0:00

Hello, I'm Hal Lublin. And I'm Mark Gagliardi.

0:03

Since the dawn of humanity, one issue

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has gone unsettled. With the fate of

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the world in the balance, we're here

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to settle, once and for all. Worst

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Best Picture Oscar winner. That's

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right, don't worry everyone. We

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got this. Pluckettes should have a theme song.

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Pluckettes should not have a theme song. Yes

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they should, no they shouldn't, they sound good.

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Yeah but people are just going to skip

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past it. You know

0:30

what? You're right, we

0:33

got this. And

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now, please welcome, presenting

0:39

the award for this

0:41

episode's guest, Hal Lublin

0:43

and Mark Gagliardi. In

0:46

a year filled with thrills, spills and

0:48

chills, we're honored to be

0:50

discussing the worst films to win

0:53

Best Picture at the Oscars. Isn't that right,

0:55

Mark? That's right, Hal. And

0:57

who's going to join us? We're about

0:59

to find out. This envelope will let

1:01

us know. And the nominee for

1:03

this week's guest on We Got This With

1:06

Mark and Hal is, Greg

1:09

Kacowski. And

1:11

the winner of guest for this

1:13

week's episode of We Got This With Mark

1:15

and Hal is, Craig

1:18

Kacowski! Oh,

1:21

oh my god. Excuse me.

1:24

Excuse me, Helen Mirren. Oh,

1:27

what an honor. Oh,

1:31

it's been so long. Been

1:33

so long since I was on We Got This. Was

1:35

it the best sketch show debacle

1:38

that made them not invite me

1:40

back for a while? It may

1:42

have been but I had a good

1:44

feeling knowing I was the only nominee in this

1:46

category. But still, I was sweating

1:49

it out a bit. This

1:51

is for you, Mom, who

1:54

I watched the Oscars with. Every year since

1:56

1970s. I

2:01

just started. Okay

2:05

well it's just a pleasure to

2:07

be on We Got This talking

2:09

about movies even if they are

2:12

bad movies. Hi Craig. Hey Craig.

2:14

Hi friends. Thanks for being here

2:16

buddy. What an honor. Well

2:19

I mean for two reasons

2:21

I'm the perfect guest for this

2:23

episode because I'm an

2:26

Oscars fan to the

2:28

point of being perhaps an Oscars apologist.

2:32

We may get into that. I find

2:34

myself defending the honor of the Oscars probably

2:36

more than they deserve to have their honor

2:39

defended and also I like to rank

2:41

things. That's true.

2:44

We do know this well about you for

2:46

Craig's list. When do you think the Oscars

2:48

started to lose credibility with people if you

2:50

think that it's you mentioned being an apologist

2:53

and I've noted as I've gotten older like

2:55

when I was a kid I was like

2:57

whatever the best picture Oscar winner is that

2:59

obviously is the movie of the year. And

3:02

then I don't know was it the campaigns

3:05

happening? Was it the advent of the Oscar

3:07

season being a thing and then it becoming

3:09

its own separate outside of show business world?

3:11

What do you think it was? I

3:14

think it was specifically the Seinfeld English

3:17

patient episode. Really? I

3:21

think that mid 90s maybe feels around the

3:24

time where I mean I don't know we

3:26

weren't around in the 40s. Maybe

3:28

everyone was like gentleman's agreement

3:30

really? Yeah. But

3:35

I don't know. I feel like

3:37

in our lifetime there is always

3:39

a best picture backlash because

3:42

so many people wait to see the

3:44

film until it's won and then they're

3:46

like I didn't get it. I

3:49

don't get the big deal. And

3:51

I think like the Harvey Weinstein

3:54

campaigning only more horrific in

3:56

retrospect. Somebody knew he was

3:58

a jerk. but like but

4:01

actually a criminal jerk but of like

4:03

the amount of once we knew that

4:06

there was an icky kind of politicking

4:09

going on you know behind the scenes

4:11

and I think as the voting body

4:13

got older and more out of touch

4:15

you know there were probably some more

4:17

egregious choices for a while but I

4:19

think I would like to debunk the

4:21

idea that the best picture winner always

4:23

sucks because clearly that's

4:25

not the case. Sure.

4:28

There have been some great ones. Look at the

4:30

best picture winners. You got the godfather and then

4:33

a bunch of others. No you got the shot no. You

4:38

got you got pulp no. But

4:41

you have Casablanca and you

4:43

have Schindler's List and you

4:45

have Annie Hall and godfather

4:48

2 and Return to the King.

4:50

Parasite recently everything everywhere all at

4:52

once like it more

4:55

often than not is if not the

4:57

best picture of the year it's a top

4:59

five movie for the year and that's

5:01

a pretty good batting percentage I think.

5:03

Well I appreciate you saying that too because I think

5:05

on this show a lot of times we try to

5:09

look at the best of things and not the

5:11

worst of things. We are doing a worst of

5:13

episode so it is important I think to bear

5:15

in mind that these movies are generally Oscar

5:18

winners are generally pretty good. In my mind there

5:20

are two ways to attack this. You were about

5:22

to say before we started recording so I want

5:24

to see if we're on the same wavelength. There

5:26

are two different ways to interpret this. One

5:29

is did a bad movie win best picture?

5:31

So of these which is the worst movie

5:33

to win best picture? But there's I think

5:36

there's 95 contenders as of this recording. There's

5:38

about to be another one in a couple

5:40

weeks so there's a finite amount to look

5:42

at. Yeah. Which is

5:44

the worst? It's a simple question. Which

5:46

is the worst of those 95? But I think

5:48

the more interesting way to look at it

5:50

is there are obviously you make a good

5:53

point which is by and large your best

5:55

picture winner is going to be among the

5:57

top five and now the top ten movies

5:59

of the year. year by different metrics,

6:01

by reception from critics, by box office, by

6:03

just the general artistry of the film being

6:05

made. But I think there are years here

6:08

and there were some that really popped out

6:10

at me as I was looking at not

6:12

only the winners, but the other films nominated

6:14

where you look at it and go, they

6:17

got it wrong. This was not

6:19

the best picture this year. And my just to

6:22

throw one out there, and I don't think this

6:24

will win. I feel like I'm in the minority

6:26

here. I think Titanic winning the year it did

6:29

was a mistake. I think

6:31

there was a fever in 1997 around that film. It

6:36

was number one forever. Looking

6:38

at it, number one, I think there was a better

6:40

film to take its place in that category, which is

6:43

Boogie Nights. It did not get a best

6:45

picture nomination because there were only five at the time.

6:47

But I think LA Confidential was the best movie of

6:49

that year. And

6:52

I think the only, it might have taken

6:54

screenplay and I know Kim Basinger won that

6:57

best supporting actress, but that to me would

6:59

be an example of the wrong film won

7:01

egregiously. There are egregious

7:03

examples of films where you go, how

7:05

did that not win? Are those the

7:07

two ways you were thinking, Craig? Absolutely.

7:11

Like the worst choice that the

7:13

Academy has ever made, which I

7:15

would say is the biggest gulf

7:18

between the winner and then the thing

7:20

that we feel should have won. But

7:23

that's a little trickier. Some

7:25

of the egregious ones that are often brought

7:28

up as like Dances with Wolves over Goodfellas.

7:30

Yeah, Goodfellas is the better picture. I kind

7:32

of have a soft spot for Dances with

7:34

Wolves. I don't think it's a bad movie

7:37

at all. You've got Driving Miss Daisy winning

7:39

in the year of Do the Right Thing,

7:41

which especially because both movies concern racism, looks

7:44

especially egregious in retrospect. However, Do the Right

7:46

Thing not even nominated. So I think we

7:48

have to then only consider the nominated films

7:50

because the more film history moves forward, the

7:53

more you can look at any year and

7:55

say, actually, the best picture was this, but

7:57

nobody thought that at the time and it

7:59

was nowhere near contention like

8:01

Boogie Nights. You've

8:04

got some nominations, got acting nominations, and

8:06

probably writing as well, but it was way

8:09

too risky for it to be a best

8:11

picture contender at the time. So I think

8:13

we'd have to compare the winner against the

8:15

potential nominees and then see where the widest

8:17

gulf is. Let

8:19

me pitch this to you guys

8:22

then, because I'm coming into this

8:24

looking at both, movies that are

8:26

bad, sometimes retrospectively bad, and some

8:28

movies that were just in weak

8:30

years, and also looking at

8:33

that question of where the widest gulf

8:35

is between the movie that should have

8:37

won and the movie that

8:39

did. So let me propose this

8:42

idea to you. I have divided

8:44

these up. It's interesting that

8:46

that's what keeps coming up because that is

8:48

the largest of the categories. I propose this.

