The Don Rosen Show (Hour 2)

People go, you're on TV or movies.

Is it easy to act?

Yes.

I mean, yes.

It's not hard.

I mean, obviously, obviously, people can do it.

It's not like other things.

This might be the easiest, because you always

hear about people doing it and doing well.

I mean, the Oscars.

This is the hardest thing you can do in acting.

The best of the best award of all actors, right?

Gabrielle Sibide, winner she is.

She was in precious, never done a movie, up for an Oscar.

Last year, Beast of the Southern Wild, five-year-old girl,

first movie, up for an Oscar.

Jennifer Hudson, American Idol.

Gets eighth place on American Idol.

She can't win in the field.

She is trained her whole life for, singing.

Waltz is over to acting, wins an Oscar her first try.

Looks like me, hey, I want to play the NBA.

Oh, you can't do that.

That doesn't look that hard.

I'm the MVP the first year.

You're better than LeBron?

I guess.

They just put it in the hoop.

I didn't seem hard.

Yeah.

Just as I thought it was going all right, I found it all wrong when I thought it was right.

So it was the same.

It's just a shame.

That's all.

Ed 707, a W Orange Hand radio.

See, they always say you should give the day off after the Super Bowl.

I think you should give the day off after the Academy Awards.

Although it wasn't on that late this year, Mel Mendo, the movie mom is with me, and

I had a good time last night to do.

I had a great time.

I thought it was one of the best Oscar ceremonies that I've seen, and I liked that it started

a little earlier, so we didn't have to stay up so late.

And I thought it was gracious and lovely and touching.

I mean, there were a few dumb moments, but overall I was so great.

Mary McCarty, I couldn't remember her name in the last hours.

I remember Mary McCarty's name from the group.

No, Mary McCarty, she did the one of the presentations last night, and she went off script.

And it was obvious she went off script.

Melissa McCarty.

Melissa McCarty.

What did I say, Mary McCarty?

Yeah.

Mary McCarty wrote the group.

You're talking about Melissa McCarty.

Yeah, Melissa McCarty.

Oh, see, that's why you got to be here to correct me on these things.

Melissa McCarty, I forget who her co-presenter was.

The woman who got the Oscar for the help.

That's why I can't remember their name, but remember what their accomplishments were.

They went off script, or Melissa McCarty went off script, and she was digging a hole and

couldn't get out of it.

And finally, her co-presenter said, let's go back to reading the script.

Yeah.

I mean, they write those scripts.

I can't be a Spencer.

I can't be a Spencer.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Wonderful actor.

I like to read Hidden.

Hidden.

Hidden figure.

Yeah, she's great in that.

I did so all the time.

Remember anything.

I remember.

And if you want to see her terrifying, she's in a movie called Mom.

Yes, I saw that.

Yeah, the same guy who did get out made that movie, which my wife and I watch over and

over again.

That is a brilliant movie.

And Mom was, she was terrifying in that.

Anyway, so that was the only problem point in the whole thing when they, when they did

that, it's, it's just, you know, you got to stick to the script.

Oh, I've got a few more.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

Well, let's start with the biggest problem point, which is, I understand that there are

two audiences for this event.

There are the audiences in the theater.

And then there are the hundreds of millions of people watching it on screens.

And when they do the in-memorium, we want to see the in-memorium.

That's on my list of faux pas on that show.

That was, I may have a list of things I wanted to talk about.

Go talk about that.

Yeah.

I mean, they had dancers, which was lovely, but we want to see the faces and the names

of the people we lost.

And that's the very touching part.

I thought they picked beautiful music time to say goodbye, one of the most touching songs

of all time.

It was beautifully performed.

But we couldn't see the day.

Oh, you could, and your eyes had to go darting all over the screen.

Where's it now?

Where is it now?

And when they did do it, it was so in the background, you could read it.

And then they were flashing some of them real fast.

Yes.

At the end, they flashed, you know, just long list of names.

And I can't even tell you who was on there.

I could, they look like white lines to me at home because you couldn't read the names.

I used to like it when they took the whole screen and they let you see what it was.

And I'm sure it's going to be available online today.

And I thought that just completely obliterated exactly what that segment is supposed to be.

You were absent.

That was how my list of full pause in memoriam.

I do wait for that because when I see it, I'll say, gee, I didn't know they passed away.

Sometimes one person, you know, gets by you.

Yeah.

And you don't realize it.

And you feel bad at all.

And I thought they risked by some of the big ones too fast, at first, I could tell to

the extent that I could see it, you know, but they knew Matthew Perry, a big TV star.

But he made some movies.

He made movies.

Really?

Okay.

Yeah.

They can't be too memorable because I can't think of them.

