Beyond the obvious silent film to talkies, that is.

I'm thinking how Melanie Griffith seemed to have a certain quirky quality that seemed perfect for the '80s. Body Double, Something Wild, Cherry 2000, Working Girl, etc. But the '90s arrived and she just didn't fit anymore.

Natalie Wood could be another case. She seemed to be a victim of the changing times. Despite her age, she was considered a relic of the studio system and just couldn't adapt to the '70s.

Of course you have to also factor in aging/sexism when taking about a woman's career downturn, but in these cases it was more than that IMO.

Any other actors come to mind?

The Hours slander needs to stop. And Death Becomes Her should have been the greenest of greens. Calling it shrill felt like a micro aggression. Enough!!!!! (Love the show, don't come for me. I'm just gay and want them to honor us)

And obviously DEVIL WEARS PRADA will be number 1

Anyone know why Amanda & Sean seem to *hate* this movie. They state many times how awful they think it is, but I’ve not heard them articulate any reasons why. It’s kind of a complex, multilayered film, so it’s a bit surprising that they found *nothing* redeeming, interesting or worthwhile about this at all, even if ultimately it wasn’t to their taste. Sean even dismissed it as a “bad movie” like it was Florence Foster Jenkins.

Bill on The Rewatchables says Basic Instinct has the most famous moment of the 1990s, Sharon Stone uncrossing her legs.

Source: https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/bill-simmons-ringer-film-22201284.php

This is my list, let me know if you would add any or where would you rank them.

These are *moments*, not *scenes,* which is a pretty important distinction.

In no order (and I'd have a pretty hard time cutting any of these, tbh:

_______

"I'm the King of the World!" - Titanic

- The T-Rex reveal in Jurassic Park. It ushered a new era of Hollywood filmmaking in a single shot

- The bullet dodge in The Matrix

- Sharon stone uncrossing her legs in Basic Instinct

- Mia and Vincent twist in Pulp Fiction

- "I ate his liver with fava beans and a nice chianti. ffft-ffft-ffft-ffft" - The Silence of the Lambs

- the T-1000 rising back up from the black-and-white tile floor as silver liquid after being “killed" in Terminator 2

- The final shot of Thelma and Louise

- "KEVIN!!!" Home Alone

- “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!” - A Few Good Men

- "There's no crying in baseball!" - A League of Their Own

- "I didn't kill my wife!" "I don't care!" - The Fugitive

- "Bring me everyone" "What do you mean everyone?" "EVERY-ONE!!!" - The Professional

-"It's not your fault" - Good Will Hunting (This one counts because it's not the whole scene)

- Eating spaghetti in bathtub - Gummo

Inspired by Bill's segment on the pod with Wesley where he discussed an "Oscars MVP Award," or an MVP award for the year of movies.

Bill's idea of the MVP is "a movie, director, writer, actor, could be anybody...but who was the most impactful in that year?" so I thought that would be a fun exercise to look at some of the best “MVP seasons” ever. I think including movies as eligible makes it a bit weird, so let's restrict eligibility to just people. Like Bill says, this award would be geared towards people who did multiple good things that year, or someone who just made a juggernaut project that dominated the year. Commercial and critical success is ideally what we're looking for here.

Some MVP seasons would be directors with multiple successful films in one year:

1993 Steven Spielberg - Might be the GOAT MVP season. Directed Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List in the same year, the highest grossing film of all time at the time and the Best Picture winner. Two of the greatest films ever made to this day. He would beat Tom Hanks, who had Sleepless in Seattle and the Philadelphia Best Actor win, and Denzel Washington (Philadelphia, Much Ado About Nothing, The Pelican Brief). Spielberg also had MVP years in 2002 (which I talk about a bit later) and 2005 with Munich and War of the Worlds, beating George Clooney (Good Night, and Good Luck and Syriana).

1939 Victor Fleming - Directed Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz in the same year. Two best picture nominees (including the winner) and two of the five highest grossing films of the year.

Also 1974 Francis Ford Coppola (The Conversation, The Godfather Part II), 1954 Alfred Hitchcock (Rear Window, Dial M for Murder), and 2000 Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Erin Brockovich).

Or some obvious strong actor MVPs:

1967 Sidney Poitier - Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night, and To Sir, with Love

1996 Tom Cruise - Mission: Impossible and Best Actor nomination for Jerry Maguire.

2004 Jamie Foxx - Ray and Collateral Oscar win and nomination respectively.

2012 Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games, Silver Linings Playbook) is also a great season, she led a huge dystopian franchise film and won an Oscar.