8:50

We'll take a break in the middle of

8:53

the episode. The first half of the episode,

8:55

we will look at movies that may or

8:57

may not be considered objectively bad, and those

8:59

fall into, I think, three

9:01

categories. The relics, the overhyped,

9:04

and the white saviors. Then

9:06

on the second half, we can take a

9:09

look at the robbers. And I've got a

9:11

list of six here, and

9:13

I'm sure that we can take a look at more

9:15

than that. And then we'll see if one comes out

9:17

of the robbers and then one comes out of the

9:19

first half, maybe we look at those two against one

9:21

another. How does that sound? Yeah, I like

9:23

that. Great. So

9:25

what do you guys wanna start with? If we're

9:27

gonna do the first half, we've got the relics,

9:29

the white saviors, and the overhyped. I

9:32

also wanna throw this out there. How have the two

9:34

of you seen all 95 Best

9:36

Picture winners? We have not. I've

9:38

seen a good number of them.

9:40

Yeah, especially the older ones I

9:43

haven't seen. I've seen more recent ones.

9:45

I've seen a bunch of the middle, like 60s, 70s, like

9:48

somewhere in there, I have a lot of

9:50

coverage. You can have a lot. I've done

9:52

dives into chunks of each of them to

9:54

try and get an exemplary sample for purposes

9:57

of viewing this, but we are really banking

9:59

on your... knowledge here, Craig. Have

10:01

you seen this movie? I've done dives into chunks.

10:04

Yeah. We've all done

10:06

dives into chunks. We've all

10:08

done dives into chunks. Yeah,

10:11

I'm going to stop there. As

10:15

I said, big Oscar nerd, have I seen

10:17

all 95 Best Picture winners? I sure have.

10:20

Have I ranked all 95 Best

10:22

Picture winners in preference for order? I sure have done that.

10:24

So I can tell you right now that the worst picture

10:26

is the Broadway Melody, 1929. Does

10:28

that feel perfect place to start?

10:30

Does that feel fair? It

10:33

does not feel fair. Here's the thing. It's

10:35

like saying the worst artist in this gallery

10:38

is this four-year-old. Okay, so that

10:40

one falls under the relics. I've

10:43

got two movies under the relics. 1929 is

10:45

the Broadway Melody and 1931 is Cimarron. The

10:49

Broadway Melody, that was one that I actually,

10:51

I did one of those dive into the

10:53

chunks of. So I dove into the chunks

10:55

of the Broadway Melody, including

10:57

the opening, which I loved. They played

11:00

George M. Cohan's Give My Regards to

11:02

Broadway as the opening number during the

11:04

credits of that movie. And

11:06

then every song after it was

11:09

bad. That song

11:11

was already a hit. And

11:13

then the rest of the songs in that

11:15

movie are not good. And also the movie

11:17

begins with just a

11:20

cacophony of it's a

11:22

building where it's a music publishing house. And

11:24

the first five minutes of that movie are

11:27

just four different songs

11:29

being played simultaneously. I

11:32

can't believe that's how a movie begins. Well

11:34

if you look at the first two winners

11:37

of an Oscar history, you have Wings the

11:39

very first year, which was the only silent

11:41

film until the artist much later,

11:43

which we can debate whether that was a silent

11:45

film or not. But you would

11:47

imagine after 30 years of making silent films

11:49

that by 1928 they were pretty good

11:52

at it. And Wings, hey,

11:54

do I want to dive into a

11:56

two and a half hour silent film

11:58

that often? No, but when I watched

12:00

Wings I'm like, this is the best.

12:02

holds up pretty well. It's exciting. It's

12:04

got great real aerial photography of like

12:06

for 1928, this is where

12:08

movies were and they could

12:11

make a pretty darn good silent

12:13

film. And then the first year of the talkies,

12:15

1929, it's – and

12:17

there's immediate dip in these early years

12:20

of talkies. Nearly every ranked list of

12:22

best picture winners I've seen contains three

12:24

of the five at the bottom, including

12:26

my list are Cimarron, as you mentioned,

12:28

and Cavalcade, which is 1933, and

12:30

the Broadway Melody. So I think – but

12:33

again, it feels so unfair because they didn't

12:35

know how to make talkie movies yet. The

12:38

Broadway Melody is just a mess. It's

12:40

a mess. And Cavalcade is like the

12:42

stodgiest. It's like no coward play. There's

12:44

very little camera movement. It's just like

12:46

somebody put a camera in front of

12:48

people doing a play. Right. And that's

12:51

the era we're in a film. They're

12:53

adapting shows, both plays and musicals, and

12:55

putting them up on screen because oh,

12:57

well, this is something that people –

12:59

which we already know people talk.

13:02

So let's just adapt this. We'll show it to

13:04

people. And it's – I mean, notable obviously in

13:06

that it gives access to people around the country

13:08

who couldn't go to Broadway to see these plays,

13:10

to actually watch them performed

13:12

professionally. But it does feel like the only

13:14

thing that – maybe until you get to

13:17

it happen one night, which is

13:19

a very interesting – I think the other

13:21

thing to think about with all of these

13:23

is their place in history. If I were

13:25

to show – the thing that struck me

13:27

the first time I ever watched it happen

13:29

one night was if I showed this to

13:31

someone without them having any knowledge of the

13:33

historical significance of this film, they would just

13:35

think, well, this is just a formulaic romantic

13:37

comedy. Not realizing this is the film that

13:39

established – like every romantic comedy you have

13:42

seen your entire life, oh, it's on the

13:44

family tree that this is the root of.

13:46

So that's a great winner. All Quiet on

13:48

the Western Front is like this

13:50

odd, amazing, deep film

13:52

that snuck in number three. But

13:55

by and large, a lot of the – when

13:57

you look at the things that are even nominated,

13:59

they're – are so many adaptations of

14:01

stage shows. That goes into the 40s

14:03

as well. There's just a lot

14:05

of turkeys in those early years. Like I'd

14:08

throw in Life of VeeMeal Zola, Great Ziegfeld,

14:10

you know, even like as much as I

14:12

like Bing Crosby going my way is not

14:15

great. Like

14:17

there's some stodgy ones back then. Yeah.

14:19

Yeah. Just some forgettable stuff.

14:22

It seems like the Bing Crosby one in particular

14:24

is just, it's not bad. It's just forgettable.

14:28

I highly recommend going

14:30

to Variety and checking

14:32

out the contemporaneous Variety Review of

14:34

Broadway Melody from 1929 because it

14:37

was, I think this person was

14:41

a theater critic and

14:43

boy is it a hilarious dive into

14:46

the pictures are coming

14:48

for your theater jobs. They're putting

14:50

theater on stage in movie houses

14:52

and they're doing it poorly. Now,

14:54

why would you go see a

14:56

musical on Broadway for 440

14:58

when you can watch a movie at the Cineplex for 75

15:00

cents? And

15:03

you know what? That seemed to be

15:05

an early canarian, all kinds of coal

15:07

mines. Let's jump ahead to the other

15:09

relic on this list and that's Cimarron,

15:11

which is on there to, the first

15:13

Western to win 1931. And

15:16

it was problematic in

15:19

that it's over the top. It's got

15:22

everything going for it. It was very

15:24

expensive and overhyped. The acting is hilariously

15:26

over the top. It's the story of

15:28

a man who badgers his wife into

15:31

joining him in Oklahoma and then leaves

15:33

her repeatedly over the course of 40

15:35

years. And every

15:37

race is depicted terribly in this except white

15:39

people. What a

15:41

surprise. Yeah. I mean, holy

15:44

moly, this movie, I'd say

15:46

save yourself two hours and watch the Drunk

15:48

History episode on the Oklahoma Land Rush because

15:50

we didn't covered it. Done. Yeah,

15:55

way better. So out of all of these that

15:57

we've discussed, do you take Cimarron because it's the

15:59

most offensive? Or do you go just because

16:01

it's one thing to be bad, which,

16:03

you know, bad. But it's

16:05

also monumentally racist, which

16:07

is something we will find is a

16:09

problem just in the last five to

16:11

10 years. Yeah. We got a few

16:14

of those. Because we have a whole

16:16

separate category of, uh,

16:18

of white savior narratives. I think, uh,

16:20

Cimarron is maybe not even the worst

16:22

of those and that's covered. I, my

16:24

inclination is to vote for Broadway melody

16:26

because I do have it worst on

16:28

my list and, uh, it, that seems

16:31

to be the consensus, uh,

16:33

that, that it's the worst one to win, however, it

16:35

does feel like beaten up on a four

16:37

year old. Yeah. That's well, that

16:39

four year old shouldn't have wandered into the bar. Yeah. Get out.