Yeah.

Well, he made that one with Bruce Willis where Bruce Willis was the hired killer.

Nope.

Then ring a bell.

All right.

No, let me see.

You know, I didn't bring my list up here.

Let me look.

I listed a whole bunch of stuff on here.

I had to talk to you about this morning.

And I listed them under the word Oscars.

Okay.

So here it is.

Okay.

First of all, they did keep it on time, not only on time, they brought it in under budget,

under time.

They had a stretch.

Even though they started five minutes late.

I didn't think David Allen Greer was a great announcer.

He kept, he stumbled a few times.

They used to have a woman named Randy and I can't think of what the last name was.

Mm-hmm.

She was the announcer for years on the Oscars.

She was so good.

I don't think you did a good job on that.

David Allen Greer.

Yeah.

Good looking set.

Set designs were wonderful.

That was beautiful.

When the mood changed, the colors changed.

Now, do the people in the audience get to see what's on TV?

I don't think they have monitors, no.

But how do they know when the camera's on them?

I think they alert them ahead of time.

And they say, for example, the Spielberg bit.

Yeah.

I think they told, he knew that was coming.

And the Michael Keaton bit, which I thought were two of the highlights, actually.

They came to Spielberg on the Jurassic Park joke, which I thought was delightful.

Yes.

He was great on that.

Yeah.

And I loved Michael Keaton staring, glaring at the two Batman villains.

I don't know if, what's a director's name?

They were staring at, the guy won the Academy Award last night.

Christopher Nolan.

Christopher Nolan, yeah.

I don't know if he was, he didn't look like he was having fun with the joke.

But you never know.

I think he, that's just him.

It's just him.

I think he's a very, very, very, I mean, have you ever noticed what it laughed right in his movies or not?

He's got, he's got, I don't think he's got much of a sense of humor.

And his wife produces all his movies?

Yes.

She does.

And you see that a lot of people did shout out to her and she did a lovely acceptance speech

for the Oscar for, for Oppenheimer.

Have you noticed that the, the, I won't say at least, maybe at least popular, at least

by like animated short subject or live action.

So it's a short subject.

Those people who win have the longest speeches.

Well, they've been waiting their whole life.

Well, I told my sister a lawless and I said, the thing is, they'll probably figure they'll never

get another chance at this.

Yeah.

This is their last shot.

Well, some of them go on to become filmmakers of feature films.

My favorite all time speech from somebody who won for a short was a young woman who,

as you know, that even if you are not a big star, if you're going to be seen at the Oscars,

even just in the audience, people will approach you with very fancy outfits and jewelry and stuff like that.

And she got up and she said, I just want to say these earrings cost more than my film.

That is good.

And you know what, I know they have to thank everybody because they're in that kind of business

where if anybody I've ever met in my life, when did Oscar I expect to be mentioned?

Yeah, you have to because if you ever want to work again, work again, you got to mention the producer.

But the thing with, I want to mention my mother alone, my father-in-law, my kids and their toys.

I want to mention all this.

I mean, enough already.

I mean, if they got to play the music to get you off stage.

I mean, then you've been talking too long.

I was mentioned to you before we went on the air.

Finally, after 70 years of being snubbed by the Academy Awards,

Godzilla, what is first Oscar?

70 years of being snubbed.

Just in time for his new upcoming movie where he's teaming up with King Kong.

But you know what the reviewers said on this film?

And you've seen Godzilla minus one?

Yeah.

They said it's much better than the Americanized versions of Godzilla.

This one, it just brought it back to what it was, Godzilla.

Yeah.

And I found out why it's called Godzilla minus one.

Did you find that?

Okay.

You don't know?

You, I do know, but you go ahead.

Yeah.

It's because after the bombs dropped on Japan, they were at zero.

Right.

Godzilla came along and took them even lower than that to minus one.

Right.

But I didn't know that the last time.

That's a great title.

And it is, and the special effects were great.

And you know, it was a tough one because it was up against some other movies with a great special effects.

But Godzilla himself is a special effect.

And so I think they gave it, as I say every year, sometimes they don't give it for the best.

They give it for the most.

And that movie certainly had the most special effects.

I think they gave it to Godzilla for his body of work.

Since 1954 that some body of work after being ignored, they give it for all his films.

I think that's what I think that's what they did.

The only clips I've seen of it, this monster looks great.

I mean, he's not the man on the rubber suit ones.

You remember, remember, those son of Godzilla movies, they look so stupid.

You look back at them today, say, what were they thinking when they put that in the field?

Well, you have to just sort of go with, you know, you have to just, you know, I mean,

but you know what really still holds up very well is the original 1930s King Kong.

