye Rustic Inn, which is a dive come hipster bar in Los Feliz in la.

[Amanda Davins]

You don't have to say that out.

[Sean Fennesee]

Loud, but that is what it is. But Chris and I have been going there since the day we met to the city. And we found ourselves there one night a few months ago. And it's a sports bar renowned for its wings.

[David Sims]

Yeah, sounds good.

[Sean Fennesee]

It was very crowded. I think we had Just seen a movie together, and we went to just get a beer, and all the TVs were playing, you know, NBA hockey. And then on one solitary television, sneaky little screen against the wall in the far right was a muted version of Lincoln. And there was about 22 minutes left. And Chris and I just sat there and watched it. No captions.

[Amanda Davins]

It's like.

[David Sims]

It is just looking some good blocking.

[Amanda Davins]

It's your version of. You think we need one more? You think we need one more? Okay, we'll get one more. This is how, Matt, you two express your love to each other.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah, it was great. I mean, obviously we didn't get a chance to hear Daniel Day Lewis performance when we revisited it, but this is amazing.

[David Sims]

Immense power.

[Amanda Davins]

This is another one where they are just all playing dress up. And with anybody else, it just. It would have been.

[Sean Fennesee]

And honestly, it's kind of a Boys and Their Toys movie in some ways.

[Amanda Davins]

Like, same cast, but with a different Lincoln. They all do look like they're in, like, you know, the history pageant in, like, seventh grade or something. You know, like mock Congress or whatever we're doing. Yes, but because you're willing to go on the. You're like, okay, well, now Daniel Day Lewis is gonna be Lincoln. And I'm used to that at this point. And apparently his voice did like that. And so he went to the Library of Congress to hear the recording or whatever.

[David Sims]

You know, he brings, like, president. You're right. He brings presidential gravitas. That is true. But Lincoln rocks. It's one of the funniest movies ever made. Like, every time they're in Congress, it's just about Tommy Lee Jones basically calling people like, snakes and worms. Like, they're just like. By the way, all Congress was was like, the ugliest man in the world just spoke, and I condemn him to hell.

[Sean Fennesee]

That's different from right now, right?

[David Sims]

Yeah, seriously. And then everything in the White House, it's basically. It's dark as fuck, right? Everyone is cold because it was cold. Everyone's wearing carpets. Lincoln's just walking around, hovered in blankets. He'll sit down and the great David Strathearn as William Seward or whoever, some great actor as one of his cabinet is like, so, what do you want to do about the Civil War? He's like, I had a client once who had a pig. And they're like, no, no, shut the fuck up. Shut up. This is the best thing about this movie. They're not, like, sitting, being like, tell us. Stop telling your dumb, folky stories, asshole. Like, there's a war and he's like an old mill. It's the best.

[Sean Fennesee]

I really relate to that. It's the best. I really do relate to it.

[David Sims]

And then, of course, he'll have these moments where he lights it up, right? Where he gives you this sort of thunderous speech. The man of immense character who is like. But it's all about the dirty, dirty work of government. That went into, like, getting the amendment.

[Sean Fennesee]

Passed and all that.

[David Sims]

Like, it's not a movie wisely. That's like, he was a country lawyer. And then he.

[Amanda Davins]

This is also the point where I. I remember where you hear a lot about the method. And it's like, did he not use electricity for the entirety of the shoot or something? I don't remember.

[Sean Fennesee]

Famously, people have told the stories of addressing him as, you know, Mr. President.

[David Sims]

Because, like, Adam Driver is in that movie. Jeremy Strong, like, all these, like, young actors.

[Sean Fennesee]

Another one of those Spielberg things too, where it's like, oh, you just plucked out, like, the five most important up and coming actors for small roles here because you just. You knew. You know, your casting director knew.

[David Sims]

Right.

[Sean Fennesee]

Okay. Lincoln is going in.

[Amanda Davins]

Not hard.

[David Sims]

It's the best. I'm honestly gonna go rewatch it now. I didn't, because I've seen it so many times.

[Sean Fennesee]

Please don't leave until we finish the hall of Fame.

[David Sims]

I mean, I gotta go. I gotta go watch it. We're almost done. This is the crazy thing.

[Sean Fennesee]

There's only two more movies peak, and.

[David Sims]

Then it's basically just like every four years. He would make a splash.

[Sean Fennesee]

He won the Academy Award for this film.