16:42

Guess what? Get out of this bar for you. The same

16:44

for you. Yeah. This is for 95

16:46

year olds, not 90 five year olds. People

16:49

who are 95 like the Oscars. Uh,

16:52

let's jump to the white saviors. I've got

16:54

three on this list. Green book crash and

16:56

driving this Daisy. So crashes

16:58

are really a white savior unless

17:01

you count Paul Hoggis as the

17:03

self-designed theme bludgeoning white savior of

17:05

this idea. What do you guys think? I

17:09

know we are three white guys talking about this. By

17:11

the way, we are three white guys. Yeah. The way

17:13

I do not mind driving this Daisy. I was very

17:15

happy when it won in 1989. It's

17:19

it's a stage play. It's still done fairly

17:21

frequently. James Earl Jones did it on Broadway

17:24

not too long ago. You know, it's a

17:27

small story and it,

17:29

you know, it was very much based

17:31

on this guy, the playwright's own mother.

17:33

So I, I

17:35

don't know. I feel like it's been

17:37

unfairly lumped in with some of the

17:40

worst important Hollywood movies about race. Cause

17:42

it really is just like a really

17:44

small two hander of a movie. I

17:47

think the performances are good. Again, is

17:49

it especially embarrassing that it won in

17:51

the year of do the right thing,

17:54

which had a much more modern and

17:56

vibrant and important and funny

17:58

and heartbreaking take on. race. Yes,

18:01

that's especially egregious so it looks

18:03

like a really wrong-headed decision

18:05

by the Academy and even like I forget

18:09

what else was up that year but but

18:11

Dead Poets Society they could have gone for that.

18:15

Field of Dreams. I left with the July. I mean

18:18

so this one really ought to be in that category

18:20

of the robbers. You

18:22

know it's a pretty wide gap. I agree

18:24

with Craig. I think it is a small

18:27

story. It's really not about she doesn't

18:29

save him really he saves her. It's about

18:31

their relationship to one another and it's set

18:33

in a time where obviously

18:36

he's gonna be discriminated against heavily because

18:38

he's black but she is also discriminated

18:41

against heavily because she's Jewish. So there's

18:43

a you know there's a bombing at the

18:45

synagogue like these are things that were happening

18:47

in the American South and all over at

18:50

this time. So it it

18:53

does feel weird and

18:55

there's something in you know like the

18:57

oft imitated performance of Morgan Freeman which

18:59

is a brilliant performance that makes it

19:01

feel super stereotypical but he's

19:04

playing a he's not playing a

19:06

stereotype character I don't think. I

19:08

think he's playing a three-dimensional human

19:10

being and just the voice I think

19:13

clues people in and goes what that's intensely

19:15

racist without maybe digging into it more but

19:17

this is the time where Spike Lee do

19:19

the right thing doesn't get nominated. Malcolm X

19:21

doesn't get nominated a few years later. He

19:24

was shut out by the Academy for for

19:26

way way way too long. They've only recently

19:29

started to I mean he has

19:31

what he has two Oscars now I think but

19:34

uh you know it took forever for

19:37

him to be recognized. It took a

19:39

social movement which you know you

19:41

would rather that not be the case but

19:43

better that then it never happened it just

19:45

remain Oscars so white forever. So this is you

19:47

know it's tough to you know like like Craig said

19:50

we're not gonna blame stuff that didn't make it it

19:52

we can't blame it for taking the spot of something

19:54

that never got nominated even though it's a

19:56

crime that film wasn't nominated you can't go

19:58

off of. You know nobody

20:01

I've never seen anybody go we didn't

20:03

deserve this here You take

20:05

it except when it's mistakenly given to your film

20:08

and even then it's gladly Handed over because you

20:10

do not want to be the person who stole

20:12

the Oscar for moonlight What about

20:14

green book? I said by the way,

20:16

I was gonna say I should change this it shouldn't be the white

20:18

saviors You should be the white washing because

20:20

I guess there's That seems

20:22

more broadly accurate I suppose but a

20:25

green book definitely is white savior And

20:27

I think Hollywood just has a tradition

20:29

of like self-congratulatory Important

20:32

movies about important topics, you know

20:34

gentleman's agreement is low on my

20:36

list as well, you know, which

20:38

is about anti-sympathism Gregory

20:42

Peck doing going

20:44

undercover as a Jew Yeah,

20:46

like it's funky and and

20:49

poorly handled and Hollywood is

20:51

really patting itself on the back for

20:53

it. Yeah, man. I really green

20:56

book and Crash our top contenders. Well,

20:58

I think green book is particularly tough

21:00

in this because you mentioned Hollywood likes

21:03

to take important stories and do its

21:05

Hollywood version of important stories and normally

21:07

it's if it's fiction it's no harm

21:10

no foul But green book not necessarily

21:12

no harm. No foul but less harm

21:14

less foul than green book, which was

21:17

Ostensibly a true story and

21:20

then the family of the musician That

21:22

Mahershala Ali played Paul Shirley's family was like, this

21:25

is not true like the whole

21:27

notion of making this movie from one

21:29

point of view and then it being

21:31

like Then it

21:33

just the family of the true

21:35

story Not being down

21:37

with this movie winning best picture not being

21:39

down with this movie being made You

21:42

know, I mean that feels like a

21:44

particularly egregious crime in this

21:46

regard in terms of a movie Like

21:49

I just rewatched it recently just

21:51

put it on and watch it just to see like, all right, let's

21:53

see this again and I remember Enjoying

21:56

it like or what it is. It's fine.

21:58

It is In terms of hitting

22:01

every base it's supposed to for the movie that

22:03

it is, it does very well. Mahershala Ali is

22:05

brilliant in it. He's so good.

22:07

Biegel Mortensen is a lot of fun. It

22:10

doesn't feel like this is one that definitely,

22:12

Greg, you were talking about, like the Oscars

22:14

patting themselves on the back, that

22:16

basically like, this film solved

22:18

racism. And it's obviously wholly inaccurate.

22:20

It didn't deserve to win Best Picture.

22:23

If you watch it with the

22:25

idea of like, I'm watching a white fantasy,

22:28

then you go, okay, it's fine for what it

22:31

is. It is not a Best Picture

22:33

winner. Like, just not, it's insane to me that

22:35

it won. Insane. The

22:37

nature of the movie itself,

22:39

like Crash, may have been

22:42

clunky and heavy-handed, but

22:44

I think it was made in good

22:46

faith. It feels like Green Book was

22:48

not made in good faith. What

22:50

do you think, Greg? I think so. How

22:52

was it not made in good faith? I think they

22:54

were... I would say it's not the true story of

22:56

what happened. If the guy that wrote it knew it

22:59

wasn't the true story, if the people making it knew

23:01

it wasn't the true story, if

23:03

the family had said, this isn't the

23:05

true story in the course of while

23:07

the movie was being made, which apparently

23:09

happened. You know what I mean? That's

23:11

also a Hollywood tradition with biopics of

23:13

like, they make stuff up all the

23:15

time. Yeah, I guess. You know, it's

23:17

never the real story of what happened

23:19

to the person. I don't know.

23:21

This is a tough one,

23:23

choosing between these two

23:25

undeserving winners. I

23:29

agree with Al that Mahershali is fantastic in

23:31

it. He had already gotten an

23:33

Oscar, so I don't know if he deserved a

23:35

second one for this, but of like, he's wonderful

23:37

in the role. Yeah, I agree. He's doing his

23:40

best. You know, Viggo's doing a little forget-about thing,

23:43

you know? And like, the vibe

23:45

that the two of them have is entertaining. Yeah.

23:48

But of all the recent winners,

23:51

you know, as I said, as somebody who will

23:53

frequently defend the academy, this was the one that

23:55

blew my mind the most of like, how can

23:57

you do this in 2018? Cause

24:00

it is driving Miss Daisy all over

24:02

again and you know, supposedly they had,

24:04

you know, updated the voting base. I

24:06

think they've done a much better job

24:08

in the years since this, but that

24:10

one really, I mean, this

24:13

might be one of the top contenders

24:15

for the other category, I think, you

24:17

know, cause I would have gone for

24:19

Alfonso Cuaron's Roma, which is

24:21

a masterpiece and Cuaron had won

24:23

best director earlier. And so, it

24:25

seemed like we were maybe heading

24:27

for a Roma win and then

24:29

when it went to a Green

24:31

Book, it just, my

24:33

heart just sunk, you know, because

24:36

it was such a retrograde, you

24:38

know, relic of the past. I

24:41

did, you know, in compiling my list, you know,

24:43

knowing that I wasn't going to beat up on

24:45

the early ones, I had kind of four contenders

24:47

that were in mind and so I went to

24:49

see of like what's streaming and the only one

24:52

that was streaming currently on things that I pay

24:54

for is Crash. So

24:57

this might be a little recency bias

24:59

because I watched the half hour of

25:01

Crash earlier today, but man is

25:03

it bad. It is just

25:06

straight up not good. It is

25:09

the most heavy handed script. It is the

25:11

most inaccurate depiction of life in Los Angeles.