Yes.

You know, it's so good.

And that's the one where they moved a little figures, you know, framed by him.

That was an animation.

Yeah, to do a frame.

He's still, he's still frightening, more frightening than the current King Kong.

So I heard, and you would know this more, because I heard only part of the story,

that the reason this Godzilla movie, Godzilla minus one was not released by Warner Brothers,

was because of something they did.

They didn't do the, they didn't do it in English.

There were some, some way they got around Warner Brothers not being able to have this film

that could release it themselves, because Warner Brothers, I think,

go into the right to the Godzilla movies.

Yes, they do.

They, you know, they've had a long tradition of being very, very grabby about monster movies.

So they've got Frankenstein, they've got the mummy, they've got, they've got all of that.

And yeah, I think you're right.

I think it was the language thing, but, but, yeah, good for Japan.

Is that body that it wasn't in English at all to read those subtitles?

You're not there to, for the witty dialogue.

Okay, I just, you know, if it's a really good movie, I don't mind the subject.

If it's a bad movie, I'm bored by the subtitles.

I mean, yeah, you know, you're there to see the monster.

Yeah.

And you can, you can, you don't even have to read the dialogue.

You, you know exactly where it's going.

I've got some of these behind the scenes, Godzilla picture for the show, the guy,

and the Godzilla suit with his head off, and he's just, you know,

yeah, getting a drink of water or something.

Yeah.

No, no, the movie mom's here hanging in there.

Just take quick break.

We're going to talk about the actual winners, the big winners from last night, the snubs,

and some of the big disappointments.

All right, that's all coming up here.

The movie mom at moviemom.com.

Nell Mendo is here this morning.

Love having her.

We're talking the Oscars.

It's 719 WRJN, hometown radio refreshed.

A civic media station, Stereo.

Yeah.

Almost heaven.

West Virginia.

Blue Ridge Mountain.

Chan and Gore River.

Yeah.

David Spade was doing comedy bit about acting as in that part.

You know, Jennifer Hudson came in eighth place on American Idol.

And that was a chosen profession she trained all her life.

She came in eighth place, walked right over to acting.

And one of Oscar on her first outing.

So he said, it's not that hard.

John Denver did it.

I don't think you want to ask your buddy.

He was in a lot of movies after he.

Oh, God.

Yeah.

Oh, God.

One, two, ten, twelve.

Unfortunately for him, he decided to fly an experimental aircraft.

Yeah.

That was not a bright thing to do.

Let's talk about the big winners last night.

And everybody kind of thought Oppenheimer would clear it out.

And it did.

And I saw the movie.

What do you think of the movie?

I love the movie.

It was very, very impressive.

I did not love it, but it was really, very impressive.

And, you know, Hollywood likes to show that they're smart

and that they care about serious issues.

And that's why they never pick a comedy for best picture.

They haven't picked a comedy since, I don't know,

maybe apartment, department, any haul.

Yeah, that's about it.

So they like to have a big serious,

twelve years slave type picture.

And I think Oppenheimer fits the bill.

And one, of course, a lot of preliminary words.

And, you know, the director's guild award, the BAFTA.

So I don't think anybody was surprised by that.

I would have preferred to see Paul Jimati win best actor instead of Killian Murphy.

But certainly nobody worked harder for a movie last year than Killian Murphy.

Yeah.

And I felt the exact same way you did, Oppenheimer.

I thought it was, I was impressed by it, but I didn't love it.

And one of the reasons why my wife and I went to go see it in the theater.

And the music was so loud.

The music was under everything in the film.

They didn't stop with the music.

Yeah.

I mean, there was no quiet scenes in the film.

And the music, I don't know if it was the theater doing, it was so loud,

it was hurting our ears.

Wow.

And the wheel's like four people in the theater when I saw it.

And so, because we saw it, we, old people go in the afternoon with Matt Nays.

Right.

And so we went like four o'clock in the afternoon.

It was impressive.

And here's what I don't get when these actors do this.

Killian Murphy's get a very thick Irish accent.

Russell Crowe had a very thick Australian accent.

But whether they're movies, you don't hear it.

I know.

It's amazing.

I know.

How do they get rid of that?

It is.

Well, this is what I always say.

They're not getting rid of an accent.

They're just switching to a different accent.

I know.

You're right.

And that is a huge part of being an actor.

And for some reason, British actors, I think they know that if they want to work in international film,

they have to perfect an American accent.

And not just an American accent.

But understand the difference between an Alabama accent, a Texas accent, Northern California accent.

And they are absolutely terrific.

I mean, one that impressed me very much was in the movie First Man, where you had the British actress from the crown playing the wife of Alan Shepherd.