[David Sims]

He did.

[Sean Fennesee]

And rightfully so. And can you recall the nominees that year?

[David Sims]

All right, so it's 20 occurring in 2013.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

Is it 2012? Oscars.

[Sean Fennesee]

No.

[David Sims]

Bradley Cooper for Silver Linings, Daniel Day Lewis. Because it was like one of those things where it was like, we're not debating this.

[Sean Fennesee]

It's. This is a good lineup.

[David Sims]

I don't know. Give me a hint. No, because, like, the other movies that year, it's like Life. Argo, the PTA film, of course, is Fuck. It's the master. So Joaquin.

[Sean Fennesee]

Joaquin, Great performance.

[David Sims]

Bit of a ham sandwich if you ask me, but still great performance.

[Amanda Davins]

But that's what we like about it, right?

[David Sims]

What else?

[Sean Fennesee]

I've named Hugh Jackman and Les Mis.

[Amanda Davins]

Another film Sean has never seen.

[Sean Fennesee]

I've not seen it.

[David Sims]

What have I done? Sweet Jesus, what have I. The thing about Hugh Jackman is I. I love him as a star. Like, that movie is stinky.

[Amanda Davins]

That movie is so bad.

[David Sims]

But, like, it was his first N, and you were kind of like, good job, buddy.

[Amanda Davins]

You're gonna have to see it now for the Amanda Seyfried of it all.

[David Sims]

I know she's all right in that movie.

[Amanda Davins]

She's all right. But. And there are, like, a couple moments in Ann Lee where they're, like, too close to the Tom Hooper, like, close up as she's singing, you know, And I'm just like, oh, you don't want to get away.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah. I've never seen. Seen any of her singing performances.

[David Sims]

That's so funny.

[Amanda Davins]

Oh, yeah, mama.

[David Sims]

And then, wait, is there a fifth.

[Sean Fennesee]

Denzel Washington in Flight?

[David Sims]

Oh, pretty great performance. And one that there. There was the briefest. Sort of like, should we just give Denzel? But, you know, this was the Lincoln win. I think it was the first Spielberg acting win ever.

[Sean Fennesee]

That's crazy.

[David Sims]

Which is one of those, like, wild statistics. Like, an actor had never won for one of his movies. And it was also. Yeah, it was like, you know, twin powers unite. Like, he just hooked up with Spielberg to do an Abraham Lincoln movie. It sounds like fake.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yes. Right. And then the movie came out on.

[David Sims]

The studio kind of rocks, and I feel like its reputation is good. Like, it's like a texture.

[Sean Fennesee]

It did well.

[David Sims]

It was a hit.

[Sean Fennesee]

It was honored.

[David Sims]

It was a big hit.

[Sean Fennesee]

But it is weirdly now reverse culty, where it's like, it's got, like, a lot of heads that really love it.

[Amanda Davins]

Late period Spielberg.

[David Sims]

Yeah. Same with Bridger Spike.

[Amanda Davins]

And now it's not even getting really honored at the Oscars.

[David Sims]

True.

[Sean Fennesee]

His late style is like, let's not. Please stop ignoring this. Like, this is. Nobody does this. Okay. 2017 Phantom Thread. Your favorite PTA movie and your favorite.

[Amanda Davins]

And my favorite PTA movie. Yes. But, you know, like, I put one battle at two, so we can.

[David Sims]

That's, you know, Amanda. We got the same top two.

[Amanda Davins]

It's time. It's time Goes.

[Sean Fennesee]

I mean, obviously, a great film, hilarious comedy about.

[Amanda Davins]

About being married, and he finally can be funny.

[David Sims]

It was the whole thing going into.

[Sean Fennesee]

This movie funny by let. By being a British version of Daniel Day Lewis chic.

[David Sims]

Whoever invented that word. We spanked in public. Like, But I remember, like, the trailers were a little misleading. And we're basically like, it's about this fucking genius guy. Tortured genius.

[Amanda Davins]

Here we go again.

[Sean Fennesee]

It is that, though, like, everything that it pitched itself as it is that.

[David Sims]

It'S got a lot of.

[Sean Fennesee]

You choose to view it that way. You can, and it's Good. But the intent is obviously multi level.