25:13

There is nothing anybody's saying in there that

25:15

a human being has ever said to another

25:18

human being and it wants you to know

25:20

how important it is and how much it's

25:22

thought about race and that this

25:24

is what racism is that people just say,

25:27

you know, epithets at each other, you know,

25:29

like right out of the gates, you know,

25:31

there's a long speech by Ludacris about like

25:33

how can these people like look at us

25:35

like they think we're gangbangers, they think we

25:38

have guns, but we do have guns and

25:40

let's go carjack them right now. I was

25:42

like, oh, you pulled out the rug from

25:44

me there, Paul Haggis, you know, and

25:47

there's it's like Mahershala lead. There's

25:49

good performances in this as well.

25:51

There's some fantastic actors in it.

25:54

So but in terms of like

25:56

what feels like the most heavy

25:58

handed and self important and self

26:01

self-congratulatory. I think Crash beats Green

26:04

Book as worse. Yeah. Yeah.

26:06

Well, so right now we're looking at the

26:09

Broadway, Melody, and Crash. Green Book, you're not

26:11

off the hook yet because of Roma. You've

26:13

now been launched into the robbers category. Thank

26:15

you. One more before we go to break,

26:18

and that is the overhyped. This is movies

26:20

that are big, huge

26:22

budget movies that are

26:25

just fine. The three

26:27

that I have on my list are The

26:29

Greatest Show on Earth, Around the

26:31

World in 80 Days, and Chicago. Are there

26:34

any others you can think of that work?

26:37

Ooh. Ooh. Yeah. I think Chicago's

26:39

really good. Ooh. Who put Titanic on it? Look,

26:42

I think Chicago's really good too, but

26:44

I'm putting it up there because simply

26:46

we talked about that being one

26:48

of those Harvey Weinstein gross. It

26:51

was just, did it win just

26:53

because it was on Harvey Weinstein's

26:55

list of hypedest movies. Well,

26:59

there's a great book called Oscar Wars. I'm sure

27:01

you've read it, Craig, or you are familiar with

27:03

it. If not, you would love it. Yeah. But

27:06

yeah, you know it. He was

27:09

seeking out movies that he thought could win.

27:11

He was targeting movies that he thought could

27:13

win. He can't make people vote. He could

27:15

certainly make them more visible, but I think

27:17

Chicago was a worthy winner. I think maybe

27:20

Shakespeare and Love is the more questionable one

27:22

who was going up against Saving Private Ryan,

27:24

but they split that down the middle because

27:27

the best director could have gone either way. Best Picture

27:29

could have gone either way, so they split them in

27:31

half, and each one was the

27:33

consolation prize for either the director or the

27:35

producers of the film. Right.

27:38

I think Chicago, if I'm remembering right,

27:40

kind of reinvigorated the sort of like

27:42

Dances of Wolves. It brought musicals back.

27:44

It brought musicals back. Dances of Wolves

27:47

brought back the epic Western. Yeah.

27:49

So I think it's notable for that reason.

27:51

I don't think it's- Look, man, I love

27:54

Chicago. I'm just- this is the list that

27:56

I'm compiling based on going online, reading reviews,

27:58

doing this, you know. Right. When I

28:00

think about overhyped, trying to look objectively, because

28:02

subjectively, I loved it and I love a

28:04

musical. When I think about overhyped, I think

28:07

about Titanic simply

28:09

for the reason that there is a

28:11

better movie about the thinking of the

28:13

Titanic out there and it's 1954's Night

28:15

to Remember. That is a

28:17

vastly superior movie about the Titanic. The

28:19

fact that he chose to create a

28:21

fictional story about a ship full of

28:23

really interesting actual stories that he

28:25

shunts to the side to make the most

28:27

generic love story possible. But you

28:30

add My Heart Will Go On to that,

28:32

you put Leonardo DiCaprio in it at the

28:34

height of his tiger beat cuteness and

28:36

Kate Winslet and who are both fantastic.

28:39

I mean, the cast is practically

28:41

untouchable for how good all of them

28:43

are. I mean, Kathy Bates is the unsinkable Molly Brown

28:46

is maybe the millionth cast in that

28:48

movie. But on a whole,

28:50

everything that is great about that movie happens

28:52

outside of the main plot and that to

28:54

me makes it a way overhyped movie.

28:56

Craig, how do you feel about that? I don't know if we've

28:58

ever talked about this before. First of all,

29:01

I was shocked with gags, including Chicago

29:03

as a as a horn musical theater.

29:05

I think Chicago is great. Like that

29:07

that was a shocking inclusion. I

29:10

haven't heard that much hate for it. So

29:12

maybe I'm looking at the wrong places yet.

29:14

But the thing is, guys, Titanic was never

29:17

not going to win that year. It was

29:19

a humongous, humongous movie.

29:22

It was such a crowd pleaser. That's

29:25

so rare that the number one

29:27

box office movie also is just

29:29

like the consensus pick. I mean,

29:31

it's James Cameron. It's overlonged.

29:33

It's overwrought. It's really

29:35

cheesy in places. But especially

29:38

I think for people a little younger than us,

29:40

you know, if you were in high school, you

29:42

know, when Titanic came out, there's people that were

29:44

hits them in the fields and so

29:47

that might be a generational thing. Yeah,

29:49

it's not one of my favorites.

29:51

There's some other epics from the

29:53

80s that would be in this

29:55

category, I think like Gandhi out

29:58

of Africa the last. I

30:00

think people would throw the English patient in

30:03

there as well. I will always stick up

30:05

for the English patient, but is it slow?

30:08

Is it long? Is it ponderous?

30:10

Does it feel really important and

30:13

meaningful at all times? Yes, it does. So I

30:15

think that's why that Seinfeld episode was so effective,

30:17

I think, because the English patient is the kind

30:19

of movie that the average person is not seeing

30:21

until they feel pressured. I guess I got to

30:23

see the best picture winner. And

30:26

so then they're bored out of their

30:28

skull by it. I saw it early

30:31

on and I think it's a beautiful

30:33

movie, so I'm not going to beat

30:35

up on it. But I understand how

30:37

something like that fits the category. Of

30:40

those, I think the worst is around the

30:43

world in 80 days. Yeah,

30:45

why that? No. It

30:47

is from the 50s is when the

30:49

studios were starting to compete with television

30:51

a little bit. And

30:53

this is when you're introducing Cinerama

30:56

and CinemaScope and a

30:58

lot of big budget musicals

31:01

and Cecil B. DeMille epics,

31:03

like The Greatest Show on

31:05

Earth. And around the world

31:07

in 80 days is three hours long and

31:10

it's nothing but every

31:12

star in Hollywood showing up in a

31:14

cameo. And it's like, there's

31:16

Sinatra. That's pretty much all

31:19

it is of like, it's not funny,

31:21

it's really boring. It's

31:24

just showing that it's better than television.

31:27

It's interesting that you mentioned we've

31:29

got now two movies that

31:31

are using new technology that

31:34

win best picture in a time when

31:37

they are using new technology. But if

31:39

you strip away the novelty of that

31:41

tech, then it's not a good movie.

31:43

You know what I mean? Like Broadway

31:45

Melody, if you strip away the fact

31:47

that it's the first fully talky musical,

31:51

you're like, okay, well it was doing that. That was the technology

31:53

it had. What did it do with it? What it could? Around

31:56

the world in 80 days, it's Cinerama or

31:58

CinemaScope and it's what are they doing?

32:00

with that while they're doing everything they can, they're

32:02

throwing everything at it. And then

32:04

you go, well, now we have these huge

32:07

epic sweeping movies all the time. So that's

32:09

not the novelty, the story, the acting, the

32:11

everything, all the elements coming together. That's

32:14

the thing. And yeah, around the world

32:16

in 80 days, I'm very

32:18

happy with that one being there. I

32:20

actually didn't dislike Greatest Show on Earth

32:23

because I'm a fan of both Emmett

32:25

Kelly and Lou Jacobs. And the fact

32:27

that those two clowns were in that

32:29

movie, to me that- Those

32:31

clowns were great. Those clowns

32:33

were great. Jimmy Stewart, the plot of that

32:36

movie is bonkers. You

32:39

wouldn't be suspicious of knowing

32:41

that there was a murderer on the loose and

32:43

also that there was a clown in

32:45

your troop that never took his makeup off. That

32:50

doesn't seem a little shady. Yeah, I

32:52

had heard for years that that was one

32:54

of the worst winners. And so I was,

32:56

you know, you're always grading everything on a

32:58

curve. So there's some that I was like

33:00

pleasantly surprised, like, it wasn't that bad. And

33:03

so I agree with you on Greatest Show on Earth.