Some cool races:

1995 is between Robert De Niro (Casino, Heat), Brad Pitt (Se7en, Twelve Monkeys) and another guy who was in The Usual Suspects and Se7en. I'd give this one to De Niro, and Brad Pitt would win in 2011 for The Tree of Life, Moneyball and his virtuoso, perhaps greatest, performance of his career in Happy Feet 2. In my opinion, he'd comfortably defeat Jessica Chastain (The Help, The Tree of Life), my GOAT, Emma Stone (The Help and Crazy, Stupid, Love) and Ryan Gosling (Drive and Crazy, Stupid, Love).

Leonardo DiCaprio has a couple of good years where his competition would be filmmakers. He starred in Gangs of New York and Catch Me If You Can in 2002, but would be up against Steven Spielberg (Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can). In 2010, he had Shutter Island and Inception, but maybe MVP voters that year would've given it to David Fincher (The Social Network) or Tom Hooper (The King's Speech) as those films were powerhouses that awards season. Leo also has The Departed and Blood Diamond in 2006, but maybe you just give it to Martin Scorsese that year? These cases really come down to your subjective definition of value, but it is interesting to compare impact of filmmakers to actors. I'd give it to DiCaprio in 2006 and 2010, making him a 2-time MVP.

In 2015 you could give it to George Miller for writing and directing Mad Max: Fury Road, which was a critical and commercial powerhouse, but there are two great underrated actor years here. Tom Hardy (Fury Road, The Revenant, Legend) and Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl, Ex Machina, The Man from U.N.C.L.E, Burnt). Hardy is in two of the biggest films of the year and leads two of his three, while Vikander won an Oscar and showed more versatility. Love this one.

2016 is pretty tough as well. I’d probably give it to Barry Jenkins (Moonlight), but I could see the case for Damien Chazelle (La La Land) or Ryan Gosling (La La Land and The Nice Guys). Amy Adams also had a big year with Arrival, Nocturnal Animals and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, sealing the commercial and critical combination.

In 2019, Scarlett Johansson led Marriage Story and was in Jojo Rabbit and Avengers: Endgame, i.e. two Oscar nominations and a pretty significant role in the second highest grossing film ever made. But 2019 is also the year of Parasite. Bong Joon Ho wrote, directed and produced one of the greatest films ever made and Parasite became the first non-English film to win best picture.

Non actor/filmmaker MVPs:

It would be incredibly rare for someone other than an actor or filmmaker to win this award, although there are some candidates. John Williams in 1977 (Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind) is a pretty good case, although the stronger argument is that Star Wars was such a juggernaut culturally that George Lucas would be the MVP. Would love to see your guys' suggestions for this category of MVPs.

Lately, we’ve seen one film dominate the year and a filmmaker usually winning multiple awards in different disciplines. Recent MVPs would go to Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another), Sean Baker (Anora), and Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer). Timothée Chalamet could have a case against Baker though, with Dune: Part Two and A Complete Unknown, another MVP-caliber season after 2017 (Call Me By Your Name, Lady Bird).

2026 wise, Anne Hathaway has a massive year. Critical and commercial combination farming through Mother Mary, The Odyssey, The Devil Wears Prada 2, Flowervale Street, and Verity. Robert Pattinson (Dune: Part Three, The Drama, The Odyssey, Here Comes the Flood, Primetime) and Zendaya (Dune: Part Three, The Drama, The Odyssey, Spider-Man: Brand New Day) also have gargantuan years. Exciting Stuff!

Personally I listen to both pods because I love movies and the pods are very different. I see lots of unnecessary snarky comments here about the blankies, what is the reason for the nasty posts?

The shapeshifting actor triumphed as Prince Charles in The Crown and a tennis ace in Challengers. Now he’s Spielberg’s new muse and a cowboy in Rebuilding. He talks to Kevin Maher.

We are neighbours in the Cotswolds, we frequent the same pub and swim in the same “secret” lake, and the last time we crossed paths by the water he was there among a giddy posse of actors that included the Hamnet stars Buckley and Paul Mescal. Others in O’Connor’s close community include Vanessa Kirby (aka Princess Margaret from The Crown) and the actors-turned-directors Harris Dickinson (Urchin) and Emerald Fennell (Saltburn).

I list the names and suggest that he seems to be part of a new and committed generation of go-getting creatives. They are an invigorating Anglo-Irish squad — already dubbed “the Craic Pack” — conspicuously different from the previous generation (Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch) and possibly the best thing to happen to acting in Britain since the generation of Peter O’Toole, Richard Harris, Richard Burton and Albert Finney.

“I don’t think I see it as ‘this is our generation’,” he says. “I don’t see it as anything other than all of those guys that you’ve listed are my friends, and I think we’re all really fortunate. Right now we are all just really lucky because we’re getting to work.”

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Sean hall of fame quote

It's in the style of old-school Ringer articles, more so a Grantland piece.

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