[David Sims]

But I just remember they screened it at bam. It was the last. There's always the last film you see before you vote at the New York Film Critics Circle. Like, they sneak in, it's wet off the press, off the printer. Right. You gotta get in front of this one before you vote. There's always something. And I went in. I remember not dreading it, but being kind of like, eh, yeah, why'd he make this dreadful? And then like two minutes in, I was like, this is the funniest shit I've ever seen in my life. Like this. I can't believe I'm laughing so much. I'm having so much fun. And like, you know, immediately you get the tone. You're not like, am I weird for thinking this? But, like, when he's doing the big breakfast order or whatever, you're like, no, no, no, no, no.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah.

[Amanda Davins]

Like, no, no, no.

[David Sims]

It's like Manville is queening out like.

[Sean Fennesee]

Cheshire Cat about the whole thing.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah. I remember I was at the Arrow and it was the asparagus scene where, like the whole room figured it out and it was like, actually. And the. The laughs just like struggle. Yeah, yeah. But like the thing, he is really funny and he is being funny by playing that uptight, like, DDL British character. But, like, he knows he's being funny. He's just doing his version of comedy.

[Sean Fennesee]

They get what they're doing.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah. So no guys. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's. It's. It's amazing. It's my. It's such a wonderful movie.

[David Sims]

It's just so interesting that this was the movie that broke him supposedly.

[Sean Fennesee]

Right?

[David Sims]

Like, that he had such a tough time with his character. Like, and he generated this character with PTA or whatever, and he was just like, yeah, it was just too much. And I'm like, that movie would energize me. Like, it's so wonderful and fun, you know, but like.

[Sean Fennesee]

But he is. He's kind of throwing himself on the pyre a little bit with, like, you know, him becoming sick in that critical stage of the movie. And then everything with the mother figure that is being generated. All that stuff is very weighty. You know, it still is. Your old school. Daniel Day, you know, learns how to become a courtier. Like, that whole thing is really intense. Even though it's hilarious.

[David Sims]

The best.

[Sean Fennesee]

Okay, so that's going in.

[Amanda Davins]

Oh, Couturier.

[Sean Fennesee]

Couturier. Sorry.

[Amanda Davins]

I was like, he's a courtier.

[Sean Fennesee]

2025 anemone. Not going in no, no, it's not.

[David Sims]

I'm glad he's back. I would like him to keep working.

[Amanda Davins]

The poop speech is good, but poop speech is good.

[David Sims]

He looks good. He looks great.

[Sean Fennesee]

Like, very healthy, very virile. Okay, here's what we have.

[Amanda Davins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennesee]

I think we have to make a nominally easy choice. Okay. In green, already confirmed. My Left Foot, the Last of the Mohicans, The Age of Innocence. In the Name of the Father, Gangs of New York, There Will Be Blood, Lincoln and Phantom. Throne. That's eight.

[David Sims]

We got eight already.

[Sean Fennesee]

Four yellows remaining. My Beautiful Laundrette, A Room With a View, the Unbearable Lightness of Being, and the Boxer.

[Amanda Davins]

Okay.

[Sean Fennesee]

Now we've already got two Jim Sheridan movies, so I suggest we remove the Boxer.

[Amanda Davins]

Agree.

[David Sims]

I think that's interesting.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah. No one's very enthusiastic about it.

[David Sims]

So it's basically, I think you. I'm gonna argue for My Beautiful Laundrette. For sure.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

As an iconic early movie, as a breakout movie, as this well remembered movie.

[Sean Fennesee]

You know, I'm on board with that 1,000%.

[David Sims]

And so now we're between lightness of being in Room with a View.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

So it's kind of like the star role, but not the best remembered versus the good supporting, better movie. But support. It's he what's remembered for it.

[Sean Fennesee]

I'm inclined to say the Unbearable lightness of being one.

[Amanda Davins]

We knew that about you.

[Sean Fennesee]

This is a 2 hour and 45 minute historical epic about agony and lost love and lost power. And he's at the center of the. He's holding the movie.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennesee]

Now obviously Binoche and Len Olin are wonderful in this movie.

[Amanda Davins]

Number of great performances is shorter, but who's to say it's not about the same stuff.

[David Sims]

True.

[Sean Fennesee]

I. I just mean his part in it. I mean he's like. He's the third lead. He's like the fifth lead.

[David Sims]

Yeah, no, he's. He's less vital to Room of the View. I would pick Room of the View, but I don't really care.