33:05

It's like, it's clearly in the bottom

33:07

third of winners, but it's not one

33:10

of the worst. No, but it's Technicolor

33:12

footage of Ringling Brothers Circus in the

33:14

mid 20th century. So as

33:16

a time capsule, it's something anyways. And

33:18

if you saw the Fablemans, the Fablemans,

33:20

that was the movie that inspired you

33:22

on Spielberg. That's right. He was recreating

33:24

the train crash. Before we go to break. Yeah.

33:27

So, so far we have a Broadway melody crashing around the world

33:30

in 80 days. Those are all finalists. Craig, I'm

33:32

just curious, which decade,

33:34

and we haven't completed the 2020s yet, which

33:37

decade do you think got it right the most? We

33:40

look at it and go, these are all

33:42

of them are good winners. I have an answer.

33:44

I'm curious what yours is. There

33:48

are, you know, when I was looking for

33:51

pics, like I thought again, I'm like, I don't want to

33:53

beat up on the early ones. Like, let's pick something from

33:55

our lifetime probably. But as I started looking at the 60s,

33:57

70s, 70s, 70s, 70s, 70s, 70s, 70s, 70s, 70s, 70s, in

34:01

the 90s, like there were too many bad

34:03

choices. You know, there was

34:05

somewhere that they bypassed a better movie,

34:07

but I don't see many bad movies. They're like,

34:09

the worst one I had in the 90s is

34:12

Braveheart, which I don't think is a bad movie

34:14

at all. It's

34:16

Mel Gibson's, so that points

34:18

against. That's a fish. I

34:21

think the 90s has a pre-stacked

34:24

lineup, and of course the 70s

34:26

is like the decade for American

34:28

film. I think I had Patton

34:30

as my worst one from the

34:32

70s, because it's a little fascist.

34:36

It's John Milius. I will also, Hal

34:39

will hate this, but I think

34:41

Rocky is an overrated film. Okay.

34:44

Yeah. Would you pick that

34:46

year? Would you pick Network, Taxi Driver? We've

34:48

gone with Taxi Driver, I think, but you've

34:50

also got all the presidents, men in Network.

34:53

You know, is Rocky bad? No,

34:56

it's a really charming... It's

34:58

the little indie that could, really. It's

35:00

one of the more shocking upset winners

35:04

ever, but I don't know,

35:07

it's so mumbly. Yeah,

35:10

it is a very mumbly movie. It's

35:14

early mumblecore. But

35:16

it's uplifting. It's a great uplifting story.

35:19

It's not a million dollar baby, which is

35:21

just sad Rocky. Again, I

35:24

am very much... It's like you

35:26

were with Titanic. I

35:29

hate to be the person to badmouth a

35:31

movie that's so treasured by so many people.

35:33

But I also came to it late. I

35:35

think I was in college and with a

35:37

real film stop. I'm like, this isn't good.

35:40

Yeah, you came to it the

35:42

wrong time. But it also shares with Titanic

35:44

that it was the movie of its moment.

35:46

More so than any of the other movies,

35:48

which are all... I mean, there are no

35:50

bad ones in that collection. But

35:53

what were you thinking? 70s or 90s? 70s by far.

35:56

Yeah, I think it's a 70. Almost

35:58

everyone's a banger. It's

36:01

hard. The 90s are also good. The 40s, like there's

36:03

just like they're crazy eras but I think the 70s

36:05

as a whole is a decade. I look

36:07

at it and go like, alright, yep. Okay, good.

36:09

One, two and the ones that don't win, you

36:12

know, you have the Godfather Part Two, the same

36:14

year as Chinatown and The Conversation, like, they're

36:17

just, there's so many good movies. Just that's one

36:19

of those times where the changing of the guard

36:21

was happening. So you had all these fresh voices

36:23

and then like, like George Harrison's first album after

36:25

The Beatles, like just everything comes pouring out and

36:28

it's brilliant. One of

36:30

the many things that I rank is the best

36:33

years overall and my top two years for the

36:35

overall pool of nominees are 75 and 74. So

36:37

75, you have One Flew of the Cuckoo's Nest,

36:39

The Winner, but

36:43

you've got Jaws, Dog Day Afternoon, Nashville

36:45

and then Barry Lyndon, which is kind

36:47

of a divisive Kubrick film but I

36:50

happen to like it. But like, it's

36:52

unbelievable how much they got it right

36:54

back then and how many good movies

36:57

were being made. Yeah. Well,

36:59

when we come back from our break, we're

37:01

going to talk about the times they definitely got it

37:03

wrong. And we

37:06

are going to come away with the worst

37:08

best picture Oscar winner of all time that

37:10

is coming up after the break. Coming

37:12

up after the break, worst

37:14

best picture Oscar winner here on

37:17

the Maximum Fun Network. I'm

37:20

Emily Fleming. And I'm Jordan Morris.

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It's probably a lot more than that, right? I

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I think in the fall we'll hit 500. Yeah. Amazing.

39:02

But why not? All right. We have talked

39:05

about that first interpretation of worst best picture

39:07

winners, which is the movies that are just

39:09

not that great. Now let's go on to

39:12

the robbers. This is movies that are good,

39:14

but there were other movies that year that

39:16

were better for this one. You guys

39:18

just want to throw some out because I've

39:20

got a few. I know that you guys

39:23

have got a few. Craig, you want to

39:25

go first? I've always submitted Green

39:27

Book over Roma, so I'd like that to

39:29

be in the mix. And

39:32

then I think another famous one is How

39:34

Green Is My Valley over Citizen Kane. Sure.

39:37

That's the biggest one of all time. How

39:39

is How Green Is My Valley? I've not seen

39:42

it. Well, it's a John Ford movie about Welsh

39:44

coal miners, and it's about

39:46

as exciting as that sounds. No,

39:50

it's fine. It's

39:52

like it's not

39:54

revolutionizing the art form like

39:57

Citizen Kane. covered

40:00

this on the Craigslist podcast. You know,

40:02

it's amazing like it's a funny movie,

40:04

it's an entertaining movie, it's exciting, you

40:07

know, in addition to all of the

40:09

technical breakthroughs that it did. So

40:12

just with the Oscar backlash, I think it's one

40:14

of those movies that has like the greatest movie

40:16

of all time backlash of like if people see

40:18

it and they're like, yeah, it was fine. But

40:21

you know, it really

40:23

is like an incredibly entertaining movie in

40:26

addition to being groundbreaking. So I think

40:28

that counts for a lot. But I

40:30

don't think anyone seriously thought it was

40:32

going to win then like the backlash

40:34

against it in Hollywood and against Wells

40:36

had already started, you know. So

40:38

I don't know enough to know if How Green

40:40

was My Valley was considered an upset over like

40:42

what else might have won. But

40:44

I don't think anybody any actually went into

40:47

that ceremony thinking that Wells would win actor

40:49

director or picture. Was this a fear of

40:51

Hearst thing at that point? Was it was

40:53

that what was happening? Yeah.

40:56

Yeah. I think it was all of the

40:58

bad press about it. And I think

41:00

there was pressure among the voters to not

41:02

go for Wells there.

41:04

And there was just backlash. You know,

41:06

he was an arrogant guy who didn't

41:09

make a lot of friends also. So

41:11

there was a huge backlash against him.

41:13

John Ford, I believe, won four Best

41:15

Director Oscars more than anybody else. So

41:17

like he was fine. So

41:19

yeah, I think you can skip How Green was

41:22

My Valley. You know, you

41:24

won't hate it if you see it, but you

41:26

won't remember much about it as I have not

41:28

remembered much about it. Well, let

41:30

me ask you this then because the thing that I've

41:32

latched onto that I love about looking at it from

41:34

this angle is that gulf, the

41:37

gulf between what won and what

41:39

should have won. And I'm

41:41

wondering if I'm way off base, let

41:44

me know, should we try to find

41:46

a quantifiable way, whether it is a

41:48

number one to 10, a letter grade

41:50

a through F to quantify the gulf

41:52

because we're going to have to make

41:55

some decisions coming up here. I think

41:57

that quantifying that gulf might be a

42:00

a good way to look at this

42:02

particular section of that. And I'm wondering

42:04

if it's not a terribly high version

42:06

of the Gulf because that movie is

42:08

good, but Citizen Kane is so great.

42:10

You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah,

42:13

I don't know how to quantify it

42:15

necessarily. I have also two more submissions,

42:17

which I think were ones that you

42:19

guys might agree with as well, which

42:21

is, and again, this is just totally

42:23

in retrospect of what is an all-time

42:25

film. It might not have really had

42:27

a chance to win on the day,

42:30

but if it was nominated, so here's

42:32

two movies that were nominated for Best

42:34

Picture. I don't know how

42:36

close they actually were, but is

42:38

Raiders of the Lost Ark better than Chariots of

42:40

Fire, guys? That was the first one I

42:42

was gonna throw out there. Yeah. And

42:45

is ET slightly better than Gandhi? Yeah.