And in real life, that woman, the wife, went to my high school.

So I was really very picky about the accent.

And she just nailed that Northern suburbs of Chicago accent.

So I think that is part of what makes a great actor.

I mean, you have some exceptions to that.

Two times Sean Connery played an Irishman.

And did he care?

No. He just kept his Scottish accent.

When he played that Russian submarine commander in North America in October, he still kept his Scottish accent.

Nobody cared.

You know what it is, too.

If we know Sean Connery, and then he puts on another accent, it looks, sounds ridiculous.

Because it was so familiar with his voice.

And there was a, I like old radio shows.

And John Daener, who was a great movie actor.

Yes.

Wonderful.

He was on the radio version of, what the heck is the name?

And I listened to it all the time.

He plays a British correspondent from the, from the, from the London Times.

He had no, he didn't even try to put on a British accent.

Yeah. I actually put on, I'm just going to continue to call it Twitter.

I put on Twitter yesterday.

What's the worst accent in the history of movies?

I am not accepting Dick Van Dyke because I just love Dick Van Dyke.

Like that.

I think we all know that he's always on the list.

But the one I picked is Orson Wells plays an Irish guy in the lady from Shanghai.

And seriously, the Lucky Charms leprechaun has a more authentic accent.

They magically delicious.

Yeah, that's right.

But I did, you know, Kelly Murphy does a great job with the American accent.

Yes.

He has to learn other languages for that as well as the language of physics.

But I also want to make it sort of a general comment about 2023 biographical movies.

We had three big important figures of the, from history with movies last year.

Napoleon and Oppenheimer and Ferrari and all three movies.

I thought it's been way too much time on the love life.

Yes.

And Maestro with Leonard Bernstein, all four movies,

said much too much time on the love life of the person involved.

And not enough time on what it was that made them so monumentally influential.

Yeah, absolutely.

I don't know why that is.

You know, Humphrey Bogart was asked about when he made the cane mutiny.

Yeah.

And he said, what do you think of the film?

He said they cropped it up with a love story.

Yeah.

They were afraid.

They were afraid the audience is needed to have a female.

And even though she's only in a tiny little part of the movie.

Yeah, I agree with that.

They did.

They stuck in love stories.

You know, you got to trust the audience a little bit.

But I would like to have known more about Oppenheimer's relationship to the field that he studied.

Why that field, rather than another field of science, a little bit more about him.

And understood more about the actual mechanics of what he was working on.

And also, there were so many fascinating characters at Los Alamos working on that on the Manhattan Project.

And they had just like an incredible murderous row of actors in that movie to everybody's in that movie.

And I would like to have known more about that.

Yeah, Matt Damon.

Yeah, Matt Damon's fantastic in that movie.

He could easily have had a best supporting actor nomination.

And it would have been fun to see what Jimmy Kimmel had to say about him.

Yeah, that's right, because they had this thing going on between the two of them.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.

That food.

Yeah.

That would have been good.

I want to save the best actors category after the break, because that's going to take a long time to talk about that.

Okay.

Robert Downey Jr.

Deserve the best supporting actor.

I don't know if he likes him talking about his drug arrests that he had.

I really objected to that.

You know, first rule of comedy is you don't punch down, you punch up.

And certainly, Robert Downey Jr. is the distinguishing actor as you can find the successful actors you can find.

But I don't think it's right to rag on him for his past.

It was not his fault.

It's father started giving him drugs when he was a child.

And he has come a long, long way.

I think he deserves all the credit in the world for coming as far as he has.

He's an extraordinary actor.

And there were some very inappropriate jokes.

And what Jimmy Kimmel said, I was really unhappy about that.

But boy, he got up there, he thanked his terrible childhood.

If you have not seen his documentary about his father, which is just called senior,

I highly, highly recommend it.

His father was a pioneering filmmaker until he got caught up with drugs and some bad choices.

But it is such a loving, loving, loving tribute.

Yeah, Putney Swope.

Also, the movie Pound, Robert Downey Jr. was in there.

It's a little child.

It's a dark pound.

Yep.

It's not the dark pound.

Oh, Nell Mendo is here.

We're talking the Academy Awards for Talking Movies.

She's the movie mom, moviemom.com.

You got to check out her reviews.

You're going to love them.

729, WRJ, and I'm Don Rosen.

Keep it here.

We got so much more to talk about with the Oscars.

Don't move.

And I'll send all my love into you.

It's 734 at WRJM.

Even the Beatles separately went on to acting, you know, not as the Beatles.

Remember that John Lennon was in a movie called How I Wom the War back in 1965,

where he was just by himself in that film.

And Paul Ringo Starr was in a couple of movies.