[Amanda Davins]

I mean, I. I just like A Room with a View more. But we can't.

[Sean Fennesee]

But that's not what the hall of Fame is.

[David Sims]

No, it's not.

[Sean Fennesee]

Your hall of Fame is not the hall of View. The hall of Fame is the hall.

[David Sims]

Of Fame Stars and bars. No. Okay, fine. Yeah.

[Amanda Davins]

Unbearable.

[Sean Fennesee]

Oh, thank you.

[David Sims]

Check Doctor who fence.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah, that's nice. The Czech Doctor who felt like you.

[Amanda Davins]

Are sort of a philistine for not understanding aromas of you.

[Sean Fennesee]

No one ever said, I don't Understand it. I don't. Just because I did not prostrate myself before.

[David Sims]

It is your favorite. Merchant Ivory, if you have one.

[Sean Fennesee]

I remember Wings of the Dove making a big impression on me as a kid. Great movie.

[David Sims]

Very sexy movie.

[Sean Fennesee]

But yeah, I. I also enjoyed Jefferson in Paris.

[David Sims]

That one I don't remember very well.

[Sean Fennesee]

That's.

[David Sims]

No.

[Sean Fennesee]

As Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson, Yeah. I'm in Paris. What are the other canonical. There's a couple of major ones.

[David Sims]

Remains of the Day.

[Sean Fennesee]

Those are both wonderful. Yeah, those are both wonderful.

[Amanda Davins]

I. And this is really disrespectful to Emma Thompson. I'm still more partial to the Howard Zen remake.

[David Sims]

The Kenneth Lagan one.

[Amanda Davins]

Yeah.

[David Sims]

With.

[Sean Fennesee]

That's very good.

[Amanda Davins]

And my wife, Haley Atwell. Yeah.

[David Sims]

That is very well done.

[Amanda Davins]

Is. It is pretty legendary.

[David Sims]

Remains of the Day holds up really.

[Sean Fennesee]

Well because that's probably the best one.

[David Sims]

Right. Nazi subplot in it is hits right now. I recommend watching that.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah. I. But again, I haven't seen all that stuff between like 70 and 81.

[Amanda Davins]

I saw Le Divorce in the theaters.

[Sean Fennesee]

Absolutely.

[David Sims]

So, you know, I was there with my mom. Yeah, that was the best. That movie is not that good.

[Amanda Davins]

No, it's not.

[Sean Fennesee]

Do you feel good about this hall of Fame?

[David Sims]

I mean, I do. I think he should feel good, but.

[Amanda Davins]

I think he does.

[David Sims]

I hope so. I hope he's happy. I. I hope he's happy.

[Sean Fennesee]

I think he is.

[David Sims]

But I mean, like, this episode to me was just going to be a more fun way to talk about his career. I didn't think there was going to be much drama about.

[Sean Fennesee]

Yeah, there's not and there wasn't. And that's okay. These are not about drama. We're building something.

[David Sims]

Well, it's the same with my drafting strategy. There was no antagonistic behavior for me.

[Sean Fennesee]

You were very kind. You had the turn.

[David Sims]

I did have the turn, which is.

[Sean Fennesee]

A nice place to be.

[David Sims]

I was where I wanted to be. That was where I wanted to be. I was very happy.

[Sean Fennesee]

I was very.

[David Sims]

I really did not want first pick.

[Amanda Davins]

That was hard with that many people.

[David Sims]

How are that many people in with a category that broad Chris made a.

[Sean Fennesee]

Choice.

[Amanda Davins]

But that's why he's Chris.

[David Sims]

It was great.

[Amanda Davins]

That's why he's there. Really good stuff.

[Sean Fennesee]

Thanks. David Sims.

[Amanda Davins]

Of course.

[David Sims]

Thank you for having me. I'm glad you guys put up with me. It's really. I'm a big fan of the show and it's really nice to be on it.

[Sean Fennesee]

Well, we love you. We love Blank Check and we hopefully maybe we'll appear on Blank Check at.

[David Sims]

Some point in 2026. Guys, look out.

[Sean Fennesee]

Thanks to our producer Jack Sanders for his work on this episode. Thanks to Amanda, of course. Next week, we return with number nine in our 25 for 25 countdown. It's a good film.

[Amanda Davins]

Don't remember what it is, but I'm excited to watch it again.

[Sean Fennesee]

We'll see you then.