42:48

So I would submit those two Spielberg movies. I

42:50

mean, you could go for Tootsie or ET.

42:52

I like ET a little better. I love

42:54

Tootsie, of course. The Verdict,

42:56

also 82. Those are

42:58

three of my top 100 movies of all time, and

43:01

they went for Gandhi, the far more

43:04

traditional long-ass, slow, biopic

43:06

choice. Chariots of

43:08

Fire was a huge upset at the time.

43:11

Nobody thought it would win. I think Reds,

43:14

the Beatty film, was the front runner,

43:16

and maybe some people thought On Golden

43:18

Pond would win. I don't think Raiders

43:20

really had a chance. The nomination was

43:22

its victory, but in retrospect, I mean,

43:24

come on, Raiders is a top 10

43:26

movie of all time, and Chariots

43:29

of Fire is pretty boring. The song's

43:31

good. Well, the thing, good song. Yeah,

43:34

slow motion running. It did

43:36

give us a trope. It gave us the slow

43:38

motion running to that song trope. I'll

43:40

throw out two. One, I don't know if the gap is

43:42

great enough, and that is

43:44

Tom Jones. I'm not saying anything bad about Tom

43:46

Jones, but one of my

43:48

favorite movies is Lilies of the Field.

43:50

I think it is a beautiful movie,

43:53

fantastic movie, great, not early, but early

43:55

to mid to the Poitiers performance, just

43:57

like a great, again, like the

43:59

Oscars. generally don't favor small

44:02

stories as much, which is why things like

44:04

Driving Miss Daisy, even Parasite I think is

44:06

a smaller story, it just has something bigger

44:08

to say. But I would have liked to

44:10

have seen that win. I don't know if

44:12

the gap is great enough. That's one. Am

44:14

I like way off base here, Craig? No,

44:17

I don't think so. Oh. Yeah,

44:19

I think I, yeah, I

44:21

think that could be in a mix. Yeah.

44:23

Another is just because I remember it's maybe

44:25

one of the most notable robberies in Oscar

44:27

history, and that's Out of Africa winning over

44:29

the Color Purple. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Because that was,

44:31

you know, there are a lot of that

44:33

was supposed to be Whoopi Goldberg's year. That

44:36

movie was supposed to, I mean, it's, again,

44:38

a gut-wrenching rape

44:40

movie. And everybody knows and everybody has

44:42

seen and everybody holds in high regard

44:45

the Color Purple. There haven't been, there's

44:47

not been the Out of Africa musical

44:50

and subsequent movie musical based on the

44:52

original source material of the movie Out

44:54

of Africa. But there very recently has

44:56

been for the Color Purple. And that's

44:59

a testament to the longevity of that

45:01

story over a simple love

45:03

story of Meryl Streep

45:05

with an accent and Robert Redford with

45:07

a rifle. Is this the first

45:10

movie now that the musical has been nominated?

45:12

Craig, I figure you'll know this the first

45:14

time that two adaptations of

45:16

the same work. So first you have

45:18

the film adaptation, then the adaptation of

45:20

the Broadway musical of the movie of

45:23

the book. So there, it's

45:25

an adaptation of the film. The first

45:28

time it's been nominated or the first time it's

45:30

been made? An adaptation of an adaptation of a

45:32

film has been nominated. Like they both

45:34

have been nominated for Best Picture and neither one

45:36

will win. Sadly. I feel like

45:38

it has to happen, but I can't

45:40

grab it off the top of my

45:43

head. Would

45:46

you count Romeo and Juliet to

45:48

West Side Story to no, that wouldn't be.

45:51

That's a stretch. But yeah, that's a stretch. That's

45:53

a source of material. Same story. I'm

45:56

going to throw out, I think it was 1994. Again, Not

46:00

a bad movie in the same way How

46:02

Green is My Valley? Not a bad movie.

46:04

Forrest Gump is a great movie. I enjoyed

46:06

it. I had a great time watching it.

46:08

I thought that Tom Hanks was brilliant in

46:10

it. I thought that the way that it

46:12

covered the mid-20th century was brilliant, but it

46:14

was up against the Shawshank Redemption and Pulp

46:16

Fiction in that year. Or

46:18

is that gulf wide enough between those two

46:21

or is it just a stacked year? What

46:24

do you guys think? I think Forrest

46:27

Gump has had more backlash since

46:29

than it actually had in the

46:31

year. I don't think it had

46:33

very much backlash at the time.

46:36

I think it's very kind of

46:38

a naive take on American history

46:40

and maybe the depiction of minority

46:42

characters looks maybe a little

46:44

more embarrassing in retrospect. But

46:47

at the time, Forrest Gump was

46:49

humongous, huge blockbuster, pretty beloved overall.

46:52

My favorite nominee that year was

46:54

actually Quiz Show, the Redford movie.

46:58

Love that movie, but of course Shawshank and

47:00

Pulp Fiction are Alzheimer's as well. That might

47:02

be like due to the collective end four

47:05

weddings in a funeral I think is maybe

47:07

also better than Forrest Gump as well. That

47:10

was a pretty good group of nominees. Would

47:15

you put Forrest Gump as the number five on

47:17

that list? I think it is out of those

47:19

five movies. So the Gulf might be the widest

47:21

that it's not even the number two. It's not

47:23

how green is my valley. When the winner was

47:26

the worst. I

47:28

would say Forrest Gump has made me better than

47:30

four weddings, but it's close. I

47:32

don't know. I think that's hard because I

47:34

don't mind Forrest Gump at all. Yeah,

47:37

again, I love it. But I

47:39

think Pulp Fiction was, Shawshank

47:42

Redemption is amazing. I think Pulp Fiction is a

47:44

masterpiece. But I think that

47:46

the thing, obviously the way it was shot

47:48

and edited is one thing that

47:50

made it stand out, but really it was

47:52

Tarantino's dialogue. You get a

47:54

good taste of it in True Romance and Reservoir Dogs. But

47:58

then along comes Pulp Fiction which in a way is a masterpiece. addition

48:00

to being his style of dialogue is

48:02

a massive hit and then he wins

48:04

the screenwriting Oscar so I think that

48:06

movie was like that you know sometimes

48:08

you get that award it's really like

48:10

everything you did was good we're giving

48:12

you this one another movie is winning

48:14

best picture so it's not like it

48:16

wasn't recognized yeah that's true what

48:18

is Spike Lee as well Spike Lee's only one for

48:20

screenplays right is he one he hasn't won best picture

48:23

no he is not yeah he's won for

48:25

screenplays or editing or did he want

48:28

a directing one no he did not win

48:30

a directing one I believe he won a screenplay for

48:32

black Klansman yes yes he did and

48:34

he's got an honorary one maybe I thought

48:38

shy that worked I racked in win no

48:41

no it did not shy wrapped in that

48:43

one I love that script it's

48:46

really good it's Chicago it's classic Greek

48:48

it's great anyway let me throw

48:50

one more out there that I think is I

48:52

actually think it might fit into overhyped because I

48:54

remember seeing it I was excited to see it

48:57

because I you know I don't hate the triplets at

48:59

all but I think the shape of water it's a

49:02

really bizarre choice in

49:04

the same year where you have Call Me By Your

49:06

Name you have Dunkirk you get out I

49:08

think get out and Lady Bird are

49:10

both leaps beyond the shape

49:12

yeah in terms of being a quality

49:14

film it's it's just like why I

49:16

don't know I mean I don't get

49:18

it I just I never got it

49:22

this is another thing that happens

49:24

with the Oscars that at some

49:27

point in a year a film

49:29

just like develops momentum for whatever

49:31

reason and gets a push behind

49:33

it and it develops

49:35

a narrative that this is the movie

49:38

this year and the shape

49:40

of water is maybe the most bizarre

49:42

example of it like del Toro is

49:44

so hit and miss as a filmmaker

49:47

like are they always

49:49

fascinating to look at is

49:51

the design like crazy balls

49:54

fantastic yes yeah that is just

49:56

a weird weird movie especially as

49:59

an Oscar winner like I just

50:02

don't buy it. It's part of that

50:04

trio like that those three guys like

50:06

the three great Mexican auteurs have how

50:08

many of the last ten have they

50:10

won? Like it was

50:12

a wild run that those guys

50:15

went on. I think in YA2

50:17

is won twice for director, Cuaron

50:19

is won twice for director and

50:21

Del Toro won for director and

50:23

then Birdman and Shape of Water

50:25

won Best Picture as well. So

50:27

yeah. It's

50:29

a pretty good track record but

50:31

yeah that's a pretty good pick too in

50:33

terms of like the most bizarre choice because

50:35

all of those other movies are way better

50:37

than Shape of Water. Shape

50:40

of Water is just

50:42

so weird like it is

50:45

one of the more mystifying choices though I didn't

50:47

think it was a bad movie it would just

50:49

like it just didn't seem like an Oscar winner

50:51

to me. Yeah. Alright well let's

50:54

start whittling these down. Here's

50:56

what we're looking at right now as far

50:58

as the robbers go. But we've got 1994.