I was in the Magic Christian.

Remember the film with Peter Sellers?

I don't think Paul McCartney did any acting or George Harrison by themselves.

But I know Ringo and John were in a few movies.

Nell Mendo, the movie mom is here.

We're talking about the Academy Awards last night.

And we were talking about Lily Gladstone, who played a wonderful role in the killers of the flower moon.

I mean, she's up.

She, look who she's acting with.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro.

She's got Martin Scorsese as her director and all those, and she held her own.

And went above.

She went above.

She was wonderful.

And my understanding is that behind the scenes, she also helped.

And the other Native Americans helped to guide the film.

The book really centers on the white guys, on the FBI investigation.

In fact, Lear and DiCaprio was originally cast as the character of the Jesse Pleimans play,

who doesn't come in until the last hour of the three-hour film.

But the community really persuaded Martin Scorsese that the heart of the story is about the experience of the Native Americans.

And that's what makes the story so visceral, so painful, is that we get to love these characters.

And then we see how horribly that they are treated and murdered.

Lily Gladstone did the hardest kind of acting there is.

She listened.

She thought.

She didn't say everything that was on her mind.

That's something that's a little unexpected for those of us who do say everything that's on her mind.

And she was, you know, she is in every way the heart of the movie.

She was just absolutely fantastic.

And Lear and DiCaprio, who is not shabby as an actor, could not stop saying enough good things about her.

Even the death scene, where she hasn't died, by the way, I'm not going to ruin anything.

But where she's dying.

I didn't know what was going to happen.

Well, it's a wrenching because she knows that her husband is trying to poison her.

I mean, it's not a spoiler.

This is a historical event.

And yet, she just still loves him.

And she's so heart sick and so disappointed and overwhelmed.

And yet, she just has this beautiful, shining presence and grace.

I think that's the word I would use to describe her performance.

It's just filled with grace.

Devine Joy Randolph from The Holdovers, one best supporting actress.

I didn't see the movie yet.

I'm going to see it.

I loved it.

It's my number two of the year after American Fiction, which we're going to get to.

And it is my favorite Alexander Payne movie.

Absolutely loved it.

All three actors, not only Devine, but also Paul Giamatti and Dominic Sesa.

Were tremendous.

I was around back in the 1970s, 1971 era.

And so believe me, it took me back there with the visuals, with the music.

Do you know that they shot it in mono, rather than stereo, so that it would feel like a 70s movie.

And Devine Joy Randolph, who has been so great and only murders in the building, where she plays the cop.

In the Dolomite movie with any Murphy.

She's a graduate of the Aile Drama School.

She's done a lot of work on Broadway.

And it was genuinely thrilling to see her work recognize.

Because she took a character that in many, many movies would be background or exposition,

or there to teach the white characters a lesson.

And in fact, made her every bit equal to the importance to the story of the other characters.

She plays the cook at a boys boarding school.

The reason she took the job was so that her son could get a good education.

He did.

He did very well in the school, but not well enough to go to college.

And so he went into the military and has been killed and Vietnam.

So she's dealing with the most devastating loss that a human being can have.

And about how she experiences that, how she interacts with the other characters,

she is just tremendous.

I couldn't be more happy about her award.

How about Paul Giamatti losing?

Now, I know you're a big fan of him in that film as well.

You know, when I talked to my daughter before the ceremony,

my children referred to this as Mommy Super Bowl.

No one's allowed to talk to me during the Oscars.

I agree.

I agree.

I said to her, if Paul Giamatti wins, I know it's only about a 40% chance.

But if he wins, I will stand up and cheer in my pajamas.

And I really, really wanted that for him.

First of all, he should get enough for everything he does.

He was fantastic, but he was so, so good in that.

Now, he did win some other awards for it, and I'm glad about that.

And I hope someday he will be recognized for the extraordinary body of work he has.

He was in that movie about a magician.

I know it was the prestige or the other one day.

But the other one, they both came out at the same time, and I've never straightened it out.

But yeah, he was in that.

He was in the other one, of course.

Of course, he's in the right, he's in the Howard Stern movie.

Oh, hip.

Sideways, of course, with the same director who did the holdovers.

He doesn't get many lead roles.

He does a lot of supporting work.

And you know, he really related to this.

He went to a boys' prep school, and his father was the president of Yale.

And then the head of MLB, of Major League Baseball.

So he grew up in that milieu, and for some reason, he's very good at playing

disappoint of people, people whose lives have not turned out the way they think this show.

Well, he's got that face.

Yeah.

I mean, I told you off here, he'll always be Howard Stern's boss to me.

But I don't want to recommend a movie that nobody has seen, that he is so good in.

Okay.

He's in a movie I absolutely love called Cold Souls, about an actor who can't quite get it right.

And believe me, Paul Jimati acting like a not-good actor.

That is an acting job.

And so he decides there's a service in New York where you can remove your soul and have it

put in cold storage until you need it again.

He thinks that's going to help his performance.

It's about what happens then, and it is such a good movie.

It's a good premise.

I like the premise.

One of the best lines in the acceptance speech I like was Billy Eilish when she was listing

all the people.

She list one of her teachers.

She never liked me, but she did a great job.

Wasn't that wonderful?

Can you believe it?

Martin Scorsese has one Oscar.

Billy Eilish has got two.

She's very good, though.

He's very good.

Her and her brother.

That's her brother.

She and her brother, Phineas, yeah.

Yeah, they get different names, but their brother and sister.

Well, it legally, her last name is the same as his, but for her professional name, she

took her middle name.

Now, you wanted to talk about which film wasn't you mentioned, not the anatomy of a fall.

What's the other one?

You wanted to mention that film.

Oh.

Don't have interest?

No.

Which...

I don't know.

Okay.

Well, we'll just go through all of that.

No, American fiction, you said.

Oh, I want to talk about American fiction.

That was my favorite film from last year, and the other one I was really rooting for.

Cord Jefferson, first time screenwriter, first time director.

I really wanted him to get the best adapted screenplay Oscar.

And when he did, I did jump up and yell.

I was just delighted.

I had the pleasure of interviewing him.

He is such a thoughtful guy now.

This is not the first thing he's ever written.

He's written a lot for television, including one of my favorite TV shows, The Good Place,

and The Watchmen.

But this was his first screenplay based on a book which I had read.

That came out 20 years ago by first of all, Everett called Erasure.

And I said to myself, when I knew this movie was coming out,

gee, I'm not so sure that that movie can be adapted.

Well, he really got the ideas of the book and made it into a true movie script.

That's not always easy to do.

The casting in that movie is tremendous.

Every single one he got.

In terms of ensemble acting, that had the best ensemble of the year.

That was fabulous.

And it is such a great story about a professor played by Jeffrey Wright,

who was nominated and could easily have won last night.

I thought he was incredible in the movie.

He's a black professor of classical literature.

And everybody keeps telling him, you have to write a black book.

And he says, I am black.

It is a book.

Therefore, it's a black book.

No, no, no.

We want you to write about, you know, stereotypical characters who live in the ghetto

and have guns and drugs and stuff like that.

And he gets so angry that just for a joke, he writes the book like that.

And it becomes a massive success.

And it's about what happens then.

And it is a brilliant satire with a lot of heart, real characters,

Sterling K. Brown, who is in that film with him, also nominated for an Oscar.

Did an amazing job as his brother, the doctor.

And just so I love that.

And I was really thrilled to see American fiction recognize last night.

Some of the speeches, the director who won for best documentary 20 years in Maripol,

which is a story about the Ukrainian fighting against the Russians.

His line when he said, you'll never hear director say this up here.

I wish I had never made this film.

Yeah.

And that was so moving.

Unfortunately, as sometimes happens at the Oscars, the juxtaposition between that

and what came next was very jarring.

And they didn't think about that, but his speech was definitely the speech of the night.

And so important for us to recognize that while we're looking at glittering prizes and beautiful people,

think real life is going on.

And of course they had a huge protest by the Palestinians going outside the theater.

But yeah, that was great.

If you are out there want to see just one of the films you've never heard of last night,

it's free on YouTube, the last repair shop.

Yeah, say that one, yeah.

That one last night.

That was one with a 12 year old girl.

Was that there on the stage?

Was she in the film?

Yeah.

And was involved with the making of it.

Okay.

It is such a great story.

The City of Los Angeles is the only place where every child in the school system gets a musical instrument.

And the last repair shop is all volunteers.

And they are there to repair all the instruments so that every child can get one.

And at the end of the movie, this is not the spoiler because it's a documentary.

At the end of the movie, there's a performance by adults who grew up and became musicians

because they had access to these instruments.

The Kudos to Marcus theaters, which does most of the theaters here in the Chicago area.

Just before the Oscars, they spend two weeks running all the best pictures.

So you can see them all together.

You can see them over a weekend or you can see them individually over the week.

But they run them all and they run a complete day of all the short subjects.

That's great.

Yeah.

They run them all.

You can sit there for three hours and watch them all.

Well, the animated ones especially are definitely worth a look and the documentary ones.

I have to mention a couple of other things that happened last night.

We have to talk about John Cena coming out there.

Yeah, naked.

There's something else.

There's a little bit of subtext there that I want to mention.