51:01

Sorry Mark I got one more robber. Okay.

51:04

I think the English patient is a robber I

51:06

think Fargo should have won the Oscar. Fargo should

51:09

have won. I have that on the list I

51:11

forgot to mention. You almost like go back like

51:13

if you're listing if somebody was like Hal just

51:15

throw out movies that have won Best Picture I

51:17

would definitely say Fargo at some point completely forgetting

51:20

that they lost to the English patient. Yeah.

51:23

Well and we've also there's another one I want to

51:25

throw out too if we're throwing extras out and while

51:27

we're on this Spielberg kick 1983 Raiders 82 ET let's

51:30

go with Saving Private Ryan.

51:34

What do you think about Shakespeare in Love beating Saving Private Ryan? I

51:37

like Shakespeare in Love a lot. I

51:43

think Ryan is good I

51:45

think it was a little overhyped that

51:47

year. I don't think that's

51:49

an egregious I don't think that's an egregious

51:51

win. I don't think Private Ryan is an

51:53

all timer. I Think

51:56

the Omaha Beach sequence is

51:58

like unforgettable. Soy

52:00

on opening day and the film

52:03

broke down and they had us

52:05

or money back. I had to

52:07

return a week later and see

52:09

that Obama her beasts. See.

52:11

Have seen him added that own is

52:14

incredible. Yeah it's a tough watch though.

52:16

I was out. As I can imagine

52:18

it's a it's a really tough was

52:21

so ah but that's and movies a

52:23

little little overlong. I think it's it

52:25

is. It is probably a top ten

52:28

Spielberg but but I. I

52:30

feel like it's a little overhyped in I

52:32

think six per level. Again, it's get that

52:35

Miramax push behind it, so that's a little

52:37

gross as well. But as a it's a

52:39

thoroughly charming movie. I don't have

52:41

that that doesn't seem to be one of the

52:43

big gulps to me grader. and it's also like

52:45

a flawless. Was. Pretty much a flawless

52:47

film. I. Love Shakespeare in Love

52:49

Him Either the fact that you can

52:51

enjoy it, you'd enjoy it at any

52:53

level of the Africa literacy. Speaks.

52:56

To how well made it is

52:58

somebody is a chocolate and vanilla.

53:00

Sometimes it's not the movie want

53:02

because you have very serious war

53:04

film vs this beautiful period romance

53:06

comedy. So. They're not that does not

53:08

the same movie. Ran. I think

53:10

the quality level like I think I disagree

53:12

with Craig a little bit on saving Private

53:14

Ryan. I don't think it's perfect, but I

53:16

think it's really good. It's not one I

53:18

revisit because it's such a difficult watch. Via.

53:21

As soon as Spielberg one for best director was

53:23

like oh they're going to give Shakespeare in Love

53:25

best picture I remember watching the Oscars I might

53:27

have even said it out loud does of so

53:29

clear those are the two movies that were just

53:31

hadn't sold as above everything else. You.

53:34

Author out a few honorable mentions

53:36

you don't have to add to

53:38

the list, but just okay. Mention

53:40

them going my way over Double

53:42

Indemnity. Looks pretty pretty wrongheaded in

53:44

retrospect. Gladiator over crouching tiger, hidden

53:46

dragon and I can't believe we

53:48

have it mention a beautiful mind

53:50

with which is really not a

53:52

great big beasts as well as

53:54

their the year there was a

53:56

pretty well. I mean, Fellowship of

53:58

the Ring was the best. Movie by far but

54:01

I think there was always the perception that he

54:03

would win for the third one which which you

54:05

did with Return of the Gang But like that

54:07

the gulf between a beautiful mind of fellowship the

54:09

risk is pretty big Now if you'll for Gosford

54:11

Park could have one and that would you would

54:14

have gone. oh that make sense. That's a perfect

54:16

now that's a perfectly good were to have. Very.

54:19

English. Robert Altman served

54:21

at a pedigree witty I'd.

54:23

So. As so what is that

54:25

what sticking out as the biggest goals

54:28

that were thinking about. Are.

54:30

There some that the gulf seems wider than others

54:32

just off the top your heads. The.

54:34

Big One Million One Rising to the top

54:36

three. The. Big ones for me or green

54:38

book roma. How

54:41

green was my valley? Citizen Kane

54:43

and Chariots of Fire Raiders. Yeah.

54:46

I I think yeah. Those.

54:48

Are all really good choices? And

54:50

I know, Obviously, knowing the story

54:52

of why Citizen Kane didn't win.

54:54

That and that. it's understand of like

54:57

you can understand the mechanics. Of what

54:59

happened. By. Right it is and has

55:01

been for many years and I know killed in

55:03

and out of the top spot but it it

55:05

is. Widely. Enough considered the

55:07

greatest film ever made that it is

55:09

ridiculous that it walked away and they

55:11

get the screenwriting after his co writer

55:13

dead and I know they fought over.

55:16

Over the credit and and hated manga other.

55:19

Yes, Man he and bank did not get

55:21

along but I think the fact is is when

55:23

best pitcher is. Like. Patently, it

55:25

is the biggest. It's the biggest with

55:27

in Oscars history. I would say. No.

55:30

Did. You guys ever see that movie? Arcades?

55:32

You? anyone? The.

55:35

Leah smell with Leo, Leo Schreiber as well

55:37

as well as right Yeah, yeah so know

55:39

him well as I saw hours. Orson.

55:41

welles and me or me and orson welles

55:44

whatever the name of that i saw that

55:46

as well yeah that's very charming movie i

55:48

saw were looking to chariots of fire of

55:50

a raiders greenberg of aroma how green is

55:53

my valley over citizen kane and in the

55:55

relics the broadway melody crash and around the

55:57

world navy days ominously based on this conversation

55:59

i would die will throw this out there.

56:02

It seems the ones that excited us the

56:04

most and got us the most fired up

56:06

away from crapping on the Broadway melody, aside

56:08

from the Broadway melody being maybe objectively the

56:10

worst movie of these, it seems like the

56:13

ones that got us fired up the most

56:15

were Crash and Green Book. That's fair to

56:17

say. Can we whittle it down to those two or

56:19

are we going to keep How Green is My Valley and Cherry to Fire

56:21

in the mix? No, I think

56:24

those are the bottom two. Those are

56:26

the ones I came into today thinking

56:28

about the most. Green Book and Crash

56:30

and I'll take Broadway. Broadway Melody, you

56:32

just skated through on this one. You

56:34

are on notice. I don't

56:37

know how you don't put How Green is My

56:39

Valley in there, guys, because it's the movie

56:42

that won over Citizen Kane. It's

56:44

so ridiculous. For both of these

56:46

other films, there were obvious choices

56:48

that would have been better winners,

56:50

for sure. But none of those

56:52

are the greatest movie ever made.

56:55

Well, I think you're right, Hal, that that's

56:57

the biggest gulf. And

57:00

Green Book already lost

57:03

to Crash in the other category,

57:05

so we know it can't win

57:07

overall. So it feels like the

57:09

finalists should be How Green is

57:11

My Valley versus Crash. Well

57:14

then, let me ask this. Now I

57:16

go back to the very beginning of

57:18

this episode and I think we have

57:20

to determine what the question is. And

57:22

the question as asked was, what is

57:27

the worst best picture Oscar winner?