The costume designers are possibly going to go on strike.

And their slogan is, without us, you're naked.

And they were beside themselves because they, I think, correctly understood that that was solidarity for them.

Because he was presenting the costume award.

And so you will see a lot of hashtag about that from them.

First of all, if you're going to pick somebody to go out naked, John Cena is a good choice.

And the fact that he's supporting the union meant just meant the world to them.

They took a chance because of that card that would have fallen by mistake or whatever.

I don't think it was wearing anything out of that card.

It certainly didn't look like it.

But that's the magic of costume.

And I thought that was handled well.

And I'm sure you remember.

Yes, I do.

The David Niven one.

Yeah.

The David Niven one.

Yeah.

That, you know, that had to be set up when David Niven did it because the guy was standing backstage naked.

I mean, he was.

And I think that there was a lot of thoughts that that might happen.

And he certainly was prepared with the right come back.

Yeah.

I also want to mention something that I really love last night.

I'm so happy they brought back the idea of the five former winners.

Yes, I love that.

I mentioned that before you got a leader.

Yes, particularly with the best supporting actress.

I thought their speeches were so lovely and gracious because in that one, with the best supporting actress,

each of them was actually friends with the person that they mentioned.

Yes.

Yeah.

And so there was just, you could tell so much heart.

And it really was a great reminder that while we have one winner, we have five extraordinary performances that were honoring.

I thought that it's better than just reading it off a card.

Somebody squinting in the town front there.

And the jokes that don't play out most of the time.

Oh, I just love the way they did that.

We'll talk more about that in a second of the presentation.

And I do want to talk about my favorite lines of the light.

The night from Jimmy Kimmel about Barbie.

I want to get your opinion about the Maestro movie.

Maestro, which didn't play in theaters.

It was a...

And Netflix.

It was an Netflix movie.

Yeah.

I think that probably hurt its chances a little bit.

I thought it was very, again, it was, you know, one of these monumental figures and it was about his love life.

I thought there were three incredible scenes in that movie and the rest of it was not so great.

Hold on one second.

Now, men of the movie mom is here.

Quick break.

We're back with more of the Oscars here at WRJN.

All the town radio refreshed.

751 at WRJN Radio.

I got someone to talk about with some little time.

Nell Men of the movie mom is here at MovieMom.com.

I wanted to talk about Maestro.

Now, there's a movie that didn't play in theaters.

It played with the Netflix.

And was that...

Is that fair to have movies nominated to no play in theaters?

I think it is.

I think what we have now is really a seamless world between the streaming and the theaters.

And that is a full-on feature film.

And it certainly deserves to be looked at like any other feature film.

So, yeah, definitely.

I thought that movie had three incredible scenes.

The scene where he's falling in love with his wife.

And as they're watching the dance from on the town.

I thought it was just gorgeous.

The scene where they have that great big fight with the Macy's Day parade going on outside the window.

Incredible.

And of course, the scene where he's conducting the mall.

You know, Bradley Cooper studied for six years to learn how to conduct that.

Those were some of the best scenes that I saw last year.

But there were some other scenes that I thought were problematic.

And I thought, again, why are we watching one of the monumental figures of the 20th century

and focusing so much on his love life?

Yeah, and why are we watching another small screen?

I can't watch it.

Lucky, yeah.

I actually saw it on a big screen at an early screening.

So, you're lucky.

I'm lucky.

I want to talk about, I thought one of the funniest lines of the night from Jimmy Kimmel.

When he was talking about the director, the movie Barbie has she was nominated.

Yeah.

And people were clapping in the theater.

He said, wait a second.

You're the people who didn't nominate.

I wasn't in vote for, yeah.

You're the ones who did it.

Now, all of a sudden, you're clapping.

You're the guilty party.

That is true.

Although Barbie did get a lot of nominations, Greta was nominated for a screenplay.

And of course, for best picture.

But as I said, Hollywood doesn't like to give too many awards to nominees,

because then people won't take them seriously.

So, yeah.

I think Greta is doing just fine.

She's taking on Narnia next.

And whatever she does with it.

I can't help it.

People forget about the Oscars after a while.

Yeah.

And they move on to what's a good movie.

Talk about the...

I wanted to...

I have a couple of things I wanted to mention.

Go ahead.

I wanted to mention what was going on with Al Pacino.

Oh, what's the matter?

He's old.

Okay.

It looked like he felt...

Didn't feel like he even knew he was there.

That was...

It was so anticlimactic.

I mean, the one thing you expect from an actor is that they have timing

and stage presence.

And we didn't get any of that from him.

So, I know I do was going on with him.

He just opened the envelope and said...