57:29

Now, do we play semantics in

57:32

this and really make it about

57:34

parsing those words out? Because it

57:36

seems like How Green was My

57:39

Valley is not

57:41

the winner is the noun,

57:43

right? The noun is the winner. The movie

57:45

itself is the winner. That

57:47

means that we're talking about the movie

57:50

that is the worst among these. It's

57:52

not worst best picture decision. The

57:54

decision, it might be that

57:57

might be that the decision to not give Citizen

57:59

Kane best picture. over how

58:01

Green was my Valley might may very

58:03

well be the worst best picture decision

58:05

but the question is what's the worst

58:07

best picture Oscar winner that to me

58:09

implies that it's asking about the movie

58:11

itself now we've got Green Book in

58:13

both of those categories as

58:16

the movie itself is

58:18

I mean aside from Mahershala Ali's

58:20

performance and the other good performances

58:22

in it that it's it is the of

58:25

the movies that we're talking about that crash and

58:27

how Green was my Valley might be the worst

58:29

movie what do you guys think the

58:32

noun I put the emphasis on is winner that's

58:34

what I mean but but the winner look

58:36

at any the winner is not the decision to

58:38

name it the winner the thing about all these

58:41

all these movies have in common as you look

58:43

at them and you go really that one

58:45

good point that one one and for

58:47

different reasons this one was really bad

58:49

this one is clearly white savior complex

58:51

and this one happened to

58:53

win over the greatest movie ever made let

58:55

me ask you guys this they're all they all are that

58:57

I'm not saying that way that way above the others but

59:00

there's there's three egregious

59:02

errors either because the movie is

59:04

bad or just absolutely the wrong

59:06

choice and history has

59:08

proven it out well let me ask you this then

59:11

using the word really as the barometer

59:13

of this that

59:16

all of these movies make us go really

59:19

does one of them stand out

59:21

and make us go really

59:23

I don't

59:25

know if this could be a tiebreaker but

59:29

I have pulled up the top

59:31

quote from crash and how Green

59:33

was my Valley and if

59:35

you would indulge me I could I

59:38

can do a dramatic interpretation of the top

59:40

speech from each movie please and if

59:42

you I won't reveal which

59:44

is which but okay sure

59:47

okay we can get and so

59:49

if you'll allow me to do both

59:52

speeches and then perhaps you could vote

59:54

on which feels

59:56

like the worst speech please yes speech

59:58

number one okay how

1:00:01

to do a Welsh accent. You

1:00:03

just gave away. No, no, not necessarily. It's about every

1:00:06

ethnicity in Los Angeles. Yeah. You don't think there are

1:00:08

Welsh people out here, Mark? Look

1:00:14

around. There's so many Welsh people. There could be

1:00:16

one in the West. You know the little whales? Yeah.

1:00:19

Little whales? Yeah. Oh,

1:00:21

it's so great there. Always cold. You've

1:00:24

been lucky, Hugh. Lucky to

1:00:26

suffer and lucky to spend these wary months in bed.

1:00:29

For so God has given you a chance to

1:00:31

make the spirit within yourself. And

1:00:33

your father cleans his lambda of good light,

1:00:35

so keep clean your spirit by prayer, Hugh.

1:00:38

And by prayer, I don't mean shouting, mumbling,

1:00:40

and wallowing like a hog in religious sentiment.

1:00:43

Prayer is only another name for good, clean,

1:00:45

direct thinking. When you pray,

1:00:47

think. Think well what

1:00:49

you're saying. Make your thoughts into things that

1:00:51

are solid. In that way, your prayer

1:00:54

will have strength, and that strength will become

1:00:56

a part of you, your body, mind, and

1:00:58

spirit. Okay. So

1:01:01

that could be their movie. It's

1:01:03

the sense of touch. In

1:01:08

any real city, you walk, you know.

1:01:11

You brush past people. People

1:01:13

bump into you. In LA,

1:01:16

nobody touches you. We're

1:01:19

always behind this metal and glass.

1:01:22

I think we miss that touch so much

1:01:24

that we crash into each other just

1:01:27

so we can feel something. Well

1:01:31

Hal, that is quite the list of

1:01:33

nominees, I must say. But there can

1:01:36

be only one winner. People

1:01:39

of the world, if your movie is so

1:01:41

bad that it can beat

1:01:43

the movie that beat Citizen Kane,

1:01:45

you know it's the worst Academy

1:01:47

Award winner. Did you hear Speech Number 2?

1:01:50

You couldn't even do it in a Welsh accent.

1:01:52

That's like, it's just impossible. If you tried, you

1:01:54

would burst into flame. Shame.

1:01:58

Shame. Shame on you Academy voters. Isn't

1:02:01

that the requirement? That's the official like phrase that

1:02:03

you have to say within a month of moving

1:02:05

to LA is like you never see anybody You're

1:02:07

in your car all the time And

1:02:11

that's all to crash into each other

1:02:14

just to feel something. Yeah If

1:02:16

it only had oh, it's raining. We needed that that would

1:02:18

be the only thing that you could add We

1:02:23

needed that I don't want to take the 405 it's

1:02:25

so bad I

1:02:27

was so prepared to go to the mat for

1:02:30

how green was my Valley and then I

1:02:32

think like three words in the Three

1:02:34

words of the discussion like yeah, there's just no

1:02:36

way. There's just no way Flash

1:02:39

is the worst specs picture winner.

1:02:41

I asked and answered. Oh I

1:02:44

just like take a freaking shower

1:02:46

Don Cheadle has to say those words to don't

1:02:48

you know a great actor Great

1:02:51

done really an actor not an Oscar

1:02:53

winner yet Did he not win? I?

1:02:56

Thought he won for Hotel Rwanda nominee

1:02:58

for Hotel Rwanda. Yeah Well,

1:03:01

he should win. He's very good and he's war

1:03:03

machine. He sure has yeah How

1:03:06

come he didn't win for oceans 11? That was

1:03:08

such a really insane British accent Yeah, he

1:03:10

was brilliant in that right as his cock

1:03:12

me bum maker. Wait, that wasn't

1:03:14

a Welsh accent Why didn't he do that

1:03:17

accent in crash? Muckie up.

1:03:19

I Also want to apologize

1:03:22

to your Welsh listening shit by the

1:03:24

way both of you Craig Apologizes. Yeah,

1:03:26

I'll call Paul Freeman and tell him

1:03:29

the only Welshman. I know Craig Kocowski. Thank

1:03:31

you for being here brother This was a lot

1:03:33

of fun long overdue. Oh, man. What

1:03:35

it would a blast. You're the best. What's going

1:03:37

on right now Where do you want people to find you or

1:03:40

over city? I just I just moved I just moved

1:03:42

to come Oh you did after 13 years

1:03:44

in Atwater Village My

1:03:47

wife and I have relocated to the west side

1:03:49

Wow This

1:03:51

what's like that we literally just

1:03:53

completed the move today in pouring

1:03:55

rain Wow Like

1:03:57

it's been the rainiest week of the year here

1:04:00

in Los Angeles the worst possible week to

1:04:02

move. Charlie had to convince – 10 points to Norman

1:04:04

LA history. Yeah. Great.

1:04:08

Yeah. We'll be doing that category in a

1:04:10

couple of years probably. If

1:04:13

we're still here. But

1:04:15

yeah, I tried to convince Carla to

1:04:17

let us move everything ourselves because I'm

1:04:19

cheap and I'm so happy that we

1:04:22

got movers because they just saved our

1:04:24

lives on the Rainiest Day. Yeah,

1:04:27

that's – I'm improvising around

1:04:29

town. I teach at the World's Greatest

1:04:31

Improv School which is called World's Greatest

1:04:34

Improv School, WGIS run by Will Hines.

1:04:36

So if you're looking to take a

1:04:38

improv class either in person

1:04:41

or online, go to wgimprovschool.com.

1:04:44

Well, I highly recommend you take an improv

1:04:46

class from Craig Kacowski because Hal and I

1:04:48

have both done it. You have drilled us

1:04:50

and it remains one of my great improv

1:04:52

experiences was Craig running us through the drills

1:04:54

one day and just working us out harder

1:04:57

than I've ever worked out in an improv

1:04:59

setting. So you are – you're the goat

1:05:01

my friend. Thank you for coming on and

1:05:03

talking about this. Thank you brother. We

1:05:05

knew you'd be great. And guess what?

1:05:07

The experts have weighed in and this

1:05:09

topic is closed but there are many

1:05:11

more topics to discuss so please reach

1:05:13

out to us via email at wegotthispodcastatgmail.com

1:05:15

or you can go

1:05:18

to our Facebook group, facebook.com/group slash wegotthispodcast. Join

1:05:20

the conversation there and every single day. Oh,

1:05:22

they're playing right now. I'd like to thank

1:05:24

producer Ken Plume. You can support him at

1:05:27

patreon.com, Ken Plume. Nobody does it alone. I'd

1:05:29

like to thank researcher Kate McManus, Grabby de

1:05:31

Sutter, Ari K Let

1:06:00

me finish. It's

1:06:03

all those out there, the people of the world.

1:06:05

I say thank you for letting us crash into

1:06:07

you. Thank you. Thank

1:06:09

you. Thank you. For Howl

1:06:11

Lublin, I'm Mark Agliardi. For Mark Agliardi, I'm Howl Lublin. And don't

1:06:13

worry, everybody. We got this. We got

1:06:15

this. Maximum

1:06:18

Fun, a worker-owned network

1:06:20

of artist-owned shows supported

1:06:22

directly by you.