It says Oppenheimer.

Yeah.

And really...

Come on.

And a little drama, please.

And also, we have not talked about what I think everyone agrees with the highlight of

the whole evening, which is...

I'm Jeff Ken.

Yeah.

I was going to mention that.

That was one of my next touches.

I said...

Subjects.

We...

When I was growing up, all the musical numbers were extravaganzes at the Oscars.

Right.

And they stopped doing that over recent years.

I think Billy Crystal did the last one.

Remember the one with Rob Love Dancing with Snow White?

That's just about you.

Right.

Yeah.

They're right.

But last night, we had a big, huge number.

And there was reminiscent of the big numbers they used to have back in the 60s.

Buzzfeed Berkeley.

I mean, the thing with the Barbie faces that was shot from the ceiling down.

That's Buzzfeed Berkeley right there.

I thought it was tremendous.

And when I saw that some of the other kids from the movie were dancing on the stage with them,

I just...

And flash.

Yes.

Flash showed up.

Yeah.

He was wearing the top hat.

That's...

Yeah.

That's flash from Guns and Roses, yeah.

Uh-huh.

I just loved...

In fact, I got up early this morning before you called and watched it again.

I loved it.

I taped it.

I'm going to watch it again.

Yeah.

It's on YouTube.

So you can see it.

No, I taped...

I DVR it.

Oh, good.

So I can go past...

What...

And by the way, quickly, what happened to the first five minutes of the Academy Awards last night?

It was all commercials.

I know.

I didn't start to 6-0-5.

What was that all about?

I know.

And then Jimmy Kimmel came out and he said, we're already five minutes behind.

I'm not kidding about that.

They must have had some kind of backstage kerfluffle that we will learn about.

But I had no idea what happened.

I don't know what you saw, but here in the Milwaukee TV station, we saw the same promo running

over and over and over.

Oh, no.

I had a whole series of commercials.

Yeah.

We had commercials...

I kept looking at my clock thinking, you know, because I just adjusted my clock for daylight

saving and I kept looking to say, did I do the clock correctly?

What's going on here?

Yeah.

And I said, I kept screaming that my wife was in the other room.

And I said, now they're four minutes late.

Now they're five minutes late.

And she had a radio guy.

And she had a radio guy.

We know they're running late.

Let's talk about some of the fashions last night.

Okay.

Most guys wore tuxedos.

Some didn't.

But they was okay.

They still look nice.

And I feel bad for her.

Ariana Grande came out as a presenter in this dress that was about...

22 sizes bigger than she is.

And...

I don't know.

It looked like it was a sea creature swallowing at her.

I don't know what was going on there.

She was, by the way, she was co-presenting with Cynthia Rivo.

They are the stars of the forthcoming wicked musical, part one.

Oh, okay.

And so...

And I liked that.

I liked that even though they're not allowed to promote the movie directly,

I liked that that was sort of letting us know what's coming.

And the same thing with Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling.

They've got that movie coming out about the stuntman and the director.

Well, look at Michael Keaton and...

That was the highlight.

With Arnold Schwarzenegger.

You know, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And daydivita come out and you go, oh, they're going to do a twins thing.

Because they were in the movie twins together.

But no, they...

I talked about how they were both Batman villains and both killed by Batman.

And then they go to Michael Keaton in the audience, given them the Batman look.

It was fantastic.

I love that.

He came out.

Well, what's your name from Second City, the woman in the Michael Keaton?

Catherine O'Hara.

Catherine, they're both in the new Batman, new Beetlejuice movie as well.

Yes.

I know.

I'm really looking forward to saying that.

Because Tim Burton is back.

And so what Harry Bellafonte sang?

Well, they used this time.

And will he use the phrase, it's showtime.

I'm sure he will.

Just the way he said, it's showtime.

I just...

I can talk about the Oscars for like days.

A lot of people can.

We don't have Joan Rivers anymore to do her commentary on the fashion police show.

But we have to talk about Emily Blunt's shoulders.

What was happening there?

What happened?

I didn't notice them.

Okay.

Her dress was the straps from her dress.

We're like an inch above her shoulders.

Oh, yes.

I did notice that.

That was very odd.

Yes, I did notice that.

There was like a big gap between her shoulder and the strap.

I did notice that.

This is why you don't want the customers to go on strike because they would trick that.

But who was complaining to their dress was crooked when they went up?

Oh, no.

Emma Stone's dress was broken in the back.

Always broken.

I think it says...

Yeah.

It was coming apart.

Now I can speak to you for hours.

We'll do it again soon.

Oh, please.

I love talking to you.

You're so passionate about movies.

And so am I.

But not like you.

I mean, you know all the fact.